NbA Muslims’ Post-BHM Reads

Layla Abdullah-Poulos

Book: Illuminating the Darkness: Blacks and North Africans in Islam
by Habeeb Akande

The erasure of historical and modern Black Muslim contributions to the Ummah saturates Muslim culture and feeds the dysfunctional anti-Black plaguing followers of Islam globally. For over 20 years since my conversion to Islam, I saw little reference to Black Muslim accomplishments outside of Bilal (RA) (treated as a racial anomaly among the Sahabah) and a few Black American Muslims used as tropes to provide non-Black Muslims American credibility.

Habeeb Akande did an excellent job in providing a history for the prevailing anti-Black Muslim erasure from Muslim culture and scholarship and examples of Black Muslim sahabah beyond Bilal (RA), scholars and leaders. Akande presents the biographies contained in Illuminating the Darkness as some much-need representation for Black Muslims, who are often ignored and categorized by their non-Black correligionists as bankrupt of any accomplishments.

Okay, Habeeb Akande is not African American, but his book can play a critical role in African American Muslims uprooting anti-Black revisionist Islamic history.

Next: Karimah Grayson