Finally: The Integral role of Black Americans in Islamic revival

In the post-colonial era, the Muslim world became characterized by immense corruption, ritualism, and poverty. Gone was the era of the Islamic golden age in places such as Islamic Spain in which Muslims commanded universal respect and admiration. In light of this, numerous Muslim intellectuals from Abul ala Maududi, Ali Shariati, Abul ala Maududi, and many others have devoted themselves to how the Islamic world could achieve a revival. What role to Black Americans played in this?

Upon being freed from prison, Malcolm X went to the Mosque for the very first time and recounted being upset at the low attendance. Malcolm X states that there should be no empty section in the Mosque” with the surrounding streets full of our brainwashed black brothers and sisters, drinking, cursing, fighting, dancing, carousing, and using dope.” Malcolm X did not treat the Mosque as merely a place to go in for prayer. He sought to utilize the Mosque as a means to transform the community. Malcolm X states that,”Every day after work, I walked, “fishing” for potential converts in the Detroit black ghetto. ” Malcolm X’s dawah was centered upon the ghettos of Black Americans and many came to islam through his efforts.

What is interesting in that Louis Farrakhan shared a story about an Arab brother who lived in the Persian Gulf. The brother expressed to him that despite living in what is called the “Muslim world’, he never practiced his faith and took it for granted. However, the brother stated when came to the United states and began meeting African-American Muslims with great zeal for Islam that his own faith was reawakened. From this, Farrakhan expresses his belief in working to transform America’s black ghettos with its numerous social maladies into model Islamic communities of moral excellence, that the faith of the entire Islamic world can be awakened.

Louis  Farrakhan states,”The Muslim world is astray and they know they know that they are astray And they are looking to the black people in the west to guide them out of their condition.”There have been numerous Islamic thinkers who have dedicated themselves to revival in the post-colonial era. Louis Farrakhan is the only one who has posited a theory of Islamic reform and revival that centers black communities. This Khutba can discuss the importance of dawah in the spirit of Malcolm X’s early work in Detroit’s ghetto’s in pursuit of this vision.

Black Lives Matter.