Transcript of Ep. 7: Enslaved African Muslims in America the Untold Story with Hakeem Muhammad

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Muhammad Jalal: 400 years ago, the first British ships carrying enslaved Africans came to America. The vast majority of these slaves had lived free lives until their world collided with the cruelty and profiteering of Europeans that believed black Africans represented a sub-human species that were placed on Earth as mere shuttle. This system of slavery lasted until the 19th century after displacing some 10 million people. In history lessons across America and Europe, slavery in recent years has entered the curriculum in an era of liberal contrition, however, my guest this week argues that an orientalist narrative is often forwarded depicting Africans as backwards and devoid of all culture. At the heart of this black orientalism is the notion that these slaves do not come from a culture rooted in civilization.

My name is Muhammad Jalal, I’m your host on the Thinking Muslim podcast, and my guest this week is Hakeem Mohammed. He argues that narratives about the slave trade barely mention the Muslim origin of many Africans that were indeed enslaved. Their courageous attempts to remain Muslim, despite severe repression, and indeed the role Islam played as a basis of defiance, and the driver behind many of the slave rebellions on plantations.

Hakeem charts the role of Christianity in legitimizing slavery, but also how forcible conversions were used to pacify slaves. For Hakeem the advent of liberalism did little to reverse the racialized worldview. He suggests early liberal philosophers like Locke & Kant were proponents of slavery and talked openly about subjugating Africans in pursuit of economic gain.

Controversially his view is that liberalism remains interlinked with the notion of white supremacy, and as such can never resolve the structural racism inherent in American and European societies.

I must say I found many of these assertions thought provoking and probed him on his view that white supremacy remains a dominant feature of modern liberal democracies. In my view, what is clear is that liberalism may profess to be an ideology that looks to create an egalitarian society. But in reality, it has never managed to remove racism as a way of thinking. And indeed, even progressive liberals, all too often replace racial hierarchies, with cultural ones. Professing, on the one hand, equality, but reducing foreign cultures and religions, as inferior. This is more pronounced in the way liberals continue to see Islam as backwards. And the only good Muslim, are those that justify Islamic practice through the prism of liberalism.

Hakim Mohammed is from the south side of Chicago, and is the founder and president of the black Dawah network. He has lectured and taught in the areas of black political thought and critical race theory at Berkeley and Harvard universities. He has a Bachelor's in political science, and he's currently a law student at North Eastern University School of Law, where he's a public interest scholar. Hakeem has worked as a student attorney in the areas of prisoners’ rights and criminal defense. He was selected for the National Association of criminal defense lawyers fellowship, that pairs students to work on the top criminal defense practitioners in the country.

We also discuss his thoughts on Afrocentrism, his view on the Black Lives Matter movement, the role Malcolm X plays in his outreach, and I asked him about a recent debate during the rounds on Muslim Twitter, on critical race theory. In my view, we live in a world where all too often debates, especially on social media, are reduced to mere sound bites, seldom shedding any light on important topics. We at the Thinking Muslim podcast, look to do the opposite by providing a platform where we learn from one another and to help foster a unity, that is often missing in so many of our public debates. Hakeem Mohammed asalaam aleikum wa rahmatullah, and welcome to the thinking Muslim podcast.

Hakeem Muhammad: Wa alaikum as salaam brother. Thank you for having me on brother. This is a real honor to be able to speak on this program and to discuss some of these critical issues with you.

Muhammad Jalal: Jazak Allah khair (may God reward you) and it's wonderful to have you here today, brother.

Let me start by asking you about your initiative, the black Dawah network, what is it about? And why have you created this network that engages in Dawah in black communities?

Hakeem Muhammad: Sure. So, within the African American community within many black communities, there's been a real rise of black orientalism, or individuals who see themselves as being Afro-centrist and who see Islam and black liberation or Islam and being African as being two neutrally opposing forces and so there's a lot of individuals who are rising within social media who will either vilify Islam as being quote unquote complicit in Arab subjugation of black people. And so based upon this, me and, as well as some other colleagues of mine Brother Sharif Mohammed, Brother Salim Abdul Khaliq, we saw the need to really just galvanize together and to begin to intellectually challenge some of these ideas of Afro-centrism.

And this just transformed into just a larger effort of Islamic outreach within many desolated African American communities in general.

So, from my personal background, I used to do some work within some Dawah organizations, but I noticed that mainly a lot of their focus was on atheism and proof of God because there's a large current in atheism among certain sectors, but within the African American community, we see like there was really impugning, was really seeking to impugn the legitimacy of Islam as black orientalism and so based upon that we decided to just galvanise together around this initiative.

Muhammad Jalal: And you mentioned Afrocentrism can you elaborate on that idea? What is Afrocentrism?

Hakeem Muhammad: Yeah, so Afrocentrism ironically its founder was a Senegalese Muslim brother by the name of Cheikh Anta Diop,and Afrocentrism it was founded to counter certain European distortions about history. European such as Hegel they rendered Africa as this place devoid of history this place that made no major contributions to world history to science and mathematics. And so it began as like this noble endeavor to articulate what were the contributions of African people to the world. And so, a Senegalese Muslim brother by the name of Cheikh Anta Diop, because there was this Europeans who were telling lies about ancient Egypt, being a non African civilization or Ancient Egypt, being not a civilization that was not produced by black people, what Cheikh Anta Diop sought to do was he sought to prove that the ancient Egyptians were black people and that the ancient Egyptians made these major contributions to world history so it came originally as a way to challenge European distortions of history, but in it’s original inception, it wasn't about opposing Islam at all it was about centering the contributions of African people, Cheikh Anta Diop himself he was a Muslim, he came from, you know, a generation of Muslim families, but unfortunately as Afrocentrism began to evolve, and they began to continue it became like an anti Islam trend within it, and these are individuals who see Islam as not being sufficiently African or not sufficiently black or being complicit in Arab subjugation of black people.

Muhammad Jalal: That's really interesting so Afrocentrists - today at least - not in its original formation, see Islam as a religion that's foreign to the African continent.

Hakeem Muhammad: Yeah, that's correct and there's numerous problems in terms of like their methodology in terms of their political, as well as social outlooks that you know we can elaborate upon, but the main one is that even their assumptions about what was authentically African is even predicated upon European cartography, and a European division of the map, the notion of the Red Sea, being the split between Africa and Asia in and of itself is a product of European cartography and that's just one of one ways in which many Afrocentrists they inherit European assumptions of the world, willingly or unwillingly.

Muhammad Jalal: I noticed on your website that as part of your Dawah initiatives, you hand out copies of Malcolm X’ biography to the black communities. Why do you hand out Malcolm X’ biography? I mean what's behind that? And why is Malcolm X an important figure in explaining or dispelling the myths that you mentioned about Islam?

Hakeem Muhammad: Sure. So, Malcolm X is somebody who's really influential within the African American community even among non Muslims, even the Afrocentrists they love and they adore Malcolm X, and what's so ironic is that although Malcolm X is seen as this sort of a heroic figure within African American communities, even among Afrocentrists very few look at you know what was the ideology that transformed his life what was the worldview that impacted him to become the man that he was and so what's so significant about Malcolm X is, as an early youngster he was quite brilliant within school, but his teacher told him that… he wanted to be a lawyer when he grew up but his teacher told him that there was no job for a black person, that instead, he should be a carpenter.

And so he was impacted early on, just by racism within the school system, and he dropped out of prison, and you know he got involved with street life he got involved in drugs he got involved in prostitution, he got involved in a lot of criminal enterprises. And you first begin to see he was exposed first to the nation of Islam, within prison while he was incarcerated and that just motivated him to read, and to read and to study but the significance of Malcolm X's autobiography, is that it shows the transformative impact of Islam within an individual.

And what's also significant about it is that many brothers that we work with within urban inner cities, they can relate to Malcolm X's life, you know before Islam, and they can be inspired by that to transform their own lives to Islam, inshallah.

Muhammad Jalal: Inshallah Ta’ala. And your outreach, your Dawah takes place largely in these communities in the south side of Chicago, right?

Hakeem Muhammad: So, um, so we've had one event in Malcolm X's former neighborhood in Dudley square, it's a pretty famous prominent area, and so, Boston, Southside Chicago, but there's also Inshallah going to be an event on February 22nd, when it's going to be the same sort of initiative of Dawah within urban intercity communities is going to take place in Atlanta, Memphis, as well as Chicago simultaneously.

Muhammad Jalal: Masha’allah that's really a great initiative. And what's been the general response from the recipients of this Dawah?

Hakeem Muhammad: Yeah, so you know it's ranged you know, I've had many brothers come up to me saying that just receiving that book made their day that you know they love Malcolm X and people who, you know, many times people think that, you know, oh they won't read the book, so they have this pessimistic attitude, but I've had a beautiful response from many people saying, you know, they haven't read in a while but they really are going to read this book and it really just makes their day just to even receive the book and to know.

Another significance of Malcolm X's life is that for people within you know these desolated urban inner cities, his life just really serves as like an inspiration, it gives them hope that they can make it out of the situation that they're in.

Muhammad Jalal: Now this year marks 400 years since the first Europeans ships arrived in America, full of slaves from Africa, these slaves were forcibly removed from their countries, and brought to America in order to work on the plantations and work in the farms that were run by European settlers to the United States.

It's your contention that many of these slaves were Muslims, but history tends to airbrush them out of the narrative about the transatlantic slave trade.

Hakeem Muhammad: Yeah, and I really like the point that you made about European initiation of this racialized system of slavery. Because especially within the within many certain segments of the Muslim community, currently there's been a lot of nuanced discussions about liberalism and liberalism’s impact on the Muslim world. But what needs to also be interjected in this discussion is liberalism and liberalism’s connection with white supremacy when we go to foundational thinkers of liberalism such as John Locke actually wrote a treatise where he advocated that white slave masters could kill their black slaves with impunity.

Even though this is one of the foundational thinkers of liberalism. There's also Emmanuel Kant, who wrote a treatise on the proper way to beat black slaves in order to attract better labor from them.

And so when we discuss liberalism, especially as Muslims, it's important to discuss this connection to white supremacy. Who was considered to be a liberal subject who was excluded from the liberal idea of a social contract, and especially when we talk about the impact of liberalism its impact isn't just upon you know, colonialism within the Muslim world but it's also had a direct impact upon slavery as well as Muslims. So one of the most renowned figures of African American literature was a woman by the name of Phyllis Wheatley. And Phyllis Wheatley she was taking as a young girl from, from West Africa, she was taken to the Americas. And today, many people just know her as this prolific African American writer because during that era in history, it was illegal for black people to learn how to read and write but she was one of the exceptions.

And so, she wrote numerous books, numerous works of poetry, and they were read by individuals such as Voltaire such as George Washington.

But a little known fact about Phyllis Wheatley is that the reason why she learned how to read, is that when she first came to her household, her slave master, they saw that she was writing with all of these characters on the wall, and they didn't know what it was.

And, there's this work called the emergence of African American literacy traditions, and the author says about two weeks after she was brought to work in the Wheatley household, Wheatley Peters, Phyllis Wheatley, she was writing Arabic symbols on chalk on the walls.

And so she was writing these Arabic symbols, and though it was like illegal for slaves generally to learn how to read and write. Her masters wanted her to learn how to read and to learn how to write because they saw that she was writing all of this on the wall and they were curious about it.

And so, Professor Will Harris, he says that based upon you know her writing of these Arabic of these Arabic characters on the wall, he states that the progenitor of African American literature, probably was Muslim. And even though she was Muslim she likely came from a Muslim background because she was as a little girl was writing all of these Arabic, characters, she became utilized in Christian missionary work, you know they forced as a young girl, you know, they forced Christianity upon her.

And even in some of her works, she's promoting Christianity, and she's saying that her being taken from Africa to the Americas gave her the light of Christianity. And so this story of Phyllis Wheatley is significant for a major reason in that it challenges, this notion of, this idea that many Western governments promote that they feel this concern for Muslim women and want to save Muslim women from oppression.

When at the inception of America or at the inception of slavery, we have this Muslim woman who was forcibly taken from Africa, and had Christianity imposed upon her.

Muhammad Jalal: Now you've mentioned a couple of really interesting points that I want to explore further. So, of course, when we talk about European colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade, we're really referring to two distinct periods of European thought. We've got the period of Christianity, and I suppose those early settlers that arrived in the United States, a lot of them were motivated by an evangelical or a subset of Christianity which couldn't fit neatly in mainland European society, but also we're talking about the post Christian era where liberalism takes root across the European and Americas and what you have is a newfound belief in equality and freedom and these notions that man is born equal which in essence inspired Jefferson's treatise that inspires the independence movement. How important was Christianity firstly, in legitimizing or playing a legitimizing factor when it comes to European transatlantic slave trade?

Hakeem Muhammad: So there's a book titled The Rising Tide of Color: The Threat Against White World-Supremacy by a European political thinker by the name of Lothrop Stoddard. In this book he gives an account of the role that various religions would have upon the European quest for racial supremacy within Africa.

And this is what he writes: “In so far as he is christianized, the negro savage instincts will be restrained, and he will be disposed to acquiesce in white tutelage.

In so far as he islamisized, the negroes war like prosperity will be inflamed. Islam is as yet unknown south of Zambia, but white men universally dread the possibility of it’s appearance, dread fearing it’s effect upon the natives.”

And so, in this work he makes it very very clear that Christianity was key to the colonial project into European colonialism, in general, that they, the Christianity that was particularly fed upon victims of slavery as well as colonialism, was one of pacifism one where they, they were given this you know white image of Jesus and told that this white image of Jesus was himself, God. And so they sought to in facilitating this process sought to maintain black people within a position of permanent subjugation, and they provided religious justifications for.

One of the primary justifications for slavery was this idea of the curse of Ham, which has its origins within rabbinical Jewish writings were they from a Muslim perspective this is a fabricated story, but they allege that Noah got drunk and that his son Ham saw him in this drunken state, and upon seeing Noah in this drunken state he began to mock his father, and as a result of him mocking his father Ham was cursed with black skin and his descendants were meant to be slaves permanently forever as a result of that. Now this is a total fabricated story from the position of Islam, but unfortunately the story was widely believed within certain rabbinical Jewish sectors within certain Christian sectors, and even unfortunately, there was some, it actually picked up among certain Muslim scholars.

Muhammad Jalal: Hakim, I would like to consider the matter you raised about liberalism, for sure, there is a clear discrepancy between the beliefs of Locke and Kant when they talk of equality and their insistence that slavery was an acceptable practice, but how about the founding fathers of America? Jefferson crafted a phrase in the American Declaration of Independence, he spoke of all men are born equal yet American independence, inspired by these liberal principles of Locke and Thomas Paine did not lead to the emancipation of enslaved Africans. Why is that, Hakim?

Hakeem Muhammad: So one of the primary things to keep in mind is that the rights that liberals suggests that people should have is based upon their ability to reason, their ability to rationalize what it is to live a good life.

They did not believe that Africans or Native American people had this ability to rationalize or to reason. They thought this was an exclusive phenomenon of Europeans that Europeans had this unique ability to reason, to conceptualize the world, to rationalize, and they did not believe that Africans could reason. Because they did not believe that Africans had the ability to utilize reason, or to rationalize, they were outside of the social contract that, and John Locke very explicitly believed that the failure of Africans to establish a civil authority to preserve their rights through entering into a social contract meant that they were not entitled to natural rights, and so because they believe that Africans did not have the ability to reason, or to rationalize John Locke can say things such as you know white slave masters have the right to kill black slaves, with impunity even though - at the same time - he believed in these ideas of freedom and liberty, these were rights that were only given to white men. And so even though, in terms of even Jefferson himself, although he wrote the, he played a major role influenced by Locke in the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson initiated the Native American removal act that led to the extermination of Native American people because Native Americans, as well as Africans were outside of that concept of a social contract.

Muhammad Jalal: Maybe then we can argue liberalism of yesteryear never quite applied these universal concepts of equality. But what about progressive liberals today, their belief is that they are at the fore of fighting racial justice racial injustice and racial equality.

Hakeem Muhammad: Yeah, so this is something that many would argue when they'll say, or hypothetically argue that, well, yes they did these horrible things in terms of justifying slavery, yes John Locke did these terrible things in terms of serving as an investor in the royal African company that led to the enslavement of Africans. But, these were violations of his own principles and so, as you mentioned, they'll say oh well liberals of the day, we believe in black rights and this is what I think is the significance of people such as Malcolm X, in that Malcolm X very boldly challenged this inclusion of black people within liberalism and took a bold stand in saying that liberalism cannot sort of rectify the structural racism that exists within American society and so he took a non reformist approach to the ability of liberalism to deliver upon his promises.

And when you look at the socio economic system today, there's a good work by a sociologist named Loic Wacquant, where he analyzes many desolated urban inner city areas, and he looks at like the rise of mass incarceration, and he looks at the rise of the prison industrial complex, and he says that what's causing you know so many black men from these inner cities to be funneled into, you know to be mass incarcerated, and to be in prison is precisely because they don't have a place within the socio economic system of America they've been excluded within the socio economic Society of America. And so yeah, I mean, theoretically liberals, can you know extend people's rights, but the extension of rights, in and of itself isn't sufficient to remedy the, you know, centuries of particular racial based oppression and the wealth and the plunder that has been garnered from it.

Muhammad Jalal: Now can you tell us more about the stories of the early African Muslim slaves who ended up in America?

Hakeem Muhammad: Yeah, I wanted to speak more about that. So, there was a white plantation owner in Jamaica, by the name of… well he was visiting a plantation, a European journalist by the name of Richard Robert Aden, and he visited this plantation in Jamaica. And this is what he wrote in his notes he said that “I had a visit one Sunday morning, very late from three mandingoes negros natives of Africa, they could all read and write Arabic and one of them showed me a Quran written from memory by himself, but he assured me before he became a Christian”.

And so in this account, we see that there was… he doesn't say the brother's name, but there was an enslaved African who you know reproduced, an entire copy of the Quran, just purely from his memory, but in his notes he says that he was identifying as a Christian, which you know he had to do as a survival strategy because it was illegal to, you know, openly proclaim one's Islam. There's also several slave narratives that individuals that enslaved African Muslims wrote, while enslaved, one slave by the name of Abu Bakr, in his slave narrative, he wrote about, he was, he was actually a student of knowledge in Africa he studied there was a major Islamic University in West Africa in Timbuktu, University of Sankore, and these are really highly educated individuals, and in this slave narrative, he talks about his Islamic upbringing of studying Arabic of studying Islam.

But sadly, he talks about just being on the plantation how you know his faith and his ability to practice Islam has been significantly diminished and so this is what he says he says: “I tasted the bitterness of slavery from them, and it's oppressiveness, but praise be to God, under whose power are all things he does whatever he wills, Allah is our master and God, therefore that the faithful put their trust”.

And there's another journal article in 1768, where a slave master he said that one of his slaves reproduced an entire copy of the Quran. And this was really common among slaves. There's another brother, Ayub Diallo who produced, even after the traumatic impacts of the middle passage, even after the traumatic impact of being on the plantation, they were still able to reproduce entire Qurans just purely off of their memory and it's really a testimony to the strong Islamic educational institutions that existed within West Africa.

And what’s also significant to note is that Islam also played a monumental role within slave rebellions, and inciting rebellions to slavery.

Muhammad Jalal: How so? You know, did you have any accounts of Muslim inspired rebellion against slave owners.

Hakeem Muhammad: Yeah, one of the primary rebellions occurred in Bahia, Brazil, the historians here said that this was one of the most successful urban slave rebellions ever to take place in the Americas.

And what's significant to note is that prior, they had been planning this slave rebellion for years and they originally scheduled it for the month of Ramadan but unfortunately due to… there was an interruption and one of the slaves told on them to the slave master, and so they had to like hurry up and sort of incite this slave rebellion. But one of the significance of this rebellion is that even prior to the rebellion they found that they were passing along Arabic documents to one another, they had built like their own makeshift mosque, where they were storing weapons, and they really, sort of, there was a strong Islamic component in that rebellion, so much so that the historians, and this is something that really challenges a lot of Afro-centrist discourse is that the historian Ria says that in the lead up to this slave rebellion, is that there was a lot of adherence to indigenous African religions, who were en masse converting to Islam and so they uncovered documents of testimony of people who are just learning of previous adherence to indigenous African religions, who are learning how to recite Al Fatiha learning basic preliminary Arabic.

And the reason why he says that Islam played such a strong role in this rebellion, is that he said that Islam made them not feel inferior that Islam gave them the strength that they needed and he said that many of the indigenous African religions, they were tribal religions so they had like one God, they had a God that was like confined to this particular tribe, but it wasn't a universal religion. And because it wasn't a universal religion they couldn't as effectively organize cross tribally among these indigenous African religions, and so this is why Islam took the lead in the slave rebellion.

And so, this slave rebellion though, while it was monumental, the European slave masters were able to quell that rebellion.

But one thing to take note of is that there was an Islamic scholar by the name of Lucatan, who was one of the masterminds of the slave revolt, and they put him on trial for his role in the slave revolt, and what the prosecutor says, in seeking to convict him is that they say that they were passing along Arabic documents, and that they were passing around Qurans. And he also asked Lucatan what is his name, and each time they asked him his name, he says: “My name is Bilal”, and they asked him again. We know what your actual name is but he kept saying his name was Bilal. His name was Bilal.

And so, that right there, emphasizes the role that even, you know the Sahaba, the influence that you know the that these Muslim slave rebellions had upon the role that Islam played in influencing them to rebel.

And there was also another strong component of Islam in the slave rebellion that occurred in Haiti. So there was a French colonial French colonial individual who was in the French military, the French were essentially seeking to put down the slave rebellions there was a war brewing between like the French and slave rebels, and one of the French colonials who wrote that “during the wars I was obliged to do against the blacks, we often found written papers in the backs of the negroes, nobody understood these writings, it was in Arabic”.

And there's another account in a book called The Encyclopedia of slave resistance, where they document an individual by the name of Imam Makandal, and they described him as an erudite Muslim who wrote Arabic very well.

And so, from the recovery of Arabic documents and lead up to these revolts from you know the ability of many enslaved Africans to reproduce, Qurans, purely from memory from, you know, even look at Lucatan who was one of the masterminds behind the Bahia slavery proclaimed himself to be Bilal.

This shows that the strong component that Islam had in sort of inciting these rebellions so much so that there were many, the Portuguese, who were even combating, their army had a history of fighting with Muslims, you know, in Andalus, and so when they encountered these Muslim, after the slave rebellion they amped up the pressure in terms of inhibiting all expressions of Islam, so much so that it's really unfortunate but Islam, did not survive trans-generationally between the start of slavery, up until you know when slavery, quote unquote was formally ended that Islam was not able to sufficiently survive that process then you can see that this occurred as a result of the persecution of slaves on the plantation so there's another slave narratives by Omar Ibn Saeed, where he said that he ran away from the plantation just so that he could pray, and when he ran away from the plantation just so he could pray, they put him in jail temporarily, and he, in a slave narrative, even though he quotes the Quran in the slave narrative, he said that he used to be a Muslim, but now he's a Christian. And so, and this is one of the tragedies that slavery had upon you know, when we talk about the war against Islam, we can't just only think of colonialism, we also have to think of slavery because slavery did major damage in terms of trans-generationally inhibiting the ability of enslaved African Muslims to transmit Islamic knowledge you know from one generation to the next, you know, they couldn't teach their kids Quran, Hadith, Sahih Al Bukhari they weren't able to even though a lot of them came from well, Islamic institutions within West Africa that process of slavery inhibited them from passing Islam down from generation to generation.

Muhammad Jalal: These are really amazing stories Hakeem, why haven't we heard more about these courageous Muslims? I note in America, there is a move to place the history of the slave trade in the American history syllabus in schools, yet it seems that Islam is a missing component. So, why has Islam been removed from this historical narrative?

Hakeem Muhammad: Yeah, and I think this is you make you raise a very good point and that there's a lot of films about, you know, slavery and tragedy of slavery, but we never hear for example about the Bahia slave rebellion.

We never hear about, you know, the Wolof slave rebellions we never really hear or really study the you know the prominence of Islam in terms of the efforts that they took to sort of secure Islam, to ensure that Islam as best they could be, could be practiced and I think one of the main reason is that even to this very day, is that people recognize that Islam is a major, major force against oppression and racial injustices and this is what, even in one of Malcolm X's speeches, Malcolm X said, at that time, he was in the Nation of Islam and they were getting harassed by the FBI by the various government organizations who were seeking to prohibit people from going in their mosques and seeking to harass them. And he's like, why are they taking you know all this effort to prevent people from, you know, learning about Islam, and he says that Islam as a force is seen as diametrically opposed to oppression. And is diametrically opposed to tyranny and so they fear the Dawah to Islam. They fear of people being called to Islam with people embracing Islam, so this is one of the major reasons why there's so much silence around, you know the role of Islam in inciting slave rebellions, the role of Islam in strengthening Africans to rebel against their slave masters is because as pointed out in one of the earlier, books, ‘The Rising Tide against White World White Supremacy’ by a European political scientist is that they saw Islam as this major threat against their colonial ambitions within Africa and so this is one of the major reasons why I think you don't get so much attention around, you know enslaved African Muslims, and this is why it’s our responsibility as Muslims to sort of shine light on this story, and to bring their stories and their narratives to the forefront.

Muhammad Jalal: You work with poorer black communities in your Dawah activity and presumably these communities are affected by crime, by drugs, by prostitution, by criminality, and the Dawah of Islam, of course has an immense impact on an individual and his or her life. It recreates his life for him and develops a thinking in that individual that moves him away from such forms of criminality. So why would someone why would the American state, find that type of work a problem because surely it would clean up the communities that it interacts with?

Hakeem Muhammad: Yeah, and this is actually Malcolm X pointed out something similar where he said that you look at the role of Muslims, in cleaning up the community of drugs, of gang violence, of prostitution and all of these other social ills within the communities, he said that the government should be thanking the Muslims for doing this. But the major thing is that once people, you know, embrace Islam, they then want to change their social political realities they then don't want to live under the oppressive conditions that they're living within and they begin to speak out against it and to organize against it and so in several of Malcolm X's speeches he discussed the role of structural racism in creating the conditions of poverty within these areas and he said that the reason why you had so many people who were turning to drugs, turning to these criminal elements was, you know, as a coping mechanism to just survive within these areas, but then he says but it's a false hope, it gives them a false survival, because they only end up you know either early deaths, or they end up incarcerated, whereas Islam, because you change the condition within yourself the socio political realities outside of yourself, begin to change and transform and they don't want the full transformation that comes as a result of Islam, even though it cleans people up, even though it helps people become more erudite and more studious, they don't want that full transformation to occur, because the way that America particularly is situated is that its based upon oppression of entire groups of people its based upon you know there's a huge financial incentives to mass incarcerating people. Even Hillary Clinton, for example, utilized, when she was in her Governor's mansion, office of her husband, they utilized prison labor for the Governor’s mansion and so when prison is so profitable, and when drugs prevent you from really challenging oppression, there’s incentives that the power structure and the oppressive system want you to be involved in those activities and as Malcolm X articulated is that Islam, provides a very clear alternative.

Muhammad Jalal: So are you suggesting the state would rather prefer these communities stayed mired in drugs, in prostitution, in criminality?

Hakeem Muhammad: Yeah, and the way that America is situated absolutely, and because especially within the United States is that these neighborhoods are so segregated. And so you have certain poor communities, we have more affluent communities, and as a result of racism they're just entirely segregated, and so it's not you know, the rich affluent person who are being impacted by these social ills, they're totally isolated from these social ills that occur. And so this is why there’s even very credible evidence that drugs were funneled in to many urban inner cities as a result of government help, there’s strong credible evidence that the government was involved, for example, in the crack epidemic and putting cocaine within, the funneling of cocaine within many urban inner city areas and so yes they absolutely want, many people, they want our people on drugs they want them in these acts of gangs, because it feeds their system of prison and inhibits people from effectively challenging the oppressive conditions that they're in.

Muhammad Jalal: And on the subject of challenging oppression, what's your take on the Black Lives Matter movement?

Hakeem Muhammad: So, I agree with the phrase that black lives matter, because black lives do matter and they matter, because you know we're creations of Allah, we have value to life. And there's a strong history of black life, not being valued, you know by some of the most influential thinkers that shaped the modern world from John Locke, who, as I mentioned earlier, said that black slaves can be killed with impunity, as well as from individuals such as Emmanuel Kant, so I agree with the phrase, Black Lives Matter, I agree with the need to combat police brutality and police injustices against black people, but I do think it's very important to honor the legacy of Malcolm X, to honor the legacy of, you know, the Muslims who were involved in the Bahia slave rebellion, to honor the history of the Muslims that were involved in rebelling against slavery, and in hating the struggle against oppression that it takes an Islamic approach in challenging these injustices that exists.

Muhammad Jalal: When considering our approach to Islam, we know that Muslims belong to one Ummah, one brotherhood, and so that unifies us as one Islamic community. And that means something I suppose, you know, we are colorblind, and we go beyond the rhetoric that liberalism, supposedly was meant to be this idea that Francis Fukuyama spoke of this, that you know we've now reached the end of history and I suppose, part of what he meant was, liberalism has created a society where black and white could live side by side and they would not feel excluded but rather they would be judged according to their merits. Now, you and I will know that doesn't exist and Islam actually is the only way, it's the only religion, the only system that provides a way by which the human mind moves away from these superficial barriers between… that cause problems and cause distrust and cause conflict between them. But sadly, what is the ideal and what is the reality sometimes differs. And often it's the case that a number of Muslims are still impacted by this feeling of assabiyah and this feeling of superiority and often it comes down to color. What's your, what's your take and experience of this?

Hakeem Muhammad: So, as Muslims. It's very important that we set our sights on like the ideals of Islam. As Muslims you know we've been put into various races and tribes in order to get to know one another, and Islam very strongly condemns racism really strongly condemns asabiyyah, very strongly condemns these things. But I think there's a problem in that we don't live in this Islamic ideal. And we live in a world that has been shaped by the system of white supremacy as the actual social political system that exists on the ground.

And so what I see happening a lot is that when many, you know, Muslims are critical of white supremacy as a social political system, there'll be those who are like, oh, you know, Muslims are supposed to be colorblind, why are you talking about white supremacy. When we talk about white supremacy we're talking about an actual, you know, political, and social economic system that exists.

And so, yeah, we need to struggle for this ideal, but we can't be blind to the sort of injustices that are actually occurring.

Muhammad Jalal: Now Hakim, I've been wrestling with this idea of white supremacy. I think our discussion today has, has connected white supremacy with the formation of liberalism and, and there's nothing within the foundation ideas of liberalism, in particular those that were put forward by people like Locke and Kant that disincentivized early liberals from embracing this racial hierarchy, and I can also see from our discussion today about slavery that white supremacy was inherent in the mindset that allowed them to pass Christianity to large numbers of Muslims and people of other faiths in order to civilize in inverted commas these people who they regarded as being inferior.

And I can also see that in today's world you've seen the rise of populism and Donald Trump's ascendancy was largely down to his ability to harness this feeling of superiority amongst large parts of the white population in America, I wrote an article about it very recently, in relation to the New Zealand attacks and mentioned how white nativism is on the rise and it's a theme that's going to undoubtedly grow in international politics.

But your critics will probably argue that this emphasis on white supremacy may inadvertently at least may carve a division between Muslims who want to embrace Islam from the white community. As we know, Islam provides a solution for all people, whether you're black or you're brown or you're white, Islam provides a way to heal those divisions that exist, that men have created that exists between them. So I suppose, how do you handle this criticism that if you emphasize white supremacy, you may be inadvertently at least, and I know you're not you're not in a sense, trying to do that, but you may be inadvertently carving a division and creating a barrier between yourself and those who may want to embrace Islam who are white?

Hakeem Muhammad: Sure, and I'll give you an example. And in the garden this community in Chicago that's predominantly African Americans, the way that this community was situated is that you had the Chicago Housing Authority, which at that time sought to enforce racial segregation. And so they put this community and they designated that this was a black only neighborhood that black people who were going to Southside had to live in a certain area, they put it near garbage incinerators, they put near toxic waste dumps, and all of these other cancer-causing properties and agencies within this community and that community is very heavily suffering as a result of that legacy. In the north side, you have, you know, predominantly affluent white neighborhoods. Now on a theoretical level, let's, you know pose a hypothetical that every, you know, the white communities on the north side they took the Shahada, and they embraced Islam.

That action alone, wouldn't be sufficient to remedy the racial injustices that occur to this African American community. That action alone, you will have to talk about, okay, what from the Islamic tradition, what as Muslims, can we do to rectify this injustice that has occurred, and there are many brilliant, African American theologians who have talked about white supremacy, as a system of idolatry, where they say that you know this given… black people were given this image of a white Jesus, and white people were elevated to the status of almost like an idolatrous Gods through this image of a white Jesus and the social political situation that occurred as a result of it.

And so this argument that focusing on white supremacy, as an actual political structure, alienates white Muslims or white people who may want to embrace the deen, it sounds as absurd to me as saying, well, black people challenge, you know the Jim Crow legislation or black people in South Africa, challenge apartheid in South Africa, and say that apartheid is a system of white supremacy, which it explicitly is, that this is going to alienate white Muslims. White Muslims and Muslims in general, who embrace Islam, their struggle, in embracing Islam they should recognize that this system is unjust and they should recognize that Islam has a cure to this as an actual political system and a natural political arrangement but to say that we shouldn't focus on white supremacy, as a political system because of its potential alienating impacts, to me, it really goes directly against you know the legacy of Malcolm X and it downplays the experiences of enslaved African Muslims who weren't able to even pass Islam down to their children as a result of explicit laws that said Africans had to be Christian that Africans could not have open expressions of Islam. These were laws that impacted African Muslims, and prohibited them from practicing their faith and so when white supremacy, white supremacist laws have had a direct impact upon you know the spread of Islam, that to me serves as the major, the major antagonistic force against you know the Dawah against Islam more so than focusing on white supremacy and this alleged potential alienating impacts on white converts.

Muhammad Jalal: I mean, I remember when I was, you know, in my formative years, when I was growing up, and trying to work out my identity. And, you know, Malcolm X’ film came out right, just after the autobiography well I came across the autobiography, and then the film came out and you know, it really did help me to frame my identity and you know of course my connection with Malcolm X, or at least the shared sense of history was not there at all right. I grew up in London, and it was a different reality for me and a different battle, but I could make a connection and it helped consolidate a view in my mind that Islam is, you know, it transcends color and it's a faith that really does make us brothers to one another.

Hakeem Muhammad: Yeah. One thing that one of the latest interviews that Malcolm X had before he was martyred is, you know, he talks about his experience going to Hajj and seeing the universality of Islam, and the journalist asked him, well does this mean that you know you can see this happening, you know in America, and Malcolm X says, you know, if white Americans can see the oneness of God, that they can perhaps see the oneness of humanity. But he says that the particular laws that have existed within America, and the political arrangement within America he said that he didn't see that this would really seek to manifest without the need for, without Islam. And so, he said that the civil rights legislation, the certain bills that they passed to sort of remedy structural racism, he didn't see that as being sufficient to solve the structural racism that existed.

But, so yeah, I mean as Muslims we're taught that we've been put into different races and tribes in order to get to know one another, but it just so happens that, you know, the way that Europeans have colonized the world, the ways in which Europeans have established settler colonies within the Americas, to, you know, create segregation, and this is why Muslims from our faith should be inspired to challenge oppression and to challenge racism because if you were put into races and tribes to get to know one another then how can things such as segregation occur, how can you live in a society in which you know they still have de facto manifestations of segregation, in which we have blockbusting, in which you have redlining, and other forms and other practices that keep people apart, and to keep people from being brothers and this is why a white person who, and there are a lot of white converts that come to Islam through the autobiography of Malcolm X, and when they do, they should be inspired to get rid of, you know, the racism in society and to combat the racism in society.

Muhammad Jalal: Now before we wrap up, it's probably worth asking you to give your take on the recent debates that took place on social media about critical race theory. I mean, I must say I found the debates slightly problematic in the sense that often, you know these debates on social media don't really go anywhere and they don't shed very much light on important topics but anyway this debate about critical race theory, at least from some quarters, there was an implication that CRT was in contradiction with Islam.

Now of course you, you are a proponent of critical race theory so what's your take on this approach?

Hakeem Muhammad: Their critique is that critical race theory is being utilized by Muslim activists, and that it has some contradictory elements with Islam, or that its somehow harming the aqeeda of Muslims. This is their framing of it. At its core critical race theory is very very simple and critical race theory in its most simple essence, it says this: structural racism was able to maintain itself post Jim Crow, meaning after civil rights legislation ended Jim Crow laws, structural racism continued to manifest itself. And critical race theory, I was seeing many Muslims saying that critical race theory is liberal, it's not. Critical race theory is a critique of the inability of liberalism, to sufficiently deal with, and grapple with the issues of structural racism to eradicate racism within society, this is what critical race theory at its essence is about. And it emerged as a product of African American legal scholars, so African American legal scholars conceive of critical race theory as a way to analyze how structural racism was able to maintain itself post Jim Crow. So for me and my work in Chicago, this is how I became acquainted with critical race theory, is that, so the Chicago public schooling system is very very heavily, segregated, even though, you know, there's no laws on the books saying these schools must be segregated. So you have these underfunded largely impoverished African American schools, and that's juxtaposed to predominantly more white more wealthy affluent white schools in the north side. And so, Derek Bell, who's considered the founder of critical race theory. He put forth an amazing article, called serving two masters, where in this article, Derrick Bell says that the reason why they did away with laws that mandated school segregation was not because it was this benevolent gesture that they just wanted to improve the situation of African Americans and he said that African American schools they really just wanted more resources in their schools. But what Derek Bell said was the reason why America did away with segregated schools was in the context of its geopolitical war with the Soviet Union, it’s proxy war with the Soviet Union where the Soviet Union was essentially utilizing the racist laws that America had, as a way to critique them, as a way for the Soviet Union to say that America was not a friend to newly decolonized African nations, because they're committing these injustices and Derrick Bell also documents that there are lawyers in the NAACP, who argued that America should, you know, get rid of its segregated system, precisely because it hurts America's image in the context of the Soviet Union.

And so it's a very nuanced explanation that sort of gets to the heart of, well why didn't the US government, why didn’t various cities enforce, you know the desegregation of schools as diligently as they should have? Why are the Chicago Public Schools still in a de facto state of segregation? And so this was my exposure, you know to critical race theory and sort of combating, you know the segregated state of schools so that's why I was like so perplexed when I saw so many Muslims are like oh critical race theory isn't you know from Islam. Critical race theory is not an alternative theology, it's not like Christianity, saying, you know, there's three gods in one, it’s not like Hinduism. It's not an alternative theology, it's a way to analyze… it actually bolsters Islamic critiques of liberalism, because it says that legalistic mechanisms to challenge structural racism aren't sufficient, it hints at the fact that you need something else in order to do that, so this is why you know Muslims should be, you know, studying critical race theory. Black Muslims, we don't have the luxury really not to like be cognizant of these issues that exist as it relates to structural racism because it directly impacts our lives in the communities that we work on. In order to be effective in Dawah you have to be cognizant of the political realities that people are facing, you have to be cognizant of the social situation that people are facing in order to be, you know, competent in your Dawah.

And so this is why I think critical race theory is an important source to draw from you know I read academic works of critical race theorists just to stay you know politically aware as to you know okay how has redlining impacted this community. How is this community, you know, being impacted by segregation? So this is how I study critical race theory but in my study of it I've never encountered anything in the core essence in the core basics of critical race theory that conflicts with Islam. Now there are of course many critical race theory… they aren't all Muslim they haven't all taken their Shahada, but is the standard for critical race theory that in order to be compatible with Islam every single critical race theorist has to be a Muslim, has to have all their social and political beliefs, 100% in harmony with Islam? Because if that's the standard then I can concede that critical race theory isn't compatible with Islam because there are many academics within critical race theory that aren't Muslim, but I would say that the basic core essence of critical race theory, in terms of how racism was able to maintain itself post Jim Crow, how racism operates within American society, that basic political analysis does not conflict with Islam and Muslims should be aware of that political analysis, and to be inspired from their tradition to combat against structural racism in society.

Muhammad Jalal: Brother Hakeem, Jazak Allah Khair, I think we've now really exhausted a range of discussions, this has been extremely thought provoking and fascinating in many respects and I've learned some something new, and it's really allowed me to frame a number of thoughts I already had about liberalism and its impact upon mankind and inshallah I pray that you continue your efforts and your efforts achieve a lot of success, of course in this life but, more importantly, when you visit Allah SWT. If someone wanted to find out more about your activities, how would they access information about your organization and your activities?

Hakeem Muhammad: Yeah, sure. So I do want to put this out there and so on October 12 inshallah at 2pm, there's going to be an event in the community of Oblock, an event that seeks to introduce African Americans and neighborhoods to Islam through the autobiography of Malcolm X, and so there'll be Muslims posted there just handing out over 100 copies of the autobiography of Malcolm X as well as copies of the Quran, and just engaging, you know brothers in the community about Islam and what Islam stands for. You can find more information on that at blackdawahnetwork.com, and you can find me on social media on Twitter.

My Twitter hash my Twitter name is Muhammad7Hakeem. And so you can follow me on Twitter, but thank you very much brother for inviting me on your program, to be able to discuss these critical issues, as it relates to, you know the history of enslaved African Muslims as it relates to critical race theory. I think that all that we discussed is just so interconnected because you know when you think about critical race theory and it bringing light to the situation of white supremacy, you know that political arrangement impacted enslaved African Muslims so you know I make dua that you know the Muslims can benefit from this lecture in any way that they can. May Allah forgive me if I made any mistakes in this discussion but thank you brother for having me on.

Muhammad Jalal: Ameen, may Allah SWT give us tawfiq and barakah in all of our endeavors.

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