Byker
2019-02-24 20:11:35 UTC
Why are all Muslim terrorists brown skin?
As I've said before, Islam is not a White man's religion:Loading Image...
Most Islamic converts here in the States are borderline nutcases, outcasts
who don't fit in, and are usually looking for some guru to show them the way
to the Ultimate Truth, whatever the hell that is. Usually these misfits
wind up as Moonies or Hare Krishnas, freakazoids but generally harmless. In
the case of John Walker Lindh ("Johnny Taliban"), it seems that an imam got
to him first. "The two men represent the dominant streams of Islam in
America - where immigrants from Pakistan, India and other South Asian
countries and U.S.-born blacks comprise the majority of Muslims." In other
words, Mecca-bowers can be physically identified. American blacks in
mosques outnumber the "Euros" fifty to one. Das right, bro: Chances are
the White folks are gonna be left out of this sweep.....
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Islam in America Dominated by South Asians, Blacks; Maintains Ties Overseas
By Rachel Zoll
The Associated Press
Arshad Majid's family came to America from India when he was 4, and they
brought their religious devotion with them. Majid remembers waking up early,
climbing onto his father's lap and watching him read the Quran.
Later, Majid learned the meaning of the "strange, squiggly" lines in Arabic
and embraced the faith, keeping a prayer rug in his Long Island office when
he worked as a prosecutor.
Talib Abdur-Rashid was a different kind of "immigrant," moving as a child
from Greensboro, N.C., where he lived "in the shadow of American apartheid,"
to make a new home in the South Bronx, he said.
He had another name before, one he won't reveal, and worshipped at a
Lutheran church, until he found a new spiritual path with other American
blacks in a Harlem mosque that followers of Malcolm X built.
The two men represent the dominant streams of Islam in America - where
immigrants from Pakistan, India and other South Asian countries and
U.S.-born blacks comprise the majority of Muslims.
While some Arabs in the United States are Muslim, most are not. Some 77
percent are Christian, according to a survey last year by the Arab American
Institute.
The complexities and divisions of worldwide Islam are here in the United
States - with Sunnis, Shiites, Sufis and others. Yet, there is a decidedly
American twist, originating mainly from the Islam that came from the black
identity movements of the early 1900s.
"The Muslim community in America is far from being monolithic," said Mahmoud
Ayoub, a professor of Islamic studies at Temple University in Philadelphia.
"The community here reflects the world."
Estimates of the number of Muslims in the United States vary wildly.
"The Mosque in America," a report commissioned by Muslim groups and released
this year, put the figure at around 6 million. But the University of
Chicago's National Opinion Research Center, in a report commissioned by the
American Jewish Committee, said it was no more than 2.8 million
Another study, the American Religious Identification Survey, released in
October by the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, estimated
the number was closer to 1.8 million.
According to the mosque study, 33 percent of those active in mosques are
South Asian and 30 percent are black. Arabs comprise 25 percent, while
European immigrants, Africans, U.S.-born whites and others make up the rest.
"When I first began reading about Islam, there was something in the
message," said Abdur-Rashid, imam of Harlem's Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood,
where he first embraced the religion. "The fact that Islam is a way of life
and not just a doctrine, the absolute centrality of almighty God and the
prophetic tradition, and the very strong position that Islam has on social
justice."
Islamic communities are just developing in this country.
Nearly all of the nation's estimated 1,200 mosques were founded in the last
30 years, many with money from governments of predominantly Muslim
countries.
The community has few institutions where religious leaders, or imams, can be
trained. As a result, nations like Egypt often send imams to the United
States, keeping Muslims in this country closely tied with worldwide Islam.
A clash of views is sometimes the result. Ayoub recalled how he argued with
a conservative imam from overseas, who said U.S. Muslims could only marry
virgins.
"Immigrant Muslims, and I don't exclude myself, we are a very mixed
blessing," said Ayoub, who is from Lebanon. "We do bring some ideas, and
people may benefit from some of the things we know, but then we impede the
Americanization of the Muslim community."
Waves of immigration helped Islam develop in the United States, starting in
the late 1800s, when Mideast natives came to this country to earn money.
Many became peddlers, work that required little English, then traveled the
country, often serving farming communities. One of the earliest mosques,
dubbed the "Mother Mosque," is in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
War and economic hardship overseas drew more Muslims to the United States in
the 20th century. The largest influx began after 1965, when President Lyndon
Johnson abolished an immigration quota system that had disproportionately
benefited Europeans. Muslim communities are now thriving in Los Angeles,
Detroit, Chicago, New York and other cities.
While migration was bringing Islam to parts of America, blacks born into the
racism of this country were discovering the faith on their own.
In the 1930s in Detroit, as blacks were working to forge a group identity,
Wallace D. Fard began preaching that he came from Mecca with a message: that
blacks were members of an ancient tribe called Shabazz, Jane Smith wrote in
her book "Islam in America."
Fard and his followers soon formed what became known as the Nation of Islam.
Fard's top lieutenant, Elijah Muhammad, eventually succeeded him.
The Nation's belief that Fard had divine status and Elijah Muhammad was a
prophet is the major source of division that continues today between the
group and mainstream Muslims. In orthodox Islam, no one other than God is
divine and the ancient Muhammad is considered the final prophet.
The Institute of Islamic Information and Education in Chicago calls the
Nation a "pseudo-Islamic cult."
Islam among blacks is much broader than the Nation. Elijah Muhammad's son,
W.D. Mohammed, took over the movement in the 1970s, but gradually moved his
thousands of followers toward mainstream Islam.
He began promoting the Sunni branch of the religion - followed by the
majority of Muslims worldwide. Louis Farrakhan then decided to rebuild the
old Nation of Islam under his own leadership.
"(W.D. Mohammed) began to rethink publicly the ideology that had
characterized the Nation in its earlier days," Smith wrote. "While always
careful to credit his father with wise and skilled leadership, he made it
clear that as Fard was not divine, so Elijah was not the pure and
unblemished messenger of Allah."
Many other blacks belong to mosques unaffiliated with either of these two
leaders.
Despite efforts to bring black and immigrant Muslims together, experts say
ethnic differences continue to divide them - even as the immigrant members
of the community grow more comfortable in their new country.
This year, Ramadan, the holy month when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk,
falls during Thanksgiving.
"We'll just have a smaller turkey this year, after we break our fast," Majid
said.