Posted on 03/25/2007 5:18:59 AM PDT by Flavius
Pittsburgh among cities to see increase after terror attacks as religious leaders try to paint positive image By Ramit Plushnick-Masti ASSOCIATED PRESS
PITTSBURGH, Pa. - Allahu Akbar, the Muslim call for prayer, rings out on a recent Friday and a group of black men and women gather to celebrate the Islamic day of rest.
The wooden house in Pittsburgh's rundown Homewood neighborhood looks like any other on the block. But the sign at the door, Masjid Mumin, and the rows of shoes lined up inside on gray, plastic shelves hint of the brand of Sunni Islam its members practice.
The mosque is one of seven in Pittsburgh, home to a vibrant community of about 8,000 to 10,000 Sunni Muslims -- some 30 percent of them black.
Following what appears to be a trend in cities nationwide, religious leaders in Pittsburgh say there has been a rise in black conversions to Sunni Islam since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
No national surveys have been taken to confirm the increase, but Islamic religious leaders in Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit have also reported growth, said Lawrence Mamiya, a professor of religion and Africana studies at Vassas College in New York. Experts estimate that 30 percent of the 6 million to 7 million Muslims in the United States are black, with only South Asians making up a larger number at 33 percent.
The Sept. 11 attacks have "cut both ways, positively and negatively," Mamiya said.
The dynamic is obvious, another expert said.
Since Sept. 11, Muslims have been attempting to "disseminate positive information about the religion, so the obvious outcome of that would be more conversions," said Richard Turner, coordinator of the African-American studies program and an expert on Islam among blacks at the University of Iowa.
Sunni Islam is the world's most prominent branch of Islam. The Nation of Islam and the Moorish Science Temple, other Muslim groups that attract many blacks, believe in prophets after Muhammad, making them anathema to Sunni Islam.
Rashad Byrdsong, an elder in Pittsburgh's black Muslim community, hopes the rise in interest in Sunni Islam will help the Mumin Mosque collect money to expand its small house of worship into a larger community gathering place.
The new mosque, still in the planning stages, will look more like a community center than a traditional minaret-topped Muslim place of worship found in the Arab world.
The expanded Homewood mosque will have a daycare facility, a re-entry program for released inmates, a health clinic and a program for entrepreneurs -- features that are in great need in the downtrodden neighborhood.
"First, the spiritual aspects, the dawa, but also basic, physical, fundamental needs," Byrdsong said.
In the fourth year of its seven-year expansion plan, Pittsburgh's tight-knit Muslim community has raised much of the $1.5 million needed in the project's first phase through book sales, telephone fundraisers, auctions and banquets. It has purchased all but two lots it will need and already has the sketches for the future mosque complex.
"Building the mosque has always been a goal, idea, vision," said Yusef Ali, 63, emir of the Mumin Mosque. "But as a community grows ... it's (become) a solid goal with strategic objectives."
A growing number of Muslims in America, especially blacks, are building mosques that offer a variety of community services, partly because the federal and state governments do not answer to many of their social needs, Islamic experts say.
These complexes take the religion back to its roots before the modern-day state began providing services to the population.
"What you have here is the creation of a true American Islam," said Edward Curtis, a religious studies professor who specializes in African-American Islam at IUPUI. "Islam has been a part of this country from its beginning, and the forms of Islam that are successful here are indigenous forms."
"The African-American mosque has made itself different in this way from other mosques around the world," Mamiya said. "Religious institutions in the black community have always been their strongest institutions and have always done more than religious functions."
Pittsburgh is home not only to black Muslims, but also a broad community of immigrants who practice the religion. However, until Sept. 11, the two communities were largely isolated.
After the attacks, immigrants -- subject to FBI surveillance, police raids and other scrutiny -- began to reach out to black Muslims in Pittsburgh, whose persecution they could suddenly relate to, said Sarah Jameela Martin, 64, an active member of the city's black Muslim community.
"It really was a time for us to come together," Martin said.
But Sept. 11 also put an end to any hopes the black Muslim community had to collect money for their mosque project from Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries overseas because new U.S. laws put Islamic charities under greater scrutiny.
Now, as immigrant and black Muslims in Pittsburgh try to improve the religion's image and separate it from global terrorism, blacks are paving the way, Martin said.
sorry about the double post.
Why is aboriginal and Australia in the keyword place? Obviously, you didn't necessarily put it in there--it isn't directed only at you.
Wait till the Imans start demanding equal time on TV. There will be mass conversions by the secular left. At last a religion they can embrace!
Furthermore, American slaveowners almost unanimously identified themselves as "Christian."
Is American of African descent turning from Christianity unfounded?
Yes.
Can it be seen where it comes from?
Yes.
Pretty harsh, especially since vetsvette is all but agreeing with you.
I would totally suport your suggestion.
====================
Amen!
Question: Given the above re: slavery, has anybody ever heard an explaination -- by a black -- explaining why American blacks are converting? To defy the white man? But Arabs are white...
Relax, that wasn't a slam against you -- but the public schoolm system.
Look at the vast majority of environmentalists and non-Muslim anti-war activists: they are predominantly of European descent. Are these people representative of all Americans of European descent? Definitely not.
So, are Americans of African descent who are Democrats or have become Muslims representative of all Americans of African descent? Definitely not.
Furthermore, some of the condescending attitudes which could be asserting itself on this thread could drive away Americans of African descent from the Republicans.
Did you know that the NORTHERN State of New Jersey did NOT outlaw slavery until 1846? Did you know that even after that date, a provision was passed that allowed the remaining slaves to be retained as slaves and even sold as personal property. The hypocrisy of the North is evident in redacted and rewritten history.
http://www.slavenorth.com/newjersey.htm
"In 1830, of the 3,568 Northern blacks who remained slaves, more than two-thirds were in New Jersey. The institution was rapidly declining in the 1830s, but not until 1846 was slavery permanently abolished. At the start of the Civil War, New Jersey citizens owned 18 "apprentices for life" (the federal census listed them as "slaves") -- legal slaves by any name.
"New Jersey's emancipation law carefully protected existing property rights. No one lost a single slave, and the right to the services of young Negroes was fully protected. Moreover, the courts ruled that the right was a 'species of property,' transferable 'from one citizen to another like other personal property.'
Thus "New Jersey retained slaveholding without technically remaining a slave state."
Sounds to me like a clintoon wrote that law!
LLS
There were more converting in prison way before 9/11 when I worked at the Metropolitan Opera in the early 90's.
There were what was called 5 Percenters, they were polite young men who mama's rasied them as Chirstians and some how they got involved in this group.
The prisons are filled with 5 percenters and the schools also got to these black children.
Absolutely. The GOP was formed by religious people who were against slavery while the dims fought to continue slavery.
Same here, until it was correctly observed that islam is the religion of revenge.
Of course, that would imply that any pre-existing discussions around guilt, reparations and the long term effects of slavery on blacks in America had anything to do with logic. They are all emotionally based, and as such appear puzzling to anyone who views them rationally, as you apparently do.
Thomas Sowell is brilliant in his analysis of this issue in his excellent book "Black Rednecks and White Liberals".
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