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ARAB TIMES, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 2017
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Masjid Muhammad in Washington, DC.
‘Washington Masjid’ a model and balanced Islamic community
Masjid Muhammad … from slavery to nation building
By Chaitali B. Roy
Special to the Arab Times
n the Museum of Art in Philadelphia hangs an early 19th-century
portrait of an African-American by
Charles Wilson Peale (1741-1827),
a renowned American painter who
fought in the Revolutionary War
under George Washington. What
lends this seemingly ordinary painting significance is the subject and
his remarkable life. Peale’s painting
is a rare representation of ethnic and
religious diversity in early America.
The portrait is of Yarrow (Yarro)
Mahmoud (Marmout), a slave who
was shipped to America via the slave
trade in 1752 at a young age.
One out of the millions sold
as slaves during the four grueling centuries of the Atlantic slave
trade, Mahmoud was one of only
two African-Americans of his time
to serve as a subject of a formal
portrait. Originally from Guinea
in West Africa, Mahmoud was a
practicing Muslim, who could read
and write in Arabic. His story unlike
those of others who lived and died a
life of endless pain and struggle is a
pleasant and uplifting one. A man of
happy, noble disposition, Mahmoud
persevered and won his freedom
after forty-five years of slavery; he
also bought a property in what is
now a swanky Georgetown neighborhood in Washington in 1800.
Muslims reached America by the
thousands long before the founding
of the United States, but the stories
of these early arrivals who were
Africans in ethnicity went unnoticed due to restrictions imposed on
their personal freedom. Bound and
chained to their owners, stripped off
their identities, they were not free
to practice their faith. Some of them
were forced to convert to Christianity, while others tried to preserve
their Muslim identity in secret.
I
Records
According to Imam Talib Shareef, Imam of Masjid Muhammad,
The Nation’s mosque in Washington DC there are few written
records but just enough to affirm
that Islam in America has roots
that are deep. I met the Imam and
his team of faithful as a member of
East-West Center, a research and
education institution founded by the
US Congress to encourage dialogue and interfaith understanding
between the States and Muslim-majority countries. Unfortunately, the
invaluable service that East-West
Center has offered the world since
the sixties is under threat because
of the budgetary cuts to the State
Department budget proposed by
the Trump administration. Building interfaith understanding is even
more crucial in the current political
climate, and that is what Masjid
Muhammad has done.
Founded in the 1930s, Masjid
Muhammad, the Nation’s mosque
is the first mosque in America to be
built by the descendants of AfricanAmerican slaves. It is also representative of the oldest established
Muslim community in the American
Congregation at prayer at Masjid Muhammad.
capital, and the first mosque built
from the ground in Washington by
its citizens. A place of worship for
thousands of Muslims in America’s
capital, the ‘Washington Masjid’ is a
model, productive, and balanced Islamic community, that promotes the
oneness of God and contributes to a
peaceful and happy community life.
History
“The history of Islam in America
started with Muslims who were
enslaved. America wasn’t even a
country then as we know it today,”
said Imam Talib Shareef, a Senior
Islamic leader and Board Member
of the Interfaith Conference in
America. Imam Shareef was explaining the history of African-American
Muslims to a group of journalists.
“Yarrow Mahmoud was just one of
the many African slaves who were
Muslims. They came to America at
a time when Islam as a way of life
was not established.”
According to PBS.org, between
1878 and 1924, Muslim immigrants
from the Middle East, especially
from Syria, and Lebanon migrated
to the States in large numbers with
many settling down in Ohio, Michigan, Iowa and Dakota. In 1912,
Noble Drew Ali, a North Carolinian founded The Moorish Science
Temple based on Islamic dietary
restrictions and greeting. A few
years later, Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican immigrant started his Universal
Negro Improvement Association,
which espoused a brand of political
and economic nationalism through
the African Diaspora. According
to Talib Shareef, both men tried to
establish Islam as an institutional
religion but failed because of their
inability to embrace the universal
values embodied in the Holy Quran.
In 1930, Fard Mohammad sought to
breach the gaps by founding the Nation of Islam in Detroit, and in 1934,
Imam Talib Shareef leading the prayers.
Elijah Poole took over the leadership
of NOI under the name of Elijah
Mohammed.
“Elijah Mohammed who studied
racism and different civil movements
in America founded the first of what
is known as the Holy Temples of
Islam in America. After building the
first three temples in Detroit, Chicago, and Milwaukee, Mohammed
reached Washington DC to establish
a place which would be a symbol
of the universal values of Islam in
1935.” In the fifties and sixties, Malcolm X, a former gangster and drug
addict who had converted to Nation
of Islam in prison influenced by Elijah Mohammed’s doctrine of moral
transformation and racial separation
handheld the movement into national
prominence in the process becoming
one of the most iconic figures of the
20th century.
While the African Americans
were involved in the civil rights
movement, in 1965, the Masjid
Muhammad was built just off New
Jersey Avenue, where it has become
a peaceful symbol of a community
living in the heart of the US capital.
“The masjid was the result of a community effort. The members of the
congregation struggled for months to
raise funds. They volunteered, sold
newspapers, held bazaars until they
had the funds to build what became
the first Masjid to be built from
the ground up, and the first built in
America on a national aspiration and
a national movement,” said Imam
Shareef.
Embraced
When Elijah Muhammad died in
1975, his son Imam Deen Mohammad became the spiritual head.
He rejected black separatism and
embraced a more traditional form of
Islam. Under him, the former temples of Islam became Masjids with
Washington’s Temple Number Four
religion
Stalls at the Friday prayer
becoming Masjid Muhammad. Imam
Talib was a young man when he saw
Imam Mohammad lift the American
flag, drape it over his body and urge
the Muslims to commit themselves
to protecting their country. “He
said that we have an obligation to
defend and protect our society. He
said that is what Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) mandated of those who
were not Muslims in societies that
he governed. As a citizen, you have
an obligation to the country in which
you claim citizenship. I heard that,
and I was inspired to join the army,”
said Imam Shareef who went on to
retire as Chief Master Sergeant of
the United States Air Force after 30
years of service. There were other
Muslims who followed suit.Under
the leadership of late Imam Deen
Mohammed, Masjid Muhammad
transitioned into mainstream Islam,
embracing diversity and adopting the universal teachings of the
Holy Quran and Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). “We developed
into a vibrant community with our
members in every field of the public
and private sector,” recalls Imam
Shareef. “We used to have our Eid
celebrations in the Mall. In fact, one
year, we held it right in front of the
Washington Monument,” said Imam
Shareef, the first Imam with military
service to open a session of the US
Congress.
Relationships
The evolution of Masjid Muhammad into the Nation’s mosque was
accompanied by a vigorous community outreach programme. Masjid
Muhammad also made the promotion of interfaith relationships one
of its pillars, and it played a leading
role in bridging cultural and religious divides in the US. Imam Mohammed strived to promote a strong
feeling of nationalism; and urged
his followers to embrace people of
other faiths. “Imam Mohammed
spoke in a Jewish synagogue when
we started the interfaith programme.
This was followed by what was
the first interfaith conference in
Washington. Today, Muslims of
other congregations and people of
many different faiths are involved
in interfaith activities.”
Masjid Muhammad has grown
from the mosque formed by the
descendants of African-American
slaves into a centre that celebrates
diversity, prayer and liberal nationalism. It plays a pioneering role
in mentoring young people into
becoming active, productive citizens.
Xenophobia and divisive rhetoric
have followed almost every act of
terrorism in the world. Recently,
there has been an intensification in
hateful diatribe particularly in the
States perhaps because of a divisive
leadership more concerned with
rabble rousing and deepening prejudice than strengthening the fabric of
civil society. It is in this context that
institutions like Masjid Muhammad
and the invaluable work they do in
bridging cultural divides, building
partnerships across communities
to fight poverty and youth violence
become significant.