African American Islam

By Aminah McCloud and Aminah Beverly McCloud

Book Overview

Islam is a vital, growing religion in America. Little is known, however, about the religion except through the biased lens of media reports which brand African American Muslims as "Black Muslims" and portray their communities as places of social protest. African American Islam challenges these myths by contextualizing the experience and history of African American Islamic life.
This is the first book to investigate the diverse African American Islamic community on its own terms, in its own language and through its own synthesis of Islamic history and philosophy.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0415907861
• ISBN13: 9780415907866
• Release Date: April 1995
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 220 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.2" x 9.1"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

Deep Islamic Taproot in African America

Ms. McCloud writes a very informative book on Islam in America, as practiced by African Americans from a number of different perspectives. She addresses several communities and organizations which comprise a history of a century's worth of approaches and philosphies, explaining strategies utilized both for living and spreading the Islamic lifestyle as members of both a socio-political minority in the dominant culture in general, and as a religious minority within the African American culture in particular, and for successfully co-existing in what has often been a hostile and untrusting social context. As a person who, as a teenager, was first exposed to Islam through the Nation of the Five Percent (now known as the Nation of Gods and Earths), and who has explored various expressions of Islam through the Moorish Science Temple, the Nation of Islam, and Orthodox Islam (including the Sufi tariqah), I developed an appreciation for the research required to develop this thorough writing. As Administrative Minister of a nondenominational religious organization, I can attest that this book adds to an understanding of the varying histories that each person brings to the table when Muslims gather, and that this makes serving him or her much easier for the pastoral counselor or spiritual leader.African American Islam would make an outstanding contribution as required reading for America's universities, and would have helped my graduate work in religious humanities greatly. Ms. McCloud's style is easily read, and I couldn't put the book down until it was nearly finished. A true professional, Ms. McCloud gives the reader a factual presentation that doesn't betray her own allegiances or sympathies, a scholarly quality that makes this book a must-read for the adherent, the student, and anyone just interested in knowing more about this world faith which has for well over a hundred years been growing in America, with the arrival of the Moors several centuries ago.

informative

This book will guide you down the path of the many groups in the black community which claim to be muslim from the orthodox(mainly Sunni) to the heterodox (Nation of islam, Moorish science etc). In conclusion highly recomeded.

Informative

This book is a very informative look at the different groups of African American who call themselves Muslims. The focus on Imam Jamil Al Amin is especially interesting.