Black Muslim Ramadan Reflection: Lessons from Two Communities.

Last updated on: June 29, 2016 at 5:35 pm by Hakeem Muhammad

Black Muslim Ramadan Reflection: Lessons from Two Communities. 2016-06-29T17:35:18-05:00 Hakeem Muhammad

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As I traveled to Boston, Massachusetts for work, a friend of mine told me that Louis Farrakhan would be in the city speaking. Of course, I had to attend because this was the community that I spent my childhood years in. I took a cab from the Harvard Campus where I am working to Mosque Number #11. When I arrived at the Mosque, a brother told me, “Hakeem, the last time I saw you I thought you were going to be a midget.” I actually did not quite remember him but my father worked as a secretary and a Youth Minister in the NOI, so many brothers may know me through him.

When I began visting a Mosque in the community of Imam W.D Muhammad, I spoke with an elderly sister about she came to Islam. She said that in the early 60’s a friend told her about a religion that was for black people. Intrigued, she visited some brothers in the FOI who informed her that the black woman was a queen and the mother of civilization. This elderly sister joined the NOI in the 1960’s and like many converted to Sunni Islam in 1975. As we talked, she gave me a slice of bean pie. I told her that we must establish banks, drug rehabilitation, clinics, and businesses for the black community. She told I that I was the only one in the Mosque talking like that and that I cannot just talk, but I need to make it happen.

As I visited the NOI mosque, these were the exact conversations that the brothers and sisters were having. The NOI had established a boycott against a foreign owned beauty supply store after a NOI sister had opened up her own beauty supply store as part of a strategy to keep money in the black community. They had successfully shut down the foreign owned beauty supply store and we were discussing how this can be duplicated in other areas. Another NOI brother I spoke with informed me of a campaign to have liqour stores shut down in the black community.

In the actual lecture, Farrakhan spoke about needing to change our slave names, the need to control the economics in our own community, and how we must make our communities decent places to live. It had been a great feeling being around so many disciplined, industrious, and productive black brothers and sisters. There is a lot of work that must be done to reform our black communities and making them safe places to live. We must get to work!

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