Laura El Alam This March, God willing, I will celebrate my twenty-fifth shahadaversary, a term coined by some of us converts to mark the day we made the testimony of faith (shahada) and officially embraced Islam. I will also, God willing, turn 50 this year, which will mean [...]
By: Habeeba Husain How Islam Promoted Equality and Anti-Racism The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was born in Arabia at a time of intense tribalism and classism. Groups were very much divided and showed loyalty to their own clans and class, even if that meant overlooking great faults in [...]
By: Habeeba Husain The Overlooked Legacy Contrary to popular belief, Muslims have been in America from its very beginning. Founding father Thomas Jefferson even had his own copy of the Quran! Many of the Africans forcibly brought to the United States through the Atlantic slave [...]
The Qur'an's Message Of Equality And Diversity The Qur'ān was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him at a time when racism was rampant. The Arabs considered themselves to be superior to the non-Arabs. The wealthy considered themselves superior to the poor, and the masters considered themselves [...]
By: Habeeba Husain The Forgotten History of Muslims in the United States Lately, it feels as though the Western world paints Islam as this new phenomenon that came to the United States only recently. Immigrants from Muslim majority countries started showing their face on American soil in the last few [...]
By: Dr. Khalil Abdur-Rashid American Muslims Have A Moral Duty To Be Anti-Racist Racism is generally defined as the belief that race is the primary factor that determines human abilities and that such factors produce inherent superiorities of one particular group over another.1 Racism is a part of an ideology [...]
By: Habeeba Husain Navigating Islamophobia In our current state of affairs in this country, outwardly practicing Islam can be a frightening endeavor for some. You never know if the person walking alongside you on the footpath or the driver in the car behind you is a person who reviles [...]
In 1964, one of the most influential African American leaders of the 20th century, Malcolm X, embarked on a life-altering spiritual pilgrimage that transformed his views on integration, racial equality, and human brotherhood. The Hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, opened Malcolm's eyes to a [...]
Interview By: Melissa Barreto Candice Elam's Journey to Islam Candice Elam, DNP, FNP-C, accepted Islam 19 years ago. Like many converts, her choice meant practicing a new religion, navigating changing family dynamics, and learning how to maintain her own identity in the wider, and often ethnocentric, Muslim communities. This [...]
