Black Muslims' Enduring Legacy in the Americas

In St. Philip parish, on the easternmost tip of Barbados, there is a small, one-room, yellow and green “musalla.” With chipped, white wooden shutters, the prayer space looks like a mix between a chattel house and a beach kiosk, with accents of Islamic architectural flair.

Said to have been built by a local Black convert by the name of Shihabuddin at the front of his family residence, the room can fit six, maybe seven prayer rugs. Alongside four mosques, an academy, a research institute and a school, Shihabuddin’s musalla continues to act as a site of community connection for Muslims in the Caribbean island nation, despite Shihabuddin’s passing.

When one thinks of global Islam’s “representative sites,” as literary scholar Aliyah Khan calls them, images of grand mosques and significant shrines in Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Mali or Pakistan might immediately come to mind. And well they should. Yet, to overlook places such as Shihabuddin’s musalla — and other Islamic centers across the Caribbean, Latin America, the U.S. and Canada — as nodes in Islam’s worldwide networks would be to do a vast disservice to the numerous Muslims who call the hemisphere home.

In particular, it would be to sideline the significance of Black Muslims like Shihabuddin.

Beginning with the first Muslim to arrive with the Spanish in the 16th century, Black Muslims have been part of the American story, navigating enslavement, inequality and numerous other misrepresentations and marginalizations in the region for 500 years.

Today, their enduring legacy influences tens of thousands of Muslims across the region and around the globe.

The activists safeguarding sacred sites across the globe

During an interview in September 2021, Anas Alabbadi, Deputy Director for KAICIID’s Programmes Department, was distracted by a news notification that flashed across his screen: German police had just prevented an attack on a synagogue in Hagen, a city just east of Düsseldorf, Germany.

Having witnessed the devastation of the synagogue attack in the eastern German city of Halle in 2019, Alabbadi was struck again by how events like these underscored the emphasis KAICIID places on supporting and encouraging projects that promote the protection of religious sites.

“We believe, in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that people everywhere must be allowed to practice their faith in peace,” he said, “that religious sites and all places of worship and contemplation should be safe havens, not sites of terror or bloodshed.”

Across the globe, attacks on houses of worship and sacred sites are on the rise.

For example, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops reported in July 2020 that there were 97 attacks on churches in the U.S. since May 2020 alone.

Elsewhere last April, the walls of a mosque in the French city of Rennes were defaced with Islamophobic graffiti. In August 2021, a Hindu temple was ransacked in the remote town of Bhong in the eastern Pakistani province of Punjab.

The list, as they say, could go on and on.

Noting that religious sites are of such significance that it makes them particularly endangered, Alabbadi said, “we want to make sure to protect religious sites so that they can continue to be facilitators of positive peace.”

Photo by Varun Pyasi via Unsplash.

Safeguarding Sacred Sites From Indonesia To Algeria

Given the global scope of the issue, KAICIID is actively providing support to projects to protect places of worship from Africa to Asia, Europe to the Middle East.

When the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) started the process of developing an action plan for reacting to the increase in attacks on religious sites after the bloodshed at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019, KAICIID provided immediate support. KAICIID’s background research included supplying quotes from religious texts for the preamble, information on UNESCO’s work on the preservation of religious sites, and recommendations on the prevention of attacks under UNESCO’s purview.

The result was the “Plan of Action to Safeguard Religious Sites.” According to its preamble, the plan “is a global call to rally around our most basic tenets of humanity and solidarity and to reaffirm the sanctity of all religious sites and the safety of all worshippers who visit houses of worship in a spirit of compassion and respect.”

For Alabbadi, the Plan of Action’s greatest strength lies in its systematic approach to the problem and focus on prevention and response.

“The emphasis is on education, countering hate speech – including on social media – and being prepared to provide care and support when an attack happens,” Alabbadi said.

“Translating such recommendations requires better collaboration between policymakers and religious actors,” he said, “religious actors have a lot to contribute in developing and implementing policies related to the protection of scared sites.”

To that end, over the last two years KAICIID supported projects in the Arab region bringing together peace education and the protection of sacred sites. These projects included the development of a mobile app in Algeria and youth trainings in Tunisia.

In Indonesia, KAICIID organised the 2019 “Jakarta Conference” with the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation (OIC), bringing together religious leaders and policymakers from across Southeast Asia to discuss challenges and opportunities for protecting holy sites. 

The result was the “Jakarta Statement: Together for Diversity — Dialogue in Action,” which included a collective pledge to recognise, preserve, and protect “sites of worship and spiritual heritage and allowing worshippers to use them in peace and harmony.”

Photo by Rohan Reddy via Unsplash.

Reaffirming The Sanctity Of Sacred Sites In Africa

In Africa, KAICIID partnered with the African Union to support 12 projects organised by members of its Interfaith Dialogue Forum (AU-IFDF) specifically focused on the protection of sacred sites.

Agustin Nunez, KAICIID’s Senior Programme Manager for the Africa Region, said the AU’s main theme for 2021 is the promotion of cultural heritage, including the protection of sacred sites.

The partnership, he said, is meant to bring both religious and community actors to the policymaking table “to raise awareness and advocate for the development of regional mechanisms in Africa” to do so.

Among the projects is one in Djibouti where KAICIID-supported religious leaders, elders, youth, CSOs, and NGOs are working together to build a platform to collaborate in preserving and restoring local religious assets. Chief among their priorities is the preservation of holy sites in the eastern African nation.

Not only do such projects contribute concretely to the protection of religious sites, but “promote a peaceful, secure Africa whose development is people-driven” said Nunez, “especially by its women and youth.”

Elsewhere, in the city of Jos, Nigeria, Rev. Zaka Ahuche Peter said his KAICIID Fellows training equipped him to do the same in his country.

That Fellows training includes, “educational modules on the symbolic importance of sacred sites and build Fellows’ capacity to communicate this and diffuse situations through education and creating space for dialogue,” said Alabbadi.

Peter said his relationship with another KAICIID Fellow of a different faith, Fatima Madaki, reveals the “human factor” beyond distrust, helping foster resilience and a mutual respect for the “Other.” He said these kinds of relationships are vital as “attacks on religious sites in Nigeria seem not to abate.

“The fact still remains that ignorance, fanaticism and lack of the fear of God are responsible for destruction of holy sites,” he said, “but in collaboration with religious leaders and training from KAICIID, we are able to send the correct teachings out.”

Farther to the south, in the Nigerian state of Kaduna, Mugu Zakka Bako received a KAICIID 2021-2022 micro grant to organise an interreligious dialogue between local government, civil society organisations, and community leaders to strengthen coherent narratives to respond to violent extremism.

An active and trained peacebuilder whose passion for non-violence as a solution to conflict was moulded out of personal violence against his family members, Bako said “we have been bewitched by a lot of conflicts over natural resources and for ethno-religious, political, and economic reasons.

The conflicts have included numerous attacks on religious sites. “This has happened recently with the burning of churches and mosques in Plateau and some parts of Kaduna state,” he said, “the incessant attacks create insecurity and insecurity is one of Nigeria’s biggest challenges.”

As part of his KAICIID-funded interreligious dialogue sessions, Bako takes participants to different visits to religious sites.

The reactions, said Bako, have been overwhelming. “The outcome has been to foster resilience in the communities where I have worked,” he said, “it has helped religious leaders develop coping capacity and become aware of the need for them to protect their religious sites.

“Today, they are working towards interreligious groupings where Christians protect worship sites of the Muslims, while the Muslims do the same for Christians,” he said.

These kinds of programmes, Alabbadi said, are particularly impactful. With an eye toward expanding programmes like them in the Arab region and Europe in years to come, Alabbadi said, “when imams, priests, and other religious leaders visit each other in hard times and in good times, it signals to the community that it’s okay for them to do the same.”

““This level of relationship is what we call positive peace, to visit and to know what’s behind those walls,””

— Anas Alabbadi

“It is easy to believe negative stories about what is happening behind these walls when you stand outside them,” said Alabbadi, “but once you step inside and see another’s sacred space with your own eyes, it’s a profound, life-changing, life-affirming experience.”

*This post originally appeared on KAICIID.org.

Will Cuba soon get its first mosque? Muslims in Havana hope so

Cuba is in the news these days as relations between the U.S. and Cuba are improving and economic and political bulwarks are beginning to crumble. President Obama said his aim was to "end an outdated approach that, for decades, has failed to advance [U.S. and Cuban] interests, and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries."

Religion has featured in the story as it has continued to develop. Amidst stories about the Pope's role, the Jewish diaspora, and Catholic resurgence what of Cuba's small, but faithful, Muslim population? 

As Religion News Service reported, "A personal appeal by Pope Francis played a key role in finalizing a deal to open relations between the United States and Cuba for the first time in 53 years. The pope wrote a personal letter to President Obama this fall — something he’d never done before — and a separate letter to Cuban President Raul Castro....That resulted in a major U.S. policy shift toward Cuba, including a prisoner swap between the two countries that freed American Alan Gross on Wednesday (Dec. 17)."

*For more on religion & culture, follow @kchitwood

In the midst of the shift in relations and the potential loosening of democratic and economic policies within Cuba, there has been talk of religious liberties as well. CNN reported that Cuba's first Catholic church to be built since 1959 is set to break ground soon in the "the isolated town of Sandino."

From CNN:

“The Sandino church has been 56 years in the making, ever since Fidel Castro took power and Cuba became an officially atheist state.

Only with the visit in 1998 of Pope John Paul II to the island did relations between the Cuban government and Catholic Church begin to thaw. Christmas again became a national holiday, and Cubans faced less official discrimination for practicing their faiths.”

Would this perhaps preclude the construction of Cuba's first mosque? 

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For now, Muslims in Havana gather in Imam Yahya's home to pray toward Mecca. 

For some Muslims in Havana, there is "the Arab House." Owned by a wealthy Arab immigrant who has lived in Cuba since the 1940s it was built based on Andalusian architectural designs. It includes an Arabic museum, an Arabic restaurant, and the place is used by Muslim diplomats for jummah (Friday) prayers, but is off-limits to Muslim converts in Cuba. Outside of the Arab House, private homes are the sole places Muslims can gather for prayer in Cuba.

Over the years, various investors from Qatar to Libya and private organizations such as the Muslim World League, have attempted to supply funding to the Cuban government with the attendant promise to build a public mosque for Muslims to gather at and pray toward Mecca in. However, no attempt has been successful. 

The latest effort has come from Turkey's Religious Affairs Foundation (TDV). Working with local Cuban Muslim community leader Pedro Lazo Torres (a.k.a. Imam Yahya) and said to have backing from President Recept Tayyip Erdogan, this plan too has failed. 

For years now Imam Yahya has led prayer (salat) from his home in Havana. He hoped that with Turkish backing, and promises to significantly fund the project, the mosque might come to serve the estimated 1,500-4,000 Muslims in Cuba. 

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Did Columbus discover a mosque off the coast of Cuba? Experts say no. Erdogan insists. 

To give mytho-historical weight to the project, President Erdogan told the 1st Latin American Muslim Religious Leaders summit (in Turkey) that "America was discovered prior to 1492." Indeed, Erdogan claimed that Muslim sailors reached the Americas in 1178. He then made his most audacious, and talked-about, claim -- that Columbus included the sighting of a mosque off the coast of Cuba in his memoirs. He said, "we speak about this with my Cuban brothers. And a mosque will suit that peak very nicely." 

While historians, anthropologists, and scientists overwhelmingly challenged, or even refuted, Erdogan's claim, the Turkish President doubled down and insisted that, "an objective writing of history will show the contribution of the East, the Middle East and Islam to the science and arts." 

 "As the president of my country, I cannot accept that our civilization is inferior to other civilizations," Erdogan said. Certainly, his attempt to build a mosque in Cuba and to rally Latin American Muslim leaders around him is an attempt to buttress his brand of Islamist politics, what some, such as Asef Bayat, are calling "post-Islamist." By supporting Latin American Islam and offering funds to build mosques in places such as Cuba, Erdogan might be attempting to present Islam as a global brand made up of multiple cultures, languages, and histories. 

Still, he has a long way to go. Especially in Cuba. 

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Turkish President Erdogan is attempting to exert more influence over Latin American Islam with efforts in Cuba and across the hemisphere. 

For his part, Imam Yahya was disappointed at the news that Cuba rejected the plans for his country's first mosque. He expressed dismay at the decision, noting that Russia was granted permission to build an Orthodox church in the country and now Catholic churches are again being constructed, but Muslims in Cuba still have no official place of worship.

Plainly, it is not easy to be Muslim in Cuba. With antagonizers calling Muslims such as Torres a "terrorist," being teased for wearing the thobe (an ankle length garment, robe) in the Caribbean heat, or trying to avoid pork in a nation in love with "the other white meat" things are made only more difficult without an official masjid to gather in. 

And yet, as relations thaw between the U.S. and Cuba and Catholics stake out their claim in the island nation, Torres and others are hopeful that it means propitious things for Cuba's Muslims. For now, they continue to gather ismillah ("in the name of Allah") and along with their obligatory prayers toward Mecca offer up ua (supplications) that Islam might grow in Cuba -- mosque or no mosque. 

*UPDATE: The first publicly mosque is now open in Havana. Sponsored by Saudi dollars with input from several other Muslim majority nations (including Turkey's Diyanet) it is located at Calle Oficío, No. 18 on the corners of Obrapía & Obispo. It was opened in 2016.