Islam in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives - Islamic Books ...

3 0 0Islam i n World Cult u r e swhose location changes from year to year. Its national headquarters are inPlainfield, Indiana.Other Muslim political organizations are far more narrowly focused on politicalactivism and lobbying in Washington, D.C. Among them is the Councilon American-Islamic Relations, founded in 1994. CAIR often leads the fightagainst anti-Muslim prejudice in the United States; its representatives, for example,regularly appear on rather cantankerous “shock-talk” shows, wherethey are generally hit with a barrage of questions equating U.S. Muslims to terrorists.CAIR also lobbies government officials on such foreign policy issues asthe “war on terror” and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and it represents thecivil rights of U.S. Muslims. Some of the organization’s critics, in an effort todelegitimize it, have called it “radical,” although such claims have not stoppedmany moderate Muslims from supporting its efforts.Many of these national Muslim organizations tend to divide along lines ofrace and ethnicity. ISNA and CAIR, for example, are generally led and patronizedby immigrant Muslims. African American Muslims, on the other hand,tend to follow the leadership of W. D. Muhammad, Louis Farrakhan, Jamil Al-Amin, or other African American Muslim leaders. Muhammad’s group, nowcalled the American Society of Muslims, and Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam arethe best-organized African American Muslim associations. Muhammad publishesthe Muslim Journ a l , a newspaper dedicated to covering international, national,and local issues of concern to black Muslims. Similarly, Farrakhan is responsiblefor the Final Call, a newspaper that is distributed in part by a networkof usually young, bow-tied men hawking the paper on the streets of urbanblack America. Both Muhammad and Farrakhan draw thousands, from longdistances, to see them speak during their public appearances. In addition,both men have engaged in interfaith dialogue: Farrakhan at the Million FamilyMarch and Muhammad with Jews and especially Roman Catholics associatedwith the Focolare movement for unity and solidarity.The racial divide among national Muslim leaders reflects deeper racial divisionsamong U.S. Muslims at the grassroots level. Most Muslims believe thatGod does not discriminate and that Islam is a religion applicable to all, regardlessof race or any other social identifier. Most Muslims uphold values ofracial equality and reject racism. But the realities of Muslim life in the UnitedStates do not always correspond to these ideals. African American Muslims,like other African Americans in the United States, often face racial prejudiceand discrimination from nonblack coreligionists. In response to U.S. racismmore generally, African Americans have built their own mosques and schools.Black Muslims also tend to marry other African Americans, as well. SomeAfrican American Muslims, such as DePaul University professor Aminah Mc-Cloud, have argued that immigrant attitudes toward blacks can be condescending,especially in assuming a lack of Islamic knowledge or legitimacy