By Imam Abu Laith Luqman Ahmad
“We can swim in denial or continue kicking the can down the road. Nevertheless, there seems to be data that shows that the American Muslim convert community, a community already fractionalized, marginalized, and historically disadvantaged because of race, are at great risk of extinction, and here’s why.” – Imam Abu Laith Luqman Ahmad.
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In the view of many Muslims, Black American Muslims aren’t considered a real civilization of people in the first place, let alone a declining one. Black Muslims themselves do not regard themselves as a new and distinct civilizations of Muslims. That right there is a problem. A problem that is so pronounced, that academic, and demographic studies about the status and conditions of Muslims in America whether it is mental health, family, mosque participation, new mosque construction, congregation size, or generational continuity, rarely even include Black Americans Muslims. To say that we are increasingly regarded by many as a fractional and insignificant part of the American Muslim demographic., is an understatement. In the 1980s Black American Muslims and converts to Islam were about one-third of the Muslim population of the United States. Today they are a mere 13%. That was in 2016, some people think the number today is more like 10% of the total American Muslim population. When people talk about the future of Islam in America, population growth, new masjid construction, generational continuity, the growth and expansion of supporting non-profit organizations, new Muslim schools, Black American Muslims and converts to Islam, are conspicuously left out of the conversation. That’s another part of the problem.
For those who are paying attention, there is ample evidence that American Muslim convert communities in the United States, the majority of whom are Black American converts to Islam, are headed for possible extinction as a civilization. Well, perhaps not total extinction but certainly headed for nearly total marginalization and at risk to nearly disappear into thin air. This is a tough, taboo topic, unsettling at best. If any of it is true, which I believe it is, then we’ve got a crisis on our hands of civilizational proportion. There is no intelligent way to ignore this conversation.
Many folks prefer that American Muslim converts are oblivious to their own realities, especially when it comes to the decline of convert communities. Some people, even some converts, would rather that the American Muslim convert community look at the world through the rose colored glasses of others, and not through their own reality. In fact the national narrative as reflected on the news, in politics, movies and television, of the American Muslim, is that of a nearly invisible community. Notwithstanding that there is an abundance of first hand accounts, testimonies, anecdotal evidence, and my own discussions with Imams my own communication and thousands of Muslims across the United States confirms that Black American Muslims are on a a precipitous and steady civilizational decline without a doubt.
That is the reality on the ground. Certainly, we (Black American Muslims) are alive and present, and a relevant part of Muslim America, but there are a trunk load of issues to contend with. We are a civilization of new Muslims who are already damaged by post-slavery oppression and marginalization, self-hate, coming from a hyper-jaahiliyyah lifestyle of broken homes, single parent households, pimp-hoe culture, coupled with multi-spheres of foreign Islamic influence. Add to that a trunk load of life changing, out of context, fatwas randomly thrown at our people from every which way over a period of forty years. If you add that all up, then there is no doubt that we are being slowly navigated into irrelevancy and extinction. That is a lot for any new civilization to handle, and all it has done is to add to the confusion and to spur debate. Debating has become like the new form of worship (ibaadah). We’ve raised an entire generation of Muslims who believe that debating is a form of practicing Islam. All the while the Prophet (SAWS) said, “No people ever went astray after Allah guided them, except that they were overcome with debating“. [At-Tirmithi].
We can swim in denial or continue kicking the can down the road. Nevertheless, there seems to be data that shows that the American Muslim convert community, a community already fractionalized, marginalized, and historically disadvantaged because of race, are at great risk of extinction, and here’s why.
Black American Muslims, who still constitute the overwhelming majority of converts to Islam in America, rank dead last on every socio-economic barometer that measures well being in the United States of America. This does not change when they convert to Islam. Add to that the terrible burden of marginalization and near civilizational irrelevancy by the rest of the Muslim world, near zero growth as a religious demographic and it all adds up to an undeniable path towards extinction. That’s the way it looks on the ground based on the information we have. More isn’t studied about it because quite simply, Converts to Islam, specifically Black American converts to Islam, to most, even to themselves, simply aren’t worth the time or the investment, and it’s hard to say otherwise with a straight face. By all accounts as far as I can see, our own survival doesn’t matter to us unless someone else is willing to pay the cost, do the work, and hold our hand, and there’s no one else left, who is willing to do that.
The Pew Research Center, a well-known respected organization that has accumulated highly credible amounts of research and data about Muslims in America, estimates that there were “about 3.3 million Muslims of all ages living in the United States in 2015”.[1] Which amounts to about 1% of the U.S. population (322 million) at the time of the study. They estimate also, that by the year 2050, Muslims will constitute 2% of the American population, doubling their current percentage of 1%. which is why some people say that Islam is the fastest growing religion in America.
So all indications seem to indicate that there is a clear trajectory of growth of Islam and Muslims in the United States; numbers of Muslims, growth in new masjid construction, new Islamic schools, and institutions. Except in the Black American Muslim and convert community where new Masjid construction is at a virtual standstill. In fact, the number of African American Muslim communities and masaajid that cater to converts is on a decline.
Convert Muslims used exuberantly to believe, and many still do, that the glowing numbers of the Muslim increase in the United States meant that people were converting to Islam in droves, and that although the immigrant community was growing, the convert community was growing in similar proportion. That might have been the case 40 years ago. However, today, Islam is growing in America today largely through immigration of Muslims from Muslim lands, and in people having children, not through conversion. Over half of the projected growth of Muslims in America from the years 2010 to 2015 were from immigration.[2] New data released by the Pew Center in July 2017 states that excluding African American Muslims who are in prisons or otherwise institutionalized, American born blacks make up just 13% of the American Muslim adult population, which is less than half the 20 years ago number of 33% which places the current number of African American Muslims (excluding children) at around 266,000.[3] That’s down from just a few years ago. Still we would be hard pressed to locate that many AA Muslims in congregations because of the increasing scarcity of Black American or convert masaajid in the United States. Most Black American Muslims operate as individuals outside of communities, and an estimated 6-8 out of 10 adult Muslims in the Black American convert community aren’t married. Still we are producing children, many out of wedlock. Marriage is in near shambles. And if we don’t get this marriage thing straightened out, we’re poised to become the first self- bastardizing ummah in Muslim history.
There is other data as well which suggests that the American Muslim convert community is not growing in net numbers. Dr. Besheer Mohamed, a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center, and a Muslim himself, concluded in a January 2016 report that; “people leave Islam at the same rate that people convert to Islam”. He also concluded that; “There has been little net change in the size of the American Muslim population in recent years due to conversion.” (Mohamed, 2016)[4] This would seem to indicate that the American Muslim convert community is pretty close to zero net growth right now if you look at the raw numbers. My numerous conversations with imams, activists in the convert community, individuals on the ground who work in da’wah, and people paying attention to these trends, seem to confirm Dr. Basheer’s and the Pew Research Center’s conclusions.
If these conclusions and observations are even close to correct, and I believe that they are, then we have to consider that the convert community is headed for possible extinction. If such is true, that means that the demographic landscape of Muslim America over the next 30 years will change drastically. It already is changing faster than many people, especially coverts to Islam, realize. One of the reasons why you do not see African American, White American, or Latino American Muslims presented too much in the national narrative is because the numbers of people simply aren’t there. Thirty years from now, by the year 2050, if there is no change in current the trend toward decline, the American Muslim convert community, and their children will be probably be around 5% of the total population of Muslims in America. That’s problem.
Think it can’t happen? Then let’s consider something else; according to a 2011 CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) report, between 2000, and 2010, the number of masaajid (mosques) in the United States increased from 1,209, to 2106. An increase of 74%[5]. The overwhelming majority of new masaajid built from the ground up (estimated 90%) have been built, run and sustained by and primarily for Muslim immigrants. The American Muslim immigrant community is moving forward in leaps and bounds on many fronts wal al—humdu lillaah. In addition to that, according to another 2015 CAIR report; “The USA’s estimated 2.4 million Muslims – are mostly middle class and willing to adopt the American way of life.
this country; employment, access to health care, two parent families, college education, business ownership, incarceration rates, and access to capital. This is the reality, and this is why the convert community is being left behind on many fronts.
At this point, the political will for (immigrant Muslims) to address or be concerned about socio-economic, spiritual, developmental, or da’wah issues related to the American Muslim convert community is almost non-existent. The obvious moral imperative is to look at Islam in America as an all for one, one for all situation and to look at ourselves as a single brotherhood working together across the board. However, the operational and historical reality suggests otherwise.
The reality is that there are two distinct Muslim Americans separated by Muslim converts, of all races on one side, and the immigrant community on the other side. The burgeoning divide between . Sure, there are plenty examples of integration, mixing, and some amounts of local cooperation, but for the most part, we’re talking about two distinctly different communities, with two distinctly different trajectories. In the midst of it all, Immigrant communities by and large are growing and convert communities are declining pretty much across the board.
Immigrant Muslim communities are doing what they view are in the best interests for their constituents and for the people who help build, fund and support their masaajid and communities. Convert Muslims and communities that serve their needs, have been stuck in decline for a long time, not even realizing or openly discussing that they have issues that are specific to them, or acknowledging the demographic decline. All that is starting to change as a new awareness is setting in, but it’s happening in a somewhat awkward way. Just seven to ten years ago, it wasn’t acceptable for converts to even mention that their condition overall as Black Americans, differ from that of the general immigrant community.
Not too long ago you couldn’t talk about the racial divide, about the influence of foreign Muslim groups, sectarianism and confusing sub ideology on the convert community, or the sense of abandonment that many converts to Islam feel when they come into the faith. 10 years ago, people did not talk about the fact that there is a high turnover rate of converts to Islam and those who end up leaving the religion. So now all of that is coming out at once, so it’s a halting conversation that is a little disjointed and seems to go all over the place.
Let’s be honest. There are in fact, two distinctly different Muslim Americas; one made up of immigrants who are better educated, more affluent, more organized and more poised for upward mobility as citizens and as a Muslim community, and the other are the converts and largely African American Muslim counterparts, who are poorer, less educated, higher percentages of ex-convicts, single parent homes, less family support as far as their Islam is concerned, and very naïve to the realities of Islam in America and the quest for power and control.
There are plenty of moral reasons, but virtually no practical, or political reasons for immigrant communities to look back and lend a hand to the convert community. If you think that politics do not figure prominently in the inner workings of Muslim America, then you are woefully out of touch. Still, even if there was a a national spiritual catharsis and a serous concerted effort to attend to the needs of the American Muslim converts, it would run into numerous challenges as long as the American Muslim convert community does not do and think for themselves and determine their own self intersts as Muslims. The groundwork has been laid for the success of immigrant Muslim communities and the groundwork has been laid for the failure of convert communities. I spell out some of the main challenges of the convert community in my book ‘Double Edged Slavery’, as well as other articles on my blog.
American Muslim Immigrant communities have done pretty well in overall in building up a viable religious and social infrastructure of masaajid, schools, institutions, legal, engineering, scientific and medical professionals, as well as research, service, and professional organizations, business men and women and strong intergenerational families. The generation that is coming are very educated, engaging, focused, and more and more are distancing themselves from some of the rigidity and backwardness of the old country. These are viable building blocks for any religious community in America, Muslim or otherwise.
Black Muslim and convert communities on the other hand, have not fared as well. There is a huge generational disconnect between one generation and the other.
As pop psychology replaces scripture, and the absence of generational continuity of Islam becomes common amongst younger Muslim generations, our ability to build Muslim communities for the future will be greatly compromised. The foundation of Islam is crumbling in Black Muslim America. The Quran and prophetic tradition are no longer the go to documents for guidance. There are scant institutional vehicles in the convert community (including masaajid), to pass anything along to our younger generation. Interestingly enough, the American Muslim convert community has spent much of the past thirty years under the inspiration of a dozen or so foreign spheres of religious influence. Whether it’s been salafiyyism, the different brands of Sufism, jihadism, the caliphate ideology, groups like Hizb ul Tah’reer, the Jamaa’aat ul Tabligh, the Ikhwaan ul Muslimeen, a phalanx of African Sheikhs, and others. Add to that, the roaming cheerleader section of Muslim converts who move from one issue to the next, providing the cheerleading or groupie section on a variety of global islamic issues that have little to do with their condition at home. Yet, there are negligible examples where convert loyalty to these outside groups, or dedication to outside and global issues have benefitted indigenous convert communities. There has been very little reciprocity.
Another unfortunate phenomenon that has occured is that the American Muslim convert community has spent a great deal of the last three decades arguing over religious minutia, debating over micro-doctrine, and looking overseas, sometimes to failed societies, for answers to their problems here at home. The Prophet ﷺ said, “No people ever went astray, after they were guided, except that they were overcome by arguing”. [at-Tirmidhi]
Arguing and disputing with one another has taken up an incredible amount of time and energy and has not bode well overall for the convert community. So while we were busy arguing amongst one another about shoes and socks, and madhhabs and minhaj, and sparring with one another using the views of our sheikhs as if we’re playing Rokem Sockem robots, something extraordinarily consequential has occurred. Time has elapsed, and a lot of time was wasted
Additionally, we’ve created a very confusing, hostile and contentious climate in many masaajid, and too many masaajid have been overrun with foreign sectarianized ideology that dismisses cultural and physical realities on indigenous peoples, particularly, the descendants of slaves. Although that trend is changing now, the effects are already in place and has had generational consequence. People are waking up, but they are waking up to emptied out masaajid, mass splintering, a nearly insurmountable leadership void, and a deeply entrenched sense chaos. Like someone bragging about and admiring their house for years and they suddenly realize that the contractor misled them, and that the house is infested with termites, the electrical system were the wrong specs, and that the septic system has been backed up for months.
This is not to diminish at all the good that is taking place in convert communities, and I do see light on the horizon in sha Allah. However, it is an uphill battle. It has to start with raising consciousness which is what many of us are working to do. Once Black American Muslims and converts realize that that they are free to work in their own self-interests according to Islam, without looking at things through the lenses of immigrant Muslims who mean well, but in many cases do not have a clue about our needs, then perhaps there can be forward motion. That’s just for starters and that’s starting to happen slowly.
This is not meant in any way as a slight towards immigrant Muslims; we are all, at least in principle, brothers and sisters in islam. It is simply the reality of our condition that we be realistic and truthfully forthcoming, and it is not a matter of placing blame on this or that group. There is light at the end of the tunnel because Allah is Light, but this is an uphill struggle and many of our people do not yet know or believe that they are free and there are many others who fear that indigenous Muslims would wake up.
Another thing we have to keep in mind is that as the convert community is continues to decline and lack in institutional congregational presence, there are unavoidable consequences to that. Just add up the numbers of Jum’ah attendees or the number of people who are connected to actual physical masaajid or communities. You need the critical mass in order to have protracted forward motion. Muslim communal and civilizational growth is tied to congregation, family and governance . In fact the basis of Muslim community centers around things like congregation, an Imam, a shura, establishing prayer in congregation, and responsible individuals who are in charge of dealing with the different religious as well as temporal affairs of the Muslims. Nearly every immigrant community that I know of, has these elements. Without them we are simply a scattered community that only comes together on the Eids maybe. Then there are talented, willing, energetic and intelligent people in our midst who have no where to plug in. the doors of inclusion are locked to them in many fledgling convert communities. Thousands of individual Islands can not sustain communal growth. That’s the math. Islam is a way of life but it’s also a system and if we ignore the systems aspect of our religion, then we’re just reduced to wishful thinking. Then there’s the issue of religious knowledge (a whole separate topic) which many of us completely ignore.
It’s not so much worrying about who Allah will hold accountable for it because Allah will hold all of us, everyone for everything according to how He sees fit. It’s more a matter of recognizing the trending decline of our communities and coming up with strategies, for stemming the decline and for rebuilding. Too many want to sit around and chant slogans, and rallying cries, or wallow in denial while the community is crumbling. Now is not the time for that. It is tragic when people enter into this faith and fail to pass it down to their children, or sometimes not even fully embrace it themselves. even worse when people live their Islam through someone else’s reality without never having experienced its core beauty.
In order to fully engage your Islam so that it becomes more than a bevy of regurgitated slogans, successive, ideological bandwagons, faddish adaptations, and after-market creeds that people can barely understand, that you pick up and then discard later, you have to believe in Islam at it’s source; the Quran, the Sunna and the authenticated hadith of the Prophet (SAWS). You must believe in it totality, and practice it as a lifestyle to the best of your ability. However, the secret to it all, is that you must be engaged with Allah; that you must worship Him Alone without partners. There are five things we should focus on if we are to stem the tide towards Black American Muslim civilizational decline in my opinion. 1. Generational continuity of our faith and religion. 2. Preservation of our history. 3. Congregation. 4. Religious governance. 5. Individual and group accountability. 6. Simplicity. Without these six elements, any path forward is murky at best. Wal Allahul Musta’aan.
Imam Abu Laith Luqman Ahmad
American born Luqman Ahmad is a Sunni Muslim, the son of converts to Islam. He is a Philadelphia native, a writer, researcher and consultant. He is presently an Imam, khateeb and Resident Scholar at the Toledo Masjid al-Islam in Toledo, Ohio. He is a former executive committee member of the North America Imams Federation, a founding member of COSVIO, (the Council of Sacramento Valley Islamic Organizations), and the author of the new “Double Edged Slavery“, a critical and authoritative look at the condition of African American and convert Muslims in the United States. He also authored, “The Devils Deception of the Modern day Salafiyyah Sect”, a detailed look at modern-day extremist salafi ideology. He blogs at, imamluqman.wordpress.com, and can be reached at imamabulaith@yahoo.com. You can support his work through cash app to: $abulaith2
[1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/06/a-new-estimate-of-the-u-s-muslim-population/.
[2] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/06/a-new-estimate-of-the-u-s-muslim-population/.
[3] http://www.pewforum.org/2017/07/26/demographic-portrait-of-muslim-americans/.
[4] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/06/a-new-estimate-of-the-u-s-muslim-population/.
[5] https://www.cair.com/images/pdf/The-American-Mosque-2011-part-1.pdf
[6] https://cair.com/press-center/cair-in-the-news/4804-cair-american-muslims-reject-extremes.html
