Opinion Ramadan: A centuries-old American tradition

Many forget that the first Muslims to celebrate Ramadan in America were African slaves.

This weekend marks the beginning of Ramadan. Nearly one-fourth of the world will observe the annual fast and eight million Muslims in the United States will abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset during the holy month. A gruelling task at any time of the year, Ramadan this year will be especially daunting during the long and hot summer days.

Islam in America is rapidly expanding. It is the fastest-growing religion in the nation, and the second most practiced faith in twenty states. These demographic shifts prompted a prominent Los Angeles-based imam to comment, "Ramadan is a new American tradition." The cleric's forward-looking pronouncement marks Islam's recent arrival in the US. However, this statement reveals a pathology afflicting a lot of Muslim Americans today - an inability to look back and embrace the opening chapters of Muslim American history written by enslaved African Muslims.

Social scientists estimate that 15 to 30 percent, or, "[a]s many as 600,000 to 1.2 million slaves" in antebellum America were Muslims. 46 percent of the slaves in the antebellum South were kidnapped from Africa's western regions, which boasted "significant numbers of Muslims".

These enslaved Muslims strove to meet the demands of their faith, most notably the Ramadan fast, prayers, and community meals, in the face of comprehensive slave codes that linked religious activity to insubordination and rebellion. Marking Ramadan as a "new American tradition" not only overlooks the holy month observed by enslaved Muslims many years ago, but also perpetuates their erasure from Muslim-American history.

Between Sunnah and slave codes

Although the Quran "[a]llows a believer to abstain from fasting if he or she is far from home or involved in strenuous work," many enslaved Muslims demonstrated transcendent piety by choosing to fast while bonded. In addition to abstaining from food and drink, enslaved Muslims held holy month prayers in slave quarters, and put together iftars - meals at sundown to break the fast - that brought observing Muslims together. These prayers and iftars violated slave codes restricting assembly of any kind.

For instance, the Virginia Slave Code of 1723 considered the assembly of five slaves as an "unlawful and tumultuous meeting", convened to plot rebellion attempts. Every state in the south codified similar laws barring slave assemblages, which disparately impacted enslaved African Muslims observing the Holy Month.

Therefore, practicing Islam and observing Ramadan and its fundamental rituals, for enslaved Muslims in antebellum America, necessitated the violation of slave codes. This exposed them to barbaric punishment, injury, and oftentimes, even death. However, the courage to observe the holy month while bonded, and in the face of grave risk, highlights the supreme piety of many enslaved Muslims.

Ramadan was widely observed by enslaved Muslims. Yet, this history is largely ignored by Muslim American leaders and laypeople alike - and erased from the modern Muslim American narrative.

Rewriting the history of Ramadan in the US

Muslim America was almost entirely black during the antebellum Era. Today, it stands as the most diverse Muslim community in the world. Today African Americans comprise a significant part of the community along with Muslims of South Asian and Arab descent. Latin Americans are a rapidly growing demographic in the community, ensuring that Muslims in America are a microcosm of their home nation's overall multiculturalism.

In the US today, Ramadan dinner tables are sure to include staple Arab or Pakistani dishes. Yet, many Muslim Americans will break the fast with tortas and tamales, halal meatloaf and greens. Muslim diversity in the US has reshaped Ramadan into a multicultural American tradition. The breadth of Muslim America's racial and cultural diversity today is unprecedented, making this year's Ramadan - and the Ramadans to follow - new in terms of how transcultural and multiracial the tradition has become.

This Muslim American multiculturalism comes with many challenges: Namely, intra-racism, Arab supremacy, and anti-black racism prevents cohesion inside and outside of American mosques. These deplorable trends perpetuate the erasure of the Muslim slave narrative. Integrating this history will not only mitigate racism and facilitate Muslim American cohesion, but also reveal the deep-rootedness of the faith, and its holiest month, on US soil.

This Ramadan honouring the memory of the first Muslim Americans and their struggle for freedom and sharing their story with loved ones at the iftar table, seems an ideal step towards rewriting this missing chapter of Muslim American history into our collective consciousness.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/06/ramadan-american-tradition-201462714534443176.html

Khaled A Beydoun is the Critical Race Studies Teaching Fellow at the UCLA School of Law.


Now that is something I had no idea about.

Yep! It's the right-wingers who give the impression that the U.S. doesn't have a long tradition with Islam. Thomas Jefferson owned a Q'uran which our first Muslim Congressman, Keith Ellison, was sworn in with (now we have two Muslim representatives).

The first treaty the U.S. ever entered into was with a Muslim nation, Tripolitania, in the Treaty of Tripoli which also happened to codify the fact that the U.S. is a secular nation:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen [Muslims],—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Mohammedan] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Well knock me down and call me shorty!!!! Thanks for that, you can always learn new things I'm glad to say!

Sassy wrote:Well knock me down and call me shorty!!!!   Thanks for that, you can always learn new things I'm glad to say!

No problem! The records of soldier names from the Revolutionary War also includes these names:

Salem Poor, Yusuf Ben Ali, Bampett Muhamed, Francis Saba, Joseph Saba

Morocco was the first country to recognize the U.S. as an independent nation, as well

It was! Bet some of them wish they hadn't now lol

The US Marine Corps song includes the words, "To the shores of Tripoli." Other than Britain, the first war for the US was on the shores of North Africa, to put an end to pirate activities in the Med.

Wiki wrote:The First Barbary War (1801–1805), also known as the Tripolitan War or the Barbary Coast War, was the first of two wars fought between the United States and the Northwest African Berber Muslim states known collectively as the Barbary States. These were the Ottoman provinces of Tripoli, Algiers, and Tunis, which were enjoying a large autonomy, as well as the independent Sultanate of Morocco. The war was fought because U.S. President Thomas Jefferson refused to pay the high tributes demanded by the Barbary states and because they were seizing American merchant ships and enslaving the crews for high ransoms. It was the first declared war the United States fought on foreign land and seas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War

Well, I certainly never knew that Ramadan had been celebrated in America for centuries. Amazing how much you can still learn at our age lol

America is only a few centuries old in the first place.

As a nation before someone feels like being smart.

So? Just goes to show Ramadan has been celebrated there virtually since it's conception.

Саммерс wrote:As a nation before someone feels like being smart.

I still feel like being smart! By your reasoning, the U.S. is considerably older than Ireland.  ::D:: 

Ben_Reilly wrote:

Саммерс wrote:As a nation before someone feels like being smart.

I still feel like being smart! By your reasoning, the U.S. is considerably older than Ireland.  ::D:: 

It's older than the Republic of Ireland.
It's a little baby in comparison to the age of Ireland's history and culture though.

Sassy wrote:So?   Just goes to show Ramadan has been celebrated there virtually since it's conception.

Just saying.

Саммерс wrote:

Ben_Reilly wrote:

Саммерс wrote:As a nation before someone feels like being smart.

I still feel like being smart! By your reasoning, the U.S. is considerably older than Ireland.  ::D:: 

It's older than the Republic of Ireland.
It's a little baby in comparison to the age of Ireland's history and culture though.

Not really, there was lots of history and culture here before Europeans arrived. We just don't pay as much attention to it.

Ben_Reilly wrote:

Саммерс wrote:

It's older than the Republic of Ireland.
It's a little baby in comparison to the age of Ireland's history and culture though.

Not really, there was lots of history and culture here before Europeans arrived. We just don't pay as much attention to it.

The United States isn't a Native American nation though.

Basically:
Your country is older than my country.
Your nation is A LOT younger than my nation.

Саммерс wrote:Basically:
Your country is older than my country.
Your nation is A LOT younger than my nation.

Ireland is only older as a nation because your conquistadors didn't need to cross an ocean.  ::D:: But they weren't the first people, or nation, in Ireland.

Ben_Reilly wrote:

Саммерс wrote:Basically:
Your country is older than my country.
Your nation is A LOT younger than my nation.

Ireland is only older as a nation because your conquistadors didn't need to cross an ocean.  ::D:: But they weren't the first people, or nation, in Ireland.

America is only older as a country because your previous country DID need to cross an ocean.
What's your point?

I'm saying that your people (ancestors) spread west and stopped once they had conquered those who were already living there, probably about four to five thousand years ago. So they didn't migrate as far as my ancestors did and it didn't take them as long as it took mine.

Ben_Reilly wrote:I'm saying that your people (ancestors) spread west and stopped once they had conquered those who were already living there, probably about four to five thousand years ago. So they didn't migrate as far as my ancestors did and it didn't take them as long as it took mine.

I'm not disputing that.
I'm saying my nation and it's history and culture are much older.
I don't see how what you're saying takes away from that.

Whatever, Ramadan in America is as old as America.

Саммерс wrote:America is only a few centuries old in the first place.

 ::smthg:: ::smthg:: ::smthg:: 

Саммерс wrote:

Ben_Reilly wrote:I'm saying that your people (ancestors) spread west and stopped once they had conquered those who were already living there, probably about four to five thousand years ago. So they didn't migrate as far as my ancestors did and it didn't take them as long as it took mine.

I'm not disputing that.
I'm saying my nation and it's history and culture are much older.
I don't see how what you're saying takes away from that.

Just pointing out how that happened, really. And the fact is, Ireland's nothing like it was in, say, 1800, any more than the U.S. is.

Sassy wrote:Whatever, Ramadan in America is as old as America.

I never said otherwise, did I?

Ben_Reilly wrote:

Саммерс wrote:

I'm not disputing that.
I'm saying my nation and it's history and culture are much older.
I don't see how what you're saying takes away from that.

Just pointing out how that happened, really. And the fact is, Ireland's nothing like it was in, say, 1800, any more than the U.S. is.

Does that take away it's thousands of years of history and culture?

Саммерс wrote:

Ben_Reilly wrote:

Ireland is only older as a nation because your conquistadors didn't need to cross an ocean.  ::D:: But they weren't the first people, or nation, in Ireland.

America is only older as a country because your previous country DID need to cross an ocean.
What's your point?

That his dad is bigger than your dad?

eddie wrote:

Саммерс wrote:

Ben_Reilly wrote:

Ireland is only older as a nation because your conquistadors didn't need to cross an ocean.  ::D:: But they weren't the first people, or nation, in Ireland.

America is only older as a country because your previous country DID need to cross an ocean.
What's your point?

That his dad is bigger than your dad?

eddie, that reminds me of the movie The Quiet Man.

Remember the classic fight between John Wayne and Victor McLaglen?

And of course the delightful and lovely Maureen Ohara

eddie wrote:

Саммерс wrote:

America is only older as a country because your previous country DID need to cross an ocean.
What's your point?

That his dad is bigger than your dad?

lol