The El-Amins having iftar

DETROIT — “God, we thank you for the food that has been prepared for the nurturing, for the healing of our bodies,” prayed Maurice El-Amin, hands folded together, in ritualistic gesture.

“Amen,” his family responded collectively at the Ramadan dinner table. “Bismillah (in the name of Allah),” said another, as he reached for a date — his first bite since before dawn.

At the Iftar table of the El-Amin family, Black Muslims broke their fast with their Christian relatives. Lively youngsters and toddlers delighted with the excitement of family bonding and plentiful food embodied the blissful vibe. Sitting at helm of the table, a lean man with intense features towered over the rest.

With a smile and a humble glimmer in his eyes, Imam Abdul El-Amin listened to his family members of several generations reminisce over the times they reveled in the halls of his mosque.

During the Ramadan feast, Imam El-Amin managed to unite relatives of different ages and faiths in prayer, laughter and reflection.

This is the imam’s strength and legacy.

The El-Amins’ dinner table is a portrait shared by hundreds of thousands of African American Muslims across the country. Although the first Muslims in America were Africans brought to the United States as slaves, many Black Muslims today are converts from Christian families. They are separated by religious practice, but bound by deeply-rooted family ties.

Although tied by the name of Islam, local African American Muslims and their Arab Muslim neighbors maintain culturally differing communities and practices. Both ethnic minorities endure racial bias; however, their stories are far from the same.

In the living room of his modest Detroit home, surrounded by family, Imam El-Amin waited for the sunset. He sported a kufi hat and was draped in a mellow green “Dashiki”, a loose-fitting traditional West African garb, with an ornate gold design engraved on the collar. His persona embodies the marriage of his African and Muslim identities.

El-Amin was not always a Muslim.

The imam recalled the moment he discovered the religion. One day, his childhood friend came to him with something he thought young Abdul might like.

“What is it?” Abdul asked

“Islam,” his friend replied.

After relishing in tapes and books about Islam, he took the Shahada, a proclamation of his new-found self, in 1976. His second home became Masjid Wali Muhammad, one of the oldest African American Muslim congregations in the nation.

After a short while, El-Amin became disenchanted with the stagnating isolationism of the mosque at the time.

“We could do so much more by interacting with the non-Muslims,” he said.

“That’s one of the advantages that we as African American Muslims have over other Muslims, that we’re able to assimilate with Christians and others easier, because we grew up together.”

About a decade after his “Shahada”, El-Amin founded The Muslim Center, a mosque that was “more in tune with an outreach ministry.”

While the rest of his family members remained Christian, El-Amin’s conversion did not cause complications in the household.

Sitting across from him, his sister Caroline Pruitt, a retired social worker, said while the family initially did not understand what Islam was about, they welcomed the seemingly foreign ideology. She then spent more time around her brother and his friends at the mosque.

“This is wonderful,” she recalled of her early impression of Islam. “This is not divisive at all. This is a loving, kind, warm religion. I saw nothing adverse.”

She said the family embraced El-Amin’s spiritual revival, taking into consideration his dietary needs. At family dinners, her brother’s family could be rest assured his meat would be halal.

Maurice El-Amin, a school administrator, was 6-years-old when his father converted to Islam. Being the only Muslim child among his peers outside his father’s mosque, he faced many challenges growing up.

Maurice said he remembers a time when he received gifts on Christmas and enjoyed bacon. After the family’s conversion, they stopped celebrating the Christian holiday for a while.

“Why can’t I get a toy?” he would ask. “I like bacon, Christmas and painting my Easter eggs. And all of a sudden, ‘You can’t do this; this is bad.'” On the other hand, Maurice’s sister, Zarinah El-Amin Naeem, a book publisher, was born into Islam. She said her experience was much smoother than Maurice’s. By the time she was born, it was ‘in’ for some Black families to convert, she said.

In middle school, other students accepted her, despite their curious questions.

There was that one time when her religion negatively affected her, surprisingly to her family. She recalled Timothy, a tall, skinny middle school classmate, who pulled her scarf off. Gasps filled the room.

Maurice said his family is different from other Black Muslims, in that they were not forced to lead double lives because of their public standing. During the early years of The Muslim Center, fellow Black Muslims kept the religious aspect of their identities underground.

They were known by Muslim-sounding names at the mosque, but used

African American names outside, Maurice said.

The Muslim Center promoted a “sincere” brand of Islam that challenged

African Americans to stand proud, Imam El-Amin said.

As Islam in African American communities became more popular, anti

Muslim sentiment became less prevalent.

Imam El-Amin’s brother, Benjamin Pruitt, a Christian retired educator, said his family drew closer after the 9/11 attacks, despite propaganda perpetuated by the media about Islam.

“We cannot attest to that, based on our personal relationships,” he said.

Following his brother’s conversion, Pruitt witnessed African Americans with great international reputations announce adopting Islam. It was a time when recent Black Muslims like Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, along with numerous jazz musicians, were revered around the world.

Wars in the Middle East, 9/11 and the rise of ISIS have fanned the flames of Islamophobia nationally. The El-Amins acknowledged that anti-Muslim sentiments are harsher on Arabs than Black Muslims. Being publicly Muslim and Black had much less severe undertones than being Muslim and Arab, Zarinah said.

Caroline, the imam’s sister, added that many do not view African American Islam as the same brand of the religion practiced in the Middle East.

“They don’t view them as a threat as they would if you were from one of the

Muslim countries,” she said. “So it’s different. They don’t look at you in the same vein.”

At the iftar table were a hybrid of dishes— dates, macaroni and cheese, hummus, fried chicken, cod and bean pie, a traditional Ramadan favorite among African American Muslims.

Imam El-Amin told stories from the mosque’s history; a force that consolidated communities and shaped the local image of Islam.

It started as group of six or seven families, he said. The Muslim Center was housed in a rented bank building at Davison and Woodrow Wilson Street. Its name was crafted to be simple and relatable.

“We had the opportunity to present a different image to the community,” he said. Unlike other mosques at the time, the center went beyond faith to be involved in community activism with non-Muslims.

The imam recalled when crack pipes were sold next to candy bars in Detroit gas stations. Ironically, the station owners were Arab Muslims, he said.

The Muslim Center eventually convinced the City Council to make the sale of drug paraphernalia illegal, leading to El-Amin becoming the city’s director of service stations.

“It was the Black Muslims that said, ‘No way, not in our town,'” Zarinah added.

Zarinah was a child of the center. She was always the first to arrive and the last to leave. Its message was one of service, she said.

“That was instilled in all of us,” she said.

“You can’t just be a Muslim; you have to actually enact the charity aspect.”

In its early days, there was a small room in the back of The Muslim Center, where volunteer doctors held a free clinic for Detroit’s less fortunate. During Ramadan, they held a “Day of Dignity”, during which about 500 volunteers gave about 1,500 homeless clothing, food and other necessities.

“African American Muslims are well-rounded, integral parts of society,” Zarinah said. “We don’t separate our Islam from the other aspects of who we are.”

At the end of a satisfying meal, a charming voice erupted, singing an African

American Muslim children’s song.

Dances followed.

“We are Muslim boys and girls; one day we’ll reshape this world. He made me, he made you, he made the Muslims, the Christians and the Jews…I’m a little Muslim child…”

Warm laughter ensued. 