It has recently come to my attention that readers tend to grow tired of a columnist when he writes nothing but acerbic condemnations of various injustices and social indignities without bringing anything positive to the table. Since in the past I’ve admittedly been guilty of the above offense and would now like to follow the tradition of all great columnists in attaining faux credentials as a “man of the people,” I’ve decided to start the New Year with a glittering panegyric of approval for an organization that has more than earned it this past week, UT’s very own Muslim Student Association.
Last Thursday night the Muslim Student Association brought the activist group CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) to campus to host a timely and profoundly informative panel on the African-American Muslim experience. The Executive Director of CAIR’s Tampa chapter, Ahmed Bedier, wasted no time in pointing out the importance of such events. He noted that a central goal of CAIR was to bring African-Americans and Muslim immigrants together to work for their civil liberties and civil rights, which are increasingly under attack in the anti-Islamic hysteria of what Mr. Bedier referred to as the “post-9/11” climate.
What could better bring African-Americans and Muslim immigrants together to work for CAIR’s goal than the spreading of understanding of Islam’s long and rich history as an integral part of the African-American experience? For this purpose, the event’s key lecturer was Dr. Ihsan Bagby, Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Kentucky and, notably, one of the arch-jingoist David Horowitz’s 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America (which is a great honor, as noted by fellow “danger” Dr. Stanley Aronowitz, who pointed out that the listed professors were “Dangerous to what? To conservatism and right-wing lunaticism?”).
Dr. Bagby’s detailed and comprehensive historical exposition underscored the fact that Islam has been a potent force of resistance since the beginning of the African-American experience. While afflicted by the most barbarous and unforgivable Holocaust that history had ever seen, Islam served both as an affirmation of black dignity in the search for identity and as a powerful tool to resist America.
Approximately 10 percent of all Africans captured and enslaved by America were Muslim, the largest proportion being from S