The Islamic Party in North America

Speaker 0 00:00:00 In episode seven of the Islam on the Edges Podcast, I talked to Imam Hares about the Islamic Party in North America. African-American, Muslim and thought and activism are still relatively understudied areas, even though they constitute one quarter to one third of the Muslim population in North America. African-American Muslims did not receive as much attention in the study of Islam as the Muslims of immigrant origin. This situation is thankfully changing now as more research comes to light, and as researchers and students continue talking to African American Muslim leaders, men and women, we can expect a much better understanding of the history and contributions that this community has made to Islam in America and the broader society. Welcome to episode seven of Islam on the Edges Channel of the Madam Podcast, a project by the Man Center for Global Islamic Studies, George Macs University in Virginia. In this special episode I host Iam Haggs and Iam and a social justice leader. Speaker 0 00:01:00 The episode traces the origins of the Islamic Party in North America within the African American Muslim community. It looks at the transnational links with the Muslims in Pakistan, Libya, and other countries that have contributed to developing ideas within the Islamic Party in North America. Iam Griggs talks about the relationship between the nation of Islam and the Islamic Party, the importance of Malcolm X and the connection with the Muslims in the Caribbean. The Islamic party in North America was mostly active in the 1970s and the 1980s. It left the lasting influence on a generation of Muslim activists in the African American community. This episode sheds light on the legacy of the Islamic Party in North America. My guest, IAM ha Griggs, is the Imam of Community Mosque of Winston-Salem in North Carolina. He's the director of Social Justice and Civic engagement at the Islamic Council of North America. It's Council for Social Justice. Uh, he's a board member of the Institute for Dismantling Racism and the Member Sponsoring Committee, triad Industrial Areas Foundation. He's also member of the Interfaith of Winston-Salem. Iam Griggs is a freelance writer and contributor of a chapter in the book, Muslim Minorities in the West, edited by Hadda and Smith. He's the author of Come Let Us Change This World, A Brave History of The Islamic Party in North America. Iam KH is a national and international lecturer and social justice and criminal justice reform activist. Speaker 0 00:02:36 Imam, thank you so much for agreeing to do the podcast with me. So the topic that we have in front of us is a topic that, you know, not many people really know about, uh, even the Muslim community in the United States and definitely overseas as well. So first, tell us a little bit about yourself, about your journey to Islam, and then we're gonna switch to Islamic party in North America. Speaker 1 00:03:03 Sure. Actually, my journey to Islam is somewhat typical of many African-American Christians who embraced Islam during the decades of the sixties and the seventies. I grew up in a Baptist church. My greatgrandfather was one of the founders of the church, and so I was grounded and kind of based in religion in the, I think this was the ninth grade. Uh, I was in New York with my aunt who was crazy about Malcolm X and the early formation of the New York Mets, and she had this book Autobiography of Malcolm X. It had just come out the, the summer that I was spending with her, and she actually told me that I couldn't go out the door until I finished reading this book. She wanted me to go from start to finish. She knew I was a voracious kinda reader, and I read it and I was just fascinated. Speaker 1 00:03:53 It was such a page turner for me. And so I would say that in the ninth grade after reading that autobiography, I was on a conscious and unconscious quest to try to meet those Muslims that Malcolm was talking about after he had left the nation of Islam. In the city where I grew up, there were no identifiable Muslims in the town other than the folks who were identifying with the Nation of Islam. So when I went away to school, to Howard University in, in Washington DC there was this group called Islamic Party in North America that would come up on campus and set up tables and give D War and just inform us about Islam. And after collecting so many brochures from them and little books, I finally started to read it. I ended up going, uh, to the Mo MAs <inaudible> community, mos there in Washington dc which was very close to the campus. But one of the major attractions for me was how Islam brought together the theology and ideology. I was very much into social justice and social change, and I think had explored a number of different paths, communism, socialism, just a number of different things. But when I started reading the Quran and talking to people about Islam, I realized that this was what I had been searching for. This is what Malcolm was talking about, and it was the best solution for struggling people of African descent. And so I just love that combination of ideology and theology. Speaker 0 00:05:27 I see. So what year are we talking about here? Speaker 1 00:05:30 Yeah, we're talking about 1972. I was, uh, entering my senior year, uh, in college at that time. Speaker 0 00:05:37 Oh, so I was, I was probably a baby at the time. So, um, <laugh>. Right. So tell me a little bit about, you mentioned that you came across the Islamic party in North America and, and the people who belonged to it while you knew you were a student at Howard University in dc. Tell me a bit about this Islamic party in North America. Who were they? How did they come about? Uh, how long were they in existence by the time you met them? Just a little bit of that basic history. Speaker 1 00:06:06 Yeah. By the time I met the brothers from the Islamic party, given Dwa up on campus, they had been in existence since January of 1972. And so it was a recent kind of formation. Actually, I ran across them before January of 1972 because I was in my junior year, I would daresay maybe near the end of 71 was when I first started running across these brothers on campus. And they were very committed to Dowa. The organization was founded by Usef Modine Hamed, who was a jazz musician who had gone to New York to pursue a musical career. And he ended up finding Islam. He was looking for one theory and he found something else. Yeah, Speaker 0 00:06:52 There is a fascinating relationship between jazz and Islam apparently in in America in the 20th century. Speaker 1 00:06:58 There's no doubt about it. There's no doubt about it. But, you know, one of the things, many of the early African American Muslims were, uh, followers of the Amaa philosophy, and that was primarily because the Amaa at that time we're talking about in the fifties, sixties and and early seventies. They were probably the only group of people calling themselves Muslim or identifying as Muslims who would come into the African American community. They were very, not aggressive, but they were very persistent in spreading what their understanding of Islam was. And so many of these early jazz musicians, particularly in New York City, were influenced by the Aheda movement because they had a base there in New York. And so some of the greats of jazz came through this particular movement. Speaker 0 00:07:48 And so do you think then that maybe the, the Messianic approach to Islam that the Aheda have had also influenced maybe the type of political activism that came out of the African American Muslim community? Speaker 1 00:08:00 You know, actually I don't think so because what I understood, because I, at that particular time, I had never interacted with an am Madea, but just observing what they did. They were primarily a, a propagation group in the African American community to my knowledge. And those who entered Islam through the Madea movement may have a very different, um, response than I have, but just based on my experience during that time, I didn't see them advocating or organizing around injustices or trying to pull other things together other than just the recruitment of African Americans giving the dollar to the African Americans. And as I say, I stand to be corrected because I was never a part of the movement. So I was just looking from the outside. Speaker 0 00:08:49 I understand. So you mentioned that you met those brothers from the Islamic party in North America. So a couple of things. One, were their sisters also in that movement and can you tell us a little bit more about the ideas that gave rise to this, to this party? Speaker 1 00:09:07 Sure. The sisters who were a part of the organization, even when I, uh, embraced Islam and you know, we had a really different kind of process to become a member of the Islamic party of an applicant at that particular time in, uh, September of 1972, what the organization was doing, we had a very nice shaha form and they would go through a very, uh, expansive explanation about Islam and how Islam is a movement. And it's not just a religion where you just have a set of rituals and beliefs. It's a movement to effectuate change with yourself and the society. But what the party used to do was when you took shahada, and definitely for me, and I laugh about with some of the people at that time too, when you took Shahada, they would actually, you sign your shaha form and then they would push in front of you the application to the Islamic party in North America, Speaker 0 00:10:01 <laugh>. So it kinda came together. Speaker 1 00:10:03 It came together, but there was a period of like a probationary period because it was a very strict membership organization. So a number of people who took Shaha at that community mine in Washington DC when never became members. But it was just interesting to me how it was as if they were synonymous and you become Muslim, you become an applicant to the Islamic party. But there were tremendous, uh, work that was done by the sisters, uh, from the very beginning when I came around and throughout the life of the organization. Speaker 0 00:10:36 Yeah, I see. Tell us a little bit more about the climate among the Muslims in America at that time, especially main center such as Washington dc which obviously where you were, but also Philadelphia, Chicago, other places. And this is when, still the time when there were not that many immigrant Muslims, uh, from other parts of the world. So Islam was at that time associated in many ways, primarily with the African American community. Obviously this is in the wings of Nation of Islam, Malcolm, all of those things that happened the sixties and obviously before with the Nation of Islam. But before we move into that, something, uh, actually I noticed something and I wanted to ask, was this a registered political party? Speaker 1 00:11:21 No, we never registered as a political party, and the name is somewhat misleading. We looked at this party, Islamic party in North America as hes bull law. We were looking our at ourselves as a branch of a party of a law. Not in the a narrow definition that you know, that this is the group out of Iran and and uh, outta Lebanon, but we look from the perspective that we were the party of a law as opposed to a political party. But, you know, in Washington DC it was a very interesting formation and gathering of Muslims there. At one time in DC the only visible and identifiable moss or Islamic center was the Islamic Center of Washington DC on Massachusetts Avenue. And this part of Massachusetts Avenue was part of Embassy Row, and I think it was in 1957 or 58, then President Dwight eHow actually cut the ribbon to open the center, but the center primarily served the, the embassy core from different Muslim nations. Speaker 1 00:12:29 They were on the board of directors. The director of Islamic Center at that time was from Egypt. And so it was not the most welcoming or fulfilling experience for the African American Muslim community Muslims to come there even to learn about Islam. It was catering more to the tourists. It was a tourist site. You could be in there praying. And this is what I was told, I never, you know, had this experience, but you could be in there praying at Soto Thor, and a tour bus would pull up front and tourists would come in and while you're in there praying, thinking you're in a regular mosque, you know, half clove tourists are taking pictures of you and this kind of thing. So, uh, the founder of the Islamic Party in North America, Yus Maso Hamed had the experience of working after he became embraced Islam and went overseas from 1965 to 1969. Speaker 1 00:13:25 And I'm sorry to be so long winded on this, but when he came back from overseas, traveling throughout the Muslim world, and uh, he was a guest in the house of Milano Abu duty and he was meeting, uh, the leaders of jma Islamic, Pakistan and India. He was had gone to Egypt. He was around brothers in, uh, Iqua and a number of different groups. So when he came back to the States, he initially was working in the gift shop of the Islamic Center there in Washington dc but he broke away from that. And there were some other African American Muslims who had embraced Islam. There was nothing other than just mos little prayer areas. There was no real moss at this particular time in the African American community. So Modine broke away from there and formulated, uh, with brothers there in the city, uh, what became known as Mo Omar, the Community Moss. And so this is how the process has started. Now I'm gonna jump here. Maybe I should shut up here so I can make this so long. But I wanted to get to the point of answering your question about what was the presence of Muslim Islam and Muslims and African American community and other cities. And I'll start with a city like New York. We have some phenomenal DESE that were there in New York. One was she fel uh, that who was from Grenada? Speaker 0 00:14:53 Where was he from? Speaker 1 00:14:54 Uh, he was from Grenada, the island. He was an Afro-Caribbean person. And he came there and without any exaggeration, I would dare say that he was perhaps one or two or three people in this country who had given directly at their hands more shaha to individuals than any other people perhaps in the history of this country. I know that's a big claim, but when we look at his history, we see that. And in that org, in that particular state street moss where he was the imam, you had a group of brothers, uh, one of them being Iam who were a part, African Americans who were a part of this multiracial, multiethnic mahu referred to the immigrant brothers as the new Americans and the African Americans and Latino as the new Muslims. And, uh, there was a good working relationship, but he actually encouraged Yare and others that in order to really meet the needs of the black community, you need to establish something in a moss in the heart of the community that you want to impact. Speaker 1 00:16:10 And this is what happened. So the early founders of this Yassin Moss in Brooklyn, but also more impactful was the, well, not more impactful, but just as impactful, was the organization of a group called the Dar Islam movement. And this was established in 1962. At one time the Dar Islam movement had up to maybe 15, 20 different masias right there in New York City, in Greater New York. There were, uh, I mean just a tremendous effort, organizational effort. Uh, they did such great, uh, work in the prisons in New York State. Imam Jamil EEN ended up embracing Islam at the hands of brothers from the Donald Islam movement because of their prison projects and prison work. So a lot of the foundational work for dwa, they came together with the idea of that they were going to establish the sooner and establish Islam in their, in their laws, in their community laws and in their personal laws. Speaker 0 00:17:19 So would you say then that the main goal of these organizations, including Islamic party in North America, was not necessarily political, which is what someone could sort of guess by just looking at the name of the organization, but it's more about establishing Islam as the way of life for the people who are followers who at the time happened to be mostly African Americans? Speaker 1 00:17:42 Yes, and, and I know within the Islamic party, uh, the idea was not to try to, with the little sound Islamic information that was available, particularly in English at that time, it was not to establish everyone who becomes Muslim as a scholar. We, you know, recognize the necessity to have scholarship and brothers and sisters who did what was necessary to get the scholarship. But in the Islamic party, it was the transformation of ourselves and the society, particularly because of the times in which we were doing what we were doing. It was very socially turbulent times. And people from all sectors of American society, American Indians, farmers, women, you know, the black, uh, civil rights movement, uh, there were just a black power movement. There were so many dimensions for change that individuals in America at this, at this particular period, we were looking at and trying to implement. And so those of us who came into Islam, for the most part, this is not with every Muslim formation in the African American community, but many of us came into Islam looking for a change, a social change vehicle that could bring about to better, to improve, to change the conditions, the oppressive conditions that we were living under at that time. Speaker 0 00:19:15 Yeah. And it was a different time than it is today. There was the sort of idealism in global Muslim community, um, not just here in North America, but globally, there was a lot of idealism and that idealism was expressed in the work of leading what later came to be known Islamists of the time. Right. Modu whom you, whom you just mentioned, say later on, Heini after, you know, the Iranian revolution, his works became well known. So maybe you could speak a little bit about that. How did these works? You said there were very few works available in English at the time, but how did they, how did they come to American Shores? How did American Muslims at the time, especially African American Muslims, how did they learn about this? Who were, who were the people who brought this, what were the, the ways in which they brought these writings and ideas to, uh, African American Muslim community and more specifically to the Islamic party in North America? Speaker 1 00:20:12 Yeah, I'll start with the Islamic Party. Uh, as I mentioned, Modine, after embracing Islam in New York, he actually traveled throughout the Muslim world, at least throughout the Middle East and, and the subcontinent. And being a guest of Malan mal duty meeting the individuals that he's, uh, saw Gelan and so many others, he established an ongoing relationship with members of Iqua. Even after he came back to the United States, Zaine had a, you know, from the early days of his, his being Muslim, he had a, a unique vision about how Islam in this country needed to be focused on the conditions of this country, not, uh, blocking itself from Philistine and, and other issues at that time. But the primary focus, uh, for African American Muslim should be how can Islam effectuate change in ourselves as individuals and in our collective condition as a people. And so he was very aware of the need to have established, uh, international relations, not so much in the scholarship realm, but with those like, uh, different various Islamic movements that he had encountered in his travels. Speaker 1 00:21:35 So there were, over the years, in the early, very early days over the years, there were individuals from these various movements who would come to our headquarters in Washington dc They would give lectures, they would to our facilities and, and this kind of thing. And then there were individuals, Arab brothers and Urdu speaking brothers from the subcontinent who would translate some of the, uh, important documents from these organizations into English so we could have access to it. As time went on, a number of booklets started to come into the country. Zaine made the connections with the people in Pakistan. And so we started getting a number of these booklets that had been translated into English. And similar the case with Arabic movement books, Arabic language movement materials. And one of the things that, that we did was to share this information, you know, to try to spread it far and wide across the country. Speaker 1 00:22:40 And just as we had the materials, we tried to share these materials and, you know, I'm not trying to take credit for more than what the, the actual role of the party was. Uh, but I'll give you an example. Like, uh, the book Milestones, which of course said KU wrote and was in, in, in Arabic. Two of our brothers had made the Hodge in 1973 I think it was. And while they were in these refugee camps in, uh, Lebanon or Jordan, I can't remember, I think it was Jordan, while they were in these refugee camps, they ran across a brother who was going around, you know, passing out this English translation of milestones. They were doing it on the down low because they didn't wanna get arrested and this kind of thing. So of course our brothers, you know, this was attractive <laugh>. So they actually brought it back and Islamic party printed in English, uh, and made it available for the first time, to my knowledge, an English translation of milestones. Speaker 1 00:23:41 And we had a publication called Al Islam and we printed it in the Al Al Islam format to make it very easily available and accessible, uh, to people. So much of that information, not just Islamic parties, I'm sure others were doing, but that's what I'm most familiar with. We did that, we, uh, had a translation of, as a matter of fact, my first set of Hadif were Al Hadif, uh, I think it's four volumes of this. And, and we had this arrangement with people, brothers in Pakistan and we, you know, got truckloads of these, these hadif. Cause at that time, even the Quran itself just uh, Arabic, English Quran, oftentimes, depending on where you live, was, was hard to come by. Speaker 0 00:24:26 I see. If you could maybe elaborate a little bit on your role, personal role within the party in North America and how close were you to the leadership? Were you part of the core leadership, um, and how was your experience being part of that movement? Speaker 1 00:24:42 My primary role, and this is kind of interesting phenomenon because I had come from a social activist background. When I embraced this Islam, I thought that, you know, my understanding at that moment was that this will address the concerns and, and what I was looking for for guidance and you know, spiritual guidance as well as community. But I initially, the religion was so beautiful that I stepped away from the kind of activist background that I had had in the past. You know, if it were not for the intervention of, uh, MoSo Hamed, the founder of Islamic Party, the me, I may have become a Sufi, you know, actually, because I was just, just so you know, it was just so good. The spiritual dimension was so good. Yeah. But he directed me back. He said, man, you know, I know brothers have told me some of the things you've been involved with and I see that you know the way you talk, you have some understanding certain things. Speaker 1 00:25:46 So why are you doing what you're doing? Why have you stopped doing what you were doing before? Uh, we need that in Islamic party and we need this in the community here in North America. And so he actually gave me the balance that initially I think I had, and it wasn't for a long period, but you know, had gotten a little imbalance. And so most of my responsibilities within Islamic party, uh, headed at one point what was called Oppressed People's Affairs Department. And you know, part of this work was to provide a Muslim presence in the activist and social change community in Washington DC cuz that's where we were at that particular time, for the most part. We had chapters all over, but the headquarters was there in DC And so I head this department and, and you know, created help by the grace of the law, create a Muslim presence, presence within these groups. Speaker 1 00:26:44 At one point, even there was a group called United Black Community in Washington that was made up of all kinds of different socialists, uh, black nationalists, pan Africans, all different kinds of group. And one time I was elected the chair of this particular, you know, organization. And so as time went on, you know, I was getting more and trying to develop more and more things like this. We established a, a community Moss Southeast Center in the southeast part of, of Washington DC and, uh, its function was to be kind of a out station for the moss that was located in northwest dc. And over there, you know, I was expected and <inaudible> did a few things and organizing different programs coming out of there as well, having people come to, uh, our center. And I go out into the community doing things. And so I was close with the leadership. As a matter of fact, at Brother Zaine invitation, I traveled with him to Libya for Zionism racism conference. And in the process we stopped in about five or six different countries meeting with Islamic movement figures and personalities throughout Europe. Speaker 0 00:27:58 Have you met with GFI in Libya? Yes. Speaker 1 00:28:01 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, yes. So Speaker 0 00:28:03 I, I read in some of the writings about on the Islamic party in North America that aga Dhi financially supported at one point or gave some grant or helped some work of that that the party was doing. Speaker 1 00:28:18 Yeah. The, the two phases of that, the phase of the Islamic party, like I went over the signs racism conference was in 1976 and 1973, Zaine had gone to Libya to, had arranged a meeting to go to Libya to meet with Kadafi to try to convince him not to give 4 million to the nation of Islam. And what he was able to do was to delay the inevitable, uh, because they ended up getting, the organization ended up getting the $4 million. And it wasn't based on envy hate because he wasn't going there asking for anything. But he felt that maybe the Libyan government did not know, uh, what the organization was teaching and espousing as it related to Islam that Eliza was claiming to be a prophet and claiming that Fard was, was a law in person. And so, uh, but as I said that the $4 million was giving what happened with Islamic party, uh, and the financial aspect of our relationship was that maybe in 1975 or 74, 70, maybe 75, Kadafi gave a hundred thousand dollars loan to the Islamic party. Eventually that loan was forgiven after maybe, you know, a few years, but it was, it was a loan and it was a hundred thousand. And you know, of course we were grateful for that. But you know, you're getting ready to give this organization $4 million and you're gonna give us a loan of a hundred thousand dollars. Now what happened was that the Islamic party by 1980 had closed down this headquarters in DC and had closed down its North American operation and shifted its headquarters into the Caribbean. Yeah, well Speaker 0 00:30:19 It was gonna come to that a bit later. I was gonna ask about it, but before we move, we move onto that, uh, you mentioned the nation of Islam. What was the relationship between the nation of Islam and the Islamic party? Speaker 1 00:30:31 It was very tense throughout most of the history of the Islamic party when we were in the United States. And it was tense to the, i I say for a number, a couple of reasons. One was because we felt that the claim that this is a step for black people towards Islam was not justified through theran of the sooner. I mean, people who were worshiping dates like Omar Alta have a little travel date, God that he made up himself and worshiping all kinds of creations of the hands. They didn't take Anme every step to Islam. It was, you go from this, you go to worshiping a law only. And so we were very sensitive and keen about this particular approach. And so we were very critical of the nation of Islam and its theology. We recognized some of the social benefit that they were having in the community. Speaker 1 00:31:33 But to us, this was a race because we felt that shirk, the, the associating the partners with a law was being introduced into the African American community. It got so bad that in 1975, I think it was 1975, the Islamic party from its inception used to have this paper called All Islam. And we would go around all over DC and then brothers, groups of brothers would go and the other cities up and down the east coast selling this, this paper, it was our primary doer vehicle. And brothers had, 12 brothers had had been assigned and they were in Newark, New Jersey, the same city where the assassins of Malcolm X actually came from Temple number 25 in Newark. And like innocent little blissful skipping through flowers or something. We were oblivious to the danger they represented for the stance we had been taken against the nation of Islam to be in that city with a paper condemning I Elijah Muhammad. Speaker 1 00:32:33 And so while the brothers had taken a break at a, a construction site in downtown, they were attacked. I mean brutally attacked. Three of our brothers were put into the hospital, you know, with very, very serious injuries. And we had to leave one there in the hospital. And so it was not just the Islamic party, but I think that because of our stance against their eda, they're just system of beliefs. We were probably one of the most vocal and visible SUNY Muslims or at that time we were saying orthodox Muslims. We were very uncompromising in the stance and you know, some of the brothers paid the, paid the price. Speaker 0 00:33:14 <laugh>. I can see that. Yeah. So in terms of the following or membership, how would you estimate the, the membership of the Islamic party compared to the nation of Islam at that time? Speaker 1 00:33:26 Oh, it was no comparison. I mean, no comparison whatsoever. Even in Washington DC their numbers of brothers and sisters probably dwarfed the number of people that we had in the Islamic party. I would dare say in DC maybe. And this was the headquarters, maybe we had counting brothers and sisters 150, possibly 200 at one point in DC and we had branches in other places. But it was absolutely no comparison between the numbers in the nation and the Islamic party at this height here in, uh, in the United States. Speaker 0 00:34:01 And perhaps that's the reason why the Islamic party is not that well known. It wasn't a very large group. And also bec, unlike the Nation of Islam, which survived in obviously a different form, even continues until today the Islamic party is, you know, nonexistent for uh, you know, for better or worse. But I would assume that your work must have invited some attention from the authorities, whether it be the government, the federal government, or the local authorities in dc. Can you tell us a little bit about that? This is not just, you know, Islamic party. This was a time when all African Americans, especially where it's scrutinized all of the things we know that history. But I would like to know more about how did that reflect on the Islamic party and you know, if you could give us maybe some story or anecdote or anything from that time that would illustrate that. Speaker 1 00:34:53 Yeah, that's, that's a very, very good observation. And Islamic party was not spared the kind of intense surveillance, the dirty tricks that would come out of, uh, Edgar Hoover's COINTEL program. You know, I can recall traveling with Brother MoSo dean and we were talking about this particular phenomena and one of the roles that I had with him, and it was kinda weird, but I felt, and many people felt, I won't say I felt, but a, a number of the folks that I, brothers and sisters I was around, felt that like I had some kinda additional sense to be able to feel who's the police and who's FBI and this kind of thing. So Modine used to call me into his office if he had somebody there and he wasn't sure about, and he would call for me, I'd come in there and I knew what he wanted, you know, he's got this guy, he wants me to, what do you think? Speaker 1 00:35:48 And he'd let me listen to him talk for a few minutes and then I would excuse myself and then give him my opinion. But when we were traveling, and this was in 1976, I told Brother Zaine that the people that we had, some of the people coming in fit the profile of provocateurs. I mean, and I said, I'm not accusing any one brother or any one sister or anything, but they fit the profile. I've been involved in a lot of stuff where lot of different things that people showing certain characteristics, it, it gives you a sense that maybe something's wrong here, they here for some other reason, you know, I won't get into the de on the de details of it, but on at least two or three different occasions, there was such provocateur type behavior on the part of, you know, folks Muslims coming into the moss, that fist fights, you know, actually happen on, on really happy occasions for us. Speaker 1 00:36:47 And people would come in and disrupt and on like that. And when I was the head of this oppressed people's affairs, especially when we came back from Libya, and I guess this is understandable, but it was happening before then, FBI agents would come to the moss and they would make a big deal out of asking for me. And I had a very tight schedule. And so everybody knew I wouldn't be at the moss until a certain time of day cuz I was working, I was doing something else. And they came there about three different times and asking like they knew me to the point that the brother starts suspecting, yeah, why they keep coming up here asking for col what's, what's this guy doing? But many of the decisions that I believe were made, uh, and particularly closing down the operation in the United States, were made under duress. And I felt that this duress, the, the origin of some of this duress, I, you know, couldn't say for certain, but the origin of it was part of this overall Cointel pro kinds of activities that were targeting so many communities, but definitely targeting the Muslim community. Speaker 0 00:38:03 Yeah, so definitely, and those, you know, strategies and tactics continued while after that. And I would say even after nine 11 especially, were very noticeable in the Muslim community, those provocateurs that will come into mosques and try to stir the pots, go to stay and engage in certain conversations that the community wasn't engaged in, but they were definitely trying to move and to, to to, to gain information from the community. And many people got snared and trapped in those kinda things, unfortunately. So you were mentioning earlier that by late seventies, early eighties, the Islamic party in North America was pretty much closing down in Washington and in the United States and that the work shifted to the Caribbean. So how did that happen and why the Caribbean? Speaker 1 00:38:57 We had shifted the headquarters of the Islamic party in the late seventies to a little town outside of Atlanta called Conley and Conley, Georgia. And the stated reason for doing this was that the Zaine wanted brothers and sisters who were doing headquarters work, like national directed kind of work to get out of the DC environment and not get caught up in DC Muslim politics and this kind of thing so that, you know, we could concentrate on the national development of Islamic parties. So we shifted down there in order to concentrate on national development. But after about two years of being there with some of the, the issues that I'm saying that I think were brought about by provocateur type actions, the leadership and the Amir in particular made the decision first not to just close down operations in Washington, uh, and across the country, but to establish a Caribbean headquarters. Speaker 1 00:40:00 Zaine and a couple of other brothers had met some of the, the Caribbean, uh, brothers in Toronto, particularly from Trinidad years before that. And we were receiving communication from brothers in Trinidad in particular. And so Moeen and a couple of other brothers went down there and it seemed so promising that a Caribbean headquarters of Islamic parties was established there in Trinidad. And it quickly spread the Islamic party spread to other islands there, uh, not an island but spread to Guyana, south America, Grenada, of course the US Virgin Islands and St. Croix. It spread like wildfire and it was looking so promising. And as I said, there were some issues that I could never quite understand unless I gave it a, an assessment that some outside forces that are making this, like it was, it got so ridiculous and difficult to operate that a decision was made, let's just shut everything down. It's looking so good in the islands, let's just shut everything down and we'll shift down here. I think part of that decision was also the intention of the leadership of the organization to establish an Islamic state. And they felt that it would be easier to do it in a little tiny island than it would a continent country like, uh, like the United States. Speaker 0 00:41:25 I think that eventually led to Abe's school attempt in 1990. Would you say there is a direct linkage between the two or is that more of an independent development? That Speaker 1 00:41:35 Was an independent development even though a number of the, the brothers who were with Yasin Abu Baca and Trinidad in 1990 had formally been members of Islamic party. Abu Baca had a similar kind of vision of, of taking over a country as Zaine had, but I think it was kind of independent of each other. I I ran into him and spent a lot of time with Yasim in London at a Hodge conference in 1988 I think it was. And when I came back to the states from the conference, it was a two week conference and I came back, I told the brothers, I've met the brother who's going either be the next prime minister of Trinidad or he's gonna be in prison or martyr one or the other. I didn't see any in between with him. He just had a little kind of impatience. Speaker 0 00:42:27 Yeah, he passed away recently, you know, that of course. Um, I recently did the book Talk on, uh, globalizing the Muslim Caribbean that also covers mm-hmm <affirmative> that by Dr. Ahan at the University of Michigan. And, uh, this was a fascinating conversation too, uh, but I wanna bring it back to the Islamic party. So what would you say were the main reasons for the decline and eventual shutting down of the Islamic party in North America? Speaker 1 00:42:54 I would say leaving the United States, shutting down the, the US operation. I mean, I was asked by the Amir of the Islamic party years before the shutdown, I was asked to go to Trinidad and stay down there for two years and just organize and get things together down there. But when I realized in the conversation that the intent may eventually be to move the operation down there, I had never not taken up an assignment. I was always, you know, this is what want me to do, I'll do it. I travel, I did all kinds of stuff. I almost miss the birth or my first daughter, I'm somewhere else on an assignment somewhere. And I never said no, but with this, I couldn't process that. It, it made no sense to me. So I said, well, no, I, I I can't do that. I honestly think that the eventual demise and breakup of Islamic party, that was the, the primary reason because it took so many of the core people out of the country and eventually shut down everything that had taken us so long to try to establish in the United States. Speaker 1 00:44:08 To me, I just couldn't process it. It just, it made no sense to me. Other folks I'm sure would have other opinions, but from my vantage point and my just political social analysis, that was the, the nail that sealed the fate of the organization. Unlike what groups like, um, like the Dar Islam that in 1978 they had a major, major split. And when, uh, Gelan from Pakistan, you know, was, had come in and, you know, he was a real, from what I understand, real charismatic guy and, and the organization split, but the, the core people and the Dar Islam under another name survives even today. Those relationships were strong. We had strong relationships. So would this, to me, it made no sense. Speaker 0 00:44:57 So when you say under a different name, what's the name? Under Richard Survives? Speaker 1 00:45:01 It survives under the name of Al Umma. This was led by Iam Jamil Een and Iman Jamil, he was in Atlanta. He'd established, uh, the monster there in Atlanta. And he was the southern regional head of the Dar land because he and another brother from New York, IAM, Alameda d Latif was the northern head. But when Gelan came in, both of them said, no, we're not going with this, we're not gonna do this. And so they broke away from what Gelan and his group, which he, he renamed Al Fu, they broke away from that. And then they said, okay, well we, we gonna do the work we're doing collectively under the name of Al Umma of just, you know, the group, the community. Speaker 0 00:45:47 So now it's been what's probably about 40 years since that decline and, and eventual demise of the Islamic Party in North America. And that's a quite safe distance from which you could deal with some evaluations. So how would you evaluate its work and legacy in the United States? Speaker 1 00:46:05 You know, I actually think that its work in the United States was, and I'm a little prejudice in saying this and I understand that, but I think that it was, as far as the spread of Islam and just dowa, there was none comparable group that had the systematic way of presenting Islam and the commitment, give you a quick example. In Washington DC we established a DWA team of 12 to 14 brothers, the <inaudible>, I had the opportunity to head this DWA team. We were out in the streets in college campuses, six days a week, eight hours a day, every single day. Rain slee, snow shine. We had this presence in the community and we were very active in the TV and radio medium, the college campus radios and just regular radio stations. And then we were not just in Washington DC but every chapter of Islamic party had the same kind, not the Doward team like we had in dc but they had the same kind of dowa operations going. Speaker 1 00:47:16 So I think in terms of one of its greatest accomplishments was that, of spreading the Orthodox teachings of Islam, primarily targeting the African American community. And then later on the Latino community when many of the brothers of Latino descent moved from New York to the headquarters. And then we, you know, started change out. And the reason, and I'm sorry to be so longwinded, but the reason for this was that we took a lot of this from Malcolm. Malcolm when he was coming back to the states from his last overseas trip, before he was martyred, had stopped in Geneva, Switzerland. And the head of the Islamic Center there in Geneva, the father Tar Ramadan, gave Malcolm nine questions. They said, you know, I want you to answer cuz he didn't have time while he was there. And one of the questions from Malcolm was that if you look at who is responding to Islam, you know, he said, he made a comment like out of all of the immigrant Muslims who were in this country, out of all of their efforts, there probably haven't been a thousand African Americans who have converted to Islam as a direct result of their work. Speaker 1 00:48:31 And so Malcolm was saying the most fertile ground for Islam is the African American community. Like any good farmer, you plant the seed where the grounds most fertile first, and then you go to the rocky soil and you work there, but you're trying to get a yield, whether it was stated consciously in everybody's mind or not. But this was the understanding that we had that the most fertile ground for Islam at that time was the African American community. And that's why we targeted that community the way that we did. Speaker 0 00:49:01 And the part of those works are still with us, I would say, well, you know, when they do documentaries in tv, they ask the question, where are they now? <laugh>, you know, I wanna ask you that question. Where are the leaders of the Islamic party in North America? Now, I'm assuming some of them might have passed away already upon them, but um, others are still around. And uh, maybe kind of joint question is where can one find more information about the Islamic party? I think they're both connected, right? Speaker 1 00:49:33 Yep, absolutely. You know, one, uh, good source is Georgia State Library. They have, uh, in their collection almost every issue of Al Islam, the Islamic Movement Journal, which was the flagship publication for Islamic party. They have it in digital format and that gives a lot of perspective as to issues that the party was addressing ideological stuff from Islamic party. Uh, there are, uh, efforts now to do ex more extensive works on it. I did a little booklet about the Islamic party in North America and I'm working on now a much more extensive ver I'm, I'm not trying to promote, you know, self-promote or nothing, but I I do have that and I'm, I'm expanding, expanding, you know, and so long the information that's, that this is a part of very Speaker 0 00:50:24 Good. Uh, and where are they now? Where are the, you know, know the leadership of the Islamic party, those that are still alive? Are they here in the United States or somewhere else? Speaker 1 00:50:33 The leadership that had gone into the Caribbean who were native, uh, US folk, maybe one or two who's still there, but I think almost everybody is, is back in the country now. You know, we are an aging group at this particular point and um, as you've correctly stated, a number of the brothers have, have transitioned, ancestors, uh, have transitioned. I would definitely pass on information to you about those that I know who, you know, will be willing to talk and can get further information from. Speaker 0 00:51:07 Well, thank you so much. I think this is a small effort in trying to highlight that history, but I think we, especially in the Muslim community here in the United States, need a much more concentrated effort to preserve this history and to talk to the people while they're still with us here to interview them the way I'm doing with you. But I think there is much more to be done with more people. So hopefully some of the professors or graduate students are listening to this too, may, uh, will take interest in this topic and hopefully will visit those archives that you mentioned at Georgia State and, and find more information. And, uh, I hope that at least one really good comprehensive academic book will be written soon about this phenomenon because it's a part of our history here in America is Muslims in general and especially with, you know, the spread of the immigrant community is in the eighties and the nineties, the focus shifted in the Muslim community and a lot of the history that that was the foundation for Muslim presence in this country or was neglected or lost or forgotten. And I think we need to excavate that. Iam Holly, brother Holly, thank you so much for your time. This was a wonderful eliminating conversation and I hope that you will continue writing and speaking about this and that we'll find a way as a community to support your work because it is, it is sorely needed. So thank you again. Speaker 1 00:52:33 Thank Speaker 0 00:52:33 You. You're most welcome. That was Iam Greeks. We were talking about the Islamic Party in North America. Hopefully you will listen to future episodes of our Islam on the Edges Podcast for the May Down podcast. Esam Speaker 1 00:52:47 Them, smile.