The Call Of Bilal

How do people in the African diaspora practice Islam? While the term "Black Muslim" may conjure images of Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, millions of African-descended Muslims around the globe have no connection to the American-based Nation of Islam. The Call of Bilal is a penetrating account of the rich diversity of Islamic religious practice among Africana Muslims worldwide. Covering North Africa and the Middle East, India and Pakistan, Europe, and the Americas, Edward E. Curtis IV reveals a fascinating range of religious activities--from the observance of the five pillars of Islam and the creation of transnational Sufi networks to the veneration of African saints and political struggles for racial justice. Weaving together ethnographic fieldwork and historical perspectives, Curtis shows how Africana Muslims interpret not only their religious identities but also their attachments to the African diaspora. For some, the dispersal of African people across time and space has been understood as a mere physical scattering or perhaps an economic opportunity. For others, it has been a metaphysical and spiritual exile of the soul from its sacred land and eternal home.

Featured in a New York Times article titled "Teach Your Kids to Resist Hatred Toward Asians" A young boy wrestles with his Muslim identify until a compassionate teacher helps him to understand more about his heritage. After a family move, Bilal and his sister Ayesha attend a new school where they find out that they may be the only Muslim students there. Bilal sees his sister bullied on their first day, so he worries about being teased himself, thinking it might be best if his classmates didn't know that he is Muslim. Maybe if he tells kids his name is Bill, rather than Bilal, then they will eave him alone. But when Bilal's teacher Mr. Ali, who is also Muslim, sees how Bilal is struggling. He gives Bilal a book about the first person to give the call to prayer during the time of the Prophet Muhammad. That person was another Bilal: Bilal Ibn Rabah. What Bilal learns from the book forms the compelling story of a young boy grappling with his identity.

A story about a boy and his teacher as he teaches him the call to prayer

Bilal al-Habashi recited the first ever call to Prayer. He endured the most unbearable of suffering for the sake of his belief for years. He was one of the Messenger’s greatest devotees. Medina had become much too constricted for him after Allah’s Messenger passed away. He possessed an unceasingly belief, love for Allah and His Messenger, and zeal. Realizing that he was about to breathe his last on his deathbed, his wife cried out, “Woe is me!” Bilal al-Habashi injected saying, “Now is not the time for sorrow. It is the time for joy and jubilation, for tomorrow I shall meet the beloved Messenger and his Companions!”

Famed for his beautiful voice, Bilal is known as the first muezzin in Islam. When told to beat a fellow slave for repeating Mohammad's assertion that slaves are the equal of their masters, he refuses and is almost beaten to death himself. But Bilal is saved by the prayers of the Prophet.

The early days of Islam were very difficult for Muslims who gathered around Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. Slaves who embraced Islam were the ones who suffered most. Bilal was one spectacular hero from among them who rose to become a free believer and became the first muezzin to call Muslims to prayer.

Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam came to America's attention in the 1960s and 1970s as a radical separatist African American social and political group. But the movement was also a religious one. Edward E. Curtis IV offers the first comprehensive examination of the rituals, ethics, theologies, and religious narratives of the Nation of Islam, showing how the movement combined elements of Afro-Eurasian Islamic traditions with African American traditions to create a new form of Islamic faith. Considering everything from bean pies to religious cartoons, clothing styles to prayer rituals, Curtis explains how the practice of Islam in the movement included the disciplining and purifying of the black body, the reorientation of African American historical consciousness toward the Muslim world, an engagement with both mainstream Islamic texts and the prophecies of Elijah Muhammad, and the development of a holistic approach to political, religious, and social liberation. Curtis's analysis pushes beyond essentialist ideas about what it means to be Muslim and offers a view of the importance of local processes in identity formation and the appropriation of Islamic traditions.