Knowing who are Imams Really ARE?

Bismilahir Rahmanir Rahim

As salamu alaikum.

On the anniversary of the beginning of the Prophetic mission I found myself asking a lot of questions. Beyond the traditional self-reflection that I have been reminded about again and again from our beloved Imams (a.s.) that accountability is the marker of a true Shia I am wondering about how much like Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) I am as a striving Shia.  Muhammad and His God Before the Revelation describes, “the relationship of Muhammad with his Lord before Islam was in essence Islam (submission). Allah (SWT) loves it, so He (SWT) chose Muhammad (SWT) to spread this Message and make it a path and religion for all of mankind. Allah (SWT) designated Muhammad as the messenger and prophet of Islam; Muhammad would invite the people to it because he already practiced it, mastered it, and was sincere in it.”

How can I invite people to Islam (da’wah)? By submitting to Allah (swt), practicing Islam, mastering Islam and being sincere in living in Islamic way of living.

How can I best submit to Allah (swt)? By learning what Allah (swt) asks of me in the Holy Qur’an and following the perfect models of Ahlul Bayt (a.s.).  I would be remiss not to mention at this juncture that one can not know and love the Ahlul Bayt (a.s.) and their teachings and simultaneously diminish their history and elevate a limited understanding of Imam Husayn in lieu of a more comprehensive and scholarly-based understanding of the full imamate.

Part of the difficulty in achieving this goal is the fact that Shia sources are difficult to access in English and many other languages for that matter.  This of course is a sad irony in that our beloved Imam Ali al-Ridha has said, “May God have mercy on him who revives our cause … [by] learning from our teachings and teaching them to others, for if people only knew the beauty of our words, they would undoubtedly follow us.” [i]

Its also a sad reality that even when people wish to study directly from the sources in Howza it is extremely difficulty, especially for converts to attain visas and maneuver through the discrimination and suspicion that comes with the logistics of Howza studies in Qom or Najaf.

I recently came across a chart that depicts the lineage of the Ithna Asheri Imamate and I would like to share it here as it was published in an academic publication that does not offer free public access.

Before I post the image below I do want to place some context that inspired me to discuss this issue further. Years ago I stumbled across a post on Shiachat.com in which persons were literally verbally assaulting one another for either embracing the possibility of African imams or adamantly rejecting the idea and 2 weeks ago I was at a gathering of Shia women were some of these ideas about ethnic superiority were being repeated.  So once again I reiterate how can I or anyone know their imams if they are perpetuating false descriptions of them and denying their ethnicity; which I can not fathom a reason aside from racism or in its Islamic understanding, asabiyyah. 

Without further ado here is the chart…

Now as I tell my students, "Imagine your imams (a.s.) as you always have and get a strong mental picture."

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Now imagine that they were BLACK....

All I am advocating for is searching out the truth and truly getting to know our imams (a.s.) so that we can say that we love and respect them. How can I prepare for my Imam (ajf) if I don't know where he was from or what he will do or if I harbor some concept of racial superiority that the Imam either lives up to or "fails" to live up to.

Images used above are curtesy of the author of the text in which they were originally printed. The full article can be found here: Inloes, Amina. "Racial othering in Shii Sacred History: Jawn Ibn Huwayy the african Slave, and the Ethnicities of the Twelve Imams." Journal of Shi'a Islamic Studies. 7.4 (2014): 411-439.

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[i] Ma'ani Al-Akhbar

Inna Lillahi Wa Inna Ilaihi Rajioon Malcolm Shabazz

Bismilahir Rahmanir Rahim
As salamu alaikum wa rahmatulahi wa barakatu,

These days full of chaos and oppression make it easy to forgot the world beyond our home and our families. I just want to take a moment to stop and remember the short and tragic life of Malcolm Latif Shabazz, grandson of prolific and powerful indigenous Muslim, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X).  Malcolm, like his grandfather was murdered/martyred on May 9, 2013, just ten days shy of his grandfather's birth anniversary.

Malcom Latif Shabazz (inset Malcolm X)

For this young Shia brother I want to give him the respect that his life and death deserve and I  will not rush to speak about a man that I only knew through mutual acquaintances.  I will post again to talk about some of the wonderful efforts that he was making to live up to his grandfather's legacy.

So, condolences to the family of this brother. If you don't take the time to research this brother on your own please take the time to recite Surah al-Fatiha for him and pray for his family that is still living including his two children who are orphans.

Here is a video from Muslim Congress 2011 in which he talks about his grandfather's legacy:

Melungeons of Kentucky

First I would like to offer the following disclaimer.  This is an overview of research and resources related to the study of Melungeons in Kentucky.  There is mention of resources related to the greater Melungeon population and its history, but it is not exhaustive.  The content here has been selected to whet the intellectual pallet and begin the seeker’s journey into the history of this particular group of Indigenous people with Muslim origins.  This effort is a constant work in progress and editing will occur as necessary.  Every attempt was made to verify sources and provide useful and relevant content.

Beginning in the early 1800s, or possibly before, the term Melungeon (meh-LUN'-jun) was used as a derogatory term to describe a group of about 40 families along the Tennessee-Virginia border. Often described as Portuguese and dressed strangely, references to members of this group are scattered about historical records of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina and even Ohio.  There is no assumption that Melungeons in this various regions were related in any way other that being of mixed heritage and sharing similar features. Features such as darker skin color often paired with blond or light-colored hair and blue eyes set them apart from the European descended features of others in these regions during this time. [Photos of Melungeon families have not been included in this blog entry so as not to exploit the unnamed and un-cited use of images of people who have long since died] 

I include the aforementioned definition of Melungeon to illustrate that Kentucky has a long history with the term Melungeon and has similar usage for its meaning. There are many mixed race groups in the Americas and although much of the Melungeon research focuses on specific geographical majority groups other Melungeon groups existed and their descendants are still living to this day.  Many historians report that Kentucky Melungeons were mainly from the Quadrule Indians although its difficult to prove Cherokee Indians were present in the Harlan County, Kentucky region where a significant population of Melungeons resided at the time.  Searching Kentucky historical records is also difficult due to the fact that since Kentucky’s commonwealth in 1792, it utilized the ¼ rule that indicated that any person with ¼ or more Negro blood was labeled mulatto, but the word Mulatto was used to convey Negro as well.  Other Melungeons were also reported to have “passed” as denial of any African heritage was a common practice. 

Quadrule Falls Summer Print- Anthony Heflin. 
http://fineartamerica.com/products/quadrule-falls-summer-anthony-heflin-art-print.html
Located adjacent to Martins Fork Lake, a 340-acre (1.4 km2) reservoir in Harlan County, Kentucky. The lake was impounded from a branch of the Cumberland River in 1979 by the United States Army Corps of Engineers and is part of the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park in Bell County, Kentucky.  The lake is named for James Martin, an early pioneer in the area. The Waterfall in the picture is named after the Quaadrule Indian tribe that once resided there. http://www.harlancountytrails.com/martinsforkwma.php

According to the Ridgetop Shawnee Tribe of Indians: “…conclude that the Quadrule existed and that the entomology of the name derived from the word Quadroon, that was commonly used to described persons of 1/4 African American heritage. However, the early settlers obviously considered these Quadrule to be Native American not African American. But historically it can be safely claimed that these Quadrule were a tri-race.”[i]

There are varied traditions about the occupations that Melungeons held, but in Kentucky they culminated in occupations surrounding the coal mines, often supplementing their income with hunting, fishing and digging for ginseng and other roots to sell and trade.[ii]

Melungeons were often categorized as free persons of color, but according to some historians this group tried to hide or diminish the possibility of its African heritage.  There are several reports of Melungeons refusing to allow their children to attend school with Negro children and explicitly forbidding marriage with Negroes and Native Americans, ironically enough.  The reality is that these mixed race individuals lived in a time where embracing one’s African heritage was not an option for political, social and economic reasons. Today the rejection of this ancestry can only be viewed as one thing, racism.

Since its origination, the term Melungeon has become a catch-all phrase for a number of groups of mysterious mixed-race ancestry.[iii] Historian Michael Gomez argues in his work, “Black Crescent: The Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas” that the multitude of references to Portuguese and Moors in relation to the Melungeons created their folkloric background.  “In the struggle against racialism in the United States, however, a kind of embraquecimento occurred, a form of sanitizing that sought to void the African component.”[iv] Some residents were all too proud to claim Portuguese and even Turkish ancestry, dependent upon his or her situation, but when the Melungeon Core Y DNA Project[v] undertook a genetic study in 2005 to analyze the DNA of Melungeon descendants in Tennessee many were not pleased with its findings.  In 2012, Janet Crain, Roberta Estes, Penny Ferguson and Jack Goins co-authored "Melungeons: A Multi-Ethnic Population" published in the Journal of Genetic Genealogy.   This article defined the Melungeon families and then discussed what was revealed about each family line by their DNA results. It is important to note that the significance of Native American genetic link is not emphasized, but instead the African.  You can download the paper at http://www.dnaexplain.com/Publications/PDFs/MelungeonsMulti-EthnicPeopleFinal.pdf.

On DNA-explained.com[vi] you can also view video footage of the 2013 symposium[vii]: The African Diaspora: Integrating Culture, Genomics and History was held at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, DC.  The National Human Genome Research Institute, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the National Museum of Natural History featured scholars, scientists and practitioners from various disciplines who are exploring the African Diaspora throughout historical, cultural and genomic lenses with the purpose of understanding a person’s ancestry and how that impacts individual health and collective identity.

Setting the Stage for Understanding Ancestry of African Americans (Panel) - Corey Dade (Moderator) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K4A7e3clMM 

Who were the Melungeons? Who are the Melungeons today?

“The Melungeon people were reticent about their heritage and often hid their ethnic ancestry for fear of discrimination, one of the reasons the group became a “lost tribe,” even to themselves. EC Hirschman’s research has turned up genealogical and DNA evidence that suggests that such luminaries as Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, John Sevier (Xavier), President Abraham Lincoln, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Nash, subject of the film “A Beautiful Mind,” were of this same ethnic ancestry.”[viii]  It is important to note that it is extremely difficult even with DNA testing to definitively prove genetic links to original Melungeons as direct links to earlier heritage were often broken as descendants married.  What is important is that these individuals by most accounts were trans-racial (African, Native American, and White European) descended.*[ix]  Today with resources such as Ancestry.com many Melungeons are embracing their African and Muslim heritage.  Sadly some resources, such as one of the largest online resources for Melungeons, The Melungeon Heritage Association, fail to address the significance or role of Islam in Melungeon history.[x]  I am not arguing from a perspective that Islam had a more significant role than it did, but I am acknowledging that Islamic names (Arabic, Turkish and Spanish (Moors)) are recorded throughout American history and to assume as many scholars did that the Islam that explorers, slaves, and early settlers brought with them simply and universally died out seems preposterous. It is more plausible that the conversos[xi] of the Iberian Peninsula are a better example of taqiyyah[xii] utilized by Muslims who needed to protect their lives and livelihood in foreign lands.  This does put into question the resources for searching out one’s Muslim American heritage. Does Ancestry.com have a DNA group for Sharif, the African descendants of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) who were also transported to the Americas during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade?

In more recent years various studies have been produced to either support or debunk the notion of Melungeon origins in families in the previously noted regions.  I will not advocate for a position from either side of such studies as I am not a scholar in this area and various “evidence”[xiii] is in abundance.  Not in abundance is genealogical proof that is essential for most of the claimants of Melungeon status. Resources such as the Melungeon Heritage Association[xiv] seek to bring legitimacy and serve as an organizing body for researchers seeking to pursue thorough research in the areas of genealogical history of Melungeons.  It was on this very website that I first discovered the name of one of my maternal ancestors and was able to note some very interesting characteristics of Melungeons, that albeit superficial are still very present in my family.  Additionally blogs such as Documenting the Melungeons and text such as Pat Spurlock Elder’s Melungeons: examining an Appalachian Legend [xv]offer research to dispel the misinformation in print and on the web. 

In an episode of KET’s (KY’s PBS channel) show “Kentucky Life” hosted by Bryon Crawford in which the Melungeons of Kentucky are discussed. The episode is entitled “In Search of Origins”[xvi] and can be watched online here.

On a non-Melungeon specific note one might also find the DNA research of the Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam[xvii] significant because it establishes genealogical chains linking back to the Hausa of Africa and other regions of African were Islam was present and/or prevalent.  The research findings were recorded and can be viewed online via YouTube here.

A complete Melungeon Bibliography[xviii] is hosted by Ancestry.com and can be reviewed online here.

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[i] http://ridgetopshawnee.blogspot.com/p/who-were-quadrule-indians-of-harlan.html

[ii] Berry, Brewton. Almost White. New York: Macmillan, 1963.

[iii] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/24/melungeon-dna-study-origin_n_1544489.html

[iv] Gomez, M. A. (2005). Black crescent: The experience and legacy of African Muslims in the Americas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (191-2)

[v] Conducted by Family Tree DNA https://www.familytreedna.com

[vi] http://dna-explained.com/2014/02/02/the-african-diaspora-conference-videos-available/

[vii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K4A7e3clMM

[viii] Hirschman, E C, and D Panther-Yates. "Suddenly Melungeon! Reconstructing Consumer Identity Across the Color Line." Research in Consumer Behavior. 11 (2007): 241-260.

[ix] It is also possible that these persons were of Turkish descent dependent upon where they were living.

[x] A search of the term “Islam” or “Muslim” on this site offers 1 result.  http://melungeon.ning.com/main/search/search?q=kentucky&page=2

[xi] A Converso is a Muslim or Jew who publicly converted to Christianity during the Spanish Inquisition for fear of death.

[xii] Taqiyyah is the practice of hiding one’s belief under duress and it is mentioned in the Noble Qur’an in three places: (1) Let not the believers take the disbelievers as guardians instead of the believers, and whoever does this will never be helped by Allah in any way, unless you indeed fear a danger from them (illa an tattaqu minhum tuqat)[3:28]. (2) Whoever disbelieved in Allah after his belief—except him who is forced thereto and whose heart is at rest with faith. [16:106] (3) And a believing man from Pharaoh’s family who hid his faith… [40:28].  Content sourced from: Inquiries About Shi'a Islam by Sayyid Moustafa Al-Qazwini

[xiii] Evidence here alludes to photographs, family stories, newspaper references and other artifacts

[xiv] http://melungeon.ning.com

[xv] Elder, Pat S. Melungeons: Examining an Appalachian Legend. Blountville, Tenn: Continuity Press, 1999.

[xvi] http://www.ket.org/kentuckylife/400s/kylife416.html

[xvii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM-YRQZCz3k

[xviii] http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/Melungeon/2006-07/1153698062