“That is what America produced: A group of people who don’t have a land, don’t have a language. And we still have a last name that originally wasn’t ours.”
“That is what America produced: A group of people who don’t have a land, don’t have a language. And we still have a last name that originally wasn’t ours.”
On this week’s TMV Podcast, Chief Editor Salim Kassam spoke to Ibn Ali Miller, an activist and speaker who went viral a couple of years ago for helping stop a street fight between two teenagers. Speaking on issues such as Black American identity, the power of Black Muslim influence, and systematic racism in the United States today, this podcast will definitely change the way race, faith, and devotion are viewed in our Muslim communities today.
To listen to the full podcast, click below:
Beginning by describing the difference between African Muslims and Black American Muslims, Ibn Ali explains that for Black Americans, their identity lies in the fact that they are their own community, with no concrete ties to a land or language because of the history of slavery in the United States.
That is what America produced: A group of people who don’t have a land, don’t have a language. And we still have a last name that originally wasn’t ours. And Islam in America is what freed the Black man from oppression.”
Islam, explains Ibn Ali, helped redefine the freedoms and dignity that Black Americans deserve, despite what white America for so long denied them of. The importance of people like Malcolm X, and of Black Muslims during the Civil Rights Movement up until today should not go unnoticed as well, according to Ibn Ali.
By practicing true Islam, and by understanding that no politician or movement can truly change society from the ground-up, Ibn Ali believes that faith itself can be the solution to the systematic levels of racism and oppression so prevalent in our societies today.
I’m not a politician. I’m just a Muslim, bro, from the hood…I just love my people. By practicing Islam, you know its not about what you look like, its about the walk that you’re walking and who you’re walking by.”
The viral video, which showed Ibn Ali breaking up a fight between two teenagers in his neighborhood, showcased his innate devotion to do good, and to actually practice what Islam teaches us. Explaining what led up to that fateful moment, Ibn Ali humbly believes that “it wasn’t really a big deal”, and that it was all in God’s will that he was meant to be in that place at that moment.
Ibn Ali then goes into personal detail about the loses in his own life, and the faith he keeps despite the tragedy of death and victimization of Black Americans under a system of oppression.
To listen to the full podcast, click below:
