EAST WASHINGTON LIFE
America’s Islamic Heritage Museum Illustrating and Making History in Anacostia by Virginia Avniel Spatz
Old school lockers are incorporated into a museum display on education in the Nation of Islam.
D
C’s newest museum, a few blocks from the Anacostia Metro station, illustrates a little known history while creating some of its own. “This is a story we don’t know yet,” says D. Paul Monteiro, religious liaison for the White House. “African American Muslims were part of this country’s story before there was a country....and this story needs to be told.” America’s Islamic Heritage Museum and Cultural Center fills in pieces of U.S. history missing from most people’s view. On exhibit, for example, is a copy of the 1733 portrait of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo (aka Job ben Solomon), a West African Muslim enslaved for a time in Maryland. The story of Diallo (“d’jallo”) was published in England in 1734, and his portrait was painted by William Hoare of Bath. Nearby is an Arabic booklet dated 1829. The short review of Muslim jurisprudence was written out by Bilali (Ben Ali) Muhammad, enslaved on Sapelo Island, Georgia. For more than 15 years, museum co-founder Amir N. Muhammad has been tracing such points of intersection between Muslim culture, African American heritage and U.S. history. In
April 2011, the fruits of that labor were installed at 2315 Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue, SE. The location, the former Clara Muhammad School, is itself a window into DC’s Muslim history. And the museum, now drawing worldwide attention, is bringing a new era of history to this corner of the city. The new facility is “a cultural gem for the neighborhood,” declares Patsy Fletcher, of the DC Historic Preservation Office. “People are coming to the ‘hood’ for this,” Muhammad smiles. Iran’s PressTV, in addition to local media, covered the museum’s opening. The Embassy of Qatar recently sponsored an event which brought visitors from around the world to the museum. In turn, the State Department’s special representative to the Muslim community, Farah Pandith, says she’ll be carrying the museum’s message in her work. “I’m going to be using [museum data] all over the world,” says Pandith. “Thank you for exposing me to new history, for peaking my interest and bringing this forward.”
40 ★ EAST OF THE RIVER MAGAZINE
| SEPTEMBER 2011
“The Full Story” Beginning in 1996, Muhammad,
with his wife Habeebah, crafted traveling exhibits for display at mosques, churches, universities and libraries. In cooperation with the State Department, exhibits were shared with foreign visitors and traveled to Nigeria and Qatar. The collection has reached some 60,000 people. Displays trace a history that extends from pre-Columbian Muslim explorers to contemporary Muslims praying at the White House. An 1853 translation of the Qur’an saved from a Civil War fire is presented in one room. Another offers vinyl recordings of Elijah Muhammad and other items from the Nation of Islam. Throughout are census records, photos of mosques built over the decades and artifacts from centuries of Muslim history in the U.S. and African American culture. Incorporating “the Nation’s” story, including the conversion of many members to Sunni Islam, serves at least two important functions: It helps tell the story of Masjid Mohammed, DC’s 50-year-old predominantly African American mosque. It also places the Nation within the larger Muslim narrative. “The immigrant Muslim community didn’t want to own our story,” Muhammad explains. “Some academics view the Nation as aberrant,” Dr. Aminah McCloud, director of Islamic World Studies at DePaul University in Chicago, adds. “But the history of Islam in America is long....On the other side of it, if people see African American Islam only as emerging from the Nation, that is a distortion also.” More Generally, Muhammad Says, The Museum Allows People Of All Backgrounds, Muslim And Non-muslim, To Explore “How Muslims Have Been Part Of American Life.” “The Founding Fathers’ interaction with Muslims is extensive,” for example, says McCloud. As an advisor to the museum, she advocates for wider views of Muslim and African American history. “People should visit this museum. They should hear the full history....before the majority community erases it.”
Conflict and Opportunity “Too many people have been learning about Islam from disturbed sources,” Talib Shareef, Masjid Mohammed’s resident imam, told a museum gathering last month. The period around the tenth anniversary of September 11, in particular, has brought a lot of misunderstanding, misinformation_ and attempts to smear the Muslim community,_ Monteiro said at the August 16 iftar, a break-the-fast celebration held at sundown during Ramadan. But controversy is also an opportunity to teach, to clarify what is and isn’t Islam,_ suggests Saudia Jenkins, a masjid member and former Clara Muhammad student. The long overdue_ museum supports this endeavor. It’s a great start, and I hope it expands. Long-time masjid member Wali Shabazz has already watched the project grow from just a few tables_ into today’s facility, a source of pride... enlightening the community._ The Muhammads, he adds, have done a remarkable job._ “Their efforts are extraordinary,” McCloud agrees. “And they didn’t have access to grants and fellowships.” Instead, they’ve relied on their own resources, along with volunteer expertise and contributions from the community. Sameeh Ali, visiting from New Jersey, is joining the contributors. As National Commander in Chief of the Muslim American Veterans Association, he will be gathering materials to expand the collection. “If the President could just make a speech to change the misperceptions, he would,” Monteiro concludes. “But there is no substitute for the long, slow work of education.” America’s Islamic Heritage Museum and Cultural Center, 2315 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, SE. (Green Line: Anacostia). 202-678-6906. Tues-Sat, 10-5 and Sun 11-5. Admission: $7 (students/seniors: $5; children: $3; group rates). www. MuslimsInAmerica.org ●