On Azhar Usman's "Apology"

"An Apology" - Azhar Usman

I found it hard to keep my composure while reading Azhar Usman's "Apology" upon the passing of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed. Far from the lighthearted comedy Usman is renown for, "Apology" is a biting critique of the American Muslim community, which nearly left me in tears as I recalled cases where I've seen firsthand the very prejudices that Usman describes. Growing up in a fairly wealthy suburban mosque with a large immigrant population, I don't remember any instance in which our congregation was reminded of the situation of the inner-city, predominantly African-American mosque a few miles away. Even on the two yearly Eid holidays, the only times where our communities would have any interaction, the suburban mosques in town would always seem to have undue influence in deciding the location of the Morning Prayer and who would give its sermon. I couldn't help but notice that lingering among us, we felt an unspoken sense of superiority in financial means or religious knowledge.

Five years ago, my father and I attended a scientific conference in a city I would eventually come to live in. On Friday, we decided to go to prayers at the closest mosque downtown which had a predominantly African-American population. "That was a very good khutba," my father mentioned as we left. "It's a very nice community. It's just that their recitation of the Qur'an had some problems."

My father's comment left me stunned and incredulous, especially considering that tajweed was by no means my father's forte. Although my father considers racism abhorrent, his comment struck me as being emblematic of one of the many, possibly unconscious biases that Muslims of foreign origin have in respect to their African-American siblings - that something about them hasn't become completely Islamic enough. An inner-city mosque may have the kindest congregation and the most inspiring and intellectual sermon, but something isn't completely Islamic enough, even if it's just the way the imam pronounces his 'Ayns and Qafs.

Incidentally, as I had mentioned, I recently came to reside in the very city where my father and I had been visiting five years ago. I asked a few people at the suburban mosque nearby which I live about the state of the downtown mosque we had visited, but nobody could put forth its name. And at the Eid prayer commemorating the end of Ramadan a week ago, a few city mosques were asked to each send forth a representative to relay some greetings before the prayer commenced. Despite standing a few blocks from where we were having the morning prayer, that downtown mosque was never once mentioned.