in my mind creates a false dichotomy for those unfamiliar with the context. unlike Malcolm X, the black bebop jazz musicians that would embrace Islam sought to do so in a non-violent fashion.

What false dichotomy? I don’t really understand your statement. I believe my point was very clear – bebop musicians as a whole were not calling for hard resistance versus being a sort of social critique, if you will. Does this apply to all bebop musicians? No. Certainly not, yet those who were critical of “the system” did so through thoughtful expression in their music.

I find it odd with the similarities between bebop and hip-hop both originally being “youthful expressions” which each attempted to break the “mold” both socially and aestheticaly, yet you seem to legitimize one for adults but not the other, this kind of smacks of elitism to me

Bebop and hip-hop do share some similar qualities and yet they also have important distinctions. For one, jazz came out of the swing era, which did involve young people and yet there were older musicians that also helped lead the way. Duke Ellington would be such an example. He hired young people to work in his band and yet he was an older, more mature person. It was also a career that no one would look askance at if you were 45-years-old or even 70-years-old and still choosing to play and perform because be bop as a whole, was not a youth phenomenon in the way that hip-hop is. If you’re 45 and still trying to look and act and even perform like a 16-year-old B-Boy, you’re going to look silly. That’s not my opinion but rather popular sentiment. If you’re labeling me because I have critiqued the validity of hip-hop as a grown, adult activity, you can certainly do so but I think you’ll have a hard time making your case. Disagreement does not equate elitism nor have I demonstrated any such characteristics. Please find a way to engage my arguments without casting aspersions.

Since the earliest times Muslim musicians (including actor/playwrite/author Shaykh Duse Ali) have given dawah in America.

What I am talking about here are da’i’s who have been systematic, not willy-nilly. I too know of several jazz musicians who have “spread the word” but they are not themselves a da’i in a professional sense of the word. As you pointed out, many of those musicians were jazz musicians, meaning that they no longer practiced music as an active form. I am not talking about spreading Islam through casual contact.

The piece that you mention regarding Langston Hughes is what I spoke about in the article is this: Islam held a certain place or spot of imagination for these black musicians – both Muslim and otherwise. I believe this to be no different in what we see in the Hughes piece. But would this be conscious da’wah on the part of Hughes and these other musicians? I’d say that case would be hard to make.

So from the above, which is hardly exhaustive I would say there is considerable evidence [sic] that there has been missionary efforts on the parts of Muslim jazz musicians.

Your list is admirable and I welcome the feedback but again, none of these gentlemen are/were continuing jazz musicians. Most if not all gave up the music as a practice, thus they were not proselytizing jazz musicians, if you see my point.

I’ve been waiting for you to elaborate more on the connection between bebop/jazz/Blackamerican Music and Islam. I will add some comments below (iA) but first I must mention a few things, one the photo of Ustaz Abdul-Hakim Jackson, Ustaz Amir Al-Islam and Shaykh Abdul-Hakim Quick is iconic on more than one level, NICE WORK, and two I take quite an exception to the statment

unlike Malcolm X, the black bebop jazz musicians that would embrace Islam sought to do so in a non-violent fashion:

which in my mind creates a false dichotomy for those unfamiliar with the context. Also, I find it odd with the similarities between bebop and hip-hop both originally being “youthful expressions” which each attempted to break the “mold” both socially and aestheticaly, yet you seem to legitimize one for adults but not the other, this kind of smacks of elitism to me (I’ll table these for now)

Having said my piece on the above, now what I really want to elaborate on is that you wrote:

It would seem that the experiences in conversion are as varied as the individuals themselves. As for prostylitizing, I have not seen any conclusive evidence that there have been any missionary efforts on the parts of Muslim jazz musicians.

Since the earliest times Muslim musicians (including actor/playwrite/author Shaykh Duse Ali) have given dawah in America.

Early Muslim da’ees such Shaykh Daoud Faisal, Al-hajj Talib Ahmad Dawud (Alfonso “Barrymore” Rainey), Idrees Sulieman (Leonard Graham), Al-Hajj Abdullah Rasheed Ahmad (Lynn Hope), Abdullah Ibn Buhaina (Arthur “Art” Blakey) and Daud Salahuddin all had been jazz musicians at one point.

A number of Islamic organizations were founded by these da’ees in their efforts to prostylitize, Shaykh Daoud founded the Islamic Propagation Center of America/Islamic Mission to America and the Muslim Village Madinah al-Salaam, Al-Hajj Talib founded the Muslim Brotherhood, USA, al-Hajj Abdullah became a teacher at the Philadelphia unit of the Addeynu Allahu Universal Arabic Association (AAUAA) and Abdullah Ibn Buhaina’s New York apartment was used as an Islamic mission when he formed the all Muslim jazz band, the Messengers (later renamed The Jazz Messengers).

So ubiquteous were Muslim be-bop jazz musicians in the 1940’s and 1950’s that in 1957 Langston Hughes wrote the short poem “Be-Bop Boys” Imploring Mecca / to acheive / six discs / With Decca, as an ode to Muslim jazz musicians praying for success with their record companies.

Later in the 1960’s musicians who would become Muslim da’ees include Imam al-Hajj Koli Ahmad Tawfiq who founded the Mosque of the Islamic Brotherhood, Imam Yusuf Muzaffarudin Hamid who formed the Islamic Party of North America and Imam Dawoud Abdus Sabur Adeyola (David Lewis) who became Imam of Muslim Village Jabul Arabiyya the orginally the West Valley unit of the AAUAA.

During 1959 Al-Hajj Talib Ahmad Dawud formed a jamaat in Detroit under the aupices of the Muslim Brotherhood, USA and by 1961 he had 125 members. Also in Detroit as jazz moved to post be-bop avant-garde, Muslim jazz musicians would take leading roles as da’ees. Philadelphia native Shaykh Ahmad Mubarak Abdullah Mutakalim (Shaykh Mubarak) founded Masjid Kalimaat in the late 1960’s, then in 1971 Shaykh Mubarak joined with Detroit natives Imam Abdul Jalil (Muhammud Bey Abdul Jalil) and his wazir Furuq Z Bey (members of the avant-grade jazz group Griot Galaxy and the “Bey tribe” community that formed around them) to form the Masjid (Mosque) As-Salaam Orthodox Islamic Movement.

So from the above, which is hardly exhaustive I would say there is considerable evidense that there has been missionary efforts on the parts of Muslim jazz musicians.

I really enjoyed this article. I have been reading a lot of literature on passing from both the mid to late 19th c. (Clotel, The Bondwomen’s Narrative, Iola Leroy) and other novels from around the Harlem Renaissance (Passing, Diary of an Ex-Coloured Man). This explains why I was drawn to the moments in your paper where you discuss a type of “passing” that does not rely on a physical whiteness-but rather on a type of world sense born from Islam that defies the logic of Jim Crow.

Also there is something about the ‘I don’t blame you. But I don’t have to go under the rules of colored because my name is Mustafa Dalil.’ that I love. As naming oneself post-escape was so important in many slave narratives as a means of necessity (to allude re-capture) and self-fashioning-this moment of naming can be read across a number of historical registers.

Great post.

As for how Islam came to them is still being researched. Certainly, many came to know Islam through some of the proto-Islamic groups that were about in the black urban centers of the North [Nation of Islam, Moorish Science Temple, etc.], but there were also other groups such as the Ahmadiyyahs [through which the afrementioned Yusef Lateef is believed to have converted through]. It would seem that the experiences in conversion are as varied as the individuals themselves. As for prostylitizing, I have not seen any conclusive evidence that there have been any missionary efforts on the parts of Muslim jazz musicians. I will follow up more info on this topic in the future, in sha’Allah.