The street photographer Saleem Ahmed grew up in a desi community in Connecticut. His family attended a mosque practicing Sunni Islam, although they belonged to the Shia sect.
But Ahmed, now a journalism professor at Temple, had never seen anything quite like the enormous, mint green Masjid Makkah on Susquehanna Avenue, just north of Main Campus. The preaching, the styles of dress and even the furniture arrangements were all distinct from Islam as he’d long known it.
Every day around lunchtime, all month, the sidewalks around Susquehanna Avenue have been teeming with life — far more than what’s normal for a weekday. It’s Ramadan, and everyone from food truck vendors to school children drop what they’re doing to gather at Masjid Makkah to see if the mosque has found a volunteer to open the building for midday prayers.
As a grad student back in Connecticut, Ahmed discovered Black Muslim culture had influenced Philadelphia beyond the ummah: Lush beards and thin moustaches, a sunnah of the faith, simply became Philly Beards on non-Muslims’ faces.
“It has always kind of left this impression that, yes, it’s the same religion or same book,” Ahmed said. “But the interpretation has a lot of variation. They’re just slightly different.”
Philadelphia hosts more than three dozen mosques; estimates place its number of Muslims around 300,000. Most, like the congregants at Masjid Makkah, adhere to the tenets of Sunnism. Still, many now aligned with what observers call traditional Islam trace their roots to the Nation of Islam.
Wallace Fard Muhammad mysteriously appeared in Detroit and preached the Nation’s doctrines in the city’s Black communities. Then, as quickly as he appeared, Fard vanished, leaving the group now called Black Muslims in the hands of Elijah Muhammad.
Most Black Americans firmly remained in the Christian church. Some Muslims saw the Nation’s teachings as shirk. And the Southern Poverty Law Center alleges its rhetoric smacks of racism, sexism and homophobia.
El-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, the preacher known for most of his adult life as Malcolm X, ministered at the Nation of Islam’s Temple No. 12 — a mosque that first stood on Lancaster Avenue near 42nd Street, then moved to the site now occupied by Masjid Makkah in 1962. At a time when racists routinely met calls for racial equality with savage violence, Malcolm X envisioned Islam as a vehicle for Black separation, Black self-defense and Black pride.
His principles soon became the basis of the Black Power movement.
“It’s not always about religion here,” said Zain Abdullah, a professor emeritus of religious studies. “It’s about self-determination — empowerment through a different cultural lens. And the Nation of Islam created a new lens through which black people could see themselves and feel empowered.”
Elijah Muhammad ejected Malcolm X from the Nation in 1963, ostensibly for breaking a sect-wide gag order on the Kennedy assassination. But during the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, Malcolm X changed his name and accused Elijah Muhammad of illicit polygamy, religious fraud and bigotry.
Malcolm hadn’t abandoned his belief in Black unity and distinction, however. He launched his own organizations, famously dedicated to achieving racial equality by “any means necessary.”
On Feb. 21, 1965, a group of gunmen fired upon Malcolm X during a speech in Harlem. Law enforcement would initially blame the Nation of Islam for the assassination. But later developments soon called into question the role of intelligence agencies and the NYPD in his killing.
Many Black Muslim communities, including Philadelphia’s, intertwined themselves with the mainstream faith in the late 20th century, uniting with those who had migrated from the Eastern Hemisphere. That migration accelerated when Warith Deen Muhammad, another former No. 12 minister and Elijah’s son, inherited the group and effectively folded it into the wider faith.
“A lot of people from my generation, they was used to the discipline and the orientation we had that really made us stand out,” said Abdul-Rahim Muhammad, a former member of No. 12 and chairman of the New Africa Center. “We don’t have that anymore.” Yet many of the Nation’s cultural innovations persist to this day, Abdul-Rahim Muhammad said.
Americans now almost universally view the term “Negro” as offensive. Even non-Muslims commonly choose Arabic names over anglicized monikers. And figures like Malcolm X helped articulate the message that African Americans ought to relish their culture, their bodies and one another.
“This is what makes this country great,” Abdullah said. “As long as it taps into its diversity, instead of condemning its diversity, it’ll continue to be great.”
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