"White Muslims" tend to be taken more seriously than those of a non-White background who convert to Islam.

They do seem prominent in leadership positions, however, at the same time, they have to prove their "Muslim credentials."

Since I’m doing my own thing, I get the…what is the strange convert up to now…reaction…I don’t think it matters what race I am…:P

Seriously, though, it is very important to point out the raging prejudice that exists within Islamic communities, but it’s not just focused on or caused by one particular group…there is a deep divide among many different groups and racism is just one of the ugly issues undermining the beauty of our religion. 

I believe one must define the difference between what is a concept of Islam…blindness to a person’s differences…and what is reality…absolute and deliberate prejudice that embarassingly permeates our communities. We must acknowledge and attack these issues head on, even if it is painful for us to delve into our own personal psyches.  It’s very difficult to begin to undo years of conditioning, but not impossible, and it’s not impossible to try to work through issues we have with others.  Questions like the ones posed here only begin to scratch the surface, but if we just scratch, then we only serve to temporarily think we satisfy something and never really start to heal anything.

The former "Cat" Stevens seemed to enjoy a meteoric rise with his "credential$."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusuf_Islam

Well, as a female white American Muslim other Muslims don’t really think you are a true beleiver unless you cover your hair—-all of it. The Pakistani ladies cover part of their hair and its ok. I cover part of my hair and I’m an evil temptress causing fitnah and other mayhem.

When I do cover my hair I’m treated much better than the American black Muslims for sure.

Laura

That is silly Laura.

But not hard to believe either.

All my prays are for The One.
Assalaamu Alaicum.

As a white european convert, I have noticed rather the opposite _the african and arab communities in my country, Spain, tend to see us new muslims as naive and poor in our practice. In fact, it’s still rare to see a spanish imam if not "certified" by long years of study in Mecca, Egypt, Morocco… oh wait, better everything togheter, just to make sure.

So, as a believer, I sometimes guess myself as a "religious minority" in the spanish muslim community.

My experience has been that whites not only seem to converge and control mosques, they seem to posutre as the most religious.  Many of them come with

better education and ‘connections’ that are good for mosques in general.  Black converts are ignored, they are ghosts in the mosques.  The African women, and darker skinned Mediterranean women, you hardly see, they are probably kept at home.  For sure I love the sisters at the mosque and we have lively open conversations and frankly after a meal, its not the white sisters or the Arab sisters who clean up its the "black" ones.  I’ve seen more racism in Islam than I’ve seen anywhere and Ive studied all religoins closely.  The worst part of the ignorance is that people won’t address it and if you bring it up you get prayed off…

Alhumdulilah…my friends who are progressive talk all the time about this and its just so plain why talk about it? The changes that need to take place in Islam start in the hearts of people.  The Imams try to address these things but you can’t hear through babies crying women talking in every language under the sun, and people shuffling in and out of Jummah.  Muslims have to take their own religion as seriously as the whites who take over.  Leave the cultural biases in the trash, and come to learn and be cleansed.  I for one am a revolutionary and therefore a hardhead and a troublemaker, meaning, I am not a sheep and that puts you on the outs in a masjid right away.  But Inshallah, that will stir a few people up hopefully.

I prefer Persian mosques.  I’m sorry to say, I prefer staying within my own "Muslim culture" because I find the interethnic rivalry annoying.  Especially when the mosque is dominated by Pakistanis.

I go with what is comfortable.  I’m not comfortable with European American Muslims who are not "indigenous" Muslims from Eastern Europe.  They are different from their immigrant European counterparts.

I guess I prefer Muslims who aren’t repeating Saudi approved dawah and telling me how "Islam is perfect but Muslim cultures are the culprit."  Islam is a manifestation of man’s own vision of spirituality.

To me no religion is free from the error of man.  In fact, Islam like its previous Abrahamic predecessors, came from pre-existing beliefs prevalent in the corner of the world in which it arose and was later influenced by the cultures which embraced the faith-based system, case in point Islam in Iran and other parts of the Persian world.

Fuck that, white ppl take Islam seriously.  White people have fucked up this world for 500 centuries.  Please, "Master, me is a dark tawdry Persian Mexican.  Me master need the assistance of the wannabe Arab white boy to help rid me of Ashoura, Noruz, and other bidah which I adhere to.  Me realize that Saudi dawah with its petro-dollars is the only form of Islam which is "pure" and "pristine" harking back to the days of the Rasul.  White boy Muslim, I will bind over so you can fuck me in the ass like Rumi did and other Caliphs who had a liking to young virile poor slave boys from the Asian steppe who were brought to the fold of Islam."

Some Arabs are Black by the way.  Arabs are not a race, but a linguistic group tied together by language, geography, and history.

Well I’m not sure if I should take offense at the silly remark. It feels kind of offensive though.
All I know is that I get looks and comments when I don’t fasten my headscarf so tight that I cut the circulation in my cheeks. Maybe the Pakistani ladies just don’t give a shit if people give them the eye, and I don’t notice it.
In which case I wish I could be like those Pakistani ladies. I try not to give a shit, but I do.

Laura

Why give a shit . . . Afghan women in my mosque are seen wearing tight acid jeans.  No dresses and their hijab is nothing more than a thin dupatta with see through material.

Arab women will be sporting boots, especially those who are foreign exchange students from the Gulf Arab states or Levantine region.

The Pakistani women wear the shalwar kamiz with no care of locks showing.

The Bengali women will wear a sari with an overcoart usually to conceal their charms.

Black women in my mosque will show their "naturals" and don’t give a damn what the puritans in the congregation think.

Why should you?

Laura, when you get looks, stare right back. Snide comments should be replied to with a snit-eating grin and a sweet-nasty reply. For starters, try critiquing the other person’s outfit, deploring the abundance of synthetics and dismal color choices. Is it easy? Not at first. Will folk learn to keep their tongue behind their teeth? Certainly. You have to enter the mosque with Allah at the front of your mind, but at the back, have this playing: "I wish somebody would mess with me".  It’s a shame, but that’s the price of admission.

I was in the mosque once and sitting and praying when I felt an icy hand reach out and tug my hijab down in the back.  I am not a muslim by culture and therefore my instincts led me to turn and say, "stop it" and pull myself away.  Typically I see two things.  new converts who are hyper muslim, and women from Africa, and Arab states doing this.  I think they mean well, I don’t see any nefarious intent, but its invasive and it feels icky.  yeah, I like Pakistani women, they rock the scarves, tossed over their shoulders, and yeah you do see some women dressed very stylishly though modestly.   But, big butt, the ethnic mixing in a mosque is a challenge.  I see black men wanting to marry Indonesian women, yes, they ask the Imam especially for this type.  And white men want either white women or the whitest Arab.  Arab men want young, and white whatever.  I see Indian men sticking to their own, which I can’t argue with given the climate in the mosqes.  I guess my biggest argument is with black men who convert and then think they are better than their own black women, inner city mosques are full of half children and white women wrapped up like a burrito.  I have seen black women with men from Yemen and Morocco, but that’s not that common. 

I think Persians are a puzzle really I mean, they see themselves as white, and only mix with themselves and whites.  When a Persian comes into the mosque I can feel the temperature climb and not in a positive direction.  Me? I can’t understand this stuff.  I chose Islam, and yet, when I go to the mosque I feel I made a poor choice.

Lailah, Persians are "Aryans" like Afghans, Pakistanis, and Northern Indians.  Even the name Iraq is derived from the word "Arya" which simply means "people."  The Sumerians, the people who populated the city-state of Ur around the time of Abraham, were Indo-European peoples.  They were not Semites. 

Persians are not "white" but a mixture of Indo-European and Turkic peoples.

Persians are not merely from Iran.  Persians would be classified as non-Hispanic White in the United States whereas Afghans are classified as Asian American and often lumped together with the peoples from the South Asian subcontinent countries.

You are full of it, there is no such thing as ARYAN.  You simple people come to this country and try and say you are the real ARYAN and that Adolph Hitler had it wrong.

You are swarthy, dark, half Arab, half Turk, maybe Russian, twisted people.  And I don’t believe persian women are pretty, the one eyebrow, and mustache is ugly.  They act like whores if you ask me.  Most of them.  Even in Iran.  Hijab by day, Whore by night.

And by the way, science has proven there is no such thing as an Aryan, get your hijab out of your nether regions and join the human race, oh yes, you are the one who said you’d rather stick to your own kind, you sound like a racist….

Essentialism is racism Lailah.

You stereotyped all Persian women as "whores" and assume all Persian women have a unibrow.

For someone complaining about racism in the mosque, you should look within yourself.

"Swarthy" to describe the Arabs, the peoples of the Final Revelation, sounds like you might suffer from some sense of racism.

Whoa, damn. The scarves come down, the claws come out.

I agree with Lailah that many of them do see themselves as white. I think GustavoMustafa was trying to show that what they might think was false. GustavoM when you are discriminated against, it is difficult not to give back what you get.

Thank you for your advice. I’m going to wear my jeans and sweater tonight, but I’m going to suck it up and wear the hijab tonight. Cuz normally everyone comes to our mosque bundled up. These Pakistani folks only came for Mohorram majlis and are normally not there.

I feel at odds because I think they feel like I’m not respecting the masjid if I do not cover. I’m willing to cover there to show respect, but I don’t like the double standard that I felt I saw. Outside of the mosque I dress “American style” and I don’t care if someone doesn’t like it. But I attend the mosque to try and build a community. Isn’t it counterintuitive to piss them off?

Anyway, I wish it was a non issue. People don’t understand why its a big deal but it is a big deal when there is essentially no Muslim place of worship, at least here, that’s looks like what GustavoM is describing. And I’m not the good and pious and wonderful person to make these inroads. Also, I hate to admit it, a little chicken and just not willing to pay the consequences.

What would be good is if we could get rid of these biases in the masjid. I can feel it when I’m there. I would like it to stop. Unfortunately, the “imam” at our masjid did a lecture on discriminating against non-muslims and he was for it. So I don’t think he’s going to be proactive in this area.

DA the claws are open all the time, I find. If not scarves, its about something else.

I will say it as a friend who is Persian by the way, told me, we don’t have racism in Persia, but we think fair skinned women are beautiful, the more European they look the better, and to top it off, southern Iran is black.  But we never, ever see those Aryans do we?  Humm seems to be like someones talking alot of

stuff.  Anyway, look, we know racism exists and islam can’t get its head out of its abaya to examine it.  We talk about scarves, about pecking orders in mosques, who marries who and why, and yet nobody wants to grab this demon by the horns and wrestle it to the ground. 

Sister you are going to learn that you better be your own person and do what your heart leads you to do, and stop worrying about the CROWS in the masjid.

The ones who sit and point, and "Jinn jinn" and everyother backward third world sayng they can figure out to hurt you.  listen they loose to white women, and we "anyone else" loose all the way around.  I see the most gorgeous black African sisters in the mosque.  Eyes like a doe, smooth skin and beautiful figures, but guess who the guys are all after…..the fat white girl, the Jewish girl, the ugly skinny white girl.  I have slap myself sometimes and think, did someone turn the clock back?  Yes, every immigrant that steps into this country turns the clock back a notch or two or race relations just know this. 

As for me, ha, I am free

Fortunately for me, in my MSA, the race issue doesn’t really seem to come up a lot.  I mean, we may sometimes talk about it, but it never really seems to be ever-present in the way it is for some groups.  (I’ve gotten in this habit of acting offended every time someone mentions or says something about "white people" LOL!)  Of course, it could be the case that there are a lotta race issues going on and I’m just not aware of it.  Still, it does feel like we’ve almost "transcended" the race issue, to the extent that such a thing is possible.

"Our integrity sells for so little, but it is all we really have. It is the very last inch of us. But within that inch we are free."
—Valerie, in V for Vendetta

As-Salaamu `Ala Filasteen wa Rahmatullah

Please see my entry here, thanks to my sister and beautiful friend Margari Aziza Hill, I think she writes beautifully and says alot.