Islam in the African American Experience

14 Pages 3585 Words

sm.” Blyden was one of the leaders of the Black Nationalist movement in the late nineteenth century, and was an advocate of free Black emigration back to Africa. The most important aspect of the section on Blyden is the answering of two questions: “…how and why Blyden linked Islam to Pan-Africanism, and how and why Pan-Africanism became the major political ideology of the new American Islam...”(p.50) Edward Blyden gained an appreciation for Islam while doing missionary work in Africa. Through contact with West African Muslims, Blyden was convinced that Islam was better suited for the trans-national state of Africa that he and other Pan-Africanist envisioned than Christianity because “…while Islam brought Africans a great deal that was new…it strengthed…certain tendencies to independence and self-reliance which were already at work.”(p.51) Blyden concluded that Christianity attempted to repress aspects of traditional African culture, while Islam granted Africans the freedom to join their previous traditions with their new...