|
Marvin X: A Critical Look at the Father
of Muslim American Literature
Edited
by El Muhajir (Marvin X)
Introduction
Bismillah-r-Rahman-r-Rahim
If it is true that I am the father of modern Islamic literature
in America, as Dr. Mohja Kahf proclaims, I would like to
delineate my lineage. As a spiritual descendant of West African
Muslims, I begin my literary biography in the Mali Empire, among
those scholar/poet/social activists of Timbuktu: Ahmed Baba,
Muhammad El-Mrili, Ahmed Ibn Said, Muhammad Al Wangari, and the
later Sufi poet/warriors of Senegal and Hausaland, Ahmedu Bamba
and Uthman dan Fodio.
In America, this literary tradition continued under the wretched
conditions of slavery with the English/Arabic narratives of Ayub
Suleimon Diallo, Ibrahima Abdulrahman Jallo, Bilali Mohammad,
Salih Bilali, Umar Ibn Said and others who told how they got
ovah, how they survived the worst terrorist regime in the
history of mankind. Their narratives are thus the origin
of Muslim literature in America, an integral part of the
beginning of American and African American literature in
general. There is some suspicion that David Walker, Frederick
Douglas, Booker T. Washington and Benjamin Baneker may have also
been descendants of Muslims.
Certainly they share the Islamic
spirit of creative resistance (any means necessary), and we must
acknowledge this spirit in the Islamic and Pan African writings
of Edward Wilmot Blyden, the greatest African intellectual of
the late 19th century. See his
Islam, Christianity and the Negro
Race, 1887. While Marcus Garvey was in London,1912, being taught
One God, One Aim, One Destiny, African For the Africans, Those
At Home and Those Abroad, by his Egyptian Muslim mentor Duse
Muhammad Ali, Noble Drew Ali,1913, established his Moorish
Science Temple in Newark, New Jersey, later Chicago, and
created his Seven Circle Koran, a synthesis of Qur'anic,
Masonic, mystical and esoteric writings.
And most importantly,
Master Fard Muhammad arrived in Detroit, 1930, to deliver his
Supreme Wisdom, mythological Sufi teachings, to the Honorable
Elijah Muhammad, later summarized in Elijah's primers of
mystical Islamic theology and black nationalism, Message To The
Black Man and The Theology of Time.
The next major work is Malcolm X's
Autobiography
, with the
assistance of Alex Haley. This neo-slave narrative bridged
ancient and modern Islamic literature in America. Let us also
include Louis Farakhan's off Broadway drama Organa and his
classic song A White Man's Heaven is The Black Man's Hell,
anthem of the Black revolution of the 60s. Amiri Baraka utilized
the Muslim myth of Yacub in his play A Black Mass, one of his
most powerful works, an examination of the cloning of the white
man, not such a fantastic idea today since the white man has
begun cloning himself.
Askia Muhammad Toure must be credited for
his Islamic writings, along with poetess Sonia Sanchez (Laila
Mannan) who served a brief tenure in the Nation of Islam. Yusef
Rahman and Yusef Iman created powerful Islamic poetry as well.
Now we may safely proceed into an examination of "Marvin's
World." Enter at your own risk.
The following articles, essays, reviews and interviews give a
good summary of opinion about the writer known as Marvin X, aka
El Muhajir, Nazzam Al Fitnah, Nazzam Al Sudan, Maalik El Muhajir,
Marvin Ellis Jackmon.
Kalamu ya Salaam called me the sledgehammer. Sister poet MC
Melody said I am the human earthquake. Suzzette Celeste said I
am a tsunami, but I am that I am, so let the critics have their
say, after all, they may know more about me than I do. What do I
know about myself? I'm just now figuring out who I am. Editing
this collection is a birthday (May 29) present to myself. I hope
you enjoy it as well.
As-Salaam-Alaikum
El Muhajir (Marvin X)
posted 19 May 2005
Preface of
father o f Muslim American Literature Introduction
Dedication
Contents The
Contributors
Bibliography of Marvin X
* * *
* *
* * * * *
 |
Super Rich: A Guide to Having it All
By Russell Simmons
Russell Simmons knows firsthand that
wealth is rooted in much more than the
stock
market. True wealth has more to do with
what's in your heart than what's in your
wallet. Using this knowledge, Simmons
became one of America's shrewdest
entrepreneurs, achieving a level of
success that most investors only dream
about. No matter how much material gain
he accumulated, he never stopped lending
a hand to those less fortunate. In
Super Rich, Simmons uses his rare
blend of spiritual savvy and
street-smart wisdom to offer a new
definition of wealth-and share timeless
principles for developing an unshakable
sense of self that can weather any
financial storm. As Simmons says, "Happy
can make you money, but money can't make
you happy." |
* * * * *
|
The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
By Michele Alexander
Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack
Obama's political success and Oprah
Winfrey's financial success, legal
scholar Alexander argues vigorously and
persuasively that [w]e have not ended
racial caste in America; we have merely
redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial
segregation has been replaced by mass
incarceration as a system of social
control (More African Americans are
under correctional control today... than
were enslaved in 1850). Alexander
reviews American racial history from the
colonies to the Clinton administration,
delineating its transformation into the
war on drugs. She offers an acute
analysis of the effect of this mass
incarceration upon former inmates who
will be discriminated against, legally,
for the rest of their lives, denied
employment, housing, education, and
public benefits. Most provocatively, she
reveals how both the move toward
colorblindness and affirmative action
may blur our vision of injustice: most
Americans know and don't know the truth
about mass incarceration—but her
carefully researched, deeply engaging,
and thoroughly readable book should
change that.—Publishers
Weekly |
 |
*
* * * *
 |
Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
|
* * * * *
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
* *
* * *
Ancient African Nations
* * * * *
If you like this page consider making a donation
* * * * *
Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
* * * * *
The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
* *
* * *
The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
* * * * *
* *
* * *
update 20
December 2011
|
