Let’s face it. Islam is not only free of racism but is utterly opposed to it. Yet, like a disease, racism is prevalent in the Ummah. This disease of the heart is often found in our masajids and the community we live in.

With the demonstrations on countless streets and the conversations that are taking place in countless homes, there’s no better time for stillness, independent learning, and empathy for those disproportionately impacted by systemic racism than right now. This is the time to face our own prejudices and learn about Black Muslim history, racism and social justice. The more we learn, the more we can empathize with our Black brothers and sisters.

Below is a list of recommended reads about Black Muslim history, racism and social justice.

Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas by Sylviane Diouf
One of the first English language books published on African Muslims and the transatlantic slave trade

Click to buy: Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas

A Muslim American Slave: The Life of Omar Ibn Said by Omar ibn Said and Ala Alryyes
Abducted and sold into slavery in the late 1700s, Ibn Said was sold to a wealthy family in North Carolina. Highly literate and religious, the life of Ibn Said was as inspirational during his lifetime as it remains today. Writing down his life story in the early 1800s, his book became the only known surviving American slave narrative written in Arabic. In this translation, his incredible life, as well as the lives of the many African Muslim slaves brought to the US, are remembered and discussed in detail – helping us better understand just how important and powerful their lives and experiences were in shaping the history of the United States.

Click to buy: A Muslim American Slave: The Life of Omar Ibn Said

Centering Black Narrative by Ahmad Mubarak and Dawud Walid
A brief but excellent treatise on the contributions of early Black companions and nobles.
This book delves into the question of the intersectionality of “Muslim”, “Blackness” and “Arabness” amongst the earliest Muslims including within Ahl al-Bayt (the family of the Prophet Muhammad)

Click to buy: Centering Black Narrative

The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley by Malcolm X and Alex Haley
The extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Black Muslim movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American Dream, and the inherent racism in a society that denies its nonwhite citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time. A helpful read for anyone who is unfamiliar with the everyday indignities that Black people face, both at the individual and structural level. The book shows how despite the legislative victories Black Americans won during the Civil Rights Movement, anti-Black racism in 2020 is just as prevalent as it was in 1965.

Click to buy: The Autobiography of Malcolm X

The Greatest: My Own Story by Muhammad Ali and Richard Durham
Muhammad Ali, the greatest boxer and a powerful figure of Black Islam in the US. This is a powerful, witty, and incredibly deep look into the life and thinking of Ali. With his powerful stance against US imperialism, public devotion to Islam, and proud sportsmanship, Muhammad Ali will always remain as one of the greatest examples of the power of faith in changing a person’s life.

Click to buy: The Greatest, My Own Story

Being Muslim: A Cultural History of Women of Color in American Islam by Sylvia Chan-Malik
Explores how Muslim women of colour in the 20th and 21st centuries have played an important role in building Muslim practices and identities, as well as shaping how race and gender are viewed in the US.

Click to buy: Being Muslim: A Cultural History of Women of Color in American Islam

Muslim Cool: Race, Religion and Hip Hop in the United States by Su’ad Abdul Khabeer
Interviews with young, black Muslims in Chicago explore the complexity of identities formed at the crossroads of Islam and hip hop.

Click to buy: Muslim Cool: Race, Religion and Hip Hop in the United States

Women of the Nation: Between Black Protest and Sunni Islam by Dawn-Marie Gibson with Dr. Jamillah Karim
Expands our knowledge about Islam in the United States. Its analysis of the interactions between the Nation of Islam and mainstream Islam is a model for the scholarship on African American Islam. Anyone who wishes to understand the complex religious identities of contemporary African-American Muslim women should read this book.

Click to buy: Women of the Nation: Between Black Protest and Sunni Islam

African American Islam by Aminah McCloud
This is the first book to investigate the diverse African American Islamic community on its own terms, in its own language and through its own synthesis of Islamic history and philosophy.

Click to buy: African American Islam

Five Classic Muslim Slave Narratives by Muhammad A. Al-Ahari
An insight into African Islam, the turmoil of integration into a foreign culture, life in Africa, and life as a slave in the Americas.

Click to buy: Five Classic Muslim Slave Narratives

Illuminating the Darkness: Blacks and North Africans in Islam by Habeeb Akande
The reader is given a fascinating glimpse into the lives of truly noble characters, from luminous scholars to leaders of whole African civilizations. The reader needs no other discrimination while reading this book than the one the author strives to make clear throughout: the deen of Islam is not only free of racism but is utterly opposed to it.

Click to buy: Illuminating the Darkness: Blacks and North Africans in Islam

Black Seeds: The Poetry and Reflections of Tariq Toure
Short poems about the state of black Baltimore, about life and death and striving, murder and failure and desperation. Each poem is accompanied on the facing page by an image, often a photo of an African American looking into the camera.

Click to buy: Black Seeds: The Poetry and Reflections of Tariq Toure

Black Pilgrimage to Islam by Robert Dannin
Offers a comprehensive ethnographic study of African-American Muslims. Drawing on hundreds of interviews conducted over a period of several years, this book provides an unprecedented look inside the fascinating and little understood world of black Muslims.

Click to buy: Black Pilgrimage to Islam

Bismillah & Bean Pies: How Black Americans Crafted an Islamic Expression through Nationalism by Asad el Malik
Although its genesis is in the Nation of Islam, the bean pie has grown to be a part of every African American Islamic expression. It, more than any other item, symbolizes the unique Muslim culture developed by blacks in America. The bean pie in many ways mirrors Islam in black America. A book that discusses Black nationalism and Islam.

Click to buy: Bismillah Bean Pies: How Black Americans Crafted an Islamic Expression through Nationalism

NBA Muslims – Black Muslim Reads edited and curated by Layla Abdulah-Poulos
Includes a spectrum of fiction and non-fiction genres. Here, you’ll find poetry and prose; memoir; children’s stories; mysteries; and contemporary, romance, and urban fiction. All reflect their authors’ intersecting identities. All subvert the tenacious stereotype that associates being Muslim with being foreign. Native-born American Muslim writers take ownership of their faith and their citizenship and interweave them dynamically. In doing so, they reveal their layered, complex social and emotional experiences of being Black and Muslim in America.

Click to buy: NBA Muslims – Black Muslim Reads

As always, please add your reading suggestions in the comments below, so we can continue to educate ourselves.