A MutedImam

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A Muted Imam

Narrative of a Naturalist Imam’s Message

ByKhalid A. Wasi

© 2014 by Khalid A. WasiAll rights reserved. First edition 2014.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission, in writing, from the publisher. This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to an actual person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Co.12620 FM 1960, Suite A4-507Houston, TX 77065www.sbpra.com

Book Design by Julius Kiskis

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ISBN: 978-1-68181-176-5

Contents

Foreword ................................................................................. vii

Location .....................................................................................x

Introduction ................................................................................1

1. Nation of Islam in Bermuda .................................................10

2. New Leader with New Direction ........................................13

3. Finding the Ideology of Change ..........................................17

4. Ideological Growth Pains .....................................................20

5. First Wave of Discontent ....................................................23

6. Beginning of the End ...........................................................29

7. A New Beginning ................................................................41

8. One Masjid, Two Ministries ................................................43

9. Two Ministers’ Clash of Ideology .......................................51

10. Muslim World League Conference in Trinidad .................54

11. A Practicing Muslim ..........................................................62

12. Ready to Go Back as Trinidad Conference Ends ..............68

13. Back in Bermuda ................................................................75

14. Trip to the Bahamas ...........................................................80

15. The Muslim Community in the Bahamas ..........................84

16. Sufi Sheik Visits Bermuda .................................................93

17. King Khalid of Saudi Arabia Visits Bermuda ...................97

18. Trip to Saudi Arabia .........................................................102

19. Meeting the Imam Consul of the WCI .............................112

20. Meeting Four World Leaders ...........................................118

21. Back Home to Bermuda and a New Community Emerges ....................................................................................................122

22. Young Englishman ..........................................................130

23 Soulful Night with Two Sons of the Soil ..........................133

24. Bermuda in Turmoil ........................................................137

25. Leadership Challenges after Trinidad Regional ..............149

26. Multiple Marriages ..........................................................153

27. Soul Mates and Synchronicity ........................................161

28. Universal Synchronicity ...................................................168

29. New Leadership for the Islamic Brotherhood ..................170

30. Bowed Out ......................................................................174

31. Synopsis 2004 ..................................................................176

32. Concluding Remarks 2004 ...............................................178

33. Synopsis 2010 ..................................................................180

34. Ahmadiyya Muslim Community .....................................187

35. Mujjedid or Reformers .....................................................207

36. Second Jubilee .................................................................211

vi Contents

vii

Foreword

A Muted Imam is the first revision of the original book, How It Was, and the subject matter is still a work in progress. I have preempted that which would be considered more complete with pictures, newspaper clippings, letters, and correspondence that supports the various situations described in the book. As I continue to write, I hope to impart more in-depth focus on some of the subjects raised in both this edition and How It Was.

I was asked to release How It Was and its shorter version for the benefit of the many people who, at the time, had questions about the Muslim communities in Bermuda. I felt pressured to complete something before the visit of Imam Warith Deen Muhammad. I was able to get a copy to him when he arrived. However, I don’t know if he read it.

Bermuda now has a buzzing young-adult Muslim population mixed with a new immigrant community of Muslims. They have been asking questions about the history of the development of the Muslim community, questions for which, in some cases, there is a lack of information and they are unable to get the answers. This revision was prompted because the first edition sold out, and to reprint, knowing the omissions and little mistakes, would have been a waste of opportunity. I hope this new version, although written as a story, will help provide some answers to historical questions about Islam in Bermuda and the developments of the Muslim community there between 1975 and 1981.

I also hope it will help Muslims, and others around the world interested in religious perspectives, to understand some of the thought processes for persons growing up in the Western Hemisphere who have chosen to convert to Islam. The hope is to provide answers, or perhaps better, lead people to the position where they can find answers for themselves. Although I am central to my own story, I have to step aside and see this experience as one that in large measure chronicles the adventure of a soul and a life of a person who sought truth and to understand the nature of and connection with God. It tells of a journey from Christianity to the radical message of the Black Muslims of North America. It then converges toward traditional Islamic ideology. The story will show the interpretation of Islam by a sojourner who became an imam with a message that would be swept away by a wave of fundamentalism and, in the final analysis, be rejected by the community he once served. While the narrative of this story is only a brief snapshot in time, it was real and eventful, and the dynamics of the struggle continue to reverberate, bringing life to the adage, “Truth crushed to the ground will rise again.”

I have not added any gloss to the narrative and may have failed to include so many valuable and related stories, but I am happy that I was able to write as much as I did, because time has a way of erasing memory, and I wrote with clarity, almost as if it happened yesterday.

At the time of this publication, there are, including me, three authors of books published on the development of Islam in Bermuda. The first is Wayne Brown (Abdul Rahman), who has now written two books and was a contemporary of mine. The second is Dr. Radell Tankard, who did not live through our experience and relied on his own research, but who has never questioned me or entertained a discussion on the events of that time with me.

viii FOREWORD

As a first generation Muslim, I have the commitment to acknowledge and affirm what happened during my lifetime. What I have written here is indeed the truth of what I did, what I experienced, and how I felt. I do not know what the future holds for the legacy for which I strove, and I do not want to misrepresent or replace truth.

FOREWORD ix

x

Location

Bermuda is the most northerly island in the western Atlantic Ocean, lying seven hundred miles east of North Carolina in the U.S., eight hundred miles due south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and more than a thousand miles from the nearest island to the south. The island is only twenty-one square miles and shaped like a fishhook. With a current population of sixty-five thousand, it is economically one of the richest per capita countries in the world. Although the island is very small and arguably one of the most beautiful in the world, its impact and strategic importance to the development of the West is out of proportion to its size.

The first written reports of the island, although only legendary, may have started with the voyage of the sixth-century Irish monk, St. Brendan, whose description of an island in his journals somewhat matched the description of Bermuda. However, the first reliable information begins with the travels and expeditions of the Portuguese and the Spanish early in the sixteenth century. The events flowing from the Catholic conquest of Granada (a former Moorish Islamic empire) meant that, for numerous reasons, Spain needed to find alternate routes to India to avoid Islamic nations. Many of the Muslim and Jewish navigators and artisans had to convert to Catholicism or die. Cyril Packwood, the Bermudian author of Chained to the Rock, writes that Venturilla, an African slave, was the first recorded person to set foot on the island of Bermuda. Venturilla’s religious

identity could be conjectural, but he was from Andalusia, which was formerly Moorish. He undoubtedly had Muslim heritage. However, due to the Spanish Inquisition, it was doubtful that contemporaries would have celebrated him openly as a Muslim. Notwithstanding, it is a plausible argument that he may have been the first person and first Muslim on the island.

According to historic records, the Portuguese king and his court made the ruling to colonize the island towards the end of the sixteenth century, but they never did. They would live to regret that. It appears that they only used the island as a stopover to refit and replenish food and water supplies for their ships as they pursued their main lucrative targets further to the South and North Americas. However, when Bermuda was lost later to the British, Spain declared war on Britain for not giving back the possession. The island was treacherous to sailors because of its reef system, and most Bermudians believe that it earned the nickname “Isle of Devils” because of the reefs and noisy birds, which were in abundance at that time. However, folklore amongst some Muslim people of that era, and still to this day, forebodes an isle of the devil in the ocean that may also be the source. It may be possible that sailors attributed this folklore to Bermuda because of the numerous ships lost in the area during those times. The Portuguese and the Spanish held the map of how to navigate through the reef system as a guarded secret for nearly a century and preserved the quiet usage.

That luxury was later interrupted by a fateful storm that shipwrecked Sir George Somers and his British crew on the shores of Bermuda. His ship was part of a fleet heading to Virginia; the other ships were not as fortunate. That shipwreck of the Sea Venture in 1609 marked the beginning of continuous settlement of Bermuda. The aspect of colonization was important

location xi

and its value fully appreciated. However, few have quantified the strategic value of owning the knowledge of our reef system and having possession of a port as far north in the Atlantic during that critical time in world history. For example, the Azores are further north, but nearer to Africa and the European continent. Hence, its value to stage expeditions or refit vessels in the New World could not compare with Bermuda’s location. Famous sixteenth-century captain John Smith, made infamous with his connection to the tale of Pocahontas, said, “Bermuda is an excellent bit with which to rule a great horse” (Lorri Glover and Daniel Blake Smith, The shipwreck that saved Jamestown: The Sea Venture Castaways and the Fate of America, 1967).

That’s precisely the role Bermuda played for several centuries. Bermuda was the catalyst for many exploits and expeditions. It helped the British by being the most valuable staging front to launch and maintain its colonization of the New World. A thousand miles away and just off the coast of South America, Bermuda directly colonized Turks Island, and later the islands of the Bahamas. During the mid to latter part of the seventeenth century, Bermuda was part of the staging ground to take Jamaica from the Spanish. When you look at the fact that all the countries in the direct shipping lane from England via Bermuda to the Americas speak English, and everything outside that lane essentially speaks Spanish or Portuguese, it is no coincidence but a direct result of the military sovereignty enhanced by Bermuda as a staging ground. Bermuda’s position was instrumental in all the wars in the Americas, including the Civil War, and remained of strategic military importance until the end of the Cold War.

Another note researched by my close friend Abdul Rahman regarding Bermuda’s location and geological formation, which was shaped by nature and fatefully enshrined over millions of

xii location

years, preceding man, is that the island lies directly in path with the Kaaba in Mecca during only two days between the months of May and July of any calendar year. During this two-day period at midday when the sun is directly overhead with no shadows emerging from the Kaaba, Bermuda and its physical alignment faces the Kaaba. Rahman also recognized that the shipwreck of Sir George Somers in July 1609 possible occurred during those two days.

Everything in the universe is proportioned and full of relevance and meaning, yet what we understand is little. As humans with intellect, however, we are learning to see the connections. If you look at the world map with a child’s eye, this beautiful garden, shaped like a little fishhook (or a key to others), looks like it was made to either catch or free the Western world. There are always signs in the universe for those who reflect on them. It may stand to underscore a reason why a small group of us gathered to have a chant and spiritual meeting on December 26, 2004, when, unbeknown to us, at that precise time and hour the most devastating tsunami in living memory hit Indonesia and the Pacific.

Religion was inseparable from the history of colonization. The Church of England provided the religious framework for several centuries. Evidence of the role of religion in shaping historical events in Bermuda can be seen in a religious dispute dating back to around 1656 when a faction of persons on the island who were influenced by Lutheranism openly challenged the church by declaring freedom of worship. They argued for the right to pray to God directly, without the Church of England’s prayer book. That challenge was enough to have them rounded up, resulting in a couple of boatloads of these people being cast off the island. John Darrell was the individual responsible for ensuring that they were sent off the island, an event that he would

location xiii

have to later apologize for and undo. Having those individuals sent off the island wasn’t uneventful. During the voyage of the castaways, they discovered the Bahamas and the subsequent colonization began with them. The initial name they gave it was Eleuthera. However, because of the poor soil conditions and issues of sustainability on that island, they journeyed further west to the Americas for suitable land. They were assisted by the native Indians, who thought these Englishmen were friendlier than the Spanish. They named the new area Charlotte and colonized it as their next location. Governor Payne, a Bermudian, became the first governor of what we now know as Charlotte, North Carolina.

Almost two centuries later, in or around 1825, the first church that allowed blacks to worship emerged. This came as a result of abolitionist teaching that argued, in another religious debate, against the idea preached by the established church that blacks/Africans had no souls and were only one-fifth human. In the parish of Warwick Cobb’s Hill a Methodist church was built, ostensibly by the hands of black men, both free and slave, many of whom could only work at night. My great-great-great-grandfather, Joseph Deshield, who came to Bermuda from Haiti as a free man, has his name carved on the cornerstone of that church. Later, his son, George, the first Deshield to be born in Bermuda in 1823, would host an American, the first bishop of the African Methodist Epistle church to visit Bermuda, at his residence on Cobb’s Hill. This bishop, who visited Bermuda during the mid to latter part of the same century of emancipation, came to help establish an affiliate branch of the AME in Bermuda. As the centuries progressed so did religious diversification.

By the twentieth century, the Christian church had diversified to the extent that perhaps every segment of Protestantism and Catholicism was visible and present. Faith and work went hand

xiv location

location xv

in hand as a way of life for Bermudians. Morality and order was coded by the principles of the church for most of the society. Intolerance for any other religion was part of the accepted ethos. Although the majority of the world was other than Christian, there was no knowledge of what or how Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists believed; it was all considered false. The Judaic faith or ideology was never contemplated; they were accepted simply as God’s chosen people. Elements of Hinduism began to emerge in the early seventies, but its movement eventually blended as transcendental meditation. The advent of Islam on this little island would be eventful, and an interesting phenomenon to say the least. For me it was historically relevant, because it was my white ancestor, John Darrell, who was in charge of the program to banish the rebel Lutherans from the island in the 1650s. It was Joseph Deshield, another of my ancestors, a black free man, who helped build the first church for blacks. His son, George, another of my ancestors, engaged the first AME church. As a descendent, to become the first of those who will form the line of traditional imams, and in particular to be the first of public notoriety, intensely involved with the introduction of Islam to Bermuda, I provide an uncanny genealogical twist and religious connection.

1

Introduction

I was raised in an average, black, middle class, working family. At the age of eighteen, I had serious identity questions. In that regard, as far as identity was concerned, I was no exception,

quite typical in fact. As a consequence of slavery, most black people in the Western hemisphere were completely severed from their history and culture, and were therefore left with a distorted sense of identity. I had questions about why it was that black people the world over were subjugated. Was this our ordained fate? I grew up with a religious background and attended church every Sunday as a child, which was a norm for my generation. In spite of my faith, I pondered if there was a scriptural base that would help me relate to why I felt inferior in my own black skin. That issue became a turning point in my late teens. I became more aware of my black identity issue when I came in contact with the ideology of what was then known as the Black Muslims.

The church with all of its Caucasian symbolism, i.e. white Christ, angels and apostles, did no more than compound my sense of inferiority at a time when black people in the West were coming to terms with issues of civil and human rights. As a young Christian, I recall challenging my leaders at the time for answers for how Christ would relate to our situations and times. My elders thought of me as confused. They did not look at me as a seeker, and therefore I gained no real answers from them for an exemplary model of a Christian life that could have satisfied my

2 Introduction

natural human and intellectual needs in a world that was filled with bigotry. As a young Christian, I had absolute belief in God but wanted to know that I was following a life with the attitude of Jesus as the foundation. I wanted an example of a Christ that was current.

Notwithstanding my lack of satisfaction in that regard, I cannot discount the positive effects of the church on my having faith in God, in addition to its role within the overall civil rights movement and its impact on my attitude about racial justice and equality, given the efforts of Martin Luther King and many other proponents. However, my own militancy to fight against inflicted racism and my renewed pride of self came ostensibly through the doctrine of the Nation of Islam. Additionally, it was the ideology of the Nation of Islam that transformed my outlook of scriptural knowledge from viewing it as the life of others to being a message directed at my own people. For that matter, it gave all people the right to look at scriptural stories in ways that are relevant to them. For example, the story of Moses, who delivered a people from four hundred years of subjugation, I interpreted as an allegory for my own race that had been enslaved for that number of years.

I did interpret the Nation of Islam’s message in that context, and it gave me what I believed at that time to be an example of how to live according to revealed words with a defined mission against a world that was set against me. However, it was also through an experiential reality that I became more aware of my true spiritual and human identity when I stepped out of the nationalistic ideas of the Nation of Islam and was confronted with the ideologies associated with Islam proper. It was only then that I truly became a vanguard for all of humanity.

The ideology of the Black Muslims gave me, at least for that time, a reason to love myself in my own skin and,

Introduction 3

more importantly, did so with scriptural/biblical meaning. Notwithstanding, the Black Muslim ideology could not suffice for what was my natural spiritual and philosophical proclivity. From a very young age, I had always experienced paranormal psychological happenings. While attending the New York Institute of Technology as a first-year student, my math teacher, Professor Briggs, made quite an impression on me. Aside from mathematics, he spent most of his time lecturing on metaphysics. His impact will have a lasting influence, because it helped firm up a position in my mind for thought that was multidimensional. I would say that Professor Briggs helped me shape my own line of inquiry about almost anything. My late teens were a twilight period of my life, and a time when I began to develop a love for philosophical matters. Although, in my late teens, I believed in the message of the Nation of Islam, which satisfied the need for black people to feel a sense of worth and integrity, intrinsically I was left with a need, generated from my soul, to reconcile those nationalist approaches with my spirituality. As I began to embrace Al Islam step by step, I continued to rationalize with the intellectual issues of day-to-day life, current relevance, and purpose, just as I previously encountered in the church and then the Nation of Islam.

The growth of Islam in Bermuda, and the birth of that ideology in me, is analogous to the many steps that the Muslims of Bermuda have traversed. My life story, as is the case for others, is one that involves personal, group, and societal struggles, as truth began to spark enlightenment and the transformations of untruths were unfurled. My mother would go to her grave loving me but disappointed that I did not turn out to be the bishop she envisioned. The same was quite similar for my father. Their disappointment exposes the challenges facing the Muslim communities of Bermuda. My experience was at the epicenter of change within

4 Introduction

the community of Muslims and at the roots from which the various Muslim groups that now exist in Bermuda sprang.

From another perspective, the story of my experience can show how social distortions, injustice, and suppression, while felt as negative, can be a cause for people to challenge existing beliefs and often lay the foundation to what is, and should be, every soul’s inalienable right to question and observe.

In my conversations with many of my Muslim brothers and sisters concerning our local history, it became very clear to me that there are significant information gaps in our minds. These gaps are perhaps the result of the periodic lapses of involvement by persons, and undoubtedly, it’s all of us who shared that fate at one time or another for a variety of reasons. I became painfully aware of this gap after attending a banquet in the early nineties hosted by the World Community of Islam at the Southampton Princess Hotel. One of the aims of this banquet was to honour the pioneers of the Nation of Islam. I felt the initiative was worthy; however, it pressed me for the intellectual honesty of the matter, when these honorariums were also being billed as the pioneers of Islam. The case for honesty or clarity became more poignant when a booklet about the effort was circulated as memorabilia commemorating the occasion. Perhaps it was seeing the booklet at that moment that generated a heartfelt realization in me for the need for the representation of all the challenges and efforts made by others perhaps less known and uncelebrated whose labor resulted in bringing the community closer to a truer Islamic way. Given the nature of how history is made or recorded, I knew the power of that pamphlet if left alone as the sole bit of written information that attested to the history of Islam in Bermuda. It pressed me to help put in proper context the very meaning of Islam and what its history should mean. Whatever the causes are for the gulfs in our understanding, the result is

Introduction 5

that there existed a void that was filled with half-truths in some cases and miss-truths and fabrications in others. I would prefer not to think of the situation as a product of malice, but rather the result of a combination of ignorance and a little intellectual dishonesty, all aided by the fact that the history of the Muslim community in Bermuda and the ideas associated with Islam is largely unwritten.

Of late, there are many who have inquired about our history. Many recent converts and visitors that come in contact with the various Muslim communities often cite the obvious question: How is it that a small island with such a brief history of Islam has so many communities? It is an interesting question, and it’s only when you observe the flow and twist in ideology that impacted the island’s fledgling community that one can understand why these groups emerged separately. Our history needs to be recorded. In looking at that challenge, I felt it was a mammoth task and needed to be thoroughly researched. The first academic challenge is to have some individual or group broad enough in terms of reference to be able to impartially examine all the aspects of personal and community acts germane to Islamic history. I realize that the effort is still a ways off because it would need to be commissioned by the communities, or funded by some benevolent person, and the effort supported by the communities.

I am not up to the task of producing what I would consider an academic or professional approach to our history, notwithstanding that there is much I can contribute to the subject. The easiest way to impart that history immediately is to share my experiences and involvement as my story. Much of what we now know of as world history is a result of personal stories and journals. So in that light, I don’t discount what my contribution can bring. I accept that what I bring is only a small part of the

6 Introduction

story and cannot suffice for the whole. I also recognize that my journey is just that—my journey—and the questions that became a basis for my own personal evolution are mine and not necessarily indicative of everyone else. I feel very innocent in that regard, and hope that it can be read and appreciated simply as my journey.

Therefore, I must warn readers that this is my story, which is detailed in the issues pertaining to the Muslim community the way I experienced it. To some degree, I opened up areas in my personal life to show in live format the thoughts and acts that flowed from belief. What I write is not necessarily doctrinal, or recitations of doctrines espoused to me, but rather my experience and questions on doctrine. When I embraced Islam, I wasn’t looking for another religion. I was in search of truth, God, and reality, and I was open. Therefore, the search for truth as explained in this story is an ongoing process, as opposed to a cataclysmic event or occasion. My religious upbringing and involvement with the Nation of Islam had its consequences that rendered me thoroughly suspicious of doctrine, and thus had erased fear of an open question about life and truth. My evolution through the different ideologies and what I began to embrace were the positions that were, at each time, clearer in my mind as rational truths but then gave way to awareness.

In my story, particular focus is given to those areas where I had direct involvement. My hope is to add another dimension that may assist everyone with their own perspective on the development of Islam in Bermuda. Another hope would be for persons of any faith to place themselves in my shoes, take on my experience, and analyze it for their own sake. I believe somewhere in a region of everyone’s being exists the desire to search for certainty, and thus all are driven to know truth in whatever way they can.

Introduction 7

Those interested in history would know that any single historical event gives rise to several perspectives. A sociologist will tend to view things differently from a historian; a religious person, depending on his/her persuasions, will again have another perspective. In giving my story, I give full recognition of the varying views that will be drawn, but hopefully my perspective can be appreciated by all readers of diverse persuasions. I hope through this effort to provide the stimulus for others to write and fill in more gaps. The only way to ensure that future generations can assess their origins is if we record our stories. In that regard, I am extremely grateful for the work done by Abdul Rahman, who himself felt challenged and as a result pioneered Bermuda’s first book giving outlines on local Islamic history, which is now also undergoing its first revision.

Because my work is not meant to be an academic approach, for the purposes of verification, I invite you to confer with other personal stories as a means of testing my perspective, or for that matter any of the stories relating to our history. In the main, I have tried to avoid characterizations and naming, hence I have used a few pseudonyms for real persons. However, it is not possible to give a clear historical account without reference in some instances to persons involved in various episodes. There is no intent to frame such persons to a time zone, because in most, if not all, cases those persons have moved on. They have evolved and are living model lives, which is a testimony to their sincerity. All of us evolve out of our ignorance, and therefore our lives have been a subject of constant change. I am including myself as one who at times was ignorantly involved in activities that in hindsight I would have done differently, and no doubt have caused unintended injury to others and myself. It is through the grace and mercy of Allah that we are given the opportunity to discover our mistakes and have the opportunity to evolve.

As is the case with all religions, it should be understood that there are many streams of Islamic thought. Currently, due to intense media attention, the popular image is that of fundamentalism, the ultra orthodox traditionalistic perspective that has coloured Muslims and the image of Islam as radical and separatist. Notwithstanding, there are general orthodox thoughts that encompass a broad range of proponents, from the radical separatists, otherwise known as fundamentalists, to basic traditionalists, who may appear as social conformists, separated only by their belief systems, quite different from the fundamentalists who generally appear distinct in Western societies. The issue of adaptation in Western society is such that the basic traditionalist may only become apparent on significant religious occasions when they may wear a gown or prayer cap. Perhaps similar context is the difference between orthodox Jews and ordinary Jews. Many traditional Muslims wear their religion like a culture but, insofar as their everyday pursuits and activities, hold the belief that their religion mandates that they be very much a part of any society in which they live. On the other hand, there are those (fundamentalists) who believe that their way or interpretation of Islam is the only true way, and would consider any form of assimilation as a compromise and deviation. Additionally, they live with the obligation to create a world that conforms to their interpretation of the religion Islam, and a view that the whole of mankind should observe or come under the rule of that interpretation.

Then there are the untraditional, or unorthodox, ideologies such as Sufism or Shi’ism. Additionally, there are offspring that have incorporated many of the spiritual practices and/or philosophical aspects of Islam but would not be considered by the orthodox to fit inside the ambit of the Islamic groups. They would include groups such as Baha’i, Ahmadia, and Sikh. As

8 Introduction

a point of clarity, the former Nation of Islam organization did not, or could not, fit into any of those categories because its core ideology had no resemblance to the spiritual or philosophical ideas consistent with Islamic thought. Currently, while there may still exist a few older persons who adhere to that black nationalist ideology, there are no organizations remaining that espouse what was taught by the Nation Of Islam back in the sixties and seventies. Even the current NOI under the leadership of Minister Louis Farrakhan has moved its philosophy nearer to the spiritual ideals of Islamic thought, while maintaining much of the original self-development thrust.

The development of Islam in Bermuda would mean, in reality, the advent of its core monotheistic ideology spreading and gaining a foothold amongst Bermudian people. The history of Islam would involve the transformation of the Nation of Islam but not limiting or defining it exclusively by that transformation with its gradual growth towards traditional Islamic ideology. In my story, I hoped to show the development of Islamic thought and practice as it emerged in my surroundings to display this new ideology in its own right.

Introduction 9

10

1Nation of Islam in Bermuda

The most prominent organization that would have stood out in people’s minds from the early seventies when referring to Muslims in Bermuda was the Nation of Islam,

the international leader of which was the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. While the organization in the United States may have had hundreds of thousands of supporters, Bermuda’s temple number one was the first and most significant organization outside of the USA. The organization had a formidable presence locally. It owned and operated several very successful businesses. Its membership numbered in the hundreds, mainly comprised of young people between the ages of nineteen to thirty-five who were devout followers, many of whom were self-employed or were working in the community’s businesses. The sympathetic support throughout the island was exponentially greater than the core membership, forming an outer rim of influence and patronage to the organization’s aims.

Most of these people who joined the NOI were formerly of the Christian faith. During the sixties, the issue of black identity caused significant movement amongst the youth. Universities—which were being challenged to produce history relevant to black people—musicians, and songwriters were all impacted by the quest for identity during this period. People of African descent began to aggressively ponder their own status and condition. They began to revisit the question as to why and

11A Muted Imam

how Europeans subjugated a whole race of people. Many were looking for a religious answer. Given that the Christian church was the predominant religion of the time, it could be said that for many the church failed to provide those answers. In many ways, the church seemed to be a source fuelling many of the racial stereotypes that the black activist of the day was attacking. Imagine songs with words such as, “What can wash me white as snow? Nothing but the blood of Jesus” being sung at the same time James Brown was singing, “I’m Black and I’m proud” as a response. The cosmology of the churches was heavily depicting Caucasians in all the roles of divinity; Jesus, the angels, and the disciples were all white. If anyone attempted to portray any divinity as black at that time, even amongst black people, it would have seemed strange. The psychic of the black mind had fully embraced the idea of white divinity to a point where presentations of black angels or a Christ would have appeared absurd. The best argument would have been, “Well, it doesn’t matter what color is put forward.” I used to say, “If so, then put your own color forward.” It was easy for movements like that of the NOI to make a case for itself during the late sixties and early seventies by reversing the roles in favor of a black divinity.

The success of the Bermuda community was due in part to the charismatic and visionary leadership of Byron X as its first leader. He assisted in its growth and galvanized the organization behind a radical message of black nationalism in a period of tremendous social change in Bermuda’s history and most of the Western world. Minister Byron X was the first leader of the local Black Muslim movement to gain public recognition. The nucleus began with Brother Kenny Castle, Brother Albert Muhammad, Brother Lionel Zuill, Brother Dennis Muhammad, and Brother Carlton Burchall (Askia). These men worked on the Hamilton docks and had access to banned publications of Muhammad

12 Khalid A. Wasi

Speaks newspapers. Eventually, this same group began to meet on Court Street, sharing the same building (Bassett’s) with the Black Cadres. The Bassett family, beginning with John Bassett Senior, has been deeply associated with the black struggle and has suffered the consequences.

The presence of the Black Muslims around 1969 would have also been seen in a little restaurant operated by them on North Shore Road near the Devonshire docks. The complete story of the Nation of Islam’s rise and fall is a valuable portion of Bermuda’s social history and development, which will hopefully be researched and presented in the form of a book. Similarly, the advent of conventional Islamic thought, which would include all aspects such as traditional or fundamentalist approaches, or any of the other established expressions of Islam that have been part of Bermuda’s social landscape, deserve their own spotlight. This Islamic development needs to be understood in its own right and context before it can be appreciated. It’s easy for the line between what can be considered “Islam proper” and black nationalism to be blurred, particularly where persons have been duped into considering themselves as Muslim, when it could be said metaphorically that the base ideology of the NOI prior to 1975 was as foreign to Islam as profit is to communism. I hope that we can draw that distinction inoffensively.

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