Theological Purity, Power, and the False Threat of Black Consciousness in Islam
When ‘purity’ is weaponized to shame Black resistance, it’s not Islam being protected - it’s the supremacy of the normative white voice.
Racialized gatekeeping masquerades as orthodoxy - and what the Qur’an and Prophetic legacy actually demand.
Throughout Islamic history, oppressed peoples have risen with dignity, preserving the essence of the faith not by aligning with dominant empires, but by embodying its highest principles. Today, however, we are witnessing a dangerous resurgence of narratives that frame Black struggle—particularly in the form of Pan-Africanism and Black nationalism—as deviations from Islamic orthodoxy. Such accusations are not rooted in the Prophetic tradition but in colonial residues and modern racial anxieties.
The Weaponization of Universality
Islam’s message is indeed universal—but universality does not mean colorblindness or historical erasure. The Qur’an addresses human diversity as a divine gift, not a spiritual flaw.
"And of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the diversity of your languages and your colors. Indeed in that are signs for people of knowledge."
— Qur’an 30:22
True universality in Islam affirms the unique experiences of every people while binding them to a shared ethical horizon. To suggest that Black political consciousness pollutes the message of Islam is to equate universality with sameness—and sameness with submission to dominant racialized hierarchies. This is not a theological stance; it is a political one, dressed in sacred language.
Scriptural Truths and the Liberation of the Oppressed
The Qur'an is deeply aligned with the cause of the oppressed and downtrodden. It does not preach passive acceptance of subjugation but promises leadership and inheritance to those who have been wronged.
"And We desired to show favor to those who were oppressed in the land, and to make them leaders and inheritors, and to establish them in the land."
— Qur’an 28:5–6
This verse affirms the divine legitimacy of liberation. Struggles for sovereignty, cultural integrity, and justice—hallmarks of Black nationalist and Pan-African movements—are not antithetical to Islam. They are manifestations of Qur’anic ethics when neo-traditional avenues have failed to uphold the dignity of the oppressed.
Spiritual Merit and Structural Power
Islamic teachings do emphasize piety over lineage, but this principle has been repeatedly manipulated to dismiss valid critiques of systemic injustice. The Prophet never used the principle of taqwa to silence the structurally disenfranchised.
"O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous among you."
— Qur’an 49:13
Rather than nullifying cultural and historical identity, this verse affirms that difference is part of divine design. Taqwa is not an excuse to ignore injustice; it is the criterion by which we evaluate whether our response to injustice is rooted in sincere submission or self-serving silence.
The Prophet honored Bilal publicly and frequently—not as a symbol of token equality, but as a way of reconfiguring public hierarchies.
“I heard the footsteps of Bilal ahead of me in Paradise.”
— Sahih Muslim 2458
Such honor is not divorced from Bilal’s Blackness, his enslavement, or his resistance. It is through these experiences that his faith and fortitude shone—and were publicly affirmed by the Prophet.
On Pan-Africanism and Muslim Resistance
It’s not by accident that your favorite scholars omit these and center the same examples as white supremacists.
Black political movements—Pan-Africanism, Black nationalism, or Afrocentric Islamic reform—are not hostile to Islam. They were, and are, often shaped by Muslim thought.
El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X)
One of the most iconic Black nationalist figures, Malcolm X’s political evolution was deeply Islamic. His critiques of white supremacy, imperialism, and global anti-Black racism were grounded in his journey through the Nation of Islam and culminated in his return to Sunni Islam. His final speeches fused Pan-African liberation with Qur’anic morality.
“I believe in the brotherhood of all men, but I don’t believe in wasting brotherhood on anyone who doesn’t want to practice it with me.” — Malcolm X, 1965
His Hajj transformed him, but did not erase his Black consciousness—it refined it.
Nana Asma’u, the 19th-century Nigerian Muslim scholar and activist, built educational and spiritual institutions for Black women under a Pan-African vision of scholarship and empowerment.
Usman dan Fodio and the Sokoto Caliphate
The 18th-century Islamic scholar and revolutionary led a Black Islamic resistance movement in West Africa rooted in Sharia, anti-corruption reform, gender education, and resistance to oppressive rulers. His daughter, Nana Asma’u, was a poet, scholar, and Pan-African educator whose Islamic feminism remains revolutionary. This was Black nationalism forged through Islamic governance—not in spite of it.
Imam Jamil al-Amin (formerly H. Rap Brown), an Islamic leader and political visionary, rooted his resistance to white supremacy and state violence in Qur’anic ethics and prophetic character.
Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse and the West African Tijaniyyah
The Fayḍah Tijaniyyah, or "Divine Flood," led by Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse (1900–1975), was one of the most influential Islamic movements in modern Africa. Centered in Kaolack, Senegal, this branch of the Tijani Sufi order forged a distinctly Black, global, and spiritually electrified expression of Islam rooted in Qur’an, Sunnah, and anti-colonial solidarity.
Shaykh Niasse's theology was Pan-African by nature and Qur’anic by soul. His followers included scholars, freedom fighters, rural farmers, and heads of state. He was revered across West Africa and by African-descended Muslims globally—not because he diluted Islam, but because he restored it to the people without racial gatekeeping, linguistic elitism, or theological paternalism.
“This light is not the property of Arabs or Africans—it is the property of those whose hearts Allah has opened.”
— Attributed to Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, speaking on the universality of ma‘rifah (gnosis)He was a mentor to Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president and a father of Pan-Africanism, offering spiritual counsel and Qur’anic guidance during the struggle for independence. Niasse supported liberation movements in Guinea, Nigeria, the Sudan, and beyond, embodying an Islam that empowered Black sovereignty without apology.
In his writings and poetry, Shaykh Niasse linked spiritual realization with the duty to resist tyranny, root out injustice, and center the knowledge of God as the true liberation of all people—especially the historically marginalized.
"He who knows his Lord becomes free from every other master."
- From the Diwan of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse
The West African Tijaniyyah today remains a spiritual anchor for millions of Black Muslims, offering a model where Islam, Black dignity, and global solidarity are seamlessly intertwined—not as a threat to the Ummah, but as a vanguard of its spiritual revival.
Amadou Bamba, the Senegalese founder of the Mouride order, modeled anti-colonial struggle as an act of divine love and spiritual steadfastness.
To call these expressions of Black political and spiritual sovereignty pollutants of Islamic purity is to substitute theological courage with colonial convenience.
Whose Purity? And At What Cost?
The claim that Black political frameworks endanger the “purity” of Islam exposes an unspoken assumption: that the default Islam is Arab, state-friendly, emotionally neutral, and politically passive. But purity in Islam is never achieved by proximity to empire. It is preserved through truth-telling and resistance.
“And do not incline toward those who do wrong, lest the Fire touch you.”
— Qur’an 11:113
When religious figures accuse Black Muslims of spreading grievance ideologies while remaining silent about regimes that bomb, surveil, and imprison, they reveal their true allegiance. It is not Black consciousness that endangers the Ummah. It is the erasure of that consciousness by those who fear its power to destabilize the status quo.
Conclusion
Theological universality does not require black erasure. Prophetic inheritance does not require political neutrality.
Black Muslims have never been parasites on the faith—they have been its preservers. From plantation fields to urban streets, from Timbuktu to Atlanta, they have lived Islam with a courage and clarity many would rather dismiss than confront.
To pathologize their resistance is not Islamic rectification—it is racial deflection.
Islam does not require that Black Muslims abandon their memory to be seen as sincere. It requires that the rest of the Ummah honor that memory - and repent for the centuries spent trying to bury it.
This is from Scroll XVI of my project The Hidden Clinic. I wrote it as a prayer—not a statement. Not for applause. Just rhythm for witness. https://thehiddenclinic.substack.com/p/to-the-ones-who-were-set-on-fire