A Pastoral Letter: Reviving the Black Religious Spirit
When Mehdi Hasan at RIS 2016 asked one of the most influential and prominent Muslim intellectuals in America, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, whether or not standing in solidarity with the Black community against inhumane treatment and violations of human rights has been a mistake of the Muslim American community, Shaykh Hamza’s answer deeply hurt the devastated souls of the progeny of formerly enslaved Africans in America. His answer and clarification felt to many of us like a frowning and turning away from our painful history; and to exacerbate the injury with an insult, the RIS crowd of mostly immigrant Muslims affirmed these sentiments with cheers. A barrage of responses and analyses has ensued. This is written not as an analysis, critique, nor an attempt to nuance the event. Rather, this is intended as a pastoral letter from a Black American Muslim chaplain to all, asking that we take wisdom from the history and tradition of narratives of those formerly enslaved in America. It is my aim to encourage us and revive our spirit about the wisdom of this Psalm and this Sign from God:
‘Pain may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning.’ (Psalms 30:5) and ‘Surely hardship comes with relief.’ (The Expansion 94:5)
A formerly enslaved black woman, Malinda Discus, wondered about the metaphysical meaning of why her enslaver insisted on Sunday morning service. She ruminated on how white Christian slave owners persisted in the kind of inhumane treatment that both devastated and fractured Black families for centuries, and remained a common practice among white slave-owners, even while they simultaneously believed that the enslaved had a soul that belonged to God. Malinda recalled this baffling religiously incongruent practice cited in Bullwhip Days: The Slaves Remember — An Oral History:
Our master took his slaves to meetin’ with him. There was always something about that I couldn’t understand. They treated the colored folks like animals and would not hesitate to sell and separate them, yet they seemed to think they had souls and tried to make Christians of them.
Another formerly enslaved black woman, Sarah Douglas, offered the following theological explanation of the purpose of slave religious life: “We served our mistress and master, in slavery time, and not God.” She reasoned thus because only the slave-owner could grant permission for a slave to actually convert to Christianity if and when the black slave was seen as redeemable. Black “redemption” was predicated on the fact of white male owners validating that the slave really worked hard and did not steal or lie. Thus, heavenly salvation of black souls was only possible through white male earthly masters. Malinda and Sarah both convey a righteous suspicion and indignation of the white Christian’s metaphysics and religion.
Emily Dixon shared that a significant group of the enslaved resisted joining the church by way of white male owner approval: “On Sundays, us would git tergether in de woods an’ have worship. Us could go to de white folks church, but us wanted ter go whar us could sing all de way through, an’ hum ‘long, an’ shout — yo’ all know, jist turn’ loose lak.’ Clara Young shared that, in fact, she considered these some of the best times of slavery that she could remember. It was celebrating and praising God that they secretly carried on into the late nights that brought the most joy. Clara reiterated how religious worship was appropriated to ‘jist turn loose lak’, she says:
De mos’ fun we hed was at our meetin’s. We hed dem mos’ every Sunday, an’ dey lasted way inter de night. De preacher I lakked de bes’ was name’ Matthew Ewing. He was a comely nigger, black as night, an’ he sho’ cud read outen his han’. He neber larned no real readin’ an’ writin’, but he sho’ knowed his Bible, an’ wud hole his han’ out an’ mek lak he wuz readin’, an’ preach de purt’est preachin’s you ever heard.
While Emily and Clara found rejuvenation in the obvious emotional charismatics of Black church life particularly in the rituals of worship, formerly enslaved spiritual folk also critically intimated a weightier substance to Black religion. For example, Prince Bee points out a clear concern about post-emancipation changes occurring in black religion, seeking a return to deeper spirituality:
That religion I got in them way-back days is still with me. And it ain’t this piecrust religion, such as the folks are getting these days. The old-time religion had some filling between the crusts. Wasn’t so much empty words, like they is today. The Negroes of today needs another leader like Booker Washington. Get the young folks to working. That’s what they need. And get some filling in their piecrust religion, so’s when they meet the Lord, their souls won’t be empty, like is their pocketbooks, today.
One of the fruits of the spirit that emerged from the Sunday morning service he called “old-time religion.” Often it was a forbidden fruit because it produced such an overwhelming passion for the power of prayer and an absolutely unbreakable faith. This old-time religion would create a faith that would consume all doubt and that would fervently abound in the soul, carrying the enslaved through the worst of times. Yet, the enslaved did not wholly depend on the nourishment of Black ministers nor the approval of the white master to worship God. In fact, the enslaved exercised their own moral and religious agency in spite of their enslavers’ attempts at total control. They realized their real freedom lay within their relationship between themselves and God and not with any white man. Ellen Butler tells how her master never allowed his slaves to go to church. She describes the effects of this old-time religion of slaves building big holes out in the fields that they would get down to pray. She says, ‘Dey done dat way ’cause de white folks didn’ want ’em to pray. Dey uster pray for freedom. I dunno how dey larn to pray, ’cause dey warn’t no preachers come roun’ to teach ’em. I reckon de Lawd jis’ mek ’em know how to pray.’ One formerly enslaved man said:
I’ve heard ’em pray for freedom. I thought it was foolishness, then, but the old-time folks always felt they was to be free. It must have been something ‘vealed unto ’em. Back then, if they’d catch you writing, they would break you if they had to cut off your finger, but still the old-time folks knew they would be free. It must have been ‘vealed unto ‘em.
When “old-time religion” took hold of the enslaved hearts and minds, nothing could deter them from their belief in God. Often preachers would lie to slaves about their relationship to and possibilities with God. It was a devious plot to stir doubts about the metaphysical meaning of their existence and covenant with the Al-Mighty. The Reverend Anderson Edwards shares how that often happened and how he, more often than not, avoided it. Sunday morning service homiletics were (for the slave-owners) to instill complacency with one’s condition or, conversely (for the enslaved), to revive the Black spirit in hope of a greater future. The Reverend Edwards shared:
Is been preaching the Gospel and farming, since slavery time. I jined the chu’ch eighty-three years ago, when I was a slave of Master Gaud. Till freedom, I had to preach what they told me to. Master made me preach to the other niggers that the Good Book say that if niggers obey their master, they would go to Heaven. I knew there was something better for them, but I darsen’t tell them so, ‘lest I done it on the sly. That I did lots. I told the niggers-but no so Master could hear it — that if they keep praying, the Lord would hear their prayers and set them free.
We know the Lord heard their prayers. History has answered the metaphysical question of slavery time, ‘Did Black souls matter?’ to God. In the unbroken chains of narration from children of the enslaved who recall how “old-time religion” and this characteristic of being in constant prayer and in the Word of God deeply stirred the spirit of their parents. Rebecca Grant described her mother who sounded like a walking example of James 5:16 and The Family of Imran 3:102:
My mother, all de time she’d be prayin’ to de Lord. She’d take us chillun to de woods to pick up firewood, and we’d turn around to see her down on her knees behind a stump, a-prayin’, We’d see her wipin’ her eyes wid de corner of her apron — first one eye, den de other — as we come along back. Den, back in de house, down on her knees, she’d be a-prayin’.
We find story after story from my formerly enslaved ancestors in America of the miracles of survival and resilience, both physical and spiritual, that began with turning to God alone.
Returning to those dismissive words from Shaykh Hamza Yusuf and the ensuing clarification that inspired applause which felt, to many of us, like a thousand lashes from our immigrant co-religionists — those words and sentiments excluded the effects of systemic racism as the primary factor in the breakdown of the Black family and our community’s problems. But taking a lesson from our ancestors, we should turn to God in that ‘old-time’ religious way and pray as our ancestors did. We must pray to realize forgiveness and healing in the hearts of our community. Our hearts must be united and not divided especially in the wake of the Donald Trump presidency. I decry the comments and sentiments but, dear Lord, I forgive Shaykh Hamza and my fellow immigrant Muslims who cheered. I pray God places forgiveness in all our hearts and revives my community with that ‘old-time’ religious spirit in the face of adversity. It was Phillis Wheatley who poetically and beautifully said, ‘pray Others may never feel tyrannic sway?’ Wheatley wrote:
Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song, Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung, Whence flow these wishes for the common good, By feeling hearts alone best understood, I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate Was snatch’d from Afric’s fancy’d happy seat: What pangs excruciating must molest, What sorrows labour in my parent’s breast? Steel’d was that soul and by no misery mov’d That from a father seiz’d his babe belov’d: Such, such my case. And can I then but pray Others may never feel tyrannic sway?
I am asking that we reflect on the significance of this turning to God as a symbol and metaphor for Black Americans — the fruit of which is this “old-time religion” — with its indefatigable faith and indomitable spirit — that we need more of today. Despite myriad forms of inhumane treatment, destructive effects of systemic racism that have persisted over generations in a vicious cycle, degrading and weakening our families, and despite the dearth of quality education in our communities, we must remain people of hope, people capable of immense compassion and vision. With unflinching faith that our religion and approval from God alone provides, we continue in the struggle to change our personal and collective condition. Likewise, our faith should not be disturbed by a lack of validation of the inconvenient truths regarding our conditions as Black Americans; rather, it should only increase our determination as we continue the legal, political and social justice struggles, while simultaneously responding to pain and adversity by celebrating God’s praises, certain of God’s redemption of our community. Everyone should, especially today, stand firmly in solidarity with the Black community affirming these evident truths. The secret of the restorative justice and power of God for the Black community was best conveyed by a formerly enslaved woman named Mary: “My religion is my life. It is the most important thing that I know or that I will ever know.” May God grant us a share of this “old-time religion” and heal our Black American and Muslim community in America.
References:
All excerpts and quotes from slave narratives come from my Kindle version of:
Mellon, James. Bullwhip Days: The Slaves Remember. New York, N.Y.: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988.
Wheatley, Phillis. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral: By Phillis Wheatley, Negro Servant to Mr. John Wheatley, of Boston, in New England. London: Printed for A. Bell, 1773.
Image Sources
The Color Purple iconic image of turning back to God.
“Flagellation of a Female Samboe Slave.”
John Gabriel Stedman, Narrative, of a Five Years’ Expedition, against the revolted Negroes of Surinam . . . from the year 1772, to 1777 (London, 1796), vol. 1, facing p. 326. (Copy in the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University)
Comments
Caption, “Flagellation of a Female Samboe Slave.” Shows a female hanging from a tree with deep lacerations; in background two white men and two black men, the latter with whips. Stedman witnessed this event in 1774. The female was an eighteen-year old girl who was given 200 lashes for having refused to have intercourse with an overseer. She was “lacerated in such a shocking manner by the whips of two negro-drivers, that she was from her neck to her ankles literally dyed with blood.” This and other engravings are found in the autobiographical narrative of Stedman, a young Dutchman who joined a military force against rebellions of the enslaved in the Dutch colony. The engravings are based on Stedman’s own drawings and were done by professional engravers. For the definitive modern edition of the original 1790 Stedman manuscript, which includes this and other illustrations see Richard and Sally Price, eds. Narrative of a five years expedition against the revolted Negroes of Surinam (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988).
