An Axiomatic Stance of Black Muslim Brilliance: Pedagogies and Possibilities

• In Event: Toward a Critical Muslim Youth Studies: Conceptual and Empirical Debates and Tensions

Abstract

Purpose:
Amidst antiblackness and Islamophobia in U.S. schools, a question that Black Muslim parents grapple with is: what are the educational spaces in which our children can be nurtured? Since the 1980s, a group of African American Muslim parents have transferred their children to the African American Islamic Institute (AAII) School in Medina Baye, Senegal. This paper analyzes the school and related communities’ practices, and how these practices shape youth’s aspirations.

Framework:
Scholars have challenged deficit-based understandings of Black students through counternarratives that highlight their successes. Gholson et al. (2012) argue that doing so tasks scholars with proving that Black students are brilliant. In contrast, adopting an axiomatic stance of Black brilliance compels scholars to recognize Black students’ capacities towards excellence as a self-evident truth (Gholson et al., 2012). This paper extends this approach to Muslim youth, whose capacities have also been called into question and substantiated through counternarratives. It considers what operating from an axiomatic stance of Black Muslim brilliance looks like in practice.

Methods:
Data comes from a multi-sited ethnographic study in Medina Baye, New York City, Atlanta, Detroit, and Washington D.C. It draws from field notes collected during classroom observations at AAII and participant observations at religious events, and semi-structured, open-ended interviews with 31 African American students at AAII. Data was analyzed through inductive coding methods.

Findings:
AAII and its related communities promoted the view of African American Muslim youth as knowledgeable resources through two pedagogies: peer-to-peer learning in the classroom and students’ participation in community-wide events outside of school. These pedagogies reflected an axiomatic stance of Black Muslim brilliance, wherein the abilities of Black Muslim youth were recognized and intentionally nurtured. Youth were prepared and entrusted to transmit and utilize their knowledge in service of others. These experiences shaped youth’s aspirations; they envisioned leveraging their experiences to teach and inspire peers, family members, and adults in the U.S.

Significance:
These findings illustrate new possibilities for scholars and educators working with Muslim students. Rather than refuting deficitized perspectives, or seeking inclusion within exclusionary educational systems, this study has analyzed the impact of an educational experience that was created as an alternative to mainstream options, and has highlighted pedagogies and learning contexts that nurture Black Muslim youth. Further, building on research about how study abroad promotes outcomes for students of color (Engel et al., 2017), these findings underscore the value of providing opportunities for Black and Muslim youth to study abroad on the African continent. Having studied in a society that was not as badly plagued by antiblackness and Islamophobia, youth envisioned carrying back with them the norms and notions of self-worth that they gained abroad, thereby propagating an axiomatic stance of Black Muslim brilliance within U.S. schooling and community-based settings.

Author

• Samiha Rahman, California State University - Long Beach