People Love to Ask Why I Converted to Islam
Black liberation theology was something I always knew, even if I couldn’t name it
Sanction is given unto those who fight because they have been wronged; and Allah is indeed able to give them victory.
— Qur’an, 22:39
If you speak of Minnesota, you’ll be met with the usual remark, “There ain’t no Black people up there,” as if the speaker has ever visited long enough to have such certainty. As a state, it’s true that Minnesota certainly doesn’t hold the bulk of this country’s Black population. But there are enough of us up there to kill. There are also enough of us to hear the gunshots, watch the videos, and engulf the city streets. There may not be enough of us to chew up Minneapolis or St. Paul or any other place where people have come to harm. We cannot reduce concrete and police precincts built in the hubs of community centers to nothing. We cannot transform all the things that harm us into forgotten mush in our bellies, shit out in the snow. But there are enough of us to seek atonement.
In the early hours of November 15, 2015, I was at my grandmother’s house in south Minneapolis. When my friend texted me to say police shot somebody in the head on the north side, I didn’t know who they’d shot. None of us did, but we did not have to be…
