Muslim History is Black History is American History
I grew up in Indianapolis as the oldest of four children on my mother’s side. For the first several years of my life, I was always surrounded by other Black kids and families. I didn’t realize until I was in eighth grade, when desegregation legislation was passed in Indianapolis, that the city was rigidly divided between Black neighborhoods and white neighborhoods.
Legislation that was intended to repair damage caused by segregation ended up harming many families and neighborhoods further. Two schools in predominantly Black neighborhoods were closed. Black students who had attended those schools, surrounded by their friends, neighbors, and favorite teachers, were then bused out to schools that had been predominantly white. Even though we were granted access to programs and services at these white schools that had never been offered in Black schools, many students felt that it was not worth being cut off from their community. My friends with whom I had gone to school since kindergarten were sent to four different schools, even friends who lived just down the block.
When I graduated high school, I wanted to see the world. I accepted a scholarship to Prairie View A&M University, a historically Black university in Texas. The Lone Star State was a total shock for me coming from Indianapolis. I had only known Black vs white growing up, but Texas opened my eyes to what racial diversity could mean.
Prairie View also opened my eyes to what education could look like.
For the first time in my life, all of my educators were people of color. For someone who had only a handful of Black teachers during my entire K-12 education, it was a boost to my sense of self to see professors who looked like me at the front of every classroom I entered.
My first-year English teacher exposed me to the world of literature written by Black authors—Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Zora Neale Hurston, and many more. Attending an HBCU was an invaluable experience for me.
After college, I got married and had two children, and I started a job as a claims representative for the Social Security Administration in Arizona. We moved around for the next several years, from Arizona to Maryland to California. When my husband and I divorced, I went back to school to get a master’s degree in education. At the time, I pursued education simply because I thought that it would be easiest as a single mom to have the same schedule and days off as my children. What I didn’t know at the time is that this decision would be the beginning of a lifelong vocation as an educator that I was called to time and time again.
After a few years of teaching at school districts in Arizona, I was called to the United Arab Emirates in 2010. I got a call from a friend there and was offered a job that started in just a week. I decided to take the opportunity and move around the world. I spent a few years homeschooling a local family’s daughters, and then I taught elementary and high school at the national oil company for five years.
When I came back to the United States in 2018, I told myself that I was ready to take a break from education. But soon after I arrived, I got another call from a connection at a Hmong charter school. I figured I would take the interview just to see what this opportunity might present, and I found myself so intrigued by the Hmong culture that I accepted the teaching position. I had a special education classroom full of eighth grade boys, which of course presented its unique challenges.
From the UAE oil company, to the Hmong charter school, to a Catholic school where I later spent a year—no matter where I was, I built trusting, transformative relationships with my students. I knew that as a teacher, I had a unique power to impact their lives, and I believed in finding the magic in all my students. I would sometimes see my colleagues write off some children, but I always tried to spend time connecting with each of my students. I made it a practice to check in with each one every morning.
The best part of being a teacher was seeing students go from shutting down in the classroom to enthusiastically engaging with what we were learning. My sister told me that I’ll never be able to step away from being a teacher, and I think that, over the years, teaching has become part of who I am.
When I was 32 years old, I was blessed with an opportunity to learn about my personal history. I reconnected with my biological father, who was not part of my life growing up. As an adult, I was able to heal and rebuild our relationship, and I discovered a new side of myself that I never knew I had inherited from him. I learned that he was a voracious reader like me, a storyteller like me, a musician like me, a history enthusiast like me. What always made me different from the rest of my family was exactly what made me his daughter.
In addition, my father and I were the only two Muslims in our family—he had converted in the 1970s, and I had converted in 2004. Our shared faith was a source of connection and bonding. Through my father, I got the answers to questions that I had wondered about for decades. I felt that it was the mercy of Allah that my father and I reconnected, and I decided to move back to Indianapolis to be close to him before he passed away. Even in the last year of his life, he supported me in my faith.
Minnesota became my home in 2021. It was a year of blessings and challenges, beginning with my breast cancer diagnosis in December 2022. Looking back now, I feel that it was God’s provision that I moved to a state with one of the top medical systems in the country. But even within this world-renown medical system, I found myself confronting the same racial and gender biases that Black women around the country face when receiving healthcare. I changed my nurse and my radiation oncologist after they dismissed my questions and concerns. For what might have been the first time in my life, I decided that it was time to advocate for myself.
Becoming a survivor of breast cancer changed me in more ways than I could have ever anticipated. I transformed from a peacekeeper into a peacemaker. Instead of avoiding conflict, I became more comfortable making others uncomfortable.
Instead of trying to protect those around me from my own feelings, I grew to understand that I must speak my truth. And I found myself in a position where I could no longer help everyone else—instead, I learned to accept help. Especially during the moments when my treatment had drained me, when my medication left me bone tired, I discovered that receiving support from loved ones was a gift.
To this day, I carry these lessons in self-advocacy with me. I was told by multiple practitioners that my diagnosis may be partially attributable to the stress that I had put on my body after years of not speaking up, not putting myself first, internalizing my feelings rather than working through them. Now, my emotional self is my priority, whether I’m at my doctor’s office with my healthcare providers, at home with my family, or at work with my colleagues.
Thanks to God, I am now cancer free.
I also give thanks to God for bringing me to the same state as Rabata, a premiere Muslim women’s organization that creates positive cultural change through creative educational experiences. I had admired founder Anse Dr. Tamara Gray for years and have taken courses since 2016. When I saw that they were hiring an Education Administrator, I doubted that I would be qualified enough to apply—I told myself that I’m not scholarly enough, that I don’t have the right Islamic credentials, that I don’t know enough Arabic. But my son and daughter-in-law encouraged me to apply, so I submitted my application and said “Bismallah” (in the name of God). Despite the imposter syndrome that made me believe I was somehow “not Muslim enough,” I was offered the position. Now, I have more confidence in myself and my faith.
Serving as the Education Administrator at Rabata is a dream job for me. I work with the Education Director to develop classes and curriculum, recruit teachers, and connect with the community. It’s special to be surrounded by Muslim women after years of being the only Muslim at my workplaces. To give salaams and get them back every day, to fast during Ramadan alongside my sisters, to rely on Anse Dr. Gray as a spiritual resource—I take all of these blessings as evidence that I am where I’m supposed to be.
In my free time, I teach Qur’an to a group of older women, the oldest of whom is 74. I love spending my time with these elders who are too often forgotten or overlooked. Whether they converted later in life or have been practicing Islam for decades, they are all dedicated to furthering their spiritual journeys. The bond that we have as sisters is so important and inspiring to me.
As an African American Muslim woman, I love uplifting the history of my people, whether it’s at Rabata or in my Qur’an classes or in community spaces. Ethiopia is the first place that Muslims went to seek safety, and Islam spread from there. It’s not a new religion—it’s been solidly established in Africa since its inception.
We can point to Mansa Musa, an Emperor of Mali who traveled to Hajj and caused economies to collapse because of his endless generosity. We can point to Nana Asma’u, an early female scholar who established a collective of traveling teachers to educate Nigerian Muslims. Today, there are African and African American scholars who practice Islam in nearly the same way that it was practiced since the very beginning.
I also want people to understand that our history as Muslims and as African Americans did not begin with slavery. We were here in the Americas before Columbus. There are cemeteries with tombstones dating from the early 1600s with engravings of hands raising one finger —a symbol of Islam. Not all of us have ancestors who were enslaved. And among those who came to this country as enslaved people, many were educated and wealthy, and of course many were Muslim. Abdul Rahman Ibrahima Ibn Sori, who was a West African prince captured and sold to slave traders, was asked to write the Lord’s Prayer in Arabic and instead wrote Al-Fatiha (the first chapter of the Qur’an). These African American Muslims came from established cultures that were already hundreds or thousands of years old.
As Black people, as Muslims, as women, we are not monolithic. We are multidimensional. And we are part of the fabric of this country. Muslim history is Black history is American history.
One of the most beautiful parts of Islam is that it requires us to pray together. The Qur’an explicitly states that there is no Black over white or Arab over non-Arab. It doesn’t matter what you look like, what country you come from, how much money you make—we all pray to the same God.
Leanna Abdelmaged was raised in Indiana and has lived in several states and countries overseas. Leanna earned her B.B.A in Finance from Prairie View A&M University and later returned to school at the University of Phoenix for a M.A in Education. She has worked as an educator in both public and private schools for over 15 years in the U.S. and abroad. She has two adult children and two grandsons.
Since converting to Islam as an adult, Leanna has studied Qur’an recitation and memorization, Arabic, fiqh, and tafsir. She has attended local masjids and centers in addition to institutes locally and globally, including Zaytuna College, Bayyinah, and Ribaat. Leanna enjoys helping Muslim women learn to read the Qur’an, and she prays that Allah (swt) will bless us all with the Qur’an as a companion in this life and a witness to our benefit in the next.