ISLAM IN AMERICA
Milwaukee – a Place for Muslims in the Heart of America A Muslim community thrives in a midsize, Midwestern city BY SANDRA WHITEHEAD
Milwaukee group Umrah
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VIP Girls program at the Islamic Resource Center
hen Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, work and strong leadership created multiple has brought it face-to-face with its greatest a new convert to Islam, joined mosques, schools, health and social services, challenge yet — how to be big. the Milwaukee Bucks in 1969, businesses and resources that provide a rich the MSA at the University of environment where Muslims can indeed GROWING UP DIVERSE AND COHESIVE Wisconsin-Milwaukee was the city’s only thrive. Arab Muslims arrived in Milwaukee in Islamic organization. It held Friday prayers Yet the community’s exceptional growth the 1940s, followed by Muslims from for a dozen people in students’ apartIndia, Kashmir and Pakistan in the ments or rooms on campus. 1950s and 1960s, according to the Almost 50 years later, the legEncyclopedia of Milwaukee, a UWM THE WISCONSIN MUSLIM CIVIC endary basketball star returned to digital humanities project. ALLIANCE, FOUNDED IN 2019, Meanwhile, the Nation of Islam the Midwestern city on the shores of Lake Michigan where he spent expanded beyond its first two ENCOURAGES MUSLIMS TO his first six years in the faith and cities, Detroit and Chicago, and ENGAGE IN CIVIC LIFE. IT WORKS led his team to their first national established Muhammad Temple #3 WITH ALLIES ACROSS THE STATE championship in 1971. (The team in Milwaukee. Combining tradiwon its second this July.) Hosted tional Islam with Black nationalist ON MUTUAL CONCERNS, HOSTS by UWM’s MSA in 2017, the NBA’s teachings, the Nation reintroduced MEET-AND-GREETS WITH LOCAL American Blacks to Islam, the faith all-time leading scorer looked out CANDIDATES, ORGANIZES GETat a largely Muslim audience and many had been forced to give up during slavery. In the 1960s and declared, “Muslims can come here OUT-THE-VOTE DRIVES, TAKES and thrive.” Then he marveled, “The 1970s, many members of the Nation POSITIONS ON POLICY ISSUES AND left the movement and adopted Muslim community in Milwaukee has grown and changed. It was noth- ENDORSES CANDIDATES. IT RALLIES mainstream Islam, following leading like this in the 1970s.” ers like Malcolm X and Warith Deen SUPPORT FOR CIVIC INITIATIVES Today it is a flourishing comMohammed who became Sunni LIKE FAIR HOUSING AND munity of tens of thousands — still Muslims. growing and maturing but also both With three generations of Arabs, FAIR VOTING LEGISLATION. self-sufficient and well integrated two generations of South Asians, a large contingent of African into the larger society. Years of hard 24 ISLAMIC HORIZONS SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
