(RNS) — Imam Al-Hajj Talib Abdur-Rashid, the longtime chief of the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood in Harlem and a pillar of the African American Muslim neighborhood in New York Metropolis and past, has died at 74.
Abdur-Rashid, or Imam Talib, as he was recognized to his neighborhood and to Muslims throughout the nation, died Saturday (Nov. 15) in Harlem. No explanation for dying has been introduced.
“It’s with a heavy coronary heart that we inform you that our beloved Imam, Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid has returned to Allah,” the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood, the place Abdur-Rashid served as senior imam since 1989, posted on Fb Saturday.
He was buried at Rosedale Cemetery in New Jersey on Monday, following a funeral prayer on the Masjid Malcom Shabazz in Harlem.
New York Metropolis Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani mentioned on the funeral prayer Monday morning that Abdur-Rashid was a mentor who inspired Mamdani to embrace his Muslim religion and use it “to ship constructive change and justice.”
“He made clear that there was no contradiction, irrespective of how typically or how loudly he heard it, between being pleased with your religion and being proud to be a New Yorker,” Mamdani mentioned.
The Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood, which Abdur-Rashid described as “a congregation born out of a spirit of resistance,” is Harlem’s oldest Sunni orthodox mosque and traces its roots to El-Hajj Malik Shabazz (Malcolm X). The mosque was each a hub and sanctuary for its predominantly African American congregation, who felt the stress of being each Muslim and Black in New York Metropolis.
Many noticed Abdur-Rashid, a champion of social justice, as a direct descendant of the revolutionary Black Muslim chief Malcolm X, whom Abdur-Rashid typically honored in his sermons and protests.
“He moved with a deep, deep sense of ardour and respect and empathy for individuals who had been confronting any kind of wrestle,” mentioned Rami Nashashibi, govt director of the Internal-Metropolis Muslim Motion Community (IMAN). “Imam Talib was the actual genuine continuity of Malcolm’s custom, and as such, he was liked and revered throughout the nation.”
A longtime advocate for police reform and a critic of NYPD’s surveillance of Muslim communities, Abdur-Rashid advocated for victims of police brutality and protested unjust sentencing. He additionally served as a chaplain at Sing Sing Correctional Facility and different New York prisons, endorsed Muslims affected by AIDS and home violence, and labored with interfaith organizations, political organizers and elected officers.
“His spirituality and his dedication to justice had been intertwined in a very profound method,” mentioned Rasul Miller, a historian and pupil of Abdur-Rashid. “No person had the form of sharp political evaluation and that clear, well- articulated, unapologetic dedication to justice that he had.”
Abdur-Rashid additionally labored to bridge the divides between African American Muslims and immigrant Muslims by native relationships and nationwide coalitions.
He was additionally the president emeritus, or ameer, of the Islamic Management Council of Metropolitan New York and the vice chairman, or deputy ameer, of the Muslim Alliance in North America. In 2019, he joined the advisory board of CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
At Monday’s janaza, the Islamic funeral prayer, Zaid Shakir, a outstanding American Muslim scholar, described Abdur-Rashid as a large in a protracted legacy of devoted Black People struggling for justice, calling him “probably the most spiritually wealthy individual I’ve ever met.”
At the same time as he grew bodily weaker in recent times, Shakir mentioned Abdur-Rashid “didn’t lose his ardour for aiding, being that serving to hand, to be that shoulder all people may lean on, to be that again that would maintain up underneath the strains, the load and the pressures of residing in most likely one of the crucial pressurized cities on the face of the Earth. That was Imam Talib, he was a mountain of life.”
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Abdur-Rashid was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1951 at a time marked by social and authorized segregation within the American South. He was raised Baptist and moved to the South Bronx together with his household as a baby the place he was formed by Black liberation activism and the Black Arts Motion.
He turned fascinated about Islam after studying the autobiography of Malcolm X, he advised Amsterdam Information. He visited the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood for the primary time in 1971 and have become Muslim at age 20. Abdur-Rashid studied the foundations of Islam from MIB founder Shaykh Allama Al-Hajj Ahmad Tawfiq and Imam Sayed Abdus-Salaam. He was an energetic member of the mosque and, by 1975, was serving as its assistant imam and the editor of its newspaper, The Western Dawn.
Drawing on his previous as an actor and dancer earlier than changing into an imam, Abdur-Rashid introduced cultural and non secular communities collectively. He mentored Muslim artists corresponding to Puerto Rican break dancer Jorge “Popmaster” Fabel and rapper Yasiin Bey, incomes him the affectionate title of “the hip-hop Imam.”
He was additionally a outstanding a part of artist retreats hosted by IMAN in Chicago, wherein he “seamlessly” related the Muslim custom to creative and artistic expression and uplifted artists that felt marginalized in spiritual areas, Nashashibi mentioned.
“Maybe greater than another outstanding public-facing American Muslim imam, Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid was a reservoir of cultural, non secular, political connectivity,” Nashashibi mentioned.
Abdur-Rashid was additionally a public historian who sought to protect and transmit Black Muslim tales by tasks corresponding to George Mason College’s After Malcolm Digital Archive, defined Su’advert Abdul Khabeer.
As an anthropologist herself, Abdul Khabeer generally turned to Abdur-Rashid for archival materials about African American Muslim experiences. “He was a trove of data,” she mentioned.
Abdul Khabeer mentioned the Imam aimed to maintain New York Metropolis’s Black and Muslim communities who’re scarred by racism, displacement and grief. “Imam Talib, all through all that, was a relentless. His commitments had been fixed, his work was fixed,” Abdul Khabeer mentioned. “He didn’t quit.”
In a 2017 sermon, Abdur-Rashid advised congregants: “We’re traumatized folks. I do know that. We’re traumatized folks, with every kind of harm and ache and trauma. And when persons are traumatized, it’s important to go simple on them.”
His daughter, Hawwa Minnie Gilmore, mentioned by tears on the pre-burial service that her father liked his Harlem neighborhood deeply. “It was onerous sharing him with all people on a regular basis,” she mentioned.
Abdur-Rashid is survived by his daughter, Hawwa, and his son, Adam. He’s preceded in dying by his spouse of 12 years, Sanaa Abdul-Halim, who died of most cancers in 2014, and his son Ismail, who died from coronary heart illness.
For his former pupil Miller, who visited the imam as a baby earlier than transferring to New York Metropolis to check with him, it was Abdur-Rashid’s attentiveness that he cherished. “He had a large congregation. He was busy. However he would all the time spend a while with me and present me love and pour into me, and I don’t assume that was distinctive to me,” Miller mentioned. “He was an individual who liked the folks.”
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