• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • 1
    CommentGo Back
 
BUILDING ISLAM IN DETROIT
Building Islam in Detroit is a research project that documents the growth of mosques and Muslimcommunities in greater Detroit over the last century. Since the project began in May 2004,members of our research team have visited over fifty mosques and Islamic associations,photographing them, recording their histories, and interviewing the people who established them.This exhibit explores “building” as a process that creates both physical objects and social worlds.Mosques are ideal examples of this creative process. They are sites at which Muslims givecollective, material expression to their religious beliefs. As architectural forms, mosques revealthe cultural identities of their builders. Their locations tell the history of Muslim arrival andsettlement in Detroit. Mosques are also works of art, where sacred words, images, and soundsintersect to produce spaces of unusual beauty. Most important of all, mosques are places whereMuslims come together to strengthen their community through teaching and communal prayer.
We hope this exhibit will help you appreciate the historical richness, diversity, andinfluence of Islam in Detroit. Shaped by experiences of displacement andopportunity, of discrimination and empowerment, the building projects on displayhere are the groundwork for a Muslim American future.
Curators and Principal Investigators
Sally Howell
Program in American Culture, University of Michigan
Andrew Shryock
Anthropology, University of Michigan
Research Team
Omar Baghdadi
Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan
Mucahit Bilici
Sociology, University of Michigan
Mara Leichtman
Anthropology, Michigan State University
Kate McClellan
Anthropology, University of Michigan
Design Team
El Shafei Mohamed
Photographer, Art and Design, University of Michigan(Unless otherwise stated, all photographs are by El Shafei Mohamed)
Elena Godina
Graphic Designer, University of Michigan
Karl Longstreth
Head Librarian, Map Library, University of MichiganBuilding Islam in Detroit has received generous support from the following Universityof Michigan programs: Grant Opportunities for Collaborative Spaces, Digital MediaCommons; the Rackham Interdisciplinary Institute; the Islam/Art/America Initiative(International Institute); and the Islamic Studies Initiative (International Institute).
Minaret and dome,Islamic Center of America.Students at the MuslimAmerican Youth Academy.Photo by Sally Howell.Reading the Quran beforeprayers, University IslamicCenter of Detroit.Floor Mosaic,Muslim Unity Center.
BUILDING ISLAMIN DETROIT:FOUNDATIONS / FORMS / FUTURES
 
 
BUILDING ISLAM IN DETROIT
BUILDING ISLAMIN DETROIT:FOUNDATIONS / FORMS / FUTURES
 
Today, roughly 150,000 Muslims live in greater Detroit, and they worship in over 50 mosques. Mostof these mosques are located in renovated banks, warehouses, old school buildings, storefronts,and churches. Others are purpose-built, multimillion dollar facilities that include gymnasiums, socialservice offices, private schools, and grand banquet halls.Since 1990, the number of mosques in Detroit has doubled, with new mosques appearing in theouter suburbs and the inner city alike. These building projects are the work of congregationscomposed mostly of immigrants and their children, or converts and their families. Islam in Detroit iswidely perceived to be “new” or “foreign,” and recent surveys find that over two-thirds of the city’sMuslims were born outside the US.Few people realize that the rapid growth of Islam in Detroit is based on foundations laid by mucholder Muslim communities, some of which date back to the late 19th century.
 
American Muslim Center.Photo by Sally Howell.Baitul Islam Jame Masjid.University Islamic Center of Detroit.Albanian Islamic Center.Photo by Mucahit Bilici.Detroit skyline.Photo by Philip Greenspun.
Windsor,Canada
Masjidan-Nur TijaniZawiyaTawheedCenter Masjidal-HaqqMasjidAs-SalamMasjidOak ParkiniaCenter ImamAliMosqueMasjidAl-IklasMasjidal-FatihaMasjidAl-BurhaniMuhammad's MosqueDaruSalamCenter Masjidal-TawheedAl-IslahJameMasjidMuhammad's Mosque#1MasjidWaliMuhammadMadrasaTalimulQur'anAmericanMuslimCenter MasjidBaital-MukarramMasjidMu'athBinJabalIslamic HouseofWisdomAmericanMoslemSocietyAlbanianIslamicCenter Baitul-IslamJameMasjidMuslimCenter ofDetroitIslamic CenterofDetroitIslamic Center ofAmericaIslamic CouncilofAmericaIslamicCulturalInstituteAr-RasoolCommunity Center NewBosnianIslamic Center Islamic CulturalAssociationDahiraTaisiroulHasirToubaAmericanMuslimBekaaCenter MoorishScienceTemple(#25)TheQur'anandSunnahSocietyAmericanYemeniIslamic Center MuslimMeninFellowshipUnityIslamicInstituteofKnowledgeBosnianAmericanIslamicCenter Islamic Center ofNorthDetroitKarbalaIslamicEducationCenter AmericanIslamic CommunityCenter MuslimCommunityCenterofDetroitUniversity IslamicCenterofDetroitIslamic Center ofAmerica(historic)IslamicOrganizationofNorthAmericaMuslimCommunity oftheWesternSuburbAmericanSociety ofMuslimsMasjidofDetroit
Gr Poi Shor Troy Southfield FarmingtonHillsRoyalOak OakPark FerndaleMadisonHeightsBirminghamBerkley BloomfieldHillsOrchardLakeHazelPark ClawsonFarmingtonLathrupVillageHuntingtonWoodsPleasantRidgeWarrenSterlingHeightsRosevilleStClairShoresFraser EastpointeCenterLineLivoniaTaylor Westland Inkster Wayne AllenPark DearbornHeightsEcorseGardenCity LincolnPark RiverRougeMelvindaleHighlandPark Hamtramck HarperWoodsGrossePointeWoodsGrossePointeFarmsGrossePointePark GrossePointe
Detroit  Dearborn 
 
Detroit 
 
FOUNDATIONS
This is the first Moslem mosque built inthis land and I am proud to have the first  prayer in it, as the first imam therein. Thismosque, although built for the followers of Islam, will be open to the believers of all religions for a place of rest, prayer and meditation. Mohammedans believe inworshipping but the one God. Mohammet,on whom be peace and the blessings of God, is a prophet of God who teaches ushow to come into communion with Him.We are all children of the one God. There is no original sin. There is no eternal hell. Thereligion of Islam treads underfoot all racial prejudices. Islam teaches its devotees that when they go to any other country they must peacefully obey the laws of the government of that country. Thus it is the sacred and religious duty of every Mohammedan here to bea good citizen of America and to learn the language of the country, without which wecannot understand each other rightly.
Dr. Mufti Mohammad Sadiq (from India)Detroit News. Thursday, June 9, 1921Muslims first came to Detroit in the 1890s. They were drawn to the city’s booming industrialeconomy, and by the 1920s small Muslim enclaves had formed near automobilemanufacturing plants. Detroit’s early Muslims belonged to two groups: (1) immigrants fromparts of Europe (Bosnia and Albania) and the Middle East (Turkey and Greater Syria)controlled by the Ottoman Empire; and (2) African Americans, most of them from the DeepSouth. The Europeans and Middle Easterners were either Sunni or Shi`a. African Americans,by contrast, embraced new, alternative versions of Islam framed in response to anti-Blackracism in the US. These movements included the Moorish Science Temple (founded byNoble Drew Ali in 1913), the Ahmadiyya movement (which originated in India in the 1880sand was brought to America in 1921 by Mufti Muhammad Sadiq), and the Nation of Islam(founded in Detroit in 1930 by W.D. Fard).Detroit’s first mosque – and the first in the U.S. – was built in Highland Park in 1921, whenthe local Muslim population was said (in newspaper accounts) to be 16,000 strong. TheHighland Park mosque closed in 1923, but by the mid-1930s Arabs, African Americans,Afghanis, and Indians had prayer spaces on Hastings Street, a road that connected Detroit’s“foreign worker colonies” to “Paradise Valley,” the city’s largest African Americanneighborhood. The oldest continuously occupied mosque in greater Detroit, the AmericanMoslem Society, was established in Dearborn in 1938. Albanians established their firstmosque in 1950, near Highland Park.By 1971, most area Muslims worshipped in only fourcongregations: the Albanian IslamicCenter, in Harper Woods; the American Moslem Society, in Dearborn; Muhammad’s TempleNo. 1, in Detroit (renamed Masjid Wali Muhammad in 1976); and the Islamic Center of America, in Detroit. Many of Detroit’s new mosques are linked historically to theseinstitutions, all of which still function as houses of prayer.
Pioneer members of the Nation of Islam,1975. Photo by Shedrick El-Amin.Congregation of Masjid WaliMuhammad.Masjid Wali Muhammad, 2005.Federation of Islamic Associations banquet inDetroit, 1957. Courtesy of Joe Caurdy.The Highland Park Mosque,circa 1927.W.D. Fard (in framed portrait), Elijah Muhammad(seated), and Warith Deen Muhammad. SchombergCenter for Research in Black Culture.Imam Khalil Bazzy (right) embraces Duse Mohammad Ali at Eid al-Fitr services, 1927. Detroit Free Press.Local imams celebrate the opening of the Highland Park Mosque, 1921.Detroit Free Press.Poster circulated to raise funds for the construction of the HighlandPark Mosque, circa 1919. Courtesy of Carl Karoub.
BUILDING ISLAMIN DETROIT:FOUNDATIONS / FORMS / FUTURES
 
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
kwiddle

Very impressive layout

reply01 / 28 / 2010
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...