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Our banner photo this month is an
Adobe Mosque that was built by an American Muslim family and their
surrounding community, which is made up of multi-racial and ethnic convert and immigrant Sunni, Shia, and Heterodox Muslims as
well as non-Muslim Sufis, and non-Muslim friends who hail
from all over the world and close to home.
Previous Banner Images:
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Our banner photo this month is of a wall in the "Men's Dungeon" at the
Cape Coast Slave Castle in Ghana. Many slaves who came to the
Americas were kept for transport in this castle. A number of
those slaves were probably Muslim.
The Men's dungeon was underground and there was only one small window
for light and air. It was dark, hot, and damp. The room
would have been crowded with men nearly on top of each other. The
men would be held typically for months before a ship arrived to
transport them. There was no place in the dungeon for them to
relieve themselves. They had to defecate and urinate where they
were. The excrement ultimately hardened, and inch by inch the
floor rose over the years to the level you see marked in chalk on the
walls. The individual letters mark one side of a grid used by
archaeologists when they carefully excavated the petrified
excrement. It was over one meter deep at the time of
excavation. The women were held elsewhere. The women's
dungeon had more space and there was a large window that led out to a
walkway. Through the window Europeans at the castle could examine
the women as potential sex slaves for use prior to transport.
We hope the photo expresses the complicated nature of our lives as
Muslims in the Americas. It shows that our history can be traced
back to the slaves of Africa. Islam is as indigenous to the
Americas as is Christianity. But Islam was brought in the hulls
of the ships with the oppressed rather than on the decks of the ships
with the oppressors. The photo marks the awful history of an
economy built on the backs of stolen labor, lives, and dignity.
Still we cannot forget that a number of those brought to the Americas
were enslaved by African Muslims themselves through taking and selling
prisoners of war for profit. So the photo also marks our
obligation to work for justice not just when we are the oppressed, but
perhaps especially so when we are also the oppressors.
We will change our banner photo once a month. If you have a
banner photo you would like to submit, please send it to our e-mail
address along with your name and an explanation of the photo and its
significance for the community.
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Food Bank
ProgressiveIslam.Org
would like to suggest that you
consider giving Ramadan charity to Second Harvest, the national
food-bank for the poor, or to your local food-bank.
Second
Harvest has a local food bank finder on their front page if you need help or want to contribute locally.
We are building a Community Portal
Resource Page in the Women's Health Project. Please tell us about services in your community.
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