Mufti Muhammad Sadiq
Mufti Muhammad Sadiq arrived in the United States on February 15, 1920 as the first American missionary of the Ahmadiyya movement of Islam. He played a key role in the spread of Islam in the Black community of Chicago. His egalitarian rhetoric of racial and gender equality, which is what drew many converts, stands as an example of the heavy overlap of Islamic teachings and values of social justice. Upon arrival, Sadiq was immediately detained by immigration officials on the grounds of suspected polygamy, based on the belief that all Muslims are polygamous. Sadiq was incarcerated mere hours after stepping foot in the United States on the basis of nothing more than his skin color and Muslim faith, which opened his eyes to the racism and systemic inequality of white Christian America and galvanized him to devote much of his life to spreading the idea of Islam as a truly just and equitable alternative to the existing Christian hegemony in the United States. Within two years, he had established a mosque in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood. There, his fiery rhetoric and egalitarian teachings attracted followers from all walks of life, especially African American men and women from the surrounding areas. Sadiq made no attempt to soften his criticisms of the American political and religious establishment, lambasting racial hierarchy, gender inequality, and Christianity’s inability to resolve racial hostilities and systemic inequality. These ideas were extremely attractive to many Black Chicagoans, who were all too familiar with the complicity of white Christians in the continued oppression of blacks and other minorities. Sadiq made it his mission to spread the teachings of Islam to the people of Chicago, many of whom knew almost nothing about the Qur’an. In particular, Sadiq emphasized the religion’s egalitarian nature as an alternative to Christianity’s internal inconsistencies and as a solution to the widespread cultural, social, and political subjugation of Black Americans. For many who became regular attendees at the mosque, Sadiq—who was neither white nor black—did not embody white supremacy nor its consequences and was, instead, a cultural and religious escape through which they could be proud to be black and to not conform to the white Christian hegemony.
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