Description
Book SynopsisDraws on oral histories and interviews with approximately 100 women across several cities to provide an overview of women's historical contributions and their varied experiences of the NOI, including both its continuing community under Farrakhan and its offshoot into Sunni Islam under Imam W D Mohammed.
Trade Review"A fascinating and well researched book that expands our knowledge about Islam in the United States. Its analysis of the interactions between the Nation of Islam and mainstream Islam is a model for the scholarship on African American Islam. Anyone who wishes to understand the complex religious identities of contemporary African-American Muslim women should read this book." -- Richard Brent Turner,author of Islam in the African-American Experience Second Edition
"Will add handsomely to the growing body of scholarship on the important topic of Islam in America, with particular reference to Islam in the black American community. The authors have provided us a useful and fascinating glimpse into an extremely interesting and undertheorized subject." -- Sherman A. Jackson,author of Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Towards the Third Resurrection
"This text emerges to provide some transparency for readers about these womens lives and the lives of those who left the Nation to follow Warith Deen Mohammed. Women are in the foreground, but not without the persistent and sometimes overriding presence of the men that they marry, contend with, and serve. The co-authors actually have different strengthsKarim is an insider while Gibson is the outsider. The resultant collaboration provides readers with varying lenses into this community of women." * Choice *
"Women of the Nationwill prove an essential resource for any scholar or teacher interested in the experiences and contributions of black women to both Islam and black nationalism in American history." * The Journal of American History *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. "Our Nation": Women and the NOI, Pre-1975 2. "Thank God It Changed!": Women's Transition to Sunni Islam, 1975-80 3. Resurrecting the Nation: Women in Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam 4. Women in the Nation of Islam and the Warith Deen Mohammed Community: Crafting a Dialogue Conclusion Notes Index About the Authors
