Review: Believing in South Central: Everyday Islam in the City of Angels, by Pamela J. Prickett

Abstract

In this engaging ethnographic account of an African American masjid in South Central Los Angeles, Pamela J. Prickett explores how Islam is a complete “way of life” that provides guidance on religious practices, community engagement, economic concerns, political activism, and racial justice (2). Prickett expands on Saba Mahmood’s work (2005) by centering on how Islamic practices, not only beliefs, are ways to embody a pious individual self but also to cultivate a more ethical community. In the context of South Central LA, piety “involves the cultivation of virtues that must be achieved through engagement with others” (3). Prickett’s intimate and honest accounting of the conflicts within this community of African American Muslims addresses how working through these struggles is a way for the members to grow closer to God (11).Throughout the book, Pricket astutely presents the specific concerns of this particular Muslim community, such as the racism they face both in United States society and within Muslim American communities, the political and economic struggles, plus the criticism and ignorance they face from Black Christians. This Muslim community is met with a particular challenge to support the significant needs of the South Central LA community. While they seek to help the community with resources, the Muslims are reluctant to let negative forces into the masjid, such as drugs, violence, and sexuality.These conflicts over how to serve the community are the heart of chapter 1, in which Prickett discusses the “symbolic boundary marking” (24) of the members. She explains, “they are pulled by religious obligation to focus on helping the less fortunate in the immediate neighborhood, yet they are pushed by a desire for righteousness to disassociate from people they deem of the hood” (22). She makes an important distinction in this chapter that the members are aware of the institutional barriers to escaping poverty, but they don’t look to religion as a way to magically escape their current conditions. Belief is not about achieving material wealth, as might be preached in Christian prosperity churches, but rather, as Prickett observes, “belief motivating them to move toward something deeper, more existential in character” (28).Chapter 2 uses the death of Imam W. D. Mohammed in 2008 as a jumping off point to examine the transformation of African American Muslims from the Nation of Islam to Sunni Islam. The significant leadership role of Mohammed is shamefully ignored in U.S. religious history. Prickett also discusses the financial collapse of the Nation after Elijah Muhammad’s death in 1975. In chapter 3, she discusses economics: the entrepreneurial projects of the masjid members, the financial struggles of the masjid, and the economic anxieties of the members who live in precarity. Rather than concentrate on poverty and suffering, however, Prickett provides a nuanced analysis of how “money is funny” in this community.Chapter 4 focuses on gender dynamics. While the sermons emphasize that men and women have distinct roles—granting men authority in the mosque and women responsibilities in the domestic space—the African American Muslim women often create their own female networks of support and do not rely on men. Finally, chapter 5 explores class issues, specifically the scrutiny that African American Muslims often face from immigrant Muslims of Arab and South Asian backgrounds. While the ideal is that Islam is a religion without racial hierarchies, immigrant Muslims see the advantages of participating in the American project of anti-Black racism. Through personal stories of institutional racism and micro-aggressions in the mosques, Prickett describes the personal harm of racism and classism, especially when it defines Black Muslims as less pious.Much has been written about the spiritual lives of African Americans, from work on the Black Church, emerging from enslavement, to the Nation of Islam and other Black nationalist religious-political movements. Prickett offers a needed contribution to this literature in her discussion of the religious lives and identities of Black Muslims in the post-NOI era. Another strength of this volume is Prickett’s appealing writing style that is supported by the close connections formed with members of the masjid and her honest reflections of her own positions as a White, non-Muslim researcher. This up-front and at times self-deprecating style allows Prickett to explore the debates and struggles within this masjid. In turn, readers gain an understanding of how Islam is lived out in South Central LA.