Summary
A Muslim-identified social service organization and community center founded by Rami Nashashibi in the predominantly African American and Latinx Chicago Lawn/West Englewood area on Chicago’s South Side, enacting in Lybarger’s Chapter 5 account a transethnic vision of Islam rooted in South Side black cultural forms and Black Muslim traditions (Palestinian Chicago — Identity in Exile, PDF p.163, p.170).
Details
- IMAN grew out of Nashashibi’s youth work at the Arab Community Center (Chicago), where his introduction of organized prayer and his bringing of African American Muslims to the markaz made Muslim identity central for participating youth — “the early evolution of IMAN” (PDF p.169 / printed p.148).
- Nashashibi chose premises immediately east of the soon-to-close markaz on West 63rd Street, a move he described as symbolic: “we went the opposite direction of where the migration pattern was happening”, repudiating the suburban Palestinian enclave’s upward mobility (PDF p.169-170 / printed p.148-149).
- Its programs focused predominantly on black and Latinx needs: ex-prisoner reentry, medical needs, arts events and public forums, and it quickly became a magnet for young Muslim volunteers from diverse ethnic communities across the city (PDF p.169-170 / printed p.148-149).
- Nashashibi implied in March 2019 that IMAN is a framework spanning diverse instantiations of piety and practice as well as of race, class and ethnicity, rather than the expression of Islam as “one thing” (PDF p.173 / printed p.152).
Related pages
Rami Nashashibi · Arab Community Center (Chicago) · Palestinian Chicago · Syncretic secularity