Salafi Communities in America I

"East Orange” and its “satellites”As the word spread via word of mouth, conferences, tapes, magazines, websites and email lists, the salafi dawah grew stronger and more popular.

• the Islamic Center of America (ICOA) project in East Orange, NJ (E.O.) led by Abu Muslimah. During this time, E.O. gained a reputation amongst Salafis as “the best Muslim community in the US” and many moved there from other communities to help build the community
• . Unlike the remnant salafi movements today, E.O. did have some brothers in the ranks that were professionals and/or college educated. There were IT professionals, school teachers, Graphic Artists, engineers, and successful businessmen and women in the ranks.Most importantly, Abu Muslimah himself has a degree in Business Management from Rutgers.
• Over time, they had the most impressive salafi accomplishments that I knew of: A school that went up to 12th grade with certified Muslim teachers and students that often went on to college, a huge Eid sized musullah, a festive atmosphere - especially after Jumuah - plenty of Muslim vendors on Fridays, a men’s and womens lounge, bookstore, Janazah washing facilities, food bar, sleeping facilities for guests, exercise room, and other things all in that building. The bookstore distributed tapes all over the United States and Canada as well as many parts of Europe and there was also an independent Hajj package and a Muslim security team.
• It was these accomplishments that caused more reasonable brothers to overlook a lot of the overzealous brothers that were in the rank and file. It would be these types of brothers that would lead the downfall across the country.

In Philadelphia, the salafi community didn’t achieve what the community in E.O. had, but they still had a large number of salafis there. By everyone’s estimation, the largest number of salafis in the country, but still not the more complete community that was in E.O.

• In spite of their numbers, they were a satellite to E.O. at that time.
• In Philly, the salafis were in such large numbers that they set the trend for the other Muslims. Big beards and niqaabs became a normal thing even for people that were not salafi.
• The African-American Muslim community in Philly began to appear more Salafi and gradually incorporated Salafi norms of doing things into their speeches, dress and acts of worship.
• It even got to the point in Philly that non-Muslims even started to dress like the salafis. It was the latest trend.

Outside of EO/Northern New Jersey and Philadelphia, there were some small salafi communities that formed in other cites that consisted of brothers that either could not afford to move to E.O. or Philly or were trying to form a community in their locality and get those from even smaller communities than their’s to move there as well. Some examples of these communities like this were Atlanta, Kansas City, and Nashville. However, all these cities were also ‘satellites’ of E.O. during that time.

The smaller communities never really developed for several reasons, but the most prominent reasons at that time were lack of leadership and brothers eventually leaving for E.O. or Philly.

• However, like on Ghostbusters, there was a pink slime lying underneath that no one was addressing that would contribute to ultimately bringing the entire dawah down.

Northern Virginia

A lot of visits back in the day led to the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC during the 1990’s was becoming the most active and vibrant Muslim community in America as a whole.

(E.O. was the best SALAFI community. Northern Virginia was the best community overall - in my opinion. The DC area community was not founded by Salafis, rather by a concoction of organizations affiliated with the religious outreach programs of the Saudi government, organizations affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and its American branches mainly being the Muslim American Society, and a variety of other mostly ethnic based groups such as Afghans, Turks, and South Asians.

By the time the 1990’s rolled around, Salafis were becoming a major force in the area due to these major-factors: - The opening of the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Sciences of America (the Mahad) in Fairfax, VA, which trained American-Muslims for free in Arabic and religious studies and many went on to study at the universities in Mecca and Medina. -

The other Saudi-backed organizations such as the World Assembly of Muslim Youth and the Muslim World League-The emergence of a vibrant African-American Salafi community centered at Jammat al-Qawi in Washington, DC - The lectures of two men who would

The above are exceprts from Umar Lee, who wrote a 6 Part series on Salafi Roots in America