To see an America where justice, equality and righteousness reign and where the legacy of Islam lives on.
To grow and maintain a broad-based alliance of Muslims dedicated to strengthening African American Muslim communities and institutions.
America has witnessed the establishment of many Muslim organizations in the last 100 years. Yet, America, and the Muslim community, continue to struggle with blackness and the plight of African-American people. As the American Muslim community continues to grow, its easy to lose focus on the unique needs of the black community. In the early 2000's, community leaders, activists, and Imams pledged to build stronger bridges between African-American organizations to address issues such as healthy marriages, islamic literacy, community re-entry, economic development, and more.
MANA was the product of many great minds coming together from different organizations with a passion to serve and strengthen African-American Muslim communities. These groups included the community of Imam Warith Deen Muhammad, the community of Imam Jamil, the community of Imam Siraj Wahhaj, and others.
This is the perfect time to join the MANA Network! We have just started a new cycle of soliciting community input that will help us determine which community needs are most important for MANA to network around and focus on. We are in the process of surveying community leaders and Imams from across America until December 2022. The results of this survey will be presented to the community on February 25th at an online National Town Hall meeting, in shaa Allah. Your input, feedback, and voice are needed to discuss the findings and develop solutions. Registration for the National Town Hall will open December 1, 2022.
MANA collects information on a national level through listening sessions across America and through research institutions such as the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.
We will convene leadership sessions that invite all leaders from the community of African American Muslims to develop closer relations with with the hope of including them in networked projects.
We will host town hall session to talk about what’s important, and get feedback on what’s working and what could be better in the African American Muslim Community and creates more community engagement.
MANA’s leadership team is comprised of diverse leaders who have a passion for serving the community and come from a wide range of professional and educational backgrounds. Among them are academics, Imams, chaplains, business professionals, community activists, licensed counselors and therapists. The organizations and institutions they represent provide an array of valuable services to the communities they serve.
President
President
Vice President
Vice President
Secretary
Secretary
Founding Member
Founding Member
• Retired Muslim Prison Chaplain – 40 years combined volunteer and professional service in the jails and prisons of New York.
•HIV/AIDS educator since the early 1990s, co-founder of The African American Muslim Commission on HIV/AIDS, member – the International Muslim Leaders Consultation on HIV/AIDS.
• Spiritual advisor, New York chapter of Millati Islami (a Muslim support network for men and women in recovery from narcotics and alcohol addiction) since the mid-1990s.
• Author, A Muslim Manifesto on Darfur (2006), Healing Indigenous Muslim Families in America (2007), “African and African American Muslims in Early New York ( published essay, 2010) , “Souls on Fire: Christian and Muslim Insurrectionists in 19th Century America” ( paper presented at the Transatlantic Roundtable on Religion and Race, Birkbeck, University of London (2012). Major spokesman as president of the Majlis Ash Shura of New York, in the successful struggle against the NYPD unconstitutional surveillance of the NY and NJ Muslim community (2011-2016).
• 2016 recipient, The Institute for the Black World 21st Century Legacy Award, for service on behalf of people of the African diaspora.
• 2017 Imam Talib doctoral awardee (Honoris Causa) in Islamic Leadership, the National Institute of Muslim Human Service Practitioners.
• Recipient: the Bridge Building Award for Leadership in Community Relations; the Micah Justice Award of The Micah Institute at New York Theological Seminary; the Citizen of the City award of The Police Reform Organizing Project.
• Founding member, A Partnership of Faith in New York City (1992).
• Current member, CORL (the NYC Commission of Religious Leaders, with Christian, Muslim, and Jewish religious leaders).
• 2018 member, the National Steering Committee for The Poor Peoples Campaign in the U.S.
• 2019 recipient, the Shaykh Hassan Cisse Peace Builders Award.
• 2020, faith presenter, Democratic National Convention.
Founding Member
Founding Member
Board Member
Board Member
Board Member
Board Member
Founding Member
Founding Member
Board Member
Board Member
Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA) is a national network of masjids, Muslim organizations, and individuals committed to working together to address the urgent needs of the African-American Muslim community.