A Tribute to Shaikh Daoud Faisal [PART TWO]

Introduction by Rasul Miller

Here we present to you the second half of a two part series on Shaikh Daoud Ahmed Faisal, authored by his student and long time assistant, the accomplish jazz trombonist and educator Hajj Daoud A Haroon. In this installment, Hajj Haroon provides additional analysis of Shaikh Daoud’s life, mission, and impact. He mentions several of the notable women and men who made up the extraordinary community of American Muslim pioneers who attended the mosque founded by the Shaikh and his wife, Mother Khadijah, at 143 State Street in Brooklyn, New York. Hajj Haroon also includes some remarkable photographs!

 

 As I mentioned in part one, that this is not an easy undertaking even though I have had the opportunity to have spent time in the past with the venerable Shaikh and his wife Khadijah (RA) and have quite a bit of memorabilia collected over the years plus the additional information gleaned first hand by several of my surviving colleagues from those early days – but also the memories and biographies of many of the early members of the Islamic Mission of America (IMOA) and Muslims and non Muslims who had benefited from an association with the IMOA over the years. Insha-Allah many segments of this phenomenal story will be will be re-assembled and pieced together to form a reasonable reference to a truly meaningful piece of American history that transcends in many ways more conventional historic events that are not as far reaching in breadth and scope as this early attempt at Islamic propagation in the West spanning a time frame that extends from the turn of the 20^th Century to the 1970’s.  

To read the complete second part of Hajj Daoud A. Haroon’s tribute to Shaikh Daoud Faisal please click the following link:
http://mancebomosaic.com/writing/a-tribute-to-shaikh-daoud-fasial-pt-2/

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Rasul Miller is a PhD student in History and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include Muslim movements in 20th century America and their relationship to Black internationalist thought and West African intellectual history.