The Essential Black Muslim Reading List

Black Muslims are not lost in history, even if their history has been disregarded.

By Vanessa Taylor

26 February 2019

In 2018, the Council on American-Islamic Relations reported that anti-Muslim bias incidents and hate crimes had increased 83 and 21%respectivelyfrom April 1 to June 30 of that year compared to the first quarter. Alarmingly, the report found that incidents involving government agencies such as the FBI and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, including incidents that involved the denial of religious accommodations, rose by 60% in the same time period.

It’s tempting to blame the presence of Islamophobia in the United States on the Trump administration, or to trace its systemic origins to anti-Muslim sentiment that grew across the nation following the attacks of September 11, 2001. Both are contributing factors, but neither fully laid the groundwork for violence we see today.

The history of Muslims in America extends beyond the creation of an assimilatory “Muslim American” identity or the racialization of Muslims as only non-Black. Enslaved African Muslims fostered revolts throughout the colonies, such as Haiti, and the 1959 documentary The Hate That Hate Produced introduced the Nation of Islam as a domestic threat to the country.

Presently, Black Muslims make up about a fifth of the American Muslim population. About half of those Black Muslims are converts to Islam. Black Muslims are not lost in history, even if their history has been disregarded. Understanding Black Muslims in the U.S. is essential not only to understanding America’s Islamophobia but to understanding pop culture, racial capitalism, surveillance, and more. Black Muslims have existed in the U.S. for centuries and folded themselves into every aspect of resistance within it. If you’re interested in learning more about these identities and experiences, I’ve put together the essential Black Muslim reading list.

1. Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas by Sylviane A. Diouf

It’s sometimes assumed that enslaved people lost the religions they brought to the Americas. Award-winning historian Sylviane A. Diouf’s groundbreaking book, originally published in 1998, challenges that assumption by documenting the efforts of enslaved African Muslims throughout the Americas to retain Islam.

“It is sobering to realize that next year, 2001, marks five centuries of ‘almost uninterrupted’ Islamic practices by people of African origin in the Western Hemisphere,” wrote one reviewer of Diouf’s book in 2000.

Diouf’s careful reconstruction highlights perhaps one of the most fundamental things to know about enslaved African Muslims and Islam in America: that even if their religion did not always survive in its “orthodox” form, Islam, and the Muslim, are embedded into the history and cultures of the African diaspora.

2) Black Crescent: The Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas by Michael A. Gomez

African Muslims were present throughout South America and the Caribbean, too, as the transatlantic slave trade transported forcibly displaced peoples throughout all of the Americas. In fact, those brought to the U.S. made up only about 3.6% of the total number of Africans transported throughout the slave trade.

Gomez’s 2005 book starts in Latin America during the 15th century. The second part looks into the resurrection of Islam in the United States with a focus on notable figures such as Noble Drew Ali, Elijah Muhammad, and Malcolm X.

3) “Du’as of the Enslaved: The Malê Slave Rebellion in Bahía, Brazil” by Margarita Rosa

Margarita Rosa’s article for the Yaqeen Institute offers a detailed retelling of one of the best-recorded rebellions by enslaved people in the Americas. Rosa guides readers through an exploration of Bahían Muslim intellectual society and the role it played within the eventual Malê rebellion. Perhaps most importantly, details of the aftermath of the Malê rebellion tie into [how early models of surveillance formed to target Black Muslims] (https://medium.com/the-establishment/in-surveillances-digital-age-black-muslims-are-hit-the-hardest-68f3a9377af), who posed a threat to social order. Readers can also view images made available by the Arquivo Público do Estado da Bahia in 2018, including pictures of the Qur’an found in homes or remains of letters written by Muslims.

4) A Muslim American Slave: The Life of Omar Ibn Said by Omar ibn Said and Ala Alryyes

Omar Ibn Said was born in the late 18th century to a wealthy family in West Africa and later enslaved and brought to the United States. The book’s description notes that he became known by “a prominent North Carolina family after filling the ‘walls of his room with piteous petitions to be released, all written in the Arabic language.’” He wrote the only surviving narrative of an enslaved person written in Arabic text.

Recently, the U.S. Library of Congress uploaded the entire manuscript. The collection consists of 42 documents in both Arabic and English. Ala Alryyes’s book is essential for anyone who wishes to better understand Ibn Said’s manuscript.

“The significance of this lies in the fact that such a biography was not edited by Said's owner, as those of other slaves written in English were, and is therefore more candid and more authentic,” Mary Jane Deeb, chief of the African and Middle Eastern Division at the Library of Congress, said in a press release.

5) African American Islam by Aminah Beverly McCloud

Islam within Black America is often oversimplified or identified using terms that do not belong to it and thus cannot fully capture such a diverse community.

In her book, McCloud introduces readers to different Muslim groups and focuses on tensions between two differing Islamic views of community, as outlined by a 1996 review in The Journal of Religion: asabiyah, solidarity due to kinship relationships or nation-building involving separatism, and ummah, the unifying relationships of the world community of Islam. By looking into the community using its own terms, McCloud’s book offers something entirely unique.

6) Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Toward the Third Resurrection by Sherman A. Jackson

According to Sherman A. Jackson, Islam among Blackamericans (a term he outlines and fully explains within his book) owes its prominence to “Black Religion,” an American response that is a form of religion-based protest against anti-Black racism. Within his book, Jackson frames Islam’s extensive history in America as existing within a series of resurrections, almost like waves.

Central to Jackson’s work is an exploration of the necessity for the Black community to become an authoritative agent within Sunni Islam, capable of transcribing and accounting for their own experiences. Jackson identifies the 1965 repeal of the nationals origins quota system, where immigrant Muslims were able to come to the U.S. in larger numbers, as a significant shift of power in the American Muslim community.

The move of Black Muslims as only passive participants of Islam to authorities makes up a key component of Jackson’s third resurrection.

7)  Women of the Nation: Between Black Protest and Sunni Islam by Dawn-Marie Gibson and Jamillah Karim

The singular focus on Black male leaders, which has been standard over time, perpetuates the notion that Black American Muslim women are, and have always been, invisible. Through oral histories and interviews, Women of the Nation catalogs the experiences and influences of women in the Nation of Islam.

The book includes those who are still within the Nation now and those who followed its offshoot into Sunni Islam under Imam W.D. Mohammed. Latinx and Native American women within the Nation are included as well.

8) The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley by Malcolm X and Alex Haley

“I believe in action on all fronts by whatever means necessary,” Malcolm X told a 1964 audience during his famous speech known as “The Ballot or the Bullet”. Perhaps one of the best known Muslims in American history, Malcolm X’s “by any means necessary” is a continued cry in movements for Black liberation today. The 1965 autobiography outlines Malcolm X’s journey as he rose to prominence as a minister and national spokesman for the Nation of Islam.

It takes readers through his upbringing, conversion, and departure from the Nation and outlines Malcolm X’s philosophy on politics and more. Alex Haley coauthored the autobiography based on interviews he completed with Malcolm X; after the assassination, Haley wrote the book’s epilogue. Although the book has faced criticism since its publication, Malcolm X’s legacy remains alive long after his death.

9) Muslim Cool: Race, Religion, and Hip Hop in the United States by Su’ad Abdul Khabeer

Hip hop and Islam share a long, complicated history. As a result of not only the contributions of Black Muslims but Islam’s deep presence in the diaspora as a whole, Islam continues to be referenced throughout hip hop — even when the performers aren’t Muslim. As a result, tapping into the juxtaposition of Islam and hip hop makes Muslim Cool one of a kind.

“Muslim Cool is a way of being Muslim that draws on Blackness to challenge white supremacy and the anti-Blackness found in Arab and South Asian U.S. Muslim communities,” Su’ad Abdul Khabeer’s website notes of her study.

Approaching “Black” and “Muslim” as not fundamentally opposed identities, but instead built on intersections, Khabeer is able to challenge the notion of Muslims as foreign.

10) “Towards a Black Muslim Ontology of Resistance” by Muna Mire

“Black Muslim existence as Black resistance is as old as America itself,” Muna Mire wrote in a 2015 article forThe New Inquiry, a summarization that holds true. As the previous nine recommendations have outlined, Black Muslims have existed and resisted throughout the Americas since the violent conception of the “New World.”

Mire outlines the position of Black Muslims in America, noting how invisibility through erasure places Black Muslims in a unique position. The article showcases how xenophobia and anti-Black Islamophobia collide not only in forms of surveillance enacted by government agencies but through individual acts of violence. It presents dilemmas of Black Muslim existence and speaks to how Black Muslims must contend with an “economy of unresolved strivings.”

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/the-essential-black-muslim-reading-list

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To be a Black American Muslim Woman Is to be Both an Insider and an Outsider

By Dope Plain Jane

The Root, 8 February 2019

If I had to describe my relationship with Islam in one word, it would be nuanced. Two words? Profoundly nuanced.

I’m not a hijabi Muslimah, and because I don’t wear hijab, I blend. I blend in with other black Americans who like other people, don’t recognize that my entire name is Arabic, which could be referenced to make an educated guess about this aspect of my identity. My name is often confused with being just “a black girl name.”

This is mostly true unless I’m going through customs in any country; they constantly make “educated guesses” about who’s Muslim, and you know why. There have been a couple times when, while traveling abroad, my Muslim name that typically goes unnoticed becomes a racial identifier and matters more than my American passport. For context, an American passport is among the most coveted in the world, and still, I’ve been in situations when having one, didn’t matter.

My intersections then are like a game of poker. It goes like, “Yes, Customs Officer, I am Muslim, but I raise you this American passport!” Sometimes I get “Enjoy your stay” or “Welcome home.” And sometimes I get “Please step to the side ma’am.” So yep, it’s just like poker, or a crap shoot, or as we play in the hood, dice (the Muslim in me should stop referencing games where people gamble).

But it’s quite symbolic really, of what it’s been like for me as a black American Muslim woman born and raised in New York City: a game of insider-outsider. I’m reminded of Langston Hughes’ short story Who’s Passing for Who?, which explored a nuance of another kind (passing for white), but a nuance no less, which, at its best, is interesting to navigate, and at its worst, so paradoxical you feel like you may come to an eventual fork in the road that requires you to choose.

Because of this experience, I’m able to identify with immigrants. There’s never been a good time to be an immigrant in America (unless you’re Asian after the passing of the Immigration Act of 1965), so like them, I’m generally afraid of being “foreignized.” We all saw what America did to Obama, our own 44th president, simply because he was suspected of being Muslim; regardless of the proof of his (three words I’ll never forget) “long-form birth certificate,” and him clarifying over and over again that he’s a Christian. Still, the stigma didn’t miss him.

And I gotta keep it real (cause there’s no future in frontin’), I’ll never understand why America insists on treating Islam like it’s foreign. Islam arrived on the slave ships. Islam was shooting in the gym (I was about to add “Islam is a Day One,” but you get the point). And this all seems to be lost on black Christians, too. I don’t know many black Christians who readily connect that when they’re talking about their (and my) ancestors, they’re referring to their Muslim ancestors. Unfortunately, reminders need to be given even among us. More than I’d like, I get the “ooooh, yeah that’s right,” whenever I remind (my own) people that I’m Muslim and that means I don’t eat pork, and they’ll have to remove their shoes when they come to my house. And don’t even get me started on all the effort I have to put in to explain that not all black Muslims have or want anything to do with the Nation of Islam.

While I refuse to educate white people about blackness, I don’t feel I can make the same resolution about Islam with non-Muslims; even after acknowledging that within the American context, both identities shouldn’t be unfamiliar to anyone because there’s no way to separate America’s oppressive introduction to both of these identities, simultaneously. In short y’all, I can’t win. I can’t break even, and I can’t get outta the game.

The truth is, there is so much for people to learn about Islam to help the tenets and ideals be recognized as more familiar than most people think. And more honestly, it kind of makes me happy to illuminate the foundations of Islam as inherently groundbreaking and progressive. Islam has positively informed my outlook on matters like anti-racism, sex positivity, polyamory, and privileging female sexual pleasure. It’s taught me to appreciate moments when I’ve been called to serve, and how to cherish being the person to whom someone may reach out in their time of need.

Islam even has an environmental justice platform and recommends socialism to encourage equitable economics. And because it is the last development in the Abrahamic tradition, it is informed by the two faiths before it, Judaism and Christianity. When you view Islam as the third part of a trilogy (because, it is!), instead of a stand-alone faith, you’ll see there’s so much we Muslims have in common, at the very least, with other monotheists.

I would encourage anyone to learn as much about Islam as I would encourage a person to learn about black people; and not from Muslims or black people themselves, but actual scripture and history. As in either instance, there is more to be gleaned from actually doing the work to become well-read than what can be gained from conversations with people of either or both of these identities. Even for myself, I learned more about black people and Muslims from studying black history and Islam respectively, than I have from the lived experience of being black and Muslim alone. I personally couldn’t be more thankful that both of these identities, experiences, and bodies of information help to make me, me.

Photo: iStock

https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/to-be-a-black-american-muslim-woman-is-to-be-both-an-in-1832462118

Former right-wing anti-Muslim politician who branded Quran ‘poison’ CONVERTS TO ISLAM

By Laura O’Callaghan

Express, 9 February 2019

           

Joram van Klaveren made the shock conversion in October after spending four years criticising the religion when he served as one of the leading men in the Dutch far-right Party of Freedom (PVV). Having set out to write an anti-Islam book, determined to show how the religion incites violence, encourages contempt of women, and justifies attacks on Jews and homosexuals, Mr van Klaveren’s search forced him to change his views. The 40-year-old made a U-turn half way through his research, saying he came across “things that made my view on Islam falter”, and instead decided to write a book about his unconventional journey to the religion.

In an interview ties IslamiCity.org, Mr van Klaveren, who was raised in a Reformed Protestant home, admitted his mother was “not very happy” about him switching faiths but said his wife had come to terms with it.

He said: “My wife accepts that I am Muslim.

“Incidentally, she never felt the repugnance I felt for Islam. She was not so happy that I was with the PVV. But it is your journey, she said.

“She does not feel the need to go with that. My daughters are still too young to talk about this.”

In 2014 the lawmaker announced he was leaving the PVV as he no longer agreed with its course.

Controversial comments made by the party’s leader Geert Wilders are believed to have played a part in his decision.

Mr Wilders, an anti-Islam populist, had asked supporters whether they wanted “fewer or more Moroccans in your city and the Netherlands”, saying they turned the streets into unsafe places.

Mr Wilders seemed surprised to hear about his ex-ally’s conversion which he likened to a “vegetarian going to work in a slaughterhouse”.

During his time with the PVV, Mr van Klaveren referred to Islam as an ideology of terror, death and destruction.

After quitting the party, he continued to serve as an independent MP and in May 2014 he and two others founded a news conservative party called For the Netherland (VNL). His tern in the House ended in March 2017.

He said he does not plan on changing his name, as many converts to Islam do, and acknowledges that many Muslims in the Netherlands may not immediately jump to celebrate his conversion or even support his change of mind.

"I did not do this for Muslims, I did this for myself,” he added.

The former politician denied that his religious conversion was linked with swapping sides on the political spectrum, insisting he is still a conservative.

Image: Joram van Klaveren (Image: GETTY)

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1084777/anti-muslim-convert-dutch-mp-joram-van-klaveren

Umm Ayman, Barakah, may Allah be pleased with her

A Notable Muslim African Woman

If you're looking for an important Muslim African woman to talk about during Black History month, look no further than the Seerah of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) , and the woman he described as his "mother after my own mother. She is the rest of my family."Barakah or Umm Ayman was the name of the woman whom the noble Prophet esteemed so highly. She was the first person to hold him in her arms when he was born and the only person who knew him from that point until his death. She was one of the few Muslims who the Prophet assured of a place in Paradise.

"Be a mother to him, Barakah. And don't ever leave him," Amina instructed her about her son as she lay dying.

Umm Ayman did not fail in her responsibility.

Her beginnings were more than humble. In her youth, the Abyssinian girl was put up for sale in Makkah as a slave. In pre-Islamic Arabia, slavery was no shame, and slaves were treated like animals.

But Barakah was blessed to be treated with kindness.

She was bought by a noble and gentle man: Abdullah, the son of Abdul Muttalib. The father of the Prophet.

Barakah not only took care of Abdullah's affairs as a servant in his home, but after he married the Prophet's mother, she looked after Amina as well.

It was Umm Ayman who slept at the foot of Amina's bed and comforted her when, only two weeks after her wedding, her husband was instructed to leave for that journey to Syria, after which he never came back. It was Umm Ayman who took care of Amina during her pregnancy.

It was Umm Ayman who gave Amina the news of her husband's death at Yathrib (her son, too, would one day be buried there), what was later to be known as Madinah.

As the Prophet faced tragedy upon tragedy, Umm Ayman was there for him. From the time when his mother died when he was six, to when his grandfather Abdul Muttalib died when he was eight, Umm Ayman stayed with the Prophet.

It was only after the Prophet married Khadija (may Allah be pleased with her) that she married, and that too, on their insistence.

She married Ubayd ibn Zayd from the Khazraj tribe of Yathrib and they had a son named Ayman, thus her name Umm Ayman.

When the Prophet received the prophethood, Umm Ayman was among the first Muslims, and like the others, bravely faced the punishments of the Quraish for those who dared to believe in La ilaha illa Allah Muhammadur Rasool ullah.

She and Zayd ibn Harithah, another companion who lived in the Prophet's household, put their lives on the line to find out about the plots and conspiracies of the pagan Makkans against the Prophet and the Muslims.

During the Battle of Uhud she gave out water to the thirsty soldiers and took care of the wounded. She accompanied the Prophet on some expeditions.

She tied her well-being to that of Islam. During a visit from the Prophet, he asked: "Ya Ummi! Are you well?" and she would reply: "I am well, O Messenger of Allah so long as Islam is."

Umm Ayman's husband died not very long after their marriage. When she was in about her 50s, the Prophet, when speaking to his companions said, "Should one of you desire to marry a woman from the people of Paradise, let him marry Umm Ayman."

It was Zayd who stepped forward and agreed to marry her. They had a son named Usamah who was described as "the beloved son of the beloved." In other words, the Prophet loved both he and his father.

One example of Umm Ayman's dedication to Islam and the Prophet was when she trekked across the burning desert through sandstorms on foot from Makkah to Madinah to join the Prophet. Despite the harshness of the journey though, she persisted, and was given good news when she reached her destination.

When she got to Madinah, swollen feet, dust-covered face and all, the Prophet said to her,

"Ya Umm Ayman! Ya Ummi! (O Umm Ayman! O my mother!) Indeed for you is a place in Paradise!"

She became a widow again, after Zayd was killed during the Battle of Mutah in Syria. She also lived to see her son's martyrdom at the Battle of Hunayn.

Ayman lived to see her other "son" die as well: the Prophet. But it was not for him she cried. When asked, she said, "By Allah, I knew that the Messenger of Allah would die but I cry now because the revelation from on high has come to an end for us."

Umm Ayman died when Uthman (may Allah be pleased with him) was Khalifa.

36-year-old Ilhan Omar, elected to Minnesota’s 5th congressional district. Ilhan Omar: Why Advocating for Palestine is Not Anti-Semitic

This past week, the U.S. midterms made history, electing anunprecedented wave of women leaders tasked with taking back our democracy.  Amongst them is 

By Azmia

Muslim Girl, November 2019

Omar, a Black Muslim woman and a Somali-American refugee, has made history three-fold:  as the first hijabi in Congress, the first Somali-American legislator, and one of the first Muslim women in Congress.

While on the campaign trial, Omar faced vicious Islamophobic attacks from the far right, conservative media, and random citizens.

Her predecessor, Keith Ellison, may have been Muslim – and he faced his share of Islamophobic vitriol as well – but he wasn’t a visibly Muslim woman, and a Black Muslim woman at that, who is also an immigrant and a refugee, from a country on the Muslim ban list; a conglomerate of traits and identities that are seemingly targeted by the GOP with various policies such as the Muslim ban and current immigration policies.

Another analysis shows that President Donald Trump consistently targets Black people and women with insults about their intelligence.  This has been further compounded by President Trump’s recent attacks on Black women, including former First Lady Michelle Obama, and those in the press, that occurred just this past week.

And in fact, when Trump was asked a question about Omar and another Muslim woman winning their elections to become the first two Muslim women elected to Congress being a “rebuke” to his policies, he pretended he couldn’t understand the reporter.

Some of Omar’s naysayers have attacked her because of her criticism of the Israeli government.  Charges of “anti-Semitism” were lobbied at her because of her condemnations of the Israeli government for their actions in Palestine. 

In May 2018, Omar’s 2012 tweet was cited yet again, when a Twitter user posted a screen shot of the 2012 tweet and called Omar a “proud Jew hater.”  Omar responded that “Drawing attention to the apartheid Israeli regime is far from hating Jews,” confirming that her tweet was indeed a condemnation of the Israeli government.

Criticism of the Israeli government should not be confused with anti-Semitism.  In fact, conflating criticism of the government with anti-Semitism is in and of itself anti-Semitic, because you’re otherwise silencing and discounting the opinions of a large portion of Jewish people right here in the United States, who rightfully criticize the Israeli government for their actions in Palestine.

For example, in a 2013 Pew Research survey, only a quarter of American Jews aged 18-29 felt that Netanyahu’s government was “making a sincere effort to bring about a peace settlement with the Palestinians.” Overall, across all age brackets, less than half of American Jews (only 38%) felt that the Israeli government was making a sincere effort at peace with Palestinians.  A whopping 44% felt that settlement construction was detrimental to Israel’s own security interests.

Criticism of the Israeli government isn’t just for American Jews; one in four Jewish Israelis support the right to return for Palestinian refugees.

Jewish Israelis also freely protest the Israeli government’s actions in Palestine; several hundred Israelis, predominately Jews, have gathered in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to protest with not nary a problem from Israeli forces — no instances of police brutality — whilst Palestinian protestors are met withextrajudicial punishments and force.

There are two sets of rules and governance:  one for Israelis, and one for Palestinians.   Palestinians who throw rocks can be met with lethal force; there have even been allegations of lethal force against unarmed protestors.  Settlers who throw stones are often not prosecuted, let alone met with lethal force.  This is reminiscent of apartheid.

The criticism of the Israeli government is not anti-Semitism because it has nothing to do with religion, but everything to do with a brutal government committing human rights violations against an occupied peoples with little to no right to self-determination.

What is anti-Semitism is not to criticize a brutal government committing human rights violations against an occupied peoples, but to erase the opinions of these Jewish people living in Israel and abroad because it is politically inconvenient for those that support the Israeli government and their criminal tactics.

Ilhan Omar, a refugee who fled the civil war in Somalia with her family, knows about the realities of war all too well.  She was only 12 years old when she came to the United States with her family.  She spoke no English; only Somali.  It’s because of her own childhood marred by war that she identifies with the plight of Palestinians.

Muslim Girl had the chance to speak with the newly-elected Congresswoman about her stance on Palestine, and why it’s so important to advocate for Palestine.

Says Omar, “For me, that particular issue really is about making sure that we are people who understand that there is oppression happening, and speak to that as you would for issues that are safe.  I believe that it doesn’t really matter who you are, and where you live, and who has empowered you; no one has a right ever to transgress on other’s rights.  For me, in that particular region, that is one where I am constantly thinking back to my kids, knowing that as a kid, I lived through war, and I know the pains that causes you as a child.  Looking at my kids, that’s not something that would I want for them now.  When I see the kind of weapons that are being used to fight kids who are throwing rocks, I think that’s injustice, and so that has propelled me to feel like I needed to say something.  I think when we are thinking about this particular region, it’s one that really needs true advocacy.  It needs people that are not afraid to speak truth.  It is a region that has power extremely lopsided.  When we are given an opportunity to look at the world, and dream of a place where people are treated equally, and people are allowed the opportunity for self-determination, we cannot dream of that world without having this particular region in mind.”

Omar says that her faith has guided her to be a better person and fight for justice and the rights of others, saying that she fights for humanity as a whole.  “I don’t really pay attention to the stuff people say I am, because what I know is I am a fighter for human rights, and I am a fighter for justice, and I am someone who fights for everybody’s humanity to be uplifted, and for everyone to have a fair shake in life,” she continued.

“The people in my district and the folks that I represent who have ties to that region understand how necessary it is for us to advocate, and not abdicate because it is politically expedient; but advocate because we know right from wrong.”

Congresswoman-elect Omar’s stance is backed by international law and evidence and statements from numerous prominent international rights groups, including the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, amongst others.

Omar has been criticized for a past video, believed to have been filmed in August 2018, where she says that she supports a “two-state solution” and says BDS is “not helpful in getting that two-state solution.”  She says in the video, “I think that the particular purpose for it (BDS) is to put pressure, and I think that that pressure is really counteractive. Because in order for us to have a process to getting to a two-state solution, people need to be willing to come to the table…… I think that (BDS) stops the dialogue.”

On November 11, 2018, Omar’s campaign told Muslim Girl that “Ilhan believes in and supports the BDS movement, and has fought to make sure people’s right to support it isn’t criminalized. She does, however, have reservations on the effectiveness of the movement in accomplishing a lasting solution.”  Her campaign confirmed that Congresswoman-elect Omar voted against an anti-BDS bill in Minnesota.  At the time, she spoke passionately about how BDS worked in South Africa, as told to her by her grandfather.  Of her vote, Omar said, “I don’t want to be part of a vote that limits the ability of people to fight towards that justice and peace.”

http://muslimgirl.com/50283/ilhan-omar-why-advocating-for-palestine-is-not-anti-semitic/