EP31 - Unveiling the Womb: The Role of Women Shaping Society through Faith and Scholarship

Unveiling the Womb: The Role of Women in Shaping Society through Faith and Scholarship

In the inaugural 2025 episode of 'Family Ties: A Prescription for Society,' co-host Faridah Abdul-Tawwab Brown welcomes her twin sister, Dr. Fatima Fanusie, a historian specializing in 19th and 20th-century American religion. The episode focuses on women’s pivotal role within family and society, especially during Ramadan and Women's History Month. Key topics include the scriptural foundation for nurturing families, the integration of scholarship with practical life, and the historic and contemporary impact of the Nation of Islam on African American religious identity. Dr. Fanusie gives practical advice for parents on incorporating a broad, historically grounded education for their children to foster a well-rounded understanding of humanity. The episode emphasizes the importance of the human soul's identity grounded in scripture, the responsibility of educating young people within the family context, and the enduring influence of African American religious movements.

00:00 Introduction and Welcome
01:16 Guest Introduction: Dr. Fatima Fanusie
02:34 The Role of Women in Society and Family
04:10 Scholarship and Education in Modern Society
17:45 Historical Context of African American Islam
21:34 The Nation of Islam's Influence
34:08 Concluding Thoughts and Future Directions
47:48 Final Remarks and Practical Advice

This podcast is about family life as a means to address current problems in American society. A scripture based African American perspective. 

Welcome to The Family Ties, a Prescription for Society.
 Through this experience we invite you to join us in an exploration of the concept of family ties as a prescription for society.
 
 YOUR HOSTS:  Faridah Abdul-Tawwab Brown
 
 This episode was edited by Darryl D Anderson of AMG - Ambassador Media Group visit https://www.ambassador-mediagroup.com/
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Back Home by Ghostrifter Official | https://soundcloud.com/ghostrifter-official
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Creative Commons / Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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Copyright 2024

Transcript

Faridah: 0:15

Peace be upon the family. As we welcome you to another experience of the family ties, a prescription for society. We thank you for joining us for our very first episode of 2025. I am your co host, Farida Abdul Tawa Brown. My co host, Frank Abdul Shahid, is on leave for several episodes, and while his presence is greatly missed, we will continue our shared commitment here at the podcast to bring the family into focus as a prescription for what is ailing our contemporary society. Today, we have an exciting and thought provoking episode in store for you as we sit down with our guest, Dr. Fatima Fanusi, for a wide ranging conversation, illuminating the role of women as wounds of the mind and how this role within the family and society is critical for the human family. Before we get started, don't forget to subscribe so you can stay up to date and get all the latest episodes. Born and raised in Dorchester, Massachusetts, Fatima Fanousi is a historian of 19th and 20th century American religion whose research is an involving reappraisal of the study of African American Islam, the modern civil rights movement, and Islam in the West. She is currently residing in Medina by Senegal in West Africa while on sabbatical with the Institute for Islamic Studies. Christian and Jewish Studies in Towson, Maryland. Fatim is a lecturer in the Islamic Studies Department at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and a historian, consultant, and archivist for the Howard Thurman Historical Home in Daytona Beach, Florida. Dr. Fanousi received her B. A. in history and Arabic from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, her math MA in American history from Tufts University and her PhD in American history from Howard University. Dr. Fonusi, welcome to the show.

Fanusie: 2:13

Welcome and thank you for having me. And

Faridah: 2:16

I, I must say as a caveat, Dr. Fonusi is not only a groundbreaking historian, but she also happens to be my twin sister. So it is an absolute pleasure and delight to have you on the show.

Fanusie: 2:28

I'm so grateful to be here. Thank you for having me.

Faridah: 2:33

Wonderful. So we are in the midst of the month of Ramadan for our listeners for Muslims. We are fasting this month and focusing on the word of God, on scripture. And This is also Women's History Month. So it's a month in which both the Word of God is in focus for believers, and it's also a month that we reflect deeply on the role of women as mothers in our families and also as mothers in society. And so, beginning there, I'd just like for our listening audience to review what scripture says. In the Qur'an, it says there's a passage where God speaks to mankind, and he says, O mankind, be conscious, reverence your guardian Lord and the wombs, because God is ever watching over you. And in Psalms 127. 3 we hear, Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward. And he also says in Job 31. 15, did he not? make me in the womb? And did he not fashion us in the womb? And so coming from a specific understanding of man or the human being as the mind and woman as the womb of the mind, I'd like to ask you, Dr. Fonusi, we're living in a complex time and in a complex society. How should the family look at scholarship in their efforts to produce in the development of community life specifically to be able to qualify? and or to have the correct sensitivities to manage the resources that give life to a community.

Fanusie: 4:09

Yeah. So the society that we live in, the the, the, the way that we should look at scholarship for me, that, that, that's an interesting question because we think about scholarship often as something that is remote from everyday life. And we even have this concept of an ivory tower. And we have this, this, this disjunction knowledge itself is, is siphoned and separated. And we, we, we give it to, to the young, even the students in our society in, in measured amounts. But in a way that where the knowledge is rootless, so often often when young people are receiving information or knowledge, they cannot connect with it and it does not make sense to them and they therefore cannot relate and if they cannot relate, then they do not see the value in it. And so before we even get into this, I'll just. Share a quick anecdote that my son who is, is now 23, but when he was about 13 or 14, I, he observed me having a conversation with some friends where I was talking to them and I mentioned, well, you know, our, our children go to school to learn. And my son stopped me at this time, he was a public school student and he stopped me, you know, with great consternation and was like, What did you just say? And I said, you know, we go to school, you, you all go to school to learn. And he was like no, we don't. And there was a mixture. He's a very respectful young man. So he was trying not to be disrespectful, but he was like looking at me like, what in the world is my mother saying? She knows better than this. And I was like, well, what do you go to school to do? And he said, we go to school to get good grades. And then I said, well, when do you learn? And he said, in my free time. And so that really was that, that, that was. It's kind of powerful coming from a 13 year old. But the reason I bring it up in the context of your question is about how we should look at scholarship is because one of the things, and I imagine that As, as scholars of religion and knowledge and as learned people within Christian and Muslim and Jewish communities, the Abrahamic faiths in this country, there's so many deep answers to this and so many different directions you can go in. I am just coming as a historian, so I'll try to answer that question to the best of my ability, but I would say the first thing that needs to To happen is to begin with a framework that is, that is, is coming out of scripture. And I know there are many in the 21st century who might look and I look at me escape. Well, what do you mean? Like we've gone beyond that, especially, you know, we've, we've, we've evolved beyond looking at things from a literal. Scriptural perspective that that is literal. But what I mean by that is, at least for Muslims, beginning with a Quranic framework or Christians beginning with a framework rooted in the knowledge of the scripture, the knowledge that is divine and for Jews beginning with the knowledge that is in the Torah. If you go back to what you were saying about the womb a baby does not just come into existence. So we as women, we're nurturers and we have this gestation period. And when we're in that gestation period, before we actually give birth, we are responsible for nourishing and feeding that life that is growing inside them. And so what I would advocate to parents is to make sure that you're beginning with a framework that that supports. A wide array of all the knowledge that your children and, and that you might ever begin to study or embark on and the literature, et cetera, based upon what is politically or socially invade in vogue. Avoid following the whims of cancel culture. Young school age Children. I mean, at the moment that Children are able to pay attention and to have stories read to them, whether it's picture books or whether it's short stories or or just pictures. And you are as you go along the moment that Children are the timelines, timelines of world history. That's something that we used to do as as as educated people in civilized societies. And it's something that we don't do as much. To children from a very young age to the timelines of world history, and then to continue forcing these timelines to flesh out these times, which is your, your, your young people age. And again, if we go back to that, that whole understanding of of. Think about it as you're the young child, the young children, you're nurturing and helping them to and also would continue to fuel them to adjust them on a steady diet you also want to make sure that you're giving your child, you're introducing them to this, this entire timeline of world history so that they're not jointed when they finally enter school, especially at the older grades in the middle school and high school and onto college, but that they have a whole connected picture of humanity and what human civilization, what human civilization is. That's my first piece of advice to introduce that timeline of religions to young children and and also not to depend on external here. I'm sure there's a number of young of parents today who choose to homeschool. I, my children were mainly in, in, in private Islamic schools and then public so just. Knowing that you don't ever, no matter what your school environment is, you don't want to depend on external schooling. This scholarship, this understanding of, of, of how societies work, how history has evolved, begins with you. And in order to cultivate, whether your child is going to become a professional historian or a biologist or a chemist, feel I mean, and love, because that's the priorities of the human family. So to know history that the tribal history, I think history, the small history, understand that in order to love themselves, but also as a particularistic aspect of the, the global That's the, I guess the, the, and, and, and if I could just quickly try to bring that to this present moment of the complex society that we live in today, I would dare to, to, to argue or venture of Americans today who see themselves as disconnected from people who think or worship. That of values I would say that most of most of us who are in that category, we're never exposed to a timeline that includes all of of of world histories and but then when we have a or even the second, but hand in hand with a timeline of world religion about human, human societies and human history have gone hand in hand. So you. Where the flourish of human intellect and human society, you also have a religion ordering that society with a scripture that that originated with the creator. And, you know, through the successive generations, the people may move closer to or further away from that. But everything by human civilizations intricately tied to world religions. And by that, we mean that intricately tied.

Faridah: 10:48

Wow, you gave us so much food for thought and you know, it almost makes one want to go back and do it all over again, but I think that ship has sailed for me. So hopefully you know, grandchildren, yes, grandchildren, but I, I want to go back to something you said you said that we begin with a foundation of scripture and that when we study. The human when we study human history and the history of religion that we're giving for our Children, a scaffold of sorts, imagining human life is plant life. We've got this this scaffold upon which the vine and the plant can grow. That is expansive and universal. So we're not. So even though we begin with a particularistic identity, let's say our ethnic identity or even our own families our family, you know, our family history and identity that is giving when we grounded in scripture, a foundation of scripture, you are pointing to our most important identity, which is that of the human soul. And I want to, would like to stop there for a moment and ask in your experience as a historian and given the advice that you've just given, how important is it? That, that, This identity of the human being is being part of a human family and having an essential nature. How important is that in this day and age when it comes to shaping and forming the identity of the young person?

Fanusie: 12:09

I've got to tell you, I said that is critical I think in order to have civilization whether they're whether we agree with the form of governing or not, when we see the growth, we see. A group coming from that narrow, that particularistic that you were talking about, you know, whether it's a tribe or a unit, in hindsight, we call them empire or whatever, but the one that are deemed the greatest by historians and by greatest, I mean, the ones that leave the most enduring legacy for the profit, the benefit of humanity. Are the ones that branch furthest out. So you think about the Roman Empire, you think about the Greek, you think about

Faridah: 12:47

Egyptian. Yes,

Fanusie: 12:49

you basically geographically, they're, they, they have fingers. The come into conquest and conquering or incorporating new people in, into, you have to engage. You have to, so that. That image in the tentacles, I can almost think of these human civilizations flowing forth like plants and, and, and, and, and themselves like ivy and so you do have this, if we think about it today in the 20th century, we're all consumed with the idea of DNA and tracing our roots. So if you think about it, like the, the DNA trees and diagrams that you see again, all the, the cultivation of human society by human beings. And by human beings and not separately because, because according to what God put it, put us on the earth to. And when that happens, there's a pattern where there's this oneness. There's this, this, this, this, this, this, this coming out of many distinct groups comes one, comes one empire. And you learn from, it reminds me of a Quranic a verse where God is saying in the scripture we have made you different into different tribes, different Ians, working together with living together with traveling, and that was one of the things in a day and age when travel was difficult. The way that you got to empire was why people actually doing that coming from, you know, a far flung lands and coming together to engage from middle school age through school all the way through the, the college. Into even the history of their own city or state. Even in an age of nationalism, if the 20th century was the age of nationalism in the 20th century, young people don't even know the historic context and the timelines for the nation that they're in. Let alone the globe. And that is something that we do need in order, you know, the wonderful book that I know when I have both read that looks at American history through the lens of ethnicity and culture and comes up with different cultures for understanding American history and the reality that we have today I don't I think that we've, we've fallen away from this moment in 2025 and understanding. Historical sense, as well as is in religious, our understanding of religions have developed, I think would go a long way to helping us mitigate and work. Or a problem of polarization that we have today.

Faridah: 15:28

Wow, that that was a thorough and detailed response. I truly appreciate that. I, I just want to give a note to our listening audience, our podcast audience. The, the title that Dr. Fanousi was referencing just now is, American Nations, a history of the 11 rival regional cultures of North America. It's written by Colin Woodard. It's an excellent read, and it's one that you should share with your families. So going back to this idea of the parental role, the family's role in preparing the young person not only for giving them a sense of true identity and identity that's grounded in reality but you're also giving us a sense. that this type of education, this type of prepared and thoughtful and impactful and intentional parenting gives our Children a framework for their destiny and their purpose. So if we're grounding it in scripture, we know that we're giving our Children a foundation for the purpose of life. And if we give them the tools. and the framework to begin to understand the world around them, both through scientific exploration and through the exploration of the patterns of human development and human society. Then we're giving them a picture of their destiny. And as you said, I mean, I, I am also an educator and I remember recall hearing stories of students who let's say lived. East of the Anacostia River in Washington, D. C. And had never left Southeast Washington, D. C. They've never even been to the National Mall. And I know there are stories like these across this nation. So not only are they not traveling physically in terms of this world that has us connected via the internet and other things, they're also not. Traveling ideologically in their minds. So this idea of getting to know the history of the human family and placing yourself, oneself within that scope is, is very important. So I don't think we can underestimate the impact of that. So I wanted to, to move on to this idea. I opened with a reference to scripture, both the Old Testament and the Quran that talk about this idea of the womb. And as a nurturing element and an element that needs to be reverenced. So given your research as an American historian, I know that we shared with the audience that you focus on American religious history and, you know, what a reappraisal of African American religion and the civil rights movement. I know I'd like to know if you could give us some insight, what insight could you offer as a scholar of American religious history into the role of the nation of Islam as a womb for Al Islam in America? And I know that's a bold claim, but for our Muslim and non Muslim listeners alike, I'd like to know if you'd like to take a stab at that for us.

Fanusie: 18:09

Yeah, that sounds like a seminar that meets weekly or biweekly for two semesters out of the academic year. But the, the short version I've been asking a lot for you, I wanna come back and give a piece of practical advice to that question that we would for parents and scholarship before, but we hopefully we can get to that again. But yes, I, I guess I would start off by saying, and this is where I talk about myself as a, as a, as a revisionist. scholar or historian because it's not necessarily what I'm saying is not necessarily what you written in in the academy today But I I'd like to start out by saying that african american islam itself Deserves serious study as a unique reformist movement in islam and It's a development in african american And and if I could take two minutes to unpack that and just explain what I mean and I do have to try to keep it Within 2 minutes, this is a short nutshell version. Yes, African American, as we know, or most of us know, you know, African Americans as a people were created were were forged in the crucible, you know, not not only. Like our, our journey began in the beast the, the bellies of the slave ships on the Middle Passage, that formation, that forging distinct people from all over Western into one culture or one group that happened through And even through Jim Crow country and those, those experience, I think. Form the framework understanding African Americans as a people and the only reason I'm I'm I'm pointing to that in in this question that you're asking about the nation of Islam is the the again a little bit of revisionist it might not be the way everyone's looking at it but sometimes going Back to that timeline, this timeline that I was encouraging us to have for world history and religious history and, and for our countries. I'm also encouraging this timeline on ulcer, a more particular scale for to be able to understand the timeline of, of different groups of as a, as a people the North, the North American mainland. And, you know, whether you're talking about who would become German Americans, Irish Americans, et cetera, et cetera. But now with this question around the nation of Islam, we are definitely talking about African Americans. Culture, heritage, distinct from the different religions that we were practicing prior to Middle Passage and, and, and chattel slavery that evolved. So, we have to think about it as an evolving, as something that evolved and with different degrees of, of, of Christianization, different degrees of Islamization, but all of them, when we talk about that Christianization and that Islamization, when we talk about these religious identities becoming complete and independent. African Americans as free bowl, creating these organizations and practicing these religions independently that had to be done this way as, masters when Islam itself has evolved alongside of or as part of African Americans evolving into their own sense self and their own identity. And I say this because, the nation of Islam itself. We have to look at the influence of the nation of Islam among the African American people upon the African American people and among American religion generally are large. We have to look at that as beyond numbers of the rank and file. We have to look at the way in which African American Islam itself shape African American religiosity. And, and the reason I call it a reformist movement and one that's unique because there were many, many, many efforts to reform the religion that African Americans were given and the, and the religion that they shaped out of, out of the pieces that they had. We can think of Bishop. Henry McNeil Turner, I mean, I, we can think of pain with the AMA. Sure. I mean, the list is just, we, very important work that these critical men and women did in shaping our religiosity and our spirituality as, as people in, in this country, but the institution that developed and became known as the church. Separately from the, the, the, the slave church or the, the, the or the invisible, what Al Robitalo calls the invisible institution, that institution by the end of the civil war, although it was critical to our maturation as a people and our ability to step fully into the role of assuming responsibility for ourselves and that role, that, that whole impetus to, to bring ourselves to rise. up as a people from slavery through the establishment of schools and churches and, and, and, and mutual aid societies and, and, and informal banking systems and, and what have you, that effort was indeed, it was, it was platformed and built upon the church. But I would also argue that for an entire segment of African Americans who throughout slavery were kept completely away from. quote unquote civilized life of the big house and mainstream or european american society. They had not Baptized fully or fully integrated into the black church and so do have different and and and if we can rapidly move this timeline along much, much more quickly than I'm comfortable with as a historian go through slavery and through the civil war and we have all these millions of freed men and women trying to make a life for their own own and assume responsibility We, we, we, we get to the, the, the the 20th century and we get into the, the great migration and we have tens of thousands, you know, hundreds of thousands, even millions of people moving from the rural South and the agricultural order of the plantations and, and Jim Crow into the urban North. And in that, I believe it's in that period, and right now we're talking 19, 1915, 1920, 1925, 1930. And that period when you have this, this, this enormous movement of people. You had so many people whose entire, I believe a few moments ago, you were talking about young people whose entire world was confined to one side of the internet. Higher people who I'm not talking about the sailors. I'm not talking about the independent craftsmen or tradesmen. I'm talking about the people who's who's who's from sunup to sundown. Their world was formed by that plantation and maybe the plantation 4 to 7 miles down the road that they were allowed to visit to marry and engage in. And but that was a very small world. Most of us can't imagine living even for those of us who have an entire city. city. We can't imagine living our entire life in just, you know, four mile radius where our, where we are, our entire world is, is curtailed by those who have ownership or control of our labor and our bodies and, and even our own, our dignity or attempt to. And so it's in that regard that I ask you to think about people coming into. the North and not necessarily being fully integrated into Protestant Christianity, the way that we understand it in America. And again, this is a group, I'm not saying that we don't have a thriving century old tradition of Protestantism in the church with African Americans, we do, but I'm talking about something separate from that in these rank and file of folks who have lived their entire lives, mainly circumscribed by the dick. harsh dictates of, of plantation culture, both as chat through entitled slavery and a Jim Crow system of their cropping. So it's in that, so, so if we think about that, then the 20th century, it's not just the voices problem of the color line that we're facing. The 20th, that's the way, that's the, the oppression from without. But when you look at the movement from within, you see freed men and women attempting to literally create culture that we have the, in the North, we have the. The Harlem Renaissance or the Negro Renaissance, we have people standing up and saying, you know writing poems and plays and novels exploring this identity of this newly free of this, this, this person, one to two generations out of, out of slavery and, and and, and so that, that story, that narrative of assuming responsibility for ourselves, for African Americans. that narrative can never be understood separately from religious consciousness. And, and it's here that we see the emergence and the flourishing of what are known as the storefront churches. And we'll have the millennial traditions coming in and the the Pentecostalism and, and, and, and prophets of city. We'll have everyone from father to divine to big daddy grace to Deuce Muhammad Ali. You'll have Marcus Garvey. You'll have so many different. You'll have the, you'll have the, the creation of what would be known as the, the, the Hebrew black Jews, et cetera. And, and this is also the same period that this percolation will include the genesis of Islam as an effort to, to reform the culture. If, if, if Bishop Henry McNeil Turner and others can criticize Christianity and say, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, We worship one God, but we don't worship, we're not, we're not making divine a man or a European man. You know, and what you know, you have people saying God is me or God is black or God is, you know, so you have all these different efforts during this period, or you have people rejecting the notion of God at some of the higher levels of intellectuals, and whatever, whatever you have, and there's a wonderful story about Thurman at Warhouse dealing with that with Frasier, but we don't have time to go into that. But, but, but the, the overarching Consensus was that there must be a God, and that we are worshipping him, and now we're going to make him our, him, we're going to make our worship of him our own. And we're going to do it in a way that truly liberates us, and truly brings human dignity, and truly protects the innocence of our society, of our culture, of our humanity. And that's a, that's a lovely story that we don't have time to get into in greater detail than that. But with with with, I wanted to give a kind of context to understand why I'm looking at Islam and African American Islam as a vital development in African American religion itself. And if you go all the way into, if you talk about the nation of Islam this one was born and emerged right in the milieu, the same milieu that I'm talking about. So you have these scores of folks coming Southern migrants, you know, many without any education, some with what first, second, third grade, very few made it all the way through a finished education, which would have been about eighth grade for the average educated American at that time. Many even illiterate, not all, but so at this time in any wilderness of these, these urban, what would become these urban ghettos This is where, where Islam is born for, for Americans and for African Americans and I won't go into detail with the story of, of W. D. Farhad Muhammad, but he has been described by one scholar, Richard Brent Turner, as the most important Muslim missionary of the 20th century. And I would not argue with that. I would support that 100 percent. But if he was the most important missionary of the 20th century, then why are there so many Americans that don't even know Okay, have WD for Mohammed as the progenitor of the Nation of Islam. And then you also have the honor of Elijah Mohammed, who was a migrant coming from Georgia born as Elijah pool and eventually become Elijah Mohammed and the honor of Elijah Mohammed as the leader of the Nation of Islam. But in this group, from its inception in the early thirties, and remember. To give more historical context, it we're not just dealing with the great migration now, but the time we get to the 30s, we've had the, the, the, the depression. And so we have people out of work and for African Americans, it was a saying last hired, first fired. So many men who were coming to the promised land for a new opportunity there. Are are disappointed and disillusioned when they get there, and they're not finding what they need spiritually in the established churches. Some of them might not even be accepted. Because again, they're coming straight from that culture of the slave plantation, and they're definitely not finding the economic. Independence that they were, that they were looking for. So it's in this setting that the Nation of Islam was born. And again, the same way we were talking about nurturing and being that, that nurturing starting before the baby is actually born, but during that gestation period, in this gestation period of African American religious thought that leads to freedom and, and, and, and liberation, the, the freedom and liberation that we have, that we take for granted in the 21st century during this period. The Nation of Islam created organizations designed to cultivate, to nourish, and to grow discipline and community life. And this was, you had the Fruit of Islam, which was, was, scholars like to describe it as a paramilitary organization, but that was designed to teach discipline and organization. For, for boys and men, even boys would join the junior of route and then you have the MGTGCC, which was the Muslim girls training and general civilization class where good habits of domesticity were reinforced and, and, and communal life and, and, and, and, and, and community life. So, so the genesis, so the right here in the 1930s and, we know that without going too into that, we every, we started this conversation talking about education and scholarship and taking ownership over the scholarship, the education of our children, no matter what institution again in the 1930s, when you have some parents who are illiterate or barely literate, this organization, the Nation of Islam is saying. Control, be responsible for your children's education. Do not get that society that has been so harmful to them, to the psyche, to the understanding. And so you have the genesis of what would become, you know homeschooling before homeschooling was legal. And then you have the genesis of the first parochial Islamic school system in the country with Muhammad University of Islam. So all of these things were right. They are for and another important thing to understand about the nation of Islam in so many directions that we could go that I'll say this and then kind of turn it back over to use to see if there's another direction you want to go, or if I have more time to talk about this, but is it the nation of Islam was conceived of conceived of as the lost, found, found Nation of Islam in the wilderness of North America, and its mission was to all African Americans. It was to revive and to lift up from this dead level all African Americans. So it was whether you accepted your own, which as the saying went, and you accepted a new identity as a righteous Muslim, or whether you did not this was for you. It was to revive and to revitalize. So many of the age old questions. The African American leaders and educators and intellectuals have been grappling with it, slavery, honestly, or being resolved in, in this, the both in the mythology, in the, the esoteric packaging of the nation of Islam, as well as in the practical programs or the esoteric I'm sorry, exoteric programs of the nation of Islam. So, so there's a complete range. Just like the umbilical cord kind of feeds you there. People like to talk about it. Scholars like to talk about the nation of Islam as a cult. And I would say it was only a cult in the sense that you don't allow everything into the womb when the baby is being tortured at gestational or else the baby won't survive. But instead you feed the baby a diet of what the baby needs to become productive. And when, when it's out in the world or just as I,

Faridah: 34:08

wow we will indeed have to have you back for a part two of this conversation. There is no humanly possible way that we can exhaust the questions that I have on my screen in front of me, or even to plumb the depths of what you've shared with us. So, in, in wrapping up this episode and Dr. Farnoosy, I pray that you will honor us with your presence again so that we may continue this conversation. One of the things that I wanted to ask you, you brought up the umbilical cord and you spoke about how this is, I asked the con this question kind of in the context of not only the development of Al Islam in America, but also the African American self determination and you, you deftly wove the two of those together. And one of the things that I'm thinking of, even as you spoke of education and our responsibility to educate our own, is that not only did the nation of Islam schools, the Muhammad university of Islam, which eventually became the sister Clara Muhammad school system not only was, was that a product, but we also saw a flowering across the United States of African American independent. educational institutions. So whether that was homeschooling, and now we know the homeschooling movement is, is booming in terms of African American parents and families, but also this idea of independent institutions, whether they were affiliated with the nation of Islam or not, that, that element of self determination was critical. And it was indeed fed, like you said by this river. of dignity and self determination from the nation of Islam. And so in that vein, I just would like to say as we wrap up today's conversation 2025 marks 95 years into the flowering of Al Islam in America through this particular tradition. And as you so astutely shared with us that this is something that has evolved alongside the evolution of the African American person and peoplehood. It's also 50 years into the Quranic logic and leadership of Imam Muhammad, who inherit you know, who became the leader upon the death of his father, the honorable Elijah Muhammad in 1975. So you know, I know women don't like to, to remark on their ages. But, you know, we are twins, and we were born into that leadership in 1975. So as yes so as as a daughter of this community of this particular history, as a scholar of its history and as a mother of its future, not just literally, but through your scholarship and what you your public scholarship, I would emphasize how would you, how would you what are your thoughts on where we are now given this, this particular history and where that places us as an African American people in the world today?

Fanusie: 36:50

Wonderful, wonderful note to end on. Well, yeah, I'm, I'm very grateful that we had this, this long, rich tradition of, of leadership with W. D. Farran Muhammad, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, a memoir. And it's really not limited to these Islamic leaders. We were quick to praise, you know Marcus Mosiah Garvey Booker T. Washington. We had Fred Douglass, Frederick Douglass, rich, rich heritage and legacy of spiritually charged prophets, if you will, or these people who are. Receiving inspiration from God to, to help to lift their people up, you know, and, and Frederick thought, and any of these men and women both the, the sign heroes and those that we are, are less familiar with if you see their biology, the I'm sorry, their biography, the aspects of their life, whether it was penned by their own hand or other scholars writing about them or contemporaries, you will see that they rarely even made a decision without there's mainly Bible. And then as we get into the 20th century, of course, the Quran and other influences, spiritual other scripture. There's but with the 1975 with, you know, having a six setter, a leader whose movement was designed to to ease the oppressed psyche of the most downtrodden member of American society, who is indeed existing on the peripheries, the economic peripheries and margins of social peripheries. Margins left alone, even sometimes by educated and into an influential African Americans, but that that person, you know, we have this organization does not have that list lifting up part of that easing this oppressed psyche was to give an understanding of identity. That is coming not from your hierarchical position in society as, as man, be they European, American, African, anyone has, has, has, has envisioned it, not from a, a manipulated version of what someone says that scripture says you're supposed to say. I referenced that other things, but from a, an organic understanding of the purpose of human being and the dignity of human being that I would argue, even our founding fathers, even those who enslaved others were, were still. putting into the American the Declaration of Rights and the Constitution, but this organic understanding that, that, that human life comes from God and that all human beings aspire to liberty and freedom and that kind of thing. So this identity, we, the Nation of Islam was one of the earliest organizations to link that identity. To the scriptural identity and the scriptural understanding what now in the nation of Islam. We are our identity and worth is not predicated upon our past experiences. It's not predicated on the fact and it doesn't disprove any of these things, but it's not predicated on the fact that we have, we are analogous to the, the, the ancient Hebrews as most Moses led them out of the the Well, oppression and capture under the pharaoh during pharaonic times in Egypt to the wilderness for freedom. It's not there are many parallels for us as African American people. And we've had this notion of covenant that hinges upon that, but with the nation of Islam, or even Garvey's movement, even though the reinforced all these principles, the way. His movement is predicated on blackness or your identity as a descendant of Africans here for the first time with the nation of Islam. We have at least thematically this idea that our, our, our identity is based upon our humanity as a servant of God. And there was a lot of symbolic or pictorial language. So I'm not going to say that that is the identity or the understanding that every rank and file member, Muslim believing member of the nation of Islam had, but it was. built into the catechism that we have this new self, that the nation of Islam is returning us to our original self, and that that original self was a righteous Muslim. But then we have to make sure that we're using the word Muslim the way it is intended by, through the language of the the Arabic language of the Quran, that it was revealed in the scriptural language, and not the cultural language of Muslims and Islamic societies. And in that, we're, that saying, Muslim is just one who submits fully to the creator. And God describes And identifies Abraham, the father of all the religions, as a believer of God. Further lifts Abraham up and distinguishes him as the friend of God. So this, that's what's kind of, to me earth shattering. And but there's still so much language and mythology that was designed to intellectually punish or spank the progenitors of Christian Protestantism in American society as it had flourished up to that time and, and, and, and, and especially because of the. Then to which it leaned on this false doctrine of the or ideology of white supremacy and this false picture of God as a European human being with blonde hair and blue eyes. So the nation of Islam had to remember this is also the time of and I'm getting to Imam Mahmood, but this is also the time of Science of Farida, what's that science called? Eugenics. And, and, and, yes, yes, and we're in the highest universities of the land. People are making insidious claims about humanity that go against the notion of understanding the scriptural notion of humanity being one family. So, at that time, you have this, this doctrine coming from Farad that's speaking on multiple levels. And then not all, we don't get a sense of react, we don't sense of scripture. Or a sense of our identity that is completely rooted in reality. Instead, we have hints and, and, and cloaked in, in its own doctrine and its own mythology. But if you fast forward to 1975, then you have the son of the honorable Muhammad. You know, this is a man who's business to remake the world. Not to remake America, not to remake the United States of America, but to remake the world and the money, what, but what his, his, his words and actions were right where he put his money right there immediately, you know, beginning campaigns that all over the country to eradicate this dangerous and, and disease thinking of, of the The supremacy of one human being over another and remade in the image of, or posing as the creator of the divine. And that was a campaign called Crade or the committee to remove all images of attempting to portray the divine and, and that as its goal to get signatures from European Americans, not just African Americans all over the country, and to present these to the Pope in Rome saying, you know what, we've got to stop these false images. And it was very successful. But that this notion that the nation of Islam was healing the oppressed psyche of the most downtrodden member of society in 1975 with this 50 what has become now a 50 year leadership we're moving into 50 years of celebrating this continuing leadership that is still strong and exists. We have this. We can see a full flowering of an understanding. You have the sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters and great grandsons and granddaughters with this understanding of their own identity as human beings, purpose or destination to be inheritors of, of the mantle or leadership of acting in the best interest, of the most innocent in our hu in our human society. And to preserve that and to educate that and the culture to, to nurture, to nourish it. So so that we can in, so that we can actually have freedom, justice, and equality. And with Emman Martin Muhammad that, you know, 50 years of that leadership. I think that, you know, there's a saying, a tradition among Muslims that 40 is a year of maturity. So if you look at this 40 years of gestation, we, we, we have these mature individuals like yourself, myself, and others in our, you know, who are mothers as us as women, we are mothers. And yes, I consider myself a mother to, you know, needing to birth scholarship, et cetera. But I think the most important thing. That we can birth and that we have the biggest responsibility we have upon us is to nurture and be mothers of to be wounds for the protection and the cultivation of human life, of our future, of our young people, of education, you know, protecting their education, their, their moral consciousness, their values, and, and and we cannot do that independently. We cannot do that as, as, as individual group, individual people. We have, yes, it starts in the family, but we have to be creating a community. We have to be creating institutions and we have to be creating culture that affects our own, but that spreads all, all, all through this country and, and, and hopefully all through the world.

Faridah: 45:56

So you, you. ended where you indeed you began and that is with the purpose and destiny of the human being and you gave us a beautiful vision for realizing that within our families this is a family ties the prescription for society and we firmly believe that within the the The sign, you know, the revelation of God in our own creation is the the remedy for that and so I I'm listening to you And you you gave us a beautiful vision for how we can empower ourselves and take back responsibility For educating our own children within the womb of the family no matter their formal or informal education we alone have the responsibility as families and communities to To give them a picture of the human being that begins with the Father Adam, and proceeds to Noah and Abraham, Moses and Jesus and Muhammad and to see themselves in their own development in Bishop Richard Allen and David Walker, Frederick Douglas, j Jina Lee Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Booker t Washington, WEB Du Bois Garvey, Dr. King, honorable Elijah Muhammad and Iman, Martha, Dean Muhammad, that this is a shared legacy of purpose and destiny that is. inextricably linked to our human experience. But within the cauldron of human chattel slavery, a people was created. A people was created to witness to mankind, the pursuit of a just order. And it came with lots of struggle, but it came to witness for mankind that the struggle for excellence and human dignity for freedom, justice, and equality indeed must come from and come with the divine guidance found in scripture and in the world around us. So as we close again, this is family ties. And I recall that you, you said something earlier that you wanted to return to. So I'm wondering if you just have one minute to share with us any closing practical advice for parents who are sharing you know, who are raising not only scholars who will literally go into the academy and benefit society that way, but the role of scholarship nurturing that as a, as a way of life and a vision for how they, they behave in the world.

Fanusie: 48:10

I will say three things, especially in this age of the omnipresent device read, read and read. Read to your Children. If they're too young to read, have them read and and provide. I don't let them go on. Give them their list because honestly, they really aren't getting it in the schools anymore lose the aspects of popular culture that we have children watch television. They watch give them some documentaries. Everyone should every child between the age of 10 and 18. Should be should have seen the entire eyes on the series. Yes Start there and then you can incorporate some of the newer things. Some of that are documents there They use their the curriculum that you're giving to them independently of what they're getting in school, or if you're a home school give them narratives of their own history of the history of the larger history of our, our, our country,

Faridah: 49:01

Dr. Farnusi, I appreciate you. We, we need you back for a continuation of this conversation. Our families are critical to our establishment and to the salvation of our nation and indeed of humanity. As you said, you reminded us we were invited to remake the world and we need to do that with the guidance of our creator. The praise. is for God as always. We've moved one step closer to destination excellence. Until next time, let us remain conscious of our creator, of the sacred relationship of parent and child, and of the family ties that bind us. Subscribe to the podcast and come back next time for a new episode of The Family Ties. On behalf of my guest, Dr. Fatima Fanousi, and myself, Farida Abdul Tawa Brown, peace be upon the family.