Detroit
Indus Detroit
June 21 - July 31, 2019
The Halal Metropolis is one where Muslims practice their faith freely, and contribute to society with all of their talents and commitments. It is created dialogically by all of the region’s inhabitants and requires Muslims to be visible to one another and to non-Muslims. It requires Muslims to organize and speak, as believers, citizens, and artists.
Detroit began to take shape as a Halal Metropolis over a century ago when the first Muslim communities moved to the area for work in the booming auto industry. They opened their first mosque in Highland Park in 1921, established the Nation of Islam in 1930, and organized the state’s oldest mosque, the American Moslem Society in Dearborn in 1938. Today there are over 90 mosques in the tri-county area representing communities with roots in the Middle East, Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America, and the American South. Metro Detroit has also been home to two of the nation’s first Muslim representatives in the United States Congress, the first Muslim American judge, the first Muslim American mayor, the first Muslim majority city council, and the first Muslim majority city.
Mosques and Muslim political leaders have long attracted attention to Detroit’s Muslim communities as have the region’s entrepreneurs and artists, service providers, athletes and engineers. Somehow Muslim visibility is both pronounced and extremely present in the city, while never becoming an integral part of the larger narrative of the region.
In this first iteration of the multi-part Halal Metropolis series, we focus on the past, on the experiences of African American Muslims, and on the work of Muslim artists in order to consider what is it that makes, and has made, Detroit’s Muslims so very visible over the last century. When and why are Detroit’s Muslims visible? To whom? At what cost? What are the threads that link current and past representations of Muslim Detroiters into one narrative?
Participating Artists:
Amna Asghar
Qais Assali
Kecia Escoe
Anthony Giannini
Parisa Ghaderi & Ebrahim Soltani
Razi Jafri
Leah Vernon
Special Thanks:
Laila Abbas and family, Shedrick El-Amin, Adil Akhtar, Dream of Detroit, and The Muslim Center
