“I Don’t Feel Any Oppressed At All”: African American Sunni Women In Detroit

This article presents an ethnographic case study of Sunni women at The Muslim Center in Detroit, Michigan, regardless of any previous affiliation with the Nation of Islam (NOI). African American Muslim women, both those in the NOI and those outside it, navigate an intersectional space where their race, culture, and identity intersect with their faith. Often converts, these women have chosen a religion that resembles the Victorian framework of the Cult of Domesticity. Similar to how the Cult of Domesticity was created to give women an equally important yet complementary role during America’s early years, the tenets of piety, purity, submission, domesticity, and, for Black women, racial uplift define the identity of Black Sunni women. Rather than seeing these ideals as oppressive, Black Muslim women embrace them, actively embodying their faith, cultural identity, and lived experiences, providing them a voice and status within their families and communities. It is easy to view Victorian gender ideals as oppressive and limiting from a modern perspective. However, these ideals aimed to recognize and crystallize women’s significant impact on their families and communities. Without their piety, purity, domesticity, submissiveness, and dedication to racial uplift, the sweeping social movements that have fundamentally changed the nation might not have occurred. Women used the power given to them under the Cult of Domesticity to occupy two seemingly incongruous spaces: private, submissive nurturers and public, assertive leaders for change. Similarly, African American Sunni women harness the power of Islam to do the same.