A new documentary, 'Malcolm X and the Sudanese', looks at the role of Ahmed Osman in the life of Malcolm X. Osman, a Sudanese development economist, first met Malcolm by chance at Muhammad’s Temple #7 in Harlem in the summer of 1962. The film, directed by Sophie Schrago and written and produced by Hisham Aidi, follows Osman, now in his late seventies, as he returns to Harlem 55 years after the death of Malcom X.
Omar Rais speaks to Alyssa Ratkewitch, a third generation Tatar Muslim living in Brooklyn and the vice president of the board at the historic Brooklyn Mosque. Also joining the conversation is travel writer, journalist and broadcaster, Tharik Hussain who specialises in the Muslim heritage of the West. Together they explore the migratory roots of Brooklyn’s Tatar community, the longest serving mosque in the United States, and discuss the identity-shaping of Muslims in the West.
For most people, the history of Islam in America starts with Malcolm X and the Civil Rights Movement, but how many of us know about the Muslim travellers and explorers who came here before Columbus? Or the enslaved West African princes and scholars who left behind diaries and treatises in perfect literary Arabic? Or the brave Muslim warriors who fought for freedom in South America and the Caribbean before the abolition of slavery?