Black Muslim Freedom Dreams

Samiha Rahman's 'Black Muslim Freedom Dreams' examines three generations of Black American Muslims who seek Islamic education through the Tijani Sufi order in Medina Baye, Senegal, as an alternative to anti-Black and anti-Muslim conditions in the United States.

Drawing on ethnography and oral history, Rahman centers Black mothers and othermothers (in the framework of Patricia Hill Collins's motherwork) and the young people whose lives are shaped by Quranic pedagogy, khidmah (service), and hadiyah (gift-giving).

The book situates the community's practices within the teachings and Pan-Africanist politics of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, showing how spiritual devotion and material collective care co-constitute a transatlantic economy of care.

Rahman argues that this Tijani movement offers a revolutionary Pan-African Sufi praxis that links spiritual formation to sociopolitical struggle and community provisioning.

Her work highlights education, kin-making, and freedom dreaming as central practices that sustain Black Muslim life across the U.S.

–Senegal circuit.