Review of Sohail Daulatzai, Black Star, Crescent Moon: The Muslim International and Black Freedom beyond America

Excerpt

In Black Star, Crescent Moon, author Sohail Daulatzai appears to have two basic projects. The first is an attempt to prove the existence of a community that he calls the ‘Muslim International.’ According to Daulatzai, the Muslim International is the product of the intersecting, overlapping, and mutual influencing of Black Islam, Black Radicalism, and the Muslim Third World (p. xxii)—movements and communities that since the time of the Cold War have shared a fundamental desire for ‘radical justice and equality’ (p. 196), an international self-image, and trenchant critiques of the U.S.’s treatment of non-white and non-Christian people. The second project of the book is to use the histories, traits, and critiques of certain prominent African-American Muslim individuals and movements in order to bring into relief the similarities and connections between the U.S.’s treatment of African Americans and Muslims domestically and its treatment of Third World Muslims internationally. Daulatzai concludes by repeatedly asserting that through this book he has ‘revealed’ the fact that the U.S. is ‘really’ an imperialistic, racist nation, and therefore a nation that members of the Muslim International rightly critique and resist in the name of justice and equality. …