What influence did internationalist Black Islam have on jazz?
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Because of its emphasis on racial equality, the Ahmadiyya community led a successful missionary initiative amongst African Americans, which in turn played a vital role in shaping jazz music as we know it. African American musicians adopted the Ahmadiyya’s global perspective and Islamic spiritual practices as a form of resistance to systemic racism in the US (Turner, 112). As a result, artists like Ahmed Abdul-Malik & Yusuf Lateef captured the essence of both peace and resistance through their music by merging Arabic and bebop slang to create their own “cool” Afro-Islamic sensibility, a “coolness [that] came to be defined as a profound lived expression of experimentation with Islam—the style, struggle, consciousness, and peace of being a black Muslim in the United States.” (107) The integration of middle eastern instruments like the kanoon and the oud, as well as African sounds within their jazz compositions birthed an “East meets West”-style fusion genre that highlighted internationalist Black Islam (111).
Celebrated jazz artist John Coltrane was the grandchild of two reverends and husband to Naima, a Muslim woman to whom he credited his interest in spirituality. Despite being a non-Muslim, one can hear Islamic formulas in his music such as “and praise be to God,” and “A Love Supreme” sounding like “Allah Supreme” (translation of Allahu Akbar). Though all agree that Coltrane was influenced by his wife’s faith and the spirit of Islam brought on by the Ahmadis, some also happen to think that he may have converted!