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By Wendy Diaz The Message International August 7, 2024 On the scorching summer day of July 9, 2024, high above the clouds at 35,000 feet, I finished the book Alianza Islámica: Spanish Harlem’s Hispanic Odyssey. I was traveling back home to what the pilot called “El Calentón,” the sweltering Caribbean heat of Puerto Rico. The story…

RAMON FRANCISCO OCASIO MARCH 14TH, 2016 11:51 AM On January 30, 2016, Muslims and non-Muslims alike gathered in Houston, Texas, for the most highly anticipated event of the season: the grand opening of IslamInSpanish’s Centro Islamico, a new nexus to bring Islam to Latinos. Bright, sunny, nearly cloudless skies graced the sizable throng, most seated under…

Student interviews Rahim Ocasio for a report about Alianza Islamica in 2018.

Rahim Ocasio’s speech on the history of Alianza Islamica at LALMA‘s Ramadan event in Los Angeles, CA on May 19, 2019.

Saturday, May 13, 2017, 7pm at City Lore – 56 East 1st Street, NYC Free Latinx Muslims are emerging as the country’s fastest growing demographic of Muslims. But they have had a long and rich history, especially in New York City. Tonight we hear about that history and current story. Join us for conversations with:…

Alianza Islamica Journal Published by the first iteration of the organization Alianza Islamica of the mid-80s, it was the first bi-lingual publication of its kind. The journal Alianza Islamica was a joint effort with the Bismi Rabbik Foundation in Chicago. The second iteration of Alianza Islamica as an organization, which lasted from the late 80s…

By Danny “Khalil” Salgado Islamic Horizons January/February 2020

By Danny “Khalil” Salgado Islamic Horizons January/February 2020

ALIANZA ISLAMICA, pioneering Latino Muslims in New York City. Giving dawah since the 1970’s. ASWAD (Ancient Sacred Wisdom And Development) at Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood.

May 19, 2019 Omar Ibn al-Khattab Mosque Los Angeles, CA LALMA’s Ramadan Celebration took place on May 19th, 2019 at Omar Ibn Al-Khattab Mosque.  LALMA Board of directors and members started celebrating Ramadan with only family members and Catholic youth (Pastoral Juvenil), but since 2014 LALMA decided to open the invitation to the partners of…

Muslim History Tour NYC Facebook page: This 1985 article in Islamic Horizons highlights a presentation on Latinx people in Islam at the Museo del Barrio in East Harlem. At this time, a diverse Latino-led community was beginning in the Barrio known as Alianza Islamica, which started in 1987 with a journal of the same name….

This presentation is a comprehensive look at resistance movements from the Sixties through to the present day. It mainly focuses on the roots of resistance and how they influenced early indigenous Muslim communities. Rahim Ocasio presented it at Darul Hijra in Northern Virginia about 2008/2009 as part of a youth program.

Assalaam alaykum, The video below documents a landmark event in the history of El Barrio (Spanish Harlem) and the Latino Muslim story in the United States. It was Alianza Islamica’s attempt to publicly showcase an expression of Muslim culture that was distinctly Latino and accurately reflected our contemporary cultural reality: sights, sounds, music, songs, verse,…

This lecture shines a light on the problem of racism in the American Muslim community. Its primary focus is on the ways Arabs and Indo-Pakistanis discriminate against Black and Latino Muslims. The examples cited reveal the stark reality of Muslim discrimination and the need for frank and open dialogue. As with most things noxious, prejudice…

“Latino Muslims: Our Journeys to Islam” Did you know you can read the first part of the book for free? That’s right, you can read the short bios of Khadijah Rivera, Ibrahim Gonzalez, and Benjamin Perez for free on your web browser. Check it out at Amazon.com.

By Yahya Figueroa Many of our Muslim answers have become dogmatic, repeating of a few themes someone has kind of understood from some book or the other. Iman (faith) is of course the cornerstone of our Muslim lives. I won’t recant basics of faith, theology and points we believe in. These cardinal points are laid…

WOR Radio’s Hispanic New York program hosted by Alda Sholianos. Brother Rahim Ocasio and Sister Maryam Figueroa Vasquez are among those who participated. WOR Radio, Part 1 aired December 8th, 1991. WOR Radio, Part 2 aired December 15th, 1991.

Pioneers of the Latin American Muslims Conversion to Islam in North America By Al-Hajj Yusuf Abdul Rahman Padilla-Alvarez February 2016 An early review of the beginnings of the first conversions of Puerto Ricans from the Latin American dispensation in North America into the religion of Islam from Newark, New Jersey. My name is Al-Hajj Yusuf…

Recently, I pared the Islamic section of an old cemetery.  My father is there. It is a beautiful peaceful place with hundreds maybe thousands of Muslim tombstones. Some simple, others ornate yet each one has a quick synopsis of a life. They all have a few Qura’n versus, some have a crescent and star, and…

By Yahya Figueroa Strangely our brothers and sisters following the Salafi model love photos and publicity although many of the same minhaj believe photos to be haram, such as pictures of women with exposed faces.  I think it speaks to our confusion that these same ladies embrace modest dressing yet their behavior desires to be…

By Yahya Figueroa Intellectual fads and cultural truism are very hard to detect. These false trends often have a grain of truth but the final product is distorted truths and fabulous falsehoods. The larger society has in so many ways lost its mind morally and intellectually. Our minority groups are usually in the rear but…

By Jorge “Fabel” Pabon aka Brother Shukriy As salaamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatu, Alianza Islamica helped form the Muslim I am today. After embracing Islam in August of 1989, I began to mosque hop (going from one mosque to another) in an effort to find my rightful place in an Islamic community. My journey…

By Yahya Abdul Latif Figueroa Director, Alianza Islamica Beginnings and starting points are always difficult to determine and become obscured in the pages of bygone days. How and when movements and ideas bloom is never easy to pinpoint.  Historical studies of the same period rarely agree on key issues. Nonetheless, the following lines hope to…

By Faqir Ibrahim (Teacher at Alianza Islamica) Many of us have lived a lifetime in Islam in the United States.  We are completing our sixth decade –what a spiritual adventure it has been!  With all of the assaults upon the glorious nature of our faith, false maligning and sad misreading’s by fellow Muslims world-wide I…

By Ibrahim A Aziz (Imam/Chaplain)) Retired I am writing the following few lines in a spirit of reconciliation, religious understanding and good will.  The other evening I happened upon your CBN show and you once again presented your extremist views on Islam and attempted to malign my faith and falsely accuse Muslims in general, rather…

By Yahya Abdul-Latif Figueroa Director, Alianza Islamica In these next few lines I want to boldly assert that Alianza was truly unique as a voice of Spanish Islam and that its vision and mission must be reclaimed and built again.  I want to stress that other groups today that are attempting to monopolize a Spanish…

By Yahya Abdul-Latif Figueroa Director, Alianza Islamica Reclaiming heritage lends itself to the false impression of dwelling on the past. The next few lines are about the future flowing from the past. Hopefully a reopening to a humble beginning that accomplished a number of great starts yet confronted many challenges and now must map a…

By Yahya Figueroa Abdul-Latif Director, Alianza Islamica What was Andalusia?  Islam has come full circle in the west today.  Daily we hear of various horrible events atrocities unfairly attributed to the noble Quran and Blessed Prophet (PBUH).  The insane terrorists and Islamophobic media and politicians share the same distorted propaganda against our faith.  A full…

By Rahim Ocasio Assalamu Alaykum wa Rahmatullah This is a recap of the two day event and my assessment of this historic event. Muhammad Isa Garcia, el argentino who recently translated the Qur’an into Spanish, gave a video introduction from Colombia where he currently resides. Abdullah Danny Hernandez gave the English intro, primarily inspirational, centering…