The New Moon in Black Space: The Poetics of Ummah By Andre Basheir A thesis submitted to the Graduate Program in Cultural Studies in conformity with the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada January, 2021 Copyright © Andre Basheir, 2021 Abstract This work examines how diasporic Black and South Asian Muslims in Toronto and New York practice ummah (Muslim brotherhood and sisterhood, global Muslim unity). Through online surveys, in-person interviews, and ethnographies of mosques, it becomes clear that the ummah illuminates interracial connections and collaborations. My work shows that interracial ummah is not in plain sight but, if read alongside Édouard Glissant’s “Poetics of Relation” and Khal Torabully’s “Coolitude,” it can be illuminated. In addition to qualitative research, this dissertation analyzes poetics (through hip hop and soca music), poetry, film, and the visual arts as well as conversations about carnival, Pride (Toronto), and cultural appropriation. I look to concepts such as Orientalism, coolitude, homonationalism, and indentured labour, to address Islam in relation to modernity, racial attachments, and spatial resistances. These different analytical sites and concepts allow me to theorize different practices of inclusion, exclusion, belonging, and unbelonging to think through the complexities of Caribbean (Black and South Asian) Muslim identifications; the focus on poetics, which is touched on throughout, shows how ummah exists as a form of sonic transnationalism. Ultimately, in highlighting diasporic, transnational, narrative (interview), and creative expressions of ummah, this project reconceptualizes the figure of the Muslim, moving it away from a problematic geographically fixed location toward a more robust, shifting, and relational category of belonging. i Acknowledgements First, a huge thank you to my supervisor Katherine McKittrick, who went above and beyond her duties as a supervisor and a mentor to ensure the best quality of my work through her generous support. Thank you to my insightful examiners Andil Gosine,and Laila Haidarali, my brilliant and helpful committee members Margaret Little and Barrington Walker, as well as my proposal and defense chairs David Murakami Wood and Dongmei Chen respectively. I want to thank the staff in Cultural Studies and other staff at Queen’s University. Thank you to all my editors who made all the difference, especially Dahee. Thank you to all the respondents, Muslim or not, for their kind and invaluable contributions to this research project. Salaam. Finally, I dedicate this to my late father Richard. ii Table of Contents Abtract………………………………………………………………………………………..i Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………………….…..ii List of Figures………………………………………………………………………………iv Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1 Entangled Histories and Thesis Statement ......................................................................... 4 Research Methods ............................................................................................................ 13 Methodological Frame .................................................................................................. 15 Interviews ..................................................................................................................... 15 Surveys ......................................................................................................................... 16 Ethnography ................................................................................................................. 17 Creative Texts ............................................................................................................... 18 News Media .................................................................................................................. 19 Literature Review ............................................................................................................. 19 Poetics ........................................................................................................................... 19 Indentureship Studies ....................................................................................................... 20 North American Islam and Black Canadian Studies ........................................................ 21 Black Cultural Geography ................................................................................................ 23 Afro-Sonic Performance ................................................................................................... 23 Chapter One ...................................................................................................................... 24 Chapter Two ................................................................................................................. 26 Chapter Three ............................................................................................................... 27 Chapter Four ................................................................................................................. 28 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 28 Chapter 1: Crescent Citizens ................................................................................................ 29 Ethnography ..................................................................................................................... 30 Guyanese Mosque ............................................................................................................ 30 South Asian Mosque ......................................................................................................... 32 African American Mosque ............................................................................................... 34 North American Muslim Organization ............................................................................. 37 The U.S. vs Canada .......................................................................................................... 42 Ahmadiyya ....................................................................................................................... 46 iii Anti-Blackness in Islam ................................................................................................... 48 Intersections of Islamophobia and Anti-South Asian Racism .......................................... 51 Islamic Space .................................................................................................................... 54 The U.S. and Canadian Comparative Muslim Experiences ............................................. 57 Gender and Islam .............................................................................................................. 63 Muslim Spatial Resistance................................................................................................ 67 Caribbean Muslims ........................................................................................................... 69 Sounds, Sonics and Hip Hop as a Means to Ummah ....................................................... 73 Chapter 2: Sonic the Pedagogue ........................................................................................... 78 Muslim Rappers ................................................................................................................ 80 Chapter 3: White Pride, Black Masks ................................................................................ 101 Justin Trudeau’s Blackface ............................................................................................. 106 Lilly Singh’s Black Appropriation ................................................................................. 112 Chapter 4: Corals & Rhizomes ........................................................................................... 119 Poetics Of ....................................................................................................................... 119 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 137 Poetics of Water.............................................................................................................. 140 References .......................................................................................................................... 146 Appendices: Survey and Interview Questions .................................................................... 165 Appendices: Research Ethics Approval ............................................................................. 170 iv List of Figures “Cutlass”………………………………………………………………………….………129 “Ohrni”……………………..……………………………………………….………….…132 v Introduction We clamour for the right to opacity for everyone. —Édouard Glissant It was the year 1865. The British government was in power in India and in a position to replace the labour force lost to the abolition of the slave trade. When labour recruiters told Lakshmi, a young girl of the Kumi caste, about emigration depots now opening to take her to a land of riches, her path of escape from poverty and the cruel whims of her uncle’s family became clear. Lakshmi made her way to Calcutta with emigrant agents in tow. Once at the emigration depot and after witnessing the agents’