If this is your first time visiting this blog or reading this semi-autobiography, I strongly suggest you start from the beginning. Everything will make a lot more sense if you do.

It was summer of 1996 and I was back in Brooklyn. I wasn’t as thrilled as I was when I came back from Senegal. Perhaps I had matured more. Perhaps I knew that a special part of my life was done.

Even though my earliest memories of Islam involve Masjid At-Taqwa where Imam Siraj was the Imam, I frequented another mosque quite often also. This was Masjid Abdul Muhsi Kahlifah which is also in the Bed-Stuy area of Brooklyn, just about half a mile from Masjid At-Taqwa.

Masjid Abdul Muhsi Khalifah, or just Masjid Khalifah, has a different history than Masjid At-Taqwa. Taqwa was started in the early 80′s by Imam Siraj and a few other Muslims. But Masjid Khalifah actually started out as a Nation of Islam Temple, and was first established by Malcolm X.

Back in the days of the Nation of Islam (NOI), they called their places of worship first Temples then Mosques. Each Mosque was assigned a number. So the Mosque in Detroit was called Mosque One, the one if Chicago was Mosque 2, and the Mosque in New York City was called Mosque 7.

If there was more than one NOI Mosques in the same city, they would be further delineated with a letter. Since there were 3 NOI Mosques in NYC, they were called Mosque 7a, Mosque 7b, and Mosque 7c.

Mosque 7a in Harlem was the primary NOI Mosque in NYC. That was where Malcolm X taught and preached and became famous. But he also established and taught at Mosque 7c in Brooklyn.

After the death of the NOI leader Elijah Poole, his son Warith Deen Mohammed began to lead the NOI towards mainstream (real) Islam. And in time, the former NOI Mosques took on more traditional Islamic names.

Mosque 7 in Harlem became Masjid Malcolm Shabazz. And Mosque 7c in Brooklyn became Masjid Abdul Muhsi Khalifah. Hence, most of the older people at Masjid Khalifah were at one time members of the NOI.

Many of them had heard Malcolm X speak. Many of them joined the NOI because of him. And I even met some people who worked with him directly. And being the history buff I was, I would talk to them for hours learning about life in the NOI, Malcolm X, race, politics, and whatever else I could get from them.

But all that came later.

When I first returned to Brooklyn, hardly anyone recognized  or knew me. I did get to meet up with some of the kids I knew from Senegal including Brother Muhammad and Yusuf. But for the most part, I initially felt like a stranger in a strange land.

My primary goal, now that I was back in the U.S., was to get into college. I wasn’t too sure of the process, but I did get started as best I could. I began to send out applications to most of the major schools in NYC. I didn’t expect to get accepted to NYU or Pace University, but I applied to them anyway. I expected to get into Brooklyn College, and since it was a public university and more affordable, I didn’t bother looking too much further.

Meanwhile, I tried my best to catch up on all the American culture that I had missed out on the past five years. My mother put me on her Blockbuster Video account, and I was off to the races. I tried to rent every movie that I’d missed while in Senegal and Trinidad. I spent most of my first two months back at the Grand Army Plaza library, Blockbuster, and Masjid Khalifah.

And of course, I was back to listening to rap music. Biggie Smalls was still very popular in NYC and he and Sean “Puffy” Combs and the whole Bad Boy records clique were taking over rap. Biggie was unquestionably the biggest rap artist to come out of New York since LL Cool J.

But there was another Brooklyn rapper making waves and I actually liked his song more than Big’s.

Before returning to NYC, I had never heard of Jay-Z. But when I heard his song “Can’t Knock the Hustle,” I knew New York was back. More evidence of New York’s reemergence on the rap scene was Nas from Queens. I had actually heard his song with Lauren Hill “If I Ruled the World” during my last couple of weeks in Trinidad.

And while all of this was going on, I noticed a strange trend on the music channels. MTV and BET were playing a lot of southern rappers. Nonetheless, southern rap couldn’t catch a break on the NY radio stations.

One of the biggest changes I noticed when I came back to America was how much more accepted Islam was. At least in NYC. There were many more Masajid all over the city. There were more halal meat markets and restaurants than I could count. I heard that Imam Siraj had given an invocation in front of Congress. I read somewhere that President Bill Clinton had hosted a Ramadhan Iftar. And Islam was filtering into the mainstream culture.

Yes, there were still movies and television shows with the stereotypical Muslim terrorist. But rap music had incorporated Islamic terms wholeheartedly.

I remember back in Trinidad listening to the Fugees’ first album. On one of their interludes they talked about visiting the halal Chinese food store so they can eat lunch and make Salaat at the same time.

By the way, if you’re ever in Brooklyn, make sure you make a stop at the No Pork Chinese food place on Atlantic Avenue. Best Chinese food in NYC, I kid you not.

Tupac Shakur had a song called “I Ain’t Mad At You” where he raps: So you’re a Muslim now, don’t wanna chase tail?

Pras from the Fugees made a song with ODB and Mya called “Ghetto Superstart,” where he says: Like Farrakhan reads his daily Quran.

I saw Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest making Jumuah (Friday) Salaat at Masjid Khalifah. And I remember seeing Sean Combs drops by to pay him a visit. I’m not kidding. I really saw Puffy at Masjid Khalifah talking with Q-Tip.

And there were so many people coming into Islam. I mean, every week a new person would take their Shahadah at Masjid Khalifah. I can only imagine the same thing was happening at Masjid At-Taqwa and other mosques in NYC.

The Muslim community in NYC was growing so fast, it was unbelievable. And then I found out that there were so many more in the State prison system.

Even though I was in a country that had a Muslim population under 2%, I was still able to surround myself almost entirely by Muslims, only eat Halal food, make most of my prayers in the Masjid, and still be an American.

My first year back in Brooklyn was actually pretty good. I didn’t have many responsibilities. I had some money left to me by my grandmother. I had gone through five fairly difficult years in Senegal and Trinidad and was now able to kick back and relax.

The only thing that was missing was a social life. I was able to reunite with some of the kids I knew in Senegal, but except for Yusuf, I didn’t really spend much time with any of them.

Until my mother spoke to the Imam of Masjid Khalifah about me and I was subsequently invited to one of his meetings.

This was the beginning of a very interesting year.

The Imam of Masjid Khalifah was a brother named Adib Rashid. Imam Adib was both a visionary and realist. He was also serious business. He didn’t tolerate weakness from those around him and he commanded respect. You had to admire the way he handled himself and how other men looked to him for direction and leadership.

I don’t know if I was just starving for friendship or if I bought into Imam Adib’s vision, but I really began to love going to Masjid Khalifah. It became like a second home to me. I became part of the Masjid’s security force. I was given some minor responsibilities. They weren’t much, but they were an indication that I had earned a certain level of trust. And I really loved the group of young brothers I was around.

They were all a couple of years older than me. But they were married and had children and were working and struggling. Perhaps the idea of young Muslim men working together to raise good families and build a vibrant community appealed to me. And I wanted so much to be a part of it.

We took martial arts training together. We had Islamic studies classes together. We worked on security duties together. It was really a very good and respectful relationship amongst young Muslim men.

But don’t let the bean pies and kufis fool you. Imam Adib and the men on the security force were all business.

In today’s anti-Muslim climate, I have to be careful in how I say things. But there was a distinct militancy amongst us Muslims in the north east, especially in New York City.

The security force at Masjid Khalifah and Masjid Taqwa wasn’t just there for show. Believe me when I say this; these brothers could hurt someone if they had to. We didn’t carry weapons (at least I never saw any) but we didn’t have to. And there was a feeling of solidarity amongst the Muslims of New York also, especially the African-American Muslims.

For example, during my first year back, we heard that the son of an Imam in Long Island was beat up by some thugs in the mosque out there. Muslims from all over New York City hopped into cars and rode out there to take care of business.

The car I was riding in arrived late so I didn’t see what happened. But I heard was the guilty party left the state.

On another occasion, some non-Muslim teens who lived near Masjid Khalifah got into an argument with some Muslim kids. The Imam went out to mediate and settle the dispute. One of the non-Muslim kids decided to pull a knife on the Imam.

Big mistake.

The next thing I saw, the dumb kid was writhing on the ground holding his arm and crying like a baby. While he was crying, he made a gang sign (he was dressed in red so I assume he must have been a Blood).

Within an hour, Muslim men from all over Brooklyn were holding sentry around Masjid Khalifah.

The kid got arrested but was eventually released. There was never any retaliation that I’m aware of.

I knew this was where I wanted to be. I was part of a growing Muslim community in my home, Brooklyn, New York.

• The Knicks were really good.
• The Mets were getting better (Another New York baseball team won the World Series the year before but mention of their name is prohibited on my blog).
• I had been accepted at Brooklyn College, and had been offered a partial scholarship to both Pace University and NYU.

Now, I just had to figure out how to make some money, find myself a wife, and start planning for life in the big city.

But just like high school so many years earlier, things didn’t quite go that way.

After having applied to a few New York schools, my mother convinced me to apply to more colleges besides just the three I had been accepted to. After all, even with the partial scholarship, I couldn’t afford Pace or NYU. Brooklyn College had offered no scholarship of any sort, and tuition there was about $3000 for NYC residents.

So I began to send applications to a few HBCU’s (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) also. I sent applications to Howard University in D.C. Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. Fisk University (my mother and older sister’s Alma Mater). And some school in Florida my mother mentioned named Bethune-Cookman College.

All of these schools were private schools and all of them were very expensive without scholarships, loans, and grants.

And most importantly, none of them were in New York.

Why would I want to leave New York? This was where everything was happening. Especially with the intensifying East Coast-West Coast beef.

Oh yeah…I guess I should talk about that, huh.

Tupac Shakur was killed about four months after I came back to America. I wasn’t happy when he died, but I was never a fan.

I’m going to tell the truth, and this has absolutely nothing to do with my being from New York. I never really cared for Tupac’s style of rap. He couldn’t decide if he was a revolutionary idealist or a bi***-slapping thug. One day he would rap about Black Panther’s and racism, and the next he’d rap about sex and shooting other black men. I couldn’t understand this guy, and I never felt he was a great lyricist.

Now he was definitely talented. I thought he was a better actor than rapper. But since he dissed New York I didn’t care for him much.

Still, I was troubled when he was shot in Las Vegas. It was the most bizarre thing I’d ever heard of. I actually thought he was going to live through it. After all, he’d been shot before and survived. But I was shocked like everyone else was when he died.

And then three months later, the second domino fell.

It was early one morning when I was at Masjid Khalifah for a class. I was listening to one of the brother’s lecture about security, when my friend Jamar came into class late. He apologized and said he was late because he had just learned his man was killed.

I thought Jamar was talking about a friend of his. Then the brother who was giving the class, Shaheed, said: “Yeah, in case any of you didn’t hear Biggie Smalls was killed last night.”

Surprisingly, I wasn’t even shocked. After Tupac’s death, Biggie’s death just seemed…inevitable.

And that was the beginning of the end of my love affair with rap.

I didn’t stop listening to rap all at once. But I did begin to slowly disengage myself from it. The whole thing just seemed so stupid. Young, wealthy men, rapping about stupid things, only to die worthless deaths, gunned down in the streets like common thugs.

What a waste of time, talent, money, and life.

Later that spring, I received a call from someone at the school in Florida that I applied to, Bethune-Cookman College. She was asking why my grades in Trinidad were so low. I explained that they used a different scoring system over there, so what was a “1″ in the Caribbean, was an “A” in America.

She told me they couldn’t accept me unless I sent some sort explanation from Darul Uloom.

Since I expected to attend Brooklyn College, I wasn’t too concerned about whether Bethune-Cookman accepted me or not. But I sure the heck didn’t want them to think I was stupid. I called Darul Uloom and asked them to send the proper documents which they promptly did.

About a month later, Bethune-Cookman called me back and said that based on what they received from Darul Uloom, they wanted to offer me a full ride scholarship.

Now that’s more like it, I thought.

But I still wasn’t really interested in going. I did not want to leave Brooklyn or Masjid Khalifah.

When I told my mother what happened and that I wasn’t too sure about going to Bethune-Cookman, she made it clear that I was being rather foolish.

And deep down, I knew she was right. I was being offered a full college scholarship where I didn’t have to pay a thing. Even though I liked the people at Masjid Khalifah, I had to be practical. Even going to Brooklyn College, a public school, would have cost me almost three thousand dollars a year (they did not offer me any sort of scholarship).

So I accepted the offer from Bethune-Cookman. It was difficult breaking the news of my impending to departure to Imam Adib and the others, but they all seemed happy for me and encouraged me to pursue my education.

And so, sometime in June of 1997, I boarded a Greyhound bus for Daytona Beach, Florida, home of the Bethune-Cookman Fighting Wildcats.

Up next: Bethune-Cookman College…