Abdul Rasheed Abdullah
Abdul Rasheed Abdullah was born in 1952 in Brooklyn. He joined the Nation of Islam and married his wife in the 1970s, and was involved in Muslim communities in both Queens and Brooklyn. In 1984, his son received a scholarship to study in Sudan through the Al-Madrasa Al-Islamiya school in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. The family relocated and Abdullah spent his time in Sudan studying Sufism. After returning to New York, he taught as a licensed Sufi shaikh in a zawiyah in Brooklyn. He also attended Masjid Abdul Muhsi Khalifah and Masjid At-Taqwa, both in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, and was the head of the Islamic studies department at Masjid Khalifah’s Clara Muhammad School. See this narrator’s full biography and oral history.
Oral History Clips:
Abdul Rasheed Abdullah discusses the uniquely African-American Eids at Masjid Khalifah.
See this Oral History Clip’s interactive transcript.
Abdul Rasheed Abdullah describes his relationship with his sheikh, or spiritual leader, in Sudan.