What does an acorn have to do with Muslim-run nonprofit organizations?

A lot, actually.

An acorn in the contemporary age is an ignored and untapped resource. It is a proof of God’s Provision, a clear sign that abundance is all around us if only we would notice. But acorns are not exactly here for the taking.

Because you can’t just eat acorns off the tree. They are loaded with tannic acid, that astringent stuff you taste in your black tea if you’ve let it steep too long. Too much of it and you’re going to get sick.

You need three things to make use of acorns: knowledge, responsibility, and, if you’re going to provide for others, accountability.

This is not meant to be a tutorial on processing acorns for food. We’ll save that for another time. What we’re doing today is highlighting the ignorance, irresponsibility, and total lack of accountability in the Islamic nonprofit sector, and the history of the acorn helps us do that.

Dust and Tribe is based in California and the acorn was a staple among many of California’s indigenous people. This was their wheat, their corn, a gluten-free, high protein meal that was often prepared as a kind of mush and mixed with other foods that were foraged or hunted. In time, however, making use of and being satisfied with the abundant resources around us gave way to an agricultural model where we could plant and grow the things we wanted.

The knowledge of acorn processing was largely lost. The responsibility of preserving that knowledge was dismissed. And there is nowhere to be found any sense of accountability for the environmental and nutritional disasters that are part and parcel of a food model that prioritizes our desires over the unique composition of our local ecosystems, of which we are very much a part.

Economics: A Nation Within a State

We’ll leave acorns alone for now and consider economics, which, in its broadest sense, is the responsible management of available resources.

But we can’t responsibly manage resources until we first identify them.

There is a persistent myth that American Muslims are affluent and educated. Some are, but most are not, at least no more than the general public. According to the people at Pew Research, Muslims are three times more likely than other Americans to be out of a job and looking for work.

But we do have some advantages. Immigrant Muslims tend to be more educated than the general American public. On the whole, we are considerably younger and we have more children than our co-citizens.

The way we see it, these attributes lend us 1) an outsider’s perspective that allows us to think beyond the box, 2) an abundance of youthful energy to advance and scale new ideas, and 3) the promise of future generations for whom to work.

Furthermore, we are rapidly approaching the end of the nation-state, which is not nearly the existential problem for Muslims as it might be for others. And that’s because Muslims have always been a supra-national polity. It is a matter of faith that our cultural identity transcend borders. While we may have an emotional connection to the nation of our birth or residence, we are fundamentally the people of hijra, migratory nomads with an understanding that “home” is ultimately beyond existence.

These are our resources and not the bank accounts of a largely broke American Muslim demographic that the Islamic nonprofit sector berates unceasingly for handouts. Ignoring the economic realities of American Muslims is irresponsible. It’s poor resource management which telegraphs a callous lack of accountability, and this from organizations marketing themselves as just and mission-driven stewards.

With all signs pointing to approaching societal collapse, we simply cannot afford to support institutions this out of touch. The inevitable convulsions of supply chain economics, the dissolution of borders, and the emergence of transnational corporate technocracies force us to challenge everything about the status quo.

We need to find ways to serve humanity without begging.

Building American Muslim Wealth

So how do we responsibly manage these powerful assets of perspective, youth, and progeny to serve others while preparing for the apocalypse and simultaneously addressing the financial disparity of American Muslims?

We build and support Muslim-owned businesses, an undertaking that demands accountability from our entire community. We must first identify communal needs that are not currently addressed by Muslim business owners. We must then demand excellence from those individuals bold enough to establish businesses to meet those needs. Finally, we patronize those businesses exclusively.

These are not new ideas. They are time tested, revolutionary solutions, with perhaps the most recent and relevant being the three-year economic plan of Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam.

From its inception in Detroit in 1930, the Nation of Islam (NOI) promoted economic self-reliance for African Americans. In 1964, the organization initiated a Three-Year Economic Plan, leading to individual and NOI ownership of farmland and nationwide commercial establishments that included a national food production and distribution network with delivery trucks, restaurants, and supermarkets. Its “Your Supermarket” brand fostered a sense of ownership and pride in patrons, who intentionally supported businesses owned and operated by African Americans. By 1970, dress shops, barber shops, clothing factories, and bakeries provided goods and services to Muslim and non-Muslims. From 1960 to 1975, the Muhammad Speaks newspaper—sold on busy street corners—was among the most profitable of these enterprises. In 1974, the NOI established its International Trades Division, importing whiting fish from Peru and selling it door-to-door in African American neighborhoods. These businesses employed inner-city residents in a wide variety of full-time and part-time jobs.

National Museum of African-American History & Culture

A lot of the early capital for these projects was generated through tithing:

The Three-Year Economic Plan required NOI members who could afford to do so, to pledge one-tenth to one-third of their income to economic development. Members were also required to patronize NOI-owned businesses or to open their own economic enterprises which would be advertised in Muhammad Speaks, the NOI’s official newspaper.

blackpast.org

Compare this to the current state of American Muslims, a community which is content to assume wealth rather than build it. To some extent this assumption is valid:

You cause the night to enter the day, and You cause the day to enter the night; and You bring the living out of the dead, and You bring the dead out of the living. And You give provision to whom You will without measure.

Q 3:27

Yes, God provides. But we also learn in this verse about His discretion. The nonprofit corporate model is philosophically grounded in a utopian interpretation of equality. It assumes that some are deprived of provision and that it is the moneyed public’s responsibility to rectify that inequality without concern for the preservation and dispensation of their own wealth.

Regarding the first point:

There is no living creature on earth that does not receive sustenance from God. He knows its dwelling and resting place. Everything is recorded in the glorious Book.

Q 11:6

We get what we get. And if what God has allotted for us does not meet with our expectations, it may be that our expectations need to be adjusted. But if there is some oppression or injustice at work, we might endeavor to correct that while keeping the following in mind:

Whoever works righteousness, whether a believing male or female, indeed We will give a good life and We shall recompense them certainly with a reward commensurate with the best of what they used to do.

Q 16:97

God promises to provide for those who do good work. Islamic nonprofits leverage this maxim to encourage us to give them our money rather than invest in the development of long-term, sustainable revenue-generating enterprises.

But we can also understand this verse as a reminder that there is nothing wrong with expecting payment for services. The nonprofit narrative would shame us out of desiring any such reward while ignoring the invaluable role that honest merchants have played throughout history as the rightful redistributors of wealth. A good businesswoman works hard to position her offering. Those with the means will trade their money for her goods. She accumulates wealth on the back of her efforts which she is then encouraged to manage in accordance with Islamic principles of moderation and charity.

Next Steps

We are not arguing for the elimination of Islamic nonprofits.

We do believe, however, that the nonprofit model is a radically overutilized and terribly insensitive corporate structure that plays to our emotions and ignores the realities of the American Muslim community.

Our first step is to stop donating.

Demand instead that we get something for our money apart from the assuaging of guilt and the promise of God’s reward. A social purpose corporation (SPC) is one way of doing this.

The SPC structure enables (but does not require) the consideration of social or environmental issues in corporate decision making. If an American Muslim organization wants to feed hungry people in Bangladesh, they can start a grocery store featuring imports from the region. Such an enterprise, if ethically structured, might provide a living wage for Bangladeshi producers. In addition, the shopkeeper can donate a portion of profits to the poor of Bangladesh. Such an approach addresses the issue of hunger on two levels. There is the short-term provision of consumable resources to remedy the immediate hunger, but also the long-term benefit of a sustainable income for Bangladeshi workers as a means of correcting the underlying poverty.

But that’s just the beginning.

While caring for the hungry, American Muslims get things that they might want in exchange for their hard-earned money. These resources are invested and circulated locally, strengthening our communal wealth. Finally, American Muslim businesses develop a reputation for holistic excellence through their insistence on structuring their businesses as social purpose corporations.

Our second step is to support the American Muslims brave enough to establish high-quality businesses, particularly SPCs. You can do that right now by ordering something from Wäbry Syrup. They make delicious things and a portion of the money you spend with them is passed along to feed orphans in 10 different countries.

Dust and Tribe is a bit lazy when it comes to paperwork. We’re registered as a garden-variety limited liability corporation (LLC), but we do fund the landback initiatives of our local Nisenan people. If that’s something that you feel passionate about, consider registering for one of our adventures!

Our third step is to fund shariah-compliant venture capital investments. Successful Muslim businesses will only ever become so through the support of their communities. These business can pay it forward with regular contributions to a VC fund that allows for the incubation, mentoring, and financing of new businesses.

Our final step is to challenge nonprofit redundancy.

It’s understood that not every humanitarian initiative will lend itself to the models described above. We are not making an argument to eliminate nonprofits. We are asking why it is that the nonprofit structure has become the default means of carrying out mission-centered work. It certainly should not be, but there may be times when it is the best choice.

In those moments we should ask ourselves just how many iterations of a given service do we need? Medical missions, as an example, are expensive and require a lot of administrative overhead and logistical support. Can we centralize operations to reduce costs and enhance visibility of the work?

Do we need more mosques? Many houses of worship have evolved into bloated social complexes offering a number of valuable services, some of which can and should be monetized to offset operational expenses. Still more of these buildings are simply vacant 85% of the time. With most congregants attending only Friday prayers, it might make sense to rent a hall four days out of the month rather than solicit donations to pay for facilities that aren’t utilized six days out of seven. It would be even better to completely decentralize and invite community members to host small, intimate Friday gatherings at home to save costs, eliminate administrative headaches, and foster a smaller but infinitely more authentic sense of community.

Ignoring Nature’s Signs

We don’t know what we have in the acorn. And our only excuse for that ignorance is our unconscious assumption that everyone else is ignoring acorns for a good reason. But there are no good reasons, only the momentum of our enculturated stupidity. We are quite literally sleeping through the bounty.

We are similarly sleepwalking in our lack of vision regarding the economic foundations of an American Islam. We exhibit no creativity in the management of God’s provision and we refuse to examine the successes of a marginalized people, the Blackamerican acolytes of Elijah Muhammad who built a literal economic nation with the state.

Islamic nonprofits like to remind us that charitable giving is one of the pillars of our religion. While true, this aspect of our tradition is not to be coopted by people with big ideas too lazy or irresolute to structure a sustainable funding stream.

It’s almost as though we have forgotten that from tiny acorns mighty oaks may grow.