OK, I was cruising back from picking up lunch and I see a advertisement for Ali. The new biography film starring Will Smith. Now after I finished wondering if it’d be any good (My hopes are high, but I’m not optomistic), I began to wonder about the fact he changed his name after converting to Islam.
Now, I don’t claim to understand anything about the Muslim religion, especially possible differences between the brand practiced in various regions of the Middle East, Afghanistan, vs. the US, but I don’t have the impression that there is a strong evangelical drive to it.
If my presumption is correct, why have we seen so many high profile celebrities so publicly announce their faith, and take on a new name as a result? Ali, Ahmad Rashad, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (both of them), and several others come immediately to mind.
Is it more a side-effect of the racial tensions of the 70s? If so how did Islam play a role? What does that have in common with fundamentalist Muslims today, if anything?
And as a instant hijack of the main point, how are these new names assigned/chosen?
BTW, just realized my timeline was off a bit and it should probably say “the racial tensions of the 60s”.
Beginning with Marcus Garvey, there has been a strong urge among black Americans to reclaim their African heritage. After all, the slaves who were brought to America were almost completely stripped of their heritage, and forced to embrace customs, traditions, names, and a religion (almost always Christianity) that were alien to them.
Some African-Americans have tried to reclaim their roots by adopting African names, and some by abandoning the “white” religion imposed on their ancestors, and seeking a religion they perceived as more genuinely Africa: in this case, Islam.
Ironically, virtually NONE of the black slaves brought to America were Moslems. The great majority were pagans who practiced various spirit-oriented religions.
Islam was not the religion of African slaves, but of the Arab merchants who first captured and sold them! Moreover, Muhammad was not African- like Jesus, he was Asian. By shunning Christianity and embracing Islam, black Americans have merely exchanged the Asiatic faith of one group of slave-traders for the Asiatic faith on a DIFFERENT group of slave-traders.
Your premise is wrong. 
Islam is an evangelical religion, and has been since almost the beginning of its history. That’s how it spread. Muslim armies, muslim traders, and muslim missionaries spread the faith throughout Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe.
In the 1960s, a movement in the US called “The Nation of Islam” became prominent. Existing since the 1930s, the NOI combined Islam, certain other non-Muslim ideas, and black nationalism, and was (and still is) aggressivily evangelical.
As far as I know, Islam doesn’t have any requirement that a convert change his or her name, but if you have an obviously pagan name, it’s been encouraged. (“Hi! I’m Zeus McOdin!”)
Not to be a dick, but do you have a cite for that?
I’ve taken from friends who worked in the Middle East that they essentially believe they are the chosen people, to hell with everyone else. They’d just as soon watch the infidels burn as they would hope to save them.
Omniscient: If Islam didn’t proselytize, there’d be rather fewer Muslims around today . For Starters try Islam by Caesar E. Farah (5th edition, 1994, Barron’s Educational Series, Inc. ) and for a little more introductory depth, A History of Islamic Socieities by Ira Lapidus ( 1988, Cambridge University Press ).
Captain Amazing is only slightly off - Initially Islam was an Arabocentric ethnic religion, that sought no outside converts ( well, except for Arabs, obviously 
). Expansion was originally was into ( by then )largely Arab Syria, then just snow-balled as the Byzantine and Sassanian states proved incapable of defending themselves and the economic and political rewards of conquest were too alluring to pass up. But the growing number of non-Arab conversions, especially in Persia, brought about a gradual shift in that insular orientation. By the mid-8th century Islam had become a universal faith that sought converts from all peoples. Some conversions were the result of duress ( but they were probably a small minority, ‘Conversion by the Sword’ was actually not very common ). Some for economic and social advancement in areas under Islamic control or influence. Many conversions, especially in places like India, were the result of active proselytizing ( as I’ve mentioned elsewhere this is an especially interesting case, as the most successful missionaries were Sufis, a movement that had been heavily influenced by Hindu mysticism ).