Meet Faatimah Knight, the Black Muslim woman fundraising for burned Black churches

Twenty-three year-old Faatimah Knight is the woman behind Respond With Love, a fundraiser for Black churches damaged by arson this summer. 

In an incredible campaign, Knight and close to 2,000 supporters set out to raise $50,000 by July 18 to support a fellow faith community during the month of Ramadan. Now two days away from the month’s end, Knight has doubled the initial goal and already reached over $83,000 — no small sum of money.

While some may be surprised by a fundraiser for churches during the Muslim month of giving, Knight, who identifies as Muslim like many of the supporters of her campaign, thoughtfully reminds us:

We must always keep in mind that the Muslim community and the black community are not different communities. We are profoundly integrated in many ways, in our overlapping identities and in our relationship to this great and complicated country. We are connected to Black churches through our extended families, our friends and teachers, and our intertwined histories and convergent present.

Indeed, a quarter of Muslim America is Black. And as Mic notes, this is key when discussing the broader significance of the burning churches: “across the diaspora, black spiritual and religious spaces — whether a clearing in the woods or a stone and mortar church — have nurtured rebellion, and that’s why they continue to be under siege.” In response to this racial terror, it continues to be Black women, at the intersection of anti-Blackness, Islamophobia, and other forms of violence, that keep building ontologies of resistance.

In a widely shared interview with scholar Dr. Jamillah Karim a few years go, when asked why more Black and Muslim women were not visible leaders, she responded frankly, “I think we need to reassess how we define leadership.” Karim, author of “To Be Black, Female, and Muslim: A Candid Conversation about Race in the American Ummah,” continued that within African American Muslim communities, women are very visible as leaders: “as principles and directors of schools, as editors of newspapers and magazines, as advisors to youth groups, as members of mosque and school boards, as founders of social service organizations, among others. If others do not see the strength of women in our communities, it is because they have an outside view.”

Knight’s campaign is a remarkable show of such strength. Read more about it and donate in its last two days here.