Kamilah Aisha Pickett
Kamilah Aisha Pickett & Khadija Yetunde Yakini | Muslim Community Members (Atlanta, GA)
بِسْمِ ٱللَّٰهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
Kamilah Aisha Pickett: As-salaamu ʿalaykum [peace be upon you].
My name is Kamilah Aisha Pickett and this is my mama, Khadija Yetunde Yakini. She is the daughter of a musician and a nurse who grew up to be a marching band geek, a sorority girl, a police officer, a Black nationalist, a Pan-Africanist, a case worker, a Protestant, a Catholic and a Kemetic tradition practitioner. She was the mom with the nose ring and the big Afro and the flowy, colorful clothes who packed natural peanut butter and rice cakes for snacks.
Listen, when I say she got stories… she got stories. She would say that all her iterations, all her journeys and wandering led her to Islam. And that the culmination of her life is that she is Muslim and a believer.
When my mom took shahadah [the testimony of faith], my brother and I were kids. And she didn’t just come home and tell us we were Muslim, she introduced us to Islam as she was learning. She bought us books. She talked to us. She began modeling a new way of living and being. Islam made sense to us because it brought her peace. And her peace became our peace. And from that moment on all she wanted was for her children to be Muslim and to grow as believers. She pulled us out of public school and prioritized our learning about Islam. My brother started hafiz school [a place to memorize the Holy Qur’an] at 11; by 14 he had memorized the entire Qur’an. And in the 90s, in America, in Atlanta, GA, that wasn’t something that lil’ Black boys had much access to. Lil’ Black girls definitely didn’t have that access, but she did send me to learn with a Black Muslim woman who had memorized Qur’an and was teaching girls from her home.
And al-Ḥamdu lillāh [all praises to G-d], my brother and I never had any feelings of incongruence being Black and Muslim and any other thing we wanted to be or do. Her journeys and wanderings sort of set the stage for us to have these journeys of our own, even when she might have wanted us to do something easier. So my brother was a hafiz [memorizer of the Holy Qur’an], a highly-skilled practitioner of several forms of martial arts, a fitness trainer, and a PE teacher, who got a Masters in Public Health, baked carrot cakes and braided his daughters’ hair. And then there’s me. I memorized some Qur’an, got a Masters in Public Health (though I did it first), worked on Capitol Hill, got a law degree, toured internationally as a performer, became a trainer/facilitator and convinced a former police officer that abolition is the only move.
So, maybe my mother’s legacy is the du’as [prayers] she made for my brother and me, and the du’as [prayers] she now makes for her grandchildren. She would tell us all the time that when she became Muslim she turned us over to Allah. As a kid, hearing your parent say that is kinda like, huh? But as I got older I began to understand that for her it meant there was nothing she could do for us that Allah couldn’t do better. No path she might wish for us that Allah couldn’t envision greater. No security or peace or comfort that didn’t begin with Allah. Her greatest du’a was that her children be not just Muslims, but believers. Mu’min. And so her legacy is that we are.
Al-Ḥamdu lillāh [all praises to G-d].
Kamilah is a racial equity trainer, public health advocate, writer, abolitionist, curator of dope Black Muslim spaces and is often working behind the scenes with several Muslim-led organizations. She is co-creator of Flowers, a digital and literary collaboration that examines culture, religion, activism, joy and liberation through a Black Muslim lens.
Khadija is enjoying life as a retiree and the freedom it gives her to continue learning, exploring and doting on her grandchildren.
