New Findings · Chart Annex
Owning Islam
The 66 Blackamerican women within the Feeling Muslim study: 51 solely Black, 15 multiracial including Black. A companion to the forthcoming research note, presented across twenty-five figures.
The 66 Blackamerican women within the Feeling Muslim study: 51 solely Black, 15 multiracial including Black · University of Georgia · IRB-approved · A companion to the forthcoming research note
The term Blackamerican is used following Dr. Sherman Jackson, Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Toward the Third Resurrection (Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 17 to 18, where he develops the argument for the term, which he credits to the late C. Eric Lincoln.
Of the 66 women, 51 identified solely as African-American or Black and 15 as two or more races including Black, together 25.7% of the study’s 257.
African-American or Black
77%
79% were Christian before Islam, closely echoing the full cohort’s 76%.
One in four converted as a teenager: 26% between ages 16 and 19, well above the full cohort’s 16%.
58% were single, never married at conversion; another 12% were divorced with children.
Single, never married
58%
Divorced with children
12%
Married without children
6%
57% are currently married, mirroring the full cohort’s pattern.
Married with children
42%
Married without children
15%
Single, never married
12%
Divorced with children
9%
One in three has been Muslim for twenty years or more, nearly double the full cohort’s 18%.
58% identify solely as Sunni, alongside a Nation of Islam lineage, 9% in two forms, unique to this cohort.
Nation of Islam - Sunni
3%
All 66 finished high school, and 68% hold an Associate’s degree or higher.
Some college, no degree
21%
Convert leads at 44%, while more than one in four prefers revert: a return to what was always there.
Two-thirds affirm the distinction. Among the 13 who answered no are the study’s strongest voices of ownership.
53% instantly felt Muslim, above the full cohort’s 47%.
77% are satisfied or content, the highest of any group in the study.
88% are outwardly identifiable as Muslim, some twenty points above the rest of the study.
For 64%, the choice of attire is connected to their feelings of Muslimness.
Only 32% connect Islamic gender roles to their feelings of Muslimness, versus roughly half of the rest of the study.
One in three does not feel welcome in her Muslim community.
Half feel integral to their communities; 42% do not.
89% would like to be integral: the longing is nearly universal.
41% admitted the thought in some form, essentially the same rate as the full study’s 42.8%. Published 2020 coding.
Half say their community meets their spiritual needs; over a third say it does not.
Emotional needs go unmet for 35%, with nearly a quarter unsure or without a community to ask.
55% have their social needs met; 36% do not.
Nearly a third could not assess financial support; of those who could, more than a third said no.
45% have no home Muslim community at all.
91% want convert classes: near unanimity from the cohort sometimes assumed to need them least.
How to Cite This Research
APA (7th ed.)
Kovacik, K. N. (2026). Owning Islam: Blackamerican Women Converts in the Feeling Muslim Study (Data Charts). The Feeling Muslim Project. https://feelingmuslim.org/owning-islam-charts.htmlFeeling Muslim: Prolegomena to the study of American female converts to Islam [Master's thesis, University of Georgia]. UGA Electronic Theses & Dissertations.
Chicago (17th ed.)
Kovacik, Karla N. “Owning Islam: Blackamerican Women Converts in the Feeling Muslim Study (Data Charts).” The Feeling Muslim Project, 2026. https://feelingmuslim.org/owning-islam-charts.html.
ASA (7th ed.)
Kovacik, Karla N. 2026. “Owning Islam: Blackamerican Women Converts in the Feeling Muslim Study (Data Charts).” The Feeling Muslim Project. Retrieved Month DD, YYYY (https://feelingmuslim.org/owning-islam-charts.html).
A Note on the Data
All figures presented here are drawn from the original 2014 to 2015 survey conducted as part of the M.A. thesis research at the University of Georgia under IRB-approved protocol. The survey gathered 481 responses, 459 of them from American women converts; the 66 Blackamerican women charted here are drawn from the 257 women who completed both the quantitative and qualitative strands in full. Data collection, research design, and analysis were conducted by Karla Nicole Kovacik (formerly Evans). The survey remains the only known study of this scope focused specifically on the psychological and sociological dimensions of Muslim identity formation among American female converts. Underlying data: the 2014 Feeling Muslim survey, published in the author’s 2015 master’s thesis under her former name, Karla N. Evans (University of Georgia); the cohort analyses on this page are published here for the first time and are not contained in the thesis.