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Ministry of Higher Education And Scientific Research University of Oran-Es Senia Faculty of Letters, Languages and Arts Department of Anglo-Saxon Languages Section of English BLACK MUSLIMS IN THE USA: AN EVOLUTION FROM HETERODOXY TOWARDS SUNNI ISLAM, 1930 – 2003 Thesis submitted to the Department of Anglo-Saxon Languages in candidature for the Degree of Doctorat in Civilization Presented by: Supervised by: ZEGHOUDI YAHIA Prof. B. LAHOUEL Academic Year: 2006 - 2007 DEDICATION To my little sons, Acil and Djazil, who drove me mad during the writing of this thesis, I dedicate this paper. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to many fine people, both personally and professionally, without whom this work would not have come into fruition. First and foremost, I am very thankful to Professor Lahouel Badra at the University of Oran for her painstaking efforts to supervise me in my Magister and Doctorate dissertations for a period of eight years. This is a life indebtedness. I am also thankful to those people who helped from far like Professor Fawzi Borsali from the University of Adrar, and Aida Nosseir from the Libraries of the American University in Cairo for allowing me to use the libraries’ resources extensively. I should also thank Dr. John Pusey, admissions’ officer at the Bodleyan Libraries of the University of Oxford for permitting me to use their resources. My thanks also go to all those Charia teachers at the University of Adrar, who helped me tackle religious matters. ABSTRACT BLACK MUSLIMS IN THE USA: AN EVOLUTION FROM HETERODOXY TOWARDS SUNNI ISLAM, 1930 – 2003 Supervisor: Pr. Badra Lahouel Yahia Zeghoudi This thesis is an attempt to examine the Nation of Islam in the United States of America in its evolution from a black protest movement which used an eclectic ideology made up of a few Islamic tenets with an amalgam of Judaism, Christianity, Free Masonry and Oriental Philosophy, and Black Nationalism claiming that it was Islam. It aimed from this mixed ideology at providing a survival kit for the blacks in a racially hostile white society that rejected them and relegated them to a second class citizenship, and deprived them from the advantages of being US citizens. The founder, Wallace Dodd Fard, was a mysterious ex convict and drug dealer who claimed to have come from Mecca “the homeland of the blacks” to save them from the white man in North America and enable them to rule themselves in a separate state. When examined, it was found that the “Islam” of the NOI was contradictory and outrageous to real Islam. This continued from its inception to the death of Elijah Muhammad, its leader and “messenger” in 1975. However, soon his son Warith Deen Muhammad succeeded him and started an “Islamization” process in the biggest conversion operation to Islam in the US history. The adherents followed the principles of Islam and discarded the racial philosophy of the NOI as well as the hatred towards whites and integrated in mainstream America. Yet, numerous statements of Warith in the subject of Islamic put him out of this religion. As an example, he declared that he had no physical father and that his father was Allah. This is unacceptable in Islam. More study is needed on his former followers to verify their Islamic authenticity in order to direct them towards the true Islamic teachings. a Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………i Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………ii List of Abbreviations…………………………………………………………………..iv Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..1 CHAPTER ONE: Black Nationalism as a Preparatory Background to the NOI, 1818 – 1929…………………………………………………………6 I. The Birth Circumstances of the Black Muslims’ Movement.……………………...6 II. Black Nationalism…………………………………………………………………13 III. Negro Church and Fraternal Societies Preparation for Black Nationalism……….14 IV. The Colonization Movement and Black Nationalism…………………………….16 V. The Moorish Science Temple of America, 1913 – 1929………………………....21 VI. The Holy Coran of the MSTA …………………………………………………...30 VII. The Universal Negro Improvement Association, 1914 – 1927…………………..36 CHAPTER TWO: Birth and Growth of the Black Muslims’ Movement and its Belief System, 1930 – 1951……………………………………………..65 I The Founder’s Enigmatic Identity………………………………………….66 II. Towards a Better Reconstruction of Fard’s Biography…………..…………69 III. Elijah Muhammad, Successor………………………………………………76 IV. Rejection of the Label “Negro”……………………………………………..85 V. The Nature of God………………………………………………………….86 VI. The Original Man…………………………………………………………...92 VII. The NOI Attitude towards Christianity…………………………………….98 VIII. The Moral Code…………………………………………………………….102 IX. Attitude towards the Afterlife………………………………………………104 X. The Day of Judgement……………………………………………………..110 XI. Message to the Black Man in America……………………………………115 CHAPTER THREE: The Movement’s Organization and Malcolm X’s Contribution to its Expansion, 1952 – 1964………………………………..128 I. Malcolm X………………………………………………………………..129 II. Goals………………………………………………………………………135 III. Economic Programme…………………………………………………….136 IV. Moral Behaviour…………………………………………………………139 V. Membership………………………………………………………………142 VI. Education…………………………………………………………………146 VII. The Fruit of Islam………………………………………………………...151 VIII. Mass Media Communication……………………………………………..154 IX. Relations with other Communities……………………………………….157 The Black Community……………………………………………….157 The Black Press………………………………………………………159 Relations with Leaders of other Black Organizations……………….160 The Movement and Blacks outside it……………………………….162 The Jews and the NOI……………………………………………….165 The American Muslims……………………………………………...167 ii Reaction of the Whites…………………………………………………...168 CHAPTER FOUR: Stability, Change, and Dismantlement, 1965 – 2003………………184 I. The Organization and the U.S. Government Counterintelligence Programme 186 II. Islamization……………………………………………………………………200 III. Warith in Matters of Aqeedah……………………………………………………….208 IV. The Splinter……………………………………………………………………211 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………...218 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………221 iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AMM American Muslim Mission ASM American Society of Muslims BOSS Bureau of Special Services COMINFIL Communist Infiltration COINTEL PRO Counterintelligence Programme CORE Congress for Racial Equality FBI Federal Bureau of Investigations FOI Fruit of Islam GID General Intelligence Division KKK Ku Klux Klan MAS Muslim American Society MGT Muslim Girls’ Training MMI Muslim Mosque Incorporated MSTA Moorish Science Temple of America MWDC Muslim Women’s Development Class NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NOI Nation of Islam OAAU Organization of Afro-American Unity RAM Revolutionary Action Movement SAC Special Agent in Charge vi SCLC Southern Christian Leadership Conference SNCC Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee UNIA Universal Negro Improvement Association WCIW World Community of Al-Islam in the West vii INTRODUCTION The present thesis examines the birth, rise, and fall of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam (NOI), commonly known as the Black Muslims’ movement, with particular emphasis on its system of beliefs as a pseudo-Islamic religious sect and the evolution of its members from heterodoxy towards Sunni Islam. This movement was a black protest one, which came into existence as a reaction to the racially hostile white America to the blacks, in particular. The Movement was born among the most disinherited blacks of the ghetto in Detroit, Michigan, in 1930. The founder was a Wallace Dodd Fard, a man who appeared in the midst of blacks and enveloped himself with mystery, claiming to be a black with the divine mission of waking his “uncle,” that is the black race in North America, from oppression of the “Cave Man”. By the latter appellation, he meant the whites who had robbed the blacks and enslaved them for three hundred years, leaving them in a “mentally dead” state. Fard promised his followers that he had come to bring them freedom, justice, and equality. He told them that they belonged to the “Black Nation”, the “first nation created” and from which the white man was “grafted”. Fard told the black followers that they were a divine nation, whose time had come to topple the rule of the “white-eyed-devils”. He later claimed to be the Mahdi who had been expected to come a thousand years ago to save his black people and destroy the United States, and to enable the “Black Man” to rule the world in peace. The mysterious Fard told his black followers that their ancestors were Muslims who spoke Arabic, but the “white devil” destroyed their culture and converted them to Christianity, his religion which was used to enslave them. In order to cement the solidarity of the group, he presented to them a system of belief made up of Masonic, Jewish, Christian, Ancient Egyptian beliefs, and rituals, telling them that this was Islam. He also claimed to be a prophet, and eventually he told them that he was Allah. In 1934, he disappeared without leaving a trace. Then a black man from Georgia named Elijah Muhammad succeeded him and led the movement until 1975. Under his leadership the movement grew and became a financial empire, but after his death his son, Warith Deen Muhammad, led the Nation of Islam and started an Islamization process. This led to the 1 conversion of thousands of Black Muslims into Islam. In 2003 Warith stepped down from this movement and its successive organizations to leave his followers to their own. However, very recently, some of his statements were found to be contrary to the teachings of Islam, such as claiming