UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Noble Drew Ali and the Moorish Science Temple: A Study in Race, Gender, and African American Religion, 1913-1930 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6jz222xw Author Wilms, Stephanie Ann Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Noble Drew Ali and the Moorish Science Temple: A Study in Race, Gender, and African American Religion, 1913-1930 A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History by Stephanie Ann Wilms August 2014 Dissertation Committee: Dr. V.P. Franklin, Chairperson Dr. Rebecca Kugel Dr. Dylan Rodriguez Copyright by Stephanie Ann Wilms 2014 This Dissertation of Stephanie Ann Wilms is approved: __________________________________________ __________________________________________ __________________________________________ Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside Acknowledgements This dissertation was made possible by the generous support of V.P. Franklin, Emory University’s Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Books Library, and the University of California Center for New Racial Studies. There were also many professors and graduate student colleagues who constantly provided me with necessary insights into my work and the community needed to complete a project of this magnitude; you know who you are, thank you. I would also like to acknowledge the support of my family, who gave me the love, support, and refuge I needed to make it through this process. iv ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Noble Drew Ali and the Moorish Science Temple: A Study in Race, Gender, and African American Religion, 1913-1930 by Stephanie Ann Wilms Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in History University of California, Riverside, August 2014 Dr. V.P. Franklin, Chairperson “Noble Drew Ali and The Moorish Science Temple: A Study of Race, Gender, and African American Religion, 1913-1930” examines the historical roots of the 20th century proto-Islamic phenomenon, arguing that the group’s seemingly quirky identity formation was not random and in fact is supported by a number of historical contingencies that when explored reveal Moorish Science as a sophisticated response to a violent racial caste system in American society. Through the use of a number of newly unearthed historical documents, photographs, newspapers, and scholarly secondary material, this dissertation presents a portrait of the development of Moorish Science that contends with previous analysis of the group as marginal and explains their theology as a hodge-podge of esoteric religious formations randomly thrown together. Instead, it shows the very deliberate conglomeration of seemingly disparate beliefs as something well intentioned and fashioned according to the cultural material available to Noble Drew Ali in early v twentieth century America. It shows that there was a larger web of cultural connectivity available to Americans during this early period that allowed for a greater rate of syncretism, exchange, and fluidity than has previously been discussed. It takes into account the influence Marcus Mosiah Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) had on Moorish Science, the impact of freemasonry and photography in the success and spread of Moorish Science, and the role of women within the early Temple. vi Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….1 Chapter 1: In the Beginning: Origin Stories of Noble Drew Ali……..……………..…...17 Chapter 2: “One God, One Aim, One Destiny”: Garveyism and the Formation of African American Islam …………………………………….…………………………….……...47 Chapter 3: Women in the Formation and Development of the Moorish Science Temple of America…………………………………………………………………………….….....77 Chapter 4: Symbolism and Science: African American Freemasonry and Photography in Moorish Science Temple of America…………………………………….…………….101 Chapter 5: The Final Days of Noble Drew Ali.……………………...…………………128 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...145 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………152 vii List of Figures Figure 1.1………………………………………………………………………………...32 Figure 1.2………………………………………………………………………………...35 Figure 2.1………………………………………………………………………………...67 Figure 4.1……………………………………………………………………………….107 Figure 4.2……………………………………………………………………………….111 Figure 4.3……………………………………………………………………………….118 Figure 4.4……………………………………………………………………………….120 Figure 4.5……………………………………………………………………………….120 Figure 4.6……………………………………………………………………………….121 Figure 4.7……………………………………………………………………………….122 Figure 4.8……………………………………………………………………………….123 viii Introduction In the 1920s and 1930s the Moorish Science Temple of America (MSTA), under the leadership of Noble Drew Ali, popularized a unique version of Islam among African Americans in the United States. Historians and social scientists have noted the importance of the movement in the development of Islam in African American communities. Anthropologist Arthur Huff Fauset acknowledged that, “The Black Muslims are directly descended from the Moorish Science Temple…. The tenuous thread, woven by Noble Drew Ali in long-ago tiny missions in Detroit, Chicago, and Newark, has penetrated the labyrinthine political maze all the way to the Black Panthers.”1 Moorish Science, therefore, has been an important element in the development of African American Islam in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Historian Aminah Beverly McCloud acknowledged that “Islamic belief in the Moorish community focused on central Qur’anic concepts such as justice, a purposeful creation of mankind, freedom of will, and humankind as the generator of personal action (both good and bad).”2 Historians Yvonne Y. Haddad and Jane Idleman Smith suggested that, “Noble Drew Ali was perhaps the first African-American Islamic sectarian leader to invoke basic Islamic symbols to unite Americans of African descent… He understood that in order for a people to have any sense of its own worth, it was necessary for it to have an identity, a name, a land.”3 Historian of religion Richard Brent Turner argued that, “The Moorish Science Temple of America was the first mass religious movement in the history of Islam in America.”4 The significance of this group as the progenitor of Islam in the American 1 religious context generally, and the African American context specifically has been acknowledged by many. Historian Michael Gomez declared, “Noble Drew Ali is necessarily the bridge over which the Muslim legacies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries crossed over into the Muslim communities of the twentieth and twenty-first.”5 According to the Nation Of Islam’s (NOI) history and theology, Wali Fard Muhammad was the founder of the movement, beginning in Detroit in 1930. Fard Muhammad converted many African Americans to the Nation and was the teacher of the NOI leader, Elijah Muhammad. In discussing the relationship between NOI and MSTA, Gomez explained, There remains sharp disagreement over the precise nature of the relationship between Moorish Science and Fard Muhammad, if in fact any existed. These disagreements are important as they go to questions of authenticity and claims of divine inspiration, but rather than attempt their resolution, it would more profitable to simply echo an observation shared by all: Fard Muhammad was a principal beneficiary of a theoretical framework and quality of discourse created by Noble Drew Ali.6 Gomez identified the theological continuities that flowed from Moorish Science to the Nation of Islam. Nevertheless, it is clear that Noble Drew Ali set the stage for the introduction of Islam into African American religious formations in the twentieth century. Literature on the Moorish Science Temple of America (MSTA) The scholarly literature on the Moorish Science Temple has spanned a sixty year period and falls into three main trends: early anthropological studies, Islamo-centric analyses, and the cultural-intellectual approaches. These studies have contributed greatly to our understanding of Moorish Science. However, a thorough examination of the 2 literature reveals remaining gaps in our knowledge and raises new questions requiring additional analysis. The touchstone for scholarship on the Moorish Science Temple has been Arthur Huff Fauset’s anthropological study in The Black Gods of the Metropolis: Negro Religious Cults of the Urban North, first published in 1944. This work featured the Moorish Science Temple, along with four other “Negro religious cults.”7 The chapter on Moorish Science was brief (eleven pages in length) and presented several comments and excerpts from oral interviews with MSTA members. Interviews were conducted with members; and newspaper accounts, and reports from the Works Projects Administration (WPA) were used. Fauset noted his indebtedness to the historian Arna Bontemps, who allowed Fauset access to his files at the WPA Negro History Division in Chicago “where an historical study of this cult has been made.”8 Fauset’s work detailed the origins of the Moorish Science Temple, the clandestine nature of the organization, membership qualifications, finance, the sacred text, beliefs, rituals, and practices. In addition, Fauset also addressed some of the members’ religious motivations for conversion to Moorish Science. The testimonies included in Black Gods of the Metropolis emphasized the members’ disappointment with Christianity, which was one of the main reasons given for