African-American Muslims

African-American Muslims are a religious minority among both the larger African-American and Muslim population of the United States, and are represented in various self-described Muslim sects.

History

Historically, between 15 and 30% of enslaved Africans brought to the Americas were Muslims, but most of these Africans were converted to Christianity during the era of American slavery.^[1] During the twentieth century, some African Americans converted to Islam, mainly through the influence of black nationalist groups that preached with distinctive Islamic practices; including the Moorish Science Temple of America, and the largest organization, the Nation of Islam, founded in the 1930s, which attracted at least 20,000 people by 1963,^[2][3] prominent members included activist Malcolm X and boxer Muhammad Ali.^[4]

Malcolm X is considered the first person to start the movement among African Americans towards mainstream Islam, after he left the Nation and made the pilgrimage to Mecca.^[5] In 1975, Warith Deen Mohammed, the son of Elijah Muhammad took control of the Nation after his father's death and guided the majority of its members to orthodox Islam.^[6] However, a few members rejected these changes, in particular Louis Farrakhan, who revived the Nation of Islam in 1978 based on its original teachings.

Demographics

African-American Muslims constitute 20% of the total U.S. Muslim population,^[7] the majority are Sunni or orthodox Muslims, some of these identify under the community of W. Deen Mohammed.^[8][9] The Nation of Islam led by Louis Farrakhan has a membership ranging from 20,000–50,000 members.^[10]

A Pew survey in 2014 showed that 23% of American Muslims were converts, including 8% from historically black Protestant traditions. 28% of Muslims counted in the survey were black (down from 32% in 2007), and since 2007, the black proportion had shrunk, while the white and Asian proportions had grown, mainly due to immigration as most black Muslims were native U.S. blacks.^[11]

Sects

Noble Drew Ali

During the first half of the 20th century, a small number of African Americans established groups based on Islamic and Gnostic teachings. The first of such groups created was the Moorish Science Temple of America, founded by Timothy Drew (Drew Ali) in 1913. Drew taught that black people were of Moorish origin but their Muslim identity was taken away through slavery and racial segregation, advocating the return to Islam of their Moorish ancestry.^[12]

Moorish Science Temple of America

The Moorish Science Temple is an American organization founded in 1913 by Prophet Noble Drew Ali, whose name at birth was Timothy Drew. He claimed it was a sect of Islam but he also drew inspiration from Buddhism, Christianity, Gnosticism, and Taoism. Its significant divergences from mainstream Islam and strong African-American ethnic character^[13] make its classification as an Islamic denomination a matter of debate among Muslims and scholars of religion.

Its primary tenet was the belief that they are the ancient Moabites who inhabited the Northwestern and Southwestern shores of Africa. The organization also believes that their descendants after being conquered in Spain are slaves who were captured and held in slavery from 1779–1865 by their slaveholders.

Although often criticized as lacking scientific merit, adherents of the Moorish Science Temple of America believe that the Negroid Asiatic was the first human inhabitant of the Western Hemisphere. In their religious texts adherents refer to themselves as "Asiatics",^[14] presumably referring to the non-Mongoloid Paleoamericans (see Luzia Woman). These adherents also call themselves "indigenous Moors", "American Moors" or "Moorish Americans" in contradistinction to "African Moors" or "African Americans".

Nation of Islam

Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam since 1981

The Nation of Islam (NOI) was created in 1930 by Wallace Fard Muhammad. Fard drew inspiration for NOI doctrines from those of Timothy Drew's Moorish Science Temple of America. He provided three main principles which serve as the foundation of the NOI: "Allah is God, the white man is the devil and the so-called Negroes are the Asiatic Black People, the cream of the planet earth".

In 1934 Elijah Muhammad became the leader of the NOI, he deified Fard, saying that he was an incarnation of God, and taught that he was a prophet who had been taught directly by God in the form of Fard. Two of the most famous people to join the NOI were Malcolm X, who became the face of the NOI in the media, and Muhammad Ali, who, while initially rejected, was accepted into the group shortly after his first world heavyweight championship victory.^[15][16] Both Malcolm X and Ali later became Sunni Muslims.

Malcolm X was one of the most influential leaders of the NOI and, in accordance with NOI doctrine, advocated the complete separation of blacks from whites.^[17] He left the NOI after being silenced for 90 days (due to a controversial comment on the John F. Kennedy assassination), and proceeded to form Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity before his pilgrimage to Mecca and conversion to Sunni Islam. He is viewed as the first person to start the movement among African Americans towards Sunni Islam.

It was estimated that there were at least 20,000 members in 2006.^[18] However, today the group has a wide influence in the African American community. The first Million Man March took place in Washington, D.C. in 1995 and was followed later by another one in 2000 which was smaller in size but more inclusive, welcoming individuals other than just African American men.^[19] The group sponsors cultural and academic education, economic independence, and personal and social responsibility.

Part of a series on: Nation of Islam
Mosque Maryam, Chicago, Illinois, United States
Leaders Wallace Fard Muhammad Elijah Muhammad Malcolm X Warith Deen Mohammed Louis Farrakhan Tynnetta Muhammad Mustapha Farrakhan Ishmael Muhammad Ava Muhammad David Muhammad
Beliefs and theology Saviours' Day Nation of Islam and antisemitism Tribe of Shabazz Yakub
Publications A Torchlight for America The Final Call Muhammad Speaks How to Eat to Live Message to the Blackman
Offshoots American Society of Muslims Fruit of Islam Five-Percent Nation
Subsidiaries United Nation of Islam Your Black Muslim Bakery
Related organizations New Black Panther Party
History Million Man March 20th Anniversary of the Million Man March: Justice or Else
Politics portal Islam portal

The Nation of Islam has received a great deal of criticism for its anti-white, anti-Christian, and anti-semitic teachings,^[20] and is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.^[21]

Five-Percent Nation

The Five-Percent Nation, sometimes referred to as NGE or NOGE, the "Nation of Gods and Earths", or the "Five Percenters", is an American organization founded in 1964 in the Harlem section of the borough of Manhattan, New York City, by a former member of the Nation of Islam named Clarence 13X (born Clarence Edward Smith and later known as "Allah the Father"). Clarence 13X, a former student of Malcolm X, left the Nation of Islam after a theological dispute with the Nation's leaders over the nature and identity of God.^[22] Specifically, Clarence 13X denied that the Nation's biracial founder Wallace Fard Muhammad was Allah and instead taught that the black man was himself God personified.^[22]

Members of the group call themselves Allah's Five Percenters, which reflects the concept that ten percent of the people in the world know the truth of existence, and those elites and agents opt to keep eighty-five percent of the world in ignorance and under their controlling thumb; the remaining five percent are those who know the truth and are determined to enlighten the rest.^[23]

United Nation of Islam

The United Nation of Islam (UNOI) is a group based in Kansas City, Kansas. It was founded circa 1978 by Royall Jenkins, who continues to be the leader of the group and styles himself "Royall, Allah in Person".

Conversion to orthodox Sunni Islam

After the death of Elijah Muhammad, he was succeeded by his son, Warith Deen Mohammed. Mohammed rejected many teachings of his father, such as the divinity of Fard Muhammad, and saw a white person as also a worshiper. As he took control of the organization, he quickly brought in new reforms.^[24] He renamed it the World Community of al-Islam in the West; later it became the American Society of Muslims. It was estimated that there were 200,000 followers of W. D. Mohammed at the time.

W. D. Mohammed introduced teachings which were based on orthodox Sunni Islam.^[25] He removed the chairs in the organization's temples, and replaced the entire "temple" concept with the traditional Muslim house of worship,the mosque, also teaching how to pray the salat, to observe the fasting of Ramadan, and to attend the pilgrimage to Mecca.^[26]

A small number of Black Muslims however rejected these new reforms brought by Imam Mohammed. Louis Farrakhan who broke away from the organization, re-established the Nation of Islam under the original Fardian doctrines, and remains its leader.^[27]

Ahmadiyya

Although at first the Pakistan-originated Ahmadiyya Muslim Community's efforts were broadly concentrated at over large number of racial and ethnic groups, subsequent realization of the deep-seated racial tensions and discrimination made Ahmadi missionaries focus their attention on mainly African Americans and the Muslim immigrant community and became vocal proponents of the African-American Civil Rights MovementMany Ahmadi Muslims fled countries like Pakistan due to persecution in recent times.^[28]

Prison conversions to Islam

Conversion to Islam is a practice which is common to African-Americans in prison. J. Michael Waller claims that Muslim inmates comprise 17–20% of the prison population, or roughly 350,000 inmates in 2003. Waller states that these inmates mostly come into prison as non-Muslims. He also claims that 80% of the prisoners who "find faith" while in prison convert to Islam.^[29] These converted inmates are mostly African American, with a small but growing Hispanic minority. Waller also asserts that many converts are radicalized by outside Islamist groups linked to terrorism, but other experts suggest that when radicalization does occur it has little to no connection with these outside interests.^[30][31][32]

See also

• Hispanic and Latino American Muslims
• Islam in the United States

References