Moorish Science Temple of America

Along with what may be termed the rise of Orthodox or Sunnite Islaam in America, there has also appeared in the Twentieth century a variety of cults and sects all claiming to represent true Islaam. Most of these groups have or have had strong nationalist overtones and anti-white sentiments in their teachings, which is not surprising, since the vast majority of those who enter the fold of Islaam in America have been Black Americans and the reverberations of white supremacy on which the nation was built, were quite intense throughout the country until recently. The earliest of these groups is the “Moorish Science Temple of America” founded by Timothy Drew from North Carolina (1886-1929). Drew renamed himself Prophet Noble Drew Ali and opened the first branch of his cult in New York in 1913. [E.U., Essien-Udom, Black Nationalism, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), p. 33]  

Drew taught that Black Americans were really “Moorish Americans” or “Moors” and that he had been commissioned by the King of Morocco to preach Islam to Black Americans. [Eric Lincoln, Black Muslims, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1961), p.52]

He provided his followers with a Scripture in English which he called Koran but which was in fact the Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ written by Levi H. Dowling (1844-1911). Drew also included Buddha, Confucious, and Zoroaster among the prophets [Black Nationalism, p.35.] of whom he was supposed to be the last. The dress, symbols, and religious rites of his cult were, for the most part, borrowed from the Masonic order known as the “The Ancient Egyptian Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrines” or simply “The Shriners.” 

The most prominent of these pseudo-Islamic groups in America was “The Lost Found Nation of Islam” which became known in the news media as the “Black Muslims”. This group’s beginnings are somewhat shrouded in mystery. A foreigner, by the name of Wallace Fard Muhammad, of uncertain origin, taught what he termed Islaam among Blacks in Detroit from 1929 to 1931. Following his disappearance in 1931, the most prominent of his students, Elijah Poole (1897-1975) secured leadership of the group and claimed that Fard was actually God in person and that he, Elijah, was the messenger of God sent to Black Americans. Elijah taught that Black people were gods, and White people were devils created by a Black scientist. Heaven and Hell, according to his teachings, are on earth in this life and there is no resurrection for the physically dead. [Black Muslims, pp. 72-78] Although Elijah claimed that the Qur’aan was the book of Muslims, he mostly referred to the Bible in his teachings. Actually, the main text of the cult was a book composed of some of his speeches and newspaper articles which he called Message to the Black Man in America. [Elijah Muhammad, Message to the Black Man in America, (Chicago, ILL: Muhammad’s Temple no. 2, 1965)]

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