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  • The Promise of Patriarchy: Women and the Nation of Islam by Ula Yvette Taylor
  • Jacob Hicks
The Promise of Patriarchy: Women and the Nation of Islam. By Ula Yvette Taylor. University of North Carolina Press, 2017. 288 pages. $90.00 cloth; $29.95 paper; ebook available.

In this book, Ula Yvette Taylor, a professor of African American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, examines how the strongly patriarchal Nation of Islam (NOI) afforded black women the opportunity to achieve financial security, secure physical protection, and have intact families in the midst of a hostile, dominant white culture. Most of her work analyzes the period between 1930 and 1975. The book moves in chronological order, exploring Master W. D. Fard’s founding of the NOI in Detroit; the survival of the NOI during World War II despite many of its key leaders, including the Prophet Elijah Muhammad, being jailed for sedition; opposition to the Civil Rights Movement; the rise and fall of Malcolm X; and the Prophet’s death in 1975.

Taylor argues that black women’s embrace of the NOI is a concrete historical instance of a group’s adoption of “liberation through subordination. In essence, the Nation of Islam becomes a vehicle to [End Page 131] understand how freedom and prosperity commingle around patriarchy” (5). Taylor’s approach is similar in theoretical assumptions to Saba Mahmood’s Politics of Piety (Princeton 2005). Both Taylor and Mahmood assume that all human beings desire the freedom to determine their own destiny; but for women, the whims and strictures of patriarchy can stand in the way of that goal. But is such an assumption accurate? Taylor, following Mahmood, contends that assumption is not always correct, and argues that black women’s choices to participate in the patriarchal NOI demonstrates otherwise.

The major strength of The Promise of Patriarchy is its emphasis on how complex and successful (or unsuccessful) black women’s negotiation of patriarchy has been. Taylor discusses examples of NOI teachings and practices that empowered black women. A “Sister Sara” who joined NOI Temple No. 1 in Detroit in 1959 enjoyed dressing up in the standard NOI women’s modest white uniform and learning lessons on how to be a proper NOI wife from older women at the weekly women’s meetings. Women who felt that they were in a “difficult marriage” could easily divorce and remarry another NOI male. Taylor also shows that some women fell prey to physically abusive, overbearing, and controlling husbands. Some husbands who left for work even padlocked their wives inside their homes so that they could not leave during the day. Most notably, the Prophet Elijah Muhammad himself used his spiritual authority to father numerous illegitimate children with several of his secretaries in the 1950s and 1960s. The “promise of patriarchy” for some NOI women was a nightmare.

Taylor’s book provides a valuable and unique addition to NOI historiography through her in-depth focus on the lives of NOI women. Edward E. Curtis’ Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam, 1960–1975 (2006) highlights women’s conversion narratives and their clothing practices, but NOI women are not the primary subjects of his book. In contrast, Dawn-Marie Gibson and Jamillah Karim do examine NOI women in their work Women of the Nation (2014), but the scope of their book lies mainly after 1975, when the movement fragmented; they also perform a comparative analysis of NOI women and women in the Warith Deen Mohammed community. Only Taylor’s work extensively examines NOI women’s engagement with patriarchy during the NOI’s formative period, 1930 to 1975.

The Promise of Patriarchy is an easy-to-follow and thought-provoking, yet thoroughly documented, work. It is suitable for undergraduates, graduates, and scholars alike. This reviewer unhesitatingly recommends this book for anyone who wants to delve into the complex interplay of religion, race, and gender as NOI women sought to achieve a more fulfilling life through an embrace of patriarchy. [End Page 132]

Jacob Hicks
Grand Canyon University
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