Women of the Nation: Between Black Protest and Sunni Islam

Introduction

>> 1 Introduction When you went into the Nation, the first thing they taught you was, your brothers and sisters are in the temple and no one else matters. You can’t have any other friends; you turn your back on everyone. Everything they want you to do, they got a place for you to do it. —Sonji Clay, first wife of Muhammad Ali The Nation gave me a place to develop the confidence that I needed. It was a womb that got me ready to come out into the world. —Lynda, Sunni Muslim woman Both popular media and scholarly accounts of the Nation of Islam (NOI) tend to focus on dominant male figures such as Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, and Louis Farrakhan. In the rarer cases in which literature on the Nation features women’s experiences, Nation women are often presented in relation to these dominant men, as in the case of Sonji Clay, whose comments at the start of this Introduction were included in a biography of Muhammad Ali.1 Or they tend to be accounts of ex-Nation women who describe the NOI as controlling and repressive, as also mentioned in Clay’s comments. Missing have been the accounts of everyday NOI women, many of whom, unlike Clay, consciously chose the Nation independent of their husbands or fathers. Also absent have been the voices of ex-Nation women who, like Lynda, also quoted at the start of this Introduction , have left the NOI for Sunni Islam but describe the Nation as an organization that bettered their lives.2 This book brings such voices to the center of analysis. It portrays women of the Nation of Islam from various perspectives, recognizing the group’s patriarchal dimensions and revealing how women have experienced and shaped the Nation. This book explores how women have understood, experienced, and contributed to the Nation of Islam throughout its eighty-year history. It illuminates how women have interpreted and navigated the NOI’s 2 > 3 and Native American women. In sum, we argue that the Nation of Islam experience for women has been characterized by an expression of Islam sensitive to American cultural messages about race and gender but also by gender and race ideals in the Islamic tradition. While this expression of Islam, which includes an honoring of traditional gender roles and prescribed female dress and decorum, is not always in harmony with popular notions of women’s advancement in American society, it certainly speaks and appeals to the continuing concerns about race, family, and community among many African American women. The NOI’s Beginnings The NOI finds its origins in 1930s Detroit. Wallace D. Fard Muhammad, its founder, remains something of an enigma in the history of African American Islam. For decades, scholars have contested Fard’s origins, ethnicity, and the extent of his affiliations with Black nationalist and Islamic organizations in the United States. Fard was neither native to the United States nor of African descent. Recent research by journalist Karl Evanzz and historian Fatimah Fanusie suggests that he was of Pakistani origin.3 According to FBI surveillance, Fard entered the United States illegally in 1913. Fard’s light-skinned complexion set him apart from the plethora of small-scale peddlers and African American preachers in Detroit. According to sociologist Erdmann Beynon, Fard introduced himself to Detroit’s African American migrant community as a peddler. Soon after gaining the confidence of his customers, he began to censure Christianity and the Black church. Beynon notes that Fard taught his customers that Islam was their “true” and “natural” religion, that the “Asiatic Black man” was “the God of the universe,” and that Caucasians were “blue-eyed devils” created by an evil scientist, Yakub, on the island of Patmos. Fard’s audiences grew rapidly in size. Two factors in particular are important when considering Fard’s success. First, his exclusive African American following comprised predominantly working -class migrants from the American South who found their dreams of economic opportunity unfulfilled as a result of the economic depression of the 1930s. Thus, when they first encountered Fard, they were receptive to his message. Second, Fard’s followers proved unhappy with the existing religious landscape of Detroit as evidenced by the growth 4 > 5 than realities to be faced while on earth. Fard referred to his followers as Asiatics and as members of the original Lost-Found Tribe of Shabazz . Fard’s following is estimated to have included thousands of members . Fard marketed his message to migrants...