Elijah Muhammad and Islam

Notes

147 Notes Introduction 1. Muhammed’s interview was published in three separate articles, and the preceding quotation was pieced together from these three articles: “Sixteen Journalists Obtain . . . Rare Interview,” 3–4; “Muhammad Meets the Press!” (February 4, 1972): 3–4; and “Muhammad Meets the Press!” (February 11, 1972): 3–4. 2. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. 3. Smith, “Patterns of Muslim Immigration.” 4. For more on this prejudice, see C. Eric Lincoln, The Black Muslims in America, 26 and chapter 6. Even Warith Deen Mohammed, Elijah Muhammad’s son, shares this view. See chapter 5. For a discussion of a similar neglect by American historians, see Clegg, An Original Man, xi–xiii. 5. Muhammad, Message to the Blackman in America, 204. 6. See chapter 6. 7. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 513. 8. The term “orthodox” is extremely problematic since all Muslims believe they have “correct belief” regardless of the atypicality of their beliefs. It is a dangerous term for scholars of religion to employ, for it assumes a single articulation of Islam and implies a value judgment, perhaps even a theologically based judgment on what constitutes proper religious belief or practice and what does not. It is used, nevertheless, in this book because Elijah Muhammad himself employs the expression “orthodox Muslims” to describe his (usually Sunni) Muslim opponents. Chapter 1 1. Wright, “Negro Companions of the Spanish Explorers,” 226–28. See also Arrington, Black Explorer in Spanish Texas. 2. Wright, “Negro Companions of the Spanish Explorers,” 228. 3. Hugh Thomas gives the figure of five hundred thousand in his Slave Trade, 804. Philip D. Curtin suggests 427,000 in his Atlantic Slave Trade, 71. Obviously, many more were brought to other countries in American ships. 148 Notes to Chapter 1 4. Turner, “Mainstream Islam in the African-American Experience.” Elsewhere , he cites Allan D. Austin’s estimate of 7 to 8 percent. Turner, Islam in the African-American Experience, 12. Michael A. Gomez suggests that between 400,000 and 523,000 Africans were brought to British North America and “at least 200,000 came from areas influenced by Islam to varying degrees. Muslims may have come to America by the thousands, if not tens of thousands.” Gomez, “Muslims in Early America,” 682. See also Diouf, Servants of Allah, 45–48. 5. Diouf, Servants of Allah, 2. 6. Gomez, “Muslims in Early America,” 672. The extent to which African American slaves were able to sustain their religions and cultures is a matter of some debate among scholars. Even when slaves seemingly adopted Christianity in lieu of their ancestral religions, it may not have been simply a matter of identity being erased. For instance, the adoption of Christianity and its message of spiritual equality may have resisted the dehumanization and self-destructive hatred engendered by slavery. R. L. Watson, “American Scholars and the Continuity of African Culture in the United States,” 375–86, but especially 380. 7. Diouf, Servants of Allah, 6–8 and 107–44. 8. See Austin, African Muslims in Antebellum America: Transatlantic Stories and Spiritual Struggles, 32–156. 9. Gomez, “Muslims in Early America,” 699. 10. Austin, African Muslims in Antebellum America: A Sourcebook, 29. 11. Diouf, Servants of Allah, 184–94. 12. Diouf, Servants of Allah, 185–90 and 205. In fact, Diouf suggests that the heretical beliefs of Elijah Muhammad (and Drew Ali) are such that “it is highly improbable that the last African Muslims in the Americas would have been involved in them.” Diouf, Servants of Allah, 207. A similar conclusion is drawn by Sherman A. Jackson: it was “virtually impossible for African Muslim slaves to perpetuate their faith in America,” and “[n]one of the distinct and palpable features of African Islam show up in the formative period of Blackamerican Islam.” Jackson, Islam and the Blackamerican, 39. 13. Marr, The Cultural Roots of American Islamicism. 14. Jackson, Islam and the Blackamerican, 38. 15. Parts of this section have appeared in Berg, “Mythmaking in the American Muslim Context,” 685–703. 16. Wilson, Sacred Drift, 15–16. 17. Robert Dannin points out that these activities were “reminiscent of earlynineteenth century attempts to commemorate the African-Islamic heritage of some slaves.” Dannin, Black Pilgrimage to Islam, 27. 18. McCloud, African American Islam, 11; and Dannin, Black Pilgrimage to Islam, 28. Notes to Chapter 1 149 19. Fauset, Black Gods of the Metropolis, 72. 20. George Washington, who was a slave owner...