Endnotes
[1]Dr. Sulayman Nyang is a Gambian scholar on Islam and African History presently at Washington, D.C.’s Howard University. His most popular work is Islam, Christianity, and African Identity. This paper is based on a November 18, 1992 discussion between Dr. Nyang and Br. Muhammad Abdullah al-Ahari. The text has been rendered in a scholarly format instead of the question and answer/discussion format on the tape. However, no information has been lost or changed in this superior rendering. This article is available as a separate illustrated pamphlet with additional footnotes and a bibliography for $6.00 (postage included from Magribine Press).
Muhammad Abdullah Ahari Bektashi El is a Cherokee\ German\ Irish -- American\ Melugeon (Moor) convert to Islam. He has attended the Nation of Islam under Minister Farrakhan in Chicago, meetings of Father Hurley’s Universal Spiritual Assembly, several branches of the Moorish Science Temple (including the El Rukn’s), and the Nubian Islamic Hebrews. He is a young scholar (born in 1965) but has uncovered materials on Islam and Islamic Nationalism in America that few scholars before him have touched. See note 12 for a list of some of his works. Br. Muhammad has been published in the Message, Minaret, al-Basheer, Muslim Prison Brotherhood Newsletter, al-Talib, Meditations from the Bilali Muhammad Research Society, The Light, and Amexem Times and Seasons (he is editor of the last publication). This industrious Muslim has a Masters in English from Northeastern Illinois University and has studied Islam at Chicago’s American Islamic College and under the Nimatullah, Bektashi, and Naqshbandi Sufi Orders.
[2] One classic case was where a Greek Doctoral student submitted a thesis which was little more than a revision of an old, obscure work on Economics. He would have remained secure in his scholarly deceit if it was not for an Australian student working on the same topic who came across the thesis. Before that occurrence he was a well-known man in Greece. After his deceit was uncovered, he lost his position and prominence.
[3] Arna Bontemps and Jack Conroy Anyplace But Here (New York: Hill and Wang, 1966). Pages 205-208 deals with the Moorish Science Temple and is a revision of the first half of the WPA study on the Moorish Science Temple. The Nation of Islam is covered on pages 216-246. Both of these studies can be found in M.A. al-Ahari’s The WPA Papers: Early Studies on Black Nationalism in Chicago (Chicago: Magribine Press, forthcoming).
[4] Dingle El was one of Drew Ali’s first converts and his work was published by the vanity press -- Gateway Press of Baltimore -- in 1978.
[5] An early spiritualist biography of Jesus which places him as a student of the Ancient Egyptian Mysteries and a traveler to Hindu, Greek, Zoroastrian, Taoist and Buddhist temples. It was written sometime prior to 1907 by the Presbyterian hymnist and minister Levi Dowling of Ohio. This work is also used by the Ancient Catholic Church, the American Spiritualist Church and Father Hurley’s Hagar’s Universal Spiritualist Assemblies. Magribine Press of Chicago has published a facsimile reproduction of the introduction of the Aquarian Gospels written by Congressman Henry Asa Coffeen of Wyoming for $6.00 (postage and handling included). A fuller version including a glossary of names used in the Gospel and biographies of Levi and Coffeen will be available in June 1997 for $10.00 (postage and handling included).
[6] This work was originally published by the Oriental Literature Syndicate of L.A. in 1925. On close examination it proves to be a reprinting of a text called Infinite Wisdom from DeLawrence Publishing of Chicago (1923). DeLawrence claimed it to be a translation from Chinese of an ancient Tibetan Buddhist text on Monotheism. The Rosicrucians changed the original introduction and proclaimed it to be a text from Amenhotep. An annotated version of Infinite Wisdom with notes from all three version and the Holy Koran of Drew Ali will be published by Magribine Press in late 1997.
[7] Dr. C. Eric Lincoln Black Muslim in America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1961).
[8] Marcus Garvey Message to the People: The Course of African Philosophy (Dover, Massachusetts: The Majority Press, 1986). This work is a collection of lessons studied in 1937 by graduates of one of these schools.
[9] Dr. Max Weber The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958).
[10] Dr. Arthur Huff Fauset Black Gods of the Metropolis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1944). This work contains some early first-hand studies of the Moorish Science temple, Father Divine, Black Jews, and Daddy Grace.
[11] Martha F. Lee The Nation of Islam: An American Millenarian Movement (Lewiston, N.Y.: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1988).
[12] See Muhammad al-Ahari’s Love, Truth, Peace, Freedom and Justice: Noble Drew Ali -- Life, Teachings and Influences (Beltsville, M.D.: Writers’ Inc., 1997) and End of Time and the Fulfillment of the Prophecies: Islamic Nationalism and Religious Pluralism in America (Chicago: Magribine Press, 1997).
[13] Jesse James Strange was a Wisconsin follower of Joseph Smith who declared himself to be his appointed successor (by letter). An excellent short study of this American Prophet and King can be found in Charles K. Backus The King of Beaver Island (Los Angeles: Western Lore Press, 1955). Like his spiritual ancestor Joseph Smith, Strange translated metallic plates by way of vision. These were published in July 1850 as the Book of the Law of the Lord.
The Reorganized Church was started by Smith’s son Joseph Smith, III and Smith’s widow — Emma Hale Smith. This church based in Independence, Missouri rejects the Salt Lake City Mormon’s teachings of polygamy, baptism of the dead, and celestial marriage. Numerically they number about half a million and are a twentieth the size of Salt lake City Mormons. All other Mormon groups combined number less than 100,00 persons.
[14] From December, 1990 interview with Imam Hakim Abdul Ali of Charleston, S.C.’s Masjid Madinah.
[15] Minister Silas Muhammad Wake of the Nation (College Park, G.A.: Nation of Islam, 1985). A study on John Muhammad by Linda Jones was published in the July 17, 1988 issue of Detroit News. Howard Clark’s Zebra: The True Account of the 179 Days of Terror in San Francisco (New York: Richard Marek Publishers, 1979) deals with Calistran. A shorter account can be found in Muhammad Abdullah al-Ahari’s A Short History of The Calsitran Nation of Islam (Chicago: Magribine Press, 1993, reprint 1996).
[16] The version of the H.K. of the M.S.T. of A. was by Carl Kelly Brown Bey of St. Louis 1934. Circle of Life by C.M. Bey was published in Cleveland in the 1930’s. C.M. Bey’s group still exists as the Moorish Clock of Destiny or Clock of Destiny Moors. They have hosted several Moorish Unity meetings but they have not been as successful as one might hope.
[17] Peter Lamborn Wilson Sacred Drift (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1993). For al-Ahari see note 11 above. The WPA study is being published by Magribine Press of Chicago as Early Studies on Black Nationalism. This also includes studies on the Garvey Movement, the Spiritualist Church and the Nation of Islam.
[18] See Adib Rashad Elijah Muhammad & The Ideological Foundation of the Nation of Islam (Hampton, V.A.: U.B. & U.S. Communications Systems, 1994) for more details.
[19] See M. A. al-Ahari’s "Webb at Parliament" Minaret Magazine Summer 1993.
[20] An interview of the Imam of the Fayetteville mosque was done 10-23-93 by Muhammad al-Ahari. This forms an appendix of al-Ahari’s al-Hajj ‘Umar ibn Said: His Life and Autobiography (Chicago: Magribine Press, 1996). See Al-Ahari’s The Fulani Connection (Magribine Press, forthcoming) for a more detailed discussion of the genre of Arabic Slave Narratives in America.
[21] Sterling X Hobbs Black Angels (Los Angeles, C.A.: Halloway House, 1982).
[22] A novelization of the life of Salim the Algerian. He was a Muslim from Algeria that was enslaved during a return from studying in Turkey. He was a slave for a short time in New Orleans but was able to escape by living amongst Native Americans in the area. Salim eventually made his way to Virginia and was at attendance at the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia.
[23] Claude McKay Harlem Glory: A Fragment of Aframerican Life (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1990).
[24] Ishmael Reed Mumbo Jumbo: A Novel (New York: Atheneum, 1988).
[25] George Ibrahim Kheiralla Islam and the Arabian Prophet (New York: Islamic Publishing Co., 1938). The portions which deal solely with Sirah will be republished by Magribine Press of Chicago in 1997.
Return to the Index