BLACK MUSLIMS IN THE USA: AN EVOLUTION FROM HETERODOXY TOWARDS SUNNI ISLAM, 1930 – 2003

Abstract

This thesis is an attempt to examine the Nation of Islam in the United States of America in its evolution from a black protest movement which used an eclectic ideology made up of a few Islamic tenets with an amalgam of Judaism, Christianity, Free Masonry and Oriental Philosophy, and Black Nationalism claiming that it was Islam. It aimed from this mixed ideology at providing a survival kit for the blacks in a racially hostile white society that rejected them and relegated them to a second class citizenship, and deprived them from the advantages of being US citizens. The founder, Wallace Dodd Fard, was a mysterious ex convict and drug dealer who claimed to have come from Mecca “the homeland of the blacks” to save them from the white man in North America and enable them to rule themselves in a separate state. When examined, it was found that the “Islam” of the NOI was contradictory and outrageous to real Islam. This continued from its inception to the death of Elijah Muhammad, its leader and “messenger” in 1975. However, soon his son Warith Deen Muhammad succeeded him and started an “Islamization” process in the biggest conversion operation to Islam in the US history. The adherents followed the principles of Islam and discarded the racial philosophy of the NOI as well as the hatred towards whites and integrated in mainstream America. Yet, numerous statements of Warith in the subject of Islamic put him out of this religion. As an example, he declared that he had no physical father and that his father was Allah. This is unacceptable in Islam. More study is needed on his former followers to verify their Islamic authenticity in order to direct them towards the true Islamic teachings.