Islam In Black America Summary

As many as 6,000,000 African Americans traveled to the North to find work during the Great Migration, but once they got there they were only met with rejection. Northern companies refused to hire black men and women, and once the Great Depression hit things only got worse. The black body in America was dejected and broken. On July 4th, 1930 Wallace Fard Muhammad announced his mission to “restore and to resurrect His lost and found people”, and in doing so gave birth to the Nation of Islam (“NOI History”). Fard’s black Islamic movement in America was created to teach the lost black people who were captured and sold as slaves “a thorough Knowledge of God and of themselves, and to put them on the road to Self-Independence” (“NOI History”). Fard declared that Christianity was merely a slave religion forced upon blacks by their masters and persuaded many African Americans to “return to the Islam of their African ancestors”(“Nation of Islam”). The NOI was a political and religious movement to help the poor blacks in big cities. The Nation of Islam called for a "Black nation" and a separation between white people and people of color (Myers 64). The NOI was not concerned with integration, but rather with separation and the restoration they believed the white men owed

     I did my report on Malcolm X. Malcolm X claimed himself as a Muslim. He didn’t always though. He had some very challenging moments in his life. In his earliest childhood memory the Ku Klux Klan attacked his house. They were forced out of their city because his father was a Minister for a Baptist church, and tried recruiting fellow African-Americans to join his church. The white people in the community called them the “trouble Negroes.” They were run out of their community.

He started out doing well in school, despite all the humiliation he went through because he was black. As he grew older, however, he turned to crime in order to get back at whites for the pain they caused him in the past. After a burglary incident, he was arrested and converted to Islam in prison. He educated and taught himself about the religion so that once he was released from prison, he could tell other people about the new person he became as a result of his conversion. Although he did incorporate his religious views into his speeches, his main focus was equal rights for blacks. He also spoke of the ways that white people deceived blacks into their ways of life, how blacks are controlled by the evil white man. He worked toward making his audience realize that they were mindlessly following whatever the whites followed. He says, “...[Elijah Muhammad] teaches us the importance of moral reformation, a knowledge of self”(Black Central). The leader of the Nation of Islam caught sight of Malcolm’s works and made him the official spokesperson for black Muslims. He was extremely involved with all of Elijah Muhammad’s works and teachings from playing this role. However, some dealings with the Nation of Islam and especially Elijah Muhammad caused Malcolm to depart from his religion. He had found that Elijah was lying to him and tried to have him killed, and

Elijah Muhammad rose from poverty to become the controversial, charismatic leader of the black separatist group The Nation of Islam. To this day, now under the direction of Minister Louis Farrakhan, the NOI has maintained a consistent record of racism and anti-Semitism under the guise of instilling African-Americans with a sense of empowerment. Charismatic ministers of "the Honorable Elijah Muhammad" campaign black pride, economic self-help, and moral uplift attracted large numbers of blacks to the Muslim movement, leading to the establishment of NOI temples throughout the country.

Malcolm and his family corresponded often, and he began to gain knowledge of Elijah Muhammad’s religion of Islam. He assessed himself and soon realized the quilt and sin of his previous life had prepared him to accept the truth, as taught by the leader of the Black Muslims. From the murder of his father, his own experiences of racial injustice, the knowledge his white grandfather had raped his grandmother, he knew beyond a doubt; there was nothing good about the white race. This information was a blinding light that took weeks for him to deal with directly. Muhammad’s religion taught that white men were evil and referred to them as the devil, believing their destruction by Allah was inevitable. The black race had been lied to and stripped of its identity; therefore, the best answer was to separate from white civilization and find its self-respect. With encouragement from family, Malcolm began writing to Elijah Muhammad. Based on his background, it was not a far stretch to believe Muhammad’s teachings, and soon Malcolm was on his knees in prayer.

As for the other accounts, the lynching event did not even surface. Elijah then moved to Detroit where he met Wallace D. Fard and developed into an adamant supporter of Fard and the Nation of Islam. Elijah viewed Fard as a divine being and after Fard’s disappearance, Elijah set up a second temple to the Nation of Islam in Chicago (Dodoo 1+). When James Baldwin met Elijah Muhammad and wrote “Down at the Cross”, Elijah controlled the context of the Nation of Islam doctrine.

As Malcom X emphasized, “Mr. Muhammad, to whom I was writing daily, had no idea of what a new world had opened up to me through my efforts to document his teachings in books”. (444) Becoming a minister of Muhammad, he fought for African-Americans civil rights.

This shows that without Elijah Muhammad everyone would be noting. Not o mention, as stated in chapter 16, “For years, I had prided myself that Mr. Muhammad and I were so close that I knew how he felt by how I felt.” This shows when everything began to change and the betrayal was being noticed. Additionally, as stated in chapter16, “As any official in the Nation of Islam would instantly have known, only death – talk for me could have been approved by one man.” This shows when Malcolm got suspicious and knew he was being set up.

Malcolm studied the teachings of the leader of the Black Muslims, Elijah Muhammad, who advocated an independent black state. The Nation of Islam was based on a theology adapted from several models: traditional Islamic teachings principles of Black Nationalism, and economic self-help programs that addressed the needs of African Americans living in urban ghettoes. Unlike traditional Islam, which rejects all forms of racism, the Nation of Islam declared that whites were the "devil by nature," and that God was black. However, the Black Muslims predicted that in the near future a Great War would take place in which whites would be destroyed and black people would rule the world through the benevolence of Allah, their creator. To prepare for this new order, the Nation of Islam stressed personal self-restraint, opposed the use of drugs and alcohol, and organized economic self-help enterprises that eventually included farms, food stores, restaurants, and small businesses.

Americans often say that Malcolm X was ¡°the angriest Negro in America¡± (p. 366). They assume that Malcolm X emphasized only violence to the white and separation of the black from the white. However, is this assumption about Malcolm X really true? Not, at all. The image of Malcolm X as an icon of ¡°black power¡± is not a truth but a myth made by media. Although I grant that Malcolm X had been a radical activist who had tried to improve life of the black and to separate the black from the white before quitting the Nation of Islam, I still argue that Malcolm X eventually realized that the white and the black could exist together with harmony under GOD, Allah, after Hajj.

The Nation of Islam’s answer to the issue of unfair treatment of Blacks in America is best depicted by Wright in his essay, “[w]hite people had come to lead, as well as control, much of the movement for civil rights. Malcolm X, against this state of affairs, demanded that organizations for black men’s improvement – like those of the Jews by Jews and Irish by Irish – be black supported and black led” (Wright 105). The Nation of Islam felt

Race and religion are two concepts in American culture that can really tie people together, or clearly separate them apart. A group forged by strong common roots in both race and religion can be a powerful societal force, if it wants to be. The Nation of Islam is a small but growing religion in America that has become somewhat of a social movement because of its strong and radical ideas on race. In this paper, I will try to explore the beliefs of the Nation of Islam, and the ramifications it could and has had on racial relations in America. The Nation of Islam, or NOI, is a relatively new religion. The first temple of Islam was established in Detroit by Master Fard Muhammed in 1930. Much

The Nation of Islam is one of the most recognizable symbols of an organized African American voice in the United States. Starting from a few followers in the Great Depression, this movement and religion eventually grew to include thousands. It has also been the starting point for several famous African American individuals, such as Muhammad Ali and Malcom X. The Nation of Islam has been the source of much controversy and speculation from outside members. The group is no stranger to accusations regarding its beliefs and practices. It can be seen be the history of the Nation of Islam that it gained publicity and popularity due to its racial, socioeconomic, and political ideals, not by its interpretation of and relation to the orthodox Islam.

In sub-Saharan Africa alone, up to 150 million of the population is Muslim . Haldun Çancı and Opeyemi Adedoyin Odukoya do an in-depth coverage on the politicization

The intellectual centre of Islam is Al-Azhar in Cairo. The ideas and attitudes taught here are spread throughout the ummah, particularly through the population centers of Islam: Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Malaysia. The relative power of the different centers is shifting. Over time the claims on and against the heartland from and by the peripheral Muslim communities will exacerbate the tensions already present. The conservative centre will be under greater pressure from the more vigorous, prolific and liberal Muslim societies on the periphery. “Despite the increased prominence of Islam, its history remains obscured by the focus on its role in current events. Through the actions of its radical elements, many Muslims feel the tenants of the faith have been distorted (Aslan, 2005, p. 1).”