The Moorish Science Temple

1
The Moorish Science Temple

• Legends and Charisma in the making of productive
  Prophecy

2
Continuous Muslim Presence?

• Noble Drew Ali, as the foundation for Islam
  among African Americans in the twentieth century,
  may very well be their link to an African Muslim
  past, as he was born and reared in an area
  contiguous with Melungeon and Ishmaelite
  influence at a time when the descendents of
  verifiable African Muslims may have yet been
  practicing Islam along the Georgia and South
  Carolina coasts. (Gomez, 275)

3
Importance of the Moorish Science Temple

• For, in the final analysis, Noble Drew Ali is
  necessarily the bridge over which the Muslim
  legacies of the eighteenth and nineteenth
  centuries crossed over into the Muslim
  communities of the twentieth and twenty-first.
  (Gomez, 203)
• the coming together of Islam, Islamism,
  Garveyism, Freemasonry, New Thought,
  Rosicrucianism, anticolonialism, black
  nationalism
• what does authentic mean here? Syncretism?

4
The life of Noble Drew Ali (1)

• born as Timothy Drew in non-existent Simpsonbuck
  county in North Carolina on January 8, 1886
• possible meeting of the Drew family with Jamal
  al-Din al-Afghani (d. 1897) in Newark, NJ
• Egypt connection induction into the secrets of
  High Magic appointment by Saudi ruler of Mecca,
  fact or allegory?

5
The life of Noble Drew Ali (2)

• Canaanite Temple founded in 1912-3 in Newark,
  NJ possible membership of 30000 by 1920
• Context of the Great Migration, religious and
  political movements NAACP founded in 1909
  Garvey arrives in 1915
• Shift to Chicago in 1925, Moorish Temple of
  Science declared in 1926, in 1928 the Moorish
  Science Temple of America
• Internal Conflict and then his death in 1929

6
The Noble Drew Ali
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(No Transcript)
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Noble Drew Ali on Race and Islam

• We, as a clean and pure nation descended from
  the inhabitants of Africa, do not desire to
  amalgamate or marry into the families of the pale
  skin nations of Europe. Neither serve the gods
  of their religion, because our forefathers are
  the true and divine founders of the first
  religious creed, for the redemption of mankind on
  earth. Therefore we are returning the Church and
  Christianity back to the European Nations, as it
  was prepared by the forefathers for their earthly
  salvation. While we, the Moorish Americans are
  returning to Islam, which was founded by our
  forefathers for our earthly and divine
  salvation. (Quoted in Dannin, Black Pilgrimage
  28)

9
Establishing a proper genealogy

• The Negro, as they were called in this nation,
  have no nation to which they might look with
  pride. Their history starts with the close of
  the Civil War or more properly with his being
  forced to serve someone else. Thus he is
  separated from the illustrious history of his
  forefathers who were founders of the first
  civilization of the Old World . . . This is why
  the nationality of the Moors was taken away from
  them in 1774 and the word negro, black and
  colored, was given to the Asiatics of America who
  were of Moorish descent, because they honored not
  the principles of their mother and father, and
  strayed after the gods of Europe of whom they
  knew nothing. (Quoted in Gomez, 224)

10
Constructing the meaning of race

• From the Koran for Moorish Children
• What title does Satan give himself? God.
• Will you define the word White? White means
  Purity, Purity means God, and God means the Ruler
  of the Land.
• To who do we refer to at times, as being the
  GREAT GOD? ALLAH.
• Is the devil made in the Image and Likeness of
  ALLAH? No, he is the shadow of our lower-selves
  and will pass away. (Gomez, 225)

11
Identity Card Muslim and American

• This is your Nationality and Identification Card
  for the Moorish Science Temple of America, and
  Birthrights for the Moorish Americans, etc. we
  honor all the Divine Prophets, Jesus, Mohammad,
  Buddha, and Confucius. May the blessings of the
  God of our Father Allah, be upon you that carry
  this card. I do hereby declare that you are a
  Moslem under the Divine Laws of the Holy Koran of
  Mecca, Love Truth Peace Freedom and Justice. I
  AM A CITIZEN OF THE U.S.A. (Quoted in Dannin,
  Black Pilgrimage 27)

12
The importance of economic independence
13
Circle Seven Koran (1)

• The Holy Koran of the Moorish Holy Temple of
  Science 7, Know Yourself and Your Father
  God-Allah, That You Learn to Love Instead of
  Hate. Everyman Need to Worship Under His Own
  Vine and Fig Tree. The Uniting of Asia.
• Canaan and Moab the historical homeland,
  founders of Africa
• Jesus not Jewish so much as Moabite (Davids
  marriage to Ruth)
• John to Jesus as Garvey to Noble Drew Ali

14
Circle Seven Koran (sources)

• Chapters 2-19 from The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus
  the Christ by Eva S. and Levi Dowling, published
  in 1909
• Chapters 20-44 from Unto Thee I Grant, published
  in San Francisco, 1925
• Chapters 1, 45-48 original by Noble Drew Ali

15
Circle Seven Koran (2)

• This observation need not diminish claims that
  the Circle Seven Koran constitutes divine
  revelation however it does mean that Noble Drew
  Ali encountered most of the revelation
  indirectly, identifying sacred, arcane utterance
  rather than receiving it afresh. The real
  problem with the Circle Seven Koran, therefore,
  does not issue from its mostly derivative nature
  but from the fact that its sources are
  unacknowledged. Noble Drew Ali is therefore
  susceptible to the charge of being one of the
  more significant plagiarists of the twentieth
  century. (Gomez, 232)

16
Influences on the MSTA

• Rosicrucianism, came to America in the 19th
  century
• Christian Science, founded by Mary Eddy (d.
  1910) in America, the New Thought Movement
• Garveyism
• Freemasonry, Black lodges in America since the
  18th century
• Shriners, Black Shriners founded in 1893, in
  Newark from 1901 onwards
• Ahmadiyya

17
Conversion to the MST

• All black men and women in the USA descended
  from Canaan, specifically from Moab, and Muslims,
  most recently from Morocco part of an Asiatic
  transnational community
• Upon joining the MST, one takes a new surname
  Bey or El
• Dietary restrictions monogamy men must
  continuously wear fezzs three daily prayers
  facing Mecca Friday a holy day
• The Noble Drew Ali a reincarnation of both Jesus
  and Muhammad
• There was no afterlife to worry about, heaven
  and hell in this world
• Many symbols, figures, songs taken from
  Christianity conversion is facilitated

18
Marcus Garvey (d. 1940)

• So few of us can understand what it takes to
  make a man - the man who will never say die the
  man who will never give up the man who will
  never depend upon others to do for him what he
  ought to do for himself . . . If 400,000,000
  Negroes can only get to know themselves, to know
  that in them is a sovereign power, is an
  authority that is absolute, then in the next
  twenty-four hours we would have a new race, we
  would have a nation, an empire, - resurrected,
  not from the will of others to see us rise, - but
  from our own determination to rise, irrespective
  of what the world thinks.
• http//www.marcusgarvey.com/wmview.php?ArtID565

19
Other messiahs Father Hurley (d. 1943)

• Father Hurley instructed his followers to refer
  to themselves as Black or Ethiopian as
  opposed to the pejorative Negro, and to eschew
  interracial marriage. Contemptuous of
  so-called mulattoes, Hurley proscribed swine and
  alcohol (although he permitted wine in
  moderation for special religious occasions), and
  he flew his own version of the red, black, and
  green flag (the colors of the UNIA flag).
  (Gomez, 211)

20
Critiques of the MSTA

• Satti Majid Muhammad, from the Sudan, arrived in
  New York in 1904, founds orthodox Muslim groups,
  encounters Seven Circle Koran in 1927 went back
  to Egypt and asked for fatwa from al-Azhar
  against MSTA
• Garveys attack on the MSTA
• Internal fragmentation in 1929

21
Crisis in the MSTA

• Noble Drew Ali was facing the crisis of the
  conflict in his own message. He consistently
  required his followers to observe the law of the
  land on the one hand, his argument for the
  embrace of Moroccan identity as a necessary
  precursor to full acceptance in North America
  suggests that he was not interested in a radical
  political solution to the intransigence of
  racism. On the other hand, he had created a
  psychological space, a terrain of the mind,
  wherein racial separation was envisioned and
  anticipated. (Gomez, 266)

22
Succession struggles

• in 1929 Claude Greene declared himself to be
  Grand Sheik he was killed on March 15 Drew was
  arrested, released on bail, died July 20, 1929
• Kirkman Bey, Steven Gibbons and George Johnson
  Bey vied for power latter two claimed Drews
  spirit had entered them
• Steven Gibbons founded new Moorish Temple in
  Chicago in 1941
• Muhammad Ezaldeen, former member, returns in the
  late 1930s from Egypt, founds Adenu Allahe
  Universal Arabic Association, a Sunni organization

23
Kirkman Bey (1929-59) Nelson Bey (1959-62)
24
Blakely (1963-71) R. Love El (1971-2002)
25
Current leader R. Jones Bey
26
The Significance of the MST

• previous strands of Muslim influence/presence
  converge
• the emerging importance of African-American
  political movements, such as that of Marcus
  Garvey
• The MST continues until today, but it also
  prefigures in important ways the Nation of Islam
  (presence of a black Prophet in America, stress
  on economic independence, intrinsic link of black
  Americans to both Islam and Africa (specifically
  Morocco)