Reply to Daniel Pipes: A Century of Black American Islam
by Bro. Jackie Muhammad, NOI Research Group
Recently you wrote a blog in the Washington Times entitled, “A Century of Black American Islam.” Your purpose was to create a false image of Islam as practiced in Black America, by the Nation of Islam and the Moorish Scientists. But your real purpose is to undermine the work of The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and the work of the Nation of Islam. You begin by using a very interesting term, “normative Islam”, a term that has no resonance in the Islamic lexicon.
By normative Islam you really mean “orthodox” Islam. Apparently your premise is that the Nation of Islam’s magnetic attraction is waning in America and it will soon morph into the more “orthodox” form of Islam. As one who fashions himself as an “expert” on Islam you should know that Islam is not practiced exactly the same in any two countries. The practice of Islam in Iran is not the same as the practice Islam in Nigeria, or the practice of Islam in Iraq. Saudi Arabia, which has a more restrictive form of the practice of Islam (Wahhabi) is not the same as the way Islam is practiced in Indonesia, which is different from the practice of Islam in the Philippines, which has a more “relaxed” form of Islam. So what form of Islamic orthodoxy are you referring?
All of these Muslim nations, however, adhere to the same five principles of Islam, and they all receive their guidance from one book, The Holy Quran, which is exactly the same in every Muslim nation. The principles practiced in Liberia are exactly the same in China as they are in the Nation of Islam in America. If you go to London and attend a Nation of Islam mosque you will get the exact same teaching as you would in Harlem, with one distinction, the accent is different. So, to assume that one Muslim nation has to be a carbon copy of another is quite unrealistic.
The same is true of Judaism and Christianity. What is “normative” Judaism? Is it Rabbinical Judaism? Is it Reform Judaism? Is it Karaite Judaism? Is it Conservative Judaism? Is it Chasidic Judaism? Is it Messianic Judaism? Is it Cultural Judaism? Is it Humanistic Judaism? Is it Reconstructionist Judaism? Or is it Orthodox Judaism? All of the principles of the various forms of Judaism are not congruent, neither are the various scriptures from which they get their religious instructions. But you speak nothing of these inconsistencies. Is this a double standard or just hypocrisy?
It is quite paternalistic for you to assume that you can tell us what kind of Islam you think we should practice, particularly because of the role the Jews have played in creating the conditions under which we suffer today. Therefore, you should focus on bridging the gap within your own religious community before you assume you know what’s best for the Black community. Moreover, do you circumnavigate the globe telling the hundreds of Christian denominations what form of Christianity they should be practicing, and which of the hundreds of Bibles they should be reading from on Sundays? So, why the double standard with the Nation of Islam and the Moorish Scientists?
When you write that the Nation of Islam has “invented” a new religion, you cannot be more in error. Our practice of Islam is the same as what you call “normative” Islam. I challenge you to prove otherwise. Our interpretation of some aspects of Islamic theology and eschatology may differ in some cases from other Islamic groups, but that’s no different than what one Islamic group may have from another group. Again, look at your own Jewish community as an example. Reform Jews have a different interpretation of some aspects of Judaism than do Orthodox Jews
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Further, I must correct you when you say Islam was “founded” by Prophet Muhammad 1400 years ago. Islam was “founded” by Allah (God) Himself. Prophet Muhammad was the instrument used by Allah (God) to transmit His message to the world, and this he did perfectly. Before Prophet Muhammad emerged on the world scene he was an illiterate Arab who yearned to see the condition of his downtrodden fellow Arabs improved. Within 25 years he was successful in doing what no other prophet before him succeeded in accomplishing; within a period of 100 years Islam had spread throughout the world.
In your rush to make it seem as if you know what you are talking about you accuse the Moorish Scientists of “appropriating” practices and “borrowing” traits from other organizations. You make it sound as though this is unique to the Moorish Scientists. Did not the Jews “borrow” practices from the Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Babylonians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, and a host of other civilizations more advanced than their own and integrate the “borrowed” practices of other cultures into the fabric of Judaism?
You also mentioned Edward Wilmot Blyden and mischaracterized his position and contributions. According to your statements Noble Drew Ali “appropriated” the notion from Dr. Blyden and the Honorable Marcus Garvey that Christianity is the religion of Whites and Islam is the religion for nonwhites. The predominate religion in Africa, the Middle East and Asia today is Islam. The predominate religion in Europe and America is Christianity. Blyden was clearly stating the obvious. Right wing Christian Conservatives peach this very axiom every day. Check out the bile that’s spewed from the lips of many of the pundits at Fox News, a medium that you are often seen on distilling your “wisdom”.
This fear of the rise of Islam has ushered in the theory of the Clash of Civilizations. Pat Buchanan makes no secret of his belief that the rising tide of Islam is a treat to White people and Christianity in his book, The Death of the West. Mark Steyn, one of America’s leading Conservative columnists in his recent book, America Alone plays on this same theme. The State of Israel adheres to this same philosophy. Israeli writer Shlomo Sands in his national best seller, The Invention of the Jewish People, calls Israel an ethnocracy, not a democracy; it is the equivalent of a wholly-owned subsidiary for the Jews, not for all Israelis (Arabs and Christians). That’s why they go to great lengths to stem the birth rate of the Black Jews and the Palestinians.
Dr. Blyden was a pan-Africanist Christian who had a strong affinity for the reformative powers of Islam in Africa, particularly among the Liberians and the people of Sierra Leone in West Africa. He expressed his views very clearly in his monumental book, Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race. Blyden, born in the West Indies of Nigerian parents, became an Americo- Liberian, the name given to American Blacks who were freed from slavery in America and expatriated to Liberia, as well as those “emancipated” after 1865 who chose not to remain in America and the West Indies.
You write about the plight of the Nation of Islam after Farrakhan’s “passing”. How arrogant. Let’s be clear about one thing: Minister Farrakhan is not going anywhere. That may be wishful thinking on your part. Voluminous volumes of materials that Minister Farrakhan has produced in the forms of books, tapes, and his legacy will be studied for years and years to come. People will study his works and be inspired by them the way they read the works of Moses, Paul, Marx, Freud, Muhammad, and yes, even Jesus.
So-called scholars like you take pleasure in tearing down the image of the NOI based on distortions and lies, instead of objectively recognizing the role the Nation of Islam plays in reconstructing and rehabilitating the lives of a people America has literally destroyed by prohibiting us from the ability to practice our religion, not allowing us to be properly educated, and emasculating our male children because White America viewed them as a threat, not just during the era of chattel slavery, but to the present day.
Judaism in Israel and America has a zero growth rate, and is being negatively stigmatized throughout the world. Fewer and fewer Jews are associating with the religion, especially younger Jews. Richard Cohen of the Washington Post is one of the leading thinkers highlighting this phenomenon. On the other hand, Islam is the fastest growing religion in America. Is this one of the reasons that you are so upset with Black people’s attraction to Islam?
Minister Farrakhan is the leading spokesman for Islam in this country. As such, every effort is made to de-potentiate him in the eyes of the public; you have served as a willing participant in this process. Islam has always been viewed as a threat to the broader Judeo-Christian society in America and the world. That’s why anyone viewed as a vocal spokesman who can galvanize the people under the banner of Islam is stigmatized and demonized. Hence, people who prescribe to your philosophical outlook will use your pseudo-intellectual approach to create a false image of such a person.
By the way, what studies have you done that substantiate the allegation that the NOI’s influence is waning? What Nation of Islam mosques have you attended lately that allows you to make such a claim? What statistical profile have you commissioned to substantiate your claims? What The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has succeeded in doing is reaching beyond the confines of the mosques and attracted Christians, progressive and conservative Whites, and even some Jews to a newer vision of America based on the teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
Also, when you speak of Minister Farrakhan’s influence you must factor into the equation the fact that he has visited over 100 nations. Thus, he has been seen by over 110 million people on television, in public arenas, and heard on the radio, or read about in newspapers by a significant portion of the world’s population who cannot possibly fit into the confines of a small mosque. Moreover, Farrakhan’s reach into the music industry, the world of sports and in the business community is in no way confined to mosque attendance. The Minister called for a Million Man March and according to our scientific calculation we garnered nearly two million men, predominately Christians, not Muslims.
Finally, who are you to predict the future of the NOI? If we were to apply the same tactics and scrutiny to Judaism we would be called anti-Semitic. You have no power or knowledge to make such a prognosis. My point, sir, is not to argue or debate with you, those days are over, and our purpose is to teach you so that you won’t make the same errors in the future.
In a recent column you penned in The Washington Times on December 26, 2013, “A Century of Black American Islam,” you maintain your long history of anti-Black and anti-Islam propaganda. This is part two of my response to your invective against the Nation of Islam.
Like the ancient scribes who distorted and manipulated the ancient biblical scriptures and distorted the history of Black people in the Bible, you have maintained that ancient tradition by how you have distorted the history and contributions of the Nation of Islam, and your unwarranted attacks on the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.
The Bible and the Holy Quran have repeatedly warned the Jewish writers not to change, manipulate or modify God’s word, and not to add to or take away that which God gave to Moses. Repeatedly the Jewish scribes have violated His mandates. Some have gone beyond the act of scriptural manipulation, and have actually created their own scripture and sought to replace God’s Book with their own. The Talmud is such a book. Then, there is the case of the Book of Ester.
There is no credible biblical scholar who will dispute the fact that the Book of Ester is a fraud, written by unscrupulous scribes and inserted it into the Torah. Even though Ester is read by millions of Jews, Christians and Muslims, it is nonetheless, an unmitigated fraud.
The New International Version (NIV) of the King James Bible is considered one of the better translations of the Bible. Jeremiah 8:8 of the NIV accuses the biblical scribes of being liars. It reads: “How can you say, ‘We have the law of the Lord’, when actually the lying pens of scribes has handled it falsely.” Prophet Jeremiah charges the scribes with not only tampering with the written word of God, but he also accuses them of having lying pens. As a scribe who comes out of that tradition are you also guilty of the same charges?
You assert, for example, that the NOI invented a new religion. That’s a lie. The NOI is founded on the same principles that are practiced by Muslims all over the globe. However, as I am sure you may know, the same cannot be said about the Jewish people, who several prominent Jewish and non-Jewish scholars have written are an invented people.
Richard Hull, NYU Professor of African History, and author of Jews and Judaism in African History,states “Today, many secular Jews see the Hebrew scriptures, or the Old Testaments to the Christians, as invented history, designed to justify the special position of the Jews in human history and to depict the ancient Israelites as an instrument of God’s will.”
However, Shlomo Sand, one of Israel’s most eminent scholars, goes even further. He delineates in his bestselling book, The Invention of the Jewish People, how the Jews were never a “people”, but instead a religious grouping, not a nation, who Zionists historians had fabricated in order to justify their takeover of the land of Palestine from its original owners.
Therefore, according to your own scholars, your coreligionists changed and modified the religion, the scriptures and the “people” who are called Jews to justify the appellation given to them by Jesus as the “Synagogue of Satan.”
The Jewish scribes and rabbis took this issue a step further. In order to complete this “invention” of themselves they wrote, with their pens a totally new script called the Talmud. Not only was the Talmud used to justify the enslavement of Black people through the creation of the Curse of Ham lie, but they also use their created book to replace the Torah, the Book God gave to Moses, with their own made up, fabricated book.
In fact, if Moses were to return today he would not recognize his own religion. Moses knew nothing of a synagogue. Shlomo Sand insinuates (p.144) that it was a Babylonian invention. Moses knew nothing about a Talmud or rabbis. These were invented after his death and at the end of the period of the prophets. Philo Judaeus, the Jewish philosopher living in Alexandria, Egypt, sought to merge the basic tenants of Judaism with the teachings of the Greek philosophers (Plato, Socrates, etc.) in order to attract more Greeks to Judaism, and he forever changed the religion. For example, Hanukkah, (the Jewish Christmas) one of the most holy days in Judaism, was originally a Greek pagan holiday that was appropriated and later incorporated into Judaism.
When the Talmud was invented the rabbis and the scribes displayed their hatred of Jesus by saying Jesus should be captured and placed in a boiling pot of excrement. Why so much hatred for a man who millions view as the messiah?
On the other hand, one can ask the same question as it relates to your venomous pen? Why so much hatred for the Nation of Islam? Particularly when all we are seeking is to use the teachings of Islam, as taught by the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, to clean up the tragic mess members of the Jewish community has created for the Black community. Remember, slavery is an institution the Jews perfected and controlled in Iraq, Africa and the Americas.
This point is enthusiastically endorsed by one of the leading Jewish scholars in the world, Rabbi Marc Lee Raphael, the Nathan and Sophia professor of Judaic Studies, Professor of Religion, and the chair, Department of Religion, the College of William and Mary, and visiting Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford University. Rabbi Raphael asserted that the Jews dominated Jewish slave trading on the American continent.
Check out your history. Whenever the Jews got into trouble Black people always came to the rescue. In 701 BCE the Assyrians were preparing to vanquish the Jews of Jerusalem, but the Black Egyptians of the 25th Dynasty, under the leadership of the Kushite King Taharqa (2 Kings 19:9, Isiah 37), rescued the Jews and forced the Assyrians to retreat.
Then in the 7th Century CE when Islam spread throughout Africa, Asia, the Middle East and finally reached Palestine, the Jews enthusiastically embraced the “new religion” and they welcomed the Muslims as “saviors” because they ousted the cruel and oppressive rulers of the Byzantine Empire. According to Sholmo Sand, “the seventh-century bishop Sebeos described the Arab conquest of Palestine as the descendants of Ishmael coming to the aid of the descendants of Isaac against the Byzantine Empire, in fulfillment of God’s promise to their common ancestor Abraham.”
When the Black Muslim Moors ruled in Spain from 711-1492, we extended a hand of friendship to the Jews. The barbaric and uncivilized Germanic tribesmen known as the Visigoths oppressed the Jews so severely in Spain that the Muslims were asked to invade Spain, defeat the Visigoths, and relieve the Jews of their cruel oppressors. Not only that, but we put the Jews in key positions as administrators, assistants and financiers, and because they were members of the monotheistic trilogy of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, they were left alone to freely practice their faith. The Jewish historians refer to this period as the Jewish Golden Age.
And how have we been repaid? After 800 years of Islamic rule the Spanish rulers forced the Muslims out of Spain. The Jews used their strategic global positions, and the knowledge they had gained from the Moors and heaped upon us the worst form of degradation the world has ever seen. Your own scholars and rabbis admit that the Jews were at the center of the slave trade. They ran the show. Study carefully the book, The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, vol.2, and Jews Selling Blacks. There you will find unlimited examples of how Jews controlled the politics, the culture and the economics of slavery and the slave trade. You will find your own scholars and rabbis testifying to the devastating impact the Jews have had in creating a dehumanized race of people.
Then you will discover how the Jewish scribes, with their control of the media from the profits they gained from their control of slavery, have distorted our history, stolen our legacy and then turned around and portrayed themselves as totally innocent, and write themselves in history as our best friends. How insidious.
Your polemics against Islam and Black Muslims in America is entirely consistent with the role many of the scribes have played for thousands of years. The most prominent Jewish historian in ancient history is Flavius Josephus. Josephus, a Hellenized (Greek) Jew, has influenced the whole world with his writings. His most famous work is The Antiquities of the Jews. He boasted that he was of the “priestly seed.”
However, because of his arrogance, deceitfulness, duplicity, and his lack of character he was shunned by many Jews and viewed as a traitor because he sided with the Roman oppressors. Outspoken Zionist critics of the Nation of Islam might assign some of the same characteristics to the modern day scribes like you. Those who use their pens to denigrate a people seeking to be free of the modern day Romans, only to be falsely accused by those who have the power to create false images of the real “Children of Israel,” the Original Black Hebrew, the Black Man and Woman of America.
Your call for Black people who are Muslims to be placed in internment camps is as ruthless and racist as your leaders before you. Take for example Rabbi Moses Maimonides, the Middle Ages Spanish philosopher who said that Blacks are “lower than the ranks of man but higher than the ranks of apes.” Or Rabbi Morris Raphall of New York who defended slavery and said that God Himself had sanctioned it. Or Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, founder of Reform Judaism, a staunched pro-slavery advocate, and a champion of white supremacy and Black inferiority and degradation. These are they who some say are from the “seed of Abraham.” Abraham knew nothing of these people who are properly called the Khazars, Europeans from the Caucasus Mountains, those who have nothing to do with the original owners of the land, and are among the last converts of the Jews.
Given this history of religious and racial paranoia and hatred by your predecessors there should be little surprise that the fruit does not fall far from the proverbial tree. Or as Jesus said in John 8:44, “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
(Jackie Muhammad is a former presidential appointee, member of the Oxford round table, educator, youth-trainer and businessman and member of the Nation of Islam Research Group.)