fathie abdat - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by fathie abdat
Journal of black religious thought, Jan 25, 2024
Imam Muhammad Abdullah (1905–1992) has played a pivotal role shaping the Islamic experience in Fi... more Imam Muhammad Abdullah (1905–1992) has played a pivotal role shaping the Islamic experience in Fiji and America, two vastly different countries that spannedover six decades. Yet even today, his real historic identity is still shrouded in murky obscurity while his legacy lay mired by layers of confusing myths. This makes him at once fascinating and frustrating. Because Abdullah remains a figure of devotion and a contested site of memory across Islamic movements, it heightens the necessity amongst scholars to disentangle the mythical Abdullah from the historical Abdullah. This essay investigates Abdullah and the Lahore-Ahmadi’s complex entanglements with Wallace Muhammad’s black Muslim community. Their paths were curiously erratic and messy; at times intersecting on a personal, co-conspiratorial level in early 1960s Philadelphia and at other periods they chartered their own separate ways in the mid 1960s after the murderous bloodbaths of Nation of Islam’s religious feuds. From 1970, the pair rekindled their collaboration as their respective organizations became symbiotically intertwined with mixed ramifications.
Journal of Black Religious Thought, 2024
Imam Muhammad Abdullah (1905–1992) has played a pivotal role shaping the Islamic experience in Fi... more Imam Muhammad Abdullah (1905–1992) has played a pivotal role shaping the Islamic experience in Fiji and America, two vastly different countries that spannedover six decades. Yet even today, his real historic identity is still shrouded in murky obscurity while his legacy lay mired by layers of confusing myths. This makes him at once fascinating and frustrating. Because Abdullah remains a figure of devotion and
a contested site of memory across Islamic movements, it heightens the necessity amongst scholars to disentangle the mythical Abdullah from the historical Abdullah. This essay investigates Abdullah and the Lahore-Ahmadi’s complex entanglements with Wallace Muhammad’s black Muslim community. Their paths were curiously erratic and messy; at times intersecting on a personal, co-conspiratorial level in early 1960s Philadelphia and at other periods they chartered their own separate ways in the mid 1960s after the murderous bloodbaths of Nation of Islam’s religious feuds. From 1970, the pair rekindled their collaboration as their respective organizations became symbiotically intertwined with mixed ramifications.
National University of Singapore Thesis Submission for Masters of Arts, Research, Jan 7, 2009
American families, the Littles suffered from the twin forces of the 1930s Great Depression and pe... more American families, the Littles suffered from the twin forces of the 1930s Great Depression and pervasive white racism. Following the mysterious death of their father, Earl Little, at the hands of a local white supremacist group and the institutionalization of their mother, Louise Little, in a mental hospital, the Littles' siblings were distributed to foster homes by the state's social welfare agencies. After graduating from various reform schools and foster homes, the gangly teenaged Malcolm balanced his time between working as a waiter on railroad companies and hustling on the streets of Roxbury and Harlem. When Malcolm's hustling activities landed him in prison in 1946, he converted to the Nation of Islam, (NOI or the Nation), a unique religious group that bestowed a divine black identity within an unorthodox Islamic framework for its believers. As a new convert, Malcolm shed his slave name "Little" and embraced the powerful surname of "X" that symbolized the unknown. Upon his release in 1952, Malcolm X became the Nation's most successful evangelical minister as he indefatigably scoured America's cities for converts. His fortunes changed in March 1964 when he was acrimoniously forced out of the NOI. In Malcolm's independent phase, he converted to Sunni Islam following a successful pilgrimage to Mecca, established his own movements, the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) and the Muslim Mosque Incorporated (MMI), and flirted with various ideologies such as Sunni Islam, Black Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and socialism. Before Malcolm could forge a coherent ideology and strategy for the
History of the Moorish Science Temple of America and Circle Seven Koran, 2021
This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.
This paper examines the development of the Moorish Science Temple of America (MSTA), a Black Amer... more This paper examines the development of the Moorish Science Temple of America (MSTA), a Black American Islamic religious organisation from 1933 to 1945, a period largely unexplored by academics. Through the lens of Father Prophet Mohammed Bey and Mother Jesus Rosie Bey—two controversial vernacular Moorish-American leaders in Kansas City—I hope to illustrate how Kansas City Moors coped with the organisation’s fissiparous tendencies and exegetically revised and reframed Moorish-American Prophet Noble Drew Ali’s 1920s Black Asiatic Orientalist doctrines vis-à-vis the 1930s and 1940s subversive socio-political culture. In the process, both Father Prophet Mohammed Bey and Mother Jesus Rosie Bey shaped and advocated an early form of Black theology and Black power, though they differed in their modus operandi. While Father Prophet Mohammed Bey militantly confronted Kansas City’s local racist institutions, Mother Jesus Rosie Bey internationalized and politicized the Kansas City Moors to collaborate/contend with the looming spectre of Japanese agent provocateurs, America’s Selective Service Act, and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) interrogations. While the size and scope of the Kansas City Moors remained limited, their unique orientation to militant Moorish Islam is vital for historians’ understanding of the re-flowering of Moorish-American Islamic activism in the 1930s as well as the eventual decay of the religious organisation by 1945, due in part to the theological softening of other Moorish communities.
Books by fathie abdat
Magribine Press, 2024
Detroit, Michigan 1929. James Lomax-Bey, a leader of a Moorish Science religious temple with thou... more Detroit, Michigan 1929. James Lomax-Bey, a leader of a Moorish Science religious temple with thousands of devotees, found himself marked by the self-styled Prophet for death. Confronted with Moorish-American messiahs and goon squads baying for blood, Ezaldeen fled to Turkey and Egypt in the early 1930s where his strange mind began concocting a unique brew of a black-centric, American Islam. Armed with religious zeal, Ezaldeen returned to America, and fashioned himself as Muhammed Ezaldeen- the “Professor”. A spiritual revolutionary, the Professor frenetically peddled his newfound faith to thousands of desperate African-Americans in search of salvation throughout various cities. Standing in his way were sneaky FBI agents, dubious Japanese agent provocateurs, rivaling Indian Ahmadi proselytizers and white racists.
How did the Professor’s followers assume new lives as Hamitic-Arabs during World War II and the decades after? And what eventually happened to the Professor’s two model Puritan black Islamic colonies in rural Ashford, New York, and Elm, New Jersey?
A gripping, swash-buckling narrative of black folk American Islam in the twentieth century, America’s Forgotten Muslims brings readers into the fascinating universe of Professor Muhammed Ezaldeen and his ranks of Hamitic-Arabs in the twentieth century and beyond.
Journal of black religious thought, Jan 25, 2024
Imam Muhammad Abdullah (1905–1992) has played a pivotal role shaping the Islamic experience in Fi... more Imam Muhammad Abdullah (1905–1992) has played a pivotal role shaping the Islamic experience in Fiji and America, two vastly different countries that spannedover six decades. Yet even today, his real historic identity is still shrouded in murky obscurity while his legacy lay mired by layers of confusing myths. This makes him at once fascinating and frustrating. Because Abdullah remains a figure of devotion and a contested site of memory across Islamic movements, it heightens the necessity amongst scholars to disentangle the mythical Abdullah from the historical Abdullah. This essay investigates Abdullah and the Lahore-Ahmadi’s complex entanglements with Wallace Muhammad’s black Muslim community. Their paths were curiously erratic and messy; at times intersecting on a personal, co-conspiratorial level in early 1960s Philadelphia and at other periods they chartered their own separate ways in the mid 1960s after the murderous bloodbaths of Nation of Islam’s religious feuds. From 1970, the pair rekindled their collaboration as their respective organizations became symbiotically intertwined with mixed ramifications.
Journal of Black Religious Thought, 2024
Imam Muhammad Abdullah (1905–1992) has played a pivotal role shaping the Islamic experience in Fi... more Imam Muhammad Abdullah (1905–1992) has played a pivotal role shaping the Islamic experience in Fiji and America, two vastly different countries that spannedover six decades. Yet even today, his real historic identity is still shrouded in murky obscurity while his legacy lay mired by layers of confusing myths. This makes him at once fascinating and frustrating. Because Abdullah remains a figure of devotion and
a contested site of memory across Islamic movements, it heightens the necessity amongst scholars to disentangle the mythical Abdullah from the historical Abdullah. This essay investigates Abdullah and the Lahore-Ahmadi’s complex entanglements with Wallace Muhammad’s black Muslim community. Their paths were curiously erratic and messy; at times intersecting on a personal, co-conspiratorial level in early 1960s Philadelphia and at other periods they chartered their own separate ways in the mid 1960s after the murderous bloodbaths of Nation of Islam’s religious feuds. From 1970, the pair rekindled their collaboration as their respective organizations became symbiotically intertwined with mixed ramifications.
National University of Singapore Thesis Submission for Masters of Arts, Research, Jan 7, 2009
American families, the Littles suffered from the twin forces of the 1930s Great Depression and pe... more American families, the Littles suffered from the twin forces of the 1930s Great Depression and pervasive white racism. Following the mysterious death of their father, Earl Little, at the hands of a local white supremacist group and the institutionalization of their mother, Louise Little, in a mental hospital, the Littles' siblings were distributed to foster homes by the state's social welfare agencies. After graduating from various reform schools and foster homes, the gangly teenaged Malcolm balanced his time between working as a waiter on railroad companies and hustling on the streets of Roxbury and Harlem. When Malcolm's hustling activities landed him in prison in 1946, he converted to the Nation of Islam, (NOI or the Nation), a unique religious group that bestowed a divine black identity within an unorthodox Islamic framework for its believers. As a new convert, Malcolm shed his slave name "Little" and embraced the powerful surname of "X" that symbolized the unknown. Upon his release in 1952, Malcolm X became the Nation's most successful evangelical minister as he indefatigably scoured America's cities for converts. His fortunes changed in March 1964 when he was acrimoniously forced out of the NOI. In Malcolm's independent phase, he converted to Sunni Islam following a successful pilgrimage to Mecca, established his own movements, the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) and the Muslim Mosque Incorporated (MMI), and flirted with various ideologies such as Sunni Islam, Black Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and socialism. Before Malcolm could forge a coherent ideology and strategy for the
History of the Moorish Science Temple of America and Circle Seven Koran, 2021
This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.
This paper examines the development of the Moorish Science Temple of America (MSTA), a Black Amer... more This paper examines the development of the Moorish Science Temple of America (MSTA), a Black American Islamic religious organisation from 1933 to 1945, a period largely unexplored by academics. Through the lens of Father Prophet Mohammed Bey and Mother Jesus Rosie Bey—two controversial vernacular Moorish-American leaders in Kansas City—I hope to illustrate how Kansas City Moors coped with the organisation’s fissiparous tendencies and exegetically revised and reframed Moorish-American Prophet Noble Drew Ali’s 1920s Black Asiatic Orientalist doctrines vis-à-vis the 1930s and 1940s subversive socio-political culture. In the process, both Father Prophet Mohammed Bey and Mother Jesus Rosie Bey shaped and advocated an early form of Black theology and Black power, though they differed in their modus operandi. While Father Prophet Mohammed Bey militantly confronted Kansas City’s local racist institutions, Mother Jesus Rosie Bey internationalized and politicized the Kansas City Moors to collaborate/contend with the looming spectre of Japanese agent provocateurs, America’s Selective Service Act, and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) interrogations. While the size and scope of the Kansas City Moors remained limited, their unique orientation to militant Moorish Islam is vital for historians’ understanding of the re-flowering of Moorish-American Islamic activism in the 1930s as well as the eventual decay of the religious organisation by 1945, due in part to the theological softening of other Moorish communities.
Magribine Press, 2024
Detroit, Michigan 1929. James Lomax-Bey, a leader of a Moorish Science religious temple with thou... more Detroit, Michigan 1929. James Lomax-Bey, a leader of a Moorish Science religious temple with thousands of devotees, found himself marked by the self-styled Prophet for death. Confronted with Moorish-American messiahs and goon squads baying for blood, Ezaldeen fled to Turkey and Egypt in the early 1930s where his strange mind began concocting a unique brew of a black-centric, American Islam. Armed with religious zeal, Ezaldeen returned to America, and fashioned himself as Muhammed Ezaldeen- the “Professor”. A spiritual revolutionary, the Professor frenetically peddled his newfound faith to thousands of desperate African-Americans in search of salvation throughout various cities. Standing in his way were sneaky FBI agents, dubious Japanese agent provocateurs, rivaling Indian Ahmadi proselytizers and white racists.
How did the Professor’s followers assume new lives as Hamitic-Arabs during World War II and the decades after? And what eventually happened to the Professor’s two model Puritan black Islamic colonies in rural Ashford, New York, and Elm, New Jersey?
A gripping, swash-buckling narrative of black folk American Islam in the twentieth century, America’s Forgotten Muslims brings readers into the fascinating universe of Professor Muhammed Ezaldeen and his ranks of Hamitic-Arabs in the twentieth century and beyond.