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Book Review:
The Black Muslims in America
by Dr. C. Eric Lincoln
Dr. Shahid Sheikh
Most Americans are familiar with the incendiary racist statements of Nation of Islam (NOI) leaders, Louis Farrakhan and his predecessor, the late Elijah Muhammad. Their memories are etched with Malcolm X’s off-hand remark, “the Kennedy chickens coming home to roost,” a reference to President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. They vividly remember Malcolm’s ideological transformation from a racist black Muslim leader to an internationally acclaimed civil rights icon subsequent to his estrangement from NOI that happened shortly before his assassination in 1965. Despite all this, both NOI and classical Islam are still little-understood among the general public whose knowledge of religious traditions is confined primarily to Judeo-Christianity.
Dr. C. Eric Lincoln originally published The Black Muslims in America in 1960. His study is a classic for several reasons. To begin, it is the first scholarly sociological exploration of a Black movement. The grassroots movement’s nationwide appeal to the disprivileged black masses in inner-city ghettos, its members’ militant demeanor and its leaders’ persistent call for a separate black nation within the United States triggered broad scholarly interest in the movement.
Throughout American history, no other Black movement had such a unifying power and synergy to command such national attention. In a sympathetic account, Lincoln convincingly shows that this movement came into existence as a social, economic and religious protest against a white-dominated society, historically divided by extreme racism. The movement’s founders sought to rectify the socio-economic consequences of historic racial injustice for all blacks in the United States by making them proud of their African heritage through self-discipline, self-help and community development.
Lincoln meticulously and methodologically probes the historical context that led to the formation of this Black empowerment movement. Its religious and political underpinnings, its charm to blacks, a ferocious stance against the white race, structured management practices, and its development, along with a succession crises, evolution and splintering over the last seven decades that ends in a discussion of the movement’s future. The third edition, published in 1994, updates the second 1973 edition. With rich and up-to-date information, the last two editions focus on Louis Farrakhan's movement, which claims to be the true successor to the original NOI founded by Elijah Muhammad.
Second, The Black Muslims in America is the first detailed study of development of Islam among African Americans. Before this study, there was no significant scholarly interest in Islam partly because Islam did not survive slavery times in North America, and also because Muslim immigrants were a few and dispersed throughout the nation. The rich data collection and its moving presentation by Lincoln has inspired generations of researchers from a variety of disciplines to conduct research on various aspects of the NOI movement, Islam and its followers. Their scholarship, in turn, has contributed to a better understanding of Muslim-Americans. Third, this study represents one of the first published studies of a Muslim organization in America.
A close analysis of the study reveals three major conceptual underpinnings of the Nation of Islam’s foundation: historic racial injustice, Christianity and Islam.
Historic racial injustice is a familiar issue and the literature on it, for the most part, reflects white perspectives. Black point-of-views are usually overlooked or ignored at best in the mainstream media. In this study, however, Lincoln lends a much-needed voice to blacks. Here, blacks openly express their perception of their socio-economic plight caused by racism. Most black, members of NOI or not, strongly believe that the institution of slavery has caused them prolonged, irreparable sufferings. Some blacks, often middle-class and professionals, concede that some progress has been made, but the rank and file of Nation of Islam are totally unconvinced. They argue that progress has not been made because the whole white race is racist. In a nutshell, Nation of Islam leaders and followers hold the view that “There is no white man a Muslim can trust” and white man is evil, black man is good. Most Muslims proudly note that racial equality is a central tenet in classical Islam than in any other religious tradition. One should also note that millions of Muslims in the world, especially in former Soviet Republic, are white. Interestingly, NOI welcomes white assistance in economic matters until the creation of the Black nation.
When it is observed that the entire NOI rests on hatred for whites, the leadership retorts: “It is the hate that hate produced.” One sees the strong emphasis and glorification of black race as just the opposite mirror image of Ku Klux Klan’s glorification of white race and belief in white supremacy. In this enlightened age, this glorification of race is absolutely absurd and deplorable no matter where it takes place.
In a desperate search for roots and different identity, the movement repudiates Christianity, which is considered the religion of slave masters, allegedly because it favors whites over blacks. Lincoln quotes a newly-converted black Muslim’s scathing appraisal of Christianity:
The Christian religion is incompatible with the Negro’s aspirations for dignity and equality in America. It has hindered where it might have helped; it has been evasive when it was morally bound to be forthright; it has separated believers on the basis of color although it has declared its mission to be universal brotherhood under Jesus Christ. Christian love is the white man’s love for himself and for his race. For the man who is not white, Islam is the hope for Justice and equality in the world we must build tomorrow.
The choice of Islam by the NOI leadership is intriguing. Islam as practiced by the Nation’s followers is totally different from classical Islam. In fact, they have only abused the name of the religion but mostly follow self-created beliefs and rituals. They believe, for instance, that W.D. Fard was Allah (GOD) incarnated, and Elijah Muhammad was his Prophet. Orthodox Muslims consider these beliefs to be absolutely heretical. Some Middle Eastern states, however, considered them Muslims in the past and provided funds to supplement their da’wa—invite others to the hear the message of Islam--efforts in the United States. After the death of Elijah Muhammad in 1975, his son and successor, Wallace Deen Muhammad, renounced his religious teachings and embraced Sunni Islam. Lincoln has documented this transition in detail.
This study raises many questions about Islam, black Muslims and blacks. One is forced to contemplate the simmering resentment of blacks against whites and the final outcome of the conflict. One wonders about a nation that firmly believes in “equality and justice for all” and “all men have been created equal,” but still practices open institutionalized racism. The United States is a land of contradictions, and Nation of Islam also has many conceptual contradictions. They both, somehow, manage to convince people to believe in them.
Dr. Shahid Sheikh is executive director of American Research Institute (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ariusa). He reviews books written about Muslim-Americans. He can be reached at aeriusa@hotmail.com.
Product Details:
ISBN: 0-8028-0703-8
Format: Paperback, 288 pp
Pub. Date: 1961, 1973, 1994
Publisher: Africa World Press, 15 Industry Court, Trenton, NJ 08638
Price: $30.00
December 7, 2004
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