After the Water: a study pack

Part two: the handout

VI. After the Water

Slavery ended, and the faith the African Muslims carried lived on mostly as memory. In the twentieth century Islam came back to Black America by several roads, not all of them leading to the same place. One ends at a masjid in Fayetteville that carries Omar ibn Said’s name.

The story in brief

1. After slavery ended in 1865, the faith of the African Muslims lived on mostly as memory, like the saraka cakes Sapelo Islanders remembered.
2. Satti Majid, a Sudanese scholar who had memorized the Quran, seems to have reached America in 1904. In 1929 he sailed for Egypt to put Noble Drew Ali’s book before the scholars of al-Azhar.
3. Noble Drew Ali, born in North Carolina in 1886, founded the Moorish Science Temple. In 1927 he gave his followers a book he called The Holy Koran. It was not the Quran.
4. In Detroit in 1930, Wallace Fard began the movement that became the Nation of Islam. Elijah Muhammad led it from 1934 to 1975. It taught that Fard was divine, which set it apart from Islam as Muslims everywhere else understood it.
5. Malcolm X, the Nation’s most effective minister, broke with it in 1964, made the pilgrimage to Makkah, traveled through Africa and came home as el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz.
6. In 1975 W. Deen Mohammed turned the community toward Sunni Islam and renamed its newspaper Bilalian News, after Bilal ibn Rabah.
7. In 1991 a masjid in Fayetteville, North Carolina, was renamed for Omar ibn Said. In 2010 the state set his marker at the edge of its lawn.

Dates

• About 1904Satti Majid, a Sudanese scholar from Dongola, seems to reach the United States.
• 1913Noble Drew Ali opens his first temple in Newark, New Jersey.
• 1927Noble Drew Ali gives the Moorish Science Temple of America a Holy Koran of his own.
• 1929Satti Majid sails from New York to put the book before the scholars of al-Azhar. Noble Drew Ali dies.
• 1930Wallace Fard begins preaching in Detroit. The Nation of Islam dates its founding to this year.
• 1934Fard disappears, and Elijah Muhammad takes his place.
• 1964Malcolm X leaves the Nation of Islam, makes the pilgrimage to Makkah and travels through Africa. He comes home as el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz.
• 1965Malcolm X is killed in New York. A new immigration law overhauls the old quota system.
• 1975Elijah Muhammad dies. His son, later W. Deen Mohammed, turns the community toward Sunni Islam, and Muhammad Speaks becomes Bilalian News.
• 1980sShaykh Hassan Cisse opens a Quran school in Senegal for Black American children, the African American Islamic Institute.
• 1991A masjid in Fayetteville, North Carolina, is renamed for Omar ibn Said.
• 1992W. Deen Mohammed becomes the first Muslim to deliver an invocation in the United States Senate.
• 2010North Carolina sets its historical marker for Omar ibn Said at the edge of the masjid’s lawn in Fayetteville.
• 2017A Pew survey finds that Black Americans are about a fifth of the country’s Muslims.

People

• Satti Majid 1883 to 1963A Sudanese scholar who memorized the Quran as a boy and seems to have reached America in 1904. He founded Muslim societies, one of them in Pittsburgh, and in 1929 sailed for Egypt to put the Moorish Science Temple’s book before the scholars of al-Azhar.
• Malcolm X, el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz 1925 to 1965The Nation of Islam’s most effective minister. In 1964 he broke with it, made the pilgrimage to Makkah, traveled through Africa, and came home with a new name and the Islam practiced outside the Nation.
• W. Deen Mohammed 1933 to 2008Son of Elijah Muhammad. After his father died in 1975 he turned the community toward Sunni Islam, renamed its newspaper for Bilal ibn Rabah, and in 1992 became the first Muslim to deliver an invocation in the United States Senate.

Words to know

Sunni

The largest tradition in Islam, followed by most Muslims in the world.

Seal of the prophets

What the Quran, at 33:40, calls the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. Muslims understand it to mean that no prophet comes after him.

Hajj

The pilgrimage to Makkah, one of the five pillars of Islam. Malcolm X made it in April 1964.

Fatwa

A formal answer from a scholar of Islamic law to a question put to him. Satti Majid asked the scholars of al-Azhar for one about Noble Drew Ali’s book.

Imam

The one who leads the prayer, and often the leader of a congregation. In 1975 the Nation’s ministers became imams.

Bilalian

From Bilal ibn Rabah, the first to call the adhan. In 1975 the newspaper Muhammad Speaks was renamed Bilalian News.

Read together

Talk about it

1. Clara Muhammad remembered a friend saying, “We were not Christians. We were Muslims.” Why might that idea have mattered so much to people a few generations out of slavery?See: What was remembered
2. Satti Majid crossed an ocean to ask scholars about a book. What does it tell you about him that he went to al-Azhar for an answer?See: A shaykh from Dongola
3. The chapter says the early Nation of Islam taught things outside Islam, and also that it gave its members much that they valued. Can both be true? How do you talk about that with respect?See: The Nation
4. Malcolm X said the sight of Muslims of every color praying together changed what he believed. Read Quran 49:13 together. What does it say about why people differ?See: Malcolm’s pilgrimage
5. W. Deen Mohammed named the newspaper after Bilal. Why choose Bilal, of all the companions?See: Bilal’s name
6. A masjid in Fayetteville carries Omar ibn Said’s name. Why do people name a house of prayer after someone who came before them?See: Back on Murchison Road

Try this

1. Find the roads on the map. On the atlas, choose the United States view and find New York, Detroit, Chicago and Fayetteville. Then choose Africa and Arabia and find Old Dongola and Makkah. Trace this chapter’s journeys between them.
2. Read a front page. Read Ellen McLarney’s description of the Muhammad Speaks issue of October 24, 1975, from the Duke Islamic Studies Center, listed in the chapter’s sources. What changed on the page, and what stayed?
3. Hear the adhan. Listen to the call to prayer together, then read Sahih al-Bukhari 604 on how Bilal came to call it. Talk about why a newspaper took his name more than thirteen centuries later.
4. Plan a visit. Masjid Omar Ibn Sayyid is at 2700 Murchison Road in Fayetteville, and the state marker for Omar stands at the edge of its lawn. The Carolina trail page has what to know before you go. Call ahead to pray there outside the Friday prayer, and go as a guest.

On the atlas: New York Detroit Chicago Old Dongola Makkah Senegambia Fayetteville

Check yourself

1. Where was Satti Majid from, and what did he ask the scholars of al-Azhar about?
2. In what year, and in which city, did Wallace Fard begin the Nation of Islam?
3. By his own report, what changed Malcolm X’s mind during his pilgrimage in 1964?
4. What name did Malcolm X come home with?
5. In 1975, what did W. Deen Mohammed rename Muhammad Speaks, and after whom?
6. What did W. Deen Mohammed do in the United States Senate in 1992?
7. In what year was the Fayetteville masjid renamed for Omar ibn Said?

From The First Refuge, ferrand.africa/teach/after-the-water/. Free to print and copy for teaching.