Tag: nation of islam

Culture by Don Moss
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Black Muslim women covered in white dresses in the Nation of Islam, in an orange-tinted sepia tone, with the text: "Islam vs. Islam*".

CONTRASTS: Nation of Islam vs. Authentic Islam

In a letter published in the New York Times, February 15, 1965, Malcolm X wrote that when he returned from his experience of the Hajj and visiting several African countries he intended to expose Elijah Muhammad as a “religious faker.” He blamed himself for his own “evangelistic zeal.” He stated: “I totally reject Elijah Muhammad’s racist philosophy which he has labeled Islam only to fool and misuse gullible people….”

Though Malcolm says he left the NOI, he took on the name, Malik el-Shabbaz. The name Shabbaz comes from an alleged ancient black tribe, from 60 trillion years ago, as Elijah Muhammad (totally free with numbers) mythologized, when its leader, Shabbaz, moved the tribe to Africa to toughen them up, during which time, and in part, one assumes, of his quest to toughen them up, their hair became tightly curly, not straight as was claimed of all blacks up to that time. Malcolm chose the name Shabbaz to associate, even claim himself part of this royal ancient ancestry.

“[Malcolm] increasingly feels restricted by the narrow, rigid, conservative philosophy and practices of the Nation of Islam that do not allow him to engage and become a leader in the larger civil rights and human rights movement. … [And] he never endorses but rejects King’s absolute commitment to nonviolence and upholds a philosophy of “by any means necessary.” […]

Poetry by Dan Schneider
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An early photo of Malcolm X during his "Detroit Red" years of gangsterism, as captured by Dan Schneider's classic poem on Malcolm X.

BIG RED: A Triptych (Poetry on Malcolm X)

“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.”
– Frederick Douglass

“You are a glass that I have paid to shatter
and I swallow the pieces down with my spit.”
– Buying The Whore, Anne Sexton

THE ARGUMENT: In 1945 a two-bit hustler named Malcolm Little ruled the Harlem night. Born on May 19th, 1925 to the Reverend Earl Little and his wife, Louise, Malcolm had a childhood fraught with temptation and danger. Taking a cue from the Romans, he became their greatest advocate.

“Hey baby, the word is this:
You can do it or you can not do it;
that’s the choice- it’s like some cat
who comes dicin’ for some reefer without any stash.
I say ‘It’s copacetic, my brother.’
BUT he knows he’ll hafta pay….
someday. […]