Metaphysical Africa

AFRICANA RELIGIONS
Edited by
Sylvester A. Johnson, Virginia Tech

Advisory Board:
Afe Adogame, Princeton Theological Seminary
Sylviane Diouf, Historian of the African Diaspora
Paul C. Johnson, University of Michigan
Elizabeth Pérez, University of California, Santa Barbara
Elisha P. Renne, University of Michigan
Judith Weisenfeld, Princeton University

Adopting a global vision for the study of Black religions, the

Africana Religions book series explores the rich diversity of reli-
gious history and life among African and African-descended
people. It publishes research on African-derived religions of
Orisha devotion, Christianity, Islam, and other religious tradi-
tions that are part of the Africana world. The series emphasizes
the translocal nature of Africana religions across national,
regional, and hemispheric boundaries.
Metaphysical Africa
Truth and Blackness in the Ansaru Allah Community

Michael Muhammad Knight

The Pennsylvania State University Press

University Park, Pennsylvania
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Knight, Michael Muhammad, author.

Title: Metaphysical Africa : truth and blackness in the Ansaru
Allah Community / Michael Muhammad Knight.
Other titles: Africana religions.
Description: University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylva-
nia State University Press, [2020] | Series: Africana religions |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary: “Describes the Ansaru Allah Community/Nubian
Islamic Hebrews (AAC/NIH), a 1970s religious movement
in Brooklyn that spread, in part, through the production and
dissemination of literature and lecture tapes. Tracks the devel-
opment of AAC/NIH discourse to reveal surprising consistency
and coherence behind the appearance of serial reinvention”—
Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020033926 | ISBN 9780271087092 (cloth)
Subjects: LCSH: York, Dwight, 1935- | Nubian Islamic
Hebrews—History. | Nuwaubian movement—United States—
History. | African Americans—Religion.
Classification: LCC BP605.N89 K58 2020 | DDC 297.8/6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033926
Copyright © 2020 Michael Muhammad Knight
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,
University Park, PA 16802–1003

The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the

Association of University Presses.

It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to

use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy
the minimum requirements of American National Standard
for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Material, ansi z39.48–1992.
To Jibreel, from Azreal
 Contents

Acknowledgments ix

List of Illustrations xi

Introduction: “The Most Dynamic Pamphlets in

History” 1

1 | “I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave”: The Nubian Ahl

al-Bayt, Sudanese Mahdiyya, and Global Blackness
as Islamic Revival 28

2 | Heralds of the Reformer: Visions of Blackamerican

Muslim History 75

3 | “The Covenant Is Complete in Me”: Nubian

Islamic Hebraism and the Religion of Abraham 113

4 | Between Zion and Mecca: Bilal as Islamic and

Hebrew 135

5 | The Sudan Is the Heart Chakra: The AAC/NIH as

Sufi Tariqa 147

6 | Islam Is Hotep: Ansar Egyptosophy 167

7 | The Pyramidal Kaʿba: Malachi Z. York and the

Nuwaubian Turn 187

8 | Nuwaubian Ether: Ansar Legacies in Hip-Hop 221

Coda: The View from Illyuwn 237

Notes 245
Bibliography 260
Index 276
Acknowledgments

First, this project would never have manifested without Sadaf. Beyond the
ways that Sadaf makes every project possible, perhaps especially this one, she
also endured this book’s added burden of numerous cardboard boxes marked
“nuwaubian,” which claimed an increasing amount of space in our home.
Juliane Hammer’s formative presence in my work and the significance
of her mentorship and friendship cannot be overstated. My thinking about
American Islam and Islamic studies has also been informed by the guidance
of Carl Ernst and Omid Safi. My sense of the AAC/NIH’s globalizing imagi-
nary and the place of the Sudan in its narratives was particularly enhanced by
numerous conversations with Cemil Aydin regarding transnational Muslim
networks. Ali Asani was instrumental in helping me think about Islam in terms
of its diverse local expressions. Laury Silvers introduced me to the field and
to a world of possibilities for my work that I could never have accessed other-
wise. I am grateful for my mentors and hope that this work reflects the best of
what they gave me.
A version of my presentation on AAC/NIH Sufism received editorial
attention from Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, and her careful reading and insight-
ful notes sharpened my discussion not only in the piece she read but in this
book at large.
This book is much stronger than it would have been if it had entered the
world without first passing through the gates of three insightful and rigorous
anonymous reviewers. Their careful reading and valuable suggestions made a
substantial impact on the work.
Pat Bowen is a remarkably generous scholar with a truly collaborative
spirit, and this project was enhanced by his eagerness to share resources. Like-
wise, Paul Greenhouse graciously shared material and insights from his years
of documentary fieldwork with the community to inform my analysis. I am so
appreciative of how they model mutually supportive scholarship. My sincere
thanks to those invaluable conversation partners who have left their marks
on this work, including Zaheer Ali, Kate Merriman, Megan Goodwin, Atiya
Husain, Matthew Hotham, and Samah Choudhury.
 This project began with energetic encouragement and support from
Edward E. Curtis IV and Sylvester Johnson, for which I cannot adequately
thank them. Penn State University Press has been a supportive and encour-
aging publisher, and I owe gratitude to everyone there who worked to bring
this book into the world, particularly Patrick Alexander, Alex Vose, and Laura
Reed-Morrisson. Suzanne Wolk’s editorial precision was a savior for the manu-
script’s execution as a book.
This was the last project that Allison Cohen negotiated for me before part-
ing with Gersh Agency for life on the editorial side. Allison is a superstar agent
and brilliant editor, and I hope that we work together again.
Peace to my colleagues, students, and friends at the University of Central
Florida.
As always, everything that I do exhibits my debt to my mother.

x ◆ Acknowledgments
Illustrations

1. AAC/NIH poster, ca. 1980 2 Sudan in the 1970s. From Ansaru

Allah Community, Are the Ansars
2. AAC/NIH pamphlet, ca. 1980 3
(in the West) a Self-Made Sect?
3. Advertisement for public classes, (n.d.), 7 67
1987 5
12. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, About the
4. Advertisement for the Upper Raatib (1987), front cover 68
Room, ca. 1972 46
13. Silsilati: My Lineage. From Al Haadi
5. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Hadrat Faati- Al Mahdi, The Book of the Five
mah (AS): The Daughter of the Percenters (1991), 379 68
Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Part
14. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Why the Nose-
2 (1988), front cover 54
ring? (1986), front cover 71
6. The Ahl al-Bayt: ‘Ali, Fatima, and
15. “An understanding that very few
their sons, Hasan and Husayn.
understand.” From Ansaru Allah
From Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Hadrat
Community, Id with the Ansars
Faatimah (AS): The Daughter of the
(1977), front cover 81
Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Part
2 (1988), 53 55 16. Advertisement for Al Mahdi, The
Book of Lamb (1979) 88
7. The Prophet Muhammad Leaving
Medina for Mecca, AAC/NIH 17. Advertisement for Al Haadi Al
poster, ca. 1988 55 Mahdi, Who Was Noble Drew
Ali? (1988) and Who Was Marcus
8. Hadrat Faatimah (AS) Pleads
Garvey? (1988) 98
for Her Land. From Al Haadi Al
Mahdi, Hadrat Faatimah (AS): The 18. AAC/NIH portrait of Allah
Daughter of the Prophet Muhammad (“Messenger Clarence 13X”). From
(PBUH), Part 2 (1988), 112 56 Al Haadi Al Mahdi, The Book of the
Five Percenters (1991), 37 108
9. Ansaru Allah Community, The Final
Link (1978) 65 19. “We Are Family: The Nubian
Nation,” AAC/NIH poster, ca.
10. Ansaru Allah Community, Sayyid
1990 112
Saadik Al Mahdi Visits the Ansaars
in America 1981 (1981) 67 20. “Peace in the Lamb,” AAC/NIH
poster, ca. 1992 115
11. Al Mahdi with Sadiq al-Mahdi
during Al Mahdi’s travels in the
21. The AAC/NIH six-pointed star and of the Dead): Coming Forth by Day
crescent. From Al Haadi Al Mahdi, (1990s) 209
Gospel of Barnabas, Book Two
33. Dr. York publicity photo, 1986 223
(1984) 118
34. Dr. York, “You Can’t Hide,” twelve-
22. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Should Muslims
inch vinyl (1986) 223
Observe the Sabbath? (1985), front
cover 124 35. Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul-
sonic Force, Return to Planet Rock
23. “As Sayyid Al Imaam Isa Al Haadi
(1989) 234
Al Mahdi,” AAC/NIH poster, ca.
1988 128 36. El Maguraj, Nuwaubian pilgrimage
manual, 1990s 239
24. Tents of Nubia, The Truth, Edition
16: Muhammad Was a Hebrew 37. Extraterrestrial wearing Ancient
(1993) 133 and Mystic Order of Melchizedek
fez. From Holy Tabernacle Min-
25. Al Mahdi holding his Mihjan staff,
istries, Savior’s Day 1996: Man of
as displayed on the inside cover of
Many Faces Brings Us One Message
many AAC/NIH publications is.
(1996) 241
From Al Haadi Al Mahdi, The Book
of the Five Percenters (1991), inside
front cover 145
26. Advertisement for the Sons of the
Green Light, 1985 164
27. Al Mahdi, Eternal Life After Death
(1977), front cover 175
28. Ansaru Allah Community, Al
Imaam Isa Visits Egypt 1981 (1981),
front cover 179
29. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Gospel of
John, Chapter One (1984), front
cover 184
30. “The Savior,” Dr. Malachi Z. York,
1993 194
31. York as Chief Black Eagle, head of
the Yamassee Nation. From York-El,
The Constitution of U.N.N.M.: “The
United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors”
(1992) 201
32. Pharaoh Akhenaten. From York,
El Katub Shil el Mawut (The Book

xii ◆ Illustrations
Introduction
“The Most Dynamic Pamphlets in History”

Many experienced their first glimpse of the imam via a poster that appeared on
subway station walls around the turn of the 1980s. He stands in a white robe
and turban, his hands open in invitation. His forehead bears the bruise associ-
ated with frequent sujdah (prostration); his upper left cheek bears three parallel
scars, his tribal marks. His body is framed by two territories—a red outline
of the United States, captioned “west,” and a green outline of Africa, marked
“east”—and a variant of the Prophet Muhammad’s seal, reading la ilaha illa
Allah (there is no god but Allah). Above his head, in elegant Arabic calligra-
phy, we find bismillahir rahmanir rahim (in the Name of Allah, Most Gracious,
Most Merciful); at his feet, the caption al-Mukhlas, rendered in Arabic with
the English translation “The Purifier.”
“now!!!” the poster commands, “receive the answers to life-long
questions!!!” Promising “the most dynamic pamphlets in history,” the poster
offers a list of 116 publications. Scanning the titles, a reader might recognize
some as anchored in Islam: Ninety-Nine Plus One Names of Allah; Why Allah
Should Not Be Called God; Why the Veil?; Why the Beard?; Fast of Ramadaan;
Series of Hadith; Bilal; Qurʾan Arabic Lesson One. Other titles seem to express
a Christian orientation (Christ Is the Answer; Understanding the Book of Reve-
lation; Opening of the Seventh Seal; Leviathan: 666) or a commitment to the
recovery of African heritage (Yoruba; Great African Kings; Ancient Egypt and
the Pharaohs; Science of the Pyramids; Tribal Encyclopedia). Still others suggest
an interest in various “metaphysical” traditions commonly grouped together
Figure 1 AAC/NIH poster, ca. 1980.

as “New Age” (What’s Your Astrology Sign Brother?; Science of Healing; The Lost
Children of Mu and Atlantis). At the bottom right corner, the poster invites its
reader to visit the Ansaru Allah Community at its flagship location on Brook-
lyn’s Bushwick Avenue: “do it now! time is running out!” (fig. 1).
Throughout cities in the northeastern United States, the Ansar became a
well-known presence through male members’ soliciting donations and peddling
literature while dressed in their white turbans and robes (fig. 2). Community
members even became visible on MTV, appearing in the videos of affili-
ated artists such as KMD and The Jaz (featuring a very young Jay-Z, whose
lyrics reference Ansar concepts). Throughout the 1980s, the Ansar remained
a compelling presence in the heartlands of Black Islam, particularly cities of
the northeastern United States.1

2 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
Figure 2 Al Imam Isa Visits the City of Brotherly Love (Philadelphia), ca. 1980.

Introduction ◆ 3
 In the early 1990s, the community relocated from Brooklyn to a commune
in the Catskills, and in 1993 it migrated to a 476-acre property in rural Georgia.
The latter move accompanied an apparent self-reinvention using a bricolage
of materials that included contemporary UFO-centered religions, Freema-
sonry, New Age modes of mysticism and healing, and traditions of ancient
Egypt and Mesopotamia. Popularly known as Nuwaubians, the community
members now regarded their leader as a visitor from the planet Rizq, in the
nineteenth galaxy, Illyuwn. For outside observers, the community’s defini-
tive features would become its eclectic references and seemingly incoherent
self-identification, as it followed its leader in and out of various affiliations,
faith convictions, codes of dress, and ritual practices in accordance with his
whims.
In 2002, the man from the poster having been taken into police custody, a
force of three hundred FBI, ATF, and local law enforcement personnel stormed
the community’s land with armored trucks and helicopters, seizing weap-
ons and cash and taking control of the property. Media coverage of the event
marveled at the commune’s unique architecture (including a black pyramid
with gold trim seemingly styled after the Kaʿba in Mecca), and at the communi-
ty’s interest in pharaonic Egypt and belief that its leader was an extraterrestrial.
As of this writing, the man from the poster, a convicted sexual predator in his
seventies, is serving a sentence of more than one hundred years at the ADMAX
facility in Florence, Colorado.
This book examines the public discourse of a community that has defied
easy categorization, in part because both the community and its leader appear
to have undergone numerous intellectual and aesthetic makeovers since its
origins at the end of the 1960s. Self-identified through the 1970s and ’80s as
the Ansaru Allah Community (AAC) and/or the Nubian Islamic Hebrews
(NIH), the community provoked questions of religious categorization and
the modes through which its boundaries are constructed, in both popular and
academic contexts (fig. 3). What exactly did it mean to be an “Islamic Hebrew”?
Were members of the community Muslim or Jewish? Did they blend differ-
ent religious traditions in a new mash-up all their own? When they changed
their community’s name and dress codes, did they also switch religions? How
did the community make sense of these changes? And how were categories of
“Islam” and “Judaism” affected by the community’s interest in the themes of
ancient Egypt and UFO religion?

4 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
Figure 3 Advertisement for public classes, 1987.

Introduction ◆ 5
Metaphysical Africa

Scholarship on the AAC/NIH begins with a sectarian polemic. The main

secondary source on the community in the 1980s, Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips’s
The Ansar Cult in America (1988), was published by Riyadh-based Tawheed
Publications with the stated intention of exposing Al Hajj Imam Isa Al Haadi
Al Mahdi—the man from the poster—as a heretical charlatan who had trans-
gressed the boundaries of Islam. The tract includes remarks on an earlier draft
from Saudi Arabia’s Presidency of Islamic Research, Ifta and Propagation, which
offers suggestions on how to better clarify the AAC/NIH’s “falsehood, shame-
fulness, and remoteness from the correct path”; Philips comments that the
finished volume represents his fulfillment of that mandate.2 The book’s intro-
duction, by Ahmad Muhammad Ahmad Jalli, associate professor of Islamic
theology at King Saud University, places the AAC/NIH within what Jalli terms
the “Baatinite (esoteric) movement,” a phenomenon that he defines as includ-
ing all of Shi’ism, along with the Druze, Baha’ism, the Ahmadiyya, and other
traditions. This apparently monolithic “Baatinite movement,” Jalli says, has
“attempted to destroy the Islamic faith and lead a revolt against the teachings
of Islamic law by employing free interpretations of the religious texts, claim-
ing that all texts have an outer obvious meaning known only to the masses and
an inner hidden meaning known only to a select few initiates.” Such groups,
he warns, “wear the cloak of Islaam while striving to destroy it from within.”3
Relying on post-1975 media and interviews with estranged former members,
Philips divides AAC/NIH history into four stages of development: “Foun-
dation,” “Mahdism,” “The Christ” (in which Al Mahdi identifies himself as
the returning Jesus), and finally “God Incarnate” (in which Al Mahdi exploits
Sufism’s “mystical short-cuts” and the “aberrant philosophy” of medieval Anda-
lusian master Ibn al-ʿArabi for his own gain).4
Philips’s division of AAC/NIH history into clear “stages,” each marked by
clear doctrinal shifts, name changes, and redesigned symbols and uniforms,
became the standard narrative by which the community would be understood,
perhaps informing even its own narratives. Scholarly treatments have defined
the community as marked by constant change, serial mass conversions, and
abrupt pivots between identities. These accounts, however, disagree with one
another as to the community’s precise trajectory. Among claims found in
academic literature, we read that the AAC/NIH started as a Jewish group and
later became Muslim;5 started as a Muslim group and later became Jewish;6
“began to sound more specifically Islamic” after 1973, its leader claiming descent

6 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
from the Prophet in 1988;7 started as a spinoff from the Nation of Islam but
later abandoned racialist doctrines to become Qurʾan-centered “fundamental-
ists”;8 developed unique doctrines to compete with “orthodox” Muslims and
then became more Bible-centered;9 sought greater conformity with “ortho-
dox” Muslims by the start of the 1990s;10 grew open to reform in the 1980s with
input from the Sudanese Mahdiyya but ignored Mahdiyya objections to its
Bible usage;11 broke ties with the Sudanese Mahdiyya in 1980;12 and ultimately
reoriented itself around Christ’s imminent return.13 Rather than attempt to sort
this out with a comprehensive engagement of the community’s immense liter-
ary output over time, scholarship has taken it for granted that the community
has no interest in making sense to itself or outsiders. As NRM (New Religious
Movement) studies supplanted Islamic studies as the primary academic field
giving attention to the AAC/NIH, the community began to be treated as a
movement of esotericist deconstruction, led by a gnostic trickster for whom
instability, self-contradiction, and doctrinal incoherence serve as teaching
exercises.14
This book takes a different approach. Examining decades’ worth of AAC/
NIH books, pamphlets, newsletters, and lecture tapes, it tells a story not only
of transformations but also of continuities. I resist assumptions that the move-
ment pinballed at random between categories of “Islam,” “Judaism,” “New Age,”
“UFO religion,” and “Egyptian religion.” Instead of emphasizing serial reinven-
tion, the following discussion examines rhetorical threads through which the
community maintains its sense of coherence.
Specifically, this book engages the Ansaru Allah Community/Nubian
Islamic Hebrews with an interest in the movement’s vision of “metaphysical
Africa.” I owe the term to Catherine Albanese’s “metaphysical Asia,” which
she employs in A Republic of Mind and Spirit to describe the ways in which
Americans reinvented Asia “according to their Americanized metaphysical
categories.”15 Metaphysical Asia signifies the reconstruction of essentialized
“Eastern spirituality” under an American metaphysical rubric that features
themes of mental powers, energy, healing, and the mind-body relationship,
and includes not only practices of meditation and physical wellness but also
traditions popularly termed “magical” or “occult.” Finally, the concept of meta-
physical Asia speaks to the ways in which an interest in “Eastern spirituality”
engages “world religions” such as Hinduism and Buddhism while potentially
rewriting them in American conceptual vocabularies.
American metaphysical religion, while marked by claims of “universal”
wisdom and spirituality, often expresses the governing prejudices of its mostly

Introduction ◆ 7
white advocates. Among the traditions that typically undergo appropriation
under the “New Age” rubric—Hinduism and yoga, Tibetan Buddhism, Zen,
indigenous American religions, Amazonian shamanism, Taoism, Christian
gnosticisms, Jewish Kabbalah—we do not typically encounter traditions of
Africa (apart from pharaonic Egypt). Nor does the New Age pool of resources
typically include Islam, beyond a particular construction of Sufism that imag-
ines Sufi traditions and figures such as Rumi as separate from Islam.16
Parallel to the white intellectual traditions covered in Albanese’s account,
there were also African American esoteric traditions that often resonated with
white esotericisms and white imaginaries of a vast, undifferentiated “Orient”
but sometimes differed in their resources. Susan Palmer, author of a monograph
on the Nuwaubians, observes that what she calls the “black cultic milieu” is
essentially unknown to “white New Agers.”17 In contrast to white practitioners,
Black metaphysical religionists have often claimed timeless and universal spiri-
tual truths in ways that prioritized Africa (not only Egypt) and Islam (not only
Sufism) as their centers. In the early twentieth century, the Great Migration of
African Americans from the rural south into northern cities provoked trans-
formations of African-derived hoodoo tradition, characterized by increasing
commercialization in a metaphysical marketplace of mail-order companies and
individual practitioners advertising goods and services in Black newspapers.
Practitioners claiming titles such as “African scientist,” “Mohammedan scien-
tist,” “Mohammedan Master of Stricter African Science,” and “Arabian Mystic
Seer and Master of the Ancient Mysteries,” and claiming origins in Nigeria,
Zulu South Africa, and the Sudan advertised their expertise to serve clients’
medical, spiritual, and magical needs.18 These Africa-centering practitioners
did not exist in a separate universe from Black religious thought and liberation
struggles. The patron of occult “African science” could also have an interest in
the glories of ancient Black civilizations, the true place of Black people in the
Bible, the Egyptian and Ethiopian origins of Freemasonry, Black liberation in
the United States, and anticolonial movements across the globe. The question
of Jesus Christ’s true race, esoteric reinterpretations of Christ’s divinity and
recovery of his “lost years” spent undergoing initiation in Egypt and India,
the lost “Oriental” powers of occult African, “Mohammedan,” and “Hindoo”
sciences, and resistance against both domestic and worldwide white suprem-
acy do not need to be compartmentalized into distinct “religious,” “magical,”
and “political” dimensions. These concerns often occupied the same spaces
and compelled the same thinkers.

8 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
 Across the twentieth century, metaphysical Africa developed as a tradi-
tion of sacred geographies and enchanted genealogies, affirming Blackness as a
unique spiritual gift and destiny. Melanin theorists argued that thanks to greater
melanin concentrations in the pineal gland, Black people were naturally inclined
toward greater mental, emotional, and physical wellness, extraordinary phil-
osophical insight, sensitivity to other humans’ magnetic fields, and the ability
to access information from unexpected places—as in Frances Cress Welsing’s
claim that George Washington Carver obtained his botanical knowledge from
the plants themselves, as they “talked to his melanin.” In Afrocentric thought,
melanin theory sometimes serves as a counter to “ancient aliens” narratives
that reduce human agency and attribute marvels of the ancient world to extra-
terrestrial intervention. While white occult writer Robert K. G. Temple argued
that the Dogon tribe in Mali possessed advanced knowledge of the star Sirius
B that could only be attributed to the tribe’s tutelage under extraterrestrial
teachers, Welsing suggested that the Dogon achieved this knowledge inde-
pendently through their extrasensory intuition, a power credited to superior
pineal glands.19
This “metaphysical Africa” can also include Egyptocentrism, the identifi-
cation of pharaonic Egypt with Black Africanity, particularly the construction
of biological, historical, and spiritual or philosophical linkages between phar-
aonic Egypt and African diasporas in the Americas.20 Egyptocentrism (and
Egyptosophy, a romanticization of ancient Egypt as the original source of all
esoteric and/or occult knowledge)21 has become a prominent dimension of
Afrocentrist thought, though Afrocentrism and Egyptocentrism should not be
conflated and sometimes even appear in tension with each other. Some Afro-
centrists prefer the wisdom traditions of Yoruba over those of the pharaohs,
or identify with enslaved Hebrews rather than with their Egyptian oppres-
sors.22 The African Hebrew Israelite community founded by Ben Ammi in the
1960s, to take just one sample from a diverse pool of Black Hebrew traditions,
identifies Israel as “northeast Africa.”23 Other seekers of metaphysical Africa,
envisioning the entire continent as a singular cultural entity, conceive of a
comprehensive “African spirituality” that includes Yoruba and Kemetism, as
well as the African roots of “Abrahamic” religions. Advocates of African spir-
itualities might assert that the West has unfairly misrepresented indigenous
traditions of Egyptian neteru and Yoruba orishas as polytheistic, or instead
defend polytheism against Western monotheist hegemony; these claims can
also appear in the same argument.24

Introduction ◆ 9
 Islam entered into this matrix through various portals: occult practi-
tioners who envisioned Africa as a land of magical, mysterious “Mohammedan
science”; Masonic orders’ appropriations of Islam to evoke a “mystic Orient”;25
non-Muslim writers such as J. A. Rogers and Edward Blyden, who praised
the “Muslim world” as a realm of greater egalitarianism and historical Black
glory; transnational Ahmadiyya networks and other Muslim diasporas; and
what Cemil Aydin terms a “Third World internationalism” characterized by
interactions between anticolonial, pan-Islamist, and pan-Asianist movements
throughout the world. Aydin points to the encounter in London between Carib-
bean pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey and Sudanese-Egyptian pan-Islamist Duse
Mohamed Ali, and their continued collaboration when Ali visited Garvey in
the United States.26 American visions of Islam as innately connected to Black-
ness did not develop from one singular root, but rather from a multiplicity
of entangled genealogies. In Duse Mohamed Ali’s African Times and Orient
Review, we find writings by Muslim religious reformers, pan-Africanists, and
pan-Asianists, but also by theosophists such as Annie Besant, whom the jour-
nal praised as “among the first rank of sane thinkers.”27
Muslim movements such as the Moorish Science Temple and the Nation
of Islam emerged from this context of polyculturalism, transnational connec-
tions, and creative activity. Noble Drew Ali engaged New Thought narratives
of Jesus as an initiate of mystery schools, composed his Holy Koran by appro-
priating metaphysical texts such as Levi H. Dowling’s Aquarian Gospel of Jesus
the Christ, and claimed mystical initiation at the Pyramid of Cheops. As an
Islamic prophet, he taught African Americans that they were not “Negroes” but
rather Moors and “Moslems,” and that he was divinely chosen to restore their
lost nationality and religion. A close read of the Supreme Wisdom Lessons, the
teachings of Nation of Islam founder Master Fard Muhammad and his student
successor, Elijah Muhammad, reveals metaphysical webs in which the Nation
developed, engaging popular imaginaries of Moses as a master occultist and
Jesus as a mystery school initiate, as well as New Age discourses on the power
of the mind, magnetic attraction, and godhood as realization of one’s inner
nature.28 The Lessons did not present their knowledge as new or historically
specific, but rather as the timeless truth of a primordial, self-created Black Man
who was a “righteous Muslim” by his very nature.
Elijah Muhammad’s vision of Islam informed his vision of Blackness. As
Edward E. Curtis IV has observed, the Nation “constructed black identity
in terms of a shared history that was defined by its Islamic character.”29 This
construction both opened and limited the Nation’s encounter with African

10 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
cultures and spiritualities. While Elijah Muhammad conceptualized Blackness
as eternal and divine, he was by no means an Afrocentrist. Elijah recognized
pharaonic Egypt as a Black achievement, but his ideas about non-Muslim
African cultures also upheld white supremacist tropes. Elijah’s “Asiatic” Black-
ness was definitively not African; while Ben Ammi reconceptualized Israel
as “northeast Africa,” Elijah redefined the African continent as “East Asia.”
The Messenger spoke disparagingly of non-Muslim African cultures and
condemned the “savage dress and hair-styles” of African cultural revivalism
in the 1960s, lamenting that many Black people in America, seeking the “love
of Black Africa,” had embraced “the jungle life.”30
The Nation’s aspirations toward globalized Muslim “orthodoxy” after Elijah
Muhammad’s death in 1975, coupled with immigration reform that radically
changed American Muslim demographics, altered the relation between Islam
and Blackness. In the later twentieth century, numerous Afrocentrist intel-
lectuals viewed Islam as an alien culture of Arab supremacy that had only
entered Africa via invasion and slavery. Afrocentrists subjected Islam to the
same critiques with which the Nation had denounced Christianity, present-
ing Islam as non-Black and even as a force of anti-Blackness. In what Sherman
Jackson has termed “Black Orientalism,” conversion to Islam lost much of
its capital as a performance of Black “racial/cultural ‘orthodoxy,’” becoming
repositioned as an embrace of Arab and South Asian cultures and even as a
rejection of Blackness. When “Blackamerican Muslims began to show signs
of being culturally and intellectually overrun by immigrants,” Jackson writes,
“they began to draw the charge of cultural apostasy.”31 For many who sought
to recover an indigenous African spirituality, Islam became untenable.
While some Afrocentrists treated Islam as inauthentically African, many
Muslim communities also treated Black African cultures as illegitimate expe-
riences of Islam. Writing on troubled histories between Black and Muslim
identities, Su’ad Abdul Khabeer argues that amid “chronic disavowal” of Black-
ness in Muslim communities, “American Muslims, Blacks and non-Blacks,
rarely think of Africa as an archive for Islamic authenticity and authority,” and
“Africa (save Egypt, Morocco, and Mauritania) has been effectively erased
from the Islamic tradition.”32 As scholarly networks associated with the Salafi-
yya movement came to represent a dominant school of thought in Black Sunni
communities, particularly in cities of the northeastern United States, numer-
ous Black converts traveled to Saudi Arabia for religious training and returned
home as authoritative community leaders. In the 1980s, the Saudi government
established a “satellite school” in Virginia to prepare Americans for study at

Introduction ◆ 11
the Islamic University of Madinah. As Saudi Arabia became increasingly privi-
leged as the archive of “true Islam,” local traditions of Black Islam were further
marginalized as heretical and illegitimate.33 In turn, this trend bolstered Afro-
centrist repudiations of Islam as Arab cultural hegemony.
A controversy of critical importance to the Ansaru Allah Community was
Islam’s place in metaphysical Africa. The AAC/NIH can be found at a nexus of
competing priorities, as Al Mahdi invoked a metaphysical Africa that upheld
Islam as timelessly Black. The AAC/NIH constructed a metaphysical Africa that
affirmed and absorbed Afrocentric objections to “orthodox” Islam as a legacy
of Arab violence against Black people, but also relocated Islam’s true heartland
in the Sudan—bilad as-sudan, translated in AAC/NIH literature as “Land of
the Blacks.” Between anti-Islamic Afrocentrism and Muslim anti-Blackness, or
between Black Orientalism and Black Salafism, AAC/NIH media navigated these
conflicts in complex and compelling ways. This book explores various ways in
which the AAC/NIH, formulating truth through its own metaphysical Africa,
envisioned the connection between Blackness and Islam.

Reintroducing Ansar History

The AAC/NIH began not as a “spinoff ” or “offshoot” of movements such as
the Nation of Islam or Moorish Science, but rather as a small circle of young
Sunni Muslims in Brooklyn with links to the State Street Mosque led by Grana-
da-born Daoud Ahmed Faisal (d. 1980). Faisal established the Islamic Mission
of America (IMA) in 1928. The IMA identified as Sunni, though Pat Bowen
observes that “Sunni” signified “the Muslim world in general” rather than a
concrete sectarian identity, noting that the IMA relied on translations of the
Qurʾan that came through networks of the Ahmadiyya—a South Asian Muslim
movement scorned and persecuted as “heretical” throughout the twentieth
century.34 By the early 1960s, friction between immigrant and Black segments
at State Street inspired a handful of Black members to leave under the lead-
ership of Hafis Mahbub, a Pakistani member of the Sunni revivalist Tablighi
Jama’at who had taught at the masjid. These attritioned State Street members
formed the Ya-Sin Mosque, which claimed a more strict adherence to Muslim
legal traditions (characterized in part by women’s use of full-face veils) while
also addressing the specific needs of African American Muslims, and later gave
rise to the Dar ul-Islam movement.35
The future Al Imam Isa Al Haadi Al Mahdi, then Dwight York (b. 1945),
spent part of his teens and early twenties connected to State Street Mosque. The

12 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
circumstances of Al Mahdi’s conversion remain disputed. It has been claimed
that Al Mahdi’s introduction to Islam came through members of the Nation,
whom he reportedly encountered during a 1965–67 incarceration for felony
assault and other charges. This narrative seems to start with Abu Ameenah
Bilal Philips, who provides no details of Al Mahdi’s criminal history but simply
remarks, “In prison it may be presumed that Al Mahdi came in contact with
Elijah Muhammad’s teachings as well as those of Noble Drew Ali’s,” after which
he converted at State Street and began to “concoct” a “black nationalist version
of Islaam.”36 If Al Mahdi had converted in Brooklyn “around 1965,” as Philips
suggests, this would have been before his incarceration, not after his release.
Resisting the prison conversion narrative, Al Mahdi would claim that he first
attended State Street’s Friday prayers in 1957, at the age of twelve, when Faisal
essentially took him in as a son and renamed him Isa ʿAbd’Allah ibn Abu Bakr
Muhammad.37 Paul Greenhouse, a documentary filmmaker who has done
extensive fieldwork with the community, encountered reliable claims that his
mother was already a member of State Street Mosque, and that in the late
1960s Al Mahdi would walk up and down the street to perform public dhikr,
the recitation of divine names, with a talking drum.38
At State Street Mosque, Al Mahdi would have encountered Sufis, Salafi
revivalists, former Nation and Moorish Science Temple members, white
converts (probably including author Maryam Jameelah, who converted at
State Street in May 1961, received her new name from Faisal himself, and
became a close friend of Faisal’s wife, Khadijah),39 followers of Sayyid Abu
A’la al-Mawdudi and Sayyid Qutb, Tablighi Jama’at networks, UN diplomats
from Muslim-majority countries, and various diasporic communities that had
started with Muslim seamen. Of particular relevance for Al Mahdi, State Street’s
Muslim diasporas included a Sudanese-American community that had been
planting roots in Brooklyn since the arrival of merchant marines in the 1940s.
Anthropologist Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf reports that these seamen came from
Dongola, the same part of the Sudan that Al Mahdi later claimed as his own
place of origin, and regarded State Street Mosque as their “home away from
home.” Some had learned of Satti Majid, the Dongolawi scholar who traveled
to the United States with a vision of spreading Islam, connected with Yemeni
Muslims in Brooklyn, and mentored Faisal before leaving the country in 1929.40
Faisal’s establishment of his Islamic Mission, writes Abusharaf, “marked the
birth of an African Muslim religious body in North America.” At State Street,
the Dongolawis “managed to reproduce in revealing ways the community they
left behind,” providing Brooklyn seekers with access to an indigenous African

Introduction ◆ 13
Islam.41 Rather than an isolated bubble of local “heterodoxies” without expo-
sure to a larger “Muslim world,” Brooklyn offered an Islamic education that
was both locally embedded and transnationally connected. Among the groups
accessible at State Street alone, one could choose between Islamic revivals that
privileged the Sudan and Pakistan as their natural centers.
It was in this context that young Dwight York learned of Muhammad
Ahmad (1845–1885), a Sufi revolutionary from Dongola who declared himself
the awaited Mahdi, called for Islam’s restoration to its pure and original form,
raised an army of followers, drove British and Turko-Egyptian oppressors
from the Sudan, and led a short-lived Islamic state until his death in 1885. In
the years during which a newly paroled York navigated State Street’s complex
terrain and embarked on a path of Afrocentric Sufism, the Mahdiyya made
international headlines amid political turmoil in the Sudan. When the Sudan
regained its independence in 1956, the Mahdiyya, also known as Ansar (Help-
ers), established the National Umma Party, their own political party, and took
power. In May 1969, the young government fell to a military coup led by Ja’far
Muhammad al-Numayri. The following year, after a failed attempt to assassi-
nate al-Numayri, the Ansar revolted, prompting a government assault on their
stronghold at Abba Island that resulted in the massacre of a thousand Ansar.
Among those killed was the Mahdi’s grandson, Imam Hadi al-Mahdi, whose
nephew and successor, Sadiq al-Mahdi, fled the country. During his exile in
Egypt, Sadiq articulated the Ansar platform against the Muslim Brothers; while
the Brothers relied on a “traditional pattern” and conformed “to the Sunni
school of thought and are bound by the four Sunni schools of law,” the Ansar,
Sadiq explained, “draw from all schools of thought and we are not bound by
any school of law. We recognize the original texts and seek new formulation,
conscious of changes in time and place.”42
In addition to Brooklyn’s Sudanese community, the future Al Mahdi would
have encountered visions of African spirituality from non-Muslim diasporic
networks. New York was home to a Yoruba spiritual and cultural revivalist
movement driven by increased Caribbean migration and African American
conversions to Afro-Cuban traditions. Black converts to Santeria, recogniz-
ing that West African traditions had been transformed by their diffusion across
the Atlantic, shifted attention from Cuba to West Africa and sought to “purify”
African traditions. As Yoruba revivalists pursued linkages to an “older primor-
dial moment in Africa,” Tracey E. Hucks explains, they produced a distinctly
American construction of African spirituality.43

14 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
 When the Harlem-based Yoruba Temple disseminated literature that
offered “reconnection to the continent of Africa, and a rationalization for
the collective return to African religion and culture,” this vision of Africa did
not include Islam.44 Against Nation and Sunni leaders alike who disparaged
non-Muslim African societies as “primitive” and presented Islam as a “civilizing”
influence, Yoruba Temple media implicated Islam in the erasure of indigenous
African cultures.45 Speaking to the various legacies of Malcolm X, however, the
Yoruba Temple honored Malcolm’s birthday a year after his assassination with a
parade through Harlem.46 According to one of Greenhouse’s informants within
Al Mahdi’s circle, another point of intersection between New York’s Muslims
and Yoruba Temple was Al Mahdi’s own mother, who reportedly participated
in a Yoruba revivalist community while also attending State Street Mosque.
Yoruba Temple literature made claims of its own about the Sudan. In Tribal
Origins of African-Americans (1962), Yoruba leader Oseijeman Adefunmi argued
that West African cultures bore ancestral connections to ancient Egyptian
and Nubian kingdoms, as European invasions of North Africa provoked mass
migrations across the Sahara (which Adefunmi labeled a greater “Sudan”).
Specifically, Adefunmi reported that Yoruba ancestry could be traced to the
ancient Nile city of Meroë, capital of the Kushite kingdom and a little more
than one hundred miles from modern Khartoum, which meant that many of
the West Africans taken to the Americas as slaves were Nubians.47
Back in Brooklyn, Al Mahdi’s public drum/dhikr marches and private
study circles produced a new faction in the State Street universe. Given a crit-
ical lack of extant sources prior to the 1970s, we must rely partially on the
community’s retroactive accounts in later materials and Philips’s interviews
with former members in the 1980s. With this caution in mind, it appears that
circa 1967–69, Al Mahdi headed a small group called Ansar Pure Sufi and oper-
ated a “Pure Sufi” bookstore. One of Philips’s informants recalled joining in
1968 after getting “fed up” with the Dar ul-Islam and seeing Al Mahdi’s group
show up at a Dar celebration of the Prophet’s birthday. They “looked differ-
ent,” he recalled, with their tarbushes, nose rings, and bone earrings, and a Dar
brother told him, “Stay away from them ’cause they are crazy.” He also reported
that in its early days, the group consisted of fifteen members at most, “dropping
off to about five when times got rough.”48 By 1969 they had become the Nubian
Islamic Hebrew Mission in America (NIHMA), and in 1971 they established
a headquarters at 452 Rockaway Avenue in Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighbor-
hood, approximately a mile from the Dar’s Atlantic Avenue masjid.49

Introduction ◆ 15
 As among the Dar, NIHMA women fully veiled their faces. The male
members of NIHMA became known for peddling literature and other products
throughout New York, dressing in distinct uniforms, and visiting other masjids
to engage Muslims on issues of doctrine.50 “When you see Nubian brothers
on the street,” explained a 1972 issue of the periodical the Muslim Man, “you’ll
notice that they wear tall black tarbushes [with green tassels], clean neat suits
that button down the front, or the familiar selawa. With the silver nose rings
and signet rings, their dress alone tells you a lot about the Muslim man.”51
The earliest surviving NIHMA pamphlets attribute authorship to Al Mahdi
under the name Isa Abd Allah ibn Abu Bakr Muhammad, and they typically
begin with the page-one declaration, “Muslims must realize they are alone in
Their Sorrow.” Contrary to narratives of constant reinvention, early NIHMA
newsletters express remarkable consistency with later material. Back to the
Beginning: The Book of Names (1972), for example, informs readers that Adam
was Black; that African Americans were descended from Kedar, son of Ishmael,
who was Black and “the real Arab”; that Black people are Nubians and not only
the true Arabs but also the true Hebrews; that white people are Amorites; that
Muhammad Ahmad was the anticipated Mahdi; that true Muslims must abide
by the Sabbath; and that hadith traditions are generally unreliable and must not
be privileged over the Qurʾan and other revealed scriptures, such as the Torah
and Psalms. The pamphlet makes positive connections to Arabic, Hebrew, and
Yoruba, and also features images of the Star of David, the Kundalini “sleeping
serpent,” and the Egyptian ankh, along with a serpent eating its tail captioned
“Never ending life from Africa.” A star’s six points are captioned (clockwise from
the top): Allah, Shango, Obatala, Man, Elohim, YHWH.52 In other pamphlets
from the early 1970s, Al Mahdi articulates themes that remained crucial to his
teachings for decades to come, such as the notion of Black suffering as the spell
of Leviathan, Al Mahdi breaking the spell in 1970, and a promise that Black
oppression would end in the year 2000. In early publications, Al Mahdi also
asserts that white people (Amorites) are cursed with leprosy and pale skin.53 In
harmony with his later writings on Jesus, he interprets the Qurʾan and Bible to
argue that the angel Gabriel had intercourse with Mary and was Jesus’s biolog-
ical father.54
Speaking to divisions affecting Muslim Brooklyn, NIHMA newsletters
proclaimed a need for the Black man to “speak his own language,” meaning
“Arabic or Kufic in its purest form” rather than the corrupted “Pakistanian
Arabic” and other diluted forms learned from immigrant Muslims.55 These
newsletters established connections between Islam and Africa that remained

16 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
major concerns in AAC/NIH media for decades, expressed in Al Mahdi’s vision
of the Sudan as the center of divine creative activity, his treatment of “Sudan” as
a name for the whole of Africa, his incorporation of the ankh, and his claims that
Yoruba traditions derive from Islam.56 The connections found shared expres-
sion in advertisements from his NIH “tribe” for a June 4, 1972, festival at 452
Rockaway that promised “dress of Islamic countries,” Islamic poetry, the “Al
Ansaru Allah Dance Troupe,” African drumming, and Merchants of Oyo—a
group led by Al Mahdi’s brother, Obaba Oyo (born David Piper York Jr.), that
sold African imports (including bone jewelry that AAC/NIH members wore
for a time) and Islamic literature, and traveled the country showcasing Oyo’s
jewelry designs.57 Oyo, who also worked as a fashion designer for the Harlem-
based New Breed Clothing brand, which popularized dashikis in the 1960s,
formed his own African Islamic Mission (AIM) in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyve-
sant neighborhood. An AIM pamphlet from 1975 identifies Oyo’s family as
“Islamic Hebrew” and quotes Genesis to prophesy that Black suffering under
the “iniquity of the Amorites” would end in the year 2000.58 The AIM became
known for reprinting books on Black history and Islam, both popular books
and rare and out-of-print titles, ranging from general history and cultural mate-
rials, to Nation of Islam and Moorish Science texts, to the writings of Muslim
apologist Ahmed Deedat, to classical proto-Afrocentrist works.59
NIHMA pamphlets defended the right of American Muslims to identify
with Sufism, lamenting that “many Muslims are under the impression, and are
indoctrinating others with the fallacy that you must be from the East in order
to elevate yourself to the degree of a Sufi.”60 Al Mahdi’s Sufism identified Khidr
as Melchizedek, the immortal priest mentioned in the Hebrew Bible; located
the “Temple of Khidr” at the seventh heaven;61 and described the progressive
opening of chakras as the soul’s ascension toward the plane of divine reality
(“Allah and Al Khidr”) and then the seventh and final plane of Blackness.62 Al
Mahdi affirmed the Nation and Five Percenter declaration “the Black Man is
God” but nuanced its theological impact by distinguishing between “God”
and “Allah,” which Al Mahdi did not regard as simply a matter of straightfor-
ward translation. For Al Mahdi, these terms signified different things: “God”
did not refer to the transcendent creator of the worlds but was an acronym for
Gomar Oz Dubar, three “Kufic” words meaning wisdom, strength, and beauty.
The Black man is God because he has been granted these attributes; Allah,
however, is giver of the attributes and cannot be contained within them.63
In the early 1970s, Al Mahdi identified himself as the grandson of the Suda-
nese Mahdi,64 presented his organization as an authorized branch of Faisal’s

Introduction ◆ 17
Islamic Mission of America,65 and constructed an Islamic Egyptosophy with
the narrative that Hajar, mother of Ishmael, was the daughter of Imhotep.66
Whether for his teachings, fashion choices, or aggressive proselytizing and
peddling, Al Mahdi attracted negative attention from other Muslim groups
in the city. In the summer of 1973, followers of Al Mahdi were attacked by a
group from the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood (MIB), a Black Sunni move-
ment based in Harlem, for peddling newspapers in Manhattan; four MIB
members were arrested.67 The MIB complained in a September 1973 editorial
of “numerous little cults” linking Islam with “eccentric nonsense,” “mythology
and esoteric foolishness” that resembled “the more barbaric aspects of prim-
itive pagan societies.” The editorial specifically targeted the AAC/NIH in its
mention of “cult” followers wearing “rings in their noses, bones in their ears,”
which were elements of AAC/NIH dress code at the time.68 Nonetheless, Al
Mahdi presented himself during the early 1970s as exhibiting greater compati-
bility with Black Sunni movements than with the Nation of Islam: “To all those
Muslims who for the past three years have found and are still finding fault with
us, at least we proclaim the Kalimah of allah and adhere to the Five Pillars
of Faith.”69
AAC/NIH pamphlets from 1973, identifying the community as the Nubian
Islamic Hebrews, also display the designation “Al Ansaru Allah, the Helper of
Allah.” On the back cover, these pamphlets offer a manifesto titled “Goals and
Purposes of the Nubian Islamic Hebrews” to parallel the mission statements
found in the Nation of Islam’s Muhammad Speaks and in the newspapers of
Sunni groups such as the Islamic Party of North America. “Goals and Purposes”
declares the intention to teach children “Arabic, Aramaic, Hebrew, and all the
African dialect as they can learn” and to incorporate practices of “African drum-
ming, Islamic drumming, Chanting, and dancing,” and expresses an ultimate
ambition to “go home, to build our own country which is in Africa.” The state-
ment also defines the group as “non-sectarian” and as committed to “Islam in
its pristine purity as taught by the Qurʾan and the Sunnah.”70
Community literature from the later 1970s describes the period of 1970–
74 as the first half of a “tribulation,” during which the devil infiltrated the
community and caused desertions.71 In February 1974, months before Al Mahdi
instituted the practice of begging for donations, the movement struggled:
during the New York Police Department (NYPD)’s investigation of a shoot-
ing at the Ya-Sin Mosque that left four dead, a grocery store owner identified
with the “Islamic Hebrews” told detectives that his group no longer used its
St. John’s Place location and did not have a masjid at the moment but owned

18 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
a green bus and gathered at the homes of its members.72 During the “tribula-
tion” period, Al Mahdi traveled to the Middle East and Africa, where he made a
pilgrimage to Mecca and experienced a mystical vision of Khidr/Melchizedek
at the junction of the two Niles in the Sudan. These travels seem to correspond
to the community’s phasing out its Nubian Islamic Hebrews name in favor of
Ansaru Allah Community.73 Mailing addresses that appear in the pamphlets
of this period also suggest at least a coincidental relationship between the
name change and the move from the Rockaway apartment to 496 Flatbush.74
Surprisingly, given the spirit of Al Mahdi’s usual treatment of Saudi Arabia,
pamphlets published shortly before and after the move also feature the Saudi
coat of arms on their back covers, in addition to Al Mahdi’s own six-pointed
star and upward-pointing crescent.75
The Ansaru Allah name affirmed links to the Sudanese Ansar, which also
accompanied the adoption of new dress codes for the “Ansar of the West” that
more closely mirrored the “Ansar of the East.” Overall, the community’s rhetor-
ical strategies remained consistent. NIHMA literature had already recognized
Muhammad Ahmad as the Mahdi, prioritized Khidr as a mediator between
worlds, identified Al Mahdi as a direct “student under Sheik Al-Khidr of Nubia,”
and even depicted Al Mahdi as a miracle worker with supernatural insights
and powers.76 Community media continued to advocate biblical scriptures
as essential to Muslim life (arguing that Muhammad only adhered to the way
of Abraham and fitrah, “the natural practices of all the Prophets”) and main-
tained the six-pointed star and upward-pointing crescent as its symbol.77
From the later 1970s through 1983, the group identified itself as Ansaru
Allah (often transliterated in double-vowel style as Ansaaru Allah). This name
did not erase the community’s prior history, deny previous NIHMA teachings,
or mark a new emphasis on “Islam” over “Judaism.” Reflecting on the commu-
nity’s earlier identification, a 1978 editorial remarked, “In between the years
1970 and mid-1973, we were known as Nubian Islamic Hebrews. And we do not
deny that we still are.”78 Considering past “tribulations” in the newsletter titled
Id with the Ansars (1977), Al Mahdi explains, “We did not propagate the Scrip-
tures as profoundly” as the community did later in the decade. “We started
out with Genesis . . . as we became more knowledgeable of the Scriptures . . .
[we] worked our way through the Old Testament and the New Testament up
to the Qurʾan, into which we are now delving heavily.”79 Al Mahdi’s claim of
progressing through Hebrew and Christian scriptures to a Qurʾan-centered
methodology, however, does not correspond with the community’s observable
rhetorical strategies; in Id with the Ansars, the newsletter that makes this claim,

Introduction ◆ 19
Al Mahdi’s New Testament citations (primarily from the book of Revelation,
which he identifies as Christ’s Injil, mentioned in the Qurʾan) are nearly double
the combined references to passages from the Hebrew Bible and Qurʾan.80
Siddiq Muhammad, Philips’s informant who had joined the movement in
1968, reports that around June 1974, as Al Mahdi’s command that followers beg on
the streets led to a massive flood of revenue, “things started to really change.”81 A
short passage in Id with the Ansars hints that an intellectual shift had also occurred
in the community—not an abrupt turn from one religious identity to another,
but rather an intensified focus on Al Mahdi himself. The community’s investiga-
tions of scripture had produced new understandings of its leader’s significance,
as “the Lamb (Al Masih) has become known to the people as the person he was
prophesied to be, rather than by what he calls himself.”82
Literature from the late 1970s reports that Al Mahdi (born in 1945, an
even century after the birth of the Sudanese Mahdi)83 launched his movement
in 1970 (a century after the Mahdi established his mission), upon the open-
ing of the seventh seal mentioned in the book of Revelation. While sources
from earlier in the decade present Al Mahdi as the Mahdi’s grandson, 1977’s
Muhammad Ahmad: The Only True Mahdi! and later materials name him as
the Mahdi’s great-grandson.84 The seventh seal signified the Qurʾan, which
was “opened” with Al Mahdi’s arrival as its master translator and interpreter.
His mission was to teach the 144,000 helpers of Allah (Ansar Allah) in prepa-
ration for Christ’s return in the year 2000. While AAC publications such as
Al Imaam Isa Visits Egypt 1981 featured a photo of Al Mahdi with the caption
“Our Savior Has Returned,” Al Mahdi’s precise connection to Christ remained
so ambiguous that some apparently believed that Al Mahdi identified himself
as the returning Jesus. Al Mahdi insists in I Don’t Claim to Be . . . (1981) that he
“never claimed to be Christ” and that his pamphlets were misunderstood. He
explained that Jesus would not return as an embodied reincarnation, but that
the spirit of Jesus would “descend into a person” and then “disperse amongst
his followers,” the 144,000 foretold in Revelation as followers of Muhammad’s
household, his ahl al-bayt.85 Al Mahdi also deployed Jesus during this period to
articulate his relationship to Elijah Muhammad; the first appearance of Jesus
was heralded by John the Baptist, who was endowed with the spirit of the bibli-
cal Elijah. Al Mahdi (whose first name, Isa, is the Arabic equivalent of Jesus)
thereby projected the relationship between Elijah/John and Jesus onto Elijah
Muhammad and himself.86
In AAC literature dating from the late 1970s through the 1980s, we can
observe themes relating to esoteric knowledge and advanced technology

20 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
in ancient Egypt, emphasis on a globalizing Black Islam that featured both
the Sudanese Mahdiyya and Elijah Muhammad as key ingredients, antago-
nism toward Arab Sunnis and their African American “puppets,” discussions
of chakras and other New Age reference points, and claims of Al Mahdi’s
interaction with several transcendent figures, including Khidr, Jesus, ancient
pharaohs, and extraterrestrial sages. These themes do not follow one another
in distinct “phases” but can be found in the same publications, along with
continued commitments to “traditional” Islamic knowledge marked in part
by details such as commitment to Maliki jurisprudence87 and the study of
classical Arabic.
Again, changes in names and symbols have limited illustrative power. A
number of publications from 1982 refer to the movement as United Muslims
in Exile, though this name change did not reflect a reorientation of discourse
or practice or supplant Ansaru Allah as the movement’s identity. Nor did the
AAC/NIH’s changes of symbols and flags consistently signify new doctri-
nal orientations, though these changes sometimes corresponded to shifting
claims and the visual cultures of its opponents. Around the turn of the 1980s,
the community used a white, green, red, and black flag bearing the shahadah
(testimony to Allah’s oneness and the prophethood of Muhammad), along
with the double-bladed sword of ‘Ali. This design echoed the MIB flag, which
displayed the shahadah in the same style of Arabic with a single-bladed sword.
Ironically, it was the MIB, not the Ansar, that employed a black, red, and green
color scheme (as opposed to the Garveyite pan-Africanist flag, which consisted
of the same colors but positioned the red stripe above the black) and gave as
its flag’s inspiration the Sudanese Mahdiyya (while being careful to explain
that Muhammad Ahmad, a “great champion of justice,” was “known to many
as the Mahdi” without acknowledging that he personally claimed that title for
himself).88
From 1983 to 1987, community literature simultaneously used the names
Ansaru Allah Community and Nubian Islamic Hebrews. It was also during
this time that Al Mahdi added “Al Haadi” to his name, becoming As Sayyid
Al Imaam Isa Al Haadi Al Mahdi and emphasizing his claim to be the son of
Muhammad Ahmad’s son Sayyid Hadi Abdulrahman al-Mahdi (1918–1971).
In 1984, Al Mahdi established a Sufi order, Sons of the Green Light, which he
promoted throughout AAC/NIH literature as adjacent to the larger commu-
nity. From 1987 to 1991, without erasing its Ansar identity, the community
rebranded itself the Original Tents of Kedar. It was as the Original Tents of
Kedar that the community adopted the Mahdiyya flag.89

Introduction ◆ 21
 During the late 1980s, the character of Yanaan/Yaanuwn, who was first
mentioned at least as early as 1983 as an intergalactic sheikh who sometimes
occupied Al Mahdi’s body, entered into new prominence and became increas-
ingly identified with Al Mahdi. Original Tents of Kedar books frequently
display an image of Al Mahdi with the Ansar masjid and a flying saucer in
the background and a caption identifying him as “As Sayyid Isa Al Haadi Al
Mahdi (Yanaan).”90 When asked, “Who is Yanuwn?” during a session open
to the public circa 1988, Al Mahdi confirmed, “I am an extraterrestrial incar-
nated.”91 Al Mahdi’s 1991 commentary on the book of Revelation claims that
Yanaan is the nineteenth elder in Khidr’s order, and also an appearance of
Khidr himself in human form.92 In his interpretation of Rev. 1:7 (“Here he is
coming upon the clouds”), Al Mahdi reveals that the Buraq, Muhammad’s
steed during his ascension, was not a winged animal but a fleet of space-
ships within the Mothership, which will descend to earth to gather the saved
144,000.93
A survey of AAC/NIH media from the 1970s to the early 1990s reveals
considerable stability. Despite changes in name, flag, symbols, and clothing,
the AAC/NIH did not abandon the resources that had previously authorized
its truth claims in favor of a whole new set of materials. In a single pamphlet
from 1983, Al Mahdi hits notes that observers would treat as marking separate
phases of his career, presenting his body as a medium through which Khidr,
Jesus, an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, and Yanaan speak. Rather than presume
that Al Mahdi’s choices perform a postmodernist mysticism designed to break
down all categories and produce enlightenment through incoherence, we can
examine the ways in which items related to one another within the particular-
ities of his own toolbox and the world of preexisting connections that made
this toolbox possible—and even intelligible—to a community.
At the start of the 1990s, Al Mahdi and numerous followers relocated to the
community’s Jazzir Abba campground in the Catskills (named after Abba Island
in the Sudan). Rebranding Jazzir Abba as Mount Zion, Al Mahdi also changed
his own name to Rabboni Y’shua Bar El Haady and embarked on reforms
that led observers to call this period his “Jewish” phase. Shortly thereafter, the
community relocated en masse to Georgia. Material from 1992–93 identifies
the community as the Tents of Abraham or Tents of Nubia, renames Al Mahdi
Dr. Malachi Z. York or affectionately calls him the Lamb (again, a designation
used for him since the 1970s),94 and tells a story of the movement’s changes. At
Mount Zion in 1992, York reportedly informed community members that they
would “stop living the life of a Muslim” because Islam was about to become

22 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
increasingly associated with terrorism, and Sunni Arabs would never accept
African American Muslims as equals.95
In 1993, the community, having adopted the name Holy Tabernacle Minis-
tries, migrated to its Tama Re commune in Eatonton, Georgia. Post-1993 media
intensified York’s attention to pharaonic Egypt, new resources such as ancient
Sumerian religion, indigenous American sovereignty movements, and narra-
tives of extraterrestrial civilizations, while simultaneously denigrating and
reconstructing Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions. In the second half
of the 1990s, the community came to be known as the United Nuwaubian
Nation of Moors (UNNM). York also led numerous Masonic lodges, such as
the Ancient and Mystic Order of Melchizedek, which adhered to the lessons
of his earlier Sufi order and simply switched out references to Khidr with
Melchizedek (a move consistent with York’s historical conceptualization of
the figure).
York regularly acknowledged his Brooklyn past, often explaining, “I
came giving you what you wanted, so you would want what I have to give.”96
Though the community had always acknowledged changes in name, symbol,
and prescribed dress, and made claims of an intellectual progression, it was
only after the move to Georgia that York retroactively spoke of his mission as
having passed through a sequence of distinct phases or “schools.” Amid these
narratives of change, however, there are continuities. Even in his ostensibly
“post-Islamic” work, while distributing lecture tapes with titles such as “Islam
Is Poison,” York still praised figures such as Elijah Muhammad and Daoud
Faisal, claimed a connection to the Sudanese Mahdiyya, treated the Qurʾan as
a meaningful source for his teachings, and wrote of restoring Islam to its “pris-
tine purity.”97
In 2004, roughly two years after his arrest and the government raid on Tama
Re, York was convicted of multiple charges relating to RICO (Racketeer Influ-
enced and Corrupt Organizations) conspiracy, including racketeering and the
interstate transportation of minors for sexual abuse. In 2005, upon government
confiscation of the land, bulldozers purged Tama Re of its pyramids and stat-
ues. In the years since York’s conviction, Nuwaubians have sought to free him
through a number of strategies, including assertions of his innocence and claims
that his trial was illegitimate, by challenging federal jurisdiction, whether on
the grounds of legal sovereignty (as a Native American tribal leader) or diplo-
matic immunity (as a Liberian consul). While increasingly decentralized and
intellectually diverse, the community continues to develop without his phys-
ical presence.

Introduction ◆ 23
Outline of the Book

The chapters of this book focus on various resources and strategies through
which AAC/NIH formulated and communicated its truth. Chapter 1 explores
key themes in Al Mahdi’s metaphysical Africa. It discusses Al Mahdi’s construc-
tion of the Sudan as a land of mystical knowledge, deeply connected to human
origins and the coming fulfillment of divine plan; as a refuge for Muhammad’s
“unmistakenly black” daughter Fatima and son-in-law ‘Ali, as they fled persecu-
tion by “pale Arabs” Abu Bakr and his daughter A’isha; as an archive of timeless
Islamic knowledge, because Fatima and ‘Ali left secret scriptures in the protec-
tion of Nubian custody; as the center of the modern Nubian Islamic revolution
against both European and Turko-Egyptian exploitation and oppression; and
as the site from which Al Mahdi found his footing in the American context,
from which to navigate between anti-Muslim Afrocentrism and the anti-Black-
ness of encroaching Arab and South Asian Sunni hegemonies.
Chapter 2 examines the ways in which Al Mahdi constructed an ostensibly
contradictory genealogy of forerunners—most significantly Elijah Muhammad
and Al Mahdi’s Sunni mentor, Sheikh Daoud Faisal—that includes Noble Drew
Ali, Malcolm X, Allah (the former Clarence 13X), and Marcus Garvey (whom
Al Mahdi claims had become Muslim), all of whom appear as figures of autho-
rization in his claim to inherit a singular tradition of Nubian Islam in the West.
Chapter 3 complicates the popular narrative, put forth in academic liter-
ature and retroactively embraced in community media, that the AAC/NIH
passed through distinct “Muslim” and “Jewish” phases. Apart from a period
in 1992–93 in which the community did appear to shed coded markers of its
Muslim identity (such as turbans for men and face veils for women) in favor of
practices that could code as Jewish (such as Al Mahdi changing his title from
imam to rabbi and wearing a yarmulke), these various sources do not agree as
to how exactly we can date the “Muslim” and “Jewish” phases. Even at different
points in community literature, we find multiple ideas of when the movement
was most invested in the “Hebrew” dimension of its Nubian Islamic Hebrew
identity. Highlighting significant continuities in the community’s literature
across these allegedly distinct phases, and the ways in which the community
conceptualized itself in materials contemporary to the supposed mass conver-
sions, this chapter problematizes the notion that we can easily carve AAC/
NIH history into a series of successive affiliations.
Chapter 4 focuses on a figure who became an important site of both link-
age and rupture: Bilal ibn Rabah, an Ethiopian who rose to prominence as

24 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
one of the early companions of the Prophet Muhammad. In modern Muslim
discourses, Bilal’s legacy became particularly meaningful as evidence of Islam’s
racial egalitarianism. Al Mahdi, however, charged that “pale Arabs” had reduced
Bilal to a condescending anti-Black stereotype—a slave who can sing—while
denying the Blackness of other early Muslims, including the Prophet himself.
Promising to reveal Bilal’s true significance, Al Mahdi presented Bilal as protec-
tive custodian of the Mihjan, the scepter that had belonged to all of the Israelite
prophets, which he carried on an epic quest from Ethiopia to Mecca in order
to bequeath it to the awaited Ishmaelite prophet, Muhammad. This chapter
discusses Bilal’s significance in AAC/NIH discourse for the connections that
he enabled between Israelite and Ishmaelite prophethood, the relevance of his
Ethiopian Israelite backstory in Al Mahdi’s imaginary of metaphysical Africa,
and his polemical utility as Al Mahdi weaponized his legacy against “pale Arab”
Sunnis and their Black allies—including W. D. Muhammad, who had briefly
referred to his followers (and to African Americans at large) as “Bilalians.”
Chapter 5 explores the AAC/NIH’s underexamined relationship to Sufism,
marked not only by its origins as Ansar Pure Sufi but also by its founding of
an in-house Sufi order, Sons of the Green Light, in 1984. I argue that Al Mahdi
was perhaps the most successful Sufi master in the United States through the
1970s and ’80s, while academic studies of American Sufism have completely
ignored his community in part because of the flawed categories and prejudices
that continue to inform the study of American Islam more broadly.
Chapter 6 pushes back against the notion that the AAC/NIH embraced
Egyptosophic spirituality only late in its history as part of a post-Muslim make-
over. I demonstrate that an investment in pharaonic Egypt appeared early in
the AAC/NIH archive and remained present throughout its overtly “Islamic”
and “Jewish” material. When the community migrated to a compound that it
declared its “Egypt in the West” and decorated the property with sphinxes,
ankhs, and pyramids, this reflected not a sudden embrace of Egyptosophy
out of nowhere but rather the turning of a rhetorical dial that the community
already possessed.
Chapter 7 examines the community’s exodus from New York to rural Geor-
gia in 1993 and its development as the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors
(UNNM). This chapter surveys key themes of Nuwaubian discourse that
are typically taken to highlight the “random” and “incoherent” nature of the
community’s narratives—Egyptosophy, UFO religion, claims of Native Amer-
ican heritage, and Freemasonry—and calls attention to the various ways in
which these themes are historically linked both within the community’s own

Introduction ◆ 25
archive and in broader African American intellectual traditions. Things certainly
do change, but I resist the assumption that the Nuwaubian-era community has
surrendered its attempt to achieve a rationally satisfying argument or a mean-
ingful narrative of its own history.
Chapter 8 examines Al Mahdi’s theories of music and sound and briefly
expands the scope of community media to include artists whose work may
or may not have been published by official AAC/NIH institutions. While Al
Mahdi did own a recording studio and music label, and made use of music in
numerous ways (and was even an aspiring R&B star himself), not all artists who
disseminated AAC/NIH messages in pop culture did so through his personal
resources in the music industry. Though the Five Percenter presence in hip-hop
has been extensively documented, the AAC/NIH made a substantial contri-
bution to hip-hop culture that has gone largely unnoticed. This chapter seeks
to make a critical intervention in a growing body of scholarship that exam-
ines hip-hop’s varied relationships to Islam but has thus far ignored Al Mahdi’s
community.
In the coda, I offer a short reflection on the arguments advanced in preced-
ing chapters and the key themes of the work, particularly the problems of
overemphasizing the community’s apparent instability and engaging the eclec-
ticism of its archive through frameworks of “syncretism.”
Before we proceed, a few notes, the first regarding names. As the commu-
nity identified itself as the Ansaru Allah Community (AAC) and/or Nubian
Islamic Hebrews (NIH) for most of its history prior to the government’s raid
on Tama Re, sometimes privileging one name over the other, I usually refer
to it as the AAC/NIH. The community’s leader has become notorious for
employing a plethora of aliases, but he was known for much of the period
covered here (with slight variations in spelling) as As Sayyid Al Imaam Isa Al
Haadi Al Mahdi. Throughout this book I generally refer to him as Al Mahdi,
while occasionally using the other names he adopted when discussing those
periods of his life and AAC/NIH history (he remained Al Mahdi even when
literature referred to him as Isa Muhammad, for example; these names were
not mutually exclusive). When discussing the community and its leader after
significant transformations in the early 1990s, I use the names by which they
identified themselves at that time.
Al Mahdi’s names aside, the question of authorship remains complicated.
AAC/NIH media usually reflect the official voice of Al Mahdi himself, though
works often describe him in the third person without attribution to another
author, and Al Mahdi has been accused of writing by committee. Each of Al

26 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
Mahdi’s wives reportedly headed an aspect of the community’s operations,
meaning that one wife would have supervised the production of media content.
In her memoir, Al Mahdi’s former wife Ruby S. Garnett recalls the research
department: “Book shelves lined the wall in that section; full of all kinds of
books that . . . the sisters used to do research out of. The sisters work area
was stationed right there in front of the bookshelves, and there were rows of
computers where some of them sat quietly typing and looking through books
and some were making photo copies of things.”98 One survivor of Al Mahdi’s
abuse informed me that it was her job to read books that he wanted to appro-
priate (she particularly enjoyed reading Zecharia Sitchin), and could identify
content in Al Mahdi’s works that she had personally written. When he spoke
through these publications, Al Mahdi operated not only as an individual author
but as a collective of thinkers. I am not interested in determining which materi-
als “really” come from his own pen; nor, for that matter, am I overly concerned
with the issue of Al Mahdi’s plagiarizing material from outside sources. I thus
refer to the community and Al Mahdi himself interchangeably as the producer
of AAC/NIH discourse. When I write, “Al Mahdi argues x,” I present Al Mahdi
as an assemblage of actors who participate in his ongoing construction.
This approach also helps to move consideration of the AAC/NIH beyond
Al Mahdi’s abuse and exploitation of community members and to decenter
him as our primary interest, even while exploring thousands of pages attributed
to him. The Ansaru Allah Community’s significance is not reducible to Al
Mahdi’s discourse or crimes; its media represent not a singular “cult leader”
but a community that has included thousands of members through five decades
and counting. Beyond “official” membership, the community’s narratives also
inform countless readers who have encountered its pamphlets, books, and
tapes. Taking these media seriously, I take the community and its extended
sphere of conversation partners seriously as well.

Introduction ◆ 27
 Chapter •1
“I Am the Raisin-
Headed Slave”
The Nubian Ahl al-Bayt,
Sudanese Mahdiyya, and Global
Blackness as Islamic Revival

The history of Arabia needs rewriting.

—Drusilla Dunjee Houston
Mohamet, the founder of Islam, was an Arab.
What is an Arab? . . . Arabia is but an extension of
Africa where black people from the southwest, and
white, or nearly white people from the northwest
met to mingle their cultures and their blood. . . .
Mohamet, himself, was by all accounts a Negro.
—J. A. Rogers

As African American thinkers and communities engaged moral geographies

that relocated Blackness and redefined its meanings, various maps both over-
lapped and competed with one another.1 Which territory should provide the
ideal moral geography—the presentation of Africa as a singular, united cultural
entity, or the similarly imagined “Muslim world”? Some Muslims reject pan-
Africanism as a racialist or secular nationalist ideology antithetical to Islam;
some Afrocentrists reject notions of a global Muslim umma because of the
inequalities and anti-Black racism that this construction elided, even reject-
ing Islam itself as anti-Black. This chapter discusses AAC/NIH engagements
with that tension, which Al Mahdi answers with his own moral geography and
a religio-racial mythic history that anchors Islam in a timeless bilad as-Sudan,
“land of the Blacks.” After introducing the question of Islam’s relationship to
Blackness as conceived by numerous Muslim and non-Muslim thinkers, I exam-
ine AAC/NIH narratives of racial history as they inform key themes of AAC/
NIH media: the Blackness of Arabic, presentations of conflicts in the original
Muslim community as racialized power struggles between Black Arabs and
“pale Arab” imposters, the centrality of the Sudan as a Black Islamic archive,
embodied practices such as the veil and nose ring, and AAC/NIH ideas of the
“wrong Africa,” Yoruba revivalism.
Community media report that it was in the Sudan, at the junction of the
two Niles, that Allah created Adam out of black clay. It was also in the Sudan
that the members of Muhammad’s family found sanctuary as Black refugees
in flight from Islam’s takeover by “red” and “pale” Arabs. The Sudan became
a site at which interwoven Muslim eschatological expectations and hopes of
Black liberation found their fulfillment, as the anticipated Mahdi rose from the
Sudan in the nineteenth century to defeat Anglo-Egyptian colonial oppression.
Finally, the Sudan provides the AAC/NIH with an embodied link to Nubian
Islam, as Al Mahdi presents himself as the great-grandson of the Sudanese
Mahdi, himself a direct descendant of the Prophet. Al Mahdi speaks to what
Zareena Grewal terms “the moral geography of the Dark world” espoused
by Malcolm X, and to the “transnational moral geographies of newly arrived
revivalist immigrants” that supplanted it.2 AAC/NIH media deflect anti-Mus-
lim Afrocentrism not by rehabilitating Arab slavery and anti-Blackness, but by
decentering “pale Arabs” as Islam’s natural authorities and constructing the
Sudan as Islam’s true heartland. For Black people to study Arabic and live in
accordance with the Qurʾan does not require a disavowal of Afrocentrism or
capitulation to the Arabian Peninsula’s current occupants, because the Arabic
language, the Qurʾan, the authentic Sunna, and Islam itself are Nubian. Mono-
theism is Black. In his metaphysical Africa, Al Mahdi challenges both sides of
the Afrocentrism-Islam debate on their own terms, always claiming the origins,
center, authenticity, and authority.

Malik vs. Omowale

Drusilla Dunjee Houston’s Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire
would find a warm reception among Afrocentrist readerships in the later
twentieth century. Writing in 1926, Houston also speaks to controversies that
persisted for later Afrocentrists and African American Muslims: racial identi-
ties in ancient Egypt and Arabia, and the sources of their great pharaonic and

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 29

Islamic civilizations. Houston presents both Egypt and Arabia as originally
colonies of Ethiopia, insists that modern Nubians in Egypt maintain a time-
less race pride that keeps them from miscegenation with Egyptians, Arabs,
and Turks, and distinguishes between Arabia’s earliest Black inhabitants and
“the Semitic race, which is in possession of Arabia today.” Houston emphasizes
Muhammad’s descent from Abraham’s “Hamitic” concubine, Hajar, but she
also follows an “Islam-by-the-sword” narrative to treat Muhammad’s religion
as emblematic of “the primitive nature of the Semitic Arabian.” She deduces
that Semitic Arabs could not have produced Islamic civilization from their
own “bare life” but relied on Black influence.3
Like their contemporaries among pan-Africanists and Black Israelite
movements, African American Muslims in the 1920s and ’30s recalibrated the
meanings of Africanity. Noble Drew Ali taught that Black people in the United
States must reclaim their nationality as Moors, descendants of Moabites from
Canaan who migrated, with the pharaohs’ permission, to northwest Africa
and founded the Moroccan empire.4 Recovering genealogical links to Islamic
heritage was not strictly the concern of “heterodox” movements: Muhammad
Ezaldeen, a former Moorish Science member who studied in Egypt and later
formed possibly the first African American Sunni movement, the Addeynu
Allahe Universal Arabic Association, emphasized the identification of Noah’s
son Ham—and by extension, in the era’s biblically informed narratives of
race, all Black people—as an Arab.5 Conversion to Sunni Islam did not signify
a “color-blind” erasure of race but instead reclaimed “Hamitic-Arab” racial
heritage.6
The Nation of Islam witnessed (and contributed to) profound changes in
the ways in which Black intellectuals envisioned Africa. Affirming the Black
Man as father of civilization while still enforcing Victorian ideals of respectabil-
ity, civilization, and progress, Elijah Muhammad exhibited complex views on
Africa. For Elijah, reclaiming Black prestige did not immediately mean correct-
ing popular misconceptions about African cultures, but rather insisting that
global Blackness could not be reduced to what he perceived as Africa’s limita-
tions. In the Supreme Wisdom Lessons, Master Fard Muhammad asks Elijah,
“Why does the devil call our people Africans?” Elijah answers, “To make our
people of North America believe that the people on that continent are the only
people they have and are all savage. . . . The original people live on this conti-
nent and they are the ones who strayed away from civilization and are living
a jungle life. The original people call this continent Asia but the devils call it
Africa to try to divide them. He wants us to think that we are all different.”

30 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
 The macrocosmic Black Man’s greatness, according to the Lessons, was not
located in the continent that devils had named “Africa”; instead, his universe lay
beyond Africa and what Elijah called its “jungle life.” In a 1934 editorial, Elijah
argues for a global Muslim Blackness that transcends what he regards as the
embarrassment of non-Muslim African cultures. The forces of white suprem-
acy promote images of Africa’s “savage” cultures to keep Black people in North
America from recovering their full dignity in Islamic—that is, Asiatic—civi-
lization. “We were never told by our enemies who made slaves of us that the
Moslems (Asiatics) who were brought over here were from the Nile in Egypt,”
he writes. “No, they taught us we were from the jungles of Africa, and that all
of our people lived there. . . . Why does not the white man teach you to go to
Egypt, Arabia, Persia, Yemen, or Afghanistan? No, he knew that if you went
East you would learn who you were.”7
After visiting Africa in 1959, Elijah called the continent “ugly looking,”
populated with “near nude” women nursing babies in public, and proclaimed
that the Nation must go to Africa not to learn from Africans but “to civilize
people. . . . We don’t consider the people of Africa’s jungle as anything for us to
follow. . . . I am already civilized and I am ready to civilize Africa.” The ancient
Shabazz tribe had established civilization at the “best part of our planet,” the
Nile Valley and the holy city of Mecca; however, the tribe’s journeys further
into Africa were linked to its having “strayed from civilization,” which Elijah
connected to the Shabazz tribe’s developing kinky hair and thick lips in the
new climate.8 In the 1960s, Elijah guarded his mosques against Afrocentrism
with decrees against “adopting the African dress and hair styles.” Drawing a
firm distinction between African and Muslim identities, Elijah warned that his
Nation accepted only “the style of real Muslim people,” and threatened exile
to Muslims who wore “the headpiece of traditional and tribal African people
who are other than believers in Islam.” The newspaper Muhammad Speaks
reprinted this 1968 statement in 1974, perhaps speaking to renewed disputes
concerning the relationship between Africa and Islam.9 However, Edward E.
Curtis IV’s investigation of Muhammad Speaks content through the later 1960s
and ’70s highlights Nation authors who also celebrated African achievements
in settings such as the Songhai Empire, while defending the Nation against
a new tide of “Africanists” who disparaged Muslims for “allegedly exploiting
‘Mother Africa.’”10
In encounters with Black and non-Black Sunni communities that had
been escalating since the 1950s, Elijah Muhammad would reconstruct his link
to the “Muslim world.” In the 1950s, he asserted that the Prophet Muhammad,

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 31

“an Arab, was a member of the black nation.”11 Losing interest in approval from
transnational Muslim communities, Elijah later identified the Prophet as “a
white man” who represented an “Old Islam” for white people. In contrast to
Old Islam, Elijah foretold a “New Islam” that would be “established and led
by Black Muslims only.”12 In the early 1960s, as the Saudi government estab-
lished transnational organizations such as the Muslim World League (MWL)
and World Assembly of Muslim Youth to export its brand of Sunni revivalism,
Elijah proclaimed that his right to speak came only from the divine: “I will
say that neither Jeddah nor Mecca have sent me! . . . I am sent from Allah and
not from the Secretary General of the Muslim League! There is no Muslim in
Arabia that has the authority to stop me from delivering this message.”13 An
early example of Saudi efforts to redirect African American Muslim practices
appears in Malcolm’s short post-Nation career, when he became a guest of state
during his pilgrimage to Mecca and obtained scholarships for members of his
new organizations, Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-Amer-
ican Unity, to study in Saudi Arabia.14
When Malcolm X returned from his post-Nation travels in early 1964,
he brought not one but two recovered identities back with him. In Mecca,
Malcolm had earned the honorific name of hajji for his pilgrimage; he famously
used this to supplement Malik El-Shabazz, the name that Elijah Muhammad
had given him, becoming El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. In Nigeria, he received
another name: Omowale, meaning “the child has come home” in Yoruba.15
These names seem to represent two heartlands for Malcolm’s global vision:
one Islamic, the other African. Even as Malcolm treated these heritages as
interconnected, some voices in the Black freedom struggle and American
Muslim communities would perceive rupture or even irreconcilable contra-
diction between them.
Twentieth-century efforts to recover African spiritual traditions that had
been suppressed in the violence of transatlantic slavery, as with efforts to restore
African Muslim traditions, were transnational and polycultural, the product
of new connections. As early as the 1940s, increased Cuban migration to the
United States facilitated new opportunities for African Americans to encoun-
ter Afro-Cuban traditions. Tracey E. Hucks explains that in the 1950s and
’60s, amid anticolonial movements and intensifying imaginaries of Africa as
“a single continental entity,” African American religious thinkers reconceptu-
alized Afro-Cuban traditions as pathways to an indigenous African spirituality.
This progression becomes readable in the trajectory of Oseijeman Adefunmi.
Born Serge King and raised Baptist, as a child he wondered, “Who is the African

32 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
God?” In 1959, Adefunmi underwent initiation into the Shango priesthood in
Cuba and later felt a shift in his center of gravity from the Caribbean to Africa.
In his pursuit of authentic African religion and his establishment of succes-
sive communities, such as the Sango Temple and Yoruba Temple, Adefunmi
embarked upon a project of re-Africanizing the Afro-Cuban spiritual tradi-
tion16 and searched for the “purest African form,” which he viewed as having
been diluted in the Americas.17
In Harlem (which he renamed “New Oyo”), Adefunmi’s Yoruba Temple
promoted an African neotraditionalist revival by marketing African clothes,
saint candles, and herbal remedies, not to mention distributing Adefunmi’s
books and pamphlets throughout the city.18 Yoruba Temple literature portrayed
Islam as a force of alien invasion and exploitation: “The first people to pene-
trate Africa for slaves in modern times were the Arabs, who ever since they
brought their religion to Egypt in 636 A.D. have been plundering the coasts of
East Africa for people to be used as slaves”—a trade that continues, Adefunmi
wrote in 1962, “to this day.” Recognizing that Muslims were among the enslaved
Africans taken to the New World, Adefunmi asked why Islam perished in the
Americas while Yoruba traditions survived. Unable to impose their hegemony,
enslaved Muslims could not compete against genuinely African spiritualities,
he explained, and “the Mohammedan influence which was not indigenously
African to begin with quickly perished under the impact and dynamism of
African culture.”19
Advocating non-Islamic conceptions of Black spirituality in 1962 Harlem,
Adefunmi confronted an African American Islamic renaissance. Rethinking
Islam’s brand prestige as resistance to white supremacy, Adefunmi argued that
Islam remained more palatable to white Western tastes than Yoruba did, given
Islam’s monotheism and the West’s negative portrayals of indigenous African
spiritualities: “Because of the western deprecation of African religion with its
Gods, dancing and drums, many blacks are making a superficially intellectual
association with Islam, which is a religion acceptable to the white majority and
known to be accepted by many Africans.” Adefunmi suggests that Islam’s rigid
legalism will never constrain the imagination and passion of African intellects:
“The African, being supremely creative and cosmopolitan, will eventually revolt
against a culture which debars plastic sculpture and other traditionally African
expressions such as dancing, syncopated singing, smoking and drinking.”20
During this same period, Brooklyn’s State Street Mosque suffered from
antagonism between African American and immigrant Muslims. Many
Black members were alienated by the mosque’s requirement that they carry

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 33

identification cards to prove themselves “orthodox” Muslims. Others criticized
Faisal himself as insufficiently “orthodox” and lacking in scholarly credentials.
These critiques were not mutually exclusive. In 1962, a handful of Black converts
left State Street to follow the mosque’s Qurʾan teacher, a member of the Paki-
stan-based Tablighi Jama’at, and start a Sunni revivalist community. Their masjid,
Mosque Ya-Sin, sparked the rise of the Dar-ul-Islam Movement, the most
successful Black Sunni community prior to the death of Elijah Muhammad.21
Al Mahdi, only twenty-two years old in 1967, formulated a construction
of Islam that spoke from and to the divisions in Brooklyn’s Muslim commu-
nities, while also engaging non-Muslim visions of metaphysical Africa. For Al
Mahdi, this meant an Afrocentric Sufism that emphasized loud dhikr with the
duff and talking drums, identification with historical Nubia and Sudanese folk
Islam, mystically guided apocalyptic anticolonialism, rigorous study of Arabic,
claims of a “back to the scriptures” textualist revival, and aesthetics that incor-
porated Egyptian ankhs, nose rings, tarbushes, bones worn in the ears, and, in
the case of Al Mahdi himself, tribal scarification. The Mosque of Islamic Broth-
erhood’s newspaper compared these practices to “the more barbaric aspects
of primitive pagan societies.”22
In 1965, the year of Malcolm X’s assassination, changes in U.S. immigration
policy radically transformed American Islam. As a result of the Hart-Celler Act,
which abolished national-origin quotas that had been in force since 1924, the
United States received immigrants from Muslim-majority nations on an unprec-
edented scale.23 Once perceived as a Black religion, Islam became reimagined
as a setting in which Black people depended on Arab and South Asian immi-
grants for tutelage.24
By the time of Elijah Muhammad’s death in 1975, Black Islam was being
challenged by Saudi encroachment and changing relations between African
American and immigrant Muslim communities. W. D. Muhammad’s statements
upon succeeding his father confront these tensions: “I am not asking any of you
to come with me, that I am going to direct you or lead you to Arab world leader-
ship. . . . I tell you that the Arab world has to look this way for understanding.”25
On February 25, 1975, the day before the Nation’s annual Saviors’ Day celebra-
tion and W. D. Muhammad’s first day as head of the Nation of Islam, he told
his ministers, “Don’t think any Arab is coming here to tell you anything. . . . I
don’t care if he’s been reading the Holy Qurʾan since the day Arabia became
sandy. He’s not coming here to lead these sheep.”26
Mustafa el-Amin quotes a 1978 address in which W. D. Muhammad declares,
“I am not going to the Arabs. . . . I am not going to Sunnism, I am not going to

34 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
Wahhabism. . . . I am going to the Kaʿba.” To regard Islam as “Arab religion” is
“sheer stupidity,” W. D. Muhammad argues, and serves “the plan of the devil
to keep our people away from their last hope, by making them think that to
identify with al-Islam is to identify with the Arabs.”27 W. D. Muhammad even
suggested that the first Muslims were not of the same race as modern “light-
skinned, Caucasian rich Arabs.” In an argument that would register with AAC/
NIH narratives, W. D. Muhammad asserted, “The original Arabs were black
people and the Caucasians came in and mixed up their blood with them just
as they mixed blood with many other black people.”28
Nonetheless, W. D. Muhammad sought opportunities to engage global
Muslim networks. Jeff Diamant’s work on Saudi “soft power” in Black Muslim
communities sheds light on W. D. Muhammad’s interest in accessing Saudi
resources, noted in a 1975 disclosure to his officials: “We have not millions but
billions that we can get if we show the world that we realize what we already
have in our hands.” Through organizations such as the MWL, Diamant writes,
the Saudi state sought to “alter African-Americans’ religious practices.” This
effort provided W. D. Muhammad with scholarships at the Islamic University of
Madinah and other institutions, funding for pilgrimages to Mecca, training for
his imams, financial and personnel support for staffing his masjids, and thou-
sands of printed copies of the Qurʾan. This collaboration provoked tension, as
evidenced when an MWL official publicly corrected W. D. Muhammad, until
W. D. Muhammad began to decline Saudi offers for scholarships and hajj fund-
ing in the early 1980s.29
Some members of W. D. Muhammad’s community resisted movement
toward Saudi-centered al-Islam. Others, informed by training and resources
obtained through W. D. Muhammad’s collaboration with the Saudi project, felt
that he had not moved far enough. Siraj Wahhaj, an imam in W. D. Muham-
mad’s community formerly known as Jeffrey 12X, traveled to Saudi Arabia for
training under the MWL. He arrived at the position that W. D. Muhammad
was not legitimately a Sunni Muslim, broke from his former imam, and upon
returning to the United States opened his Masjid at-Taqwa in Brooklyn.30
Critiques also came from Black Sunnis outside the post-Nation commu-
nity, such as the Islamic Party of North America (IPNA), founded by Yusuf
Muzaffaruddin Hamid in 1971. Hamid had converted in 1962 and spent much
of the ’60s traveling Muslim-majority countries, where he engaged movements
such as the Muslim Brothers. In Pakistan, he became a student of Jam’aat Islami
ideologue Abul A’la Mawdudi.31 Upon his return to the United States, he grew
disillusioned at the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., owing to its immigrant

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 35

leadership’s failure to engage the concerns of African American Muslims.32
With other alienated Black Muslims, he left the Islamic Center and started
the Masjidul Ummah, later forming the IPNA. In 1972, the “Islam in Africa”
issue of IPNA journal Al-Islam attacked Islamic Center director Muhammad
Abdul-Rauf, who protested with the Nation after a violent confrontation with
the NYPD at Mosque No. 7 and proclaimed that the “whole Muslim world”
supported the Nation. To the IPNA, this amounted to Muslims “crawling
and bowing” before a “polytheistic racial cult.”33 Even as W. D. Muhammad
reformed the Nation, the IPNA continued its opposition. In 1976, Al-Islam
offered editorials titled “Islamic Worker’s Response to Bilalian News: No
Compromise in Islam” and “Elijah and Fard Must Go!” charging that W. D.
Muhammad’s claim to be a Muslim could not be taken seriously as he contin-
ued to express “extremely respectful references” to Fard Muhammad and had
not fully denounced his deceased father.34
W. D. Muhammad was not the Saudis’ only opening into Black Muslim
communities. Numerous converts traveled to Saudi Arabia for scholarly creden-
tials, including Al Mahdi’s future adversary, Bilal Philips, later the first Western
student at the University of Madinah; Abdullah Hakim Quick, the university’s
first American graduate; and other figures who would become the backbone of
Black Salafism in the later 1980s and ’90s.35 Beyond overt Saudi interventions
in American Muslim life, the turn of the 1980s also saw the rise of immigrant-
centered Muslim institutions, such as the Islamic Society of North America.
In the course of these transformations, Islam lost much of its capital among
Afrocentrist intellectuals as a pro-Black alternative to Christianity. In anti-Is-
lamic Afrocentrism, Islam appears as an ideology of Arab racial supremacy, no
less guilty than Christianity for its violent suppression of indigenous African
traditions and connection to Black enslavement. Blackamerican Muslim move-
ments such as the Nation of Islam, in this view, are correct in their indictment
of Christianity but deluded in their search for an authentic connection to Africa
through the religion of Arab invaders. One prominent voice of anti-Islamic
Afrocentrism, Yosef Ben-Jochannan, explains that he wrote African Origins
of the Major “Western Religions” (1970) to help African Americans trapped in
“mental enslavement” by Christianity, Judaism, and Islam to at least recog-
nize the Black contributions to what he regards as these overtly anti-Black
traditions.36
Chancellor Williams’s The Destruction of Black Civilization (1971) offers a
comprehensive history of various African kingdoms and states (“Black Civi-
lization”) from 4500 bce to argue that the “destruction of Black Civilization”

36 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
occurred repeatedly throughout history whenever Black/African nations
opened their gates to outsiders. Arab Islam and European Christianity both
opposed “African religion,” which had ironically provided the Hebrews with
source material. Arabs, whom Williams categorizes as “a white people, the
Semitic division of Caucasians,” with their own “white superiority complex,”
appear throughout Williams’s history as slave-trading invaders. As white Arab
“armies of Islam continued their triumphant march on Africa, destroying its
basic institutions wherever they could do so,” Williams reminds his reader,
“Black Muslims were not spared from destruction by non-Black Muslims.”
Williams regards Islam as instrumental in slavery’s racialization: Egypt’s
Mamluk “revolt of white slaves” in 1250 ce essentially ended the white slave
trade, after which “Black Africa became the exclusive hunting ground for
slaves.”37
Williams’s reading of relationships between Arabs, Islam, and Africa offers
significant implications for African Americans who look to Islam for their Black
historical consciousness. Williams regrets that many “mixed up and confused”
Black people in the United States, having rightly rejected the names of their
ancestors’ “white western slavemasters,” have replaced them not with authen-
tic African names but rather with the “Arab and Berber slavemaster’s names.”38
Williams provoked critical responses from the IPNA, which published a front-
page challenge in Al-Islam. In its 1976 editorial “Slaves: ‘Set Them Free as a
Favor,’” the IPNA charges Williams with attempting to “slander Islam,” counter-
ing that rather than abolish slavery outright, Islam “adopted a wise and practical
plan for the gradual abolition of slavery.” The editorial pushes back against
conflations of Islam with Arabness, pointing out that Williams and other writ-
ers, “ignorant of what Islam teaches,” erroneously accept any action by Muslim
Arabs as representative of Islam. When Arab slave traders violate Islamic prin-
ciples, this is not Islam’s problem. Acknowledging Arab exploitation of Black
slave labor, the unnamed author asserts, “the Arab slave trade in East Africa
was just as condemnable in the eyes of Islam as the European slave trade in
West Africa.”39 In another Al-Islam editorial, the IPNA promoted awareness of
African Muslim legal, artistic, and scholarly heritages, refuting “extreme Black
Nationalists” and “fuzzy-thinking ‘scholars’” who portray Islam as “an ‘Arabian
thing,’ not African.” While arguing for Islam’s African legitimacy, however, the
editorial also resorts to “civilizing mission” arguments: “The human devel-
opment of those Africans who accepted Islam was far superior to that of the
pagans. . . . Islam thus brought West Africans to the pinnacle of disciplined
human development, and what is human cannot be anti-African.”40

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 37

 In his foundational Afrocentrist text They Came Before Columbus (1976),
Ivan van Sertima minimizes Arab Muslim contributions to the African empire
of Mali. He writes that while traders became Muslim as “the pragmatic thing
to do, since nearly all foreign trade was with the Arabs,” Mali’s Muslim elites
“gave Islam little more than lip service.” Securing Mali as a Black African legacy
rather than an import from outside, Van Sertima declares, “Arab-Islamic influ-
ence on medieval Mali, therefore, was very peripheral.”41
Echoing arguments from Williams, Molefi Asante writes in Afrocentricity
(1980) that while Christianity’s relationship to anti-Black oppression had been
thoroughly documented by Black intellectuals, Islam’s historical anti-Blackness
had escaped comparable scrutiny. Resisting Islam’s image as a pro-Black alterna-
tive to Christianity, Asante charges that “the adoption of Islam is as contradictory
to Afrocentricity as Christianity had been.” Asante remains sympathetic to Elijah
Muhammad, but he regards Elijah’s essential contribution to the Black freedom
struggle as liberation from Christianity, rather than a point of entry into Islam.
For Asante, religion is nationalism; the Muhammad of seventh-century Arabia
was “a nationalist who strove to bring about a cohesive spirit among his people.”
This means that Islam inescapably empowers Arabs over non-Arabs: “The Afri-
can who makes the pilgrimage often flies over numerous sacred cities and sites
of his own to march around someone’s sacred stone. . . . Turning one’s head to
Mecca is symbolic of the same cultural insistence which keeps the convert look-
ing in the direction of another’s culture, not his own.” Conversion to Islam, in
Asante’s view, requires the adoption of “non-African” customs and the surren-
der of African heritage. “If you must change your name,” he writes, “choose an
African name, not an Arab name. Why go through the trouble of discarding a
European name to choose an Arab one?”42
Many Afrocentrist seekers, regarding Christianity and Islam as equally
anti-Black, sought to recover a singular and self-contained “African religion.”
The AAC/NIH developed alongside movements that offered this “African
religion” through reconstructed Yoruba traditions (such as Oyotunji African
Village) and Egyptosophy (such as the Ausar Auset Society), while also engag-
ing a variegated American Islam: W. D. Muhammad’s post-Nation community,
constructing its legitimacy significantly through creative reinterpretation of the
Nation’s ideology and connections to non-Black Muslims; Louis Farrakhan’s
Nation revival, which staked its own claims on the legacy of Elijah Muham-
mad; Arab and South Asian communities supplanting Black communities as
the public faces of Islam in America; and Black Salafi scholars and institutions
that increasingly looked to Saudi Arabia as a center of Islamic authenticity and

38 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
authority. Amid diverse articulations of Islam’s relationship to Blackness, the
AAC/NIH produced its own metaphysical Africa in which potential conflicts
between Islamic and Black authenticities become reconciled.

The Ansar Race Epic

In texts such as Tribal Encyclopedia (1977) and Polytheism: Worship of the
Canaanites (1977), Al Mahdi offers grand narratives spanning thousands of
years in which historical origins reveal unchanging essences, religious and racial
taxonomies become intertwined, and Islam becomes the ultimate expression
of a timeless, transhistorical Blackness. These narratives resist the location of
Islam’s center in a non-Black “heartland,” privilege Nubians as the true and
original Arabs, racialize Islam as Black, and locate “pale Arabs” within white-
ness, thereby positioning them as natural enemies of Islam.
According to Al Mahdi, there are three races: Cushites (Nubians/Blacks),
Amorites (Europeans, Aryans, “India Asian,” etc.), and Edomites (“Oriental”
nations). The indigenous peoples of the Americas do not constitute a distinct
race of their own; they emerged through intermarriage between Nubians—who
had been instrumental in the founding of Inca, Aztec, and Maya civilizations,
spreading science and architecture across the Americas and even building pyra-
mids for technologically advanced communication with pyramids in Egypt
and the Sudan—and Edomites.43
Al Mahdi in turn divides Nubians into three major subcategories—Dongo-
lawi (“Dongaloway,” in Al Mahdi’s rendering), Jaaliyyan, and Shaqiya—that
correspond to identities in the Sudan,44 describing each by its physical char-
acteristics. The Dongolawi are distinguished by their “long nose, long face,
slanted eyes, semi-thin lips, wooly hair, dark complexion,” somewhat reminis-
cent of Al Mahdi himself, as opposed to the Jaaliyyan’s “round face, round eyes,
wide nose, thick lips, wooly hair, dark skin complexion”; the Shaqiya constitute
a mixture of the two.45 Al Mahdi further identifies the Dongolawi as descen-
dants of Kush/Cush, one of the sons of Noah’s son Ham, presents “Cush” as
a Hebrew word for “dark-faced,” and privileges the Kushites as having been a
“pure seed and at one time the largest and most prominent tribe in Sudan.”46
From his reading of the Qurʾanic account (15:28), Al Mahdi writes that
Allah formed Adam from black mud/clay. Adam’s skin was therefore literally
black, though “pale so-called Arabs” conceal Adam’s Blackness with allegori-
cal interpretations. Al Mahdi additionally locates the site at which Adam and
Eve were created as the junction of the White and Blue Niles in the Sudan and

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 39

translates al-Sudan as “Land of the Blacks.” Further connecting the land to
Adam and Eve, he highlights the Arabic dual form to render al-Sudan specif-
ically as “Land of the Two Blacks.” Traveling from the Sudan to what is now
the Arabian Peninsula before there was a Red Sea dividing them, Adam and
Eve arrived at the Garden of Eden in Mecca. After their exile from the garden,
they returned to the Land of the Two Blacks, which become the cradle of
early humanity.47 Discussing Adam as Allah’s khalifa (representative, successor,
vicegerent) in the world, Al Mahdi negotiates with Nation of Islam theology:
the Black man is not Allah, but because he was created by Allah to signify the
divine in this world, he is God (again, “Allah” and “God” are not interchange-
able terms for Al Mahdi). Asking, “Who should really be called God?” in The
Forgotten Tribe Kedar (1974), Al Mahdi answers, “The so-called ‘Black Man’
whenever he raises himself back to the level he was first on.”48
“The descendants of Adam,” Al Mahdi explains, “lived and ruled in the
whole of Africa before the parting of the Earth (Africa) and the Moon (Asia).”49
The Moon’s partition from the earth refers to a Nation narrative, though Al
Mahdi’s commentary relocates its meaning. According to Elijah Muhammad,
the “scientist tribe” of Shabazz was responsible for the separation of the moon
from the earth. Al Mahdi interprets Elijah’s account as true but allegorical: “If
ever you hear talk of the moon parting from the Earth, it is Arabia and Africa.
Arabia is the moon and Africa is the Earth.” Arabia corresponds to the moon
in that both are dry land, while Africa corresponds to the earth as “the mother
of life.”50 Arabia and Africa were split during a war between Cain’s descendants
and Salaam, an advanced civilization that occupied land now covered by the Red
Sea. Salaam was founded by the council of twenty-four elders (also referred to
as “scientists,” again in conversation with the Nation) who descended to earth
as the “sons of Allah” mentioned in Genesis 6:2; the leader of the council and
ruler of Salaam was Khidr/Melchizedek.51 Fearful of Salaam’s scientific advance-
ment, descendants of Cain attacked the kingdom. They destroyed Mu, Salaam’s
capital, which led to the sinking of Salaam and the creation of the Red Sea.52
Prior to its partition, the land was called Nubala, “the ancient Arabic word
for ‘Nubia’ and Nubia means ‘Black.’ . . . Those people who live in the whole of
Africa, then ‘Nubala’ before the parting of the Earth and Moon, were Nubians.”53
As the proper name for the continent, Nubia represents wholeness, while Africa
maintains fracture—literally, as Al Mahdi traces the name to the Arabic f-r-q
root, signifying division.54
There was not yet such a thing as white people. Before the flood, all of
humanity was Black. To explain white origins, Al Mahdi revisits the “curse of

40 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
Ham” narrative that circulated widely in the American context to support white
supremacy,55 but he flips the story to reposition white people as the cursed seed.
Al Mahdi writes that after finding dry land, Noah accidentally invented wine
and became drunk. Ham encountered his intoxicated father and viewed him
with thoughts of “homosexuality and incest,” for which Noah cursed the prog-
eny of Ham’s son Canaan. Al Mahdi emphasizes that only Canaan’s sons fell
under the curse; other sons of Ham who fathered Black nations, such as Phut,
Cush, and Mizraim (father of Egypt) were unaffected. Canaan’s curse, physi-
cally marked by albinism, produced the white race.56 Al Mahdi treats the Nation
of Islam’s Yakub narrative, in which white people emerged as the result of an
ancient Black scientist’s eugenics regime, as valid in spirit—correctly observ-
ing a connection between whites and the devil—if not in its details.57 Unlike
Elijah Muhammad, who rejected notions of Allah and the devil as immaterial
beings, Al Mahdi affirms the existence of both an unseen shaytan (Iblis, who,
as per the Qurʾanic account, became cursed after refusing to prostrate himself
before Adam) and a “physical devil,” the white race, Canaan’s seed.58 While Al
Mahdi often appears to treat Amorites and Canaanites as interchangeable, he
also uses “Canaanite” more specifically for peoples born from Amorites who
raided Nubian villages to rape Nubian women, namely, “sub-tribes” with dark
skin and straight hair such as the Indo-Aryans and Iranians.59
Shunned and humiliated for his albinism and leprosy, Canaan and his wife
(who was also his sister) fled into the Caucasus Mountains, where they had
eleven sons, whose descendants became increasingly animalized, even walking
on all fours and eating raw human carcasses. Al Mahdi cites the Qurʾan’s narra-
tive of the “Companions of the Cave” (18:9–25) and its mention of their dog
as evidence of Amorite bestiality.60 While white men pursued rape in Nubian
villages, white women left in the caves copulated with dogs and other animals,
evidenced today in white babies born with “dog-straight hair” and tails.61 Like-
wise, Al Mahdi traces sexually transmitted diseases to white people who let
dogs lick their sores.62
Al Mahdi’s narrative of Allah sending Abraham to civilize white people
echoes the Nation’s vision of the devil as able to “clean himself up” but also as
requiring Black instruction, as well as its treatment of Moses as a “half-origi-
nal” prophet who attempted to civilize white devils but ultimately failed.63 After
his own troubles with white people, Abraham journeyed to Egypt and found
Imhotep, who brought him to Zoser (Abdul Quddus), a “Master Healer” and
priest in Melchizedek/Khidr’s order. Al Mahdi reverses the historical relation-
ship between Imhotep—the sagacious author of wisdom literature who was

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 41

worshipped as a healing god in the Egyptian temple system, as well as in the
Greek pantheon as Asclepius—and Zoser, the pharaoh for whom Imhotep
served as a scholarly consultant.64 For Al Mahdi, Imhotep was the pharaoh and
Zoser the healing sage.65 It was thanks to their advanced science that Abraham
could deliver the genetically engineered pig to the Caucasus Mountains, giving
Canaanites an alternative to eating the cadavers of their own people. Some
of the cave-dwelling Canaanites did accept Abraham’s teachings and became
Yakub’s devil “pale Jews,” who thought of Abraham as their father and strove
to follow him though they were not his biological progeny.66
Tribal Encyclopedia and other pamphlets tell us that Allah repeatedly deliv-
ered Israel into the hands of the Canaanites as punishment for betraying their
covenant. The Israelites were ultimately destroyed, their only surviving remnant
today being the Judahite refugees who became the Ethiopian Falasha, who
preserved divine law until prophethood passed to the Ishmaelites. Al Mahdi
denounced contemporary Black Hebrew/Israelite movements and their lead-
ers, “who believe or make believe that they too are descendants of Israel,” for
misleading Nubians away from their true Abrahamic lineage: “You are descen-
dants from the loins of his first son Ishmael (PBUH), Ishmaelites.”67 Specifically,
Nubians in America descend from Kedar, Ishmael’s only son to preserve his
seed’s purity.68
In Al Mahdi’s global history, religions correspond to racial essences that
inevitably manifest themselves, as articulated in Polytheism: Worship of the
Canaanites. The text racializes monotheism as Black and polytheism as a symp-
tom of white perversity. Allah sends messengers to specific communities, Al
Mahdi explains, and the Canaanites received “many guides” but could not
keep to the laws of Islam. Unable to grasp the worship of Allah without part-
ners, the Canaanites repeatedly distorted their guides’ teachings and took to
worshipping the guides themselves.69 The first messenger sent to white people
was the Buddha; Al Mahdi explains that Siddhartha Gautama himself iden-
tified “buddha” as an office parallel to “prophet.” The Buddha was sent to the
“Hindus,” who descended from “Aryans (Albinos) who lived in the Cauca-
sian Mountains” and migrated to the Indian subcontinent with their abducted
Nubian concubines. Merging “these two extreme races” of Amorite and Nubian,
the Aryan peoples displayed traces of both, having Amorite hair texture and
Nubian complexions. Their religious traditions were also hybrid, characterized
by “a strict life-style of obedience and study” but “based upon worship of the
Devil.” In particular, the modern Hare Krishna movement “has become one of
the largest devil worshipping societies in the western hemisphere,” while also

42 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
anchored in the worship of a Nubian as a god (Krishna’s name translates as
“Dark Black,” Al Mahdi explains). “Although mankind worships the Nubians,”
Al Mahdi clarifies, “their goal is to enchant the black converts[,] casting them
into a spell.” Upon this introduction to Hinduism, Al Mahdi returns to the
Buddha, a “Nubian prince,” captioning the photo of a Buddha image to note
“the kinky hair, a sign of his Cushite (Black) heritage.” Against assumptions that
the Buddha was “an Indian or what is termed Indo-Aryan,” Al Mahdi argues
for the Buddha’s Blackness with reference to his lineage through Elam, son of
Noah’s son Shem. Al Mahdi presents Buddha as a secular (but not unbelieving)
Nubian philosopher and ascetic: though the Buddha “believed in a Creator,
he did not center his attention in converting the Canaanite (Indians) who had
previously lost their soul because of selfishness, lust, greed, and etcetera.”70
Al Mahdi then moves to Zoroastrianism, which he treats as inauthentic
yet surprisingly similar to Islam. Prior to the invasion of Persia by Indo-Eu-
ropean peoples and the proliferation of Hindu-informed “idol worshipping,”
Persia had been occupied by Nubians. While Zoroaster attempted to reform
Persian religion, “the Indo-Europeans (Caucasian) were not content with the
belief in an unseen Creator” and thus reverted to their “concrete gods,” myths,
and rituals. Finally, Al Mahdi gives a brief and largely innocuous discussion
of Confucius, who has “probably affected more Chinese (Edomites) over the
centuries” than any other thinker. Confucius was a “humanist” and an “ethical
and religious teacher” who did not force religion upon his people. Al Mahdi
regards Confucius as a true guide for the Chinese people, but notes, “as close
as Confucius was to the truth, he was yet very far” because he excluded the
worship of Allah from his teachings.71
These racial-religious histories informed Al Mahdi’s understanding of
differences between Muslim communities. Dismissing criticism that he was
not properly orthodox, Al Mahdi shrugs away “orthodoxy” as white heresy:
“the word ‘orthodox’ has no Islamic beginnings. orthodox was made up by
the pale man. . . . Such a word has no place in the Islamic way of life: and there
is no such thing as an ‘orthodox’ Muslim.” He adds that true Muslims follow
the Sunna but “absolutely do not label themselves with unnecessary titles
such as ‘Sunni.’ The word ‘Sunni’ is of Persian origin.”72 Because Persians are
Amorites in Al Mahdi’s thought, tracing “Sunni” to Persian origins racializes it
as white. In a 1977 pamphlet, Al Mahdi writes that he only accepts the Muwatta
of Malik b. Anas (d. 795) as legitimate because it was the lone hadith collec-
tion produced first in Arabic; he alleges that other collections were originally
Persian and then translated into Arabic.73

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 43

 Al Mahdi constructs a Blackness-affirming Salafism: Islam’s “pristine
purity” exists at the origins, which rest in bilad as-sudan, “Land of the Blacks,”
while heretical innovation (bida’) is linked to Iran, the “land of the Aryans.” And
just as “pale Jews” make false claims of descent from the Israelites, today’s “pale
Arabs” are imposters. “The first and true Arab,” Al Mahdi writes, was Abraham’s
son Ishmael, who was Black. “Therefore, the Nubian man (Blackman) is the
real Arab. It was the Nubian man who lived and ruled Arabia as well as Africa.”74
Al Mahdi addresses the “real Arabs” question in an episode of his True Light
cassette tape series75 and in the pamphlet Sons of Canaan. “Many of the pres-
ent-day inhabitants of Arabia and many parts of North Africa,” he explains, are
“Pale people (lepers) . . . not the real Arabs.”76 He translates Kedar’s name from
Hebrew as “mighty and Black skin” and links it to the Arabic q-d-r root, “as in
the Night of Power” (laylat al-qadr) mentioned in the Qurʾan. He also finds
Ishmael’s protected seed in Solomon 1:5: “I am Black, but comely, O Daugh-
ters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.”77 In The
Forgotten Tribe Kedar, Al Mahdi tells us that the true Arabs, the descendants of
Kedar, were tricked and scattered by the pale imposter Arabs, who abducted
them and sold them to European slave markets. This is how the progeny of the
prophets ended up in American wilderness. As the lone tribe that “remained
pure and maintained their original Blackness,”78 Kedar’s line was destined in
Genesis 15:13–16 to find itself in a land not its own. “We are this lost but now
found tribe,” Al Mahdi proclaims, “who were called by the Honorable Elijah
Muhammad ‘shabazz.’”79

The Blackness of Arabic: Language of the Scriptures

Su’ad Abdul Khabeer has observed the importance of Arabic in U.S. Muslim
communities as a signifier of Islamic legitimacy, expertise, and authority, partic-
ularly amid tensions between transnational and African American Muslims.
In contexts that presume immigrants from Muslim-majority countries to be
innately more qualified as authorities than African American Muslims, the
study of Arabic theoretically levels the field. “Because of the cultural capital
of Arabic among Muslims worldwide,” Abdul Khabeer argues, “Arabic will
always be a trump in negotiations of symbolic power, even in contexts that do
not include Arabs, like those of African American Muslims whose main immi-
grant interlocutors are South Asian.” Abdul Khabeer also acknowledges African
American Muslim resistance to Arabic for the implication that “‘authentic’
Muslim identity can only be created through the adoption of foreign cultural

44 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
forms and practices,” a problem exacerbated by Arab slave trading as well as
by contemporary dynamics within Muslim communities. Even those who
allow Arabic’s primacy often challenge assumptions that Islamic authenticity
requires wholesale Arab mimesis. “The question posed by some African Amer-
ican Muslims,” Abdul Khabeer notes, is “does the value given to the Arabic
language extend to Arabs and Arab culture?”80
The AAC/NIH answers this question by redefining what it means to be
Arab. Confronting Black Salafism on its own terms, Al Mahdi’s racial histo-
ries present Arabic as inherently Black. While privileging Arabic as crucial
for Islamic knowledge and practice, Al Mahdi detaches the language from
the “pale Arabs” who had usurped the Nubian birthright. Because the Arabs
who enslaved Black Africans were not the real Arabs, one does not have to
choose between submission to Arab cultural hegemony and Black Islamic
agency. Providing Egyptian and Sudanese Arabic teachers for his community,
Al Mahdi promised a more pure Arabic than what one found among “pale”
Muslims: “don’t waste time learning Urdu (Pakistanian Arabic) or any other
form of diluted Arabic, until you’ve learned your own pure form. The Arabic
you are being taught by these Horite, Canaanite and Amorite moslems (wolves
in sheep’s clothing) is below your degree of learning.”81 Arguing for his own
credentials with Arabic, Al Mahdi would later attest that he was a native speaker
who lost much of his Arabic after coming to the United States as a child. He
claimed that to recover his Arabic, he practiced with “a Syrian named Ghalib”
at State Street Mosque and later studied Arabic at a university in the Sudan.82
Back to the Beginning: The Book of Names (1972) treats the significance of
one’s name in ways that would be familiar to those versed in Nation of Islam
discourse: “Your name is important today in the everyday life of the Nubian
(Black) Man and woman, because of the fact that your name is supposed to
represent you.” The loss of authentic Nubian names, rooted in Nubian languages
(Arabic, Hebrew, Yoruba, and others), accompanied the broader physical and
ontological violence of slavery. To be stripped of one’s true ancestral name
was of a piece with being forced to accept Christianity, the replacement of
traditional foods with “swine and other poisonous flesh,” and imposed naked-
ness. Back to the Beginning walks readers through lists of Arabic, Hebrew, and
Yoruba names, grouped by gender and provided in translation and transliter-
ation, along with basic introductions to the respective languages. The artifact
reads like an introduction to Muslim life, concluding with a list of “things
that a Muslim should have” that includes a prayer rug and beads for reciting
divine names. Published early in AAC/NIH history, Back to the Beginning’s final

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 45

Figure 4 Advertisement for the Upper Room, ca. 1972.

pages do not advertise the extensive book catalog found in later publications,
but they contain an ad for the Upper Room, an establishment where patrons
could enjoy art, music, tea, and food at the community’s Rockaway Avenue
headquarters. The ad contains six-pointed stars, the Nation’s star and crescent,
and an ankh, with greetings in Arabic (salaam alaykum), Swahili (jambo) and
Yoruba (alafiya) (fig. 4). The pamphlet also advertises Arabic classes along-
side Islamic and martial arts classes at the Rockaway location.83
Al Mahdi weaponizes his mastery of Hebrew when chastising other
Muslims for their lack of attention to the Bible. Arguing against Black Hebrew/
Israelite movements, however, he gives primacy to Arabic. He insists that Arabic
is the language of the angels and prophets (with special emphasis on Abraham,
noting that Abraham was called a “Hebrew” but did not speak a “Hebrew”
language) and the original root of all other languages.84 The original name for
the creator of the universe, therefore, is Allah, of which names such as Eloh or
El were later derivatives. After going astray, the Israelites lost their right to the
divine name and were left with the Hebraic consonants YHWH, which signi-
fied what was now ineffable. Al Mahdi argues that these consonants correspond

46 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
to the Arabic Sufi chant ya huwa, literally “Oh He,” as the masculine pronoun
huwa represents a name known only to Allah himself.85
Against Afrocentrists, who had their own linguistic recovery projects,
AAC/NIH media argue for the Afrocentricity of Arabic. In Arabic: The First
Language (1977), Al Mahdi positions Arabic, rather than Swahili, as the true
Nubian language; in white-run “black history” courses, the devil “teaches you
the lie that your language is Swahili or any of the so-called African languages.
. . . Swahili is a tongue which is a combination of Arabic and Bantu that was
made up exclusively for the purpose of trading slaves during the so-called ‘Arab
Slave Trade.’” “So, all you back to Africa, Swahili or Yoruba-speaking people,”
he asks, “whose Africa are you going to? The natives that speak to Tarzan are
just as astray as you are. Can’t you see now why the Devil must keep you igno-
rant?” The Afrocentrist marginalization of Arabic keeps Nubians from realizing
“not only the Black man’s true language, but the first language in existence.”86
AAC/NIH publications such as A Family Guide to Easy Arabic Phrases and
Teach Yourself Qurʾaan with Tape encourage community members to further
integrate Arabic into their ritual practice and even their interpersonal commu-
nications. Before becoming equipped to speak Arabic as a primary language in
the home, AAC/NIH members were expected to learn at least enough Arabic
to perform ritual actions such as formal salat and various supplementary prayers
(du’a). To this end, Al Mahdi’s Muslim Prayer Book not only provides the ritual
prescriptions in their original Arabic with English translations, but also includes
Roman transliteration for those who have not yet learned the Arabic script.
AAC/NIH literature presents mastery of both the Arabic language and
vocalization as essential to proper engagement with the Qurʾan; Al Mahdi’s
1982–86 series of commentaries on short Qurʾan suras, As Sayyid Al Imaam
Isa Al Haadi Al Mahdi Explains the Secret Meaning of Qurʾaan to the A’immah
of Ansaaru Allah, includes attention to recitation (tajwid), providing charts
of relevant symbols and the rules for specific letters. Discussing the Qurʾan’s
multiple vocalizations, Al Mahdi explains that in AAC/NIH programs, chil-
dren learn to recite the Qurʾan in accordance with the riwayah of ‘Asim, which
he connects to the family of the Prophet as well as to the Sudan. ‘Asim’s recita-
tion, traceable to ‘Ali, became popular in North Africa through the Fatimid
caliphate. Al Mahdi writes that after falling from power, the Fatimid dynasty
sought refuge in the Sudan, specifically in “the area that encompasses Kordo-
fan, Darfur, Berber, and the town of El Obeid and Khartoum. This area was
called Nubia.” Here, ‘Asim’s recitation “continued to be passed down and prac-
ticed in purity by the few who knew and respected it,” including the Sudanese

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 47

Mahdi. Al Mahdi proclaims that his own community has taken responsibility
for preserving the ‘Asim recitation in the West.87
“Now that you have become familiar with the Arabic language,” Al Mahdi
wrote in 1989, “a step further [will be taken] into a language that will be insti-
tuted for the first time here in the West”: Nubic. In Nubic: The Language of
the Nubian Americans, Al Mahdi clarifies that he does not intend to abandon
Arabic; rather, Nubic constitutes “an advanced form of Arabic” with a script
largely recognizable to readers of Arabic. Al Mahdi advocates Nubic by citing
Elijah Muhammad’s negative impressions of Africa, in which not all African-
ities are to be regarded as equal: “The Nubians of Southern Nubia have lost
their way and are living like savage beasts in Africa. . . . These are the same
Africans you see in books wearing make-up on their faces and bodies. Isn’t it
strange how the media only show these jungle bunny, porch monkey-look-
ing Africans as representatives of Africa?” The media erase “Africans such as
the Nubians of Nuba (northern Sudan) who are the Muslims that kept their
culture. This is the same culture that was passed down by way of the Prophets.”
Blackamericans come from the northern Sudan, the better of the two Nubias.
After generations of erasure by the devil, Al Mahdi has come to reveal Black-
americans’ true nationality (Nubian American), homeland (Sudan/Nubia),
and language (Arabic/Nubic).88

“We Are the Original Form of Islam”

Al Mahdi’s Nubian odyssey incorporates historical Islam in his reading of
the Prophet, his family, and the power struggles that divided the first Muslim
community, asserting both that “original” Islam is Nubian and that “Sunni is a
white form of Islam.”89 Al Mahdi writes that the Prophet was descended from
the pure, unmixed line of Kedar, designating him as an “unmistakably Black”
man, “very dark complexioned” and with “thick lips,” contrary to imaginaries
of him as a “white Arab with blond hair and blue eyes” promoted by “so-called
‘Moslems’ from the East.”90 Al Mahdi argues that as proto-Sunni Muslims circu-
lated fictitious hadiths, they destroyed Islam on two levels, producing a corpus
of their own opinions to overrule the genuine scriptures and falsely portray-
ing Muhammad as a white man.91 Editions of Hadith: Allah’s Scripture Comes
First from 1977–79 feature a drawing of a white hand (wearing a crucifix ring)
descending from above to present a book titled Hadith (with the author attri-
bution “By the Paleman”) to several eager Black hands below (wearing rings
that display Egyptian ankhs or crescents and five-pointed stars). A cartoon

48 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
in The Man of Our Time (1978) depicts a white man in a suit and tie hover-
ing above a kufi-wearing Black man, holding him by the head and pointing
with his other hand to a large book titled “sunnah of mohammad.” Though
Al Mahdi did not reject the hadith corpus wholesale, and even published his
own hadith collections, he presents excessive reliance on hadiths as an instru-
ment of white control over Black Muslims. Al Mahdi thus absorbs Afrocentrist
critiques while preserving the innocence of “true” Islam, centered in the Qurʾan
and authentic hadiths.92
Without identifying himself as Shi’i, Al Mahdi affirms Muhammad’s cousin
and son-in-law ‘Ali as his rightful successor and upholds Shi’i narratives about
Muhammad’s family experiencing persecution under the early caliphates.
He weaves these representations of early Islam as characterized by theft and
conquest into his larger history, projecting themes of his Nubian race epic onto
conflicts that divided the original Muslim community. This means that while
‘Ali and the Prophet’s daughter Fatima are Black, Abu Bakr—recognized in
Sunni traditions as the first rightly guided caliph—and his daughter A’isha,
the Prophet’s wife, whose fairness caused him to call her “Humayra” (little red
one), are white. The power struggles between rival camps among the earliest
Muslims become racialized as another episode in Nubians’ eternal struggle
against Canaan’s cursed seed.
AAC/NIH media affirm Muhammad’s Blackness from as far back as the
record goes, but their allegiance to the ahl al-bayt and their racialization of the
Sunni-Shi’i conflict developed over time. The earliest work in which I could
find affirmation of ‘Ali as the rightful successor to the Prophet, Muhammad
Ahmad: The Only True Mahdi!, was produced in 1977. In the same work, Al
Mahdi explains that “the true line of succession is the one according to the
Shiʿites for they recognized twelve men as successors . . . and they all came
from the tribe of the Quraysh.” This pamphlet names the twelve Imams of
Ithna Ashʿari (“Twelver”) tradition as Muhammad’s successors but neglects
details of Ithna ‘Ashari narratives that provoke tension with his investment in
the Sudanese Mahdiyya, such as the twelfth Imam’s disappearance as a child,
his continued existence in a metaphysical state of ghaybat until the end of the
world, and his ultimate status as the singular awaited Mahdi. For Al Mahdi,
the twelfth Imam is not the Imamate’s eschatological conclusion but passes
his authority to a successor and continues the chain. Al Mahdi cites hadiths
in which the Prophet predicts that the awaited Mahdi would come from him
through Fatima, but these hadiths appear in Sunni collections.93 It appears that
Al Mahdi’s ‘Alidism intensified after Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, but not

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 49

immediately. A 1982 issue of the Ansaar Village Bulletin gives an account of the
Prophet’s grandsons (and second and third Shi’i Imams) Hasan and Husayn
gently teaching an elderly man, and provides a short biography of ‘Ali, but in
neither case does it touch upon points of sectarian division.94
Still treating biblical literature as an Islamic resource, Al Mahdi locates
the significance of the ahl al-bayt in part through his reading of Revelation.
Although The Holy Gospel: The Revelation of Jesus the Messiah to the World (1984)
could appear to observers as marking a “Christian turn” away from Islam, Al
Mahdi’s biblical exegesis and focus on Christ lead him to the Prophet’s family.
For its mention of a woman “gowned in white, wearing a crown of twelve stars
upon her head; at her feet was the crescent moon,” Al Mahdi reads Revelation
12:1 as a reference to Fatima. His Holy Gospel presents an illustration of Fatima
in white niqab, wearing the crown of twelve stars, with the crescent at her feet
bearing the word al-islam in Arabic script. Rather than point immediately to
the twelve-Imam line, Al Mahdi deciphers the stars to signify the twelve tribes
of Ishmael. Allah had explained their meaning as such to Adam and Eve, who
experienced a vision of Fatima as a young girl shortly after their creation. Fati-
ma’s crown also contained an onyx stone, which Al Mahdi reads as symbolic of
‘Ali’s descent from Adam, along with the Black Stone of Mecca, fashioned from
black clay that was left over after Adam’s creation. When Adam and Eve noticed
young Fatima wearing earrings of gold and silver, Allah explained that there
was no difference in value between gold and silver but that the two earrings
represented Hasan and Husayn.95
According to Al Mahdi, the “sharp two-edged sword” of Revelation 1:16
refers to ‘Ali’s sword, Zulfikar. The Holy Gospel refers to the event of Ghadir
Khumm, regarded in Shi’i traditions as the moment that Muhammad declared
‘Ali his successor, while Abu Bakr and A’isha appear as treacherous conspira-
tors obsessed with personal power. Al Mahdi then turns to the continuation
of authority after Muhammad. He presents the Imamate in two cycles: the
first consists of the ten Imams that followed ‘Ali, starting with his sons Hasan
and Husayn and proceeding to the Ithna ‘Ashari line’s eleventh Imam, Hasan
al-Askari. The second cycle starts with the twelfth Imam of Ithna ‘Ashari tradi-
tion, Muhammad b. Hasan al-Mahdi, through whom Al Mahdi traces an imamate
that leads to Muhammad Ahmad, the Sudanese Mahdi. As the nineteenth Imam
after ‘Ali, Muhammad Ahmad’s position conforms to the “mathematical mira-
cle” that ACC/NIH literature finds in the number nineteen.96
In his commentary on Revelation, Al Mahdi describes the ahl al-bayt suffer-
ing persecution and hardship after Muhammad’s death, accuses A’isha of breaking

50 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
the law by rebelling against ‘Ali’s leadership, charges Sunni scholars with fabricat-
ing hadiths to favor A’isha, and notes the Sunni treatment of those who supported
Muhammad’s grandson Husayn: “His helpers [Ansar] and friends underwent
the worst possible killings; women and children were tortured; bodies trampled,
heads taken out on the blades of spears.” From Karbala, Al Mahdi then turns
again to nineteenth-century Sudan, describing the Anglo-Egyptian oppression
of Nubian peoples and the rise of the Mahdiyya. Despite the Mahdiyya revo-
lution, the British regained power and persecuted the Mahdi’s family, echoing
the suppression of the ahl al-bayt. Al Mahdi points to his own emergence as the
promised leader, citing the hadith that reads, “Hearken and obey although a Black
Slave whose head is like a dried grape will be appointed to rule over you.”97 Citing
the “dried grape” hadith in Where Is the Tabernacle of the Most High? (1986), he
then proclaims, “I am the only successor to Ahlil Bayt.”98
While AAC/NIH literature of the early 1980s connects the oppressors
of Muhammad’s family to modern forces of European colonialism and white
supremacy, its media later in that decade more explicitly racialize divisions among
the early Muslims. This shift corresponds to the publication of Runoko Rashidi
and Ivan van Sertima’s edited volume African Presence in Early Asia (1985), which
includes a contribution by Wayne B. Chandler on racial conflicts at the origins of
Islam. In “Ebony and Bronze: Race and Ethnicity in Early Arabia and the Islamic
World,” Chandler follows J. A. Rogers, who wrote in volume 1 of Sex and Race
of an ancient Arabia in which Black rulers saw themselves as racially superior
to their “Persian and Turkish subjects,”99 and envisions pre-Islamic Mecca as a
racially stratified society in which Black Arabs lived close to the Kaʿba, while
“Red Semites,” ancestors of the future Umayyad dynasty, were marginalized on
the outskirts. With “strong belief in a Black/Semitic alliance, a central theme of
Islam which was never well-received by either group,” Muhammad proclaimed,
“I was sent to the Reds and the Blacks” and preached a universalist message. He
proselytized among the “primitive Semites” because he needed soldiers, and
they converted mainly in the hope of war plunder, but he also appealed to “the
great Blacks who had laid the cornerstone of culture and civilization in Arabia”
and possessed superior military technology. As one of history’s great empire
builders, Muhammad successfully united the peoples of Arabia into a singu-
lar nation under his power, but after his death, racial hostilities resurfaced and
destroyed what he had built. The Semitic Muslims, opposing hereditary succes-
sion because they could make no credible claim of relation to Muhammad, called
for elections as “the only way to guarantee political leverage. . . . It was this fight
for power that created the Sunni Moslem.” ‘Ali’s later refusal to pledge allegiance

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 51

to Muʿawiyya, the “Semitic governor of Syria,” launched a “civil war between
Blacks and Semites,” and Islam’s racial divisions were never resolved, as the Red
Semites became the Umayyad caliphate and continued to persecute Muhammad’s
family, while Black Arabs became the nucleus for Shi’ism. In particular, Chandler
identifies the Fatimids (descended from Muhammad’s daughter Fatima, whom
Chandler claims had ruled from 616 to 633 ce) as a later “Black caliphate” and
credits its famed Assassins with a “devastating war of terror against the Chris-
tian Crusaders and the Semitic orthodox Sunni Moslems.” Chandler also holds
Sufism to be a branch sect of the Assassins.100
AAC/NIH book catalogs from 1985 onward mention a book titled The
Prophet Muhammad and Ali Were Nubian (Black).101 Though the volume does
not appear to have survived, depictions of its cover in advertisements suggest
that it was a translated excerpt from a prominent reference for Chandler, The
Book of the Glory of the Black Race, by ninth-century Afro-Iraqi scholar al-Jahiz
(775–868).102 In 1988, Al Mahdi published a two-volume work, Hadrat Faati-
mah (AS): The Daughter of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), that intensified
the presentation of “orthodox” Islam as a white supremacist takeover of Nubian
Islam. The covers of both volumes depict Fatima as a Black woman clothed in
white niqab, wearing a golden crown with twelve stars, holding gold and silver
apples in her hands, with a crescent at her feet. Al Mahdi tells of Fatima’s exalted
nature, her preexistence of the created universe, her communication with angels
from a young age, and her significance for her father’s mission, while weaving
in references to the nineteenth-century Sudanese Mahdi. Hadrat Faatimah also
identifies Muhammad as a “Black Arab.” When ‘Ali leads the Muslim army into
battle, their Meccan opponents are described as “Red Arabs.”103
The second volume emphasizes the suffering of Fatima and her children
at the hands of Red Arabs and “so-called Jewish” Canaanites. Al Mahdi writes
of young Husayn’s abduction by Salah bin Rega, who “planned to make Al
Imaam Husayn (AS) his black slave; being that he was so black skinned. In
those days Red Arabs had Black slaves.” An accompanying illustration depicts
white-skinned, hook-nosed Salah kidnapping the Black child.104
The account of Muhammad’s death furthers these themes. Muhammad
dies after consuming lamb meat that has been poisoned by a Jewish woman.
During Muhammad’s deathbed illness, ‘Umar and A’isha deny his request for
writing implements, thereby preventing him from making a final statement;
after ‘Ali argues with ‘Umar, they send ‘Ali out of the room. According to Al
Mahdi, ‘Umar knew that the Prophet had wanted to name ‘Ali his successor. In
an illustration captioned “All gather around to hear the Prophet Muhammad

52 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
(PBUH),” Muhammad and an unidentified man and woman (apparently ‘Ali
and Fatima) standing watch over him all have dark skin; behind them stand a
man and veiled woman with light skin (‘Umar and A’isha), the woman’s eyes
giving an impression of scheming or enmity. While Abu Bakr appears in the
first volume as a sympathetic figure who follows and supports Muhammad
with sincerity, even risking his life to flee Mecca with him,105 the second volume
presents a shift in his character after the Prophet’s death. Fatima pleads with
Abu Bakr for her rightful inheritance, the land of Fadak; while Fatima and ‘Ali
appear in the accompanying illustration as Black, Abu Bakr and his entou-
rage, apparently including A’isha, all have lighter skin.106 Throughout AAC/
NIH media, Abu Bakr would appear as a “red” or “pale” Arab in contrast to
the Nubian Prophet and his family (figs. 5–8).
“There was much chaos between the Red and Black Arabs after the death of
the Prophet Muhammad,” Al Mahdi writes, explaining that this chaos “resulted
in the division of the Muslim world into many sects.”107 Allah chose Fatima
as the one child of Muhammad who would survive him, knowing that of all
Muhammad’s children, only Fatima could produce a lineage to fight for its due
successorship.108 Driven into exile by A’isha’s “malice and jealousy,” Fatima and
‘Ali fled Arabia, heading to Egypt and then the Sudan. The Muslims’ internal
strife culminated in the rise of Yazid, “a drunk, a womanizer, and a man of ques-
tionable character,” who ascended to the caliphate and sent a legion against
Husayn’s supporters at Karbala, after which Husayn’s severed head was brought
to Yazid’s palace. In the centuries to come, refugees from the Shi’i Fatimid
caliphate—recognized by Al Mahdi as descendants of Fatima and ‘Ali—fled
Egypt for safety in their ancestors’ refuge of the Sudan, future birthplace of
the true Mahdi with ancestry traced directly to Husayn.109
The suffering of Muhammad’s family and the tragedies of Karbala, as
refashioned by Al Mahdi, speak to several important registers in the context of
American Islam throughout the 1980s. A range of post-Nation Sunni discourses
emphasized “graduation” from local pro-Black traditions to absorption within
a “universal” Muslim umma, centered in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Afrocen-
trist thinkers, despite sympathy for Elijah Muhammad, rejected Islam as an
anti-Black ideology of Arab supremacy. AAC/NIH media resist Sunni claims
of superior Islamic authenticity by reexamining the original Muslim commu-
nity, countering Sunni narratives of “golden age” triumphalism with a Shi’i
narrative of oppression and tragedy. The discourse of Islam as “color-blind” and
of Elijah Muhammad as having no Islamic legitimacy, supported by modern
“pale Arab” networks, becomes a repetition of the ways in which pale Arabs

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 53

Figure 5 Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Hadrat Faatimah (AS): The Daughter of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH),
Part 2 (1988), front cover.

54 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
Figure 6 The Ahl al-Bayt: ‘Ali,
Fatima, and their sons, Hasan and
Husayn.

Figure 7 The Prophet Muhammad

Leaving Medina for Mecca. Left to
right: ‘Ali holding his double-bladed
sword, Zulfikar; the Prophet, riding
his camel and holding the Mihjan;
Bilal, holding the Prophet’s standard;
and Abu Bakr, the “pale Arab,” hold-
ing a spear.

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 55

 Figure 8 Hadrat Faatimah
(AS) Pleads for Her Land. With
‘Ali, Fatima confronts Abu Bakr,
A’isha, and their supporters for
her right to inherit the land of
Fadak from her father. From Al
Haadi Al Mahdi, Hadrat Faati-
mah (AS): The Daughter of the
Prophet Muhammad (PBUH),
Part 2, 112.

had stolen Islam from Black people, starting with the Prophet’s own family.
The theme of Karbala as an eternally repeating injustice finds reflection in the
ongoing oppression of Nubians by Amorites (whether European or pale Arab),
while Sunni animosity toward the Prophet’s household converges with Arab
racism against Nubians to become a singular white animosity for the original
Black Islam of the ahl al-bayt. This timeless hatred is manifested in Arab Sunni
antagonism toward the AAC/NIH, a community that has pledged its loyalty
to a Black man who is also a direct descendant of ‘Ali and Fatima.
Though Islam, in Al Mahdi’s view, is properly Nubian, Sudanese, and Black,
Sunni Islam remains guilty of the anti-Blackness that Afrocentrists have charged.
The crucial choice for Nubians in the West is not between Arab-supremacist
Islam and Blackness-affirming Afrocentrism, but rather between an oil-funded
surge of globalizing white Sunni hegemony and the pure Nubian Islam of the
Prophet’s family. Islam’s true revival begins with a Black man, descended from
the ahl al-bayt, who sets the stage for his great-grandson to awaken Nubian
consciousness in the West.

56 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
The Nineteenth Imam: The Sudanese Mahdi

The man that Al Mahdi identified as the true Mahdi and his biological and
spiritual forerunner, Muhammad Ahmad (1845–1885), emerged from a unique
milieu of Sudanese Sufism. In Muhammad Ahmad’s lifetime, local Sufi tradi-
tions underwent multiple transformations amid the arrivals of “neo-Sufi” orders
such as the Tijaniyya and Khatmiyya, the development of a modern Sudanese
nationalism among Muslim communities to the north, and colonial interfer-
ence by Egypt’s Turko-Egyptian ruling elite, which abused the Sudan with an
unjust tax system and imposed its own ideas of Islamic orthodoxy as a reformist
“civilizing mission.” The Turko-Egyptian regime, Robert O. Collins observes,
regarded the Sudan’s popular Sufi leaders as “ignorant peddlers of superstition”
and sought to correct the masses; Sudan’s indigenous Islamic authorities, in
turn, resisted “the orthodox Islam introduced by the Turks which they regarded
as heresy.”110 The colonial authorities pursued Islamic reform in the Sudan with
control over local education, bringing legions of clerical scholars (ʿulama) into
the Sudan from al-Azhar in Cairo, sending Sudanese clerics for instruction at
al-Azhar, and formal shari’a courts with Egyptian judges.111 The religious conflict
between colonizers and the colonized was not only between rural mystics and
university-trained jurists but also between competing legal systems, as the
Turko-Egyptian institutional networks privileged the Hanafi school, though
the Maliki school had enjoyed greater prominence in the Sudan.112
Muhammad Ahmad’s family claimed to have migrated to Dongola from
Egypt in the fifteenth century, boasted ashraf (descent from the Prophet) status
and a reputation for producing holy men, and was connected to the Sammaniyya,
one of the neo-Sufi orders of recent arrival in the Sudan. The order’s founder,
Muhammad b. ʿAbd al-Karim al-Samman (1718–1775), had received initiation
into the Khalwatiyya in Cairo and developed the Sammaniyya as his own Khal-
wati branch. His disciples spread the order as far as Indonesia and Malaysia;
Ahmad al-Tayyib al-Bashir (1742–1824), also an initiate of the Qadiriyya, Khal-
watiyya, and Naqshbandiyya orders, brought the order to the Sudan circa 1764,113
with particular success on the White Nile.114 The Sammaniyya’s spread into
the Sudan reflected a transition in Sudanese Sufism from local, rural lineages
to “more centralized and better-organized supranational orders” that tran-
scended tribal divisions.115 Muhammad Ahmad became a sheikh in the order
and joined his boatbuilder brothers at Abba Island for ascetic hermitage on the
White Nile, where he provoked controversy after condemning a circumcision
party for its allowance of dancing. Expelled from his brotherhood, he joined a

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 57

rival Sammaniyya branch and in 1878 participated in the building of its leader’s
tomb, thereby fulfilling prophesy: the sheikh had foretold that the builder of his
tomb would be the awaited Mahdi.116 In 1881, bolstered by a vision in which the
Prophet confirmed his status to an otherworldly assembly that included past
Sammaniyya awliya (spiritually advanced “friends” of God, popularly rendered
as “saints”), he declared himself the awaited Mahdi and called for a return to the
pure Islam of the Prophet, which required liberation from the corrupted Islam
of the Turko-Egyptian regime. Sudanese nationalism was inseparable from
religious liberation; the Mahdi’s anti-imperialist struggle was also an Islamic
freedom struggle, an uprising of Muslims against the Islam of the state.
The Mahdi raised an army among his followers (Ansar), achieved a series of
military triumphs against the imperial powers, and formed a meta-tribal “super-
tariqa”117 and theocratic regime, “the only truly anti-imperialist, Islamic republic
of its time in Africa.”118 As the supreme legislative and theological authority, the
Mahdi denounced adherence to legal schools (madhahib), rejected the ʿulama
as having “distanced themselves from the light of the Prophet,” and ordered the
burning of books of hadith, Qurʾan commentary, and jurisprudence, report-
edly leaving only the Qurʾan and his own devotional text, his Ratib.119 His
position as the Mahdi rendered both the colonial ʿulama and local tariqas
obsolete: though Sufi orders had been integral to the Mahdiyya’s support, the
Mahdi ultimately banned tariqas, prohibited visitation to shrines, and fenced
off sheikhs’ tombs from public access.120
The Mahdi died in 1885, just a few months after capturing Khartoum. Under
his appointed successor, the Mahdist state would last thirteen years before
falling to British and Egyptian forces. For the nationalist spirit that his short
revolution fostered and his seemingly miraculous defeat of Turko-Egyptian
and British power, he is regarded as Abu al-Istiqlal, Father of Independence.121
Despite his claims of transcendent authority and his departure from accepted
readings of the law (such as his having five wives at one time),122 he was also
credited with contributing to Sunni revivalism in the Sudan. Maryam Jameelah,
who had converted at State Street Mosque and become a member of the Fais-
als’ inner circle, positions the Mahdi’s Ansar alongside Muhammad ibn ʿAbd
al-Wahhab’s (1703–1792) “Wahhabi” movement in what is now Saudi Arabia.
“The Mahdist movement,” she writes, “was not in vain. . . . To this day, the
Sudanese are the most Islamically-minded in the Arab world.”123
Upon reconquest in 1898, the Sudan was ruled by an “Anglo-Egyptian
Condominium” through the first half of the twentieth century, in which the
British colonial overlord and its Egyptian subject theoretically shared control

58 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
over the territory. The British administration embarked on a program of Islamic
reform to suppress destabilizing elements such as Mahdism and local Sufi
orders. This meant privileging an al-Azhar model of rational Scholasticism over
the less governable authority of the brotherhoods. The British destroyed the
Mahdi’s shrine, dumped his bones into the Nile and stole his skull, banned the
reconstruction of damaged Sufi shrines, set up shari’a courts, built and financed
masjids and Qurʾan schools, and sought to establish an urban “consultory
board of Ulema” to supplant the decentralized authority of rural Sufi orders,
while portraying its erasure of Sudanese Islam as a restoration of true Islamic
orthodoxy.124 The British colonial project in the Sudan emphasized reliance on
the Qurʾan and classical fiqh (jurisprudence) to secure itself against dangerous
mystical masters and impose a rational secular authority upon the masses.125
The Ansar’s hopes for apocalyptic redemption did not disappear, but they
were projected onto the Mahdi’s son, Sayyid ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, whom
many Ansar came to identify as the returning prophet Jesus.126 Still fearful of
the Mahdiyya’s revolutionary potential, the British kept surveillance on ʿAbd
al-Rahman and prohibited him from identifying himself with terms such as
Imam or Mahdi. During the First World War, he called for Ansar to support
the British against the Turks, whom the Ansar still regarded as “corrupters of
Islam.”127
During the Second World War, an American need for seamen prompted
a small migration of Sudanese men to the United States, leading to the start of
a community in Brooklyn. “They originated from the same part of the coun-
try, Dongola,” writes Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf, and constituted a distinct
presence at State Street Mosque, their “home away from home.”128 State Street
Mosque was apparently the site at which Dwight York—possibly from the age
of twelve in 1957—first experienced African Muslim communities, along with
anti-Black racism from non-Black Muslims. Al Mahdi developed his own circle
with other young Black Muslims in the late 1960s, which identified as Nubian,
adopted an Afrocentric Sufism, and proclaimed Black Islamic power against
both white supremacy and non-Black Muslim privilege. These connections did
not depend on “influence” from the Nation of Islam; nor did Ansar Pure Sufi
originate as the Nation’s “offshoot.” Inhabiting a transnational Muslim space in
which Sufism was organically linked to Black African liberation, young Dwight
York took less interest in Harlem’s famous Mosque No. 7 ministers (Malcolm X,
succeeded by Louis Farrakhan) or the nascent Five Percenter movement than
in this anticolonial Black Sufi master rising from the land of classical Nubian
and Kushite kingdoms to expel Turko-Egyptian and British oppressors.

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 59

 The Final Link (1978) (fig. 9) explains that after the seventh seal was broken
in 1970 and Al Mahdi established the Ansar in the West, the community endured
four years of “persecutions, slander and public humiliation.”129 This period is
described elsewhere as the first half of a “tribulation” during which the commu-
nity lost many of its earliest members.130 In 1973, in the midst of this turmoil,
Al Mahdi traveled with followers to the Sudan and “regained our lost heritage
and fused the broken link back together again.” It was in the Sudan that they
came into the knowledge “that we are indeed the lost tribe of Ismail [Ishmael]
(PBUH) and that part of the family [was] destined to rise in the West.”131 An
unnamed writer describes the party’s travels as yielding a collective self-discov-
ery, a communal echo of Malcolm X’s pilgrimage to Mecca and travels in Africa.
Al Mahdi’s party ventured to Abba Island, where “our brother Ansars accepted us
with open arms and hearts, and gave us the confirmation that we sought so dili-
gently for.” The Sudanese Ansar confirmed that Al Mahdi was the Reformer and
the fulfillment of the prophetic hadith that read, “Hearken and obey although a
Black Slave whose head is like a dried grape will be appointed to rule over you.”
Al Mahdi thus proclaims, “I am the raisin-headed slave” whose arrival had been
foretold by Muhammad and the scriptures.132 In Are the Ansars (in the West) a
Self-Made Sect?, Al Mahdi treats his travels in the Sudan as proof of his legiti-
macy against critics outside the community. “For years you have said that the
Sudanese will not accept the Ansars in the West,” he writes. “You also said that
we as a people have lost our spiritual and physical link with Sudan (Africa).”133
In the years after Al Mahdi became a member of the State Street commu-
nity, established Ansar Pure Sufi, and rebranded his movement as the Nubian
Islamic Hebrews and Ansaru Allah Community, the newly independent Sudan
struggled. In 1958, a military coup led by two generals, one an Ansar and the other
belonging to the Khatmiyya, took control of the newly independent Sudan. ʿAbd
al-Rahman passed away in 1959 and was succeeded as spiritual head of the Ansar
by his son Siddiq, who led the community for only two years before dying in
1961. The Ansar’s shura council named Siddiq’s brother al-Hadi as imam, while
Siddiq’s son Sadiq became head of the Ansar political party, the Umma Party,
and served as prime minister from 1966 to 1967. In 1969, Ja’far Muhammad al-Nu-
mayri took power in a coup; a year later the Ansar revolted, resulting in the army’s
bombardment of their Abba Island base in the White Nile, killing thousands of
Ansar (including al-Hadi Al Mahdi) and sending Sadiq into exile.134
Apart from brief notes on the end of the Ansar’s exile from Abba Island
in 1979, Al Mahdi’s pamphlets and newsletters throughout the 1970s do not
provide extensive commentary on the contemporary Sudan. I have not found

60 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
any AAC/NIH material that mentions al-Numayri by name, and only spar-
ing mention of the Umma Party. The Sudan in AAC/NIH material appears in
somewhat Orientalist fashion as a land of “pure Islam” outside time.
Al Mahdi’s followers performed their connection to the Sudanese Ansar
via clothing prescriptions of white robes, turbans, and face veils, the Bushwick
Avenue masjid’s aesthetic echo of the Mahdi’s shrine in Khartoum, and the pres-
ence of Al Mahdi’s alleged genealogy in his pamphlets, displaying portraits of
his father, grandfather, and the Mahdi. Also central to this performative linkage
was Al Mahdi’s connection to his living Mahdiyya family. AAC/NIH media
from the late 1970s and early ’80s make a prominent photographic display of
Al Mahdi’s relationship with his claimed cousin and the Sudan’s former prime
minister, the Mahdi’s great-grandson Sayyid Sadiq al-Mahdi (figs. 10–11). The
two appear together with a caption locating the moment in the backyard of the
Mahdi’s house in the Sudan during Al Mahdi’s 1973 trip. Sadiq is also shown
visiting the Brooklyn masjid in 1978, participating in congregational prayers,
and smiling in conversation with cousin Isa. A cartoon drawing of legions of
Black men in white turbans and robes from the East and West extending their
hands to one another in friendship, with the two arms of a handshake in the
foreground labeled “Africa” and “America,” appears to have been clipped from
a Muhammad Speaks cartoon (with Ansar logos added). Imposed upon the
drawing are photographs of Sadiq and Isa representing “two halves of the Ansar
family,” the Ansar of Abba Island and the “lost sheep of Ismail [Ishmael]” in
the West. The image is also captioned with Revelation 7:9, which refers to “a
great multitude” representing “all nations and tongues” standing “before the
throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes.”135
With the bold headline “this is the proof!” Al Mahdi presents his alleged
cousin’s address to the community, demonstrating the Sudanese Ansar’s full
endorsement of the Ansar in the West. Sadiq gives his salaam to the “brother
and sister Ansari” and expresses delight upon seeing that the Mahdiyya has
spread to the West. Though he spoke on his great-grandfather’s legacy of Islamic
revival and treating the AAC/NIH as a branch of the Sudanese Mahdiyya, it
remains unclear whether Sadiq was aware of the AAC/NIH’s doctrinal peculiar-
ities. In his address, Sadiq identifies a core message of Islam as its condemnation
of all racial prejudice, insisting “that man, whatever his color, is the same. People
have all descended from one stock, Adam (PBUH). They are all one species,
and therefore the religion of Islam is the religion of racial unity.”136
The reproduction of Sadiq’s talk includes a moment from the ques-
tion-and-answer session in which an Ansar asks about the possibility that

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 61

Sadiq might send teachers to the Brooklyn community. Sadiq answers, “Yes,
insha’Allah. This is what I have promised my brother and I will do.” While
African American Sunni communities increasingly boasted the credentials of
Saudi-supported education, the spiritual leader of the Ansar in the Sudan—a
much poorer nation, itself growing dependent on Saudi resources—opened
alternative gates to the Islamic archive. But Sadiq does not envision the trans-
mission of knowledge between Ansar communities as a one-sided tutelage
of the West by the East. Rather, he expresses a desire for true collaboration
in which the Ansar of the West bring their unique American experience and
knowledge to the Sudan and participate as true partners in the making of a
united Islamic nation. The Ansar of the West can help defeat Christian mission-
ary work in the Sudan “because you have a better experience of what it means
to be Christian and Black. . . . And you also have a better understanding of how
to address people who might need to be addressed towards Islam from this
point of view. This all means that your potential is not only here, but it can also
be seen in your homeland of the movement that’s in the Sudan.”137
While Al Mahdi had recognized Muhammad Ahmad as the Mahdi prior
to his 1973 trip, it appears to have been after his travels that he identified himself
as the Mahdi’s grandson (later, great-grandson). Over time, the question of his
origins became the center of an elaborate saga, of which some details remained
malleable. Al Mahdi’s backstory, as articulated in an AAC/NIH poster labeled
“The Reformer” from the late 1980s, is as follows: In October 1944, Faatimah
Maryam, daughter of a Sudanese merchant seaman from the Nubian Kenazi tribe,
traveled from the United States to Egypt for study in Alexandria, where she met
a man named Abdul Haadi. “At the time,” the poster explains, “the young girl did
not know that this young man had such a royal lineage, and in time, their relation-
ship blossomed.” At the end of the academic year, they went their separate ways,
returning to their homes in the Sudan and later reuniting in Omdurman. “His
royal family did not accept her,” the poster explains, “and did not want anyone to
know about this child [whom she had conceived with Abdul Haadi].” Dejected
after giving birth alone, Faatimah “departed for America in shame, accompanied
by her father, her brother, [famous musician] Hamza El Din and her young child,
Issa.” The family settled in New Bedford, where the baby was registered as “male
York,” receiving his last name from his mother’s ex-husband. They raised the boy
in the United States until he was seven, when Sheikh Ahmad Hasuwn came from
Khartoum to retrieve him. The boy lived at Abba Island on the White Nile until
the age of twelve and then returned to America. Living in Teaneck, New Jersey, he
spent each weekend in Brooklyn with a family connection, an African American

62 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
convert to Islam named Umar Abdullah, who brought him to the State Street
Mosque for Friday prayers. It was there that Daoud Faisal, knowing the child’s
secret, took it upon himself to prepare him for his mission. Though it is unclear
how Faisal had become aware of the boy’s identity, he could have recognized the
truth as it appeared on his body: “dark skin, thin lips, long nose and slanted eyes
and a mole on his right cheek, with three shuluk (tribal scars) on each cheek—
the marks of the Dongolowy people fit the description which a pure descendant
of the seed of Abraham (PBUH) would possess.”
Sadiq’s visits to the Brooklyn community around the turn of the 1980s
received prominent coverage in AAC/NIH publications, which carefully negoti-
ate Isa’s claimed Mahdiyya descent. The Final Link and Are the Ansars (in the West)
a Self-Made Sect? abound with photos of Sadiq and Isa together, quote Sadiq’s
addresses to the Brooklyn community, and refer to their alliance as “symbolic
to the joining together of the two halves of the family; of two hemispheres, the
East and the West.” However, while Al Mahdi had already claimed descent from
Muhammad Ahmad, AAC/NIH publications that emphasize Sadiq’s endorse-
ment of the community do not precisely define Al Mahdi’s relation to the family.
Neither The Final Link nor Are the Ansars (in the West) a Self-Made Sect specifically
identifies the two leaders as cousins or otherwise forges a biological connection
between Isa and the Mahdi. A section in Are the Ansars (in the West) a Self-Made
Sect titled “The Legacy and Heritage of a Great Man and His Heirs” displays
portraits of the Mahdi, his son ʿAbd al-Rahman, grandson al-Haadi, and finally
Isa, and identifies Isa as the third successor to the Mahdi and “Imam of the Ansars
in the West,” but does not name him as a grandson or great-grandson. The reader
is only told to “study the pictures on this page and see for yourself the resem-
blance between Al Imam Isa (WU) and Imam Al Hadi Al Mahdi.” The newsletter
names Isa as Al Hajj Al Imam Isa Abd Allah Muhammad Al Mahdi, minus the
“Al Haadi” that would appear in his name throughout sources from 1983 onward
and mark his claim to be al-Hadi’s son.138
The AAC/NIH disseminated the Ratib, the Mahdiyya prayer book, in Al
Mahdi’s personal translation. As a mystical revelation received by Muhammad
Ahmad on the mountain of Qadir, the Ratib provided the Mahdiyya with a
manual of prayers, chants, and exercises that paralleled the competing Ratibs
of local Sufi orders. Among the Mahdiyya, recitation of the text constituted an
important—and for some followers, allegedly the only—Islamic ritual prac-
tice. Because the Ratib was feared as a public symbol of Mahdism and a call for
jihad, the Anglo-Egyptian colonial regime attempted to ban the book in the early
decades of the twentieth century but rescinded the ban after prohibition became

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 63

clearly unenforceable; and the regime ultimately allowed printed editions and
public assemblies for recitation.139 The Final Link reports that when Sadiq visited
the AAC/NIH, his address to the community included recitations from the
Ratib and a defense of the text’s Islamic legitimacy. The Ratib, he insisted, was
“not a composition apart from Islam” but simply a compilation of Qurʾan
excerpts and prayers of the prophets. He also corrected the AAC/NIH recita-
tion of the Ratib, pointing out that it was not customary always to recite the entire
Ratib after late afternoon (asr) prayer; short sections would do as well.140 The
AAC/NIH’s appropriation of the Ratib is evident in the book lists found in the
back pages of community pamphlets, consistently including a translation, The
Raatib (Unshakable) of Al Imam Muhammad Ahmad Al Mahdi (AS), from at
least as early as 1977.141 Advertisements for a forthcoming edition in 1978 describe
the Ratib as a source of “great spiritual inspiration, strength and patience” for
more than nine million Muslims who read the text every day between the late
evening prayer (isha) and the pre-sunrise prayer (fajr).142
Al Mahdi’s introduction to his 1980 edition asserts that the text “possesses
high mystical powers; powers that bind communities,” and that it is not a “polit-
ical work” but merely a collection of excerpts from the Qurʾan and hadith
literature, along with accounts of Muhammad Ahmad’s visionary encoun-
ters with the Prophet and Khidr.143 The 1980 edition includes parallel Arabic
text, along with stylized illustrations depicting faceless angels, prophets, and
the Mahdi’s defeat of British soldiers.144 The AAC/NIH also disseminated
cassette tapes of Al Mahdi reciting the text in English (with salutations upon
the Prophet in Arabic), accompanied by drums and background singing, simul-
taneously evoking imaginaries of indigenous African spirituality and Islamic
ritual authenticity.
Though Al Mahdi maintained his ideological investment in the Sudanese
Mahdiyya, the formal relationship between the Ansar communities of the West
and East—or at least Sadiq al-Mahdi’s friendship with the AAC/NIH—seems
to have ended in the early 1980s. This could be salient for Al Mahdi’s 1983 reintro-
duction of “Nubian Islamic Hebrews” alongside “Ansaru Allah Community” as
a name for the movement. It bears repeating, however, that the name does not
reflect a change in the community’s official position on the Sudanese Mahdi or
its leader’s relationship to him. In 1987, after using a sequence of flags to represent
the community, Al Mahdi began to promote the black, red, and green Mahdi-
yya flag as the “Nubian banner.” The embrace of the Mahdist flag corresponds to
changes in Sudanese politics; in 1986, following the removal of al-Numayri and
a decade and a half of rebuilding the Ansar in and out of exile, Sadiq al-Mahdi

64 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
Figure 9 The Final Link, 1978.

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 65

returned to power. During Sadiq’s 1987–89 stint as prime minister, Al Mahdi
reemphasized the Sudanese Mahdi in such works as About the Raatib: The Book
of the Mahdi and The Call of the Mahdi in America.
Our Flag (1989) provides the Mahdist flag’s history (and polemics against
other communities’ flags) and photos of hip-hop artists such as Doug E. Fresh
wearing the flag. As Al Mahdi boasts, Grandmaster Melle Mel wears the flag in
the video for his song with AAC/NIH member Van Silk, “What’s the Matter
with Your World?”145 About the Raatib (fig. 12) and The Call of the Mahdi in
America include notices for a future “Banner Day for Nubians” and adver-
tisements for medallions, banners, patches, key chains, lapel pins, buttons,
stickers, and clothes bearing the flag—“a must for every Nubian who wants
to spread the Da’wah.”146 The final pages of About the Raatib advertise color
portraits of Al Mahdi and members of his genealogy—“beautiful pictures of
these Great Leaders, descending from your motherland of Sudan”—available
for a one-dollar donation.147 The back covers of both About the Raatib and The
Call of the Mahdi display the Mahdi’s tomb and the AAC/NIH’s masjid in
Brooklyn, demonstrating architectural resonances between them. Between the
two photos, one finds an image of the Mahdiyya flag. Al Mahdi acknowledges
that long before his mission, Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement
Association (UNIA) had adopted the red, black, and green flag as symbolic of
pan-Africanism in the 1920s, though Al Mahdi would charge that Garvey had
placed the colors in the wrong order by not putting black on top.
Displaying illustrations of Sudanese weaponry above the caption “Home-
made spears used by the Mahdiyya . . . to conquer the British army,” Al Mahdi
provides in Muhammad Ahmad a template for triumph over white empire.
The Sudanese Mahdiyya’s nineteenth-century struggle for Nubian liberation
from Amorite powers was easily mapped onto the AAC/NIH’s late twenti-
eth-century struggle for Nubian Islam in the Americas, as Al Mahdi confronted
both American white supremacy and an encroaching Sunni hegemony of “pale
Arab” institutions and communities. Al Mahdi’s vision of a Nubia-centered
Islam in his grand narrative, spanning thousands of years and culminating in
the rise of the Sudanese Mahdiyya, would preserve Islam’s power as resistance
against white supremacy while simultaneously upholding Afrocentrism’s resis-
tance against Muslim anti-Blackness. Through this nineteenth-century mystical
master, “tall, powerfully built, with the features of a god, cast in black bronze,
dressed in flowing white, on a splendid Arabian horse” as he led Nubian armies
into battle, Al Mahdi found a transcendent moral geography for Black Islam
and his own place in its unfolding destiny (fig. 13).148

66 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
Figure 10 AAC/NIH commem-
oration of Sayyid Sadiq al-Mahdi,
prime minister of the Sudan (1966–
67, 1986–89), great-grandson of
Muhammad Ahmad, the “Suda-
nese Mahdi,” and alleged cousin of
Isa Al Mahdi, visiting the commu-
nity in 1981.

Figure 11 Al Mahdi with his

alleged cousin, Sadiq al-Mahdi,
during Al Mahdi’s travels in the
Sudan in the 1970s.

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 67

 Figure 12 Al Haadi Al Mahdi,
About the Raatib (1987), front cover.

Figure 13 Silsilati: My Lineage. Al

Mahdi (seated in the foreground)
with his alleged father, al-Hadi
al-Mahdi (1918–1971); grandfather
‘Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi (1885–
1959); great-grandfather Muhammad
Ahmad, the “Sudanese Mahdi”; and
their direct ancestor, the Prophet.
From Al Haadi Al Mahdi, The Book
of the Five Percenters (1991), 379.

68 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
Reclaiming Hajar: The Veil and Nose Ring

Throughout AAC/NIH history, members of Al Mahdi’s community were

marked by clothing prescriptions that took different forms over the years, most
famously the flowing white robes, abayas, khimars, and turbans, to follow the
Sudanese Mahdiyya. Echoing Orientalist narratives and apologetic Muslim
pamphlets alike, AAC/NIH discourse presents Islam not as a mere “religion”
but rather as a comprehensive “way of life.” This means that Black liberation
depends not only on restoring self-knowledge but also on reclaiming Nubian
bodies from the poisonous regimes of Amorite civilization. AAC/NIH media
echo what Curtis terms “the Islamized black body” in the Nation’s ethics of Black
corporeality.149 In AAC/NIH discourse, the Nation correctly identifies the prob-
lem and solution but lacks the full knowledge needed to prescribe a truly Islamic
life. Black Sunni communities are also exposed in AAC/NIH literature for their
dependence on ill-equipped Arab and South Asian scholars and their failure to
adopt authentic practices.150 Only Al Mahdi can re-Islamize the Nubian body.
AAC/NIH men became publicly visible by peddling, begging, and pros-
elytizing in distinctive Ansar garb. Though both men and women adhered to
dress codes that Al Mahdi defined as the “garb of the righteous,” pamphlets
discussing clothing often focused on dictates for proper women’s attire. Exam-
ining the Nation of Islam’s prescriptions for dress, Curtis notes relationships
drawn in Muhammad Speaks between immodesty and white people.151 The
embrace of Islamic modesty meant liberation from the norms of whiteness.
AAC/NIH media build upon this association: Al Imaam Isa Visits Egypt 1981
includes a photo of an ostensibly white woman, her blonde hair uncovered and
arms exposed in a short-sleeved shirt, captioned with a verse of the Qurʾan:
“O Children of Adam, let not the Shaytan cause you to fall into affliction as
he expelled your parents from the garden, pulling off from them both your
clothing” (7:27).152 Disco Music: The Universal Language of Good or Evil? (1979)
contrasts photos of a white woman dancing at a nightclub with pictures of
young AAC/NIH girls in white hijabs and robes practicing folk dances, with
the caption “Which dance would you rather your child do?”153
For Al Mahdi, proper Islamic dress resists U.S. white supremacy and posi-
tions his community above illegitimate Muslims. While linking immodesty to
whiteness, AAC/NIH literature also connects women’s inappropriate expo-
sure with Arab Muslims, revealing the hypocrisy of their claims to true Islam.
Al Imaam Isa Visits Egypt 1981 features a two-page spread, “Women Behind the
Veil in Egypt,” with photographs of women and commentary on their clothing.

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 69

Al Mahdi gives Egyptian women a mixed review, noting that in “an era of deca-
dent modernism” and a “changing cultural scene,” the fully veiled face persists as
a “symbol of Islaamic stability,” while acknowledging that some Muslim women
are misled by incorrect translations of the Qurʾan (33:53). Though progressive
Muslim reformists typically prioritize a Qurʾan-centered methodology, argu-
ing that the Qurʾan’s prescription for dress is more general and less restrictive
than the hadith corpus, Al Mahdi makes the opposite argument: hadiths are the
refuge of liberals. Commenting on a photograph of a street scene in Egypt in
which two women on the left wear full face veils and two women on the right
wear hijabs that leave their faces exposed, he captions the former “Al Qurʾan”
and the latter “Al Hadiyth.” The veiled women follow “Allah and the Qurʾan,”
while the exposed women follow “al hadiyth and men.”154
Al Mahdi defends AAC/NIH veiling against the “distorted” clothing prac-
tices of Muslim-majority societies such as Egypt, Pakistan, Morocco, Saudi
Arabia, and even the Sudan in his 1984 edition of Why Do Muslim Women Wear
the Face Covering (Veil)? The expanded 1989 edition gives increased attention to
African cultures, privileging Islamic Nubian heritage—“following the laws of our
father Abraham”—over “paganistic polytheist” Africans. The AAC/NIH dress
code “distinguishes us from the other so-called Muslims” and also those Afrocen-
trists who “adopted the dress of Africa.” Al Mahdi warns his reader, “The wearing
of multi-colored dress, dashikies and Galles is not the dress of the righteous but
because you did not study your heritage from the beginning . . . you went to the
East and came back with your new found truth on how Muslims should dress.
But in all actuality you’ve swayed further away from the Siraatu’l Mustaqiym.”155
In his 1986 booklet Why the Nosering? (fig. 14), Al Mahdi claims credit for
having introduced the nose ring and other Islamic clothing traditions, such as
full veiling for women and white robes and turbans for men, to North America.
Al Mahdi recalls that when his followers first began wearing nose rings in 1970,
they were mocked as “cannibals”; more than a decade later, however, the nose
ring had become a popular fad among Black women who remained unaware
of its history and meanings. The AAC/NIH’s advocacy of the nose ring chal-
lenges Arab Muslims for their anti-Black racism and criticizes Blackamericans
who lack an authentic connection to Africa. Against charges that the nose ring
is not legitimately Islamic but rather imitates an Israelite custom, Al Mahdi
insists that his critics are both unable and unwilling to read all of the scrip-
tures in Arabic (significant for the primarily biblical citations through which Al
Mahdi argues for nose rings). The nose ring, he claims, is an “Islamic tradition”
that distinguishes its wearer as the “seed of Abraham.” The first woman to wear

70 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
Figure 14 Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Why the Nosering? (1986), front cover.

the nose ring was Hajar, whom Al Mahdi identifies as Abraham’s second wife
rather than as his concubine; Hajar was “an educated woman and a psyche” and
the daughter of Imhotep, himself a student of Zoser, who in turn was an initiate
of Khidr’s school. The wearing of nose rings by AAC/NIH women becomes a
reference to Hajar, who stands as an embodied point of triangulation between
“Abrahamic” or “Semitic” Islam and the wisdom traditions of pharaonic Egypt.

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 71

This linkage fails to register with Afrocentrists, whom Al Mahdi accuses of eras-
ing Islam from the African heritage that they hope to recover. Without Islam,
however, Afrocentrists remain disconnected from true Nubian Blackness. “By
wearing noserings, dashikis, head wrappings, and assorted African attire,” Al
Mahdi writes, “you may feel you have found your past. But in truth, you have only
picked up bits and pieces of a heathen culture and distortions of Al Islaam.”156

The Wrong Africa: Yoruba Revivalism

Advertisements for The Prophet Muhammad and Ali Were Nubian (Black) pres-
ent readers with a loaded question: “Is it true that all Black men were polytheists
like the Yoruba of West Africa?”157 When Al Mahdi argues for Islam as the essen-
tial form of African spirituality, Yoruba revivalism appears in his work as a foil.
Like his Muslim contemporaries in both the Nation of Islam and Sunni commu-
nities, Al Mahdi considers Muslim Africa more civilized and advanced than the
“primitive” and “pagan” non-Muslim Africa (an exception is made for pharaonic
Egypt) and stresses the Muslim presence among enslaved Africans in the Amer-
icas. He also claims superiority for Muslim ancestry: a 1972 NIHMA pamphlet,
clearly meant for Al Mahdi’s readers in the northeastern United States, claims that
while slaves taken from Yoruba regions were sent to the Carolinas and Missis-
sippi to perform hard labor and toil in cotton fields, slaves taken from “Islamic
countries” such as the Sudan and Egypt (prized for their “extreme intelligence
and the highest learning”) were brought to New York and New Jersey.158
A cartoon in a 1982 Ansaar Village Bulletin depicts worshippers of Shango
among Jehovah’s Witnesses, astrologers, disco-dancing women, and non-AAC/
NIH Muslims doomed to hellfire.159 As Al Mahdi’s metaphysical Africa remains
Islamic, he presents Yoruba as a corrupted derivative of Islam and distorted vision
of Blackness. In his introduction to Yoruba (1978), Al Mahdi writes with regret
that many African Americans have wrongly identified Yoruba as “the true religion
of all Black people.” He attributes this misunderstanding to white supremacist
deception: the Amorite “shows you tribes and tribes of people who follow pagan-
istic religions then tells you, ‘these are your people.’ Yes these are your people
who have strayed from the path of allah subhana wa taʾala.”160
Privileging polytheism as the essential African spirituality, Yoruba revival-
ism troubles Al Mahdi’s metaphysics of race. As early as 1972, Al Mahdi argued
that the Yoruba were originally Muslim,161 and asserted that Yoruba has “many
roots extended from Islam” but nonetheless remains an unacceptable corrup-
tion of Islamic monotheism. Yoruba walks the reader through a history that

72 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
starts with Eden in the “Land of the Black,” progresses toward Yoruba’s rise
as a great kingdom (“but a paganistic people who had a diety [sic] for mostly
everything”), and leads to the Yoruba’s encounter with Islam. Living in Nubia,
the Yoruba learned “many of their signs and symbols which . . . proved their
relation with Islam prior to them becoming paganistic.” In an account with-
out dates, seemingly taking place out of earthly time, a man named Lamurudu
brought the Yoruba religion to Mecca. “It was not known as Yoruba at the time,”
Al Mahdi notes, “but just idolatry or polytheism.” Lamurudu’s son Oduduwa
became “heir to the throne of Makkah” and collaborated with Lamurudu to
make idolatry the state religion. They ordered that idols be placed inside the
Kaʿba; the son of Oduduwa’s priest, however, was a Muslim and destroyed
them. Contesting the territory of the Kaʿba led to a civil war that the Muslims
ultimately won. Oduduwa and his father were killed, and their supporters fled
from Mecca to the Sudan—where Muslims again pushed them out, causing
them to seek refuge in distant Nigeria. Oduduwa’s seven grandchildren became
kings and queens of seven original Yoruba states.162
Al Mahdi then analyzes Yoruba deities as parallels to Allah’s attributes,
demonstrating “the fact that these people were once Muslim.” From there,
he discusses the slave trade, connecting Muslim and Yoruba tribes as mutual
victims of “the paleman” while again affirming African Muslim superiority
over non-Muslims. Through European connections to the Arab slave trade,
transatlantic slavery brought Muslims from “Nubia, Sudan and other Islamic
countries” to North America. “These Blacks,” Al Mahdi asserts, “were of
extreme intelligence and of the highest learning.”163 In pamphlets from the
mid-1980s, Al Mahdi continues this narrative of Nubian Muslims as excep-
tional Africans, claiming that Amorite slave traders ventured into the Sudan
after realizing that they could not control “uncivilized, paganistic” Africans.
Amorites thus targeted the Dongolawi, “a special breed who were very intelli-
gent.”164 But integrating learned Sudanese Muslims into American slave society
provoked a new crisis for Amorites, as the Muslims taught other slaves their
true history. To neutralize Islam’s power as a force of liberation, the white devils
promoted a slave-making distortion of Islam: “The Amorite then had to bring
about a religion that was somewhat Islamic but differed from the Islam that
was practiced in Sudan, so he chose the Pakistanians and others to teach you
their diluted forms of Islam. . . . This was for you to think that Islam was not
your original way of life.”165
Al Mahdi argues that the devil deceives Black people into believing that
cultures of non-Black Muslims such as “Pakistanians” represent Islam’s true

“I Am the Raisin-Headed Slave” ◆ 73

heartlands, thereby severing Islam from Blackness. Yoruba revivalism and
anti-Muslim Afrocentrism thus ironically enforce white supremacist narra-
tives about what it means to be African, leading Nubians in the Americas to
forget that “everything originated in the land of the Black (Sudan), and that
the original way of life was Islam.”166 As Nubian heritage inescapably means
Islamic heritage, and true Islam remains inherently Nubian, both “orthodox”
Islam (embodied by “pale Arab” and South Asian Muslims and their African
American stooges) and Yoruba revivalism appear in AAC/NIH media as instru-
ments of anti-Blackness, requiring correction by a master teacher.

Conclusions
From his beginnings at State Street Mosque, watching Black Muslims aban-
don their Black imam to follow Pakistani Muslims, to the 1970s, in which the
Nation of Islam, seeking acceptance and resources from the larger “Muslim
world,” abandoned Elijah Muhammad’s legacy, and through the 1980s, in which
immigrant-led Muslim institutions became leading voices of American Islam
and Saudi-supported Black Salafi networks rose to prominence, Al Mahdi
consistently advocated Black Muslim agency against dominance by non-Black
Muslim power.
“The pale and red Arabs now ruling Saudi Arabia will not be able to admit
that we (the Mahdiyya) are superior over them,” claims the community’s 1991
calendar, “because this will mean submitting to Black Arabs (Nubian). . . . They
cannot see themselves following a Black Arab, just like Iblis (CH) would not
bow to the Prophet Adam.” The calendar charges that Saudis associate Black-
ness with slave status, but then mentions the familiar hadith “Hearken and obey
although a Black Slave whose head is like a dried grape will be appointed to rule
over you.”167 For Al Mahdi, the Black slave is mentioned not as a disavowal of
racial prejudice but rather as a promise of pure Islam’s return. As the prophesied
raisin-headed slave, Al Mahdi rescues Islam’s Blackness from white suprema-
cist Sunni orthodoxy. “If the Sunni Muslims want to worship the white man
and a white god,” he told an audience in the late 1980s, “lakum dinukum wa liya
din—to them be their way of life, and [to] us be ours, we’ll find out on yawm
al-akhira [the Last Day] who’s true.”168

74 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
 Chapter •2
Heralds of the Reformer
Visions of Blackamerican Muslim History

They all had at least one thing in common, the

insight to know that by following all the Scriptures
of allah Most Glorified and Exalted the Nubian
in the West would be free. . . . I could fit into Noble
Drew Ali’s shoes, and don Elijah Muhammad’s
hat, and put on Shaikh Daa’wud’s robe and bear
the flag of Marcus Garvey (TWON), which was
raised from the Mahdi (AS) of whom I descend.
—Al Imaam Isa Al Haadi Al Mahdi

During the 1980s, between two competing visions of the Nation of Islam’s
journey—one in which the forty-year labor of Elijah Muhammad found its
fulfillment in his son’s reuniting of “lost-found” Muslims with the worldwide
Muslim umma, another in which Louis Farrakhan faithfully carried on the
Messenger’s work while the Messenger’s son sought to destroy it—the AAC/
NIH challenged both sides.1 Al Mahdi presented himself as Elijah Muhammad’s
only legitimate successor, the leader best qualified to build bridges between
the Nation and “traditional” Islam. To this end he relied on Elijah’s prom-
ise of a future teacher who would come, the credentials he could boast as a
student of Sunni authority Daoud Faisal, and the legitimacy that Faisal’s name
could bestow upon his claims regarding Master Fard Muhammad. He also
challenged Black Sunni communities not only as a defender of Elijah Muham-
mad’s mission against the anti-Black racism of Arab and South Asian Sunni
Muslims, but also on Sunni terms: positioning himself against W. D. Muham-
mad, Al Mahdi boasted a superior command of Arabic, deeper knowledge of
Islamic tradition, and a more organic connection to the “Muslim world” via the
Sudan. In contrast to scholarship that has positioned Al Mahdi’s Islam almost
exclusively within “heterodox” African American traditions, or assumed that
his discourse progressed toward or away from “Sunni orthodoxy” at various
times, this chapter demonstrates that in its constructions of Al Mahdi’s Black-
american Islamic genealogy, AAC/NIH media drew from registers on both
sides of a contrived heterodox-orthodox binary. Al Mahdi cited both a Sunni
imam and the spiritual head of the Nation of Islam to stake his claim as leader
of Blackamerican Muslims.
Ahmad, Jesus’ Khalifat (officially dated 1980, more likely published ca.
1984), while focused on popular Muslim arguments that the Bible foretold
Muhammad’s arrival, opens with an assertion of Al Mahdi’s significance as a
master teacher whose mission was foretold by his modern predecessors. The
booklet offers photographs of Black Muslim leaders, captioned by Al Mahdi’s
commentary: Noble Drew Ali (“He told his followers to expect me”), Elijah
Muhammad (“He knew I was coming and told his followers to follow me”), and
Daoud Faisal (“He informed his people that I was here”). Al Mahdi notes that
each community has failed to heed its leader’s advice.2 Whether Noble Drew
Ali’s Moorish Science, Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam, and Daoud Fais-
al’s Sunnism were theologically compatible does not affect Al Mahdi’s point: to
follow these men ultimately requires an embrace of Al Mahdi, whose commu-
nity best represents their collective legacy and purpose. As he subsumes the
patriarchs of Blackamerican Islam into his mandate, Al Mahdi builds complex
narrative webs.
Al Mahdi does not simply construct Muslim difference in binary oppo-
sitions of heterodox versus orthodox but rather sees it in relation to a larger
struggle between global Nubian awakening and opposition to that awakening
from the combined forces of white people and “pale Arabs.” In this strug-
gle, Malcolm X becomes a tragic figure for having been led astray and then
murdered when his usefulness to “pale Arab” devils expired. Al Mahdi asserts
both that Elijah lacked knowledge of classical Islam and that Malcolm was
wrong to abandon Elijah for pale Arabs. The proper telos of Blackamerican
Islam does not become embodied in Malcolm’s pilgrimage to Mecca but rather
in Al Mahdi’s power to bring these legacies together. “It was prophecy,” he tells

76 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
us, “that Marcus ‘Musa’ Garvey, Shaikh Daa’wud, the Honorable Elijah Muham-
mad and Noble Drew Ali (TWON) would lay the foundation for your true
way of life, Al Islaam, so that I, the Reformer, can continue their missions and
bring you the complete teachings of Al Islaam.”3
Engaging contemporaries like W. D. Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan
with varying degrees of critique and polemic, Al Mahdi reworks Blackamer-
ican Muslim histories in ways that increasingly seek to subsume elders of the
past—including Elijah Muhammad, Daoud Faisal, Malcolm X, Noble Drew
Ali, Marcus Garvey (who Al Mahdi claims had converted to Islam), and Allah
(the former Clarence 13X)—within his metanarrative of Blackamerican Islam.
In their AAC/NIH reconstruction, these sages lend their authorizing gravitas
to Al Mahdi, who appears as their natural heir and successor. Departures and
breaks in their respective understandings of Islam, attributed in AAC/NIH
media to their incomplete knowledge, find reconciliation and correction in
the teachings of Al Mahdi.

Sheikh Daoud Faisal, “Founding Father of Orthodox Islam in

the West”
Faisal’s Islamic Mission of America (IMA) and its headquarters, the State Street
Mosque, have received attention as milestones of American Muslim institution
building (and also as unfortunate parables of tensions between African Ameri-
can and immigrant Muslims over questions of Islamic authority).4 Throughout
Al Mahdi’s career, he consistently drew upon his connection to Faisal and State
Street Mosque for evidence of his credentials, often in the most literal sense of
displaying signed certificates and claiming an institutional link between Fais-
al’s groups and Al Mahdi’s Ansar.
In 1928, Faisal established the Islamic Propagation Center of America
in Harlem, and in 1935 he founded the IMA and State Street Mosque. Faisal
received formal authorization in 1943 from King Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud and a
charter from Sheikh Khalid of Jordan to teach Islam to Americans.5 Though
Faisal opposed the valorizations of Blackness that characterized the Moorish
Science Temple of America and the Nation of Islam, he nonetheless presented
Islam as the original religion of Black people and the only cure for racism.6
Insider and outsider sources alike agree that State Street Mosque was
the site of Al Mahdi’s early education as a Muslim. As noted in the introduc-
tion, according to Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips, Al Mahdi converted to Islam at
State Street circa 1965 after a stint in prison;7 there are also suggestions that Al

Heralds of the Reformer ◆ 77

Mahdi’s mother was already a member of Faisal’s community.8 As Al Mahdi
constructed his origin narrative in the 1970s and ’80s, he claimed that he was
the son of an American woman and the grandson of the Mahdi, and that he
came to State Street through Faisal’s connections to Sudanese diplomats. Fully
aware of his secret identity as heir to the Mahdiyya, Faisal provided the child
with religious instruction to prepare him for his mission.9
In the earliest extant AAC/NIH publications, Faisal and his organizations
maintain a consistent presence. Al Mahdi regularly features pictures and quota-
tions of Faisal and constructs an authorizing lineage from Faisal to himself.
One NIHMA pamphlet from 1972–73 displays Faisal’s photo on its front cover
under the title Founding Father of Islam in America Today, Here Since 1928 A.D.
Another pamphlet from the period hails him as “King of Muslims in America,”
reports that King Faisal of Saudi Arabia considers Daoud Faisal his adopted
father, and shares the story of “one of many modern-day miracles” in which
Faisal caused two pills to mysteriously appear in a bottle for a man who needed
them. The pamphlet presents Faisal as a “founding father” not only of Islam
in America but specifically of the AAC/NIH: “Who is Shaikh Daoud? He is
our father—our patriarch—the Truth the Light—the only voice crying in the
wilderness in the last minute of the last day.”10
In AAC/NIH media, the lineage connecting Faisal and Al Mahdi was
not only pedagogical but institutional. The name Nubian Islamic Hebrew
Mission in America evokes Faisal’s Islamic Mission of America; in 1973, Al
Mahdi referred to his organization as “Ansaru Allah Community of the Islamic
Mission of America Inc.,” presenting the Ansar as a spinoff from Faisal’s IMA
and his leadership of the Ansar as a Faisal-appointed position.11
As the AAC/NIH feuded with other Muslim groups even in these early
years, and as the nature of AAC/NIH interest in Faisal became a point of
conflict at State Street, AAC/NIH publications deployed Faisal to symboli-
cally or explicitly defend the Ansar. Pamphlets from the early 1970s portray
Faisal as vouching for the AAC/NIH against “countless rumors that have spread
throughout the various so-called Muslim communities.”12 Problems intensified
when Faisal selected an AAC/NIH member to serve as his mosque’s caretaker,
which caused friction with “people who hadn’t been there in years to contrib-
ute any of their time or financial support.”13 It appears that in Faisal’s later years,
the AAC/NIH was opposed by other State Street parties in competition over
proximity to him. The claims of a privileged relationship between Al Mahdi
and Faisal in AAC/NIH literature speak to a context in which Faisal and the
legacy of State Street had become contested territory. Breaking the Fast (1973)

78 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
describes Faisal’s visit to the AAC/NIH’s Eid al-Fitr celebration (apparently a
tradition that persisted through the mid-1970s), where AAC/NIH members
greeted Faisal and wife, Khadijah, with “probably one of the warmest welcomes
in history,” and Faisal led the maghrib prayer. The Faisals and Al Mahdi appear
together on the pamphlet’s front cover. An unnamed author recalls Al Mahdi “in
deep thoughts sitting to one side of the room” and reports that Al Mahdi “was
thinking back to those memorable days when he was a student under Sheikh
Daoud at 143 State Street. He would rush there every Tuesday and Thursday
night to be taught, helped, and guided.” During one session, Faisal instructed
his class to “go forth and spread and teach the truth in the name of allah,”
which the pamphlet writer connects to Al Mahdi’s present mission.14
By calling upon “the so-called Negro man in America who calls himself a
Muslim to identify with the land as a Muslim from which his ancestors [came],”
Al Mahdi positions himself in early AAC/NIH media as a defender of Faisal
against those who left him and became the Dar. He lashes out at Black members
of State Street Mosque who followed the mosque’s Pakistani teacher Hafis
Mahbub, a member of the Tablighi Jama’at:
Today, you see American Negroes grasping the attire and traditional
customs of Pakistan and India, two countries where over millions of people
are starving because they chose to worship the cow instead of allah. Their
homeland isn’t totally Islamic, but yet they’ll come to America, aristo-
cratically, to teach poor ghetto Negroes Islam. Think, and ask yourselves,
do you see them taking on the customs and traditions of the Hausa’s of
Nigeria, or the garb of the people of Timbuktu, or adhering to the ways
of the people inhabiting the area of the junction of the two Niles? All of
those people are Muslim, and their way of life is Islam. For realizing this
fact, that we are descendants of Muslims who were of great Islamic king-
doms and we are not an inferior people, we, the Nubians of Ansaru Allah
are harassed and labeled innovators!15
Al Mahdi writes of Faisal’s appreciating African Muslim cultures and
affirming a larger point that culture does not necessarily violate the bounds of
religion, which leads them to collaborate against anti-Black racism in New York’s
Muslim communities. In this same 1973 column, observing polemical exchanges
between the Sunni journal Al-Islam and the Nation of Islam’s Muhammad
Speaks, the AAC/NIH writer calls Faisal a “wise man” who cautions against
sectarianism.16 That year, Faisal was called to intervene in a conflict between the
AAC/NIH and the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood (MIB). The MIB, having

Heralds of the Reformer ◆ 79

declared Harlem off limits to AAC/NIH activity, sent an armed force against
AAC/NIH peddlers who had violated the ban. With MIB members in police
custody, Faisal mediated a truce between the groups, and Al Mahdi’s follow-
ers did not press charges.17
In writings from the late ’70s, Faisal continues to function as both an autho-
rizing figure for the AAC/NIH’s credentials and a source of partisan friction
between the AAC/NIH and other factions. AAC/NIH newspapers from the
second half of the 1970s repeat previous boasts of Faisal’s endorsement of Al
Mahdi, marked by his attendance at the community’s celebration of Eid al-Fitr.
Id with the Ansars (1977) presents Al Mahdi and Faisal together on the front
cover with the caption “An understanding that very few understand” (fig. 15).
Captioned photographs in this pamphlet tell the story of the Ansar sending
a “motorcade of Cadillac limousines” to the home of their “honored guest,”
Faisal and Khadijah emerging from their limousine with Ansar assistance, and
the elders holding court at their seat of honor: “Resplendent in his golden
robes, and tajj. The king on his throne accompanied by his dowager consort.”
Al Mahdi is shown checking on Faisal, “just making sure that our patriarch is
having a good time.” A photo of Faisal speaking to Al Mahdi presents Faisal’s
advice in its caption: “‘Watch out! There will be many to hate you and trying
to stop your growth right in your midst. I know because they did it to me.’”
Another photo shows white-garbed boys reciting the Qurʾan for Faisal. The
caption explains that tears flowed from their eyes, prompting Faisal to ask why
they were crying. Al Mahdi answers, “Because not only can they chant Qurʾan,
they understand it.”18 Id-ul-Fitr with the Ansars 1979 notes Faisal’s absence from
the festivities, while providing photographs from previous visits. A piece titled
“Our Founding Father” explains, “As you all know, it is a tradition that Shaikh
Dau’wd celebrates his ‘Idu’l Fitr with the Ansars. . . . But this year we were
met with much disappointment due to envy.” The article claims that when
Al Mahdi’s delegation arrived to pick up Faisal, enemies of the AAC/NIH
(“Pakistanian Arabs”) persuaded Khadijah to keep her husband from attend-
ing: “They said that it would look bad for him to celebrate ‘Idu’l Fitr with the
Ansars.” The following pages seek to illustrate the connection between Faisal
and the AAC/NIH, including photographs of AAC/NIH men awaiting Faisal’s
arrival at the Eid celebration, a photo of Faisal embracing an Ansar (the caption
has Faisal telling him, “Don’t worry, I’m with you [the Ansar] in heart”), and a
copy of the “Muslim Missionary Certificate” signed by Faisal and awarded to
the Ansaru Allah Nubian Mission. The article proclaims that the AAC/NIH
is “not a sect, schism, neither are we an alien community, especially to Shaikh

80 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
Figure 15 “An understanding that very few understand.” Al Mahdi and Faisal together to celebrate the
end of Ramadan. From Ansaru Allah Community, Id with the Ansars (1977), front cover.

Heralds of the Reformer ◆ 81

Dau’wd Faisal,” and questions whether Faisal is receiving proper care from
those “same people who selfishly kept him from joining us on such a warm
and joyous occasion.”19
Al Mahdi’s appropriation of Faisal intensified after Faisal’s death in 1980.
That year, Al Mahdi published Islam the True Faith: The Religion of Human-
ity, a tribute to Faisal. The cover proclaims that Faisal is the “Founding Father
of Orthodox Islam in the West.” As Al Mahdi consistently treated Faisal as a
“founding father of Islam in America,” the added qualifier “orthodox” suggests
new sensitivity in terms of Al Mahdi’s position. In its early years engaging Sunni
groups within the State Street orbit, the AAC/NIH does not explicitly situ-
ate itself as something other than “orthodox.” The pamphlet includes excerpts
from Faisal’s book (also titled Islam, the True Faith, the Religion of Humanity).
Al Mahdi’s Islam the True Faith includes numerous photos of Faisal in candid
moments with Al Mahdi and AAC/NIH members, making a visual argument
for Faisal’s approval of the AAC/NIH, along with the Muslim Missionary
Certificate.20 The back cover of the booklet features advertisements for Book
of the Lamb.
Faisal’s significance in AAC/NIH genealogies remains visible throughout
the 1980s. In the second of a 1986 pair of booklets titled Where Is the Taberna-
cle of the Most High, Al Mahdi names Faisal as one of “several Blackmen that
have contributed to laying the foundation of Al Islaam in the West,” and thus
as “instrumental in laying the foundation for the much awaited coming of the
Reformer.”21 A 1989 list of AAC/NIH holidays includes November 22, Faisal’s
birthday, “in commemoration of his being the first man to bring true Al Islaam
to you . . . his spirit lives on through the Ansaru allah Community, the new
Arabic Kingdom of Illumination.”22 Publications from the late 1980s adver-
tise Who Was Shaikh Daww’ud?, a booklet in the vein of pamphlets like Who
Was Marcus Garvey? and Who Was Noble Drew Ali?, and a revised edition of
Al Mahdi’s earlier Islam the True Faith: The Religion of Humanity.23
Al Mahdi writes that outside the AAC/NIH, Faisal’s contribution has gone
unrecognized, as Muslims at State Street refused to listen to him. In a veiled
reference to the faction that formed the Ya-Sin Mosque and Dar ul-Islam, he
writes that members of State Street Mosque “would rather listen to Pakistani-
ans that fell out of the sky. They wouldn’t listen to a man who had already set
up a Jamat here in the West.” Faisal’s successes paved the way for Al Mahdi, but
his failures made Al Mahdi necessary. Al Mahdi mentions Faisal’s attempt at
Muslim communal living, Medinat as-Salaam, which lasted only three years,
and then refers to his own Jazzir Abba, the AAC/NIH settlement in Sullivan

82 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
County. “It was just not his time,” Al Mahdi writes. “There was someone to
come that would turn that dream into a reality once again.”24
According to Al Mahdi, many members of Faisal’s State Street Mosque
became the AAC/NIH’s “backbone.” Launching his own mission was not a
matter of competing against Faisal; in fact, it came at Faisal’s insistence: “I was
a faithful attendant of the State Street Masjid in its infancy. . . . It was Shaikh
Daa’wud (HWON) who passed on his knowledge and wisdom to me. He also
gave me his Seal to be his Successor.” While presenting himself as Faisal’s student,
Al Mahdi also alleges that Faisal’s own religious education came at the hands of
Al Mahdi’s father and grandfather; the Islamic knowledge that Faisal passes to
Al Mahdi is actually Faisal’s repayment of a debt. The question of why Al Mahdi
had previously used the name Isa Muhammad and concealed his connection
to the Sudanese Mahdiyya is explained by this relationship: it was Faisal who
advised Al Mahdi to change his name in order to prevent his assassination by
enemies of the Mahdiyya in the Sudan. A Moroccan sheikh gave Al Mahdi the
name Isa Muhammad, which he used until he revealed himself as Isa Al Haadi
Al Mahdi, great-grandson and third khalif of the Sudanese Mahdi.25
Sources from 1972–73 reflect awareness of Nation of Islam teachings—
Al Mahdi presents the pig as a genetically engineered amalgamation of cat,
rat, and dog, states that white rule has reached its six-thousand-year expira-
tion date, and refers to the twenty-three “scientists” that Elijah Muhammad
draws from his reading of Revelation26—but does not typically engage the
Nation in direct confrontation, whether as collaborator or rival. While Elijah
Muhammad becomes an authorizing figure for AAC/NIH discourse only
after his death, Daoud Faisal authorizes the AAC/NIH through his participa-
tion in the community. Of the figures discussed in this chapter, Faisal virtually
monopolizes Al Mahdi’s attention in his earliest writings. As the AAC/NIH
emerged within a factionalized Brooklyn Muslim milieu, it was seemingly
less concerned with groups such as the Nation, Moorish Science Temple, and
Five Percenters than with its position relative to other factions at and around
State Street Mosque. The Dar was Al Mahdi’s first Black Sunni foil, a “prox-
imate other” reflected even in its symbol, an upward-pointing crescent with
five-pointed star. From Philips’s informants, we learn that AAC/NIH members
used to make appearances at Dar events, attracting attention for their provoc-
ative bone earrings and nose rings.27 In Al Mahdi’s pamphlets from the early
1970s, we find a conversion narrative in which a woman first encounters Islam
through attending Ya-Sin Mosque, at which a Dar brother tells her to raise her
index finger and repeat some “mumbo-jumbo”; she attends sisters’ classes but

Heralds of the Reformer ◆ 83

learns “very little.” She decides to “search deeper into Islam” by attending the
AAC/NIH masjid, where she learns proper modesty and the “straight path.”
AAC/NIH publications from the period, including “a non-sectarian journal
presenting Islam in its pristine purity as taught by the Quran and the Sunnah,”
seek to match these Sunni groups largely on their own terms, while contesting
“Pakistani” ownership of Islam.28 To this end, Al Mahdi draws upon Faisal for
his own legitimacy as the spiritual and administrative leader of a Blackness-af-
firming Muslim community. Faisal features in AAC/NIH antagonism toward
the Dar, which Al Mahdi critiques as a tragic case of Black men deferring to
Pakistani culture as representative of “true Islam” rather than embracing the
Muslim cultures of Africa. The power of Faisal’s legacy in Muslim histories of
New York, along with the State Street Mosque’s value as a cautionary parable,
remains potent even as Al Mahdi’s project increasingly appropriates figures
such as Elijah Muhammad.

Elijah Muhammad and the Secrets of Lam

With most of Al Mahdi’s polemical energy directed toward the Dar, Elijah
Muhammad remains essentially invisible in the earliest AAC/NIH sources.
One 1973 AAC pamphlet, Will Send “Elijah” Before the Coming of the Great and
Dreadful Day of the Lord, could encourage the inference that Elijah Muhammad
serves as a herald to Isa Al Haadi Al Mahdi in the same way that the biblical
Elijah reappeared (in spirit) as John the Baptist to serve as a forerunner to Jesus.
While such a reading might have seemed intuitive to some readers, it remains
speculative, as the pamphlet makes no explicit mention of Elijah Muhammad
or the Nation of Islam.
This virtual silence on Elijah Muhammad did not change instantly after
Elijah’s passing in 1975. Before 1978, when Louis Farrakhan broke away from
W. D. Muhammad’s reorientation project to revive the classical Nation of Islam,
AAC/NIH literature did not exhibit a meaningful interest in the Nation, or
in overtly challenging W. D. Muhammad. A diachronic reading of AAC/NIH
media of the late 1970s suggests that Farrakhan’s Nation revival provoked inten-
sified AAC/NIH concern with Elijah’s legacy. If one were to read AAC/NIH
literature exclusively from 1977, she would have a different impression of the
community’s location of itself in relation to the Nation than she would if she
read its publications from 1979.
In Al Mahdi’s comparison of his community’s symbol to those of other
Muslim movements, sources from 1972–73 make subtle references to the

84 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
Nation, naming the left-facing crescent as symbolic of “American-born Negroes
subject to the influence of the Turks” and discrediting Turkish descent as “half
original.”29 In a 1972 pamphlet, Al Mahdi discusses the flag used by “followers of
a Mr. Elijah Mohammed” without referencing the Nation by name, and claims
that the flag came from “a Mr. W. D. Fard, the son of a Russian woman, Mime,
and a Syrian father, Alfonso.”30 He repeats the claim in the 1977 pamphlet Our
Symbol but otherwise avoids directly engaging the Nation in extant materi-
als from 1977.31 Christ Is the Answer (1977) includes a “False Prophets” section
that denounces Father Divine and Sweet Daddy Grace as greedy charlatans
and treats Noble Drew Ali more generously as a well-intentioned leader whose
legacy amounts to a “start in the right direction,” but it does not acknowledge
Elijah one way or the other.32 Another artifact from 1977, a revision of 1973’s
Will Send “Elijah” Before the Coming of the Great and Dreadful Day of the Lord
remains officially silent on Elijah but could strike some readers as an esoteric
claim on Elijah’s legacy in relation to Al Mahdi’s mission, particularly when
read intertextually with Al Mahdi’s developing connection to Jesus. As with
the earlier edition, however, this interpretation is by no means self-evident or
unavoidable as the singular plain-sense meaning. It does not appear that the
death of Elijah Muhammad provoked an immediate rhetorical turn.
Al Mahdi seemingly derides Elijah Muhammad in Khutbat’s of Al Hajj Al
Imam Isa Abd’Allah Muhammad Al Mahdi, Book Two, in which he laments that
Faisal’s decades of work have gone ignored, while “Elijah Muhammad comes
on with an Amorite as a leader, and they follow him to the death. To the point
to kill another Muslim.”33 Al Mahdi dates the sermon July 5, 1974 (seven months
before Elijah’s death), but the Khutbat’s volumes were published in 1977–79,
the period in which Al Mahdi’s literature started to make claims upon Elijah
and the Nation’s legacy.34 The first volume of Khutbat’s also presents a sermon
dated to 1975 (no month provided) in which Al Mahdi attacks unnamed “false
prophets” who reject the finality of prophethood. Al Mahdi asks a hypothet-
ical interlocutor, “Who is Khatim An Nabi?” (Seal of the Prophets), adding
that if his conversation partner answers, “the Prophet Muhammad,” Al Mahdi
would then ask, “Which Prophet Muhammad?” These “false prophets,” he
writes, “received no Revelation. . . . They didn’t even receive guidance from
the proper teacher.”35 Al Mahdi then criticizes “certain schools of thought out
there” that deny the physical resurrection of the dead, as well as those who
denounce belief in an unseen “spook” god and instead “believe in allah as a
man,” and even Muslims who mispronounce Muslim as “Muzlam.” After these
clear jabs, Al Mahdi scoffs, “So foolish men untie the bowtie, it’s keeping the

Heralds of the Reformer ◆ 85

blood from going to your head.”36 While it’s possible that Al Mahdi attacked the
Nation and/or Elijah Muhammad from his own minbar prior to Elijah’s death,
it remains notable that he did not publish these critiques for wider dissemina-
tion until the late 1970s.
In the final years of the decade, Al Mahdi began to explicitly articulate
his position as the fulfillment and conclusion of Blackamerican Islam’s varie-
gated traditions and movements, but he remained cautious concerning Elijah
Muhammad. Presenting himself as a master Qurʾan translator and interpreter
in The Man of Our Time, Al Mahdi claims that Marcus Garvey foretold a future
arrival of people with a “Book of Light,” that Noble Drew Ali had a vision of
himself receiving a Qurʾan, and that Daoud Faisal “envisioned a clear, precise
Qurʾan” to clearly articulate Islam. Al Mahdi also mentions that among “the
visions most recently revealed,” one foresaw the Qurʾan coming as a “new
book” that bore the Arabic letter lam (‫ ;)ل‬curiously, Al Mahdi’s reference to
the vision of lam does not name the visionary who experienced it.37
The visionary was Elijah Muhammad. From June through October 1972,
Elijah delivered a twenty-week lecture series that was later disseminated as
The Theology of Time. In his August 20 lecture, he mentions that Master Fard
Muhammad had given him a copy of the Qurʾan in Arabic, but he was unable
to read it. Fard then brought him the English translation by Ahmadiyya scholar
Muhammad Ali, promising that when Elijah learned to read Arabic, Fard would
give him an Arabic Qurʾan. “I made it myself,” Fard told him. Elijah narrates
that Fard once showed him this Qurʾan, “but I couldn’t read it. I could only
recognize one letter in it.”38
What was the letter that Elijah recognized, and what was its value for under-
standing Black Muslim futures? Did this mysterious narration relate to Elijah’s
promise one month later that his community would not study the Bible or
the “present Qurʾan” in the hereafter? “You will have a new book,” Elijah said
in his September 24, 1972, lecture, “and the new book will replace the present
Bible and Qurʾan. . . . A new book is coming and that new book is the thing to
which the people must give ear.”39 In his August 20 lecture, Elijah stated that he
expected Fard to come back in less than a year with the book. Four years later,
Fard had not returned, Elijah had passed away, and Imam W. D. Muhammad
was dramatically de/reconstructing the Nation. As he articulated his project of
redesigning the Nation in broader “mainstream” or “orthodox” al-Islam, W. D.
Muhammad presented his reforms as esoteric fulfillments of his father’s teach-
ings. In the March 12, 1976, edition of Bilalian News, W. D. Muhammad referred
to a vision that Elijah had experienced in which he saw a book with letters that

86 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
were “penetrating the book all the way through” and possessed a “glow or illu-
mination.” Elijah knew only one of the letters: the Arabic lam, which “seemed
to have been all through the book and it stood out through all the writing.”
W. D. Muhammad first claims that the book of his father’s vision could not have
signified a future book to replace the Qurʾan as Elijah had claimed in Theol-
ogy of Time. To W. D. Muhammad, the suggestion of a “new book” meant that
the community did not yet know the Qurʾan. The lam signifies the shahadah,
testimony to the oneness of God and the prophethood of Muhammad, which
W. D. Muhammad identifies as the Qurʾan’s dominant principle. When one
reads the statement in Arabic (la ilaha illa Allah, Muhammadu rasul Allah),
lam “stands out more than any other letter.”40 W. D. Muhammad employed his
father’s vision and his own exegesis to produce a new flag for the community,
bearing the testimony of faith.41
Around the time that Farrakhan broke away from the reformed community
to revive the original Nation, Al Mahdi’s Book of ‫ل‬: To Whom It May Concern:
Fear No Longer for I Have Arrived (ca. 1978–79) and a larger two-volume work,
The Book of Lamb: The Message of the Messenger Is Right and Exact (1979) stake
his own claim as Elijah Muhammad’s true successor (fig. 16). The Book of ‫ل‬
divulges that the “passing of the covenant of leadership” occurred with Elijah’s
death and Al Mahdi’s anointing as the Reformer. Al Mahdi has come to “explain
the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and give the Black man in
the Western hemisphere his spiritual heritage: his natural and only language—
Arabic; his proper way of life following the sunnah of all the prophets of Allah
subhana wa taʾala—Islam; and the complete understanding of all the scrip-
tures of Allah subhana wa taʾala.” In the wake of Elijah Muhammad’s passing,
his people were “left without guidance, in a state of confusion, void,” until the
“appointed time” at which Al Mahdi would arrive.42
In The Book of Lamb, Al Mahdi advocates for Elijah Muhammad as a devout
Muslim who “often read the Holy Qurʾan in his teachings and was quite aware
of what it was saying,” and who never claimed prophethood.43 He introduces his
Book of Lamb as a defense against Elijah’s enemies: “Don’t let the devil deceive
you into thinking that you were tricked, because the teachings of the Honor-
able Elijah Muhammad (HWON) were right and exact, only misunderstood
and misinterpreted.”44
Al Mahdi holds that Elijah Muhammad “taught the Black Man many things
yet much of what he taught had to be explained at a later date by one who has
been chosen as the mujaddid . . . who would explain the allegorical teachings
of his herald.”45 Al Mahdi’s claim to be the true mujaddid, reformer of Islam for

Heralds of the Reformer ◆ 87

Figure 16 Advertisement for Al Mahdi, The Book of Lamb (1979).

his century, mirrored an identical claim made by W. D. Muhammad. For both

leaders, self-identification as the mujaddid territorialized the Nation’s past as
well as its future.
As competing reformers, both W. D. Muhammad and Al Mahdi creatively
reconstruct the Nation of Islam’s major doctrinal points, including its racial
demonology. In W. D. Muhammad’s reading, Fard Muhammad’s designation of

88 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
white people as “devils” was meant to condemn the satanic ideology of white
supremacy, rather than the “white race.”46 In Al Mahdi’s reading, Elijah Muham-
mad correctly identifies the race of devils, but Elijah’s understanding needs
refinement; white people (“Amorites”) are indeed devils, but specifically the
“Physical Devil” or the “physical manifestation of the devil” in distinction from
the supernatural shaytan, Iblis, whose existence Elijah had denied.47 For telling
the truth about white devils, Al Mahdi praises Elijah as a divine “warner.”48 In
American Muslims: Muslims in America (1980), he laments that Elijah’s work
“has been totally destroyed by his own. Not only do they welcome the Devil
into their ‘mosque,’ but they seek the economic and ‘spiritual aid’ by the pale
Arab (devils).” In contrast, he praises Farrakhan’s Nation revival as “the best
news we have heard in a long time. You better believe the day will come when
the Ansars and Minister Farrakhan will sit down at the same table because we
are the only ones who know who the Devil is!”49
Like W. D. Muhammad’s interpretation of his community’s history, in which
the Nation’s peculiarities only served Master Fard Muhammad’s “master plan”
to gradually introduce a more “traditional” or “mainstream” Islam, Al Mahdi
argues that Elijah Muhammad’s role was to prepare Nubians for Islam’s arrival
in “its pristine purity.”50 Elaborating on the theme of Islam’s true six-pointed
star versus the Nation’s illegitimate five-pointed star, Al Mahdi asserts that even
while using the inferior star, Elijah Muhammad recognized the six-pointed star
as correct. In a Muhammad Speaks column, Elijah had explained that this star
was once the Nation’s symbol: “The star in our flag today has five points, but
our old star had six points. The six-pointed star stood for the word ‘Kingdom’
in the language of our religion (Islam).” When W. D. Muhammad reprinted
the statement, Al Mahdi charges, he edited his father’s words: “The star in our
flag today has five points, but our old star stood for the word ‘Kingdom’ in the
language of our religion (Islam).”51
Al Mahdi restores Elijah Muhammad to his rightful position as a “messenger”
(not a “prophet”) whose divine mission was to open a portal for the Reformer, a
superior teacher who would correct the Nation’s mistakes and fulfill its mission,
described in the competing claims of both W. D. Muhammad and Al Mahdi as the
“second resurrection.”52 It is in The Book of Lamb that Al Mahdi explicitly connects
Malachi 4:5 (“Behold I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the coming of
the great and dreadful day of the Lord”) to Elijah Muhammad, because Elijah
preceded another “day of the Lord,” Al Mahdi’s own arrival.53
Referring to Elijah’s vision that W. D. Muhammad had described in 1976,
Al Mahdi explains that Elijah promised the coming of one with knowledge of

Heralds of the Reformer ◆ 89

the Arabic letter lam: “He did not understand the meaning of this himself, but
he told his followers that this would be a sign for them, and to follow whoever
possessed this knowledge. This man who he spoke of was the Reformer (Mujad-
didun) . . . the one who would properly restore Islam as our way of life.”54
For Al Mahdi, the lam signifies “lamb,” as in the Lamb mentioned in the
book of Revelation; he recognizes this lamb not as Jesus but rather as Melchize-
dek, whom he regards as identical to both the angel Michael and Khidr, the
mystical teacher of Moses.55 Al Mahdi also identifies himself with this entity,
explaining that while his own body was “born of a mortal,” his spirit is that of
the Lamb.56 Elijah Muhammad’s vision of the lam, the only Arabic letter that
Elijah could recognize, was significant in that lam is the twenty-third letter
of the alphabet, matching the twenty-three years of the Qurʾan’s revelation.57
Thirty years stand between 1970, year of the seventh seal’s opening, and 2000;
thirty happens to be lam’s numerical value in the classical Arabic abjad. Al
Mahdi examines the mathematics of lam: to spell out the letter’s sound, one
first writes lam itself, which appears 33,432 times in the Qurʾan, followed by an
alif; Al Mahdi notes that the lam-alif combination appears in the Qur’an 45,190
times. The third letter used to write the lam’s sound, mim, appears 45,919 times.
Al Mahdi adds these numbers, arriving at the incorrect sum of 114,541 (it should
be 124,541), which he then digit-sums as 1+1+4+5+4+1, getting 16, which he in
turn digit-sums as 1+6 to produce 7, the “perfect number.”58 “The ‫ ل‬that Elijah
Muhammad saw in 1967,” Al Mahdi writes, “is the same ‫ ل‬that sums up the
entire universe,”59 but W. D. Muhammad either misread his father’s vision or
deliberately misrepresented its meaning “so he could associate himself with the
so-called White Arabs in the East.”60 Correcting W. D. Muhammad’s attempts
at a new name and flag, Al Mahdi argues for his own “banner of the Mukh-
lasiyna,” bearing four lams to signify ladhdha (the agreeable inner soul), laffa
(the joining together or mingling of a crowd), lubb (the seat in man’s heart),
and ludd (the United States, seat of the Antichrist/Dajjal), along with the word
ladha (Allah’s protection) at the center.61
Between The Book of ‫ ل‬and The Book of Lamb, something changes. In the
former work, Al Mahdi makes straightforward claims upon Elijah Muhammad
as his divinely appointed forerunner, rendering Al Mahdi the proper heir to
Elijah’s stewardship over the Nation. In the latter, Al Mahdi still claims Elijah’s
mantle as his own inheritance, but he also subjects the Nation’s teachings to crit-
ical dissection. The shift seems to reflect a changing American Muslim milieu,
as 1978 also happened to be the year in which Farrakhan parted ways with W. D.
Muhammad and sought to revive the original Nation. The Book of ‫ ل‬declares,

90 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
“You were blinded for 3½ years but you see now that you have been deceived
by the Devil; so now come home so we can finish our work!”62 This blindness
could reflect the second half of a “tribulation” described in community liter-
ature, corresponding to the period 1974–77.63 Datable to 1978–79, it would
appear that The Book of ‫ ل‬identifies the Satanic deception as W. D. Muham-
mad’s reform project that followed his 1975 ascension, and that roughly four
years later, Al Mahdi promises a more faithful continuation of Elijah Muham-
mad’s work. In 1978, Al Mahdi would write that there were “no more Yorubas,
or Black Jews, or Israelites, or Black Muslims or any of the others,” and that the
AAC/NIH stood alone;64 in contrast to the 1978–79 Book of ‫ل‬, the 1979 Book
of Lamb seems to reflect a post-Farrakhan setting. While The Book of ‫ ل‬simply
contrasts Al Mahdi’s Elijah loyalism with W. D. Muhammad’s upheaval of the
tradition, The Book of Lamb celebrates Elijah but also expresses a greater inter-
est in undermining the “classical” Nation’s authority.
Simultaneously claiming and correcting the Nation, at the center of Al
Mahdi’s appropriation of Elijah Muhammad is a complex conspiracy theory
drawing on claims that Elijah’s teacher, Master Fard Muhammad, had been a
white charlatan. The “white Fard” narrative had circulated since 1959, when
Caribbean-born, Philadelphia-based Sunni leader Talib Dawud published a
photograph of Fard in the New Crusader with the headline, “White Man Is God
for Cult of Islam.”65 Elijah Muhammad responded with a charge that Dawud
had sold out to the “pale Arab.”66 In the early 1960s, similar stories appeared
in newspapers across the country, based on FBI-leaked information, alleg-
ing that Fard was a white hustler who duped ignorant and vulnerable African
Americans.67
Al Mahdi’s narrative, which underwent elaboration throughout the 1980s,
posits that there were two Fards. The first and “true” Fard was a Sunni Muslim,
born Abdul Wali Farrad Muhammad Ali on February 26, 1891, in Palestine.
His father was of Turkish and Syrian descent. He came to America in 1913,
arriving in New Jersey with the intention of causing discord within Noble
Drew Ali’s Canaanite Temple. One year later, Wallace Dodd Ford, the man
who would become the second and more famous Fard, arrived in Los Ange-
les. Ford was also born in 1891. He was the son of a white British merchant
marine and a Muslim woman from Fiji and had been raised Mormon in Port-
land, Oregon. Ford was a “notorious criminal,” writes Al Mahdi, and had been
arrested repeatedly for charges such as drug trafficking and false identification.
Upon conviction for treason, Ford was sent to San Quentin State Prison, where
he made a deal with the government to assume Abdul Wali Farrad Muhammad

Heralds of the Reformer ◆ 91

Ali’s identity, infiltrate the Moorish Science Temple, and undermine its leader-
ship from within. Meanwhile, Ford was also working on behalf of the German
and Japanese governments, which sought to introduce communism to Black
America. As evidence, Al Mahdi compares Communist Party statements on
Black self-determination from 1928 with later statements from the Nation of
Islam.68
In 1928, Marcus Garvey was deported to Jamaica, and Faisal established
his State Street Mosque in Brooklyn. The U.S. government secretly designated
1929 as the year in which important Black leaders would be assassinated. Fall-
ing victim in the conspiracy were both Noble Drew Ali and Abdul Wali Farrad
Muhammad Ali, after which Wallace Dodd Ford embarked on his mission to
destroy what was left of the Moorish Science Temple. He appeared in Chicago
later in 1929, claiming to be Noble Drew Ali’s reincarnation, and promoted
factional schisms that permanently split the community.
In 1930, Ford began preaching in Detroit as W. F. Muhammad. To become
believable as a Muslim leader, Ford attempted to study Islam, though he lacked
an adequate grasp of Arabic. He did possess a series of questions from Abdul
Wali Farrad Muhammad Ali—half of the question-answer catechism that would
become the Nation’s Supreme Wisdom Lessons—but could not produce his
own answers, “so he just philosophied [sic] on the politics and the econom-
ics that the questions dealt with.” Ford replaced much of Ali’s Islamic content
with communist ideology and atheist materialism.69 The questions were then
presented to Elijah Muhammad as an examination; the questions and answers
thus form the Supreme Wisdom Lessons as they were then transmitted within
the Nation. Within Nation discourses, therefore, we find not only Wallace Dodd
Ford’s economic teachings but also traces of Abdul Wali Farrad Muhammad
Ali’s religious material. Al Mahdi suggests that we can easily determine the
sources of Elijah’s ideas; when Elijah refers to historical figures and scriptures
by their Arabic names (such as Yakub), we know that he is using the real Fard’s
material.70 Despite Elijah’s ignorance of the situation, Al Mahdi regards him as
a faithful Muslim; it was because of Elijah’s pure “faith in allah subhana wa
taʾala” that he could build the glorious Nation of Islam, despite a sophisti-
cated conspiracy by white devils to mislead him.71
As the Reformer, Al Mahdi takes it upon himself to “renew” and complete
the Nation’s flawed catechism. In his commentary on the Supreme Wisdom
Lessons, he presents each question and offers his own answer, incorporating
biblical exegesis, numerology, his theory of racial “grafting,” and arguments for
the superiority of his movement’s six-pointed star to the five-pointed star on

92 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
the Nation of Islam’s flag. The first question of the Lessons’ “Student Enroll-
ment” asks, “Who is the Original Man?” Al Mahdi omits the original answer
(“The Original Man is the Asiatic Black Man, the Maker, the Owner, Cream
of the Planet Earth, God of the Universe”) in favor of his correction: “The
Asiatic Black Man. The Ruler of the earth. Made Khalifat by allah subhana
wa taʾala.” He then adds Qurʾanic verses, his definition of the term Khal-
ifat, and a breakdown of his own racial categories. The Asiatic Black Man is
the “black and brown race” and the “original Ishmaelites,” as opposed to other
Asiatic peoples: the Edomites (the “red” and “yellow” races) and the Cauca-
sian (Caucus-Asian) “sub-original” Amorites, “Ape Man Deteriorating Asian,
Pale man.” Elsewhere in the Lessons, Al Mahdi takes the statement that Afri-
cans learned of the enslaved African diaspora “approximately 60 years ago” as
a reference to the Sudanese Mahdiyya: if the Lessons were composed in 1930,
going back sixty years would mean 1870, the year that the Ansar were estab-
lished in the Sudan, and exactly one century before the emergence of the new
Ansar under the Reformer in 1970. Al Mahdi answers the Lessons’ question
“Why does the devil call our people ‘Africans’?” with an explanation that they
should instead be called “Asiatic Sudanese” in recognition of their heritage as
builders of the pyramids.72
In 1985, Al Mahdi republished The Book of Lamb: The Message of the Messen-
ger is Right and Exact, which had consisted of two pamphlets, as a single booklet,
The Book of Laam: To Whom It May Concern, Fear No Longer for I Have Arrived.
In 1989, he added material and released a 386-page Book of Laam: The Message of
the Messenger Is Right and Exact. Al Mahdi’s complex uses of Elijah Muhammad
enable him to simultaneously claim Elijah as his inheritance, position himself
as Elijah’s true successor as the leader of Blackamerican Muslims, and authorize
himself over Elijah as the master teacher who will correct his mistakes. Elijah
himself saw this coming. Al Mahdi is “the one the Honorable Elijah Muham-
mad (HWON) prophesied . . . the true reformer (mujaddid) for this era
of time.” Al Mahdi credits Elijah for having “carried the Nation of Islaam as far
he could,” but nonetheless affirms his own superior power: “The covenant of
leadership was passed in 1975 to me. . . . I have come with the sole purpose to
explain the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad (HWON) and to
give you the meaning behind the letter (‫)ل‬.”73
Amid the factional schism between Farrakhan and W. D. Muhammad,
Al Mahdi intervenes with his own claims. Reading AAC/NIH literature
diachronically, comparing works that appeared just before and just after Farra-
khan’s break from W. D. Muhammad’s reform project, one discerns a growing

Heralds of the Reformer ◆ 93

imperative for Al Mahdi to locate his authority not only in the classical Muslim
Blackness of the Sudan, but increasingly within the local histories of Ameri-
can Islam and the contested destiny of the Nation of Islam.

“He Was of the Noble”: Malcolm X

In 1979, as Al Mahdi presented himself as the true reformer (mujaddid) and
challenged W. D. Muhammad’s claim to that designation, contested W. D.
Muhammad’s rhetorical deployment of Bilal, and countered Farrakhan’s Nation
revival with his own reconstruction of Elijah Muhammad’s mission, Malcolm
X remained absent from AAC/NIH literature. Throughout the 1979 edition of
Al Mahdi’s Book of Lamb, we are reading for what goes unsaid.
In addition to the alternative histories, numerological analyses, and
commentary on Nation lessons that characterized the 1979 Book of Lamb, the
1989 Book of Laam includes new discussion of Malcolm. This late emergence
of Malcolm in Al Mahdi’s claim upon the history and future of Black Islam
points to Malcolm’s growing prominence in the late 1980s as a foundational
figure in that trajectory. In the 1989 Book of Laam, Al Mahdi extends his use of
the acronym HWON (“He Was of the Noble”) beyond Elijah Muhammad to
honor other figures, such as Noble Drew Ali and Malcolm X. Al Mahdi’s brief
treatment of Malcolm begins with a celebration of Malcolm’s oratorical skills
and contribution to the Nation, and includes a biographical sketch, through
which Al Mahdi weaves himself into Malcolm’s life. Al Mahdi claims that his
own mentor, Sheikh Daoud Faisal, made arrangements for Malcolm’s post-
Nation pilgrimage to Mecca. Through this Faisal connection, Al Mahdi himself
becomes a character in Malcolm’s hajj narrative.
In his Autobiography, Malcolm refers to a “young Arab Mutawaf’s aide,”
dressed in “skull cap, long white gown, and slippers,” who attempted to teach
him Sunni prayers while he was in Jedda. “I tried to do what he did,” Malcolm
writes. “I knew I wasn’t doing it right. . . . When my guide was down in a posture,
I tried everything I could to get down as he was, but there I was, sticking up.”
Malcolm recalls letting the aide perform ablutions and prayers first, watching
him in order to learn the motions.74 In the 1989 Book of Laam, Al Mahdi iden-
tifies himself as this aide; while representing his own mission as the divinely
appointed fulfillment of Elijah Muhammad’s work, he also assists Elijah’s attri-
tioned minister in his reinvention as a Sunni.75
The 1989 Book of Laam also criticizes Malcolm for overestimating Sunni
Islam’s transracial brotherhood. “He did not see the reality of racism in Al

94 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
Islaam,” Al Mahdi writes. “He also did not learn the history of the pale Arab.”
Al Mahdi adds that Malcolm, having been deceived by the devil, condemned
Elijah Muhammad prematurely for his extramarital affairs, failing to realize
that in “Al Islaam,” there was no crime in a man’s having more than one wife or
concubine. Malcolm, in Al Mahdi’s judgment, had become “another Judas,” for
which he has received disproportionate praise and recognition from “the pale
man.” Al Mahdi concludes his treatment of Malcolm in The Book of Laam by
affirming that Malcolm, “our beloved brother,” had been tricked by the devil,
and that Elijah Muhammad had no involvement with Malcolm’s assassination.76
Between the 1979 and 1989 versions of The Book of Lamb, we find an esca-
lation in Al Mahdi’s hostility toward transnational Sunni networks and what
he perceives as Arab interference in the lives of African American Muslim
communities. Whereas in the 1979 edition, Al Mahdi engages both W. D.
Muhammad’s community and Farrakhan’s nascent Nation revival primarily
within the terms of their shared Nation tradition, by 1989 the terrain has shifted.
The 1989 edition displays more focused concern with the intersection of African
American Muslims and Saudi-led projects of globalizing Arabocentric Sunni
hegemony. This text stands between anti-Muslim trends within Afrocentrism
and the prominence of Salafi networks in African American Sunni communi-
ties, which would enjoy increasing success throughout the late 1980s and peak
in the mid-1990s.77 Responding to renewed interest in Malcolm X, the 1989
edition treats Malcolm’s post-Nation reconversion as sincerely driven and as
engaging a classical authenticity—Al Mahdi, after all, tries to teach him Sunni
prayers—but nonetheless presents Malcolm’s reinvention in Saudi Arabia as
a cautionary tale about the danger that outside forces pose to Black unity. The
parable of Malcolm thus privileges Al Mahdi against Black Salafi imams who
favor Saudi-networked discourses over the teachings of Elijah Muhammad.
Al Mahdi’s treatment of Malcolm following the 1989 Book of Laam contin-
ues this antagonism toward Black Sunnis. Al Mahdi elaborates on his Malcolm
narrative in his 1991 volume The Book of the Five Percenters. Merging two char-
acters from Malcolm’s Autobiography, Al Mahdi maintains his previous claim
that he had met Malcolm in Jedda, adding that he was also the mutawaf who
guided Malcolm through the rites of hajj and protected him from being tram-
pled during prostrations. In his Autobiography, Malcolm describes the mutawaf
as a “short, dark-skinned Arab, named Muhammad” who spoke no English.78 Al
Mahdi remarks, “The part about me speaking no English was added in because
if I did not speak to him in English I could not teach him his Shahadah. Alex
Haley added many things in that book to make it sell.”79

Heralds of the Reformer ◆ 95

 The Book of the Five Percenters charges that Malcolm had been brainwashed
by what Al Mahdi terms the “Wahhabi Sect.” The Wahhabi Sect, he writes,
“had succeeded in their plan to ‘set up’ Malcolm by sending him to Mecca
and changing his views on Al Islaam to fit theirs. In Mecca, Malcolm X was
welcomed and treated royally just like they are presently doing with Wallace
D. Mohammed and Siraj Wahhaj who they also employ.” Al Mahdi Al Mahdi
argues that Malcolm, unaware of the Wahhabi Sect’s plan, surrendered to their
authority and joined in the defamation of Elijah Muhammad. Once Malcolm
had served his purpose, “the red Arabs then had him killed.”80 Al Mahdi adds
that the Wahhabi Sect is currently engaged in a similar project with “Jamaican
Negro” and Salafi convert scholar Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips, who had become
Al Mahdi’s chief Sunni antagonist in the 1980s through his Riyadh-published
polemical tract The Ansar Cult in America.
Examining AAC/NIH literature from 1979 through the mid-1990s, we
find a growing investment in Malcolm X that mirrors the Malcolm renaissance
taking place in American popular culture. At the start of the 1980s, Malcolm
does not appear in the community’s arguments for its Islamic authentic-
ity against rivals W. D. Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan. By the end of that
decade, however, Al Mahdi had reworked Malcolm’s life to oppose a rising
Sunni triumphalist narrative, as well as to warn Black Salafi networks of the
Saudi threat. Post-Mecca Malcolm finds himself rewritten by the AAC/NIH—
not as having recovered true Islam but, instead, as a tragic figure. Meanwhile,
Al Mahdi authorizes himself over Malcolm as a Muslim custodian, gatekeeper,
and guide, teaching Malcolm not only prayers but even the shahadah, the testi-
mony of faith by which Malcolm performs his Sunni reconversion. His narrative
preserves an essential Blackness for Islam in Mecca, while writing against the
Saudi state that sponsored Malcolm’s Sunni reinvention and the American
Muslim communities that may legitimize themselves in part as heirs to post-
Mecca Malcolm.

“A Stepping Stone”: Noble Drew Ali

In a photo spread titled “At Home with the Nubians Within the Tents of
Qaidhar,” an AAC/NIH pamphlet from 1972 displays a photo captioned “Grand
Sheik of Moorish Science Temple Visits Our Tents.”81 Apart from this caption, I
could not find references to Moorish Science or Noble Drew Ali in early AAC/
NIH sources. At the turn of the 1980s, Al Mahdi proclaims that, like Elijah
Muhammad and Daoud Faisal, Noble Drew Ali “told his followers to expect

96 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
me, and now that I am here, his followers are not with me.”82 In 1980, Al Mahdi
published a pamphlet titled Who Was Noble Drew Ali? and devoted to refuting
the Moorish Science Temple’s teachings while appropriating its prophet. Al
Mahdi praises Noble Drew Ali as a pioneer in the history of Black liberation and
the restoration of Islam but notes that because Noble Drew Ali “had very little
religious backing and . . . a limited knowledge of the Scriptures,” and “did not
know the language of his people which was Arabic,” he could not teach Islam
or inform Black people of their Ishmaelite lineage. Instead, he was “forced to
deal with the people on a political level and not a spiritual one.” While discuss-
ing Noble Drew Ali’s plagiarism from New Thought texts, Al Mahdi asserts
that Noble Drew Ali got his idea of Islam from the Shriners. According to Al
Mahdi, the Shriner organization, “a fun and drinking society” known for its
appropriation of an exotic Muslim “Orient,” was designed by white people
to undermine Islam. Noble Drew Ali, however, creatively reappropriated the
appropriation; “he took this mockery of Islam from the Shriners and used it
along with the teachings he learned from traveling to Egypt and came up with
a concept of Islam that stopped the entire nation.”83
While slighting his religious authority, Al Mahdi defends Noble Drew Ali
against Sunni condemnations over his claim to prophethood. For Al Mahdi,
Noble Drew Ali is indeed a prophet in the range of meanings of the English
word, which does not completely correspond to the Arabic nabi. Noble Drew
Ali did not know Arabic, Al Mahdi reminds us, and therefore could not have
claimed nabi status; he only referred to himself as “prophet” in English.84
In 1988, Al Mahdi disseminated a revised Who Was Noble Drew Ali? (fig.
17), citing a “tremendous upsurge of requests for this book” from “many
followers of the Moorish Science Temple philosophy.” Al Mahdi laments that
Noble Drew Ali’s significance and the fullness of his contribution have been
ignored. Al Mahdi’s work on Noble Drew Ali thus seeks to repair Black histor-
ical consciousness.85
Al Mahdi constructs a sympathetic biography of Noble Drew Ali, highlight-
ing the oppression and poverty he had experienced as a Nubian in America.
Young Timothy Drew was intelligent, Al Mahdi writes, and a natural seeker of
knowledge. He traveled to Egypt, where he visited universities, studied under
“Egyptian sages,” entered the “inner chambers of the pyramids,” and obtained a
new understanding of the slave trade. During his Egyptian sojourn, he “learned
of his heritage, which laid the foundation for his becoming a pioneer of Al
Islaam in the Western Hemisphere. He went to Egypt as Timothy Drew, and
he returned to America with the Arabic name ‘Ali.’”86

Heralds of the Reformer ◆ 97

Figure 17 Advertisement for Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Who Was Noble Drew Ali? (1988) and Who Was Marcus
Garvey? (1988).

98 ◆ Metaphysical Africa
 Noble Drew Ali sought to improve his people’s conditions. In Al Mahdi’s
estimation, he correctly diagnosed the problem (the devil’s rule) and the solu-
tion (a collective Black return to divinely revealed scriptures) but could not
deliver Islam “in its pristine purity” because of his ignorance of the Qurʾan and
Arabic.87 He “never taught his followers Arabic. He taught them in the language
they had been using since slavery, English.” This left his authority vulnerable
in the face of Abdul Wali Farrad Muhammad Ali, who impressed Noble Drew
Ali’s followers with his superior command of Arabic and his presentation of
Islam in “more classical form.” While Farrad stole Noble Drew Ali’s followers,
Al Mahdi writes, Elijah Muhammad was able to attract them by integrating
Noble Drew Ali’s teachings into his own discourse.88
Unequipped to teach Islam, Noble Drew Ali drew from numerous
sources, Muslim and non-Muslim, Black and white alike: the Shriners, “East-
ern Moslems,” and New Age writers such as Levi Dowling. Despite his lack of
“authentic” Islamic credentials and the later splintering of his movement, Al
Mahdi affirms Noble Drew Ali’s significance in Black Islam. “He did serve as a
stepping stone,” Al Mahdi explains, “in introducing Al Islaam to a people who
had totally lost the knowledge of their real way of life.” Even if Noble Drew
Ali could not complete the mission, he achieved a crucial intervention for his
time and place. Al Mahdi draws Noble Drew Ali, Sheikh Daoud Faisal, Marcus
Garvey, and Elijah Muhammad together for their collective contributions to
Black freedom. Though they disagreed on the details, they shared one mutual
understanding: Nubian redemption from Amorite oppression begins with a
return to all of the divine scriptures. To this end, their works “laid the founda-
tion for your true way of life,” the religion of Abraham, which continues with
Al Mahdi.89
Noble Drew Ali “tried to give the Nubian in America a link to his past
through developing a nation with a code of dress, mystic symbols and a flag
by borrowing from other cultures. Although his intentions were good you can
now see that his information was not always correct.”90 Even if he possessed
virtually no Islamic knowledge, and resorted to plagiarizing from white men
for his personal Holy Koran, Al Mahdi draws from that very text as an autho-
rizing discourse on behalf of his own status. Who Was Noble Drew Ali asserts
that Moorish Science scripture itself reveals that Noble Drew Ali anticipated
the future Reformer, Isa Al Haadi Al Mahdi.91
The final section of the revised Who Was Noble Drew Ali covers vari-
ous leaders who came after him, with Al Mahdi’s appraisals: Sweet Daddy
Grace, swindler; Father Divine, false god; Abdul Wali Farrad Muhammad Ali,

Heralds of the Reformer ◆ 99

conspiracy victim; Wallace Dodd Ford, imposter; Sheikh Daoud Faisal, Sunni
community builder whose failed dream lives on in Al Mahdi’s success; and the
Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Al Mahdi then examines contemporaries who
appear as branches of Elijah’s tree, starting with Farrakhan, a “good brother”
who “means well” but lacks proper Islamic knowledge and “therefore cannot
guide his followers to the truth.” Al Mahdi optimistically asserts that Farra-
khan has denied Fard’s divinity: “Slowly, he is coming to the knowledge of
true Islaam.” From there, Al Mahdi examines W. D. Muhammad (responsible
for “the complete destruction of all that his father created”); Silis Muham-
mad (whose splinter group is summarized without editorial comment); the
former Clarence 13X, who taught the youth because they were “more easily
influenced” and whose flag uses the same star, crescent, and number 7 as Noble
Drew Ali; and Malcolm X, who was “coming to the realization of true Islaam
when he was murdered.” Finally, Al Mahdi himself appears as this history’s
conclusion—in turn the conclusion to these pioneering legacies. The truth
manifests itself when one compares the failures of past leaders with his own
thriving community. “The proof is in the pictures,” Al Mahdi promises. “See
your way to the truth and come home to your own.” The book concludes with
photographs of children and adults in the community’s classrooms, masjids,
and private campground, dressed in white thobes and black niqab, along with a
listing of successful AAC/NIH operations, including schools, apartment build-
ings, various clothing businesses, farms, restaurants, buses, and media-related
ventures.92 The Moorish Science attempt to restore Black people to their true
flag, nationality, economic self-sufficiency, names, prayers, health regimens,
clothing, and way of life appears as an inferior prototype.

“Now You Know What It Really Means”: Marcus Garvey

The title page of Al Mahdi’s Who Was Marcus Garvey? (1988) features an image
of Africa that includes the Arabian Peninsula, reflecting Al Mahdi’s Afro-
Arabia narrative in which the two landmasses had been joined before the
devil’s destructive mischief caused the creation of the Red Sea. Locating the
Arabian Peninsula as part of Africa resonates with Al Mahdi’s larger interest in
bringing the pan-Africanist leader into his genealogy of Black Islam, which he
pursues not only by discussing Garvey’s significance for Noble Drew Ali but
also by pronouncing Garvey himself a Muslim. According to Al Mahdi, Duse
Mohamed Ali had educated Garvey on points that later became AAC/NIH
touchstones: that Jesus was a Black man; that the pyramids were “storehouses

100 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

of knowledge which safeguarded the ancient teachings” and that the Egyp-
tian elders had installed similar centers throughout the ancient world; that the
awaited Mahdi had arrived in the Sudan, and that he carried a black, red, and
green flag. Duse Mohamed Ali witnessed Garvey’s performance of the shaha-
dah, after which the man who had been called the “Negro Moses” renamed
himself Musa and adopted the six-pointed star, the true star of Islam. Al Mahdi
argues that Garvey’s conversion also became evident in the dress code of
women in his Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).93
While Al Mahdi’s celebration of Elijah Muhammad, Noble Drew Ali, and
the former Clarence 13X deliver a sleight-of-hand polemic, Who Was Marcus
Garvey devotes considerable space to confronting Ras Tefar I tradition, in
which Garvey is regarded as a prophetic forerunner of Haile Selassie. Al Mahdi’s
tribute to Garvey becomes an anti-Rasta tract; Garvey “could not have been
referring to Haile Selassie as the black prince to be crowned because Haile
Selassie had no respect for Garvey or the United Negro Improvement Asso-
ciation,” as Selassie had “turned his back” on Garvey and “refused to talk with
him.” Nor did Garvey’s vision of an “Africa for Africans” assign special privilege
to Ethiopia, the Zion of Rasta tradition, as Al Mahdi argues that “Ethiopia” in
early pan-Africanist discourse (including the UNIA anthem) served as a generic
catch-all for the entirety of Africa. Ethiopia was not Garvey’s Zion any more
than the rest of the continent was. Al Mahdi also argues that “many practices
of the Rastafarians do not coincide with the teachings of Marcus Garvey,” as
Garvey did not wear dreadlocks, regard marijuana as a biblical sacrament, or
claim the green, yellow, and red Ethiopian flag as a symbol of pan-Africanism.
In his criticism of dreadlocks and marijuana, Al Mahdi attacks Rastas for selec-
tively following the scriptures; in his rejection of the Ethiopian flag, he argues
that Garvey’s red, black, and green flag was based on the black, red, and green
Mahdiyya flag. While rearranging the colors, Garvey also removed the flag’s
testimony of faith because he did not understand Arabic.94
Rejecting Rasta constructions of metaphysical Africa, Al Mahdi presents
his own, charting his lineage through the Sudanese Mahdi to the Prophet. The
Mahdi, who followed “the Religion of Abraham” and liberated the “real Arabs”
(the Sudanese) from British oppression, is foretold in the book of Revela-
tion, which mentions a woman who “brought forth a man child, who was to
rule all nations with a rod of iron” (12:5). Al Mahdi reveals the woman to have
been Fatima, daughter of Muhammad, and her son to be her distant but direct
descendant, the Mahdi of the Sudan. Al Mahdi also detaches “Lion of Judah”
imagery from Selassie, asserting that this title was first bestowed upon ‘Ali ibn

Heralds of the Reformer ◆ 101

Abu Talib and that the “prayer of Abraham” confirms the arrival of a succes-
sor from Muhammad’s bloodline. Adding that one can be both Israelite and
Ishmaelite, Al Mahdi claims that the line of Judah can preserve the covenant
of Israel while coming from the line of Ishmael.95
Who Was Marcus Garvey then departs into Al Mahdi’s Afrofuturist history
of Salaam, the “ultra-advanced civilization ruled by 24 Elders who are called
elohim in Hebrew and allahuma in Arabic. They are extra-terrestrials or
angels.” Of particular significance to his Rasta readers, he argues that these
are the elders mentioned in Revelation. In the kingdom’s capital city of Mu,
the elders performed their advanced scientific research, kept the universe in
order, and transmitted messages from Allah to humankind; the names Mu
and Salaam combined to make the title Mu-Salaam, “one who is of peace,” the
root of “Muslim.” This utopian age ended when the devil forced the division
of the Arabian Peninsula from Africa and created the Red Sea. The perception
of Africa and Arabia as two separate entities speaks to the devil’s work. Simi-
larly, treating the religions of Moses and Muhammad as separate also follows
the devil, since these are “actually the same way of life”; the devil divided Juda-
ism and Islam by “reforming” both traditions away from scripture, which in
Islam’s case meant the replacement of the Qurʾan with false hadiths and the
violent suppression of the Prophet’s family.96
Establishing distinctions between true Islam (an indigenously African
and authentically Black tradition) and the reformed Islam of white devils and
“pale Arabs,” Al Mahdi returns to his narrative of the Black ahl al-bayt and
explains that the Sudan is where Fatima fled from “the pale Arabs of Egypt.”
The wise Nubians concealed her for three and a half years, which Al Mahdi
reads as a prophetic number: Fatima hiding for 1,260 days symbolizes 1,260
years of Ishmaelite bondage that will end in the year 2000. According to Al
Mahdi, Fatima’s exile in the Sudan is referenced in the book of Revelation:
mother of the man who will rule all nations, Fatima is the woman who flees
into the wilderness, where she will rest for 1,260 days (12:6) and find nour-
ishment while hiding from the serpent (12:14). Al Mahdi asserts that many
of the ancestors who came to the Americas as slaves were taken from the
Sudan, and that their bondage is also referenced in Revelation. Anchoring
his treatment of prophetic history in the biblical text most salient for Rasta
readers, Al Mahdi turns Who Was Marcus Garvey into an accessible path-
way for Rastas to enter his own discursive universe. Al Mahdi returns to his
discussion of Garvey and reminds readers that the AAC/NIH waves a truer
version of Garvey’s flag, the Mahdiyya banner: “You accepted this flag when

102 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

you did not know what it meant under Marcus Garvey. . . . Now you know
what it really means.”97

“A Rebel”: Allah, the Former Clarence 13X

The Five Percenter movement, popularly known since the 1980s as the Nation
of Gods and Earths, originated in 1964 when Clarence 13X broke from the
Nation of Islam’s Mosque No. 7 in Harlem and began sharing the Nation
of Islam’s Supreme Wisdom Lessons with youths who were not registered
Muslims. Signifying his mastery of the Lessons, Clarence 13X “dropped his
X” and renamed himself Allah; in Nation theology, this did not mean that he
was a “manifestation” of a higher supernatural power or that such a power had
“incarnated” itself in his body. Rather, Clarence was Allah, the “best knower”
of his time, supplanting Fard in that position. As Allah, the former Clarence
13X ultimately democratized the Nation’s Black godhood, teaching young men
to claim the divine name for themselves. The Five Percenter community took
its name from references in the Lessons to those who recognized themselves
as gods and sought to liberate the minds of the masses (85 percent) from the
false religions imposed upon them by the ruling powers (10 percent). As Allah
disseminated his teachings among teenagers, and instructed them in turn to
teach younger boys, the Five Percenters spread through the 1960s significantly
as a youth movement. After Allah’s assassination in 1969, Five Percenters main-
tained their headquarters, an “Allah School” in Harlem, and held monthly
assemblies (“parliaments”) and rallies that dominated public parks and other
spaces throughout the five boroughs. They received fairly frequent and generally
sympathetic coverage in the Amsterdam News as a fixture of local community
life, and also experienced negative attention from the NYPD, which viewed
their conversion of gang members with suspicion. By the end of the 1970s, Five
Percenters enjoyed such a strong presence in Black and Latino youth cultures
of New York that their unique ideologies, reference points, and vocabulary
became ubiquitous in hip-hop, even among artists who were not themselves
Five Percenters.98
Though relations between the Five Percenters and the AAC/NIH were
often strained, the media of both communities reveal an ongoing exchange.
Al Mahdi published the Nation’s lessons with his annotated commentary and
disseminated them via street peddlers, having an impact on Five Percenter
interpretive traditions. In Five Percenter literature and the lyrics of affiliated
hip-hop artists, there are numerous concepts with AAC/NIH genealogies.

Heralds of the Reformer ◆ 103

These include Al Mahdi’s claim that the word “God” represents an acronym
for “Gomar Oz Dubar,” which he defines as “Wisdom, Strength, Beauty”; the
claim appears often in Five Percenter discourse, even in hip-hop artist Rakim’s
1997 lyrical masterpiece “The Mystery (Who Is God).”99 Al Mahdi’s interpre-
tation of the word “Muslim” to mean “one of peace” echoes popular “Islam
means peace” arguments found in Sunni Muslim pamphlets, though this inter-
pretation produces different consequences in AAC/NIH and Five Percenter
materials. While Five Percenter discourses use the “one of peace” argument
not to deflect Islamophobic narratives but rather to distance their lessons’
references to “Muslims” from formal religious identity—arguing that one can
be a lowercase muslim as “one of peace” without making a religious or sectar-
ian claim—the argument seems to reflect a flow of AAC/NIH media into
Five Percenter currents.100 Meanwhile, AAC/NIH literature also reflects its
conversation with Five Percenter tradition. Though Al Mahdi’s frequent use
of numerology and lettrism by no means depends on Five Percenter influ-
ence—neither the former Clarence 13X nor any prominent builders of Five
Percenter tradition after him displayed an interest in the premodern Islamic
lettrism and numerology that informed Al Mahdi’s work—his use of letters
and numbers resonates in Five Percenter registers, and Al Mahdi sometimes
couches his own alphanumerics in distinct Five Percenter terms (i.e., “Supreme
Mathematics”).101 Finally, while the Five Percenters originated in Harlem and
spread throughout the city (and beyond), the community boasts an especially
rich history in the AAC/NIH’s cradle of Brooklyn, which the Five Percenters
renamed Medina (with Harlem as Mecca), “land of the righteous warriors.”102
Despite these communities’ intersections, overt references to Allah and
his Five Percenter movement in AAC/NIH literature are difficult to recover,
particularly in early sources. A comic strip in Al Mahdi’s Signs of 73 pamphlet
depicts a Black man named Leroy who proclaims himself God before taking
a punch to the face and falling at the feet of a white-garbed Ansar.103 While a
reader already familiar with Five Percenter culture could read the cartoon as a
mockery of the community, the pamphlet makes no explicit reference to the
former Clarence 13X or his movement. Allah remains neglected throughout
1970s AAC/NIH literature. Al Mahdi’s introduction to his 1979 Book of Lamb
mentions a host of men, Muslim and non-Muslim, alongside Elijah Muham-
mad as leaders in the struggle for Black liberation—Daoud Faisal, Noble Drew
Ali, Marcus Garvey, and Puerto Rican independence leader Pedro Albizu
Campos—but makes no mention of the former Clarence 13X. Arguing for
the Qurʾan as a mathematical miracle due to patterns regarding the number

104 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

19 and its multiples, Al Mahdi describes these patterns as “the Supreme Math-
ematics of the Holy Qurʾan”; though the argument and his specific language
resonate with themes in Five Percenter tradition, Al Mahdi does not further
connect his “Supreme Mathematics” to Five Percenters.104 In the 1970s and
’80s, when Al Mahdi makes reference to numerous communities in his appeal
to Black universalism—“Whether you call yourself a Christian or a Jew, Isra-
elite, Hebrew, Rasta, Muslim, Bilalian, Nation of Islaam, Sunni Muslim, Shiʿite
Muslim, Black Nationalist, African, Puerto Rican, whatever name you have
picked up”—he does not typically mention the Five Percenters.105 At most,
Five Percenters receive rare passing acknowledgment in earlier materials simply
as one of many groups that exist but never as serious interlocutors, and Allah
makes no appearance as a figure with a meaningful legacy.
The AAC/NIH literature of the 1980s, however, reveals an increasing
engagement with Five Percenter tradition and its founder. The 1988 edition of
Who Was Noble Drew Ali? marks this shift, providing a brief discussion of the
Five Percenters that does not appear in the 1980 edition. In its cursory treat-
ment, the 1988 edition offers various dismissals of the Five Percenters: the
founder borrowed his “five percent” concept from the Nation of Islam and
Five Percenters still rely on the Nation’s flawed Lessons; it is impossible for
the Five Percenters to represent 5 percent of the world’s population, as this
would amount to more than one million people in the United States alone;
the former Clarence 13X targeted young men because they were “more easily
influenced”; and finally, Five Percenters are guilty of “the unforgivable sin of
binding partners with allah Most Glorified and Exalted”—Al Mahdi cites the
Qurʾan in Arabic and English (4:48) to support this claim. Al Mahdi includes
an image of the Five Percenters’ Universal Flag with the caption “Notice that
they use the number seven and the five-pointed star and crescent as Noble
Drew Ali (HWON) did,” and a photograph of Allah among his young follow-
ers captioned “Notice the young boy smoking.”106
Al Mahdi adds references to the Five Percenters in his 1989 Book of Laam,
which examines Allah and his community, among other movements and lead-
ers. Malcolm X had expelled the former Clarence 13X from the Nation of Islam,
Al Mahdi asserts, for being “a rebel,” after which he attracted a large follow-
ing among Black youth in New York for teaching that they, as “sons of Allah,”
were entitled to the divine name. Citing the Qurʾan and Genesis, Al Mahdi
concedes that God breathed life into Adam but argues that “man fell from grace
with the very first man, the Prophet Adam (PBUH) and lost his divinity. You
lost your godlike qualities.” While he acknowledges a kernel of truth in Five

Heralds of the Reformer ◆ 105

Percenter theologies, Al Mahdi attacks Five Percenters’ immature knowledge:
“You are a lost people who have no right to choose divine titles you cannot
live up to. You must first be born again. Take your shahaada. . . . Then you can
begin to work towards the perfection of your being to enable you access to
the Supreme within you.” Perfection cannot be attained “by standing on the
corner in a ‘square,’ philosophizing (‘building on mathematics’).”107
In 1991, Al Mahdi produced The Book of the Five Percenters, a hefty 627-page
volume bearing Allah’s photo on the cover with a caption reading, “Clarence
Jowars [ Jowers] Smith, Clarence 13X (1929–1969 A.D.).” The black background
and gold text evoke the Five Percenters’ black and gold Universal Flag. The
book’s back cover displays only the black, red, and green AAC/NIH flag with
accompanying Nubic text. Many readers of The Book of the Five Percenters,
encountering the book via AAC/NIH peddlers and street vendors, might have
first taken the book as an “official” Five Percenter text, perhaps even written by
the former Clarence 13X himself. The Book of the Five Percenters corresponds
to the community’s rising prominence not only throughout New York but in
urban centers across the country. In part because Five Percenter artists domi-
nated Islam’s representation in hip-hop, Al Mahdi’s massive Book of the Five
Percenters appears to reflect a growing recognition of the Five Percenters’ signif-
icance at the turn of the 1990s.
Despite the book’s title and cover design, Five Percenters are not the
consistent focus of The Book of the Five Percenters. Asking Five Percenters for a
“pow-wow” for the purpose of arriving at a shared platform, Al Mahdi appeals to
them to join his AAC/NIHNIHN rather than Sunni communities or the Nation
of Islam. He devotes significant space to attacking the “Wahhabi Sect” and its
“world wide plot” to “kill all potential Black (Nubian) leaders and destroy all
Muslim organizations which were not affiliated with them.”108 This conspira-
cy’s victims include Al Mahdi’s own father, “the Nubian President of Egypt”
Anwar Sadat, and Rashad Khalifa, who claimed to have discovered the Qurʾan’s
miraculous mathematical patterns. According to the Wahhabi Sect, Al Mahdi
argues, the only authentic Islam is “that which condones ‘white’ superiority”
(108). The Wahhabi Sect’s violence against Black liberation in the United States
claimed the lives of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Allah within the
short span of four years. Malcolm, Al Mahdi writes, had fallen victim to a joint
conspiracy between the Wahhabis and the U.S. government. Al Mahdi finds
evidence of Saudi involvement in King’s assassination because it took place in
Memphis, a “Wahhabi city” owned by the Saudis. Allah’s assassination was also
an “Orthodox Sunni plot, funded by Red Arabs in Arabia” (67). Al Mahdi’s

106 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

references to Allah by his Nation name, Clarence 13X, would strike Five Percen-
ters as an offensive slap at their patriarch; however, Al Mahdi also grants him
the title of “Messenger” and includes him among the esteemed sages of Black
mental resurrection. Meanwhile, Al Mahdi argues that his Sunni contempo-
raries, such as Siraj Wahhaj (a “‘puppet’ for the Orthodox Sunni pale Arabs”)
(74) and Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips (a “Jamaican negro” who converted to
“the white man’s version of Al Islaam”) (108–9), have been co-opted by the
Saudis, and that a similar process has already started to bring Farrakhan under
their control, as evidenced by a photo of Farrakhan embracing Wahhaj and
W. D. Muhammad (102). Al Mahdi alternates throughout The Book of the Five
Percenters between respect for Farrakhan and sadness that Farrakhan has “no
foundation, no doctrine, no facts,” leaving Al Mahdi “alone to carry on the work
of the Messenger Elijah Muhammad” (210, 217). Presenting the former Clarence
13X as a rebellious but sincere student of Elijah, Al Mahdi positions himself as
more compatible with the Five Percenters’ founder than the Saudi-controlled
Farrakhan.
Throughout The Book of the Five Percenters, Al Mahdi generally treats
“Messenger Clarence 13X” as a sympathetic character. Equipped with what Al
Mahdi terms “the raw version of Al Islaam and the teachings of the Messenger
Elijah Muhammad” (34), Messenger Clarence 13X made an important inter-
vention in the lives of young Black men in New York. Messenger Clarence 13X,
Al Mahdi writes, rejected the double-edged “genocide of the mind” (Christi-
anity and “Orthodox Sunni Islam”) that afflicted his people, and he prioritized
the teaching of young men because he “believed that the older generation was
too indoctrinated by the Devil’s society to bring about any real change” (34).
Al Mahdi credits Messenger Clarence 13X for his pedagogy: he “didn’t harness
or restrain the children he taught, he just gave them knowledge of the lessons
he received from the Nation of Islam under the Messenger Elijah Muhammad”
(58). Messenger Clarence 13X taught them to complete their education, get
job training, and “build a nation”; he also understood that white people were
devils (59).
The Book of the Five Percenters presents Allah in a kind of pictorial hagiogra-
phy, with a painted portrait of Messenger Clarence 13X in a uniform reminiscent
of the Nation’s Fruit of Islam regalia, all white (resonant with the AAC/NIH’s
dress code), with a pillbox-style hat bearing the Five Percenters’ Universal Flag.
A halolike glow emanates from his head (37) (fig. 18). The image, which appears
in AAC/NIH literature as early as 1989 in texts such as The Book of Laam and
Our Flag: The True Banner of Al Islaam,109 is markedly ahistorical—Allah had

Heralds of the Reformer ◆ 107

 Figure 18 AAC/NIH portrait of Allah
(“Messenger Clarence 13X”).

never adopted a formal Five Percenter uniform—but relocates Allah within

AAC/NIH sacred history, making icons of him and his flag.
As in his treatment of Elijah Muhammad and Noble Drew Ali, Al Mahdi
presents Allah as a man of good intention but limited knowledge and ability.
Endowed with an intuitive sense that the Nation’s platform could not fully
resurrect Nubians in America, the former Clarence 13X broke away from the
Nation and embarked on his own flawed project. “Messenger Clarence 13X felt
that there was more to the doctrine than what the ministers of the Messenger
Elijah Muhammad were revealing at that time,” Al Mahdi explains, “but the
time had not yet come when many truths were destined to be revealed” (38).
The former Clarence 13X was “unable to give you the pure truth because he was
stopped by the Devil. He took you as far as his teachings would allow” (369).
Al Mahdi draws a distinction between the historical “Messenger Clar-
ence 13X” and contemporary Five Percenter teachings, which enables him
to absorb the former into his authorizing genealogy while delegitimizing the
latter. He acknowledges that the former Clarence 13X taught that Black men
“should look inside themselves for the power that they looked for in the God
of religion” (38). But Five Percenters have reconstructed the former Clarence
13X as an undeserving idol, just as the Nation has done in venerating Master
Fard and as “Mohammedan” Sunni Muslims (18) have done in worshipping

108 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

the Prophet. Further incorporating his critique of Sunnis into his discussion
of the Five Percenters, Al Mahdi subjects Five Percenter oral tradition to his
skepticism regarding hadiths, even referring to concepts and practices that he
deems suspect as “Five Percent Hadith” (338). Five Percenter imaginaries of
their founder, Al Mahdi argues, rely on fabricated reports and flimsy hearsay:
“Messenger Clarence 13X didn’t leave a successor, nor did he author any books.
So how do you know the teachings you’re following today are what Messen-
ger Clarence 13X really taught?” (625). Al Mahdi goes so far as to employ the
former Clarence 13X’s distance from contemporary Five Percenters as a means
of critiquing Five Percenters’ disavowal of the “mystery god.” Five Percenters
generally espouse self-deification not as the incarnation or manifestation of a
higher spirit but in a materialist rejection of belief in unseen beings. Accord-
ing to Al Mahdi, however, “If you are a Five Percenter and you have never seen
or talked with Messenger Clarence 13X in the person, and only have a picture
of him, then you’re just like Christians . . . then you too believe in the
unseen god” (12). The chronological gulf between a man who was assassi-
nated in 1969 and the community that follows him in 1991 enables Al Mahdi to
assault Five Percenter tradition while preserving the founder’s innocence. Had
“Messenger Clarence 13X” actually claimed to be Allah? Did he teach young
Black men to consider themselves creators and lords of the universe? If he had
made statements with these possible implications, what did he really mean?
According to Al Mahdi, the man’s intentions had been misunderstood by those
who authorized themselves as his heirs and successors: “Messenger Clarence
13X knew that he was not the Creator of all things in existence. In many ways
he told his followers they were of allah, not allah himself ” (207).
Much of Al Mahdi’s critique of Five Percenters targets their lack of fluency
in Arabic. Discussing Five Percenter interpretations of the word “Allah” as an
acronym for “Arm Leg Leg Arm Head,” signifying godhood with the human
form, Al Mahdi scolds Five Percenters, “You can’t take English, the language
of the devil and use it as if it were divine!” (146). He discredits Five Percenter
alphanumerics, their codes of Supreme Mathematics and Supreme Alphabets,
in part with a display of his proficiency in classical Arabic abjad (342–64). Al
Mahdi also addresses Supreme Mathematics and Supreme Alphabets in his
1989 Book of Laam, alleging that their true creator was Malcolm X.110 Boast-
ing in The Book of the Five Percenters that “we here at the Nubian Islaamic
Hebrews teach about the real Supreme Mathematics,” Al Mahdi refers to the
Qurʾan’s patterns of the number 19 as promoted by “Messenger Rashad Khal-
ifa.” He subjects what he erroneously claims was Allah’s given name, Clarence

Heralds of the Reformer ◆ 109

Jowars [sic] Smith,111 to the test, digit-summing the three names to arrive at
8+6+5=19—revealing the truth of Khalifa’s claims. Further connecting Five
Percenter concepts to Khalifa’s mathematical esotericism, Al Mahdi refers to
a AAC/NIH pamphlet, The Supreme Mathematics of the Number 19, that is no
longer extant (136–37).
Al Mahdi writes that Five Percenters, “more than any other offshoot of
the Nation of Islam,” used the Nation’s Supreme Wisdom Lessons as their
foundation (368). In the 1989 Book of Laam, this opens the Five Percenters
to Al Mahdi’s dismissal: “The members of the Five Percent Nation would do
well to exert the same amount of effort towards studying the Qur’aan and
Bible, so that they can find true Islaam.”112 Al Mahdi points out that not only
were the Lessons flawed in their corrupted origins; owing to their circula-
tion in Five Percenter contexts as memorized oral traditions, they have been
distorted over time. Adding even more confusion, Five Percenters, unable to
comprehend Elijah Muhammad’s teachings or to read scriptures in their original
Arabic, heap mountains of unqualified interpretation and commentary upon
the Lessons (369). Five Percenters, in Al Mahdi’s judgment, thus follow unre-
liable commentaries on inauthentic versions of texts that were never genuinely
authoritative, even in their “original” form. Al Mahdi devotes most of the final
two hundred pages of The Book of the Five Percenters to his own annotation of
the Lessons, providing the “original” and “corrupted” versions, Five Percenter
exegesis (which he derisively terms “hadith”), and the Lessons’ “Real Mean-
ing by the Reformer” (368–572).
While issuing challenges to Five Percenter theology and practice, Al Mahdi
preserves the integrity of their intention. Writing to “salute their efforts and
seek to join forces with them,” he affirms the Five Percenter mission as “creat-
ing the proper cultural environment to raise sound children. . . . Our common
goals are more important than any differences we might have!” (36). He praises
Five Percenter hip-hop artists, singling out such stars as Poor Righteous Teach-
ers, King Sun, Eric B. and Rakim, and Big Daddy Kane (“who used to be in
the 5% Nation,” Al Mahdi claims, “and now he is an Ansaar of the Nubian
Nation”) (31–34), and claims to have influenced Five Percenter artists, citing
references to Nubian identity: “There is a rap group of Five Percenters who
call themselves ‘Brand Nubians.’ Now, why didn’t they call themselves ‘Brand
Five Percenters’?” (108).
Al Mahdi contrasts failed Five Percenter efforts at building and maintain-
ing institutions with his own community’s success. The former Clarence 13X
had received his Allah School through the Urban League’s “street academy”

110 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

program during his work with the Lindsay administration, but the school has
suffered in the decades since owing to “lack of leadership” and neglect. Like-
wise, “many other street academies of the Five Percent Nation have also been
set up after the example of the founders. Yet, they too have been unable to
survive for a variety of reasons ranging from lack of support, to lack of finances
in Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and many more” (62). Contrasting these inauthen-
tic teachings and feeble institutions with his own superior mastery of Arabic and
with photographs of AAC/NIH children enjoying life in a properly “Islamic”
community, with its own masjids, schools, businesses, and entertainment, Al
Mahdi pronounces the Five Percenters a sincere but failed experiment. “Let’s
work together,” he pleads in conclusion. “United we are an undefeatable force.
You’ll find out the differences came about due to the opinions of men. . . . In
the end, truth will prevail over all sects and all differences. But at this stage it
just doesn’t matter. We have to make a start by coming together” (625–27).

Conclusions
Al Mahdi ostensibly calls other communities to follow him, not as a disavowal of
their founding heroes or traditions but rather in the name of Black unity against
the combined forces of white supremacy and transnational Sunni hegemony,
his treatment of Blackamerican Islamic histories veering between appropria-
tion and polemic. He weaves the biographies of figures such as Noble Drew
Ali and the former Clarence 13X into a masterly epic in which he stands as the
conclusion. He praises Elijah Muhammad and Daoud Faisal for taking their
followers as far as they could take them, but concludes that “there’s more to
that journey, and I, As Sayyid Issa Al Haadi Al Mahdi, am here to complete
the mission” (207).
The tension in this literature finds expression in a curious AAC/NIH arti-
fact, a poster from circa 1990 (fig. 19) depicting Al Mahdi seated at a banquet
with a host of patriarchs: not only figures of Black Islam (Elijah Muhammad,
Malcolm X, Noble Drew Ali, Daoud Faisal, the former Clarence 13X, and
Louis Farrakhan), but also Marcus Garvey (himself a figure of Black Islam in
Al Mahdi’s view), Haile Selassie, Black Hebrew/Israelite leaders Ben Ammi
and Yahweh Ben Yahweh, and even Martin Luther King Jr. and Puerto Rican
revolutionary Pedro Campos. All of the men are dressed in white robes. The
Islamic and Hebrew/Israelite figures don varieties of head covering, in some
cases matching what they historically wore or displaying the emblem of their
community. On the wall hangs a Mahdiyya flag; through the window, we see

Heralds of the Reformer ◆ 111

Figure 19 “We Are Family: The Nubian Nation,” AAC/NIH poster, ca. 1990. Back row, left to right:
Noble Drew Ali, Pedro Albizu Campos, Allah (the former Clarence 13X), Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muham-
mad, Malcolm X, Yahweh Ben Yahweh, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Front row, left to right: Ben Ammi
Carter, Haile Selassie, As Sayyid Al Imaam Isa Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Louis Farrakhan, Daoud Faisal.

a nearby masjid. The poster is captioned, “we are family / the nubian
nation,” and provides brief biographical notes on each figure. “All these great
men are our saviors,” the poster tells us, “as stepping stones towards the truth.
They were all sent from allah to guide us to the true Al Islaam. Let’s give
thanks for them.”
Al Mahdi sits in the center foreground, Farrakhan on his right and Selassie
on his left, seemingly the force behind this gathering that takes place entirely
on his terms—as expressed in everyone’s white garb and the Mahdiyya flag
hanging above, as well as the masjid beyond the window. Al Mahdi, of course,
embodies the truth to which his companions here were stepping-stones, and
the “true Al Islaam” for which they were sent. To this end, he can viciously tear
apart figures like Selassie and Farrakhan and yet still offer them up as objects
of veneration within his larger narrative of Black destiny.

112 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

 Chapter •3
“The Covenant Is
Complete in Me”
Nubian Islamic Hebraism and
the Religion of Abraham

We are Africans. . . . Here is a significant fact, that

those of us here never had a Caucasian teacher to
instruct us into the principles of our faith up to
the present, this alone is evidence that as regards
our faith as original. . . . It is not customary for
Caucasian (is that a nice name?) Hebrew brethren
to admit that behind the African mind there are
originally the roots of Hebrew culture; but this
is our contention; and although in ritualism we
may differ and perhaps be found wanting; in heart
and in custom we are Hebraic and nothing else.
—Rabbi Arnold Josiah Ford

In April 1994, the New York Times reported that sometime in the previous year,
“at least 300 members of an unusual, insular sect that blended Islamic and Jewish
precepts packed up and abandoned” their Bushwick Avenue community, leav-
ing stores, apartment buildings, and their masjid boarded up.1 The article noted
that this sect, the Holy Tabernacle of the Most High, was also known as the
Children of Abraham, that it identified its “prophet” as Rabboni Y’shua Bar El
Haady, and that its members identified themselves as “the true Israelites” but
also “adapted Muslim modes of prayer and lifestyle, while rejecting orthodox
Muslim worship.” While reporting rumors of internal divisions between “one
big group” that had relocated upstate and another that moved to Georgia, the
article concluded, “Precisely where and why they went remains a mystery.”2
A community poster from the era evokes Jehovah’s Witness aesthetics: Al
Mahdi stands in a valley in a white robe, cradling a lamb in his left arm, while a
lion rests behind him (fig. 20). His hair is straight and shoulder-length, enha-
loed with a misty white light. He poses his right hand in a symbolic gesture of
blessing. He is surrounded by followers, mostly children whose clothes empha-
size their cultural diversity. One boy wears a white yarmulka, and his shirt bears
the Nubian flag on an arm patch. An older man’s shirt displays the community’s
new crown logo. The poster declares, “Peace in the Lamb It’s Truly Wonderful,”
and repeats these words in Arabic in the community’s stylized Nubic script as
as-salam bi-l-kharuf anahu ‘ajib, “the greeting of those who follow the lamb.”
It calls the community “the Holy Tabernacle of the Most High” and gives an
address for the “Tents of Abraham” in Atlanta. The poster features two flags:
the “Nubian Nation flag,” the Mahdiyya flag with the black changed to brown
and huwa (he) in Nubic script instead of the Mahdist symbol, and the “Holy
flag,” bearing the six-pointed star without a crescent. The poster identifies the
central figure as Al Mahdi but adds, “Now we know him as Rabboni Y’shua
Bar El Haady” and gives an account from an unnamed witness: “He said with a
slight smile, ‘I have seen worlds come and go. Where I come from, beyond the
stars, we have seen many things. Now I am sent here to a being who thinks I’m
crazy, however, I will do my job.’” With its aesthetic makeover of the Lamb, its
reference to the central figure as both Al Mahdi and El Haady, and its allusion
to his extraterrestrial origin, the poster reads as a liminal artifact of a community
between stages. Now known as the Tents of Abraham, the Ansar are apparently
no longer Ansar, and they have left something behind—but to become what?
To read this poster in the context of assumptions about clear Muslim,
Hebrew, or UFO-centered “stages” would be to miss its continuities with AAC/
NIH materials; this circa 1992 depiction of Al Mahdi, after all, can also be
found in literature from 1986.3 Examining the significance of Hebrew identity
throughout AAC/NIH history and reconsidering a 1992–93 “Jewish” period,
this chapter challenges representations of the community as a kind of post-
modernist “holy madness, crazy wisdom” that relish its supposed instability
and portrays its disintegration of categories as a “gnostic” exercise. Certainly,
AAC/NIH media from the early 1990s exhibit significant changes from previ-
ous community publications. Nonetheless, the community also maintains
common, consistent elements and themes found in its ostensibly “Islamic”
and “Jewish” materials.

114 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

Figure 20 “Peace in the Lamb,” AAC/NIH poster, ca. 1992.

“The Covenant Is Complete in Me” ◆ 115

Black Hebraism in/and/of Black Islam

Contrary to Susan Palmer’s account of the Nuwaubian Nation, the Ansaru Allah
Community had not “evolved out of the Nubian Islaamic Hebrews, gradually
transforming [itself] into a Muslim group as it discarded its Hebrew themes,”
nor did early pamphlets feature photographs of Black Hebrew leaders such as
Ben Ammi or Yahweh Ben Yahweh. Al Mahdi’s movement began with Muslims
at a Sunni masjid and consistently prioritized genealogical claims upon leaders
who identified themselves as Muslim; moreover, Yahweh Ben Yahweh did not
even start his movement until 1979.4 The presence or absence of “Hebrew” in
the community’s name did not correspond to the adoption or “discarding” of
“Hebrew themes” in its discourse. Instead of treating the signifiers “Hebrew”
and “Islamic” as mutually repellent terms that only an irrational “syncretist”
would attempt to mix, we can ask how specific materials were connected within
Al Mahdi’s setting. What did “Hebrew” mean for a young Muslim at State
Street Mosque?
It is not unreasonable to suggest an encounter with Black Hebrew/Israel-
ite materials. Al Mahdi’s Hebraism overlaps with Ben Ammi’s African Hebrew
Israelites on key themes, such as his tracing the word “Hebrew” to its root
meaning of “crossing over” and the act of the “first Hebrew,” Abraham’s cross-
ing the river Jordan. Like African Hebrew Israelites, Al Mahdi locates Eden in
Africa, includes the Arabian Peninsula as part of Africa, and envisions wars
that force refugees across the continent into West Africa, meaning—depend-
ing on which narrative you read—that many of the Africans brought to the
Americas as slaves were descended from either the Israelite tribe of Judah or
Sudanese Muslims. While African Hebrew Israelites identify West African
“Hebrewisms” that attest to Yoruba’s Judahite heritage, Al Mahdi claims that
Yoruba culture derives from Islam.5
Many of the parallels between AAC/NIH and Black Hebrew traditions,
such as Al Mahdi’s rejection of Christmas and Easter as European “pagan” inno-
vations, are so widespread that Al Mahdi’s Hebraic thought cannot be traced
to a specific source. Palmer identifies Clarke Jenkins’s 1969 work The Black
Hebrews of the Seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob of the Tribe of Judah, Benjamin,
and Levi, After 430 Years in America as a possible source for several of Al Mahdi’s
key points, such as the attribution of white skin to leprosy, the identification of
Black people with Judah, and the link between Adam and Blackness through
Adam’s creation from black earth (though Al Mahdi prefers Qurʾanic citations
to argue for Adam’s creation from black mud).6 Palmer suggests that it was in

116 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

Jenkins that Al Mahdi first encountered the argument that the book of Revela-
tion, comparing Christ’s hair to wool and his feet to molten brass, reveals him
to be a Black man.7 However, this interpretation originated much earlier than
the 1960s, going back to the turn of the twentieth century or earlier: Garveyite
biblical scholar James Morris Webb called attention to Christ’s “woolly hair”
in 1910,8 and resistance to the whitening of Jesus dates to at least the 1830s.9 The
“woolly hair” interpretation has proliferated through so many channels that
efforts to determine a “family tree” for its presence in Al Mahdi’s work would
not be productive. The biblical exegetes who wrote of a woolly-haired, brass-
footed Christ include Muslim elders such as Elijah Muhammad and Daoud
Faisal, not to mention Al Mahdi’s contemporary Louis Farrakhan.10 One recent
Christian author even identifies this reading of Revelation 1:13–15 as distinctly
“the Black Muslim’s interpretation.”11
Intersections between Black Hebraism and Black Islam had long preceded
Al Mahdi; the two commingled before “Black Hebraism” and “Black Islam”
could even stand apart as separate traditions. Black Israelite movements in
America, which emerged in the nineteenth century and flourished after the
Great Migration, developed amid many of the same discursive flows, includ-
ing Ethiopianism, New Thought, Freemasonry, and Garveyism, that informed
Black Islam. UNIA official and Beth B’nai Abraham founder Arnold Ford (1877–
1935) led a synagogue in the 1920s known as the Moorish Zionist Temple,
identified co-religionists as “Ethiopian Hebrews,” preferred “Hebrew” and “Isra-
elite” over “Jewish,” advocated fasting during Ramadan, referred to “blessings
of Allah” in correspondence with other Black Israelite rabbis, wore a turban
over his Jewish skullcap, and prioritized both Hebrew and Arabic as original
African languages.12 His Universal Ethiopian Hymnal contained a hymn titled
“Allah-Hu-Ak Bar” and lyrical references to the news of God’s love ringing from
“steeples and mosques.” According to his son, Ford believed that perceptions
of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as separate religions were due to the “polit-
ical machinations of man.” If AAC/NIH media had “blended” Black Islam and
Black Hebraism (fig. 21), it only reflects the unavoidable polyculturalism of
what Jacob Dorman terms the “reblending of the already blended.”13
These reblendings of the already blended were not restricted to a local
“Black cultic milieu,” but engaged the world. Just as Black Muslim commu-
nities developed in conversation with transnational movements, figures, and
bodies of literature, we cannot discuss Black Israelite movements in the United
States without touching upon the Black Atlantic, the emerging global promi-
nence of Ethiopian Jews (Falashas/Beta Israel) in the nineteenth century, and

“The Covenant Is Complete in Me” ◆ 117

Figure 21 The AAC/NIH six-pointed star and crescent as it frequently appeared in community liter-
ature. The crescent bears the opening words of the Qurʾan’s famed ayat al-kursi: “He is Allah, there is
no god but him” (2:255). The center of the star contains Arabic text reading Ya huwa Yahuwa (“O He,
YHWH”) and the Hebrew YHWH. Each of the star’s six points contains an attribute of Allah. Clockwise,
from the top: al-Adim (the Magnificent), al-‘Alim (the Knower), al-Karim (the Noble), al-Hakim (the
Wise), al-Rahim (the Merciful), al-Matin (the Firm). From Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Gospel of Barnabas, Book
Two (1984).

118 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

the migration of Black Hebrew communities from the United States to Israel,
Ethiopia, and West Africa. Both Black Islam and Black Hebraism reflect knowl-
edge production as formed in a “global system,” Dorman explains, “that traded
in ideas as much as commodities.”14
Long before Al Mahdi’s supposed acts of “borrowing” and “mixing,” inter-
est in the Hebrews’ racial identity was already embedded in Black Islam. In The
Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm recalls challenging a prison Bible class
teacher by asserting that the “original Hebrews were Black”; in Spike Lee’s
cinematic reimagining of the scene, Malcolm also stuns the teacher with an
argument that Jesus was Black, based upon the “hair like wool” and “feet like
brass” verses from Revelation.15 Malcolm was not a “syncretist” who “borrowed”
from Black Hebrew ideas; he articulated what he understood as an essential
teaching of Islam. Nor was Hebrew Blackness only an interest for “heterodox”
movements such as the Nation of Islam; it would have been part of Al Mahdi’s
early education as a Sunni Muslim. Daoud Faisal’s first publication, Al-Islam,
the Religion of Humanity (1950), asserts that “the White European Jews and the
American Jews who have migrated to Jerusalem in the new state of Israel are
not the Israelites, but Europeans who embraced the religious cult of Judea. . . .
To be an Israelite you must be of the blood and seed of Abraham.” In addition
to being Black, “the Israelites were Muslims and their Religion was the Reli-
gion of Abraham, ‘Islam.’”16
For Faisal, Abrahamic ancestry was a prerequisite to spiritual authority.
While Faisal attacks white Jews as imposters, he also refers to the “seed of Abra-
ham” in his anti-Catholic polemic. Any leader of “the Religion of God” must
descend from Abraham, whether through Isaac or through Ishmael; because
the pope is not descended from Abraham, “he is not an authorized leader of
humanity, but a pretender and his Religion is not the Religion of Jesus and his
teachings are contrary to the teachings of Jesus.”17 Al Mahdi likewise supports
his religious authority with genealogical charts tracing his ancestry and concep-
tualizes spiritual authority as a biological inheritance. The true “Shi’as” are not
“the Iranians or Ayatollah Khomeini, who is a pale Arab,” but rather the imme-
diate ahl al-bayt of the Prophet, who are slighted both by Sunni Muslims (who
deny their rightful status) and by most Shi’i Muslims (who deny their Black-
ness).18 Though legend has it that Faisal had written a manuscript designed
to bring Black Israelites into Islam, which Al Mahdi allegedly stole to use as
his own blueprint, we can chart Faisal’s significance for Al Mahdi’s “Islamic
Hebrew” project without esoteric speculations upon the unread. It was at
State Street Mosque—an institution that identified itself as Sunni, orthodox,

“The Covenant Is Complete in Me” ◆ 119

mainstream, and connected to global Islam—that Al Mahdi first learned that
the Hebrews were both Muslim and Black, that modern Jews were white usurp-
ers of a Black domain, and that leadership was genealogical.
Regarding biblical Hebrews and later Jewish communities, Nathaniel
Deutsch observes a complex treatment in Elijah Muhammad’s work: while
modern Jews are white people, and white people are devils, Jews appear to
hold a higher position than other whites in Elijah’s racial stratification. “They
are like us,” Elijah declares, because they adhere to the same dietary restric-
tions as Muslims and are “wiser, more skillful” than Christians. Orthodox Jews
“live more closely to the Muslim way of eating,” having lived among Muslims
in Asia. “The Holy Quran teaches us that we can eat their food and they can eat
our (the Muslims’) food.”19 As with Faisal and Al Mahdi, Elijah emphasizes that
major figures of the Bible were Black, Muslim, and speakers of Arabic; Moses
spoke “ancient Egyptian Arabic,” while Jesus spoke both Arabic and Hebrew.20
Elijah Muhammad, son of a Christian preacher, had grown up with the
Bible, and he understood his encounter with Master Fard Muhammad through
frameworks that the Bible provided. “You are the One,” he exclaimed to Fard,
“that the Bible prophesied would come at the end of the world under the
name Son of Man and under the name The Second Coming of Jesus.” Fard
did not redirect Elijah to the Qurʾan but affirmed his intuition. Elijah then
engaged the Bible to confirm that Fard was the awaited one, and would argue
for Fard as the future prophet mentioned in Deuteronomy.21 Fard’s teaching
materials included biblical verses and the radio sermons of Jehovah’s Witness
leader Judge Rutherford, whose scriptural interpretations became resources for
Elijah.22 As the appointed Messenger after Fard’s disappearance, Elijah believed
that he possessed the proper exegetical key to unlock the secret knowledge of
the Bible, which was otherwise “poison”: “The Bible means good if you can
rightly understand it. My interpretation of it is given to me from the Lord of
the World. Yours is your own and from the enemies of the truth.” Later in his
mission, while Elijah presented the Qurʾan as superior to the Bible, he still
held that both scriptures should be studied, and that both would expire with
the arrival of a new holy book “which no man as yet but Allah has seen.”23 Even
as Elijah became an authoritative Muslim leader who drew from the Qurʾan,
Herbert Berg notes that in his major writings, Elijah refers to the Bible nearly
twice as often. Elijah defended his emphasis: “There are many Muslims who
do not care to read anything in the Bible. But those Muslims have not been
given my job.”24

120 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

 Between Daoud Faisal, Elijah Muhammad, and Malcolm X, we find the
most powerful voices in Blackamerican Muslim landscapes of 1960s New York
affirming the importance of the Bible and the Blackness of Israel. For Al Mahdi,
these were thoroughly Islamic concerns.

From Nubian Islamic Hebrews to the Original Tents of Kedar

At the start of the 1970s, Al Mahdi rewired the meanings of the six-pointed
star, explaining that “some tribes throughout Africa tattoo the Shield of David
on various parts of the body,” and presenting the star’s top and bottom points
as diametrically opposing paths: the bottom signifies the devil, while the top
signifies “Sufi,” which he defines as “purity.”25 In its earliest extant material, the
AAC/NIH valorizes Hebrew alongside Arabic and Swahili, privileges bibli-
cal citations over the Qurʾan and especially over hadith literature, comments
on the Star of David and the biological descent from Abraham, and claims
“Abrahamic” religion. “We observe the way of life of prophet Ibrahiim (Abra-
ham PBUH),” we read in Back to the Beginning: The Book of Names (1972); the
pamphlet also asserts that Black people in North America represent the house
of Kedar and that “Rabbi” is the Hebrew word for “Arab.” “We teach that there
is no distinction in any way amongst the prophets,” Al Mahdi writes. “We teach
that all true Muslims are to observe and should observe the sabbath. . . . We
know the prophet-apostle Muhammad Al-Amin (PBUH) did not change the
laws given to the prophet Musa (Moses PBUH).”26
Answering the question, “What is a Hebrew?” in Arabic: The First Language
(1977), Al Mahdi explains who is not a Hebrew: “Jews are not Hebrews, nor are
they a pure seed of Ibrahiim (Abraham PBUH). The European Jew has adopted
a portion of the Hebrew doctrine (torah—old testament), the same as
did the Caucasians (Caucus-Asians) of Pakistan, India, Iraq, et cetera, with
the teachings and practices of the Qurʾan.” In both cases, Caucasians “are not
and were not able to live according to the total sum of the commandments of
allah subhana wa taʾala’s scriptures” and are therefore “cursed people.”27
In The Tribe Israel Is No More! (1975) and The Holy Gospel: The Revelation of
Jesus the Messiah to the World, Book 3 (1979), Al Mahdi argues that the last true
Israelites, the Judahites, had migrated to Ethiopia, become known as Falashans
[sic], and endured persecution at the hands of Coptic Christians because they
knew of the coming Ishmaelite prophet, Muhammad.28 For Al Mahdi, Falashas
are “Islamic Hebrews” in the truest sense.29

“The Covenant Is Complete in Me” ◆ 121

 Al Mahdi’s argument that the Ethiopian Falashas represent the only surviv-
ing trace of Israel serves as a polemic not only against “white” Jews but more
principally against Black Israelite communities: Black people who identify
with Israel have lost the knowledge of themselves. The Tribe Israel Is No More!
features a portrait of Haile Selassie with the remark that he is “a figurehead
and has absolutely no power” and a repudiation in capital letters of Ras Tefar
I: “he is not the lion of judah.” Al Mahdi writes, “In recent years, we have
seen an assortment of groups who claim that they are the descendants of the
original Israelites . . . Nubians who believe or make-believe that they too are
descendants of Israel. Israel was promised destruction on account of their going
astray several times.” Against Black Israelites and the Rastas, AAC/NIH liter-
ature identifies its community as the “‘Lost Sheep’ of Ismail [Ishmael].”30
Because Nubians in the Western Hemisphere are Ishmaelites and heirs
to the covenant, Al Mahdi tells us, “we follow the Millat Ibrahim.” Through-
out the second half of the 1970s, newsprint pamphlets like How Many Muslims
Really Follow the Holy Qurʾan? deploy biblical references against other Muslim
communities and interpret the six-pointed star as symbolizing Jerusalem, the
crescent moon as Mecca, and their coming together in the AAC/NIH symbol
as “the totality of Islam.”31
The designation “Nubian Islamic Hebrews” disappeared from mid-1973
through the early 1980s. In 1978, Al Mahdi recalled, “We were called ‘those
Nubians,’ ‘Zionists,’ ‘Jews,’ and all kinds of ridiculous names,” adding that his
movement alone survived while rivals fell away: “There are no more Yoru-
bas, or Black Jews, or Israelites, or Black Muslims or any of the others. There’s
nobody left but Ansaru Allah.” Al Mahdi does not treat his community’s name
changes as evidence of transformed doctrines or as pivots between identities;
the community was formerly known as Nubian Islamic Hebrews, he says, and
“we do not deny that we still are.”32
The tag “Nubian Islamic Hebrews” returned in 1984, appearing along-
side “Ansaaru Allah Community” as a name for the movement. In Whatever
Happened to the Nubian Islaamic Hebrews? (1985), Al Mahdi clarifies that when
Muslims reacted with hostility to his use of the six-pointed star and crescent
(“Isn’t that the star of David?”), he “put it away for awhile until they find out
that David (PBUH) is a Muslim in Qurʾaan.” According to Al Mahdi, the
Nubian Islamic Hebrews went “underground” from 1977 to 1985, choosing
to grow quietly rather than entertain antagonistic Muslims.33 The six-pointed
star appears prominently from 1977 to 1980 and resurfaces on book covers in
1984. Nor did Al Mahdi’s public discourse relinquish or revise his claims that

122 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

Nubians were the true Hebrews or that Muslims must adhere to all revealed
scriptures. A publication of circa 1976–77, identifying the community strictly
as Ansaru Allah, maintains its six-pointed star and crescent with the expla-
nation that “we do not call ourselves Jews, since the so-called Jews are of the
cursed seed of Canaan. . . . The only Israelites are the Falashians who reside
in Ethiopia.” Hebrews are not Jews. To be Hebrew is to be alien, and Nubians
“are Hebrews because we are not in our own land.”34
In its “Muslim Pledge” on the back pages of its pamphlets and newspa-
pers in the late 1970s, the Ansaru Allah Community describes its mission as
the return of Islam “to its purest form” and the raising of the 144,000 to ascend
Mount Zion, as per Revelation 14:1. The Muslim pledge avows that to follow the
religion of Abraham as prescribed by the Qurʾan, one must follow scriptures
that the Qurʾan confirms: “You cannot understand Qurʾan without under-
standing Taurat and Injil.” The pledge also affirms that Black people of the
Western world represent the seed of Ishmael, making them not only Hebrews
but also the true Chosen People.35 AAC/NIH publications throughout the
1970s and ’80s, even when they do not explicitly identify adherents as Nubian
Islamic Hebrews, argue that to follow the true religion of Abraham, Muslims
must read biblical texts in their original language (Arabic) and adhere to bibli-
cal law, like Muhammad himself. A 1985 pamphlet recognizes that this position
alienates popular “orthodoxy,” but Al Mahdi displays no concern: “So where
they make their mistake is that they associate the word Muslim with them-
selves. . . . We don’t want to be classified as what you are; because as far as we
are concerned you don’t know what you are doing. You are wrong! You are
following the religions of men.” The pamphlet proclaims that Muhammad was
a Hebrew and redefines its terms: “When we use the word Muslim we mean
one who is of peace; but we are Hebrews foremost. We don’t want to be clas-
sified with all Muslims; we are distinct.”36
Should Muslims Observe the Sabbath? (1985) (fig. 22) accuses Muslims
of ignoring divine revelation, content instead to “pick and choose from the
commandments sent down to them. This is what is known to some as al
islaam.” Al Mahdi’s objection is that Muslims do not follow all of the scrip-
tures, having prioritized hadiths over revealed scriptures such as the Torah
of Moses and the Gospel (Injil) of Jesus: “Why do the words of men rule the
words of allah ta’ala?” he asks.37 Defending the Sabbath in Prehistoric Man
and Animals—Did They Exist? (1980), Al Mahdi presents verses from Exodus
and the Qurʾan alongside each other, showing that the former advocates the
death penalty for transgressors of the Sabbath (31:14) and citing the latter to

“The Covenant Is Complete in Me” ◆ 123

Figure 22 Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Should Muslims Observe the Sabbath? (1985), front cover.

remind readers that Allah transformed Sabbath breakers into monkeys (2:65).38
He further supports his critique of “pale Arabs” who violate the Sabbath with
two verses of the Qurʾan: 2:4, which refers to belief in “what was revealed to
you, and what was revealed before you,” and 9:97, which calls Arabs the “stron-
gest in disbelief and hypocrisy.”39

124 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

 Al Mahdi says that Muhammad did not “pick and choose” which commands
to follow but adhered to what had been revealed before him, including the
Sabbath. While many Muslims place heightened emphasis on Muhammad’s
illiteracy, Al Mahdi reimagines Muhammad as a scholar of Israelite knowl-
edge: Muhammad had studied under Waraqa, uncle of his wife, Khadija, just
as Moses was prepared for prophethood by studying under his priestly father-
in-law, Jethro.40 Muhammad was Nubian, Islamic, and Hebrew. Following the
precedent of Elijah Muhammad, the booklet’s citations of biblical passages
outnumber those of the Qurʾan by roughly two to one.
Al Mahdi rejects claims found “throughout the Muslim world” that the
Torah of Moses, the Psalms of David, and the Gospel of Christ have been
corrupted and changed over time. According to Al Mahdi, misunderstanding
of the scriptures developed owing to their translation into various languages,
but the Qurʾan does not discredit the scriptures that preceded it. Without
evidence, Muslims have fabricated the story that pre-Islamic revelations were
corrupted because they do not want to follow Abraham’s religion in full. In an
intertextual confirmation of his sources, Al Mahdi argues that the Qurʾan’s
affirmation of Christ’s Injil (57:27) refers to the book of Revelation, not the
entirety of the New Testament, and that Revelation in turn presents the Qurʾan
as the seventh seal that will be opened by the Lion of Judah (5:5). Lacking this
knowledge, Christians miss Revelation’s references to Muhammad: the woman
“clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown
of twelve stars” signifies Fatima and the twelve Imams, while her labor pain
refers to Islam’s Mahdiyya revival.41
Al Mahdi’s charges against Muslims who deny biblical revelation stand as
one half of a double critique; on the other side, Jews and Christians cannot
claim to follow the religion of Abraham as long as they deny the Qurʾan. Al
Mahdi’s comprehensive scripturalism takes aim at different communities in
accordance with his changing interests. His 1978 edition of The True Story
of Noah (PBUH) argues that Jews and Christians cannot understand Noah
because they lack the Qurʾan’s account; the two-part 1986 revision redirects
the argument toward Sunni Muslims, arguing that the Qurʾan alone cannot
provide the full story.42
Where Is the Tabernacle of the Most High? (1986) reflects Al Mahdi’s devel-
oping outreach to Ras Tefar I, who Al Mahdi claims is the true “Lion of Judah.”
While this title holds unique meaning in Al Mahdi’s exegetical universe, designat-
ing him the supreme interpreter of the Qurʾan—opener of Revelation’s seventh
seal—it also makes a claim on the honor that Rastas reserve for Haile Selassie.

“The Covenant Is Complete in Me” ◆ 125

This booklet issues a “Proclamation of Redemption,” common to 1985–87 publi-
cations, that collectivizes Nubians as “Abraham’s seed,” regardless of “whatever
name you have picked up or carry or attribute to your beliefs”; “Christians,
Jews, Israelites, Hebrews, Rastas, Muslims, Bilalians, Nation of Islaam, Sunni
Muslim, Shiʿite Muslim, Black Nationalist, African, Puerto Rican” are all iden-
tified as those for whom he has come. The proclamation invites Rastas to “come
sip with me,” American Muslims to “reconsider their acceptance,” and “Black
Hebrews and Israelites to follow, for the covenant is complete in me.”43
Literature of 1987–91 refers to the community as the Original Tents of
Kedar, maintaining the previous identification of Nubians—“Ishmaelites,
Cushites, Hebrews . . . Africans, Semites, Bedouins, Arabs, Nomads, Suda-
nese, and other titles”—as descended from Kedar, the Ishmaelite tribe that
kept its line pure.44 The adoption of the new name seems to reflect institu-
tional change, as advertisements direct mail orders to Monticello rather than
Brooklyn. During this time, Brooklyn was supplanted as the community’s
center of gravity by its Jazzir Abba property (renamed Mount Zion) in the
“Borscht Belt” region of the Catskills that had once been the site of thriving
summer resorts and camps catering to New York’s Jewish communities and
that remained home to Hasidic enclaves. In publications from this era, Origi-
nal Tents of Kedar, Ansaaru Allah Community, and Nubian Islaamic Hebrews
often appear interchangeably, and Original Tents of Kedar publications also
contain advertisements for the community’s in-house Sufi order, Sons of the
Green Light.45 While consistent with AAC/NIH doctrine since the 1970s, the
Tents of Kedar rebranding—drawn from Song of Solomon 1:5, “I am Black,
but comely, O Daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar”—redistributed
the weight of AAC/NIH scriptural references.46
In 1989, the community published an expanded Whatever Happened to
the Nubian Islaamic Hebrew Mission? (first released as a pamphlet in 1985) as
a 315-page book. Released around the same time as The Ansaar Cult: Rebut-
tal to the Slanderers, Al Mahdi’s response to the anti-AAC/NIH polemic by
Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips, the revised book displays growing concern with
Sunni figures such as Brooklyn rival and “Wahhabi spokesman” Siraj Wahhaj
and Saudi-networked organizations like the Muslim World League. The text
maintains that pale Arabs worship Muhammad, pale Jews falsely claim the Star
of David, and Nubian Islamic Hebrews follow Muhammad’s Sunna, which is
only Abraham’s Sunna, which was revealed by Allah.
The inside back covers of Original Tents of Kedar pamphlets and books
depict Al Mahdi in the Ansar robe and turban, holding his staff and prayer

126 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

beads (fig. 23). In the heavens floats the community’s flagship Brooklyn masjid;
behind it a flying saucer hovers, with a beam radiating from the spaceship to
the masjid. The Arabic caption reads, “I call to accept this truth as bestowed
upon me by the masters who guide my pen, for of myself I could not have done
the works of it,” with an attribution to Al Mahdi and Yanaan,47 who was first
mentioned in AAC/NIH publications from 1983 as an extraterrestrial from
the eighth galaxy who occupied Al Mahdi’s body.48 In some publications, the
flying saucer is cropped out, though I could not discern a clear relationship
between a book’s content and the decision to show or cut the spaceship.49
The 1988 booklet Who Was Marcus Garvey? (which appears under the
Tents of Kedar publishing label but with the Brooklyn address) does acknowl-
edge a shift, as Al Mahdi explains that he needed to meet his readers where
they were: “At one time we dealt strictly with Islaam; but . . . because you have
been indoctrinated so deeply, you still think as a Christian. It is very hard for
you to change. You still try to judge Al Islaam by Christian standards.”50 Around
the turn of the 1990s, “Christ Series” literature ostensibly gives renewed focus
to Al Mahdi’s Christology, with titles such as The Final Messenger: Christ the
Final Word; The Wisemen; Who Was Jesus Sent To?; and The Resurrection. As
part of this intervention, What Laws Did Jesus Follow? (1988) charges that
Christians do not truly follow Christ but rather a false religion of “Paulism.”
Answering the question posed in the title, Al Mahdi argues that Jesus followed
Mosaic Law. The text includes a polemic against “devil” Jews and “so-called”
Muslims, both of whom have abandoned Mosaic Law for spurious texts (i.e.,
the Talmud and hadith corpus); to Muslims, Al Mahdi argues that Muham-
mad’s revelation contained no knowledge “that wasn’t already given.”51 Rather
than provide new laws, the Qurʾan only confirmed what had been sent to Isra-
elite prophets.
“Christ Series” back covers maintain an expected AAC/NIH alignment:
The Final Messenger displays the Nubian flag with Mahdist spear, flanked by
the seal of Muhammad and AAC/NIH star-and-crescent logo, with the famil-
iar “Duaa’a Ansaaru Allah.” The front covers, absent any AAC/NIH symbols
or stylistic conventions, depart from the community’s previous aesthetics,
displaying no Arabic text or identification with a specific group. Framed by
blank white margins, the front covers’ central images seem to be presented
as Christian: Jesus in white robe, praying with hands clasped, a halo around
his head; the Magi surrounding newborn Christ in the manger; Jesus riding a
donkey, surrounded by followers of diverse complexions; and Jesus flying out
of the cave in which he was buried, while Roman soldiers look on. Apart from

“The Covenant Is Complete in Me” ◆ 127

Figure 23 “As Sayyid Al Imaam Isa Al Haadi Al Mahdi (Allah preserve him), born 1945.” AAC/NIH
poster, ca. 1988.

minute details that convey content only if a reader already knows to look for
them—a tiny six-pointed star in the distance behind the Magi on the cover of
The Wisemen, an upward-pointing crescent on the front of Who Was Jesus Sent
To?—the front covers give no sign that these publications came from Muslims,
let alone the Ansar. Inside, readers find the usual image of Al Mahdi in turban

128 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

and robe with hooked staff, a new caption indicating that the photo was taken
in 1973 in the Sudan.
Apart from the new aesthetics, these materials do not break from the past.
While themes of intergalactic sages receive increased focus, even this was not
new or random. References to spaceships do not move the Ansar from Islam
into a separate category of “UFO religion”: when Al Mahdi explains that some
human beings have extraterrestrial origins, he offers proof with the Qurʾan’s
references to Allah sending Adam and Eve down to earth.52 He affirms Elijah
Muhammad’s Mothership vision as genuine and links it to the Buraq, the steed
that Muhammad rides in classical Muslim ascension narratives.53
These books also preserve AAC/NIH Egyptosophy, arguing that John the
Baptist was trained by “Matheno, an Egyptian Israelite who was a master from
the Temple of Sakkara, under the instruction of Zoser, the master healer,”54 and
that Jesus, after training at mystery schools throughout the world, entered an
Egyptian pyramid for initiation in the school of Hajar, Ishmael’s mother and
Imhotep’s daughter. Zoser’s pyramid, Al Mahdi explains in Sons of Canaan, was
“never intended to be a place of burial, but instead was intended and used for
a temple of initiation into the deeper sciences of mystics.”55 When Jesus died
of natural causes, the angel Gabriel (his biological father) carried his body to
the top of the pyramid at Saqarra, where it disintegrated and each element
returned to its place in the universe.56 Al Mahdi expands on these themes in
his revised commentary on the book of Revelation, which appears in its 1991
iteration as a series of blue books bearing the Arabic letter lam on the front
cover and the six-pointed star and crescent on the back. In the first volume,
Al Mahdi rewrites popular categories: “I am a Muslim, if it means ‘One who is
of peace’; I am a Jew if it means ‘One who is of the Tribe of Judah, and follows
the religion of the Prophet/Apostle Abraham,’ and I am a Christian, if it means
‘One who follows the Prophet/Messiah Jesus.’”57
A drastic change came in 1991 at Mount Zion, when Al Mahdi declared
that his followers, the Ishmaelites, had “forfeited our Covenant with allah
just as the children of Israel did before us.” The loss of covenant came with a
new dress code. The white robes, turbans, and khimars disappeared: men were
instructed to wear tunics, pants, and a yarmulke that Al Mahdi called a “kuwfiy,”
while women wore tunics, baggy pants, and a head shawl (hijab) and no longer
covered their faces. For both men and women, the changes were bolstered with
biblical citations from Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Genesis.58 Al Mahdi soon
added specifications to the dress prescriptions, such as a gold sash for men.59
Meanwhile, community members abandoned their previous “Muhammadan

“The Covenant Is Complete in Me” ◆ 129

type names” and “ridiculous names from the hadith” in favor of names exclu-
sively from scripture.60
Al Mahdi also underwent a makeover, discarding his familiar turban. He
now appeared in painted portraits with shoulder-length straight hair parted
down the middle and backed by a glowing halo. Publications increasingly
referred to him as “the Lamb,” a designation that he had used throughout his
career—“Shaikh Khidr (Melchisedek, SRA) at the junction of the two Niles
. . . annointed me as the ‘Lamb,’” he declared in 197761—and eventually as
Rabboni Y’shua Bar El Haady.62 Materials also identify him as Yanuwn and
Melchisedek and note that “we call him Malachi-Zodok” as well. Meanwhile,
community literature switched its publishing brand from the Original Tents
of Kedar (with the Monticello, New York, address) to the Tents of Abraham
(with the Atlanta, Georgia, address) and then to the Tents of Nubia by the
end of 1992. The community also introduced a white version of its Nubian flag
featuring the Arabic pronoun huwa (he) in Nubic style within a six-pointed
star. A community member’s 1991 essay promises, “We will have our own music,
our own dress, our own holy days, our own food, etc. We are on our own. No
one can tell us what to be because no one understand [sic] what we have been
through.”63
Community media refer to the “19 Classes,” a process of reorientation
that had taken place in 1991 at Mount Zion, which included statements from
Al Mahdi that his community would restore the Torah’s sacraments; like Jesus,
Al Mahdi had come not to change the law but to fulfill it.64 The Holy Tablets
(1996) says that “because of these false teachings of the so-called Arabs who
deliberately mistranslated verses of the Qur’aan to confuse non-Arabic speak-
ing Nubians in the west,” Al Mahdi moved to the Catskills and “set up the
nineteen tests of nineteen weeks of the faithful that would come through bliz-
zards.” These tests set forth a path to “the Mecca of Nubians, Georgia.”65
In 1992, community publications from Mount Zion reported that bill-
boards had been observed along Route 17 proclaiming, “Moshiach Is on the
Way! Be Part of It!” The signs were placed by the Lubavitcher Hasidim, follow-
ers of Brooklyn-based Rabbi Menachem Schneerson (some of whom believed
that Schneerson was the Messiah). El Haady’s pamphlets suggested that the
Route 17 billboards led directly to his own Mount Zion. Community media
also argued that by exposing Christianity’s lies and the dangers of eating pork,
El Haady fulfilled Islamic expectations of Jesus’s return (i.e., “breaking the
cross” and killing the swine). With disclaimers that El Haady did not person-
ally identify himself as Jesus—a charge that he had faced since the turn of the

130 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

1980s—community literature also pointed out that his birth certificate gave his
parents’ names as Mary and David, that he performed miracles and withstood
Christlike persecution from his enemies, and that he matched Jesus’s physical
description in Revelation: “There are too many coincidences to be unreal.”66
Pamphlets from 1992 proclaim, “The Nubian Islaamic Hebrews are now
in a transition stage,” liken the community’s condition to that of a cocoon that
will produce a butterfly,67 and herald the arrival of a “very new and dynamic
doctrine” of “Right Knowledge.”68 But what precisely was changing, and does
this transformation correspond to later narratives of a temporary “Jewish”
period in the community’s history?

Muhammad Was a Hebrew

While the AAC/NIH adopted a new name, new dress codes, new ritual prac-
tices, new inventory for sale (“Shabat Cloths,” “Shabat Candles,” “Khallah Bread
Cloths,” and mezuzahs), and new theological vocabulary (replacing references
to Allah with Eloh or Yahuwa)69 that might signal a movement from Islam to
Judaism, it never identified itself as a “Jewish” community. The only refer-
ences to a time spent within the “school of Judaism” appear later, as retroactive
comments on the early 1990s. Publications from 1992–93 identify “Jewism” as
a false sect, to be counted alongside contemporary Islam (“Muhammadism”)
and Christianity (“Paulism”) as distortions of the authentic “Religion of Abra-
ham.” El Haady maintains what had consistently been his position: that Nubian
Islamic Hebrews follow all divine scriptures, affirm the Qurʾan, and recognize
the Qurʾan’s mentions of Christ’s Injil as references to the book of Revelation.70
When the Qurʾan charged Jews with altering the Torah, AAC/NIH material
argues, it was not so much wrong as simply limited by context: Medina’s Jews
possessed corrupted scriptures, but this did not undo the Qurʾan’s praise of
the Torah as a light and guide, since “we as Muslims are aware of the fact that
there are no contradictions in the Qur’aan.”71
The community also preserved its claim upon Muhammad. Echoing Sunni
apologetics while reaching a dramatically different conclusion, El Haady writes
that Muhammad did not establish a new religion but rather confirmed the
timeless religion of all the prophets. The Lamb insists in 1992 writings that
his community’s new dress code is not “an innovation to the sunnah of the
Prophet Muhammad” but rather a reversion to true Islam, which the Qurʾan
calls Millatu Ibraahim (Religion of Abraham). The “real Muslims,” he writes,
are not the followers of an innovated heretical “Muhammadism” but rather

“The Covenant Is Complete in Me” ◆ 131

those who follow Abraham (which includes Muhammad himself).72 El Haady’s
Muhammad Was a Hebrew (1993) (fig. 24) in his Truth pamphlet series further
drives this point home. Consistent with earlier AAC/NIH material, he reads
“Hebrew” as meaning “to cross, to pass or traverse,” and explains that the desig-
nation was first given to Abraham when he “crossed over” Mesopotamia en
route to Canaan. El Haady argues that because Abraham, the first Hebrew,
represents the shared foundation of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all of
these traditions and their countless subdivisions serve as carriers—however
distorted—of “some type of Hebraic teaching.” God’s command to follow Abra-
ham applies to all of humankind, including those who follow the Qurʾan, since
the Qurʾan itself regards Hebrew scripture as divine guidance. “Jewish-period”
literature upholds the Qurʾan as a revelation for “Nubians, the true Arabs”
against non-Black imposter Muslims: “All these Arabs do is lie about your
heritage. . . . They (the Arabs) want you to believe that El Islam (The Peace) is
theirs, and that they are the real Arabs. Well, El Islam is theirs now that they
have tampered with the original teachings.” El Haady thus uses Muhammad
and maintains his agency to demarcate original and pure Islam—the religion
of Abraham—as Nubian territory, while rejecting later Islamic tradition as a
scheme “concocted by the Arabs of Saudi Arabia.”73

Conclusions
It may seem intuitive to place AAC/NIH literature on a spectrum with “Hebra-
ism” and “Islam” at opposite ends, and then chart its movement along this
spectrum, as though becoming more “Hebrew” necessarily requires increas-
ing distance from “Islam” and vice versa. Al Mahdi/El Haady, writing later as
Malachi Z. York, would explain his trajectory as a succession through various
“schools,” including distinct “Muslim” and “Hebrew” phases, but this retroac-
tive account is not supported by the documentary evidence. In other words,
the Lamb does not treat his identity and platform at any given time as tempo-
rary markers of a school that he plans to leave, nor does he announce formal
entry into a Hebrew or Jewish phase. The Lamb attributes changes in clothing
to forfeiture of the divine covenant, stresses pragmatic reasons for reform—
“We do not want to be mistaken for Muhammadans or pale Jews or confused
Negroes saying they are Hebrew or Israelites”74—and insists upon continuity
with the Ansar past, clarifying that the laws “have not changed. The only thing
that has changed is the name.”75 Though the community obviously did undergo
changes, he does not present these developments as complete reinventions

132 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

Figure 24 Tents of Nubia, The Truth, Edition 16: Muhammad Was a Hebrew (1993).

or mass conversions from one neatly bound, self-contained stage to another.

Clean time lines are only offered later, in retrospective accounts.
Even if we call the early 1990s a “Jewish” period, this mass conversion
remains grounded in an act of tafsir, Qurʾan interpretation. The commu-
nity understood its reforms through Qurʾanic references to the “religion of

“The Covenant Is Complete in Me” ◆ 133

Abraham.” In AAC/NIH exegesis, the Qurʾan itself instituted the Mosaic
Sabbath as a requirement for Muslims. In an intertextual confirmation under-
pinning the Ansar project, Al Mahdi’s reading of the Qurʾan identified the book
of Revelation as Christ’s Injil, and his reading of Revelation named the Qurʾan
as the seventh seal. During his “Jewish period” as El Haady, he still affirmed
the Qurʾan, and his followers still identified themselves in official community
publications as “knowledge seeking Muslims” who were taught to follow the
Bible.76 It can be said that in the early 1990s El Haady intensified his long-stand-
ing interest in Israelite law, but he contextualized this move with a quotation
of Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew, and then constructed an ambiguous
relationship between the returning Christ and himself using Muslim hadith
traditions. He does not offer a clean break from one confession and jump
instantly to another. In addition to his use of Qurʾan and hadith literature, he
also continued to produce commentaries on a foundational text in Blackamer-
ican Muslim history, the Nation of Islam’s Supreme Wisdom Lessons.
During what is called the “Jewish” period, El Haady declared that his
community still maintained the fast of Ramadan but gave the fast a new mean-
ing. As “the last Hebrew Prophet,” Muhammad fasted like the Israelites, who
fasted for thirty days whenever they dropped the Torah on the ground. When
the Qurʾan descended from the heavens to the earth in the month of Rama-
dan, it was similarly desecrated, necessitating the fast. El Haady argues not
as someone who has abandoned the Qurʾan for Judaism but as a committed
Qurʾan exegete, a mufassir, who finds the revelation commanding adherence
to “the ways of the Israelites.”77 To suggest that the community quit its Muslim
school for a new Jewish school oversimplifies a complex intertextuality that
has persisted throughout its journey.

134 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

 Chapter •4
Between Zion and Mecca
Bilal as Islamic and Hebrew

The scepter shall not depart from Judah,

nor the ruler’s staff from between his
feet, until Shiloh comes; and to him shall
be the obedience of the people.
—Genesis 49:10

Throughout the twentieth century, Bilal ibn Rabah, an Ethiopian companion of

the Prophet, became an increasingly salient resource for American Muslims and
also non-Muslims. Arguments that Islam is color-blind make frequent reference
to Bilal, citing his biography to prove that a Black man could find the respect
in Islamic societies that was not possible in America or Western Christianity.
For non-Muslim scholars such as Edward Blyden and J. A. Rogers, the rise of a
“bushy-haired Ethiopian slave” to the prestigious position of Islam’s “high priest
and treasurer” illustrated the possibilities for Black people in non-European,
non-Euro-American, and non-Christian worlds.1 Bilal’s Ethiopian background
also constructed a bridge between Muslim identities and long-standing Amer-
ican images of Ethiopia. “The idea of ‘Ethiopia,’” writes Yvonne Chireau, “had
been the locus of black American visions of destiny in the nineteenth century,”
nourished by the biblical verse “Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia
shall soon stretch forth her hands unto God” (Psalms 68:31).2 Muhammad’s
embrace of an Ethiopian among his closest companions provided a possible
node of connection between Islam and Black Atlantic rhetorics of Ethiopia-
nism, while Bilal’s recognition of Muhammad in turn read as an endorsement
of Islam from the true birthplace of civilization.
AAC/NIH literature depicts Bilal as a Judahite, rendering his embrace of
Muhammad a unification of the lines of Isaac and Ishmael. His ancestry thus
speaks to the claims of Black Israelite thinkers that Ethiopians were the true
Hebrews, and that modern “white” Jews were inauthentic. As a descendant
of Judah, Bilal recalls the “Lion of Judah” symbology of Ras Tefar I, engaging
the Rastafarian image of Ethiopia as Zion. Trained in Mosaic Law and a leader
among the first Muslims, Bilal is represented in AAC/NIH literature as the
prototypical “Islamic Hebrew.”
This chapter examines Bilal’s significance in AAC/NIH literature. In
polemics against non-Black Muslims, Al Mahdi turns Sunni treatments of Bilal
against their authors, charging that their use of Bilal to prove Islam’s transcen-
dence of race ironically exposes their anti-Black racism. He also weaponizes
Bilal against W. D. Muhammad, who had named his post-Nation community
after Bilal and presented Bilal as a symbolic patriarch for all Blackamericans.
The figure of Bilal supports AAC/NIH media on all fronts, serving to defend
the community’s lineages and authenticities to diverse audiences.

Bilal’s Journey to America

Bilal appears in Scottish Orientalist Sir William Muir’s Life of Mahomet (1861),
which describes him as “tall, dark, and gaunt, with negro features and bushy
hair,” honored by Muhammad as “the first-fruits of Abysinnia,” and “to this day
. . . renowned throughout the Moslem world” as the first to perform the call to
prayer. Muir notes that as captives from foreign lands, Mecca’s slaves, includ-
ing Bilal, were “generally familiar either with Judaism or Christianity” and
thus open to Muhammad’s message. Muir praises Bilal as the only Muslim to
escape “the shame of recantation” when Mecca’s polytheists tortured Muham-
mad’s followers, but he also judges him a “heartless negro” for bringing two
young women across a battlefield littered with corpses to see “their anger and
their fright.”3
Bilal enters American consciousness as evidence of Islamic antiracism
through Edward Blyden (1832–1912), an ordained Presbyterian minister. Blyden
appreciated Islam’s potential as “an instrument of black nationalism,” writes
Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, “that could bolster self-reliance and ‘civilizational’ prog-
ress among blacks.”4 In Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race (1887), Blyden

136 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

compares the apparent equality among Muslims to Christian racism: “Frederick
Douglass, as a Mohammedan, would have been a walees—a saint of the reli-
gion, an athlete of the faith; as a Christian, his orthodoxy is suspected.” Islam,
Blyden argues, was pro-Black from the beginning. “Mohammed not only loved
the Negro,” he writes, “but regarded Africa with peculiar interest and affec-
tion.” Muhammad praised Africa as a “land of righteousness,” echoing Homer’s
description of “blameless Ethiopians.” Owing to Bilal’s role as the first mua’dhin
(“from those Negro lips the beautiful sentiment found utterance—‘Prayer is
better than sleep’”), Blyden boasts that “the forms of daily worship now used
throughout the Mohammedan world were fixed by a Negro.”5
Blyden’s use of Bilal as proof of Islam’s racial egalitarianism was repeated
in Ahmadiyya efforts to spread Islam in the United States. A 1921 issue of the
Ahmadiyya newspaper Moslem Sunrise quotes Muhammad declaring, “I tread
under the feet the Racial prejudice” and promotes Islam as “the only religion
that has ever destroyed color and race prejudices from the minds of the people.”
Making a comparison to the Black experience of Christianity, Moslem Sunrise
promises that “in Islam no Church has ever had seats reserved for anybody and
if a Negro enters first and takes the front seat even the Sultan if he happens to
come after him never thinks of removing him from that seat.”6 Ahmadiyya liter-
ature cites “Bilal the Ethiopian” as proof that “slaves looked upon the Prophet
as their greatest friend and helper, the sincerest advocate and champion of
their cause.” Bilal is depicted as one of the earliest converts to Islam (“delib-
erately and after mature thinking”), faithfully enduring torture for his beliefs
and reaching such prominence that even ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second
caliph, described him as “Chief of the Muslims.” Bilal’s status is reflected even
in modernity at his tomb, which “attracts more pilgrims than are attracted by
any other tomb in Damascus,” and thus illustrates “the inestimable service that
Islam rendered to the cause of slaves in raising them from the lowest depths of
degradation to the highest pinnacles of social eminence.”7
Bilal also appears in non-Muslim media, becoming an exemplar of the
“great black man in history” motif in Afrocentrist discourses. Throughout the
1920s, J. A. Rogers’s praise of Bilal as a “Warrior-Priest” circulated in Black
newspapers like the New York Amsterdam News, the Chicago Defender, and
the Afro-American, under headlines such as “Bilal, a Negro, Helped Found
Mohammedanism,” “Says Islam Faith Knows No Color Line,” and “Mahom-
et’s Chief Aid Black with Bushy Hair.” Contemporary to Al Mahdi’s early
career, Afrocentrist scholar Yosef Ben-Jochannan discusses Bilal in his Afri-
can Origins of the Major “Western Religions” (1970). While dismissive of Black

Between Zion and Mecca ◆ 137

people who regard Islam as their redemption from “Judeo-Christian religious
enslavement”—exposing their “complete lack of knowledge of the history of
the Jihads (Holy Wars) Islam brought to Africa”—Ben-Jochannan challenges
“Moslem Arabs” who marginalize and erase Islam’s “indigenous African found-
ers.” Assigning Bilal a more foundational role than Arabocentric histories
allow, Ben-Jochannan celebrates Bilal as Islam’s co-founder, a man whose Afri-
canity shaped Islam. Bilal’s call to prayer, which “influenced every Moslem’s
way of life,” was rooted in “a civilization in Ethiopia where it was an established
‘divine rule’ for the worshippers of Koptic (Coptic) Christianity, Judaism, and
other indigenous traditional African religions that demanded it—including
the ‘mysterious sun and fire gods.’” Under a Black Ethiopian’s tutelage,
Muhammad preserved his community’s veneration of a black meteorite—
which itself was taken from Ethiopia. Bilal educated Muhammad in stories
of the Hebrew prophets; in the Medina period, he helped Muhammad form
a new government. Ben-Jochannan describes Bilal as no less than an “assis-
tant-prophet” for his creative contributions to Islam’s “original prayers and
doctrines.” These include depictions of paradise as a realm of limitless sexual
pleasures: it was Bilal who introduced the notion of the hur, the dark-eyed
maidens of paradise, as a reward for male believers. Aware that “the entire
Arab world” fetishized “African virgins,” Bilal “may have been manipulating
the same people (Arabs and Persians) who had once held him in contempt as
an ‘African slave.’ For he knew their greatest weakness at that era, their appar-
ently unquenchable thirst for the indigenous African ‘Black-eyed daughters.’”
On his deathbed, Muhammad named Bilal his successor, but Bilal yielded
to Abu Bakr. Even after refusing to assume official authority, Bilal remained
Islam’s de facto leader. The full importance of Bilal and other Black compan-
ions of the Prophet, however, has been edited out of Islamic history by Arab
and Persian Muslims. Ben-Jochannan asserts that “the black color of the Afri-
cans’ skin has become the sole criterion for excluding them. . . . Yet it was the
Africans, and others of African ancestry, who were most influential in Islam’s
creation.”8
Ben-Jochannan’s treatment of Bilal appears to have been a significant
resource for Al Mahdi. The misspelling of Bilal’s father’s name in AAC/NIH
literature (as Rahab rather than Rabah) repeats an error in African Origins and
thus suggests the possibility that Al Mahdi had read Ben-Jochannan’s work
(though one or both authors could have been repeating the earlier misspell-
ing by J. A. Rogers).9 The major point of resonance between Ben-Jochannan’s
and Al Mahdi’s treatments of Bilal, however, remains the charge that non-Black

138 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

Muslims who praise Bilal actually deny his full importance and expose their
own anti-Blackness.

Bilal and the Nation(s) of Islam

In an interview the day before his assassination, Malcolm X referred to Bilal
while insisting to the weekly magazine Al-Muslimoon that “the most fertile area
for Islam in the West is the Black American.” Following J. A. Rogers, Malcolm
placed Bilal even before Abu Bakr, Ali, and Muhammad’s wife, Khadija, in
the chronology of Islamic conversion: “Was it not Bilal, who was the first to
receive the seed of Islam from the prophet himself in Arabia 1,400 years ago?”10
In 1966, the Nation of Islam sponsored a screening of an Egyptian film on Bilal,
and Muhammad Speaks described Bilal as “the first black man to embrace the
truth of Islam”—momentarily ignoring Nation doctrine that great prophets
throughout the ages were Black.11
For the post-Elijah Nation, Bilal became a device that allowed W. D.
Muhammad to uphold the Nation’s claims of authentic Blackness while moving
toward new constructions of authentic Islam. In October 1975, W. D. Muham-
mad announced that he was adopting the term “Bilialian” to signify members
of his own community, African Americans at large, and even global Black-
ness, honoring a “beautiful and well-known man who was an ancestor of our
people here in America.” Bilal, he explained, “represents the old so-called Afri-
can people. We have a double connection with Bilal because he was a Muslim
and also a so-called African.” For this Muslim Africanity that Bilal embodied,
“there is no more reason to have doubt or confusion when you are asked to
identify your race or your nationality. We are ‘Bilalians’ from this day forward.”12
W. D. Muhammad presents Bilal’s journey as analogous to that of African
Americans in terms of the possibility of reconciliation between enslavers and
enslaved. “Bilal was an Ethiopian and he was made a slave by Arab people,”
he observes. “And it was the Arab people who freed him. . . . We were made
slaves by the Christians, Caucasians of the West. . . . And it was the Christian
Caucasian who said, these people have to be freed.” For W. D. Muhammad,
the difference between white slaveowners and whites who joined in the Black
freedom struggle was as substantial as the difference between the “heathen,
idolatrous” Arab who held Bilal captive and the “dignified” and “righteous”
Muslim Arab, Abu Bakr, who set him free. He read Bilal’s words to Abu Bakr—
“Have you freed me that I should be the servant of Allah, or have you freed
me that I should be your servant?”—to express the same question of African

Between Zion and Mecca ◆ 139

Americans: “Have you freed me that I should be your servant, or have you freed
me that I can be free as all other human beings are free?” He further wove Bilal
into American history with reference to Bilali Mohammed, a nineteenth-cen-
tury slave at Sapelo Island, Georgia. For W. D. Muhammad, America’s forgotten
Muslim history is also Bilalian history. In Bilal’s life, he finds a “prophetic figure
resembling us—the whole people—a figure speaking to our problems and to
our beautiful destiny.” Bilal also connected W. D. Muhammad’s community
to transnational Muslim networks that shared in their love for the Prophet’s
companion: “When the Syrian president and the Muslim community of Syria
got the news that I had named our race Bilalians, they got busy to build a new
masjid, a new mausoleum for Bilal.”13
As W. D. Muhammad deracialized the Nation’s teachings, he advocated
readings of his father’s texts that emphasized alternative, allegorical meanings
for terms such as “white people” and “black people.” Bilal fueled the imam’s
racial esotericism, as the Prophet, “speaking to his companions, pointed to
Bilal, and told them, we are all Bilal. What did he mean by that? That we are
all black. . . . Human nature is a dark form. But, out of that form comes the
light of intelligence and knowledge—the science in everything that lights the
world.”14 While W. D. Muhammad used Bilal as a bridge for his Nation into
the “Muslim world,” Louis Farrakhan also made use of Bilal. Discussing the
hadith in which Muhammad says that he heard Bilal’s footsteps ahead of him
in paradise, Farrakhan explained in 1989 that the statement held deep mean-
ings for future Islam. Muhammad “didn’t mean his own personal footsteps,”
Farrakhan argued. “He was white. He was an Arab. And he was saying that it
is the Blacks who are going to lead the Arab world back to the faith that they
had forsaken.”15

Bilal, the Scepter Bearer

Al Mahdi distributed a booklet titled Bilal in 1973, two years before Elijah
Muhammad’s death, and then in 1979 published an expanded version to
confront the Nation’s “Bilalian” period. The 1979 booklet opens with charges
that Muslims have mistreated Bilal, reducing him to a patronizing cliché: “Every
other book or article you may have read on Bilal (HWON) is written by the
European or Pakistanian Moslem and tells you that he was a negro slave that
called the Adhan very well or something to that effect.”16 Al Mahdi presents
a new narrative in which Bilal becomes a critical piece in the divine plan. It
is through Bilal’s body, knowledge, and mission that Ethiopia becomes the

140 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

point of connection between Israelite and Ishmaelite lines of prophecy. “Bilaal
(HWON) was one of the first Nubian Islaamic Hebrews,” Al Mahdi writes
elsewhere, identifying Hebrew as Bilal’s native tongue.17 According to Bilal,
Ethiopian Jews (Falasha) represent the last pure remnant of Judah, itself the
last remaining Israelite tribe, which had fled Assyrian conquest. The Israelites
who chose to remain in Palestine eventually fell victim to miscegenation with
surrounding communities such as the Edomites and Midianites, leaving the
unmixed “Falashians” in Ethiopia “the last of the chosen people on earth.”18
Arguing in Should Muslims Observe the Sabbath? that Muslims must follow
all of the revealed scriptures, Al Mahdi deploys Bilal to establish that Israelite
prophetic heritage remains Black territory that was stolen by white imposters.19
Bilal stood out from childhood for the brilliant light in his eyes. His father,
Rahab (again, Al Mahdi here repeats a spelling error from Rogers and Ben-
Jochannan), aware that Moses had prophesied a “Black child pure in seed” to
take part in the transition of prophethood from Israel to Ishmael, named him
Bilal for bal, meaning “water pouring forth”; the child would represent the
“gushing forth of the twelve springs, and he, himself, is the unification of the
twelve tribes,” in order to pass prophethood to the Ishmaelites.20 In preparation,
Rahab trained Bilal in the Torah, the Zubuwr (Psalms) of David, and the Injiyl
(Gospel) of Jesus, and in rabbinical jurisprudence. Rahab was also custodian of
the Mihjan, the hooked scepter carried by the prophets Abraham, Ishmael, and
Moses. He came to understand that his role in sacred history was to prepare his
son to carry the Mihjan to the coming Ishmaelite prophet in Arabia, thereby
fulfilling the divine covenant. Bilal “was not just a black slave as the pale Arabs
would have you believe,” writes Al Mahdi. “He was an educated man learned in
the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments . . . like the Sceptre was passed
to Bilaal (HWON), so was the knowledge. Bilaal (HWON) came from a line
of men who knew they were to keep the prophecy alive, and through them
the prophecy was to be fulfilled.” Al Mahdi interprets the promise in Genesis
49:10 that “the scepter shall not depart from Judah” prior to Shiloh’s arrival as
a prophecy of Bilal passing the Mihjan to Muhammad, the foretold Shiloh.21
Bilal, “culmination of the twelve Tribes of Israel,” was to safeguard the Mihjan
until he could present it to Muhammad. When the time came, Bilal left home
with the Mihjan in his hands and tears in his eyes.22
At age sixteen, Bilal left Ethiopia with his sister, Madyana, and brother,
Zubir (who was “named after mount on Sinai where Moses conversed”),23
to find the Ishmaelite prophet, crossing the Red Sea and journeying into the
Arabian Peninsula, where he warned people of the messenger’s imminent

Between Zion and Mecca ◆ 141

arrival. The close relationship of Hebrew to Arabic enabled Bilal to commu-
nicate effectively with Arabs. When Bilal arrived in Mecca and searched for the
prophet, he encountered the legendary hanifs, pre-Islamic monotheists, who
appreciated his knowledge of scripture. Persecuted by the people of Mecca
for their rejection of idolatry, the hanifs were ultimately exiled from the holy
city and took refuge in a cave at Mount Hira, the same cave in which Muham-
mad later received the first revelations of the Qurʾan. Bilal joined the group in
campfire discussions beyond Mecca’s city limits, telling them of the awaited
prophet.
When these hanifs insisted upon proclaiming the oneness of God in
Mecca’s streets with shouts of “Allahu Ahad,” the local polytheists responded
with violence. During these attacks, Bilal was captured and sold into slavery.
The surviving hanifs kept the Mihjan hidden on Mount Hira, wrapped in a
white cloth that would become Muhammad’s turban. Bilal later sent word that
the Mihjan was to be sent to ‘Abbas, Muhammad’s uncle. The staff would later
demonstrate Bilal’s special status among the believers; Al Mahdi argues that
Bilal was respected not only for his enduring faith or beautiful voice but espe-
cially for the Mosaic knowledge signified by his custodianship of the Mihjan.
As both AAC/NIH and more popular narratives report, Bilal’s cruel
master tortured him for his faith until Abu Bakr purchased his freedom. Bilal
joined Muhammad and rose to prominence as the first mu’adhin. In AAC/NIH
narratives, however, Bilal becomes arguably the central figure in Muhammad’s
prophetic career. Muhammad, Al Mahdi asserts in Bilaal, the Sceptre Bearer
(1985), merely “furnished the executive ability and generalship for the new
faith,” while Bilal “provided most of the inspiration.” Aware of Bilal’s impor-
tance, Muhammad attested—as seen in canonical hadith literature—that he
heard Bilal’s footsteps preceding him in paradise. Muhammad even named
Bilal his official successor, though Bilal declined.24
Al Mahdi writes that while Bilal emigrated with the Muslims to Medina,
he had not joined in the Muslims’ earlier hijra to his homeland; upon their
arrival in Ethiopia, however, Muslims found shelter with Bilal’s family. Al Mahdi
provides a genealogical chart to show that Bilal was a second cousin of Khad-
ija, Muhammad’s first wife; Ethiopians and Arabs, therefore, are “really one
family. . . . This is why they were warmly welcomed to Ethiopia.”25 Al Mahdi
adds that Muhammad had undergone religious instruction at the hands of
Khadija’s uncle, Waraqah, who was also Bilal’s uncle. The familial tie between
Khadija and Muhammad meant that Muhammad and Bilal were related: if “pale
Arabs” admitted that Bilal was Black, then Muhammad himself was Black.26 It

142 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

was both an ancestral and a prophetic kinship that attracted Bilal to Islam: it
was as a genuine Israelite and one learned in the teachings of Jesus the Messiah
that Bilal could recognize Muhammad as the awaited prophet.27
During his reconquest of Mecca, Muhammad handed Bilal his sword, and
Bilal destroyed the various statues surrounding the Kaʿba. This was not Bilal’s
first idol-smashing project; he had also ridden through Jerusalem after Muham-
mad’s heavenly ascension, smashing divine icons to prepare that city for pure
monotheism. Al Mahdi’s pamphlet Bilal illustrates the purification of Mecca
with an image of a sword-wielding Muhammad from Manly P. Hall’s occult
text The Secret Teachings of All Ages. The face has been retouched to portray
Bilal, and Muhammad’s left hand, which held pages of the Qurʾan, now holds
the Mihjan. After purging the Kaʿba, Bilal climbed to its roof and called the
kalima tayyiba, the “good word,” which is linked to the “Word” mentioned in
John 1:1–3. Bilal then climbed down, handed the Mihjan to Muhammad, and
declared him seal of the Prophets, thus fulfilling Jacob’s promise and complet-
ing his mission.28 The passing of the scepter was signified in the AAC/NIH
symbol, a Star of David seated within an Islamic crescent.29
In 1985, the community published another revision, Bilaal, the Sceptre Bearer,
more than doubling the size of the 1979 booklet. While the 1979 edition does
not make clear reference to other communities in the AAC/NIH’s contempo-
rary landscape, the 1985 edition takes explicit aim at Sunni Muslims, specifically
W. D. Muhammad’s followers: “Stop calling yourselves Bilaalians. . . . If you call
yourself a Bilaalian, why don’t you name yourself an ‘Alian or a Zaidian; they
were great Black men in Islaam also.”30 Bilal becomes illustrative not of Islamic
antiracism but of condescending tokenism and the failure of Arab and South
Asian Sunni Muslims to recognize Islam as a Black religion. The 1985 edition
quotes a treatment of Bilal by Pakistani scholar Qamaruddin Khan and attacks
Khan for the statement “Though Bilal was black, yet his heart was pure and
enlightened by faith.” Khan thus exposed so-called orthodox Islam as guilty of
the same racism that Sunnis deny. “Does being Black make his heart less pure?”
the 1985 edition asks. “Would his heart be more pure were he not Black?”31
The 1985 edition reduces Sunni claims on Bilal to the creation of a Black
mascot. The devil will “swear that there is no racism in islaam, yet he’ll tell
you the Prophet Mustafa Muhammad Al Amin (PBUH) was White and Bilaal
(HWON) was Black before he’ll tell you about the kalimat [Islam’s decla-
ration of faith].”32 In The Book of Laam, Al Mahdi mocks Bilalian identity as a
claim on “the one renowned Islaamic personality whom the pale world openly
acknowledges as having been black (Ethiopian).”33

Between Zion and Mecca ◆ 143

 For Al Mahdi, Bilal’s true importance remains his role as a critical link in the
chain connecting Muhammad to Moses. The 1985 edition, while repeating the
1979 claim that Bilal was offered the caliphate but declined “in favor of another,”
names this other candidate as ‘Ali (in literature from 1981, Al Mahdi reports that
Bilal had “yielded in favor of Abu Bakr”).34 The 1985 edition constructs Bilal as a
figure of proto-Shi’ism, reporting that while Bilal yielded to Abu Bakr’s assump-
tion of power, he also retained close ties to ‘Ali. In later years, Bilal refused to
pledge loyalty to ‘Ali’s rival, Mu’awiya. Repeating the story of Bilal’s perform-
ing the adhan for Hasan and Husayn, the 1985 edition claims that Bilal would
give the call to prayer exclusively for Shi’is.35
While the 1979 edition praises Abu Bakr for his sincerity, honesty, and
generosity in purchasing freedom for many slaves, the 1985 edition complains
that throughout Muslim literature, “Abu Bakr has been made to look so great.”
Celebrated for securing freedom for slaves like Bilal, Abu Bakr also appears
in the 1985 edition as a trespasser who smuggled himself into a tradition that
did not belong to him: “Abu Bakr was the alien, the paleman,” and his histor-
ical legacy reveals “orthodox” Islam as disguised white supremacy.36 Writing
in 1989, Al Mahdi quotes Bilal’s statement to Abu Bakr—“If you brought me
for your own sake, keep me, but if you brought me only for Allah’s sake, let me
go and undertake Allah’s work”—as evidence of lingering “hardness in Bilal’s
heart” over the “red Arab” Abu Bakr’s taking advantage of Bilal and continu-
ing to treat him as a “slave” or “client.”37
Bilal becomes yet another discursive bridge, as his sons are depicted as
emigrating to Morocco, becoming the ancestors of all Black Moors.38 “When
you say Moorish,” Al Mahdi writes in Who Was Noble Drew Ali? (1988), “it is
the same as saying Bilalians because the original Moors were descendants of
Bilaal (AS).” Noble Drew Ali and his mission become absorbed into AAC/
NIH thought, which both leans on Moorish Science for its own lineage and
presumes to correct what Moorish Science has missed. According to Al Mahdi,
descent from Bilal establishes African Americans as both true Israelites and
true Arabs, since Bilal “mixed his seed” with Arab women.39
In Should Muslims Observe the Sabbath, Al Mahdi repeats the assertion that
Bilal descended from Judah and that his masterly knowledge of Israelite tradi-
tion enabled him to recognize Muhammad.40 The hooked scepter that Bilal
passed to Muhammad would itself become crucial to Al Mahdi’s authority, as
Al Mahdi claimed that the Mihjan now rested against the minbar in his Brook-
lyn masjid. AAC/NIH books and pamphlets consistently include photos of Al
Mahdi holding the Mihjan (fig. 25). The resemblance of its shape to the Arabic

144 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

Figure 25 Al Mahdi holding
his Mihjan staff, an inheritance
from the prophets, as typically
displayed on the inside cover
of AAC/NIH publications in
the 1980s. This photograph was
also used to depict Al Mahdi’s
appearance at the times when
Jesus occupied his body.

letter lam (‫ )ل‬signifies Al Mahdi’s status as the fulfillment of Elijah Muhammad’s

mystical vision of the letter, the future teacher with knowledge of the lam.41
Coincidentally, the AAC/NIH’s chief Sunni antagonist in the 1980s was
also named Bilal. In 1988, Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips published his polemical
assault on the movement, The Ansar Cult in America. Philips refers to Bilal’s
friendship with the Prophet, often cited in Muslim apologetics as proof that
Islam is inherently antiracist, as a refutation of AAC/NIH racial conscious-
ness.42 Al Mahdi responded with his 607-page The Ansaar Cult: Rebuttal to
the Slanderers, which mocks Philips as “Belial,” the name of one of the two
hundred angels who had fallen from grace with Lucifer, meaning “worthless-
ness, wickedness, restlessness, and lawlessness.” Al Mahdi also uses Philips’s
adopted name to expose his hypocrisy and that of Arab Sunni communities.
“There’s basically two Black people in the Islaamic world that the desert Arabs
give credit to,” he writes. “One is Zayd ibn Haarith (579–629 AD) . . . whom
they say was so ugly, his wife Zaynab bint Jahsh (589–642 AD) did not love
him. The second is Bilaal . . . the one recognized in the Arab world as the singer

Between Zion and Mecca ◆ 145

or the caller of the Adhaan.” Zayd and Bilal reflect the limits of Black possibil-
ities in pale Arab imaginations: “ugly and musically inclined.” Al Mahdi then
suggests that Philips study AAC/NIH literature, since he has “a little trouble
defining what is and is not racism in Al Islaam.”43

Conclusions
This chapter illustrates how the figure of Bilal contributes to the communi-
ty’s construction of Nubian Islamic Hebraism. Bilal weaves discursive threads
together within the AAC/NIH narrative universe. Perhaps most immediately,
he clears a path for Al Mahdi’s appeal to Black Israelite movements. With a
key role in the fulfillment of prophetic history and a biography that presents
Ethiopia as home to the Israelite tribe of Judah, he speaks to Ras Tefar I. His
sons’ migration to what is now Morocco, where they become the progeni-
tors of modern Moors, enables an AAC/NIH claim upon Noble Drew Ali’s
sacred genealogies. Bilal also fuels AAC/NIH polemical attacks on Black and
non-Black Sunni communities that would appropriate him as token evidence
of Islamic antiracism. Bilal, like Al Mahdi himself, possesses a deep reservoir of
materials that can multiply his meanings and values for diverse communities.

146 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

 Chapter •5
The Sudan Is the
Heart Chakra
The AAC/NIH as Sufi Tariqa

If we look at the Egyptian pyramids with open

hearts and illuminated souls, they speak to us of
the past. . . . And if today or in the future, people
inquire about the site that was chosen for the
pyramids, they would find that it is exactly in the
center of the solid part of the earth’s surface. . . .
What was the meaning of placing the pyramids in
the exact center of the earth? The real human heart
is the solar plexus, and that is to be found in the
center of the body, which is the shrine of God.
—Hazrat Inayat Khan

Explaining baraka as a “positive force” that was “passed down to us from Adam,”
Al Mahdi writes in The Lost Children of Mu and Atlantis that baraka can “only be
conjured or aroused by Dhikr.”1 The practice of dhikr, the recitation of divine
attributes or prayer formulas, leads to spiritual and physical perfection, heal-
ing, and growth, potentially bringing the seeker to the advanced station of
al-insan al-kamil, which Al Mahdi translates as “self-perfected man or woman.”
He explains that at this level, the aspirant’s third eye reopens.2 While scholars
have not looked at the AAC/NIH as a Sufi order, AAC/NIH literature reflects
investments in a number of phenomena that observers often link to Sufism:
sheikh-disciple relationships, formal initiation, the recitation of divine names,
and interest in the esoteric properties of the Arabic alphabet.
In 1984, the AAC/NIH established an auxiliary Sufi lodge, Sons of the
Green Light (SGL). The AAC/NIH thus staked an explicit claim on Sufism,
and Al Mahdi presented himself as the master of a Sufi order. The question
considered in this chapter is not whether Al Mahdi’s Sufi ideas and practices
would satisfy everyone’s idea of legitimate Sufism but what Sufism meant for
Al Mahdi and his community. As Carl Ernst reminds us, there is no such thing
as “Sufism in general”; Sufism remains “always local.”3
At its height, the AAC/NIH could boast thousands of followers, spread
primarily throughout major cities of the northeastern United States and enjoy-
ing an especially visible presence in Brooklyn. Whatever its formal membership
might have been (and I view specific estimates with skepticism), this number
neglects the unaffiliated consumers of AAC/NIH books, pamphlets, and
lecture tapes who extend Al Mahdi’s influence in what Yusuf Nuruddin has
called African American “urban mythology” exponentially.4 That this commu-
nity (and the broader circle of consumers) recognized Al Mahdi as a Sufi master
renders him one of the most—if not the most—successful Sufi masters in the
United States in the 1970s and ’80s. He was certainly the American Sufi master
with the highest public profile; artists did not display the flags or portraits of
Frithjof Schuon or Bawa Muhaiyaddeen on Yo! MTV Raps. This chapter inves-
tigates the neglected Sufi dimension of AAC/NIH discourse, situating the
AAC/NIH within the context of American Sufism.

The Ansar’s Sufi Genealogies

Al Mahdi, whose life as a Muslim leader began with chanting divine names in
the street with a West African drum, started his movement in 1967 under the
name Ansar Pure Sufi. Sufism remained important to Al Mahdi after his move-
ment was rebranded as the Nubian Islamic Hebrew Mission in America. His
1972 essay “Can You Be Sufi?” argues for his readers’ right to claim the term.
“Many Muslims are under the impression, and are indoctrinating others with
the fallacy that you must be from the East in order to elevate yourself to the
degree of a Sufi,” he writes. A Sufi, however, is simply an advanced Muslim who
has “completed the study of the Sunna (practices) and the Sharian [sic] (law)
of Islam” and is inclined toward the “spiritual aspects of Islam” rather than
“physical or elementary practices.” This elevated station is not only the domain
of Muslims in Muslim-majority societies: rather, “the Muslim in the Western

148 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

world is, if anything, more so entitled to the majestic rank of Sufi because he
has to strive to perfect his way of life, whereas those Muslims in Eastern coun-
tries are surrounded by Islam and given the prayer rug.” Al Mahdi assures his
readers, “Allah does not deny to anyone the path of a Sufi.”5
In a poem written around the same time, “Many Questions, One Answer,”
from Al Mahdi’s poetry collection Was Created with One Thought: The “Key” Is
Within (ca. 1972), he presents Sufism to explain his detachment from society’s
expectations:

I came to a city, where people crowded around . . .

They said: “Where are you from?”
They said: “Where are you going?”
They said: “In what company do you travel?”
They said: “What is your pedigree?”
They said: “What is your inheritance?”
They said: “What is your request?”
They said: “Whom do you understand?”
They said: “Who understands you?”
They said: “What is your doctrine?”
They said: “Who has no doctrine at all?”
I said to them:
“What seems to you to be many is one.”
“What seems to you simple is not.”
“What seems to you complex is easy.”
“The answer to you all is: the Sufi.”6

The definition of “Sufi” as a type of advanced Muslim appears later in Abba

Island in America (ca. 1974–77), as Al Mahdi reports his successful creation
of community spaces in which children can experience proper Islamic living
and education. “Our children will be our salvation,” reads one photo caption,
“because they are the true Muslims, the future of the Islamic World . . . it is
they who will be the Hafidhs [sic] [memorizers of the Qurʾan], the Maulanas,
the Shaikhs and the Sufis.”7 Al Mahdi depicts Sufis as Muslim spiritual elites
who were present from the very beginnings of Islam. In Id with the Ansars
(1977), he writes that Muhammad would devote the final ten days of Rama-
dan to recitation of divine names with Sufis. He traces “Sufi” to safa (pure,
serene, undisturbed), defines tasawwuf as “effort to gain metaphysical purity,”
and explains “Sufi doctrine” as living in this world as a traveler to Allah.8

The Sudan Is the Heart Chakra ◆ 149

 Though “Sufi” disappeared from the community’s formal self-identifica-
tion around the start of the 1970s, Al Mahdi continued to authorize himself by
way of Sufi attributes and practices: lineages (both biological and pedagogical),
pilgrimages to holy sites, privileged receptions of secret knowledge, profi-
ciency with talismans, intuitive and scholarly mastery over scripture, visionary
encounters with transcendent figures (most notably the Sufi paragon of initia-
tion, Khidr), and contemplation and recitation of Allah’s attributes. In The 99+1
Attributes of Allah (1983), Al Mahdi introduces the divine names as essential to
“chants of the Suwfi” and the making of talismans, and lists “aspects of Suwfi
doctrine” that start with the point that “Allah is one, all things are within him
and he is within everything.”9 Writing on specific divine names and the bene-
fits of reciting them, Al Mahdi also uses verbatim uncredited material from
Shems Friedlander’s Ninety-Nine Names of Allah.10 Al Mahdi’s interest in Sufism
in the 1980s was not another of his supposed breaks from the past; Sufism was
always among the elements in his matrix.
Academic literature has organized American Sufism into successive waves.
The first wave appears with Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882–1927), founding master
of the Sufi Order in the West, who presented Sufism as a timeless “Oriental
wisdom” but also as a universal spirituality beyond any particular context or
religion. Promoting Sufism as an option in Western spiritual marketplaces
without imposing conversion to Islam as a prerequisite, Khan met with some
success.11 The Ahmadiyya, who engaged in missionary efforts in the United
States during the early twentieth century, also contributed to this first wave;
while the Ahmadiyya did not present itself as “officially” a Sufi order, Adil
Hussain Khan has argued for Sufism’s salience in studies of the community.12
The Ahmadiyya was led by a charismatic Muslim mystic, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
(1835–1908), who not only boasted a kind of revelatory experience that seem-
ingly threatened the finality of prophethood but also threatened borders
between Islam and Hinduism in identifying himself as Krishna.13 In the later
twentieth century, opposition to the Ahmadiyya had escalated to such a degree
that Pakistan inserted a denunciation of Ghulam Ahmad’s teachings into its
constitution. In the United States, Ahmadiyya networks intersected with West-
ern metaphysical religionists. This context of encounter and exchange was also
the setting in which the Moorish Science Temple and the Nation of Islam devel-
oped as charismatically driven movements with initiatory lodges, narratives
of secret hierarchies, and challenges to both the finality of prophethood with
Muhammad and the notion of an absolute, stable division between God and
the created universe.

150 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

 American Sufism’s “second wave” is characterized by orders that came to
the United States between the 1960s and 1980s and often attracted non-Muslims
who were interested in Sufism as “spirituality” independent of “religion” and
could think of themselves as Sufis without necessarily identifying as Muslims.
In addition to these newly arrived orders, this wave includes the continua-
tion of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s community under his son, Pir Vilayat Khan, who
formed Sufi Order International in 1968. At the Abode, his order’s commune in
downstate New York, Vilayat presented a Sufism in harmony with the dharmic
traditions—“what Sufism is saying and what Buddhism is saying is exactly the
same”—that enjoyed great resonance with New Age seekers.14 One Inayat Khan
follower, “Sufi Sam” Lewis, was both an initiated Sufi and a Zen Buddhist, and
developed his “universal dances of peace” in conversation with Hare Krishna
practices. One of the most significant figures of the second wave, Sri Lankan
mystic Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, was head of an order centered in Philadelphia, a
major Ansar city, and attracted disciples through multiple routes: while some
were Muslims who sought spirituality within definitively Islamic frameworks,
others came to him via yoga and Hinduism. In Bawa’s community, as Gisela
Webb has observed, we find followers who identify as Sufi Muslims, non-Sufi
Muslims, and universalists.15 This period also saw the development in the United
States of the Maryamiyya led by Swiss-born master Frithjof Schuon and named
for his visionary encounters with the Virgin Mary. Schuon presented himself
as the mystical climax of a perennial wisdom uniting the world’s great religious
traditions.16
Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Nimatullahi Order’s leadership
fled Iran and reoriented itself in cities such as New York and San Francisco as
an order in Western exile, advocating an image of Sufism as universal rather
than specific to Islam and Muslims. The order’s master, Javad Nurbakhsh
(1926–2008), was also a psychiatrist who joined Sufi traditions with modern
psychiatric science. Through the Nimatullahi publishing house, Nurbakhsh
disseminated a considerable body of literature, positioning Nurbakhsh as a
leading producer of Sufi knowledge in North America.17
Al Mahdi’s establishment of Ansar Pure Sufi in the 1960s marks his partici-
pation in American Sufism’s “second wave.” In the 1970s, advertisements for his
Opening of the Seventh Seal class featured Sufism among “uncovered secrets”
that also included the book of Revelation and “mystics of Tibet.”18 Even when
criticizing other traditions, AAC/NIH literature also advances themes of
esoteric perennialism that had flourished throughout twentieth-century Amer-
ican spiritual traditions, including Muslim communities like Noble Drew Ali’s

The Sudan Is the Heart Chakra ◆ 151

Moorish Science Temple and Schuon’s Maryamiyya. While the late-1970s publi-
cation Id with the Ansars reads as an explicitly Muslim-coded artifact—its front
page celebrating the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday (marking the end of the Rama-
dan fast) with elegant Arabic calligraphy and a photo of Daoud Faisal, the Sunni
imam whom Al Mahdi calls the “Founding Father of Orthodox Islam in the
West”—Al Mahdi espouses a somewhat perennialist view of difference inside
the publication. Id with the Ansars presents a diagram of a menorah (the caption
calls it both a menorah and the Arabic manaraat), its seven candles represent-
ing different traditions and corresponding to verses in Revelation that contain
messages for specific “congregations”: Buddhism (3:14), Islam (3:7), Judaism
(3:1), Hinduism (2:18), “Mythology” (2:12), Christianity (2:8), and Zoroastri-
anism (2:1). Al Mahdi breaks down the meanings of the menorah with reference
to the Qurʾan’s famed “Verse of Light” (24:35), which has been privileged in
Sufi interpretive traditions as a reservoir of esoteric meaning. While asserting
that all religions must bear witness to the truth of Muhammad, Al Mahdi also
treats each religion as a unique illumination. Atop each candle is a six-pointed
star signifying the tradition’s respective angel, read in the Verse of Light’s imag-
ery as its “brightly shining star.” In reference to the Verse of Light’s description
of a lamp lit with the oil of a tree “neither east nor west,” Al Mahdi explains,
“the oil that these Candlesticks are lit from give the Light, the Spirit of Truth,
which is neither eastern nor western, but universal.” The returning Jesus will
be confined neither to East ( Judaism) nor West (Christianity).19
“Why is there such a separation amongst religions of the world?” Al Mahdi
asks in Ahmad, Jesus’ Khalifat (Successor) (1980). His answer: “As religious
stories were interpreted and translated into different languages, the essential
meanings were lost.” To Al Mahdi’s eyes, traces of these shared essential mean-
ings remain observable. Asserting that “all religions depict the same things
esoterically,” Al Mahdi finds the notion of a singular creator across religions,
citing evidence in Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism,
Buddhism, Sikhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. He describes “spiritual guid-
ance” as a universal human need, and affirms scriptures such as the Tao Te
Ching, Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads, and Zend Avesta as “sacred guidance from
the Creator.”20
Beyond its resonance with universalism and perennialism in American
Sufism, AAC/NIH literature also engaged Sufism as a growing phenomenon
among African American and African immigrant Muslim communities. Lead-
ing figures in the Dar—which had developed from the Ya-Sin Mosque (which
itself had broken away from the State Street Mosque at which Al Mahdi became

152 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

a Muslim)—pledged themselves to a Pakistani Qadiriyya sheikh, Syed Jilani,
who connected with the Dar while leading Thursday-night dhikr circles in New
Jersey. Disagreement over Sufism’s legitimacy led to a factional splintering of
the Dar, with the pro-Jilani circle establishing Jamaat al-Fuqra—described by
Robert Dannin as “Sufi-mysticism combined with radical Islam”—in 1980.21
Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips claims that the Dar’s redirection by a “Pakistani
Sufi extremist” into the Qadiriyya led Al Mahdi to reintegrate Sufism into his
own brand.22
Sufism’s significance for Al Mahdi’s metaphysical Africa could also have
been affected by growing diasporic communities, for his Sudan-centered vision
of African Islamic spirituality shared space with popular Sufi traditions from
Senegal and throughout West Africa. The Tijaniyya Order’s membership was
estimated at 80 percent African immigrants and 20 percent African Americans,23
and the Muridiyya Order was recognized in New York with the institution of
a “Bamba Day” parade in honor of Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba (1853–1927) in
1988. Apparently in response, AAC/NIH media advertised June 26, 1988 (Al
Mahdi’s birthday), as its own “Banner Day for Nubians.”24
Al Mahdi’s first access to Sufism probably came from the Sudanese commu-
nity at State Street Mosque, and his writings on the Sudanese Mahdi regularly
highlighted the Mahdi’s Sufism. Muhammad Ahmad—“more interested in the
spiritual aspect of life, rather than the social or political,” Al Mahdi explains—
was initiated into the Sammaniyya Order at age sixteen.25 After breaking with
the order over what he regarded as its poor discipline, Ahmad experienced a
vision of Khidr at the junction of the two Niles. In 1870, “after his refusal to join
any Order,” he “began the life of a Sufi” and became a wandering preacher. His
popularity as a Sufi leader enabled his revolution against British and Egyptian
oppressors.26
Africa’s significance as a Sufi archive (and Sufism’s significance as an expres-
sion of metaphysical Africa) developed further in Al Mahdi’s 1973 adventure,
when he not only received initiation into an earthly order, the Khalwatiyya,
but also went to the junction of the White and Blue Niles and experienced his
own encounter with Khidr.27 AAC/NIH Sufism becomes Egyptosophic in a
photo of Al Mahdi at the Step Pyramid in Saqqara, captioned “the Temple of
Initiation in Egypt.” Al Mahdi calls attention to the “aura” visible around him:
“This is the manifestation of the light which resides within me. This is what
you are up against.”28
When the AAC/NIH established its Sufi order in the 1980s,29 it stood
at the intersection of various forces, both local and transnational, including

The Sudan Is the Heart Chakra ◆ 153

perennialist and universalist Sufi orders, the increasingly visible Sufi tariqas
linked to transnational African Muslim communities, New Age, Afrocentric,
and Egyptosophic spirituality movements, and overlapping conversations
about global Blackness and global Islam.

Khidr: Teacher of the Master Teacher

The Qurʾan tells the story of Moses meeting his unnamed teacher, identi-
fied as Khidr in the tradition, at the “junction of the two seas” (Al Mahdi
renders this “junction of the two rivers” and identifies the rivers as the White
and Blue Niles, making the story resonate with his own experience).30 Khidr
demands that Moses ask no questions and they go on their way. Moses is repeat-
edly shocked as Khidr engages in bewildering acts, even murdering a child.
When Moses loses patience and demands explanations, Khidr ends their time
together. In Muslim intellectual traditions, particularly Sufi literature, Khidr
and Moses appear as signifiers not only of masters and disciples but also of
mystics and jurists and the superiority of the transrational esoteric sage over
the purely textualist, exoteric scholar. For these readings of their encounter,
Hugh Talat Halman has argued that the Khidr-Moses story remains “essential
to understanding Sufism.”31 Throughout Sufi traditions, Khidr appears as an
immortal guide who can visit aspiring saints. As Halman writes, “almost every
saint (wali) receives a visit from al-Khidr at least once during his lifetime”;
the roster of those who experienced Khidr visions includes premodern sages
such as ʿAbd al-Qadir al-Jilani (d. 874) and Ibn al-ʿArabi (d. 1240), but also Al
Mahdi’s contemporaries in American Sufism Schuon and Lewis.32
For Al Mahdi, Khidr is more than a master teacher; he is no less than a
cosmological principle. Al Mahdi envisions Khidr’s “green essence” as the
stuff from which Allah creates; from Khidr’s light came the souls of “people
of the right hand”—that is, prophets and holy figures. From Khidr’s fire came
Jann, “father of the jinn, a race of evil angels.”33 Khidr continues to function
as a conduit for “all the energy generated into and around the Kaʿba”34 and as
the vessel through whom “all Muslims receive spiritual energy to strengthen
the soul during the times of worship . . . it was through him that the Proph-
ets received their teachings.35 In his reading of Khidr as Melchizedek, the King
of Salem and immortal priest, from Genesis 14:18–20, Al Mahdi speaks from
popular American Muslim discourses: in his widely disseminated Qurʾan trans-
lation, Yusuf Ali also connects the two figures.36 Frithjof Schuon likewise treats
Khidr as a parallel to Melchizedek in his Understanding Islam (1963).37 Both

154 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

figures, Schuon contends in a 1978 article, represent “supraformal, universal,
and primordial spirituality.”38 Al Mahdi’s presentation of Khidr and Melchize-
dek as the same being does not amount to “syncretism” or a “bricolage” of
disparate materials from separate traditions; it was already accessible to him
as Islam.
Beyond the Melchizedek connection, Al Mahdi’s Khidr narrative resonates
with a prominent theme in Western metaphysical religion of the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, namely, the existence of superior beings that nurture
humanity’s spiritual development by sharing secrets. In his survey of theo-
sophical and New Age epistemological strategies, Olav Hammer describes a
recurring trope of ascended Masters who guide human progress from hidden
locations on earth or even other planets and dimensions.39 Helena Blavatsky
(1831–1891) had claimed revelation from figures known as “Mahatmas,” “Broth-
ers,” “Adepts,” and “Masters,” among other designations, including Egyptian
teachers bearing such names as Tuitit Bey and Serapis Bey. Writers like Charles
Leadbetter, Edgar Cayce, and Alice Bailey provided their own treatments of
the masters. These invisible guides constituted a formal brotherhood and were
capable of occupying human bodies as their vessels. They communicated with
special individuals to intervene in human consciousness and usher in a more
enlightened age. In some cases, Jesus appeared among the masters’ ranks. Tibet
and the Himalayas featured prominently as possible locations for the broth-
erhood, and writers such as George Adamski (1891–1965) claimed guidance
from extraterrestrial teachers.40
Theosophical concepts of ascended masters, secret lodges, and occult hier-
archies flourished in the Moorish Science Temple and Nation of Islam. Noble
Drew Ali appropriated material from The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ,
which author Levi Dowling presented as a direct transcription from the Akashic
records. Dowling’s work portrays Jesus’s “lost years,” during which Jesus studied
under Egyptian, Indian, and Tibetan masters and realized his own divinity—
not as the incarnation of a transcendent spirit but as a mortal being whose path
remains accessible to all humans.41 Ali reproduces these narratives in his Holy
Koran and authorizes his own status as an Islamic prophet with an account of
training at the Great Pyramid, where he joined the same secret priesthood that
trained Jesus.42
Elijah Muhammad’s theology features a council of twenty-four god-scien-
tists, corresponding to the twenty-four elders referenced in Revelation, who
predetermined world history for the next twenty-five thousand years. One god
on the council, best knower of his time, carries special status as Allah. Writing

The Sudan Is the Heart Chakra ◆ 155

each twenty-five-thousand-year period falls to a different council, each coun-
cil with its own Allah.43 The god-scientists are not immaterial spirits but Black
men. In this system, Allah is not a spirit that becomes “incarnated” in a succes-
sion of bodies, because there is no spirit to incarnate; rather, “Allah” signifies
a succession of mortal men who earn the title by way of superior knowledge
and self-perfection.
With interest in the Nation of Islam and his own biblical exegesis, Al Mahdi
constructs an AAC/NIH theory of the council. He identifies these elders as the
“Sons of Allah” mentioned in Genesis, “mental giants” who descended to earth
and established an “ultra-advanced civilization” prior to the separation of Africa
and Arabia. They constituted “a special people of high order” sent to “bring
about a people who would teach men, once again, the path of righteousness.
Thereby keeping man from total destruction.” They lived in Mu, the capital city
of their empire of Salaam; from Mu-Salaam, “One of Peace,” comes Muslim,
“the highest title within all of the universe.”44 As with the Nation’s construction
of Allah as the god who leads the council of scientists, Khidr appears in AAC/
NIH literature as head of an order in which the elders serve as priests. While
Khidr’s leadership remains consistent, Al Mahdi’s Khidr narratives occasionally
appear in tension with one another. In Ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs (1980),
Al Mahdi writes that Khidr was the first of the “Sons of Allah” who descended
to earth to procreate with the daughters of men.45 In Science of Healing (1985),
however, Al Mahdi claims that when these “sons of Allah” and “mental giants”
married the “daughters of men,” they enabled Khidr/Melchizedek to become
physically manifest.46
These elders established mystery schools across the globe at sites such
as Tibet, Persia, India, Easter Island, Mexico, the lost lands of Mu and Atlan-
tis, and the Sudan. The most important mystery school was located in Egypt,
where Jesus spent the last thirty years of his life inside the Great Pyramid train-
ing directly under Khidr, passing a series of tests for his scroll and title as a high
priest in Khidr’s order.47 Echoing the Nation’s association of Ezekiel’s vision
with advanced spacecraft, Al Mahdi writes that the mothership of Ezekiel’s
wheel represents a “high order” in which Jesus is prince and Khidr is king.48
In The Man of Miracles in This Day and Time (1983), Al Mahdi places Khidr
among eight figures (“avatars”) who occupy his body and work through him,
producing effects in him that become visible to others. His avatars are Shaikh
Al Qutb (disciple of Idris/Enoch); Isa al-Masih ( Jesus, “merely a student of
very great learnt men”); Yanaan (whose home civilization in “the eighth galaxy”
is “100,000 years more advanced than this planet”); Zoser (“great Egyptian

156 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

healer,” builder of pyramids, and teacher of Imhotep); the Sudanese Mahdi (Al
Mahdi’s great-grandfather); Rahmah (an incarnation of Vishnu who came to
earth among the “sons of Allah” in Genesis 6:4); and Khidr, “an angelic being”
who is not only Melchizedek but also the angel Michael “when in the heavens.”
Al Mahdi writes that when these avatars work upon him, he can “manifest a flow
of pure and inexhaustible love, a special grace that transcends all condition of
karma (fate). In the Arabic language, this is called qadr.” In one account, Al
Mahdi asked whether human poets can match the eloquence of the Qurʾan;
as he gave his stunning answer (“We can”), his eyes changed color to a “pierc-
ing green.”49
As a child, Al Mahdi’s possession by these beings took the form of multi-
ple personalities (“When I was a little kid, I was thought to be crazy”) and
strange powers, such as the ability to make candy materialize with a wave of his
hand or fix broken radios and televisions without even touching them. Khidr
first clearly manifested himself to Al Mahdi in 1970, at which point Al Mahdi
began to learn of his “special assignments.” Al Mahdi says that he is not exactly
Khidr but a vessel through whom Khidr works and speaks in the world. The
Man of Miracles includes photographs of Al Mahdi while in the possession of
each of the avatars, demonstrating that when possessed by a particular avatar,
corporeal features such as skin tone and the shape of his face change in corre-
spondence to that avatar’s attributes. Both volumes caption the image of Al
Mahdi that often graced his booklets, showing him with his hooked staff, as
“Isa al-Masih.” The representation of Al Mahdi as Khidr shows him standing
outside by a tree.50 Al Mahdi writes of a ninth personality, “which is me. The
person being utilized. Why? . . . Only allahu subhaanahu wa taʾala, the
Supreme Creator of all things knows.”51 Nor is Al Mahdi the only person who
serves this function; Indian spiritual teacher Sai Baba was himself “an incarna-
tion in the flesh.”52 These human vehicles are not to be conflated with Khidr or
the other avatars; they remain passive sites at which these forces enact divine
interventions.
Al Mahdi’s connection to Khidr is marked by his possession of the Mihjan,
the hooked staff that was carried by Abraham, Ishmael, Moses, and Muham-
mad. “The staff has great significance among Muslims,” Al Mahdi explains, “and
if a man is one of the relatively few who has acquired one (Mihjan) through
the thousands of years, then men of all nations can respect him and rely on
him for knowledge, truth, and guidance.” Possession of the Mihjan also signi-
fies membership in the ancient order of Khidr. Initiates into Khidr’s order
train in numerous schools and pass a sequence of tests before receiving their

The Sudan Is the Heart Chakra ◆ 157

staffs.53 Al Mahdi writes that along with gifts of frankincense, myrrh, and gold,
the newborn Jesus also received the Mihjan (in advance of his training); the
Three Wise Men were “Nubian mystics” and members of an ancient mystery
school. After Jesus “passed on to a higher life,” the staff remained in the custody
of the Judahites; Bilal’s father passed it to Bilal, who in turn delivered the staff
to Muhammad.54 In the 1970s, the Mihjan passed into the hands of Al Mahdi
himself, who kept it in his Brooklyn masjid. Another staff that appears in photos
and paintings of Al Mahdi, the shuwba, consists of a forked head (with the fork
representing the junction of the two Niles) and is likewise “only awarded to
those who receive the teachings from the Ancient Order of Melchisedek.”55 Call-
ing attention to the similarity between the Mihjan’s hook and the Arabic letter
lam, Al Mahdi connects Khidr to Elijah Muhammad’s 1967 vision of the lam.
The letter signifies “lamb,” as in the Lamb mentioned in the book of Revelation;
this Lamb is not Jesus, however, but Khidr,56 with whom Al Mahdi identifies
his own spirit.57 Al Mahdi’s “76 trillion years” of Khidriyya knowledge reflects
the entire knowledge of the material universe.58
This connection between Al Mahdi and Khidr/Melchizedek remained a
prominent theme throughout Al Mahdi’s career. Although the AAC/NIH’s
discursive and aesthetic makeovers caused the community to appear unsta-
ble and incoherent to outsiders, the figure of Khidr/Melchizedek preserved a
consistent center.

Sons of the Green Light

Halman observes that “the New Age Movement and Islam have intersected
whenever Sufism has been introduced to the Euro-American baby-boomer,
hippie, and yuppie generations.”59 The New Age–Sufism encounter devel-
oped not only as a white Orientalist appropriation of the “spiritual East” that
inherited from movements such as the Theosophical Society, but also through
globally interconnected esotericist networks in which figures like Inayat Khan
creatively reconstructed Sufism for their transnational audiences. Moreover,
Sufism as it appears in AAC/NIH discourse resists the image of “New Age
Sufism” as essentially a liberal white domain. Science of Healing (1985, revised
from the 1979 edition) depicts Al Mahdi sitting in meditation, his hands in
mudra position. The pamphlet offers prescriptions for enhancing dhikr with
breathing exercises and correct posture, and conceptualizes Muslim prayer
movements as activators of energy flows from the crown seat to the third eye.
Al Mahdi treats the Arabic nafs and ruh as equivalents of the Sanskrit prana,

158 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

which he in turn defines as the substance of material creation, thereby present-
ing the soul and the entire universe in a microcosm-macrocosm relation. The
recitation of divine names, accompanied by physical discipline and visualiza-
tion, becomes a technology by which the green light that flows from Allah to
Khidr can undergo channeling into one’s crown chakra. Al Mahdi explains
that he learned these techniques from his visionary teacher at the junction of
the Niles: “One night, I became aware of a majestic being. My inspirational
impression indicated that he was concerned with healing work. . . . I imme-
diately identified him as the guardian of the earth.”60
Science of Healing and The Man of Miracles in This Day and Time include an
advertisement for the Sons of the Green Light, identifying Al Mahdi as “the
formless in form” and “a temple of the incarnated divinity” that appears with
human embodiment in order to teach humans to heal themselves “with pure
mind” and to save the planet in accordance with its karma. “Ye are gods, not
merely men,” the ad proclaims. “The time has come again for the sons of God
to be born in the pure light. . . . Now you can find your real self. . . . Are you
earth born or are you born of the holy spirit?” Al Mahdi calls the prospective
initiate to “attune yourself. Stimulate the latent centers within you. Open your
third eye to new worlds of truth.”61 The advertisement includes a cut-out mail-in
form in which the prospective initiate is to sign the statement, “I affirm with all
sincerity that I wish to become a member of the Sufi Order of the Sons of the
Green Light.”62 Al Mahdi promises, “Any questions that you have, can and will
be answered if you are accepted into the Order,” and offers training in extra-
sensory perception (ESP), astral projection, travel between dimensions, and
communication with “the Masters of Awe.”63
Readers find advertisements for the SGL in Al Mahdi’s The Travels of a
Sufi (1987), which tells the story of Shams ad-Din al-Tabrizi (transliterated as
Shamsud Diyn), whose search for a master teacher caused him to become a
master himself and the teacher of Rumi. The small tract includes images of Al
Mahdi, with the Ansar masjid and a spaceship behind him. Throughout The
Travels of a Sufi, Al Mahdi appeals to his readers to join him on the path: one ad
invites the reader, “Don’t walk alone. . . . The Sons of the Green Light welcome
you. Remove the veil from your hearts and eyes and learn the discipline of the
Sufi.” Another ad presents the SGL’s official “Meditation Mat,” along with “An
Nuwr,” a glow stick that “radiates a soothing green light that will illuminate
throughout your house. To activate the light stick, just bend it in half.”64
Al Mahdi’s Sufism intersects in his 1980s discourse with an increasingly
salient theme in his work, often taken by observers as a later phase from the

The Sudan Is the Heart Chakra ◆ 159

1990s: Al Mahdi’s intimate connection to technologically advanced extrater-
restrial civilizations that have intervened in human history. Angels, he writes,
are “masters from other galaxies.” The twenty-four elders (including Yanaan,
who occupies Al Mahdi’s body and “arrived to this planet Earth” on March 16,
1970) travel by chakra-powered ships, which Al Mahdi presents as Sufi tech-
nology: “Raising the ‘Self ’ being done together made it a ‘mothership.’ . . . Join
the Sons of the Green Light and you will learn all about the masters and the
hows and whys.”65
The SGL emblem consisted of the Arabic masculine pronoun huwa
inside a six-pointed star, itself inside an inverted heart (“’ISHQ, Divine Love
of the Omnipotent”), in turn inside a seven-pointed star and crescent, often
surrounded by a sixteen-petaled lotus flower (fig. 26). Al Mahdi writes that
the shape of the star and crescent resembles the Arabic letter nun, which signi-
fies nur (light), and he breaks down the meanings of the word’s n-w-r root
into nur/light, wahy/inspiration, and ruh/spirit. The lotus petals, Al Mahdi
explains, represent the avatar’s sixteen principles. “Each petal emits a revi-
talizing green light that emanates from the hands of the Master Al Khidr.”66
Advertisements for the SGL feature the Christian cross, Sikh khanda, Hindu
Aum, Taoist taijitu and bagua, Egyptian ankh, and other symbols emanating as
rays from the lotus.67 In harmony with popular discourses in American Sufism,
the SGL offers a “universal” order with a mission of “spreading divine love
across the world.” Al Mahdi writes, “all religions are good dogmas but . . . man
corrupted the essence of these dogmas” and abandoned the universal heart
of the matter, producing a multiplicity of competing sects instead. Recover-
ing the “spiritual essence,” the SGL “separates the religious people from the
spiritual people”68 and enables its initiates to “blossom and make the vertical
contact, the contact with the heavens.”69
Much like the Nation of Islam, the SGL trained its neophytes through
sequences of initiatory lessons. The first lesson prepares them for initiation into
the order. After forty-eight hours of abstinence from intoxicants, the initiate
follows a detailed script for meditation and posture: “Imagine that you [are]
in a great temple of a higher plane,” the lesson reads, “and that you are being
guided by the Master: al qutb, into the initiation chamber.” “Sending love
and vitality through it, unto the Spiritual Guide so that he may help you on
your way,” the initiate copies out the oath by hand: “I ______________
having undergone a self initiation, hereby affirm that I have the sincerity and
integrity to meet the requirements of the steps that are to come. Therefore, I
solemnly vow to keep secret and uphold all of the tenants [sic] established by

160 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

the Sufi Order of the Sons of the Green Light and to maintain a state of abso-
lute purity and Divine Love.”70
While most SGL literature was regarded as privileged information strictly
for initiates of the order, Al Mahdi produced a more public pamphlet, You and
the Sons of the Green Light, which initiates could use to educate their family
and friends. The pamphlet’s opening pages explain the significance of green
as the “most divine” color, a powerful “healing force” controlled by al-Khidr/
Melchizedek. The pure green light provides healing against diseases of both
mind and body.71
While centering his Sufi order (and much of his broader authorization)
on Khidr, Al Mahdi sometimes attributes his words to Al Qutb, another of his
avatars and the name under he which he published several pamphlets during
this period. Al Qutb speaks through Al Mahdi’s pen as “an incarnation of the
Spirit of Truth, a high priest after the Order of Melchizedek.”72 In the SGL’s
Secret Document: The Second Step of the Sufi, intended for neophytes, “Al Qutb”
articulates his mission: “I descend to this plane, the formless in form, a temple
of the incarnated divinity to guide you. . . . Revolve around me, feel my love
and feed off my wisdom, for in me you will find understanding.”73 Every Sufi
order, Al Qutb explains, is grounded in a lineage (silsila), and the SGL silsila
traces through ‘Ali to Muhammad, who himself is described as a descendant
of the Essenes, whose roots trace to al-Awwaliyna, “children of the men of
renown.” Ultimately, the chain of SGL authority extends to “the original spark
of creation called ‘Adh-Dhaat.’”74
The SGL articulates its Sufism in recognizably “classical” Sufi concepts
such as the silsila, Al Mahdi’s embodiment of Al Qutb, and terms such as ‘ishq
(divine love, excessive love, spiritual love, and complete devotion), while also
promising future pamphlets “for the enlightenment of your spirit, and for the
advancement of your soul” on such topics as telepathy, clairvoyance, meta-
physics, reincarnation, meditation, the human aura, and exercises that will
help initiates develop the third eye.75
Just as Al Mahdi turns his various rhetorical dials up or down when target-
ing different audiences, the SGL’s Sufi universalism downplays Al Mahdi’s
emphasis on Nubian heritage. Throughout AAC/NIH literature, as we
have seen, Al Mahdi portrays Nubians as possessing a capacity for spiritual
connection and insight that distinguishes them from Amorites, demonstrated
in Nubians’ heightened sensitivity to music and recitation of divine names
(dhikr). He may hint at this genetic predisposition to mysticism in the SGL
pamphlet Celestial Being or Terrestrial Being . . . Which One Are You?, in which

The Sudan Is the Heart Chakra ◆ 161

he tells the reader, “You have a very prophetic descendancy,” but he leaves the
explicit significance of race unspoken.76 In contrast to the AAC/NIH’s exten-
sive engagements with Elijah Muhammad’s teachings, white demonologies,
and the stated mission to uplift global Nubian consciousness, SGL literature
tends to disavow racial identities altogether: “You have no color or race. You
are love not merely flesh.”77 While ostensibly moving away from metaphysi-
cal Africa, however, SGL theology resonates not only with the Nation’s idea
of Allah as a self-perfected man, but also with non-Muslim Afrocentrists such
as Maulana Karenga, who argues that African spiritualities locate God within
the human being, and Molefi Asante, who claims that in Yoruba and ancient
Egyptian religions, God is immanent (as opposed to the absolute transcen-
dence of God in “Abrahamic” monotheisms).78 SGL literature also plays down
Muslim jurisprudence (fiqh) and the patriarchal discipline of gendered inter-
actions common in AAC/NIH media.
In the fifth study of the first degree, Al Mahdi (writing as Al Qutb) provides
the hidden hierarchy of orders: beneath six celestial orders there are six terres-
trial orders, which are divided into higher orders that have taken “secret abode”
(located in the polar regions, the Gobi Desert, and the Bermuda Triangle) and
lower orders that are more accessible to humanity (the orders of the Essenes,
Brahamic orders, and Sufi orders). The Essene orders include the Persian magi,
the Egyptian schools, Tibetan Lamaism, and Solomon’s Masonic Lodge. The
Brahamic orders are known by their famous graduates, among them Buddha,
Confucius, Zoroaster, and “true” swamis and gurus. Al Qutb’s roster of Sufis
features an eclectic assemblage, including the poet Omar Khayyam, ninth-cen-
tury polymath al-Jahiz, astrologer and philosopher al-Kindi, medieval historian
Ibn Khaldun, and even twentieth-century mystical poet Khalil Gibran. All six
terrestrial orders remain under the protection of Khidr, who emits a “heal-
ing Green Light” that in turn informs and empowers Al Qutb. Khidr, Al Qutb
explains, “dedicates his time to the Sufi Order of the Sons of the Green Light
and is not associated with any other spiritual school or organization here in
the West.” Al Qutb then names various ascended mystics, such as the prophets
Enoch/Idris, Jesus, and Muhammad, noting that Moses was a member of the
Order of Sheikh Khidr who failed to become a high priest because he failed
Khidr’s test of patience.79
While SGL lessons were intended only for members of the order, the
SGL’s themes resonated with broader AAC/NIH literature. Throughout AAC/
NIH writings, Al Mahdi expounds upon the meanings and powers linked to
specific letters of the Arabic alphabet, most prominently in his commentary

162 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

on lam. “Each letter,” Al Mahdi writes (under the name Isa Muhammad) in
Talisman (1979), “has a magical power and a single letter might be developed
into a design which could in itself be effective as a talisman.”80 Writing while
occupied by the extraterrestrial teacher Yanaan in 1986, Al Mahdi breaks down
Yanaan’s name using classical Arabic abjad, which he presents in Five Percenter
vocabulary as “Supreme Mathematics,” and again interprets the name’s Arabic
letter nun (‫ )ن‬for its visual resemblance to the community’s six-pointed star and
upright crescent. Yanaan’s descent to earth corresponds to the dot (nuqta) over
the nun descending to make the letter ba (‫)ب‬, which stood for both Bennett
(the comet that became visible from earth on March 16, 1970) and the sons
(bani) of Allah.81 SGL literature also elaborates on Al Mahdi’s letter esotericism
as a science of healing. We are told that the Arabic letter thal (‫)ذ‬, for exam-
ple, appears 4,677 times in the Qurʾan, “one for each of the 4,677 nerves and
vessels which help to make up the human body and which make the pores
of the skin vibrate and wake up in inner intelligence.” These are the channels
through which “ether power” becomes accessible to the “19,000 universes that
lie within your being.”82
As the 1980s progressed and the AAC/NIH’s long-standing antagonism
with Sunni communities intensified, Al Mahdi’s Sufi project faced harsh criti-
cism from Salafis who regarded Sufism in general as heretical. Philips’s Ansar
Cult polemic of 1988, which contextualized the AAC/NIH as one of “many
movements” throughout Muslim history “bent on fighting Islaam, and destroy-
ing its values and teachings,” weaponized the historical anti-Sufi/anti-Shi’i
slur of “Baatinite” (literally “esotericist”) against the movement. In his attack
against the AAC/NIH’s “pagan roots” and “heretical” theology, Philips charges
that Al Mahdi had identified himself as “God Incarnate” and formed the SGL
to exploit a growing interest in Sufism among African American Muslims.83
At this specific point in the feud between Philips and Al Mahdi, their mutual
hostility echoes controversies between Saudi-networked Salafis and Muslims
who embrace what could be termed “Sufi” phenomena, such as ecstatic vocal
dhikr, scriptural esotericism, visionary encounters, and veneration of masters.
Al Mahdi himself treats the issue as such. While references to Sufi concepts
and practices might not satisfy an author of Philips’s sectarian orientation, Al
Mahdi responds in his massive Rebuttal to the Slanderers by contextualizing his
lodge within “traditional” Sufism: “I was the Qutb (Axis) of the Sufi Order.
. . . All devotees revolve around the center when we have our dhikr circles. If
you disagree with that, go visit the ‘Halvati Order’ in Turkey and attack them,
or the whirling Dervishes.” Rebuttal to the Slanderers also defends the SGL by

The Sudan Is the Heart Chakra ◆ 163

Figure 26 Advertisement for the Sons of the Green Light, 1985.

164 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

demonstrating that Al Mahdi embraced Sufism long before any observable rise
in Sufism’s popularity among African American Muslims. As Al Mahdi argues
in Rebuttal, the AAC/NIH was always a functional Sufi order where members
followed the dervish path: he asserts that he only established the SGL because
members of his community were already reaching the advanced spiritual rank
of “complete human,” al-insan al-kamil.84

Conclusions
Secret Document offers detailed prescriptions for dhikr, instructing the initiate
on proper formulas as well as posture and breath, leading the practitioner to
“feel invigorated, revitalized. . . . Practice this step until you receive the next
sacred document which will contain step three of the Sufi way to the pure
light.”85 Advancing through the lessons, the initiate ultimately seeks to reopen
the third eye and attain the level of al-insan al-kamil: the seeker can “become a
hospital within yourself, a mashafaʾa . . . you seek to cure yourself and others
by excelling in your mental powers.”86
Moreover, Al Mahdi’s Sufism offers a return to what the Nation of Islam
and Five Percenter traditions term “knowledge of self ”: “you are a heavenly
being and with the right guidance, you can become a god again.”87 As with the
Nation and Five Percenters, the history of American Sufism cannot be isolated
from histories of American metaphysical religion, including discourses that
emphasize personal spirituality, intuition, esotericism, and the mind’s capac-
ity for accessing higher flows of energy and achieving union with a divine
consciousness.88
American metaphysical traditions flourish throughout AAC/NIH media,
in which Al Mahdi often discusses healing and spirituality in New Age vocab-
ulary, making references to auras, ethers, chakras, kundalini, the third eye, the
pineal gland, astral influence and projection, mindfulness meditation, and visu-
alization. These references appear throughout the AAC/NIH archive with a
consistency that belies the assumption that a “New Age” phase replaced his
earlier commitments. Resonant with theosophical narratives, Al Mahdi’s writ-
ings present these concepts as reflecting a universal wisdom found throughout
the premodern world, principally in secret “mystery schools.” This wisdom was
suppressed by Christianity but had begun to resurface in the modern Age of
Aquarius.89 Does any of this “count” as Sufism, and if so, how does it get there?
For Al Mahdi, such vocabularies and narratives do not require the work of
“reconciliation” with Islam or “synthesis” with Sufism; rather, he engages Sufism

The Sudan Is the Heart Chakra ◆ 165

as it already appears in a local dialect. He was not the first Sufi master in the
United States to use such terms as “avatar” or to link Khidr to Melchizedek, nor
does he simply move from one family tree to another and then concoct a rela-
tionship between them. To treat AAC/NIH Sufism as though the community
stands before a buffet, picking from naturally and obviously separate catego-
ries, fails to engage the historical relationships between these categories and
the instability of their borders.

166 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

 Chapter •6
Islam Is Hotep
Ansar Egyptosophy

I began thinking on the symbolic meaning of

the pyramid in the religious world. . . . At the
base of this pyramid we have four corners. . . .
They saw creation as being composed of four
fundamental or basic elements. The elements of
man: solid, water, air and fire. Man in his nature
is characteristic of these elements. . . . They built
the pyramids because they had this knowledge
and they built it showing as its base these four
elements. . . . Not only that, a study of Ancient
Egypt will reveal that circumcision didn’t start
with the Jews, it started with the Africans of
Egypt. The belief in the soul and resurrection
didn’t start with Israel, it started with Egypt.
—W. D. Muhammad
And there was Dr. Malachi Z. York . . . /
Called himself the Lamb . . . / Built his
own Egypt on the top of the sand.
—Killah Priest
It is easy to imagine the AAC/NIH movement making a sudden sharp turn
during the 1990s from Islam into a completely disconnected Egyptosophy.1
Al Mahdi seemingly erased his Muslim past and embraced a new discursive
universe of ancient Egyptian mysteries, expressed in the landmarks of the
community’s Georgia property, in photos of himself in community literature
dressed as a pharaoh, and in his use of the name Amunnubi Rooakptah. The
assumption that Egyptian motifs were not significant in earlier AAC/NIH
materials, which fails to recognize the linkages between ancient Egypt and
Islam in the AAC/NIH’s multiple genealogies, supports a troubled image of
the community as an experiment in random eclecticism. This chapter chal-
lenges that assumption, resisting the compartmentalization of AAC/NIH
history into distinct “Egyptian,” “Jewish,” and “Muslim” phases.
Certainly, the post-1993 images of Amunnubi Rooakptah dressed in
ancient Egyptian regalia depart from Al Imaam Isa Al Haadi Al Mahdi’s white
turban and robe. Beyond sartorial choices, one could also envision tensions
between an identity grounded in Islam and another based on ancient Egypt,
considering not only the question of Egypt’s pre-Islamic polytheism but also
the fact that Pharaoh appears in the Qurʾan as the paradigmatic example of
human wickedness. Nonetheless, I aim in this chapter to demonstrate that
pharaonic Egypt was significant in various ways throughout the communi-
ty’s history. First, I introduce Egyptosophy as a tradition within American
metaphysical religion, and specifically as a resource for African American
Muslim movements, especially the Moorish Science Temple and Nation of
Islam. Both communities intersect with Egyptosophy, incorporating phar-
aonic Egypt into their visions of Islam as an eternal Black tradition, and
both construct Jesus as a trained initiate in timeless Egyptian—which also
means Islamic—knowledge. I then trace the development of an AAC/NIH
Egyptosophy that weaves into a singular narrative web stories of Abraham’s
family, pharaonic Egypt as a supremely advanced civilization of fantastic tech-
nological wonders, the persecution of Muhammad’s family after his death,
and the role of the Sudan in human salvation. Long before the community
left Brooklyn to build its Egypt in the West, Egypt had been a significant
part of its rhetorical nexus. Finally, I address the importance of Jesus as a
student of Egyptian mystery schools, a thread running through the commu-
nity’s writings both before and after its Nuwaubian turn. This chapter situates
Al Mahdi’s Egyptosophy within American Muslim discourses and his own
metaphysical Africa, highlighting continuity and coherence in its pharaonic
imaginary.

168 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

Occult Egypt and Islamic Pharaohs

In Western fascination with the wisdom of ancient civilizations, Olav Hammer

writes, “Egypt, especially, was a long-standing focus of projection.”2 Untrans-
lated hieroglyphs had been seen as endowed with hidden mystical symbolism
since late Hellenism. The notion of a secret, advanced Egyptian wisdom
persisted through early Christianity to the Renaissance and reached a new
level of “Egyptomania” after Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign (1798–1801).
Despite early colonial representations of Egypt as an Enlightenment project,
a “blank slate” upon which Europeans could fashion a society of reason after
the removal of Islamic despotism, a counterimage persisted of Egypt as a land
of timeless occult wisdom.3 Philosophical or symbolic Freemasonry, which
emerged in the late seventeenth century, bolstered its authority with claims
of ancient origins among the Israelites, identifying its founder as Hiram, the
builder of Solomon’s Temple. While early Freemasons did not claim Egyp-
tian origins, preferring their biblical genealogies and forged connection to
Solomon, the figure of Moses—recoded as a proto-Masonic “Grand Master”
and known to have studied “all the lore of the Egyptians”—became a point
of connection between Israel and Egypt.4 In the next chapter, as the AAC/
NIH tradition becomes Nuwaubu and expands upon its Egyptosophy, while
also reconstructing itself in Masonic terms, these Egypt-Israel-Freemasonry
connections become exceedingly potent.
Though the deciphering of hieroglyphs, starting with Jean-François
Champollion’s project in 1822, softened the image of Egypt as a fount of secret
knowledge, Egyptian mysteries continued to fascinate seekers and would-be
prophets. The golden plates of Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon, which offered
the text in “Reformed Egyptian” hieroglyphs, resonated with contemporary
imaginations of magical languages and of Egypt as the birthplace of civiliza-
tion.5 In 1859, the British publisher John Taylor argued in The Great Pyramid:
Why Was It Built? And Who Built It? that the ancient architect must have been
Noah, and that the Great Pyramid was a model of the earth. Later writers attri-
bute the pyramid’s design to Melchizedek, and the science of “pyramidology,”
the prediction of future events using measurements of the Great Pyramid,
entered into the practices of several Christian denominations in the late nine-
teenth century.6
Egyptosophy enjoyed some prominence in the discourses of the Theosoph-
ical Society, which had grown out of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, an
occult secret lodge that marked its publications with the ankh. Luxor initiate

Islam Is Hotep ◆ 169

and Theosophical Society founder Helena Blavatsky, who was largely respon-
sible for the Western popularization of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, claimed
that ancient Egyptians were descended from the inhabitants of Atlantis and
built the pyramids seventy-three thousand years earlier than their conven-
tional dating.7 She also claimed that her first book, Isis Unveiled (1877), came
from the advanced masters who were apparently based in Egypt and included
such unseen figures as Serapis Bey and Tuitit Bey.8
Blavatsky and other white esotericists who appropriated Egyptian myster-
ies were not necessarily interested in Egypt as part of continental Africa;
instead, they took the ancient Egyptians’ whiteness for granted and repro-
cessed Egyptian wisdom in harmony with assumptions of their own racial
supremacy.9 Confident that the ancient Egyptians belonged to “the Cauca-
sian type of mankind,” Blavatsky went further, suggesting, “If they were less
copper-colored than the Aethiopians of our modern day, the Aethiopians them-
selves might have had a lighter complexion in days of old.”10
Contemporary with a rising Aryanism that envisioned meaningful racial
and spiritual links between ancient India and modern Europe, the Theosoph-
ical Society and other Western esotericists ultimately lost interest in Egypt
and shifted their attention to India and Tibet. As racial anxieties and debates
contributed to white seekers’ favoring (Aryan) Indic civilization over (Semitic
and/or possibly Black) Egypt as the privileged site for recovering universal
spiritual truths, Blavatsky relocated her Beys from the Nile to the Himalayas,
where the masters became mahatmas. Meanwhile, Afrocentric Egyptologists
reimagined the pharaonic heritage, presenting Egypt either as a Black civi-
lization or as a white civilization that remained indebted to its Black parent
cultures in Nubia and Ethiopia.11
Even if many early producers of Western Egyptosophy were Aryan suprem-
acists, the Egyptosophic tradition found new power in African American
metaphysical religion. Streams of esotericist literature concerning Egypt as
the original fount of all wisdom and spirituality intersected with Black intel-
lectuals’ argument for ancient Egypt’s Africanity, leading to a privileged status
for Egyptian esotericism among Afrocentrist metaphysical thinkers. In this
fantasy image of the “Orient,” sensational representations of pharaonic Egypt
and Islamic tradition often blurred into one another. Noble Drew Ali (known
as “Professor Drew, Egyptian Adept Student” early in his prophetic career)
claimed that his Holy Koran (often cited as the Circle Seven Koran) was revealed
to him when he encountered the last priest of a lost mystery school, who took
him to the Pyramid of Cheops.12 Noble Drew Ali privileged Egypt as the point

170 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

of origin for African Americans, constructing a mythic history in which the
biblical Moabites expanded from Egypt across all of Africa and founded the
“Moroccan Empire” (the territory of which included Atlantis).13 A major source
text for Noble Drew Ali, Unto Thee I Grant, was published by the Ancient
Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, the San José–based American branch of the Rosi-
crucians, which was founded in 1915 but imagined itself as originating from a
secret order established in 1500 bce, which built the pyramids not as tombs but
as “places of study and mystical intuition” and inspired the religious reforms
of Akhenaten.14 Noble Drew Ali’s Moorish Science was informed by a roman-
tic Black Orientalism that had grown popular in Chicago. At the 1893 World’s
Columbian Exposition in Chicago (which had famously included a “parliament
of world religions”), the most successful attraction was the “Street of Cairo,”
which featured a mosque and market at which attendees could purchase fezzes
and other exotic imports. Just one month after the exposition, John George
Jones established what would become the “Black Shriners,” the Ancient Egyp-
tian Arabic Order, Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, claiming that a figure known
as Noble Rofelt Pasha had conferred degrees upon him.15
Gnostic priesthoods and modern Sunni revivalisms could conceivably
blend together without challenge. While receiving initiation in Egyptian
mysteries, Noble Drew Ali is also said to have encountered Ibn Sa’ud, future
king of Saudi Arabia, who gave the new prophet his name. While some Muslims
perceived an irreconcilable contradiction between celebrations of Egypt’s
pre-Islamic and Islamic heritage, Noble Drew Ali regarded one civilization’s
esoteric gravitas as bolstering the other’s exoteric religion, holding Islam in
higher esteem than Christianity in part because of Islam’s association with the
land of the pharaohs. At least according to some sources in Moorish Science
circles, Noble Drew Ali could simultaneously boast credentials from both an
ancient priesthood of Egyptian high magic and the founding monarch of a
modern “Wahhabi” state.16
In his vision of a metaphysical Africa in which Islam and ancient Egyptian
wisdom could coexist within a singular coherent tradition, Noble Drew Ali was
not alone. The Fahamme movement, also known as the Ethiopian Temples of
Islam and Culture, was founded by a Black convert named Paul Nathaniel John-
son, who took the name Ahmad Din when he joined the Ahmadiyya. Patrick
Bowen writes that Johnson became a prominent Ahmadi missionary but expe-
rienced friction with Sufi Bengalee, who arrived from India in 1928.17 Bengalee
reportedly arranged Sufi practices exclusively for white converts but denied
access to Sufism for Black converts on the grounds that they were not ready.18

Islam Is Hotep ◆ 171

By the early 1930s, Bowen writes, Johnson left the Ahmadiyya and started his
own movement as Paul J. Achamad, “noble prophet” of the Ethiopian Temples
of Islam, teaching that “African people, their culture, and their religion all orig-
inally came from Ethiopia, where their true religious culture was Islamic and
their original language was Arabic.”19 Claiming distinctions such as the Ra
Rasool, the “Culture Prophet,” “Prophet of Amun-Ra,” “Successor to the Gods
of Kem,” and “spiritually the King of the Negroes,” he described his “science
of Islam” as Fahamme, drawn from the Arabic triconsonantal root for “under-
standing.”20 Johnson regarded Islam as the original religion of humankind, but
he also understood Islam, “son of Ancient Aethiopia, a child of Africa, Kem or
Ham,” to include ancestor worship, its name an amalgamation of the Egyptian
deities Isis, El, and Amun. Johnson increasingly prioritized his Egyptosophic
orientation, moving the community away from its earlier Muslim ritual prac-
tices, Qurʾan readings, and Arabic studies. “Negroes are the only people in the
world who have no God, no heaven, no hell, except those whom other races
have taught him,” Johnson writes in his Holy Fahamme Gospel.21 Declaring that
“Negro culture need not be Jewish nor Mohammedan, but a creed and a system
unto itself,” he had removed “Islam” from the movement’s name by 1937.22
Though an exegete of the Qurʾan and Bible who identified with Moses
rather than Pharaoh and understood the pharaonic regime to have earned divine
wrath for its oppression of the Hebrews, Elijah Muhammad held Egypt in high
esteem as one of two centers of Black civilization first established by the tribe of
Shabazz (the other being Mecca). The valorization of pre-Islamic Egypt contin-
ued in Nation of Islam tradition, expressed in Louis Farrakhan’s sermon at the
Million Man March when—facing the Washington Monument, an obelisk
echoing Black Egyptian civilization—he spoke of the pharaoh Akhenaten
destroying Egypt’s pantheon to promote monotheism.23 In Black Muslim Reli-
gion in the Nation of Islam, 1960–1975, Edward E. Curtis IV provides the example
of a Nation family that appears in a 1965 issue of Muhammad Speaks. In their
home, a statue of a guard of King Tut’s tomb stands below a wall hanging of the
opening words of the Qurʾan—bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim (in the Name of
Allah, ar-Rahman, the Merciful)—in Arabic script. As Curtis notes, the pair-
ing of such items could appear “odd or even heretical” to many Muslims, but
for this Nation family they were “complementary symbols.”24 Links between
esoteric Egyptosophy and Islam did not expire with the Nation’s post-1975
turn to “orthodoxy,” as W. D. Muhammad gave his own esoteric reading of the
pyramids.25 Yusuf Ali’s commentary to his Qurʾan translation also includes an
essay titled “Egyptian Religion and Its Steps Towards Islam,” which portrays

172 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

ancient Egyptian intellectuals as achieving a rationalist grasp of monotheism,
exemplified in Akhenaten’s worship of the “One Supreme God.”26
While Noble Drew Ali and Elijah Muhammad framed Egypt as timelessly
Islamic, complicating what might appear as a commonsense boundary between
the categories “Islam” and “Egyptosophy,” non-Muslim Egyptosophists also
informed Al Mahdi’s Egyptian imaginary. In 1970s Brooklyn, a local contem-
porary of Al Mahdi’s movement, Ra Un Nefer Amen (b. 1944), established the
Ausar Auset Society as a project to revive Egyptian (Kemitic) wisdom. While
drawing from its own eclectic blend of sources, including pre-Aryan Indic
cultures and Kabbalah, the Ausar Auset Society argued that all of these tradi-
tions originated in Egypt. In its reconstruction of the Egyptian mystery school,
the Ausar Auset Society offered the necessary training for human beings to
unlock their inherent divinity. Afrocentrist authors such as Maulana Karenga
(b. 1941) and Molefi Asante (b. 1942) also prioritized Egypt in their visions of
African spirituality, both arguing that a truly African theology favors concepts
of immanent divinity over the remote, transcendent god of “Abrahamic” mono-
theism. Both Karenga and Asante brought Egyptosophy further into encounter
with Afrocentrism, the former by presenting Ethiopia as the origin of Egyptian
civilization, which in turn becomes the source for Christian myths of virgin
births and resurrected gods, and the latter by centering Egypt alongside Yoruba
within his “African Cultural System.”27 In conversation with Egyptosophic Afro-
centrists, Al Mahdi exposes and condemns “the Paleman” who “tries to make
you think that Misr [Egypt] is separate from Africa.”28
Over the course of AAC/NIH history, from the 1960s to its 1990s
“Nuwaubian turn,” we find diverse articulations of the relationship between
Islam and pre-Islamic Egypt, enabling imaginaries of both naturally harmoni-
ous Black traditions and irreconcilable antitheses—whether these reflect the
division between pre-Islamic jahiliyya (ignorance) and divinely revealed Islam
or between indigenous Black wisdom and Arab invader culture.

Al Mahdi’s Egypt
At least as early as 1972, Al Mahdi taught that Hajar, mother of Ishmael, was
also the daughter of Imhotep (an “understudy of Zoser the master healer”),
and it was from the pharaonic regime that Abraham learned how to genetically
engineer pigs to provide food for white people.29 Images of pyramids and ankhs
appear in the earliest extant AAC/NIH literature.30 The cover of Eternal Life
After Death (1977) bears an image of Allah’s name in Arabic, shaped to match

Islam Is Hotep ◆ 173

the outline of a six-pointed star, placed inside the loop of an Egyptian ankh,
itself within an Islamic crescent—remarkably similar to Nuwaubian logos of
the 1990s (fig. 27). Inside the pamphlet, Al Mahdi displays a photograph of
himself astride a camel in front of a pyramid with the caption “I, myself, was
in the Great Pyramids reading the hidden words of truth.” Al Mahdi asserts
that “the pyramid draws magnetism and energy from the center of the earth
as well as the poles” and charges that “the Amorite mind” cannot comprehend
the magnitude of the pyramid architects’ knowledge and sophistication; the
pyramids indeed contain “the secrets of life and death.” Al Mahdi writes that
the “pyramid fields” of Egypt and the Sudan were first designed as “storehouses
of universal knowledge” and “temples as well as tombs,” adding that Jesus had
studied in the pyramids under Melchizedek to become one of the twenty-four
scientists mentioned in Revelation. This 1977 pamphlet does not provide the
developed Egyptosophy that we will find beginning in 1980. Moreover, Eternal
Life After Death also blames the pharaohs for misunderstanding the afterlife, as
evidenced by their hoarding material possessions and employing the ankh as a
guarantor of immortality. In a polemic against neo-Kemetic communities that
appropriated the ankh, Al Mahdi scoffs, “The ankh is an ancient symbol worn
by many youths today. Do you desire the life of this world to be everlasting?”31
Throughout the 1970s, AAC/NIH discourse engaged metaphysical Africa
chiefly through connections to the Sudanese Mahdiyya and historical Nubia.
Community literature around the turn of the 1980s shows an increased empha-
sis on both the Blackness and Islam of ancient Egyptians. “We refer to ourselves
as Nubians,” Al Mahdi writes in 1983, “knowing our origin comes from across
the pyramids.”32 It was through the connection to Nubia that Al Mahdi and his
community recognized themselves as the authors of civilization: “The land of
our ancestors is the origin of all Sciences, mathematics, the mysteries.”33
The site of Al Mahdi’s visionary encounter with Khidr in the early 1970s
was also the birthplace of humankind; Allah created Adam in the Sudan, fash-
ioning his body from black mud found at the junction of the two Niles, after
which Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden at present-day Mecca.34 After
his death, Adam’s body was preserved in heaven, until descending in Abra-
ham’s time as the Black Stone that would be placed in the Kaʿba.35 The kissing
of the stone by pilgrims becomes a sacralization of both the Sudan and Black
people themselves.
Ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs (1980) introduces a complex set of materi-
als into the AAC/NIH corpus, portraying pharaonic Egypt as a technologically
and spiritually advanced Islamic civilization. The booklet focuses on the figure

174 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

Figure 27 Al Mahdi, Eternal Life After Death (1977), front cover, incorporating an ankh into its star-
and-crescent symbol. References to ancient Egypt are often assumed to represent the community’s
“post-Muslim” Nuwaubian era.

Islam Is Hotep ◆ 175

of Zoser/Abdul Quddus, a high priest in the Order of Melchizedek (and named
in the 1983 pamphlet The Man of Miracles as one of the avatars that occasionally
occupy Al Mahdi’s body as a vehicle). Trained by Khidr/Melchizedek, Zoser
became a scientist (writing works on alchemy and mastering the arts of heal-
ing), mathematician (whose formulas were later stolen by Pythagoras), artist
(originator of hieroglyphics), and architect (developing lasers and methods of
levitation by which the pyramids were constructed).36 Zoser was known and
worshipped under numerous names across the world; in Egypt he was Thoth,
god of knowledge; in ancient Mexico he was identified as the gods Quetzal-
coatl and Huehueteotl. The worshippers of Zoser failed to recognize that he
was only a messenger of Allah.37
In Ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs and his later Science of the Pyramids
(1983), Al Mahdi explains that the pyramids were not only tombs but, more
important, archival centers in which the elders of Khidr’s order preserved the
“necessary knowledge” for humans to maintain their position as Allah’s earthly
khalifah.38 These elders had once inhabited the city of Mu in their kingdom of
Salaam, a land now covered by the Red Sea. When warmongering descendants
of Cain shifted the earth’s axis and forced a global disturbance, they successfully
parted the Arabian Peninsula from Africa, creating the Red Sea and destroy-
ing Mu, along with much of what had once been the Garden of Eden. As Mu
was submerged, the elders fled in their chakra-powered mothership. They first
headed northwest to Egypt, where they built the pyramids with their knowl-
edge of lasers and levitation.39 The pyramids became home to mystery schools
in which “the knowledge was locked away from mortal man so it would not be
destroyed or stolen to be used by the Devil (paleman).” The pyramids’ secret
chambers housed libraries in which one could find the “Archaic Records,” the
collected scriptures of Allah’s prophets.40 The elders used the same powers that
drove their spaceships to lock up their libraries: “When a pyramid is sealed,”
Al Mahdi explains, “the only possible means of getting into the interior of a
pyramid is by mental means.”41
The Great Pyramid of Giza was built at the center point of the earth’s
surface. “This was not a coincidence,” Al Mahdi argues, as “the Elders knew
science, astronomy and geography of each continent on earth. It was their
fields so that they could construct similar schools of learning like this around
the world,” as evidenced by the appearance of pyramidal structures in various
ancient cultures.42 Traces of the mystery schools can be found at locations as
diverse as Easter Island (where Zoser was revered in local mythologies as a
birdman), the Americas, Tibet, India, and Yugoslavia. These scattered pyramids

176 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

acted as broadcasting stations through which elders could send messages to
one another, enabling communication between sites such as the Nile valley
and Central America.43 AAC/NIH literature describes their technology in
terms of both advanced physical science and esoteric metaphysical knowl-
edge. “These men had the intelligence to communicate back and forth from
pyramid to pyramid by using their six and seventh senses,” Al Mahdi writes.
“The Amorite (physical Devil) calls this Telepathy.” When explaining the use
of such advanced technology in the distant past, Al Mahdi draws connections
between these elders and Islamic revelation; the science of the atom had been
made known to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel.44
Another member of the council of elders, Imhotep, was trained by Zoser,
and the two of them guided Abraham, who journeyed to Egypt for help in his
mission: the civilizing of white people. Imhotep informed Abraham “that these
lepers are not Asiatic Black men, but Caucasus-Asians,” meaning “deteriorat-
ing Asians.”45 While Al Mahdi calls the white people of Canaan “clean” lepers
for their having been “civilized,” Abraham’s project targeted “unclean” lepers,
covered in sores, who walked on all fours, ate uncooked meat, engaged in besti-
ality, and bred themselves to become “literally half animal and half man.” In the
Caucasus Mountains, these animalized lepers were so overtaken by their divine
curse of leprosy that the carcasses of their dead piled up, further spreading
disease and famine. To solve the health crisis, Zoser decided that white people
needed a new animal, “something that was just as nasty as these creatures,” to
consume the dead bodies. This new animal would also curb cannibalism by
providing meat for the Caucasians, who were otherwise willing to eat their own
dead. The creature had to be filthy enough to resist disease and smart enough
to outwit the lepers, yet stupid enough not to feel disgusted by the squalor in
which it would live. Imhotep gave Abraham a symbol—a downward-pointing
triangle inside a larger triangle—as instructions for Abraham to give to Zoser,
who understood: the three points of the external triangle signified dog, cat,
and rat, the animals that would be grafted together to make the Caucasians’
new animal, the inner triangle. Just as Elijah Muhammad had taught that the
pig had been grafted from dog, cat, and rat in a narrative that resonates with
his account of the white race (which itself was created by an ancient geneti-
cist), Al Mahdi reformulates the pig’s origin story as a tale of white depravity,
the marvels of ancient Egyptian science, and harmony between pharaonic
Egypt and Abraham’s religion.46 After engineering the pig, Imhotep gave Abra-
ham his daughter, Hajar, saying that although Hajar would have been a queen
in Egypt, it was better for her to be Abraham’s slave. Imhotep understood the

Islam Is Hotep ◆ 177

future greatness of the lineage that would come from Abraham’s first-born son,
and he wanted Egypt to share in that legacy.47
In Ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs, the story of Abraham’s developing the
pig under pharaonic guidance provides a segue for Al Mahdi’s focus on the
Ishmaelite prophetic heritage. Expounding upon monotheism and polythe-
ism, he presents the former as evidenced in ancient Egyptian worship of Aton,
and the latter as a fabrication of Greeks and Babylonians.48 Al Mahdi writes
that just as Imhotep trained Abraham, Abraham educated the Hotep dynasty
in monotheism. Al Mahdi asserts that Queen Tiye, mother of the famously
monotheist pharaoh Akhenaten, was descended from the Sudanese peoples
that had been the original settlers of Mesopotamia, and that she passed Abra-
ham’s religion to her son. Akhenaten’s attempted reform of Egyptian religion,
therefore, is integrated into Al Mahdi’s system as a return to the Hoteps’ pure
Islam.
Al Mahdi stakes diverse claims upon Egypt. In Egypt and the Pharaohs
and Science of the Pyramids, he emphasizes pharaonic Egypt as a scientific/
mystical marvel while weaving Islam into the narrative; elsewhere, he gives
priority to Egypt as a Muslim civilization, while also celebrating Egypt’s pre-
Islamic wonders. The AAC/NIH publication Al Imaam Isa Visits Egypt 1981 (fig.
28), presenting photographs and narratives from Al Mahdi’s travels, operates
primarily as a demonstration of Al Mahdi’s transnational Muslim credentials. It
prioritizes Egypt as a site of authoritative and classical Islamic tradition rather
than of pre-Islamic pharaonic heritage, providing photos of Al Mahdi visiting
masjids, sitting in minbars, and meeting Muslim scholars; only in the back pages
does the reader encounter photos of Al Mahdi at the pyramids. The opening
pages report an interview between Al Mahdi and Egyptian Muslims in which Al
Mahdi speaks as a representative of American Muslims. One interviewer asks,
“Do many people of your community in the West speak Arabic classical and
read Qurʾan as well as yourself?”—to which Al Mahdi answers that no Muslim
community in the West can match the AAC/NIH in its devotion to raising
children fluent in Arabic. The first reference to pre-Islamic Egypt confronts
tensions between Al Mahdi’s Islamocentrism and anti-Muslim Egyptocen-
trism: the interviewer asks whether Muslims can claim polytheistic civilizations
as part of their heritage. Should the AAC/NIH define pre-Islamic Egypt as a
Black glory or an age of ignorance (jahiliyya)? Al Mahdi answers that ancient
Egyptians were not polytheists at all, but Muslims. Blaming white devils for
stealing and distorting Egyptian knowledge, Al Mahdi singles out “a Negro
called Dr. Yosef Ben J.” (Ben-Jochannan), who makes unfounded assertions

178 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

Figure 28 Ansaru Allah Community, Al Imaam Isa Visits Egypt 1981 (1981), front cover.

Islam Is Hotep ◆ 179

without ever having trained in hieroglyphics, Hebrew, or Arabic, or even spend-
ing extended time in Egypt. The devils have misunderstood the hieroglyphics
and denied ancient Egypt’s actual religion. A photo of Al Mahdi touching hiero-
glyphic carvings bears a caption explaining that Egyptians used hieroglyphics
to communicate “belief in tawhiyd (Oneness of Allah).”49
In its concluding pages, Al Imaam Isa Visits Egypt shows Al Mahdi at vari-
ous ancient sites, including a photo of him hunched over in a low-ceilinged
tunnel, apparently entering one of the great pyramids. Al Mahdi marvels at the
technological achievement of the pyramids and elaborates on Zoser/Abdul
Quddus but does not advance the full mythology that he offers in other works.
He does, however, proclaim that “Egypt is the birthplace of hidden wisdom
and mystic teachings,” and he argues that Egyptosophy does not conflict with
Islam: “What the Europeans try to hide from the Nubian (Black Man) is that
all things come from Allah and all great civilizations stem from Islaam.”50
Al Mahdi connects pharaonic Egypt to the heroes of Islam in his 1988
revised edition of Who Was Noble Drew Ali? with an account of the Suhuf
(pure pages), the revelations of Adam, Seth, and Enoch. Before Abraham cast
out Hajar and Ishmael, he gave Hajar the Suhuf to pass on to their son when
he matured. Hajar and Ishmael first journeyed to the land that would become
Mecca, but Hajar later took the child to her homeland of Egypt for the purpose
of finding him a wife. In Egypt they reunited with her family, who became
custodians of the Suhuf for centuries, until ‘Ali and Fatima, fleeing A’isha’s
persecution, sought refuge in Egypt. ‘Ali and Fatima continued south into the
Sudan, where the texts had become “dormant amongst the mystics” and acces-
sible only to “beings of higher knowledge.” Al Mahdi’s teacher and imam at the
great masjid in Khartoum, As Sayyid Mahmuwd, guarded the Suhuf and passed
them to Al Mahdi, who made them public for the first time.51 Given that AAC/
NIH genealogies present all Nubians as descended from the union of Abra-
ham and Imhotep’s daughter, Hajar becomes an important node of connection.
The Imhotep priesthood in turn becomes crucial to the preservation of Islamic
knowledge, keeping these artifacts safe for the ahl al-bayt. In Al Mahdi’s meta-
physical Africa, Islam and Egyptosophy are not separate traditions.
Crucial to Al Mahdi’s imaginary of pharaonic Egypt is the notion that
ancient Egyptians were Muslims, even performing ritual prayer in postures and
movements similar to Muslim salat. In AAC/NIH literature, harmony between
Islam and ancient Egypt does not reflect a bricolage of unrelated ingredients;
they relate under the rubric of a universalizing Black perennialism. The Nubian,
Sudanese, Asiatic Black Man suffers no contradiction in claiming both Islamic

180 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

and pre-Islamic Egypt. AAC/NIH literature does maintain a disconnection,
however, between imaginaries of classical Egypt as a Black Islamic civilization
and its present reality as a nation dominated by pale Arabs. Al Mahdi concludes
Science of the Pyramids with condemnations of modern Egypt for having turned
its back on the Sunna, becoming a haven of alcohol, drugs, and Western fash-
ions. Al Mahdi charges that only his own followers recognize the nature of the
pale devil and raise their children in truly Islamic environments.52

Jesus in Egypt
In the late nineteenth century, multiple narratives claimed that Jesus had trav-
eled to India and studied in “the school of the Brahmans.” The notion of Jesus
as an initiate of Indic wisdom, Simon J. Joseph observes, “emerged within a
European fascination with the ‘mystic East’ and the ‘ancient wisdom’ of India.”
European interest in Indian spirituality developed alongside ideas of race that
saw Aryan and Semitic peoples as racial and spiritual opposites; “Jesus in India”
narratives thus helped to Aryanize a Jewish prophet. The narratives also helped
to forge connections between Jesus and the Buddha, nourished perennialist
themes of a singular esoteric core that connected all religions, and supported
New Age reconstructions of Jesus as an exemplar of hard-earned personal
growth—an adept who became one with the divine by virtue of a path acces-
sible to everyone, rather than via the privilege of supernatural incarnation.
In the second half of the twentieth century, New Age seekers increasingly
embraced the image of Jesus as a wandering student of Buddhist monks and
Brahmin yogis.53
In the alternative religious discourses of the period, writes Susan Nance,
“many perceived Jesus as a profound example of a degree of perfection that all
men and women could strive for through examination of the wisdom of mysti-
cal brotherhoods which dated back to the ancient Holy Land and Egypt.”54
The text from which Noble Drew Ali extracted the first half of his Holy Koran,
Levi Dowling’s 1907 work The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, depicts Jesus
wandering the world to study not only with Buddhists and Brahmins but also
with Greek philosophers, Persian sages, and Egyptian adepts. Dowling claimed
transcendent authority for his own work, having accessed the supernal Akashic
records. Dowling’s Jesus expresses various themes that would resonate with
Noble Drew Ali: the realization of one’s “higher self,” secret brotherhoods,
and the existence of a sophia perennis that encompasses diverse cultures of
the ancient world. Islam, as Noble Drew Ali understood it, honored Buddha,

Islam Is Hotep ◆ 181

Confucius, and Zoroaster in addition to Muhammad and the Israelite proph-
ets. Noble Drew Ali’s Jesus, when teaching God’s unity to the Hindus, argues
that despite the differences in names, it is the same God; Allah is equivalent
to Zeus, Jehovah, and the Egyptian god Thoth. Jesus also travels to Heliopolis
and undergoes initiation into the “temple of the sacred brotherhood,” which
bears witness to his resurrection from the dead.55
Noble Drew Ali’s construction of Jesus in Egypt comprises a tangled multi-
plicity of genealogies, a series of rhizomatic connections between popular New
Age discourses of the early twentieth century, Black Egyptocentrism and Egyp-
tosophy, Freemasonry, and even—insofar as the Ahmadiyya would have been
positioned within Noble Drew Ali’s milieu of Chicago after the Great Migra-
tion—transnational “mainstream Islam.” In the contexts of colonial India and
postmigration cities such as Chicago, accounts of Jesus as a traveling initiate
of mystery schools circulated in global Muslim currents. The Ahmadiyya held
that Jesus was buried in Kashmir56 and published a photo of Jesus’s reported
tomb in a 1923 issue of Moslem Sunrise.57 Noble Drew Ali’s entering an Egyp-
tian pyramid in order to become an Islamic prophet would not have been a
contradiction or paradox; Jesus Christ was himself a Muslim prophet who
learned Islam in the pyramids. Echoing Noble Drew Ali’s narrative of Jesus as
an initiate of Egyptian wisdom, Elijah Muhammad asserts that Jesus “was a
well learned man,” evidenced by his training in Egypt. In Elijah Muhammad’s
narrative, Jesus graduated from the Islamic university of al-Azhar and then
walked six hundred miles “from Cairo University in Al-Azhar into the land of
Israel” to start his mission.58 With ahistorical reference to Christ studying at a
Muslim university established nine centuries after his lifetime, the distinction
between Egypt’s “pre-Islamic” and “Islamic” traditions dissolves.
Al Mahdi portrays Jesus as a student of wisdom traditions and schools
throughout the ancient world, with special focus on Egypt. While the Jesus-in-
India narrative had served to Aryanize the Israelite Jesus, Al Mahdi’s depiction
of Jesus in the pyramid affirms a Black perennialism in which pharaonic and
Abrahamic lineages are intertwined. AAC/NIH literature presents Jesus as
learning from sages in every locale that he visited (with the exception of Athens,
where he taught sages). Jesus entered the Essene brotherhood at a temple near
Jordan where the Dead Sea Scrolls were housed, received knowledge from Jains
at their temple in Palian, mastered Vedic literature under a Brahmin priest,
studied with Tibetan adepts and accessed their vast archive in Lhasa, stopped
at Persepolis (“the great spiritual center of that time”), and studied under his
own Judahite tribe in Rashidim, Ethiopia. In Medina, seemingly an “Islamic”

182 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

city centuries before Muhammad, he encountered the Wise Men who had
visited him at birth and learned from them the history of the ancient masters.
In Mecca, he learned of the future comforter, Muhammad.59
In Egypt, Jesus attended an annual meeting of Sufis and mystics at the Great
Pyramid of Giza60 and entered the mystery school that Hajar had attended,
where he passed seven tests to earn “the highest degree any man would ever
receive.”61 His first test was in sincerity: “For many days, he remained alone in
a room in which the light was faint and mellow like the light of early dawn. He
read the sacred texts, and studied the hieroglyphics.” When a priest tried to
convince Jesus that the other priests had grown jealous of him, and that he must
save Jesus’s life, Jesus rejected the deception and thus passed the first test. He
passed his second test, in justice, after spending many days locked in a chamber
and seeing through the trickery of two men who came to him in priests’ garb
and offered to help him escape. For his third test, in faith, Jesus was placed in a
“Hall of Fame” filled with shelves of “books by the master minds.” A priest came
to Jesus and offered the hall of fame as a worthy achievement in itself: “Why
seek for further mystic lights within these dens?” Jesus then entered the “Hall
of Mirth”; rejecting its carnal pleasures to instead help the hungry and poor
who had been turned away, he passed the test for his fourth scroll, in philan-
thropy. He passed his fifth test, in heroism, when priests bound him in chains
and Jesus’s superior force of will revealed the chains to be “merely worthless
cords that parted at his touch.” His sixth scroll, in love divine, was won when
he resisted the temptations of a beautiful woman who played music and sang
“songs of Israel.” At this stage, Jesus established himself as a “wiser student of
Al Khidr.”62
Passing the seventh test required that Jesus work in the “Chamber of the
Dead.” Jesus first completed a “senior course” focused on “the secrets of mystic
lore of Egypt,” and then entered this chamber, where he encountered a small girl
and learned from her that “grief and hopes and fears are reflexes from the lower
self and that all emotions are prayers that arise from human loves, hopes, and
fears; that perfect bliss cannot be ours until we have conquered these.” Having
passed the seventh test, Jesus stood before the high priest (Melchizedek) and
received the final scroll, Ruhu Allah (spirit of Allah). Melchizedek told him,
“Allah will confirm your title and degree,” after which a white dove entered the
temple and Jesus heard a voice declare, “This is Ruhu Allah.” At this station,
Jesus became a priest in Melchizedek’s order and joined the council of elders,
occupying the twenty-fourth seat (available to the prophet of the age). At the
age of 120, Jesus passed away. His biological father, the angel Gabriel, brought

Islam Is Hotep ◆ 183

Figure 29 Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Gospel of John, Chapter One (1984), front cover, displaying the crescent
with six-pointed star containing an ankh, reflecting the significance of ancient Egypt in AAC/NIH Chris-
tology and anticipating the Nuwaubian symbology of the 1990s.

184 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

his body to the top of the Step Pyramid so that it could dematerialize, each
element of his body returning to its place in the universe. His spirit ascended
to the second heaven, where he would remain with John the Baptist.63
This story, which appears in Was Christ Really Crucified? (1980) and Science
of the Pyramids (1983), can also be found in the 364-page Original Tents of
Kedar volume The Final Messenger: Christ the Final Word (1991). Al Mahdi repro-
duces the narrative of the seven tests, essentially copied verbatim from Was
Christ Really Crucified? He adds a postscript in which Allah summons “Angelic
beings, Extra-terrestrials,” to claim Jesus’s soul. To prevent human beings from
worshipping Jesus’s grave, Gabriel brings Jesus’s body back to the pyramid so
that it can properly rejoin the universe.64 Regardless of how one categorizes the
community’s changing discourses, its story of Jesus in Egypt remains consis-
tent in iterations roughly a decade apart. Later, after the Nuwaubian turn and
the migration to Georgia, Al Mahdi—now Malachi Z. York—published Jesus
Found in Egipt (1996), which recalibrates connections between traditions,
positioning “Abrahamic” religions as derivative offshoots of an Egyptosophic
perennialism. Nonetheless, Jesus Found in Egipt preserves the Ansar vision of
Jesus—who in this work appears as the third of three distinct Jesuses—as a
student of Indian and Egyptian mystery schools, whose postmortem remains
were carried atop a pyramid “to decompose naturally with the elements of
nature.”65 The post-Brooklyn community did not build its Egyptosophic archive
from scratch (fig. 29).

Conclusions
Noble Drew Ali exhibited no fear of contradiction in his drawing from Islam
and pharaonic Egypt; he became a Muslim prophet inside a pyramid. Elijah
Muhammad looked to Egyptian civilization as evidence of timeless Black
greatness, which by definition meant timeless Muslim greatness. AAC/NIH
accounts of the pyramids’ relationship to Islam cannot be reduced to “syncretic”
hodgepodges compiled from naturally unrelated materials. In the context of
the AAC/NIH—as natural a state as any—the connections were already estab-
lished. AAC/NIH material built upon these connections with an image of Islam
eternally anchored in Nubia and Al Mahdi’s visionary experience of Khidr at
the junction of the two Niles. Incorporating ankhs alongside stars and crescents
in its earliest media, Al Mahdi’s Islam always possessed a built-in Egyptosophy.
While it is not my aim to claim “orthodox” or “classical” credentials for the
AAC/NIH by finding precedents or similarities in broader Islamic tradition,

Islam Is Hotep ◆ 185

AAC/NIH treatments of the pyramids are not dramatically different from
the ways in which Muslims in other contexts have imagined pharaonic Egypt.
Premodern Muslim commentators offered a variety of interpretations of
pre-Islamic Egypt, including praise of the ancient Egyptians’ scientific and
occult sophistication (even claiming that ancient Egyptians, informed in part
by astrology, could make “pictures that moved” and give birth to babies who
could already speak), identification of a particular pharaoh with the prophet
Idris/Enoch, and the belief that pyramids were tombs of prophets, which rein-
scribed the pyramids as worthy Islamic sites of Muslim pilgrimage and ritual
veneration.66 Medieval scholars such as al-Idrisi (d. 1165) and al-Maqrizi (d.
1442) held that the occult figure of Hermes—identified in numerous Islamic
traditions as the ascended prophet Enoch/Idris—had built Egypt’s temples
to store documents after the Flood; al-Maqrizi notes that “all the Egyptians’
knowledge of alchemy, magic, talismans, medicine, astronomy, and geome-
try were set down” on the temple walls of Akhmim.67 Al Mahdi (repeating
the claims of Ivan van Sertima and other Afrocentrist intellectuals) asserts
that the Sphinx lost its nose to Napoleon’s army in an act of racial insecurity
meant to erase its Nubian features, but the nose was actually destroyed by a
fourteenth-century Sufi, Muhammad Sa’im al-Dahr, who was horrified to see
that other Muslims made votive offerings to the Sphinx. Al-Dahr perceived a
clear boundary between jahiliyya polytheism and authentic Islam, but some
of his Muslim contemporaries drew their boundaries differently. Like other
Muslims throughout history, the AAC/NIH made its own decisions about
what counted as Islamic.

186 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

 Chapter •7
The Pyramidal Kaʿba
Malachi Z. York and the Nuwaubian Turn

God taught me that he has pictures of the Martian

people. . . . You have people on Mars! Think how
great you are. Ask the white man if he has any out
there. We have life on other planets, but he don’t.
—Elijah Muhammad

The community’s migration to Georgia as the Tents of Abraham and its even-
tual reconstruction as the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors (UNNM)
could mark the point at which Al Mahdi (thereafter known as Dr. Malachi Z.
York) becomes especially challenging terrain for unfamiliar readers.1 In UNNM
media, he presents himself as a metaphysical Egyptologist, intergalactic master
teacher, Native American tribal leader, and Freemason. He appears in the garb
of an ancient pharaoh in one photo, wears a feather war bonnet in another, and
in a third wears a Masonic fez and apron. Meanwhile, he still claims to embody
the ultimate fulfillment of Black Islam, having inherited, decoded, and refined
the teachings of those who came before him, among them Elijah Muhammad,
Daoud Faisal, Noble Drew Ali, and Allah (the former Clarence 13X), though
he simultaneously disparages Islam as “poison.”
While 1993 saw dramatic transformations in the community, Nuwaubian
literature still echoes earlier sources, repeating key themes and maintaining
claims from the Bushwick era. This chapter covers the community’s physical
migration to Georgia, which corresponds to its ideological relocation from
Muslim identity to Nuwaubu. Though York vehemently distanced himself from
Muslim identity, I focus on the continued presence of Islam as an important
resource in Nuwaubu’s “post-Islamic” materials. This chapter also demonstrates
that the resources meaningful to the community, while seemingly “eclectic” or
even “random” and “incoherent” to some observers, were deeply intertwined
in genealogies of metaphysical Africa.

Escape from New York

At least as far back as the 1973 confrontation with Mosque of Islamic Brother-
hood members in Harlem, the AAC/NIH experienced hostility and threats
from other Muslim groups that would escalate in the late 1980s.2 While we
cannot measure the damage of Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips’s 1988 anti-Ansar
polemic with concrete data, the book enjoyed strong distribution and the
gravitas of endorsement from formal authorities in Saudi Arabia. Philips’s
work appears to have been devastating not only in its Salafi-informed critiques
and its testimony from a member of the Mahdi family that Al Mahdi had
fabricated his lineage, but also—and perhaps primarily—in its interviews
with former members, who attested to Al Mahdi’s hypocrisy, greed, and
financial and sexual exploitation of his followers. Al Mahdi’s writings from
Monticello as El Haady, condemning estranged followers who had left the
community owing to “Shaytaanic whispers and suggestions,” suggests that
Philips was effective. Philips at least concerned Al Mahdi enough to warrant
a 315-page counterpolemic, The Ansaar Cult: Rebuttal to the Slanderers (1989),
and frequent demonizations of Philips throughout AAC/NIH literature and
tape-recorded lectures. Al Mahdi was also motivated to launch a six-hun-
dred-page attack against Sunni Muslims at large, his 360 Questions to Ask the
Orthodox Sunni Muslims, which makes frequent mention of Philips and warns
that Islam will “perish” under the “fake Islam being pushed by the Wahhabis
of Saudi Arabia and the Ikhwani Muslims of Egypt.” The book is attributed
to “Reverend Dwight York” with explanations that he was indeed trained as
a minister, and that since Philips and Siraj Wahhaj mockingly referred to Al
Mahdi by his birth name, he decided to counter them with “the kind of book
a ‘Dwight York’ would write.”3
In 1990, sectarian violence confronted Al Mahdi with his personal vulner-
ability. Rashad Khalifa, whose findings of a “mathematical miracle” regarding
the number nineteen in the Qurʾan were embraced by figures as diverse as

188 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

Al Mahdi, Louis Farrakhan, leading Nation intellectual Tynetta Muhammad,
W. D. Muhammad, Ahmed Deedat, and even officials at Al-Azhar University,
was assassinated in January, stabbed to death in his Tucson masjid. The murder
was immediately linked to theological controversies; though Khalifa’s mathe-
matical analysis of the Qurʾan had once been given the stamp of approval by
“orthodox” authorities, his anti-hadith positions alienated him from Sunni
communities in the 1980s.4 The Lamb described Khalifa as “a wise man and
an extremely intelligent man” and a “Nubian messenger,” and wrote that Sunni
Muslims (who had embraced the miracle of the number nineteen until Khalifa
began criticizing hadiths) killed Khalifa because “he no longer complied with
their mythology of Islam.”5 Responsibility was ultimately attributed to Jamaat
al-Fuqra, the mystical jihadist organization that had grown from the splinter-
ing of the Dar ul-Islam in 1980 and bombed a Portland hotel owned by spiritual
leader Rajneesh in 1983.6
On April 22, Sayyid El Nosair, a Sunni Muslim later convicted for his
involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, reportedly walked into
a class at the AAC/NIH Bushwick Avenue masjid and asked to see Al Mahdi.
According to Al Mahdi, Nosair had planned to assassinate him but was stopped
by Al Mahdi’s Swords of Islam security force. In November, Nosair assassinated
New York–based Jewish Defense League leader Meir Kahane with a .357 cali-
ber pistol.7 While antagonisms with Sunnis intensified, Al Mahdi attempted to
smooth over relations with Farrakhan’s Nation by recanting his claims on its
founder. In An Apology to the Nation of Islam, the True Followers of the Honor-
able Elijah Muhammad (1990), Al Mahdi disavows his conspiracy theories
surrounding Fard Muhammad, insists that unidentified “people of Chicago”
had misled him, and reveals that he was personally corrected by Elijah Muham-
mad in a dream. In an unprecedented departure from his usual confidence, Al
Mahdi promises that his followers have been ordered to burn all copies of The
Book of Laam. Al Mahdi and a number of followers began to spend less time
in Brooklyn, favoring their Jazzir Abba property in the Catskills. Jazzir Abba
had long been a refuge from the city’s chaos: Al Mahdi purchased the land in
1983 after an attritioned follower, disguising himself in Ansar women’s khimar,
stormed an afternoon class at the Bushwick masjid, stabbing four men (seri-
ously or critically injuring three of them), starting a fire, and brandishing a
pistol before he was subdued.8
Beyond the threat of physical violence, Al Mahdi was also legally vulner-
able. In her memoir of life as one of Al Mahdi’s wives, Ruby S. Garnett recalls
that shortly after the move from Brooklyn to Jazzir Abba, Sullivan County

The Pyramidal Kaʿba ◆ 189

officials “started to harass him and started hitting him with all sorts of taxes
and violations of one thing or another. We were probably there less than 2 years
when Doc started making plans to re-locate to Georgia.”9 But Al Mahdi’s legal
troubles extended beyond county tax and zoning issues. A 1992 FBI memo, cate-
gorizing the community as a “domestic security/terrorism” concern, observes,
“More recently, information has been received . . . of criminal activity taking
place within the AAC and at the direction of its leadership.”10 This included
word from multiple informants connecting Al Mahdi to the 1979 murder of
Horace Green, a Bushwick community leader who had spoken out against Al
Mahdi’s expansion in the neighborhood. During its initial investigation, the
NYPD had interviewed Al Mahdi, who explained that he had always gotten
along well with Green and had no idea why anyone would harm him. Al Mahdi
also offered the NYPD his bodyguard’s assistance in case men were needed to
fill a lineup.11 In 1991, the FBI learned from several sources that a former AAC/
NIH member and enforcer for Al Mahdi, Hashim Muhammad (a.k.a. “Hashim
the Warrior”), had reportedly murdered Green.12 In addition, the FBI memo
alleges an extensive criminal history, implicating the community in homicide,
arson, extortion, bank robberies, welfare and credit card fraud, prostitution,
drug trafficking, the use of AAC/NIH locations as contact points for crimi-
nal operations, and even possible connections to 1990’s Islamist coup attempt
in Trinidad.
Al Mahdi had been on the FBI’s radar at least since 1972, when his liter-
ature was found in a fugitive Black Panther’s apartment; investigators at the
time came to believe that Al Mahdi himself was a former Panther. In 1976, two
former AAC/NIH members came to the FBI’s Buffalo office to report that Al
Mahdi was leading a criminal enterprise and that they feared for their lives. In
1987, Al Mahdi was arrested after applying for a passport with false identifi-
cation, for which he ultimately received probation.13 The 1992 memo calls for
continued investigation of Al Mahdi and the community, noting that the New
York office “anticipates placement of a source within the AAC to monitor pres-
ent ongoing criminal activity” and was in contact with a former member who
would talk. Additionally, “two female individuals have recently been identified
as having primary responsibilities for finances within the AAC. New York antic-
ipates interviewing and debriefing these individuals within the next 180 days.”
Given the delegation of responsibilities within the AAC/NIH, these women
were probably Al Mahdi’s wives. The FBI’s Atlanta and Baltimore offices also
planned to pursue possible informants. In Philadelphia, where the Nation of
Islam’s Mosque No. 12 had essentially merged with the Black Mafia Family,14

190 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

the FBI developed a strong source of information about AAC/NIH criminal
activity and was “also pursuing potential ties between leadership of the Phila-
delphia AAC and leaders of the Junior Black Mafia based on allegations through
source information and telephone toll records.”15 According to Robert Rohan,
an attritioned former member, York was well aware that the federal agents had
infiltrated his community and “would speak indirectly to them in class to justify
his earnings and speak about how we have over a thousand stores making $1000
or more each month and what we can do with this type money.”16 If Al Mahdi,
like Elijah Muhammad before him,17 knew of the FBI’s growing interest and
presence in his masjids—a probable scenario, given the FBI’s multicity investi-
gation, which included nearly twenty documented informants and the pursuit
of Al Mahdi’s wives—the retreats to Sullivan County and then rural Georgia
could be read as a survival strategy.
Whether the threat came from sectarian rivals or law enforcement, what-
ever drove Al Mahdi from Brooklyn might have been the force that pushed
him to rebrand himself, for the Catskills camp witnessed his new identity as
Rabboni Y’shua Bar El Haady. During this time, he also changed the proper-
ty’s name from Jazzir Abba to Mount Zion and redesigned the community’s
aesthetic and ritual dimensions, leading to popular treatments of the early
1990s as his “Jewish phase.” The Lamb ceased using Islam-coded terms such
as “masjid” (replaced by Manzilur Rab, “House of the Lord”) and removed
Muhammad’s name from community prayers and the call to prayer (“your
pagan Adhan”) on the grounds that “Orthodox Sunni Muslims” had taken
to worshipping Muhammad as a false idol just as Christians had done with
Jesus.18 He increasingly attacked sexism in Muslim communities, condemning
“fundamentalists and religious fanatics” who erased women from their tradi-
tions and erroneously masculinized their genderless god.19 On December 22,
1991, at five community chapters on the East Coast, women taught their own
classes for the first time. Community pamphlets announced that women, “now
unveiled,” will “no longer be expected to shut up and sit down.”20 On a 1992
lecture cassette, the Lamb affirms that “women should be able to pray along-
side of us or even in front of us . . . lead prayer, call to prayer,” citing the hadith
in which Muhammad authorizes Umm Waraqa to act as imam.21
Between feuds with various Muslim groups and possible legal peril,
community sources and former members’ accounts alike report that around
1992 at Mount Zion, the Lamb announced that a coming surge of anti-Islamic
prejudice would render Muslim identity unsustainable. Garnett mentions a
moment at which the Lamb intimated that the community must pursue a

The Pyramidal Kaʿba ◆ 191

non-Muslim future for its survival: “He’d called a meeting and asked us to come
up with ideas on what kind of clothing we wanted to start wearing. He said
we’d eventually end up being targeted if we didn’t start to appear more west-
ern. He told us that the world would eventually start to target Muslims and it
was imperative that we not be associated with anything related to Islam.”22
While Garnett writes as an attritioned former member, her account is
corroborated by the community’s narrative. A 1993 pamphlet explains that a
year earlier in the Catskills, the Lamb “predicted we would stop living the life of
a Muslim,” promising that Islam would soon come to be associated with violent
extremism and that “your so-called Arab brothers are leading you down the
road of destruction. . . . So to all of you Siraj Wahhaj’s and Louis Farrakhan’s
you better disassociate yourselves with these Arabs or you will just be another
thing of the past.”23
Around the same time that Al Mahdi battled local adversaries in Blackamer-
ican Islam, links to his metaphysical Africa’s Islamic center began to break down.
Philips’s Ansar Cult included a statement from Muhammad Ahmad’s grand-
son, Is-haaq Khaleefah, who had met Al Mahdi in the Sudan in 1973, attesting
that Al Mahdi’s claim of Mahdiyya lineage was a complete fraud.24 Meanwhile,
Al Mahdi’s dream of the Sudan as an Afrocentric alternative to Saudi-centered
Sunni revivalism—briefly rejuvenated with the return of his alleged cousin
Sadiq al-Mahdi to power in 1986—disintegrated with a 1989 Islamist military
coup. The new government, led by ‘Umar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir, with Hasan
al-Turabi as its ideological architect, envisioned itself as the vanguard of a new
global pan-Islamism and aspired to a pure Islamic state, which included the
criminalization of apostasy and the persecution of non-Muslim minorities.25
By 1993, Al Mahdi had returned to his birth name (York) and severed what
had been his primary tether to transnational Muslim networks, condemning
the Sudan’s economic and ideological relationships to Saudi Arabia: “We don’t
want any association, in any form or fashion with the so-called Muslim world,
not even with our own brothers of Sudan! Many of the Mahdiyya are begin-
ning to surrender to the Islamic world for money.”26 In 1996, after a Maryland
group called Majma Al-Bahrayn circulated flyers that identified Sadiq al-Mahdi
as the true imam of the Ansar against “those who misuse and misrepresent
Islam,” York blamed Sadiq for the Ansar’s decline in the Sudan, even attribut-
ing Al-Hadi’s assassination to Sadiq’s founding of the Umma Party in the 1970s
(the party had actually been established by Sadiq’s grandfather, ʿAbd ar-Rah-
man, in the 1940s). York deflects questions of his Mahdiyya credentials with
the implication of a greater claim: “We Don’t Need . . . Any Ties To Sudan Or

192 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

The Mahdi Family. Our Facts Stand For Themselves. I Am Linked To The Stars
And beyond.”27

Becoming Nuwaubian
From its new 476-acre commune in Eatonton, the community produced a
stream of pamphlets that placed increasing emphasis on Christ’s imminent
return for the chosen 144,000 and York’s pivotal role in that event—a prom-
inent theme of earlier AAC/NIH works such as Christ Is the Answer (1977)
and I Don’t Claim to Be . . . (1981), in which he rejects accusations that he
had personally identified himself as Christ. In his new pamphlets, the Lamb
treats Islam as a wayward Christian sect, calls on Muslims to recognize Christ
as Allah’s son (“not by conception, but by spirit”),28 imagines Christ return-
ing with twelve spaceships from the Mothership Nibiru (the “Crystal City”
of Revelation 21:10–11),29 identifies himself as the reverend and founder of an
“Egiptian Church of Karast,”30 and presents ancient Egyptian and Sumerian
systems as the obscured roots of biblical and Islamic traditions. Resonant with
the community’s shifts at Mount Zion, pamphlets increasingly targeted vari-
ous Black Hebraisms, as in 360 Questions to Ask the Israeli Church, 360 Questions
to Ask a Hebrew Israelite, and Is Haile Selassie the Christ? (1994). Mirroring his
Muslim genealogy as the twelve-year-old mentored by Daoud Faisal in Brook-
lyn, he claimed to have received his bar mitzvah with Rabbi Wentworth Arthur
Matthew in Harlem at age thirteen.31
Early pamphlets from Georgia identified the community as Holy Taberna-
cle Ministries and presented its new symbol as a crown topped by the familiar
upright crescent and six-pointed star (the star now containing an Egyptian
ankh) (fig. 30). On the front of the crown appears a subtle huwa, the Arabic
masculine pronoun, in Nubic script. The origins of the star and crescent were
now traced to images of ancient Egyptian deities such as Isis, Hathor, and
Djehuti/Thoth, and the huwa became a reference to the Egyptian god Hu,
representing “the creative force of will,” the divine presence, and “the love of
our people the Nuwaubian race.” The symbol also appears with a new version
in which the crescent points downward and is accompanied by Zulfikar, the
famous double-bladed sword of ‘Ali. This redesigned emblem “symbolizes the
teeth of the noble african lion, who roams the jungle of mother Africa, as the
king, proudly dominating his crown.”32
As noted above, Al Mahdi changed his own name, becoming Dr. Malachi
Z. York, sometimes presented as Malachi Zodok York-El or Malachizodok-El.

The Pyramidal Kaʿba ◆ 193

Figure 30 “The Savior,” Dr. Malachi Z. York, 1993.

The new name was not entirely new: as we shall see in the next chapter, York
had maintained a well-known double life since the late 1970s as simultaneously
Al Imaam Isa Al Haadi Al Mahdi and aspiring R&B singer-producer-mogul
“Dr. York.”
Upon their arrival in Georgia, community members briefly adopted a
dress code that included cowboy hats, cowboy boots, large belt buckles, and

194 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

blue jeans. The dominant visual presentations and visual culture, however,
increasingly drew from Egyptosophy. York named his commune Tama Re and
ornamented it with ritual spaces that emphasized pharaonic glories, includ-
ing sphinxes, a large image of Jesus in a Plains Indian war bonnet crucified
on an ankh, and multiple pyramids, including a central black structure with
gold trim that could look to Muslim eyes like a pyramidal Kaʿba. Commu-
nity literature explains that the pyramids were constructed for “connection
with our spiritual elders through meditation,” but also as “preparation for the
alignment of the inner planets which according to scientific calendars is to
take place May 5, 2000.”33 Framing Tama Re as his “Egypt in the West,” York
declared, “We no longer need those pyramids out there where them Pale Arabs
are at, that dry desert. We don’t belong out there.”34 He prescribed specific acts
for pilgrimage to Tama Re, including instructions for recitations in his new
Arabic-derived language, Nuwaupic; bathing (ghasul); fasting (el saawum);
and ritual movements around the pyramids.35 In a departure from earlier liter-
ature, York identifies various Muslim practices as plagiarisms from pharaonic
Egypt: using ancient art as evidence, he argues that the hijab and the fez were
inspired by Egyptian queens36 and kings,37 and that the pharaoh Amenemhat
III had erected a large granite cube for worship to the sun god Amun, which
influenced Muslim veneration of the Kaʿba.38 Even the Qurʾan “supposedly
revealed to Muhammad” amounted to Gabriel’s sharing scriptures that were
already written by the Neteraat,39 and York’s career as a Muslim leader amounted
to just one station on his followers’ path to divine neter status.40
York’s material from the 1990s onward elaborated his 1983 claim to serve
as corporeal vessel for transcendent masters. Of these “avatars,” he increasingly
identified with “the Green One,” Khidr/Melchizedek,41 as well as with Yanaan,
who had come from the eighth galaxy. He sometimes referred to his extrater-
restrial identity with coy intimations. In 1991’s Book of the Five Percenters, when
acknowledging Elijah Muhammad’s vision of the Mothership’s pilots as having
large heads and slanted eyes, he identifies them as extraterrestrials and says,
“Of course all of us don’t look like this.”42 After the migration to Georgia, York
revised and developed his extraterrestrial narrative, naming Yanaan/Yaanuwn’s
galaxy (now the nineteenth galaxy, not the eighth) as Illyuwn (recalling ‘Illiyun,
mentioned in the Qurʾan 83:18–21 as a place in paradise where the records of
the righteous are held) and designating his home planet Rizq (from the Arabic
word for provision, which appears more than fifty times in the Qurʾan).
While York turned up his Egyptosophic and extraterrestrial dials, he also
added entirely new dials to his discursive control panel. These new resources

The Pyramidal Kaʿba ◆ 195

include the pantheons and mythologies of ancient Sumerian civilizations as
presented through the lens of “ancient astronauts” theorist Zecharia Sitchin,
who argued that alien “gods” came to earth from an undiscovered “Planet X”
(Nibiru) and attributed humanity’s development to their intervention as genetic
engineers.43 In his reading of Sumerian pantheons, York understands Anu as
Allah, Marduk as Khidr/Melchizedek, and the Anunnaqi deities as extrater-
restrials equivalent to the “angelic beings,” the Eloheem. York also claims this
status for himself: “I, yaanuwn, Am An annunaqi Or What You Would Call an
Extra-Terrestrial . . . What You Call An Angelic Being, An Eloheem,” who arrived
in human form to save “The Children Of The eloheem (anunnaqi), The
Banaat . . . The Chosen 144,000.”44 While York’s Sumerian material is uniquely
post-1993, he had identified himself with the extraterrestrial Yanaan/Yaanuwn
at least a decade earlier, and throughout the 1980s had developed his ideas of
angels as intergalactic travelers from whom some humans were descended.45
York’s elaborations on “ancient astronaut” themes overlap with the “reptoid
thesis” of David Icke, who argued that the Anunnaqi engineered the human
race to mine mono-atomic gold. Icke’s “533-page Rosetta stone for conspiracy
junkies,” The Biggest Secret (1999) expresses Icke’s “totalizing ambition to weave
numerous sub-theories into an extraordinary narrative that is both all-inclu-
sive and all-accounting.” Icke racializes his narrative of alien lizard imperialism:
Icke’s Anunnaqi (or Anunnaki), having created human beings to work as mining
slaves, then produced the “super-hybrid” Aryan peoples to rule humanity on
the Anunnaqi’s behalf. A “Babylonian Brotherhood” of Aryan lizard overseers,
more popularly known as the Illuminati, have reigned across human history
from the pharaohs to modern presidents and prime ministers, and are respon-
sible for the wars, oppression, authoritarianism, and ideologies of racism that
have plagued the species.46 To more effectively control human societies and
serve the interests of their Anunnaqi lords, the Illuminati have also produced
and promoted the false religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.47 York’s
own intergalactic mythology departs from the Sitchin/Icke construction in that
it does not read the Anunnaqi as oppressive alien imperialists but as benevolent
angelic forces, and offers a theodicy rooted in the earlier AAC/NIH demon-
ology of two hundred fallen angels descending to earth.48
In works such as The Melanin-ite Children (1995), York provides detailed
intergalactic genealogies of various races and species and their respective habitats
(including communities under the earth’s surface in Shamballah, a popular theme
in Western occult literature). His narrative of human origins reads as an Afro-
centric reworking of these “ancient astronauts” narratives. He also incorporates

196 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

popular melanin theories that had spawned a “small publishing industry” of
Afrocentrist writers, including Frances Cress Welsing, who envisioned mela-
nin-loaded pineal glands as the reason why the Dogon could access vibrations
from Sirius B and thereby obtain their advanced astronomical knowledge.49 In
his own melanin theory, York asserts that Nubians received abundant melanin
from the Anunnaqi, in whose likeness they were created.50 Returning to his AAC/
NIH writings on Amorites, York writes that white people fell into their animalis-
tic condition thanks to the impact of the mountain climate on their iodine levels,
which deprived them of melanin, causing their mental instability.51 York’s account
of white racial origins, while preserving and revising his earlier “cursed seed of
Canaan” narrative, also speaks to the Nation of Islam in new ways; in addition
to Amorites, York now writes of Flugelrods, a subterranean species grafted by
Yaaquub, who became the ancestors of modern Nordic peoples.52
Nubian spirituality remains biologically advantaged. “You Are The Original
Descendants Of The wooly-haired beings, The Deities Bearing Nine Ether,”
he writes in The Melanin-ite Children, “the anunnaqi, eloheem Who In Our
Cream History Were Created 76 Trillion Years Ago By Etherians, Coming By
Way Of Nibiru, From The 8th Planet rizq, Of The 19th Galaxy illyuwn.”53
He scolds his readers for the internalized oppression that causes them to hate
the way they look: because they were created in the image of the Anunnaqi/
Eloheem, who themselves have “9 Ether hair” (in contrast to the “6 Ether” hair
of white people), this amounts to hatred of the gods.54
Despite these divine origins, Nubians lost their Barathary gland, a pea-sized
gland in the hippocampus that enabled telepathy, clairvoyance, intuition, and
psychometry, meaning that they can no longer communicate with the Anun-
naqi.55 York’s brain was repaired for his mission; while still in the womb, his
body underwent neurological modifications to enable an “intellect higher than
other normal Earth Beings who have had their Barathary Glands removed.”56
The radio silence between Nubians and their extraterrestrial ancestors/creators,
a “spell” lasting six thousand years, is to be broken by York via a process that
will start in the year 2000. In the year 2030, the spacecraft Nibiru will dispatch
its smaller “sham” ships to earth to retrieve the 144,000 “worthy passengers,”
whose Barathary glands will be restored.57
York’s ostensible departure from Islam and embrace of extraterrestrial
mythologies does not mean that he erased his Islamic archive; rather, he locates
Sumerian pantheons and “ancient astronauts” narratives within the Qurʾan.
According to York, humanity’s origin from angelic alien scientists is the secret
of the very first verse that Muhammad received (96:1, which becomes 1:1 in

The Pyramidal Kaʿba ◆ 197

York’s chronological arrangement of the Qurʾan). The verse commands, “Recite
in the name of your lord who created”; for York, “your lord” (rabbuka) is not
Allah/Anu, but rather Allah/Anu’s son Enqi, who is responsible for the genetic
engineering of humanity.58 The angels’ objection to Adam’s creation in 2:30
(8:30 in York’s order), their questioning whether Allah would create one who
causes mischief and bloodshed on the earth, becomes a debate between Enqi
(“your lord”) and the “angelic messengers,” identified as Eloheem/Anunnaqi.59
To read York’s trajectory as moving between separate discursive matrices
of “Islam” and “UFO religion” neglects not only the connections within his
thought but also the ways in which UFO narratives were established as Islamic
resources prior to York’s project and among his contemporaries. Spaceships visit-
ing earth were already thinkable as Islamic, constructed as such most famously
in Elijah Muhammad’s Mothership and Louis Farrakhan’s account of his vision-
ary ascension aboard the Mothership in 1985.60 UFO themes also appeared in
the Hebrew Israelite discourses of Yahweh Ben Yahweh, whose biblical exege-
sis argued that God traveled in spaceships,61 and who included images of flying
saucers in his illustrated Bible and in the murals on his Nation of Yahweh temple
walls. Between the Nation of Islam and the Nation of Yahweh, York would have
been an outlier had he not adopted UFO narratives. York’s exegesis of Revela-
tion reads the “New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven” in 21:2
as a “Mothership.” He repeats Elijah Muhammad’s view of the Mothership as
a carrier for smaller vehicles: “Nibiru holds 2,088 shams, which are passenger
crafts, that can hold 50 passenger crafts each totaling 144,000; these are those
prepared just like a bride adorned for her mate.” York identifies this Mothership
as “the same craft that Muhammad was taken up in a craft called a Buraaq.”62
Nation sources report that Farrakhan boarded the Mothership in 1985
while visiting the ruins of an Aztec temple dedicated to feathered serpent-god
Quetzlcoatl in Tepoztlan, Mexico. The location was neither random nor insig-
nificant. “For Farrakhan,” writes Michael Lieb, “Quetzlcoatl is a very important
figure” with whom Farrakhan partially identifies; Farrakhan’s narration of his
ascension also presents Elijah Muhammad’s inclusion of the Aztecs in his vision
of Blackness. The Aztecs were “dark-skinned beings, pyramid builders: our
ancient forefathers.”63 Shortly after Farrakhan’s vision, his Final Call newspa-
per included an editorial from Wauneta Lone Wolf titled “The Mothership
on Big Mountain,” which reads Hopi traditions through a lens informed by
the Mothership narrative. Lone Wolf interprets petroglyphs to signify flying
saucers, claims that the Hopi have “called down” UFOs, and recalls a personal
communication that she experienced with the Mothership.64

198 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

 From the early 1990s onward, York took a growing interest in the indig-
enous peoples of the Americas. A 1991 pamphlet refers to a forthcoming Al
Mahdi volume, History of the Black Indians, promising to demonstrate “how
the Native Americans (Indians) and Nubians (Blacks) are one and the same
family of the tribe of the Prophet Abraham’s covenant.” It was also in 1991,
around the start of what is typically termed his “Jewish period,” that Al Mahdi
first modified his family tree to claim descent from Ben York (1779–1893), “a
Nubian slave who mixed with the Seminole Indians” and guided the Lewis
and Clark expeditions.65
Newsletters from 1997 assert that York’s mother, Mary C. Williams, was
the daughter of an “Egyptian Moor who wore a fez” and was descended from
Yamassee, Massachuset, and Moorish heritages. Through his maternal grand-
mother, York then traces his descent to Ben York (a.k.a. Ibn Ali), whom he depicts
as both Native American (Yamassee) and Moorish. Ben York was in turn the
son of “Old York,” Yusef Ben Ali (1756–1861), a “Malian Moor” who came to the
Americas on a slave ship. York clarifies here that Yusef Ben Ali was not himself
a slave but a “crew member and an Arabic translator who spoke 19 languages.”
Yusef Ben Ali was also descended from the Idrisid dynasty, the “first Arab rulers
of the whole of Southern Morocco” and direct descendants of Muhammad’s Ethi-
opian companion, Bilal b. Rabah. In addition, York traces a genealogy for David
P. York, the man named as his father on his birth certificate, identifying David
as another descendant of Old York. However, York does not explicitly concede
that David was his biological father, thus preserving his patrilineal connection
to the Sudanese Mahdiyya.66 Though Mary happened to have married a man
named York, it was from her ancestors that he claims the York name. “The line of
descendancy among American Indians is through the mother,” a community staff
writer explains, “unlike your Biblical and Koranic Beliefs, where it passes through
the father.” For this reason, Malachi York had previously ignored his matrilineal
name, living instead under the name Al Mahdi and the tribal name Dongolawi.
He reclaimed Black Eagle, his matrilineal Native American name, after a chance
encounter with a bald eagle at Jazzir Abba/Mount Zion in the Catskills: “there
was no doubt in his mind that this was a sign from the ancient ones.”67
Dominic Montserrat writes that in the 1990s, “Native American belief
systems compete with Egypt for the title of pre-eminently spiritual.”68 These
competing brands in the New Age marketplace blend seamlessly together within
York’s metaphysical Africa. Since the early 1980s, York had taught that Zoser,
master healer and teacher of Imhotep, was venerated as Quetzlcoatl in the Amer-
icas, and that the elders of Khidr’s order built pyramids all over the world as

The Pyramidal Kaʿba ◆ 199

archives and broadcast towers for advanced global communication. Still writ-
ing as Al Hajj Imam Isa Al Haadi Al Mahdi in 1990’s The Paleman, he explains
that Nubians from the lost city of Atlantis came to South America’s eastern
coastline, commingled with the Edomites (East Asians) there to produce the
“so-called American Indian,” and “influenced the culture of the Inca, Aztec, and
Maya civilizations.”69 York’s Native American discourse speaks from and to a
narrative that had become virtually canonical among Afrocentrist thinkers, in
which ancient Africans had come to the Americas circa 700 bce and influenced
the flowering of Olmec civilization in what is now Mexico. The theory that
ancient Egypt and the Americas shared a mutual heritage, which developed as
an answer to the problem of pyramids on opposite sides of the Atlantic, dates
to the nineteenth century; the argument appears in Ignatius Donnelly’s Atlan-
tis: The Antediluvian World (1882), which still circulates as a prominent New Age
text. Donnelly argued that similarities between ancient civilizations separated by
a vast ocean proved the existence of the lost continent Atlantis. Later literature
argued that ancient Africans did not need a land mass to enable travel between
hemispheres but had in fact crossed the Atlantic nearly two millennia before
Europeans; after them, the next ships to reach the Americas came not from Spain
but from the African Muslim Empire of Mali. Disseminated most widely by Ivan
van Sertima’s They Came Before Columbus (1976), this narrative was endorsed
by such Afrocentrist luminaries as Molefi Asante and Maulana Karenga in the
late 1980s and early 1990s.70 York refers to his followers as Yamassee Indians and
identifies Yamassee as the “tribal name of the Olmecs, the original Nuwbuns
‘African people’ from Nuwba, the original name of ‘Africa.’”71 His metaphysical
Africa thus includes indigenous American cultures and forges a link between
his followers and their adopted home. “When we arrived in Eatonton, Geor-
gia from New York back in 1993 A.D.,” York writes, “many people from town
assumed that we were part of some militant, Islamic organization.”72 Instead,
York says, the Yamassee, who had been “chased off their land” in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries by Spanish and British settlers, were now returning
to their “sacred land.”73 As their leader, York appeared in community newslet-
ters wearing a large Native American war bonnet and seated on a throne that
featured ankhs and his six-pointed star in an upright crescent, identifying him
as “Chief Black Eagle” (fig. 31).74 York presents himself as president of a “Sover-
eign Nation,” the Yamassee Tribe of Native Americans,75 with the power to issue
passports, identification cards, reclamation forms, and birth certificates.76
York’s Yamassee claims place him in a new relationship with questions of
indigenous peoples’ rights and a growing Moorish Science discourse regarding

200 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

Figure 31 York as Chief Black
Eagle, head of the Yamassee
Nation. From York-El, The Consti-
tution of U.N.N.M.: “The United
Nuwaubian Nation of Moors”
(1992).

legal sovereignty, particularly their intersection at claims that Black people

(Moors) are indigenous Americans.77 From the beginnings of Noble Drew Ali’s
prophetic career in Chicago in the 1920s, themes of nationality and citizenship
had been integral to the Moorish Science mission. Incidentally, Moorish Science
legends claimed that Noble Drew Ali was born to a Moroccan father and a Cher-
okee mother, both of whom had joined the teaching circle of famous Muslim
reformer Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani.78 The 1980s saw an important encounter
between these discourses in the Washitaw de Dughdahmoundyah movement,
led by Empress Verdiacee “Tiari” Washitaw-Turner Goston El-Bey and articu-
lated in her Return of the Ancient Ones and in various booklets by Dr. R. A. Umar
Shabazz Bey. According to the Washitaw, the empress remains the rightful owner
of the entire domain covered in the Louisiana Purchase. Washitaw adherents hold
that the Washitaw Muurs [sic] were a “highly civilized society of technically and
spiritually advanced, woolly-haired Blacks who were indigenous (Native) to
North America,” settled in the Americas contemporary to Moses,79 and built pyra-
mids all over the premodern world.80 For evidence of Nile-Mississippi trading
relationships lasting thousands of years, Washitaw point to ancient ceremonial
mounds in Louisiana, the work of their ancestors. Examining the decentraliza-
tion and diversity that characterize Washitaw discourse, Spencer Dew observes
that Washitaw narratives draw from numerous religious orientations, including
Native American spirituality, Christianity, Islam (including Moorish Science),

The Pyramidal Kaʿba ◆ 201

and “ancestor-based spirituality rooted in African symbolism.”81 York endowed
his community’s land in Eatonton with significance through his own Washitaw
Moorish narrative. Moving to Eatonton, home of the Rock Eagle Mound, signi-
fied a move to “our ancestors,” the Washitaw mound builders, who themselves
were descended from the Olmecs and “Malian Moors.”82
York’s Nuwaubian community also developed as an assemblage of Masonic
orders. York established numerous lodges, including the Brotherhood of Imho-
tep, Sacred Society of Anubis; the Daughters of Zoser, Sisters of Isis; the Ancient
Egyptian Order; and the Ancient and Mystic Order of Melchizedek (AMOM),
Lodge 19, which succeeded York’s Islamic lodge. While the AMOM fraternity
was founded in Georgia in 1995, “our spiritual order was incorporated in 1984
A.D. in Brooklyn, New York, as the Universal Order of Love—Sufi Order, Sons
of the Green Light.”83 Rohan suggests in his memoir of his time as a Nuwaub-
ian that Freemasonry was “the last school of thought” that York adopted prior
to his arrest, and that this rebranding was contemporary with York’s move to
Athens, Georgia, to avoid criminal investigations of Tama Re.84
Freemasonry, like other resources that are accentuated or marginalized at
various points, was present in York’s imaginary throughout his work—including
not only his anti-Masonic polemics but also his breakdown of the word “God” as
“Gomar Oz Dubar,” meaning “Wisdom, Strength, Beauty,” derived from Masonic
texts.85 York’s Freemasonry does not exist in an intellectual universe separate from
his Egyptosophy or Islam. Black Freemasonry boasts a long tradition as a lead-
ing force in Black social, political, spiritual, and philosophical uplift, and Black
Freemasons were pioneers in the intellectual reconstruction of African dias-
poric consciousness. Prince Hall (1738?–1807), founder of the African Lodge of
Boston in 1787, creatively reinterpreted Psalms 68:31 (“Princes shall come out of
Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God”), which had previ-
ously been employed to encourage subservience and obedience among slaves,
to call instead for active struggle toward a divinely promised redemption.86 Hall’s
redirection of the verse’s consequences would turn Psalms 68:31 into a powerful
resource—“the most quoted verse in black religious history,” as Albert Raboteau
observes87—for later Ethiopianism and a range of thinkers and communities,
including Ras Tefar I, numerous Muslim writers, and York. Black Freemasons
such as Hall and African Lodge chaplain John Marrant (1755–1791), in arguing for
the legitimacy of Black Freemasonry, challenged and rewrote popular narratives
of the African role in human progress and enlightenment. Contemporary with
the beginnings of Black Freemasonry, discourses tracing Freemasonry’s origins
to Egypt enabled Masonic lodges to become compelling sites for the reclaiming

202 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

of African civilizational legacies, which also opened new windows into biblical
knowledge and the place of Black people in sacred history, as Moses—“edu-
cated in all of the wisdom of the Egyptians” (Acts 7:22)—became a student of
Black knowledge.88 Martin Robison Delany’s Origin and Objects of Ancient Free-
masonry (1853) locates Freemasonry’s beginnings in the “earliest period of the
Egyptian and Ethiopian dynasties,” and asserts that “the Egyptians and Ethi-
opians were the first who came to the conclusion that man was created in the
similitude of God.” For Delany, as Scott Trafton summarizes, “Africa produced
Egypt, Egypt produced Masonic knowledge, and Masonic knowledge produced
the world.”89 Black and white Masonic historiographies, while often overlapping
in their content, thus differed in their consequences. As Maurice O. Wallace
observes, “While white Freemasons have claimed descent from ancient Egyptian
stock and style as consistently as their black counterparts, only those histories
authored by black Freemasons record the ancestral Egyptians as black.”90
The imagined Egypt-Freemasonry linkage was even connected to York’s
Native American discourse; in the Afrocentrist classic Stolen Legacy: The Egyptian
Origins of Western Philosophy (1954), a work called “as much a mystic-ritualistic,
and more specifically Masonic, work as it is an Afrocentric one,”91 George G. M.
James argues that the Grand Lodge of Luxor established branch lodges all over
the ancient world, including lodges “among the American Indians and among
the Mayas, Aztecs and Incas of Mexico.”92 This foundational Afrocentrist work
was among the volumes reprinted by the African Islamic Mission under York’s
brother, Al Imam Obaba Oyo.
By the 1920s and ’30s, which produced Moorish Science and the Nation
of Islam, Black Freemasonry had become the most powerful window through
which many African Americans understood Islam and Muslims. In 1921, Punjabi
Ahmadiyya missionary Muhammad Sadiq sent five hundred letters to Masonic
lodges across the country, inviting them to Islam. The next year, Abdul Hamid
Suleiman reached out to the “Black Shriners” (Ancient Egyptian Arabic Order,
Nobles of the Mystic Shrine), presenting himself as having come from “the city
of Khartum [sic], Sudan, Egypt,” and as “a Mohammadan by birth, Master of the
Koran, having pilgrimaged to Mecca three times and thus become an Eminent
High Priest and head of all Masonic degrees in Mecca, from the first to the nine-
ty-sixth degree.” He invited them to place themselves under the jurisdiction of
a “Mecca-Medina Temple” in Arabia. The Black Shriners declined his offer.93
The significance of Freemasonry for Noble Drew Ali’s Moorish Science
Temple—and as a node in the Moorish Science reading of Egyptosophy as
Islamic—has been extensively documented. Susan Nance, who dismisses Noble

The Pyramidal Kaʿba ◆ 203

Drew Ali’s credentials as a Muslim leader, writes, “Moorish Science is most accu-
rately described as a black Spiritualist-style religion steeped in the philosophies
of mystical Freemasonry.”94 As discussed in the preceding chapter, Noble Drew
Ali’s sources for his own Holy Koran included Unto Thee I Grant, distributed by
the Rosicrucians and attributed to a Tibetan translation of a book by the pharaoh
Akhenaten, “famous in Western mystical and Masonic folklore as the founder of
the first great school of mysticism.”95 For Noble Drew Ali, the mysteries of Free-
masonry, Islam, and pharaonic Egypt would have been inseparably triangulated.
E. D. Beynon, author of the earliest scholarly work on the Nation of Islam,
wrote in the 1930s that Fard’s sources for teaching his followers included numer-
ous books on “Freemasonry and its symbolism.”96 In Nation literature, Islam
is treated as Freemasonry’s guarded secret. Prior to his conversion, Elijah
Muhammad was a Freemason. Writing immediately after Fard’s disappear-
ance in 1934, Elijah upholds Solomon as an exemplar of Islamic knowledge and
charges that Masons have exploited the Solomonic Islamic tradition for their
personal wealth and power: “They changed the name Moslem to Mason and
no one must be called Moslem under the Masonic law until he pays a great sum
of money for the 32nd Degree.”97 Writing in later decades, Elijah declares, “A
Mason cannot be a good Mason unless he knows the Holy Qurʾan and follows
its teaching. This book is the only book that will make a true Mason. . . . I say,
if you are a true Moslem friend, then alright, lets have it in the open and not
in the secret.”98 The Nation’s Supreme Wisdom Lessons seem to refer to Shri-
ners in their discussion of “Muslim Sons” who must add a sword to the flag of
Islam as symbolic of their oath of secrecy.99 Nation tradition also reads Masons
as the “ten percent” mentioned in the Lessons, who actively conceal knowl-
edge of God so as to maintain their control over the 85 percent, the “slaves to
mental death and power.”100 Confronting the historically permeable boundar-
ies between Muslim identity and Masonic initiation, York had devoted some
resources in his AAC/NIH years to highlighting and decoding popular appear-
ances of Masonic symbols (such as the Egyptian pyramid and the all-seeing
eye on one-dollar bills), and to circulating anti-Freemason polemics, such as
his Opening of the Seventh Seal: Secret Societies Unmasked in both its mid-1970s
and 1984 editions. York additionally seeks to decode the apparent references
to Freemasonry in the Supreme Wisdom Lessons.101 These permeable bound-
aries and shared connections to Egyptosophy also enabled York to present his
Masonic lodge as a logical continuation of his Sufi lodge.
As a resource for both the Moorish Science Temple and the Moorish
Zionist Temple, Freemasonry enriched the overlap between York’s archive of

204 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

Blackamerican Islam and his Hebrew commitments. As Freemasonry’s legends
made claims upon the architects of Solomon’s Temple and the pyramids, find-
ing their intersection in Moses as both Hebrew lawgiver-prophet and initiated
student of secret Egyptian knowledge, Freemasons came to imagine themselves
as heirs simultaneously of Israel and Egypt. In a parallel to the significance of
Freemasonry for pioneers of Black Islam, Jacob Dorman observes that “all of
the founders of Black Israelite faiths” in the United States had been Masonic
initiates.102 To the historical triangulation of Islam, ancient Egypt, and Free-
masonry in York’s context, we should add Israel and make a square.
Labeling his assemblage of resources “Nuwaubu” (often written as
Nuwaupu), York renamed his community the United Nuwaubian Nation of
Moors (UNNM). He presents Nuwaubu as an “ancient Nubian word” that he
defines with the Arabic n-w-b root, using Lane’s Arabic-English Lexicon, as “of
color inclining to Black.” York also employs the classical Islamic sciences of
lettrism and numerology (abjad) to break down the Arabic n-w-b root letters
for their numerical values and correspondence to divine attributes: the letter
nun signifies the fiftieth attribute of Allah, Ash Shahiydu, “the Witness”; the
waw signifies the sixth attribute, Al Mu’minu, “the Believer”; the ba signifies
the second attribute, Al Rahiymu, “the Merciful.” With the declaration that
“This Is Supreme Mathematics Unfolding Right In Front Of You,” York then
digit-sums the three letters to get fifty-eight, which leads him to Allah’s fifty-
eighth attribute, Al Mubdiyu, “the Beginner,” signifying Nuwaubu as a point
of renewal in the community’s shared journey.103
The term was not York’s own invention. References to Nuwaupu appear
in a series of pamphlets that appeared under the publisher name “Those Who
Care” between 1966 and 1972, including Bible Interpretations and Explanations,
a two-part booklet by Amunubi Rahkaptah, and The Nine Ball, a four-part
work attributed to Wu Nupu, Asa Nupu, and Naba Nupu (Rahkaptah and two
collaborators). After adopting the name Amunnubi Rooakhptah (with occa-
sional variations in spelling), York would insist that he was in fact the original
Amunubi Rahkaptah and the true author of these works. Rahkaptah, however,
was born Johnnie Eugene Brown in 1926, moved from Savannah, Georgia, to
New York as a young man, and for years operated a novelty store in Brooklyn.104
Writing for the salvation of the Ethiopian race, which appears in these works
as a comprehensive term for all “Wooly-Haired People by Nature,” Rahkaptah
and his coauthors present Nuwaupu as “Ethiopian science” and “the Ethiopian’s
equalizer” against white supremacy on both physical and metaphysical levels.
The pamphlets express themes that would resonate with readers of AAC/NIH

The Pyramidal Kaʿba ◆ 205

literature: a belief that “Wooly-Haired People by Nature” possess a racial predis-
position to spiritual insight and harmony with the universe; white power’s use
of religion as a means of cutting Black people off from consciousness of their
true selves; the narrative, prominent in Nation of Islam tradition, that white
people were allotted six thousand years, a tenure that has expired; advocacy
of “right racism” to prevent racial dilution through intermarriage; the debt of
ancient Greek intellectuals to Egyptian mystery schools; Caucasian persecution
and destruction of ancient Egyptian religion; the connection of transhistorical
white supremacy to the biblical Leviathan; and “Nine Ether.” “The root of the
word Ethiopian is ether,” Rahkaptah explains, “and Ether is the Creative Power
that the Sun and other True Stars produce and emanate. Nine Ether is the celes-
tial origin of all Ethiopians.” Because the term “Ethiopia” had once signified all
of Africa, and the Atlantic Ocean was called the Ethiopian Sea, “Ethiopian is
the best all around name-identification for mentally resurrected Wooly-Haired
People, until Nuwaupu by power of Nine Ether gives us Ethiopians our new-cy-
cle name.”105 Before the Greeks referred to woolly-haired people as Ethiopians,
“we were called nubuns by the Ancients. The words Ethiopian and Nubun are
the same in meaning. They both mean ether—the life-giving, light-giving burn-
ing energies that the Sun produces called prominences and sunshine.”106 It is
difficult to find much evidence of Rahkaptah’s work circulating in Brooklyn or
elsewhere, though in 1974 a Jamaican reggae band or artist curiously performed
under the name Nuwaupu and released a song titled “Marcus Garvey.”107
Having boasted for years of his followers’ superior rigor in the study of the
Arabic language over other Muslim communities, York marked his Nuwaub-
ian era with Nuwaupic, which he presented as an “Egyptian mystery language,”
the “secret tongue of tones” and language of the celestial Neteraat—the deities
known elsewhere as Eloheem, Alihaat, Nephilians, or Anunnaqi—that had
been secretly passed down through the centuries by the Ancient Egiptian
Order.108 Nuwaupic was written in a hieroglyphic script, and the spoken language
was reportedly based on a unique Arabic dialect that young members of the
community had developed among themselves in New York.109 Comparatives
and superlatives appear as Arabic-English hybrids: as the Nuwaupic word for
“big” is kabur, “bigger” becomes akbar, and “biggest” would be kaburist.110
While appropriating the term Nuwaubu/Nuwaupu in the second half of
the 1990s, York presented his Nuwaubian platform not as a traumatic rupture or
sharp turn from what had been his community’s past experience of Muslim life,
but rather as an organic continuation of the AAC/NIH message and the fulfill-
ment of what had always been its mission. AAC/NIH literature had consistently

206 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

reflected upon changes in the community’s dress codes and intellectual activity,
but only after the 1993 migration does York retroactively describe the community
as having passed through a succession of clearly separate Christian, Jewish, and
Islamic schools. He also repositions his post-Islamic African spirituality, placing
it at the beginning of the movement’s history. In Does Dr. Malachi Z. York Try to
Hide The Fact That He Was Imaam Issa?, York writes that he was an Afrocentrist as
far back as the 1960s but felt a need to present his message as Islamic in harmony
with the era’s trends. Even as Islam dominated Afrocentrism, York persisted and
“Wore African Garbs. . . . We Played African Drums And Our Women Wore Afri-
can Clothes, But As The Islaamic Craze Grew, Again I Had ‘To Give You What
You Wanted, So That You Would Learn To Want What I Have To Give.’”111
Relocating Nuwaubu/Nuwaupu at the origins of his mission, York
rebranded himself as Amunnubi Rooakhptah—which, like Black Eagle, supple-
mented rather than replaced his primary identity as Malachi Z. York—and
claimed that he was the same Amunubi Rahkaptah who had written Bible
Interpretations and Explanations (1968) and The Nine Ball (1971).112 Just as W. D.
Muhammad had insisted that movement away from the Nation’s teachings in
favor of “orthodox” Islam had been the master plan of his father and Master
Fard Muhammad all along, York reveals that what appears to be a departure is
in fact a return.

El’s Holy Scriptures

From his earliest published works to the 1993 exodus, York based his author-
ity as a Muslim leader on his mastery of revealed scriptures, emphasizing three
key points: (1) he was the only Muslim intellectual to recognize the Qurʾan’s
command to follow all of the scriptures; (2) he alone possessed the command
of all required languages to translate and interpret the scriptures correctly; and
(3) he had been blessed with “Furqaan,” which Allah had previously given only
to the prophets, apostles, imamate, and the Mahdi, enabling York to “differen-
tiate between the allegorical and decisive portions of the Scriptures.”113 Though
he ostensibly marginalized biblical tradition in favor of Egyptosophy, ancient
Sumerian mythology, Freemasonry, Washitaw Moorish ideology, and UFO reli-
gion, this did not mean that York abandoned more than three decades’ worth
of scriptural exegesis as obsolete. Rather, he continued to present himself as
the master decoder of the texts and as uniquely qualified to recover truth from
revelations that had been polluted and corrupted by human editors, forgers,
plagiarists, and unqualified translators. York’s literature promised to clear a

The Pyramidal Kaʿba ◆ 207

path through the lies and distortions of false religions toward a fuller compre-
hension of the scriptures and their secrets.
In the 1990s, York produced new scriptural translations in attractive hard-
cover volumes: El’s Holy Qurʾaan, El’s Holy Injiyl (the book of Revelation),
El’s Holy Torah, and El’s Holy Tehillim (Zabuwr) (the Psalms). Each volume
includes color images of the prophetic “Receiver” for that particular scripture
(Muhammad; John; Moses, Aaron, and Joshua; David) and names York as “the
Translator,” along with pages for charting one’s personal genealogy, as in family
heirloom Bibles. He followed this template for his translation of the Egyptian
Book of the Dead, again presenting himself as “the Translator” and naming the
text’s “Receiver” as the pharaoh Akhenaten, whom York had recognized as
an Islamic prophet in his Ansar years (fig. 32). In the El scripture series, York
continues to stand as the master teacher who can properly decipher the reve-
lations and expose the false religions that have distorted their meanings.
El’s Holy Injiyl frequently repeats York’s AAC/NIH-era exegetical work, in
terms of both his conceptualization of Christ’s injil,as equivalent to the book of
Revelation, and his commentary on its verses. The woman described in Rev. 12:1,
with “the moon underneath her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars,”
remains Fatima, “symbolic of the re-establishment of Al Islaam in its pristine purity
as was practiced by the Ansaaru Allah Community, then in the world.” Her labor
pains in Rev. 12:2 connect the birth of her sons to the emergence of York’s mission.
In his commentary on Rev. 12:5, York reads the “man child, who was to rule all
nations with a rod of iron,” as the Sudanese Mahdi. Reading Rev. 12:6—“And the
woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that
they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days”—York
returns to his account of Fatima, who fled with her family “from the pale Arabs
of Arabia to Egypt then down to Sudan.”114
El’s Holy Qurʾaan is a difficult text to penetrate, in part because York reorga-
nizes the Qurʾan’s suras into what Rashad Khalifa regarded as the chronological
order of their revelation, rather than their order in the ‘Uthmanic codex.115
York also loads the translated verses with parenthetical explanations, and
terms left untranslated sometimes become new concepts. The sixth verse of
al-Tariq, historically the eighty-sixth sura (twenty-third in El’s Holy Qurʾaan),
for example, could read straightforwardly, “One of soundness, and he rose.” In
El’s Holy Qurʾaan, the verse appears as “The source of strength—(the wisdom
of the Qurʾaan); then He, (Gabriel) took a Faastawa ‘Physical Form From
An Etherian To A Mortal Man’; (Gabriel appeared to Ahmad and taught the
Qurʾaan to him).”116 The sura’s forty-ninth verse, which could read, “And surely,

208 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

Figure 32 Pharaoh Akhenaten, regarded by York as a prophet to whom the Egyptian Book of the Dead
was sent as a revelation. Note the Arabic huwa (“him”) at the top of the image. At Akhenaten’s forehead,
his headdress bears the first half of the Islamic testimony of faith, la ilaha illa Allah (there is no god but
Allah), beneath the familiar crescent and six-pointed star. From York, El Katub Shil el Mawut (The Book of
the Dead): Coming Forth by Day (1990s).

The Pyramidal Kaʿba ◆ 209

he is the lord of Sirius,” undergoes profound elaboration: “And sure, He is the
Rabb ‘Sustainer’ of Al Shi’raa—Sirius (Sirius A Is Called Pototolo ‘Tiny Grain,’
Which Has A Satellite, Sirius B Called White Dwarf; Sirius also called the Dog
Star with an active planet called Nirvana, home of the original Hindu, in the
Canis Major star constellation; the home of the Dogon Star And Nommos).”117
The second verse in the ‘Uthmanic codex’s thirty-fourth sura (fifty-eighth
sura in El’s Holy Qurʾaan)—“He knows what penetrates into the earth and what
emerges from it and what descends from the heaven and what ascends in it;
and he is the merciful, the forgiving”—becomes another portal for York’s extra-
terrestrial narratives: “He (He Not We) knows that which Yaliju ‘Penetrates’
(passes) into the Ard/Qi (crafts that go into Shamballah the Inner World), the
planet ‘Earth’ and that which Yukhruju ‘Comes Out’ of it (crafts that come out
of Shamballah), and that which Yunzilu ‘Comes Down’ from Al-Samaa-i ‘The
Sky’ (crafts that leaves); and He is Al Rahiymu ‘The Most Yielding,’ Al Ghafu-
wru ‘The Forgiving.’”118
York’s introduction to El’s Holy Qurʾaan charges Muslims with corrupt-
ing the revelation by dropping some verses and adding others (partly in their
effort to worship Muhammad as an idol), and with developing schools of gram-
mar and modifying the Arabic script (by, for example, adding dots to letters).
These “demonic strategies” divided the children of Abraham by producing
“Islam” as a separate religion. York maintains that the original Qurʾan remained
with Muhammad’s “true descendants” in the Sudan; while York himself has
access to this original Qurʾan, El’s Holy Qurʾaan is a translation of the popu-
lar corrupted Qurʾan.
Despite his anti-Muslim polemics, York affirms Muhammad’s experience of
revelation, upholds the Qurʾan’s mathematical miracle as presented by Rashad
Khalifa, and contrasts the innocence of true Islam “in its pristine purity” with
the “Pale Arabs Way of Islaam.” He laments that W. D. Muhammad could only
find acceptance from Arabs by saying bad things about his father, while Siraj
Wahhaj “has to talk bad about any other Muslim leader, who doesn’t agree with
Saudi Arabian concepts on racism.” As much as York has distanced himself from
Muslim identity, El’s Holy Qurʾaan remains tethered to its Ansar heritage.
This complex engagement of Islam continues in The Holy Tablets (1996),
York’s original revelation (as marked by York’s portrait on the first page, captioned
“The Receiver” rather than “The Translator”), which has been reproduced in
numerous editions and prompted a variety of study guides and classes to guide
readers through its more than sixteen hundred pages. The text appears in a format
reminiscent of the Bible, printed on scritta paper, the material organized into

210 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

chapters, subchapters (“tablets”), and verses. York acknowledges in his intro-
duction to a revised edition that he has made improvements to the text and
corrected changes made by the Christian printers, who imposed their own
edits. The original text’s references to “Nubians in the Western hemisphere”
thus become “Nuwaubians in the Western hemisphere” in the revised edition.119
While scholarly discussions of Nuwaubu emphasize York’s abandonment of
Islam, The Holy Tablets does not erase Ansar history. Instead, it reflects its AAC/
NIH background in several ways, beginning with its chapter titles, which draw
upon the Arabic vocabulary that had defined not only AAC/NIH media but
the community’s lived experience: the first two chapters, for example, bear
the respective titles “El Khalqu, the Creation” and “El Abd, the Slaves”; the
fourteenth chapter is titled, “Qisa Nuwh, The Story of Noah.” Preserving its
investment in the theological significance of the number nineteen, informed
by Rashad Khalifa’s arguments, the sum of the numbered verses in each “tablet”
equals a multiple of nineteen. Throughout the text, readers encounter narra-
tives and references that could read as “Islamic.” The character of Lucifer/Ibliys,
objecting to the creation of humankind, offers an argument that echoes his words
in the Qurʾan: “How can mortals, created of dust, claim to be a being of superior-
ity and I am created before him, of fire?” Likewise, the angelic beings (Anunnaqi)
ask El Eloh a question that echoes the angels’ concern in the Qurʾan: “Will you
make a mischief maker in it, one who shall shed blood?”120 The second chapter,
“El Abd, the Slaves,” traces a history of Black Islam in the United States through
the twentieth century, providing discussions of Duse Ali (described as a follower
of the Sudanese Ansar), Noble Drew Ali (who “came from Cherokee” and was a
student of Duse Ali) (2.1.3), Elijah Muhammad, Daoud Faisal, Allah (the former
Clarence 13X), and Master Fard Muhammad (depicted here as a Venusian “‘god’
from Saudi Arabia” who sought the lost tribe of Shabazz) (2.1.1–4).
York takes the reader through a series of epic narratives that include space-
ship battles and interstellar genealogies. The Dogon appear as a human-alien
hybrid descended from the Nommos—a reptilian species with “dark green
scaly skin” that fled the Sirius B system after Nibiru drained the star’s energy
and caused it to collapse—and Egyptians who had migrated to Mali (3.5.114–
30). The nineteenth and final chapter of The Holy Tablets (“Al Khidr, Murdoq”)
traces the history of Islam, starting from seventh-century Arabia and culminat-
ing in the AAC/NIH’s trajectory from 1960s Brooklyn through the 1990s and
its collective migration to Georgia. In this “post-Islamic” text, the community
remains deeply invested in Islamic tradition and its own Muslim history. The
chapter’s second tablet initially appears to offer a conventional sira (biography)

The Pyramidal Kaʿba ◆ 211

of the seventh-century Muhammad, starting with an account of the “Army of
the Elephant” that had attempted to destroy the Kaʿba in the year of his birth.
However, the tablet then says that the devil (Shaytaan) had “given birth to his
own prophet Muhammad,” whom the chapter connects to the famed imposter
prophet Musaylimat. This “fake Muhammad” would grow up to establish the
inauthentic religion of “Muhammadism,” characterized by a “corrupted set
of laws called shariya, laws made by man, not found in the real Al Quraan,”
a “system called Fiqh, rules and regulations,” and guidance from “the demon
Al Hadith.” With the help of Khadija’s uncle Waraqa, Musaylimat composed
a false “Koran” and formed a “secret brotherhood,” the Ikhwaani Muslim-
uwn (Muslim Brothers) (19.2.31–71). Repeating and reconstructing popular
anti-Islamic tropes, York asserts that a Jewish-Catholic conspiracy enabled
Musaylimat to produce this false Koran, facilitate the assassination of Muham-
mad by a Jewish woman, and take over the Prophet’s movement, seducing all
of his followers throughout history—with the exception of “Al Mukhlisina, the
Purified Ones,” the Ansaaru Allah, who would emerge as followers of the true
Mahdi in the Sudan, “protected from the touch of this worldwide deception
called Muhammadism.” But the text laments that even the Ansar themselves
would fall, as a “political egotist” in the “bloodline” formed an “Ummah party,”
departed from the original Mahdiyya teachings, and allowed intermarriage
between Ansar and Ikhwaani Muslims (19.2.31–71).
Musaylimat’s fraudulent Koran triumphed with the support of his installed
caliphs Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, and ‘Uthman. The true and original Qurʾan survived
only with Muhammad’s daughter Fatima, who passed the singular handwritten
copy to her husband, ‘Ali, who in turn sent it to Kufa for secret reproduction in
Kufic script. The Fatima codex was then disseminated through Egypt into the
Sudan, “where it was protected and never translated into any foreign language
until now,” with El’s Holy Qurʾaan (19.2.52–66).
Abu Bakr, a “red Arab,” becomes suspect here for arranging a marriage
between Muhammad and his young daughter A’isha. Elsewhere, York suggests
that Abu Bakr was so consumed with taking over Islam that he arranged for
Muhammad to marry his daughter as a child;121 The Holy Tablets asserts that
he set up the marriage to depict Muhammad as a pedophile, and that A’isha
grew up to become a “very disloyal and evil woman” who caused chaos and
brought Muhammad “much unhappiness and unrest” (19.2.157–60). Though
Abu Bakr eventually came to recognize Musaylimat’s threat and ordered his
assassination, Musaylimat’s followers had already won control of Islam. ‘Ali and
his family were slaughtered, “but not before their seed was well planted in the

212 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

Sudan,” eventually giving rise to the Sudanese Mahdi—empowered through
both his biological descent from the ahl al-bayt and his possession of the orig-
inal written copy (mushaf) of the Qurʾan (19.2.67–68).

We are the Ansaaru Allah, the Ahlil Bayt.

This fake Muhammad that is responsible for Islaam as you know it
today,
Be it Sunni, Shiʿite, Ahmadiyya, Wahabbiy, Ikhwaaniy Muslim, Nation
of Islam, World Muslim Community,
And the many other sects that the Prophet Muhammad, peace and
blessings of Allah be upon, said would raise in the last day and oppose
his nation the Ansaaru Allah,
For as the real Qur’aan said: “oh you who are of the Faithful, be
Ansaaru Allah.”
And again it says, “oh you who is of the faithful, if you help Allah, Allah
will help and plant firm your feet.”
They plan a plan and Allah plans a plan,
And Allah is the best of planners. (19.2.74–81)

From there, the nineteenth chapter returns to the familiar theme of Bilal
and his role as a bridge between Israelite and Ishmaelite prophetic traditions.
Bilal’s great-great-grandfather Abdul Uzza was “keeper of the original Torah”;
as a member of Judah, the last remaining Israelite tribe, Bilal became custodian
of the Mihjan. The text also notes that Bilal came from the members of Judah
who would later become the Dongolawi tribe from which Al Mahdi himself
claimed descent. The chapter makes the critical point that when Bilal passed
the scepter to his cousin Muhammad, it did not correspond to a change in
Bilal’s religious identity:

Al Islaam was Bilaal’s way of life.

He was not converted; he was born into the law of Moses,
For as a Judahite of royal bloodline,
He was raised in Mosaic law,
Thus, he was always a Muslim and adhere[d] to Al Islaam.
He did not subtract or add to this divine way of life. (19.3.105–10)

This section seems to have been written in the early 1990s, perhaps speak-
ing to the anxieties of a community amid changes in its names, practices, and

The Pyramidal Kaʿba ◆ 213

aesthetics. Furthermore, while the 1996 edition of the book is attributed to
Malachi Z. York, this chapter refers to York as Rabboni Y’shua Bar El Haady
(19.6.60), perhaps pointing to 1992–93 as its time of composition.
Amid markers of the “Jewish period,” the chapter also identifies the
community as the Ancient and Mystic Order of Melchizedek (AMOM), which
is described here as a Sufi order (19.6.311–21). York’s treatment of Sufism remains
consistent throughout the community’s history. According to the nineteenth
chapter, York began publishing material in the late 1960s under the name Amun-
nubi Rooakhptah, “an unknown writer in the science of Nuwaubu,” and soon
took on his identity as Imaam Isa thanks to Islam’s prominence in Black polit-
ical and religious consciousness in the 1960s (19.6.219–23). The chapter traces
the progression from Ansaar Pure Sufi (1967) to the Nubian Islaamic Hebrews
(1969) and York’s journeys through the 1970s, walking the streets of New York
and other cities, he writes, “as I propagated Sufi Islaam.” He provides details
of the clothing that community members wore in various periods (“Our code
of dress changed from time to time, to suit the time we were in”) and the
sequence of addresses at which they established headquarters (19.6.225–78).
As Ansar, community members adhered to strict dress codes of turbans, thobes,
and khimars, lived in accordance with the Qurʾan, and raised their children to
master classical Arabic. However, the outward performance of Islam proved
inadequate to the mission:

Our children were raised speaking fluent classical Arabic, reading the
Qur’aan in Arabic,
Yet the Qur’aan is a fourteen hundred year old book,
And Islam is a fourteen hundred year old religion the way they practiced
it.
And was doing absolutely nothing to change the condition of the Nubian
in the Western hemisphere.
They may put on a taggiyah, grow a beard, or shave their beard, put on
oils from the east or robes from the east, prayer beads in their hands,
And carry an English translation of the Qur’aan but the condition and
state of mind did not change. (19.6.293–98)

At this point in the text, lamenting the damage done by “false teachings of
the so-called Arabs who deliberately mistranslated verses of the Qur’aan,” York
proclaims, “it is my job to reform all the false teachings that had been taught to
Nubians in the west and restore Islaam to its pristine purity” (19.6.299–300).

214 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

He then describes a period in which the community relocated to its Jazzir
Abba camp in the Catskills, during which time he subjected followers to “the
nineteen tests of nineteen weeks,” followed by their collective migration “to
the Mecca of Nubians, Georgia” (19.6.302–4). Nearing its final pages, The Holy
Tablets presents the community as having undergone a progressive evolution
and completed a “full circle” return to its roots: the community began as Ansaar
Pure Sufi, “and so we are at the beginning again with Sufi and fezzes. Only now
we are Sufi under the A.M.O.M. the Ancient Mystic Order of Malchizedek”
(19.6.321). The Holy Tablets claims Sufism as both the community’s past and
its future, and Islam as simultaneously a master teacher’s pedagogical strategy
to reach his students and a corrupted tradition that he will restore to its “pris-
tine purity.”

Islam and Metaphysical Africa: Renewing the Lessons

While York expressed disillusionment with the condition of Mahdism in the
contemporary Sudan and modified his family tree, he also preserved his status
as the Mahdi’s great-grandson. It was through his connection to the Mahdi,
now termed “Mahdi of the East,” that York elevated his own position to the
“One and Only Mahdi of the West.” He published a Nuwaubian edition of
the Ratib, the Mahdi’s prayer book, titled The Raatib for Shriners, in which he
reframes the text, the Mahdiyya tradition, and his own authorization from it
in terms of Freemasonry. The advertisements in the back of the book focus
on Freemasonry-related materials, including The Secret Rituals of the Sisters of
Fatimah (Lady Shriners) and The Noble Koran for Shriners, a translation of the
Qurʾan that promises to demonstrate that the Qurʾan recognizes Jesus as the
son of God and that “Islam is really a form of Christianity. All true Christians
are Muslims and all true Muslims are Christians.”
The Raatib for Shriners names York as “The Translator,” the Prophet as “The
Inspirer,” and Muhammad Ahmad as “The Inscriber.” York introduces the text
with an elaborate account of his initiation at the junction of the Niles. While
studying at the University of Khartoum, he says, he received a visit from Khidr,
who revealed that York would become his vessel to communicate a “message
of the green light” and intervene for “lost sheep of the House of Israel.” Khidr
explained that York would be summoned back to the Sudan when the time
came for his initiation. Khidr then referred York to the verses in the Qurʾan
detailing Khidr’s encounter with Moses (“in Chapter 69, which was changed
to Chapter 18 verses 60–82”).122

The Pyramidal Kaʿba ◆ 215

 It was in 1973 that York received the call. “I knew then,” he writes in The
Raatib for Shriners, that “I was not always to be a Muslim, but it was just one
degree in my studies” (16). He returned to the Sudan and journeyed to the
Grand Temple in Khartoum, the “Grand Lodge in true Egypt,” where he
encountered the “Grand Master Mahmuwd.” York is thus faithful to his earlier
narrative about obtaining Islamic credentials in the Sudan—in texts from
the 1970s and ’80s, Mahmuwd is described as imam at the Great Masjid in
Khartoum and is credited with teaching York the fiqh of ritual prayer—while
rewriting it in Masonic terms.123 Mahmuwd belonged to the “final part of the
three letters miyms (‫ )م م م‬of the name Muhammad,” the first being prepro-
phetic Ahmad, followed by the Prophet, followed in turn by “Mahmuwd in
the end.” Mahmuwd took York through “a whirlpool of information, a rain-
bow of colors, a spectrum of light and octaves of sound. He filled my soul
with so much information. . . . Once I was cleansed, I felt as if I were 7 feet
tall” (18).
This experience did not complete his training. York then traveled to the
junction of the two Niles, where he observed small huts “used by mystics for
Khalwa or initiation” (20). A man appeared and told York to take one step; York
complied and suddenly found himself standing before a beautiful temple with
marble floors and a long hallway of doors. His guide led him down a “majes-
tic corridor” to a door that opened into a huge room. “The walls of the room
were white and they appeared to emit a soft flowing light,” York writes. “The
room was bare, except for twelve rugs, which were arranged in such a manner
that they formed a large circle. In the center of the circle were three rugs.” York
was told to sit on the middle rug in the center of the circle. Then Khidr materi-
alized and faced him, followed by other men who materialized and introduced
themselves, each occupying a rug. The final rugs at York’s left and right were
occupied by his great-grandfather, the Mahdi (Aluhum Al Mahdi Zodoq), and
his distant ancestor, the Prophet (Aluhum Muhammad Zodoq), emanating
scents of musk and rose, respectively (20–22).
Each man’s forehead emitted a light beam of a unique color: “All around
my body I could feel this energy surging through my being” (22). After the
initiation, Mahmuwd signaled to the heavens, where York witnessed a lotus
with a seven-pointed star in a crescent moon, the star containing an inverted
heart and the Arabic huwa, the symbol surrounded by a “green light waver-
ing brighter and brighter against the dark violet hue of the sky.” The symbol,
Mahmuwd explained, would represent the Sufi order, Sons of the Green Light,
for which York would serve as the Qutb (Axis) (22–23).

216 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

 York then ventured to Egypt for another initiation, “the test of men,” at
the Great Pyramid of Giza. York entered into a room and immediately heard
a voice announce, “You have now failed the first test.” York asked, “What do
we do now?” and was then told that he had failed the second test. As a wall
appeared in front of him, York was told, “All that you seek to know, and will ever
need to know about man, is on the other side of this wall.” When York asked
how he could reach the other side, the voice told him, “You have failed the
third test.” York’s choices repeatedly resulted in failure until he found a “speck
of light” and ran to it until he found himself outside the pyramid. The Master
told him, “you failed the seventh test. . . . In failing the seventh test, you have
passed the first test, for you now know what it feels like to be a man” (25–26).
Writing as both the “third Khalifah,” after his father Al Haadi and grand-
father Abdur Rahman, succeeding his great-grandfather as “Grand Mufti of
world-wide Shrinedom,” York offers his great-grandfather’s Islamic prayer book
as a spiritual manual for Freemasons and Shriners (49). He traces the Shri-
ners’ origins to Sufis under the leadership of Bilal, who led their flight out of
Arabia during the oppressive regime of Abu Bakr. While the Prophet’s family
fled into the Sudan and became the Dongolawi tribe, the Sufi-Shriners moved
across northern Africa and settled in the Moroccan city of Fez. Their order
spread across Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Ethiopia, and even to Spain and
France, where “Euro-Shriners gradually transformed into a pseudo-Christian
sect after pressures in Christian countries that called them a Muslim cult” (58).
Later Europeans who observed Sufi practices would form various brother-
hoods and lodges as their own distorted imitations (59–60). When Shriners
reached the Sudan in the nineteenth century as a result of the Turko-Egyp-
tian occupation, they formed the Khalwatiyya order. A Khalwatiyya dervish
named As-Sammani then formed the suborder from which the Mahdi arose
(61–62). In answer to the question “Why isn’t The Mahdi of the East recog-
nized by Muslims around the world?” York explains that the Mahdi would
have been recognized if he were a white man, but to revere a Black man as the
Mahdi would “lower the Indo Arab’s superiority in the Islaamic world . . . they
can’t lower their pride to obey one who they’ve been calling a slave” (69–70).
Even if no longer a self-identified Muslim, York remained “Mahdi in the
West,” the prophetic conclusion to Black Islam and master of its sacred sources.
York’s Nuwaubian-era discourse presented Black Muslim leaders as steps on a
ladder that set the stage for York’s mission. Consistent with York’s pre-Nuwaub-
ian treatments of Black Islamic histories, Nuwaubu appears in this literature as
the transcendent post-Islamic culmination of Black Islam, as well as an umbrella

The Pyramidal Kaʿba ◆ 217

tradition in which Moorish Science Temple members, Nation members, and
Five Percenters could all find their familiar symbols, figures, and texts.
Some of the most notable artifacts from this project were York’s publica-
tions of other communities’ sources. He produced his own reprint of Noble
Drew Ali’s Holy Koran, along with The Problem Book, a Nation of Islam text
that became particularly important to Five Percenters. Both publications are
attractively produced, with imitation-leather covers that display their respective
communities’ symbols: the “circle 7” and Moroccan flag for The Holy Koran,
the Five Percenters’ Universal Flag for The Problem Book. They are higher-qual-
ity products than any produced at the time by the Moorish Science Temple of
America (MSTA) or the Five Percenters, and York presented them as benev-
olent acts; as his preface to The Holy Koran states, he printed the edition with
cooperation from an MSTA member “in an effort to further uplift my Moor-
ish American brothers and sisters who continue their spread of truth and
unity amongst my Nubian brothers and sisters.”124 Inside these books, one
finds full-color images of the community leaders (Noble Drew Ali and Allah)
and of York himself. Nuwaubian publications advertising these texts offer them
free to members of the respective communities: The Holy Koran costs $15 for
non-Moors, but MSTA members can receive it just by sending York a copy of
their MSTA credentials.125
York continued to engage in polemics against other Muslim communities.
He published Shaikh Daoud vs. W. D. Fard, which returns to his narrative of
multiple Fards and withdraws his apology to the Nation on the grounds that
he had received his earlier information on Fard from Faisal, and that he has
since confirmed Faisal’s account. In Shaikh Daoud vs. W. D. Fard, Faisal takes an
expanded role in the story; Al Mahdi asserts that while Elijah Muhammad had
known only the imposter Fard, Faisal knew both men. Faisal had met Abdul
Wali Farrad Muhammad Ali at a Moorish Science assembly in New Jersey, and
decades later encountered Wallace Dodd Ford, who appeared at State Street
Mosque while claiming Ali’s identity. Having known the true Fard, Faisal was
not fooled. Faisal also understood that Ford was not only a communist and
U.S. agent who had been sent to sabotage the Black freedom struggle, but that
he was also working as a double agent on behalf of the Nazis to destroy Islam
in America.126
Despite his conspiracy theories regarding Fard Muhammad, his rejection
of W. D. Muhammad, and his intensifying hostility toward Louis Farrakhan,
York’s Nuwaubian-era writings maintain affection for Elijah Muhammad. In The
Holy Tablets, York proclaims that Elijah Muhammad was the third incarnation of

218 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

Elijah—the first having been Elijah the Tishbite, the second, John the Baptist—
sent to prepare the world for York’s own arrival as Malachi and making explicit
the biblical parallels that he had implied since the late 1970s (19.6.177–82). York
disseminated small booklets of transcribed Elijah Muhammad sermons, bear-
ing Elijah’s photo on the covers.127 And he continued to treat the Nation as a
primary interlocutor. In 1996 he published Post Graduate: The Renewal of the
Lessons, in which he offered an extensive commentary on the Nation’s initia-
tory text.
The text of The Holy Tablets itself, while signifying a graduation from Islam,
also represents the fulfilled promise of Elijah Muhammad. York reminds read-
ers in a 1996 pamphlet that Elijah had spoken of a future scripture that would
replace both the Bible and the Qurʾan. Drawing from the Supreme Wisdom
Lessons, York declares that the arrival of Elijah Muhammad signaled Islam’s
expiration at the end of a twenty-five-thousand-year cycle, requiring its renewal.
“Elijah Muhammad Upgraded The Outdated Teachings of Orthodox Islam
To Suit What He Referred To As The ‘Lost-Found’ Which Are The Nubians,”
York writes. “We Are The Re-Newers Of That History.” With the publication
of The Holy Tablets in 1996, Elijah’s promise of a future book was fulfilled.
York thus offers an alternative “second resurrection” to that of rival mujaddid
W. D. Muhammad, calling “For All Of True Followers Of The Honorable Elijah
Muhammad To Come Under Nuwaubu.”128

Conclusions
“Islam is poison to your body, heart and soul,” York writes in a Nuwaubian
pamphlet. “It is made up of stuff which Desert Arabs borrowed, added to and
took away from us, as the Nuwbuns who are the true Egyptians and Olmec.”129
But even in his most virulent “post-Islamic” writing, York still presents himself
as a restorer of Islam in its “pristine purity,” a phrase that he had used since the
early 1970s. In spite of and apart from the “poison” of historical Islamic tradi-
tion, something remains real. As evidence that Islam had become uniquely
oppressive against women, he presents Fatima as a genuine “messiah” figure, a
master teacher and healer whose miracles were erased by Muslim tradition.130
While he refutes Nation of Islam doctrines, he does so as Elijah Muhammad’s
true heir, who can communicate with Elijah in his dreams, and he still claims
guidance from the Sudanese Mahdi and the Prophet via transcendent visions.
In his Sacred Records of Neter: Aaferti Atum-Re (1998), he still self-identifies as
Al Qutb, “spiritual guide of the pure Sufi.”131

The Pyramidal Kaʿba ◆ 219

 The Holy Tablets depicts York’s journey as coming full circle to end where
it started, as a teacher of Sufism wearing a fez. For all of its ruptures, Nuwaubu
also represents continuity. It may be tempting to imagine Nuwaubu as a gnos-
tic trickster’s exercise in postmodernist challenges to rationality, but these
are not the terms in which York authorizes his claims. In her discussion of
York’s presentation style, Susan Palmer writes, “His discourse is riveting—
but not what one might expect from a conventional religious leader. He does
not formulate doctrines, relate moral parables or explain ideas in a coherent
fashion. Rather, he shakes the very foundations of belief.”132 Palmer’s analysis
of York as a charismatic clown and his followers as embracing him without
concern for what he actually says is belied by accounts that she provides—
both from her own interviews and from Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips’s earlier
work—of community members who were attracted to the rationally compel-
ling arguments they found in York’s writings.133 York did of course “formulate
doctrines”; he did not “shake the very foundations of belief ” but rather made
assertions of fact and provided evidence that persuaded many readers to believe
his arguments and purchase more of his work, endeavor to convince others of
his claims, and sometimes even dedicate their lives to his mission.
The community’s literature maintains that its master teacher holds the
key to distinguishing absolute truth from subjective falsehood. The Nuwaub-
ian publishing industry takes it as a given that scriptures exist to convey real
meanings, and that scriptural exegetes’ claims on those meanings can be proved
factually correct or incorrect through philology and hard science. There’s noth-
ing “postmodernist” about that. My point is not to suggest that the entirety of
York’s written output “really” holds together perfectly or that his vast corpus
contains no inconsistencies or contradictions, but at the very least, The Holy
Tablets seeks to provide a coherent narrative of his community’s journey. His
Nuwaubian writings tell us that while different lessons were learned at different
stages, Nuwaubu—a science of “factology” supported by rationally verifiable
evidence—had been the consistent core all along.

220 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

 Chapter •8
Nuwaubian Ether
Ansar Legacies in Hip-Hop

I talk like Dr. Malachi York played the sidewalk.

—Nas, “Triple Threat”

Amorites just can’t understand the groove we’re in.

—Jay-Z, “The Originators”

One of the more fascinating artifacts of the AAC/NIH’s later years appears in a
1990 music video of a song titled “The Originators,” by The Jaz and his protégé,
a young Jay-Z.1 The video features scenes from the Ansar heartland of Bushwick
and contains numerous visual and aural references to the community, includ-
ing such landmarks as the masjid and the Nubian Laundromat. Several Ansar
men appear in the video, wearing kufis, thobes, and jackets covered in AAC/
NIH symbols and the phrase “Nubian Nation.” The Jaz wears various articles
of Ansar garb, and Jay-Z wears a medallion bearing the outline of Africa with
what appears to be a Mahdiyya flag. Al Mahdi/York himself appears indirectly,
via a painted portrait held by his followers and audio excerpts from his sermons.
The video’s short glimpses of community spaces are entirely male; there
are no Ansar women in khimars with their faces veiled. The studio portions of
the “Originators” video do include women: the keyboardist is female and so
are the dancers behind The Jaz and Jay-Z; they do not wear Ansar clothing but
follow the contemporary fashions of the early 1990s. The video is bookended
by appearances of a woman who does not cover her hair or face. Appearing
in silhouette at the start of the video, she proclaims, “It is indeed a pleasure to
see so many Nubian faces, so many original faces, here tonight.” She reappears
in two contexts at the video’s end. First, her earlier statement and silhouette
are repeated. She also looks directly into the camera and recites the Arabic
greeting of peace, as-salamu alaikum. Her image, juxtaposed with quick cuts
to the Bushwick scenes, simultaneously presents a woman as an embodiment
of proud Nubian Muslim identity and imagines the community’s public spaces
as entirely empty of women.
Observers familiar with AAC/NIH narratives might perceive a tension
between the content of this video and Al Mahdi’s usual discourses on music
and gender. Al Mahdi, after all, routinely condemns American popular culture
and advocates the creation of alternative Muslim spaces in which children are
raised with Nubian and Islamic social norms and “traditional” modes of musical
expression. He also denigrates Muslim-majority societies for failing to uphold
what he regards as nonnegotiable rules for women’s dress and gendered inter-
actions. Although it is full of references to Al Mahdi and his movement, even
showing his portrait and sampling his voice, “The Originators” was released
on a mainstream label and received exposure on Yo! MTV Raps, taking part
in the corporate pop culture that Al Mahdi rejects as a plot against Nubian
consciousness. In an apparent compromise with Amorite demands, women
are shown playing Western instruments and dancing in American style, their
bodies, by Ansar standards, improperly exposed.
“The Originators” might provoke a momentary impression of dissonance,
but Al Mahdi himself embodies what would appear to many observers as a
paradox. While leading a morally conservative Islamic revival movement that
prescribed rigidly policed gender roles and sexual norms, notions of modesty
that included full niqab and resistance against a “Satanic” music industry, Al
Mahdi was also an aspiring pop star and recording mogul (see figs. 33–34).
Under the name “Dr. York,” he performed as the lead vocalist for the band
Passion, released solo albums, and managed his studio and record label with a
roster of artists such as the group Petite (“The female version of ‘new edition,’”
boasts his full-page ad in the May 4, 1985, issue of Billboard) and Christian
gospel singer Doc McKenzie. In his music videos, Dr. York does not wear
Sudanese robes and turbans but flashy suits and gold jewelry. While Al Mahdi
publishes tracts against pop music and Christian holidays, Dr. York sings roman-
tic ballads such as “Let Me Be the One on Christmas.” Dr. York’s Billboard ad
names Ronald Reagan as his “favorite American,” describes himself as a “sexual

222 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

Figure 33 Dr. York publicity photo, 1986.

Figure 34 Dr. York, “You Can’t Hide,”

twelve-inch vinyl (1986).

Nuwaubian Ether ◆ 223

person” who “enjoys those who express their love of love,” and indulges in
astrology (“As a Scorpio he is hot”).
While Dr. York and Al Mahdi operated as officially separate personas, their
relationship was public knowledge. A November 1990 issue of SPIN magazine
reported, “Posters recently appeared all over New York’s Times Square announc-
ing a new line of rap and R&B records produced by Dr. York,” whom it identified
as both “the dopest disco impressario since Barry White” and “As Sayyid Issa
Al Haadi Al Mahdi . . . the last Redeemer before Armageddon.”2 In his presen-
tation as Dr. York, Al Mahdi never acknowledges his career as a Muslim leader,
but he seems to wink at those in the know. The 1985 Billboard ad mentions that
he has traveled internationally, adding, “if you listen closely, you will hear his
accent which is Semetic [sic].” Only an initiated viewer would notice that in his
video for “It’s on Me,” Dr. York wears a jewel-encrusted AAC/NIH symbol, the
upward-pointing crescent and six-pointed star, on his gold necklace, or read
possible meanings into the spaceship decorations behind him.
Community literature, whether in official publications or the work of
affiliated writers, establishes that Al Mahdi’s followers were fully aware of his
Dr. York persona, apparently without feeling discomfort or tension over his
apparent double life. Al Mahdi’s alter ego never amounted to a scandal or
“secret knowledge” that undermined his function as imam; some members
even encountered Al Mahdi first as Dr. York, having heard his songs on the
radio before discovering that he was also a Muslim leader.3 In KMD’s “Peach
Fuzz,” when Zev Love X (the future MF Doom) asks, “I eat no pork, so why
can’t I be as smooth as my man Dr. York?,” he’s referring not to extraterrestrial
master teacher Dr. Malachi Z. York—Al Mahdi had not yet used this name
in his writings—but rather to pop star Dr. York, playfully acknowledging his
imam’s other identity.
This chapter explores the AAC/NIH’s complex relationship to music,
particularly hip-hop. While a growing body of scholarship on hip-hop and
American Muslims has neglected Al Mahdi and his community, the existing
literature provides theoretical insights that could prove helpful to including
them. In her examination of hip-hop’s significance in Black Muslim experience,
Su’ad Abdul Khabeer describes a phenomenon of “Muslim Cool,” a construc-
tion of religious and racial identity “forged at the intersection of Islam and hip
hop.” Muslim Cool represents “a way of being Muslim that draws on Blackness
to contest two overlapping systems of racial norms: the hegemonic ethnoreli-
gious norms of Arab and South Asian US American Muslim communities on
the one hand, and White American normativity on the other.” In this sense,

224 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

AAC/NIH engagements of hip-hop answer Abdul Khabeer’s rhetorical ques-
tion: “What would U.S. American Muslim communities be like if they loved
Black people as much as they love Black culture?” Abdul Khabeer’s answer—“a
community that binds itself to the Islamic tradition by binding itself to Black-
ness”—finds one of its many possibilities in AAC/NIH approaches to popular
musical forms and expressions.4
In her book Muslim Cool, Abdul Khabeer discusses American Muslim
debates on music with attention to the ways in which policing music, while
“typically regarded as theological and thus ‘unraced,’” ultimately enforces a
“racialized notion of the Islamic tradition.” In other words, American Muslim
conversations about music’s relationship to Islam intersect with multiple
relationships to Blackness. The privileging of non-Black Muslims as proper
custodians of “correct” Islamic knowledge (and parallel marginalizing narra-
tives of Black Muslims as dependent upon the tutelage of transnational Muslim
experts) happens to resonate with particular interpretive frameworks that
would prohibit most or all music. As Blackamerican culture often appears
to lack resources for “natal claims” upon the “Islamic East,” Abdul Khabeer
explains—noting also the common “elision of Africa from the Islamic East”—
Black music becomes positioned as inescapably “un-Islamic” and as vulnerable
to condemnation from non-Black authorities. She quotes poet Amir Sulaim-
an’s criticism of Muslim anti-Blackness in the documentary film Deen Tight:
“What makes you Black and American is haram.”5 In both its polemics against
Salafism’s rise in African American Muslim communities and the embodied
performances of its leader, AAC/NIH media make their own interventions in
the debate.
In order to examine these ostensible tensions and locate music’s signif-
icance in Al Mahdi’s metaphysical Africa, I first introduce what I call “Ansar
musical theory,” in which Al Mahdi creatively rewires tropes of innate Black
musicality in the service of his double resistance, confronting both white
supremacy and transnational Sunni hegemony. Ansar musical theory speaks
to a U.S. context in which Black musical traditions have been stolen, corrupted,
and exploited by white artists and institutions, but also one in which Black-
american Muslims face pressures from Sunni revivalist networks to disavow
those same traditions on the grounds that Islam prohibits music (either in
most forms or altogether). Al Mahdi’s metaphysics of race, which imagines
music as key to Nubian spirituality, accounts for the racial histories of Ameri-
can music while also indicting Islamic condemnations of music for its implicit
anti-Blackness. I then turn to an examination of the community’s presence in

Nuwaubian Ether ◆ 225

hip-hop culture, discussing artists (both insiders and outsiders in relation to the
community) who engage Al Mahdi’s material in their work up to and beyond
the Nuwaubian turn. This chapter extends the notion of AAC/NIH discourse
beyond official community publications to include affiliated artists and their
collaborators, demonstrating that the Ansar influence on hip-hop reflects Al
Mahdi’s vision of metaphysical Africa in its simultaneous resistance to Amer-
ican white supremacy and Muslim anti-Blackness. I also highlight the ways in
which the permeability of borders between religious identities, so often treated
as the AAC/NIH’s definitive feature, can be found throughout Islamic hip-hop.

Ansar Musical Theory

During one of Al Mahdi’s question-and-answer sessions at his Hall of Knowl-
edge on Hart Street, open to the public and recorded for his True Light cassette
series, a Christian woman states that she likes singing in church but knows
that “you don’t do those things.” Al Mahdi replies, “Yes, we do,” and explains
that Americans misunderstand music’s importance in Islam because “what has
happened here in America is Muslims don’t have Islam as it was taught by the
Africans.” He tells the woman about dhikr and the Black origin of the piano,
adding that while his community avoids certain instruments that “stimulate
negative energy,” nonetheless “gospel is part of us.”6
On another True Light tape, Al Mahdi presents the Amorites’ inability to
dance—their lack of “soul”—as evidence that they literally lack souls.7 As in
Disco Music: The Universal Language of Good or Evil? (1979), Al Mahdi rewires
tropes of innate Black musicality to present facility with music as a Nubian spir-
itual gift. Nubians remain in tune with the vibrations of the universe, which
affect them in physical and emotional ways and endow them with an enhanced
sensitivity to sound. Nubian music thus expresses “spiritual influence” that
cannot be found in music from Amorites, who remain “physically bound.”
Unable to match Nubians’ musical power, Amorites sought to erase it. In the
American context, this meant the denial of access to musical training. Despite
enslavers’ attempts to erase music from the lives of the enslaved, however,
the Amorite “could not suppress what came natural to you: that which Allah
subhana wa taʾala bestowed the Black man with. The Black man always finds
ways to become involved with instruments and become masters of them.” As
enslaved Africans developed new musical forms in the Americas, they used
songs to pass secret messages without detection by slaveowners; according to
Al Mahdi, this is the origin of the blues. Amorites then manipulated Nubian

226 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

music for their own purposes, reinscribing the blues as “spirituals” to indoc-
trinate Nubians with Christianity.8
The twentieth century saw an acceleration of Black musical development,
again prompting Amorites to intervene, seeking Black performers who were
unknown outside Black communities and emulating or outright stealing their
work. The Amorite, deprived of Nubian sensitivities to “vibrations, frequen-
cies, and amplitude effects,” can only make music using technological resources
as a “master thief.” Al Mahdi explains that “only Allah subhana wa taʾala has
the power to bestow creative ability upon whom he pleases.” It is the devil’s
nature and power “to take peace (Islam) from the earth, so when Black men find
peace in anything, the Devil devises a plan to eliminate it and him.” Amorites
weaponized Nubians’ vulnerability to cosmic vibrations, using it against them,
developing new forms of poisonous music that brought Nubian consciousness
under their control. While Black people were traditionally moved by “real and
pure music, performed on naturally made instruments,” the Amorites warped
this experience by “creating unreal sounds with electronic devices.” The Amor-
ite has “stepped into the field of music and stripped it of all emotions and beauty.
Now music is lifeless, emotionless and empty of any positiveness. Music is a
tool of Shaytan’s used against the Nubian man.”9
The Amorite project culminates in the discotheque, home to loud music
at harmful volumes, strobe lights, and “overall abusive activities.” Among the
threats of the discotheque, Al Mahdi lists exposure to dangerous radiation,
nerve damage, brain tissue damage, accelerated heart rate, pitch-based mind
control, and subliminal messages. The “high shrilling sounds” of disco music
reflect the language of the jinn, a “race of evil angels” whose nature finds phys-
ical expression in pale Amorite peoples. Disco clubs brainwash Black women
into wearing immodest dress—including high-heeled shoes that affect “the
chromosomes of all those who wear them”—and immoral behavior, includ-
ing sex with white men. In contrast to the disco club, AAC/NIH newspapers
present photos of an all-woman Ansaru Allah dance troupe in traditional
pantomimic dances. Some dances are better than others: “The Amorite has
never known how to dance, because he has no rhythm or soul,” but he teaches
Nubians to perform dances that “imitate animals.” In the dances of popular
culture, Al Mahdi decodes hidden narratives that the Amorite tells about
the Nubian. The Robot, for example, offers a lesson about Muslims who fall
to the devil and adopt a “robot-like way of life.”10 The most severe musical
proof of white “negative seed” nature would appear in white youth cultures
such as heavy metal and punk rock, which Al Mahdi charges with promoting

Nuwaubian Ether ◆ 227

outrageous hairstyles and clothing, drug use, Satanism, witchcraft, and offer-
ings of blood sacrifice.11
As an alternative to contemporary Amorite music, AAC/NIH newspapers
advertise recordings by internationally renowned Nubian Egyptian composer,
oud player, and vocalist Hamza El Din (1929–2006). In Disco Music, Al Mahdi
explains that El Din became interested in music as a young man, which caused
him to neglect “the Nubian language and other aspects of the country’s culture.”
As an adult, El Din “took a sharp turn” and “became aware of how important it
was to write songs in the Nubian language, affirming the bond between his art
and his people.” Al Mahdi identifies El Din as a member of the Ansaru Allah
Community12 and claims that El Din accompanied Al Mahdi’s mother to the
United States from Egypt during her pregnancy.13 In 1988, Mahdi Records (the
AAC/NIH-specific auxiliary of York’s Records) released Hamza El Din Live
at the Ansaaru Allah Community in America, with cover art depicting El Din
in the Ansar’s white turban and robe, playing the oud while surrounded by an
Ansar audience in matching garb.
El Din serves the AAC/NIH’s double resistance against a white suprem-
acist music industry and “pale Arab” Sunni hegemony. While Amorites in the
West use music to control Nubian minds, Muslim “pale Arabs”—themselves
being white people and incompatible with Nubian vibrations—condemn music
with claims that singing, dancing, and playing stringed instruments are prohib-
ited in Islam. Al Mahdi’s vision of Nubian music thus becomes a defense against
what he perceives as the anti-Blackness of Sunni revivalism. At least as far back
as the early 1970s, Al Mahdi upheld music as Islamically valid, explaining that
“the prayers in Islam are actually song,” and describing the “lack of soul” in
pale Arabs’ music as a means of distinguishing between them and true Black
people in cases of uncertainty. While most of the only extant copy of Is Music
and Dance Lawful for Muslims? (ca. 1972) is unreadable, it does defend music’s
legitimacy and provides drawings of instruments such as the duff, Egyptian
harps, sistrum, and oud. Islamic Music (1977) elaborates the argument. “As the
sun dances across the sky,” Al Mahdi muses, “the birds sing a song in the praise
of Allah subhana wa taʾala.” Music is essential to Muslim spirituality, specifically
for Nubian Muslims: “Through music, stories of life are told and in the past the
Blacks in Sudan told stories on the drum which told their family lineage.”14 In
Abba Island in America, he explains that “dancing is an Islamic tradition” and
that “the duff is an important part of a ceremony in Islam.”15
Conversion to Islam, Al Mahdi assures his readers, “will not deprive you of
music as some Muslims have misunderstood”; rather, “it will only put music in

228 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

its rightful place.” Noting that “some American Muslims think it is unlawful to
participate in music and dance,” he dismisses this position as a misinterpreta-
tion derived from inauthentic hadiths. Rejecting antimusic hadiths, Al Mahdi
instead offers Qurʾanic and biblical evidence to present music as essential to
the religion of Abraham. The angels sing, and the Qurʾan itself was revealed
via angelic vocal performances. Citing the Bible, Al Mahdi refers to angels and
Israelites alike using trumpets, and to the prophet David organizing musical
performances in the Temple. He also points out that the Bible provides ample
endorsements of women participating in singing, dancing, and playing musi-
cal instruments.16
Against the combined Euro-American and pale Arab Sunni hegemonies,
Al Mahdi advocates local musical expression: “The folk-songs of a nation or
a people are a part of its cultural heritage and every effort should be made to
preserve them, especially in this era of swift adaptation to other cultures and
other art forms.” Dancing is also part of Islamic tradition, though Al Mahdi
observes that many American Muslims assume otherwise. “Contrary to what
a number of American Muslims think,” he writes, “dancing among Muslims is
not only ceremonial and ritualistic, but a practice of joy seen amongst every
Muslim festival and ceremony from weddings to feasts.” He argues that the
Qurʾan expresses no disapproval of dancing, and he supplements his case with
reference to the hadith of Muhammad that permits dancing on festival days,
as well as to the famous “whirling dervishes” of Sufism.17
Al Mahdi’s discourse on sound and music informs his performance of the
call to prayer (which, while typically melodic, arguably becomes more of a song
when he delivers it), his recitation of the Qurʾan, and his recorded reading of
the Sudanese Mahdiyya’s Ratib with musical accompaniment and background
vocals. Recognizing and properly using the powers of sound remains a critical
concern in Al Mahdi’s Sufism, as he attests in Sons of the Green Light lessons,
where he says that collective dhikr—performed under the proper conditions
and with the guidance of the murshid—can merge the physical world with the
unseen, enabling travel to other dimensions.18 Al Mahdi also treats “the right type
of music” as a medical cure. “We find proof of this in the very Scriptures that
we follow,” he writes in his Wadhiyfah: The Science of Sound Healing pamphlet
series, which operates as a manual for reciting divine names and the correspond-
ing bodily movements. Treating Allah’s “99+1 names” as a “talisman,” Al Mahdi
provides instructions for chanting each name, along with the name’s respec-
tive benefits and rewards. “So often,” he observes, “a dhikr is accomplished by
the rhythmic beating of a drum or by music either vocal or instrumental.” By

Nuwaubian Ether ◆ 229

training the ear and soul together, one can access higher octaves, “which produce
emotional and mental waves up to the sound HUWA which is the pure green
light of energy. . . . As you can see, there are many mysteries I have yet to reveal
to you!!!”19 While Al Mahdi maintains that music is a racially exclusive portal
into secrets of the unseen, Dr. York’s full-page ad in the May 4, 1985, edition of
Billboard promises that he “believes music crosses all boundaries and commu-
nicates to everyone regardless of race or nationality.”
The imam’s musical gifts do not contradict his claims of spiritual gifts but
are symptomatic of them. Humazah (ca. 1979) provides a photograph of Al
Mahdi wearing a white kufi and the AAC/NIH star and crescent on his jack-
et’s shoulder patch, sitting at a piano or keyboard, with the caption “Imam
Isa getting into some heavy Islamic music.”20 The photo expresses a vision of
“Islamic music,” which might have been unthinkable or at least controver-
sial for many of Humazah’s readers, as legitimate and possible. In AAC/NIH
literature, the question of music’s relationship to Islam, which is simultane-
ously a question of Islam’s relationship to Blackness, becomes a site at which
Al Mahdi’s metaphysical Africa meets Muslim Cool. For Al Mahdi, music and
Islam remain as deeply intertwined with each other as they are innately bound
to Blackness.

From Ansar Cool to the Intergalactic Sudan

In the rare instances in which AAC/NIH publications address Al Mahdi as Dr.
York, Al Mahdi defends his music as a “starting point of communication to a
trouble world,” a means of giving the da’wa and reaching “all types of people,
so that they too might bear witness to the truth and be saved.” Not every-
one was willing to learn from Muslims “gowned in sunnah: white jalabiyyah,
immamah, etc., and the editions in our hand”; therefore, Al Mahdi wrote, “we
must relate to them on their level. This is why the group Passion was formed
and is now successfully reaching these people.” Despite his critiques of the
U.S. music industry, Al Mahdi would also embrace hip-hop culture as another
vehicle for his mission. AAC/NIH literature from the late 1980s and early ’90s
gives favorable attention to artists who are either claimed as members of the
community (such as Intelligent Hoodlum, later known as Tragedy Khadafi)
or unaffiliated but sympathetic (such as Queen Latifah, who wears a Mahdi-
yya flag pin in her “Dance for Me” video).21
The AAC/NIH’s embrace of hip-hop artists as voices of Black conscious-
ness corresponds to hip-hop’s broad embrace of Islam. Sohail Daulatzai observes

230 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

a 1986–94 “golden age” in which many premier emcees treated Islam as crucial
to a “history of Black radicalism and internationalism.”22 The Islam of “golden
age” hip-hop was most powerfully informed by the Five Percenter tradition,
which claims such past and present affiliates as the Wu Tang Clan, Rakim,
Brand Nubian, Big Daddy Kane, Erykah Badu, Common, Gang Starr, Poor
Righteous Teachers, Lakim Shabazz, and more. The Five Percenters’ promi-
nence in Black and Latino youth cultures of 1970s–80s New York contributed
to the wide circulation of the tradition’s vocabulary and references; as a result,
artists who did not overtly claim membership in the Five Percenters, such as
Nas, still incorporated Five Percenter concepts and vocabulary. In contrast to
the widely acknowledged Five Percenter contribution to hip-hop,23 academic
discussions of hip-hop and Islam have entirely neglected the Ansar presence.
I would argue that Ansar hip-hop makes a unique and compelling contribu-
tion to what Daulatzai calls “the Muslim international,” the ways in which
hip-hop artists conceptualized “an internationalism in relation to Africa and
the Muslim Third World that challenges U.S. power in those regions.”24 In the
case of Al Mahdi’s community, this Muslim international—overlapping with
already present Islamic spaceship narratives and Afrofuturist themes in popu-
lar music—transcends earthly bounds to become intergalactic.
The AAC/NIH’s metaphysical Africa finds expression in hip-hop artifacts
such as To Your Soul (1990), the EMI-released album of The Jaz, Jay-Z’s mentor.
The album’s cover art presents The Jaz against a black background with red and
green stripes, recalling the colors of pan-Africanism and specifically the flag of
the Mahdi. “The Flag of the Mahdi” is the title of a spoken-word interlude on
the record, in which The Jaz explains the meanings of the Mahdiyya flag, recit-
ing its Arabic kalimah with careful pronunciation and English translation and
explaining that Muhammad Ahmad was a direct descendant of the Prophet
Muhammad who “fought against the Egyptian empire and the British empire
and defeated them in his own homeland of the Sudan, using primitive weap-
ons, as opposed to their more advanced arsenal of weapons.” The Jaz credits
the Ansaru Allah Community as the source of his flag, and closes with what
sounds like the conclusion to a scripted infomercial: “To receive more infor-
mation about it, you should check out the bookstore on Bushwick Ave.” Some
hip-hop references are less overt. Melle Mel wears the Mahdiyya flag in the
video for “What’s the Matter with Your World?,” but apart from the pan-African
connotations of its color scheme, its precise meanings are left to the viewer’s
guess. Intelligent Hoodlum would offer subtle hints of his AAC/NIH lean-
ings in his eponymous 1990 debut album. While his song “Black and Proud”

Nuwaubian Ether ◆ 231

warns of white evil in very Ansar-specific terms—“Beware, the cursed seed is
out there”—the lyrics give shout-outs by name not to Al Mahdi but to Louis
Farrakhan and Malcolm X.
In another video from the same period, KMD’s “Peach Fuzz,” from the
group’s debut album Mr. Hood (1991), presents an Ansar youth culture at the
intersection of Al Mahdi’s African Muslim imaginaries and the community’s
original home of Brooklyn, New York. The video opens with a shot of the
group’s young members as Ansar peddlers wearing thobes, turbans, kufis, and
nose rings. As an elder AAC/NIH member prepares to leave them at their table
of pamphlets and other products, he warns, “No rappin’ to the girls.” The young
men laughingly deny any such intention and exchange greetings of as-salamu
alaikum with the man as he departs. The scene that follows features a cameo
from white artist D-Nice of the group 3rd Bass and shows KMD talking about
girls while flipping through a hip-hop magazine—carefully hidden inside a
booklet from Al Mahdi’s tafsir (Qurʾanic exegesis) series, As Sayyid Al Imaam
Isa Al Haadi Al Mahdi Explains the Secret Meaning of Qur’aan to the A’immah
of Ansaaru Allah. As a group of young women approach their table, the KMD
members indeed start trying to impress them. The song’s lyrics offer humor-
ous self-deprecation, as the group’s young members lament their lack of facial
hair while also resisting masculinist pressures (and Ansar expectations) to grow
full beards.25
KMD’s Mr. Hood also reflects the fluidity between archives characteristic
not only of Al Mahdi’s metaphysical Africa but of hip-hop’s Islamic expres-
sions at large. As Zaheer Ali has noted, the Islam of “golden age” hip-hop is
historically nonsectarian. No distinction is made between Nation-era Malcolm
X and Malcolm after his Sunni conversion; speeches from Louis Farrakhan
and Malcolm X can both be sampled in the same song; and artists of vary-
ing communal identities and theological orientations collaborate with one
another, sharing in a mutual sense of Islam that transcends doctrinal partic-
ulars.26 “Nitty Gritty,” KMD’s collaboration with Brand Nubian on Mr. Hood,
begins with the exclamation “The Five Percent and the Ansar together?” and
includes references to Five Percenter concepts.
Writing under the name El Haady from his Mount Zion camp in 1992, Al
Mahdi claimed that numerous struggling artists—including KMD, Melle Mel,
Kenny Gamble, X-Clan, and Afrika Bambaataa—became stars or rejuvenated
their careers by physically touching the hem of his garment.27 These claims
might be contested, but his material did inform the lyrics of artists beyond his
own community. Professor Griff, a former Nation of Islam member and leader

232 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

of the hip-hop group Professor Griff and the Last Asiatic Disciples, draws from
Al Mahdi’s treatment of the word “God” as an acronym for Gomar Oz Dubar
(“Wisdom, Strength, Beauty”) in the song “Pawns in the Game.”28 In “Living
for the City,” Rakim identifies himself as “Gomar Oz Dubar, which is God.”29
And in “The Mystery (Who Is God),” on his debut solo album The 18th Letter,
Rakim incorporates Al Mahdi’s analysis of the word “God” to further his Five
Percenter message that he is God and Allah, naming the attributes as equiva-
lent to those of Gomar Oz Dubar.30
Through his studio and label, Al Mahdi collaborated with Afrika
Bambaataa, whose Zulu Nation movement—itself an intellectual platform
that, while not expressly Muslim, included faith in the Qurʾan as a primary
tenet—has been described as “the founding ideological movement in hip-hop
culture.”31 Bambaataa recorded his 1989 album Return to Planet Rock at York’s
Studios and released the LP on York’s Records. The album’s cover art speaks
to those already versed in Ansar symbolic vocabulary (fig. 35): Bambaataa and
the Jungle Brothers appear in outer space, within the beam of green light trail-
ing behind the Crystal City, the new Jerusalem as it is regularly depicted in the
community’s literature of that period; Bambaataa wears a bandana bearing the
Sudanese Mahdiyya emblem; he wields Zulfikar, the famous double-bladed
sword of ‘Ali. In the lower left corner, we find the black, red, and green Nubian
flag, complete with Mahdiyya emblem and kalimah in Arabic script. The album
jacket’s back side names Dr. York as executive producer and credits him for
remixing the recordings, giving a separate acknowledgment to As Sayyid Isa
Al Haadi Al Mahdi. Bambaataa also praises Louis Farrakhan (“May allah
always bless you both”) and both the Ansar and the Nation of Islam.
The text on Return to Planet Rock’s jacket engages Al Mahdi’s Ansar musical
theory and cosmic mythology with a narrative that positions the album within
a history of extraterrestrial intervention in human destiny. In 1970, the earth was
visited by “space beings” who came first to Africa and discovered that, despite
“lots of problems,” music played a big role in keeping the people together on
that continent. These beings traveled the world and found that problems existed
everywhere, but they also observed that “it was music in some ways that broke
social barriers.” The text explains that the United States had received numerous
“messengers in music” sent by the Supreme One, among them James Brown,
Sly Stone, and George Clinton, to “teach and spread the word through music,
but the evil ones help to delude and destroy what they have built.” The Supreme
One then sent DJ Kool Herc, along with a team of “space beings” who became
known as Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force. After attempts by the

Nuwaubian Ether ◆ 233

 Figure 35 Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force, Return to Planet Rock
(1989).

“evil ones” to suppress hip-hop’s potential to create a “new world order,” “the
Supreme One has sent Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force back by the
Mothership.” In addition, according to Ansar sacred history, 1970 was the year
in which the seventh seal was opened, initiating the end times, which would
culminate in the rising of a righteous nation of 144,000 and the establishment
of the new City of Peace.32 On March 16, 1970, “the year of the Opening,” Al
Mahdi writes in The True Story of Noah (1986), “we arrived to this planet Earth.
Astronomers knew little of our natures and out of their ignorance, called us
Comets.”33 In later years, Afrika Bambaataa donated a Moroccan fez bearing
the UNNM flag and the words “proud nuwaubian” to the Smithsonian.34
Al Mahdi’s community entered its “post-Islamic” Nuwaubian stage in the
early and mid-1990s, which roughly parallels the declining presence of “Muslim
international” imaginaries in hip-hop. In 1993 Al Mahdi relocated to Georgia
and became Dr. Malachi Z. York, a name that emphasized his new platform and
also recalled his career in music as Dr. York. Though the exodus from Brook-
lyn left behind a fledgling music empire on Bushwick Avenue, the community
remained a citable source for hip-hop. References to Nuwaubu appear in the

234 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

lyrics of Jedi Mind Tricks artist Vinnie Paz, who describes Philadelphia as the
city where “the Moors, Nuwaubians, Five Percenters will build.”35 In “Eye Is the
King,” Vinnie Paz and his group Heavy Metal Kings declare that York is “ahead
of his time”; Paz insists, “Support Dr. York, don’t believe what’s said about
him.”36 In “Kill Devil Hills,” Paz calls himself a “United Nuwaubian Nation of
Moors rhymer.”37 Not all references come from admirers, as evidenced in Talib
Kweli’s advice to inferior artists that they should give up music and perhaps
sell drugs or “start speakin’ Nuwaubian and followin’ Malachi.”38
Tragedy Khadafi’s “Eloheem” includes a reference to “the Kedar.”39 In his
“Allumaniti,” Khadafi again offers layers of meaning for listeners who are already
versed in the Nuwaubian archive, with mentions of Canaanites, Amorites, and
Gomar Oz Dubar.40
The Nuwaubian era spawned a musical subgenre, “Nu-wop,” character-
ized by its readings of Malachi Z. York. Nu-wop does not compartmentalize
its references as either “Islamic” or “Egyptosophic.” The group Lost Children
of Babylon draws from the full wealth of the Nuwaubian archive in songs such
as “Distant Traveller,” in which member Richard Raw, “guided by the pineal
gland,” calls his mind “a replica of Mecca,” identifies with the “order of the Sufi,
understudy of Tehuti,” commands that we heed ‘Ali’s “voice of the two edge
sword,” and escapes “Shamballah to follow the scholars to the Kaʿba,” where
he will then be transformed into a chupacabra and “stand on my altar on which
I offer to the flying saucers.”41 In “The Rising Force” and “Duel of the Fates,”
from its Words from the Duat—The Book of Anubis album, the group (record-
ing this album as the Lost Children of Egypt, rather than Babylon, reportedly
at York’s direction) weaves Star Wars references into Nuwaubian discourse,
making lyrical connections between the falcon-headed god Horus and the
Millennium Falcon, and name-dropping Anakin Skywalker and Darth Maul
alongside Akhenaten and the Lion of Judah. Audio samples from the Star Wars
film soundtracks contribute to the recoding of Jedi mythology within Nuwaub-
ian Afrofuturism: “The Force rises within me because the kingdom of ANU is
within me; it takes me from the planet earth to the nineteenth galaxy instan-
taneously.”42 Nu-wop lyrics constitute a body of esoteric poetry that gradually
becomes accessible as one learns the vast lexicon of Nuwaubian references.

Conclusions
Al Mahdi’s career as R&B singer Dr. York, while seemingly at odds with his
prescriptions for embodied Muslim practice, nonetheless reflects AAC/NIH

Nuwaubian Ether ◆ 235

imaginaries of music and sound. Ansar musical theory reinscribes new values on
worn tropes of Black musicality: Black people are innately musical, he argues,
for the same reasons that they are innately Muslim, and there is no conflict
between the two. Nubian musical and spiritual gifts alike are suppressed and
exploited by the enemies of Black people, whether Euro-American or “pale
Arab,” Christian or Muslim.
While Al Mahdi officially opposes Western musical forms and electron-
ically derived music as the devil’s tools, used by whites to brainwash and rule
Black people, AAC/NIH literature supports Al Mahdi’s musical pursuits and
hip-hop culture as positive forces for the resurrection of Black consciousness. Al
Mahdi argues that his “secular” music attracts audiences that would never learn
of Islam otherwise. In the case of hip-hop, AAC/NIH writings praise artists
whose work expresses connections to Black liberation and Islam, including
not only AAC/NIH-affiliated artists but also artists committed to the Nation
of Islam and the Five Percenters. Confronting both American white suprem-
acy and a new American Islam defined increasingly by transnational Salafiyya
networks that became prime voices of antimusic perspectives, Al Mahdi’s
metaphysical Africa affirms music, Islam, and Blackness not only as mutually
compatible but as embedded in one another as a fact of nature.

236 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

Coda
The View from Illyuwn

Fools among the people will say:

“What turned them from their
qiblah that they were on?”
—Qurʾan 2:142

On June 26, 1997, his fifty-second birthday, Malachi Z. York reinstituted a cere-
mony that had not been practiced for ten thousand years: El Maguraj (fig. 36).
He called upon his followers, newly renamed Nuwaubians, to visit Tama Re for
realignment with “your etheric parents, the elders, the ancient ones . . . who are
trying to reach you.” While the rites around Tama Re’s El Aswud Mir (Black
Pyramid) might have reminded former Ansar of pilgrimage to Mecca, York tells
his readers that “all Islam comes from us.” The branch cannot charge the root
with theft or appropriation. Even Moses, before becoming a god in his own
right, was a student of Tehuti/Thoth, Egyptian god of knowledge and wisdom.1
In his Afrofuturist perennialism, York explains that the specific practices
of El Maguraj came from the rites of Amun-Ra in the city of Karnak, but the
spiritual technologies of pyramids—constructed as antennas and “electrical
capacitors” that provide balance in the earth’s magnetic fields and help humans
to change their halut (auras) to more positive frequencies—existed through-
out the ancient world, evidenced in Mayan and Sumerian pyramids. The Ark
of the Covenant operated as a similar device and as a “portable communication
center” that enabled dispatches between the extraterrestrial Eloheem and the
earthly Levitical priesthood. The broader principles at work can also be found
among Yoruba practices, Sufi whirling and dhikr, and the rain dance of the
Hopi, who had learned the concept from their “true father,” the Dogon of Mali,
who in turn were taught by extraterrestrial visitors.2 The great wisdom tradi-
tions of the world are but expressions of a singular tradition, the wisdom of a
timeless and interstellar Blackness most perfectly expressed in the science of
Nuwaubu as revived by the master teacher.
El Maguraj ceremonies at Tama Re included a “procession of Osiris,” in
which York, escorted by the Brotherhood of the Night, became Osiris’s incar-
nation in order to properly fulfill the role of pharaoh. The procession featured
the wealth of the community’s symbolic reservoir: two costumed participants
embodied the gods Horus and Anubis; the Brotherhood of the Green Light
carried an Anubis statue; the Sisters of Isis led a Mother Isis procession; men
dressed in the familiar white robes and turbans of the Ansaru Allah carried the
Ark of the Covenant and a candlestick of seven candles, recalling Revelation
1:12–13; priests leading the Osiris procession blew the shofar, beat drums, and
carried the sword of Solomon.3
Academic and popular treatments of AAC/NIH media have emphasized
the community’s eclectic pool of resources, taking for granted that the commu-
nity haphazardly pinballed between confessional identities with no regard for
stability or coherence. Describing Tama Re’s “most startling artifact of all”—a
“black Jesus crucified on an Ankh crowned with the feathered headdress of the
Plains Indian”—Susan Palmer marvels at the Nuwaubians’ “syncretistic creativ-
ity.”4 Many observers regard this new Jesus as a random assemblage of parts
from otherwise separate systems. When they see the Nuwaubian Christ, they
are most struck by the ways in which Nuwaubians have apparently forged inor-
ganic connections between unrelated bodies. To designate Tama Re’s Christ as
an example of syncretism, however, does not merely explain what is happen-
ing in the image but actively creates and imposes new meanings on the work.
The label of “syncretism” invents categories, measures their limits, and
names their violators. When we think of Tama Re’s Christ as syncretic, we have
suddenly created Christianity, Egyptosophy, and Native American religion for
ourselves, determining where each territory ends and the others begin, with an
assumption of firmly policed borders that would normally protect them from
mixture; they are not really meant to go together. If Christ’s being crucified on
an Egyptian ankh means that Christianity has been transformed by its encoun-
ters with non-Christian traditions, this forces the question of what Christianity

238 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

Figure 36 El Maguraj, Nuwaubian pilgrimage manual, 1990s.

Coda ◆ 239
should look like “as it is,” prior to all acts of blending. But as Joseph Murphy has
noted in a discussion of Afro-Cuban religion, mixture remains “present in every
historical religious expression.”5 Carl Ernst similarly asks, “Where shall we find
this historically untouched religion? Is there any religious tradition untouched
by other religious cultures? Has any religion sprung into existence fully formed
without reference to any previously existing religion?”6 While mixture happens
everywhere, Murphy observes that some religious expressions become defined
by mixture more than others; European Christian traditions emerged from
their own blended histories, but they are not typically subjected to the same
analysis of “syncretism” that African Christian traditions are; instead, Europe
becomes privileged as Christianity’s default setting.7 The notion that Africans
“mixed” an otherwise self-contained Christianity with their local traditions and
bodies of knowledge suggests that Christianity’s truest and most generic form
is European. Since the “pure and unmixed” Christianity is presumed to exist
outside Africa, contact with Africa means a pollution and corruption of the
imported “real” Christianity. In Islamic studies, notions of syncretic exchange
and mixture between “Islamic” and “indigenous” likewise threaten to racial-
ize Islam as an Arab phenomenon that inevitably becomes less of itself when
appropriated in non-Arab societies.
In the case of the AAC/NIH, my concern with resisting framing the mate-
rial as syncretism relates in part to the master narrative of Al Mahdi/York as an
unstable trickster who changes costumes seemingly at random and freestyles
his way into power via pure charisma. For its denial of the locally specific, this
model leads to an unfortunate “holy madness, crazy wisdom” framework, which
would never ask that we consider how the community produces a persuasive
discourse or understands relationships between its various moving parts.
Murphy suggests that if mixture is inevitable in all traditions, the fact of
mixture itself is less interesting than “the way in which the mixture is orga-
nized.”8 Looking at the AAC/NIH, this means attending to a local tradition in
which Muslim thinkers can code materials such as Akhenaten, Freemasonry,
and the book of Revelation as Islamic resources. In Louis Farrakhan’s address
at his Million Man March in 1995, we find reflections on the esoteric mean-
ings of the number nineteen (“And when you have a one standing by the nine,
it means that there’s something secret that has to be unfolded”), references to
“secret Masonic ritual” and “our great historic past, Egypt,” and more citations
of the Bible than of the Qurʾan. Al Mahdi did not need to venture beyond his
local masjid to learn about the Blackness of the original Hebrews; he would
have learned this from his Sunni mentor, Sheikh Daoud Faisal, as an essential

240 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

Figure 37 Extraterrestrial wear-
ing Ancient and Mystic Order of
Melchizedek fez, from an advertise-
ment for Ancient and Mystic Order
of Melchizedek and Holy Taberna-
cle Ministries merchandise, in Holy
Tabernacle Ministries, Savior’s Day
1996: Man of Many Faces Brings Us
One Message (1996).

truth of what it means to be Muslim. Nor did his mythos of redemptive apoc-
alyptic spaceships betray Islam’s boundaries as a category. Many who came to
his community, familiar to varying degrees with Elijah Muhammad’s vision of
the Mothership, were already prepared to think of extraterrestrial civilizations
through Islamic lenses (fig. 37).
Surveying the literature at a Nuwaubian bookstore, Palmer notes the
“seemingly incompatible sources” on display.9 But Islam, Black Hebrews/Israel-
ites, Freemasonry, pharaonic Egypt, Native American wisdom traditions, New
Age esotericism, and UFOs were already organically linked in the imaginar-
ies of metaphysical Africa long before Dwight York, Isa Al Haadi Al Mahdi,
Y’shua Bar El Haady, Chief Black Eagle, Yanaan/Yaanuwn, Al Qutb, Amun-
nubi Rooakhptah, or Malachi Zodok York-El ever touched them. If the oral
traditions are correct, young Dwight York might have first learned about the
connections between Islam and Africa from his mother’s participation at both
State Street Mosque and Yoruba Temple: these mixtures precede him.
The Nuwaubian Christ would not have been a “startling” hodgepodge
of disconnected motifs to everyone. The Ansar were not deconstructionists

Coda ◆ 241
engaged in a postmodern dissolution of categories. They certainly made catego-
ries of their own. They drew borders and cared about policing them. Equipped
with taxonomies of religion that made sense for them and armed with hard facts
from their master teacher, they condemned other communities for concealing
what they regarded as the objective and universal truth.
In addition to resisting the “holy madness, crazy wisdom” model, I have
also challenged the popular narrative of serial reinvention that characterizes
most accounts of this community. This book calls attention to the surprising
degree of stability and consistency in AAC/NIH discourse from the 1970s
through the early ’90s and even beyond, into the Nuwaubian era. This is not to
deny the community’s observable transformations, nor do I claim that commu-
nity literature never makes contradictory claims or violates its own continuities.
Of course, I am not the ultimate judge of whether Nuwaubu makes compel-
ling arguments. Nonetheless, I do insist that compelling arguments, rather
than just bewildering charisma, be acknowledged as valuable in AAC/NIH
literature—much of which was written for the express purpose of supporting
rational, evidence-based debate against followers of other movements and
traditions.
The community’s media make frequent reference to its various changes,
giving retroactive accounts of having passed through successive “schools” to
reach its present truth. “I never intended for my people to remain Mohammed-
ans,” York writes;10 Islam was merely “one of the schools we passed through
on our way to godhood, Neteraat.”11 But as I demonstrated in my discussion
of the Nuwaubian turn, York’s “post-Islamic” arguments continued to rely on
past Ansar citations, symbols, and themes, the scripts that his readers already
knew as true and important. Given the field of relations within York’s discur-
sive universe, moving from the Sudanese Mahdiyya to Egyptosophy, shifting
emphasis from his ahl al-bayt lineage to an origin in the nineteenth galaxy, or
turning a Sufi order into a Masonic lodge did not require that he burn down
his system to rebuild from scratch. A careful look at books, pamphlets, newspa-
pers, and lecture cassettes over the decades reveals that amid these seemingly
radical reorientations, the community maintained a sense of its own trajectory.
One of the sites at Tama Re that has generally been ignored in outsider
coverage was its “Mahdi shrine,” found along the road leading to the pyramids.
Established through the efforts of a community elder, the Mahdi shrine was
ornamented with pious formulas in Arabic script, Ansar flags, the Mahdiyya
spear-and-crescent symbol, and the AAC/NIH’s six-pointed star and crescent
from its Brooklyn era, and it featured a small, roofless masjid painted in green

242 ◆ Metaphysical Africa

and gold, complete with mihrab indicating the direction of Mecca. A younger
generation of Nuwaubians, born years after the community graduated from
its “Muslim school,” might not have shared the elders’ personal attachment to
Islamic ritual spaces or Sudanese Mahdiyya references. Community members
from the Bushwick Avenue days, however, could have found comfort in the
through lines and visions of continuity that a Tama Re masjid offered. Even as
statues of ibis-headed gods and the crucified Christ shared space with Arabic
testimonies to God’s unity and the prophethood of Muhammad, Nuwaubu
found its own coherence, on its own terms, in its own galaxy.

Coda ◆ 243
Notes

Introduction 18. See Dorman, “‘True Moslem Is a True

Spiritualist.’”
1. When referring to its members in the 19. Howe, Afrocentrism, 266–70.
plural, AAC/NIH community literature has 20. Moses, Afrotopia, 6.
used both “Ansar,” the Arabic plural, and the 21. Hornung, Secret Lore of Egypt, 1–2.
anglicized plural “Ansars” (while also varying 22. Moses, Afrotopia, 5.
its vowels, sometimes spelling the word Ansaar 23. Bruder and Parfitt, “Introduction.”
or Ansaars). For the sake of consistency, I refer 24. Amen, “Oyotunji: Oyo Rises Again.”
to community members in the plural as Ansar, 25. GhaneaBassiri, History of Islam in America,
reflecting the Arabic plural, unless directly 197–99.
quoting from the community’s references to 26. Aydin, Idea of the Muslim World, 81.
itself. 27. “Mrs. Besant, Sir Harry Johnston and Sir
2. Philips, Ansar Cult in America, 128–29. Charles Bruce,” African Times and Orient Review
3. Ibid., i. (September 1912): 79–80.
4. Ibid., 14–18, 27–33. 28. Knight, Magic in Islam, 163–93.
5. Baer and Singer, “Toward a Typol- 29. Curtis, Black Muslim Religion, 92.
ogy”; Palmer and Luxton, “Ansaaru Allah 30. Quoted in Deutsch, “‘Asiatic Black Man,’”
Community.” 203.
6. Gabriel, “United Nuwaubian Nation of 31. Jackson, Islam and the Blackamerican, 18.
Moors”; McCloud, African American Islam, 32. Abdul Khabeer, Muslim Cool, 96–97.
61–64. 33. Elmasry, “Salafis in America.”
7. Smith, Islam in America, 100–101. 34. Bowen, “Search for ‘Islam.’”
8. Haddad and Smith, Mission to America, 35. GhaneaBassiri, History of Islam in America,
105–36. 249–51.
9. Ahmed, “Muslim Organizations in the 36. Philips, Ansar Cult in America, 1.
United States.” 37. York, Shaikh Daoud vs. W. D. Fard, 116.
10. Smith, Islam in America, 100–101. 38. Paul Greenhouse, conversation with
11. Gardell, Name of Elijah Muhammad, author, May 2018, New York, N.Y.
205–31. 39. On receiving her new name from Faisal,
12. Gabriel, “United Nuwaubian Nation of see Javid, Constructing Life Narratives, 49. On
Moors.” Jameelah’s friendship with Faisal’s wife, see
13. Ibid.; Smith, Islam in America, 100–101. Bowen, “Search for ‘Islam.’”
14. For an example of this treatment, see 40. Abusharaf, Wanderings, 41, 17–32, 35–36.
Palmer, Nuwaubian Nation. 41. Abusharaf, “Structural Adaptations,” 242.
15. Albanese, Republic of Mind and Spirit, 17; 42. Quoted in Warburg, Islam, Sectarianism,
see also 330–93. and Politics, 171–75.
16. Ernst, “Situating Sufism and Yoga.” 43. Hucks, “From Cuban Santeria to African
17. Palmer, Nuwaubian Nation, 11. Yoruba,” 339.
44. Ibid., 345.
 45. Adefunmi, Tribal Origins of African-Ameri- Al-Amin (PBUH).” Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Rebut-
cans, unnumbered page. tal to the Slanderers, 124.
46. Minor Roberts, “Malcolm X: An Image 65. Al Mahdi, Bilal, unnumbered page.
Fades,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 11, 1966, 2. 66. NIHMA, Imam Isa, unpaginated.
47. Adefunmi, Tribal Origins of African-Ameri- 67. Special Agent in Charge to FBI Director,
cans, unnumbered page. memorandum, “K. Ahmed Tawfiq, Mosque
48. Philips, Ansar Cult in America, 140–41. of Islamic Brotherhood, Inc.,” September 20,
49. Memorandum, “The Ansaru Allah 1973, file on Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood,
Community, Also Known as the Nubian Islamic U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of
Hebrews, the Tents of Kedar; Domestic Secu- Investigation, New York, N.Y.
rity/Terrorism,” n.d. [1992], U.S. Department 68. “The History of the Mosque of Islamic
of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New Brotherhood,” Western Sunrise, September–
York, N.Y., unnumbered page. October 1973, 5, 14.
50. NIHMA, What Law Says the Veil, 6. 69. Ansaru Allah Masgid, Fallacy of Christmas,
51. NIHMA, Look at the Muslim Man, 7–8. 6.
52. NIHMA, Back to the Beginning, 11, 20. 70. Ibid.
53. NIHMA, Spell of the Blacks Was Broken, 71. AAC, “Blessings of the Festival and Good-
unpaginated. ness for You All Year,” in Id with the Ansars, 7–9.
54. NIHMA, Was Christ Really Crucified, 4. 72. New York Police Department, 77th pre-
55. NIHMA, Spell of the Blacks Was Broken, cinct, Herkimer Place Mosque case file, report
unpaginated. dated February 18, 1974.
56. NIHMA, Nubian Islamic Hebrew Mission, 73. Al Mahdi, Bilal, unnumbered page.
5th ed., unnumbered page. 74. AAC, Signs of 73, unnumbered page.
57. NIHMA, From Allah to Man, ads, unnum- 75. Ansaru Allah Masgid, Fallacy of Christmas,
bered pages; “Flemington’s Earthy Crafts Fair unnumbered page.
Offers Bright Rainbow of Talent,” Pocono 76. NIHMA, Imam Isa, unpaginated.
Record, July 28, 1973, 38; “Black Culture Week in 77. Al Mahdi, What Is a Muslim, 25.
Miami,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 27, 1973, 5. 78. AAC, “What Happened to All the Mus-
58. Obaba, Some Things Concerning Blacks, 2. lims, and Other Cultured People?,” in Man of
59. Incidentally, Oyo’s son, Kedar Massen- Our Time, 14.
burg, would run Motown Records from 1997 79. AAC, “Blessings of the Festival,” in Id with
to 2004, during which time he coined the term the Ansars, 7–9.
“neo-soul” and gave Erykah Badu her first 80. Ibid.
national stage. 81. Philips, Ansar Cult in America, 141.
60. NIHMA, Nubian Islamic Hebrew Mission, 82. AAC, “Blessings of the Festival,” in Id with
3rd ed., unpaginated. the Ansars, 7–9.
61. NIHMA, Learn the Importance of Muslim 83. Philips charges that Al Mahdi was actually
Prayer, unpaginated. born in 1935 but later claimed to have been born
62. NIHMA, From Allah to Man, in 1945 to enhance his connection to Muham-
unpaginated. mad Ahmad. Philips observes that in a 1974
63. NIHMA, Nubian Islamic Hebrew Mission, pamphlet, Al Mahdi’s signature over his photo
4th ed., unpaginated. gave his birth year as 1935, while in sources after
64. NIHMA, Founding Father of Islam in 1975—the point at which, according to Philips,
America, 6. To contest Philips’s charge of a late Al Mahdi claimed to be the Mahdi’s descendant
Mahdiyya claim, Al Mahdi’s 1989 counter- and heir—his autograph on the same photo was
polemic, The Ansaar Cult: Rebuttal to the revised to provide a birth year of 1945. Philips,
Slanderers, reproduces a 1971 pamphlet, The Ansar Cult in America, 185–86. While Philips is
Mahdi, affirming that “the Imam Isa is of the right to point out the discrepancy, his reading of
house of Al Mahdi (PBUH), the khalifa (suc- its significance is not accurate. In sources from
cessor) of the Prophet Muhammad Mustafa 1972–73, Al Mahdi is identified as the Mahdi’s
grandson and is given a birthdate in 1945.

246 ◆ Notes to Pages 15–20

NIHMA, Founding Father of Islam in America, 6; Chapter 1
AAC, Signs of 73, 2. Moreover, I found a version
of the autographed photo from the Bushwick 1. The epigraphs to this chapter are from
period in which the year is neither 1935 nor 1945 Houston, Wonderful Ethiopians, 111, and Rogers,
but 1925. Al Mahdi, Opening of the Seventh Seal Negro-Caucasian Mixing, 95–96, respectively.
(ca. 1974–77), unpaginated. Finally, in a mid- to 2. Grewal, Islam Is a Foreign Country, 119.
late 1970s pamphlet, Al Mahdi states that he was 3. Houston, Wonderful Ethiopians, 28, 126, 57,
born exactly one hundred years after the Mahdi, 60, 111, 115–16, 136, 150–51.
while on the same page we encounter the photo 4. Gardell, Name of Elijah Muhammad, 37.
with 1925 written as his birth year. AAC, Abba 5. Nash, “Muhammad Ezaldeen”; Nash,
Island in America (ca. 1974–77), unnumbered “Addeynu Allahe Universal Arabic Association.”
page. In my view, the explanation for these dif- 6. GhaneaBassiri, History of Islam in America,
ferent years is not that Al Mahdi falsified his age 222.
for purposes of eschatological symbolism but 7. Muhammad, “Warning to the Black Man.”
the fact that these years are written in Arabic. 8. Gomez, Black Crescent, 316, 300, 317.
For a novice student of Arabic, confusing the 9. Muhammad, “Warning to the MGT and
numerals 3 and 4 could be a reflexive mistake, GCC.”
since the Arabic numeral 4 looks like a reverse 10. Curtis, Black Muslim Religion, 86–92.
of the “European” (itself technically Arabic) 11. Muhammad, Supreme Wisdom, 18.
numeral 3, while the stems of the Arabic 2 12. Berg, Elijah Muhammad and Islam, 11.
and 3 more closely resemble the shape of a 13. Quoted in Diamant, “Engagement and
“European” 4. The inconsistencies in Al Mahdi’s Resistance,” 76–77; Clegg, Original Man, 183.
birth years appear only in handwritten Arabic; 14. Diamant, “Engagement and Resistance,”
nowhere in his English-language writings or use 137.
of “European” numerals does Al Mahdi claim a 15. Gomez, Black Crescent, 367.
birth year other than 1945. It would appear that 16. Hucks, “From Cuban Santeria to African
Al Mahdi (or whoever signed his name) simply Yoruba.”
wrote the wrong number. 17. Clarke, Mapping Yoruba Networks, 72.
84. Al Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, 40–44. 18. Hucks, “From Cuban Santeria to African
85. Al Mahdi, I Don’t Claim to Be, 8–28. Yoruba.”
86. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, “Unity Is a Must,” in 19. Adefunmi, Tribal Origins of African-Ameri-
Book of ‫ل‬: To Whom It May Concern, 2. cans, 1.
87. AAC, Are the Ansars . . . a Self-Made Sect, 20. Ibid.
19. 21. Curtis, “Urban Muslims.”
88. Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood, “Black, 22. “The History of the Mosque of Islamic
Red, and Green: The Sequence of Creation,” Brotherhood,” Western Sunrise, September–
Western Sunrise, July 1979–October 1980, 6, 17. October 1973, 5.
89. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Our Flag. 23. GhaneaBassiri, History of Islam in America,
90. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Hadrat Faatimah . . . 292–93.
Part 2. 24. wadud, “American Muslim Identity.”
91. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, True Light Tapes 2. 25. Quoted in el-Amin, Afrocentricity, Mal-
92. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Book of Revelation, colm X, and al-Islam, 115–17.
Chapter 1, 94–95. 26. Quoted in Diamant, “Engagement and
93. Ibid., 161–65. Resistance,” 1.
94. See also AAC, Humazah, 10. 27. Quoted in el-Amin, Afrocentricity, Mal-
95. Tents of Nubia, Truth, Edition 15, 1. colm X, and al-Islam, 115–17.
96. York, Does Dr. Malachi Z. York Try to Hide. 28. Quoted in Diamant, “Engagement and
97. York, El’s Holy Qurʾaan, unnumbered Resistance,” 108, 109.
page. 29. Ibid., 104, 124–26, 16, 131–33.
98. Garnett, Soul Sacrifice, 103. 30. Ibid., 83, 127.
31. McCloud, African American Islam, 64–65.

Notes to Pages 20–35 ◆ 247

 32. Carter, “Islamic Party of North America.” 67. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Tabernacle of the Most
33. “Oust Rauf—Heresy Condemned,” Al- High? Part 2, 104–5.
Islam 1, no. 2 (1972): 1. 68. Al Mahdi, Tribal Encyclopedia, 43–44.
34. “Islamic Worker’s Response,” editorial, 69. Al Mahdi, Polytheism, 1.
Al-Islam 4, no. 6 (1976): 10, 12; “Elijah and Fard 70. Ibid., 9–13, 19, 23, 22, 25, 26.
Must Go!,” editorial, ibid., 11. 71. Ibid., 27–28, 30, 33–35.
35. Elmasry, “Salafis in America.” 72. Al Mahdi, Forgotten Tribe Kedar, 19.
36. Ben-Jochannan, African Origins, 195. 73. Al Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, 5.
37. Williams, Destruction of Black Civilization, 74. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Sons of Canaan, 7.
34–35, 56–58, 135, 207, 23, 34, 208–9, 153. 75. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, True Light Tapes 1.
38. Ibid., 23. 76. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Sons of Canaan, 6.
39. “Slaves: ‘Set Them Free as a Favor,’” edito- 77. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Tabernacle of the Most
rial, Al-Islam 5, no. 3 (1976): 2. High? Part 1, 68.
40. “Islam in Africa,” editorial, Al-Islam 1, no. 2 78. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Sons of Canaan, 6.
(1972): 3–5, 9, 14. 79. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, You Are Adam’s
41. Van Sertima, They Came Before Columbus, Descendants, 59.
102–3. 80. Abdul Khabeer, “Black Arabic,” 171, 179.
42. Asante, Afrocentricity, 5, 8–11. 81. Al Mahdi, What Is a Muslim, 11.
43. Al Mahdi, Polytheism, 3. 82. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Rebuttal to the Slan-
44. Collins, History of Modern Sudan, 4. derers, 115, 576.
45. Al Mahdi, Tribal Encyclopedia, 12. 83. NIHMA, Back to the Beginning, 1, 31, 32.
46. Al Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, 7. 84. Al Mahdi, Arabic: The First Language,
47. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, You Are Adam’s unnumbered page.
Descendants, 8–20. 85. Al Mahdi, The 99+1 Attributes of Allah, 4.
48. Al Mahdi, Forgotten Tribe Kedar, 25. 86. Al Mahdi, Arabic: The First Language, 3, 4.
49. Al Mahdi, Tribal Encyclopedia, 11. 87. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Al Mahdi Explains . . .
50. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Sons of Canaan, 7. Degree of the Pure Faith, 72–73.
51. Al Mahdi, Tribal Encyclopedia, 11. 88. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Nubic, 1, 2, 8.
52. Al Mahdi, Lost Children of Mu and Atlan- 89. The subheading for this section is from Al
tis, 50–52. Haadi Al Mahdi, True Light Tapes 77.
53. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Sons of Canaan, 7–8; 90. Al Mahdi, Who Was the Prophet Muham-
see also Al Mahdi, True Story of Noah (1978 mad, 1, 17.
ed.), 13–14. 91. Al Mahdi, Prehistoric Man and Animals,
54. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, True Story of Noah 39–40.
(PBUH), Part One (1986 ed.), 59. 92. AAC, Man of Our Time, 4, 15.
55. See Johnson, Myth of Ham. 93. Al Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, 6, 3.
56. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, You Are Adam’s 94. United Muslims in Exile, Ansaar Village
Descendants, 36–38. Bulletin, March 26–April 24, 1982, unpaginated.
57. Al Mahdi, Book of Lamb 1, unpaginated. 95. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Holy Gospel . . . Book
58. Al Mahdi, Tribal Encyclopedia, 15. 4, 6–7, 14–15.
59. Ibid., 17. 96. Ibid., 12, 27–32, 34–35.
60. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Paleman, 71–78. 97. Ibid., 100–102, 108.
61. Al Mahdi, Tribal Encyclopedia, 17–19. 98. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Tabernacle of the Most
62. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Paleman, 72. High? Part 1, 127.
63. The Supreme Wisdom Lessons, Lost- 99. Rogers, Negro-Caucasian Mixing, 95–96.
Found Muslim Lesson No. 1, http://‌www‌ 100. Chandler, “Ebony and Bronze,” 288, 295,
.ciphertheory‌.net‌/supremewisdom‌.pdf. 302.
64. Hornung, Secret Lore of Egypt, 49–50. 101. For one example, see Al Haadi Al Mahdi,
65. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, You Are Adam’s Al Mahdi Explains . . . Degree of the Opening.
Descendants, 44. 102. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Santa or Satan,
66. Ibid., 58. unpaginated.

248 ◆ Notes to Pages 36–52

 103. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Hadrat Faatimah . . . 137. Ibid.
Part 1, 45, 63. 138. AAC, Are the Ansars . . . a Self-Made Sect, 7, 14.
104. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Hadrat Faatimah . . . 139. Ibrahim, Sayyid ʿAbd al-Rahman
Part 2, 47. al-Mahdi, 70, 78.
105. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Hadrat Faatimah . . . 140. AAC, Final Link, 6–7.
Part 1, 101–2. 141. Al Mahdi, Our Symbol.
106. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Hadrat Faatimah . . . 142. Al Mahdi, Yoruba, unpaginated.
Part 2, 112. 143. Al Mahdi, Raatib (Unshakable), 15.
107. Ibid., 55. 144. Ibid., 145.
108. Al Mahdi, Hadith: Allah’s Scripture Comes 145. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Our Flag, 34–35.
First, 28. 146. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, About the Raatib, 20,
109. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Hadrat Faatimah . . . 57, 58.
Part 2, 111–17, 56. 147. Ibid., 59.
110. Collins, History of Modern Sudan, 17–22 148. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Our Flag, 88, 89.
(quotation on 22). 149. Curtis, Black Muslim Religion, 129.
111. Fluehr-Lobban, “Islamization in Sudan.” 150. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Why the Nosering, 1–8.
112. See Layish, Shari’a and the Islamic State. 151. Curtis, Black Muslim Religion, 110.
113. Karrar, Sufi Brotherhoods in the Sudan, 152. AAC, Al Imaam Isa Visits Egypt, 16.
42–47. 153. AAC, Disco Music, 16.
114. Holt and Daly, History of the Sudan, 21–32. 154. AAC, Al Imaam Isa Visits Egypt, 16–17.
115. Warburg, Islam, Sectarianism, and Politics, 155. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Why Do Muslim
3–4. Women Wear the Face Covering (1989), 166.
116. Ibid., 31. 156. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Why the Nosering, 1, 5,
117. Sirriyeh, Sufis and Anti-Sufis, 37. 15, 8.
118. Fluehr-Lobban, “Islamization in Sudan,” 157. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Santa or Satan,
615. unpaginated.
119. Layish, Shari’a and the Islamic State, 17–29. 158. NIHMA, Nubian Islamic Hebrew Mission,
120. Mahmoud, “Sufism and Islamism in the 5th ed., 9.
Sudan.” 159. See United Muslims in Exile, Ansaar
121. Fluehr-Lobban, “Islamization in Sudan.” Village Bulletin, March–April 1982, unpaginated.
122. Layish, Shari’a and the Islamic State, 115. 160. Al Mahdi, Yoruba, 1.
123. Jameelah, Three Great Islamic Movements, 44. 161. NIHMA, Nubian Islamic Hebrew Mission,
124. Salomon, “Undoing the Mahdiyya.” 5th ed., unnumbered page.
125. Collins, History of Modern Sudan, 33–36. 162. Al Mahdi, Yoruba, 1, 2–4, 7–8.
126. Ibrahim, Sayyid ʿAbd al-Rahman 163. Ibid., 16, 19.
al-Mahdi, 75. 164. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Tabernacle of the Most
127. Warburg, “Islam and State in Numayri’s High? Part 1, 117.
Sudan,” 401. 165. Al Mahdi, Yoruba, 19.
128. Abusharaf, Wanderings, 33–34, 39–41. 166. Ibid., 24.
129. AAC, Final Link, 2–3. 167. Original Tents of Kedar, 12 Spiritual
130. AAC, “What Happened to All the Mus- Disciples.
lims, and Other Cultured People?,” in Man of 168. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, True Light Tapes 77.
Our Time, 14.
131. AAC, Final Link, 2–3.
132. Al Mahdi, Holy Gospel . . . Book 4, 108; Al Chapter 2
Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, 38.
133. AAC, Are the Ansars . . . a Self-Made Sect, 7. 1. The epigraph to this chapter is from Al
134. Warburg, “Islam and State in Numayri’s Haadi Al Mahdi, Who Was Noble Drew Ali (1988
Sudan.” ed.), 13.
135. AAC, Are the Ansars . . . a Self-Made Sect, 7, 8. 2. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Ahmad, Jesus’ Khalifat,
136. AAC, Final Link, 6–7. 1–6.

Notes to Pages 52–76 ◆ 249

 3. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Who Was Noble Drew 35. Al Mahdi, Khutbat’s of Al Hajj Al Imam . . .
Ali, 13. Book Two, 35.
4. Curtis, “Urban Muslims.” 36. Al Mahdi, Khutbat’s of Al Hajj Al Imam . . .
5. Melton, “Daoud Ahmed.” Book One, 35–40.
6. Faisal, Islam, the True Faith. 37. AAC, “Read the Evidence: The Holy
7. Philips, Ansar Cult in America, unnum- Qurʾan,” in Man of Our Time, 13.
bered page. 38. Muhammad, Theology of Time, 198.
8. Paul Greenhouse, conversation with 39. Ibid., 281–82.
author, May 2018, New York, N.Y. 40. Muhammad, “New Flag for the Nation.”
9. See Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Rebuttal to the 41. Gardell, Name of Elijah Muhammad, 112.
Slanderers. 42. AAC, “Unity Is a Must,” in Book of ‫ل‬: To
10. NIHMA, Spell of the Blacks Was Broken, Whom It May Concern, 3.
unpaginated. 43. Al Mahdi, Book of Lamb 1, unpaginated.
11. AAC, Bilal, unnumbered page. 44. Al Mahdi, Book of Lamb 2, unpaginated.
12. AAC, Breaking the Fast, unpaginated. 45. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Tabernacle of the Most
13. Ansaru Allah Masgid, Fallacy of Christmas, 6. High? Part 2, 52.
14. AAC, Breaking the Fast, unpaginated. 46. Knight, Why I Am a Five Percenter, 154–55.
15. Ansaru Allah Masgid, Fallacy of Christmas, 6. 47. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Why the Nosering, 29.
16. Ibid. 48. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Tabernacle of the Most
17. Islam, Sunni Islam in the African American High? Part 2, 2.
Experience, 301–2. 49. AAC, American Muslims, 5.
18. AAC, Id with the Ansars, 7–8, 10, 16. 50. Ibid., 2.
19. AAC, “Our Founding Father,” in Id-ul-Fitr 51. Al Mahdi, Book of Lamb 1, unpaginated.
with the Ansars, 2, 3. 52. Ibid.
20. Al Mahdi, Islam the True Faith, 5. 53. Al Mahdi, Book of Lamb 2, unpaginated.
21. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Tabernacle of the Most 54. Al Mahdi, Book of Lamb 1, unpaginated.
High? Part 2, 58. 55. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, You Must Be Born
22. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Whatever Happened to Again, Part One, 13.
the Nubian Islaamic Hebrew Mission, 314. 56. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Tabernacle of the Most
23. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Book of Laam, 23. High? Part 2, 1.
24. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Tabernacle of the Most 57. Ibid., 60.
High? Part 2, 37, 58. 58. Al Mahdi, Book of Lamb 2, unpaginated.
25. Ibid., 58, 70. 59. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Book of Laam, 3.
26. NIHMA, Imam Isa, unpaginated. 60. Al Mahdi, Book of Lamb 2, unpaginated.
27. Philips, Ansar Cult in America, 140–41. 61. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Book of Laam, 102.
28. See, for example, NIHMA, Spell of the 62. AAC, “What We Must Do,” in Book of ‫ل‬:
Blacks Was Broken. To Whom It May Concern, back cover.
29. Ansaru Allah Masgid, Fallacy of Christmas, 1. 63. AAC, “What Happened to All the Mus-
30. NIHMA, Nubian Islamic Hebrew Mission, lims, and Other Cultured People?,” in Man of
3rd ed., unpaginated. Our Time, 14.
31. Al Mahdi, Our Symbol, 8. 64. Ibid.
32. Al Mahdi, Christ Is the Answer, 31–33. 65. DeCaro, Religious Life of Malcolm X, 147.
33. Al Mahdi, Khutbat’s of Al Hajj Al Imam . . . 66. GhaneaBassiri, History of Islam in America,
Book Two, 22–23. 249.
34. The first part of this two-volume booklet 67. Clegg, Original Man, 197–98.
series mentions September 1978 in a photo 68. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Book of Laam, 119.
caption. The pamphlet’s book catalog lists 69. Al Mahdi, Book of Lamb 1, unpaginated.
eighty-one titles, demonstrating a release of 70. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Book of Laam, 102,
1977 or later. Al Mahdi, Khutbat’s of Al Hajj Al 104.
Imam . . . Book One, 5. 71. Al Mahdi, Book of Lamb 2, unpaginated.
72. Al Mahdi, Book of Lamb 1, unpaginated.

250 ◆ Notes to Pages 77–93

 73. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Book of Laam, 5. 109. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Book of Laam, 278; Al
74. Autobiography of Malcolm X, 332–33, 335. Haadi Al Mahdi, Our Flag, 126.
75. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Book of Laam, 293. 110. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Book of Laam, 291.
76. Ibid., 294, 295. 111. Allah was born Clarence Edward Smith
77. Elmasry, “Salafis in America.” but was frequently misidentified as Clarence
78. Autobiography of Malcolm X, 343–44. Jowars (or Jowers) Smith. Willieen Jowers was
79. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Book of the Five Per- the mother of two of his children.
centers, 107–8. 112. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Book of Laam, 279.
80. Ibid.
81. NIHMA, Thou Shalt Not KILL,
unpaginated. Chapter 3
82. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Ahmad, Jesus’ Khalifat, 4.
83. Al Mahdi, Who Was Noble Drew Ali (1980 1. The epigraph to this chapter is quoted in
ed.), 5–6, 39. Dorman, Chosen People, 189.
84. Ibid., 39. 2. Hevesi, “Muslims Leave Bushwick.”
85. Al Haadi aadiAl Mahdi, Who Was Noble 3. An earlier version of the image appears in
Drew Ali (1988 ed.), 1–2. 1986 pamphlets such as You Must Be Born Again,
86. Ibid., 5. Part One; True Story of Noah (both parts); and
87. Ibid., 1–2. What and Where Is Hell?
88. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Book of the Five Per- 4. Palmer, Nuwaubian Nation, 46, 13.
centers, 256. 5. See Könighofer, New Ship of Zion, 68–70.
89. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Who Was Noble Drew 6. Maulana Muhammad Ali, whose trans-
Ali (1988 ed.), 1–2, 13. lation of the Qurʾan was used at State Street
90. Ibid., 95; see also Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Book Mosque, translates sura 15:28–29: “And when
of the Five Percenters, 256. thy Lord said to the angels: I am going to
91. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Who Was Noble Drew create a mortal of sounding clay, of black mud
Ali (1988 ed.), 71. fashioned into shape. So when I have made him
92. Ibid., 113, 114–20, 122, 123–25. complete and breathed into him of My spirit,
93. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Who Was Marcus fall down making obeisance to him.” Al Mahdi
Garvey, 25–34. translates the passage: “And when the Lord said
94. Ibid., 56–58, 45. to the angels: Surely I am going to create black
95. Ibid., 63, 65. human skin from sound baked clay from shaped
96. Ibid., 68, 67, 75. mud. So when I have completed and breathed
97. Ibid., 71–75, 97. in him of my spirit, so fall down to him prostrat-
98. Ibid., 97, 177–86. ing.” Al Mahdi, Tribal Encyclopedia, 10.
99. Rakim, “The Mystery (Who Is God),” 7. Palmer, Nuwaubian Nation, 15. Palmer
from the album The 18th Letter (Universal/ identifies Jenkins alongside Father Hurley as
MCA Records, 1997). “two obscure Black Hebrew prophets who
100. Knight, Why I Am a Five Percenter, 17–18. wrote in the 1920s,” though Jenkins published
101. Al Mahdi, Book of Lamb 1, first page. The Black Hebrews of the Seed of Abraham in
102. Knight, Why I Am a Five Percenter, 142–43. 1969. Landing, Black Judaism, 373.
103. AAC, Signs of 73, 4. 8. Webb, Black Man, the Father of Civiliza-
104. Al Mahdi, Book of Lamb 1, unpaginated. tion, 8.
105. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Whatever Happened to 9. The earliest critique of “white Jesus” that
the Nubian Islaamic Hebrews, 4. I’ve seen comes from the Pequot author and
106. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Who Was Noble Drew son of a slave William Apess, “An Indian’s Look-
Ali (1988 ed.), 116–17. ing-Glass for the White Man” (1833). See Blum
107. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Book of Laam, 276–77. and Harvey, “From Light to White.”
108. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Book of the Five Per- 10. Lieb, Children of Ezekiel, 218.
centers, 1 (hereafter cited parenthetically in the 11. Vaughan, Preeminence of Christ, 180.
text). 12. Dorman, Chosen People, 184, 121, 130–31.

Notes to Pages 93–117 ◆ 251

 13. Ibid., 130–31, 186. 43. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Tabernacle of the Most
14. Ibid., 80. High? Part 2, 62–63.
15. Autobiography of Malcolm X, 219. 44. Al Mahdi, Forgotten Tribe Kedar, 3.
16. Faisal, Islam, the True Faith, 77. 45. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Travels of a Sufi, 41.
17. Ibid., 78, 76. 46. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Tabernacle of the Most
18. Philips, Ansar Cult in America, 32. High? Part 1, 68.
19. Deutsch, “Proximate Other.” 47. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Whatever Happened to
20. Muhammad, Message to the Black Man, 93. the Nubian Islaamic Hebrew Mission, 20–24, 15,
21. Berg, Elijah Muhammad and Islam, 33, 36. 40, 2–8.
22. Clegg, Original Man, 72–73. Clegg notes 48. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Man of Miracles . . .
that because of their religious objections to war, Part 2, 24.
Elijah Muhammad and Judge Rutherford both 49. In Whatever Happened to the Nubian
chose prison over compliance with the draft Islaamic Hebrew Mission, the image is cropped
during the Second World War. Elijah makes to exclude the spaceship, but the full image
sympathetic reference to Rutherford’s anti- appears in the 1988 editions of Who Was Noble
Catholicism in Message to the Black Man, 323. Drew Ali and What Laws Did Jesus Follow.
23. Muhammad, Message to the Black Man, 88, 50. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Who Was Marcus
97. Garvey, 27.
24. Berg, Elijah Muhammad and Islam, 59, 157. 51. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, What Laws Did Jesus
25. NIHMA, Nubian Islamic Hebrew Mission, Follow, 45, 40, 51.
3rd ed., unpaginated. 52. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, True Light Tapes, 2.
26. NIHMA, Back to the Beginning, unnum- 53. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Wisemen, 39–63.
bered page. 54. Ibid., 129.
27. Al Mahdi, Arabic: The First Language, 26. 55. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Sons of Canaan, 42.
28. Al Mahdi, Holy Gospel . . . Book 3, 120. 56. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Resurrection, 79–82.
29. Al Mahdi, Tribe Israel Is No More, unnum- 57. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Book of Revelation,
bered page. Chapter 1, 5.
30. Ibid., 1, 59. 58. As Siid Nafiys, “Clothing of the Lost Cove-
31. Ibid., 120, 6. nant,” Nubian Village Bulletin, no. 1 (1991), 4.
32. AAC, “What Happened to All the Mus- 59. “The New Dress of the Children of Abra-
lims, and Other Cultured People?,” in Man of ham (Bani Ibraahim),” Nubian Village Bulletin,
Our Time. no. 2 (1992), 2.
33. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Whatever Happened to 60. As Sitt Maryam waalidat Nuwh Wali-
the Nubian Islaamic Hebrews, 1. uddiyn, “Whatever Happened to the Name
34. AAC, “Ansaru Allah Community,” in Abdullah Muhammad?,” Nubian Village Bulletin,
Muhammad (PBUH) and Makkah, back cover. no. 1 (1991), 9.
35. AAC, “Goals and Purposes of the Ansaru 61. Al Mahdi, Christ Is the Answer, 54.
Allah Community,” in Disco Music, back cover. 62. Tents of Abraham, Truth, Edition 3, 8.
36. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Whatever Happened to 63. Tents of Abraham, Truth, Edition 9, 2.
the Nubian Islaamic Hebrews, 14–18, 19–20. 64. Tents of Nubia, Truth, Special Edition,
37. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Should Muslims 21–22.
Observe the Sabbath, 1, 39. 65. York, Holy Tablets, 19.6.301–4.
38. Al Mahdi, Prehistoric Man and Animals, 35. 66. Tents of Nubia, Truth, Special Edition, 4,
39. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, True Light Tapes 1. 11–19, 21.
40. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Should Muslims 67. “New Dress of the Children of Abraham,” 2.
Observe the Sabbath, 1, 29. 68. Tents of Nubia, Truth, Special Edition, 4.
41. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Tabernacle of the Most 69. O’Connor, “Nubian Islaamic Hebrews.”
High? Part 2, 13–16. 70. Tents of Abraham, True Light Tape . . .
42. Al Mahdi, True Story of Noah (1978 ed.), People of the Sun.
37; Al Haadi Al Mahdi, True Story of Noah, Part 71. Brother Taalib, “The Truth of the Scrip-
One (1986 ed.), 18. tures,” Nubian Village Bulletin, no. 4 (1992), 3, 9.

252 ◆ Notes to Pages 117–131

 72. “New Dress of the Children of Abraham,” 2. 25. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Should Muslims
73. Tents of Nubia, Truth, Edition 16, 1, 2, 22, 3. Observe the Sabbath, 29–31.
74. “New Dress of the Children of Abraham,” 2. 26. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Bilaal, the Sceptre
75. “Do We Still Observe Ramadaan,” Nubian Bearer, 14, 20.
Truth Bulletin, no. 4 (1992), 4–5. 27. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Should Muslims
76. Brother Taalib, “Truth of the Scriptures.” Observe the Sabbath, 29–31.
77. “Do We Still Observe Ramadaan.” 28. Al Mahdi, Bilal, 24, 19, 21.
29. Al Mahdi, Our Symbol, 35.
30. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Bilaal, the Sceptre
Chapter 4 Bearer, 1.
31. Ibid., 17–18.
1. Rogers, World’s Great Men of Color, 1:143. 32. Ibid., 18.
2. Chireau, “Black Culture and Black Zion,” 33. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Book of Laam,
25; Moses, Afrotopia, 26. 248–49.
3. Muir, Life of Mahomet, 107, 108, 365. 34. Al Mahdi, I Don’t Claim to Be, 42.
4. GhaneaBassiri, History of Islam in America, 35. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Bilaal, the Sceptre
56–57. Bearer, 77–78.
5. Blyden, Christianity, Islam, and the Negro 36. Ibid., 19.
Race, 328, 230–31, 327. 37. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Rebuttal to the Slan-
6. Quoted in Howell, Old Islam in Detroit, derers, 390–91.
74. 38. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Bilaal, the Sceptre
7. “Two Slave-Leaders of Islam—Bilal and Bearer, 19.
Zaid,” Moslem Sunrise, October 1932–January 39. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Who Was Noble Drew
1933, 31. Ali (1988 ed.), 27, 32.
8. Ben-Jochannan, African Origins, 195–97, 40. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Should Muslims
204, 212–14, 199–201, 205, 217. Observe the Sabbath, 29–31.
9. Rogers, World’s Great Men of Color, 1:143; 41. Al Mahdi, Book of Lamb, 2.
Rogers, “Bilal Ibn Rahab—Warrior Priest.” 42. Philips, Ansar Cult in America, 39–40.
10. Malcolm X, “Interview with Al-Musli- 43. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Rebuttal to the Slan-
moon,” 102. derers, 1–2, 69–70.
11. Curtis, Black Muslim Religion, 82.
12. Muhammad, “Bilalian.”
13. Muhammad, As the Light Shineth, 100–102. Chapter 5
14. Ibid., 152–53.
15. Quoted in Gardell, Name of Elijah 1. Al Mahdi, Lost Children of Mu and
Muhammad, 196. Atlantis, 13. The epigraph to this chapter is from
16. Al Mahdi, Bilal, unnumbered page. Khan, Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan,
17. Al Mahdi, You Must Be Born Again, Part 10:202–3.
One, 118. 2. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Wadhiyfah, book 2, 18.
18. Al Mahdi, Bilal, 4. 3. Ernst, “Situating Sufism and Yoga,” 22.
19. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Should Muslims 4. Nuruddin, “Ancient Black Astronauts,”
Observe the Sabbath, 78. 128.
20. Al Mahdi, Bilal, 1–2. 5. Isa Abd Allah ibn Abu Bakr Muhammad,
21. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Should Muslims “Can You Be Sufi?,” in NIHMA, Nubian Islamic
Observe the Sabbath, 29–31. Hebrew Mission, 3rd ed., unpaginated.
22. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Bilaal, the Sceptre 6. NIHMA, Was Created with One Thought, 18.
Bearer, 8, 2. 7. AAC, Abba Island in America, 5.
23. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Should Muslims 8. AAC, Id with the Ansars, 3.
Observe the Sabbath, 29–31. 9. Al Mahdi, 99+1 Attributes of Allah, 1, 11.
24. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Bilaal, the Sceptre 10. Muhammad, Talisman, 9.
Bearer, 16, 24.

Notes to Pages 132–150 ◆ 253

 11. See Webb, “Negotiating Boundaries: 46. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Science of Healing,
American Sufis.” 14–15.
12. Khan, From Sufism to Ahmadiyya, 6–8. 47. Al Mahdi, Ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs,
13. GhaneaBassiri, History of Islam in America, 82.
208. 48. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Science of Healing, 21.
14. Sedgwick, Western Sufism, 222–35. 49. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Man of Miracles . . .
15. Webb, “Negotiating Boundaries: Ameri- Part 1, 24, 19, 119.
can Sufis.” 50. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Man of Miracles . . .
16. Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, Part 2, 27, 25, 122.
147–60, 161–78. 51. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Man of Miracles . . .
17. Dickson, Living Sufism in North America, Part 1, 24.
100–102. 52. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Man of Miracles . . .
18. Muhammad, Science of Creation, 61. Part 2, 28.
19. AAC, Id with the Ansars, 9–10. 53. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Bilaal, the Sceptre
20. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Ahmad, Jesus’ Khalifat, Bearer, 7–8.
112–13. 54. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Wisemen, 17–18.
21. Dannin, Black Pilgrimage to Islam, 74–77. 55. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Muslim Prayer Book,
22. Philips, Ansar Cult in America, 17–18. Part One (1987 ed.), 195.
23. Hermansen, “Hybrid Identity Formations 56. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, You Must Be Born
in Muslim America,” 172. Again, Part One, 13.
24. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, About the Raatib, 57. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Tabernacle of the Most
unnumbered page. High? Part 2, 1.
25. Ibid. 58. AAC, Are the Ansars . . . a Self-Made Sect, 1.
26. Al Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, 11–13. 59. Halman, “Sufism in the West,” 193.
27. Gardell, Name of Elijah Muhammad, 226, 60. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Science of Healing,
244. 120–25, 128–29.
28. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Rebuttal to the Slan- 61. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Man of Miracles . . .
derers, 607. Part 1, 129.
29. Ibid. 62. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Science of Healing, 129.
30. AAC, Humazah, 5. 63. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Muslim Prayer Book,
31. Halman, Where the Two Seas Meet, 4. Part One (1987 ed.), unnumbered page.
32. Ibid., 243–46. 64. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Travels of a Sufi, 48,
33. Al Mahdi, Ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs, 40, 41.
101. 65. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, True Story of Noah
34. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Science of Healing, 21. (PBUH), Part One, 69, 64.
35. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, From Allah to Man, 56. 66. Al Qutb, Sons of the Green Light . . . Study
36. Halman, Where the Two Seas Meet, 50. Three, 33, 13.
37. Schuon, Understanding Islam, 144. 67. Al Mahdi, Muslim Prayer Book, Part One
38. Schuon, “Paradoxical Aspects of Sufism,” (1983 ed.), 36, 252.
n. 9. 68. Al Qutb, You and the Sons of the Green
39. Hammer, Claiming Knowledge, 109–393. Light, 29, 24.
40. Ibid., 380–93. 69. Al Qutb, Celestial Being or Terrestrial
41. See Nance, “Mystery of the Moorish Being, 21–22.
Science Temple.” 70. Al Qutb, Sons of the Green Light . . . Study
42. Gomez, Black Crescent, 206. One, 18, 21–22.
43. Ibid., 299–300. 71. Al Qutb, You and the Sons of the Green
44. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Science of Healing, Light, 1, 6.
14–15. 72. Ibid., 17, 1.
45. Al Mahdi, Ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs, 73. Al Qutb, Secret Document, 1.
56. 74. Al Qutb, You and the Sons of the Green
Light, 1.

254 ◆ Notes to Pages 150–161

 75. Ibid., 5, 11. 20. Ibid.; Johnson, Holy Fahamme Gospel, 1,
76. Al Qutb, Celestial Being or Terrestrial 58.
Being, unnumbered page. 21. Johnson, Holy Fahamme Gospel, 69, 58.
77. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Science of Healing, 129. 22. Bowen, African American Islamic Renais-
78. See Gregorius, “Inventing Africa.” sance, 345.
79. Al Qutb, Sons of the Green Light . . . Study 23. Lieb, Children of Ezekiel.
Five, 15–17. 24. Curtis, Black Muslim Religion, 88.
80. Muhammad, Talisman, 21. 25. El-Amin, Freemasonry, Ancient Egypt, 32,
81. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, True Story of Noah 39–40.
(PBUH), Part One, 1, 70. 26. Yusuf Ali, Holy Qurʾan, 408–13.
82. Al Qutb, Secret Document, 2. 27. Gregorius, “Inventing Africa.”
83. Philips, Ansar Cult in America, iii, 17–18. 28. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Paleman, 5.
84. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Rebuttal to the Slan- 29. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Why the Nosering;
derers, 168, 167. NIHMA, Imam Isa; see also the ca. 1972 edition
85. Al Qutb, Secret Document, 10. of Al Mahdi, Did the Hog Come for Mankind,
86. Al Qutb, Sons of the Green Light . . . Study which is mostly unreadable in the copy I
One, 8–9, 16. accessed but appears to share material with the
87. Ibid., 16. later NIHMA version (ca. 1975–77).
88. Albanese, Republic of Mind and Spirit, 6–7. 30. See, for example, NIHMA, Back to the
89. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Science of Healing, 96. Beginning.
31. Al Mahdi, Eternal Life After Death, 33–34.
32. Quoted in Haddad and Smith, Mission to
Chapter 6 America, 105–36.
33. Al Mahdi, Science of the Pyramids, 18–19.
1. The epigraphs to this chapter are from 34. Muhammad, Science of Creation, 59.
W. D. Muhammad, quoted in el-Amin, Free- 35. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, True Story of Cain and
masonry, Ancient Egypt, 39–40, and Killah Abel, 34.
Priest, “Looking Glass,” from the album Behind 36. Al Mahdi, Ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs,
the Stained Glass (Good Hands Records/Prov- 32–34.
erb Records, 2008). 37. Al Mahdi, Science of the Pyramids, 61.
2. Hammer, Claiming Knowledge, 109. 38. Ibid., 75.
3. Spieth, Napoleon’s Sorcerers, 17, 50. 39. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, True Story of Cain and
4. Hornung, Secret Lore of Egypt, 116–21. Abel, 51.
5. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone 40. Al Mahdi, Science of the Pyramids, 1–3, 75.
Rolling, 288. 41. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Sons of Canaan, 42.
6. Hammer, Claiming Knowledge, 244–45. 42. Ibid., 2–3, 21.
7. Montserrat, Akhenaten, 134. 43. Al Mahdi, Ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs,
8. Hammer, Claiming Knowledge, 380. 83.
9. Montserrat, Akhenaten, 134–35. 44. Al Mahdi, Science of the Pyramids, 7, 24.
10. Quoted in Trafton, Egypt Land, 30–31. 45. Al Mahdi, Ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs,
11. Ibid., 238–39. 41–44.
12. Ibid. 46. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Sons of Canaan,
13. Gomez, Black Crescent, 246. 42–44.
14. Hornung, Secret Lore of Egypt, 112. 47. Al Mahdi, Ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs,
15. Gomez, Black Crescent, 246. 51–52; Al Mahdi, Science of the Pyramids, 80.
16. Ibid., 206. 48. Al Mahdi, Ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs,
17. Bowen, African American Islamic Renais- 55–58.
sance, 327. 49. AAC, Al Imaam Isa Visits Egypt, 1–2, 15.
18. Dannin, Black Pilgrimage to Islam, 102. 50. Ibid., 22.
19. Bowen, African American Islamic Renais- 51. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Who Was Noble Drew
sance, 342. Ali (1988 ed.), 37–38.

Notes to Pages 161–180 ◆ 255

 52. Al Mahdi, Science of the Pyramids, 1–2, 100, 9. Garnett, Soul Sacrifice, 164.
102. 10. Memorandum, “The Ansaru Allah
53. Joseph, “Jesus in India” (quotation on 53). Community, Also Known as the Nubian Islamic
54. Nance, “Mystery of the Moorish Science Hebrews, the Tents of Kedar; Domestic Secu-
Temple,” 127. rity/Terrorism,” n.d. [1992], U.S. Department
55. Ali, Holy Koran Circle Seven, chaps. 10 and of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New
13. York, N.Y., unpaginated.
56. Khan, From Sufism to Ahmadiyya, 44–47. 11. New York Police Department, 83rd Pre-
57. Moslem Sunrise, January 1923, 16. cinct, Horace Green homicide case file.
58. Muhammad, Theology of Time, 66–67. 12. FBI memorandum, “Ansaru Allah
59. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, You Are Adam’s Community.”
Descendants, 108–9; Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Gospel 13. Ibid.
of John, 90–92. 14. Griffin, Black Brothers, Inc., 43.
60. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Gospel of John, 90–92. 15. FBI memorandum, “Ansaru Allah
61. Al Mahdi, Science of the Pyramids, 91. Community.”
62. Al Mahdi, Was Christ Really Crucified, 16. Rohan, Holding York Responsible, 77.
68–69. 17. Clegg, Original Man, 259–60.
63. Al Mahdi, Science of the Pyramids, 91; Al 18. As Siit Musa, “As Salaat—The Worship,”
Mahdi, Was Christ Really Crucified, 69. Nubian Village Bulletin, no. 1 (1992), 3.
64. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Final Messenger, 19. Tents of Abraham, “Were There Female
332–35. Messiah-Types?,” in Truth, Edition 5, 1.
65. York, Jesus Found in Egipt, 425. 20. Muna waliidat Sauda, “History in the
66. Colla, Conflicted Antiquities, 85–86. Making: Ansaar Women Teach New Comers
67. Hornung, Secret Lore of Egypt, 53. Class,” Nubian Village Bulletin, no. 2 (1992), 4.
21. Tents of Abraham, True Light Tape . . .
Nubian Woman.
Chapter 7 22. Garnett, Soul Sacrifice, 10.
23. Tents of Nubia, “Prophecy Fulfilled,” in
1. The chapter epigraph is from Muhammad, Truth, Edition 15, 1–8.
True History of Master Fard Muhammad, 109. 24. Philips, Ansar Cult in America, 124–25.
2. Special Agent in Charge to FBI Director, 25. Collins, History of Modern Sudan,
memorandum, “K. Ahmed Tawfiq, Mosque 185–217.
of Islamic Brotherhood, Inc.,” September 20, 26. Tents of Nubia, Truth, Edition 15, 1.
1973, file on Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood, 27. York-El, Nuwaubu and Amunnubi
U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Rooakhptah, 23–31.
Investigation, New York, N.Y. 28. York, Is Jesus the God of the Koran, 116.
3. York, 360 Questions to Ask the Orthodox, 4. 29. York, Glory of Jesus the Messiah, 116.
4. Musa, Hadith as Scripture, 87. 30. York-El, What and Where Is Hell,
5. Tents of Nubia, “Who Killed Dr. Rashad unpaginated.
Khalifa?,” in Truth, Edition 12, 5–7. 31. Ibid.; York-El, Is It Black Man’s
6. Carmen Duarte and Kristen Cook, Christianity.
“Tucson Mosque Slaying May Be Linked to 32. York, Post Graduate, 170–73.
Sect,” Arizona Daily Star, October 12, 1992. 33. Staff Writer, “Thousands Flock to Make
7. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Leviathan: 666, 674; Pilgrimage, Not in Mecca but in Egypt of the
for Jacob York’s account, see Palmer, Nuwaub- West—Eatonton, GA, U.S.A.” Nuwaubian
ian Nation, 68. Moors Newsletter, August 3, 1997, 1–2.
8. “Man Stabs Four People in Mosque in 34. “Listen to the Supreme Grandmaster!,”
Brooklyn,” New York Times, January 24, 1983; “4 Nuwaubian Moors Newsletter, August 17, 1997, 7.
Stabbed at Muslim Mosque,” Newsday, January 35. Malachizodok York-El, It’s Alignment
24, 1983. Time.

256 ◆ Notes to Pages 181–195

 36. “Why Do People Call You All a Cult?,” 71. Staff Writer, “Inside the Temple of Imho-
Nuwaubian Moors Newsletter, August 24, 1997, 5. tep,” Nuwaubian Moors Newsletter, August 24,
37. “So Why the Fez?,” Nuwaubian Moors 1997, 2.
Newsletter, August 31, 1997, 3–4. 72. Staff Writer, “Are the Pyramid People
38. Staff Writer, “Thousands Flock to Make Muslims?,” Nuwaubian Moors Newsletter, August
Pilgrimage.” 31, 1997, 1.
39. Raakhptah, Egiptian Magic, 67. 73. Staff Writer, “Thousands Flock to Make
40. Ruakhptah, Sacred Records of Neter. Pilgrimage.”
41. Ibid., 71. 74. Staff Writer, “Man from Another Planet,
42. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Book of the Five Per- He’s Nuts!,” Nuwaubian Moors Newsletter, June
centers, 486. 26, 1997, 1.
43. Calavito, Cult of Alien Gods, 263–82. 75. Staff Writer, “Black Eagle, Prophecy
44. York, Man from Planet Rizq, 23. Fulfilled.”
45. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, True Light Tapes 42. 76. York-El, Constitution of U.N.N.M., 116.
46. Lewis and Kahn, “Reptoid Hypothesis,” 77. See Dew, “‘Moors Know the Law.’”
46. 78. Gardell, Name of Elijah Muhammad, 37.
47. See Dyrendal, “Hidden Knowledge, 79. See Dew, “Washitaw de Dugdah-
Hidden Powers.” moundyah.”
48. Nuruddin, “Ancient Black Astronauts.” 80. Bey, We Are the Washitaw, back cover.
49. Howe, Afrocentrism, 269. 81. Dew, “Washitaw de Dugdahmoundyah,”
50. York, Melanin-ite Children, 11. 68.
51. Malachizodok-El, People of the Sun, 4–7. 82. Holy Tabernacle Ministries, “The Birth of
52. York, Melanin-ite Children, 75. the Holy Tabernacle Ministries in the South,” in
53. Ibid., 1. HTM, Edition 1: The Savior, 4.
54. York, Shamballah and Aghaarta, 40. 83. Staff Writer,” “Inside the Temple of Imho-
55. Malachizodok-El, People of the Sun, 10. tep,” Nuwaubian Moors Newsletter, August 24,
56. York, Holy Tablets, 19.6. 1997, 2.
57. Malachizodok-El, People of the Sun, 51. 84. Rohan, Holding York Responsible, 76.
58. York, El’s Holy Qurʾaan, 1. 85. MacKey and Hughan, Encyclopedia of
59. Ibid., 700. Freemasonry, 301.
60. Lieb, Children of Ezekiel, 205–12. 86. See Sesay, “Dialectic of Representation.”
61. Ben Yahweh, Yahweh Judges America, 58. 87. Raboteau quoted in Trafton, Egypt Land,
62. York, El’s Holy Injiyl, 887–88. 258.
63. Lieb, Children of Ezekiel, 205. 88. Maffly-Kipp, Setting Down the Sacred Past,
64. Wauneta Lone Wolf, “The Mothership on 40.
Big Mountain,” Final Call, September 30, 1986, 89. Trafton, Egypt Land, 69–71 (quotations on
30. 71).
65. As Siit Adiylah, “How About the History 90. Wallace, Constructing the Black Masculine,
of the Black Indians,” Nubian Village Bulletin, 68.
no. 1 (1991), 7. 91. Howe, Afrocentrism, 66.
66. “The Supreme Grandmaster—‘Nayya: 92. James, Stolen Legacy, 127.
Malachi Zodok York-El’ Speaks at Savior’s Day 93. Bowen, “Abdul Hamid Suleiman,” 6.
1997 A.D,” Nuwaubian Moors Newsletter, August 94. Nance, “Mystery of the Moorish Science
17, 1997, 2. Temple,” 125.
67. Staff Writer, “Black Eagle, Prophecy Ful- 95. Berman, American Arabesque, 145.
filled,” Nuwaubian Moors Newsletter, September 96. Beynon, “Voodoo Cult Among Negro
28, 1997, 1. Migrants,” 900.
68. Montserrat, Akhenaten, 124. 97. Muhammad, “Warning to the Black Man.”
69. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Paleman, 287. 98. Muhammad, Secrets of Freemasonry, 3.
70. See Haslip-Viera, Montellano, and Bar- 99. Supreme Wisdom Lessons, Lost Found
bour, “Robbing Native American Cultures.” Muslim Lesson No. 1, English Lesson C-1,

Notes to Pages 195–204 ◆ 257

http://‌www‌.ciphertheory‌.net‌/supremewisdom 122. York-El, Raatib for Shriners, 4–14 (hereaf-
‌.pdf. ter cited parenthetically in the text).
100. Lost Found Muslim Lesson No. 2, ibid. 123. See Al Mahdi, Who Was the Prophet
See also Farrakhan’s treatment of Masons in Muhammad; Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Rebuttal to the
Gardell, Name of Elijah Muhammad, 149. Slanderers, 121.
101. York, Post Graduate, 84, 150–61. 124. Ali, Holy Koran Circle Seven, iv.
102. Dorman, Chosen People, 74–75. 125. See advertisement in York, Post Graduate,
103. York-El, Nuwaubu and Amunnubi unnumbered page.
Rooakhptah, 4–6. 126. York, Shaikh Daoud vs. W. D. Fard, 150, 114.
104. See noponoone.com, “Who Is the Writer 127. See, e.g., York, Malachi: I Will Send You
of This Presentation?,” at https://‌noponoone‌ Elijah (both parts).
.wixsite‌.com‌/noponoone‌/afroo‌‑oonoo. 128. York-El, Nuwaubu and Amunnubi
105. Rahkaptah, Bible Interpretations and Rooakhptah, 109–14 (quotations on 112 and 113).
Explanations, unpaginated. 129. “So Why the Fez?,” Nuwaubian Moors
106. Nupu, Nupu, and Nupu, Nine Ball, Count Newsletter, August 31, 1997.
1, 7. 130. Holy Tabernacle Ministries, HTM, Edition
107. For the song, visit https://‌www‌.youtube 5, 10.
‌.com‌/watch‌?v‌‑Yusq JKsXDkY. 131. Ruakhptah, Sacred Records of Neter, 71.
108. Raakhptah, Nuwaupic, 2–9. 132. Palmer, Nuwaubian Nation, 2.
109. The extensively researched “anti-cult” 133. Ibid., 59–64.
site Nuwaupianism: 360 Questions to Ask
Nuwaupians, run by a former member of the
community, provides a survey of Nuwaupic’s Chapter 8
development and also claims access to sealed
transcripts from York’s trial, during which a wit- 1. The epigraphs to this chapter are from,
ness explained Nuwaupic’s origins. See “Ask a respectively, the song “Triple Threat” by
Nuwaupian, Is Nuwaubic/Nuwaupic an actual hip-hop artists Nature, Nas, and Noreaga (unre-
language that was spoken by Extraterrestrials, leased but available at https://‌www‌.youtube
Sumerians and Egyptians?,” at Nuwaupianism ‌.com‌/watch‌?v‌‑‌‑9eqcX5gho8), and a song called
.com. “The Originators,” from the album To Your Soul,
110. Raakhptah, Nuwaupic, 2. by the hip-hop artist The Jaz and featuring Jay-Z
111. York, Does Dr. Malachi Z. York Try to Hide, (available at https://‌www‌.youtube‌.com‌/watch‌
77–85, 70–72 (quotation on 71–72). ?v‌‑tzzwb8p8D4k).
112. York-El, Nuwaubu and Amunnubi 2. Charles Ahearn, “Planet Rock Revisited,”
Rooakhptah, 1–4. SPIN, November 1990, 20.
113. Al Mahdi, Opening of the Seventh Seal (ca. 3. Garnett, Soul Sacrifice, 98–99.
1974–77), 1. 4. Abdul Khabeer, Muslim Cool, 2, 226.
114. York, El’s Holy Injiyl, 469, 485, 491, 493. 5. Ibid., 79, 101, 80, 107.
115. Khalifa, Quran: The Final Testament, 6. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, True Light Tapes 9.
appendix 23. 7. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, True Light Tapes 4.
116. York, El’s Holy Qurʾaan, 37. 8. AAC, Disco Music, 2–4.
117. Ibid., 45. 9. Ibid., 4, 5, 13.
118. Ibid., 454. 10. Ibid., 6–8, 12, 17.
119. The term “Nuwaubians” appears in place 11. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Paleman, 205–7.
of “Nubians” several times in York-El, Holy 12. AAC, Disco Music, 2–4, 16.
Tablets (rev. ed.), 19.6.296–312. 13. “The Reformer,” poster (Brooklyn: Com-
120. Ibid., 1.2.108–9, hereafter cited parenthet- mittee of Ansaar Affairs, n.d.).
ically in the text by chapter, subchapter (what 14. Al Mahdi, Islamic Music, 1.
York calls “tablet”), and verse number. 15. AAC, Abba Island in America, 9.
121. York, Post Graduate, 88. 16. Al Mahdi, Islamic Music, 14–15, 10.

258 ◆ Notes to Pages 204–229

 17. AAC, “Khanaas Encircles All of the Mean- 38. Consequence, Common, Kanye West,
ings of the Devil (Shaytan),” in Disco Music, 16. and Talib Kweli, “Wack Niggaz,” from the
18. Al Qutb, Sons of the Green Light . . . Study album Train of Thought: Lost Lyrics, Rare
Nine, 20. Releases, and Beautiful B-Sides, Volume One,
19. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Wadhiyfah, book 4, https://‌www‌.youtube‌.com‌/watch‌?v‌‑Muuqz
and book 2, 6–7, 17. NIm7X0.
20. AAC, Humazah, 9. 39. Tragedy Khadafi, “Eloheem,” from the
21. AAC, “Passion: The Sufferings of Christ,” album Still Reportin, https://‌www‌.youtube
in American Muslims, 12–13. ‌.com‌/watch‌?v‌‑FQoGVpdevSY.
22. Daulatzai, Black Star, Crescent Moon, 40. Tragedy Khadafi, featuring Imam
109–20 (quotation on 109). T.H.U.G., a.k.a. Iron Sheiks, “Allumaniti,”
23. See Miyakawa, Five Percenter Rap. https://‌www‌.youtube‌.com‌/watch
24. Daulatzai, Black Star, Crescent Moon, 110. ‌?v‌‑Qt8rMMZIK1I
25. For KMD’s “Peach Fuzz” video, see 41. Lost Children of Babylon (recording
https://‌www‌.youtube‌.com‌/watch‌?v‌‑Q here as the Lost Children of Egypt), “Distant
‌_3GgAALPkQ. Traveller,” from the album Words from the Duat:
26. Zaheer Ali, “Malcolm X Mixtape Project,” The Book of Anubis, https://‌www‌.youtube‌.com
presentation at the Duke-UNC “Legacy of Mal- ‌/watch‌?v‌‑FkxcBDPcTsg.
colm X” conference, Duke University, February 42. Lost Children of Babylon (Lost Children
20, 2015. of Egypt), featuring Luminous Flux, “The
27. Tents of Nubia, Truth, Special Edition, 28. Rising Force,” ibid., https://‌www‌.youtube
28. For the song, see https://‌www‌.youtube ‌.com‌/watch‌?v‌‑C7f5gqeCj‌‑Q.
‌.com‌/watch‌?v‌‑MU64e037DvA.
29. Rakim’s “Living for the City” is available
at https://‌www‌.youtube‌.com‌/watch‌?v‌‑IrLlu Coda
COOE1Y.
30. Available at https://‌www‌.youtube‌.com 1. York-El, Maguraj: The Pilgrimage, 2, 4, 41.
‌/watch‌?v‌‑XJ8g4FCNYtQ. 2. Ibid., 15–16.
31. Daulatzai, Black Star, Crescent Moon, 113. 3. Ibid., 104–21.
32. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, True Story of Noah 4. Palmer, Nuwaubian Nation, 71–72.
(PBUH), Part Two, 93. 5. Murphy, “Santa Barbara Africana,” 160.
33. Al Haadi Al Mahdi, True Story of Noah 6. Ernst, “Situating Sufism and Yoga,” 17.
(PBUH), Part One, 69. 7. Murphy, “Santa Barbara Africana.”
34. See “Proud Nuwaubian Fez,” National 8. Ibid., 160.
Museum of American History, Smithsonian 9. Palmer, Nuwaubian Nation, 1.
Institution, http://‌americanhistory‌.si‌.edu‌ 10. Tents of Nubia, “El’s Qur’aan 18:60–82:
/collections‌/search‌/object‌/nmah‌‌_1317248. What it Means Today,” in Truth, Edition 14, 11.
35. Vinnie Paz, “Righteous Kill,” from the 11. Ruakhptah, Sacred Records of Neter, 135.
album Season of the Assassin, available at
https://‌www‌.youtube‌.com‌/watch‌?v‌‑ZRT
gWG77Fgo.
36. Heavy Metal Kings, “Eye Is the King,”
from the album Heavy Metal Kings, available at
https://‌www‌.youtube‌.com‌/watch‌?v‌‑eIj6P‌_8v
T4Y.
37. DJ Muggs and Ill Bill, featuring B-Real
and Vinnie Paz, “Kill Devil Hills,” from the
album DJ Muggs vs. Ill Bill: Kill Devil Hills,
available at https://‌www‌.youtube‌.com‌/watch
‌?v‌‑ZwNrK7sIcfc.

Notes to Pages 229–242 ◆ 259

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Index

Note: page numbers in italics refer to figures. return to Africa as goal of, 18
Those followed by n refer to notes, with note Sufi genealogies of, 148–54
number. visibility in 1980s, 2
See also Ansars (followers of AAC/NIH);
AAC/NIH (Ansaru Allah Community/Nubian Ansaru Allah Community; dress of Al
Islamic Hebrews) Mahdi and followers; Nubian Islamic
Brooklyn flagship location of, 2 Hebrews (NIH); UNNM (United
changes in names and symbols, minimal Nuwaubian Nation of Moors)
doctrinal impact of, 21, 22, 122 AAC/NIH beliefs and practices, 20–21
as community separate from Al Mahdi, 27 and African religion, efforts to recover, 38
desertions of 1970–74, 18 American metaphysical traditions and, 165
and Faisal, competition for legacy of, 78–79 assumed incoherence of, 7
FBI investigations of, 190–91 broad consistency over time, 7, 16, 22,
flags used by, 21, 64–66, 90, 114, 130 132–34, 168, 206–7, 211, 220, 242, 243
forfeiting of covenant with God, Al Mahdi categorization of, as issue, 4, 6
on, 129, 132 eclectic nature of: as characteristic of Black
founding of, 12, 15–16, 60 Islam, 240–42; as mix of Islamic, Chris-
and gender equality, move toward, 191 tian, African, and other traditions, 1–2,
and hip-hop artists, sympathetic, favorable 4; scholars’ emphasis on, 238–40; as
attention to, 230, 236 typical of all religions, 240
history of, 12–23 loud dhikr and drumming, 13, 15, 18, 34
history of, in York’s Holy Tablets, 214–15 as Nubian-centered Islam, 66
lack of mosque in early years, 18–19 opposition to Salafism, 225
large revenue, changes prompted by, 20 on origin of races and history of human-
mission statement of, 18 kind, 39–44
musicians associated with, 2, 231–32, 234–35 overlap with black Hebraism, 116–19
names used by, 4, 21, 22, 23, 26, 64, 113, 114, phases of: Philips on, 6; York on, 23, 132,
126, 130 207, 242
number of followers, 148 rational, evidence-based debate character-
Nuwaubians as term for, 4 istic of, 242
as only true version of Islam, 212, 213 and rejection of Muslim anti-Blackness, 66
and other Muslim groups in Brooklyn: on return of Christ, 20
attacks and threats from, 188–89; early See also Egyptosophy and AAC/NIH;
opposition from, 18; limited early Hebrew elements of AAC/NIH
engagement with, 83 beliefs; Islam in AAC/NIH thought;
as preservers of ‘Asim recitation in West, 48 metaphysical Africa; Sufism; Sufism
publications offered by, 1–2, 2 and AAC/NIH
relocation to rural Georgia, 4, 23, 113–14, 187 Abba Island in America (AAC), 228
renaming as United Nuwaubian Nation of Abdul Khabeer, Su’ad, 11, 44–45, 224–25
Moors (UNNM), 23, 187, 205 Abdul Uzza, 213
reputation for holy madness, 114 Abode, the, 151
About the Raatib: The Book of the Mahdi (1987), American version of, Yoruba revival move-
66 ment and, 14
Abraham elements of, 38–39
all true Hebrews as descendants of, 70, 116, non-Muslim, Al Mahdi’s early encounters
119, 132, 180 with, 14–15
as Arabic speaker, 46 African Times and Orient Review (Ali), 10
as Black Muslim, 119, 123, 126, 180 Afrocentricity (Asante), 38
civilizing of white people as mission of, 177 Afrocentrism
and genetic engineering of pigs, 173, 177, 178 Bilal ibn Rabah as hero of, 137–38
life and mission of, Al Mahdi on, 41–42 Black Islam’s opposition to, 37
and monotheism of ancient Egyptians, 178 and Christian and Islamic names, rejection
as origin of Judaism, Christianity, and of, 37, 38
Islam, 132 and Christianity, rejection of, as white
and Suhuf, 180 supremacist, 36, 38
training by Egyptian elder/gods, 177 Egyptosophy, 9, 38, 170
Abu Bakr Farrakhan and, 38
and Bilal, freeing of, 139–40, 142, 144 foundational text of, 38
and false Islam, York on, 212 on God as within human beings, 162
Al Mahdi on, 49, 50, 53, 55, 56, 144 Al Mahdi and, 34, 47, 49, 59
as second pick as Muhammad’s successor, non-Islamic, 36, 173
138, 144 on Nubian ancestry of Aztecs, Incas, and
Abusharaf, Rogaia Mustafa, 13, 59 Mayas, 200
Achamad, Paul J. See Johnson, Paul Nathaniel W. D. Muhammad and, 38
Adam Yoruba tradition and, 9, 38
as Allah’s khalifa, 40 See also Islam, Black (Afrocentrist) rejec-
as Black man, 16, 29, 39, 116, 174, 251n6 tion of
body of, as Black Stone in Ka’ba, 174 ahl al-bayt (Muhammad’s household)
and fall from grace, 105 AAC/NIH allegiance to, 49
site of creation, 29, 39–40 Al Mahdi as self-declared successor of, 51
as source of baraka, 147 Al Mahdi on, 50, 102
Adamski, George, 155 and power struggle between true (Black)
Addeynu Allahe Universal Arabic Association, 30 and false (white) lineages, 48–56
Adefunmi, Oseijeman, 15, 32–33 in Revelations, 20, 50–51
al-Afghani, Jamal ad-Din, 201 as true Shi’as, 119
Africa, Elijah Muhammad’s views on, 30–31 See also Shi’ism
African Americans Ahmad, Jesus’ Khalifat (Successor) (Al Mahdi,
esoteric traditions of, as unknown to white 1980), 76, 152
New-Agers, 8 Ahmad, Muhammad (Sudanese Mahdi)
as lost tribe of Kedar, 44 and AAC/NIH link to Nubian Islam, 29
See also entries under Black as avatar inhabiting body of Al Mahdi, 157
African Hebrew Israelite community, 9, 116–17 claim to be awaited Mahdi, 58
African Islamic Mission (AIM), 17 and defeat of Anglo-Egyptian colonial
African Lodge of Boston, 202 regime, 14, 29, 58–59, 101
African Origins of the Major “Western Religions” direct line to Muhammad, 50
(Ben-Jochannan), 36, 137–38 family of, 57
African Presence in Early Asia (Rashidi and van life of, 57–58
Sertima), 51 and Al Mahdi, AAC/NIH emphasis on ties
Africans, Muslim vs. pagan, Al Mahdi on, 72–73 to, 20
African spirituality Al Mahdi on lineage of, 212–13, 217
Afrocentrist effort to recover, 32–33, 38 as Al Mahdi role model, 14, 66

Index ◆ 277
Ahmad, Muhammad (continued) influence on Al Mahdi, 13
Al Mahdi’s claim to legacy of, as grandson, on Jesus as example of enlightenment
17–18, 20, 21, 62, 63, 67, 101–2, 192–93, through learning, 181–82
199, 215, 217, 219, 246–47n83 Al Mahdi on, 84, 93, 97–99
Al Mahdi’s interest in Sufism of, 153 Al Mahdi’s claim to legacy of, 76, 77, 86,
in Al Mahdi’s vision at junction of two 96–100, 111, 187
Niles, 216 mingling of Freemasonry, Islam, and
and Sammaniyya order, 57–58 pharonic Egypt in, 203–4
shrine of, destroyed by British, 59 mingling of Islam and Egyptosophy in,
son of, 59 182, 185
and Sudan as center of Allah’s interest, 29 nationality and citizenship as themes of, 201
and Sunni revivalism in Sudan, 58 perennialism of, 182
and true copy of Qur’an, possession of, 213 teachings of, 10, 30
in York’s translation of Revelation, 29 and “Two Fards” conspiracy theory, 91
See also Ratib of Muhammad Ahmad York’s Holy Tablets on, 211
Ahmad Din. See Johnson, Paul Nathaniel ‘Ali
Ahmadiyya AAC/NIH images of, 55
Bilal story and, 137 as keeper of true Qur’an, 212
on burial place of Jesus in Kashmir, 182 as lineage of true Islam, 49–53, 212–13
Fahamme movement breakoff from, 171–72 and Suhuf, 180
IMA and, 12 See also Shi’ism; Fatima
and metaphysical Africa, 10 Al Imaam Isa Visits Egypt 1981 (AAC,1981), 20,
recruitment of Black Masons, 203 69–70, 178–80, 179
and Sufism in West, 150 Al Imam Isa Visits the City of Brotherly Love
AIM. See African Islamic Mission (AAC/NIH poster, c. 1980), 3
A’isha, Al Mahdi on, 49, 50–51, 52, 53, 56, 212 Allah
Akhenaten, 178, 204, 208, 209 as Black god-scientist, in Nation of Islam
Albanese, Catherine, 7 theology, 155–56
Ali, Abdul Wali Farrad Muhammad vs. God, in Al Mahdi’s theology, 17, 40
assassination by government, Al Mahdi as within human beings, in Afrocentric
on, 92 theology, 162
Al Mahdi on, 99–100 as name of God, Al Mahdi on, 46
Noble Drew Ali and, 99 as self-perfected man, in Nation of Islam
and Supreme Wisdom Lessons, 92 theology, 162
Ali, Duse Mohamed, 10, 100–101, 211 Allah (Clarence 13X), 103–11
Ali, Maulana Muhammad, 251n6 AAC/NIH portrait of, 107–8, 108
Ali, Muhammad (Ahmadiyya scholar), 86 and Allah as name, 103
Ali, Noble Drew assassination of, 103, 106
AAC/NIH Sufism and, 151–52 founding of Five Percenter movement, 103
absorption into AAC/NIH thought, 144 Al Mahdi on, 77, 100, 105–6, 107–8, 110–11
assassination by government, Al Mahdi Al Mahdi’s claim to legacy of, 106–11, 187
on, 92 Al Mahdi’s separation from Five Percenter
blending of Islam and Egyptian mysticism, 171 beliefs, 109
claims to Native Americans heritage, 201 teachings of, 103
on Egypt as origin of African Americans, York’s Holy Tablets on, 211
170–71 See also Five Percenter movement
and Egyptosophy, 170–71 American metaphysical religion, white preju-
foretelling of Al Mahdi by, 96–97 dices in, 7–8
Holy Koran of (Circle Seven Koran), 10, 99, American Muslims: Muslims in America (AAC,
155, 170, 181, 204; York’s publication of 1980), 89
edition of, 218 Al-Amin, Muhammad, 121

278 ◆ Index
el-Amin, Mustafa, 34 on folk-songs as cultural heritage, 229
AMOM. See Ancient and Mystic Order of on health benefits of music, 229
Melchizedek influence on hip-hop, 233
Amorite race on music as part of Nubian spiritual gift,
and African slavery, 73 226, 230, 236
in Ansar musical theory, 225–27, 228, on music as part of true Islam, 228–29
233–34, 236 on music in worship and teaching, 229–30
Al Mahdi on, 39, 197 on origin of the blues, 226–27
oppression of Nubians, 56 on Sunni’s rejection of music as anti-Black, 228
Ancient and Mystic Order of Melchizedek See also music, Al Mahdi’s engagement with
(AMOM), 202, 214 Ansar Pure Sufi group
Ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs (Al Mahdi, founding of, 15, 59–60, 151
1980), 156, 174–76, 178 name change to Nubian Islamic Hebrew
Ancient Egyptian Arabic Order, Nobles of the Mission in America (NIHMA), 15
Mystic Shrine, 171, 203 and second wave of American Sufism, 151
Ancient Egyptian Order, 202 and Sufi genealogies of AAC/NIH, 148
Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, 171, 204 Ansars (followers of AAC/NIH)
angels, as extraterrestrials, Al Mahdi on, 196 Arabic as required knowledge for, 47
ankh, Al Mahdi on, 174 attraction to Al Mahdi’s claims and argu-
Ansaar Cult, The: Rebuttal to the Slanderers (Al ments, 220
Mahdi), 145, 163–65 solicitation of donations, 2, 3
Ansaar Village Bulletin, 50, 72 See also dress of Al Mahdi and followers
Ansar Cult in America, The (Philips) Ansars (Mahdiyya). See Mahdiyya
on AAC/NIH dress, 83 Ansaru Allah Community
AAC/NIH informants for, 20 links affirmed by, 19
as attack on Al Mahdi, 6, 96, 163 name as intended evocation of Faisal, 78
on Bilal and Muslim antiracism, 145 as name used by AAC/NIH, 4, 19, 126
damage to Al Mahdi’s reputation, 126, 188, period of name use, 4, 19, 21, 122
192 See also AAC/NIH (Ansaru Allah Commu-
on four phases of AAC/NIH history, 6 nity/Nubian Islamic Hebrews)
on Al Mahdi and Sufism, 153 Anunnaqi, 196, 197
on Al Mahdi’s birth, 246–47n83 Apology to the Nation of Islam, the True Followers
on Al Mahdi’s conversion to Islam, 13, of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad,
77–78 An (Al Mahdi, 1990), 189
Al Mahdi’s response to, 145–46, 163–65, 188 Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, The (Dow-
publication of, 6, 145 ling), 181
as source on Al Mahdi’s early life, 15 Arabia, as colony of Ethiopia, Houston on, 30
Ansar hip-hop Arabian Peninsula as once part of Africa, Al
artists and albums of, 231–32, 234–35 Mahdi on, 40, 100, 102, 116, 156, 176
and Muslim International, 231 Arabic
Ansar musical theory, 226–30, 236 Black origin of true form of, 45–48
on Amorites’ (whites’) creation of poison- Al Mahdi on, 44–48
ous music to destroy Nubians, 227, as marker of legitimacy among Muslims,
228, 236 44; African American resistance to,
on Amorites’ efforts to erase Black musical- 44–45
ity, 226, 236 Nubic language and, 48
on Amorites’ lack of souls and musical as required learning for AAC/NIH mem-
ability, 226, 227 bers, 47
on Amorites’ theft and corruption of Black teaching of, in AAC/NIH, 178
musical traditions, 225–27, 233–34 Arabic: The First Language (Al Mahdi, 1977),
on dancing, as part of true Islam, 229 47, 121

Index ◆ 279
Arabs Biggest Secret, The (Icke), 196
idolatry of Muhammad, Al Mahdi on, 126, Bilaal, the Sceptre Bearer (Al Mahdi, 1985), 142,
209 143–44
as keepers of Islam, African American Bilal (AAC, 1973), 140–41, 143, 144
resistance to, 44–45, 53–54 Bilal ibn Rabah
Al Mahdi’s concerns about violent extrem- AAC/NIH misspelling of father’s name,
ism of, 192 138–39, 141
as not original residents of Arabia, 30, 39 Arab and Persian Muslims’ removal from
origin of, Al Mahdi on, 44 Islamic history, 138
as white race corrupting Islam: Al Mahdi as bridge to Noble Drew Ali’s followers, 146
on, 44, 45, 52, 56, 74, 102, 119; W. D. as bridge to Ras Tefar I followers, 146
Muhammad on, 35 and colorblindness of Islam, 135–40, 143,
as white slave-trading invaders in Africa, 11, 145–46
31, 33, 37 as companion of Muhammad, 135
Arab slave trade, 11, 31, 33, 37 and connection between Ethiopia and
Black Islam’s objection to characterization Islam, 135–36
as Islamic practice, 37 and construction of Nubian Islamic Hebra-
and Black rejection of Arab Islam, 33, 37 ism, 146
Are the Ansars (in the West) a Self-Made Sect?, and Ethiopians as true Hebrews, 136, 141
60, 63 Farrakhan on, 140
Ark of the Covenant, Al Mahdi on, 176–77 as first convert to Islam, 139
Aryanism, and shift of white interest from as first to perform call to prayer, 136, 137
Egypt to India and Tibet, 170 as hero in Afrocentrist discourses, 137–38
Aryans, Al Mahdi on origin of, 42 as Judahite, 136
Asante, Molefi, 38, 162, 173, 200 Al Mahdi on; as Black claimant to pro-
As Sayyid Al Imaam Isa Al Haadi Al Mahdi phetic heritage, 141; claimed descent
Explains the Secret Meaning of Qurʾaan from, 199; as descendant of Judah, 144,
to the A’immah of Ansaaru Allah, 47 213; as figure of proto-Shi’ism, 144; in
Atlantis Holy Tablets, 213–14; and influence of
Blavatsky on, 170 Ben-Jochannan, 138; as learned man,
Al Mahdi on, 2, 147, 156, 200 141, 142, 144; as link between Israelite
New Age works on, 200 and Ishmaelite lines, 136, 140–41; as
Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (Donnelly), 200 link between Moses and Muhammad,
Ausar Auset Society, 173 144; and Muhammad’s conquest of
Aydin, Cemil, 10 Mecca, 143; as proof of Muhammad as
Aztecs. See pre-Columbian civilizations Black man, 142; as relative of Muham-
mad, 142–43
Baatinite movement, AAC/NIH and, 6 Malcolm X on, 139
Back to the Beginning: The Book of Names (Al and Mihjan, 55, 141, 142, 143, 144, 158, 213
Mahdi, 1972), 16, 45–46, 121 Moses’ prophesy of, 141
Bambaataa, Afrika, 232, 233–34, 234 as Muhammad’s named successor, 138, 142,
baraka, Al Mahdi on, 147 144
Barathary gland, human loss of, York on, 197 and Muslim view of paradise, 138
al-Bashir, ‘Margaret Hasan Ahmad, 192 Philips on, 145
Ben Ammi, 9, 11, 111, 111, 116–17 as prototypical Islamic Hebrew, 136
Bengalee, Sufi, 171–72 rise to prominence among first Muslims,
Ben-Jochannan, Yosef, 36, 137, 178–80 137, 142
Bennett comet, 163 as shaper of Islamic faith, 138
Beth B’nai Abraham, 117 and Shriners, origin of, 217
Bible Interpretation and Explanations (Rahkap- slavery of, parallels to African American
tah), 205, 207 slavery, 139–40

280 ◆ Index
 sons of, as ancestors of all Black Moors, 144 defense of Islam from Afrocentric critics, 37
story of life, 136, 141–42 eclectic nature of theology in, 240–42
as symbol of Black moral leadership, 140 Nuwaubu as culmination of, York on,
W. D. Muhammad on, 94, 139–40 217–18
Blackamerica leaders York’s claim to leadership of, 187
AAC/NIH poster of, 111–12, 112 York’s Holy Tablets on, 211
descriptions of, in York’s Holy Tablets, 211 Black Israelite movements
U.S. government plot to assassinate, Al AAC/NIH narrative on Bilal and, 146
Mahdi on, 92 history of, 117
Blackamerica leadership, Al Mahdi’s claiming influence of Freemasonry on, 205
of, 75–77, 86, 111–12 Al Mahdi’s rejection of, 122
Black leaders whose legacy Al Mahdi Black liberation struggles, and Black metaphysi-
claimed, 76, 111–12, 112, 126 cal traditions, 8
claim to Allah (Clarence 13X) legacy, 106–11 Black Mafia Family, Nation of Islam ties to, 190
claim to Daoud Ahmed Faisal legacy, 76, Black metaphysical traditions, 8
77–84, 86, 111 See also metaphysical Africa
claim to Elijah Muhammad legacy, 75–76, Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam,
77, 84–94, 111 1960-1975 (Curtis), 172
claim to Malcolm X legacy, 77, 94–96, 111 Black Orientalism, 11
claim to Marcus Garvey legacy, 77, 86, Black race, Adam as origin of, 16, 29, 39
100–103 Black Salafism
claim to metaphysical Africa legacy, 101–2 and Afrocentrist recovery of African
claim to Noble Drew Ali legacy, 76, 77, 86, religion, 38
96–100 Al Mahdi on, 44–45
claim to Ras Tefar I legacy, 125–26 Saudi influence and, 36
claim to Shaikh Daa’wud legacy, 77 Black Sunni communities
as resistance against white supremacy and dress code, AAC/NIH criticisms of, 69
Sunni hegemony, 111–12 Al Mahdi’s critique of, 95
and sources from both sides of hetero- and Salafiyya movement, 11
dox-orthodox binary, 76 Blavatsky, Helena, 155, 169–70
as struggle between Nubian awakening and Blyden, Edward, 10, 135, 136–37
opposition by whites and Arabs, 76 Book of Lamb, The (Al Mahdi), Al Mahdi’s order
Black Atlantic, 117–19 to burn all copies of, 189
Black Eagle, as name used by York, 199, 207 Book of Lamb, The: The Message of the Messenger
Black Hebraism Is Right and Exact (Al Mahdi, 1979),
and Black Islam, long history of connec- 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 93, 94, 104
tions between, 117–21 Book of Lamb, The: To Whom It May Concern,
as global phenomenon, 117–19 Fear No Longer for I Have Arrived
overlap of AAC/NIH beliefs with, 116–19 (1985), 93
targeting of, in UNNM publications, 193 Book of Lamb, The: To Whom It May Concern,
Black Hebrew Israelite movements, 9, 46, 46 Fear No Longer for I Have Arrived
Al Mahdi on, 42, 46 (1989), 93, 94–95, 105, 107, 109
Black Hebrews of the Seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Book of Mormon, 169
Jacob of the Tribe of Judah, Benjamin, Book of the Five Percenters, The (Al Mahdi, 1991),
and Levi, After 430 Years in America, 95–96, 106–10, 195
The ( Jenkins), 116–17 Book of the Glory of the Black Race, The (al-Ja-
Black Islam hiz), 52
and Black Hebraism, long history of con- Book of ‫ل‬: To Whom It May Concern: Fear No
nections between, 117 Longer for I Have Arrived (AAC. ca.
conflict between African American and 1978-79), 87, 90–91
immigrant Muslims, 33–35 Bowen, Patrick, 171–72

Index ◆ 281
Brahamic orders, 162 Curtis, Edward E. IV, 10, 31, 69, 172
Brand Nubian, 110, 231, 232 Cushite race, Al Mahdi on, 39
Breaking the Fast (1973), 78–79 Cush/Kush, as origin of Dongolawi Nubians, 39
Brotherhood of Imhotep, 202
Buddha, Al Mahdi on, 42, 43 Daa’wud, Shaikh, Al Mahdi’s claim to legacy
of, 77
Call of the Mahdi in America, The, 66 al-Dahr, Muhammad Sa’im, 186
Campos, Pedro, 111, 111 Dar ul-Islam movement, 12, 15, 34, 82, 83, 152–53
Canaan, as origin of white race, 41 Daughters of Zoser, 202
Canaanites Daulatzai, Sohail, 230–31
Al Mahdi on, 41, 42 Destruction of Black Civilization, The (Williams),
and origin of polytheism, 42 36–37
“Can You Be Sufi?” (Al Mahdi, 1972), 148 Deutsch, Nathaniel, 120
Caribbean migration, and Yoruba tradition in dhikr, Al Mahdi on
New York City, 14 and baraka, 147
Carver, George Washington, 9 eastern religions and, 158, 165
Catholicism, Faisal on, 119 Al Mahdi’s early street performances of,
Catskills AAC/NIH settlement. See Jazzir 13, 15
Abba/Mount Zion AAC/NIH settle- and music, 229
ment (Catskill Mountains) proper form of, 34
Celestial Being or Terrestrial Being . . . Which One Diamant, Jeff, 35
Are You! (Al Qutb), 161–62 Disco Music: The Universal Language of Good or
Chandler, Wayne B., 51, 52 Evil? (Al Mahdi, 1979), 69–70, 226, 228
Christianity divine names, chanting of, Al Mahdi on, 150
Abraham as origin of, 132 Does Dr. Malachi Z. York Try to Hide The Fact
Black (Afrocentrists) rejection of, as white That He Was Imaam Issa? (York), 207
supremacist ideology, 36, 38 Dogon Tribe (Mali), 9, 196, 211
elements in AAC/NIH beliefs, 127–31; Dongolawi Nubians
mixing with Egyptosophy, 129 Bilal ibn Rabah and, 213
as false narrative produced by lizard aliens, characteristics of, Al Mahdi on, 39
196 as descendants of Kush, Al Mahdi on, 39
as false Paulism, 127, 131 Al Mahdi as descendant of, 213
necessity of including in teachings, Al origin of, 217
Mahdi on, 127 targeting by slave traders, 73
and Qur’an as completion of Christian Donnelly, Ignatius, 200
scripture, Al Mahdi on, 125 Dorman, Jacob, 117–19, 205
separation from Judaism and Islam as error, Dowling, Levi H., 10, 99, 181
Ford on, 117 dress of Al Mahdi and followers, 2, 3, 34, 61,
Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race (Blyden), 69–72, 129–30, 168
136–37 nose rings, significance of, 70–71
Christ Is the Answer (Al Mahdi, 1977), 84, 193 as reclamation of Nubian body, 69
Christmas, Al Mahdi rejection of, 116 women’s modesty and, 69–70, 222
“Christ Series” of AAC/NIH publications, York’s Holy Tablets on changes in, 214
cover images of, 127–29
Clarence 13X. See Allah (Clarence 13X) Easter, Al Mahdi rejection of, 116
Collins, Robert O., 57 Eden
communism, Nation of Islam and, 92 destruction of, 176
Confucius, Al Mahdi on, 43 site of, Al Mahdi on, 40, 116, 174
Cuban migration to U.S., and United States Edomite race, Al Mahdi on, 39
encounters with Afro-Cuban tradi- Egiptian [sic] Church of Karast, Malachi Z.York
tions, 32–33 as founder of, 193

282 ◆ Index
Egypt similarity to other Muslim views of Egypt,
and colonialism, 169 185–86
as colony of Ethiopia, Houston on, 30 varying articulations of Islam-Egypt rela-
images of Al Mahdi in, 174, 178–80, 179 tionship, 173
Al Mahdi visit to, 69–70 on white devils’ distortion of Egyptian
modern, as home to corrupted pale Arabs, wisdom, 178–80
181 on white people as subhuman evil animals,
women’s dress in, Al Mahdi criticisms of, 177
69–70 on Zoser/Abdul Quddus, as god worshiped
Egyptian Book of the Dead, 170 in many cultures, 176
York’s translation of, 208, 209 Egyptosophy and UNNM symbolism, 193,
Egyptians, whites’ assumption of whiteness 194, 195
of, 170 El Din, Hamza, 62, 228
Egyptosophy El-Haady, Rabboni Y’shua Bar, as name used by
and Afrocentrist recovery of African reli- Al Mahdi, 113, 114, 130, 188, 191, 214
gion, 9, 38, 170 El’s Holy Injiyl [book of Revelations] ( York,
Ausar Auset Society and, 173 tr.), 208
and Fahamme movement (Ethiopian Tem- El’s Holy Qur’aan (York, tr.), 208–10, 212
ples of Islam and Culture), 171–72 El’s Holy Tehillim (Zabuwr) [the Psalms] (York,
Freemasonry and, 202–4 tr.), 208
and hieroglyphs, mystical associations El’s Holy Torah (York, tr.), 208
with, 169 Eternal Life After Death (Al Mahdi, 1977),
Nation of Islam and, 172–73, 185 173–74, 175
Noble Drew Ali’s interest in, 170–71, 185 Ether (Creative Power), as root of “Ethiopian,”
non-Muslim Afrocentrists and, 173 206
and Nuwaubu, 206 Ethiopia, as term, 206
W. D. Muhammad and, 167, 172–73 Ethiopian Jews (Falashsas. Beta Israel), 117–19
white interest in, 169–70 Ethiopians, as true Hebrews, 136, 141
Egyptosophy and AAC/NIH Ethiopian Temples of Islam and Culture. See
on afterlife, Egyptian misunderstanding Fahamme movement
of, 174 extraterrestrials
on Blackness of ancient Egyptians, 174 Adam and Eve as, Al Mahdi on, 129
and Black perennialism, 182 as avatars inhabiting Al Mahdi, 160
consistency of AAC/NIH narratives on, 185 in Black Islamic narrative, 241
on death of Jesus, 183–85 as builders of ancient marvels, melanin
early publications on, 173–74 theory and, 9
on Egypt as technologically and spiritually chakra-powered ships of, 160
advanced civilization, 174–77, 180 Elijah Muhammad on, 129, 198, 241
increased focus on after 1980s, 168, 174 in hip-hop music, 233–34, 234, 235
and Islam, reconciling of, 168, 180 images of, in AAC/NIH publications, 127,
on Islamic faith of ancient Egyptians, 174, 128
178–80 increased focus on, in 1980s, 129
on Jesus’s education in Egypt, 156, 174, influence on Earth, York on, 196–97
181–85 Al Mahdi on, 159–60
and Al Mahdi’s dress as pharaoh, 168 Al Mahdi’s claim to be, 114, 195–96
mixing with Christian imagery, 129 in Al Mahdi’s interpretation of Revelations,
on monotheism of Egyptians, 178 22
polytheism of, as fabrication of Greeks and Al Mahdi’s power to contact, 21
Babylonians, 178 and Muslim International, 231, 232
on pyramids, origin, uses, and power of, Sitchin on, 196
129, 174, 176–77, 237–38 as Sufis, 160

Index ◆ 283
extraterrestrials (continued) and Egyptosophy, 172
in UNNM beliefs, 196–98, 240–41, 241 and hip-hop, 232, 233
in York’s El’s Holy Qur’aan, 209 on Jesus as Black man, 117
in York’s Holy Tablets, 211 Al Mahdi on, 89, 100, 111, 111, 112, 192
York’s narratives on, as staple of Black mothership vision of, 198
Islam, 198 Saudi co-opting of, Al Mahdi on, 107
See also Salaam civilization and schism in Nation of Islam, 75, 84, 87, 89,
Ezaldeen, Muhammad, 30 90, 93–94
Ezekiel’s vision, and spacecraft, Al Mahdi on, York’s criticism of, 218
156 Father Divine, 84, 99
Fatima, Al Mahdi on, 56
Fahamme movement (Ethiopian Temples of as Black woman, 49, 52–53, 54, 56
Islam and Culture), 171–72 flight to Sudan, 102
Faisal, Daoud Ahmed as keeper of true Qur’an, 212
Al-Islam, the Religion of Humanity, 119 as messiah figure, 219
and Black Israelites, 119 in Revelation, 50, 208
certification as teacher by Saudi Arabia and as successor to Muhammad, 53
Jordan, 77 and Suhuf, 180
and credentials of AAC/NIH and Al Fatimid dynasty, refuge in Sudan, Al Madhi on,
Mahdi, 17–18, 75, 77, 80 47–48
critics of, 34 FBI investigations of Al Mahdi and AAC/NIH,
eclectic theology of, 240–41 190–91
and false Fard Muhammad, 218 Final Call newspaper, 198
on Islam as original religion of Black Final Link, The (AAC, 1978), 60, 63, 64, 65
people, 77 Final Messenger, The: Christ the Final Word (Al
and Islamic Mission of America, founding Mahdi, 1991), 127–28, 183–85
of, 12, 77 fiqh. See Muslim jurisprudence
and Islamic Propagation Center of America, Five Percenter movement
77 and AAC/NIH, interactions of, 103–5
on Jesus as Black man, 117 hip-hop artists embracing, 103, 104, 106, 110,
Al Mahdi as defender of, 79 231, 232
Al Mahdi as student of, 13, 62, 77–78 importance in New York cultures, 103
Al Mahdi on, 23, 99, 100 influence on Al Mahdi, 104–5, 163
Al Mahdi on failures of, 82–83 and knowledge of self as goal, 165
Al Mahdi on religious education of, 83 Al Mahdi’s critique of, 105–6, 108–11
Al Mahdi’s claim to legacy of, 76, 77–84, Al Mahdi’s early life and, 59
86, 111, 187 significance of name, 103
Al Mahdi’s tying of Malcolm X to, 94 York’s publication of texts for, 218
and Medinat as-Salaam communal living See also Allah (Clarence 13X)
experiment, 82–83 Flugelrods, 197
and State Street Mosque, 12, 13, 77, 92 flying saucers. See extraterrestrials
York’s Holy Tablets on, 211 Ford, Arnold Josiah, 113, 117
Family Guide to Easy Arabic Phrases, A, 47 Ford, Wallace Dodd, 91–92, 99–100
Fard, W. D., 84 See also Fard, W.D.; Muhammad, Fard
See also Muhammad, Fard Forgotten Tribe Kedar, The (1974), 40, 44
Farrakhan, Louis Freemasonry
AAC/NIH concern about, 84 Black: and Black view of Islam, 203; history
and Afrocentrist recovery of African of, 202–3; influence on Black Israelite
religion, 38 movements, 205; influence on Al
on Bilal, 140 Mahdi, 204–5; influence on Nation of
eclectic theology of, 240

284 ◆ Index
 Islam, 204; influence on Noble Drew hadiths
Ali, 203–4 anti-music, Al Mahdi’s rejection of, 229
and Egyptosophy, 202–4 Al Mahdi on, 43, 70, 109, 121, 123
history of, 169 York’s criticism of, in Holy Tablets, 212
and Islam, 10 Hadrat Faatimah (AS) (Al Mahdi), 52–53, 54–56
Al Mahdi and, 12 Haile Selassie, 101, 111, 111, 112, 122, 125–26, 193
Masonic orders within UNNM, 202 Hajar, 70–71, 173, 177, 180, 183
and Moorish Science Temple, 203–4 Halman, Hugh Talat, 154, 158
York’s adoption of, 202 Ham, 30, 40–41
York’s recasting of ties to Islam and meta- Hamid, Yusuf Muzaffaruddin, 35
physical Africa in terms of, 215–19 Hammer, Olav, 155, 169
“Furqaan” power claimed by York, 207 hanifs, Bilal and, 141
Hare Krishna movement, 42, 151
Gabriel (angel), and death of Jesus, 183–85 Hart-Celler Act of 1965, 34
Garnett, Ruby S. (wife of Al Mahdi) Hasan, Al Mahdi on, 50, 55
on Al Mahdi’s turn from Islamic identity, See also Shi’ism
192 Hasuwn, Sheikh Ahmad, 62
responsibilities within AAC/NIH, 27 Hebrew elements of AAC/NIH beliefs, 118,
on Sullivan County legal harassment, 121–34
189–90 and Abraham as origin of Judaism, Christi-
Garvey, Marcus anity, and Islam, 132
deportation of, 92 anticipation of Second Coming and, 130–31
and Duse Mohamed Ali, 10 Biblical Tents of Kedar name and, 126
Al Mahdi on, 99, 100–101 community view of through Qur’anic lens,
Al Mahdi’s claim to legacy of, 77, 86, 133–34
100–103 covenant, 123
and pan-Africanist flag, 21, 66 dress code changes and, 129–30, 131, 132
Georgia facility of UNNM. See Tama Re early valorization of Hebrew language, 121
UNNM facility, Eatonton, Georgia and “Jewish period” of 1992-93, 114, 132,
Ghadir Khumm, Al Mahdi on, 50 133–34
GhaneaBassiri, Kambiz, 136–37 Al Mahdi’s criticisms of Muslims for rejec-
Ghulam Ahmad, Mirza, 150 tion of revealed Hebrew and Christian
Gospel of John, Chapter One (Al Mahdi), 184 scriptures, 123–25
Grand Lodge of Luxor, 203 and modern Jews as false sect, 131
Grandmaster Melle Mel, 66 and Mohammad as Nubic Islamic Hebrew,
Great Migration, and hoodoo tradition, 8 125
Great Pyramid, The (Taylor), 169 and “19 Classes,” 130
green light and Nubians of Western Hemisphere as
AAC/NIH sale of glow sticks with, 159 heirs to Israelite covenant, 122, 123
healing power of, 161 and references to Allah as Eloh or Yahuwa,
and Indian prana, 159 131
Khidr and, 154, 160, 161, 162, 215 restoration of Torah sacraments, 130
in Al Mahdi’s vision at junction of two and sale of Jewish religious merchandise, 131
Niles, 216 six point star, use of, 121
See also Sons of the Green Light (SGL) as theme throughout group’s history, 114,
Griff, Professor, 232–33 132, 133–34
See also Israelites; Judaism
Al Haadi Al Mahdi, Al Hajj Imam Isa. See Al Hebrew identity of AAC/NIH, prioritization of
Mahdi, Al Hajj Imam Isa Al Haadi Muslim identity over, 116
Hadith: Allah’s Scripture Comes First (Al Mahdi, Hebrew Israelites, on extraterrestrials, 198
1979), 48–49 Hebrews, as Black, Malcolm X on, 119

Index ◆ 285
Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, 169–70 Husayn, Al Mahdi on, 50, 51, 52, 55
Hindus, origin of, Al Mahdi on, 42 See also Shi’ism
hip-hop
Ansar musical theory and, 233 Iblis, 74
artists sympathetic to AAC/NIH, 230 Ibn al-’Arabi, 154
embrace of Islam, 230–31 Icke, David, 196
and Five Percenter movement, 103, 104, 106, I Don’t Claim to Be . . . (Al Mahdi, 1981), 20, 193
110, 231, 232 Idris/Enoch, Muslim scholars on, 186
of golden age, as nonsectarian, 232 al-Idrisi, 186
Al Mahdi’s embrace of, 230, 236 Id with the Ansars (Al Mahdi, 1977), 19–20, 80,
and Al Mahdi’s extraterrestrials, 233–34, 81, 149, 152
234, 235 Ikhwaani Muslimuwn (Muslim Brothers), York
Al Mahdi’s influence on, 232–35 on corruption of Islam by, 212
and Muslim Cool, 224–25 Illuminati, as lizard aliens ruling the Earth, 196
and Nu-wop, 235 IMA. See Islamic Mission of America
and Zulu Nation movement, 233 Imhotep, 177–78
See also Ansar hip-hop Al Mahdi on, 41–42, 173
History of the Black Indians (Al Mahdi), 199 immigrants from Muslim countries, increase in,
Holy Gospel, The: The Revelation of Jesus the after Hart-Celler Act, 34
Messiah to the World (Al Mahdi, 1984), Incarnated in Human Form (AAC/NIH adver-
50, 121 tisement, 1987), 5
Holy Tabernacle Ministries, as name used by Incas. See pre-Columbian civilizations
UNNM, 23, 193 Indian religions
Holy Tabernacle of the Most High, as name Al Mahdi on, 42–43
used by AAC/NIH, 113, 114 Al Mahdi’s adoption of parts of, 158–59
Holy Tablets, The (York, 1996) white esotericists’ interest in, Aryanism
AAC/NIH beliefs reflected in, 211 and, 170, 181
on AAC/NIH history, 214–15, 220 al-insan al-kamil, Dhikr and, 147
on Bilal, 213–14 Intellectual Hoodlum. See Tragedy Khadafi
descriptions of Blackamerica leaders in, 211 IPNA. See Islamic Party of North America
format of, 210–11 Iran, heretical innovation (bida) in, 44
as future scripture predicted Elijah Muham- Isa Muhammad, as name used by Al Mahdi, 163
mad, 219 Is Haile Selassie the Christ? (York, 1994), 193
on Islam, corruption of, 130, 212, 214 Ishmaelites
on Islamic practice of AAC/NIH, ineffec- and forfeiture of covenant, 129, 132
tiveness of, 214 as heirs to Israelite covenant, 122, 123, 126
on Muhammad as false prophet, 211–12 prophetic heritage, 178
as original revelation, 210 Isis Unveiled (Blavatsky), 170
revised edition of, 211 Islam
strong Islamic influence in, 211–12 Abraham as origin of, 132
on Sufism, 214 and Afrocentrist recovery of African reli-
on true Qur’an in Sudan, 212 gion, 38–39
on York’s journey as full circle, 220 Black (Afrocentrist) rejection of, 11, 33;
hoodoo tradition, and Great Migration, 8 after conflicts with Saudi influence,
Hopi Tribe, extraterrestrials in traditions of, 198 36; as anti-Black, 28, 36, 38, 53; due to
Houston, Drusilla Dunjee, 28, 29–30 incompatibility with Black creativity
How Many Muslims Really Follow the Holy and sophistication, 33; due to Muslim
Qur’an? (Al Mahdi), 122 association with slavery, 33, 36, 37; as
Hu (Egyptian God), in UNNM beliefs, 193 foreign to Africa, 11, 15, 33; as ideology
Hucks, Tracey E., 14, 32 of Arab racial supremacy, 36, 37, 38, 53
Humazah (Al Mahdi, 1979), 230

286 ◆ Index
 contemporary, as distorted “Muhammad- Islamic Party of North America (IPNA), 35–36,
ism,” AAC/NIH on, 131–32 37
corrupted forms of, as product of white Islamic Propagation Center of America, found-
devils, 73–74 ing of, 77
criticisms of Blacks adopting, due to Islamic Society of North America, 36
acceptability to whites, 33 Islam in AAC/NIH thought
egalitarianism of, 10 Al Mahdi on, 12
as false narrative produced by lizard aliens, and Qur’an and Arabic as Nubian, 29
196 rejection of orthodox Islam as anti-Black, 12
golden age of Black embrace of, 230–31 relocation of Islam’s heartland to Sudan, 12,
history of, in York’s Holy Tablets, 211 28–29, 39
Al Mahdi on: Black origins of, 12; on Yorks’ recasting through Freemasonry,
connections between Africa and, 16–17; 215–19
early views, 34; opposition to sect Islam the True Faith: The Religion of Humanity
labels in, 43 (Al Mahdi, 1980), 82
Al Mahdi’s conversion to, 12–13 Ismael, lost tribe of, AAC/NIH as, 60
Al Mahdi’s turn from, 23, 187–88, 191–92; Is Music and Dance Lawful for Muslims?
and concerns about targeting of Mus- (NIHMA, ca. 1972), 228
lims, 192; reasons for, 22–23 Israelites
and metaphysical Africa: as issue for AAC/ as Black Muslims, 119
NIH, 12; range of origins and expres- Ethiopian Falashas as only modern descen-
sions of, 10–12 dants of, 42, 121–22, 123, 141
Nubia as origin of, Al Mahdi on, 48 Nubians of Western Hemisphere as heirs
and oppression of women, York on, 219 to covenant, 122, 123, 126; forfeiting of
separation from Judaism, as work of the covenant, 129, 132
devil, 102 See also Jews, modern
separation from Judaism and Christianity
as error, Ford on, 117 Jaaliyyan Nubians, characteristics of, 39
takeover by red and pale Arabs, 29 Jamaat al-Fuqra, 153, 189
true, as Religion of Abraham, Al Mahdi on, Jameelah, Maryam, 13, 58
131–32 Jay-Z, 2, 221
true black version vs. corrupted form of Jaz, The, 2, 231
Arabs, 102 Jazzir Abba/Mount Zion AAC/NIH settlement
See also Black Islam; Muslims; Shi’i; Sunni (Catskill Mountains)
Islam communal living experiment at, 82–83
Al- Islam (journal), 36, 37 forfeiting of covenant with God, Al Mahdi
Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., 35–36 on, 129, 132
Islamic civilization Al Mahdi’s redesign of AAC/NIH ritual
as product of Black civilization, Nation of and aesthetics at, 191
Islam on, 30–31, 35 and Al Mahdi’s retreat from Islamic iden-
as product of Black civilization, Houston tity, 191–92
on, 30 and “19 Classes” reorientation, 130
Islamic Mission of America (IMA) relocation to, 4, 22, 113–14, 126; motives for,
affiliations of, 12 189, 191, 192; York on, 214
conflict between African American and Sullivan County legal harassment of,
immigrant Muslims in, 77 189–90
founding of, 12, 77 Jenkins, Clarke, 116–17, 251n7
NIHMA claim to be authorized branch of, Jesus Christ
17–18 AAC/NIH views on, 127, 129
Islamic Music (Al Mahdi, 1977), 228 angel Gabriel as father of, 183–85
as Black man, 117, 119

Index ◆ 287
Jesus Christ (continued) See also Hebrew elements of AAC/NIH
burial place in Kashmir, Ahmadiyya on, 182 beliefs; Israelites
connections to Black metaphysical tradi- junction of two Niles
tions, 8 inhabitants of, as Muslim, 79
death of, Al Mahdi on, 183–85 Al Mahdi’s mystical vision at, 19, 130, 153,
education of: and Black perennialism, 159, 174, 185, 215, 216
182; enlightenment through learning, Moses and Khidr at, 154
181–83; in India, late-nineteenth-cen- shuwba and, 158
tury narratives on, 181; and Khidr/ as site of creation of Adam, 29, 174
Melchizedek as teacher, 156, 174, 183; at
pyramids, 156, 174, 182, 183 Ka’ba
in Egypt, consistency of AAC/NIH narra- Black Stone in, as body of Adam, 174
tive on, 185 York on Egyptian origins of, 195
as follower of Mosaic law, 127 Kahane, Meir, 189
Gospel (Injil) of, Al Mahdi on: in Holy Karenga, Maulana, 162, 173, 200
Gospel, 50, 121; as limited to Revelation, El Katub Shil el Mawut (The Book of the Dead):
123, 131, 134, 208; translation of (El’s Coming Forth by Day (York, tr.), 208,
Holy Injiyl), 208 209
identification of Al Mahdi with, 130–31 Kedar
and metaphysical religions’ narrative of Muhammad as descendant of, 48
revelations from superior beings, 155 as origin of Nubians, 48, 126
and Mihjan, 158 as origin of Nubians in America, 42, 121
as priest in Melchizedek’s order, 183 Khalifa, Rashad, 106, 188–89
return to Earth, AAC/NIH publications Khalwatiyya order, 153, 217
on, 193 Khan, Hazrat Inayat, 147, 150, 151
Jesus Found in Egipt (Al Mahdi, 1996), 185 Khidr, 154–58
Jews, modern Al Madhi on, 12, 17, 19, 22, 23, 90
as Canaanites, 52 as avatar inhabiting body of Al Mahdi, 156,
as false sect, 131, 136 157, 158, 195
and Mosaic Law, failure to follow, 127 as consistent theme in Al Mahdi’s writings,
and Qur’an as completion of Jewish scrip- 158
ture, 125 as cosmological energy in Al Mahdi, 154,
ties to Islam, Elijah Muhammad on, 120 160, 162
as white: Elijah Muhammad on, 120; Faisal Al Mahdi’s consistency with other
on, 119; Al Mahdi on, 42, 44, 121–22 accounts, 154–55
al-Jilani, ‘Abd al-Qadir, 154 and Melchizedek, 154–55, 166
Johnson, Paul Nathaniel (Ahmad Din, Paul J. and metaphysical religions’ narrative of
Achamad), 171–72 revelations from superior beings, 155
John the Baptist and Mihjan, 157
AAC/NIH on, 129 as Moses’ teacher, 152, 154
Al Mahdi on Elijah Muhammad as, 20, 84 pyramids built around world by order of,
Judaism 199–200
Abraham as origin of, 132 as spiritual teacher to Al Mahdi, 215
as false narrative produced by lizard aliens, and Sufism, 154
196 as superior being revealing truth to humans,
names for God, as corruptions of “Allah,” 156
46–47 as teacher of Jesus, 156, 174, 183
separation from Islam, as work of the devil, as transrational sage, 154
102 Khutbat series, 85
separation from Islam and Christianity as
error, Ford on, 117

288 ◆ Index
Khutbat’s of Al Hajj Al Imam Isa Abd’Allah on Black god-scientists ruling universe, 156
Muhammad Al Mahdi, Book Two (Al on Black Man as God (Gomar Oz Dubar),
Mahdi), 85–86 17, 40, 104
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 106, 111, 111 and Black Muslim agency, consistent
KMD, 2, 232 advocacy of, 74
Kush/Cush, as origin of Dongolawi Nubians, 39 and Black nationalist version of Islam,
development of, 13
Lamb, the on Black unity through Arabic language, 16
and Elijah Muhammad’s vision of the lam, brother of, 17
158 characterization as unstable trickster, inac-
as name used by Al Mahdi, 130, 158 curacy of, 240
Lamurudu, 73 childhood of, and avatars inhabiting his
letter esotericism of Al Mahdi, 162–63 body, 157
Lewis, “Sufi Sam,” 151, 154 commentaries on Qur’an suras, 47
Lieb, Michael, 198 on connections between Islam and Africa,
Life of Mahomet (Muir), 136 16–17
lizard aliens, creation of humans by, 196 consistency of beliefs over time, 16, 132–34
Lone Wolf, Wauneta, 198 on continuity of AAC/NIH underlying
Lost Children of Babylon/Egypt, 235 message, 132–33
Lubavitcher Hasidim, 130 conversion to Islam, 12–13
conviction as sexual predator, 4
al-Madhi, Sayyid Sadiq conviction for racketeering and child sex
claim to Ansar leadership, 192 abuse, 23
flight from Sudan, 14 early beliefs of, 17, 18
Al Mahdi’s ties to, 61–66, 67 extraterrestrial origin, claims of, 114
return to power in Sudan, 64–66 FBI investigations of, 190–91
visit to Al Mahdi in Brooklyn, 63, 64, 67 and founding of AAC/NIH, 15–16, 59–60
El Maguraj ceremony Freemasonry’s influence on, 204–5
events and symbolism in, 238 identification with angel Michael/Khidr/
similarity to other ceremonies within larger Melchizedek, 90
interstellar Blackness, 237–38 images of, 1, 2, 3, 5, 65, 67, 68, 112, 114, 115,
York’s reinstitution of, 237–38, 239 126–27, 128, 145, 179, 194, 201, 223
Mahbub, Hafis, 12, 79 and Indian religions, adoption of parts of,
Al Mahdi, Al Hajj Imam Isa Al Haadi 158–59
and AAC/NIH, establishment of, 59 influence of, 148
AAC/NIH efforts to free from prison, 23 on Islam: Black origins of, 12; early views,
addition of “Al Haadi” to name, 4 34; opposition to sect labels in, 43
adoption of name, 214 on Islamic, Christian, and Jewish scriptures,
and African spirituality, non-Muslim, early study of, 19–20
encounters with, 14–15 and Jesus, identification with, 20
appearance of, 1 Jewish phase of, 22
on Arabic, true form of, 44–48 the Lamb as designation for, 20, 22
arrest (1987), 190 Masonic lodges led by, 12
arrest (2002), 4 mingling of Judaism, Islam, and Christian-
assassination attempt against, 189 ity concepts, consistency across career,
avatars inhabiting body of, 22, 156–57, 160, 132–34
176 and Muhammad Ahmad (Sudanese Mahdi):
beliefs of: as Afrocentric Sufism, 34, 59; AAC/NIH emphasis on ties to, 20;
as Blackness-affirming Salafism, 43; claim to be grandson of, 17–18, 20, 21, 29,
influence of Nation of Islam on, 40, 41, 62, 63, 67, 101–2, 192–93, 199, 215, 217, 219,
48; turn to eclectic mix after 1993, 23 246–47n83; as role model, 14, 66

Index ◆ 289
 murder accusations against, 190 and “Two Fards” conspiracy theory, 91–92,
as Muslim, Jew, and Christian, 129 218
mystical visions of, 19 on underlying unity of all religions, 152
name, first Islamic (Isa ʿAbd’Allah ibn Abu on white people: as debased subhumans,
Bakr Muhammad), 13, 16, 83 41; as devils, 41, 89; origin of, 40–41
name at birth (Dwight York), 12 and white supremacy, struggle against, 66,
name change to Malachi Z. York, 22, 157 69
name change to Rabboni Y’shua Bar El wives of, responsibilities with AAC/NIH,
Haady, 22 26–27
names used by, 26, 130, 168, 185, 191, 214 writings by, as largely plagerized or
Nation of Islam attacks on, 189 ghost-written, 26–27
NIHMA pamphlets by, 16 and Yoruba Temple, connections to, 15
on Nubians as original humans, 40 See also Blackamerica leadership, Al Mah-
on origin of races and history of human- di’s claiming of; dress of Al Mahdi and
kind, 39–44, 93 followers; Yanaan/Yaanuwn; York, Dr.;
on orthodoxy as white heresy, 43 York, Malachi Z.; other specific topics
on phases of his mission, 23, 132, 207, 242 al-Mahdi, Hadi, 14
poetry by, 149 al-Mahdi, Sayyid ‘Abd al-Rahman, 59, 60
as possessor of 76 trillion years of Khidriyya Mahdiyya [followers of Muhammad Ahmad]
knowledge, 158 AAC/NIH adoption of flag of, 21, 64, 66,
powers attributed to, 19; AAC/NIH turn to 102–3, 111–12, 112, 114, 221, 230, 231, 233,
focus on, in 1970s, 20; power to contact 242
ancient and extraterrestrial figures, 21 Ansaru Allah Community name and, 19
prison sentence, current, 4 and defeat of Anglo-Egyptian colonial
prison sentence for assault (1965-67), 13 regime, 14, 29, 51, 58–59, 101
public profile of, 148 Garvey’s use of flag of, 101
purported lineage and childhood in Sudan, Al Mahdi and AAC/NIH claimed ties to,
62–63, 77 7, 21, 23, 49, 61, 69, 74, 83, 93, 174, 199;
on Ratib of Muhammad Ahmad, 64 Al Mahdi’s later recasting of, within
recognition as Mahdi by Sudanese Ansar, Egyptosophy/Freemasonry, 215, 242;
60 Mahdiyya’s challenging of, 192–93
Saudi efforts to discredit, 6 in Al Mahdi’s interpretation of Revelation,
on separation of Africa (Earth) and Asia 93
(Moon), 40, 100, 102, 116, 156, 176 Al Mahdi’s ties to living family of, 61–66,
spiritual authority of, as genealogical 67
inheritance, 119 and political turmoil in Sudan, 14
and State Street Mosque: breakoff of Ansar popularity with Black music artists, 221, 230,
Pure Sufi group from, 15, 83; Islamic 231, 233
education at, 12–14 Sufis and, 58
on Sudan as center of divine creative See also Ahmad, Muhammad (Sudanese
activity, 17 Mahdi)
and Sudanese community, identification Mahmuwd, as spiritual teacher of Al Mahdi,
with, 13–14 216
and Sunni hegemony, struggle against, 66 Majid, Satti, 13
as temple of incarnated divinity, 159 Malachi-Zodok, as name used by Al Mahdi, 130
ties to living Mahdiyya family, 61–66, 67 Malachizodok-El, as name used by York, 193
travel to Middle East and Africa, 19 Malcolm X
trip to Egypt, 69–70 assassination of, Al Mahdi on, 95, 96, 106
turn from Christianity and Judaism, 23 The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 119
turn from Islamic identity, 22–23, 187–88, on Bilal, 139
191–92 on Hebrews as Black, 119

290 ◆ Index
 and hip-hop, 232, 233 and Islam: as issue for AAC/NIH, 12; range
Al Mahdi on, 76, 94–95, 96, 100 of origins and expressions of, 10–12
Al Mahdi’s claim to legacy of, 77, 94–96, 111 Al Mahdi’s claim to legacy of, 101–2
Al Mahdi’s insertion of himself into Mal- and melanin theories, 9, 196–97
colm X’s life story, 94, 95, 96 and Nation of Islam, 10–11
and “moral geography of the Dark world,” origin of term, 7
29 range of views on African spiritual tradi-
post-Nation travels, new names acquired tion, 9
in, 32 Sufism as expression of, 153
two heartlands of, 32 York’s blending of Native American beliefs
Yoruba Temple and, 15 with, 199, 200
Mali, Afrocentrist rejection of Islam’s influence MIB. See Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood
on, 38 Mihjan
Malik ibn Anas, 43 Bilal and, 55, 141, 142, 143, 144, 158, 213
Man of Miracles in This Day and Time, The (Al Jesus’s possession of, 158
Mahdi), 156, 157, 159, 176 Al Mahdi’s claim to possess, 144–45, 145,
Man of Our Time, The (AAC, 1978), 49, 86 157, 158
“Many Questions, One Answer” (Al Mahdi), significance of, 157–58
149 Million Man March, 172
al-Maqrizi, 186 miracles performed by Al Mahdi, 157
Marrant, John, 202 Moabites, and Egyptian civilization, 171
Maryam, Faatimah, 62 monotheism, as Black, AAC/NIH on, 29, 42
Maryamiyya, 151–52 Montserrat, Dominic, 199
al-Masih, Isa, as avatar inhabiting body of Al Moorish Science Temple
Mahdi, 156, 157 AAC/NIH Sufism and, 151–52
Masjid at-Taqwa (Brooklyn), 35 AAC/NIH thought and, 144
Masons. See Freemasonry and Black Orientalism, 171
Mayas. See pre-Columbian civilizations and Egyptosophy, 171
Medinat as-Salaam communal living experi- and exchange with East, 150
ment, 82–83 Ford plan to destroy, Al Mahdi on, 92
Melanin-ite Children, The (York, 1995), 196–97 Freemasonry and, 203–4
melanin theorists, 9, 196–97 and metaphysical Africa, 10
Melchisedek, as name used by Al Mahdi, 130 and narrative of revelations from superior
Melchizedek beings, 155
as avatar inhabiting body of Al Mahdi, 195 sovereignty claims of, 200–201
and Egyptian pyramids, 169 York’s publication of texts for, 218
and Khidr, 154–55, 166, 183 See also Ali, Noble Drew
Al Mahdi on, 17, 19, 23, 90 Moorish Zionist Temple, 117, 204–5
Melle Mel, 231, 232 moral geographies of blackness, African Ameri-
Merchants of Oyo, 17 can debate over, 28–29
metaphysical Africa Moroccan Empire, Moabites and, 171
AAC/NIH engagement with: through Al Moses
Mahdi’s tie to Sudan, 192–93; turn to and Egyptian wisdom, association with,
Egyptian connection in 1980s, 174; 169, 203, 237
via Nubian connection in 1970s, 174; Khidr as teacher of, 154, 162
Yorks’ recasting through Freemasonry, Masons and, 169
215–19 Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood (MIB), conflict
on Blacks’ unique spiritual gifts and destiny, with NIHMA, 18, 79–80
9 Mount Zion AAC/NIH settlement. See Jazzir
eclectic imaginary of, 241–42 Abba/Mount Zion AAC/NIH settle-
Egyptocentrism in, 9 ment (Catskill Mountains)

Index ◆ 291
Mu (capital of Salaam), 2, 40, 102, 147, 156, 176 219; and Elijah as Elijah the prophet,
Muhaiyaddeen, Bawa, 151 89; and Elijah as John the Baptist
Muhammad (prophet) figure, 20, 84; and Elijah’s prophesy of
as Black man, 29, 48, 49, 52, 55, 142 successor, 89–90; and Elijah’s teaching
as confirmer of timeless religion of proph- as interim step to Nubian Islam, 89;
ets, 131 and Farrakhan-Muhammad schism,
death of, as poisoning by Jewish woman, 93–94; and Supreme Wisdom Lessons,
52, 212 effort to fix, 92–93; and symbolism
as descendant of Kedar, 48 of lam vision of Elijah, 90; and “Two
Elijah Muhammad on, 31–32 Fards” conspiracy theory, 91–92
as false prophet, York’s Holy Tablets on, Al Mahdi’s criticism of, 76, 85–86
211–12, 213 mothership vision of, 129, 198
as follower of Mosaic Law, 125, 127 on Muhammad as Black, 31–32
as Hebrew, Al Mahdi on, 132, 133 on new book replacing Qur’an in hereafter,
knowledge of atomic science, Al Mahdi 86, 87, 120, 219
on, 177 on New Islam let by Black Muslims, 32
and Mihjan, 158, 213 on non-Muslim African cultures, 11, 31
Muslim’s idolatry of, Al Mahdi on, 126, 209 on Qur’an, 120
as Nubic Islamic Hebrew, 125 on separation of Earth and Moon, 40
See also ahl al-bayt (Muhammad’s on shared Black and Islamic identity, 10–11, 13
household) and Supreme Wisdom Lessons, 10, 92
Muhammad, Elijah Theology of Time, The, 86, 87
on Black god-scientists ruling universe, and “Two Fards” conspiracy theory, 91
155–56 views on Africa, 30–31
on Black people on Mars, 187 vision of the lam, 158
break with traditional Islam, 32 on white people as devils, 89
as conscientious objector in World War II, York’s Holy Tablets on, 211
252n22 York’s Nuwaubian-era writings on, 218–19
correction of Al Mahdi in dream, 189 York’s publication of sermons by, 219
criticism by traditional Muslims, 53–54 Muhammad, Fard
distinction between Muslim and African on Africa, 30
identities, 31 elements of Christianity in teachings of, 120
and Egyptosophy, 172–73, 185 Elijah Muhammad’s Biblical interpretation
elements of Christianity in teachings of, 120 of, 120
on extraterrestrials, 129, 198, 241 and Elijah Muhammad’s education, 86
and false Fard Muhammad, 218 Freemasonry’s influence on, 204
on Fard Muhammad as Second Coming of and Supreme Wisdom Lessons, 10
Jesus, 120 and “Two Fards” conspiracy theory, 91–92,
influence of Black Freemasonry on, 204 218
on Islam and Freemasonry, 204 on white people as devils, 88–89
on Jesus as Black man, 117 York’s Holy Tablets on, 211
on Jesus’s education in Egypt, 182 See also Fard, M. D.
on Jews, 120 Muhammad, Hashim, 190
Al Mahdi on, 20, 23, 100 Muhammad, Siddiq, 20
Al Mahdi’s claim to be successor of, Muhammad, Silis, 100
75–77, 84–94, 111, 187, 219; cautious Muhammad, Warith Dean. See Muhammad,
approach to, 86; and claimed Elijah W. D
prophesy of Al Mahdi’s coming, 93; Muhammad, W. D.
and claimed power to explain Elijah’s AAC/NIH criticisms of, 143
misunderstood teachings, 87–89; and and Afrocentrist recovery of African
communication with Elijah in dreams, religion, 38

292 ◆ Index
 on Bilal, 139–40 Muslim Cool, and intersection of hip-hop and
claim to legacy of father, 88 Islam, 224–25
corruption by Wahhabi Sect, 96 Muslim International, Ansar hip-hop and, 231,
and deracialization of Nation of Islam 232
teachings, 140 Muslim jurisprudence (fiqh)
and Egyptosophy, 167, 172–73 Sons of the Green Light and, 162
groups in opposition to, 35–36 York’s criticism of, in Holy Tablets, 212
Al Mahdi on, 100 Muslims
Al Mahdi’s criticism of, 90, 91 and Mosaic Law, failure to follow, 127
on original Muslims as Black, 35 origin of term, Al Mahdi on, 102, 156
and reinterpretation of father’s teachings, rejection of Black African forms of Islam,
88–89 11–12
rejection of Arab influence on Islam, 34–35 rejection of pan-Africanism, 28
relations with Saudi Arabia, 35 See also Islam
and schism in Nation of Islam, 75–76, 84, Muslim World League (MWL), 32, 35, 126
86–87, 89, 90, 93–94 mystery schools of ancient elders, 156, 165
York’s criticism of, 209, 218 Jesus as student at, 10, 129
York’s effort to lure away followers of, 219 and Jesus’s education, 183
Muhammad Ahmad: The Only True Mahdi! locations of, 176–77
(1977), 20, 49
Muhammad Speaks (newspaper), 31, 69–70, 79, names
89, 172 AAC/NIH change from Muslim to scrip-
Muhammad Was a Hebrew (Al Mahdi, 1993), tural names, 129–30
132, 133 Christian and Islamic, Afrocentrists’ rejec-
Al Mukhlisina, 212 tion of, 37, 38
Muridiyya Order, 153 true Nubian, importance of recovering, Al
Musaylimat, 212 Mahdi on, 45
music, Islamic prohibitions on Nance, Susan, 181, 203–4
Al Mahdi’s rejection of, 225, 226, 228–29 Nation of Gods and Earths. See Five Percenter
racialized notion of Islamic tradition movement
created by, 225 Nation of Islam
music, Al Mahdi’s engagement with, 194 on Allah as self-perfected man, 162
and anti-Black ideas about Islam and music, on Black African origin of Aztec wonders,
225 198
Billboard ad, 222–23, 224, 230 on Black god-scientists ruling universe,
and blessing of musical artists, 232 155–56
condemnation of Western music, 222, on Black Man as father of civilization,
227–28, 236 30–31, 35
followers’ lack of concern about, 224 and communism, 92
and hip-hop, influence on, 232–35 doctrine, Al Mahdi’s criticism of, 90
and music in worship and teaching, 229–30 dress code, AAC/NIH criticisms of, 69
as outreach to troubled world, 230, 236 and Egyptosophy, 172–73, 185
as performer, 222–24, 223, 235–36 and exchange with East, 150
as product of Nubian spiritual gifts, 230 and extraterrestrials, 198
as studio owner with record label, 222, 228, groups in opposition to, 35–36
233 influence of Black Freemasonry on, 204
See also Ansar musical theory; hip-hop; and knowledge of self as goal, 165
York, Dr. Al Mahdi’s apology to, 189, 218
music, traditional Nubian, Al Mahdi’s support Al Mahdi’s minimal early engagement with,
for, 222, 228 84–85
Muslim Cool (Abdul Khabeer), 225 Al Mahdi’s refusal to confront, 83

Index ◆ 293
Nation of Islam (continued) NIHMA. See Nubian Islamic Hebrew Mission
materials on Bilal, 139 in America
and metaphysical Africa, 10–11 Nimatullahi Order, 151
rejection of Arab influence on Islam, 34–35 Nine Ball, The (Nupu et al.), 205, 207
Saudi influence on, 35–36 “19 Classes” reorientation, 130
schism after Elijah Muhammad’s death, 75, Ninety-Nine Names of Allah (Friedlander), 150
84, 86–87, 89, 90 99+1 Attributes of Allah (Al Mahdi, 1983),
symbols of, Al Mahdi’s criticism of, 84–85, 148–50
89, 92–93 Nommos, in York’s Holy Tablets, 211
teachings of, Al Mahdi’s knowledge and El Nosair, Sayyid, 189
use of, 83 Now!!! Receive the Answers (AAC/NIH
ties to Black Mafia Family, 190 poster, ca. 1980), 1, 2
on time allotted to white people, 206 Nubia
and “Two Fards” conspiracy theory, 91–92, Fatimid dynasty’s refuge in, Al Madhi on,
218 47–48
violent attacks on AAC/NIH and Al and flags used by AAC/NIH, 64–66
Mahdi, 189 as origin of Islam, Al Mahdi on, 48, 56
on white people, origin of, 41 Nubian Islamic Hebrew Mission in America
York’s attacks on, 218 (NIHMA)
York’s criticism of, 218 beliefs of, 16–18
York’s publication of texts for, 218, 219 characteristic dress of, 15, 16, 18
Nation of Yahweh, on extraterrestrials, 198 consistency of views with later AAC/NIH,
Native American heritage 16, 19
Noble Drew Ali’s claim to, 201 as intended evocation of Faisal’s IMA, 78
UNNM claim to, 200, 202 opposition from New York Muslim groups,
York’s claim to, 199–202, 201 18
Native Americans practices of, 16
Nubian ancestry of, as UNNM belief, as successor group to Ansar Pure Sufi
199–200 group, 15
theories of ancient Freemasonry among, on Sufism, right of American Muslims to
203 identify with, 17
Washitaw Muurs as, 201–2 Nubian Islamic Hebrews (NIH)
Native Americans beliefs on Black unity through Arabic language, 16
popularity in 1990s among New Agers, 199 on connections between Islam and Africa,
UNNM’s blending with metaphysical 16–17
Africa, 199, 200 limited doctrinal significance of name
New Age movement change, 116
AAC/NIH resistance to, as white domain, as one name of AAC/NIH, 4, 64, 126
158 period of name use, 4, 21, 122
elements of, throughout Al Mahdi’s career, See also AAC/NIH (Ansaru Allah Commu-
165 nity/Nubian Islamic Hebrews)
exclusion of Islam and African religions Nubians
from, 8 and AAC/NIH dress code, 70
Al Mahdi phase of, as inaccurate, 165 Arabic as original language of, Al Mahdi
popularity of Native Americans beliefs in on, 47
1990s, 199 claim to both Islamic and pre-Islamic
and Sufism, 158 Egypt, 180–81
white prejudices in, 7–8 as first humans, 40
New Religious Movement (NRM) studies, 7 Muslim, as learned and super-intelligent, 73
Nibiru, 193, 196, 197, 198, 211 northern, as keepers of Muslim culture, 48

294 ◆ Index
 oppression by Amorites, and white animos- Philips, Abu Ameenah Bilal
ity for Black Islam, 56 Al Mahdi on, 96, 107
as original inhabitants of Egypt and Arabia, study in Saudi Arabia, 36
30, 39 See also The Ansar Cult in America (Philips)
southern, as degenerated, 48 pineal gland, melanin theorists on, 9
superior spirituality of, Al Mahdi on, 161–62 polytheism
three categories of, Al Mahdi on, 39 as product of white perversity, Al Mahdi
Nubians of Western Hemisphere on, 42
as Ishmaelite heirs to Israelite covenant, of Yorubas, Al Mahdi on, 72–73
122, 123, 126; and forfeiting of covenant, Polytheism: Worship of the Canaanites (1977),
129, 132 39, 42
Kedar as origin of, 42 pope, Catholic, Faisal on, 119
Nubic, Al Madhi on, 48 Post Graduate: The Renewal of the Lessons (York,
Nubic: The Language of the Nubian Americans, 1996), 219
48 pre-Columbian civilizations
al-Numayri, Ja’far Muhammad, 14, 60 Al Mahdi on Nubian ancestry of, 200
Nuwaubians, as term for AAC/NIH, 4 Nation of Islam on Black African origin
See also UNNM (United Nuwaubian of, 198
Nation of Moors) Nubian ancestry of, as common Afrocentric
Nuwaubu (Nuwaupu) narrative, 200
as always part of York’s message, York on, Prehistoric Man and Animals — Did They Exist?
207 (Al Mahdi, 1980), 123
as culmination of Black Islam, York on, Problem Book, The, York’s publication of edition
217–18 of, 218
meaning and origin of term, 205–6 Prophet Muhammad and Ali Were Nubian, The
Nuwaupianism anti-cult site, 258n109 (Black), 52, 72
Nuwaupic language, 206 Psalms 68:31, 202
Nu-wop, 235 publications of AAC/NIH, author(s) of, as
difficult to identify, 26
Olmecs, Nubian ancestors of, York on, 200 public image of AAC/NIH, as eclectic, incoher-
Opening of the Seventh Seal (Al Mahdi), 204 ent sect, 4
orders, hierarchy of, Al Mahdi on, 162 pyramids
Original Tents of Kedar Al Mahdi on origin, uses, and power of, 129,
as name used by AAC/NIH, 21, 126 174, 176–77, 237–38
period of name use, 126 Muslim views of, 186
Origin and Objects of Ancient Freemasonry mystical associations with, 169
(Delany), 203 in South America: and Nubian origin of
“The Originators” (The Jaz music video) Aztecs, Incas and Mayans, 200; Washi-
AAC/NIH images in, 221, 222 taw Muurs as source of, 201
and corporate pop culture, 222 at UNNM Tama Re compound, 195
and status of Muslim women, 221–22
Our Flag: The True Banner of Al Islaam (Al Quetzlcoatl
Mahdi, 1989), 66, 107 importance to Nation of Islam, 198
Our Symbol (Al Mahdi, 1977), 84 Zoser/Abdul Quddus as, 199
Oyo, Obaba (David Piper York, Jr.), 17, 203, Qur’an
246n59 on Egypt as paradigm of human wicked-
ness, 168
Paleman, The (Al Mahdi, 1990s), 199–200 Egyptian origins of, York on, 195
Palmer, Susan, 8, 116–17, 220, 240–41 on Jews’ altering of Torah, AAC/NIH
Passion (music group), 222, 230 views on, 131
Paz, Vinnie, 234–35 Al Mahdi as supreme interpreter of, 125

Index ◆ 295
Qur’an (continued) Sacred Society of Anubis, 202
Al Mahdi on, as continuation of Biblical Sadat, Anwar, 106
revelation, 125 Sadiq, Muhammad, 203
true version of, in Sudan, 209, 212 Sai Baba, 157
York on Muslim corruptions of, 209, 212 Salaam civilization
York’s accommodation of extraterrestrial destruction of, 176
narratives within, 197–98 Al Mahdi on, 102, 156
York’s chronological arrangement of, See also Mu (capital of Salaam)
197–98 Salafism, AAC/NIH opposition to, 225
al Qutb, as avatar inhabiting body of Al Mahdi, Salafiyya movement, 11
156, 160, 161, 219 Salah bin Rega, 52
Sammaniyya Order, Muhammad Ahmad and,
Raatib for Shriners, The (York), 215–17 153
races, origin of, Al Mahdi on, 39–44, 93, 116 Santeria, in New York City, 14
Rahkaptah, Amunubi, 205–6 Saudi Arabia
Rahmah, as avatar inhabiting body of Al Mahdi, influence on Nation of Islam, 35–36
157 religious training program for Americans,
Rakim (hip-hop artist), 104, 110 11–12
Ramadan fast, AAC/NIH “Jewish period” and, Saudi Arabian Muslims, Al Mahdi on, 74
134 “The Savior” (York, 1993), 194
Ras Tefar I scholarship on AAC/NIH, 6–7
Bilal ibn Rabah and, 136 Schuon, Frithjof, 151–52, 154–55
Al Mahdi on, 101, 122 Science of Healing (Al Mahdi, 1985), 156, 158, 159
Al Mahdi outreach to, 125–26 Science of the Pyramids (Al Mahdi, 1983), 176,
Al Mahdi’s claim to legacy of, 125–26 178, 181, 185
and Psalms 68:31, 202 Secret Document: The Second Steop of the Sufi (Al
Ratib of Muhammad Ahmad, 58 Qutb), 161, 165
AAC/NIH distribution and use of, 63–64 Secret Teachings of All Ages, The (Hall), 143
Sudanese governments effort to ban, 63–64 Serapis Bey, 155, 170
York’s Nuwaubian edition of, 215 seventh seal, opening of (1970), 20, 60, 90, 125,
Resurrection, The (York, 1994), 127 134, 234
Revelation Sex and Race (Rogers), 51
ahl al-bayt in, 20, 50–51 sexism in Muslim communities, Al Mahdi’s
Jesus as Black man in, 117, 119 critiques of, 191
Al Mahdi’s interpretation of, 22, 50–51, 102, SGL. See Sons of the Green Light
129, 134 Shabazz Bey, R. A. Umar, 201
on Qur’an, 125 Shabazz tribe
Qurʾan’s affirmation of, 123, 131, 134 Al Mahti on, 44
Rizq (planet), as IMAM’s home planet, 4, 195, 197 and ancient Egypt, 172
Rogers, J. A., 10, 28, 51, 135, 137, 138, 139 establishment of civilization by, Elijah
Rohan, Robert, 191, 202 Muhammad on, 31
Rooakptah, Amunnubi, as name used by Al separation of Earth and Moon by, Elijah
Mahdi, 168, 205, 207, 214 Muhammad on, 40
Rutherford, Judge, 120, 252n22 Shaikh Daoud vs. W. D. Fard (York), 218
Shaqiya Nubians, characteristics of, Al Mahdi
Sabbath on, 39
community view of through Qur’anic lens, shariya, York’s criticism of, in Holy Tablets, 212
134 Shi’ism
Al Mahdi on, 123–24, 124 Black Arabs as nucleus for, 52
Sacred Records of Neter: Aaferti Atum-Re (York, claims about Muhammad’s successor, Al
1998), 219 Mahdi on, 49

296 ◆ Index
Should Muslims Observe the Sabbath? (1985), 123, Al Mahdi’s Islamic education and, 12–14, 59,
124, 141, 144 63, 77–78
Shriners, York on origin of, 217 members’ move to AAC/NIH, 83
shuwba, Al Mahdi’s claim to possess, 158 and origin of AAC/NIH, 12
Signs of 73 (Al Mahdi), 104 range of beliefs represented in, 13–14
Silsilati: My Lineage, 66 Sudanese-American community in, 13–14,
Sisters of Isis, 202 59
Sitchin, Zecharia, 196 teachings on Israelites as Muslim and Black,
slaves in United States, Muslim vs. pagan, 72, 73 119–20
Smith, Joseph, 169 Stolen Legacy: The Egyptian Origins of Western
Sons of Canaan (Al Mahdi), 44, 129 Philosophy ( James), 203
Sons of the Green Light (SGL), 158–65 Sudan
AAC/NIH advertisements for, 126, 159–60, in AAC/NIH materials, as mythical land of
164 pure Islam, 61
downplaying of Nubian metaphysical AAC/NIH relocation of Islam’s heartland
Africa in, 161–62 to, 12, 28–29, 39
emblem of, 160, 164 Anglo-Egyptian colonial regime: and
enlightenment promised to members of, 159 banning of Ahmad’s Ratib, 63–64; Al
founding of, 21 Mahdi on, 51; Muhammad Ahmad’s
initiation to, 160–61 defeat of, 14, 29, 101; reconquest by,
lineage back to Muhammad, 161 58–59
Al Mahdi pamphlet on, 161 as center of divine creative activity, Al
Al Mahdi’s letter esotericism and, 163 Mahdi on, 17
Al Mahdi’s use of music in lessons for, 229 connections to ancient Egypt, Adefunmi
replacement by Ancient and Mystic Order on, 15
of Melchizedek, 202, 204 Fatima’s flight to, Al Mahdi on, 102
as Sufi lodge, 148, 153–54, 161–62 Al Mahdi’s cutting of ties to, 192–93, 214
Sunni antagonism against, 163 Al Mahdi travel to, 60, 62
as “universal” order spanning all traditions, Muhammad’s flight to, 29
160, 161 Muslim military coup in, 192
Sphinx, loss of nose, 186 in nineteenth century: Islamic orthodoxy
star, six-pointed imposed in, 57, 59; Sufism in, 57;
Five Percenters’ use of, 105 Turko-Egyptian regime, 57
Garvey’s use of, 101 northern, as origin of Black Americans, 48
use by AAC/NIH, 16, 19, 46, 46, 89, 92–93, as site of Adam and Eve’s creation, 29,
114, 118, 121, 122–23, 128, 129, 130, 143, 152, 39–40, 43
173–74, 175, 242–43 as site of Mahdi’s rise, 29
use by UNNM, 193, 194 twentieth-century, political conflict in, 60
State Street Mosque (Brooklyn) See also Ahmad, Muhammad; Mahdiyya
breakoff of Dar ul-Islam movement, 34 Sudanese-American community, at State Street
breakoff of Al Mahdi faction, 15 Mosque, 13–14, 59
breakoff of Ya-Sin Mosque, 12, 34, 152–53 Sudanese Madhi. See Ahmad, Muhammad
conflict between African American and Sufi Order International, 151
immigrant Muslims, 33–34, 77, 79 Sufi Order of the West, 150
Dongolowi influence in, 13–14 Sufi orders, Al Mahdi on, 162
founding of, 77, 92 Sufism, American
images of, in AAC/NIH publications, 127, first wave of, 150–51
128 second wave of, 151–52
Al Mahdi’s criticism of schism in, 82–83 Sufism and AAC/NIH
Al Mahdi’s defense of Faisal against immi- and AAC/NIH founding as Ansar Pure
grant teachers, 79 Sufi, 151–52

Index ◆ 297
Sufism and AAC/NIH (continued) racism against true Black Islam, AAC/NIH
and AAC/NIH universalism, 152 on, 56
availability to Westerners, Al Mahdi on, Saudi co-opting of, Al Mahdi on, 107
148–49 violent attacks on AAC/NIH and Al
definition of, Al Mahdi on, 149 Mahdi, 188–89
eastern religious practice and, 158, 165 as white form of Islam, Al Mahdi on, 48
as engagement with existing local dialect, superior beings revealing wisdom to humans,
165–66 metaphysical religions’ narrative of,
and esoteric perennialism, 151–52 155–56
as expression of metaphysical Africa, 153 Supreme Wisdom Lessons
growing diaspora communities and, 153 on Africa as not true home of Blacks, 30–31
and growth of Sufism in African American and Elijah Muhammad as renewer of Islam,
community, 152–53 219
importance to Al Mahdi, 148 Five Percenters and, 103, 110
Khidr and, 154 influence of Black Freemasonry on, 204
Al Mahdi poem on, 149 Al Mahdi on, 92–93, 110, 134
Al Mahdi’s early embrace of, 165 and “Two Fards” theory, 92
Al Mahdi’s engagement with Sufism and, Swahili, Al Mahdi on, 47
148–50 Sweet Daddy Grace, 84, 99
Al Mahdi’s list of Sufi masters, 162
Al Mahdi’s Sufism, and return to knowledge Tablighi Jama’at, 34, 79
of self, 165 al-Tabrizi, Shams ad-Din, 159
Al Mahdi’s trip to Egypt and, 153 Talilsman (Al Mahdi, 1979), 163
and New Age movement, 158 Tama Re UNNM facility, Eatonton, Georgia
in nineteenth century Sudan, 57 El Aswud Mir (Black Pyramid) at, 237
non-Muslim forms of, 151 dress code at, 194–95
Philips on, 153 government confiscation and bulldozing
and self-healing, 165 of, 23
as separate from Islam, in New Age view, 8 government raid on, 4, 23
Sons of the Green Light and, 161–62 and El Maguraj ceremony, 237–38, 239
Sudanese community at State Street Mahdi shrine at, 242–43
Mosque and, 153 move to, 4, 23, 113–14, 187; and departure
Sufi practices in AAC/NIH, 147–48 from Brooklyn hip-hop culture, 234;
as “universal” teaching, 160, 161, 165 motives for, 188–93, 202; and turn from
and York’s consistent treatment of Sufism, 214 Islamic identity, 187–88; York on, 214
See also Sons of the Green Light (SGL) symbolism of architecture and art in, 195,
Suhuf, Al Mahdi on, 180 242–43; scholars’ emphasis on eclectic
Sulaiman, Amir, 225 nature of, 238–40, 242
Suleiman, Abdul Hamid, 203 Teach Yourself Qur’aan with Tape, 47
Sunni Islam Temple, Robert K. G., 9
AAC/NIH rejection of, 53 Tents of Abraham, as name used by AAC/NIH,
antagonism against AAC/NIH, 163 22, 114, 130, 187
conversion to, as reclaiming of Hamit- Tents of Nubia, as name used by AAC/NIH,
ic-Arab racial heritage, 30 22, 130
false Hadiths spread by, Al Mahdi on, Theosophical Society, 169–70
48–49, 51 They Came Before Columbus (van Sertima), 38,
Al Mahdi attacks on, 188 200
Al Mahdi on origin of, 51 Third World internationalism, and metaphysical
Al Mahdi’s leadership of Blackamerica as Africa, 10
counter to hegemony of, 111 360 Questions to Ask A Hebrew Israelite (York),
and origin of AAC/NIH, 12 193

298 ◆ Index
360 Questions to Ask the Israeli Church (York), renaming of AAC/NIH as, 23, 187, 205
193 as stage begun in early and mid-1990s, 234
360 Questions to Ask the Orthodox Sunni Muslims as Sufi order, according to York, 214
(Al Mahdi), 188 symbolism of, 193, 194, 200
Three Wise Men, 158 See also Tama Re UNNM facility, Eatonton,
Tibet, white esotericists’ interest in, 170 Georgia
Tijaniyya Order, 153 UNNM beliefs
Torah, Qur’an on Jews’ altering of, AAC/NIH Afrofuturist perennialism, 235, 237–38
views on, 131 blending of Native American spirituality
Trafton, Scott, 203 with metaphysical Africa, 199, 200
Tragedy Khadafi (Intelligent Hoodlum), 230, as consistent with earlier AAC/NIH
231, 235 beliefs, 132–34, 206–7, 211, 220, 242, 243
Travels of a Sufi, The (Al Mahdi, 1987), 159 on Egyptian roots of biblical and Islamic
Tribal encyclopedia (Al Mahdi, 1977), 39, 42 traditions, 193, 195
Tribal Origins of African-Americans (Adefunmi), Egyptian symbolism, 193, 194, 195
15 emphasis on Christ’s return, 193
Tribe Israel Is No More, The! (Al Mahdi, 1975), extraterrestrials in, 196–98, 240–41, 241
121, 122 on human origins, 196–97
True Light (Al Mahdi cassette tape series), 44, on immanent arrival of spacecraft to
226 retrieve the 144,000 worthy persons,
True Story of Noah, The (Al Mahdi, 1986), 234 197
Tuitit Bey, 155, 170 Islamic symbolism of, 193
Native American symbolism of, 195, 200,
‘Umar 201
and false Islam, York on, 212 on Nubian ancestry of Native Americans,
Al Mahdi on, 52 199–200
Umayyad caliphate, Al Mahdi on, 52 on Nubian superiority, 197
Understanding Islam (Schuon), 154 and Nuwaubu, beliefs associated with,
UNIA. See Universal Negro Improvement 205–6
Association rituals, 195
United Muslims in Exile, as name used by on Sumerian roots of biblical and Islamic
AAC/NIH, 21 traditions, 193, 195–96, 197
United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors. See targeting of Black Hebraism, 193
UNNM (United Nuwaubian Nation on underground civilizations, 196, 197
of Moors) Washitaw Muurs narrative in, 202
United States government, plan to assassinate Unto Thee I Grant (Ancient Mystical Order
Black leaders, Al Mahdi on, 92 Rosae Crucis), 171, 204
Universal Ethiopian Hymnal (Ford), 117 Upper Room at AAC/NIH headquarters, 46,
Universal Negro Improvement Association 46
(UNIA), 66, 101 ‘Uthman, and false Islam, York on, 212
UNNM (United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors)
dress code of, 194–95 van Sertima, Ivan, 38, 51, 200
Masonic orders within, 202
names used by, 193, 214 Wadhiyfah: The Science of Sound Healing (Al
as Native Americans, in York’s view, 200, Mahdi), 229
202 Wahhabi Sect, Al Mahdi on, 96, 106, 188
and Nuwaupic language, 206 Wahhaj, Siraj, 35, 96, 107, 126, 188, 192, 209
publications of works by Black Muslims Was Christ Really Crucified? (Al Mahdi, 1980),
leaders, 218, 219 185
and recovery of interstellar Blackness in Was Created with One Thought: The “Key” Is
science of Nuwaubu, 238 Within (Al Mahdi), 149

Index ◆ 299
Washitaw de Dughdahmoundyah movement, World’s Columbian Exposition (Chicago, 1893),
201–2 171
Washitaw-Turner Goston El-Bey, Empress World War II, Sudanese migration to U.S. in, 59
Verdiacee “Tiari,” 201
Welsing, Frances Cress, 9, 196 Yahweh Ben Yahweh, 111, 111, 116, 198
Whatever Happened to the Nubian Islaamic Yamassee Indians, UNNM as, in York’s view,
Hebrews? (Al Mahdi, 1985), 122 200
Whatever Happened to the Nubian Islaamic Yanaan/Yaanuwn
Hebrews? (Al Mahdi, 1989), 126 as avatar inhabiting body of Al Mahdi, 156,
What Laws Did Jesus Follow? (Al Mahdi, 1988), 163, 195, 196
127 first mention in AAC/NIH publications,
Where Is the Tabernacle of the Most High? (Al 127
Mahdi, 1986), 51, 82, 125–26 as intergalactic sheikh inhabiting Al Mah-
white people di’s body, 22, 127
civilizing of, as mission of Abraham, 177 in Al Mahdi’s interpretation of Revelations,
as devils: Fard Muhammad on, 88–89; Al 22
Mahdi on, 41, 89 as name used by Al Mahdi, 130, 163
distortion of Egyptian wisdom by, 178–80 Ya-Sin Mosque
effort to destroy Nation of Islam, Al Mahdi founding of, 12, 34, 152–53
on, 92 Al Mahdi’s criticism of, 82, 83–84
immodesty of, AAC/NIH on, 69–70 shooting at (1974), 18
interest in Egyptosophy, 169–70 Yazid, Al Mahdi on, 53
origin of, Al Mahdi on, 40–41 York, Ben (Ibn Ali), as claimed ancestor of
as subhuman depraved animals, 177, 197 York, 199
time allotted to, in Nation of Islam tradi- York, David P. (father of York), 199
tion, 206 York, Dr.
See also Amorite race as Al Mahdi, as publicly known, 224
white supremacy, Al Mahdi’s leadership as on music as beyond racial boundaries, 230
counter to, 111 publicity photo, 223
Who Was Jesus Sent To? (Al Mahdi, 1991), 127 singing career of, 222–24, 223
Who Was Marcus Garvey? (Al Mahdi,1988), 82, See also music, Al Mahdi’s engagement with
98, 100–103, 127 York, Dwight, as birth name of Al Mahdi, 12
Who Was Noble Drew Ali? (Al Mahdi, 1980), 82, York, Malachi Z.
96–100, 144 on adjustment of message to suit audience,
Who Was Noble Drew Ali? (Al Mahdi, 1988), 97, 207
98, 104, 180 avatars inhabiting body of, 195
Who Was Shaikh Daww’ud?, 82 bar mitzvah at age 13 claimed by, 193
Why Do Muslim Women Wear the Face Covering claim to be angelic being, 196
(Veil)? (Al Mahdi, 1989), 70 dress styles, range of, 187, 200, 201
“Why the Nosering?” (Al Mahdi, 1986), 70, 71 “Furqaan” power to distinguish between
Williams, Chancellor, 36–37 allegorical and decisive scripture, 207
Williams, Mary C. (mother of York), 199 and Islam, claim to restore and purify, 219
Will Send “Elijah” Before the Coming of the Great legacies of Black Islam leaders claimed by,
and Dreadful Day of the Lord (Al 187
Mahdi, 1973), 84 Al Mahdi’s renaming as, 187, 192, 193–94,
Wisemen, The (Al Mahdi, 1991), 127 234
Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite names used by, 193, 199, 205, 207
Empire (Houston), 29–30 as name used by Al Mahdi, 185
“Wooly-Headed People by Nature,” predisposi- Native American heritage, claim to, 199,
tion to spiritual insight, 205–6 200–201, 201, 202
World Assembly of Muslim Youth, 32 on phases in AAC/NIH beliefs, 207

300 ◆ Index
 roles and titles claimed by, 187 New York City revival movement, 14
and scripture: claimed power to correct revivalism, Al Mahdi’s criticisms of, 72–74
and purify, 207–8, 220; mastery of, as Yoruba Temple (Harlem), 15, 33
signature claim, 207; new translations/ You and the Sons of the Green Light (Al Mahdi),
corrections published by, 208–10 161
turn from Arab ties, 195, 219
turn from Islamic identity, 187–88, 191–92, Zev Love X, 224
193, 219 Zodoq, Aluhum Muhammad, 216
York-El, Malachi Zodok, as name used by York, Zoroastrianism, Al Mahdi on, 43
193 Zoser/Abdul Quddus
Yoruba (1978), 72 as avatar inhabiting body of Al Mahdi,
Yorubas 156–57
Afrocentrism and, 9, 38 and genetic engineering of pigs, 177
connections to ancient Egypt, Adefunmi Al Mahdi on, 41–42, 174–76, 177, 180
on, 15 as Quetzlcoatl, 199
as degenerate former Muslims, Al Mahdi Zulu Nation movement, 233
on, 72–73

Index ◆ 301