Download Attracting Our Minds to Islam: Theological Change in the Nation of

Attracting Our Minds to Islam: Theological Change in the Nation of Islam since 1975 This presentation is about telling another story of Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam since 1975, one that focuses on the religious aspects of this movement and exploring how the Nation’s theological positions on whites, Jews, and classical Islam have changed to accommodate America’s new religious landscape after the immigration act of 1965 and the substantial, if profoundly incomplete, changes to America’s racial climate. Though there is a substantial body of work on the Nation of Islam, especially on the period before 1981, for reasons both strategic and interpretive, scholars have tended set aside the actual stated religious beliefs of the Nation of Islam as fruitful grounds for analysis, even questioning whether the Nation of Islam is a religion at all. I find this trend to be utterly understandable because the political and social aims of the Nation are central to comprehending their mission and, more importantly, the influence of the Nation of Islam in the African American community for there can be no doubt that religious devotees of Farrakhan are few and far between. Scholarship on the NOI tends to focus on the enormous influence of the Nation on the black power movement. Members of the nation are among the most dedicated and militant participants a fact due in part to the religious convictions that root the struggle for black power into the supernatural order. As a scholar of religion, my lenses are different. Instead of considering Farrakhan primarily through the context of his role as activist, organizer, and black power leader I approach Farrakhan and his movement through the lens of decades of scholarship exploring the rise and fall of charismatic and messianic new religious movements whose power and ethos are deeply imbedded in particular cultural moments. I strive to understand Farrakhan’s religious worldview and the ways that the world changes religion and theology while also requiring that change be framed conservatively-­‐-­‐-­‐as a recovery of the past and excavation of truth. For all the changes that have occurred in the Nation, much has remained the same. The story of Yacub, which laid out the Nation’s teaching on the origins of whites as devils, and the documents created by Elijah Muhammad cannot be thrown out or rejected. They are sacred texts and within the conservative Abrahamic framework that Farrakhan and the Nation operate in, these texts cannot be falsified. They have to be reinterpreted and reframed so that it always appears that changes and new ways of thinking are really the same or consistent with previous beliefs. In this presentation I will focus on two major areas of thought and theological change by exploring Farrakhan’s teachings on whites and Jews as well as the relationship Farrakhan has forged with the worldview Islamic umma. My work on the Nation is new and my ideas are constantly evolving and being reframed as I cull through hundreds of primary sources, interviews, videos, and newspapers. The thoughts I present here represent my current analyses and understandings of the Nation through the lens of my expertise as a scholar of religion. I have also framed this presentation accessibly to fulfill this conference’s mission to serve the wider community and engage people outside of the academy in our conversations about black power. Theological Positions on Whites and Jews While few people in American know much about the teaching of the Nation of Islam, the majority of individuals familiar with the Nation are aware of the teaching that whites are devils. Some are aware that the Nation has backed off those claims, a trend that began in (determine date). But this was not a mere switch to a different position but rather a careful theological explanation that allowed for Elijah Muhammad to be correct about Yacub (the Nation has not abandoned the belief that Yacub existed and created whites.) However, Farrakhan’s explanation of how blacks should understand the story of Yacub has changed significantly. Farrakhan now maintains that the behavior of whites came as a result of their being an infant race, a new people who were discovering their identity through violence and the repression of blacks. “And like young people they got involved in mischief.”1 Rather than an antagonistic relationship with whites, Farrakhan now imagines this relationship paternalistically, whites are now a people who require guidance, and a people put on the planet to teach blacks a lesson about what happens if they lose focus on protecting and supporting their people. Farrakhan makes another, rather sophisticated theological turn in his understandings of whites as well. Illustrating the skill and agility of any good theologian Farrakhan has reinterpreted the story of Yacub and the origins of whites through the lens of black supremacy. Whites become a tool for showing blacks human realities and possibilities. “Through them he has shown us the worst of what we can do—the depths to which human beings can fall […] I look at white people as part of a great experiment with man—to help us to know the full range of our possibilities: both in the depth of our depravity, where we act as the beast of the field, and at the height of our development, where we become like Jesus-­‐-­‐-­‐a master of all that the Father has created.”2 This logic is precisely the same as the logic that informed Augustine of Hippo’s explanation for the existence of Jews as “negative witnesses,” in this negative witness framework whites and Jews act as reminders to the holy remnant of the consequences of straying outside of the fold. They offer a living testimony of the existence of evil, a constant reminder of what could occur if religious vigilance is abandoned—and a constant warning against backsliding. There was a time in the history of the Nation of Islam that whites were the enemy, the gatekeepers to power, and the primary targets for suspicion and the community most in need of religious and political expose’. Beginning in 1984, however, this pattern began to change as rhetoric against whites lessened and rhetoric against Jews increased. Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X were also known to harbor complaints against that Jews were primarily economic and political, but Farrakhan has integrated these 1
Louis Farrakhan and Henry Louis Gates, “Farrakhan Speaks,” Transition, no. 70 (1996): 163. 2
Ibid., 164–165. complaints into the theology of the NOI, resulting in Farrakhan’s rather ambivalent attitudes towards Jews as he simultaneously resents and admires Jews as he has imagined them. Farrakhan speaks of admiring the Jews firm clench on power and their ability to wield that power without others knowing. Farrakhan has targeted Jews as the main perpetrators of slavery and a hidden source of power. He has drawn on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion a document that has been completely and thoroughly debunked as a fraud. According to Farrakhan, his positions are not anti-­‐Semitic because they are fact. From Farrakhan’s perspective, Jewish concerns over his rhetoric do not stem from concerns over inciting hatred and fear, but rather stem from their resentment and fear that people will come to know the truth Farrakhan speaks—he claims that Jews are afraid of his truths, of his prophetic ability to call Jews out for their wrongs and expose the reality that Jews are actually running global politics. In short, Farrakhan believes that he is accused of anti-­‐Semitism and “attacked” by Jews because he speaks the truth. “If I were a Jew that despised correction, I wouldn’t like Farrakhan. But if I were a Jew who heard a truth that showed that I was off course and wanted to get myself back on course, I think I would love Farrakhan. Historically, the members of the Jewish community have argued against their own prophets.” Is there transferring of blame happening here? Is Farrakhan alllowing more room for whites by blaming the Jews as the source of power? Relationship with Sunni Islam When the Nation of Islam began under W.D. Fard in 1930, there were few Muslims in America and Americans knew little about the faith and its practices. Unsurprisingly, the Nation’s claim to Muslim identity was superficial and seems to have been more about adopting a religious identity that opposed Christianity and not become part of the mainstream Muslim community. This is not to say that the Nation should be denied the label Muslim since there are many manifestations of this belief system. However, it cannot be denied or overlooked that the distance between classical Islam and the Nation is significant (no hajj, no zafat, no fasting, Islam means righteousness, use of the Bible) and has been a source of contestation since the 1960s. After the split with Elijah Muhammad’s son W.D. Muhammad, Farrakhan rejected the turn to mainstream Sunni Islam. However, this position was relatively short-­‐lived and Farrakhan, especially in illness, has stressed the importance of aligning with the worldwide community of Muslims, the umma. At a Saviors’ Day celebration in 2000, the current leader of the organization, Head Minister Louis Farrakhan, has explained the reasoning behind the major changes in religious theology. “I want the whole world to know and understand that raising us from the level of our ignorance and savagery in the 1930s demanded a tremendous knowledge and skill. I do not believe that any Muslim scholar from the East… could have attracted our minds to Islam in the way that they represented and represent this Great Universal Message. Master Fard Muhammad knew our minds and knew how to 3
attract our minds… to put us on the road to returning to the nature in which we are created…” Again we see the impact of theological reasoning that requires the maintenance of past truths with new interpretations for the present. (more on this) Ultimately, the biggest threat to the Nation of Islam as a religious movement is, without question, the rise of Sunni Islam in America. As Farrakhan struggles to entrench the movement in a structure beyond his charismatic authority he is also establishing the groundwork for the Nation’s demise. The relationship between mainstream Muslims and Farrakhan’s Nation remains tense and fraught with theological division. Strangely, Farrakhan’s extremism with regard to the Jewish community may be one powerful source of commonality found between the Nation and some in the Muslim world. Farrakhan’s vitriol for the Jews as well as his disdain for Israel and America fit him squarely within a marginal, yet enormously powerful, subset of Muslims whose 3
Farrakhan, “Word of Gratitude from Minister Louis Farrakhan.” identities circulate around oppression. Not surprisingly, Farrakhan has found much in common with Muslim dictators like Muammar Gaddadfi (find others he works with). Though they have significant theological divergences their common enemies, Jews, Israel, and America, unite them in the battle against these oppressors and they share a language to describe this oppression. The Nation’s large population of prisoners and former prisoners may also contribute to the comfort that true believers have with the aspects of Farrakhan’s message that are radical, isolationist, and anti-­‐Semitic as this culture is familiar to prisoners who understand the importance of joining a community for protection, identity, and support in dangerous and dire circumstances. Thoughts and Conclusions Despite changing beliefs and a changing world, Farrakhan remains powerful and important. Farrakhan has carefully created and protected an image that allows him to simultaneously have a statesman –like presence in the black power community a public identity that connects him to the civil rights movement and major figures like Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad, while simultaneously leading a religious organization whose beliefs are far outside of the mainstream, even within the black power community. Farrakhan is well-­‐aware of this disconnect and tends to avoid elaborating on the beliefs of the nation in his oratories, interviews, and ventures out into the mission field. A recent document, regularly distributed by members of the Nation when they go out into the community, Justifiable Homocide, illustrates this well. The small book emphasizes the injustices that have happened to African Americans, calling out the wrongs and connecting them to the past and crying out for people to mobilize, regain their dignity and fight for justice. Religion only appears in references to the Bible, the Quran, and in assertions that both Christianity and Islam can be stabilizing forces for the black community. Louis Farrakhan presents himself as a divinely ordained defender of the black community.4 Farrakhan’s talents as an actor and his ambition for notoriety have made him a dynamic speaker who bluntly and unapologetically calls out the structural and systematic operation of racism in America. Farrakhan’s outrage and confidence acts as a catharsis for many African Americans who are constantly being told that their experiences and racial consciousness are invalid, a result of hypersensitivity or victim mentality. Farrakhan says what so many people think and know but are afraid to express. He possesses a certainty in his interpretation that is appealing and carries the zeal of religious absolutism. Henry Louis Gates’ insights into Farrakhan’s power add an additional dimension to our understanding of this important man, “The truth is that blacks often feel astonishingly vulnerable to charges of inauthenticity, of disloyalty to the race […] Farrakhan’s sway over blacks—the answering chord his rhetoric finds-­‐-­‐-­‐attests to the enduring strength of our own feelings of guilt, our own anxieties of having been false to our people, of having sinned against our innermost identity. He denounces the fallen among us, invokes the wrath of heaven against us; and his outlandish vitriol occasions both terror and a curious exhilaration.” Ultimately, Farrakhan is loved and admired from a distance. The overwhelming majority of people who fill auditoriums to see him speak will never consider leaving their religious tradition; they will not join the Nation of Islam. Data from African American Sunni Muslims indicates that those who do join are likely to leave the movement quickly. In short, The Nation is dying. Though demographic data on the Nation of Islam is utterly unavailable, my observations and research lead me to believe that today the Nation is unlikely to exceed a membership of several thousand. Though Farrakhan can fill up a stadium on his occasional appearances the draw to these events is Farrakhan as a representative of the black 4
power movement, a chance to witness a historical figure. People come to see Farrakhan because he is radical, unpredictable, and outrageous. As one student at UC Berkeley explained at an event in March, Farrkahan is “Just like your grandparents. You know they might say something a little crazy, but you're still going to love and respect and appreciate them.”5 In many ways, Farrkahan is a cultural oddity, a remnant from the past, someone to be admired, feared, and fascinating to observe. Someone who lived through the hardest times, fought tirelessly for African American causes, and continues to speak truth to power. Farrakhan is admired, but there appear to be few believers. If the Nation follows patterns established by other charismatically led new religious movements without Farrakhan it is unlikely that the Nation of Islam will have a national presence within a decade. There does not appear to be another charismatic leader waiting in the ranks to lead or grow the flock. Perhaps the Nation’s most lasting religious legacy, then, is one that has powerfully reshaped American religion, the Nation’s central role in introducing Islam to African Americans. 5
John Cote, “Louis Farrakhan Speaks at UC Berkeley,” SFGate, March 13, 2012, http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Louis-­‐Farrakhan-­‐speaks-­‐at-­‐UC-­‐Berkeley-­‐3407145.php#src=fb.