NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THE NATION OF ISLAM. Edited By Dawn‐MarieGibson and HerbertBerg. Routledge Studies in Religion. New York, NY and London: Routledge, 2017. Pp. x+252. Hardback, $144.00; Paperback, $39.16.

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-115
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Evanzz

This chapter examines the FBI’s repression of the Nation of Islam. The FBI placed several of its own operatives into leading positions in this religious community, forging along the way a unique relationship with New York City’s police department. The essay explains how Bureau's efforts to destroy the Nation of Islam produced what is arguably its most violent repression of religious groups at the time. The author Karl Evanzz focuses on Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X, both of whom targeted by the FBI for years. By explaining the bureau’s efforts to disrupt the best known organization of African American Muslims, the chapter interprets for readers a pivotal episode in the nation's history of religion and the security state.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abbas Aghdassi ◽  
Seyed Mohammad Marandi

Few studies analyze minorities among the African American Muslims in the United States. The absence of ethnographic research shows that the current scholarship neglects the minority status of African American Twelver Shias. Based on fieldwork observations from March to December 2015 and several informal interviews, I try to understand how the African American Shia community of New York was formed and how it negotiated its identity when encountered with African American non-Shia Muslims and with Twelver Muslims of other ethnic backgrounds. I try to revisit the diasporic/immigrant religious culture that some Twelver Shias like to practice. This culture seems to have no resonance for the African American Twelver Muslims. Because some African American Twelvers joined Shia Islam after the end of the classic period of the Nation of Islam, it is argued that highlighting cultural practices by the immigrant community might force some African American Twelvers back to their practices of origin.


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