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Timothy Drew)
The Moorish Science Temple of America is a religion founded in the early 20th century claiming to be a sect of Islam, but having equal influences in Buddhism, Christianity, Freemasonry, Gnosticism and Taoism. Its main tenant was that African Americans were descended from the Moors and thus were originally Islamic. Its founder was Noble Drew Ali, the Prophet neé Timothy Drew, whose disciples included Wallace Fard Muhammad, founder of the Nation of Islam, and Elijah Muhammad, who was Fard's successor and later employed Malcolm X as the mouthpiece of the Nation.
Timothy Drew's beginnings
Timothy Drew was born in 1886 in North Carolina. The accounts of Timothy Drew's childhood are varied, from him being the son of two former slaves who was adopted by a tribe of Cherokee Indians, to him being the son of a Moroccan Muslim father and a Cherokee mother. He is recorded, perhaps apocryphally, as saying, “When I was born, it turned black dark in the daytime. The people put their hoes down and came out of the fields.” Allegedly, at the age of 16, he joined a circus and became a stage magician, befriending a band of Roma, whom he traveled the world with. Supposedly during these travels, he met the high priest of an Egyptian cult of magic. In one version of Drew's biography, the cult leader saw him as a reincarnation of the founder of the cult, while in others he considered him a reincarnation of Jesus Christ. The magician trained him in mysticism, and bestowed upon him a lost version of the Qur'an. This text came to be known as the Holy Koran of the Moorish Science Temple of America , and is referred to as the “uniting of the Holy Koran of Mecca.” Sometimes the title is shorthanded as the Circle Seven Koran, because of the design on its cover, namely a red numeral seven surrounded by a blue circle broken into four segments. Drew changed his name to "Noble Drew Ali, the Prophet" and returned to the United States where he founded the religion in 1913 in Newark, New Jersey.
The church's teachings
The Koran is held to be a collection of knowledge kept secret by the peoples of the East, now brought back to light by the Prophet. As such, Noble Drew Ali did not claim to be the author of the work, per se, although the final section of the Koran, Chapters 45-48, are in his proverbial hand.
The Koran is in three major sections. Chapters 2-19 contain the lost history of Jesus as a child and young man, His travels and teachings in Palestine, Egypt, Europe, and India. The ministry of John the Baptist is also figures heavily in this section. The most probable source for this material is the Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ, although the man credited with this work, Levi H. Dowling, as in the case of Noble Drew Ali, did not claim authorship, but rather suggests that it is a revealed, pre-existing text. The second major section of the Koran, Chapters 20-44, seems to be derived from the Rosicrucian text Unto Thee I Grant, and consists largely of discussions of various aspects of the human condition. The third and final section, apparently penned by Noble Drew Ali, himself, contains a collection of non-traditional histories of Asiatic peoples and the founding of Christianity, as well as an overview of the mission and intent of the Science Temple. In addition to these three sections, Chapter 1 serves as a sort of Creation story, a discussion of the fundamental nature of humans, how we came into being, and what our relationship to God is. There is also a quick epilogue between Chapters 19 and 20, summing up the events portrayed in the first section as the story of the lives of Jesus and John the Baptist.
A major theme of the Moorish Science Temple is teaching or returning nationality to members of the Asiatic Nation of North America. The Science Temple was an early proponent of the Black Power movement in America, although Marcus Garvey is celebrated by the Science Temple as the Forerunner of the Prophet. The temple's doctrine was that of racial tolerance and equality, and the structure of the religion theoretically embraced all races. Drew taught that Moors were "Asiatic", that there are only two races on the planet, Europeans and Asiatics. The peoples of Asia, Africa, and the Pacific, as well as Latin Americans, and indigenous peoples of the Americas are all considered Asiatic in Science Temple teachings. Some believe that some seemingly "white" nationalities were also fit into the Asiatic puzzle, including the Celts and Persians. Although the Circle Seven had content that could be interpreted as Anti-Semitic and Anti-Caucasian, the religion's teachings did not appear to reflect these ideas. Drew said that the empowerment of the Moorish people could only be found through an acceptance of Islam, although the Moorish Science Temple's definition of Islam was very different from the conventional one, and was more of a theosophistic combination of many religions, including Buddhism and indigenous religions. The theology of the church was lenient and inconsistent, if not non-existent, but there were consistent themes of universal love and racial pride. Doctrine of the temple was unconventional, including stories about Christ and Apollo battling, and the Greek Gods watching over his tomb before his resurrection, as well as teachings such as that Morocco was in fact the promised land of the Bible and Koran and that descendents of Sub-Saharan Africans should be referred to as "Moors" or "Moorish Americans" instead of Negroes, Ethiopians, Blacks, or today, African-Americans.
The church's practices
The Moorish Science temple was founded on a blueprint of Freemasonry, including a modified version of the Masonic lodge charter. The church's standards of behaviour was loosely derived from those of Islam, although not rigorously, and critics of the church accused it of antinomianism. Members of the Temple wore fezes, (including Drew, who wore a Cherokee feather in his) and often added the suffixes "Bey" or "-El" to their names to signify their Moorish heritage, and could earn initiate titles such as Deacon, Exilarch, and Papessa. Followers of the temple refused to fight in World War I and due to the pressure of the inhabitants of New Jersey due to racism, they moved to Chicago, where Drew began to make more impassioned speeches, urging Moors to reject the white-man's labels such as "black" and "colored" and for Americans of all races to reject hate and embrace love. He believed that Chicago would become a second Mecca, and the temple began selling Native American paraphanalia and issuing members of the church mock passports to the "Moorish Nation of America".
The Science Temple after the death of Noble Drew Ali
The church suffered scrutiny and possibly harassment by Chicago police. A member of the Temple, Claude Green El, splintered off, declaring himself Grand Shiek, taking a number of members of the original temple, but was later stabbed by unknown parties. Drew was arrested and beaten by police, and released on bond pending an indictment. He died shortly afterward, apparently due to injuries received at the hands of the police, although the exact circumstances of his death are unknown. He was never brought up on charges for any involvement in the stabbing of Claude Green El.
The Moorish Science Temple lived on after Drew Ali’s death, but splits among the Temple adherents widened. Three factions eventually formed, all led by close associates of the Prophet. Bro C. Kirkman-Bey, the Prophet’s translator and confidant, became the head of what would eventually be the largest group, and which currently has legal claim to the name “Moorish Science Temple of America, Inc.” Another faction developed into the so-called Reincarnated Temples, led by the Prophet’s former chauffeur Bro. J. Givens El, who thereafter called himself “Noble Drew Ali, Reincarnated.” Givens El, and the brothers Richardson Dingle El and Timothy Dingle El who succeeded him, taught that the Prophethood of Noble Drew Ali remained intact and passed on to them at the death of each before them, similar to the succession of authority from father to son or grandson in Shia Isma’ili Islam. A third faction was begun by Bro. E. Mealy El and is still in existence, but with probably the fewest adherents out of the three.
During World War II, the Science Temple (specifically the Kirkman-Bey faction) got the attention of the FBI, who falsely suspected the Moors of collaborating with the Japanese. No doubt doctrines and prophecies that the world order would one day invert and put the Asiatics of the world back in charge, as was, the Temple taught, the original order of things, sounded woefully suspicious to the anti-Japanese mindset of the times. The FBI created a file on the organization which grew to 3,117 pages, but produced no evidence of any connection or even much sympathy between the Empire of Japan and the Temple.
Although it continues to this day, the MST is overshadowed historically by The Nation of Islam, begun by W.D. Fard, as mentioned above. Over time some Science Temple members have converted to either traditional Islam or the Nation of Islam. These MST to NOI converts include one Dr. Rashid , who eventually gained infamy by his links to Al-Qaeda. The number of people who consider themselves to be members of the Science Temple or other, later Moorish groups, has apparently remained steady, if somewhat small, over the decades since the inevitable decline in membership after the death of the Prophet. As with the Nation of Islam, a major source of converts to the Science Temple has been the often disgruntled and uneducated African American populations incarcerated in federal and state penitentiaries. The so-called Kirkman-Bey body of the MST, currently administered by Bro. R. Jones-Bey, Grand Sheik and Moderator, and Sister S. Dunbar-Bey, Assistant Grand Sheikess, has been particularly successful in the prisons.
Moorish Science has had a heavy influence upon spiritualist anarchism via Hakim Bey, as well as through various subsequent religious movements, such as the Nation of Gods and Earths, Dwight York's Nuwaubian movement, and the Moorish Orthodox Church.
External links
Last updated: 08-22-2005 22:48:08
