Islam in the West

Dr. Sherman Jackson contends in his book, Islam and the Blackamerican, that Islam owes its momentum in America to the phenomenon of “Black Religion,” a God-centered holy protest against anti-black racism. “Islam” became an expression of self determination through movements like the Moorish Science Temple and the Nation of Islam. Noble Drew Ali authored his own “Quran” and Fard Muhammad was declared to be “Allah” incarnate, with Elijah Muhammad as the “Messenger of Allah”. Yet eventually these expressions led to millions of people being ushered into normative Islam through luminaries like Imam Warith Deen Muhammad and Al Hajj Malik Al Shabazz Malcolm X.