Malcolm X, Islamic Influences in America, and How They Began to Help Him

Malcolm X, aka Malcolm Little, is a prominent historical figure who provides an intense example of spiritual-religious seeking and its role in character development. His example has larger implications in relation to modern pluralism and the limits of the Christian religion itself. The African-American experience also illuminates these concerns. "Ethnicity" is a more informed term than the popular one "race," and the Afro-Am ethnic aspect of spirituality and religion has a variety of spokespeople, among the most progressive being Cornel West and Rev Wm Barber. Iyanla Van Zant is a popular self-help spiritual speaker in the tradition of New Thought derived from Mary Baker Eddy´s Christian Science. Fannie Lou Hamer is less well-known, having had little education in her rise as an activist with spiritual-religious consciousness and her astute founding of a Farm Co-operative. Personally, I found myself a European-American child of foreign-born parents growing up in the US identifying frequently with Afro-Americans, and concerned about the materialistic anti-social mindsets of mainstream America. Having grown from an interfaith seeker to interfaith Christian, I see Malcolm X, like Mohammad Ali after him, and his contemporary Rev Martin Luther King, important in reflecting upon spiritual-religious meaning.

"Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little in 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. After a number of events and moves, in late 1945, Malcolm returned to Boston from New York City, where he and four accomplices committed a series of burglaries targeting wealthy white families.[38] In 1946, he was arrested while picking up a stolen watch he had left at a shop for repairs,[39] and in February began serving an eight-to-ten-year sentence at Charlestown State Prison for larceny and breaking and entering.[40] Two years later, Malcolm was transferred to Norfolk Prison Colony (also in Massachusetts).

When Malcolm was in prison, he met fellow convict John Bembry,[44] a self-educated man he would later describe as "the first man I had ever seen command total respect ... with words".[45] Under Bembry's influence, Malcolm developed a voracious appetite for reading.[46]

At this time, several of his siblings wrote to him about the Nation of Islam, a relatively new religious movement preaching black self-reliance and, ultimately, the return of the African diaspora to Africa, where they would be free from white American and European domination.[47] He showed scant interest at first, but after his brother Reginald wrote in 1948, "Malcolm, don't eat any more pork and don't smoke any more cigarettes. I'll show you how to get out of prison",[48] he quit smoking and began to refuse pork.[49] After a visit in which Reginald described the group's teachings, including the belief that white people are devils, Malcolm concluded that every relationship he had had with whites had been tainted by dishonesty, injustice, greed, and hatred.[50] Malcolm, whose hostility to religion had earned him the prison nickname "Satan",[51] became receptive to the message of the Nation of Islam.[52]

In late 1948, Malcolm wrote to Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam. Muhammad advised him to renounce his past, humbly bow in prayer to God, and promise never to engage in destructive behavior again.[53] Though he later recalled the inner struggle he had before bending his knees to pray,[54] Malcolm soon became a member of the Nation of Islam,[53] maintaining a regular correspondence with Muhammad.[55]" After being paroled in 1952, Malcolm X then served as the public face of the organization for a dozen years. In the 1960s, Malcolm X began to grow disillusioned with the Nation of Islam, as well as with its leader Elijah Muhammad. He subsequently embraced Sunni Islam and the civil rights movement after completing the Hajj to Mecca, and became known as el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz.

The Nation of Islam, one among several Islamic groups in the US, had begun in under Wallace D. Fard in Detroit by 1931. Fard had been influenced by approaches like the Moorish Science Temple. Elijah Muhammed, born Elijah R Poole, met Fard, who disappeared in 1934, suspiciously but without law enforcement intervention all told. Elijah Muhammed assumed control, and was arrested regarding failure to register for the draft by 1942, and had converted many inmates by his release in 1946. Other activities related to Islam had existed in the US. At the 1893 Chicago Parliament of World Religions, Mohammed Alexander Russell Webb was an early European-American who had converted to Islam. He is quoted as having said at the Parliament, ""I have faith in the American intellect, in the American intelligence, and in the American love of fair play, and will defy any intelligent man to understand Islam and not love it." Another quote from him, "The only Mohammedans in all the East who drink intoxicating beverages are those who have been educated in England and wear European clothes. Their contact with Christian nations has demoralized them, and they have drifted away from their religion." While there were Islamic groups set up as Webb toured speaking, A. George Baker was a Protestant clergyman and medical doctor who converted to Islam by 1904. In 1913, African-American Noble Drew Ali, born Timothy Drew, founded the Moorish Science Temple of America.

Are you aware of Malcolm X´s biography or the Islamic religion and its benevolent effects on him and others? Do you have any thoughts about it, whether or not aside from prevailing extremist stereotypes?