Friday, November 25, 2005

Muslims, Masons, Moors, and Islam

From: "Knowledge Born ALLAH" <>
Subject: Muslims, Masons, Moors, and Islam.
Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 23:40:00 +0700

Sadiq was a representative of the Ahmadiyya movement, more properly designated as ... The Ahmadiyya split into two factions, the Lahore and Qadian. ... It was alos well documented among the ahmadiyya at that time that Drew was a visitor ... http://knowledgebornallah.blogspot.com/2005/11/muslims-masons-moors-and-islam.html

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http://knowledgebornallah.blogspot.com/2005/11/muslims-masons-moors-and-islam.html

Thursday, November 24, 2005
Muslims, Masons, Moors, and Islam.

Peace To Man, Woman, and Child.

Todays mathematics being Wisdom/Culture Freedom or as the non-original man proclaims Thanksgiving, has inspired me to write an article delving into the very heavy subject of the connections between the Nation of Islam, Masonry and the Moorish Science Temple.
One of the favorite sayings of my first Imaam was "History is not made in a vacuum. Events do not occur out of thin air." I emphatically add my agreeance to this plain statement of both science and logic. History does not occur in sterile environments, leaving no primal root or causative factor. History can be compared to a chain of dominoes, with each domino being the cause to which the falling domino correspondant is it's effect.
There are many who proclaim themselves Muslim, under the banners of the NOI or more othodox, who would rather have this piece of history swept under the rug. They would vehemently deny this with the same expression of faith as you can find in any storefront church on sunday morning. However for us here in the Nation of Gods and Earths this cannot be our expression. As we charged in our 120:

18: What is the Duty of a civilized person?
Ans- To teach the uncivilized people, who are savage- civilization (righteousness, the knowledge of himself, the science of everything in life, love, peace, and happiness).

As we fail in our endeavours to perform our duties in this manner, we are also told:

20: What is the prescribed Law of Islam of said, person of that ability?
Ans- That the civilized person is held responsible for the uncivilized and he must punished by the nation of Islam.

I know that by authoring this article, I may damage or permamently sever the fragile hold of reality held by members of the said communities in respects to this portion of history. Truth as a double edged sword, that it may cut away falsehood and join the aggregate portions of knowledge and wisdom.

History of Islam Within The African American Paradigm

While it is a manifest reality that many muslims of nigerian, malian, algerian, ghanese, senegalese, and togo ancestries were taken into the middle passage and ended up as hostages on the american plantations, my piece will not directly refer to them. Many other more talented writers have already illuminated that part and parcel of the american colonialization period. I will here more deal directly with the early period of Islam within the confines of the american black experience of the 1900's.
While mosques (actually more properly designated Musallehs, or houses of salat being specifically founded and predicated upon that definition) were founded by various euro-american communities in traditionally albanian and western european immigrant communities in America, no presence of Islam among the the indigenous african americans of the 1900's is recorded until the presence of one man :Mufti Muhammed Sadiq.
No city in the country has figured as prominently has Chicago had in Islam's appeal to African Americans since 1918, the year Mufti Muhammad Sadiq, the first missionary to the United States from the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam, relocated to Chicago. Sadiq established the first Ahmadi mosque in the nation, at 4448 S. Wabash Avenue, and Chicago served as the movement's national headquarters until 1950. Four Ahmadi mosques can be found in the region today, two predominantly African American, two predominantly Indo-Pakistani.
Sadiq was a representative of the Ahmadiyya movement, more properly designated as Jamaati Ahmadiyya, as followers of the man Ghulam Ahmed Qadiani who claimed he was the "so called Messiah of the christians and Mahdi of the Muslims." A claimaint to the resurrection of the Prophet Muhammad, Ahmed taught a new interpretation of Islam figuratively clothed in the traditional garment yet internanly innovative positing himself as the leader of all the Ahlul Kitaab, or peoples of the book.
The Ahmadiyya split into two factions, the Lahore and Qadian. The Lahore branch were more inculucated to establishing inroads to the pratice of traditional Islam where as the Qadian branch represented the more pristine teaching of Ahmed himself. The Ahmaddiya were heavily involved in the concept of Tablighi jammahs, or missionary activities.
Apart from their communal activities the Lahore and Qadian Ahmadis were a well-organized and financially sound community with missions abroad and in India. Founded in 1914 as the ‘Anjuman-i-Ishaat-i-Islam’, the affairs of the Qadian section are equally well regulated and administered and are in charge of secretaries who direct the missionary, educational, social and political activities of the movement. The financial position of the section is dependent on voluntary contributions and is very sound, the accumulated balances amounting to some four lakhs of rupees. Their missions abroad are not so numerous or prosperous as those of the Lahore party, but they have a mosque in England at Southfields and smaller missions with a few hundred converts in the East and West Africa, Egypt, Syria, Apersia, Sumatra, Ceylon and in the United States of America. They were under the general control of Mufti Muhammed Sadiq and Abdur Rahim ‘Nayyer’.
The Ahmaddiya community in Chicago were actually the first community in america to publish an english interpetation of the Quran, The Maulana Muhammad Ali edition, which still plays the predominant role as Quran in the Nation of Islam. In 1921, Mufti Sadiq was also the publisher of the first american muslim magazine, "The Moslem Sunrise", which was conceived as a defense against the innacuurate imagery of Islam which had resulted an as offspring the "arabian craze" of the earlier period of the 1900's which spread due to the influence of The Ancient Arabic Order, Nobles of the Mystic Shrine founded by two Masons, William Florence and Charles MacLaughlin. The community was the source of 90 percent of islamic literature of the period in the black communities all over the east coast and midwest.

A Native Son

Add to this very formulative period of Islam a very intelligent and crafty would be teacher and you have the beginnings of America's first native born Islamic cult. And this would be: Timothy Drew.
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.
As however grandiose and mysterious as the above story appears Timothy Drew's real history is a little more mundane. Born Timothy Drew January 8, 1886 on a Cherokee reservation in Sampson, North Carolina, legends abound about his early life. The reality is that Ali left North Carolina for Newark, New Jersey where he worked as a train express man. Although he received no formal education, Ali was exposed to various spiritualist philosphies first as a "Mason in good standing" of the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge and later as one "who crossed the arabian sands and tied his camel" to join the Ancient Egyptian Arabic Order, Nobles of the Mystic shrine, where his new appelate Noble was added to his name Timothy Drew in 1911. Oriental and theosophic philosophy influenced Drew in the formulation of his own doctrines and in 1913 he founded his first temple, the Canaanite Temple, in Newark. Over the next twelve years he moved westward establishing temples in Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Chicago.
As the modern day Moorish Science Temple Of America claims: " He,{Noble Drew Ali} started way back in Newark New Jersey in 1913 A.D and after a conflict arose within his small group he left and when into the camp of the modern Day John the Baptist [ the one known as Marcus M. Garvey] and there he remained for almost four years and then he begun to revisit the Southern States, at the end of one year he headed out West coming to Chicago Illinois there he begun his final stages of his Divine Ministry."
That is in 1918 where as his "Canaanite Temple" would morph into "Moorish Science". In 1918, Moorish Science began to take on many of the trappings of Islam, including the acceptance of friday as a holy day, the traditional arabic greeting aka Taslim, the use of Fezzes, the titles of Sheikh and Sultan (also held as formal titles among the shriners), the use of Allah in replacing the former title of Father God, and the star and crescent as an islamic motif. Infact, they would be the first "islamic" movement to use the star and crescent on a red banner as a motif until the founding of the Nation of Islam. It was also at this time, 1918 that Noble Drew took upon himself the Arbaic appelation Sharif Abdul Ali, Ali itself a name of high occurance and importance in the Ahmadiyya movement. It was alos well documented among the ahmadiyya at that time that Drew was a visitor to the mosque on Wabash Avenue, and that many of the early pamphlets contained quotes from Ahmadiyya literature. His followers would now accept the titles of Bey and El, names derived originally from Turkish formal titles, that came to use in Morocco.
As Ali moved west, his movement took shape and attracted many followers. He claimed to be the prophet Jesus reincarnated, much as the Ghulam Ahmed claimed to be the christ. He believed that Islam was the religion of African Americans before they were enslaved, and that they should return to it. Ali founded and taught the Five Divine Holy Principles of Love, Truth, Peace, Freedom, and Justice.
The movement expanded rapidly in the years 1925-29. As the Moorish Science Temple of America writes:" During the summer of 1925 he openly begun to declare his Prophet-hood, and many flocked to him, by October 15th 1925 after facing foes on all four side he was able to established the very first temple of Islamism here in the West. He begun with a hand few of believers of whom the very first was a Sister heading out to play her number. She took the Prophet home and rented out to him a room in her apartment. Prophet Drew Al would stand on a milk crate in some vacate lot , wearing his Fez and stand on it with his arm outstretched calling out with these very words.“ Come all ye Asiatic’s come learn the truth about yourself, that you are Not” Negro’s, Black People, Colored Folks, Ethiopians and so called African -Americans etc." Some historians estimate thirty thousand members throughout the country at the peak of the movement. In 1926 the Moorish Science Temple became a legal corporation. By 1928 there were temples in Harlem, Philadelphia, and several southern cities.
(For more information on the Moorish Science Temple's Masonic and Shriner origins I recommend the book: Moorish Circle 7:The Rise of the Islamic Faith Among Blacks in America And It's Masonic OriginsBy Keith Moore.)

Divisions In the Temple:
Here I will not further elaborate on the history of Wallace Ford or Robert Poole the men who would be handed down to us as Master Fard Muhammad and Elijah Muhammad. I will only build on the history and linkage of the said with the moorish science movement.



Drew continued his teachings until his mysterious death in 1929. After Drew's death, his following splintered into competing factions. On one side, there is John Given El who believed himself to be the reincarnation of Noble Drew, on the other there is David Fard ne Ford who also believed himself to be the reincarnation of the Noble. The original followers of Drew took two diverging paths. One group followed John Givens and became the Morish Americans of the Moorish Temple of science based in Chicago, and the other group following Fard became the Allah Temple of Islam. The Allah Temple of Islam came out of a rebellion within one of the largest congregations of the MSTA in the movement; Temple #4 and #25 in Detroit MI. It is this organization that is properly the parent of the NOI. Fard established the Temple of Islam headquartered in Detroit, Michigan. He appeared in the Paradise Valley of Detroit as a silk salesman in late 1929-early 1930.
The presence of this piece of black muslim history is very well documented. First among the moorish scientists themselves. They record the entrance in 1927 of David Ford into their community. Their logs claim he was well educated but amazingly had a grip on both "arabic and pakistani" languages which was lacking among the community. They place him among several differing claimaints for the mantle of resurrection of the Noble Ali including Givens El, Kirkman Bey, and others.
(I'm hoping to later be able to add more pictures to my blogs. For now you can find the below picture at images on google/msn/yahoo by typing in noble drew ali in search box)
David Ford's image is amazingly captured at the 1928 covention of the moorish science temple. He is the light skinned gentleman in the lefthand side towards the back.
Among the first followers of Master Fard were the following:
Joseph Gravitt-el Sr. who would later return to the MSTA (however his son Joseph Gravitt-el Jr. would become Yusuf Shah, or Captain Joseph),
Augustus Muhammad who would later split from Elijah over "disagreeances in doctrine and divergance from the way of our Prophet Noble Ali", and of course the most famous of Fard's Followers a man by the name of Fahnu Bey aka Elijah Muhammad.

The Messenger
No other black man in the wilderness can claim to have the monumental effect as did one Robert 'Elija" Poole later to be known to us as Elijah Muhammad. The Messenger as he is known in NOI circles found the the Nation of Islam, America's longest lasting islamic schism based partly on the teachings of Wallace Fard and on the "illuminations" of his own teaching .Mr. Muhammad, also known as Gulam Bogans, Elijah Poole, Muhammad Rassouli, Elijah Muck Muhd, and various other titles used two that are the most enlightening in strengthening his link to the Moorish Science Temple: Elim Ah Bey and Fahnu Bey. The Bey appelate was never bestowed by Wallace Fard on any of his followers (due to the separation between the movements), therefore the ones who came into the Allah Temple of Islam such as Thomas Bey among many and of course Joseph Gravvits-El had merely retained their appelates from the Moorish Science Days. Where did Elijah get his Bey, since according to the Nation of Islam, his first contact with Islam was through Master Fard in 1930. Either Fard gave it to him, which would further link the Moorish Science Temple to Fard through Fard's alias David Ford, or he came into the Nation of Islam with that attribute meaning he had received it from Moorish Science affiliation.
A biography of the Messenger here would take up much space to I will only elucidate the details of his life pertinant to this story. Robert Poole nicknamed Elija the prophet by his grandfather moved from Sandersville Georgia to Detroit where he developed serious drinking and gambling problems and drifted in and out of organizations founded by Marcus Garvey and Noble Drew Ali; the first informed his separatist philosophy, the second his fascination with Masonry and all things mystical. Elijah joined Noble Drew Ali's Moorish Science Temple of America in the late '20s where he took upon his Bey. This as such is tesified to by members of the Moorish Science Temple Today. Later he would come under the teaching of Wallace D. Ford.

The Links
Dealing in our world, God and Earths show and prove not merely assert. Now is the time I offer evidences and allow you to make your own decisions.

1) The News
Several news articles from Chicago and Detroit during this period 1929-1935 describe the Allah Temple of Islam before and during its metamorphisys into the Nation of Islam. One in particular is very enlightening:
The Chicago Tribune, in an article published March 6, 1935 printed:
"Their 'Moorish' names puzzled the police until King Shah disclosed that the Prophet of their order, W.D. Fard, or Fard Mohammed, had christened them thus last spring. A police search for Prophet Fard was started but he could not be found last night. He was described as one born in the Holy City of Mecca in 1877, who came to America on July 4, 1930.
"...The fezzes and red robes, which the cultists also wore, apparently were rented.The `Allah Temple of Islam'..."
Fezzes and robes? The only movement in America at that time wearing Fezzes and robes was the Moorish Science Temple.

2. Doctrines
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. Drew taught that Europeans represent the "Lower Self" (Satan), and were driven out of Mecca by the Asiatic Moslems.
Contrast that with the Teachings of Elijah Muhammad on Yacub, Patmos, and how the devil was "run across the arabian sands" and expelled by the original nations into "the caves and hillsides of europe".

Compare the teachings of the nation of islam with the following excerpts of the koran questionary of the moorish science temple:

22. Which is our Holy Day? Friday.
23. Why? Because friday is the day on which man was formed in flesh, and it was on a Friday when He departed out of flesh.

24. Who was Jesus? He was a Prophet of Allah.
25. Where was he born? In Bethlehem, of Judah, in the House of David.
26. Who were His Father and Mother? Joseph and Mary.*
27. Will you give in brief the line (genealogy) through which Jesus came? Some of the Great Fathers through which Jesus came are: Abraham, Boaz by Ruth, Jesse, King David, Solomon, Hezekiah and Joseph by Mary.
*(the only other islamic group which teach's Jesus father was Joseph is the nation of Islam. Orthodox muslims believe in the immaculate conception).
52. At what place on earth was the physical part of MAN formed? In the Garden of Eden.
53. Where is the Garden of Eden? In the land of Canaan, in the City of Mecca.
54. What is the modern name for the Garden of Eden? MECCA.

59. What is the modern name given to the children? Asiatics.

69. What people represent the Lower-self? Those who were cast out of the Holy City, and those who accept their teachings.

88. What does the word colored mean? Colored means anything that has been painted, varnished or dyed.
89. What does Ethiopian mean? Ethiopia means something divided.
90. Can a man be a Negro, Black, Colored or Ethiopian? No.

95. Is the Devil made in the Image and Likeness of ALLAH? No, he is the shadow of our lower-selves and will pass away.

[The Koran Questionary is taken from the Divine Constitution and By-Laws and from the Holy Koran of the Moorish Science Temple. This text is taught in Sunday School and it is expected to be memorized before a Moor can progress to the higher teachings and doctrines of Moorish Science.]

The very first flag in the moorish science temple was the crescent and star motif on a red flag which was later replaced by the modern flag of morocco with just the red green star. The only other community in that period (late 1920s to 1930s) to use a red flag with the crescent and star was the nation of Islam who would add the initials F,J,E,I to the corners to distuingish it from the Moors flag.

Last and certanily not least (consult The Messenger by Karl Evanzz for more information) was that in every city where there was a Moorish Science Temple between 1929-1934 magically an Allah Temple of Islam would just appear. Two communities teaching Asiatics, the expulsion of whites from the holy city of mecca, the human parentage of jesus, Allah, the original religion being Islam, friday as a holy day, arabic titles as last names, ministers and teachers with the last names Bey and El, their members wearing Fezzes (infact many early pictures of muhammad prior to 1936 show him in HIS FEZ) and robes, the acceptance of the Ahmadiyya Quran (eventhough at this time there was already the Yusef Ali, a sunni translation, in existance) by both as the only authorative version, and finally the leadership of both communities so easily exchanging memberships between the two.
The conclusion is clear: David Ford's (aka Wallace Ford) Allah Temple of Islam (which by the way is the only other islamic community in america to use the term temple in reference to house of worship for muslims other than the MSTA) came out of Noble Drew Ali's Temples of Moorish Science and Islamism. Noble Drew Ali himself borrowing heavily from the Aquarian Gospel of Eliphas Levi Dowling, a Mason, to author his Koran and adopting Masonic/Shriner terms such as Sheikh, Sultan, and Deacon as well as the masonic charter to be the charter of the MSTA, derived his information from the Masons and meetings with the Ahmadiyya.

Now To The Seeds
Many would ask where does that leave us as Gods and Earths, having the 120 as our supreme wisdom.
As Sha-King Allah wrote in his article Farther than Fard, this NGOE is not dependant on the nation of Islam for its existance. What must be understood even at a glance of our 120 reveals a very interesting detail. These are questions posed by Prophet WD Fard and answered by Elijah Karriem (ne Muhammad). This is normally where the NOI claims we have them to acknowledge for our 120. However common sense would tell you that from what source of teachings did Elijah answer Fard's questions. From Master Fard's Doctrine. Therefore we are not dependant of the nation of Islam, nor have we reappropriated their doctrine, we are both students of Master Fard.
The links given here do not offend Gods and Earths. We can ver much see an example in John the Baptist and Jesus as we look at Drew Ali and Master Fard. The inferior making way for the superior, the baptist immersing the Messiah. We can also rightly glean from history the coming of our Father Allah as one might see in the book of Malachi the coming of the messenger of the covenant who would purify the teaching.
We are not in any base position by this depiction of history. It is only our brothers in the NOI now have to face the fact they have been hoodwinked by Elijah Muhammad. We in the NGOE never have accepted their hadith in referrance to General Monk Monk, Yacub's childhood, Dr Shabazz and his ridiculous story, the son of man loading up tnt into the earth and creating the moon, Master Fard's baby g and alphonso origins, the 24 scientists, or the origin of their "Allah" in person incarnations. We have always understood that we are ALLAH as the collective. We never accepted that garbage that lies in the Theology of Time books. We also understood our charge that we should, as my brother Sha-King told me "look in the 120 and see ourselves", to not bow to any plus lessons our breakdowns and to instead understand the 120 as individuals.

I.S.L.A.M. to the gathering of the fallen of humanity, the asiatic seed.

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