Historical Background
It is necessary to examine the historical context of Muslim terrorism in the United States to understand the evolvement of Muslim extremism today. Juergensmeyer (2003) supports this stance by stating that contemporary acts of violence are influenced by historical violence perpetrated in the religious past. The assumption could be made that Muslim extremism in the United States is a more recent phenomenon; on the contrary, this is not true. By understanding history enlightens to where foundations and structures were built to support Muslim extremism and terrorism activities that exist in the United States today.
One of the first elements of Muslim influence in the United States occurred in the early 20th century with the formation of the Moors Science Temple founded in 1913 by Noble Drew Ali in Newark, New Jersey and then later reorganized in Chicago in 1919 (Vidino, 2009; Dannin, 2002). Ali’s interpretation of Islam mixed Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroaster and Confucius (Vidino, 2009). In 1929, Ali was charged with and imprisoned for murdering Claude Greene an opponent within the organization (Dannin, 2002). Shortly after being released from bail, Ali disappeared and was presumed dead because he was never found (Dannin, 2002).
With the influence of the Moors, the Nation of Islam, another unorthodox organization of Islam, was founded in 1930 by Wallace Farad in Detroit. Farad claimed he was a prophet to “awaken a dead nation in the West; to teach them the truth about the white man” (George and Wilcox, 1996, p. 317).Only for a short time as the leader, Farad disappeared without a trace in 1934 and was replaced by Elijah Mohammed (Vidino, 2009; George and Wilcox, 1996). Elijah Mohammed established...
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... may be exaggerated but has some validity because the majority of American mosques are funded by Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Arabia funding is supported by the doctrine of Wahhabism, which supports the ideology of extreme purity in Islam through violence.
A poll conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2006 found that 68 percent of American Muslims expressed an unfavorable opinion of al Qaeda (Jenkins, 2010). The remaining responders of the poll included 27 percent that declined to offer an opinion and five percent that offered support for al Al Qaeda. This poll illustrates; there is a mixed message of whether the extremism is coming from the mosques or actually from more lone-wolf and smaller groups of people. The history or Muslim extremism and violence clearly reflect a past of vitality and illicit activity, which makes it a pertinent threat in today’s world.
Lewis clearly and entirely pointed out key events explaining the choices to be made by the people of the Islamic faith. This paper highlighted just a few of the many key events. Lewis says, “Most Muslims are not fundamentalists, and most fundamentalists are not terrorists, but most present-day terrorists are Muslims and proudly identify themselves as such.” He also expertly points out, “Terrorism requires only a few. Obviously the West must defend itself by whatever means will be effective. But in devising means to fight the terrorists, it would surely be useful to understand the forces that drive them.”(Lewis. Introduction) In the end, I agree with and commend Bernard Lewis on pointing out that a single religion cannot be blamed for the acts of small groups of radicals.
Race and religion are two concepts in American culture that can really tie people together, or clearly separate them apart. A group forged by strong common roots in both race and religion can be a powerful societal force, if it wants to be. The Nation of Islam is a small but growing religion in America that has become somewhat of a social movement because of its strong and radical ideas on race. In this paper, I will try to explore the beliefs of the Nation of Islam, and the ramifications it could and has had on racial relations in America. The Nation of Islam, or NOI, is a relatively new religion. The first temple of Islam was established in Detroit by Master Fard Muhammed in 1930. Much of the theology was based on the simple facts that: "Allah is god, the white man is the devil, and the so-called Negroes are the Asiatic black people, the cream of the earth."(1) And, in accordance with their bizarre view of creation, involving a mad scientist creating the white race from the black race, the twentieth century represents the time for black people to regain their rightful position as god¹s chosen people. (1) The Nation of Islam was spawned from Orthodox Islam, an age-old religion. However, Orthodox Islam has openly denounced the NOI as a heretic sect for three main reasons: the NOI¹s rejection of the belief in an afterlife, its tendency to view human leaders as deified figures, and its strong racist attitudes. (2) For a brief time, during the seventies, Wallace Deen Muhammed became the leader of the NOI and tried to take it in a new direction, more conforming to "true Islamic beliefs." This group is now called the American Muslim Mission and still exists in small numbers today. (1) ...
Mamiya, Lawrence H., and Charles Eric Lincoln. “Nation of Islam.” Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History. 2nd Ed. Vol. 4. (2006): 1620-1624. Gale U.S. History In Context. Web. 24 Jan. 2011.
Sedgwick, M. (2004). Al-Qaeda and the nature of religious terrorism. Terrorism and Policical Violence, 16(4), 795-814.
The FBI reported that the amount of hate crimes against Muslim Americans increased 1,700 percent from 2000- 2001 (Attitudes Toward Muslim Americans Post 9/11, n.d, para 2). The actual amount of reported hate crimes went from 28 incidents to 481 incidents (Kuek Sur, 2016, para 4). The amount of hate towards muslims has continued to increase. The number of Americans with favorable views of Islam dropped from 41 percent in 2005 to 30 percent in 2010 (Clay, 2011, para 3). Although American Muslims have nothing in common with the 9/11 attackers besides religion, many have been treated unfairly by Americans whose views of Islam have been skewed by the 9/11
Islam, a religion of people submitting to one God, seeking peace and a way of life without sin, is always misunderstood throughout the world. What some consider act of bigotry, others believe it to be the lack of education and wrong portrayal of events in media; however, one cannot not justify the so little knowledge that America and Americans have about Islam and Muslims. Historically there are have been myths, many attacks on Islam and much confusion between Islam as a religion and Middle Easter culture that is always associated with it. This paper is meant to dispel, or rather educate about the big issues that plague people’s minds with false ideas and this will only be touching the surface.
The Jihad is probably one of the most misunderstood and feared terms in modern day America. Ever since the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11th, 2001, the Muslim religious duty of Jihad has had only negative connotations. Of course, seeing two trademark buildings collapsed and mangled on the groundwith thousands dead all in the name of religion would have anyone jump to a negative conclusion. But what most people don’t understand is that the meaning of the term “Jihad” is one greatly left up to interpretation. Each sect of the Islamic religion has a different take on this religion duty and the expectation that go along with it. Therefore, the idea of Jihad that America has learned to fear might not be the true meaning, concept, and intention of the word at all.
Now the second most sought-after university lecturer in America, Malcolm X savors the excitement of the intellectual confrontations that follow his speeches at top universities… America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem.” Malcolm affected the world with this. He is putting the Nation of Islam on a pedal stool. Muslims are people who have a strong belief in Islam. As believers, they worship the One God and worship Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, as the last messenger of God. Additionally, they also believe in all the prophets which preceded Prophet Muhammad and the holy books which they brought, such as the Psalms, Torah, and the Gospel. Christianity was the white man's religion, declared Fard. It was forced on African Americans during the slave experience. Islam was closer to African roots and identity. Members of the Nation of Islam read the Koran, worship Allah as their God, and accept Muhammad as their chief prophet. Mixed with the religious tenets of Islam were Black Pride and Black Nationalism. The Nation of Islam attracted many followers, especially in prisons, where lost African Americans most looked for guidance. They preached adherence to a strict moral code and reliance on other African
The term jihadi was not always commonly recognized in the United States. It was not until the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that the word jihad became widely known. Since the terrorist attacks, the media and the U.S. government have used the word jihad to invoke frightening images of non-Americans coming to destroy American freedoms and to define Islam. Today, scholars have begun to try to define this complex word and its multitude of meanings. When viewers tune into the news, it is sometimes difficult to unravel the layers of information that is being fed to them by the media and the U.S. government. In its most literal form, the term “jihad is an Arabic term meaning, as a noun, ‘struggle’ or, as a verb, ‘to exert effort’ toward a goal” (International Ency 1). However, in Mary Pat Fisher’s book Living Religions the chapter on Islam discusses how the definition of the term jihad is “commonly mistranslated as ‘holy war’ (Fisher 148). While the media frequently portrays jihad consistent with the idea of “struggle,” the media almost always flips the definition on its head by suggesting that this struggle is a malicious struggle between two groups of peoples, each of whom believes that righteousness, and in many cases God, is on their side and evil is on the other side. Suggesting that jihad and violence are in connection with each other has been the case since pre-modern times. In fact, Fisher suggests that the primary associations of the word jihad are religious, specifically with reference the Prophet Mohammad and to the religion of Islam, but also invoke a sense of violence or resistance against an opposing force. While violence and jihad have typically been spoken about together, as of late, the...
In 1930 Wallace D. Fard gave birth to the Nation of Islam movement. He began in Detroit going door to door preaching to black families about his remedy for their problems. He tried replacing their beliefs with his own, for solving their problems. Fard had three main ideas that laid the foundation for his “remedy”. He wanted black separatism, everyone to know that white men are evil (which was not hard for African Americans to believe since the idea already lived within their minds), and to show the inadequacy of Christianity to African Americans. During this period Fard recruited Elijah Poole, changed Elijah’s name to Elijah Muhammad and developed him into his Chief Minister. With the mysterious disappearance of Fard in 1934, Elijah took over the movement. Elijah was born in Sandersville, Georgia in 1897 as the seventh of twelve children. He barely finished the third grade before dropping out to work in the fields to help support his family (Muhammad 1+). During his childhood Elijah witnessed a lynching right before his eyes; different accounts vary on whom he actually saw lynched. In Baldwin’s account in “Down at the Cross,” he says he saw his father lynched befo...
A United States citizen turning against one’s own government and embracing an ideology to kill another citizen or commit an act of violence is a growing phenomenon commonly known as homegrown terrorism. This transition or radicalization process that transforms an individual into an adversary has intensified since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The problem continues to persist in other parts of the world such as Canada, United Kingdom and even in Saudi Arabia, a Non-Western country. This form of extremism has shown its propensity in the United States since the turn of the century when Muslim extremism had its early beginnings as a venue to support a black separatist movement. Today, the threat emerges more rampantly with the accessibility and excess of information technology; as well as the political and socio-economic environment influencing many spectrums of perception and intent.
On October 7, 1897 in Sandersville, Georgia, a woman named Marie Poole gave birth to a boy who she named Elijah. Elijah’s parents were sharecroppers, and this father was a Baptist minister (Black Supremacists, 25). After an eighth grade education, in 1931, Elijah Poole moved to Detroit where, he says, he met “Allah in person”. This was a man named Fard Muhammad—“The first and only man born in Mecca who came to America for the express purpose of teaching the so-called Negro” (Mr. Muhammad Speaks, 103). Elijah studied under Fard Muhammad, after which, he acquired a new title and sense of purpose. Since then, Elijah referred to himself as “Elijah Muhammad, the messenger of Allah, to the Lost-Found Nation of Islam in North America” (Mr. Muhammad Speaks, 100). Elijah Muhammad’s own words state his new purpose very well, “I am doing all I can to make the so-called Negroes see that the white race and its religion, Christianity, are their open enemies” (Mr. Muhammad Speaks, 100). Elijah Muhammad, put quite bluntly, was a psychopath. His ideals parallel those of Adolf Hitler, leader of the Third Reich, the man most directly responsible for the systematic torture and annihilation of millions of innocent people during the Second World War. Elijah Muhammad’s ideals, taught through his cult, the Nation of Islam, are extreme, irrational, racist, and truly evil.
Likewise, Goodwin illustrates how the use of categorical terrorism can be seem being used by Al-Qaida during the attacks of 9/11. Nonetheless, it is evident that Al-Qaida is unusual in terms of using terrorism to influence the rise of unity rather than trying to overthrow a standing state. For the purpose of instigating a pan-Islamic revolutionary movement, Al-Qaida tries to unite all Islamic people under one state to develop umma, or Muslim community. The logic of Al-Qaida remained that if their “revolutionaries” could illicit a reaction from the powerful US state, resulting in oppression of the middle-eastern region, that Al-Qaida could, as a result, unite all Muslims to counter this suggested oppression. Although the end goal of Al-Qaida clear failed, it does suggest the organization’s attempt at implementing categorical terrorism.
After 9/11 has induced negative attitudes towards Muslim peoples who tend to be strongly associated with any act of terrorism. The media has played a colossal role in developing such negative association wherein it constantly portrays Muslim people in combination with violent terrorist acts. It does so in a way that they both go hand-and-hand. In other words, it has made it as though the Islamic religion is synonymous with terrorism. The media has perpetuated Muslim stereotypes over the years that followed the 9/11 incident. Because of this, society has developed, and still has developed, this prejudiced mindset about the Islamic religion and the Muslim communities around the world. People immediately assume that any violent act being depicted through the media is the direct result of Muslims. They automatically generate this idea that the act was performed by a Muslim terrorist even when they were not involved whatsoever. Regardless of whether it was true or not, Islamic religion and its Muslim adherents are at the top of societies’ agenda just waiting for the evidence to be generated so that they can then safely blame them for such world affairs. Again, this has led to the attack on the Islamic religion itself wherein people have come to postulate Islam as an act of oppression, violence and hatred towards non-Muslims. Anti-Muslim sentiments and campaigns have resulted from such misinformation the media has been generating and feeding its viewers.
Khan, Sir Muhammad Zafrullah (1989). Islam: Its Meaning for Modern Man. New York & Evanston: Harper & Row.