Saudi Wahhabism and Zionism

Have no doubt, Saudi Wahhabism is equally in league with Israel and the USA on keeping the lid on events in the Middle East, including keeping Iraq destabilized and attacking Iran because it may need nuclear weapons to level the playing field with its enemies, Israel, US and Saudi Arabia, et al.

Why is there no Arab Spring in Saudi Arabia? If Saudi Arabia turned off the oil spigot, Palestine would be an independent nation tomorrow morning!

Why was not Saudi Arabia attacked after 9/11 since most of the plane hijackers were from Saudi Arabia?
--Marvin X

Saudi Wahhabism and Conspiracies

Brief History of the Saudi Wahhabism and Conspiracies

Haytham A. K. Radwan for Intifada-Palestine.com

While Islam as a faith is the main religion in 48 countries, and Muslims around the globe are rapidly growing, Saudi Islam is the main sectarian movement in Saudi Arabia, and its influence is also rapidly growing. Acting as the protector of Islam through its own form of Islam, while it remains an American client state through its location, petrodollar’s cheque book, and American diplomatic and military protection, it could be argued that among the major influential players, Saudi Arabia’s policies, its own form of Islam, and its relations with the US, undoubtedly constitute one of the most serious threats to the security of the world today.

Indeed, since the eighteenth century, and in conjunction with the Wahhabi religious establishment, Saudi Arabia became the centre for a new brand of religious imperialism based on sectarian movements. For nearly a century, the kingdom’s religious fervour kept the oil-rich country in the Western political camp. Today, the existence of radical Islamic groups is in part a legacy of the Saudi form of Islam, not Islam itself, and the Saudi-US alliance, and of political decisions made to address a different set of security concerns which helped no one accept the US projects.

While Islam itself as a faith is not a threat to international security, it is Saudi Islam that is a threat. Indeed, it is fair to say that the problems within the Muslim world today rise not from Islam itself, but from the Saudi form of Islam, Muslim religious leaders who are relying on Saudi support, and their own interpretations of the Quran. It is also fair to say that questions pertaining to why Americans see Islam as a threat to world stability is because of the American failures to distinguish between Islam as a faith and Saudi Islam. In the US, Islam has been perceived as a threat to its civilization. However, while Americans knew that Islam itself is not a threat to their civilization, the majority of American politicians, journalists, and ideologists have ignored the truth that the threat is coming from Saudi Islam. This is seen as a tactic to avoid any damage to the relations with the House of Saud in order to keep economic and political interests alive.

As a result, the Saudi-US relationship and the Saudi Wahhabi expansionist policy not only transform Muslim world politics, but also world politics. Saudaisation movements may expand into broader struggle throughout the Arab and Muslim nations and beyond. In some parts of the Muslim world, steps toward Saudaisation have already begun while the US is turning a blind eye to the Saudi rulers. At the same time, the US is also busy trying to convince the world that their policies towards Saudi Arabia is about promoting democracy and protecting human rights.

Apart from the obvious results of such a conflict, such as loss of power in some Muslim countries, it would impact on the behaviour of other Western and non-Western states which could use the conflict for more ideological and tactical reasons. So, because religion has no borders, it could become global religious and sectarian conflicts.

It is possible we are already seeing the war in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Gaza, in Yemen and of course, the non-stoppable Wahhabi-American pressure on Syria.

Why? This is because Wahhabism itself is nothing more than an extension of Western imperialism. This short paper shed light on the roots and origin of the Saudi Wahhabism.

The Roots of Wahhabism:

Although the origin of the Saudis’ current expansionist and extremist policy dates back to the religious and military alliance with the Wahhabi establishment, it was actually the British who initially provided the Saudis with the ideas of Wahhabism and made them its leaders for their own purposes to destroy the Muslim Ottoman Empire.[1] Indeed, the intricate details of this intriguing British conspiracy are to be found in the memoirs of its master spy, titled “Confessions of a British Spy” (For details see Sindi 2004). [2] In his memories, the British spy “Hempher” who was one of many spies sent by London to the Arabian Peninsula in order to destabilize the Ottoman Empire has stated:

“In the Hijri year, the Minister of Colonies sent me to Egypt, Iraq, Hejaz and Istanbul to act as a spy and to obtain information necessary and sufficient for the breaking up of Muslims. The Ministry appointed nine more people, full of agility and courage, for the same mission and at the same time. In addition to the money, information and maps we would need, we were given a list containing names of statesmen, scholars, and chiefs of tribes. I can never forget! When I said farewell to the secretary, he said, the future of our State is dependent on your success. Therefore you should exert your utmost energy”. (Nabhani, see also confession of a British spy). [3]

As a result, a small Bedouin army was established with the help of British undercover spies. In time, this army grew into a major menace that eventually terrorized the entire Arabian Peninsula up to Damascus, and caused one of the worst Fitnah (violent civil strife) in the history of Islam.[4] In the process, this army was able to viciously conquer most of the Arabian Peninsula to create the first Saudi-Wahhabi State.[5]

After the death of Muhammad ibn Saud, his son, Abd al-Aziz, became Ad Diriyah’s new emir who captured Riyadh in 1773. By 1781, the al-Saud family’s territory extended outward from Ad Diriyah, located in the Arabian Peninsula’s central region of Najd, about one hundred miles in every direction. In 1788, Saud, son of Abd al-Aziz, was declared heir apparent. He led his Wahhabi warriors on more raids.[6] To fight what they considered Muslim “polytheists” and “heretics”, the Saudis-Wahhabis shocked the entire Muslim world when in 1802, invaded Iraq’s Shiite majority, sacked Karbala, where Hussein, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad and the leading Shiite martyr is buried, and also demolished the massive golden dome and intricate glazed tiles above Hussein Bin Ali’s tomb, a holy shrine to Shiite Muslims. In the same year, the Saudi-Wahhabi warriors committed another atrocity in Taif, just outside Mecca. Again in 1810 they ruthlessly killed many innocent people across the Arabian Peninsula. They raided and pillaged many pilgrimage caravans and sever major cities in Hejaz including the two holiest cities of Makah and Medina.

In Makah they turned away pilgrims, and in Medina they attacked and desecrated Prophet Mohammad’s Mosque, opened his grave, and sold and distributed its valuable relics and expensive jewels.[7] The Saudi-Wahhabi crimes angered the ottomans.

In 1818, an Egyptian army destroyed the Saudis-Wahhabis army and razed their capital to the ground. The Wahhabi Imam Abdullah al-Saud and two of his followers were sent to Istanbul in chains where they were publicly beheaded. The rest of the Saudi-Wahhabi clan was held in captivity in Cairo. The destruction of the Saudi-Wahhabi warrior’s alliance did not last long. It was soon revived with the help of British colonialist.[8]

Accordingly, when Britain colonized Bahrain in 1820 and to expand its colonization in the area, the Wahhabi House of Saud sought British protection through Wahhabi Imams.[9] As a result, the British sent Colonel Lewis Pelly in 1865 to Riyadh to establish an official British treaty with the Wahhabi House.[10] Between 1871 and 1876, power changed hand seven times and the Wahhabis led more raids. This marked the end of the second Saudi state. This period however, kept the Wahhabi movement alive, ready to influence Muslims again in the twentieth century—and in the twenty-first.[11]

The twentieth century’s Saudi Arabia comprises the third period of Wahhabis political power. It has changed Saudi Arabia dramatically and the Saudi-Wahhabi’s kingdom has changed the century significantly. The first interval began in 1902, when Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud captured Riyadh and proceeded to re-establish a Wahhabi Kingdom. In 1904, Abd al-Aziz captured Anaiza, an oasis near Hail. In 1913, he captured Al Hasa Province, but had no idea that he had just acquired a quarter of the world’s oil.[12]

Not surprisingly, after his return from Al Hasa, the British helped ibn Saud with the establishments of the Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood), an army of fierce religious warriors. The Ikhwan looked for the opportunity to fight non-Wahhabi Muslims—and non-Muslims as well—and they took Abd al Aziz as their leader. The Ikhwan movement began to emerge among the Bedouin. They abandoned their traditional way of life in the desert and moved to an agricultural settlement. By moving to agricultural settlement, the Ikhwan intended to take up a new way of life to enforce a rigid Islamic orthodoxy.[13]

To achieve his goals, on December 26, 1915, Abd al Aziz signed treaty with Sir Percy Cox, Britain’s political agent in the Arab Gulf. The British praised Abd al-Aziz as the greatest Arab man,[14] and recognised his [Abd al- Aziz] sovereignty over Najd and Al-Hasa (central and eastern Arabia), while Abd al-Aziz promised the British that he would not have any dealing with any other country without the British approval and supplies.[15] In addition, the British praised Abd al-Aziz despite his unattractive traits such as public beheading, amputations and floggings. The advisor of Abd al-Aziz for more over 30 years, Harry St John Philby, had described him as ‘the greatest Arab since the Prophet Muhammad’. Philby was sent to Arabia by the British government to assist Abd al-Aziz, perhaps to play kingmaker, in 1917.[16]

Indeed, when in 1915, there were more than 200 hujar in and around Najd and nearly 100,000 Ikhwan waiting to fight, the British supplied Abd al-Aziz with weapons and money. The word hijra (hujar) was related to the term for the Prophet’s emigration from Mecca to Medina in 622. This period ended in 1934, with the declaration of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under the leadership of Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud.

Since then, Abd al-Aziz declared the relationship between oil and religion. Indeed, after establishing his British-made Wahhabi State, the Wahhabi king and imam Abd al-Aziz became an autocratic dictator who named the whole country after his own family, calling it the Kingdom of “Saudi” Arabia.[17] Since then the House of Saud has allocated a significant amount of oil revenues to building Islamic schools and mosques throughout the Muslim world,[18] which eventually has inspired radical Islam.[19] At that time however, Abd al-Aziz had various goals: he wanted to take Hail from the Al Rashid’ clan, to extend his control into the northern deserts (Syria), and to take over the Hejaz and the Persian Gulf coast. While Cox openly encouraged Abd al-Aziz to attack al-Rasheed’s clans to divert them from helping the Ottomans he prevented him from taking over much of the Gulf coast, where they [the British] had established protectorates.[20] They also opposed Abd al Aziz’s efforts to extend his influence beyond the Jordanian, Syrian, and Iraqi deserts because of their own imperial interests. But Abd al-Aziz continued his mission, and after he began the siege of Hail, the city surrendered to the Saudi’s warriors. In 1922, the Ikhwan warriors attacked Amman, the capital of Trans-Jordan. This caused problem with the British because, unlike Mecca and Medina, Hail had no religious significance. However, Abd al-Aziz apologised to the British. The British asked him to draw borders between his kingdom and Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait.[21]

Today, although a few Wahhabi religious leaders have tried to “distant” themselves from the House of Saud’s brutality and anti-Islamic policies in a vain attempt to save Wahhabism’s image from further deterioration, most of the top Wahhabi religious leaders are still firmly behind the House of Saud. In fact, most Wahhabi leaders have openly supported the House of Saud’s unpopular domestic and foreign policies. Indeed, in the Arab nations, the rise of extremism in the form of the Wahhabi movement during the twentieth century could not have taken place without the huge investments made by the Al-Saud family in conjunction with the American in the name of democracy, freedom and human rights to destroy Arab nationalism, socialism, secularism, and of course Islam. This has intensified since the discovery of oil in the 1930s, reached its peak during World War II, and the Cold War, and took more extreme directions since the establishment of the Iranian Islamic Republic in 1979, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the same year.

References:

---

[1] – Abdullah-M, S 2004, ‘Britain and the Rise of Wahhabism and the House of Saud’, Kana’an Bulletin, vol. IV, no. 361, pp. 1-9.

[2] -Sindi, A-M 2004, ‘Britain and the Rise of Wahhabism and the House of Saud’, Kana’n bulletin, vol. IV, no. 361.

[3] -Nabhani, Y Khulasat-ul Kalam, Dar-ul-kitab-is-sufi (the House of Sufi book), Cairo, Egypt, see also Confession of a British Spy and British Enmity Against Islam, available at: , .

[4] Weston, M 2008, Prophets and Princes: Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the Present, Wiley &Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey.

[5] -Sindi, A-M 2004, ‘Britain and the Rise of Wahhabism and the House of Saud’, Kana’n bulletin, vol. IV, no. 361.

[6] Weston, M 2008a, Prophets and Princes: Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the Present, Wiley &Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey.

[7] Ibid; Sindi, A-M 2004, ‘Britain and the Rise of Wahhabism and the House of Saud’, Kana’n bulletin, vol. IV, no. 361.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Weston, M 2008, Prophets and Princes: Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the Present, Wiley &Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey; Troeller, G 1976, the Birth of Saudi Arabia: Britain and the Rise of the House of Saud, Frank Cass, London.

[10] Lacey, R 1981, the Kingdom: Arabia and the House of Saud, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York.

[11] Weston, M 2008, Prophets and Princes: Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the Present, Wiley &Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Aburish, SK 1994, A Brutal Friendship: the West and the Arab Elite, first edn, St. Martin’s Press, New York.

[15] Weston, M 2008, Prophets and Princes: Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the Present, Wiley &Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey.

[16] Aburish, SK 1994, A Brutal Friendship: the West and the Arab Elite, first edn, St. Martin’s Press, New York.

[17] Sindi, A-M 2004, ‘Britain and the Rise of Wahhabism and the House of Saud’, Kana’n bulletin, vol. IV, no. 361.

[18] Long, D 1979, The Wilson Quarterly (1976), vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 83-91.

[19] Redissi, H 2008, ‘The Refutation of Wahhabism in Arabic Sources, 1745-1932′, in Kingdom without Borders: Saudi Arabia’s Political, Religious and Media Frontiers, ed. A-R M, Hurst, London, pp. 157-177.

[20] Aburish, SK 1994, A Brutal Friendship: the West and the Arab Elite, first edn, St. Martin’s Press, New York.

[21] Weston, M 2008, Prophets and Princes: Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the Present, Wiley &Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey.

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Haytham A. K. Radwan is a Syrian-Australian citizen living in Adelaide, Australia. He is currently completing Bachelor of Laws at the University of South Australia. He has completed a Masters in International Studies / Relations in 2011, and Bachelor degree in International Studies in 2006 at the University of South Australia. His Masters research examined Saudi Arabia’s Politics, Its Islam, and Its Relations with the U.S. As A Threat to World Stability: Myth or Reality. Haytham also studied Psychology and Education Studies in the early 1990s at Damascus University, Syria. He is been admitted into the Golden Key International Honour Society in 2006, awarded the University Merit Award in 2006, and the Chancellor’s Commendation in 2005 from the University of South Australia. He can be reached at: haustralia@hotmail.com

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Day of Action for Imam Jamil Al-Amin (Rap Brown)

A DAY OF ACTION” (Public Rally) for Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin
Monday, March 19, 2012, at the Georgia State Capitol


For Immediate Release:
March 16, 2012
Contact information: Heather Gray
404 234 4630 - heather@wrfg.org

ATLANTA....March 16, 2012, marks the 12th anniversary of a tragedy that
affected three families and an entire community. It was on March 16, 2000,
at around 10 PM at night, that two Fulton County Sheriff Deputies got into
a gunfight with an assailant that left one deputy dead and the other
seriously injured. Jamil Al-Amin (the former H. Rap Brown), the accused
assailant (who has consistently maintained his innocence), was arrested
days later in White Hall (AL), and charged with first degree murder and
assault.

After a deeply flawed trial that resulted in Al-Amin receiving a life
sentence, the leader of the West End Muslim community was confined to
Georgia’s maximum security prison in Reidsville. In 2007 Al-Amin was
arbitrarily deemed a “security risk” - despite having no serious
infractions within the institution – and was moved from state custody into
federal custody, and assigned to the federal admax facility (aka,
“supermax prison”) in Florence, Colorado - 1,400 miles away from his
family and attorneys.

This abrupt move, which was made without even informing his family, led to
a number of pressing questions, beginning with the federal government's
complicity in his case. It raised the question of whether Al-Amin was
being punished because he is a prominent Muslim, and also begged the
question of whether his civil rights past - principally through the
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960's - and his
ongoing demands and activism for civil and human rights in the U.S. may
have also factored into the equation?

It should also be noted that just prior to his abrupt move to Florence,
Colorado, in 2007, Muslims in Georgia's prisons had asked that he serve as
the Imam for Muslim prisoners throughout the State. This was without
Al-Amin's prompting, and was a clear acknowledgement of the broad based
respect for him and his leadership.

Al-Amin’s case was, and is, a local case. There were no federal charges,
conviction, or sentences. In spite of this, the State of Georgia chose to
move him out of Georgia's prison population into a high-cost federal
institution at Georgia taxpayer’s expense! The conditions in the prison
are extraordinarily punitive, including 24-hour isolation in an
underground facility with no human contact. (Notwithstanding the moral
considerations, the material cost of such punishment is un-called for.)

On Monday, March 19, 2012, at 3 PM, there will be a demonstration in front
of the Georgia State Capitol - designated as a "Day of Action in Support
of Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin" - to demand that “Imam Jamil” (as he is
commonly known) be returned to Georgia state custody, where he rightfully
belongs, until such time that he can receive a new trial, a fair trial,
with all of the relevant and available evidence allowed to come into the
proceedings.

The speakers for Monday’s press conference will be (in alphabetical order):

Michael Bond (City Councilman - Atlanta)
Ramsey Clark (a former US Attorney General – New York)
Connie Curry (a veteran activist, and SNCC alumni - Atlanta)
Pastor Kenneth Glasgow (Christian clergyman)
Heather Gray (WRFG Radio - Atlanta)
Vincent Hardin (distinguished visiting scholar, Morehouse College)
Dianne Mathiowetz (International Action Center - Atlanta)
Min. Akbar Muhammad ( International Representative, Nation of Islam)
Imam Furqan Muhammad (a highly regarded Muslim chaplain - Atlanta)
Abdul Muhayman (Rep. for The Community Masjid - West End)
Nan Orrock (State Senator, District 36, Atlanta)
Imam Farid W. Rassool (Masjid As-Sabiqun, Chester, PA)
Mauri' Saalakhan (The Peace Thru Justice Foundation – Washington, DC)
Imam Zaid Shakir (a nationally known, California-based Islamic scholar)
Aaron Ward (District Director for Congressman John Lewis, D-GA)

The State Capitol is located at 206 Washington Street in Atlanta, Georgia.
Additional information on this case is available at www.freeimamjamil.com
<http://www.freeimamjamil.com/> .

For interviews on Imam Jamil's case please call Heather Gray at (404)
234-4630 or email her at heather@wrfg.org heather@wrfg.org> .

###

Review of the White Chauncey Bailey Project's Book

The above photo reveals the supreme irony of the Chauncey Bailey murder.Chauncey is on the far right under the protection of the Your Black Muslim Bakery brothers, his alleged killers. The white man on the far left appears to be Thomas Steele, lead writer of the White Chauncey Bailey Project and author of the book Killing the Messenger. Even the caption is a half truth since Bailey was working on the Bakery but also on corruption in the Oakland Police Department and City Hall under then Mayor (now Governor) Jerry Brown.

We present this review of the White Chauncey Bailey Project's book on Black Muslims and the Assassination of Chauncey Bailey. At a book signing, Marvin X shouted from the audience that the book is a sham. Oakland Tribune editor Martin Reynolds shouted back (Martin was having an on stage conversation with Thomas Steele), "Ok, Marvin, we know you are doing a book on Chauncey so we'll just wait for your book." Indeed, my book is Who Killed Chauncey Bailey? and A Short History of Black Muslims in the Bay. As per who killed Malcolm X, James Baldwin said, "The hand that pulled the trigger didn't buy the bullet." Oakland Post Publisher Paul Cobb had this to say about the assassination of his editor, "Chauncey was our soul, blood and bones. And we take authority on the matter of facts concerning his assassination. We are taking authority on his legacy to our community and the world.We do not accept the OPD's, the DA's, or CBP's explanation of his cold blooded murder."

Killing the Messenger: A Story of Radical Faith, Racism’s Backlash, and the Assassination of a Journalist | By Thomas Peele | The Crown Publishing Group | 441 pages, $26.00

by Jess Mowry

Columbia Journalism Review

It’s said that the devil is in the details, and experienced writers would agree that the tiniest details can make or break a story. This may tempt authors to emphasize or embellish aspects of a story that reinforce a theme; to present the facts in a way that fits the frame.

One may receive impressions of this in the first 40 pages of Killing The Messenger, Thomas Peele’s new book about ideology, murder, and journalism, set primarily in Oakland, CA. For instance, one may wonder why the author, who in the first paragraph of the introduction describes Oakland as “little more than a place I passed through to get anywhere,” should choose to inform readers that Oakland’s Lake Merritt “had been created from a drained swamp in the 1860s,” or at low tide the area where the lake drains into the San Francisco Bay (actually the Oakland Estuary) “reeked of rotting mussels ripped open by hungry gulls.”

He might have said that Lake Merritt is the largest saltwater lake located within an urban area and is quite picturesque. And what could be more natural than seagulls feeding on mussels? But, of course, he was trying for gritty atmosphere; just as one could add grit to San Francisco’s image by mentioning that much of the riprap around its Aquatic Park is composed of old tombstones leftover when the city moved most of its graveyards to Colma in the early 20th century.

Likewise, the author repeatedly describes the neighborhood around the (former) Your Black Muslim Bakery on San Pablo Avenue, home base for the semi-legit organization that this book is about, as being the “North Oakland ghetto.” This reviewer, having frequented this bakery for fish sandwiches, and who still passes through the neighborhood at least once a week, can attest that while it’s not one of Oakland’s upscale communities, it’s far from a ghetto. Nor did this reviewer ever find the bakery’s staff anything less than pleasant, neat, clean, or observe the “compound” being guarded by “thugs in bow ties” or “the frenzied pit bull and mastiffs,” though that would have certainly been wise at night, and many area businesses take similar precautions.

None of which is to say that this reviewer admired the Black Muslims or agreed with their doctrine—though the sandwiches were killer—but rather to note that the deployment of superfluous details, especially when one already has an ironclad case, may undermine one’s credibility.

Earning readers’ trust is especially important when an author is writing about black people, who are so accustomed to being misrepresented and negatively portrayed that many automatically distrust or outrightly dismiss anything written about them, especially by a non-black author. It is therefore unfortunate that the first three chapters of Killing The Messenger appear as if Peele was trying too hard to set his stage.

While Part One of this book, opening with the August 2, 2007 gangstuh-style murder of Chauncey Bailey, an Oakland Post editor who was working on a story about Your Black Muslim Bakery, abounds with descriptions of thugs, thuggery, and Dashiell Hammett-meets-Boyz n the Hood atmosphere, one quickly forgives Peele when he settles down to solid journalistic writing, especially since Peele was a principal in the Chauncey Bailey Project, an ad hoc group of journalists dedicated to reporting the circumstances of Bailey’s death.

Though the hook is the murder of Bailey, an undistinguished journalist whose article, Peele notes, would probably not have been very good, Bailey is actually a minor character. The real story is about the Black Muslims, and particularly the Oakland-based Bey family. For decades, Peele reports, the Beys used their health-food bakery as a front for criminal activity, operating largely untouched by police. (The bakery’s founder, Yusuf Ali Bey, actually ran for mayor of Oakland in 1994.) It was only when the erratic, overmatched Yusuf Bey IV assumed control in 2005 that everything began to crumble.

With exceptions noted and forgiven, Killing The Messenger is a very well-written and thoroughly researched book; this becomes apparent as one gets deeper into it. Like James A. Michener, Peele begins at the roots of his subject, in this case a man named Wallace Dodd Ford, a.k.a. Walli Dodd Fard (and many other aliases), who filled out a draft card on June 5, 1917, stating his birthplace as Shinka, Afghanistan, his birth date as February 26, 1893, and his race as “Caus” (presumably an abbreviation of Caucasian). This is ironic, since he was the co-founder of what would become the Black Muslim faith, after teaming up with a spiritual charlatan who styled himself Noble Drew Ali from Morocco, though he was reputedly born Timothy Drew from North Carolina. (Peele makes clear that the Black Muslim “faith” is Islamic in name only, just as the Ku Klux Klan bills itself as a Christian organization.)

The book, backed up by 74 pages of acknowledgments, notes, and bibliography, traces the history not only of the group itself, which was based upon “Tricknology” (a term coined by its founders to describe the misinformation and outright lies foisted upon black people by whites to keep them confused and disunited), but also the individual histories of the principal men involved. Unlike the Black Panther Party, which had its roots in Oakland and was for the most part purely political, the Black Muslims cloaked their militancy in pseudo-religion, encouraging violence not only in their brainwashed believers but also providing a justification to those who simply wanted to act out their hatred by killing. Peele brings vital historical context to the contemporary aspects of his tale: the establishment of the Bey family in Oakland, the rise and fall of Your Black Muslim Bakery, and the eventual murder of Chauncey Bailey—a foolish, arrogant, and typically thuggish act, which, rather than removing a perceived threat to the organization, actually brought it down.

As he does for virtually all the dramatis personae in this book, Peele offers detailed studies of their origins and backgrounds, often not without sympathy in regard to conditions, environment, and events in their lives which may have contributed to what they became. For example, we learn the life history of Devaughndre Monique Broussard, who would become Bey’s hit-man for Chauncey Bailey’s murder. It is an all-too-typical story of a young black man raised in a soul-crushing environment of poverty, drugs, and violence in Richmond, CA, and who wasn’t strong enough to somehow rise above it.

As Peele acknowledges, though most of these men had seedy backgrounds, it was pretty difficult for any black man, especially during the first half of the 20th century, to be squeaky clean in regard to white laws, morals, and values. Peele’s extensive research on the oppression of black people in the US through most of the 20th century, explains part of the book’s subtitle: Racism’s Backlash—the backlash being the rise of an organization claiming to be a religious faith that professes hate toward white people. Peele is not hesitant to give white devils their due, whether murderous police, racist politicians and journalists, or discriminatory policies. He describes several attacks by police upon Black Muslims in various cities that ended in outright murder of black men, the officers involved invariably cleared of any wrongdoing. No wonder that, then as now, certain young black men would be attracted to an ideology that encouraged them to fight back.

Throughout the book’s 350 pages, Peele presents detailed accounts of how various individuals became involved with and/or ensnared by the Black Muslim movement; some idealistically, many—especially young black men intellectually stunted by the public-education system and emotionally scarred by the judicial system—because it offered opportunities no one else was offering. Broussard, for example, a once-promising student who lost his way, is Peele’s Exhibit A: an impressionable youth who was lured by the financial and emotional shelter the Beys provided.

Did anything positive come out of this? While Peele seems a bit cloudy on this point, he also appears to imply that the answer is yes. Though he may have somewhat embellished the grit and grimness of Oakland, he also acknowledges the thousands of young black men taken in off the streets, or when fresh out of prison, who would have likely been behind bars—or behind bars again—had they not been offered productive jobs and educated in matters of self-worth, physical and mental discipline, and personal integrity, and who may well have gone on to live better lives by using these teachings as a basis to self-educate and think for themselves. In other words, Peele seems to realize there are shades of gray in everything—no absolute evil, no untarnished good, and few saints or devils without their own motives.

Killing The Messenger may well be the best, most thoroughly researched, and—with exceptions noted—most objective book thus far written on this subject, and is no doubt destined to become required reading in many colleges and universities. Hopefully, it will also be read in prisons, to educate young black men that Tricknology comes in all colors. If the devil is indeed in the details, Peele has given us many demons to exorcise.

Bibliography: A Short History of Black Muslims in the Bay Area

Bibliography: A Short History of Black Muslims in the Bay Allah, Wakeel, In the Name of Allah, A-Team, Atlanta, 2007 Allen, Robert L., Black Awakening in Capitalist America, AWP, New Jersey, 1992 Al Mansour, Khalid Abdullah Tariq, Black America at the Crossroads ________, The Reflections of an African Arabian in American Captivity ________, Talal, The Challenge of Spreading Islam in America Ali, Yusef, Holy Qur'an Armstrong, Karen, A History of God ________, Muhammad Aslan, Reza, No god but God, Random House, 2006 Baldwin, James, The Fire Next Time, Dial Press, NY, 1963 Bloom, Alexander, Wini Breines, eds, Takin' it to the Streets, Oxford, 1995 Bontemps, Arna, Black Thunder, Beacon, Boston, 1963 _______, Conroy, They Seek A City Breitman, George, The Last Year of Malcolm X, Merit, NY, 1967 _______, Malcolm X Speaks, Grove, NY., 1965 Clarke, John Henrik, ed, Malcolm X, The Man and His Times, Collier, NY, 1969 Cleaver, Soul on Ice ______, Soul on Fire ______, Post Prison Writings, Ramparts, 1969 Diop, Cheikh Anta, Cultural Unity of Africa, TWP, Chicago DuBois, W.E.B, The Souls of Black Folk, Penguin, NY, 1996 _____, The World and Africa _____, Black Reconstruction Foner, Philip S., ed., The Black Panthers Speak, Da Capo Press, 1995 Frazier, E. Franklin, Black Bourgeoisie, Collier, NY, 1975 _____, Race and Culture Contacts in the Modern World, Beacon, Boston, 1957 Franklin, John Hope, From Slavery to Freedom, Alfred A. Knopf, NY, 1980 Genovese, Eugene D, From Rebellion to Revolution, Louisiana State U. Press, 1979 Gitlin, Todd, The Sixties, Years of Hope, Days of Rage, Bantam, NY, 1987 Hilliard, David, Huey, Spirit of the Panther, Thunder Mouth Press, NY, 2006 Houston, Drusilla Dunjee, Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire, BCP, Baltimore, 1985 Howard, Elbert "Big Man", Panther on the Prowl, BCP, Baltimore, 2002 Jackson, George, Soledad Brother Jackson, John G., Man, God and Civilization ______, Introduction to African Civilization, Jamal, Mumia Abu, Live from Death Row, Avon, 1996 James, George G.M., Stolen Legacy, AWP, New Jersey, 1992 Kenyatta, Jomo, Facing Mt. Kenya, Vintage, NY, 1965 Lincoln, C. Eric, The Black Muslims in America, Beacon, Boston, 1961 Martin, Tony, Literary Garveyism, The Majority Press, Mass, 1983 Muhammad, Elijah, Message to the Black Man ________, Theology of Time ________, Fall of America, Muhammad's Temple No.2, Chicago, 1973 ________, How to Eat to Live Oliver, John A, Eldridge Cleaver Reborn Polk, William R., The Arab World Today, Harvard, 1991 Sertima, Ivan Van, They Came Before Columbus, Random House, 1976 Soyinka, Wole, The Open Sore of A Continent, Oxford U. Press, 1995 Ture, Kwame, Hamilton, Charles, Black Power, Vintage, 1992 Udom, E.U. Essien, Black Nationalism, Dell, NY, 1962 Vincent, Theodore G., Black Power and the Garvey Movement, BCP, Baltimore, 2006 Walker, David, David Walker's Appeal, 1829, Washington, Booker T, Up From Slavery, Bantam, NY, 1967 Williams, Chancellor, The Destruction of Black Civilization, TWP, Chicago, 1987 Williams, Eric, Capitalism and Slavery, University of North Carolina Press, 1994 Williams, Sherley Anne Williams, Dessa Rose, Berkley, New York, 1987 Young, Henry J, Major Black Religious Leaders, Abingdon, 1977 X, Malcolm, Autobiography of Malcolm X, Ballantine, NY, 1965 X, Marvin, Eldridge Cleaver, My friend the Devil, BBP, Berkeley, 2009 _______, Beyond Religion, toward Spirituality, BBP, Berkeley, 2007 _______, How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, BBP, Berkeley, 2008 _______, Wish I Could Tell You The Truth, BPP, Berkeley, 2005 _______, Somethin' Proper, BBP, Berkeley, 1998 _______, How I Met Isa, MA thesis, San Francisco State University, 1975, unpublished, _______, Fly to Allah, Al Kitab Sudan, Fresno, 1969 _______, I Am Oscar Grant, BBP, Berkeley, 2010 AUDIOGRAPHY Nisa Islam (Bey), Cherokee, 2004. Nadar Ali, Fresno, 2004. Manuel Rashid, Fresno, 2004. John Douimbia, Grand Ayatollah of the Bay, San Francisco, 2004. Minister Rabb Muhammad, Oakland, 2004. Antar Bey, CEO, Your Black Muslim Bakery, Oakland, 2004. Norman Brown, Oakland, Oakland, 2004. Kareem Muhammad (Brother Edward), Oakland, 20 VIDEOGRAPHY Proceedings of the Melvin Black Human Rights Conference, Oakland, 1979, produced by Marvin X, featuring Angela Davis, Minister Farakhan, Eldridge Cleaver, Paul Cobb, Dezzie Woods-Jones, Jo Nina-Abran, Mansha Nitoto, Khalid Abdullah Tarik Al Mansur, Dr. Yusef Bey, Dr. Oba T-Shaka, and Marvin X. Proceedings of the First Black Men's Conference, Oakland, 1980, John Douimbia, founder, Marvin X, chief planner, Dr. Nathan Hare, Dr. Wade Nobles, Dr. Yusef Bey, Dr. Oba T'Shaka,Norman Brown, Kermit Scott, Minister Ronald Muhammad, Louis Freeman, Michael Lange, Betty King, Dezzie Woods-Jones, et al. Forum on Drugs, Art and Revolution, Sista's Place, Brooklyn, New York, 1997, featuring Amiri and Amina Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Sam Anderson, Elombe Brath and Marvin X. Eldridge Cleaver Memorial Service, produced by Marvin X, Oakland, 1998, participants included Kathleen and Joju Cleaver, Emory Douglas, Dr. Yusef Bey, Minister Keith Muhammad, Imam Al Amin, Dr. Nathan Hare, Tarika Lewis, Richard Aoki, Reginald Major, Majidah Rahman and Marvin X. One Day in the Life, a docudrama of addiction and recovery, filmed by Ptah Allah-El, produced, written, directed and staring Marvin X, edited by Marvin X, San Francisco: Recovery Theatre, 1999. Marvin X Interviews Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, former actor in Marvin X's Black Theatre: Berkeley, La Pena Cultural Center, 1999. "Abstract for An Elders Council," lecture/discussion, Tupac Amaru Shakur One Nation Conference, Oakland: McClymonds High School, 1999. Marvin X at Dead Prez Concert, San Francisco, 2000. Kings and Queens of Black Consciousness, produced by Marvin X at San Francisco State University, 2001, featuring Dr. Cornel West, Amiri Baraka, Amina Baraka, Dr. Julia Hare, Dr. Nathan Hare, Rev. Cecil Williams, Destiny, Phavia, Tarika Lewis, Askia Toure, Kalamu Ya Salaam, Rudi Wongozi, Ishmael Reed, Dr. Theophile Obenga, Marvin X, et al. Live In Philly At Warm Daddies, a reading accompanied by Elliot Bey, Marshall Allen, Danny Thompson, Ancestor Goldsky, Rufus Harley, Alexander El, 2002. Marvin X Live in Detroit, a documentary by Abu Ibn, 2002. In the Crazy House Called America, concert with Marvin X and Destiny, San Francisco: Buriel Clay Theatre, 2003. Marvin X in Concert (accompanied by harpist Destiny, violinist Tarika Lewis and percussionists Tacuma and Kele Nitoto, dancer Raynetta Rayzetta), Amiri and Amina Baraka, filmed by Kwame and Joe, Berkeley: Black Repertory Group Theatre, 2003. Marvin X Speaks at the Third Eye Conference, Dallas, Texas, 2003. Marvin X and the Last Poets, San Francisco: Recovery Theatre, 2004. Proceedings of the San Francisco Black Radical Book Fair, produced by Marvin X, filmed by Mindseed Productions, San Francisco, Recovery Theatre, 2004, participants include: Sonia Sanchez, Davey D, Amiri Baraka, Sam Hamod, Fillmore Slim, Askia Toure, Akhbar Muhammad, Sam Anderson, Al Young, Devorah Major, Opal Palmer Adisa, Tarika Lewis, Amina Baraka, Julia and Nathan Hare, Charlie Walker, Jamie Walker, Reginald Lockett, Everett Hoagland, Sam Greenlee, Ayodelle Nzinga, Suzzette Celeste, Tarika Lewis, Raynetta Rayzetta, Deborah Day, James Robinson, Ptah Allah-El, Kalamu Ya Salaam, Marvin X, et al. (Note: let me please acknowledge some of the historic personages in the audience: Gansta Alonzao Batin (mentor of the Bay Area BAM, made his transition shortly after the conference), Willie Williams of Broadside Press, Detroit, Gansta Brown, Gansta Mikey Moore (now Rev.), Arthur Sheridan, founder of Black Dialogue magazine, also co-founders Aubrey and Gerald LaBrie, Reginald Major, author of Panther Is A Black Cat. Thank you all for making this event historic, ed. MX) Get Yo Mind Right, Marvin X Barbershop Talk, #4, a documentary film by Pam Pam and Marvin X, Oakland: 2005. Marvin X Live in the Fillmore at Rass'elas Jazz Club, A Nisa Islam production, filmed by Ken Johnson, San Francisco, 2005. Marvin X in the Malcolm X Room, MaClymonds High School, accompanied by Tacuma (dijembe and percussion, dancer/choreographer Raynetta Rayzetta, actor Salat Townsend, filmed by Eddie Abrams, Oakland, 2005. Introduction, Overview This project employs the participant/observer model. Brother Donald Hopkins noted that I am close to the subject, psychologically and physically, although I maintain a psychic distance from all things in order to allow the artist's touch to happen. Sometimes being too close to the subject destroys all objectivity. This occurred when I viewed Spike Lee's film Malcolm X. I left the theatre in tears at a point because I saw too much of my life before my eyes. Additionally, I was disgusted that Malcolm claimed not to know Elijah had a plethora of women, since he and Elijah were so close. And, more so, Elijah taught all of us to trust no one, including him. This project began and ended in 2004 because my advisers warned me I would be killed if I published it. For several years, until now, I put the manuscript aside although I have no fear of death: Inna salati wa nusuki wa mahyaya wa mamati li-Lahi Rabbi-l-alamin... (Surely my prayer, and sacrifice and my life and death are for Allah, Lord of the worlds). I did not resume the project until 2012, inspired by the release of Thomas Steele's book Killing the Messenger, his socalled expose of Black Muslims and their role in the assassination of Oakland Post Editor Chauncey Bailey. Part One of this project deals with my view of who killed Chauncey Bailey. For sure, as James Baldwin said of Malcolm's killers, "The hand that pulled the trigger didn't buy the bullet." I would like readers to understand that for all my psychi distance, I am yet a captive of the Islamic spirit and cannot deny this. I'm also a captive of the African spirit and lastly the human spirit, though I do consider myself divine. For the purpose of this project, I will try to dwell on th human plane. As I overview this work, it is crystal clear to me that we are a superhuman people. It is so wonderful to explore the beginnings of our evolution in the Nile Valley. What is amazing is that when we conclude the African man and woman are indeed Adam and Eve, we must then recognize Africans as the progenitors of humanity. What an awesome responsibility to be burdened with, and yet I have no doubt once we regain our mental equilibrium, we shall handle the matter handsomely. Yet, this puts us on a plane superior to most of humanity, despite our inferior condition today. After difficulty comes ease, the Qur'an teaches us, so we know everything is going to be all right once we master the Sisyphus syndrome of rolling the rock up the hill only to have it slip from our grasp and then we must go to the bottom of the mountain to begin anew. If this has been only a test of strength, surely we have mastered the test. The problem is that some people continue praying when Allah has already answered. Why are you on your knees when you have acquired the trappings of freedom, i.e., knowledge of self and others? Our history is so awesome it staggers the mind, making one tremble with tears in the night, and yet so much ignorance prevails in spite of knowledge blowing in the wind. Perhaps this is why the Bible says the people were destroyed for lack of knowledge. Who can pity you if you die of thirst when the well water is beneath your feet? In the spirit of ancestor David Walker, somebody help me! Somebody needs a healing up in here! It is well known today that Africans or the Aboriginal Man developed from the four thousand miles of the Nile Valley that begins in the Congo and ends on the delta. Four thousand miles of history and culture, acquired over thousands, yea, millions if not trillions of years, once we escape the White Supremacy paradigm of time. Elijah was trying to tell us something in his Theology of Time. Does not the Qur'an say by the time surely man is lost, except those who bow down and exhort one another to truth! And Solomon told us there is a time for everything, a time for you and a time for me, a time to reap and a time to sow, a time for war and a time for peace, a time to love and a time to hate. There used to be the cry Nation Time! What happened? Did those caught in the slave system go back to sleep? Let us not digress. From the Nile Valley we evolved religion, from many gods to One God, from ancestor worship and the trinity to the purity of Akhenaton's Sun Hymn. But the African mind can walk and chew gum, we are thus quite able to derive a holistic relationship with the variety of theological concerns. As my Islamic mentor taught me, ancestor Ali Sherif Bey, all religions yet express primitive notions, shall we call it polytheism, ancestor worship? Tell me, do not certain Muslims worship saints? Do not certain Muslims practice magic? In his Dawn of Conscience, James H. Breasted told us, "Monotheism is but imperialism in religion." And so when we evolved to empire building, it was a natural thing for monotheism to rule. Nile Valley religion expanded to rule the world. And with the decline of the West, the pure monotheism appears about to surface again. Can you not see there is before us a global Islamic people's revival, call it revolution, witness the Middle East, from Tunisia to Syria. I am so serious about Syria, not only because my son (RIP) spent time in Syria with a Fulbright fellowship to the University of Damascus. He repeatedly told me about the police state called Syria, that interrogated him daily, and then the CIA questioned him, a black man in Syria who spoke Arabic fluently, who graduated in Arabic and Middle Eastern literature at UC Berkeley, and did graduate studies at Harvard. My son cried out to me about conditions in Syria, how the Africans were treated like persons caught in the Arab slave system, passports seized, forced to live live rats unable to go home. The Syrians questions my son on a daily basis, he told me. "Dad, they question me every day, why are you reading material about the Baath party, why are you hanging around those filthy Palestinians?" And the CIA was equally interested in my son, a North American African who spoke Arabic. The CIA tried to recruit him at every turn. After all, no white man could enter Syria. Remember when the USA pilot was shot down? Who was able to rescue the pilot? Only Jesse Jackson and Minister Farrakhan! The white man was cut out the game! Somebody help me! And yes, ultimately the Islamic and Arab revolution shall engulf Saudia Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain and the entire Persian Gulf Western sycophants. The Western powers may try to utilize a moderate or conservative Islam, yet they shall fail to swindle the people of their birthright to freedom, justice and self determination. Even the nuclear blackmail shall not suffice! What does a man determined to be free care about the nuclear threat from Israel or America? To hell with America and Israel, and to hell with their sycophants Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf states. The people shall be free by any means necessary! Let us not digress! Diop and others have dispelled the notion of Whites creating civilization, including Arabs and Jews, actually, both Arabs and Jews have been found to be non-white. And furthermore, the first white man was a black man! Call me Grimaldi and Negrito! As per Islam, Diop tells us "the fundamental ideas of Islam were in Arabia a thousand years before Muhammad. Dr. Ben taught us the African origin of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Other scholars have confirmed this: J.A., Rogers, W.E.B. DuBois, Chancellor Williams, DeGraft Johnson, J. G. Jackson and the wonderful Druisilla Dunjee Houston with her Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire. And from Homer down to the present, there is a plethora of White scholars who transcended their white supremacy to tell the truth about our history as a people of genius. What is astounding is that even under the worse conditions of the slave system in the Americans, our genius flowed like water. Imagine victims of the vicious American slave system producing a body of literature, i.e., the socalled slave narratives. These narratives are the foundation stone of American literature. No genre of American literature is superior to the socalled slave narratives! What on earth can the master class say above the oppressed slave class about the love of life, the joy of life, the humanity of life, the philosophy of life, the politics of life, the economy of life? Let us not digress! For sure, there is no Islam without the African Arabian Bilal, or even in pre-Islamic Arabia, there is no Arabic literature without the African Arabian poet Antar. And this brings tears to my eyes! Bilal was held in such high regard by Prophet Muhammad that he saw Bilal's footsteps ahead of his in paradise! Bilal is considered the third part of Islam after Allah and Muhammad. And who originated the Ahdan or call to prayer said five times daily throughout the Muslim world, a world of over a billion people? Bilal! Even under torture, it was Bilal who refused to renounce the one God Allah, who cried again and again, Al Ahad, Al Ahad, Al Ahad! (The One, the One, the One). After Muhammad's victory in Arabia, Islam took off like a jet plane. As per Africa, Egypt was conquered, North Africa soon after. And then the Moors (led by Africans or blackamoors). J. DeGraft Johnson makes plain it was an African conquest, African Glory. It was the African general Tarik who conquered Spain, for whom Gibraltar is named (Gebel (rock) Tarik. The Moors ruled from 711 until 1492. Spain has languished in darkness since the fall of Grenada. And yet the glory of Moorish Spain that permitted the Europeans to escape the Dark Ages was nothing unique for the Africans. So what the Moors and Arabs translated the Greek classic into European languages. So what they made Plato, Aristole and Socrates available to the West, after all, what were these characters to Nile Valley Civilization, from who their teachings were Stolen legacy, see George M. James. After all, the Dark Ages did not inhabit Africa, for in Africa simultaneously light was shining brightly in West Africa. Nile Vally civilization reappeared in Beled Es Sudan or land of the Blacks. We need only cite the kingdoms and empires of Ghana, Mali and Songhay. Diop has shown us the cultural similarities between the Nile Valley and Beled Es Sudan, linguistically, socially, religiously, ritually, mythologicaly, politically, etc. Timbuktu became the center of intellectual power in West Africa. Scholars came to study from around the world, most certainly the African and Islamic world. Books were as precious as gold. Almost everyone had a library, and one of Timbuktu's greatest scholars, Ahmad Baba, said his library was the smallest, compared with his family members. Ghana, Mali and Songhay gave full expression to the African genius prior to the Maafa or great disaster of the American slave system. Now any intelligent person will ask the question, "If we were so intelligent, so great, how did we fall?" Chancellor Williams told us in Destruction of African Civilization that our doom was sealed 6,000 years ago when we welcomed strangers into our land, despite this being an African custom. Europeans shoot strangers, Africans welcome strangers. But Dr. Walter Rodney (West Africa and the Atlanta Slave Trade, a monograph) explains we fell from much the same that is occurring in Africa today: corruption, corruption, corruption. All social, cultural institutions fell victim to greed and wanton materialism. The political, judicial, religious, military and other segments of society fell victim to the slave system. We must be brave enough to consider the African side of the slave system, not simply blame the white man, for there can be no buyers without sellers. From a society that valued knowledge, we degenerated to one that valued trinkets above human beings. Is it not the same today in the modern slave system called America, wherein one can be killed for a pair of tennis shoes, or because one possesses a nice car someone else doesn't have, or a nice woman who departed to another because she was continually abused, physically, verbally and emotionally. In the manner of slave system psychology, we truly believe we own the woman or man, that he or she is chattel property (personal). What is interesting is that prior to entering the slave system, we were quite familiar with the Americas, having traveled there for centuries, it being a distance of 1,600 miles from Africa to the Americas. See They Came Before Columbus by ancestor Ivan Van Sertima, also Kofi Harun Wangara's writings. And then shit hit the fan! The slave system. What horror, bestiality, savagery, eternal servitude. Who are these people? They really make you wonder, hurry Allah with the fire and water! Can these be human beings, an African wrote when observing them aboard ship. He had never seen white people before and could not believe the savage treatment they meted out. From a culture that allowed the full expression of our genius, we found ourselves in a situation when ignorance was the order of the day, where hands were cut off to keep us in darkness, as if we had never known literacy and literature, science and philosophy. And even in the triple darkness of the slave system, there were many of us who spoke and wrote multiple languages, Arabic, Hausa, Yoruba, Spanish, French, Portuguese, often times we were more intelligent than those who controlled the slave system, many of whom could not read or write their names, yet believed themselves superior to Africans. We should have the common sense to know the slave system master had no need of ignorant slaves, but rather those with skills in agriculture, architecture, construction, plantation management, iron making, bricklaying, etc. The docile African was made so by terror, beatings, whippings, emotional and verbal abuse, much in the same manner as men beat their wives into submission today. The Slave Narratives abound in tales of white terror and black submission, see Frederick Douglass or recall how Kunta Kinte was beaten until he acknowledged his "real" name was Toby. We call this the first step in the psycholinguistic crisis of the North American African. Who am I and what is my name? It has taken over four hundred years for us to settle this question for ourselves, and even today we are still not quite sure who we are or what is our name! African, Negro, Colored, Bilalian, Nubian, Arabian, Nigguh, bitch, ho, motherfucker, American, Afro American, North American African. Alas, if the white man knows nothing else, he knows he's white. He may not know whether he's straight or gay, but he knows he's white, and at any given moment the lowest white man can take advantage of white privilege. For the black man to claim his racial identity is a constant war, yes, a war of liberation, since slavery and after, down to the present moment. Blackness is not a color but a condition and that condition is freedom, independence and self determination. Blackness is thus a state of mind, a sense of being in harmony with the universe, with the living, the dead and the yet unborn. Resistance to the American slave system was widespread and constant, almost daily, yes, as Richard Wright told us in Native Son, his very presence was a crime against the state, every glance of the eye a threat. Men and women who came from a tradition of great literature, art, science and philosophy cannot submit to a slave system, only for a time, then the human soul revolts at the travesty of its condition. Africans planned and plotted and took a variety of actions, see Herbert Aptheker's Negro Slave Revolts. There was the burning and looting of plantations, the Maroon tradition of running into the bush. In Palmares, Brazil, the Africans liberated space for a century, after a series of Hausa Muslim revolts in the 17th century. In North America and the Caribbean, Africans escaped to live among the Native Americans, after all, not all the Africans had arrived here on slave ships but came before Columbus and were indistinguishable from the indigenous people. In the early 19th century, there were revolts by Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey and Gabriel Prosser, the liberation essays of David Walker and others inspired by God, Allah, and Jesus to liberate themselves. Their writings were suppressed by the slave system. A bounty was put on David Walker's head and he died mysteriously in Boston a year after David Walker's Appeal was published in 1829. Yes, no wonder the slave system called for cutting off the hands of those who could read and write. Even today, the African who is able to think, read and write is a dangerous person. He must be watched, his writings suppressed if he expresses radical consciousness. Not only do the white publishers run from him, but the Negro publishers as well. Often the African sang in code, call it the Blues, the music Muslims brought to the Mississippi delta from Mali and elsewhere. What did the great Malian musician (RI), Ali Farka say, "Blues! I don't play Blues, but the music my people have been playing for thousands of years." Blues, Spirituals, the Sorrow Songs, told our story of life in the American slave system, songs and tales of lost love, rejection, hope and liberation. The Gullah Africans of South Carolina and the Georgia islands not only brought rice to the Americas but an infusion of Islam as well. --continued--

A Short History of Black Muslims in The Bay Area (Circa 1954-2012)
by El Muhajir (Marvin X, M.A.)

Contents

Chronology of Original Man
Introduction
1. African Origin of Religions and the Cultural Unity of Africa
2. Mythology of Allah: Egyptian Religion and its steps toward Islam
3. Muhammad Ibn Abdullah: The fundamental ideas of Islam were in Arabia a thousand
years before Muhammad (Cheikh Anta Diop)
4. Blackamoors in Spain (711-1492)

5. Belad Es Sudan (Islam in West Africa): Ghana, Mali, Songhay, Usman Dan Fodio and the

Fulani Jihads, Ahmadu Bamba in Senegal and the Holy City of Touba (More sacred than Mecca to Africans)

6. Moorish Muslims in the Americas before Columbus

7. Muslim victims of the American "Slave System"
See the "Slave narratives" , Maroon communities, slave revolts, Seminoles and especially Hausa revolts in Brazil, Gullah Negroes

8. Muslims Up South:

Newark, Detroit, Chicago: Edward Wilmot Blyden, Duse Muhammad Ali, Noble Drew Ali, Marcus Garvey, Farad Muhammad, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X

9. Black Muslims in the Bay Area of SF/Oakland: Toward National Consciousness or the Mental Revolution

10. Mosque #26

a. Min. Robert X. Ashford (Aaron Ali), the linguist
b. Bernard Cushmeer
c. John Wesley
d. Henry Majed
e. John Muhammad
f.Billy X, aka Rabb Muhammad
g. Minister Keith Muhammad
h. Minister Christopher Muhammad
i. Imam Shauib
j. Imam Alamin
k. Capt. Nisa Islam
l. Lt. Joan, aka Tarika Lewis
m. Capt. Mae Helen, Fatimah
n. Lt. Fahizah
11. The Little Manger or the "Hypocrites"
a. Aaron Ali's house
b. Brother Green's barber shop

12. Muslims and the Black Arts Movement (1966)

a. Marvin X
b. Duncan X
c. Hillery X
d. Ethna X
e. Farouk, aka Carl Bossiere
f. Alonzo Harris Batin
g. Ali Sharif Bey
h. Ed Bullins
i. Danny Glover

13. Muslims and the Prison Movement:

Eldridge Cleaver, A Case Study, Folsom, San Quentin, Soledad; Bunchy Carter, associate of Eldridge Cleaver, George Jackson, Messiah of the Prison Movment, Brother Booker, Kumasi, Geronimo Ji Jaga

14. Muslims and the Black Student Movement: Brother Edward's Jihad, Mar'yam Wadai and the Black Studies Curriculum

15. Islam and the Black Panther Party:
"Marvin X was my teacher", Huey P. Newton
a. Source of the Ten Point Program
b. Terminology: Pig, Babylon
c. Malcolm influence

16. Muslims, Zebra Killers and the Kidnapping of Patty Hearst
a. Ali Sharif Bey as runner for SLA
b. Marvin X's M.A. thesis on the SLA
c. Fatima Shabazz and the SLA


17. The Melvin Black Forum on Human Rights, 1979
a. Minister Farakhan
b. Angela Davis
c. Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour
d. khalid Muhammad
e. Marvin X
f. Eldridge Cleaver

18. The Black Men's Conference: The Honorable John Douimbia, Founder
a. Dr. Wade Nobles
b. Dr. Oba T'Shaka
c. Dr. Yusef Bey
d. Dr. Nathan Hare
e. Dezzie Woods/Jones
f. Louis Freeman
g. Marvin X


19. From Black Nationalism to Global Islam:
Khalid Muhammad Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour: A Case Study, The African American Association

20. His Holiness Guru Bawa in the Bay: Man/god/God/man

21. Conclusion: Beyond Religion, toward Spirituality
22. Notes
23. Bibliography: A Short History of Black Muslims in the Bay

Allah, Wakeel, In the Name of Allah, A-Team, Atlanta, 2007
Allen, Robert L., Black Awakening in Capitalist America, AWP, New Jersey, 1992
Al Mansour, Khalid Abdullah Tariq, Black America at the Crossroads
________, The Reflections of an African Arabian in American Captivity
________, Talal, The Challenge of Spreading Islam in America
Ali, Yusef, Holy Qur'an
Armstrong, Karen, A History of God
________, Muhammad
Aslan, Reza, No god but God, Random House, 2006
Baldwin, James, The Fire Next Time, Dial Press, NY, 1963
Bloom, Alexander, Wini Breines, eds, Takin' it to the Streets, Oxford, 1995
Bontemps, Arna, Black Thunder, Beacon, Boston, 1963
_______, Conroy, They Seek A City
Breitman, George, The Last Year of Malcolm X, Merit, NY, 1967
_______, Malcolm X Speaks, Grove, NY., 1965
Clarke, John Henrik, ed, Malcolm X, The Man and His Times, Collier, NY, 1969
Cleaver, Soul on Ice
______, Soul on Fire
______, Post Prison Writings, Ramparts, 1969
Diop, Cheikh Anta, Cultural Unity of Africa, TWP, Chicago
DuBois, W.E.B, The Souls of Black Folk, Penguin, NY, 1996
_____, The World and Africa
_____, Black Reconstruction
Foner, Philip S., ed., The Black Panthers Speak, Da Capo Press, 1995
Frazier, E. Franklin, Black Bourgeoisie, Collier, NY, 1975
_____, Race and Culture Contacts in the Modern World, Beacon, Boston, 1957
Franklin, John Hope, From Slavery to Freedom, Alfred A. Knopf, NY, 1980
Genovese, Eugene D, From Rebellion to Revolution, Louisiana State U. Press, 1979
Gitlin, Todd, The Sixties, Years of Hope, Days of Rage, Bantam, NY, 1987
Hilliard, David, Huey, Spirit of the Panther, Thunder Mouth Press, NY, 2006
Houston, Drusilla Dunjee, Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire, BCP, Baltimore,
1985
Howard, Elbert "Big Man", Panther on the Prowl, BCP, Baltimore, 2002
Jackson, George, Soledad Brother
Jackson, John G., Man, God and Civilization
______, Introduction to African Civilization,
Jamal, Mumia Abu, Live from Death Row, Avon, 1996
James, George G.M., Stolen Legacy, AWP, New Jersey, 1992
Kenyatta, Jomo, Facing Mt. Kenya, Vintage, NY, 1965
Lincoln, C. Eric, The Black Muslims in America, Beacon, Boston, 1961
Martin, Tony, Literary Garveyism, The Majority Press, Mass, 1983
Muhammad, Elijah, Message to the Black Man
________, Theology of Time
________, Fall of America, Muhammad's Temple No.2, Chicago, 1973
________, How to Eat to Live
Oliver, John A, Eldridge Cleaver Reborn
Polk, William R., The Arab World Today, Harvard, 1991
Sertima, Ivan Van, They Came Before Columbus, Random House, 1976
Soyinka, Wole, The Open Sore of A Continent, Oxford U. Press, 1995
Ture, Kwame, Hamilton, Charles, Black Power, Vintage, 1992
Udom, E.U. Essien, Black Nationalism, Dell, NY, 1962
Vincent, Theodore G., Black Power and the Garvey Movement, BCP, Baltimore, 2006
Walker, David, David Walker's Appeal, 1829,
Washington, Booker T, Up From Slavery, Bantam, NY, 1967
Williams, Chancellor, The Destruction of Black Civilization, TWP, Chicago, 1987
Williams, Eric, Capitalism and Slavery, University of North Carolina Press, 1994
Williams, Sherley Anne Williams, Dessa Rose, Berkley, New York, 1987
Young, Henry J, Major Black Religious Leaders, Abingdon, 1977
X, Malcolm, Autobiography of Malcolm X, Ballantine, NY, 1965
X, Marvin, Eldridge Cleaver, My friend the Devil, BBP, Berkeley, 2009
_______, Beyond Religion, toward Spirituality, BBP, Berkeley, 2007
_______, How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, BBP, Berkeley, 2008
_______, Wish I Could Tell You The Truth, BPP, Berkeley, 2005
_______, Somethin' Proper, BBP, Berkeley, 1998
_______, How I Met Isa, MA thesis, San Francisco State University, 1975, unpublished,
_______, Fly to Allah, Al Kitab Sudan, Fresno, 1969
_______, I Am Oscar Grant, BBP, Berkeley, 2010

24. AUDIOGRAPHY

Nisa Islam (Bey), Cherokee, 2004.
Nadar Ali, Fresno, 2004.
Manuel Rashid, Fresno, 2004.
John Douimbia, Grand Ayatollah of the Bay, San Francisco, 2004.
Minister Rabb Muhammad, Oakland, 2004.
Antar Bey, CEO, Your Black Muslim Bakery, Oakland, 2004.
Norman Brown, Oakland, Oakland, 2004.
Kareem Muhammad (Brother Edward), Oakland, 20

From the Archives of Nefertiti El Muhajir

Nefertiti, Cornell West and Amiri, daughters of Marvin X. Far left is the Honorable John Douimbia, Marvin X's mentor. Photo is from the King's and Queens of Black Consciousness concert, produced by Marvin X, April 1, 2001.

August 4, 2010

The thickness and softness of the quilt reminds me of the warmth and security that I have always felt in my youth. Blessings and honor and peace be upon all of humanity. Reconnect with your faith. Reconnect with your history. Reconnect with things which will lead to your progression.

I was back in Houston, sitting on the couch, looking out the window at the big magnolia tree in the front yard. As I sat on the couch and snuggled in my thick, warm, quilt, I sighed and reflected, “Life is good.”

The quilt felt warm, and even thought it wasn’t exactly what I wanted, I had one. I had obtained a piece of history, a piece of my ancestors, my grandmothers, my people. A piece of the country, rural America; although I now lived in the big city of Houston, and I was raised in a small town in California, but my roots run deep in the red, powdered soil of Texas.

I had always wanted a quilt. My great grandmother, Momma Lue, used to make quilts and my grandmother had many of them in her home. Momma Lue had made many quilts for many of her grandchildren, but being that I was a great grandchild, it wasn’t likely that I would ever get one from her. My recollections of Momma Lue, who lived to be 104, were of her chewing tobacco, going fishing and living a very independent life. So I guess the quilting was another phase in her life that I never got a chance to see her partake in.

On the day that I purchased my quilt, I was making one of my rare 6 hour trips from Monroe, Louisiana to Houston. It was just me, my loud music and my trusted companion—MY GARMIN GPS. Outside of individuals, that little thing is by far the best gift I have ever received in my life (thanks to my beautiful sisters). But as usual, my music was blaring so loud that I didn’t hear her say, “Turn left,” and I kept straight.

I kept straight until I began to realize the unfamiliarity of my location. “Got diggity dog,” I thought, “I did it again, I missed my turn.” I decided not to do what I did the last time I missed this same turn, I didn’t turn around and go back to the freeway; the turn-around was too long and I wanted to stay on schedule.

So I thought I’d use my head and take the back roads. I was still in Louisiana, right before crossing into Texas. Driving along the tree lined roads of Louisiana always stirred up the most joyful and painful emotions within me. I reflected on the beauty of God’s creation, for the scenery was breathtaking if you choose not to take anything for granted. I loved seeing the greenery, the red dirt and the vast farm lands that had the unmet potential to feed the world. I reflected on how this land was considered by many African American conscious thinkers as “black land,” the land we should receive if ever awarded reparations. But at the same time I also thought of the blood, the sweat and the tears that fertilized the beauty of the land. I reflected on the sounds of dogs, chains, whips, the cries of mothers and fathers, the panting breaths and the racing heart beats of those who sought to be free and the incarcerated minds of pale men who sought to deny freedom.

I saw a sign, as I dashed down the road at my preferred and now legal speed of 70 mph. No music now, I needed to concentrate, I didn’t know where I was. Yes it was still day, but I can never travel those roads and assume nothing will happen to me. I don’t travel them laden with fear, but laden with a knowing of what happened in the past always has the potential to happen again.

I saw a sign, “Quilts for Sale.” But my thoughts raced just as quickly as my car did, “I want a quilt from a little old black woman, and that professional looking sign is an indication that a white family lives there.” I kept zooming and I saw a black man at the next house clearing his land, and then I saw two black women in the next yard running their mouths, and I zoomed by and I saw a young guy with his pimped out ride in the next house, along with an ambulance that was pulling up to the yard. “Slow down Nef, turn around. Ain’t no white woman living all the way back in these woods with all of these black people.” I was also conscious of the fact that I’d never make it to Houston when I wanted to. But it didn’t matter, I was not on a time frame, no one was expecting me, I’d get there when I did.

Walking up to the steps I breathed a prayer, “Lord I pray that no danger comes upon me; protect me from all danger and harm.” My minds seeks the wisdom, knowledge and protection of God all day long, whether I’m picking up a stranger off of the streets, walking into unknown territory, familiar places or just thinking about my child during the day. I didn’t want anyone to tie me up and discard my body somewhere in those woods. As no one was expecting me in Houston, no one would have missed my absence either. Maybe my mom after not hearing from me, but that wouldn’t be until Sunday; a couple of days away.

I walked to the door of the old trailer home and I heard a little old lady running her mouth on the phone. She was a small, tiny framed, black woman, who needed a new wig. I breathed a slight sigh of relief as I entered her home and kept my eyes on alert. She reminded me of any little old lady from church that I had met through the years. Her house had an old smell that made me breathe fewer breaths until I could get out. She had little nice trinkets that people had given her through the years to express their love, fake flowers, ceramic figurines, cards and pictures of people and places who had long forgotten her. Everything was tidy, but you could tell she couldn’t keep her place clean like she used to. It was too much work for someone who had worked for others her entire life.

There is another ending to this story, but I misplaced it. I'm sure I'll find it one day and I will add it with this.

--Nefertiti El Muhajir

Nefertiti is the oldest of Marvin X's three daughters. She was conceived while her parents were in flight: her father refused to fight in Vietnam and went into exile a second time in Mexico City. He was soon joined by his student from Fresno State University, Barbara Hall (Hasani). They were given temporary refuge by revolutionary artist Elizabeth Cattlett Mora. Betty and her husband, Poncho, were witnesses at the civil marriage of Marvin and Barbara. Against the advice of Betty, Marvin and Barbara departed Mexico City for Belize, then British Honduras. After hooking up with some radicals, Marvin X was arrested and deported back to America. The Minister of Home Affairs read his deportation order which said, "Your presence is not beneficial to welfare of the British Colony of Honduras. Therefore, you shall be deported to America at 4 pm. Until then, you are under arrest."

Marvin X was taken to the police station and told to sit down. He was not handcuffed nor put in a cell. To his bewilderment, he was soon surrounded by police officers who then begged him to teach them around black power, the very reason he was being deported, i.e., for teaching black power on Gales Point island.

After serving time in San Francisco County Jail and Terminal Island Federal Prison, Marvin X was released a few days before the birth of Nefertiti.

Oscar Grant's Cousin Shot in back by Oakland Police

Man shot by Oakland police charged with four felony counts

By Kristin J. Bender and Harry Harris
Oakland Tribune

OAKLAND -- A robbery suspect who was shot in the back by Oakland police Sunday night has been charged with four felonies, authorities said.

Police on Wednesday identified Tony Ray Jones, 24, of Oakland, as the man who police shot and wounded about 11:45 p.m. Sunday in the 2000 block of 62nd Avenue.

Jones, who has a criminal record dating back nearly a decade, was in the passenger seat of van believed to have been used in a robbery of cash from a man a short while earlier.

"The cops stopped the van and (Jones) started walking away and then they let the van go, and he kept going and they shot him," said Jones' San Francisco attorney Wauqeen McCoy, adding that his client was not breaking any laws and was not involved in a robbery Sunday.

Authorities said Jones got out of the passenger side of the van and ran north on 62nd Avenue.

When an officer spotted a gun in his hand and Jones turning toward him, the officer fired twice, hitting him in the lower back.

Police later recovered a loaded semi-automatic pistol near where the shooting occurred. The driver fled and remains at large.

Jones on Wednesday was charged by the Alameda County District Attorney's office with felony second-degree armed robbery, possession of a firearm by a felon, possession of a concealed firearm in a vehicle, and carrying a loaded firearm in public. He also faces an enhancement clause for being a felon.

Jones remains hospitalized in
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stable condition and will be taken into custody when he is medically stable, police said. But for now, he is in serious pain, his attorney said.

"He can't go to the toilet on his own. He has pain in his back, leg, stomach and lower back," said McCoy, adding that he had undergone one surgery.

Jones, who is a cousin of the late Oscar Grant, has a criminal past dating back to when he was 15 and taken to the California Youth Authority. Oscar Grant was the unarmed Hayward man who on New Year's Day 2009 was shot and killed by then-BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle while being held by police face down on a train platform.

When Jones was about 19 and an inmate in a facility in Amador County, he was convicted of gassing a peace officer, which means throwing urine or feces or a combination of both on a correctional officer, authorities said.

He remained in the youth authority for several years and was transferred to New Folsom Prison near Sacramento, where he remained until his release last month.

McCoy said he has drafted a claim against the city of Oakland, which he plans to file this week.

He said he then plans to sue the city for unreasonable and unnecessary force.

For research on his Short History of Black Muslims in the Bay, Marvin X conducted interviews with the following:

AUDIOGRAPHY

Nisa Islam, Cherokee, 2004.
Nadar Ali, Fresno, 2004.
Manuel Rashid, Fresno, 2004.
John Douimbia, Grand Ayatollah of the Bay, San Francisco, 2004.
Minister Rabb Muhammad, Oakland, 2004.
Antar Bey, CEO, Your Black Muslim Bakery, Oakland, 2004.
Norman Brown, Oakland, Oakland, 2004.
Kareem Muhammad (Brother Edward), Oakland, 2004.