On the Side of My People

A Religious Life of Malcolm X

Louis A. Decaro Jr.

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 1997
• ISBN:
  9780814744178
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Religionsgeschichte

The mythic figure of Malcolm X conjures up a variety of images--black nationalist, extremist, civil rights leader, hero. But how often is Malcolm X understood as a religious leader, a man profoundly affected by his relationship with Allah?

During Malcolm's life and since, the press has focused on the Nation of Islam's rejection of integration, offering an extremely limited picture of its ideology and religious philosophy. Mainstream media have ignored the religious foundation at the heart of the Nation and failed to show it in light of other separatist religious movements. With the spirituality of cultic black Islam unexplored and the most controversial elements of the Nation exploited, its most famous member, Malcolm X, became one of the most misunderstood leaders in history.

In On the Side of My People, Louis A. DeCaro, Jr. offers the first book length religious treatment of Malcolm X. Malcolm X was certainly a political man. Yet he was also a man of Allah, struggling with his salvation—as concerned with redemption as with revolution.

Drawing on a wide variety of sources, including extensive interviews with Malcolm's oldest brother, FBI surveillance documents, the black press, and tape-recorded speeches and interviews, DeCaro examines the charismatic leader from the standpoint of his two conversion experiences--to the Nation while he was in jail and to traditional Islam climaxing in his pilgrimage to Mecca. Examining Malcolm beyond his well-known years as spokesman for the Nation, On the Side My People explores Malcolm's early religious training and the influence of his Garveyite parents, his relationship with Elijah Muhammad, his often overlooked journey to Africa in 1959, and his life as a traditional Muslim after the 1964 pilgrimage. In his critical analysis of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, DeCaro provides insight into the motivation behind Malcolm's own story, offering a key to understanding how and why Malcolm portrayed his life in his own autobiography as told to Alex Haley.

Inspiring and necessary, On the Side My People presents readers with a Malcolm X few were privileged to know. By filling in the gaps of Malcolm's life, DeCaro paints a more complete portrait of one of the most powerful and relevant civil rights figures in American history.

PART THREE

The Second Moment

When, on the day he conquered Mecca, the Apostle of God appeared before the Ka’bah, he found the idols arrayed around it. Thereupon he started to pierce their eyes with the point of his arrow saying, “Truth is come and falsehood is vanished. Verily, falsehood is a thing that vanisheth.”

—Hishâm Ibn Al-Kalbî, The Book of the Idols, commenting on Sdûrah XVII: 81, Qur’an

PROLOGUE

In the spring of 1964, Malcolm X found himself moving along in a vibrant human stream of pilgrims, a multicolored, multicultured mass of travelers who seemed to move as a single body and whose only purpose it was to worship the One God in absolute unity. This was the Hajj, the pilgrimage made (if possible) by all true Muslims to Mecca the holiest of all holy sites in the Islamic world.

Dressed in the humble and mandatory outfit of the pilgrim, Malcolm wore two white towels wrapped around his body. The rida was wrapped at the neck and shoulders, leaving bare his right shoulder and arm; the izar was folded around his loins. The only other essentials were the nal, a plain pair of sandals, and a simple belt and bag for carrying money and personal items, Along with myriad other pilgrims dressed the same way, Malcolm had circumambulated the ancient black stone house, the Ka’ba, seven times—and, unable to touch it, or even draw close to it because of the great crowd, Malcolm cried out, “Takbir!” (“God is great!”) Guarded by his mutawaf (the pilgrim’s guide) from the great circular flow of humanity around the Ka’ba, Malcolm prostrated himself and prayed two Muslim prayers, called rak’as. He then drank water from the well of Zem Zem and ran between the ancient hills called Safa and Marwa, where Muslims believe Hagar, the concubine of Abraham, sought water for Ishmael, her son. As Malcolm recalled his pilgrimage, he also traveled on foot from sunrise until noon, reaching Mount Arafat, where he and others prayed and chanted until sunset. With hands lifted, the black pilgrim declared: “There is no God but Allah. He has no partner. His are authority and praise. Good emanates from Him, and He has power over all things.” Finally, Malcolm, following the ancient tradition, threw seven stones at the devil.¹

In the immediate aftermath of Malcolm’s Hajj experience, he penned numerous letters and postcards to family, friends, and associates in the United States, sharing his experiences. However, what was central to all of Malcolm’s excited communications was the unity and brotherhood he witnessed among this international body of believers:

There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and the non-white.²

This was a far cry from the taunting and merciless voice that had become a finely honed weapon in the service of the Nation. It was certainly unusual for Malcolm to speak of “blue-eyed blonds” without also speaking of “devils”; but it was even more unusual for him to speak of whites and non-whites cooperating, in any sense of the word, in “unity and brotherhood.”

Typically, as his story has been told and retold—beginning with The Autobiography of Malcolm X—the Hajj marked the beginning of a new phase in Malcolm’s life. As the story goes, he came to Mecca as Malcolm X, still carrying the scent of Elijah Muhammad’s fire, and left as “El Hajj Malik El Shabazz,” the pilgrim who has suddenly awakened to the real possibility of racial reconciliation. There is, of course, validity in seeing Malcolm X in contrast to El Hajj Malik, for Malcolm’s pilgrimage did mark a turning point in his life and career. However, the drama of the Hajj was hardly the beginning of this great change in Malcolm’s life; indeed, it might be more appropriately considered the end of his second conversion.

Malcolm did not come to Mecca in 1964 without any knowledge of traditional Islam; his familiarity with the religion of the prophet Muhammad dated back many years, even to his days in the Massachusetts state prison facilities. He had met real Muslims all along the way in his dramatic postprison sojourn, and the farther he traveled in carrying the message of the Nation, the more he seemed to be confronted by the reality of Elijah Muhammad’s questionable form of Islam. But Malcolm X was a true believer in Elijah Muhammad, and his religious confidence was more than sufficient compensation for all the other dubious aspects of the Nation’s doctrine.

This religious security was reinforced by Malcolm’s central organizational position in the movement and the satisfaction he gained in working on behalf of his black people—this quest was virtually his birthright as a Garveyite offspring. Yet, ironically, Malcolm’s Garveyite spirit gave him a predisposition toward some kind of black internationalism, and the more he groped for such a perspective, the more he was forced to handle genuine Islam.

For the better part of his career as Elijah Muhammad’s chief spokesman, it was one of Malcolm’s greatest feats to prove that the Islam of the Nation and the Islam of Mecca were of the same letter and spirit. Inevitably, such a cultic crusade drew him closer and closer to Islam, very likely creating religious tensions within him that he was constrained to face alone. As long as Malcolm X remained on the devoted vanguard of the Nation’s advancing campaign he either would not or could not see the problematic nature of Elijah Muhammad’s Islam.

When, in late 1963, Malcolm fell from grace in the Nation, his second conversion truly began. Like his first conversion, he did not immediately embrace his newfound faith. The sojourn that culminated in the Hajj led him downward, as if on some anguished, Dantean path that first descended into torment before ascending to paradise. Cast out of Muhammad’s kingdom, Malcolm had to undergo a process of separation before he could completely embrace traditional Islam. He had to break all religious ties to Elijah Muhammad—redefining every essential doctrine of his faith, from the nature of Allah to the nature of the devil.

All the more dramatic, then, was the final ritual of Malcolm’s Hajj, when he picked seven stones to cast at an invisible devil. With each stone cast, the last cultic threads that bound Malcolm to Elijah Muhammad were finally severed. For twelve years of his public life, he had hurled words like stones at the “devil” white man whom he could see. Now, in Mecca, he hurled real stones at a devil whom he could not see. In so doing, he had emerged from the cultic netherworld into the sunlight of a genuine religion.

The Hajj marks the second moment in the religious sojourn of Malcolm X. Like the first moment, this second religious moment is dramatic and powerful. However, the latter not only succeeds the former, but also supersedes it—not only in the literary flow of Malcolm’s autobiography, but especially in his religious experience.

In many ways El Hajj (or Hajji) Malik Shabazz is identical to Malcolm X. Popular commentaries on Malcolm’s life tend to distort the significance of the Hajj with regard to his social and political understanding of the United States. That many assume Malcolm X took the name Malik Shabazz after making the Hajj may symbolize the frequent biographical misinterpretation of Malcolm X as well. Actually, Malcolm had already used the name Malik Shabazz while still in the Nation; he became El Hajj Malik once he made the sacred pilgrimage and converted to Sunni Islam. Likewise, Malcolm X did not become a “new man,” nor did he ever impugn his former analysis of racism in the United States after going to Mecca. The Hajj did not turn Malcolm into an integrationist or a liberal.

Nevertheless, the Hajj profoundly influenced Malcolm’s entire worldview—socially, politically and religiously. Finally free from the Nation, he was able to cast aside cultic racial ideas and adopt a kind of theistic humanism. In a very real sense, the Hajj influenced Malcolm X by changing his view of humanity without undermining his view of race. An awareness of this influence requires an understanding of Malcolm’s earlier encounters with traditional Islam, and his apologetic attempts to defend the integrity of the Nation against its Muslim critics. Finally, understanding how and why Malcolm was eventually able to break with the Nation will allow the reader to realize the fullness of the second religious moment.

10

The Making of an Emissary

Africa is the land of the future.

While the Nation had been steadily growing in popularity within the African American community, it was not until 1959 that the mass of whites in the United States became aware of the movement, Unfortunately, when the white public did learn of its existence, it was in the most sensational and astonishing terms that the media could create.

Since white society has always chosen to be fundamentally unfamiliar with black culture, the revelation of such an organization as the Nation was all the more shocking to whites, though it disturbed a good many blacks as well, albeit for different reasons. Without being aware of the state of the urban black community, and lacking an understanding of the history of black separatism in the United States, most whites were jolted by the extensive film and press coverage of Mr. Muhammad’s Muslims.

Malcolm X, the most eloquent and capable spokesman of the movement, invariably caught the media’s attention. In this sudden notoriety ushered in by probing journalists and newscasters, Malcolm X was more than capable of making an effective presentation on behalf of Muhammad and the Nation. And the Nation itself, as the white man’s new nemesis, became both popular and disreputable. The gravity with which the media handled the Muslims put them in a position of social importance they had never known; in some sense, they became a far more “legitimate” alternative to many blacks than they would have been without such notoriety.

Along with this new awareness of the urban Muslims, there came an array of criticism of the movement—social, political, and religious. Most of the criticism centered around the movement’s view of “race relations.” In the midst of the civil rights era, what most rattled the public was the bold contempt Muhammad and his organization had toward integration. The country as a whole was increasingly concerned about the end of southern segregation, and most northern whites were unified in their opposition to de jure segregation in the United States as a whole. However, whites in the United States were not prepared for such blatant rejection of integration and Christianity—both of which the Nation insisted would be inseparably damned in the coming kingdom of Allah.

In July 1959, two television journalists collaborated on a story that was destined to bring the Nation—and Malcolm X—to the attention of a horrified white public. Mike Wallace, who was at that time the producer of News Beat on New York’s WNTA-TV, presented five one-half hour installments of a program entitled, “The Hate That Hate Produced.” Being white himself, Wallace was not able to gain access to the Nation; however, the black journalist Louis Lomax was able to secure permission from Elijah Muhammad (through Malcolm X) to film the documentary, which included an interview with Malcolm X himself.

In one episode, Lomax interviewed Malcolm, asking him about the Nation’s notion of the devil. At the point when Malcolm calmly informed Lomax that the serpent of Eden was not a real snake, the interview reached its desired racial climax:

Lomax: It was not a real serpent… . What was it?

Malcolm: But as you know the Bible is written in symbols, parables and this serpent or snake is the symbol that is used to hide the real identity of the one that this actually was.

Lomax: Well, who was it?

Malcolm: The white man.¹

In his autobiography, Malcolm complained that the documentary had been quite deliberately turned into “a kaleidoscope of’shocker’ images,” edited in a way to frighten the public. Taking the lead of Wallace and Lomax, the print media immediately took up the same theme. Within several weeks of the Wallace/Lomax documentary, U.S. News & World Report and Time magazines both featured alarming, sensational accounts of these strange new Muslims and their doctrine.

The Nation responded immediately by barring Mike Wallace and all other white journalists from attending a huge Muslim rally the same month in New York City’s St. Nicholas Arena, in which Elijah Muhammad appeared (Louis Lomax was admitted to the meeting and apparently developed a working relationship with the Muslims thereafter). In the rally, Muhammad charged that Mike Wallace was trying to split up the Nation and was afraid of the Muslim message. “Does he classify the truth as Hate?” Muhammad declared rhetorically. “No enemy wants to see the so-called American Negro free and united. He wants to use you as a tool.” In another New York rally in July at Harlem’s Rockland Palace, Wallace Muhammad charged that Time was purposely twisting his father’s words “to make him sound as if he is plotting for the Muslims to overthrow the government.”²

The continuing growth of sensationalized stories in newspapers and magazines often put Malcolm on the firing line. Consequently, he increasingly distinguished himself as an apologist for the Nation’s racial stance, meting out his fiery diatribes as much against black civil rights and integrationist leaders as against white critics. Although Malcolm complained that his words were usually slanted and twisted by the press, his defense of the Nation’s position on race was thorough, clear, and consistent. Considerably less attention was paid to Malcolm’s position as a religious apologist.

In the same New York rally where the Nation had banned white journalists and reporters, Elijah Muhammad boldly asserted that he was “backed by 500 million people, who are lifting their voices to Allah five times a day.”³ This boast became the crux of a fierce debate between the Nation and a variety of nonaffiliated Muslims, both black American and Eastern. Elijah Muhammad’s claim of support from the Islamic world was not his own brainchild, though he had continued Fard’s teaching that blacks in the United States were linked to the people of Mecca. However, the notion that the Nation was kin to the world body of Islam was Malcolm’s idea, and for this he was willing to fight tooth-and-nail against those who claimed otherwise.

Before he made the Hajj in 1964, Malcolm X had had significant contact with traditional Muslims. Indeed, it seems to be the case that—given the Nation’s peculiar doctrines—he was aware of the differences between Eastern Islam and Muhammad’s religion all along. He noted in his autobiography that his first encounter with traditional Islam came while he was in prison. He recalled that “a member of the orthodox Muslim movement” in the Boston area had come to visit him, though he did not mention in which facility the visit had taken place. The Muslim who had visited him was named Abdul Hameed, and Hameed had taken enough interest in Malcolm to send him authentic Muslim prayers in the Arabic language. Malcolm noted that, at the time, he memorized all the prayers phonetically.

One biographer has noted that Malcolm was visited by a Muslim while he was incarcerated at Norfolk Prison Colony. It is possible that this Muslim was Abdul Hameed, though he is known in this account only by the pseudonym “Omar Khalil.” Khalil greatly impressed Malcolm, but apparently not enough to win Malcolm over to Eastern Islam. That Khalil was not able to draw Malcolm away from Muhammad’s Islam is not surprising. He had already embraced the black tenets of “the Lost Found Nation of Islam”—tenets that spoke more directly to Malcolm than the Eastern version—in his language and in terms that were more immediately relevant to him. Yet there may have been still another reason why Malcolm did not accept his visitor’s form of Islam.

Khalil was apparently a member of a Muslim sect called the Ahmadiyya, which was not a traditional form of Islam, either. Actually, the Ahmadiyya were a late-nineteenth-century development in the Muslim world, referred to by one scholar as an Indian “syncretist movement” that arose in an era when modern Islam was giving birth to new sects worldwide. The Ahmadiyya were named for Azrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908) of Qadian, who preached a pacifist gospel. Ahmad also perceived himself as the bearer of a revelation that would help Muslims reinterpret the Quran to suit their needs. Needless to say, by naming himself a prophet, Ahmad and his followers exposed themselves to persecution from traditional Muslims and carried the stigma of heresy with them into the twentieth century. Unlike Christianity, which leaves the door open to new prophets after the advent of Christ, traditional Muslims recognize no prophet after Muhammad.⁴

Apart from the distinctive claims of the movement’s founder, the Ahmadiyya were quite faithful to the traditional reading of the Qur’an. Indeed, after the movement had split into two rival branches in 1914, one of them, the Lahoris, endeavored to be completely reconciled to traditional Sunni Islam by deemphasizing the claims of Ahmad. However, both branches distinguished the Ahmadiyya throughout the entire Muslim world by becoming zealous missionaries. Though a minority within their own Indian/Pakistani Muslim world, the Ahmadiyya engaged in extensive proselytization programs in India, ...