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Malcolm X - research paper
Arsalan
04/09/01 at 13:53:01
Some non-Muslim is doing a research paper on Malcolm X.  He asked me this question: How do you view the legacy of Malcolm X?  Do you feel that he is understood by what he preached? Any food for thought? Wassalamu alaikum.

Re: Malcolm X - research paper
Saleema
04/09/01 at 20:36:26
Assalam ualykum, >>>Do you feel that he is understood by what he preached? What exactly does he think that he preached? That the white man is the devil? That the Malcolm X advocated violence? Please ask your friend these question first to get him to think about his own feelings and information critically. His question is sort of weird, what else would he be understood by except for what he preached? Does your friend think that he preached something else and acted to the contrary of what he said? I veiw the leagacy of Malcolm X as that being of a misunderstood man by mainstream America. His message was ignored largely, and although historians and others don't deny his contributions to the civil rights movement, they do not give him the full credit that he deserves. They think that everything was achieved through the message of King's non-violence movement. Although, King certainly played the bigger role Malcolm X contributed to the black empowerment in a very HUGE way too. Yes, Malcolm X did say at one time that the white man was the devil. But he changed his thoughts after he went to Hajj and saw the brotherhood that is unique to Islam only. And not only did Islam have an impact on his political career, Islam also had a profound impact on his personal behavior. The malcolm that ran a whorehouse was very different than the Malcolm who emerged after Hajj. Islam was his sole guiding light. To Muslims a leader is not good enough unless he is also moral. Had Malcolm continued to run that whorehouse then we probably wouldn't hold him in such esteem that we do today. Many may not realize this, or simply not care that King, being a preacher, married with kids, had other women in his life too. Personally, that changed the way I felt about King. I still have admiration for King and what he did but I do not have the same respect for him that I once did. I was afraid that I might find something like that about Malcolm X too, but I didn't when I read about his life. I know that what King did was brave indeed, and people might say that King's personal life should have nothing to do with politics. Perhaps. But as a Muslim, that is just as important to me, and those kind of things do matter to me. Malcolm X loved his people. He didn't advocate violence against everyone. He advocated the taking up of arms when the blacks were attacked by the whites. But King, he preached about turning the other cheek to the enemy. I think that because Malcolm X was a Muslim that his legacy is ignored and is not given as much attention. I may be wrong or I may be right. But that is how I feel. But I know that I'm not alone in feeling this way. As of yet, that is all my sleepy mind can think of to say. wassalam

Re: Malcolm X - research paper
Saleema
04/09/01 at 20:34:14
Assalam ualykum, I just read the question again and I'm not sure I understand what he's asking. I get the feeling that I did't answer his question, that I somehow misunderstood the question. Can you clarify? wassalam

Re: Malcolm X - research paper
Anwar
04/09/01 at 20:44:22
Aslamu alaikum wa rahmatullah The impression I have received from many contemporary non-Muslim viewpoint’s on him is that they tend to remember him more as a Minister for the Nation of Islam and little emphasis is made about him leaving NOI, renouncing their idea's and rejecting the false claims of Elijah Muhammad. Although I don't deny that all acknowledge his acceptance of orthodox Islam following a visit to Makkah for Hajj and that it is documented in most historical accounts of his. But I do contest the conjured up image of him being a violent and racist black activist that seems to be the dominant and lasting perception on him in the minds of people. I feel that it is not appreciated by most people that despite being fully aware of the reprisal that he faced from NOI after leaving them he continued regardless as before spreading awareness about racism, but this time without the racist and hatred fuelled concepts of Elijah Muhammad's NOI. In fact if you read his autobiography, he even mentions in the latter part of it referring to NOI "that sooner or later they are going to kill me". This in itself speaks volumes about the character of Malcolm X, it shows this was a person seeking the truth not the admiration of the people, no matter what the cost. Also I feel that the story of Malcolm X and his falling out with the NOI should be used to open the eyes of all those who still tragically get misled in believing the false ideas of NOI. wa salam

Re: Malcolm X - research paper
Saleema
04/12/01 at 07:18:16
Assalam ualykum, Another reason that Malcolm X is undermined by the society at large is because of the following reason as clearly shown here in the article. Which is very unfair to him and the Muslims. This is the link and the article: http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2001/03/25/city/EVANG25.htm Taking to the streets to win back souls Evangelical black churches are rallying the troops to make converts of Muslims. By Jim Remsen INQUIRER FAITH LIFE EDITOR The Rev. Darien Thomas, a man on a mission, spotted the woman in the Muslim scarf approaching on the busy 69th Street corridor. "Sister, can I talk to you?" the sidewalk evangelist beckoned. "I have some good news to share." Majeed Abdur Rashid slowed - becoming his "prospect" of the moment - but as Mr. Thomas learned, she was not one to listen meekly. For a few charged minutes outside Popeye's, as Saturday shoppers bustled past, two world religions went toe-to-toe. "You know how God allowed blood sacrifice?" Mr. Thomas said, alluding to Abraham's binding of his son, a story shared by the Bible and the Koran. "A lamb or a goat would be the scapegoat and have the punishment put on it. Jesus took on that punishment for you." "I don't believe that," Rashid shot back. "I believe everybody has to stand before God for his own deeds." "Yes, every soul is guilty," Mr. Thomas replied. "But Jesus made the sacrifice for us. God, in His mercy, put our sins on someone sinless." "I don't understand that," Rashid said. "There are some things we don't understand," Mr. Thomas answered quickly. "But the Old Testament teaches that Jesus is the lamb in God's sight." "Jesus was a prophet," Rashid said. "But Muhammad was the last prophet. He was the seal of the prophets and he perfected it. That's what the Scripture says. "But I appreciate what you're doing," she said with a smile and headed up the street with her daughter. Unfazed, Mr. Thomas moved on with his wife, Sandra, looking for the next prospect. The Thomases, of Walk in the Light Christian Ministries of Southwest Philadelphia, were in a contingent of 50 people canvassing Upper Darby last weekend. This was a field trip organized as part of a regional Evangelism Explosion conference at Sharon Baptist Church in Wynnefield Heights. One of the conference's thrusts was proselytizing to Muslims. It is hard, specialized work - and, as Mr. Thomas found, often frustrating. Muslims are effective at their own faith-sharing, carrying out the command known as Da'wah, and they are adept at debating Scripture with any comers. In fact, Rashid, as a longtime Muslim and business manager at the Masjid Muhammad in Germantown, said later that she regarded her curbside thrust-and-parry with Mr. Thomas as a bit of impromptu Da'wah. Responding to Muslims has become a keen concern for many Christians as they watch Islam's steady growth in this country. While Roman Catholic and most Mainline Protestant churches promote theological tolerance and dialogue with the 4.1 million U.S. Muslims, evangelical leaders have reacted differently - rallying their troops with the Gospel command to preach the word. Consequently, the number of interdenominational ministries to Muslims has grown from fewer than 10 in the mid-1980s to perhaps 100 today, ministry leaders say. Nowhere is the turf fighting between the two religions more pitched than in African American communities. Nation of Islam mosques and the more common Sunni Muslim mosques are entrenched in many black communities, and most of their members are either converts from Christianity or converts' children. The prisons also are a renowned mission field for Muslims, with an estimated 30,000 prisoners converting annually, many of them African Americans. Fareed Nu'Man, a local Muslim analyst, estimates that 55 percent of Philadelphia's 85,000 Muslims are African Americans and that most of them are from Christian backgrounds. At Sharon Baptist, a black megachurch of 4,500, most of the 70 people attending the Evangelism Explosion session on Islamic outreach were African Americans. A number of them relayed stories of having Muslim fathers or sisters or nephews or coworkers, or of trying Islam themselves. "The black community is saturated with Muslims," said the Rev. Curtis Morris, Sharon's pastor for evangelism, himself a one-time Nation of Islam adherent. "It's a battleground on the street for souls." A University of Pennsylvania survey of the city's religious congregations bears some bad tidings for the evangelists. It projects that Philadelphia's black churches have about 253,000 members - but that 27.1 percent of those churches report declining membership, as opposed to 15.6 percent of non-black congregations. Though causes for the decline were not reported, research director Stephanie Boddie figures that conversion to Islam is one of them. "It's a concern to us that our children are becoming Muslim after being raised in the church," said the Rev. Randall Sims, president of the Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity. "We have to be able to witness to Muslims, and we're seeing a new phenomenon of that. It's new but not isolated." The Black Clergy has not offered specialized Muslim training for its 400 member churches, Mr. Sims said, and he is not sure how widespread or successful the various street efforts are. But he said the Black Clergy leadership brought in Carl Ellis, a specialist on black Muslim outreach, for a briefing last year. Ellis, head of Project Joseph in Chattanooga, Tenn., has traveled the country for a decade giving church workshops and has personally "seen 1,500 Muslims come to Christ." Reached by phone, Ellis said he nearly broke with his black-church upbringing as a young man because of the appeal of Malcolm X, and he urges black Christians to understand that appeal. "The growth of Islam is a measure of the weakness of the church," Ellis said. "It's not dealing with the core issues for African Americans like identity, manhood, human dignity. We need to tell our young people that Scripture does deal with all of that. But we go around and peddle fire insurance instead, Gospel fire insurance. We've reduced the Gospel to that." Muslims "do a much better job than we do. Our focus is on the conversion event. They focus on the learning process." A check with several Muslim leaders confirmed that approach. The city's 33 mosques, or masjids, all have Da'wah committees that pair up newcomers with educated members, said Rafiq Kalam Iddin, an ex-Catholic who is administrative assistant at Clara Muhammad School, a Muslim school in West Philadelphia. He said some masjids hold regular street-corner or door-to-door canvassing, handing out literature and inviting people to evening classes where they can be assigned a mentor. Imam Yusef Jamal-addin is chairman of the Da'wah committee for the area clergy council called the Majlis Ashura. He said the Majlis doesn't have centralized training or campaigns but does urge a central message - a straightforward public pitch that the religion's distinctive dress and rules are secondary to its belief in one God. And that that God is not trinitarian: "The prophet says don't speak of God as three. God is one." Imam Jamal-addin (a convert from Methodism) and others emphasized that Da'wah work is an obligation for every Muslim. Mentoring is routine, he said: "We stick close to the people." And he said it was becoming more successful as new generations of black Muslims are raised in the faith and have a "grounding and balance and poise" that is attractive to others, particularly in public schools and on campuses. Over lunch at the Sharon Baptist conference, Nelson Hayspell, a deacon at St. James Baptist Church in Beverly (and a onetime Muslim), explained the predicament that he sees churches facing. Many black men are drawn to Islam's strong-male culture and find they can have a close "brother relationship" with their imam, he said, whereas they may feel out of place in churches with their majority-female membership led by aloof, intimidating, sometimes "flashy" male pastors. It is a black-church image that Muslims play up in their urban outreach, he said. Hayspell, braids tied in a loose knot, told of a spiritual journey that resembled the life stories of other returnees to the church. As a young man and reluctant Baptist, he said, he embraced the black-power militancy of the Nation of Islam. He joined up for a few years, but broke over its "white devil" teachings and moved to a Sunni masjid. There, he raised a family for nearly 15 years - until his wife and daughter decided they needed the church. He ultimately agreed: "They saw no hope and wanted a savior. I also found that Islam was giving me discipline, but no direction to hold on to. No spiritual hope. It couldn't keep me from sinning." Hayspell's theological worry - that Islam does not guarantee salvation, while Christianity can - is the very point that ministries to Muslims try to build on. It was central to the conference's Muslim workshop. The workshop's trainer was the Rev. Wally Ahmad of Germantown, a strategist for Multi-Ethnic Ministries of Upper Darby - and the born-again son of a Muslim man. In a rapid-fire presentation, he equipped people with ways to approach Muslims, and told them to be ready for theological intensity. Mr. Ahmad offered talking points about divergent beliefs on sin and revelation and judgment and Scripture, as well as some common teachings. His listeners peppered him with questions and filled their handouts with notes like a class of A students. "Muslims know God on paper. Christians know God in person," he said. "But the church has turned them off. The pastor has turned them off. Present Jesus to them." And Mr. Ahmad sent them out with what he hoped was "soul-winners' fire" to the sidewalks of Upper Darby. The trip was one on several forays - billed as "fishing trips" - by the 430 conference participants. Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington advocacy group, said Muslims were primed for the evangelists. "We don't object to open and honest debate," he said. "We love to debate all the time. We believe we have the Ferrari of faiths and are not concerned, as long as their work is open and aboveboard." Christians won't make headway, Mr. Ahmad told his workshop, unless they take a gradual approach and let Muslims see them living out their faith. "Muslims are vigilant for their faith, and they want to see you be vigilant for yours," he said. "So examine your priorities and get out there. You may take some beatings, but get out there."
NS

Re: Malcolm X - research paper
Rashid
04/16/01 at 13:43:09
Salamm Alaikum: I agree with the previous posts.  Most people's image of brother Malcolm are shaped by the movie and all they seem to remember is the NOI preacher and his militancy, which was heavily distorted in his day.  The press at that time painted a portrait of someone who hated white people and wanted to kill them all, and that's the image that lingers to this day.  Him being muslim and a self-educated man is downplayed in favor of a few soundbites and quotes.  I remember one time my friend was being harrased by police and they went through his bookbag and found the autobiography, they were all like "do you know he hated white people, why do you have this, etc" and my friend was like "that's not what he was about" So even with stamps and all that, people's mentalities don't change.

Re: Malcolm X - research paper
chachi
04/17/01 at 17:17:51
Hmm if anybody saw the movie X-men they would remember the comments by most critics afterwards about how Magneto reminded them of Malcolm X and Xavier of King Now that was absolute nonsense King when he was assasinated was becoming more and more militant whereas Malcolm X was moving in the other direction and was likewise assasinated Malcolm X once said that everytime black people would march King would suddenly appear and act like it was HIS idea i guess King actually started believing his own acting persona in the end and somebody decided to kill him as they say if you play the part long enough you'll start believing it
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