Elijah Muhammad defiantly rejected foreign Muslim religious authority over his movement

Evidence

On July 15, 1964, the Chicago Defender, a Black newspaper, published a story about the influential Egyptian Muslim League’s disagreement with “the anti-white, anti-Christian, anti-Jew, and anti-integration preachments of America’s Black Muslims.” In a rare personal response, Elijah Muhammad forcefully proclaimed, “Neither Jeddah nor Mecca have sent me! I am sent from Allah and not from the Secretary General of the Muslim League. There is no Muslim in Arabia that has authority to stop me from delivering this message that I have been assigned to.” — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 596

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Elijah Muhammad’s defiance of Jeddah and Mecca is a live illustration of an American religious leader rejecting foreign-derived authority — relevant context for authority disputes more broadly.