Heretical doctrine limited Moorish Science Temple membership to African Americans

Evidence

But Drew Ali’s self-appointment as a prophet of Allah was considered heresy to the few thousand Muslim immigrants from the Ottoman Empire and the Indian subcontinent, thereby limiting his membership primarily to African Americans. His approximately thirty thousand followers established temples in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond, Lansing, Chicago, and Milwaukee, among other cities. Drew Ali mirrored Marcus Garvey in his promotion of Black nationalism and economic independence from mainstream White society. Although its following was in the mere tens of thousands, the Moorish Science Temple was the predecessor to the Nation of Islam (NOI)—a much larger and more influential Black nationalist movement that would attract aggressive US government suppression. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 588

Categorization

• XREF: The claim about immigrant Muslim rejection of Drew Ali’s prophecy parallels themes of intra-community boundary policing seen in other religious movements.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how did the Moorish Science Temple’s doctrine of ancestral Morocanness survive and evolve after Drew Ali’s death in 1929?