Moorish identity was claimed to escape black racial classification

Evidence

The history of enslaved Muslim Africans took a di√erent path in the early twentieth century, when, seeking to displace notions of biological race, Noble Drew Ali and his followers founded the Moorish Science Temple. In doing so, they sought to identify not with enslaved Africans but with a di√erent category—that of ”Moorish American,” or descendants of people from Morocco. The term ”Moor,” a common appellation for Muslims and Arabs in U.S. popular culture in the nineteenth century, was in direct contradistinction to the notion of ”slave.” (Take, for example, the case of Abdur Rahman, the so-called Prince among Slaves, who was defined racially as ”Moorish” rather than as ”black” once his royal lineage was revealed [Curtis 2009].)≤≠ For Ali’s followers, claiming a Moorish background represented a shift from racial identi- fication to ethnic and religious identification that, they hoped, would shield them from discrimination and prejudice. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 195 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The term Moor shifted from a religious to a racial appellation over time; Moorish Science Temple converts claimed a Moroccan identity to escape US blackness — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims: Race and Labor in…, 195; Converting to Islam did not shield African Americans from racial classification (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Moorish Science Temple converts claimed a Moroccan identity to escape US blackness #exemplifies (0.95) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 195
• Claiming Islam did not let African Americans escape early-twentieth-century racial logic #complicates (0.90)
• Converting to Islam did not shield African Americans from racial classification #complicates (0.88)
• African American Muslims are racialized as Black before being seen as Muslim #complicates (0.80) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 116
• Black racial identity is externally imposed before it is self-chosen #complicates (0.78) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 340
• Muslim identity gets racialized through names and clothing, not only skin tone #complicates (0.75) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 70
• Muslims were racialized through cultural signifiers rather than phenotype alone #complicates (0.75) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 106