The FBI ranked Middle Eastern descent over African as authentic Islamic authority

Evidence

The 1955 report outlined the central tenets of what the FBI considered to be “orthodox” Islam (which it approved of), which were then contrasted with the NOI’s practice, which was deemed “unorthodox.” There was a “good” Islam and a “bad” or inauthentic Islam for the FBI. Further, the domestic good Muslims, as Pasquinelli writes, were “imams of Middle Eastern (rather than African) descent who were opposed to (Arab-, African-, and Black-) nationalism” who were then “treated as representatives of an authentic, peaceful Islam.” — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 235

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s standing MOC thread on the ‘standing apparatus that speaks both ways’ and earlier ch7/ch9 notes on good-vs-bad Muslim labeling.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: does the FBI’s domestic ranking of ‘orthodox Islam’ supply a test case for whether the apparatus is content-agnostic or capitalism-specific, since it precedes empire-crisis framing of Arabs?

Related

• The FBI constructed a good versus bad Islam split as early as 1955. (similarity 0.91)
• The FBI designated orthodoxy by political loyalty rather than theology (similarity 0.87)
• The FBI treated Black Muslims’ political Islam as a national security threat for decades. (similarity 0.79)
• The good versus bad Muslim label tracks support for US empire rather than facts. (similarity 0.78)