The Princess and the Prophet: The Secret History of Magic, Race, and Moorish Muslims in America

 

A truly fascinating book, The Princess and the Prophet: The Secret History of Magic, Race, and Moorish Muslims in America by Jacob S. Dorman, examines the  proliferation of groups of African Americans in the late nineteenth and twentieth century who formed organizations professing resistance narratives to white Christian religion and society – often under the guise of some form of Islam.  

This came about through curious twists and turns.  Dorman shows how European Orientalism had a profound influence in America, and its most common expression was in circuses, sideshows, and world fairs.  Black men and women played Moors, Hindus, and other “exotic” peoples who had power and charisma.  At this time the Shriner movement of the Fez hats arose, which had its own Orientalist origins as a secret society with Islamic roots.  As African Americans moved north these organizations became increasingly popular, and powerful among a dislocated people.  Organized Shrinerism and Circus Orientalism combined in novel and powerful ways  

Dorman’s subject, the Moorish Science Temple of America, was the direct antecedent of The Nation of Islam.  His work helps to explain why a man like Malcolm X knew so little of Islam, yet called himself a Muslim in his early years in the Nation of Islam (before he embraced more “normative” Islam).  Moorish and Islamic movements were trying on guises that were in direct contraction to the narrative of white supremacy with amazing results.