The elections are over and the dust has begun to settle. Among the many surprises last Tuesday brought America was its first Muslim in Congress. I didn’t think too much about it at the time, and to some degree, I’m still not sure what it means.

Truth be told, a different series of thoughts have been rolling around in my brain for a few weeks. I relaxed on my bed and carefully combed through six pages of the “ Amman Message ”, but this time, I had a pen and highlighters handy to jot down in the margins any thing that hit me as being “wrong” or somehow “off”. As I marked up the document, one word kept jumping out at me: “nation”. On the face level, it’s quite innocuous, however, the more the document talked about “the nation” and Islamic principles, I couldn’t shake this nasty thought: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, not the Middle Eastern definition of Islam.

Could part of the reason Americans don’t like Muslims be in part, due to the very poor image of the Nation of Islam? How many people blindly assume they are the same because they contain the same word: “Islam”?

Mustering up the courage to tick off my best friend, MoMo (Mohammed), I decided to approach him and ask him some questions. I wanted to learn, and I didn’t want to offend him and hurt our friendship, so I was cautious. I am grateful to him for letting me ask questions that would surely offend others, all for the sake of understanding.

I started off by asking him if the Nation of Islam (NOI) and the Middle Eastern brand of Islam were different – do they look at the NOI as being “fake” Muslims. He said no, they are considered Muslims, but they do things different. “Are they considered to be a radical offshoot?” He calmly disagreed with that characterization.

“MoMo, are you happy to see a Muslim in Congress?” Of course he was beaming with pride over this. I almost hated to ask him the next question: “Do you feel ashamed that he dropped his Muslim last name to look more presentable, maybe betrayed?” He hesitated a little bit and answered, “But everybody still knows he is a Muslim? Right?” I personally don’t know if everyone does; that’s a question beyond my ability to answer because one would have to assume everyone follows politics, and that’s incorrect.

I felt annoyed – not at MoMo, but at the comparisons I realized I would have to make. The more sites I visited, the more aggravated I became. One popular right wing blog named “ Little Green Footballs” ran a story that bothered me, but not as much as the posted comments. It alleged Rep. Keith Ellison (among many of his aliases – Keith Hakim, Keith X Ellison and Keith Ellison-Muhammad ), had ties to the Nation of Islam, not the Middle Eastern version of Islam. It also tarred him as a security risk. The more I researched Rep. Ellison’s past, I more I realized he was anything but Muslim.

I can forgive his legislative record . I can forgive his shady past. I have real trouble, however, overlooking how he tied his political aspirations to a religion when his roots are cemented to a political system that bares little resemblance. I have an equally difficult time when it comes to hiding and denying his past and current ties to the Nation of Islam. It strikes me as he is embarrassed by it, and not because of their racist views (he was a sponsor for a 1990 anti-Semitic lecture).

It doesn’t take much time or energy to research the Nation of Islam to spot striking differences between the two “religions”; I say this delicately because one is a religion , the other is a movement . The Nation of Islam has gone through several name changes, and their doctrine bears little resemblance to the Islam of Muhammad.

In my search to determine the extent of similarities between Islam and the Nation of Islam, I found many interesting and equally disturbing statements, such as blacks are racially superior over all races, “god” came to earth in the form of their founder, W. Fard Muhammad, and the Caucasian race are all “devils” due to a bizarre DNA stripping of their soul.

There is an assertion by many the Nation of Islam has converted to “true” Islamic principles, however that is simply not the case. Wallace Muhammad took over the leadership of the NOI in 1975 and began moving it towards traditional Islam, but Louis Farrakhan revived the original beliefs when he split off and took followers with him. If anyone follows Wallace Muhammad’s version of the NOI, then they are in the minority, as the modern movement with Farrakhan at the helm, has dominated the image of Islam in America .

Farrakhan moved the Nation of Islam back to the militant, angry roots and is often compared to the Black Panther Party and the Black Power group . Even a small portion of their manifesto makes for some intriguing reading material:

1. They want freedom, justice, and equality for all people of color.
2. They want a large tract of land set aside.
3. Slavery reparations.
4. Full monetary support for 20-25 years.
5. They want the release of all blacks convicted of a federal or capital crime carrying a death sentence.
6. They are against the mixing of the races, and are against interracial marriage and the mixing of bloodlines through mixed offspring.

If someone tries to say the Nation of Islam is true Islam, then they will have to explain comments by some of their leaders, because they don’t reflect the “Amman Message” in the slightest.

“On November 29,1993, Khallid Abdul Muhammad, then the second-in-command in the Nation of Islam, gave a lecture to one hundred fifty students at Kean College in Union, New Jersey. Turning to South Africa, he said that when blacks gain political power there, they should give the whites exactly twenty-four hours to leave the country. And if they can’t leave fast enough? "We kill the women, we kill the children. We kill the babies. We kill the blind, we kill the cripples, we kill ‘em all. We kill the faggot, we kill the lesbian, we’ll kill them all. . . . And when you get through killing ‘em all, go to the [expletive] graveyard and dig up the grave and kill them a-[expletive]-gain. ‘Cause they didn’t die hard enough."

I do realize the date of this speech puts it prior to the Amman Message, however, the Nation of Islam continues to open its mouth only long enough to switch feet. I doubt they have ever recalled any of their taped lectures, much less stopped selling them, so there’s plenty of hate still floating around. That’s a lot of money to refund!

To say the Nation of Islam and the Middle East variety of Islam are one in the same is to set a very dangerous trap for Islam. The NOI manifesto does not bear out the religious nature of the group; other than their abstaining from pork and the word “Islam”, there is little in common.

My concern about Rep, Keith Ellison is not his “Muslim” background, it’s the comparison to true Islam that bothers me.

He claimed his time in the Nation of Islam was short – approximately eighteen months’ time, and that was in 1995. [ Page One Page Two ] He has yet to explain how one of his aliases wrote an article for the University of Minnesota Daily , speaking up for the Nation of Islam in 1989. I don’t think lying in this case fits under any proper Islamic terms.

I am hard pressed to understand how his views are pro-Islam, since he’s for gay marriage . When asked about this, he obfuscated and chose to bring up other subjects he felt were more important. He rattled on about the poor and homeless, which is attempting to change the subject by debating apples and oranges. People will still be poor whether or not a ban on gay marriage exists in the state of Minnesota or not. Ban or no ban, it doesn’t change the status of an empty stomach to a full stomach. According to MoMo, just like in Christianity and Judaism, gay marriage is not an option in Islam, and unheard of.

Forgive me for being skeptical, but I am having déjà vu regarding his win. You see, this reminds me Franklin D. Roosevelt’s move from New York state politics to presidential politics. Some who wanted him out of the way referred to this tactic as being “kicked upstairs”; they assumed he would run, lose, and slink off into the woodwork, never dreaming he would win since he was good at making enemies and minor apologies at the Tammany Hall machine.

My skepticism wonders if the establishment deliberately wanted a Muslim in this spot, that way any problem that arises reflects badly on the Middle East since they were cheering for his victory . This also means any little mistake, any screw up, and it will land under the white-hot spotlight of the hungry press. The mistake could be real or a perceived transgression, but if played out with the right angle, it will anger the public and turn away any common ground that might have been established between religions and cultures. Americans will be screaming for his head on a platter, and Middle Eastern news outlets will be screaming bigotry.

Is this a set up for a fall? God only knows that outcome.

Searching and sharing information with MoMo, we were shocked together at the information to be found on the web. I asked him one more question I didn’t want to ask because I was afraid it would cause hurt. “Do you look at NOI as just another Islamic sect simply because it has ‘Islam’ in its name, or did you have any real sense of the NOI’s history, and still felt they were ok?” He was honest and upfront; “Just cuz it has Islam in it. I didn’t know much about their history.” I felt like a jerk, pouring salt into a wound he didn’t realize he had.

When I told MoMo about Rep. Ellison’s stance opposing the gay marriage ban in Minnesota , in his own quiet, subdued way he simply uttered, “ not a true Muslim then ”. It broke my heart. If MoMo, a young man of 21 can see the truth, I wonder if the rest of the Middle East can be honest with itself, too.

Other quazen.com articles by this writer can be found here , relijournal.com articles here , and picable.com images here . If you enjoyed this article, consider digging it with others.