On the afternoon of November 5, 1979, Bronx activist Muntu Matsimela took to the stage in front of U.N. headquarters in New York for Black Solidarity Day. He announced that “comrade-Sister Assata Shakur was freed from racist captivity” just three days prior by members of the Black Liberation Army (BLA). (Holley, 2023, pp. 159-160) This news was celebrated in Black media at the time and remained a legendary moment in the minds of many conscious African Americans ever since. Her passing on September 25, 2025 marks another major victory for the Black Liberation struggle in the U.S. The fact that she was able to die a free woman under political asylum in Cuba is a defeat to the FBI, the Fraternal Order of the Police, the state of New Jersey, and several American presidents who were unable to extradite her and return her to an American prison. Her life and death should be a reminder to the world that resistance to oppression can and will lead to victory.
First, one might ask: in what way is Assata’s death in exile a victory? To answer this, we must consider Assata in her historical context. She follows in a long history of Maroons and resistance fighters who refused to accept life under oppressive conditions in the Americas. In his book, the Counterrevolution of 1776, Gerald Horne cites the Maroon communities of Jamaica as a prime example of African resistance to imperial powers. According to Horne, these Maroon fighters were able to attain a type of autonomy, fear, and respect in the Western Hemisphere because they resisted imperial oppression. For instance, under the leadership of Cudjoe, the Maroons of Jamaica (known as the “Madagascars”) staged a series of attacks on the British just as they had on the Spanish before them. This campaign led to a 1738 treaty with the Brits, thus recognizing their sovereignty. Such a treaty was deemed a humiliation for London and a victory for the Africans of Jamaica.(Horne, 2014, pp. 100-101) Resistance to slavery was a continuous campaign that lasted lifetimes but it was overcome. Assata’s revolutionary acts were only a moment, but her movement against racist imperialism will overcome.
Secondly, it is important to know that Assata, like Harriet Tubman and Ida B. Wells before her, belonged to a later iteration of those earlier movements. The New York Black Panther Party, Young Lords, and the BLA of the 1970’s forced the US government entities to respond to their actions. For instance, their activism at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx led to the Patient’s Bill of Rights.(Holley, 2023, p. 99) Afeni Shakur’s work with the Black Panthers and Bronx Legal Services led to reforms to tenant’s rights and eviction laws.(Holley, 2023, pp. 83-84) Similarly, the targeted retribution of police guilty of extrajudicial corporal and capital punishments made police forces think twice about molesting the Black community. Additionally, they began to hire Black police officers to improve their image. In all of these examples and more, the movement to which Assata belonged forced the state to respond. The lesson in this is that the many protections we enjoy in the U.S. in health, housing, education, employment, roadways, and other areas comes from the activism of regular people and not the kind hearts of the capitalist and ruling class.
It must also be mentioned that Assata Shakur was a Black Nationalist in the true meaning of the term. That is to say, she was part of a movement towards nationhood outside of the constructs of the United States. She answered the call of Martin Delany, who wrote in 1852, that African populations within the US are “a nation within a nation.” This was exemplified by Maroon societies of Jamaica, the Seminoles of Florida, and various attempts in the piedmont and swamps of Virginia before him. And subsequently, the call for statehood was the position of every radical black political movement of the 19th and 20th centuries. They had different iterations, from Edward McCabe’s call for Black people to move en mass to the Oklahoma Territory to the Chicago-based National Movement for the Establishment of the 49th State, which aimed to establish an autonomous Black state in the South. African American Communists of the 1920’s and 30’s would imagine the “Black Belt Republic.” Likewise, the Nation of Islam would also advocate for a similar state to be established in the South. The movement that Assata Shakur was most closely associated with was the Republic of New Afrika whose modus operandi was to operate as a sovereign government until they achieved their goal of acquiring land. Assata and her comrades in the BLA were part of its armed wing.(Holley, 2023, pp. 91-94)
“Assata Shakur is Welcome Here” Poster (Red Bubble)
Concluding Thoughts
Every time I learn that another luminary of the revolution has passed away, my resolve strengthens for the renewed education about these individuals and the accurate preservation of their legacies. While we can never hope for fair treatment by corporate media outlets, I have watched more informed independent media like Marc Lamont Hill, Democracy Now!, and Willie D make Assata’s importance about her innocence. We should be clear that she was not simply a “leader by victimhood,” as her comrade Dhoruba Bin-Wahad would say. She was not like the many people who are convicted of a crime that she did not commit and was subsequently rescued and desperately fled to Cuba. Rather, she was an active member in a group that was dedicated to relieving Black communities of some of the pressure of police brutality in the 1970’s. Her service in the BLA as not only a soldier, but a theorist and a strategist, cannot go overlooked by history. Therefore, the central issues in Assata’s case was about the human right of the Black community to organize to defend itself and its human right of self-determination.
This does not mean that the actions of the BLA should not be analyzed and scrutinized or repeated. Indeed, Assata and surviving BLA members were able to reflect on their actions as they matured. But the world could use their bravery, audacity, and fortitude to combat the forces of genocide and imperialism today, just as we see in the Global Sumud Flotillas to Gaza. The BLA were aware of the consequences, repercussions, and sacrifices of their actions. Many did not survive, many remain in prison, and many remained in prison several decades before being released. Assata was unique because she was able to break free and remain free. In this people can find strength, inspiration, and hope, whether in Gaza or Chicago. In the infamous words of Assata:
And, if i know anything at all,
it’s that a wall is just a wall
and nothing more at all.
It can be broken down.(Shakur, 1987, p. 2)
In some instances, a wall can be climbed and burrowed underneath. Occasionally it can be restored or rebuilt. But to anyone paying attention it is obvious that the wall is crumbling.
References
Holley, Santi Elijah. 2023. An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs and the Nation They Created. First edition. Mariner Books.
Horne, Gerald. 2014. The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and The Origins of the United States of America. New York University Press. Shakur, Assata. 1987. Assata: An Autobiography. With Angela Davis. Zed Books / Lawrence Hill and Company.
Anthony Browder recently posted to his blog a piece titled 5 Patterns of Historical Erasure That Have Hidden Africa’s Greatest Civilization in Plain Sight promoting his final two tours to Luxor, Egypt (which he calls by its ancient name Waset). Although I’m sure Mr. Browder is well-intentioned (for Black people) in writing this post, his five patterns of historical erasure are weak, ill-informed, and antiquated. Not only are some of his assertions simply not true but they speak to the lack of sophistication and intellectual integrity that plagues Black Conscious circles that keep open-minded and educated individuals from ascribing to their theories. In the post, he wishes to highlight five recurring ways an unnamed villain uses to hide African history:
The Name Change Pattern
The Impossible Achievement Pattern
The Religious Theft Pattern
The Systematic Burial Pattern
The Compartmentalization Pattern
Beyond the fact that the article reads like an AI generated blog post, I will take issue with points 1, 3, 4, and 5, and the anti-intellectual dichotomy between seeing primary evidence and textbooks.
Rebuttal of #1 The Name Change Pattern
Mr. Browder contends that the name of the city of Waset was changed by “conquerors” for sinister reasons. He does not mention what those reasons were, but the reader is left to assume that the Greeks, Arabs, and (Western) Europeans wanted to make their mark on the great civilization they conquered.
His claim that the name Luxur, the European pronunciation of the Arabic name al-’Uqṣur meaning castles is the origin of the word “luxury” is false. The English word actually has two Latin roots: luxus (excess) and luxuria (offensiveness). The two meanings were merged when it reached old English. As such, the word not only meant lasciviousness, but also debauchery and adultery. Spreading the idea that the word luxury has an African origin is not only wrong, but demonstrates a lack of academic negligence on his part. Furthermore, it might lead to some cognitive dissonance for his Afrocentric constituents who may consider Arabic, the language from which the name Luxor is derived, as non-African.
What is the issue with changing the name of a place if its history is preserved anyway? Many places around the world have undergone name changes, from ancient names to modern ones and vice versa. The people that live there have a right to change the name based on their current sentiments. Oftentimes, cities built around ancient sites have boarders and residences beyond the ancient city limits. So they are not the same exact cities from ancient times. Why can’t Afrocentrists acknowledge that over time people change, languages change, cultures change, and even religions change?
Rebuttal of #3 The Religious Theft Pattern
Mr. Browder claims that religious concepts such as the Annunciation, Immaculate Conception, Virgin Birth, and the Trinity of Ausar, Auset, and Heru were carved into the ancient monuments of Luxor. However, these concepts were appropriated and then plastered over and replaced with images of Jesus Christ and the 12 disciples by something he calls the “Coptic occupation” of 450 ACE. While it is true that certain religious concepts pass from one tradition to another and that there are Christians known as Copts in Egypt, Mr. Browder’s characterization of them is completely wrong.
First, the religious and linguistic traditions from ancient Egypt have been lost for at least two millennia (the coming of the Age of Pisces according to Bernal’s explanation of Egypt’s embrace of Christianity (Bernal and Gaballa, 1987, p. 125)). The Copts are the indigenous Egyptians. In fact, the name Egypt is a modern adaption of the word Copt, which the name of an Egyptian city Qifṭ. According to Medieval sources written by Egyptians themselves, Qifṭ was an ancestor of theirs. In some sources he is considered the son of Hermes (Ibn Nadīm, 1970) and in other sources he is one of the grandchildren of Ham (Suyuti and Ibrahim, 1968, page 35-36 vol. 1).
The Copts freely embraced Christianity shortly after what they consider the ascension of Christ by St. Mark, making them one of the oldest Christian traditions in the world. The fact that Copts are indigenous to Egypt and that their church dates back to the time of Christ makes me wonder what Mr. Browder is referring to when he says “Coptic occupation” at the date of 450.
Coptic Writing from the Tombs of Dayr al-Baḥrī
Perhaps a source of confusion for him is the Roman occupation of Egypt that extended from about 30 BCE until the Arab Muslim conquest of 641 CE. During that period the Copts were oppressed by the Romans, first due to the fact that they were Christians. Then, once the Romans officially embraced Christianity, they oppressed the Coptic Christians again because they did not accept the doctrine set at the Council of Chalcedon of 451 CE. The Copts, who see their version of Christianity and language as a continuation of their ancient religion and language, fled Roman persecution in the north of Egypt and naturally took refuge in the tombs and temples of southern Egypt. They repurposed those temples as monasteries and libraries for their monks and scholars. They added writing and imagery that reflected their current beliefs to some of the temples but did not deface all of them. Or else, we would not know about the ancient writing and imagery today.
It was the Muslims who ended Roman persecution of the Copts with their conquest. There was only a small faction of Arab Muslims who conquered Egypt in the 7th century, so the Muslim majority that you find in Egypt nowadays is largely pulled from Coptic converts as well as a myriad of non-Arab, non-Coptic ethnic groups who settled in the region. While Muslim – Coptic relations were turbulent at times in their history, Coptic Christians still make up about 10% of the population. In the same vein, while neither Muslims or Christians worship at the ancient Egyptian temples, they did not set out to systematically destroy or cover them up, which I will address in the next section.
Mr. Browder’s mischaracterizations of the Copts and their religion speaks to his dearth of knowledge about the full range of Egyptian language and history. Mr. Browder and other Egyptophiles only immerse themselves in a selective part of Egyptian history, to the neglect of other parts. This would not be so bad if only they would remain silent on aspects of history they have no knowledge of. Yet, they continually adopt/concoct spurious versions of subsequent Egyptian history that has no basis in reality.
Rebuttal of #4 The Systematic Burial Pattern
With regards to Mr. Browder’s points about “systematic burial,” this is yet another mischaracterization based on an ignorance of Egyptian history, environment, religion, and sociology. One need only to look at some of the early paintings and photos of ancient Egyptian monuments to find that many of the monuments we know and love today were actually covered in sand after being unused for several hundred years. This is why they required excavations to uncover. I lived in Egypt for several years and I can attest to the fact that if you leave your home for a few days without a thorough dusting, your home can easily succumb to the same fate.
Jokes aside. Obviously, this is not what Mr. Browder means by a “systematic burial.” Rather, he speaks of the Mosque of Abū al-Ḥaggāg (which he misspells as Abu el-Haggar). When I visited Karnak, I too was surprised to find a mosque decorated with hieroglyphs on its walls sitting on top of the temples. I entered and took a tour of the mosque. Unlike Mr. Browder in his 38 years of touring Egypt, I wanted to know the history of the mosque rather than just make my own assumptions.
Prior to becoming a mosque, it was a Coptic basilica and once occupied by a Coptic woman, Therese bint al-Qums. Yūsuf ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn ʿĪsā al-Zāhid, known as Abū al-Ḥajjāj, was a Sufi teacher from Baghdad. He moved to the area teaching Sufism and ultimately attracting most of the inhabitants to Islam (who were predominantly Coptic Christians by then). He acquired a piece of property from Therese, and his son made the basilica into a mosque after the death of his father in 1286 CE.
The mosque speaks to the continuity of socio-religious culture in Luxor rather than “systematic burial.” In fact, nothing is covered up or systematically destroyed. The structure and material is actually preserved by its repurposing. This is nothing new. All over Coptic, Fatimad, Mamluk, and Ayyubid Cairo, one will find mosques, schools, and other structures used from the same materials of structures that once lay in ruins. In contrast to our present sentiments, preservation of unused structures was not always a priority for the people of Egypt. Our current-day obsession with artifacts is partially the result of the European materialist mindset that has been programmed in us, which ties civilization with advancements in technology and buildings. However, for most societies it appears that preservation of culture and traditions takes a higher priority, even after their material wealth and imperial power diminishes and their religion and language change. Although, celebrations like the Mawlid of Abū al-Ḥajjāj (El-Daly, 2005, p. 92) and the planting fenugreek seeds in remembrance of Osiris (El-Daly, 2005, p. 82) retain some pre-Islamic elements, they are largely considered Egyptian cultural holidays.
Misunderstanding these facts and immediately casting suspicions of a cover up of African civilizations makes me question the veracity of Mr. Browder’s conclusions and ability to give a tour based on sound information, not just his personal beliefs. Such a methodology defeats the purpose of in-depth study and traveling in the pursuit of knowledge. As someone who was immersed in Afrocentric thought as a youth, I dared to put my beliefs about ancient Egypt to the test while living and studying there. I believe Mr. Browder can do the same.
Rebuttal to #5 The Compartmentalization Pattern
Mr. Browder’s fifth point is embarrassingly oblivious to how knowledge works and it makes me cringe to have to explain this. Mr. Browder claims that “compartmentalized knowledge” keeps people from seeing the “bigger picture” of how spirituality was embedded into ancient Egyptian structures. First, we call them temples because we imagine they were used for a spiritual purpose. That is obvious to anyone reading about them or seeing images of them. It has only been in recent years that people have begun to theorize that ancient Egyptian structures were built for non-religious reasons like celestial observatories, to mark a king’s legacy, or simply to awe visitors.
Secondly, he may not realize it, but every building and piece of technology we use today is a result of “integrated knowledge systems,” or as academics call it “interdisciplinary knowledge.” Art, philosophy, architecture, and even religion are employed to create the many gadgets, buildings, and objects we use everyday. I will give the example of an apartment building found in an urban or suburban area of the U.S. Every apartment building is a complex integration of architectural design, carpentry, electrical work, plumbing, thermodynamics, and legal codes among other things. Each building has a philosophy – no matter how dumb – about how people should live or want to live. To only look at an apartment as a unified system i.e., as just an apartment building, is to not appreciate its complexity. Therefore, we must argue the opposite of what Mr. Browder is trying to say. The only way to proper appreciate the ancient Egyptian temples is through the various disciplines it took to create them.
Thirdly, I would take issue with his uncritical use of R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz as a source of information on this topic. For one, this is a selective use of European authors. If Mr. Browder, as an Afrocentrist, is going to cite an Egyptologist, he should at least cite someone who is respected in the field. Schwaller was not just a “mathematician” as Mr. Browder would have you believe, he was an occultist and Theosophist, who read his beliefs and theories into what he found in ancient Egypt. While interesting, his work, which was never accepted by other archaeologists, cannot serve as a definitive view on the temples of Luxor.
Rebuttal to “Why Primary Evidence Matters More Than Textbooks”
Finally, this faux pas in logic and scholarship have led him to make the statement:
“You cannot truly understand these patterns until you see the evidence with your own eyes.”
This is actually wrong. Many people think they can travel to Cairo and see all the sites they were shown on videos and in books, not realizing that only the pyramids and the Sphinx are located there. They will need to take another plane ride to Aswan or Luxor in the south of Egypt, and maybe take a ground trip to Abu Simbel and a boat ride down north (since the Nile flows north). This should let us know that a little bit of preliminary research can go a long way.
Mr. Browder’s above-mentioned quote also contradicts the point he was trying to make about “integrated knowledge systems.” It is possible to witness a thing and not understand it. Many of us use smart phones, but have no understanding of haptics or nanotechnology. Unless we have particular knowledge of a discipline it is difficult to appreciate a thing from that perspective.
Conclusion
It will behoove the potential traveler to learn all they can about Egypt (ancient, medieval, and modern) before traveling there. They should travel there with a well-researched an open-mind, rather than stirred by the emotionalism and anti-intellectualism Mr. Browder seeks to lure you with. Americans traveling to Egypt looking for remnants of ancient Egypt is like Egyptians traveling to the U.S. looking for remnants of the Native Americans. You can find what you are looking for if you researched it properly, but it might not be obvious in contemporary society. A lot has happened in America in the last 500 years. This is even more true of Egypt over the last 4000 years.
References
Bernal, Martin, and G. A. Gaballa. Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization. Rutgers University Press, 1987. El-Daly, Okasha. Egyptology: The Missing Millennium, Ancient Egypt in Medieval Arabic Writings. UCL Press, 2005.
Ibn al-Nadīm, Abū al-Faraj Muḥammad ibn Isḥaq. The Fihrist of Al-Nadim: A Tenth Century Survey of Muslim Culture. Translated by Bayard Dodge, vol. 2, Columbia University Press, 1970. Redford, Donald, et al. “East Karnak Excavations, 1987-1989.” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, vol. 28, 1991, pp. 75–106. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/40000573.
al-Suyuti, Jalal al-Din, and Muhammad Abu’l Faḍl Ibrahim. Ḥusn Al-Muḥāḍara Fī Tārīkh Miṣr Wa’l Qāhira. Dār Iḥyā’ al-Kutub al-’Arabīyya, 1968.
If you can control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his action. When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told; and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one.(Woodson, 1933, pp. 84-85)
Ryan Coogler’s Sinners attempts to bite the neck of black consciousness and drive a stake through the heart of whatever is left of it. In a day and age when “wokeness” has been weaponized against the people it was designed to inform, it is surprising to see my people blinded by yet another co-opting of and profiteering from our intellectual heritage. What’s worse is the uncritical nature in which large segments of our community have embraced this co-opting and appropriation. This is undoubtedly due to our continued miseducation and psychological entrapment that somehow we have grown to love.
The greater issue at hand is that the so-called conscious ones among us are some of the most miseducated. They have “suspended their disbelief” in American popular culture and media, the true religion of America, and have drunk the proverbial kool aid and are now sacrificing their moral integrity at the alter of the cinemas. Over the years, I have witnessed our people take events and symbols in movies as educational tools. While there is no doubt that Netflix, movie theaters, podcasts, and YouTube have replaced our once literate culture, they still do not realize how much facts and symbols can be distorted to fit someone else’s agenda. Despite the outdated themes addressed in Sinners, which has allowed it to be heralded as a beacon of wokeness, its themes appear carefully curated for domesticated Blacks. In this post, I will criticize the film for its promotion of three concepts that are leading to the death of black consciousness: 1) Black Hedonism, 2) Afro-Fetishism, and 3) Domestication.
Black Hedonism
A major aspect of the American racism project is to portray people of African descent as immoral and governed by their passions. Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone With the Wind, writes in the 1930s of African Americans who took part of the Great Migration:
…the former field hands found themselves suddenly elevated to the seats of the mighty. There they conducted themselves as creatures of small intelligence might naturally be expected to do. Like monkeys or small children turned loose among treasured objects whose value is beyond their comprehension, they ran wild–either from perverse pleasure in destruction or simply because of their ignorance. (Mitchell, 1936, p. 1249)
Sinners reinforces this stereotype. It portrays the Smoke-Stack twins as protagonists and heroes despite their link with the criminal underbelly of 1920s- 30s Chicago. According to the film’s backstory, they survived a brutal and treacherous life in the city to return to their hometown in Mississippi, home of the blues, and start a business, a juke joint, the early 20th century equivalent to a club. Much of the film’s rising action centers on their preparation and advertising for this club. In one scene, one of the twins shoots his friend in the buttocks unknowingly for rummaging through his truck. He then coldly shoots the man’s young accomplice in the legs. What is the point of this? Is black consciousness now promoting wanton black on black violence?
A common pretext of lynchings historically has been the ease with which official channels (law enforcement, media, etc.) can shape public opinion to believe that any black person who is accused of committing a crime must be guilty because black people are somehow predisposed to illegal and immoral behavior. Instead of opposing this construct by showing how European dominance is illegal and immoral in a universal sense, the writers of Sinners have embraced the hedonistic image of black people. This image makes crime, addiction, lack of sexual discipline, and violence a natural part of black culture. Not only have they accepted this image for their own generation, but have projected this image on generations past. This is not to say that there was no black underworld or social ills, but it is not representative of all black culture but for some reason it is repeatedly highlighted in American media.
An adulterous affair between Mary and Stack.
Sinners also promotes loose sexual behavior that is not even justified by secular culture. The fact that both Mary and Pearline are married to other men but are entertaining Stack and Sammie respectively as love interests promotes adulterous behavior that has historically destroyed our communities. The animosity and broken homes that result from adultery is debilitating to any type of black unity or solidarity. Even princes of Pan-Afrikanism, conscious kings, and champions of Black women like Dr. Umar Johnson and Brother Polight lose all credibility due to their lack of sexual discipline. Yet the same people blame religion for the problems of the Black community, when in actuality the average church, mosque, and temple only warns us of the dangers of self-destructive behavior. In actuality, people don’t have a problem with religion. They have a problem with self-control. They have a problem with accountability. They have a problem with systematic learning. And most of all they have a problem with discipline.
Additionally, the rhetoric of some pro-Black spiritualists that “religion” was forced on black people needs to stop. They have not yet received the memo that: “We is free now” and black people have been choosing their religion freely in the U.S. for over a century. When they say “religion” they usually mean Christianity, but extend this to mean Islam as well. Their logic is that Christianity was forced on enslaved Africans in the Americas. Enslaved Africans in America are Africans and Christianity is a religion. Therefore, all religions were forced on all Africans. The analogy is so weak that even a child can see the gaping hole in it. Just because Europeans forced Christianity on some Africans in the past does not mean that Christianity and other religions that Africans happen to follow was forced on them and will be perpetually in the future. Also, now that African Americans are no longer enslaved, whatever religion they choose to practice is of their own free will, be it Christianity, Islam, or Yoruba.
Our treatment of Christianity with regards to African populations must be studied in context, whether in Africa or in the Americas. Christianity in the context of colonial Nigeria was liberating in some regards. Conversion to Christianity gave rural Nigerians access to skills and resources that they could use to gain upward mobility and compete with more urbanized Nigerians. However, in the Americas conversion to Christianity did not accompany such perks. In Catholic controlled colonies, conversion was mandatory. And although Africans were baptized en masse, they received little to no religious instruction. So there is no wonder why the African expressions of Catholicism are folk and syncretic in nature.
In Protestant controlled colonies, African conversion to Christianity was treated with caution. On the one hand, the initial justification for the slavery of Africans was the fact that they were not Christians. Once they embraced Christianity their servitude should have been void but it was not. For this clear hypocrisy, Protestants feared the conversion of enslaved Africans and they tried unsuccessfully to emphasize verses encouraging submission to their human masters rather than the powerful narrative of Moses leading his people out of bondage (Curry, 1997, pp. 24-26). This fact is corroborated by Carter G. Woodson in his Education of the Negro. In the early 19th century, religious education for enslaved Africans was equivalent to training them for insurrection.
The push against organized religion in popular American culture is more of an emotional response to perceptions of religious institutions than an intellectual one. Most have never bothered to read widely and deeply on the histories of religions and it shows. Religious institutions have historically been one of our strongest institutions because they have brought people of like minds together, served as a base for exchanging ideas, and offered charitable services. Institutions, religious, political, financial, educational, or social, are means to power, influence, and freedom. Instead of strengthening our religious institutions, which we still retain some control over, black hedonists have worked to weaken these institutions in favor of fragmented and individualistic Afro-fetishism.
Afro-Fetishism
Afro-fetishism has risen in prominence since the inception of Afrocentrism. It is the tendency of African Americans to romanticize things they consider to be authentic African culture. In Sinners it manifests itself with the romanticism of southern root doctors, conjuring spirits, and the conflation of entertainment (music and dance) with spirituality. In reality, there is no one thing called “African spirituality.” Simply put, “spirituality” is a European concept developed primarily by Theosophists and occultists, which seeks to separate spirituality from religion. It represents one of the modern iterations of the so-called European Enlightenment, which promotes a Eurocentric view of religion and religious history; a history not experienced by most of the people of Africa.
Every religious system has a spiritual aim. “Religion” – as Afro-fetishists might call it – is the exoteric outer core that houses the esoteric inner core or “spirituality.” The doctrines, rules, rites, and rituals of religion must be upheld for people to achieve their spiritual goals. The morality, meanings, and heart-felt connection is cultivated through religious discipline. Both are necessary, otherwise, confusion and delusion prevails.
We witness this in Sinners and in real life. For instance, Smoke rightfully questions Annie’s Hoodoo practices, which she believes protected Smoke and Stack as they led a life of crime in Chicago. Yet, these same practices were not sufficient to thwart the death of Smoke and Annie’s baby daughter. Although, her herbs and concoctions helped her defend the non-dead at the juke box against the dead, we should remember that vampires are fantasy. Not only that, but potions and fetishes often tied to “African spirituality” are powerless against the spells of “niggerdom” and white supremacy.
The fact that their daughter passed away also poses an interesting question to those who venerate the ancestors. Is their daughter an ancestor because she passed away before her parents or is she still their “descendant?” Moreover, many of the people who talk about conjuring the spirits of the ancestors also speak about inter-generational curses and barely get along with their living family members. Why are they calling on the same people who caused the curse? Why do they want to build/continue relationships with the dead rather than the living? Are they not inviting vampires in their home?
Furthermore, every individual has an exponential number of ancestors, represented by the following equation: x=2n. This means that after three generations, a person has eight grandparents; after four generations, a person has sixteen grandparents, and so on. Once a person goes back ten generations, for instance, they have over a thousand grandparents. That is a lot of ancestors to make shrines to. Hardly anyone can remember the names of all of them let alone find pictures or memorabilia for them.
When people claim communion with the ancestors, how do they determine which ones to commune with? And if the ancestors speak to them, how do they know the person speaking from beyond the grave is not an imposter? The truth is that while it is essential to honor one’s ancestors by not speaking ill of them, speaking their names for as long as possible, and fulfilling any of their good endeavors, they are in more need of us than we are of them. Their lives are over and their affair is with their Creator. It is on us to live our lives, honor, and speak to our loved ones while they are still alive instead of seeking out mystical ways of communicating with them after they are gone.
While I understand the need of our people to connect with their roots, which were severed from us during our oppression in the western hemisphere, African Americans have the tendency to perform these so-called connections in a very superficial way that is more indicative of their Americanness than any real connection with actual Africans. Furthermore, much Afro-fetishism is based on marketing and consumerism. Things like red black and green flags, ankh jewelry, and incense are mainstays of an Afrocentric esthetic but are not items indigenous to Africa or are staples of any contemporary African culture. Yet, someone has convinced us through strategic marketing to pay top dollar for these things. From tours of ancient Egyptian temples to pathways towards citizenship for African Americans, even people from the continent have thought of ways to market to the emotional sentiments of African Americans because at the end of the day we are just consumers with US dollars.
Annie prepares potions of protection and healing through her knowledge of Hoodoo.
Domestication
Finally, Sinners speaks to the domestication of black consciousness. Domesticated black consciousness can only be militant about safe topics related to racial bigotry, cultural autonomy, and other corny topics that get black people riled up but will never spark a revolutionary consciousness or affect real change. The film is set in the 1930s and features a lot of details and covert commentary on that era but misses several opportunities to draw parallels and commentary to current events. However, as the famous Mozart quote goes: “The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.”
While the film attempts to highlight complex racial dynamics from the 1930s such as colorism, European ethnic dynamics, Asian immigration, labor inequality, etc., it is completely silent on actual movements of Black people from that era to improve their political and social conditions. No attention is given to the influence of Marcus Garvey from the 1920s and the Communist movement of the 1930s. Garvey instilled pride in blackness and self-determining industriousness that had nothing to do with organized crime. Still intelligence agencies identified Garvey as an existential threat to the American order who would lead a Bolshevik-style revolution among African Americans. As perhaps the first target of J. Edgar Hoover’s terror campaign, Garvey became a victim of a government set up, which led to his imprisonment and deportation. In an odd, yet correct move, President Biden pardoned Garvey fully and unconditionally as one of his last acts as president. Nevertheless, a movie supposedly made for Black people of conscious did not even hint at the power the Garvey movement had on African American communities as well as its parallels to the current political climate.
Another footnote of history that Sinners neglected is the fact that Communism had spread across Black America. Inspired by the 1917 Soviet revolution but not controlled by it, many African Americans were attracted to Communism and Socialism during the period the film is set in. The likes of Shirley Graham Du Bois, W.E.B. Du Bois, Benjamin Davis Jr., and Paul Robeson had adopted the ideals of the revolutionary left. This was because of the all-too-familiar trap of the two-party system: the Democrats, who were then the preferred party of the Ku Klux Klan and segregationists, and the Republicans, the party to whom most African Americans were loyal because it was the party of president Abraham Lincoln, who supposedly “freed the slaves.” At that historical moment, with the onset of economic depression, the white Republicans’ growing disinterest in the black community, and the Democrats’ deconstruction of the Reconstruction in the form of Jim Crow segregation laws left very few viable political alternatives for African Americans. There is a lesson there for people who reflect on our current situation as America teeters on yet another great depression, the Democrats’ obsession with only symbolic progress for blacks, and the Trump-led Republicans reversal of some our domestic victories in the form of Civil Rights.
While the Communist Party may not be the most viable direction now, where are the black conscious thinkers, artists, and filmmakers to groom the next generations of Martin Luther Kings, Malcolm X’s, and Shirley Chisholms? Who are the people who will use their platforms to organize around the African Union Symposium of 2025 in which reparations for the African diaspora will be a key issue? Who will educate the masses about conflicts in the Congo and Sudan? Who will meet with forward-thinking African leaders like Ibrahim Traore, Assimi Goïta, and Julius Malema on our behalf? Sinners has looked deeply into the “safe” aspects of African American history like the Great Migration, the Blues, and even lives of ethnic groups like the Chinese, Irish, and Native Americans in rural Mississippi, but cannot find the bandwidth to dig into the aspects of black history that will make us reflect on and correct our current conditions.
Carter G. Woodson is probably rolling in his grave to find that his book the Miseducation of the Negro still applies almost word for word to 21st century Negroes. Coogler and the cast of Sinners has effectively carved out a back door for African Americans to re-enter into American society. This is a door in which we only seek validation from a pat on the head for our musical and athletic prowess. This is a door in which we can only move forward in society if we wait until someone lets us by. This is a door in which we literally stay in our places and have no global scope for our economic future. We are only content with ratchet and hustle culture.
As black social media applauds the symbolism in the film Sinners and the many social issues it raises, corporate America has yet again blindsided them by ignoring, if not suppressing, many latent histories and current events. However, as the last visages of black consciousness, we must reject hedonism and embrace discipline in all aspects of our lives. We must reject Afro-fetishism and the shallow consumerist mindset that is meant to derail us from our true purpose. And we must reject the domestication of our purpose, which will keep us from thinking globally and connecting our ideas from the past to benefit our future. As the sun rises in the west, I hope the vampires of black consciousness are laid to rest and we can resurrect our consciousness for the generations to come.
Suggested Readings:
Curry, Mary Cuthrell. Making the Gods in New York: The Yoruba Religion in the African American Community. Studies in African American History and Culture. New York: Garland Pub., 1997.
Horne, Gerald. Black Liberation/Red Scare: Ben Davis and the Communist Party. Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1994.
———. Race Woman: The Lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois. New York: New York University Press, 2000.
Mitchell, Margaret. Gone With the Wind. New York: MacMillan Company, 1936.
Woodson, Carter G. The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 A History Of The Education Of The Colored People Of The United States From The Beginning Of Slavery To The Civil War. Project Gutenberg, 1919.
Woodson, Carter Godwin. The Mis-Education of the Negro. Khalifah’s Booksellers & Associates, 1933.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a dedicated freedom fighter; who lived and died in the pursuit of the liberation of the so-called African American. As time passes, generations have less of a connection with what he truly represented even as studies on his life and legacy become more nuanced. I would hope that our communities can see MLK for who he really was and how we can build upon his work rather than the caricatures of him that have originated both in and outside of African American communities. I hope that we can move beyond King “the Uncle Tom,” King “the Pacifist,” King “the Charlatan,” and the latest, King “the Hotep.” These caricatures of MLK serve no purpose but to distract people from the hard work of continuing his legacy. In this post, I will briefly summarize MLK’s writing on the Mystery Schools and Christianity, for which some members of the Conscious community take as proof of his “consciousness.” I will then dismiss their claims and speak to the reality of MLK’s intellectual legacy.
MLK on the Mysteries
At the tinder age of 20 or 21, a young MLK, half way through his graduate seminary degree, wrote a paper titled “The Influence of the Mystery Religions on Christianity.” In this piece, the young Dr. King is making the argument that a number of mystery cults of the Greek and Roman world influenced aspects of Christian thought. While this term paper is not an exhaustive listing of these influences he puts forth five cults in which he has identified influence: 1) Cybele and Attis, 2) Adonis, 3) Osiris and Isis, 4) Eleusis, and 5) Mithras. In the Cybele and Attis myth along with the Osiris and Isis myth from Egypt he sees congruences in the idea of the virgin mother and savior son, and the trinity. In the Eleusis myth he equates the spring celebration of a new life with the modern Christian Easter celebration of Christ’s rising from the dead and promise of salvation. And in Mithraism he finds several similarities regarding Sunday as the holy day, celebrating the birth on December 25, the practice of baptism, the concept of a convert being reborn, the struggle and ultimate triumph of good over evil, the belief in a mediator between God and man, among other things. He also mentions that Paul was raised in Tarsus, one of the centers of Mithraism, and insinuates that these beliefs found their way into the teachings of Paul.
Furthermore, the astute reader may notice an accute contradiction in this paper. In his introduction MLK appears to state that there is a direct relationship between the beliefs and practices of the Mystery religions and Christianity. See the following two statements:
“This triumph [over the Mystery religions] may be attributed in part to the fact that Christianity took from its opponents their own weapons, and used them: the better elements of the mystery religions were transferred to the new religion.”
“It is inevitable when a new religion comes to exist side by side with a group of religions, from which it is continually detaching members, introducing them into its own midst with the practices of their original religions impressed upon their minds, that this new religion should tend to assimilate with the assimilation of their members, some of the elements of these existing religions.”
Yet, elsewhere in his paper he is careful not to characterize this influence as a deliberate affectation, as he states in the conclusion: “it was generally a natural and unconscious process rather than a deliberate plan of action.“ This view is undoubtedly shared (or enforced) by his professor, who commented:
“It is not so much that Christianity was influenced by the Mystery Cults, or borrowed from them, but that in the long process of history this religion developed. It, Christianity, is the expression of the longing of people for light, truth, salvation, security.”
While MLK was not the first or the last to make these claims, it is particularly odd to find that he wrote them. After all, he was from a family of Baptist clergymen and was himself a Baptist minister. This sparks many questions about MLK’s motives to write such a paper or how this knowledge carried over into his leadership of the African American community.
MLK and the Black Conscious Community
While many may be surprised that MLK ever wrote about the Mystery Schools, this idea has circulated through some Black Consciousness circles. Yet, they pay little attention to the full scope of his paper and only focus on what he had to say about the ancient Egyptian Mysteries (i.e., the Osiris and Isis myth). Their point is to make MLK a closeted “hotep,” or at least a Christian who viewed his Christianity as a syncretic veil of this ancient African spirituality. They might even cite the fact that he did not do a lot of calling to the Christian faith nor did he preach much about common themes found in a church such as salvation through the blood of Jesus, the Holy Ghost, sin, and the like. Not only are the Conscious characterizations of MLK far-fetched, but they are based on an extremely selective reading of a term paper MLK wrote for a course when he was 21 years old! Indeed, other influential Black intellectuals wrote more extensively about ancient Egypt like WEB DuBois, Carter G. Woodson, William Leo Hansberry, etc. So why the hoopla about MLK?
Conscious characterizations also ignore other potential influences in his life such as membership in the Greek-letter fraternity Sigma Pi Phi (the Boulè), the pervading ideas of Theosophy and perennialism, as well as Freemasonry, who all had a history of introducing Americans to concepts similar to MLK’s topic in this paper. Despite any criticisms the Black Conscious community might have of these groups, it is possible that MLK imbibed information about the Mysteries from one of these channels.
It is also possible that he is only responding to academic questions of his time. Jan Bremmer mentions that scholars in the early 20th century were enthralled with the question: to what extent did the Mysteries influence Christianity? She credits Isaac Casaubon (1559–1614), a medieval philologist, with starting this line of questioning (although unnamed scholars prior to him also held this view). Casaubon’s works were later revived in the 20th century by Dame Frances Yates (1899–1981) and Fritz Graf (1922-2017). These issues would be debated by the likes of Austrian Theosophist Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), German Egyptologist Eduard Meyer (1855-1930), and English religious scholar Arthur Darby Nock (1902-1963) (Bremmer, 2014, pp. 142-148). George G.M. James also published his pivotal Afrocentric work, “Stolen Legacy” in 1954. So MLK was not doing anything special in the broader scope of things.
MLK’s Perennial Legacy
Perhaps, what I find to be more interesting from this paper are the two questions he ends with:
The staggering question that now arises is, what will be the next stage of man’s religious progress? Is Christianity the crowning achievement in the development of religious thought or will there be another religion more advanced?
He hints to an acceptance of evolutionary perennialism. He appears to ask: with the advancement of mankind, will there also be an advancement in religious thought beyond Christianity? Of course, a Muslim would answer in the affirmative and claim this advancement for Islam. Regardless of the answer, he does not seem to be calling to a regression in religious thought that will take us back to the ancient Egyptian religion and ancestor worship.
It should come as no surprise that one of Black America’s most prodigious leaders should be astute on certain details of history. The great Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was known for his leadership in the Civil Rights Movement and his commitment to non-violent direct political action, but before that he qualified himself by engaging with the salient ideas of his time. Furthermore, it was confirmed in the early 1990s that he had plagiarized parts of his doctoral dissertation at Boston University, so his legacy as a scholar is tarnished. However, MLK is not known for his scholarship or teaching, but for his oratory, activism, and leadership and that should be the criteria by which we judge his legacy.
References
Bremmer, Jan N. Initiation into the Mysteries of the Ancient World. Münchner Vorlesungen Zu Antiken Welten 1. Boston: De Gruyter, 2014.
Garrow, David J. “King’s Plagiarism: Imitation, Insecurity, and Transformation.” The Journal of American History 78, no. 1 (1991): 86–92. https://doi.org/10.2307/2078086.
There’s this thing where ethics aren’t what they used to be. This idea that people are trying to replace the ideas of good and bad with better or worse… and that is incorrect. You gotta keep your ethics intact because good and bad is a compass that helps you find the way. And a person that only does what’s better or worse is the easiest type of person to control. They are a mouse in a maze that just finds the cheese. But the one who knows about good and bad will realize that he’s in a maze.
I have paid close attention to every presidential election since the beginning of my adult life. Without fail, the debate ensues around voting for the lesser of two evils in many progressive circles. This is in lieu of any viable progressive rivals, who the American people are told are “unelectable,” a status that is reinforced by state-level interventions to keep them off the ballots. While the decision to vote for a softer, friendlier (usually Democratic) candidate seems to make sense in the moment, this reactionary strategy has only emboldened those candidates to become more evil and take the progressive (especially African American) vote for granted. Yet, the question remains: “at what point will we stop voting for evil?” While comedian Dave Chappelle’s words from 2017 may seem prophetic to some, the ideology of the lesser of two evils has been rejected by Ḥanīfs of ancient times, not the least of which appears in the story of Hārūt and Mārūt.
Hārūt and Mārūt
According to Imam Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī in his book on angelology Al-Ḥabā’ik fī Akhbār al-Malā’ik, Hārūt and Mārūt are first alluded to in the Qur’an in al-Baqarah: 30 where we first encounter a conversation between God and the angels concerning the creation of mankind:
˹Remember˺ when your Lord said to the angels, “I am going to place a successive ˹human˺ authority on earth.” They asked ˹Allah˺, “Will You place in it someone who will spread corruption there and shed blood while we glorify Your praises and proclaim Your holiness?” Allah responded, “I know what you do not know.”
The Clear Qur’an translation
The second allusion to Hārūt and Mārūt appears later in the sūrah in verse 102 concerning the false accusations of Prophet Solomon practicing magic. Hārūt and Mārūt warned people about practicing magic and taught people how to differentiate between miracles and magic.
18th century Ottoman representation of Hārūt and Mārūt courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
“The Lesser Evil”: An Angelic Refutation
The backstory to these angels offers us some wisdom about the dangers of “the lesser evil” ideology. According to tradition, Hārūt and Mārūt were sent to earth where they ruled during the time of the Prophet Idrīs or Enoch. They were given the appetite and desires of people (shahwah) in order to test if they, who had once lived as angels, would behave differently when faced with the same temptations of normal men. Their story is as follows:
And it was said to them: ‘Choose from amongst you the two best angels and I will give the two of them a task; and I will prohibit the two of them [from doing certain things].’ And they chose Hārūt and Mārūt. So the two of them were sent down to Earth and the desires of the sons of Adam were aroused in them. [God] ordered the two that they should serve Him and not associate anything with Him. He banned them from killing prohibited individuals, from eating prohibited foods and from fornicating, stealing and drinking wine. The two remained on the Earth for a time ruling the people with justice. This was during the time of Enoch. And at that time there was a woman, who was the most beautiful woman, just as the beauty of Venus is amongst the rest of the stars. The two of them came to her, spoke softly to her, and wanted her on her own; but she refused unless the two took her orders and her faith. So the two asked her about her faith and she brought out to them an idol and said: ‘This is what I worship.’ And the two said: ‘There is no need for us to worship this.’ So they went and stayed away for a while. Then the two came to her and they wanted her on her own and she said as she had said before, so they went away. Then they came to her [again] and they wanted her on her own, and when she saw that they refused to worship the idol, she said to the two of them: ‘Choose one of three faults: worshiping this idol, killing this person, or drinking wine.’ And the two said: ‘None of these are right, but the least contemptible of the three is drinking the wine.’ So they drank the wine. [The wine] was taken from them both and they fornicated with the woman. The two then feared that the person would reveal what they had done, so they killed him. When the drunkenness lifted from them and they realised what sin they had done, they wanted to go up to heaven; but they could not, as it had been made inaccessible to them. And the cover that was between the two of them and between the people of heaven was lifted up, and the angels looked down at what had come to pass. They wondered with great wonder and they came to understand that whoever is hidden [from God], is the one with less fear. After that they began to ask for forgiveness for whoever was on the earth.
It was said to the two of them: ‘Choose between the punishment of this world and the punishment of the next.’ The two said: ‘As for the punishment of this world, it will come to an end and it will pass. As for the pain of the Angels and theology next world, it will not come to an end.’ So they chose the punishment of this world. The two stayed in Babylon and they were punished.
(Burge and Suyūṭī, 2012, pp. 94-95)
In this story, Hārūt and Mārūt were tricked into committing greater evil by doing what they perceived as a lesser evil. In reality, the lesser evil was simply a gateway into more evil. It was presented as a thing that would satisfy their immediate desire for drink and sustenance; something that is permissible under normal circumstances. However, compromising their principles by the seemingly innocent act of drinking the wine led to intoxication which led to committing fornication which led to murder. How many a prisoner sits in his cell pondering a similar scenario?
Conclusion
This story was intended to refute the Sabian position that gave favor to angels over men. It demonstrates that humans have favor because in order to avoid sin they must overcome their desires, while angels simply do not sin because they do not have such desires. However, there is also wisdom in this story for the average American voter who are forced to choose between duplicitous politicians of either the Democratic or Republican party. Politicians from the local to federal levels insist on doing the bidding of narcissistic, unethical, and devilish entities instead of the will of citizens who entrust them with their money and power. In choosing to stick with the status quo of Democratic and Republican party leadership we have taken that intoxicating sip that has put us on the path of destruction.
The 2024 elections have been a dirty game given the Republicans’ assassination shenanigans and the Democrats’ shiesty switcheroo. Both Democrats and Republicans have shown to be abetters of genocide and endless war, with blatant corruption among their ranks as witnessed in cases of Dem. Bob Menendez, Dem. George Norcross, Rep. George Santos, not to mention Trump himself. We at the Maurchives advocate for justice and non-violent, creative, and – dare I say – revolutionary solutions to human problems. Therefore, it is with the revolutionary spirit that we endorse Jill Stein’s presidential bid on the Green Party ticket.
Dr. Jill Stein and Butch Ware (Green Party Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates)
References
Burge, S. R., and Suyūṭī. Angels in Islam: Jalal al-Din al-Suyuṭī’s al-Ḥabāʼik Fī Akhbār al-Malāʼik. Routledge, 2012.
On Monday, April 8, 2024 eyes were on the skies in North America. Day turned to night in the path of totality extending from Mazatlan, Mexico to Elliston, Nova Scotia in Canada. As the Moon and Sun danced in the shadows of the sky some awaited a cataclysm while others cherished the spiritual moment. As the temperature dropped and the day drew dim, there descended a strange serenity that interrupted our usually busy weekday afternoons. The conscious Ḥanīf was most likely bowing in extended moments in prayer, while the Sabian probably pondered the ill omen behind the event.
Ancient religion was always tied to celestial phenomena. First, we know that in the ancient Egyptian religion, ṣ-b-3 meant star and words derived from it signified religious teachings. Its cognate in Semitic languages like Hebrew, Aramaic, and Hebrew would have similar connotations (Sayyār, 2020). The Egyptians based much of their religious beliefs and holidays on what they knew of the stars. Likewise, the Mysteries were made up of two levels, the Lesser Mysteries and the Greater Mysteries. The Lesser Mysteries were known for studying terrestrial phenomena, while the Greater Mysteries were known for studying celestial phenomena. To most historians of religion, the ancients ignorantly followed superstitious beliefs about natural phenomena and deified features and creatures of nature. But our studies of Sabianism and the Mystery Schools afford us a much more nuanced view.
Sabians intently studied the stars to understand what the angels or spirits were trying to tell them about the past, present, and future state of the world and those in it. This included predicting the weather, fortune-telling, creating calendars, creating talismans, studying the properties of elements, etc. There was no distinction made between astronomy and astrology. Nowadays, only the former is accepted as an empirical science while the latter is considered a pseudoscience; although it remains a fixture in the popular psyche. It is important to note how this came to be.
In ancient Rome, the term Chaldean was equivalent to astronomer and they were credited with inventing the gnomon device, which is a triangular blade that casts shadows on a sundial used to tell time (Thompson, 1929, p. 39). Bayard Dodge also states that the term Chaldean meant astrologer and notes that it was associated with people who were known as Sabians who claimed Hermes and the Philosophers as their teachers (Ibn al-Nadīm, 1970, pp. 745-746). For most of the history of the world, religion, philosophy, and astronomy were closely associated.
Their rationale was as the Central Asian polymath, Muhammad al-Shahrastānī stated in the 12th century (Shahrastānī and Muhammad, 1992, 354-359):
They began with a belief in a singular transcendent deity, who they later saw as unconcerned with creation.
They believed that spirits, which we know as angels, governed worldly phenomena such as planets, stars, moon, etc. Due to their active role in our lives and their proximity to the Creator, they are worthy of worship and can relay the benedictions of humans to the Creator.
They then adopted the belief that they should worship something tangible and that the planets, stars, and so on were the bodies of those spirits.
Then they adopted the belief that the heavenly bodies cannot always be seen, so they made shrines on Earth that aligned with certain astronomical significance and put in them idols and other images to represent the celestial bodies of worship.
The Ḥanīf criticism of the Sabians was not their study of the heavens, but the theology, mythology, and dangerous practices they constructed around it, such as human sacrifice and violent orgies. These criticisms are apparent were we to examine the life of Abraham (Ibrāhīm), the quintessential Ḥanīf and prime Sabian/Chaldean antagonist. The story of Abraham and the near sacrifice of his son serves on a prohibition of human sacrifice. While it is said that Abraham supplicated against his people causing them to all die after witnessing them in an orgy (Ṭāwus, 1949, p. 25).
We also find in his narrative a clear polemic against astral worship in his disputes with his people (Al-Anʿām: 74-79). As I explained in Islam and the Ancient Mysteries Vol. 1, when Abraham was shown the truth behind the celestial realm he exclaimed “this is my lord!” However, this did not mean that he was deifying the stars, moon, and sun. No prophet is guilty of such polytheistic behavior. Rather, Abraham, in a moment of awe, made the elliptical statement as if to say, “this is the handiwork of my lord” or “this is the magnificence of my lord.”
Total Solar Eclipse from Carbondale, IL (image courtesy of NASA)
Astrology in Islam
Within the Islamic tradition, astrology is largely disproved of, with very few dispensations. The Prophet Muhammad is reported as saying the following concerning eclipses, after it was said that a solar eclipse occurred due to the death of his son, Ibrāhīm:
The sun and the moon are two signs amongst the signs of Allah; they do not eclipse on the death or life of anyone. So when you see the eclipse, remember Allah and say “Allah is the greatest,” pray and give charity.
The Prophet Muhammad is also reported as saying: “If the stars are mentioned then be silent.” and “Learn of the stars as much as you are guided with in the land and sea, then stop at that.” (Shahrastānī and Muhammad, 1992, 350) The Prophet Muhammad is also recorded as prohibiting the study of the stars to predict the future and engage in other occult practices. One hadith reads:
The Messenger of Allah (may peace and blessings be upon him) led the morning prayer at Hudaybiya. There were some marks of the rainfall during the night. At the conclusion of prayer he turned towards people and observed: Do you know what your Lord has said? They replied: Allah and His Messenger know best. Upon this he (the Holy Prophet) remarked: He (Allah) said: Some of My bondsmen entered the morning as My believers and some as unbelievers. He who said: We have had a rainfall due to the Blessing and Mercy of Allah, he is My believer and a disbeliever of stars, and who said: We have had a rainfall due to the rising of such and such (star) disbelieved Me and affirmed his faith in the stars.
Despite the seemingly clear prohibition of such practices, Muslims studied and practiced astrology throughout much of their history. Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq was reported to be knowledgeable of astrology and said that Imam ʿAli ibn Abī Ṭalib was also very knowledgeable of it. Even mainstream Sunni scholars like Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Ibn Qutaybah, and Ṣāʿid al-Andalusī have produced books on astrology and related sciences. Imam Jaʿfar gave permission to the Āli Nawbakht family to practice it, who were employed by the Abbasids. The Ottomans were also known to use astrology to predict the outcomes of battles.
Al-Maqqarī notes that astrology, although taboo, certain Andalusian scholars knew it well, but did not broadcast this out of fear from the masses. If a scholar was known to speak or practice astrology. he would be labeled an atheist (zindīq) and possibly burned to death by a mob before the issue reaches the sultan. If the issue reaches the sultan, then the scholar must be executed in order to appease the people regardless of the facts. Usually, the sultan only ordered that their books be burned (Maqqarī, 1968, p. 221). Ṭāwūs reported that an astrologer was about to be crucified when he was asked “Did you see this in your stars?” He said “I saw an elevation, but I didn’t know it was above wood.” (Ṭāwus, 1949, p. 192)
There are a number of rationale as to why astrology is prohibited from an Islamic viewpoint. One is that predicting the future with the stars is opposed to the guidance and predictive aspects of prophethood. If one could accurately predict events using the stars then they would not be in need of prophetic guidance or prophesy.
Astrology: A Decisive View
The grey area in the religious rulings lies in the empirical elements of the study of the stars. Ibn Rushd, the grandfather, states in his Al-Bayān wa al-Taḥṣīl that calculating the time of an eclipse, telling the weather, or measuring the placement of the stars are not claims to knowing the unseen. However, publicizing this knowledge is blameworthy because it does not concern everybody, especially simpletons without discernment (Ibn Rushd al-Jadd and Hajji, 1974, p. 345). vol 9
Other scholars have taken the position that calculating the astronomical phenomena is a communal obligation (farḍ kifāyah) and forecasting is analogous to a doctor’s prognosis. Studying the stars is only prohibited when the practitioner makes a claim to know the unseen and if their practice is associated with magic, fortune-telling, and the like (Kuwait Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, 1988, pp. 52-54).
One scholar deduced the prohibition to three reasons (Kuwait Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, 1988, p. 54):
Negative psychological associations with the appearance of certain constellations, even if they have no meaning.
Although the Prophet Idrīs was gifted with the miracle of predicting events by the stars, in current times it amounts to conjecture because it is not a precise science.
Astrology is useless. Even if one can know the future, there is nothing they can do to change it.
Likewise, in the modern day, astronomer Andrew Fraknoi wrote an article titled “Your Astrology Defense Kit,” in which he examines 10 questions that pick at the veracity of astrology (Fraknoi, 1989):
Question
Summary
What is the likelihood that one-twelfth of the world’s population?
Challenges the probability aspect of astrology
Why is the moment of birth, rather than conception, crucial for astrology?
Questions the timing of events and the accuracy of astrological predictions
If the mother’s womb can keep out astrological influence until birth?
Compares astrological influence to a hypothetical situation involving a pregnant mother
If astrologers are as good as they claim, why aren’t they richer?
Raises doubt about the validity of astrological predictions based on the financial success of astrologers
Are all horoscopes done before the discovery of the two outermost planets?
Implies that the discovery of new celestial bodies should have affected astrological practices, questioning the accuracy of previous horoscopes
Shouldn’t we condemn astrology as a form of bigotry?
Suggests that astrology may have cultural implications and questionable validity
Why do different schools of astrology disagree so strongly with each other?
Challenges the scholarly differences and variations within the field of astrology
If the astrological influence is carried by a known force, why do the planets dominate?
Questions the dominance of planets in astrological influences if the force behind astrology is known
If astrological influence is carried by an unknown force, why is it independent of distance?
Raises doubt about the independence of astrological influences from distance, including a critique of the force behind astrology
If astrological influences don’t depend on distance, why is there no astrology of stars, galaxies, and quasars?
Questions the absence of astrology relating to other celestial bodies, challenging the universal applicability of astrological influences based on the distance of celestial bodies
These questions challenge the astrologer’s probability, timing of events, accuracy, validity, cultural implications, its scholarly differences, and the fact that it has not advanced due to new astronomical discoveries. In other words, astrology is a pseudo-science that does not meet the standards of empirical study.
There is no doubt that our fascination with celestial phenomena will endure as it has endured until now. The 2024 eclipse was nestled closely to other strange and cataclysmic phenomena: an earthquake in the Northeast United States, talk of sacrificing red heifers in Israel, a genocide in Gaza, and an initiation of attacks in the greater Near East. Yet our “faith” in the stars should be tempered by the Ḥanīf approach, which accepts the study of astronomy (the outward science), while reserving our doubt for astronomy (the inward science) that was lost and eclipsed with our knowledge of the prophets.
References
Fraknoi, Andrew. “Your Astrology Defense Kit.” Sky and Telescope, vol. 78, Aug. 1989, p. 146.
Grant, Robert M. Augustus to Constantine: The Rise and Triumph of Christianity in the Roman World. 1st ed., Westminster John Knox Press, 2004.
Ibn Rushd al-Jadd, Abū Walīd Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad, and Muhammad Hajji. Al-Bayān Wa’l-Taḥṣīl Wa’l-Sharḥ Wa’l-Tawjīh Wa’l-Ta’līl Fī Wasā’il al-Mustakhrija. Dār al-Maghrib al-Islāmī, 1974.
Kuwait Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs. Al-Mawsūʿah al-Fiqhīyyah. 2nd ed., Kuwait Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, 1988.
Maqqarī, Aḥmad al-. Nafḥ Al-Ṭīb Min Ghuṣn al-Andalus al-Raṭīb. Edited by Iḥsān ’Abbās, Dār Ṣādir, 1968.
Sayyār, Nadīm al-. Laysū Āliha Wa Lākin Malā’ika. 2020.
Shahrastānī, Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm al-, and Ahmad Fahmi Muhammad. Al-Milal Wa al-Niḥal. 2nd ed., Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīyyah, 1992.
There are a multitude of scholarly opinions in the tradition of Islam about a number of matters: who were the Ṣābi’ūn, what is the nature of prophecy, and what are the parameters of Sufism? Unfortunately, Kemetian Adept’s depiction of these are not represented in this scholarly tradition. In this post, I will not only demonstrate that his ideas have no merit, but I will show that he is clearly not qualified to speak on these topics.
Sabianism
Abdullah Samak presents seven opinions on the meaning of the word Ṣābi’. I will enumerate them in brief below:
It is an Arabic word meaning to exit, convert, change, or switch religions.
It is an Arabic word meaning to incline, detract, or long for (usually associated with young children).
It is of Aramaic origin meaning to be submerged in water, bathe, purify, or baptize.
It is of Hebrew origin meaning to cover in water.
It is derived from the Hebrew word Ṣabāwūth, meaning warriors of the sky (i.e., the stars).
It is derived from the names of two people mentioned in history: 1) Ṣābī the son of Methusaleh and 2) Ṣābī ibn Mārī, a contemporary of Abraham.
It is related to the Yemeni city of Saba (Sheba) mentioned in the Qur’an, but this is an obvious mistake in Arabic because the words have two different etymologies (س rather than ص).
In one video, Kemetian admits that he and his brand of MST are Moors are Sabians, but it is obvious that he does not understand the implications of this claim. He attempts to provide his own interpretation of al-Baqarah: 62. He clumsily reads through the Arabic and comes to the word “Ṣābi’īn.” He starts to pontificate on his interpretation of the verse. He accuses “the Arab” of going against the meaning of this verse. Again, he makes another straw man argument, insinuating that Arab Muslims tell Christians that they are going to hell for what they believe in. While some individuals might have done this, it has never been the manner of Muslims (Arab or otherwise) to condemn Christians to hell.
The meaning of the al-Baqarah: 62 is that those amongst those who claim to be Jews, Christians, and Sabians who believe in God according to the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, believe in the Last Day (as opposed to the eternity of the universe), and work deeds of righteousness they should not worry about the future nor should they grieve about their past. This is the traditional understanding of the verse. It is not a confirmation of all the beliefs of the above-mentioned classifications.
While insisting that “our ancestors” were the Sabians, not only does he reveal his lack of understanding of who the Sabians were, but also his lack of knowledge of the Arabic language. He corresponds the Ṣābi’īn mentioned in al-Baqarah: 62 with the people of Saba’ for which the 34th chapter of the Qur’an is named. This is a layman’s mistake, as mentioned by Samak. Although the two words look similar in English, they have two different roots in Arabic. He mischaracterizes the chapter Saba’ from the Qur’an, claiming that it gives a history of the Sabian people and how they went astray. This is not accurate. The Qur’an is not a history book and only scantly touches on the history of Saba’, who we know as the people of Sheba. Furthermore, if the Qur’an is describing how the Sabians went astray by being ungrateful, this would contradict his understanding of al-Baqarah: 62, which he claims validates the beliefs of all different religions.
He also claims that Sheba (Saba’) is where the word Shabazz comes from. This is yet another linguistic slip up. For one, its usage can be attributed to Fard Muhammad in the 120 Lessons in the early 20th century. However, its etymology is not known. We can say that it is most likely from the Persian shah baz, falcon king, but we cannot definitively claim its origin without solid historical evidence. Kemetian’s attempt to draw some connection between Sheba and Shabazz is pure speculation.
Prophecy
Kemetian attempts to use al-Naḥl: 89 to dispute the notion that the Prophet Muhammad was the last of the prophets. He claims that this verse alludes to God sending a prophet to every people from among themselves. In his teaching, a prophet is “a thought of Allah made manifest in the flesh,” a definition that has no basis in the Qur’an.
While his reading of the verse and its accompanying diatribe sounds as if he has definitively contradicted the orthodox view of Islam, he parades his fallacy in front of us as he fumbles through a reading of the word shahīd. No where in the verse is the word nabī (prophet) or rasūl (messenger) mentioned. A shahīd is not a prophet, but a prophet can be a shahīd. The explanation of the verse lies in knowing other verses from the Qur’an. For instance, al-Baqarah: 143states: As such, We have made you a just ummah (religion/nation/epoch) in order to be witnesses over people, and the Messenger (Muhammad, not Drew Ali) is a witness over you…
Muhammad al-Qurṭubī, a true Moorish scholar of Islam who died in 1273, stated that the meaning of the verse was on that day (i.e., the Day of Judgment), God will bring forth in every ummah a witness from among themselves; they are the prophets who testify (i.e., bare witness) that they have conveyed the message from God to their respective ummahs and called them to faith. In every time there is a witness even if there is no prophet.
In other places in the Qur’an, God explains the people upon whom His grace is bestowed, as is repeated by Muslims in their reading of al-Fātiḥah. They are: al-nabīyyīn, al-ṣiddiqīn, al-shuhadā’, and al-ṣāliḥīn as explicated in al-Nisā: 69. These are clearly separate levels of people who will receive God’s grace. According to the exegete ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Saʿdī, everyone who obeys Allah and His messenger according to his state and measure of what is incumbent upon him – whether male or female, young or old – those are the people that God will bestow His greatest blessings upon. This blessing brings the highest level of perfection, success, and felicity.
The prophets are those who Allah has favored with revelation to call people to faith in God (not Kemetian’s made up definition). The affirmers of truth are those who affirmed what the prophet has taught with certainty and acted upon that truth with everything they had. The witnesses or martyrs are those who have fought to raise the word of God and died in the process. The righteous are those whose inner states are purified and matches their outward behavior. All of these people will be granted the company of each other in paradise.
The verse was revealed to console the deep-rooted longing of Muhammad’s disciples to dwell with him eternally in paradise, which is a level of love and spirituality that the likes of Kemetian cannot comprehend because his understanding of Islam is too shallow. A true Muslim can connect to the Prophet Muhammad by following his Sunnah and through remembrance. Many Muslims see him in dreams and in an awakened state and continue to receive guidance and blessings from him to this day.
With regards to taṣawwuf, it is clear that Kemetian has no conception of it. Rather, he follows the footsteps of many Western Orientalists who deemed taṣawwuf as an Islamic form of “mysticism” and the pursuit of paranormal phenomena. This was the opinion of European Orientalists Henri Bergson and Reynold Nicholson. Rene Guenon, however, challenged them on the ground that mysticism is a Western concept equivalent to heresy, magic, occultism, which only leads to confusion and distraction from the true path of esoteric knowledge (i.e., taṣawwuf).
On the topic of Dhū al-Nūn, Kemetian contends that he was not Muslim and supposedly practiced ancient Egyptian mysticism which he inherited from Tahuti. In turn, he uses these baseless claims to assert that taṣawwuf is not Islam. I happened to write a paper for graduate school refuting this Orientalist view of mysticism, who attempted to change Dhū al-Nūn from a pious Muslim ascetic to a syncretic mystic. Nicholson characterized Dhū al-Nūn as a mystic, moving a sofa with his thoughts, which caused spectators to die out of astonishment. Yet I found none of this in his earliest biographical sources: Ṭabaqāt al-Ṣūfīyya by Abū ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Sullamī (d. 412/1021), Ḥilyat al-Awliyāʾ wa Ṭabaqāt al-Aṣfiyāʾ by Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī (d. 430/1039), and al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā al-Musammā Lawāqiḥ al-Anwār al-Qudusīyya fī Manāqib al-‘Ulamā wa’l-Sūfīyya by ‘Abd al-Wahhāb al- Sha’rānī (d. 973/1565).
From these works we can ascertain that Dhū al-Nūn was clearly an Islamic scholar who is listed in the chains of hadith narrators along with Mālik ibn Anas, Layth ibn Sa’d, and Sufyān ibn ‘Uyayna, a science Kemetian rejects. Al-Sullamī confirmed that he was a Nubian from Akhmīm, a city in the Sohag state of Upper Egypt. This is a site of ancient Egyptian temples, but the biographers do not relate much information about his background. They only relate that he his teachings as a true Sufi. He emphasized divine love (maḥabba), humility (tawāḍu’), repentance (tawba), sincerity (ikhlās), solitude (waḥda), and truthfulness (ṣidq). Furthermore, he stressed that people not make claims to gnosis (maʿrifa), which is a trope of Sabian groups who believe they have some secret knowledge that is not attainable by all people.
Al-Sha’rānī relates Dhū al-Nūn’s encounter with the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil, which demonstrates his brand of Sufism. After being accused of heresy, he was marched to Baghdad in chains. On the way, an old woman advised him not to be in awe of the caliph nor to look down on him or argue his case. Dhū al-Nūn thus avoided responding to the accusations. When asked why he did not answer, he said that if he denied the claims he would have made liars of Muslims, and if he confirmed them, then he would have lied about himself. So he left the decision up to the caliph. Upon hearing this al-Mutawakkil declared him innocent.
There was nothing “mystical” about Dhū al-Nūn’s Sufism and there is nothing to suggest that he secretly practiced ancient Egyptian mysticism. His earliest biographers reported about his loyalty to Islam and Sufism and did not report instances of telekinesis and other paranormal activity. Therefore, how can a 20th century European writer with no ties to Sufism bring a new report about him? It is clear that Kemetian is citing the European tradition of mysticism and not the African tradition of Sufism with regards to Dhū al-Nūn.
The ability to create YouTube channels and gain recognition from less informed people has emboldened people to share half-baked theories and misinformation on the web. No qualifications or prior experience needed. It is noble the Mr. Kemetian is compiling information and pondering these topics, but his level of knowledge is premature and lacks the proper orientation. His information is faulty because he is not qualified to speak on much of what he claims to know. Experts can easily recognize other experts and he is surely not one of them. This is just a warning: although internet Sabians may seem smart and dazzling, it is important to supplement one’s understanding with actual source materials on the given topic and consult with experts. Or else you will be deceived into the crooked path of modern Sabianism.
References:
Guenon, Rene. Perspectives on Initiation. Edited by Samuel D. Fohr, Translated by Henry D. Fohr, Sophia Perennis, 1946.
Guenon, Rene. The Crisis of the Modern World. Translated by Marco Pallis et al., Sophia Perennis, 1946.
We at the Maurchives normally refrain from commenting on the personal shortcomings of our interlocutors in our critiques, with aims at maintaining the intellectual integrity of our positions. However, the recent revelations of the so-called black conscious influencer known as “Brother Polight” (Michael Noak Jr.) has ignited passions and outrage from within the black community. Given the sordid nature of the crime – taking sexual liberties with the daughter of a mistress among other things – and as a survivor of abuse, I take his despicable acts personal and denounce him for them. I am admittedly disgusted, angry, and disappointed with the so-called conscious community, but I am not surprised.
Contrary to popular belief, Polight is not “sick,” “crazy,” or “mentally ill.” His public profile over the years has suggested that he is a very intelligent, deliberate, and charming individual who can sway the hearts and minds of people with his words. Unfortunately, the criminal acts that he pled guilty to are the modus operandi for modern-day Sabians whose only pursuits are the trinkets of the sensory world. Given what we know of his character, we can only assume that he knew what he was doing, but what escapes most people’s grasp is why. Why would a grown man, who was seemingly on top of the world, who possessed fame, health, wealth, and women… why would he risk all of that for an act that if people found out about it would leave him penniless, isolated, incarcerated, and despised by people? Well the answer is clear if we peer into the history of the Sabians and their misuse of the occult sciences. In this post, I will shed some light on what could have been behind his dark acts.
Mugshots of Michael Noak Jr. (aka “Brother Polight”) and Dwight York (aka Malachi York).
Occult Sacrifice: A Brief History
Polight, like numerous other 20th century occultists, called to Sabianism as a seemingly enlightened spirituality that only served to disguise their magic and sorcery. From Charles Leadbeater and Aleister Crowley to the indecencies of Elijah Muhammad, Malachi York, and Jim Jones, spiritualist (Sabian) leaders have been accused of sex acts that traditionalists (Ḥanīfs) find repugnant. In Polight’s case, he almost killed the child he was accused of molesting by forcing on her drugs and alcohol. This act is strangely reminiscent of the rituals that brought down the Ancient Mystery Schools.
The practice of sexual orgies and human sacrifice were some of the practices that led to the decline of the Mysteries. Even prior to the spread of Christianity, the Roman government would crack down on the rites of the Baccchanalia Mysteries for their violent sexual orgies. Emperors Augustus and Claudius put stringent limitations on the Druid Mysteries of England and Gaul who used to practice human sacrifice (Grant, 2004, page 17-19).
The British Egyptologist, Margaret A. Murray described in her book, The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, the four different types sacrifices among practitioners of Witchcraft, who claimed to inherit the ancient Mysteries of Western Europe. Murray states that these sacrifices were: 1) blood sacrifices, 2) animal sacrifices, 3) child sacrifices, and 4) god sacrifices. Blood sacrifices entailed shedding a prick of blood for initiations and signing contracts (Murray, 2008, p. 152). Animal sacrifices including killing animals such as dogs, cats and fowls for the purpose of manifesting Satan (p. 154). Child sacrifices were used to obtain magical powers. They promise the Devil or their jinn an offering at a particular time to acquire these powers. They often use unbaptized children, those from irreligious homes, or their own children, usually poisoning them or sometimes by more brutal means (p. 158). God sacrifices were conducted to manifest the power of a certain Wiccan deity such as a fertility god. In ancient times, the ritual entailed a human being assuming the identity of the deity or allowing himself to be possessed it and then allowing himself to be killed, usually by fire. The ashes would then be collected and used in various other rituals. The Christians later banned this practice and took to replacing the human being with an animal or, in secret, an infant (p. 160-162).
In the Ḥanīf tradition, God shows Abraham a vision in which he is to sacrifice his son. The Judaic tradition believes this son to be Isaac while the Islamic tradition believes him to be Ishmael. Both Abraham and his son agree to the sacrifice and are prepared to carry it out for the sake of God. However, at the last moment God retracts the command and enjoins them to sacrifice a ram instead. Judaic commentaries insist this that this was not a pagan practice gone awry, but an injuction to categorically prohibit human and child sacrifices (Greenberg, 2011, p. 195).
On top of that, the Qur’an has already warned us about this end. Anyone calling to the worship of anything beside the true and living God, is an idolator. Idolators do not worship other gods per se, since there are no other gods. In actuality, they worship jinn, who seek to be worshiped as gods. These jinn promise them the fortune, fame, pleasures, and power that they seek, but demand that they perform disgusting and evil acts as devotion to them. These acts usually involve violating children, whether it’s rape, mutilation, or murder.
Similarly, their associate-gods have made the killing of their children seem fair to many mushriks (idolators), so that they may ruin them and may confuse their faith for them. Had Allah so willed, they would not have done that. So, leave them alone with what they fabricate.
Mufti taqi Usmani translation
When Polight would make his asinine comments about Islam many Muslims left him alone to his devices. The only “Muslims” who would engage him were those Moors, NOI, and Ahmadiyas whose doctrines would not allow them to defend the true Islamic tradition. The average listener was impressed by his diatribes because they never heard certain vocabulary words strung together. However, intelligent people knew that he had mastered the art of hypnotism, talking in circles at a loud volume in the style of his teacher, the convicted serial pedophile and high priest of the modern African American Sabians Malachi York, but much of what he said lacked substance and was never backed up by facts. His strategy was to interrogate the beliefs of others without being interrogated on his own beliefs. In the end, he called to the worship of “the black woman” and money. But the light has shown on the true depravity of his beliefs.
References
Grant, Robert M. Augustus to Constantine: The Rise and Triumph of Christianity in the Roman World. 1st ed, Westminster John Knox Press, 2004.
Greenberg, Irving. The Jewish Way. Touchstone, 2011.
Murray, Margaret Alice. The Witch-Cult in Western Europe. Forgotten Books, 2008.
Ishmael Reed’s 1972 Afrofuturist novel, Mumbo Jumbo, is a classic and masterful literary work. However, behind the words on its pages lies a modern Sabian polemic and interpretatio afro-americana. The novel is set in a pandemic-era 1920’s America. The disease was a Vodoun-inspired, dance and free-love hysteria called “Jes Grew” that primarily infected African Americans, who needed to be quarantined if they succumb to the disease. It is obvious that Reed aligns with this behavior and sees it as the true means to liberation, while he directs his sharpest criticism to the “Atonists,” monotheists who follow a traditional religion but are secretly controlled by a Freemasonic cabal called the Wallflower Order. In other words, he believes that Traditionalists/Hanifs are close-minded prudes who oppose the essential elements of humanity.
Such a perspective is not new. The dialectic between Sabian/Spiritualists and Hanif/Traditionalists has been at the heart of metaphysical debates since the inception of religious history. Perhaps the fact that he was on of the first to articulate this concept in an African American context is his greatest feat and few, if any, have discussed this aspect of his book. In this post, I will examine Ishmael Reed’s novel in light of what we know of Sabianism. We will uncover his Sabian polemics, counter-narratives, and his vision for Black liberation.
Sabian Polemic
Mumbo Jumbo represents a modern-day Sabian polemic against the Hanifs of our times, or as he refers to them, the Atonists. Throughout the novel, Reed characterizes the Atonists as anti-nature, anti-fun, authoritarians who have made the world a terrible place to live by enforcing laws, making people work, and limiting freedom. They thrive on paranoia and a sense of control over people’s actions as demonstrated by his pairing the malevolent Wallflower Order with monotheism and the righteous virus known as Jes Grew with polytheism and liberation.
Reed constantly mocks Christian and Muslim sentiments throughout the novel. In Reed’s world, they are on the side of the Wallflower Order who oppress those they consider heretics and apostates. There is a Muslim character by the name Abdul Sufi Hamid (an allusion to Abdul Hamid Sufi, the Harlemite convert to Islam and labor leader who died in 1938) who had possession of an ancient Egyptian text that held the secret wisdom of the Black man. He is part of the Black resistance along with Papa LaBas (a Vodoun priest and the book’s protagonist) and Black Herman (a medicine man). However, because Abdul is Muslim he is incapacitated by his “Atonist” belief that the people infected by the Jes Grew “Epidemic” are just primitive, superstitious heathens. He does not identify with them because he is an arbiter of people’s tastes and clings to a belief that Muslims are superior to pagans. In one instance, he belittles the epidemic by claiming it’s “a lot of people twisting they butts and getting happy. Old, primitive, superstitious jungle ways. Allah is the way. Allah be praised.”
In a dialogue in which Abdul attempts to distance himself from Christianity, Papa LaBas goes on a diatribe stating that Islam derived from Christianity. He repeats the theories of Orientalists who believe that Muhammad wanted to impress Christians with his knowledge of the Bible. He goes on to say that both Christianity and Islam find women to be evil and acknowledge the same angels like Gabriel and prophets like Abraham, Isaac, and Moses. Then he says that they both condemn the Jews because of the “pantheistic contingent” among them. Here he points out that the Jews are God’s chosen people and yet there are Sabians among them who do not deny the worship of other gods. Black Herman brings up the fact that the “Koran” has been accused of lacking chronology and Muhammad of being ambiguous and inaccurate with regards to the identity of Miriam, Moses’ sister, and Mary, the mother of Jesus. Abdul has no response but a scripted intolerant retort telling them not to criticize his religion. “Atonists Christians and Muslims don’t tolerate those who refuse to accept their modes,” he claims. Abdul is said to have “picked up the old Plymouth Rock bug and [is] calling it Mecca.” LaBas says that the images in the temples of ancient Egypt were so explicit that other nations burned them and called it obscene and pornographic.
While these extensive dialogues feature between the plot of the novel, they tell us a lot about the position of the author and the debates that existed in the Black community at the time of the book’s publishing. Reed skillfully brings the ancient Sabian polemic to 20th century Black urban America, a population situated for such influences. As Sabian movements with Islamic overtones like the Nation of Islam and Moorish Science Temple directed people from Christianity with their harsh critiques of the religion, their orientation to their roots, and programs for Black liberation, the Afrocentrists went one step further by calling Black people to reject the monotheistic Hanif paths all together and to join them in their polytheistic Sabian paths. This coupled with the Free Love Movement of the 60’s made Sabian-inspired ideas particularly attractive during that era.
Sabianism as Liberation
It is clear that Reed’s idea of Black liberation is a syncretic hedonism linked to jazz music and diasporic African cultures, a position taken by many Black cultural nationalists of the 60’s and 70’s. As early as 1962, Oseijeman Adefunmi (formerly Serge King), founder of the Yoruba Temple in Harlem, articulated a sentiment aimed to critique Islam’s austerity: “The African, being supremely creative and cosmopolitan, will eventually revolt against a culture which debars plastic sculpture and other traditionally African expressions such as dancing, syncopated singing, smoking and drinking.”
Moreover, Adefunmi challenged Islam’s efficacy in protesting White supremacy. He believed, as Reed insinuates, that Islam and Muslims detests the same things the White power structure hates about Africans: its pantheon of gods, dancing, and drumming. As such, Islam is not sufficiently African and is thus, more tolerated by White supremacists. The Islam of enslaved African Muslims, he contends, vanished because it was not authentically African, as opposed to other African spiritual and cultural elements that survived slavery. Of course, Adefunmi brings up the East African slave trade as another reason as to why Blacks should reject Islam. (Adefunmi, Oseijeman. Tribal Origins of African-Americans. New Oyo [Harlem]:Yoruba Temple, 1962, 1, cited in Knight, 2020, p. 33).
In my estimation, the things to which Afrocentric Sabians are calling are not a means to liberation but they are the means to bondage both physically and spiritually. Did the Europeans not trade alcohol for slaves? Did this addiction not lead certain tribes to fight others and sell them into slavery? Does sexual promiscuity not lead to broken families and disease; the exact things that destroy our communities in the U.S.? Were African people not singing and dancing before, during, and after slavery? If so, what difference does it make if they choose not to now? While it is natural for people to enjoy themselves (according to their personal tastes, which might or might not include singing and dancing), fun is not a sole means to ending oppression and other social ills.
Moreover, practicing a tribal religion did not protect Africans from capture and enslavement any more than practicing Islam or Christianity. At least Islamic law regulates the trade and treatment of slaves and prohibits slavery on the basis of race. The Mamluks of medieval Egypt were not Africans but Eastern Europeans and Central Asians. Likewise, the African Tippu Tib played a major role in the East African slave trade just as much as the Ibāḍī sultans from southern Arabia.
What is more, African Muslims played just as much a role in fighting the European slave trade as their participation in it. In fact, more Africans (including those who practice traditional religions) participated in the slave trade than Europeans. The Europeans that traded in slaves were a minority of rich and opportunistic royalty and businessmen. The peasants of Western Europe were not part of this.
Counternarratives and Interpretatio Afro-americana
Even deeper than than their challenge against a single Abrahamic religion is the neo-Sabian tendency to create counter-narratives to what we know of the scriptures. Starting in Chapter 52, Reed recounts a history of religious figures that has no basis in tradition or scripture. Rather, it is a myth (i.e. false story) that serves the purpose of undermining people’s beliefs about the prophets and their works.
In Reed’s myth, Osiris is the hero and hip prophetic personality who spread knowledge of agriculture, music, and most importantly dance. He was an Egyptian prince who studied at a university in the Arabian town of Nysa. He typified the Jes Grew infection discussed previously in the novel. Osiris even ventured to Teotihuacán and Olmeca in South America to spread his knowledge.
The first villain was Set, who opposed his brother, Osiris. Set was obsessed with war, hated nature and agriculture, and had an egotistical jealousy of Osiris. Plus the fact that Osiris married their sister, Isis, further intensified Set’s hatred. Reed writes of Set in the following words:
He went down as the 1st man to shut nature out of himself. He called it discipline. He is also the deity of the modern clerk, always tabulating, and perhaps invented taxes.
The next villain was Akhenaton, the devotee to Aton, from which the Atonists in the novel take their name. The Egyptians rejected his creed of monotheism and killed him.
Next in his succession of villains is Moses, the adopted son of a Pharaoh and initiate of the Osirian Mysteries. He sought leadership in the order by tricking Jethro, a genuine follower of Osiris, into teaching him the secret tunes that he inherited from Osiris as well as the Book of Thoth acquired from a conjured vision of Isis. Yet, his plan did not work. Moses only attained from it the aggressive and violent magic, which made the people mock and hate him. As a result, he loathed the book and hid it in a tabernacle.
The next villains were the Knights Templar, a Christian Atonist group modeled after the rogue Ismāʿīlī Assassins. A librarian for the Knights Templar named Hinckle Von Vampton found the copy of the Book of Thoth in their library. As the Knights Templar were being executed throughout Europe for worshiping the “Black god Baphomet,” Hinckle escaped with the book and lived for hundreds of years. He eventually ended up in the U.S., where the Wildflower Order, created by the Atonists, aimed to find him and the book in order to put an end to the Jes Grew pandemic, which evoked fun and benevolent magic.
These counter-narratives are reminiscent of the Mandaean (Sabian) narratives about Noah, Moses, Abraham, and Jesus. As we know, rejection of the prophets or a selection of them is a common trait of Sabianism. Beyond their simple rejection of the Hanif prophets is the Sabian proclivity to invert prophetic narratives to demean them and champion their beliefs. This inversion lies at the heart of the Sabian/Hanif divide and is at the heart of many religious conflicts as alluded to in the novel. I would even argue that this is why non-canonical texts like the Book of Enoch and the Nag Hammadi were rejected from inclusion in the Bible by some religious denominations. These books’ presentations of the prophets align too much with the counter-narratives of the Sabians. As the Hanifs sought to subdue the slander, turmoil, and licentiousness of the Sabians and prevailed, the Sabian response was to operate secretly and to foment doubt and rebellion from behind the scenes. The Afrocentrist, with his worship of ancient Kemet and infatuation with traditional African religions has succumb to the Jes Grew disease, and it has stunted their intellectual and spiritual growth as liberators for the Black community because they focus their efforts against the Hanifs among them. This mantle was picked up by Ishmael Reed in his novel. Though it will go down in history as a post-modern literary masterpiece it will forever be cast in the heap of Sabian mumbo jumbo.
References
Adefunmi, Oseijeman. Tribal Origins of African-Americans. New Oyo [Harlem]:Yoruba Temple, 1962
Knight, Michael Muhammad. Metaphysical Africa: Truth and Blackness in the Ansaru Allah Community. Pen State University Press, 2020.
Reed, Ishmael. Mumbo Jumbo: A Novel. Ebook. New York: Open Road Integrated Media, 1972.
It should go without saying that Egypt is not America. After all, they are two different places on two different continents. However, in the world of Wikipedia research, YouTube scholarship, and gullible social media disciples, this is one of the many theories that has been circulating that has no merit. While much of the current media hoopla about Ye and Kyrie Irving is indirectly a critique of the Hebrew Israelite claim that Africans in the Americas are the true Jews (yet another colonialist construct), they and their Moorish counterparts also promote a more extremely bogus theory: that ancient Egypt was in America.
Uriah Brandon*, in his YouTube series, America is Egypt, argues that there is a massive conspiracy to conceal the fact that the civilization, knowledge, and artifacts – attributed to the ancient African civilization Egypt – actually belonged to ancient Native Americans. What is more is that these ancient Native Americans were in actuality the so-called African Americans. The series raises a number of questions, to which Mr. Brandon attempts to answer with his America is Egypt theory. In Episode 4, he queries:
Shouldn’t the Egyptians aka Arabs have known about Egyptian history before the Europeans? So all of these ancient grandiose monuments sit abandoned in the desert in the middle of a trade highway between three continents and they were never studied or surveyed by the Arab population who had been living in the region for at least a thousand years?! How is it possible that supposed native Egyptians knew nothing about Egyptian culture or language until the invasion of the French? The Rosetta Stone and the pyramids had been there for thousands of years, yet the same people accredited with the some of the world’s most advanced knowledge hadn’t even cared to take a peak at a pyramid wall?
One of the foundational premises of his theory rests on the claim that Egyptians had no conceptualization, recollection or academic interest in their ancient past. This feeds into his conclusion that the Egyptian monuments and artifacts and even its historicity was concocted by European Jesuits and Freemasons. Mr. Brandon expounds upon this premise in Part 4 of his series, which I will demonstrate in this post is spurious.
Medieval Egyptology
Mr. Brandon did a good job of recounting the problematic origins of the Egyptology field and is right to question colonial scholarship on the ancient world, which is wrapped up in racialized and racist views of people and clear white supremacist motives. His deconstructions of race and language are also meritorious. However, he, like many Hebrew Israelites, Afrocentrists, Moors, and New Agers, suffer from the ailment of not reading widely enough, a lack of scholarly rigor, and debilitating confirmation bias.
Mr. Brandon exposes his ignorance of Egypt in his statement about Egyptians not bothering to look at the pyramids. Anyone who has been to the Pyramids of Giza knows that there are no hieroglyphic inscriptions on them or the Sphinx that sits in their vicinity. One will have to venture (by plane) to the southern part of Egypt to the city of Luxor to find hieroglyphic inscriptions on the walls of their temples and burial sites. On top of that, even the most ignorant Egyptian tour guide will point out that Coptic Christians used these temples and tombs as monasteries and hiding places from the Byzantines (i.e. Romans) who sought to impose their theology on the Egyptian Coptics.
Mr. Brandon might be surprised to learn that not only was there continuity between ancient Egypt and medieval Egypt, but aspects of ancient Egyptian culture, language, and religious beliefs were retained and studied over the medieval period… in Arabic. Although the study of Egypt since the Islamic expansion to the region is an under-researched topic in English, there was a genre of writings in the Arabic language on ancient Egypt from the likes of Abu Al-ʿAbbās al-Maqrīzī, Jamāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, Ibn Khaldūn, and more. Many of these sources are cited in the book Egyptology: The Missing Millennium, Ancient Egypt in Medieval Arabic Writings by Ukasha El-Daly. I recently met the author at a talk he gave at the American Research Center in Egypt on Oct. 12, 2022. Although his research aims at correcting the Western academic narrative on the topic, he also answers the very questions Mr. Brandon poses concerning the Egyptians’ own knowledge of their ancient heritage.
Mr. Brandon embraces the same conclusions as the European Orientalists who believe that only they took an interest in unlocking the secrets of ancient Egypt. They carry the attitude that a people’s adoption of Christianity or Islam automatically makes them religious bigots incapable of not only studying but remembering their ancient past. Yet El-Daly shows both empirically and anecdotally that this was not the case. Rather it was European and American Egyptologists who ignored all indigenous writings on ancient Egypt between the 7th and 16th centuries even though they were aware of them. El-Daly asserts that:
“The main reason was the desire of early Western Egyptologists and others to keep Egyptians out of Egyptology by discouraging them from participation and study, thus leading to their marginalisation and to inevitable Western dominance of the subject” (El-Daly, 2005, p. 4).
We know that early European Egyptologists were not oblivious to the works of the Arabs, Muslims, and Copts with regards to ancient Egypt. El-Daly points out that the British Orientalist, Joseph von Hammer, published an English translation of the 10th century scholar Ibn Waḥshīya’s** deciphering of ancient scripts along with its original Arabic. Others like Athanasius Kircher (17th century) and Wallis Budge (19th/20th century) were indebted to medieval Muslim and Coptic scholarship on the Demotic, Hieratic and Hieroglyphic.*** (El-Daly, 2005, pp. 57-58)
Chapter 5 of El-Daly’s book is titled, “Medieval Arab attempts to decipher ancient Egyptian scripts.” In this chapter, he documents Arab and Muslim attempts at deciphering the hieroglyphics. He says the first of them to take an interest in deciphering the scripts of the ancient Egyptians was the mid-7th century scholar Jābir ibn Ḥayān. Other Arab and Muslim scholars who wrote on the topic include Ayūb Ibn Maslama (9th century), Dhū al-Nūn al-Miṣrī (9th century), Ibn Waḥshīya (9th/10th centuries), and Abū al-Qāsim (El-Daly, 2005, p. 67).
El-Daly’s work introduces the English reader to a myriad of medieval writings in Arabic not the least of which is Anwār ʻUlwīyy al-Ajrām fī al-Kashf ʻan Asrār al-Ahrām by the 13th century scholar of Moroccan descent, Muhammad al-Idrīsī. It provides insights into the nature of medieval Arabic Egyptology. For instance, throughout the book it only mentions the presence of two pyramids. This is not because the others were built later, but because they were covered in sand and only the two largest ones were visible.
During al-Idrīsī’s time, there were a number of theories in circulation about who built the pyramids and for what purpose. One theory was that it was built by thirty consecutive kings of Egypt starting with Bayṣar, the son of Ḥām, and was used as a food repository during the time of Prophet Yūsuf. Some believed that Aristotle had the two pyramids built for himself and Alexander of Macedonia. (Idrīsī and Haarmann, 1991, p. 89). Some thought they were built by the people of ʿĀd, a race of giants from Arabia (Idrīsī and Haarmann, 1991, p. 99). Others believed that the pyramids and the other monuments, statues, and structures (known as barbā) were built by Enoch (Prophet Idrīs) to preserve the world’s knowledge in preparation of the great cataclysm that was foreseen in the stars. They were not sure if the cataclysm would be in the form of a flood, fire, or invasion. Therefore, they build the structures out of stone and clay so that if the cataclysm was a flood, the stone would remain. If it was by fire then the clay would remain. And if it was by the sword, then everything would remain (Idrīsī and Haarmann, 1991, p. 94). Al-Idrīsī concluded that this latter theory was the most plausible and that the people of the Nile Valley collectively agreed to build these structures for the sake of mankind, showing that they did not believe that the pyramids were built with Israelite slave labor far before Western scholars came to this realization.
The linguistic terrain in Egypt was also complicated by the presence of a plethora of groups and languages in the region in late antiquity prior to Islamic hegemony. This linguistic diversity is best represented in the Genizah documents that were found in Old Cairo’s Ben Ezra Synagogue. In this collection of legal, religious, and mundane papyri documents, One can find Hebrew written in Arabic and Coptic scripts, Arabic written in Hebrew and Coptic scripts, Coptic written in Arabic and Hebrew scripts, as well as Persian and Ethiopic languages. This shows that Egypt was a linguistically plural society since the 6th century. So there is no wonder how lesser used, esoteric ancient languages can die out in such an environment.
In terms of continuity, Coptic is not just a sect of Christianity, but the cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and some would argue, the religious continuation of ancient Egypt. First, the word Egypt is derived from the word Copt, which is pronounced gipṭ. This is perhaps an adaptation of Qifṭ, the son of Miṣr, who was a grandson of Prophet Noah according to al-Masʿūdī (El-Daly, 2005, p. 21). Muslim historians from other lands often sat at the feet of Coptic monks to learn about ancient Egypt. Al-Idrīsī relates the anecdote of a non-Arab expert on Egyptology who used to collect ancient Egyptian texts. He found a mummy and a scroll in the monastery of Abū Hermes, but did not recognize the script. Believing it to be an ancient form of Coptic, he sought out a monk at the monastery of al-Qalamūn in Fayyum who could read it (Idrīsī and Haarmann, 1991, p. 100). This shows that the religious scholars among the Copts continued to retain knowledge of their ancient past at the time of Islamic expansion and Muslim scholars came to learn from them. This further demonstrates that neither the advent of Christianity or Islam eroded this knowledge and clearly they had a concept of ancient Egypt.
Mr. Brandon and those who believe that America is Egypt need not jump to far-fetched conclusions to explain anomalies in history, such as the lack of archaeological evidence for an Israelite presence in Egypt and the Levant. Indeed, there is a burgeoning school of thought that challenges classical Biblical scholarship on this matter. In 1985, Kamal Salibi, a Lebanese scholar of Christian background, published his controversial book, The Bible Came From Arabia. In light of the lack of physical evidence in the Levant and Egypt for an Israelite presence, he hypothesized that the events occurred further south. He laid a map of the Biblical place names over a map of current-day places in Arabia and was able to observe a correspondence.
Later, Salibi’s research was developed by the likes of Bernard Leeman in his Queen of Sheba and Biblical Scholarship, Dana Reynolds-Marniche’s The African and Arabian Origins of the Hebrew Bible: An Ethnohistorical Study, and the works of Fāḍil al-Rabīʿī. While I will admit that their work is inconclusive because the necessary archaeological excavations cannot be done at present due to conflict in the region, their hypothesis has some basis in logic and pre-modern texts such as al-Shahrastānī who believed that Jews, Christians, and Pagans in pre-Islamic Arabia were not ethnically distinct peoples, but rather their differences were theological (Shahrastānī and Muhammad, 1992, p. 227-228). Mandaean scriptures also corroborate a common Semitic genealogy among Jews, Christians, Mandaeans, and Egyptians and highlight the theological dichotomy between Sabians (represented by Mandaeans, Egyptians, Harranians, and the like) and Hanifs (Jews, Christians, and other followers of Abraham) (Samak, 1995, p. 38-39).
One might notice that Leeman is of European descent but was raised in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, Reynolds-Marniche is an African American raised as a Theosophist and contributed a chapter to Ivan van Sertima’s Golden Age of the Moor, and al-Rabīʿī is an Iraqi leftist thinker and historian. Each author is from a different region and a different linguistic and educational background, which allows them to bring different expertise and perspectives to the topic. As such, scholarship is not a conspiracy, they are submitting their works to the scholarly community for review and criticism in order to arrive at a consensus.
Conclusion
It is possible for knowledge to be forgotten if the ones that possess it do not transmit it orally or in the written word. What most modern Sabian groups do not understand is that the nature of teaching in the ancient world was such that one had to have contact with a teacher or at least be taught how to read certain texts in order to acquire knowledge. This student-to-teacher transmission kept the links of knowledge alive. In times of war, disease, famine, and social upheaval the concerns of people turn away from knowledge acquisition to the issues of the time. So the number of people who devote their time to study and teaching diminishes and sometimes they die without transmitting certain knowledge. Thus, not ever omission of knowledge is a conspiracy or cover up. But perhaps the die-hard skeptical conspiracy theorist will dismiss the facts and references I posited here as well, wrapping me and the authors I cited into another layer of their elaborate conspiracy theory. But before they do, I will present this question to them: What is the difference between an age-old global conspiracy and your overall ignorance about a topic?
Notes:
*Mr. Brandon is a filmmaker out of North Carolina and graduate of North Carolina A&T in Greensboro. Like myself, he was influenced by the Afrocentric researcher, Steve Cokeley, who is responsible for giving countless lectures exposing the Black fraternal order of the Boulè Both Mr. Brandon and I grew up in the same state, had similar majors in college, similar interests, and influences. However, he is a much better filmmaker than I ever was but I am surely a better researcher. We further diverge on the level of philosophy. He seems to have embraced a strand of the Hebrew Israelite doctrine, while I am clearly a Muslim.
**Ibn Waḥshīya, though he wrote in Arabic, was not an Arab. He was of Aramaic Nabataean origin of southern Iraq.
***It must be noted that Hieroglyphics were not the everyday script of the ancient Egyptians. Demotic was found in more common use, while Hieratic was used by the scribes. Hieroglyphics was used as an esoteric script, reserved for only the high priests and kings (El-Daly, 2005, p. 60).
References:
El-Daly, Okasha. Egyptology: The Missing Millennium, Ancient Egypt in Medieval Arabic Writings. UCL Press, 2005.
Idrīsī, Muḥammad ibn ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz, and Ulrich Haarmann. Anwār ʻUlwīyy Al-Ajrām Fī al-Kashf ʻan Asrār al-Ahrām. Frānts Shtāyrir, 1991.
The Maurchives 
