Mala’ika
Mala’ika (Malaekah). Arabic word which means “angels”. Given its form and and the confusion of the root in the singular with the Arabic word for king (malik), the word mala’ika is probably borrowed from the Northwest Semitic word mal’ak which means “messenger.” This Semitic word was then adopted by pre-Islamic Arabic.
The plural word mala’ika occurs frequently in the Qur’an, but the singular only twelve times. In accord with usual Middle Eastern views, angels are described as winged, with two, three, or four wings. All angels have defined functions. There is an Angel of Death, unnamed in the Qur’an, and a keeper of Hell, called Malik, a probable derivative from the common noun.
The angels Michael and Gabriel are messengers. Gabriel is deemed to be the most important of all the angels because of his role as bearer of the Qur’an to Muhammad.
The Qur’an spends little time in descriptions of angels but devotes attention to their role and function. The Qur’anic attitude assumes a knowledge and understanding of angels on the part of the reader, but later commentary expanded on the brief accounts of the angels and added elements derived from Judeo-Christian tradition and from folklore.
Of some concern in the Qur’an and its commentaries is the status of Iblis -- Satan -- the Devil. In one passage, Iblis is termed a jinn, but, in another passage, Iblis is called an angel. This dual designation for Iblis has led to jinn and angels being equated in the minds of some commentators. In Sura 2:30, the story of the submission of the angels to the will of Allah is given along with the account of the rebellion of Iblis and his band. In hadith from ‘A’isha, Muhammad is supposed to have said that angels were created from light and the jinn from fire, the words having the same root in Arabic. The two angels Harut and Marut (see Sura 2:102) and their association with magic have caused the commentators some problems, as have the two angels Munkar and Nakir, not mentioned in the Qur’an but only in the commentaries, who have the duty of questioning the dead in the grave to determine whether or not they will be punished or rewarded. Angels are guardians of humankind but also recorders of human deeds.
The writers of kalam sought by combining passages from the Qur’an, hadith, and ideas derived from philosophy to further define the nature of angels. The Neoplatonists made some of the angels into the animating forces of the spheres, and there was much discussion about whether the angels could be classed as animals.
An angel whose legend has no basis in the Qur’an or in prophetic tradition, but who is prominent in later eschatological discussion, is Israfil. He is assigned the task of reading the divine decree and of blowing the trumpet to signal the Day of Judgment.
Malaekah see Mala’ika
Angels see Mala’ika
Mala’ika (Malaekah). Arabic word which means “angels”. Given its form and and the confusion of the root in the singular with the Arabic word for king (malik), the word mala’ika is probably borrowed from the Northwest Semitic word mal’ak which means “messenger.” This Semitic word was then adopted by pre-Islamic Arabic.
The plural word mala’ika occurs frequently in the Qur’an, but the singular only twelve times. In accord with usual Middle Eastern views, angels are described as winged, with two, three, or four wings. All angels have defined functions. There is an Angel of Death, unnamed in the Qur’an, and a keeper of Hell, called Malik, a probable derivative from the common noun.
The angels Michael and Gabriel are messengers. Gabriel is deemed to be the most important of all the angels because of his role as bearer of the Qur’an to Muhammad.
The Qur’an spends little time in descriptions of angels but devotes attention to their role and function. The Qur’anic attitude assumes a knowledge and understanding of angels on the part of the reader, but later commentary expanded on the brief accounts of the angels and added elements derived from Judeo-Christian tradition and from folklore.
Of some concern in the Qur’an and its commentaries is the status of Iblis -- Satan -- the Devil. In one passage, Iblis is termed a jinn, but, in another passage, Iblis is called an angel. This dual designation for Iblis has led to jinn and angels being equated in the minds of some commentators. In Sura 2:30, the story of the submission of the angels to the will of Allah is given along with the account of the rebellion of Iblis and his band. In hadith from ‘A’isha, Muhammad is supposed to have said that angels were created from light and the jinn from fire, the words having the same root in Arabic. The two angels Harut and Marut (see Sura 2:102) and their association with magic have caused the commentators some problems, as have the two angels Munkar and Nakir, not mentioned in the Qur’an but only in the commentaries, who have the duty of questioning the dead in the grave to determine whether or not they will be punished or rewarded. Angels are guardians of humankind but also recorders of human deeds.
The writers of kalam sought by combining passages from the Qur’an, hadith, and ideas derived from philosophy to further define the nature of angels. The Neoplatonists made some of the angels into the animating forces of the spheres, and there was much discussion about whether the angels could be classed as animals.
An angel whose legend has no basis in the Qur’an or in prophetic tradition, but who is prominent in later eschatological discussion, is Israfil. He is assigned the task of reading the divine decree and of blowing the trumpet to signal the Day of Judgment.
Malaekah see Mala’ika
Angels see Mala’ika
Malak Hifni Nasif
Malak Hifni Nasif (Bahithat al-Badiya) (Malak Hifni Nassif) (1886-1918). Pen-name of Bahithat al-Badiya, a pioneer protagonist of women’s rights in Egypt. In her ideas on emancipation, she was influenced by the writings of Qasim Amin, though her goals usually remained more moderate and her concern with proper Islamic norms was strong. She defended the veil but was bitterly opposed to polygamy.
An Egyptian Muslim, Malak Hifni Nasif publicly advocated women's advancement in the early twentieth century during the al-nahda al-nisa'iyya (women's awakening). This was a period in which women were increasingly able to publish essays, stories, and letters in the nascent women's press and also in the general press. The women's press and the writers who contributed to it played an important role in the development of feminism and the reform of social institutions in a number of Middle Eastern countries. Nasif, along with prominent figures such as May Ziadeh, were active in literary and social groups through which they contributed to the intellectual and public debate about nationalism and how to define Egyptian and Arab political and cultural identity under the British colonial government.
Nasif articulated one of the founding discourses of feminism that emerged in Egypt during the first third of the twentieth century. Her strain of feminism remained secondary to that embodied in the work of Huda al-Sha'rawi (1882-1947) until the final decades of the twentieth century. In contrast to Sha'rawi's secular and Western-oriented feminism, Nasif's feminism, expressed in her collection of talks and essays, Al-nisa'iyyat (Women's affairs, 1910), de-emphasized Western values as it attempted to affirm and improve women's lives and experience through increased educational and work opportunities within a reformed Islamic context.
Bahithat al-Badiya see Malak Hifni Nasif
Nasif, Malak Hifni see Malak Hifni Nasif
Malak Hifni Nassif see Malak Hifni Nasif
Nassif, Malak Hifni see Malak Hifni Nasif
Badiya, Bahithat al- see Malak Hifni Nasif
Malak Hifni Nasif (Bahithat al-Badiya) (Malak Hifni Nassif) (1886-1918). Pen-name of Bahithat al-Badiya, a pioneer protagonist of women’s rights in Egypt. In her ideas on emancipation, she was influenced by the writings of Qasim Amin, though her goals usually remained more moderate and her concern with proper Islamic norms was strong. She defended the veil but was bitterly opposed to polygamy.
An Egyptian Muslim, Malak Hifni Nasif publicly advocated women's advancement in the early twentieth century during the al-nahda al-nisa'iyya (women's awakening). This was a period in which women were increasingly able to publish essays, stories, and letters in the nascent women's press and also in the general press. The women's press and the writers who contributed to it played an important role in the development of feminism and the reform of social institutions in a number of Middle Eastern countries. Nasif, along with prominent figures such as May Ziadeh, were active in literary and social groups through which they contributed to the intellectual and public debate about nationalism and how to define Egyptian and Arab political and cultural identity under the British colonial government.
Nasif articulated one of the founding discourses of feminism that emerged in Egypt during the first third of the twentieth century. Her strain of feminism remained secondary to that embodied in the work of Huda al-Sha'rawi (1882-1947) until the final decades of the twentieth century. In contrast to Sha'rawi's secular and Western-oriented feminism, Nasif's feminism, expressed in her collection of talks and essays, Al-nisa'iyyat (Women's affairs, 1910), de-emphasized Western values as it attempted to affirm and improve women's lives and experience through increased educational and work opportunities within a reformed Islamic context.
Bahithat al-Badiya see Malak Hifni Nasif
Nasif, Malak Hifni see Malak Hifni Nasif
Malak Hifni Nassif see Malak Hifni Nasif
Nassif, Malak Hifni see Malak Hifni Nasif
Badiya, Bahithat al- see Malak Hifni Nasif
Malayo-Polynesians
Malayo-Polynesians. The East Indonesian province of Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) is one of two in this “Muslim” country in which Muslims are a minority (the other is Bali). According to the 1980 census, 8.5 percent of the NTT population was Muslim. Despite their numbers, the diverse Muslim peoples of NTT are of interest because of their long historical association with Islam dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
More than 80 percent of the Muslim population of NTT is concentrated in five regencies, or kabupaten: (1) East Flores, which includes the islands of Solor, Adonara and Lembara; (2) Alor, which includes the island of Pantar; (3) Ende on the south central coast of the island of Flores; (4) Manggarai on the western end of Flores and (5) Kupang, the regency at the western end of Timor which incorporates the present provincial capital. These regencies are precisely the areas with the oldest links to Islam.
Islam reached these islands from various directions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries at a time when the Muslim community consisted of peoples of many ethnic groups whose specific origins were less important than their adherence to Islam. Historical evidence suggests that one of the earliest sources of contact with Islam was with Muslim traders from the north coast of Java, particularly Gresik. A second source of contact was with Muslims from the sultanate of Ternate in the northern Moluccas. A third source was with Muslims from the sultanate of Bima on the island of Sumbawa. Since both Ternate and Bima looked to the north coast of Java for their religious traditions, these three sources of contact represent a similar tradition. The Sultan of Ternate claimed sovereignty over Timor and the islands to the east of Flores, whereas the Sultan of Bima claimed Flores and the island of Sumba. Later, in the seventeenth century, Islamic influence emanating from Makassar came to predominate as Makassarese, Bugis and Butonese sailors, accompanied by groups of Bajau, began to penetrate the area and occasionally settle in or near established Muslim communities.
The Portuguese reached these islands by the middle of the sixteenth century, just as Islam was beginning to become established in various coastal settlements. The Portuguese established Christian settlements in opposition to Islam, and this resulted in clashes involving the local population, particularly on the islands of Sotor and Adonara and on the south coast of Flores and Ende. The Dutch arrived early in the seventeenth century and immediately aligned themselves with the Muslims in opposition to their trading rivals, the Portuguese. They signed contracts of trade and alliance with the Sultans of Ternate and Bima as well as with the Muslim rulers of Solor and Adonara, but eventually they were able to compel the sultans of Ternate and Bima to relinquish their claims to these islands, and thereafter the Dutch dealt exclusively with local Muslim rulers. When, in the middle of the seventeenth century, they founded their principal settlement at Kupang on Timor, they ceded a portion of beach near their fort to their Muslim allies. This beach, known as Pantai Solor with its associated settlement, Kampung Solor, has remained an Islamic residence to this day.
The complicated history of Dutch, Portuguese and Islamic relations accounts for the location and distribution of the Muslim peoples of NTT as well as the occurrence of Christian and Muslim members of the same ethnic group. Furthermore, the scattering of Muslim communities throughout the islands has facilitated the historical migration of Bugis and Makassarese, which has increased considerably in recent years. The traditional and still predominant occupations of the Muslim peoples of NTT as fishermen, sailors and traders also have their bases in the history of these islands.
Throughout NTT most Muslims are settled along the coast. Few live in the interior, and virtually none of the population of the interior has converted to Islam. One exception occurred just after 1965 when a sizable group of Timorese or Atoni Pah Meto in the highland district of East Amanuban in the regency of South Central Timor converted to Islam.
Malayo-Polynesians. The East Indonesian province of Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) is one of two in this “Muslim” country in which Muslims are a minority (the other is Bali). According to the 1980 census, 8.5 percent of the NTT population was Muslim. Despite their numbers, the diverse Muslim peoples of NTT are of interest because of their long historical association with Islam dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
More than 80 percent of the Muslim population of NTT is concentrated in five regencies, or kabupaten: (1) East Flores, which includes the islands of Solor, Adonara and Lembara; (2) Alor, which includes the island of Pantar; (3) Ende on the south central coast of the island of Flores; (4) Manggarai on the western end of Flores and (5) Kupang, the regency at the western end of Timor which incorporates the present provincial capital. These regencies are precisely the areas with the oldest links to Islam.
Islam reached these islands from various directions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries at a time when the Muslim community consisted of peoples of many ethnic groups whose specific origins were less important than their adherence to Islam. Historical evidence suggests that one of the earliest sources of contact with Islam was with Muslim traders from the north coast of Java, particularly Gresik. A second source of contact was with Muslims from the sultanate of Ternate in the northern Moluccas. A third source was with Muslims from the sultanate of Bima on the island of Sumbawa. Since both Ternate and Bima looked to the north coast of Java for their religious traditions, these three sources of contact represent a similar tradition. The Sultan of Ternate claimed sovereignty over Timor and the islands to the east of Flores, whereas the Sultan of Bima claimed Flores and the island of Sumba. Later, in the seventeenth century, Islamic influence emanating from Makassar came to predominate as Makassarese, Bugis and Butonese sailors, accompanied by groups of Bajau, began to penetrate the area and occasionally settle in or near established Muslim communities.
The Portuguese reached these islands by the middle of the sixteenth century, just as Islam was beginning to become established in various coastal settlements. The Portuguese established Christian settlements in opposition to Islam, and this resulted in clashes involving the local population, particularly on the islands of Sotor and Adonara and on the south coast of Flores and Ende. The Dutch arrived early in the seventeenth century and immediately aligned themselves with the Muslims in opposition to their trading rivals, the Portuguese. They signed contracts of trade and alliance with the Sultans of Ternate and Bima as well as with the Muslim rulers of Solor and Adonara, but eventually they were able to compel the sultans of Ternate and Bima to relinquish their claims to these islands, and thereafter the Dutch dealt exclusively with local Muslim rulers. When, in the middle of the seventeenth century, they founded their principal settlement at Kupang on Timor, they ceded a portion of beach near their fort to their Muslim allies. This beach, known as Pantai Solor with its associated settlement, Kampung Solor, has remained an Islamic residence to this day.
The complicated history of Dutch, Portuguese and Islamic relations accounts for the location and distribution of the Muslim peoples of NTT as well as the occurrence of Christian and Muslim members of the same ethnic group. Furthermore, the scattering of Muslim communities throughout the islands has facilitated the historical migration of Bugis and Makassarese, which has increased considerably in recent years. The traditional and still predominant occupations of the Muslim peoples of NTT as fishermen, sailors and traders also have their bases in the history of these islands.
Throughout NTT most Muslims are settled along the coast. Few live in the interior, and virtually none of the population of the interior has converted to Islam. One exception occurred just after 1965 when a sizable group of Timorese or Atoni Pah Meto in the highland district of East Amanuban in the regency of South Central Timor converted to Islam.
Malayo-Polynesian speaking peoples
Malayo-Polynesian speaking peoples. Several different geographical groups are represented by populations that speak Malayo-Polynesian languages. Although these various populations speak languages of a single family of languages and share certain cultural traits associated with an ancient horticultural technology, they are culturally diverse.
Islam spread into Southeast Asia within a century or two of the Prophet’s lifetime, but it was not immediately successful. Marco Polo noted that it was the religion of Pasai, in northern Sumatra, at the end of the thirteenth century, but Hindu-Buddhism was elsewhere the major religion. Probably, native chiefs came to view Islam as an ideology that might focus support for overthrowing traditional empires, such as Javanese Majapahit, that were overbearing and that interfered with chiefly interests in local and long-distance sea trade. Moreover, Islam provided a means for claiming special trading privileges with Gujarati, Arab, Persian and Turkish traders who controlled so much of Western commerce in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Melaka was not the first city state in the area to become Islamic, but it was the most successful and was most responsible for the further spread of Islam throughout Southeast Asia. The Acehnese were probably converted earlier to Islam, and they developed an important trading empire that existed along with that of Johore and Portugal after the fall of Melaka to the Portuguese in 1511. The Acehnese did not succeed in assimilating many other ethnic groups to their culture, not even those whom they conquered, such as the Gayo (who still maintain much of their Batak culture) or the northern Minangkabau, but their capital city, Kota Raja, did become a center of Islamic learning that was important not only to Southeast Asia but to the Islamic world generally.
Malayo-Polynesian speaking peoples. Several different geographical groups are represented by populations that speak Malayo-Polynesian languages. Although these various populations speak languages of a single family of languages and share certain cultural traits associated with an ancient horticultural technology, they are culturally diverse.
Islam spread into Southeast Asia within a century or two of the Prophet’s lifetime, but it was not immediately successful. Marco Polo noted that it was the religion of Pasai, in northern Sumatra, at the end of the thirteenth century, but Hindu-Buddhism was elsewhere the major religion. Probably, native chiefs came to view Islam as an ideology that might focus support for overthrowing traditional empires, such as Javanese Majapahit, that were overbearing and that interfered with chiefly interests in local and long-distance sea trade. Moreover, Islam provided a means for claiming special trading privileges with Gujarati, Arab, Persian and Turkish traders who controlled so much of Western commerce in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Melaka was not the first city state in the area to become Islamic, but it was the most successful and was most responsible for the further spread of Islam throughout Southeast Asia. The Acehnese were probably converted earlier to Islam, and they developed an important trading empire that existed along with that of Johore and Portugal after the fall of Melaka to the Portuguese in 1511. The Acehnese did not succeed in assimilating many other ethnic groups to their culture, not even those whom they conquered, such as the Gayo (who still maintain much of their Batak culture) or the northern Minangkabau, but their capital city, Kota Raja, did become a center of Islamic learning that was important not only to Southeast Asia but to the Islamic world generally.
Malays
Malays. People of Southeast Asia who are Sunni Muslims. The Malays are an ethnic group of Austronesian peoples predominantly inhabiting the Malay Peninsula, the east coast of Sumatra, the coast of Borneo, and the smaller islands between these locations. The Malay ethnic group is distinct from the concept of a Malay race, which encompasses a wider group of people, including most of Indonesia and the Philippines.
The ancestor of Malays are believed to be seafarers who moved from island to island in great distances between New Zealand and Madagascar, and they served as navigation guide, crew and labor to Indian, Persian and Chinese traders for nearly 2000 years, and over the years they settled at various places and adopted various cultures and religions. Notable Malay seafarers of today are Moken and Orang laut.
Some historians suggest that the Malays were descendants of Austronesian-speakers who migrated from the Philippines and originally from Taiwan. Malay culture reached its golden age during Srivijayan times and they practiced Buddhism, Hinduism, and their native Animism before converting to Islam in the 15th century.
The oldest Malay texts which show Muslim influences come from Trengganu in West Malaysia and Atjeh in Sumatra. Both date from the fourteenth century. The oldest literary manuscripts, written in Arabic letters, date from the last years of the sixteenth century. Malay, as a modern literary language, is generally said to begin with the writings of Abdullah ibn Abdul Kadir Munshi, known as Munshi Abdullah (d. 1854).
Malays call themselves Orang Melayu (Malay persons). Others refer to them as Melayu (or a cognate term, such as Malay in English). The basic meaning of melayu, except as it applies to Malays and to their ancient center of empire near present day Djambi in Sumatra, is lost. Various folk explanations of the term depend on the possible meanings of the apparent root word layu in related dialects and languages, such as “flee,” “fade,” “parch” or “sail.” The word Melayu began in use during the time of the Sultanate of Melaka, founded by the fleeing prince Parameswara, from the declining Melayu Kingdom of Srivijaya in Palembang. The word was in popular use in the 17th century onwards.
During the European colonization, the word "Malay" was adopted into English via the Dutch word "Malayo", itself from the Portuguese "Malaio", which originated from the Malay word "Melayu".
Geographical dispersal has been as effective as assimilation of other populations in creating diversity within Malay culture. The dispersal of Malays was well underway by the fifth century of the Christian calendar when they began to dominate local trade in Southeast Asia and long distance sea trade between northwestern Indian and southern China. Their domination of sea trade continued until the sixteenth century, and even into the early European colonial period before the onset of the Industrial Revolution.
Malays founded several trading empires, among which Sri Vijaya, Melayu and Melaka were most important, and their language became the major language of commerce in Southeast Asian ports. Melaka, successor of fourteenth century Melayu, which lost its empire to the Javanese kingdom of Majapahit, was instrumental in converting many Southeast Asian kingdoms to Islam in the fifteenth century.
In the idiom of the Malay language, to be converted to the Islamic faith is to enter Malay ethnicity (masok melayu). And many non-Malays have become Malays through conversion to Islam and residence in a Malay community. According to folk definition and according to the constitution of the Federation of Malaysia, anyone who habitually speaks Malay language, follows Malay custom, and adheres to the religion of Islam is a Malay. The folk ideal is that all Malays are Muslims.
Various Islamic reform movements have been represented in the Malay world during the twentieth century, but the most revolutionary in its effect was the dakwah “missionary” movement of the 1970s, which convinced some devout Malays that parts of their own traditional world as well as the modern Westernized world are not in conformity with the orthodox practice of Islam. Malays interested in retaining their Malay culture as well as their devotion to Islam comprise a social category separate from that of the dakwahs, and both of these are distinct from “secular” Malays, who are concerned with modernization. The dakwah movement is heavily involved in a persuasive missionary campaign. One manifestation of this is the magazine Dakwah, which began publication in 1977.
Except in rare instances, such as in Sungei Penchala (within the limits of the metropolitan area of Kuala Lumpur), the dakwah movement has not resulted in physically separating Malay communities. Traditional, dakwah and secular Malays live side by side in the same communities. Throughout this ideological fissioning they have remained together residentially and segregated from other ethnic communities of Malaysia. Malay ethnic identity has become more important during this period in part because of the government’s efforts to provide opportunities to recover from the low economic status they held as colonial wards of the British before independence. Many members of the other ethnic communities, principally the Chinese and Indians, object to the present advantages afforded Malays.
Malays. People of Southeast Asia who are Sunni Muslims. The Malays are an ethnic group of Austronesian peoples predominantly inhabiting the Malay Peninsula, the east coast of Sumatra, the coast of Borneo, and the smaller islands between these locations. The Malay ethnic group is distinct from the concept of a Malay race, which encompasses a wider group of people, including most of Indonesia and the Philippines.
The ancestor of Malays are believed to be seafarers who moved from island to island in great distances between New Zealand and Madagascar, and they served as navigation guide, crew and labor to Indian, Persian and Chinese traders for nearly 2000 years, and over the years they settled at various places and adopted various cultures and religions. Notable Malay seafarers of today are Moken and Orang laut.
Some historians suggest that the Malays were descendants of Austronesian-speakers who migrated from the Philippines and originally from Taiwan. Malay culture reached its golden age during Srivijayan times and they practiced Buddhism, Hinduism, and their native Animism before converting to Islam in the 15th century.
The oldest Malay texts which show Muslim influences come from Trengganu in West Malaysia and Atjeh in Sumatra. Both date from the fourteenth century. The oldest literary manuscripts, written in Arabic letters, date from the last years of the sixteenth century. Malay, as a modern literary language, is generally said to begin with the writings of Abdullah ibn Abdul Kadir Munshi, known as Munshi Abdullah (d. 1854).
Malays call themselves Orang Melayu (Malay persons). Others refer to them as Melayu (or a cognate term, such as Malay in English). The basic meaning of melayu, except as it applies to Malays and to their ancient center of empire near present day Djambi in Sumatra, is lost. Various folk explanations of the term depend on the possible meanings of the apparent root word layu in related dialects and languages, such as “flee,” “fade,” “parch” or “sail.” The word Melayu began in use during the time of the Sultanate of Melaka, founded by the fleeing prince Parameswara, from the declining Melayu Kingdom of Srivijaya in Palembang. The word was in popular use in the 17th century onwards.
During the European colonization, the word "Malay" was adopted into English via the Dutch word "Malayo", itself from the Portuguese "Malaio", which originated from the Malay word "Melayu".
Geographical dispersal has been as effective as assimilation of other populations in creating diversity within Malay culture. The dispersal of Malays was well underway by the fifth century of the Christian calendar when they began to dominate local trade in Southeast Asia and long distance sea trade between northwestern Indian and southern China. Their domination of sea trade continued until the sixteenth century, and even into the early European colonial period before the onset of the Industrial Revolution.
Malays founded several trading empires, among which Sri Vijaya, Melayu and Melaka were most important, and their language became the major language of commerce in Southeast Asian ports. Melaka, successor of fourteenth century Melayu, which lost its empire to the Javanese kingdom of Majapahit, was instrumental in converting many Southeast Asian kingdoms to Islam in the fifteenth century.
In the idiom of the Malay language, to be converted to the Islamic faith is to enter Malay ethnicity (masok melayu). And many non-Malays have become Malays through conversion to Islam and residence in a Malay community. According to folk definition and according to the constitution of the Federation of Malaysia, anyone who habitually speaks Malay language, follows Malay custom, and adheres to the religion of Islam is a Malay. The folk ideal is that all Malays are Muslims.
Various Islamic reform movements have been represented in the Malay world during the twentieth century, but the most revolutionary in its effect was the dakwah “missionary” movement of the 1970s, which convinced some devout Malays that parts of their own traditional world as well as the modern Westernized world are not in conformity with the orthodox practice of Islam. Malays interested in retaining their Malay culture as well as their devotion to Islam comprise a social category separate from that of the dakwahs, and both of these are distinct from “secular” Malays, who are concerned with modernization. The dakwah movement is heavily involved in a persuasive missionary campaign. One manifestation of this is the magazine Dakwah, which began publication in 1977.
Except in rare instances, such as in Sungei Penchala (within the limits of the metropolitan area of Kuala Lumpur), the dakwah movement has not resulted in physically separating Malay communities. Traditional, dakwah and secular Malays live side by side in the same communities. Throughout this ideological fissioning they have remained together residentially and segregated from other ethnic communities of Malaysia. Malay ethnic identity has become more important during this period in part because of the government’s efforts to provide opportunities to recover from the low economic status they held as colonial wards of the British before independence. Many members of the other ethnic communities, principally the Chinese and Indians, object to the present advantages afforded Malays.
Malcolm X
Malcolm X (Malcolm Little) (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz) (May 19, 1925 - February 21, 1965). Icon of the black power movement. Malcolm X, was born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska.
Malcolm Little was the son of a Baptist minister who was an avid supporter of Marcus Garvey’s United Negro Improvement Association. While living in Omaha, the Little family was often harassed. At one point, the family’s house was set afire.
In 1929, the Little family moved to Lansing, Michigan. While in Michigan, Malcolm’s father was killed -- his body severed in two by a streetcar and his head smashed. In his autobiography, written with Alex Haley, Malcolm asserted that his father may have been killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Malcolm’s mother, stricken by the death of her husband and the demands of providing for the family, was committed to a mental institution.
Leaving school after the eighth grade, Malcolm made his way to New York City, working for a time as a waiter at Smalls Paradise in Harlem. Malcolm began selling and using drugs. He also began to engage in burglary. It was for burglary that Malcolm was sentenced to a ten-year prison term in 1946.
While in prison, Malcolm became acquainted with the Black Muslim sect, then headed by Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm soon became a convert to the Nation of Islam. Not long afterwards, Malcolm Little became Malcolm X.
Following his parole in 1952, Malcolm became an outspoken defender of Black Muslim doctrines, accepting the basic argument that evil was an inherent characteristic of the “white man’s Christian world.”
Unlike his mentor Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X sought publicity, making provocative and inflammatory statements to predominantly European American civic groups and college campus audiences. Branding European Americans as “devils,” Malcolm X spoke bitterly of a philosophy of vengeance and “an eye for an eye.” When, in 1963, Malcolm characterized the Kennedy assassination as a case of “chickens coming home to roost,” he was suspended from the Nation of Islam by Elijah Muhammad.
Disillusioned with Elijah Muhammad’s teachings (and with Elijah Muhammad’s personal indiscretions), Malcolm formed his own organizations, the Organization of Afro-American Unity and the Muslim Mosque, Inc. In 1964, Malcolm made a pilgrimage to Islam’s holy city, Mecca. After his experiences in Mecca, Malcolm underwent another spiritual metamorphosis. Malcolm became a more orthodox practitioner of Islam and adopted the name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.
As a believer in the more orthodox tenets of Islam, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz adopted views that were not popular with other black nationalists, including the view that not all Europeans and European Americans were evil and that Africans and African Americans could make gains by working through established channels.
As a result of his new views, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz became the recipient of death threats. On February 14, 1965, his home was firebombed. His wife and children escaped unharmed. A week later, on February 21, 1965, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz was shot and killed at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, while preparing to speak. Three of the men arrested were later identified as members of the Nation of Islam.
As Malcolm X, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz had a profound influence on both African Americans and European Americans. Many African Americans responded to a feeling that he was a man of the people, experienced in the ways of the street rather than the pulpit or the college campus, which traditionally had provided the preponderance of African American leaders. Many young European Americans responded to Malcolm’s blunt, colorful language and unwillingness to retreat in the face of hostility.
During the 1960s, as Malcolm X, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz was considered to be a violent fanatic by mainstream America and mainstream Afro-America. Over time, his image as Malcolm X was transformed into one in which the Malcolm X persona became an advocate of self-help, self-defense, and education.
However, the most enduring legacy
may not be the one that is commonly accepted. It should be remembered that just as Malcolm X tried to put his past as Malcolm Little behind so too did El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz try to put his past as Malcolm X behind him. It is important to understand that the man known as Malcolm X was buried under the name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, and El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz was a devout Sunni Muslim who believed in justice and in the brotherhood of man.
Compounding the misunderstanding concerning the legacy of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz is the 1992 theatrical release of a movie directed by Spike Lee, a movie entitled Malcolm X. As titled, the movie Malcolm X is respectful iconolatry of a man who evolved into the more fully developed El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. However, because of the importance of distinguishing historical fact from cinematic myth, some of the historical discrepancies with the movie Malcolm X are discussed here.
The first historical discrepancy centers on the movie's portrayal of Earl Little. In the film, Earl Little is portrayed as a race leader -- a man willing to stand up against European American racists to promote Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association. As a defiant African American in a racist America, the film Malcolm X leaves little doubt that European American racists murdered Earl Little.
However, in The Autobiography of Malcolm X, which was written with Alex Haley’s assistance and was published posthumously, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz paints a far less idealized portrait of his father. As remembered by El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, Earl Little was an abusive husband and father who “savagely” beat his children, except for his favored son, Malcolm. As recalled by El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, “I actually believe that as anti-white as my father was, he was subconsciously so afflicted with the white man’s brainwashing of Negroes that he inclined to favor the light one.”
"My father was a big, six-foot-four, very black man. He had only one eye. How he had lost the other one I have never known. He was from Reynolds, Georgia, where he had left school after the third or maybe fourth grade. ... One of the reasons I’ve always felt that my father favored me was that to the best of my remembrance, it was only me that he sometimes took with him to the Garvey U.N.I.A. meetings which he held quietly in people’s homes. ... I noticed how differently they all acted, although sometimes they were the same people who jumped and shouted in church. But in these meetings both they and my father were more intense, more intelligent and down to earth, it made me feel the same way. ... I remember how the meetings always closed with my father saying, several times, and the people chanting after him, “Up, you mighty race, you can accomplish what you will!”" -- From The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
Only six at the time of Earl Little’s death in 1931, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz could only remember “a vague commotion, the house filled up with people crying, saying bitterly that the white Black Legion had finally gotten him.”
Much of the movie Malcolm X glamorizes the criminal career of Malcolm Little and the fiery speeches of Malcolm X. Unlike the Autobiography, the movie spends little time reflecting on the significance of the final year in the life of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. Instead of focusing on the mature political perspective that El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz developed, the movie Malcolm X emphasizes Malcolm’s cynicism, racial pessimism, and uncritical acceptance of the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. The film treats Malcolm’s break with Muhammad as a son’s disillusionment with a morally flawed surrogate father, but Malcolm left the Nation of Islam for political as well as personal reasons. Malcolm’s Autobiography makes it very clear that before Malcolm learned of Elijah Muhammad’s marital infidelities, Malcolm had already become dissatisfied with his leader’s policy of nonengagement, -- a policy which not only prevented members of the Nation of Islam from participating in civil rights protests but even prohibited Nation of Islam members from voting. The blistering verbal attacks that Malcolm X makes on national civil rights leaders are highlighted in the film without showing the ties that El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz made with those same civil rights leaders in the last year of his life.
As the southern civil rights movement grew in scale during 1963, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz came to recognize that Elijah Muhammad’s nonengagement policy was hurting the Nation of Islam’s recruitment efforts in African American communities. Indeed, in the Autobiography, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz admitted his disappointment with the failure of the Nation of Islam in becoming involved in the expanding freedom struggle. El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz said, “I felt that, wherever black people committed themselves, the Little Rocks and the Birminghams and other places, militantly disciplined Muslims should also be there -- for all the world to see, and respect, and discuss. It could be heard increasingly in the Negro communities: ‘Those Muslims talk tough, but they never do anything, unless somebody bothers Muslims.’”
One of the more dramatic scenes in the movie underscores the limitations placed upon those in the Nation of Islam but in the manner portrayed is rather misleading. In the film, Malcolm X is shown demanding and getting hospital treatment for a member of the Nation of Islam named Brother Johnson (Johnson Hinton), who was beaten by New York City police in 1957. Although the incident confirms the notion that the Nation of Islam did not engage in militant action unless its members were threatened, Lee stages the event to suggest that the Nation was far more willing to challenge European American authority than it actually was.
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz initially defended Elijah Muhammad’s nonengagement policy and fiercely attacked Martin Luther King, Jr.’s strategy of nonviolent resistance. However, he later recognized that the Nation of Islam offered no real alternative for African American civil rights activists who were then facing vicious European American racists in the South. It was far easier to talk about armed self-defense in Harlem than it ever was to face unarmed Bull Connor’s police dogs in Birmingham, Alabama.
Even though the film ignores this fact, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz knew that the Nation of Islam was not above making deals with the “white devils” when such deals served its leaders’ interests. Near the end of his life, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz admitted that, even while criticizing civil rights activists for working with European American liberals, he once, on Elijah Muhammad’s orders, negotiated a mutual non-interference agreement with Ku Klux Klan leaders in Atlanta.
Although Spike Lee’s film depicts Malcolm’s period of independence from the Nation mainly through scenes of foreboding, such as repeated threatening telephone calls, his final months consisted of much more than waiting for martyrdom. Among the many important episodes from the last year of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz which the film overlooks include (1) the brief meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., at the United States Capitol; (2) the crucial “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech delivered at a symposium sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality; (3) the meeting of the Organization of African Unity and subsequent talks with leaders of Egypt, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, and Uganda; (4) the day long October 1964 meeting in Nairobi with leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the resulting cooperation between SNCC and El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz’s newly formed Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU); and (5) the December 1964 appearance of Fannie Lou Hamer and other Mississippi civil rights activists as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz’s honored guests at an OAAU meeting in Harlem.
The film shows El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz watching televised scenes of civil rights activities but fails to mention his February 1965 trip to Selma, Alabama, where he addressed young protesters and expressed support for the voting rights struggle. While in Selma, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz met with Coretta Scott King, whose husband was then in jail. El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz affirmed his desire to assist King’s voting rights efforts, explaining that if European Americans knew that Malcolm X was the alternative, “It might be easier for them to accept Martin’s proposals.” El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz’s increasing political involvement was further indicated in the weeks before his assassination by the telegram he sent to the head of the American Nazi party: “I am no longer held in check from fighting white supremacists by Elijah Muhammad’s separationists Black Muslim Movement, and if your present racist agitation of our people there in Alabama causes physical harm to Reverend King or any other Black Americans ... you and your KKK friends will be met with maximum physical retaliation.”
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz’s political militancy led to increasing governmental interest and escalating threats from members of the Nation of Islam. The new political course caused El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz to attract very powerful and very deadly enemies.
The movie Malcolm X shows various members of the Nation of Islam preparing to kill El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, while also intimating that European American government agents may have also been involved. El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz is depicted as being followed, presumably by CIA agents, while on his trip to Mecca and Africa. The movie shows a hidden microphone in El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz’s New York City hotel room. In the movie, when El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz and his wife, Betty, discuss the many threats they had received, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz speculates, “The more I keep thinking about the things that have been happening lately, I’m not at all sure it’s solely the Muslims. I trained them, I know what they can and cannot do, and they can’t do some of the stuff that’s recently been going on.”
It is somewhat ironic that after the assassination of President Kennedy, Malcolm X had remarked that the killing of Kennedy was a case of the chickens coming home to roost. In an oddly reciprocal way, the assassination of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz was a case of the chickens coming home to roost. For years as Malcolm X, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz had helped foster a mentality that encouraged members of the Nation of Islam to define other African Americans as race traitors. As Malcolm X, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz espoused an often vicious rhetorical militancy which created an environment where the death of the traitor could be deemed appropriate. Once El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz left the Nation of Islam and began criticizing it, he too became the object for rhetorical vilification. Indeed, one of his former proteges, a certain Louis X (now known as Louis Farrakhan) went so far as to label El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz as a Judas “worthy of death.” Within such a climate of animosity, the assassination of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz became almost inevitable.
Despite the historical inaccuracies, the director Spike Lee must be commended for the effort that was involved in developing and producing a movie such as Malcolm X. Indeed, one of the more encouraging trends of the last decade of the twentieth century, was the fact that such stories about the African and African American experience could finally be made. However, while presenting an entertaining story about the life and career of the man known as Malcolm X, the movie ultimately fails to adequately address the seeds of destruction which Malcolm X himself had sown. Additionally, by glamorizing the rebelliousness of Malcolm Little, and the subsequent racist demagoguery of Malcolm X, the meaning of the mature statesmanship of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz is obscured and the true lesson of Malcolm's life -- the true lesson of his “entire” life -- is missed.
Part of the lesson of Malcolm's life, is also found tragically in the story of the family that he left behind. In 1958, Malcolm X married Betty X (nee Betty Jean Sanders) in Lansing, Michigan. The couple had six daughters. Their names were Attalah, Qubilah, Ilyasah, Gamilah Lumumba, Malaak, and Malikah. After the death of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, his widow, Betty Shabazz, received financial support from a number of benefactors and celebrities. She was able to raise her children in upper class affluence, sending her children to private, predominantly European American schools.
In 1994, Betty Shabazz openly criticized Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, of having been involved in the assassination of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. Farrakhan denied any involvement and blamed the assassination on the turbulence of the times. Subsequently, in 1995, Qubilah, the daughter of Betty Shabazz and El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, was implicated in a murder for hire plot to kill Farrakhan. As it turned out, the man that Qubilah had contacted was an undercover law enforcement agent.
Surprisingly, Louis Farrakhan, the target of the murder for hire plot, came to the defense of Qubilah. Farrakhan accused the government of manipulating Qubilah into engaging in the murder for hire plot. Farrakhan even sponsored a fundraiser for Qubilah's legal defense. Farrakhan's actions led to a reconciliation between himself and Betty Shabazz. Betty Shabazz even spoke at the 1995 Million Man March.
Qubilah was not imprisoned for her actions but was ordered to undergo two years of psychological counseling and therapy for her drug addiction and alcohol abuse. During this two year period, Qubilah's son, Malcolm, lived with his grandmother, Betty Shabazz. Malcolm proved to be a rebellious child who resented having to live with his grandmother. In retaliation, on June 1, 1997, Malcolm then twelve years old, set his grandmother's house on fire with his grandmother, Betty Shabazz, in it. On June 23, 1997, Betty Shabazz died from the burns she endured. Malcolm, the namesake grandchild of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, was sentenced to eighteen months in juvenile detention for manslaughter.
It cannot be escaped that the one of the lessons of the life of Malcolm X, and of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, is one marked by tragedy. While his militant stance against oppression became an inspiration for many, his embracing of violence as a viable force against oppression also became an indelible part of his legacy, and sadly it is this legacy of violence which continues to manifest itself in African American families and communities to this day.
X, Malcolm see Malcolm X
Little, Malcolm see Malcolm X
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz see Malcolm X
Shabazz, El-Hajj Malik El- see Malcolm X
Compounding the misunderstanding concerning the legacy of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz is the 1992 theatrical release of a movie directed by Spike Lee, a movie entitled Malcolm X. As titled, the movie Malcolm X is respectful iconolatry of a man who evolved into the more fully developed El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. However, because of the importance of distinguishing historical fact from cinematic myth, some of the historical discrepancies with the movie Malcolm X are discussed here.
The first historical discrepancy centers on the movie's portrayal of Earl Little. In the film, Earl Little is portrayed as a race leader -- a man willing to stand up against European American racists to promote Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association. As a defiant African American in a racist America, the film Malcolm X leaves little doubt that European American racists murdered Earl Little.
However, in The Autobiography of Malcolm X, which was written with Alex Haley’s assistance and was published posthumously, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz paints a far less idealized portrait of his father. As remembered by El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, Earl Little was an abusive husband and father who “savagely” beat his children, except for his favored son, Malcolm. As recalled by El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, “I actually believe that as anti-white as my father was, he was subconsciously so afflicted with the white man’s brainwashing of Negroes that he inclined to favor the light one.”
"My father was a big, six-foot-four, very black man. He had only one eye. How he had lost the other one I have never known. He was from Reynolds, Georgia, where he had left school after the third or maybe fourth grade. ... One of the reasons I’ve always felt that my father favored me was that to the best of my remembrance, it was only me that he sometimes took with him to the Garvey U.N.I.A. meetings which he held quietly in people’s homes. ... I noticed how differently they all acted, although sometimes they were the same people who jumped and shouted in church. But in these meetings both they and my father were more intense, more intelligent and down to earth, it made me feel the same way. ... I remember how the meetings always closed with my father saying, several times, and the people chanting after him, “Up, you mighty race, you can accomplish what you will!”" -- From The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
Only six at the time of Earl Little’s death in 1931, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz could only remember “a vague commotion, the house filled up with people crying, saying bitterly that the white Black Legion had finally gotten him.”
Much of the movie Malcolm X glamorizes the criminal career of Malcolm Little and the fiery speeches of Malcolm X. Unlike the Autobiography, the movie spends little time reflecting on the significance of the final year in the life of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. Instead of focusing on the mature political perspective that El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz developed, the movie Malcolm X emphasizes Malcolm’s cynicism, racial pessimism, and uncritical acceptance of the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. The film treats Malcolm’s break with Muhammad as a son’s disillusionment with a morally flawed surrogate father, but Malcolm left the Nation of Islam for political as well as personal reasons. Malcolm’s Autobiography makes it very clear that before Malcolm learned of Elijah Muhammad’s marital infidelities, Malcolm had already become dissatisfied with his leader’s policy of nonengagement, -- a policy which not only prevented members of the Nation of Islam from participating in civil rights protests but even prohibited Nation of Islam members from voting. The blistering verbal attacks that Malcolm X makes on national civil rights leaders are highlighted in the film without showing the ties that El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz made with those same civil rights leaders in the last year of his life.
As the southern civil rights movement grew in scale during 1963, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz came to recognize that Elijah Muhammad’s nonengagement policy was hurting the Nation of Islam’s recruitment efforts in African American communities. Indeed, in the Autobiography, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz admitted his disappointment with the failure of the Nation of Islam in becoming involved in the expanding freedom struggle. El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz said, “I felt that, wherever black people committed themselves, the Little Rocks and the Birminghams and other places, militantly disciplined Muslims should also be there -- for all the world to see, and respect, and discuss. It could be heard increasingly in the Negro communities: ‘Those Muslims talk tough, but they never do anything, unless somebody bothers Muslims.’”
One of the more dramatic scenes in the movie underscores the limitations placed upon those in the Nation of Islam but in the manner portrayed is rather misleading. In the film, Malcolm X is shown demanding and getting hospital treatment for a member of the Nation of Islam named Brother Johnson (Johnson Hinton), who was beaten by New York City police in 1957. Although the incident confirms the notion that the Nation of Islam did not engage in militant action unless its members were threatened, Lee stages the event to suggest that the Nation was far more willing to challenge European American authority than it actually was.
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz initially defended Elijah Muhammad’s nonengagement policy and fiercely attacked Martin Luther King, Jr.’s strategy of nonviolent resistance. However, he later recognized that the Nation of Islam offered no real alternative for African American civil rights activists who were then facing vicious European American racists in the South. It was far easier to talk about armed self-defense in Harlem than it ever was to face unarmed Bull Connor’s police dogs in Birmingham, Alabama.
Even though the film ignores this fact, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz knew that the Nation of Islam was not above making deals with the “white devils” when such deals served its leaders’ interests. Near the end of his life, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz admitted that, even while criticizing civil rights activists for working with European American liberals, he once, on Elijah Muhammad’s orders, negotiated a mutual non-interference agreement with Ku Klux Klan leaders in Atlanta.
Although Spike Lee’s film depicts Malcolm’s period of independence from the Nation mainly through scenes of foreboding, such as repeated threatening telephone calls, his final months consisted of much more than waiting for martyrdom. Among the many important episodes from the last year of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz which the film overlooks include (1) the brief meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., at the United States Capitol; (2) the crucial “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech delivered at a symposium sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality; (3) the meeting of the Organization of African Unity and subsequent talks with leaders of Egypt, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, and Uganda; (4) the day long October 1964 meeting in Nairobi with leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the resulting cooperation between SNCC and El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz’s newly formed Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU); and (5) the December 1964 appearance of Fannie Lou Hamer and other Mississippi civil rights activists as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz’s honored guests at an OAAU meeting in Harlem.
The film shows El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz watching televised scenes of civil rights activities but fails to mention his February 1965 trip to Selma, Alabama, where he addressed young protesters and expressed support for the voting rights struggle. While in Selma, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz met with Coretta Scott King, whose husband was then in jail. El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz affirmed his desire to assist King’s voting rights efforts, explaining that if European Americans knew that Malcolm X was the alternative, “It might be easier for them to accept Martin’s proposals.” El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz’s increasing political involvement was further indicated in the weeks before his assassination by the telegram he sent to the head of the American Nazi party: “I am no longer held in check from fighting white supremacists by Elijah Muhammad’s separationists Black Muslim Movement, and if your present racist agitation of our people there in Alabama causes physical harm to Reverend King or any other Black Americans ... you and your KKK friends will be met with maximum physical retaliation.”
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz’s political militancy led to increasing governmental interest and escalating threats from members of the Nation of Islam. The new political course caused El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz to attract very powerful and very deadly enemies.
The movie Malcolm X shows various members of the Nation of Islam preparing to kill El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, while also intimating that European American government agents may have also been involved. El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz is depicted as being followed, presumably by CIA agents, while on his trip to Mecca and Africa. The movie shows a hidden microphone in El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz’s New York City hotel room. In the movie, when El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz and his wife, Betty, discuss the many threats they had received, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz speculates, “The more I keep thinking about the things that have been happening lately, I’m not at all sure it’s solely the Muslims. I trained them, I know what they can and cannot do, and they can’t do some of the stuff that’s recently been going on.”
It is somewhat ironic that after the assassination of President Kennedy, Malcolm X had remarked that the killing of Kennedy was a case of the chickens coming home to roost. In an oddly reciprocal way, the assassination of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz was a case of the chickens coming home to roost. For years as Malcolm X, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz had helped foster a mentality that encouraged members of the Nation of Islam to define other African Americans as race traitors. As Malcolm X, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz espoused an often vicious rhetorical militancy which created an environment where the death of the traitor could be deemed appropriate. Once El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz left the Nation of Islam and began criticizing it, he too became the object for rhetorical vilification. Indeed, one of his former proteges, a certain Louis X (now known as Louis Farrakhan) went so far as to label El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz as a Judas “worthy of death.” Within such a climate of animosity, the assassination of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz became almost inevitable.
Despite the historical inaccuracies, the director Spike Lee must be commended for the effort that was involved in developing and producing a movie such as Malcolm X. Indeed, one of the more encouraging trends of the last decade of the twentieth century, was the fact that such stories about the African and African American experience could finally be made. However, while presenting an entertaining story about the life and career of the man known as Malcolm X, the movie ultimately fails to adequately address the seeds of destruction which Malcolm X himself had sown. Additionally, by glamorizing the rebelliousness of Malcolm Little, and the subsequent racist demagoguery of Malcolm X, the meaning of the mature statesmanship of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz is obscured and the true lesson of Malcolm's life -- the true lesson of his “entire” life -- is missed.
Part of the lesson of Malcolm's life, is also found tragically in the story of the family that he left behind. In 1958, Malcolm X married Betty X (nee Betty Jean Sanders) in Lansing, Michigan. The couple had six daughters. Their names were Attalah, Qubilah, Ilyasah, Gamilah Lumumba, Malaak, and Malikah. After the death of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, his widow, Betty Shabazz, received financial support from a number of benefactors and celebrities. She was able to raise her children in upper class affluence, sending her children to private, predominantly European American schools.
In 1994, Betty Shabazz openly criticized Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, of having been involved in the assassination of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. Farrakhan denied any involvement and blamed the assassination on the turbulence of the times. Subsequently, in 1995, Qubilah, the daughter of Betty Shabazz and El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, was implicated in a murder for hire plot to kill Farrakhan. As it turned out, the man that Qubilah had contacted was an undercover law enforcement agent.
Surprisingly, Louis Farrakhan, the target of the murder for hire plot, came to the defense of Qubilah. Farrakhan accused the government of manipulating Qubilah into engaging in the murder for hire plot. Farrakhan even sponsored a fundraiser for Qubilah's legal defense. Farrakhan's actions led to a reconciliation between himself and Betty Shabazz. Betty Shabazz even spoke at the 1995 Million Man March.
Qubilah was not imprisoned for her actions but was ordered to undergo two years of psychological counseling and therapy for her drug addiction and alcohol abuse. During this two year period, Qubilah's son, Malcolm, lived with his grandmother, Betty Shabazz. Malcolm proved to be a rebellious child who resented having to live with his grandmother. In retaliation, on June 1, 1997, Malcolm then twelve years old, set his grandmother's house on fire with his grandmother, Betty Shabazz, in it. On June 23, 1997, Betty Shabazz died from the burns she endured. Malcolm, the namesake grandchild of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, was sentenced to eighteen months in juvenile detention for manslaughter.
It cannot be escaped that the one of the lessons of the life of Malcolm X, and of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, is one marked by tragedy. While his militant stance against oppression became an inspiration for many, his embracing of violence as a viable force against oppression also became an indelible part of his legacy, and sadly it is this legacy of violence which continues to manifest itself in African American families and communities to this day.
X, Malcolm see Malcolm X
Little, Malcolm see Malcolm X
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz see Malcolm X
Shabazz, El-Hajj Malik El- see Malcolm X
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