The Nation of Islam:
An American Millenarian Movement
By Martha F. Lee
The Edwin Mellen Press. £39.95
Although not new, this work provides a valuable survey of the origins and developments under subsequent leadership of the Nation of Islam, more popularly known as the 'Black Muslim' movement.
It surveys the origin of the Nation in Noble Drew Ali's Moorish Science Temple, the Nation under W.D. Fard and Elijah Muhammad; the transformation of the Nation after Elijah Muhammad's death under Wallace Muhammad into the 'World Community of Al-Islam in the West', and the revitalisation of the Nation under Louis Farrakhan.
The book actually comprises the author's MA thesis and is very well written indeed for an academic work. Because it is a thesis, the author is obliged to follow a particular line of argument and so the Nation is examined in terms of millennarianism and prior analyses of millennarianism by other researchers. As it happens, this approach does raise some interesting questions and yields valuable insights as the author scours the available literature for answers.
It is another key text for all researchers of the Nation of Islam, but inevitably, being a specialised work, on the expensive side (£39.95 for 163 pages).
