Moorish Orthodox Church of America

Short description: Religious movement in the United States

The Moorish Orthodox Church of America is a syncretic, non-exclusive, and religious anarchist movement originally founded in New York City in 1965 and part of the burgeoning psychedelic church movement of the mid to late 1960s in the United States.

Influences

The Moorish Orthodox Church of America incorporates a vast array of liturgical and devotional traditions ranging from Moorish Science, the Five Percenters, the Episcopi vagantes movement, Nizari Islam, Sufism (particularly from the Sufi Order Ināyati, Shadhili, Alevi-Bektashi and Uwaisi traditions), varying degrees of Theosophical mysticism, Hermeticism, Oriental Orthodoxy, the League for Spiritual Discovery, Western esotericism, Neoplatonism, Tantra, Zoroastrianism, Taoism, and Vedanta. These influences have been brought into the Church by early founding members, and have been added to over the last 40 years. Thus the list of spiritual influences grows as the Church has aged.

The Church has historically exhibited strong anarchist, socialist, and utopian political orientations. These include the works of Charles Fourier, Abdullah Ocalan, Noel Ignatiev, Hakim Bey, Friederich Nietszche, Murray Bookchin, Mikhail Bakhtin, Karl Marx, Pierre-Joseph Prudhon, Max Stirner, Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, the Industrial Workers of the World, and John Henry Mackay. Combined influences also include Brethren of the Free Spirit, English Dissenters, William Blake, and Ivan Ilich.

History

A lineage group of the Moorish Science Temple of America, the Moorish Orthodox Church was founded in New York City in 1962 primarily by Warren Tartaglia,^[1] beatniks, spiritual seekers, anarchists and members of the Noble Order of Moorish Sufis (a group that grew out of the Moorish Science Temple #13 in Baltimore on July 7, 1957).^[2] The Moorish Orthodox Church of America published a journal entitled the Moorish Science Monitor from 1965–1967, which has been revived at times over the next few decades.^[3] Moorish Orthodoxy was founded to explore the more esoteric dimensions of Noble Drew Ali's Moorish Science teachings, but quickly developed into a movement of spiritual exploration beyond its intended purpose, though it maintains Moorish Science as its core. After a long period of quiescence, the Moorish Orthodox Church of America experienced a small renaissance in the mid-1980s owing to the involvement of former members of the beat/beatnik movement, the counter-cultural hippie community, and the gay liberation movement, along with the continued involvement of Sultan Rafi Sharif Bey (who founded the Moorish League) and the prolific writings of Hakim Bey.

Notable members

Muhammed al-Ahari
Hakim Bey
Sultan Rafi Sharif Bey
Carey Harrison
Warren Tartaglia
Bill Weinberg
David Hanson (robotics designer)
Nick Herbert (physicist)
Michael Muhammad Knight
Thom Metzger

References

↑ Patrick D. Bowen (17 August 2015). A History of Conversion to Islam in the United States, Volume 1: White American Muslims before 1975. BRILL. p. 320. ISBN 978-90-04-30069-9. https://books.google.com/books?id=DYljCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA320. "Then, in 1962 one of the Baltimore group's young members, Warren Tartaglia, left the city to attend New York University, where he introduced the organization to Manhattan's white hipsters, including the man who would become one of the US' most influential non-orthodox Muslims: Peter Lamborn Wilson (Hakim Bey). The New York Group, which was named the Moorish Orthodox Church, would soon adapt other elements of Sufism..."
↑ Eugene V. Gallagher (2004), The New Religious Movements Experience in America, Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 135, ISBN 978-0-313-32807-7, https://books.google.com/books?id=uXoUYS4H1GsC&pg=PA135, "Another group that traces its origins to the work of Noble Drew Ali is the Moorish Orthodox Church of America. Despite its claim to Orthodoxy, the group, which was started by a handful of white poets and jazz musicians in the 1950s in Washington, D.C., developed a thoroughly eclectic theology."
↑ Aminah Beverly McCloud (16 July 2014). African American Islam. Routledge. p. 201. ISBN 978-1-136-64937-0. https://books.google.com/books?id=bfkJBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA201. "The last Moorish Science Monitor, according to Peter Lamborn Wilson, appeared in 1966, but the journal was revived in 1986. It is the publication of the Moorish Orthodox Church of America which was "founded in the late 1950s by Europeans who (according to oral sources) had obtained Moorish Science Temple passports as 'Celts' or 'Persians." (Sacred Drift, 49)."

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[Bowen2015-1] Patrick D. Bowen (17 August 2015). A History of Conversion to Islam in the United States, Volume 1: White American Muslims before 1975. BRILL. p. 320. ISBN 978-90-04-30069-9. https://books.google.com/books?id=DYljCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA320. "Then, in 1962 one of the Baltimore group's young members, Warren Tartaglia, left the city to attend New York University, where he introduced the organization to Manhattan's white hipsters, including the man who would become one of the US' most influential non-orthodox Muslims: Peter Lamborn Wilson (Hakim Bey). The New York Group, which was named the Moorish Orthodox Church, would soon adapt other elements of Sufism..."

[Gallagher2004-2] Eugene V. Gallagher (2004), The New Religious Movements Experience in America, Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 135, ISBN 978-0-313-32807-7, https://books.google.com/books?id=uXoUYS4H1GsC&pg=PA135, "Another group that traces its origins to the work of Noble Drew Ali is the Moorish Orthodox Church of America. Despite its claim to Orthodoxy, the group, which was started by a handful of white poets and jazz musicians in the 1950s in Washington, D.C., developed a thoroughly eclectic theology."

[McCloud2014-3] Aminah Beverly McCloud (16 July 2014). African American Islam. Routledge. p. 201. ISBN 978-1-136-64937-0. https://books.google.com/books?id=bfkJBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA201. "The last Moorish Science Monitor, according to Peter Lamborn Wilson, appeared in 1966, but the journal was revived in 1986. It is the publication of the Moorish Orthodox Church of America which was "founded in the late 1950s by Europeans who (according to oral sources) had obtained Moorish Science Temple passports as 'Celts' or 'Persians." (Sacred Drift, 49)."

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