Ed Husain

That's a great question.

It's a great question because the Nation of Islam, while not based on their texts, drew inspiration from this movement in Africa, i.e.

Egypt, that is separatist, that is confrontational.

But

And they were obviously focused here in America, but the Nation of Islam took other positions.

They believed that Elijah Muhammad was a prophet, and therefore that Prophet Muhammad was not the final prophet of God.

So in creedal terms, they found themselves much further on the outside of global Muslim identity, but they did look at Egypt.

But what I would hold up, I think, as a thought for us to all think about is,

The Nation of Islam produces someone like Malcolm X, a household name in America to this day.

All of my students look up to him, talk about him.

But Malcolm X finds himself not only just in disagreement with the Nation of Islam, but he goes to Mecca, and there is where he finds white people, black people, brown people side by side.

And I think it's worth remembering that the radicalization agenda of both the Muslim Brotherhood

as well as the nation of Islam, to your question, Francis, doesn't resonate in deepest Islamic old places such as Mecca, because Malcolm X thinks white people with blonde hair and blue eyes are literally the devil, and he wrote extensively about it, that they represent the devil and demonic impulses.

He goes to Mecca and suddenly finds himself praying beside Bosnians, between Russian Muslims,

Palestinian Muslims, many of whom are in his world white, and he can't make sense of it.

How is it the devil is present?

So he goes through this de-radicalization process and he comes out of Mecca and returns here and has talks in Martin Luther King's terms that forgive

your white brothers and sisters and work more closely with them, which is what the woke culture today won't allow us to embrace, because we've all got the original sin of being born white and straight.

So Malcolm X is de-radicalized.

And I think just as the Nation of Islam