"The Honorable Elijah Muhammad identified the Master as being the answer to the one that the world had been expecting for the past 2,000 years under the names Messiah, the second coming of Jesus, the Christ, Jehovah, God, and the Son of Man. When the Honorable Elijah Muhammad asked Him to identify Himself He replied that He was the Mahdi. He signed His name in 1933 as Master Wallace Fard Muhammad to express the meaning of One Who had come in the Early Morning Dawn of the New Millennium to lay the base for a New World Order of Peace and Righteousness on the foundation of Truth and Justice"  
~ Mother Tynetta Muhammad, March 28, 1996

Let's Have a Wonderful Saviour's Weekend!! 
Feb 26th, 27th, & 28th!!



Master Fard Muhammad was born February 26, 1877 in the Holy City of Mecca.
 
He raised and taught the Honorable Elijah Muhammad,
 who dedicated over 40 years of his life
 to the resurrection of the mentally, morally, spiritually and economically dead
 so-called American Negro.




COME TO MUHAMMAD MOSQUE 12!!

Friday, February 26th, 2016
Beginning @7pm EST
Free Food and Beverages
& Re-Watching of
Saviours' Day 2016 - Detroit, MI
DIVINE INSTRUCTIONS: Commands for 2016
Doors Open @6:30pm

Farrakhan and the Hadith of the Black Man Who Destroys the Ka’bah

September 2, 2013 at 5:58pm

By Wesley Muhammad, PhD.

9/2/13

In the recent edition (Part 34) of this most important lecture series, “The Time and What Must Be Done,” the Honorable Brother Minister Farrakhan makes the following, deeply profound statements:

“My dear brothers and sisters of our Islamic world…whether you know it or not the rightful place for the righteous (i.e. Mecca and Medina) will be bathed in blood as a purifying agent for the Mahdi and the Messiah to bring the real people of God back to their proper and rightful place in Mecca, in Medina, and the whole Muslim world…the real owners of that land will one day be coming home. And Allah says He will take the kingdom from whom He pleases and He will give it to whom He pleases. This is the promise of Allah…I read a hadith, I don’t know if it’s a true hadith…but it struck me while I was in Arabia, when I read it. It said, ‘One day a Negro will come at the head of 10,000 and he will destroy the Ka’bah.’  I asked myself, why would anyone destroy this ancient house of worship for the one true God? And the deeper I thought, I said it could be because that ancient house is a sign of something greater than itself. And when the sign has been fulfilled, then the sign need not be anymore.”

There are layers upon layers of wisdom in these words. I want only to provide some hadith materials relevant to Brother Minister Farrakhan’s statement, particularly as these materials relate to the specific hadith that he quotes. After listening to these words by our Minster and then grabbing the relevant materials from my library and reviewing them, I said to myself: “Farrakhan is a divinely guided man.” I had been very familiar with the hadiths that the Minister alludes to, but to be frank I really did not know what to make of them. The Minister’s words have brilliantly illuminated these hadith reports for me and for us and I am not sure that, as of right now, he is fully aware of just how much light he has shed on a whole set of hadith materials.

There is a set of apocalyptic hadith reports according to which at or near the End of Time a group of Ḥabash, literally ‘Abyssinians’ or Ethiopians, led by a particular Ḥabashī or ‘Ethiopian’, will invade Mecca and effect the complete destruction of the Ka’bah.[1]  Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 855) reports in his collection, Musnad (II:220, I:227), for example:

‘Abd Allah b. ‘Amr (ra) related that he heard the Messenger of Allah say, “Dhū l-Suwayqatayn, who is from Ḥabasha, will destroy the Ka’bah; he will take its treasures and remove from it its covering (kiswa). It is as if I am looking at him – (he is) bald (or: “with a receding hairline”) and has a distortion in his joints. He will strike it (the Ka’bah) with his steel shovel and his axe.

(‘Abd Allah) b. Abbās narrated that the Prophet (s) said: “It is as if I can see him now: he is black and his legs are spaced. He will destroy the Ka’bah stone by stone.

According to a report in al-Bayhaqī’s (d. 1066) collection, this Black man will be sitting on the Ka’bah on a mat taking it apart, stone by stone.[2]  I will discuss the Black man’s name (Dhūl-Suwayqatayn) and some of the details of his description below. Right now I want to cite a few more relevant reports. 

The Iraqī hadith scholar Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī (d. 819), in his Musnad (312-313), reports that the famous Companion of the Prophet, Abū Hurayra (d. 681), warned the Arabs that if they violate the sanctity of the Ka’bah they will perish and the Ḥabash will come, destroy the Ka’bah, and dig out its treasures. It is also reported that Anas b. Mālik (d. 712), another famous Companion, while circumambulating the Ka’bah one day spoke to it (the Ka’bah), saying: “Verily, the Ḥabash will conquer you.”[3]  A most remarkable report is recorded by al-Azrāqī (d. 827-839) in his Akhbar Makka (“Tales about Mecca”; 193): the Companion ‘Abd Allah b. ‘Amr b. al-‘Āṣ (d. 684) one day urged people to leave Mecca before one of two great calamities (iḥdā al-ẓalmatayn, “one of two darknesses” or al-ṣaylamayn, “two wars”) befell. The second of the two is “a massive raid by blacks who will come up from the sea and destroy the Ka’ba.” The leader of these Blacks will be bald (or possessing a receding hairline, aṣla’) and bowlegged (afḥaj), “as described in the Book of God,” says ‘Abd Allah. This means that the blacks who will conquer Mecca and their leader are written of the Qur’an.

These apocalyptic expectations at times produced significant anxiety among the people of Mecca. Ibn ‘Asākir (d. 1175) notes in his Tārīkh madīnat Dimashq (“The History of the City of Damascus”; IV: 584) that when the Qarmatian sect attacked Mecca in 929 and sacked the Ka’bah, some Meccans (many of whom are by this time white) went out of their homes to the Ka’bah to see if there was, as prophesied, a black man on the seventh arch of the mosque who will destroy the Ka’bah.

Who are these apocalyptic/eschatological Blacks and who is their leader, Dhū l-Suwayqatayn? The Blacks are of a particular type: Ḥabash. While this term initially was an ethnic/geographical term denoting Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa as well as the peoples of that area, it came to take on a very different, more peculiar meaning. To understand this peculiar meaning it must first be recognized that ‘Ḥabash’ does not mean and should never be translated simply as ‘Black’, as is often done. This is because the Arabs recognizedseveral different types of black-skinned peoples (al-Sūdān), including themselves. The Zanj of the southeastern coast were emphatically not the same as the Ḥabash, and both of these groups of Blacks were very distinct from the (ethnic) Arabs, who themselves unquestionably self-identified as Black (aswad, sumr, akhḍar). Al-Ḥusayn b. Alī al-Namarī (d. 996), in hisKitāb al-mulammaʿ, affirms:

Verily, Allah created five colors – white (bayāḍ), black (aswad), red (ḥumra), yellow (ṣufra), and green (khuḍra). He made four of these in humans (banū Ādam): white, black, red and yellow. He gave the Arabs, the Ethiopians (al-Ḥabash), the Zanj, and those who look like them in general – blackness (al-aswad)…And He gave the Persians, the Romans…and those that look like them in general – whiteness, redness and yellowness.[4]   

In the famous declaration of the Prophet, “I was sent to the Red/White (al-aḥmar) and the Black (al-aswad),” White referred to the non-Arabs and Black to the Arabs. Thus, Ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd (d. 1258), in his famed Sharḥ nahj al-balāghah, notes regarding this prophetic statement:

He (Prophet Muhammad) alludes to Arabs by ‘the blacks’ and the non-Arabs by ‘the reds’, for the Arabs call non-Arabs ‘red’ due to the fair-complexion that predominates among them.[5]

Similarly, Ibn Manẓūr (d. 1311) in his Arabic lexicon, Lisān al-‘arab, quotes the following commentary on the Prophet’s statement:

i.e., the Arabs and the non-Arabs, for the predominant complexion of the Arabs is dark brownish black [al-sumra wa l-udma] and that of the non-Arabs is white [al-bayaḍ wa l-ḥumra].[6]

Arabs are (were) thus in the same general “black” category as the Ḥabash and other Blacks. But the Arabs, in a very enthocentric way, clearly distinguished their black skin from that of the rest of the Sūdān (“Blacks”) by a singular trait: their black-skin was abyaḍ (al-aḍdād), i.e. smooth, luminous (azhar), and free from the blemish and blotches (al-kalaf)[7] that supposedly characterized the skin of most of the other Blacks in Africa due to the excessive dry heat there.[8] The Zanj, the Nuba, and most (but not all) of the Ḥabash, it was claimed, lacked this defining trait, having very “sooty” and blotched skin due to their being “burned” in their respective parts of Africa. This distinction between Arab (Semitic) blackness and African (Hamitic) blackness is explicitly stated. The famed Muslim historian and Qurʾānic exegete al-Ṭabarī (d. 923) recorded in his Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa’l-mulūk the following tradition on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbbās (d. 687), the cousin of the prophet Muḥammad:

The Children of Sam (Shem) settled al-Majdal, the center of the Earth, which is between Satidimā and the sea and between Yemen and Syria. Allah made the prophets from them, revealed the Books to them, made them beautiful, gave them a dark complexion, luminous and free of blemish (al-udma wa l-bayāḍ). The children of Ham settled in the south, along the course of the south and west wind-this region is called al-Dārūm. Allah gave them a dark complexion, a few of whom were also luminous and free of blemish…The children of Japheth settled in al-Ṣafūn, along the course of the north and east wind. They are ruddy-complexioned and very fair-skinned (al-ḥumra wa l-shaqra).[9]

This tradition of dark-skinned Semites and Hamites in contrast to fair-skinned Japhites of the north is found in Rabbinic Hebrew literature as well.[10] Al-Ṭabarī’s report claims that, while both Semites (Arabs) and Hamites (Africans) are dark-skinned, there is a distinction between the two complexions: the former’s dark complexion is characterized by being bayāḍ, i.e. free of blemish and imbued with a sheen or luminosity. On the other hand, the dark-complexion of most (but not all) Hamites (i.e. Africans) lacks this characteristic. The distinguishing characteristic between Arabs and Africans therefore according to this formulation is not chromatic but quality of complexion and absence or presence of a luster. A poet’s satirical reproach against the black-skinned ‘Ubayd Allāh, son of the Ethiopian Companion Abū Bakra, could claim regarding Nubian blacks: “God put no light in their complexions!”[11] This then sheds brilliant light (pun intended) on a much quoted hadith on the authority of Ibn Abbās:

A Ḥabashī man came to the Prophet (s) [wanting] to ask him [something]. The Prophet (s) said to him, ‘Ask whatever you wish.’ So he said: ‘O Apostle of God, you (pl.) surpass us in appearance (al-ṣūra) and complexion (al-alwan) and in prophethood. If I were to believe just as you believe, and if I were to do just as you do, would I enter Paradise with you?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ Then the Prophet (s) said: ‘I swear by the One who owns my heart, that the radiance of the Black person (bayaḍ al-aswad, i.e. the Ḥabashī) will be seen over the stretch of a thousand years.’[12]

The context is that of the different endowments between Semites and Hamites of somaticnūr (light). In Paradise, the Hamites (Ḥabash) too will possess their fair share and, like the Semites, their complexion will be both al-udma wa l-bayāḍ, “dark and luminous and blemish free.” The Arabs were indeed very ethnocentric about their particular black skin. It is only later, by the 9th and 10th centuries, that ethnic black Arabs all but disappear, squeezed out by ‘Arabized’ whites who converted to Islam and swelled the ranks.[13]

The term “Ḥabash” took on a special meaning distinct from “a native of Ethiopia or the Horn of Africa”: it came to specifically connote Blacks with non-Arabian African ancestry (but not necessarily origin) AND with freed slave status. Bilal is called al-Ḥabashī, “The Abyssinian.” But he was not born in Ethiopia. He was either born in Mecca or, more likely, Sirah in Yemen.[14] His father, Rabah, was an Arab. His mother Hamām, however, was from Ethiopia. It is this African ancestry but not necessarily African origin that is half of the meaning of “Ḥabash” as the term will develop. The other half: the second Rightly Guided caliph, Umar, was a black man (rajul ādam) too[15] and had, like Bilal, an Ethiopian ancestor: his paternal grandmother.[16] Yet, Umar is not referred to as al-Ḥabashī. Why? Because, though he was black-skinned with an Ethiopian ancestor (like Bilal), he was not a freed slave; he was part of the Arab nobility (he was a Qurayshī Arab). Slave and/or freedman status along with non-Arabian African ancestry were the key components of the meaning of ‘Ḥabashī’ by the time the hadith literature was compiled (ca. 8th -9th century). An actual origin in Ethiopia was no longer the primary connotation.

This means that this multitude of blacks (al-Ḥabash) who cross a sea (or body of water) to conquer Mecca are not actually Ethiopians but a people with an African ancestry who are also a slave or once slave (freed) people, like Bilal. Indeed, Bilal personifies this very people. When it is written that Muhammad heard the footsteps of Bilal enter paradise before his own, this signals not just Bilal’s personal precedence over the Prophet, but the precedence of the people personified by Bilal over the people (Arabs) personified by the Prophet. This “Ḥabashī“ precedence or preference over that of Muhammad’s people is nicely illustrated in another hadith. The great Qur’anic scholar al-Wāhidī (d. 1075), in his important text Asbāb al-Nuzūl, records the following report (re: Sura 49:3)

Yazid b. Shajarah said: “One day, the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, passed by some of the marketplaces of Medina and saw a black slave standing while his seller was crying: ‘This is for sale for whoever wants to offer more!’ The slave kept repeating: ‘I have a condition for whoever wants to buy me’. He was asked: ‘What is your condition?’ He said: ‘He (who purchases) should not stop me from performing the five prescribed prayers behind the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace’. A man bought him on this condition. The Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, saw him at each prescribed prayer until he failed to see him one day. He asked his owner: ‘Where is the slave boy?’ He said: ‘He has fever, O Messenger of Allah!’ The Prophet said to his Companions: ‘Let us go and visit him’. They went and visited him. After a few days, the Prophet, Allah bless him and give him peace, asked his owner: ‘How is the slave boy?’ The man said: ‘O Messenger of Allah, the boy's lips have turned dark’. The Prophet, Allah bless him and give him peace, went and entered in on the boy. He found him feverish and he died in that state. The Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, took charge of his washing, shrouding and burial. His Companions were horrified and became greatly disturbed. The Muhājirūn (Emigrants) said: ‘We have left our homes, wealth and family, but none of us has seen in his life, sickness or death like what this slave boy has’. The Anṣār (Helpers) said: ‘We have received him in our homes, helped him and consoled him with our riches but he preferred this Abyssinian slave over us’. Allah, glorious and majestic is He, then revealed this verse (O mankind! Lo! We have created you male and female), i.e. you are the children of one father and one mother, and He showed them the merit of God-fearingness by His words (Lo! the noblest of you, in the sight of Allah…)”.

While much could be said about many items in this lengthy hadith, there are only four that I want to briefly highlight here:

1.] The co-star of this hadith is not just a black boy but specifically a Ḥabashī slave boy.

2.] The Ḥabashī slave boy (and the people whom he represents) suffered a condition worse than that which the Arab Companions (and the people whom they represent) suffered and he eventually dies. 

3.] The Prophet Muhammad privileged this Ḥabashī slave over his own Arab Companions, much to thier chagrin and dismay.

4.] The Qur’an verses cited suggest that: 1.) Arabs and the Ḥabash have a common descent and 2.) It is religious nobility that determines greatness in God’s sight. This is clearly to explain the precedence and privilege of the Ḥabash over the Arabs in the future.   

This Ḥabashī privilege and precedence is likewise implied in the set of hadiths about the end-time destruction of the Ka’bah, suggesting that this is not an evil act but a God-ordained act:

‘Abd Allah b. ‘Amr (ra) related that the Prophet said, “Leave the Ḥabash alone (i.e. do not conquer them) so long as they leave you alone, for none shall recover the treasure of the Ka’bah except for Dhū ‘l-Suwaygatayn who is from Habasha.”[17] 

In other words, the act of the Ḥabash and their leader, Dhū ‘l-Suwaygatayn, is not a haramact but one that is required in order for them to do what only THEY can do: recover the treasure of the Ka’bah. While I cannot speak on what that “treasure” is, I am willing to bet that it is a spiritual (or anatomical) treasure rather than a material one.

Who then is the black man who will lead this multitude of freed Blacks across the water to conqueror Mecca and recover the treasure of the Ka’bah, as only they (actually he) can? The name Dhū ‘l-Suwaygatayn is actually just a description. It is usually translated as “He with the  thin legs,” but this is not entirely accurate.  Al-Suwaygatayn is the diminutive of al-Sāqayn, “legs”. It thus literally means small legs, as in “short,” rather than thin. Granted, his legs are elsewhere describe as thin (ḥamish), but we are to envision him as short and thin like, say, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, not tall and thin like, say, President Obama. He is also aṣlaʿ. This could mean either he is bald or he has a significantly receding hairline like, say, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

It is also specifically suggested that Dhū ‘l-Suwaygatayn will be a freedman, a status that he may have acquired from the freed people whom he personifies. It is not difficult at all for me to visualize the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad sitting on a mat on the top of the Ka’bah, with a multitude of Black Americans surrounding it, dismantling the Ka’bah stone by stone.  It is also easy for me to envision this Black American conquest of Mecca as the home coming of that land’s real owners, as mentioned by the Honorable Brother Minister Farrakhan in Part 34 of “The Time and What Must Be Done.” Remember also that, according to Abu Hurayra’s warning to the (Muslim) Arabs, it was their violation of the sanctity of the Ka’bah that precipitated the (re-)conquest of Mecca by these Black people. As the Honorable Brother Minister Farrakhan quotes above: “And Allah says He will take the kingdom from whom He pleases and He will give it to whom He pleases. This is the promise of Allah.”

I had all of this material in my databank, but it never really made sense to me until I heard those recent words of my Minister. I know I am at the right place, at the right time. With the right Man.

Why destroy the Ka’bah? The Honorable Brother Minister Farrakhan says wisely:

I asked myself, why would anyone destroy this ancient house of worship for the one true God? And the deeper I thought, I said it could be because that ancient house is a sign of something greater than itself. And when the sign has been fulfilled, then the sign need not be anymore.

What might that sign be? In esoteric Islam (Sufi and Shiite) the Ka’bah is viewed as an architectural image of the body of Adam, the first human, who is the earthly personification and thus vicar of God Himself.[18] As Samer Akkach notes:

In Sufi terms, the Kaʿba’s cube-like form is a crystalization of the cube of man. It is an embodiment of the human as well as cosmic spatial structure and visible manifestation of the three-dimensional cross. Its four arkān (pillars, corners) correspond to the human nature, its six faces to the human figure, and its three dimensions of length, breadth, and depth to the human body.[19] 

This homology between sacred architecture and human anatomy is not restricted to the Sufis and mystical Shiites. In fact, it is no doubt cognate with a common architectural tradition of the Hejaz, the area where Mecca and Medina are located.  Hisham A.S. Jomah has documented that in traditional Hejazi culture the square/rectangle house was seen as a microcosm of Allah’s created universe (the heavens and the earth) and as a macrocosm  of the human shape, which Allah “made beautiful (64:3).[20] As one muʿallem or master-builder from Jedda told him: “The house has eyes, ears, arms, legs, bones, ribs, skin, veins, a chest, a heart, and a stomach…it has a back and a front, a shoulder and a neck.”[21]Jomah thus concludes:

The Hejazi conception of the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm was that man is the image of the universe and vice versa. Both man and the universe were explained reciprocally, one in terms of the other. In traditional Hejazi society, this expressed the idea of a supreme unifying order in the universe which is embodied in man. It is this order that the traditional muʿallem has tried to grasp and interpret in his work (i.e. the square/rectangular houses)…The building process…provides clear evidence of the desire for correspondence between man, universe, and building, each of them a ‘dwelling’ in the true sense.   

 This recognition and sacred architectural encoding of the correspondence between macrocosm (universe) and microcosm (man) is ancient. It characterized what John M. Lundquist has called “the Common Temple Theology of the Ancient Near East.”[22] I have further documented that the Ka’bah, together with the Solomonic Temple of Jerusalem, the sacred temple of Egypt, and other specifically cubical sacred precincts in the area, is part of an ancient Near Eastern theological tradition according to which the House of God reflected in structure and recapitulated in its details the anthropomorphic body of the God of that house and the story of how that divine body emerged.[23] There is thus sufficient evidence demonstrating a continuous tradition from ancient to modern times of signifying the human/divine body with the cubicoid house of God, including the Ka’bah.

Recognizing that, at least on one level, the Ka’bah signifies both the macrocosm (i.e. the heavens and the earth)  and the microcosm, i.e. the body of Adam, the Original Man, the Vicar of God on Earth, Dhū ‘l-Suwaygatayn’s destruction of the Ka’bah by might then be seen in the light of what the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us regarding the end-time destruction of the old world, including the Old Man, and the growth of a new world, a new Islam, and a New Man:

He, Master Fard Muhammad, God in Person, will create a new heaven and a new earth, and new Islam and a new government and people. The new earth referred to is a new people who will change the old into such a great future that actually the earth will look like a new earth and a new earth will be made here in what we call America…The awakening or rising of the Black man in America must come first because he is the choice of Allah (God) in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad, for building a new heaven on earth. They are the blindest, deafest and dumbest of people who are without the knowledge of self. They are trod under the foot of civilization as “no people,” as referred to in the Bible and Holy Qur’an. As God created the present heaven and earth out of nothing, so will God, in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad, build a new heaven on earth from nothing (a people who are nothing) so that this world will have no claim on the making of the new heaven on earth…

…What Will Become of the old?

…by no means can He Carry any of the old world into His New Kingdom of Truth, Justice, Equality, and Peace. We must have a new government and a new people to operate the new government (Bible Ez. 18:31)…After the destruction of the old world by fire and by other means of destruction, there is nothing of the old wicked world that can be salvaged to carry into the new world of righteousness…

To make all things new means to go to the very root of everything that exists. We are taught that we ourselves will become a new people. The Holy Qur’an teaches that He would Cause the righteous to grow into a new growth.[24]  

A new heaven and a new earth (it will seem to be). Everything will seem to take a change. Even the righteous is promised, a new birth, a new physical birth. As He said to me out of his own mouth that He would cause (when we just submit to him) to grow into a new person, take on a new birth, as we was when we was 15 or 16 years old. That is the way he will make us to grow. No more decay beyond the destruction of this old world. Everyone in the world to come will enjoy peace and youth forever, and their days shall be many. As it is prophesied in your book in Isaiah you’ll find it. And even those that are a hundred years old in [sic] society have there will be nothing but a child. And in another place he says that life shall be as that of a tree, some trees live and continue to produce fruit for thousand of years or more. And some for four or five thousand years. This is the promise to the American so-called Negroes if he will accept his own. Set yourself away from the evil doers.”[25]

From these words of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad we learn that the old world will be destroyed and a new world will be produced. Nothing from the old world will be used to build the new, except the Black man of America who had been trodden under by his salve master’s civilization, is sickly and “dead” like the Ḥabashī slave dies in the above hadith dies. He himself, however, will be made new, even a new body. If the Ka’bah represents the heavens and earth and the body of the Old Black Man, we can understand why Dhū ‘l-Suwaygatayn is dismantling it, stone by stone. There will be a new heaven and earth as well as a new body for the New Black Man and his New Islam.    

Notes: 

[1] For a look at and discussion of this set of hadith see Suliman Bashear, Arabs and Others in Early Islam (Princeton: The Darwin Press, Inc., 1997) 96-101.

[2] Al-Sunan al-Kubrā (Beirut: Dār al-Ma’rifa, 1987) IV:340.

[3] Al-Fākihī (d. 885), Tārīkh Makka, Ms. Leiden, Or. No. 40. 464. Quoted in Bashear,Arabs and Others, 97.

[4] Al-Ḥusayn b. Alī al-Namarī, Kitāb al-mulammaʿ , ed. Wajihah Aḥmad al-Saṭil (Damascus: Majmaʿ al-lugha al-‘arabīyah al-Dimashq, 1976) 1. 

[5] Ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd Sharḥ nahj al-balāghah, ed. Muhammad Abi al-Fadl Ibrahim (Cairo: #Isa al-Babi al-Halabi, 1959) V:54.

[6] Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿarab, s.v. حمر IV: 209; ibid. s.v. خضر IV: 245.

[7]While abyaḍ/bayāḍ means ‘white’ when used in relation to non-human objects, in relation to whiteness of skin [bayād al-jilda], Ibn Manẓūr quotes al-Tahdhīb: “When Arabs say ‘so-and-so’ is ‘white’ [abyaḍ/bayḍā͗] the meaning is he/she possesses an honor free from defilement and defect.” After further quoting some poetic lines wherein abyaḍ is used to describe Arabs, Ibn Manẓūr (VII:124) says:

and this is found often in (the Arabs) poetry, (but) they don’t intend by this (i.e. abyaḍ) a white complexion. Rather, they intended to glorify with it one’s noble nature and the freedom of his/her honor from defilement and deficit. When they say, ‘so-and-so is white of face (abyaḍ/bayḍā͗ al-wajh)’ they mean the complexion’s freedom from blemish (al-kalaf) and the dishonorable (i.e. excessive) blackness (al-sawād shā͗in).

In other words, when abyaḍ is used by Arabs regarding Arabs, it means both a noble character and a blemish-free complexion, but not usually a white or fair complexion. Al-Zabīdī (ΧΙ: 73) makes the same point:

Arabs don’t say a man is abyaḍ due to white skin. Rather, abyad with them is an appearance free from blemish. When they mean ‘white skin’ they say ahmar.

But the evidence indicates that Classical Arab usage of abyaḍ to describe the Arab complexion meant more than just blemish free skin: it meant blemish-free black skin. According to the important Syrian hadith scholar and historian of Islam, Shāms al-Dīn Abū `Abd Allāh al-Dhahabī (d. 1348), in his Siyar a’lām al-nubalā’ [II:168]:

إِنَّ العَرَبَ إِذَا قَالَتْ: فُلاَنٌ أَبْيَضُ، فَإِنَّهُمْ يُرِيْدُوْنَ الحِنْطِيَّ اللَّوْنِ بِحِلْيَةٍ سَوْدَاءَ،

“When Arabs say, ‘so-and-so is white (abyaḍ),’ they mean a golden brown color on a black physiognomy (al-hintī al-lawn bi-hilya sudā’).”

[8] Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿarab (Beirut: Dār al-Ṣādir - Dār al-Bayrūt, 1955-1956) VII:124;  Muḥammad Murtaḍá al-Ḥusaynī al-Zabīdī, Tāj al-ʻarūs min jawāhir al-qāmūs , ed. ʻAbd al-Sattār Aḥmad Farrāj, 40. Vols.  (Kuwait: Wizārat al-Irshād wa-al-Anbāʾ, 1965-) ΧΙ: 73.

[9] Al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa’l-mulūk, edd. Michael Jan de Goeje and Lawrence Conrad, Annals of the Apostles and Kings. A Critical Edition Including ‘Arib’sSupplement (Gorgias Press, 2005) vol. I, 220-221; The History of al-ṬabarīVolume II:Prophets and Patriarchs, translated and annotated by William M. Brinner (Alban, NY: State University of New York Press, 1985) 19.     

[10] For example the 8th century Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer, Chapter 23 [28a] (Friedlander edition): “Noah brought his sons and his grandsons, and he blessed them with their (several) settlements, and he gave them as an inheritance all the earth. He especially blessed Shem and his sons, black but comely, and he gave them the inhabitable earth. He blessed Ham and his sons, black like a raven, and he gave them as an inheritance the coast of the sea. He blessed Japheth and his sons, they entirely white, and he gave them for an inheritance the desert and its fields; these (are the inheritances with) which he endowed them.”

[11] Balādhurī, Ansāb, I: 505.

[12] Ibn al-Jawzī, Kitāb tanwīr al-ghabash, 140 [Eng], 307 [Arb].

[13] See my, “The Aryanization of Islam.”

[14] al-Dhahabī (d. 1348), Siyar a’lam al-nubala’  1: 351; Abbas Mahmud al-Aqqad (d. 1964),  Hazrat Bilal (English Adaptation; New Delhi: Islamic Books Service, 2001) 5-6. 

[15] Ibn Ḥanbal, Musnad, III:435.

[16] Muḥammad b. Habīb, Kitāb al-Muhabbar, ed. E. Lichtenstädler (Hyderabad, 1361/1942) 306.

[17] Ibn Ḥanbal, Musnad, II:220.

[18] See especially Henry Corbin, Temple and Contemplation London and New York: KPI, 1986); Fritz Meier, “The Mystery of the Ka’ba: Symbol and Reality in Islamic Mysticism,” inThe Mysteries. Papers From the Eranos Yearbooks (Pantheon Books, 1955) 149-168 and below, note 19.

[19] Samer Akkach, Cosmology and Architecture in Premodern Islam: An Architectural Reading of Mystical Ideas (Albany: State University of New York, 2005) 180.

[20] Hisham S.A. Jomah, “The Traditional Hejazi House as a Macrocosm,” in Emily Lyle (ed.),Sacred Architecture in the Traditions of India, China, Judaism and Islam (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univesity Press, 1992) 151-168.

[21] Jomah, “Traditional Hejazi House,” 156.

[22] John M. Lundquist, “The Common Temple Ideology of the Ancient Near East,” in The Temple in Antiquity: Ancient Records and Modern Perspectives, ed. Truman G. Madsen (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1984), 53–76.

[23]Wesley Muhammad, Egyptian Sacred Science and Islam. A Reappraisal (Atlanta: ATeam Publishing, 2012) 148-157, 171-187.

[24] Elijah Muhammad, Our Saviour Has Arrived (Chicago: Muhammad’s Temple No.2, 1974) 110-119.

[25] The Most Hon. Elijah Muhammad, "Intellectuals, Uncle Toms, and Stool Pigeons.”

Recently, our nation’s financial chieftains have been feeling a little unloved. Venture capitalists are comparing the persecution of the rich to the plight of Jews at Kristallnacht, Wall Street titans are saying that they’re sick of being beaten up, and this week, a billionaire investor, Wilbur Ross, proclaimed that “the 1 percent is being picked on for political reasons.”

Ross's statement seemed particularly odd, because two years ago, I met Ross at an event that might single-handedly explain why the rest of the country still hates financial tycoons – the annual black-tie induction ceremony of a secret Wall Street fraternity called Kappa Beta Phi.

It was January 2012, and Ross, wearing a tuxedo and purple velvet moccasins embroidered with the fraternity’s Greek letters, was standing at the dais of the St. Regis Hotel ballroom, welcoming a crowd of two hundred wealthy and famous Wall Street figures to the Kappa Beta Phi dinner. Ross, the leader (or “Grand Swipe”) of the fraternity, was preparing to invite 21 new members — “neophytes,” as the group called them — to join its exclusive ranks.

Looking up at him from an elegant dinner of rack of lamb and foie gras were many of the most famous investors in the world, including executives from nearly every too-big-to-fail bank, private equity megafirm, and major hedge fund. AIG CEO Bob Benmosche was there, as were Wall Street superlawyer Marty Lipton and Alan “Ace” Greenberg, the former chairman of Bear Stearns. And those were just the returning members. Among the neophytes were hedge fund billionaire and major Obama donor Marc Lasry and Joe Reece, a high-ranking dealmaker at Credit Suisse. All told, enough wealth and power was concentrated in the St. Regis that night that if you had dropped a bomb on the roof, global finance as we know it might have ceased to exist.

During his introductory remarks, Ross spoke for several minutes about the legend of Kappa Beta Phi – how it had been started in 1929 by “four C+ William and Mary students”; how its crest, depicting a “macho right hand in a proper Savile Row suit and a Turnbull and Asser shirtsleeve,” was superior to that of its namesake Phi Beta Kappa (Ross called Phi Beta Kappa’s ruffled-sleeve logo a “tacit confession of homosexuality”); and how the fraternity’s motto, “Dum vivamus edimus et biberimus,” was Latin for “While we live, we eat and drink.”

On cue, the financiers shouted out in a thundering bellow: “DUM VIVAMUS EDIMUS ET BIBERIMUS.”

I’d heard whisperings about the existence of Kappa Beta Phi, whose members included both incredibly successful financiers (New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Goldman Sachs chairman John Whitehead, hedge-fund billionaire Paul Tudor Jones) and incredibly unsuccessful ones (Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld, Bear Stearns CEO Jimmy Cayne, former New Jersey governor and MF Global flameout Jon Corzine). It was a secret fraternity, founded at the beginning of the Great Depression, that functioned as a sort of one-percenter’s Friars Club. Each year, the group’s dinner features comedy skits, musical acts in drag, and off-color jokes, and its group’s privacy mantra is “What happens at the St. Regis stays at the St. Regis.” For eight decades, it worked. No outsider in living memory had witnessed the entire proceedings firsthand.

I wanted to break the streak for several reasons. As part of my research for my book,Young Money, I’d been investigating the lives of young Wall Street bankers – the 22-year-olds toiling at the bottom of the financial sector’s food chain. I knew what made those people tick. But in my career as a financial journalist, one question that proved stubbornly elusive was what happened to Wall Streeters as they climbed the ladder to adulthood. Whenever I’d interviewed CEOs and chairmen at big Wall Street firms, they were always too guarded, too on-message and wrapped in media-relations armor to reveal anything interesting about the psychology of the ultra-wealthy. But if I could somehow see these barons in their natural environment, with their defenses down, I might be able to understand the world my young subjects were stepping into.

So when I learned when and where Kappa Beta Phi’s annual dinner was being held, I knew I needed to try to go.

Getting in was shockingly easy — a brisk walk past the sign-in desk, and I was inside cocktail hour. Immediately, I saw faces I recognized from the papers. I picked up an event program and saw that there were other boldface names on the Kappa Beta Phi membership roll — among them, then-Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Home Depot billionaire Ken Langone, Morgan Stanley bigwig Greg Fleming, and JPMorgan Chase vice chairman Jimmy Lee. Any way you count, this was one of the most powerful groups of business executives in the world. (Since I was a good 20 years younger than any other attendee, I suspect that anyone taking note of my presence assumed I was a waiter.)


I hadn’t counted on getting in to the Kappa Beta Phi dinner, and now that I had gotten past security, I wasn’t sure quite what to do. I wanted to avoid rousing suspicion, and I knew that talking to people would get me outed in short order. So I did the next best thing — slouched against a far wall of the room, and pretended to tap out emails on my phone.

After cocktail hour, the new inductees – all of whom were required to dress in leotards and gold-sequined skirts, with costume wigs – began their variety-show acts. Among the night’s lowlights:


• Paul Queally, a private-equity executive with Welsh, Carson, Anderson, & Stowe, told off-color jokes to Ted Virtue, another private-equity bigwig with MidOcean Partners. The jokes ranged from unfunny and sexist (Q: “What’s the biggest difference between Hillary Clinton and a catfish?” A: “One has whiskers and stinks, and the other is a fish”) to unfunny and homophobic (Q: “What’s the biggest difference between Barney Frank and a Fenway Frank?” A: “Barney Frank comes in different-size buns”).

Bill Mulrow, a top executive at the Blackstone Group (who was later appointed chairman of the New York State Housing Finance Agency), and Emil Henry, a hedge fund manager with Tiger Infrastructure Partners and formerassistant secretary of the Treasury, performed a bizarre two-man comedy skit. Mulrow was dressed in raggedy, tie-dye clothes to play the part of a liberal radical, and Henry was playing the part of a wealthy baron. They exchanged lines as if staging a debate between the 99 percent and the 1 percent. (“Bill, look at you! You’re pathetic, you liberal! You need a bath!” Henry shouted. “My God, you callow, insensitive Republican! Don’t you know what we need to do? We need to create jobs,” Mulrow shot back.)

• David Moore, Marc Lasry, and Keith Meister — respectively, a holding company CEO, a billionaire hedge-fund manager, and an activist investor — sang a few seconds of a finance-themed parody of “YMCA” before getting the hook.

• Warren Stephens, an investment banking CEO, took the stage in a Confederate flag hat and sang a song about the financial crisis, set to the tune of “Dixie.” (“In Wall Street land we’ll take our stand, said Morgan and Goldman. But first we better get some loans, so quick, get to the Fed, man.”)

A few more acts followed, during which the veteran Kappas continued to gorge themselves on racks of lamb, throw petits fours at the stage, and laugh uproariously. Michael Novogratz, a former Army helicopter pilot with a shaved head and a stocky build whose firm, Fortress Investment Group, had made him a billionaire, was sitting next to me, drinking liberally and annotating each performance with jokes and insults.

“Can you fuckin’ believe Lasry up there?” Novogratz asked me. I nodded. He added, “He just gave me a ride in his jet a month ago.”

The neophytes – who had changed from their drag outfits into Mormon missionary costumes — broke into their musical finale: a parody version of “I Believe,” the hit ballad from The Book of Mormon, with customized lyrics like “I believe that God has a plan for all of us. I believe my plan involves a seven-figure bonus.” Amused, I pulled out my phone, and began recording the proceedings on video. Wrong move.

“Who the hell are you?” Novogratz demanded.

I felt my pulse spike. I was tempted to make a run for it, but – due to the ethics code of the New York Times, my then-employer – I had no choice but to out myself.

“I’m a reporter,” I said. Novogratz stood up from the table. "You’re not allowed to be here," he said. I, too, stood, and tried to excuse myself, but he grabbed my arm and wouldn’t let go.

“Give me that or I’ll fucking break it!” Novogratz yelled, grabbing for my phone, which was filled with damning evidence. His eyes were bloodshot, and his neck veins were bulging. The song onstage was now over, and a number of prominent Kappas had rushed over to our table. Before the situation could escalate dangerously, a bond investor and former Grand Swipe named Alexandra Lebenthal stepped in between us. Wilbur Ross quickly followed, and the two of them led me out into the lobby, past a throng of Wall Street tycoons, some of whom seemed to be hyperventilating.

Once we made it to the lobby, Ross and Lebenthal reassured me that what I’d just seen wasn’t really a group of wealthy and powerful financiers making homophobic jokes, making light of the financial crisis, and bragging about their business conquests at Main Street’s expense. No, it was just a group of friends who came together to roast each other in a benign and self-deprecating manner. Nothing to see here.

But the extent of their worry wasn’t made clear until Ross offered himself up as a source for future stories in exchange for my cooperation.

“I’ll pick up the phone anytime, get you any help you need,” he said. “Yeah, the people in this group could be very helpful,” Lebenthal chimed in. “If you could just keep their privacy in mind.”

I wasn’t going to be bribed off my story, but I understood their panic.  Here, after all, was a group that included many of the executives whose firms had collectively wrecked the global economy in 2008 and 2009. And they were laughing off the entire disaster in private, as if it were a long-forgotten lark. (Or worse, sing about it — one of the last skits of the night was a self-congratulatory parody of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen,” called “Bailout King.”) These were activities that amounted to a gigantic middle finger to Main Street and that, if made public, could end careers and damage very public reputations.

After several more minutes spent trying to do damage control, Ross and Lebenthal escorted me out of the St. Regis.

As I walked through the streets of midtown in my ill-fitting tuxedo, I thought about the implications of what I’d just seen.

The first and most obvious conclusion was that the upper ranks of finance are composed of people who have completely divorced themselves from reality. No self-aware and socially conscious Wall Street executive would have agreed to be part of a group whose tacit mission is to make light of the financial sector’s foibles. Not when those foibles had resulted in real harm to millions of people in the form of foreclosures, wrecked 401(k)s, and a devastating unemployment crisis.

The second thing I realized was that Kappa Beta Phi was, in large part, a fear-based organization. Here were executives who had strong ideas about politics, society, and the work of their colleagues, but who would never have the courage to voice those opinions in a public setting. Their cowardice had reduced them to sniping at their perceived enemies in the form of satirical songs and sketches, among only those people who had been handpicked to share their view of the world. And the idea of a reporter making those views public had caused them to throw a mass temper tantrum.

The last thought I had, and the saddest, was that many of these self-righteous Kappa Beta Phi members had surely been first-year bankers once. And in the 20, 30, or 40 years since, something fundamental about them had changed. Their pursuit of money and power had removed them from the larger world to the sad extent that, now, in the primes of their careers, the only people with whom they could be truly themselves were a handful of other prominent financiers.

Perhaps, I realized, this social isolation is why despite extraordinary evidence to the contrary, one-percenters like Ross keep saying how badly persecuted they are. When you’re a member of the fraternity of money, it can be hard to see past the foie gras to the real world.

ASA Family, 

Very interesting dialogue to say the least. Once again I hesitate to comment, but I must. I hesitate because if we are what we eat, then any criticism of what we eat feels very personal- and in the deepest sense it is personal. But on the other hand- to not speak up is a dereliction of duty of which I do not wish to be guilty.
Some have raised a concern about getting out in front of the Messenger of God... How could we, with our stumbling, meager , back-pedaling, half stepping baby steps, ever think that we are over-taking and passing the Messenger of Allah?!! Rather, IF we try with all our might, and run as fast as we can, we might catch up enough to just get a faint glimpse of Him way out there ahead of where we are by a light year or two! (smile) Let us not flatter ourselves that we are doing better than we actually are, which is a woefully sub-par performance as witnessed by our highly visible results!

There is a world if difference between different beans. When properly soaked the navy (pea) pulse bean is the most digestible. All other beans are less digestible all the way out to the soy bean which is not only indigestible, but toxic as well. There is a gradient scale of all the other beans between the two. Lentils are probably acceptable and easy to cook. You can't possibly practice How to Eat to Live without knowing beans about beans!

Making a Scientific Bean Soup Dry navy pea beans are living but in a dormant state and can not be eaten nor digested until they are brought back to active life by soaking in water, the elixir of life. Navy beans need to be soaked a minimum of 12 hours. 


They must be soaked until they exhibit signs of life- they begin to respire- you'll see bubbles in the soak water. At that point enzymes turn on and begin an auto-digestive process in the bean, converting indigestible complex sugars to a digestible form. Many other changes are taking place within the bean as well. The bean is self digesting. Cooking is the second phase of digestion. The third phase is in your stomach! If you skip or shorten any steps your digestive system will pay the price (gas).

I soak my dry beans (3 cups) up to 30 hours at room temperature to ensure that the beans are fully alive (resurrected). At this point the soak water is cloudy and there is an aroma of fermentation. Now the beans are soft alive and ready for cooking which will generally be 1.5 to 2 hours. Low quality beans take longer. Cook the beans on a high flame in the soak water- it contains valuable nutrients released from the beans. The beans will produce a foam as they boil. The foam is due to bean powder that is full of protein as well as some impurities. Just skim it off the top. Add more water as needed. Do not add anything to the beans until they are done. They are done when they are soft enough to easily smash between your fingers. Then add: 6 teaspoons Celtic sea salt, a stick of butter or ghee, and 1 cup coconut oil (do not use corn, vegetable or olive oil), 4-6 tablespoons of turmeric, 4-6 tablespoons paprika, cayenne(to taste), lots of fresh garlic, 3-4 medium onions, 1 green pepper, 1-2 cups celery, (may also add curry or garam masala), 1cup Italian parsley, 1 cup cilantro. ( all vegetables added are finely chopped). Once all spices and vegetables have been added, turn off burner and add 2 cups of tomato sauce. Stir. You're done! Total cooking time of spices, oil and vegetables is 10-12 minutes only. You may now puree if desired. Store in glass jars once cool. If you like olive oil then add along with tomato sauce at the end of the cooking process instead of coconut oil, or at time of serving.

Do not hard cook olive oil. Do not cook tomato sauce at all. All corn and vegetable oil is GMO. For most people it is a mistake to skip the coconut oil. Do not swap out the Celtic sea salt for some other kind, please. Do not add sugar, rice, meat, or other vegetables. Avoid the harsh bitter European spices like oregano, thyme, sage, etc. and black pepper. Served with buttered and thoroughly toasted (dry and crumbly) whole wheat bread and plenty of pure raw milk you have the complete meal, the basic foundation of How to Eat to Live. What more do you need? Well you could put some raw honey on that bread! If you have a sugar problem or are over- weight skip the bread and the honey- that's not for you!

I know that there are some people who will take issue with what I am offering here because it is quite a bit different from what you may have been doing till now. But the above is the result of more than 40 years of research that is up-dated and relevant for 2012. It's scientifically designed according to the principles of How to Eat to Live for our time.

One final item-very important: Due to the recent increased exposure to radiation from Fukushima and leaking nuclear power plants in California and Pennsylvania, among others, it is also advisable to add a teaspoon of organic Chlorella and Spirulina powder to your bowl of hot soup to protect against radiation injury. It does not ruin the taste, but it turns everything a deep dark green. And I do mean everything...

ENJOY and LIVE!
Alim, sent from my iPad
Abundant Life

Def Jam Records co-founder Russell Simmons took some time today (November 27) to reflect on his admiration toward Kanye West and detailed just how much of a positive contribution he makes to society.


Reports Sohh:

According to Simmons, they recently spoke face-to-face and he realized just how passionate Ye is about making a difference in the world.

“I recently sat down with Ye in New York and got the chance to hear about his hopes and ambitions, his frustrations and contradictions, his happiness and his anger. But through it all, what I felt from Kanye was an artist who desperately wants to leave his imprint in the history books. What’s often times misunderstood about Kanye is that people believe he wants all of this for himself, in fact, quite the opposite, he wants all of this for the rest of us. He wants to destroy the glass ceiling with 808?s and crack music…so one day WE have the power to see all of the lights. Certainly he wants a piece for himself…everybody would, but at his core, at the bottom of his heart, lies an inner-truth that has led to an external battle to make this world a bit easier for those who have been dealt a hand of struggle, by showing them a glimmer of hope through his art.” (Global Grind)

In Simmons’ opinion, Mr. West has the power to lead masses into a new generation of advancement.

“We will no longer be lost in the world and we will survive in this America. I believe these truths to be self-evident. That is what Kanye West told me on a cold morning in New York City just seven days ago. It is his genius, his tenacity, his creativity, his relentlessness and his madness, that will allow us all to one day have the ability to touch the sky.” (Global Grind)

Shortly after Russell posted his blog entry, Kanye jumped at the opportunity to respond.

“Thank you Russel for these kind insightful words, I appreciate your mentorship.,” Kanye tweeted November 27. (Kanye West’s Twitter)

Posted: 11/08/2013 5:06 pm EST

The black students at University of California, Los Angeles, sent a strong message about diversity at their school. Namely, the fact that there isn't much when it comes to African-American males, a troubling fact for one of the state's most elite institutions.

A group of students, led by Sy Stokes, posted a video voicing their concerns about the number of black students on campus, and their message is hard to ignore. Stokes, a third-year Afro-American studies student who identifies as black, Cherokee and Chinese, recites a spoken word poem in the video, citing blaring statistics about the university's diversity issue.

According to the school's enrollment statistics, African-Americans make up 3.8 percent of the student population. In the video, Stokes points out that black males make up 3.3 percent of the male student population, and that 65 percent of those black males are undergraduate athletes. Of the incoming men in the freshmen class, only 1.9 percent of them were black.

In an interview with the Daily Bruin, Stokes said he almost dropped out of UCLA during his first year because he felt isolated and uncomfortable. Although he eventually found his niche in the minority community, he said he wanted to raise awareness about the school's lack of diversity before the university's application deadline on Nov. 30.

“We had to do something to put our issues on the map,” Stokes said.

In an email statement to the school paper, Janina Montero, vice chancellor of student affairs, said administrators acknowledge the need for more diversity and are attempting to work within the state's admission parameters.

“We certainly recognize that the low numbers of African Americans and other underrepresented students on campus does lead to a sense of isolation and invisibility,” Montero said in her email statement. “It is difficult to eliminate this painful imbalance without considering race in the admissions process.”

The state of California voted down affirmative action in 1996 and passed Proposition 209, which banned state schools from considering race, gender, ethnicity or national origins in their admissions processes. Black student enrollment has severely decreased since that provision and critics are saying that has to change.

The students' video adds to the ongoing affirmative action debate both inside and outside of the state, raising awareness about diversity at institutions around the country. Stokes said he feels responsible for spreading the word about the unknown challenges of being a minority student at UCLA and the ongoing lack of diversity on campus.

"Being the cousin of Arthur Ashe, I feel as though it is my responsibility to uphold the strong voices of the Black Bruin community," he said. This school has experienced unacceptable instances of injustice recently, and many people are not aware of what is happening at this university."

Excelsior! Ms. Marvel Reborn as Muslim-American TeenagerBy Bryan Enk

Here's a strong candidate for the key recruit in "Marvel's The Avengers 3" ... or, dare we say it, the star of her own stand-alone film?

One of Marvel's most popular characters is getting a major makeover as a brand-new interpretation of Ms. Marvel will be hitting comic book stands next month. And emphasis on the "brand-new," as our new female superhero bears little to no resemblance to her predecessor.

The new Ms. Marvel is Kamala Khan, a 16-year-old Muslim-American teenager living in Jersey City and struggling with her parents' high expectations regarding a future she has little interest in. Then, one day, she's suddenly bestowed with super-powers and, well, that pretty much changes everything.

This is a far cry from the original blonde-and-blue-eyed Ms. Marvel, a "bold new super-heroine in the senses-stunning tradition of Spider-Man," as described on the cover of "Ms. Marvel" No. 1 (January 1977). The first Ms. Marvel was Carol Danvers, a highly skilled Air Force major and CIA operative who gained super-powers after an accident with an alien Kree device left her as a perfect hybrid of Kree and human genes. She was a creation of writer Roy Thomas and artist Gene Colan, first introduced in "Marvel Super-Heroes" No. 13 (March 1968).

The old version of Ms. Marvel has been a fixture on TV cartoons, including "Super Hero Squad," in which she was a featured player, as well as appearances in "The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes" and "Ultimate Spider-Man."

The new Ms. Marvel looks to expand the ethnic boundaries of the Marvel universe, though without any specific political or cultural agenda.

"The inspiration for the new 'Ms. Marvel' series stemmed out of a desire to explore the Muslim-American diaspora from an authentic perspective and yet, this story isn't about what it means to be a Muslim, Pakistani or American," says "Ms. Marvel" series editor Sana Amanat. "Those are just cultural touchstones that reflect the ever-changing world we live in today. This is ultimately a tale about what it means to be young, lost amidst the expectations bestowed upon you, and what happens when you get to choose."

The new Ms. Marvel may have also been partly inspired by "Persepolis," the acclaimed black-and-white French language graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi depicting her childhood up to her early adult years in Iran during and after the Islamic revolution. Originally published in 2000, it was later adapted into an animated feature film in 2007 and received an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature.





No matter what her creative origins might be, the new Ms. Marvel looks to already be a hit, as social media reactions have been extremely positive:

Congrats @Marvel & @MiniB622 for pushing boundaries with the new #MsMarvel. Looking fwd to picking up issues in Feb!

Kamala Khan will first appear in January 2014 in an All-New Marvel NOW! Point One comic book before headlining her own "Ms. Marvel" title beginning in February.

The creative team consists of G. Willow Wilson ("Air," "Mystic," "Alif the Unseen"), an acclaimed novelist and multi-Eisner nominee whose writings about modern religion have appeared in such outlets as New York Times Magazine and The Atlantic; and artist Adrian Alphone ("Runaways," "Uncanny X-Force").

Back in May, in a passing reference, The Hollywood Reporter noted that Marvel had a script banked for a Ms. Marvel film. But, based on the chrononology, it would seem that treatment involved the character's original incarnation.

So ... how long before we see the rebooted character as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe? We have a feeling Joss Whedon raised an eyebrow or two this morning. Let the casting speculation commence.



http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/movie-talk/excelsior-ms-marvel-reborn-muslim-american-teenager-183043776.html