- Moorish Orthodox Church of America
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The Moorish Orthodox Church of America is a syncretic religious body espousing an ostensibly Eastern Christian liturgical and devotional tradition laid over a theology consisting of teachings gleaned from Ismaili Islam, Sufism (particularly from the Chishti, Bektashi and Oveyssi traditions), Tantra (of both the Buddhist and Hindu variations) and Vedanta teachings. An outgrowth of the Moorish Science Temple of America, an African American body of heretical Muslims founded in the early 20th century by Timothy Drew (the Prophet Noble Drew Ali), the Moorish Orthodox Church was founded in 1964 by Beatniks and members of the Noble Order of Moorish Sufis (a group that grew out of Temple #13 in Baltimore on July 7, 1957). The MOC published a journal entitled the Moorish Science Monitor from 1965-1967. After a long period of quiescence the Church experienced a renaissance in the mid-'80s owing to the involvement of former members of the beat/beatnik movement, the countercultural hippie community and the gay liberation movement.
Lineage of authenticity
The silsilah (lineage of authenticity) of the Moorish Orthodox Church in America can be traced through Rofelt Pasha, John G. Jones, Marcus Garvey, Noble Drew Ali, Brother Prophet John Givens El, Timothy Dingle El, Sultan Rafi Sharif Bey Shah, Rachel Yaqoubi El, Walid al-Taha (aka Warren Tartaglia), Hakim Bey, and Sotemohk A. Beeyayelel. Rofelt Pasha is the reputed founder of the Ancient Egyptian Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine (AEAONMS), an African-American version of the Shriners that grew out of Prince Hall Freemasonry.
The Moorish Orthodox Church and the Noble Order of Moorish Sufis also trace their linage to the Chishti Order. All the Sufi paths purportedly trace back to Muhammad through Ali, his nephew and son-in-law, as the Gate to the City of Knowledge. The American and European tracings are Masonic and from traditional Islam spread covertly throughout the United States through slavery and migration during and after slavery; an outstanding example of evidence of the former is set out in the Bilali Document. In the places that this is mentioned it can be read as Drew Ali being the Son of Allah, Drew being a Messenger of Allah, or with a bit of a stretch, as spreading the message of Alī. The Shriners and the Knights Templar supposedly trace their linage to the Bektashi. By default, the Moors would also if part of their spiritual path came from the Shriners.
Influences
Moorish Orthodoxy in its present incarnation was influenced in a Christian direction by a number of episcopi vagantes numbering among them the gay activist Archbishop of San Francisco, Metropolitan-Archbishop Mikhail Itkin (today canonized a saint of Moorish Orthodoxy with the appellation Saint Mikhail of California).
In the late 1990s, the Moorish Orthodox Church's Diocese of New Jersey, under the leadership of Bishop Sotemohk A. Beeyayelel, established its primatial see in the abandoned southern village of Ong's Hat, New Jersey (today known as Pemberton, New Jersey; its administration is centered in Montclair, New Jersey) and returned to at least a veneer of conventional Orthodox Christianity, though retaining its distinctive liturgical and devotional life and maintaining a special mission of outreach to the marginalized, particularly the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered communities. Bishop Sotemohk has been particularly receptive to the influences of the Bektashi and Oveyssi sufi orders as well as the Queer Spirit and Radical Faerie movements and has sought to promote the church's activity in the areas of educational and social reform.
In August 2010, the Moorish Orthodox Diocese of New Jersey became the primatial see of the Church in North and South America and transferred its chancery to Berea, Kentucky, thereafter to be known Moorish Orthodox Jurisdiction of North and South America and Bishop Sotemohk was invested as Primate under the name Mar Sotemohk Lingamananda I. The functions of the denomination's educational facilities, Alamut College and its graduate school (the Hakim Bey Theological College) are planned to be transferred to Church facilities in Kentucky and Florida.
Recently, the Church has become active in domestic and foreign missionary pursuits, and has established missions in Elmwood, MA; Wilmore, KY; Sebago Lake, ME; Asbury Park, NJ; and Sioux Falls, SD (USA), Kokstad, South Africa; Bata, Equatorial Guinea; Malabo, Equatorial Guinea; Occusi-Ambeno, East Timor; Prague, Czech Republic and Nieuw Nickerie and Benzdorp, Surinam.
External links
Categories:- African-American culture
- New religious movements
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