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Elijah Muhammad Critique

1272 Words6 Pages

Riaz, Harris, FSU Student #: H10000412

Book Critique #2, W. Guzman, Fall-2016

Monday. & Thursday. 9:30a.m-10:45a.m., December 7, 2016

Clegg, Claude. The Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad, 1897-1975

St. Martin?s Press, New York N.Y. 10010, 1997

The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad
The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad is a key book that addresses the life of Elijah Muhammad from his beginnings and rise to the head of Nation of Islam. As usual with books about revolutionaries, the text eventually places the life of Elijah Muhammad within the context of the civil rights movement and embrace of Islam by Blacks. However, the book is also interested in revealing a certain kind of mask that is always in public figures. In this sense, the reader understands what inspired and drove the values of the African-American religious leader. In the end, the book is interested in revealing Muhammad as essentially a political person rather the religious self that he employed in drawing a sizeable number of followers. It is arguable that the book creates a comprehensive biography of an underrated public figure, and is sympathetic as well as appreciative of the Black persons? struggles in a country that has inherently been violent against one.
The book is …show more content…

For instance, the book does not explain the rational reasons that led towards the iron-fist leadership by the Nation of Islam. It also fails to appreciate effectively the angst of Elijah Muhammad as a conscious Black person who experienced the brutalities of a white-led society. In undertaking such a safe stance, most readers become less conscious of the evil of racism in the American society. The assumption that history of objective has always proven faulty, as it ignores that the emphasis on one part of history against the other also sustains

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