U.S. Department of State
Islam was brought to the United States by African Muslim slaves, and it retained a real if minuscule presence in the country throughout the 19th century. It reemerged at the beginning of the 20th century as a result of the efforts of the Aḥmadīyah movement, an unorthodox sect founded in India by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (
c. 1839–1908), and of Shaikh Ahmed Faisal (1891–1980), the Moroccan-born leader of an independent Black Muslim movement. Muslim teachings were tied to Black nationalism by Noble Drew Ali, originally Timothy Drew (1886–1929), who founded the Moorish Science Temple of America in Newark, New Jersey, in 1913. He produced a new sacred text,