Metaphysical Africa: Truth and Blackness in the Ansaru Allah Community

The Ansaru Allah Community, also known as the Nubian Islamic Hebrews (AAC/NIH), is a controversial African American Muslim movement founded in Brooklyn in the 1960s. This book by Michael Muhammad Knight studies the development of AAC/NIH discourse over thirty years, tracing a surprising consistency behind a facade of serial reinvention. AAC/NIH media taught that the Prophet Muhammad was a Hebrew who adhered to Israelite law, his heavenly ascension took place on a spaceship, and Abraham enlisted the help of a pharaonic regime to genetically engineer pigs as food for white people. Knight demonstrates that AAC/NIH discourse is best framed within a broader African American metaphysical history, challenging assumptions that inform the study of this particular religious community and the field at large.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 314 pages
Publication date: 08 November 2022
Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press

The Ansaru Allah Community, also known as the Nubian Islamic Hebrews (AAC/NIH) and later the Nuwaubians, is a profoundly significant and contentious African American Muslim movement. Founded in Brooklyn in the 1960s, it spread through the prolific production and dissemination of literature and lecture tapes and became famous for continuously reinventing its belief system. In this book, Michael Muhammad Knight studies the development of AAC/NIH discourse over a period of thirty years, tracing a surprising consistency behind a facade of serial reinvention.

It is commonly believed that the AAC/NIH community abandoned Islam for Black Israelite religion, UFO religion, and Egyptosophy. However, Knight sees coherence in AAC/NIH media, explaining how the community taught that the Prophet Muhammad was a Hebrew who adhered to Israelite law; Muhammads heavenly ascension took place on a spaceship; and Abraham enlisted the help of a pharaonic regime to genetically engineer pigs as food for white people. Against narratives that treat the AAC/NIH community as a postmodernist deconstruction of religious categories, Knight demonstrates that AAC/NIH discourse is most productively framed within a broader African American metaphysical history in which boundaries between traditions remain quite permeable.

Unexpected and engrossing, Metaphysical Africa brings to light points of intersection between communities and traditions often regarded as separate and distinct. In doing so, it helps move the field of religious studies beyond conventional categories of “orthodoxy” and “heterodoxy,” challenging assumptions that inform not only the study of this particular religious community but also the field at large.

Weight: 480g
Dimension: 228 x 153 x 22 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780271094519