Noble Drew Ali

Noble Drew Ali (1886-1929), possibly born Timothy or Thomas Drew in North Carolina, was an American religious leader who founded a series of organizations that his followers eventually unified as the Moorish Science Temple of America. He first established the Canaanite Temple in Newark, New Jersey in 1913, then moved westward founding congregations in Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and Detroit before settling in Chicago between 1922 and 1925, where the movement gained thousands of converts as the Moorish Holy Temple of Science and then, from 1928, the Moorish Science Temple of America. He wrote the Circle Seven Koran as the movement central religious text and was regarded by his followers as a prophet. He died in Chicago in 1929 of tuberculosis and bronchopneumonia, shortly after being arrested and released in connection with a rival leader's murder. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/