Moorish Science Temple of America

The Moorish Science Temple of America is an American national and religious organization founded in the early twentieth century by Noble Drew Ali, born Timothy Drew, on the premise that African Americans are descendants of the Moabites and thus Moorish by nationality and Islamic by faith. Ali combined elements of major traditions into a message of personal transformation through historical education, racial pride and spiritual uplift, teaching that adherents descend from the Moroccan Empire and requiring members to proclaim their Moorish nationality and carry nationality cards. Incorporated under the Illinois Religious Corporation Act, it was founded in 1913 in Newark, New Jersey, before Ali relocated to Chicago and established temples in other major cities, expanding rapidly in the late 1920s amid the Great Migration; competing factions split into three independent organizations after Ali's death, and the founding of the Nation of Islam by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930 created further competition, though membership, estimated at 30,000 in the 1930s with a third in Chicago, continued to grow more slowly through the postwar years.