The Black Muslims in America

C. Eric Lincoln was a scholar of African American religion, and this academic book, published by Beacon Press, was the first major scholarly study of the Nation of Islam, based on Lincoln's own direct research and access to the movement during its formative mid twentieth century growth under Elijah Muhammad. Its strength is genuine early access and documentation of the movement at a period when it was not otherwise well studied academically, giving it lasting standing as a primary scholarly record. Its limit is its age, describing the Nation of Islam as it stood at the time of Lincoln's research, so the movement's later splits, changes in leadership and doctrine, and the broader African American Muslim community's subsequent development all need separate, more current sources to cover.