REVIEWS
"Dr. Walker has drawn a portrait of this movement that deserves the attention of
scholars. I strongly recommend it to teachers and students studying or writing about
Islam and the African American experience."
— Dr. Sulayman S. Nyang,Howard University
"Note: About the author: Dennis Walker is a Celtic Australian specialist on Muslim minorities and
author of two books on Islam and the national question. As a speaker of Arabic, he reads five
Muslim languages, and is the author of numerous scholarly papers, articles and reviews, which
have been printed in a various languages, which reflect his extensive travels throughout the world.
He has taught at Melbourne University, Deakin University and the Australian University. He
received his doctorate from the Australian University on pan-Arabism and pan-Islamism in
Egyptian high culture.
Real voices of Muslims translated from Arabic were heard in both Woodson and DubBois works. In
its West African setting, Arabic offered a high literary tradition predating and absolutely
independent of the Westerners both historians loathed---a tradition that recorded sub-Saharan
events and societies while judging them from viewpoints of Arabs or when Muslim Blacks wrote, of
Islamic ideology. Thus, Dubois excerpted firsthand reactions by the Arab traveler, Ibn Battutah, in
1352 to the society and customs of the West African townspeople of Melle.
Excerpt from Islam and the search for African American Nationhood, by Dr. Dennis Walker
It is not very often books of substance on African Americans, Islam and the Nation of Islam are
written to set the record straight, or to reveal the truth about an historical legacy in the making.
However, Islam and the search for African American, and the Nation of Islam, by Dr. Dennis Walker
is an exception to the rule.
While researching his book, Dr. Walker contacted many significant Islamic/Arab scholars, African
Americans, and my cousin, the late Dr. Jamil Diab to assist him in the documentation as well as
the authenticity of Islam and the African American connection. Throughout the course of Dr.
Walker's research work for his book, he displayed a genuine interest and keen sense of appreciation
for the Arabic language, and written materials on the Arab and African American connections.
Some of the articles Dr. Walker had read were articles I had written for the Muslim Journal. So
across the oceans, he and I began to communicate with an exchange of Muslim Journal
newspapers and articles which would prove to be valuable resource information for his new book,
Islam and the search for African American, and the Nation of Islam. It was during this time that I
had suggested to Dr. Walker via the internet--if you want to know the history of Islam and the
African American connection, you should call my cousin Dr. Jamil Diab, a Palestinian and
Islamic scholar who was the teacher and mentor to the Honorable Elijah Mohammad and son, the
Honorable Imam Warith Deen Mohammad.
Dr. Walker's book sets the record straight for an Islamic, African American and an Arab historical
connection, the influences and impacting maze of geographical history, as well as the search for
African American nationhood in the 21st century.
This well document book offers several defining points of views coupled with the elements of
societies' Black History, The Nation of Islam, race, class, and culture. Dr. Walker's book also
strengthens and confirms the longstanding relevance of media knowledge and networks within the
African American communities and its impact on domestic and international relations.
Islam and the search for African American Nationhood, is an extensive scholarly treasure trove of
African, Arab and Islamic history. This timely study on Islam and the African American movement
and its leaders is worthy reading, yet goes beyond the expansion of the African American
experience…and its search for Nationhood."
Leila Diab, Muslim Journal
"I endorse this book and I am glad that I have it. It is invaluable to me. I grew up
during some of the period which the author writes about. I watched as an inner-city
youth how the black Muslims, as they were known, worked. I was impressed in their
ability to clean up the neighbourhood, put people to work, refurbish old and broken
down buildings and clean up lives. I saw how black churches changed their rhetoric to
be more relevant in light of the inroads made by the NOI. I saw black
entrepreneurship at its best because the NOI had a plan and carried out its plan.
This book describes in great detail the successes and the failures of this powerful
organisation. As a scholar who teaches about the NOI, religion, cultures and race in
America this book gives the context and enables the reader to understand the
dynamics surrounding any movement. As I often tell my students: religions do not
exist in a vacuum. To that end religion is more than doctrines and creeds and
practices. Religion is not only affected by everything around it but in affects
everything in its environment.
Dennis Walker deserves praise for this very scholarly and comprehensive work.
This is a great study on a great movement, headed by some great people in an
important nation.
IVORY LYONS, Journal of Intercultural Studies. 2009
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