Part one of the book is called “Root Sources”. In it, Turner comprehensively demonstrates how he believes that, “The new American Islam was deeply influenced by racism in America, by the Pan-African political movement of African Americans in the early twentieth century, and by the historic patterns of racial separation in Islam.”(p.67) Turner utilizes Part one to set the stage for the “new Islam” of the twentieth century discussed in part two.

In the first chapter, titled “Muslims in a Strange Land: American Muslim Slaves in America”, Turner describes for the reader the early evolution of Islam among blacks in West Africa. He also describes how that same brand of “old Islam” would follow African Slaves across the Atlantic to the shores of North America.

At the end of the chapter, Turner talks about Louis Farrakhan and Warith Deen Mohammed, whom he calls the most important Muslim leaders in America today. When Wallace D. Muhammad took over the Nation of Islam, he reformed the religion to conform to orthodox Islam. This included abandoning the belief that W.D. Fard was a prophet of God and opening the religion to include white people. Warith Deen Mohammad eventually renamed the nation of Islam the “Muslim American Community”. Louis Farrakhan split away from Warith Deen in the late 1970s to reform the Nation of Islam because he felt a need to revert back to the Nation’s racial-separatist identity. He still believed that this was the best for the black community. Currently though, Louis Farrakhan has compromised his views somewhat. After talking about these two, Turner discusses current movements in black American Islam.

Chapter Five is called “Missionizing and Signifying: W.D. Fard and the Early History of the Nation of Islam.” Turner uses this chapter to familiarize the reader with the beginnings of the Nation of Islam. He begins by discussing how W.D. Fard spread Islam in the black community. “W.D. Fard was one of the most important figures in American Islamic history because he formulated the structures of political and racial discourse that enabled the religion to move into the 1950s and 1960s.”(p.170) Fard informed blacks that their actual homeland was Arabia and that Islam was their native religion. He advised against eating pork and drinking alcohol. Fard also preached about the how the “white devil” was oppressing blacks in America. He believed that the only solution to African- American’s woes was racial-separatism. Fard also told his followers that he was a prophet of God. Elijah Muhammad was a regular attendee of Fard’s meetings and would soon become his most devoted follower. Turner lists many reasons why blacks began buying into Fard’s racial-separatist ideals. The Great Migration is once again mentioned as a reason. Also, Blacks who chose the Nation of Islam over other forms of new American Islam did so out of a belief that there was no hope of assimilation into white mainstream society. Many others were attracted to the Nation because the issues they chose to address signified the Nation from other American Islam. The Nation further pushed the theme of signification by requiring all converts to change their surnames to X. Elijah Mohammad and W.D. Fard believed that this helped change black identity which would lead to a change in black destiny. Their worldview also signified the Nation because it was markedly Western, where as other black Islamic groups chose to take an Eastern worldview. The Nation of Islam’s worldview was entirely based on racism in America and the African-American situation. The Nation of Islam was formed as a response to American racism, and its members took part in the jihad of words against Christianity. Not surprisingly, orthodox Muslims had no desire to associate themselves with this movement. Turner says that this didn’t hinder Fard and Muhammad because they felt they were teaching the brand of Islam best suited for the black community. Also in this chapter, Turner spends a great deal of time discussing the mysterious past of W.D. Fard. The debate seems rather pointless, but Turner uses the conflicting theories as a means of showing how different groups perceived the Nation of Islam.

During the later part of the second chapter, Turner highlights how the changing face of global Islam in the twentieth century influenced Islam in America. At the dawn of the century, Muslims worldwide began to modernize the religion to make it more appealing to the West. The Indian Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam was one such group that modified orthodox Islam. Their goal was to spread Islam in the West by presenting it as a religion for all people. Mohammed Alexander Russell Webb, the first known Europ

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