Editing Moorish Orthodox Church of America

{{Short description|Religious movement in the United States}}
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{{more citations needed|date=May 2016}}
{{original research|date=March 2019}}
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{{Use American English|date=March 2026}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2026}}
The '''Moorish Orthodox Church of America''' is a [[Syncretism|syncretic]], [[Religious pluralism|non-exclusive]], and [[Religious anarchism|religious anarchist]] movement originally founded in [[New York City]] in 1965 and part of the burgeoning psychedelic church movement of the mid to late 1960s in the United States.

==Influences==
The Moorish Orthodox Church of America incorporates a vast array of liturgical and devotional traditions ranging from [[Moorish Science Temple of America|Moorish Science]], the [[Five Percenters]], the [[Episcopi vagantes]] movement, [[Nizari|Nizari Islam]], [[Sufism]] (particularly from the [[Sufi Order Ināyati]], [[Shadhili]], [[Alevism|Alevi]]-[[Bektashi]] and [[Uwaisi]] traditions), varying degrees of [[Theosophical mysticism]], [[Hermeticism]], [[Oriental Orthodoxy]], the [[League for Spiritual Discovery]], [[Western esotericism]], [[Neoplatonism]], [[Tantra]], [[Zoroastrianism]], [[Taoism]], and [[Vedanta]]. These influences were brought into the Church by early founding members, and have been added to over the last 40 years. Thus the list of spiritual influences grows as the Church has aged.

The Church has historically exhibited strong [[Anarchism|anarchist]], [[Socialism|socialist]], and [[Utopian socialism|utopian]] political orientations. These include the works of [[Charles Fourier]], [[Abdullah Öcalan]], [[Noel Ignatiev]], [[Hakim Bey]], [[Friedrich Nietzsche]], [[Murray Bookchin]], [[Mikhail Bakhtin]], [[Karl Marx]], [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]], [[Max Stirner]], [[Marcus Garvey]], [[Malcolm X]], the [[Industrial Workers of the World]], and [[John Henry Mackay]]. Combined influences also include [[Brethren of the Free Spirit]], [[English Dissenters]], [[William Blake]], and [[Ivan Illich]].

== History ==
A lineage group of the [[Moorish Science Temple of America]], the Moorish Orthodox Church was founded in [[New York City]] in 1962 primarily by [[Warren Tartaglia]],<ref name="Bowen2015">{{cite book|author=Patrick D. Bowen|title=A History of Conversion to Islam in the United States, Volume 1: White American Muslims before 1975|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DYljCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA320|date=17 August 2015|publisher=[[Brill Publishers|BRILL]]|isbn=978-90-04-30069-9|page=320|quote=Then, in 1962 one of the Baltimore group's young members, Warren Tartaglia, left the city to attend New York University, where he introduced the organization to Manhattan's white hipsters, including the man who would become one of the US' most influential non-orthodox Muslims: Peter Lamborn Wilson (Hakim Bey). The New York Group, which was named the Moorish Orthodox Church, would soon adapt other elements of Sufism...}}</ref> [[beatniks]], spiritual seekers, [[anarchists]] and members of the Noble Order of Moorish Sufis (a group that grew out of the Moorish Science Temple #13 in Baltimore on July 7, 1957).<ref name="Gallagher2004">{{citation|author=Eugene V. Gallagher|title=The New Religious Movements Experience in America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uXoUYS4H1GsC&pg=PA135 |year=2004 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-32807-7|page=135|quote=Another group that traces its origins to the work of Noble Drew Ali is the Moorish Orthodox Church of America. Despite its claim to Orthodoxy, the group, which was started by a handful of white poets and jazz musicians in the 1950s in Washington, D.C., developed a thoroughly eclectic theology.}}</ref> The Moorish Orthodox Church of America published a journal entitled the ''Moorish Science Monitor'' from 1965–1967, which has been revived at times over the next few decades.<ref name="McCloud2014">{{cite book|author=Aminah Beverly McCloud|title=African American Islam|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bfkJBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA201|date=16 July 2014|publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-64937-0|page=201|quote=The last ''Moorish Science Monitor'', according to Peter Lamborn Wilson, appeared in 1966, but the journal was revived in 1986. It is the publication of the Moorish Orthodox Church of America which was "founded in the late 1950s by Europeans who (according to oral sources) had obtained Moorish Science Temple passports as 'Celts' or 'Persians." (''Sacred Drift'', 49).}}</ref> Moorish Orthodoxy was founded to explore the more esoteric dimensions of Noble Drew Ali's Moorish Science teachings, but quickly developed into a movement of spiritual exploration beyond its intended purpose, though it maintains Moorish Science as its core. After a long period of quiescence, the Moorish Orthodox Church of America experienced a small renaissance in the mid-1980s owing to the involvement of former members of the [[Beat generation|beat]]/[[beatnik]] movement, the counter-cultural [[hippie]] community, and the [[gay liberation]] movement, along with the continued involvement of [[Sultan Rafi Sharif Bey]] (who founded the Moorish League) and the prolific writings of [[Hakim Bey]].

==Notable members==
* [[Muhammed al-Ahari]]
* [[Hakim Bey]]
* [[Sultan Rafi Sharif Bey]]
* [[Carey Harrison]]
* [[Warren Tartaglia]]
* [[Bill Weinberg]]
*[[David Hanson (robotics designer)]]
*[[Nick Herbert (physicist)]]
*[[Michael Muhammad Knight]]
*[[Thom Metzger]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20120916001528/http://moorishorthodox.wordpress.com/index/ Moorish Orthodox Information Kiosk]
*[https://newoldtraditions.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/mystery-cataclysm-of-a-moorish-orthodox-church-lodge-by-steve-aydt-and-mustafa-al-laylah-bey Mystery & Cataclysm of a Moorish Orthodox Church Lodge]
*[http://www.morc.info/ Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade]

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[[Category:African-American Islam]]
[[Category:Christianity and religious syncretism]]
[[Category:Religious anarchism]]
[[Category:Moorish Science Temple of America]]
[[Category:Religious belief systems founded in the United States]]
[[Category:New religious movements established in the 1960s]]