
Advertisement
Advertisement
Five Percenters also gave me some useful ways for thinking about myself as a Muslim. Their claim to personal godhood offers, among many other things, a statement on organized religion. At a time when I was unsure of my own identity as a Muslim, Five Percenters—who generally reject the term “Muslim” for themselves—empowered me to claim ownership of my Islam. The Five Percenter disdain for religious hierarchies actually rescued my Muslim-ness. It was through the ability to make choices about my tradition that I could have any relationship to it at all. The Five Percenter breakdowns of “Allah” as “Arm Leg Leg Arm Head” and “Islam” as “I Self Lord And Master” gave me everything that I had sought in taqwacore.Five Percenters study the Supreme Wisdom Lessons, the initiatory texts of the Nation of Islam, without blind adherence to the NOI institution or authorities such as Elijah Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan. In that way, they’re kind of like Salafi Muslims, who advocate a “straight to the texts” approach and see themselves as above Islam’s established legal schools. But unlike the Salafis, who seek to minimize the role of creative interpretation, Five Percenters emphasize the power of the individual reader to draw meaning up from the text. For Five Percenters, the truth of the Lessons is less about what they “really” say than the understanding that you, as the reader, produce from them. I’ve done my own work with the Lessons, but have also applied a Five Percenter approach to my relationship with the Qur’an and the prophetic traditions.I’m not god and I’m not the devil. I am a human being, and the Five Percenters have helped me along the road to full humanity and peace within both my mosque and my own skin.Michael Muhammad Knight (@MM_Knight) is the author of nine books, including Blue-Eyed Devil,The Five Percenters,and Why I am a Five Percenter.
