The Temple and the claims
Faith, history and the law are three different things.
If you've seen people online say that being a Moor puts you outside U.S. law, here's what the Moorish Science Temple of America teaches, where those legal claims came from, and what courts have said.
The Moorish Science Temple of America
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1913
The Moorish Science Temple of America
The Moorish Science Temple of America is a U.S. religious movement founded in Newark, New Jersey, in 1913 by Timothy Drew, known to followers as Noble Drew Ali. He later settled the movement in Chicago in the mid-1920s.
Where sources differ: Britannica, the Schomburg Center, the SPLC, and the Temple itself give 1913. A 2017 federal appeals court opinion (Bey v. Indiana) says it was founded in the 1920s, and the Temple says it was legally incorporated as the Moorish Temple of Science on November 29, 1926.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Moorish Science Temple of America”
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1910s–1920s
What Noble Drew Ali taught
Drew Ali taught that Black Americans were of Moorish origin and had lost their Muslim identity through slavery and segregation. He encouraged followers to call themselves Moors rather than “black,” and the Temple’s scripture, its Holy Koran, is separate from the Qur’an of mainstream Islam.
Where sources differ: This is a religious teaching, not a finding of historians. Britannica describes the medieval Moors of Spain as people of mixed Arab, Spanish, and Amazigh (Berber) origins.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Moorish Science Temple of America”
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1929 to 1932
Roots of the Nation of Islam
After Drew Ali died in 1929, the Temple split into several factions. The Nation of Islam grew out of the dispute over who would succeed him and became a separate organization in Detroit in 1932.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Moorish Science Temple of America”
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2011
The Temple rejects sovereign citizen practices
The Moorish Science Temple of America, Inc. has publicly declared that it isn’t a sovereign citizen or tax protest movement, that its teachings are opposed to that ideology, and that Noble Drew Ali didn’t found it for members to become anarchists or conspiracy theorists.
Where sources differ: The web page doesn’t show a date. The Seventh Circuit’s Bey v. Indiana opinion cites it as issued July 15, 2011, and the SPLC also dates it July 2011. Several groups use the Temple’s name, so one branch’s statement doesn’t speak for every group calling itself Moorish.
Source: Moorish Science Temple of America, Inc., public statement
"Moorish sovereign" legal claims
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mid-1990s
Where “Moorish sovereign citizens” came from
The SPLC, quoting researcher Mark Pitcavage, says “Moorish sovereign citizens” appeared on the East Coast in the mid-1990s, when some people mixed sovereign citizen ideas with parts of Moorish Science beliefs. They claim a special immunity from federal and state law. The SPLC notes not all Temple chapters are linked to them.
Source: Southern Poverty Law Center, Extremist Files, “Moorish Sovereign Citizens”
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2017
Courts reject “Moorish” sovereignty claims
In Bey v. Indiana (2017), a federal appeals court threw out a self-described Moorish American’s suit claiming he didn’t owe property taxes. The court said it had repeatedly rejected such claims, called the suit frivolous, and said he may be a Moor but is a U.S. citizen with no immunity from U.S. law.
Source: U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, Bey v. Indiana
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2012
Faith isn’t the same as the legal theory
A federal judge in New Jersey wrote that Moorish ancestry or Moorish religious beliefs have no reason to go hand in hand with sovereign citizen theories, even though some groups have merged the two to file frivolous lawsuits.
In plain words
- The historical Moors were the Muslim peoples of North Africa and al-Andalus, of mixed Arab, Spanish and Amazigh roots.
- The Moorish Science Temple of America is a religious movement, and it says it isn't a sovereign citizen movement.
- Federal courts have called "Moorish" claims of immunity from taxes and U.S. law frivolous. Anyone promising otherwise is promising something courts have rejected.