A fresh, new perspective on the Nation of Islam (NOI) by adopting a religious-studies approach that focuses specfically on religious ritual, ethics, doctrine, and narrative. . . . An important book and it should become a standard text on this small but hotly debated religious movement.—Michigan Historical Review



A 'must-read' for those interested in religion in America, black studies, Islam in America, and the Nation of Islam.—Journal of American History



"This is a groundbreaking and excellent study of the religious life of the Nation of Islam.—American Historical Review



An important contribution to the scholarship of a part of the first phase of the Nation of Islam's history.—CHOICE



Provides heretofore unexplored discourse on how Black Muslims perceived, understood, and validated their practice of religion and connected it to traditional Islam between 1960 and 1975.—-Journal of the American Academy of Religion



Fair minded and thought provoking, this study provides easy-to-digest encapsulations of the Nation of Islam's history and teachings. It is a first-rate book with contemporary, transnational, and geopolitical relevance.—William L. Van Deburg, University of Wisconsin-Madison



Curtis makes a valuable addition to the scholarship on the Nation of Islam and to African American religious history more generally. This book is well written and well researched, and makes a careful and fully convincing argument that ordinary members of the Nation of Islam experienced their participation in the Nation as a religious activity, and not only a political or ideological engagement.—Melani McAlister, George Washington University