The Princess and the Prophet: The Secret History of Magic, Race, and Moorish Muslims in America

Dorman (Chosen People), a professor of history at the University of Nevada, combines a picaresque account of the enigmatic John Walter Brister with a kaleidoscopic history of the origins of the Nation of Islam in this complicated history that argues the Nation of Islam grew out of the Moorish Science Temple of America. Brister was a black child musician in the late 19th century; he went on to perform as the “Hindoo Wonder Worker” and “Egyptian Adept” in circuses, before becoming the self-proclaimed prophet Noble Drew Ali. Dorman asserts that Brister-as-Ali realized America was enchanted with “Orientalism” as he performed magic shows in the guise of a Hindu, and persuasively argues that Ali used this interest in exotic ancestry as a way to appeal to descendants of slaves. He championed trading African identities for Moorish, or Arab, ones that were more agreeable to white audiences. Against the backdrop of Chicago’s Jazz Age, Dorman tracks Ali’s founding, along with his lion-tamer and snake-charmer wife, Eva, of the Temple as a formal Muslim fraternity, whose core members went on to create the Nation of Islam. While Dorman often gets bogged down in a litany of names and dates, this remains a remarkable study. (Mar.)