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A Case for Thinking and Living Theologically

Faith, Imagination, and Malcolm X

BY MARTIN NGUYEN

References

1
The main arguments of this essay arise from an earlier book, Modern Muslim Theology. This essay invites the reader to engage with that work, where the ideas shared here are explored in greater depth.
2
This is drawn from the definition of īmān provided in the hadith of Jibrīl. Al-Nawawī, Al-Arba‘in al-Nawawiyya: The Forty Hadiths of Imam Nawawi, trans. Khalid Williams (Ihya Publishing, 2022), 27-28; al-Nawawī, Al-Nawawī’s Forty Hadith, trans. Ezzedin Ibrahim & Denys Johnson-Davies (Dar al-Ilm, n.d.), 30-31.
3
H.R.H. Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal, Love in the Holy Qur’an (Kazi Publications, Inc., 2010), 15-30, 37-53.
4
Muhammad Amin Abu Usamah Al-Arabi bin Razduq, trans. Commentary on the Riyad-us-Saliheen, 2 vols., trans. (Darussalam, 1999), 1:386; Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim.
5
Ezzeddin Ibrahim & Denys Johnson-Davies, eds. & trans., Forty Hadith Qudsi (n.p., n.d.), 78-79; Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Sunan al-Tirmidhī, and Sunan Ibn Majāh.
6
Consider, for instance, al-Bayhaqī's (d. 458/1066) treatise called Shuʿab al-īmān, which enumerates seventy-two branches of faith or īmān and takes as its inspiration the well-known hadith:
7
See for instance Ibn Sīna (d. 428/1037), Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), Ibn Rushd (d. 595/1198), Ibn al-Nafīs (d. 687/1288).
8
Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, no. 4777.
9
Malcolm X & Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (Grove Press, 1965), 408.
10
Malcolm X & Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 344-345. A different version of the letter is presented in Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements, ed. George Breitman (Grove Press, 1965), 59-60.
11
Malcolm X, The Diary of Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz) 1964, eds. Herb Boyd and Ilyasah Al-Shabazz (Third World Press, 2013), 19; Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (Viking, 2011), 310.
12
Published alongside two other “Letters From Abroad”, the excerpt is from a letter that Malcolm X wrote in Lagos, Nigeria on May 10, 1964. While Malcolm X was certainly taken by the human rights discourse emerging out of the nascent United Nations of his time, his invocation of the term was pinned to recognizing and safeguarding the fundamental dignity and equality of all human beings at a global level. Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements, 61.
13
Malcolm X & Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 2.
⬩About the Author⬩

Martin Nguyen is Professor of Religious Studies at Fairfield University. His work revolves around Muslim theology, ethics, spirituality, Qur’anic studies, Malcolm X, and the intersection of race and religion. Among his books is Modern Muslim Theology: Engaging God and the World with Faith and Imagination, which presents a contemporary theology rooted in the religious imagination. He is currently writing on Islamic responses to global mass displacement and modern structural racism in addition to another work that explores the theological dimensions of Malcolm X’s life and thought. He writes regularly at https://substack.com/@martinnguyen. More about his work can be found at https://drmartinnguyen.com.

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