American Caliph: The True Story of a Muslim Mystic, a Hollywood Epic, and the 1977 Siege of Washington, DC
By Shahan Mufti
The riveting true story of America’s first homegrown Islamist terror attack, the 1977 Hanafi Muslim siege of Washington, D.C.
Late in the morning of March 9, 1977, seven men stormed the Washington, D.C., headquarters of B’nai B’rith International, the largest and oldest Jewish service organization in America. The heavily armed attackers quickly took control of the building and held more than a hundred employees of the organization hostage inside. A little over an hour later, three more men entered the Islamic Center of Washington, the country’s largest and most important mosque, and took hostages there. Two others subsequently penetrated the District Building downtown, where a firefight broke out. A reporter was killed, and Marion Barry, later to become mayor of Washington, D.C., was shot in the chest.
The attackers belonged to the Hanafi Movement, a Black Muslim group based in D.C. Their leader was a man named Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, a former jazz drummer who had risen through the ranks of the Nation of Islam before feuding with the organization’s mercurial chief, Elijah Muhammad, and becoming a spiritual authority to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Like Malcolm X, Khaalis had become sharply critical of the Nation’s unorthodox style of Islam. And, like Malcolm X, he paid dearly for his outspokenness: In 1973, members of the Nation murdered seven members of his family. One of the Hanafis’ demands on that day in 1977 was for the murderers to be turned over to the group to face justice. They insisted that the men who killed Malcolm X be turned over as well. And they demanded that the American premiere of The Message—an epic about the life of the prophet Muhammad—be canceled and the film destroyed. The lives of 149 hostages hung in the balance, and the United States’ fledgling counterterrorism forces—as yet untested—would have to respond.
Shahan Mufti’s American Caliph gives a full account of the first homegrown Islamist attack on American soil and of the man who masterminded it. Informed by extensive archival research and access to hundreds of declassified FBI files, American Caliph is a riveting true-crime story that sheds new light on the deep history of the War on Terror.
By Shahan Mufti
The riveting true story of America’s first homegrown Islamist terror attack, the 1977 Hanafi Muslim siege of Washington, D.C.
Late in the morning of March 9, 1977, seven men stormed the Washington, D.C., headquarters of B’nai B’rith International, the largest and oldest Jewish service organization in America. The heavily armed attackers quickly took control of the building and held more than a hundred employees of the organization hostage inside. A little over an hour later, three more men entered the Islamic Center of Washington, the country’s largest and most important mosque, and took hostages there. Two others subsequently penetrated the District Building downtown, where a firefight broke out. A reporter was killed, and Marion Barry, later to become mayor of Washington, D.C., was shot in the chest.
The attackers belonged to the Hanafi Movement, a Black Muslim group based in D.C. Their leader was a man named Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, a former jazz drummer who had risen through the ranks of the Nation of Islam before feuding with the organization’s mercurial chief, Elijah Muhammad, and becoming a spiritual authority to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Like Malcolm X, Khaalis had become sharply critical of the Nation’s unorthodox style of Islam. And, like Malcolm X, he paid dearly for his outspokenness: In 1973, members of the Nation murdered seven members of his family. One of the Hanafis’ demands on that day in 1977 was for the murderers to be turned over to the group to face justice. They insisted that the men who killed Malcolm X be turned over as well. And they demanded that the American premiere of The Message—an epic about the life of the prophet Muhammad—be canceled and the film destroyed. The lives of 149 hostages hung in the balance, and the United States’ fledgling counterterrorism forces—as yet untested—would have to respond.
Shahan Mufti’s American Caliph gives a full account of the first homegrown Islamist attack on American soil and of the man who masterminded it. Informed by extensive archival research and access to hundreds of declassified FBI files, American Caliph is a riveting true-crime story that sheds new light on the deep history of the War on Terror.
By Shahan Mufti
The riveting true story of America’s first homegrown Islamist terror attack, the 1977 Hanafi Muslim siege of Washington, D.C.
Late in the morning of March 9, 1977, seven men stormed the Washington, D.C., headquarters of B’nai B’rith International, the largest and oldest Jewish service organization in America. The heavily armed attackers quickly took control of the building and held more than a hundred employees of the organization hostage inside. A little over an hour later, three more men entered the Islamic Center of Washington, the country’s largest and most important mosque, and took hostages there. Two others subsequently penetrated the District Building downtown, where a firefight broke out. A reporter was killed, and Marion Barry, later to become mayor of Washington, D.C., was shot in the chest.
The attackers belonged to the Hanafi Movement, a Black Muslim group based in D.C. Their leader was a man named Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, a former jazz drummer who had risen through the ranks of the Nation of Islam before feuding with the organization’s mercurial chief, Elijah Muhammad, and becoming a spiritual authority to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Like Malcolm X, Khaalis had become sharply critical of the Nation’s unorthodox style of Islam. And, like Malcolm X, he paid dearly for his outspokenness: In 1973, members of the Nation murdered seven members of his family. One of the Hanafis’ demands on that day in 1977 was for the murderers to be turned over to the group to face justice. They insisted that the men who killed Malcolm X be turned over as well. And they demanded that the American premiere of The Message—an epic about the life of the prophet Muhammad—be canceled and the film destroyed. The lives of 149 hostages hung in the balance, and the United States’ fledgling counterterrorism forces—as yet untested—would have to respond.
Shahan Mufti’s American Caliph gives a full account of the first homegrown Islamist attack on American soil and of the man who masterminded it. Informed by extensive archival research and access to hundreds of declassified FBI files, American Caliph is a riveting true-crime story that sheds new light on the deep history of the War on Terror.