Dr. Thomas Drew, the "Egyptian Adept Student" UPDATED 9/2/16

In his groundbreaking article, "Before the Fez," Fathie Abdat demonstrated not only that Noble Drew Ali, the famous founder of the Moorish Science Temple of America, had probably been born in Virginia--not North Carolina, as tradition held--but also that he had gone by the name Thomas Drew, not Timothy Drew, as was commonly believed. Moreover, even if he had not started his Newark-based movement in 1913, Abdat showed that Drew was verifiably preaching in the streets of the Tri-state region as "Prof. Drew, the Egyptian Adept."

However, despite Abdat thoroughly documenting Drew's travels using government records and city directories, there were still some lingering doubts as to whether or not the Thomas Drew from his research was indeed the same person as Noble Drew Ali.

Today, however, I am confident that they were one and the same.

My confidence primarily comes from my recently finding multiple newspaper articles about a "Dr." Thomas Drew from Virginia who was working as a mystic and using practices, teachings, and biographical claims that are very much consistent with those that are associated with both "Prof. Drew" and Noble Drew Ali.

Here is a sample.

Another reason that I am so confident that this Thomas Drew was the man known as Noble Drew Ali is the fact that Moorish Americans--in other words, followers of Noble Drew Ali--were the very individuals who left the clues that helped me find these articles. I discovered these clues in a manuscript that was written over a half century ago and contained information given to the author by individuals who were affiliated with the Moorish Science Temple of America.

I will be discussing this new fascinating evidence, as well as many more untold pieces of the history of Islam in America, in my forthcoming second volume of "A History of Conversion to Islam in the United States", subtitled "The African American Islamic Renaissance", due out in early 2017.

For those who have already seen my dissertation, be aware that the book will go FAR beyond the dissertation in terms of presenting previously unknown information and analysis. For this book, I have dug very deep, and I hope that it will contribute to a new appreciation of the diversity, complexity, and depth of African American Islamic history.


UPDATE 9/2/16: 

I have obtained some new information about Noble Drew Ali's following and practices during the early 1920s. At that time, as far as this information suggests, he was claiming to be a "Moslem" and for his practices he used an "adept chamber"--both of which are concepts that would exist in the MSTA. However, I have not yet located any references to "Moors" or "Moorish Science" from this period.