Malcolm X’s transformation at Hajj

Countless Muslims that perform the Hajj testify that this spiritual journey is a life altering experience. This was more so for African-American Muslim Malcolm X or El-Hajj Malik El-Shahbazz in April 1964.

Performing the Hajj transformed Malcolm into a believer of true/mainstream Islam, as he was previously a member of the Nation of Islam under the leadership of Elijah Muhammad that believed the white man was the devil and the black man superior.  After leaving the Nation of Islam in March 1964, the decision to perform Hajj becomes a turning point in the thinking of Malcolm, as he changes his viewpoint on whites and racism.

In the famous letters from Makkah, where Malcolm wrote about his Hajj experience, he explains how the Hajj dramatically changed his views on race and racism:

“You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have been always a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.”

“During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug)-while praying to the same God with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of the blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the ‘white’ Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana.

“We are truly all the same-brothers.” Malcolm’s Hajj experience confirmed the multiracial, multiethnic nature of the worldwide Muslim community that he learnt from Dr. Mahmoud Youssef Shawarbi, then the director of the Federation of Islamic Associations in the United States and Canada.

His journey to Makkah helped Malcolm realize the expiating power of Islam to unify as well as instill self-respect.  He wrote in his autobiography, “In my thirty-nine years on this earth, the Holy City of Mecca had been the first time I had ever stood before the Creator of All and felt like a complete human being.”

In addition, performing the Hajj leads to Malcolm firmly believing that Islam can provide solutions to the race problem in America.  He writes in his letter of April 20, 1964 from Makkah, “America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases the race problem from its society.” 

He reiterates the same theme in his April 26, 1964 letter from Makkah, “If white Americans could accept the religion of Islam, if they could accept the Oneness of God (Allah) they too could then sincerely accept the Oneness of Men, and cease to measure others always in terms of their “difference in color”. And with racism now plaguing in America like an incurable cancer all thinking Americans should be more respective to Islam as an already proven solution to the race problem.”

Ten months after the completion of his Hajj, Malcolm was assassinated on the stage of the Audubon Ballroom in New York City.  The pilgrimage of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz was a transformative event for him and changed him into a genuine Muslim.  

Sadly, Malcolm never had the opportunity to evolve his new thinking, but even in his short life, he serves as an example to all of us of how through the guidance of Allah (SWT), a person can transform and redeem him/herself from being a criminal/thug to being a Muslim and becoming a great leader.