[1] Ali put together elements of major traditions to develop a message of personal transformation through historical education, racial pride, and spiritual uplift.

His doctrine was also intended to provide African Americans with a sense of identity in the world and to promote civic involvement.

[3] The Moorish Science Temple of America was incorporated under the Illinois Religious Corporation Act 805 ILCS 110.

The quick expansion of the Moorish Science Temple arose in large part from the search for identity and context among black Americans at the time of the Great Migration to northern cities, as they were becoming an urbanized people.

During the postwar years, the Moorish Science Temple of America continued to increase in membership, albeit at a slower rate.

In The Aquarian Gospel, Dowling described Jesus' supposed travels in India, Egypt, and Palestine during the years of his life which are not accounted for by the New Testament.

In these he wrote: The fallen sons and daughters of the Asiatic Nation of North America need to learn to love instead of hate; and to know of their higher self and lower self.

)[13] Drew Ali crafted Moorish Science from a variety of sources, a "network of alternative spiritualities that focused on the power of the individual to bring about personal transformation through mystical knowledge of the divine within".

His approach appealed to thousands of African Americans who had left severely oppressive conditions in the South through the Great Migration and faced struggles in new urban environments.

[citation needed] As Drew Ali began his version of teaching the Moorish-Americans to become better citizens, he made speeches like, "A Divine Warning By the Prophet for the Nations", in which he urged them to reject certain labels such as "Black", "colored", and "Negro".

In this way, they might take their place in the United States by developing a cultural identity that was congruent with Drew Ali's beliefs on personhood.

Building Moorish-American businesses was part of their program, and in that was similar to Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League and the later Nation of Islam.

[24] Drew Ali attended the January 1929 inauguration of Louis L. Emmerson, as 27th Governor of Illinois in the state capital of Springfield.

On March 15, Green-Bey was stabbed to death at the Unity Hall of the Moorish Science Temple, on Indiana Avenue in Chicago.

[26] Drew Ali was out of town at the time, as he was dealing with former Supreme Grand Governor Lomax Bey (professor Ezaldine Muhammad), who had supported Green-Bey's attempted coup.

[27] When Drew Ali returned to Chicago, the police arrested him and other members of the community on suspicion of having instigated the killing.

One Moor told The Chicago Defender, "The Prophet was not ill; his work was done and he laid his head upon the lap of one of his followers and passed out.

However, the governors of the Moorish Science Temple of America declared Charles Kirkman Bey to be Drew Ali's successor and named him Grand Advisor.

[38] The community was further split when Wallace Fard Muhammad, known within the temple as David Ford-el,[39] also claimed (or was taken by some) to be the reincarnation of Drew Ali.

[44] During the 1940s, the Moorish Science Temple (specifically the Kirkman Bey faction) came to the attention of the FBI, who investigated claims of members committing subversive activities by adhering to and spreading of Japanese propaganda.

In 1976 Jeff Fort, leader of Chicago's Black P Stone Nation, announced at his parole from prison in 1976 that he had converted to Islam.

The city mistakenly invited members of the local Moorish Science temple to the ceremony, believing them to be of actual Moroccan descent.

Members believe the United States federal government to be illegitimate, which they attribute to a variety of factors including Reconstruction following the U.S. Civil War and the abandonment of the gold standard in the 1930s.

[56] The number of Moorish sovereign citizens is uncertain but estimated to range between 3,000 and 6,000, organized mostly in small groups of several dozen.

[57] Moorish sovereign citizens believe black people constitute an elite class within American society,[57] despite the fact that much of their underlying ideology originated among white supremacist groups.

[58] The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies Moorish sovereign citizens as an extremist anti-government group.

[56] Various groups and individuals identifying as Moorish sovereign citizens have used the unorthodox "quantum grammar" created by David Wynn Miller.

The article also quotes an academic who has been advising authorities on how to distinguish registered Temple members from impostors in the sovereign citizen movement.