Akhenaten полностью

Sccond, there is Akhenaten's perceived religious idealism. An appealing anti- racist message can be read into the religious compositions of his reign. Parts of the 'hymn' to the Aten can be interpreted as regarding all peoples equally as creations of the Aten and that hierarchies based on skin colour, language and customs are unimportant.¹¹ More importantly, Akhenaten's religious reforms can provide monotheism with an Egyptian lineage. This is particularly important for some black Muslim groups, who follow Elijah Muhammad in regarding Christi­anity as a white religion of enslavement that no enlightened black person could possibly accept.¹' Akhenaten's is a form of monotheism which bypasses the Judaeo-Christian tradition and can be held up as a precursor of Islam, as the Reading mural implies. Some who do not necessarily follow Elijah Muhammad's religious teachings regard him as having reclaimed the symbols of religion in a non-Eurocentrist way favourable to black people of African descent. Other black non-Muslims argue that a black Moses was taught by Akhenaten and that monotheism is an ancient African concept.

Finally, certain aspects of Akhenaten's self-liberation from an oppressive religious tradition make him a powerful and attractive parallel for African Ameri­can religious and political leaders. The changing of names on conversion is one aspect of this. Akhenaten repudiated Amunhotep, his former name which linked him with the corrupt religion of Amun, in favour of one more appropriate to his new religious convictions, in the same way that Elijah Muhammad, founder of the Nation of Islam, changed his 'slave name', Elijah Poole, after he became a Muslim and a radical.

It was with Elijah Muhammad's teacher, W. D. Fard, that Akhenaten's involvement with Afrocentrism began in earnest, in Detroit around 1930. Fard deliberately allowed enigma to surround his name and history: he is believed by some black Muslims to be the earthly incarnation of Allah.¹⁵ What is clcar is that he started out in the Detroit ghetto selling African products from door to door, and used that point of contact to tell people about the superiority of African customs and beliefs. Fard soon developed a personal following; meetings were held in people's houses where Fard would prcach on the pride to be found in a recovered African descent, and against the evils of white exploitation. Eventually so many wanted to hear him that a hall had to be hired to hold the meetings: he named it the Temple of Islam. The many impoverished black migrants from the South living in Detroit during the Depression provided a ready audience for Fard's message. His speeches were reinforced by instructing chosen followers. Fard used a wide range of books, including the Bible and Quran but also Masonic literature and Breasted's The Conquest of Civilization (1926). In The Con­quest of Civilization Breasted says Akhenaten was 'full of vision, fearless, strong', and his reign was 'a new age, in which the vision of the Nile-dwellers expanded into far-seeing universalism, bringing with it monotheism centuries before it hap­pened anywhere else'.¹⁴ Breasted, of course, did not believe that Akhenaten was an African, and in The. Conquest of Civilization he remarks that the white race was the fundamental carrier of civilisation. But once it was believed that the Egyp­tians were black, it was possible to ignore Breasted's racism and adopt his heroic Akhenaten. Breasted's picture of a new era led by a fearless and idealistic African political leader who was also a theologian struck many chords among Fard's supporters. In the Detroit slums during the Depression, Akhenaten had once again found the perfect cultural moment to be reborn.