Both Abd al-Aziz and Shaykh Khalid of Jordan
gave Daoud a charter to establish Islamic work
in North America. By this time, he had opened
centers in several American cities, but in 1944, he
incorporated his following as the Muslim Mission
in America.
Sheikh Daoud offered Islam as the rightful and
original Faith of African Americans and a means
of their throwing off their self-understanding as
Negroes. At the same time, however, he refused to
slant his presentation and opposed the racial theo-
ries of both Noble Drew Ali and Elijah Muhammad
and the nation oF islam. He saw Islam as a way to
the establishment of human equality and human
rights as the means of reaching ultimate peace.
Sheikh Daoud continued to lead his move-
ment, soon eclipsed by the Nation of Islam,
until his death in February 1980. Along the way,
he authored one book, Islam the True Faith, the
Religion of Humanity (1965), a broad survey of
Muslim teachings, leaders, and history. Since his
death, the Muslim Mission has been absorbed into
the larger Muslim community.
See also aFrican americans, islam among;
daaWa; reneWal and reForm movements.
J. Gordon MeltonFurther reading: Sheikh Al-Haj Daoud Ahmed Faisal,
Islam the True Faith, the Religion of Humanity (Brooklyn,
N.Y.: Islamic Mission of America, 1965); Adib Rashad,
Islam, Black Nationalism & Slavery: A Detailed History
(Baltimore: Writer’s Inc., 1995); Malachi Z. York, Shaikh
Daoud vs. W. D. Fard (Eastonton, Ga.: Holy Tabernacle
Ministries, n.d.).
dar al-Islam and dar al-harb (Arabic,
House of Islam and House of War)
Dar al-Islam and dar al-harb are concepts used in
medieval Islamic legal and political thought to dif-
ferentiate territories under Muslim rule where the
sharia is followed from those that are not. In the
dar al-Islam, the sharia was observed, and non-
Muslim residents were to be given “protected”
(dhimmi) status as long as they paid their taxes
and did not act to subvert the Islamic religious
and political order. Non-Muslims were allowed to
enter Islamic territories temporarily from the dar
al-harb for peaceful purposes, such as commerce
and diplomacy, after they had received a guarantee
of security from a Muslim in the dar al-Islam.
Any territory where Muslim rule and the sharia
did not prevail was classified as the dar al-harb.
According to jurists, Muslims were obliged to bring
it under Islamic rule, either through surrender by
treaty or through conquest in Jihad. conversion
was not the primary intent of this doctrine, how-
ever. The concept was not expressed in the qUran
and hadith, but it was grounded in the early histor-
ical experience of the Islamic community (umma)
as it expanded by conquest under the leadership of
mUhammad from its base in medina into the rest of
the Arabian Peninsula. Under his successors, this
expansion extended to the rest of the Middle East
and North Africa, andalUsia, and significant parts
of Asia. At the height of the abbasid caliphate
(10th century), the dar al-Islam was a broad swath
of territory that reached more than 4,000 miles
from the Atlantic coasts of Spain and northwest
Africa in the west to the eastern borderlands of iran
and aFghanistan. The world outside this territory,
therefore, was considered the dar al-harb.
The Ulama adapted this polarized concept
of the world to changing historical realities. For
example, Shafii jurists recognized a House of
Truce (dar al-sulh), which allowed for peaceful
relations with non-Muslim powers as long as they
agreed to pay taxes to Muslim authorities. When
Muslim lands fell under the control of non-Mus-
lims, jurists instructed Muslims living there to
either fight or remove themselves to the dar al-
Islam. This was what Maliki jurists recommended
to Muslims in the territories of Andalusia that
had been taken by Christian armies during the
Reconquista. It was also the view held by leaders
of revivalist movements in British India, such as
the Tariqa-i Muhammad (Muhammadan Path) ledK 182 dar al-Islam and dar al-harb