Malcolm X and, more recently, Louis Farrakhan are two of the more visible signs of Islam's influence in the lives and culture of African Americans. Yet, as Richard Brent Turner shows, the involvement of black American with Islam reaches back to the earliest days of the African presence in North America. Part I of the book explores these roots in the Middle East, West Africa, and antebellum America. Part II tells the story of the 'Prophets of the City'--the leaders of the new urban-based African-American Muslim movements in the twentieth century.