Malik al-Shabazz’s Practice of Self-Liberation

Research output

Complete citation

Poljarević, Emin. “Malik al-Shabazz’s Practice of Self-Liberation.” In Malcolm X: From Political Eschatology to Religious Revolutionary, edited by Dustin J. Byrd and Seyed Javad Miri, 227–251. Leiden: Brill, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004308688_011.

Status

Published (2016)

Publication type

Peer-reviewed book chapter

Overview

This chapter interprets the final year of Malcolm X’s life as a practice of self-liberation. It examines how Malik al-Shabazz revised inherited ideological commitments without abandoning his moral purpose, anti-racist struggle, or revolutionary dedication to improving the conditions of Black Americans. His pilgrimage, international travel, encounters with Muslim societies, and developing religious commitments are treated not as a simple conversion from error to enlightenment but as elements in an active ethical reconstruction of the self. The chapter highlights his capacity to reassess political antagonisms, expand solidarities, and reformulate the relationship between Islam, human dignity, and liberation. Its contribution is to present Malcolm X’s transformation as disciplined moral agency: a process through which theological commitment and political struggle enabled critical self-examination while sustaining resistance to white supremacy and structural injustice.

Research question or central concern

How did Malik al-Shabazz practise self-liberation during the final year of his life while retaining his revolutionary moral commitments?

Main argument, approach, and contribution

The chapter uses biographical and interpretive analysis to read Malcolm X’s transformation as ethical practice rather than ideological inconsistency. It argues that religious commitment enabled critical revision, wider solidarities, and renewed political judgement. This makes self-liberation central to understanding his development as a Muslim revolutionary thinker.

Keywords

Malcolm X; Malik al-Shabazz; self-liberation; Islam; ethical transformation; Black liberation; political theology