Marvin XYZ--Beyond Boundaries, the line crosser who lives in Marvin's World--you are invited for a wild, crazy ride!

 
 According to Islamic literary scholar, Dr. Mohja Kahf, Fly to Allah is the seminal work in Muslim American literature. "Marvin X's Fly to Allah (1969) is possibly the first book of poems published in English by a Muslim American author."

"Fly to Allah not only exhibited Marvin X's complete dedication to the ideas and beliefs of the Black Muslim movement, it also made obvious (even to those who possessed neither interest in nor knowledge of Islam) that a poet so adept with his words could not be ignored...."--Lorenzo Thomas, University of Houston, Texas


 "Marvin X is a deep sea diver who rarely comes up for air. And when he comes up it is only for a moment."--Aishah Kokomon, Oakand, Calif.

"You must read him as though you are at a buffet, just a little at a time, don't pile the plate because you will be overwhelmed and suffer indigestion."--Elliot Bey, Philadelphia

He is a man without boundaries except the razor's edge, upon which he walks like a tightrope dancer, for if he makes the wrong move the chasm awaits him. Nefertiti asked her dad, "How are you still alive?" Because of his beliefs the Vietnam War was wrong, he endured exile in Toronto, Canada and later Mexico City and Belize, from which he was deported back to the US and thrown into Federal Prison, Terminal Island, San Pedro, California. But whether in exile or the dungeon, he did the same things: studied, wrote and taught. Whether he was underground in Chicago and Harlem, his work was the same, culture teacher the brothers in Jamaica called him. They begged him to stay in Jamaica. That's what got him into trouble in Belize: the people asked him to teach them and he complied until the drunk man came by his shack on Gales Point singing, "They comin' ta git ya in da mornin boy, been down here teachin dat black power, dey comin ta git ya in da mornin." And sure enough, when he boarded the boat for the five hour ride through the jungle (see the movie Mosquito Coast) he was under arrest but didn't know it, although he did see a man with a rifle who turned out to be an undercover police.

When he went to the his contact's house, Evan X. Hyde and Ishmael Shabazz, no one was home so he chilled for a moment until he heard someone calling his name, come out Mr. Jackmon, the voice said. He grabbed the rifle but decided not to have a Black Panther style shoot out with the police. He was taken to the Ministry of Home Affairs. The Minister read his deportation order that stated his presence was not beneficial to the welfare of the British Colony of Honduras. He was taken to the police station and placed under arrest until the plane departed for Miami at 4pm. He was not placed in a cell but told to take a seat in the lobby. Before he knew it, he was surrounded by African policemen and when the circle was complete, they asked him, "Brother, teach us about Black Power! We don't know why they are kicking you out. White hippies come down here all the time smoking dope but they don't mess with them. You come to teach us and they deport you. Ain't right, ain't right, they black mon wit white heart, black mon wit white heart." When other African policemen came into the station but did not join the circle, they called them black mon wit white hearts. Marvin told them, "Marcus Garvey came here in 1923 and told you to get the white woman off your walls. It's 1970 and you still got that Queen of England white bitch on your walls. Get that bitch off yo walls!" The police cracked up, they said, "You all ite, broder mon, you all ite!"

The same little mulatto motherfucker who'd arrested me at the Amandala House came to take me to the airport. I resisted when they wouldn't let me contact my wife who was back on Gales Point, a five hour ride through the jungle, pregnant with our daughter we would name Nefertiti. Nefertiti recently realized she was conceived while her parents were in flight from American imperialism. She is a conscious woman who recently demanded her father pass the baton to her generation. "We're qualified and ready, so pass the baton, Dad!"

So where is Mr. No Boundaries? Some Muslims do not consider him a Muslim, since he rejects sectarianism, although his natural unorthodoxy places him in the Nation of Islam and Shia theology.

Some Islamic literary  scholars such as Dr. Mohja Kahf consider him the father of Muslim American literature. Bob Holman and Lorenzo Thomas place him squarely in the Islamic literary tradition. Holman says he is the USA's Rumi, the wisdom of Saadi, the ecstasy of Hafiz.

According to Lorenzo Thomas, "...the writings gleam with brilliant imagery and a stunning grasp of both Afro-American vernacular and classical techniques of Islamic poetics. The title poem, 'Fly to Allah,' begins with hagiographic praises of Elijah Muhammad and contains English adaptations of Arabic poetic forms such as tadmin (interpolated quotations of Quranic suras or verses) and mula'ama (the balanced repetition or parallel phrasing used in the verses of the Bible and Quran).
At the same time, the poem encompasses  the diction of folk proverbs and common sense, ending with precise pseudo-Haiku emblems of the Nation of Islam's tenets of Freedom, Justice and Equality; it is also written in concentrated verses reminiscent of the projective verse style of the 1950s developed by Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Amiri Baraka and others in their study of the prosody of William Carlos Williams. Fly to Allah not only exhibited Marvin X's complete dedication to the ideas and beliefs of the Black Muslim movement, it also made obvious (even to those who possessed neither interest in nor knowledge of Islam) that a poet so adept with his words could not be ignored...."




Ishmael Reed and critic James Spady place him in the Yoruba tradition. Ishmael Reed says, "...If I had to pin down the influences upon Marvin X's The Wisdom of Plato Negro, parables/fables, I would cite the style of Yoruba texts--texts in the Yoruba language reveal that didacticism is a key component of the Yoruba story telling style. Marvin  imparts wisdom by employing cautionary tales and uses his own life and mistakes to consul the young to avoid mistakes."

But in Reed's The Complete Muhammad Ali, Marvin X claims his Islamic literary roots, though he does not discuss Muslim's in the Americas before Columbus or before the American slave system:
“I would like to delineate my lineage. As a spiritual descendant of West African Muslims, I begin my literary biography in the Mali Empire, among those scholar/poet/social activists of Timbuktu: Ahmed Baba, Muhammad El-Mrili, Ahmed Ibn Said, Muhammad Al Wangari, and the later Sufi poet/warriors of Senegal and Hausal and, Ahmedu Bamba and Uthman dan Fodio. “In America, this literary tradition continued under the wretched conditions of slavery with the English/Arabic narratives of Ayub Suleimon Diallo, Ibrahima Abdulrahman Jallo, Bilali Mohammad, Salih Bilali, Umar Ibn Said. (Note:There is some suggestion that David Walker, Frederick Douglas, Booker T. Washington and Benjamin Banneker may have  been descendants of Muslims.) In 1913,Noble Drew Ali,established his Moorish Science Temple in Newark, New Jersey, later Chicago, and created his Seven Circle Koran, a synthesis of Qur’anic, Masonic, mystical and esoteric writings...."

Nevertheless, critic James Spady places him in the tradition of ancestor worship.  ."..The poetry of Marvin X is deeply rooted in the cosmological convictions of his ancestors and his community. His individual identity is inextricably linked to his communal identity. That is why it functions as a source of power and inspiration. Because he is open to the magico-realist perception or reality and has the authentic experiences of the streets, Marvin's works strike a chord. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in a recent collection, Love and War, 1995.




Islamic scholar Dr. Mohja Kahf comments on Marvin X and Muslim American literature:












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