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By Root 1993 0

an arm of Nasserʹs government. These groups shared a deep commitment to Muslim ideals but otherwise could not have been more different, with the Saudi Muslim World League’s conservatism and staunch anticommunism putting them at odds with Nasser, who by then had made Egypt practically a client state of the Soviet Union. The schism required Malcolm to become a pluralist in the Muslim world, an approach that had produced real breakthroughs during his travels. While he had been in Mecca, the Muslim World League had agreed to assign Sheikh Ahmed Hassoun to the New York Muslim community, and now Malcolm wrote the league’s secretary-general, Muhammad Surur al-Sabban, to express his appreciation. His letter, however, was actually a cover under which to bring up a delicate issue. Malcolm had returned home to find the MMI virtually broke, with no funds to pay Hassoun’s salary or to cover the cost of his lodgings. He blamed the lack of resources on the split with Elijah Muhammad: “We represent the Afro-American Muslims who have broken away from the Black Muslim Movement. We had to leave all our treasures behind.” Estimating that it would cost four hundred to five hundred dollars for Hassoun’s monthly living expenses, he did not ask for funds directly, but obliquely requested “instructions on how to solve this problem.”

That same morning, perhaps anticipating the problems that might be caused in Egypt by news of his involvement with the Muslim World League, Malcolm also contacted Muhammad Taufik Oweida of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs. Since the SCIA had granted Malcolm twenty scholarships, he recognized the importance of presenting an organized official front for his groups, noting that “there is much reorganization to be done here.” The immediate task was “to separate our religious activities from our nonreligious,” which implied increasing the division between MMI and OAAU. Then, in a revealing comment, Malcolm explained his motives for cultivating the more conservative Muslims in Saudi Arabia:

I have gone quite far in establishing myself and the Muslim Mosque Inc., also with the Muslim World League which is headquartered at Mecca. I am hoping that you understand my strategy in cementing good relations with them. My heart is in Cairo and I believe the mose [sic] progressive relations forces in the Muslim world are in Cairo. I think that I can be more helpful and of more value to these progressive relation forces at Cairo by solidifying myself also with the more moderate or conservative forces that are headquartered in Mecca.

Touching down in London on December 1, he spent some of the next few days preparing for his most significant UK appearance, an event at Oxford University on the third. The student union had invited him to defend, in a formal debate, Barry Goldwaterʹs statement that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” The BBC televised the event, which featured three speakers for the motion and three against it. In his presentation, Malcolm once again carefully separated himself from his Black Muslim past, emphasizing his commitment to orthodox Islam. He argued that since the U.S. government had failed to safeguard the lives and property of African Americans over several centuries, it was not unreasonable for blacks to use extreme measures to defend their liberties. Yet he also tried to ground this sentiment in a multiracial approach. “I firmly believe in my heart,” he declared, that when the black man acts “to use any means necessary to bring about his freedom or put a halt to that injustice, I don’t think he’ll be by himself. . . . I for one will join in with anyone, I don’t care what color you are, as long as you want to change this miserable condition.” A few days later he lectured before a mostly Muslim audience of three hundred people, at the University of London. The British press registered the change in his outlook. The Manchester Guardian declared, “At one time whites in the United States called him a racialist, an extremist, and a