The mysterious origins of Aliyite Islam: A Syncretic Islamic Macumbe Faith passed down orally

Uthman dan Fodio, a prominent Fulani Islamic scholar and reformer, was born in 1754 in what is now northern Nigeria. Emerging from a scholarly family and receiving extensive religious education which laid the groundwork for his later influence, Usman dan Fodio was bound for a destiny to be a ruler. In the late 1700s, Uthman traveled across Hausaland in West Africa, preaching against a syncretic tradtion of Islam and ancient West African traditional beliefs and animism that would come to be known as Aliyite Islam, and calling for a return to Islamic purity. His teachings attracted a vast amount of followers, leading to the establishment of a large and powerful religiopolitical movement known as Jama'a, which sought to rectify social and political injustices. Facing opposition from local rulers and the early Aliyite Muslims, Uthman declared an official struggle, a jihad, in 1804, resulting in the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate by 1809, a significant Islamic state that spanned a vast region encompassing modern of modern day Nigeria and Cameroon and lands beyond. Uthman dan Fodio's efforts not only transformed the religious and political landscape of West Africa but also inspired subsequent Islamic movements across the region and beyond. Aliyite Islam was nearly crushed and the Qadriyya Sunni Sufi Tariqa was almost entirely replacing the Aliyite polity, but little did Usman dan Fodio know that many of the enslaved peoples his Sokoto Caliphate, his Fulani Empire, would create, ended up being enslaved by White Europeans who would export them, and effectively Aliyite Islam, to another continent, North America. After retiring, Usman dan Fodio continued to influence the caliphate until his death in 1817. His legacy persists in the form of ongoing recognition of his descendants and the enduring impact of his teachings on contemporary Muslim communities in Nigeria and beyond.

Meanwhile in Eastern North America, reports of some enslaved Africans, in the 13 British colonies of the US East Coast and in the newly independent United States of America, show that practices of what can be described as Hoodoo and West African Sufi Islamic spirituality and practices continued. Most Black Americans today are Atheist or Christian, a result of conversions and socioreligious change. However, some descendants of West Africans continues to keep the syncretic Sufi Islamic and West African animistic practices alive. Many Gullah Geechee and Qarsherskiyan people practice Ring Shout, a type of spiritual dance from West African culture that involves a group of people walking in circles like Hajj Pilgrims circumambulating the Ka'aba in Mekkah, and singing hymns of praise to God. The Gullah Geechee Ring Shout has been, over time, Christianized and made into a tradition on Sundays after church, and continues to develop and evolve. The Qarsherskiyan Ring Shout is done by people of all faiths but a popular version includes Islamic Zikr that strikingly resembles Kuntu Hajji Zikr ceremonies in the Caucus mountains practiced by Sufis from the Ingush and Chechens and other Indigenous Caucus-regional ethnic groups.

Indeed, Aliyite Islam has survived among some mixed-race Americans from an ethnic group known as the Ethnic Qarsherskiyan Tribe, a Creole community of multigenerational mixed-race families of Black, White, Native American, Roma, and Madagascarian origins. The Qarsherskiyans were also heavily Christianized, like the Gullah Geechee Nation, but a few Qarsherskiyan people secretly or quietly retained Islamic faith, rejecting the trinity for the oneness of God and believing in the prophet Muhammad and his progeny. In 1991, during the Qarsherskiyan Cultural Revitalization Movement, which saw Qarsherskiyan people stop identifying as whatever race they most resembled and start identifying as mixed-race and Qarsherskiyan, also included the Truth Searching Movement of 1991, or the 1991 Truth Seeking Movement, in which Qarsherskiyan people who had doubts about their faith were encouraged to look to alternative religious beliefs. This movement's ultimate purpose was to curtail the spread of Atheism among Qarsherskiyan people and promote unity in a religiously diverse community where most people all agree on the importance of monotheism. Zoroastrianism and Sikhism and Wicca gained new Qarsherskiyan converts during the 1991 Truth Seeking movement, a Chinese immigrant known only as "Master Lighthouse" began to preach a Manichaen tradition to Qarsherskiyan people around Cumberland, Maryland which rapidly spread amongst other Qarsherskiyan people around the USA, and most notably, many Qarsherskiyan people learned Islam and Voodoo from the few remaining Qarsherskiyan families which had kept such traditions alive from West Africa and the over centuries amidst enslavement, emancipation, a revolutionary war of independence and a Civil War, two World Wars, a Great Depression, and the newer news of collapse of the Soviet Union now impending. Islam began to almost immediately see a resurgence among the Qarsherskiyan community, with new converts learning Aliyite Islam from the oral traditions of the few continuously Qarsherskiyan Muslim families that never left Islam despite constant pressure and having to conceal their faith. Centuries old copies of the Quran and other family heirlooms once hidden were proudly displayed, and Islam continued to rapidly grow among the Qarsherskiyan community from 1991 to 2019 due to cultural compatibility of the faith with the Qarsherskiyan culture which is derived from West African Sufi Muslim ancestors, Native Americans who believed in a supreme being called The Great Mystery or Great Spirit, and European Christians and Jews of various denominations who adhered to Abrahamic traditions. Preserved through oral traditions and rarely written down, the Aliyite Islamic faith is controversial. It wasn't officially called Aliyite Islam until 1991 and was disguised as Black Churches and Christian traditions for centuries to avoid persecution in the USA and British colonial North America. Nobody knows exactly where and when in modern-day Nigeria the Aliyite Islamic traditions first emerged. We know the Hausa people were accusing of combining Islan with "pagan practices" (West African animism and ancient spirituality) by dan Fodio, who initiated the Fulani Jihad which nearly destroyed Aliyite Islam in it's infantile state, but continued development among the African diaspora in the Americas protected it, although it was all oral traditions and not written down, so there is no way to prove or disprove Aliyite Islam's full extent of existing among African-descended Americans and it is a controversial topic. What we do know now is that a little over half of the Qarsherskiyan people are Muslims, half of the Qarsherskiyan people are Aliyite Muslims, and there are various other Sunni, Shia, and even Ibadi movements to a lesser extent among the broader Qarsherskiyan Muslim populace. Zaydi Shia Muslims from Yemen have immigrated to the USA for over a century, ramping up during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and have transformed Aliyite Islam into a Zaydi Shia sufi movement, rather than a Sunni Sufi one, although the syncretism with Hausa and Yoruba ancestral religions has been left strongly intact and the Zaydi Shiite influences have not managed to remove the context of Sufism and African traditional spirituality from the Aliyite Muslim movement. Aliyite Islam continued to quietly develop in secret among the handful of Qarsherskiyan people who would later introduce it to the broader Qarsherskiyan community in 1991. It has various interpretations, with an emphasis on one's own judgement and using one's knowledge rather than blindly following a scholar without ijtihad. This and the Sufism strands and West African spiritual aspect with the beliefs in the Orishas is what differentiates the Aliyite Sufi Islamic movement from mainstream Zaydi Shia Islam.

Aliyite Muslims usually believe the Orisha Ogun was actually a manifestation of Imam Ali, the cousin of prophet Muhammad. This differs from followers of the traditional Yoruba peoples' religion who believed Ogun was divine and a deity. The Aliyite Muslims also believe Orisha Obatala, called ObatAllah by many Aliyite Muslims, is one with prophet Jesus. In addition to this, many Aliyite Muslims believe Jesus and Ali have a shared essence or archetype in that they are both Rūxollah (روح‌الله) [literally Arabic for "The Spirit Of God" in a metaphorical sense] and therefore there is a sort of trinity between Orisha Ogun who is Imam Ali, and Orisha ObatAllah who is Jesus the Christ and Messiah, although they are not viewed as divine, and only God / Allah / The Great Mystery or Great Spirit, the one Abrahamic God, is worshipped by the Aliyite Muslims. Influences of Native American spirituality and continued development of West African beliefs within Aliyite Islam have shaped the Aliyite movement to fit fully within a monotheistic Islamic framework and harmoniously syncretize and remain a stable and constant tradition with no need to adapt to help new converts fit in with Aliyite Islam, which is not meant to be an ethnoreligion and has followers outside of the Qarsherskiyan Creole community and originated in West Africa. Some Aliyite Muslims believe Imam Ali came to North America not long before Columbus, preaching Islam to Native Americans, with help from the Carolina Parakeets, which repeated Imam Ali's sermons and flew all over the Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains repeating them, as parrots love copying human speech to get attention, and Imam Ali / Orisha Ogun was viewed as the Commander of the faithful, the bees, and the birds.

Aliyite Islam has no central authority or official religious scholarly leadership, emphasizing following the Quran, the secret / esoteric oral traditions different families tell and have, and questioning and interpreting the faith and it's practices one's self rather than blindly following religious scholars. The Aliyite Muslims follow the advice of all the Zaydi Imams, but only view Imam Ali, Imam Hassan, Imam Hussein, Imam Zeyn Abidin, Imam Zayd, and the Orishas to be somewhat infallible at transmitting proper Sunnah and practices, and believe many later imams were capable of making mistakes as they weren't perfect. Most Aliyite Muslims accept Musnad Zayd and Nahjul Balagha Hadith books and allow Shoor and Latmiya and Matam during Muharram or year round, but little to no Aliyite Muslims allow Tatbir and no Aliyite Muslims accept Al Kafi. Most don't accept Sahih Bukhari Hadiths to be authentic. The Aliyite Muslims mostly believe there is both Batin and Zahir interpretations of the Quran, similarly to many Ismaili Shia beliefs. The Aliyite Muslim community has many differing opinions and practices on a spectrum and there is a lot of nuance and poorly documented practices and misunderstandings.

The Orishas are not viewed as gods or worshipped in Aliyite Islam, but rather are seen as reiterations or manifestations of Imams and Prophets and Angels, and may be seen as fallible by some Aliyites. There is only one God believed in and worshipped in Aliyite Islam, called Allah, God, Al-Ali, The Great Mystery/Spirit, Khoda, Rabb, Yah, Hayah, Hayy, Haqq, Hu/Hoo, or Oludunmare / Olorun.

Most Aliyite Muslims believe in Heaven (Jannah) and Hell (Jahannam) and the Day Of Judgement (Yawm E Qiamet) as mentioned in Al Quran. Most Aliyite Muslims believe Imam Mahdi and Jesus Christ The Messiah will return to Earth near the end of times. Most Aliyite Muslims believe in Gog and Magog (Juj va Yajuj) in a metaphorical sense and don't interpret it as being fully literally, although some do. Many Aliyite Muslims are distinguished from other Zaydi Shiites because they believe that some people who enter the hellfire will be freed by the will of God, while many mainstream Zaydis criticize this belief and say nobody who enters the hellfire will ever leave it.

Some Aliyite Muslim communities may exist in isolated parts of Brazil and Northern Nigeria, and potentially in Guyana and in Trinidad. These Aliyite communities may be Sunni Aliyites but the Qarsherskiyan Shiite form of Aliyite Islam has spread among them through the internet in modern times.

Aliyite Islam is highly controversial because it was made public around 1991 as oral traditions were revealed. These oral traditions were supposed to be kept secret from the wider public and White Christians who could potentially persecute the minority sect. Regardless, the sect spread rapidly and became the majority faith of Qarsherskiyan Muslims, and nobody can prove if the oral traditions originated in Nigeria and were brought over on the transatlantic slave trade or were made up by Qarsherskiyan Muslims in the 1600s in the Great Dismal Swamp and other mixed-race maroon communities that Qarsherskiyan people descended from. The controversy around the origins and authenticity of the Aliyite faith will likely never go away, but by the late 1800s it definitely existed in North America and the beliefs about Carolina Parakeets had already been incorporated into Aliyite Islam. Families in Northern South Carolina in the sandhills had matching beliefs with families in Northern Ohio by the Lake Erie Coast, written down in old diaries now on display in private libraries.

Documents from the late 1800s found in an attic in Plain City, Ohio in 1957 prove Aliyite Islam has existed among some Qarsherskiyan families for atleast a century and a half now and was the same in the 1800s as the faith is believed and taught to be in the 2020s.