1977
Hanafi Siege in Washington
The Nation of Islam (NOI), or Black Muslim cult, is no stranger to murderous violence, as the assassination of breakaway leader Malcolm X shows. Another such dissident was Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, (born Ernest Timothy McGhee, also known as Ernest “XX” McGee and Ernest 2X McGee), former national secretary of the Nation of Islam, who left NOI and formed his own sect in 1958 called the Hanafi Movement. In 1973, Black Muslims entered a house owned by basketball player Kareem Abdul Jabbar and murdered seven members of Khaalis’s family in revenge for his insulting the leader of the Nation of Islam. The dead included children, slain because “the seed of the hypocrite is in them.” Though the killers were convicted of murder, Khaalis was not satisfied and his precarious mental state was worsened.
On March 9, 1977 armed members of the Hanafi Movement stormed three buildings in Washington, DC: the B’nai Brith headquarters, city hall, and an Islamic Center, taking 149 people hostage and killing two bystanders. Khaalis’s main demand was that the 1973 killers be turned over to him but he also railed against Jews who controlled the courts and media, ordered the end of showing a movie about the life of Muhammed, demanded a refund on a $750 fine, and insisted on a meeting with boxer Muhammed Ali. After negotiations with the police and three ambassadors from Islamic countries, the siege was ended. Khaalis was sentenced to a lengthy prison term and died in jail in 2003.