shahbaz

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Jun 23, 2005, at 7:07 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> Very interesting. Some of the more mature posters may recall the
> Malcolm X Puzzle. After Malcolm moved away from the Nation of Islam
> toward a more nearly orthodox version of Islam, he changed his surname
> from "X" to "Shabazz" (or was it "Shabbaz"?).

Shabazz.  though you can find it misspelled as Shabbaz.

> Unfortunately, he was
> assassinated before anybody could get the word on this new name.
> People
> agreed that the name wasn't Arabic, but, AFAIK, that was as far as
> anyone could go with it.

self-described b-boy Joe Twist writes on his Soul Imperialist blog
   http://soulimperialist.blogspot.com/2005/05/malcolm-shabazz.html

-----
First of all, the name thing is such a deep part of the Malcolm X
myth: Malcolm Little becomes Malcolm X becomes El-Hajj Malik El-
Shabazz, each at a decisive point in his development. But I always
wondered: if he didn’t take the name "Shabazz" until 1964, what was
his childrens’ last name up until then? X? Was that their legal last
name? After all, as "born Muslims" they didn’t have any other last
name. So did they have a different last name from their father? Did
they all change their names when he did?

Eventually, it became evident that in his daily interactions he had
used the name "Malcolm Shabazz" for the majority of his adult life,
throughout all the changes (you can even hear Elijah Muhammed refer
to him as "Malcolm Shabazz" in some of those old clips from when he
was still in the Nation of Islam). And for me, that name really
captures the essence of who he was; the ultimate distillation of all
his names put together. Malcolm Little + Malcolm X + El-Hajj Malik El-
Shabazz = Malcolm Shabazz.
-----

somewhere in people's recollections from before 1964 there should be
some speculation -- maybe even information -- about the name Shabazz.

arnold