"The Moorish Science Temple of America (MSTA) and the Nation of Islam (NOI) are interdependent upon the Masonic worldview for many of its non-theological and philosophical tenets. These two giant of men, Timothy Drew (Prophet Noble Drew Ali) and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad toiled in the 1920s and 1930s, they found logical and rational meaning in what the Masons had to offer in their historical teachings. It would be their initiations into Freemasonry that gave them a glimpse into viewing the African experience far and wide from the so-called "Negro" experience and immediately made the association, in particular in the upper degrees of Masonry with the historical legacy of a people who were hit in the head and robbed of the knowledge of self (that's none other than the so-called black man in America)—Egypt, Ethiopia, Morocco, Jerusalem, Mecca, Babylon, Medina, etc., lands which are relished in Freemasonry had a greater significance to those who were deemed the "lost sheep" and Noble Drew Ali and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad took the teachings of Freemasonry to the next evolutionary level. (Reference: Keith Moore; "Moorish Circle 7: The Rise of the Islamic Faith Among Blacks in America and it's Masonic origins"). "