Islam retained a small but insistent claim on the sympathies of African-Americans. It originally crossed the Atlantic during the years of the slave trade. Generations later, Islam was virtually lost, smothered by Christianity. The Moorish Science Temple of America, founded by Timothy Drew in Chicago in 1913, attempted to resuscitate Islam. Drew was believed by his followers to have been ordained Prophet Noble Drew Ali by Allah. Ali created, out of his study of Oriental philosophy, his version of the Holy Koran, the sacred text. He advocated a "return" to Islam as the only means for blacks to escape racial oppression. The sect maintained rigorous spiritual and dietary practices, many derived from Muslim observances. Noble Drew Ali died mysteriously during a period of internal strife, and the cult lost its momentum shortly thereafter.