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oe Te wae. i } 1 ~ + made by the dissident, former NOI member from Boston, Aubrey Barnette, m | his article that appeared in "The Saturday Evening Post, " o:: February 27, 1965. . According to the latest FBI information, these membership estimates are about | 2, 000 too high. Coricerning the NOI's membership, Hassan said no one in the NOI hierarchy had any positive idea of the actual number of members. As has been known by the FBI for years, the ‘membership at any given time could only be estimated, as there is a constant influx of new persons, which is balanced by an egression of old members. New people begin attending meetings on & fairly regular basis. They have their names entered in the “Book of Life, '' maintained in Chicago, and obtain their "X'"" names. But as new members enter into the - eult's activities, many others at any given time are in various stages of disillu- sionment--they fail to attend meetings regularly, fail to make the required contributions, do not xcept the temple leaders’ discipline, and are soon com- pletely out of all the cult's activities. Hassan has said that approximately 100 new persons @ month join the Chicago Temple but that ‘members leave as fast as new ones join" and, therefore, for a nurnber of years vac total menmbe: sig in Chicago has remained almost the same. Several years ago Olid Ui Kaije ce Sune, epeedilg &. & meeting 2 ko. Chicago Temple, complained that during the 1961 annual Muslim convention - 500 persons "signed up" for membership but only five of them remained in the temple.