The Nation of Islam, whose followers are known as Black Muslims, originated in Detroit in 1930. Shrouded in secrecy, the organization advocates a separatist religious, economic, and political ideology based on black nationalism. It seeks to instill self-esteem and pride and promotes racial solidarity, economic self-sufficiency, and political and cultural self-determination. Despite the Nation’s radical posturing, its members subscribe to a lifestyle frequently associated with conservative values. They emphasize the importance of traditional, family-centered life and advocate monogamous relationships, conventional gender roles, proper public deportment, and abstinence from alcohol, drugs, premarital sex, and crime.
The religious doctrine of the Black Muslims modifies and combines teachings from several sources including the Qur’an, the Bible, and the writings of Joseph F.Rutherford, leader of Jehovah’s Witnesses; Hendrik Willem Van Loon’s The Story of Mankind (New York: Boni and Liveright,
Elijah Muhammad, ca. 1964. Library of Congress
1921); and James Henry Breasted’s The Conquest of Civilization (New York: Harper, 1938). The Nation of Islam’s central theological doctrine claims that the human race originated with blacks and that whites were created by Yakub, a black mad scientist who rebelled against Allah. While Yakub created the white race as a genetically inferior hybrid group that lacked true humanity, whites used trickery and deceit to achieve power and subject the black race. According to the Black Muslims, an apocalyptic day, called the “Battle of Armageddon,” will end white dominance and restore the power of the black race. Until blacks are once again the ruling race, Black Muslims rename their members. They adopt “original” African names to symbolize their rejection of the “slave” names given to them by their white oppressors.
The founder of the Black Muslims was a black peddler known by a number of names, including Farrad Mohammad, F.Mohammad Ali, Professor Ford, Wali Farrad, and W.D.Fard. The origins of Fard are obscure, but he claimed to have come from the Holy City of Mecca. In the summer of 1930, Fard arrived in Detroit and traveled from door to door selling raincoats and silks to the city’s black residents. During his visits he made nutritional suggestions to his customers, claiming to improve their physical health, and discussed with them their history and race relations in America. Fard also used the opportunity to promulgate his religious philosophy. He proclaimed that the human race originated from blacks and that whites, whom he called “the blue-eyed devils,” had distorted history and perverted “true Christianity” to oppress blacks and achieve world dominance. African Americans belonged to a powerful black nation, Fard insisted, claiming that he was divinely sent to help them reclaim their nationhood.
Fard’s message, similar to that of other black charismatic, militant, and separatist leaders such as Marcus Garvey, Father Divine, and Daddy Grace, struck a chord with many disillusioned blacks during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Providing an organizational basis for his growing number of followers, Fard recorded his dogma in two manuals: The Secret Ritual of the Nation of Islam, which is transmitted orally, and the Teaching for the Lost Found Nation of Islam in a Mathematical Way, which requires complex interpretation. Both these documents laid the foundation for the creation of the institutional structure of the Nation of Islam. In 1933, Fard founded the first Black Muslim temple in Detroit; the University of Islam, an elementary school designed to socialize students in becoming Black Muslims; the Muslim Girls Training Class; and the Fruit of Islam, a highly organized paramilitary unit that trains boys and men in the use of firearms, military drills, and defense strategy. Within a year, the Nation of Islam attracted approximately eight thousand black followers in Detroit.
The tremendous growth of the Nation of Islam was accompanied by internal dissension that threatened to tear the organization apart. Soon after the founding of the first temple, several men who had obtained high-ranking positions in the organization challenged Fard’s doctrine and leadership. One faction, led by Abdul Muhammad, questioned Fard’s teaching that Black Muslims should not pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States. Blacks, Abdul Muhammad insisted, were American citizens, and he urged Black Muslims to demonstrate their loyalty to the U.S. Constitution. Another group, apparently intrigued by Japan’s expansion in Asia during the 1930s, wanted the Nation of Islam to build an alliance with other nonwhite people and advocated support of the Japanese government. Yet another faction, led by the Ethiopian Wyxzewixard S.J.Challouehliczilczese, advocated economic schemes, while other Black Muslims resented the appointment of Elijah Muhammad as minister of Islam. Adding to the turmoil was a group of Communists who tried to infiltrate the Nation of Islam, hoping to align it with the U.S. Communist Party. As a result, a number of factions broke away from the organization shortly after its founding.
In June 1934, in the midst of this turmoil, Fard disappeared as mysteriously as he had appeared and was never heard from again. Elijah Muhammad, who had been one of Fard’s earliest followers, assumed leadership of the Nation of Islam. Born Elijah Poole, Elijah Muhammad had migrated with his family from Georgia to Detroit in the 1920s. He and several of his relatives became associated with Fard in 1930. That year, Elijah adopted the name Muhammad and became the chief minister of Islam and the autocratic leader of the organization.
In 1934, following Fard’s disappearance, Elijah Muhammad moved to Chicago, established Temple No. 2, which became the Black Muslims’ national headquarters, and launched the newspaper the Final Call He quickly moved to deify Fard, referring to him as the “prophet,” and worked to institute his early teachings. Weakened by Fard’s disappearance and the factionalism that had divided the Black Muslims, the Nation of Islam grew only slowly after its move to Chicago.
Not until after World War II did the movement start to attract large numbers of followers throughout the United States and establish temples in all larger cities with sizable black populations. The group’s growing popularity during the postwar years may have been the result of increasing African American awareness of global decolonization efforts and the emergence of independent African nations.
Between 1950 and 1964, the Nation of Islam experienced its greatest growth, attracting fifty thousand to one hundred thousand members. Undoubtedly, the Nation’s effort to instill pride in black heritage and self-respect appealed largely to the black inner-city poor and members of the African American working class. Elijah Muhammad also tried to induce others to join the movement, however, and used charismatic speakers and celebrities, including Malcolm X and the boxing champion Muhammad Ali, to increase the attractiveness of the organization.
Malcolm X was probably the Nation’s most acclaimed and notorious spokesman. Born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1925, he dropped out of school and entered a life of drug abuse, pimping, and small crimes at an early age. In 1946, he was sent to prison, where one of his brothers and a friend he met in jail introduced him to the teachings of the Nation of Islam. In 1952, after his release from prison, Malcolm X joined Elijah Muhammad and soon became one of the most effective organizers of the Nation.
Malcolm X, who embraced the groups rigorous asceticism, was a charismatic speaker. Aware of Malcolm’s powerful rhetorical ability, the Nation sent him on speaking tours around the country, where he attracted large followings. Malcolm helped establish numerous temples across the United States and became a major force in the growth of the Nation during the late 1950s and early 1960s. In May 1960, he was appointed minister of Temple No. 7 in New York City’s Harlem, and in the following year he helped launch the Nation’s official newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, which replaced the Final Call Acknowledging Malcolm’s success as a speaker and organizer, Elijah Muhammad appointed him national minister of the Nation of Islam in 1963.
But soon tensions developed between the two men, generated at least in part by Elijah Muhammad’s extra-marital indiscretions. In November 1963, Elijah Muhammad suspended Malcolm X from the Nation, allegedly for referring to President John F.Kennedy’s assassination as “the Kennedy chickens coming home to roost.” In March 1964, Malcolm X stopped associating with the Nation of Islam and formed the independent Muslim Mosque, Inc. In the same year, he visited Mecca, converted to orthodox Islam, and founded the secular Organization of Afro-American Unity on June 28, 1964. Following Malcolm X’s departure from the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad appointed Louis Farrakhan to assume Malcolm’s post as minister of Harlem’s Temple No. 7 and to serve as his personal representative and national spokesman. When Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21, 1965, members of the Nation of Islam were suspected of having committed the crime, and Elijah Muhammad and Farrakhan were rumored to have ordered his death.
Malcolm X was not the only Black Muslim who challenged Elijah Muhammad’s leadership in the 1960s. In 1964, Clarence 13X, who had joined the Nation as Clarence Jowars Smith in 1961, was expelled from the organization when he started to teach that all black people are Allah. After leaving, he founded the Nation of the Five Percent, headquartered in New York City.
Despite the controversy generated by Malcolm X’s dismissal and his subsequent assassination, as well as the expulsion of Clarence 13X, the Nation of Islam experienced tremendous growth during the 1960s. This was due in part to the decade’s protest spirit that increased black interest in the Nation’s emphasis on economic self-sufficiency and political and cultural self-determination. By the early 1970s, the Nation of Islam operated approximately 150 temples and 14 University of Islam schools in cities across the nation and by 1975 claimed a total membership exceeding one hundred thousand.
The Nation’s growing popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s gave way to heightened factionalism following the death of Elijah Muhammad on February 25, 1975. Divisions within the Nation surfaced when the ailing Elijah appointed one of his sons, Wallace Deen Muhammad, to assume leadership of the Black Muslims. As son of the Nation’s leader, he had been raised in the movement, exposed to its rituals and traditions, and steeped in its dogma. Educated at the Nation’s University of Islam in Chicago, he had served as a minister of Islam in Philadelphia and several other cities. Yet, Wallace Deen Muhammad was invariably at odds with the Nation’s doctrine. He had been a close friend of Malcolm X and engaged in independent study of Islamic law, history, and theology. His freethinking personality led him to defy his father’s authority and challenge the Nation’s dogma, particularly the deification of Fard. As a result, he had been suspended from the Nation on numerous occasions, his final suspension ensuing in 1964 and lasting for four years. His lay privileges were not restored until 1974.
Not surprisingly, Wallace Deen Muhammad initiated a series of reforms when he assumed leadership of the Nation in 1975. He decentralized the organization, sold most of its businesses, and disbanded the controversial paramilitary Fruit of Islam. In an effort to lead the Nation toward orthodox Islam, he renamed its newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, the Bilalian News, in reference to a black companion of the prophet Muhammad; proclaimed the mortality of Fard; purged all racial considerations from the Nation’s theological dogma, including the racial rhetoric of “blue-eyed devils”; and changed the organization’s name to the World Community of Al-Islam in the West. Following another restructuring effort in 1980, Wallace adopted the Muslim name Warith Deen Muhammad and changed the organization’s name to American Muslim Mission.
Warith Deen Muhammad’s reforms sparked considerable opposition among many Black Muslims and led to a secessionist movement. The schism resulted in the formation of at least one dozen competing factions and four distinct groups using the name Nation of Islam. These included the Nation of Islam of Detroit, headed by Elijah Muhammad’s younger brother John; the Nation of Islam of Baltimore and Chicago, under the leadership of Caliph Emmanual A.Muhammad; the Nation of Islam of Atlanta, led by Silis Muhammad; and the Lost-Found Nation of Islam in the Wilderness of North America, headed by Louis Farrakhan.
Farrakhan, confidant of Elijah Muhammad, captured the largest secessionist following. Born Louis Eugene Walcott in New York City, on May 11, 1933, Farrakhan graduated from Boston Latin School with honors, was recruited by Malcolm X into the Nation of Islam in the early 1950s, and was appointed minister of Boston’s Temple No. 11 on March 18, 1954. In 1964, when Malcolm X left the Nation, Farrakhan succeeded him as minister of Harlem’s Temple No. 7 and personal representative and national spokesman of Elijah Muhammad.
When Warith Deen Muhammad assumed leadership of the Nation of Islam, he recalled Farrakhan from the Harlem ministry and assigned him to the West Side of Chicago. Initially, Farrakhan accepted the reassignment that placed him under the close scrutiny of Warith Deen. Farrakhan remained a fervent believer in the Nation’s original doctrine, however, including its teachings about the origins of humankind, the impending racial “Battle of Armageddon,” and Elijah Muhammad’s deification of Fard. Resenting Warith Deen’s reforms, Farrakhan peacefully parted with Elijah’s son and organized the Lost-Found Nation of Islam in the Wilderness of North America in 1977.
Farrakhan’s organization, built unequivocally on the foundations laid by Fard and Elijah Muhammad, emerged as the most popular of the secessionist Black Muslim movements. Farrakhan resurrected the publication of the Nation’s original newspaper, the Final Call, retaining the columns “What the Muslims Believe” and “What the Muslims Want,” and continued to stress the organizations dedication to racial solidarity, economic self-sufficiency, and political and cultural self-determination.
While Farrakhan remains wedded to the original teachings of the Nation of Islam, he has in recent years tried to broaden the involvement of black women. Traditionally, the Nation has been a male-dominated organization, subscribing to conventional gender roles and confining women to the roles of family nurturer and educator of children. Seeking to address charges of sexism, Farrakhan has included women speakers at all major events such as Savior’s Day, the annual celebration of the birth of Fard on February 26, 1877, and the Million Men March in Washington, D.C., on October 16, 1995.
By the mid-1980s, Farrakhan’s organization, head-quartered in Chicago, operated approximately two hundred temples in the United States, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Canada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Thomas Island, and Trinidad. The group has accrued nearly $15 million in property including a small string of bakeries and cleaners, approximately forty rental units, a controlling interest in the Guaranty Bank and Trust in Chicago, a newspaper, a supermarket, a $22 million fish import business, and twenty thousand acres of farmland in Alabama, Georgia, and Michigan. By 1990, the organization had also established a trucking firm, a $5 million food-service complex (Salaam Restaurant) in Chicago with restaurant outlets in four American cities, and a two-thousand-seat auditorium.
Farrakhan’s organization currently claims twenty thousand followers, while Warith Deen Muhammad’s American Muslim Mission has an estimated one hundred thousand members. Despite the relatively small size of Farrakhan’s group, it has attracted considerable publicity, owing largely to its controversial demands for reparations for slavery and repeated anti-Semitic statements. While the Nation of Islam continues to propagate its conservative, nationalist, self-help, and separatist ideology, it has failed to recapture the large number of followers it boasted when Malcolm X was its preeminent spokesperson. Yet, the organization appears to have struck an enduring chord particularly with lower- and working-class blacks, and it has garnered considerable sympathy among many African Americans. Even black critics of Farrakhan praise the group’s rehabilitation programs for prisoners, drug addicts, alcoholics, and street gang members, as well as its efforts to improve the quality of life in black inner-city neighborhoods by exposing and preventing police brutality, closing crack houses, and patrolling low-income black housing projects. Despite the factionalism that continues to trouble the organization, the Nation of Islam has endured as the most long-lasting black separatist movement, and its essential message has remained remarkably consistent.
FURTHER READINGS
Blyden, Edward W. Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race. 1888. Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1994.
Clegg, Claude Andrew. An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997.
Gardell, Mattias. In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
Lee, Martha F. The Nation of Islam: An American Millennarian Movement. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1988.
Lincoln, C.Eric. The Black Muslims in America. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1994.
McCloud, Amman Beverly. African American Islam. New York: Routledge, 1995.
Turner, Richard Brent. Islam in the African-American Experience. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.
Anthony J.Lemelle Jr.
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