Nation of Islam

1. Islam Needs to Evolve by Tahir Aslam Gora Published on February 13, 2007 via Neil Flagg

2. Analyse: Extreme Rechte & Islam via NPD-Watch Blog

Nation of Islam: History – Part 1

Originally this article was published in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.

Nation of Islam – What is it?

Part 1 (of 4)

By Adrian Morgan

According to Lawrence Mamiya, professor of religion at Vassar Collegein Poughkeepsie, there are up to 2 million African Americans who are practicing Islam as a faith. Yet Mamiya maintains that the most famous American black Muslim association, the Nation of Islam, has little more than 50,000 members.

The organization is currently at a crossroads – its current leader, Louis Farrakhan (above right), is dying. Prostate cancer, which he thought he had beaten in 1999, has returned. He recently made a “farewell speech” to a huge congregation in Detroit, where the organization is currently based. Farrakhan urged conciliation between those of faith, saying: “How come we the people of God cannot embrace each other?” Minister Farrakhan acknowledged that the speech would be his last. He told his followers: “My time is up. The final call can’t last forever.”

The 77-year history of the Nation of Islam, and particularly some of the groups which have been influenced by it, is interwoven with racial politics, intrigues, anti-semitism, and murder. But though the group claims to uphold “Islamic values”, some of its core beliefs run directly counter to orthodox interpretations of Islam. To be a Muslim, a person must declare that there is no other God but Allah, and Mohammed is his last messenger. The NoI, however, believe in other messengers, or prophets.

As stated on the Nation of Islam’s official website, the group believes that “Allah (God) appeared in the Person of Master W. Fard Muhammad, July, 1930; the long-awaited “Messiah” of the Christians and the “Mahdi” of the Muslims.”

This belief is fundamentally at odds with authentic Islam. The Mahdi must be a descendant of Mohammed, via the bloodline of his daughter Fatima. Master Wallace Fard Muhammad gave no reliable details of his origins or lineage. According to Hadiths, the Mahdi will rule as Caliph in the last period of Islam on earth, and will rule for seven years. Master Fard first appeared in Paradise Valley in Detroit in either November 1929 or July 1930 and mysteriously disappeared in 1934, a “rule” of significantly less than seven years.

FBI files claimed Fard was a criminal with 58 aliases. He had served three years in California for selling narcotics, being released from San Quentin on May 27, 1929 according to one account, even though this date conflicts with other known events in Fard’s life. Fard’s origins are obscure – it has been argued that he was a New Zealander, with mixed white/Polynesian parentage, a Pakistani, a Syrian, a Palestinian or a Jamaican. He told his followers that he was born in Mecca, and that he had a Russian/Jewish mother. When he arrived in Paradise Valley, using the alias David Ford-el, he was a silk peddler, though the Nation of Islam denies this claim.

Before arriving in Detroit, Fard had been a senior member of a group called the Moorish Science Temple of America, which had been founded in 1925 by Noble Drew Ali (1886 – 1929). Based in Chicago, Illinois, with 14 branch temples in other states, the Moorish Science Temple had evolved from an earlier cult – the Canaanite Temple – founded in Newark in 1913 by Drew Ali (real name Timothy Drew, originally from North Carolina). This cult claimed that all blacks were Asiatic in origin, deriving from the land of Canaan. As the Moorish Science Temple, the ideology changed to state that all blacks were Moorish (Moroccan), and incorporated Islam into its philosophy.

By 1927, this group was attracting attention in the South Side of Chicago, with male members wearing red fezzes, having contempt for whites and occasionally indulging in fist fights. Drew Ali (pictured above) considered himself the natural successor to Marcus Mosiah Garvey, the black nationalist who had been deported in 1927. Drew Ali sold potions with Oriental names and sold membership cards to the Temple, soon becoming wealthy. The first national convention of the Moorish Science Temple took place in October 1928. By this time, Drew Ali, who was called “Prophet” by his followers, had earned $36,000 in one year alone, and was said to have commanded 12,000 followers in Chicago.

The Moorish Science Temple was hit by a scandal in the following year. One disgruntled member, Sheikh Claude Greene Bey, had tried to stage a coup and take over the movement. On March 15, 1929, Greene was shot and stabbed to death by a group of Moors. This killing led to Drew Ali being investigated as an accessory to homicide. While awaiting trial, Drew Ali hastily promoted David Ford-el, aka Master Fard Muhammad, appointing him acting head of the Chicago temple on July 20, 1929.

A month later, Noble Drew Ali was found dead at his home, probably as a result of injuries sustained in beatings from the police or from his rivals, and a leadership battle ensued. In September 1929, Kirkman Bey, a man who claimed to possess Drew Ali’s will, was kidnapped from his home on the orders of Ira Johnson Bey, a contender for the leadership. Kirkman was held prisoner in Johnson’s apartment. When police tried to break in, a shoot-out ensued, in which one policeman and two Moors were killed. 63 Moors were subsequently arrested. Fearful for his own safety, Fard Muhammad moved to Detroit, Michigan.

Here, Fard imported many of Drew Ali’s ideas, mixed with some of his own. Drew Ali had written his own “Koran”, which blended Christian and Muslim ideas. In 1930, Master Fard founded the Allah Temple of Islam (ATI). He preached his pseudo-Islamic views, and produced booklets. According to his successor, Fard Muhammad left behind a legacy of more than 100 of these “books”. Fard allowed his followers to choose their own leaders, or “ministers”.

The man chosen by Fard to be his right-hand man would eventually become the leader of the Nation of Islam for 44 years. Elijah (Robert) Poole had been born around October 7, 1897, in Sandersville, Georgia, the seventh of thirteen children. Poole moved to Detroit in April 1923, taking with him his wife Clara and their children. According to the Nation of Islam, Master Fard first arrived on Independence Day 1930.

An NoI document from 1973, entitled the Muhammad University of Islam Yearbook describes how Elijah Poole first met Master Fard at one of the latter’s ATI meetings: “..as soon as he walked into the room he realized that the one who was speaking was God, Himself. When shaking the man’s hand after the meeting, Mr Elijah Poole said, “I know who you are, you’re God Himself”. The certain man whispered to him, that’s right, but don’t tell it now: It is not yet time for it to be known.“

“The Savior, Master Fard Mujhammad, used a system of permitting the student ministers to select their own minister from among themselves. They would always select the most articulate, smooth-talking one. However, one day the Savior decided to select his own. “I’ve let you select yours for a wile,” he told the student ministers. “Now I’ll select mine.” “Hey, you over there, Karriem!” Master Fard called out to the humble little man seated in the corner rear of the classroom. “Who me?” The Messenger asked humbly. “Yes, you Elijah Karriem,” The Savior commanded, “Come here with me.”

The humble little man went to the front of the class and stood beside his Master. The Savior put his right arm around the little man’s shoulder and said, “From now on, this is My Minister.” The Savior gave Elijah the name of Muhammad, His name. Muhammad was given the title “Supreme Minister” until later on when he received the title “Messenger of Allah,” a title which he was not to use until the Saviour had gone because it was not to be revealed until then that Savior Himself was Allah in person.”

The Allah Temple of Islam, precursor of the modern NoI, was more radical than the Moorish Temple of Science. Many of the males still wore the distinctive red fezzes, and dressed themselves in smart suits. Like Drew Ali, Fard charged believers to have their names changed from their “slave names” to Muslim names and were issued with “gaudy identification cards”. Drew Ali had tried to balance black pride with the notion of American citizenship, but Fard emphasized contempt for the white race, whom he called “cavemen” or “white devils”. Fard maintained that an evil scientist called Yakub had created the white race 6,000 years ago, to plague the original Black Man, who had ruled the earth for 25,000 years before that time. Like Drew Ali, Fard told his followers that they were “Asiatic”.

Two years after the Allah Temple of Islam/Nation of Islam was founded in Detroit, it became involved in a major scandal. A member of the group called Robert Harris aka Robert Karriem had ritually murdered James J Smith on Sunday, November 20, 1932. Harris was obviously insane, declaring himself the “King of Islam” during his trial. The racist Detroit press of the time had a field day, calling the crime the “Voodoo Murders” even though only one person was killed. The term “Voodoo” had been coined by a local pastor, J. D. Howell, and was publicized by the Detroit Free Press, which also wrote of the killer’s “jungle fanaticism”, Harris had erected a makeshift altar, to which he had tied his black victim, who lodged at his home in Dubois Street. Harris stabbed him with a silver knife while his wife Bertha looked on. The killer then caved in his victim’s head with an automobile axle.

The day after the murder, the Detroit Free Press claimed Harris/Karriem had told police: “The ninth hour of the twentieth day had come Sunday. It was predestined 1,500 years ago that at that hour I must make a human sacrifice to my gods. It must not be a member of the Order of Islam, but some stranger – the first person I met after leaving my home.” In court, Harris claimed: “It was crucifixion time. That’s why I killed him.”

The Detroit Free Press acknowledged that Fard’s version of Islam, and not Voodoo was involved. A “bible of Islam” was found, which advocated killing unbelievers. Harris told how he intended to carry out more murders, which he called “sacrifices”. The “Nation of Islam” itself came under the spotlight. A black woman had allegedly been threatened with death by the cult after her employer had expressed his desire to ban the group.

The “bible of Islam” was a booklet written by Fard Muhammad, entitled “Secret Rituals of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam”. It had been quoted by Harris/Karriem. This included the words: “The unbeliever must be stabbed through the heart.” These words had been found in Harris’ home, pasted onto a sheet of paper. The leaflet also claimed: “Every son of Islam must gain a victory from a devil. Four victories and the son will attain his reward.”

Seven senior figures in the ATI were arrested. Master Fard Muhammad and Ugan Ali, the secretary of ATI, were taken into psychiatric custody at Detroit’s Receiving Hospital for observation. The sanity of Ugan Ali was described as “extremely doubtful… the slightest word or phrase used inadvertently seems to enrage him, for no apparent reason.” Master Fard Muhammad, who is still considered to be “Allah” by modern-day Nation of Islam members, was described as “suffering from delusions that he is a divinity”.

© 2003-2007 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved

Nation of Islam: History – Part 2

Originally this article was published in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.

Nation of Islam – What is it?

Part 2 (of 4)

By Adrian Morgan

Nation of Islam – The Path to Malcolm X

Part 2 (of 4)

When “Black Muslim” leaders such as Noble Ali Drew and Wallace Fard Muhammad were preaching, they were part of a phenomenon that had grown in the wake of abolition. Many poor blacks had been forced to migrate to find livelihoods, and in the cities of northeast America, where they faced discrimination, cults led by charismatic religious leaders flourished. These cults added a religious messianic dimension to the racial pride and Pan-Africanism of Marcus Garvey , W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington.

Black Jews came into being before the Black Muslims – the first of their “churches” was the Church of the Living God, the Pillar and Ground of Truth for All Nations, founded by “prophet” F. S. Cherry in Chattanooga in 1886. On November 8, 1896, “prophet” William Saunders Crowdy (pictured above right) founded the “Church of God and Saints of Christ” in Lawrence, Kansas. The latter group practiced Jewish customs but melded them with Christian beliefs. Between 1919-1931, at least eight black Jewish groups were established in Harlem, New York. The most prominent of the Harlem Black Jews was Arnold J Ford, musical director for Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association.

The emergence of Black Muslims in Detroit and Chicago followed many of the patterns of the Black Jews – including the fusion of their professed faith with aspects of Christianity and the belief that their leaders were “prophets”. Following the ritual murder committed by one of Master Fard Muhammad’s followers in November 1932, the Allah Temple of Islam aka the Lost-Found Nation of Islam gained notoriety.

The murderer, Robert Harris aka Robert Karriem, was eventually declared insane at his trial. His wife Bertha, who had originally been arrested as an accomplice to the killing, said that she had been terrorized by her husband, who had threatened to decapitate her and kill their two children. Harris/Karriem was not the first mentally unstable member of Fard Muhammad’s group to make the news before being sent to the asylum at Eloise. In November 1931, Henry James Moaning, aka Ahmed Abdullah, had been declared insane by a court after he sent threatening letters to Detroit’s mayor, Frank Murphy, and had broken into Murphy’s apartment block. At that time, Murphy had been closing down “flop-houses” which provided accommodation for single men, many of whom were jobless and black.

Master Fard Muhammad and the secretary of ATI, Ugan Ali claimed following arrest that there was nothing in their sect which advocated “sacrificial rites”. Fard was arrested on the morning of Wednesday, November 23, 1932, at the hotel where he lived on W. Jefferson Ave. A press report claimed that Fard told detectives that he was the “supreme being on earth.” Fard was examined by immigration authorities. On Thursday, Ali’s wife Lillie led a march to police HQ to have the two men freed. The following day a crisis meeting was held at the headquarters of the ATI, at 3408 Hastings Street. 200 members attended the venue, above a clothing store. Police reported that it was a “voodoo meeting”.

During the day, Fard and Ali began a process of examination by doctors at the Psychopathic Ward of Detroit’s Receiving Hospital. Five days later, it was concluded that though Ali was not “normal”, Fard was not of unsound mind. By this time, the group had 8,000 members on its register. He left Detroit on a Chicago-bound train on December 7, 1932, and the ATI was nominally disbanded.

Fard came back to Detroit in January 1933. He was arrested on May 25, and ordered to leave the city. The official report states that Fard admitted that his teachings were “strictly a racket” and he was “getting all the money out of it he could.” He returned to Chicago, where he was subsequently arrested for disturbing the peace as a result of his preachings.

The FBI accounts of Master Fard Muhammad and those of the Nation of Islam contradict each other, adding to the aura of mystery surrounding “Allah” and his time on earth. The FBI states he arrived from New Zealand in 1913 and had a British father and a Polynesian mother. He had spent time in Portland, Oregon and Seattle. In Los Angeles in 1920, while working as a restauranter, he fathered an illegitimate child to Hazel Barton. This son was named Wallace Max Ford. He was later killed at Linhaven Roads, Virginia, in August 1942 while serving as a US coast guard. Master Fard had been imprisoned for 3 years at San Quentin for peddling narcotics at his restaurant.

The FBI and the NoI agree on two issues – Fard disappeared in June 1934 and his birthday was February 25. According to his successor Elijah Muhammad aka Elijah Poole (pictured left), Fard returned to Mecca. Hazel Barton claimed he visited her to attempt a reconciliation, but being rebuffed he went back to New Zealand. In 1957, the FBI urged its various departments to examine their records, to see if Fard could be traced. No definitive proof of his whereabouts has ever been confirmed. At first, the NoI suspected foul play.

In the hands of Elijah Muhammad, the birthday of Fard became “Saviors Day”. The somewhat flaky ideologies of Fard Muhammad became more outlandish. Fard had urged his followers to listen to broadcasts of Joseph Rutherford, president of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who claimed that the end of the “civilized” world had commenced in 1914. The notion of impending Armageddon had been preached by Fard, who had formerly claimed that if his followers ate certain foods and employed their time usefully, the world would be rid of evil by 1934. In his proselytizing, Elijah Muhammad continued the theme of an end to the evil civilization of the whites.

He spoke of a giant spaceship, called the “Wheel”, which could inflict retribution on the evil white race, should they harm the Nation of Islam: “..THE WHEEL is in fact a ship (plane) made like a wheel. And it is made for the purpose of Allah (God) Carrying out His Aim upon this world. This WHEEL is by no means to be taken lightly!…“

“….The planes on this WHEEL will be sent down, earthward and are capable of destroying the world almost at once. THE WHEEL (the Mother Plane) is capable of carrying many people in it! The Wheel is 1/2 mile by 1/2 mile in size. The Wheel is capable of sitting up above earth’s atmosphere for a whole year before coming down into earth’s atmosphere to take on more oxygen and hydrogen for the people who are on this plane (THE WHEEL) O she is a wonderful thing!“

If the Black Man created the heavens and the earth.. AND THE BLACK MAN DID CREATE THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH… then what man is fool enough to challenge the Black Man… VENUS AND MARS… you cannot use Venus and Mars. The people on Mars will not you light (land) on Mars. If they do let you land on Mars, they will be silly to do so… YOU would like to see what the people on Mars look like. That is not, say, impossible. O WHEEL… the greatest mechanical defender, powered by the Spirit of Allah, to Protect us, the BLACK PEOPLE ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH.”“

These bizarre themes have recently been continued by Louis Farrakhan, a former Calypso singer called Louis Eugene Walcott from St Kitts, who joined the Nation of Islam in 1955: “Seventy-one years ago, before you knew anything about Mars, Master Fard Muhammad called Mars an inhabited planet. He said Mars is 141,500,000 miles from the sun, and she travels at the rate of 1,037-1/3 miles per hour. He said her diameter is 4,200 miles. Master Fard Muhammad said Mercury is also an inhabited planet and is 36,000,000 miles from the sun. Her diameter is 3,000 miles and she travels at the rate of 1,037-1/3 miles per hour. Think about that. No matter how close they are to the sun or how far they are from the sun, all of the planets travel at the same rate of speed.“

“Master Fard Muhammad said Jupiter is 483,000,000 miles from the sun. She takes eleven years and nine months to make one complete circle around the sun; her diameter is 88,700 miles; Saturn is 886,000,000 miles from the sun; Uranus, 1,782,000,000; Neptune, 2,793,000,000 miles from the sun; and the far planet Platoon, or Pluto, 4,600,000,000 miles from the sun.“

“Pluto [called “Platoon” by Fard] was first discovered in the year 1930, the same year that Master Fard Muhammad found you and me. How far is Pluto from the sun? Four billion, six hundred million miles. In this figure, you have the numerals four and six.”“

The emphasis on numbers and mathematics was seen as a way for the Nation of Islam to combat the “tricknology” of the white devils. Fard’s handwritten booklets were only available to a select few – only one of these had been printed, entitled “Teachings for the Lost Found Nation of Islam in a Mathematical Way- consisting of Thirty-Four Problems.”

Other works by Fard were guarded carefully – “Secret Ritual of the Nation of Islam” had to be memorized by each member. This came in two parts, with the first comprising 14 sections, and the second, 40 sections. The mosques or “Temples” practiced strict segregation between men and women. It was compulsory for male members to be searched upon entering. The paramilitary guardians of the Temples were the smartly-dressed members of the so-called “Fruit of Islam”.

The first Temple of the Nation of Islam was situated at 11529 Linwood Ave. In either late 1933 or the start of 1934, Temple No 2 was founded at 7351 S. Stony Island, Chicago. This was set up by Fard and Elijah Muhammad. By the time Elijah Muhammad died in 1975, there were 75 Temples across America.

In 1952, Malcolm Little (above right), a young man originally from Omaha with a traumatic past, met Elijah Muhammad at Detroit. At the age of four, Little’s family home had been torched by white racists. Two years later his father was killed in a suspicious streetcar accident. His mother had been incarcerated in a mental asylum while he was a teenager. A petty criminal, Little had been exposed to Nation of Islam beliefs while in prison. He soon changed his name, and became a NoI mosque leader in Boston and then Harlem. By the end of the decade, he would be the main spokesman for the NoI, known by the name Malcolm X.

Malcolm X would later evolve beyond the narrow ideological confines of Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam, and for this he would pay with his life.

© 2003-2007 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved

March 8, 2007

Nation of Islam: History – Part 3

Originally this article was published in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.

Nation of Islam – The Path to Louis Farrakhan

Part 3 (of 4)

By Adrian Morgan

Malcolm K. Little, aka Malik El-Shabaz aka Malcolm X, was serving an 8-10 year prison term in Charlestown Massachusetts when he first became exposed to Nation of Islam teachings. He had been sentenced at Belmont, Massachusetts for breaking and entering and larceny on February 27, 1946. In the two years previously, he had been charged 7 times in Massachusetts and Michigan for breaking and entering and grand larceny. As well as being a convicted criminal, he had also engaged in homosexual prostitution, stated biographer Bruce Perry in 1991.

While in the Nation of Islam his articulate oratory saw him promoted through the ranks. How much he believed in the the NoI’s beliefs about a mad scientist creating white men to curse blacks or that a drug-peddling fantasist called Master Fard Muhammad was “Allah” is debatable. But he certainly believed in the NoI’s message of racial separatism, and in 1953 had told police in Plymouth, Michigan, that he was “Asiatic” following the doctrines of Fard. From his own family experiences he knew the extremes of white racism. In his 1963 autobiography he wrote: ” The Muslim teachings, circulated among all Negroes in the country, are converting new Muslims among black men in prison, and black men are in prison in far greater numbers than their proportion in the population. The reason is that among all Negroes the black convict is the most perfectly preconditioned to hear the words, ‘the white man is the devil’.”

In November 1962, he was living on 97th Street, East Elmhurst in Queens, where he was Minister of NoI Temple Number 7. He was harboring some doubts about the group’s leader, Elijah Muhammad, on account of the Messenger’s adultery. After Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963, Malcolm X’s contemptuous comments caused a public outcry against the NoI and he was told by the Messenger to be silent for 90 days. Malcolm X was involved in the conversion of boxer Cassius Clay to the Nation of Islam. On March 6, 1964, the boxer was renamed Muhammad Ali. Two days later, Malcolm X announced that he had left the NoI.

As soon as Malcolm X left the group, he embarked on an active schedule. He set up Muslim Mosque Inc days after he left NoI. He founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity in June 1964. Two of Elijah Muhammad’s sons had left NoI after he had abandoned the group.

In September 1964, Malcolm X was given an eviction notice to vacate his Queens residence, owned by the NoI, by January 1965. This order was ignored, and he continued to reside there with wife Betty Shabbaz and their daughters. He toured Africa in 1964, sponsored by the Egyptian government from April to May and from July to November. He had visited Africa before, as an ambassador for the NOI, in 1959. He had been preparing for Elijah Muhammad’s tour which took place later in 1959. He had visited Saudi Arabia on July 21, 1959, but had not performed Umrah. On April 19, 1964, as a State Guest of the House of Saud, he performed the rituals of Umrah as an “orthodox” Sunni Muslim.

He visited France and Britain at the end of 1964, appearing at Oxford University where he participated in the Oxford Union debating society. In February 1965 he was in Smethwick near Birmingham, UK, where racist slogans had been used in the 1964 election. On the early hours of February 14, his house in Queens was firebombed as he and his family slept. A week later, on the afternoon of February 21, he addressed a crowd of 400 people at the Audobon Ballroom near Harlem. His wife testified that there was a commotion from the seventh row, and shots were fired. Malcolm X was taken to Presbyterian Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

His autopsy, performed at Bellevue Morgue on February 21, revealed that he had been hit 15 times with .9 mm caliber bullets and shotgun pellets, with 5 exit wounds. 9 bullets and pellets were retrieved from the body.

His three assailants had fled, but two suspected gunmen were cornered by angry supporters and beaten. Police took 10 minutes to rescue them and place them under arrest. In March 1966, Talmadge Hayer, Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson were convicted of murdering Malcolm X. Johnson and Butler were both Nation of Islam members, a fact which fueled rumors that Malcolm X had been assassinated on the orders of leaders within NoI. Malcolm X’s lawyer, Percy Sutton, had said after the shooting: “Malcolm knew he would be killed”.

Malcolm X’s revelations about Elijah Muhammad’s sexual philandering caused Louis Farrakhan to write in the newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, in December 1964: “such a man is worthy of death.” Though he denied ordering the assassination, Farrakhan later admitted that he had “”helped create the atmosphere” which led to the assassination.

In the next decade, as Elijah Muhammad grew frail, the Nation of Islam would become increasingly involved in incidents of violence. One of the most shocking of these took place in January 1973. In 1950, Ernest T. McGee, aka Khalifa Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, had joined the NoI. He left in 1958, disillusioned with the pseudo-Islam of the group. He formed the Hanafi sect, which adhered to Sunni Islamic principles. A friend of Malcolm X, on January 5, 1973, he had produced a letter sent to the NoI, in which he called Elijah Muhammad a “lying deceiver”.

On January 18, 1973, a group of several Nation of Islam members set out for a house which was being used by Khaalis in Washington DC. This was the townhouse of LA Lakers’ star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Khaalis was not at home, so the people in the house were attacked. Seven members of Khaalis’ family were killed. Four of the victims were babies, aged between 9 days and 22 months. These had been drowned in a bathtub and a sink. Khaalis’s wife was shot but survived, albeit paralyzed.

On the other side of America, a group of members of the Nation of Islam began a killing spree against white people in the San Francisco Bay area, which became known as the Zebra killings. Between October 19, 1973 and April 16, 1974, at least sixteen people were murdered.

While the Nation of Islam became associated in the public consciousness with violence and hate, the elderly leader Elijah Muhammad died of congestive heart failure on February 25, 1975. His death came only one day before the annual celebration of Master Fard’s birthday, “Savior’s Day”. The following day, his son Wallace D. Muhammad (pictured as he appears today) was selected as leader of the group.

Wallace had not been an enthusiastic believer in his father’s ideology, and soon changed the name of the group to the Bilalian Community. Bilal was the name of an Ethiopian Muslim who had been martyred by Christians. Officially, the Lost-Found Nation of Islam no longer existed, though leaders such as Farrakhan initially remained with Wallace as he attempted to Islamize the sect. The Nation of Islam, envisioned by Master Fard and Elijah Muhammad, had died. But soon it would rise again.

Wallace D. softened some of the image of the NoI, disbanding the “Fruit of Islam” and moving the group more closely towards authentic Islam. In 1977, the group became the World Community of Al-Islam in the West. Later it would become the American Muslim Mission, then the Muslim Society of America. Wallace D. changed his name to Warith Deen Mohammed, changing the spelling of his last name. By 1985, he had made his movement wholly compliant with traditional Islam, and allowed whites to become members.

As Warith Deen Muhammad took the community through various changes, Farrakhan and other followers of Elijah Muhammad became more alienated. Farrakhan left in 1977, but in 1981, he announced that he had revived the Nation of Islam. Once more, black Americans would be invited to believe that Master Fard was “Allah”, that people lived on Mars and a giant spaceship hovered above the planet. With Farrakhan’s revival of the NoI, the racism, anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism which had been cultivated by Fard and Elijah Muhammad had found its new home.

© 2003-2007 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved

March 9, 2007

Nation of Islam: History – Part 4

Reproduced from a series of articles on Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.

Nation of Islam – An Empty Legacy

Part 4 (of 4)

By Adrian Morgan

Louis Farrakhan has made no public comments about who will succeed him as head of the Nation of Islam. His tenure as leader of the group has been marked by injudicious comments and actions. He reinstated the Fruit of Islam, the bow-tie wearing “soldiers” of NoI. The Fruit of Islam were initially charged to act as security during Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign. Farrakhan warned the Democratic Party that if Jesse Jackson’s demands were not listened to, he would “lead an army of black men and women to Washington, D.C. and we will… negotiate for a separate state or territory of our own.”

On March 11, 1984 Farrakhan said: “Hitler was a very great man. He wasn’t great for me as a Black man but he was a great German and he rose Germany up from the ashes of her defeat by the united force of all of Europe and America after the first World War.” A decade later, Farrakhan would reiterate the claim that Hitler was a “great man”.

On June 24, 1984, he said: “Now, that nation of Israel, never has had any peace in forty years and she will never have any peace because there can never be any peace structured on injustice, thievery, lying and deceit and using the name of God to shield your dirty religion under His holy and righteous name.”

On October 4 1994 he said: “Many of the Jews who owned the homes, the apartments in the black community, we considered them bloodsuckers because they took from our community and built their community but didn’t offer anything back to our community.” Some of Farrakhan’s more recent anti-Semitic statements can be found here.

In 1991 before the rape trial of famous convert Mike Tyson, Farrakhan publicly vilified the victim, Desiree Washington. He blamed her for being out late, saying: “What type of a woman was [Desiree Washington]? What type of a woman would go to a man’s room at 2:00 in the morning? She knew that they were not going to look at television. She knew what a hotel room looked like. And, now, she has the arrogance to cry rape.” He also said: “How many times, sisters, have you said ‘No’ and you meant ‘Yes’?”

On October 17, 1995, Farrakhan organized the Million Man March, where about 500,000 black men marched at Washington to declare their support for family values. Through this event, Farrakhan raised his profile as a black leader, but it did not bring thousands of new converts to the Nation of Islam.

Farrakhan’s inflammatory speeches caused him to be barred from entering Britain for 15 years, a ban that was only overturned by Justice Michael Turner at the High Court in the summer of 2001. The government appealed, arguing that his presence would be a threat to public order, and the ban was reinstated.

In August 1996 Farrakhan attempted to have a $1 billion donation from Muammar al-Qadaffi, the Libyan dictator, pledged the year previously, allowed by the US Treasury, despite sanctions. The request was rejected. Farrakhan visited Libya in January 1995 and was given a human rights award which he accepted.

Before the sanctions, in 1985 the Libyan dictator had offered the NoI an interest-free loan of $5 million to launch a range of household and beauty products. In February 1985, Qadaffi also told the NoI by satellite link that he would offer to send weapons to black militia in the US to destroy “white America”.

Among the injudicious acts of Louis Farrakhan was his elevation of Khalid Abdul Muhammad to accompany him on his trips to Libya in the 1980s. Khalid, who was the national spokesman for the NoI, gained notoriety as he publicly expressed his anti-semitism and racism. His views became so extreme, even for the NoI, that he was sacked as national spokesman in 1994, following condemnation from Congress. His speeches had been described as “outrageous hatemongering of the most vicious and vile kind.” In 1995, Khalid said: “I was born to give the white man hell. And I will give him hell from the cradle to the grave.” Khalid died on February 17, 2001 after a brain aneurism.

Farrakhan’s views against whites and Jews are said to have softened. He has made public displays of reconciliation with the family of Malcolm X and with Warith Deen Muhammad, but his revival of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam seems to have no future now. By his own admission Farrakhan is dying. Other schools of Islam, based on more authentic teachings than the delusions and racism of Master Fard and Elijah Muhammad, are thriving in America.

When Elijah Muhammad died in 1975, Nation of Islam members in California continued under one of the NoI’s alternative names – the Black Muslims. These were led by Yusuf Bey, who typified the sort of person who led the NoI in its heyday, an entrepreneur who wanted to be a politician, with a decidedly sinister side.

While the Nation of Islam was riven into factions, following the 1975 death of Elijah Muhammad, Yusuf Bey, a captain of the group, negotiated a meeting in 1979 between Farrakhan and Silis Muhammad, leader of a breakaway faction. When Farrakhan revived the NoI in 1981, Yusuf Bey was not a part of the movement.

Born Joseph H. Stevens in Greeneville, Texas, in 1935, Bey (pictured left) moved with his parents to Oakland at the age of 5. He joined the US Air Force at age 17, and after four years he was honourably discharged. A qualified cosmetologist, Bey ran beauty salons in Oakland Santa Barbara, before opening a bakery in Santa Barbara in 1968 which later became “Your Black Muslim Bakery”. He became involved with the Nation of Islam in 1964, and in 1971 moved his bakery to the East Bay. The bakery sold produce free of artificial colorants, with no refined sugar, fats or preservatives.

Bey had a weekly cable show called True Solutions in which he gave a platform to Elijah Muhammad’s views. He even ran for the position of Mayor of Oakland. He died on September 30, 2003 of colon cancer, having established an empire running housing, a school, a security firm and retail businesses, including Your Black Muslim Bakery. At the time of his death, he was engaged in a legal battle with a woman who claimed he had first raped her in 1982 when she was 13. She claimed she had been sexually abused by Yusuf Bey since the age of 10.

As members of Bey’s family vied for the position of successor, violence broke out. On February 27, Waajid Aljawwaad Bey, president and CEO of the bakery vanished. His rotting corpse was later found in a shallow grave in the Oakland Hills. In June 2005, Bey’s adopted son John was wounded by a gunman in an ambush, and on October 25, Yusuf’s 24-year old son Antar Bey was shot dead at a gas station. 19-year old Yusuf Bey IV appeared to have taken over the leadership – he was indicted for smashing up Muslim-owned liquor stores in Oakland, events which happened a month after Antar Bey was killed. One store was torched, and an employee was locked in the trunk of a car. The tactic of wrecking premises had been employed under the leadership of Bey senior – in 1994 a rival laundry had been trashed by Black Muslims.

In January 2006, Yusuf Bey IV said: “If you say you’re a Muslim, you should have the action of a Muslim. If you say your going to be a Muslim and an follower the Mohammed you should have the actions of following Mohammed, not selling drugs or selling alcohol, or selling things in your store that’s not good for our people. That’s killing our people.”

As an example of a good Muslim, Bey is seriously wanting – indicted on a grand theft auto charge, he attended strip joints and was indicted in April 2006 for attempted murder.

The flaky mythology and hollow spirituality of the NoI has attracted narcissists who would go on to become dangerous. In October 2002 Nation of Islam member John Allen Muhammad (right) and his sidekick Lee Boyd Malvo went on a shooting spree in the Washington area that saw 10 people shot dead and three people injured.

Hulon Mitchell Jnr was a member of the NoI in California. After being accused of stealing $50,000 from the NoI and molesting children, he set up his own cult. In 1981, his followers decapitated a member, Aston Green, for “blasphemy”. Mitchell, aka Yahweh ben Yahweh, was convicted of racketeering. Following his release from prison in August 2001, he took his cult to Canada, where it still exists.

The Nation of Islam seems to have influenced Lennox Phillips, aka Yasin Abu Bakr, to set up the Jamaat al-Muslimeen group in Trinidad. On July 27, 1990 this group attempted a coup on the island, in which 20 people died. In 2005, the group was linked with a bombing campaign.

The Nation of Islam was to influence one racist group in France. In the late 1990s, “Kemi Saba” was attending a sermon given by Tony Muhammad in NoI’s Mosque No 27 in South Central Avenue, Los Angeles. Returning to France, he became a member of the Paris-based branch of the NoI, led by Karim D. Muhammad. Taking on board these views, Kemi Saba set up his own heretical sect of Islam called “Tribu Ka”, whose main aim was to intimidate and threaten Parisian Jews. In July 2006 Tribu Ka was disbanded on the orders of Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister.

The Nation of Islam is a heretical branch of Islam, which appeals mainly to young disaffected males. It is stuck in a time warp. Black pride is not dependent upon Islam, and Islam is not dependent upon racial segregation, nor upon beliefs that a drug-pusher called Master Fard Muhammad was Allah incarnate. The legacy of the Nation of Islam will include some positive contributions to society, such as the Million Man March, but little else. Will people in the 21st century want to believe in its stories of Martians and spaceships? I think not.

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4-teilige Geschichte der “Nation of Islam” veröffentlicht:

Teil 1

Teil 2

Teil 3

Teil 4

http://www.westernresistance.com/

references:
Dämonische Dialoge – proamerikanischer Antisemitismus