Brutal Legacy

By Br. A. Idris Palmer

Minneapolis, Minnesota, Jan. 12, 1995: Malik Shabazz' daughter, Qubilah, is indicted by a federal grand jury on allegedly trying to hire a hit man to kill 'Nation of Islam' leader, Louis Farrakhan, who Malcolm X's family believes played a role in his 1965 assassination.

The following day, in the wake of public suspicion regarding Farrakhan's role in Malcolm X's slaying 30 years earlier, the Nation of Islam moves quickly to shift the focus of public attention from Farrakhan to the government. Nation officials call a press conference and issue a press release, which ominously reads, "The identity of the alleged plotters was said to be some members of a 'Muslim extremist group'. We do not know Ms. Shabazz to be a member of any such group. We call on the FBI to explain their assertion." Was this true, or was it simply another ploy in a legacy of misinformation?

Indeed, a glimpse into the history and development of 'The Nation Of Islam,' shows a group which has traditionally marketed itself as dedicated to the brotherhood, benefit and upliftment of American blacks, while the Nation and the media continually refer to them as the premier American Islamic organization. However, the historical record of the group tells quite a different story. Over the years, a pattern of rampant deceit, manipulation and violence has prevailed, targeting Muslims, black critics, and even its own following, which dates from the very beginning of the movement.

On May 27, 1929, Wallace Dodd Ford, an immigrant New Zealander of Caucasian/Polynesian parentage, was released from California's San Quentin prison after serving three years for selling narcotics in Los Angeles. Ford traveled to Chicago and then Detroit where he posed as a Bible-toting, itinerant silk and rug peddler 'from the East.' Ford attracted a following by blending a mixture of ideas adapted from Christianity, the Qadiani translation of the Qur'an, and numerous Messianic, Depression-era cult leaders, Marcus Garvey, Father Divine etc.

Using up to eighteen different aliases, among them, "W. Fard Muhammad," and "W. D. Fard," Ford variously identified himself as an Arab, a Hawaiian, and a black . He claimed to have been born in Mecca, of being the descendant of Prophet Muhammad, and finally, 'the Apostle of Allaah.' During this period, he met Elijah Poole from Sandersville, Georgia. Poole, an unemployed assembly line worker and former follower of Drew Ali's "Moorish Temple", was mesmerized by Ford's aura and became his devoted follower. Ford changed Poole's name to Elijah Karriem, and on July 4, 1930, a little more than one year after his prison release, Ford, with Karriem's assistance, formed 'the Nation Cult of Islam.'

For a fee of ten dollars, Ford gave Islamic sounding names to cult members, Elijah and his family going through a series of name changes, finally settling on Muhammad. Among Ford's teachings, was a call for followers to sacrifice whites in order for the person 'to return to his home in Mecca.' Followers were also encouraged to believe in human sacrifice, 'of himself or his loved ones if Allah requires it.' In November of 1932, Robert Karriem Harris, one of the earliest members of 'the Nation Cult of Islam', was convicted of murder in Detroit in the sacrificial slaying of Nation follower, James J. Smith, amidst reports of other slayings. This event, referred to in Detroit as the infamous 'Voodoo Murders,' led to the confinement of Elijah Karriem (who at the time used the alias, Ghulam Bogans) to a mental ward, and the banisof his teacher, Wallace Dodd Ford to Chicago.

The departure of Ford in 1934 led to deadly power struggles within Elijah Karriem's own family, as his brother Khallatt Muhammad threatened Elijah and forced him to flee from Detroit to Chicago. With Ford's departure, Karriem changed his name to Elijah Muhammad, elevated his teacher to the status of 'Allaah in person' and himself to 'the Messenger of Allaah.' From the 1940's onward, the Nation has recruited its staunchest following from prisons, thus the violent pattern degenerated into a gangster-style reign of terror against ex-'Nation' followers who renounced Elijah Muhammad. The practice of intimidation reached a boiling point during the 1960's and 70's as a number of Nation leaders pitted 'brother against brother' as in a macabre chess game, this amidst reports of Elijah and his family's immorality.

In 1964, Aubrey Barnett, a former Boston minister under Louis X Farrakhan, quit the group after being fed up with the deceptions. Barnett was soon after viciously assaulted on a Boston street by 13 of Elijah's men. On November 5, 1964, ex-member Kenneth Morton, died from internal injuries suffered when he was beaten by four members of 'the Nation.' During the same year, Malcolm X, former national spokesman for Elijah Muhammad, renounced Elijah's organization, made Hajj and became a Muslim, and officially changed his name to Al-Hajj Malik Shabazz; openly declaring Elijah Muhammad to be a false prophet, thief and fornicator. This led to Elijah printing a series of articles critical of Malik Shabazz in issues of Muhammad Speaks, referring to Malik Shabazz as a 'hypocrite,' including a call for Malik Shabazz' death written by Louis X Farrakhan.

On January 6, 1965, ex-member Benjamin Brown, who left 'the Nation' to establish a masjid, was shot in front of his masjid. This was followed by a series of unsuccessful attempts on Malik Shabazz' life by Nation members. On February 21, 1965, Malik Shabazz was assassinated by Nation members in New York City. This was immediately followed by the brutal beating in Boston of Leon 4X Ameer, a former bodyguard for Malik Shabazz. Left in a coma for weeks as a result of the beating, Ameer emerged from the hospital in a vegetative state with permanent brain damage. He died shortly thereafter.

In 1971, twenty-five Nation members walked out of Temple no. 2 in Chicago, with the complaint that not enough money collected from members was reaching poor blacks. This led to the murder of two of the dissidents. In 1972, author Hakeem A. Jamal, a friend of Malik Shabazz and like him, an outspoken critic of Elijah Muhammad, was gunned down by Nation members. On January 18, 1973 in Washington DC, the most gruesome of murders took place when several assassins were dispatched from Elijah Muhammad's Philadelphia branch temple to kill ex-follower Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, who had written dozens of letters to Elijah's temples nationwide, calling Elijah a 'lying deceiver who was stealing his followers' money and dooming them to Hell'. The assassins entered Hamaas' home, finding seven members of his family, all women and children. The assassins beat and shot the women and children numerous times, ransacking the house, then drowning two infants in a sink and tub. Hamaas' daughter Amina, who survived despite being shot six times in the head at close range, recalled that one of the killers asked her, "Why did your father write those letters?" His last words to her were, "Don't mess with Elijah." The killers fled, but after a nationwide manhunt, all were eventually captured and convicted.

Between late 1973 and mid-1974, the city of San Francisco was terrorized by the 'Zebra' serial killings carried out by followers of Elijah Muhammad. Reviving the original 1930's Nation teachings, the killers believed that godhood could be achieved by murdering non-blacks. For a 179-day period, the killers brutally assaulted, robbed, and sodomised a total of twenty-three persons, leaving fifteen dead.

After Elijah Muhammad's death on February 25, 1975, his son, W. D. Mohammed, ascended to the leadership; in the process, reshaping the organization and its beliefs. Yet on November 22, 1975, 12 members of the Islaamic Party of North America, which had written newspaper articles denouncing the son's refusal to renounce his father's beliefs, were attacked and beaten with clubs, tire irons and pipes in Newark, New Jersey by followers of W. D. Mohammed.

In 1977, Louis Farrakhan, disgruntled with organizational changes under W. D. Mohammed, left W. D. Mohammed's leadership to re-start the organization and beliefs of the former 'Nation'. His group today commands a following including a variety of gang members, rap artists, and assorted nationalists.

The violent pattern continued in October 1990, where on Howard University campus, fifteen Farrakhan members attacked two Muslim university students following their public criticism of Farrakhan and Elijah Muhammad. 

In May of 1993, W. D. Mohammed declared in a London interview with The Muslim News, that Louis Farrakhan 'respects Islam' and 'he does a lot of good.' He added: "He is friendly with us and we should be friendly with him.".

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Louis Farrakhan: Liar Extraordinaire.

A. Idris Palmer

Louis Gene Walcott Farrakhan is not a Muslim, nor is his doctrine Islaam. Farrakhan is the leader of a black racist cult called "the Nation of Islaam," (NOI) founded in Detroit, Michigan in the 1930's. While the group calls its followers Muslims, in reality, they have very little to do with the faith of Islaam. Islaam believes in the total transcendence of Almighty God (called in Arabic, Allaah), the NOI teaches that black people are angelic gods. Islaam maintains universal brotherhood, the NOI says that Islaam is for blacks only. Islaam teaches that Prophethood ended with Muhammad Ibn Abdullah, more than 1400 years ago. The NOI teaches that Farrakhan's teacher, Elijah Muhammad, is the last prophet. Islaam teaches principles of spiritual and moral decorum such prayer, fasting, charity, pilgrimage, etc, Elijah Muhammad cast these out or altered them beyond recognition.

Yet, it is an error to oversimplify the issue by denouncing Farrakhan's racist diatribes while playing down Farrakhan's God-is-a-man and Prophet-after-Muhammad beliefs. Racism has very little to do with the issue. Sure, racism is contrary to Islaamic principles and Islaam rejects it. However, the deviation of Elijah Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan are MUCH more serious than racism. It is the sin which Allaah DOES NOT forgive. If Farrakhan would leave his man-is-god and prophet-after-Muhammad beliefs, but was still a raving racist, he would be much better off than the other way around! Let me say very clearly, that there is NO ideology on the face of this earth which could be farther from Islaam than that of Louis Farrakhan. NONE!

The NOI's origins are found in

(a) Two black self-improvement movements that began shortly before World War I: the "Moorish Science Temple of America," founded in 1913 by Timothy Drew, and the "Universal Negro Improvement Association," founded in 1914 by Marcus Garvey.

(b) The NOI was also shaped by a Depression-era con-man, and convicted drug dealer, Wallace Dodd Ford. Upon Ford's 1929 release from California's San Quintin Prison, he moved to Detroit to start a new life. Ford used a number of names, including Wali Farad and Master Fard and claimed to be from Mecca, Arabia. Being that Ford's parentage was a mixture of white and South Pacific Maori, he used his skin color and his prison con skills to pass himself off to blacks as a "mystic" and a "prophet" from the Middle East.

Working as a door-to-door rug salesman by day, Ford blended the ideas of Garvey and Drew along with a smattering of Islaam, to form what would later become the Nation of Islam. Among his first students was an unemployed Georgia migrant worker, Elijah Poole, who Ford renamed "Elijah Muhammad." In later years, Ford disappeared and Elijah assumed leadership of the NOI which he held until his death in 1975.

Elijah developed an convoluted belief system based on ideas extracted from everything from Christianity to Masonry to Islaam. He elevated Ford's status to that of the Creator of the heavens and earth, and he developed a myth which he dubbed, "Yacub's History." This racist doctrine is still maintained by Louis Farrakhan.

In brief, the doctrine states that the first humans, a race of black people, whom the NOI calls 'the Original Man,' created white people in a genetic experiment 6,000 years ago. Elijah claimed that they (the whites) would rule the world for 6,000 years and then be destroyed at the 'end of their time' by the blacks. He said that 'Judgement Day' means that at the 'end of time' the Gods (i.e., blacks) would destroy the entire white race (devils) and then establish a Paradise (nation) on this earth ruled forever by the blacks (i.e., Gods).

For a number of years, Farrakhan has managed to present himself as a champion for the oppressed masses, this also is a distortion. Like his teacher, Farrakhan has for more than 35 years engaged in hoodwinking blacks out of money in the name of black self improvement. The only self-improvement however, that has taken place has been for Farrakhan's family and their associates.

Additionally, his entire inspiration for the "Million Man March"  is based on his alleged, "vision of being swept into a UFO that took him to a larger mothership." While in the UFO, he claims to have spoken to the late Elijah Muhammad before being beamed back to earth. (The Washington Post, Sept. 18, 1995, p. D3).

What many do not realize, is that Farrakhan has repeated this doctrine for more than 35 years! Indeed, Farrakhan's UFO "vision" is an inseparable, doctrinal link to the heretical claims of Elijah Muhammad. Elijah explained that blacks were originally, "moon people" and that the UFO "mother wheel" was piloted by 13 youths who perpetually orbited the earth, waiting to unleash global destruction on whites, while rescuing all blacks. Farrakhan to this day, teaches this same doctrine- his inspiration for the Million Man March. The Million Man March in fact, was planned with the following goals in mind:

(a) To hold it in Washington, and aim for a turnout of one million, so as to surpass the number of attendees at Martin Luther King's 1963 March on Washington, and thereafter be promoted as being greater than Dr. King and Malcolm X.

(b) By being mentioned in the same context with Dr. King, Farrakhan hopes to be remembered likewise as a charismatic, messianic black figure who commands a large and politically significant following among US blacks.

(c) To remove the cloud of suspicion which still surrounds Farrakhan regarding his involvement in Malcolm X's assassination.

(d) Most importantly, Farrakhan has to find a new way to pay for his and his family's ornate palaces in Chicago and Phoenix, his Lexus, Mercedes, Rolls Royce and Lincoln Town Cars, a Mexican villa, a new 77-acre Michigan estate and over $1.5 million dollars in unpaid back taxes. This is the reason he had an $11 registration fee, a $3.99 per minute 900 number for call-in registration (Average call is three minutes), a $700 vendor's fee, (reduced from $1000), and even ads in his newspaper soliciting for "donations" to "help defray the astronomical costs of the march," in exchange for listing the donor's name and city under appropriate categories (Platinum, Gold, etc.): $1000 or more (Platinum), $500 or more (Gold), $100 or more (Silver), $25 or more (Patron) not to mention $2 "special issues" of his 'Final Call' newspaper. Louis. A true high-tech con-man. You want to see Louie's real vision?: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

It is thus impossible for anyone to try to make a distinction between Farrakhan and his UFO inspiration, or "endorse the goals of the march without endorsing Farrakhan," or say that Farrakhan is greater than Malcolm X. Malcolm's greatness was as a result of his renouncement of Elijah's false teachings, and his acceptance of true Islaam, factors which Farrakhan has yet to achieve....