Elijah Muhammad and Islam

Introduction

1 Introduction In early 1972 Elijah Muhammad granted a rare interview. Although at the time he seemed to be at the center of a movement beset by inner power struggles and external opposition, the frail and dignified leader of the Nation of Islam sat calmly, allowing sixteen journalists to ask whatever they wished. With poise and in his awkward English, Elijah Muhammad answered their questions about God, Islam, Blacks, Whites, and his mission as the Messenger of Allah: For forty years I have been a target for assassination, but I do not pay any attention to that kind of talk. That does not annoy me, because I know God is on my side to protect me, Who Came in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad To Whom Praises Is Due forever. A good Muslim is one who observes and obeys the laws of the Religion of Islam, designed by God, Himself. . . . [There] will be a New Islam to what the old Orthodox Islam is today. It will be altogether a New One. . . . The Old Islam was led by white people, but this one will not be. This Islam will be established and led by Black Muslims only. . . . Islam in America is to reclaim our people and put them in their own. This is the Resurrection of our people in America. This is the Resurrection I refer to of our Black people in America. And this is the place that they must come up first. They are in the “crossroads” here and they have to be pointed out the right way to go out. I do not mean to say they go out of America, but out of the evils of America. . . . They were made unrighteous by the slavemasters. They are not even charged with it. You are forgiven everything of evil, on your accepting Islam—your Own. That is all God Asks you to do today, go back to your Own. You are forgiven for everything, because all the evil you did in the past, it was not you, it was the slavemaster who made you do evil. Yes, they [slave owners] were, by nature, made unrighteous. Their nature was that. . . . That included all white people then and all white 2 Introduction people now. They were made unrighteous. . . . Whether they are actually blue-eyed or not, if they are actually one of the members of that race, they are devils. I did not choose myself. God chose me . . . I do not have visions, but I do have voices, at times. . . . I know God. I was with Him about three and about four or five months. I know His Voice. And when He Speaks, I know it. . . . It was [from] Him that I have learned all that I am now teaching. I do not know anything of myself. It is what He Has Given me. . . . I would only want to be remembered for the work that I do in the Name of Allah. That is what I want to be remembered for.1 Elijah Muhammad’s answers highlight the problematic and dichotomous nature of Islam as he understood it. His commitment to Islam as a religion was personal, genuine, and momentous. His understanding of Islam was racial, provocative, and anomalous. Critics have always tended to fixate on the latter characteristics at the expense of the former. If we are to fully understand Elijah Muhammad, his Nation of Islam, and the rebirth of Islam that he spearheaded in America, this dual nature of his formulation of Islam cannot be neglected. Moreover, in light of ongoing concerns about a clash between Western and Islamic civilizations,2 it is ironic that hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of Muslims living in the United States were directly or indirectly converted to Islam via the uniquely American formulation of this religion by Elijah Muhammad. Approximately 30 percent of the United States’s six to eight million Muslims are African American,3 making Islam the second most popular religion among African Americans. Although the vast majority of these African American Muslims are now Sunni Muslims , many (or perhaps their parents or grandparents) were introduced to Islam through the Nation of Islam, a movement that was exclusively Black, segregationalist, and militant. Its leader for over forty years, Elijah Muhammad, was therefore arguably the most important person in the development of Islam in America, eclipsing other prominent figures such as Noble Drew Ali, Wali Fard Muhammad, Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan , and Warith Deen Mohammed (originally known as Wallace D...