Ain't I a Womanist, Too?: Third Wave Womanist Religious Thought

2 From Mistress to Mother

2 From Mistress to Mother The Religious Life and Transformation of Tynetta Muhammad in the Nation of Islam Stephen C. Finley Mother Tynetta Muhammad had been one of the numerous secretaries of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad (d. 1975) with whom he was engaged in what was interpreted at the time as extramarital relations.1 Her status over the last four decades, however, has been transformed from putative “mistress” to one who is now seen as the “mother” of the Nation of Islam (NOI) and as one of the plural wives of Muhammad. Hence, as a member of the “royal family” in the NOI under the leadership of Minister Louis Farrakhan, Mother Tynetta, as she is affectionately called, is a trusted member of Minister Farrakhan’s inner circle. In fact, she functions as a, if not “the,” spiritual interpreter of some of the most consequential events in the NOI and in Minister Farrakhan’s life. Therefore, rather than an excursus on how the transformation from “mistress to mother” occurred, which has not been established in extant literature,2 the major thrust of this paper will give attention to the substance of the transformation. In short, it will argue that the title and trope of “mother” function to give Tynetta Muhammad authority in the NOI, but more importantly, how she enacts this mothering serves to create a unique and authoritative religious space for her that is unrivaled within the organization. Some of the symbolic ways of mothering are similar to those that Layli Phillips indicates in The Womanist Reader, where she suggests: Motherhood as a womanist method of social transformation has its roots in African cultural legacies. Motherhood, here, however, must be dissociated from its purely biological connotation and even from 49 its strictly gendered connotation. . . . In doing so, every individual has the ability to contribute to the ultimate goals of womanism: societal healing, reconciliation of the relationship between people and nature, and the achievement and maintenance of commonwealth.3 Though her biological son, Ishmael Muhammad, is a prominent member of the Nation, the form of symbolic mothering is consistent with what Phillips indicates. Furthermore, the manner in which she transcends traditional notions of mothering can be read as an implied critique of the male-dominated NOI in that she transgresses dominant notions of mothering and transforms them into an instrument of religious importance that is unrivaled in the NOI. Her lofty pronouncements that signify her exalted role in the NOI are seen most poignantly in her magnum opus, The Comer by Night 1986, and in her weekly column titled “Unveiling the Number 19,” which is an extension of her interpretation of reality that is found in The Comer by Night 1986 and continues to be produced. Implied in this argument is that the life of Mother Tynetta, as a black religious woman, is instructive for womanist religious thought—as a woman whose life and voice may have been excluded from prior womanist discourses given that she was a member of the NOI (rather than a Christian church) and due to the salacious manner in which her relationship to the Messenger Elijah Muhammad has been framed (therefore, not a typical representation of “respectability”). Although the trope of mother does serve to sanitize and sublate the notion of mistress, Mother Tynetta makes a unique and ingenious move in that she strategically deploys the symbolic capital garnered from the transformation of her status to wife of the Messenger and mother of the Nation, and she recasts it as cultural capital in the form of religious knowledge (as cultural competence) that deflects and deconstructs prevailing notions of mothering.4 Tynetta Muhammad as “Mother” to Louis Farrakhan Nowhere can the performance of the trope of metaphorical motherhood be seen more poignantly than in Mother Tynetta’s social and spiritual position in the life of Minister Louis Farrakhan and in the most significant event of his religious life. On September 17, 1985, Farrakhan reported having a vision of being taken into what the public would understand as an Unidentified Flying Object, which he recognizes as the Mother Wheel—a divine vehicle 50 | Ain't I a Womanist, Too? of destruction and regeneration that the Messenger Elijah Muhammad taught him would bring an apocalyptic end to the age of white supremacy and usher in a millennial era of peace on earth. Farrakhan delivers the most provocative version of this vision in a press conference at the...