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Gymnasium Uetze

Schuljahr 1998/99
 
 

Facharbeit im Leistungskurs Englisch

Kursthema:
Dropouts and outsiders in modern society
Thema:
The Black Muslims as antagonists of the American Society









Werbung

Verfasser: Christian Fett eMail:C_Fett@gmx.net ; Schau mal auf meiner Homepage vorbei!!

Betreuer: Jürgen Grefe, OStR
 
 
 
 

Aufgabenstellung: 5.2.1999

Abgabetermin: 19.3.1999


 Table of contents






I. Introduction

II. Who are the Black Muslims?

1. History and social background of the Black Muslims

2. The Black Muslim ideology

3. Biographies of all Nation of Islam leaders from 1930 until 1999

4. Political and social aims of the Nation of Islam

III. The Black Muslims and orthodox Islam

1. Comparison between orthodox Islam and Black Muslim Islam

IV. Appendix

  • List of used sources


I. Introduction

I.1. The conflict Islam - USA

To get an impression of the cultural and religious background of the Black Muslim movement, also called "The Nation of Islam", we will take a look at the United States' relation towards Islam and at the history of Afro-Americans in the USA.

The conflict between the United States of America and the Islamic religion is a relatively fresh one, for its history starts not until the second half of the twentieth century.

When James Monroe, United States president from 1817 until 1825, set up the Monroe Doctrine on December the 2nd, 1823, he gave a clear direction for the future foreign policy of the USA. The Monroe Doctrine said that the United States would never interfere in any foreign matters of the European powers or in any European wars, as long as their hemisphere (the American continent) was not touched or as long as the independence of former European colonies on the American continent which the USA had acknowledged as independent countries was not touched.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century the USA have extended this point view in a general way. Their engagement in World War I and II stood in contradiction to the ancient Monroe Doctrine, and therefore a new guidance line for American foreign affairs had to be found.

On Thursday, January the 2nd, 1949, United States president Harry Truman declared on the steps of the Capitol in Washington what has since then been known as the Truman Doctrine.

This Doctrine replaced the Monroe doctrine, which in the eyes of the American government was no more up to date. The contents of the Doctrine are best viewed in this extract:

"Steadfast in our faith in the Almighty , we will advance toward a world where man's freedom is secured. To that end we will devote our strength, our resources and firmness of resolve. With God's help, the future of mankind will be assured in a world of justice, harmony and peace."

The Truman Doctrine says nothing less than that the USA will use their military and economic power to solve not only their own problems but also the problems of the whole world. It gives them a general right to interfere in conflicts.

Although it was meant as a justification for the American "roll-back" policy of the pre-Vietnam era, it gives the USA also a justification for their role as the "World's Policeman" which they have played during the twentieth century and what nowadays has even become a saying.

It is exactly this behaviour as the world's police that has been offending among others the mainly Islamic states of the middle east. There are several states such as Libya , Iran and Iraq who speak of the USA as "The big Satan in the West" (Ayatollah Chomieni). This attitude derives from engagements of the USA in wars and in the middle east, the United States' good relations to the non-Islamic Jewish Israel and from economic conflicts between the US and Islamic middle east states, for example the oil crisis during the 1970's. The recent assaults on US institutions in the middle east like the bombing of American barracks and the American embassy in Nairobi on which Islamic fundamentalists are blamed shows that the US are still unpopular with Islamic people. The Muslim fundamentalist leader Osama bin Laden has nowadays even become one of America's best known and most feared public enemies.

This kind of open aggression against American institutions and citizens together with the acknowledged anti-American attitude of Islamic leaders like Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Chamenei, the successor of Ayatollah Chomieni as religious leader of Iran, has helped to build up a certain suspiciousness of Islam and Muslims in general among the people of the USA.



I.2. A short history of blacks in the USA

The history of the Afro-Americans in the USA is considered as general knowledge and will therefore only be regarded in a very short manner.

The Afro-Americans are the biggest minority in the American society. About 90% of the today population of black Americans are descendants of slaves that were brought to America for working on Southern plantations since the 16th century. At the beginning of the 19th century most of the so-called Negroes lived in the plantation areas of the Southern States. After the Civil War and the abolition of slavery in 1862 an emigration to the northern industrial areas started. However, 75% of the American blacks were still concentrated on the South in 1950. The emigration level has increased since then, and today there are about 50% of the blacks still living in the South. The social situation of the majority of the American blacks has in general always been different from that of the white American population.

Blacks had in general less-paid jobs, less formal education and less social reputation than whites on a comparable social level.

These problems were mainly created by racism against blacks and official segregation of black and whites, issues that blacks are still suffering from and that therefore are nowadays still up to date.

These issues have helped to create a black subculture, mainly situated in the poorer black quarters of big American cities, that has begun to practise a new kind of black pride. The followers of this new black self-confidence that appeared in the second half of the 20th century are on the one hand blacks that are just demanding their right to be equal citizens and on the other hand radical blacks who have begun to practise a kind of "reversed racism":

They consider the black race superior to the white and other races and show this opinion in the public with a more than self-confident aggressiveness.

This is exactly the group from which the Black Muslims, also known as "Nation of Islam", recruit their followers .


II. Who are the Black Muslims?

II.1. History and social background of the Black Muslim movement

An excellent short description of the Black Muslim movement is found in this quotation:
Elijah Muhammad, Louis Farrakhan and Malcolm X
"The Black Muslims (officially titled the "Nation of Islam") are a quasi-religious, black nationalist organisation among Afro-Americans. Based in Chicago, Illinois, the Nation of Islam was led, almost from its inception, by Elijah Muhammad, reverently called by his followers "The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Holy Prophet and Messenger of Allah." To his followers he was divinely chosen and inspired to unite black Americans under Islam for their ultimate emancipation from white rule."

The Black Muslims are a organisation of nationalist Afro-American extremists in the USA that teaches a self-modified form of the Islamic religion to his followers. Two of the main goals that the Nation of Islam (NOI), as this movement is officially called, has tried to achieve during most of the time of its existence are to end the process of desegregation of black and white people and to build up an independent Afro-American state.



Leadership of Wallace D. Fard - The early days of the NOI

Master Wallace D. Fard; undated photoThe Nation of Islam was founded in 1930 in Detroit by a man we will refer to as W.D. Fard. Fard disappeared without a trace in 1934, and his origin and real name are still today mysteries not only to his followers but also to objective historians. He was a Muslim teacher who brought the Islam to poor black families in the getthos of Detroit and other big cities in the North of the USA.

In 1930 he founded his first Muslim temple in Detroit. As Fard was well known and liked among the lower class black citizens, his so-called "Mosque No.1" attracted many people. The social background of 1930 - the economic problems many people, especially blacks, suffered from during the time of the Depression - also supported him in gaining people's interest. They lower-class blacks looked upon him as a kind of redeemer.

Fard told his followers that their true religion was not Christianity but Islam, and that their origin was not Africa but Mecca. He referred to Christianity as the cult of "blond-haired, blue-eyed devils with their blond and blue-eyed Jesus." His teachings had a quite simple logic and structure: The Christianity was not only the religion of a white, not a black Jesus, but also the religion that had produced slavery, racism, and the Ku-Klux-Klan. The only way to gain salvation was the alternative he offered to his (without exception black) followers: a rejection of Christianity and conversion to Islam.

The religion announced by Fard was in fact not the real Islam but a mixture of Islam, pagan rituals, ancient Christian teachings and the teachings of the sect "Jehovah's Witnesses".

This example will show the whole madness of the early Black Muslim ideology: In 1932 Fard and two other NOI members were arrested because of being involved in a bizarre human sacrifice. Fard testified to the police to be the "supreme ruler of the universe", but was finally released because of the massive protest of NOI members that marched on the Detroit police headquarters. The designated sacrificer, one of Fard's followers, was imprisoned in an insane asylum. Although such incidents became public, the Nation of Islam and its influence on the black American population expanded rapidly. Fard disappeared under unknown circumstances in1934, and his apprentice Elijah Muhammad became leader of the NOI.


Elijah Muhammad - NOI Chief Minister for 41 years

Elijah Muhammad, official NOI photo, ca. 1960After Fard's mysterious disappearance in 1934 his apprentice Elijah Muhammad took over the leadership which he held until his death in1975. Under Muhammad, the NOI became one of the United States' most important Afro-American organisations.

Elijah Muhammad built up a sect based on his own personal influence and Fard's teachings. Under Muhammad, the Black Muslims even prayed to the disappeared W.D. Fard as the personification of Allah.

Under Muhammad, all designated NOI members had to change their name when entering the NOI. In the early days of the NOI Fard had also asked new members to change their names, but Muhammad now forced them to change it. He was of the opinion that only changing from a Christian to an Islamic name could approve the identification of a new member with the NOI, referring to a statement of Fard, who had once spoken of the names of black people as their slave names, given to them by slave owners. Muhammad continued Fard's practice of giving blacks new names when they entered the NOI. He gave new members an Arabic name (like Ali, Khalid or Muhammad) - but only after they had paid a registration fee.

During Elijah Muhammad's time as the "Chief Minister of Islam", as the NOI leaders are called, the NOI has never been officially involved in politics; NOI members were not even allowed to vote at elections. According to Muhammad it would be sinful for a true Muslim to participate in the affairs of the "unjust and corrupt" American government and society, and so the Black Muslims isolated themselves not only from white but also from black groups like Martin Luther King's Civil Rights Movement.

The Black Muslims had their most successful and most popular time during the 1960s, and most of the public attention they possessed during this period was a merit of Malcolm Little alias Malcolm X..
 
 


Malcolm X, a threat to Muhammad's authority

Malcolm X in Birmingham 1963Malcolm Little alias Malcolm X was a charismatic speaker and quickly advanced from a simple NOI member to one of the first NOI ministers. He was an excellent missionary. His greatest coup was to convince a young boxer named Cassius Clay to become a Black Muslim. Clay and Malcolm had met each other at a speech of Elijah Muhammad and had become friends. Clay asked Malcolm to come to Miami, where he should fight the champion Sonny Liston in World cup match. Before the fight they met in Clay's changing room and prayed together to Allah to have mercy on Cassius Clay. Then happened what nobody had expected: Clay defeated Liston in round 6 by knockout. At the following press conference Clay announced: "I am a Black Muslim." From this moment on Clay called himself Muhammad Ali. He is still one of the world's most famous sportsmen.

Due to his charisma and his exceptional abilities as a speaker, Malcolm X managed to concentrate public interest on the Black Muslims and to strongly increase their influence on the Afro-American population. In his speeches he talked directly to the US government and demanded a separate Afro-American state, although this was a violation of Muhammad's order not to involve in politics.
 

Malcolm X and Muhammad AliWhen was most popular Malcolm X began to have doubts on the NOI mythology and on "the almighty power" of Elijah Muhammad. On a journey to Mecca in 1964 he converted to orthodox Islam and after returning to the USA founded his own Black Muslim movement. The new organisation became very popular among Black Muslims, for it offered them an alternative to Muhammad's weird ideology. Malcolm X advanced to be a real threat to Elijah Muhammad's authority.

In 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated by two NOI members while speaking to his followers. Although Elijah Muhammad's involvement in Malcolm X's death has never been proved, he is still considered to be responsible for it. After Malcolm's death Muhammad regained the absolute authority as the leader of the Black Muslims and drove the Nation of Islam back into public and political abstinence.
 



The post-Muhammad era
Elijah Muhammad in 1965
Elijah Muhammad's death on February the 25th, 1975 marked a changing point in the history of the Nation of Islam. After the mighty ruler Muhammad was dead a fight for the leadership between one of Muhammad's brothers and several NOI district ministers started. The man who finally became the new Chief Minister of Islam was the one Muhammad had selected as his official successor: His son Wallace Deen Muhammad. Wallace now called himself Warith Deen Muhammad and showed up not to continue the tradition of his father but to be a total reformer. He believed that the primary goal of the Nation of Islam, the establishment of an Afro-American state, could not be reached by isolation but only by communication. He put an end to the political and social abstinence of the organisation and renamed it "American Bilalian Community"(ABC; from Bilal, the first black follower of Mohammed). Warith also broke with an important part of his father's official ideology: He declared that "Master Fard" had been an ordinary mortal man and not the personification of Allah.

The official NOI newspaper "Muhammad Speaks" was renamed "Bilalian News". Warith later renamed his organisation two times: "World Community of Islam in the West" and finally "American Muslim Mission", the name which it still bears today.
Malcolm X and the old Elijah Muhammad
Warith knew that the majority of the members were still followers of Elijah Muhammad's ideas, for the NOI had always been an isolated extremist organisation. To convince this people to follow his new liberal course, he made Louis Farrakhan his first advisor and special ambassador, for he knew that many Black Muslims had wanted Farrakhan as Elijah Muhammad's successor.
 
 


Louis Farrakhan - the return to Muhammad's traditions

Louis Farrakhan at the Million Man March, 1995Louis Farrakhan had always been a true follower of Elijah Muhammad's teachings, and did therefore not agree with Warith's plans to reform the movement. In 1977 he separated from the "American Bilalian Community" and started to rebuild the old "Nation of Islam". Many of the ABC's members joined him, glad to have a new powerful Chief Minister of Islam. Surprisingly, the separation was non-violent. This was only possible because some of Muhammad's grandchildren and Farrakhan's children had married each other and nobody wanted to attack the own family.

Today in 1999, Warith Muhammad's American Muslim Mission, a group whose roots lie in religious fundamentalism and racism, has advanced to be a part of the establishment. The Muslim Mission is one of the largest religious communities in the USA and the official voice of the American Muslims.

Louis Farrakhan's new "Nation of Islam" and its position in US society, however, are still topics of debate. Farrakhan continued to teach Muhammad's ideology and he has excellent relations to Islamic countries in the Middle East which are kind of enemies of the United States, such as Iraq, Iran and especially Libya. Libya's ruler Muammar el-Gaddafi has even granted the "Nation of Islam" several million-dollar credits during the last twenty years. Farrakhan has also attracted public attention with statements like these:

  • "We have no hope that we can effect true reconciliation between Blacks and Whites in this country. The answer, ultimately, is going to be separation."
  • "Since we cannot get along with them in peace and equality, we believe our contributions to this land and the suffering forced upon us by white America justifies our demand for complete separation in a state or territory of our own."
  • "We believe that interracial marriage or race mixing should be prohibited."
With this kind of statements, Louis Farrakhan has gained not only public attention and aggression, but also the suspect of the US government, that considers him to be a threat to public safety. US Senators have even called him a "hate preacher". To broadcast his messages the Nation of Islam uses an own newspaper ("The Final Call" ,in tradition of "Muhammad Speaks"), the radio station "Radio Islam" and the NOI Internet page "Nation of Islam Online". Besides this, Farrakhan travels across the USA to hold speeches and is present in TV-shows, independent newspapers and radio shows. Although Farrakhan has not adopted all of Elijah Muhammad's doctrines, he is today still called an extremist and is viewed with suspect by white Americans and by the American government.


II.2. The Black Muslim ideology

Because of the religious character of the Black Muslim movement, its unique religion and ideology has also to be regarded. The Black Muslim ideology was created by W.D. Fard in the 1930 and has been modified by Elijah Muhammad during his time as Chief Minister of Islam. You will now read a short summary of the Black Muslims' version of the creation of the world that is representative for the rest of their bizarre ideology:

In the beginning there was nothing except Allah(alias "Master Fard"), and Allah was black. The black Creator created a universe and a race to inhabit it. This race are the Black people, also called the "tribe of the Shabazz".

A long time ago, mankind did not live on the earth but on the moon, and all human beings were Blacks. Then, a few trillions of years ago, the Blacks came down to earth, and the first thing they did down here was to build the city of Mecca. They lived there for many thousands of years and invented the Islamic religion and its holy book, the Qu´ran. Among them was a mad scientist named Mr Yakub, who had to leave Mecca because of a conflict with the leaders of Mecca. Mr Yakub was sent to exile on the Island of Patmos, a historical place that is also mentioned in the Bible. He was angry and planned to conquer Mecca and the entire black race. Therefore he started to do genetic experiments with his 59,999 followers to make them more powerful soldiers. As his soldiers became more powerful, they also became more cruel, violent and more pale. When his experiments were finished, Yakub had invented a breed of extremely dangerous violent devils: The white race.

Due to a security lag, the Whites managed to escape from Patmos and conquered the world. Nowadays the Nation of Islam are the last descendants of the ancient Shabazz. Their mission is to restore the original black rule of the world.

This short excerpt from the Black Muslims' Genesis was invented by W.D. Fard and Elijah Muhammad. The entire Black Muslim ideology(e.g. Blacks as the supreme race, etc.) is based upon this story.


II.3. Biographies of all NOI leaders

The hierarchic structure of the Nation of Islam has not changed basically since 1930. There is still one man who has the absolute authority, the so-called Chief Minister of Islam. The political and social attitude of the whole movement has always strongly depended on the attitude, thoughts and expressions of this leader. Therefore, we will take a look at the biographies of all Chief Ministers from 1930 until today. A man that also has to be dealt with is Malcolm X. Although he was never a Chief Minister, he has nevertheless had great influence on the nations ideology and its social and political activities.

Wallace D. Fard

W.D. Fard used various names during his time as leader of the NOI: Walli Farad, Professor Ford, Farrad Mohammed, F. Mohammed Ali, Wallace Fard Mohammed. A short time before he disappeared he even used the names "Allah" and "God".

Date of birth: unknown. By some sources his birth is dated in 1877.

Place of birth: unknown. He himself claimed to be from Mecca.

Origin: unknown. The only thing that can be said for sure about his origin is that he was not black. The only surviving photo shows a white man with a European face and straight dark hair.

There are expectation about Fard being biracial. Elijah Muhammad's statement when asked about Fard's origin was: "He taught me that his father was a real black man. His father went up into the mountains picking out a white woman to marry so that she would give birth to a son looking white but yet the father is black." As his real name is unknown, we will refer to the NOI founder as W.D. Fard.

Fard was born in the second half of the 19th century, according to Elijah Muhammad in 1877 in Mecca. His identity has never been proved. FBI files from the 1950s identify his fingerprints as the ones of Wallie D. Ford, a white ex-convict born in Portland, Oregon in1891. A woman who called herself Fard's relative said that his name was Fred or Wallace Dodd, born in New Zealand as son of English and Polynesian parents in 1891. Other sources maintain that he was Arnold Josiah Ford, a black rabbi from a cabalistic Hebrew group in New York. The only facts known about Fard is that he was a Muslim teacher and founded the Nation of Islam in 1930. It is also unknown what happened to him when he disappeared without a trace in 1934.


Elijah Muhammad

Elijah Muhammad in the 1940'sElijah Muhammad, whose real name was Elijah Poole, was born in 1897 as son of a Baptist preacher in Sandersville, Georgia, in the Southern States. During World War I he and his family moved to the North. The young Elijah was dissatisfied with the role of Blacks in the American society and joined the "United Negroe Improvement and Conservation Association" (UNIA), led by the Jamaican Marcus Garvey. The UNIA was a movement that demanded the return of Black Americans to Africa or at least the establishment of a separate Black State, and was very popular among Afro-Americans in the 1920's. It was here where Elijah got most of his separatist ideas. In contrary to Marcus Garvey, who demanded a separate Black Christian church, Elijah Poole had doubts on Christianity; he was therefore very interested when he heard about W.D. Fard's teachings in 1930: The enslaved Afro-Americans would only be able to free themselves from white cultural, economic and religious oppression if they rediscovered their own true religion: Islam. Elijah Poole joined Fard's "Nation of Islam", changed his name to Elijah Muhammad and became NOI leader after Fard's disappearance in 1934. During his time as "Chief Minister of Islam" the NOI had several problems with the US government. In 1942, for example, Muhammad, his sons and several other NOI members were arrested because they refused to fight for the "white Nation" in World War II.

Elijah Muhammad was the undisputed leader of the Nation of Islam from 1934 until his death on February the 25th, 1975. He managed to keep his position with a simple trick: He declared that W.D. Fard had been Allah in human form and established a Fard-cult. Whenever his position was questioned, he relied on Fard having called Muhammad the new Chief Minister of Islam. Putting it this way, he was divinely chosen to be the undisputed NOI leader; so no true Black Muslim could have doubts on him, his

During Muhammad's time as NOI leader his authority was only questioned once: When his ideology and teachings (see II.2.) were doubted by the extremely popular Malcolm X in 1964.

Muhammad kept his position by having Malcolm assassinated; but in the very last years of his life, he is reported to have changed his mind: The former segregational, anti-white Elijah Muhammad demanded the unification of Blacks and Whites and spoke for peace between the races.
 
 


Malcolm X

One of the few colour photos of Malcolm XAlthough Malcolm X was no official NOI leader, he has nevertheless had great influence on the movement. Therefore his biography will be mentioned here.

Malcolm X was born as Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska in 1929. His mother was Caribbean and his grandfather was white.

Malcolm's father, a Black Baptist preacher and follower of Marcus Garvey, was killed by white racists. Malcolm saw the Ku-Klux-Klan burn down his family's house when he was a child.

He preferred to tell his biography this way: "I have attended Mason Elementary School in Mason (Michigan). My secondary school was the black Roxbury ghetto in Boston, my college were the streets of Harlem, my graduate I made in prison. Nevertheless: Elijah Muhammad has told me that I do not have to fear the intelligence of a man who tries to justify the crimes of the white man against the non-white man."

Malcolm Little spent several years in prison because of drug dealing and fencing. During his time in prison he heard of Elijah Muhammad's Black Muslim movement and wrote a letter to Elijah Muhammad. To his great surprise he got a personal answer from Elijah Muhammad himself, subscribed "Elijah Muhammad, Messenger of Allah". Malcolm was deeply impressed by this gesture and joined the NOI after he was released from prison. He changed his name to "Malcolm X" and advanced to be Muhammad's best missionary and top speaker. Malcolm X's position was quite the opposite of Martin Luther King's: King stood for non-violent resistance; Malcolm X symbolised the anger of many Blacks. To be ready to fight for Black rights in every manner, Malcolm not only read Elijah Muhammad's weird race doctrines but also modern writers and classic philosophy. Therefore he gained a wider perspective than most NOI members, and was soon more popular than Elijah Muhammad himself. Muhammad was angry about standing in the shadow of his apprentice and looked for an opportunity to regain his authority. This opportunity arrived when Malcolm commented the Kennedy assassination in 1963. Malcolm X's only statement concerning the dead president was: "All chickens end up on the table one day." The public reacted with massive protest on this statement, and Elijah Muhammad took his chance and temporarily suspended Malcolm from NOI activities. Malcolm X didn't understand why his idol and master Muhammad had dropped him, but he used this timeout for a journey to Mecca. When Malcolm returned from Mecca, his attitude towards Elijah Muhammad and the NOI had completely changed. True Islam teachers convinced him that Elijah Muhammad's religion of hate and isolation was not the real Islam. He now realised the whole madness of Muhammad's crude ideology and reacted by changing his name again: He now called himself El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. Back in the USA, Malcolm held public speeches and directly attacked Muhammad and the NOI. He even founded his own Black Muslim organisation: the "Organisation of Afro-American Unity". This was too much for "The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Messenger of Allah": He had Malcolm officially denounced in the NOI public organs (Newspapers, radio, TV). But that was not all: On February the 21th, 1965 Malcolm X was assassinated while holding a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. Muhammad's involvement in Malcolm's death has never been proved, but he is still considered to be responsible for it.
 
 


Louis Farrakhan

Minister Louis Farrakhan in 1996Louis Farrakhan was born as Louis Walcott in the Bronx on May the 11th, 1933. His mother was a Caribbean immigrant and his father was a Jamaican Baptist preacher. His parents were active Christians, and Farrakhan once said that he "grew up in a church". The young Louis was, and today still is, extraordinary musical - he attended violin lessons since he was five years old. He also plays a variety of other instruments and is an excellent singer.

The young Louis Walcott was extraordinary intelligent and highly gifted. But his dreams of studying violin didn't come true. He failed to gain a scholarship for violin studies and was awarded a sports scholarship instead - he also was an excellent athlete. Nevertheless, Louis became a professional musician and - under the pseudonym "The Charmer" - a Calypso star. Then, in 1955 after a performance in Chicago, Louis heard a speech of Elijah Muhammad and was fascinated by Muhammad's message of Black emancipation. He joined the Nation of Islam, changed his "slave name" to Louis X and produced a Calypso hit with the title "A White Man's Heaven is a Black Man's Hell"; then Elijah Muhammad asked him to give up music and become a NOI preacher. Louis X especially admired Malcolm X, and after Malcolm's death in 1965 he took over Malcolm's mosque in Harlem. Elijah Muhammad now gave him the name Farrakhan and made him one of his first advisors. After Muhammad's death and the end of the original Black Muslim movement in 1975, Louis Farrakhan started to rebuild the Nation of Islam and was very successful.

On October the 16th,1995, 13 days after the end of the O.J. Simpson trial, Louis Farrakhan organised the "Million Man March", an event similar to Martin Luther King's march to Washington in 1963. The "Million Man March" was the largest event of this kind in the United States so far. Approximately one million Afro-American men came to Washington, D.C. to hear the messages of the Nation of Islam leader. But there were big differences to 1963: Martin Luther King had once demanded a "colour-blind society"; Whites were also invited to his march and joined it. In 1995 there was not one white man among Farrakhan's audience; Whites had to stay away from Capitol Hill on this day. In contrary to King, Farrakhan says: "We should NOT be colour-blind, therefore God gave us different skin colours."

The American press does not know how to characterise Farrakhan - on the one hand he speaks of friendship and co-operation between Blacks and Whites, and on the other hand he calls white men "blond-haired devils" and attacks Jews verbally in a way that has already been compared with Adolf Hitler's.

Louis Farrakhan and his wife KhadijaBut even the 66-year old Farrakhan has nowadays become moderate: In 1996 he gave his first violin concert for over 40 years. When he introduced his violin professor to the Black Muslim audience after the performance, Farrakhan warmly said: "I would like you to welcome my violin professor, Mrs. Elaine Skorodin Fohrman. She is Jewish."

Mrs. Fohrman received standing ovations.
 
 


II.4. Political and social aims of the Nation of Islam

The Nation of Islam has published a program of ten points that summarises its political and social aims:
Quotation:
"The Messenger of Allah Presents
The Muslim Program

1.We want a full and complete freedom.

2.We want equal justice under the law

3.We want equal membership in society

4.We want our people in America whose parents or grandparents were descendants from slaves, to be allowed to establish a separate state or territory of their own - either on this continent or elsewhere. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to provide such land and that the area must be fertile and minerally rich. We believe that our former

slave masters are obligated to maintain and supply our needs in this separate territory for the next 20 to 25 years - until we are able to produce and supply our own needs. Since we cannot get along with them in peace and equality, after giving them 400 years of our sweat and blood and receiving in return some of the worst treatment human beings have ever experienced. We believe our contributions to this land and the suffering forced upon us by white America justifies our demand for complete separation in a state or territory of our own.

5.We want freedom for all Believers of Islam now held in federal prisons. We want freedom for all Black men and women now under death sentence in innumerable prisons in the USA.

6.We want an immediate end to the police brutality and mob attacks against the so-called Negroes throughout the United States.

7.We want equal employment opportunities.

8.We want the government to exempt our people from all taxation as long as we are deprived of equal justice under US law.

9.We want equal education, but segregated schools. We want all black children educated, taught and trained by their own teachers.

10.We believe that intermarriage or race mixing should be prohibited. We want the religion of Islam taught without hindrance or suppression These are some of the things that we, the Muslims, want for our people in North America.
Taken from Muhammad Speaks Online


III. Black Muslims and orthodox Islam

Comparison between orthodox Islam and Black Muslim Islam

The Nation of Islam claims its religion to be the real religion of Islam. This has been denied by orthodox Muslims. There are several important differences between orthodox Islam and the NOI's religion:

  • Orthodox Muslims believe that the Qu´ran was given by Allah. The Black Muslims believe that the Shabazz tribe, of whom they are the last descendants, were the writers of the Bible and the Qu´ran.
  • The Black Muslims believe that in 1930 Allah appeared on earth in form of Wallace D. Fard to announce the end of the world. Orthodox Muslims believe that Allah did never appear in any physical form.
  • Orthodox Muslims believe that Mohammed(Muhammad) was the only prophet of Allah. The Black Muslims believe that Elijah Muhammad was also a prophet, directly inspired by Allah in person of Fard.
  • Orthodox Muslims believe that all human beings are equal. The Black Muslims consider Blacks as the supreme race.
After it was invented by W.D. Fard in 1930, the Black Muslim's religion developed completely without being influenced by orthodox Islam. In fact, Muslim authorities in Mecca did not even know about the Nation of Islam until Malcolm X told them about it in 1964. By orthodox Muslims, the Black Muslim Islam is not accepted as true Islam; they consider the NOI a sect that only uses the name "Islam" to reach its aims. Malcolm X was convinced of this point of view when he returned to USA after his journey to Mecca. But even he did not manage to destroy Elijah Muhammad's weird belief system, because the NOI was too much focused on it.

Nowadays the Nation of Islam, depending on its leader Louis Farrakhan, is searching for new values. Since even Farrakhan is becoming more and more moderate, the Black Muslims are losing much of what once defined them as extremists. A good example for this new orientation is that Farrakhan has officially apologized to Malcolm X's widow for the assassination of her husband.

Since the NOI's orientation has always depended on the attitude of its leader, nobody knows what the Black Muslims will face in the future, as Louis Farrakhan is already 66 years old and has had several cancer treatments. The future appearance of the NOI will totally depend on the next Chief Minister of Islam.


IV. Appendix
List of used sources
  1. Hans Hielscher: "Gott ist Zornig, Amerika" - Der Aufstieg des Schwarzenführes Louis Farrakhan; Dietz-Verlag, Bonn 1996
  2. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Macropedia; Oxford 1975
  3. Auszug aus A. Craig Bird: "Representative American Speeches 1948-49"; weitere Informationen zur Quelle liegen nicht vor.