Elijah Muhammad

From Metapedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Elijah Muhammad and Martin Luther King Jr.

Elijah Muhammad (7 October 1897 – 25 February 1975) is notable for his leadership of the Nation of Islam from 1934 until his death in 1975. He also was an early important teacher and mentor to Malcolm X.

Life

George Lincoln Rockwell at a Nation of Islam meeting in 1962. Behind him are Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X.

Muhammad was born Elijah Poole in Sandersville, Georgia, as one of 13 children of Willie Poole, Sr. (1868–1942) and Mariah Hall (1873–1958). Both were tenant farmers (share croppers). At the age of 16 he left home and traveled about America. In 1917 he married Clara Evans, later to be known as Mother Clara Muhammad. In 1923 he finally settled in Detroit, Michigan where he worked at an automobile factory. The young Elijah Poole apparently witnessed three murders (lynchings) of blacks by whites before the age of twenty.

In the early 1930s, Muhammad also became acquainted with a W.D. Fard also known as Wallace Fard Muhammad. W. Fard Muhammad, then working as a peddler, had already established his Temple of Islam in Detroit. The beliefs taught by Fard, though similar to orthodox Islam in some ways, also differed from it in several essentials.

Scholars have identified a wide range of possible influences on Fard's theology including Sufi Islam, the teachings of the contemporary Noble Drew Ali of the Moorish Science Temple of America, Egyptology, Numerology, Eastern mysticism, Black Nationalism, the earlier ideas of economic independence as espoused by Marcus Garvey, and more.

On May 26, 1931 W.D. Fard was ordered out of Detroit. He departed in 1934. Elijah Poole, renamed Elijah Muhammad by W.D. Fard, became the successor to the Nation of Islam and Supreme Minister. In 1942, Muhammad was arrested in Washington D.C. on charges of sedition and violation of the Selective Service Act. He was cleared of the sedition charges, but was convicted of the others, specifically for instructing his followers to avoid the draft. Elijah Muhammad was sent to Federal prison for four years.

Elijah Muhammad taught what was viewed by most as black supremacist doctrine. He taught that blacks were the first people on the Earth but had been tricked out of their power and oppressed by whites, who were created by a scientist called Yakub.

The Nation of Islam preaches complete separation from white society. The NOI teaches that black people must develop independence in economics, religion, and nationhood. The teachings of the NOI denounce drinking, gambling, physical abuse of black women, and the inability to protect one's family from attacks by violent white America.

Elijah Muhammad used the newly won independence of many African nations as an example for his followers in America. Unlike many other black leaders in mid-twentieth century America, Elijah Muhammad believed that it made more sense to seek aid from independent African nations rather than going overseas to Africa while their communities at home in America were non-independent.

Simultaneously, Elijah Muhammad showed pride in his ability to stand equal with whites, and was willing to work with them when this would further the aims of the NOI. He apparently would claim that he lived in a mostly white neighborhood, and he allowed George Lincoln Rockwell of the American Nazi Party to address the NOI, at a time when both organizations were opposed to racial integration.

One of those Elijah Muhammad would influence was an ex-convict whom the world would come to know as Malcolm X. Though he would later leave the NOI, the influence of Elijah Muhammad on Malcolm's life was undeniable. The young Malcolm developed his speaking and political outlook within the NOI and under Elijah Muhammad's tutelage.

See also

External links

Encyclopedias