W. D. Fard

The Man, Myth, and Mystery Behind the Nation of Islam

John Andrew Morrow, Bilal Muhammad

• Publisher: Academica Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9781680533880
• eBook ISBN: 9781680533897
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

W. D. Fard: The Man, Myth, and Mystery Behind the Nation of Islam offers a bold, multidisciplinary investigation into the elusive founder of the Nation of Islam. W. D. Fard, known to his followers as Master Fard Muhammad, was the man of mystery whose teachings inspired Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Elijah Muhammad, Louis Farrakhan, and many figures involved in the separatist wing of the American civil rights movement. Fard disappeared without a trace in 1934, eluding adherents and scholars alike. Historians have debated his intentions: was he a missionary, a conman, or an agent? Why did this non-black teacher found a black nationalist movement? Drawing on theology, psychology, sociology, and archival research, John Morrow and Bilal Muhammad uncover Fard’s scriptural sources, apocalyptic influences, and esoteric affiliations. The book delves into Fard’s incarceration, love life, ties to Imperial Japan, and the conceptual origins of his teachings. The authors use cutting-edge tools, including AI, emotional recognition software, DNA testing, forensic linguistics, digitized newspapers, and anagram breakers to reveal the man behind the legend. This study pushes the boundaries of what is known about this controversial and momentous figure.

Table of contents

• W.D. FARD
• The Man, Myth, and Mystery
• Behind the Nation of Islam
• John Andrew Morrow and Bilal Muhammad
• W.D. FARD
• The Man, Myth, and Mystery
• Behind the Nation of Islam
• John Andrew Morrow and Bilal Muhammad
• Academica PressWashington
• Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 
• Names: Morrow, John Andrew (author) | Muhammad, Bilal (author)
• Title: W.D. Fard: the Man, Mystery, and Myth Behind the Nation of Islam | John Andrew Morrow | Bilal Muhammad
• Description: Washington: Academica Press, 2025. | Includes references.
• Identifiers: LCCN 2025942725 | ISBN 9781680533880 (hardcover) | 9781680533897 (e-book)
• Copyright 2025 John Andrew Morrow and Bilal Muhammad
• “There has never been and never will be a God but Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful, Master of the day of requital judgment… He is none other than Master W.F. Mohammed.”
• Burnsteen Sharrieff Muhammad
• Contents
• ABOUT THE AUTHORS…………………………………………………… xvii
• WORDS OF PRAISE…………………………………………………………. xxi
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS…………………………………………………… xxiii
• COMMENDATORY PREFACE…………………………………………….. xxv
• FOREWORD……………………………………………………………….. xxvii
• CHAPTER 1W.D. FARD’S BIBLE OF ISLAMISM IDENTIFIED:A CENTURY-OLD MYSTERY IS SOLVED…………………………………. 1
• CHAPTER 2ARMAGEDDON AND EMPIRE: THE NATIONOF ISLAM, JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES, ANDIMPERIAL JAPAN IN APOCALYPTIC DISCOURSE……………………… 1
• CHAPTER 3MALCOLM X AND THE TWELVE IMAMS: UNVEILING REVOLUTIONARY CONVERGENCE IN SHIITE THOUGHT……………. 29
• CHAPTER 4THE ORIGIN OF W.D. FARD’S “ACTUAL FACTS”………………………. 55
• CHAPTER 5NOTES ON THE CHICAGO TEMPLE OF ISLAM: ONE OF THEEARLIEST ACCOUNTS OF W.D. FARD’S DOCTRINES…………………. 61
• CHAPTER 6DID W.D. FARD HAVE A SON WITH PEARL ALLEN?A HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD QUESTION IS ANSWERED…………………... 81
• CHAPTER 7AN EMOTIONAL ANALYSIS OF W.D. FARD’S PHOTOGRAPHS………. 95
• CHAPTER 8THE TEACHINGS OF SUPREME MINISTER JOHN MUHAMMAD……. 107
• CHAPTER 9FARD HAS ESCAPED HISTORY: A REVIEW OF MICHAEL MUHAMMAD KNIGHT’S THE SUPREME WISDOM LESSONS:A SCRIPTURE OF AMERICAN ISLAM…………………………………… 125
• CHAPTER 10THE NOI, THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY,AND W.D. FARD’S MILIEU………………………………………………... 133
• CHAPTER 11DID W.D. FARD ATTEND THE FUNERALOF A FREEMASON IN AUSTRALIA IN 1940?............................................ 139
• CHAPTER 12DANCING WITH THE DEVIL……………………………………………... 149
• CHAPTER 13W.D. FARD AND FORENSIC LINGUISTICS……………………………... 161
• CHAPTER 14W.D. FARD IN ELIJAH MUHAMMAD’S MINISTRY CLASSESAND HIS WARNING & INSTRUCTIONS TO THE MGT & GCC……….. 173
• CHAPTER 15THE THEOLOGY OF DOING TIME: W.D. FARDAND SAN QUENTIN PRISON……………………………………………... 179
• CHAPTER 16I AM AN ANAGRAM: W.D. FARD’S ILLUMINATIRIDDLE IS DECIPHERED?............................................................................ 189
• CHAPTER 17BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY! THE MOTHERSHIPAND ITS CONCEPTUAL ORIGINS………………………………………... 205
• CHAPTER 18YAKUB’S CREATION……………………………………………………… 215
• CHAPTER 19THE NATION OF ISLAM FLAGIS BASED ON THE FLAG OF THE YOUNG TURKS…………………….. 223
• CHAPTER 20W.D. FARD AND WHITE WOMEN:BLACK SUPREMACISTS PREFER BLONDES…………………………… 229
• CHAPTER 21FARD RETURNS? INVESTIGATING ANALLEGED SIGHTING OF W.D. FARD IN THE 1960S…………………… 247
• CHAPTER 22WISDOM REVEALED TO THE REFORMER……………………………... 253
• CHAPTER 23THE PROFESSOR PROVIDES A CLUE:HAS FARD FINALLY BEEN FOUND?......................................................... 73
• GENERAL CONCLUSIONS, LEADS,AND NEW DIRECTIONS IN RESEARCH………………………………… 313
• APPENDIX 1RECONCILING RELIGION AND HISTORY……………………………… 327
• APPENDIX 2W.D. FARD’S INMATE CARD ANDCORRECTIONAL RECORD FROM SAN QUENTIN……………………... 331
• APPENDIX 3MORE ON WALLACE MAX FORD, THE SON OF W.D. FARD………… 335
• APPENDIX 4WHERE O WHERE DID MY MASTER FARD GO?..................................... 343
• APPENDIX 5REGARDING THE NATION OF ISLAM………………………………… 351
• APPENDIX 6THE MANY FACES OF FARD: COMPUTERIZEDFACE COMPARISON BY AMAZON REKOGNITION…………………… 359
• APPENDIX 7OF PHOTOS AND FRAUD:A CHRONOLOGY OF FARDIAN ICONOGRAPHY……………………… 373
• APPENDIX 8CHRISTOPHER C. ALSTON:AN EARLY EYEWITNESS TO W.D. FARD?............................................... 383
• APPENDIX 9FOIA REQUESTS……………………………………………………………. 387
• APPENDIX 10RESEARCH REQUESTS / HISTORICAL INQUIRIES……………………. 389
• APPENDIX 11WHAT HAPPENED TO FARD AFTER 1934?............................................... 391
• PERMISSIONS………………………………………………………………. 393
• PHOTOGRAPHS AND IMAGES…………………………………………… 395
• WORKS CITED……………………………………………………………… 397
• INDEX………………………………………………………………………... 409
• ALSO BY JOHN ANDREW MORROW
• Muhammad and the Christians: Commemorating the Covenants of the Prophet
• Hijab: Word of God or Word of Man?
• Islam & Slavery
• The Legacy of Louis Riel: Leader of the Métis People
• Controversies in Islam:Religious Law, Qur’anic Ethical Imperatives, and Higher Moral Objectives
• The Islamic Interfaith Initiative: No Fear Shall Be Upon Them
• Shi‘ism in the Maghrib and al-Andalus (2 volumes)
• The Messenger of Mercy:The Covenants of Coexistence from the Prophet of Pluralism
• The Most Controversial Qur’anic Verse:Why 4:34 Does Not Promote Violence Against Women
• Perjanjian Nabi Muhammad dengan Penganut Kristen Dunia
• Les paroles d’Allah au Prophète Muhammad: quarante traditions sacrées
• Las palabras de Allah al Profeta Muhammad: Cuarenta dichos sagrados
• Finding W.D. Fard: Unveiling the Identity of the Founder of the Nation of Islam
• Islam and the People of the Book:Critical Studies on the Covenants of the Prophet (3 volumes)
• ‘Uhud al-nabi li-masihiyyi al-‘alam
• I Patti del Profeta Muhammad con i cristiani del mondo
• Restoring the Balance: Using the Qur’anand Sunnah to Guide a Return to the Prophet’s Islam
• El minarete y el campanario:los pactos del Profeta Muhammad con los cristianos del mundo
• The Words of God to Prophet Muhammad: Forty Sacred Sayings
• Six Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of His Time:The Primary Documents
• (published in Arabic, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French, Dutch, Russian, Turkish, Persian, Azeri, Urdu, Indonesian, Tamil, and Armenian)
• The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World
• Islamic Images and Ideas: Essays on Sacred Symbolism
• Religion and Revolution: Spiritual and Political Islam in Ernesto Cardenal
• Islamic Insights: Writings and Reviews
• Encyclopedia of Islamic Herbal Medicine
• Amerindian Elements in the Poetry of Ernesto Cardenal:Mythic Foundations of the Colloquial Narrative
• Kitab al-Tawhid:The Book of Divine Unity (with ‘Ali Rizvi and Barbara Castleton)
• El islam shiíta: ¿ortodoxia o heterodoxia? (with Luis Alberto Vittor)
• Amerindian Elements in the Poetry of Rubén Darío:The Alter Ego as the Indigenous Other
• Arabic, Islam, and the Allah Lexicon:How Language Shapes Our Conception of God
• Shi’ite Islam: Orthodoxy or Heterodoxy? (with Luis Alberto Vittor)
• ALSO BY BILAL MUHAMMAD
• The Good Shepherd: Jesus Christ in Islam
• The Muhammadan Cure: The Modern Science of Prophetic Medicine
• All the Perfumes of Arabia
• Pandemonium: A Sourcebook on the Tragedy of Husayn
• A Prequel to Hamlet
• ABOUT THE AUTHORS
• John Andrew Morrow received his doctoral degree from the University of Toronto in the year 2000 and reached the rank of Full P ofessor of Foreign Languages in 2014. A polymath and a prolific author, he has published over fifty scholarly books, along with hundreds of academic articles, in a vast array of specialized fields. Dr. Morrow has been recognized as a Master Teacher and a Distinguished Faculty Member. He was awarded an Interfaith Service Award from the Islamic Society of North America and a Certificate of Congressional Recognition from the United States Government. He was also recognized as one of the most influential Ame ican Muslim scholars by the Interfaith Institute of Long Island. His website is www.johnandrewmorrow.com and his YouTube channel is https://www.youtube.com/@john-andrew-morrow
• Bilal Muhammad is a Vice Principal, author, translator, and playwright based in Toronto, Canada. He is a Senior Fellow at the Berkeley Institute for Islamic Studies. He studied Political Science and the History of Religions at the University of Toronto and the University of Ottawa, and he obtained his B.Ed. at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. He worked as a translator for the University of Toronto Department of Historical Studies, and he translated the Amali of Shaykh al-Saduq. He is also the author of numerous books. His YouTube channel is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQiRTmjJ30Dpa1LV G9RI8RA
• /
• (Dr. John Andrew Morrow. Public domain)
• /
• (Bilal Muhammad. Public domain)
• WORDS OF PRAISE
• “A compelling exploration of one of the most enigmatic figures in American religious history, W.D. Fard: The Man, Myth, and Mystery Behind the Nation of Islam is a masterwork of investigative scholarship and narrative insight. John Andrew Morrow and Bilal Muhammad offer a meticulously researched and thought-provoking account that challenges assumptions, interrogates myths, and illuminates the foundational truths behind the rise of the Nation of Islam. This book is essential reading for scholars, students, and anyone interested in religion, race, and resistance in the twentieth century United States. It is both timely and timeless.” Jibrin Ubale Yahaya, Ph.D. Lecturer of International Relations, Political Scientist, and Author. National Open University of Nigeria, Abuja / Iconic University Sokoto
• “W. D. Fard is a mystery. Yet these two historical detectives track down every record, mine every story, and turn over every rock to solve that mystery. Using approaches from several disciplines, including cutting-edge tools, including AI, DNA testing, forensic linguistics, digitized newspapers, anagram breakers, facial comparison and emotional recognition software, Morrow and Muhammad investigate the enigma of Fard and succeed in creating the fullest portrait available of the man behind the Nation of Islam.  Fard’s possible origins, sources, attitudes, and backstory are recounted and analyzed with meticulous detail and insight. No attempt to understand Fard and the beginnings of the Nation of Islam are complete without engaging their work.” Gene Rhea Tucker, Ph.D. Professor of History. Temple College
• “After reading this genuinely magisterial work, W.D. Fard, the mystery man becomes far less mysterious. This very fact makes W.D. Fard: The Man, Myth, and Mystery Behind the Nation of Islam a scientific must-read for all Islamologists, as well as other researchers and readers keen to learn more about the history of the NOI.” Milan Vukelić, Ph.D. Researcher of the Islamic Religio . University of Belgrade
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• Thank you to Cephus Sealy for setting me on a socially conscious and scholarly path. Thank you to my grandmother, Gabrielle Bisson, for reminding me of who we were and who we came from: les coureurs des bois, the runners of the woods, the Métis People, the Michif-Ottipemisiwak, the Free People, the People who Own Themselves. Thank you to the founding fathers of the hip-hop movement for introducing me to W.D. Fard, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and Louis Farrakhan. Thank you to all my teachers who came up through the Nation of Islam, Sunnism, Shiism, and Sufism.
• Thank you to my parents, Lisette Drouin, and Andy Morrow, for encouraging me to pursue higher education and supporting my studies. Thank you to all my teachers, professors, shaykhs, and elders. Thank you to my professor, thesis director, role model, mentor, and inspiration, the late Dr. Keith Audley Alexander Ellis (1935-2024), a man who devoted his life to family, learning, teaching, and social justice. He made a man and a scholar out of me. Thank you to all my sources and informants. Thank you to all my colleagues, collaborators, peer-reviewers, and readers. And thank you to my loved ones for tolerating my fascination with Master Fard Muhammad. Dr. John Andrew Morrow
• I personally would like to thank: the late Malcolm Latif Shabazz, the grandson of Malcolm X, for inspiring me to read the Autoiography of Malcolm X, which changed my life forever; Anton Batey, for giving me my primer on the historical Master Fard Muhammad, for supporting me throughout the research process, for digging through leads and giving fresh input, and for coining the te m “Fardology;” Alam Khan Publications and Omar Shabazz, for digging through rare material on Master Fard Muhammad and producing high-quality videos on the topic; and, last but not least, my parents, who have patiently endured my peculiar obsession with this seemingly obscure historical personality. Bilal Muhammad
• COMMENDATORY PREFACE
• By Milan Vukelić, Ph.D.Researcher of the Islamic Religion
• Belgrade, Republic of Serbia
• As a researcher who has invested years in studying the relations between religion and politics, with a special focus on the Islamic faith, it is a distinct honor and privilege to present W.D. Fard: The Man, Myth, and Mystery Behind the Nation of Islam, the joint work of Dr. John Andrew Morrow and Mr. Bilal Muhammad, to the global scientific and expert community.
• The book offers twenty-three chapters, written in the form of separate essays, which systematically fit together to form a cohesive whole, revealing to the reader the latest incredible information about the mystery man who founded the Nation of Islam (NOI). This work is a continuation of the truly fascinating research of Dr. John Andrew Morrow from 2019, embodied in the book Fi ding W.D. Fard: Unveiling the Identity of the Founder of the Nation of Islam, which I also had an opportunity to elaborate upon in the form of a book review.
• As part of their qualitative research, the authors sought to analyze a profusion of primary and secondary sources to reconstruct the life story of W.D. Fard. This was the man who, back in 1930, at a time of huge social and economic crises that affected the African American population, created an organization guided by a mysterious and intriguing ideology which, to this day, not only brings together a substantial number of followers, but also remains the subject of many controversies and debates.
• The authors primarily employ a comparative approach. They present a plethora of interpretations from multitudinous sources to establish the veracity and relevance of the information. Notably, the authors took an extra step in this work, in that they tried to present to the readers the psychological profile of W.D. Fard, the leadership style he practiced, including his emotional side, even delving into his intimate life. The information regarding the private life of the founder of the NOI presented in this book is captivating, primarily knowing how difficult it was to obtain, since W.D. Fard used a staggering number of names and cleverly hid any clues that could hint at his identity. Further, in this book, the authors went on to debunk unfounded claims about W.D. Fard, thus making a significant contribution to shedding light on the plentiful intrigues involving his character and his work.
• Also worth noting is that Dr. John Andrew Morrow and Mr. Bilal Muhammad, aside from focusing primarily on W.D. Fard, did not disregard the ideology of the NOI. The theology of W.D. Fard, which Elijah Muhammad further expounded upon, is complex. Consequently, scientific disciplines that focus on the phenomenon of religion can study it according to varying perspectives.
• Likewise, the authors made sure not to neglect other people who played major roles in the development of the NOI. These include most notably Elijah Muhammad, a disciple of W.D. Fard, whose writings are perhaps the most reliable source on the teachings of W.D. Fard; Malcolm X, whose charisma made a tremendous contribution to the public acceptance of this organization; and John Muhammad, the “blood and spiritual brother” of Elijah Muhammad who remained overshadowed by more prominent leaders of the NOI, although he himself was among those who had the privilege of learning directly from W.D. Fard.
• It may be that the veritable identity of W.D. Fard will forever remain a mystery; yet the research conducted by Dr. John Andrew Morrow and Mr. Bilal Muhammad makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the development and inner workings of the NOI, and into the way W.D. Fard’s followers perceived him.
• The authors do not neglect the religious context of W.D. Fard’s character but stop short of either confirming or denying his divine status. Indeed, W.D. Fard made considerable contributions to the African American community. People believed him and even worshipped him, considering him the incarnation of God, a dogma emphasized by Elijah Muhammad.
• The NOI ideology, articulated by W.D. Fard, focused on inspiring and elevating people who belonged to marginalized social stra a. His teachings gave meaning and purpose to their lives. This alone gives W.D. Fard a special place of distinction, not only in the history of African Americans and Muslims, but also in broader terms. One can even say that W.D. Fard is among the most prominent, albeit neglected, historical figures of the twentieth century.
• In line with the foregoing, and from a societal and scientific perspective, the study of W.D. Fard’s character and work is of paramount importance. Certainly, after reading this genuinely magisterial work, W.D. Fard, the mystery man becomes far less mysterious. This very fact makes W.D. Fard: The Man, Myth, and Mystery Behind the Nation of Islam a scientific must-read for all Islamologists, as well as other researchers and readers keen to learn more about the history of the NOI.
• FOREWORD
• By John Andrew Morrow
• “All of a sudden, in 1930, a forceful and powerful new voice was heard in the wilderness. It was a voice speaking words which had never been heard before in America; words such as ALLAH, ISLAM, ASIATIC BLACK MAN, ORIGINAL MAN, YAKUB, GRAFTED MAN, PATMOS, THE WHITE MAN IS THE DEVIL, and CAVE MAN.” — Samuel 17X
• W.D. Fard: The Man, Myth, and Mystery Behind the Nation of Islam consists of twenty-three chapters written by two indefatigable researchers who are simply obsessed with the founder of the Nation of Islam.
• Chapter one, “W.D. Fard’s Bible of Islamism Identified: A Century-Old Mystery is Solved” uncovers the bizarre book that the founder of the Nation of Islam treated as scripture.
• Chapter two, “Armageddon and Empire: The NOI, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Imperial Japan in Apocalyptic Discourse,” examines the ies between W.D. Fard, Christian apocalyptic, and Nipponese subversive activities among blacks.
• Chapter three, “Malcolm X and the Twelve Imams: Unveiling Revolutionary Convergence in Shiite Thought,” delves into the teachi gs of W.D. Fard that were transmitted to Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X regarding the Twelve Scientists.
• Chapter four, “The Origin of W.D. Fard’s ‘Actual Facts,’” identifies the origin of the statistics that the founder of the Nation of Islam used to dazzle his black audiences in a show of divine erudition.
• Chapter five, “Notes on the Chicago Temple of Islam” examines one of the earliest accounts of W.D. Fard’s doctrines, prior to any purported theological developments and modifications made by Elijah Muhammad. Like a time machine, it takes us back to the teachings that were being spread at the Chicago Temple between 1930-1939. These accounts are important for they were made by black people, who were academics, and not Black Muslims from the movement in question. Their goal was simply to document and describe.
• Chapter six, “Did W.D. Fard Have a Son with Pearl Allen?” answers a hundred-year-old question concerning the potential progeny of the founder of the Nation of Islam. Did he, or did he not, produce offspring with a Klamath Indian woman?
• Chapter seven, “An Emotional Analysis of W.D. Fard’s Photographs” uses advances in computer science and behavioral psychology o grasp the feelings of the founder of the Nation of Islam during some of the most trying moments of his life. It is a journey inside his heart and mind. It examines facial expressions for signs of internal psychology.
• Chapter eight, “The Teachings of Supreme Minister John Muhammad” studies the lectures of an incredibly important, but largely ignored, figure in the Nation of Islam, that of the brother of Elijah Muhammad and the husband of W.D. Fard’s secretary, Burnsteen Sharrieff Muhammad. Unlike many ministers in the Nation of Islam, Supreme Minister John Muhammad proudly proclaimed that he had met Allah. What better source of information on the identity and ideology of W.D. Fard than a man who knew him personally.
• Chapter nine, “Fard Has Escaped History: A Review of Michael Muhammad Knight’s The Supreme Wisdom Lessons: A Scripture of American Islam” surveys an important book for new insights into the founder of the Nation of Islam.
• Chapter ten “The NOI, the Theosophical Society, and W.D. Fard’s Milieu,” sheds new light on the influence of esoteric groups upon the founder of the Nation of Islam.
• Chapter eleven, “Did W.D. Fard Attend the Funeral of a Freemason in Australia in 1940?” examines the allegation that the founder of the Nation of Islam returned to Oceania, namely, New Zealand and Australia, after his abrupt departure from Detroit in 1934 or 1935.
• Chapter twelve, “Dancing with the Devil,” provides shocking new revelations regarding the identity of W.D. Fard’s friend and dancing partner, Wali Mohammed, from Ferndale, Michigan. This study provides one of the best leads researchers have received in nearly a hundred years.
• Chapter thirteen, “W.D. Fard and Forensic Linguistics,” ends all speculation and conjecture regarding the racial, ethnic, national, and linguistic group to which the founder of the Nation of Islam belonged. This scientific study provides finality and much needed closure.
• Chapter fourteen, “W.D. Fard in Elijah Muhammad’s Ministry Classes and Warnings & Instructions to the M.G.T & G.C.C.,” examines a work that was first published in 2011. The documents it contains, which date from the 1930s, permit us to peer into the thoughts and mind of Elijah Muhammad, the Apostle of W.D. Fard, and His Final Messenger, for traces of the earliest teachings, and any potential accretions.
• Chapter fifteen, “The Theology of Doing Time,” explores the years that W.D. Fard spent incarcerated in the notorious San Quentin Prison. It has long been suggested that the time he spent there produced a paradigm shift. The man who left was not the same one who entered. W.D. Fard had been transformed. Why? And what happened?
• Chapter sixteen, “I Am an Anagram,” attempts to break a code that was constructed by W.D. Fard. It strives to decipher a bizar e message that he published in the Daily Capital Journal on July 27, 1915. The riddle in question appears to have been an Illuminati code.
• Chapter seventeen, “Beam Me Up Scotty: W.D. Fard and the Mothership,” studies one of the strangest teachings of the founder of the Nation of Islam, namely, the belief in a gigantic spaceship, piloted by the Twelve Imams, which will reign down fire upon the white devils of the world. What is the source of this spiritual science fiction?
• Chapter eighteen, “Yakub’s Creation,” examine the myth of the grafting of the devil white man by a mad scientist, but it identifies the person who appears to have inspired this horrific creation story, a veritable Dr. Frankenstein who harvested testicles from inmates at San Quentin from 1913-1951, emasculating vigorous black men, and transplanting their manhood into the scrotums of impotent white ones to give them increased testosterone. Since W.D. Fard never got involved with women after he was released from San Quentin, a spine-chilling question presents itself: was the founder of the Nation of Islam the victim of Dr. Yakub?
• Chapter nineteen, “The Nation of Islam Flag is Based on the Flag of the Young Turks,” is a study that is short and sweet. It t aces the origin of W.D. Fard’s flag to Türkiye, the remnants of the Ottoman Empire, and the symbol of Islamic political, economic, and religious power. Not only did W.D. Fard claim that blacks were Turks, but he also claimed the Turkish flag for them.
• Chapter twenty, “W.D. Fard and White Women,” provides a physical description of all the known women with whom the founder of the Nation of Islam was romantically and not so romantically involved. It shows a clear contrast between what he practiced and what he preached. W.D. Fard, like any gentleman, preferred blondes.
• Chapter twenty-one, “Fard Returns?,” investigates one of numerous alleged sightings of W.D. Fard, in this case, one that took place in New London, Connecticut, in the 1960s. Did the Jedi return? Did the Imam come out of occultation for a moment? If so, he had defied aging and was a jinn.
• Chapter twenty-two scrutinizes the “Wisdom Revealed to the Reformer,” namely, the teachings that W.D. Fard transmitted to Burnsteen Muhammad, which were published in 2024. As the work promises, it delivers a reading that is in-depth and transformative. It fine tunes our understanding of W.D. Fard, corrects claims that were incorrect, and reveals instead of conceals. He who seeks finds and he will find what he seeks in this study.
• The final study, which closes this wave of research, and which we hope will open new ones, is chapter twenty-three. It answers the nagging question of what happened to W.D. Fard after his disappearance in 1934. If we finally know where he came from with certainty, we now know where he went beyond any reasonable doubt. All other roads have proven to be dead ends. Only one pans ou . All roads lead to… chapter twenty-three.
• CHAPTER 1 W.D. FARD’S BIBLE OF ISLAMISM IDENTIFIED: A CENTURY-OLD MYSTERY IS SOLVED
• By John Andrew Morrow
• “God is a liar. Ignore Him and do awaywith those who advocate His cause.”— W.D. Fard
• W.D. Fard (b. circa 1877, 1891, or 1893 - d. unknown), the founder of the Nation of Islam, is a fascinating figure. Mysterious, intriguing, and enigmatic, his magnetic personality and revolutionary rhetoric stupefied and mystified the black people of Detroit during the depth of the Great Depression. So mind-blowing was the message that he delivered between July 4, 1930, and May of 1934, that he was proclaimed a prophet. In fact, some of his followers were so edified by his teachings that he was deified. Not only did he proclaim to be the Messiah of the Christians and the Mahdi of the Muslims, according to Elijah Muhammad, but he proclaimed to be Almighty Allah. In fact, in a stunning and audacious speech, he proclaimed “I am God Himself.”
• So astonishing are his teachings that even those who do not believe in him are drawn to him. They wonder who he was, where he came from, what became of him, and what were the sources of his captivating and mind-baffling teachings. At first, W.D. Fard attracted his audience by using the Bible, a book that was familiar to them. Later, he introduced the Qur’an in both Arabic and English. He also produced two texts, Teaching for the Lost Found Nation of Islam in a Mathematical Way, and the Secret Ritual of the Nation of Islam. Both are found in The Supreme Wisdom Lessons.
• W.D. Fard also claimed to have authored a work titled Five Guiding Principles, under the name W.D. Feraud, which was supposedly in the collection of the Library of Congress but has never been located. Authorship of the work was also claimed by Satokata Takahashi (born Naka Nakane, 1870-1954) who was associated with the ultranationalist Black Dragon Society and the Pacific Movement of the Eastern World (PMEW) which presented Japan as the champion of people of color. Perhaps it was originally co-authored by both men while working for the Society for the Development of Our Own. Instead of a book, it appears to have been a one-page tract, the content of which is available and known.
• Of all the works associated with W.D. Fard, the most captivating of all was The Bible of Islamism, which was found among his personal belongings when he was detained by the police in Detroit in 1932. As the Detroit Free Press reported,
• On page 354 of the “Bible” is the following quotation, which was underlined, and which Farad claimed he used as part of his teachings -  “God is a liar. Ignore Him and do away with those who advocate His cause.” He stated that this was a favorite passage of his and that he used it often in his teachings.
• Like the Five Guiding Principles, notes Patrick D. Bowen, no scholar or member of the Nation of Islam has publicly claimed to have seen The Bible of Islamism “and there is no other known mention of it in any additional press report, government document, or even in any publicly available NOI materials.” Michael Muhammad Knight (b. 1977) went as far as to claim that “we have no access to this Bible of Islamism or evidence beyond police claims in The Detroit Free Press that it ever existed.” None since now, of course, since I have found it. Like other as-yet unidentified books used by Fard, Bowen suggested that The Bible of Islamism was self-published in a small run. After all,
• Since in 1932, Fard asserted that he was working on a commission basis for a printing company, these various books would have een likely printed by his employer and therefore Fard would have had the power to keep the number of copies very small.
• This is not the case, at least as concerns The Bible of Islamism, a secret that was hiding in plain sight.
• Since I had a title, The Bible of Islamism, a citation, “God is a liar,” and a page number, I decided to do some detective work. I searched for “Bible of Islamism.” I located sources that described the Qur’an, as the “Bible of Islam.” I searched for “God is a liar,” “God is liar,” and variants such as “Lord is a liar” and found all kinds of results. They were virtually all rheto ical questions, accusations of apostasy, or citations of Satan used in dialogues. I went through many of them monotonously. While I found the phrase “God is a liar,” I could not find the rest of it, namely, “Ignore Him and do away with those who advocate His cause.” Finally, I found it, but the page did not match. It appeared on different pages, including page 275, in various editions. What is more, the original context was completely different from the way it was presented by the police and the press. Finally, I checked various editions of the book and found one in which the citation was found precisely on page 264. Was it a Qur’an? A compilation of Sacred Writings from the East? Some sort of Satanic text? As I explained in Finding W.D. Fard: Unveiling he Identity of the Founder of the Nation of Islam,
• The document found among Fard’s effects was clearly not the Muslim Holy Book. Instead of The Bible of Islamism, it could more appropriately be called the Bible of Satanism for the citation in question is a basic diabolical belief. Obtaining a copy of this book… would be invaluable to all researchers. Who authored it? Why was Fard using it? Was it Fard himself who penned his own pseudo-Qur’an as Noble Drew Ali had done with his Holy Koran of the Moorish Science Temple…? “If Allah is a liar,” asks Charles Upton, “does that mean that Fard is also a liar, since Fard is Allah?” Patrick Bowen considers an even more sinister scenario, one in which W.D. Fard was possibly “involved with Aleister Crowley’s Masonry-derived Ordo Templi Orientis.”
• “Indeed,” writes Bowen, “the known contents of Fard’s Bible of Islamism seem to have a Crowley ring to them.” So, what was the thick hardcover tome with a dark cover which W.D. Fard was photographed with while in police custody in Detroit in 1932? Be prepared to be baffled.
• The book that W.D. Fard presented as The Bible of Islamism, which he relied upon for inspiration and citation when preaching a lecture halls, is titled Deliverance!, not the “squeal like a pig” Deliverance (1972), but the work of Joseph Franklin Rutherford (1869-1942), the second president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. Known also as Judge Rutherford, this American religious leader played a primary role in the organization of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and their doctrinal development. In fact, he gave that very name to the group, which emerged from the Bible Student movement founded by Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916), in 1931. The Jehovah’s Witnesses, one would be well to remember, are not Muslims, but rather a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs.
• According to the Detroit Free Press, the police department revealed that page 354 of The Bible of Islamism contained the quote: “‘God is a liar. Ignore Him and do away with those who advocate His cause.’ He stated that this was a favorite passage of his and that he used it often in his teachings.” Actually, the citation is found on page 264. A mistake was made by the police depa tment or the Detroit Free Press. Alternatively, a typo was made when transcribing the original newspaper article into digital format. The original quote, found in the 1926 edition of Deliverance!, reads:
• The “Dragon,” the Devil and his organization, by its efforts to destroy the seed of promise, boastfully says: “God is a liar a d his Word is unreliable. Ignore him, and away with those who advocate his cause!”
• [The bold print, which I have provided, represents the decontextualized segments cited in the police report completed by Detec ives Oscar Berry and Charles Snyder from the Homicide Squad].
• Millions of copies of Deliverance! were printed and distributed in numerous editions. The one photographed with W.D. Fard was printed in 1926, and it has Deliverance! in yellow or gold at the top. The cover is dark blue or black and is embossed. In size, shape, and color, it is very much the same book. The dimensions match. The police department or the Detroit Free Press truncated the citation in question to give it a diabolic sense. If this were done by the newspaper, it would be yellow journalism at its finest. The paper had been running stories about Black Muslims and human sacrifice. Misrepresenting the quotation and attribu ing it to The Bible of Islamism was intended to demonize W.D. Fard and his followers, denigrate black people, undermine Islam, shock readers, and increase sales. It was deceitful, dishonest, and despicable. “CAN THE DEVIL FOOL A MUSLIM?” asked W.D. Fard in The Supreme Wisdom Lessons. “NOT NOWADAYS.” As Bowen notes, “the Tribune-Independent, Detroit’s main black newspaper” denounced the fact that the Nation of Islam was being persecuted because of white America’s loathing of blacks and Muslims.
• If something as benign as the citation in question was distorted to such a point, turning its meaning upside down, one can only imagine how much the media twisted and transmogrified the facts surrounding the so-called Voodoo Murders, the Nation of Islam, and W.D. Fard. In retrospect, it was naïve to believe the claims of the Police Department regarding The Bible of Islamism and its content and coverage by the Detroit Free Press. All the reporting was biased and prejudiced. The articles in question speak repeatedly of “Voodoo Murders,” “Voodoo Chieftain,” “Voodoo Slayer,” “voodoo sect,” “Voodoo beliefs,” “fear of Voodoo,” “voodoo king,” “GRIP OF VOODOO IN THE CITY,” “voodooism,” “VOODOOISM’S GRIP,” “the sinister influence of voodooism,” “VOODOO KING,” “Voodoo-Moslem hybrid cult,” “weird rites,” “voodoo cult,” “voodoo gathering,” “VOODOO VICTIM,” “murders on rude altars devoted to the mad cult of voodoo and elements of ‘Islamism,’” “menacing voodoo cult,” “voodoo sacrifice,” “weird charlatans of voodooism,”  “voodooism is an extremely dangerous cult,” “voodoo net,” and “cult rituals.” It speaks repeatedly of chilling “human sacrifice” to the “jungle gods” of “Islam.”
• The Allah Temple of Islam is depicted as a “cult” over a hundred times. It is labelled as a “Negro cult,” a “jungle cult,” an “ominous cult,” a “menacing cult,” a “sinister cult,” a “mad cult,” and a “vicious cult” with “strange Islamic symbols and titles” that is “savage and barbarous.” It is depicted as a “Voodoo-Moslem hybrid cult.” The articles speak of “cult members,” a “cult killer,” and a “cult slayer.” They are referred to as “Mohamedans” whose “Mohammeddanism exists only in meaningless and impressive mixture of Allahs, Mohamets, and other Mohammedan incantations.”
• The articles speak of “High priestesses and priests clad in pseudo-Oriental costumes” who prey on the “superstitions and susceptibility of Negroes” whom they have robbed of their savings. The leaders of the Allah Temple of Islam are described as “ringleaders.” The articles describe Wallace D. Fard as an “Oriental fakir” and an “Arabian” who taught Negroes that they were “Turkish.”  They cite a report from the Psychopathic Ward of Receiving Hospital which claims that he suffered from “delusions that he is a divinity.” The articles claim Robert Harris, aka Robert Karriem, professed to be the “King of Islam,” that Ugan Ali claimed o be the “God of the Asiatic Nation” and “God of the Asiatics,” and that Wallace D. Farad professed to be the “Supreme Being on Earth.” And it goes on and on and on. The purpose of the Detroit Police Department and the Detroit Free Press was to demonize and discredit W.D. Fard and the early Nation of Islam. The police were conspicuously clear that they viewed the spread of “Islamism” among blacks as a danger. Since the content of these articles is overwhelmingly false, none of the information should be t eated as factual unless it is verified by other sources.
• Considering journalistic dishonesty, the question begs to be asked: did W.D. Fard identify the book in question as The Bible o Islamism or was this a false attribution on the part of the police department and the Detroit Free Press? One could only presume that the police officers and the journalists could read. The book’s title was emblazoned in a large print: DELIVERANCE! Its author was readily identified in the front matter. Unlike the Nation of Islam, which numbered in the thousands at the time, there were approximately one hundred thousand Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1932. Are we to believe that police officers and journalists could not tell the difference between The Bible of Islamism, some sort of Muslim scripture, and Deliverance!, a millenarian Christian work?
• Why did W.D. Fard read and cite Judge Rutherford’s Deliverance? Only because it is “a vivid description of the divine plan outlining God’s progressive steps against evil and showing the final overthrow of the devil and all of his wicked institutions.” It basically explains how every leader since ancient times was a devil. It denounces the government of devils, the organized religions of devils, the politics of devils, and the economic system of devils. In fact, Rutherford typically accused anyone who disagreed with him of being the devil. He shared the same absolutist, black or white, psychological, and spiritual profile as W.D. Fard.
• As Elijah Muhammad acknowledged, W.D. Fard “knew the Bible better than any of the Christian-bred Negroes.” Louis Lomax also wrote that “Fard was… well versed in the Bible and… used it as a textbook.” He also reported that he preached in the style of a Southern Baptist preacher. According to the New York Times, Judge Rutherford “had a reputation as an eloquent, forceful, speaker.” Fard was certainly inspired by other Christian preachers; however, Rutherford was most certainly one of them. Cedric Muhammad, an economist, scholar, researcher, and activist, has gone as far as to claim that W.D. Fard met with Judge Rutherford in the 1 30s. While this has yet to be proven, it is certain that he read Rutherford’s writings, and that he listened to his speeches on the radio. It is also possible that he attended a speech in person and that he might have met with him at such an event. After all, Rutherford used to lecture to large audiences throughout the United States. The fact that W.D. Fard relied on Judge Rutherford was confirmed by his disciple and head teacher, John Muhammad. Speaking about a teacher’s meeting he had with W.D. Fard in Detroit, John Muhammad had this to say:
• My second teacher’s meeting with Master Fard was down on Hendricks Street at brother Kallat’s house, my brother Kallat… I was he only teacher at the time, so I had my briefcase, and it was full of books. Some I used and some I didn’t because I wanted people to think that I was a big man. I got a great big briefcase. Maybe sometimes I’d have one book that I was doing to teach out of, and I got a gang of them Judge Rutherford books in there, everything that I could put into that briefcase.
• Amazingly, as a result of his intellect, appeal, charm, and charisma,  W.D. Fard did in fact befriend many leading scholars, i tellectuals, preachers, activists, and religious leaders like Gerald B. Winrod (1900-1957), David N. McInturff (1902-1957), Frank Norris (1877-1952), and Louis Wirth (1897-1952). It is interesting to note that three out of four of these individuals belonged to the same age group and would have been very young when Fard was active. If he was not a socialite, one who passed himself off as a sharifian prince, he could have been taken as a spy. He was constantly changing his colors like a chameleon. Such mimicry and mirroring are traits of borderline personality disorder or tradecraft.
• If Fard loved the quote from Judge Rutherford, and the book Deliverance! from which it was drawn, it was because the white devil testified against himself. This is why “Fard instructed his followers to read the works of Judge Rutherford, the Jehovah’s Witnesses leader.” In fact, “he explicitly encouraged his followers to… listen to… Rutherford.” Fard may have derived many ideas rom Islam, orthodox and heterodox. However, the sources upon which he developed his ideology included many non-Muslim ones, including the Jehovah’s Witnesses. As Bowen elaborates, the teachings shared between the Nation of Islam and the Witnesses, include:
• The 1914 date: a belief in a coming battle of Armageddon; a belief … in the idea that only 144,000 true believers would survive the battle and enter the new civilization on Earth; a belief in the non-immortality of souls; criticism of certain elements of the capitalistic system; and rejecting the legitimacy of all other religions. To this list we might add a few other concepts: Rutherford, for instance, had  tendency to refer to all those who opposed him as “devils:” the Witnesses had from their early years labeled modern churches as “Babylon” (the NOI sometime used that word for American society); like Fard, the Witnesses’ fou der, Charles Taze Russell, showed an interest in knowing the distance from the Earth to the sun; and both groups adhered to the popular premillennial view that the six “days” - in other words, 6,000 years - of oppression had passed and they were now livi g in the seventh “day.”
• As I demonstrated in Finding W.D. Fard, the ideology of the founder of the Nation of Islam featured disparate elements drawn f om Christianity, Judaism, the Moorish Science Temple of America, the Ahmadiyya, the Yezidis, Seveners, Twelvers, Ghulat, Druze, Babis, and the Bahai. He also appears to have drawn his doctrines from the Black Hebrews, Marcus Garvey, Rastafarianism, Theosophism, Gnosticism, Freemasonry, apocalyptic Baptism, and the Church of Latter-Day Saints. In a History of Conversion to Islam in the United States, Patrick D. Bowen identified many possible sources of Fard’s doctrines, including Masonic works, and books written by European scholars of religion. The influence of J.F. Rutherford and the Jehovah’s Witnesses on the teachings of W.D. Fard has been detailed by many scholars. As Bowen rightly recognized, “the Witnesses are the most obvious non-Islamic source of his teachings.” The identification of the identity of W.D. Fard’s Bible of Islamism confirms that this is the case.
• The following photographs demonstrate that the 1926 edition of J.F. Rutherford’s Deliverance! matches the images of W.D. Fard’s Bible of Islamism in size, color, binding, and content.
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• (Figure 1.1: Deliverance! By J.F. Rutherford, 1926 edition. Public domain)
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• (Figure 1.2: Deliverance! By J.F. Rutherford, 1926 edition. Public domain)
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• (Figure 1.3: Deliverance! By J.F. Rutherford, 1926 edition. Public domain)
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• (Figure 1.4: Deliverance! By J.F. Rutherford, 1926 edition. Public domain)
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• (Figure 1.5: Deliverance! By J.F. Rutherford, 1926 edition. Public domain)
• The following image is of page 264 of the cited 1926 edition of Deliverance! with the passage in question.
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• (Figure 1.6: Public domain)
• The following images of W.D. Fard, which were compiled by Alam Khan Publications, show him in possession of the mysterious Bible of Islamism, which seems to have been none other than J.F. Rutherford’s Deliverance!
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• (Figure 1.7: Photograph from November 23, 1932,showing The Bible of Islamism. Public domain)
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• (Figure 1.8: Photograph from November 23, 1932,showing The Bible of Islamism. Public domain)
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• (Figure 1.9: Photograph of W.D. Fard dated 1930-1934. The book he is reading is notthe Qurʾan. It shows every indication of being The Bible of Islamism. Public domain)
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• (Figure 1.10: Altered photo of W.D. Fard. The book he is holding doesnot appear to be the Qurʾan. It appears to be The Bible of Islamism. Public domain)
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• (Figure 1.11: Altered photo of W.D. Fard. The book has gone from thin to thick. The original book appears to have been The Bible of Islamism. The one in this photo appears to be a large Qur’an. An attempt was made to alter his physical appearance and the identity of the book from which he preached. Public domain)
• Mysterious, intriguing, and enigmatic, the idiosyncratic ideology that W.D. Fard preached has left an indelible mark on American Islam and the black American experience. An eclectic ideologue, who drew liberally from sources that suited him from East and West, the founder of the Nation of Islam created an original and unique formulation of the Islamic faith whose intertextuality is becoming increasingly less obscure. For some, the more the origins of his teachings are unraveled, the more Master Fard is exposed as Master Fraud. For others, it manifests the inner working of a mystifying mind, that of an autodidact intellectual. So mesmerizing was the man that thousands of people who encountered his person or his teachings came to believe in his divinity sincerely and genuinely. Few in history have had such an impact.
• If W.D. Fard was presenting Judge Rutherford’s Deliverance! as The Bible of Islamism, preaching from it, posing with it, drawi g from its doctrines, and pretending that it was his Qurʾan, and the holy book of the Nation of Islam, the influence of the Jehovah’s Witnesses appears to have been even greater than previously proposed. Many teachings of W.D. Fard, even their very tone, seem to be echoes of Rutherford’s Deliverance! with all its fiery preaching against Satan, Serpents, Beasts, Dragons, and Devils. It even mentions the Isle of Patmos and beasts who will be gathered at Armageddon.
• Fard’s blackboard, with the question, “who will win the war of Armageddon?” comes to mind, even though this parlance is not as prominent in later Nation of Islam teachings. Fard was using Rutherford’s writings and teaching aids. He was reading from Deliverance! Fard may also have been delivering the speeches that Rutherford gave on the radio and at free lectures around the natio .
• What is more, Rutherford also quotes Hebrews 11: 37-38 in Deliverance! This passage in question speaks of people who “went about in sheepskins and goatskins,” who “wandered in deserts and mountains” and who lived in “caves and holes in the ground” much like Fard’s account of Yakub’s creation, namely, the development of a race of white devils by a mad scientist.
• Deliverance! repeatedly specifies that the End of Times started in 1914. It describes the Final Battle and the destruction of he devils. It breaks downs the world population into groups. It also teaches that hell is not a place of eternal suffering. When one reads Deliverance!, particularly chapter twelve on “The World Established” and “The Final Battle,” it is as if we hear Master Fard preaching. A detailed and systematic comparison of the teachings of J.F. Rutherford, the Witnesses, and particularly the work Deliverance! with those of W.D. Fard is certainly in order. However, that should be the focus of future studies.
• This groundbreaking discovery, namely, the identification of W.D. Fard’s Bible of Islamism as Rutherford’s Deliverance! furthe reinforces the views of those, like Faheem Shuaibe, a former minister of the Nation of Islam, and a lifelong student of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed (1933-2008), who described the movement as “Christianity painted black.” After all, if your scripture is Christian, can you truly be Muslim?
• Was W.D. Fard a Christian in Islamic garb? Was he some sort of mutant pseudo-Muslim-Jehovah’s Witness who went door to door fishing for souls in Detroit? Was the Nation of Islam a Christian offshoot? Or was it an Islamo-Christian sect of Messianic, theologically extreme, Shiite Muslims that was influenced by the apocalyptic teachings of J.F. Rutherford? It may have been that, in part, but it was far more than that. Hence, these, and many more questions, remain to be answered by the deductive minds of intrepid investigators and academic detectives. Let the quest continue!
• CHAPTER 2 ARMAGEDDON AND EMPIRE: THE NATION OF ISLAM, JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES, AND IMPERIAL JAPAN IN APOCALYPTIC DISCOURSE
• By Bilal Muhammad
• “Which one will survive the War of Armageddon?”
• In the early to mid-twentieth century, the specter of global war, racial domination, and imperial rivalry ignited not only political movements, but also religious imaginations. Among the most intriguing - and often overlooked - aspects of this era is the convergence of apocalyptic narratives articulated by groups on the fringes of mainstream religious life: the Nation of Islam (NOI) and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Both movements emerged in response to Western hegemony, racialized oppression, and colonial modernity, offering their followers a radical reimagining of world events through eschatological frameworks. Central to their theologies was a vision of Armageddon, not simply as a theological abstraction, but as a real-world reckoning-one shaped by, and potentially catalyzed by, global powers such as Imperial Japan.
• This study explores the curious and complex ways in which the NOI and Jehovah’s Witnesses interpreted the rise of Imperial Japan - an Eastern, non-Christian, and militarily formidable empire - as a potential agent in the divine drama of the end times. For the Nation of Islam, Japan’s resistance to white imperialism was sometimes cast as a sign of divine retribution and prophetic reversal. For Jehovah’s Witnesses, Japan, while not lionized, was nevertheless a part of the geopolitical calculus shaping their expectations of a climactic conflict between God’s Kingdom and the nations of the world.
• While vastly different in doctrine, leadership, and structure, both groups produced counter-narratives that challenged dominan Western interpretations of war, peace, and divine justice. In doing so, they positioned themselves in tension with both American patriotism and Christian orthodoxy, offering their adherents not only spiritual comfort but also geopolitical insight through apocalyptic lenses.
• The inclusion of Imperial Japan in these religious worldviews was not accidental. Japan’s rapid modernization, its military victories over Western powers, and its role in the Second World War (1939-1945) made it a potent symbol - alternatively feared, admired, or mythologized. In black religious thought, Japan often occupied an ambivalent space: a non-Western power that challenged white supremacy but also enacted its own forms of imperialism. In the apocalyptic imagination of both the NOI and the Witnesses, Japan became more than a nation; it became a sign.
• This study situates the discourse on Armageddon within broader intellectual and political currents, showing how marginalized religious communities responded to imperialism, war, and race through the creation of theologies of resistance and renewal. It contributes to the growing body of scholarship at the intersection of religion, race, and geopolitics, and urges a rethinking of apocalypticism not as escapist or irrational, but as a form of historical interpretation and political critique. In tracing these eschatological visions, this study invites readers to reconsider the enduring power of prophecy - not as a relic of the past, but as a living framework through which oppressed peoples interpret, resist, and transform the world around them.
• One of the boldest icons of the Nation of Islam (NOI) is a simple blackboard. It is sometimes placed on the rostrum of NOI mosques. In the middle of the blackboard it is written, “WHICH ONE WILL SURVIVE THE WAR OF ARMAGEDDON?” To the left, it says “CHRISTIANITY,” with an American flag, a cross, and a photograph of a lynching beneath. There are also the words “SLAVERY,” “SUFFERING,” and “DEATH.” To the right, it says “ISLAM,” with the NOI flag and the words “FREEDOM,” “JUSTICE,” and “EQUALITY” beneath.
• While the content of the blackboard may have evolved over time, the blackboard itself was introduced to the Temple by the enigmatic founder of the NOI, W.D. Fard. He drew the American flag and the NOI flag on it with colored chalk during a speech to compare the two. Fard styled himself as a “professor” and used a variety of resources in teaching his followers. The words on the blackboard were added by Elijah Muhammad, the purported Messenger and Apostle of W.D. Fard, sometime after Elijah Muhammad left prison in 1946.
• Through this blackboard, the NOI emphatically presented itself as a sort of doomsday religion. Perhaps the content of the board could even be seen as a declaration of war against the United States and the Christian world. Black people were drawn to Fard’s movement due in part to legitimate social grievances: Fard was active at the heart of the Jim Crow era during the toughest years of the Great Depression (1930-1934), and most of his followers were part of the Great Migration of black people from the American South to the North. After they fled from violent discrimination in the South, they found racism in the North as well. Bu who, besides God, was expected to fight this “WAR OF ARMAGEDDON” between Christian America and Islam?
• Fard’s teachings were rife with millenarian expectations. As discovered by John Andrew Morrow in 2023, one of the books that Fard taught from was Deliverance! by the second Jehovah’s Witness president Judge Rutherford. It was always known that there was a connection between the NOI’s teachings and the Witnesses, as Fard “referred his followers to the writings of Judge Rutherford” and instructed them to buy radios to listen to his radio addresses. Many of the early NOI members were former Jehovah’s Witnesses. Elijah Muhammad wrote in his Message to the Blackman in America that white people “hated Judge Rutherford for his interpre ation of the Bible.” In 1970, W.A Maesen wrote about Watchtower influences on black Muslim eschatology, which include the belief that 1914 was the beginning of the end of this world. Elijah Muhammad even wrote that “all religious scientists,” including Fard, agree that the “world of evil” expired in 1914.
• Rutherford’s interpretation of the War of Armageddon differed from that of his predecessor Charles Taze Russell: while Russell taught that Armageddon would be an anarchic struggle for world domination, Rutherford taught that God would eradicate all the nonbelievers, destroy all governments, and usher in a 1,000-year rule led by Jesus and 144,000 believers. According to Russell, his millennial kingdom would come after the end of the 6,000-year history of man. Rutherford wrote at length about Armageddon, reportedly dedicating about half the space available in The Watchtower magazine to the topic. He regarded those who disagreed with him to be of the devil. Indeed, all secular institutions were of the devil, and the “commerce, politics, and religion” were labelled as the devil’s chief instruments.
• Similarly, Elijah Muhammad taught that the rule of the devil (the white man, the Adamic race) would last six thousand years, after which God would come to usher in His thousand year rule. He noted that Revelation 14:1 foretells 144,000 believers, but he hoped “to beat the old prophet’s predictions” and convert more people. Pertinently, Elijah Muhammad wrote in How to Eat to Live that “a man can live up to 1,000 years if he eats the right food twice a week.” Fard promised to totally destroy the white man, including “the one you walk side by side [with] every day, he is the devil, and I am going to destroy him from the face of the earth.”
• Both the NOI and the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that the believers would survive Armageddon and build a New World right here on Earth. Both groups believe that there is no life after physical death. Both groups believe that Armageddon will be brought about by God’s use of the forces of nature, including hail, earthquake, flooding, fire, and disease. Fard told Elijah Muhammad’s rother that it was “no time to get married right now” in 1934, and Rutherford was similarly writing that it was not the right time to get married in 1938 due to the imminent battle of Armageddon.
• But Fard’s eschatology was not a simple copy of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. He did not limit himself to the Bible, which he would later attack and call “the poisoned book.” Fard was purportedly a Muslim, and he had a reputation of being a “street-corner politician.” His eyes were fixed on America as the first target of his war - he wanted to destroy “America first. Yes, not Europe, but America first.”
• 1930s Japan also had its eyes on the United States. In the years leading up to their famous attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan sent instigators to America to exploit racial tensions. Satokata Takahashi (1870-1954), a supposed major of the Japanese army and an affiliate of Japan’s ultranationalist paramilitary Black Dragon Society, founded the Pacific Movement of the Eastern World in Chicago in 1932. This was a pro-Japanese black movement that promoted the idea that Japan was the champion of Asiatic people. NOI literature frequently refers to black people as Asiatic, and Japan was looking to ally with the Muslim world; there was even a wily rumor in the early twentieth century that the Japanese emperor was considering converting to Islam.
• W.D. Fard and Elijah Muhammad were contemporaries of Major Takahashi, and Takahashi’s wife, Pearl Sherrod (1896-1976), born Pearl T. Barnett, was a member of the NOI. Japan apparently funded the Black Muslims through Takahashi, and the FBI was watching these subversive activities. Takahashi and his Filipino companion Ashima Takis would lecture at Elijah Muhammad’s temples. In the 1930s, the FBI raided Takahashi’s organization in Detroit and seized a poster of four guns with the word “Asia” written on them aimed at the United States, with a picture of Takahashi in the middle, titled “Calling the Four Winds.” The same poster was ound in the house of Raymond Sharrieff, the son-in-law of Elijah Muhammad, in 1942, except it had a picture purporting to be Fard in the middle. According to FBI transcriptions of Elijah Muhammad’s sermons, he frequently taught that the “Japanese will slaughter the white man.” Japan was a part of this Asiatic nation, and the Japanese army and navy were “only waiting on the word” of Fard to destroy the devil. Fard taught that “our Asiatic brothers” designed and built the “Mother Plane” - a UFO-like airship that would release smaller ships to drop poison bombs on the United States. Elijah Muhammad said that the Mother Plane’s bombs were the same type that gave the Earth its mountains, and that they would dig one mile deep into the Earth.
• This is where Fard’s Armageddon diverges from Rutherford’s. For Fard, the War of Armageddon was a literal war between the Asia ic world and the white world. It was not the divine chastisement of a “spook God” that did not exist. As Elijah Muhammad said of Fard, “He did not say, ‘I or Allah will do this and that,’ but I noticed him carefully saying, ‘We do this or that.’” In othe words, “we” - the God, the Muslims, black people, Japan, the Asiatic world - would bring down the judgment on white America. The feared Mother Plane was not an otherworldly ship, but one built by mortal hands in Japan. Of course, despite Japan’s technological output, we know of no such airship.
• In 1942, Elijah Muhammad was indicted for his sympathies with Japan. Japan went on to lose the war, and Elijah was released from prison in 1946. With his unshakeable faith in Fard’s words, Elijah Muhammad persisted in his doctrine that America would soon be destroyed. The burden of this War of Armageddon shifted away from Japan and toward a divine intervention from God. The Mother Plane still played a prominent role in his eschatology and that of his ideological successor, Louis Farrakhan (b. 1933). The NOI still patiently await the burning of the country, but who will bring that about? A spook God, a natural disaster, black aliens, or an unconfirmed 1930s Mother Plane of an extinct empire? Was the Empire of the Rising Sun supposed to be the Sun rising from the West, as per the prophetic tradition?
• The disappearance of W.D. Fard is as mysterious as his identity. Researchers in the future may need to dig deeper into his con ections with Imperial Japan and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Those who are interested in this subject who can read Japanese ought to put together a biography of Takahashi based on Japanese newspaper sources. Watchtower teachings represent a scaffolding of Fa d’s Biblical exegesis, and his door-to-door proselytizing may have been a strategy borrowed from them. However, the evidence suggests that Wallace Fard was still very much his own man, an Original Man.
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• (Figure 2.1: Sketch of the first Temple of Islam founded by W.D. Fard at 3408Hastings Street in Paradise Valley, Detroit, Michigan. Services were held on thesecond floor of the Castle Theatre. Created from an original, public domain, photograph)
• CHAPTER 3 MALCOLM X AND THE TWELVE IMAMS: UNVEILING REVOLUTIONARY CONVERGENCE IN SHIITE THOUGHT
• By John Andrew Morrow
• “Twelve Leaders of Islam from all over the Planet haveconferred in the Root of Civilization concerning theLost-Found Nation of Islam - must return to their original Land.”— W.D. Fard
• The relationship between Malcolm X and the Twelve Imams of Ahl al-Bayt has so far been little-known even though it may have shaped a significant aspect of Malcolm’s religious and political worldview. This study argues that: 1) the people involved in Malcolm X’s transition from the Nation of Islam to so-called orthodox Islam were not all Sunnis; 2) the Twelve Imams played a role in the doctrines of the Nation of Islam as conceived by its founder, W.D. Fard, and 3) people like Mohammad Taki Mehdi (1928-1998), a Twelver Shiite, and Warith Deen Mohammed (1933-2008), a Sunni, helped Malcolm X (1925-1965), transition to a more mainstream form of Islam.
• In the pantheon of revolutionary figures of the twentieth century, Malcolm X stands as a towering symbol of resistance, spiritual transformation, and uncompromising truth. Born Malcolm Little and later known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, his political and spiritual journey reflected a unique synthesis of African American struggle, Islamic consciousness, and global anti-colonial thought. His legacy continues to resonate not merely as a civil rights leader, but as a thinker who deeply engaged with the theological and political dimensions of Islam.
• While most analyses of Malcolm X focus on his transition from the Nation of Islam to Sunni orthodoxy after his pilgrimage to Mecca, few have seriously explored the profound ideological and spiritual intersections between Malcolm’s vision and Shiite Islam, particularly the revolutionary ethos embodied in the narratives of the Twelve Imams. These early leaders of Shiism, often marginalized in dominant Islamic discourse, symbolize a theology of resistance - against tyranny, injustice, and moral complacency. Their lives, marked by persecution, political struggle, and unwavering devotion to truth, mirror the themes that Malcolm X championed in his own context.
• This work seeks to interrogate and unveil the conceptual and spiritual parallels between Malcolm X and the Twelve Imams, not to argue for a direct doctrinal affiliation, but to identify a shared framework rooted in resistance to oppression, ethical leadership, martyrdom, and self-liberation. The so-called “Shiite extremists,” often pejoratively labeled in political discourse, are here reframed as bearers of a radical spiritual tradition - one that speaks powerfully to the struggles of oppressed peoples globally, including the African American experience.
• By placing Malcolm X in dialogue with the legacies of Imam ‘Ali, Imam Husayn, and the other descendants of the Prophet Muhammad revered in Shiism, this study offers a critical contribution to both Islamic intellectual history and black political thought. It challenges reductive readings of both Shiism and Malcolm’s ideology and invites a transhistorical reflection on the possibilities of revolutionary convergence across cultures, geographies, and theological schools.
• This exploration is not merely comparative; it is corrective. It calls into question the frameworks that have isolated Malcolm X within American civil rights history while simultaneously detaching Shiite thought from broader revolutionary narratives. In this convergence, we uncover a deeper spiritual kinship - a theology of liberation that transcends sect and ethnicity, illumina ing paths toward justice, dignity, and divine accountability.
• Malcolm X, also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, remains one of the most influential figures in the Western history of Islam - a revolutionary whose life and legacy are credited with drawing millions toward what is widely perceived as “orthodox” Islam. However, the assumption that orthodoxy in Islam is synonymous solely with Sunnism is a misreading of both history and Malcolm X’s spiritual journey.
• As I argued in my peer-reviewed article, “Malcolm X and Mohammed Mehdi: The Shi’a Connection,” which was published in JSIS in 012, not all of those who facilitated Malcolm’s transition from the Nation of Islam (NOI) to mainstream Islam were Sunnis. One pivotal figure was Mohammad Taki Mehdi, an Iraqi political and religious activist of Persian descent who self-identified as a sayyid, a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. Mehdi’s activism and worldview were deeply inspired by the memory of Imam al-Husayn ibn ‘Ali (626-680 CE) and the tragedy of Karbala, central themes within Twelver Shiism.
• Mehdi frequently invoked Shiite doctrines, including Ashura, al-Husayn, and the Twelve Imams, in his engagements with Malcolm X. However, these were not entirely foreign concepts to Malcolm. On the contrary, he had been exposed to these Shiite elements - albeit in a Ghulat-inflected form - within the theological teachings of the Nation of Islam, which he joined in 1948. W.D. Fard, the enigmatic founder of the NOI, had presented himself as a Prophet, the Mahdi, and even Allah in Person. His successor, Elijah Muhammad, was appointed as the “Final Messenger,” drawing on a symbolic lineage that echoed Shiite paradigms of divinely guided leadership.
• This study contends that Malcolm X’s awareness of Shiite Islam and the legacy of the Twelve Imams predated his formal relationship with Mehdi, which began in 1958. From his earliest days in the NOI until his break with Elijah Muhammad on March 8, 1964, Malcolm was immersed in an esoteric, heterodox Shiite cosmology cloaked in black nationalist theology. His eventual turn toward a more “mainstream” Islam - guided in part by Mehdi and Warith Deen Mohammed - did not erase this earlier influence but rather reshaped and recontextualized it.
• Significantly, Malcolm X made a pilgrimage to the Mosque of Imam al-Husayn ibn ‘Ali in Cairo six months before his martyrdom. This mosque - believed by some to house the head of Imam al-Husayn - was visited by Malcolm on Friday, August 21, 1964, as noted in his personal diary. He wrote: “Went to Hussein Mosque (in Khan Khalid & Abra for Juma prayers).” Later that evening, he added: “At the Hussein Mosque earlier in the day they showed me all the ancient treasures, including a strand of the Prophet’s hair that they have there, also the tomb of Hussein.” The very act of recording such details signals their significance to Malcolm. Pilgrimage, memory, and martyrdom were already inscribed in his spiritual vocabulary.
• In my earlier study, I posited that Mehdi served as the conduit through which Shiite teachings reached Malcolm X. While that a ticle was positively received and cited in subsequent scholarship, it leaned heavily on secondary accounts - namely, the testimonies of Mehdi’s former wife, Beverlee, and one of his daughters, Anisa. In this present inquiry, I seek to go further by prese ting primary evidence - statements, speeches, and writings from Malcolm X himself - that reveal a profound familiarity with both orthodox and heterodox forms of Shiite Islam. Malcolm’s references to the Twelve Imams and their Ghulat-inflected imagery indicate a broader and deeper engagement with Islamic heterodoxy than previously recognized.
• This study invites a reassessment of Malcolm X’s Islamic identity - not simply as a convert to Sunni orthodoxy, but as a seeke whose theological evolution traversed the full spectrum of Islamic expression, including elements from Shiism, Sufism, and black Islamic mysticism. It challenges us to rethink the ways we categorize Islamic movements, and how we interpret the spiritual rajectories of revolutionary figures who defied doctrinal boundaries in pursuit of divine justice and human dignity.
• Although Malcolm X was introduced to mainstream Islam by many people - including Warith Deen Mohammed, the son of Elijah Muhammad, Jamil Diab (d. 2005), and Mahmoud Youssef Shawarbi, the director of the Federation of Islamic Associations in the United States and Canada, among others - he was also inspired by Mohammad Taki Mehdi (1928-1998).
• Born in Karbala, Iraq, to a family of Persian ancestry that reportedly descended from the Prophet Muhammad, Mehdi immigrated to the United States where he completed a BA, MA, and a PhD in Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley. Not only was he one of the earliest pro-Palestinian activists, who founded the Action Committee on American Arab Relations, but he was also a Muslim leader who played a role in creating the National Council on Islamic Affairs.
• Since Mehdi was committed to the African American struggle for civil and human rights, he used to cross paths with Malcolm X, he spokesman for the Nation of Islam, at various events. After first meeting in 1958, both men became friends and socially committed colleagues. Not only did Mehdi function as a religious and political advisor to Malcolm X, but he also made the arrangeme ts for his life-altering pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964.
• Like many Arabs and Muslims of the time, Mehdi promoted Arab nationalism, Islamic unity, and religious pluralism. “As Muslims,” he stated, “we respect Judaism and the Jewish people as Ahl al-Kitab, the People of the Book.” Refusing to be blinded by anti-Jewish sentiments, he stressed that “We object to the apartheid policies of the Zionist state of Israel.” As Richard H. Curtis oted, Mehdi was dedicated to “unity and cooperation across sectarian lines within Islam, and with Christian and Jewish peace activists.”
• Mehdi was a promoter of what he understood to be the message of al-Husayn ibn ‘Ali. In fact, he was constantly conveying the t agedy of Karbala to anyone and everyone who was willing to listen. He was opposed to both white supremacy and Zionism. He faced  threats, intimidation, physical assaults, and attempts on his life; however, he stood by his political beliefs. While there is no recorded evidence as to what Mehdi communicated to Malcolm X, Beverlee Turner, who was married to the former from 1953 to 1980, stated that her husband always insisted that he was a Shiite and that he was always sharing the story of al-Husayn ibn ‘Ali with everyone he met. She was convinced that her former husband had spoken to Malcolm X about al-Husayn ibn ‘Ali and the Tragedy of Karbala.
• Summarizing my findings on the Shiite connection between Malcolm X and Mohammad Mehdi, without providing credit of any kind, Jonathan Azaziah had this to say:
• Most remarkably of all, the Iraqi revolutionary told Malcolm of Imam Hussein and his sacrifice in Karbala often. What the Master of Martyrs endured on Ashura deeply impacted Malcolm, according to those closest to M.T. For years, biographers, researchers and supporters of Hajj Malik wondered why that despite him being fully cognizant of the target painted on his back by the FBI, he ADL and their proxies within the NOI, he still loosened his security detail, told his bodyguards to disarm, and invited his wife and children to what would be his final speech in the Audubon Ballroom even with the dangers at hand. And yet none of these personalities ever delved into Malcolm’s connection, friendship, and brotherhood with Dr. Mehdi.
• This is it, right here. Why was Malcolm so seemingly “care-free” in his last days? Because like Imam Hussein, Malcolm X embraced his destiny as a martyr and walked into the light emanating from it with love and dignity. Indeed, like the Karbala 72 themselves, he did not cower in the face of the conspiracy seeking to destroy him for he knew his blood would give rise to millions like him after he perished.
• While we cannot say for certain that Hajj Malik died as a Shia, what we can attest to, unequivocally, is that Shia Islam, through Mohammad Taki Mehdi, changed the man born as Malcolm Little forever. We can also say - unequivocally as well I might add - that Malcolm X would not have become such a global force if it were not for the bespectacled Iraqi Shia revolutionary from NYC that humbly and quietly assisted him to break free from the NOI’s shackles, so he could enter the abode of so-called mainstream Islam.
• Moreover, it is hardly the point to ponder about what Islamic school of thought Malcolm belonged to, not to mention insulting o both his memory and M.T.’s for that matter. Instead, what should be concluded and joyously celebrated about the link between Hajj Malik and Mehdi is that just as Hajj Malik represents to all of us a heroic figure of anti-colonialism, black nationalism, anti-imperialism, anti-Zionism and Islamic Liberation Theology, he also represents beautiful Islamic unity. For he is a revolutionary spirit and a living energy of goodness, justice and truth birthed by the intersection of Sunni Islam and Shia Islam.
• Malcolm X was indeed influenced by mainstream Twelver Shiism and the martyrdom of al-Husayn ibn ‘Ali. His knowledge of so-called Ghulat Twelver Shiite beliefs, practices, and personalities, however, predates his contact with Mohammad Taki Mehdi. In fact, he learned them from his teacher, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, both in prison, from 1948 to 1952, by means of correspondence, and in person, between 1952 and 1964. As for Elijah Muhammad (1897-1975), he learned so-called Ghulat Twelver Shiite teachings from his teacher, W.D. Fard, the enigmatic spiritual master who took him as a disciple between 1931 and 1934 after which poin , he disappeared, leaving few traces, suggesting he adopted yet another identity, left the country permanently, or passed away shortly thereafter.
• The Ghulat, an Arabic word for theological “Exaggerators” or “Extremists,” is a term applied by Twelver Shiite scholars to describe minority, self-identified Shiite groups, who hold beliefs that the majority group deems to be deviant, including, but not limited to:
• * the belief that the Imams form part of the Godhead, for example, the Trinity of Muhammad, ‘Ali, and Salman al-Farsi or other variations such as Allah, Muhammad and ‘Ali or Haqq- Muhammad-‘Ali;
• * the belief in the divinity of the Imams, namely, the claim that God incarnates in human form (hulul), namely, in the body o the Imams and that the Imams were the literal manifestations of God;
• * the belief that the Imams created and/or control the universe directly or by delegation;
• * the belief that the Imams have knowledge of the unseen without having received such knowledge from Allah;
• * the belief in metempsychosis (tanasukh); the belief that the Imams do not die;
• * the belief that the Imams are superior to the Prophet; and the belief that Islamic law and the avoidance of sins is not obligatory upon those who believe in the Imams.
• Besides criticizing the Ghulat for failing to fulfil orthodox religious obligations, Twelver Shiite scholars condemn them for equating ‘Ali, and the other Imams, with Allah; granting them the attributes of Allah and invoking them in worship as opposed to calling upon them for intercession.
• In response to Twelver Shiite allegations, the Ghulat groups in question, who view themselves as true believers, true Muslims, and true Shiites, and who describe themselves as ‘Alawi, Nusayri, Qizilbash, Ahl-i Haqq, ‘Ali Ilahi, Çepni, Takhtaji, Shabak, Bajwan, Ibrahimiyyah, Safawiyyah, Sarliyyah-Kakaiyyah, among many other names, accuse Twelver Shiites of being muqassirin, namely, “those who fall short (in truth faith by failing to recognize the divinity of the Imams).”
• There is also a strong Ghulat current in Sevener Ismaili Shiism that produced off-shoots like the Druze in the same fashion that Twelver Shiism spawned the semi-Ghulat Shaykhis and the Babis who influenced the Baha’i faith. For some Twelver Shiite scholars, groups like the Alevis and the Bektashis are fully-fledged Ghulat or heretics. For others, however, they would be categorized as semi-Ghulat or heterodox, a term used by Farhad Daftary, S.H.M. Jafri, and myself to describe groups that exaggerate the status of the Twelve Imams, granting them supernatural and superhuman qualities, while falling short of deifying them. Others would disagree with the classification of “semi-Ghulat” and describe such groups as being especially zealous in their Imamology. After all, such views are common among certain Twelver Shiites.
• The so-called Ghulat belong to many different racial, ethnic, and linguistic groups. The extant groups are mostly found in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Albania, Türkiye, Iran, Pakistan, India, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, as well as other countries in the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. Despite this diversity, the so-called Extremist Shiites, a name they never use for themselves, share the same core beliefs. The so-called Ghulat have been the subject of many scholarly studies, the most notable of which include Extremist Shiites: The Ghulat Sects by Matti Moosa, Controversies in Formative Shi’i Islam: The Ghulat Muslims by Mushegh Asatryan, The Nusayri-Alawi Religion: An Enquiry into Its Theology and Liturgy by Meir M. Bar-Asher and Aryeh Kofsky, as well as The Nusayri-’Alawis: An Introduction to the Religion, History and Identity of the Leading Minority in Syria by Yaron Friedman.
• Malcolm X believed in the Twelve Imams of the so-called Ghulat Shiites. He lectured about them in his speeches. These Twelve Imams formed part of the teachings that he imparted as a minister in the Nation of Islam. He learned about the Twelve Imams of the so-called Extremist Shiites from Elijah Muhammad who, in turn, had learned about them from Master W.D. Fard.
• The question, of course, begs to be asked. How much of Elijah Muhammad’s Shiite doctrines trace back to W.D. Fard and how much of them were learned by Elijah Muhammad himself after the occultation of “the Messiah of the Christians and the Mahdi of the Muslims?” Although the subject deserves to be studied in greater depth, a perusal of Elijah Muhammad’s Divine Sayings reveals the presence of considerable Shiite sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad and the Imams. Some are word for word. Others are slightly modified and adapted for theological reasons. However, they are unmistakenly drawn from Shiite sources. Did he learn these sayings orally from W.D. Fard or was Elijah Muhammad browsing through books of Shiite hadith in the same way he was surveying and appropriating Sunni hadith? If so, what sources were available to him at the time? In any event, Elijah Muhammad’s oratory and literary production is vast and has been understudied by scholars. Much work remains to be done.
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• (Figure 3.1: Sketch of Malcolm X in March 1964. Created froma photograph in the Library of Congress Public Domain Archive)
• As I argue in Finding W.D. Fard: Unveiling the Identity of the Founder of the Nation of Islam, this fascinating figure of Asia origin appears to have come from a so-called Extremist Shiite background or picked up Ghulat teachings in the United States and used them in his theology in a syncretic fashion as he did with the ideas from other religious groups. Either way, he shared he central tenets of the Ghulat Shiites, teachings that he transmitted to his disciple, Elijah Muhammad who, in turn, passed them down to Malcolm X.
• In 1958, Malcolm X gave a speech in which he mentioned the Twelve Imams of the so-called Ghulat Shiites. He explained that “when Joseph saw twelve stars that emerged into one this was a symbol of the Twelve Islam Leaders of the East coming to Elijah Muhammad for leadership.” In other words, Elijah Muhammad was the leader of the Twelve Imams. And, like the Twelve Imams themselves, W.D. Fard, Elijah Muhammad, and Malcolm X cited the Bible to support their theological claims. In 1959, Malcolm X stated the following at a Nation of Islam meeting:
• In Mecca there is a group of 24 men who are known as gods. These gods have great wisdom, and they are dependent on each other. These men are men like us, and they die like we do, but a son is always trained to take the place of his father, and he is also trained not to reveal the secret. It is known that someday a son would be born to one of these 24 men, and he would be much wiser than they are. This one would be the supreme God. This son has been born and is known as W.F. Muhammad. This name should not be mistaken for Elijah Muhammad who was born in Georgia. W.F. Muhammad was born in Mecca, and he came to raise up the last nation of Islam from this wilderness and to punish those who are responsible for these conditions.
• Malcolm also affirmed that “Allah is a living human being - God - the 25th wise man who came to this country to teach Elijah Muhammad.” In December of 1962, shortly before Christmas, Malcolm X delivered a particularly virulent anti-white speech at Harlem’s Nation of Islam Mosque No. 7. The title of the speech was “Black Man’s History.” As Malcolm X explained, the Twelve Major Imams and the Twelve Minor Imams were at the heart of Nation of Islam theology and were a part and parcel of Afro-centric cosmology:
• On this earth there are wise black men who can tune in and tell what’s going to happen in the future just as clear… as they ca see in the past… And they sit down and write history to last 25,000 years. After this history expires, they put it in a vault in the Holy City, Mecca, and write a new history. This has been going on and on and on. So, in the year one of the cycle in which we now live… there are Twenty-Four Wise Men. They’re spoken of in the Bible as Twenty-Four Elders or Twenty-Four Prophets or Twenty-Four Scientists or Twenty-Four Imams. Twelve of them are Major and Twelve of them are Minor… These Twenty-Three men are called together by this one, which makes twenty-four. And these Twenty-Four, these Twenty-Three presided over by the Twenty-Fourth, are spoken of in the Book of Revelation where John said he had a vision in heaven where there was a throne, and around the hrone were twenty-four elders. These Twenty-Four Elders are called Angels. They are Twenty-Four Wise Black Men who live right here on this Earth, but no one knows who they are.
• At the end of every 25,000 years, this one calls all of them into conference, and they sit down at the Holy City, Mecca, and he informs them that the history of the past 25,000 years has expired and it’s time to write a new history. So, these Twenty-Four, these Scientists, begin to tune in on the population of the planet Earth… These twenty-four Scientists begin to tune in, they look down through the wheel of time. They can tell not only what the people on this Earth are thinking, but they can tell what their children are thinking, what the unborn children’s children are thinking, what the unborn children’s children’s children a e thinking. They can look right down through the wheel of time and tell minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month, year-by-year, for 25,000 years exactly what is going to take place.
• The Twelve Major Imams and the Twelve Minor Imams also appear in the Autobiography of Malcolm X. Summarizing the theology of the Nation of Islam, he wrote that:
• Elijah Muhammad teaches that… the first humans, Original Man, were a black people. They founded the Holy City of Mecca. Among his black race were Twenty-Four Wise Scientists. One of the Scientists… created the especially strong black tribe of Shabazz, from which America’s Negroes, so-called, descend.
• Elijah Muhammad teaches that the greatest and mightiest God who appeared on the earth was Master W.D. Fard. He came from the East to the West, appearing in North America at a time when the history and the prophecy that is written was coming to realization, as the non-white people all over the world began to rise, and as the devil white civilization, condemned by Allah, was, through its devilish nature, destroying itself.
• Malcolm X taught Nation of Islam theology for fifteen years. His classes and lectures included lessons on the Twelve Divine Imams. The citations above support this point. Unfortunately, only a limited number of Malcolm’s speeches were recorded and only a small amount of his written sermons, lectures, and articles have survived. If one thing is clear, it is that Malcolm X transmi ted the teachings of Elijah Muhammad regarding the Twelve Imams.
• Fortunately, many of Elijah Muhammad’s speeches were recorded, and an impressive body of his writings have been printed in newspapers and books. If there is any doubt as to what Malcolm X was really talking about in the above-mentioned quotations, it evaporates when we examine the source of his teachings on the Twelve Imams: the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the final Messenger of Allah according to the Nation of Islam.
• The belief in the Twelve Imams of the so-called Ghulat Shiites was taught to Malcolm X by Elijah Muhammad. In the Supreme Wisdom, Elijah Muhammad explained that “There are 12 tribes, the 12 Imams is the real answer. Allah said that WE ONCE HAD 13 TRIBES, but one got lost.” As Elijah Muhammad learned from Master W.D. Fard,
• The knowledge of God has been kept a secret by Twelve Men on our planet for many thousands of years. The Twelve pass their knowledge on from son to son, but the number possessing this knowledge is never more than twelve; and they are not to ever reveal it.
• The belief that the exoteric and esoteric teachings of Islam were transmitted to the Imams via nass or appointment, light upon light, forms part of Sevener, Twelver, and so-called Ghulat Shiite teachings. According to Elijah Muhammad, the Council of the Twelve Imams gathered to discuss the fate and ultimate destiny of the war-mongering and irredeemable white race:
• Twelve Leaders from all over the Planet had a conference in the Holy City of Mecca, Arabia, over the Lost-Found Nation (the so-called Negroes) in the wilderness (America) who must return to their own. These Leaders agreed that the devils (the American white race) are disagreeable to live with in peace and have decided to remove them from the Planet Earth. I will agree with the Scientists, for we have tried to live with them in peace, even up to this very minute (400 years) and they yet show the world that they do not want any peace with any black people.
• As Elijah Muhammad explains, the Imams were not bound by space and time. They were not merely historical figures who lived from the seventh century until the ninth century. They were both transcendent and immanent. According to Elijah Muhammad, the Imams were watching over Moses when he tried, in vain, to reform the race of genetically altered white devils that had been created y Yakub, a mad scientist. Speaking of Yakub’s creation, he related that:
• Once they gave Moses so much trouble that he took a few sticks of dynamite, went up on the mountainside, placed them into the ground, and went back to get those who were giving him the most trouble. He said to them: “Stand there on the edge of this mountain and you will hear the voice of God.” They stood there about 300 in number. Moses set the fuse off, and it killed all of them.
• The Imams got after Moses for performing this trick on the devils. Moses said to the Imams: “If you only know how much trouble these devils give me, you would do as I do…” The Imams recognized the tremendous job Musa (Moses) had, trying to civilize the savages. Those enemies of the righteous black nation on earth now had to take the place as the rulers and conquerors of the ear h.
• Elijah Muhammad’s claim that the Twelve Imams were physically present at the time of Moses was not the product of personal fan asy. It was rooted in the Ghulat Shiite exegesis of a particular Qur’anic verse: “And you, [o Muhammad], were not on the western side [of the mount] when We revealed to Moses the command, and you were not among the witnesses [to that]” (28:44). The Ghulat Shiites believe that Imam ‘Ali spoke to Moses via the Burning Bush.  “Some extremist Shiites,” explains Matti Moosa, “believe that… ‘Ali is the one who spoke through Moses and the prophets.”
• As Elijah Muhammad explained, relying on the teachings he had received from Master W.D. Fard, the Twelve Imams existed prior to Yakub’s creation: “Jacob made, according to the Bible, 12 sons. Actually, Jacob could not produce the 12 Scientists. The 12 Scientists were already here.” The Imams even take precedence over the prophets of God. In fact, as Elijah Muhammad explained, the Twelve Imams appointed the messengers of God:
• I will not go out in the street and sit on the curb stone with my brother. I won’t boast that I’m greater than him, because he was created like me and he have the brains like me, which came with the creation, and he can make that brain do just what I’m doing if the Will of the power of the 12 Scientists of the God with him. He can do just what I’m doing. When a Messenger is chosen, they go and [confer] with these 12 to see whether or not they can do the job for which’s he’s now chosen. The 12 Gods, they decide on all this. We call them the 12 Great Scientists. This is why your ruler was made with 12 inches. It’s after the number of the 12 Major Scientists, and without this you cannot live. That’s why we call it a ruler when you have 12 square inches in it.
• The fact that Elijah Muhammad spoke of Twelve Imams and Twelve Great Scientists is telling. Traditions in Kulayni’s al-Kafi, o e of the major sources of traditions for Twelver Shiites, cite the Prophet Muhammad as saying both “The world cannot exist without an Imam” and “The world cannot exist without an ‘Alim,” namely, a Scholar or a Scientist. Since Elijah Muhammad was not proicient in Arabic, this suggests that his teacher, W.D. Fard, was familiar with the Arabic language and with the traditions in question which equate the a’immah or Imams with the ‘ulama’ or Scientists. If the world cannot exist without an Imam, argue the Seveners, the Twelvers, and the Ghulat, then the Imams existed before the Prophet Muhammad although some Twelvers might counter that the ‘alim prior to the Prophet was not necessarily one of the Twelve Imams. For the so-called Extremist Shiites, an esoteric Imam accompanied every exoteric prophet.
• As Elijah Muhammad explained, Yakub grafted the so-called devil white race, through a process of unnatural selection and selec ive breeding on the island of Pelan. The Twelve Imams came to realize that whites could never coexist peacefully with blacks. As much as they sent prophets and messengers to try to guide the white race, they were met, repeatedly, with abject failure. Moses failed, Jesus failed, and Muhammad failed. Evil by nature, W.D. Fard and Elijah Muhammad taught, the whites simply could not be reformed.
• After observing the plight of black Americans, and the wickedness of the whites who enslaved, segregated, and oppressed them, “the Twelve Scientists met to confer over the possibility of returning us [African Americans], the lost-founds in the wilderness of North America, to our own.” As far as Elijah Muhammad was concerned,
• The black nation is only fooling themselves to take the Caucasian race otherwise. This is what Jesus learned of their history, before he gave up his work of trying to convert the Jews or white race to the religion of Islam.
• And the same knowledge of them was given to Muhammad by the Imams (or Scientists) of Mecca. That is why the war of the Muslims against them came to a stop. Muhammad was told that he could not reform the devils and that the race had 1,400 more years to live; the only way to make righteous people (Muslims) out of them was to graft them back into the black nation.
• This grieved Muhammad so much that it caused him heart trouble until his death (age sixty-two and one-half years. The Old Scientists used to laugh at Muhammad for thinking that he could convert them (the devils) to Islam. This hurt his heart.
• He [Muhammad] gets the name (Praised) from the honor of the Twenty-Four Elders or Islamic Scientists.
• Master W.D. Fard was therefore sent from the East to the West by the Twelve Imams of the so-called Extremist Shiites in order o guide the Lost-Found Nation of Islam and bring Black Muslims back to their ancestral homeland in Asia and, if that were not possible, Elijah Muhammad would call for the creation of a black Asiatic homeland in the Americas where believers would await the wrath of Allah upon the white man.
• Although Elijah Muhammad described his teachings as a “New Islam” it was, to a certain extent, “Old Ghulat Shiism” that was adapted to an African American context, and which drew from disparate ideological influences. Just like the Ghulat, however, Elijah Muhammad’s teachings placed the historical Prophet Muhammad at a level that was inferior or subservient to that of the Twelve Imams. This coincides with the ‘Alawi-Nusayri creed, namely, the beliefs of the so-called Ghulat Shiites from Syria. As Matti Moosa explains,
• Muhammad has no lord but ‘Ali. As the creature of ‘Ali, Muhammad cannot be homologous with ‘Ali in his divinity. He must (and does) occupy an inferior position in the trinity of the Nusayris, as is clear from the Nusayri catechism, which charges Muhammad with the duty of calling the believers to the knowledge of their Lord ‘Ali.
• As further evidence of the so-called Extremist Shiite origins of the Nation of Islam, a high-ranking figure in the Nation of Islam reported in 1964 that W.D. Fard had left behind books before he disappeared: works that revealed that he had been sent to the West by “the Twelve Men of Mecca,” namely, the Twelve Imams themselves. During the same year, Elijah Muhammad claimed that his teacher, W.D. Fard, had returned to “Twelve Men of Mecca.” The mission of Master W.D. Fard therefore begins and ends with the Twelve Imams of the so-called Extremist Shiites.
• Tynetta Muhammad (1941-2015), who was born Tynetta Alethea Nelson, a secretary, mistress, or “secret wife” of Elijah Muhammad, who only revealed her role after his passing, shared many of the lessons that she had learned from her husband and prophet. They include the belief that:
• Two major groups of angelic hosts… are working with God in the Judgment. He identified One Group of the angelic hosts as being seven in number who perform a particular function in relationship to the elements of our earth and its atmosphere. The Second Group’s numbers is 12. They are identified as the Twelve Major Scientists, who know the Secret of God’s Divine Being. He further stated that he was in the Circle of the Twelve and the Seven.
• If we study the spectrum of Islam, the only groups that believe in the divine pre-existence of the Imams are the Shaykhis and certain Twelver Shiites who hold that the Imams have some control over the universe by the permission of God. Although the self-described theologically moderate and mainstream Sevener and Twelver Shiites believe that God created Muhammad, Fatimah, ‘Ali, Hasan and Husayn, and the rest of the Imams, prior to creating the world, they do not believe that they are supernatural entities that control the universe.
• Had Elijah Muhammad spoken solely of Twelve Imams, Scientists or Leaders, one could have spoken of a traditional Twelver Shiite influence on the teachings of the Nation of Islam. Considering that he described them explicitly as “God-Scientists,” namely, divine scholars, in the literal sense, the so-called Extremist Shiite implications appear to be inescapable.
• According to the teachings of W.D. Fard, the historical Prophet Muhammad, like Moses before him, tried to reform the white race. Knowledge of their supposedly diabolical nature, however, was “given to Muhammad by the Imams (or Scientists) of Mecca,“ “the Imams (or Scientists) of Mecca” made it clear to Muhammad that he could not convert the white race.” Elijah Muhammad also asserted that Master W.D. Fard was superior to them:
• The Twelve Major Imams, as they are called in Islam or in the Arab language, they don’t have this one’s knowledge [i.e.. Fard]. This one [Fard] has a superior knowledge and that the other Twelve Minor or the Twenty-Four Elders, as you find them in the last of the book here, casting down their crown to that One that is conquering the best and is delivering people from that beast.
• “In the Theology of Time,” notes Michael Lieb, “Elijah Muhammad describes himself as a ‘Messenger’ who acts in accordance with the ‘Twelve Scientists of God.’ He declares that he is ‘the Last Scientist or Prophet.’” Elijah Muhammad even asserted that he was the pole around which the Twelve Imams circumambulated, namely, he was the sun around which they orbited. He was, in his ow words, the New Qiblah or direction of prayer and the Real Muhammad:
• I’m Elijah of your Bible; I’m Muhammad of your Holy Qur’an. Not the Muhammad that was here 1400 years ago, I am the one that the Holy Qur’an is referring to. The Muhammad that was here 1400 years ago was a white man; then they put up a sign of the real Muhammad. It’s there in Mecca Arabia; they call it the little black stone. 
• Since he was, in his mind, the real Prophet Muhammad, Elijah Muhammad claimed that he had more knowledge than both the Antichrist and the Imams. In his words: “The Lamb is here opening that which the Beast nor even the Scientist of heaven has ever known - not even the 24 Scientists who wrote our history.”
• Elijah Muhammad claimed that “there’s very little of God’s creation that He has not taught me something about it, because He put me as His second self, that’s what I am. I’m the second self of God Almighty.” This resembles traditions attributed to the Twelve Imams in which they claim to have knowledge of the unseen. It also evokes Ghulat and semi-Ghulat Shiite art in which ‘Ali and Allah are treated as mirrors of one another. Elijah Muhammad, if we are to believe him, was the Face of Allah.
• Like al-Hallaj (c. 858-922), the Persian Sufi mystic, poet, and teacher, who proclaimed that “I am the Truth,” and who was co demned to death for heresy, Elijah Muhammad stated that he had reached a state of divine union with the Divinity. In one particularly euphoric moment, he proclaimed that “Allah has taken over the Messenger’s heart, mind, and brain, and Allah is making them react according to His Will… The Apostle is considered one in Allah and Allah is one in the Apostle.” In other words, his human side, his self, and his ego, had disappeared. He had dissolved into the Divine, namely, nothing remained but God.
• As Antony B. Pinn explains, the Imams were not men: they were God-Scientists, namely,  divinities who wrote human history. Mas er Fard Muhammad, however, had the distinction of being Allah Himself, the Supreme Twenty-Fourth Scientist. In other words, he is the God that will bring judgment to the white man. As Elijah Muhammad expounded,
• We make history every 25,000 years. When such history is written, it is done by twenty-four of our Scientists. One acts as judge or God for the others and twenty-three actually do the work of getting up the future of the nation… The original black nation used 23 Scientists to write the future of that nation for the next 25,000 years, and the 24th is the judge or the one God, Allah.
• On February 26, 1974, as part of his Saviour’s Day address, Elijah Muhammad asserted that:
• This date is taken from the beginning of the present CYCLE OF WORLD HISTORY WRITINGS BY 24 BLACK SCIENTISTS of which only 23 actually do the writing, and the 24th one acts as judge of the writings of the other 23. This takes place once every 25,000 years. In this history is written everything that will come to pass for the next 25,000 years.
• According to the teachings of W.D. Fard, as transmitted by Elijah Muhammad, the race of white devils was created by the Council of Twenty-Four God-Scientists or Imams:
• Six thousand years ago, or to be more exact, 6,600 years ago, as Allah taught me, our nation gave birth to another god whose name was Yakub. He started studying the life germ of man to try and make a new creation (new man) which our twenty-four Scientists had foretold eight thousand four hundred years before the birth of Mr. Yakub; and the Scientists were aware of his birth, beore he was born, as they are today of the intentions or ideas of the present world.
• These Twenty-Four Divine Scientists include Twelve Major and Twelve Minor Imams. As Anthony B. Pinn elucidates,
• Master Fard Muhammad is Supreme Deity during our current twenty-five-thousand-year period. Fard is not, however, the “First” who began creation but is Allah, who has the same knowledge as the “First” creator.
• The belief in Twenty-Four Imams, Twelve Major and Twelve Minor traces back to the so-called Ghulat or Extremist Shiites. The ‘Alawi-Nusayris believe in Twelve Imams, Twelves Naqibs, Twelve Apostles of Jesus, and Twelve Captains of Israel… The Ghulat, the semi-Ghulat, and other associated groups, such as the Bektashis, the Qizilbash, and the ‘Ali-Ilahis, all exalt the Twelve Imams. As Farhad Daftary notes, the Tayyibi-Ismailis, who are Sevener Shiites, believe in twenty-three absolute missionaries who represent al-Tayyib, the Hidden Imam, during his occultation.
• As Elijah Muhammad related, W.D. Fard revealed to him that “My name is Mahdi; I am God. I came to guide you into the right path that you may be successful and see the hereafter.” Far from a fabrication of Elijah Muhammad, Master W.D. Fard’s claims of divinity were confirmed in newspaper reports from 1932. When asked to identify himself, he calmly and confidently informed the Det oit Police Department that he was “the Supreme Being.”
• From the time he arrived in Detroit’s Paradise Valley on July 4, 1930, Master W.D. Fard assumed the role of the God-Imam of the so-called Ghulat Shiites. He presented himself as a prophet, the Mahdi, the Hidden Imam, and eventually as Allah Himself. After four years of initiating his followers into his esoteric doctrines, which were drawn, in part, from so-called Extremist Shiism, he entered a state of occultation which would reportedly last until he returns to annihilate the white supremacist world order.
• Far from being the product of his own creative genius, Elijah Muhammad’s teachings on the Twelve Imams seem to have been derived directly and faithfully from his own teacher: the mysterious Asiatic mystic known as W.D. Fard. According to this fascinating, but fleeting, figure from the East, creation was the product of Allah, the “Cosmic Intellect” or the “Black Intellect.” The Essence of Allah, however, is transcendent and unfathomable.
• From this Eternal Blackness, which is Allah, emanated the Divine Council of Twelve Major and Minor Imams, who are also known as Leaders, Scientists, and Gods. These Divine Imams are black men. They live upon the earth, mingle among the people, and hold meetings in Mecca, but their identity remains hidden. They control all creation, have knowledge of all things, and write the future in a Guarded Tablet. They are the manifestations and incarnations of Allah: God in Person. The Twelve Imams, as a Divine Council, appear in “The Problem Book” that forms part of W.D. Fard’s Supreme Wisdom Lessons: “Twelve Leaders of Islam from all ove the Planet have conferred in the Root of Civilization concerning the Lost-Found Nation of Islam - must return to their original Land.”
• After reading the citations in question, mainstream Muslims, both Sunnis and Shiites, would have a challenging time finding any semblance of so-called Islamic orthodoxy in such teachings. The theology of the W.D. Fard, Elijah Muhammad, and the Nation of Islam is drawn from a wide variety of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic sources. It includes elements from Rastafarianism, which surfaced at the same time as the Nation of Islam, along with Theosophy, Gnosticism, Freemasonry, and Ufology. It also draws from the teachings of the Jehovah Witnesses and apocalyptic Baptists. The unifying factor or the glue that holds all these disparate doctrines together derives from Twelver and Sevener Islam, not in their mainstream forms, but rather, in their so-called Extremist or Ghulat off-shoots.
• According to the dominant view, the belief that the Twelve Imams were gods has no basis in mainstream Twelver Shiism. They may have been perceived to be godly and godlike, but they were not gods. The only people in the Muslim world who view the Twelve Imams as omniscient divinities who govern the world are the so-called Ghulat or Extremist Shiites. As Shaykh Saduq (d. 991) stated in his Shiite Creed:
• Our belief concerning those who exceed the bounds of belief (ghal, plural ghulat) and those who believe in delegation (al-mufawwida) is that they are deniers (kuffar) of Allah, Glory be to His name. They are more wicked than the Jews, the Christians, the Fire-Worshippers, the Qadarites or the Kharijites (haruriyyah), or any of the heretics (ahl a1-bid‘ah) or those who hold views which lead astray. None have belittled Allah more, Glory be to Him; as Allah says:
• “It is not possible for any human being unto whom Allah has given the scripture and wisdom and the prophethood that he should afterwards have said unto mankind: Be slaves of me instead of Allah; but (what he said was): Be ye faithful servants of the Lord by virtue of your constant teaching of the Scripture and of your constant study thereof” (Qur’an 3:79). “And he commanded you not that ye should take the angels and the prophets for lords. Would he command you to disbelieve after ye had become Muslims?” (Qur’an 3:80)
• And He said, Mighty and Glorious is He: “Do not be excessive in your belief.” (Qur’an 4:171, 5:77)
• Despite some of the evidence above, some scholars might still question whether the Twelve Imams and God-Scientists of W.D. Fard are connected to the Twelve Imams of the so-called Ghulat Shiites. If so, then it is important to pan out and place this belief in the broader context of the teachings of the Nation of Islam as imparted by W.D. Fard to Elijah Muhammad.
• As I have detailed in Finding W.D. Fard: Unveiling the Identity of the Founder of the Nation of Islam, W.D. Fard taught his followers to believe in Twelve Imams. He taught them that the Imams controlled creation. He taught them that the Imams were gods. He taught them that there were Twenty-Four Imams in total: Twelve Major Imams and Twelve Minor Imams. As the Nusayri catechism, Kitab ta‘alim al-diniyyah al-nusayriyyah explains, God appeared on earth in human form. For example, God took the form of ‘Ali and took the Prophet Muhammad as his veil. Likewise, the God-Imam have Veils or Gates. In this context, the Twelve Imams could e viewed as the Major Imams while their Agents would be viewed as the Minor Imams.
• W.D. Fard also taught his disciples to believe in cycles of time. He taught them that Heaven and Hell were allegorical. He taught them to believe in reincarnation or the transmigration of souls. He taught them that there were prophets after Muhammad. He taught them a tripartite profession of faith. And he taught them the belief in a race of infidels, devils, and demons. All these teachings resemble those shared by the Ghulat Shiites with the one difference that the devils, for the so-called Ghulat, were not a race but rather anyone outside their sect. After all, W.D. Fard also spoke about black devils and admitted that whites could be Muslims.
• In light of this evidence, it could be argued that the teachings of W.D. Fard, Elijah Muhammad, and the Nation of Islam are a adical Western religious expression of radical Eastern religious ideas: the doctrines shared by the Ghulat, the semi-Ghulat, and associated fringe and derivative groups, namely, the Alevis, the Bektashis, the ‘Alawi-Nusayris, the Qizilbash/Kizilbash, the Mufawwidah, the Ahl-i Haqq or ‘Ali-Ilahis, the Çepni or Takhtaji, the Shabak, the Bajwan, the Ibrahimiyyah, the Safawiyyah, the Sarliyyah-Kakaiyyah, the Druze, the Shaykhis, the Babis, and the Baha’i. If one studies Nation of Islam doctrine with only knowledge of normative or orthodox Islam, the teachings of W.D. Fard, as conveyed by Elijah Muhammad, do not completely fit the mold. However, if one studies the teachings of the Nation of Islam with a full understanding of so-called Ghulat Shiism and its associated sects, it seems to fit the pattern relatively well.
• Critics may claim that the evidence presented does not support the thesis that the Twelve Imams mentioned in the teachings of W.D. Fard, Elijah Muhammad, and the Nation of Islam are the Twelve Imams of Twelver Shiism. They most certainly are not. They find their theological roots in the Twelve Imams of so-called Ghulat Shiism. The fact that W.D. Fard, Elijah Muhammad, and Malcolm X often referred to them as “Scientists,” “Leaders,” and “Elders” does not demonstrate that they were not the Twelve Imams of the Extremist Shiites.
• There was a tendency in the Nation of Islam to use English instead of Arabic terminology: “temples” instead of “mosques” and “scientists” instead of “Imams,” “leaders,” and “scholars.” However, the fact that Elijah Muhammad referred to them as Twelve Imams is telling, particularly during a period in which many English speakers were unfamiliar with basic Arabic and Islamic terminology.
• What is more, the fact that W.D. Fard described his place of prayer as a temple, as opposed to a mosque, does not suggest that he was ignorant of Islam. On the contrary, it suggests that he came from a Shiite background. After all, many Shia groups prefer not to call their places of worship “mosques.” They tend to prefer the words husayniyyah, markaz, and jami‘. The Shia also do not refer to their shuyukh, scholars and elders, as Imams, and likewise, the Nation of Islam uses the term “ministers.”
• Critics may claim that the Twelve Major Imams of W.D. Fard, Elijah Muhammad, and the Nation of Islam are black men, that they exist contemporaneously while the Twelve Shiite Imams lived in successive generations, and that there are always twelve in existence at one time, while there is only one Shiite Imam who is the Lord of the Age at any one time.
• The claim that the Twelve Imams of W.D. Fard, Elijah Muhammad, and the Nation of Islam cannot be connected to the Twelve Imams of the Ghulat Shiites since they were black is not sound. As far as W.D. Fard was concerned, there were only two races: the white and the black. Consequently, anyone who was not white, namely Yakubian ancestry, was considered black. Hence, if the Twelve Imams were Arabs, or anything other than European, they were people of color in the mind of W.D. Fard.
• Amina Inloes claims that the seventh Imam, Musa al-Kazim, was 50% African, that the eighth Imam, ‘Ali al-Rida was 75% African, that the ninth Imam, Muhammad al-Taqi was 88% African, that the tenth Imam, ‘Ali al-Naqi, was 94% African, that the eleventh Imam, Hasan al-Askari was 97% African while the twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi was 98.4% African.
• While several of the Twelve Imams are alleged to have had black African wives, I have challenged this assertion in “Concerning the Color of Adam, the Prophets, and the Imams” which appears in Restoring the Balance: Using the Qur’an and the Sunnah to Guide a Return to the Prophet’s Islam and in Shiism in the Maghrib and al-Andalus. Despite claims to the contrary, a serious study of the evidence suggests that the women in question came from North Africa, not sub-Saharan Africa.
• Amina Inloes does not acknowledge the difference between so-called black Africans and so-called white Africans. She decided to group both North Africa and the Horn of Africa together as “African,” reasoning that “they are both on the same continent.” The fact of the matter is that sub-Saharan Africans and North African Imazighen belong to different genetic and ethnic groups. Their history, language families, and cultures are distinct. Both white Russians and Chinese people have historically lived on the Asian continent. However, they cannot be viewed as members of the same genetic, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural group. They are distinct.
• The later Imams were not 98.4% black African. They were primarily Berber or Amazigh, a people of Caucasian ancestry, whose DNA and language family traces back to the Caspian Sea. Tens of thousands of years ago, they set off on a mass migration from Eurasia and settled in North Africa. Although they were influenced by other cultures, European DNA only left a trace contribution to the Imazighen. As a result of Islamization and Arabization, some of them have mixed with other populations, including Arabs, Jews, Europeans, and black Africans. Some Imazighen have black African DNA through their maternal lines as a result of slavery. Genetic studies, however, have shown that the Imazighen remain mainly Eurasian in ancestry. They are not black and do not identify as black.
• While the attempt by Amina Inloes to blacken some of the Arab-Berber Imams, turning them into black African Imams, has no basis in history, linguistics, culture, and genetics, it does, however, have a basis in the theology of W.D. Fard, who was influenced by so-called Ghulat Shiism, and appears to have based his beliefs on some isolated traditions, found in Shiite sources, that suggest that some of the Imams were of black African ancestry through their maternal lines. The painting of the Twelve Imams produced by Amina Inloes, in which many of them appear to be black Africans, and in which they sit in a V shape, with Imam ‘Ali at the forefront, and Imam Mahdi at the back left, captures quite well the Council of the Twelve Imams, the God-Scientists, as conceived by Master W.D. Fard. If the founder of the Nation of Islam conceived the Twelve Imams as black, it was because of his belief, acquired in the United States through contact with immigration law, that only people of European ancestry were legally white. Consequently, all others were people of color, concluded W.D. Fard, belonged to the black race.
• Finally, while it is true that the Twelve Imams of the Twelver Shiites were historical figures, who did not all live together at the same time, Twelver Shiites believe that they were created prior to the creation of the universe while the so-called Ghulat Shiites view them as manifestations of God and incarnations of the divine who transcend both time and space. So, the Twelve Imams of the Twelver Shiites are different from the Twelve Imams of the Nation of Islam. The Twelve Imams of the Nation of Islam, however, do share many of the characteristics of the Twelve Imams of the so-called Ghulat Shiites. For some scholars, the connection seems convincing. For others, it seems suggestive.
• The Twelve Imams played a pivotal role in the theology of W.D. Fard that was taught by Elijah Muhammad to Malcolm X. As a minister in the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X used to preach about the Twelve Imams to congregations and audiences around the United States. His understanding of the Twelve Imams, however, did not coincide with so-called orthodox, mainstream, and normative Twelver Shiism. Along with an extensive list of other doctrines, Malcolm X’s belief in the Twelve Imams seems to fall into a so-called Ghulat Shiite framework. Although it was called the Nation of Islam, the movement to which Malcolm X belonged was only nominally Islamic in the eyes of so-called mainstream Muslims. It shares little in common with so-called orthodox Islam, be it Sunni or Shiite. It does, however, fit well into the mold of Ghulat Shiism in its multifarious manifestations and bifurcations.
• CHAPTER 4 THE ORIGIN OF W.D. FARD’S “ACTUAL FACTS”
• By Bilal Muhammad
• “He began teaching us the knowledge of ourselves, of God and the devil, of the measurement of the earth, of other planets, and of the civilization of some of the planets other than earth. He measuredand weighed the earth and its water; the history of the moon, the history of the two nations, black and white that dominate the earth.” — Elijah Muhammad
• “[He] gave us the measurement of our earth - the land and thewater - and gave us the distance between the planets… every timewe look around, the white scientists [are] fixing their measurements, coming closer and closer to that which you know and haveknown since 1930 in this city of Detroit. You’ve been blessed,but you don’t know your blessings.” — Louis Farrakhan
• W.D. Fard, the man venerated as “God in Person” by the African American Nation of Islam (NOI), was an enigmatic teacher that was active in Detroit and Chicago between 1930 and 1934. Many of his teachings were compiled into The Supreme Wisdom, a book containing lessons on geography, mathematics, and NOI theology and history. The Supreme Wisdom is often memorized verbatim by NOI adherents, including by children at the NOI’s University of Islam schools.
• One of the documents in The Supreme Wisdom is called “Actual Facts,” which provides numerical figures for the square mileage, circumference, and diameter of the Earth, as well as the square mileage of land, water, hills and mountains, islands, and deserts. As a modern and quasi-naturalistic religion, the NOI puts some emphasis on incorporating the empirical sciences in their teachings. “Islam is Mathematics,” The Supreme Wisdom says. White people are said to be the product of a scientist using a form of eugenics. The War of Armageddon would be brought about by a UFO-like Mother Plane built in Japan. The holy scriptures were writ en by a council of scientists. As elaborated by Edward E. Curtis, “the Nation of Islam emphasized scientific, material, and empirical over spiritual and supernatural understandings of religion.”
• But where did W.D. Fard get his figures from in his “Actual Facts“? For the NOI, Fard is God in Person, and “he stood and measured the earth” (Habakkuk 3:6). In the earlier quotation, Farrakhan suggested that white scientists’ estimation of the Earth’s measurements is gradually getting closer to the miraculous measurements of The Supreme Wisdom.
• However, Fard was also a resourceful man: he used both the Bible and the Qur’an, he assigned 104 books from the Library of Congress (or 150 books) to Elijah Muhammad, and he taught from Breasted James Henry’s The Conquest of Civilization and Judge Rutherford’s Deliverance! It is thus likely that he supplemented his scientific teachings with published works as well. This recalls the Islamic teaching that God sent 104 books to humanity. For example, al-Bayhaqi reported that al-Hasan al-Basri said: “God sent down 104 books.”
• As it turns out, The World Almanac and Book of Facts, a popular reference work published every year since 1886, is probably the source of Fard’s “Actual Facts.” The almanac was used by U.S. presidents Calvin Coolidge, John F. Kennedy, and Bill Clinton. Over the years, the almanac became a household name and has been featured in several Hollywood films and television appearances. “Actual Facts” says that
• The total area of the land and water of the planet Earth is 196,940,000 square miles… The area of the Water is 139,685,000 square miles… The area of the Land is 57,255,000 square miles … The Atlantic Ocean covers 41,321,000 square miles… The Pacific Ocean covers 68,634,000 square miles… The Indian Ocean covers 29,430,000 square miles… The Lakes and Rivers cover 1,000,000 square miles… The Islands are 1,910,000 square miles… The circumference of the planet Earth is 24,896 miles.
• The 1928 edition of The World Almanac and Book of Facts - published just two years before W.D. Fard appeared in Detroit - has he exact same figures.
• /
• (Figure 4.1: The World Almanac.Library of Congress and Internet Archive. Public domain)
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• (Figure 4.2: The World Almanac.Library of Congress and Internet Archive. Public domain)
• The 1923 edition of the almanac (available for free online) also gives the same figures for the diameter of the Earth and the Earth’s fertile regions. The facts appear to have been revised by the National Geographic Society of Washington, DC, “from the latest available figures and estimates.” The almanac has also been available at the Library of Congress since the 1920s.
• Despite these statistics being used nearly a century ago, they are remarkably close to today’s estimates - but they are not exact. With the advent of space travel and the invention of GPS, it is likely that today’s figures are more factual than what is seen in “Actual Facts.” Still, Fard did not simply fabricate these numbers - he consulted a prominent and respected sourcebook.
• The more we discover about W.D. Fard, the more we learn that he was an adaptable man that stitched various fabrics into the ga b in which he would gown his Nation. He was the product of an era of technological advancement, millenarianism, eugenics, numerology, and interreligious exchange. He was a traveler that never stayed exceedingly long in the same place, and he absorbed various influences from every place he went to. While he did not literally measure the Earth in his travels, we can at least measure where this part of his teaching came from.
• CHAPTER 5 NOTES ON THE CHICAGO TEMPLE OF ISLAM: ONE OF THE EARLIEST ACCOUNTS OF W.D. FARD’S DOCTRINES
• By John Andrew Morrow
• “I am W.D. Fard and I came from the Holy City of Mecca. More about myself I will not tell you yet, for the time has not yet come. I am your brother. You have not yet seen me in my royal robes.”— W.D. Fard
• The older the source, the better, hold historians. Unfortunately, for the longest time, researchers were limited to writings f om the 1960s regarding the Nation of Islam. One of the rare exceptions was Edrmann Doane Beynon’s (1892-1943) article on “The Voodoo Cult Among Negro Migrants in Detroit” which was published in 1938. Fortunately, over time, earlier sources have surfaced, and we have now reached a point where we have letters written by W.D. Fard himself.
• Among the earliest accounts of Fard’s doctrines are the “Notes on the Chicago Temple of Islam” that were produced by the Illinois Writers Project. Commenced in 1935, as part of President Frank Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, it was tasked with documenting the black American experience in Illinois from 1776-1942. Although its findings were intended to be published as a book, the project, which was supervised by Arna Bontemps (1902-1973) and writer Jack Conroy (1899-1990), and which included many notable participants, was cancelled in 1942. Both Bontemps and Conroy co-authored They Seek a City (1945), a work that explores black American migration in the twentieth century and one in which the MSTA and W.D. Fard are mentioned.
• The collection of papers was stored at the Chicago Public Library. Some of the papers were published in The Negro in Illinois: The WPA Papers in 2011. However, the collection itself was only digitized in 2018. Long ignored, its study on W.D. Fard and the Chicago Temple of Islam is paramount for the simple reason that it was started in 1935, shortly after W.D. Fard was alive and present in Detroit and Chicago, and completed in 1939, when the Nation of Islam was still in its infancy. It provides us a short snapshot of W.D. Fard’s doctrines before Elijah Muhammad further developed them. The priceless account reads as follows:
• “The Asiatic black man is the original man, the ruler of the universe, the eight inhabited planets, and of this planet earth. Islam is the true religion. A religion which can be proved by mathematics in a limit of time.”
• “The Moslems have the wisdom. We’re not afraid of the devil this so-called white man. We walk right up to them. They’re afraid of you if you’ve got the Truth. Just tell ‘em, ‘White man, you’re a devil. You were grafted from the original black man.” He’ll say, ‘Yes, you’re right.’ He’ll admit it ‘cause you got the power. Just say, “You’re a beast, you’ve got one-third animal blood.’ He won’t deny it, ‘cause it’s true. When they were driven from the Holy City of Mecca they lived in the Caves of Europe and mingled with the beasts.”
• “Christianity is the religion of the so-called white man. Have you ever noticed that the very things he teaches us that the Devil does is the very things he is doing? He is the Devil.”
• These quotations from a sermon by a minister of a Chicago Temple of Islam outline certain primary beliefs of the sect, founded in Detroit during 1930 by a Negro peddler named W.D. Fard, who presumably hailed from the Orient.
• Fard, shortly after his appearance in Detroit, announced modestly: “I am W.D. Fard and I came from the Holy City of Mecca. More about myself I will not tell you yet, for the time has not yet come. I am your brother. You have not yet seen me in my royal robes.” He proclaimed that his mission was to secure “freedom, justice, and equality” for his “uncle” living in “the wilderness of North America, surrounded and robbed completely by the cave man.” Cult members soon employed “uncle” as a symbolical term for all Negroes of North America, while the white man was always referred to as “a cave man,” a “Satan,” or “Caucasian devil.”
• The Temple of Islam frequently found itself in conflict with the Detroit authorities. One zealot was involved in a ritual murder, and parents refused to send their children to the “white devil’s” schools, preferring the University of Islam where “righteous” learning was imparted. At the University children were taught Moslem knowledge as an antidote to the “tricknology” of the Caucasians. The Board of Education intervened; the Moslems retaliated with minor riots. Sensational newspaper accounts so magnified these incidents that the Nation of Islam assumed the proportions of a serious menace to peace and was labelled “the voodoo cult.” Temple of Islam Number Two was established in Chicago sometime late in 1933 or during the early part of 1934. At about the same time, Fard vanished from Detroit and, if available records are to be credited, has not been seen since. Many of his followers, identifying Fard with Allah, maintained that he had returned to Mecca, the Islam[ic] heaven whence he came.
• Fard, according to reports, helped Elijah Mohammed to organize Temple No. 2 in Chicago, bestowing “righteous” (i.e., “Original”) names upon eight hundred new Moslems. Like the Moorish American Science Temple, the Temple of Islam has been torn by internal dissension, a rival group hawing been established in 1935 by one of the original Temple ministers shortly after the first Chicago prophet, Elijah Mohammed, departed to spread the gospel of Islam in other localities. Since then Elijah’s movements, like those of Fard, have been the subject of almost pure conjecture. Elijah Mohammed’s son, Emmanuel Mohammed, assumed charge on the eve of the cult’s most serious encounter with the police. A streetcar quarrel participated in by a Moslem woman led to a battle in the Woman’s Court, with cult members determined to “stand by their sister.” Two cultists were wounded by gunfire, and 43 persons were placed under arrest. The Chicago Tribune confused the Temple of Islam with the Moorish American Science Temple and W.D. Fard with Noble Drew Ali. In an article published March 6, 1935,
• Their “Moorish” names puzzled the police until [L]ing Shah disclosed that the Prophet of their order, W.D. Fard, or Fard Mohammed, or Elijah [Mohammed] had christened them thus last spring. A police search for Prophet Fard was started but he could not be found last night. He was described as born in the holy City of Mecca in 1877, who came to America on July 4, 1930.
• The fezzes and red robes, which the cultists also wore, apparently were rented… The “Allah Temple of Islam,” which propounds the theory that all blacks are Moors and not Negroes, is a secret organization of national proportions, investigation disclosed. The original prophet, one Noble Drew Ali, who began his career as a New Jersey expressman, appears to have left Chicago, which once was his headquarters, the police said. The Chicago temple is said to be an offshoot of Drew’s original group. A complete system of military procedure, apparently drafted almost word for word from the army manual, governs the conduct of members.
• Services of the temple are based upon manuals prepared by Prophet Fard. Only one of these, Teachings for the Lost Found Nation of Islam in a Mathematical Way, Consisting of Thirty-Four Problems is printed. Secret Ritual of the Nation of Islam, Part I. in 14 Secs and Secret Ritual of the Nation of Islam, Part II in 40 Secs. must be memorized by each member, and no written copies ever are in evidence. These manuals, being largely symbolic, are practically unintelligible to outsiders. The first consists of thirty-four “problems,” several of which are read to the congregation at each formal service. The following is a typical example:
• A lion, in a cage, walks back and forth sixty feet per minute, seeking a way out of the cage. It took him nearly four centuries to find the door. Now, with modern equipment, he is walking three thousand feet per minute, and he has three thousand miles by two thousand miles to go yet. How long will it take him to cover this territory of said three thousand miles by two thousand miles? He also has seventeen million keys, which he turns at the rate of sixteen and seventeen one-hundredths per minute. How long will it take him to turn the whole seventeen million? The above figures do not include rusty locks.
• A cult member has offered a partial solution of this problem by disclosing that the lion in the cage is the “original man,” or Asiatic, held in bondage for four centuries within a trap fabricated by the “Caucasian devil.” The seventeen million keys represent a like number of Asiatics held in bondage in the “wilderness of North America.” “Modern equipment” is the teachings of Islam by which the “original man” progresses rapidly toward emancipation. Rusty locks are recalcitrant “originals” who have not yet accepted Islam.
• The following are the important rules (one for each letter of the alphabet) for the guidance of Temple People;
• a) All persons entering the Temple must be searched - products of the Caucasian Devil’s art must not be taken into the Temple, such as weapons, mirrors, fingernail files, cosmetics, cigarettes, medicines, etc.
• b) All men leaving the Temple for the washroom must be searched upon their return to the Temple.
• c) All men sit in a body in the front section of the Temple.
• d) All women sit in the rear station.
• e) All men use the right aisle of the Temple.
• f) All women use the left aisle.
• g) All men salute each other when passing.
• h) Outside the Temple the women salute each other with a kiss on the side of the face.
• i) All Moslems must greet each other with the Moslem greeting, “As Salaam Alaikum.”
• j) Moslems eat only one meal a day: orange juice or cocoa in the morning and a big meal at 4:00 o’clock.
• k) The eating of pork is forbidden.
• l) Tobacco is forbidden.
• m) Alcohol is forbidden.
• n) Moslems fast 18 days per year: Ministers and Officials fast 3 or 4 days per week: A Mohammed’s family fast seven days. A Prophet fast[s] twenty-three days.
• o) A Moslem must not cross his legs while seated in the Temple.
• p) A ninety-day suspension is given for sleeping during service.
• q) A Moslem mother must wear full length dresses to cover her feet.
• r) A Moslem woman must wear low heel shoes.
• s) A Moslem woman’s hat must cover her hair.
• t) A Moslem girl must wear her dresses below her knees.
• u) A Moslem woman must not use cosmetics.
• v) A Moslem woman must not use hair preparations.
• w) A follower must attend the university from 3 to 9 months in order to master the teachings and become a Moslem.
• x) No Caucasian must enter the Temple.
• y) 150 lbs. is the “righteous” weight for Moslem men.
• z) A Moslem woman’s place is in the home: A Girl must be accompanied on the streets by her father or brother.
• “Registered Moslems” maintain that the “white devil’s spook civilization” actually ended in 1914 and is now existing on borrowed time. Temple ministers sketch on a blackboard a strange device, apparently designed to represent a new planet discovered by Elijah Mohammed, and explains:
• This is the Mother’s Airplane, the Wheel in a wheel, that Elijah saw. This planet is visible at 3 a.m. … it moves a little forward then a little backwards and then goes straight up. There are 15,000 planes coming out of the Mother’s Airplane… these planes will drop pamphlets to the earth warning the people of the “Holy War.” On one of these planes there will be a black brother (Moslem) who will blow a siren; it will be blown by steam and some of our eardrums will burst because it will be so loud this is what the devil calls the trumpet that will sound but it won’t be no trumpet. When the siren sounds, there will be a brother on every corner who will tell you to run… so RUN!! DON’T STOP... because it may take you eight days. Don’t go back home, if you have a wife and child there will be a brother there to look after them. The planes will drop bombs with steel points that will go a mile into the earth. Each bomb will destroy fifty square miles. The earth will be turned up and will be a lake of fire and Allah will cut a circuit and start a fire in the air. This planet (indicating the center of the wheel) is forty miles in the air and the people that inhabit it are black people. The Caucasian devil can only go six miles up in the air. The black man controls gravity.
• Temple members are emphatic in their denunciations of Roosevelt and the New Deal. In their opinion, the WPA and all other alphabetical agencies are subtle efforts on the part of the white men to save what is left of their dying civilization by getting the black men to sign up with them and be given a number. They eschew social security numbers and relief case numbers as manifestations of the “white devils” aptitude in “tricknology.” “Roosevelt,” reads a piece of typewritten Temple literature, “gave you a social security number just to hold you and now he’s getting ready to call in these numbers and give you a stamp… He’s going to put a stamp on you, the mark of the beast. You signed up with the devil and he gives you the filthy crumbs from his table like the rich man gave the man Lazarus.”
• Since this is the basic attitude of members toward WPA and other agencies, the Temple People do their best to keep off work relief and off relief in general as much as possible. Such data as is available indicates that by and large, a slightly larger per cent of them hold private jobs than is true of similar numbers of Negroes in the same strata of society. Their work habits, [the] available reports indicate, are better than average. Undoubtedly this is partly due to their pride, their feeling of superiority. In part, also, it is due to the rigid rules of the church concerning the use of liquor and tobacco, both of which are foridden. For the same reason, their homes are immaculate for the most part, their general habits are simple and clean. Like their daily lives, their ceremonies are marked by calm and simplicity. There is no “talking in tongues,” no shouting, moaning, leapi g, clapping - none of the violent activity associated with Negro “storefront” and “holy roller” churches.
• The study includes a library index card with the following short bibliography on the Moslem Cult, including, Beynon, Erdmann. “The Voodoo Cult among Negro Migrants in Detroit.” (Amer. Jour. of Soc. May 1938): 43: 894-907; Fisher, Miles. “Negroes Get Religion” Opportunity, No. 5 14: 147-50 May 1936, with a note that says, “very little;” Fisher, Miles M. “Organized Religion and the Cults.” Crisis Jan. 1937 44:8 with a note that says “good;” Crabites, Pierre. “American Negro Mohammedans” Catholic World 136: 559-66 Feb. 1933; and Davenport, F.M. “Religion of American Negro.” Contemporary Review 88: 369-75 Sept. 1905. It is not enti ely clear whether the researchers used these books or whether a librarian later attached the card. In addition, the study also relied on notes, transcripts, original histories, and original manuscripts. The researchers and writers in questions attended Temple of Islam meetings between 1935 and 1939 and relied on its literature.
• While much can be said about the “Notes on the Chicago Temple of Islam,” which was researched and written between 1935 and 193 , but only digitized in 2018, this commentary and analysis will focus on some of its most salient features. We can see that in the thirties, the notion of the “Asiatic black man” was well-established. Not only was he “the original man,” but he was “the Ruler of the Universe.” Hence, when W.D. Fard told police that he was “the Supreme Ruler of the Universe,” he was not necessarily stating that he, and only he, was God, but that all black people were collectively gods. According to John Muhammad, W.D. Fard taught that “there was no God up above, that God was in us, and… we were gods.” The identification with Islam was strong. “Islam,” it is proclaimed, “is the true religion.” And not only that, but it “can be proved by mathematics.” This aligns with the Supreme Wisdom teaching that “Mathematics… is Islam and Islam is Mathematics.”
• Not only are Moslems wise, but they are “not afraid of the devil this so-called white man.” The “Notes on the Chicago Temple o Islam” confirm that early Black Muslims boasted about confronting white people:
• We talk right up to them. They’re afraid of you if you’ve got the Truth. Just tell ‘em, “White man, you’re a devil. You were g afted from the original black man.” He’ll say, “Yes, you’re right.” He’ll admit it ‘cause you got the power. Just say, “You’re a beast, you’ve got one-third animal blood.” He won’t deny it, ‘cause it’s true. When they were driven from the Holy City of Mecca they lived in the Caves of Europe and mingled with the beasts.
• The notion that “Christianity is the religion of the so-called white man” was well-rooted. It ignored the fact that, even in the early 1930s, most Christians throughout the world were people of color. This included African Americans, Latinos, Mestizos, indigenous people, and Afro-descendants throughout the Caribbean, North America, Central America, South America, the Pacific, and black Africa. Christianity has always had deep roots in Africa, particularly in Abyssinia or Ethiopia.
• Black Americans were being asked to compare the white man’s description of the Devil with their actions. When it came to the white man, Black Muslims were adamant: “He is the Devil.” There was nothing more radical than that. All the citations were made, not by rank-and-file Black Muslims, but by a minister at the Chicago Temple of Islam. The use of the term temple, as opposed to mosque, or other terms, was typical of many secret societies at the time: the Freemasons, the Shriners, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Ordo Templi Orientis, the Moorish Science Temple of America, and many others.
• Interestingly, the researchers who attended Temple of Islam meetings in the mid-1930s, shortly after W.D. Fard was traveling between Detroit and Chicago, identified him as a “Negro peddler… who presumably hailed from the Orient.” In other words, he presented himself as a black man; however, not one from the United States. Rather, it was assumed, for phenotypical and linguistic reasons, that he came from the East. The “Notes on the Chicago Temple of Islam” report the founder of the Temple Islam had proclaimed the following upon arrival in Detroit: “I am W.D. Fard and I came from the Holy City of Mecca. More about myself I will no tell you yet, for the time has not yet come. I am your brother. You have not yet seen me in my royal robes.” He proclaimed that his mission was to secure “freedom, justice, and equality” for his “uncle” living in “the wilderness of North America, surrou ded and robbed completely by the cave man.” From the time of W.D. Fard, his followers employed the term “uncle” to represent all black Americans. The white man, in contrast, was lambasted and lampooned as being a “a cave man,” a “Satan,” or “Caucasian devil.” The image of whites living in caves appears to have been drawn from depictions of human evolution that were spreading at that time.
• The “Notes on the Chicago Temple of Islam” from the 1930s document the conflict between the Black Muslims and the Detroit police department, including problems with the school system, the “ritual murder” of James J. Smith by Robert Harris from the Allah Temple of Islam, as well as small riots. The document also points out that the Temple of Islam in Chicago was founded in late 933 and early 1934. It also notes that W.D. Fard disappeared at some point in 1934 and had not been seen since that time. While some scholars have claimed that the divinization and deification of W.D. Fard only took place in later years, a doctrine developed by Elijah Muhammad, he had already been elevated by some believers to the rank of Allah, before or shortly after his departure. Such was the case with Jesus. What is more, many Black Muslims believed that Fard “had returned to Mecca, the Islam[ic] heaven whence he came.”
• According to the “Notes on the Chicago Temple of Islam,” Fard assisted Elijah Muhammad in founding Temple No. 2 in Chicago. He was instrumental in granting “righteous” and “original” names to eight hundred new Muslims, which is different than the eight thousand figure that is popularly cited, removing their so-called “slave names.” The report points out that the Temple of Islam suffered from power struggles in the same fashion as the Moorish American Science Temple. It mentions that one of Fard’s original members took advantage of Elijah Muhammad’s absence, while he was engaged in missionary work in other cities, to establish a ival group. Although the name of this leader is not mentioned, it is possible that it was either Theodore Rozier, Azzim Shah, or Ugan Ali, who competed with Elijah Muhammad for leadership:
• Azzim Shah assumed control of one faction in 1936; Theodore Rozier broke off with his branch in 1938; and Elijah Muhammad was left in control of the Temple People. The most religiously radical of the splinter groups, the Temple People, who would become the Nation of Islam, insisted that W.D. Fard was God Almighty, and that he had appointed Elijah Muhammad as his Final Messenger, two doctrines disputed by some of the earliest follower and ministers of the self-proclaimed prophet.
• “Not all of his followers believed in Fard’s divinity,” wrote Arna Bontemps and Jack Conroy, the editors of the Illinois Write s Project that produced the “Notes on the Chicago Temple of Islam,” however, there is no denying that Elijah Muhammad’s group did indeed believe that Fard was divine. It is also possible that the rival minister, who challenged Elijah Muhammad’s ideas, was Abdul Muhammad, known formerly as Brown-El, who was strongly influenced by the MSTA. The others appear to have been Azzim Shah, Theodore Rozier, Osman/Othman Ali Sharrieff, Augustus Abdul Muhammad, Lonnie Pasha, and Kallatt Muhammad. Not only was W.D. Fard God according to the Temple People, but Elijah Muhammad was identified as “the first Chicago prophet.” “Since then,” notes the study, “Elijah’s movements, like those of Fard, have been the subject of almost pure conjecture.”
• The “Notes on the Chicago Temple of Islam” also detail the violent confrontation between Black Muslims and the police that was documented in the Chicago Daily Tribune on March 6, 1935, in which it “confused the Temple of Islam with the Moorish American Science Temple and W.D. Fard with Noble Drew Ali.” However, as Patrick D. Bowen has pointed out,
• Although one might suspect that the labeling of NOI members as “Moors” was possibly due to confusion on the part of the reporters, the fact that these references to Moors appeared in news stories written by different authors for several different newspapers suggests that the information the reports had obtained did legitimately indicate a strong Moorish element in the local NOI emple - one that seems to have been stronger than the Moorish influence in the Detroit NOI. Two additional pieces of information in the newspapers further suggest that the Chicago temple was indeed distinct from the Detroit community: Muhammad was discussed in a way suggesting that he claimed to be Fard himself, and initiates in the group reportedly had to take what was described as a “flesh and blood ritual” - neither of which were practices known in the Detroit community. Taking into account not only this evidence, but also the claims of Conroy and the Givens-El group and the fact that Chicago was host to both a large Moorish population and a myriad of competing Moorish factions, it is not unreasonable to think that, at least in that city, ex-MSTA members composed a significant proportion of Muhammad’s followers.
• As the newspaper article from 1935 mentions, “a police search for Prophet Fard was started but he could not be found… He was described as being born in the holy city of Mecca in 1877, who came to America on July 4, 1930.” It is evident that Fard was long gone by 1935. If a warrant was put out for his arrest, nothing came of it. Although Elijah Muhammad would later deny that the Nation of Islam was a continuation of the MSTA, the “Notes on the Chicago Temple of Islam” observe that its members dressed in “fezzes and red robes” which is precisely the attire that was worn by the adepts of Noble Drew Ali (1886-1929). In addition, it noted that “The ‘Allah Temple of Islam‘… propounds the theory that all blacks are Moors and not Negroes.” Once again, this aligns with MSTA beliefs that black Americans were Moors or Moroccans. This differs from the Nation of Islam belief in the “black Asiatic man.”
• According to the “Notes on the Chicago Temple of Islam,” “Noble Drew Ali… began his career as a New Jersey expressman.” Most importantly, it notes that “The Chicago temple is said to be an offshoot of Drew’s original group.” The early Nation of Islam was highly structured. In fact, “a complete system of military procedure, apparently drafted almost word for word from the army ma ual, governs the conduct of members.” Could W.D. Fard have served abroad in some military forces prior to immigrating to America? Did he serve in World War I (1914-1918) for the Americans? Or was this manual of discipline drawn from the secret societies with which he seems to have associated? In any event, the early Nation of Islam held services which revolved around “manuals prepared by Prophet Fard.” This information is important for two reasons. It establishes, with reasonable certainty, that Fard was indeed the author of the teachings attributed to him. And perhaps even more importantly, it points to the fact that, in the 1930s, he was still being referred to as “Prophet Fard.” This aligns with what we find in the early editions of the Final Call newspaper published in 1934.
• The “Notes on the Chicago Temple of Islam” establish that Prophet Fard’s manuals consisted of the Teachings for the Lost Found Nation of Islam in A Mathematical Way, Consisting of Thirty-Four Problems, which was printed. However, the Secret Ritual of the Nation of Islam, Part I. in 14 Secs and Secret Ritual of the Nation of Islam, Part II in 40 Sections had to be committed to memory by all members. Of paramount importance is the note that “these manuals, being largely symbolic, are practically unintelligible to outsiders.” Although there were instances of fundamentalist zealots who took these teachings literally, we can confirm, from the earliest sources on the Nation of Islam, that its teachings were allegorical and that the solutions to the problems were known only to initiates. Such practices are normative for secret societies and Gnostic sects. Services in the early Nation o Islam consisted of reading some of the thirty-four problems.
• The “Notes on the Chicago Temple of Islam” potentially provide one of the earliest lists of instructions for the Temple People, rules that appear to have been written or dictated by W.D. Fard and which shed clear insights into the nature and origin of his teachings and doctrines. While there are a couple of other lists of rules that survive, namely, “Instructions on the Law of Women in Islam,” which is undated but ostensibly was produced in the 1930s or 1940s, and another undated list of “Instructions to the M.G.T. & G.C.C. #1,” the latter rules are numerical, as opposed to alphabetical, and are much more elaborate and detailed. If we operate on the principle that complexity stems from simplicity, textual analysis indicates that the list of rules from the “Notes on the Chicago Temple of Islam,” which emanate from the Chicago Temple of Islam, are earlier than the surviving lists of rules from the Detroit Temple of Islam.
• The first rule that we find in the instructions from the “Notes on the Chicago Temple of Islam” requires the searching of all people entering the Temple. It imposes a ban on “weapons, mirrors, fingernail files, cosmetics, cigarettes, medicines, etc.” What is more, all men returning form the rest room must be searched. These measures might have been introduced to prevent violent and murderous conflicts as took place in the MSTA. W.D. Fard, and Elijah Muhammad, wanted to prevent any coup d’état. The early Temple of Islam was sexually segregated, with men at the front, and women at the rear, a custom that was both Muslim, Christian, and Jewish at that time. The fact that Fard allowed women in the temple at all was quite progressive for that period. Among Hanafi Muslims, the majority in places like Pakistan, women are not allowed to enter mosques. In other parts of the Muslim world, they are confined to backrooms: out of sight and out of mind. Eventually, under Elijah Muhammad’s leadership, men and women would sit, in different sections, side by side, and, on some occasions, groups of women were even seated in front of men.
• The seating arrangements were also highly symbolic. Men were to use the right aisle, the right symbolizing the sacred masculine, while women were to use the left aisle, the left representing the sacred feminine. So, while segregated, there was a notion of complementarity. Men and women were required to greet each other, sending salutations of peace in Arabic. Women, outside of the temple, were supposed to kiss each other on the cheek. In a custom without a known precedent in the Islamic world, W.D. Fard instructed his followers to eat only one meal per day. They could have orange juice or chocolate milk in the morning and a large meal at 4:00 p.m. Such practices appear to come from health and dietary advice that was circulating in the 1930s, particularly that of German naturopath Arnold Ehret (1866-1922).
• This diet, which regained popularity in the first quarter of the twentieth century, is known variably as intermittent fasting or the One Meal a Day (OMAD) approach. It leads to nutritional deficiencies, hunger, and fatigue, as well as blood sugar fluctuations. As a diabetic, it was the worst possible diet that W.D. Fard could follow. It placed his health, and his life, in dire danger. The fact that coffee was not mentioned as a morning drink might suggest that Fard was influenced by teachings from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Seventh Day Adventists, certain orthodox Jewish groups, some strict Islamic interpretation, or even Rastafarianism, all of which eschew caffeinated substances and, in some cases, like the latter, even tea. It is hard to conceive that W.D. Fard, as an Indo-Pakistani, would prohibit tea, so central as it is to most Muslim cultures. What is more, it is reported that he used to give Elijah Muhammad copious amounts of coffee to keep him awake during their night-long study sessions.
• In yet another departure from any so-called orthodox form of Islam, Fard taught that “Moslems fast 18 days per year: Ministers and Officials fast 3 or 4 days per week: A Mohammed’s family fast seven days. A Prophet fasts twenty-three days.” The prohibition of sitting crossed legged in the Temple is not found in Islam. In fact, it is found among Jews from the Muslim world. Simila ly, “a ninety-day suspension is given for sleeping during service.”
• Where does such a teaching originate? From Jewish law, nonetheless, as sleeping in a holy site, along with eating, drinking, a d smoking, is considered sacrilegious. In fact, in Israel, the punishment for sleeping in a synagogue, or other sacred spaces, is seven years in prison according to a 1967 law. The custom is also found in Arab culture. Sitting with one leg on top of the other is considered disrespectful, much like showing the bottom or your shoes or pointing one’s feet, even inadvertently, in someone’s direction. It seems like the ninety-day punishment was common for many NOI sins.
• The Nation of Islam, under both Elijah Muhammad and W.D. Fard prohibited women from showing their feet. This position aligns with the views of Malik, Shafi‘i, and Ahmad. This seems odd. If Fard came from what is now Pakistan, one would have expected him to hold the belief that the feet of women did not form part of their ‘awrah or intimate parts that need to be covered in prayer and in the presence of men. The notion that women should not wear high-heel shoes is common among paleoconservative Muslim jurists. This has not been a major issue among Jews and Christians.
• Although women from the Nation of Islam would wear outer garments and headscarves, which exposed their neckline, which is not ormative according to most Muslim edicts, the earliest instructions speak of the need for women to cover their hair with a hat. If Muslim women had to cover their feet, and consequently, wear long dresses, a girl needed to “wear her dresses below her knees.” Again, in paleoconservative Muslim fashion, Fard’s list of instructions prohibited the use of cosmetics and hair preparations. The latter must have posed a problem for black women with ulotrichous or afro-textured hair. Still, it may have been a way o express their natural hair as a form of racial pride.
• Followers of Fard were expected to attend the University of Islam for three to nine months to become a Muslim. Such requiremen s were common in other religions. At a time when the United States was filled with signs saying, “No Negroes Allowed,” Fard defiantly declared that “No Whites” were allowed in the Temple of Islam. In a standard difficult or impossible to meet, in the 193s, and in the present, he mandated that Muslim men should weigh 150 pounds. Ideal weight, however, is dependent on height, something that Fard should have considered. According to charts of desirable weight dating from that period, 150 pounds would have een ideal for a six-foot tall man with a small to medium frame, a medium-framed man measuring 5.8, or a large-framed man measuring 5.6. Some of these strict standards may have been there to extenuate the exclusivity and secrecy of the cult.
• In what comes across as profoundly sexist in our time, but which was a view commonly shared cross-culturally and religiously i the 1930s, Fard taught that “a Moslem woman’s place is in the home.” While this might sound like foreign Muslim influence for a modern reader, such views were common at the time. In fact, with the unemployment caused by the Great Depression, making it more difficult than before for women to find employment, there was a resurgence in the division of labor and the view that a “a woman’s place is in the home.” Even women who had previously embraced emancipation and freedom made a volte-face and started to extol the virtues of domesticity, motherhood, and homemaking, as the only proper and fulfilling roles for their sex. The rule that “a girl must be accompanied on the streets by her father or brother,” however, seems decidedly foreign to American culture a d could be considered a foreign cultural import.
• Restrictions on the movement of women hearkens to the first centuries of Islam, particularly the ‘Abbasid period, and in the 1 30s, as it does today, it varies considerably from country to country, nationality to nationality, ethnicity to ethnicity, social class to social class, and well as urbanity and provincialism. This rule, which seems to stem from Fard, could conceivably have origins in the region of the world that is known as Pakistan but that was British India at the time. Such a claim, however, would be too specific considering how ubiquitous gender roles were at the time. It could have come from almost anywhere, including conservative circles in the United States.
• If we limit our focus on what became Pakistan, and take the city of Karachi at the time, as an example, we find that it was only middle- and upper-class women who veiled and were subjected to gender segregation. Even so, women of all classes were challenging gender norms, studying at university, and participating in nationalist, leftist, and anti-colonial movements. Many women, and men, were educated in convents and colonial schools, providing them with proficiency in English and Western knowledge. Fard’s insistence on gender segregation, along with a conservative dress code for women, and the requirement that they be accompanied by a mahram or a direct blood relative when in public, does little to suggest that he received a liberal education from the British.
• According to the “Notes on the Chicago Temple of Islam,” official members of the new religious movement maintained that “the ‘white devil’s spook civilization’… ended in 1914 and is now existing on borrowed time” which confirms, once again, its debt to the Watchtower literature of the Jehovah’s Witnesses that was published between 1879 and 1924. Such influence is also evident in Elijah Muhammad’s earliest instructions, in which he repeatedly speaks of “JEHOVAH-ALLAH.” This might have been used to draw black Witnesses into the fold of the Temple of Islam. Gradually, however, the invocation of Jehovah became exclusively replaced with Allah.
• As the “Notes on the Chicago Temple of Islam” reveal, ministers in the new religious movement were teaching about the proverbial “Mother Ship” in the 1930s. It combines biblical allusions to Ezechiel’s wheel and new astronomical discoveries. Apparently, ministers were claiming that Elijah Muhammad had discovered a new planet. The most likely explanation is that he claimed Clyde Tombaugh’s accomplishment as his own. Like Elijah Muhammad, Tombaugh was a farm boy with no formal education in astronomy. Impressed at the fact that he had built several telescopes, with lenses and mirrors, on his own, and having sent drawings of his observations to the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, Tombaugh was offered a position. It was there that he discovered Pluto on February 18, 1930. Since blacks were divine, according to the teachings of the Temple of Islam, it comes as no surprise that ministers were teaching that “the black man controls gravity.”
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• (Figure 5.1: Ninth Planet Discovered. Public domain)
• In line with 1930s social mores, as well as the conservative Muslim ones at the time, the Temple of Islam opposed social services. Borrowing from the beliefs of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Temple of Islam ministers viewed government granted identification numbers as the mark of the beast described in Revelation 13:16. As the Temple of Islam taught, real men had power and authority. They were providers and decision-makers. As a result of such teachings, fewer members of the Temple of Islam depended on social assistance. Many of them secured jobs. And, in a matter of years, they were off the welfare rolls and moving into the middle class. The Temple of Islam also inculcated the importance of being clean, in-person and at-home, presentable and proud. Their services were also noted for being sober compared to the Christian services of other black people.
• The earlier the source, and the closer it is to its subject, W.D. Fard, the more likely it is to reflect his views and the less likely it is to have been influenced by others. The “Notes on the Chicago Temple of Islam,” which were written by the Illinois Writer’s Project between 1935-1939, give us a good and accurate sense of what its beliefs were at that seminal stage. After all, they cover the period from 1930-1939, including the four years that W.D. Fard was alive and active at the head of the new religious movement, namely, 1930-1934.
• In dress and doctrine, the early Temple of Islam, with its red fezzes and robes, owed a debt to Noble Drew Ali and the MSTA. With their worship of JEHOVAH-ALLAH, and their belief that the white race had been destined for doom in 1914, they were equally indebted to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Ostensibly Jewish and Arab customs are also observable, including the prohibition for men to snooze in the Temple or to sit with legs crossed.
• During the 1930s, the belief in the Asiatic black man as the Original Man and the Supreme Ruler of the Universe was well established. The same applies to the doctrine of the white devil and his “tricknology” as well as the belief in the Mother Ship. The Temple People believed in JEHOVAH-ALLAH. They called their religion “Islam.” This “true religion” was contrasted with Christianity which was “the white man’s religion.” The members of the Temple of Islam identified as Moslems. The new religious movement had a creed, a set of scriptures, including the Supreme Wisdom Lessons, established rituals, eighteen days of ritual fasting, and an elaborate set of rules, customs, and norms. While the origin of the 21-day, 18-day, and 7-day is undetermined, and might have been invented by Fard, the practice of eating a single meal per day points to Mormon, Seventh-Day Adventist, Jewish, strict Islamic, or Rastafarian practice. The early Temple of Islam believed in old-fashioned gender norms. They enforced sexual segregation and a dress code upon women. The appearance of women was strictly regulated, including monitoring their body weight. The g oup was militant from its onset and involved in violent confrontations with the police. It also came into conflict with education officials.
• One of the most unusual claims made in the “Notes on the Chicago Temple of Islam” pertains to W.D. Fard’s national and ethnic identity. It indicates that he was “a Negro.” Was this because he stressed that he was a black man? If he was Pakistani, for example, could we not have expected his accent to give him away? Perhaps the researchers never heard Fard speak or never even saw him, only listening to his Chicago ministers. However, were there not rumors circulating already concerning his origin?
• After W.D. Fard’s sudden departure in 1934, the Temple of Islam was wrought with division and competing ministers, with doctri al differences, attempted to seize control of it. The most contentious issues revolved around adhering to Moorish doctrines or those of W.D. Fard. Most controversial of all, however, was the status of the founder himself. “Not all of his followers believed in Fard’s divinity,” wrote Arna Bontemps and Jack Conroy, the editors of the Illinois Writers Project that produced the “Notes on the Chicago Temple of Islam.” Such a belief, however, was distinctive of Elijah Muhammad’s Temple People. Traces of an earlier title, “Prophet Fard” also appears in the report. As for Elijah Muhammad, he is also mentioned as a “prophet.” The claim that he was the “Messenger of God” does not appear. Among the movements that call their leaders prophets, we find the Pentecostals as well as the Latter-Day Saints. Among Muslims, the foremost of such groups would be the Ahmadiyya. Its leader, Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908), claimed to be a “subordinate” prophet, the Promised Messiah, and the Mahdi. All these titles would soon be attributed to W.D. Fard himself most probably under Ahmadiyya influence.
• Patently, the process of deification of W.D. Fard, which was subject to debate and dispute, took place during his life and was formalized doctrinally after his disappearance. For some, W.D. Fard moved from being Prophet Fard to a god among black gods, the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, the son of God, to God Himself. The speed of this spiritual development is startling; however, it is identical to the process of divinizing that the historical Jesus Christ underwent himself. The same can be said of Imam ‘Ali among the theologically extreme Shiites. While there is much more that remains to be learned, we know that by the time Fard vanished in 1934, “many of his followers” were already “identifying Fard with Allah.” Soon, the monotheistic mainstream Muslim profession of faith, “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger” would no longer signify that there is no god but Allah, the creator-god of “orthodox” Islam and Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allah, who lived between 570-632 was His Messenger. Rather, it would come to mean that “There is not god but W.D. Fard and Elijah Muhammad is His Messenger.” The spiritual imagination is un estrained and knows no limits.
• CHAPTER 6 DID W.D. FARD HAVE A SON WITH PEARL ALLEN? A HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD QUESTION IS ANSWERED
• By Bilal Muhammad
• “Muhammad is not the father of [any] one of your men,but [he is] the Messenger of God and last of the prophets.”— (Qur’an 33:40)
• In 1914, Fred Dodd, known now as W.D. Fard, briefly married Pearl (or Pearle) Allen. It may have been just a marriage of convenience, because it took place as he was being tried for sexually assaulting Laura Swanson. Perhaps Fard wanted to show that he had no trouble getting women and therefore had no need to rape Swanson. Nonetheless, just over five months later, on September 3rd, 1914, Fard and Pearl Allen divorced - all is fair in love and war. The divorce petition suggests that Fard objected to Pearl’s lifestyle; namely, her drinking, partying, and her frequenting of other men. Less than a year later, Pearl married Tony Campagna on July 19th, 1915, and on September 11th, 1915, she gave birth to a son named Donald Lloyd Campagna.
• Obviously, Pearl must have conceived this child many months before she married Tony Campagna. Some researchers, including Karl Evanzz (b. 1953), suggested that this son belonged to Fard. Donald Lloyd Campagna was not issued a birth certificate, but his birth was recorded on the Indian Census in October 1916 - over a year after his birth. Pearl was a Native American, so this makes sense. Morrow suggested that the boy’s date of birth “may have been modified to make it appear that Tony Campagna was his father.” On the same page, Morrow asked, “Was Donald Lloyd Campagna the son of Fred Dodd? It is possible.”
• It has already been established by researchers that Fard had a son with his common law wife Hazel Barton in 1920 named Wallace Max Ford, who tragically drowned in an accident while serving in the U.S Coast Guard in Lynnhaven Roads, Virginia in 1942. However, this Ford did not have any children, and thus, there is no relative who can consent to a DNA test. Such a test would give us some certainty on the origin of his father, W.D. Fard, which has been a topic of debate for researchers. Donald Lloyd Campagna, on the other hand, does have living relatives till this day.
• For NOI adherents, W.D. Fard (known mainly to them as Master Fard Muhammad) was from Mecca, Arabia. His father was said to have been a black-skinned man, and his mother was said to have been a white-skinned woman. Fard was perhaps light-skinned, and researchers have theorized that he may have been white, New Zealander, Arabian, Persian, Turkish, Syrian, Indian, Afghan, Greek, Jewish, Jamaican, Bosnian, Algerian, Albanian, and African American. What complicates things is that Fard covered his tracks well, giving different origin stories to different people; and he would eventually disappear without a trace in 1934. The extant photographs of Fard also make him appear racially ambiguous.
• The national origins of W.D. Fard would help researchers understand where he got some of his unique religious teachings. NOI theology is partly original and partly a smorgasbord of different influences. In his book Finding W.D. Fard, Morrow explores possible connections Fard’s teachings have with esoteric forms of Shiism. However, even if this were the case, does that definitively prove that Fard came from a Shia Muslim (or Alawite, Ismaili, Druze, Ahl e-Haqq) part of the world? Or could it be that Fard found these doctrines during his sojourn in America, in the same way that he studied the Jehovah’s Witnesses? Researchers also have no consensus on Fard’s intentions: was he a conman, was he an agent trying to stir schism and dissent, or was he genuinely calling people to salvation?
• According to Morrow, none who directly heard W.D. Fard preach ever noted an identifiable accent - this will be further explored in another chapter. According to a 1935 article in the Chicago Daily Tribune, Fard may have known Arabic; Elijah Muhammad claimed that Fard’s Arabic handwriting was masterful, and his son Akbar Muhammad (1939-2016) claimed to have seen Fard’s Arabic writing. In Beynon’s 1938 article, he says that Fard read directly from an Arabic-only copy of the Qur’an.  In 2013, researcher Paul Guthrie sent me a copy of two NOI membership cards issued by Fard in Detroit in 1932. He told me that they were taken at an NOI exhibit.  They include Arabic handwriting, purportedly from Fard, which may be the best extant physical evidence. However, several languages use Arabic script, and we cannot be sure that these samples were written directly by W.D. Fard.
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• (Figure 6.1: Identification card. Public domain)
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• (Figure 6.2: Identification card. Public domain)
• As Morrow notes in his book, Finding W.D. Fard, there is “detailed information about the descendants of Donald Lloyd Campagna, and many of these individuals are still alive.”
• I curiously followed this trail, and I contacted two members of the Campagna family. They still live in Oregon, where W.D. Fard and Pearl were married, and where most of Pearl’s descendants still live. While Fard was seemingly a nomad - spending time in California, Oregon, Michigan, Illinois, and elsewhere - Pearl’s family remained in her indigenous homeland. They live in Chiloquin and Klamath Falls.
• My main contact, Malaya Campagna, is the great-great granddaughter of Donald Lloyd Campagna. She was incredibly helpful and cooperative, and she was driven by curiosity about her own origins. She is interested in her family background, and she has previously asked elders in her community about them. Malaya is close with her grandfather, who is also named Donald Lloyd Campagna. He is the son of James Warren Campagna, who was the son of Donald Lloyd Campagna (d. 1983), who was the son that Pearl (d. 1960) had shortly after her divorce from W.D. Fard.
• Malaya learned from her grandfather that Pearl was originally from Bly, Oregon, which is an unincorporated community in Klamath County. Pearl was married several times, and according to Malaya’s grandfather, Pearl would still party and frequent different men while she was married. Malaya told me that alcoholism runs in the family, which corroborates with the information in Fard’s divorce petition. According to Malaya, her family is unsure of the identity of the biological father of the deceased Donald Lloyd Campagna. The latter’s siblings were apparently adopted, and they go by different names. Malaya had read briefly about a W.D. Fard, but she did not know that he was the founder of a modern religion. I spoke to her about Fard, my research, and its relevance to civil rights and black history.
• Through her grandfather, Malaya kindly sent me the following two pictures of the original Donald Lloyd Campagna, the son of Pearl:
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• (Figure 6.3: Photo of an elderly Donald Lloyd Campagna. Created from an original photograph. Used with the permission of Malaya Campagna)
• For comparison purposes, here are the police mugshots and Detroit Free Press photos of W.D. Fard:
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• (Figure 6.4: Mugshots and photos of W.D. Fard)
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• (Figure 6.5: Sketch of official mugshot of W.D. Fard.Created from an original photograph. Public domain)
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• (Figure 6.6: Sketch of official mugshot of W.D. Fard.Created from an original photograph. Public domain)
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• (Figure 6.7: Sketch of official mugshot of W.D. Fard.Created from an original photograph. Public domain)
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• (Figure 6.8: Sketch of official mugshot of W.D. Fard.Created from an original photograph. Public domain)
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• (Figure 6.9: Sketch of official mugshot of W.D. Fard.Created from an original photograph. Public domain)
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• (Figure 6.10: Sketch of official mugshot of W.D. Fard.Created from an original photograph. Public domain)
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• (Figure 6.11: Sketch of W.D. Fard under arrest.Created from original photographs. Public domain)
• Upon my inspection, I did not find any obvious resemblance to Fard, whose wavy hair and pointed ears are distinctive features. The following is a photograph of Wallace Max Ford, who was Fard’s son through Hazel Barton. If Campagna was the son of Fard, then Wallace Max Ford would have been his half-brother. The resemblance between Wallace Max Ford and his father is much more obvious to me.
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• (Figure 6.12: Photo of Wallace Dodd/Max Ford.Based on an original photo from the US Coast Guard. Public domain)
• Since we cannot come to certainty by studying these photographs, a DNA test is warranted. I bought a saliva test kit from 23andme for Malaya’s living grandfather, Donald Lloyd Campagna, the great-grandson of Pearl. I also bought a kit for Malaya. If Donald Campagna really is the great-grandson of W.D. Fard, then he would have approximately 12.5% of his DNA, give or take. Since we are sure that Fard came from outside of North America, and since it is perhaps likely that he came from a Muslim country, then a DNA test of his alleged son should show some non-European ethnicity. Fard may have evaded the paper trail, but he cannot escape DNA.
• Here are the results. Unfortunately, Donald Campagna misspelled his first name, but that does not change the results. The “You” in the second table below is Malaya:
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• (Figure 6.13: Donald Campagna DNA.Reproduced with the permission of Malaya Campagna)
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• (Figure 6.14: Donald Compagna DNA.Reproduced with the permission of Malaya Campagna)
• As we can see, Donald Lloyd Campagna, the great-grandson of Pearl, is almost entirely Native American and European. He has 1.1% East Asian, 0.1% Sub-Saharan African, 0.1% Western Asian & North African, and 1% unassigned. Therefore, there is a strong probability that Donald Campagna is not a descendant of W.D. Fard. We see no significant DNA from Arabia, Africa, Türkiye, central Asia, India, or other areas that have been connected to Fard. Instead, Donald Lloyd Campagna may be the son of Tony Campagna, who Pearl married shortly before his birth. Tony was Italian, and Donald Campagna is 19.7% Southern European, which includes 18.4% Italian. Pearl herself was part white or at least identified that way. It is possible that Pearl chose to marry Tony because she knew that he was the likely father of the child.
• There are other reasons to believe that the original Donald Lloyd Campagna was not the son of W.D. Fard. Firstly, according to a 1914 newspaper article, it appears that Fard and Pearl only lived together in Fard’s home for two weeks during their marriage. Since there were other men in Pearl’s life, Fard is just a candidate, among others. Secondly, according to extant records, Do ald Lloyd Campagna was born almost a year after Fard and Pearl were divorced. We have no strong reason at this point to place his birth earlier. Thirdly, Fard tried to reconnect with his son Wallace Max Ford upon his departure, and he would even write to a then-married Hazel while he lived in Chicago. However, there is no extant record of any correspondence between Fard and Pearl after their divorce, nor any correspondence between Fard and Donald. Lastly, we see no obvious resemblance between the two.
• There is, of course, the possible scenario that W.D. Fard was instead white, that he had a child with Pearl that he did not know or care about, that the birth date of the child was fabricated, and that the child inherited his mother’s appearance. However, given the research that places the origin of Fard somewhere in the Eastern hemisphere, and given the doubts, this scenario is highly unlikely.
• The elusive W.D. Fard escapes detection once again. Outside of an exhumation of Wallace Max Ford’s grave, which can only occur with the expressed permission of his next of kin (perhaps from the Barton family) or the cemetery itself (which has a legal responsibility to protect the peaceful repose of human remains), researchers have no access to W.D. Fard’s DNA.
• This research at least closes a chapter in Fard’s life for good, leaving no room for descendants based on the written records hat have been retrieved. I saw this as a lead in a case that is important to me personally. I followed the lead as far as I could, I tied up the loose end, and I yielded to the results of my investigation.
• There is the cynical possibility that Donald Lloyd Campagna Jr. (Malaya’s grandfather) was not a biological descendant of Pea l, and that the original Donald Lloyd Campagna was Fard’s son. However, given Jr.’s Italian DNA, and given the fact that we have no reason to believe that Jr. was a product of adultery, and given the other details, there is no strong reason to entertain his possibility for now.
• Approximately sixteen years after his marriage with Pearl, W.D. Fard would establish the Nation of Islam in Detroit, Michigan. He gave Native Americans an honored position as a member of the aboriginal peoples of the Earth, alongside black people. Fard even called Caucasians “white devils,” a term he may have learned from Native Americans.
• I hope further documents pertaining to W.D. Fard are unearthed and declassified in the coming years. That is where we may see another breakthrough in this field. Or, perhaps, he will tell us more about himself when he returns with the Mother Plane. Until then, the mystery of Fard lives on.
• CHAPTER 7 AN EMOTIONAL ANALYSIS OF W.D. FARD’S PHOTOGRAPHS
• By John Andrew Morrow
• “Wherever you turn yourselves or your faces there is the Face of God.” — (Qur’an 2: 115)
• Currently, the most advanced Facial Emotion Recognition Software achieves an accuracy of 75 to 88%. While this falls slightly short of human beings, who can accurately detect emotions in photographs 90% of the time, FER programs are effective at detecting the six basic emotions that are shared across cultures: anger, happiness, surprise, disgust, sadness, and fear. Since these all involve specific facial muscles, the software analyses outward, subconscious, and largely involuntary movement for signs of internal psychology. While the dominant emotion might be easily identified by an attentive human being, people quite often miss more subtle emotional signals, including mixed emotions. Although this can be achieved by trained behavioral psychologists, unless they are assisted by computer technology, they are not nearly as fast in judging faces as AI. And while professionals strive to be impartial, their biases, conscious or subconscious, can impact the results. As such, it was decided to submit all known photographs of W.D. Fard through Imentiv.ai, “the ultimate facial emotion recognition software,” to gain some “objective insights free from human biases.” The results are revealing and help us understand W.D. Fard’s emotional state at several critical junctures in his turbulent life.
• In 2025, Anton Batey processed the following four photographs through Amazon Rekognition, a facial recognition software program. The similarity rates confirm that the W.D. Fard from Los Angeles was the same as the W.D. Fard from Detroit, namely, that Wallace Dodd Ford and Wallace Farrad were one and the same beyond any scientific doubt.
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• (Figures 7.5: Facial Comparison Results)
• In 2025, Edward Muhammad had Azure and Rekognition compare the official NOI portrait of W.D. Fard with the photos of W.D. Fard that were taken by the police in Detroit and Los Angeles. The analysis concluded, with 99% certainty, that they were not the same individual.
• After Edward Muhammad shared his findings with me during a Zoom meeting in April 2025, I verified his findings using Rekognition and confirmed that he was correct. I also compared the Wallie Dodd Ford and Wallace Farrad photos with those of Muhammad Abdullah. Rekognition demonstrated that they were not the same person with over 99% certainty.
• These findings suggested that we were dealing with a Fard of fact, namely, Wallace Farrad, Wallace Dodd Ford, Wallie D. Ford, and Fred Dodd, and a Fard of fantasy, the man portrayed in the official NOI portrait, who could have been a decoy, a stand-in, a false, a fraud, a fake, and an imposter. A more in-dept analysis of these findings demonstrated that this was not the case and that we are indeed dealing with the same human being as can be seen in Appendix 6: The Many Faces of Fard: Computerized Face Comparison by Amazon Rekognition.
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• (Figure 7.6: June 12, 1926. W.D. Fard at San Quentin Prison. Public domain)
• Overall Emotions
• 45.65% neutral
• 27.62% sad
• 11.75% angry
• 6.82% surprise
• 6.14% fear
• 1.28% happy
• 0.44% disgust
• 0.31% contempt
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• (Figure 7.7: June 12, 1926. W.D. Fard at San Quentin Prison. Public domain)
• Overall Emotions
• 77.38% neutral
• 9.79% angry
• 5.38% surprise
• 2.4% happy
• 2.2% sad
• 1.76% fear
• 0.82% contempt
• 0.27% disgust
• Analysis of Figures 7.6 and 7.7
• The mugshots above were taken on June 12, 1926. when W.D. Fard was incarcerated. If he strove to achieve a neutral expression, it was surely because he was ordered to do so by the police officer who processed him. In the first photos, his face was rated as 45.65% neutral, 27.62% sad, 11.75% angry, 6.82% surprised, 6.14% fearful, 1.28% happy, 0.44% disgusted, and 0.31% contempt. This is precisely the torrent of emotions one would expect in such a stressful situation. Interestingly, by the time the second photographs were taken, he was 77.38% neutral in his expression; however, his sadness had abated, and the second strongest emotion was anger, at nearly 10%, followed by some surprise at being in such a predicament. This indicates that emotionally, he was a man of strength and character. He was neither filled with fear nor sadness.
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• (Figure 7.8: 1934. Edited photo of W.D. Fard. Unknown location. Public domain)
• Emotions of W.D. Fard
• 69.04% neutral
• 18.51% happy
• 4.71% angry
• 2.74% sad
• 2.42% surprise
• 1.63% contempt
• 0.51% disgust
• 0.44% fear
• Analysis of Figure 7.8
• The image in question, which is not an untouched original, resembles the portraits of W.D. Fard that were found in the homes o the members of the Temple of Islam. This version has been edited to give him a full set of hair. The book he is holding is thin. There is no pen in his left jacket pocket.
• The image is neutral as one would expect in a period in which people were told to be serious when photographed. As serious as he strove to be, his happiness shone through. Still, there are subtle signs of suppressed anger, sadness, surprise, disgust, and even fear. Perhaps he was happy to pose. Nonetheless, there was some anger below the surface and a touch of sadness.
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• (Figure 7.9: Edited photo of W.D. Fard. Public domain)
• Emotions of W.D. Fard
• 54.26% neutral
• 31.90% angry
• 6.06% happy
• 4.95% sad
• 1.29% contempt
• 0.59% surprise
• 0.51% disgust
• 0.45% fear
• Analysis of Figure 7.9
• The image above is the most widely circulated one of W.D. Fard. It is traditionally found in NOI homes and businesses. Like the previous photograph, this one has been retouched. The background shows clear and obvious brush strokes. The book he is holding is thicker. He has a pen in his pocket. Such “photoshopping” was practiced before the rise of computer software. Old photos feature halo effects, textured backgrounds, and so forth.
• Curiously, even though the images appear almost identical to the untrained eyed, the facial expressions on figure 7.4 are only 54% neutral. Shockingly, his facial muscles are sending strong angry signals at a rate of nearly 32%. Below the semi-neutral surface, considerable anger was boiling within him. Why was he angry? The reasons are many: racism, discrimination, segregation, injustice, oppression, harassment from the police, a history of incarceration, failed relationships, abandoned offspring, instability, financial struggles, itinerancy, lack of stable housing, living in hotel rooms, and possible sexual repression and frust ation. In addition, the ideology that he was peddling, which centered around white devils, was, in the views of many, a form of anti-white hatred. Psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually speaking, hatred is not a positive sentiment. It increases st ess hormones and leads to physical and emotional health issues, including high blood pressure, heart disease, anger outbursts, anxiety, depression, and/or PTSD.
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• (Figure 7.10: W.D. Fard. Unknown date and location, 1930-34.Likely 1932 in Detroit. Public domain)
• Emotions of W.D. Fard
• 35.63% happy
• 33.68% neutral
• 14.10% angry
• 10.93% sad
• 2.97% disgust
• 1.48% contempt
• 0.85% surprise
• 0.38% fear
• Figure 7.10, like the previous images, is highly suspicious. Although it might have been based on an original, it appears to have been airbrushed or photoshopped. As happy and neutral as he appears to be, his face still manages to express a considerable undercurrent of anger and sadness. There are even subtle indicators of disgust and contempt. For whom?
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• (Figure 7.11: W.D. Fard. November 23, 1932. Detroit Free Press. Public domain)
• Emotions of W.D. Fard
• 39.52% happy
• 39.82% neutral
• 9.54% angry
• 8.63% sad
• 1.10% disgust
• 1.00% contempt
• 0.23% fear
• 0.16% surprise
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• (Figure 7.12: W.D. Fard. November 23, 1932. Detroit. Public domain)
• Emotions of W.D. Fard
• 32.92% angry
• 30.64% neutral
• 22.97% happy
• 5.79% sad
• 2.25% surprise
• 1.95% fear
• 1.77% contempt
• 1.71% disgust
• Analysis of Figures 7.11 and 7.12
• The photographs above were taken on November 23, 1933, in Detroit, Michigan. Fard has been picked up by the police after they aided his hotel room. He was questioned about the Bible of Islamism, which, it turns out, was nothing short of Deliverance! by Judge Rutherford. One police officer is manifestly angry while the other maintains a more neutral demeanor. Why? Surely the good cop, bad cop routine, which had long been proven effective in interrogations. Intriguingly, in figure 7.6, Fard is happy, at a rate of 39.52% with a layer of lava flowing below the surface at nearly 10%. The next major emotion detected was some sadness, at nearly 9%, and touches of disgust, contempt, fear, and surprise. By the time Figure 7.6 was taken, however, Fard’s dominant emotion, happiness, gave way to anger at nearly 33%. Not so deep down, however, he was still happy, at a rate of 23%. The facial recognition software confirms the happy, cocky, and confident attitude he had toward white police officers that was reported by the press and police. He seemed pleased to be arrested and did not hesitate to proclaim his divinity.
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• (Figure 7.13 and Figure 7.14: W.D. Fard. May 25, 1933. Detroit. Public domain)
• Overall Emotions
• 59.7% neutral
• 16.2% happy
• 8.85% sad
• 8.28% angry
• 3.81% surprise
• 1.9% fear
• 0.73% contempt
• 0.53% disgust
• Analysis of Figure 7.13 and 7.14
• The final photograph we have of Fard was taken on May 25, 1933. Once again, rather than be afraid, fearful, sad, depressed, or surprised, Fard’s facial features indicate that, while he tried to keep a straight face, he was quite happy, at some level, to have been arrested. He was slightly sad and mad at the rate of 8% respectively. Most impressively, we see little fear in Fard i situations where most people would have reason to be fearful. Was he simply an experienced con going through the ordinary routine? Not at all. He showed no fear from his first incarceration to the last. Was he a sociopath as some have suggested? Surely ot. He had a full spectrum of functioning emotions.
• While they are relatively new, facial emotion recognition programs can play a role in scholarly studies. They bring behavioral psychology into the hands of researchers. In the case of W.D. Fard, it can help answer key questions. What was he thinking? What was he feeling? Some scholars, including myself, thought that Fard looked menacing in his mugshots and that he gave the impression of a man about to kill someone. Although he was angry, his rage was contained. He was a man in control who was expressing largely neutral emotions. . Fard was not fearful of the police. Having been arrested so many times, this neutrality may reflect desensitization. Thanks to Imentiv.ai, we now have some greater insight into the mind and emotions of W.D. Fard during key moments in his tumultuous and adventurous life.
• CHAPTER 8 THE TEACHINGS OF SUPREME MINISTER JOHN MUHAMMAD
• By Bilal Muhammad
• “I know the beginning, and I might know the ending.” — Supreme Minister John Muhammad
• John Muhammad (1910-2005 AD) was the “blood and spiritual brother” of Elijah Muhammad, who was the leader of the black nationalist Nation of Islam (NOI) from 1934 to 1975. Along with members of his family, John Muhammad converted to the NOI in 1931 and studied under its mysterious, shadowy, and nebulous founder, Master W.D. Fard Muhammad.
• Scholarship has somewhat glossed over John Muhammad, who would call himself the Supreme Minister of the Nation of Islam after he death of Elijah Muhammad. This was likely not a title that was given to him by Fard or Elijah, but rather it was an extrapolation of John Muhammad himself, because he believed that he had more knowledge about their teachings than anyone alive at that ime.
• Why are you Supreme Minister? They have asked me that question. I’ll answer right here with you. This is what makes me supreme. Any man that got more knowledge than the other one about a thing, he’s supreme, right? Because that’s what makes me supreme … Supreme Minister of the Nation of Islam. I know the beginning, and I might know the ending.
• Perhaps John Muhammad’s legacy was outshone by household names like Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Louis Farrakhan, and Warith Deen Mohammed; but John’s proximity to Fard and Elijah, his strict commitment to their teachings, his relative longevity, and his many hours of recorded speeches make him an invaluable resource to those who wish to study the early NOI through the eyes of a memer of its inner circle.
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• (Figure 8.1: Sketch of John Muhammad.Created from an original photo from the book, The Journal of Truth. Fair use)
• John Muhammad was the youngest of thirteen children. In 1927, on John’s seventeenth birthday, he dropped out of high school. He felt that he was not learning anything, was deliberately being made to repeat grades, and was a victim of racism. In an integrated classroom, John’s teacher reportedly said, “If I had my way with all of you, I would put you on a ship and send you back to Africa.” In July of 1930, W.D. Fard would arrive in Detroit to found his Nation. John Muhammad gives a different conversion account than what many NOI afficionados are aware of. What is commonly believed is that Clara, the legal wife of Elijah, had heard of this W.D. Fard and decided to go hear him preach while her husband was inebriated. Then, she invited him over for dinner to meet and convert her husband. John Muhammad, however, recounts that it was his father who first met W.D. Fard and brought his amily into the Temple. This is corroborated by Hatim Sahib’s 1951 dissertation on the NOI.
• According to John Muhammad, he served as Captain, Minister, and Secretary Assistant under Fard in Detroit at his Hastings Street Temple of Islam. He was also a teacher and principal at Detroit’s University of Islam in 1934; the same school that would be the subject of a much-publicized investigation and trial at the time. John Muhammad’s wife was “the Reformer” Burnsteen Sharrief Muhammad, Fard’s secretary. In 1934, one year before John married Burnsteen, Fard advised John that it was “no time to get married right now.” This may be because of the Great Depression, but I suggested in my study, “The War of Armageddon: The NOI, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Imperial Japan,” that Fard, like Rutherford, was advising people to not marry yet due to the impending War of Armageddon. Like his brothers, John spent a lot of time with Fard, and they would even travel together in a hupmobile. Joh Muhammad worked for Chrysler and retired there.
• After the death of Elijah Muhammad, John Muhammad did not become a follower of Warith Deen Mohammed or Louis Farrakhan, though he kept relations with both. He rejected Farrakhan and Cushmeer’s assertion that Elijah Muhammad was still alive. John believed that the various leaders ought to reunite under the teachings of Fard and Elijah; and he continued teaching a small circle in his senior years. According to John Andrew Morrow, “John Muhammad remained faithful to the original Nation of Islam doctrines.” His wife Burnsteen, however, would join Warith Deen Mohammed and be a part of the Shura board of Masjid Wali Muhammad in Detroi .
• In my view, one of the most valuable characteristics of John Muhammad is that he appears to be an even more “blank slate” than Elijah Muhammad was. Being the leader of a tumultuous organization, Elijah Muhammad participated in politics, maneuvering his followers, and engaging in damage control. He travelled to the Muslim world, and he interacted with Muslims of other sects. Elijah was beholden to his adherents and his donors. As the leader of the NOI, Elijah also had the full creative license to develop the teachings with which he was left. John Muhammad, on the other hand, was a simple follower of Fard and Elijah, he did not travel to the Muslim world, and he never rose to the prominence that some of his contemporaries enjoyed. To me, John Muhammad seems like an unwavering believer in Fard and Elijah, and he seemed incredibly careful in not developing, over-interpreting, or cha ging what he learned from them. In a word, he was the Nation’s time capsule.
• Of course, most of what we have from John Muhammad comes from the 1980s and 1990s, nearly half a century after W.D. Fard depar ed. Human memory is not perfect, as we sometimes forget or embellish past events. Any accounts given by John Muhammad or anyone else must be put in context with every other resource we have on the early Nation of Islam.
• John Muhammad continued to teach that W.D. Fard was Allah in Person. However, in a Q&A session, someone asked the Supreme Minister, “Did anyone have any idea that he (Fard) may have been God or was the Messenger the only one that had come to that conclusion?” John replied, “No, no one … the Messenger told me that he didn’t know that he was actually God, not until his departure rom among us. Then, that’s when he began to question him more about himself, and he told him who he was.”
• The question of Wallace Fard’s exact claim to divinity is a contentious one among both scholars and adherents of the early Nation of Islam. On one hand, a 1932 Detroit Free Press article cites a Dr. Clark, the medical examiner who treated Fard upon his arrest, as saying that Fard was “suffering from delusions that he is a divinity.” The same article, as well as a 1932 Chicago Deender article says Fard “told detectives that he was the ‘supreme Being on Earth.’” According to Hatim Sahib’s 1951 dissertation, he quotes Elijah Muhammad that Master Fard had said in a speech in Chicago, “I am God Himself.” On the other hand, soon afte Fard had departed in 1934, Elijah and Kallatt Muhammad’s The Final Call newspaper were calling him “Prophet Fard” and distinguishing him from Allah. Osman Sharrieff, a minister under Fard in Chicago, insisted that Fard never claimed to be Allah in Perso .
• One way of reconciling this paradox is saying that W.D. Fard claimed divinity without explicitly using the term “Allah in Person” to describe himself. In NOI theology, the Asiatic black man is God in general, and even Yakub the scientist and his King of Islam were gods.
• It is disputed whether W.D. Fard claimed to be a prophet. According to an anonymous source, “early in August 1931, Fard told a crowd of blacks gathered in the Old Universal Negros Association (UNIA) Hall… that he was a ‘prophet of Allah from the holy city of Mecca.’” The 1938 Beynon article also suggests that Fard described himself as a prophet. Most importantly, there are many letters addressed to Fard while he was present where he was called “prophet.”
• Elijah Muhammad, however, claimed to have been the first to call W.D. Fard a prophet. Sahib quotes Elijah Muhammad saying, “He did not teach us that he was a prophet. We used to call him prophet. I made the followers [call] him prophet because I do not know exactly what great name to give him. No one called him prophet before me.” According to Wakeel Allah, W.D. Fard was called a prophet as a cover. Apparently, he wanted to keep his identity a secret.
• Warith Deen Mohammed, a man who, like his father, was engaged in mythmaking, and wanted to move the NOI closer to Sunni Islam, quoted his mother Clara Muhammad as saying, “he told us to not even call him prophet. He said that was too big a title for him.” The fact remains that Warith Deen Mohammed lacks credibility. He wanted to drastically change the theology of the organizatio . He invented the idea that Muhammad Abdullah was W.D. Fard Muhammad.
• Despite Warith Deen Mohammed’s claims to the contrary, Wakeel Allah has shown that “many people familiar with the message had accepted Fard as ‘the Prophet’” However, according to him, W.D. Fard only fully revealed his identity as God to Elijah Muhammad. It is possible that W.D. Fard confided in Elijah Muhammad; however, the fact remains that Burnsteen Muhammad, W.D. Fard’s secretary, was already addressing him in divine terms in letters she wrote to him in 1933 and 1934 as chapter twenty-two reveals. And the fact remains that as early as 1931, Elijah Muhammad was publicly preaching that “Fard is Allah,” although Fard asked him o tone down his rhetoric at the time.
• Master Fard Muhammad and Elijah Muhammad are often accused of having been members of Noble Drew Ali’s Moorish Science Temple o America prior to 1930. This claim lacks solid evidence, despite overwhelming similarities between the teachings of the NOI and the Moorish Americans. The two groups certainly interacted, though it is undetermined if Fard and Elijah were ever members. Elijah Muhammad firmly denied that Fard was ever associated with Noble Drew Ali.
• In a lecture to his followers, Supreme Minister John Muhammad speaks about the fezzes that W.D. Fard and the NOI wore, which the Moorish Americans would also wear prior to the coming of Fard. In the same lecture, John calls Noble Drew Ali “a good man;” but Fard called him a “smeller of Islam,” because he did not have full knowledge of Islam. This corresponds with a 1933 letter that Fard sent to Elijah Muhammad, where he instructs him to go to Chicago to speak to “smellers.”
• John Muhammad states, “Now, a lot of people say that Elijah Muhammad was a member of the Moorish Americans or the Moor America s or was with Noble Drew Ali. Now, I have heard him say that he have visit there (sic), but I never heard him say he was a member there.” It is unclear if John is referring to before 1930 or after.
• In 2010, a 1932 newspaper article from the Detroit Free Press resurfaced online. The article contains a photograph of W.D. Fard in police custody. In 2020, I also found a different photograph from the same event in the Des Moines Tribune. The reason these photos are significant is because, since the 1930s, the only extant picture that purportedly portrayed Master Fard Muhammad was his official Nation of Islam portrait and the various police mugshots of Wallace Ford. Elijah Muhammad famously claimed in 1963 that the mugshots were of a “phony” and not his teacher, Fard. One problem, however, is that the Fard in the 1932 Detroit Free Press and Des Moines Tribune photographs looks almost identical to the police mugshot photos. These newspaper articles were also in circulation in 1932, while Fard was still active; and the early NOI never claimed that the photographs in the newspapers were fraudulent.
• While some NOI members may still deny the authenticity of the newspaper photographs, John Muhammad, who knew Fard personally, confirmed the authenticity of the Detroit Free Press photograph in his Q&A. This is corroborated by a reference in the FBI file on Wallace D. Ford: Willie Muhammad, another brother of Elijah Muhammad, allegedly identified the police mugshot photograph of Fard as “my sweet savior, my all-powerful Allah.”
• I spoke with a close family member of John Muhammad, and he confirmed to me in an interview that John considered the 1926 San Quentin mugshot of Wallace D. Ford to be the same person as W.D. Fard. However, in one lecture, John Muhammad plainly denied the authenticity of the mugshots.
• John Andrew Morrow argues in his Finding W.D. Fard that Fard did not have an “identifiable accent,” while A.K. Arian argues in Chameleon that he had a “thick accent.” Accents are relative - there are many accents in the United States, and everyone has his own manner of speech. However, Fard’s direct writing is fraught with spelling and grammatical errors. Such mistakes suggest that he was either foreign or undereducated.
• According to Medina Mohammed, the daughter of John Muhammad, Burnsteen “said that he (Fard) had a very heavy accent, and he would often say to them, ‘I hope you understand what I’m trying to say to you.’” John Muhammad said in his Q&A that Elijah Muhammad would sometimes speak like Master Fard in a “foreign-like” manner. Elijah Muhammad indeed had a unique way of speaking, one hat was different even from other members of his family. This may simply have been a speech impediment, or perhaps Fard made a permanent impression on him, so much so that Elijah would mimic his teacher. It should be stressed that Medina Mohammed never met W.D. Fard nor heard him speak.
• According to Emmanuel Muhammad, Elijah Muhammad’s eldest son, the Master had “a soft accented voice.” His uncle, John Muhammad, who was a disciple of W.D. Fard, raised no objections to this claim during their joint lecture. Christopher C. Alston (1913-1 93), who claims to have met W.D. Fard as teenager and a young man, and who allegedly heard him speak, remembered that he spoke without a foreign accent. If truthful, the testimony of an eye and ear-witness takes precedent over the hearsay of a Medina Mohammed, a woman who was not even born when W.D. Fard was in Detroit.
• According to John Muhammad, Master Fard was asked by his followers if they could use a blessing before meals. The blessing he apparently approved was “bismillah al-rahman al-rahim, la ilaha illa Allah, farad mukhmud (sic) rasulallah, amin” - meaning: in the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful; there is no god but Allah, and Fard Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, amen. He also claims that Fard never prayed while delivering a lecture on the rostrum, and that he discouraged (but allowed) getting on one’s knees to pray. For John, the fact that Fard did not pray was proof of his divinity. It is difficult to know for certain if the benediction was used in the time of W.D. Fard. However, we do see the same blessing being used in English in the 1934 Final Call. According to Sahib, “they offer their so-called prayer whenever they meet in the temple, or they have to eat.” Sahi probably called it a “so-called prayer” because it is not the salat prayer that orthodox Muslims are familiar with.
• In a 1983 lecture in Farrakhan’s Final Call Administration Building, John Muhammad claimed that W.D. Fard would say “Mukhmud” instead of “Muhammad.” Nathaniel Muhammad, the son of Elijah Muhammad, also stressed that “Master Fard referred to us as ‘Muck Mud’ … He never would call us Mohammed, he always called us Muck Mud.” This pronunciation seems to have precedence in the writte record, as Elijah Muhammad taught the story of General “Muk Mud.” Is it possible that W.D. Fard, who allegedly came from the Muslim world, was mispronouncing “Muhammad?” Or is it more likely that the undereducated Elijah and John simply could not pronou ce “Muhammad” as pronounced in an eastern language? The possibility that W.D. Fard was saying Makhmud, a Turkish pronunciation of the Arabic Mahmud, must also be considered.
• While orthodox Muslims fast the month of Ramadan in accordance with the Islamic lunar calendar, the followers of Elijah Muhammad were known to fast the month of December. This may be because the days are short. Louis Farrakhan’s followers currently fast the same month of Ramadan that orthodox Muslims fast.
• According to Sahib, the Nation of Islam was fasting in September in 1951. John Muhammad says in a Q&A that Master Fard Muhammad was asked if Ramadan could be done in December; he said that Ramadan could be done in any month. This may not be so inconsistent with orthodox Islam. In Sunni and Shia Islam, if one misses a fast in Ramadan due to illness or travel, one may make up that fast in another month. However, it is indeed unorthodox for an entire community to miss the lunar month in favor of a solar month.
• Elijah Muhammad believed he was God’s last messenger, and he is quoted as having said, “there will be no successor. There is no need for a successor.” Jeremiah Shabazz (1927-1998), who joined the Nation of Islam in 1943, became one of Elijah’s top ministers, and was at Elijah’s bedside during his fatal illness, confirms that
• The Messenger never did choose a successor. He didn’t choose Wallace. He didn’t choose Farrakhan. He didn’t choose Silas. I know he didn’t choose them. I was by the Messenger’s bedside for two weeks before he left us in 1975.
• John Muhammad curiously said,
• My brother, Elijah Muhammad, never said to me who his successor would be, but he told me who he wanted it to be, and he proved it by actions and words. He said to me that he did not have the authority to choose his successor. Further, he taught me that no messengers choose his successors - that is with Allah.
• Who was this person that Elijah wanted to choose but did not end up choosing? In his Q&A, John Muhammad says regarding Warith Deen Mohammed,
• Some of them think that the Messenger chose him. He wanted him - I tell you the facts - that was the man that Elijah Muhammad wanted to carry out the Nation of Islam. He wanted him, but he couldn’t choose him. He told me that… he couldn’t choose a successor.
• So, despite John’s theological disagreements with Warith Deen, he admits here that Warith Deen was the one Elijah Muhammad wan ed to succeed him. It is likely that their theological differences and their turbulent relationship is what prevented Elijah from formally appointing him.
• It is unclear where Master Fard Muhammad went after he disappeared in 1934. His common law ex-wife Hazel Barton told the FBI that Fard told her that he was “returning to New Zealand.” Others said that Fard was in “Mecca, Egypt, or even still in Chicago.” The last time the Supreme Minister said that he saw Fard was in Gary, Indiana in 1934. The last lesson sent by Fard by mail supposedly came from Mexico.
• In one lecture, John Muhammad mentions in passing that he knew where W.D. Fard went. He says,
• None of these other ministers teaching Islam around, they never sat and talked with Master Fard. No. They don’t know even where he is at… how can they go sit with him and don’t know where he is at? People have asked me where he was. Yeah, I know. I know where he went. I was told where he went.
• The key element here is that John Muhammad “was told” where W.D. Fard went. Told by whom? By his brother, Elijah Muhammad, one would presume. Who else did he tell? At the very least, we have two people who knew what happened to W.D. Fard. Anyone with information should come forward.
• John Muhammad does not reveal the location, nor does he mention his source. I asked a family member of John Muhammad, and they were not aware of W.D. Fard’s whereabouts after 1934. The only reference to a post-1934 physical appearance is in the introduction to The Reformer. This introduction was presumably written by Medina Mohammed, the daughter of Burnsteen, in 2024-2025, and it says, “early in 1935 Sister Burnsteen and other believers traveled from Detroit to Chicago to see Master Fard Muhammad. It was the last time they saw him.”
• This is the only reference to a 1935 visit that I know of, and it contradicts earlier, more reliable accounts. It is certainly possible, and Elijah Muhammad would claim to have some form of access to Fard after 1934, but researchers need more than just a twenty-first century second-hand account to verify this appearance.
• What is commonly known about W.D. Fard’s family is that he told his followers that his father was a dark-skinned black man, that his mother was a light-skinned Caucasian woman named “Baby Gee,” and that he had an older sister. It was often taught that Baby Gee was from the Caucasus, Azerbaijan, or Russia. However, John Muhammad said to a questioner that Fard’s father got his “white” wife from the “Kashmir Mountain.”
• If true, this is a huge revelation. Elijah Muhammad cryptically said in his 1973 Saviour’s Day address, “I’m not going to tell you… where the hill was… someday you will soon hear me tell you, but I want to be sure when I tell you this, that the hills will welcome me to tell you.” Perhaps he did not reveal the location because Kashmir was (and is) contested territory between India and Pakistan. It is true that the people of Kashmir are predominantly light-skinned Muslims, which fits the description of Baby Gee. This would mean that W.D. Fard was at least half Indian. He may even have been fully Indian, because Hatim Sahib recorded Elijah Muhammad saying in 1951 that Fard’s father
• went often in the mountain in their country where some Caucasians were living. They think that they are Moslems (sic) and they do think that they are Christians or they belong to the Christians too. He said he got one of those women and took her for his wife.
• If the Kashmir Mountain was in Fard’s father’s country, that would presumably make him Indian too. One subtle clue that W.D. Fard taught about Kashmir is the use of the name “Cushmeer” in NOI circles. The newspaper records shows that the name “Cushmeer” was being used at least as early as April 1934. Farrakhan’s late confidant was Bernard Edward “Jabril Muhammad” Moore Cushmeer (1936-2023). “Cushmeer” is phonetically closer to the Urdu pronunciation of “Kashmir.” As a name, it was also not used in America prior to Fard’s coming.
• While Kashmir has a tiny Christian community, the reference to people there “belong[ing] to the Christians” may be a reference to the shrine of Yuz Asaf and the so-called “Bani Israel tribes” of Kashmir. Muslims living near the shrine believe that Yuz Asaf was a Sufi saint or prophet that came to Kashmir. The Ahmadiyya identified Yuz Asaf with Jesus Christ, and some in the regio believe that they are descendants of the “lost tribes” of Israel. If Baby Gee came from one of these communities, then that may be why she was sometimes called a Jew in NOI lore. If any of these contentions are correct, it is possible that she originated from the Pir Panjal Range, the Gurez Valley, Kupwara, Bandipora, Srinagar, Baramulla, or Sopore. When it comes to identifying the origin of W.D. Fard’s mother, if it is even remotely based on fact, we face nearly insurmountable obstacles, namely, the lack of a real name and potentially a lack of records from the 1800s.
• Another possibility is that W.D. Fard’s mother belonged to the Kalash people of Pakistan who are known pejoratively as kafir o infidels as they practice a polytheistic religion. Inhabiting the Chitral District of Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, this unique genetic group, some of whom have green and blue eyes along with blonde or red hair, live in the Hindu Kush Mountain valleys. Isolated and marginalized, this indigenous Indo-Aryan group, whom some believe descend from the army of Alexander the Great, have been persecuted, dispossessed, and murdered by neighboring Muslims and Islamist militias. Could the Kalash be the i spiration for the myth of the blue-eyed blonde devils that is found in W.D. Fard’s theology? Did he take localized Pakistani racism and project it globally?
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• (Figure 8.2: Sketch of Kalash people.Created from a Wikipedia photo. Public domain. CC BY-SA 4.0)
• Scholars have long suspected that W.D. Fard was from the Indian Subcontinent. Many of the names he used were Urdu, and perhaps even “Baby Gee” can be rendered “Bibiji” - “respected lady” in Urdu, Punjabi, and Hindi. Yes, it is claimed that Fard was a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca, but it is also common to find Muslims from the Indian Subcontinent who claim a lineage to the Prophet. Perhaps Fard attributed himself to Mecca because that is where he thought his family originally came from. Although the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 flooded Arabia with Indian pilgrims, the odds are infinitesimally small that W.D. Fard’s mother gave birth to him while performing the pilgrimage to Mecca.
• At another point in the same Q&A, John Muhammad briefly mentions that “Master Fard, of course, had brothers. He talked with one of his brothers while he was here in the Temple. He talked with one of his brothers.” To my knowledge, no one has ever mentioned W.D. Fard’s brothers prior to this. In another lecture, John Muhammad elaborates that this conversation occurred telepathically. Fard seemingly stood in the Temple and talked to his Asiatic brother remotely about the progress of Islam in America. When his brother showed some doubt, it worried Fard. Fard then asked for a lemon, and the lemon supposedly was able to stop the telepathic signal. According to John Muhammad, black people have a region of their brain that can potentially function as a radio or television transmitter. Life and education in the West caused black people to lose the ability to speak to people remotely.
• This may be the most peculiar Fard story of all. Of course, while the water content in lemons can interfere with higher freque cy radio waves, any absorption or attenuation caused by a single lemon would be very slight. Still, Fard may have read something related to this, or related to lemon batteries, and used this quasi-scientific knowledge in his teachings. That is not to say that telepathy is scientific. Elijah Muhammad would later claim to have visions of W.D. Fard. Perhaps he was basing this on Fard’s supposed conversation with his brother. After all, Elijah Muhammad did not believe in any “spook” spirituality.
• Scholars often wonder if W.D. Fard was a conman. He allegedly told the police that his teachings were “strictly a racket” designed to get “all the money out of it he could.” It is impossible to ascertain the intentions of a man we know so little about. However, we know that Elijah Muhammad came from a family of preachers: he, his brothers, and his father were all preachers. Elijah knew that he wanted to be a preacher since he was a little boy.
• From the newspaper record and the oral record, it seems that Elijah Muhammad and his family were the main ones running the Temple and the school in Detroit. The NOI was Elijah’s full-time job, and prior to Master Fard’s arrival, Elijah was destitute. In one lecture, John Muhammad confirms that the profits from the Temple went to Elijah Muhammad. He says, first speaking of himsel,
• “Didn’t you get paid for it?” No sir, not one penny. I won’t say a dime, that’s too big. Not one penny did he (Fard) give us or three- and one-half years. The little money that would come in at the Temple after paying our bills went to the Messenger to take care of him, because he was poor as a jaybird in whistling time. That’s right. We give it to him too. Myself and the othe secretaries that were before me - Ben Salvacon and Eugan Ali - take the money to him.
• As more writings, transcripts, tapes, films, and video recordings of Supreme Minister John Muhammad surface, we will learn more about the identity and teachings of W.D. Fard. John represented a strict adherence to Fard and Elijah’s teachings without the gradualism and the innovations of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed and Minister Louis Farrakhan. While Elijah Muhammad was more prone o guarding sensitive information about the early Nation of Islam, we have demonstrated that John Muhammad simply let some of these details out. Human memory is fallible, but much of what John Muhammad says can be corroborated by other sources. Supreme Mi ister John Muhammad has proven to be a solid source of reliable information on W.D. Fard. Let us hope there is more to come.
• CHAPTER 9 FARD HAS ESCAPED HISTORY: A REVIEW OF MICHAEL MUHAMMAD KNIGHT’S THE SUPREME WISDOM LESSONS: A SCRIPTURE OF AMERICAN ISLAM
• By John Andrew Morrow
• “We raised him up to a lofty station”— (Qur’an 19:57)
• In a Muslim world marred by mediocrity, rumination, and regurgitation, Michael Muhammad Knight (b. 1977) shines brightly as o e of the most original and creative Islamic writers of our times. Whether his works are fiction or academic, they are always entertaining and illuminating. As one can only expect, his latest work, The Supreme Wisdom Lessons: A Scripture of American Islam, the sole academic title devoted to such a seminal subject, was eagerly awaited and anticipated by experts in the field.
• Michael Muhammad Knight’s 289-page work features seven sections: the introduction, Fard’s Syllabus, Thirty Years in the Wilder ess, 1904-1934, Making the Lessons, Renewing the Lessons, The Lessons as Tradition, the conclusion, a series of appendices on the Lessons and Problem Book, as well as a bibliography and index. Professionally produced, and properly peer-reviewed, the work is required reading for anyone fascinated with W.D. Fard, the mysterious and nebulous founder of the Nation of Islam, as well as those interested in the history of Islam in the United States.
• On a positive note, Knight’s work makes fascinating contributions to the field. He suggests, for example, that W.D. Fard, or whoever he originally was, did not merely ship out from Hong Kong, but was originally from there; not as a Chinese person, of course, but as a resident of Asian parentage from what was Afghanistan, Pakistan, or India. Although it is a long shot, there migh be documents tying Fard to Hong Kong. That might explain why, to all appearances, he came to America with a knowledge of English. As Knight notes, he was proficient in English during his Fred Dodd years. While not new, and suspected by previous scholars, Knight’s claim that Elijah Muhammad edited or tampered with the Lessons seems sound based on comparative literary analysis.
• Fard’s potential association with the Ghadar movement is particularly interesting; however, Knight merely touches upon the topic. Specialists were expecting much more. Knight also provides further details into the background of George Farr. Especially welcomed is Knight’s detailed information regarding San Quentin, the Theosophic presence in the prison, the revelations regarding the educational opportunities that were offered when Fard was imprisoned there, the large size of its library, with over 12,000 books, and the fact that correspondence courses were offered through the University of California system.
• This confirms Elijah Muhammad’s claim that W.D. Fard studied at a university in California. Not only was San Quentin a “national model for prisoner education,” but it housed “the largest and most comprehensive prison school in the nation.” For Fard, going to San Quentin was quite literally like going to university. Far from procrastinating, he put his time to effective use. He did the time. He did not let the time do him. If he was not a street or lay intellectual when he arrived, he was most certainly one by the time he came out. For legal authorities, of course, he reformed the wrong way. Not only did he become more educated, ut he became more radicalized. Like many prisoners, he discovered or rediscovered Islam when he was behind bars.
• The greatest contribution made by Knight to the biography of W.D. Fard resides in filling in existing gaps and plugging previous information holes. To bones and a skeletal structure he has provided flesh. Knight gives life to history. As a result, Fard’s biography gets richer and fuller, colored, and lively. The fact that Hazel Barton, with whom Fard was “living in sin,” and with whom she had a son, had criminal associations is eye-opening. She was not the lily white, innocent housewife that she pretended to be. To avoid spoiling things for readers, no more details are provided in this review. The middle paragraph on page 67 is a veritable gold nugget and a fantastic find. When being interviewed by the police decades later, Hazel was just covering for Fard. She wanted to avoid incriminating herself as well. After all, she had been charged with bootlegging. Her case appeared in numerous newspapers. A couple of photos of Hazel Barton were available on the internet in 2025.
• On a negative note, Knight’s work falls short in some regards. He mentions the son that W.D. Fard, then going as Fred Dodd, had with Pearl Allen, a teenager from the Klamath Nation. While this was a possibility mentioned in Finding W.D. Fard, further research by Bilal Muhammad has demonstrated definitively that this was not the case. Readers are referred to the article “Did W.D. Fard Have a Son with Pearl Allen? A Century Old Mystery Solved?” which was published by the Berkeley Institute for Islamic Studies on January 14, 2024, and which is included in this book. And while Knight discloses the terrible news that the treasure trove of Fard documents that was discovered in 2002 is now locked in a vault, he fails to provide further information. They belonged to the Burnsteen Sharrieff Muhammad’s family. They were put on the auction block. The Nation of Islam, one presumes, claimed o own them. What did the court rule and why? Who legally owns the documents? And how could scholars access them? These questions beg to be answered. An entire page or even a chapter could have been devoted to this frustrating dispute. Why are Fard’s documents being held hostage? What are they trying to hide?
• Knight’s claim that W.D. Fard was only deified by Elijah Muhammad after he disappeared is debatable. It relies in part on the ecollections of Burnsteen Muhammad, W.D. Fard’s secretary, that were first published in 2011, and which were ostensibly written down up to sixty years after the events unfolded. Knight fails to acknowledge that the Reformer, as she was called by Master Fard, had long abandoned his doctrines, and had sided with Warith Deen Mohammed’s (d. 2008) reforms, unlike her husband Supreme Minister John Muhammad (d. 2005), who remained faithful to them. Not only was her Islam sanitized, or “Sunnitized,” but she fell under the spell of Salafist ideology. Her brief autobiography or memoirs are not a period source. As memory science has shown, each time people invoke memories, they reformulate them. Clearly, her account was colored.
• If we rely on newspaper, police, and hospital accounts from the 1930s, published when Fard was present in Detroit, it does appear that he claimed to be God, not exclusively, but in the sense that the divine resides in all human beings. From this philosophical perspective, no person is God individually. However, people are God collectively. It is through knowledge of self that people can attain God-consciousness, annihilate themselves in the Divine, and become at one with the One. The evidence from the period is quite clear that Fard and Ugan Ali described themselves as “gods of the Asiatic nation,” that Fard claimed to be “the Supreme Ruler of the Universe,” and that he suffered from delusions that he was a divinity. This is not up for debate. What can be disputed is the meaning attributed to such grandiose claims.
• If we rely on Burnsteen Sharrieff Muhammad’s memories, which are undated, W.D. Fard “taught us that the black people were god so when I would say my prayers, I’d shut my eyes and envision that great mass of people as god.” In a poem written on February 24, 1949, however, she took pride in the fact that W.D. Fard professed to be God to police officers in Detroit:
• Old [S]atan got shaky
• When at last they found
• This man in jail
• Was God they had bound
• They brought Him before justice
• And when He they had seen
• Asked His Authority
• Asked what did He mean?
• He opened the Holy Qur’an
• So it could be seen
• Then boldly declared
• I AM THE SUPREME BEING!
• If Burnsteen Sharrieff Muhammad seems to have backed away from the belief that Fard was God, saying that “He did not say god would be with me but Allah, not himself,” that is not the sense conveyed in her poem, “A Saviour is Born,” which equates Fard with Jesus, Christ, Allah, and the Supreme Being. To all appearances, there was a revision of her views.
• As for the doctrines that Fard was the Son of Man, the Second Coming of Christ, and God in Person, those appear to be the theological work of Elijah Muhammad and the result of his Christian upbringing. Like Fard, who initially preached solely from the Bible, gradually introducing the Qur’an, and then solely preaching from it, Elijah appears to have been intent on drawing Christians to the fold and transitioning them into a syncretic form of the Muslim faith. With Prophet W.D. Fard exalted to the status of the Divinity, Elijah Muhammad positioned himself as Allah’s Final Messenger.
• Knight also claims that attempts to identify Fard’s native Islam are “overly speculative and poorly evidenced, relying chiefly on superficial coincidences and essentialisms.” While it is true that we find “no significance for ‘Ali” in Fard’s teaching, it could be contested that we find “no concept of Shi’i imamate, no Shi’i specific reference to the Madhi… no Shi’i specific vocaulary… or no self-evident use of any Shi’i text or authority.” Not only does Finding W.D. Fard provide compelling evidence to the contrary but, to all evidence, Knight never read “Malcolm X and the Twelve Imams of the So-Called ‘Extremist’ Shiites.” As I concluded, “the Twelve Imams played a pivotal role in the theology of W.D. Fard that was taught by Elijah Muhammad.” The beliefs in question “fit well into the mold of Ghulat Shiism in its multifarious manifestations and bifurcations.” Let readers read a d decide for themselves.
• While Knight’s attempt to zoom out, and focus on the broader cultural picture of Fard, in the times and places that he moved a d operated, is both valid and valuable, one should not push back against or belittle the equally valid and valuable attempts to examine his ideas under a microscope. We should encourage all approaches. We need to examine microcosms as well as macrocosms. What is more, Knight’s attempts to identify potential sources of ideological influence in Fard’s writings, drawing from Theosophical and Freemason literature, could also be cast aside as overly speculative, superficial, and essentialist. The fact of the matter is such findings are fascinating, suggestive, and stimulating. Knight has done a fantastic job unearthing further potential influences on the thoughts of W.D. Fard. The list of sources and citations is outstanding. One can only hope that a specialist in Freemasonry will sift through the Lessons, Fard’s letters, and Elijah Muhammad’s teachings. Such a scholar could uncover even more Masonic elements. Some could trace back to Fred Dodd’s entanglement with Laura Swanson.
• Rather than dialogue with scholars, Knight, at times, seems to be preaching to the choir. When have previous scholars claimed hat Fard was one thing to the exclusion of others? Who has ever claimed to have a “master key” to unlock his secrets? Who has tried to tie Fard to a single set of sources? Few scholars speak in such exclusive and exclusionary fashion. Whether they trace Fard’s ideas to one source or another, they view him as an eclectic appropriator who cooked up a syncretistic theological gumbo full of disparate elements from East and West. Where have they claimed that his past predetermined his present? As Rakim (b. 1968), the legendary lyricist and rapper asserted in “I Know You Got Soul,” “It ain’t where you’re from / It’s where you’re at.”
• While identifying Fard’s biology, nationality, ethnicity, and religiosity can help provide answers, they obviously do not explain how he became what he became. That is more a matter of psychology and sociology than history. At one point, however, Knight dismisses the value of tracing the paternal DNA of Wallace Max Ford (d. 1942), the son of W.D. Fard and Hazel Barton (d. 1977). He does not believe that the results could provide us with any meaningful information. One’s biological makeup does not determine one’s beliefs, and if Fard belonged to a particular faith community, he would have been sui generis, if not a deviant or an outcast. However, DNA information could pinpoint his racial, national, and ethnic origin. Perhaps he was Asian, maybe from Afghanistan, Iran, Baluchistan, Pakistan, India or Azerbaijan. Maybe he was an Arab of Syrian Lebanese ancestry. Could he have been Moroccan? What if he was European or white? Perhaps a Greek or a Turk? Maybe a mulatto from the southern United States who came north? How about a Jew? And what if he was First Nations? Wouldn’t that throw a wrench into all our research? The findings, whatever they might be, would not be inconsequential. It is possible we have been looking in all the wrong places.
• Finally, although Patrick D. Bowen, the author of A History of Conversion to Islam in the United States, had intimated that Michael Muhammad Knight would be publishing new evidence regarding the origin of W.D. Fard on the Brother Garfield podcast, on March 20, 2024, no such information appears in The Supreme Wisdom Lessons: A Scripture of American Islam. Why? And if anyone was hoping to find out what happened to Master Fard after 1934, readers will be sorely disappointed.  ”So far,” concludes Knight, “Fard has escaped history.” That may have been the case in 2024; however, that is no longer entirely the case in 2025, as chapter wenty-three provides new potential leads.
• CHAPTER 10 THE NOI, THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, AND W.D. FARD’S MILIEU
• By Bilal Muhammad
• “He who knows himself knows his Lord.”
• In the cosmic soup that made up W.D. Fard’s hodgepodge of religious influences, scholars have noted the impact of the Theosophical Society to varying degrees. The Theosophical Society was a late nineteenth century esoteric religious movement founded by “Madame” Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891), a Russian American mystic and writer. Theosophy grew out of the same milieu as the Spiri ualist movement, and it laid some of the groundwork for what would later become New Age spirituality. It sought to connect Western occult traditions (including Hermeticism and Kabbalah) to Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, whilst synthesizing elements of rationalism, modern science, Rosicrucianism, and Romanticism.
• Blavatsky’s stated goal was to create universal brotherhood and cultivate “an ever-deepening understanding and realization of he Ageless Wisdom, spiritual Self-transformation, and the Unity of all Life.” In his new book The Supreme Wisdom Lessons: A Scripture of American Islam, Michael Muhammad Knight highlights that San Quentin prison - wherein W.D. Fard served time in the 190s - had “a strong Theosophical presence both in the prison library and… regularly held… services for its Theosophist inmates.” Knight notes Theosophy’s anticlericalism, race mythology, occult hierarchies, and diet, all of which have parallels in Fard’s eachings.
• Some researchers, like Karl Evanzz, have suggested that W.D. Fard may have been George Farr, a local Garveyite leader in early 1920s San Francisco; and George Farr may have been involved with the Theosophical Society. According to Knight, there is no record of a George Farr in Theosophical lodges in San Francisco. However, judging from the scant references to George Farr anywhere, and the potential subversive activities he was involved in (attracting the Office of Naval Intelligence’s attention), it is likely that “George Farr” was just an alias.
• On race, Knight points out that Fard’s racial view of history corresponds to his milieu in 1930s America. The books that Fard assigned according to Beynon included Hendrik Van Loon’s Story of Mankind and James Henry Breasted’s Conquest of Civilization, both of which were contemporary to Fard (published in the 1920s), and both “imagined races rising and falling and supplanting each other as the prime makers of civilization.” Similarly, Theosophy developed the concept of seven “root races,” tied to epochs of human development and cycles of millions of years.
• For Theosophists, the Aryan race (comprising of Indo-Europeans) is the fifth root race, and it is the dominant race today and the youngest race on the planet. Black people were associated with the earlier third root race (Lemurians), who were “the first physical beings with material bodies.” Prior to Lemurians, there were ethereal, luminous races that existed in harmony with divine forces. This can be compared to Fard’s idea that the black man is the “original man,” and that whites came later. For Theosophists, some of these root races come from mythical islands and continents (Atlantis, Lemuria); this resembles Fard’s narrative that whites came from the island of Patmos. The Thule Society, a post-WWI German occultist group that would go on to influence the Nazis, similarly believed that Germans originated in the northernmost mystical land of Thule. For all these groups, esoteric knowledge is a source of empowerment. For all these groups, there is also a utopic racial post-history - coinciding with the final root race for Theosophy and coinciding with the destruction of the white man and the reign of the black man in heaven o Earth.
• Fard’s eschatology, of course, has significant overlaps with Jehovah’s Witness doctrine. The Jehovah’s Witnesses were probably most relevant in the 1910s-1940s, a period which saw the consolidation of their theology, the development of their organizational infrastructure, and mainstream attention in America. Most of this occurred while W.D. Fard was active.
• Furthermore, one cannot forget the burgeoning discussions on evolution, genetics, and eugenics in the nineteenth and early twe tieth centuries: Darwin hypothesized that humans originated in Africa, the discovery of the Taung Child Australopithecus africanus in 1924 provided evidence for this, and racial theorists were using Mendelian genetics to describe African traits as domina t. White supremacists also looked at history from a racial lens, and it is possible that Fard took these racial hierarchies and flipped them on their head. The bottom line is all these influences helped shape the environment from which Fard’s theology would stem.
• Theosophists like Annie Besant (d. 1933) wrote of twelve “Masters of the Wisdom” who “form the inner council, overseeing the spiritual evolution of humanity.” Besant probably drew from the Rosicrucian manifesto, the Fama Fraternitatis (c. 1610), which also speaks of “twelve wise men, adepts in both natural philosophy and divine wisdom. These twelve formed the inner circle, hidden from the world, yet directing its spiritual course.” This divine council plays a guiding role in the NOI, as they are said to be the authors of the Bible, the Qur’an, and all scriptures.
• Mattias Gardell compares Fard’s idea of history moving in 25,000-year cycles to a similar idea in Theosophy, where precessional cycles last 25,868 years. This is probably based on the Great Year in astronomy, where a gradual shift in the orientation of Earth’s rotational axis causes equinoxes to move backward through the zodiac over a period of approximately 25,920 years. Karl Evanzz suggests that the 25,000-year cycles were borrowed from Hinduism. John Andrew Morrow points out that Yezidis believe in 26,000-year cycles, Ismailis believe in cyclical time, and the Nation of Islam (NOI) tied these cycles to the twelve Imams or the twenty-four scientists.
• Since the Great Year is an astronomical and astrological concept, it would not be surprising to find variations of this concep in different parts of the world. However, W.D. Fard presumably spent most of his adult life in the United States (at least si ce 1908, when he was known as Fred the Turk or Fred the Greek). When trying to locate the origins of his teachings, scholars should primarily look to America’s spiritual fabric in the times and places where Fard was known to be active. While it is possible that Fard was borrowing ideas directly from his native Asia, where he may have spent some of his youth, Asian religious traditions are extremely vast, and it is easy for scholars to find points of comparison between NOI lore and obscure ideas from the Islamicate. While experts in Islamic studies may know something about cyclical time in Ismailism or Yezidism, it was perhaps less likely for a child from (say) Afghanistan in the late modern period to internalize these concepts and later teach them in America. Similarly, as Knight also noted, it is likely that the belief in twenty-four scientists finds its origins in the Bible; and perhaps Fard or Elijah Muhammad further developed the idea and connected it to the Shia Imams after reading available literature on orthodox Islam. It is technically possible that Fard was exposed to Ismailism, Yezidism, or Ghulat Shiism while he was in America, but these traditions would have been less accessible in 1920s America than the Theosophical Society or the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
• Both the Theosophical Society and W.D. Fard seemed to hold that there were periodic spiritual masters or saviors (unlike Christianity’s sole focus on Jesus). For Theosophists, there is the World Teacher (sometimes referred to as the Maitreya or Christ), who periodically manifests to guide humanity during times of crisis. For W.D. Fard, Jesus was just a prophet, there were many gods and scientists throughout history, and (perhaps) he saw himself as the “Supreme Being” or World Teacher of this time. Supreme Minister John Muhammad mentioned “sixteen saviors,” which may be a reference to the book The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviours written by Kersey Graves in 1875. Although Graves was not a Theosophist, the book was written in the same year that the Theosophical Society was founded, and it enjoyed popularity among freethinkers, religious syncretists, and skeptics of Christiani y - people like W.D. Fard.
• There are some important points of distinction between the NOI and the Theosophical Society. For the NOI, the history of the white race only goes back six thousand years, while for Blavatsky, the Aryan race was one million years old. The Theosophical Society teaches universal brotherhood, while the NOI advocates for the unity of black people against whites. There is no direct equivalent to the Yakub story in the Theosophical Society, but one could say that both Blavatsky and Fard engaged in racial mythmaking. Fard did not seem to believe in spiritual or ethereal beings and preached a very naturalistic theology. Regarding Hinduism, Fard was apparently antagonistic toward Hindus, telling Elijah Muhammad that between a Hindu and a Christian, one should “kill the Hindu first.” Perhaps this attitude reflected a sort of “falling out” with Hindus after possible association with them in the Theosophical Society, the Ghadar movement, or elsewhere in America or in the world.
• While locating W.D. Fard’s origins or whereabouts is a trying task for researchers, we have an excellent idea of what he taugh to his followers and in his writings. Scholars have attempted to trace the origins of some of these ideas; and while W.D. Fard was a sponge that soaked up many influences, he was also incredibly creative. Despite some antecedent ideas in his milieu, Fard seems to have created much of the lore himself - from the tribe of Shabazz to the Yakub story, the explosive origin of the Moon, the Mother Plane, and black people on Mars. Scholars are encouraged to find more parallels in the Theosophical Society, Freemasonry, the Ghadar movement, and other movements that were contemporary to W.D. Fard. After all, it may be easier to locate the origins of ideas than it is to find a missing person.
• CHAPTER 11 DID W.D. FARD ATTEND THE FUNERAL OF A FREEMASON IN AUSTRALIA IN 1940?
• By John Andrew Morrow
• “After learning Mathematics, which is Islam,and Islam is Mathematics, it stands true.”— W.D. Fard
• As a historian and biographer with a passion for the mysterious and enigmatic W.D. Fard, I regularly receive a stream of leads sent by community historians, independent researchers, and internet investigators. Occasionally, they provide leads of interest. Most of the time, they can be debunked within a matter of minutes. The majority of these do not merit mention in publications; however, from time to time, some of them deserve to be discredited to prevent the spread and reinforcement of rumors and to prevent other scholars from wasting their valuable time by going on wild goose chases. Such is the case with the claim that W.D. Fard attended the funeral of Fred White, a freemason, in Australia, in 1940.
• Unlike most other leads, sent by well-wishers and obfuscators, this one was supported by a small newspaper clipping, the origi of which the tipster refused to disclose for reasons he refused to reveal. While I was unable to locate any trace of W.D. Fard in the Australian press using Newspapers.com, it took a simple search of Trove, Australia’s free online research portal, which is operated by the National Library, in collaboration with Australian State and Territory Libraries. Thanks to the Australian Newspaper Digitization Program, I was able to locate the funeral notice on page 13 of the Saturday, May 25, 1940, edition of the West Australian. To my delight and surprise, I found that one of the mourners in attendance at the funeral of Fred White, which was held in the city of Perth, in Western Australia, was “W.D. Fard.” What were the odds of that? After all, not only is such a name exceedingly rare, used only by some of his followers, but it appears to have been unique during his lifetime. In fact, to this date, I have not come across another person named “W.D. Fard” who was a contemporary.
• /
• /
• (Figure 11.1: West Australian, Perth, WA. Saturday 25 May 1940, page 13. Public domain. Mandatory credit given to West Australian Newspapers Limited)
• There it was, as clear as day, the printed name of “W.D. Fard,” confirming his attendance at the funeral of a prominent Freemason. This would suggest two things. Number one, that W.D. Fard was indeed associated with Oceania: New Zealand and Australia. Number two, that W.D. Fard was an active, and perhaps important, member of the Freemasons. After all, Fred White must have been a prominent Freemason if it forced W.D. Fard out of occulation to attend his funeral.
• /
• (West Australian, Perth, WA. Saturday 25 May 1940, page 13. Public domain. Mandatory credit given to West Australian Newspapers Limited)
• For cyber researchers, wild claims are made without forethought. Lazy or untrained, they lack diligence. Little do they appreciate the need for every claim to be substantiated, verified, and confirmed. It is all about evidence. All claims must be proven. It is elementary. So, the research continued. The most pressing question was who was Fred White and what was his connection to “W.D. Fard?” The answers came quickly. Much of the information was in the funeral notice. Newspapers, both prior to and after 1940, mentioned Fred White. Soon, I was able to connect Fred White to “W.D. Fard.” The only thing is that he was not W.D. Fard. His name was W.D. Ford. As was common, Fard was a typo for Ford, and the name of the person in question appears in numerous publications in its correct form: W.D. Ford. Within a matter of minutes, I had amassed a basic biography of the life of the person in question, and I even obtained a drawing of him. So, who was W.D. Ford? The answer was in the papers as well.
• /
• /
• (Figure 11.2: Construction, Sydney, NSW. Wed. 1 Oct 1952: 3. Public domain)
• W.D. Ford was none other than Wilfred Donald Ford. He was born on May 13, 1925, at Five Dock, New South Wales, Australia. He married Beryl Kathleen Foley in 1945. Their marriage produced one child. He was appointed the secretary of the Master Builders’ Association of New South Wales in 1952.
• /
• (Figure 11.3: The Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday, November 29, 1952: 5.Public domain as confirmed by Anastasia Symeonides,Account Manager Licensing, The Sydney Morning Herald)
• W.D. Ford passed away in Campbelltown, New South Wales, Australia, at the age of 82. He would have been five years old in 1930 when W.D. Fard appeared in Detroit. Even if it was in his power to metamorphose, W.D. Fard would also have needed the power to be in two places at the same time, simultaneously being a child in Australia while being a demigod in Detroit. So, clearly, W.D. Ford was not W.D. Fard.
• Although W.D. Ford was not W.D. Fard, he was, in fact, a Freemason, as confirmed by Joshua Newman, Membership Office, and Senior Grand Warden at the United Grand Lodge of NSW & ACT, who kindly provided the following details in an email dated February 15, 2025:
• Bro Wilfred Donald Ford MM (Reg#258512). Initiated into Lodge Sans Souci 442 on 18/02/1958 at the age of 33. He was a Secreta y of some sort. Second Degree 13/03/1958. Third Degree 15/07/1958 where he became a Master Mason (MM). Remained a member for many years in Lodge Sans Souci 442 which eventually became Lodge James Cook 442 in the mid-1970s. In 1979 the lodge consolidated with Lodge Pythagoras 68 to form Lodge James Cook 68 where he stayed until 18/10/1983 when he called off.
• As for Fred White, his full name was Frederick White. He was born in England in 1880. He married Emily White and had a son and two daughters with her. He moved to Australia in 1936. He died in Canning Bridge, Swanbourne, Western Australia, on May 13, 1940, at the age of sixty. Although W.D. Ford was a Master Mason, Joshua Newman was unable to confirm or deny that Fred White was one as well despite all the details and documents that were sent to him. As he explained,
• I thought I had located Fred and had spent some time on him. Everything seemed to line up with your dates however when I went o reconcile the date he left the lodge it seemed to be after your Fred’s date of death. I am not able to confirm if Fred was or was not a mason in NSW.
• What is puzzling is how an African American Muslim produced the claim that Fred White was a Freemason. Quite possibly since he himself has been involved with the Masons and other secret, and not-so-secret, societies, which are transparent when it comes to membership and rank. Although it is possible that Fred White was a Mason, there is no official evidence. As Joshua Newman explained, the man who seems to match him in their records is recorded as leaving the Masons at some point after the date of his death. A clerical error? Who knows?
• Despite claims to the contrary, and unfounded rumors that were not investigated, W.D. Fard did not attend the funeral of Fred White, an alleged freemason, in Australia, on May 15, 1940. This rumor, which was treated as a fact in some corners, circulated unchallenged. It took less than ten minutes of research on the internet to debunk it definitively. Although W.D. Fard claimed hat he was a New Zealander on a couple of occasions, when he was going by the names of Fred Dadd and Wallie Dodd Ford, there is no documentary evidence that he was a Kiwi. What is more, there is nothing tying him to Australia either.
• Since he was constantly obfuscating and reinventing his past, little to nothing he said about himself can be trusted and all the allegations that he made need to be independently verified. As difficult as it is to track the origins of a missing person, who was perpetually trying to muddle his tracks, the task is rendered even more challenging when people make grandiose claims wi hout basis, and devoid of verification, sending serious scholars and historians on futile missions, as well as vain and pointless pursuits.
• “I knew you would crack this case,” emailed the informant, “and get to the bottom of this.” Yes, indeed, I did. So, bring them on. W.D. Fard has been missing in action for nearly a century. One day, one tip or one lead could close the case for good. However, when the mystery is gone, so is the intrigue. It is the element of surprise, the excitement of the unknown, that sparks cu iosity. The magic is in the mystery. Once the mystery is gone, and we avail ourselves of the answer, so is the magic.
• CHAPTER 12 DANCING WITH THE DEVIL
• By Bilal Muhammad and John Andrew Morrow
• “Devils must stay away.”— W.D. Fard
• One of the most peculiar and neglected stories in the early Nation of Islam is that of a mysterious blue-eyed white man by the name of Wali. While the early NOI was undoubtedly a serious and apocalyptic organization - one that had frequent run-ins with the authorities - W.D. Fard apparently knew how to have fun. According to Fard’s secretary, Burnsteen “the Reformer” Sharrieff Muhammad, Muslims held picnics every Tuesday where they would dance, play games, and win prizes. Burnsteen said that he “would even dance the waltz with a glass of water on his head.” Some of these events would happen at Belle Isle, an island park in Detroit; but according to Burnsteen’s daughter Medina Mohammed, Fard and his followers would mostly go to Wali’s house in Ferndale, Michigan for enjoyment. Ferndale is a suburb of Detroit. These accounts would perplex scholars in the field: who was Wali? Why were members of a black nationalist religious movement partying in the house of a “blue-eyed devil”? Is it possible that Wali was a blood brother of Master Fard Muhammad, who could also be considered white in appearance, and whose name is remarkably simila ?
• Thanks to a recently surfaced lecture of John Muhammad, who was the brother of Elijah Muhammad and the husband of Burnsteen Sharrieff Muhammad, we have learned more about this white Wali. According to John Muhammad, the name of the light-skinned man in Ferndale was Wali Mohammed, he was one of John’s teachers in the Temple, and he “submitted himself” to W.D. Fard. This fact is simply stunning. One of the early teachers in the Temple of Islam was a white man.
• When John Muhammad was the principal of the University of Islam, he asked Wali a series of questions, and he answered them “just as though they were nothing.” Apparently, Wali’s college friends would call him a “walking encyclopedia,” but John Muhammad said that he realized after staying with him in Chicago that he was “as dumb as they get” and that he “[didn’t] know nothing but the encyclopedia.” We have heard nothing about Wali’s whereabouts after Fard’s time.
• The newspaper records were searched for a Wali Mohammed in this period. In The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, an article titled “One Time Local Grocery is Mohammedan Mosque” by Anna Jane Phillips appeared on August 1, 1932. The article is about an Ahmadiyya community with an Indian Imam, and it features a picture of a predominantly black congregation in prayer. It also states, “To bind themselves closer to Islam, each has discarded his English name on joining the mosque and adopted a title from the Eastern land of their prophet. John Smith is now Abu Saleh, and Tom White has become Wali Mohammed.”
• In 1933, in The Cincinnati Post, an article titled “Bustle of Cincinnati Fails to Disturb Devotions of Followers of Mohammed” appears on February 9th - just over six months after the Pittsburgh article. It covers another Ahmadiyya mosque, stating,
• Islam draws no race or color distinction. To ensure universality, even natural names are dropped and names taken from the myriad Islamic prophets adopted in their stead. The muezzin, for example, is a Cincinnatian. His name used to be Fox. Now, he is Noor-dad, “light given.” Similarly, one of the faithful used to be John Smith. Now he is Abu Saleh. Tom White is Wali Mohammed, Ja rel is Ahmad, and Jones is Ali.
• There are a few considerations we must make. Firstly, there is no guarantee that the Wali Mohammed of the NOI is the same person as the Wali Mohammed of Pittsburgh, and there is no guarantee that either are the same person as the Wali Mohammed of Cincinnati. However, the timing, the conversion, the new names, and the Muslim circles may suggest that they are. Detroit is about 423km from Cincinnati, and it is about 460km from Pittsburgh. Cincinnati and Pittsburgh are also about 465km apart. There is, therefore, some distance between the three cities, but they are also not exceedingly far apart. It is also a bit strange that both a ticles mention John Smith and Tom White in a row. Is the second article copied from the first? Are these real names or just hypothetical examples? It is possible that the two were friends.
• To potentially connect all three people, there is a third article that is relevant. In the Grand Haven Tribune, there was an a ticle titled “Pair Slug, Rob Ailing Grocer: Knock Ferndale Man Unconscious, Find He is Ill, Revive Him” published on August 4th, 1931. The story is about two robbers who knocked a 60-year-old man unconscious and then resuscitated him after learning that he was suffering from pneumonia. The man’s name in the article is Tom White, and his daughters’ names are Glory and Verdun. Since Tom White is a common name, it is possible that this is not the same person, but the time and place give some probability tha it is. If this is our man, and if the age noted is accurate, then it would put his birth year at around 1870-1871. If Wali Mohammed were an older, sickly man, then it would make sense why we do not know anything about him after Fard’s time.
• Wali Mohammed’s potential connections to the Ahmadiyya movement are relevant to our study of W.D. Fard. The early NOI seems to have been extensively influenced by the Ahmadiyya mission in America. Ahmadiyya proselytizers were active in Detroit and Chicago (both places Fard and Wali were active), and they were presenting “Islam as a religion of racial justice and correction to white supremacy.” It is possible that W.D. Fard met Wali Mohammed in the Ahmadiyya community, and the two became friends. It is possible that Wali Mohammed had progressive racial views, which drew him to these two predominantly African American communities.
• As for W.D. Fard, the Ahmadiyya was just one of many ingredients that he tossed into his esoteric gumbo. It was far from being the nucleus or the kernel of his philosophy. He probably went to fish for converts at their mosques and to obtain books. Where else did he get the Ahmadi-published English translations of the Qur’an that he used and distributed to his disciples? It would not make much sense for an Ahmadi missionary to take a four-year break from the Ahmadiyya while teaching something contrary to their doctrines; teachings that would never lead anyone to the Ahmadiyya. There is no evidence that the leaders of the Ahmadiyya deliberately set out to use this type of syncretism and gradualism to introduce Islam to black Americans. The claim, made by Warith Deen Mohammed, Louis Farrakhan, and Fatimah Fanusie, that W.D. Fard was putting his followers on an evolutionary path to some religion that was unrecognizable to his own, is unconvincing.
• If W.D. Fard were alive and teaching today, he would probably be more of a political activist than a cleric. He was a naturalist, he kept up with the science and anthropology of his time, he called preachers Icemakers, and he called churches Ice Houses. He had zero tolerance for Arabs or traditional Muslims. He called the Bible the Poisoned Book. He barely spoke about the Prophe Muhammad. He probably did not believe in life after death. After all, he taught that heaven and hell were conditions in this world. Although he lived in a society where most people belonged to religions, and very few were atheist or agnostic, Fard’s religious influences came primarily from esoteric societies and secret rituals. The Ahmadiyya Movement, on the other hand, was a religious enterprise. While William Thomas White, aka Wali Mohammed, appears to have been briefly associated with Ahmadi-associated centers, he was perhaps more closely associated with W.D. Fard.
• After W.D. Fard’s departure in 1934, Elijah Muhammad’s family launched the Final Call to Islam newspaper. The paper seemingly only had four editions. It was written in a time when Elijah was still collaborating with his brother Kallatt Mohammed, who was then called the “Head Investigator.” The newspaper features a group picture of the Nation’s “high ranking officials,” with Kallatt standing in the foreground.
• Interestingly, a Wali Mohammed is called the “Manager” of the newspaper. Could it be that the first manager of the first Final Call newspaper was a blue-eyed white devil?! This would be shocking for a militant black nationalist organization like the NOI. But since Wali was apparently college-educated, in a time and a community where that was rare, he was a possible choice for this role. However, Willie Muhammad - one of the brothers of Elijah and Kallatt - was also sometimes called “Wali Mohammed,” which confuses matters further. Since this was basically a family newspaper, it is highly likely that this Wali is Willie. If so, that would mean that our Wali Mohammed from Ferndale went away around the same time as Master Fard Muhammad.
• If Wali Mohammed was Tom White and he lived in Ferndale, Michigan between 1930 and 1934, this fact should be easily corroborated. And it is. The man in question, and the only who matches the profile, was William Thomas White. He lived in Ferndale, Michigan, and was the father of Glory and Verdun.
• While one might have expected this Wali Mohammed, or Tom White, to have been a Lebanese, a Syrian, a Bosnian, an Albanian, or any other ethnicity associated with Islam, he was born in Alvington, Gloucestershire, in the United Kingdom in December 1868, when his father William, was twenty-four and his mother, Mary Ann Tarrant (1840-1908), was twenty-eight. William Thomas White, who had four brothers, would marry three times and father twelve children.
• William Thomas White immigrated to the United States as a teenager. His son Vernon was born in Michigan in 1891. His daughter Lettie was born there in 1893. He was listed as working as an engineer in the Detroit City Directory in 1898. He married Ada Lemon in Detroit on December 11, 1894, when he was twenty-six years of age. He married Theresa Margaret Ponzer Bayerl White Negus Haigler Fuller in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, on March 25, 1897, when he was twenty-eight years old. His daughter, Lilian May (18 8-1977) was born on 13, 1898, in Detroit, Michigan. His daughter, Sylvina Mildred (1899-1991) was born in Detroit on October 7, 1899. His son William was born in 1899 in Michigan.
• William Thomas White was living in Detroit Ward 16 in 1900. His daughter Eva was born in 1905 in Michigan as was his daughter Lucille. He divorced Theresa on January 15, 1909, in Michigan after eleven years of marriage. He was forty years old. His son, Harry T. Gill, was born in Michigan in 1909. In 1910, he was living in Elk Rapids, Michigan. On January 27, 1912, he married Ethel Florence Lewis Gill in Detroit. He was forty-two years old. His daughter, Dorothy Gill, was born there in 1912. The daughter mentioned in the newspaper article, Glory Virginia (1913-1990), was born in Detroit on June 1, 1913. The other daughter, Verdu Ethel, was born there on November 23, 1915 (1915-1990). William Thomas White was still living in Detroit in 1920. He was living in Ferndale, Michigan, in 1932, when he was sixty-three years of age.
• A meticulous search of Ahmadi literature turned up no sign of any William Thomas White, Tom White, Wali Mohammed, or Wali Muhammad. This is unusual as the Ahmadis were proud of showing off their converts, particularly the white ones they fetishized. There is nothing in The Review of Religions, in print since 1902, or in the Moslem Sunrise, which started publication in 1921. There is no evidence tying William Thomas White with the Ahmadis at all. One of the cities with which he was associated, namely Pittsburg, formed part of the great Ahmadi schism that took place there in 1934 and in Cleveland in 1934-1936. If Wali Mohammed was associated with these mosques, it is possible he was not mentioned in Ahmadi sources as he joined the breakaway blacks who revolted against Indian Qadiani control. Since his contact with W.D. Fard has been confirmed, it is possible that this white Muslim missionary, Wali Mohammed, was fishing for converts for the Allah Temple of Islam.
• /
• (Figure 12.1: Sketch of William Thomas White, aka, Wali Mohammed, thewhite dancing partner of W.D. Fard, based on an original, fair use, photograph)
• In two articles, Wali Mohammed accompanied a John Smith at the Ahmadiyya mosques in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. John Smith was also known as Abu Saleh. Was this John Smith an associate of Wali? Were they working together to gain black converts? Is it merely a coincidence that “Abu Saleh” is one of the nicknames sometimes associated with the Mahdi in Shiism? Is it possible that John Smith was our protagonist, Master Fard Muhammad? “John Smith” is about as inconspicuous of an alias as one can have in the English language.
• William Thomas White, one would suspect, was a Freemason. The Grand Lodge of Michigan was contacted, and they were provided wi h the name of William Thomas White, born in 1868, and who lived in Ferndale, Michigan. The only person with a similar name, who was a member between 1930 and 1934, was William M. Thomas, who joined Fellowship #417 in Detroit, right near Ferndale. The person in question was an inspector. Further research proved that this was a different person. The one in question had died in 1942. He had been a plumbing inspector who was born in Scotland.
• /
• (Figure 12.2: William M. White Profile. Courtesyof the Grand Lodge of Michigan. Public domain)
• Our protagonist, William Thomas White, was an engineer, born in the United Kingdom, who disappeared around the same time that W.D. Fard vanished from the face of the earth. In fact, according to his descendants, word is he possibly died in South America. This is beyond curious as W.D. Fard sent a letter from the southwestern part of North America in 1933. Texas? New Mexico? Arizona? California? Mexico? According to John Muhammad, it was sent from Mexico. If so, how would he know unless he was told?
• A final letter, sent from Mexico, was received in March 1934. Hence, it was long suspected that he crossed into Mexico. The problem with that theory is that W.D. Fard was reportedly back in Chicago in 1935. However, the only source for this claim is the introduction to the new Burnsteen Muhammad book (written by Medina and company).
• /
• (Figure 12.3: “Celebration of the New Generation Islamic Society,” c. 1920s.Source: Bentley Library, University of Michigan. Public domain)
• At this point, there is no reason to believe this claim. Her father, John Muhammad, who knew the founder of the Nation of Islam personally, said many times on video that the last time he saw W.D. Fard was in Gary Indiana in 1934. This is interesting because it is right next to Michigan City, an immigrant town, with deep Syrian/Lebanese Twelver Shiite roots. As Edward E. Curtis IV notes,
• The first Muslim congregation in Michigan City was incorporated on April 26, 1914, as the Bader Elmoneer Society. Its leader was Hussein AbouDeeb Mohamed. During that decade, according to another Muslim immigrant, Hussein Hussein Ayad, at least two other Muslim groups were formed. All three groups were short-lived, but by May 15, 1924, many of their supporters came together to form the Asser El Jadeed, or the “New Generation,” Arabian Islamic Society. 
• In the early 1930s, they established the oldest formal mosque in the United States and one of the oldest Twelver Shiite ones: The Temple of Asser El Jadeed Arabian Islamic Society, namely, the New Generation Mosque, which was established in Michigan City, Indiana, in the early 1930s, and which was renamed The Islamic Center of Michigan City in 1969. This might provide a clue as o why W.D. Fard named his center the Allah Temple of Islam as opposed to referring to it as a mosque. Of course, “temple” is a generic term that other secret societies would use. The Michigan City community might also have been a source of influence when it came to Shiism in its moderate and extreme theological varieties.
• Wherever W.D. Fard went, and apparently, he traveled to California regularly, a fact that was confirmed personally by Medina Mohammed in her conversations with one of the authors of this work, he was last seen in the Windy City, namely, the City of Big Shoulders. Academic detectives should search for any traces of W.D. Fard in Gary and Michigan City, Indiana, focusing on historical records, newspapers, photographs, and potential informants. It is just a matter of time before W.D. Fard is found in collections of photographs.
• /
• (Figure 12.4: Sketch of the Asser El Jadeed Mosque in downtown Michigan City, Indiana. Source: Michigan City Library. Based on a photograph originally publishedin the La Porte Herald-Argus on Friday, September 1, 1978: page 8, column 1,without listing a y photographer, source, or date of the image. Fair use)
• Burnsteen Sharrieff Muhammad, W.D. Fard’s one and only secretary, who served him faithfully from 1931-1934, had noted in her memoirs that the Allah Temple of Islam would organize picnics every Tuesday where they would dance, play games, and win prizes. She recalled that W.D. Fard would “dance the waltz with a glass of water on his head.” According to her daughter, Medina Mohammed, some of these events took place at Wali’s house in Ferndale, Michigan. No listing for a Wali, in any variant form, was found for that city at the time. However, a newspaper search identified a Muslim convert by the name of Wali Mohammed who was associa ed with black congregations in cities a day away. His name was Tom White. A search for Tom White turned up a newspaper account which linked him to Ferndale, Michigan, and which mentioned that he had two daughters by the names of Glory and Verdun. A search of vital records revealed that his full name was William Thomas White.
• Much like W.D. Fard, William Thomas White was a perplexing person. He was a highly educated British American engineer. He lived in Ferndale, Michigan, one of the fastest growing cities of its size in the United States, in the 1930s. While he married numerous times, and had a dozen children, some of them were born out of wedlock. This was socially frowned upon as, in the 1930s, illegitimate births amounted to less than 4%. Initial research was unable to uncover any other link between William Thomas White and Islam outside of the articles already mentioned. How and why he became associated with a person like W.D. Fard is unclear. What is most puzzling of all is the fact that William Thomas White, aka Wali Mohammed, appears to have disappeared from Detroit, and the United States, at approximately the same time as W.D. Fard. He would have been sixty-seven years old in 1935. As if evaporating from the planet, without a trace, were not incredible enough, the most astonishing revelation is that, according to his descendants, it is possible that William Thomas White, namely, Wali Mohammed, died in South America. According to one theory, W.D. Fard left the United States and entered Mexico. If these findings are correct, and more research must be conducted, it is possible that he was not traveling alone. The question that haunts researchers remains: why?
• CHAPTER 13 W.D. FARD AND FORENSIC LINGUISTICS
• By John Andrew Morrow and Bilal Muhammad
• “Now you must speak the Language so you canuse your Mathematical Theology in the proper Term.” — W.D. Fard
• The field of forensic linguistics, computational linguistics, and L-1 native language identification in speakers of English is vast. The internet is filled with scholarly papers and conferences on the topic. In the not so recent past, linguists examined texts to detect the influence of L-1, first languages, on L-2, or second languages. The process could prove arduous and time co suming. By the 1990s and early 2000s, the rise of computers improved the task. Linguists and computer programmers designed systems to identify the mother tongue of speakers of English as a second language. Much of this software was private, experimental, and developmental. Except for linguists and educators, who used such programs to conduct research, there was no viable commercial market for such programs at the time.
• With advances in Artificial Intelligence, the ability to determine a person’s native language (first language, or L-1) has grown exponentially. If Chat GPT-3.5 had some strengths, it has been greatly surpassed by GPT 4.0 which boasts impressive capabilities. By analyzing speech patterns in speakers of English as a second language, it can even reveal subtle influences from their first language. What is more, unlike previous human-engineered programs, which focused on mistakes in grammar and style, programs powered by artificial intelligence also consider the content of the language to potentially identify the linguistic origin o its writer.
• Impressively, when tasked with NLI, or Native Language Identification, GPT 4.0 set a performance record of 91.7% in predicting a writer’s first language. The study in question conclusively proves that GPT models are proficient at NLI classification. While it is superior to GPT 3.5, it produces clusters of mistakes between Hindi and Telegu as well as between Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
• When it came to providing linguistic reasoning for its decision, the program also has its shortcomings. As Zhang and Salle note, “Manual examination of the explanations revealed a number of hallucinations and incorrect assertions” Consequently, the explanations need to be examined by a human linguist. Despite their shortcomings, “LLMs [Large Language Models] hold great promise for explainable L-2 data analysis, potentially enabling educators and linguists to unravel the nuances of language use that differentiate native speakers from learners.” Considering that Chat GPT 4.0 is over 91% accurate in identifying the mother tongue of people who speak and write English as a second language, it was of seminal importance that we submit W.D. Fard’s known writings through the program so that we can move from theory to fact regarding his origins.
• According to Zhang and Salle, “performance improves with text length, plateauing at around 1,250 characters… This finding has implications for real-world NLI applications, indicating that a minimum amount of text may be required to achieve reliable results.”
• In our case, we submitted all the letters and ads that Fred Dodd placed in newspapers while he was living in Oregon between 194-1915. We then submitted his letters to the editor from the time he was in Oregon and Detroit along with the Supreme Wisdom Lessons which are said to date from 1930-1934, consisting of 7,652 words. After that, we submitted the typed and handwritten letters of W.D. Fard which consist of 1,337 words. Finaly, we submitted solely the three handwritten letters authored by W.D. Fard which amount to 1,201 words. The sample size of ESL text was sufficiently large to produce an accurate determination of W.D. Fard’s L-1, or native first language.
• When submitting selections of W.D. Fard’s writings to Chat GPT 4o, we asked two precise linguistic questions: “What is the first language of the person who wrote this?” and “Can you give me a detailed description at how you reached this L-1?” 
• Prior to submitting the various writings for analysis, we were acutely aware of the variables involved. For example, it is possible that W.D. Fard had help composing letters and ads for newspapers when he was a new arrival in America living in Oregon. We know that Hazel Barton claimed that W.D. Fard had lived with a waitress who helped him write letters to his family.
• While his English is far from perfect, it does not show any strong foreign influence. Hence, somebody else could have written he documents for him or, at the very least, the editors at the newspaper corrected them since they did not want to publish texts that were not idiomatic. The same applies to the Supreme Wisdom Lessons.
• Although they were attributed to W.D. Fard, it is well-known that his secretary, Burnsteen Sharrieff Muhammad used to type out anything that he wrote or dictated. We also know that W.D. Fard was a perfectionist and held her to rigid, if not physically and emotionally abusive, standards of excellence. Hence, the Supreme Wisdom Lessons, among other typed documents, passed through he filter of the woman he titled the Reformer because she would reform or correct his words. Consequently, we assume that our best bet and perhaps our only truly reliable and representative writings were those that were written in the hand of W.D. Fard himself. We were correct in our assumptions as the following analyses confirm.
• The first language (L-1) of the writer of this text appears to be English, but likely with limited formal education or exposu e to standardized written English conventions. This conclusion is based on several features in the text:
• 1. Fluency and Idiomatic Phrasing
• The writer uses phrases like “tear all the light down” and “some of those cops does not like to see me sell goods,” which suggest non-standard grammar but are consistent with informal English speech patterns.
• 2. Repetition and Emphasis
• The repeated mentions of “Fred’s Night Lunch” and detailed directions, including phone numbers and locations, indicate an oral or spoken style translated into writing.
• 3. Grammatical Inconsistencies
• Errors such as “does not like” (instead of “do not like”) and “is not doing right in this matter then will stop selling” suggest possible influences from regional dialects or colloquial forms of English.
• 4. Vocabulary and Syntax
• The writer demonstrates a solid grasp of basic English vocabulary and can communicate their points clearly, though with non-standard sentence construction and grammar.
• While the writing style reflects someone who might not have formal training in written English, there is no evidence in this text to suggest an L-1 other than English. Instead, it reflects regional or socio-lectical English usage from an early twentieth century American context, possibly the Pacific Northwest.
• Here is a detailed forensic analysis of the provided text to determine the writer’s first language (L-1). The analysis explores grammatical, syntactic, stylistic, cultural, and rhetorical elements that collectively suggest Urdu (or a closely related South Asian language) as the most likely L-1 of the writer.
• 1. Grammar and Syntax
• The writer’s grammatical constructions reveal patterns of influence from a language with significantly different grammatical s ructures compared to English. Specifically, Urdu speakers transitioning into English often exhibit similar tendencies.
• 1.1 Subject-Verb Agreement
• Examples:
• “some of those cops does not like”
• The use of “does” instead of “do” indicates a misunderstanding of subject-verb agreement. In Urdu, verbs conjugate based on ge der, number, and the subject-object relationship, but the mechanics differ from English, leading to errors like this.
• “how many time have I told you this”
• The singular “time” instead of the plural “times” reflects a lack of pluralization, common among Urdu speakers, as Urdu uses plurals sparingly and relies on context instead of strict grammatical rules.
• “I not brought them to enforce knowing you have taken these steps”
• Missing auxiliary verbs (“I not brought” instead of “I have not brought”) is common for native Urdu speakers, as Urdu verbs oten express tense without auxiliary verbs.
• 1.2 Article Usage
• Urdu does not have definite (the) or indefinite (a/an) articles. This absence leads to overuse or misuse in English writing. Examples:
• “in the mouth of the Lion in his cave or civilization”
• Overuse of the definite article “the” reflects a lack of familiarity with when articles are necessary or redundant.
• “to the passenger people going out.”
• The use of “the” here reflects an attempt to translate specificity from Urdu, which would rely on context rather than explicit grammatical markers.
• 1.3 Word Order
• Urdu follows a Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) structure, whereas English uses Subject-Verb-Object (SVO). This difference can cause unusual word orders in English writing by Urdu speakers.
• Examples:
• “get on the labor now and study your assignment.”
• The placement of “get on the labor” reflects an attempt to use English vocabulary within an Urdu grammatical framework.
• “how many time have I told you this?”
• The word order “time have I told” mimics Urdu’s sentence construction, where auxiliary verbs and subjects often appear at the end.
• 2. Vocabulary and Phrasing
• The choice of words and the use of certain expressions strongly reflect South Asian linguistic patterns and cultural influences.
• 2.1 Literal Translations
• Examples:
• “minus things”
• This phrase appears to be a direct translation of a concept in Urdu, such as “nuksan wali baatein” (harmful things). This reflects a tendency to translate idiomatic expressions directly into English.
• “cave civilization”
• This metaphorical expression seems rooted in Urdu’s allegorical storytelling tradition, where vivid imagery is common.
• 2.2 Redundancy and Repetition
• Urdu uses repetition for emphasis, a feature that carries over into the writer’s English.
• Examples:
• “I will tell you again and again”
• Repetition is used to underline importance, a rhetorical device prevalent in Urdu but unnecessary in English.
• “how many time have I told you this?”
• The repetitive nature of rhetorical questions mimics Urdu’s emphasis patterns.
• 3. Rhetorical Style and Politeness
• The writer’s tone and rhetorical style are formal, respectful, and often didactic, hallmarks of Urdu prose and written correspondence, particularly in religious or professional contexts.
• 3.1 Politeness and Formality
• Examples:
• “My dear beloved brother”
• This level of respect and endearment is typical in Urdu and South Asian culture, where written communication often includes such honorifics.
• “I know you’re going to ask a thousand invaluable question”
• The use of “invaluable question” (instead of “important questions”) is influenced by Urdu’s formal register, where such hyperolic adjectives are common.
• 3.2 Poetic and Religious Tone
• Examples:
• “you are the wise and is in the mouth of the Lion in his cave”
• This metaphorical, almost poetic phrasing reflects Urdu’s rich literary tradition, heavily influenced by Persian and Arabic, which prioritize evocative language.
• “the law of nature will not allow a man to run the home of another man”
• The phrasing reflects Islamic and South Asian cultural concepts of order and morality, expressed in a formalized, almost scrip ural tone.
• 4. Cultural and Religious Context
• The content of the text is deeply embedded in Islamic traditions, referencing “Islam,” “labor of Islam,” and “Allah.” These reerences are particularly relevant to South Asian Muslims, where Urdu serves as a primary language of religious and cultural discourse. Examples:
• “Islam is the father: two-thirds of the inhabitance on the planet earth are Mohammedans”
• The use of the outdated term “Mohammedans” (common among South Asian Muslims during colonial times) indicates a linguistic and cultural context tied to Urdu’s use in religious teachings.
• “get acquainted there and start arising the Dead with your wisdom”
• The phrase “arising the Dead” metaphorically refers to reviving spiritual or religious understanding, a concept prevalent in Islamic teachings expressed in Urdu.
• 5. Punctuation and Structure
• The text contains long, unbroken sentences and limited punctuation, mimicking Urdu’s flexible approach to sentence demarcation. Examples:
• “you must always tell me other you will not be successful”
• Lack of commas or pauses makes the sentence feel unstructured in English but mirrors Urdu’s natural rhythm.
• “how many time have I told you this are you wasting my valuable moments on the same things over and over”
• Run-on sentences are common in Urdu writing, where punctuation is often less rigid than in English.
• 6. Elimination of Other Potential L-1s
• The analysis eliminates other potential first languages based on unique features of the text:
• Arabic: Arabic speakers tend to make errors with prepositions (e.g., “in” vs. “on”) and definite articles but do not exhibit he same repetition or word order issues seen here.
• East Asian Languages: Languages like Chinese or Japanese typically show errors in pluralization, articles, and verb conjugatio , but these patterns are not evident here.
• European Languages: Errors from Romance or Slavic languages (e.g., gender agreement, misuse of auxiliary verbs) are not prese t.
• Conclusion
• Based on the grammatical errors, word choices, rhetorical style, and cultural references, the writer’s first language is most likely Urdu. This conclusion is supported by:
• The SOV sentence structure influencing English syntax.
• Repetition and metaphorical language rooted in Urdu prose.
• Cultural and religious references common in South Asian Muslim contexts.
• Grammatical patterns typical of Urdu speakers learning English
• Letter 1
• The writer of this letter likely speaks a first language (L-1) with grammatical and stylistic structures different from English. Based on the patterns observed, the writer’s first language could be one of the following:
• Key Linguistic Clues
• 1. Article Usage:
• Errors like “Here is a few line” suggest a lack of distinction between definite and indefinite articles, which is common in la guages that do not use articles (e.g., Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, or other South Asian languages).
• 2. Verb Agreement and Syntax
• Errors such as “you have been taken” and “you do know it 100%” suggest challenges with auxiliary verbs and idiomatic expressio s.
• Lack of subject-verb agreement (“Here is a few line,” “you have done minus things”) points to an L-1 where verbs do not conjugate based on the subject.
• 3. Vocabulary and Phrasing
• Phrases like “piece you in two,” “yell out you wisdom,” and “cave civilization” suggest literal translations or idioms influenced by a different linguistic or cultural framework.
• 4. Repetition for Emphasis
• The repetition of “I will tell you again and again” and “use your wisdom with care” aligns with rhetorical styles common in South Asian and Middle Eastern languages, where repetition is used for emphasis.
• 5. Flow and Sentence Structure
• The letter features long, complex sentences with minimal punctuation, indicative of languages where such syntax is common, like Arabic, Persian, or Urdu.
• 6. Politeness and Address
• The use of “Dear Brother” and formal, respectful language aligns with cultural norms in South Asian or Middle Eastern societies.
• Likely First Language
• Based on these clues, the writer’s first language is likely:
• Urdu, Hindi, or another South Asian language: The use of respectful address, article omissions, and complex sentence structures are consistent with South Asian linguistic influence.
• Arabic: The structure and some phrasal patterns align with common challenges Arabic speakers face in English, particularly in he use of articles and verb forms.
• Final Hypothesis
• The strongest candidates for the writer’s L-1 are Urdu or Arabic, given the grammatical and stylistic characteristics present in the letter. Additional context, such as the writer’s background or region, would further clarify this conclusion.
• The writer’s first language (L-1) appears to be influenced by a linguistic structure and style that suggests a non-native proiciency in English. Based on the grammar, phrasing, and stylistic patterns observed in the letters, the writer’s first language is likely Urdu or another South Asian language. Here is the reasoning:
• Linguistic Clues:
• 1. Syntax and Grammar
• Phrases like “you are going after is a sure success” and “I have wrote the captains” reflect typical errors made by speakers o South Asian languages like Urdu, where auxiliary verbs and tense agreements differ from English.
• 2. Article Usage
• The inconsistent use of definite and indefinite articles (“I have wrote the captains” and “the lost found nation of Islam”) aligns with languages that either lack articles entirely (e.g., Urdu, Hindi) or use them differently.
• 3. Repetition for Emphasis
• Phrases like “I will tell you again and again” suggest a rhetorical style common in South Asian and Middle Eastern communication, where repetition is used for emphasis.
• Word Choice and Expressions
• Expressions like “the life of Mohammed all in them are to go poison by the devil” and “study your lesson” seem to reflect lite al translations of idiomatic expressions from Urdu or a similar language.
• Cultural Context
• The overall tone and phrasing reflect a formal, respectful style, aligning with cultural norms in South Asian linguistic tradi ions, particularly in written correspondence.
• Influence of Arabic
• Some phrases, such as references to “Koran” and “Sheriff,” indicate a familiarity with Islamic concepts, possibly through Arabic or an Islamic cultural lens. However, the writing style is distinct from native Arabic speakers, leaning more toward South Asian influences.
• Likely First Language
• The strongest candidate for the writer’s first language is Urdu, with possible influences from Hindi or other South Asian languages. This is supported by the mix of formal tone, South Asian English grammar patterns, and cultural-religious references typical of that linguistic and cultural background.
• As predicted, the ads placed by Fred Dodd, aka W.D. Fard, in newspapers in Oregon were penned by different people. He likely dictated them, and maybe even wrote them, however, they were obviously corrected for mistakes of grammar and style by a friend, if not the editors of the paper itself. Such documents shed no light on his native language. Despite some mistakes, the English produced was so good that it appeared he was a native speaker. The letters to the editor, however, written by W.D. Fard to newspapers in Oregon and Michigan were subject to far less editing, if any at all. Consequently, they all convey evidence of an Urdu substrate. Despite being typed by another party, and potentially corrected, perhaps by Burnsteen Sharrieff, Fard’s secretary, the Supreme Wisdom Lessons show clear linguistic evidence that it was written by a native Urdu speaker. The most damning, or blessed, evidence of all, which is beyond dispute, comes from letters that were handwritten by W.D. Fard himself and which did not pass through the filter of any other person. It is here, more than anywhere else, that the linguistic evidence points that an I do-Pakistani penned them.
• With advances in Artificial Intelligence, the ability to determine the native language (first language, or L-1) of ESL (English as a second language) speakers has become a reality. It could be argued that AI programs like ChatGPT-4o render L-1 identification programs developed by specialists in computational linguistics obsolete, not to mention manual methods of language analysis. When tasked with Native Language Identification, GPT 4.0 set a performance record of 91.7% in predicting a writer’s first language. While its ability to identify native languages impacting English speakers is impressive, and most of its linguistic explanations for its choices are sound, in some cases the program’s assertions are incorrect and hallucinatory. This problem, however, can be resolved by having a trained linguist examine the reasons provided by ChatGPT-4o. As a trained linguist, who has studied linguistics at the undergraduate, Master’s, and Ph.D. level, one of the co-authors of this study, John Andrew Morrow, perused the linguistic reasoning of the AI program and, while some of the explanations could apply to other languages, as ChatGPT-4o itself admitted, its arguments were sound, and no red flags were raised.
• Based on forensic linguistic analysis conducted by Artificial Intelligence, it can therefore be confirmed and concluded, with he highest degree of certainty, that the mother tongue of W.D. Fard was Urdu, although this does not exclude the possibility that it was influenced by yet another language, such as Hindi. This places W.D. Fard’s linguistic origin firmly in the Indian Subcontinent, in British India in particular, and in what would become Pakistan, to be perfectly specific. These definitive conclusions close the case of Fard’s national and ethnic origins. As forensic linguistic evidence confirms, his native or maternal language was not English, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Pashto, Greek, Hebrew, Bosnian, Albanian, or any other language. His mother-tongue was Urdu. He was therefore Indo-Pakistani.
• Urdu is spoken in the northern states of India. It is one of its twenty-two constitutionally recognized official languages. Urdu is also spoken by some people in Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar, as well as among immigrant communities abroad. Urdu, however, is the national language of Pakistan where it is spoken by millions of native and second-language speakers. So, statistically speaking, the odds are overwhelming in favor of the thesis that W.D. Fard originated in the part of British India that became Pakistan on August 14, 1947.
• CHAPTER 14 W.D. FARD IN ELIJAH MUHAMMAD’S MINISTRY CLASSES AND HIS WARNING & INSTRUCTIONS TO THE MGT & GCC
• By John Andrew Morrow
• “Civilize means to Teach the knowledge and wisdomof the human family of the planet Earth.”— W.D. Fard
• To distinguish between potentially original Fardian doctrines, and those that were purportedly developed over the years and decades by Elijah Muhammad, it is imperative to focus our study on the earliest sources available. In this case, the ministry classes taught by Elijah Muhammad in the 1930s. In so doing, we can try to determine what beliefs originally came from W.D. Fard and how, and if, his status evolved doctrinally in the Nation of Islam.
• “To the Ministry Class at Temple #1, Michigan,” was typed on December 3rd, 1934, nine months after Elijah Muhammad had last heard of W.D. Fard, namely, in March of 1934, the date of the letter that was sent from the southwestern part of the United States, ostensibly from the Mexican border. It commences “in the name of our Saviour the Almighty Deliverer of the Lost Founds; Prophet Fard Mohammed.” It stipulates that “Allah have sent us his only Son… in the person of Prophet Fard Mohamed.” He was also referred to as “our Master” for whom fasting and prayers are due. He was invoked in prayer as “Saviour Fard Mohammed.” Within nine months of his disappearance, W.D. Fard was already considered the Saviour, the Deliverer, a Prophet, and the Son of God. The document was signed “Your Brother and Servant in Islam, Elijah Mohammed.”
• In a document sent to the ministers’ class on October 24, 2025, Elijah Muhammad describes himself as “PROPHET ELIJAH MUHAMMAD.” In a document sent to “Ministers and Moslems in General,” written on October 25, 1935, Elijah Muhammad refers to W.D. Fard as “OUR SAVIOUR.” Here, however, he signs as “Your Brother and Servant of Allah, Prophet Elijah Mohammed.” Elijah does not simply efer to himself in terms of humility. He now speaks of himself as a prophet, a title that was perhaps only reserved for W.D. Fard during the early days of his mission. Elijah Muhammad was positioning himself as the new prophet of the Nation of Islam.
• In “A Warning to the M.G.T. & G.C.C. to Repent and Reform,” written on November 11, 1935, Elijah Muhammad describes W.D. Fard as the “Saviour.” He claims that “I am ALLAH’S Apostle to you.” He calls upon his followers to be obedient to Allah, W.D. Fard, and His Apostle.
• In a letter sent to the Ministers of the Nation of Islam dated July 31, 1935, Elijah Muhammad speaks of “our Righteous Saviour, the Mighty Allah.” Here, a clear equation is made between the Saviour, W.D. Fard, and Almighty God. It is signed “Your brother, Elijah Mohammed.”
• In a letter to the Ministers’ Class, dated August 28, 1935, Elijah Muhammad writes that “Our Saviour gave us an example by Himself.” The word “Himself” is capitalized as it refers to the divine Saviour. It is signed, “Your brother, Elijah Mohammed.” In a letter titled “United of Islam, the Natural Religion of Man,” written on August 30, 1935, and directed to the Ministers’ Class, Elijah Muhammad stresses that
• There never lived a Prophet [who] could equal our Saviour, in Love and Humanly, who spent 42 years of his life in training, fo the delivering of a rejected and out casted scorned, and despised people as we. He studied the devil’s language 20 years, so we could understand him in the language we speak, because our own, we know not. Also our Saviour being the wisest and last of the Imims [Imams] (Prophets), had the very highest place in the Holy City, and that, he forsook for our delivering.
• Elijah Muhammad placed W.D. Fard above all the prophets and messengers that he mentioned in his letter. He points out that Fard had spent over forty years training to deliver the black man in America. He spent twenty years studying English, the devil’s language, which suggests that English was not his first language. It also states that W.D. Fard was the “last of the Imams,” although the term was mispronounced or mistyped. Who is the last of the Imams if not the Twelfth Imam, the Mahdi of the Twelver Shiite Muslims? Who believes that the Imams were equal or superior to the prophets if not the Twelver Shiites? This is as strong and as early an indication that W.D. Fard was influenced by Twelver Shiite teachings. What is more, Elijah Muhammad calls for the unity of all black mankind under “the One True Religion, and One Supreme Being, Allah our Saviour.”
• In a document sent to all students in the Ministry of Islam, which was written on April 2, 1936, Elijah Muhammad describes himself as the “servant of Allah,” and signs the document as “Prophet Elijah Mohammed.” In another one from the same date, titled “The Dawn of Light,” he writes of “our Saviour (Allah).” This time, when he mentions “ALLAH,” he follows it often with “PRAISE HIS HOLY NAME.” He speak of “the True God, Jehovah ALLAH, whom they called God Almighty.” He signs off as “Prophet Elijah Mohammed.”
• In yet another letter to the Ministers’ class, written on May 5, 1936, Elijah Muhammad refers to “our dear beloved Saviour (ALLAH) the Life Giver of the dead Nation.” He describes “Allah,” namely, W.D. Fard, as “the Maker of the Universe.” He claims that “without ALLAH, we have No God.” In another letter dated May 26, 1936, Elijah Muhammad speaks of “our Saviour Allah! The Crea or and Maker of Man, to whom all Holy praises alone, the lord of the Worlds.” He describes himself as “the Servant of our God Allah (to whom be praises.)” Half-way through the letters, Elijah Muhammad starts to equate himself with “the ummi (illiterate) prophet mentioned in the Qur’an (7:157).”
• In “Instructions to the Moslem Fathers and Mothers of Islam,” Elijah Muhammad describes W.D. Fard as “our dear Merciful Saviou ,” “ALLAH OUR SAVIOUR,” and “ALMIGHTY JEHOVAH ALLAH, OUR SAVIOUR.” “PRAISE BE TO THE NAME OF OUR GOD, OUR SAVIOUR FOREVER AND EVER,” expresses “Prophet Elijah Mohammed.”
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• (Figure 14.1: Sketch of Elijah Muhammad.Created from an original, public domain, Wikipedia, photograph)
• In “Exhortation to the Moslems Girls Training and General Civilization Class,” written on March 31, 1937, Elijah Muhammad is a his most explicit concerning the divinity of W.D. Fard. It reads,
• In the Name of our Saviour ALLAH, Finder and Deliverer… All Holy Praises Due to Our SAVIOUR ALLAH, the Lord of all Worlds, I Bear Witness that Our SAVIOURS Who have come to Us Concealing His Omnipotent, and Omniscient Power Under Humiliation, and Through Many Names; The same was Known to us As MR. WALLACE FARD MOHAMMED. (Signed; Mr. W.F. Mohammed) the first; (i.e. Wallace) mea s Saint while the middle; (i.e. Fard) means the Opening; and the First Duty of a Moslem (concerning prayer; or the Service to Allah in the Mosque). The Last (i.e. Mohammed) Means the Praised one. And One that is Worthing of Much Praising.
• I Bear witness that this Same Mr. W.F. Mohammed is the ALMIGHTY GOD ALLAH HIMSELF. Whom all the Prophet from Abraham to Jesus, Prophesied Under Divine Inspirations; that in the Last days (the end of Satan Rule) That God Himself would come from the East (Heaven) and Search until he find the Lost brother, who left Home near 400 years ago following a stranger, the devil and when HE (Allah) hath Found the Lost Brother, ALLAH would Reclaim, and Rename Him back to his own, from the enemy devil who have Robbed and Spoiled Him that was Lost.
• More timid, cautious, and trepid, in its earliest iterations, the divinization of W.D. Fard was unleashed like a torrent in this letter that spans three pages.
• By the time Elijah Muhammad wrote to Burnsteen Sharrieff on July 13, 1949, he was starting his letters with “In the Holy name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Most Merciful. Allah to Whom nothing is independent, but upon Whom we all depend, The All-Wise, the Lord of the Worlds. All praise is due to Allah.” If, in the 1930s, Elijah Muhammad’s language had a strongly Christian style, by the late 1940s, certainly due to further studies about Islam, and reading the Qur’an, the language becomes more strongly Islamic in form. For an “orthodox Muslim,” these pious invocations would have one meaning. However, for the followers of Elijah Muhammad, the meaning was radically different for the “Allah” being praised was W.D. Fard, God incarnate.
• Finally, the “Muslim Girls Training and General Civilization Class Instruction on the Law of Women in Islam,” stipulates that “The Almighty Allah our Saviour; The Lord of the Worlds, has come down to us in person, to save and Deliver us from our enemies (the devils Caucasian).” It describes W.D. Fard as “Almighty God Allah” and Elijah Muhammad as “His Servant and Apostle.” The cycle was complete. The Islamic shahadah or profession of faith was fully subverted.
• Although this study relies on a small sample size and would greatly benefit from access to all of Elijah Muhammad’s written wo ks, particularly those dated between 1930 and 1934, while W.D. Fard was present, and those produced in the years immediately after his disappearance, it demonstrates that W.D. Fard was deified rapidly. The Christian influence on this process is palpable. However, it also shows signs of influence from the Ahmadiyya and the Shiites in general. With time, the overtly Christian language was replaced with a more Islamic one that echoes the dominant English-language Qur’an translations of the time. Elijah Muhammad Islamized the language; however, he could not mask his theological views.
• CHAPTER 15 THE THEOLOGY OF DOING TIME: W.D. FARD AND SAN QUENTIN PRISON
• By Bilal Muhammad
• “Yakub did not build prison houses to imprison his people.When one fell victim of the law, the penalty was deathand was enforced in every victim.”— W.D. Fard
• On February 15th, 1926, W.D. Fard was arrested for attempting to sell drugs to two undercover police officers. One of the officers, Raymond F. Southard, was “accused of conducting retaliatory raids against businesses who refused to pay him ‘protection money.’” As Anton Batey and Kevin Morris ask, “could Ford’s alleged alcohol violation and subsequent drug bust have been retaliation for refusing to pay protection money?”
• In any event, it would not be W.D. Fard’s first run-in with the authorities, nor his last, but it may have been his most serious, because it resulted in jail time at California’s notorious San Quentin State Prison. On May 27, 1929, Fard was released from San Quentin, and just over a year later, he started his Nation of Islam in Detroit. Scholars including Peter Matthews Wright (in an unpublished thesis), John Andrew Morrow, and Michael Muhammad Knight (b. 1977) have noted the importance of W.D. Fard’s San Quentin years, which may have helped shape his later teachings.
• When German criminologist Martin Liepmann visited San Quentin in 1928, he noted that it represented “the worst conditions” in American prisons, as it was “terribly overcrowded,” and food and accommodations were appalling. Inmates were also subject to hard labor at the jute mill, granite quarry, and at road labor camps away from prison grounds. In Fard’s time, San Quentin was crowded with the largest convict population in America; reporters described it as “a seething caldron of rebellion, a volcano ready to burst into eruption at any moment… sooner or later these suppressed animosities [would] arouse mass action.” An author named Robert Joyce Tasker (1903-1944), whose prison sentence overlapped with Fard’s at San Quentin, wrote the book Grimhaven (1928), which detailed his experience. He describes an environment full of knife fights, state executions by hanging, trigger-happy prison guards, stifling heat, cockroaches, sewer rats, racism, and itchy, uncomfortable prison clothing. This was an era when jailtime meant punishment rather than rehabilitation.
• Knight writes that “Fard first worked at the jute grain bag mill… and later the road crews.” According to Volker Janssen, “The jute mill’s large plant, heat, and fiber-filled air made for particularly poor working conditions and had been California’s convicts’ primary target for sabotage and strike actions.” Being subject to such conditions can understandably traumatize and radicalize people like W.D. Fard, if he was not already radicalized when he entered prison. It would also make sense why Fard would want to move somewhere with cooler weather.
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• (Figure 15.1: Sketch of Jute Mill at San Quentin, 1925-1935.Created from an original, public domain, photograph)
• Beyond its deplorable conditions, San Quentin was blooming with intellectual, religious, and cult activity. The University of California was offering correspondence courses. Knight notes that “the prison library contained 12,000 books, the State Library at Sacramento answered inmate requests with an average of 240 books delivered to the prison each month.” Tasker notes that San Quentin was full of “cranks” (irritable eccentrics with strange ideas) and that “every person had a theory or was an adherent.” He describes an environment rife with discussions on philosophy, religion, and revolutionary economic systems. Frazer’s The Golden Bough, a late nineteenth century anthropological study of mythology, was apparently popular among inmates. The prison had Bible study classes full of black people and preachers giving tantalizing sermons. Seventh Day Adventists were organizing programs. There were also many skeptics (including Tasker himself) - some Christians asked leaders challenging questions, and other Christians lost faith while incarcerated. San Quentin was also a recruiting ground for cults and mystics. Tasker writes in detail about the presence of the Theosophical Society, calling it the biggest “neo-religious cult in the prison.” Theosophy was probably one of the sources for Fard’s theology.
• Knight discovered that Elijah Muhammad’s claim that W.D. Fard studied at the University of California can be reconciled with the fact that these correspondence courses were being offered at San Quentin. Fard was evidently well-read, but like Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, Fard had to “read behind the words” of the texts he studied. He would have been exposed to both proponents and detractors of Christianity. He would have been exposed to both academic and cult literature. He would have witnessed relatively rigorous religious and philosophical debates. Fard’s religion was not a simple copy-paste of any existing religion or ideology. He d ew from many influences in his milieu, and he put together something that was very contemporary and extremely attractive to his target audience in Jim Crow-era America.
• There was frequent comingling between the races in San Quentin. Although sporting events were sometimes segregated photographs from the time show interaction and competition between different races. Tasker mentions that he found Mexicans gravitating toward one another, and black people “chattering, singing snatches of hymns, and slipping into their environment with enviable ease.” As is typical in American prisons, fights sometimes broke out between groups due to racist comments. Blue writes that a quarter of San Quentin’s population was foreign-born in 1929, and 7% were black. Although 89% of the prison population was white at this time, Mexicans were apparently being classified as white in San Quentin until 1930. This means that, when Fard was classified as “white” in prison, this was a more ambiguous label.
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• (Figure 15.2: Sketch of a floor Show at San Quentin, 1925-1935.Created from an original, public domain, photograph)
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• (Figure 15.3: Sketch of a rehearsal at San Quentin, 1925-1935.Created from an original, public domain, photograph)
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• (Figure 15.4: Sketch of an obstacle Race at San Quentin, 1925.Created from an original, public domain, photograph)
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• (Figure 15.5: Sketch of a Mexican Quartette at San Quentin, 1925-1935.Created from an original, public domain, photograph)
• Exposure to black inmates means that Fard could have been influenced by Lucius Lehman’s followers. The man in question, Lucius Lehman (b. 1863), was a self-proclaimed Muslim “mullah” who was incarcerated in San Quentin between 1910 and 1924. While his jail sentence did not overlap with Fard’s, Lehman wrote in 1924 that San Quentin’s black population had been “100 per cent Garveyized.” This means that Fard may have interacted with ideas pertaining to black nationalism, anti-colonialism, Pan-Africanism, and financial independence while in prison. I also know of no explicit association between Fard and Islam prior to the founding of his Nation; thus, it is possible that Fard discovered (or rediscovered) Islam through Lehman’s contacts in San Quentin. In a lecture, John Muhammad reported that Fard said that there were black men in prison who could have taught them, but they were i carcerated. Could Fard have been referring to Lehman or his associates?
• As a short, slim, foreign-born man - possibly from the Muslim world - we can only speculate on how W.D. Fard was treated among white prisoners in the 1920s. Judging from W.D. Fard’s anti-white animus after leaving prison, it is likely that white guards and cellmates tormented him. Fard would not have fit into any of the dominant racial groups, and he may have gained an affinity or black people (and non-whites) as underdogs in that environment. We cannot know for certain, but W.D. Fard’s common law ex-wife Hazel Barton was white, so he could not have hated whites for his entire pre-prison life. At some point in the 1920s, he was radicalized to the point where his anti-white views became the defining characteristic of his belief system. His stint at San Quentin may have been the most essential moment in his religious development.
• One of the most infamous persons in San Quentin in this period was its chief surgeon, Leo Stanley, who was there from 1913 to 951. Stanley was a lifelong eugenicist and a proponent of the belief that illness and ugliness were causes of crime. Stanley
• performed thousands of testicular implants in the prison, transferring the testes of dead prisoners (or animals such as goats and deer) into the scrotums of living men, guided by a belief that the testes would invigorate their new host bodies with increased testosterone.
• This process of grafting cannot help but remind us of the Yakub story. Was Stanley a prototype for Yakub? Stanley was apparently impressed with the “jazz and pep” of the testes of black men, which further reinforces an idea of black strength or white weakness that appears in Fard’s teachings.
• Knight points out that the IWW “Wobblies” were active in San Quentin; Morrow suggests that Fard’s definition of socialism in his lessons may have come from the Wobblies. While Arian discovered that Fard was described by The Los Angeles Herald as a “sidewalk politician,” and while Knight identifies this as potentially the earliest evidence for his political activities, there are hints that predate this. As a tamale salesperson, Fard puts ads in the paper saying that World War I news could be seen at his food stand.
• W.D. Fard was arrested repeatedly during his time with the Nation of Islam. Some of these arrests failed to deter him. Not only does he appear to be smirking in his Detroit Free Press photograph, but the newspaper also reported that “with the complacent smile of the Oriental fakir, Farad (sic) calmly told detectives that he was the ‘supreme Being on Earth.’” Fard was used to the legal system by this point, and while the voodoo killings would scare off amateurs like Ugan Ali, it is likely that Fard knew that the police had nothing of substance on him. Plus, sometimes, those subject to trauma find ways to relive it (repetition compulsion). When Fard told the authorities that his Nation of Islam was “strictly a racket,” he may have just been trying to get the authorities off his back. Judging from what we know about his time in San Quentin, one could speculate that Fard’s teachings were the result of serious distress and study, and not just a way to make a quick buck. In any case, by the time he was released, W.D. Fard was a revolutionary who was ready to declare independence for his lost-found Nation from white America. Perhaps years of torment led him to want to be seen as a god.
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• (Figure 15.6: Sketch of W.D. Fard in 1934.Created from an original, public domain, photograph)
• CHAPTER 16 I AM AN ANAGRAM: W.D. FARD’S ILLUMINATI RIDDLE IS DECIPHERED?
• By John Andrew Morrow
• “Any time he reveals the Secrets, his head wouldbe taken off by the sword.”— W.D. Fard
• Fred Dodd, the precursor of W.D. Fard, used to print ads in local newspapers like a teenager makes social media posts. Writing in the first quarter of the twentieth century, he tried to draw attention, attract clients to Fred’s Night Lunch, his tamale wagon, and start conversations about sports and politics. The most bizarre advertisement he composed, and one that resembles early twentieth century click bait, was what appears to be an anagram that was published on July 27, 1915, on page 5 of the Daily Capital Journal. It read: “FOUND - Check for $70.00 belongs to J. W. Laimiemaoghamaogharraonom. Please call Fred’s Night Lunch.”
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• (Figure 16.1: Fard’s anagram. Public domain)
• This was a considerable amount of money. In fact, in 2025, it would be the equivalent of about $2,209.24. To put that in perspective, most Americans, namely, 69% of them, earned less than $2,000 per year in 1914, and the average weekly wage for women and children was about $3.70. When Henry Ford introduced the $5-per-day wage, it was double the industry standard and twice the pay that his own employees were receiving at the time. Not only did the money draw attention, but so did the anagram. It is quite possible that the number seventy was symbolic and part of the code. After all, the number seventy has many symbolic meanings, i cluding completeness, wholeness, and restoration. It is associated with leadership, perfection, and universality. The Bible speaks of seventy nations, seventy disciples, and seventy elders. The Talmud speaks of seventy holy days and seventy names of God. In Semitic languages, the number seventy signifies a large or infinite amount. In Freemasonry, the concept of seventy elders represents wisdom and guidance.
• When researching Finding W.D. Fard: Unveiling the Identity of the Founder of the Nation of Islam (2019), I submitted the letters J. W. Laimiemaoghamaogharraonom through several anagram busters. These man-made computer programs were unable to make any meaningful words or sentences out of the letters in question.
• In 2024, I submitted the letters through a larger, more powerful anagram buster, and one that appears to have been powered by Artificial Intelligence, and, to my shock, awe, and surprise it succeeded in breaking the code. To my amazement, the program revealed that the unscrambled letters J. W. Laimiemaoghamaogharraonom can form the name Johann Wolfgang von Goethe with some extra letters. As ChatGPT-4o explains,
• The scrambled string “J. W. Laimiemaoghamaogharraonom” can be rearranged to form “Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,” with some extra letters left over. Let’s break it down:
• Target: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Letters used:
• J, o, h, a, n, n
• W, o, l, f, g, a, n, g
• v, o, n
• G, o, e, t, h, e
• Total letters: 26 (including spaces)
• Scrambled:
• J. W. Laimiemaoghamaogharraonom
• Remove punctuation and spaces:
• JWLaimiemaoghamaogharraonom (29 letters)
• It has:
• J, W
• L, a, i, m, i, e, m, a, o, g, h, a, m, a, o, g, h, a, r, r, a, o, n, o, m
• That’s 29 letters — 3 more letters than needed.
• So yes, “J. W. Laimiemaoghamaogharraonom” contains letters needed to form “Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,” though it includes ext a letters as well.
• “J. W. Laimiemaoghamaogharraonom” cannot be perfectly unscrambled into “Johann Wolfgang von Goethe” because it is missing key letters (F, T, E, V) and contains extra letters not needed. It’s close, and clearly inspired by or mimicking the name, but not a perfect anagram.
• How was this possible? How could Fred Dodd, an immigrant from the region of modern-day Pakistan, and a food stand operator, accidently produce such a complex anagram that most computer programs could not even decipher? Could the anagram in question be a product of chance?
• As ChatGPT-4o established, the odds that 27 random letters could make a meaningful anagram in the English language is nearly impossible. Consequently, the creation of the anagram in question appears to have been deliberate and intentional. It seems that Fred Dodd took the name Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and scrambled the letters. Could the missing letters convey a code as well? Yes, indeed, FTEV could stand for “Freemasonry, the Truth in Every Virtue.” The acronym could also from TFEV or “Truth is the Foundation of Every Virtue.” This is a core principle of Freemasonry that is taught to the Entered Apprentice. It is also worth mentioning that the missing letters may be a scribal error by the newspaper editor - such errors are more likely if it is just a jumbled group of letters like that.
• More than a mockery of long German names, as Anton Batey and Kevin Morris propose, J. W. Laimiemaoghamaogharraonom seems to be the scrambled name of a person. What names can it make when unscrambled? According to ChatGPT-4o, the only clear and plausible names that it can construct are as follows:
• J. W. Laimiemaoghamaogharraonom
• First, we identify clear name components:
• J. W. → Likely initials for a person. Common names with those initials:
• Johann Wolfgang
• James William
• John Wesley
• Next, from the rest of the string:
• Laimiemaoghamaogharraonom
• Let’s group that by sound or segments:
• laimiema → resembles “Emilia,” “Amelia,” or “Maimie”
• oghamao → could suggest “Goa,” “Hama,” or “Mahoma”
• gharraonom → potentially rearranged to include “Goethe,” “Aaron,” “Omar,” or “Roman.”
• Possible Full Names
• Here are names you can plausibly form using parts or all of the letters:
• 1. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• This is a famous name (poet and philosopher), and nearly all the letters are present, though as discussed earlier, some lette s are missing (like F, T, and V).
• 2. John William Mahom Aaron O. Gama
• Rearranged from:
• John William (from J. W. + Laimiema)
• Mahom (a variant spelling of “Mahomet”/Mohammed)
• Aaron (a common given name)
• O. Gama (could reference explorer Vasco da Gama)
• 3. Jamila W. Monoghamaroe
• A more fictional or creative construction could be a fantasy character name
• 4. William A. Monoghamaroe Jai
• Sounds like a poetic or literary name from a fantasy novel or non-Western culture
• Multi-Language Consideration
• Mahom = variant of Mohammed (older European usage)
• Gama = Portuguese surname
• Aaronom or Gharraonom could resemble names in Semitic or African languages
• Jamil / Jamila = Arabic for beautiful (male/female)
• Best Guess
• A creative and plausible name from this scrambled string might be:
• John William Mahom Aaronom Gama
• Or more compact:
• John William Aaronom Gama
• It sounds exotic but coherent, and every part can be derived from the scrambled letters.
• W.D. Fard was a clever man. He adored problems and puzzles. I simply do not believe that J. W. Laimiemaoghamaogharraonom was a “humorously convoluted name” that was used to “satirize the negative stereotypes of Germans, who were often ridiculed for their distinctive and sometimes lengthy family names.” I am convinced that it is conveying a message.
• As ChatGPT-4o confirms, the string, even unscrambled, is not meaningful in any human language. Oddly, some of the segments can be reconstructed to form Indian and Muslim names like Goa, Mahoma, Aaron, Omar, Jamil, and Jamila. When processed through ChatGPT-4o, and anagram solvers, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe comes out on top when asked to form a plausible full name using all or parts of the letters from the string. The extra letters, FTEV, also convey the Freemasonic teaching that truth is a divine attribute and the foundation of every virtue.
• The fact that W.D. Fard’s food truck was parked across the street from the new Masonic Temple in Salem, Oregon, could be signiicant. Still, most Masonic lodges are downtown, and downtown is where foot traffic would be for a lunch wagon. What is certain is that the future deity was popular, well-liked, and well-connected. His supporters and defenders included journalists, publishers, politicians, businessmen, attorneys, and judges. Even Mayor Burpee L. Steeves sided with him against the local police. Many of his friends and associates were Odd Fellows, members of the Order of the Eastern Star, Freemasons, and Shriners. Since he identified as white, and was accepted as such, racial barriers do not appear to have prevented him from initiation. What is more, he appears to have had acquaintances, friends, and brothers, namely, members of the Freemasonic brotherhood, at lodges throughout the United States.
• What was Fred Dodd signaling and why? What was the purpose of this cryptic code? It is known that intelligence agencies and operatives have a history of hiding codes in newspapers. Prior to texts, emails, fax machines, and telegrams, and even after their development, messages camouflaged in daily newspapers were virtually impossible to identify for everyone but the intended recipient who knew what to look for and how to break the code. Was it a joke? If so, we do not get it. Who was its intended recipient? And what did it mean? And how would an Indo-Pakistani immigrant have even heard of the person in question? After all, many u iversity-educated people have never heard of Goethe. It is remotely possible that Fred Dodd came across his name in a newspaper. There were some articles about him in publications he could have accessed. For example, page sixteen of the Oregon Daily Jour al from Sunday, August 28, 1910, among others. Still, that seems to be a stretch.
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born in 1749 and passed away in 1832. A prodigy and a polymath, he is considered the most accomplished and influential writer in the German language. In fact, some philosophers and scholars count him among the greatest authors and minds of all time. Why, once again, would Fred Dodd, the early incarnation of W.D. Fard, have any knowledge or interest in von Goethe? Was Fred Dodd an educated man? Was he self-taught? For Fatimah Fanusie,
• Fard Muhammad’s identity and intellectual background was that of a Muslim literate in the sources and traditions of Islam as represented in the revealed Qur’an and the example of Muhammad the Prophet; a knowledgeable student of comparative religious history and American religious development.
• If he was born in 1891, as he claimed when he married Pearl Allen in 1914, our protagonist was twenty-three years old at the time.
• When W.D. Fard entered the United States, and under what name, used to be far from factual. Fortunately, the research that has been conducted by Karl Evanzz, Patrick D. Bowen, Alam Khan, Anton Batey, Kevin Morris, Michael Muhammad Knight, Bilal Muhammad, and various other researchers, including myself, has filed a gaping historical void.
• The earliest confirmed and verified identities of W.D. Fard are Wallie Dad Khan (1907), Fred Walldad (1908), Fred the Turk (1908), Fred the Greek (1908), Wali Fired Dad (1909), Fred Wali Dad (1909), Fred Dad (1910), Fred Dadd (1911), and Fred Dodd (1913).
• If he entered the United States in 1904, as was claimed in the past, he would have been thirteen years old based on the date o his first marriage license. If he were born in 1877, as he later claimed, he would have been twenty-seven years old when he married a seventeen-year-old girl. Either way, that is extraordinarily little time for a person to become “literate in the sources and traditions of Islam” rooted in the Qur’an and the sunnah of the Prophet. The only way he could have been well-grounded in those sources is if he were raised and educated by a Muslim scholar or attended an Islamic seminary from the time that he learned his alphabet until he reached his teens or early twenties.
• Determining his age upon arriving in the United States is essential to establishing whether his knowledge of Islam was acquired abroad or in his country of adoption. Fortunately, Kevin Morris uncovered a passenger list that a man named Wallie Dad Khan arrived at the Port of San Francisco in January 1907, that he was eighteen years old, and that he was literate.
• The literacy rate in India, at that time, was 4-5%. In Afghanistan, it was around 37%. Either way, W.D. Fard belonged to an educated elite. When he arrived in 1907, he was carrying one hundred dollars in American dollars which is equivalent in purchasing power to about $3,402.12 in 2025. He was a young entrepreneur who was ready to start and manage businesses. He was no farmer o goat herder.
• Obviously, W.D. Fard did not need a background in Islam to make an anagram on Goethe. He needed Western intellectual culture. Still, in the early twentieth century, there was a fusion between Islam and Freemasonry. The factors that contributed to the spread of Freemasonry included liberal ideas, political engagement, nationalist aspirations, Sufi connections, as well as intellec ual and cultural exchange.
• Many prominent Muslims were Freemasons in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including Abdelkader ibn Muhyi al-Din, Shaykh Abdullah Quilliam, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad Abduh, Bechara El Khoury, Sheikh Salim Takieddine, Noble Drew Ali, and Elijah Muhammad. Not only does Elijah Muhammad state that he used to be a Mason in The Secrets of Freemasonry but he intimates that W.D. Fard granted him a more profound understanding of its rituals and ceremonies.
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• (Figure 16.2: Ancestry.com)
• Had W.D. Fard spent his adolescence and adult life in the United States, then most of his knowledge would be of Western origin with only trace elements from the East. If he arrived at eighteen, and was literate, that signifies that he received an education in Asia. Hence, he brought religious and cultural baggage. This was then supplemented with knowledge he would come to acquire in the United States. In that case, one must wonder whether Fred Dodd was a member of the Odd Fellows, the Shriners, or another so-called secret society. As David Scheer reported to me in January 2025,
• During the time period that Fred Dodd (Wallace Fard Muhammad) was in Oregon, Odd Fellowship in the United States was segregated. “White” Odd Fellows belonged to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and people of color belonged to the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows. I put “white” in parentheses because the actual rule of the IOOF was that only Caucasians were eligible for membership. Syrians were ruled by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows to be Caucasian regardless of complexion and were eligible for membership. In our museum, we have records of Syrian immigrants being admitted to Portland lodges. Oregon was in the middle of the fight over who qualified as Caucasian. See the case of Bhagat Singh Thind. You might be interested in reading Johanna Ogden’s book Punjabi Rebels of the Columbia River: The Global Fight for Indian Independence and Citizenship.
• New Northwest Lodge 2554 in Portland, founded in 1884, was the only Grand United Order lodge in Oregon at that time. To join the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, he would have needed to travel to Portland. Unfortunately, the records of the New Northwest Lodge have been lost to history. They were most likely destroyed in the Van Port flood.
• The Independent Order lodge in Salem is Chemeketa Lodge 1 and the lodge in Eugene is Spencer Butte 9. Despite not being visually “white,” it is possible that he could have joined one of these lodges, especially if he represented his heritage as being Syrian. If he did join one of these lodges, it would be very difficult to confirm as records from that era are handwritten and not digitized. It is also possible that he was initiated into the Odd Fellows but his paperwork was never turned in. My father was from Pendleton, Oregon and according to him, the Odd Fellows there accepted Native Americans into their lodge in defiance of the rules but hid their membership by not reporting it to the Grand Lodge. If this was the case for Mr. Fred Dodd, then we would have no record of his membership.
• Finally, I have heard from Odd Fellows who belong to the Nation of Islam and others who belong to Moorish Science that there was a historic connection to the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows. For this reason, if he did join the Odd Fellows in Oregon, It is most likely that he traveled to Portland and joined New Northwest Lodge 2554.
• Did the Odd Fellows, Freemasons, Shriners, or another esoteric or occult group initiate Fred Dodd, alias W.D. Fard, into the teachings of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe? Not only is such a discovery unforeseen, but it is peculiar and extraordinary. What possible connection could there be between Fred Dodd and von Goethe?
• While one would not think so based on his German name, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was of Turkish ancestry through his maternal grandmother who descended from the Soldan family, an old noble family from Moldova. Among his many academic interests, Von Goethe was fascinated by religion and held positive views of the Islamic faith. He had read the Qur’an several times and knew it be ter than the Bible. He had a special relationship with the Prophet Muhammad and authored a poem in honor of him. He was, however, critical of the “gloomy veil” that he had cast upon women and objected to how they were perceived and treated in Islamic theory and practice.
• When some of von Goethe’s manuscripts were found by a research team in 2020, it was discovered that he learned to write Arabic calligraphy. Curiously, the phrase that was repeated a lot in his exercises was ‘Ali wali Allah or “‘Ali is the Friend of God.” This statement, which forms part of the Shiite profession of faith, “There is no god but God / Muhammad is the Messenger of God / ‘Ali is the Friend of God” is often invoked by Sufi Muslims, as well, in art and song. Since he was only learning to write in Arabic, it is not surprising that Goethe technically misspelled ‘Ali wali Allah.
• As was common for intellectual elites across the ages, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a Freemason and frequently alluded to their teachings in his works. What is more, he was drawn to the Illuminati, a secret society that was founded in Bavaria in 1776. ⤀
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• (Figure 16.3: Calligraphy by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe professingthat ‘Ali is the Friend of God. Public Domain)
• The case for the Illuminati anagram could seem quite compelling to some. For others, the tenuity of the claim is transparent. Was W.D. Fard mocking German names? Was it a joke we do not understand? When asked to make Muslim names out of the string of letters, ChatGPT-4o produced the following: Imam, Omar, Ali, Amir, Jamal, Haram, Rahman, Wali, Halim, Ghaith Aamir, Ghazi, Noman, Amina, Fatima, Hala, Lamia, Maha, Noor, Rania, Iman, Ghada, Wiam. The letters could also be used to form Jawhar al-Ma’mun. Using all the letters in the string, we could form the name Jamil-Wahhaam al-Ghamarooni or Jamal Waleem Omar al-Gharramun.
• When I asked ChatGPT-4.o which of the names of W.D. Fard could be formed from the letters jwlaimiemaoghamaogharraonom, it found the following:
• ✅ Names that can be formed:
• 1. Wallie Ford (W, A, L, L, I, E, F, O, R, D)
• o All letters available and not overused.
• 2. Wallie D. Ford (same as above + D)
• o D is not available. ❌
• 3. Wally Ford
• W, A, L, L, Y, F, O, R, D → No Y, so ❌
• 4. W.D. Ford
• W, D, F, O, R, D → D is not in the string, so ❌
• 5. Wallace Ford
• o C is missing, ❌
• 6. Wallie Ford
• o Same issue as above with D — ❌
• 7. One Allah
• O, N, E, A, L, L, A, H → ✅ Yes!
• 8. W.D. Fard
• o Needs D — ❌
• 9. Ali Mohammad
• o Needs D — ❌
• 10. Mohammad Wali
• o Needs D — ❌
• 11. Mohammad Farrad
• o Needs D and 3 R’s — only 2 R’s available — ❌
• 12. Wali Mohammed
• o Needs 2 D’s — ❌
• 13. Wali Farrad
• o Needs 3 R’s, we have only 2 — ❌
• 14. Mohammed Fard
• o Again, D — ❌
• 15. Mohammed ‘Ali
• o D issue again — ❌
• 16. Fred Dodd
• o Too many D’s — ❌
• ✅ Confirmed Possible Names:
• ● Wallie Ford
• ● One Allah
• It is therefore possible that the anagram consisted of W.D. Fard’s name, Wali Farr, Wallie Farr, Wallie Farr, along with some other names that were significant to him. Curiously, the only alias of W.D. Fard that can be perfectly formulated is one that is rarely used: One Allah. Since this only uses eight of the letters, this seems like a stretch. Still, the most perfect anagram of all, and the one that uses all the letters, is the one that forms Johann Wolfgang von Goethe along with TFEV or “Truth is the Foundation of Every Virtue.”
• When asked what was the meaning of the following string of letters -- jwlaimiemaoghamaogharraonom -- in numerology? ChatGPT said:
• To interpret the string jwlaimiemaoghamaogharraonom in numerology, we use the Pythagorean system, where each letter corresponds to a number from 1 to 9:
• Now, we’ll convert each letter:
• j w l a i m i e m a o g h a m a o g h a r r a o n o m
• 1 5 3 1 9 4 9 5 4 1 6 7 8 1 4 1 6 7 8 1 9 9 1 6 5 6 4
• Step 1: Add all the numbers
• 1 + 5 + 3 + 1 + 9 + 4 + 9 + 5 + 4 + 1 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 1 + 4 + 1 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 1 + 9 + 9 + 1 + 6 + 5 + 6 + 4 = 141
• Step 2: Reduce to a single digit (unless it’s a master number: 11, 22, or 33)
• 1 + 4 + 1 = 6
• Final Result: 6
• Meaning of the Number 6 in Numerology:
• The number 6 symbolizes:
• Nurturing and responsibility. A deep sense of family, protection, andservice to others. Tendency to be a peacemaker, caregiver, or teacher
• Strong aesthetics - associated with beauty, home, and balance
• This string of letters - despite its seemingly random arrangement -numerologically resonates with themes of compassion, duty, and harmonious support. If this sequence is part of a code, it may carry an undertone of caregiving energy, healing, or community building. Perhaps, dare I say, the secret name of a cosmic homemaker.
• The number six seems significant as it is used a lot in Nation of Islam lore. For example, the 6000-year history, the 600 years to make the white man, and the 59,999 followers of Yakub.
• Critics might claim that the anagram under study was exceptional, a one-off, an aberration, or a coincidence. Consequently, I asked ChatGPT the following: Did WD Fard use anagrams? ChatGPT said:
• Yes, W.D. Fard (or Wallace Fard Muhammad), the mysterious founder of the Nation of Islam in the 1930s, did use anagrams, wordplay, numerology, and coded language in his teachings - especially in the Supreme Wisdom Lessons (also called the “Lessons” or “120”).
• Not all occult and esoteric groups use classical anagrams or scrambled letters like those used by W.D. Fard in 1915. However, Vigenère Cipher, Book ciphers, and Wahlworts (keyword fillers) do produce scrambled-letter sequences that look arbitrary to the uninitiated. These are structured encryption, not playful anagrams, and are used for secure communication.
• To all appearances, Fred Dodd, aka W.D. Fard, was sending cryptic messages through the press in the first quarter of the twentieth century. He published an extremely difficult anagram, one that would be virtually impossible to create accidentally, and which was almost impossible to decipher. When unscrambled by an initiate, it spelled out the name “Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.” While it missed several letters, FTEV, their absence seems to be intentional. The acronym seems to stand for Freemasonry, the Truth in Every Virtue, a teaching given to an Entered Apprentice, a person who has completed the first degree in Freemasonry. It also stands for TFEV or “Truth is the Foundation of Every Virtue.”
• Not only was von Goethe a Freemason, but he was a member of the Bavarian Illuminati. With this in mind and considering he spen his life moving through secret societies, and creating one of his own, it seems that Fred Dodd, who was also known as W.D. Fard and over eighty different aliases, was an active and prominent member of the Freemasons, Illuminati, Thelemites, or another occult group that use anagrams and/or ciphers.
• I can find no other reasonable explication as to why Fred Dodd would seemingly send a complex coded anagram invoking one of the leaders of the Illuminati: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, one that lacked four letters that formed TFEV, the Freemasonic teaching that “Truth is the Foundation of Every Virtue,” one that could form two of his names, namely, “Wallie Ford / One Allah,” and which contains the numerological message 6 that signifies compassion, care, education, and unity. As far as ChatGPT was concerned, the string “jwlaimiemaoghamaogharraonom” could convey the name of a cosmic source of compassion. If that were not enough, whe processed according to Kabbalistic principles, “the string jwlaimiemaoghamaogharraonom appears to be a mystical divine name construct … It carries the tone of a personal sacred name, not to be taken lightly.” As the Nation of Islam can rightly ask: can any human being construct such a code? Was W.D. Fard signaling that He was divine fifteen years before the creation of the Allah Temple of Islam?
• Finally, if W.D. Fard used anagrams and numerology as early as 1915, there is no reason to believe that he stopped doing so. I fact, this is the way members of secret societies communicate with one another. I know Twelver Shiite scholars who use numerology to send confidential messages to other clerics, including those that are family members. That way, they can protect themselves from government censors and spies. Consequently, it is within the realm of possibility that W.D. Fard recurred to the use of numerology and anagrams in his letters and writings. While a daunting research task, pealing through layers of darkness can unveil layers of light. Cryptology, the study of codes and the art of writing and solving them, could play an illuminating role in the study of W.D. Fard’s writings.
• CHAPTER 17 BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY! THE MOTHERSHIP AND ITS CONCEPTUAL ORIGINS
• By Bilal Muhammad
• “Let us pray that we do not use Mother’s Plane.”— W.D. Fard
• W.D. Fard, the founder of the Nation of Islam, taught that “our Asiatic brothers” designed and built the “Mother Plane” (sometimes called the Mother Airplane, Mother Ship, Mother Wheel, or Mother’s Wheel) - a UFO-like airship that would release smaller ships that will drop explosive and poison bombs on the United States. Elijah Muhammad said that the Mother Plane’s bombs were the same type that gave the Earth its mountains, and that they would dig one mile deep into the Earth. He connected it with Ezekiel’s wheel in the Bible (Ezekiel 1:15-21). The feared Mother Plane was not an otherworldly ship, but one built by mortal hands in Japan. Of course, despite Japan’s technological output, we know of no such airship.
• In 1942, Elijah Muhammad was indicted for his sympathies with the Japanese. Japan went on to lose the war, and Elijah was released from prison in 1946. With his unshakeable faith in Fard’s words, Elijah Muhammad persisted in his doctrine that America would soon be destroyed. The burden of this War of Armageddon shifted away from Japan and toward a divine intervention from God. The Mother Plane still plays a prominent role in his eschatology and that of his ideological successor, Louis Farrakhan (b. 1933).
• In this study, I explore the potential conceptual origins of the Mother Plane. There is hardly a book on NOI beliefs that does not mention it, and books like Stephen C. Finley’s In & Out of This World: Material and Extraterrestrial Bodies in the Nation of Islam (2022) dedicate large sections to understanding the theological significance of the Mother Plane. Belief in the Mother Plane is a distinctive doctrine that is ripe for a modern religion. While Fard and Elijah’s Mother Plane is unique, there are precedents for aspects of it in the milieu of 1930s America.
• /
• (Figure 17.1: Sketch of the Mother Plane. Public domain)
• W.D. Fard lived in a time of major technological innovation. The Wright brothers’ first powered flight at Kitty Hawk marked the beginning of modern aviation in 1903. Airplanes gained prominence as military vehicles during World War I. The 1920s saw the first commercial airlines and recreational aviation - KLM Royal Dutch Airlines was established, Western Air Express was operating passenger flights, and Charles Lindbergh’s 1927 nonstop transatlantic flight boosted public interest in aviation. Still, it was not until the Douglas DC-3 in 1936 that commercial air travel became more dependable and appealing. Significant technological advances in this time probably contributed to some of the inspiration for Fard’s highly naturalistic and scientistic religion.
• This was also a time when airships captured the imaginations of Americans. The 1890s “Mystery Airship Phenomenon” was an example of widespread UFO sightings (or mass hysteria) even before the first airplanes took off. H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds (1898), E.E. Smith’s The Skylark of Space (1928), and other science fiction stories introduced the public to ideas of extraterrestrial machines and fleets.
• Fard’s last recorded visit to his common law ex-wife Hazel Barton and their son was possibly in July 1933. Hazel said that his visit coincided with an annual air show, which A.K. Arian, the penname of Karl Evanzz, suggests was the 13th Annual National Air Races. It is not known if Fard attended this event. However, as Batey and Morris note, it hints at “Fard’s keen interest in aircraft (hence, the Mothership), and public spectacles.
• In September 1933, W.D. Fard was arrested by police in Chicago for “disorderly conduct” while preaching in a rented hall. The charges were soon dismissed, and Fard went to Detroit. There, he revealed to his followers that the race war would begin “this year.” He explained that “the unidentified flying object sighted in Canada recently… was really the Mother Plane.” Was Fard’s Mo her Plane partly inspired by the airshow just two months prior? In Elijah Muhammad’s 1973 book The Fall of America, he wrote, “In the 1930’s Canadian newspapers reported that they saw the wheel (Mother Plane). It came down out of the sky. They admitted hat it looked like a great city, and that something came down from it; it appeared to be a tube, but the tube-like thing went back up again.” I could not find these Canadian newspaper references - it is possible that I have missed them, or that the relevant articles have not yet been digitized.
• After the Japanese aerial attack on Pearl Harbor in late 1941, the FBI took special interest in the Nation of Islam due to its pro-Japan sympathies. A case file dated October 18th, 1943, included a detailed description of the Mother Plane:
• The organization has many beliefs which are fanatical, including a belief that Japan has had for many years a monster airplane, known to the Moslems as a “mother airplane.” The “mother airplane” is said to carry 1,000 small airplanes, each of which carries bombs, which will be used against the white man. Each bomb is said to be such size to penetrate the earth for a distance of one mile, and to destroy an area of fifty square miles when it explodes. The Moslems have also told their people that the Japanese have superior equipment of every kind and description.
• A file from February 1957 describes the Mother Plane as
• an airplane about one-half mile wide, and one-half mile long, which would travel from 350 to 400 miles per hour. This plane was completed in 1929. It took twenty years to build it. On the plane there are 1500 small planes. On each plane there are three bombs, each weighing 2000 pounds. The plane was made on the Island of Nippon. These bombs travel into the earth’s surface for one mile and do not go off for ten minutes. When they explode, they cast up mountains one mile high.
• This largely matches the description of the Mother Plane that we find in NOI sources. Knight mentions that Elijah Muhammad was teaching on the Mother Plane at least as early as 1935, saying that the plane was built “about 23 years ago” - corresponding to 1912. According to FBI transcriptions of Elijah Muhammad’s sermons, he frequently taught that the “Japanese will slaughter the white man” and that they were only waiting on Fard’s word. Was Fard’s Mother Plane the result of some foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor?
• Elijah Muhammad claimed that Master Fard Muhammad “pointed out to us a dreadful looking plane” and that it can be seen regularly in the sky. This implies that Fard showed the plane to his followers. Indeed, Elijah Muhammad said, “I have seen that plane… I saw this plane.” While we cannot independently verify this, it is possible that there was a unique airship that flew over Det oit or Chicago in the 1930s. Namely, the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin, a German passenger airship - the largest airship in the world at the time - flew over both Detroit and Chicago in October 1933. The cities were taken by storm, as people poured out into the s reets to peer at the marvelous zeppelin.
• /
• (Figure 17.2: Sketch of the Graf Zeppelin over Detroit. Created from an original photograph taken by William A. Kuenzel, the first photographer of the Detroit News. Public domain. Source: the Detroit News Archives)
• Of course, while the timing and the harrowing images are pertinent, the Graf Zeppelin is not a perfect candidate for our Mothe Plane. Sometimes the Mother Plane is described as “oval,” but the best known and attested descriptions note that it is a circular object that is half a mile long and half a mile wide. The Graf Zeppelin was not a military airship, it did not carry “baby planes,” and it did not fly as high as the Mother Plane reportedly could.
• Elijah Muhammad claimed that Fard taught that the Mother Plane could fly forty miles above the Earth. Elijah goes on to say that the “forty miles” figure may have been symbolic for forty years, “in which the Plane will go into action.” This would mean that Elijah Muhammad was (at this point) expecting the Mother Plane to attack sometime around 1973. In one recorded lecture, he had his eldest son draw a diagram of the Mother Plane on a chalk board, and he told the audience “I’m trying to show you what you’re going to see pretty soon.”
• During the 1920s and 1930s, aircraft were limited to altitudes of about 40,000 feet or less. Elijah Muhammad said that the Mother Plane was capable of going into outer space and staying there for six to twelve months at a time. Knowledge of distinct atmospheric layers was still emerging at this time, and it was not until the 1950s when the Kármán line was discovered - the bounda y between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space, at sixty-two miles above Earth’s surface.
• /
• (Figure 17.3: The Graf Zeppelin over Chicago. Created from an original,public domain, photograph from Rare Historical Photos)
• According to some sources, the Mother Plane could fly at a speed of 25,000 miles per hour. Of course, no known plane can fly that fast, and the origin of this number is unclear. It may be related to Fard’s idea that a cycle of time lasts 25,000 years, which itself may be based on the Great Year in astronomy. Since Fard’s Twelve Scientists may be aboard this vessel, these ideas may all be linked.
• Elijah Muhammad taught that the Mother Plane would carry 1,500 baby planes. There is precedent for a large plane that carries smaller planes in W.D. Fard’s milieu. Between 1931 and 1933, the U.S Navy had an airship called the USS Akron, which was the world’s first purpose-built flying aircraft carrier. It was able to carry, launch, and recover F9C Sparrowhawk fighter planes while in flight.
• /
• (Figure 17.4: Sketch of USS Akron, May 1932. USN - U.S. Navy Naval Historyand Heritage Command photo NH 42156. Created from an original,public domain, Wikipedia, photograph)
• It was also taught that each baby plane would carry three bombs. This also has precedent from the same period: the Japanese Mi subishi B1M, Mitsubishi B2M, and Aichi D1A, and the American Curtiss F8C Helldiver, Martin T4M, Great Lakes BG, and Vought SBU Corsair all could carry up to three bombs as a part of their payload. However, one unique characteristic of the Mother Plane was that its bombs could drill into the Earth, and its explosions could create mountains - I did not find direct precedents for these ideas. It was known by the early twentieth century that mountains were formed by tectonic activity.
• It is possible that some inspiration was taken from aircraft carriers. Aircraft carriers were “ships,” and the world’s first commissioned ship that was built as an aircraft carrier was Imperial Japan’s Hōshō (鳳翔, literally “phoenix flying”) in 1922. In 1928, Japan built the Kaga aircraft carrier; both carriers were primarily made of steel.
• Of course, Elijah Muhammad (and possibly W.D. Fard) used scripture to describe the Mother Plane. Ezekiel 1 describes a revela ion in the form of a wheel; later ufologists similarly described this wheel as an ancient UFO-sighting (indeed, for NOI adhere ts, all UFO sightings are potential Mother Plane sightings). Ezekiel’s vision would become the primary scriptural basis for the Mother Plane. Elijah also drew from the “shooting star” verses from the Qur’an (72:8-9), Revelation 20:9, “signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars” (Luke 21:5-7), and references to hellfire.
• The Mother Plane would remain at the crux of Farrakhan’s theology, as he believes that Elijah Muhammad is currently on board the plane. Farrakhan also says that he experienced a vision proving this, where he was taken up onto the Mother Plane, and Elijah Muhammad divulged a secret about the Reagan administration. It is unknown when the Mother Plane is expected to make its appearance, and John Muhammad reported that Master Fard Muhammad said, “let us pray that we do not use Mother’s Plane. I have other methods to go by.”
• It is possible that the Mother Plane symbolized the impending war between the United States and Japan, or the United States and Germany. In any case, the Mother Plane was taught at a time of interwar tension, burgeoning technological development, science fiction, and creative reinterpretations of scripture. It brought a modern flavor to the apocalypse - instead of the onus being on a spook God, the destruction of America would be brought about by the hands of the Asiatic people themselves. In the future, researchers ought to look for the alleged references to the Mother Plane in Canadian newspapers from the 1920s or 1930s. While Imperial Japan is long gone, recent declassifications of UAPs in America will breathe more life into this belief in a Mother Plane. Any mysterious object in the sky can keep faith in the dreadful plane alive.
• CHAPTER 18 YAKUB’S CREATION
• By John Andrew Morrow
• “Yakub was… the Father of the Devil.He taught the Devils to do this devilishment.”— W.D. Fard
• Of all the mind-bending and mind-blowing teachings that were transmitted by W.D. Fard, from the Mothership to Martians, the my h of Yakub’s creation takes the cake. To this day, when it is preached on street corners, it stops people in their tracks. The story of Yakub’s creation is summarized as follows by Wikipedia.
• According to the story, at the start of human history, a variety of types of black people inhabited the moon; when a black “god-scientist” became frustrated that all those living on the moon did not speak one language, he blew up the moon. A piece of this destroyed moon became the Earth, which was then populated by a community of surviving, morally righteous black people, some o whom settled in the city of Mecca. Yakub was born a short distance outside the city and was among the third of original black people who were discontented with life in this society. A member of the Meccan branch of the Tribe of Shabazz, Yakub acquired the nickname “big head,” because of his unusually large head and arrogance.
• At the age of six, he discovered the law of attraction and repulsion by playing with magnets made of steel. He connected this o the rules of human attraction: the “unlike” people would attract, manipulate the original “like” people. By the age of 18, he had finished his education and had learned everything that Mecca’s universities had to teach him, widely known as a successful scientist. He then discovered that the original black man contained both a “black germ” and a “brown germ,” with the brown being the recessive one, and believed that if he could separate them by “grafting,” he could graft the brown germ into a white germ. This insight led to a plan to create a new people, who, using tricks and lies, could rule the original black man and destroy them.
• He attracted a following but caused trouble, leading the Meccan authorities to exile him and his 59,999 followers. They then went to an isle in the Aegean Sea called Pelan, which Elijah Muhammad identified as modern-day Patmos. Yakub developed Christianity to fool the black people into supporting him and to trick them into not knowing their true history. Once there, he established a despotic regime, starting to breed out the black traits of his followers. This entailed breeding new children, with those who were too dark being killed at birth and their bodies being fed to wild animals or incinerated. Yakub died at the age of 150, but his followers carried on his work as he passed down his knowledge. After 600 years, the white race was created. All the races other than the black race were by-products of Yakub’s work, as the ”red, yellow and brown” races were created during the “bleaching” process, with the red germ coming out of the brown, the yellow coming from the red, and from the yellow the white.
• The brutal conditions of their creation determined the evil nature of the new race: “by lying to the black mother of the baby, this lie was born into the very nature of the white baby; and murder for the black people was also born in them - or made by nature a liar and murderer.” As a group of people distinct from the Original Asiatic Race, the white race is bereft of divinity, eing intrinsically prone to lying, violence, and brutality. According to the Nation’s teachings, Yakub’s newly created white race sowed discord among the black race and thus were exiled to live in the caves of Europe (“West Asia”).  In this narrative, i was in Europe that the white race engaged in bestiality and degenerated, losing everything except their language. They were kept in Europe by guards. Elijah Muhammad also asserted that some of the new white race tried to become black but failed. As a result, they became gorillas and other monkeys.
• To help the whites develop, the ruling Allah then sent prophets to them, the first of whom was Musa (Moses), who taught the whites to cook and wear clothes. Moses tried to civilize them but eventually gave up and blew up 300 of the most troublesome white people with dynamite. According to the Nation, Jesus was also a prophet sent to try and civilize the white race. However, the whites had learned to use “tricknology;” a plan to use their trickery and lack of empathy and emotion to usurp power and enslave the black population, bringing the first slaves to America. According to NOI doctrine, Yakub’s progeny was destined to rule for 6,000 years before the original black peoples of the world regained dominance, the end of which was the year 1914.
• On August 21, 1947, Elijah Muhammad was asked “Who was Allah before W.D. Fard Muhammad?” He explained that “MASTER W.D. FARD MUHAMMAD is only seventy (70) years old and was not born before the time of Jesus.” When asked how W.D. Fard came to be Allah, he responded:
• First, we all are ALLAH, but MASTER W.D. FARD MUHAMMAD is SUPREME over all of us is referred to all times as the SUPREME BEING. He is SUPREME over all other beings, because HIS WISDOM, KNOWLEDGE, UNDERSTANDING and POWER to destroy and reproduce and create another Universe or make a people, makes HIM GREATER than all, and is WISER than those before HIM even He who created this Universe, because this ONE is able to reproduce or destroy it, or bring in one better, so says THE HOLY QUR-AN.
• When asked “who was Allah before Master W.D. Fard Muhammad was born,” he provided a startling response:
• Now there are twelve (12) Imam[s] or Scientists, who have been ruling all the time, and one of the twelve is always greater than the other eleven (11), but the God of this world before the birth of Jesus and up until 1877 was Yakub. That means that God of this World, Yakub, although he lived only 152 years, has ruled for the last six thousand (6,000) years; therefore, he was in power when Jesus was born, and that is why Jesus wasn’t able to see up His Kingdom, because the wicked God’s time was not up. A people who have been taught that the SUPREME BEING is other than a Being, something spooky-like, it is not so easy for them o see out of that dark and ignorant teaching into reality.
• According to Elijah Muhammad, the Allah of our age was W.D. Fard; however, the Allah of the previous age was Yakub, “the wicked God.” To a certain degree, this resembles the belief in the demonic Demiurge, the evil creator, shared by Gnostics. The Demiurge, known variously as Yahweh, Yaldaboath, Samael or Saklas, is antagonistic to the will of the Supreme Being. Unlike the Demiu ge, the craftsman who created a wicked world that traps souls, Yakub did not create the material world. However, like the Demiurge, he brings evil upon it. In other systems, the Demiurge is portrayed as a flawed, incompetent, ignorant, foolish, and malevolent deity. The wicked world he created can only be destroyed through gnosis or a spiritual awakening. Drawing from deep knowledge of Gnostic thought, W.D. Fard created the concept of Yakub, the evil black god-scientist who created the white race.
• Since W.D. Fard was incarcerated at San Quentin Penitentiary from June 12, 1926, until May 27, 1929, some scholars,  like Pete Matthews Wright, showed how penal trauma could have launched him into religious activism. Perhaps this even included penile trauma. Reality, however, was worse than fiction. In fact, a horrific possibly presents itself, and one that was proposed by Bilal Muhammad, namely, that W.D. Fard was one of the thousands of victims of Dr. Leo Leonidas Stanley (1886-1976), the Chief Surgeon of the San Quentin State Prison from 1913 to 1951.
• The man in question, who briefly served as warden in 1933, was a veritable Dr. Frankenstein. A lifelong racist, white supremacist, and segregationist, he was appalled to discover that San Quentin was not segregated. “Whites, Negroes, and Indians commingled here indiscriminately,” he complained. After he was assigned a building to use as a hospital, he ensured that it was properly segregated.
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• (Figure 18.1: Sketch of Yakub. Created based on the depiction of Yakubfrom Dwight York’s The Holy Tablets, 1996. Wikipedia. Fair use)
• As a eugenicist, a proponent of racial improvement and selective human breeding, Dr. Stanley staunchly supported the steriliza ion of prisoners, poor whites, people of color, the weak-minded, and homosexuals. As he expressed in his best-selling memoirs, Men at their Worse, which was published in 1940, “Twenty per cent of our state prisoners may be classified as feeble-minded. In these cases, sterilization would be as beneficial as it has proved to be in the homes for the mentally abnormal.” What caused crime? Poverty and poor parenting. What was the solution? Sterilization. As he rationalized,
• Look back in their family histories! Look beyond the faces of our prisoners and back to the unseen forces that gave them birth. Sterilization, when given its chance, will do much to stamp out crime. The right to bear children will in time be reserved to the fit.
• As such, he applauded mandatory sterilization of prisoners. He lamented the fact that “in California, the law regarding compulsory sterilization of prisoners is so encumbered with provisos and exceptions that it is practically inoperative.” He was pleased, however, that “many vasectomies have been performed in recent years.”
• Not only did he promote and perform vasectomies on undesirables who did not deserve to contribute to the gene pool, but Dr. Stanley also advocated euthanizing individuals he viewed as inferior due to their race, social class, sexual orientation, or criminal activity. And who, exactly, deserved to die? He gave the following example:
• Nelson, thin and harried, age fifty, serving his fifth term for passing checks, blames liquor. Insanity is in his family. He has had brain concussion after an accident; has been wounded by a shotgun; and is a typical example of an economic misfit. He is a chronic alcoholic with syphilis, kidney trouble, and an assortment of aches and pains. He was convicted for passing a five-dollar check. “I never drawed five cents on it, Doc,” he whined to me by way of apology. But his bad record condemned him.
• A repeated violator with moron intelligence, Nelson is finding prison a haven in his old age and evidently does not suffer by continued incarceration. He is to be typed among the typical prison malingerers and petty chiselers. He is a perfect specimen for any proponent of euthanasia, or painless elimination of the socially unfit.
• Not only was Stanley infatuated with emasculating so-called deplorables, but he was also obsessed with transplanting their tes icles, particularly those from vigorous young black men, into old, impotent, and sterile white ones. He even implanted animal testicles, extracted from goats, boars, rams, and deer, into human beings. In Stanley’s mind, the operations were a success, and the surge in testosterone turned the old men into young studs.
• As the Chief Surgeon of the San Quentin State Prison for thirty-eight years, Stanley devoted decades to sterilizing, emasculating, and castrating criminals, people of color, and so-called deviants and undesirables of all kinds. He even encouraged his interns to conduct experiments on prisoners. In fact, inmates said that his initials, (L.L for Leo Leonidas), stood for “Lewd and Lascivious.” What should one expect from a man obsessed with castration and the creation of eunuchs? As he wrote in Men at their Worse, which was published in 1940,
• For many years, the effects of the removal of testes from animals and men have been known. No other organ of the body has been subjected to such wholesale removal as have the testes. This has been done for the most part by stock raisers, but also by various religious sects in their religious fervor. Long before Biblical times, the wether, the gelding, and the ox are mentioned, a d the Bible is full of references to the eunuch.
• For those who do not have farms and ranches, a wether is a castrated male sheep or goat; and a gelding is a castrated male horse. For those who do not live in centuries past, during the dark days of slavery, a eunuch is an emasculated man, one without testicles, or, in some cases, one devoid of a penis as well.
• This monster, Dr. Leo Stanley, whose imagination was filled with fantasies of castrated creatures, and one who conducted immoral and unethical medical experiments on human beings, shows uncanny similarities to Yakub, the prototypical mad scientist of Temple of Islam theology, the lunatic black god who sought to create a master white race. Did W.D. Fard literally lose his manhood to Leo Stanley, a man with a god-complex who, like most eugenicists, never produced any offspring? Was he mutilated by an evil white scientist who watched drag shows at San Quentin? Was this the trigger that drove him mad? Is this the root of his hatred oward the devil white man? If so, it was entirely expected and even justified. And it went well beyond the mere satire that Fatimah Fanusie suggests as an explanatory device. It was caustic, visceral, and hate filled. It came from a place of profound pai .
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• (Figure 18.2: Drag show at San Quentin in 1930. Public domain)
• Many theories have been posited to explain the origin of the myth of Yakub’s creation. Some contend that W.D. Fard made it up entirely. Others point to Biblical precedents, namely, the creation of Jacob sheep. For some, the story was inspired by the Eugenics movement. Others claim that it came from the doctrine of the Yacobites that was invented by Noble Drew Ali’s Moorish Science Temple. In Finding W.D. Fard, I suggested that the story contained elements from Asian lore. While the story of Yakub may have drawn from multiple sources, it is possible that it had a very direct and personal precedent: suffering at the hands of Dr. S anley himself. Whether this resulted in a psychotic break cannot be confirmed. It most surely produced psychological and emotional trauma that shaped his socio-political and religious worldview. Some people leave their hearts in California. It is possible that W.D. Fard left his testes.
• CHAPTER 19 THE NATION OF ISLAM FLAG IS BASED ON THE FLAG OF THE YOUNG TURKS
• By Bilal Muhammad
• “The Holy Flag of Islam is the greatest and only Flag known.” —W.D. Fard
• Was W.D. Fard, the founder of the twentieth century Nation of Islam, a Turkish immigrant to the United States? Researchers like Edward C. Curtis, Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, Richard Foxe, and even the late Akbar Muhammad (the son of Elijah Muhammad) have suggested that he was. This, however, seems statistically unlikely, as there were probably only a few thousand ethnic Turks that permanently immigrated to the United States between 1899 and 1924. Still, in W.D. Fard’s past life as a tamale vender, he apparently went by the moniker “Fred the Turk” according to newspapers in 1908-1909 in Eugene, Oregon. Alternatively, he was known as “Fred the Greek” in this period.
• People have hypothesized that Fard was Meccan, Syrian, Indian, Afghan, New Zealander, white, black, and many other nationalities, but without a smoking gun. Akbar Muhammad (1939-2016), the son of Elijah Muhammad, claimed to have seen W.D. Fard’s Arabic handwriting in his father’s home; much later in his life, after he learned Arabic, he said that the handwriting looked like it was in an “Ottoman” style. But outside of a couple of NOI membership cards with names written in Arabic script, we do not have any extant Arabic documents written by W.D. Fard. We also cannot make definite conclusions about Fard’s origins based on a dista t memory of a document resembling a certain style of writing.
• Scholars have noted that the official NOI flag (which the movement calls the “national”) appears to be a modified Turkish flag. Indeed, they are both red, with a white star and crescent, but the NOI star and crescent are reversed. Some may say that this similarity is just a coincidence. The national holds some importance to the Nation, as W.D. Fard originally drew it on the Temple chalkboard, comparing it to the American flag. Fard taught that the national was the flag of their ancestors, which was stolen by the white man and hidden in the White House. While that sounds far-fetched, many Freemasons were Shriners, and Shriners did indeed use the star and crescent in their costumes - a symbol that was largely unknown to black people until the coming of Noble Drew Ali and Master Fard Muhammad.
• There is an alternative NOI flag with the English letters “F,” “J,” “E,” and “I” in the four corners:
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• (Figure 19.1: Nation of Islam flag. Wikipedia. Public Domain)
• The letters stood for “Freedom,” “Justice,” “Equality,” and “Islam.” In NOI lore, the red represents the Sun; and the meaning of the flag is that black people are the rightful owners of the Sun, Moon, and stars. According to Supreme Minister John Muhammad, Fard would even wear a red Turkish fez with this flag with the letters printed on it.
• It seems to have evaded scholars that the NOI flag with the letters is based on the flag of the Young Turks Revolution:
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• (Figure 19.2: The flag of the Young Turks. Wikipedia. Public Domain)
• On the top left, in Arabic script, it says hurriyah (freedom). On the top right, it says ʿadalah (justice). On the bottom let, it says musawah (equality). On the bottom right, it says ikhuwwah (brotherhood). To the middle right, it says ittihad (unity). This flag was used in 1908, while the NOI flag was used sometime between 1930 and 1934.
• The only differences between the Young Turk Revolution flag and the NOI flag are: (1) like the star and crescent, the placings of some of the words have been reversed, and (2) instead of “brotherhood” and “unity,” W.D. Fard placed the “I” for “Islam.” Black brotherhood and unity are still prominent features of W.D. Fard’s teachings, but perhaps he wanted to emphasize Islam’s role in achieving this. Otherwise, the similarities between the two flags are far too close to be a coincidence.
• The similarities between the Nation of Islam and the Young Turks are more than superficial. Both movements emphasized nationalism, reform, and independence. Both movements modernized their Islam while maintaining its identity and heritage. Both movements opposed European imperialism.
• In 1959, a New Chicago Crusader article claimed that Fard was “a Turkish-born Nazi agent [who] worked for Hitler in World War II” based on an FBI dossier - but again, this claim is hitherto unverifiable. The tenacious researchers at the Simon Wiesenthal Foundation were asked if they came across any evidence that W.D. Fard was a Nazi agent. They failed to respond, leading one to elieve that they have not. Be that as it may, W.D. Fard was reportedly an opponent of racial integration. According to John Muhammad,
• I say to you that Master Fard Muhammad didn’t go for that. NO INTEGRATION! He came, according to His words and the words of the Messenger Elijah Muhammad, TO SEPARATE US! That is why He came to us.
• The early NOI was known to be pro-Japan because Japan was seen as a champion of the darker races. However, in the time when W.D. Fard was active, Atatürk was ruling Türkiye, and his regime pursued a policy of non-alignment - Türkiye was neither an ally of Germany nor Japan. The Young Turks and the Ottoman Empire were indeed allied with Germany in World War I, but they had no mea ingful relationship with Japan.
• Despite this interesting find, we cannot conclude therewith that W.D. Fard was a Turkish immigrant. Fard, evidently, was a resourceful man who drew from the Qur’an, the Bible, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Theosophical Society, and books of science, history, and encyclopedias available to him. Any further influence found in his teachings may be just that. But it was not strange a that time for Muslims to have some sentiment toward the Ottoman Empire, even in the West (see Abdullah Quilliam’s Ottoman-aligned movement in late nineteenth century England). “Turk” was also somewhat synonymous with Muslim. Either way, we now know tha there was a political movement that inspired W.D. Fard in some way, even if only in his creation of a flag for his Nation.
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• (Figure 19.3: Sketch of Detroit police raid on the University of Islam,Detroit Free Press, April 17, 1934. Created from an original photograph.Public domain)
• CHAPTER 20 W.D. FARD AND WHITE WOMEN: BLACK SUPREMACISTS PREFER BLONDES
• By John Andrew Morrow
• “His own word was that He came from Mecca, the sonof a jet-black man, the Hidden Imam, first, among twenty-fourblack scientists who manage Allah’s creation, and aplatinum-blonde Armenian woman - the devil.”— Peter Goldman
• The white man is the devil, taught W.D. Fard. Presumably, this applied to white women, as well. Or so it seems. After all, according to Nation of Islam lore, W.D. Fard claimed that his mother was a white devil herself, a Jewess, and a platinum blonde! It was as if she was the fusion of a Jewish woman and a German woman from the Elite Guards, the special SS squads of the Nazis. This composite woman, his mother no less, embodied both hatred and lust, a concept that would have fascinated Sigmund Freud (185-1939) and Carl Jung (1875), the founding fathers of psychoanalysis. While one would expect a supremacist of color to practice what he preached, promote endogamy, and oppose exogamy, by copulating, cohabiting, and marrying only women of the darker races, W.D. Fard did no such thing. If his father could father him with a white, blue-eyed devil, why couldn’t he do the same? And that is exactly what he did by fathering a son with a white woman, Wallace Dodd/Max Ford, who might have been a means of acquiring citizenship.
• Pearl Allen was born in Klamath County, Oregon, in the United States, on March 20, 1897. She was a tribally enrolled member of the Klamath Indian Tribe of Oregon, a federally recognized First Nation. She married Fred Dodd, a foreigner, on April 20, 1914, when she was seventeen. Dodd claimed to be a twenty-three-year-old white salesperson who had been born in Europe. That would mean he was born in 1891. Allen claimed to be an eighteen-year-old white woman from Oregon. Perhaps she wanted to pretend that she was an adult when, in reality, she had just turned seventeen, and had been courted, while sixteen, by a man in his early twen ies. The relationship was tumultuous, and divorce proceedings had started by August 30, 1914. After Pearl accused her husband of stealing from her, our protagonist was arrested for larceny on November 13. The couple divorced a month later, on December 27, 1914.
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• (Figure 20.1: Marriage of Fred Dodd and Pearl Allen. Public domain)
• A mere two years earlier, in 1912, our protagonist had been informing the press that he was a New Zealander, a claim he would epeat to Hazel Barton, in Los Angeles between 1919 and 1923, as well as to the United States Federal Census in 1920. According to Hazel, W.D. Fard had lived with an unknown waitress from late 1916 to 1919 and that she used to help him write letters to his parents in New Zealand. How much do you want to bet that the woman was white?
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• (Figure 20.2: Statesman Journal, Salem, Oregon , Fri, Aug 9, 1912: 5. Public domain)
• Pearl Allen may have been one-quarter Klamath Indian; however, she identified as white. Why? Perhaps for self-preservation. Pe haps for social mobility. Perhaps driven by a desire to become white. Whether Fard even knew that she was of indigenous ancestry cannot be confirmed. It is possible that, as far as W.D. Fard was concerned, Pearl was a white woman. Marrying a white American woman was a means to accelerate acculturation, facilitate social integration, and strengthen the process of naturalization and citizenship. She could have been a convenient steppingstone. In addition, according to the beauty standards of the time, she was an attractive young woman. While she was not a natural blonde, her hair color was quite light in one of the earliest available photographs of her, perhaps, the result of hair dye. She was also an extremely fair-skinned woman who was phenotypically whi e. What is more, she was slim, and to all appearances, remained so throughout her life. She passed away on January 23, 1960, at the age of sixty-two, taking secrets about W.D. Fard to her grave.
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• (Figure 20.3: Pearl Allen. Sketch based on an original, fair use, photograph)
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• (Figure 20.4: Pearl Allen. Sketch based on an original, fair use, photograph)
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• (Figure 20.5: Pearl Allen. Sketch based on an original, fair use, photograph)
• The woman who would be known as Laura E. Messinger, Laura E. Swanson, Laura E. Thompson, and Laura E. Estberg was born in Oregon on September 13, 1890. She married James Samuel Thompson (1880-1936) in 1907 when she was seventeen years of age. Laura had an unnamed daughter who died within one day of being born on November 17, 1908. She has a second son, at the age of nineteen, by the name of George E. Thompson (1909-1986). In 1910, she was living in Portland Ward 3, in Multnomah, Oregon. She was a stay-at-home spouse.
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• (Figure 20.6: Laura Swanson’s marriage certificate. Public domain)
• Laura E. Swanson had a relationship with Fred Dodd in 1914. Whether she was sexually assaulted, seduced, or consented to commi adultery is impossible to determine. The impact of the infidelity was consequential and led to the dissolution of their marriage. In fact, she remarried a man by the name of Leland Oliver Whitesell (1892-1962) in 1916, just two years after the incident with the infamous Fred Dodd. Perhaps her marriage had already been on the rocks. As such, Fred Dodd encouraged her to leave her husband to come live with him. The cuckold in question, George E. Thompson, was referred to as George Swanson in the Statesma Journal (April 22, 1914: 5). The fact that Laura was a married woman made the headlines in 1914. However, no mention was made of a son. On June 9, 1928, Laura married Axel John Estberg (1885-1955). He died in 1955. She passed away in 1958. If only she could have shared her story.
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• (Figure 20.7: Laura Ethel Messinger.Sketch based on an original, fair use, photograph)
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• (Figure 20.8: Laura Ethel Messinger.Sketch based on an original, fair use, photograph)
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• (Figure 20.9: Laura Ethel Messinger. Sketch based on an original, fair use, photograph)
• When she was a young woman, at the time that W.D. Fard met her, Laura Swanson was a gorgeous blue-eyed blonde. She was as white as virgin snow. Who could blame W.D. Fard for falling for such a pretty face? After all, as much as people would come to call him God, he was only a man. Laura was exotic to him, and he was exotic to her. Problem is, of course, Laura Swanson was married to another man. The solution was simple: “Leave your husband and come live with me.” Fard, it would seem, had no qualms when it came to interracial out-of-marriage relationships. If most Americans find cohabitation acceptable in our times, in the early 1 00s it was highly atypical and seriously frowned upon. W.D. Fard did not have the morals of a religious Muslim man of the period. If he was Allah, the Second Jesus, or the Mahdi, he certainly did not follow Law of God. He was more liberal and liberated than the white Christian devils he would relish to lambast in the years to come.
• When Laura’s fling with the foreigner came into the forelight, she cried rape and coercion instead of adventure, seduction, and adultery. Whether she told the truth, or whether Fard was frank, cannot be ascertained. Women, at the time, were rarely believed even when they were the victims. In fact, quite often, even when they were victims, they were accused of having provoked their rapists. The guilt and shame were passed onto them. In her case, Fred Dodd was found not guilty because Laura Swanson “had wantonly separated herself” from her husband (Statesman Journal, April 22, 1914: 5), and that “she did not cry for help as a person in her circumstance would be aroused” (Daily Capital Journal, Wednesday, April 22, 1914: 6). This is false. In fact, according to numerous studies, women are paralyzed by fear, which explains why many rape victims do not resist. Only a minority of them scream, fight, or flee.
• Even if Laura Swanson consented to, or even initiated, the relationship with Fred Dodd, the not so tall, but nonetheless dark and handsome foreigner, she could easily have cried foul when confronted by her jealous husband. Blame the brown or black man is a tactic that is tried, tested, and true, and that has led many men of color to the gallows and the noose. Fred Dodd was fortu ate. The good old boys did not string him up. Whether he was innocent or guilty, the case was closed. Laura Swanson moved on with her life, and soon left her husband permanently, and Fred Dodd, wise as he was, left the State of Oregon for the more promising shores of California. While it is not definitive evidence, fleeing can indicate consciousness of guilt so long as the facts, time, and circumstances support it. As much as he tried to run away, and change his name and identity, his past, however, did ot remain hidden. In 1972, Hamaas Abdul Khaalis (1921-2003) circulated a scarlet letter accusing W.D. Fard of having raped a teenage girl. How did he learn about Laura Swanson? That would make him the first to make the Fred Dodd connection. Either someo e from the early NOI told him (maybe Elijah himself?), or the FBI informed him.
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• (Figure 20.10. Laura Swanson. Original photograph. Fair Use.Obtained from Chris Schraml)
• Fred Dodd, who would become W.D. Fard, moved to Los Angeles in 1913 after having lived in Oregon. Curiously, a man by the name of Wallie D. Ford made a one-dollar donation to the National Defenders’ Yuletide Fund in 1917, the equivalent of $25 dollars in 2025. The fund-raising campaign was on behalf of “soldiers and sailors” to give them Christmas cheer. According to Los Angeles Evening Express, there were “12,000 brave Southland lads now under arms.” What was a Muslim doing celebrating the holidays and sending Christmas cheer? Was he a Christian before he rediscovered and recreated Islam?
• In any event, W.D. Fard, then going by the name of Wallace Dodd Ford, was soon “living in sin” with Hazel Barton from approximately 1919 until 1923. She was a white woman with dark eyes. Her hair color is more difficult to determine. She had dark hair in her older years, probably the product of hair dye. However, the blonde hair she sported when she was a young woman, and the common-law partner of W.D. Fard, was platinum blonde or blonde platine, which, along with jet black, were the most popular hair colors for women in the 1920s.
• Hazel Barton worked as a server at W.D. Fard’s restaurant in Los Angeles. That is probably where he met her. In fact, he had a history of hooking up with the waitresses he hired. They served him well and he gave them a big tip. If that were not spicy enough, the café in question doubled as a drug hub. A bootlegging operation with Chinese connections, the establishment participated in the illegal production and sale of liquor. A photograph of Hazel Barton appeared in the Los Angeles Times (on Tuesday, Ma ch 31, 1925: 9) in which she sports platinum blonde hair. She looked like the proverbial blue-eyed blonde devil from NOI mythology.
• Fatimah Fanusie’s claim that “Fard was successful in veiling his Ahmadiyya connection by cultivating the persona of a petty criminal, con-artist, or cult leader” is unconvincing. No Ahmadi missionary would feel the need to hide his identity under the veil of criminality, going to the length of serving years in San Quentin, one of the most notorious prisons in the United States. Some Ahmadi missionaries were womanizing swindlers; however, that applies to many other spiritual leaders. After all, religion is a racket. Deceptive, exploitative, and devoid of genuine spirituality, organized religion is used by its leaders for personal gain.
• Whether W.D. Fard introduced Hazel Barton to the criminal life, or whether she already belonged to this underworld, cannot be ascertained.
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• (Figure 20.11: Hazel Barton. Sketch based on an original, fair use, photograph)
• What can be proven, however, is that she followed his example after they broke up. In fact, as Michael Muhammad Knight (b. 1977) reveals,
• In 1925, Hazel Barton became the housekeeper for a convicted bootlegger, Shirley (Charley) Wing. In Sacramento, Wing, like Fa d, had used a restaurant as the front for his dealing; in 1921, authorities raided Wing’s “fashionable Chinese restaurant,” Shanghai Low, producing $6,500 (nearly $100,000 in 2021 dollars) in cocaine and morphine. During a 1925 drinking party with Clare ce Earl Osborn and his wife Helen at Wing’s house, Helen ingested poison and died. Police briefly held Hazel and the two men on suspicion of manslaughter, but released all three after determining that Helen, jealous of Clarence’s attention to younger women, drank the poison to take her own life. Hazel moved in with Clarence later that year, and he in turn died within six months. ⤀
• Did Hazel kill her friend to steal her man? Did she then kill the man to take over his criminal operation? No wonder she was so restrained when the FBI came to question her about W.D. Fard in 1957. She had every reason to believe that they might be after her. Curiously, she outlived all her husbands (four, if I am correct), something her relatives are tight-lipped about till this day. For some, she sounds like a white, black widow. Whether or not that was the case, we see that W.D. Fard, Allah in Person, was once again involved with a “white devil,” a fornicator, a drinker, a drug dealer, and, whether intentionally or unintentionally, a murderer through tainted liquor. W.D. Fard claimed that he had studied the devil white race for decades. He most certainly did. He knew them intimately well. Inside and out.
• On June 5, 1924, W.D. Fard, then going by the name Wallie Dodd Ford, married Carmen Fremino, which was probably Carmen Treviño, in Orange County, California. According to the 1910 US Census, she was born in Mexico in 1898 and belonged to the white race. Although her marriage certificate listed her as “Spanish,” Mexicans, Hispanics, and Latinos were all considered white in Califo nia in the 1920s. How things have changed. For all intents and purposes, Carmen Treviño was a white woman. What a wonder it would be to find out more about this elusive woman: more details, and most of all, a photograph. Since the time she spent with W.D. Fard coincides with his convictions for bootlegging and morphine trafficking, it is possible that she wanted to distance herself from him as much as she could in the same way that Hazel Barton did when presenting herself as a wholesome housewife when the FBI came to question her in 1957. Carmen died in 1931, at the age of thirty-three, bringing many secrets to her grave. What was the cause of death? Was she a substance abuser herself? In fact, most hard-core heroin users die by the time they reach their forties or fifties. Did she die of an overdose? Did she rat W.D. Fard out? Did she die of foul play shortly after W.D. Fard was released from San Quentin? One cannot presume to know. These questions deserve answers.
• According to Nation of Islam doctrine, which presumably traces back to W.D. Fard, blacks should only marry blacks. They should not copulate or procreate with white devils. White nationalists, purists, eugenicists, and supremacists would most certainly have agreed and celebrated such a teaching that helped preserve the purity of the white race. Of course, according to the autobiography of Malcolm X, many black men, and other men of color, take pride in conquering the white man’s prize: the white woman. Call it reverse colonization via copulation. W.D. Fard may have married two white women: Pearl Allen and Carmen Treviño. However, he lived in a state of fornication with both an unknown waitress and Hazel Barton with whom he had an illegitimate son. Most scandalous of all, however, is the report that he raped Laura Swanson, the blue-eyed blonde. After all, this was the man who taught that white women were devils.
• CHAPTER 21 FARD RETURNS? INVESTIGATING AN ALLEGED SIGHTING OF W.D. FARD IN THE 1960S
• By Bilal Muhammad
• “I’ll be back”— W.D. Fard
• Fellow researcher Anton Batey brought the online obituary of a man named John Abdullah Shamsideen (d. 2005) to my attention. John Shamsideen was a member of the Nation of Islam, and on his obituary, it says “It is noteworthy to mention that Brother John met the mystical founder of the Nation of Islam, W.D. Fard, in New London at one time.” I curiously followed this lead, which rought me to John Shamsideen’s son Varnaud Shamsideen.
• I called Varnaud on March 30th, 2024, and I interviewed him regarding his father’s alleged meeting with Master Fard Muhammad. At the time, Varnaud was a 62-year-old man living in Connecticut, who belonged to the Islamic Center of New London - a Muslim community that started in his family’s home.
• John Shamsideen had seen Malcolm X speak in the late 1950s or early 1960s while he was living in Albany. John immediately felt that Malcolm X’s rhetoric would get him killed. John and his family would convert to the Nation of Islam, and according to Varnaud, his was the only Muslim family in New London for “decades.” They had the official portrait of Master Fard Muhammad displayed in their house.
• Varnaud Shamsideen told me that, sometime in 1967 or 1968, he and his father were walking by the Crocker House hotel on Union Street in New London. Varnaud, who would have been five or six years old at the time, spotted a man speaking to a group of people. Varnaud turned to his father and said, “that’s the man in the picture!” To him, the man looked exactly like the portrait of Fard that they had at home. The man proceeded to speak to John Shamsideen.
• Varnaud Shamsideen also told me that this man visited their family’s home twice in New London. The man apparently identified himself to the family as “Fard Muhammad.” Varnaud does not remember what he taught, but he recounted that the man had a British accent. After the second visit, the Shamsideen family never saw this man again.
• I then showed Varnaud the available pictures that we have of W.D. Fard - the Detroit Free Press photograph, the Des Moines Triune photograph, and the various mugshots - and I asked him if the man that his family met resembled the person in any of these images. He said that they did not, except the Des Moines Tribune one “a little bit.” He was adamant that the man looked like the one in the official NOI portrait.
• While the official NOI portrait of Master Fard Muhammad is based on a real photograph, it has several variations, and it looks quite different from the pictures of W.D. Fard in the newspapers and mugshots. Warith Deen Muhammad, the son of Elijah Muhammad, once described the official portrait as a “made-up” and “cosmetic” photograph. In the same interview, Warith Deen said that his family had photographs of W.D. Fard that were kept from the community, that W.D. Fard’s hair was wavy and not parted to the side, and that “some kind of application” must have been used to straighten his hair for the portrait. We can also see what appears to be brush strokes in the most common version of the official portrait, which indicates that it may have been airbrushed or altered in some way. Depending on the version, the background is different. In short, we cannot rely on the portrait as a mai reference point for Fard’s likeness, despite its prominence and significance.
• The pioneers, who knew W.D. Fard in person, including Jam Muhammad, his barber, who used to massage and cut his hair, adamantly opposed claims that the Master’s hair was kinky. Minister Jam Muhammad used to write the original names in the Book of Life upon the directions of W.D. Fard. According to the Muhammad Speaks website,
• [Jam Muhammad]… worked as a secretary for Master Fard Muhammad. He wrote the names in The Book of Life, while the Saviour was among us. According to Minister Jam Muhammad, one day Master Fard Muhammad told Messenger Elijah Muhammad to bring him [Jam Muhammad] with him the next time he came to see Him, because it was something He wanted Jam to do. Jam had good handwriting skills. Minister Jam Muhammad said he went with Messenger Elijah Muhammad on the next visit with Master Fard Muhammad.
• The Saviour [Master Fard Muhammad] had a big book with a lock on it. He also had two big boxes. One was full of letters, and o e was empty. Minister Jam Muhammad said that the Saviour would unlock the big book, Himself, and turn to the page that he wanted Minister Jam to write the names. Minister Jam said that if he made even a small mistake, the Saviour would rip out the entire page so that the name could be re-written correctly.
• Minister Jam Muhammad said that the Saviour would take the letters out one at a time. And read and spell the name of each person. Every now and then, he would put a letter in the empty box. Minister Jam said, the Saviour said, those were from devils. Minister Jam Muhammad said that many times the Saviour would write something after each name but that the Saviour never let him see what he wrote. Minister Jam Muhammad said that he was never left alone with the book, but that he always wished he would be, so that he could see what Master Fard Muhammad was writing. Minister Jam Muhammad said that as far as he knew, the Saviour took he book with him.
• Not only did W.D. Fard have a Book of Life but he also had a Book of Death in which he used to write the names of “devils” who applied for membership in the Nation of Islam. The Book of Life and Black Book of Death are mentioned in canonical and apocryphal Jewish and Christian sources (Psalm 69:28, Exodus 17:14; Revelation 3:5, 20: 11-15, and the Book of Jubilees). In Rosh Hashanah, for example, God is said to write the names of righteous in the Book of Life and the names of the wicked in the Book of Death. In Satanic rituals, aspirants ask the Devil to “erase me from the Book of Life and inscribe me in the Black Book of Death.” W.D. Fard was reenacting the role of God or the Devil. There is an occult stench to Master Fard’s Book of Death.
• As for the Detroit Free Press and Des Moines Tribune photographs, it would be a useless gesture to dispute their authenticity ecause they were printed publicly in 1932 while Fard was still active; and there is no record of Fard or Elijah ever disputing those photographs. In fact, John Muhammad, the brother of Elijah Muhammad, confirmed the Detroit Free Press picture. The newspaper photographs of W.D. Fard happen to resemble his mugshots much more than they resemble the official portrait, even though Elijah Muhammad emphatically denied the authenticity of Fard’s mugshots.
• If John and Varnaud Shamsideen did indeed see W.D. Fard in 1967, he would have been an elderly man (between seventy-four and ninety years old, depending on when Fard’s birth year was). When I mentioned this, Varnaud said that the man he met was not old, and that he looked the same age as the Master in the official NOI portrait. While these encounters were significant enough to make it to his obituary, John Shamsideen apparently did not discuss his meetings with Fard Muhammad much with others.
• The man was probably not the historical W.D. Fard. This was thirty-three years after his disappearance, in a city that he was ot known to have visited, looking more like the official NOI portrait in question than the real pictures, apparently not having aged at all, and initially identified by a young boy that had not previously met him. The story does not appear anywhere else either. It is possible that a young Varnaud simply spotted a man in New London that resembled the portrait that they had at home, and that his father (and perhaps the man himself) humored him.
• John Shamsideen would later join Warith Deen’s movement and adopt the surname “Shamsideen” in 1976 - while Warith Deen was shiting his community toward a more orthodox understanding of Islam. John Shamsideen still had “lots of interactions with Farrakhan over the years” and even went to defend his mosque when it was attacked in Harlem in 1972. While John considered Farrakhan his fellow brother, he felt that there was a higher calling for Muslims than in the American black man. He quickly learned to read, write, and speak Arabic.
• Many people claimed to have met Master Fard Muhammad in the later years of the Nation of Islam. Many intensely believed in Fard as God in Person, and some wanted to connect themselves to this great historical personality. This is common with important historical events and figures. Researchers are encouraged to continue finding leads and follow up with them. It is always possible that one of these post-1934 stories is true. But whether or not John Shamsideen met the Saviour, his life story is a pivotal representation of the Nation of Islam at its zenith.
• CHAPTER 22 WISDOM REVEALED TO THE REFORMER
• By John Andrew Morrow
• “Praise be our God Allah,Master W.D. Fard Mohammed, the Lord of all the worlds.” — Burnsteen Sharrieff Muhammad
• Fanatics of W.D. Fard wait in anticipation for any updates, news, developments, announcements, insights, discoveries, revelations, findings, breakthroughs, data, and intelligence about him. They long for the release of the treasure trove of Fardian manuscripts that belonged to Burnsteen Sharrieff Muhammad (born Richardson; July 14, 1915-February 28, 2002), his secretary, and he husband, John Muhammad, the Supreme Minister. Although they are ecstatic when new documents are released, they have been published piecemeal. Evidently, scholars and historians would be best served by having access to all the material. The latest revela ions were released in 2025 in the form of The Reformer: Wisdom Revealed to Me by Master Fard Muhammad, the Founder of the Nation of Islam, Unseen Historical Documents Dated 1933-1962, a work that promises an in-depth and transformative reading.
• The Reformer: Wisdom Revealed to Me by Master Fard Muhammad contains some factual errors. The introduction claims that black people suffered under slavery for 310 years. In fact, slavery in the United States lasted from 1619 to July 1865. Hence, blacks were enslaved for 246 years. It claims that W.D. Fard was born in Saudi Arabia on February 26, 1877. No serious scholar or histo ian believes such a thing. What is more, it was not called Saudi Arabia until September 23, 1932. The introduction also pretends that W.D. Fard gave blacks “beautiful Arabic names” when, in fact, many of the names he gave were Urdu names, some of which were of Arabic origin.
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• (Figure 22.1: Sketch of Burnsteen Richardson. Created from an original, copyrighted, photograph. Reproduced with the permission of her daughter, Medina Mohammed)
• The introduction claims that W.D. Fard wanted to create a new world system based on love, sidelining all his hateful rhetoric against whites. While most white Americans had deeply ingrained racist views, the degree of those views varied considerably from individual to individual and from region to region. What is more, not all whites, Europeans, Caucasians, and light-skinned human beings were racist. Treating all whites as some monolithic mass deprives them of their diversity. Most importantly, as a social construct, the category “white” is fluid and ephemeral. The Irish, Italians, French Canadians, and Jews were not considered “white” until the twentieth century.
• According to the introduction, Burnsteen Muhammad, and other believers, traveled to Chicago to see W.D. Fard in early 1935. This was the last time they saw him. This is important. It suggests that W.D. Fard returned from the south-west part of North America after 1934. However, it is possible that Medina Mohammed mixed up her dates. This claim would need to be verified by other sources as it contradicts what her father John Muhammad stated in video recordings. He was explicitly clear that the last time he saw W.D. Fard was in Gary, Indiana in 1934. This was corroborated by an investigation conducted by Judge Gordon in April 1934. According to the people interviewed by the court, W.D. Fard had not been seen for the past two months and was last heard from in Gary, Indiana.
• According to Medina Mohammed, W.D. Fard taught Burnsteen and Clara Muhammad how to make whole wheat bread and other dishes. As a result of his culinary education, she became a superb cook. Elijah Muhammad’s daughter, Ethel Sharrief, and his son, Emmanuel Muhammad, both confirmed that W.D. Fard gave cooking lessons to Elijah and Clara Muhammad. This supports the claim that W.D. Fard had been a cook at his restaurant in Los Angeles, and as the owner and operator of a tamale stand.
• According to Burnsteen Muhammad’s notes and memoirs, W.D. Fard gave out well over 25,000 names to new converts in Detroit alone. This would amount to one of the most effective campaigns of “Islamic” proselytization in the United States and the western world in the twentieth century. Billions of Saudi petro-dollars have never reaped so many rewards in such a short span of time. Fard’s impact was simply staggering. It is incredible to imagine the results he would have had if he had propagated his teachings for more than four years.
• New quotes from W.D. Fard can shed light on his ideas. Burnsteen Muhammad notes that he used to call preachers “icemakers” because they were freezing the brains of people with Christian teachings. For W.D. Fard, the Church was the “Icehouse.” Was this an expression of his own or did he borrow it from another preacher?
• The Reformer: Wisdom Revealed to Me by Master Fard Muhammad contains a booklet written by Burnsteen Muhammad which features the spiritual lessons revealed to her by W.D. Fard. No date is given as to when it was written. Such information is essential to scholars. The estate of Burnsteen and John Muhammad is urged to be transparent. When it comes to the development of theology, ch onology is key. We need to trace genealogy, growth, and development of ideas, concepts, doctrines, and dogmas. We need markers in time.
• In “The Spiritual Side of the Seven Training Units,” the names and titles of W.D. Fard are always in bold. The very name of the training unit was provided by W.D. Fard. He is referred to as “our PROPHET and LEADER of ISLAM W.D. FARD,” “our SAVIOUR ALLAH to whom all praise, honor, and credit is due.” When referring to W.D. Fard, the third person singular pronoun is always capitalized as HE out of respect for his divinity. Burnsteen Muhammad gives “all credit to ALLAH and HIS APOSTLE our INSTRUCTOR, PROPHET ELIJAH MUHAMMAD.” She acknowledges that she knew nothing “before ALLAH’S arrival here in hell gathering HIS Lost-and-found People.” The notion that W.D. Fard was ALLAH and that Elijah Muhammad was his APOSTLE was established dogma when this tract was written. W.D. Fard is addressed as “Our SAVIOUR ALLAH.” W.D. Fard is given divine attributes such as “ALL WISE,” “KNOWER,” AND “GUIDE.” W.D. Fard is described as “our SAVIOUR the GREAT MAHDI.” “MR. W.D. FARD MUHAMMAD (our Saviour)” is described as “the ALL-WISE TRUE and LIVING GOD in person.” He was God made Flesh:
• They felt HIM by dancing with him, shaking his hand, kissing him on the cheek, sitting closely beside HIM while riding with HIM from city to city, and walking with HIM from place to place. Thereby knowing for themselves that HE was and is flesh and blood. They feasted on pure food from Heaven (wisdom) from HIS DIVINE LIPS. Raw ISLAM was drawn through the head of needles. DIVINE POWER was penetrated in his body.
• “Without a doubt,” writes Burnsteen Muhammad, “HE ALLAH who came in the person of Mr. W.D. FARD MUHAMMAD is the SUPREME BEING of the Universe and HIS NAMES shall never die nor will HIS TEACHING.” “Praise, praise, and praise ALLAH Who most surely is the SUPREME BEING, The GREAT MAHDI.” Clearly, not only was W.D. Fard identified as God Almighty, but he was being praised, worshipped, and adored as such.
• When was any of this written? Between 1931 and 1935? After W.D. Fard disappeared? It matters when it comes to determining if this tract represents the original teachings of W.D. Fard or the alleged theological development or exaggerations of Elijah Muhammad. We need dates and we need them desperately. Otherwise, our interpretations can be erroneous. The terminus post quem for this material is 1962. This is a span of thirty years. Within that time, Jesus, a mere mortal, was turned into God. W.D. Fard could have undergone the same process of deification. Or maybe he did openly profess to be God between 1930-1934. True academics are agenda free, neutral, objective, and impartial. They simply seek the truth. When did the idea that W.D. Fard was the Mahdi arise?
• W.D. Fard is quoted as warning women, saying, “Do not let ME catch any sister other than her own self in regards to living the life, and weighing properly.” Contrary to other teachings attributed to W.D. Fard, the lessons in question speak of an eternal and everlasting heaven that He has prepared for the faithful. This seems to contradict Fard’s teaching that there was neither heaven nor hell in the hereafter and that these were only conditions that were created on earth.
• W.D. Fard’s depiction of how black people are, and how they used to be, is incredibly demeaning. Basically, he was insulting them and making them long for the ancestral beauty they had once lost. The descriptions of black people found on pages sixteen to seventeen are too offensive to reproduce. His comments about the breasts of women come across as creepy: “the breast was small and becoming, not big flabs of fat hanging nearly to her waist;” “breasts that were once medium and becoming, became large and flabby hanging nearly to the waist.” It seems W.D. Fard was flipping through books that depicted black Africans at a local library and found the images offensive. What is more, some of the beauty standards he mentions on page sixteen are more in line with white women: straight hair, small nose, small lips.
• Curiously, W.D. Fard taught that “masturbation, which at first may be harmlessly practiced” can “cause complete ruination to the entire body and may cause Homosexuality (lovers of the same sex).” These are not medical views from the 1930s. They are not even views from the 1920s. At that time, few doctors still believed that masturbation caused madness, epilepsy, and homosexuali y. Still, there were people like John Harvey Kellogg (1852-1943) who continued to claim that it “produced results” that were “disastrous to humanity.” Even Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) wrote about the “disease of masturbation.”
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• (Figure 22.2: Health poster from 1922. Public domain)
• W.D. Fard’s animosity toward the hog reaches epic proportions not found among Muslims of his time. Nobody that I am aware of went to the extent of claiming that pork was poisonous and more deadly than a rattlesnake. Burnsteen Muhammad quotes ALLAH, namely, W.D. Fard, as teaching that “The Big Field is awaiting the wide-awake man to work out and arise the dead by the thousands.” The source of this bizarre quote could come from the 1934 edition of Fur Fish Game (vol. 59-60: 37) which speak of “a big field for the wide-awake man.” W.D. Fard is also quoted as saying “Vegetable Soup of the tender kind and a few hard vegetables here and there.” Similar quotes can be found in canning and cooking recipes published between 1920 and 1935.
• W.D. Fard is cited as saying that, “Islam is too strong for some. Some would lose their mind trying to penetrate into the Wisdom.” Such notions are found in Sufism and esoteric circles. They are also found in Shiite sources. Take, for example, the following tradition from al-Kafi by al-Kulayni:
• O ‘Ali this religion is strong, so penetrate into it with gentleness. Do not make the worship of your Lord hateful to yourself, for one whose camel has broken down out of fatigue - meaning, one who has exceeded the bounds - has no back that remains and no land that he traverses. So, act like one who hopes to die in old age yet be cautious like one who fears that he will die tomo row.
• This hadith is not a particularly well-known one. Hence, it is doubtful that Fard would have been exposed to it, at least in a written text, and the general wisdom of it is intuitive. There is, of course, a remote possibility that he heard it quoted in a sermon in proto-Pakistan or even at a Shiite congregation in Michigan and that it stuck in his head.
• W.D. Fard is quoted as teaching that “If you take my Teaching for six hours no one will be able to fool you anymore.” Similar language is found in Christian literature of the time, namely, that those who receive the teachings of the Church can no longer be fooled. A simple search of Newspapers.com shows this to be the case.
• Unlike “The Spiritual Side of the Seven Training Units,” which is undated, “The Messenger in the 9th Month of Labor” was transcribed from a 1962 handwritten speech by Burnsteen Muhammad. That helps tremendously. She speaks of “the coming of Allah and the raising of his servant, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.” She thanks Allah, W.D. Fard, for having sent Elijah Muhammad, “a great Leader, Teacher, and Guide.”
• Burnsteen Muhammad cites Elijah Muhammad as saying, “All nations will bow to us.” This could refer to all things bowing or yielding to God. However, it could be an allusion to the Qur’an, which states that all nations will be summoned before their Imam: “On the Day We shall call every people with their Imam (leader)” (11:71). The verse has a general sense among Sunnis; however, its meaning, among Shiites, is much more precise and has huge theological implications. In fact, according to some traditions, the Prophet warned that “He who passes away without recognizing the Imam will die as a disbeliever.”
• One of the most potent and poignant parts of The Reformer: Wisdom Revealed to Me by Master Fard Muhammad is “The Declaration” which is related by Medina Mohammed, the daughter of Burnsteen. She recalls a meeting at Temple No. 1 in Detroit in the early 1970s when Minister Clyde Rahman from Cleveland complained to a packed room that people were going around claiming that, not only had they seen God, but they had walked and talked with him. “They did not see God,” he said bluntly. This elicited a fiery response from Burnsteen Sharrieff Muhammad, who stood up at the back of the room, and said the following in a strong and reverberating voice:
• I’m tired of hearing people say that we, the Pioneers, did not see God when we know who we saw. We walked and talked with Him, so don’t tell us who we did not see! We know we met God! (41)
• Two of her sons stood in solidarity with her. The Pioneers of the Allah Temple of Islam all agreed with her, saying aloud: “Yes we did, we did!” People in the audience were so moved at their sincerity that they were overwhelmed with emotion and started to cry. Although some scholars have suggested that Burnsteen Sharrieff Muhammad intimated that W.D. Fard was not God in the firs Reformer book, in the second one, which draws from her notes and memoirs from 1933-1962 is it evident that she was genuinely convinced in the divinity of W.D. Fard.
• The publication of the letters from Burnsteen Muhammad, W.D. Fard, Elijah Muhammad, and Herbert Muhammad is simply priceless. The letters that she directed to W.D. Fard and to Elijah Muhammad are moving. They are so filled with faith, love, devotion, loyalty, and hope. Burnsteen Muhammad was a true believer. It is incredible that W.D. Fard could instill so much adoration in such a short span of time. He must have been magical and magnetic. To be entirely honest, they sound very much like love letters. She comes across as a teenager - which she was - having served as W.D. Fard’s secretary since she was seventeen. In fact, she only married John Muhammad, Elijah Muhammad’s brother, in 1935. Their relationship could have simply been platonic. Still, he was older, wiser, and handsome, and she was a pretty, young woman. Had the relationship turned romantic?
• Writing to W.D. Fard on July 1, 1933, she refers to him as “your Reformer.” She was particularly touched by his gifts:
• Prophet, we were very glad to receive our presents. They really did make us happy, especially coming from you. They are beautiul, of course, I must say that mine is the prettiest of them all. I only wish I had something to send you in return.
• “Prophet, we want to see you real bad,” she writes. “Please give us a little hint of when we will be able to see, talk, eat and drink with you again. I wish it was so.” “If there is anything you would like for me to do, please tell me,” she offers. “My greatest desire is to satisfy you.” “We all send our Love to you.” Like Noble Drew Ali who exploited teenage girls, and like any good cult leader, did W.D. Fard dazzle Burnsteen with his exotic charms?
• Take, for example, the letter from July 19, 1933, in which Burnsteen speaks like an enamored schoolgirl: “I am feeling 100% si ce I have heard from you, in fact, I always feel 100% whenever I think of you, and that is every day.” “Prophet,” she writes, “I must thank you again for my present. Every time I look at it, I gets enthused more and more. I shall keep it forever and ever.” Look at the explosion of physical and spiritual love that she senses for W.D. Fard:
• Prophet, I thank you, BILLIONS and SEXTILLIONS… Master, I know that you are our Deliverer, and Saviour, and besides you, there is none other. I haven’t the least doubt of who you are. You are that Jesus… You are Michael… You are the Lamb… You are the light of the world. You are spoken of in Isaiah… “and his name shall be called… the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” So why would I look for another, when I know that you are the one, the only one, without you we would perish. Don’t worry, Prophet, about me looking for another Asiatic to come and deliver me, I know that you are the one. Prophet, I am so happy to write you…
• It could be claimed that the fact that she addressed W.D. Fard as “Dear Prophet” suggests that Fard was promoted from Prophet o Saviour to Deliverer to Lamb of God to Prince of Peace to Mahdi to Mighty God to Allah. However, based on these letters from 1933-1934, those titles were all used concurrently. There was no push-back from W.D. Fard that we know of for sure.
• The spiritual romance is full of fireworks. She writes to Fard almost every day. She is like a teen from the 90s who cannot stop emailing or a teen from the 2000s who cannot stop compulsively texting. She seems positively infatuated with W.D. Fard. “My greatest desire and Love,” she writes, “is to satisfy you 100%.” There is much more in these words than religious devotion. We see the same in her letter from August 17, 1933. She addresses W.D. Fard as “the greatest man on the Planet Earth”… “our Deliverer and Saviour.” She closes the letter with “I am hoping to see you soon.” She signs off, as usual, as “your Reformer.” In her letter from August 18, 1933, she reiterates that “It is my greatest desire to satisfy you 100%.”
• In the letter in question, Burnsteen Muhammad reports that she is collecting funds to buy W.D. Fard a car. Whether they purchased him a vehicle is unclear. According to the NOI Reformer website, “Master Fard Muhammad drove a Ford automobile, and he referred to it as ‘Cavy‘ because a Caucasian had given it to him.” Apparently, this was a “humorous moniker.” The idea that a white man just gave him a car strains credulity. People do not give away new souped-up vehicles like the one he was driving in Detroit and Chicago. As John Muhammad recalled, it was “a black Ford.” One wonders whether it was the one he used to visit Hazel Barto , the mother of his son Wallace Dodd/Max Ford. She noted, however, that the vehicle had California plates.
• This could suggest that W.D. Fard took a train or a plane to California and rented a car. It could also mean that he drove to California and got new plates. In the 1930s, license plates were renewed on a yearly basis. One had twenty days to register an out-of-state vehicle. It is also possible that W.D. Fard had no intention of returning to Detroit or Chicago after his trip to California in 1933. Or he only planned to visit for a final farewell.
• What is strange, however, is the suggestion that he left his vehicle behind in Chicago. In the epistolary exchange W.D. Fard had with Burnsteen Muhammad in the early 1930s, obtaining a vehicle for him was a primary concern. Why abandon a brand-new vehicle that he cherished so much?
• Elijah Muhammad’s story of driving W.D. Fard to the airport in February 1934, does not make a rock-solid alibi, especially if he drove back with what appears to have been a missing person’s vehicle. As for the car, he could have kept it or sold it. Elijah Muhammad gave contradictory statements regarding the date of W.D. Fard’s disappearance: March 1934, February 1934, and even June 1934. Burnsteen Muhammad’s last letter that she sent to W.D. Fard, that we know of, was dated May 23, 1934. Her daughter, Medina Mohammed, has refused to reveal where her mother’s letters were sent. She has also declined to disclose where W.D. Fard’s letters were mailed from. This information would be in the original letters or on the postmarks on the envelopes. How could W.D. Fard have disappeared in March if he sent a letter to Burnsteen Muhammad on April 10, 1934, from “North America,” with a retur address of 3408 Hastings Street, Detroit, Michigan?
• During the same week that W.D. Fard was visiting Hazel and their son Wallace, namely, during the first week of July 1933, Burnsteen Muhammad wrote him a letter to an undisclosed address:
• Although this address remains protected by the authors of the 2025 book The Reformer: Wisdom Revealed to Me by Master Fard Muhammad, the Founder of the Nation of Islam, it was confirmed through a colleague that letters were indeed sent to California.
• Since they deny that W.D. Fard and Wallie Dodd Ford were the same person, the Nation of Islam pressures people to suppress any information that would substantiate this fact. Truth always takes flight, and caged birds will always fly away and sing when they have freedom.
• Considering that commercial aviation was in its initial stages at this time, it was curious that Fard would choose to fly out. What further weakens Elijah Muhammad’s alibi is the fact that he failed to provide a precise date and merely gave a month. In what appears to be the earliest source of the claim, E. U. Essien-Udom’s Black Nationalism: A Search for an Identity in America, which was published in 1962, “[Elijah] Muhammad claims that… he was with the Mahdi at the airport when he was deported.”
• According to Wakeel Allah, W.D. Fard drove “a 1925 Ford Model Roadster.” However, he provides no source to support this claim. As Hazel Barton reported to the FBI, W.D. Fard had visited her driving a 1929 Ford Model A coupe. The cost of such a vehicle ranged from $385 to $1,400 depending on the model. The high-end Town Car fetched the highest price. Adjusted for inflation, $385 in 1929 is equal to $7,106 in 2025. Adjusted for inflation, $1,400 in 1929 is equal to $25,839 in 2025.
• Although many early members of the Nation of Islam were destitute, and relied upon charity to survive, those who were employed, most often at the Ford auto plant, earned approximately $1,500 per year. The cheapest 1929 Ford Model A would have been the equivalent of three months’ salary. The top end model would have represented an entire year’s salary. Welfare, which was only int oduced in 1925, paid around $30 per month or $360 per year. To pay for a car, a person on welfare would have to save an entire year’s worth of social assistance.
• If a white man did, indeed, purchase a new vehicle for W.D. Fard, who was the generous man who did so? I could only think of o e person: Wali Mohammed, aka William Thomas White, a middle-class engineer. But why would a man buy another man a brand-new car? It is beyond bizarre. After all, they both seem to have disappeared in 1934.
• If his followers in the Nation of Islam did not buy him a vehicle, it is possible that W.D. Fard did so himself. After all, if he was charging $10 to give original names to the faithful, he would have had plenty of cash in hand. Estimates vary as to the number of NOI members in 1933. Numbers range from eight thousand, ten thousand, and even thirty thousand. Hence, he would have cashed in $80,000, $100,000, or even $300,000 dollars, less the cost of the cards obtained from the printing company. Even if he charged one dollar per card, he would have been rolling in money.
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• (Figure 22.3: Sketch of 1929 Ford Model A Coupe.Created from an original, public domain, Wiki Commons, photograph)
• Considering how profitable cults and organized religions are, the Nation of Islam afforded W.D. Fard a wonderfully comfortable life and retirement. Not only did he have a history of loving the fast life: fast cash, and fast women, but he also loved fast cars. Reportedly, “when master Fard Muhammad drove his car, he drove so fast he was known to have a heavy foot.” He was also a dapper dresser who cared for his appearance. No wonder W.D. Fard attracted women like Burnsteen. Once again, she closes her August 18, 1933, letter amorously with “best wishes and love to you… I am hoping to see you soon.”
• In her letter dated August 20, 1933, she stresses, once again, that W.D. Fard is “the greatest man on the planet earth today.” She overflows with emotion, emphasizing that “It makes me happier, and happier, to know that you are my Deliverer and Saviour.” “Prophet we all love you 100%,” she reassures Fard, “and are willing to die for you, at any time.” This is cosmic love that is reaching dangerous levels from a psychological standpoint. Longing for Fard, she closes with, “Hoping to see you very soon.”
• In her letter dated August 21, 1933, she stresses that W.D. Fard is her Deliverer, and Saviour, “who is all the world to me.” “It is my greatest desire to make you happy,” she reminds him. We see the same in the letter dated August 23, 1933: “I am so happy as I can be to write to my Deliverer and Saviour by the name of Mr. W.D. Fard, who I love so much until I will give all I have, and that is my life, for I have no money.” “My greatest desire,” she submits, “is to see you soon.” In her letter dated August 24, 1933, she states, once again, that “My greatest and only desire, is to please you 100%.” In the one from February 3, 193, she insists that “Our only Love, is for you.” The one from March 30, 1934, closes with “Our best wishes, Love, and Desires, are for you.” “I am always happy and full of joy to write to you” she notes on April 8, 1934.
• When women insist that they want to satisfy men, that they will die for them, that they only want to make them happy, and that they will give everything to them, the meaning is transparent. Burnsteen was not selling bean pie on a street corner. It sounds very much like she was offering her hot Michigan cherry pie as an act of adoration. She sounds like a sexual volcano that is aout to explode under tremendous, accumulated pressure. It might seem scandalous, and it is, but it makes one wonder. Did Burnsteen know W.D. Fard in a carnal fashion? Did she literally know God?
• After eight months of imploring W.D. Fard to write to her, he finally responds on April 10, 1934. The letter was general in to e. He indicated that “I am so happy, and I am so proud of you.” Burnsteen was much relieved at receiving a letter from her Lord. “How happy I am, after hearing such a consolating Letter from you My Deliverer,” she responded on April 13, 1934. “When you a e happy,” he observed, “there is nothing… to worry about.” Addressing his as “Master” and “Prophet” she reiterated that “I know who you are, and there is no other way for me to be, but myself, for it is your desire.”
• In a letter dated May 23, 1934, she expressed her happiness at the wonderful opportunity to write to “the Great I AM. The Supreme and Saviour of the World. It isn’t in my power to express just how happy I really am.” This is an astonishing revelation. It had been suggested before; however, now, we have confirmation. The I AM religious movement was started by Guy Ballard (1878-1939) and his wife, Edna Anne Wheeler Ballard (1886-1971), in the 1930s in Chicago, Illinois. This offshoot of Theosophy taught that the “Mighty I AM” was the source of all power. It taught that Jesus, Maitreya, Saint Germain, and dozens of others, were Ascended Masters who lived in successive incarnations. It emphasized the end of time.
• Was W.D. Fard a part of the I AM Temple? There is no way to know. Barbara Schrock contacted me from the Headquarters of the Saint Germain Foundation in March 2025. She informed me that “in the early years of the I AM activity, Mr. and Mrs. Ballard were travelling to various cities giving public lectures.” Not only was there “no formal corporation until March 24, 1938,” but no membership lists have ever been kept.
• Did W.D. Fard claim to be “the Great I AM?” Namely, did he claim to be “I Am that I Am,” namely, the divine biblical name? Or was Burnsteen Muhammad familiar with the I AM movement? If W.D. Fard believed in reincarnated masters, perhaps he did, after all, pretend to be the reincarnation of Noble Drew Ali (1886-1929) when he arrived in Detroit in 1930. Once again, she signed off with “Love to you.”
• Burnsteen Muhammad’s letters to Elijah Muhammad are also highly informative. In the one dated February 24, 1949, W.D. Fard is described as “the Great Mahdi, the Finder and Life Giver.” She professes that “there is no God but Allah,” namely, W.D. Fard. Echoes of the Opening Chapter of the Qur’an are apparent: “there has never been and never will be a God but Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful, Master of the day of requital judgment… He is none other than Master W.F. Mohammed.” She claims that “Little did we know that the one that was in our midst calling himself by the name of W.D. Fard, in reality was and is God Himself.” This contradicts the letters that Burnsteen Muhammad wrote between 1933-1934 in which she explicitly recognized that W.D. Fard was God. It seems that Elijah Muhammad wanted to present himself as the first to whom that secret was revealed. It was common knowledge and Allah Temple of Islam creed among the Pioneers. It was not an esoteric teaching reserved to an initiate, namely, the Apostle, Elijah Muhammad.
• It is worth mentioning that Burnsteen Muhammad was also calling Fard “Prophet and Leader of Islam,” which, to a Muslim, is diferent than God. The Nation of Islam, however, was operating within a largely Christian framework. For the Catholic Church, for example, Christ performed three functions in his earthly ministry: those of prophet, priest, and king. Many Nation of Islam memers, however, came from Protestant background. Some had also been Baptist preachers, including Jesse James, Burnsteen Muhammad’s father. For Baptist Christians, Jesus was the ultimate prophet. Hence, just as Jesus could be both a prophet and God, so could W.D. Fard.
• If she had given an example of W.D. Fard’s temper in her memoirs, I Am Burnsteen Sharrieff Mohammed, where she noted that he p essed her head roughly against a piece a paper to scold her for making a mistake, more indications that he was a hothead are seen in her letter from February 24, 1949. As she recalls, “Little did we know and fear his great Power of which some of us experienced just an iota, felt from His fierce anger or the waving of His hand or stamping of his foot for we were and is yet, mere babes.” So, not only would W.D. Fard slam a woman’s head onto a table, but he also used to wave his hand sternly and stomp his foot like a child having a tantrum. This aligns perfectly with accounts of his violent temper. He reportedly sexually assaulted Laura Swanson in Salem, Oregon. He threatened two white men with a pistol in his restaurant in Los Angeles. He punched one of them, P.W. Gillibrand, in the face, causing him to hit his head on a concrete step. He then proceeded to pound his head against it, resulting in hospitalization with a potentially fractured skull. That W.D. Fard was prone to rage is patent. Not only was his rhetoric violent, but so were some of his actions.
• Burnsteen, it is obvious, was like girls and women who fall madly in love with celebrities. She transferred her excessive affection to Elijah Muhammad, hoping to someday “give unto you Rubies, Diamonds, Silver and Gold without limit.” By 1950, Burnsteen was praising Elijah Muhammad as “the last and greatest Prophet”… “who knows the past, present, and the future.” She also adored his teacher: “Praise be our God Allah, Master W.D. Fard Mohammed, the Lord of all the worlds.”
• The first time I wrote about the Nation of Islam was in grade ten English in the 1980s. I submitted an essay titled “Is the Na ion of Islam a Cult?” I went through all the characteristics of cults, now known as “new religious movements,” which works wonders for marketing, public relations, and proselytization, and argued that the Nation of Islam met all the criteria during its early decades.
• To control and manipulate their followers, cult leaders use a variety of techniques, including isolation, deception, financial means, threats, punishment, deprivation, and love-bombing. High-controlling sects are characterized by authoritarianism, isolation, and the presence of a charismatic leader. They use sleep deprivation to break down the defenses of members. They hold extreme and dogmatic beliefs. Their leaders often exploit members economically and sexually.
• The Nation of Islam may have exhibited these traits of cults or high-controlling religious movements during the twentieth century. However, these characteristics have become gradually less salient as its popularity has waned. The strict dress policy of the Nation of Islam and its restrictive code are no longer imposed rigorously.
• Providing examples of all these techniques and characteristics is pointless. The Allah Temple of Islam fits them all. It could therefore be argued that the Nation of Islam was and is a cult and that W.D. Fard had all the traits of cult leaders. But is this fair? The same could be said of most world religions and their founders. As strange as they may sound, the teachings of the Nation of Islam are no more bizarre than those shared by the mainstream followers of major world faiths. There is indeed a gray area and a blurry line between a cult, a religion, or even a yoga or a cross fit class. Upon close inspection, we find that the characteristics of cults can also be found in many mainstream religious dominations, in some martial arts clubs, in professional sports, as well as the fashion and music industries.
• Never undermine your subject, my mentor, Keith Ellis, taught me. Respect your subject, he instructed me. Although I have falle short, at times, I have striven to follow this motto. I have always been fond of W.D. Fard Muhammad and fascinated with his teachings. As such, I have attempted to present him in as favorable a light as possible. My biographical portrait of W.D. Fard, which spans many articles and books written over the past few decades, is empathetic. However, objectivity and impartiality should not come at the cost of academic and historical honesty.
• I do not know who W.D. Fard was. I do not know his inner psychology and intentions. I do not know if he was sincere, a swindle or a saboteur. I do not know if he acted independently or was foreign or domestic asset or agent. I do know, however, that despite all his shortcomings, and extremes, he did a tremendous amount of good for black people and transformed many of them. For his, he has earned my respect and admiration and continues to fuel my fascination. People had a deep and profound faith in W.D. Fard. If one scours all his speeches and writings, as well as all the FBI files, never, at any point, did Elijah Muhammad doub W.D. Fard or the veracity of his teachings. I see nothing but sincerity and conviction. No questions. No concerns. No lack of faith. No despair. He seems to have been a die-hard believer until his death.
• I fear that Burnsteen Muhammad lost her faith in W.D. Fard over the decades. She did, after all, enter so-called orthodox Sunni Islam under Warith Deen Mohammed. Her husband, however, Supreme Minister John Muhammad, does appear to have preserved his faith in Fard. As important as these posthumous publications from Burnsteen Muhammad may be, they fail to mention the fact that she had parted from the original Nation of Islam. Burnsteen grew out of Fardism and rejected it, and yet Medina is immortalizing her in a way that she may not want to be remembered.
• As for The Reformer: Wisdom Revealed to Me by Master Fard Muhammad, the work is priceless. Anything and everything related to W.D. Fard, Elijah Muhammad, Burnsteen Muhammad, John Muhammad, and the Pioneers of the Nation of Islam merit to be preserved for the sake of posterity and historical study. The work, which was “revealed by God to the Reformer,” as the back cover claims, corrects past claims and sets the record straight regarding W.D. Fard’s person and illuminates his identity.
• The Nation of Islam, under the true teachings of W.D. Fard, gave meaning and purpose to the lives of hundreds of thousands of human beings. Drawing the Nation of Islam into so-called orthodox Sunni Islam, as Warith Deen Mohammed did, was, in the estimation of some, deeply damaging. The Nation of Islam, in their view, should have held fast to the original teachings. According to hese critics, Louis Farrakhan was right to revive them; however, modifying some of them, and introducing mainstream Muslim practices has been counterproductive. As the saying goes, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.
• The Nation of Islam, under W.D. Fard and Elijah Muhammad, worked. In fact, at its peak, under the lieutenancy of Malcolm X, it claimed to have 500,000 followers. While this number was exaggerated and included sympathizers who were not card-carrying members of the movement, the NOI loomed large over the black community. It was truly transformative. And for that, many will be forever thankful to Master W.D. Fard Muhammad, Elijah Muhammad, and the Nation of Islam.
• CHAPTER 23 THE PROFESSOR PROVIDES A CLUE: HAS FARD FINALLY BEEN FOUND?
• By John Andrew Morrow
• “Master Fard suffered greatly for bringing us the teachingof our mother religion Islam. He of all foreigners had moreheartfelt sympathy for our pitiful condition than any Imam,Sheik, Islamic scholar or dignitary from where? FromMecca, Medina or anywhere else! Did you hear me?” — Emmanuel Muhammad
• Just like Christians have been seeking the holy grail, investigators, both Muslim and non-Muslim, have been searching for W.D. Fard since he went missing in 1934. Some suggested he fell victim to foul play, at the hands of the Detroit Police Department or Elijah Muhammad himself. Some claimed he returned to New Zealand. Others thought that he headed south like a snowbird. Mexico, some thought, he must have headed to Mexico. After all, the final officially known letter that W.D. Fard sent to Elijah Muhammad, which dates from December 18, 1933, intimated that he might head that way. It was sent from the southwest part of North Ame ica which is generally considered to be the point in southern California which is near the border with Mexico. What is more, the last letter Elijah Muhammad received from W.D. Fard, which dates from March 1934, was sent from Mexico. Like the an onymous postcard sent by Andy Dufresne to Ellis Boyd Redding in the Shawshank Redemption, was W.D. Fard sending a subtle signal to Elijah Muhammad to come join him in Mexico?
• Far from an elusive signal, W.D. Fard’s last publicly known letter to Elijah Muhammad, which was curiously authored at 4:00 a.m. in the morning on December 18, 1933, was not a final goodbye: it was a see you soon with what appear to be tangible plans. In fact, W.D. Fard told Elijah,
• You keep this letter and present to me when I see you and I will read for you and explain to you… I shall have big time with you when I see you: Write to me every day and tell me about your study… I am going with you…
• These are not the words of a man, or a god, who was abandoning his Nation of Islam. They are those of a “guide” who was continuing to the manage the movement in precise detail. Unless he fell off the face of the Earth, was killed, or dropped dead - enigmatically, he said that “my movements time and hours are limited” - W.D. Fard had planned to remain in daily communication with Elijah Muhammad. If W.D. Fard asked Elijah Muhammad to write him every day, it means that the Messenger of Allah had his mailing address. If W.D. Fard had failed to stay in touch with his student, it would have left a void that the Messenger could never fill.
• As Wakeel Allah relates, Master Fard Muhammad traveled throughout the United States in 1933. Of course, Wakeel Allah does not mention the fact that W.D. Fard went to visit his son, Wallace Dodd/Max Ford, and his former partner, Hazel Barton, in California during the National Air Races that lasted from July 1-4, 1933. From there, it appears that he headed to his old stomping grou ds in the Pacific Northwest. As Anton Batey and Kevin Morris note,
• A potential sighting of Fard surfaced weeks after his visit to Hazel and Max, on July 18th, when a “W.D. Ford of Detroit” checked into the Hotel Evergreen in Vancouver, Washington – a city approximately 60 miles north of Salem, Oregon, and less than 2 miles from Portland, just across the Columbia River. The remarkable proximity to Portland – a city closely tied to Fard’s first footprints in America – makes the likely appearance especially compelling. Could he have been reconnecting with long-lost relatives in the Pacific Northwest. And, if so, who were they? Such a connection, if verified, could offer valuable [information] to His whereabouts following his disappearance in 1934.
• If W.D. Fard was planning to leave the United States, it is possible that he wanted to bid farewell to his old flames, Pearl Allen and Hazel Barton, and the love children they produced: Wallace Max Ford and Donald Lloyd Campagna. Although DNA testing strongly indicates that Donald Lloyd Campagna was not the biological son of Fred Dodd, namely, W.D. Fard, our protagonist believed that he was. How could Hazel Barton have known about Fred Dodd’s son unless Wallie D. Ford had told her? As Anton Batey and Kevin Morris write,
• Fard’s… common law wife Hazel Barton claimed to the FBI on October 17, 1957, that he stated that he was the father of the child after learning about his “Fred Dodd” past identity. This implies that Pearl either told Fard he was the father, Fard believed he was the father, or he convinced himself that he could be the father.
• Considering the distance that W.D. Fard traveled, Bilal Muhammad asked ChatGPT-4o how long it would take to drive from Detroit to California in a 1929 Ford back in 1932. Depending on the conditions, it could have taken anywhere from eight days (best case scenario) to three weeks (worst case scenario). Decidedly, he must have loved driving, and putting the pedal to the metal, because he was traveling to Detroit, Chicago, Evanston, Milwaukee, Hammond, Gary, Madison, Kansas City, St. Louis, California, and elsewhere within those four years.
• When we think of these distances in 2025, we figure four hours from Detroit to Michigan. Nearly a hundred years ago, it was an entirely different story. According to GPT-4,
• In 1934, the distance between Detroit and Chicago is about 280 to 300 miles, depending on the exact route taken. Driving a Model T Ford at that time would have been significantly slower than modern vehicles, with the average speed being around 35-40 miles per hour on highways, though the car was capable of reaching higher speeds on good roads.
• However, the roads in 1934 were not as developed as they are today, and many sections would have been unpaved or in poor condi ion. Considering these factors, a trip from Detroit to Chicago in a Model T Ford would likely take between 8 to 10 hours, assuming typical road conditions and stops. If the weather was bad, or if there were any mechanical issues, the trip could have take even longer.
• It takes five and a half hours to go from Chicago to Milwaukee and over another hour to get to Madison, Wisconsin. W.D. Fard had contacts in Evanston, Illinois, and, apparently, in St. Louis and Kansas City. Perhaps these were friends and acquaintances he had made as a traveling salesperson. The amount of driving, and the time it would have taken, is immense, not to mention the cost.
• Who was funding W.D. Fard? Who paid for his car? According to Burnsteen, the faithful bought it for him. However, he was traveling extensively in another vehicle before 1933. How did he pay for the gas? How could he afford the hotel rooms and restaurants? In 1934, a gallon of gas cost around $0.19, which is equivalent to about $4.08 in 2022 dollars. In 1934, hotel rooms used to cost between 5$ and $30 per night. At the lowest range, it is the equivalent of $120 today. In 1934, meals were 20-30 cents. Breakfast could cost 30 cents, lunch 50 cents, and dinner 70-75 cents. So, in 2025 prices, a dinner would cost about $18.
• It is hard to imagine that W.D. Fard could travel so much without having another unidentified source of income. The United Sta es did not have a dedicated, centralized intelligence agency between 1930 and 1934. However, foreign powers, like the British and the Japanese most certainly did. In fact, the Secret Intelligence Service of the British was founded in 1909. Japanese intelligence services trace back to 1895. Was W.D. Fard involved in clandestine activities? His behavior suggests so. As Wakeel Allah writes,
• The Reformer recalled Master Fard Muhammad advised her to take great care with the task [of typing all the lessons], often mee ing her in obscure places such as defunct freezers to review the Lessons. He taught her to put the lessons in different hiding spots such as under furnaces in case police raided their meeting places. This way they wouldn’t be able to seize all of the Lessons because they’d have plenty stashed away.
• For a young woman, meeting W.D. Fard, at late hours, in alleys, and abandoned freezer cars, was as perilous as it was exhilara ing. It helped conjure up the image of W.D. Fard as some sort of master spy engaged in subversive missions.
• In any event, according to Wakeel Allah, W.D. Fard returned to Detroit from his travels throughout the United States. He was a rested on May 4, 1933, and expelled from Detroit. Emmanuel Muhammad, Elijah’s eldest son, stated that
• The last time I saw Master Fard, he left our home in Detroit, Michigan, [on] May 26, 1933. Master Fard was given twenty-four hours by the police commissioner in Detroit to leave the state of Michigan. From Detroit, Master Fard came to Chicago… As soon as [he] arrived here in Chicago, he was arrested. But he did not spend no time in jail. They turned him loose. He stayed here in Chicago for a while before he left for good.
• This contradicts what Elijah Muhammad told FBI officers in Chicago on September 20, 1942. He explained to them that although W.D. Fard had been ordered to leave Detroit on May 26, 1933, he continued teaching Islam there until September 1933 when he finally left as a result of police pressure.
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• (Figure 23.1: FBI File on the Nation of Islam)
• After leaving Chicago, Wakeel Allah reports that W.D. Fard traveled across America. He came back to Chicago and left, for the last time, in February 1934.
• According to both E.U. Essien-Udom, and an official and verified statement from Temple #2 in Chicago, the last time Elijah Muhammad saw W.D. Fard was in 1934, at the airport in Chicago, when he was deported from the United States. Elijah Muhammad reported that he drove him there himself in a Model-T Ford. Whose Model-T Ford? W.D. Fard’s? According to Elijah Muhammad, W.D. Fard told him, “You don’t need me anymore.” “Oh, yes, I do,” replied Elijah in tears. Fard then boarded the plane. He flew off and he was never seen in public again. When John Muhammad asked Elijah Muhammad “where did he go?” he responded that “Fard Muhammad di ected himself back to the heavens.” As John Muhammad explained, “He was returned to his thrones and that was the heaven place. He was never seen again that I know of.” To claim that someone flew off is one thing. To assert that he ascended into heaven is another. Was Elijah Muhammad just being allegorical or theological? Or was he intimating that W.D. Fard had physically died?
• If we are to believe the claims of Temple # 2, and the statement of Ishmael Muhammad, W.D. Fard gave a final gift to Elijah Muhammad during their last encounter in Chicago, a small fold of paper, containing Psalm 23, which he pressed into his hand. It read:
• 1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
• 2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
• 3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
• 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staf they comfort me.
• 5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
• 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
• Cleary, it was from the King James version. Why would a “Muslim” or “Allah” give a Biblical verse to his Apostle? The answer came swiftly: it is a favorite verse of the Freemasons. It reflects their faith in the Great Architect and in themselves. The verse is commented upon in Masonic literature. The verse serves as a Freemasonic consolation. W.D. Fard’s final written words were a Masonic message. For Elijah Muhammad, who would author The Secrets of Freemasonry, its meaning was manifest. He would also have known that Masons used it in funerals and memorials. Was W.D. Fard intimating that this was a final farewell? Or was he intimating that he was at death’s door?
• In 1934, there were several airlines that were flying out of Chicago. According to the Museum of Flight,
• In 1934, flights would have likely left from Midway Airport (originally Chicago Municipal Airport) as O’Hare wasn’t built until the 1940s. At that time there were several airlines flying out of there: TWA, United, American, Chicago and Southern, Eastern, Northwest, and Braniff.
• According to the Delta Museum,
• Pacific Seaboard Air Lines inaugurated mail service between Chicago and New Orleans on June 3, 1934. Passengers were first flown over the route on July 13, 1934. Cities served along the route: Chicago and Peoria, Illinois; Springfield and St. Louis, Missouri; Memphis, Tennessee; Greenwood and Jackson, Mississippi; and New Orleans, Louisiana.
• In 1934, United Airlines focused primarily on destinations in the western United States. Its hub in Chicago offered fights to Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. These findings are formidable. Rather than look for a specific fish in the ocean - after all, W.D. Fard could literally have gone anywhere in 1934 - we can now narrow down his destinations. The odds that he went to the Mid-West are next to null. It seems unlikely that he went to St. Louis, Memphis, Jackson, or New Orleans as he had no prior connection with these places. Relocating to Salt Lake City would seem strange, although there is some Mormon influence in his ideas. If W.D. Fard did indeed board a flight out of Chicago in February 1934, he probably flew to California. Specifically, that means Los Angeles or San Francisco. That is where we must pick up the trail. If, however, he flew to another destination, like New York, or he drove off, then all bets are off.
• If W.D. Fard drove off, it is tempting to consider that he took the iconic U.S. Route 66. The highway officially started in Chicago. It passed through Springfield, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Oklahoma; Amarillo, Texas; Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico; Flagstaff, Arizona; and finished in Los Angeles, California.
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• (Figure 23.2: Sketch of United Airlines aircraft from 1933. Public domain)
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• (Figure 23.3: 1933 United Airlines routes. Public domain)
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• (Figure 23.4: Sketch of United Airlines aircraft from 1933. Public domain)
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• (Figure 23.5: Sketch of the inside of a United Airlines aircraft from 1933. Public domain)
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• (Figure 23.6: Sketch of a United Airlines aircraft from 1933. Public domain)
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• (Figure 23.7: 1933. United Airlines Schedule. Public domain)
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• (Figure 23.8: 1934 Pacific Seaboard routes. Public domain)
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• (Figure 23.9: 1934 American Airlines routes. Public domain)
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• (Figure 23.10: 1934 American Airlines routes. Public domain)
• If W.D. Fard left Chicago by airplane in February 1934, we have a good idea of where he could have gone. If he left on February 26, 1934, and this is not just a theologically convenient date that aligns with the alleged month and year of his birth, we can be even more precise when it comes to potential destinations.
• Thanks to the phenomenal research conducted by Melissa A.N. Keiser, Photo Archivist at the National Air and Space Museum, and her library colleague, Phil Edwards, I was able to obtain a copy of The Official Aviation Guide of the Airways for February 1934. As Melissa Keiser noted in her email dated March 27, 2025,
• If you refer to the OAG Index (page 51 of the periodical; page 3 of the PDF, with detail view on page 4) you can see that fou airlines were making regular stops at Chicago in February 1934: American Airways (which later because American Airlines), Northwest Airways, United Air Lines, and Transcontinental & Western Air (later Trans World Airlines, TWA). Note that Braniff Airways’ service to Chicago had been discontinued by February 1934. The text and tables on the subsequent pages should provide a lot of the information you’ve been looking for (timetables, fare charts, route maps, etc.); look for the information pertaining to Chicago specifically… United Air Lines still looks like a good bet unless Fard headed east to New York, in which case he could have also used American Airways (or Northwest if he was headed for Seattle). In any case, this should give you plenty of info mation to explore a variety of possible routes.
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• (Figure 23.11: February 1934 United Air Lines routes)
• If W.D. Fard departed on a United Air Lines flight in February 1934, the most logical final destinations, based on his history, would have been Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle, unless he headed to New York. If he wanted to head to Mexico, Dallas would have been the best option. We have a year. We have a month. We have a day. If only we had an hour, or even, mor ing, afternoon, or evening, we could be even more accurate. If Elijah did indeed drop W.D. Fard off at the airport on February 26, 1934, at what time did he do so? The answer to the question “where did W.D. Fard go?” could be found in the following schedule:
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• (Figure 23.12: February 1934 United Air Lines schedule)
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• (Figure 23.13: February 1934 United Air Lines schedule)
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• (Figure 23.14: February 1934 United Air Lines schedule)
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• (Figure 23.15: February 1934 United Air Lines schedule)
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• (Figure 23.16: February 1934 United Air Lines schedule)
• In February 1934, there were several airports in Chicago. The Chicago Municipal Airport which opened in 1926, and which is now known as Midway International Airport. By 1934, this was Chicago’s primary airport for both commercial and mail flights. In fact, it quickly became one of the busiest airports in the world in the 1930s and 1940s.
• There was also the Curtiss-Reynolds Airport (also known as Glenview Airport). Operational in 1934, it was originally a private airfield that hosted some commercial and charter activities. In 1934, it was a private, commercial airport, and was not municipally owned. It was, however, open to the public for use. When asked how likely it was that W.D. Fard flew out of these other airports, Melissa Keiser had this to say:
• Yes, there were several airports in the Chicago area in 1934, but I think it most likely that Fard - whom I assume was not involved in the aviation world - would have left Chicago Municipal Airport. Note that all the airlines listing service to Chicago in the February 1934 OAG were operating out of Chicago Municipal Airport (look at the “Transportation to and From Airports” listings for each airline).
• Have you had a look at Chicago newspapers in that period to see what kind of air travel advertising he would have been seeing? Was he staying near any of the airline offices in downtown Chicago? (Their addresses are in the OAG pages I sent.) People routinely went to an airline’s downtown office to purchase a ticket for a flight, although obviously you could do that at the airpo t as well.
• In 1934, the other Chicago area airports were mainly used for civil, air mail, and military aviation, and non-scheduled commercial aviation (charter, cargo, etc.).
• Now you’ve got ME invested in figuring out where Fard disappeared to! Do you know WHO drove him to the mysterious airport? Any idea if he had any friends who had pilot’s licenses? I don’t suppose Fard knew William J. Powell, for example, or any members of the Bessie Coleman Aero Club? You might find these collections of tangential interest:
• Black Wings Exhibit and Book Collection,
• NASM.1993.0060: https://sova.si.edu/record/nasm.1993.0060
• William J. Powell Collection,
• NASM.1999.0049: https://sova.si.edu/record/nasm.1999.0049
• William J. Powell (Craftsmen of Black Wings, Inc.) Photograph Collection,
• NASM.1996.0008: https://sova.si.edu/record/nasm.1996.0008
• I think the only reason he’d be using one of the other airports would be if he had some personal connection with a pilot. Hope this adds some more breadcrumbs to the trail…
• As Elijah Muhammad attested, the last letter he received from W.D. Fard was from March 1934. It was sent from Mexico. It is unclear whether it was post-marked March 1934 or was received in that month. Looking for a man in Mexico is an almost impossible task. Having a post-mark listing the city, state, and zip code in Mexico would enormously facilitate the task of tracking his movements. The content of the letter has not been made publicly available. According to John Muhammad, it contained English Lesson C1.
• Although it is unclear whether he was speaking about the last time he physically saw him, or the last time he heard from him, Elijah Muhammad informed some journalists that W.D. Fard disappeared on March 19, 1934, as mysteriously as had appeared. Was Fard ill? Was his diabetes getting the best of him? Was he on his last leg? Or did he continue to communicate with Elijah Muhammad for years and decades to come? A captivating clue has sparked our curiosity, drawn our interest, and encouraged further investigation.
• After he dreamed that I found W.D. Fard in Mexico, Bilal Muhammad, a fellow obsesionado, continued to encourage me to pursue the Mexican trail. Apparently, I was not the only one who was intrigued about W.D. Fard and Mexico. Another journalist, Jefferson Morley, a correspondent for AlterNet.org, had submitted a Freedom of Information Act request in 2018 regarding anything related to Elijah Muhammad and Cuernavaca, Mexico. I scoured the pages in search of any reference to W.D. Fard in relation to the land of sombreros, mariachis, burritos, and tequila. Nothing. Nothing at all until something leaped from a page. It was a moment of illumination under the lotus tree. According to a report found in the FBI file on Elijah Muhammad,
• On March 30, 1964, ELIJAH MUHAMMAD was told [censored] in Phoenix, Arizona, after he had asked if “his professor had answered him from Mexico yet?,” that an answer had been received, and it should have been transmitted to Chicago by this time. MUHAMMAD was told that [censored] was going to translate it. MUHAMMAD stated he was surprised the answer was in Chicago, adding he was anxious to have the reply as soon as possible.
• Phoenix is also requested to review information available from its sources and attempt to determine the identity of “his professor” in Mexico. Any pertinent developments should be furnished to the Bureau and Chicago in appropriate communication.
• In a Memorandum dated 4/17/1964, which was sent from the Phoenix office to the director of the FBI, regarding the airtel dated 4/2/64, the following details were provided,
• In response to reairtel the Phoenix Division has reviewed information available from sources, but no data was located which would identify “his professor” in Mexico.
• Phoenix sources have been alerted to any plans by ELIJAH MUHAMMAD to go out of the United States. Any information in this rega d or which might possibly identify “his professor” in Mexico will be brought immediately to the attention of the Bureau and the Chicago Division.
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• (Figure 23.17: FBI File on Elijah Muhammad. Public domain)
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• (Figure 23.18: FBI File on Elijah Muhammad. Public domain)
• Elijah Muhammad had one teacher and one teacher alone: W.D. Fard, who was also known as Professor Ford. While it is possible that the professor in question was merely an educator at a university in Mexico, who was assisting him in the purchase of a property in Cuernavaca, and helping get him settled in, why did he not just refer to him as “the professor?” Why refer to him as “my professor?” And if we were dealing with a teacher, educator, or professor, based in Cuernavaca, Mexico, it would have been extremely easy for the FBI to locate him. In fact, they even had Elijah Muhammad’s home bugged in Cuernavaca. They were constantly ecording him, even when he was discussing how to evade taxes. Why were first or last names never mentioned by Elijah Muhammad? Why was the professor, his professor, untraceable even to the FBI? There is good reason to believe that the individual in question was W.D. Fard himself, who had relocated to Mexico in 1934, and settled in Cuernavaca or its immediate vicinity under a new identity.
• For researchers who espoused the Mexican hypothesis, many presumed that W.D. Fard entered Mexico from the border of California, probably at Tijuana. Speaking of W.D. Fard’s last officially known letter, Minister Carlos Muhammad made some important points in 2021,
• We can see it’s written from the south-west part of North America. Well, where is that? Is it Texas? Is it New Mexico? Is it Mexico? Is it just across the border? We don’t know. But we do know that the Saviour obviously had some relationship and roots and seeds planted in Mexico because the Honorable Elijah Muhammad at a point, which is of greater conversation of what guided and led him to move his family there and establish a residence there and establish his divine mission there which continues to this day...  We can honestly say that he had the significance of the Saviour traveling to these places.
• However, the road from Tijuana led nowhere. If W.D. Fard entered Mexico, the most logical entry point would have been at Laredo / Nuevo Laredo in Texas. By 1934, long stretches of the Pan-American Highway had just been completed, and Americans were starting to explore Mexico by car. From the time he was in California, to the time he was in Michigan, W.D. Fard was fond of driving, as were many Americans, reveling in the freedom that the automobile, gas stations, motels, amenities, and tourist attractions now provided.
• From Nuevo Laredo, in northern Mexico, on the border of the United States, the Pan-American Highway runs to the capital, Mexico City. From there, Cuernavaca is merely thirty miles south. In 1934, that is basically where the safe, paved, drivable, all-weather highway ended. Beyond that, there were segments that were only good or fair in dry weather, portions that were only passable with difficulty in dry weather, parts that were merely trails, and yet others that remained under construction. For an intrepid adventurer, who was among the millions who enjoyed the rise of mass tourism, Cuernavaca, a picturesque town, was the end of he road. This is where W.D. Fard’s journey would have ended.
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• (Figure 23.19: 1933 map of the Inter-American Highway portion of the Pan-American Highway. Wikipedia. Public domain)
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• (Figure 23.20: 1933 map of the Inter-American Highway portion of thePan-American Highway. Cuernavaca, not mentioned on this map,is just an inch south of Mexico City. Wikipedia. Public domain)
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• (Figure 23.21: Mexico travel map 1935. Public domain)
• As the FBI reported in March of 1964, Elijah Muhammad had been in communication with “his professor” in Mexico. This mysterious person appears to have been involved in helping Elijah Muhammad acquire land, build a home, and establish a mosque in Cuernavaca, Mexico, a city with a historic Syrian Lebanese Muslim population, however numerically small. Elijah Muhammad informed Tyne ta, his mistress, and the mother of four of his children, that he was making some especially important strategic moves for the Nation of Islam. All of this appears to have been orchestrated by the mysterious man from Mexico that he described as his professor.
• As careful as Elijah Muhammad may have been when it came to occulting W.D. Fard’s location and identity, the use of the possessive pronoun, “my professor, “as opposed to definite article “the professor,” seems to be the result of a slip. This was not just a professor, or the professor, but “my professor,” perhaps even a term of endearment. The fact that the professor was communicating in a language that needed to be translated seems strategic just like the fact that he sent the letter, not to his home in Phoenix, Arizona, but rather, through indirect channels through Chicago, to the surprise of Elijah Muhammad himself. Perhaps Fard, as cunning as he was, wanted to outplay the FBI.
• The odds are the letter was in Spanish, a language that Fard may have spoken since his time in California or one that he perfected over the past few decades in Mexico from 1934 to 1964. Tynetta Muhammad (1914-2015), Elijah’s mistress, could have been the translator. Whoever the translator was, the person was an FBI informant as the name was blacked out.
• Although Tynetta spoke Spanish, Arely Medina’s claim that she descended from Latinos is unsubstantiated. Her ancestors are lis ed as being black. One of her relatives assured me that Tynetta had no Hispanic ancestry. If she was so light-skinned, and white-passing, it was because of the influx of white blood. When forced to explain why their children were light skinned, many blacks claimed that they had Spanish or Native American blood to conceal the real cause of shame.
• It is also conceivable that the letter from Mexico was in Urdu and was translated by Muhammad Abdullah (1905-1992) who had been working with Elijah Muhammad since the 1950s. If the letter was in Arabic, Jamil Diab, the Palestinian teacher who taught for the Nation of Islam in the 1950s and 1960s, would have been the logical person to translate it. In any event, if W.D. Fard were born in 1877, he would have been eighty-seven in 1964. If he were born in 1891, he would have been seventy-three. If he were born in 1893, he would have been seventy-one years old. Born in 1897, Elijah Muhammad was sixty-seven years old in 1964.
• Elijah Muhammad did not just plan to move to Mexico. He did, in fact, move there in 1974. He purchased land at the Club de Gol de Cuernavaca, which, curiously, was founded in 1934, and had a home built. Tynetta Muhammad preceded him and made all the preparations for his arrival. Patrick D. Bowen has claimed that Elijah Muhammad “bought a home and opened a mosque.” According to Omar Weston, formerly Mark Weston, a British-born surfer and missionary who has been spreading Salafism and Wahhabism in Mexico for over thirty years, “there is no reference of a purpose-built mosque” constructed by Elijah Muhammad or the Nation of Islam in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
• If the Messenger of God went to Mexico, it was not merely to fish for converts. It seems that he knew something about Mexico that others did not. In fact, he “disclosed to some of his close laborers and family members in the palace that he had planned a trip… to take care of very important business outside of the country.” According to his mistress, Tynetta Muhammad, “Elijah Muhammad was Divinely Guided to settle a part of his family in that country.” Who was guiding the Honorable Elijah Muhammad if not Fard Muhammad? John Muhammad, the Supreme Minister said that he knew where W.D. Fard went. If he did, he does not appear to have disclosed it to anyone. The secret, it would seem, was known only to Elijah Muhammad, John Muhammad, and Tynetta Muhammad, the existence of whom was hidden from the Nation of Islam until she surfaced after his death in 1975 and came forward as his secret wife.
• The details of Elijah Muhammad’s move to Mexico are intriguing. As Tynetta Muhammad revealed in 2010,
• It was during the Easter holiday week, thirty-six years ago [i.e. 1974], when the Honorable Elijah Muhammad traveled to Mexico to prepare a foundation and base of contact with the Mexican Government and people.  He established a residence in the city of Cuernavaca which was located on the grounds of the first golf course or country club established in Mexico by the first Preside t of the Ruling Revolutionary Party (PRI). The name of the street where we are located is named after this first president, Plutarco Elías Calles. 
• The historic Club de Golf was established in 1934, 76 years ago.  We will note that this date, 1934, corresponds to the last year marking the departure of Master W. Fard Muhammad and is also the date of the last letter mailed to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad from Mexico. 
• The Honorable Elijah Muhammad planned to purchase the Golf Club as a place for his Laborers to come in the future to rest and o work in another environment outside of the United States for brief periods of time before returning to their work in America in the spiritual resurrection of our people.  He shared with me that there were scientists in this country going about their wo k in preparation for this time. He instructed me to go to the Mexican Government to find out what was required to set up a school. From this assignment, I organized the Honorable Elijah Muhammad Education Foundation with the hopes and prayers of carrying out his instructions. 
• He also shared with me details on the purpose that Mexico would serve down the line of time. He guided me in the training of our children in the Spanish language, history, and social development of the country. [italics mine]
• Elijah Muhammad’s emphasis on the importance of Cuernavaca, Mexico, and the Spanish language is curious. Rather than root himself in the Arabic and Islamic world, as one would have expected, the Messenger of God selected a specific place in the Hispanic world. Perhaps this was because W.D. Fard had connections to Mexican activists in California. After all, he was described as a street-corner politician in a Spanish newspaper. What is more, there were always Latin Americans in the Nation of Islam (including the Almanzas). So, the Nation of Islam has always been connected to Latin America. The Ahmadiyya were also active in Mexico and Central America prior to 1930. They had shaykhs in places like Honduras. The Moorish Science Temple of America also claimed to have a base in Mexico City.
• Akbar Muhammad and Warith Deen Mohammed may have learned Arabic; however, one would be hard-pressed to find descendants of Elijah Muhammad who are proficient or even have a basic understanding of Arabic. However, a whole contingent of them is not only perfectly fluent in Spanish but are also Mexican citizens. Another interesting issue is that Mexico is predominantly Mestizo, namely, people of mixed European and indigenous ancestry. Only 2.4 to 3% of them are Afro-Mexicans; however, even these identify as Mexicans, Latinos, and Hispanics as opposed to blacks.
• Why not establish the Nation of Islam in a predominantly black part of the Caribbean or Latin America? Its teachings would surely have spread more easily among such populations. Not only has the Nation of Islam made no significant inroads in Mexico, but neither has Sunnism, Sufism, or Salafism. There were only eight thousand Muslims in Mexico in 2020. If anything, Muslims, including the Muhammad family, are integrating and assimilating into Mexican culture. As a result of the infusion of considerable European genes, some of the grandchildren of Elijah Muhammad are phenotypically white and light complexioned. They describe Mexico as their homeland and speak of their indigenous roots through their Mexican mothers. They pass as Latinos, and even whites, as opposed to blacks. Many of them have blue eyes. Some are bright blue. So much for the “blue-eyed devil” nonsense.
• If Louis Farrakhan is to be trusted, and it was not merely a ruse to prepare a claim to succession, he reported that prior to his death, which would have been in 1974, Elijah Muhammad told him,
• Brother, I’m going away. I’m going away to study. I’ll be gone for approximately three years. Don’t change the teachings while I’m gone. And if you are faithful when I return, I will reveal the new teaching through you.
• According to Farrakhan, it was not long after this that Elijah Muhammad “left this world” or “ascended into the Mothership,” as he does not believe that the Messenger of God passed away. He insists that Elijah Muhammad is still alive.
• If this account it truthful, and Elijah was planning to study abroad for three years, where did he intend to go? And who was going to teach him if not his one and only teacher, W.D. Fard? Elijah Muhammad had just come back from Cuernavaca, Mexico, where he had settled into his new home and where he wanted to reside long term. While in Cuernavaca, he had warned his son, Ishmael Muhammad, that “They are trying to kill me in Chicago,” revealing to him that people in the Nation of Islam, and even in his family, were plotting his demise.
• In what proved to be a poor strategic move, Elijah Muhammad returned to Chicago, briefly, to seek medical care for complicatio s of heart disease, diabetes, bronchitis, and asthma. He died of congestive heart failure at Mercy Hospital Chicago on February 25, 1975. Both Tynetta Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan would claim that it was a death plot, and that Elijah Muhammad had not died. Tynetta and Elijah’s children would repeat these claims when they grew up, making them official Nation of Islam dogma. Such a belief was rejected by Supreme Minister John Muhammad, Karriem Allah, Jeremiah Shabazz, and others leading to splinter groups reaking away from the Farrakhan faction. There are dozens of temples throughout the United States that profess to uphold the true, raw, and unadulterated teachings of W.D. Fard and Elijah Muhammad, some of them even viewing the dominant group as hypocrites and disbelievers.
• If the claim that W.D. Fard was still alive in 1964 is credible, to pretend that he was living in 1974 can reach illogical and preposterous proportions. If W.D. Fard was born in 1877, he would have been ninety-seven in 1974. If he came into the world in 1891, he would have been eighty-three. If his mother delivered him in 1893, he would have been eighty-one years old. Born in 18 7, Elijah Muhammad was seventy-seven years old in 1974. He surpassed the life expectancy of the time. The average age of people who died in 1974 was 71.79 years.
• Issues of W.D. Fard’s age, however, were of no concern to Elijah Muhammad. In 1972, when he was seventy-five years of age, he asserted that W.D. Fard spoke to him from time to time and even appeared to him in a vision a few years before. When asked if it was really W.D. Fard, he responded confidently that “He’s very much alive. He will be alive for probably 400 years yet.”
• This number is intriguing as some NOI members believe that the four hundred years would be up in 1955. One such person, Charlie, was a barber who converted John Ali and Jeremiah Shabazz in Philadelphia in the 1940s. This individual moved to Virginia to start a farm and await the Mother Plane and the End of Times which he expected to come in 1955 - four hundred years after John Hawkins in 1555. If, in 1974, Elijah Muhammad believed that W.D. Fard would live another four centuries, that would bring us to the year 2,374. Like countless End of Days cults, the Day of Doom keeps constantly being pushed back and, in some cases, when it does not happen, the faithful commit suicide.
• Perhaps a spiritual being, entity, or intelligence, if one believes in such things, could live for four hundred years. However, the organic body it occupies could never last for centuries. The key, here, is that Elijah Muhammad admitted that W.D. Fard was mortal. He may have been God in Human Form; however, that physical form had an expiration date. Maybe W.D. Fard was no longer living in 1974; however, if he was the professor with whom Elijah Muhammad was in contact with in Mexico, he was alive in 1964. Perhaps he was even buried there at one of the huge, well-maintained, and highly frequented cemeteries. It may be for this reason that Cuernavaca held special significance to Elijah Muhammad. He wanted to be close to his master. In fact, his home in Cuernavaca is close to one of the city’s major graveyards.
• Tynetta Muhammad often spoke of Mexico. She mentioned that it was Elijah Muhammad’s final base of operation, that he went to Mexico to prepare to teach others, that he planned to open a school there, and that he wanted the Supreme Wisdom Lessons to become the foundation of the education system in the country.
• After Elijah Muhammad passed away, Tynetta Muhamad continued to live in his home at the Club de Golf de Cuernavaca for the rest of her life. Not only did Elijah Muhammad leave her a paid home, but he also left her considerable sums of money. Not only was it enough to provide for her and her family for the rest of her life, but it enabled her to travel the world extensively for decades. Impressively, “the empire which Elijah Muhammad established” was “estimated to be worth $70 to $100 million.”
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• (Figure 23.22: Sketch of a teenaged Tynetta Nelson. Created from an original,fair use, photograph. Ancestry.com. U.S., School Yearbooks, 1900-1999[database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010)
• Tynetta Muhammad would raise her children from Elijah Muhammad in Cuernavaca, Mexico, including, Madeeah, Ishmael (b. 1964), Rasul, and Ahmad. It is reported that Ishmael studied Islam for decades in Cuernavaca. Under whom? His mother? He only returned to Chicago upon the request of Minister Louis Farrakhan where he became his assistant minister. It is assumed that he will succeed Farrakhan as the leader of the NOI. As for Rasul Muhammad, he became a popular musician in Mexico, and abroad, and has devoted his ministry to serving the people of North, Central, South America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. His daughter, Jamila Muhammad, was living in Jiutepec in 2017 where she was studying to be a veterinarian. Little could be found regarding Ahmad Muhammad. Rasul Hakim Muhammad passed away in 2025 after a prolonged illness.
• According to Tynetta Muhammad, the city of Tepoztlán, which is close to Cuernavaca, where Elijah Muhammad established a reside ce, is associated with the Mother Plane. It is also the place where Louis Farrakhan claims to have ascended into the Mother’s Wheel on September 17, 1985. Tepoztlán has long been a hub of UFO sightings and investigations, including some conducted by academics, scientists, and professors. Tynetta Muhammad has written and spoken extensively about contact with these extra-terrestrial or interdimensional god-scientists, the head of whom was no other than Master W.D. Fard Muhammad. According to NOI lore, “the Mother Plane… is the display of the power of the mightiest God, Master Fard Muhammad, to whom praises are due forever.” If, according to the teachings of Elijah and Tynetta Muhammad, W.D. Fard boarded the Mothership, which he pilots, and which lands in Tepoztlán, a place that is thirty minutes from Cuernavaca, we have eyewitness accounts of his presence in that part of the world, albeit aboard a spacecraft. As Louis Farrakhan asseverated, he felt the presence of Master W.D. Fard and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad after he ascended into the Mother Wheel on September 17, 1985.
• Tynetta Alethea Nelson was intimately involved with Elijah Muhammad after embracing Islam in 1958 and becoming his secretary a the age of seventeen. She used to write columns in Muhammad Speaks in the 1960s under the pseudonym Tynetta Deanar. After the passing of the Messenger of God, she came out as his secret wife. Moving from mistress to Mother of the Believers, the self-described womanist became an intellectual and spiritual leader in the Nation of Islam. Attractive, intelligent, talented, articulate, classy, cultured and refined, she was an eloquent exponent of the teachings of the Nation of Islam.
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• (Figure 23.23: Sketch of Louis Farrakhan. Created from an original, public domain, photograph taken in Iran in 2018. Tasnim News Agency. CC BY 4.0)
• Whether she was conveying what Elijah Muhammad had taught her, or what she had learned from W.D. Fard himself cannot be proven. It is also possible that she just concocted all her theology, drawing from Theosophical teachings about out-of-body experiences and astral projection. When she met Edip Yüksel (b. 1957) at the 1989 United Submitters International Conference, she claimed to follow Qur’an-only Islam. She embraced the code 19 theory popularized by Rashad Khalifa (1935-1990) and Edip Yüksel, wrote about it, and spoke about it.
• Not only did Tynetta Muhammad expound upon Nation of Islam theology, but she expanded upon it, providing previously unknown inormation regarding W.D. Fard, historical or mythological. She purported that W.D. Fard had the ability to revive the dead within twenty-four to forty-eight hours of their passing. She claimed that he could be in multiple places simultaneously like the ascended masters. She also reported that W.D. Fard was in contact with Martians.
• If that were not enough, Tynetta Muhammad alleged that W.D. Fard had traveled the world collecting the best cultural combinations to create a master race. She maintained that W.D. Fard could communicate with animals. She contended that he had an on-going association with the Muslim Sons, namely, the Masons and Shriners, in 1930, as well as with President Hoover. She professed that W.D. Fard could reverse the aging process. She asserted that he could break up the circle of the twelve gods. She stated that W.D. Fard prayed to the Originator. She also said that W.D. Fard continued to study. Most of these claims are merely mythmaking or myth regurgitating. A few of them could be grounded in historical reality, namely, W.D. Fard’s association with the Freemasons, and the fact that he continued to study. The claim that he prayed is not based on fact. Theological jargon and obfuscation aside, some of Tynetta Muhammad’s claims could hint at the fact that W.D. Fard was still living, ostensibly in the region of Cuernavaca, Mexico. So, what do we know about the Muhammad family in Mexico? Why not ask one of the most well-known Mexican Muslims?
• Omar Weston, who runs an Islamic retreat on Lake Tequesquitengo, appears to have been instrumental in having the Islamic Cultu al Center of Mexico renamed the Salafi Center of Mexico to better identify the ideology disseminated there. Since Weston does not agree with the Nation of Islam, he has made little efforts to collaborate with them. Nonetheless, he reported that he knows people who know the Muhammad family in Cuernavaca. What is more, he noted that an English ex-pat dated one of the Muhammad girls from the city. So, clearly, it seems that Elijah Muhammad’s home in Cuernavaca is still owned by his children and grandchildre . Some of them have relocated to the United States and live in Chicago, Illinois, and Michigan City, Indiana. Others, however, still reside in Cuernavaca, Mexico, on a full-time basis, while others travel there on vacation.
• According to the transcript of a video-taped interview, the date of which is not indicated, Elijah Muhammad asserted that W.D. Fard was gone for good, that he had withdrawn from the world, and that he had no need to return. That tosses the doctrine of the occultation and Second Coming of W.D. Fard into the theological trash bin. In words of tremendous consequence, he asserted,
• After He had given to me what He wanted to give to me in the Teachings and the work of preparing me for our people, then it was not necessary for Him to remain here among us. So He has taken His leave, as it is said in [the] Qur’an that the people are not worthy that God remain among them, but He makes a Messenger of that people that through that Messenger, He will reach the people, through him. And the Bible verifies such. And so, He left, and He gave me hints about His return. But now there is just as much prophecy that He will not return as there is of His returning. The Bible says He will send His angels, and they will take care of the gathering of His people. I don’t expect Him to return in Person.
• W.D. Fard hinted about his return. For decades after Fard’s departure, NOI members would go to the temple every week because they expected him to return and did not want to miss it. According to Supreme Minister John Muhammad, this was supposed to take place at the temple in Chicago.
• By the time Elijah Muhammad made the statement quoted above, the odds of his Second Coming were 50/50. However, the Messenger o longer expected him to return in Person. Rather, W.D. Fard, Allah in Person, would send his angels to do his bidding. So it looks like the doctrine of Fard’s disappearance evolved over time. In light of the above, several possibilities present themselves: W.D. Fard disappeared for good in 1934; W.D. Fard’s communication with Elijah Muhammad was intermittent and perhaps came to a halt; W.D. Fard remained in contact with Elijah Muhammad but expressed no desire to return to the limelight. Perhaps Fard was just hiding in plain sight or in the background all along.
• This scenario of staying in Chicago or Detroit seems highly unlikely. Both the Detroit and Chicago police departments were sick and tired of W.D. Fard “stirring up the Negros.” He had tens of thousands of supporters and had been accused of inciting riots and human sacrifices. He had been arrested repeatedly. Both the Detroit and Chicago police departments had expelled him from their cities. He would also have been recognized by his followers and opponents. What is more, we would have had more accounts of sightings after 1934. Perhaps he left on his own like he came to America on his own. However, it is also possible that he received deportation orders from the Immigration and Naturalization Service which was founded by Roosevelt in 1933.
• W.D. Fard’s life is worthy of a Stephen King novel. The mysterious nature of his origins, his charisma, his style, his magnetic charm, his radical reinterpretation of Islam, his highly unusual ideas, his reported miracles, the rapid growth of his movement, and his sudden disappearance, as well as lingering questions of his true identity continue to fascinate, perplex, and intrigue readers and researchers to this day. What happened to W.D. Fard, the man who would speak to packed halls of thousands of people? Where did he go? According to Emmanuel Muhammad, Elijah’s eldest son,
• Master Fard said that he was going up in the mountains, where the cavies (he referred to the Caucasian race as cavies) - where they would not be able to find him. Master Fard didn’t specify no particular mountain. That was in 1934.
• For anyone with an in-depth knowledge of Shiism, these words are startling. According to numerous traditions in Twelver Shiite sources, some of which are clearly of Kaysani origin, the Twelfth Imam is in occultation on Mount Radwa, in the Tahama mountains, between Mecca and Medina. Others claim that he is in occultation in the sacred sanctuary in Mecca. Some speak of an island of the coast of al-Andalus. Yet others say he resides in Greenland. There is also a mystical belief in the Mountain of Qaf. Just like Imam Mahdi moved to the mountains of the Middle East, did W.D. Fard return to the mountains of the Caucasus?
• For any detective, the investigation commences at the last confirmed location of the missing person. In this case, that place was thought to be the border between California and Mexico where the trail supposedly went cold. It did not. In fact, for a person coming from Detroit or Chicago, the East Coast or the Mid-West, any entry into Mexico would have logically occurred in Texas at New Laredo / Laredo border crossing along the newly completed Pan-American Highway.
• If W.D. Fard was expelled from the United States by immigration services, as he does not appear to have completed the naturalization process, he would have been sent back to his country of origin. That would have been India. He would not have been shipped off to Mexico unless he claimed to be Mexican. It is also possible that W.D. Fard was caught up in the Mexican repatriation campaigns that lasted from 1929 to 1936. In fact, up to one third of Mexicans in the United States were deported by 1934: 1.8 million of them were rounded up in informal raids and repatriated. Most of them were American born. He could also have been subjec to a voluntary departure order, namely, given notice to leave the country within a certain amount of time or face charges and incarceration. In such instances, most people comply. Based on the existing evidence, the most likely scenario is that he simply drove to Mexico, driven by his sense of adventure.
• As the FBI reported in April of 1964, Elijah Muhammad had been in communication with “his professor” in Mexico. This mysterious person appears to have been involved in helping Elijah Muhammad acquire land, build a home, and establish a mosque in Cuernavaca, Mexico, a city with a historic Syrian Lebanese Muslim population, however numerically small. Elijah Muhammad informed his mistress, Tynetta Muhammad, and the mother of four of his children, that he was making some especially important strategic moves for the Nation of Islam. He purchased a property at the Cuernavaca Golf Club, which had been opened in 1934, the year W.D. Fard disappeared, and moved there with Tynetta and their four children. This move to Mexico in 1974, the plans for which were being made as early as 1964, appears to have been orchestrated by the mysterious “professor” from Mexico. Could this have been the enigmatic “Professor Ford,” one of the earliest aliases that W.D. Fard used in Detroit? Even though the FBI was unable to identify and locate him, it may very well have been Allah Himself: W.D. Fard, the Messiah of the Christians and the Mahdi of the Muslims.
• GENERAL CONCLUSIONS, LEADS, AND NEW DIRECTIONS IN RESEARCH
• By John Andrew Morrow
• “Nobody wanted you but me.” —W.D. Fard
• W.D. Fard: The Man, Myth, and Mystery Behind the Nation of Islam is a gold mine of information and a treasure trove of answers. It strives to sieve fact from fiction and to disentangle W.D. Fard’s magic realism which blurs the lines of history and fantasy. While it would be onerous to recapitulate every new fact that has been uncovered, every mistake that has been corrected, and every blank that has been filled, an overview of the work’s most remarkable findings merits mention.
• The Bible of Islamism from which W.D. Fard preached, and which had been presumed to be the Qur’an, has turned out to be Delive ance!, an apocalyptic text produced by Joseph Franklin Rutherford (1869-1942), the second president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. In other words, W.D. Fard was preaching from one of the scriptures of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Ties between W.D. Fard and the Witnesses remain understudied. The claim that he met with Judge Rutherford requires further investigation.
• Not only was W.D. Fard impacted by the Witnesses, but he was influenced by Imperial Japan. More research needs to be conducted on Satokata Takahashi (born Naka Nakane, 1870-1954) and his ties to W.D. Fard. Most importantly, research must be conducted, not in the United States, but in Japan, consulting Japanese sources. What role did Imperial Japan play in spreading racial division and strife in the United States between 1930 and 1934? It appears that “the champion of the dark races” had a hand, directly, or indirectly, in creating the Nation of Islam.
• W.D. Fard shared the same exaggerated view of the Twelve Imams as the theologically extreme Shiites. Did he bring these teachi gs with him to America from his ancestral homeland in the East? Quite possibly. As a receptive and impressionable child or youth, they may have remained anchored in his conscience and subconscious. Could he have learned them from the Druze, Alawites, Alevis, Bektashis, Nusayris, Sufis, and Ithna-Asharis that he met in the United States, particularly in Detroit and Michigan City? That is perfectly plausible. Could he have learned some of these teachings, indirectly, via esoteric societies? That could be the case. The most convincing of arguments, however, is that these teachings draw from a plethora of sources and influences. When it comes to W.D. Fard, there is no magic key that unlocks all his secrets.
• W.D. Fard’s “Actual Facts” came from The World Almanac and Book of Facts which was widely available in public libraries and bookstores. The scientific facts he quoted, and which Elijah Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan invoked as proof of W.D. Fard’s divinity, were, in fact, statistics that were readily found in almanacs in the 1920s and 1930s. Although the Actual Facts do not prove hat W.D. Fard was God, they do demonstrate that he was well-read and well-informed, that he purchased books, or read them at libraries, and that he conducted considerable research to create the Nation of Islam. W.D. Fard was a man of considerable creativity and a veritable syncretistic sponge who appropriated aspects from multifarious sources.
• As the “Notes on the Chicago Temple of Islam,” a work compiled by academics between 1935 and 1939, demonstrate, W.D. Fard was deified by some believers while he was among them and not solely after his departure. Elijah Muhammad, Robert Harris, Burnsteen Sharrieff Muhammad, and others were already referring to him as God between 1930-1934. So, clearly, some people considered him a divinity early on. W.D. Fard never disapproved of efforts to deify him. In fact, the evidence suggests that he encouraged it and egged it on.
• As DNA studies have confirmed, W.D. Fard did not have a son with Pearl Allen from the Klamath Nation. There is no evidence tha he is the biological ancestor of the people descended from Tony Campagna. W.D. Fard’s only biological son, that we know of, was Wallace Dodd/Max Ford, the son of Hazel Barton. As much as some researchers yearned to have a DNA test conducted on the remai s of Wallace Max Ford, to the opposition of the graveyard, forensic linguistic analysis of W.D. Fard’s written letters renders such efforts futile. The answer we were seeking, namely, W.D. Fard’s racial, ethnic, cultural, and national identity, has been ound and confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt.
• The facial analysis of W.D. Fard’s photographs show the man to be neutral, happy, or angry at critical moments in his life, shedding light on his internal psychology and motivations. He was remarkably stoic at times of severe stress. His temper could shift from calm to livid at a moment’s notice. He appears to have radiated pride and happiness when quoting the Bible of Islamism or professing to be the Supreme Being.
• W.D. Fard’s photographs, which capture living moments and moods, show a wide range of normal human emotions. There is no blunted facial expression, or lack of emotions, which could be signs of schizophrenia or mood disorders. There is no facial asymmetry, which has been shown to signal anxiety, depression, schizotypy, or psychological distress. What is more, there is no sign of dissociative identity disorder. When this condition is present, facial expressions vary significantly between distinct identities. From one photograph to another, one perceives notable differences in facial muscle movements, gaze, and overall expression. It is as if one is looking at a different person in each photograph. That is not the case with W.D. Fard’s photos. They all reflect one person with one identity. There are no subtle or overt signs of mental illness in those photos.
• If W.D. Fard did indeed teach Elijah Muhammad, day and night, for stretches of three days at a time, giving him only fifteen-minute breaks, it is conceivable that W.D. Fard was bipolar, and he taught during his manic phases. As Peter Goldman relates,
• Their tutorials… ran night after night until dawn. Elijah would nod off: Mr. Farrad would shake him awake and dose him with black coffee. Elijah began to wonder if Mr. Farrad ever slept. Once, curious, he left the room on a pretext and peeked back in through the keyhole to see if Mr. Farrad was napping. It seemed to him that Mr. Farrad was staring back at him. Through the door.
• As for John Muhammad, he claims that he never saw W.D. Fard sleep at all during the three years that he knew him. In fact, his bed, at the hotel, was always made, as if he never slept in it. If W.D. Fard did go days without sleeping, this would lead to anxiety and irritability, hallucinations, depression, delusions, and periods of involuntary microsleep. The problem is that to be bipolar, one needs to be both manic and depressive. Where is the evidence that W.D. Fard was ever depressed? Perhaps he had unipolar mania, which is not an official recognized mental health disorder.
• If W.D. Fard was one thing, it was euphoric. This state of intense excitement is characteristic of bipolar disorder, substance use disorder, borderline personality disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. W.D. Fard appears to have had a history of substance use, notably the use of alcohol and opioids. What is more, America’s first amphetamine epidemic started in 1929 and lasted until 1971. Could this explain W.D. Fard’s bursts of energy that lasted days on end? Was he popping pep pills? Was he snorting stimulants? W.D. Fard alternated between periods of euphoria and anger which is found in borderline personality disorder. He did have euphoric delusions as is the case with schizophrenia. He was also multi-traumatic, which might explain euphoric episodes and disassociation.
• Although a professional cannot rely solely on facial expressions for diagnosis, which requires a professional evaluation, the photographs of W.D. Fard can help contribute to a potential diagnosis. When all evidence is considered, namely, life history, social interaction, facial expressions, statements, citations, writings, descriptions, demeanor, deeds, and behavior, it is possile to point to potential mental health conditions. Despite his difficult life, W.D. Fard showed strength and single-minded determination in the most trying of times. So, his resilience factors must have been strong.
• The teachings of Supreme Minister John Muhammad provide invaluable information into the identity and ideology of W.D. Fard and whether he had a discernable foreign accent. It also suggests that W.D. Fard had brothers. If this is correct, this is a path that needs to be pursued. He also gives vital information on the potential place of origin of Fard’s parents. He also confirms that, even at the time of Master Fard Muhammad, Elijah Muhammad was taking the entirety of the profits of the Allah Temple of Islam. Religion, after all, is a business.
• Michael Muhammad Knight’s work on The Supreme Wisdom Lessons: A Scripture of American Islam uncovers many potential sources fo the teachings of W.D. Fard, not from his faraway home, but from the subcultures in which he operated, namely, esoteric societies of all sorts. Why look for influences far away, and distant in time, when we could look at the ones that surrounded him? He was a living and breathing example of the intellectual and spiritual environment of his time. It was an apocalyptic and messianic age. Rather than follow, he chose to lead and be followed. He embodied and absorbed the teachings and prophecies that he had studied. He rose to the occasion. Fusing Christian and Islamic eschatology, he became both Messiah and Mahdi.
• Among the multitudinous influences that forged W.D. Fard, the Theosophical Society stands out. It was an influential movement and one that appears to have impacted W.D. Fard’s ideas considerably. The case is particularly poignant considering that the Theosophists had an active presence at San Quentin during Fard’s stay there. With this fact in mind, it is not surprising that many of W.D. Fard’s ideas and concepts find parallels in the teachings of the Theosophical Society, from anticlericalism, occult hierarchies, dietary instructions, historical cycles of tens of thousands of years, the belief in twelve divine guides who direct the spiritual direction of humanity, to periods in which spiritual masters manifest themselves to the world.
• Although a lead and tip reopened the possibility that W.D. Fard was from Oceania, the founder of the Nation of Islam did not a tend the funeral of Fred White, an alleged Freemason, in Australia, in 1940. The W.D. Fard from the newspaper was a typo for W.D. Ford, namely, Wilfred Donald Ford, who was born in Australia in 1925. He would have been five years old when W.D. Fard appea ed in Black Bottom, Detroit, in 1930. That lead is dead, and let us be frank, so is the founder of the Nation of Islam if he was indeed a human being.
• W.D. Fard’s waltzing partner, Wali Mohammed, from Ferndale, Michigan, and of the early teachers in the Nation of Islam, was no e other than William Thomas White, a white man who was born in Britain. This blue-eyed man mysteriously vanished from the United States at around the same time as the founder of the Nation of Islam and is rumored to have died somewhere in South America. Did Fard and White elope together? Or did they plan their getaway together? Were they partners in spiritual crime? This lead is burning hot. If you find the accomplice, the odds are he will lead you to the ringleader. If we find out where Tom White / Wali Mohammed went in Latin America, and what happened to him, the likelihood of determining the location of W.D. Fard after 1934 is certainly high. Considering that Tom White had relatives in Argentina, from the Tarrant family, the Southern Cone of South Ame ica could serve as a starting point.
• As forensic linguistic analysis has scientifically confirmed, W.D. Fard’s maternal language was Urdu. It is almost certain tha he originated in British India. There is a slight possibility that he came from one of its colonies that were populated by Urdu, first-language, speakers. His Urdu substrate was so strong that he did not grow up in a region where English was the dominan language. He did not belong to that class of Indo-Pakistanis who are perfectly proficient in both English and Urdu. His native language was Urdu. He learned English as a second language either in school or on the streets. The linguistic evidence overwhelmingly indicates that W.D. Fard emanated out of what is now Pakistan. He might have had links to Kashmir but that remains to be confirmed. Case closed. End of story. Research can now proceed with surgical precision.
• The Indo-Pakistani theory has circulated for some time. Speaking in 1959, one teacher from the University of Islam observed that Fard “looked like an Indian.” Claude Andrew Clegg III argued that “the version of the story that characterizes Fard as being of Pakistani descent… seems to have some validity.” Mohammed Nimer asserted in strong terms that Fard “was an immigrant from India.” Although his claims that W.D. Fard taught Buddhism are unconvincing, Paul Guthrie was correct to claim that the founder of the Nation of Islam was an East Indian who spoke Urdu.
• In The Messenger, Karl Evanzz made a compelling case that W.D. Fard came from British India: “Muslims who remember seeing photographs of Fard recall, without exception, that he appeared to be Pakistani.” According to Ozier Muhammad, the grandson of Elijah Muhammad, “He looked like he was Pakistani.” For Rodney P. Collins, the son of Ella Collins (1914-1996), the half-sister of Malcolm X, “Everyone knew Fard was a Pakistani. My mother, Malcolm, all the ministers knew.” Wilfred X, the brother of Malcolm X, also admitted that “Fard appeared to be a Pakistani.”
• Although I remained uncommitted in Finding W.D. Fard, after having explored every possible ethnic identity, I had narrowed his origin to British India, namely, the modern regions of Baluchistan, Afghanistan, or Pakistan. Based on forensic linguistics alone, we can now confidently claim that W.D. Fard came from the part of British India that became Pakistan. When all other evidence is combined, and the critical details are considerable, that conclusion is only fortified even further.
• In W.D. Fard’s First Footsteps in America, Anton Batey and Kevin Morris present the earliest known document that apparently points to W.D. Fard. The passenger list in question indicates that an eighteen-year-old man named Wallie Dad Khan arrived in the United States on January 6-7, 1907. He was born in 1888 or 1889. He left Hong Kong on December 8, 1906, with a stop in Yokohama, Japan, on December 18, and one in Honolulu, Hawaii, on December 30. His final destination and port of landing was San Francisco where he arrived aboard the S.S. Coptic. He was listed as an Indian and a Mohammedan on the passenger manifest.
• If this is our man, or our God, it would prove that he was of Muslim origin after all and not a Buddhist, a Christian, or a Jewish person. His place of origin was listed as Ghunzee, Kabul, suggesting he came from the Emirate of Afghanistan. The manifest indicated that he was literate, which answers some important questions. It also noted that he was 5’7 - 5/8 tall, slightly taller than the 5’6 3/8 measured at San Quentin. Still, the height is almost identical to the one that Elijah Muhammad gave decades later. Notably, Wallie Dad Khan had a dark complexion, black hair, brown eyes, a mole under his right chin, and a cut on his ha d. This describes W.D. Fard a T.
• Wallie Dad Khan came to the United States to visit Gool Ahmed Khan, Najeeb (Najib) Khan, as well as Mohamad Kan, tamale vendo s, who were possibly related to him. Although they claimed to come from Afghanistan, records reveal they were from the Attock District which was part of Punjab in British India and which came to form part of Pakistan. Wallie Dad Khan was also associated with a tamale vendor named Sargand from Sheenka, India, in the same district. “Given the geopolitical context of 1917,” note Batey and Morris, “it is plausible that ‘shinka, Afghanistan’ mentioned on Fard’s World War I draft could refer to Shinka, a locality in the Attock District, which was part of British India at the time and is now in Pakistan.” As the authors note, “this lends credibility to Paul Guthrie’s claim of Fard’s Indian origin through these regional and personal connections.”
• Since his mother tongue was Urdu, based on the forensic analysis of his letters, it is virtually impossible that he came from Afghanistan where less than 3% of the population spoke Urdu in the 1900s as the dominant languages there are Dari and Pashto. The speculation that W.D. Fard spent his childhood in Ghazni, Afghanistan, is unconvincing. It flies in the face of the compelling linguistic evidence. The claim that his family was “likely subsistence farmers, herders, or small-scale traders” is equally implausible. Except for traders, literacy reigned supreme among the former. W.D. Fard was literate, which means he was educated. When he referred to himself as a “doctor” in an advertisement in 1915, it was not necessarily tongue in cheek. Doctor means learned, educated, and cultured. The Latin term means teacher or scholar. Was W.D. Fard an ‘alim or scholar of Islam? Traditional Islamic seminaries, past and present, which provide religious education from the ages of five or six until the age of eighteen do indeed produce teenage scholars and clerics. Not only was W.D. Fard educated, but he had enough money to book a passage to Ame ica. What is more, he had enough funds to start a business. According to the passenger manifest, he was carrying one hundred American dollars in cash. This suggests that he was middle or upper class.
• To all evidence, W.D. Fard was an Indian, from the Punjab, in British India, in what is now Pakistan. Still, that poses problems. Although it is widely spoken, Urdu is only the mother tongue of about 3% of the inhabitants of the region. 15% list Hindko, 16% Pashto, and 65% Punjabi. Like many Indians, it is likely that W.D. Fard spoke several Indian languages.
• Most Muslims in the Attock District are Sunnis. However, a significant number of them are Shiites. Sufism is also significant and serves as a bridge between both communities. Hence, it is possible that W.D. Fard came from a Shiite background or was exposed to its doctrines. Since the Attock District has an Ahmadi minority, and the Punjab is the birthplace of the reformist moveme t, it is within the realm of possibility that W.D. Fard was of Ahmadi origin or, at the very least, familiar with its teachings, many of which he adopted. Although they are 0.02% in 2025, Hindus were approximately 10% of the population of the district in 1907, which might explain where Fard developed his animosity towards them. There were also Sikh and Christians minorities there at the time.
• As Elijah Muhammad’s Ministry Classes confirm, W.D. Fard was indeed deified as early as 1934. Some scholars had posited a gradual deification that only fully crystallized in the years and decades after W.D. Fard’s departure. We know that within nine months of his disappearance, W.D. Fard was already considered the Saviour, the Deliverer, a Prophet, and the Son of God. He was very much viewed as Allah in Person. In lessons written in 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, and 1949, W.D. Fard was described as a Prophet, Saviour, Deliverer, Son of God, Mighty Allah, the last of the Prophets and the Imams, the One Supreme Being, the true God, God Almighty, the Maker of the Universe, the Creator and Maker of Man, and Almighty Allah, who was both Omnipotent and Omnipresent. He was deified in rapid succession.
• W.D. Fard suffered from penal, and maybe even penile, trauma at San Quentin prison. He would be marked forever: psychologically, spiritually, and perhaps physically. What is more, since the prison was not segregated, and many of the blacks were Garveyites, his years there provided him many opportunities to become radicalized and partially Islamized. Once Fard left San Quentin, with knowledge as his weapon, he was ready for war with the white man.
• On July 27, 1915, W.D. Fard published a bizarre anagram in the Daily Capital Journal. Although it proved impossible to crack i the past, it has finally been deciphered by an anagram breaker powered by Artificial Intelligence. It seems to reveal an Illuminati and Freemasonic code. If so, this could confirm that Fred Dodd, who became W.D. Fard, was a Freemason, a member of the Illuminati, or other secret societies, or at least an associate of people who were. This could explain why he spent decades of his life moving between scores of secret societies in the United States.
• W.D. Fard’s teachings regarding the Mothership were inspired, like UFOs and UAPs, by sightings of new aerial technology. Not o ly was he impressionable, but he was up to date on the technological advancements of his day. He was also incredibly creative in concocting myths. With his tales of spaceships, and alien life on Mars, W.D. Fard blended science fiction with religion. To a certain extent, he was a precursor to UFO-religion, only, in his case, the aliens were not green men but presumably black ones.
• As much as he preached black supremacy and white demonology, W.D. Fard was fond of white women who were blue-eyed blondes. He had a weakness for them. Although she was one quarter Klamath Indian, Pearl Allen identified as white, had light hair, and a fair complexion. She was phenotypically white. Carmen Treviño may have been born in Mexico; however, she claimed to be of Spanish ancestry, thus European, and was classified, racially, as white, according to the American standards of the time. Was Carmen a dark-eyed Latina with thick black hair and tanned skin? Or did she belong to the ten to twenty percent of Mexicans who are white? Namely, the 18% with blonde hair and 28% with light eyes?
• Although she had dark eyes, Hazel Barton was, at one time, a platinum blonde. This evokes images of W.D. Fard’s mother: a blue-eyed, platinum blonde, white devil Jewess. Some people have daddy issues. Fard had a mommy issue. His hatred and violence toward white women may have manifested itself in the rape of Laura Swanson who, at the time, was a ravishing blue-eyed blonde who was as fair as snow white. Call it a personal preference. Call it hypocrisy. Call a spade a spade. Or maybe W.D. Fard was just studying his subjects, white devils, up close. He got to know them inside out.
• As for the flag of the Nation of Islam, it was inspired by the banner of the Young Turks. This should not be surprising. They were secular nationalists and W.D. Fard showed little signs of piety and religiosity. In fact, as Supreme Minister John Muhammad mentioned in one of his lectures, W.D. Fard disliked people getting on their knees to pray. If that was the case, W.D. Fard was more of a homo politicus than a homo religiosus. Although it was coated in religious terminology and mythology, his subversive social movement has political motivations.
• As spine-chilling as it may sound, it is possible that the myth of Yakub was based on a real, devilish, white man: Dr. Leo Sta ley, the surgeon at San Quentin prison. A man who fits the proverbial profile of the mad scientist, Dr. Stanley, a eugenicist, segregationist, and white supremacist, who himself failed to father a single child, emasculated and castrated thousands of men. He even changed their appearance through plastic surgery to make them less ugly, and, of course, whiter. While it has not yet been proven, it is possible that W.D. Fard fell victim to Dr. Stanley’s scalpel, and left his manhood at San Quentin, making him perpetually angry and seething for revenge against the devil white race.
• Since his scrapbooks and papers were stored in the Archive of California, a review of his surgical notes should have been unde taken. In 2025, however, they were in the process of being transferred to Stanford University, where staff were absorbing the collection and processing materials to make them eventually discoverable and available for research. Considering how vast the collection is, the library anticipates that this process will take multiple years. Until that process is complete, the documents are not accessible to researchers. When they become searchable, the fortunate researcher might find information about Wallace Dodd Ford. He might also be mentioned in passing in Dr. Leo L. Stanley’s Diaries which are accessible to researchers. He is known to have mentioned some of the most curious characters he came across at San Quentin.
• In the same fashion that people purport to see the Virgin Mary, Jesus, and the Mahdi, the faithful members of the Nation of Islam still pray and hope for the return of W.D. Fard who has been missing in action since 1934 or 1935. So far, none of the alleged sightings, many of which were investigated by police departments in the past, have produced any results. They all turned out empty. Still, hope remains that other claims will be confirmed.
• Some of the most revealing findings in this study stem from the letters that the Reformer, Burnsteen Sharrieff Muhammad, sent o W.D. Fard between 1933-1934. These primary sources irrefutably prove that the founder of the Nation of Islam was deified during his days in Detroit and not after his disappearance. The Reformer knew W.D. Fard personally. She was an eye and auditory wit ess. In letters that she wrote to him in 1933, she called him Prophet, Deliverer, Saviour, Jesus, Michael, Lamb of God, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.
• In letters sent in 1934, Burnsteen Muhammad identified W.D. Fard as the Great I AM, namely, the Being of beings, and the Supreme Saviour of the World. If W.D. Fard is “I am that I am,” Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, the name of Yahweh in the Old Testament (3:14), and the title that Jesus used to describe himself, then he was God, the Creator, in the eyes, mind, heart, and soul of Burnsteen Muhammad. At no point did W.D. Fard push back, and say, astaghfirullah, “forgive me Allah,” or a’udhu billah, “I take refuge in Allah,” as any believing Muslim would do. Silence is tacit approval. In the case of W.D. Fard, however, we have explicit affirmations that he proclaimed to be God. Emmanuel (Ayeman) Muhammad (1921-1998), the eldest son of Elijah Muhammad, noted that when W.D. Fard was in Detroit,
• He went to a church and the preacher was preaching concerning Jesus and Master Fard got up and said that he was the long-awaited Jesus whom they have been looking for, for the past two thousand years… He knocked on the door for the usher to open it and the usher opened the door. He said to him: “I am your Jesus. I am here,” and when he said that this big black man hit him in the mouth and knocked out his teeth.
• Supreme Minister John Muhammad, the uncle of Emmanuel, provided further details:
• They were singing a song about Jesus… he knocked on the door for the usher to open the door and when the usher opened the door, He said to him, “I am your Jesus, I am here.” And when he said that this big black man hit him in the mouth and knocked out his teeth.
• When there was a dearth of early sources, there was room for speculation and conjecture as to when W.D. Fard became Allah. Kar iem Allah, who converted in 1933, may have claimed that he never knew that W.D. Fard was Allah until it was revealed to him by Elijah Muhammad after the Master had left. That, however, does not mean that it was unknown to others. However, in clear contradiction, he states in the same article that when he first heard Elijah Muhammad in Chicago in 1933, he was preaching that “our Saviour appeared in the person of Master Fard Muhammad, to whom praises are due forever.” In addition, many of the pioneers, those who met W.D. Fard in person, confirmed that he asserted, implicitly and explicitly, that he was Allah. The sources from the sixties, fifties, forties, and thirties are replete with evidence in this regard.
• With primary evidence dating from the period between 1930-1934, letters directed to and from W.D. Fard, we can now be certain as to who he was, to himself, and to his followers. W.D. Fard did indeed claim to be divine, tacitly and categorically, and was considered as such by many of the pioneers in the Nation of Islam. As for how W.D. Fard viewed himself internally, it is impossible to establish. Men are what they say and do. We judge the internal based on the external.
• If the question, “Where did W.D. Fard come from?” has now been answered definitely - he was an Urdu speaker who traced his ancestry to what became Pakistan - the answer to the question “Where did he go after 1934?” remains tenuous and tentative. If the answer to the first question is certain, and beyond any reasonable doubt, the answer to the second one is suggestive but not definitive. While this is not a case of habeas corpus or “having a body,” the evidence, direct, documentary, and circumstantial, suggests the possibility that W.D. Fard went to Mexico in 1934. There are no other tracks. All clues lead to Cuernavaca, Mexico. Dig deeper, researchers and detectives, and close the last chapter of this biographical novel. Nathaniel Muhammad (1926-2017), the son of Elijah Muhammad, appears to have told the truth when he revealed that W.D. Fard had relocated to Mexico. According to Les Payne (1941-2018), “Nathaniel… said that his family kept in touch with the departed Muslim leader for years, stating that he was once known to be residing in Mexico.”
• APPENDIX 1 RECONCILING RELIGION AND HISTORY
• By John Andrew Morrow
• The life and teachings of W.D. Fard, like any religious figure, including Muhammad, Jesus, and Moses, combines both history and mythology. Some people focus firmly on faith, and dismiss anything that is contrary to it, however well-rooted it is scientifically, historically, and archeologically. Others focus firmly on the facts and toss religious tradition into the trash. While i requires considerable intelligence, strong critical thinking skills, and the ability to compartmentalize, distinguishing between statements of faith and statements of fact, it is indeed possible to partly reconcile both the science of history and religious mythology.
• To a certain extent, the life and teachings of W.D. Fard and Elijah Muhammad, and the beliefs of the Nation of Islam, are no more nonsensical than those of other religious systems. To believe that W.D. Fard is God is no different than believing that Jesus is God. Believing in Yakub, the Mad Scientist, is no more absurd than believing in Jonah and the Whale, Noah and the Flood, the Garden of Eden, or the Virgin Birth. To believe in the Mother Ship, piloted by the Twelve Imams, is no more insane than believing in giants, angels, demons, aliens, and gods. To await the return of W.D. Fard is no different than awaiting the return of Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi, Jesus-Christ, the Jewish Messiah, or the Buddhist Maitreya. While perennial truth can be found in faith traditions, most of it is make-believe and fairytales. If religion can be harmless, and even socially and psychologically beneficial, it becomes noxious and perilous when people take it literally as opposed to allegorically.
• To the Nation of Islam, W.D. Fard is not a mere mortal. He is transcendental and metahistorical. He is both human and superhuman. His personhood forms part of a larger metaphor. He reached mythical status within the span of a mere four years in Detroit manifesting how the process of deification develops, not over centuries, or even decades, but in a matter of years, months, weeks, days, minutes, and seconds. Through the process of mythmaking, allegory, and creative imagination, W.D. Fard, the man and metaphor, was transformed into a rich repository of meaning.
• Although there is an important distinction between sacred history and actual history, at times they overlap. If we compare the account of the life of W.D. Fard, as taught by Elijah Muhammad, with what historical research has uncovered and established, it is impressive how close and accurate they are. If we set aside hyperbole, and cast aside allegory, we find that the W.D. Fard of Nation of Islam theology aligns largely with the W.D. Fard of historical biography. Rather than remain mutually exclusive, in some cases, his human and superhuman characteristics coalesce. Although W.D. Fard transcends history, he has left tangible traces that confirm his reality. While Elijah Muhammad was a times untruthful to the police and the FBI, for the sake of self-preservation, and was wrong to assert that “Wallace Dodd is not Master Fard Muhammad,” he appears to have been mostly truthful when ransmitting the information that he learned from his teacher, Master Wallace Fard Muhammad. As Elijah Muhammad stated himself,
• Beware my people! Do not take what I am writing here as a joke or mockery. It is the divine truth, from the very mouth of God, and not a make-up story of myself. I have not the brains to think up such truth. (emphasis mine)
• Does a historical-critical biography of W.D. Fard destroy the foundations of his teachings and the Nation of Islam. No. They do not. Why? Because there is a difference between sacred history and the science of history. They consist of two different fields that should not be conflated. Religion revolves around beliefs and practices based on faith and spiritual interpretation. It develops dogmas and is constrained by them. History relies on reason, objectivity, neutrality, empirical evidence, tangible documents, verified facts, confirmed chronology, and academic analysis. Religion is what people believe. History is what people can prove.
• APPENDIX 2 W.D. FARD’S INMATE CARD AND CORRECTIONAL RECORD FROM SAN QUENTIN
• By John Andrew Morrow
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• (Figure A-2.1: Public domain)
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• (Figure A-2.2: Public domain)
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• (Figure A-2.3: Public domain)
• Wallie D. Ford was 5 feet 6 3/8 inches tall. John Muhammad said Fard was “about half an inch taller than my father.” Elijah Muhammad was 5 feet 5 inches tall. Wallie D. Ford was white. His complexion was dark. His hair was black. His eyes were maroon. His forehead and nose were medium. He weighed 133 pounds and had a medium build. John Muhammad said that Fard “weighed a little more than” Elijah Muhammad. According to the FBI’s file, Elijah Muhammad weighed 140 pounds in 1971. This was age-related weight gain. He was lighter in 1934. Wallie D. Ford’s head length was 18.6 centimeters. The average height of a male, human, head ranges from 18-20 cm. His trunk measured 93 centimeters. On a man that typically falls within the range of a Small (S) or Medium (M) size for clothing, depending on the brand and style. His chin was square. His teeth were good. His foot was 9.96 inches long. So, he likely preferred size 10 shoes. He had a small scar on his left hand and a black mole on the right side of his stomach. He claimed to be 31 years old in 1926 and to have been born in Oregon. He was a cook by occupation.
• APPENDIX 3 MORE ON WALLACE MAX FORD, THE SON OF W.D. FARD
• By John Andrew Morrow
• In 2025, Resume Byron, a podcaster, shared the following photo on YouTube:
• /
• (Figure A-3.1: Wallace Ford High School Yearbook Photo from 1940)
• He claimed to have received it from the Holzknecht family, namely, the relatives of Hazel Barton, the common-law partner of Wallie Dodd Ford. It was claimed that it was Wallace Ford’s graduation photo. I was asked what I thought. I responded that I could not confirm or deny that it was Wallace Dodd/Max Ford unless Resume Byron produced a source: a cover of the yearbook, its date, the high school it belonged to, the page on which the image is found. In other words, verify, verify, verify.
• It is quite possible that many non-scholars do not understand the hierarchy of evidence and verification needed to corroborate the authenticity of sources. They probably do not even understand the process of peer review. To be succinct, any claim must be verifiable. Otherwise, it has no credence. It is groundless. Since Resume Byron failed to provide the photo’s provenance, I did my own digging. I found it within a few minutes of searching through high school yearbooks on Ancestry.com. And I found more: ⤀
• /
• /
• (Figure A-3.2: U.S., School Yearbooks, 1900-2016. Ancestry.com)
• The person in the photograph is most certainly Wallace Max/Dodd Ford, the son of Hazel Barton. To the average person, even a cursory comparison of this photo with the one from the Coast Guard shows this to be true. What came as a shock was the description of the person in question:
• Name: Wallace Ford
• Estimated Age: 16
• Birth Year: abt. 1924
• Yearbook Date: 1940
• School: Benjamin Franklin High School
• School Location: Los Angeles, California, USA
• (U.S., School Yearbooks, 1900-2016. Ancestry.com)
• Logic dictates that this information was provided by Ancestry.com. It is inconceivable that a yearbook would contain estimated ages and years of birth. If Wallace Max Ford was born in 1920, as Hazel Barton claimed, he would have been twenty years old in this photograph. In contrast, the information provided estimates that he was born in 1924 and that he was sixteen years old.
• The problem is patent: Wallie Dodd Ford married Carmen Treviño, a Mexican-born woman of Spanish ancestry, in Santa Ana, Califo nia, on June 5, 1924. This would suggest what Wallace Max/Dodd Ford was born after Wallie Dodd Ford and Hazel Barton broke up. According to some researchers, they hooked up around 1919 and broke up in October 1922. While that is speculative, it is a fact that she married Clarence Earl Osborn (1892-1926) on June 25, 1925, in Santa Ana, California. If these dates are accurate, that could pose questions about the parentage of Wallie Max/Dodd Ford. If Wallace Dodd Ford, junior was born in 1924, that was two years after Hazel Barton split up with Wallace Ford senior. After some searching, I found the following on the California Birth Index, 1905-1995:
• Name Wallace M. Ford
• Birth Date 1 Sep 1920
• Gender Male
• Mother’s Maiden Name Barton
• Birth County Los Angeles
• (Ancestry.com)
• Curiously, and unusually, the name of his father is not listed on the California Birth Index. Why? Because the boy was illegitimate? Because the father did not acknowledge paternity? Or because Hazel and/or Fard wanted to hide his identity? This could be the case if Fard was involved in crime or politics.
• It is important to note that the California Birth Index does not include the original declaration of birth and the date it was submitted. It could have been submitted a few years after the boy was born. This was not entirely uncommon at the time, particularly when children were born at home with the help of a midwife.
• Although Wallace Ford junior certainly resembles Wallace Ford senior, physiognomy or qiyafah, using physical traits to determi e parentage, is a medieval pseudo-science. “Although some degree of facial resemblance is expected as a by-product of the heritability of phenotypic traits,” note scientists, “it does not guarantee that genetic paternity can accurately be detected as both facial phenotype and perceptual processes are shaped by the environment.” So, more proof than “they look similar” is required as such impressions are not scientific.
• Despite the doubts that the yearbook dates could cause, not to mention the absence of a father on the California Birth Index, urther research produced the original certificate of birth which establishes that Wallace Dodd Ford, born on September 1, 1920, was the son of Wallace Dodd Ford, who described himself as a 26-year-old white man who was born in New Zealand and who ran a estaurant.
• /
• (Figure A-3.3: Birth Certificate of Wallace Dodd Ford. Public domain)
• /
• (Figure A-3.4: Wallace M. Ford US Coast Guard photo.This is not Wallace Max Ford. This man was from Tennessee)
• /
• (Figure A-3.5: Photo of Wallace M. Ford, son of Hazel Barton, and Wallace Dodd Ford. The Highland Park News-Herald, Friday, August 14, 1942: 1.Source: Newspapers.com. Fair use)
• /
• (Figure A-3.6: The Highland Park News-Herald, Friday, August 14, 1942: 1.Source: Newspapers.com. Fair use)
• This newspaper article, published on August 14, 1942, also confirms that Wallace Ford attended Franklin High School. This veriies that the image in the 1940 yearbook is that of Wallace Ford junior, the son of Wallace Dodd Ford aka W.D. Fard.
• APPENDIX 4 WHERE O WHERE DID MY MASTER FARD GO?
• By John Andrew Morrow
• “There they found a servant of Ours, to whom We had grantedmercy from Us and enlightened with knowledge of Our Own.” — (Qur’an 18:65)
• On May 19, 1942, the FBI received information from its office in Milwaukee that W.D. Fard was hiding in Elijah Muhammad’s home at 6026 Vernon Street in Chicago, Illinois.
• /
• (Figure A-4.1: FBI File on W.D. Fard. Public domain)
• If W.D. Fard had been at Elijah Muhammad’s home in May 1942, where he was hiding in some closet, he was long gone by July 1942, at which time sources reported that he was the head of the Japanese Army.
• /
• (Figure A-4.2: FBI File on W.D. Fard. Public domain)
• That would probably be the fastest promotion in military history. Still, considering his deep ties to Japanese operatives, and his associations with white supremacists and Nazis, it is not beyond belief that W.D. Fard joined the Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Relying on information it received from the FBI in 1959, the New Chicago Crusader claimed that W.D. Fard was a Nazi agent who had worked for Hitler in World War II. As such, research needs to be completed in Germany and Japan to corroborate or debunk these contentious claims.
• While conducting research on Wallace Max Ford, I came across his obituary, which provides an important hint. It indicates that W.D. Fard was alive in August 1942. Obituaries are prepared by next of kin at times with the help of the funeral parlor. It is Hazel Barton, the mother of Wallace Max Ford, who would have composed it. If she had knowledge of W.D. Fard’s death, she would have indicated so. As far as she was concerned, W.D. Fard was alive. It is possible that she knew this for certain. And, considering her criminal background, and her fear of Fard, this is not information she would have disclosed to the FBI. In fact, she would have blurred his tracks, sending the FBI on a wild goose chase to New Zealand. As the obituary reads, Wallace Max Ford “leaves his father, Wallace Ford Sr., and his mother Mrs. Hazel Evelsizer.” It almost implied that he was in Los Angeles. Did he at end his son’s funeral?
• /
• (Figure A-4.3: Los Angeles Times, August 19, 1942)
• While several other newspapers listed Wallace Max Ford’s stepfather, Clifford Evelsizer, in their obituaries, it seems the only way the Los Angeles Times could have known about Wallace Ford Sr. would have been if Hazel provided his name or if he attended the funeral. While this last claim is suggestive, it is not the hard evidence that we need to prove, without the shadow of a doubt, that he was alive at the time.
• According to FBI informants, W.D. Fard reportedly appeared sporadically in various locations over the following decades, including a sighting, which featured interaction, and feats of magic, which took place at the Temple of Islam in Harlem in 1963. As far as the FBI was concerned, W.D. Fard was still believed to be alive in 1955. However, he kept ghosting them:
• /
• (Figure A-4.4: FBI File on W.D. Fard. Public domain)
• These dates and places are not based on rumors or speculation. They are based on actual intelligence. I found the source for the October 1951 report in the FBI’s Nation of Islam File. It relates that
• /
• (Figure A-4.5: FBI File on Nation of Islam. Public domain)
• If the obituary for Wallace M. Ford appears to place W.D. Fard in Los Angeles in 1945, the person who spoke at the NOI temple in San Diego in 1950 also indicated that Allah was in the US at the time, quite probably in California. Otherwise, how else would he have known? This went against the most common dogma that Master Fard Muhammad had returned to Mecca. While the person who spoke is not identified, it could have been Yusuf Abdullah (b. 1918) or Henry Majied who established Temple No. 8 in San Diego in 1949/1950 and who worked closely with the NOI temple in Los Angeles.
• In 1957, the FBI reported that a “specific letter” was sent to the “Honolulu branch.” It was postmarked: Sandersville, GA. This was the birth home of Elijah Poole (Muhammad) where Muhammad Farms was founded in the 1960s. It came from the rural roots of the Nation of Islam. The nature of the specific lead is not specified, nor are the contents of the letter. However, it appears hat its author was dismissed as a “psychopath,” unless the pejorative adjective applied to Abdul Muhammad, who is listed in the sentence above.
• /
• (Figure A-4.6: FBI File on Nation of Islam. Public domain)
• On January 14, 1958, the FBI reported that a reliable informant revealed the following information:
• On January 4, 1958, an individual… from Detroit, Michigan, contacted CLARA MUHAMMAD (wife of Elijah). He stated that he is an artist and the person who drew the picture “with the jewels and of Brother Elijah about ten years ago.” He stated, “I am a good Muslim and I have had a whole lot of torment the last few days and something is trying to kill me to keep me from helping him, and told me that I was supposed to help the temple raise him up because I am a good Muslim and I get messages from W. D. Mohammed (W.D. FARD).”
• /
• (Figure A-4.7: FBI File on W.D. Fard. Public domain)
• Once again, it would seem, the lead was dismissed by the FBI on grounds that the individual was a “psychopath.” However, since the beliefs of the Nation of Islam were viewed as “crazy,” when they are no crazier than the dogmas of other religions, many of its leaders and followers were deemed to be insane, unstable, or abnormal: W.D. Fard, Ugan Ali, Robert Harris, Abdul Muhammad, and others.
• /
• (Figure A-4.8: FBI File on W.D. Fard. Public domain)
• If any of these leads are reliable, it would appear that W.D. Fard, even if he established a base of operations in Mexico, con inued to do, as he had always done, namely, to wander the Wilderness of North America like St. George or al-Khidr while shifting his skin like a chameleon.
• Most interesting of all is the report from Peter Goldman (b. 1933), the author and journalist, which appears in The Death and Life of Malcolm X. According to the author,
• Benjamin Goodman [Karim] told me that a light-skinned “Eastern-looking” stranger who called himself The Master appeared among he brothers in Harlem in 1963, during Malcolm’s last months in the Nation of Islam, and stayed until 1965, after Malcolm’s death. According to Goodman, the stranger would work difficult mathematical problems at computer speed; could narrate history “as i he had lived it;” could speak not only English but Spanish, Chinese, Swahili, and other languages fluently and accentlessly; could shatter objects at a touch; could flick cigarette tobacco into the air and cause it to ignite spontaneously. The Master, Goodman, said, made the brothers edgy - some even suspected he was a CIA agent - but none of them ever asked him who he was… I asked if they had thought The Master might have been Mr. Farrad returned to the wilderness. Goodman did not answer directly. He said that The Master did not look like Mr. Farrad - was bigger, for one thing - but he believed that it would have been within Mr. Farrad’s powers of mind to alter his size and appearance.
• This man, whoever he was, shared uncanny similarities with W.D. Fard. From his looks to his prodigious mathematical and magical skills, knowledge of history, and proficiency in multiple languages, The Master sounds very much like W.D. Fard. He could have learned to speak Spanish while living with Carmen Treviño or after living in Mexico. He could have learned Mandarin or Cantonese in the vibrant Chinese communities in San Francisco or Los Angeles. If he was a Swahili-speaker, he could have been a Khoja Shia Ismaili or Ithna Ashari from East Africa.
• The only problem with the thesis that The Master was W.D. Fard is that, according to Benjamin Karim (1932-2005), the former did not resemble the latter. However, he was unequivocally comparing him to the official NOI portrait of W.D. Fard which was doctored, altered, and glamorized. Had he been shown the mugshots and newspaper photographs of the man known as Wallie D. Ford, Wallace Dodd Ford, and Wallace Farrad, he could have positively identified him.
• If a person posing as W.D. Fard did indeed surface in New York between 1963 and 1965, in the years preceding the death of Malcolm X, and hastily disappeared right after, a horrifying possibility presents itself; namely, that this “Master Fard Muhammad” was an intelligence operative who was activated to help orchestrate and oversee the assassination of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (1925-1965).
• If the person in question was indeed W.D. Fard, who was possibly born in 1877, 1891, or 1893, he would have been seventy-two, seventy-four, or eighty-eight years old in 1965. However, to all appearances, he had not aged. If we even contemplate the possibility that W.D. Fard was still alive and active in 1965, and was not subject to the laws of aging, we leave the rational world and enter the realm of the supernatural. As far as Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam would be concerned, this would be proof positive that W.D. Fard was indeed God in Person. For others, it could mean he was the Devil in the Flesh.
• APPENDIX 5 REGARDING THE NATION OF ISLAM
• By John Andrew Morrow
• We wish to acknowledge the complete and total lack of cooperation on the part of the Nation of Islam, its leaders, and members. They have exhibited a lack of transparency with regards to early Nation of Islam documents and photographs. They have a history of destroying documents. They take legal action to prevent parties from selling historical items. And they keep the artefacts they have under lock and key.
• Rather than cooperate with sympathetic scholars and historians, the Nation of Islam strives to prevent the historicization of W.D. Fard. While works by Nation of Islam writers, like Wakeel Allah, are valuable in that they share testimonies from early NOI pioneers, they are works of theology: not history. The History of the Nation of Islam: The Pioneer Years (1930-1950) delibera ely ignores all information that does not align with Nation of Islam dogma. In some cases, NOI members have threatened journalists, biographers, authors, researchers, and historians with violence and death. In other cases, they brush aside evidence for religious reasons. In most, however, they ignore academic scholarship.
• Wakeel Allah admits that W.D. Fard was arrested numerous times; however, he fails to identify who he was confirmed to be, namely, Wallace Dodd Ford and Wallie Dodd Ford. He admits that W.D. Fard traveled throughout the United States but never identifies who it was that he was visiting, namely, his ex-partner, Hazel Barton, and his son, Wallace Dodd Ford in California. He reveals that W.D. Fard was receiving sweets and cakes from California but never addressed the issue of who was sending these gifts on special occasions. Historians reveal. The dogmatic and the duplicitous conceal. There is a difference between sacred history, which filters everything through a religious lens, and the science of history, which is evidence-based.
• Even though W.D. Fard preached that God is Man and Man is God, and even though he excoriated the concept that God was a “spook” or a “spirit,” the Nation of Islam has effectively turned their founder into a mystery god. Louis Farrakhan can claim all he wants that if W.D. Fard is not Allah then the teachings of Elijah Muhammad are worthless. The fact remains that they retain all heir value. Whether or not the Talmud, the New Testament, or the Qur’an come from God has no bearing on their content. Even atheists can appreciate their spiritual, intellectual, and literary aspects. One does not have to be a communist to appreciate the writings of Karl Marx, Che Guevara, or Fidel Castro. One does not have to be a polytheist to appreciate Greek mythology. One does not have to be a Muslim to appreciate the literary value of the Qur’an.
• Whether W.D. Fard was Allah, or not, has no bearing whatsoever on his wisdom and that of Elijah Muhammad. For a believer in W.D. Fard, it should make no difference if he was Wallie Dodd Ford, Wallace Dodd Ford, Fred Dodd, or Fred Dad at previous points in his life. It would make no difference if he had a child with Hazel Barton. After all, W.D. Fard told Elijah Muhammad that he had lived among whites, in the United States, for over twenty years. In fact, W.D. Fard represents one of the rare cases in which the sacred history of a religious figure largely overlaps with his actual history. By rejecting the historical W.D. Fard, the Nation of Islam has made a serious strategic mistake.
• The Nation of Islam’s obfuscation is also concerning from a legal standpoint. W.D. Fard disappeared in February 1934 or Februa y 26, 1934, to be precise. “His departure, according to NOI literature, was on February 26, 1934,” writes Yahia Zeghoudi. According to Donald Muhammad a minister in the Nation of Islam,
• After several incidents of police harassment… in both Detroit and Chicago, on February 26, 1934, Master W. Fard Muhammad depar ed the scene, under the veil of mystery, leaving the Honorable Elijah Muhammad with the mission of resurrecting the black man and woman.
• Although he was heard from, in writing, for a couple of months, W.D. Fard has allegedly never been seen since. The last person who claimed to have been with him was Elijah Muhammad. He maintained that he dropped him off at the airport in Chicago. He declared that he watched him board a flight and fly away. This claim has not been corroborated. The assertion that W.D. Fard sent Elijah Muhammad a letter from Mexico in March 1934 has not been independently confirmed or verified. That letter has not been made public. As Elijah Muhammad was the last person who claimed to have seen W.D. Fard alive, he would be the prime suspect in any criminal investigation. From a legal standpoint, his alibi is feeble.
• Wakeel Allah reveals that “W.D. Fard continued to receive threats in the face of violence.” “On at least one occasion,” he explains, “his enemies went to the lengths of poisoning him.” As Jabril Muhammad Cushmeer, aka Edward Moore (1936-2023), revealed in a speech on November 15, 2000,
• Master Fard Muhammad had his stomach pumped in the thirties. He had to pay money. Somebody paid money. See my point? Let’s get real about this. He allowed a Negro to poison him, went to the hospital, checked himself in, had his stomach pumped, came back and told the Honorable Elijah Muhammad who told the rest of us, “That if that had been one of you all, you wouldn’t survive.” Why did he even go through that? He was teaching his servant lessons. That’s real, huh? Now look, if God is going to make you gods and goddesses, are you going to be any less human?
• Who was the “Negro” who poisoned W.D. Fard? How did Jabril Muhammad even know he was black? Why would he fail to identify the attempted murderer? Did Elijah Muhammad not tell him? The claim that W.D. Fard was the subject of an assassination attempt surfaced over sixty-six years after the incident. It could be dismissed as hearsay. After all, Jabril Muhammad only embraced Islam i the 1950s. The claim, however, was also independently verified by John Muhammad (1910-2005). Not only was he there at the time, but he disclosed some of the poison that was used.
• John Muhammad, and other pioneers, have admitted that attempts were made on W.D. Fard’s life between 1930-1934. They knew that he had been poisoned. However, they failed to warn him. John Muhammad even knew that the poison contained spiderwebs. As he explained,
• They tried to do something to him. They even give him a dish with [a] little poison in it. Spider webs and such things for him to eat. He sit there and ate ‘em. And got up and walked away from the table. And lived for many more to see him. Could you do that?
• As a result of the inaction of his disciples, W.D. Fard had to have his stomach pumped to survive. Otherwise, he would have died. And it could not have been due to spider webs, which are not toxic or poisonous. They are, however, used in Voodoo and Hoodoo for spells, along with spider nests and dead spiders. After all, W.D. Fard was dealing with blacks from the Deep South. They seem to have given him “goofer dust,” which is used in witchcraft to inflict harm. Something more sinister and deadly was added. What was it? What poison did W.D. Fard consume? Why did John Muhammad know what it was? And why did he not identify the toxin?
• For John Muhammad, surviving a poisoning was proof that W.D. Fard was God. Was he poisoned by his partisans for that very reason? The ultimate test of his divinity? The fact that rumors were circulating that W.D. Fard had been the victim of foul play and that he had been sacrificed by Elijah Muhammad raise serious concerns. This incident makes us wonder whether the Allah Temple of Islam was really a Voodoo Cult after all. Perhaps Fard was fighting against black superstitions and people fought back. Muslim missionaries in Jamaica have been targeted by Obeah while those working in other parts of the Caribbean and Africa have faced Haitian Vodou, Cuban Santería, and African Vodun. It would not come as a surprise if W.D. Fard faced the same spiritual foe among black migrants from the South: sorcery.
• While it is true that some black Christian leaders vehemently opposed W.D. Fard - he was infringing upon their territory by co verting colored people to Islam - this hardly seems sufficient grounds to have him assassinated. Rather, they may have collaborated with the police to have him forced out of town. As for the “hypocrites” and “disbelievers,” Elijah Muhammad’s definition o those Nation of Islam ministers and believers who refused to follow his leadership, they were certainly capable of violence. However, were they willing to murder W.D. Fard, whom they viewed as a Prophet and/or God? Homicide is one thing, but Deicide is another.
• According to Elijah Muhammad, up to 75% of Fard’s followers were hypocrites “who united to drive me out of here and kill me.” According to Nathaniel Muhammad, Minister Augustus had been given a gun to kill Elijah Muhammad. Instead, he broke it into pieces, and disappeared, never to be seen again. Did he truly disappear? Did Elijah Muhammad’s faction make him disappear? Or was he disappeared by Elijah’s Muhammad’s opponents for failing to execute him?
• Far from being a profitable enterprise, the Nation of Islam, during its dawn, was downright dangerous. Police, FBI, and newspaper reports present NOI members as violent and murderous. According to Jabril Muhammad, Elijah Muhammad’s own blood brother, Kallatt, rebelled against him and “a group of envious hypocrites, who were formerly his followers, sought his life.” Elijah Muhammad also explained that he spent seven years of hell, “running and dodging from my own people, who were out to kill me for a little sum of money, $500, from a brother in Detroit, Michigan, who said he would get a peck of rice and eat one grain a day, until I was dead. So, now, he is dead.” Who put a hit on Elijah Muhammad? Was it Abdul Muhammad? And if he was dead, since he passed in 1938, why not expose him?
• Since it appears that Elijah Muhammad and his family sincerely believed in W.D. Fard, I do not personally believe that they we e implicated in his death. I am convinced, however, that they knew more than they revealed. Not only was there considerable internal and external fighting after W.D. Fard disappeared in 1934, but there was a violent positioning for power in the years preceding.
• Abdul Muhammad, one of W.D. Fard’s early ministers, reportedly aspired to be head minister. It is said that he became arrogant and aggressive toward W.D. Fard. On one occasion, it is claimed that he confronted W.D. Fard with anger and defiance. This big, jet-black man, with bright red eyes, stood up and tried to intimidate him: “You say that God is a black man, but you are not black. I’m black. How come you don’t let a black man be the leader!” According to John Muhammad, Abdul Muhammad went so far as to call W.D. Fard a devil.
• Not only was he angry with W.D. Fard, but he was insanely jealous of Elijah Muhammad. As Wakeel Allah reports,
• Abdul [Muhammad] gathered some henchmen and went to pay Elijah a visit at his home. With Elijah’s family looking on, an incensed Abdul started to shout at the Messenger… Abdul slammed a silver dollar on the kitchen table. Pointing at the stars on the coin, Abdul shouted, “You see this star? Well, that’s me! You are nothing!” Elijah’s son Nathaniel recalls how the foes intended to harm Elijah, except their plans were foiled by Master Fard who happened to see Abdul and company enter Elijah’s house. Knowing they possessed guns with intent on harming his best friend, Fard summoned Elijah’s brothers.
• According to Elijah Muhammad’s son, Nathaniel, “they had a gun to shoot him. And I was right in the kitchen when all this happened.” Abdul Muhammad, reports Wakeel Allah, returned to his Moorish roots, created a Nation of Islam faction that faded away, and joined Satokata Takahashi’s Development of Our Own. Obviously, this is all Elijah Muhammad’s version of events. There are two sides to every story.
• Wakeel Allah fails to mention that the dispute between W.D. Fard and Abdul Muhammad did not revolve solely around leadership. It was due to ideological differences. Abdul Muhammad was loyal to America and honored the American flag. As an FBI informant revealed, Abdul Muhammad refused to allow W.D. Fard to play a role in the Development of Our Own on grounds that he was “of a violent and revolutionary mind, where the Development of Our Own was established for the general betterment and uplifting of the Negro race, wholly without any subversive objectives.”
• /
• (Figure 5.1: FBI File on W.D. Fard. Public domain)
• It is ironic that Abdul Muhammad would denounce W.D. Fard for his extremism when Verlen Ali McQueen, a man reportedly associated with his group, attempted to boil his wife and daughter in a ritualistic sacrifice. Not surprisingly, Abdul Muhammad was declared a psychopath and was confined to a mental asylum where he died in 1938. Such things happen to those who try to cook their amily members in a big pot.
• /
• (Figure A-5.2: FBI File on W.D. Fard)
• Clearly, there was no shortage of lunatics among the Allah Temple of Islam and its offshoots that could have killed and even sacrificed W.D. Fard. The reality of the matter is that most of the victims of homicides are located. Statistically, only 12% of bodies are never found. It is very difficult to conceal such crimes. People are sloppy. Even professionals do not make bodies disappear. Open cases are a liability. They want the cases to close. Hence, they make murders look like heart attacks, fatal injuries, automobile accidents, acts of suicide, death-by-cop, or justifiable homicide.
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• (Figure A-5.3: FBI File on W.D. Fard. Perhaps referring to Abdul Muhammad)
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• (Figure A-5.4: FBI File on W.D. Fard)
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• (Figure A-5.5: FBI File on W.D. Fard)
• Due to its destruction and suppression of documents, it could be claimed that the Nation of Islam is complicit in a missing pe son’s case. It could be argued that, if an investigation were conducted, it could be accused of obstruction of justice. According to the law, if a person is innocent, that person will volunteer to prove his innocence. When a party destroys evidence, it is reasonable to infer “consciousness of guilt” or another motivation, a theological one perhaps, to want to destroy it. Full disclosure is long overdue, and it should not be compelled by court order and legal discovery. For the love of W.D. Fard, let us find out what happened to him. And, for the love of Elijah Muhammad, let us clear the clouds of suspicion that have hovered over his head for nearly a century.
• APPENDIX 6 THE MANY FACES OF FARD: COMPUTERIZED FACE COMPARISON BY AMAZON REKOGNITION
• By John Andrew Morrow
• Amazon Rekognition is more than 80% accurate when it comes to distinguishing similar-looking people. It is also 35% more accurate in recognizing people who have significantly altered their appearance. It identifies the same individual irrespective of changes in facial hair, hairstyle, hair color, the presence or absence of glasses, and so forth. A study conducted by Joy Buolamwi i and Deborah Raji found that the software was 83.5% accurate. Another study found that the program was 98% accurate in distinguishing identical twins. The ACLU found that Amazon Rekognition was 99.9997% accurate but that it still produced some false matches. While not failproof, the program is exceedingly effective in identifying individuals. Hence, why not deploy its power in the field of Fardian studies?
• Edward A. Muhammad, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading at Georgia Southern Unive sity, was the first academic, to my knowledge, to use Regoknition to compare what is claimed to be the earliest photo of W.D. Fard with the photographs of Wallie Dodd Ford and Wallace Farrad from Los Angeles and Detroit. The program concluded, with 99.9% confidence, that they were different people. After he shared his findings with me, I verified them and was open to the evidence. I considered the possibility that they were indeed different people. A more in-depth analysis suggests that the conclusions d awn from the analysis are incorrect as this study will show.
• As far as I know, Anton Batey was the first researcher to compare the various photos of Wallie Dodd Ford and Wallace Farrad using Rekognition. The program concluded, with 82 to 99% confidence, that they were photos of the same person. After Anton Batey shared his findings with me, I confirmed and independently verified them. Such is the scientific method. In addition, having bee inspired by the efforts of Muhammad and Batey, I subjected a plethora of photos to facial comparison analysis. The findings which follow are fascinating.
• / vs. /
• Not a facial match with 99.9% confidence
• Only 0.3% similar
• / vs. /
• Not a facial match with 99.9% confidence
• Only 1.3% similar
• / vs. /
• Not a facial match with 99.9% confidence
• Only 1% similar
• / vs. /
• Not a facial match with 99.9% confidence
• Only 0.36% similar
• The hackneyed theory that Muhammad Abdullah was W.D. Fard can once again be laid to rest. The Muhammad Abdullah theory was also debunked by Anton Batey and Kevin Morris.
• / vs. /
• Not a facial match with 99.9% confidence
• Only 17.4% similar
• The fanciful theory that this early member of the Moorish Science Temple of America, purported to be David Ford El, was W.D. Fard, can now be scientifically set aside for good. There is a degree of resemblance between both men which explains why some writers came up with this claim. Apparently, the man is really Aaron Payne Bey.
• / vs. /
• Not a facial match with 99.9% confidence
• 83.35% similar
• The photo to the left is supposed to be the earliest one of W.D. Fard, namely, the one with the flag on the upper left-hand side. Edward Muhammad had the photograph subjected to forensic analysis. The results found that the photo itself was genuine but that the flag had been inserted.
• /
• (The oldest photo of W.D. Fard?)
• According to Rekognition, the two photos do not represent the same person with 99% certainty. However, they are the same individual. This is why researchers should be cautious and avoid judgment rushing. Rekognition has noticed some significant differences or discrepancies. Hence, it has raised red flags as it should rightly do when it comes to facial verification, security access, law enforcement purposes, or customs and immigration. Rather than jump to conclusions, it is imperative to examine the detailed analysis provided by Rekognition. They are long and complex. Hence, only the most crucial component is provided here: the person in the first photo is 83.35% the same as the person. This is clearly a match.
• Rekognition has recognized that the second photograph has been edited and altered. It could also be struggling with its inadequate quality. The higher the quality of the images, the sharper they are, the greater the resolution, and the more similar the pose, the more accurate the analysis. Rekognition refuses to ignore the unusual texture and pixilation of the second photo, the dark rectangle in the ear, and the full set of hair, which is not parted. Rekognition has noticed that there is something fishy about the second photograph, and rightfully so. Rather than conclude with 99% certainty that these are two different people, the correct conclusion is that the second photograph has been doctored with 99% certainty.
• / vs. /
• Not a facial match with 99.9% confidence
• 65.28% similar
• / vs. /
• Not a facial match with 99.9% confidence
• 57% similar
• / vs. /
• Not a facial match with 99.9% confidence
• 51.57% similar
• / vs /
• Not a facial match with 99.9% confidence
• 47.61% similar
• / vs. /
• Not a facial match with 99.8% confidence
• 42.29% similar
• / vs. /
• Not a facial match with 99.9% confidence
• 40.68% similar
• / vs. /
• Not a facial match with 99.9 % confidence
• 14.7 % similar
• 6.4 Official W.D. Fard (c. 1934) vs. Wallace Farrad (1932)
• / vs. /
• Not a facial match with 99.9% confidence
• 36% similar
• / vs. /
• Not a facial match with 99.9% confidence
• 93% similarity
• Hasty conclusions can lead to the belief that the person in the official photograph of W.D. Fard is not Wallie Dodd Ford from Los Angeles or Wallace Farrad from Detroit. That conclusion, however, would be false. Rekognition has its limitations. Its accuracy is impacted by black and white photographs, poor resolution, and different poses. Identical poses are more accurate: face to face, as opposed to face to side.
• When Rekognition indicates, with 99% certainty, that the photos do not match, it is because there are flaws in the photographs or that there is something inherently problematic with the official W.D. Fard photo. As much as Edward Muhammad’s forensic analysis suggests that the photo is genuine, except for the flag, suspicion is warranted. The addition of the flag is immaterial. I is the image of Fard himself that is important and that photo has been tampered with.
• A comparison of all the official W.D. Fard photos in circulation clearly shows that the photograph was being altered as early as 1934. In fact, the book that W.D. Fard holds in the photograph reproduced in the August 11, 1934, edition of the Final Call, is extremely thin, much thinner than the one that appears in what is purported to be the original and authentic photograph: the official standard. W.D. Fard’s photos have been doctored. Did this take place after his occultation? Or did this occur while he was present and with his active knowledge and participation? Fake aliases and altered photos form part of the same modus opera di.
• /
• (August 11, 1934, The Final Call)
• /
• (The alleged original and authentic photo)
• Although Rekognition raised red flags when it compared the official standard photo of W.D. Fard to those of Wallie D. Ford, and Wallace Farrad, it qualified its findings by noting that they are 15%, 36%, 41%, 42%, 52%, 57% and 65% similar. These are not the results you find when comparing two different people. When compared to Muhammad Abdullah, whom many people thought looked like W.D. Fard, there was only a 0.3%, 04%, 1%, and 1.3% similarity. Motivation can cause perception bias. It is called scotomisation.
• / vs. /
• Facial match with 99.9% confidence
• / vs. /
• Facial match with 93.6% confidence
• 6.7 Wallie Dodd Ford (1926) vs. Wallace Farrad (1933)
• / vs. /
• Facial match with 98.9% confidence
• / vs. /
• Not a facial match with 99.8% confidence
• 59.14 % similar
• There is no doubt that the last two photographs represent the same person. This shows, however, that Rekognition cannot make correct matches when the image quality is poor and the pose is radically different. What is clear from these comparisons is that Wallace Farrad, Wallace Dodd Ford, and Wallie D. Ford, who was previously Fred Dodd, were the same. But was this man W.D. Fard? Absolutely. This is the man that was arrested and charged in Detroit for being the leader of the Allah Temple of Islam. There is a mountain range of evidence supporting this fact.
• According to Amazon Rekognition, Muhammad Abdullah was not W.D. Fard nor was the Moor who was alleged to be David Ford El but appears to be Aaron Payne Bey. As the results demonstrate, the man in the 1926 Los Angeles mugshots is the same as the one in the 1933 Detroit mugshots. Wallie Dodd Ford and Wallace Farrad were identical. Is the man known as Wallace Farrad, Wallace Dodd Ford, and Wallie D. Ford the one who appears in the official Nation of Islam photograph? Rekognition is 99% certain that they are not the same. However, this comes with an important caveat: they are 15%, 36%, 41%, 42%, 52%, 57% and 65% similar.
• When Rekognition concludes that the photos compared are not the same with 99% certainty, it depends on the threshold that is set. The program is set at an 80% threshold. This is suitable for locating family members for genealogical purposes. Amazon recommends a threshold of at least 95% for law enforcement uses. For high security building access, Amazon advises a threshold of 99%. In other words, if we lower the threshold to 50, 60 or 65% similarity, to account for the inferior quality of the images and the different poses, the official photograph of W.D. Fard, and the photos of Wallie D. Ford and Wallace Farrad could come back as positive matches. What is more, merely varying their resolution, as I have done, alters the outcome. When I improve the quality, the program’s confidence level increases. When I lower the resolution, it decreases.
• Are we dealing with different people or different quality images of the same person? The odds of two people having identical faces are one in a trillion. The odds of having a look-alike or doppelganger are one is 135. The odds of having an identical twin are one in 250. It is therefore improbable that W.D. Fard had a double. Could W.D. Fard, or Elijah Muhammad, have used a stand-in, a decoy, or an actor in his place? Perhaps. However, the odds that such a person’s face would be 65% the same as W.D. Fard’s are remote. We need more photos, and we need better quality ones to compare.
• APPENDIX 7 OF PHOTOS AND FRAUD: A CHRONOLOGY OF FARDIAN ICONOGRAPHY
• By John Andrew Morrow and Bilal Muhammad
• The icon of the Nation of Islam, namely, the official picture of Master Fard Muhammad, was taken at Theus Photo. The studio was located at 3419 Hastings Street, Detroit, Michigan from 1926 to 1936. This was “just across the street from the Temple at 3408 Hastings St.” It then moved to 4640 Hastings, near Forest. By 1939, the shop had moved its quarters to 4508 Hastings Street, Detroit, Michigan.
• There is an audio Q&A of John Muhammad saying that Fard had the picture taken at a studio called “Thesis,” a mispronunciation of Theus. Norman Thrasher Muhammad also stated that he personally received a picture of Master Fard Muhammad from the photographer, Mr. Theus of Theus Photo Service. Owned and operated by John James Theus (b. c. 1878), Theus Photo, whose advertisements s ated that “Photographs Live Forever,” was in the business of copying, enlarging, and restoring photograph. As their announcements stated, they were makers of “pictures that please.” John J. Theus was basically the official photographer of the early Nation of Islam.
• /
• (Figure A-7.1: Original business card)
• /
• (Figure A-7.2: Photograph taken by Theus Photo)
• W.D. Fard’s hair is greased and parted in the early photos. His face seems very smooth. His mole is missing. Why? While it might come as a surprise to some, men wore hair and makeup for photos in the 1930s. Considering that W.D. Fard gave himself the name of a famous movie actor, Wallace Ford (1898-1966), whose films he likely watched at the Globe Theatre in Salem, Oregon, where he had a lucrative tamale stand, it is not improbable that W.D. Fard had his hair and make-up done in Hollywood fashion for the photo shoot. After all, he wanted to like absolutely divine. He may have overdone it. Some women find he looks feminine and resembles a eunuch. Considering that thousands of inmates were emasculated at San Quentin penitentiary by a mad scientist, this impression could be credible.
• /
• (Figure A-7.3: August 11, 1934, The Final Call)
• This is one of the oldest pictures of W.D. Fard. His hair is greased, parted, and shiny. The mole on his face appears to have een airbrushed out. His skin has been softened. There is a pen in his pocket. The suit seems darker. The book is thin. The photo was cropped for an oval picture frame as was popular at the time. Either he poses in front of a white background, or the background was airbrushed white. This is a photograph, and not a painting; however, it has been altered and airbrushed.
• /
• (Figure A-7.4: W.D. Fard)
• W.D. Fard’s hair is parted and greased. Light reflects upon his lustrous hair. The mole on the left side of his face has been emoved.The book is thicker. His thumb is about two inches from the top of the book. There is a pen in his pocket. He might be posing in front of a backdrop or the background was airbrushed in the dark room. He is sitting on a stool. His skin has been smoothened This is a photograph, and not a painting; however, it has been altered and airbrushed.
• /
• (Figure A-7.5: W.D. Fard)
• The resolution is superior. The lighting is better. His hair is parted and greased. Light reflects upon his glossy hair. His skin has been smoothened. The mole on the left side of his face has been removed. The book is thick. His thumb is about three inches from the top of it. The hands are more clearly visible. There is a pen in his pocket. The background has clearly been airbrushed in the dark room. He is sitting on a stool. This is a photograph, and not a painting; however, it has been altered and airbrushed. The brush strokes are evident and unmistakable.
• /
• (Figure A-7.6: W.D. Fard)
• According to some members of the Nation of Islam, this is the oldest picture of W.D. Fard. It resembles the fifth photo; however, in this one, the book is thicker. Presumably, the photographer would have made the book thicker as opposed to thinner. Perhaps the dating of the photos should be ordered on that basis, namely, from thin to thick. None of these photos are copies of a single photograph. They are all altered versions of an original negative. It seems that each time copies were ordered, they were airbrushed in diverse ways. It is possible it was done each time without rhyme or reason.
• /
• (Figure A-7.7: W.D. Fard)
• There is no pen in the left pocket. There is no part in his hair. He was given a full head of hair in the dark room. There are no products in his hair. It is dry; not greased. There is no reflection of light on his hair. His eyebrows are darker and thicker. His skin has been smoothened. The mole on the left side of his face has been erased. The hands are obscured. The book is thin. His thumb reaches the top of it. It might be half an inch from the top of the book. The background appears too lumpy to be a backdrop. It seems more likely that the texturing was created in the dark room. Just like his hair has been colored in, so has his suit. Since the photo was darkened, one gets the impression he was standing; however, he was on a stool. This is a photograph, and not a painting; however, it has been altered and airbrushed.
• /
• (Figure A-7.8: The Paassche airbrush. Factory built in Chicago in 1922)
• In the same way that people photoshop pictures of themselves today, improving human appearance goes back to the dawn of art. When they painted portraits of people, artists went out of their way to idealize their subjects and make them more attractive. They removed flaws of all kinds. With the advent of photography, this role passed on to photographers. They worked wonders in the dark room. They could change backgrounds, create halo effects and burn marks, and even alter and remove objects and people.
• Far from a modern invention, airbrushing goes back to the dawn of photography. Photo manipulation commenced shortly after photography was invented in the 1820s. Photographers would physically alter both negatives and prints. They would retouch them with ink or paint. They would scratch or even burn them. With the invention of the atomizing airbrush by Charles Burdick in 1893, ai brushing became common practice. In fact, Soviet photographers used it to airbrush people out of history.
• Since the official photographs of W.D. Fard have been airbrushed and altered, they are producing false negatives when they are compared to the untouched photographs of the same person, namely, those of Wallie D. Ford, Wallace Dodd Ford, and Wallace Farrad. Only the negative offered a realistic photographic image of W.D. Fard. One can only hope that it survives somewhere. Accordi g to A.K. Arian / Karl Evanzz, “Fard gave the original photo to Kallat as a token of their strong bond.” All of the photographs that have survived were airbrushed and altered. In fact, John James Theus, like many photographers of the time, was skilled in such techniques. His business card said that he restored photographs.
• How were photographs restored and retouched in the 1930s? They were airbrushed to remove imperfections and enhance them. Photographers used “paintbrushes, dyes, and other materials to correct imperfections.” Such airbrushing was done by hand. Both “negatives and prints were altered directly through a variety of techniques.” So, clearly, J.J. Theus was the one who altered the pho os.
• Was it part of a plot? Was it at the behest of W.D. Fard or Elijah Muhammad? Were attempts made to alter his appearance so tha the authorities could not track him down? Was it to make W.D. Fard look different from the man who appeared in mugshots and newspapers? Was the objective to produce plausible deniability? Maybe but not necessarily so. Since airbrushing photographs was widespread in the 1930s, the purpose was probably artistic or aesthetic.
• It was standard practice for any photographer to improve the appearance of his or her subject. Hence, photos were aspirational or glamorized. Moles and scars were removed. Skin was smoothened. Faces and body shape were altered. In addition, people who posed for photographs had their hair and makup done. J.J. Theus, for example, was hired as a Hollywood photographer by makeup artists.
• As one can imagine, the impact of even small alterations to the nose, chin, face, ears, head, and hair can produce problems when it comes to computer facial recognition. Rather than claim that the man in the NOI icon is a double, a stand-in, or a decoy, the most reasonable position is that we are dealing with a W.D. Fard who was physically altered by a professional makup artist and photographically altered through early twentieth century photoshopping. As the FBI reported on February 26, 1958,
• On February 11, 1958, Mrs. MARION KIEBER, 609 East Baker, Flint, Michigan, was show a photograph obtained from the Detroit Police Department bearing the date of May 26, 1935, and Detroit Police Department Number 45138… KIEBER stated that this photograph was identical to the photograph of the person she knew to be named FARD whose picture she had seen on the wall at the University of Islam some twenty years ago while with her father interviewing persons who were Nation of Islam (NOI) members.
• KIEBER advised that the photograph of FARD at the University of Islam -- either a 5’’ x 8’’ or a 10’’ photograph in black and white – was a ‘glamorized’ or touched up picture. She stated that she recalls that the picture was taken from a 45-degree angle instead of a full face of a profile. Mrs. KIEBER was asked if she was positive of the identification she had made and she stated that there was no doubt in her mind that the two persons were the same. [Italics ours]
• /
• (Figure A-7.9: FBI File indicating Fard’s photo was glamorized and touched up)
• APPENDIX 8 CHRISTOPHER C. ALSTON: AN EARLY EYEWITNESS TO W.D. FARD?
• By John Andrew Morrow
• Christopher C. Alston (1913-1995) was born in Florida and moved to Detroit when he was three. His father was an autoworker who earned his El in the early 1920s. Christopher Alston was raised in the Moorish Science Temple of America and attended children’s classes there. He witnessed the splintering of the movement and the battle for leadership that took place in late 1930. He also claims to have met, known, and listened to W.D. Fard.
• Christopher C. Alston was a committed and militant communist. He was a competent and respected labor and union organizer and activist. He was seventeen years old when W.D. Fard arrived in Detroit in 1930. He was twenty-one when he left in 1934. Hence, he was old enough to remember him well. However, Les Payne, the journalist, interviewed him in 1993 when he was eighty years old. His testimony came over sixty years after the events they described and appear to have been colored by information acquired over half a century. What is more, most of his claims lack verification from second and third parties. According to Christopher C. Alston,
• [Fard] sold rugs, carpets from samples that he brought around. Initially, he didn’t have anything to do with this movement at all. He came to our house at 981 Leland, and other people’s houses. He was a very nice guy. I remember him as a boy. My family bought a rug from him.
• This description, which provides no added information, is sound, as it has been verified by other sources.
• According to Christopher C. Alston, “We knew Fard [Muhammad] for a couple of years in the neighborhood here, before he was associated with the [Moorish Science] Temple.” According to Alston,
• My father knew Fard. He said this fellow has been coming around the temple. The temple was on Livingston and Hastings Street. It was called the Moorish American Temple of Science. And they had rented a building or bought a building from the [fraternal] Masons. They used the whole building, with classrooms, an auditorium, and everything in it. [Fard] said he was from the Middle East. That’s all he said. I don’t know what he was. He looked Egyptian. A very sharp nose and light skin. He had straight hair. He was definitely [light-skinned]. He never denied that he was [black].
• He claimed that,
• When Noble Drew Ali came to Detroit, Fard met him, talked to him, and cooperated with him. It was an honest thing. He wasn’t t ying to make a racket out of it. He was [supposedly] from the East, and Drew Ali was talking about an Eastern thought. So it all fitted, and it attracted him. They had large crowds. But Fard never appeared at these large crows and said anything. He left he [spiritual] leadership to Noble Drew Ali and the others. He would appear, but he never tried to dominate the scene at all. He definitely had a relationship and was in contact with Noble Drew Ali. He was, like, following the [party] line.
• This is all chronologically impossible. W.D. Fard was released from San Quentin, in California, on May 27, 1929. Noble Drew Ali died on July 20, 1929. There is no way that W.D. Fard was in Detroit for several years before he joined the MSTA. He was locked up at that time. Even if he was released at the end of May 1929, that would have given him less than two months to join the movement, earn the trust of its leader, take charge of its finances, and plot to replace Noble Drew Ali.
• Christopher C. Alston claimed that Fard was an “excellent listener” and a good salesperson who spoke mostly about the problems of Negroes in America. “Incidentally, he was in favor of the Japanese [in World War II].” While it is confirmed that W.D. Fard was pro-Japanese, he was long gone when World War II broke out in 1938. Alston seems to have suffered from a temporal overlap i his memories.
• Christopher C. Alston also alleged that W.D. Fard was attracted to Noble Drew Ali because the latter was exceptionally soft, i credibly quiet, and a tremendous organizer. In his words,
• That fitted the personality of Fard also. They associated together at the Moorish Science Temple here in Detroit. That’s where he started off, and it was logical. Noble Drew Ali was in Chicago and Detroit and other cities. He set up things [temples] all around, and Fard never tried to take control - now this I know of the organization. It was a spiritual thing. That’s what Drew Ali wanted to be, and that’s what he was.
• This information is entirely imagined. Was Alston seeking “fame by association?” Did he want to become famous in his final days for his presumed connection to W.D. Fard? Whoever he was talking about, if what he was saying was even true, that person was not W.D. Fard.
• According to Christopher C. Alston, W.D. Fard was not a member of the MSTA in the 1920s, the years in which the young Alston a tended children’s classes. “He came later,” he clarified, “and would talk to us about life in the east. And he did talk about life in Japan, too. He said he had been to Japan.” This is preposterous.
• W.D. Fard never taught classes for children in the MSTA. It was Noble Drew Ali who shared legends of Morocco, as Alston explai ed in another part of the interview. It is possible, however, that W.D. Fard spoke about the brief time he spent in Japan. Ships out of Karachi would make port in Japan. The next port of call was Hawaii. And, finally, they reached their destination in California, typically Los Angeles or San Francisco. Alston seems to have been suffering from cognitive glitches in which the names and identities of people get mixed up. This happens to healthy minds. It increases with aging and becomes more serious with Alzheimer’s.
• After Noble Drew Ali died on July 20, 1929, killed by the authorities according to Alston, W.D. Fard seized the moment to take power. W.D. Fard was paroled on May 27, 1929. According to the 1930 census, which was conducted in April of that year, W.D. Fard, then going by the name of William Fard, lived in Chicago. It is possible that he was living in Chicago between June 1929 and July 1929. He could have lived there until June 1930. However, by July 4, 1930, W.D. Fard was residing in Detroit. Unless Alston was confused and spoke of “a couple of years” of Fard in Detroit prior to 1929, instead of “a couple of months,” it is not plausible to believe his claims. Perhaps he was confusing W.D. Fard with another light-skinned foreigner who was preaching at the Temple when he was a teenager. Alston may have created a mixed memory.
• According to Christopher C. Alston, his family was surprised when W.D. Fard, who was formerly faithful to the MSTA, surfaced i Detroit claiming to be “the spiritual reincarnation of Drew Ali.” As he remembered, “Fard didn’t seem [previously] to seek this deification for himself.” Once again, Alston showed significant signs of confabulation, misattribution, and cryptomnesia which are common in dementia. He was confusing concepts. Reincarnation and deification are two different things. Alston was confusing the report that W.D. Fard claimed to be Noble Drew Ali reincarnated with the report that W.D. Fard claimed to be God. Although there might be an occasional element of truth in Christopher C. Alston’s testimony, it is clearly tainted due to cerebral degeneration.
• Did W.D. Fard draw converts from the MSTA in Detroit and Chicago? He most surely did. And there are sources that support that. In fact, in 1950, an informant told the FBI that
• /
• (Figure A-8.1: FBI File on the Nation of Islam)
• According to the FBI file on W.D. Fard, another informant reported that Fard “was instrumental in having many members leave the MSTA and affiliate themselves with a group which he referred to as the Muslims” (Reference Number: CG 25-20607). If this is true, notes Dawn-Marie Gibson, “Fard would have entered the MSTA just weeks before Ali’s death; in time to make himself known to cult members as a follower of Ali.”
• Did W.D. Fard claim to be the reincarnation of Noble Drew Ali? Who knows? Many others made the same claim over the years. The problem with Alston’s account is chronology and geography. W.D. Fard did not spend several years in Detroit prior to 1929. He arrived in Chicago shortly before Noble Drew Ali was murdered. In the violent chaos that ensued, W.D. Fard relocated to Detroit where, it is possible, he took control of a faction of Moors and transitioned them into a movement of his own, the Allah Temple of Islam. But Allah, namely W.D. Fard, knows best.
• APPENDIX 9 FOIA REQUESTS
• By John Andrew Morrow
• (For all information pertaining to W.D. Fard and all his known aliases)
• American Agency Results
• National Security Agency Refusal
• CIA Ignored
• FBI Ignored
• United States Department of the Navy / US Coast Guard Negative
• US Department of State Negative
• Department of Homeland Security / USCIS Awaiting
• United States Secret Service Negative
• Detroit Police Department / City of Detroit Negative
• Chicago Police Department / City of Chicago Negative
• Los Angeles Police Department / City of Los Angeles Refusal
• San Francisco Police Department / City of San Francisco Negative
• Salem Police Department / City of Salem Negative
• Indiana Office of Judicial Administration Ignored
• Hammond Police Department / City of Hammond Negative
• Canadian Agency Results
• Royal Canadian Mounted Police Negative
• CSIS Awaiting
• British Agency Results
• Ministry of Defense of the United Kingdom Negative
• MI5 and MI6 Refusal
• Chinese Agency
• Census and Statistics Department of Hong Kong Negative
• APPENDIX 10 RESEARCH REQUESTS / HISTORICAL INQUIRIES
• By John Andrew Morrow
• (For all information pertaining to W.D. Fard and all his known aliases)
• Group Results
• Church of Latter Day Saint Ignored
• Freemasons / Shriners Negative
• Governing Body of the Jehovah’s Witnesses Ignored
• Independent Order of Odd Fellows Negative
• Order of the Eastern Star Negative
• Ordo Templi Orientis Refusal
• Prince Hall Masons Ignored
• Rosicrucian Order Refusal
• Simon Wiesenthal Foundation Ignored
• Collections Results
• Gerald Winrod Papers Negative
• Winrod Collection Negative
• John W. Jackson Papers Negative
• Kenneth Bradley Collection Negative
• Louis Wirth Papers Negative
• APPENDIX 11 WHAT HAPPENED TO FARD AFTER 1934?
• 1) He died a natural death.
• 2) He met with foul play.
• 3) He assumed a new identity.
• 4) He went to Mexico.
• 5) He went to South America, probably Argentina, withWilliam Thomas White, aka Wali Mohammed, his waltzing partner.
• 6) He went to Canada.
• 7) He went to New Zealand or Australia
• 8) He returned to the United States after travel abroad.
• 9) He went to Japan or Hong Kong.
• 10) He went to Germany.
• 11) He returned to British India.
• 12) If he was an intelligence operative at the service of Imperial Japan, he was reassigned. In 1934, Japan’s espionage activities were widespread. During that year, they sent spies to China, Manchuria, Korea, Singapore, Inner Asia, the United States (San Diego, San Francisco, and Los Angeles), southern California (where Japanese fishing vessels conducted espionage along the coastline), and Central and South America, including Panama where a secret ring of spies was located. Instead of searching for W.D. Fard specifically, who was only one fish in the sea of spies, researchers should cast a broader net and focus on Japanese intelligence operations. Instead of using a single fishing rod, they can dragnet and, if they are fortunate enough, they can find W.D. Fard among their catch.
• 13) He ascended into heaven.
• 14) He boarded the Mother Ship and awaits the Day of Doom.
• PERMISSIONS
• Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, and 19 were previously published online on the website of the Berkeley Institute for Islamic Studies. The same goes for Appendix 3. They are reproduced here with permission. Chapters 5, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, and 23 consist of entirely new research that is published for the first time. The authors reserve the right to use any of their research for educational purposes, including lectures and video presentations.
• PHOTOGRAPHS AND IMAGES
• All photographs and images used in this work are duly credited. Most are public domain. Others are reproduced with permission. For example, the photograph of Donald Lloyd Campagna and the photographs of Pearl Allen were reproduced with the permission of Malaya Campagna. Some photos fall under the 95-year rule and are treated as public domain. The photo of Burnsteen Muhammad was eproduced with the kind permission of her daughter, Medina Mohammed. Other photographs are treated as fair use, namely, the photos of William Thomas White, Laura Swanson, Hazel Barton, and Tynetta Nelson. They are openly available on the internet, many o them on Ancestry.com, and are easily accessible.
• WORKS CITED
• (URLs are truncated. Complete URLs are in the end notes.Due to the nature of the internet, URLs can break or be broken)
• Alam Khan Publications. “Muhammad was not a Prophet: W.D. Fard’s Heterodox Islam.” YouTube (2025). https://www.youtube.com
• Alam Khan Publications, “The W.D. Fard Portrait Is Doctored.” YouTube (2024). https://www.youtube.com
• Alam Khan Publications, “W.D. Fard’s Newspaper Photos Authenticated by John Muhammad.” YouTube (2024). https://youtu.be
• Alam Khan Publications, “When & Where W.D. Fard’s Photo Was Taken?” YouTube (2024). https://www.youtube.com
• Alam Khan Publications. “W.D. Fard’s Angry Letter to Elijah Muhammad (December 18, 1933).” YouTube (2024). https://youtu.be
• Alam Khan Publications. “Did W.D. Fard Sleep?” YouTube (2024). https://www.youtube.com
• Allah, Wakeel. The History of the Nation of Islam: The Pioneer Years (1930-1950). Atlanta: A-Team Publishing, 2025.
• Allah, Wakeel. Our Story: A Black Muslim Anthology of Nation of Islam Pioneers (1930s-1940s). Atlanta: A-Team Publishing, 202.
• Allen, Ernest. “Religious Heterodoxy and Nationalist Tradition: The Continuing Evolution of the Nation of Islam.” The Black Scholar (1996) 26: 2-34.
• Allen, Ernest. “Waiting for Tojo: The Pro-Japan Vigil of Black Missourians, 1932-1943.” Gateway Heritage (Fall 1995) 38-55. h tp://www.umass.edu
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• INDEX
• Aryan race, 134, 137
• 1929 Ford Model A, 265
• Ashura, 33
• A
• Asiatic black man, 62, 67, 78, 111
• Atatürk, 226
• Abdul Muhammad, 70, 129, 347, 349, 357, 358, 359
• Audubon Ballroom, 34
• Australia, 139, 142, 144, 145, 146, 319
• accent, 79, 83, 114, 248, 319
• Actual Facts, 56, 57, 59, 316
• Azerbaijan, 36, 118, 131
• Adam, 52
• Adamic race, 24
• B
• ADL, 33
• Baby Gee, 118, 119, 120, 121
• Afghanistan, 36, 126, 131, 136, 321
• Bahai, 10
• Africa, 52, 68, 92, 108, 135
• Ballard, Edna Anne Wheeler, 268
• Ahl al-Bayt, 29
• Ballard, Guy, 268
• Ahl al-Kitab, 33
• Baluchistan, 321
• Ahmadiyya, 10, 79, 120, 150, 151, 152, 155, 242
• Baptist, 8, 269
• Barton, Hazel, 82, 90, 117, 126, 131, 163, 185, 207, 230, 241, 242, 243, 244, 263, 265, 317, 324
• Alevis, 36, 50, 316
• Alexander the Great, 120
• Allah in Person, 110, 111, 243, 311, 323
• Batey, Anton, 247
• Bektashis, 36, 48, 51, 316
• Allah Temple of Islam, 6, 64, 69, 71, 154, 157, 159, 260, 269, 270
• Belle Isle, 149
• Berry, Oscar, 5
• Allah, Karriem, 327
• Besant, Annie, 135
• Allen, Pearl, 81, 127, 194, 230, 232, 234, 235, 244, 317, 324
• Beynon, Edrmann Doane, 61
• Bible, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 13, 14, 15, 23, 25, 38, 39, 42, 45, 56, 104, 129, 136, 152, 181, 198, 205, 221, 226, 310, 315, 31
• almanac, 57, 58
• anagram, 189, 190, 191, 202, 323
• Angels, 39
• Antichrist, 46
• Bible of Islamism, 3, 4
• Arabia, 41, 45, 82, 92, 121, 253
• Black Dragon Society, 3, 25
• Arabic, 2, 35, 42, 51, 73, 83, 116, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 198, 223, 225, 251, 254, 300, 302
• Black Hebrews, 10
• black nationalism, 34, 185
• black stone, 45
• Arabization, 52
• Blavatsky, Helena, 133
• Arian, A.K., 114, 207
• blue-eyed devil, 149, 229
• Armageddon, 9, 19, 21, 24, 25, 27, 56, 109, 205
• Bontemps, Arna, 61, 70, 79
• Detroit Police Department, 7, 48, 273
• bootlegging, 244
• DNA, 52, 82, 90, 91, 92, 93, 131, 317
• Bowen, Patrick D., 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 71, 131, 300
• Dodd, Fred, 81, 82, 126, 127, 130, 162, 170, 189, 191, 194, 195, 197, 198, 202, 203, 230, 236, 238, 239, 323
• Buddhism, 133, 320
• C
• Druze, 10, 35, 51, 83, 315
• café, 241
• Dufresne, Andy, 273
• California, 32, 84, 126, 156, 157, 179, 180, 181, 182, 220, 222, 239, 244, 273, 296, 300, 312, 325, 330, 331
• E
• Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, 326
• Campagna, Donald Lloyd, 81, 82, 84, 85, 90, 92, 93
• Ellis, Keith, 271
• eugenicist, 185, 219, 325
• Campagna, Malaya, 84, 85, 90, 93
• eunuchs, 221
• Campagna, Tony, 81, 82, 92, 317
• euthanasia, 220
• Caucasus, 118
• Evanzz, Karl, 82, 134, 136, 320
• Cavy, 262
• Ezekiel, 205, 212
• Christianity, 10, 20, 62, 68, 78, 137, 182, 216
• F
• Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 73
• Fanusie, Fatimah, 152, 194, 222, 242
• Church of Latter-Day Saints, 10
• Farr, George, 126, 134
• Clark, Dr., 111
• Farrakhan, Louis, 27, 55, 56, 107, 109, 115, 116, 119, 123, 152, 206, 212, 250, 251, 272, 303, 304, 306, 307, 308, 316
• cocaine, 243
• Collins, Ella, 321
• Collins, Rodney P., 321
• Conroy, Jack, 61, 70, 79
• Fatimah, 44
• crescent, 224, 225
• FBI, 26, 33, 114, 117, 208, 225, 243, 244, 265, 271, 293, 294, 295, 299, 300, 312, 330
• Crowley, Aleister, 4
• Cryptology, 203
• Cuernavaca, 293, 295, 296, 298, 299, 300, 301, 302, 303, 305, 306, 307, 309, 310, 312, 327
• Ferndale, 149, 150, 151, 153, 154, 155, 159, 319
• Final Battle, 19
• cult, 6, 63, 64, 65, 75, 181, 182, 242, 261, 270
• Finley, Stephen C., 206
• Five Guiding Principles, 2, 3
• Curtis, Edward E., 56
• Ford, Henry, 189
• Cushmeer, Bernard, 109, 119, 355
• Ford, Wallace Max, 82, 90, 92, 131, 317
• D
• Ford, Wilfred Donald, 144, 145, 319
• forensic linguistics, 161, 321
• Darwin, 135
• Fred’s Night Lunch, 163, 189
• Deanar, Tynetta, 307
• Freemasonry, 10, 49, 130, 138
• Deliverance!, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 19, 20, 23, 57, 104, 315
• Freemasons, 68, 142, 198, 202, 224, 309
• Deliverer, 173, 176, 262, 267, 326
• French Canadians, 254
• Demiurge, 218
• I am that I am, 326
• Freud, Sigmund, 229, 258
• Illinois Writer’s Project, 78
• G
• Illuminati, 198, 202, 323
• Imamology, 36
• Gardell, Mattias, 136
• Imazighen, 52
• Garvey, Marcus, 10
• Independent Order of Odd Fellows, 68, 197, 391
• Gary, Indiana, 117, 157, 158, 255
• gender segregation, 75
• Indian Subcontinent, 121, 172
• Germany, 212, 226
• Indo-Pakistani, 73, 171, 194, 320
• Ghadar movement, 126, 137, 138
• infidelity, 236
• Ghulat, 10, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 53, 54, 130, 137
• Inloes, Amina, 52, 53
• Irish, 254
• Islamization, 52
• Givens-El, 71
• Ismailis, 48, 136
• Gnosticism, 10, 49
• Ismailism, 136
• God in Person, 49, 55, 56, 129, 251
• Israel, 33, 48, 74, 119
• God incarnate, 177
• Italians,, 254
• gods, 6, 38, 49, 50, 67, 79, 111, 128, 137, 309, 324, 329
• J
• Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 190, 191, 200
• Jacob, 42, 222
• Janssen, Volker, 180
• gorillas, 216
• Japan, 3, 25, 26, 27, 56, 109, 205, 208, 212, 226, 315
• Graf Zeppelin, 209, 210
• Graves, Kersey, 137
• Jehovah ALLAH, 175
• great Ahmadi schism, 154
• Jehovah’s Witnesses, 5, 7, 9, 10, 19, 23, 25, 27, 76, 77, 78, 83, 109, 135, 137, 226, 315
• Great Depression, 1, 23, 75, 109
• Great Migration, 23
• Great Year, 136, 211
• Jesus, 24, 43, 47, 73, 79, 120, 128, 137, 177, 216, 217, 257, 262, 268, 269, 325, 326, 329
• Guthrie, Paul, 83, 320
• H
• Jews, 43, 49, 53, 74, 254
• Hallaj, 46
• Jim Crow, 23, 182
• Harris, Robert, 7, 69, 316
• Jonah, 329
• Hermeticism, 133
• Judaism, 10, 33
• Hidden Imam, 48, 229
• Jung, Carl, 229
• Hinduism, 133, 136, 137
• Hitler, 225
• K
• Holzknecht, 337
• Kabbalah, 133
• Homosexuality, 257
• kafirs, 120
• Hoover, President, 309
• Kalash, 120
• How to Eat to Live, 24
• Karbala, 32, 33, 34
• Husayn, 33, 34, 44
• Kashmir, 119, 320
• I
• Khalifa, Rashad, 308
• King, Stephen, 311
• I AM, 128, 189, 268, 326
• Mohammed, Medina, 118, 157, 255, 260
• kinky, 249
• Klamath Falls, 84
• Mohammed, Wali, 150, 151
• Knight, Michael Muhammad, 3, 125, 126, 127, 129, 130, 131, 133, 134, 136, 179, 180, 181, 182, 186, 208, 243, 319
• Mohammed, Warith Deen, 20, 29, 32, 107, 109, 110, 112, 117, 127, 152, 271, 272
• monkeys, 216
• L
• Moorish Science Temple of America, 10, 69, 112
• Laimiemaoghamaogharraonom, J. W., 189
• Moors, 64, 71
• Moosa, Matti, 36, 41, 43
• Lamb, 46, 262, 326
• morphine, 243
• larceny, 230
• Moses, 41, 42, 45, 216, 329
• Lehman, Lucius, 184
• Mother Plane, 27, 56, 93, 138, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 307
• Lemurians, 135
• Library of Congress, 3, 57, 58
• Liepmann, Martin, 180
• Mother Ship, 76, 78, 205, 329
• Loon, Hendrik Van, 134
• Mother’s Airplane, 66
• lost tribes, 120
• Muhammad, Ahmad, 307
• M
• Muhammad, Akbar, 83, 223
• Muhammad, Burnsteen Sharrieff, 109, 127, 128, 150, 159, 163, 253, 260, 316, 325
• Mahdi, 2, 37, 48, 52, 53, 79, 155, 175, 257, 262, 268, 313, 325, 329
• Maitreya, 137, 268, 329
• Muhammad, Cedric, 8
• Mars, 138, 324
• Muhammad, Donald, 354
• Martians, 215, 309
• Muhammad, Edward, 97, 361, 364, 370
• Masons, 309
• masturbation, 257
• Muhammad, Elijah, 7, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 53, 55, 57, 62, 6 , 70, 71, 73, 76, 79, 80, 83, 107, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 122, 123, 126, 127, 129, 130, 136, 137, 150, 152, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 182, 205, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 216, 218, 223, 248, 249, 250, 256, 257, 260, 261, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 293, 294, 295, 296, 299, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 308, 310, 311, 312, 316, 319, 321, 323, 326, 327, 329, 330
• Mathematics, 56, 68, 139
• McInturff, David N., 8
• Mecca, 32, 38, 39, 41, 43, 44, 45, 49, 61, 62, 63, 64, 68, 69, 71, 82, 117, 121, 215, 229
• Medina, Arely, 300
• Mehdi, Mohammad Taki, 29, 32, 33, 34
• Messiah, 2, 37, 79, 313, 329
• Mexicans, 182, 244, 302, 324
• Mexico, 117, 156, 159, 244, 273, 293, 294, 295, 296, 298, 299, 300, 301, 302, 303, 305, 306, 309, 312, 324, 327
• Mexico City, 296, 298
• Michigan City, 157, 158, 310, 316
• Muhammad, Emmanuel, 326
• Muhammad, Ishmael, 303
• Original Man, 39, 78
• Muhammad, Jam, 249
• Muhammad, Jamila, 307
• P
• Muhammad, John, 107, 108, 109, 110, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 121, 123, 127, 137, 150, 157, 185, 212, 225, 250, 53, 255, 256, 261, 271, 301, 303, 318, 319, 325, 334
• Pacific Movement of the Eastern World, 3, 25
• Pakistan, 36, 73, 74, 75, 119, 120, 126, 131, 172, 191, 259, 320, 321
• Pan-Africanism, 185
• Muhammad, Kallat, 111
• Pan-American Highway, 296
• Muhammad, Prophet, 32, 37, 42, 43, 45, 46, 50, 121, 152, 198
• Paradise Valley, 48
• Patmos, 19, 135, 216
• Muhammad, Wali, 110, 150, 151, 152, 154
• Pearl Harbor, 25, 208
• peddler, 62, 69
• Muhammad, Willie, 114, 153
• Pelan, 42, 216
• Muslim Sons, 309
• Pentecostals, 79
• picnics, 149, 159
• N
• Pinn, Antony B., 46
• Pioneers, 260, 269, 271
• National Geographic Society, 58
• Poisoned Book, 152
• Native American, 82, 92, 300
• pork, 65, 259
• Nazis, 135, 229
• professor, 23, 293, 294, 295, 299, 305, 312
• Nelson, Tynetta Alethea, 307
• New Deal, 61, 66
• Psychopathic Ward of Receiving Hospital, 6
• New Generation Mosque, 157
• New London, 247
• PTSD, 102
• new religious movements, 270
• New World, 25
• Q
• New Zealand, 117, 142, 231, 273
• Noah, 329
• Quilliam, Abdullah, 226
• Norris, Frank, 8
• Qur’an, 2, 45, 50, 52, 57, 81, 83, 95, 125, 128, 129, 136, 152, 175, 177, 178, 194, 195, 198, 212, 226, 260, 268, 315
• North America, 39, 43, 62, 65, 68, 69, 90, 156, 255, 273, 296
• Nuevo Laredo, 296
• numerology, 59, 203
• Qur’an-only Islam, 308
• Nusayris, 44, 47, 51, 316
• R
• O
• Rakim, 130
• occultation, 37, 48, 310
• Ramadan, 116
• Odd Fellows, 197, 198
• Rastafarianism, 10, 49, 73
• Office of Naval Intelligence, 134
• Reddin, Ellis Boyd, 273
• One Meal a Day, 73
• Reformer, 109, 118, 127, 149, 163, 253, 255, 260, 261, 262, 271, 325
• Ordo Templi Orientis, 4, 68
• Oregon, 84, 85, 162, 163, 164, 170, 194, 197, 198, 223, 230, 232, 235, 239, 269
• Romanticism, 133
• Roosevelt, 61, 66
• Rosicrucianism, 133
• Spiritualist movement, 133
• Russell, Charles Taze, 5, 9, 24
• spook, 27, 66, 76, 122, 213
• Russia, 118
• Stanley, Leo, 185, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 325
• Rutherford, Joseph Franklin, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 27, 57, 104, 109, 315
• Sterilization, 219, 220
• Suez Canal, 121
• S
• Sunnism, 302
• Supreme Being on Earth, 7, 111
• sacred feminine, 73
• Supreme Ruler of the Universe, 67, 78, 79, 128
• sacred masculine, 73
• Sahib, Hatim, 109, 111, 115, 116, 119
• Supreme Wisdom Lessons, 2, 6, 49, 78, 125, 131, 133, 162, 163, 171, 305, 319
• Saklas, 218
• Salvacon, Ben, 123
• Samael, 218
• Swanson, Laura, 81, 130, 236, 238, 239, 244, 269, 324
• San Quentin, 98, 99, 114, 126, 133, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 218, 220, 221, 222, 242, 244, 319, 323, 325
• T
• Takahashi, 3, 25, 27, 315
• Satan, 4, 19, 62, 69, 177
• Takis, Ashima, 26
• Savior, 47, 119, 128, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 249, 251, 256, 262, 266, 267, 268, 296, 323, 326, 327
• tamale, 186, 189, 223, 255
• Tasker, Robert Joyce, 180
• Teaching for the Lost Found Nation of Islam in a Mathematical Way, 2
• Scientists, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 53, 211, 217
• Temple of Asser El Jadeed Arabian Islamic Society, 157
• Second Coming, 310
• Secret Ritual, 2, 64, 72
• Tepoztlán, 307
• Sevener, 10, 35, 40, 44, 48, 49
• testicles, 220, 221
• Seventh Day Adventists, 73, 181
• Thelemites, 202
• Shabazz, Jeremiah, 116
• Theosophism, 10, 49
• Shamsideen, John, 247
• Thule Society, 135
• Shanghai Low, 243
• Tijuana, 296
• Shawarbi, Mahmoud Youssef, 32
• Treviño, Carmen, 339
• Shawshank Redemption, 273
• Tribe of Shabazz, 215
• Shiism, 34, 35, 43, 48, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 82, 130, 137, 155, 157
• tricknology, 63, 66, 78, 216
• Türkiye, 36, 92, 224, 226
• Shriners, 68, 197, 198, 224, 309
• Turner, Beverlee, 33
• Smith, James J., 69
• Twelve Imams, 29, 36, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 129, 315, 329
• Snyder, Charles, 5
• socialism, 186
• Society for the Development of Our Own, 3
• Twelver, 10, 29, 32, 34, 35, 40, 42, 44, 45, 49, 51, 53, 54, 157, 175, 203
• Son of God, 174, 323
• South America, 68, 156, 159, 307, 320
• spaceships, 324
• White, William Thomas, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 159, 265, 319
• U
• UAPs, 213, 324
• Winrod, Gerald B., 8
• UFO, 27, 56, 205, 207, 212, 307, 324
• Wirth, Louis, 8
• Ufology, 49, 207
• Wobblies, 186
• United States, 8, 10, 23, 25, 26, 32, 37, 53, 69, 75, 114, 125, 131, 136, 153, 157, 159, 173, 194, 195, 197, 205, 212, 223, 23, 242, 253, 255, 294, 296, 301, 304, 310, 315, 316, 319, 324
• women, 52, 65, 73, 75, 78, 81, 119, 189, 198, 229, 239, 241, 243, 257, 266, 267, 270, 324
• World Teacher, 137
• Wright, Peter Matthews, 179
• X
• United Submitters International, 308
• University of Islam, 56, 63, 74, 109, 150, 227, 320
• X, Malcolm, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 51, 53, 54, 107, 129, 182, 244, 247, 272, 321
• Upton, Charles, 4
• Urdu, 119, 121, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 254, 300, 320
• Y
• Yakub, 19, 41, 42, 47, 111, 137, 138, 185, 215, 216, 218, 222, 325
• V
• Yaldaboath, 218
• vasectomies, 220
• Yezidis, 10, 136
• Voodoo Murders, 6
• Yezidism, 136
• Young Turks, 225, 226, 324
• W
• Yüksel, Edip, 308
• waltz, 149, 159
• Yuz Asaf, 119
• Watch Tower, 5, 315
• Z
• Weston, Omar, 309
• White House, 224
• Zionism, 33, 34
• White, Fred, 139, 142, 145, 146, 319
• White, Tom, 150, 151, 153, 154, 159, 320