ELIJAH MUHAMMAD 

(Elijah Poole; Oct. 10,1897, Sandersville,GaFeb.25,1975,Chicago,Ill.)Leader of the Nation of Islam.  Elijah Muhammad represented an important and continuing theme in African American culture, namely the idea that the future of the Black community depended on it's own capacity to determine it's own destiny.  According to Muhammad, Blacks were to accomplish this by separating from the control influences of white society.  Muhammad also altered this historic theme by rejecting the back-to-Africa emphases of earlier African American separatists.  Separatism was to occur, instead, in the creation of a distinct black nation on the territory of the United States.

     Early life.  Elijah Muhammad was born Elijah Poole in Sandersville, Ga., in 1897, one of thirteen children of poor tenant farmers who had been slaves.  His formal education was limited, since he was required to spend much of his childhood working in the fields.  He left Georgia at the age of sixteen and traveled randomly, finally settling in Detroit in 1923.  During the depression of the thirties, he experienced a life-changing encounter when he met and became a follower of Wallace Fard, The founder of the Nation of Islam.  Fard encourage Poole to preach the Nation of Islam’s doctrine, open new meetings, and alter his "slave" name.  As a result of Fard's influence, Poole took the name Elijah Muhammad, a name that symbolized his Muslim affiliation and rejection of white culture.  He was also appointed supreme minister of the Nation of Islam.

     Leadership of the Nation of Islam.  Elijah Muhammad's Distinctive ideological emphasis emerged after Fard mysteriously disappeared in 1934.  Muhammad not only claimed to be a messenger of ALLAH to the Nation of Islam, assuming Fard's organizational leadership, but he also reinterpreted Fard.  He preached that Fard had been ALLAH in disguise and had shared with Muhammad secrets known to no one else.  Muhammad thus presented himself as the sole custodian of Fard's revelation to the African American community.  This new-found dominance over the religion's adherents, however, did not translate into broader social acceptance.  In,1934, Muhammad was arrested for sending his children to a Nation of Islam school rather than to public schools.  He lived as a fugitive from 1935 to 1942 and was convicted of encouraging resistance to the draft in 1942; he subsequently spent three years in jail.  The effect of Muhammad's absence on the Nation of Islam was organizational disarray, and membership in the religion Plummeted.  Earlier levels of membership were not regained until Malcolm x offered his leadership skills to the Nation of Islam and became Muhammad's most visible and effective spokesperson in the 1950's and 1960's.  During this era, the Nation of Islam maintained a clear ideology and espoused a workable program.

    Belief in separatism.  Muhammad's leadership allowed adherents, commonly known called "Black Muslims," to interpret the failures of structural assimilation in American society.  The perceived impossibility of an integrated society was explained as both the negative works of whites and a positive possibility for blacks.  For Muhammad, separatism was not synonymous wit segregation; it was not the result of an imposition by whites but a choice that blacks made in order to preserve their identity.  While segregation was forced, separatism was the willed means by which the group could determine it's own future.

    This idea of a positive social divorce from the larger society can be traced historically to the American Colonization Society in the early 1800's and, later, to Marcus Garvey's back-to-Africa movement of the early twentieth century.  Garvey had a direct influence on Muhammad's thought; Muhammad, however, significantly distinguished between being separated and returning to Africa.  He refused to romanticize Africa; he interpreted Black Americans as an Asiatic rather than an African race and developed a reparations scheme according to which the United States government would offer several southern states to the Nation of Islam as territory in which to form a separate geographic and political entity.  The practical beginnings of this separatism can be found in the Nation of Islam's alternative Institutions: a university, schools, farms, small businesses, and houses of worship, all of which function as concrete evidences of the ideology of separatism.  Muhammad sought not only to alter historic separatist worldviews abut also to establish institutions that would give practical force to philosophy Muhammad's structures differed from many Black sects and cults in that they economic and educational enterprises and offered Nation of Islam followers a sense of community.

     Doctrine. Elijah Muhammad's strong sense of community among Blacks emphasized a stringent socialization process.  Black Muslims made public declarations of their faith, regularly attended temple meetings, observed dietary regulations, and were committed to obeying specific ethical rules.  Black Muslims could not use tobacco, alcohol, or narcotics, could not gamble, and were reprimanded if they lied, stole, or were discourteous.  The effort toward community was especially rigid in regulations regarding the sexes.  Women were particularly respected in Muhammad's ideology; they were considered the most valuable property of the Nation of Islam and deserving of respect from the male.  Muhammad abhorred the practice of females heading households.  He claimed that the Black male would never experience self-worth until he took responsibility of the protection, care, and oversight of females within the home.  Adultery was firmly denounced by Muhammad.  The home was to be a home-led institution in which females and children were secure, safe, and appropriately led.  The stable family ethic related to other of Muhammad's institutional emphases: The home would be secure only as better education’s were acquired, economic ventures were successful, superior employment was attained, and values were practiced that avoided criminal acts and immoral behavior.  Muhammad's family-oriented moral system interrelated with and reinforced the ethics of the entire Nation of Islam community.

    The ethics proclaimed by Muhammad were in stark contrast to his interpretation of the white community's immoralities.  The collective "white man" was perceived as the devil and the incarnation of evil; whites, Muhammad said, could not provide Blacks with any alternatives to antagonism.  This was not because of special historical events, according to Muhammad, but because devils could only offer a society that was racist by nature.  It was out of this structural racism that the exploitation and denigration of the Black person occurred.  Muhammad particularly emphasized the practical results of this evil: perpetual discrimination against Blacks provided the necessary labor for the functioning of the white-directed economy.  Only whites could benefit from such a system, while Blacks had to separate from it if they were to regain their identities and self-esteem.  In addition, Muhammad argued, separation from white immorality was a necessity if Blacks were to function effectively as authentic humans.

    The teachings of Elijah Muhammad gained wide exposure when Malcolm X was interviewed on national television and his statements were discussed in the white media.  White society perceived the Muslim antipathy toward it as a threat.  Many African Americans, however, were attracted by Muhammad's ideologies and found them consistent with their interpretations of their own life experiences.  Some also found Muhammad's demands for sacrifice, discipline, and self-denial appealing as a means of addressing social frustration and of establishing an alternate life-style.  While the exact membership for the Nation of Islam have always been kept secret, it is probable that they were highest when Malcolm X was Muhammad's main spokesperson.  The influence of Muhammad's ideas has extended far beyond official membership in Mosques; the themes of disjunction and separate group control have been dispersed amongst groups not affiliated with the organization.

    Legacy.  Since Elijah Muhammad's death in 1975, his legacy has continued in two distinct ways.  His son, Wallace Deen Muhammad (also known as Imam Wareet Deen Muhammad), established the American Muslim Mission, which between 135 and 145 local Mosques before it decentralized in 1985.  The mission' theology was close to that of the world-wide Muslim faith, and it de-emphasized Elijah Muhammad's teachings that African Americans are a separate nation.  It is through Minister Louis FARRAKHAN, who disassociated from Wallace Deen Muhammad, that the ideology of Elijah Muhammad is maintained.  Farrakhan's reiteration of traditional Black Muslim Orthodoxies includes interpretations of collective white devilry and the nee for African Americans to control their destiny through separation.

Back To The Homepage