Nation of Islam

Origins and Early Teachings

The Nation of Islam evolved from the Moorish Science Temple founded by Noble Drew Ali in 1913 in Newark, New Jersey. When the temple split into two factions, W. D. Fard moved to Detroit and trained several ministers to create a new group—the Nation of Islam. Among them was Elijah Poole, later Elijah Muhammad, who at the time was an unemployed auto worker from the South. His knowledge of the Bible, as the son of a Baptist minister, was what inspired W. D. Fard to make Elijah Muhammad the Supreme Minister of the Nation of Islam. This explains why the Nation of Islam derives its ideology from both the Bible and the Qur'an.

A core of the socioreligious teachings of both Fard (who had become known as Fard Muhammad) and Elijah Muhammad was that African Americans are the original black nation of Asia known as the Tribe of Shabazz. This nation was said to have originated in Africa when a great explosion divided the earth from the moon some 60 trillion years ago. The Tribe of Shabazz discovered that the rich land between the Nile Valley and Mecca was the best part of the earth on which to live. But since the Tribe of Shabazz was enslaved for 400 years, Fard Muhammad and his messenger Elijah Muhammad were sent by Allah to relocate the “lost-found nation” in an independent state. Therefore, since the so-called Negroes were not and could not be American citizens by nature or race, they could be said to constitute a nation within a nation. Hence, Elijah Muhammad renounced his U.S. citizenship and urged his followers to do likewise.

Another core belief of the Nation of Islam is that it is the religion of salvation and truth for black people, whereas Christianity is the religion of “evil white” people. The theme “white devil” comes directly from the teachings of Noble Drew Ali, which identify white people as the embodiment of the Satan in the Bible. The Nation of Islam also believes that Yacub, a descendant of the Tribe of Shabazz, 6,800 years ago in Mecca, created a vengeful plot to enslave the tribe. Yacub was skillful in genetics and developed the white race through creating Adam and Eve by crossbreeding. Two thousand years later, Allah raised Moses to civilize the white race.

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