Wallace Fard Muhammad

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Wallace Fard Muhammad (1877-1893? – ?) was a preacher and founder of the Black-nationalist movement the Nation of Islam (NOI), establishing its first mosque in Detroit, Michigan. He preached his distinctive version of Islam there for three years before mysteriously disappearing in 1934 and subsequently being deified by Elijah Muhammad.

Alternative names on record are numerous, among them David Ford-el, Wali Farad, Farrad Mohammed, W.D. Fard, and F. Mohammed Ali. Within the NOI he is generally known as Master Fard Muhammad.

1 Controversy over identity
2 Life
3 Ideology
4 References in popular culture
5 See also
6 Notes
7 External links

[edit] Controversy over identity

The FBI's photograph of Wallace Dodd Ford

The NOI's acknowledged photograph of Wallace Fard Muhammad

According to FBI records, Fard (pronounced fuh-RAHD) Muhammad is identical to one Wallace Dodd Ford, also known as Wallace Dodd, whose birth is recorded by the FBI as February 25, 1891, of mixed European and Polynesian parentage. It is uncertain whether he was born in New Zealand or in Portland, Oregon, of parents who came from Hawaii. A recent researcher believes that Dodd was a New Zealander of half-Indian descent, born in 1893. ^[1] Dodd was certainly in the United States by the 1920s, when he was arrested and imprisoned for drug offenses, serving three years in San Quentin between 1926 and 1929. Photographs and fingerprints of both men exist.

The NOI has, in the past, rejected this identification of Wallace Dodd with Wallace Fard Muhammad, interpreting it as part of a smear campaign. They also claim that he was born in 1877 (which would put him in his fifties when photographed), and that he came from Mecca. Elijah Muhammad—Fard Muhammad's student and successor—had this to say about his teacher, in his book, Message to the Blackman:

"Allah (God) came to us from the Holy City Mecca, Arabia, in 1930. He used the name Wallace D. Fard, often signing it W.D. Fard. In the third year (1933), He signed His name W.F. Muhammad, which stands for Wallace Fard Muhammad. He came alone. 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 civilizations of some of the planets other than earth."

Elijah Muhammad also challenged the Hearst press, which had publicized the story, and offered 100,000 Dollars to anyone who could prove Wallace Fard was an alias of Wallace Dodd Ford. Hazel Ford, the former common-law wife of Wallace Dodd Ford, stepped forward with what she claimed was proof that Fard and Dodd were indeed one and the same.^[2] She also claimed to have a child fathered by Dodd/Fard. The money was never placed in escrow and the matter was dropped.

While the question of Fard's identity is controversial, the current NOI leader, Louis Farrakhan, does accept that Fard was imprisoned, insisting that this was because his preaching threatened the racist status quo, not because of any criminal acts.

[edit] Life

Taking the view that Fard and Dodd/Ford are one and the same individual, his biography can be partially reconstructed up to 1934. His distinctive mixed parentage allowed him at various times to claim to belong to several different races, often either African or Arab. This may have influenced his later doctrine of the Asiatic Blackman and to his emphasis on Islam as the authentic Black religion, though he did not originate these ideas.

[edit] Involvement with the Moorish Science Temple

In spring 1929, after his prison experience, he joined the Moorish Science Temple of America, founded by Timothy Drew, where he was renamed David Ford-el. Timothy Drew, by then known as Noble Drew Ali, needed someone capable of overseeing his organization while he was awaiting a trial being held on suspicion of accessory to homicide on his rival Sheik Claude Greene, and put David Ford-el in charge of the Chicago Temple.

On July 20, 1929, less than a month after naming David Ford-el acting head of Chicago mosque, Drew Ali was found dead in his home. David Ford-el claimed Drew Ali had left him in charge, and declared himself the reincarnation of Noble Drew Ali. Arguments erupted over the issue of successor. Those who had been loyal to Greene argued that David Ford-el had not been with the MSTA long enough to succeed Drew Ali, and insisted that Charles Kirkman Bey, one of Greene’s closest allies, had the authority to assume the mantle of leadership. Another faction, headed by Ira Johnson Bey, claimed that Kirkman Bey was unfit. On September 25 1929, four of Johnson Bey’s lieutenants went to Kirkman Bey’s home and kidnapped him. Police were called and a shootout with police occurred. One month after the shootout, the stock market crashed, and Ford-el claimed that the crash proved he was the reincarnation of Noble Drew Ali and Drew Ali’s followers swore allegiance to him.

[edit] Founding of the Nation of Islam

In November 1929, Ford-el moved from Chicago to Detroit, Michigan. Using the names Wallace D. Fard and Wallace D. Fard Muhammad, he renamed the faction he controlled the Allah Temple of Islam, established the University of Islam, a group of male security guards called the Fruit of Islam, and other Black Muslim organizations. From Drew's ideas he developed his own idiosyncratic theories, mixing aspects of theosophy and Islam, preaching his new gospel among African Americans.

Fard's activities were brought to wider public notice after a major scandal erupted involving an apparent ritual murder in November 1932, reportedly committed by one of Fard's early followers, Robert Karriem, who had done so, in his own words, "to bring himself closer to Allah." Karriem had quoted from Fard's booklet titled Secret Rituals of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam, "The believer must be stabbed through the heart." This quotation, as well as stating that "every son of Islam must gain a victory from the devil. Four victories and the son will attain his reward," convinced the Detroit police—motivated in part by the anti-Black Muslim hysteria fueled by media coverage of the event—to seek out Fard in connection with the murder.

Although not charged with any crime, Fard had been asked to leave town in early 1933 and to never return. Fard complied, but returned secretly to Detroit the next year. Fard was arrested and again asked to leave Detroit.

One of Fard's first followers had been Elijah Poole, who later changed his name to Elijah Muhammad. Elijah began preaching that Wallace Fard Muhammad was the Mahdi, and Fard was even deified as the True and Living God. Shortly before he departed Detroit for the last time, Fard had conferred leadership of the Nation of Islam on Elijah Muhammad. ^[3]

[edit] Disappearance

In 1934, Fard left Detroit for Chicago and then disappeared without a trace. When nothing further was heard from him some supporters came to believe that he had been the victim of police foul play. Others asserted that he had returned to Mecca to prepare for his eventual return. The later official view of the NOI was that he was in Mecca. Others believe he had been killed by Elijah Muhammad (who was also suspected of ordering influential NOI dissident Malcolm X assassinated in February 1965).^[4]

However, there is some evidence that Fard lived at least until the 1960s; his alleged lover stated that he had returned to New Zealand. The Federal Bureau of Investigations maintained an open file on Fard Muhammad up until as late as 1960, according to documents published through the Freedom of Information Act.

Warith Deen Muhammad claimed that Fard had returned to the United States under the name Muhammad Abdullah. In 1976, W.D. had appointed Muhammad Abdullah as imam of Muhammad's Mosque #77 in Oakland, California. The November 26, 1976, issue of the NOI journal Bilalian News reports Muhammad Abdullah's first khutbah at the mosque and shows a photo. ^[5] W.D. Mohammad did not state that Muhammad Abdullah was Fard until after Abdullah's death in 1992, and Abdullah himself never publicly claimed to be Fard.

[edit] Ideology

Fard claimed that armageddon was imminent. For Black people in America, the duty was to discover their origins and purpose. Out of all the nations of the Earth, diasporic Africans, particularly those in "the hells of North America," were the only nation without any knowledge of their history, no control of their present lives, and without any guidance for their future. Black people had been systematically denied knowledge of their true history by their white oppressors. Christianity was a religion of the slave owners that had been forced on enslaved or subordinated Black peoples. Islam was the original faith of Black people prior to slavery. The original peoples of the world were Black. White people were a race of devils created by an evil scientist named Yakub on the island of Patmos. He also claimed that Black people were divine by nature, created by Allah from the dark substance of space, and that a spacecraft was waiting to destroy all white people when the appointed time came.

The idea that Islam is the original true religion is derived from mainstream Islamic theology, which claims that Judaism and Christianity are corrupted forms of God's original message that Muhammad merely reaffirmed. The presence of Islam in eastern countries such as Indonesia as well as the Middle East may have led Fard to conclude that it was the historical faith of Asian peoples as a whole, but this aspect of his thinking was directly influenced by Drew, who had claimed that all non-Europeans are in fact part of a unified Asian race, which he called "Moorish."

Christian missionary activity under Imperialism may also have contributed to Fard's association of white supremacy with the attempted imposition of "corrupted" religious ideas. The figure of Yakub is derived from the Biblical Jacob (Yaqub in the Qur'an), while his activities on Patmos recall St. John's revelations there. Thus, he combines central figures in the founding of Judaism and Christianity.

Fard's racializing of Islamic beliefs is part of the widespread preoccupation with racial theory and eugenics among many people from various backgrounds at the time. The common white supremacist idea that Black people were somehow less evolved than whites is turned around so that Black people become the original uncorrupted peoples of the world and whites are defined as a degenerate offshoot of them. According to Fard, Yakub's progeny were destined to dominate the world for 6,000 years, before the original Black peoples once again assumed power. This process had begun in 1914 and Fard had been sent to proclaim it.

Fard's followers were given Arabic names to replace those that had originated in slavery. The religion offered them a credo of moral and cultural superiority to their White oppressors. His birthdate is celebrated today by the Nation of Islam as Savior's Day.

[edit] References in popular culture

A reinterpretation of the historical Fard exists in Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel, Middlesex, winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. In the story, the character Jimmy Zizmo appears to die in an automobile accident but later reappears as Fard Muhammad.