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Elijah Muhammad (born Elijah Robert Poole, later Elijah Karriem; October 7, 1897 – February 25, 1975) was an American religious leader who led the Nation of Islam from 1933 until his death in 1975. Under Elijah Muhammad's leadership, the Nation of Islam grew from a small Detroit-based movement into a nationwide organization with tens of thousands of members in the United States during the civil rights movement, promoting black nationalism and a distinctive theology that white people are a race of "devils" created by an evil black Meccan scientist named Yakub, and that there are multiple gods, each a Black people man named Allah, whom he is the messenger of.
In the 1930s, Muhammad formally established the Nation of Islam, a religious movement that originated under the leadership and teachings of Wallace Fard Muhammad and that promoted black power, black pride, economic empowerment, and racial separation. Muhammad taught that Master Fard Muhammad is the 'Son of Man' of the Bible, and after Fard's disappearance in 1934, Muhammad assumed control over Fard's former ministry, formally changing its name to the "Nation of Islam".
Muhammad's views on race and his call for black people having an independent nation for themselves made him a controversial figure, both within and outside the Nation of Islam. He has been variously described as a black nationalist and a black supremacy.The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America |publisher=Station Hill |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-88268-103-0 |location=Barrytown, N.Y. |pages= 230–234}}
Muhammad died on February 25, 1975, after a period of declining health. He was succeeded as head of the Nation of Islam by his son, Wallace Muhammad.
Elijah's education ended at the fourth grade, after which he went to work in sawmills and brickyards. To support the family, he worked with his parents as a sharecropper. When he was 16 years old, he left home and began working in factories and at other businesses.
Elijah married Clara Muhammad (1899–1972) on March 7, 1917. In 1923, the Poole family was among hundreds of thousands of black families forming the First Great Migration leaving the oppressive and economically troubled South in search of safety and employment. Elijah later recounted that before the age of 20, he had witnessed the of three black men by white people. He said, "I seen enough of the white man's brutality to last me 26,000 years".Claude Andrew Clegg III, An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad, St. Martin's Griffin, 1998.
Moving his own family, parents, and siblings, Elijah and the Pooles settled in the industrial north of Hamtramck, Michigan. Through the 1920s and 1930s, he struggled to find and keep work as the economy suffered during the post World War I and Great Depression eras. During their years in Detroit, Elijah and Clara had eight children, six boys and two girls.Richard Brent Turner, "From Elijah Poole to Elijah Muhammad", American Visions, October–November 1997.
Poole, having strong consciousness of both race and class issues as a result of his struggles in the South, quickly fell in step with Fard's ideology. Poole soon became an ardent follower of Fard and joined his movement, as did his wife and several brothers. Soon afterward, Poole was given a Muslim surname, first "Karriem", and later, at Fard's behest, "Muhammad". He assumed leadership of the Nation's Temple No. 2 in Chicago. The Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad (2001). This source claims the first encounter between Poole and Fard took place at the Poole's dinner table. His younger brother Kalot Muhammad became the leader of the movement's self-defense arm, the Fruit of Islam.
Fard turned over leadership of the growing Detroit group to Elijah Muhammad, and the Allah Temple of Islam changed its name to the Nation of Islam. The Messenger (2001) suggests the name was changed to convince the authorities that Allah's Temple of Islam had disbanded. Muhammad and Wallace Fard continued to communicate until 1934, when Wallace Fard disappeared. Muhammad succeeded him in Detroit and was named "Minister of Islam". After the disappearance, Muhammad told followers that Allah had come as Wallace Fard, in the flesh, to share his teachings that are a salvation for his followers. An Original Man: One NOI tenet states: "There is no God but Allah, Master W. D. Fard, Elijah, his prophet"Charles Eric Lincoln, The Black Muslims in America, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994.Chronology of the Nation of Islam, Toure Muhammad.
In 1934, the Nation of Islam published its first newspaper, Final Call to Islam, to educate and build membership. Children of its members attended classes at the newly created Muhammad University of Islam, but this soon led to challenges by boards of education in Detroit and Chicago, which considered the children Truancy from the public school system. The controversy led to the jailing of several University of Islam board members and Muhammad in 1934 and to violent confrontations with police. Elijah was put on probation, but the university remained open.
On May 8, 1942, Muhammad was arrested for failure to register for the draft during World War II. After he was released on bail, Muhammad fled Washington, D.C., on the advice of his attorney, who feared a lynching, and returned to Chicago after a seven-year absence. Muhammad was arrested there, charged with eight counts of sedition for instructing his followers to not register for the draft or serve in the armed forces. Acquitted of sedition, but found guilty of draft evasion, Muhammad served four years in prison, from 1942 to 1946, at the Federal Correctional Institution in Milan, Michigan. During that time, his wife, Clara Muhammad, and trusted aides ran the organization; Muhammad transmitted his messages and directives to followers in letters.E. U. Essien-Udom, Black Nationalism, University of Chicago Press, 1962.
Following his return to Chicago, Elijah Muhammad was firmly in charge of the Nation of Islam. While Muhammad was in prison, the growth of the Nation of Islam had stagnated, with fewer than 400 members remaining by the time of his release in 1946. However, through the conversion of his fellow inmates as well as renewed efforts outside prison, he was able to redouble his efforts and continue growing the Nation.Bowman, Jeffrey. "Elijah Muhammad". Elijah Muhammad (2006): 1. MasterFILE Premier. Web. December 16, 2013.
Muhammad preached his own version of Islam to his followers in the Nation. According to him, blacks were known as the "original" human beings, with "evil" whites being an offshoot race that would go on to oppress black people for 6,000 years. The origins of the white race would come to be known as Yacub's History within Muhammad's teachings. In The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X talks about when he first encounters this doctrine, though he would later come to regret that he ever believed in it.
He preached that the Nation of Islam's goal was to return the stolen hegemony of the inferior whites back to blacks across America. Much of Muhammad's teachings appealed to young, economically disadvantaged, African-American males from Christian backgrounds. Traditionally, black males would not go to church because the church did not address their needs. Muhammad's program for economic development played a large part in the growth in the Nation of Islam. He purchased land and businesses to provide housing and employment for young black males.
By the 1970s, the Nation of Islam owned bakeries, barber shops, coffee shops, grocery stores, laundromats, night-clubs, a printing plant, retail stores, numerous real estate holdings, and a fleet of tractor trailers, plus farmland in Michigan, Alabama, and Georgia. In 1972 the Nation of Islam took controlling interest in a bank, the Guaranty Bank and Trust Co. Nation of Islam-owned schools expanded until, by 1974, the group had established schools in 47 cities throughout the United States. In the Name of Elijah Muhammad. In 1972, Muhammad told followers that the Nation of Islam had a net worth of $75 million.Karl Evanzz, The Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad Random House, 2001.
In regard to fowl, only baby pigeons were seen as clean and if eaten should be taken straight from the nest. According to Muhammad, peas and sweet potatoes are forbidden by Allah and many foods white in colour are automatically bad for health. Muhammad argued that white people were attempting to destroy black people by weakening their health with inappropriate such as biscuits and white bread. Muhammad considered most fruits and vegetables safe to eat "except collard greens and turnip salad". In regard to beans, only could be eaten. Lima beans were considered a poison which Muhammad believed made black men's stomachs explode. Rice and spinach were allowed in moderation. There were no restrictions on garlic, onions or Whole grain bread.
Muhammad stated that he obtained his dietary advice from "God in Person Master Fard Muhammad".Tipton-Martin, Toni. (2022). The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks. University of Texas Press. pp. 122-123.
He was buried alongside Clara at Mount Glenwood Memory Gardens South in Glenwood, Illinois.
Upon his death, his son Warith Deen Mohammed succeeded him. Warith disbanded the Nation of Islam in 1976 and founded an Orthodoxy mainstream Islamic organization, that came to be known as the American Society of Muslims. The organization would dissolve, change names and reorganize many times.
In 1977, Louis Farrakhan resigned from Warith Deen's reformed organization and reinstituted the original Nation of Islam upon the foundation established by Wallace Fard Muhammad and Elijah Muhammad. Farrakhan regained many of the Nation of Islam's original properties including the National Headquarters Mosque #2 (Mosque Maryam) and Muhammad University of Islam in Chicago.
The letters stated blacks had been better off "from a psychological point of view" before Fard came along because it weaned them from Christianity to a fabricated form of Islam. Both, in his opinion, were bad. His letters also revealed what he knew of Fard, alleging he was John Walker of Gary who had come to America at 27 from Greece, had served prison time for stealing, and raping a 17-year-old girl, and had died in Chicago, Illinois, at 78.
After the letters were sent, seven of Khaalis' family members were murdered at the Hanafi Madh-Hab Center. Four men from NOI Mosque No. 12 were accused of the crime.
Malcolm X also spoke of an attempt made to assassinate him, by means of an explosive device discovered in his car, and of death threats he was receiving, which he believed were in response to his exposure of Muhammad. Years later in a series of lectures titled "Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad 28 years later"
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Muhammad eventually established Temple Farms, now Muhammad Farms, on a tract in Terrell County, Georgia.Rolinson, Mary, Grassroots Garveyism, p. 193, UNC Press Books, 2007. George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party, once called Elijah "the Hitler of the black man." "The Messenger Passes", Time, March 10, 1975. At the 1962 Saviours' Day celebration in Chicago, Rockwell addressed Nation of Islam members. Many in the audience booed and heckled him and his men, for which Elijah rebuked them in the April 1962 issue of Muhammad Speaks. The Messenger, The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad, pp. 241–242, Vintage Books, NY 2001.
After Elijah's death, nineteen of his children filed lawsuits against the Nation of Islam's successor, the World Community of Islam, seeking status as his heirs. Ultimately, the court ruled against them. "19 Children of Muslim Leader Battle a Bank for $5.7 Million". The New York Times. November 3, 1987. "Court Gives Leader's Money to Black Muslims", The New York Times. January 2, 1988.Broken Legacy, Chicago, December 1991.
Children via his wife, Clara Muhammad: Two daughters and six sons including notable:
Children via mistresses:
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