Chapter Four
The Temple People a/k/a The Nation of Islam
"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 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 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" as a symbolic 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 "tricknollogy" 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 labeled "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 Islamic heaven from whence he came. Fard, according to report, 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 having 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, Immanuel Mohammed, assumed charge on the eve of the cult's most serious encounter with the police. A street car 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 King 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 one 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 express-man, appears to have left Chicago, which was once his headquarters, police said. The Chicago temple is said to be an off shoot 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 Sections, and Secret Ritual of the Nation of Islam, Part II, in 40 Secs, must be memorized by each member, and no written copies are ever 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, medicine, 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 section.
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 2 or 3 days per week: A Mohammed's family fast seven days: A Prophet fast 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 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 explained: "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 this Mother's Airplane...these planes will drop pamphlets on the earth warning the people of the `Holy War'. On one of these planes 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 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 who 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 man to save what is left of their dying civilization by getting the black man 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 "tricknollogy". "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 of 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, 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 forbidden. For the same reason, their homes are immaculate for the most part, their general habits simple and cleanly. Like their daily lives, their ceremonies are marked by calm and simplicity. There is no "talking in tongues", no shouting, moaning, leaping, clapping-- none of the violent activity associated with Negro "storefront" and "holy roller" churches.
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