CHICAGO (IslamOnline) - It is the belief of the Nation of Islam that their alleged "Allah in Person," Master Fard Muhammad, was born in Mecca on Feb. 26, 1877, to an Arab father and a Caucasian mother. (Sunday's Libyan-sponsored Saviors' Day Convention was held to mark Fard Muhammad's birthday.)
Fard Muhammad entered America in 1910 and attended college on the West Coast. He worked as a silk peddler in Detroit and started preaching to poor black families about Islam, the origins of human history and black history.
He was soon joined by a frail-looking son of a Georgia farmer, Elijah Pool, who later became Elijah Muhammad. Both of them presented a distorted version of Islam in claiming the former to be Allah in person and the latter a prophet. Elijah Muhammad
preached Black Superiority and claimed that whites are devils who are the descendants of Yakoob- an evil scientist.
The joining of Malcolm X gave the movement a big boost until he fell through and joined mainstream Islam. He was soon assassinated. Many accuse Farrakhan of being implicated in the crime but he has consistently denied it.
In 1994 Quabilla Shabazz, daughter of Malcolm X, was arrested for hiring a Jewish hit man to kill Farrakhan, but he dismissed it as a governmental conspiracy and openly
supported Quabilla and her family.
Not much is known about Fard Mohammed, but some suspect a Qadiani connection. They point to the fact that an English-language translation of the Quran popular among Nation of Islam followers is by Muhammad Ali, an Ahmedi (Qadyani) scholar. The Nation of Islam also sells books by other Qadyani scholars, like Mirza Ghulam Ahmed and Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din.
After the death of Elijah Muhammad, his son Warith a-Deen Muhammad abandoned the teachings of his father and adopted mainstream Islam while Farrakhan assumed the leadership of Nation of Islam and has been the leader ever since. It is believed that Nation of Islam currently has less than 200,000 members.
On Sunday, Farrakhan and W.D. Muhammad made up, after a 25-year break. Farrakhan said, "Imam (W.D. Mohammed) and I will work together until death overtakes us... we both will work for the establishment of Islam."
To which Imam W.D. Mohammed responded: "Whatever has troubled us in the past, I think we can bury it now and never look back at that grave." He also said that many people might doubt the intentions of Farrakhan to get closer to mainstream Islam, and they had reasons to doubt him. But this time, he said, he believes him. Farrakhan had made similar comments at the First World Islamic Conference organized by the World Islamic Peoples Leadership (a Libyan-funded organization with headquarters in Tripoli) in 1997 in Chicago, but nothing came out of it.
Farrakhan has brushed several times with the U.S. government. His relations with Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi are especially a thorn in the side of the government. The Libyan leader offered him a billion dollars a couple of years ago.
