Elijah Muhammad
Elijah Muhammad was a significant figure in American religious and social history, born on October 7, 1897, in Georgia. He emerged from a challenging upbringing, the son of a Baptist minister and sharecropper, and faced early adversity, including witnessing lynchings. In the early 20th century, Muhammad became involved with the Nation of Islam after being influenced by its founder, Wallace D. Fard, whom he regarded as a divine figure. Following Fard's disappearance in 1934, Muhammad became the leader of the Nation of Islam, espousing teachings that emphasized self-reliance and resilience among African Americans in the face of systemic racism.
Under his leadership, the Nation of Islam flourished, establishing a network of businesses, educational institutions, and religious practices that sought to empower Black communities. Muhammad’s teachings often emphasized discipline, including dietary restrictions and martial arts for self-defense. Despite facing opposition and controversy, including accusations of racial divisiveness, he was recognized as a powerful figure within the African American community, with the Nation of Islam accumulating significant assets by the time of his death in 1975. His legacy continues to influence both members of the Nation of Islam and later generations of Muslim Americans.
Subject Terms
Elijah Muhammad
- Born: October 7, 1897
- Birthplace: Sandersville, Georgia
- Died: February 25, 1975
- Place of death: Chicago, Illinois
Religious leader and activist
Muhammad was an early convert to the Nation of Islam who became its supreme minister in 1934. He led the Nation of Islam through several decades, building it into an economic and social power, though its separatist theology alienated some African American leaders.
Areas of achievement: Religion and theology; Social issues
Early Life
Elijah Muhammad (ee-LI-juh moo-HAH-mahd) was born October 7, 1897, to Baptist minister and sharecropper William Poole and his wife, Marie, a domestic servant. Muhammad was the seventh of thirteen children; Marie thought he would be special because when she was pregnant with him, she envisioned giving birth to a messenger of God. From an early age, Muhammad was reflective and inquisitive. He often studied the Bible and questioned and debated with his father.
Muhammad dropped out of school in the fourth grade to help provide for his family. By age nineteen, he was working as a plowboy and doing other odd jobs, and he had already witnessed two lynchings of African American men. At twenty-one, he eloped. He and his wife, Clara, moved to Detroit in 1923. In Detroit, Muhammad worked on the railroad laying tracks and was quickly promoted to supervisor. By 1930, he and his wife had five children, he was unemployed and had taken to drinking heavily while Clara was consumed with how the family would survive. She heard about a man giving lectures to the black community and encouraged Muhammad to attend. Muhammad was awed by the speaker, Wallace D. Fard, whom he believed was God in the flesh, arriving to deliver African Americans from their suffering. Muhammad asked that this man become his teacher and train him as a minister of the Nation of Islam.
Life’s Work
For three years, Fard taught Muhammad how to invite African Americans to a religion that would instill in them self-reliance and resilience in the face of institutional racism. Before the teacher disappeared in 1934, he chose Muhammad as his successor. That the poorly educated Muhammad had been appointed supreme minister of the Nation of Islam enraged several of the other ministers, many of whom vowed to have Muhammad murdered. One follower of a rival minister was so upset at Muhammad’s ascension that he vowed to only eat one grain of rice per day until he could murder Muhammad.
At five feet, six inches tall, with a soft voice and awkward speech, Muhammad soon became the most influential person in black America. He forbade his followers to eat pork, drink alcohol, smoke, or carry on extramarital affairs, encouraged them to only eat one meal per day, and required them to undertake martial arts training for self-defense. He focused on uplifting the most disenfranchised African Americans. In 1972, President Richard M. Nixon reportedly offered Muhammad aid to continue his work in the African American community with the condition that all Nation of Islam records were turned over to the government.
After being threatened by his brother Kalot Muhammad, Muhammad fled Detroit. He eventually moved to Washington, D.C., where he lived under the pseudonym Mr. Evans and spent his days and nights in the Library of Congress reading the 104 books that Fard had instructed him to read. In 1942, he refused induction into the U.S. Army and was sent to prison the next year with several of his followers. Since Muhammad was not allowed to have a copy of the Qur՚ān in prison, Clara hand-copied it and sent him pages by mail. He was away from his wife and children for a total of seven years before he felt it was safe to return in 1946, after his release from prison.
Over the following years, Muhammad traveled to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Sudan, Turkey, and Egypt, leaving his protégé, Malcolm X, in charge in his absence. After Malcolm X’s assassination in 1965, Muhammad received numerous death threats from people who believed he had ordered the murder. These were difficult years for Mohammad; in 1964, two of his sons, Akbar and Wallace D., had left the Nation of Islam for orthodox Islam. However, soon after Malcolm X was killed, Wallace D. returned to his father’s faith.
In 1961, Muhammad moved to Phoenix, Arizona, after he fell ill with asthma and later with high blood pressure and diabetes. In 1972, Muhammad allowed sixteen mainstream journalists to interview him about his life and the Nation of Islam. In January, 1975, Muhammad was on a family vacation in Mexico when he fell ill. He was transported to Mercy Hospital in Chicago, where he eventually fell into a coma. His family chose to disconnect his life support on February 25, 1975. At the time of his death, the Nation of Islam had some seventy-six temples across the United States and abroad.
Significance
Major media outlets called Muhammad the most powerful black man in America, and as a result, he was closely watched by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). His power was also evident in the holdings of the Nation of Islam, which, at the time of his death, comprised some forty-five million to eighty million dollars in assets, including a bank, a one-million-dollar newspaper printing press, hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland, bakeries, supermarkets, other business, schools and universities, and a private jet. Although Muhammad and his teachings were racially divisive and detested by many African Americans involved in the Civil Rights movement, his greatest accomplishment might have been establishing a black economy that was independent of the mainstream American economy. Muhammad published several books and was an influential figure to generations of African American Muslims, including orthodox Muslims, many of whom had started out as followers of the Nation of Islam.
Bibliography
Berg, Hebert. Elijah Muhammad and Islam. New York: New York University Press, 2009. Discusses in detail Muhammad’s life, his interpretations of Islam and the Qur՚ān, and his legacy.
Clegg, Claude A. An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997. Examines the history of the Nation of Islam’s beliefs, Muhammad’s life, and his family.
Evanzz, Karl. The Judas Factor: The Plot to Kill Malcolm X. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1992. Details the split between Muhammad and Malcolm X, information from FBI case files, and theories of who killed Malcolm X.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad. New York: Pantheon Press, 1999. Covers Muhammad’s life, rise to power, and how he used his influence.
Muhammad-Ali, Jesus. The Evolution of the Nation of Islam: The Story of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Chicago: JMA Publishing, 2002. Muhammad’s grandson recalls the development of the Nation of Islam.