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Finding W.D. Fard

Finding W.D. Fard:

Unveiling the Identity of the Founder of the Nation of

By John Andrew Morrow

Finding W.D. Fard: Unveiling the Identity of the Founder of the

By John Andrew Morrow

This book first published 2019

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2019 by John Andrew Morrow

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-5275-2199-0 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-2199-5 To Ayah “ has proved to be very much a human being.”

FBI (Nov. 1943)

TABLE OFCONTENTS

Acknowledgments ...... ix

Endorsements ...... x

Forewordby Dennis Walker ...... xii

Chapter 1 ...... 1 Issues of Origin

Chapter 2 ...... 36 Religious Roots

Chapter 3 ...... 111 Who was W.D. Fard?

Chapter 4 ...... 156 The Genealogical Connection

Chapter 5 ...... 231 The Sun Rises in the West

Chapter 6 ...... 288 The Image of gonIslam at inthe Ore Turnth Century of the 20

General Conclusions ...... 314

Afterword ...... 332

Worksited C ...... 344

Appendix 1 ...... 362 Khan Documents

Appendix 2 ...... 375 Fred Dodd Documents viii Table of Contents

Appendix 3 ...... 414 Historical Images of Fred Dodd’s Salem

Appendix 4 ...... 418 Pearl Dodd Documents

Appendix 5 ...... 429 Wallie D. Ford Documents

Appendix 6 ...... 445 Wallace Max Ford Documents

Appendix 7 ...... 458 Major Figures

Index ...... 466 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my wife esand they children have for all the sacrific made in support of my scholarship.search Every or moment I engaged in re writing was time that was takenis from due tothem. A debt of gratitude Carol Gibbs, interlibrary loanege, clerk for at Ivy Tech Community Coll helping me to obtain all the obscurehat I needed and hard to find sources t to complete my easantresearch. and Herprofessional pl was much demeanor appreciated. Appreciationighest order of isBarbara the expressed h to Castleton for proof-readingis and due copy-editing to Dr. this work. Thanks Patrick D. Bowen for sharing someespect of his and scholarship with me. R recognition is extended to Dr.who, Dennis among Walker, a senior scholar other areas, specializes in thenied Nation me over of Islam. He has accompa the past few yearsmself in described what he hi roller-coaster as a revelatory ride. Being able to bounce ideass truly and theories back and forth wa beneficial and has helped solidifylly, I would this scholarly edifice. Fina like to thank Cambridge Scholarsis book Publishing and for believing in th the contribution that it makes to scholarship.

ENDORSEMENTS

“An innovative and valuable bookibution that makesto a fundamental contr the historyam in of America.” Isl —Dr. Dennis Walker, AuthorIslam ofand the Search for African- American Nationhood: Elijah , Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, and Adjunct Researcher at Monash University,

“The world’s are oftenation centered of upon a mystery; the N Islam is no different. Whenever ,” scholars investigate the “Black they are inevitably accompanied seems by the to figure of W.D. Fard, who linger in the background likeAndrew an ever-present specter. In John Morrow’sFinding book, W.D. Fard: Unveiling the Identity of the Founder of the Nation of Islam, W.D. Fard finally comes to the foreground, as Morrow delivers a direct encounterwas the with the mysterious man who founder of the black nationalistres such movement, as which attracted figu Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan. Having analyzed ents,all relevant as wellony documas their of cacoph interpretations, John Andrewability Morrow’s to book stands alone in its shed light upon the historicaludies unknown of the that has plagued many st origins of the Nation of Islam.-up, From to Fard’s his tangled racial make theological and, social which Morrow doctrines demonstratese wer influenced by a variety of religions,lly interrogates Morrow’s book systematica previous held ideas about W.D.mpelling Fard while delivering his own co composite of who this “deified”bt thatman really this was. There is no dou book will prove to be indispensablenderstand to allthe future attempts to u historical, social, and religioustion of Islam.”geist of W.D. Fard and the Na —Dustin J. Byrd, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Philosophy, , and , Olivet College, Malcolm USA, X: and From the co-editor of Political to Religious Revolutionary

“Once again, John Andrew Morrowic has that provided insight into a top few scholars havee -- triedthe life to tackland. Fard. legacy While of W.D few know his name, Fard is one ofin the U.S. most significant Muslims history, and Morrow does an excellenthe job of tracking him and t emergence of the Nation of Islam. his critically Following in the footsteps of acclaimedCovenants of the Muhammad with the Christians of the Finding W.D. Fard:the Identity Unveiling of thexi Founder of the Nation of Islam World, Morrow has provided another scholarlye a gem which is bound to b quintessential reading on the life of W.D. Fard.” —Dr. Craig Considine, Lecturer of Sociology at Rice University and author Muslims of in America: Examining the Facts

FOREWORD

BYD ENNISWALKER RESEARCHERTHAILAND ON ’SM USLIMS ATM ONASHASIA INSTITUTE , AUSTRALIA

It has been an illuminating experiencendrew to scroll through John A Morrow’sFinding book, W.D. Fard: Unveiling the Identity of the Founder of the Nation of Islam. I have followed the development of Morrow’s portrait of the founder of theeral “Black years. Muslim” movement over sev A part of Morrow at first feltMuhammad, strongly critical of Fard whom he tended to see as a non-African-Americane 1930s human who in th misapplied his intelligence tos Negro separate / from their meagre monie African American lumpens who inigrated the latter years of the 1920s m from the rural South of the USA etroit, to a segregated urban slum in D Michigan. But Morrow’s maturingterm vision gains has registered the long- of social and economic self-improvementility and dramatic upward mob that Fard and his movement conferred from the upon uprooted black masses rural South who were disintegratingnality into in unemployment and crimi the great cities of the North,t Depression. increasingly wracked by the Grea A pure con-man would have formulated better intoIslam in a way that fitted the needs and convenience of themerica. white Anglo-Saxons who ruled A While he did vent real hatred inhites his non-stop as denunciation of w “devils” whom Almighty Allah, ,s would not long spare, and hi followers adopted an insouciantd stopped stance to the White police, Far short (some-timesf preparing just barely) themtary o for armed mili insurrection,ferred and generally his convertsheir pre economic to improve t conditions by making themselves bourgeois. Wali Fard Muhammadeighed has been by Morrow w as a man of Muslim origin who did indeed comeorrow from “the East,” somewhere. M tested both moderate and radical Beynon roles had attributed to W.D. Fard. reported in 1938 that the Nationous factions: of Islam was divided into vari “one branch of the movement, led thatby ‘Abdul Mohammed, maintained Fard was a prophet, and another,ieved headed by Elijah Muhammad, bel that he was Allah.” the teachings Accordingd of to Nation the Lost-Foun of Islam as enunciated by Elijah Muhammad,of a jet- W.D. Fard “was the son Finding W.D. Fard:the Identity Unveiling of thexiii Founder of the Nation of Islam black man, the Hidden platinum-blonde , and an, Armenian the woma devil” (Goldman 36). While some scholars, includingt the myself in 2005, have argued tha in the Hidden Imam in thesma‘ilism teachings or of Fard belongs to I Druzism, Morrow ascribes it moree belief (but innot exclusively so) to th the Hidden Imam in the mainstreama- of Shiism, the Imamiyyah Ithn ‘Ashariyyah ()he Isma‘ili, Shiites. whoto two are T major divided in branches, do not all believe in believe a Hidden in Imam. The do not any current Hidden Imam in the senseits understood by Shiism with Imamology. One Druze group didliph indeed al- hold that the Isma‘ili Ca bi-Amr Allah (985-1021 CE)ever, had gone into . How they also believe him to be divineome about [which was already said by s Wali Fard Muhammad even when he tweenwas still active in Michigan be 1930 and 1935]. “Walker generalized,” writes explains Morrow, “when he that ‘[t]he classical Shiites, Shiites and or Isma‘ilis, the Twelver the Druze… all developed doctrinesver died that there is an Imam who ne but only vanished or occulted:y oppressive he will one day return to destro governments and inaugurate a goldenpoints age out on earth.’” Dr. Morrow that “this was the case with some,teric but Shiite not all, branches of eso thought.” Morrow in one place argues thatof Wali Fard Muhammad was a sort colored Imam who accorded with athin long-held minority position wi Twelver Shiism: “Imam Muhammad al-,e the Twelfth Imam of th Shiites, was the son of Hasan al-Askari,her and a the son of an Arab fat Berber mother, and , a whiteid to European be a Christian woman. Sa direct descendant of Simon Peter, thus the of apostle of , she was Jewish extraction.” For Morrow,ther thisof W.D. fits the profile of the Fard, whom he once characterized Jew. as In a patrician-bloodeda Russian series of clutchings at the historical Muhammad, two parents of Wali Fard Louis Farrakhan, however, on one mother or more as occasions defined that actually a white Muslim from Chechnya. While most Shiite scholars hold notes that Narjis was a white woman, Morrow, a minority thatfrican she slave. was, in reality, a black A This idea of a mixed-bloodedfound savior among or messianic figure is not the Sunnis, the Ahmadiyyah, then works or the Druze -- only i with some links s.to ItTwelver does not Shiitey seem to Morrow very likel that W.D. Fard learned this viewack of from Imam Mahdi as being part bl the mostly illiterate Arab Shiitest surprisingly, in the U.S. at the time. “No the Shiite Muslims who defend mthe Mahdi theory that the mother of Ima was black are people from the Indianites from subcontinent and black Shi the Americas who,acing despite actual embr Shiism,ornly remain stubb xiv Foreword attached to some of the teachingsnalists, of W.D. and Fard, the black natio Afro-centrists.” For Morrow,hat the Imam fact that W.D. Fard asserted t Mahdi was black might suggest thatolor, he himself was a person of c perhaps of mixed East Indian andtaught British ancestry. Although he “knowledge of self,”y simultaneously W.D. Fard mafrom have suffered “hatred of self,” if his fatheracked were one of the British who att Afghanistan. The notion of a divinetransfer lineage of of , with the manifested from father is an to adjunct son upon the former’s death, of both Imamiyyah and the Sevener, is Isma‘iliyyah, and furthermore expressed by the divine NOI’s lineage idea ofr Imams. a of Scientists o For Morrow, since W.D. Fard spoke clearly of Twelve Imams, his doctrine resembles Twelver andt the [Extremist] Shiism and no Sevener Shiism stressed by Gardellr, in (and by myself, Dennis Walke 2005). “The numbertral twelve to the is Nusayris cen of () [the of PresidentsAsad and Bashar Hafizve al-al-Asad]: imams, twel twelve naqibs, twelve apostlesael.” of Jesus,Were twelve captains of Isr Fard centrally influenced bycific Isma‘ilism, focus believes Morrow, a spe on the symbolism of seven Imams wouldrrow have been expected. As Mo points out, the Syrian Alawitesm ‘ “have but traditionally… deified Ima now claim to haveainstream become Twelver m Muslims.” At one point, Morrow way in goes normalizing some into Farda down more ordinary Muslim (albeit Shiite)e still leader. In 1952, there wer hundreds of old Muslims in Detroit,D. Fard, people who studied under W. who refused to recognize Elijah as Muhammad the as a leader, much less Prophet or Messenger of Allah (FBIifton file E. 440). Morrow follows Cl Marsh that the Black Muslim movementby had two branches, one led ‘Abdul Mohammed, which maintainedd that Fard was a prophet -- an another, headed by Elijah Muhammad,at he was which harbored the tenet th Allah incarnate: that had setbe disciplethe Prophet Elijah free to claim to of Allah. Even in the Elijahd circle, was God wasthough, the tenet that Far muted and confidential for some years. Morrow points out, though, thate who it is difficult to defend thos believe that W.D. Fard was deified by Elijah Muhammad after he disappeared, once one examinesard, documents at dating back to 1932. F Police Headquarters in Detroit,es, without revealed any to the devil authoriti apparent coercion of any kind, that he was the . One positive evaluation Morrowc mentions is that with his exoti appearance and background, his any vast knowledge, his mastery of m languages, his stylish attire,oor and and his compassion towards the p disenfranchised,

Finding W.D. Fard:the Identity Unveiling of thexv Founder of the Nation of Islam W.D. Fard created, not only a community,on of but a nation: the Nati Islam, which, ,in would years count to come tensf citizens of thousands o or members. Withadership, unparalleled managerial, cial le and finan skills, he opened and managedch a temple,focused schools for adults, whi on literacy, management,nd hygiene, health child-rearinginterpersonal a and relations, as e well school as a system separat forican African Amer children where they would be providedrally- with a positive and cultu affirming environment.

By the time he disappeared, reflectsuly created Morrow, Master Fard had tr a nation within a nation: thelitical Nation structureof Islam, with a strong po and economic foundation which reachedr the considerable heights unde leadership of Elijah Muhammad from an 1950-1975, so that it formed inspiration fors torn many down until by it Warith wammed. Deen Moha On the side of a negative evaluation, article Morrow cites a newspaper from 1932 which observed that “Detroitnized Negroes… were being orga as Mohammedans by a man who told inthem and they were of Turkish orig charged them fees for their ‘Turkish’n it for the names.” If Fard was not i money, why was he charging poverty-strickenen African Americans t dollars to give them a Muslim name? If W.D. Fard was a Muslim immigrantaps ethnic with religious and perh and linguistic ties to the East,an, Afghanistan, particularly to what is now Ir and Pakistan, this might explainis followers why he described himself and h as Asiatics (in“al-Sharqiyyun” the Westerners”). as against “the He never said that they were Africansn to Africa. or that they should retur He never said that they were Moors. He who should return to Morocco stated that theyho were needed Asiatics to returnis, w to to Asia. Th Morrow, suggestsard identifiedthatwith W.D. Asia. F Had W.D. Fard been an African American he or an Anglo American, would have been held by police authorities.er to If he was turned ov immigration, it was because theyndeed knew a or believed that he was i foreigner, argues Morrow. By this had been time, however, Fard or Farrad in the country for three decades.naturalized “Surely, he should have been at this point,” observes Morrow,to maintain “unless he deliberately chose a clandestineparatist and se lifestyle.” Although he only intimated tos Divine, his closest followers that he wa Morrow confirmsard revealed that F that he white was thedevils Deity to the at Detroit Police Headquarters.tablished Morrow has thus definitively es that it was Wali Fard Muhammad whoPerson presented himself as God-in- in Detroit in the earliest 1930s.rely Elijah Muhammad thus later me developed Wali Fard Muhammad’sntation earliest of (if confidential) prese himself. xvi Foreword

Concentrated upon Professor the figure Wallace ofor Delany Ford Wali Fard Muhammad, Morrow’s bookent amounts to a vanguard assessm of the impact of Third World Islam and Muslims upon America and Americans. I hope that after thisden his work is published, he will wi treatment of African-Americansom who the responded to that message fr East, among whom he has already examinedhen Elijah Muhammad, and t the latter’s son Warith ud- Muhammadrather and Louis Farrakhan to lesser extents. I have already been examining the responses to Fard by Ishmael Sammsan (SSN: 362-12-0277). Bornon thein Walnut Lake Ark, Arkansas, first of May ofcan 1894, American this Afri laborer’s sect joined in the Fard early 1930s after having beenic earlier cult in exposed late to a crypto-Islam childhood/earlyhe adolescence, Moorish Science tooble t Temple of N Drew ‘Ali, to Islamic elementst of in the black nationalist movemen Garvey, and possibly to (a somewhatab folklorish?) Islam among Ar migrants in Detroit after he moved there in 1917. From the 1920s onwards, and inuriosity large part as a result of the c aroused by Fard about what was isitedIslam, bythe Arab countries were v African-Americans who had joined,cts in or listened to, new Muslim se America. Arabic materials aboutome untapped their visits are a source for s primary data that has not survivedfeelings in Englishand itself about the some of the goals of African-Americans900 to who entered Islam from 1 1950. Secondly, the documentsns in to Arabic gauge will also help historia the reactions of the Arab side,how and far thus Islam up to a point measure as understood by , and implementedonstruct by them, really could c an integrative Islamic communityan also able to span continents and sp nationalities delimited by diverse languages. For some scholars based in thenovel West, converts to Islam evolve and sometimes unique interpretationsachieve their and applications of it to special needs and interests.dence We find on these partial, but valuable, evi issues in an article titled “Islammrikah”) in America” (“al-Islamu fi A serialized by Cairo’sMinbar pan-Arab al-Sharq (Tribune newspaper of the the East), in 1948. This newspaper wasn- a forum for advocates of both pa Arab and pan-Islamic unity. Thelleled serialized in article, seldom para length for thatsubject, newspaper was on an anythe edited editor’s text of interviews with Ishmael Sammsan,rd a one-time follower of Wali Fa Muhammad (“Professor Ford”) who n had founded the Black Muslims i 1930 in Detroit -- which by then hadThe become Samson’s home town. interview(s), and Samson’s provisionn the wake of notes, were conducted i of his completion of a Cairo to : he had then come to hoping to study at the Islam’s Muslim ancient faithiversity. al-Azhar Un Finding W.D. Fard:the Identity Unveiling of thexvii Founder of the Nation of Islam Samson had wanted to equip himselfdhakha’ir) with “the treasures” ( of Arabic and Islam so that hery, could the onUnited his return to his count States, spread the light of Islamho had among already those of his brothers w converted to it but were not yetach grounded Islam to enough in it, and pre those who were stillstressed unreached. that only he He had the desired reward of the Hereafter throughSamson study in Egypt. The venture of beyond doubt manifested unusualve. After courage, all, capacity, and initiati he had been denied entry into Canadaer on September 27, 1935, aft attempting to visit a friend byded the in name of Mr. Turner who resi Windsor, Ontario.s of However, Sammsan defectinns his before preparatio departure, Cairene red tape,k and of visionthe narrow outlook and the lac of al-Azhar institutions and governmentgypt laid bodies in monarchical E many stumbling-blocks beforewhich his achieving he things in Egypt for had hoped. While Sammsan’s visit to Egyptd blue- cost him a lot as a straightene collar American black for theh ticket,serialized it did win him an in-dept coverage of neo-Muslim Afro-Americansand from in the Egyptian media -- a newspaper widely read in Arabre West is that Asia to boot. The irony he the institutionsypt had for of Eg the timem or failed Arabic to to teach Isla Sammsan, while Sammsann educating succeeded Egyptiansbs i and Ara about his group of faraway Muslimsxotic in and another continent still e unfamiliar for inMiddle comparison oEasterners tain.t or Bri The lengthy article presented of Haj Sammsan’s conceptualizations Islam, and his detailed memoriesg blacks of the in evolution of Islam amon America in the era of the firstHis halfobservations of the twentieth century. pointed to some possibilitieslack for America the Arabs, black Africa and b to build a compound triangular that relationship would crossing continents pivot around Islam. ItMinbar seems al-Sharq that acutely the editors of grasped the future political Islam importance in the of this early growth of most powerful country in the world,idarity America. with They also felt sol American blacksacist as they oppression facedom r whatand violence fr Minbar al-Sharq was coming to define as a shared Anglo-American imperialistMinbar al-Sharqenemy. processed the article with painstaking care so that it would bring alleaders those in issues their home to its Arab r full, sharp detail. The lengthy serialized articleerican on Ishmael Sammsan and black Am Muslims was printed in the contextrabs ofthat a growing feeling among A the United Statest Harry under Truman Presiden (r.as striving 1945-1953) w to aid the birth of the Staterom of itsIsrael owners “and grab [Palestine] f the Arabs.”Minbar al-Sharq noted in an article in the number of March 26, 1948 that the U.S. governmentt had the worked United to pass a resolution a xviii Foreword

Nations to partition Palestinef by the “purchasing the consciences o delegates.” “O American Embassy to in Egypt: will you not transmit President Trumany has that become, his countr becauselicy, the of his po most hated among lands for the Arabs?” U.S. [Habib Jamati, “A Failed Attempt” (“Muhawalah AmrikiyyahMinbar al-Sharq, March Fashilah”) 26, 1948 p. 1].Minbar However, al-Sharq’s copious in representation of his views, Sammsan atoned no pointeither menti Americanascent Jews, or n Israel: the pre-1975 NOI did lnot whites so often who see “oppressive” loca were Jews as such, although some1956-1970) items on (faraway) Nasser (r. and Palestine/Israelppear in their did atabloids. Some of recent pilgrim Ishmaellam in Sammsan’s new vision of Is his 1948 interviewsMinbar al-Sharq waswith of an Islamization of the individual that comes throughovements cumulative contact with several m that have some aspects to them. of The Islam impactment of or one move one individual advocate alonedividuals is not enough to convince some in that an Islam in which he or sheSammsan’s was not born is true. Ishmael exposure to them teachings began in his of childhood, Isla he was still when more a boy than an adolescent. named “In 1909, Dr. there came to us a man Carter who founded a secret society. founding I that learned a year after its it used to advocate Islam.” Theving Hill-Billies, in the white fanatics li mountains in the USA’s southerninto states, fleeing intimidated Dr. Carter to “some unknown land: we did not that.” hear anything about him after In the narrativean, of Ishmaelthen, the Samms secretiveent of movem “Carter” was theeard first the nametime heof childhood hIslam, in or late early adolescence. The second timert of in which he encountered a so Islamist movement took place inin Detroit1917. after he migrated there Sally Howell’s claimsmail that Sammsan “Imam (1894-1970) Ito came Detroit in the late 1940s” (188)me can is be therefore said incorrect. The sa of Patrick D. Bowen’s “[i]nformation claim that life about Sammsan’s before arriving in Detroit videnceis still shows incomplete; the available e only that he was born in ArkansasDetroit in 1894 by and he was living in the late 1930s” (vol. 2, 459). Themself, testimony of Imam Sammsan hi documented in detail in an Arabic-languageplethora of article, provides a vital information. Although he living came from in the South, he had been Detroit since 1917.ammsan As explains, Ishmael in the 18year S 19

there came to Detroitd Mr. [Marcus] a man name Garvey.to stand He used as a street preacher callingit for in the a non- true religion of God, albe direct way, and many black men and When women responded to his call. the car company learnedt dismissed of that, fromall i its who service followed Mr. Garvey, tellingere. them to go to him and get a job th

Finding W.D. Fard:the Identity Unveiling of thexix Founder of the Nation of Islam Garvey’s (1887-1940) was a movementy in the of a black nationalism full public sphere,ypto-Islam as against of the “Carter:”ly cr spread it open awareness about ingAfrica, to Ishmael but accordements also spread of el Islam among the black masses inmention Detroit. While Sammsan did not the name, we know that the Sudanese5) was Dusé Mohamed ‘Ali (1866-194 a key adviser to Garvey from themportant beginning and also among the i journalists of the Negromovement’s World. newspaper Garvey’s was a movement that channeledages diverse elements and im about Islam and Muslims in Africacks and in Asia to the masses of bla Detroit, but in combination withns, othersothers about non-Muslim Africa of a about whichd U.S. feelings, blacks increasingly had mixe and many images of Anglo-Saxon lifeU.S. and ideology towards which blacks felt positive as well as hostile feelings. Then Ishmael Sammsan encounteredthe in Detroit a local branch of “Moorish” movement of the Noble Drews ‘Ali (1886-1929). Ishmael’ description of this movementb to world the people was of Egypt and the Ara precise and exact: he hinted thatts with Drew the mixed non-Islamic elemen correct teachingse conveyed of Islam to that theacks. masses h of bl Before Ishmael Sammsan seriouslyded entered into Islam he had nee cumulative four contact or five with movementsaps more or -- -- perh that conveyed emancipatorypretations of inter elementsto blacks, of Islam along with much content from manyepts. domestic The U.S. issues and conc process of convertingn America to can Islam beof lessi sudden a matter exposure to one set of communications by a from one source, followed blinding light and conversion,uccession than a chain of of exposures to a s Black groups that evoke Islam milieus to some withextent, and often also to Middle Eastern culture elementslace (heavily in Arab Detroit was the p America in whichin those blacks could most), staulate that in all an accum African-American’s psyche until conversion the critical for a lasting is reached. Sammsan’s with Islamo-Arab conversations Cairo, Muslims in despite his possibly put-on naiveté, in a quite would have to be looked at different way had he previouslyrabs had in in-depth interaction with A Detroit itself. Ishmael Sammsan considered thef the sect of Fard the most serious o Islamic movementsand the forof masses himblacks:

In the year 1930,n Detroitthere appeared theim, real whose i [sic] Musl name was W.D. Fard: he had come froms the . Thi Religion began to attract peopleer three to him, praise be to Allah. Ov years, fifty thousand in the hiscity hand, of Detroit embraced Islam by and I -- yes,one I of -- those was Muslims. xx Foreword

A former member of the Moorish Scienceel Temple of America, Ishma Sammsan states that he was broughtr he into Islam by W.D. Fard afte appeared in Detroit. This stronglylah Temple suggests that W.D. Fard’s Al of Islam was not a sect of the MSTA. it would As strange as it may seem, appear that its primary appeal authenticity was its claim to greater Islamic and orthodoxy. In fact, the newnsidered hajj Ishmael Sammsan in 1948 co the Nation of Islam sect of Fardments the among purest of the Islamic move blacks in all the United Stateshe purity that had of arisen thus far. But t Islamic content was a relative with issue its in this context of America unusual ethnic antagonisms ybrid-Islamicand structure, and its distinctive h spin-offs from the Christianity of Europe and its tenets. In many cases, a complex of elementsve to and diverse encounters ha apply joint or cumulative pressureuccession at aof single point, or in a s points, before a by then seriouslyan make alienated that African-American c final jump from the Christianityan did of not his parents to Islam. Samms just encounter five black nationalistelements of movements that bore some Islam, but also was influencedcks by within discussion of Islam among bla other novel institutions runeo-Islam by whites was themselves: the coming n not formed only in the black movements.igrated After Ishmael Sammsan m to Detroit in 1917, “I got a job There, with I the heard manufacturer of cars. people talking about Islam althoughas being I did not understand what w said.” The Ford Motor Companye mass-manufacture for th of cars and vehicles employed some Arab immigrants by side and their offspring side with black workers, although Sammsanrd plants did not state that. The Fo were a critical framework for therecently acquisition by blacks who had been small farmers in the Southr working- before they left, of blue-colla class skills that enabled them stratum to rise of theup into the level of the urban labor aristocracy. Thattimism in turn for provided the bases and op them to rise further up into the black ranks middle- of the business-founding class. The Black Muslims under mmadthe leadership of Wali Fard Muha became aware ofilities all the and possib discipliner social ascent for furthe that the Ford factories, withn lines, the collectivism offered: of its productio hence they cooperatedement in with the manag users of to black worke break strikes by white trade unionists. When Verlen McQueen, who was renamed Verlen ‘Ali by W.D. Fard in 1933, was arrested for attemptingdaughter to to his wife and Allah in 1937, Ishmael Sammsantter felt directed obliged to respond. In a le to the editorPittsburg ofCourier the, which was published on May 22, 1937, Sammsan described himselfn fact, as “a born Moslem” (14) when, i he was a convert. As he explained,

Finding W.D. Fard:the Identity Unveiling of thexxi Founder of the Nation of Islam The editorialThe Courier on of April 3 shows a slanderous statement in relation to Islamch I religion am a born ofmember. itwhi cultist A Detro is arrested in hising home a pot while of water heate had in which h threatened to boil his wife and sacrifice their 11-year-old to daughter as a Allah. This is a slanderous statementlam. aimed at the nation of Is Moslems do not sacrificeothers or sisters.theire one br true We serve th God and that is Allah.re righteous Moslems people at kill and will no unless forced to do so. (14)

This letter to the editor iscommence important with, for various reasons. To both its author, Ishmael Sammsan, Verlen and ‘Ali, its subject of criticism, were converted and reborn at thewever, hand of W.D. Fard. Sammsan, ho is adamant in describing Verlenn defending ‘Ali as a cultist and insists o “the nation of Islam.” Althoughlf Elijah from Muhammad distanced himse Verlen ‘Ali, the latter feltresult compelled of the to kill his family as a former’s decree. After all, ElijahTemple Muhammad, the leader of the People, stated that he would excommunicateiled to all followers who fa convert their family members. Verlener of ‘Ali was invariably a memb Elijah Muhammad’s Nation faction of Islam. of thes If Sammsan wa defending the dignity of the Nationnged to of Islam, he therefore belo another, more orthodox, branch believe of the movement, leading some to that W.D. Fard taught differentdisciples. versions of Islam to different Sammsan’s article was ignorant, most of, or concealed from the Arabs of the special doctrines remotead diffused, from orthodox Islam that Fard h including his assumption that him a direct to inspiration was enabling provide a wealth of seeminglyand new religion. myths about history, tenets, Sammsan’s Minbar article al-Sharq instead in depicted Fard as in his conflicts with the white authoritiesmuballigh just a commonplace (“conveyer”) of à the la Sunni Qur’anic Islam. call When the police, following his arrest, interrogated authority him from whom he derived his to direct blacks to Islam, Fardnd authorityreplied that “I draw my power a from the Qur’an, which you see mend nowover raise high in my right ha my head. My second final authorityds!” isBut God, the Lord of the Worl Fard was to hint at a special lecloseness of blacks, to God to an inner circ which was then stated after hisElijah disappearance by his successor Muhammad. This expansive senset himselfof self was to make Elijah depic after the Second World War as themunicator “Messenger” of God (ie. a com of information from “God” = Fard):n the “orthodox Eastern Muslims” i United States would in the nineteene that fifties and sixties denounc expansive vision of selfhoodf of Islam the twoas a leaders of the Nation o violation of the doctrine that sonprophecy of ended with Muhammad the ‘Abd Allah in Arabia in the seventhshmael century in However, the hajj I xxii Foreword

1948 did not declare any doctrine to the Arabs that Fard was an of God, which had come up in thers chatter following of some of his followe his final exit from unfriendlyrrow’s Detroit, book. one fulcrum-point of Mo Sharp images that Black Muslim esIshmael Sammsan offered of scen of violent clashes between his NOId to group and white Americans ha resonate among Arabs angry thatron the and USA was shaping up as a pat protector of gion.Israel Sammsan in their narrated re that

on April 27, 1934, the police Fard]stormed was our club and our leader [ arrested and taken to the policeundred headquarters. However, three h Muslim men, women and children,re followed a him to the station whe pitched battle started. It surprised of Muslims that this very small group gave such a toughemselves account to of the th ringpolicemen, 180, numbe who were protecting The battle the station. endedutes. in twelve They min directed the dirtiestnsults against typesimprisoned of the i Muslims and many after it emerged that twoly police injured. officers had been serious [For the whiteccount American of thisDetroit a clashFree Press 18 see and 19 April 1934, summarizedCrescent Moon Paul Rising: L. Williams, the Islamic Transformation of America (NY: Prometheus Books 2013) pp. 67, 286].

Traditionally, in the South ofof originthe United of States -- the region most who joined Fard’s movementhites in the were cities of the North -- w exercising greaty over social most authoritblacks.ully mustered They skillf all the instruments of their powerchological and all its symbols with psy precision to make and keep themThey as their made broken-down servants. “the Negroes” think a hundred timesnever about dire consequences whe they might wantishes to state and needstheirtes.” beforew “the whi The followers’ psychologicalcan self-confidence before Euro-Ameri culture that their imagined hearts,Islamic theirhistory nourished in their lack of fear that the followers of of any Wali Fard Muhammad displayed violence from whites -- these unprecedentedembers dimensions in the m spread fear of them among Michigan’ss had Euro-Americans. The Muslim reversed the traditional relative,” relished positions of the two “nations Ishmael. Ishmael Sammsan did not in Cairo,nted at least in this lengthy pri Arabic text, apply the word “devils”Fard to the whites, which Wali Muhammad had termed them. Ishmaela) did not to the Arabs either ( mention Elijah Muhammad, and thushe faction is unlikely to have been of t of that intimated after associate the break-up ofvement Far ofin thethe mo wake of Fard’s 1935 exit from Detroit,devils” to nor (b) apply the word “ whites. That strongas lacking leadership in themovement wBlack Muslim in the tradition of Wali Fard Muhammad,for a time in the lead-up to, and Finding W.D. Fard:the Identity Unveiling of thexxiii Founder of the Nation of Islam after, World War II, set Ishmaelnk Sammsan and others free to thi independently in novel ways leftas individuals, America especially if they to Muslim countries. Black Muslim thinkers in the movements that Wali Fard Muhammad founded always have had a precisey and understanding of the machiner means of the power and authorityd theof whites in America and aroun globe. But the general framer of the the believers ideology of the sect was fo to await intervention by God,. HisIn contrast, execution of the white devils al-Hajj Ishmael Sammsan monitorede whites the global institutions of th with a sharpness that can impelp organize those who think like him to hel counter-institutions in contemporaryte institutions history to disable the whi and their functions. Internationaleld out chances , to in particular, h build joint counter-institutionsfor that with purpose. Arab Muslims in the East Ishmael SammsanMinbar through al-Sharq met the Arab nationalists who hated activitiesthe Americans as one means in a battery that mustered to spread their “materialist”orld. The imperialism around the w veteran pan-Islamist poet ‘Alil that al-Ghayyati wrote in an editoria

the United States,under sometimes the guise of cial bringing life, commer and sometimes under the guise ofad education,its aims solely to spre influence [in the East], and[Egypt] to win a tofoothold in this country make it a colony where it can propagatethrough its materialist spirit money, or even throughing. America proselytiz hasr one never day even fo been a true friend of Egypt but sh was always on the side of Briti colonialism.

Al-Ghayyati turned the minds fof the Egyptians first back to the insults o President Roosevelt when he visitedthe era Cairo of in 1910: “America in Truman is the same America that ownthe East has known as it has kn Britain: the two are exactly theeans same but with some difference in m agreement in aims”Amrikah [al-Ghayati, wa al-Sharq” and “ the (“America East”),Minbar al-Sharq May 7, 1948: 1]. Black Muslims have seen Christianityke blacks as a tool of whites to ma submissive. Sammsan added a new ddimension of to Black Muslim hatre black clergymen when, narratingities the in efforts by the white author Detroit to end Fard’s sect, hergymen portrays there the black Christian cle as an independent force that outr own of self-interest moved on thei initiative to push the whitesk toChristian crush the Muslims -- that Blac clerics were in a way the source Islam of the in ordeal of the Nation of Detroit to late’s 1934. view, In the Sammsan black not an clerics inert were weapon in the hands of whites,gn. but Sammsan those who set off the campai imagined that the leaflets of Walihad Fard Muhammad over the years xxiv Foreword

caused many [black] Christians the to men embrace Islam, which panicked of the church who then pressed the the police authorities who duly ordered to investigate the situations aand religion if necessary eliminate Islam a alien to America...stormed The our police clubsor and Fard took Profes to police headquarters.

The black pastors who used to condemnhe grounds Fard’s Islam in 1932 on t that it was “a new ” thatin Detroit, the authorities did had to crush indeed do so as the authentic wasleaders to be of the black churches, as documented decadessearches later ofby Evanzztheee, re for in 1999. S example, the data ofThe Karl Messsenger: Evanzz The Rise and cited in Fall of Elijah Muhammad (98). The memory of Ishmael Sammsan in 1948, after 14 years, was that “the nformationpolice department was gathering i about the Muslims from the blacked wouldChristians” before what it hop be its decisiveacks wave on the of cultatt in 1934. Fard already spread liking forn: his resurgent, albeit fascist, Japa disciple Elijah and his colleagueshat. But paid Black with prison terms for t Muslim leaders had focused Islamm up as the ideology that would fir opposition to local enemy whites Sammsan in the USA. The more globalist in 1948 to the Arabs depicted U.S. wide whites as one component in a international white communitys under extending the itself across continent guise or instrument of Christianity:

The European man does not like to, see the blacks become Muslims because he knows that Islam ishe the all- religion of Nature and has t irradiating Light So, he to sends regulate his to missionariesthe it. ends of the globe and aidsres Christianitythem as he hefi targets off as arrows at their [the blacks’] minds. Therebyn them and he interposes himself betwee the dignity and strength thatrs, the making it of the True Belief offe easy for him to reduce them to slave laborers.

The multi-millionaires are sendingiding them to Africa, prov with all means ofs to force exploit and dures thosee under black the peopl guise of Christianity,on that prompts the religider them to surren absolutely to the will of the all whites, the as it misrepresents that humiliation and degradationsworld that will they will now suffer in this be rewarded to themof the in theHereafter Abode after death.

This formulation by the Hajj Ishmael Sammsan in 1948 was one distinguished internationalizationinking of of his old sect’s non-stop l Christianity’s turn-the-cheekaimed theme it had to functions the Muslims cl in white domination and exploitationochial of blacks in the USA’s par domestic environment.

Finding W.D. Fard:the Identity Unveiling of thexxv Founder of the Nation of Islam Criticisms by black Muslims ofes the of institutions and technologi whites always harboredfocused a respect sharply-ls for as their skil techniques. The hajj Ishmael Sammsan:

I have always admired [U.S.] millionaires’d huge preparedness to spen amounts of moneye Christianto aidssionaries the whit mined in statio the jungles and scrub-lands. They call of the Africastianity blacks to Chri while not allowing any of thosem at wretched a meal- blacks to sit with the table or to enter the homes theyous” enter, to carry out the “preci Christianity they bestowed upon them.

Al-Azhar in Egypt’s late monarchicalial period was sending its init delegations to ascertain theSenegal, conditions and of Muslims in Nigeria, East Africa, but it was Presidentm around Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasser who, fro 1955, sent Azharloads teachers, of Arabic bale-lations books and into trans African languages.ed pan-Arabism, Nasser promot pan- pan-Africanism, , and cooperative solidarity. But the with Third World countries Egypt to which Sammsan had come try.for aid in 1948 was a poor coun Overall, Sammsan in Egypt wasm striding the at a fast pace away fro myths of his NOI sect that as farited as for macro-history God went only wa through his Last Day to annihilatenow sought all whites in the world. He an Islam that in secular life,t programs including to globally, would conduc change reality incrementallyng though back just precise work, without sitti waiting for the intervention of God. Hajj Ishmael wanted both to comend tointo an emerging new Egypt, a bring al-Azhar to his sector ofo places, black America, and unite the tw bridgingectually the intell broad ocean that separates them:

I learned that Al-Azhar sends, envoys but that to many parts of the world Muslims in America received noims portion in from this care. And Musl the United States are ignorant in ofneed their of religion: they are most personnel to guidecate them them and in the edum and culture to of Isla give them wide ngaid Islamic in establishi ritualsblishment and the of esta . [Interviews of al-Hajj and scriptsIsma‘il-Islam Samsun, fi “al Amrika” (“IslamMinbar in al-Sharq America”), June 18, 1948: 3; July 2, 1948: 2; July 9, 1948: 3; and July 23, 1948].

Dr. John Andrew Morrow, the author a wide of this book, has unearthed range of data aboutreer Sammsan’s as a MuslimUSA ca leader upon in the his return to the USA from Egyptrt in for 1948. Failing to find suppo fledgling African American Muslimtes from communities in the United Sta Arabs and Africans,an returned Ishmael Sammsto Americaanded. empty-h The 54-year-old Sammsan left Alexandria,ive Egypt, aboard the Khed xxvi Foreword

Ismail, and arrived in New York onave September 28, 1948. He may h returned to Egypt a second timesen, for, who a man listed as Ismael Sam claimed to be a ptian,50-year arrived old Egy ington, Tacoma, in Washin May of 1940, abroad the Aurora. n,He viahad departed from Kobe, Japa Granite and Miike, Japan. Thisd into was the World year before Japan entere War II. Ishmael Sammsan spentetroit the rest region of his life in greater D where he met considerabless. As Patrick succe D., Bowen explains

After returning to the US in Septemberg so in the of that year -- and doin accompaniment of one of Iowa’s prominenties, immigrant Muslim famil the Aosseys -- Sammsan went to aDetroit group, where he organized both the Universal Muslim Brotherhoodosque, of Al-Islam, and, in 1952, a m called, initially,mmsan Abdullah the Hajj Sassion) (Islamic Mi and later, Al-Mu’mineen. Sammsan’s Mosque main followers, unsurprisingly,erican were AfricanSunnis, Ammanybeen of whom had in the early NOI; but over the immigrant next few years a wide variety of Muslims began attendingque as well, the and mos Sammsanone became of Detroit’s leadinges. Despite Muslim his figurwever, prominence, ho there was some fluctuation int mid-decade the mosque due to the fact that a the community lostto a both few Muslimsthe NOIy, and, apparentl emigration, when a family of fifteento Cairo. black converts immigrated (vol. 2, 460)

As Bowen has noted, the FBI reportedundreds in 1959 that there were h of old African Americanho refused Muslims to recognize w Elijah Muhammad as their, 460). leader He (vol. seemsclude 2 correct that to con “these were probably mostly the460). followers It of Sammsan” (vol. 2, would also be safe to assume thatced mostto Islam of them had been introdu by W.D. Fard. Rather than follow follow Elijah Muhammad, they opted to Imam Sammsan. Althoughthat Sammsan the Islam promotedmore was far orthodox than the one preached by Elijah Muhammad, its Fardian influences werefact, unmistakable. in a tracted In shortly he disseminat after returning from Egypt inajj 1948, Ismail he described himself as: “H Sammsan, Americanal citizen, or lineage, ancestrhe ‘Arab,’ ‘Tribe of from t Shabazz,’ birthed in thest, State 1894” of (Howell Arkansas, 188). May the 1 Over time, however, he would graduallyonent of cast off the racial comp Fard’s teachings.Afro-American Writing on October to the 3, 1959, Sammsan stressed universal that Islam religion wascult: a and not a

Islam is the religionhole of humanity forand theI believet w would i be imperative that the West become it. a little better acquainted with

Finding W.D. Fard:the Identity Unveiling of thexxvii Founder of the Nation of Islam I notice that Islam is calledd be a cult.considered This is an error and coul an insult to theThe Muslim term world. should be all eliminated by newspapers.

Islam is not ligiona cult. given It is a to reanity the whole by Allah, of hum the ruler and sustainer of all of the world.

Every true Muslim bows down and ker,prostrate himself before his ma who is Allah. (4)

Hajj Sammsan’s accomplishmentslly are illustrated in detail by Sa HowellOld Islam in in Detroit (188-193). He diligently promoted a serious study of Islam (189-190). He stronglyand mutual emphasized social events aid (190). The largely Africantion American were members of the congrega committed to transforming themselvesmselves personally and linking the with the global community of Islamshmael (190). Over time, however, I Sammsan, became increasingly eager from to disassociate his movement the Nation of Islam. Although d,originally Imam a disciple of W.D. Far Sammsan eventuallyican created mosque an for Amer all Muslims, regardless of race. However, thisrk of diverse, international, netwo believers, did not last long. As Howell diagnosed,

Al-Mu’mineen’sss policy came at of a openne price.ucational While its ed programs were overseenammsan himselfby Imam Sd in by the 1950s, an other converts or Mike Karoub ine the 1960s, these classes becam increasingly hierarchical and Muslims culturally biased as foreign-born (internationalries, students, and newly missiona asserted arrived imams) their authority over the convertstyle population… of [T]he domineering devout immigrants could be frustrating.st Among those who felt mo alienated by thisan was himself, Imam Samms who inleft the mosque 1964 and foundede congregation. an alternativ (193)

Hajj Sammsan founded the Universal683 Consolidation of Islam at 5 Maybury Grand, Detroit, MI 48208,owing in 1964. He included the foll statement of purpose in its articles of incorporation:

To promote the Religion of Al-Islamed in the in its entirety, as expound Holy Qur’an, and illustrated by1300 the Holy Prophet Muhammad over years ago. Be it resolved, that this the incorporated and members of corporation areith not the connected Black Muslims,ther w Cult, nor any o at home, or abroad, directly,iety, or indirectly, societies, nor any secret soc or the Communist Party. Be ition further of Islam, resolved, that this Relig is not prejudiced, colors, towards language, racesorigin. or This national great religionall Islam, individual abolishesctions, and class thus distin xxviii Foreword

lays down the basis of a vast brotherhood, women in which all men and have equal rights, so much so thatrights no ofone can trample upon the another, and all praise is duer of to all Allah! the The ruler and sustaine Worlds. (qtd. Howell 191)

Hajj Sammsan was listed as the Imamline along with his wife, Gwendo Sammsan, and Anas Hassan, as incorporatingl members. Hajj Ishmae Sammsan Abdullah, whose photograph appears on page 189 of Sally Howell’sOld Islam in Detroit, passed away in Wayne, Michigan, in December of 1970.was dissolvedThe group in 1977.

Overview

Overall, the impression that Dr.i Fard Morrow’s data leaves is of Wal Muhammad as a heretical innovatorundered who used all the themes he pl from an impressive range of IslamicEast to sects and movements in the exalt himself in the West. Forhis the process most part, Fard was not in t playing second fiddle to the whoseShiite non- Islamic figures of the East Western images he seized withed his to two exalt hands for roles he ascrib himself, up to and including incarnate divinity. Fard appropriatedf militant most images oppositionetailed o that he r from the region of Baluchistan which is now divided among Iran, Afghanistan, andmerican Pakistan situations to African- faced by his A American converts: he did not togenuinely Islamic orientate them so much movements and states of the Thirdthe World.hajj His Detroit follower, Ishmael Sammsan, however, did tryown to move from Fard’s thinned-d remnants of Third World MuslimsAsia to the and actual Sunni Muslims of Africa. Sammsanonverts wanted likegifted himselflam c in the to learn Is Third World at institutionsular-educated with a range of staff, and with sec journalists observing, not fromuntry. a single On his emissary to his own co return home to DetroitArab world from he the condemnedr having Fard fo misdirectedican-American Afr converts.

CHAPTER1

W.D. FARD: ISSUESO OFRIGIN

1.1 Introduction

Wallace D. Fard, the mystery mangan, who on appeared in Detroit, Michi July 4, 1930, is an enigma wrappedasic details,in a riddle. Besides a few b nothing else is known about hisgins life and (Levinsohn the 47). Fard’s ori source of his teachingszzled and haveperplexed pufor more researchers than three quarters According of a century. to Michael, “[t]here A. Gomez is consensus that W.D. Fard Muhammadited was born outside of the Un States” (277). r,There dissident are, howeve views discussed that will be later. Likely, his perceivedcal foreignness appearance. derived from his physi A racially ambiguous W.D. Fard individual, was describedrange- as “st looking” (Lomax 41). A more positive fair term would be “exotic.” “A guess,” wrote Peter Louis Goldman,grant” “is that he was an Arab immi (36). He was of “palering” yellow (Lomax colo 41)an dusky”and “paler th (Karim 8). From a white perspective,plexion he had a dark European com (White 30). From a black perspective,light- he would be described as skinned. In the eyes of Malcolm (qtd. X, he was “light-brown-skinned” Marable 93). W.D. Fard was described by Florence98) Hamlish Levinsohn (1926-19 as being “an extraordinarily handsome,th thick sensitive-looking man wi dark hair and brows, what appears ‘white’ to be olive-colored skin, and features’” (52). Based on herd impressions,might be she figured that Far viewed as a light-skinned blackeatures or a white (52). with Mediterranean f For Claude Andrew Clegg III, Fardeige- was “fair-skinned” (21) or “b skinned” (198). Hazel,law wife, his described common-ving a him as ha “dark, swarthy” Magida complexion 48; FBI (qtd.According file 3 / 136). to Karl Evanzz,

His skin was swarthy;ican Americans many Afr mistookLatino him for a or an Arab, as Detroit had America’sunity largest Arab American comm in the early 1930s.one woman His recalled,eyes, al color. were an unusu

2 Chapter 1

They looked “maroon,” she said. and He wore expensive looking robes usually eitheroon fez a or marJudas a turban. 133) (

“His coloring was fair,” writesck” Goldman,(36). In and “his hair oily bla the words of Evanzz,looked W.D. like Fard an erhaps“East Indian a or p Caucasian with anThe Messengerenviable 73). tan” For Thomas ( Peele, “[h]e had olive vanzz, skin” (48). he “resembled To EThe a Hindu” ( Messenger 411). His straight hair was ebony (Karim 7; Clegg 21; DeCaro Malcolm and the Cross 12; Evanzz,The Messenger 73;Judas 132); his eyes were black; his erfect;white teeth and hisweretle smile (Evanzz,p was gen The Messenger 73). He dressed like a fashion model and looked like a distinguished diplomatThe Messenger 73). (Evanzz, Since W.D. Fard “looked white” (Perry 128, 143),ruggled Elijah Muhammad (1897-1975) st in vain to find any black Africanrst met traits him in his face when he fi (Evanzz,The Messenger 73). As Evanzz correctly captures, “his facial features were simply not thoseThe Messenger associated with Africans” ( 73). Not only was his appearancend intriguing, his many aliases a conflicting history made him even man? more mysterious. Who was this Where did he come from? And whatons was were he all about? These questi asked then and continue to be asked today.

1.2 A Man of Many Names

The peddler of silk, satin,used and scripture, over fifty is reported to have aliases, over the course of fouruding: years, Wallace from 1930 to 1934, incl Don Ford; Wallei Ford; Wallie D.; Wallace Ford; Wally D. Ford; W.D. Ford Farad; W.D. Feraud; Fred Dodd; Onerd; Allah; W.D. Fard; Wallace Fo Wallie Ford; Wallace D. Fard; Wallacead; Don Fard; Wallace Don Far W.D. Farrad; W.D. Mohammed; W.D.F. Mohammed; W.D. Fard Mohammed; W.D. Farrow Mohammed; W.D. Ferrad Muhammad; ; W.F. Muhammad; W.D. Farard; W.D. Farrard; W.D. Farrow; W.D. Farard; One Mahadiah; One Mohammed; Fard Muhammad; W.D.F. Mukmuk; ‘Ali Mohammad; Mohammad ‘Ali; Wali Farrad; Mohammad Wali; F. li; Mohammad F. ‘Ali ‘A Mohammad; Farrad Mohammad; Mohammad Farrad; Allah; Wally Ford; Walker Ford; W. Ford; Moehamat ‘Ali; Mohamid ‘Ali; ‘Ali Mohamoud ‘Ali; Mohamed Alli; Mohammed; Wali Mohammed; Wallay Mohammed; Walli Mohammed; Mohammed Wali; Wallace Muhammad; Wallace D. Muhammad; Fard Mohammed; Mohammed Fard; Muhammad Fard; and W.F. Muckmuck (Evanzz,The Messenger , 445). He was also known as Farrad Mohammad, Mr. F.M. ‘Ali, Professor Ford, and8) as Wali Farrad (Lomax 41; Karim well as F. Muhammad ‘Ali (Goldmanrry 36), Wallace Delaney Fard (Pe