Muhammad, Sultan 1 Sultan Muhammad Oral History Interview Thursday, February 28, 2019 Interviewer: This is an interview with Sultan Muhammad as part of the Chicago History Museum Muslim Oral History Project. The interview is being conducted on Thursday, February 28, 2019 at 3:02 pm at the Chicago History Museum. Sultan Muhammad is being interviewed by Mona Askar of the Chicago History Museum’s Studs Terkel Center for Oral History. Could you please state and spell your first and last name? Sultan Muhammad: My name is Sultan Muhammad. S-u-l-t-a-n Last name, Muhammad M-u-h-a-m-m-a-d Int: When and where were you born? SM: I was born here in Chicago in 1973. In the month of January 28th. Int: Could you please tell us about your parents, what they do for a living. Do you have any siblings? SM: My father, may blessings be on him, passed in 1990. He was also born here in Chicago. He is a grandson of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. He grew up in the Nation of Islam, working for his father, Jabir Herbert Muhammad who was the fight manager for Muhammad Ali and business manager of the Nation of Islam. Sultan Muhammad, my father, was also a pilot. He was the youngest black pilot in America at the time. Later he became an imam under Imam Warith Deen Mohammed after 1975. My mother, Jamima was born in Detroit. She is the daughter of Dorothy Rashana Hussain and Mustafa Hussain. Robert was his name before accepting Islam. Both moved from Detroit to Pittsburgh where my grandfather on my mother’s side became an Imam and a minister in the Nation of Islam. Int: That is quite a history of the Nation of Islam, your father’s relation with Elijah Muhammad and your mother. Was she part of the Nation of Islam in Detroit? SM: Yes. She was born into the Nation of Islam. My grandfather on my mother’s side came into the Nation of Islam as a captain in Detroit. I believe it was 1957. He was one of the original captains in Temple Number One in those days, as they were called. He was then assigned as a minister by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in Pittsburgh where the family then moved from Detroit to Pittsburgh. The significance at that time was that Temple Number One was just that. It was the first temple established by Master Fard Muhammad, Sultan 2 Muhammad. Fard Muhammad who is the founder of the Nation of Islam. Then, proving himself as a strong organizer, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad assigned him as a minster in what was then a very small town, Pittsburgh, in his mind coming from Detroit where he spent his adult life and met my grandmother, Dorothy, there. Int: Your father was the youngest black pilot. Say more about that. SM (4:26): His rearing allowed him not to have any boundaries as to what he wanted to be. He had a wide range of interests. He was at first into swimming, but he had a passion for flying. He went to a local air hanger, Meigs Field, here in Chicago where he met a Mr. Stovall. These are stories I would hear, growing up that he would tell, and my grandmother would tell. He said, one day, that he wanted to fly. For us, in the Nation of Islam, he was a student at Muhammad University of Islam where we focus on science and technology in engineering and hard sciences. It was supported deeply so he began to first, save his money. It was part of the heritage of our family. If you wanted, you had to show you really wanted it by putting in the work to do it. He started by cleaning stables on the west side of Chicago where he learned how to ride horses. He was an expert in riding horses. Literally, my uncles, his brothers would tell stories of how he could make a horse dance. Int: In Chicago? [Both laugh] SM: He was literally shoveling horse manure which took his way through flight school. At a young age, coming out of fifteen going into sixteen he became a pilot. He earned his license flying and then later he achieved a degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Americas in Mexico. He then dedicated his life to the development through business working for his father, Jabir Herbert Muhammad. These were businesses established by the Nation of Islam. Jabir, his father, was one who opened our first studio for photography. Much of the photography was used in our national newspaper, Muhammad Speaks and publications. He then opened The Bakery where the bean pie was established. He then opened the newspaper, Muhammad Speaks. A lot of this established the trust of his father, Elijah Muhammad to manage other businesses in the Nation of Islam. My dad was really in The Bakery. We would hear stories about how long the hours he would work as a young man in The Bakery. That primed him to be one of the grandchildren of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was very close to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. He became a personal aide at that time. After he earned his license, he was being groomed by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad as a close person aide, security handler and that kind of thing. Int (8:42): Your grandfather was the fight manager for Muhammad Ali? Could you tell us a little about that? SM (8:54): Yes, Main Bout is the name of the company he started. He began managing Muhammad Ali on the direction of Elijah Muhammad. At that time, it was a Muhammad, Sultan 3 very closed area for black people to be in the field of management, particularly in the fight business which was run by Italian Mafia. You have your Joe Louis stories in all of this. When Muhammad Ali announced he would become a member of the Nation of Islam after winning the heavyweight championship, is when his management began to be picked up by the Nation of Islam, out of protecting him from, what we would call, the worldly aspects of the sport and the fight business. Jabir Herbert Muhammad was his fight manager but really his personal manager and confident throughout his fight career and afterwards. They were very, very close and in the beginning, this liberation from The Louisville, there was a group of investors that were managing Muhammad Ali at the time. It was a difficult process to get him from that management group. I forget the exact name, but I think they were the Louisville Management group and they were a group of rich individuals who focused on sponsorship, small payments here and there in that mix of athletes who were being paid very low amounts of money for their work. In liberating him from this, he began to earn some of the highest purses, they call it in the fight business, of any athlete in any arena. Herbert Muhammad at that time, they didn’t know who he was meaning the general fight industry did not know who this individual was. One of the historical backgrounds of that is they mentioned that whoever is managing Ali, they refused to call him Ali. At the time he was Cassius Clay. They would shoot out their kneecaps. There was a news story that moved through the media. At that time, the Nation of Islam was growing heavily, it was very strong and influential in the community. Those were the kind of psychological games that would be played, some of them very real, others psychological games but once the word was established that this is the son of Elijah Muhammad, Herbert Muhammed. I think the newspaper article ran, “The Mafia who are threatening my son, let them know they have knee caps too.” This was the verbal warfare that was going on. It showed that at the time how many athletes were being exploited in the fight game. It was through Jabir Herbert Muhammed that we now see how any athlete is able to make millions and millions of dollars from the fight industry. He was one of the first independent black fight management companies and managers. I think Time magazine named him Manager of the Year. Now, Alhamdulillah, Praise be to God, inducted in the Hall Of Fame in this area. It is an important history of Chicago, even though they were both born in different cities, he settled here. Chicago is like the second home to Muhammad Ali. His training gym was here in Chicago in Hyde Park. Int (14:25): With all that background growing up as a child, how was it growing up with that legacy, with that history in your community? SM: When you are in it, it is day-to-day life. My father, I want to say, I didn’t learn from him until much later in life that he was the youngest black pilot in America at that time. Those were things I learned later. What I noticed and Muhammad, Sultan 4 felt most from him was his self-determination. This was a man who had an insatiable desire and curiosity for knowledge. Whatever area he decided he was going to go into, he perfected it. It wasn’t hard for me to see that throughout his life, he was focused. In swimming he was a life guard, scuba diving, he was an equestrian, pilot. (laughs) Later he dedicated his life to the study of Islam.