Bearing False Witness to Allah

Been re-reading the autobiography of Malcolm X, if you haven't read it yet you should not only is it well written and very adictive it's introduction by Alex Haley whom co wrote the book with Malcolm over a number of years does an effective job of demolishing most of the accusations heaped on him by both White and Black establishment figures. The only real traction left is the charge of sexism, Malcolm wasn't quite so enlightened about women. But given that he was prepared to re-evaluate his own beliefs and retract views that no longer held water like believing all white people were Devils (that was a literal accusation by the way), I personally believe had he not been killed in 1965 and survived long enough to experience the Women's liberation movement both in the white and black community he would also discard his misogyny. Now admittedly that's pure speculation but it would be consistent, especially considering a lot of his misogynistic views came from women he associated with both on the streets of Harlem and in the Nation of Islam.

Anyway one thing that stuck out for me was the chapter Satan in particular its last few pages. Satan details his imprisonment on burglary charges, but more importantly it explains how became a follower of the Nation of Islam and a "Black Muslim". I put quotation marks there because I believe the name "Black Muslim" in regards to the Nation of Islam and its followers, because they don't actually follow Islam. Rather like the Mormons they take the doctrines of Islam and use it as a foundation for their own religious code, and it is very nutty. In fact to prove this I will qoute the final pages of the Satan chapter in its entirety in particular "Yacub's History".

　It was Hilda who said to me, "Would you like to hear how the white man came to this planet Earth?"And she told me that key lesson of Mr. Elijah Muhammad's teachings, which I later learned was the demonology that every religion has, called "Yacub's History." Elijah Muhammad teaches his followers that, first, the moon separated from the earth. Then, the first humans, Original Man, were a black people. They founded the Holy City Mecca.
　　Among this black race were twenty-four wise scientists. One of the scientists, at odds with the rest,created the especially strong black tribe of Shabazz, from which America's Negroes, so-called,descend.
　　About sixty-six hundred years ago, when seventy per cent of the people were satisfied, and thirty percent were dissatisfied, among the dissatisfied was born a "Mr. Yacub." He was born to create trouble,to break the peace, and to kill. His head was unusually large. When he was four years old, he began school. At the age of eighteen, Yacub had finished all of his nation's colleges and universities. He was known as "the big-head scientist." Among many other things, he had learned how to breed races scientifically.
　　This big-head scientist, Mr. Yacub, began preaching in the streets of Mecca, making such hosts of converts that the authorities, increasingly concerned, finally exiled him with 59, 999 followers to the island of Patmos-described in the Bible as the island where John received the message contained in Revelations in the New Testament.
　　Though he was a black man, Mr. Yacub, embittered toward Allah now, decided, as revenge, to create upon the earth a devil race-a bleached-out, white race of people.
　　From his studies, the big-head scientist knew that black men contained two germs, black and brown.
　　He knew that the brown germ stayed dormant as, being the lighter of the two germs, it was the weaker. Mr. Yacub, to upset the law of nature, conceived the idea of employing what we today know as the recessive genes structure, to separate from each other the two germs, black and brown, and then grafting the brown germ to progressively lighter, weaker stages. The humans resulting, he knew,would be, as they became lighter, and weaker, progressively also more susceptible to wickedness and evil. And in this way finally he would achieve the intended bleached-out white race of devils.
　　He knew that it would take him several total color-change stages to get from black to white. Mr. Yacub began his work by setting up a eugenics law on the island of Patmos.
　　Among Mr. Yacub's 59, 999 all-black followers, every third or so child that was born would show some trace of brown. As these became adult, only brown and brown, or black and brown, were permitted to marry. As their children were born, Mr. Yacub's law dictated that, if a black child, the attending nurse, or midwife, should stick a needle into its brain and give the body to cremators. The mothers were told it had been an "angel baby," which had gone to heaven, to prepare a place for her.
　　But a brown child's mother was told to take very good care of it.
　　Others, assistants, were trained by Mr. Yacub to continue his objective. Mr. Yacub, when he died on the island at the age of one hundred and fifty-two, had left laws, and rules, for them to follow.
　　According to the teachings of Mr. Elijah Muhammad, Mr. Yacub, except in his mind, never saw the bleached-out devil race that his procedures and laws and rules created.
　　A two-hundred-year span was needed to eliminate on the island of Patmos all of the black people-until only brown people remained.
　　The next two hundred years were needed to create from the brown race the red race-with no more browns left on the island.
　　In another two hundred years, from the red race was created the yellow race.
　　 Two hundred years later-the white race had at last been created.
　　On the island of Patmos was nothing but these blond, pale-skinned, cold-blue-eyed devils-savages,nude and shameless; hairy, like animals, they walked on all fours and they lived in trees.
　　Six hundred more years passed before this race of people returned to the mainland, among the natural black people.
　　Mr. Elijah Muhammad teaches his followers that within six months' time, through telling lies that set the black men fighting among each other, this devil race had turned what had been a peaceful heave non earth into a hell torn by quarrelling and fighting.
　　But finally the original black people recognized that their sudden troubles stemmed from this devil white race that Mr. Yacub had made. They rounded them up, put them in chains. With little aprons to cover their nakedness, this devil race was marched off across the Arabian desert to the caves of Europe.
　　The lambskin and the cable-tow used in Masonry today are symbolic of how the nakedness of the white man was covered when he was chained and driven across the hot sand.
　　Mr. Elijah Muhammad further teaches that the white devil race in Europe's caves was savage. The animals tried to kill him. He climbed trees outside his cave, made clubs, trying to protect his family from the wild beasts outside trying to get in.
　　When this devil race had spent two thousand years in the caves, Allah raised up Moses to civilize them, and bring them out of the caves. It was written that this devil white race would rule the world for six thousand years.
　　The Books of Moses are missing. That's why it is not known that he was in the caves.
　　When Moses arrived, the first of these devils to accept his teachings, the first he led out, were those we call today the Jews.
　　According to the teachings of this "Yacub's History," when the Bible says "Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness," that serpent is symbolic of the devil white race Moses lifted up out of the caves of Europe, teaching them civilization.
　　It was written that after Yacub's bleached white race had ruled the world for six thousand years-down to our time-the black original race would give birth to one whose wisdom, knowledge, and power would be infinite.
　　It was written that some of the original black people should be brought as slaves to North America-to learn to better understand, at first hand, the white devil's true nature, in modem times.
　　Elijah Muhammad teaches that the greatest and mightiest God who appeared on the earth was Master W. D. Fard. He came from the East to the West, appearing in North America at a time when the history and the prophecy that is written was coming to realization, as the non-white people all over the world began to rise, and as the devil white civilization, condemned by Allah, was, through its devilish nature, destroying itself.
　　Master W. D. Fard was half black and half white. He was made in this way to enable him to be accepted by the black people in America, and to lead them, while at the same time he was enabled to move undiscovered among the white people, so that he could understand and judge the enemy of the blacks.
　　Master W. D. Fard, in 1931, posing as a seller of silks, met, in Detroit, Michigan, Elijah Muhammad.
　　Master W. D. Fard gave to Elijah Muhammad Allah's message, and Allah's divine guidance, to savethe Lost-Found Nation of Islam, the so-called Negroes, here in "this wilderness of North America."When my sister, Hilda, had finished telling me this "Yacub's History," she left. I don't know if I was able to open my mouth and say good-bye.
　　I was to learn later that Elijah Muhammad's tales, like this one of "Yacub," infuriated the Muslims of the East. While at Mecca, I reminded them that it was their fault, since they themselves hadn't done enough to make real Islam known in the West. Their silence left a vacuum into which any religious faker could step and mislead our people.

It was Malcolm's repudiation of teaching's like Yacub's story and others in addition to revealing that Elijah Muhammad was lecherous that led to his removal from the Nation of Islam. The feud would intensify when Malcolm in addition to creating his Organization for Afro American Unity (OAAU) Malcolm established the Muslim Mosque Incorporated -a far more Orthodox Sunni form of Islam free of eugenics experiments- a direct challenge to Elijah Muhammad's domination of Black Muslim's. Eventually this feud would escalate to death threats, at least one arson attack and Malcolm X's eventual murder by Nation of Islam followers.

Religious cults and their domineering leaders can make even the farcical bloody and fatal. It should be kept in mind that besides black supremacist prattle the glorification of Elijah and pseudo science the Nation of Islam was able to lift Malcolm from cycle of "hustling" and prison that ensnared most of his friends, it also gave him the confidence and the expertise to become one of the most iconic of Black America's radicals at a time when the United States had no shortage of Black Power prophets integration societies and Negro Advancement study circles. It is fortunate then that he never let that gratitude blind him to the truth or compromise him like so many other Black Civil Rights "Leaders" did. Malcolm X could very well have become another "Uncle Tom" just for the "Honourable" Elijah Muhammad instead of the Liberal wing of the White elite.