Muhammad, Elijah (redirected from Elijah Poole)

Muhammad, Elijah, 1897–1975, American black-nationalist and religious leader, b. near Sandersville, Ga. Originally named Elijah Poole, he left home at 16 and worked at various jobs. In 1923 he settled in Detroit and became an automobile assembly-line worker. In 1931 he became a follower of Wali Farad, or W. D. Fard, who had established a Temple of Islam in Detroit. When Farad disappeared in 1934, Poole (now renamed Muhammad) assumed leadership of the movement that was to become known as the Black Muslims. He was imprisoned during World War II for encouraging resistance to the draft. Muhammad called himself the "Messenger of Allah" and preached that the only salvation for black people in the United States lay in withdrawal into an autonomous state. He retained almost autocratic control over his movement. He greatly influenced Malcolm X, although Malcolm later left the Black Muslims.

Bibliography

See biographies by C. A. Clegg 3d (1997) and K. Evanzz (1999).

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Muhammad, Elijah

 orig. Elijah Poole

(born Oct. 7, 1897, Sandersville, Ga., U.S.—died Feb. 25, 1975, Chicago, Ill.) U.S. black separatist and leader of the Nation of Islam. The son of sharecroppers and former slaves, he moved to Detroit in 1923. He joined the Nation of Islam and established its second temple, in Chicago; on the disappearance of its founder, Wallace D. Fard, in 1934, he became head of the movement. He was jailed for advocating draft evasion during World War II, but he continued to build membership of the Black Muslims in the postwar era. His relentless call for a separate nation for African Americans, whom he declared to be Allah's chosen people, prompted his most famous disciple, Malcolm X, to break with the group in 1964. He moderated his views in his later years.

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Muhammad, Elijah (b. Elijah Poole) (1897–1975) religious movement leader; born near Sandersville, Ga. Son of former slaves and sharecroppers, he left home at age 16 and went to Detroit, where he worked in a Chevrolet auto plant. Having had his own spiritual revelation about 1930, he fell in with the Nation of Islam, a movement founded by W. D. Fard (or Farad), a somewhat mysterious African-American who was working as a salesman in Detroit, but whose followers believed he had come from Mecca to save blacks from the "white devils." When Fard disappeared from Detroit in 1934, Poole took over, changed his name to Elijah Muhammad, proclaimed himself the "Messenger of Allah," and made a national movement out of the Black Muslims (a name that Muhammad and his followers neither used nor liked). Muhammad stressed the need for separation of the races and scorned attempts of the civil rights movement to bring about integration; he even called for an all-black state or territory within the United States. He stressed the need for African-Americans to establish their own economic power-base, and he required strict obedience to certain tenets of Islam; although never implicated in any improprieties, he definitely imposed one-man rule. Most Americans were totally unaware of Muhammad and his movement until the 1960s, when its most noted convert, Malcolm X, drew attention to Black Muslims; it was at this time that they gained an undeserved reputation for threatening white people. When Elijah Muhammad died, his son Wallace Poole took over; he soon led the movement closer to traditional Islam and changed its name to the World Community of Islam in the West. But certain of Elijah Muhammad's teachings—the goals of hard work, discipline, self-support, and self-esteem for African-Americans—came to be accepted by increasing numbers outside his movement.