The black Muslim connection
Stewart Bell
National Post
Friday, October 25, 2002
The Associated Press
...Malcolm X, who quit the group in 1964 and was killed a year later; and ...
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Reports that a man detained in connection with the U.S. sniper attacks was affiliated with the Nation of Islam have focused attention on the controversial African-American movement headed by bow-tied firebrand Louis Farrakhan.
John Allen Muhammad, 41, apprehended yesterday as part of the sniper investigation, was described in U.S. media reports as a Muslim convert who adopted an Islamic surname last year and once served as a security guard for Mr. Farrakhan's Million Man March.
Nation of Islam, which works mostly in urban America but also has "study groups" in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa, has called for an independent state for African-Americans. It has opposed inter-racial marriages and claimed the U.S. government was part of a conspiracy to keep blacks in poverty.
There have been infrequent, but high-profile, links to violence: Three Nation of Islam followers were convicted of murdering Malcolm X in the 1960s and an expelled Nation minister tried to assassinate the group's spokesman in 1994.
Nation of Islam officials in Chicago declined to comment on Mr. Muhammad's alleged link to the group, whose followers have included the likes of boxing legend Muhammad Ali and former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, who converted to Islam after being imprisoned in 1992 for rape.
Calls to the group's Toronto branch yesterday were unanswered.
A U.S.-based Muslim lobby group issued a statement yesterday saying the "American Muslim community should not be held accountable for the alleged criminal actions of what appear to be troubled and deranged individuals."
Nation of Islam was founded in 1930 by Walid Farad Muhammad, a door-to-door salesman from Detroit, who merged Islamic beliefs with black consciousness to create a movement that had strong appeal in parts of America.
He argued that blacks were members of the Shabazz tribe who came to Earth 66 trillion years ago, and that whites were created about 6,000 years ago as a result of an experiment by a deranged black scientist named Yakub.
Elijah Muhammad, who founded the second Nation of Islam temple in Chicago, adapted the movement to help blacks improve their lives, and in 1952 Malcolm X began preaching in Boston. Malcolm X severed his ties with the group in 1964 following revelations Elijah Muhammad had fathered children with his secretaries. Malcolm X was gunned down the following year and Mr. Farrakhan took over as leader.
Mr. Farrakhan has called whites "potential humans ... they haven't evolved yet," and has criticized what he calls the influence of American Jews. Accused of being a "black Hitler," he responded that Hitler was a "very great man."
Today the Nation of Islam preaches self-reliance for blacks and has been heavily involved in improving conditions in America's inner-cities, while Mr. Farrakhan has softened his position and, since 1995, headed a series of Million Man marches in Washington.
In 2000, Britain renewed its ban on Mr. Farrakhan, first imposed in 1986, on the grounds he "would not be conducive to public good for reasons of race relations." Mr. Farrakhan visited Toronto in 1998 and 1996, drawing large crowds.
A former FBI agent who specializes in U.S. domestic militant groups said he did not believe Nation of Islam played any role in the sniper attacks, although he said some of Mr. Farrakhan's former followers may have drifted to violent anti-American organizations.
Although the motive for the gun attacks is yet a mystery, Steve Denny said the randomness of the shootings suggests they were expressions of extreme anti-American hatred -- the same thing that drives Islamic terrorists such as Osama bin Laden.
"I would like to know, has he been related to some of these African-American fundamentalist groups that are more representative of the jihad mindset?" Mr. Denny said.
"There's lots of that going on, and they are intimately tied in to the Middle Eastern fundamentalists."
Many of these groups recruit African-Americans in the U.S. prison system, he said. Although they seek U.S. members, their philosophy and financing can ultimately be traced to the centres of radical Islam in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, he said.
"What people have got to understand is that there's been strong recruitment in the country for probably 30 to 40 years, a lot of it targeted at the African-American Muslim community to convert them from a Nation of Islam or moderate Islamic mindset to a jihadist mindset," Mr. Denny said.
"One of the reasons why they specifically picked the African-American community instead of a lower economic level Caucasian population is because there is an element within the African-American community that is not just angry but angry at the United States."
One of the most radical of these is Jamaat ul-Fuqra, headed by Pakistani cleric Shaykh Mubarik Ali Gilani, who founded the group in the 1980s. The majority of the active Fuqra cells are in the Caribbean and North America, where the members live in rural compounds to isolate themselves from Western influences.
"The Jamaat ul-Fuqra is a militant Suffi sect," according to a secret RCMP intelligence report obtained by the National Post. The report said the group has engaged in attacks against Hindus and rival Muslim groups.
"Members of the Fuqra are taught there is a satanic Zionist conspiracy to destroy Islam and that the Fuqra is God's chosen instrument to defeat the enemies of Islam," said the report by the RCMP's criminal extremism analysis section.
"They are taught that this satanic conspiracy includes Jews, Hindus, other Muslims, and the governments of the U.S.A. and Canada. Fuqra members have had access to military training in Pakistan, and the Fuqra trains its own members, including children, in the use of firearms."
The RCMP report also cited a 1998 article that said Fuqra was linked to bin Laden, and said three Fuqra members in Canada were sentenced to 12 years imprisonment in 1994 for conspiring to bomb an East Indian movie theatre and Hindu temple in the Toronto area.
The Nation of Islam has also made pronouncements against America and Jews, but Mr. Denny said if the sniper was an adherent of the movement, he likely left to either join a more militant group or went out on his own to pursue a personal agenda.
sbell@nationalpost.com
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