Making Original Men: Elijah Muhammad, The Nation of Islam, and The Fruit of Islam

Abstract

Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam converted thousands of African American men to Islam during the height of the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement. Muhammad's men neither protested for Civil Rights nor subscribed to the militancy of the Black Power Movement. Indeed, they construed both to be fundamentally flawed routes to justice, freedom, and equality. Nation men, or Fruit of Islam (FOI) as they are more commonly known, believed that through Islam, racial separation, and community building initiatives they could ultimately reclaim their freedom, self‐respect, and manhood. The NOI provided men with a newfound sense of self and purpose and in doing so imbued them with a deep‐rooted appreciation for Islam, as taught by Elijah Muhammad. Rank‐and‐file male members of the faith community remain largely overlooked in the extant scholarship on the NOI. This article seeks to recover the stories of rank‐and‐file FOI. It assesses the organisation's appeal to men, the varied means by which it challenged them and the burdens the community placed on FOI.