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Birthdate Changes: Believing that Fard is one of the FBI Leads

Unless you are an NOI fundy (and therefore have your whole faith to lose), you know that ALL the evidence suggests that WD Ford is WD Fard. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:C8:380:B200:31D4:8FD7:FC13:6B4F (talk) 03:56, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

I am the original writer of the current Wallace Fard Muhammad page. Years ago, I came to the page and saw that it was based entirely upon a couple of sources, and those sources basically read the FBI file - developed their own personal belief as to Fard’s identity - then wrote a book outlining their belief. When people come to this subject, they usually fall into one of three camps: 1) People who do not claim to know Fard’s real identity; 2) People who believe strongly that one of the various leads in the FBI file is Fard; and 3) People who believe that Fard is who Elijah Muhammad represented him to be.

When editing Fard’s birthday on this page, for many years, some have chosen to place one of the birthdates of one of the leads from the FBI file (with a note that no one knows the exact birthdate). This approach makes no sense. The FBI concluded that they do not know Fard’s birthdate - after all of their efforts. Further, they internally made it clear that they themselves did not believe that Fard was any of the leads that they developed. Whenever they publicized one of the various identities, claiming that the lead was Fard, internally they stated that their sole purpose was to discredit Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam.

Whenever someone supports the Nation of Islam, they want to “correct the record” by stating that Fard’s birthdate is 1877. Whenever someone believes that Fard is one of the FBI leads, they want to say that his birthdate is one of the lead’s birthdates.

What should actually be placed on this page? Obviously, the footnote should continue to state what it currently states about the date not being known. But when a date is placed on the page, the date that Fard CLAIMED should be the date that is present. I understand that many editors believe that Fard is either this lead found by the FBI or that lead found by the FBI. But that’s your opinion. Any book on the subject can only give some other person’s opinion based upon the same source. So all that there is to say is this: Fard claimed to have been born in 1877 - his actual birthdate is not known for certain. All readers then have a chance to look at the FBI history for themselves. And they can then decide if they believe that one of the FBI leads is Fard. The fact that Fard claimed that his birthdate is 1877 is not disputed and is widely known. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kwm1975 (talk • contribs) 12:00, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Efforts to trace Fard's history

This article tries to create a mystery around his "disappearance". He was simply deported, or fled America to Fiji to avoid prosecution (he was also being investigated for being a spy and helping the Japanese) around 1934, then returned as "Muhammad Abdullah".

Sources: Finding W.D. Fard: Unveiling the Identity of the Founder of the Nation of Islam By John Andrew Morrow link

^Escanaba Daily Press (November 24, 1932) on the murder committed by Robert Harris. It says that Wallace Fard "is awaiting an immigration hearing. Officials said he came to the United States from Asia." link.

^His two findagrave.com profiles link, link

From his findagrave.com profile: "What is certain, is that he was in Fiji from 1934 until roughly 1959"

^Warith Deen Muhammad claimed that Fard had returned to the United States under the name Muhammad Abdullah. In 1976, W.D. had appointed Muhammad Abdullah as imam of Muhammad's Mosque #77 in Oakland, California. The November 26, 1976, issue of the NOI journal Bilalian News reports Muhammad Abdullah's first khutbah at the mosque and shows a photo. W.D. Mohammad did not state that Muhammad Abdullah was Fard until after Abdullah's death in 1992.

Here he is with Louis Farrakhan and Jim Jones in 1976:

https://calisphere.org/item/7c7690dd7f54dc713239e1a824301a26/ (source album: https://calisphere.org/collections/27519)

Video of him using the name Muhammad Abdullah in 1977:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cgu33pkLsis&feature=emb_title (original source: https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/bundles/229337)

Video of him using the name Muhammad Abdullah in 1989:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ0lnqQPybM

Ahmadi Connection Is Uncertain

The efforts of one editor to link the Ahamadi movement to Wallace is scrupulous and easily debatable.

Wallace’s ancestral origins are unknown, with some claiming him to be Arab (among the NOI), New Zealander (among the FBI, Pakistani, Afghan, etc. His knowledge and connection to the South Asian originated Ahmadiyya movement is an interesting theory but not one indisputably supported by data and evidence. Brotheryoda (talk) 01:28, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

WD Fard was probably no immigrant

The YouTuber "Resume Byron", who puts a lot of effort in tracing the roots of WD Fard and his person in general, released a clip five months ago, where he establishes the the theory that Fard wasn't foreign at all, but a native of Jasper, Texas.

He and his family did belong to the group of mixed-race people, which were not considered White nor Black, but were labeled as "mullatos". The mullato community of this area existed outside of the Black and White scheme and they usually did intermarry. Besides some that could "pass as Whites", because of their physical appearance.

This hypothesis, which is based on Census reports, would shake the foundations of basically every theory there was before.

I encourage everyone to have a look on this clip and also the prior work of "Resume Byron".

I can't post the link because YouTube is blacklisted, but the name of the clip is "Wallace Fard Was not Foreign" by the user "Resume Byron".

It's really worth a watch and the time, if you're interested in the "mysterious" past of Fard.

This theory is completely new to me and I don't think it was ever discussed here. Even by doing a quick Google research, the only time I saw it being mentioned was in a subreddit 27th December of 2021. And I don't know where the user that made this post had it's infos. But it gives a hint that someone came up with this before.

While the documentation, by the 1910 US Census, that there was a mullato named Wallace Fard and had at least one son is rock solid, one has to decide if this was the first official record of "WD Fard". The founder of the Nation of Islam.

Well, I hope that there will be a discussion about it. KingOfRay (talk) 11:05, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

YouTube is not blacklisted, the links above work. But it is rarely considered a reliable source. When it is it's usually something like a major newspapers YouTube site. I see no reason to see the person making those videos can possibly meet WP:RS even if he used his own name (which I found but found nothing about him). And we can't do our own research. Doug Weller talk 11:56, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

John Andrew Morrow has written about virtually every possible origin for Fard, and one of them is definitely that he was a "white passing" American with black ancestry. Writing up Morrow's scholarship is on my to-do list, and I'll look at Resume Byron's videos to see if they have RSes inside them we could potentially use. Feoffer (talk) 22:40, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

@Feoffer I should have looked at this first I guess before replying to you elsewhere. Of course that makes sense. Morrow, I'm not completely sure about. His full professorship is from a community college. I can't find much about the "Covenants Foundation" other than that he directs it. I see a book of his is Covenants of the Prophet with the Christians of the World, a hard to find (for me at least) book by this publisher and see for which we have no article. Doug Weller talk 07:22, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Finding W.D. Fard is published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing and Morrow does cite his own sources. So far as I'm aware, (but I'm not yet up to speed) Morrow doesn't reach any definitive conclusions of his own (in contrast to the Byron video that makes a strong thesis statement USING material from Morrow). If Morrow says things that ever conflict with mainstream scholarship, obviously we should weight accordingly.

If you have sources you think is more-definitive than the Morrow book, I'm open to them. I'm new-ish to the subject. Feoffer (talk) 07:39, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

@Feoffer CSP isn't a reliable source. It's article casts doubt on it and discussions at RSN have mainly said either don't use it at all, or only on a case by case basis. And at best WP:UNDUE would apply, ie if only Morrow says it, we shouldn't use it. Doug Weller talk 09:37, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the info about CSP! My bad! Yeah, it sounds like Morrow is only useful when he can link us to the writings of more-reputable scholars -- turns out his degree was in Spanish Lit?!? Feoffer (talk) 09:51, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

I should reiterate -- Doug Weller is completely correct when he says it's not a Reliable Source we could use directly. Feoffer (talk) 07:28, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Copied from User_talk:KingoOfRay

@Feoffer John Andrew Morrow is actually a strong advocate of Fard being foreign.

The census report, which can be found here:

https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/GCH7-ZKY/wallace-fard-1868

And the mentioning in this subreddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/HighStrangeness/comments/rpzcm7/wallace_farq_mohammed_the_founder_of_the_nation/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Are the only sources I can find by a quick Google research.

I don't want to watch the whole work by "Resume Byron" again. But I think that he had more quotes than that. Else, I wouldn't made my post. KingOfRay (talk) 07:35, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

@Doug Weller I just want this hypothesis getting unnoticed. Even if it doesn't find it's way into the article. Because neither AK Arian or Morrow or any other researcher/source mentioned this possibility. At least this way, maybe some people are going to dig into it. Besides "Resume Byron" of course. Who doesn't reach many people with his small YouTube channel. I think it's an very, very interesting discovery. Together with the last part of the similarities between him and a fellow prisoner called Lucius Lemus/Leemon (?,I don't quite understand the the surname). A man Fard took as his model, even taking up his birthday as the official birthday proclaimed by the NOI. They said he was born in 1877 at the 26th of February. Just like his fellow prisoner Lucius L. He also took other claims made by L. including how many languages he spoke and could write and were he studied. Things Fard and the NOI later adopted.

"Resume Byron" is not a professional scholar, historian or journalist. But I had many conversations with him and he's an autodidact with great knowledge in the field of NOI studies. His own research is limited by his financial abilities. But I consider him better educated in many ways than Morrow. Who of course is an expert and professional in Islamic studies. I also personally think that Morrow didn't have much to add in his book, than AK Arian in "Chameleon" or Karl Evazz in "The Messenger", besides leading one through a jungle of different denominations/practices of Islam. KingOfRay (talk) 09:34, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, we can't really cite an autodidact on Youtube, but we also won't need to. Byron isn't the first person to suggest that Fard might have been what we'd now call a white-passing African-American. Sounds like I need to get a copy of Chameleon and The Messenger and work from those, rather than Morrow.

Based on your understanding of those three sources, is it controversial to say that the NoI found was' the man arrested in 1926 and sent to San Quentin? I think all mainstream schoalrly sources agree he was the same person, while NoI as a matter of faith teaches that he was not? IS that correct

Thank you so much for helping me get up to speed -- we're supposed to have an article that will get me up to speed, we shall have to write it ourselves. Feoffer (talk) 21:16, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

NPOV issues: Black supremacist and avowed racist.

This man is one of the most notable black supremacists, and one of the most notable racists in history. For every other supremacist, or racist, this is in the lede of the article. If by any stretch of the imagination he played coy with his ideologies or beliefs one could possibly stretch empathy to encompass - nah, I'm joking. You guys label anyone even the least racist person a racist if it suits your agenda. Yet a literal avowed racist who ranted extensively about genociding whites gets 'founder of the nation of islam.' and nothing more.

I want to assume good faith here, but you'd have to have a crayon shoved deep up each nostril to NOT see the blatant POV issue with this article. 2001:8003:2998:5100:50FD:2CD8:8930:2A5B (talk) 22:08, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm still learning about Fard, but I'm not sure he was a Black Supremacist or if that was more a teaching of his successors. Fard was, at minimum, white-passing. Feoffer (talk) 23:58, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

ToDo / Thoughts

• Per ResumeByron: WDF sold hair relaxer. Important if true given the prominence of the product in Autobio of Malc X.
• Claim that WDF personally used relaxer cited to Elijah Muhammad's son.
• good overview:
  • Arrested after infamous voodoo murder
  • Order to disband the cult as condition of release?
  • Re-arrested in Detroit
  • Threatened with accessory to murder if returns to Detroit
  • Maintained correspondence with Elijah Muhammad

Feoffer (talk) 00:07, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

I think you'll need better sources than Morrow for any of this. Doug Weller talk 07:23, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

So, catch me up -- I know it would be controversial to say, as fact, that the subject of this article was born in Texas, that's just one of many many theories. Is it controversial in your eyes to say that Wallace Fard Muhammad was W.D. Fard who was arrested in 1926, 1932 and 1933? Feoffer (talk) 09:43, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

I really need to get out of this discussion, it's distracting me from other priorities. We'd need multiple solid sources for that. Doug Weller talk 13:05, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Pictures

At the paragraph "Efforts to trace Fard's history 1914–1926", it says that there are only five known pictures of Fard. This is wrong!

There are two pictures from the "Detroit Free Press" (edition November 24, 1932) that show him, wearing a scarf and presenting a book to two police officers. After he was being arrested, because of a murder case that involved one of his followers/cult member. KingOfRay (talk) 10:22, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Fixed! This article needs a lot of work. I've changed it to a handful. These are the pictures we have on Misplaced Pages of Fard:

• 
• 
• 
• 
• The official NoI portrait File:Wallace Fard Muhammad.jpg (not displayed because its still under copyright)

At some point, all these images should find their way into this article, but we don't really have the narrative to accompany them written yet.

We also need images of the various government documents tied to Fard -- Census record, Marriage records, birth certificates, etc. We probably won't show them in-article, but we should have them available for our readers to inspect. If you know where we could find them, please let me know. Feoffer (talk) 21:01, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

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