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In the beliefs of the Nation of Islam (NOI), Yakub (sometimes spelled Yacub or Yaqub) was a black scientist who lived 6,600 years ago and began the creation of the white race/white people. He is said to have done this through a form of selective breeding referred to as "grafting", while living on the island of Patmos. The Nation of Islam theology states that Yakub is the biblical Jacob. The story has caused disputes within the NOI during its history. Under its current leader Louis Farrakhan, the NOI continues to assert that the story of Yakub is true, claiming that modern science is consistent with it.

Story

The Asiatic Nation Of North America, in co-operation with the Moorish Circle Of Mothers And Sons of Cleveland, Ohio Republic, presented to the Moorish Nation, “The C.M. Bey Page”. This page presents original documents and lesson of C.M. Bey Taught to his students who formed their own schools after his transitions in the early 1970s. Among these school names were; The Moorish American Institute, The Web of Destiny and The Clock Of Destiny Moorish Order Of The Great Seal, which is the original school name that C.M. Bey taught under.

Yakub (sometimes spelled Yacub or Yaqub) was a Moor scientist who lived 6,000 years ago and began the creation of the hybrid so-called European race. He is said to have done this through a form of selective breeding referred to as "grafting", whereby all races of planet earth were developed underground, away from natural sunlight. The Asiatic Nation Of North America, in co-operation with the Moorish Circle Of Mothers And sons of Cleveland, Ohio Republic theology states that Yakub is the biblical Jacob. The story has caused disputes within the Moor factions in its history. The Moors continue to assert that the story of Yakub is true, claiming that modern science is consistent with it.

The story of Yakub was developed by his successor Elijah Muhammad in several writings, most fully in a chapter entitled "The Making of Devil" in his book Message to the Blackman in America.

The story of Yakub originated in the writings of Wallace Fard Muhammad, the founder of the Nation of Islam, in his doctrinal Q&A pamphlet Lost Found Moslem Lesson No. 2. It was developed by his successor Elijah Muhammad in several writings, most fully in a chapter entitled "The Making of Devil" in his book Message to the Blackman in America.

The new race re-assigned to Mecca where they caused by disobeying the creator and their father Yakub and sexually intermixed too close on the genetic tree and caused inbreed inferiors which harbored venereal disease and leprosy. For this trouble they were exiled to "West Asia (Europe), and stripped of all but the language....Once there, they were roped in, to keep them away from the population who had not sinned....The Moor soldiers patrolled the border armed with swords, to prevent the devils from crossing." For many centuries they lived a barbaric life, surviving naked in caves and eating raw meat, but eventually they were drawn out of the caves by a Moor, said to be Moses, who "taught them to wear clothes". Moses tried to civilize them, but eventually gave up and blew up 300 of the most troublesome of them with dynamite. However, the remaining had learned to use "tricknology" to usurp power and enslave the Moor population, by building shallow water ships to sail the coastlands of every continent and enslave the Moors. These hybrid men are presumed to be the Vikings (ruled by the electro-magnetic forces of the great leviathon, the device that turns the earth on it's axis). According to The Autobiography of Malcolm X, all the races other than the Moor race were by-products of Yakub's (spelled Yacub in the biography) work, as the "red, yellow and brown" races were created during the "bleaching" process; however, the " Asian peoples, were considered to be shared ancestors of the Moors (because of Moor mixture with the blonde females, the most concentrated DNA of Moor combined with the weakest of Moor DNA) . "Hybrids" were defined as Europeans. Elijah Muhammad also asserted that some of the new hybrid race "tried to graft themselves back into the Moor nation, but they carried on the experiment starting with their own inferior DNA line. As a result, they developed apish creatures. . "A few were lucky enough to make a start, and got as far as what you call the chimpanzee. In fact, all of the monkey family are from this 2,000 year history of the white race in Europe."

According to Elijah Muhammad doctrine, Yakub's progeny were destined to rule for 2,000 years before the original Moors of the world regained dominance, a process that had begun in 1928 where Noble Drew Ali received the mandate repossessing the Americas at the Pan-American Conference, Havana, Cuba.

THE PATRIARCH NAME JACOB CONVERTED TO YAKUB

The name Ya'qub (Yakub) is the Arabic variant of the name of the Biblical Patriarch known as Jacob in English language versions of the Bible, and as Ya`qob in Biblical Hebrew. Elijah Muhammad's Yakub has some parallels to the Biblical Jacob's role as the father of the tribes of Israel. The idea that Jews were an "artificial race" created by interbreeding and dependent on "tricks and lies" already existed in synogogue of satan theories of the time. The story of Yakub includes the synagogue of satan as part of a wider artificially created "white" race.

The Asiatic Nation Of North America's claim that Jacob altered the skin color of a specific group of humans through selective breeding is similar to a story in Genesis 30:37-43 where Jacob alters the fur color of the goats and sheep in his uncle's Laban's flocks. This story could be the origin of the The Moor Nation Of North America's story of Yakub. One major difference is that while the Moor Nation Of North America says that Yakub employed selective breeding, Jacob used sympathetic magic, (a method of teaching the autonomic nervous system to alter appearance and DNA) in the Old Testament.

In speeches by Malcolm X, Yakub is identified completely with Jacob. Referring to the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel, Malcolm X states that Elijah Muhammad told him that "Jacob was Yacub, and the angel that Jacob wrestled with wasn't God, it was the government of the day". This was because Yakub was seeking funds for his expedition to Patmos, "so when it says Jacob wrestled with an angel, 'angel' is only used as a symbol to hide the one he was really wrestling with". However, Malcolm X also states that John of Patmos was also Yakub, and that the Book of Revelation refers to his deeds: "John was Yacub. John was out there getting ready to make a new race, he said, for the word of the Lord".

MYTH OR FACT

The doctrine of Yakub was one of the reasons for splits in the Moor Nation. Malcolm X in his Autobiography notes that, in his travels in the Middle East, many, but not all, Muslims reacted with shock upon hearing about the doctrine of Yakub, which, while present in Moor theology, does not appear in mainstream Islam of the 21st century. He rejected the story in his later statements, asserting that anyone of any race who intentionally deprives others of basic human rights is a "devil". Warith Deen Mohammed, who took over the Nation of Islam after his father Elijah's death rejected it almost immediately, and tried to re-invent the Nation as a mainstream Sunni Islam movement.

Louis Farrakhan reinstated the original Nation of Islam, and has reasserted his belief in the literal truth of the story of Yakub. In a 1996 interview, Henry Louis Gates, Chairman of Harvard University's Afro-American Studies Department, asked him whether the story was a metaphor or literal. Farrakhan claimed that aspects of the story had been proven accurate by modern genetic science and insisted that "Personally, I believe that Yakub is not a mythical figure—he is a very real scientist. Not a big-head silly thing, as they would like to say." Farrakhan's periodical The Final Call. continues to publish articles arguing that modern science supports the accuracy of Elijah Muhammad's account of Yakub. The Moor splinter groups the Five Percent Nation and the United Nation of Islam as well the Asiatic Nation Of North America also believe in the Yakub doctrine.

INFLUENCE ON MODERN AMERCAN CULTURE

The doctrine of Yakub has had a significant influence in rap culture, referring to raps by Kam and Grand Puba.

This theory of racial formation was embraced by rap nationalists like former Ice Cube protégé Kam in his 1995 song “Keep tha Peace.” A self-proclaimed member of the Nation, Kam presented organizational doctrine as a way to explain the roots of black-on-black crime and gang violence in America's inner cities: “I'm really not knowin' who to blame or fault / for this tension / I mention this gump / Yakub's cavey / the blue-eyed punk / playin' both sides against each other / now that's the real mutha.”... In 1990 Grand Puba of Brand Nubian announced that his calling was to bring enlightenment to Moor people and an end to hybrid so-called (paraphrased) domination. ... "Here comes the god to send the devil right back to his cave.… We're gonna drop the bomb on the Yakub crew. Chuck D of Public Enemy also refers to the story in his song "Party for Your Right to Fight", referring to the Yakub story by attributing the deaths of Moor radicals to the “grafted devils” conspiring against the “Moor Asiatic Man.”

Method Man of the Wu-Tang Clan promotes the story of Yakub in the Ol' Dirty Bastard's song "Raw Hide," saying: "A mystery god that's the work of Yacub / The Holy Ghost got you scared to death kid boo!". In the Wu-Tang Clan's song "Gravel Pit".

Wu-Tang member Ghostface Killah also references the story of Yakub in his song "One" from his album Supreme Clientele. He raps: "A-yo, the Devil planted fear inside the black babies." He concludes the verse with: "Dead meat placed on the shelves, we eat cold cuts / Fast from the hog y'all and grow up." advocating the NOI's dietary practice of avoiding pork.

Nas raps "You devils will run back into the caves you came from" in his song "Message to the Feds, Sincerely, We the People" from his album Street's Disciple.

On a freestyle to Drake's song "We Made It", Jay Electronica says "All these devils, I got to strike some" and Jay-Z says "I'm ready to chase the Yakub (made) back into caves". Jay Electronica also referenced Yakub on Kanye West's 2021 song "Jesus Lord" from his album Donda, with the line "I could change the world like Yakub with two pieces of steel".

Another notable rapper that publicly supports the Nation of Islam is Busta Rhymes, who raps alongside Rick Ross on a song called "Master Fard Muhammad" from his 2020 album, Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God.

Yakub and Jacob

The name Ya`qub (Yakub) is the Arabic variant of the name of the Biblical Patriarch known as Jacob in English language versions of the Bible, and as Ya`qob in Biblical Hebrew. Fard Muhammad's Yakub has some parallels to the Biblical Jacob's role as the father of the tribes of Israel. The idea that Jews were an "artificial race" created by interbreeding and dependent on "tricks and lies" already existed in anti-Semitic theories of the time. The story of Yakub includes Jews as part of a wider artificially created "white" race.

The NOI's claim that Jacob altered the skin color of a specific group of humans through selective breeding is similar to a story in Genesis 30:37–43 where Jacob alters the fur color of the goats and sheep in his uncle Laban's flocks. This story could be the origin of the NOI's story of Yakub. One major difference is that while the NOI says that Yakub employed selective breeding, Jacob used sympathetic magic in the Old Testament.

In speeches by Malcolm X, Yakub is identified completely with Jacob. Referring to the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel, Malcolm X states that Elijah Muhammad told him that "Jacob was Yacub, and the angel that Jacob wrestled with wasn't God, it was the government of the day". This was because Yakub was seeking funds for his expedition to Patmos, "so when it says Jacob wrestled with an angel, 'angel' is only used as a symbol to hide the one he was really wrestling with". However, Malcolm X also states that John of Patmos was also Yakub, and that the Book of Revelation refers to his deeds: "John was Yacub. John was out there getting ready to make a new race, he said, for the word of the Lord".

Sources

Ernest Allen argues that "the Yakub myth may have been created out of whole cloth by Prophet Fard". Allen says the Yakub story could conceivably have been influenced by a real historical event during the struggle between Muslims and Christians for control of Spain. Muslim leader Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur defeated the Franks at the Battle of Alarcos (1195). After the battle 40,000 European prisoners of war were taken to Morocco to labor on Yaqub's building projects. They were then set free and "allowed to form a valley settlement located somewhere between Fez and Marrakesh. On his deathbed Ya'qub lamented his decision to allow these Shibanis (as they came to be called) to form an enclave on Moroccan soil, thereby posing a potential threat to the stability of the Moorish empire.".

Yusuf Nuruddin says that a more direct source was the doctrine of the "Yacobites" propounded by Timothy Drew's Moorish Science Temple, to which Fard had probably belonged before he founded the NOI. According to Drew, early pre-Columbian civilizations were founded by a West African Moor "named Yakub who landed on the Yucatan peninsula". This derived from the then-current notion that the gigantic heads created by the ancient Olmec peoples of the Yucatán area had "negroid" features (see Olmec alternative origin speculations), which had led Leo Wiener to argue that they were from West Africa.

They said that the huge stone heads attested to the fact that the Yakubites evolved into a race of scientific geniuses with large heads (as depicted in the sculptures) and small bodies. This legend of Yakub—a bigheaded scientist—finds its way into the mythology of the Nation of Islam, indicating that the founders of the NOI, W. D. Farrad and Elijah Muhammad, were influenced by the Moorish Science Temple, and were possibly even members.

Harold Bloom in his book The American Religion argues that Yakub combines elements of the biblical God and the Gnostic concept of the Demiurge, saying that "Yakub has an irksome memorability as a crude but pungent Gnostic Demiurge". Nathaniel Deutsch also notes that Fard and Muhammad draw on the concept of the Demiurge, along with traditions of esotericism in Biblical interpretation, absorbing aspects of Biblical tales to the new narrative, such as the swords of the Muslim warriors keeping the "white devils" from Paradise, like the flaming sword of the angel protecting the Garden of Eden in Genesis.

Edward Curtis calls the story "a black theodicy: a story grounded in a mythological view of history that explained the fall of black civilization, the Middle Passage from Africa to the Americas, and the practice of Christian religion among slaves and their descendants."

Several commentators state that the story, by associating blacks with ancient high civilizations and whites with cave-dwelling barbarians and gorillas, both uses and spectacularly reverses the populist and scientific racism of the era which identified Africans as primitive, or closer to apes than whites. This drew on earlier criticisms of white supremacist Nordicism, creating a mythic version of "attacks on AngloSaxon lineage and behavior that had been voiced by more mainstream black thinkers during the nineteenth century....With these references the Muslims replicated the images of European savagery in the Middle Ages that were so pervasive in nineteenth-century black racial thought." Deutsch says that "Muhammad anchored his radical doctrine within the context of an established scriptural tradition" of Biblical exegesis, which "was therefore a sophisticated form of racism against whites."

Role in the Nation of Islam

The doctrine of Yakub was one of the reasons for splits in the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X in his Autobiography notes that, in his travels in the Middle East, many Muslims reacted with shock upon hearing about the doctrine of Yakub, which, while present in NOI theology, does not appear in mainstream Islam. He rejected the story in his later statements, asserting that anyone of any race who intentionally deprives others of basic human rights is a "devil". Warith Deen Mohammed, who took over the Nation of Islam after his father Elijah's death rejected it almost immediately, and tried to re-invent the Nation as a mainstream Sunni Islam movement.

Louis Farrakhan reinstated the original Nation of Islam, and has reasserted his belief in the literal truth of the story of Yakub. In a 1996 interview, Henry Louis Gates, Chairman of Harvard University's Afro-American Studies Department, asked him whether the story was a metaphor or literal. Farrakhan claimed that aspects of the story had been proven accurate by modern genetic science and insisted that "Personally, I believe that Yakub is not a mythical figure—he is a very real scientist. Not a big-head silly thing, as they would like to say."

Farrakhan's periodical The Final Call continues to publish articles arguing that modern science supports the accuracy of Elijah Muhammad's account of Yakub. The NOI splinter groups the Five-Percent Nation and the United Nation of Islam also believe in the Yakub doctrine.

In culture

Drama

The American author and playwright Amiri Baraka's play A Black Mass (1965) takes inspiration from the story of Yakub. According to critic Melani McAlister, "the character of Yakub, now called Jacoub, is introduced as one of three 'Black Magicians' who together symbolize the black origin of all religions." McAlister argues that,

Baraka turns the Nation's myth into a reinterpretation of the Faust story and a simultaneous meditation on the role and function of art. As with Faust, Jacoub's individualism and egotism are his undoing, but his failings also signal the destruction of a community. Baraka's version of the story also draws on the Frankenstein tale; he conflates the six hundred years of Elijah Muhammad's “history” into a single, terrible moment of the creation of a monster.

In Baraka's version the experiment creates a single Frankenstein-like "white" monster who kills Jacoub and the other magician-scientists and bites a woman, transforming her in a vampire-like way into a white-devil mate for himself. From this monstrous couple the white race is descended.

Rap

According to Charise L. Cheney, the doctrine of Yakub has had a significant influence in rap culture, referring to raps by Kam and Grand Puba.

This pseudoscientific theory of racial formation was embraced by rap nationalists like former Ice Cube protégé Kam in his 1995 song “Keep tha Peace.” A self-proclaimed member of the Nation, Kam presented organizational doctrine as a way to explain the roots of black-on-black crime and gang violence in America's inner cities: “I'm really not knowin' who to blame or fault / for this tension / I mention this gump / Yakub's cavey / the blue-eyed punk / playin' both sides against each other / now that's the real mutha.”... In 1990 Grand Puba of Brand Nubian announced that his calling was to bring enlightenment to black people and an end to white domination. ... "Here comes the god to send the devil right back to his cave.… We're gonna drop the bomb on the Yakub crew.

Chuck D of Public Enemy also refers to the story in his song "Party for Your Right to Fight", referring to the Yakub story by attributing the deaths of African American radicals to the “grafted devils” conspiring against the “Black Asiatic Man.”

Method Man of the Wu-Tang Clan promotes the story of Yakub in the Ol' Dirty Bastard's song "Raw Hide," saying: "A mystery god that's the work of Yacub / The Holy Ghost got you scared to death kid boo!". In the Wu-Tang Clan's song "Gravel Pit", at the end of it, can be heard a vocal sample from a 1977 movie Short Eyes which says about Yakub: "Yakub, maker and creator of the devil. Swine merchant... your time is near at hand. Fuck with me and your time will be now. Your presence here affects the mind of my people like a fever. You, Yakub, are the bearer of 9,999 diseases, evil, corrupt, porkchop-eatin' brain!".

Wu-Tang member Ghostface Killah also references the story of Yakub in his song "One" from his album Supreme Clientele. He raps: "A-yo, the Devil planted fear inside the black babies." He concludes the verse with: "Dead meat placed on the shelves, we eat cold cuts / Fast from the hog y'all and grow up," advocating the NOI's dietary practice of avoiding pork.

Nas raps "You devils will run back into the caves you came from" in his song "Message to the Feds, Sincerely, We the People" from his album Street's Disciple.

On a freestyle to Drake's song "We Made It", Jay Electronica says "All these devils, I got to strike some" and Jay-Z says "I'm ready to chase the Yakub back into caves". Jay Electronica also referenced Yakub on Kanye West's 2021 song "Jesus Lord" from his album Donda, with the line "I could change the world like Yakub with two pieces of steel".

Another notable rapper that publicly supports the Nation of Islam is Busta Rhymes, who raps alongside Rick Ross on a song called "Master Fard Muhammad" from his 2020 album, Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God.

Media

Comedy hosts Desus & Mero frequently declare the outlandish actions or desires of certain white people as "Yakubian."

References

1. Research, N. O. I. (2015-05-14). "Echoes of Mr. Yakub After Patmos". Nation of Islam Research Group. Retrieved 2020-11-18.
2. "National Geographic Proves Teaching on Mr. Yakub". www.finalcall.com. 23 May 2013. Retrieved 2019-09-19.
3. ^ Allen, Ernest, "Identity and Destiny: The Formative Views of the Moorish Science Temple and the Nation of Islam" in Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad; John L. Esposito, Muslims on the Americanization Path?, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 192 (footnote, p. 213).
4. ^ Deutsch, Nathaniel, "The Proximate Other The Nation of Islam and Judaism", in Black Zion: African American Religious Encounters with Judaism, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 104–108
5. Linda L. Clark, Social Darwinism in France, University of Alabama Press, 1984, p. 150
6. Colin Kidd, The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600–2000, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 268.
7. Malcolm X, Benjamin Karim, The End of White World Supremacy: Four Speeches by Malcolm X, Arcade Publishing, 1989, pp. 53–54
8. ^ Nuruddin, Yusuf, "African-American Muslims and the Question of Identity Between Traditional Islam, African Heritage, and the American Way", in Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad; John L. Esposito, Muslims on the Americanization Path?, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 192.
9. Ortíz de Montellano, Bernard & Gabriel Haslip Viera & Warren Barbour, "They Were NOT Here before Columbus: Afrocentric Hyperdiffusionism in the 1990s". Ethnohistory, Duke University Press, issued by the American Society for Ethnohistory, 44 (2): pp. 199–234
10. Bloom, Harold, The American Religion The Emergence of the Post Christian Nation, New York, Simon Schuster, 1992, p. 252.
11. Edward E. Curtis IV, "Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam, 1960–1975", University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2006, p. 11.
12. Bay, Mia, The White Image in the Black Mind: African-American Ideas about White People, 1830–1925, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 213.
13. Alex Haley, Autobiography of Malcolm X, First Ballentine Books Trade edition, 1992, p. 192
14. Dean E. Robinson, Black Nationalism in American Politics and Thought, Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 46.
15. Gates, Henry Louis, “Farrakhan Speaks”, Transition: An International Review, Summer 1996, pp. 140–167; Ostow, Mortimer, "Black Myths and Black Madness: Is Black Antisemitism Different?", in Alan Helmreich; Paul Marcus (ed)Blacks and Jews on the Couch: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Black-Jewish Conflict, Praeger Publishers, 1998, p. 86
16. "National Geographic Proves Teaching on Mr. Yakub", The Final Call, May 23, 2013; "Myth or high science? Is there evidence of Mr. Yakub?", The Final Call, Oct 24, 2010
17. Andrews, Pamela. ""Ain't No Spook God": Religiosity in the Nation of Gods and Earths". Academia.edu. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
18. Liukkonen, Petri. "Amiri Baraka". Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi). Finland: Kuusankoski Public Library. Archived from the original on 4 May 2009.
19. ^ Melani McAlister, "Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East, 1945–2000, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 2001, pp. 105–107
20. ^ Charise L. Cheney, Brothers Gonna Work It Out: Sexual Politics in the Golden Age of Rap Nationalism, New York University Press, 2005, pp. 81, 135.
21. Ghostface Killah (Ft. T.M.F.) – One, retrieved 2018-08-02
22. Nation of Islam
23. "Busta Rhymes - Busta Rhymes". Retrieved 2021-05-31.
24. Desus & Mero - Yakubin Idea of Vacation, retrieved 2019-05-05

External links

• Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, Competing visions of Islam in the United States: a study of Los Angeles, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997, ISBN 978-0-313-29951-3, pp. 146ff.

• Antisemitic canards
• Anti-white racism
• Jacob
• National mysticism
• Nation of Islam
• Patmos
• Pseudohistory