Wallace Fard Muhammad

Wallace Fard Muhammad
Nation of Islam portrait
Leader of the Nation of Islam
In office 1930–1934
Succeeded by	Elijah Muhammad
Personal details
Born	February 26, 1877 possibly New Zealand
Died	Disappeared
Occupation	Minister
Religion	Nation of Islam
^ a. Birth dates attributed to Fard include 1877, 1891, and 1893; the Nation of Islam celebrates February 26, 1877.

Wallace D. Fard aka Wallace Fard Muhammad /fə.ˈrɑːd/ (born February 26, 1877) was a co-founder of the Nation of Islam. He arrived in Detroit in 1930 with an obscure background and several aliases, and taught a distinctive form of Islam to members of the city's African-American population. He disappeared in 1934.

In 1938, an article by sociologist Erdmann Doane Beynon was published in the American Journal of Sociology, giving Beynon's first-hand account of several interviews that he conducted with followers of Fard in Michigan. From those interviews, Beynon wrote that Fard lived and taught in Detroit from 1930 to 1934. He came to the homes of black families who recently migrated to Detroit from the rural south. He began by selling silks door to door, telling his listeners that the silks came from their home country. At his suggestion, he came back to teach the residents, along with guests.

In the early stage of his ministry, Fard "used the Bible as his textbook, since it was the only religious book with which the majority of his hearers were familiar. With growing prestige over a constantly increasing group, [Fard] became bolder in his denunciation of the Caucasians and began to attack the teachings of the Bible in such a way as to shock his hearers and bring them to an emotional crisis."

Those interviewed by Beynon told him that reports of Fard's message spread through the black community. Attendance at the house meetings grew until the listeners were divided into groups and taught in shifts. Finally, the community contributed money and rented a hall to serve as a Temple where meetings were conducted.

The Quran was soon introduced as the most authoritative of all texts for the study of the faith according to those interviewed by Beynon. Fard prepared texts himself, which served as authoritative manuals of the faith and were memorized verbatim by those who followed him.