Nation Of Islam

WASHINGTON -- In the wake of a virulently anti-Semitic speech by a Nation of Islam official, African-American members of Congress are moving to put distance between themselves and a "covenant" forged with the militant black Muslim group by Black Caucus Chairman Kweisi Mfume last fall.At the same time, Jewish lawmakers are expressing dismay that the Baltimore Democrat and caucus chairman had not more forcefully and quickly disavowed the Nation of Islam and its leader, Louis T. Farrakhan."I'd like anybody involved in that kind of covenant to say, 'This has gone too far. We cannot work with people who talk like this -- or people who won't distance themselves from people who talk like this,' " said Rep. Howard L. Berman, a California Democrat who is Jewish.

The black-and-white images flit across a screen above the stage - white cops hosing protesters, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. inspiring a rally, thousands marching on Washington - and fade away, leaving a small stage empty, silent and mostly dark. There, beside a black Everlast punching bag that hangs from the ceiling, a spotlight falls on a figure you've known your whole life, though not really: the broad, caramel-colored face, the larger-than-life physique in the black suit and tie, the eyebrows climbing the forehead in childlike surprise.

The city's $4.6 million contract with the Nation of Islam Security Agency is morally indefensible. I don't say this because the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development claims that the pact violates federal rules.Nor do I say it because Congress is examining such contracts nationwide. Or because federal auditors found last year that NOI Security had employed 29 guards who had been convicted of felonies. Or because Minister Louis Farrakhan's lavish lifestyle is under scrutiny.The contract is indefensible because NOI Security springs from a denomination whose leaders make anti-Semitic pronouncements.

His speech in Detroit last weekend was billed as his last major public address, but associates of Minister Louis Farrakhan won't say the ailing Nation of Islam leader is retiring. I understand their disbelief. Mr. Farrakhan has been written off before, yet managed to stage enough encores to rival the late James Brown. Nevertheless, this time I take him at his word. "My time is up," he declared. "The Final Call can't last forever." I thought Mr. Farrakhan's time was up in 1975 after the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the Nation of Islam's co-founding leader, died.

The pastor, the barber, the student: None is a member of the Nation of Islam, and none considers himself an anti-Semite. But none is quick to condemn the black separatist group for its former spokesman's tirade against Jews.Only a tiny fraction of Baltimore's black residents attend the Nation of Islam's Muhammad Mosque No. 6 in Northwest Baltimore. Yet the Nation's clean-cut, bow-tied young militants have apparently established a reservoir of community goodwill that won't easily dry up.A sampling of African-American opinion about Khalid Abdul Muhammad's controversial speech at a New Jersey college showed at least as much concern about the media storm in the wake of his attack on Jews, the pope and whites as about the remarks themselves.

CLIFFSIDE, N.J. -- On the road, Khalid Abdul Muhammad preaches hate against whites and Jews -- his self-sworn "enemies."But when he goes home, Mr. Muhammad sleeps with the enemy.The former Nation of Islam spokesman, a self-proclaimed black nationalist, apparently lives in a virtually all-white enclave, Cliffside, N.J., in a luxury co-op.At the Briarcliff, where the going rate for an apartment ranges from $995 to $2,000 a month, Mr. Muhammad enjoys the good life.There are doormen, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, tennis courts, a health club, and a lavish lobby filled with leather sofas, mirrors and gold trimming.

WASHINGTON -- The failure of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan to denounce inflammatory remarks made by an aide is complicating recent attempts by some African-American leaders to forge a pact of unity with the Nation of Islam.The virulently anti-Semitic speech made last November by Farrakhan aide Khalid Abdul Muhammad, in which he is quoted as calling Jews "the blood suckers of the black nation," has been attacked by a growing number of black leaders, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who called on Mr. Farrakhan to repudiate the comments, NAACP chief Benjamin Chavis and congressional Black Caucus Chairman Kweisi Mfume.

Minister Louis T. Farrakhan's attitude toward Jews makes me wonder whether he is on someone's secret payroll; whether the Nation of Islam leader has an agenda in addition to his stated one of uplifting his people and community through the teachings of Allah.I do not know the answer to that question but I believe it is a fair one; first, because Minister Farrakhan frequently raises the same one about other black leaders; and second, because leaders -- black or white -- ought to be challenged, scrutinized and called to account for themselves and their policies.

I'm very disappointed in Khalid Abdul Muhammad, the well-known bigot and hatemonger. It appears that he might be a faker and a hypocrite.As the spokesman for Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, he became an instant national figure by his attacks on whites and Jews in particular.To hear him tell it, Jews are the blacks' worst enemies and are responsible for most of their social and economic woes.Of course, he isn't easy on other whites. He urged South Africa's emancipated blacks to kill all whites: men, women and children.

A young man is sitting in front of a building at the Flag House Courts public housing project when one of the new security guards from the Nation of Islam approaches."

The recent killing of a popular Sunni Muslim inmate leader and the stabbing of one of his friends have stoked tension at the maximum-security Maryland House of Correction and put authorities on alert for signs of further unrest. State corrections officials have embarked on a review of the long-troubled Jessup prison, where two corrections officers were seriously injured in a March attack and three inmates have been killed since May. "I'm taking a look at the total operation of the facility," said Maryland Commissioner of Correction Frank C. Sizer Jr., who faced similar problems with a rash of violence a year ago at a sister facility, the House Annex in Jessup.

In a rear room of a stately old house at the far end of West North Avenue, about 30 Muslims gathered for Friday prayer service. The congregation was made up of black Americans. A young black man in dreadlocks walked to the front of the room and sang the opening prayer in Arabic. The Muslims intermittently prayed by either bending over at the waist and touching their knees or by dropping to their knees and placing their foreheads on the floor. They're as devout a group of Muslims as anywhere else in the world.

MINISTER Jamil Muhammad, the national spokesman for the Nation of Islam, pointed last Friday night to Minister Farajii Muhammad as a prime example of what their leader, Minister Louis Farrakhan, is trying to accomplish. "He's the youth minister for Mosque Six," said Jamil Muhammad, who at one time was the minister in charge of that mosque, which sits on Garrison Boulevard near Liberty Heights Avenue. Farajii Muhammad is 26 years old. He wore a bow tie, a sharp dark suit and a white shirt.

Sweaty handshakes and bare-chested inmates with rocky biceps reach out to the imam in the gym on his way to Friday prayers. Clanging iron weights, smacking basketballs, even the tinny racket of a large-screen TV can't drown their voices. "Assalamu alaikum!" Peace, brother Imam. Imam Wali Uqdah does not want to see some of their sweltering faces. Inmates who track him down at the Baltimore jail and say "I am Muslim" draw his skeptical gaze. "You are Muslim in name only," he thinks. "The faith has not entered your soul."

TODAY BEGINS the new year. The 2002 Chutzpah Awards have been delivered. Do we have room for any other awards? Let's see. The "Credit Where Credit Is Due Award" goes to Tyrone Powers, director of the Institute for Criminal Justice, Legal Studies and Public Service at Anne Arundel Community College. After Gov.-elect Robert Ehrlich and Edward Norris, Ehrlich's pick to run the state police, announced at a news conference a plan to have troopers assist Baltimore cops in fighting crime, Powers pointed out the idea had already been proposed by those Baltimoreans who came up with "The People's Plan to Dramatically Reduce Crime in Baltimore City."

LOS ANGELES - Islam's two pre-eminent African-American leaders, separated by two decades of rivalry before reconciling two years ago, reaffirmed unity Friday in their first joint appearance in Los Angeles. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and W.D. Muhammad of the Muslim American Society offered stark contrasts - one a fiery orator of political polemics and black empowerment, the other a low-key leader who resolutely sticks to religion. Once united under Nation founder Elijah Muhammad, they split 25 years ago over doctrine, with W.D. Muhammad rejecting his father's blend of Islam and black nationalism and moving into orthodox Sunni Islam.

In a fiery, early morning speech yesterday in Baltimore, former Nation of Islam spokesman Khallid Abdul Muhammad praised the ouster of NAACP Executive Director Benjamin F. Chavis Jr."I'm thankful that Ben Chavis got the boot today," Mr. Muhammad told about 150 people gathered at the Walbrook High School auditorium in West Baltimore for an evening of black militant speeches and poetry.Dr. Chavis, he said, is "a boot-licking . . . nigger" for condemning and repudiating Mr. Muhammad for anti-Semitic remarks he made during a speech in November.

WASHINGTON -- Openly defying its chairman, Kweisi Mfume, the Congressional Black Caucus yesterday forcefully rejected the working partnership that he forged with the Nation of Islam last fall.The Baltimore Democrat, under fire for the past week over bigoted remarks by a Nation of Islam official, announced the caucus' position at a news conference on Capitol Hill but refused to say if he personally agreed with the decision."Although I announced that we were, as a caucus, prepared to work closer with the Nation of Islam, even if it meant entering a working covenant similar to our relationship with the NAACP, it is clear now that the caucus feels that such a relationship is not and will not be considered formal until which time . . . it is either voted on or agreed to by acclamation," Mr. Mfume said after a caucus meeting.

For years, Roman Catholic leaders have forged warm and friendly ties with Imam W. Deen Mohammed, leader of the Chicago-based Muslim American Society, the nation's largest body of African-American Muslims. Mohammed has become a friend of Baltimore Cardinal William H. Keeler, who in 1996 escorted the son of the late Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad to Rome to meet Pope John Paul II. The next year, Mohammed invited Chiara Lubich, founder of Focolare, a worldwide lay spiritual movement of 2 million Catholics, to speak at Harlem's Malcolm Shabazz Mosque.

SO THERE WAS one Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader, standing on a podium in front of the U.S. Capitol on Monday, delivering the keynote address at the Million Family March his sect had organized. It was the fifth anniversary of the Million Man March, when more than 1 million black men - depending on whose estimate you believe - gathered in the nation's capital. Atonement was the theme then. On Monday, atonement, family, ecumenicalism and brotherhood were the themes. The Nation of Islam leader mentioned all four frequently in his three-hour peroration.