Life in Abundance: Diet, Black Health, and Spirituality in the

Nation of Islam, 1930-1975.

This article aims to analyze the relation between the Nation of Islam and dietary rules, as well as to
show how its doctrinal component is linked to a quest for an African American redemption. Although
this Black nationalist organization claims to remain within the fold of the Islamic faith, historical
research conducted in the 1990s and 2000s have stressed that its message is characterized by peculiar
beliefs and religious practices. My analysis relies on writings that were produced by the Nation of
Islam, mainly on the two volumes of How to Eat to Live which were authored by Elijah Muhammad.
These dietetic teachings appear to bond the movement to various new religious movements, mainly of
Christian inspiration. It appears probable that this set of beliefs was influenced by the German
naturopath Arnold Ehret (1866-1922), thus leading to a significant difference with Sunni Islam.

Cet article vise à synthétiser le rapport que la Nation of Islam entretient aux règles alimentaires, en
soulignant que son corpus doctrinal est lié à la recherche d’une rédemption au profit des Afro-
Américains. Si cette organisation issue du nationalisme noir se perçoit comme rattachée à la foi
musulmane, des recherches historiques conduites dans les années 1990 et 2000 ont mis en évidence
qu’elle dispose d’une doctrine et de pratiques religieuses qui lui sont propres. Nous nous basons sur
l’étude des écrits du mouvement, notamment sur les deux tomes de How to Eat to Live qui furent
publiés par Elijah Muhammad. Nous en déduisons que les recommandations de la Nation of Islam en
la matière cultivaient une proximité avec certains nouveaux mouvements religieux qui étaient
principalement d’inspiration chrétienne. Il apparaît comme probable que cet ensemble de croyances a
pu être influencé par le naturopathe allemand Arnold Ehret (1866-1922), conduisant à un écart
significatif par rapport à l’islam sunnite.

Introduction

The Nation of Islam was founded in Detroit in July 1930 by a preacher known as W.D.

Fard Muhammad. From its very origin, this African American religious movement has

forged strong ties to the Black nationalist tradition. W.D. Fard mysteriously disappeared

in 1934, after only three years and a half of presence among his disciples, having

experienced various troubles with Detroit and Chicago police forces (Gomez, 2005). He
was succeeded at the head of the organization by a Georgia-born autoworker named

Elijah Muhammad, born Elijah Poole (1897-1975). The institution they created

maintained a peculiar understanding of the word “Islam”: W.D. Fard was elevated to the

status of an embodied divinity after 1934, while Elijah Muhammad was regarded as a

new “Messenger”, thus fulfilling a prophetic mission. These basic articles of faith

contradicted common expressions of the Islamic faith and seemed to fall into the

categories of shirk (association) by joining a human being to the Godhead and of bidah

(innovation) by contesting the status of Muhammad Ibn Abdullah (c. 570-632) as the

final prophet sent to mankind (Evanzz, 2011; Demichelis, 2021; Cragg, 2011).

In many regards, the leading figures of the Nation of Islam appeared to be conscious of

this difference towards Sunnism in the post-World War Two period: their textual

production sometimes alluded to an “Orthodox Islam”, “Al-Islam” or “Islam of the East”,

from which the Nation of Islam clearly distinguished itself (Muhammad, 2008; Curtis,

2006). The very existence of this gap has played a crucial role in the early academic

works that intended to analyze the organization, namely The Black Muslims in America

authored by the American sociologist C. Eric Lincoln (1961) and Black Nationalism:

The Search for an Identity, published by the Nigerian political scientist E.U. Essien-

Udom (1962). While none of these books were focused on historical matters, their

conclusions had a long-lasting influence on historiography. Lincoln and Essien-Udom did

not conceal a certain amount of skepticism regarding the religious dimension of the

Nation of Islam: according to them, this movement was mainly of a political nature,

being inspired by the African American nationalist tradition. As such, the Nation was

envisioned as being superficially dressed up with a religious discourse. These spiritual

references were sometimes felt by the authors as being dissonant, seeming to impede or

to contradict the alleged political agenda of the Nation of Islam (Essien-Udom, 1995 ;

Lincoln, 1973). This appreciation sometimes led to quite problematic comments,

especially under the pen of C. Eric Lincoln: the supposedly limited beliefs of the Nation

of Islam were deemed as being intrinsically foreign to the Islamic religion, whose Sunni

branch was implicitly elevated to the rank of orthodoxy. In addition to creating a blind

spot by avoiding considering the Nation of Islam as a religious belief system, this

approach exceeded the boundaries of a scientific investigation by saying what deserved to

be qualified as the “correct opinion” within Islam, as suggests the use of the word

“Orthodoxy” to designate the Sunni understanding of the faith (Lincoln, 1973).

The spiritual dimension of the Nation of Islam has recently been reconsidered by a new

trend in historiography. In his book Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam,

historian Edward E. Curtis IV approaches the movement’s beliefs under the angle of

cultural history by accepting to study its doctrine as a cohesive belief system, whose clear

differences from Sunni Islam still need to be taken into consideration (Curtis, 2006). For

his part, Stephen C. Finley has studied in In & out of this world: material and

extraterrestrial bodies in the Nation of Islam how the organization expressed concerns

for the physical well-being of Black people. This last scholar contends that the salvation

of the African American body held a central place in Elijah Muhammad’s religious

message, thus paving the way for quasi-psychoanalytic considerations regarding traumas

of African American history and resilience by the means of developing a particular quest

for health (Finley, 2022).

This article aims to deepen the analysis of this rarely considered doctrinal component,

which was often mentioned in the textual production of the Nation of Islam and

constituted a major interest for its members. We intend to show how the Nation of Islam

developed its own religious concerns and a form of practical autonomy towards Sunnism

through this question.

This paper will begin by examining the importance of diet to the Nation of Islam during

its early years and its centrality to the teachings of the Nation. Due to the recent character

of this religious organization and because of its differences vis-à-vis Sunni Islam on

various basic doctrinal issues, we can hypothesize that its focus on food may have been

linked to other contemporary beliefs which burgeoned in the 20th America. Finally, the

core texts of the Nation of Islam will be examined: the two volumes of How to Eat to

Live authored by Elijah Muhammad in 1967 and 1972, intending to summarize the

dietary rules of the movement nearly thirty years after its founding.

I / Mr. Fard’s Diet.

According to tradition, the Nation of Islam was started in Detroit on July 4, 1930. Its

founder first came to meet the Black population of the city by acting as a peddler selling

silks and raincoats. His physical appearance led his customers to believe he was an Arab

immigrant, thus belonging to the wide category of the “Syrian peddlers”. At that time,

this term identified not only sellers who were born in Syria, but all home sellers who

came from predominantly Islamic countries of the Mediterranean region. The peddler

appeared to be both very sympathetic and charismatic: his seeming refinement started to

impress his Detroit customers. He gradually began to explain he possessed a deep

knowledge of the land where the ancestors of the African American people lived prior to

their enslavement (Beynon, 1938).

Most of his disciples came to know him under the name of W.D. Fard Muhammad. The

man showed a personal interest in the prosperity of Black American people. This attitude

was particularly welcomed in the light of the difficult situation this community passed

through: most of the African American people living in Detroit had left the South after

World War One, thus partaking of a major population movement which later came to be

known as the Great Migration. While only 6,000 Black people were living in Detroit in

1910, they had reached the number of 120,000 by 1929 (Ndiaye, 2009). Many of them

moved in the North planning to work in some of the great automobile factories that

dotted the Motown. These Black labourers later suffered the consequences of the stock

market crash in 1929: most of the factories came to slow down, bringing about a high

unemployment rate among these African American families. Furthermore, their recent

relocation had often left a flavour of racial disillusionment: many of them had decided to

move out of the South to escape from segregation and violence that marked life in the

former slave states. Yet, instead of finding a haven of equality in the industrial

metropolises of the North, African American migrants were confronted with problems

such as segregation in housing and confinement to unqualified, low-paying jobs because

of their racial heritage (Beynon, 1938).

Fard’s predication also took place in the aftermath of a turmoil in the world of Black

nationalism. Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) was expelled from the United

States in 1927, following a two-year imprisonment which was essentially motivated by

his political activities. His absence provoked a weakening of the Universal Negro

Improvement Association he chaired: internal strife led to various international schisms,

while the track was clear for a more moderate and reformist organization such as W.E.B.

du Bois’ National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

(Boukar-Yabara, 2017). This gap on the Black nationalist scene lead some individuals to

join new types of organizations : although W.D. Fard was perceived as being Arab, his

proximity with the Garveyite message aroused the interest of former UNIA sympathizers

in the Detroit area (FBI, 1960).

As a result of this situation, Mr. Fard appeared as a ray of sunshine in a dull world. His

customers were fascinated by his stories regarding Africa, which he presented as a

continent full of wonders. Some of his buyers decided to prolong their conversation by

inviting Mr. Fard to stay for dinner. According to early testimonies, the seller often

politely accepted. He sat at the family table, taking respectfully from all the dishes that

were served. Nonetheless, he waited for the end of the meal to look at his hosts and to

solemnly warn them: “Now don’t eat this food. It is poison for you. The people in your

own country do not eat it. Since they eat the right kind of food they have the best health

all the time” (Beynon, 1938, p 895).

This enigmatic remark constituted a first step in his conversion effort: W.D. Fard wanted

to encourage Black people to break with the American daily habits. His listeners were not

hooked on his dietary comments per se; Fard’s solicitude rather implied that something

went wrong during the history of their community. The search for their lost identity was

linked with concerns for their health that appeared to be connected to religious
preoccupations. The target audience mainly came from a Southern Protestant

background, in which dietary prohibitions were largely unknown on the ground of the

Christian New Covenant. Now, these African American families heard that some taboos

could be legitimately revived to prolong their life and to improve their physical condition.

Fard peddler progressively came to present himself as a highly qualified preacher,

possessing a deep knowledge of the Bible and the secrets of White domination over the

United States. He soon ensured the loyalty of a circle of believers, coming to be regarded

as a new prophet. This foreigner took his flock to a new level when he publicly

disavowed the Bible by throwing it on the floor, depicting it as a corrupted text which

was designed to control the African American people. Fard taught his believers that they

belonged to the “Nation of Islam”, thus encouraging them to both reject their native

religion and their sense of belonging to the American society (Beynon, 1938).

In the first years of his ministry, W.D. Fard engaged in an open critical reflection

regarding religious dogmas and customs. His message took the unique form of a

seemingly anti-religious rhetoric: Fard specifically reprobated what he called

“tricknollegy”, allegedly consisting of in “telling lies, stealing any how to master the

original man” (Fard Muhammad, Muhammad, 2009, p8). According to him, Black

people had been falsely led to believe that an immaterial deity was looking upon them

since slavery time, whereas no direct help ever came from this invisible God throughout

the traumatic history of this community. Fard described Christianity as an illogical

system of thought, in which only 10% of the population was supposedly conscious of the
fraudulent, unrealistic implications of its teachings. The alleged aim of this elite was “To

conceal the True God, which is the Son of man, and make slaves out of the 85% by

keeping them worshipping something he knows they cannot see (invisible) and he lives

and makes himself rich from their labor” (Fard Muhammad and Muhammad, 2009, p16).

Contrariwise, Fard claimed to reveal the secret that was long hidden behind the belief in

God: the founder of the Nation of Islam denied the very existence of a “Mystery God”. In

his system, this last term designated the belief in a transcendent, supernatural divinity,

what he described as an illusional reflection of the infinite potential power of Black

people: “There is not a mystery God. The Son of man has searched for that mystery God

for trillions of years and was unable to find a mystery God. So they have agreed that the

only God is the Son of man” (Fard Muhammad and Muhammad, 2009, p 16). His

personal theology thus disclosed Black humanity as being both the first people on Earth

and the only legitimate representative of divinity, whose appearance occurred in the

distant origins of the universe (Gardell, 1996).

This message was referred to as “Islam” by W.D. Fard, who also claimed that tangible

benefits may result of a sufficient “knowledge” of the rules governing the material world.

From its very foundation, his movement was meant to profess a form of scientific

religiosity. The believers came to be familiar with a worldview in which a secret group of

“Scientists” was supposedly keeping an eye on the destiny of mankind. The teachings of

the Nation of Islam were to be often compared to exact sciences, such as mathematics

and astronomy (Bowen, 2017).

Whereas the submission of African American people by Christianity was considered as a

temporary situation which would come to an end in a near future, W.D. depicted White
people as being intrinsically devils. This situation was seen as an ongoing condition with

atavistic implications: according to Fard, the Caucasian people had been designed by a

Black scientist named Yakub through a grafting process more than 6000 years ago, thus

making them a devilish race which was motivated by irretrievably malicious instincts

towards Black people and the laws of Nature, using Christianity as one of their multiple

means of governing the African American people (Fard Muhammad and Muhammad,

2009 ; Clegg, 2014).

By developing this interpretation of the word “Islam”, W.D. Fard clearly distinguished

his beliefs from the traditional expressions of Islamic faith. The very rejection of a

transcendent deity was not consistent with the monotheistic principle (Tawhid) which is

defended by mainstream branches of Sunni, Shia and Ibadi Islam. His early claims to

prophethood also seemed to ignore the common Islamic belief regarding the end of

prophecy with Muhammad Ibn Abdullah. Finally, the preponderant racial preoccupations

of his doctrine put aside the proselyte, universal implications of classical expressions of

the Islamic faith.

Fard’s dietary interest appeared to be in line with this doctrinal latitude. Some of his

recommendations seemed to hold an underlying meaning, often alluding to the African

American past instead of refering to the ancient Islamic past. Products which carried the

remembrance of life in the South or slavery were explicitly depreciated, including

« Peas, collard greens, turnip greens, sweet potatoes and white potatoes are very

cheaply raised foods” (Muhammad, 2006, p5). W.D. Fard also showed a contempt for
“poison animals” such as catfish and opossum (Beynon 1938).

On top of it all, the consumption of one single meal a day came to be affirmed as a

distinctive feature. While these dietary rules were already mentioned as early as 1934, it

turns out that they were notably absent in the two texts of the « Lost-Found Muslim

Lessons », which compiled Fard’s teachings and still hold a central place in the

organization’s beliefs. Nevertheless, the focus on diet was implicitly linked to the belief

in a devilish nature of White people: the believers were expected to break with the

contemporary American daily life, supposedly rooted in deception and in breach of the

natural laws (The Final Call to Islam, September 1, 1934 ; Fard Muhammad and

Muhammad, 2009).

Scholar Karl Evanzz hypothesizes that this dietary focus may have been an important

argument for the communication of the movement: people who accepted the Nation of

Islam’s message were expected to change their physical appearance by losing weight.

Evanzz hypothesizes that this point may have been interpreted as the sign of a genuine

divine revelation, which positively affected individual body functioning and thus bore the

sign of an efficient, scientific spirituality (Evanzz, 2001). While most of the practices of

the first Nation of Islam’s believers remain poorly documented, its focus on dietary issues

was studied by social sciences as early as 1938. These religious rules were included in a

wider cleaning effort. It is possible to draw parallels with other early recommendations

which were expressed in the founding years of the organization: among other things, the

believers were encouraged to keep a perfect personal hygiene and dedicating time to

housekeeping (Beynon, 1938).

Beyond this tangible impact, it may be relevant to consider Fard’s dietetic concern as a

symptom of a radical dans uncompromising worldview. As a matter of fact, the Nation of

Islam was not the first African American group to take its inspiration from the religion of

Islam: during the second half of the 1920s, another movement called the Moorish

Science Temple of America reached a significant popularity among Black communities

living in the northern industrial cities. Known by the name of Noble Drew Ali, its leader

claimed to be a new prophet teaching the religion of Islam, while publishing a text he

referred to as being the “Circle Seven Koran” (Gomez, 2005).

Ali died in Chicago in 1929, only a few months before the Nation of Islam was founded

by W.D. Fard in Detroit. Like the Nation of Islam after him, he showed a certain interest

for the health of the African American body, providing various lotions and tonics through

the Moorish Manufacturing Corporation he owned. Nevertheless, dietary rules never

played a major role in his teachings: his herbal remedies formed part of an African

American popular tradition of natural medicine, supposed to bring both physical and

spiritual benefits. Moreover, it is noteworthy that the beliefs of the Moorish Science

never refereed to the idea of a willingly poisoning through industrial food or fat and

sugar. This contrast establishes that W.D. Fard’s dietary regime was given a greater

ideological importance, but also that his doctrine implied a more tormented vision of the

White American majority, allegedly trying to harm the African American people by

deliberately corrupting what they ate (Clark, 2013).

It may be interesting to know if the nutrition teachings of the Nation of Islam reflected a

sincere belief on the part of W.D. Fard. Some details tend to suggest that the mysterious
peddler may have honestly trust in the virtues of the diet he proposed to his followers:

long after his departure, some of his adepts related that Fard suffered a heavy form of

diabetes. Sometimes, he had to keep sugar sachets in the pockets of his blazer, just in

case of faintness. It is possible that reducing his caloric intake was perceived as a way of

regulating this personal health issue (Arian, 2017).

Even though Fard pretended to come from Arabia when he met his believers, he had in

fact a troubled past which involved links with food and cooking activities. According to

various recent historical research, it is highly probable that he once owned a food truck in

Oregon before working as a restaurant manager in Los Angeles, thus working in food

service on the West Coast between 1904 and 1926 and having troubles with the law in at

least four occasions. This part of his life is known to us through historical sources that

were to be gathered by the FBI in the 1950s and 1960s (Arian, 2017; FBI, August 29,

1963). Among the hundreds of pages, the Federal Bureau produced, one report collected

the testimony of Fard’s former live-in partner in Los Angeles: the Nation of Islam’s

founder came to visit her, likely in the summer of 1933. While she seemed to ignore the

very existence of the movement Fard founded in Detroit three years earlier, she clearly

told the Federal agents that he had mentioned during this short stay the adoption of a new

lifestyle for himself, in which taking one meal a day constituted a prominent feature (FBI,

October 18, 1957).

After his departure in 1934, W.D. Fard came to be commonly referred amongst his

disciples as “Allah in person”. A staunch proponent of Fard’s divine nature, Elijah

Muhammad formalized this belief when he succeeded to emerge as the head of the
Nation of Islam in the late 1930s and early 1940s (Beynon, 1938). It is important to

consider this article of faith in the light of its doctrinal consequences for the believers up

to this day: assigning Fard a divine nature meant that this stranger who walked in Detroit

was remembered as the manifestation of the godhead in the flesh, thus enjoying a perfect

understanding of the universe through his alleged supreme knowledge. W.D. Fard is then

presented as the holder of hidden and functional truths regarding different fields such as

religious practices, community organization, family life, and high culture. The dietary

rules he advocated were included in a holistic approach that was meant to help and heal

the African American people (Gardell, 1996). Fard himself was expected to reappear with

power and glory to destroy America and to chastise the Caucasians for their mistreatment

of Black people. Such a belief contributed to envision Fard as a messianic figure, whose

coming in Detroit anticipated the coming battle of Armageddon (Allah, 2015).

His diet was reasserted and consolidated under the aegis of Elijah Muhammad, leading

the Nation of Islam until his death in 1975 and thus contributing to maintain a significant

difference from traditional expressions of Islam. The organization reached its apogee in

the late 1950s and early 1960s. Once a small group that gathered a few dozen families,

the Nation of Islam had become a national movement, and acquired a visibility in the

American media. The important contribution of Malcolm X as its spokesperson is not to

be underestimated: according to one early evaluation, the Nation of Islam increased its

membership a hundredfold under his influence, totaling 40,000 believers in 1964

(Gomez, 2005).
This new popularity catapulted Elijah Muhammad to the front of the national stage. Even

though he became best known for his Black nationalist political stance, he maintained a

thin line between public issues and his religious message. Muhammad’s persistent

interest for diet easily illustrated this situation: he regularly mentioned the fact that he

was still in contact with the departed W.D. Fard, especially through telepathic waves.

Consequently, he could be presented as Fard’s legitimate emissary in the transmission of

doctrinal matters that were once formulated in Detroit (FBI, 105-63642-36).

After World War Two, the Nation of Islam witnessed a new trend, encouraging its

members to practice entrepreneurship. Individual savings created by the consumption of a

single daily meal were described as funds which could be invested in various community

business owned by the Nation of Islam or its members (Muhammad, 1980). Elijah

Muhammad explicitly promoted these economic effects, thus echoing some of E.D.

Beynon’s early sociological observations while claiming to improve his believer’s life

span: “In prolonging your life by abstaining from the pig, alcoholic drinks and tobacco,

you will also be adding money to your savings by hundreds and thousands of dollars”

(Muhammad, 2006, p 20).

It is also worth noting that the late 1950s and early 1960s corresponds to the climax of

the organization in terms of commercial and property ownership: the organization and its

members possessed many groceries stores, bakeries, restaurants, fish importation

businesses and farms across the United States. All the products sold were intended to be

in harmony with the alimentary rules promoted by Elijah Muhammad. This last comment

could lead us to see how the Nation of Islam proposed a diet that directly affected the

professional activities of the believers; similarly, the organization advocated a brand of

Black nationalism that relied on economic solidarity and community independence

towards the White majority (Curtis, 2006).

II/ How to cultivate divine potential: dietary rules in the peak years of the Nation of

Islam.

Elijah Muhammad authored several dozens of books during the apogee period of the

Nation of Islam. Most of these titles were intended to clarify and justify his singular

doctrinal views: he notably published in 1967 and 1972 two volumes of How to Eat to

Live. This work was based on both Fard’s early recommendations and on Muhammad’s

observations throughout the past four decades. His advanced diet featured characteristics

which could be organized into three main categories. It seems important to examine these

teachings to understand why their transmission was still perceived as relevant more than

thirty years after W.D. Fard’s departure, and how these concerns resonated with other

beliefs that were promoted by this organization.

1. Qualitative advice.

As with many other religious creeds, the Nation of Islam envisioned some products as

having positive or detrimental effects on the human body. These decisions were not

always justified explicitly: Elijah Muhammad showed a general interest for fresh, vegetal

food: “TRY to eat all of your foods, fresh from the source from which it springs”

(Muhammad, 2008, p 182). He recommended to consume all fruits and vegetables with

few exceptions, such as: collard greens, turnip salad, kale, and peas, which were deemed

inappropriate for human digestion (Muhammad, 2006).

Following this precept, Elijah Muhammad proposed to take the navy bean as the staple

food of this diet, thus consecrating it as a cultural cornerstone of the organization.

Muhammad justified his interest in the navy bean by its alleged concentration of

« proteins, fats and starches », going so far as to use biblical references: “This dry bean,

or pulse, is of ancient origin. It was this bean, according to certain historians, that

Daniel preferred for himself and his followers in the prison of Nebuchadnezzar”

(Muhammad, 2006, p 5). Whereas the Navy bean’s nutrients were presented as being

sufficient, the consumption of sources of starch such as rice or pastas were largely

discouraged. Muhammad made an exception for bread if it was homemade (Muhammad,

2006, p6).

In addition to the qualitative rules he promoted, Elijah Muhammad expressed a general

distrust toward the contemporary food industry. This sector was often depicted as being

controlled by White Americans, thus explaining their allegedly unnatural and immoral

features. The food processing industry was criticized by Muhammad because of its

chemical storage methods, but also in view of the current agricultural practices. The

leader of the Nation of Islam displayed preoccupations that could remind 21st century

questions, which were surprising in a time when GMOs were still to be discovered: “The

natural food value of the vegetables that we go to the market and buy should not be

destroyed with a lot of additions. They contain the vitamins and proteins nature put in

them for us, if the experimenters and poisoners of food do not interfere” (Muhammad,

2008, p 87).
Echoing testimonies regarding Fard’s alleged diabetes, the two volumes of How to Eat to

Live mention a disdain for sugar, describing it as an ingredient likely to shorten one’s life

span. The addition of sugar in various food preparations could be removed deemed as one

of the dangers of the modern life in America (Muhammad, 2006). Quitting sugar was

regarded as a way for diabetes to be “controlled and cured” (Muhammad, 2006, p 30).

More generally, Elijah Muhammad perceived industrial cooking as an insidious

prolongation of slavery through food production. According to him, White Americans

willingly added poison in food products in order to harm Black people, occasionally

drawing an implicit parallel with the dangers of Christianity: “They seek, and have tried

throughout their civilization, to change the very natural religion of the black man”

(Muhammad, 2006, p 35).

Once jailed during World War Two for draft evasion, Elijah Muhammad had experienced

events which seemed to confirm his perceptions: « In prison, they almost starve my

followers trying to force them to eat the filthy, poisonous swine flesh. This I know,

because when I was in prison, they did the same to me” (Muhammad, 2006, p 2). Still,

according to his account, this practice even concerned bread, in which the white prison

cooks attempted to add some pork to humiliate Muhammad and other Muslim inmates

who refused to be drafted in U.S. Forces (Muhammad, 2006, p 54-55).

Apart from his non-negotiable rejection of pork, the leader expressed a relative tolerance

for other meats such as beef, lamb, chicken, and pigeon (Muhammad, 2006).

Nonetheless, consumption of animal fat was forbidden. This last injunction was justified

by the mean of verses from the Bible and the Quran (Muhammad, 2008). Moreover, meat
cooking was not described as a regular way to eat. While consuming flesh was not

forbidden per se, this dietary practice was largely discouraged, especially compared to the

value given to fresh vegetal food. Fish was a notable exception because of its supposed

beneficial nature: “we can eat fish. Fish is raised under a different atmosphere. Fish is

from a different world of life. (…) Fish is good for us” (Muhammad, 2008, p 53).

Therefore, Muhammad recommended « fish-eating to those fish weighing between one

and ten pounds” and rejected “scavengers of the sea such as oysters, crabs, clams,

snails, shrimp, eels, or catfish” (Muhammad, 2006, p 60-61).

His issue with industrial food was often intrinsically linked with the pork issue, whose

consumption was perceived as a bad Caucasian habit: “they practice eating the very

worst meat (the poisonous and filthy swine, wild birds, wild fowl of any kind, and even

reptiles) and teach man to eat it” (Muhammad, 2006, p 48). This depiction falls within

the caveman and devilish natures which Elijah Muhammad attributed to White people,

thus describing the taste for improper food as a hereditary sign of savagery: “When they

were in the hillsides and caves of Europe, they ate the foods other wild beasts ate”

(Muhammad, 2008, p 96). The theme of White dietary habits was particularly close to the

topic of poisoning, making the modern food industry an extension of this general

inclination toward poisoning: “He has poisoned the Bible and the food that we eat”

(Muhammad, 2008, p 69-70).

Elijah Muhammad justified the rejection of swine by invoking the Bible and the Quran,

thus making its consumption an indisputable taboo. However, he provided reasons for

this ban which were intended to rely on a scientific basis by echoing very ancient facts
that were supposedly revealed by W.D. Fard: “The hog is a grafted animal, so says Allah

to me – grafted from rat, cat and dog” (Muhammad, 2006, p 70). According to Elijah

Muhmmad, pork had been genetically manipulated for thousands of years to serve the

specific needs of Caucasian people: “The hog was made, Allah taught me, for medical

purposed, to cure the white man’s many diseases, since he had been grafted out of the

black man” (Muhammad, 2006, p 98).

How to Eat to Live also mentioned dangerous health conditions, which could result of

trichinae worms reportedly contained in pork meat: “From there, the trichinae work

themselves into the spinal cord and travel the spinal cord toward the brain, at which time

there is no possible cure.” (Muhammad, 2006, p 15). This worm was described as giving

birth to “pork-worms” inside the human body, eventually generating « larger worms

called ‘tapeworms’” that could “(destroy) human life, from our early childhood to a

short span of 50 to 75 years (which should just be the beginning of life).” (Muhammad,

2008, p 64).

Referring to the Arabic word « khanzier » which designates pork in the Quran, Elijah

Muhammad reported the explanation of an man he described as an Arabic Muslim he

once met: « Khan, he says, means ‘I see’. Zier means ‘foul’. This is the meaning of the

English word swine. Khanzier, or ‘I see the animal foul’ – and very foul – is the best

explanation that I have heard to cover the very nature and characteristics of this animal”

(Muhammad, 2006, p 14).

These various reasons were meant to designate pork’s status as “divinely prohibited

flesh”. The wide use of swine in American food was hence envisioned as the sign of a
deep lack of civilization – barely concealed behind a thin layer of modern technology

(Muhammad, 2006, p 101-102).

Notwithstanding, Elijah Muhammad considered that Orthodox Jewish Americans

practiced one divine and true religion. For this reason, he could write that “The dietary

law, given to Israel by Moses is true today. Israel was given the proper food to eat

Jehovah approved for them, and that which was forbidden to eat we should not eat

today” (Muhammad, 2006, p 95). This remark was complemented with other parts of

How to Eat to Live, which seemed to accept kosher meat as a substitute in the absence of

halal meat (Muhammad, 2006).

2. Quantitative advice.

While it is difficult to be certain if all the previous qualitative recommendations were

already a part of Fard’s own teachings, it is established that Elijah Muhammad

maintained various practices that were adopted in the early 1930, including the

consumption of one meal a day (Muhammad, 2006, p 9). His advice was supposed to

eliminate the various poisons contained in the human body over a lifetime, especially

under the influence of industrial food (Muhammad, 2006, p 68). This was interpreted as

another way to prolong the life of the believers: “IF WE EAT twice a week, this would

make us to live twice as long as we would live by eating once every day or every other

day.” (Muhammad, 2008, p 63).

The sole daily meal was meant to be taken at the end of the day, corresponding to a

family dinner in the early evening: « Eat the proper food as given in this book and eat at

the proper time: one meal a day from 4 to 6 PM.” (Muhammad, 2006, p 33). Children
under the age of 16 were exempted from this obligation, having the right to eat twice a

day because of their development needs Muhammad made a similar exception in the case

of sick persons (Muhammad, 2008).

3. Frequent fasts and frugality.

In addition to eating one meal a day, Elijah Muhammad’s disciples were advised to fast

on a regular basis: “Fasting is a greater cure of our ills -both mental and physical – than

all the drugs of the earth combined into one bottle or a billion bottles.” (Muhammad,

2006, p 19). Muhammad frequently defended this practice by mentioning an interest in

resting the digestive system Nature and bodily functions were thus described as operating

according to frugal rules. This seemingly counter-intuitive method was presented as a

miracle cure which could easily confuse one’s family doctor. Conventional modern

medicine was supposedly unaware of the benefits of fasting, leading the reader to

conclude that such a panacea could not have been revealed by someone else than an all-

knowing being in the person of W.D. Fard (Muhammad, 2006). The believer was

expected to experiment with progressively longer periods, finally leading to several days

without any food consumption: “Get used to eating one meal a day, then when your

appetite is not so strong for that next meal, by eating once every 24 hours, start eating

every 48 hours. Never start 72 hours regularly until you are able to do so.” (Muhammad,

2006, p 41).

Just like in other issues, Muhammad pretended to base his ideas in knowledge of Islam as

a natural religion. While he claimed to make use of science to improve the believer’s life

in a tangible and material manner, his propositions were often depicted as having been
prefigured in the pages of the Holy Scriptures: “The Bible says that He will give us more

life abundancy, but He demands strict obedience to His Will.” (Muhammad, 2006, p 1).

Also making use of the Quran, Elijah Muhammad interpreted the last four verses of the

89th Surah as an allusion to this physical state in which perfect health would be reached:

“O soul that is at rest, Enter into My gardens, Into my paradise among Servants well

pleased And well pleasing.” (Muhammad, 2006, p 58).

It is significant that the literal meaning of these verses refers to the entering of Paradise

for deserving Muslims in the afterlife. Contrary to the evident meaning of the Qur’anic

text, Elijah Muhammad denied the possibility of a bodily resurrection or the existence of

an immaterial soul. This singular creed was tirelessly reasserted since the founding years

of the Nation of Islam, thus leading to a metaphorical interpretation of verses mentioning

life in Heaven and hell (The Final Call to Islam, August 11, 1934).

Materially speaking, « paradise » was envisioned as an extended individual lifespan in

the likeness of the biblical patriarchs, who are described as living for hundreds of years.

Elijah Muhammad taught that living in perfect health and according to the laws of Nature

constituted the only fulfilment of the “Life in abundance” that was promised in the Bible

for the deserving believers who conform to the will of God. Although the Nation of

Islam’s religiosity claimed to be rooted in science, it is remarkable that the Scripture were

still perceived as relevant texts, as long as their hidden, accurate interpretation was

applied. Despite its closeness to the beliefs of scientism, Elijah Muhammad’s rhetoric

supported some of the literal words of Genesis and the Quran, where characters such as

Noah may be described as living for 950 years. This type of expectation was not deemed

as being unrealistic in the belief system of the Nation of Islam: according to Elijah
Muhammad, W.D. Fard taught that life on other planets existed and that the inhabitants

of Mars could live up to 1200 years. Such prowess was supposedly accessible for an

ordinary human being, thus making an 80 to 100 years expectation an untimely passing

(Muhammad, 2008).

III/ Putting Fard’s diet in context.

All these concerns appear to differ significantly from dietary rules existing in the

traditional expressions of the Islamic faith. Representing its two largest branches of

Islam, Sunni Islam and twelve Shia Islam draw their rules regarding food and fasting

from qur’anic verses, hadiths and rulings which were elaborated by scholars through

centuries of jurisprudence (Kamali, 2021). This did not exactly apply to the Nation of

Islam, which sometimes willingly distinguished its instructions from mainstream Islamic

practices.

The case of Ramadan fasting appears to be particularly informing. Elijah Muhammad

stood out of common Islamic interpretations by discouraging the abstaining from food

from dawn to sunset and implicitly preferring to organize 24 hours periods of fast : “In

the case of the Orthodox Muslims worshipping Ramadan by not eating until after sunset,

and darkness approaches (they can eat all night long if they want to, until next morning

at dawn) – they call this a FAST !” (Muhammad, 2008, p 50).

In contrast to this idea, the leader of the Nation of Islam admitted that the Quran was

revealed to prophet Muhammad during the month of Ramadan in the 7 th century, thus

seemingly joining traditional understandings; nonetheless, he refused to fast during this

month of the Islamic calendar (Muhammad, 2008). He replaced this practice with a fast

that took place every year during the month of December, thus giving preemption to the

Gregorian solar calendar. This attempt was also meant to replace the Christmas time in

two different ways: Elijah Muhammad negated that Jesus Christ was born in December,

depicting Christmas as a pagan holiday belonging to ancient Babylon and that predated

the Christ’s birth (Muhammad, 2006). What’s more, he extended his ascetic approach by

prompting his disciples to quit spending money in food or gifts for the holiday season:

“WHY DID I prescribe for you the month of December? It is because it was in this month

that you used to worship a dead prophet by the name of Jesus. And, it was the month that

you wasted your money and wealth to worship the 25 th day of this month, December, as

the Christians do” (Muhammad, 2008, p 48).

This decision was even more remarkable since it was perpetuated through the 1960s, at a

time when other Muslim communities were already present and active in the United

States, including immigrant groups and other African American movements. Their

coexistence illustrates that the doctrinal peculiarity of the Nation of Islam did not result

of a lack of knowledge regarding common Islamic practices. On the contrary, Elijah

Muhammad was affirming through this decision his will to maintain the specific belief

system that had been developed from July 1930. Hence, his teaching mainly resonated

with the contemporary African American context, more than with any foreign expression

of the Islamic faith (Essien-Udom, 1995).

For certain aspects such as dietary rules, the interpretation of Islam he developed appears

to be particularly close to other beliefs systems that existed in the contemporary Western
world, especially in some new religious movements that emerged in the 19th and early

20th centuries in the West. Relating alimentary concerns with science and spirituality was

not something new in American culture: this combination could at least be traced back to

some Christian movements that appeared one century before the Nation of Islam.

Preoccupations with food and health were promoted in the first half of the 20th century

by popular figures, such as Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (1852-1943). At first influenced by

Seventh Day Adventism, this practitioner opened his own sanatorium in Battle Creek,

Michigan. His growing doctrinal and practical independence finally caused rupture with

the church in 1907. Kellogg progressively moved to a form of medical vitalism which

was seen as compatible with the science of his days. Until his death, he advocated a

vegetarian diet which he envisioned as a way to take weight and to recover health and

vivacity (Strings, 2019).

The close link between health and spirituality sometimes had tragic consequences. This

was especially illustrated at the turn of 20th century with the case of the « Starvation

doctor » Linda Hazzard (1867-1938). Based in the Seattle area, this fast promoter

attracted theosophists and freethinkers by pretending to heal cancer and various diseases.

Her dietary guidelines appeared to be extremely harsh: claiming to help the body to

eliminate harmful substances, Hazzard coerced her victims to take very restricted food

portions, essentially consisting of fruits and vegetables. She declared to be inspired by the

works of Dr. Edward Hooker Dewey (1837-1904), known for adding fasting therapy to

his evangelical doctrine. Because of the undernutrition induced by her methods, one of

Linda Hazzard’s patients died in 1902. According to estimates, her practices may have
led to a dozen deaths. Those events drew the attention of authorities on the Wilderness

Heights: Hazzard was suspected of taking financial profit of the physical and psychic

weakness of her starved patients. She was finally arrested in August 1911 and sentenced

to two years of imprisonment for manslaughter (Beck, 2023).

Despite these previous trends in contemporary American culture, it is worth noting that

W.D. Fard’s hypothetical influences were never explicitly detailed by himself, nor by his

successor Elijah Muhammad. This lack of claimed predecessors opens the way to

suppositions of our own. Recent research produced by scholar Patrick D. Bowen asserts

that W.D. Fard may have been inspired by his probable eclectic readings in the years that

predated the founding of the Nation of Islam. According to Bowen, Fard’s diet may

present important similarities with The Mosaic Law in the Light of Modern Science,

authored in 1926 by Thomas H. Nelson. This book was rooted in a peculiar Christian

fundamentalist context: Nelson promoted a strict diet, notably prohibiting pork and

valuing fruits and vegetables (Bowen, 2017). Although Bowen’s comparison may be

indicative of a possible convergence, it is viable to mention another source which appear

to offer striking similarities with the rhetoric developed by the Nation of Islam between

1930 and 1975. W.D. Fard may have found some of his dietary references among foreign

authors, whose texts were also published in the United States in the 1920s.

Books published by the German naturopathist Arnold Ehret (1866-1922) should be taken

into consideration. According to the narrative he later developed, Ehret lived his young

years in a fragile state of health. Among other things, he was forced to leave the army

because of his heart disease. Despite the difficulties generated by his condition, he
claimed to have discovered that his body functions were deeply affected by the nature of

the food he was eating and by the frequency of his meals. He also affirmed to have cured

all his chronic diseases by stopping eating for extended periods of time. Arnold Ehret

justified this practice by explaining that sickness resulted from an accumulation of mucus

in organs, thus leading to a dangerous condition which could only be solved through

exhausting reserves of the body. Based on that alleged discovery, he later founded a

sanatorium in Switzerland, proposing to help the sick through these fasting methods.

Interestingly, Ehret’s propositions met a certain degree of success in America: visiting

Panama in 1914, he was himself forced to stay in the United States because of the start of

the First World War. Arnold Ehret moved to California, where he remained until his

death in 1922. Between 1912 and 1922, various translations and adaptations his theses

were relayed in American naturopathic magazines, such as Herald of Health and

Naturopath. Shortly after his passing, an American edition of one of his books was

released: Mucusless-Diet Healing System was published by the Ehret Literature

Publishing Company, based in Los Angeles and dedicated to the diffusion of his dietary

recommendations (Czeranko, 2019; Melton, Clark and Kelly, 1990).

This book was a condensed expression of Ehret’s main concerns. As its titles showed, a

particular attention was accorded to the impact of mucus on the human body: “Every sick

person has a more or less mucus-clogged system, such mucus being derived from

undigested and uneliminated, unnatural food substances, accumulated from childhood-

on” (Ehret, 1924, p 23). To contain this supposed danger, Ehret proposed to organize

regular periods of fast. This included prolonged periods without any food absorption and
the consumption of a single daily meal. This latter point was expressed through marking

wordings, recommending “The 24-Hours Fast, or One Meal a Day Plan”. In addition,

Ehret advised his readers to take this meal at the end of the day: “the best time to eat is in

the afternoon, say 3 or 4 o’clock P.M” (Ehret, 1924, p 158).

Just like W.D. Fard and Elijah Muhammad after him, Arnold Ehret was preoccupied by

the then-emerging food industry. His arguments were mainly based on the work of the

Swedish biochemist Ragnar Berg (1873-1956): according to him, the use of sulphur,

benzoid of soda and salicylic acid in canned food posed a risk to the consumers’ health

(Ehret, 1924). The proximity with the rhetoric of the Nation of Islam was even prolonged

in the choice of food. In this regard, Ehret also retained most of Ragnar Berg’s

recommendations: both clearly valorized fruits and vegetables at the expense of meat and

cereal products (Ehret, 1924). Nevertheless, Arnold Ehret distinguished himself by

describing his feeding regime as being beyond the limits of contemporary science and

materialism. He would often refer to the Bible, arguing that the content of the Scriptures

was in perfect harmony with his research findings: “There could be no disease if men

would live right, in accordance with the divine story of the Genesis arguments. (…) In

plain instead of mysterious words, you and all mankind will suffer and die from disease

as long as you fail to return again to the laws of the Creator, to the laws of Nature, as

man lived in paradise” (Ehret, 1924, p 85).

Ehret precisely developed the proposition of a vegetarian diet by interpreting it as a return

to the lifestyle that prevailed in the biblical times: “a muculess diet, consisting of fruits

and herbs, meaning green-leaf vegetables, considered ‘unfashionable’ since the time of

Moses, that great Dietician and Faster” (Ehret, 1924, p 97). He linked these efforts with
the Christian belief in the original sin and the fall of man that followed, presenting his

diet as a way to return mankind to its original, Edenic condition : “We are only a shade

of the original man, caused thru our degeneration, but you may yet experience what

cannot be described, that this kind of eugenics is the fundamental truth of evolution into

‘Heaven on Earth!” (Ehret, 1924, p 182). In short, these convictions showed a lack of

clear distinction between health, science, and religious issues.

The comparison of Ehret’s doctrine with W.D. Fard’s teachings offers occasional

differences, bearing witness of some deep distinctions in their worldviews. For instance,

Arnold Ehret expressed a belief in a life after death for people who might respect the

rules of Nature he attempted to promote, while the possibility of an afterlife was negated

by W.D. Fard and Elijah Muhammad (Ehret, 1924 ; Evanzz, 2001). Beyond this type of

variation, it is remarkable that Ehret’s American publishing house was based in Los

Angeles at a time when W.D. Fard probably inhabited the same city. At the turn of the

1960s, the FBI linked the vanished founder with a restaurant manager called Wallie Ford:

the Bureau concluded that Fard and Ford were one and the same person. Ford’s presence

in Los Angeles was at least attested between 1918 and his incarceration for drug dealing

in 1926. Thus, the future Fard would have been present in the city when the first editions

of Mucusless-Diet Healing System were published. Even though this identification with

Wallie Ford has been contested by the Nation of Islam to this day, it apparently was

considered seriously by John Edgar Hoover’s investigating officers in their attempt to

damage the public image of the Nation of Islam. This synchronicity tends to suggest that

a certain proximity existed between the founder of the Nation of Islam and the wider

American contemporary religious culture that surrounded him, involving naturopaths

who advocated dietary and spiritual solutions to contemporary health issues (FBI,

September 16, 1957; August 29, 1963).

For four decades, the Nation of Islam also ensured the continued transmission of

concerns which bore striking similarities with Arnold Ehret’s approach. By way of

illustration, Elijah Muhammad claimed as late as the 1960s that asthma was provoked by

a fluid accumulation in the body. His description seemed to be highly reminiscent of

concerns linked to mucus: “As you know, I contracted bronchial -asthma, and I have

learned that there are no drugs that the public has access to which actually serves as a

cure. But I am doing fine now, and eating once a day and once every other day does not

give the mucous (sic) time to accumulate and choke the bronchial tubes and tract”

(Muhammad, 2006, p 27-28). This depiction was also particularly close to Ehret’s

description of cold as being from the body “a beneficial effort to eliminate waste from

the cavities of the head, the throat, and the bronchial tubes. The cold goes deeper and

will eliminate and clean the mucus from the most spongy and vital organ, the lung”

(Ehret, 1924, p 38-39).

It is possible to compare this dietary focus with the tobacco rejection that the Nation of

Islam defended since 1930. Nearly three decades later, Elijah Muhammad was delighted

to see that the American government started to support this spurning for medical reasons:

“This is very good that they accept Divine Protection against the destruction of the

human body.” (Muhammad, 2008, p 152).

While the bodily and economic effects of this diet were supposed to be obvious for

believers, it is remarkable that these commandments were deprived of rigorous scientific

explanations : personal testimonies of the disciples were frequently diffused in the pages

of community newspapers such as Muhammad Speaks throughout the 1960s, seeming to

constitute the sole proof that was needed by the readers and inviting them to adopt

practices such as regular fasting periods or the consumption of one meal a day. As a

corollary, the belief in a scientific religiosity maintained a striking silence about the

potential negative effects this frugal way of life may have on the health of certain

individual, thus leaving little room for contradiction or skepticism (Curtis, 2006).

What is more, we must stress that these doctrinal preoccupations presented the

particularity of being addressed to an African American audience. The consideration of

weight and fatness found a special meaning for this community in the first half of the

twentieth century and for American culture at large. As sociologist Sabrina Strings puts

it, “Fatness in the United States ‘means’ excess of desire, of bodily urges not controlled,

of immoral, lazy, and sinful habits.” (Farrell, 2011, p 10). According to Strings, this

appreciation was notably combined with an association of overweight with an alleged

form of primitiveness. In this situation, the refusal of being overweight expressed an

attempt to break down prejudices that frequently stigmatized the black body. On the

contrary, the Anglo-American body was more commonly presented as being civilized and

thin. Since the early 19th century, fatness was perceived as a physical feature linked with

specific African ethnic groups, such as Hottentots/Khoikhoi. Given these factors,

mankind seemed to be divided in two divergent categories, distinguishing “whiteness and

blackness, good and bad” through supposed physical morphotypes that reflected

domination relations in the American society (Strings, 2019, p 64).

As with other topics engaging the African American community, W.D. Fard and Elijah

Muhammad developed a Black nationalist ideological vision in two argumentative stages:

at first, they apparently confirmed negative clichés regarding African Americans, before

immediately claiming to reverse these offensive descriptions through a concrete action.

This method of communication was reflected in illustrations published in the Muhammad

Speaks newspaper throughout the 1960s and 1970s: some of them seemed to caricature

Black people living in the South, depicting them as being overweight and going against

God’s will by eating pork, drinking alcohol and consuming products that were deemed as

inappropriate by the Nation of Islam (Curtis, 2006).

These negative descriptions were implicitly intended to be off-putting for the African

American reader; it was also implied that members of the Nation of Islam escaped this

condemnation by obeying W.D. Fard and his messenger Elijah Muhammad, thus

successfully redeeming their bodily envelope from alleged contemporary degradations.

By simultaneously validating and contesting stereotypes regarding African Americans,

the Nation of Islam cultivated a nuanced vision of Black self-esteem: collective action

was linked with personal responsibility, sometimes making use of individual body

shaming the prerequisite to a Black nationalist commitment. Converts to Islam were

believed to be in touch with a proud, thousands-year-old cosmic heritage, consequently

predating the American wickedness that demeaned their innocent African ancestors and

that could be defeated through an appropriate new way of life (Curtis, 2006). As Stephen

C. Finley has observed in the case of the Nation of Islam beliefs, “ideal black bodies

were dangerous to the dominant culture because they were symbolically out-of-place.

They resisted being rendered inferior.” (Finley, 2022, p 72-73).

Conclusion

This study has shown that the Nation of Islam gave a great importance to its dietary

recommendations. While this concern was not developed in the main early texts that were

produced by the believers, it became one of the major components of the movement’s

religious message after World War Two. These dietetic efforts expressed a desire to

move away from the African American contemporary condition, seen as fallen and

needing to return to God’s commandments. By doing so, the Nation of Islam

consolidated the authority of its leaders: both were presented as the depositaries of a

transcendent knowledge, thus making their dietary recommendations a substitute to

traditional Islamic teachings which was perceived as being both legitimate and

acceptable.

As have been demonstrated above, these rules happen to be similar to other spiritual

streams that emerged in contemporary American society, searching for health through

frugal diet plans that would break with dominant models. W.D. Fard’s suggestions were

presented by Elijah Muhammad as contesting social norms both in the political and

scientific fields. Since the 19th century, the African American urban environment was

afflicted with major hardships, in which poverty often went in hand with difficult health

conditions. Thereby, W.D. Fard related his ascetic economic ideal with an individual

pursuit of cleanliness and good health. Finally, the African American nationalist

background of the Nation of Islam placed these dietary rules in a wider quest for

community dignity (Ewbank, 1987).

From its very origin, the Nation of Islam has expressed concerns about health in the

African American community, perceiving the Black body as being endangered by

contemporary civilization and American society. Believing in the efficiency of the Nation

of Islam’s diet constituted an integral part of the doctrine W.D. Fard developed between

1930 and 1934. The durability of this set of beliefs in the Nation of Islam denotes the

lasting preoccupation of a tormented appreciation of the Black bodily integrity in the

African American cultural context. It was thus particularly significant that Fard’s dietary

recommendations were suppressed when the Nation of Islam moved closer to a more

conventional form of Islam under the aegis of Warith Deen Muhammad (1933-2008).

After Elijah Muhammad’s passing in 1975, his son and successor officially encouraged

believers to adopt the beliefs and practices of Sunni Islam. The elimination of landmarks

that structured the life of the community during the past forty years provoked various

expressions of reluctance, thus partially justifying a dissenter opposition that gathered

around Minister Louis Farrakhan (b. 1933). Reviving the beliefs and practices that

originated with W.D. Fard and Elijah Muhammad, Farrakhan denounced the reform

process as a form of collaboration with the American government and as an abandonment

of divine revelations that took the form of a collective apostasy. The restoration of former

dietary practices was welcomed by the members of this dissident movement and has

often been stressed by Farrakhan himself as a way to maintain health, to save money and

to eventually reach a canonical age in the likeness of Biblical patriarchs (Farrakhan, 1993

; Gardell, 1996). The recurrent character of these claims attests to the fact that the Nation

of Islam has long attributed to nutrition a deep religious and political dimension, thus
stepping far outside the conventional bounds of dietetics, and blurring the lines between

various components of African American life.

Appendix 1 :

A comparison between the Nation of Islam’s dietary rules and U.S. government

recommendations.
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