His letter bore distinctly messianic overtones. After
assuring them that he had redeemed them, he concluded by
extending to them his peace and by commanding them to love one
another. His movement splintered after his death into
innumerable competing factions.
In Detroit, sometime before 1930, a dark-skinned man appeared
selling silk and raincoats. He said that he was W. D. Fard and
that he had come from the Holy City of Mecca in order to
save the American Negro. People generally described him as being
unusually light-skinned for a Negro with perhaps an Oriental
cast. Fard also taught that the American Negro was Islamic in
origin and that he should return to his ancestral faith. Sometime
in 1933 or 1934 he disappeared as mysteriously as he had come.
While many believed that Fard and his movement must have been
connected with Noble Drew Ali and the Moorish American Science
Temple, the Black Muslims have always denied it.
Fard founded, in Detroit, Muslim Temple Number One, and he
acquired a handful of devout followers. He insisted that the
Muslims should refrain from eating pork, should pray facing the
East, and should practice a daily washing ritual.
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