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Riddle

A riddle is a statement, question or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: enigmas, which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that require ingenuity and careful thinking for their solution, and conundra, which are questions relying for their effects on punning in either the question or the answer.

Archer Taylor says that "we can probably say that riddling is a universal art" and cites riddles from hundreds of different cultures including Finnish, Hungarian, American Indian, Chinese, Russian, Dutch and Filipino sources amongst many others. Many riddles and riddle-themes are internationally widespread.

In the assessment of Elli Köngäs-Maranda (originally writing about Malaitian riddles, but with an insight that has been taken up more widely), whereas myths serve to encode and establish social norms, "riddles make a point of playing with conceptual boundaries and crossing them for the intellectual pleasure of showing that things are not quite as stable as they seem" — though the point of doing so may still ultimately be to "play with boundaries, but ultimately to affirm them".

Etymology
The modern English word riddle shares its origin with the word read, both stemming from the Common Germanic verb *rēdaną, which meant 'to interpret, guess'. From this verb came the West Germanic noun *rādislī, literally meaning 'thing to be guessed, thing to be interpreted'. From this comes Dutch raadsel, German Rätsel, and Old English *rǣdels, the latter of which became modern English riddle.

Definitions
Defining riddles precisely is hard and has attracted a fair amount of scholarly debate. The first major modern attempt to define the riddle in modern Western scholarship was by Robert Petsch in 1899, with another seminal contribution, inspired by structuralism, by Robert A. Georges and Alan Dundes in 1963. Georges and Dundes suggested that "a riddle is a traditional verbal expression which contains one or more descriptive elements, a pair of which may be in opposition; the referent of the elements is to be guessed". There are many possible sub-sets of the riddle, including charades, droodles, and some jokes.

In some traditions and contexts, riddles may overlap with proverbs. For example, the Russian phrase "Nothing hurts it, but it groans all the time" can be deployed as a proverb (when its referent is a hypochondriac) or as a riddle (when its referent is a pig).

Research
Much academic research on riddles has focused on collecting, cataloguing, defining, and typologising riddles. Key work on cataloguing and typologising riddles was published by Antti Aarne in 1918–20, and by Archer Taylor. In the case of ancient riddles recorded without solutions, considerable scholarly energy also goes into proposing and debating solutions.

Whereas previously researchers had tended to take riddles out of their social performance contexts, the rise of anthropology in the post-War period encouraged more researchers to study the social role of riddles and riddling, highlighting their role of re-orienting reality in the face of fear and anxiety. However, wide-ranging studies of riddles have tended to be limited to Western countries, with Asian and African riddles being relatively neglected.

Riddles have also attracted linguists, often studying riddles from the point of view of semiotics; meanwhile, the twenty-first century has seen the rise of extensive work on medieval European riddles from the point of view of eco-criticism, exploring how riddles can inform us about people's conceptualisation and exploration of their environment.

International riddles
Many riddles appear in similar form across many countries, and often continents. Borrowing of riddles happens both on a local scale, and across great distances. Kofi Dorvlo gives an example of a riddle that has been borrowed from the Ewe language by speakers of the neighboring Logba language: "This woman has not been to the riverside for water, but there is water in her tank". The answer is "a coconut". On a much wider scale, the Riddle of the Sphinx has also been documented in the Marshall Islands, possibly carried there by Western contacts in the last two centuries.

Key examples of internationally widespread riddles follow, based on the classic (European-focused) study by Antti Aarne.

Writing-riddle
The basic form of the writing-riddle is 'White field, black seeds', where the field is a page and the seeds are letters. An example is the eighth- or ninth-century Veronese Riddle:

Here, the oxen are the scribe's finger(s) and thumb, and the plough is the pen. Among literary riddles, riddles on the pen and other writing equipment are particularly widespread.

Year-riddle
The year-riddle is found across Eurasia. For example, a riddle in the Sanskrit Rig Veda, from around 1500–1000 BCE, describes a 'twelve-spoked wheel, upon which stand 720 sons of one birth' (i.e. the twelve months of the year, which together supposedly have 360 days and 360 nights).

Person-riddle
The most famous example of this type is the riddle of the Sphinx. This Estonian example shows the pattern:

The riddle describes a crawling baby, a standing person, and an old person with a walking stick.

Two-legs, three-legs, and four-legs
This type includes riddles along the lines of this German example:

The conceit here is that Two-legs is a person, Three-legs is a three-legged stool, Four-legs is a dog, and One-leg is a ham hock.

Four Hang; Two Point the Way
An example of Four Hang; Two Point the Way, to which the pre-eminent solution is 'cow' is given here in thirteenth-century Icelandic form:

The cow has four teats, four legs, two horns, two back legs, and one tail.

Featherless bird-riddle
The featherless bird-riddle is best known in Central Europe. An English version is:  White bird featherless Flew from Paradise, Perched upon the castle wall; Up came Lord John landless, Took it up handless, And rode away horseless to the King's white hall. Here, a snowflake falls from the sky, and is blown off by the wind.

Riddle-traditions by region
The riddle was at times a prominent literary form in the ancient and medieval world, and so riddles are extensively, if patchily, attested in our written records from these periods. More recently, riddles have been collected from oral tradition by scholars in many parts of the world.

Babylon
According to Archer Taylor, "the oldest recorded riddles are Babylonian school texts which show no literary polish". The answers to the riddles are not preserved; the riddles include "my knees hasten, my feet do not rest, a shepherd without pity drives me to pasture" (a river? A rowboat?); "you went and took the enemy's property; the enemy came and took your property" (a weaving shuttle?); "who becomes pregnant without conceiving, who becomes fat without eating?" (a raincloud?). These may be riddles from oral tradition that a teacher has put into a schoolbook.

South Asia
It is thought that the world's earliest surviving poetic riddles survive in the Sanskrit Rigveda. Hymn 164 of the first book of the Rigveda can be understood to comprise a series of riddles or enigmas which are now obscure but may have been an enigmatic exposition of the pravargya ritual. These riddles overlap in significant part with a collection of forty-seven in the Atharvaveda; riddles also appear elsewhere in Vedic texts. Taylor cited the following example: '"Who moves in the air? Who makes a noise on seeing a thief? Who is the enemy of lotuses? Who is the climax of fury?" The answers to the first three questions, when combined in the manner of a charade, yield the answer to the fourth question. The first answer is bird (vi), the second dog (śvā), the third sun (mitra), and the whole is Vishvamitra, Rama's first teacher and counselor and a man noted for his outbursts of rage'.

Accordingly, riddles are treated in early studies of Sanskrit poetry such as Daṇḍin's seventh- or eighth-century Kāvyādarśa.

Early narrative literature also sometimes includes riddles, prominently the Mahabharata, which for example contains the Yaksha Prashna, a series of riddles posed by a nature-spirit (yaksha) to Yudhishthira.

The first riddle collection in a medieval Indic language is traditionally thought to be the riddles of Amir Khusrow (1253–1325), which are written in Hindawi, in verse, in the mātrika metre.

As of the 1970s, folklorists had not undertaken extensive collecting of riddles in India, but riddling was known to be thriving as a form of folk-literature, sometimes in verse. Riddles have also been collected in Tamil.

Hebrew, Arabic and Persian
While riddles are not numerous in the Bible, they are present, most famously in Samson's riddle in Judges xiv.14, but also in I Kings 10:1–13 (where the Queen of Sheba tests Solomon's wisdom), and in the Talmud. Sirach also mentions riddles as a popular dinner pastime, while the Aramaic Story of Ahikar contains a long section of proverbial wisdom that in some versions also contains riddles. Otherwise, riddles are sparse in ancient Semitic writing.

In the medieval period, however, verse riddles, alongside other puzzles and conundra, became a significant literary form in the Arabic-speaking world, and accordingly in Islamic Persian culture and in Hebrew — particularly in Al-Andalus. Since early Arabic and Persian poetry often features rich, metaphorical description, and ekphrasis, there is a natural overlap in style and approach between poetry generally and riddles specifically; literary riddles are therefore often a subset of the descriptive poetic form known in both traditions as wasf. Riddles are attested in anthologies of poetry and in prosimetrical portrayals of riddle-contests in Arabic maqāmāt and in Persian epics such as the Shahnameh. Meanwhile, in Hebrew, Dunash ben Labrat (920–990), credited with transposing Arabic metres into Hebrew, composed a number of riddles, mostly apparently inspired by folk-riddles. Other Hebrew-writing exponents included Moses ibn Ezra, Yehuda Alharizi, Judah Halevi, Immanuel the Roman and Israel Onceneyra.

In both Arabic and Persian, riddles seem to have become increasingly scholarly in style over time, increasingly emphasising riddles and puzzles in which the interpreter has to resolve clues to letters and numbers to put together the word which is the riddle's solution.

Riddles have been collected by modern scholars throughout the Arabic-speaking world.

Greek
Riddles are known to have been popular in Greece in Hellenistic times, and possibly before; they were prominent among the entertainments and challenges presented at symposia. Oracles were also represented as speaking in often riddlic language. However, the first significant corpus of Greek riddles survives in an anthology of earlier material known as the Greek Anthology, which contains about 50 verse riddles, probably put into its present form by Constantine Cephalas, working in the tenth century CE. Most surviving ancient Greek riddles are in verse. In the second chapter of Book III of Aristotle's Rhetoric, the philosopher stated that "good riddles do, in general, provide us with satisfactory metaphors: for metaphors imply riddles, and therefore a good riddle can furnish a good metaphor."

Literary riddles were also composed in Byzantium, from perhaps the tenth century with the work of John Geometres, into the fifteenth century, along with a neo-Byzantine revival in around the early eighteenth century. There was a particular peak around the long twelfth century.

Latin and romance
Two Latin riddles are preserved as graffiti in the Basilica at Pompeii. The pre-eminent collection of ancient Latin riddles is a collection of 100 hexametrical riddles by Symphosius which were influential on later medieval Latin writers. The Bern Riddles, a collection of Latin riddles clearly modelled on Symphosius, were composed in the early seventh century by an unknown author, perhaps in northern Italy. Symphosius's collection also inspired a number of Anglo-Saxon riddlers who wrote in Latin. They remained influential in medieval Castilian tradition, being the basis for the second set of riddles in the thirteenth-century Libro de Apolonio, posed by Apolonio's daughter Tarsiana to her father.

The perhaps eighth- or ninth-century Veronese Riddle is a key witness to the linguistic transition from Latin to Romance, but riddles are otherwise rare in medieval romance languages. However, in the early modern period, printed riddle collections were published in French, including the Adevineaux amoureux (printed in Bruges by Colard Mansion around 1479); and Demandes joyeuses en maniere de quolibets, the basis for Wynkyn de Worde's 1511 Demaundes Joyous.

The Germanic-speaking world
Riddles survive only fragmentarily in Old High German: three, very short, possible examples exist in manuscripts from the Monastery of St Gallen, but, while certainly cryptic, they are not necessarily riddles in a strict sense. About 150 survive in Middle High German, mostly quoted in other literary contexts. Likewise, riddles are rare in Old Norse: almost all occur in one section of Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks, in which the god Óðinn propounds around 37 riddles (depending on the manuscript). These riddles do, however, provide insights into Norse mythology, medieval Scandinavian social norms, and rarely attested poetic forms.

By contrast, verse riddles were prominent in early medieval England, following the seminal composition of one hundred and one riddles by Aldhelm (c. 639–709), written in Latin and inspired by the fourth- or fifth-century Latin poet Symphosius. Aldhelm was followed by a number of other Anglo-Saxons writing riddles in Latin. This prestigious literary heritage contextualises the survival of nearly one hundred riddles in the tenth-century Exeter Book, one of the main surviving collections of Old English verse. The riddles in this book vary in subject matter from ribald innuendo to theological sophistication. Three, Exeter Book Riddle 35 and Riddles 40/66, are in origin translations of riddles by Aldhelm (and Riddle 35 the only Old English riddle to be attested in another manuscript besides the Exeter Book). Unlike the pithy three-line riddles of Symphosius, the Old English riddles tend to be discursive, often musing on complex processes of manufacture when describing artefacts such as mead (Exeter Book Riddle 27) or a reed-pen or -pipe (Exeter Book Riddle 60). They are noted for providing perspectives on the world which give voice to actors which tend not to appear in Old English poetry, ranging from female slaves to animals and plants, and they often subvert the conventions of Old English heroic and religious poetry.

While medieval records of Germanic-language riddles are patchy, with the advent of print in the West, collections of riddles and similar kinds of questions began to be published. A large number of riddle collections were printed in the German-speaking world and, partly under German influence, in Scandinavia. Riddles were evidently hugely popular in Germany: a recent research project uncovered more than 100,000 early modern German riddles, with the most important collection being that Strassburger Rätselbuch, first published around 1500 and many times reprinted. This is one of the most famous riddles of that time:

That is, "the snow (featherless bird) lies on a bare tree in winter (leafless tree), and the sun (speechless maiden) causes the snow to melt (ate the featherless bird)".

Likewise, early modern English-speakers published printed riddle collections, such as the 1598 Riddles of Heraclitus and Democritus, which includes for example the following riddle: First I was small, and round like a pearl; Then long and slender, as brave as an earl; Since, like an hermit, I lived in a cell, And now, like a rogue, in the wide world I dwell. After the early Middle Ages, the riddle was seldom used as a literary form in English. Tellingly, while Jonathan Swift composed at least eight verse riddles on themes such as a pen, gold, and the privy, this was seen as a lapse in taste by many of his contemporaries. However, although riddles are seldom used today as a literary form in their own right, they have arguably influenced the approach to poetry of a number of twentieth-century poets, such as Francis Ponge, Wallace Stevens, Richard Wilbur, Rainer M. Rilke, and Henrikas Radauskas. The famed Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote "All is a riddle, and the key to a riddle ... is another riddle".

Riddles continued to flourish until recently as an oral form of entertainment, however; the seminal collection of Anglophone riddles from the early modern period through to the twentieth century is Archer Taylor's. Riddles are, for example, prominent in some early-modern ballads collected from oral tradition. Some of those included in the Child Ballads are "Riddles Wisely Expounded" (Child 1), "The Elfin Knight" (Child 2), "King John and the Bishop" (Child 45), "Captain Wedderburn's Courtship" (Child 46), and "Proud Lady Margaret" (Child 47). Contemporary English-language riddles typically use puns and double entendres for humorous effect, rather than to puzzle the butt of the joke, as in "Why is six afraid of seven?" "Because seven eight nine (eight can be replaced with ate)." These riddles are now mostly children's humour and games rather than literary compositions.

Some riddles are composed of foreign words and play on similar sounds, as in:

 * There were two cats, 1 2 3 cat and un deux trois cat, they had a swimming race from England to France. Who won?
 * 1 2 3 Cat because Un deux trois quatre cinq (un deux trois cat sank)

This plays on the fact that the French words for four and five are pronounced similarly to the English words "Cat" and "Sank", hence the pun being the cat sank while also counting to five in French.

The Celtic-speaking world
Few riddles are attested in medieval Celtic languages, though this depends on how narrowly a riddle is defined; some early medieval Welsh and Irish juridical texts have been read as being riddles. One undisputed riddle is attested in medieval Welsh, an elaborate text entitled 'Canu y Gwynt' ('song of the wind') in the fourteenth-century Book of Taliesin probably inspired by Latin riddles on the same theme. However, this record is supplemented by Latin material, apparently from a Brittonic cultural background in North Britain, about Lailoken: in a twelfth-century text, Lailoken poses three riddles to his captor King Meldred.

The earliest riddles attested in Irish are generally held to be found in a short collection from the fifteenth-century Book of Fermoy. However, other forms of wisdom contest do occur in Irish literature, such as The Colloquy of the Two Sages, first attested in twelfth-century manuscripts, and in one such contest, in Imthecht na Tromdaime, first attested in the fifteenth century, at least one riddle is arguably posed.

Even research on the post-medieval Celtic-speaking world has yielded a "comparatively meagre corpus".

The Finnic-speaking world
The corpus of traditional riddles from the Finnic-speaking world (including the modern Finland, Estonia, and parts of Western Russia) is fairly unitary, though eastern Finnish-speaking regions show particular influence of Russian Orthodox Christianity and Slavonic riddle culture. The Finnish for "riddle" is arvoitus (pl. arvoitukset), related to the verb arvata ("guess").

Finnic riddles are noteworthy in relation to the rest of the world's oral riddle canon for its original imagery, their abundance of sexual riddles, and the interesting collision of influences from east and west; along with the attestation in some regions of an elaborate riddle-game. Riddles provide some of the first surviving evidence for Finnish-language literature.

China
In modern Chinese, the standard word for 'riddle' is mi (謎, literally "to bewilder"). Riddles are spoken of as having a mian (面, "surface", the question component of the riddle), and a di (底, "base", the answer component). Ancient Chinese terms for 'riddle' include yin (讔) and sou (廋), which both mean "hidden".

Literary riddles in China first begin to be attested in significant numbers around the second century CE.

The Chinese riddle-tradition makes much use of visual puns on Chinese characters. One example is the riddle "千 里 会 千 金"; these characters respectively mean 'thousand kilometre meet thousand gold'. Thus the answer to "thousand kilometres meet thousand gold" is "妈" (mother).
 * 1) The first stage of solving the riddle is verbal:
 * 2) In Chinese culture, "it is said that a good horse can run thousands of kilometers per day", so "千 里" (thousand kilometer) is resolved as "马" (horse).
 * 3) Meanwhile, because "a daughter is very important in the family", in Chinese culture it is possible to resolve "千 金" (thousand gold) as "女" (daughter).
 * 4) The second stage of solving the riddle is visual: combining the radical "马" (horse) with the radical "女" (daughter) produces the character "妈" (mother).

The posing and solving of riddles has long been an important part of the Chinese Lantern Festival. China also contributed a distinctive kind of riddle known in English as the kōan, developed as a teaching technique in Zen Buddhism in the Tang dynasty (618–907). In this tradition, the answer to the riddle is to be established through years of meditation, informed by Zen thought, as part of a process of seeking enlightenment.

In the twentieth century, thousands of riddles and similar enigmas have been collected, capitalising on the large number of homophones in Chinese. Examples of folk-riddles include:

 * There is a small vessel filled with sauce, one vessel holding two different kinds. (Egg)
 * Washing makes it more and more dirty; it is cleaner without washing. (Water)
 * When you use it you throw it away, and when you do not use it you bring it back. (Anchor)

The Philippines
Quite similar to its English counterpart, the riddle in the Philippines is called Bugtong. It is traditionally used during a funeral wake together with other games such as tong-its or the more popular sakla; later generations use Bugtong as a form of past time or as an activity. One peculiarity of the Filipino version is the way they start with the phrase Bugtong-bugtong before saying the riddle; usually it is common to create riddles that rhyme.

This is an example of a Tagalog Bugtong:

Further south, in Sulawesi, Indonesia, among the Pendau, riddles are also used at funeral gatherings.

Africa
Anthropological research in Africa has produced extensive collections of riddles over the last century or so. Riddles have been characterised as "one of the most important forms of oral art in Africa"; Hamnett analyzes African riddling from an anthropological viewpoint; Yoruba riddles have enjoyed a recent monograph study. Wambi Cornelius Gulere wrote his doctoral project at Makerere University, titled Riddle Performance and Societal Discourses: Lessons from Busoga. He argues for recognition of the importance of the riddling act, not merely gathering and studying lists of riddles. Grivas Muchineripi Kayange has seen African riddles as a window into African philosophy.

Native American traditions
Riddles in the Americas are of particular interest to scholarship because it was long thought that native American cultures had no autochthonous riddle traditions (as opposed to riddles inspired by European culture, as with the twenty-two Aztec riddles collected by Bernardino de Sahagún in the sixteenth century, in the famous Florentine codex). If so, this would have suggested that riddles are not a universal art form. However, Hieronymus Lalemant gave a fairly detailed account of a riddle-contest among the Huron around 1639 as part of a healing ritual. "Someone will say, 'What I desire and what I am seeking is that which bears a lake within itself;' and by this is intended a pumpkin or calabash. Another will say, 'What I ask for is seen in my eyes—it will be marked with various colors'; and because the same Huron word that signifies 'eye' also signifies 'glass bead', this is a clue to divine what he desires—namely, some kind of beads of this material, and of different colors." Accordingly, during the twentieth century, progressively more substantial collections of Native American riddles were made, including from the Alaskan Athabaskans (Ten'a) people in British Columbia; Amuzgo people in Central America; and Quechua people in South America. Thus, while data remains rather thin, it seems clear that riddling did exist in the Americas independently of European culture.

Colonial traditions
Riddles are found extensively in the settler-colonial cultures of the Americas.

One form of riddle features in payada de contrapunto ("counterpoint payada"), a Rioplatense musical genre in which guitar players compete in a symbolic duel. Two guitar players challenge each other in song by asking a riddle-like question and/or answering the opponent's questions. This is performed through several successive rounds of witty exchanges which may include banter and even insults—typically with a humorous intent. The most famous literary example of counterpoint payada comes from Martín Fierro, Part 2, Song 30, verses 6233–6838.

Riddle-contests
The Riddle Game is a formalized guessing game, a contest of wit and skill in which players take turns asking riddles. The player that cannot answer loses. Riddle games occur frequently in mythology and folklore as well as in popular literature.

In many cultures or contexts, people are not actually expected to guess the answers to riddles: they may be told by the riddler, or learn riddles and their answers together as they grow up. Thus riddle-contests are not the only or even necessarily the main forum for the expression of riddles.

The unsolvable riddle with which literary characters often win a riddle-contest is sometimes referred to as neck-riddle.

In real life
It seems that in ancient Greece, riddle-competitions were popular as an intellectual entertainment at symposia. A key source for this culture is Athenaeus.

Elaborate and unusual riddle-games took place in the culture of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Finnish-language riddles. For example, Elias Lönnrot observed customary riddle-contests in nineteenth-century Finland: "It took place without teams, but was a kind of a contest: a member of the group would be sent out of the room, the others agreed on the riddle to be posed; for three failures to divine the answer, the riddlee would have to drop out of the game, to step aside, and to 'buy' with a token the right to participate again."

In ancient, medieval, and folk literature
In older texts, riddle-contests frequently provide the frame stories whereby riddles have been preserved for posterity. Such contests are a subset of wisdom contests more generally. They tend to fall into two groups: testing the wisdom of a king or other aristocrat; and testing the suitability of a suitor. Correspondingly, the Aarne–Thompson classification systems catalogue two main folktale-types including riddle-contests: AT 927, Outriddling the Judge, and AT 851, The Princess Who Can Not Solve the Riddle.

In modern literature

 * In J. R. R. Tolkien's novel The Hobbit, Gollum challenges Bilbo Baggins to a riddle competition for his life. Bilbo breaks "the ancient rules" of the game but is able to escape with Gollum's magic ring.  Rather like in the Old Norse Heiðreks saga, although Bilbo asked more of a simple question than a riddle, by attempting to answer it rather than challenging it Gollum accepted it as a riddle; by accepting it, his loss was binding.
 * In The Grey King, the third book of Susan Cooper's fantasy sequence The Dark is Rising, Will and Bran must win a riddle game in order for Bran to claim his heritage as the Pendragon.
 * In Patricia A. McKillip's The Riddle-Master trilogy, the ancient art of riddlery is taught at the College of Caithnard – the study based on books recovered from the ruins of the School of Wizards. The riddles in the series are composed of three parts – the question, the answer, and the stricture – and are both a way of recording history and a guide to living life. Riddles play a crucial role in the series, the main protagonist, Morgon of Hed, beginning his journey by winning the crown of the kings of Aum in a Riddle Game with the ancient ghost of Peven of Aum; Peven had a standing wager going that no one could win a riddle-game with him, and those who lost against him forfeited their lives. "Beware the unanswered riddle."
 * In Stephen King's The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands and The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass, the ka-tet must riddle against Blaine the Mono in order to save their lives. At first Blaine can answer all riddles posed to him by the ka-tet easily, but then Eddie Dean, one of the ka-tet, gains the upper hand when he starts to ask joke riddles, effectively frustrating Blaine's highly logical mind.
 * In the Batman comic books, one of the hero's best known enemies is The Riddler who is personally compelled to supply clues about his upcoming crimes to his enemies in the form of riddles and puzzles. Stereotypically, they are these kinds of simple children's riddles, but modern treatments generally prefer to have the character use more sophisticated puzzles.

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Carlo Tresca

Carlo Tresca (March 9, 1879 – January 11, 1943) was an Italian-American dissident and newspaper editor, orator, and labor organizer and activist who was a leader of the Industrial Workers of the World during the 1910s. He is remembered as a leading public opponent of fascism, Stalinism, and Mafia infiltration of the trade unions for the purposes of labor racketeering and corruption.

Born, raised, and educated in Italy, Tresca was editor of an Italian socialist newspaper and secretary of the Italian Federation of Railroad Workers before he emigrated to the United States in 1904. After a three-year spell as secretary of the Italian Socialist Federation of North America, he joined the Industrial Workers of the World in 1912, and was involved in strikes across the United States over the rest of the decade. He was jailed in 1925 after printing a paid advertisement for a birth control pamphlet in one of his newspapers.

During the 1930s, Tresca was a vocal critic of both Benito Mussolini's Fascist government in his native Italy, and of Joseph Stalin and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 1937, he was a member of the Dewey Commission, which cleared Leon Trotsky of all charges made during the Moscow Trials. Tresca also used his newspapers to mount a public campaign criticising the Mafia. He was assassinated in New York, January 1943 allegedly by Carmine Galante.

Personal life
Carlo Tresca was born March 9, 1879, in Sulmona, Abruzzo, Italy, the son of a landowner. His formal education reached to secondary school. Tresca had no hope of attending university as his family's finances were poor during the economic slump of the 1880s. He enrolled at a seminary instead, but left soon after, emerging as an anticlerical atheist.

From 1898 to 1902, Tresca was secretary of the Italian Federation of Railroad Workers. He was also the editor of Il Germe, a socialist weekly based in Abruzzo. Seeking to avoid a jail term for his radical political activities, Tresca emigrated to the United States in 1904, settling in Philadelphia.

Tresca had a relationship with Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and Flynn's sister, Bina, and was the father of Bina's son Peter D. Martin. He also had a relationship with sculptor Minna Harkavy, whose bust of him was erected in his birth town of Sulmona.

American years
In America, Tresca was elected Secretary of the Italian Socialist Federation of North America in 1904. He remained in that position for the next three years. During this same interval, Tresca was also the editor of Il Proletario (The Proletarian), the official newspaper of the Italian Socialist Federation.

Tresca's political views became increasingly radical and he soon came to identify himself as an anarchist. In 1907 Tresca resigned as editor of Il Proletario and began publishing his own newspaper, La Plebe (The Plebeian). He would later transfer La Plebe to Pittsburgh and, with it, revolutionary ideas to Italian miners and mill workers in Western Pennsylvania. In 1909, Tresca became editor of L'Avvenire, (The Future) remaining in that capacity until the coming of World War I, when the publication was suppressed under the Espionage Act.

Tresca joined the revolutionary syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1912, when he was invited by the union to Lawrence, Massachusetts, to help mobilize the Italian workers during a campaign to free strike leaders Joseph Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti, jailed on false murder charges. After the victorious strike in Lawrence, Tresca was active in several strikes across the United States; the Little Falls, New York, textile workers' strike (1912), the New York City hotel workers' strike (1913), the Paterson silk strike (1913), and the Mesabi Range, Minnesota, miners' strike (1916). He was arrested several times and jailed for nine months awaiting trial for murder in conjunction with the Minnesota action, ultimately being released without going to trial. In August 1920, Tresca became involved tangentially in the Irish War of Independence. As Sidney Czira, secretary of Cumann na mBan in New York, and sister of Grace Gifford, later recalled, "Picketing of the British Embassy in Washington had been going on from 1916 onwards and I remember a very successful picketing that was undertaken as a protest in New York against the British arrest of Dr. Mannix in August 1920. This latter picketing was largely the work of an Italian called Carlo Tresca, a personal friend of the well-known Irish-American family of Flynn, who were great friends of James Connolly. Tresca had great influence among the sea-faring fraternity and suggested that we should call out the seamen from the British ships as a protest against the arrest of Dr. Mannix. This was done by pickets walking on the docks with placards, calling on the men to leave the ships. So far as I was concerned, this was rather an amusing incident, because I had a placard which read something like this, "Hear the call of the blood and refuse to work on British ships". I realised that the call of the blood was addressed to Greeks, Italians, Lascars, etc., and when they saw a young woman with a placard they came up to enquire what the strike was about. My efforts to translate "Hear the call of the blood" into Italian were funny, but I found one word which they all seemed to know was "tyranny - Irlanda", and smiling and nodding, they would all walk away. The picketing was extremely effective because when we were holding our meetings it was a thrilling sight when, from time to time, we would hear the march of feet and the crew of some ship would come marching into the room. We found out subsequently that Tresca, who had organised them, was generally supposed to be an anarchist! Of course, there were extremely severe penalties under American law for behaviour of this kind."

In August 1923, Tresca was arrested on charges of having printed an advertisement for a birth control pamphlet in his new publication, Il Martello (The Hammer). He was found guilty in an October 1923 trial and was sentenced to a year and a day in Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. This sentence was confirmed on November 10, 1924, and Tresca entered prison on January 5, 1925.

Making enemies
Tresca became a prominent figure among Italian-Americans for his opposition to fascism and was reported to Benito Mussolini as a leading enemy of the fascist movement. Tresca edited an anti-fascist newspaper named Il Martello, where he attacked the myths that undergirded Mussolini's power. Tresca was monitored by the United States Department of Justice, who sought to deport him, and by Rome, where Mussolini feared that Italian-Americans would hurt his reputation with the United States and its banks. With pressure from the Italian ambassador to ban Tresca's newspaper, the American government charged Tresca with publishing obscenities. Tresca was sentenced and subject to deportation, but public dissent led the United States President Calvin Coolidge to commute Tresca's sentence. The fascists turned to violence, with a bombing assassination attempt in 1926, after which the antifascists fought back. Tresca contributed towards stopping Mussolini's ideological spread among Italian-Americans, despite Tresca's lack of reach into Italian-American media and business influence.

During the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, Tresca organized publicity, fundraising, and the defense lawyer Fred Moore.

In the 1930s, Tresca became an outspoken opponent of Soviet communism and Stalinism, particularly after the Soviet Union had engineered the destruction of the anarchist movement in Catalonia and Aragon during the Spanish Revolution of 1936.

In 1937, Tresca was a member of the Dewey Commission, which cleared Leon Trotsky of all charges made during the Moscow Trials.

In early 1938, Tresca publicly accused the Soviets of kidnapping Juliet Stuart Poyntz to prevent her defection from the Communist Party USA underground apparatus. Tresca alleged that before she had disappeared, Poyntz had talked to him about "exposing the communist movement".

Assassination
On January 11, 1943, in New York City, Tresca was leaving his parole officer's offices when he dodged surveilling officers by jumping into a car that was waiting for him. Two hours later, Tresca was crossing Fifth Avenue at 15th Street on foot when a black Ford pulled up beside him. A short, squat gunman in a brown coat jumped out and shot Tresca in the back of the head with a handgun, killing him instantly. The black Ford was later found abandoned nearby with all four doors open. One theory at the time was that the suspected assassin was a member of the Mafia, acting on orders from Sicily, while other theories suggested that he was murdered by Italian fascists. Others have theorized that Tresca was eliminated by the NKVD as retribution for criticism of the Stalin regime of the Soviet Union.

Vito Genovese, boss of the Genovese crime family, is said to have allegedly ordered the murder of Tresca, with the shooter allegedly being Carmine Galante of the Bonnano crime family. No one was ever charged in the Tresca murder.

A eulogy at his memorial service was delivered by Angelica Balabanoff, socialist activist and former Bolshevik. According to Lewis Coser's account of the funeral, "I was sitting near a burly Irish policeman who clearly didn't understand a word of Balabanoff's fierce Italian oratory. But at her climax he burst into tears."

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Carlo Tresca


text:
Lesser scaup

The lesser scaup (Aythya affinis) is a small North American diving duck that migrates south as far as Central America in winter. It is colloquially known as the little bluebill or broadbill because of its distinctive blue bill. The origin of the name scaup may stem from the bird's preference for feeding on scalp—the Scottish word for clams, oysters, and mussels; however, some credit it to the female's discordant scaup call as the name's source. It is apparently a very close relative of the Holarctic greater scaup or "bluebill" (A. marila), with which it forms a superspecies. The scientific name is derived from Ancient Greek aithuia an unidentified seabird mentioned by authors including Hesychius and Aristotle, and Latin, affinis "related to", from its resemblance to the greater scaup.

Description
Adults are 38 - 48 cm long, 41.7 - 43 cm on average. The species can weigh 454 - 1089 g; males weigh 820 g on average and females weigh noticeably less, at 730 g on average. Wing lengths (not wingspans) are about 7.5 - 7.9 in in males and 7.3 - 7.8 in in females; the tarsus is about 1.4 - 1.5 in long, and the bill 1.4 - 1.7 in. The wingspan is 68 - 78 cm.

The adult males (drakes) in definitive basic (breeding) plumage have a black, iridescent head and a small tuft at the hindcrown, a black breast, a whitish-grey back and wings with darker vermiculations and black outer and greyish-brown inner primary remiges. The underparts are white with some olive vermiculations on the flanks, and the rectrices and tail coverts are black. Adult females (hens) have a white band at the base of the bill, often a lighter ear region, and are otherwise dark brown all over, shading to white on the mid-belly. Drakes in eclipse plumage look similar, but with a very dark head and breast, little or no white on the head and usually some greyish vermiculations on the wings. Immature birds resemble the adult females, but are duller and have hardly any white at the bill base. Both sexes have white secondary remiges, a blue-grey bill with a smallblack "nail" at the tip and grey feet; the drakes have a bright yellow iris, while that of females is orange to yellow varying with age and that of immatures is brown. Downy hatchlings look much like those of related species, with dark brown upperparts and pale buff underparts, chin, supercilium and back spots.

These birds are not very vocal, at least compared to dabbling ducks. Hens give the namesake discordant scaup, scaup call; in courtship drakes produce weak whistles. Hens vocalize more often than those of the greater scaup—particularly during flight—but their call is weaker, a guttural brrtt, brrtt.

Identification
Lesser scaup are often hard to distinguish from the greater scaup when direct comparison is not possible, but in North America a large scaup flock will often have both species present. Females, juveniles and drakes in eclipse plumage are hard to identify; there is considerable overlap in length between the two species, but greater scaup are usually noticeably more bulky. Lesser scaup females and immatures tend to have less white around the bill, but this too varies considerably between individual birds. Lesser Scaup generally have a smaller and straighter bill, with a relatively narrow profile, while Greater Scaup have a wider, more spatulate profile toward the tip of the bill. The dark nail tip averages wider on Greater Scaup. In flight, the most tell-tale sign is the white secondary remiges, whereas in the greater scaup the white extends on the primary remiges also, i.e. far towards the wingtip.

Lesser scaup drakes in nuptial plumage are often said to be recognizable by the purple instead of green sheen of the head and a darker back. But this is unreliable because it varies according to light conditions, and these birds are often too far away from the observer to make out any sheen at all. The shape of the head is a crucial difference, but only when birds are at rest and not actively diving. In the greater scaup drake, the forehead is usually quite massive (especially in North American and East Asian populations), whereas the nape presents a smooth shallow curve and may appear almost straightly sloping. The lesser scaup drake presents the opposite shape, with a less bulging forehead and a nape that looks strongly curved or even angular due to the small crest. When the birds raise their heads, these differences are most easy to spot, and after observing the two species in direct comparison it usually becomes easy to recognize. In fact, in basic plumage the lesser scaup drake may appear identical in shape and size to a drake of the ring-necked duck (A. collaris); the black back and wings of that species are hard to confuse with the light ones of the lesser scaup male though.

Hybridization
Particularly in the case of vagrant birds in Europe, the identification is complicated by similar-looking Aythya hybrids. Except for hybrids between the two scaup species, the most reliable mark is the black bill-tip of hybrids, whereas in the scaups only the very point ("nail") of the bill is black. This is even recognizable at considerable range, as the scaups' bills appear uniformly grey from a distance, whereas those of hybrids look two-colored. European hybrids typically involve the tufted duck (A. fuligula), yielding offspring that have a small nape crest unlike any European Aythya species. Female and immature hybrids typically lack the white bill base, except in those between lesser scaup and ring-necked duck, where the white extends to the eye region. But especially with juveniles, the bi-colored bill of hybrids is most diagnostic. Hybrid combinations that are known from the wild and resemble the lesser scaup are: In theory, each and every Aythya species is able to produce potentially fertile hybrids with any other, though due to their different ranges and behavioral cues given during courtship most of these hybrids are only known from birds kept in captivity without conspecific mates.
 * The occurrence of hybridization between lesser and greater scaup in the wild is disputed. Such hybrids could only be identified with certainty by DNA sequence comparison however. But while they may exist unnoticed, they cannot be frequent, as the species are largely sympatric and closely related, yet remain distinct, with no signs of significant introgression.
 * Hybrids between lesser scaup and ring-necked ducks are recognizable by very dark wings contrasting with a light grey underside more than in the lesser scaup but less than in the ring-necked duck.
 * Hybrids between the lesser scaup and the redhead (A. americana) are recognizable by the lack of contrast between wings and belly and the dull brownish head.
 * Hybrids between the tufted duck and the common pochard (A. ferina) are almost indistinguishable from lesser scaup, though neither parent species resembles A. affinis.

Taxonomy
Two syntype specimens of Fuligula affinis Eyton (Monogr. Anat., 1838, p.157.) are held in the vertebrate zoology collections of National Museums Liverpool at World Museum, with accession numbers NML-VZ D826c (female adult) and NML-VZ D826b (male adult). The specimens were collected in North America and came to the Liverpool national collection via Thomas Campbell Eyton’s collection and the 13th Earl of Derby’s collection which was bequeathed to the people of Liverpool in 1851.

Distribution and migration
Their breeding habitat is inland lakes and marsh ponds in tundra from Alaska through western Canada to western Montana; few breed east of James Bay and the Great Lakes. Notable breeding concentrations, with more than half a million birds at the height of the season, can be found in Alaska, in the woodlands of the McKenzie River valley and on the Old Crow Flats. These birds migrate south (mostly via the Central and Mississippi Flyways) when the young are fledged and return early spring, usually arriving on the breeding ground in May. Lesser scaup typically travel in flocks of 25–50 birds and winter mainly on lakes, rivers and sheltered coastal lagoons and bays between the US–Canada border and northern Colombia, including Central America, the West Indies and Bermuda.

Wintering lesser scaup are typically found in freshwater or slightly brackish habitat and unlike greater scaup rarely are seen offshore when unfrozen freshwater habitat is available. They may even spend the winter on lakes in parks, as long as they are not harassed, and will occur even on smallish Caribbean islands such as Grand Cayman. Thousands winter each year on the Topolobampo lagoons in Mexico, and even in the southernmost major wintering location—Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta in Colombia—hundreds of birds can be seen. In Central America, flocks are present from July on, but only really numerous after September. They move north again in April and May. In the extreme southeast and southwest of the breeding range—the Rocky Mountains region of the northwestern United States and the southern Great Lakes—lesser scaup are present all-year; it is not clear whether the breeding birds are replaced by migrants from the far north in winter, or whether the local populations do not migrate, or whether both local and migrant birds are found there in winter.

They are rarely—but apparently increasingly often—seen as vagrants in western Europe. The first documented British record was a first-winter male at Chasewater, Staffordshire in 1987 but by 2006, over 60 had been recorded, with an average of 2 per year. UK records are typically in the northern parts of the country. Vagrant lesser scaup have also been recorded on the Hawaiian Islands Japan, possibly China, and—for the first time on 18 January 2000—in the Marianas, as well as in Ecuador, Suriname, French Guiana, Trinidad and Venezuela (in winter), and Greenland (in summer).

Ecology
Lesser scaup forage mainly by sifting through the bottom mud, usually after diving and swimming underwater, occasionally by dabbling without diving. They mainly eat mollusks such as mussels and clams, as well as seeds and other parts of aquatic plants like sedges and bulrushes (Cyperaceae), "pondweeds", widgeon-grass (Ruppia cirrhosa), wild celery (Vallisneria americana) or wild rice (Zizania). In winter, but less so in summer, other aquatic animals—crustacean, insect and their larvae and small fishes—form an important part of their diet. It has been reported that both the lesser and the greater scaup have shifted their traditional migration routes to take advantage of the presence of the zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) in Lake Erie, which was accidentally introduced in the 1980s and has multiplied enormously. This may pose a risk to these birds because zebra mussels are efficient filter feeders and so accumulate environmental contaminants rapidly.

They nest in a sheltered location on the ground near water, usually among thick vegetation such as sedges and bulrushes, sometimes in small loose groups and not rarely next to colonies of gulls or terns; several females may deposit eggs in a single nest. The drakes court the hens in the winter quarters; pairs form shortly before and during the spring migration. When nesting starts, the males aggregate while they moult into eclipse plumage, leaving the task of incubation and raising the young to the females alone.

The nest is a shallow depression scraped in the ground and lined with plants and some down feathers. Breeding begins in May, but most birds nest only in June, later than usual for North American waterfowl. The clutch numbers about 9–11 eggs on average; up to 26 eggs have been found in a single nest, but such high numbers are from more than one female. Incubation is by the female only and lasts around 3 weeks. The young fledge some 45–50 days after hatching and soon thereafter the birds migrate to winter quarters already. Lesser scaup become sexually mature in their first or second summer. The oldest known individual reached an age of over 18 years.

Before the start of the population decline (see below), about 57% of the lesser scaup nests failed each breeding season because the female was killed or the eggs were eaten or destroyed. The average brood size of nests where eggs hatched successfully was 8.33 hatchlings.

Conservation status
Although the lesser scaup has the largest population of any species of diving duck in North America, their population has been steadily declining since the mid-1980s, and reached an all-time low in the early 21st century. During breeding bird surveys, lesser and greater scaup are counted together due to the impossibility of identifying the species unequivocally when large numbers of birds are involved. Lesser scaup are thought to comprise slightly less than nine-tenths of the scaup population of North America. In the 1970s, the lesser scaup population was estimated at 6.9 million birds on average; in the 1990s it had declined to about half that number, and by the late 2000s it is estimated at 3 million individuals or less. Due to the wide breeding range and the fact that the rate of decline, though remarkable, is still not threatening in respect to the enormous overall numbers, the lesser scaup is classified as a Species of Least Concern by the IUCN. An increase of the decline is liable to result in an uplisting to Near Threatened or even Vulnerable status.

The causes for this stark—though not threatening yet—decline remain unknown. There are indications that the breeding success is decreasing, but why this is so remains puzzling. On one hand, pollution and habitat destruction, especially in the wintering regions, has certainly increased since the early-mid 20th century. On the other hand, the narrow time frame in which lesser scaup breed and raise their young may be tied to some specific ecological conditions—such as abundance of key food, without the ducks being able to adapt. In this regard, it is alternatively or additionally possible that greater scaup, which may be increasing in numbers, is putting the lesser scaup under increasingly severe competition.

However, it seems that greater scaup eats larger food items on average, and the species are sympatric in part of their range and presumably have been for millennia without any problems due to competition. The experience of the past as well as the reproduction rate—even if this is declining—suggests that hunting has no major impact on lesser scaup populations at present either. Also, the breeding habitat is mainly in regions little-used by humans; habitat destruction on the breeding grounds is also not considered to be problematic.

title: Lesser scaup


text:
User talk:AugustoJunDevegili

Augusto Jun Devegili, doutorando em Ciência da Computação no Instituto de Computação da Universidade Estadual de Campinas.

title: User talk:AugustoJunDevegili


text:
Wallace Fard Muhammad

Wallace Fard Muhammad, also known as W. F. Muhammad, Wallace D. Fard or Master Fard Muhammad (reportedly born February 26, c. 1877 – disappeared c. 1934), was the founder of the Nation of Islam. He arrived in Detroit in 1930 with an ambiguous background and several aliases, and proselytized idiosyncratic Islamic teachings to the city's black population. In 1934, he disappeared from public record, and Elijah Muhammad succeeded him as leader of the Nation of Islam.

Fard in Detroit (1930–34)
Fard first appeared in Detroit in 1930; his followers cite July 4, 1930, as the date of his arrival. Acting as a door-to-door salesman, Fard spread his religious teachings throughout Detroit, and within three years grew the movement to a reported 25,000 members in Detroit, Chicago, and other cities.

Clothing peddler
Fard began by selling Oriental silks door-to-door in Detroit's black section. Fard visited the homes of black families who had recently migrated to Detroit from the rural South. Fard told black residents that his silks were the same kind that their ancestors in Mecca used and claimed to be a traveler from that land. When offered food, Fard reportedly ate what was provided but would advise residents to avoid certain foods, promising health benefits would follow. At his suggestion, he came back to teach the residents, along with guests.

Bible study leader at house churches
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 audience were familiar. Bowen similarly argues that in the early Nation of Islam, "ministers regularly referenced passages from the Bible to prove their claims". Fard's successor Elijah Muhammad would later claim Fard "knew the Bible better than any of the Christian-bred Negroes". Lomax wrote that Fard was "well-versed" in the Bible, used it as a textbook and taught in the style of a Southern Baptist preacher.

Beynon writes that "With growing prestige over a constantly increasing group, [Fard] became bolder in his denunciation of white people 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."

Fard taught a form of black exceptionalism and self-pride to poor Southern blacks during the Great Northward Migration at a time when old ideas of scientific racism were prevalent. He advocated that community members establish and own their own businesses, eat healthy, raise families, and refrain from drugs and alcohol. In 1938, sociologist Erdmann Doane Beynon published in the American Journal of Sociology a firsthand account of several interviews he conducted with followers of Fard in Michigan. From those interviews, Beynon wrote that Fard lived and taught in Detroit from 1930 to 1934.

Giver of new names
Fard taught his followers to reject surnames inherited from white slaveowners. As part of their initiation into the group, Fard bestowed new Muslim names upon his converts. He taught that this practice restored their original and true identities, while also revealing the lies that cloaked the origins of the so-called Asiatic Blackman. Such names included Muhammad, Ali, Karriem, and Fardan. Scholars note that new names had previously been given by Noble Drew Ali of the Moorish Science Temple of America, who assigned surnames El and Bey; the term "slave name" was used by the MSTA.

After Fard's death, Elijah Muhammad continued this practice within the Nation of Islam and added the letter X, symbolizing the unknown, instead of a name.

Both during and after his life, some charged that Fard was a conman who used mystery and charisma to swindle poor blacks, selling them new Muslim names and stirring up racial animosity by copying selected elements of other Muslim religious sects and ideologies that fit his racial supremacist narrative.

Leader of the Allah Temple of Islam
Beynon's interviewees told him that reports of Fard's message spread throughout 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. Fard prepared texts that served as authoritative manuals of the faith and were memorized verbatim by his followers.

According to Beynon, Fard's followers grew to approximately eight thousand, and "[w]ithin three years the prophet not only began the movement but organized it so well that he himself was able to recede into the background, appearing almost never to his followers during the final months of his residence in Detroit."

During this time, Clara Poole, later renamed Clara Muhammad, was introduced to W.D. Fard and his teachings through her in-laws. His teachings gave Poole hope and presented her life with new possibilities and new memories. After one of Fard's services, during which he asked if someone knew Elijah Poole, Clara, introduced him and his teachings to her husband, Elijah Poole, who later became Elijah Muhammad. His guidance and teachings eventually changed and reformed Elijah Poole into a responsible and ideal husband, who would later become the face and leader of the Nation Of Islam.

From interviews with approximately two hundred families who followed Fard, Beynon concluded:"Although the prophet lived in Detroit from July 4, 1930 until June 30, 1934, virtually nothing is known about him, save that he 'came from the East' and that he 'called' the Negroes of North America to enter the Nation of Islam. His very name is uncertain. He was known usually as Mr. Wali Farrad or Mr. W. D. Fard, though he used also the following names: Professor Ford, Mr. Farrad Mohammed, Mr. F. Mohammed Ali. One of the few survivors who heard his first addresses states that he himself said: 'My name is W. D. Fard and I came from the Holy City of Mecca. More about myself I will not tell you yet, for the time has not yet come. I am your brother. You have not yet seen me in my royal robes.' Legends soon sprang up about this mysterious personality."

In 1933, he began signing his name "W. F. Muhammad", which stood for Wallace Fard Muhammad, and used it on several lessons written in 1933 and 1934.

Ideology
Beynon described the substance of Fard's teaching as follows:"The black men in North America are not Negroes, but members of the lost tribe of Shabazz, stolen by traders from the Holy City of Mecca 379 years ago. The prophet came to America to find and to bring back to life his long lost brethren, from whom the Caucasians had taken away their language, their nation and their religion. Here in America they were living other than themselves. They must learn that they are the original people, noblest of the nations of the earth. The Caucasians are the colored people, since they have lost their original color. The original people must regain their religion, which is Islam, their language, which is Arabic, and their culture, which is astronomy and higher mathematics, especially calculus. They must live according to the law of Allah, avoiding all meat of 'poison animals', hogs, ducks, geese, possums and catfish. They must give up completely the use of stimulants, especially liquor. They must clean themselves up – both their bodies and their houses. If in this way they obeyed Allah, he would take them back to the Paradise from which they had been stolen – the Holy City of Mecca."

Fard's lessons themselves state that the "traders" referenced by Beynon came to Africa, not Mecca.

Modern Nation of Islam theology is based upon the belief that Fard's teaching of Elijah Muhammad was fulfillment of scripture regarding God's teaching of an Apostle, where Fard is described as "God in Person", the "Messiah", and the "Mahdi". Fard wrote the following for his followers:"[T]he LESSONS that OUR SAVIOUR (ALLAH) gave us to Study and Learn is the Fulfillment of the Prophecies of All the Former Prophets concerning the Beginning of the Devils, and the Ending of the Civilization, and of our Enslavement by the Devils, and Present Time of our Delivery from the Devils by OUR SAVIOUR (ALLAH). PRAISE HIS HOLY NAME! There is No God but ALLAH. How that ALLAH would separate us from the Devils and, then destroy them; and Change us into a New and Perfect People; and Fill the Earth with FREEDOM, JUSTICE and EQUALITY as it was filled with wickedness; and Making we, the Poor Lost-Founds, the Perfect RULERS."

In Elijah Muhammad's 1965 book Message to the Blackman in America, which is a compilation of articles written for newspapers throughout the early part of his ministry, Muhammad summarized what Fard taught him as follows:"He began teaching us the knowledge of ourselves, of God and the devil, of the measurement of the earth, of other planets, and of the civilization of some of the planets other than earth. ... He measured and weighed the earth and its water; the history of the moon; the history of the two nations, black and white, that dominate the earth. He gave the exact birth of the white race; the name of their God who made them and how; and the end of their time, the judgment, how it will begin and end. ... He taught us the truth of how we were made 'slaves' and how we are kept in slavery by the 'slave-masters' children. He declared the doom of America, for her evils to us was past due. And that she is number one to be destroyed. Her judgment could not take place until we hear the truth. ... He declared that we were without the knowledge of self or anyone else. How we had been made blind, deaf and dumb by this white race of people and how we must return to our people, our God and His religion of peace (Islam), the religion of the prophets. We must give up the slave names of our slave-masters and accept the name of Allah (God) or one of His divine attributes. He also taught us to give up all evil doings and practices and do righteousness or be destroyed from the face of the earth. He taught us that the slave-masters had taught us to eat the wrong food and that this is the cause of our sickness and short span of life. He declared that he would heal us and set us in heaven at once, if we would submit to Him. Otherwise he would chastise us with a severe chastisement until we did submit. And that He was able to force the whole world into submission to his will. He said that he loved us (the so-called Negroes), his lost and found, so well that he would eat rattlesnakes to free us if necessary, for he has power over all things." Part of Fard's teaching also involved admiration for Japan. Fard was known to teach from what outsiders described as "The Bible of Islam";  In 2023, the book was identified as Deliverance! by Charles Taze Russell, of the Watch Tower Society or Jehovah's Witnesses.

"Voodoo Murder" drives Fard from Detroit (1932)
On November 20, 1932, Robert Harris (who had received the name Robert Karriem from Fard) escorted James J. Smith into a room with a makeshift altar. In the audience were twelve adult witnesses and Harris's wife and children. Smith, who believed he was being inducted into the Allah Temple of Islam, was asked if he would sacrifice his life for Islam, and Smith nodded his assent. Harris then stabbed Smith in the chest, and proceeded to bludgeon him to death with an axle rod.

After neighbors called the police, Harris was arrested. Under questioning, he confessed to the murder: "I had to kill somebody, I could not forsake my gods". Police initiated a manhunt for Fard and another leader, Ugan Ali, who were arrested and questioned. Harris was deemed insane and committed to a mental hospital. "The society cannot be blamed for anything he did," Ali was quoted as saying in the Detroit News. Fard and Ugan Ali, who acknowledged leadership of the Allah Temple of Islam but vehemently denied any teaching of human sacrifice, were examined by psychiatrist David Clark, who recommended they be committed for further  observation. A judge agreed, and both Fard and Ugan Ali were placed in straitjackets and confined in padded cells.

With Fard and Ugan Ali still in custody five days after the murder, Elijah Muhammad, at the time known as Elijah Karriem, led over two hundred members into the court building and staged a protest on the main floor. The police spent a full day expelling the protesters.

On November 25, Harris was arraigned on charges of first-degree murder; he pleaded guilty, but his bizarre courtroom behavior convinced witnesses of his insanity. On December 6, three psychiatrists testified that Harris was legally insane, and he was committed to the Ionia State Hospital for the Criminal Insane; he died there on June 19, 1935. Faced with criminal charges, Ugan Ali was released after promising to help disband the Allah Temple of Islam, while Fard agreed to forever leave Detroit as a condition of release.

On December 7, 1932, police put Fard on a train bound for Chicago. The Allah Temple of Islam was officially disbanded, though soon replaced by a new organization called the Nation of Islam. Former leader Ugan Ali was replaced by Elijah Muhammad.

Fard in exile and the Nation of Islam (1932–34)
In January 1933, Fard snuck back into Detroit and held secret meetings with followers. Fard left Detroit for a few weeks but returned to Detroit and resumed preaching on street corners. Recognized by police, he was arrested on May 25, booked, and photographed. He was again released and ordered to depart the city. Fard renamed his community the "Nation of Islam". Following the rapid increase in membership, he instituted a formal organizational structure. He established the Moslem Girls' Training and General Civilization Class, where women were taught how to keep their houses, clean, and cook. The men of the organization were drilled by captains and referred to as the Fruit of Islam. The entire movement was placed under a Minister of Islam.

On September 25, Fard was arrested in Chicago by local police while addressing an audience in a rented hall. The following morning, the Chicago judge dismissed charges of disturbing the peace and released Fard. Fard made a third surreptitious visit to Detroit, this time preaching that the white man would soon be destroyed by poison bombs.

Fard established the University of Islam, where school-aged children were taught, as an alternative to Detroit public schools. By January 1934, local truant officers had noticed the pattern of dropouts and alerted authorities. On March 27, the Detroit Free Press proclaimed that the "voodoo cult" had been revived, and the city initiated legal action against the school. The school was raided by police, and Elijah Muhammad was arrested.

Press reported that at trial, fifteen-year-old Sally Ali, who had attended the University of Islam, testified that she had been taught "in the Islamic New Deal that if she cut off the heads of four devils—devils being unrighteous people—she would win a free trip to Mecca and a button of some sort." She further testified that she had been taught that Caucasians would be destroyed in the year 1934 by poison gas and fighting. Elijah Muhammad was found guilty for his role in establishing an unlicensed school, but he was released on probation. Amid rumors that police wanted both Fard and his chief aide dead, Elijah Muhammad fled for Chicago, and Fard was never again seen by most residents of Detroit.

On November 24, 1932, the Escanaba Daily Press reported that "Wallace Fard, said by police to be a leader of the Order of Islam religious cult, is awaiting an immigration hearing. Officials say he came to the United States from Asia." Fard was later released, but he may have been forced to accept voluntary deportation. After Fard's departure, he initially maintained communication with Elijah Muhammad, sending him a letter from the Mexican border.

Legacy
Fard influenced his successor Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and many other Black nationalist thinkers. The annual Saviours' Day event is held in honor of Fard's birth. In 2020, it attracted an estimated 14,000 participants.

Continued deification under Elijah Muhammad
With regard to Elijah Muhammad, Beynon's article stated: "From among the larger group of Muslims there has sprung recently an even more militant branch than the Nation of Islam itself. This new movement, known as the Temple People. To Mr. Fard alone do they offer prayer and sacrifice. Since Mr. Fard has been deified, the Temple People raise the former Minister of Islam, now a resident of Chicago." This reference is in conflict with the first hand accounts of Malcolm X, such as his appearance in 1963 on the news program City Desk. Malcom X states that Elijah Mohammed was neither Allah nor a Prophet, but rather that he was a Messenger. Elijah Muhammad, who led the Nation of Islam from 1934 to 1975, heard Fard teach for the first time in 1931. Elijah Muhammad stated that he and Fard became inseparable between 1931 and 1934, where he felt "jailed almost" due to the amount of time that they spent together with Fard teaching him day and night.

A handwritten lesson written by Fard states:"Twelve Leaders of Islam from all over the Planet have conferred in the Root of Civilization concerning the Lost-Found Nation of Islam – must return to their original Land. One of the Conference Members by the name of Mr. Osman Sharrieff said to the Eleven Members of the Conference: 'The Lost-Found Nation of Islam will not return to their original Land unless they, first, have a thorough Knowledge of their own.' So they sent a Messenger to them of their own. Now, the Messenger and his Laborers worked day and night for the last three and one-half years, and their accomplishments are approximately twenty-five thousand..."

In this lesson, Fard places the number of converts obtained in Detroit at 25,000, and he describes a "Messenger" sent to the "Lost-Found Nation of Islam" who is "of their own". Nation of Islam theology states that this "Messenger" is Elijah Muhammad. Fard wrote, in his instructions to the leaders of his community, that they should "copy the Answers of Lesson of Minister Elijah Muhammad." He went on to state: "Why is Stress made to the Muslims to Copy, the Minister, Elijah Muhammad's Answers? The past History shows that the ALMIGHTY ALLAH sends Prophets and Apostles for the people's Guide and Example, and through them HIS Mystery was Revealed. And those who follow the Apostle would see the Light."

Fard wrote several lessons which are read and committed to memory by members of the Nation of Islam. Some of the lessons are in the form of questions asked by Fard to Elijah Muhammad. One such lesson concludes with the text: "This Lesson No. 2 was given by our Prophet, W.D. Fard, which contains 40 questions answered by Elijah Muhammad, one of the lost found in the wilderness of North America February 20th, 1934."

While some scholars argue that Fard's divinity was a creation of Elijah Muhammad, Morrow points out that Fard did identify himself as God to Detroit police and that the psychiatrists who examined Fard after his arrest reported that Fard had delusions of Godhood. Morrow argues that under Elijah Muhammad, the doctrine of whites as devils was emphasized, while Fard had taught that "devils" were unbelievers of all races.

Demotion by Warith Deen Mohammed
Upon Elijah Muhammad's death in February 1975, his son Wallace (later Warith) was named successor and instituted sweeping reforms. Where his father has regarded Fard as a physical manifestation of Allah, Wallace denounced Fard as a human who "had his own designs on the black community". The group discontinued the annual Savior's Day celebration in honor of Fard.

Wallace brought the group closer to mainstream Sunni Islam, restyling their 'temples' as mosques while 'ministers' became known as imams. Wallace rejected black nationalism in favor of Islamic anti-racism and disbanded the militaristic "Fruit of Islam" group.

In a 2000s interview alongside Louis Farrakhan, Warith Deen Muhammad described breaking with his father Elijah Muhammad over the issue of Fard's divinity: I differed with my father, and I didn't want to differ with him. In fact I never differed with him directly, he was told that someone heard me saying something different. So he called me to question me about it.

And I told him that I could more readily believe he was God, than I could believe that his teacher was God. Because his teacher was a white man and he said white people were devils.

My mother, when I was leaving the home one day, after my father had insisted that I accept God the way he presented God, or I was gonna be cut off from all communication, he told me he knew it would hurt me to know that I wouldn't be able to see my mother. He said - "you won't be able to talk to your mother or see her". So... I didn't change, and as I was leaving my mother was hurt, and it hurt me to see her hurting like that.

She said, she walked me to the door, which she didn't do, that wasn't normal for her. And she stood on the porch at the door and she said - 'Wallace, why don't you go back there and accept it? Just say you believe.'

I said - 'Mama, tell me what Mr. Fard told you all. Did he tell you he was God?'

And she looked like her face went blank, and looked like she didn't know what to say, and in a few seconds she said - 'No, he did not. In fact he told us to not even call him Prophet, said that was too big a title for him.'

Then I said to my mother - 'How can you ask your son now, to accept a man as God, who said Prophet was too big a title for him?'.

Restoration under Louis Farrakhan

In 1978, Farrakhan and a small number of supporters decided to rebuild what they considered the original Nation of Islam upon the foundations established by Wallace Fard Muhammad and Elijah Muhammad.

In 1979, Farrakhan's group founded a weekly newspaper entitled The Final Call, which was intended to be similar to the original Muhammad Speaks newspaper that Malcolm X claimed to have started, Farrakhan had a weekly column in The Final Call. In 1981, Farrakhan and his supporters held their first Saviours' Day convention in Chicago, Illinois, and took back the name of the Nation of Islam. The event was similar to the earlier Nation's celebrations, last held in Chicago on February 26, 1975. At the convention's keynote address, Farrakhan announced his attempt to restore the Nation of Islam under Elijah Muhammad's teachings.

In a 2000s interview featuring both Louis Farrakhan and Warith Deen Muhammad, Farrakhan argued that "Master Fard Muhammad taught us to accept our own and to be ourselves. We know that he, a man born February 26, 1877, is not the originator of the Heavens and Earth...  Fard Muhammad developed a methodology, strange as it seems, unorthodox as it seems, even poisonous as it may seem, yet it was a prescription that started bringing balance to the system, and that we would evolve from a Nationalist Black-thinking people into the universal message of Islam."

In 2007, the Nation of Islam had an estimated membership of 20,000–50,000.

In popular culture
Fard appears in the novel Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides, in which Fard's Detroit Temple No. 1 is the setting for several scenes.

Fard and his teachings are also referenced in many hip-hop songs. Artists who have made references within their music include Jay-Z and Jay Electronica in the song "We Made It", Brand Nubian in the song "Wake Up", and Ras Kass in the song "Riiiot!"

Efforts to trace Fard's origin and fate
Efforts to trace the origins and life story of Fard have been extensive but have yielded only fragmentary results, and not even his date of death is known; further complicating any efforts is the fact that only a handful of pictures of Fard are known to exist, including four mugshots taken after various arrests and one being the official portrait by the Nation of Islam. Additionally, Fard is alleged to have used up to 58 different aliases during his life.

In the 1960s, authors Arna Bontemps and Jack Conroy speculated that Fard may have been an African-American from the U.S. South. Karl Evanzz of The Washington Post submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI in 1978 requesting its file on Fard. Evanzz based his account of Fard's life on the declassified portion of the FBI file that he received about a decade after his request. Evanzz detailed the experience of several other authors who also based their accounts of Fard's life on the FBI file.

Multiple scholars have suggested that Master Fard's teaching of the Tribe of Shabazz may have been tied to the Shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan, Pakistan.

Potential link to Khan family
Arian has asserted that W.D. Fard was the person known as Alam Khan. Morrow argues "we know, for a fact, that the man known as Alam Khan and Khanialam Khan used the name Fred Dadd as early as 1904".

A 1904 manifest stated that Johnges Khan, Rahim Ullah, Drabas Khan, Hamif Ulla, Khanialam Khan and Sher Khan, from British India, were traveling aboard the SS Tremont to join their brother in Tacoma. A 1904 manifest listed Johnges and Sher Khan as rejoining their mother Sar Bulano of 717 Riverside Ave in Spokane, corroborated by Sher Khan's record of landing. In 1907, a directory listed Jongie, Kaliaham, and Zendad Khan as tamale manufacturers who were living together at 36 McBroom Ave in Spokane. In 1910, Sher Khan was listed in the census as a Persian residing in Portland. Jangger Khan died on August 6, 1910, in Butte, Montana, where he had been a tamale vendor. In 1911, Sher Khan of Portland applied for citizenship, reporting a birthplace in Balochistan. On February 23, 1917, press reported a court had denied Sher Khan's application for citizenship on the ground that his stated birthplace, Balochistan, was "not of the white race". Sher Khan's World War draft registration listed him as residing in Eugene, Oregon, working as a tamale maker. He listed his nearest relative as Fardes Khan of Balochistan, Afghanistan. In 1921, the marriage certificate of Joe Mobine Khan lists his birthplace as Afghanistan, his father as Madie Khan and his mother as Mary Gee.

In 1930, Sher Khan was listed in the census, identified as Persian, and reported the ability to speak Arabic. In World War II, Sher Khan listed his place of birth as Karamel, Balochistan. He died on December 22, 1966.

Fred Walldad, Eugene tamale vendor
On March 23, 1908, papers announced that Turkish tamale vendor Fred Walldad had received a small house on wheels. On September 8, 1908, Eugene newspapers announced a new lunchcart that would be opening adjacent to the cart owned by Fred the Turk. Four days later, press reported that Fred had been ordered to move his hot-tamale cart to a new location. By September 15, it was reported that Fred the Turk had to abandon his cart due to the order and was now operating out of the back of a cigar store. On September 18, "Fred the Greek", tamale vendor, was reported to have paid a license fee, and it was announced that his stand would resume operation at a new location.

In October, newspapers announced that Fred the Turk was traveling to Portland for a visit. On November 3, newspapers reported on a "Halloween prank" in which local boys took the wheels off Fred the Turk's tamale wagon and dropped it, breaking Fred's dishes and eggs, as well as injuring Fred himself; the wheel was stolen. On December 7, newspapers reported on Fred's petition to have his cart operating during the day as well as at night.

On February 3, 1909, newspapers reported that Fred the Turk had sold his lunchwagon and gone to Cottage Grove, Oregon, where he had leased a restaurant and lodging house.

On May 26, 1909, Wali Fred Dad, restaurateur of Eugene, applied for citizenship in the United States; he reported being a white man born in Hong Kong, China on February 14, 1882, who arrived in San Francisco in January 1904. In the document, he renounced allegiance to King Alphonso XII of Spain. The next day, Eugene newspapers reported that Fred Mali Dad, a Spaniard, had filed citizenship papers.

Fred Dodd/Dadd, Salem tamale vendor
From the FBI's response to the Freedom of Information Act request, Evanzz claimed that Fard was Fred Dodd, an Oregonian tamale vendor. A 1905 directory lists Fred Dadd as tamale vendor in Salem, as does the 1911 directory.

On July 28, 1912, newspapers reported that a house occupied by lunchwagon operator Fred Dadd had caught fire.

On August 9, 1912, the Salem, Oregon newspapers reported on Fred Dadd, local tamale vendor and naturalized American originally from New Zealand, attending his first baseball game. On April 8, 1913, the Salem, Oregon city council reported unfavorably on Dodd's request to sell fruit without acquiring an additional license. On April 29, Dodd penned an announcement in the newspaper, complaining about police harassment for fruit sales. In June, it was reported that Dodd's complaint of police harassment would be investigated by the police committee. After the committee reported and the report was adopted, the mayor instructed the chief of police to allow Dodd to sell his wares.

In September 1913, Dodd filed a criminal complaint alleging that Frank Day had embezzled funds from him; Day was fined $25 and given a suspended sentence.

On March 5, 1914, Dodd was arrested for allegedly inducing Laura E. Swanson to leave her spouse for him; he was released on $1,000 bond. A March 23 report cited Dodd's charge as "assaulting a married woman". On April 21, a jury acquitted Dodd. The Capital Journal explained the verdict by saying "It was brought out in the cross examination of the complaining witness that there was another person in the house at the time of the alleged assault and that she did not cry for help as a person in her circumstances would be aroused."

On May 9, 1914, Dodd married Pearl Allen in Multnomah County, Oregon. However, by August 30, newspapers reported on divorce proceedings between the two. On November 14, 1914, Fred Dodd was arrested for larceny after allegedly stealing from his wife Pearl, whom he was suing for divorce. Their divorce was announced on December 27. Pearl gave birth to a son the following year. A 2024 DNA test may suggest that this son was not biologically descended from Dodd.

On November 22, 1915, local newspapers announced that Dodd planned a vacation to San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, noting that it was his "first vacation in six years". Papers described him as "the genial Turkish lad" who planned to go travel to New Orleans, New York, and Chicago. On December 19, 1915, it was reported that Fred Dodd's night lunchwagon had been purchased at an attachment sale to satisfy a judgment of $132.07 held against Fred by a resident of Billings, Montana.

Wallie Dodd Ford, Los Angeles restaurateur
Dodd moved to Los Angeles, using the name Wallie Dodd Ford. A World War I draft registration card for Wallie Dodd Fard from 1917 indicated that he was living in Los Angeles, unmarried, as a restaurant owner, and reported that he was born in Shinka, Afghanistan, on February 26, 1893. He further reported that he was a resident alien and citizen of Afghanistan. He was described as being of medium height and build with brown eyes and black hair. On the draft card, "Ford" is written in parentheses in a different hand. At the bottom of the card, he signed his name as "Wallie Dodd Ford".

Ford was arrested by Los Angeles police on November 17, 1918, on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon.

As of 1920, Ford was still living in Los Angeles as 26-year-old Wallie D. Ford, with his 25-year-old wife, Hazel E. Ford. In the 1920 United States Census, his race was reported as white, his occupation as a proprietor of a restaurant, and his place of birth as New Zealand. He provided no known place of birth for his parents nor his date of immigration.

A marriage certificate dated June 5, 1924, was issued to Wallie Dodd Ford and Carmen Trevino (or Treviño) in Santa Ana, California. Ford reported that he was a cook, age 26, born in Oregon and living in Los Angeles. Trevino was a 22-year-old native of Mexico also living in Los Angeles. Both provided their race as "Spanish"; Ford claimed that his parents, "Zaradodd" and "Babbjie", were natives of Madrid, Spain.

Ford was arrested again on January 20, 1926, for violation of the California Woolwine Possession Act, and on February 15, 1926, for violation of the State Poison Act. After this second arrest, a Spanish-language paper in Los Angeles described him as a "street politician". Ford was a sentenced to six months to six years at San Quentin State Prison on June 12, 1926. According to San Quentin records, Wallie D. Ford was born in Portland, Oregon, on February 25, 1891, the white son of Zared and Beatrice Ford, who were both born in Hawaii. Ford was paroled from San Quentin on May 27, 1929.

In 1934, after Fard Muhammad had departed Detroit, Wallie Ford visited Hazel Barton, the mother of his child, in Los Angeles; she recalled him only eating one meal per day as part of his new lifestyle.

The Nation of Islam contests the claim that Wallace Fard Muhammad and Wallie Dodd Ford were the same person.

Potential link to Moorish Science Temple of America
In addition to his assertion that Fard was Ford, Evanzz also said that Fard was once a member of the Moorish Science Temple of America, citing as a primary source the 1945 publication by Arna Bontemps and Jack Conroy titled They Seek A City. Authors have also cited E. U. Essien-Udom for this proposition as well. In his 1962 book Black Nationalism: The Search for an Identity, Essien-Udom wrote:

"Noble Drew Ali was shot and stabbed in his offices at the Unity Club in Chicago on the night of March 15, 1929. … He was eventually released on bond, but a few weeks later, he died under mysterious circumstances. Some people claim that he died from injuries inflicted by the police while he was in jail. Others, however, suggest that he was killed by [Sheik Claude] Greene's partisans. For some time, one W. D. Fard assumed leadership of the Moorish movement. According to Bontemps and Conroy, Fard claimed that he was the reincarnation of Noble Drew Ali. By 1930 a permanent split developed in the movement. One faction, the Moors, remains faithful to Noble Drew Ali, and the other, which is now led by Elijah Muhammad, remains faithful to Prophet Fard (Master Wallace Fard Muhammad). However, Minister Malcolm X and other leaders of the Nation of Islam have emphatically denied any past connection whatsoever of Elijah Muhammad, Master Wallace Fard Muhammad, or their movement with Nobel Drew Ali's Moorish American Science Temple."

On the question of a connection between the Nation of Islam and the Moorish Science Temple of America, Beynon wrote: "Awakened already to a consciousness of race discrimination, these migrants from the South came into contact with militant movements among northern Negroes. Practically none of them had been in the North prior to the collapse of the Marcus Garvey movement. A few of them had come under the influence of the Moorish-American cult which succeeded it. The effect of both these movements upon the future members of the Nation of Islam was largely indirect. Garvey taught the Negroes that their homeland was Ethiopia. The Noble Drew Ali, the prophet of the Moorish-Americans, proclaimed that these people were 'descendants of Morrocans [Moroccans]'."

Beynon further wrote: "The prophet's message was characterized by his ability to utilize to the fullest measure the environment of his followers. Their physical and economic difficulties alike were used to illustrate the new teaching. Similarly, biblical prophecies and the teachings of Marcus Garvey and Noble Drew Ali were cited as foretelling the coming of the new prophet." Bowen rejects claims that Fard was a member of the MSTA as unsubstantiated.

FBI's public claims about Fard
A declassified Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) memorandum dated May 16, 1957, states: "From a review of instant file it does not appear that there has been a concerted effort to locate and fully identify W. D. Fard. In as much as Elijah Muhammad recognizes W.D. Fard as being Allah (God) and claims that Fard is the source of all of his teachings, it is suggested that an exhaustive effort be made to fully identify and locate W. D. Fard and/or members of his family." The FBI took note of the article written by Erdmann Doane Beynon, and it conducted a search for Fard using various aliases including the name "Ford". On October 17, 1957, the FBI located and interviewed Hazel Barton-Ford, Wallie Ford's common-law wife, with whom he had a son named Wallace Dodd Ford, born on September 1, 1920. This son, later also known as Wallace Max Ford, died in 1942. He was serving for the United States Coast Guard, during World War II, at the time of his death. Barton-Ford gave a description of Wallie Ford, and described him as a Caucasian New Zealander. The FBI's search for Fard was officially closed the following year on April 15, 1958. Immigration records did not match any of his aliases. His true identity remains unknown, but there is strong evidence that the Nation of Islam founder Wallace D. Fard was the same man as Wallace Dodd Ford, an inmate in San Quentin Prison. According to Patrick D. Bowen, a PhD candidate at the University of Denver's Iliff School of Theology, fingerprints and photographs taken from San Quentin Prison matched those of Fard taken during the 1930s in Detroit; furthermore, in San Quentin he almost certainly came in contact with African American Muslim preachers and converts also incarcerated there.

On August 15, 1959, the FBI sent a story to the Chicago New Crusader newspaper, stating that Fard was a "Turkish-born Nazi agent who worked for Hitler in World War II". According to the FBI story, Fard was a "Muslim from Turkey who had come to the United States in the early 1900s. He had met Muhammad in prison … where the two men plotted a confidence game in which followers were charged a fee to become Muslims."

After the story was published, Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X subsequently charged black media outlets, which reprinted the accusation in large numbers, with running the story without requesting a response from the Nation of Islam.

According to the FBI, Fard was linked to the Pacific Movement of the Eastern World and Japanese agitators, such as Satokata Takahashi and Ashima Takis. The FBI charged that Takahashi had been an influential presence in the Nation of Islam. He spoke as a guest at the NOI temples in Detroit and Chicago. A February 19, 1963, FBI memorandum states: "In connection with efforts to disrupt and curb growth of the NOI, extensive research has been conducted into various files maintained by this office. Among the files reviewed was that of Wallace Dodd Ford." Five months later, in July 1963, the FBI told the Los Angeles Evening Herald-Examiner that Fard was actually Wallace Dodd Ford. The paper published the story in an article titled "Black Muslim Founder Exposed As White." An FBI memorandum dated August 1963 states that the FBI had not been able to verify his birthdate or birthplace, and "he was last heard from in 1934."

Theories of origin
Karl Evanzz, in his book The Messenger, postulates that Fard was the son of a Pakistani Muslim, then known as East Indians. He bases this theory on several indications:

 * 1) Fard spent time at the Ahmadiyya Mosque, a movement prominent in Pakistan and used translations of the Quran from Pakistanis.
 * 2) The name Fard is a common surname in Pakistan, as are other names that he bestowed upon his followers, such as Shabazz, Ghulam, and Kallatt.
 * 3) Interviews with long-time Nation figures who met him or saw original photos of him, such as Ozier Muhammad, Rodnell Collins (nephew of Malcolm X) and Wilfred Little, indicate that Fard had Pakistani features.
 * 4) Early teachings from Fard indicated a distrust and disdain for Hinduism.

The 2017 book Chameleon: The True Story of W.D. Fard by A. K. Arian studies the origin of the Nation of Islam founder. One theory postulated is that Fard was of Afghan heritage. The 2019 book Finding W.D. Fard: Unveiling the Identity of the Founder of the Nation of Islam investigates a variety of theories about Fard's ethnic and religious origins, writing: "The people who actually met him, and the scholars who have studied him, have suggested that he was variously an African American, an Arab from Syria, Lebanon, Algeria, Morocco or Saudi Arabia ... a Turk, an Afghan, an Indo-Pakistani ... a Greek ... In an attempt to determine the origins of W.D. Fard, most scholars have relied on his teachings as passed down, and perhaps modified, by Elijah Muhammad. Some have suggested that he was a member of the Moorish Science Temple of America or the Ahmadiyyah Movement. Others have suggested that he was a Druze or a Shiite." Morrow suggests that a background of Ghulat or extremist Shia Islam best fits with what is known of Fard.

Muhammad Abdullah
For decades after Fard's disappearance, Elijah Muhammad maintained that Fard was alive and well. After the death of Elijah Muhammad in 1975, his son and new Nation of Islam leader Wallace D. Muhammad suggested that his newly appointed Oakland California Imam Muhammad Abdullah was Fard, though Abdullah himself later retracted this claim. Scholar Fatimah Fanusie has argued that Abdullah was, in fact, Fard. Abdullah was reportedly introduced as Fard to boxing legend Muhammad Ali.

title: Wallace Fard Muhammad


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User:EvanProdromou/TODO

People

 * John Dos Passos (stub)
 * Sonny Boy Williamson
 * Rahsaan Roland Kirk (stub)
 * Louis Joliet (stubby)
 * Valentinius (gnostic)
 * Charles Kay Ogden

Geography

 * Kankakee River
 * Chaco Canyon (stubby)
 * Gaspésie or Gaspé Peninsula
 * Other stuff on List of Quebec regions
 * Stuff off of Platte River
 * Other rivers off of Rocky Mountains
 * Texas Panhandle
 * Black Rock Desert
 * Cherry pick from Rivers of the Americas (mmm... rivers...)
 * Agra
 * Point Reyes National Seashore

Native Americans

 * Cherry pick off Native American
 * Ohlone
 * Wyandot (needs work)
 * Comancheros
 * Mound Culture

World History

 * Cherry pick off of World Heritage Sites

American History

 * Santa Fe Trail
 * Mormon Trail
 * Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca
 * Battle of Los Angeles (the battle, not the Rage Against the Machine album
 * Donner Party
 * Mexican Border War

Burning Man

 * Burning Man
 * Larry Harvey
 * Cacophony Society

Misc

 * San Francisco Chronicle
 * Cirque du Soleil
 * Merry Pranksters
 * Chautauqua Institution

title: User:EvanProdromou/TODO