As-salaam alaikum—An Arabic spoken greeting; the term salaam means “peace” and the greeting can be translated as “Peace be upon you.”
Black Legion—A hate group related to the Ku Klux Klan which numbered nearly thirty thousand and was centered on Detroit and other Midwestern cities. The Black Legion was responsible for numerous crimes against immigrants, minorities, and suspected communists; the group was allegedly responsible for the death of Malcolm Xʹs father, Earl Little.
Fishing—The searching for new converts to the Nation of Islam.
Fitna—From the Arabic verb meaning “to seduce, tempt, or lure,” fitna can refer to the temptation believers must face or the period of chaos and disorder prior to salvation. It can also describe fracturing or civil war within the Muslim community.
Five Pillars of Islam—The five duties of every Sunni Muslim, including shahada, salat, zakat, sawm, and hajj.
Fruit of Islam—The “Fruit,” as it is often called, is a male-only paramilitary group of the Nation of Islam, which is in charge of security and whose membership is drawn from the various mosques. Members are characterized by distinct blue or white uniforms and caps bearing a star and crescent or the abbreviation FOI.
Hajj—The fifth pillar of Islam, the hajj is the largest annual pilgrimage in the world and must be performed at least once by every Muslim who is physically or financially able. It occurs from the seventh to the thirteenth day during the twelfth month of the Islamic calendar.
Imam—Muslim spiritual or community leader, and the person who leads prayer during a religious gathering.
Jihad—Religious duty meaning “struggle,” jihad is the striving for perfection in Islam; it can also refer to a holy war against infidels. Some Sunni scholars categorize this as the unofficial sixth pillar of Islam.
Kaaba—A cuboidal building built by Abraham, according to Islamic tradition, it is enclosed within the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and is the point toward which all Muslims pray. The Kaaba is circled during the hajj, a process called tawaf.
Kafan—Clean white cloth that the body is wrapped in during a traditional Islamic funeral.
Mecca—The holiest city in Islam, Mecca is closed to non-Muslims and is the site of the hajj festivities.
Medina—The second holiest city in Islam, Medina is the burial place of the Prophet Muhammad and was the place of his migration from Mecca in 622 CE.
The Mother Plane—A cylindrical spaceship believed to carry fifteen hundred smaller ships, which would destroy America and England during the judgment, according to NOI eschatology.
Muhammad Speaks—Official newspaper of the Nation of Islam, Muhammad Speaks was started by Malcolm X as a small New York pamphlet in 1960; editorial control was quickly transferred to Herbert Muhammad, and the newspaper eventually rose to become the most widely published black weekly, with a circulation estimated between six hundred thousand and nine hundred thousand in the early 1970s.
Muslim Girls Training (MGT) and General Civilization Class—A weekly class for women within the Nation which stressed domestic skills such as keeping house, rearing children, sewing, cooking, and hygiene. It also offered a social space for women within the movement to organize and meet others with shared religious or political views.
Orgena—A play written by Louis Farrakhan in the late 1950s, Orgena—“A Negro” spelled in reverse—depicted a history in which the black man is estranged from his original culture and then enslaved, before becoming a second-class citizen and eventually rediscovering his cultural heritage. The play was performed most notably at Carnegie Hall and Town Hall in New York City.
Original Man—Term used by the Nation of Islam to emphasize that black people were the first humans on earth and thus the originators of human civilization.
The Royal Family—Name referring to the immediate family of Elijah Muhammad, specifically his wife, Clara, daughters Ethel and Lottie, and sons Nathaniel, Herbert, Elijah Jr., Akbar, and Wallace. Son-in-law Raymond Sharrieff was also close to the family and shared a large portion of power.
Salat—One of the five pillars, salat refers to formal prayer, which is to be practiced five times a day: dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset, and nightfall.
Saviour’s Day Convention—The Nation’s annual gathering, held in Chicago around February 26 to honor the birth of founder W. D. Fard.
Sawm—An Arabic word for fasting, it means “to abstain from eating, drinking, and intercourse,” under the terms of Islamic law. The observance of sawm during Ramadan is one of the five pillars.
Shahada—The recitation of the shahada, meaning “witnessing,” is the most important of the five pillars of Islam. The recitation translates as “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.”
Shi’a—Second largest denomination of Muslims, Shi’as regard Ali (Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law) and his lineage as the legitimate heirs to the Prophet.
Sunni—Refers to those who accept the Sunna, or words and actions of the Prophet Muhammad; it is the largest Muslim community, comprising nearly 90 percent of all Muslims worldwide.
Tawaf—An Islamic ritual of the hajj and umrah, meant to demonstrate the unity of believers, in which Muslims circumambulate the Kaaba seven times counterclockwise.
Tribe of Shabazz—According to NOI theology, the Tribe of Shabazz was the lone survivor of thirteen tribes that lived sixty-six trillion years ago. Led by a scientist of the same name, it was believed that members of the Nation were descendants of the tribe, which eventually settled in present-day Mecca.
Ummah—Arabic word meaning “community” or “nation,” it refers to the Arab world or, in Islam, the diaspora of believers throughout the world.
Umrah—Lesser pilgrimage compared to the hajj, it refers to travel to the holy sites out of season.
Walaikum salaam—The typical response to As-salaam alaikum, meaning “And upon you be peace.”
Well of Zamzam—A well located within the Masjid al-Haram, not far from the Kaaba. Pilgrims drink from the well each year during hajj or umrah.
“A White Man’s Heaven Is a Black Man’s Hell”—Song composed by calypso singer and future national minister Louis Farrakhan for the Nation of Islam.
X—Each Nation of Islam member was required to drop his or her surname and replace it with an X, representing the unknown ancestral surname that had been stripped away through slavery. Numbers preceded the X if more than one member of a mosque shared the same first name, progressing in order of membership.
Yacub’s History—According to NOI theology, Dr. Yacub (often spelled Yakub) was an evil scientist who lived in Mecca in 8400 BCE. After he and his followers were exiled to an island in the Aegean Sea, Dr. Yacub sought revenge by genetically grafting the black gene from the Original Man until the white race was eventually created, long after his death at the age of 152.
Zakat—Another of the five pillars, zakat is the calculated percentage of one’s possessions or earnings to be given to the needy and community.