Final Call Newspaper Mischaracterizes "Allah", Founder of the Five Percenters

   In what I consider to be a genuine effort to highlight our community, the Final Call , a Nation of Islam Newspaper, recently published an article entitled 'Five Percenters unveil Allah and Justice Square in Harlem.' Its writer Clarke Immatical did a good job directly quoting some of the attendant speakers and articulating the process Mal’akiy 17 Allah experienced in making this vision a reality, yet the writer mischaracterizes Five Percent Nation founder Allah, and our teachings, on more than one occasion. Anticipating outsiders interpretation of our community and this commemorative street naming I published the article "Setting The Record Strait: Allah & Justice, Five Percenters Square!!" on March 31st, 2019 to clarify common misconceptions that people have. Here are a few of those mischaracterizations in that Final Call article and the appropriate corrections:

"Clarence 13X, founder of the Five Percenters, left the Nation of Islam in 1963 and continued to teach what his teacher the Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught him which is that God is a man."

CORRECTION: Allah was his name, as our Commemorative Street Sign 'Allah & Justice, Five Percenters Square' clearly indicates. Allah's name was not Clarence 13X when he founded the Five Percenters. When he left the Nation of Islam he left the religion, he no longer self identified as a Muslim and he ceased using the name Clarence 13X. As mentioned in my article Setting The Record Strait: Allah & Justice, Five Percenters Square!!, "During one of the Community Board Presentations for the street naming Mal'akiy 17 Allah was asked by a Community Board Member, "Why not name it Clarence 13X Way?" to which he responded, "Clarence 13X was the level of understanding he [Allah, The Father] had when he was in the mosque. As his understanding grew he took on the name Allah. We honor Allah as the man who founded the Five Percenters, not Clarence 13X who was a Muslim at that time." The Five Percent Nation does not teach that God is "A" man. This implies that an individual, such as W.D. Fard, whom Nation of Islam followers believe, is that God. The Five Percent Nation teaches that the Original Asiatic Blackman is "The God" [Allah], not a god. This is one of the reasons some Muslims deliberately refer to Allah as Clarence 13X and not Allah; they do not acknowledge him nor Five Percenters as equal to W.D. Fard.

"Clarence 13X Allah hit the streets of Harlem with The Supreme Wisdom. He delivered this information to the streets when Harlem was experiencing tremendous police brutality and in need of spiritual direction."

CORRECTION: Again, his name was not "Clarence 13X Allah." Allah primarily taught the principles and values expressed in a unique system and indigenous language he developed known as the Supreme Mathematics and the Supreme Alphabet. His Supreme Mathematics and Supreme Alphabet serves as a key to unlock our relationship to the universe and what came to be known as 120 degrees [lessons]; a series of catechisms that were contained within the Supreme Wisdom book. Allah rejected other elements of the Supreme Wisdom book such as the Instructions Given To The Laborers [Muslim Believers] and the Problem Book.

"The street sign is not an ending, but a continuation of work that these poor righteous teachers have, a work that was expressed by The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan himself in a past speech, when he said, “Here is a small percentage of people who know God; and when they know God, they have a duty, and that duty is, to teach what you know to those who do not know."

CORRECTION: The above Minister Louis Farrakhan quote is from a portion of a speech that was sampled as an interlude on Brand Nubian's In God We Trust album that was released in 1992. That speech and the above comment is not in reference to the Five Percent Nation as a cultural community that Allah, Justice and others belonged to and still belong to. That speech and the above comment is a general explanation of one of the degrees which references The Five Percent on this Poor Part of the Planet Earth. The Nation of Islam as led by Minister Farrakhan has no official partnership with the Five Percent Nation community. 

The Five Percent Nation is not inextricably linked to the Muslim religion. In a 1967 interview at the Otisville Reformatory School For Boys Allah shared the following non-Muslim points in regards to religion and the human family,

“… black and white, must unite together...now many of my people are against me, such as the Muslim...they are against me!  This is why I don't believe in religion...because religious peoples do not have no understanding.” 

“Five Percenters, I'm teaching them that they can't go on under religion because religion has never did anything for them.” 

“The people been taking advantage of me ever since I said I was Allah. And I know when I said I was Allah, the Muslim whole world was what? Against me.  I don't care. And now they really against me because I'm not anti-white nor pro-black.  They really against me because everybody is, is against the white. Well let me show you something. Who is man if he ain't man? Tell me!”

Misinformation, left unchecked, sets a trajectory that leads to misconceptions, prejudice, discrimination, loss of property and potentially death. Some of us believe these things to be trivial... This is not. Consider two airplanes leave an airport on a thousand mile journey set on courses that are only 1 degree apart. Seemingly close, these planes are not inexplicably linked and will arrive at two different destinations that are worlds apart. Some may believe that 1 degree is insignificant. It is not. In correctional facilities around the country right now many Five Percenters are denied the right to practice our culture because of a STG [Security Threat Group] label. This permanent landmark, Allah & Justice, Five Percenters Square, was established to honor our cultural heritage, preserve and perpetuate our legacy. It is also a means to help legitimize our identity within these facilities and lift this label. There are also some serious socioeconomic repercussions that can occur when misinformation is distributed, especially when you don't control that narrative. Acres of land have been taken from families, insurance policies denied, contracts not honored, crippling debts levied against people, history rewritten, media content flawed and intellectual property has been stolen all because of inaccurate or incorrect information. Since the global popularization and expansion of Hip Hop, particularly during its Golden Era that was immersed in Five Percenter influences, some non-Five Percenters have tried to claim credit for our contributions and "visually annex" themselves to our community. This has undoubtedly been the intention of some Muslims while constantly refusing to acknowledge the Five Percent Nation as a uniquely distinct non-religious community and our founder, Allah, as the non-Muslim youth advocate and community builder that he was and died as. However, his legacy, our legacy, lives on.

Peace,
Saladin