"Nothing (No thing)" Happens in a Vacuum

     Let me start by saying that nothing happens in a vacuum. We live in a world where all things are connected. Nothing also happens in our little corner of social media where our images, posts, comments and "likes" are somehow disconnected from keyword internet searches or Google alerts. All internet activity is connected and is a part of a larger digital footprint. Fifty years from now, if the internet still exists..., people will be able to find these articles and thousands of other literary, audio, and visual content that is directly connected to me. Some people believe that this kind of global visibility only matters if you are a public figure, and that is not true. You can post something right now that will win you a personal visit from men in black, a pair of shiny steel bracelets, and a first-class trip to your local FBI office. Nothing happens in a vacuum, especially content that garners a lot of visibility and engagement, be it positive or negative.

     Speaking of internet activity that is a part of a larger digital footprint, recently there was a modified Five Percenter Universal Flag with a gun in the center being circulating online via a Queens Hip Hop artist who goes by the stage name "Criminal God." It was in August of 2024 that I first became aware of this artist because he performed on the premises of the Allah School in Mecca at a City of Gods Concert. That City of Gods Concert was widely promoted, hosted by former Source Magazine writer Edward Sunez Rodriguez, and publicly broadcast on the Allah School in Mecca YouTube Channel. While I respect artistic freedom, there are certain expressions of art that I do not support, platform, or share with others, especially our youth. This is one of those expressions. It must also be clearly understood that any individuals who engage in or promote irresponsible, unlawful, or inflammatory behavior are not representatives of the Five Percenters or the Allah Youth Center in Mecca, Inc. (AKA: The Allah School in Mecca). As the Five Percent, we stand on the principles of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding, and we reject conduct that undermines community trust or public accountability. Any such actions are personal choices and should never be interpreted as speaking for or acting on behalf of our nation of the Five Percent or Allah Youth Center in Mecca's efforts to lessen neighborhood tensions, combat juvenile delinquency, and foster civic engagement.

Senator Cordell Cleare, sponsor of Senate Bill S8655
~NYSABPRHAL's 55th Legislative Conference~
Albany, NY, February 13-15, 2026.

When I used my social media to share how that modified Five Percenter Universal Flag associated with crime jeopardizes the potential acquisition of our Allah School, I received a variety of responses. While most people were quick to condemn that content, others also communicated their support of an IP [intellectual property] trademark initiative that I put forward in 2021 to legally stop this kind misuse, misappropriation, and monetization of our Universal Flag. Unfortunately, that IP trademark initiative was not widely supported among my Five Percenter community. And as I predicted, that failed support has allowed the continued misuse, misappropriation, and monetization of our Universal Flag in the film and television, toy manufacturing, jewelry, clothing, literary, and music industries. This recent incident was yet another open attack on our cultural identity that we had no legal authority to stop.

Some people have criticized me for using my global platform to raise awareness about issues like this and the solutions that I offer. To them, I am the problem for pointing out the problem and sharing solutions, not the people who are actually creating these problems. Some people believe that if we just ignore situations like this, they will simply go away, fade into folks' daily routines or disappear into some insignificant content abyss on the internet. Again, nothing happens in a vacuum and none of it just vanishes. We have to confront ignorance with intelligence, apathy with action, and positivity with negativity. Consistently. Also, gossiping about me does not address individuals who engage in or promote irresponsible, unlawful, or inflammatory behavior or the continued misuse, misappropriation, and monetization of our Universal Flag.

As a writer, when I share my lived experience, I do it to give people a glimpse into worlds that they often aren't familiar with. My journey, stories, and accomplishments are unique to me. What is also unique to me is that in every world that I step into, I literally come in the name of "Saladin Allah." This is socially equivalent to having a cultural face tattoo. My name is not an alias, attribute, street name, stage name, or nickname that my buddies call me. Whether I am in a classroom teaching students, speaking to State Lawmakers, filming an interview for a documentary, advising United Nation Delegates overseas, or etc., I am Saladin Allah. This is how I show up every. single. day, in every single way, personally and professionally. Many Five Percenters cannot relate to that. They live a somewhat covert life because their actual names are Donnie, Alicia, Christian, Meghan, etc. These folks don't know what it means to walk into every social, economic, educational, religious, and political environment where a central part of your cultural identity is openly visible and always a potential topic of discussion. They don't have a face tattoo. They have a hidden tattoo, and it only becomes a topic of discussion if they choose to show it to somebody. Many Five Percenters can hide in plain sight in a way that I cannot and chose not to. With my name and its cultural significance, I made a bold decision to be seen and heard everywhere and accept the public-facing responsibility that comes along with it. Because of this, I have experiences that others will not. I have conversations in places that others will not have. I also encounter certain societal expectations and public scrutiny that others will never experience or learn to navigate.

So, what does all of that mean? It means that as Five Percenter, I have a vantage point of view that many others do not, based upon my personal and professional experience. In some instances that vantage point of view is better because I am the best knower in a given situation. In other situations, I am not the best knower. Someone else is the best knower, regardless of their age or gender. I respect that, yet I cannot say the same for others who have a bad habit of trying to speak on subjects and professional spaces that they know very little about. It reminds me of a recent online discussion that I had with someone who shared some A.I. laced Islamophobic content about protecting American values from a Muslim invasion. I took some time to educate them by sharing numerous examples and references of Islam's foundational influence on shaping Western Society, including a link to one of my books that is a part of a Curatorial Activism Archive in the British Library. This person, in all of their arrogant American ignorance, still tried to debate me, even though I am clearly an educator, author, and subject matter expert. The audacity. Around the same time, I had another experience dealing with a different kind of audacity. I shared an online application for high school students to apply for an all-expense paid 9-day trip with me to East Africa. Part of that application required students to submit a 300-word or less essay, a 3-minute video, or a 3-minute audio explaining why this trip is important to them. Of the 75 submissions that I received, 73 of them used some form of A.I. to write their essay, produce their video, or dictate their audio responses instead of just sharing their own thoughts and voice. Both of these exchanges represent a small example of a larger more pervasive anti-intellectual groupthink mentality that we are seeing on a national, regional, and local level. It is also happening within my own Five Percent community, and other communities, who have historically valued knowledge, lived experience, and critical thinking. If you really want to take a deeper dive into how A.I. is negatively impacting our cognitive development and creativity, check out this Science Direct article.

We are riding a wave of anti-intellectualism where folks religiously reject expertise, promote mistrust, and are outright hostile towards education and intelligence. This is undermining our ability to grow and develop, individually and as a community. Right before our eyes we are watching the deterioration of American society because of this dysfunctional mentality from the Federal level on down to our local communities. A mentality where irresponsible, unlawful, or inflammatory behavior is celebrated, and so-called leaders, public figures, podcasters, and everyday people sit around and BLOVIATE about people, places, and things without offering any solutions. Sadly, and frustratingly, many of my folks are willing participants in this madness. Yet, in all of this, I still see the potential for positive change. I see it in my own work, my children, other youth, elders, and peers who are still forging paths of possibility through these dense forests of ignorance and apathy. This is also not happening in a vacuum. So I remain encouraged in my work and being connected to others who are also doing the work. Despite the madness, I will that you stay encouraged too.

Peace,

Saladin #AtlantisBuild

The Political Science of our Universal Flag

#AtlantisBuild #FivePercenter #KnowledgeOfSelf

  

     According to Universal Shaamgaud Allah, the architect of the Five Percent Nation's Universal Flag, it was the best of three that he completed in May of 1966. Upon completion, he along with two colleagues [Black Seed and Gykee], went to visit Allah in Matteawan State Hospital to present it to him. Allah was in Matteawan because in May of 1965 he was arrested along with several other men for unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct at a rally in front of the Hotel Theresa in Harlem, NY. Allah was arraigned in criminal court before Judge Francis X. O'Brien and held on a $9,500 bond. Four months later he was shipped off to the Psychiatric Unit at Bellevue Hospital and would remain there until a final psychiatric report submitted to Judge O'Brien stated that "he did not understand the charges against him." Thus Allah was remanded to the NYS Department of Mental Hygiene for indefinite confinement and remained in these institutions, Bellevue and Matteawan State Hospital, for two years.

     When Shammgaud, Black Seed and Gykee arrived at Matteawan State Hospital to present the Universal Flag to Allah, the hospital administration would not allow them to bring it inside. Thus Allah did not receive it until he was released from Matteawan in April of 1967. Our Five Percent Nation’s flag, Shaamgaud gave us this explanation of its symbols:

The Universal Flag and its architect Universal Shaamgaud Allah

"The five-pointed star symbolizes Knowledge, the Seed, the Child with the power, the Supreme Knowledge that was manifested by W.F. Muhammad and revealed to us by Almighty God ALLAH, it is solid Black! The Crescent Moon symbolizes Wisdom, the Women (without child); it shows reflected light (Truth or Knowledge) and is not yet at its fullest equality. It also symbolizes the Divine Wisdom that was manifested by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and revealed to us by Almighty God ALLAH, it is solid yellow! Together the Star and Crescent stand for Knowledge and Wisdom, which is the unity of knowing it and speaking it! (Teaching) It also symbolizes the Earth (woman with child); a planet that has life, and the dominance the Woman has over the Seed (the child or the Knowledge) while it is young, and it has been the symbol of Freedom Justice and Equality since the awaking of Islam in the West of North America.

The 7 has seven sides. It symbolizes the Original Man, the True and Living God, the Supreme Being, Almighty God ALLAH. Since the very creation of mathematics 7 has been the mathematical terminology for the Creator of the Universe. It is solid Black. Together this stands for the Supreme Understanding that was revealed to us by Almighty God ALLAH himself, it shows a unification of Knowledge Wisdom and Understanding, Man, Woman, Child and shows the authority of ALLAH over the Planets and Stars and the proper order of the Universe. The seven symbolizes the male seed in full bloom, it shows that God must be the Most High, the Master of Wisdom, Culture and Equality at all times, because they are six, and can never dominate ALLAH, so they must remain in six or distill back to whence it came! This no part of the crescent moon should ever show over the top of the seven!

The white background symbolizes the white clouds of deception that have drowned our people in a sea of ignorance, and the feeble attempts of the wicked to conceal the true and living God which is the Son of Man! The Cipher (circle) around the Allah Crescent Star is Black, the Original Color of the Sun (anything that burns that hot and that long can't be yellow!) This symbolizes the Sun, the Universal symbol of Truth and Light, and whose power can evaporate all clouds of deception (lies).

The Eight Points are the symbol of the ever-expanding Universe, and symbolizes the rays of the Sun, and the speed and distance that the Truth is capable of traveling. There are two shades to each point, the Left is Black. The left represents the Original Black man, the Right side is Gold. The Gold represents Brown and Yellow seeds (from the first of the Brown to the last of the Yellow). Just as Jacob separated the seeds, 200 years from Black to Brown, 200 years from Brown to Yellow and 200 years from Yellow to Caucasian, ALLAH taught us that each brother should have a seed thus he reunited the seeds, united they are one! The eight points are a sign of He who is the Master builder of Rain, Snow, Hail and Earthquakes! The sixteen sections of the points, one for each year and degree that our seeds (child) must master before he is at the age of self-responsibility and required to teach civilization." -Universal Shaamgaud Allah

(L to R) Mayor John Lindsay, Barry Gottehrer, Sid Davidoff

     When our Five Percent Nation began to grow amongst the youth throughout the boroughs of New York, Mayor John Lindsay, a Liberal Republican, formed a relationship with Allah through his Aide Barry Gottehrer and Executive Assistant Sid Davidoff. Mayor Lindsay was a clean-cut lawyer by profession who graduated from Yale University. A former U.S. Congressman and a gunnery officer in the United States Navy, Lindsay was also affiliated with the Bush family; he ushered at the wedding for Nancy Bush where he met his bridesmaid wife Mary Anne. Nancy Bush is the sister of former CIA Director and POTUS George HW Bush Sr.

     Barry Gottehrer was an investigative journalist prior to becoming an Aide in the Lindsay Administration. His insightful award-winning newspaper series "New York City in Crisis" laid bare the racial and socioeconomic problems in NYC. Considered a political hatchet job, this New York Herald-Tribune series attacked the policies of current Democratic Mayor Robert Wagner II and painted an untainted picture of the Herald-Tribune's endorsed candidate Congressman John Lindsay. This compelled Lindsay to add Gottehrer, and his narrative shaping expertise, to his Administrative Staff once he was elected Mayor. 

     Sid Davidoff was Mayor Lindsay's troubleshooting consigliere. Another lawyer by profession and visiting lecturer at Lindsay's alma mater Yale University, Davidoff was considered one of President Nixon's worst enemies; named among other political opponents as part of Nixon's covert "Political Enemies Project" list that was revealed during the Senate Watergate Committee investigating the Watergate scandal. 

     With Allah's street knowledge and cultural worldview, he along with Lindsay, Gottehrer, and Davidoff were able to successfully produce projects and initiatives that Five Percenters used to positively transform the landscape of Harlem and NYC as a whole.

     Upon Allah's approval of our Universal Flag design by Universal Shaamgaud, the image was given to Mayor Lindsay to create flag lapel pins. Allah was not anti-government so in collaboration with Mayor Lindsay's office, Lindsay had our lapel pins created by Eagle Regalia; a manufacturing company that was founded in New York City in 1910, specializing in the production of banners, flags, emblematic jewelry, buttons, badges, plaques, and trophies. In addition to our lapel pins, Eagle Regalia also created the licensed badges of the NYPD and other government agencies in New York. According to our nation elders, young Five Percenters would be given a Universal Flag lapel pin with their righteous name inscribed on it. When a Five Percenter chose a righteous name and earned or was given a lapel pin, it was distributed at the Street Academy [Allah School]; a property given to the Five Percenters with a ninety-nine-year lease by the Lindsay Administration in 1967. To receive a lapel pin Five Percenters were required to write down their honorable name [birth name] in a book and their righteous name beside it. Some lapel pins had names already inscribed on them. Other lapel pins were blank and were sent out to have their name inscribed on them. These lapel pins were more than just decorative symbols of our cultural identity, accomplishment, and pride. They enabled Allah, in partnership with the city government, to better organize, document, monitor, and deputize a growing youth movement into an unrivaled dynamic of power. A powerful segment of New York's citizenry that the NY Daily News partly described as "the neighborhoods most respected."

     On the night of April 4th, 1968 when Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated, Mayor Lindsay contacted Sid Davidoff and Barry Gottehrer about coming to Harlem to pay his respects and offer his condolences to the people. Against their advice to not come because they could not guarantee his safety, Mayor Lindsay came to Harlem anyway and met with Gottehrer and Davidoff along with Allah and a group of his Five Percenters. As they began to walk the streets of Harlem, people began to join them and together they successfully stopped the Harlem community from rioting.

     During those early years of the Five Percent Nation our Universal Flag was protected and functioned like closed-source software or informal intellectual property that was not made available to the general public. Anybody could not just get it or wear it. Times have since changed with the growth of the internet and social media. Up until the mid-2000s, it was rare for people to casually wear or use our Universal Flag. If vendors in New York City were selling items bearing the Universal Flag it was common for those products to be destroyed, taken and/or the vendor accosted by Five Percenters. 

     Nowadays, with the expansion of the internet, social media, and e-commerce, our Universal Flag has taken on more of an open-source expression. Thus it is freely available, redistributed, and modified in the public domain and across digital space by people who are not a part of the Five Percent Nation. This has become problematic because these outsiders are using our Universal Flag to sell merchandise, provide services, edit Wikipedia content, publish articles, create/monetize content, make social media profiles/pages, create/manage websites and share disinformation about our Five Percent Nation. One of the solutions that I have suggested over the years is for us [Five Percenters] to invest in creating such a large digital footprint of positive, accurate, authentic content that it drowns out the disinformation and cultural appropriation. This is no easy task and requires the same or even greater level of commitment to content creation than me -and I have been helping consistently expand our Five Percent digital footprint for more than two decades. We are not quite there yet and as we continue to push our culture forward into this Blockchain Age, it is important that we give all that we have and do all within our power to protect and control our narrative online and offline, or outsiders will continue to...

   Our Universal Flag has done more than exemplify our righteous names, reputation, and overall culture of the Five Percent. During the night of MLK's assassination, other instances throughout the Lindsay Administration, and the years that followed, our Universal Flag lapel pins became symbols of empowerment. They became emblems connected to our ability to teach, resolve conflicts, and address issues of truancy and juvenile delinquency in the place of law enforcement and other government agencies. In addition to Shaamgaud's important meaning of our Universal Flag, it was and will always be, a badge of honor. 

Peace,

Saladin

Animation Series: Love, Hell or Right

 In this Atlantis School For Gifted Youngsters Episode we discuss "Love, Hell or Right."

"Love transcends emotions; it is the highest degree of Understanding between two people. Hell is the tempering fire of experience all relationships go through; in order to remove its impurities and unveil the substance of our bond. Then and only then will we reveal what's Right!" -Love, Hell or Right (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Amazon Kindle) 

 

Peace,

Saladin

 

PUBLIC STATEMENT: 21 Savage Wearing The Five Percent Nation Universal Flag

Re: 21 Savage Wearing The Five Percent Universal Flag

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

On Sunday October 28th in Atlanta Rapper 21 Savage held a Halloween/26th Birthday Party at a mansion designed to look a Brooklyn corner store. Savage wore a replica of the custom designed Dapper Dan jacket the artist Rakim Allah wore on the cover of classic his 1988 album Follow The Leader. While some were impressed with this display some took offense, particularly some members of the Five Percent Nation, because Savage's jacket also displayed the Universal Flag of the Five Percenters.

In a Facebook/Instagram post on Tuesday October 30th I communicated the following points:

"Although this isn't the best display of our culture via the Universal Flag on 21 Savage's jacket, I also think that some rap artists who have worn this flag, claim our culture, or borrow some of its cultural elements, have not best displayed our culture either. What can we do about it? Teach, particularly our youth. 21 Savage's actions create a great teachable moment for our Millennials who may have no clue what symbol he is displaying on his jacket and what he is essentially paying homage to. It is also a teachable moment for some of my peers and elder Generation to learn who 21 Savage and other Millennial artists are... Some of us are out of tune with what is currently going on and have no real time relationships with our youth. Use this opportunity as a positive teachable moment."

I further elaborated on these points in the Vlog below:

In summary, I understand and appreciate the concern that some of my Five Percent family have with 21 Savage wearing our Universal Flag, even if it was paying homage to the artist Rakim. 21 Savage may or may not know what our Universal Flag means and the personal responsibility that comes along with its public display. Over the years there have been other Rappers who have also worn our flag and they have not always been the most dignified displays as well. That has been a concern of some of the Five Percent since Allah was presented with and accepted the Universal Flag that was designed by Universal Shaamgaud Allah. It is sacred, to many of us. Willfully this and other Five Percenter content about this subject will reach 21 Savage that shares this perspective and welcomes him to learn more about our way of life. As I've mentioned, this is a teachable and learning moment.

Peace,
Saladin