The Messenger : The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad

Evanzz, Karl

ISBN 10: 067944260X / ISBN 13: 9780679442608

Published by Pantheon, 1999

About this Item

Original hardcover in jacket, first printing, review copy with review slip laid in. Book is very solid and bright with minimal reference wear. 667 pages, index, appendices, some historical b + w photographs. Very good. c3.

Seller Inventory # ABE-1769517774886

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Messenger : The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad
• Publisher: Pantheon
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 067944260X
• ISBN 13: 9780679442608
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Printing: 1st Printing
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Dimensions: 3.81W x 16.51H x 24.77D centimeters 3.81 centimeters width by 16.51 centimeters height by 24.77 centimeters depth
• Weight: 997.903 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Here, eagerly anticipated, is the definitive biography of Elijah Muhammad (né Elija Poole), a sharecropper's son with a fourth- grade education who became one of the most controversial Americans of the twentieth century, the founder and "Prophet" of the Nation of Islam, a movement dedicated to black separatism and self-empowerment.


Though Muhammad's main argument--that white people were innately evil ("devils," he called them)--ran counter to the precepts of orthodox Islam, he was the chief influence in the conversion of nearly four million African Americans to Islam, touching in the process the lives of figures ranging from Muhammad Ali and Jesse Jackson to Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan. But in his desperate grasp for power, Muhammad also amassed a huge personal fortune at the expense of his followers. He was a party to ritualistic homicides, had illicit affairs galore, and was quick to betray his friends and charges, most notably Malcolm X. In brief, he violated every ideal and principle that he espoused.


With the cooperation of some of Elijah Muhammad's children and former apostles and with access to previously unreleased FBI files, Karl Evanzz gives us an unprecedented account of the life of the man whose philosophy continues, long after his death, to shape race relations in America.

About the Author

Karl Evanzz is an on-line editor at the Washington Post. He has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, MSNBC, and Tony Brown's Black Journal as an authority on the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X, and Louis Farrakhan. He is the author of The Judas Factor: The Plot to Kill Malcolm X. He lives in suburban Washington, D.C.