THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 25, 1994 TAG: 9406250256
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARK O'KEEFE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940625 LENGTH: NORFOLK
\ Imam Vernon Fareed knows the easy way to stir up a large crowd of African-Americans. Tell them they're poor. Tell them they're victims. Then blame their problems on white America.
That may be the highly publicized approach of Louis Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam, but it's not the Islam teaching of Fareed and his national leader, W. Deen Mohammed.
{REST} While Farrakhan has grabbed headlines for preaching black separatist and, some say, anti-Semitic themes, Mohammed and his followers contend they have returned to the Koran, Islam's holy book, for messages of religious unity and racial harmony.
At the Norfolk Waterside Marriott Hotel on Friday, about 250 of these Muslims removed their shoes, entered a ballroom and knelt to pray as a three-day Islamic conference began. They came from as far away as Seattle. By the end of the conference on Sunday, some 2,000 are expected.
``We don't tap into that anger thing,'' said Fareed, the conference organizer and spiritual head of Norfolk's Masjid William Salaam, an Islamic community of about 50 families. ``Any one of us who can speak well could tap into that anger.
``You'll find more sober-minded Americans will follow W. Deen Mohammed. They're not people driven by emotion.''
On Tuesday, Fareed opened the Norfolk City Council meeting with prayer and offered the mayor the services of his community. He was believed to be the first Muslim to ever pray before the council.
About 40 percent of America's 6 million Muslims are African-American, according to the Washington-based American Muslim Council. Mohammed has claimed more than 1.5 million. Farrakhan does not release data, but published reports have estimated registered members at less than 50,000.
Nevertheless, Farrakhan has gained national attention while many Americans have never heard of W. Deen Mohammed, who voted twice for George Bush and turned the horror of the Rodney King beating and the subsequent Los Angeles riots into a reason for hope.
Mohammed was quoted as saying the riots were ``a disease, like the breaking out of boils on your skin. Usually when the rash comes, healing is close.'' He has accused Farrakhan and others of playing to racial themes for ``financial survival and political survival.''
Though different in philosophy, Mohammed and Farrakhan are heirs of the same man who led the black Muslim movement in the 1930s, Elijah Muhammad. W. Deen Mohammed is the biological son. Louis Farrakhan calls himself the spiritual son.
Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam was defiant and anti-white, capturing the passion of black Americans hurt by years of racism. It taught, among other things, that blacks were the first to inhabit the earth and that whites, called ``blue-eyed devils,'' had been created by an evil black scientist named Yacub 6,000 years ago.
When Elijah Muhammad died in 1975, W. Deen took over the organization in accordance with his father's wishes. But W. Deen soon renounced the Nation of Islam's separatist agenda, saying it differed from the teachings of the prophet Mohammed , who founded orthodox Islam 1,400 years ago. The ministry went through a series of name changes.
In 1978, Farrakhan broke away and revived the racial message and Nation of Islam name. The two men and groups have been rivals ever since.
At the conference Friday, Farrakhan's name was rarely spoken, but his impact was felt. Imam Qasim Ahmed from Houston spoke of the struggle to separate from a false philosophy that sees blacks as superior to other races.
W. Deen Mohammed, whose base is Calumet City, Ill., was originally scheduled to attend the conference and a Saturday banquet to help fund a mosque for Fareed. He also was going to give a major public address Sunday.
But his appearance was canceled because of a conflict, Fareed said.
Conference participants were disappointed but not crushed, Fareed said. That, said Fareed, is a ``sign of growth,'' that the ministry is based on a belief system and not a personality.
by CNB