In the beliefs of the Nation of Islam (NOI), Yakub (sometimes spelled Yacub or Yaqub) was a black

scientist A scientist is a person who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosoph ...

who lived 6,600 years ago and began the creation of the white race. He is said to have done this through a form of

selective breeding Selective breeding (also called artificial selection) is the process by which humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits (characteristics) by choosing which typically animal or plant m ...

which is referred to as "grafting", while he was living on the island of

Patmos Patmos ( el, Πάτμος, ) is a Greek island in the Aegean Sea. It is famous as the location where John of Patmos received the visions found in the Book of Revelation of the New Testament, and where the book was written. One of the northern ...

. The Nation of Islam's theology states that Yakub is the biblical

Jacob Jacob (; ; ar, يَعْقُوب, Yaʿqūb; gr, Ἰακώβ, Iakṓb), later given the name Israel, is regarded as a patriarch of the Israelites and is an important figure in Abrahamic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. J ...

. The story has caused disputes within the NOI during its history. Under its current leader

Louis Farrakhan Louis Farrakhan (; born Louis Eugene Walcott, May 11, 1933) is an American religious leader, Black supremacy, black supremacist, Racism, anti-white and Antisemitism, antisemitic Conspiracy theory, conspiracy theorist, and former singer who hea ...

, the NOI continues to assert that the story of Yakub is true, claiming that modern science is consistent with it. Despite the NOI's self-proclamations of consistency with modern science, there are no reputable scientific studies that support this assertion.

Story

The story of Yakub originated in the writings of

Wallace Fard Muhammad Wallace Dodd Fard, also known as Wallace Fard Muhammad or Master Fard Muhammad (; reportedly born February 26, – disappeared ), was the founder of the Nation of Islam. He arrived in Detroit in 1930 with an obscure background and several alia ...

, the founder of the Nation of Islam, in his doctrinal Q&A pamphlet ''Lost Found Moslem Lesson No. 2''.Allen, Ernest, "Identity and Destiny: The Formative Views of the Moorish Science Temple and the Nation of Islam" in Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad; John L. Esposito, ''Muslims on the Americanization Path?'', Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 192 (footnote, p. 213). It was developed by his successor

Elijah Muhammad Elijah Muhammad (born Elijah Robert Poole; October 7, 1897 – February 25, 1975) was an African American religious leader, black separatist, and self-proclaimed Messenger of Allah, who led the Nation of Islam (NOI) from 1934 until his deat ...

in several writings, most fully in a chapter entitled "The Making of Devil" in his book '' Message to the Blackman in America''.Deutsch, Nathaniel, "The Proximate Other The Nation of Islam and Judaism", in ''Black Zion: African American Religious Encounters with Judaism'', Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 104–108 Yakub is said to have been born in

Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow ...

at a time when 30% of original black people were "dissatisfied". He was a member of the Meccan branch of the Tribe of Shabazz. Yakub acquired the nickname "big head", because of his unusually large head and his arrogance. At the age of six, he discovered the law of attraction and repulsion by playing with

magnet A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is responsible for the most notable property of a magnet: a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials, such as iron, steel, nicke ...

s made of steel.Michael Angelo Gomez, ''Black Crescent: The Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas'', Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 311 This insight led to a plan to create new people. He "saw an unlike human being, made to attract others, who could, with the knowledge of tricks and lies, rule the original black man.” By the age of 18, he had exhausted all knowledge in the universities of Mecca. He then discovered that the original black man contained both a "black germ" and a "brown germ". With 59,999 followers, he went to an "isle in the Aegean Sea called Pelan", which Muhammad identifies with

. Once there, he established a despotic regime and set about breeding out the black traits, killed all darker babies, and created a brown race after 200 years.Elijah Muhammad, ''Message to the Blackman in America'' (summarize
here
and ''Yakub: The Father of Mankind''. See also, Dorothy Blake Fardan, ''Yakub and the Origins of White Supremacy'', Lushena Books, 2001 Yakub died at the age of 150, but his followers carried on his work. After 600 years of this deliberate eugenics, the white race was created. The brutal conditions of their creation determined the evil nature of the new race: "by lying to the black mother of the baby, this lie was born into the very nature of the white baby; and, murder for the black people was also born in them—or made by nature a liar and murderer". The new race traveled to Mecca where they caused so much trouble they were exiled to "West Asia (Europe), and stripped of everything but the language....Once there, they were roped in, to keep them out of Paradise....The soldiers patrolled the border armed with swords, to prevent the devils from crossing." For many centuries they lived a barbaric life, surviving naked in caves and eating raw meat, but eventually they were drawn out of the caves by Moses who "taught them to wear clothes". Moses tried to civilize them, but eventually gave up and blew up 300 of the most troublesome of them with dynamite. However, they had learned to use "tricknology": a plan to use their lack of empathy, emotion, and trickery to usurp power and enslave the black population, bringing the first slaves to America. According to ''

The Autobiography of Malcolm X ''The Autobiography of Malcolm X'' was published in 1965, the result of a collaboration between civil and human rights activist Malcolm X and journalist Alex Haley. Haley coauthored the autobiography based on a series of in-depth interviews he ...

'', all the races other than the black race were by-products of Yakub's (spelled Yacub in the biography) work, as the "red, yellow and brown" races were created during the "bleaching" process; Nelson, Alondra, "A Black Mass as Black Gothic: Myth and Biosacience in Black Cultural Nationalism" in Lisa Gail Collins, Margo Crawford, ''New Thoughts on the Black Arts Movement'', Rutgers University Press, 2006, pp. 140–141. however, the "black race" included Asian peoples, considered to be shared ancestors of the

Moors The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a distinct or ...

. "Whites" were defined as

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

ans. Elijah Muhammad also asserted that some of the new white race "tried to graft themselves back into the black nation, but they had nothing to go by." As a result, they became gorillas. "A few were lucky enough to make a start, and got as far as what you call the gorilla. In fact, all of the monkey family are from this 2,000 year history of the white race in Europe." According to NOI doctrine, Yakub's progeny were destined to rule for 6,000 years before the original black peoples of the world regained dominance, a process that had begun in 1914.

Yakub and Jacob

The name Ya`qub (Yakub) is the

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

variant of the name of the Biblical Patriarch known as

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...

versions of the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...

, and as ' in Biblical Hebrew. Fard Muhammad's Yakub has some parallels to the Biblical Jacob's role as the father of the

tribes of Israel The Twelve Tribes of Israel ( he, שִׁבְטֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל, translit=Šīḇṭēy Yīsrāʾēl, lit=Tribes of Israel) are, according to Hebrew scriptures, the descendants of the biblical patriarch Jacob, also known as Israel, thro ...

. The idea that Jews were an "artificial race" created by interbreeding and dependent on "tricks and lies" already existed in antisemitic theories of the time. The story of Yakub includes Jews as part of a wider artificially created "white" race. The NOI's claim that Jacob altered the skin color of a specific group of humans through selective breeding is similar to a story in Genesis 30:37–43 where Jacob alters the fur color of the goats and sheep in his uncle Laban's flocks. One major difference is that while the NOI says that Yakub employed selective breeding, Jacob used sympathetic magic in the Old Testament story. In speeches by Malcolm X, Yakub is identified completely with Jacob. Referring to the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel, Malcolm X states that Elijah Muhammad told him that "Jacob was Yacub, and the angel that Jacob wrestled with wasn't God, it was the government of the day". This was because Yakub was seeking funds for his expedition to Patmos, "so when it says Jacob wrestled with an angel, 'angel' is only used as a symbol to hide the one he was really wrestling with". However, Malcolm X also states that

John of Patmos John of Patmos (also called John the Revelator, John the Divine, John the Theologian) is the name traditionally given to the author of the Book of Revelation. The text of Revelation states that John was on Patmos, a Greek island where, accordin ...

was also Yakub, and that the

Book of Revelation The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament (and consequently the final book of the Christian Bible). Its title is derived from the first word of the Koine Greek text: , meaning "unveiling" or "revelation". The Book of ...

refers to his deeds: "John was Yacub. John was out there getting ready to make a new race, he said, for the word of the Lord".

Sources

Ernest Allen argues that "the Yakub myth may have been created out of whole cloth by Prophet Fard". Allen says the Yakub story could conceivably have been influenced by a real historical event during the struggle between Muslims and Christians for control of Spain. Muslim leader

Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb ibn Yūsuf ibn Abd al-Muʾmin al-Manṣūr (; c. 1160 – 23 January 1199 Marrakesh), commonly known as Yaqub al-Mansur () or Moulay Yacoub (), was the third Almohad Caliph. Succeeding his father, al-Mansur reigned from 118 ...

defeated the Franks at the

Battle of Alarcos Battle of Alarcos (July 18, 1195), was a battle between the Almohads led by Abu Yusuf Ya'qub al-Mansur and King Alfonso VIII of Castile.''Medieval Iberia: an encyclopedia'', 42. It resulted in the defeat of the Castilian forces and their sub ...

(1195). After the battle 40,000 European prisoners of war were taken to Morocco to labor on Yaqub's building projects. They were then set free and "allowed to form a valley settlement located somewhere between Fez and Marrakesh. On his deathbed Ya'qub lamented his decision to allow these Shibanis (as they came to be called) to form an enclave on Moroccan soil, thereby posing a potential threat to the stability of the Moorish empire." Yusuf Nuruddin says that a more direct source was the doctrine of the "Yacobites" propounded by Timothy Drew's Moorish Science Temple, to which Fard had probably belonged before he founded the NOI. According to Drew, early pre-Columbian civilizations were founded by a West African Moor "named Yakub who landed on the Yucatan peninsula".Nuruddin, Yusuf, "African-American Muslims and the Question of Identity Between Traditional Islam, African Heritage, and the American Way", in Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad; John L. Esposito, ''Muslims on the Americanization Path?'', Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 192. This derived from the then-current notion that the gigantic heads created by the ancient

Olmec The Olmecs () were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization. Following a progressive development in Soconusco, they occupied the tropical lowlands of the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco. It has been speculated that ...

peoples of the Yucatán area had "negroid" features (see Olmec alternative origin speculations), which had led

Leo Wiener Leo Wiener (1862–1939) was an American historian, linguist, author and translator. Biography Wiener was born in Białystok (then in the Russian Empire), of Lithuanian Jewish origin. His father was Zalmen (Solomon) Wiener, and his mother w ...

to argue that they were from West Africa.

They rew's followerssaid that the huge stone heads attested to the fact that the Yakubites evolved into a race of scientific geniuses with large heads (as depicted in the sculptures) and small bodies. This legend of Yakub—a bigheaded scientist—finds its way into the mythology of the Nation of Islam, indicating that the founders of the NOI, W. D. Farrad and Elijah Muhammad, were influenced by the Moorish Science Temple, and were possibly even members.

Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was described as "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking worl ...

in his book ''

The American Religion ''The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation'' (1992; second edition 2006) is a book by literary critic Harold Bloom, in which the author covers the topic of religion in the United States from a perspective which he calls ''r ...

'' argues that Yakub combines elements of the biblical God and the

Gnostic Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...

concept of the

Demiurge In the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy, the demiurge () is an artisan-like figure responsible for fashioning and maintaining the physical universe. The Gnostics adopted the term ''demiurge'' ...

, saying that "Yakub has an irksome memorability as a crude but pungent Gnostic Demiurge". Nathaniel Deutsch also notes that Fard and Muhammad draw on the concept of the Demiurge, along with traditions of esotericism in Biblical interpretation, absorbing aspects of Biblical tales to the new narrative, such as the swords of the Muslim warriors keeping the "white devils" from Paradise, like the flaming sword of the angel protecting the Garden of Eden in Genesis. Edward Curtis calls the story "a black

theodicy Theodicy () means vindication of God. It is to answer the question of why a good God permits the manifestation of evil, thus resolving the issue of the problem of evil. Some theodicies also address the problem of evil "to make the existence of ...

: a story grounded in a mythological view of history that explained the fall of black civilization, the Middle Passage from Africa to the Americas, and the practice of Christian religion among slaves and their descendants."Edward E. Curtis IV, "Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam, 1960–1975", University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2006, p. 11. Several commentators state that the story, by associating blacks with ancient high civilizations and whites with cave-dwelling barbarians and gorillas, both uses and spectacularly reverses the populist and scientific racism of the era which identified Africans as primitive, or closer to apes than whites. This drew on earlier criticisms of white supremacist

Nordicism Nordicism is an ideology of racism which views the historical race concept of the "Nordic race" as an endangered and superior racial group. Some notable and seminal Nordicist works include Madison Grant's book ''The Passing of the Great Race ...

, creating a mythic version of "attacks on AngloSaxon lineage and behavior that had been voiced by more mainstream black thinkers during the nineteenth century....With these references the OIMuslims replicated the images of European savagery in the Middle Ages that were so pervasive in nineteenth-century black racial thought." Deutsch says that "Muhammad anchored his radical doctrine within the context of an established scriptural tradition" of Biblical exegesis, which "was therefore a sophisticated form of racism against whites."

Role in the Nation of Islam

The doctrine of Yakub was one of the reasons for splits in the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X in his ''Autobiography'' notes that, in his travels in the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

, many Muslims reacted with shock upon hearing about the doctrine of Yakub, which, while present in NOI theology, does not appear in mainstream Islam. He rejected the story in his later statements, asserting that anyone of any race who intentionally deprives others of basic human rights is a "devil".

Warith Deen Mohammed Warith Deen Mohammed (born Wallace D. Muhammad; October 30, 1933 – September 9, 2008), also known as W. Deen Mohammed, Imam W. Deen Muhammad and Imam Warith Deen, was an African-American Muslim leader, theologian, philosopher, Muslim revi ...

, who took over the Nation of Islam after his father Elijah's death rejected it almost immediately, and tried to re-invent the Nation as a mainstream Sunni Islam movement.

reinstated the original Nation of Islam, and has reasserted his belief in the literal truth of the story of Yakub. In a 1996 interview,

Henry Louis Gates Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950) is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker, who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African Amer ...

, Chairman of Harvard University's Afro-American Studies Department, asked him whether the story was a metaphor or literal. Farrakhan claimed that aspects of the story had been proven accurate by modern genetic science and insisted that "Personally, I believe that Yakub is not a mythical figure—he is a very real scientist. Not a big-head silly thing, as they would like to say." Farrakhan's periodical '' The Final Call'' continues to publish articles arguing that modern science supports the accuracy of Elijah Muhammad's account of Yakub. The NOI splinter groups the Five-Percent Nation and the United Nation of Islam also believe in the Yakub doctrine.

In culture

Drama

The American author and playwright Amiri Baraka's play '' A Black Mass'' (1965) takes inspiration from the story of Yakub. According to critic Melani McAlister, "the character of Yakub, now called Jacoub, is introduced as one of three 'Black Magicians' who together symbolize the black origin of all religions." McAlister argues that,

Baraka turns the Nation's myth into a reinterpretation of the Faust story and a simultaneous meditation on the role and function of art. As with Faust, Jacoub's individualism and egotism are his undoing, but his failings also signal the destruction of a community. Baraka's version of the story also draws on the Frankenstein tale; he conflates the six hundred years of Elijah Muhammad's “history” into a single, terrible moment of the creation of a monster.Melani McAlister, "Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East, 1945–2000, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 2001, pp. 105–107

In Baraka's version the experiment creates a single Frankenstein-like "white" monster who kills Jacoub and the other magician-scientists and bites a woman, transforming her in a vampire-like way into a white-devil mate for himself. From this monstrous couple the white race is descended.

Rap

According to Charise L. Cheney, the doctrine of Yakub has had a significant influence in rap culture, referring to raps by Kam and

Grand Puba Maxwell Dixon (born March 4, 1964), known professionally as Grand Puba, is an American rapper and emcee, best known as one of the members of the group Brand Nubian from New Rochelle, New York. Biography He made his debut as Grand Puba Max ...

This pseudoscientific theory of racial formation was embraced by rap nationalists like former Ice Cube protégé Kam in his 1995 song “Keep tha Peace.” A self-proclaimed member of the Nation, Kam presented organizational doctrine as a way to explain the roots of black-on-black crime and gang violence in America's inner cities: “I'm really not knowin' who to blame or fault / for this tension / I mention this gump / Yakub's cavey / the blue-eyed punk / playin' both sides against each other / now that's the real mutha ucka”... In 1990 Grand Puba of Brand Nubian announced that his calling was to bring enlightenment to black people and an end to white domination. ... "Here comes the god to send the devil right back to his cave.… We're gonna drop the bomb on the Yakub crew."Charise L. Cheney, ''Brothers Gonna Work It Out: Sexual Politics in the Golden Age of Rap Nationalism'', New York University Press, 2005, pp. 81, 135.

Chuck D of

Public Enemy "Public enemy" is a term which was first widely used in the United States in the 1930s to describe individuals whose activities were seen as criminal and extremely damaging to society, though the phrase had been used for centuries to describe ...

also refers to the story in his song "Party for Your Right to Fight", referring to the Yakub story by attributing the deaths of African American radicals to the “grafted devils” conspiring against the “Black Asiatic Man.”

Method Man Clifford Smith, Jr. (born March 2, 1971), better known by his stage name Method Man, is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He is known as a member of the East Coast hip hop collective Wu-Tang Clan. He is also half of ...

of the

Wu-Tang Clan Wu-Tang Clan is an American hip hop group formed in Staten Island, New York City, in 1992. Its original members include RZA, GZA, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God, and Masta Killa. Close aff ...

promotes the story of Yakub in the

Ol' Dirty Bastard Russell Tyrone Jones (November 15, 1968 – November 13, 2004), better known by his stage name Ol' Dirty Bastard (often abbreviated as ODB), was an American rapper. He was one of the founding members of the Wu-Tang Clan, a rap group primarily fr ...

's song "Raw Hide," saying: "A mystery god that's the work of Yacub / The Holy Ghost got you scared to death kid boo!". In the

's song "

Gravel Pit A gravel pit is an open-pit mine for the extraction of gravel. Gravel pits often lie in river valleys where the water table is high, so they may naturally fill with water to form ponds or lakes. Old, abandoned gravel pits are normally used either ...

", at the end of it, can be heard a vocal sample from a 1977 movie '' Short Eyes'' which says about Yakub: "Yakub, maker and creator of the devil. Swine merchant... your time is near at hand. Fuck with me and your time will be now. Your presence here affects the mind of my people like a fever. You, Yakub, are the bearer of 9,999 diseases, evil, corrupt, porkchop-eatin' brain!".

Wu-Tang Wu-Tang Clan is an American hip hop group formed in Staten Island, New York City, in 1992. Its original members include RZA, GZA, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God, and Masta Killa. Close affil ...

member Ghostface Killah also references the story of Yakub in his song "One" from his album

Supreme Clientele ''Supreme Clientele'' is the second studio album by American rapper and Wu-Tang Clan member Ghostface Killah, released on February 8, 2000 by Epic Records. The album showcases Ghostface's signature up-tempo, stream-of-consciousness rhyme style, a ...

. He raps: "A-yo, the Devil planted fear inside the black babies." He concludes the verse with: "Dead meat placed on the shelves, we eat cold cuts / Fast from the hog y'all and grow up," advocating the NOI's dietary practice of avoiding pork. Nas raps "You devils will run back into the caves you came from" in his song "Message to the Feds, Sincerely, We the People" from his album

Street's Disciple ''Street's Disciple'' is the seventh studio album by American rapper Nas, released as a double album by Columbia Records. Originally scheduled for a September 14, 2004 release, the album was ultimately released on November 30, 2004. Named after on ...

. On a freestyle to

Drake Drake may refer to: Animals * A male duck People and fictional characters * Drake (surname), a list of people and fictional characters with the family name * Drake (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * ...

's song "We Made It",

Jay Electronica Elpadaro F. Electronica Allah (born Timothy Elpadaro Thedford; September 19, 1976), known professionally as Jay Electronica (stylized as J A Y E L E C T R O N I C A), is an American rapper and record producer. Born and raised in New Orleans, he ...

says "All these devils, I got to strike some" and Jay-Z says "I'm ready to chase the Yakub back into caves". Jay Electronica also referenced Yakub on

Kanye West Ye ( ; born Kanye Omari West ; June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and fashion designer. Born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, West gained recognition as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records in the ea ...

's 2021 song "Jesus Lord" from his album

Donda ''Donda'' is the tenth studio album by American rapper Kanye West, released through GOOD Music on August 29, 2021, with distribution handled by Def Jam Recordings, his last release with the label. West recorded much of the material at multiple ...

, with the line "I could change the world like Yakub with two pieces of steel".

Media

Comedy hosts Desus & Mero frequently declare the outlandish actions or desires of certain white people as "Yakubian."

References

External links

* Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, ''Competing visions of Islam in the United States: a study of Los Angeles'', Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997, , pp. 146ff. {{DEFAULTSORT:Yakub (Nation Of Islam) Antisemitic canards Anti-white racism in the United States Jacob National mysticism Nation of Islam Patmos Pseudohistory