The following words are transcribed from an audio-taped interview of Minister Louis Farrakhan by Mr. Shields on the "Black Perspective" radio program heard over WLIB in May, 1971.
Mr. Shields: What was the Muslim side of the life of Malcolm X?
Min. Farrakhan: Well, Malcolm, as you know, was a follower of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and according to the history, Malcolm heard the teachings of Mr. Muhammad while he was in prison. The teaching of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad awakened Malcolm as it has awakened all of us who have come under the light of Mr. Muhammad's guidance. And in awakening Malcolm it gave to Malcolm what it gave to all of us who have accepted Islam, and that is an insatiable desire for learning. And so Malcolm became a follower of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and thus Malcolm Little was to be known as Malcolm X.
Mr. Shields: I notice that you know call him Malcolm Little and you no longer have the "X" after his name. Was this due to his expulsion and complete disregard for Malcolm as far as the Nation is concerned now?
Min. Farrakhan: Well I think that we must all agree that in mathematics "X" stands for the unknown. And the "X" is given to all of us who follow the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, in place of the slavemaster's name, and so the characteristics of the man in relationship to God is yet unknown. Therefore, as he begins to work and manifest the quality or characteristic or attribute of God that best personifies him, then he is named an attribute of God. So we don't give him the "X" anymore because now he is known to us. His deeds have made him known.
Mr. Shields: I wish you'd clarify that one point.
Min. Farrakhan: Certainly. When he came to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad gives us all an X-the unknown. He's now trying to qualify for one of the Righteous, Holy Names of God. Now as Malcolm believed in Allah and believed in The Messenger, he worked for the cause of Islam and the regeneration of Black people. But then he turned back on that belief and died in disbelief. So there's no more "X" there. There's no more unknown quantity there. He's well known and that is a hypocrite. Meaning he believed in God and in The Messenger of God and in that which God revealed to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad -then he turned back on his belief and became and apostate and died in his apostasy. So therefore with us he is well known. So it can't be Malcolm "X:", be just Malcolm, the chief opponent of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
Mr. Shields: Malcolm said that, I believe it was after he came back from Mecca, said that his religion was still Islam, that he had not in fact turned back on Islam, but after his trip to Mecca, he saw a lot of things and he sort of changed his philosophy.
Min. Farrakhan: The truth of this brother, is that Whenever a Messenger of God appears, he always teaches the same basic religious message as all the former Prophets. But you cannot get away with disbelieving in a contemporary Messenger by holding on to a belief in a Prophet or Messenger who died 4,000 or 2,000 years ago. For instance, when Moses was on the scene he had a lot of people who believed in him. Jesus came to teach the Jews who said they believed in Moses. But they couldn't use Moses as a cloak for their rejection of the current Prophet or Messenger from God. Because if Moses prophesied that one would come after him and Jesus answered that particular prophecy, then those who believed in Moses should have believed in Jesus. And what I am saying to you is this; that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah to 30 million Black people in America. So when you turn your back on this man who is the fulfillment of all that the former Prophets predicted then you've also turned you back on Moses; you 've turned you back on Jesus; and you've turned your back on Prophet Muhammad Ibn Abdullah who appeared 1400 years ago. So you're a total disbeliever in God and all Prophets because you dis-believe in the Last One who is the fulfillment of all that the former Prophet's prophesied.
Mr. Shields: The Muslims that Malcolm ran into while he was in Mecca when he took his Hajj, they accepted him. And from what I understand they accepted him fully and totally, even after he changed. Now if this is in fact true, then are they not wrong for accepting him?
Min. Farrakhan: Well in ignorance you will accept many things. Many of the Eastern scholars actually say today that they would not have accepted Malcolm had they really understood what he was there for.
Mr. Shields: What was he there for?
Min. Farrakhan: We sent Malcolm to the East in 1959. This is 5 years before him defection in '64. When Malcolm went in '59, he saw white Muslims there in Arabia. There were white Muslims in Turkey; white Muslims in Iran; white Muslims in Iraq and Lebanon; in Albania. Malcolm knew this and so did we. But when Malcolm left the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he left the base that he stood upon and he needed a new base for leadership. So he had to try to get in among the integration-minded Blacks who are in love with white people and who have always wanted to include white people and never have wanted to get off into anything totally Black. So Malcolm said: "I went to Mecca and my horizon was broadened" And then he wrote to *Farmer and told Farmer he was sorry for what he said. He wrote to **King and told King he was sorry -- but this was to give him a way with the integrationists.
Mr. Shields: Now, was Malcolm not surprised when he saw white Muslims in the East?
Min. Farrakhan: If he was surprised would he not have shown this surprise in 1959 rather than in 1964?
Mr. Shields: Well what do you think he meant when he said that his horizons had been broadened?
Min. Farrakhan: Sir, there is nothing more broadening than a contemporary Messenger of God and a Revelation from God. If Malcolm's horizons were broadened, then what he learned could supersede what his teacher had taught him. But today the Muslims in the East are beginning to bow to the wisdom of Messenger Muhammad in the West. It is not we in the West who are bowing to the old Islam. That Islam in the East that Malcolm went back and embraced, if it was so good why is it not doing something for the Arab? Why isn't it doing something for the brother in Egypt? Why isn't doing something for the whole Muslim world? All of Islam needs to be updated, and it cannot be updated until a true interpretation of the Holy Qur'an is given and that true interpretation is not in the East, it is in the West among this Last Messenger of God, The Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
Mr. Shields: Can we relate the two, the East and the West? Because geographically we're in different places. Our plights are different in the respect that there is a different type of oppression here where we are fighting to gain land, we're trying to get land. In the East, there is the land itself, can we relate to the same thing? Why should the interpretation come from the West rather than the East?
Min. Farrakhan: Because it is written, that the Sun of Islam would rise from the West in that latter days. It is written that the Last Messenger of God would be found among a people who are mentally and spiritually dead and that people happen to be the Black people of America and that Messenger happens to be the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. And the light of wisdom coming from The Messenger in the West is shedding light on all that the Prophets revealed in the East.
Mr. Shields: Now Islam itself as far as Malcolm was concerned, again I go back to this point, he became a Black Nationalist, more or less, as far as his philosophy was concerned. Did this have anything to do with is defection?
TO BE CONTINUED.......
* Farmer was the head of CORE at that time
** King refers to Martin Luther King Jr.