Page:1965 FBI monograph on Nation of Islam.djvu/27



Absolute ruler over the NOI is the "Messenger of Allah," Elijah Muhammad, the 67-year-old former Elijah Poole from Sandersville, Georgia. He formulates and approves all NOI policy and decisions, has the entire funds of the cult at his disposal, and possesses considerable valuable properties throughout the country.

This small, frail, seemingly meek and humble man, who has only a fourth-grade education, is a master at creating mood, myth, and mystery. Elijah possesses that "something" mentioned in an essay on leaders attributed to General Charles de Gaulle, for "Allah's Messenger" seems to understand that "there can be no prestige without mystery," that, "in the designs, the demeanor and the mental operations of a leader, there must always be a 'something' which others cannot altogether fathom, which puzzles them, stirs them and rivets their attention."

Never appearing before the public without his black pillbox hat generously encrusted with jewelled stars and crescent, Elijah seems to have a touch of the patient Oriental in his face. He is not a dynamic speaker. In his public lectures, his rather rasping voice drones on in monotony. But he seems to know when to shake his audience into