Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [150]
CHAPTER 9
“He Was Developing Too Fast”
April-November 1963
Malcolm arrived at Muhammad’s residence on or around April 1. The two men embraced, and Elijah led the way to the rear of his home, where they strolled around the compound’s swimming pool. Malcolm recounted what was being said about Muhammad’s extramarital affairs and, without waiting for a reply, suggested a way forward. “Loyal Muslims could be taught that a man’s accomplishments in his life outweigh his personal, human weaknesses . . . Wallace Muhammad helped me to review the Quran and the Bible for documentation. David’s adultery with Bathsheba weighed less on history’s scales, for instance, than the positive fact of David’s killing Goliath.”
Muhammad immediately focused on Malcolm’s solution. “Son, I’m not surprised. You always have had such a good understanding of prophecy, and of spiritual things.” He did not focus on his sexual relationships with specific women, but chose instead to look to the biblical past to justify his behavior. “When you read about how David took another man’s wife, I’m that David,” he told Malcolm. Although the two men parted in friendship, in retrospect it is clear they already held two strikingly different agendas. Muhammad wanted to have the rumors suppressed. If Malcolm, in his sermons, employed Qurʹanic and biblical teachings to justify his conduct, that was acceptable. Malcolm, however, left the meeting feeling more troubled than when he had arrived. As he tried to cope with the Messenger having confirmed his worst suspicions, he also knew that it would require careful work on his own part to protect the Nation going forward. He saw the rumors as a virus that could lead to an epidemic, and his goal was to “inoculate” the Nation’s rank and file.
Almost immediately he set to work, speaking first in Philadelphia and then several times over the course of four days at Mosque No. 7, at each event unfolding the new language that he hoped would ease the news of Muhammad’s transgressions. James 67X quickly noticed the shift in the ministerʹs argument. “Malcolm had always taught that every two thousand years or so, the scriptures change. Anew messenger is needed, because that which has preceded has become corrupt.” He assumed that this was Malcolm’s way of establishing the superiority of Islam over Christianity, and also of affirming Fard’s divine status. “Then, one day, Malcolm . . . said something that shocked me. He said, ‘A prophet is in a scale. If he does more good than he did bad, then he’s considered good . . . A prophet, like everybody else, is weighed in the balance.’ I said to myself, ‘Well, what happened to this business about them always doing the right thing?’ ” James realized that Malcolm must be discussing Elijah Muhammad, but was reluctant to bring it up with him.
Malcolm’s increasing interest in discussing practical concerns now offered him an attractive alternative to speaking at length about the Messenger and his theology. Throughout 1963, he wrote in his Autobiography, “I spoke less and less of religion. I taught social doctrine to Muslims, and current events, and politics.” He significantly reduced his references to Muhammad while continuing to affirm his public loyalty. Muhammad acknowledged this at the end of April by greatly expanding Malcolm’s responsibilities. On April 25 he sent a letter addressed to “Malcolm Shabazz,” confirming his appointment as interim minister of Washington, D.C.ʹs Mosque No. 4. The former minister, Lucius X Brown, had been “dismissed from the ministry.” What was needed, he wrote Malcolm, was a minister “who has not only the love of Allah and Islam in his heart, but has enough intelligence and educational training to demand the respect of the Believers there in No. 4, and