The influence of Freemasonry on the Nation of Islam has been known since the beginning. According to Beynon in 1938, W.D. Fard referred his followers “to a miscellaneous collection of books on Freemasonry and its symbolism.”[1] According to Sahib in 1951, Elijah Muhammad had become a Freemason in 1924, before meeting Fard, when he came to Detroit.[2] Sahib writes, “Generally speaking, all the followers who were above 25 years of age claimed that they were Masonic.”[3] Turner Shah, a 1933 disciple of Fard in Chicago, told the FBI that Fard “taught them, on a few occasions when he appeared, all about the Masonic Order, its degrees, histories, etc.”[4] [5] Elijah Muhammad taught on the “Secrets of Freemasonry”,[6] and Malcolm X in his Autobiography wrote that “Masonry, actually, is only thirty-three degrees of the religion of Islam, which is the full projection, forever denied to Masons, although they know it exists.”[7]
The Supreme Wisdom Lessons ask the question, “Why does Muhammad make the Devil Study from thirty-five to fifty years before he can call himself a Muslim son?” A “Muslim son” in this context is a reference to the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine – known colloquially as “Shriners” – an American Masonic society. Founded in New York in 1872, the Shriners are a sub-fraternity within the Freemasons known for its cartoony orientalist Middle Eastern theme. They are best known today for their participation in parades and their nonprofit children’s hospitals. Every Shriner is a Mason, but not every Mason is a Shriner. Historically, to join the Shriners, one had to be either a 32° Scottish Rite Mason or a Knight Templar (York Rite).[8] This made it an elite order that may have taken years or decades for a Freemason to be eligible to join. Famous Shriners include President Harry Truman, President Gerald Ford, Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, General Douglas MacArthur, Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, and actor John Wayne.
The Shriners’ founding myth is that they are an order established by ʿAlī ibn Abū Ṭālib,[9] who was the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, the fourth Rashidun caliph, and the first Shia Imam. They say that ʿAlī founded the order to punish criminals that escape justice.[10] Like the Thule Society’s Rudolf von Sebottendorf, they associate themselves with the Bektashi order,[11] an antinomian Shia offshoot that resides primarily in Asia Minor and the Balkans. In reality though, the Shriners were founded in the 1870s by Walter M. Fleming and William J. Florence, after Florence was apparently invited to a party thrown by an Arab diplomat in France. They were inspired to create a new fraternity, stressing fun and fellowship. The Shriners’ primary base of operations was Mecca Temple in New York City,[12] a Moorish Revivalist-style building which now serves as the New York City Center in Midtown Manhattan.
In the Supreme Wisdom, a Shriner is basically a white Muslim who has studied and is permitted to wear “our Holy Flag”, “do trading among us”, and “come among us.” “We would not kill him as quick as we would the other Devils”, the Supreme Wisdom answer key says. The Shriner may not be a brother in nature, but he is a brother in faith, and surprisingly, he is even counted among the 5%.[13] According to Tynetta Muhammad, the mistress of Elijah Muhammad, W.D. Fard “had an ongoing link to the Muslim sons at the time that he came in 1930, and the sign of it is that he spoke with the then President Herbert Hoover … and he was a full-blown Mason, he was a Shriner.”[14] Elijah Muhammad said, “There is some white Muslims here in the country. I have several letters from white Muslims. But they don’t teach you Islam. It is a religion that the white people don’t teach the black man. They know it is a whole world – it’s not an organization, it’s a world. But they don’t teach you, they commercialize on it. They take it and use it in higher Masonry, they call it, and there they commercialize on the religion … they say they are Moslems, Shriners. They make a mock of the religion, and they commercialize on it, they sell it to you.”[15]
In 1930, there were over 3.2 million registered Freemasons,[16] which is more than at most points in American history. This corresponds to the Supreme Wisdom’s English Lesson C1, which says that there are “approximately three million” Muslim sons in North America. The fact that W.D. Fard was claiming to be teaching the forbidden secrets of an elite cadre within America’s most famous (or infamous) secret society made his message all the more attractive to poor blacks. According to Sahib, the minister he saw preaching in the temple in circa 1950 said, “Islam is the religion of all superior men in the world. Truman and most of the Senators are Moslems; Masons are Moslems.”[17] The Quran, which has ritual significance to the Shriners, was a rare book in America at the time, and NOI members like John Muhammad had to go to the library to read it. [18] According to Louis Farrakhan, when he first became a Muslim (in 1955), he went to the public library in Boston, and he had to prove that he was a Muslim just so that he could read the Quran in the rare books section inside the library “because this book was forbidden for the common American”.[19] Shriner lodges carried names from the Muslim world (Mecca, Medinah, Aleppo, Syria), and Shriners wear Turkish fezzes.
Mattias Gardell notes the Masonic influences on Noble Drew Ali and the Moorish Americans.[20] They believed in a secret, gnostic Muslim fraternity that guarded hidden truths for centuries, till they were passed onto Noble Drew Ali. Both groups believe in uplifting humanity using esoteric knowledge in organized temple lodges. The “Circle 7” Quran has Jesus climbing up a twelve-step ladder while carrying a compass, a square, and an axe – all important symbols in Freemasonry. Shriners, Moorish Americans, and even Master Fard and the early NOI would wear Turkish fezzes.[21] According to John Muhammad, Elijah Muhammad used to visit the Moorish Americans.[22] Beynon writes that some NOI adherents were Moorish Americans after the collapse of Marcus Garvey’s movement and before the coming of W.D. Fard.[23] Gardell also argues that both the Freemasons and the NOI “believe that man is a fallen god and that humanity is rising into divine perfection.”[24]
Patrick Bowen hypothesizes that Fard’s “black and brown germs” idea may have been influenced by the works of Milton A. Pottenger (d. 1936), the author of Three Master Masons and Symbolism: A Treatise on the Soul of Things. Pottenger writes of white and black atoms which were positive and negative.[25]
Michael Muhammad Knight notes that the question-answer structure of initiatory texts, as well as the language of “degrees” and “secret rituals” parallel the Freemasons.[26] I noticed, however, a similar question-answer structure in other contemporaneous occult societies, including the Theosophical book The Coming World-Teacher by P. Pavri. According to Knight, the infamous “tenth degree” in the Supreme Wisdom (the one about bringing the heads of four devils) resembles degrees in Scottish Rite Masonry, which speak on the tomb of “our brother” Hiram Abiff and the initiate presenting three heads to Solomon.[27] Another eerie similarity: just as Elijah Muhammad claimed that one can pay the Muslims of Jerusalem to see the embalmed remains of Jesus, Albert C. Steven’s Cyclopaedia of Fraternities (1899) describes Turks charging a high fee to Christian pilgrims who wish to see Jesus’ tomb.[28] The Shriner initiation ceremony popularly known as “crossing the hot sands” closely resembles the NOI story of whites being caught by Muslims and driven through the Arabian desert, trapping them in the caves and hillsides of Europe.
The Shriners’ secret tribunal “Council of Thirteen” ritual may be the key to understanding the Robert Harris and Verlen McQueen “voodoo murder” activities. In the Shriner ritual, an initiate is brought before a mock tribunal (remember, one of this order’s goals is to “bring the guilty to justice”).[29] The thirteen members accuse the initiate of symbolic offenses, and then there is a mock sentencing. The initiate is then made to embrace the statue of a houri, which in turn “hurls the riven victim deep into the hideous engulfing trap below … the vengeance of the Shrine is satisfied.”[30] In both the Harris and McQueen cases, there were twelve witnesses brought to the “human sacrifice”, which would total thirteen members if Harris or McQueen are included. The bringing of a specific number of witnesses feels like a deliberate ritual template, rather than a simple cold-blooded murder. Harris and McQueen must have gotten this ritual from somewhere. Both were students of W.D. Fard; and while Harris would be found clinically insane, McQueen’s repetition of almost the same ritual several years later is suggestive. According to Evanzz, James J. Smith (Robert Harris’ victim) thought that he was being inducted into the Allah Temple of Islam.[31] This means that Smith mistook this ceremony for an initiation procedure, perhaps like the Shriners’ initiation ritual. It is therefore possible that the “Council of Thirteen” ritual was taught in the early Nation of Islam, either by Fard or by Shriner-influenced ministers, and that Harris and McQueen took the injunctions literally.
There is no direct evidence that Master Fard Muhammad was himself a Freemason or a Shriner. He was, however, intimately involved with a member of the Eastern Star, a Masonic appendant body: Laura Swanson, whom Fard (then “Fred Dodd”) would be accused of sexually assaulting (and subsequently found “not guilty”), was “an active leader of the Order of the Eastern Star.”[32] In 2025, John Andrew Morrow discovered that Fred Dodd’s 1915 “anagram” closely resembles the name of Goethe,[33] a member of the Bavarian Illuminati that is revered by the Shriners.[34] Some of the hotels that W.D. Fard would stay at were near Masonic temples: for example, the New Madison Hotel on 22 East Mifflin Street in Madison, Wisconsin was just steps away from the Wisconsin Masonic Center on 301 Wisconsin Ave, Madison. This may simply be because Masonic lodges were typically built in city centres, but it is also possible that Fard was a Freemason, using a hitherto unknown alias. Nevertheless, Masonic lodges were often used to host dances, balls, and other social events that were open to non-members.
W.D. Fard would tell his followers that he was born in 1877 in Mecca. Perhaps this is just a coincidence, but to quote Shriner literature, “The Bektasheeyeh’s representative at Mecca is a Noble of the Mystic Shrine, is the chief officer of the Alee Temple of Nobles, and in 1877 was the Chief of the Order in Arabia. The Chief must reside either at Mecca or Medinah, and, in either case, must be present in person or by deputy at Mecca during the month of pilgrimage.”[35] Is it possible that W.D. Fard was claiming to be the son of this Chief in Mecca? The same book says that the Shriners are “figuratively” expecting the prophecy of “the appearance of Al Mahdi and the end of the world”.[36]
The NOI-Freemason relationship is strong, yet under-studied. Experts in Freemasonry ought to review NOI material, including the Supreme Wisdom Lessons and the books of Elijah Muhammad, and note any similarities and possible influences. W.D. Fard used many numbers in his teachings (Islam is mathematics, after all), which should be investigated further for potential numerological or occult significance. It is possible that researchers find Fard through another name associated with Freemason circles – especially when he was visiting places with very small black populations (like Madison, Wisconsin in the 1930s). Fard’s naming of his Hastings Street temple the “Allah Temple” can be seen as an exalted step above the comparatively mundane “Mecca Temple”. While the Masons saw Islam as something to be played with and disclosed to mostly upper-class white men, W.D. Fard announced a very public and a very sober invitation to Islam to all black Americans – male and female, educated and non-educated, rich and mostly poor. His goal was not mere fellowship, fun, and philanthropy, but to forge a Nation strong enough to survive the War of Armageddon.
[1] Erdmann Beynon, “The Voodoo Cult Among Negro Migrants in Detroit”, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 43, No. 6 (May 1938), pp. 900.
[2] Hatim Sahib, The Nation of Islam, pp. 67.
[3] Ibid, pp. 80.
[4] John Andrew Morrow, Finding W.D. Fard: Unveiling the Identity of the Founder of the Nation of Islam, pp. 303.
[5] Michael Muhammad Knight, The Supreme Wisdom Lessons: A Scripture of American Islam, pp. 33.
[6] Elijah Muhammad, The Secrets of Freemasonry: That Which You Should Know (Atlanta: Secretarius MEMPS Publications, 1994).
[7] Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, pp. 107.
[8] George L. Root, The Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine for North America (Peoria, IL: Frary Brown Co., 1903), pp. 23, 47.
[9] Ibid, pp. 12.
[10] Ibid, pp. 12.
[11] Ibid, pp. 12-13.
[12] Ibid, pp. 23.
[13] The Supreme Wisdom Lessons, pp. 14, question 16. https://www.ciphertheory.net/supremewisdom.pdf
[14] TruthControversy, “Mother Tynetta Muhammad Questions & Answers. Mosque #35 Wilmington, DE. 5/6/06”, YouTube, 1:14:00-1:15:00. https://youtu.be/gYZR5ieiu7M?list=PL8Q6dZSApcdIrRudmbU_fQ8aVnmgmLt5b
[15] Alam Khan Publications, “Elijah Muhammad Exposes Shriners & Freemasons | Moslem Sons”, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBDJ6eYRl-o
[16] https://msana.com/services/u-s-membership-statistics/
[17] Hatim Sahib, The Nation of Islam, pp. 112.
[18] SUPREME MINISTER JOHN MUHAMMAD, “SUPREME MINISTER JOHN MUHAMMAD ADVICE FROM MASTER FARD MUHAMMAD”, YouTube, 58:00-1:02:11, https://youtu.be/tpDA53_oCD4
[19] IRONMUHAMMAD68, “Understanding the Nation of Islam in the West”, YouTube, 1:32:59-1:34:00.
[20] Mattias Gardell, In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, pp. 148-149.
[21] Shah-Allah Shabazz, “Was Messenger, Elijah Muhammad a Moor?”, YouTube, 3:16-5:00. https://youtu.be/sELxyqPw9GU
[22] Ibid, 19:55-20:55. https://youtu.be/sELxyqPw9GU
[23] Erdmann Beynon, “The Voodoo Cult Among Negro Migrants in Detroit”, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 43, No. 6 (May 1938), pp. 898.
[24] Mattias Gardell, In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, pp. 184.
[25] John Andrew Morrow, Finding W.D. Fard: Unveiling the Identity of the Founder of the Nation of Islam, pp. 296.
[26] Michael Muhammad Knight, The Supreme Wisdom Lessons: A Scripture of American Islam, pp. 6.
[27] Michael Muhammad Knight, The Supreme Wisdom Lessons: A Scripture of American Islam, pp. 33.
[28] Ibid, pp. 34.
[29] George L. Root, The Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine for North America (Peoria, IL: Frary Brown Co., 1903), pp. 25-26.
[30] Ibid, pp. 26-27.
[31] Karl Evanzz, The Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad, pp. 105.
[32] John Andrew Morrow, Finding W.D. Fard: Unveiling the Identity of the Founder of the Nation of Islam, pp. 297.
[33] John Andrwe Morrow and Bilal Muhammad, W.D. Fard: The Man, Myth, and Mystery Behind the Nation of Islam, pp. 189.
[34] George L. Root, The Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine for North America (Peoria, IL: Frary Brown Co., 1903), pp. 15-16.
[35] Ibid, pp. 13.
[36] Ibid, pp. 39.
