Review 23.1
1 February - 17 February, 1998

The Fruit of Islam is the Nation of Islam's official security force, better known as its paramilitary wing. In 1992, William/Abdul Sharieff Muhammad, "Supreme Captain" of the Fruit of Islam, told the Final Call, official newsletter of the NOI, "We have a military structure that we train our men into." This 'structure' provides security at all major NOI functions, guards Minister Farrakhan's mansion and also provides personal security to the Minister at his frequent public appearances, including his weekly appearance at the Mosque Maryam, the NOI's main mosque in Chicago.

In addition to the Fruit of Islam security corps, it is alleged that the NOI controls a highly organised security empire comprising some eight different businesses, responsible for patrolling state-funded housing projects. According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Housing Authority of Baltimore and the Chicago Housing Authority, NOI-related security firms have conducted operations in Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, Dallas, Dayton, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New York City and Washington. Although established as individual entities and incorporated separately, NOI officials have acknowledged that the security firms operate under the direction and control of Farrakhan and his lieutenants. A 1995 Anti-Defamation League report, Federal Funds for NOI Security Firms: Financing Farrakhan's Ministry of Hate, stated that the NOI official who heads both NOI Security Agency Inc. and the NOI's Fruit of Islam, implied that security firms' proceeds benefit Farrakhan and the NOI.

Supporters of the security businesses hail them as saviours of the often dangerous inner-city public housing projects and an example of the NOI's more virtuous works. The bow-tied soldiers often come out of the counselling programs run by the NOI for prisoners, drug addicts and dealers and gang members. The fact that the organisations are staffed by ex-criminals is extolled as one of the virtues of the NOI's rehabilitation programs. (According to the ADL, two NOI security firms alone have hired at least 39 convicted criminals). Vincent Lane, Chicago Housing authority chairman told Time magazine in 1994, "I've seen what black Muslims have done with hardened criminals - they go into the penal system and work with these young men, so when they come out they are no longer on drugs and respect their women and neighbours."

In recent years however, the security firms have come under US government scrutiny stemming from one major bankruptcy, substantial federal and state tax liens, reports of violent incidents in a number of States and a general lack of cooperation with State police forces.

According to the ADL, NOI security contracts and income to 1995 totalled more than US$19m. The possibility that government funds, in the form of contracts with NOI security firms, are filtered to the NOI and used for racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic proselytising raises serious concerns. Ken Stern of the American Jewish Congress argues that, "The fact these firms perform a quasi-law enforcement function at public housing projects clothes the guards' abuse of their authority - beating private citizens and assaulting police officers - [amounts to] not only 'condoned vigilantism' but vigilantism on the taxpayers' tab. The public would never stand for hiring a security firm run by Ku Klux Klan leaders."

Many violent incidents have been reported at housing projects patrolled by NOI security firms. According to the ADL, Baltimore witnesses witnessed guards fracturing a public housing resident's skull, while in Dallas, NOI guards allegedly kidnapped unruly youths from a shopping mall and forced them to run naked through a gauntlet of NOI men who beat them with belts and bamboo canes.

Another concern stemming from the indirect government sponsorship of NOI security firms is that they have been found disseminating the NOI's racist hate literature, and attempting to recruit future NOI members. In 1994, US News & World Report recounted how guards and supervisors at one public housing project in Baltimore sold tenants copies of the NOI newspaper the Final Call, distributed free tickets to Farrakhan appearances and gathered small groups of young tenants urging them to join the NOI.

The security firms have also been plagued by incidents characterised as vigilantism, particularly the use of excessive force, intimidation and a lack of cooperation with police. Sgt Lou Cannon of the Washington Fraternal Order of Police argued that NOI guards rarely notify police of an incident and the police "have had to arrest several security officers who went way over the line with physical restraint".

On the methods used by NOI security, Cannon states, "if I'd done them I'd be up on charges for excessive force and brutality. If law enforcement tried to use those tactics, we'd've been fired from our jobs and lucky if we didn't go to jail." In Baltimore in 1995, four NOI guards beat a man unconscious with their flashlights until pulled away by witnesses. The man had been trying to gain entry to the housing high-rise. One of the guards was indicted on charges of attempted murder, assault, assault with intent to murder and use of a deadly weapon.

This physical aggression has also been used against members of the police force. In 1995, a NOI security guard was convicted in DC of assaulting a police officer during a confrontation between residents and guards at a housing project. The police officer had apparently attempted to arrest a NOI guard when a second guard interrupted them, kicking the officer in the jaw, and breaking it in two places before attempting to take the officer's gun.