Tynnetta Muhammad

Tynnetta Muhammad
Born Tynnetta Alethea Nelson
(1941-05-10)10 May 1941
Detroit
Died 16 February 2015(2015-02-16) (aged 73)
Resting place Westlawn Cemetery, Detroit
Nationality American
Occupation writer; activist; scholar
Years active c.1960–2015
Notable work The Comer by Night

Tynnetta Muhammad (10 May 1941 – 16 February 2015) was a journalist and commentator and columnist. In the 1960s, she wrote articles and columns for the Nation of Islam (NOI) newspaper Muhammad Speaks. Having worked as a secretary to Elijah Muhammad, she made it known after his death in 1975 that she was one of his widows.[1]

After the revival of the NOI under Louis Farrakhan she wrote the weekly column of NOI theology and numerology, Unveiling the Number 19, in the NOI's official newspaper The Final Call.[2] She was regularly referred to as "Mother Tynnetta Muhammad" in the movement; she is considered one of the Mothers of the Faithful.

Early life and education

Born Tynnetta Alethea Nelson, she grew up in Detroit.[3][4] After her conversion to the NOI in 1958, she worked as a secretary for Elijah Muhammad.[5] Under the name Tynnetta Deanar she wrote for the Women in Islam column in Muhammad Speaks.[6] In some publications her first name is spelled "Tynetta".

Marriage and family

While working as Elijah Muhammad's secretary, she became one of his wives, and gave birth to four of his children; Madeeah, Ishmael, Rasul, and Ahmed.[7] In the 1960s, Tynetta had an intimate relationship with Rev. Clegg of the Shrine of the Black Madonna. Tynetta's son, Rasul, resembles Rev. Clegg.

Ideology

In Muhammad Speaks

In the 1960s, Tynnetta wrote regularly in Muhammad Speaks on women's issues, condemning the immodest dress of the era. She concentrated on the subjects of proper deportment, dress and behavior of a female Muslim. She emphasized modest attire and cautioned "the Black Woman" to put away "the short western style of dress and social habits."[8] She also stated that "the white woman" apparently "does not feel the sense of modesty in the strict manner of her darker associates".[9]

In addition to her women's column she wrote articles quoting Biblical and Quranic passages to affirm Muhammad's prophetic status. She defended black separatism on the grounds that "as all bona fide divine spokesmen of the past, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is carrying out the divine work of separating our people from the nation and people responsible for our captivity."[10]

In The Final Call

After the death of Muhammad in 1975, Tynnetta rejected the reforms of his son Warith Deen Muhammad and sided with Louis Farrakhan's faction, becoming one of his earliest supporters.[11] She praised Farrakhan as a great visionary and as the modern equivalent of John of Patmos. In her writings in the 1980s and 1990s, she became increasingly preoccupied with The Wheel sightings and a supposed forthcoming apocalypse, predicted by Elijah Muhammad, in which a "Mother Plane" from space would destroy the white race. She predicted this event using numerological analyses based on the sacred number 19, an idea derived from Rashad Khalifa.[12] She stated that the UFO was seen after the 1986 bombing of Tripoli. She also argued that the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in the same year was divine punishment delivered on the USA, because "the aim and purpose of America's Space Program beginning in the 1960's with the landing on the Moon in 1969, was to prepare for war against the Great Mother Ship and its companion wheels harnessing an entire New Civilization and an Advanced Technology that is not of this world."[13] Her predictions were most fully communicated in her magnum opus entitled The Comer by Night in 1986, in which she asserts that Elijah Muhammad is still alive, living in a "space craft".[12]

By the early 1990s she was arguing that it would be "the final decade" before the apocalypse, which would occur in 2001.[14] The bombing of the World Trade Center in 2001 was presented as confirmation of her predictions, and she insisted that it was accompanied by UFO manifestations.[15]

Tynnetta Muhammad continued to support Farrakhan's vision for the NOI until her death on 16 February 2015.[16]

References

  1. ↑ Gardell, Mattias, In the name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, Duke University Press, 1996, page 125
  2. ↑ Unveiling the Number 19
  3. ↑ Lee, Paul, Welcome Home: A tribute to Thabiti Warren, Race Man, The Michigan Citizen, 2005
  4. ↑ referenced in a column The Final Call, awakening of Sleeping Beauty Part Three: Enter the Dragon, July 18, 2000
  5. ↑ Evanzz, Karl, The Messenger: The rise and fall of Elijah Muhammad, Pantheon Books, 1999, pages 222, 374, 420
  6. ↑ some columns are reprinted at: Nation of Islam's Women Committed to Preserving the Truth
  7. ↑ Jet, 8 March, 1982, p.12
  8. ↑ Edward E. Curtis, Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam, 1960-1975, University of North Carolina Press, 2006, p.110
  9. ↑ Tynnetta Deanar, "Muslim Woman is a Model Personality", Muhammad Speaks, June, 1962, p.16.
  10. ↑ Edward E. Curtis, Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam, 1960-1975, University of North Carolina Press, 2006, p.55
  11. ↑ Mattias Gardell, In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and The Nation of Islam, p.123.
  12. 1 2 Finley, Stephen, "From Mistress to Mother: The Religious Life and Transformation of Tynetta Muhammad in the Nation of Islam" in Monica A. Coleman (ed) Ain't I a Womanist, Too?: Third-Wave Womanist Religious Thought, Fortress Press, 24 Apr 2013
  13. ↑ Mother Tynnetta Muhammad,"In Search of the Messiah - Fire in The Sky", The Final Call, Updated Mar 2, 2003
  14. ↑ Mattias Gardell, In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and The Nation of Islam, p.179.
  15. ↑ Michael Barkun, Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America, University of California Press, 2003, p.217
  16. ↑ Mother Tynnetta Muhammad - A heartfelt and fitting tribute to a perfect example
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