In the prison debates I argued for the theory that King James himself was the real poet who used
the nom de plume Shakespeare. King James was brilliant. He was the greatest king who ever
sat on the British throne. Who else among royalty, in his time, would have had the giant talent to
write Shakespeare's works? It was he who poetically "fixed" the Bible-which in itself and its
present King James version has enslaved the world.
When my brother Reginald visited, I would talk to him about new evidence I found to document
the Muslim teachings. In either volume 43 or 44 of The Harvard Classics, I read Milton's
Paradise Lost. The devil, kicked out of Paradise, was trying to regain possession. He was
using the forces of Europe, personified by the Popes, Charlemagne, Richard the Lionhearted,
and other knights. I interpreted this to show that the Europeans were motivated and led by the
devil, or the personification of the devil. So Milton and Mr. Elijah Muhammad were actually saying
the same thing.
I couldn't believe it when Reginald began to speak ill of Elijah Muhammad. I can't specify the
exact things he said. They were more in the nature of implications against Mr. Muhammad-the
pitch of Reginald's voice, or the way that Reginald looked, rather than what he said.
It caught me totally unprepared. It threw me into a state of confusion. My blood brother, Reginald,
in whom I had so much confidence, for whom I had so much respect, the one who had introduced
me to the Nation of Islam. I couldn't believe it! And now Islam meant more to me than anything I
ever had known in my life. Islam and Mr. Elijah Muhammad had changed my whole world.
Reginald, I learned, had been suspended from the Nation of Islam by Elijah Muhammad. He had
not practiced moral restraint. After he had learned the truth, and had accepted the truth, and the
Muslim laws, Reginald was still carrying on improper relations with the then secretary of the New
York Temple. Some other Muslim who learned of it had made charges against Reginald to Mr.
Muhammad in Chicago, and Mr. Muhammad had suspended Reginald.
When Reginald left, I was in torment. That night, finally, I wrote to Mr. Muhammad, trying to
defend my brother, appealing for him. I told him what Reginald was to me, what my brother meant
to me.
I put the letter into the box for the prison censor. Then all the rest of that night, I prayed to Allah. I
don't think anyone ever prayed more sincerely to Allah. I prayed for some kind of relief from my
confusion.
It was the next night, as I lay on my bed, I suddenly, with a start, became aware of a man sitting
beside me in my chair. He had on a dark suit. I remember. I could see him as plainly as I see
anyone I look at. He wasn't black, and hewasn't white. He was light-brown-skinned, an Asiatic
cast of countenance, and he had oily black hair.
I looked right into his face.
I didn't get frightened. I knew I wasn't dreaming. I couldn't move, I didn't speak, and he didn't. I
couldn't place him racially-other than that I knew he was a non-European. I had no idea
whatsoever who he was. He just sat there. Then, suddenly as he had come, he was gone.
Soon, Mr. Muhammad sent me a reply about Reginald. He wrote, "If you once believed in the
truth, and now you are beginning to doubt the truth, you didn't believe the truth in the first place.
What could make you doubt the truth other than your own weak self?"
That struck me. Reginald was not leading the disciplined life of a Muslim. And I knew that Elijah
Muhammad was right, and my blood brother was wrong. Because right is right, and wrong is
wrong. Little did I then realize the day would come when Elijah Muhammad would be accused by