Book excerpt: Since his arrival in Detroit on July 4, 1930, W.D. Fard, known also as Wallace Fard Muhammad and over fifty other aliases, has elicited an enormous amount of curiosity. Who was this man who claimed that he was both the Messiah and the Mahdi, and who was identified as God in Person by his disciple, Elijah Muhammad, whom he reportedly appointed as his Final Messenger? The people who actually met him, and the scholars who have studied him, have suggested that he was variously an African American, an Arab from Syria, Lebanon, Algeria, Morocco or Saudi Arabia, a Jamaican, a Turk, an Afghan, an Indo-Pakistani, an Iranian, an Azeri, a white American, a Bosnian, a Mexican, a Greek or even a Jew. In an attempt to determine the origins of W.D. Fard, most scholars have relied on his teachings as passed down, and perhaps modified, by Elijah Muhammad. Some have suggested that he was a member of the Moorish Science Temple of America or the Ahmadiyyah Movement. Others have suggested that he was a Druze or a Shiite. Finding W.D. Fard: Unveiling the Identity of the Founder of the Nation of Islam provides an overview of the scholarly literature related to this mysterious subject and the theories concerning his ethnic and racial origins. It provides the most detailed analysis of his teachings to date in order to identify their original and multifarious sources. Finding W.D. Fard considers the conflicting views shared by his early followers to decipher the doctrine he actually taught. Did W.D. Fard really profess to be Allah, or was he deified after his death by Elijah Muhammad? The book features a meticulous study of any and all subjects who fit the profile of W.D. Fard, and provides the most detailed information regarding his life to date. It also offers an overview of turn-of-the-20th-century Islam in the state of Oregon, demonstrating how much W.D. Fard learned about the Muslim faith while residing in the Pacific Northwest. The work finishes with a series of conclusions and suggestions for further scholarship.