Wallace Fard Muhammad or W. D. Fard ( fə-RAHD; reportedly born February 26, c. 1877 – disappeared c. 1934) was a religious leader who was the founder of the Nation of Islam.
Fard arrived in Detroit in 1930 with an ambiguous background and several aliases and proselytized syncretic Islamic teachings to the city's black population. His group taught followers to abandon their old "slave names" in favor of new names that were bestowed on new members. Fard's movement similarly taught Black pride and Black exceptionalism, saying that the black man is the "original" man and teaching that the white race were devils created by a scientist named Yakub via eugenics. The group preached abstinence from drugs, alcohol, pork, and out-of-wedlock sex.
After one of Fard's followers performed a human sacrifice, Fard was briefly arrested, but the police ordered him to depart Detroit and not return. Instead he continued to return to the city, where he was spotted by police. In 1934, after repeated arrests and death threats, Fard left Detroit and ultimately disappeared.
Elijah Muhammad succeeded Fard as leader of the Nation of Islam. Fard's teachings in turn influenced many, including Malcolm X, Clarence 13X, Muhammad Ali, and, indirectly, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The Nation of Islam celebrates Saviour's Day every February 26 in his honor.
In the 1950s, the FBI publicly claimed that prior to his time in Detroit, Fard had been known as Wallace Ford, a California restaurateur.
Fard's origins are uncertain. He variously claimed to have been born in Afghanistan and Spain. The Nation of Islam traditionally taught that he was an Arab from Mecca, while the FBI later identified him as Wallace Dodd Ford, a man allegedly born in New Zealand. Other theories proposed by scholars include South Asian, African American, and several other ethnic origins.
Scholars like A. K. Arian believed that Fard immigrated to the United States on a vessel called the SS Tremont that arrived in Port Townsend in 1904, where he was named "Khanialam Khan". Khanialam's younger brother, Sher Khan, was thought to have later applied for American citizenship listing his birthplace as Balochistan, a region part of Pakistan since the Partition of India. Khanialam Khan or Alam Khan, like Fard, had been a tamale vendor in Oregon. However, in 2025, new research by Kevin Morris and Anton Batey shows that the immigrant Alam Khan or Khanialam Khan was not Fard, as he later took the name Khan Alley and died on November 19, 1958, in Lodi, California. Batey and Morris uncovered a manifest revealing that someone named "Wallie Dad Khan" travelled from Hong Kong to San Francisco in 1907 on the SS Coptic. Wallie Dad Khan was associated with tamale vendors and Fard was known to have later used the name "Wali Dadd". They also showed that the Sher Khan who was Khanialam's brother was not the same person as the man who applied for citizenship.
On his World War I draft card, Fard identified as a citizen of Afghanistan, born in Shinka. Many scholars argue that Fard may have been from the Indian subcontinent. Fard reportedly spent time at the Ahmadiyya Mosque (a movement prominent in Pakistan), used translations of the Quran from South Asian Muslims, and bestowed South Asian Muslim names on followers. Fard's teaching of the Tribe of Shabazz may have been tied to Pakistan's Shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar.
In 1924, when he married a woman of Spanish ancestry, Carmen Treviño, Fard claimed he had been born in Madrid, Spain. Less popular theories of origin suggest he may have been Syrian, Moroccan, Bosnian, Albanian, African-American, or Jewish. Fard was traditionally held by the Nation of Islam to be an Arab from Mecca.
Prior to his time in Detroit, Fard operated a food cart and later restaurant in Oregon and California. In 1908, papers in Eugene, Oregon, announced that local tamale vendor Fred Walldad (nicknamed "Fred the Turk") had acquired a small house on wheels to use as a food cart ("Turk" at that point in US history simply meant a Muslim). That Halloween, papers reported on a "Halloween prank" in which local boys took the wheels off Fred the Turk's tamale wagon and dropped it, breaking Fred's dishes and eggs, as well as injuring Fred himself; the wheel was stolen. By the following February, he had sold his lunchwagon and moved to Cottage Grove, where he had leased a restaurant and lodging house.
By 1912, Fard was again selling tamales, this time in Salem, Oregon; newspapers reported on vendor Fred Dadd, a naturalized American originally from New Zealand, attending his first baseball game. In 1913, Fard penned an announcement in the newspaper complaining about police harassment. His complaint of police harassment would be investigated by the police committee. After the committee reported and the report was adopted, the mayor instructed the chief of police to allow Dodd to sell his wares.
In 1914, Fard was arrested for allegedly inducing Laura E. Swanson to leave her spouse for him; he was released on $1,000 bond. A March 23 report cited Dodd's charge as "assaulting a married woman". On April 20, 1914, Dodd married Pearl Allen, a white-passing member of the Klamath people, in Multnomah County, Oregon. The following day, April 21, a jury acquitted Dodd. The Capital Journal explained the verdict by saying "It was brought out in the cross examination of the complaining witness that there was another person in the house at the time of the alleged assault and that she did not cry for help as a person in her circumstances would be aroused."
The marriage to Pearl was short-lived; Divorce proceedings began by August 30. On November 14, he was arrested for larceny after allegedly stealing from Pearl. Pearl gave birth to a son the following year, though a 2024 DNA test suggested more likely than not that this son was not biologically descended from Dodd.
Fard moved to Los Angeles, using the name Wallie Dodd Ford, where he owned a restaurant "Wallie's cafe". at 803 W. Third Street. The Nation of Islam contests the claim that Wallace Fard Muhammad and Wallie Dodd Ford were the same person.
Ford was arrested by Los Angeles police on November 17, 1918, on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon. As of 1920, Ford was still living in Los Angeles as 26-year-old Wallie D. Ford, with his 25-year-old common law wife, Hazel E. Ford (née Barton) The pair had a son, Wallie Dodd Ford Jr. in 1920.
Soon after the birth of their son, however, Hazel found out that Ford went under many aliases and had not been honest with her regarding many other matters. Hazel subsequently left Ford and he is said to have become depressed and started abusing drugs and alcohol.
A marriage certificate, dated June 5, 1924, was issued to Wallie Dodd Ford and Carmen Treviño, a Mexican-born woman of Spanish ancestry, in Santa Ana, California.
Ford was arrested again on January 20, 1926, for violation of the California Woolwine Possession Act, and on February 15, 1926, for violation of the State Poison Act. After this second arrest, a Spanish-language paper in Los Angeles described him as a "street politician". Ford was sentenced to six months to six years at San Quentin State Prison on June 12, 1926. Ford was paroled from San Quentin on May 27, 1929.