They can be seen on the weekends on street corners throughout South Los Angeles, hawking the bean pies that have become a signature product of the Nation of Islam.
Clean-shaven, close-cropped young men dressed in conservative suits and bow ties, the members are invariably courteous, addressing women as "ma'am" and other men, black men at least, as "brother." By reputation, they are fastidiously conscious of health and fitness, drug-free and law-abiding.
Yet despite all appearances, members of the black American religious group today are engaged in a conflict with Los Angeles law enforcement that has unsettled sections of the city and focused attention on the escalating role of the followers of Louis Farrakhan as a societal force in the nation's black communities.
Twice in less than a month, groups of Nation of Islam members have clashed violently with law enforcement officers. The first incident occurred three weeks ago and left three Muslims and four members of the Los Angeles Police Department injured. Last Tuesday, in the latest confrontation, a Muslim was shot to death by an L.A. sheriff's deputy, and another was wounded.
Law enforcement officials said that in both cases the officers were attacked first. Some community leaders, however, have rallied to the Nation of Islam's defense, saying the confrontations resulted from the heavy-handedness that young black men have come to expect from police.
They also contend that the incidents were rooted in a lack of understanding by police about the Nation of Islam and, in particular, what it has attempted to accomplish in embattled neighborhoods.
In the last year, the Chicago-based organization--once labeled subversive by the FBI and fanatical by some black activists--has heightened its activities across the country. It has dispatched teams of young men--called "God Squads"--to cities plagued by drugs and the violence associated with them. These men make themselves a visible community presence, proselytizing gang members and others with the message that violence and drugs are self-de structive.
The Muslims also train young men in martial arts as a means to both physical fitness and self-defense. This activity and the sometimes-controversial rhetoric of Farrakhan contribute to a perception held by some outsiders that the Nation is militaristic and bent on violence.
Others in the community call this a misperception. Said Abdul Karim Hasan, imam of Masjid Felix Bilal on South Central Avenue, an orthodox Islamic mosque:
