The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley

by Alex Haley

  I asked questions about his father. Abd-Al-Rahman Azzam was known as Azzam Pasha, or Lord Azzam, until the Egyptian revolution, when President Nasser eliminated all “Lord” and “Noble” titles. “He should be at my home when we get there,” Dr. Azzam said. “He spends much time in New York with his United Nations work, and he has followed you with great interest.”

  I was speechless.

  It was early in the morning when we reached Dr. Azzam’s home. His father was there, his father’s brother, a chemist, and another friend—all up that early, waiting. Each of them embraced me as though I were a long-lost child. I had never seen these men before in my life, and they treated me so good! I am going to tell you that I had never been so honored in my life, nor had I ever received such true hospitality.

  A servant brought tea and coffee, and disappeared. I was urged to make myself comfortable. No women were anywhere in view. In Arabia, you could easily think there were no females.

  Dr. Abd-Al-Rahman Azzam dominated the conversation. Why hadn’t I called before? They couldn’t understand why I hadn’t. Was I comfortable? They seemed embarrassed that I had spent the time at the airport; that I had been delayed in getting to Mecca. No matter how I protested that I felt no inconvenience, that I was fine, they would not hear it. “You must rest,” Dr. Azzam said. He went to use the telephone.

  I didn’t know what this distinguished man was doing. I had no dream. When I was told that I would be brought back for dinner that evening, and that, meanwhile, I should get back in the car, how could I have realized that I was about to see the epitome of Muslim hospitality?

  Abd-Al-Rahman Azzam, when at home, lived in a suite at the Jedda Palace Hotel. Because I had come to them with a letter from a friend, he was going to stay at his son’s home, and let me use his suite, until I could get on to Mecca.

  When I found out, there was no use protesting: I was in the suite; young Dr. Azzam was gone; there was no one to protest to. The three-room suite had a bathroom that was as big as a double at the New York Hilton. It was suite number 214. There was even a porch outside, affording a beautiful view of the ancient Red Sea city.

  There had never before been in my emotions such an impulse to pray—and I did, prostrating myself on the living-room rug.

  Nothing in either of my two careers as a black man in America had served to give me any idealistic tendencies. My instincts automatically examined the reasons, the motives, of anyone who did anything they didn’t have to do for me. Always in my life, if it was any white person, I could see a selfish motive.

  But there in that hotel that morning, a telephone call and a few hours away from the cot on the fourth-floor tier of the dormitory, was one of the few times I had been so awed that I was totally without resistance. That white man—at least he would have been considered “white” in America—related to Arabia’s ruler, to whom he was a close advisor, truly an international man, with nothing in the world to gain, had given up his suite to me, for my transient comfort. He had nothing to gain. He didn’t need me. He had everything. In fact, he had more to lose than gain. He had followed the American press about me. If he did that, he knew there was only stigma attached to me. I was supposed to have horns. I was a “racist.” I was “anti-white”—and he from all appearances was white. I was supposed to be a criminal; not only that, but everyone was even accusing me of using his religion of Islam as a cloak for my criminal practices and philosophies. Even if he had had some motive to use me, he knew that I was separated from Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam, my “power base,” according to the press in America. The only organization that I had was just a few weeks old. I had no job. I had no money. Just to get over there, I had had to borrow money from my sister.

  That morning was when I first began to reappraise the “white man.” It was when I first began to perceive that “white man,” as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. In America, “white man” meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been.

  That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about “white” men.

  I should quote from my notebook here. I wrote this about noon, in the hotel: “My excitement, sitting here, waiting to go before the Hajj Committee, is indescribable. My window faces to the sea westward. The streets are filled with the incoming pilgrims from all over the world. The prayers are to Allah and verses from the Quran are on the lips of everyone. Never have I seen such a beautiful sight, nor witnessed such a scene, nor felt such an atmosphere. Although I am excited, I feel safe and secure, thousands of miles from the totally different life that I have known. Imagine that twenty-four hours ago, I was in the fourth-floor room over the airport, surrounded by people with whom I could not communicate, feeling uncertain about the future, and very lonely, and then one phone call, following Dr. Shawarbi’s instructions. I have met one of the most powerful men in the Muslim world. I will soon sleep in his bed at the Jedda Palace. I know that I am surrounded by friends whose sincerity and religious zeal I can feel. I must pray again to thank Allah for this blessing, and I must pray again that my wife and children back in America will always be blessed for their sacrifices, too.”

  I did pray, two more prayers, as I had told my notebook. Then I slept for about four hours, until the telephone rang. It was young Dr. Azzam. In another hour, he would pick me up to return me there for dinner. I tumbled words over one another, trying to express some of the thanks I felt for all of their actions. He cut me off. “Ma sha’a-llah”—which means, “It is as Allah has pleased.”

  I seized the opportunity to run down into the lobby, to see it again before Dr. Azzam arrived. When I opened my door, just across the hall from me a man in some ceremonial dress, who obviously lived there, was also headed downstairs, surrounded by attendants. I followed them down, then through the lobby. Outside, a small caravan of automobiles was waiting. My neighbor appeared through the Jedda Palace Hotel’s front entrance and people rushed and crowded him, kissing his hand. I found out who he was: the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Later, in the hotel, I would have the opportunity to talk with him for about a half-hour. He was a cordial man of great dignity. He was well up on world affairs, and even the latest events in America.

  I will never forget the dinner at the Azzam home. I quote my notebook again: “I couldn’t say in my mind that these were ‘white’ men. Why, the men acted as if they were brothers of mine, the elder Dr. Azzam as if he were my father. His fatherly, scholarly speech. I felt like he was my father. He was, you could tell, a highly skilled diplomat, with a broad range of mind. His knowledge was so worldly. He was as current on world affairs as some people are to what’s going on in their living room.

  “The more we talked, the more his vast reservoir of knowledge and its variety seemed unlimited. He spoke of the racial lineage of the descendants of Muhammad the Prophet, and he showed how they were both black and white. He also pointed out how color, the complexities of color, and the problems of color which exist in the Muslim world, exist only where, and to the extent that, that area of the Muslim world has been influenced by the West. He said that if one encountered any differences based on attitude toward color, this directly reflected the degree of Western influence.”

  I learned during dinner that while I was at the hotel, the Hajj Committee Court had been notified about my case, and that in the morning I should be there. And I was.

  The judge was Sheikh Muhammad Harkon. The Court was empty except for me and a sister from India, formerly a Protestant, who had converted to Islam, and was, like me, trying to make the Hajj. She was brown-skinned, with a small face that was mostly covered. Judge Harkon was a kind, impressive man. We talked. He asked me some questions, having to do with my sincerity. I answered him as truly as I could. He not only recognized me as a true Muslim, but he ga
ve me two books, one in English, the other in Arabic. He recorded my name in the Holy Register of true Muslims, and we were ready to part. He told me, “I hope you will become a great preacher of Islam in America.” I said that I shared that hope, and I would try to fulfill it.

  The Azzam family were very elated that I was qualified and accepted to go to Mecca. I had lunch at the Jedda Palace. Then I slept again for several hours, until the telephone awakened me.

  It was Muhammad Abdul Azziz Maged, the Deputy Chief of Protocol for Prince Faisal. “A special car will be waiting to take you to Mecca, right after your dinner,” he told me. He advised me to eat heartily, as the Hajj rituals require plenty of strength.

  I was beyond astonishment by then.

  Two young Arabs accompanied me to Mecca. A well-lighted, modern turnpike highway made the trip easy. Guards at intervals along the way took one look at the car, and the driver made a sign, and we were passed through, never even having to slow down. I was, all at once, thrilled, important, humble, and thankful.

  Mecca, when we entered, seemed as ancient as time itself. Our car slowed through the winding streets, lined by shops on both sides and with buses, cars, and trucks, and tens of thousands of pilgrims from all over the earth were everywhere.

  The car halted briefly at a place where a Mutawaf was waiting for me. He wore the white skullcap and long nightshirt garb that I had seen at the airport. He was a short, dark-skinned Arab, named Muhammad. He spoke no English whatever.

  We parked near the Great Mosque. We performed our ablutions and entered. Pilgrims seemed to be on top of each other, there were so many, lying, sitting, sleeping, praying, walking.

  My vocabulary cannot describe the new mosque that was being built around the Ka’ba. I was thrilled to realize that it was only one of the tremendous rebuilding tasks under the direction of young Dr. Azzam, who had just been my host. The Great Mosque of Mecca, when it is finished, will surpass the architectural beauty of India’s Taj Mahal.

  Carrying my sandals, I followed the Mutawaf. Then I saw the Ka’ba, a huge black stone house in the middle of the Great Mosque. It was being circumambulated by thousands upon thousands of praying pilgrims, both sexes, and every size, shape, color, and race in the world. I knew the prayer to be uttered when the pilgrim’s eyes first perceive the Ka’ba. Translated, it is “O God, You are peace, and peace derives from You. So greet us, O Lord, with peace.” Upon entering the Mosque, the pilgrim should try to kiss the Ka’ba if possible, but if the crowds prevent him getting that close, he touches it, and if the crowds prevent that, he raises his hand and cries out “Takbir!” (“God is great!”) I could not get within yards. “Takbir!”

  My feeling there in the House of God was a numbness. My Mutawaf led me in the crowd of praying, chanting pilgrims, moving seven times around the Ka’ba. Some were bent and wizened with age; it was a sight that stamped itself on the brain. I saw incapacitated pilgrims being carried by others. Faces were enraptured in their faith. The seventh time around, I prayed two Rak’a, prostrating myself, my head on the floor. The first prostration, I prayed the Quran verse “Say He is God, the one and only”; the second prostration: “Say O you who are unbelievers, I worship not that which you worship….”

  As I prostrated, the Mutawaf fended pilgrims off to keep me from being trampled.

  The Mutawaf and I next drank water from the well of Zem Zem. Then we ran between the two hills, Safa and Marwa, where Hajar wandered over the same earth searching for water for her child Ishmael.

  Three separate times, after that, I visited the Great Mosque and circumambulated the Ka’ba. The next day we set out after sunrise toward Mount Arafat, thousands of us, crying in unison: “Labbayka! Labbayka!” and “Allah Akbar!” Mecca is surrounded by the crudest-looking mountains I have ever seen; they seem to be made of the slag from a blast furnace. No vegetation is on them at all. Arriving about noon, we prayed and chanted from noon until sunset, and the asr (afternoon) and Maghrib (sunset) special prayers were performed.

  Finally, we lifted our hands in prayer and thanksgiving, repeating Allah’s words: “There is no God but Allah. He has no partner. His are authority and praise. Good emanates from Him, and He has power over all things.”

  Standing on Mount Arafat had concluded the essential rites of being a pilgrim to Mecca. No one who missed it could consider himself a pilgrim.

  The Ihram had ended. We cast the traditional seven stones at the devil. Some had their hair and beards cut. I decided that I was going to let my beard remain. I wondered what my wife Betty, and our little daughters, were going to say when they saw me with a beard, when I got back to New York. New York seemed a million miles away. I hadn’t seen a newspaper that I could read since I left New York. I had no idea what was happening there. A Negro rifle club that had been in existence for over twelve years in Harlem had been “discovered” by the police; it was being trumpeted that I was “behind it.” Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam had a lawsuit going against me, to force me and my family to vacate the house in which we lived on Long Island.

  The major press, radio, and television media in America had representatives in Cairo hunting all over, trying to locate me, to interview me about the furor in New York that I had allegedly caused—when I knew nothing about any of it.

  I only knew what I had left in America, and how it contrasted with what I had found in the Muslim world. About twenty of us Muslims who had finished the Hajj were sitting in a huge tent on Mount Arafat. As a Muslim from America, I was the center of attention. They asked me what about the Hajj had impressed me the most. One of the several who spoke English asked; they translated my answers for the others. My answer to that question was not the one they expected, but it drove home my point.

  I said, “The brotherhood! The people of all races, colors, from all over the world coming together as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God.”

  It may have been out of taste, but that gave me an opportunity, and I used it, to preach them a quick little sermon on America’s racism, and its evils.

  I could tell the impact of this upon them. They had been aware that the plight of the black man in America was “bad,” but they had not been aware that it was inhuman, that it was a psychological castration. These people from elsewhere around the world were shocked. As Muslims, they had a very tender heart for all unfortunates, and very sensitive feelings for truth and justice. And in everything I said to them, as long as we talked, they were aware of the yardstick that I was using to measure everything—that to me the earth’s most explosive and pernicious evil is racism, the inability of God’s creatures to live as One, especially in the Western world.

  —

  I have reflected since that the letter I finally sat down to compose had been subconsciously shaping itself in my mind.

  The color-blindness of the Muslim world’s religious society and the color-blindness of the Muslim world’s human society: these two influences had each day been making a greater impact, and an increasing persuasion against my previous way of thinking.

  The first letter was, of course, to my wife, Betty. I never had a moment’s question that Betty, after initial amazement, would change her thinking to join mine. I had known a thousand reassurances that Betty’s faith in me was total. I knew that she would see what I had seen—that in the land of Muhammad and the land of Abraham, I had been blessed by Allah with a new insight into the true religion of Islam, and a better understanding of America’s entire racial dilemma.

  After the letter to my wife, I wrote next essentially the same letter to my sister Ella. And I knew where Ella would stand. She had been saving to make the pilgrimage to Mecca herself.

  I wrote to Dr. Shawarbi, whose belief in my sincerity had enabled me to get a passport to Mecca.

  All through the night, I copied similar long letters for others who were very close to me. Among them was Elijah Muhammad’s son Wallace Muhammad, who had expressed to me his conviction that the only possible salvation for the Natio
n of Islam would be its accepting and projecting a better understanding of Orthodox Islam.

  And I wrote to my loyal assistants at my newly formed Muslim Mosque, Inc. in Harlem, with a note appended, asking that my letter be duplicated and distributed to the press.

  I knew that when my letter became public knowledge back in America, many would be astounded—loved ones, friends, and enemies alike. And no less astounded would be millions whom I did not know—who had gained during my twelve years with Elijah Muhammad a “hate” image of Malcolm X.

  Even I was myself astounded. But there was precedent in my life for this letter. My whole life had been a chronology of—changes.

  Here is what I wrote…from my heart:

  “Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and the overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races here in this Ancient Holy Land, the home of Abraham, Muhammad, and all the other prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors.

  “I have been blessed to visit the Holy City of Mecca. I have made my seven circuits around the Ka’ba, led by a young Mutawaf named Muhammad. I drank water from the well of Zem Zem. I ran seven times back and forth between the hills of Mt. Al-Safa and Al-Marwah. I have prayed in the ancient city of Mina, and I have prayed on Mt. Arafat.