Yakub (also spelled Yacub or Yaqub) is a figure in the mythology of the Nation of Islam (NOI) and its offshoots. According to the NOI's doctrine, Yakub was a black Meccan scientist who lived 6,600 years ago and created the white race. According to the story, following his discovery of the law of attraction and repulsion, he gathered followers and began the creation of the white race through a form of selective breeding referred to as "grafting" on the island of Patmos; Yakub died at the age of 150, but his followers continued the process after his death. According to the NOI, the white race was created with an evil nature, and were destined to rule over black people for a period of 6,000 years through the practice of "tricknology," which ended in 1914. Yakub is identified with two biblical figures: the patriarch Jacob and John of Patmos from the Book of Revelation. The story and idea of Yakub originated in the writings of the NOI's founder Wallace Fard Muhammad. Scholars have variously traced its origins in Fard's thought to the idea of the Yakubites propounded by the Moorish Science Temple or to the historical Battle of Alarcos, or alternatively say it may have been created with little basis in any other tradition. Scholars have argued the tale is an example of a black theodicy, with similarities to Gnosticism with Yakub as the Demiurge, as well as the fall of man. It has also been interpreted as a reversal of the contemporary racist ideas that asserted the inferiority of black people. The NOI's interpretation of the biblical Jacob has been criticized for being antisemitic. The story has, throughout its history, caused disputes within the NOI. Under its current leader Louis Farrakhan, the NOI continues to assert that the story of Yakub is true, not a metaphor, and has been proven by modern science. The NOI splinter groups known as the Nuwaubian Nation, the United Nation of Islam, and the Five-Percent Nation share a belief in Yakub, though the Nuwaubian Nation teaches a distinct version of the myth. The figure of Yakub is not part of mainstream Islam and has been routinely mocked. The story has influenced popular culture from the 1960s onward, particularly hip-hop. Starting in the mid-2010s, Yakub became the subject of ironic Internet memes.
Summary
Original version According to the story of Yakub, at the start of human history, a variety of types of black people inhabited the moon; when a black "god-scientist" became frustrated that all those living on the moon did not speak one language, he blew up the moon. A piece of this destroyed moon became the Earth, which was then populated by a community of surviving, morally righteous black people, some of whom settled in the city of Mecca. Yakub was born a short distance outside the city, and was among the third of original black people who were discontented with life in this society. A member of the Meccan branch of the Tribe of Shabazz, Yakub acquired the nickname "big head", because of his unusually large head and arrogance. At the age of six, he discovered the law of attraction and repulsion by playing with magnets made of steel. He connected this to the rules of human attraction: the "unlike" people would attract, manipulate the original "like" people. By the age of 18, he had finished his education and had learned everything that Mecca's universities had to teach him, and was widely known as a successful scientist. He then discovered that the original black man contained both a "black germ" and a "brown germ", with the brown being the recessive one, and believed that if he could separate them by "grafting", he could graft the brown germ into a white germ. This insight led to a plan to create a new people, who, using tricks and lies, could rule the original black man and destroy them.
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