Mr. Green’s compliance will likely increase control of the group as investigators attempt to determine if his beliefs played a role in Friday’s attack. The relationship between violence and the nation of Islam has been debated since it began some 90 years ago, especially since outsiders and insiders disagreed on its teachings.
“From the earliest times in the nation’s history, people have taken these texts and said it is about killing white people,” said Michael Muhammad Knight, an assistant professor of religion and cultural studies at the University of Central Florida, who said Islam specializes in American.
“The nation has a very strong anti-violence discourse that goes back to the very beginning,” he said. “When you look at the nation, you consistently fail to see the number of bodies white supremacist organizations have.”
In his Facebook posts, Mr. Green sometimes used apocalyptic language, suggesting that he believed in an impending conflict at the end of the world. He was referring to the “mother wheel,” which in the nation’s teachings is a spaceship that will descend to America in an apocalyptic battle, Knight explained.
In his last Facebook post on March 21st, Mr. Green wrote about a “divine warning” that these were the “last days of our world as we know it”.
Court records in Indiana, where he lived briefly, show that Mr. Green filed a motion in December to legally change his name to Noah Zaeem Muhammad. However, when he failed to appear for a hearing in the final days of March, the case was dismissed.
At this point he was back in Virginia and living with his brother. Only a few days later he would be driving to the Capitol.
Elizabeth Dias, Ben Decker and Robyn Sidersky contributed to the coverage. Jack Begg contributed to the research.
