They used to have space ships

According to the story, 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.[3] 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.[4] 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.[5]

This insight led to a plan to create a new people. He "saw an unlike human being, made to attract others, who could, with the knowledge of tricks and lies, rule the original black man".[5] By the age of 18, he had exhausted all knowledge in the universities of Mecca. He then discovered that the original black man contained both a "black germ" and a "brown germ". With 59,999 followers, he went to an "isle in the Aegean Sea called Pelan", which Muhammad identified as modern-day Patmos. Once there, he established a despotic regime, starting to breed out the black traits of his followers, killing all darker babies, and succeeded in creating a brown race after 200 years.[6]

Yakub died at the age of 150,[7] but his followers carried on his work. After 600 years of this deliberate eugenics system, the white race was created.[6] The brutal conditions of their creation determined the evil nature of the new race: "by lying to the black mother of the baby, this lie was born into the very nature of the white baby; and, murder for the black people was also born in them—or made by nature a liar and murderer".[2] All the races other than the black race were by-products of Yakub's (spelled Yacub in the biography) work, as the "red, yellow and brown" races were created during the "bleaching" process;[4] however, the "black race" included Asian peoples, considered to be shared ancestors of the Moors.[4] "Whites" were defined as Europeans. Elijah Muhammad also asserted that some of the new white race "tried to graft themselves back into the black nation, but they had nothing to go by". As a result, they became gorillas: "A few were lucky enough to make a start, and got as far as what you call the gorilla. In fact, all of the monkey family are from this 2,000 year history of the white race in Europe".[2]

The new race traveled to Mecca, where they caused so much trouble they were exiled to "West Asia (Europe), and stripped of everything but the language. […] Once there, they were roped in, to keep them out of Paradise. […] The soldiers patrolled the border armed with swords, to prevent the devils from crossing".[2] For many centuries they lived a barbaric life, surviving naked in caves and eating raw meat, but were eventually drawn out of the caves by Moses who "taught them to wear clothes". Moses tried to civilize them, but eventually gave up and blew up 300 of the most troublesome white people with dynamite.[8]

However, the whites had learned to use "tricknology"; a plan to use their trickery and lack of empathy and emotion to usurp power and enslave the black population, bringing the first slaves to America.[4] According to NOI doctrine, Yakub's progeny were destined to rule for 6,000 years before the original black peoples of the world regained dominance, the end of which was the year 1914.[9]