Once Fard had secured a temple, the frequency of his meetings was stepped up and the movement became more formalized. Prospective members were put through rigid examinations and were called upon to make commitments and pledges. The sermons at Fard’s meetings were always based on the same subject: the untrustworthiness of the white man and the need for the Negro to understand and return to his glorious history in Africa and Asia. Eric Lincoln says that Fard, with no literature or material to espouse his cause, used the writings of Joseph F. “Judge” Rutherford, then leader of Jehovah’s Witnesses; Van Loon’s _Story of Mankind_; Breasted’s _The Conquest of Civilization_; the Quran; the Bible; and certain literature of Freemasonry, to bring his people to “knowledge of self.” The followers of Fard were encouraged to buy radios so that they could hear the expressions of Rutherford and Frank Norris, the Baptist fundamentalist preacher. Once temple meetings began, however, Fard told his members that the words of any white man could not be trusted, for the white man was incapable of telling the truth. He insisted that the white man’s writings were filled with a symbolism that must be interpreted. Fard went on to establish himself as the interpreter and brought the throng to its feet cheering when he said that the stupid white man was actually a tool in the hands of Allah, that the white man was a dumb idiot who unknowingly told the “truth” and thus predicted his own doom. Fard himself gave the movement its two basic theological pieces: _The Sacred Ritual of the Nation of Islam_, still the key document for the Black Muslims, and _Teachings for the Lost Found Nation of Islam in a Mathematical Way_, a religious cryptogram distributed among Muslims but which only Fard could interpret. Within four years after he had set up the first temple, Fard, who turned out to be an extremely able executive, not only had a burgeoning membership of followers, but had founded a University of Islam, a combination of elementary and high-school education devoted to higher mathematics, astronomy, and the “ending of the spook civilization.” To augment all this, Fard established “The Muslim Girls Training Class” to drill Muslim women in the art of being good housewives and mothers. And to put down any trouble with unbelievers and police, he organized “The Fruit of Islam,” a quasi-military organization in which men were divided into squads headed by captains and taught the tactics of judo and the use of firearms. Completing the temple structure, a minister was appointed by Fard to run the entire organization. _The Man from Sandersville_