The sedition case against Elijah Muhammad rested on zero actual contact with Japan.

Evidence

In Elijah Muhammad’s sedition case, for example, it was found that Muhammad had called the Japanese “brothers and friends” of black Americans. However, according to all the evidence introduced in the case, there was no record of a Japanese person ever attending the meetings of the NOI nor was there any correspondence indicating “any connection between the leaders of this group of colored people and the Japanese government or any Japanese person.” — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 395

Categorization

• XREF: Complete the causal picture: the fearful state prosecutes on the basis of pure rhetoric; evidence shows no actual contact, so fear served a function of suppressing dissenting black Muslim voices.