Inevitably , he 's attracted to the comic-book theology of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam , as conceived by a mysterious character named Wallace Fard -LRB- who might have been white -RRB- and a messianic hustler named Elijah Muhammad -LRB- Malcolm 's actual conversion to this American version of Islam did n't take place until 1949 , while Baker 's novel ends in 1943 -RRB- .