Black Muslims

Black Muslims are members of an American religious movement called the Nation of Islam. From 1930 until 1975, the Nation of Islam accepted only Blacks as members. They also considered Whites as “devils” and supported the separation of Black and White races. The Nation was a “proto-Islamic” movement, using some of the trappings of Islam mixed with an ideology of Black nationalism. Although the name “Black Muslims,” coined by C. Eric Lincoln, is often used for members of this movement, the members themselves reject this name.

The Nation of Islam was founded in Paradise Valley, Detroit, on July 4, 1930, by Master Wallace [Page 145]D. Fard (or Wali Farad), a mysterious peddler of silks from the East, who taught his followers about their “true religion,” not Christianity but the “religion of the Black Man” of Asia and Africa. Fard stressed that “knowledge of self” was a prerequisite for attaining Black liberation. Temple of Islam No. 1 was established in Detroit.

When Fard mysteriously disappeared in 1934, his chief lieutenant, Elijah Muhammad (formerly Poole), took over and established the headquarters of the movement at Temple No. 2 on the South Side of Chicago in 1936. Muhammad was responsible for Master Fard's deification as “Allah in person” (a Black man as God), and he claimed to be Allah's messenger or prophet. Using the honorific title “the Honorable,” Elijah Muhammad perpetuated Fard's teachings, which stressed three factors: (1) the need to establish a separate Black nation, (2) the need to recover an acceptable Black identity, and (3) the need for economic independence.

Muhammad found his most important evangelist in the charismatic figure of Minister Malcolm X. Converted to the Nation while he was in prison in Massachusetts in 1948, Malcolm Little followed the practice of the Nation by replacing his “slave” surname with an X, which signified “ex-Christian, ex-Negro, ex-slave;” X also meant identity undetermined. The years from 1952 until 1965, which covered Malcolm's release from prison until his assassination, marked the period of the greatest growth and influence of the Nation of Islam. However, due to an internal dispute, Malcolm left the Nation in 1964 and converted to Sunnī Islam. He was assassinated on February 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem.

On his father's death in February 1975, Wallace Delaney Muhammad, Elijah Muhammad's fifth son, was chosen as the next supreme leader. He changed his name to Warith Deen Mohammed and rid the movement of its Black nationalist characteristics, leading his followers to orthodox Sunnī Islam. Since 1976, the movement has undergone several name changes, from the Nation of Islam to a decentralized structure of independent masjids (“places of prayer”) as part of his Mosque Cares Ministry. Their newspaper is called the Muslim Journal.

In 1977, Minister Louis Farrakhan led a schismatic group of discontented followers in resurrecting the Nation of Islam. They have continued the separatist and Black nationalist teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, supplemented by new interpretations from Minister Farrakhan. His movement's newspaper is The Final Call. Farrakhan's Nation of Islam was able to mobilize more than 1 million Black people twice to attend major rallies in Washington, D.C.—the Million Man March in 1995 and the Millions More movement in 2005. In 2006, due to health complications, Farrakhan stepped aside and handed over the leadership of the Nation of Islam to an executive council.

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