community and converted to Sunni Islam while
undertaking the
haJJ
ritual to Mecca in 1964. After
his return he adopted the appropriate Islamic title
El-Hajji (one who has accomplished Hajj), which
he added to his chosen Sunni name. In 1965 Mal-
colm X was assassinated and the NOI’s founder,
Elijah Muhammad, died.
After its original prophet and revelator died,
the NOI experienced a sea change. First the son
of the founder, Wallace D. Muhammad (b. 1933–
2008), assumed leadership and directed the com-
munity away from the founder’s teachings toward
the world Sunni majority. His decision was imple-
mented by adopting the ritual pillars of traditional
Islamic practice (the witness to faith, five daily
prayers, fasting through the month of r
amadan
,
formal almsgiving, and pilgrimage to m
ecca
) and
rigorous education in the fundamentals of Arabic,
as well as the study of the Quran. He adopted
an Islamic version of his birth name, Warith
Deen Muhammad, and named his organization,
which included most of the former members of
the NOI, the American Muslim Mission. The
remnant of the NOI that maintained allegiance to
the founder’s theology followed the leadership of
his chief lieutenant at the time of Elijah’s death,
l
oUis
F
arrakhan
(born Louis Eugene Walcott in
1933), who continued the fundamental style and
approach of the founder while de-emphasizing
the agenda of political separatism and national
land reparations to African-American descendants
of slaves. He focused NOI attention on continu-
ing Elijah Muhammad’s programs of socio-spiri-
tual reeducation and economic self-sufficiency.
Through his speeches, writings (Torchlight), and
the renamed NOI newspaper, The Final Call, he
continues to lead the community and has placed
increased stress on study and use of the Quran
in his teachings. Although a charismatic speaker
who has led some noteworthy social efforts, such
as the Million Man March in Washington, D.C.,
in 1995, he has been widely criticized for
anti
-
s
emitism
, sexism, and racism in many of his public
statements.
The Nation of Islam clearly displays signifi-
cant features that place it firmly within American
social and religious pluralism and the psychology
and sociology of minority and persecuted groups.
American characteristics of the NOI, its offshoots
(the Nation of Five Percenters) and parallels (the
Ansaaru Allah Community) include an identity
defined positively by race (positively for blacks
and negatively for whites); an aggressive defense
of the disadvantaged, oppressed, harassed urban
poor, and a strong rehabilitative appeal to and
recruitment of prison populations. It has also
maintained a secret discourse in its internal theol-
ogy wedded to a paranoid and conspiracy-minded
attitude to the public sphere and media-makers
of America, especially its governmental powers
(police, the courts, the prison system, even in a
larger sense the welfare system).
Although NOI teachings include a spectrum
of biblical and esoteric Christian teachings, it
also displays significant Islamic features drawn
from the deep wells of theological and sectar-
ian diversity within the larger history of Islam,
as well as increasing reference to and use of the
Quran. The Islamic characteristics of the NOI and
other parallel Black Muslim theologies include:
contemporary and ongoing
revelation
and pro-
phetic presence (first, W.D. Fard, and then Elijah
Muhammad); charismatic and divinely inspired
aUthority
; experiential wisdom and teachings of
mysticism, coded initiant-only language designed
to reveal to the like-minded and conceal from the
outsider the inner truths of the community (as in
Sufi and Shii exegesis and other esoteric venues,
such as the Islamic occult sciences); political mili-
tancy, social defiance, and economical activism (in
line with Islamic jihadist and activist movements)
without actually coming to violence or outright
warfare (its “war” is social and symbolic, and the
victory pragmatic and immediately practical); and
finally the holistic concept of the Muslim umma,
or the religious community, which is also ideally
a social, economic, and political community, with
its universal quest for the just Muslim society.
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