Nation of Islam

The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a religious group founded in the United States by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930. A centralized and hierarchical organization, the NOI is committed to black nationalism and focuses its attention on the black African diaspora, especially on African Americans. While describing itself as Islamic and using Islamic terminology, its religious tenets differ substantially from orthodox Islamic traditions. Scholars of religion characterize it as a new religious movement.

The Nation teaches that there has been a succession of mortal gods, each a black man named Allah, of whom Fard Muhammad is the latest. It claims that the first Allah created the earliest humans, the dark-skinned Original Asiatic Race, whose members possessed inner divinity and from whom all people of color descend. It maintains that a scientist named Yakub then created the white race, a group that lacked inner divinity and whose intrinsic violence led them to overthrow the Original Asiatic Race and achieve global dominance. Setting itself against the white-dominated society of the United States, the NOI campaigns for the creation of an independent African American nation-state and calls for African Americans to be economically self-sufficient and separatist. A millenarian tradition, it maintains that Fard Muhammad will soon return aboard a spaceship to wipe out the white-dominated order and establish a utopia. Members worship in buildings, varyingly called temples or mosques. Practitioners are expected to live disciplined lives, adhering to strict dress codes, specific dietary requirements, and patriarchal gender roles.

Wallace Fard Muhammad established the Nation of Islam in Detroit. He drew on various sources, especially Noble Drew Ali's Moorish Science Temple of America and black nationalist trends like Garveyism. After Fard Muhammad disappeared in 1934, the leadership of the NOI was assumed by Elijah Muhammad, who expanded the NOI's teachings, declared Fard Muhammad to be the latest Allah, and built the group's business empire. Attracting growing attention in the late 1950s and 1960s, the NOI's influence expanded through high-profile members such as the black nationalist activist Malcolm X and the boxer Muhammad Ali. Deeming it a threat to domestic security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation worked to undermine the group. Following Elijah Muhammad's death in 1975, his son Wallace D. Muhammad took over the organization, moving it towards Sunni Islam and renaming it the World Community of Islam in the West. Members seeking to retain Elijah Muhammad's teachings re-established the Nation of Islam under Louis Farrakhan's leadership in 1977. Farrakhan expanded the NOI's economic and agricultural operations and continued to develop its beliefs, for instance by drawing connections with Dianetics.

Based in the United States, the Nation of Islam has also established a presence abroad, with membership open only to people of color. In 2007 it was estimated to have 50,000 members. The Nation has also influenced the formation of other groups like the Five-Percent Nation, United Nation of Islam, and Nuwaubian Nation. Muslim critics accuse the NOI of promoting teachings that are not authentically Islamic. Other critics, like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, have characterized it as a hate group that promotes racism against white people, antisemitism, and anti-LGBT rhetoric.

Definition

Scholars of religion classify the Nation of Islam (NOI) as a new religious movement.Template:Sfnm Elsewhere, they have labelled it an African American religion,Template:Sfnm a black nationalist religion,Template:Sfnm an ethno-religious movement,Template:Sfnm a religious nationalist movement,Template:Sfn a social movement,Template:Sfnm and a form of esotericism.Template:Sfn Given that extraterrestrial spaceships feature prominently in the group's teachings,Template:Sfnm scholars have also highlighted commonalities between the NOI and UFO religions.Template:Sfn More broadly, the sociologist of religion Susan J. Palmer characterised the Nation as forming part of a "Black cultic milieu" in which it coexists alongside other black-oriented new religions, including Rastafari, the Black Hebrew Israelites, and the Nuwaubian Nation.Template:Sfn

The Nation of Islam movement has existed in two organisational forms: the first was established by Wallace Fard Muhammad in the 1930s and existed until 1975, after which the second group was created by Louis Farrakhan in the late 1970s.Template:Sfn Farrakhan's second Nation has differences from its predecessor,Template:Sfnm reflecting how the Nation's teachings have shifted over its history.Template:Sfnm As an organization, the Nation is highly centralized,Template:Sfn hierarchical,Template:Sfnm and authoritarian.Template:Sfn Although there are members who privately break the Nation's rules on personal behaviorTemplate:Sfn—and who may not accept all the group's teachingsTemplate:Sfn—in general the group's practitioners display much uniformity and conformity.Template:Sfn

Relationship to Christianity and Islam

A red background on which stands a left-facing, white crescent moon and to the left of that a white star.

The flag of the Nation of Islam is a white crescent and star on a red background.Template:Sfn The group calls this flag, which is based on that of Turkey, "the national".Template:Sfn

The NOI has no holy text of its own.Template:Sfn Instead, it draws on the Bible and Quran yet offers profoundly different interpretations of these scriptures than those typically found in Christianity and Islam.Template:Sfnm Having arisen from within the Christian-majority United States, the Nation condemns Christianity,Template:Sfn presenting it as a tool of white supremacy.Template:Sfnm For the group—whose members are commonly called "Black Muslims"Template:Sfnm—their Islamic identity offers an alternative to mainstream, Christian-dominated American culture.Template:Sfn

In describing itself as Islamic, the NOI seeks to reclaim what it regards as the historic Muslim identity of the African American people.Template:Sfn The group's second leader, Elijah Muhammad, stated that "Islam is the natural religion of the Black Nation."Template:Sfnm The NOI sees itself as part of the Islamic world,Template:Sfn and Islamic elements in its practices include the use of the Arabic language, prayers five times a day, and the adoption of a flag based on that of Muslim-majority Turkey.Template:Sfn

Despite this, the Nation has little in common with mainstream Islam.Template:Sfnm Its claims about the nature of God and the afterlife differ fundamentally from Muslim teaching;Template:Sfn similarly, it does not accept the standard Islamic belief that the Arabian religious leader Muhammad was God's final and most important messenger.Template:Sfn Although using standard Islamic terms, it gives these completely different meanings to those understood by most Muslims.Template:Sfn Mainstream Muslims generally see the NOI as a movement that selectively adopts Islamic ideas but is not truly Islamic.Template:Sfn From mainstream Islamic perspectives, its teachings are heretical,Template:Sfnm with its theology being shirk (blasphemy).Template:Sfnm Accordingly, some scholars of religion have characterised it as "quasi-Islamic",Template:Sfn or referred to it as "Fardian Islam",Template:Sfn "pseudo-Islam",Template:Sfn or "nontraditional Islam".Template:Sfn

History

Background

Islam existed in North America prior to the formation of the United States. African Muslims were among the Spanish expeditions that explored the continent during the early modern period, and were also among the enslaved people transported there via the Atlantic slave trade of the 16th to 19th centuries.Template:Sfnm Although Islam died out among the African American community in the generations following the American Revolution,Template:Sfnm this historical association influenced the emergence of groups like the NOI in the early 20th century.Template:Sfnm

Various older movements influenced the NOI, including African American Christianity,Template:Sfn Freemasonry,Template:Sfnm and the Jehovah's Witnesses.Template:Sfnm However, the scholar of religion Dawn Gibson characterised the Nation as having principally been "born out of a fusion" between Garveyism and the Moorish Science Temple of America.Template:Sfn Central to Garveyism was the Jamaican black nationalist Marcus Garvey, who lived in the US from 1916 to 1927 and who formed the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA).Template:Sfnm Garveyism gave the Nation its black nationalism,Template:Sfn including its emphasis on black self-sufficiency and enterprise.Template:Sfn The second key influence, the Moorish Science Temple, promoted an idiosyncratic religion that its followers claimed was Islamic.Template:Sfnm This had been established in 1913 by the African American Noble Drew Ali in Newark, New Jersey;Template:Sfnm he maintained that African Americans should refer to themselves as "Moorish Americans", reflecting what he believed were their connections to the Muslim Moors of North Africa.Template:Sfnm

Wallace Fard Muhammad

My name is W. D. Fard, and I come from the Holy City of Mecca. More about myself I will not tell you yet, for the time has not yet come. I am your brother. You have not yet seen me in my royal robes.

A message from Fard Muhammad, as reported by an early followerTemplate:Sfnm

The NOI was founded by Wallace Fard Muhammad, who began preaching to Detroit's African Americans in July 1930.Template:Sfnm Fard Muhammad claimed to be an Arab from Mecca who had come on a mission to the African American people, whom he called the "Nation of Islam", to restore them to their original faith.Template:Sfn Later, the Nation began to teach that Fard Muhammad was the latest Allah (God).Template:Sfnm They claim he was born in Mecca on February 26, 1877,Template:Sfn the son of a black Meccan and a white woman from the Caucasus Mountains.Template:Sfn Being half-white, the NOI maintain, was necessary to allow Fard Muhammad to move freely in white society.Template:Sfn

Outside the Nation, various theories have been proposed as to Fard Muhammad's identity.Template:Sfn The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) matched Fard Muhammad's fingerprints to those of Wallie D. Ford, who had a record of arrests and had served a three-year sentence for drug charges. Ford had been released in May 1929, a year before Fard Muhammad's appearance.Template:Sfnm FBI reports suggest he was a foreign national who entered the US illegally in 1913.Template:Sfn The NOI reject Fard Muhammad's identification as Ford, claiming that the FBI forged this evidence.Template:Sfn

Fard Muhammad wrote two manuals, the Secret Ritual of the Nation of Islam and the Teaching for the Lost Found Nation of Islam in a Mathematical Way.Template:Sfnm He established the Nation's administration, its school system, and both the Fruit of Islam paramilitary for men and the Muslim Girls Training School for women.Template:Sfnm His following grew rapidly,Template:Sfn with his meetings, held three days a week, attracting 7,000 to 8,000 people,Template:Sfn mostly southern migrants.Template:Sfnm One of his most significant disciples was the African American Elijah Poole, who joined in 1931;Template:Sfn Fard Muhammad appointed him supreme minister of the Nation and renamed him Elijah Muhammad.Template:Sfn In 1933, Elijah Muhammad set up a new NOI temple on Chicago's South Side.Template:Sfn

The early NOI faced problems from law enforcement. In 1932 the Detroit Police Department arrested an NOI member for murder.Template:Sfnm The police then raided the Nation's headquarters and arrested Fard Muhammad, but he was soon released.Template:Sfnm He would be subsequently arrested several further times, with his September 1933 Chicago arrest for disorderly conduct constituting his last known verified whereabouts.Template:Sfn In 1934, Fard Muhammad disappeared without notifying his followers or designating a successor.Template:Sfnm

Elijah Muhammad's leadership

A clean-shaven, middle-aged black man, wearing an embroidered hat, standing at a podium with microphones in front of him.

Elijah Muhammad, who took over the Nation after its founder's disappearance

Elijah Muhammad then became head of the Nation,Template:Sfnm relocating its headquarters to Chicago,Template:Sfnm and transmitting his ideas through his publications and speeches.Template:Sfn Under his leadership, the NOI's theology took its distinctive form;Template:Sfn Elijah Muhammad claimed that Fard Muhammad had been the latest Allah, and had departed the Earth but left him behind as his messenger.Template:Sfnm

During the Second World War, many Nation members refused the military draft, leading the FBI to arrest 65 members, including Elijah Muhammad, in September 1942.Template:Sfnm Elijah remained imprisoned until August 1946,Template:Sfnm during which time his wife, Clara, largely ran the organisation.Template:Sfnm Despite these set-backs, Elijah Muhammad oversaw the Nation's development into a multi-million dollar business empire incorporating apartments, factories, farms and a small bank.Template:Sfn He himself lived at a villa named The Palace in Chicago's Hyde Park area, and in winter moved to a ranch outside Phoenix, Arizona.Template:Sfn

The NOI's membership grew substantially during the latter part of the 1950s.Template:Sfnm In 1959, the FBI encouraged the media to attack the group,Template:Sfn with the US press increasingly framing the NOI as anti-American and black supremacist.Template:Sfn This negative coverage nonetheless gave the group significant attention and assisted its recruitment.Template:Sfn Further press attention came in 1962, when Los Angeles police raided a Nation temple, during which one member was killed.Template:Sfn Additional issues arose in 1963, when a schism in the Nation's Temple Number 7 in Harlem, New York City led to the creation of a new movement, the Five Percent Nation of Islam.Template:Sfnm

One of the NOI's most significant members in this period was Malcolm X, who rose swiftly through its hierarchy.Template:Sfnm In 1960, he launched the newspaper Muhammad Speaks, which reached a circulation of over 600,000,Template:Sfnm and in 1963 he became the Nation's first national representative.Template:Sfnm He also travelled internationally; in Britain, he met with Michael de Freitas, who joined the Nation and formed a British branch.Template:Sfn In March 1964, Malcolm X left the Nation and became a Sunni Muslim,Template:Sfnm subsequently criticising Elijah Muhammad's extramarital affairs.Template:Sfn In February 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated,Template:Sfnm with three NOI members convicted of the killing the following year.Template:Sfnm Another prominent NOI member was the boxer Muhammad Ali. He encountered the Nation in 1961 and received significant media criticism after announcing his membership of the group in 1964.Template:Sfn

In 1972, the NOI bought the St. Constantine Greek Orthodox Church in Chicago and transformed it into their headquarters temple, Mosque Maryam.Template:Sfn By 1974 it had either a temple/mosque or study group in every US state and in the District of Columbia.Template:Sfn Relations with law enforcement remained strained; in 1972, a policeman was shot and killed during a search of a NOI mosque in Harlem.Template:Sfn The group continued to face opposition from the FBI, which engaged in a renewed counterintelligence project to destabilise it from the late 1960s.Template:Sfn Strained relations also persisted with other American Muslim groups, which increasingly condemned the Nation as un-Islamic.Template:Sfn This sometimes brought direct conflict;Template:Sfn in 1973, NOI members killed seven of Hamaas Abdul Khaalis' Hanafi Muslims.Template:Sfnm

Wallace Muhammad and the NOI's transition to Sunni Islam

In 1975, Elijah Muhammad died and was succeeded by his son, Wallace D. Muhammad.Template:Sfnm Launching what he called the movement's "Second Resurrection",Template:Sfnm Wallace Muhammad rejected many of the Nation's idiosyncratic teachings and increasingly aligned the group with Sunni Islam.Template:Sfnm "Temples" were renamed "mosques", while "ministers" were renamed "imams".Template:Sfnm The Fruit of Islam was disbanded.Template:Sfnm Black nationalism was abandoned,Template:Sfnm and the ban on white people joining the Nation was lifted.Template:Sfnm He nevertheless retained a focus on raising the status of black people,Template:Sfn inviting African Americans to call themselves "Bilalians" after the 7th-century African Muslim, Bilal ibn Rabah.Template:Sfnm

In November 1976, the Nation was renamed the World Community of al-Islam in the West and in April 1978 the American Muslim Mission.Template:Sfnm Wallace Muhammad claimed that these changes were in accordance with his father's intentions,Template:Sfn and that Fard Muhammad had established the NOI to gradually introduce African Americans to Sunni Islam.Template:Sfnm Most mosques accepted Wallace Muhammad's reforms but some rejected them,Template:Sfn establishing small splinter groups in Detroit, Atlanta, and Baltimore.Template:Sfnm In 1985, Wallace Muhammad disbanded his organization, telling his followers to affiliate instead with their local mosques.Template:Sfnm

Louis Farrakhan's revival

An elder black man with short cropped black hair, wearing glasses, looking out towards the viewer. He is wearing a white shirt, grey suit jacket, and red bowtie.

Louis Farrakhan, who re-established the Nation of Islam after leaving Wallace Muhammad's group in 1977

Leading the opposition to Wallace Muhammad's reforms was Louis Farrakhan, who, with other disaffected members, began rebuilding the Nation of Islam in 1977.Template:Sfnm Born in the Bronx to Caribbean migrants,Template:Sfnm Farrakhan had become minister of the NOI's Harlem Temple in 1964 and a national representative in 1967.Template:Sfn

Farrakhan presented himself as Elijah Muhammad's true successor.Template:Sfn His NOI spent the first several years rebuilding,Template:Sfn re-establishing the Fruit of Islam,Template:Sfnm and buying much of its predecessor's property, including the Chicago Palace.Template:Sfnm In 1979, Farrakhan launched a newspaper, The Final Call,Template:Sfnm which by 1994 had a circulation of 500,000.Template:Sfn In 1981, Farrakhan's Nation held its first convention,Template:Sfnm and its membership began to increase rapidly in the mid-1980s.Template:Sfn Farrakhan's Nation expanded its international network by building links in Africa,Template:Sfnm seeking a closer relationship with Muslims globally,Template:Sfn and opening its first British mosques in the 1990s.Template:Sfn

Farrakhan added further novel developments to the Nation's teachings; Masonic elements and numerology came to play an important part in his speeches.Template:Sfn He claimed that in 1985, while at Tepotzotlán in Mexico, he was teleported aboard the Mother Plane spaceship and there met with Elijah Muhammad—who was not really dead—to discuss the Nation's future.Template:Sfnm During the 1990s, Farrakhan was introduced to the Church of Scientology,Template:Sfn and in 2010 he publicly embraced Scientology's system of Dianetics, encouraging NOI members to undergo auditing from the Church.Template:Sfnm Farrakhan also expanded his social outreach projects; in 1989 he launched a campaign against gang violence,Template:Sfn playing a key role in getting two of the country's largest gangs, the Bloods and the Crips, to sign a 1992 ceasefire.Template:Sfn Farrakhan also organized the 1995 Million Man March through Washington, D.C., which constituted the largest black demonstration in US history.Template:Sfnm

Beliefs

Theology

The NOI has a highly distinct and detailed theology.Template:Sfn Although professing a monotheistic belief in a single God, its discourse refers to multiple gods,Template:Sfn meaning that it can be interpreted as polytheistic.Template:Sfn In the NOI's view, each Allah (God) is not an incorporeal spiritual entity but a flesh-and-blood person,Template:Sfn one that takes the form of a black man.Template:Sfnm In Nation teaching, the Allahs are not immortal,Template:Sfnm instead typically living for around 200 to 300 years,Template:Sfn after which a new God will take over from their predecessor.Template:Sfn The Nation regards its founder, Fard Muhammad, as the latest of these Allahs,Template:Sfn or "God in person".Template:Sfnm The Nation teaches that although this founder disappeared in 1934, he would live for another 409 years.Template:Sfn

God is a man and we just cannot make Him other than a man, lest we make Him an inferior one; for man's intelligence has no equal in other than man. His wisdom is infinite; capable of accomplishing anything that His brain can conceive.

Elijah Muhammad, Message to the Black Man, 1965Template:Sfn

Reflecting a belief in the inner divinity of humanity that is common among North America's black-oriented new religions,Template:Sfn the Nation also promotes the idea that "God is man and man is God, that God has a presence inside human individuals."Template:Sfn Accordingly, the NOI teaches that the black race is divine,Template:Sfn a "nation of Gods".Template:Sfn The NOI maintains that by following its teachings, adherents can recognize their inner godliness.Template:Sfn In doing so, it stipulates, black people will also recognise that they have psychic powers;Template:Sfn Elijah Muhammad for instance claimed telepathic abilities.Template:Sfn

According to the scholars of religion Jason Eric Fishman and Ana Belén Soage, the Nation of Islam's theology is "completely divorced" from that of mainstream Islam.Template:Sfn In the latter, God is a single, monotheistic entity, one that is eternal and non-anthropomorphic;Template:Sfn Islam also stresses that there is a fundamental ontological divide between humanity and God, which is at odds with NOI teaching.Template:Sfn Similarly conflicting with mainstream Islam is the NOI's claim that there is no afterlife;Template:Sfnm Elijah Muhammad wrote that "when you are dead, you are DEAD".Template:Sfnm Notions of Heaven, the Nation claims, are a lie used by white Christians to keep black people docile.Template:Sfnm Instead, Elijah Muhammad taught that there is no spiritual realm beyond the material universe.Template:Sfnm

Cosmogony and the Tribe of Shabazz

A group of black male adolescents, with shaven heads, wearing black suit jackets, white shirts, and red bowties.

Young male members of the Nation of Islam in San Francisco in the 1990s

The Nation teaches that in the beginning there was nothing but darkness. Then, 76 trillion years ago, the first Allah willed himself into being, taking 6 million years to form into his desired appearance: that of a black man.Template:Sfnm The first Allah then created the Sun and the planets,Template:Sfnm as well as fellow black gods, who lived predominantly on the Earth but also on Mars.Template:Sfn Of these, the first Allah and 23 others formed a council of ruling imams: 12 greater and 12 lesser.Template:Sfnm

The NOI refers to these early individuals as "god-scientists".Template:Sfn They are part of what it calls the "Original" or "Asiatic" race,Template:Sfnm a people who were divided into 13 tribes.Template:Sfn The Nation labels these people "black",Template:Sfn describing them as having dark skin as well as smooth, straight hair.Template:Sfn In portraying humanity as the creation of the first Allah, rather than a product of evolution, the Nation endorses a unique form of creationism.Template:Sfn According to Nation teaching, one of the god-scientists was a renegade and, 66 trillion years ago, tried to destroy the Earth with explosives. The resulting explosion forced a chunk of the Earth's mass into orbit, where it became the moon.Template:Sfnm One of the 13 tribes was trapped on the moon, where they died due to lack of water.Template:Sfn

An elder black man, wearing a dark brown trilby and suit jacket, with a white shirt and multicoloured bowtie. He holds a stack of newspapers, The Final Call, in one hand.

A male member of the Nation, selling the group's newspaper, in 2015

Of the 12 tribes that remained on Earth, the most resilient was the Tribe of Shabazz,Template:Sfn who settled in Egypt's Nile Valley and the area around Mecca in the Arabian peninsula.Template:Sfnm The Nation calls this region "East Asia",Template:Sfn reflecting its belief that Asia and Africa were once a single continent.Template:Sfn It was because they moved into the "jungles of East Asia" (i.e. Africa), Elijah Muhammad claimed, that members of this Original Asiatic Race developed Afro-textured hair.Template:Sfnm The Nation teaches that the Original Race were Muslims by their intrinsic nature, but that many created heretical deviations such as Hinduism.Template:Sfn

For the Nation, everyone not of West European genetic origin is a descendant of the Original Asiatic Race.Template:Sfnm In contrast to understandings of race held by most Americans,Template:Sfn for the Nation, "black" does not simply mean those of Sub-Saharan African genetic descent, but all people of color, including Asians, North Africans, and Native Americans.Template:Sfnm Even some Eastern Europeans, such as Albanians, are considered descendants of the Original Asiatic Race.Template:Sfn Elijah Muhammad for instance referred to "black, brown, yellow [and] red" people as collectively constituting "black mankind", which he then juxtaposed against the "white race".Template:Sfn

Story of Yakub

The white race is not equal with darker people because the white race was not created by the God of Righteousness[...] Yakub, the father of the devil, made the white race, a race of devils[...] The white race is not made by nature to accept righteousness. They know righteousness, but they cannot be righteous.

Elijah Muhammad, Our Savior Has Arrived, 1974Template:Sfn

The NOI teaches a story about a figure known as Yakub.Template:Sfn The story received its fullest exposition in Elijah Muhammad's 1965 book Message to the Blackman.Template:Sfn In this narrative, Yakub was a black scientist; a child prodigy, by the age of 18 he had learned everything that Mecca's universities had to teach him.Template:Sfnm He attracted a following but caused trouble, leading the Meccan authorities to exile him and his 59,999 followers to Pelan, the Mediterranean island of Patmos.Template:Sfnm

On Pelan, the NOI claims, Yakub engaged in a selective breeding program to create the white race. This entailed breeding new children, with those who were too dark killed at birth and their bodies fed to wild animals or incinerated. Over several centuries, Yakub's experiments created a blonde, light-skinned people, the white race.Template:Sfnm The Nation maintains that most white people are unaware of their true origins, but that such knowledge is held by senior white Freemasons.Template:Sfnm The NOI teaches that, as a group of people distinct from the Original Asiatic Race, the white race are degenerate,Template:Sfn sub-human,Template:Sfn bereft of divinity,Template:Sfn and intrinsically prone to lying, violence, and brutality.Template:Sfnm Elijah Muhammad repeatedly referred to whites as "the devil".Template:Sfnm Various academic commentators have characterised these views as racist.Template:Sfnm

According to the Nation, Yakub's new white race sowed discord among black people, and thus were exiled to live in the caves of "West Asia", meaning Europe.Template:Sfnm In this narrative, it was in Europe that the white race engaged in bestiality;Template:Sfn their attempts to restore their blackness resulted in the creation of apes and monkeys.Template:Sfnm To help the whites develop, the ruling Allah sent prophets to them, the first of whom was Musa (Moses), who taught the whites to cook and wear clothes.Template:Sfnm According to the Nation, Jesus was also a prophet sent to civilise the white race.Template:Sfnm The group rejects the Christian belief that Jesus was a unique manifestation of God, that he was the Messiah, was the product of a virgin birth, or was crucified and resurrected.Template:Sfn

White rule and antisemitic conspiracism

God say you're the real devil. And you damn sure are. Ain't another devil nowhere else. Ain't no use you get mad with me, white people. You are the devil. The only hell-raiser on the earth. I'm not sayin' that you are responsible, 'cause you are made devil. But I'm not gonna make a mistake in thinkin' that you can be made better through love.

Louis Farrakhan’s views on white people being the devilTemplate:Sfn

The NOI teaches that the ruling Allah permitted the white race to rule the Earth for 6000 years,Template:Sfnm a period which ended in 1914.Template:Sfnm It maintains that the ruling Allahs allowed this so that black people would discover humanity's inner potential for evil and learn how to defeat it, thus enabling them to realize their inner divine capacity.Template:Sfn

During the era of white rule, the Nation states, the whites enslaved the Tribe of Shabazz, shipping many of them to the Americas.Template:Sfn The NOI claims that most enslaved blacks forgot their true names, their Arabic language, and their Muslim identity, instead embracing Christianity,Template:Sfn which the Nation labels "white man's religion".Template:Sfnm The Nation claims that in their enslaved state, black people began engaging in sinful behaviour such as fornication and drinking alcohol,Template:Sfn something encouraged by the whites.Template:Sfn The group interprets many of the problems facing African Americans in this framework; Farrakhan for instance claimed that the white establishment encouraged a black gang culture to provide an excuse for the police killing of black youths,Template:Sfn that they flooded black-majority areas with drugs,Template:Sfn and that they created AIDS to exterminate black people.Template:Sfn In making this argument, the NOI equates the United States with the city of Babylon, which in the Bible is presented as a symbol of oppression.Template:Sfnm

An elder black gentleman, with short cropped black hair and wearing glasses, sitting before a podium with microphones in front of him.

Farrakhan on a 2016 visit to Tehran, Iran; Farrakhan has repeatedly been accused of antisemitism

Elijah Muhammad suggested that Orthodox Jews, by following the laws set down by Moses, had raised themselves to a higher spiritual level than most white people.Template:Sfn Subsequently, Farrakhan and his NOI have repeatedly been accused of antisemitism.Template:Sfnm Farrakhan promoted antisemitic tropes about a Jewish cabal controlling the US government, banking systems, universities, and entertainment sector.Template:Sfn Elsewhere, Farrakhan called Judaism a "dirty religion",Template:Sfnm and described Adolf Hitler as a "very great man".Template:Sfn Other senior figures have also made antisemitic statements. NOI representative Khalid Abdul Muhammad referred to the "Jew-nited Nations" in "Jew York City",Template:Sfn while NOI health minister Abdul Alim Muhammad accused Jewish doctors of injecting blacks with AIDS.Template:Sfn The group has also espoused the claim that Jews were disproportionately responsible for the Atlantic slave trade,Template:Sfnm and has embraced an anti-Zionist position regarding Israel.Template:Sfn

Eschatology and the Mother Plane

The NOI is millenarian.Template:Sfnm Central to its view of the apocalypse is a large spaceship, known as the Mother Plane, the Mother Ship, or the Wheel,Template:Sfnm which Elijah Muhammad described as "a small human planet".Template:Sfn The Nation teaches that this vessel is the Merkabah that appears in the Book of Ezekiel (1:4–28).Template:Sfnm It maintains that Fard Muhammad/Allah and many of his scientists live aboard the Mother Plane;Template:Sfn Farrakhan has claimed that Elijah Muhammad never died but is resident aboard this ship.Template:Sfn The Nation teaches that there are also smaller vessels, "baby planes", docked inside the Mother Plane and which travel to Earth.Template:Sfn

NOI members have repeatedly claimed that this apocalypse is imminent; in the early 1960s, Elijah Muhammad was predicting that it would occur in 1965 or 1966,Template:Sfn Farrakhan later stated that the Gulf War of 1990 would spark it,Template:Sfn while Tynetta Muhammad thought it would occur in 2001.Template:Sfn According to Nation teaching, the apocalypse will come when the Mother Plane appears above the Earth and transports the righteous to live aboard it.Template:Sfn It will then use the baby planes to bury bombs beneath the Earth's surface, which on detonation will wipe out the old, white-dominated order.Template:Sfnm The NOI has taught that the white ruling elite are aware of this forthcoming apocalypse and that the US exploration of space and the Strategic Defense Initiative are futile attempts to protect themselves from the Mother Plane.Template:Sfnm

According to this account, after the bombs explode the Earth's atmosphere will burn for 390 years and spend another 610 cooling down.Template:Sfn Once the Earth is again habitable, the ruling Allah will return the righteous to the planet, in a new black paradise.Template:Sfnm In his book The Supreme Wisdom, Elijah Muhammad claimed that after the apocalypse, "Peace, joy and happiness will have no end,"Template:Sfn with residents of this perfect society eating the finest food and wearing silk clothes interwoven with gold.Template:Sfnm

Black nationalism and separatism

Black unity is at the core of the NOI's black nationalist ideology.Template:Sfn The group seeks to empower black people by purging ideas they may have of white superiority and black inferiority.Template:Sfn Instead, it maintains that the black race is superior and the white race inferior.Template:Sfnm The Nation is also black separatist,Template:Sfnm rejecting the integration of black and white people.Template:Sfnm This racial separatism put the NOI at odds with the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.Template:Sfn The Nation was critical of African American activists who promoted racial integration, such as Martin Luther King Jr. and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP),Template:Sfn calling them "Uncle Tom Negroes".Template:Sfnm

We want our people in America whose parents or grandparents are descendants from slaves to be allowed to establish a separate state or territory of their own, either on this continent or elsewhere. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to provide such land and that the area must be fertile and minerally rich.

Elijah Muhammad, 1965Template:Sfn

As compensation for the unpaid labor of their enslaved ancestors,Template:Sfn the NOI has called for the creation of a sovereign African American nation-state in the southern part of the United States.Template:Sfnm Elijah Muhammad stipulated that the US should financially support this new country for 20 to 25 years.Template:Sfnm Farrakhan also suggested that the countries of Africa should set aside land on that continent for the African diaspora, characterising this as a reparation for the complicity of West African states in the Atlantic slave trade.Template:Sfn

Rejecting Pan-Africanism,Template:Sfn the NOI focuses on African Americans rather than emphasising links between Africa and the African diaspora.Template:Sfnm Elijah Muhammad stated that "where as the Black man in Africa is our brother, our central responsibility is with the Black man here in the wilderness of North America".Template:Sfnm The NOI's origin myths present Mecca, not Africa, as the original home of African Americans,Template:Sfn and its writings portray Africa itself as the least desirable of the Original Asiatic lands.Template:Sfn The scholar of religion Michael Muhammad Knight argued that Elijah Muhammad "upheld white supremacist tropes" about African cultures.Template:Sfn Elijah for instance complained of Africans' "savage dress and hair styles,"Template:Sfn adding that it was the Nation's job to "civilize Africa".Template:Sfn

Gender and sexuality issues

A large number of black women, wearing white hats and white tops with long sleeves.

Women members of the NOI at a Savior's Day meeting in 1974. A women's outfit incorporating a headpiece and full-length garment covering the arms and legs was introduced in the 1930s, intended to preserve the wearer's modesty.Template:Sfn

The NOI's teachings on gender are conservative and patriarchal.Template:Sfnm Emphasis is placed on the family unit;Template:Sfn the group is critical of the matrifocal focus of many African American families, instead stressing the importance of a male family figurehead.Template:Sfn Men are encouraged to be economic providers for their family;Template:Sfnm women to be caretakers of the household and children.Template:Sfnm Outsiders often perceive the Nation's women as victims of male oppression,Template:Sfn and some ex-NOI women have complained of a repressive atmosphere in the group.Template:Sfn

The NOI's leadership is overwhelmingly male.Template:Sfn Despite this, Clara Muhammad led the group while Elijah Muhammad was incarcerated between 1942 and 1946,Template:Sfnm and during the 1990s several women rose to senior positions;Template:Sfnm in 1998 the Nation appointed its first woman minister, Ava Muhammad, as head of Mosque Number 15 in Georgia.Template:Sfnm Women have also been allowed leadership in the Muslim Girls Training group and in the NOI's schools and businesses.Template:Sfn

The NOI enforces heterosexual monogamy and encourages sexual abstinence prior to marriage.Template:Sfn Despite the group's formal opposition to polygyny, Elijah Muhammad had sexual relations with multiple women, whom Farrakhan has called his "wives";Template:Sfn the group states that this was permitted because Elijah was God's messenger.Template:Sfn Nation members are encouraged to wed other members,Template:Sfn although marriage to non-members is permitted.Template:Sfnm The NOI stipulates that followers should only marry other black people,Template:Sfnm although this includes Native, Latino, and African Americans.Template:Sfn Marrying whites is taboo,Template:Sfn with the group claiming that sex with white women emasculates black men.Template:Sfn

Two middle-aged black woman stand looking at the viewer, evidently posing for the photograph. The woman on the left is wearing a purple outfit with long sleeves and a matching headpiece.

Ava Muhammad (left, photographed in 2014), was the NOI's first female minister

Men and women are discouraged from forming friendships with each other.Template:Sfn Instead, members seeking to court each other are expected to inform the captain of their local Fruit of Islam or Muslim Girls Training branch about their intentions.Template:Sfnm Men found to have beaten their wives are temporarily suspended from Nation membership.Template:Sfn Divorce is discouraged but not forbidden.Template:Sfnm NOI members are encouraged to have children, with Farrakhan also encouraging adoption.Template:Sfn Children are expected to study hard, avoid street culture, and respect their elders.Template:Sfn

The Nation criticises birth control methods as the white establishment's attempt to lower the black birthrate,Template:Sfnm although does not ban their use.Template:Sfn Farrakhan expressed support for abortion in cases of rape, incest or where the woman's life is endangered.Template:Sfnm Same-sex relationships are condemned as immoral.Template:Sfnm Elijah Muhammad complained that schools, jails, and prisons were "breeding dens of homosexuals,"Template:Sfn while Farrakhan banned gay men from his Million Man March, bringing accusations of homophobia.Template:Sfn

Practices

Services, prayer, and celebration

The front of a building. On the right is a closed white door; on the left is a window on which is a poster proclaiming "Muhammad Mosque Number 65".

A Nation of Islam mosque in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States in 2005

During the 1960s and early 1970s, the NOI's places of worship were called both temples and mosques,Template:Sfnm although the latter term was favored under both Wallace D. Muhammad and Farrakhan.Template:Sfn These were numbered in order of their foundation.Template:Sfn As well as their religious function, NOI mosques can also serve as community centers, banks, schools, and child-care facilities.Template:Sfn The mosque leader is called a captain and will be a member of the Fruit of Islam subgroup.Template:Sfn

Those attending services will sometimes be searched by members of the Fruit of Islam or the Muslim Girl's Training group, who look for weapons and discouraged objects like cosmetics and cigarettes.Template:Sfn Attendees are then seen to their seats,Template:Sfn usually rows of benches.Template:Sfn The sexes are segregated; women on the right and men on the left.Template:Sfnm The tone of Nation services is sombre and quiet.Template:Sfn Services typically begin with the statement "As-salamu alaykum" (peace be upon you), with the congregation responding "Wa 'alaikum As-salam" (and also upon you).Template:Sfn The congregation will pray together,Template:Sfn the Nation's "national anthem" may be played,Template:Sfn and a minister will provide a lecture and sometimes read verses from either the Bible or Quran.Template:Sfn

A large hall full of black men, dressed in suits and ties, clapping.

Members of Nation of Islam applaud during Elijah Muhammad's annual Saviors' Day message in Chicago in 1974.

In the late 1950s, Elijah Muhammad published a prayer manual outlining how his followers should pray five times a day.Template:Sfn This involved an ablution beforehand,Template:Sfn typically involving washing the hands, face, and ears, symbolically associating physical cleanliness with the broader purification of the body.Template:Sfn Women cover their heads while praying.Template:Sfn Elijah Muhammad stipulated that prayers should be in English, although commented that in future he would explain how to do so in Arabic.Template:Sfn In later articles, he explained that his followers should face towards Mecca as they pray, symbolising their journey toward the restoration of black greatness.Template:Sfn

The most important date in the Nation's year is February 26, Saviors' Day, which members believe is Fard Muhammad's birthday.Template:Sfnm This is the date on which the organization holds its annual national convention.Template:Sfn Under Farrakhan, the Nation introduced a second annual Savior's Day, on October 7, to mark the birth of Elijah Muhammad.Template:Sfn In the 1990s, Farrakhan's Nation also introduced an annual event called the World's Day of Atonement or Holy Day of Atonement, held over the course of October 15 and 16; this is characterised by fasting, prayer, and reconciliation.Template:Sfnm In addition to marking festivals, NOI members are encouraged to make the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca;Template:Sfn Elijah Muhammad himself did so three times.Template:Sfn

Lifestyle

As a declaration of mental emancipation, the Nation requests that members change any names inherited from white slave-owners.Template:Sfnm This is not necessary if the new member has a name that is African in origin.Template:Sfn In the NOI's early years, Fard Muhammad bestowed new names on followers for a $10 fee.Template:Sfn During the mid-20th century the Nation began encouraging the use of "X" as a surname, symbolising an African American's identity as an "ex-slave" and providing a marker for their lost ancestral name.Template:Sfn As this results in many individuals having the same name, numbers are added before the X to differentiate members (i.e. "Charles 2X", "Charles 3X").Template:Sfnm

A group of black men, with closely cropped hair and wearing navy blue suits, in a line saluting.

Members of the Fruit of Islam at Chicago's Bud Billiken Parade in 2015

The NOI encourages followers to live highly disciplined and structured lifestyles.Template:Sfn Members are expected to obey the law,Template:Sfnm to seek gainful employment,Template:Sfnm to always be punctual,Template:Sfn to avoid buying on credit,Template:Sfn and to never gamble.Template:Sfnm They are also urged not to rely on state welfare payments, with the Nation arguing that these undermine the African American community's ability to be self-sufficient.Template:Sfn

Male members typically cut their hair short, sometimes shaving the head entirely, and do not usually wear beards.Template:Sfn They are expected to wear suits with ties or bowties;Template:Sfnm those who are part of the Fruit of Islam wear military-style uniforms,Template:Sfn sometimes accompanied by a fez.Template:Sfn Women are commanded to dress modestly;Template:Sfnm they are not permitted to wear trousers,Template:Sfn are expected to wear long sleeves,Template:Sfn and are encouraged to cover their heads.Template:Sfnm Cosmetics and the chemical or heat-based straightening of hair is also discouraged.Template:Sfn

Dietary requirements

A selection of pies of various sizes.

Bean pies are associated with the Nation and Elijah Muhammad encouraged their consumption.Template:Sfn

The NOI teaches that practitioners should keep fit and eat healthily,Template:Sfnm as part of which it espouses strict dietary rules.Template:Sfn These were outlined by Elijah Muhammad, who claimed to have received them from Fard Muhammad.Template:Sfn

Vegetarianism is encouraged, although not obligatory,Template:Sfnm with Elijah Muhammad writing that "meat was never intended for man to eat".Template:Sfn In How to Eat to Live, Elijah Muhammad urged his followers to subsist primarily on fruit, vegetables, and certain grains, and to choose lamb if they must eat meat.Template:Sfn Pork is forbidden on the grounds that pigs are deemed unclean.Template:Sfnm Other discouraged foods include dried fruits,Template:Sfn white flour,Template:Sfnm additives,Template:Sfn and fast food.Template:Sfn Although its own produce is not wholly organic, the Nation is supportive of organic food and the avoidance of genetically modified crops, insecticides, and pesticides.Template:Sfn

The NOI also encourages followers to avoid foods associated with the slave culture of the US, such as cornbread, catfish, and collard greens, deeming this cuisine to be undignified and unhealthy.Template:Sfnm Concerned about obesity and diabetes among African Americans, Elijah Muhammad urged his followers to restrict their caloric intake, ideally by eating only one meal a day.Template:Sfnm He claimed that those who ate only once every 24 hours would live for 150 years and that those who ate once every seven days would live for 1,050 years.Template:Sfn Members are also encouraged to conduct regular three-day fasts,Template:Sfn and to fast during the daylight throughout December.Template:Sfn The NOI also prohibits the use of alcohol,Template:Sfnm tobacco,Template:Sfnm and recreational drugs.Template:Sfnm In addition, it advises that followers avoid vaccines,Template:Sfn typically deeming them part of a white conspiracy to deplete populations of color.Template:Sfn

Economic and educational independence

A selection of baked goods on shelves, next to a photograph of a middle-aged black man on the wall

The interior of a Nation-owned bakery in Oakland, California

Espousing economic nationalism,Template:Sfn the Nation follows earlier thinkers like Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey in emphasizing African American infrastructure as a means of community empowerment.Template:Sfn The Nation has created many companies,Template:Sfn including the Salaam restaurant chain, the Shabazz bakeries, the Fashahnn Islamic clothing range, the Clean 'N Fresh skin and haircare products, and Abundant Life Clinics.Template:Sfn These businesses provide income for the NOI and help address African American unemployment.Template:Sfn

Since the 1980s, the Nation has sought government contracts,Template:Sfn and in 1988, it established the Security Agency Incorporated to provide Fruit of Islam patrols for clients.Template:Sfnm In 1985 it launched its POWER (People Organized and Working for Economic Rebirth) project, designed to redirect black purchasing power toward black-owned businesses.Template:Sfnm It also seeks African American economic advancement through individual achievement;Template:Sfn various women members have created their own businesses, sometimes run from the home.Template:Sfn While the Nation's African American anti-capitalist critics have derided the group's economic approach as black capitalism,Template:Sfnm Farrakhan has responded that capitalism is the only feasible road to African American economic empowerment.Template:Sfn

The Nation prioritises land ownership to increase food production and African American autonomy,Template:Sfn utilising the slogan: "the farm is the engine of our national life."Template:Sfn It established a farm in White Cloud, Michigan in 1947,Template:Sfn and by the early 1970s owned 20,000 acres of farm land in Michigan, Alabama, and Georgia.Template:Sfn In 1991, Farrakhan's Nation launched its Three Year Economic Savings Plan, asking followers to send them $10 a month over three years, money that would collectively allow the group to buy more farmland.Template:Sfn As a result, in 1994 it purchased 1,556 acres near Bronwood, Georgia, there establishing Muhammad Farms.Template:Sfnm Much of the produce grown there is distributed to NOI mosques around the country.Template:Sfnm The NOI hopes to establish a system of black-owned farms through which to feed 40 million black people,Template:Sfn with the stated aim of providing at least one healthy meal a day for every African American.Template:Sfnm NOI members also own urban gardens in various US cities.Template:Sfn

The NOI is highly critical of the US school system, believing that it perpetuates white supremacy, and so has established its own educational system.Template:Sfnm This includes Muhammad Universities of Islam; most of these are elementary schools, although a few also offer secondary education.Template:Sfnm These emphasize science, mathematics, black history, Arabic, and NOI doctrine;Template:Sfn Farrakhan has said that the Nation needs to provide black children with "an education to make them Gods".Template:Sfn In these schools, boys and girls are taught separately;Template:Sfnm pupils receive two weeks of vacation each year.Template:Sfn Combating the idea that academic achievement entails "acting white", the Nation has sought to associate hard work in school with pride in being black.Template:Sfn

Civic engagement

A group of black men, wearing navy blue uniforms, seated in two lines which intersect to form a V formation.

Members of the Fruit of Islam in 1974

The Nation has long been involved in civic, economic, and political activities.Template:Sfn In African American-majority neighborhoods, the NOI has engaged in door-to-door campaigns to raise awareness about local pollution,Template:Sfn provided services that public institutions do not,Template:Sfnm and used Fruit of Islam patrols as a community watchdogTemplate:Sfn—especially to stop drug-dealing.Template:Sfn These efforts have earned praise from within the broader African American community.Template:Sfn

Although the scholar of religion Stephen C. Finley maintained that the NOI is "first and foremost a religious community,"Template:Sfn it does formulate political demands.Template:Sfnm The NOI has nevertheless urged its members to avoid electoral politics;Template:Sfn Elijah Muhammad instructed them not to vote.Template:Sfnm Later, Farrakhan backed Jesse Jackson's 1984 campaign to become the Democratic Party's presidential candidate,Template:Sfnm and in 1990 three NOI candidates stood for election in the US.Template:Sfn Although many outsiders have presumed the NOI to be a revolutionary movement,Template:Sfn it has not sought to foment political revolution or violent social change, instead focusing on shifting the consciousness of its members, encouraging personal moral improvement, family building, and economic productivity.Template:Sfnm

Organization

Leadership and financing

A large greyish stone building, topped with a golden dome.

Mosque Maryam in Chicago, the headquarters of the Nation of Islam

Headquartered at Mosque Maryam in Chicago,Template:Sfn the Nation is highly hierarchical.Template:Sfn By the 2020s, it was governed by an executive council of 13 members, potentially alluding to the original 13 tribes of humanity in NOI belief.Template:Sfn It also maintains ten ministries: for Spiritual Development, Agriculture, Education, Information, Health, Trade and Commerce, Defense, Justice, Arts and Culture, and Science and Technology.Template:Sfn During its history it has also operated a shadow ministry, forming the prototype for the governance of the future state it hopes to lead.Template:Sfn Within the group's senior ranks, family ties are important; various members of Elijah Muhammad's family were married to members of Farrakhan's family.Template:Sfn

Responsible for the group's security is the supreme captain, one of the organization's most powerful roles.Template:Sfn Security is provided by the Fruit of Islam, a group of men trained in military protocol, wrestling, boxing, and judo.Template:Sfnm Expected to strictly follow the Nation's rules, the Fruit protect NOI leaders, temples/mosques, and other NOI property.Template:Sfn The Nation also runs its Muslim Girls Training, whose members receive lessons in domestic skills and self defense.Template:Sfnm

Funding for the NOI's operations come primarily from donations and its businesses.Template:Sfn At the start of the 1960s, it was reported that members were expected to donate a set part of their earnings to the group each year; as of 1952, this reportedly constituted a third of a member's income.Template:Sfn In 1976, Wallace Muhammad estimated the Nation's net worth to be $46 million, although revealed it had a severe cash flow problem, owed millions in back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service, and was making a loss with its agricultural operations.Template:Sfn Although the Nation does not disclose the extent of its financial resources,Template:Sfn in the 1990s its assets were estimated to total $80,000,000.Template:Sfn

Press and media

From its early days, the Nation promoted its ideas through print media, issuing the magazines Muhammad Speaks and The Final Call.Template:Sfn Muhammad Speaks—which was published from 1961 to 1975Template:Sfnm—included contributions not only from Nation members, but also from various African American leftists.Template:Sfn Members were encouraged to sell these magazines on street corners or door-to-door in African American neighborhoods.Template:Sfn These sellers were given sales quotas to fulfil and were sometimes punished if they failed to meet them.Template:Sfn The Nation's first magazine for women, Righteous Living, appeared in the early 1990s.Template:Sfn Other media outputs have included radio shows,Template:Sfn videos,Template:Sfn and websites and social media accounts.Template:Sfn

Domestic and international affiliations

A middle-aged man, with black hair and facial stubble, wearing a white robe.

Gaddafi was the Nation's most prominent international supporter; Farrakhan stated that "we will always love him, admire and respect him and stand up and speak on his behalf".Template:Sfn

In the 1930s and 1940s, the Nation had links with the Japanese Satokata Takahashi,Template:Sfnm whom Elijah Muhammad declared was teaching that "the Japanese were brothers and friends of the American Negroes".Template:Sfn During the Second World War, in which the US fought Japan, many Nation members expressed pro-Japanese sentiment and refused to fight people they regarded as fellow members of the Original Asiatic Race.Template:Sfn The Nation has remained critical of "US aggression" towards countries with non-white or Muslim majorities.Template:Sfn

Under Elijah Muhammad, the Nation established relations with various Muslim countries.Template:Sfnm In 1957, Malcolm X organized a conference on colonialism attended by delegates from Egypt, Iraq, Sudan, and Morocco,Template:Sfnm while Elijah Muhammad met with Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1959 and the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 1972.Template:Sfn For many years, Gaddafi was the Nation's most prominent international supporter.Template:Sfn His government gave the Nation a $3 million interest-free loan in 1972 to purchase its Chicago South Side centre,Template:Sfnm and another $5 million interest-free loan in 1985 to fund its black enterprise program.Template:Sfnm It later offered Farrakhan's Nation $1 billion, which the US government sought to block.Template:Sfnm Farrakhan visited Ghana and Libya in 1985,Template:Sfn later embarking on a larger international tour in 1996, meeting with Gaddafi, Ghana's Jerry Rawlings, Nigeria's Sani Abacha, South Africa's Nelson Mandela, and Iraq's Saddam Hussein,Template:Sfn and also attending annual celebrations of the Iranian Revolution in Tehran.Template:Sfnm

Like Garvey's UNIA, the Nation built links with white nationalist and other far-right white groups because of their shared belief in racial separatism.Template:Sfnm Malcolm X revealed that the Nation had met with Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and American Nazi Party (ANP) representatives;Template:Sfn the ANP's leader George Lincoln Rockwell spoke at the Nation's 1962 Savior's Day rally in Chicago.Template:Sfnm Links with the white far-right continued under Farrakhan, with Tom Metzger of the White Aryan Resistance donating money to the Nation in 1985,Template:Sfnm and links also being established with the British National Front during the 1980s.Template:Sfn By the 1990s, the Nation collaborated with the far-right LaRouche movement as part of their shared opposition to the US-led Gulf War.Template:Sfnm These links have not prevented some white far-right opposition to the NOI; in 1993 the Fourth Reich Skinheads were revealed to have plotted to kill Farrakhan.Template:Sfn

Demographics

In their testimonies of "What Islam Has Done For Me," most believers offered personal narratives about what life was like before conversion to [the Nation of] Islam, how they came to convert, and what happened to them as a result. These moving tales often included the stories of how ex-convicts, drug addicts, and sexually promiscuous men and women came to find pride, self-esteem, dignity, good health, a sense of peace and security, a happy marriage, and gainful employment as a result of their conversion.

Historian Edward E. Curtis IVTemplate:Sfn

The Nation does not publish the size of its membership,Template:Sfn and there have been no censuses to determine a reliable number.Template:Sfn Under Fard Muhammad's leadership, membership reached a total of approximately 8,000,Template:Sfn and by 1960 it was estimated at between 30,000 and 100,000.Template:Sfn In 2007, the scholar of religion Lawrence A. Mamiya suggested that membership stood at around 50,000.Template:Sfn At various points, the Nation has had a high member turnover;Template:Sfn many members have left the group,Template:Sfn sometimes becoming Sunni Muslims.Template:Sfnm

While based in the US, the Nation has also established either a presence or influence among African diasporic communities elsewhere;Template:Sfn in 2006, the scholar Nuri Tinaz suggested that the Nation "may have" up to 2,000 members and sympathisers in the United Kingdom.Template:Sfn Despite focusing on African Americans, since Elijah Muhammad's era it has also sought to recruit Latino and Native Americans.Template:Sfnm As of 2009, Latinos were estimated to comprise over 20 percent of the Nation's membership, although some complained of facing ethnic prejudice within the organisation.Template:Sfn

In its early decades, the Nation's appeal was strongest in poor African American neighborhoods,Template:Sfn but over the course of the 20th century its membership became increasingly middle-class.Template:Sfnm The scholar of religion Mattias Gardell attributed this to the Nation's focus on hard work and rigid morality, which helped improve the economic situation of its members, coupled with the broader growth of the African American middle class in this period.Template:Sfn He also believed that the changing class composition, and with it a less hostile attitude to white-dominant society, assisted the 1970s shift to Sunnism under Wallace Muhammad.Template:Sfn

Conversion

The NOI refers to its proselytising efforts as "fishing for the dead".Template:Sfn To this end, it holds open meetings, mass rallies, street-corner lectures, and prison outreach,Template:Sfn and has used books, radio broadcasts, and audio-recorded speeches to promote its message.Template:Sfn Through this, it has sought to attract unemployed, disenchanted black youth,Template:Sfn with its recruitment efforts proving particularly effective among drug addicts and incarcerated criminals.Template:Sfnm

A group of young black men, wearing suits and with shaven heads, standing outdoors. One is in the centre, speaking aloud. The others surround him, facing outward. Although the speaker does not wear sunglasses, the others all do.

Nation of Islam members proselytising at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park, London in 1999

The Nation was active in prison ministry by the 1950s, with its numbers of imprisoned followers rising steadily in the latter part of that decade;Template:Sfn among these imprisoned recruits was Malcolm X.Template:Sfnm Farrakhan stepped up the prison ministry in the 1980s.Template:Sfn By the early 1960s, prison authorities were raising concerns that the NOI was exacerbating racial tensions in prisons.Template:Sfn Some incarcerated members have reported discriminatory treatment from prison authorities because of their religion,Template:Sfnm and have sometimes responded with legal action.Template:Sfn

Various motivations have led people to join the Nation.Template:Sfn The historian Zoe Colley thought that the NOI appealed to men living in poverty by offering them the "opportunity to reclaim their manhood and sense of pride",Template:Sfn with some members reporting that joining helped them overcome low self-esteem or depression.Template:Sfn Ula Y. Taylor, a scholar of African American studies, suggested that female members were attracted by the Nation's offer of a "stable family life" and the opportunity to assist "the development of a new black nation".Template:Sfn The Nation also attracted followers with its offer of a separate schooling system where African American children would not suffer the racism found in public schools.Template:Sfn

Reception and influence

A white circle around the outer edge of which is written "In the Name of Allah" and "Nation of Islam". In the centre is a red square, within which is a small white star and a left-facing white crescent shape.

The logo of the Nation on its property in Indianapolis, Indiana

The sociologist of religion David V. Barrett called the NOI "one of the most visible and controversial black religions",Template:Sfn while Gardell termed it the "most renowned and controversial" of the African American Muslim groups.Template:Sfn According to the black studies scholar Malachi D. Crawford, the NOI became "perhaps the most influential African American religious community in the twentieth century".Template:Sfn

Various groups have broken from the Nation, including Clarence 13X's Five-Percent Nation,Template:Sfnm Silas Muhammad's Original Nation of Islam,Template:Sfn and Solomon Muhammad's United Nation of Islam.Template:Sfn The NOI has also influenced the development of other religions, including the Nuwaubian Nation,Template:Sfnm whose founder, Dwight York, claimed that Elijah Muhammad had heralded his own arrival.Template:Sfn Influences from the NOI have also been argued for the Word of Faith movement.Template:Sfn

Despite reticence from the Nation itself during much of its history,Template:Sfnm the group has been the subject of much scholarly attention.Template:Sfn Initial research, largely undertaken by historians and sociologists in the late 1950s and 1960s, was often hostile or dismissive; research influenced by disciplines like religious studies and gender studies followed later.Template:Sfn

Cultural impact

The black studies scholar Priscilla McCutcheon noted that although the NOI remained comparatively small, it had "a wide discursive reach".Template:Sfn By the 1990s, its influence among black youth was far larger than its membership,Template:Sfn being evidence among hip hop and rap artists like Public Enemy, Ice Cube, Kam, The Skinny Boys, and Sister Souljah.Template:Sfn The Nation has cultivated a sense of pride among many African Americans,Template:Sfn and its role in confronting gang violence, drugs, and poverty within African American communities has earned it respect.Template:Sfn The sociologist A.A. Akom opined that the NOI had a reputation among African Americans of "speaking truth to power";Template:Sfn a 1994 Time/CNN poll found that two-thirds of African Americans who knew of Farrakhan viewed him favorably.Template:Sfn Similarly positive assessments of the Nation have been observed among Britain's black communities.Template:Sfn

Other black, as well as non-black people, have criticised the Nation.Template:Sfn Critics have characterised Fard Muhammad as a petty criminal who swindled his followers,Template:Sfn accused the group of stirring up anti-white racial hatred,Template:Sfn and maintained that the NOI's teachings are illogical and irrational.Template:Sfn Scientists have labelled the group's mythological accounts as pseudoscience.Template:Sfn Most mainstream American Muslim groups have distanced themselves from the NOI,Template:Sfnm as have smaller Muslim groups like the Ahmadiyya,Template:Sfnm typically maintaining that Nation members are not true Muslims.Template:Sfn Elijah Muhammad countered by claiming that the "Old Islam" of his critics was "led by white people",Template:Sfn while Farrakhan responded by accusing the Islamic world of racism and sectarian violence.Template:Sfn

Civil rights groups have also criticised the Nation; the NAACP's Roy Wilkins labelled it a "hate group",Template:Sfnm while the Southern Poverty Law Center accused it of promoting an "innate black superiority over whites" and having a "lengthy record of antisemitism, homophobia, and connections to prominent white supremacists".Template:Sfn The NOI has also been accused of antisemitism by groups like the Anti-Defamation League,Template:Sfnm an organization that has placed the group under surveillance, lobbied against it, and attempted to block its enterprises.Template:Sfn Four Jewish organizations withdrew their sponsorship of the Parliament of World Religions when it invited Farrakhan to speak,Template:Sfn while Jewish student groups have picketed Farrakhan's speeches on university campuses.Template:Sfn Far-right Jewish groups have gone further; the Jewish Defense League organized a 1985 "Death to Farrakhan" march,Template:Sfnm while the Jewish Defense Organization included Farrakhan on its kill list.Template:Sfn

External links

• Nation of Islam profile at the World Religion and Spirituality Project (WRSP)
• Messenger Elijah Muhammad Web Resources Center, Online books, audio, and video
• Nation of Islam-affiliated Final Call newspaper website
• Official Website of the United Kingdom Branch of the Nation of Islam
• Federal Bureau of Prisons Technical Reference Manual on Inmate Beliefs and Practices
• FBI file on the Nation of Islam