The Nation of Islam was founded 4 July 1930 by W. D. Fard. The first members were recent African-American migrants from the south in a Detroit, Mich., ghetto. NOI soon expanded to Chicago, and other northern cities, under the direction of Fard's hand-picked successor, Elijah Muhammad, drawing followers primarily from the black underclass. Although nominally Muslim, the NOI is an indigenous religious movement with its roots in Christianity, its methods and leadership derived from black social movements, and its focus racial and political. High-profile conversions of black Americans in the 1960s, including boxing champion Muhammad Ali and basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, drew attention to the NOI even as its former rising star, Malcolm X, withdrew his support following a 1964 pilgrimage to Mecca and his discovery of Elijah Muhammad's extra-marital escapades. (Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965, probably on NOI instructions.) Verifiable membership statistics are not available; estimates range between 10,000 and 100,000 at its peak in the late 1960s. When Elijah Muhammad died in 1975, his son and successor, W. D. Muhammad, led the NOI away from its separatist doctrines and toward mainstream Sunni Islam. However, a significant number of NOI adherents transferred their allegiance to rival NOI official Louis Farrakhan, who reaffirmed the original theology and practice of NOI. W. D. Muhammad's group became the American Muslim Mission, allied with American Sunni Islam, leaving to Farrakhan the NOI name and tradition. Although Farrakhan publicly embraced his former NOI rival, now known as W. Deen Mohammed, during Savior's Day celebrations in 2000, the NOI maintains its separate organizational structure, variant theology and worldview. NOI has a unique cosmology, including the assertion that W. D. Fard was God-in-Person and Elijah Muhammad was his messenger. Savior's Day, celebrated 26 February, celebrates W. D. Fard's birthday.
The theology of the Nation of Islam bears little resemblance to mainstream American Muslim beliefs. Its rituals and sermons draw upon Christian themes, and both its early leaders and its core membership are drawn from the black Christian community. NOI is promoted as a more authentic faith for blacks than white Christianity, a religion imposed during slavery.
As developed by Elijah Muhammad, NOI cosmology holds that 25 black scientists create 25,000 year scenarios which then unfold and the cycle repeats. Some 66 trillion years ago blacks were exiled from the moon. Then, 6,600 years ago, Yakub, a black scientist/god grafted the white race (a race of devils) from the superior black race. These whites were given 6,000 years to rule over the earth before it became time again for the black race to rule.
NOI has its roots in black separatism and nationalism, social movements born in the post-Emancipation struggle of black Americans for equality. Only African-Americans could become NOI members, and immigrants from Muslim-majority countries were barred from attending NOI services. Both Elijah Muhammad's and Malcolm X's fathers were organizers for Marcus Garvey's "Back to Africa" campaign. Elijah Muhammad and W.D. Fard also likely were members of Noble Drew Ali's Moorish Science Temple in Detroit in the late 1920s. Government surveillance of NOI began in the 1930s; FBI files on the group are extensive.
In the first decade after W.D. Fard's disappearance, the Nation of Islam faltered. Its membership slipped from a peak of some 8000 to about 100. Then, Elijah Muhammad was jailed for resisting the draft during World War II, and realized that he and his fellow inmates were virtually ignored by the black churches. Once released, Elijah Muhammad began a new recruitment. Focusing on the downtrodden -- prisoners, prostitutes, young delinquents -- the NOI experienced unprecedented growth, which continued through the Black Power movement of the 1960s. The growth in numbers brought economic rewards; the NOI owns extensive real estate and operates several businesses.
The 1975 death of Elijah Muhammad magnified rifts within the Black Muslim movement. Estimates range as high as 17 for the number of resulting NOI splinter groups, but the American Muslim Mission (now the Muslim American Society of W. D. Mohammed) and the NOI reconstituted under Louis Farrakhan are the largest.
In 1988, NOI repurchased its former flagship temple in Chicago and dedicated it as Mosque Maryam, the National Center for Re-training and Re-education of the Black Man and Woman of America and the World. The National Center includes a preschool and K-12 University of Islam. In 1995, NOI sponsored the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. In 2002, Farrakhan continues to lead NOI as a black nationalist religious movement of African-Americans, maintaining its tightly-knit network of mosques, schools and newspaper, "The Final Call".
--By Susan McKee
Essien-Udom, E.U. Black Nationalism: A Search for An Identity in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.
Gardell, Mattias. In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Duke University Press, 1996.
Lincoln, C. Eric. The Black Muslims in America. (rev. ed.). Boston: Beacon Press, [1961] 1973.
Nation of Islam website: www.noi.org.