1976 SPECIAL REPORT: "THE NATION OF ISLAM IN TRANSITION"(PART II)
In 1975, Elijah Muhammad died and was succeeded by his son, Wallace Muhammad. Wallace Muhammad had had a strained relationship with his father and his father’s teachings; while imprisoned in the early 1960s he had moved closer to Sunni Islam and had left the Nation on several occasions during the 1960s and 1970s, having re-joined in 1974.
As leader, Wallace Muhammad launched what he called a “Second Resurrection” in the movement.
He increasingly aligned the group with Sunni Islam, rejecting many of the Nation’s idiosyncratic teachings, including its claim that Fard was God, that Elijah Muhammad had been a prophet, the Myth of Yakub, and the claims about the Mother Plane. He retained the Nation’s themes of black pride, healthy diets, sexual modesty, and economic self-determination. “Temples” were renamed “mosques”, while “ministers” were renamed “imams”. The FOI was disbanded, with Wallace calling it a “hooligan outfit”. Black nationalism was abandoned, and the ban on white people joining the Nation was lifted.
In November 1976, the Nation was renamed the World Community of al-Islam in the West, and in April 1978, it was renamed the American Muslim Mission.
Wallace Muhammad also renamed himself, first to Warith Deen and then to Warithuddin Muhammad.
Wallace Muhammad claimed that these changes were in accordance with his father’s intentions; he claimed to be in contact with Fard Muhammad, and that the founder had established the NOI’s idiosyncratic beliefs as a means of gradually introducing Islamic teachings to African Americans, with the ultimate intention of bringing them to mainstream Sunni Islam.
He claimed that the Nation’s old belief that the white man was the Devil referred to mental whiteness, a state that is rebelling against Allah, rather than light-skinned people themselves.
Most mosques remained with Wallace Muhammad during these reforms but some mosques rejected them, seeking to return to the group’s original teachings; small splinter groups emerged in Detroit, Atlanta, and Baltimore.
In 1985, Wallace Muhammad disbanded the organization, telling his followers to affiliate instead with their local mosques.
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