Nation of Islam founded by Wallace Fard Muhammad
Definition
The Nation of Islam is a new religious movement, an "ethno-religious movement", and a social movement. Scholars of religion have also classified it as resembling UFO religions, with UFOs featuring in its ideas about the forthcoming end of the world. Although they both employ the same name, the Nation of Islam has represented two distinct organizations: the first organization was established by Wallace Fard Muhammad in the 1930s and it existed until 1975, and the second organization was established by Louis Farrakhan in the late 1970s.The Nation heavily draws on influences from both Christianity and Islam, but it interprets the Bible and the Quran differently from mainstream Christians and mainstream Muslims. A black nationalist religion and an African American religion, it seeks to reclaim what it regards as the historic Islamic identity of African Americans. Its members have been called "Black Muslims," and its second leader, Elijah Muhammad, stated that "Islam is the natural religion of the Black Nation." 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 Islamic-majority Turkey. A Muslim identity appealed to the NOI as it offered an alternative to mainstream, Christian-dominated American culture. The Nation denigrates Christianity, regarding it as a tool of white supremacy, and claims that it lacks the rational and scientific basis of its own teachings.The religion which is promoted by the Nation has been described as "Fardian Islam," "nontraditional Islam," and "quasi-Islamic". The Nation sees itself as part of the Islamic world, although it has little in common with mainstream forms of Islam. Herbert Berg commented that it had only a "superficial relationship to other Islams" such as the Sunni, Shi'ite and Sufi traditions, while Jason Eric Fishman and Ana Belén Soage observed that although the Nation uses many standard Islamic terms, it gives them "profoundly different meanings" to those understood by most Muslims. The Nation's views differ from the Five Pillars, which are typically seen as central to Islamic belief and practice; its claims that Allah (God) takes anthropomorphic form and that there is no afterlife differ fundamentally from standard Islam. Unlike most forms of Islam, the NOI does not teach that the 6th/7th century Arabian religious leader Muhammad was the final nor the most important messenger of God, instead treating its first two leaders, Fard Muhammad and Elijah Muhammad, as being more important.
From mainstream Islamic perspectives, its teachings are heretical, with its theology being shirk (blasphemy). Mainstream Muslims view it as "a religious movement which has selectively adopted some Islamic beliefs and concepts," but which is not "truly Islamic."The Nation is a highly centralized, hierarchical movement, and has been described as authoritarian. Unlike practitioners of Rastafari, a contemporary of the NOI which shares many of its key concerns, members of the Nation do not exhibit considerable variation in their approach to the religion, displaying a high degree of uniformity and conformity among followers. However, there is no specific holy text produced by the NOI, and its teachings have not remained static, but have changed throughout its history. Over the course of its history it has for instance adopted additional elements from mainstream Islam, and Farrakhan's second Nation also bears some distinct differences from its predecessor.Wallace Fard Muhammad
The Nation of Islam was founded by Wallace Fard Muhammad, who appeared in Detroit in July 1930, when he began preaching his ideas among the city's African Americans. Fard Muhammad claimed that he was an Arab from Mecca who had come to the United States on a mission to the African American people, whom he called the "Nation of Islam," to restore them to their original faith. The Nation has since taught that he was born in Mecca on February 26, 1877, the son of a black father and white mother; in their view, he was Allah himself.