page_title: African-American Muslims
section_title: Nation of Islam
hierarchical_section_title: African-American Muslims / Sects / Nation of Islam
caption_attribution_description: English: Louis Farrakhan
context_page_description: African-American Muslims, also colloquially known as Black Muslims, are an African American religious minority. They represent one of the larger minority Muslim populations of the United States as there isn't an ethnic group that makes up the majority of American Muslims. They are represented in Sunni and Shia denominations as well as smaller sects, such as the Nation of Islam. The history of African American Muslims is related to African-American history, in general, and goes back to the Revolutionary and Antebellum Eras.
context_section_description: The Nation of Islam (NOI) was created in 1930 by Wallace Fard Muhammad. Fard drew inspiration for NOI doctrines from those of Timothy Drew's Moorish Science Temple of America. He provided three main principles which serve as the foundation of the NOI: "Allah is God, the white man is the devil and the so-called Negroes are the Asiatic Black People, the cream of the planet earth".
  In 1934 Elijah Muhammad became the leader of the NOI. He deified Fard, saying that he was an incarnation of God, and taught that he was a prophet who had been taught directly by God in the form of Fard. Two of the most famous people to join the NOI were Malcolm X, who became the face of the NOI in the media, and Muhammad Ali, who, while initially rejected, was accepted into the group shortly after his first world heavyweight championship victory. Both Malcolm X and Ali later became Sunni Muslims.
  Malcolm X was one of the most influential leaders of the NOI and, in accordance with NOI doctrine, advocated the complete separation of blacks from whites. He left the NOI after being silenced for 90 days (due to a controversial comment on the John F. Kennedy assassination), and proceeded to form Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity before his pilgrimage to Mecca and conversion to Sunni Islam. He is viewed as the first person to start the movement among African Americans towards Sunni Islam.
  Muhammad died in 1975 and his son, Warith Deen Mohammed, became the leader of the Nation of Islam. He led the organization toward Sunni Islam and renamed it the World Community of Islam in the West the following year. Louis Farrakhan, who quit Warith Deen Mohammed's group, started an organization along the lines of Elijah Muhammad's teachings. Farrakhan renamed his organization the Nation of Islam in 1981, and has regained many properties associated with Elijah Muhammad, such as Mosque Maryam, its Chicago headquarters.
  It was estimated that the Nation of Islam had at least 20,000 members in 2006. However, today the group has a wide influence in the African American community. The first Million Man March took place in Washington, D.C. in 1995 and was followed later by another one in 2000 which was smaller in size but more inclusive, welcoming individuals other than just African American men. The group sponsors cultural and academic education, economic independence, and personal and social responsibility.
  The Nation of Islam has received a great deal of criticism for its anti-white, anti-Christian, and anti-semitic teachings, and is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
caption: Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam since 1981.
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