THE TEMPLE OF ISLAM

For the years of Elijah Mohammed's leadership, from the early 1930's until 1975, the organization that he led known as the 'Nation of Islam' (NOI) was largely viewed by the American public as racialist and nationalist in its outlook and emphasis. Elijah Mohammed, himself, stressed to his followers the importance of self-respect, self-determination, and lawful, decent conduct.

'Muslim' identity as he understood it and a 'do for self' appeal was at the core of his teachings, prodding those within the group to adhere to Islam as 'Freedom, Justice, and Equality' and to accept responsibility for community self-sufficiency.

Thousands joined him and thus began the documented story of Islam in America for African-Americans that includes the stories of Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali and now millions of indigenous African-American Muslims and their religious and cultural lives. Upon Elijah Mohammed's passing in 1975, his son Wallace D. Mohammed was chosen by his father's followers to lead the NOI.

“I’m not teaching you religion. I am cleaning you up. The one to come after me will teach you religion.”

— The Honorable Elijah Muhammad

A NEW ORIENTATION

Wallace D. Mohammed or Imam W. Deen Mohammed, as he came to be known, methodically and skillfully moved the group away from its racialist and nationalist identification to the teachings of the Holy Qur'an and Muhammed the Prophet. It was an embrace of Islam in its proper practice and as observed by over a billion Muslim persons worldwide.

He taught, encouraged, and strengthened the once called “Black Muslims” in their new Islamic identity, and further emphasized to them an embrace of a new consciousness and activity as full and participating Muslim-American citizens, re-naming the group the World Community of al-Islam in the West and finally, the American Society of Muslims (ASM).

Despite years of progress in correcting the picture of Muslims in their spiritual and social commitments, Mohammed consistently expressed dissatisfaction with the body of imams entrusted to provide local and regional leadership support to the group’s vital institutions, including the Clara Mohammed School System and the Collective Purchasing Conference (CPC), an economic development program Mohammed introduced in the mid 1990’s.

Citing their competing interests as a hindrance to his father’s hope for and his vision of an independent Muslim-African-American community, Mohammed resigned from the ASM in 2003 and permanently separated his leadership from the bureaucratic opposition of its top and mid-level officials. At his death in 2008 he was leader of the largest organized group of Muslims in the Western hemisphere. In keeping with the Islamic tradition established by Muhammed the Prophet, he formally named no successor yet gave clear public and private indications as to whom he favored.

“I have to acknowledge the man who has done more than any other person to help me get the correct picture of Muslims and Imam W. Deen Mohammed to the public of America and the world, my son…Earl Abdulmalik Mohammed.”

— Imam W. Deen Mohammed

Succession

Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Earl Abdulmalik Mohammed embraced the teachings of Islam as an adolescent under Imam W. Deen Mohammed's leadership. In the mid 1980's he qualified and was recognized as an imam or religious leader, and was asked to lead mosques in Florida, Texas, and Maryland.

By 1990, at 25 years-old, he was appointed Special Assistant and National Representative of Imam W. Deen Mohammed, representing him and the Muslim-American community to national media organizations, on college campuses, and at domestic and international gatherings with noted religious and social organizations and leaders.

In 1996, Mohammed played a central role in facilitating the historic meeting between Pope John Paul II and Imam W. Deen Mohammed at the Vatican. In a 1999 interview with the Muslim Journal, the elder Mohammed said of him: “He is a valuable leader for our future in America.”

As early as 2010, only two years after W. Deen Mohammed’s passing, there were signs that the major mosques in his following and their leaders, in every city in America, had begun to drift away from the traditional emphasis taught by him for lack of a central public message. Sensing the growing trouble and amid the dramatic world rise of an unprecedented extremism associated with Islam, Earl Abdulmalik Mohammed wrote Democracy, Civic Virtue, and Islam: The Muslim-American Jihad Against Extremism. Published in 2016 to international acclaim, the book expertly countered the narratives and condemned the actions of so-called Muslim extremists as blatantly un-Islamic.

Mohammed wrote a second book in 2019, On Nature and Nations: The Muslim-American Message for Humanity in the Day of Religion. Both of Mohammed’s books are now available on the shelves of public libraries, and are required reading in a number of colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad.

Mohammed and his supporters have worked diligently to re-established W. Deen Mohammed’s School of Thought as a trusted resource of insight and intellectual vitality for American leadership and its public. On issues such as immigration, nationalism, economic justice, and the ongoing war in Gaza, his commentary on the role indigenous Muslim leadership serves in this season of trouble and divisiveness for human society has earned worldwide attention and praise for its precise healing and conclusions.

He has been an invited speaker at Johns Hopkins, Bethune Cookman, and George Washington Universities as well as a participant in USA Today’s 2024 Special Edition: Race in America. In cities across the U.S., his leadership continues to reacquaint America and the world with the tradition of faith and knowledge that has distinguished the spirit of Muslim-African-American life for nearly one hundred years.