Two conventions in the same city this weekend for America’s two key Muslim groups: the largely black American Society of Muslims and the largely immigrant Islamic Society of North America. The AP reports: “Many efforts have been made to improve relations between immigrant and black Muslims, but deep differences remain, rooted partly in how Islam spread among American blacks.”
Most came to the religion through black nationalist movements and the Nation of Islam, which had taught that its founder, Wallace D. Fard, had divine status and his successor, Elijah Muhammad, was a prophet. Mainstream Islam teaches that there is only one God and no prophets came after Muhammad. For that and other reasons, many immigrant Muslims consider the Nation of Islam a cult.
But Imam W. Deen Mohammed, the son of Elijah Muhammad, transformed the movement after taking it over in the 1970s. He gradually moved his thousands of followers toward mainstream Islam, while Louis Farrakhan revived the old Nation of Islam under his leadership.
(“Separate conventions show divide between immigrant, American-black Muslims.” Rachel Zoll [AP]. Detroit News 8.30.03.)