Word: muhammad
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...ethnic heritage and pride. Although the early days of the Nation of Islam are murky, the official version is that Wallace D. Fard founded it in Detroit in 1930, allegedly upon arrival from Mecca. He disappeared a few years later and was replaced by Elijah Poole, renamed Elijah Muhammad, who reigned until 1975 over a black nationalist ! business and religious empire. Among its most celebrated converts was boxer Cassius Clay, later Muhammad...
...sect has long been riven by factionalism. The most celebrated split was the 1964 departure of Malcolm X, who turned to orthodox Islam and was murdered by three of Elijah Muhammad's followers in 1965. While Farrakhan, who joined in 1955, seems to have played no role in the killing, he gave a speech beforehand implying that Malcolm X deserved...
...never been accepted as valid by the major branches of the religion, in part because it granted its leader the status of prophet. Says Mustafa Malik, director of research of the American Muslim Council: "To be a Muslim, you have to believe that there is only one God and Muhammad is his last Prophet. The Nation of Islam people believe that Elijah Muhammad is the last Prophet. There is nothing in common except that we call ourselves Muslims and they call themselves Muslims." The Nation of Islam is not alone. Several of the 17 or more American black Muslim sects...
Elijah was succeeded by his son Wallace, who shifted the movement away from antiwhite anger and toward orthodox Islam. Farrakhan was one of several Nation leaders who resisted Wallace's direction and sought to reconstitute Elijah Muhammad's faith. Eventually he became not only Elijah's ideological heir but also the tenant of his castle -- Farrakhan now lives in his ornate, fortress- like home where, as in Elijah's day, Nation of Islam guards are on constant patrol outside...
...bathroom with bow in hand for three to five hours at a stretch. He also sang and played guitar and, after leaving college, appeared on Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour and in nightclubs as Calypso Gene or the Charmer. He has said that after hearing Elijah Muhammad speak in 1955, he had a dream in which he was expected to choose between show business and an unknown future -- and he chose the unknown...