Episode 3309
Nation of Islam
Wed, 2026-May-27 00:48 UTC
Length - 4:45
Direct Link
Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia's finest articles.
The featured article for Wednesday, 27 May 2026, is Nation of Islam.
The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a religious organization founded in the United States by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930. A centralized and hierarchical group committed to black nationalism, it focuses attention on the black African diaspora, especially on African Americans. While describing itself as Islamic and using Islamic terminology, some argue its religious tenets differ substantially from orthodox Islamic traditions, in both Black America and the Old World. Scholars of religion characterize it as a new religious movement.
The Nation teaches that there has been a succession of mortal gods, each a black man named Allah, of whom Fard Muhammad was the latest. It claims that the first Allah created the earliest humans, the dark-skinned Original Asiatic Race, whose members possessed inner divinity and from whom all people of color descend. It maintains that a scientist named Yakub then created the white race, a group that lacked inner divinity and whose intrinsic violence led them to overthrow the Original Asiatic Race and achieve global dominance. Setting itself against the white-dominated society of the United States, the NOI campaigns for the creation of an independent African American nation-state and calls for African Americans to be economically self-sufficient and separatist. A millenarian tradition, it maintains that Fard Muhammad will soon return aboard a spaceship to wipe out the white-dominated order and establish a utopia. Members worship in buildings, varyingly called temples or mosques. Practitioners are expected to live disciplined lives, adhering to strict dress codes, specific dietary requirements, and patriarchal gender roles.
Wallace Fard Muhammad established the Nation of Islam in Detroit. He drew on various sources, especially Noble Drew Ali's Moorish Science Temple of America and black nationalist trends like Garveyism. After Fard Muhammad disappeared in 1934, the leadership of the NOI was assumed by Elijah Muhammad, who expanded the NOI's teachings, declared Fard Muhammad to have been the latest Allah, and built the group's business empire. Attracting growing attention in the late 1950s and 1960s, the NOI's influence expanded through high-profile members such as the black nationalist activist Malcolm X and the boxer Muhammad Ali. Deeming it a threat to domestic security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation worked to undermine the group. Following Elijah Muhammad's death in 1975, his son Wallace D. Muhammad took over the organization, moving it towards Sunni Islam and renaming it the World Community of Islam in the West. Members seeking to retain Elijah Muhammad's teachings re-established the Nation of Islam under Louis Farrakhan's leadership in 1977. Farrakhan expanded the NOI's economic and agricultural operations and continued to develop its beliefs, for instance by drawing connections with Dianetics.
Based in the United States, the Nation of Islam has also established a presence abroad, with membership open only to people of color. In 2007 it was estimated to have 50,000 members. The Nation has also influenced the formation of other groups like the Five-Percent Nation, United Nation of Islam, and Nuwaubian Nation. Muslim critics accuse the NOI of promoting teachings that are not authentically Islamic. Other critics, like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, have characterized it as a hate group that promotes racism against white people, antisemitism, and anti-LGBT rhetoric.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:48 UTC on Wednesday, 27 May 2026.
For the full current version of the article, see Nation of Islam on Wikipedia.
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Until next time, I'm standard Kendra.
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