Black M uslims ( A frican A merican M uslims)

Abstract

The history of black Muslims in North America predates the founding of the United States; it begins with a minority of black slaves who were Muslims. While very few descendants of black Muslim slaves appear to have practiced Islam as adults, the presence of black Muslims in northern American cities would grow in the early twentieth century through efforts of the foreign missionary Ahmadiyyah movement and two indigenous groups, the Moorish Science Temple of America and the Nation of Islam. These groups were able to convince African Americans that Islam was free of racism and a better fit for them than Christianity. In 1975, after the death of the Nation of Islam's long‐time leader Elijah Muhammad, his son Wallace Mohammed moved the organization closer to Sunni Islam and changed its name to the World Community of Islam. In 1978 Louis Farrakhan reconstituted the Nation of Islam, bringing back the original theology.