The story of the “nation of Islam” that wants a “separate country for blacks in America”

The Pew Research Institute estimates that the number of black Muslims is about 20 percent of all Muslims in the United States, and thus they constitute only 2 percent of all blacks (2017 figures). However, according to the Institute’s statistics, blacks make up 49 percent of those who convert to Islam recently. If we look at the total number of people who convert to Islam in the United States, we will find that the percentage of those who convert to Islam is 23 percent, compared to 6 percent of those who convert to Christianity.

In the early 20th century, some Muslim religious leaders in the United States asserted that Islam was the natural religion of blacks, relying heavily on accounts of African Muslims who had been kidnapped centuries ago and sold as slaves in the Americas.

Among the most prominent groups that said this is the Nation of Islam, which was originally founded in 1930 and is currently led by Louis Farrakhan.

According to the Pew Institute, currently only two out of every 100 black Muslims say they belong to the Nation of Islam, with most black Muslims saying they are either Sunni Muslims (52 percent) or not belonging to a particular Muslim sect (27 percent).

The Encyclopedia Britannica says that the Nation of Islam movement, a movement and organization of black Americans, was founded in 1930 by Illiga Muhammad and is famous for its teachings that combine elements of traditional Islam with black nationalist ideas.

The Nation of Islam also promotes ethnic unity, self-help and maintains a strict discipline among its members.

Encyclopedia Britannica says that Elega Muhammad believed that the white race was made by Jacob, the black world, and that God had allowed this demonic race to dominate for 6 thousand years, but since 1914 the time has been ripe for blacks to assert themselves.

Ilga Muhammad was born on February 26, 1877, and members of the movement celebrate this day annually, which they call “the Day of the Savior.”

Their creed included claims to a separate nation-state for black Americans, on the grounds that history shows that they “cannot reconcile” with white neighbors, so interracial intermarriage is prohibited.

The group was suppressed during WWII for calling its followers to refuse to serve in the military, but it rebounded in the 1950s after a young charismatic leader, Malcolm Little, known as Malcolm X, dominated the New York Temple and succeeded in drawing many into the movement.

But X later became a source of embarrassment when he said about the assassination of the late President John F. Kennedy what it meant that he had reaped the hatred that the white man had cultivated throughout the ages, despite the fact that IGA had prohibited members of the group from commenting on the assassination of Kennedy.

After his expulsion from the Nation of Islam, X converted to Salafism after going for the Hajj. Before he could fully express his new views, he killed members of the Nation of Islam in 1965, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

In the remaining decade of Ilga Muhammad’s life, the movement was increasingly plagued by violence between members and former members.

In 1973, for example, members of the group attacked the Hanafi Islamic Center in Washington, DC, which was founded by Hamas Abd al-Khalis, one of the movement’s former leaders, and attacked his family, killed his children, and left his wife paralyzed.

After the death of the group’s leader, Illiga Muhammad, in 1975, and the choice of his son Warith al-Din Muhammad to lead it, Farrakhan disagreed with him after accusing him of abandoning the principles and approach of the movement, so Farrakhan in 1977 rebuilt it.

The movement is currently led by 87-year-old preacher Louis Farrakhan, one of the most influential black American leaders since the success of his advocacy for the Million Men March, in which hundreds of thousands of black Americans participated in 1995.

Louis Farrakhan was born on May 11, 1933, in the Bronx neighborhood of New York City, to a father of Jamaican descent, and his birth name was Louis Eugene Walcott, and he was raised according to fundamentalist Christian traditions in Boston, Massachusetts.

In 1955 Farrakhan converted to Islam after his friendship with a number of Muslims in Boston, where he was impressed and influenced by Malcolm X, one of the leaders of the group at the time. My hands are Eliga Muhammad.

But Farrakhan’s critics point out that he likened the Jews to “termites” and described Hitler as a “great man.”

In a 1984 radio interview, Louis Farrakhan responded to accusations of being a “new black Hitler” by saying that he considered Hitler “a very great man.”

The NOI maintains that the word “great” is used to mean a man of historical significance, but Farrakhan’s reputation has been badly damaged by what appears at best to be a political miscalculation in the use of the phrase.

But Farrakhan later toned down the intransigence of his approach. During the Million Families’ March in October 2000, Farrakhan called for ethnic harmony.

And unlike the 1995 march, which was reserved for black American men only, the family march invited people from more diverse backgrounds.

On the conflict in the Middle East, Farrakhan said, “God is displeased with the deaths of both Arabs and Jews in the Middle East.”

The social networking site Facebook banned the account of the head of the Nation of Islam, which was banned for years from entering Britain and from appearing on traditional media due to its long record as a “promoter of anti-Semitism and homophobia.”

Farrakhan responded to those accusations, saying, “I do not hate the Jews, and no one of my followers has ever committed a crime against the Jews.”

He had tweeted in 2017, “I am not anti-Semitic, but anti-termite.”

Former President Bill Clinton was criticized for sitting next to Farrakhan during the funeral of American singer Aretha Franklin in 2018.