Islam in Black America: Identity, Liberation, and Difference in African-American Islamic Thought

Chapter 6: Wallace D. Muhammad (b. 1933), Sunni Islamic Reform, and the Continuing Problem of Particularism

Chapter 6 Wallace D. Muhammad (b. 1933), Sunni Islamic Reform, and the Continuing Problem of Particularism INTRODUCTION While Malcolm X has received the most scholarly attention of all the figures covered in this study, W. D. Muhammad has received the least.1 Born the seventh son of Elijah and Clara Muhammad in 1933, Wallace grew up in the Nation of Islam as a member of Muhammad’s “royal family .” Like Malcolm, however, the future leader questioned the legitimacy of his faher’s teachings as early as the 1950s. By the 1960s, he had broken with his father in order to embrace Sunni Islam. Then, after the death of Malcolm X, he reconciled with the Messenger. Throughout that decade, he repeated the entire process, separating from the NOI at least twice, only to seek readmission into his father’s flock. It was almost miraculous that by 1974 Wallace positioned himself as his father’s successor.2 In this chapter, I will show how Wallace Muhammad inherited the mantle of leadership from his father in 1975 and then led the movement through a remarkable transformation toward the universalistic interpretation of Islam that Malcolm had promoted in his final year. Specifically, this chapter will explore how, in less than a decade, Wallace Muhammad debunked the myth of Yacub, became an advocate of American patriotism , and aligned the NOI with Sunni Islamic teachings and the Arab Islamic world. In so doing, Wallace Muhammad faced questions not unlike those confronted by Malcolm X. How, for example, would he advocate a universalistic reading of Islam and simultaneously fight for black 107 liberation? Would he abandon black particularism altogether or, like Malcolm , try to keep his “religion” separate from his “politics”? I will argue that unlike Malcolm, Wallace Muhammad first attempted to blend elements of black particularism with his belief in a universalistic Islam. Appropriating themes from the black consciousness movement, the leader linked the Muslim identity of his followers to that of an African Muslim ancestor named Bilal. But in associating Islam with this particularistic identity, he faced powerful opposition from his immigrant Muslim allies, who accused him of continuing the race-based Islam of his father. In the face of that criticism, the leader abandoned these black consciousness teachings by the 1980s, reaffirming what his immigrant allies argued was the only “true” Islam—a universalistic Islam impossible to associate with any particular group of human beings. But in the 1980s, the leader again tried to put his own stamp on the practice of Islam among black Americans. Rather than explicitly combining black particularism with his universalistic vision of Islam, however, he claimed the right to interpret the seminal texts of Sunni Islam, including both the Qur’an and Sunna, in view of the particular historical circumstances in which African-American Muslims lived and practiced. This was a key moment in African-American Islamic thought and suggested a number of new directions. For Wallace Muhammad, it meant that AfricanAmerican Muslims should avoid relying solely on immigrant and foreign interpretations of Islamic texts and instead form a comprehensive vision of Islam that focused on specifically black issues. I will also argue, however, that as Imam Muhammad, as he would come to be called, set out to create his own original body of Islamic thought, he offered two competing visions of social change that seemed to pit a universalistic Islam against a particularistic black struggle. On the one hand, his official “Islamic” view stressed individual responsibility as the primary engine of lasting social change. On the other hand, when the Imam discussed various solutions to problems plaguing black people, he promoted collectivist solutions almost identical to those of his father. Whether these two differing visions were complementary in the Imam’s mind was never made clear. Even more importantly, the Imam did not explain or justify his collectivist thought in terms of any interpretation of Islam. Though he had sounded the call for an African-American Islam that incorporated aspects of particularism into an overarching vision of universalism, he did not offer any details on how collective black struggle might be informed by or understood in terms of an Islamic perspective. 108 Islam in Black America WALLACE MUHAMMAD AS NOI APOSTATE AND LEADER Born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1933, this son of Elijah Muhammad entered life at a tumultuous time for the Nation of Islam. Disputes among the leadership forced Elijah out...