Beliefs and theology of the Nation of Islam

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Part of a series on the
Nation of Islam
Influencers Satokata Takahashi Noble Drew Ali
Leaders Wallace Fard Muhammad Elijah Muhammad Malcolm X Warith Deen Mohammed Louis Farrakhan Tynnetta Muhammad Ishmael Muhammad Ava Muhammad David Muhammad James 3X Khalid Muhammad
Beliefs and theology Saviours' Day Nation of Islam and antisemitism Tribe of Shabazz Yakub Dianetics
History Million Man March Millions More Movement Justice or Else
Publications A Torchlight for America The Final Call Muhammad Speaks How to Eat to Live Message to the Blackman in America
Subsidiaries Fruit of Islam Muhammad Farms Muhammad University of Islam Muslim Girls Training Star Chamber Academy
Offshoots and sects American Society of Muslims Five-Percent Nation United Nation of Islam Nation of Yahweh Nuwaubian Nation
Related organizations Black Dragon Society Black Mafia New Black Panther Party Peace Movement of Ethiopia El Rukn Church of Scientology Yusuf Bey Your Black Muslim Bakery Black Hebrew Israelites Moorish Science Temple of America
Islam portal  Politics portal
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The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a black nationalist religious group founded in the United States by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930. While it identifies itself as promoting a form of Islam, its beliefs differ considerably from mainstream Islamic traditions. Scholars of religion characterize it as a new religious movement. It operates as a centralized and hierarchical organization. It has been characterized by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League as a black supremacist hate group.

The NOI teaches that there has been a succession of mortal gods, each a black man named Allah, of whom Fard Muhammad is the most recent. It claims that the first Allah created the earliest humans, the Arabic-speaking, dark-skinned Tribe of Shabazz, whose members possessed inner divinity and from whom all people of color are descended. It maintains that a scientist named Yakub then created the white race. The whites lacked inner divinity, and were intrinsically violent; they overthrew the Tribe of Shabazz and achieved 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, the "Mother Plane" or "Mother Ship," to wipe out the white race and establish a utopia. Members worship in buildings called mosques or temples. Practitioners are expected to live disciplined lives, adhering to strict dress codes, specific dietary requirements, and patriarchal gender roles.