African-American Muslim leader W. Deen Mohammed dies

Mohammed inherited from his father the Nation of Islam, a religious movement crafted out of black nationalism and bits and pieces of Muslim practice.

CHICAGO, Il (MCT) - W. Deen Mohammed, one of the most prominent African-American Muslim leaders in the nation and the son of the late Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, died Monday, sources told the Chicago Tribune.

"Brother Imam," as he was affectionately known, was 74. There was no immediate confirmation of his death by his family. The Cook County medical examiner confirmed that a Wallace Mohammed was pronounced dead at his home in Markham, Ill., a spokesman said.

Muslim community leaders said Mohammed was scheduled to speak Tuesday in Chicago, and many grew concerned when he did not appear. His last speaking engagement was at Navy Pier on Saturday at an event sponsored by the Inner-City Muslim Action Network.

Mohammed inherited from his father the Nation of Islam, a religious movement crafted out of black nationalism and bits and pieces of Muslim practice.

During his spiritual wanderings, he was banished several times by his father for filial impiety - once for remaining close to Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad's prized disciple who turned into a critical voice within the Nation of Islam, as the group was known.

In 1961, Mohammed refused to serve in the U.S. military and went to prison in accordance with his father's teaching that African-Americans shouldn't defend a land of lynching and segregation.

While incarcerated, Mohammed studied the Quran and found its teachings at considerable variance with his father's. In 1976, a year after he succeeded his father, Mohammed made a public appearance carrying an American flag. He proclaimed the time had come for black Americans to celebrate America.

During his final years, Mohammed lived quietly in a modest home in south suburban Markham. He headed a charitable organization, Mosque Cares, and spoke to congregations across the nation. His lectures were reprinted in the movement's newspaper, the Muslim Journal. But he had no mosque of his own.

His lifestyle was markedly different from that of his father, who presided over a religious empire from a family compound he constructed amid the historic mansions of the Kenwood neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. Elijah Muhammad was surrounded by a phalanx of bodyguards, dubbed the Fruit of Islam.

Mohammed also rejected his father's sometimes overtly anti-white preaching - a rhetorical style continued by the fiery Louis Farrakhan, Mohammed's rival for leadership among the Black Muslims, as they were popularly known. Farrakhan and Mohammed long traded barbs and theological jabs before publicly reconciling at a joint worship service in 2000.

"For me, (Islam) is too big a cause for our personal problems and differences to stand in the way," Mohammed said.

Mohammed was also deeply committed to building bridges between African-American Muslims and the increasing numbers of immigrants from the Middle East and Asia.

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© 2008, Chicago Tribune.