Imam Warith Deen Mohammad
October 30, 1933 – September 9, 2008
Imam Warith Deen Mohammad known as "W. Deen Mohammed" or "Imam W. Deen Muhammad", was a progressive African American Muslim leader, theologian, philosopher, Muslim revivalist, and Islamic thinker (1975–2008) who disbanded the original Nation of Islam (NOI) in 1976 and transformed it into an orthodox mainstream Islamic movement, the World Community of Al-Islam in the West which later became the American Society of Muslims.
He was a son of Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam from 1933 to 1975. Upon the death of his father on February 25, 1975, Mohammed was unanimously chosen as the leader of the Nation of Islam and introduced to the NOI membership as such at the annual Saviors’ Day convention on February 26, 1975
He became the national leader (Supreme Minister) of the Nation of Islam in 1975 after his father's death. As a result of his personal studies and thinking, he had led the vast majority of the members of the original NOI to mainstream, traditional Sunni Islam by 1978.
With this merger, he oversaw the largest mass conversion to Islam in the history of the United States. He rejected the previous deification of Wallace Fard Muhammad, accepted whites as fellow-worshippers, forged closer ties with mainstream Muslim communities, and introduced the Five Pillars of Islam into his group's theology.
He called himself Muslim American Spokesman for Human Salvation and encouraged the common people and leaders of all religious traditions to return to the purity of their faith. Others called him “America’s Imam”; leader of the Muslim American Experience. He defined it gave direction to it and devoted his life to it.
