Trendsetters-Imam W. Deen Mohammed

Wallace D. Mohammed was born Oct. 30, 1933, in Detroit, the seventh of eight children of Elijah and Clara Muhammad. He was the minister of the Nation of Islam's mosques in Chicago and Philadelphia in the 1950s in 1961, Mohammed was sent to federal prison in Minnesota for refusing, on the basis of Nation of Islam teachings, induction into the U.S. military. In 1964, Mohammed told a Chicago reporter "The man I looked to all my life, thinking he was loved and guided by God more than any man on Earth, turned out not to be that kind of man at all." Expelled from the Nation of Islam for his criticism he was finally restored to grace in 1974, six months before his father's death. Farrakhan was expected to succeed Elijah Muhammad but in 1975, a closed-door family council chose Mohammed to succeeded his father as the chief imam of the Nation of Islam, a religious movement that connected black nationalism with Islamic faith. He immediately tried to move its followers toward traditional Islam, which led to a split in 1978 between Mohammed's World Community of al-Islam in the West and those who joined a revived Nation of Islam under Minister Louis Farrakhan who said he would follow the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. His followers refer to the period when Mohammed took over the Nation as "The Second Resurrection."

He began preaching a more universal religious message. He also cut back on the group's commercial empire, saying business ventures distracted the movement from its religious mission. Mohammed's changes produced a backlash within the group, of all his innovations, the most costly in terms of lost followers was his rejection of black supremacy. Despite their differences, Mohammed and Farrakhan reconciled in a series of joint appearances starting in 1999 and pledged to work together. He achieved historic milestones for Muslim-Americans. In 1992, he became the first Muslim to deliver an invocation to the U.S. Senate. In 1993 and 1997, he recited from the Holy Quran at President Bill Clinton's two inaugural interfaith prayer services.

In his later years, Mohammed lessened his visibility as the final steps in his efforts to restructure his organization into a loose group of organizations without a central charismatic figure. He focused more on his non-profit ministry, The Mosque Care and building interfaith relations with Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Francis. Yvonne Haddad, professor of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations at Georgetown, said
"He will be remembered as a person who brought the Nation of Islam carefully and consistently into mainline Islam. He single-handedly re-educated many of the imams schooled by the Nation of Islam, restoring their American patriotism and the original teachings of Islam, one of his highest priorities was uniting African-American Muslims and immigrant Muslim communities."
source Chicago Tribune