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Black Muslim Leader Announces Resignation
CHICAGO, Aug. 31 — Imam W. Deen Mohammed, the black Muslim spiritual leader who over three decades transformed how American blacks practice the religion, resigned today as head of the American Society of Muslims.
Mohammed said he will continue to represent and guide black Muslims and direct his ministry, the Mosque Cares, but would no longer lead the society, the main organization representing his movement.
“I’m getting ready . . . to do more, to be more productive and to contribute to the good life of the believers,” Mohammed said at the start of his keynote speech at the society’s annual convention.
Mohammed, who will turn 70 in October, on Saturday privately informed his movement’s imams, or prayer leaders, that he would step down.
His national representative, Imam Earl Abdulmalik Mohammed, announced the decision before today’s speech. Some audience members gasped, then applauded and cheered.
“I don’t know about you, but when I told the imams about my resignation yesterday, a big burden went off my back,” W. Deen Mohammed joked to the crowd. He would not comment further on his resignation.
W. Deen Mohammed is the son of Elijah Muhammad, who led the Nation of Islam.
The Nation had taught that its founder, Wallace D. Fard, had divine status and that Elijah Muhammad was a prophet — which is heretical in mainstream Islam and alienated the movement from Muslims worldwide.
When W. Deen Mohammed took over the Nation of Islam in the 1970s, he gradually moved his thousands of followers toward orthodox Islam. He founded the group that became the American Society of Muslims, and Louis Farrakhan took leadership of the old Nation of Islam.
The two publicly mended fences years later, although their movements remain separate.
Imam David Shaheed said no successor has been named and no timetable set for an appointment. He said the imams of the movement would meet to decide whether to name one successor or to restructure the society.
But Abdulmalik Mohammed insisted that although W. Deen Mohammed is cutting back on his role with the society, he will remain the movement’s spiritual leader.
“No force of nature, no spirit, no influence, no person, no group can ever separate me from Imam W. Deen Mohammed,” Abdulmalik Mohammed said.
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