The Nation of Islam.

For this week, I chose the religious group, the Nation of Islam. From which probably the most famous spokes person that represented them was Malcolm X. Though there have been a few other notable members such as Muhammad Ali, and quite surprisingly to me, Snoop Dog.

The Nation of Islam, is a religious organization founded in 1930 by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad. His goal was to recreate the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of African American men and women. The teachings of the Nation, says that Wallace D. Fard Muhammad is the messiah of Christianity and Mahdi of Islam. The Nation of Islam is very different to the mainstream Islam as they differ from the teachings, saying that they believe that Allah came to the planet in person as Wallace D. Fard Muhammad.

The Nation of Islam, also teaches that black people are a separate nation to the rest of the world. They believe that black people are the original humans, and through them they created white people and all other colours. TA member of the Nation once stated "First, the program starts with number one. That is number four. The first part of that program is that we want freedom, a full and complete freedom. The second is, we want justice. We want equal justice under the law, and we want justice applied equally to all, regardless of race or class or color. And the third is that we want equality. We want equal membership in society with the best in civilized society. If we can get that within the political, economic, social system of America, there's no need for point number four. But if we cannot get along in peace after giving America 400 years of our service and sweat and labor, then, of course, separation would be the solution to our race problem." In summary of this, the Nation are clear they want to be equal to White people, and in the best situation they would want to be a separate nation from them. To live separate from White people in return for the labour of black people when they were slaves and founded America.

I find this group very interesting as they are quite extreme in some of their ideals and actions. Yet, as a group, they have helped many people, through programmes to help newly released convicts start afresh, help drug addicts clean up, and keep black youths from gang culture. The Nation also own quite a few businesses and farmland in the state of Georgia. I feel that this is a rather positive action from the Nation of Islam. Yet the many things they teach, are quite overtly racist. Malcolm X preached many things for the Nation for instance that "white people are a race of devils". This is clearly negative in the way they are leading their followers into believing that racism and separation from the white people are the only way.

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