Imam WD Mohammed, the Patron Saint of American Islam: Personality, Intellectual Teachings and Reformation

Abstract

This essay explores the American Muslim Revivalist, Imam WD Mohammed (1933–2008) and his contribution to the intellectual, spiritual, and philosophical thought of black American Muslims in America. The research explores the intersection of the Africana experience and its encounter with race, religion, and Islamic reform. It also brings about the emergence of an American school of Islamic thought, created and established by the son of the leader of the former Nation of Islam leader who rejected his father’s teachings and embraced normative Islam on his own terms. His interpretations of Islam were not only U.S. American—they were also modern and responded to global trends in Islamic thought. His interpretations of Blackness were not only American, but also diasporic and pan-African.