Fifty years ago, American Islam changed course.
On Feb. 26, 1975 — the day after the death of Elijah Muhammad, then the leader of the Nation of Islam — his son Wallace Deen Muhammad was lifted before the movement’s followers in Chicago. Imam Abdul Waheed, a program associate at Duke’s Center for Muslim Life and the University’s first Muslim chaplain, described the gesture as a monumental shift.
“That day, he became the leader of our community, at that time called the Nation of Islam,” Waheed explained. “And [for] many of us who have been blessed to be students of his, one of his most important, I would say, trademarks was for us to appreciate language and to make connections. Because this whole human body is one simple connection — everything is connected.”…