Elijah Muhammad

From a modest, two-story bungalow in the Chicago suburb of Calumet City, Warith Deen Mohammed runs a ministry that has touched hundreds of thousands of Muslims.Although he is considered the spiritual leader of most black Americans and others who follow Orthodox Islam, his name is not widely known. And although he is the son of Elijah Muhammad, one of the founders of the Nation of Islam, he rejected his father's teachings and turned his back on the money and power that was bequeathed him.His followers say that he is a sincere, humble and deeply religious man who converted thousands of former Nation of Islam members to Orthodox Islam.

His speech in Detroit last weekend was billed as his last major public address, but associates of Minister Louis Farrakhan won't say the ailing Nation of Islam leader is retiring. I understand their disbelief. Mr. Farrakhan has been written off before, yet managed to stage enough encores to rival the late James Brown. Nevertheless, this time I take him at his word. "My time is up," he declared. "The Final Call can't last forever." I thought Mr. Farrakhan's time was up in 1975 after the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the Nation of Islam's co-founding leader, died.

LOUIS FARRAKHAN is the leader of The Nation of Islam, an organization that traces its roots to Wallace D. Fard, who established mosques in Detroit and Chicago in the early 1930s.Fard told his followers that he was the incarnation of Allah and promised that his teachings would deliver them from the yoke of white oppression.In 1934, Fard disappeared and was succeeded by one of his lieutenants, Elijah Muhammad, who was born Elijah Poole in Sandersville, Ga., in 1897.Elijah Muhammad met Fard in Detroit and became one of his most devoted followers.

Strivers Row Kevin Baker HarperCollins / 550 pages / $26 "I believe in the brotherhood of man, all men," Malcolm X declared in a speech two months before he was assassinated in February 1965, "but I don't believe in brotherhood with anybody who doesn't want brotherhood with me." It was a more evenhanded sentiment than many he had been known to express, but then Malcolm X's political path had changed markedly in the last year of his life: He had broken with Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam, and made a religious pilgrimage, or hajj, to Mecca.

Strivers Row Kevin Baker HarperCollins / 550 pages / $26 "I believe in the brotherhood of man, all men," Malcolm X declared in a speech two months before he was assassinated in February 1965, "but I don't believe in brotherhood with anybody who doesn't want brotherhood with me." It was a more evenhanded sentiment than many he had been known to express, but then Malcolm X's political path had changed markedly in the last year of his life: He had broken with Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam, and made a religious pilgrimage, or hajj, to Mecca.

LOS ANGELES -- Just off Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills -- where the rich and famous shop for shirts and other items that really do start at $325 -- I stopped for an Italian soda for the modest price of $2.50.Then I saw him. His appearance was, perhaps, inevitable, given the current "something-for-nothing" mentality that afflicts all too many Americans these days. Right on the streets of ritzy Beverly Hills, propelling himself along in a wheelchair not by turning the wheels with his hands, but by placing what seemed like one perfectly able foot in front of the other was -- a panhandler.

Wallace D. Mohammed, leader of the Muslim American Society and son of the late Elijah Muhammad, said yesterday it is the duty of Muslims not only to respect their Christian and Jewish brothers and sisters, but to defend them, if necessary.In a speech to about 50 religious and civic leaders, Mohammed spoke of the racial and religious reconciliation he has emphasized repeatedly since he succeeded his father in 1975 and moved the denomination toward orthodox Sunni Islam."We are to respect religion and to respect the sacredness and the sacred things of religion, and even be ourselves committed to protect these things with our own hands and our own lives," he said in the address at the Baltimore Rowing Club in Cherry Hill.

WE DIDN'T land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us." That's how Malcolm X characterized the history of African Americans in the United States, a history that he rightly regarded as disastrous for black people and shameful to white folks.Early next year, Malcolm X's likeness will appear on a postage stamp issued by the government he fought and despised.It might seem a little late -- nearly 34 years years after his death -- to co-opt Malcolm X. It might seem a little late to engage in the pretense that this visionary realist and revolutionary was a member of the establishment.

LOUIS Farrakhan disappointed me twice on Monday. Known for saying what's on his mind -- no holds barred -- the Nation of Islam leader bit his tongue before hundreds of thousands of black men who gathered for the Million Man March.Aspiring to statesmanship, Minister Farrakhan issued a call to sit down with Jewish leaders with whom he has been sparring for more than a decade in one of the most public, most rancorous, most bitter and persistent feuds in public life."I don't like this squabble with the members of the Jewish community," he told the sea of marchers who gathered on The Mall in Washington.

His speech in Detroit last weekend was billed as his last major public address, but associates of Minister Louis Farrakhan won't say the ailing Nation of Islam leader is retiring. I understand their disbelief. Mr. Farrakhan has been written off before, yet managed to stage enough encores to rival the late James Brown. Nevertheless, this time I take him at his word. "My time is up," he declared. "The Final Call can't last forever." I thought Mr. Farrakhan's time was up in 1975 after the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the Nation of Islam's co-founding leader, died.

NEW YORK - With the demise of Stanley Kubrick, Michael Mann has taken over as the reigning perfectionist of American movies. So talented is Mann that his invariably gritty and increasingly adult pictures have become events to rival sci-fi blockbusters. This happens even when his movies showcase little-known stars in commercially risky ventures. Think of Daniel Day-Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans (1992), a historically savvy revival of frontier romance, and pre-Gladiator Russell Crowe in 1999's The Insider , a muckraker about big tobacco and broadcasting that's also a paradigm of compromised corporate lives.

OFFICIALS AT Howard University Hospital are being irritatingly circumspect about the condition of probably the most famous patient their institution will ever have: Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan."

WE DIDN'T land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us." That's how Malcolm X characterized the history of African Americans in the United States, a history that he rightly regarded as disastrous for black people and shameful to white folks.Early next year, Malcolm X's likeness will appear on a postage stamp issued by the government he fought and despised.It might seem a little late -- nearly 34 years years after his death -- to co-opt Malcolm X. It might seem a little late to engage in the pretense that this visionary realist and revolutionary was a member of the establishment.

Wallace D. Mohammed, leader of the Muslim American Society and son of the late Elijah Muhammad, said yesterday it is the duty of Muslims not only to respect their Christian and Jewish brothers and sisters, but to defend them, if necessary.In a speech to about 50 religious and civic leaders, Mohammed spoke of the racial and religious reconciliation he has emphasized repeatedly since he succeeded his father in 1975 and moved the denomination toward orthodox Sunni Islam."We are to respect religion and to respect the sacredness and the sacred things of religion, and even be ourselves committed to protect these things with our own hands and our own lives," he said in the address at the Baltimore Rowing Club in Cherry Hill.

LOS ANGELES -- Just off Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills -- where the rich and famous shop for shirts and other items that really do start at $325 -- I stopped for an Italian soda for the modest price of $2.50.Then I saw him. His appearance was, perhaps, inevitable, given the current "something-for-nothing" mentality that afflicts all too many Americans these days. Right on the streets of ritzy Beverly Hills, propelling himself along in a wheelchair not by turning the wheels with his hands, but by placing what seemed like one perfectly able foot in front of the other was -- a panhandler.

LOUIS Farrakhan disappointed me twice on Monday. Known for saying what's on his mind -- no holds barred -- the Nation of Islam leader bit his tongue before hundreds of thousands of black men who gathered for the Million Man March.Aspiring to statesmanship, Minister Farrakhan issued a call to sit down with Jewish leaders with whom he has been sparring for more than a decade in one of the most public, most rancorous, most bitter and persistent feuds in public life."I don't like this squabble with the members of the Jewish community," he told the sea of marchers who gathered on The Mall in Washington.

OFFICIALS AT Howard University Hospital are being irritatingly circumspect about the condition of probably the most famous patient their institution will ever have: Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan."

NEW YORK - With the demise of Stanley Kubrick, Michael Mann has taken over as the reigning perfectionist of American movies. So talented is Mann that his invariably gritty and increasingly adult pictures have become events to rival sci-fi blockbusters. This happens even when his movies showcase little-known stars in commercially risky ventures. Think of Daniel Day-Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans (1992), a historically savvy revival of frontier romance, and pre-Gladiator Russell Crowe in 1999's The Insider , a muckraker about big tobacco and broadcasting that's also a paradigm of compromised corporate lives.

LOUIS FARRAKHAN is the leader of The Nation of Islam, an organization that traces its roots to Wallace D. Fard, who established mosques in Detroit and Chicago in the early 1930s.Fard told his followers that he was the incarnation of Allah and promised that his teachings would deliver them from the yoke of white oppression.In 1934, Fard disappeared and was succeeded by one of his lieutenants, Elijah Muhammad, who was born Elijah Poole in Sandersville, Ga., in 1897.Elijah Muhammad met Fard in Detroit and became one of his most devoted followers.

From a modest, two-story bungalow in the Chicago suburb of Calumet City, Warith Deen Mohammed runs a ministry that has touched hundreds of thousands of Muslims.Although he is considered the spiritual leader of most black Americans and others who follow Orthodox Islam, his name is not widely known. And although he is the son of Elijah Muhammad, one of the founders of the Nation of Islam, he rejected his father's teachings and turned his back on the money and power that was bequeathed him.His followers say that he is a sincere, humble and deeply religious man who converted thousands of former Nation of Islam members to Orthodox Islam.