W.D. Mohammed was the son of the founder of the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad. After his father died, he took over and gradually shifted most of the membership into mainstream Islam. Here's the link to the AP brief . And here's the link to the Detroit Free Press story. For an excerpt from a story I wrote several years ago about Dallas-area former members of the Nation of Islam and how they viewed Mohammed, go to the jump. From 1998: In 1975, the lives of all three were turned upside down. John 5X was on a bus, on his way to celebrate the Nation's annual Savior's Day holiday in Chicago. As they approached the city, the news came on the radio: Elijah Muhammad was dead. The men on the bus spent the rest of the trip debating whether the news could be true or whether it was a story made up by whites. They soon discovered that the new leader of the Nation was Elijah's son. Like his protege, Malcolm X, W. Deen Mohammed had already begun to shift toward traditional Islam years earlier. And the new leader wasted no time in transforming the faith of his father's followers. In a matter of months, he ordered chairs to be removed from the worship areas and replaced by prayer rugs. He explained traditional Muslim prayer rituals to newly installed imams who had never seen them practiced. The former John 5X, who took the name Yahya Abdullah, had to struggle with the physical challenges of prostrate prayer and the tongue-tying requirement that ...
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