Detroit – Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is heading into what’s billed as his final major address Sunday, and some Muslims are wondering whether the fiery orator – slowed by poor health – will try to repair old divisions between his movement and mainstream Islam.
Farrakhan’s scheduled appearance at Ford Field, home of the NFL’s Detroit Lions, will be his first since ceding leadership last year to an executive board because of illness.
The 73-year-old Farrakhan was released last month from the hospital after undergoing a 12-hour abdominal operation to correct damage caused by treatment for prostate cancer.
The event will be a homecoming of sorts for the Nation of Islam movement, which promotes black empowerment and nationalism. It was founded in Detroit by Wallace D. Fard in 1930.
Fard attracted black Detroit ers on the margins of society with a message of self-improvement and separation from whites, who he said were inherently evil because of their enslavement of blacks.
Farrakhan rebuilt the movement in the late 1970s after W.D. Mohammed, the son of longtime Nation leader Elijah Muhammad, moved his followers toward mainstream Islam.
Farrakhan angered many Americans in the process.
He became notorious for his provocative comments, calling Judaism a “gutter religion” and suggesting crack cocaine might have been a CIA plot to enslave blacks.
Now, back in the Nation’s birthplace, there’s speculation about what Farrakhan’s address could tackle. The topic of Sunday’s speech, capping a series of meetings set to begin Friday, is “One Nation Under God.”
