Elijah Muhammad

African American religious leader (1897–1975)

Elijah Muhammad (born Elijah Robert Poole, later Elijah Karriem; October 7, 1897 – February 25, 1975) was an American religious leader who led the Nation of Islam from 1933 until his death in 1975. Under his leadership, the Nation of Islam grew from a small Detroit-based movement into a nationwide organization with tens of thousands of members in the United States during the civil rights movement. He promoted black nationalism and a distinctive theology which taught that white people were a race of "devils" created by an evil black meccan scientist named Yakub, and that there were multiple gods, each a black man named Allah whom he was the messenger of.

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