Louis Farrakhan, the departing leader of the Nation of Islam, gave what was billed as his last major public address here on Sunday, with his extended illness throwing into sharp focus the question of whether the group will shift toward more mainstream Islamic teachings to survive once it loses its central charismatic figure... (for more from the NYTimes)

The Nation of Islam is sometimes seen as black supremacism thinly disguised as Islam and justified through revisionist history, but its influence in America has historically been fairly influential, starting from the time of Elijah Muhammad, who wrote their statement of beliefs in "Message to the Blackman in America" (published in 1965):

1. We believe in the One God whose proper Name is Allah.

2. We believe in the Holy Qur'an and in the Scriptures of all the Prophets of God.

3. We believe in the truth of the Bible, but we believe that it has been tampered with and must be reinterpreted so that mankind will not be snared by the falsehoods that have been added to it.

4. We believe in Allah's Prophets and the Scriptures they brought to the people.

5. We believe in the resurrection of the dead--not in physical resurrection--but in mental resurrection. We believe that the so-called Negroes are most in need of mental resurrection; therefore they will be resurrected first.

Furthermore, we believe we are the people of God's choice, as it has been written, that God would choose the rejected and the despised. We can find no other persons fitting this description in these last days more than the so-called Negroes in America. We believe in the resurrection of the righteous...



10. We believe that we who declare ourselves to be righteous Muslims, should not participate in wars which take the lives of humans. We do not believe this nation should force us to take part in such wars, for we have nothing to gain from it unless America agrees to give us the necessary territory wherein we may have something to fight for.

11. We believe our women should be respected and protected as the women of other nationalities are respected and protected.

12. We believe that Allah (God) appeared in the Person of Master W. Fard Muhammad, July, 1930; the long-awaited "Messiah" of the Christians and the "Mahdi" of the Muslims.

We believe further and lastly that Allah is God and besides HIM there is no god and He will bring about a universal government of peace wherein we all can live in peace together.

ok, so maybe the messianic claims toward the end are a little crazy, but some of those statements did have some compelling social commentary...

The movement has always relied on a charismatic leader - first W.D. Fard, then his disciple Elijah Muhammad, and Malcolm X (whose conversion to orthodox Islam, and subsequent denouncement of Elijah Muhammad, then subsequent assassination by the Nation of Islam). When Elijah Muhammad died in 1975 and his son, Wallace Muhammad, took over, the group drifted toward orthodox Sunni Islam and dissolved until Louis Farrakhan rebuilt the group in 1978...

So now with the impending death of the demagogue, will they become Orthodox Muslims again? It could lead to some interesting changes in the demographics of Islam in America, and could help lead to the forging of an "American Muslim identity."