Take Another Look: The Quran, the Sunnah and the Islam of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad
by Wesley Muhammad

Did the Honorable Elijah Muhammad teach true Islam or was he simply a powerful social reformer who spun an interpretation of Islam that was religiously blasphemous? Dr. Wesley Muhammad, an Islamic scholar with a Doctorate in Islamic Studies, brings a wealth of information from the Classical Arabic/Islamic tradition to this discussion. He sheds light on the criteria that should be used to assess the Islamicity of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s teachings.

Dr. Wesley demonstrates that the original Arabic context of the Qur’an and the Sunnah, as well as the Arabic Sunni orthodoxy of the 8th-9th centuries, differed from the later de-Arabized orthodoxy that currently dominates discussions of God in Islam. When evaluated based on this de-Arabized Islam, the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad may appear radically divergent and un-Islamic. However, when viewed through the lens of the Arabic Qur’an, Sunnah, and the Arabic Sunni Tradition, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s teachings align with the teachings that came through Prophet Muhammad.

This newly revised 2nd edition of Dr. Wesley’s work also includes an intense academic dialogue between scholars from the respective religious communities of Minister Louis Farrakhan (Nation of Islam) and Imam W.D. Mohammed (Mosque Cares), engaging in a discussion on this controversial subject matter.