W. Deen Mohammed leads a mass turn to Sunni Islam

On Elijah Muhammad's death, his son Warith Deen Mohammed leads most of the Nation of Islam's membership into mainstream Sunni Islam, rejecting his father's racial doctrines and reorienting the community toward orthodox practice.

Among the largest collective religious transitions in American history: he has been credited with leading more African Americans to Sunni Islam than any other person. The community's schools were renamed for his mother, Clara Muhammad: the educator profiled in the Women's Thread above. The record carries a second thread: in 1978 a dissident minority led by Louis Farrakhan rejected the reforms and reestablished the Nation of Islam on Elijah Muhammad's original teachings; it continues today as a separate movement outside mainstream Sunni and Shia Islam, noted here, as everywhere on this site, for accuracy.