Masjid To Honor Former Rival

At a Jummah prayer service, leaders of Dixwell Avenue’s Abdul-Majid Karim Hasan Islamic Center made an announcement that heralds a new chapter for the Muslim community: the center will honor a Nation of Islam leader at its annual banquet in November.

The masjid (or mosque), which is one of the oldest in Connecticut, sits just over the town line in Hamden. It will celebrate its 60th anniversary this year. Among the scheduled guests of honor at the Nov. 9 banquet will be Mustapha Farrakhan, the supreme captain of the Nation of Islam (NOI) and the son of its controversial leader, Louis Farrakhan.

That’s significant, because of the local mosque’s history. The mosque, which was originally located in New Haven, broke from the Nation of Islam and followed Warith Deen Muhammad (W. D. Muhammad) in a more mainstream religious direction in the 1970s, when Farrakhan split from W. D. Muhammad.

The announcement was made during the most recent weekly Friday Jummah service.

The Abdul-Majid Karim Hasan Islamic Center was founded in 1959 by brothers Abdul-Majid Karim Hasan, who is still the resident imam, and Abdul Karim Hasan, who now lives in California and who will be the main guest of honor at the banquet. At the time, Elijah Muhammad was the leader of the Nation of Islam. It was a black nationalist and religious organization with its own military branch, called the Fruit of Islam (FOI). Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali were members, though Malcolm X left in the 1960s and condemned the organization.

In 1975, Elijah Muhammad died, and his son W.D. Muhammad succeeded him at the helm of the NOI. W.D. Muhammad enacted a number of reforms. He changed the name a few times, eventually landing on the American Society of Muslims. He led his followers to reject the black nationalist teachings of his father, and instead practice a more mainstream form of Sunni Islam and integrate with other Muslim communities.

The Hasan brothers followed W. D. Muhammad, as did most former NOI members. Louis Farrakhan dissented, and abandoned W. D. Muhammad in 1977 to lead his own movement in the image of the original NOI, reclaiming the original name. Farrakhan has become a controversial figure in the United States due to a anti-Semitic comments.

Farrakhan’s dissent began a period of hostility between the two leaders, though the animosity did not last forever. The Chicago Tribune reported in 1986 that they were considering a reconciliation. In 2014, the Nation of Islam and W. D. Muhammad communities held a reconciliation conference in New York. (W. D. Muhammad died in 2008.)

Now, another moment of reconciliation will happen, this time at the Fantasia Banquet Facility in North Haven on Nov. 9. ​“We believe that this is going to be historic,” said Yusuf Shah, who is director of public relations and convener at the Hamden masjid. ​“We want everybody to know that we are coming together based on Islam and economic sustainability.”

This is not the first time the community has honored a member of the NOI at its banquet, said Shah. Khadijah Muhammad, who organizes the monthly mobile food bank for the community, said that NOI members frequently attend the mosque’s functions. It is, however, the first time it has honored a leader of the nation.

“We All Come From The Same Umma”

Former promoter Murad Muhammad spent his career facilitating fights: He toured the world with Muhammad Ali, and he discovered and promoted champion boxer Manny Pacquaio. On Friday, however, his message was one of unity and friendship.

Murad Muhammad lives in New Jersey, but he came to Hamden on Friday to lead the service and to announce the community’s plans to forge ties with Farrakhan.

Murad Muhammad told the Independent that he studied under W. D. Muhammad himself. Friday, he said, was his third time leading the service in Hamden.

Friday’s service began with the call to prayer, chanted, as usual, by Tisa Ahmed. Next, Murad Muhammad began his khutbah, or sermon. Imam Abdul-Majid Karim Hasan, the resident imam at the Islamic Center, was ill, so Murad Muhammad acted as imam.

“We have different nationalities. We have different cultures. [But] we all come from the same ummah,” he said, using the Arabic word for community that often refers to the totality of the Muslim world.

Now, he said, is a good time to try and foster unity with the Nation of Islam. ​“When real estate goes down, you buy everything,” he said. ​“Today, African Americans have lost everything… I can teach how we can evolve in economics, but we will not do it by ourselves.”

Shah said that he and other members of the community felt that Murad Muhammad would be a good person to help lead the process of reconciliation ​“because he is one of the most successful Muslims that we know of to not only promote shows and events but to generate capital all over the world.”

He said that he thinks this is a good moment to do so. ​“We felt like this should happen now because first of all there cannot be any progress for our people unless there is unity,” he said.

Shah said that he and Mustapha Farrakhan have been lifelong friends, despite the W. D. Muhammad-Farrakhan split. Shah’s father, also named Yusuf Shah, was the East Coast regional captain of the Fruit of Islam. He came to New York with Malcolm X in 1952 to found a mosque. Shah (the younger) said that his parents were friends of Louis Farrakhan, and that he and Mustapha Farrakhan grew up together.

He said he decided to ask whether he could honor his friend at the 60th anniversary banquet, and that Louis Farrakhan agreed to let his son receive the honor.

The Nation of Islam did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication of this article.

“How is it that we can say that the two groups are Islamic and that we’re both Muslim but there’s a concept out in the community that we’re divided,” he said. We all read the Koran, he added, and go to Jummah prayer.

And the message of empowerment and self-sufficiency that originally spurred NOI members into action, he said, still resonates. ​“We can’t deny the truth of history… when it comes to the history of black people in America and Elijah Muhammad,” he said. ​“You have to agree with Elijah Muhammad when he said that the black man was the worst treated person on earth. When you talk about slavery, when you talk about lynching, when you talk about all the things that are happening to black people even now.”

Links between members of the Hamden masjid​’s community and NOI members remain. On Friday, two former Fruit of Islam members showed up to the service, including former Captain Caralton Muhammad (pictured above).

Khadijah Muhammad said she remembers feeling protected when the FOI patrolled the streets.

“It was a reunion,” she said of having them at the service on Friday.

Unity between the Hamden masjid and other W. D. Muhammad communities and the Nation of Islam, said Shah, will take work. But he and his community, he said, are up for it.

“It will be a very, very, very sensitive and careful task to weave this tapestry of unity, and we’re willing to do the work and we feel now is the time.”