Given the name at birth of Wallace D. Mohammed, Imam W. Deen Mohammed was born October 30, 1933, to the builder and leader of the Nation of Islam, the late Honorable Elijah (Poole) Muhammad and the late Clara (Evans) Muhammad.
He has been the leader of the largest identifiable constituency of Muslim Americans and is recognized worldwide as a Muslim scholar. Imam Mohammed has been a frequent participant in countless national gatherings, international gatherings, while also meeting with significant world leaders for the purpose of improving the global human condition.
On February 6th, 1992 he delivered an historical invocation in the U.S. Senate, the first ever given by a Muslim. On March 3, 1992, he delivered an address on the floor of the Georgia State Legislature, the state where his father was born.
In 1993 he gave an Islamic prayer at the first Inaugural Interfaith Prayer Service of U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton and again in 1997 at President Clinton’s second Inaugural Interfaith Prayer Service.
His strong interest in interfaith dialogue led to an address on March 6, 1995, at the Muslim-Jewish Conference with leaders of Islam and Reform Judaism in Glencoe, Illinois. In October 1996 he was invited to meet the late Pope John Paul, II at the Vatican, facilitated by Archbishop William Cardinal Keeler of Baltimore, Maryland, and the Focolore Movement. On October 28, 1999, Imam Mohammed was invited by Pope John Paul II along with other world religious leaders to address an assembly of over 100,000 at an interfaith conference on the “Eve of the New Millennium” in St. Peter’s Square.
Imam Mohammed is a champion of intellectual freedom and independent thinking. He desired for the human being to have peace in the soul and peace in the community. Imam Mohammed’s life works resonate and reflect the ideals of peace, universal human acceptance, establishing interfaith relationships and a cherished appreciation for America and her guarantee of Freedom, Justice and Equality.
