"Brother Imam," as he was affectionately known, was 74. There was no immediate confirmation of his death by his family. The Cook County medical examiner confirmed that a Wallace Mohammed was pronounced dead at his home in the 16100 block of Cambridge Drive in Markham, a spokesman said.

Muslim community leaders said Mohammed was scheduled to speak Tuesday in Chicago, and many grew concerned when he did not appear. His last speaking engagement was at Navy Pier on Saturday at an event sponsored by the Inner-City Muslim Action Network.

Mohammed inherited from his father the Nation of Islam, a religious movement crafted out of black nationalism and bits and pieces of Muslim practice. He immediately tried to move its followers toward mainstream Islam, eventually leading to a split between those who agreed with Mohammed's approach and those who joined a revived Nation of Islam under Louis Farrakhan.

Mohammed was a spiritual wanderer who was banished several times by his father for filial impiety--once for remaining close to Malcolm X, Muhammad's prized disciple who turned into a critical voice within the Nation of Islam before he was slain.

In 1961, Mohammed refused to serve in the U.S. military and went to prison in accordance with his father's teaching that African-Americans shouldn't defend a land of lynching and segregation.

While incarcerated, Mohammed studied the Quran and found its teachings at considerable variance with his father's. In 1976, a year after he succeeded his father, Mohammed made a public appearance carrying an American flag. He proclaimed the time had come for black Americans to celebrate America.

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They are followers of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed, a Hamtramck native who now lives in Chicago. He is the son of Elijah Muhammad, the former leader of the Nation of Islam, founded in Detroit almost 80 years ago. Given metro Detroit's sizable Muslim and African-American communities, the convention has special significance for many locally.

After Elijah Muhammad's death in 1975, Mohammed took over and reformed the black nationalist organization into a group that preached a more orthodox Islam that opposed any racial or ethnic divisions. A few years later, Minister Louis Farrakhan broke off and formed a new Nation of Islam he felt was more in line with Elijah Muhammad's teachings.

While Farrakhan is the leader who gets more media attention and is most often associated with Islam among African Americans, Mohammed is thought to have more followers. In contrast to Farrakhan, Mohammed is low-key and speaks more like a scholar than a preacher.

"He's a superb leader," said Nadir Ahmad, 58, of Detroit. "He has a sober message of good morals, but also a commonsense approach to life and religion."

On Friday in the Cobo Center, the imam spoke to a packed crowd at the start of the three-day convention. He urged personal responsibility and praised Jesus and Muhammad, Islam's founder, saying both were great teachers.

He stood on the podium slightly hunched over, a compact man with glasses and a modest brown suit who spoke in measured tones.

"We all ... should be trying to be Christlike," he said.

Ahmad said Mohammed "has always called for cooperation between faiths."

Imam Gary Alkasib of Detroit was eager to hear his words and glad that the convention is in Detroit this year. "It's the return of a native son," he said.

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Now he is campaigning at the Lambeth Conference, hoping that bishops will face up to the existence of gay Christians in Africa.

I met him just before he began a demonstration at the conference venue on the Kent university campus, joined by lesbian and gay Anglicans from six African countries.

With dancing accompanied by traditional drumming, the campaigners held a banner proclaiming, "We're here!"

Many gay Anglicans around the world still feel that the church would prefer to deny their existence.

Mr Mac-Iyalla's message is simple.

"Homosexuality does exist in Africa - it's not a Western thing, as our African bishops would want people to believe," he says.

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Dr Wright says most traditionalist bishops do not support Gafcon

"The idea they have a monopoly on Biblical truth won't do," he said.

It comes as the Church of England's ruling body, the General Synod, gathers for a five-day meeting.

The meeting, being held at the University of York, is set to be dominated by the issue of women bishops

'Global sledge hammer'

The Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) attracted about 300 bishops to a gathering held last month in Jerusalem.

It called for the creation of a council of primates and said the Archbishop of Canterbury's authority over the Communion should end.

Many of the 300 attendees plan to boycott this month's Lambeth Conference - a meeting of the Anglican Communion held every 10 years.

Speaking to the BBC's World at One programme the Bishop of Durham said Gafcon was "taking a global sledge hammer to crack the American nut".

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Oakland, California - African American Muslims have a role to play when it comes to the widespread Islamophobia (an irrational fear of Islam) that is prevalent in the West. The unfortunate fact is that some Americans see Muslims as a disease to be rooted out. However, as is the case with immunisation, the "disease" can sometimes also be the source of a cure.

So, when some in the United States negatively and aggressively stereotype Muslims as many people once did African-Americans, it provokes a latent hostility in the United States, conjured up by certain talk show hosts and others who use such labelling to garner support with their audiences, and reinforces an ethos of opposition or aggression.

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By Duke Helfand


Leaders of the Presbyterian Church (USA) overturned a long-standing ban on the ordination of gays and lesbians Friday, providing yet the latest example of a religious denomination struggling with how, and whether, to incorporate homosexuality into church life.

At the same time, the church's national governing body, meeting in San Jose, refused to alter its definition of marriage, calling it a "covenant between a woman and a man." The actions by the General Assembly came the week after same-sex marriage became legal in California. They also follow the decision of a gathering of Methodists from Southern California and Hawaii, who went against their national church by voting to support same-sex couples who marry and the pastors who welcome them.

The Presbyterian Church is among many mainline Protestant denominations struggling to reconcile conflicting beliefs about biblical authority and the role of gays.

Some parishes have left the Episcopal Church, prompting predictions that the issue may tear the denomination apart. In the Presbyterian Church (USA) -- the nation's largest Presbyterian group, with 2.3 million members -- Friday's actions were likely to deepen theological fissures.

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It will operate independently of the Archbishop of Canterbury, but will stay inside the Anglican Communion.

The traditionalists say they are fighting a "false Gospel" and the rift in the Church cannot be patched up.

After five years of trying unsuccessfully to get the American church expelled for its ordination of an openly gay bishop and blessing of same-sex relationships in church, the traditionalists say the international alliance will emphasise a more orthodox reading of the Bible.

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The three spoke on May 18 about what it means to be “Queer and Muslim” during a panel discussion at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston that was hosted by the Massachusetts Area South Asian Lambda Association. The talk followed a screening of the documentary “A Jihad for Love,” a film about the hidden life of being Muslim and gay.

Hussein, who is the founder of the Massachusetts Area South Asian Lambda Association, said that he reconciled his faith and his sexual preference early on.

“I was always as certain of my faith as my sexuality,” said Hussein, a native of Tanzania who is of Indian descent.

“There were never really any negative messages growing up, I was kind of left alone to see if I could personally reconcile with having the two things as part of my identity simultaneously.”

After he came to terms with his identity, he said, being gay and Muslim was never a problem for him.

Toor, however, said that homosexual Muslims often deal with stereotypes and misunderstanding from others.

“Being a Muslim queer is always scary because you carry this burden of representation; you’re always in this position of worrying that whatever you say is being represented correctly — you always have to contextualize and qualify everything,” said Toor, who was Muslim but left the faith to become a communist. A native of Lahore, Toor is a member of the Pakistani political-action group Women’s Action Forum and teaches sociology and women’s studies at The College of Staten Island, City University of New York. She said that panel discussions, such as “Queer and Muslim” can overlook the fact that homosexual followers of Judeo-Christian religions can face challenges just like gay Muslims do.

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Rabbi Capers Funnye, spiritual leader of a largely African-American congregation in Chicago, is off to Nigeria to make connections with the Ibo, a community that claims Jewish heritage.

These men, and dozens of other representatives of far-flung communities seeking recognition by the Jewish mainstream, gathered earlier this month in San Francisco at a conference sponsored by Be'chol Lashon (In Every Tongue), a project of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research.

The Ibo, Lemba and Abayudaya of Africa, the anusim and xuetas of Spain and Latin America, Ethiopian Jews from Israel, Indian Jews from New York and Asian-American Jews-by-Choice spent three days networking and sharing information about their struggles to join the global Jewish family, a family that is not always eager to embrace them.

"The Jewish community keeps talking about the crisis of intermarriage and the crisis of declining numbers, but meanwhile you've got people with Jewish heritage, spiritual seekers, Jewish communities of historical significance, and the Jewish community is doing nothing to help them," says Gary Tobin, the institute's president and a longtime advocate of greater openness to those outside the Ashkenazi mainstream.

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Atlanta-based minister Troy Sanders, founder of Preach2me.com, concurs:

“I have a personal investment in this visit, because my family is in New Birth. And when I say family, I mean both kinds.

“I have biological family who are still caught in the conflict between their theology and having an openly gay clergy person as kin, and I have lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender brothers and sisters who—for whatever reason—have chosen to make New Birth their church home,” Sanders explained.

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