This report discusses the successful deradicalization program carried out by the community of Imam WD Muhammad (CWDM) for over 43 years in the United States, and furthermore, proposes it as an alternative option/approach that can be an example for US and global policymakers to effectively combat violent extremism (Fraser-Rahim and Taylor 2018, 7).

Imam WD Muhammad formulated reform techniques and argued a uniquely American Islamic experience that offered an enlightenment and reawakening of Islamic principles for his co-religionists in the US and worldwide (7).

"Following the 1975 death of Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam, his son WD Muhammad led the Community of Imam W. Deen Muhammad (CWDM) in a step-by-step program of reform that transformed the Nation of Islam. The CWDM abandoned the Nation of Islam’s more extreme racial and anti-government views, replacing them with views that were more compatible with normative Islam and that stressed the value of working within the Constitutional system for reform.” (Fraser-Rahim and Taylor 2018, 8).

“Despite the CWDM being one of the largest communities of African American Muslims, with some 300 mosques and associated centers throughout the U.S. and the Caribbean, not a single member of the community is known to have engaged in jihadist terrorism-related crimes” (Fraser-Rahim and Taylor 2018, 8).

The Nation of Islam
"In 1930, a year after the death of Noble Drew Ali, Wali Fard Muhammad founded the Nation of Islam (NOI), which would be popularized in mainstream America by his student Elijah Muhammad. For many orthodox Muslims, the NOI was unorthodox and a deviation from “normative” Islam, informed by such notions as the idea that Fard was God in flesh, and that Elijah Muhammad (not the Muslim Prophet Muhammad) was the last prophet – if not the Messiah. The Nation of Islam was more than a religious group. It was also a political movement at odds with the U.S. government, who viewed the NOI as a black nationalist extremist group. The Nation of Islam embraced rhetoric calling the white man the devil, believed that blacks should have their own separate nation within the U.S., and emphasized self-defense in the face of real and imagined injustice perpetuated by whites. As a result, the Nation of Islam was classified as an extremist group – a product of extreme times, via racism, segregation, lynchings, etc. ” (Fraser-Rahim and Taylor 2018, 12-13).

"The NOI was also a social reform movement focused on the experience of African American life. Its agenda included a moral and physical code in which adherents were instructed to abide by strict measures of discipline, including abstinence from alcohol, gambling, fornication, adultery, drugs, and dancing, as well as dietary restrictions, such as avoidance of pork. Additionally, the NOI recruited and attracted African Americans from the underclass (e.g. those in/from prison, the poor, the undereducated, etc.). These and other rules were carefully orchestrated to make clear the divisions between members and nonmembers of the NOI” (13)

"For many African-Americans, the NOI’s social reform efforts and the techniques it employed were vital. The importance of the NOI and its promotion of social reform can be seen in the bold speeches and practices of men like Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, two international figures that introduced NOI and the struggles of African Americans to the world scene.21 At its peak, the NOI had perhaps millions of followers. However, many African Americans were hesitant to join this new movement that was critical of the white American establishment. Though this paper doesn’t address the minutiae of doctrinal details on the NOI or other early Islamic movements in America, it is important to understand that the NOI and other such movements offered elements of Islamic reform to address the physical, emotional, and spiritual conditions of its followers.”(13)

"In 1975, Elijah Muhammad died, and leadership of the Nation of Islam (NOI) fell to his son, Imam Wallace Deen Muhammad (1933-2008). As a result, WD Muhammad became the religious leader of the largest American Muslim community in the Western Hemisphere and began to transform the NOI. WD Muhammad’s efforts led to the eventual disbandment of the original NOI and the emergence of the Community of WD Muhammad (CWDM)" (13).

As part of this transformation, WD Muhammad ushered in the largest mass-conversion of Americans to Sunni Islam. While doing so, he gradually moved away from his father’s divisive teachings of black nationalism and proto-Islamic concepts into universal Islamic values that filtered through the African American experience" (13-14).

The CWDM’s Deradicalization Program
The authors of this report claim that "[d]espite the attention devoted to Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), terrorism prevention, and deradicalization efforts, one of the most successful deradicalization efforts in American history has long been ignored - that of CWDM” (14).

Ideological/Doctrinal Reform
  "Dismantling the NOI’s extremist ideology was at the core of WD Muhammad’s efforts. He created a new frame for the entire movement that included the following changes: (1) labeling Fard Muhammad, the founder of the NOI, as a wise man instead of “God in person” as Elijah Muhammad and followers had done; (2) restoring and honoring Malcolm X’s legacy as a critical and influential member in the movement and raising his status to that of an important contributor to the NOI; (3) raising the status of American citizenship as a central role, a direct critique on the NOI’s previous rhetoric calling for a separate state; and (4) doctrinally ensuring that the followers of the previous NOI were in line with traditional and normative Islam through ritual devotional acts as commonly practiced by Muslims throughout the world (e.g. fasting, prayers, practicing hajj, etc.)" (14).

"The institution of these four measures provided WD Muhammad with the foundational basis to establish a new movement on the theological and spiritual grounds of the religion of Islam. Through weekly radio addresses, public events using audio and cassette recordings, and annual conventions, he used his new platform to directly critique the theological innovations of his father” (14).

"To this point, WD Muhammad introduced the term “Bilalians.” Bilal was an Ethiopian Muslim who was born in 600 AD. His role in early Islamic history is of primary importance since he was one of the first converts to Islam and was brutally punished by his enslaver in the pre-Islamic Arabian society for his refusal to denounce Islam. According to authoritative Islamic accounts, Bilal would lament and cry out his belief in monotheism and his faith in the new religion of Islam as the early Muslim community was emerging” (15).

"[...] effort to reshape the way identity was expressed” (15).

"WD Muhammad stated, “We are experimenting...trying to find a solution to our identity problem” (15).

"By creating a new image that allowed the followers to have a hero and model who was both black and Muslim, WD Muhammad created a sense of belonging and meaning while recentering Islamic identity and blackness to the religion of Islam and to the African continent” (15).

"In the Bilalian News on November 16, 1979, he defended the reform towards Sunni Islam that he was trying to introduce to members of the former Nation of Islam. With regard to the concept of Bilalian, he stated:
[This] is not a religious name. We have adopted the name Bilalian as an ethnic name to replace other terms that we think are not as rich, ethnically speaking. They are not as rich because to identify with skin color is not as rich ethnically speaking as to identify with an ancestor who identified with a great ideology.... We don’t identify with Bilal only because he was Muslim, it’s mainly because he was an African ancestor” (15).

Patriotism and Citizenship
"In addition to deliberately reframing the way the Nation of Islam constructed African American identity, WD Muhammad also reframed the way the NOI related to the U.S. Government and citizenship. Unlike the separatism of the NOI, encouraged his followers to embrace their American citizenship despite the complicated history of being descendants of enslaved Africans. He also encouraged his community to not only recognize their black roots from the continent, but also to fully embrace being both Muslim and black in America, especially because there would be no opportunity for African Americans at large to know where in Africa they were from" (16).

"This understanding also placed the desire to respect the rich tradition of Islamic schools of learning and value the experiences of the American encounter with Islam as unique, different, and contextualized in history” (16).

"WD Muhammad emphasized the development of a specifically American formal tradition or school of Islamic thought (madhab):
It’s because, as I understand, the madhabs are geographically influenced. We are in a totally different geography in America. And I don’t think we should adhere to any madhabs because those were influenced by their location and they are different based on their location. The Shafi school and the Maliki school are in North Africa and the Wahhabi one in Saudi Arabia. Regions are supposed to develop these madhabs. I think we are gradually getting a sense of madhabs in America, especially those like me. We are getting a sense of madhabs. And with the coming generation I think that we will be getting a much stronger sense of it. It is coming more and more” (16)

"Muhammad Muhammad encouraged a healthy sense of American patriotism, encouraging his members to serve their society in government, civil society, and locally. For WD, service was a part of worship and was at the core of reconciling differences and creating a sense of cohesion with one’s fellow citizen. This was significant, as it transformed the notion that the U.S. was inherently evil and created the conditions for members from the CWDM to actively participate in government and civil society” (16).