Dr. Wesley Muhammad

Dr. Wesley Muhammad is regarded by many as a phenomenal young scholar with impressive credentials, who is also passionately committed to playing a role in the healing of the Black Nation.  He received a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies from the acclaimed HBCU, Morehouse College (Atlanta, GA), graduating with honors in 1994. In 2003 Dr. Muhammad received a Master’s Degree in Islamic Studies from the prestigious ‘public Ivy’, the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), whence he also received a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies with a focus on Early Theological Development in Islam. Dr. Muhammad’s doctoral work included training in Arabic, Biblical Hebrew, German and French and he conducts research in those languages. Twice as a graduate student Dr. Muhammad’s exceptional research earned him the highly honored, Great Books of Islam Prize, given out by the Center For Middle East and Near Eastern Studies, University of Michigan. Dr. Muhammad has been invited to present his research at the University of Chicago, Duke University, Emory University, Michigan State University, Western Kentucky University, Howard University, Cleveland State University ,Morehouse College, Spelman College and Clark Atlanta University. In September, 2002, Dr. Muhammad was one of a number of scholars selected to present at the First World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies held in Mainz, Germany, where 2000 scholars from over 14 different countries participated. He was asked by members of the organizing committee to chair the panels on Islamic Theology.

Dr. Muhammad’s research has been published or accepted for publication in some of the most respected peer-reviewed journals of his fields: The International Journal of Middle East Studies, The American Journal of the Oriental Society, The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, and The Harvard Theological Review. Dr. Muhammad has recently been asked to contribute to the much anticipated upcoming Encyclopedia of Muhammad, to be published by one of the leading Western publishers in academic and reference publications. Dr. Muhammad has taught courses on Islamic Studies, Religious Studies, African American Religion, and Middle East Studies at the University of Michigan, the University of Toledo, and Michigan State University.

Dr. Muhammad’s scholarship is both deconstructionist as well as constructionist. Not only has he courageously and convincingly deconstructed important aspects of the Orthodox Islamic historical-theological tradition, but he is also helping to construct a totally new historical paradigm for Islam.

But Dr. Muhammad’s credentials in the ‘Movement’ are equally impressive. As a fiery Five Percenter at Morehouse College, Dr. Muhammad or ‘True Islam’ as he was then and is stilled called, lit up the Atlanta University Center. Between the years 1992-1994, Dr. Muhammad, as 'Student Minister Wesley X,' was appointed by the Southern Regional Minister of the Nation of Islam to represent the local and regional Mosque among the colleges and universities around the Atlanta Metro area. Dr. Muhammad was president of the first Nation of Islam Students Association at Morehouse College in 1993-4, and was featured in British Broadcasting Communications documentary, 'The Morehouse Men,' which aired nationally in 1995. Dr. Muhammad is the author of several works, including: The Book of God: An Encyclopedia of Proof that the Black Man is God; Black Arabia and the African Origin of Islam and Take Another Look: The Qur’an, The Sunna, and the Islam of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

On January 10, 2010 the United Muslim Alliance and the New Black Panther Party (NY) presented Dr. Muhammad with The Dr. Khalid Abdul Muhammad Sayful Islam Award and on January 30, 2010 Student Minister Rodeney Muhammad and the Believers of Muhammad Mosque #12 (Philly) and the Delaware Valley Region presented him with the "Defender of the Ummah" Award.