Warith Deen Mohammad was the son of Eljah Muhammad, the key figure of the Nation of Islam. He was born in 1933 in Hamtramack, a small city enclosed by the city of Detroit as Wallace Delaney Muhammad (named in honor of Wallace Fard who founded the Nation of Islam). He became the national leader of the Nation of Islam after his father’s death in 1975.
In 1961, he went to jail for refusing to join the United States Army. It gave him time to do a deeper study of the Quran, which resulted in a significant change in his belief.