Aisha al-Adawiya is the founder and director of Women in Islam, a human rights organization based in New York, N.Y. She is an expert on African-American Islamic women.

Jeffrey Ogbonna Green Ogbar is former director of the Institute for African American Studies at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. He is currently the Vice Provost for Diversity.

Ernest Allen Jr. is a professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He has written about the evolution of the Nation of Islam from its roots as the Moorish Science Temple to the stepping down of Farrakhan.

The Moorish Science Temple was founded by Noble Drew Ali in the early 1900s 1913 and is based on the teachings of Islam, although it also incorporates Eastern and Gnostic beliefs. It is based in Hyattsville, Md.

The Nation of Islam is an African-American religious organization that espouses black racial superiority and Islamic beliefs. However, most Muslims do not consider it true Islam. The Nation of Islam was founded by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930. Scholars estimate its membership at 100,000. It is best known for the Million Man March, which continues as The Millions […]

Siraj Wahhaj is an African-American convert to Islam who is the imam of Masjid Taqwa in Brooklyn, N.Y. In 1991 he became the first Muslim to offer the invocation for the U.S. House of Representatives. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Islamic Society of North America.

Carolyn Moxley Rouse is a professor of anthropology at Princeton University in Princeton, N.J., and the author of Engaged Surrender: African American Women and Islam. She has written about women and Islam and how their religion is expressed in food and other forms of consumption.

Ayesha Mustafaa is the editor of Muslim Journal, a weekly newspaper affiliated with The Mosque Cares and W. Deen Mohammed. It has about 40,000 subscribers. She also hosts a radio show each Friday through Sound Vision Foundation.

Ishmael Muhammad is the national assistant minister of the Nation of Islam. He is widely considered to be a possible successor to Farrakhan.