Warith Deen Muhammad was born Wallace D. Muhammad. He is the son of Elijah Muhammad, founder of the Nation of Islam (NOI).

In 1975, after his father's death, Wallace D. Muhammad became leader of the Nation of Islam and brought about many reforms which brought it closer to mainstream Sunni Islam. He renamed his organization a number of times, settling on the Muslim American Society, and many of his followers assimilated into mainstream Islam. Wallace Muhammad publicly shunned his father's theology and black separatist views, accepted whites as fellow worshipers and attempted to forge closer ties with mainstream Muslim communities in the US. Wallace later changed his own name to Warith Deen Muhammed.

A number of dissident groups resisted the changes in NOI. Among these was Louis Farrakhan who announced a revival of the Nation of Islam name for his group in 1981.