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Islam is a worldwide religion whose central belief is that there is one God and Muhammad was His prophet. Since one of the primary requirements involved complete submission to this basic belief along with specific customs, there was little or no room for class or race differences to develop. When Malcolm traveled to Mecca he saw men and women of all races praying together and based his remarks on that observation. from a political standpoint, islam as taught by developed and taught by Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X, embodied strong currents of black nationalism. in this context, Malcolm noted that "Islam poses a challenge and a threat. Thousands of so-called Negroes are beginning for the first time to think for themselves and are turning away from the segregated Christian church, and rejoining the ranks of our darker brothers and sisters of the East, whose ancestral faith is the age-old religion of Islam, the true religion of our foreparents" [cited in the Judas Factor, p. 47].
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