The lawyer and student minister Dr. Ava Muhammad died on August 26. She was the National Spokesperson for the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.
Ava was the first woman in the history of the Nation of Islam to be named a minister. She had worked her whole life to spread the word of Allah and help the lost find their way.
Let’s find out more about the great leader’s death, obituary, age, race, and some of the most important things she did and contributed during her life.
What Caused Ava Muhammad’s Death and Who Wrote Her Obituary?
Ava Muhammad was the first woman to serve as a minister in a mosque. When she died, it was a huge loss for the Muslim community because she was so important to the Nation of Islam.
In 1983, when she was told she had only five years to live because of cancer, the minister had a long battle with her health. But because she worked hard and didn’t give up, she beat cancer and lived for 40 more years.
Most of her followers and friends wrote an obituary for the minister that told touching stories about Ava and wished that her soul would rest in peace.
On Facebook, one of her fans wrote, “Sad to hear that Sis. Min. Ava Muhammad has died. May God be happy with her as she rests in peace for all time.”
Everyone in the Islamic community was sad about losing such a great person, and they all sent their condolences to the family of the person who died.
Even though her family hasn’t said what caused her death, she beat cancer years ago, so it probably wasn’t that. It could have been old age, though.
How old was the lawyer who died?
She was born in 1951, so she was 71 years old when she died. The minister was also an attorney, and she got her Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center in 1975.
Ava grew up in a middle-class home in Ohio. She made history by becoming the first woman to become a Muslim minister, even though her parents were Christians.
In 2013, the lawyer’s license to work as a lawyer was taken away, but she joined the New York Bar Association. Muhammad got married to Darius Muhammad in 1988, and they had a happy life together.
But at the age of 28, when she was told she had cancer, the successful lawyer had a spiritual awakening. On July 28, 1998, Ava agreed to become the Southern Regional Minister for the Nation of Islam.
She looked up to Stokely Carmichael and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as she was growing up, and she began her life as a minister who told people about Allah.
What kind of people was Ava Muhammad?
Ava Muhammad was born to parents who were both teachers and who were of the African-American race. Her parents were both Christians and raised her to be a Christian, but when she almost died, her youth church couldn’t help her.
She said she was a Christian, but she felt comfort in Allah’s words, which were about black people being able to take care of themselves.
The activist joined the Nation of Islam in 1981. She said that joining the group helped her beat cancer, and she has spent her whole life helping people like her.
“I hope with all my heart that I can do my job well and help the minister get rid of the idea that women are inferior beings who can’t preach the Word or take care of the flock.”
This is what Minister Ava Muhammad said on July 28, 1998, when she was sworn in as the Nation of Islam’s Southern Regional Minister. The words were important because the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan had given her a job that had never been done before. She was the first woman in Islamic history to be a regional leader in the Nation and the minister of a mosque. On that day, she stood in front of a full crowd at the Hillside Chapel Truth Center in Atlanta.
Muhammad grew up in a Methodist family, and it took him a long time to find his way to the Nation of Islam. She grew up in a middle-class family in Columbus, Ohio, and claims to be a Christian to this day. Both of Muhammad’s parents were teachers, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), and other civil rights activists who fought for equality and self-reliance were big influences on her as a child. She went to Georgetown University Law Center and got a degree in law in 1975. Muhammad was on a normal path for a law student: she was studying to become a criminal defense attorney and was on the way to a successful career. But in 1979, when she was 28 years old, her life changed. She was told she had cancer, so she started looking for spiritual help to help her deal with her fear of dying.
Muhammad first went to the church where she had grown up, but it didn’t give her the comfort she was looking for, and she still felt afraid of dying. She went to New York City to hear Louis Farrakhan speak because she liked how the Nation of Islam pushed for black people to be self-reliant. She finally felt like she was where she belonged. She had always liked the message of self-reliance that Farrakhan preached, but in an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, she talked about why this time was different. Muhammad said, “When I heard him talk about Allah, it went deep into my soul, and I knew that this was what I was born to do.” She also said that after she heard Farrakhan’s message, her cancer went away.
In 1981, Muhammad became a member of the Nation of Islam. As a member, she helped Farrakhan a lot and was his lawyer in a number of important court cases. President Reagan stopped Americans from going to Libya.
In a Nutshell.
Born in 1951 in Columbus, Ohio, she got married in 1988 to Darius Muhammad. 1975, he got his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center.
In 1998, she became the first woman to be in charge of a mosque when she was put in charge of Muhammad Mosque No. 15. In the same year, she was also named Southern Region Representative of the Nation of Islam and wrote the books Real Love and Queens of the Planet Earth: The Birth and Rise of the Original Woman.
1986. After Farrakhan’s trip to that country, he was tried to be arrested. Muhammad was asked to defend him. In a case with even more attention, she sued the New York Post for slandering Farrakhan. After a few years in court, Muhammad was able to prove that the Post intentionally and maliciously took Farrakhan’s words out of context to support a 1994 story that said he was involved in the murder of Malcolm X.
During this time, Muhammad rose to prominence in the Nation and was seen as one of the future leaders of the Nation, even though the Nation had put limits on women in the past. In the late 1990s, one of the Nation’s goals was to not seem so extreme in how they lived. Muhammad had grown into a leader who could hopefully help the often-threatened religion connect with the mainstream. She was one of the most well-known women in the country, and she spoke at the Million Women March in 1997. She talked to the women at the march about “The Further Development of Black Women Who Are or Want to Become Professionals, Entrepreneurs, and/or Politicians.” In the message, she talked about how important it was for women to first have a strong relationship with God if they wanted to get ahead in life.
As the Southern regional minister, Muhammad still gave Farrakhan legal advice and led efforts to get rid of problems that the Nation was facing both nationally and internationally. She was one of the most vocal and active members of the Nation who fought against the British government’s exclusion order against Farrakhan. The ban was put in place in 1986, and it was thought that Farrakhan’s presence in Britain would hurt the public good. In 1999, she spoke at a rally in London put on by the London branch of the Nation of Islam to keep the fight against the ban going. She was quoted in the Final Call as saying, “It’s an insult to us as a people to be told that you and I aren’t smart enough or skilled enough to understand his message.”
Even though she was the first woman in Islam’s 1,400-year history to be put in charge of the clergy, Muhammad seemed more ordinary than many people thought she would. She was close with best-selling author Iyanla Vanzant and Susan Taylor, who was the editor of Essence magazine. More importantly, she insisted that God welcomes people of all colors, religions, and walks of life. This is in line with how down-to-earth she is. She told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “We are all one.”
When Muhammad was named Southern Regional Representative of the Nation and minister of Muhammad Mosque No. 15 in 1998, it seemed like the Nation and Farrakhan were moving away from the traditional Islamic faith. It was different because it showed that women could be leaders in the country and because Muhammad’s message was about including everyone, which was the opposite of what Farrakhan had been saying in the past. But Muhammad says that it was actually a sign of the group’s growth. “We don’t like being seen as people-haters,” she said in an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It’s our ego that gives labels and names and makes us separate. We can never say that someone isn’t right or isn’t going to heaven because they are Jewish, Christian, or Muslim,” she said.
Muhammad thought that the Nation’s philosophy wasn’t changing all at once, but rather changing over time. She told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “This is how the message has changed over time.” “But it doesn’t change and move in a different way. It is getting closer to what God wanted it to be.” Muhammad also told her that as a leader in the Nation of Islam, part of her job is to move toward doing what God wants.