Editing Nation of Islam (section)

==Demographics==

[[File:A PORTION OF A CROWD OF SOME 10,000 MUSLIMS APPLAUD ELIJAH MUHAMMAD DURING THE DELIVERY OF HIS ANNUAL SAVIOR'S DAY... - NARA - 556243.jpg|thumb|right|Members of Nation of Islam applaud during Elijah Muhammad's annual [[Saviors' Day]] message in Chicago in 1974]]

The Nation does not publish its membership numbers,<ref name=MacFarquhar/> and in the past had a high turnover, with some members developing into conventional Sunni Muslims.{{sfn|Gibson|2017|p=39}} Under Fard Muhammad's leadership, it reached a total of approximately 8,000 members.{{sfn|Allen|1996|p=11}} By 1960, its membership was being estimated at between 30,000 and 100,000,{{sfn|Colley|2014|p=398}} the latter being supported by the scholar [[C. Eric Lincoln]] in his 1961 study of the group.{{sfnm|1a1=Lincoln|1y=1961|1p=4|2a1=Vaught|2y=2017|2p=53}} In 2007, the scholar of religion Lawrence A. Mamiya suggested that there were then around 50,000 members of the Nation.<ref name=MacFarquhar/> 

While based in the U.S., the Nation has also established either a presence or influence among African diaspora groups elsewhere;{{sfn|Tinaz|2006|p=154}} in 2006, the scholar Nuri Tinaz suggested that the Nation "may have" up to 2,000 members and sympathisers in the United Kingdom.{{sfn|Tinaz|2006|p=152}} Not all members are of African heritage; although, prior to 1975, only a small number of Hispanic American and Native American individuals were members of the NOI, under Farrakhan the Nation put greater efforts into recruiting from these groups.{{sfn|Gibson|2012|pp=104–105}}

In its early decades, the Nation's appeal was strongest in poor African-American neighborhoods,{{sfn|Colley|2014|p=399}} but over the course of the 20th century the NOI's membership became increasingly middle-class.{{sfnm|1a1=Gardell|1y=1996|1p=115|2a1=Izadi|2a2=Hosseini|2a3=Mohammadi|2a4=Anjomeruz|2y=2020|2p=140}} Gardell suggested that this was partly due to the Nation's focus on hard work and rigid morality, which helped improve the economic situation of its members, coupled with the broader growth of the African-American middle class in this period.{{sfn|Gardell|1996|pp=115–116}} He also believed that the changing class composition, and with it a less hostile attitude to white-dominant American society, assisted the shift to Sunnism under Wallace Muhammad in the 1970s.{{sfn|Gardell|1996|p=117}} 

===Conversion===

The NOI refers to its proselytising efforts as "fishing for the dead".{{sfn|Gardell|1996|p=63}} To this end, the Nation holds regular open meetings, mass rallies, street-corner lectures, and prison outreach,{{sfn|Gardell|1996|p=63}} seeking new recruits in "jails and penitentiaries, pool halls and barbershops, college campuses and street corners".{{sfn|Akom|2003|p=311}} It has used books by Elijah Muhammad, radio broadcasts, and audio-recorded speeches to promote its message.{{sfn|Gardell|1996|p=64}} Through this, it has sought to attract unemployed, disenchanted black youth,{{sfn|Tinaz|2006|p=161}} as well as disenfranchised Christians.{{sfn|Soumahoro|2007|p=41}}

The NOI's recruitment efforts have proven particularly effective among drug addicts and incarcerated criminals.{{sfnm|1a1=Gardell|1y=1996|1p=306|2a1=Akom|2y=2003|2p=311}} The Nation was active in prison ministry by the 1950s, with its numbers of imprisoned followers rising steadily in the latter part of that decade;{{sfn|Colley|2014|p=394}} many members, including Malcolm X, were recruited while in prison.{{sfnm|1a1=Curtis IV|1y=2002|1p=181|2a1=Colley|2y=2014|2pp=393–394}} Farrakhan stepped up the prison ministry in the 1980s in response to the growing incarceration of young black men under Reagan's administration.{{sfn|Gibson|2012|p=105}} By the early 1960s, prison authorities were raising concerns that the NOI was exacerbating racial tensions in prisons.{{sfn|Colley|2014|pp=394, 405}} Some incarcerated members have claimed to have experienced discriminatory treatment from prison authorities because of their religion,{{sfnm|1a1=Gardell|1y=1996|1pp=307–308|2a1=Colley|2y=2014|2pp=404–405}} and in some cases have filed legal action as a result.{{sfn|Vaught|2017|pp=53, 57}}

Ula Y. Taylor, a scholar of [[Black studies|African American studies]], suggested that female members were attracted by the Nation's offer of a "stable family life" and the opportunity to get involved in "the development of a new black nation".{{sfn|Taylor|2017|p=105}} The historian Zoe Colley thought that it offered men living in poverty the "opportunity to reclaim their manhood and sense of pride", thus partly explaining its appeal.{{sfn|Colley|2014|p=409}} It also attracted followers with its offer of a separate schooling system where African-American children would not suffer the racism found in the mainstream public school system.{{sfn|Taylor|2017|p=37}}