Farrakhan’s Influence and Absence Mark Nation of Islam’s Annual Conference

The Nation of Islam (NOI) held its annual Saviours’ Day conference in Chicago, IL, from February 21–23, 2025. In a marked departure from over forty years of tradition, longtime NOI leader Louis Farrakhan, 91, was mostly absent from the weekend’s activities, which were also smaller in scale than usual.

Nonetheless, Farrakhan and NOI’s familiar brand of conspiratorial and antisemitic rhetoric — including some of the same claims that Farrakhan made during his 2024 Saviours’ Day address about Israel and Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack — reverberated in the messages shared by his followers.

Breaking from Saviours’ Day Traditions

Saviours’ Day (originally spelled Saviour’s Day) was first established during the tenure of former NOI leader Elijah Muhammad to commemorate the birth of NOI founder W. Fard Muhammad and reflect on his teachings. Following Elijah Muhammad’s death, Farrakhan took over the leadership of the NOI and revived the Saviours’ Day tradition beginning in 1981.

Saviours’ Day serves as one of the group’s most significant annual platforms to promote its hateful ideology. Farrakhan’s Saviours’ Day addresses routinely contain extensive and wide-ranging antisemitism, including characterizing Jews as satanic liars, making claims about alleged Jewish power and control, promoting conspiratorial allegations about the Holocaust and 9/11, and more.

Saviours’ Day, which has grown over the years to include multiple days of programming ahead of the traditional Sunday keynote address, has historically drawn upwards of 40,000 attendees and received national news coverage. In recent years, however, the scale has diminished to some extent.

After decades of hosting the conference at large arenas or convention centers, the NOI instead held a mostly virtual Saviours’ Day for the first time in 2021 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to 2025, 2021 was also the only other Saviours’ Day at which Farrakhan chose to hand off the primary keynote address duties to Student National Assistant Minister Ishmael Muhammad, though Farrakhan did still speak for more than an hour after Muhammad’s remarks concluded. After another semi-virtual conference led by Farrakhan in 2022, Saviours’ Day returned to an arena setting in 2023 (at Wintrust Arena in Chicago) and 2024 (at Huntington Place in Detroit).

This year, the combination of venue and keynote speaker lent Saviours’ Day a decidedly diminished profile. The NOI hosted the weekend’s events at its Mosque Maryam and National Center headquarters in Chicago, after reportedly failing to secure a larger, offsite venue. Ishmael Muhammad was again tapped to deliver the address, but this time without any supplementary remarks by Farrakhan himself. Farrakhan did speak briefly during a closed session in front of NOI members earlier in the weekend and greeted conference attendees, but did not appear to be in the room during the keynote session.

Louis Farrakhan made an appearance during the private graduation ceremony of the NOI’s Fruit of Islam (FOI) and Muslim Girls Training and General Civilization Class (MGT and GCC) as part of Saviours’ Day weekend on Saturday, February 22, 2025 but did not appear at the public keynote address on Sunday, February 23. (Screenshot/X)

Familiar Rhetoric in the Keynote Address

The keynote address that Ishmael Muhammad delivered on behalf of Farrakhan was titled “Repent, For the Kingdom of God Is at Hand,” and featured familiar NOI talking points about the alleged imminent fall of America and the world, pointing to unusual weather events as “evidence.”

Muhammad also appealed directly to President Donald Trump, saying "Death is what approaches and God wants you, Mr. President, to listen. You are in the position to help America escape the wrath of God." Muhammad added, "Trump is the last president to receive the offer of God, the plea of God, to repent. Because it’s going to get terrible."

Muhammad also spoke about Israel’s imminent destruction, repeating many of the same antisemitic and conspiratorial claims that Farrakhan made in his 2024 Saviours’ Day address. This included the accusation that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had advance knowledge of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, but that Netanyahu allowed it to happen to have a "pretext" to force Palestinians out of Gaza, annex land throughout the region and form a "Greater Israel."

Muhammad stated: “Netanyahu [and] his military commanders…They knew Hamas was gonna attack…And they were willing to sacrifice their own people for their greedy gain.” He alleged that Netanyahu is “in jeopardy of reaping the total destruction” of Israel and its people. Muhammad also repeated the familiar NOI defense of Farrakhan against longstanding antisemitism accusations.

Notable Saviours’ Day attendees recognized during Muhammad’s speech included longtime Farrakhan allies Father Michael Pfleger, Bishop Frank Reid and Yosef Asiel (son of the late Prince Asiel Ben Israel). In addition to the overflowing crowd on the grounds of the NOI headquarters, more than 15,000 viewers tuned in to the keynote address across livestreams on the NOI’s website and platforms that included X, Rumble, Odysee and Twitch.

Ishmael Muhammad speaks from the rostrum inside Mosque Maryam while delivering the 2025 Saviours’ Day keynote address on February 23, 2025. (Screenshot/ Rumble)

Looking Ahead to the NOI’s Future

Commenting on Farrakhan’s absence on Sunday, Ishmael Muhammad reassured followers that Farrakhan is not "on a death watch," but acknowledged that the group is looking to a future “with the Minister [Farrakhan] not being here physically.” Muhammad reflected, “this is one of the greatest signs of perhaps how we will be, and how we should be. Even if [Farrakhan’s] not here with us, we will continue to stand. We will continue to work the work of our Lord and Saviour.”

Farrakhan and the NOI have indicated at various times over the years that the longtime leader would be stepping back from his public role as the group’s leader — including in 2007, 2016 and 2022 — but each time, he has reemerged to speak again at the next Saviours’ Day or during other NOI events.