CHICAGO – The Nation of Islam, a secretive movement generally closed to outsiders, has planned a rare open-to-the public event at its Chicago-based headquarters in what the Minister Louis Farrakhan deemed a “new beginning” for the group.

Hundreds of religious leaders of different faiths have been invited to the event planned for Sunday, a rededication of the group’s historic Mosque Maryam on the city’s South Side. Farrakhan is scheduled to speak.

“We have restored Mosque Maryam completely, and we will dedicate it to the universal message of Islam, and the universal aspect of the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad,” Farrakhan said in an invitation letter. “It represents for the Nation of Islam, a new beginning.”

The event comes just weeks after the death of Imam W.D. Mohammed, the son of Nation founder Elijah Muhammad, who broke with the group and moved thousands of African-Americans toward mainstream Islam.

The Nation purchased the mosque, a former Greek Orthodox church, in 1972 and has since been making renovations. The stately 1948 structure, embellished with a golden dome and topped with an Islamic crescent moon, is adorned with Quranic verses in Arabic.

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