04/06/1998
IWDM Study Library
Al-Islam-the American Spirit and Global Community Toledo OH

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Speaker: Titled our Islam, the American spirit and vision for the global community, was recorded Tuesday, April the 6th 1999 on the campus of the University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio. The lecturer, W Deen Mohammed, Muslim American spokesman.
Imam Mohammed: Peace be unto you. The Muslim greeting is peace be unto you. We say, "As-salamu alaykum."
Audience: Wa alaykumu as-salaam.
Imam Mohammed: To our non-Muslim, our Christians who have joined us, we wish you peace. We pray G-d that you had a satisfying day yesterday with your religious people, your friends, and your family. We are here again in this city of Toledo and on this precious ground here the campus of the University of Toledo to address you not just the Muslims, but to address persons from the public as well. From the public of Toledo, Ohio and the surrounding area.
We have selected to speak or to address Al Islam, the religion of Islam, the American spirit and vision for global the community. Islam as it's commonly called, in our holy book is always written Al Islam. Islam is as one scholar said, who has passed away, he's a great scholar who influenced many students in Islam throughout the world. I am one of those. Maulana Maududi of Pakistan. He said, Al Islam is an ideology for the reformation of the world. It is an ideology that's given to bring about the reformation of the whole world.
The whole globe, the global community of mankind. As a student of religion, I understand that the message of Christianity or the Christian message. The message of gospel, the Bible, the new testament is also an idea or an ideology for the reformation of the world, the global community of man. We must also acknowledge that Judaism, religion of the Jews is also a message, an ideology for the reform or the reformation of the whole globe. The human family. We are nearer to the Christians in our method or methodology.
The way we go about promoting the idea or spreading the idea, that is we announce that we are inviters inviting all people to the path of G-d. We don't hide it. We announce that, that we are inviting all people to the path of G-d. That doesn't mean that we don't recognize the rights of other people to their religions, it doesn't mean that we are seeking to dominate the earth with our religion, G-d is too great for that. G-d is too high above that, to force people to come to his word or his way against their will.
If we all were still in the original purity of our religion, we would be the same. We wouldn't be any different. There would be unity, there would be one message, but because as our scripture says and the Bible also acknowledges the same, because we have lost part of our knowledge and some have intentionally went away from their knowledge and gotten in positions of power to influence the way the knowledge is perceived or understood or even read, we have these great differences. Differences because of I would say innocent errors. Differences because of ignorance and differences because of bad intentions [laughs].
We're living in a day now that I call the day of religion. I call it the day of religion because religion is for the first time in the history of man as I know it, I'm not a historian. I'm a student of history also. We are living in a time that we have never witnessed before. For religion recognizing each other, respecting each other and seeking to know more about each other so there can be more respect for each other and more cooperation for the advancement of the whole human society on this earth. This is the first time. This is a wonderful day.
I believe it's a day prophesied in the scriptures, the Bible and the Quran and in other books, religious books that I won't name. It is a day that man has been made aware of and a day that the best of the human souls have been hoping for, for generations and generations behind us. Islam is a religion of peace. The name itself gives a message of peace. Peace is salaam. Al Islam is a religion of peaceful obedience to G-d, to seek peace with G-d and to seek peace with our fellow man. Peace with G-d and peace with our fellow man.
We cannot have that peace if we don't have peace with our self. Peace with our own soul. Islam, the religion that is intended to bring about peace for the individual with himself with his own life, his own soul and peace for the individual with his G-d. He cannot have that peace with himself and with his G-d unless he accepts that he is just one of the many dependents that G-d made or created.
He has to embrace them, acknowledge their creation as a creation like his, no less than his and that G-d is the cherisher of all life, who cares about each and every one of us. When he accepts that, then he can have peace. He can have peace with G-d, he can have peace in his own soul and peace with his fellow man. Islam, I repeat is a religion of peace.
Why is it then that there is fear from non Muslims in many parts of the world of Islam? That Islam seeks to wipe out all other religions, dominate the world?
That has happened because some of us have just not understood our own religion. Some of the teachers of our religious have not really understood this religion. I will give you a few quotes from the holy scripture of the Muslims, the Quran that I hope will just clear the air so we can just keep going and moving forward. It says very clearly in our Holy Book and most of the scholars stand firmly upon this.
Islamic scholars in all the Islamic world. Saudi Arabia, wherever you go, Africa, Egypt in Africa, Morocco in Africa. All the Muslims countries over there and in Asia, Pakistan, and others. The scholars all stand upon this. Let there be no compulsion in religion, do not compel people, force people to be believers. G-d says to the prophet himself, "Peace be upon our prophet. You cannot give faith to anyone." It is only G-d that gives them faith.
If we could give faith to anyone, do you think we'd have unfaithful or non-believers in our families? Among those that we love. Muhammad, the prophet had relatives that wouldn't come to Islam. If he had the power to give them faith he would have. If he could have given them faith he would have. Again, we have to understand the clear language of the Quran. It says, "Let whomsoever will accept and whomsoever will reject."
This is the freedom of religion. What we are saying here speaks for the freedom of religion. Do we fight against those who disbelieve? Yes, we do but upon what ground? That they are denying us our religious freedom. The wars in Islam, in the history of Islam beginning with the very first war led by Muhammad, the prophet himself. Those wars if they were true wars, a true jihad, they were wars in defense of Islam and they were not aggressive. The leaders were not aggressive. It was in defense of Islam. Muhammad, the prophet was a man of peace, a lover of peace and he suffered much. The average one of us would have fought a long time before he did. He went to Ta'if, a neighboring area to his land, the city of his birth, Mecca.
He went to Ta'if, a raised area of mountains there to invite those people of Ta'if to the religion of Islam. They laughed at him, scorned him and for many, their silly ones and the young ones to stone him as he was leaving the city. The report says that blood had dripped from him so much that the sound of the wet blood in his sandals could be heard as he was stepping. This question of the blood.
Did he fight? Did he become angry? No. He understood their ignorance. He peacefully walked out of their town and went back to his own place. That's Muhammad the prophet. That's why G-d had to say in the Quran, the revelation through Muhammad into us now to all of us, "Now, permission is given to you to fight." G-d had to give him permission to fight and Allah says, G-d says in the Quran, "But do not be aggressive."
The last reference I'm going to make you aware for part two some of you are already aware of everything I'm saying. You're students of Islam as I am, students of the Quran as I am and Islam. G-d says to Muhammad and to all of us, "Fight until there is no more oppression and religion is wholly for G-d?" That's a powerful statement. It passes by many. I mean scholars, many scholars. “ and religion is wholly for G-d”.
What is that saying? What is that addressing? Most nations have religion as a scheme for containing the subjects. The religion is serving the nation more than it's serving G-d. Islam came to do away with that, to break that slave hope, enslaving hope on religion and free religion so it could be wholly for G-d. Be aware brothers and sisters, be aware that your religion is supposed to be for your G-d.
Now we know G-d obligates us to do many things because G-d doesn't need anything from but our obedience, our sacred regard, our taqwa, the Muslim term, the Islamic terms. That's all G-d need and He says that in the book, the Quran. G-d says, "What you give, your money or whatever. The animals you slaughter, whatever, the blood that you sacrifice from those animals during the Hajj"
He says, "That does not reach Him." He says that what reaches him is your obedience, your taqwa, your Islamic consciousness. Your taqwa, that's the only thing that reaches him. All He asks us to do is really for ourselves, to help ourselves individually, as family and as community. That we know that we have to give and support of our mosque, give and support of our leaders who devote themselves to the preaching of Islam, to dawa, et cetera.
We're to give to support the needy, to support the widows. The list is long for the recipients of our charities, our giving. Firstly, we have to put to support our family. For G-d says, "Families have a priority when it comes to rights in the book of G-d. This is from Quran I'm giving you. Al-Islam the religion of peace. Al-Islam also is the religion of freedom. The first freedom of the American people is the freedom of religion.
I celebrated with religious leaders that first freedom some eight or nine years ago because I strongly identify with it, religious freedom. Here we join the American Christian people and the citizens of this country as partners cherishing freedom of religion, supporting it and I myself being prepared to die physically right now for it. Those who understand the scriptures, the religion as it is given in the sacred scripture, Christians, Jews and Christians and Muslims, those who understand it, we know that nothing can keep our precious life for us but the guidance of G-d.
The nations will come and go, their precious knowledge comes and go, but the way of G-d stays. It's only because of the eternal life of the word of G-d that nations have great life and great longevity. America is living and surviving for these 200 years or more now, not so much because of its political ideology but because of the essence and influence of the scriptural wisdom incorporated in its political ideology. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator.
This is the language of the founding fathers that recognized the G-d Almighty, the G-d of all us. With certain inalienable rights among them, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We know the true Spirit of American people is a wholesome spirit. It is a blessed spirit. It is the spirit that I embrace and I invite all of you who are with me to embrace it.
Not the commercial world and it's commercial interests and the commercial life that it creates for the consumers. That life, if we're not careful, will take us away from the path of G-d and straight to hell. The True America is not in the commercial picture. The true America is in the language of the founding fathers. In the constitutional evolution of progress that has been made to respect or being accord with the best ideas of the founding father. This is the true America and the true life. This is the real life.
Freedom. Muhammad was told to tell the Meccans who rejected him because they were worshipers too many G-ds, that they made with their own minds and hands and they didn't like that he was bringing them the idea of the One G-d, the Real G-d, the creator of everything. They persecuted him and they treated him as though he had no citizenship right. G-d revealed to him to say, "I am a free man in this town." That's what he said. He was told to say that. G-d told him to say that. "I am a free man in this town."
I don't see how any of us cannot love freedom. I'm talking about African Americans, black folks. If fact we love freedom so much, we can put freedom on anything and we go after it. Freedom has a price. The freedom struggle gave birth to great leaders, females and males. Frederick Douglass is perhaps more outstanding than any single one of them who had-- He was part of the abolitionists among the abolitionists who were mostly none blacks. None slaves, free people, whites.
We know that the history of our freedom struggle is the history of a struggle for respect as human beings created in the best human mold by G-d, the creator. Freedom has a price. Those great giants of the freedom struggle of the path. They paid the price. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He paid a big price. Freedom has a price. Freedom is paid for with the goodness of our hearts and with the goodness and ingenuity of our brains, our minds and our hands, our work.
Those who don't have much in the heart, will not ask for much freedom. They will buy cheap freedom. Those who don't have much in their brains just don't have the ability to ask for quality freedom and they too will buy cheap freedom. Those who are lazy, don't want to make an effort, they wait for freedom to come to them and it can be no quality at all.
To have the kind of freedom that our souls call for from the days that we were created and the day that we were made slaves and the day that we were emancipated our souls call for freedom.
To answer that kind of freedom, that quality of freedom that our souls have been asking for, we cannot have it separately. We cannot have it going at it individually. We must have it behind qualified leaders, authorized leaders. The great progress we made on the path of freedom was because we had such leaders and we followed them.
Too many of us now have lost the meaning of freedom and it's the same for us as it was for a few of those slaves who had to learn two or three years later that they were free. This is a fact of history. Their emancipation and proclamation was made, (unclear), celebrated, they were let free but some of them were walking around in the street thinking that they were still slaves. I guarantee you, you can find some today in Chicago if not in Toledo walking around and they don't know they're free. They don't even know what freedom is. How can they know that they're free if they don't know what freedom is? We have to have leaders.
Allah tells us in our holy book, that we are a community that he made us the best community for the benefit of all people. That's what G-d says in our holy book for the benefit of all people. Not just Muslims, not just blacks, not just Arabs for the benefit of all people. G-d says to that whole community, let there arise out of you a group promoting the best not fearing the criticism of criticizers so G-d as acting for a special group to come out of the big group. That's a leadership group.
We always will need leaders brothers and we should not be satisfied to have bad leaders selected by us. Let the bad people select bad leaders. Let us keep our eyes open and not go with the majority. Let us even put a man up for nomination or for election that we know is going to lose, but we put him up to say to the world, "This is our choice, not these that the majority are going after".
Audience: Allahu Akbar.
Imam Mohammed: Then G-d will be with us and the people will soon hear. They are good by nature, they are good in their souls that G-d made. They will respond in time and we will have the numbers to back us, to support such leaders. First, you have to struggle. You have to be willing to have patience and wait until your message have reached the soul, hearst of the people. Authorized leadership we must have. The best freedom is expensive. A freedom that you pay little for, to me is not worth having.
Male Participant: That's right.
Imam Mohammed: Freedom to eat and sleep and drink and have sex and play and go in any park I want to in America or in any movie house I want to in America or sit down at any restaurant I want to in America. Eat, sleep, drink, have sex, play, be entertained. The animals ask for that-
[laughter]
- but my brain and my human soul wants much more than that. Let more of us support leaders who choose not to lead the way to cheap freedom. I can't have a cheap freedom myself. I'd rather be dead. Islam is a religion of faith and worship and works . We are not different from the Christians. That's their religion, religion of faith, worship, and works. A man was brought to Mohammed the prophet for his devotion to ritual and purity.
They said to Mohammed the prophet, "We bring you this man because he's so good. He prays, he never misses prayer, he fasts, he devotes himself always to the mosque." Mohammed the prophet; peace be upon him, he asked, he said, " who takes care of him?" they say, "we do". He said then you are better than he is.
Audience: Allahu Akbar.
Imam Mohammed: I find it difficult now after preaching for 10 years, 20 years. I find it very difficult to really be aware of my spirit; the spirit that's moving in me, as a purely Muslim spirit, or religious spirit separate from the spirit of the good American people. I have learned that what we believe in and what we cherish, what we hold sacred is what they hold sacred, what they believe in, what they cherish. I find myself speaking as an American and as an Imam and not even knowing the difference.
Audience: Allah Akbar.
Imam Mohammed: Really there is no difference. I don't want you to go too far with some of the things I'm going to say to you now and especially this.
Audience: [laughter]
Imam Mohammed: I was preaching just a few days ago in fact on a prestigious ground, very prestigious ground like this one, and Jewish professor and one of the persons in the organization that invited me, he got up behind my talk. They made comments on my talk and he said, "If a Muslim is what Imam Wallace D. Mohammed says a Muslim is, I want to tell you, I'm a Muslim".
Audience: Allahu Akbar.
Imam Mohammed: That's what he said. That's a Jew who said that. What he was saying is that I accept him without reservation. I accept him and I accept anybody to live, coexist with us, to be my neighbor, to work with them if they would be the Muslim that this man is pointing to. Praise be to Allah. That's why I guess G-d said in the Quran, and when you present it correctly. He says, "Who would reject the religion of Abraham?" Remember that the religion of Abraham means Islam because the Quran establishes that-- it says, "this religion is the religion of your father Abraham". Said, "and who will reject the religion of Abraham but someone who wants to make himself a fool".
Audience: [laughter]
Imam Mohammed: Someone who wants to push his brain down until he gets stupid and crazy and foolish. Islam is a religion that wants us to be aware of sacred ties. The number one sacred tie is our tie with our creator who made us and made everything possible. G-d wants us to be aware also of the sacred tie of family relations. G-d says, be aware, be regardful of the tie to G-d and also to family. Family, the family ties.
Family in Islam is very, very important. I already mentioned that G-d says in his holy book that, "As for right, families have priority in the book of G-d."I'm giving you now the statement of G-d in Quran, for G-d says-- I'm not going to speak Arabic today. You won't hear it. For G-d says, "Be regardful of the tie to Him and be regardful of the tie to family." Family ties. This is America, this is American life. When we went so far with secularism and commercialism, commercialism that we were losing our moral life and losing the content of believers, the concept of faith, the leaders who alarm.
Not only church leaders but community leaders, city leaders, business leaders too, few politicians, I would say many politicians but they are not in the majority, they're in the small minority. Many politicians begin to call us back to G-d, begin to call us back to religion, begin to call us back to faith and family. When G-d says to us in the Quran, " have a sacred regard for Him and have a sacred regard for family ties"? G-d is speaking of family not only in the immediate sense and meaning; my family from my mother and father. G-d is speaking of family in the broadest sense, in the broadest conception. The family of mankind.
Beginning with your own family, immediate family at home but you must extend that respect to all members of the human family. The hajj, the 5th pillar of Islam is a symbol of that unity and that togetherness. G-d says, "You, O people, all people, were originally one community." We know the great religions says that we all were descended or populated from one ancestor. One ancestor, that makes us one family in that ancestor, in humanity. If we can use our imagination a little bit, the original people, the first people on this earth had to be a family. And as they grew they became a community. G-d says they were one community. That means they didn't have a different political idea from the other. They didn't have a different religion from the other. They all had the same life and the same aspirations and the same appreciation for whatever there was existing for them. They were sharers in one life.
G-d said, He said, G-d said to them, to people, "Bringers of good news." I imagine it was because some of them earned it more than others. Then people started to be different. I was thinking for a long time. In fact, I'm still studying and it's very recent that I just thought about, what those words were saying in the holy book. I was thinking all the time.
We have our own theories, we get the theories from the from the scientific world but we also have our own theories too. Some of us, like myself, I had my own theory. I thought the man just went out on his own and went into different areas and he discovered different life, different environments for his life and became different. That's true but more importantly, it's what G-d said.
He said, "He sent them a giver, a bringer of good news and warner. That's what He says. The people were one community, He said. He sent them, bringers of good news and warner. That means He selected certain people out of the descendants that had populated, multiplied on earth. He selected certain ones for His favors. He gave them warners, good news bringers and warners.
Then later, they begin to have argument. Who has the best? G-d said, "That in the holy book too." Says, you did not differ as to what is the religion or what is the way until after guiders had come to you. Then you took pride in the guidance that came to you over that that came to others. You began to selfishly hold yours above theirs. Then greed for power and dominance begin to influence. Pretty soon you came up with a religion that was poisoned. Had left the purity that G-d gave.
This is the book. Islam like the Great American idea also respects the value of the human person. G-d says that he inscribed on the creation of every person. He made all of us excellent, high in quality. If we thought equality, it's not because G-d didn't make us high in quality, it's because the environment temps us to fall. Addressing the idea of race, racial superiority or the supremacy of one people over another. G-d says, we, meaning Himself the angels, His prophets and all working for His office. We, indeed, strong indeed.
I said I wasn't going to give you Arabic. I have to give you one. The intensifier for you Arabic students is (Arabic word) the-- The strongest intensifier. He says, we indeed, inscribed honor, or made honorable and noble every son of Adam. How is this addressing racism?
Some people went astray in religion among the Christians. They came up with an idea, I don't think it ever became very popular. Never got the majority but came strong enough to feed the biggest, the members of the Klan and others. They came up with the idea that the story of Noah's children in the Bible, Ham, Japheth and--What's the other son? I'll get it. I should have put-- I got the reference here, but I didn't get put their names down here in my notes.
Ham, Japheth and the third one. I can't get the name. I can't get the third one.
Audience: Shem.
Imam Mohammed: How could I forget Shem? All the Shemites.
[laughter]
Imam Mohammed: Arabs and Jews and Ethiopian. Shemites. Yes. That's his three sons. Saw their father when he had been drinking too much and he was out of control, that is drunk and his nakedness was exposed. Now mind you all of this has other meanings. That doesn't necessarily mean he was physically like that. It could mean that he was spiritually like that or mentally like that. It doesn't mean that he personally was like that. It could mean that his leadership was like that. The people that he entrusted with the leadership was like that. That would be identified by his name, Noah because this story is not in the Quran like that.
They saw his nakedness. When Shem saw his nakedness, he turned his head. When Ham saw his nakedness, he laughs. When Japheth saw his nakedness. I'm pretty sure was Japheth. He went and got a piece of cloth and covers his father's nakedness. This shows the tendencies in people as regards there mental makeup and their human decency.
The one who gives himself to jokes and play all the time, his brain loses quality. He sees his father and it’s a laugh to him. He laughs. He finds humor in it. Another one, Shem, he's so puritanical, he's so righteous that when then he sees it, he turns his head. But Japheth is well balanced, refined and well balanced. He goes to his father and covered his father's nakedness.
That's not a depiction of blacks and whites and browns. That's a depiction of all the people. But the foolish ones in the church among the leaders interpret that to mean white people, brown people, and black people. The Bible even says Ham is Egypt and Egypt is in Africa. They use this in ignorance to identify Ham as the black people. They said the slave that they brought to America were the children of Ham. Canaanites. This is what they were teaching. The small minority in the church that thinks of this idea. That arrived to that conclusion.
The Bible says of the of the curse on Ham. That G-d would curse Ham but the curse wouldn't fall directly on Ham but fall on his children. The curse would be that they would be made the servants of their brothers. To do menial labor, cut wood, be a water boy. This is the Bible et cetera.
You see how religion, the scripture was misread, misinterpreted to give support to them putting us into the position they put us in. They made many of their own people believe that it was the will of G-d. It was in His word. It was in the Scripture. It was in the Bible that we had been given to them to be their servants and do the cheap labor. This is history. I could have easily documented all of this from history as well as from the Bible.
If you pay me this much again, I will take the time to do it.
[laughter]
Imam Mohammed: They paid me well. But not more than they give some others I know about because they come with a great show. I don't blame them because you're going to be entertained as well as informed. I mean a great show for the price all of you have.
I'm going to round this up, try to close it up. Getting right to the point, we cannot make it by ourselves. We must turn our life with respect for the reality that we are in. We are Muslims, a minority group. Although they say as soon, year 2000-something we'll be a bigger number than the Jews in this country. But I don't care.
You can be in the majority with numbers, but if you don't have the quality you're just like that person buying cheap freedom. He'll never be responsible for the direction the country takes [laughs]. He will never be an innovator. He would never be the one that brings about big changes that better the society and move it forward. No matter how big their numbers are, they won't be shaping the future of this land. So we don't need big numbers, we need quality people.
I don't pay much attention to that prediction that we soon will be the greater number than others. More numbers than the Jews. I like to have as much money as they got.
[laughter]
Imam Mohammed: So I can buy us some TV time and whatever. Get us a few powerful National newspapers and daily city papers. Whatever. Better schools, libraries, cultural centers. I sure wish I had some of that money. I would accept that, I'll be few in numbers, but let them be millions in number, just give me some of that money.
[laughter]
Imam Mohammed: So I can help my own religion and help my own community. With the help that it needs badly. We make a mistake in religion thinking that G-d gave the great revelation to the prophets and to the seeers or whatever, so that man would know his special soul. That's true. That man will know his special intellect. That's true. Because Muhammad, the prophet said, G-d has produced no better thing in terms of its ability to facilitate production power than the human brain.
We hold education scared too. Yes, a sacred possession that G-d intends for all of his dependents to have access to. Education is so precious that Prophet Muhammad gave an incentive to the men. He said, "If any of you men will see that two of your daughters is educated. You will get to paradise." Isn't that wonderful? The prophet has said so much to respect education. He said, "He who goes out on the path to seek knowledge that he may share it with others. He goes enters the path that takes them to G-d." Isn't that wonderful?
More important than this spiritual aim we have in our individual lives or in our soul, which is very important. In fact, it's the same that all people have in their souls. It's that common precious property that brings us all together and makes it possible for us to love each other and work with each other despite the racial differences or anything else, just as members of one family, one group, one religion where they may be real differences.
But if we can recognize that common life, that common sense of light in the soul, that common scared motivation that G-d put in our soul. We can embrace a Jew, embrace a Christian, embrace a Buddhist or Hindu. Anybody that says that, all that it wants to express that like we do. We embrace them and we forget what color he is. We forget what nation they come from. We forget even what sacred book he reads because G-d made something more powerful than our ignorance. More powerful than our differences even. Yes.
G-d in Islam wants us to see the community aim. That G-d has put into man a social nature. He had made the man a social creature and put into him a social aim. Demonstrated or symbolized in the hajj, really make the hajj. There we find all colors, people from all nations making hajj with us. They are all Muslims but that doesn't mean that others are not part of this family. They're all a part of this family but this is our Qibla. This is our hajj. This is our Qibla.
G-d says to each he has given a Qibla or Direction. Is that's not true? Yes, so it doesn't mean that they may not too be going on the right path. Maybe their principle too maybe like ours but their methodology is different. Their book is different but the nature is the same. The human essence is the same. They want what we want and we want what they want. We could get together and go about it in unity.
Since the world is too small now for savages to live to themselves and call themselves human. The television is around and we see on television, we hear about it.
[laughter]
Imam Mohammed: You can't hide somewhere on an island and be savages all to ourselves and call ourselves human. The world is looking at us. The eye of the world is on us. This world have become one small global village as they say. We have to recognize each other, co-exist, support each other, work together in the spirit of Al-Islam and in the best spirit of the American people that they inherited from the founding father. We inherited from the founding father.
We have a shared dependency. We are not gods. We are not angels. We are going to catch a cold. We are going to get old and need Pampers.
[laughter]
Imam Mohammed: Some of us ain't old yet and needs Pampers.
[laughter]
Imam Mohammed: Let's accept our common life, natural life. Our common deficiency but let's, more importantly, accept our common excellence. Work to support that excellence and to progress that excellence for the good of all people on this earth. The community aims wants to see men come together to make work easier on them. To make feeding their families easier on them. To make driving through the woods or driving across the land easier for them. Men come together to lighten the burden on life, on human life.
The community aim is more important with G-d than our private selfish aims. Let us support the new business efforts in the Muslim community here and in this association with me. Support these business efforts. It's not a business effort that's centralized. We don't have a Chicago headquarters for it. It's a business effort to free your resources. To free your resources, your mental resources, your physical resources, to free them up so we can use them together and poor people, putting much together for many them will exercise the financial power of a rich person or a rich company.
Do this so our families will have a better life, so our children will have a better future, better education, and a better future. Do it so our neighborhood will have a better picture, a better image, and better condition. So that our children will have a better chance of living and surviving in those neighborhoods. They won't be tempted by legal money or dope money. But we will have good businesses operating there, that they could see the good business future right next door or right down the street.
Let us support that. Let us do it all in the name of G-d so we will have people with more money to give to education in Islam. To give to the Mosque in Islam. To give to Islamic environment, Islamic neighborhood. Thank you and peace, let's do it in the spirit of Americans and in the spirit of Islam or Muslim. As-salamu alaykum.
Audience: Wa alaykumu s-salam
Imam Mohammed: There's a microphone made available. You can come up please, keep your question very brief.
Female Audience 1: As-salamu alaykum.
Imam Mohammed: Wa alaykumu s-salam
Female Audience 1: I have a question about W2K. They are making a lot of predictins and what have you to say regarding the year 2000, [unintelligible 01:02:33].
Imam Mohammed: Yes, ma'am. Yes, you are welcome. I've ever been asked that question before. I took a computer course, one course. In that one course, I intend to follow up with more course when I get time. I was told by the instructor, we, the class, we're told by the instructor that you put everything on your disk and then you do your best to protect it to preserve it. But said, don't forget the old-fashioned way to put some prints in a file and keep things because we may lose things.
Now, you're talking about, not only that, but I want to share that with you first. Don't trust the computer to keep everything for you. Also, keep the old-fashioned way. Have your records or your information, print it out and keep it in a file somewhere. If is important. If it is very important to me. They say when the year 2000 comes, you are going to check the computer and you might get the wrong information.
The percentage of persons and companies that they expect to have trouble is very small, but the risk is there. My advice is read as best as you were reading in the paper. If you can read this financial column and et cetera, you are getting advice on how to avoid problems. Read, get that best advice and protect yourself. Be prepared to protect yourself.
Yes. I won't be able to stay. I have to leave. I saw you responded very slowly when we offered the youth to ask questions. I think that was telling me it's time for me to try to catch that plane.
[laughter]
Imam Mohammed: Peace. As-salamu alaykum.
Audience: Wa alaykumu s-salam.
Recorded Message: For more on the ministry of Imam Mohammed, Muslim American spokesman. Call 1708-698-6750. Or write Post Office Box 1061, Calumet City, Illinois 60409. For WDM publications call 1708-862-7733. Or write Post Office Box 1944, Calumet City, Illinois 60409. For Muslim Journals, see local distributor. Thanks for listening.
[01:04:55] [END OF AUDIO]

