1985-April-19

A.M. Journal

10-Year Progress

Imam W. Deen Muhammad


SO GIVEN the circumstances we have made great progress in these ten years. Great progress in these ten years. Yes! I can't go along with anyone who says, "What have we done in all of these years?" I can't go along with any of them.

We have done a lot. We have found our lives again. And we have found them now in the right sense. Our money now is producing for us more than it has ever produced for us. 
This is a fact. Our monies now are producing more than they have ever produced for us.

I REMEMBER when this following was under the Hon. Elijah Muhammad. Not all of you, but most of you. I remember when the annual celebration day came money came in by the hundreds of thousands. I remember that two weeks later, the ministers and captains were begging the people for money. I remember big buildings being built.

I used to go by and look at the buildings and wonder how in the world are they keeping it with no tenants in it? This is a fact. Big buildings with no tenants in them. How are they keeping them? What is its purpose? Do you now what its purpose was? To promote, encourage, and inspire in you, induce in you a sense of security so you would continue to give. Yes!

We would say, "Yes, isn't it wonderful. Do you see that big new building that we have? We have a 5000 acre farm down there." You go down there and say, "How is it doing? How is it going to last if nobody is doing anything with it?''

THEY WOULD BRING a couple of loads of watermelons to one little store in Chicago and call it a "Nation" operation. "Yes, we got a Nation. Our fleet of trucks is supplying our store!" One store! And wasn't supplying that one. Most of their products and goods were being bought from the wholesaler in Chicago.

But every once in a while they would bring up from their garden during harvest time, some squash or something - - that's what they were doing. During harvest time, they would bring a load of watermelons in, or some beans or something to show us.

"Here is a bag of beans, your beans! The white man didn't produce these. These are your beans in your package, Salaam Brand." You are waiting to buy some but you never could get the can on your supermarket's shelf. But you saw it. They showed it to you, "Salaam Brand beans."

Hundreds of thousand of dollars. Sometimes one of you would give a thousand dollars. Sometimes more than a thousand, just one person. All of that money was coming in, and what did we have to show for it when the Hon. Elijah Muhammad passed? What did we have to show? Nothing but liabilities. Nothing but debt. Nobody had made the purchases or investments properly.

SO THE PURPOSE was not profit! It is obvious to me, and to you too, if you would think about it and search it, think and be sensible and sane like I am, it will come to you very clearly that the purpose under the Hon. Elijah Muhammad was not to make the economic program prosper.

The purpose was to use it as bait to attract Blacks to come into the Temple. That was the purpose. Just so a minister could stay out front and keep getting converts from the Christians. That was the purpose!

Now I say that during these ten years that we have been leading the community in the right way, we have more to show. The little money that trickles in to our accounts now is doing wonders when we look at what was done with the big money ten years ago. That's right! I am telling you that we have paid off Sedalia!

THERE ARE THOSE who want to charge me with something because they don't want to follow the Qur'an. They don't want to be real Muslims. It isn't me. None of those people have anything against me personally. It is what I represent that is a big problem for them.
They want people to believe that, "Oh, he's failed us — look how he let us down and messed up everything and messed up the money." What money? I inherited debt, no money! I inherited debt!

When I came into office, I stopped you from sending big money to me. I let the money stay at home. I said, "Keep that money in New York. Keep that money in Washington, keep that money in Los Angeles. Keep the money at home, the people need it there. Let Chicago stand on its own or fall." That was my policy. So how can you all be looking to me for money when I inherited nothing but debt and don't have the same principle, the same philosophy to support all of this heavy liability?

BUT EVEN WITH this great overload, this great, unreasonable overload, what has happened? Allah has blessed us to stand. We are baffling men like Hoover. We are baffling the Hoover planners. They are saying, "How in the world is that man still around? How in the world do they still have places? What is holding them up?" Allahu-Akbar! Praise be to Allah!

Dear beloved Muslims, look — in spite of the circumstances, Chicago now has a library. A facility in which we now house a high school, an independent high school. Chicago now has a Ph. D., a doctor of science, over the Science Department. That school in Chicago has turned out to be the best private school in

Chicago. That is what it is supposed to be. We have a record there for sending our graduates to the best colleges. It is very difficult to get in Chicago Illinois Tech — very difficult. My daughter got an "A" — an "A-minus" — from Illinois Tech. She is not the only one, we have others.

NOW IF YOU let someone talk down on this community, knowing the facts, that tells us that you are a hypocrite and that you are not one of us. And the building (in Chicago) does not belong to somebody else, it is our building.
They say, "The Arabs gave it to you." Yes, money from Saudi Arabia gave us the library. But they did not give it to "Joe Blow" down the street. No. They must have seen something in us that they did not see in Joe Blow. They gave it to us upon our own merit. It was our merit that earned it!

Others will say, "What are you doing over there teaching against the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's teaching?" — We were getting the building that we bought.
When I became your leader, you were in debt and they were about to take it. I went to Libya and told them what I represent, and they said, "Imam, forget about the debt." I came back to Chicago free of debt. We did not have to send them anymore money! (In repayment for a loan in 1972 from Libya which was used to purchase the building at 7351 S. Stony Island Ave.)

So let nobody tell you that the Imam has brought burdens — the Imam has brought relief! Allah has blessed your Imam, and your Imam brings relief! Allahu-Akbar.


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Muhammad Is The Leader For The Community

Imam W. Deen Muhammad


Don't make one of us the leader for the community. We already have a leader for the community. Muhammad, the Prophet, is the leaded for the community, for his Sunnah is the pattern for our community life. He's gone, but his Sunnah he left us with. We follow his Sunnah. Not my sun-nah, I don't have any sunnah.

Whatever sunnah that I have it disappears in the Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH). Yes! Because all that I am doing is trying to follow his Sunnah. So if I have a sunnah — and what I mean by that is if I have established something that is identifiable with me as leadership excellence — whatever I have established, I have only done it trying to follow to the best of my ability ... the leadership of Muhammad, Peace and Blessing be Upon Him.

So whatever I have done, if you really understand what I represent, what I am indeed, what I am truly, then you will see what I have done is just try to live out my obligation as a follower of the Prophet. I have no sunnah except in the Sunnah of the Prophet. And in his Sunnah, all of our sunnahs disappear and become the Sunnah of the Prophet because that is what we are aiming for, the Sunnah of the Prophet. Praise be to Allah!
