08/21/2001
IWDM Study Library
Candadian TV Interview At Muslim Journal

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Speaker 1:
This is the National Public Broadcast of WD Mohammed, Muslim American Society leader. What follows is an interview for Canadian TV conducted at Muslim Journal newspaper, August the 21st, the year 2000.
Speaker 2:
Imam Mohammed, growing up what was it like to live with the man who many though was the Messenger of G-d?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Well, looking back, because when I was a child, I didn't know anything else but that, I didn't know the difference. Looking back, it was too heavy for my mind, and I didn't give it a serious thought. I accepted that he was the boss. My mother made us know that, and I accepted that he had a special relationship with G-d and that G-d was really his instructor instructing him. And as a child, I was told that, I accepted that, so I didn't question him. Some of us, the children, would say sometimes when we were complaining to ourselves about the restrictions on us, we'd say, You know, daddy might hear us, daddy might can hear us while we were talking. We thought he had some superpowers maybe, and he could hear our thoughts and our conversation.
Speaker 2:
Was he authoritarian? Was he kind?
Imam WD Mohammed:
On the one hand, he was very kind and also I would say much more merciful, and tolerant than my mother. My mother, she would put the strap on you, and you would remember it for weeks. But my father, if he used the strap, we knew he wasn't trying to hurt us. In fact, after he struck us a few times, we'd get there, we'd laugh about it. And on the other hand, he was very serious person who insisted upon obedience. And if you disobeyed him in matters of religion or behavior or duties, he'd assign certain duties to us occasionally. He was a very difficult man. You couldn't reason with him. You couldn't explain yourself to him. He didn't want to hear anything, and he was right almost a hundred percent of the time. Where I recall him being wrong was, and I had to suffer that, he made a judgment that was not correct of me, but I couldn't speak back to him. I couldn't defend myself.
Speaker 2:
And as a child, what was your image of G-d?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Well, we had a picture of the man that came from Asia far east and taught my father all that he learned of Islam or didn't learn of Islam.
Speaker 2:
And the name of that man was?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Fard, spelled F-A-R-D. His name was WD Fard, and they also called him W Fard Muhammad. He taught my father and gave him, well, the whole idea of how to establish the Nation of Islam, and he gave my father two hints of his divinity and hints to my father of how my father should represent him. Yes, that he was G-d
Speaker 2:
And your father was a Messenger.
Imam WD Mohammed:
And that my father was a Messenger of G-d. Yes. Well, he didn't say to my father that, but he left it to my father to reason that I'm his Messenger and he's G-d.
Speaker 2:
And did you ever meet Fard?
Imam WD Mohammed:
I believe I did. In fact, I'm convinced I did, but I can't prove this to anyone.
Speaker 2:
So as a child, you would've been meeting G-d?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Well, this was long after I'm married. I'm married and have a child now, and my oldest daughter Layla, and I met a man, his name is Muhammad Abdullah, his name was Muhammad Abdullah. He passed several years ago. And I met him at my father's home. He was sitting at the table, the dining table where a special guest would sit at the dining table, and he was a man about the size of my father and a Pakistani man, I know now a Pakistani man who came from India very early. He went to Fiji Island, came to the United States in the thirties and the forties, and he kept his head down. I came in and he kept his head down. He just looked up and put his head right back down and my father said, son, meet the old gentleman here. He usually didn't speak like that of people unless he had some prior knowledge of them and had been relaxed with them and some relationship.
So he said, Son meet this old gentleman. And he said, this is Muhammad Abdullah from San Francisco. He said, he thinks he can help me with my bronchitis. He brought me some dried salmon fish he said That was the first time seeing this man. When I went back to the city where I was the Minister for the Honorable Muhammad Nation of Islam, Philadelphia, I learned, he contacted me himself in fact, And he said, I have a newspaper. He said, could you maybe take some copies for me and help me sell the newspaper? So I didn't know. I said to him, I said, can you get a copy and let me see it. Get a copy of the newspaper to me and let me see it? He said, oh, sure, I'll bring it today. So he did. He brought the newspaper and I looked at it and I went through it carefully and the contents were acceptable. I didn't see them making any trouble for me with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad or the Nation of Islam staff. So I said, yes, we'll take 50 from you. So he was very happy we started taking his papers. He said, do you know I teach Qur'an reading and I can help you with your Arabic? I said, I didn't know that. He said, do you want me to come? I can come to your house. I said, yes.
Speaker 2:
How old were you at the time?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Then? Let's see, I was 30, about 34 maybe.
Speaker 2:
But this is after you've left the Nation of Islam.
Imam WD Mohammed:
No, no. Oh, it's way back there. I was a minister for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in Philadelphia at the time, and when I saw this gentleman, the old gentleman, as my father said, sitting at the dining table, when I came in, I was coming from Philadelphia to bring my monthly report to my father, as most of the ministers did from around the country. And I went back to Philadelphia, the city where I was the minister there, Temple number 12, they called it. At that time I was the minister of Temple number 12.
Speaker 2:
I want to go back to your retirement.
Imam WD Mohammed:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
Describe to me if you can, how Islam expressed itself within the Nation of Islam.
Imam WD Mohammed:
Then we thought we had Islam, but after we learned better, I can't say that was Islam. It was a strategy, a risk strategy to introduce the Qur'an into America, into the black community of America, to the most neglected black community of America, the ghetto, the bad areas of Detroit. And the gamble was that some of these people in this community would not be satisfied with this religion that I'm giving them. That's the one who conceived the Nation of Islam. Fard, the teacher of my father. And they will then begin to be curious and to search with critical eyes what I have given them, and they will get the hints to them that this is temporary and they should go to the Qur'an, the Qur'an is the only pure authority, and that's what was established in the early years of the Nation of Islam. And after two, all during the whole period of the life of the Nation of Islam, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad always said that the only pure book was the Qur'an, and he never treated the lessons that came from his teacher and him to us, a kind of catechism like to be memorized. He never treated those very precious documents of the Nation of Islam like he did the Qur'an. There was a higher respect he gave the Qur'an, but for some reason, I guess his teacher Fard told him that you shouldn't bother with the Qur'an. Leave it for later. He didn't encourage us at all to read the Qur'an or to try to learn the Qur'an until much later.
Speaker 2:
You're saying it was more of a social message than a religious path?
Imam WD Mohammed:
It was exactly. It was a message for social and moral uplift and social reform.
Speaker 2:
So were you not encouraged to follow a spiritual path?
Speaker 3:
Oh yes, certainly. It was religion. I have to say it was religion because there was everything that makes something religion. It was the idea of G-d, a divine being, and that you had to be accountable to that G-d. If you didn't, you'd be punished for your sins, for your wrongdoings. So it was religion, but it was not Islam. It definitely was not Islam. It had its own myth of creation. The origin of creation, the origin of the world, and it had its own myth of the moral nature of man.
Speaker 2:
What was its myth of creation?
Imam WD Mohammed:
The myth of creation was that all of this generated from G-d, who Himself was a material being, and that nothing ever existed for G-d except a material, material. That G-d was never without material existence, and that G-d Himself by some power that's only with G-d, created the world all around Him. He was existing and there was nothing else but Him. And then He made the world, all the world that we know. He made that and that G-d was a black man.
Speaker 2:
Black and male.
Imam WD Mohammed:
Yes, exactly. And along with that was that the belief that white people did not always exist. In fact, their very reason for creation according to that myth says that they were created about 6,000 years ago.
 The white man?
Yes a white man that was created about 6,000 years ago by a black scientist who was experimenting on the genes of a black man and the pigmentation of the black man. And he got an idea that he could make blacks who were of a different shade, lighter shade together and continue that. And every time lighter ones came, we only made it light ones. And in 200 years he would have white people.
Speaker 2:
What about the yellow man, the red man?
Imam WD Mohammed:
No, 600 years correction. 600 years he would have white people. Well, they didn't do much to explain that, but the notion was that all these races came because of that grafting out of the black man, the white man that these colors came, that before he got the white man, the pure white man, he got red man, brown man, yellow man, finally got white man.
Speaker 2:
Do you think this distortion was introduced to this version of Islam to give dignity to dispossessed black Americans?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Exactly. I know that's what the reason was, just to make us feel that we got our own knowledge of everything. The white man doesn't have to tell us anything. We know the birth of creation and we know our origin, our creation and his, and we are superior to him, just the reverse of what the white supremacist world told us.
Speaker 2:
And did you go to special schools as a child?
Imam WD Mohammed:
I went only to the Muslim school. My parents wouldn't not allow me or my brothers and sisters to go to any school. But the Muslim school, there were some members of the Temple of Islam who had some children outside, but most of the members when I was a boy had their children inside the Muslim school. And we did not have the standard curriculum. We only had our curriculum. If it could be called a curriculum,
Speaker 2:
What did you think of the life of mainstream America?
Imam WD Mohammed:
As a child?
Speaker 2:
Yes.
Imam WD Mohammed:
It was condemned. It was the devil's world condemned by G-d and would soon be destroyed. And we had to stick with ours and we were going to be rescued before the destruction came and taken to Mecca somewhere.
Speaker 2:
Was this a lightly held belief or seriously, held bel
Imam WD Mohammed:
Very seriously held belief by those who were innocent and accepted it? Yes, but for many, I don't think they ever took it very seriously. They just, I would say believed, appreciated the new higher dignity and higher picture they had of themselves and appreciated the disciplines of the Nation of Islam that saved a lot of them from liquors and drugs and taught them how to live a respectful life, to respect even white folks, respect white people, and especially if they employ you, give them honest day's work. So they appreciated the positive things and the teachings of the Nation of Islam. And they didn't deal with those things that would tie up their rational energies.
Speaker 2:
The early version of the Nation of Islam, was it based, was it driving towards social revolution or just rehabilitating a black community?
Imam WD Mohammed:
I think mainly, no, not social revolutionary. I think it was designed for the African-American people only. To bring about changing them only.
Speaker 2:
Condemn, but not to overthrow, take on the police?
Imam WD Mohammed:
No, no, not at all. But if there were some radicals that were, I would say situated to do that, yes, there were things in the teachings that they could use. And I do believe some of them did it. You heard of the Zebra case in California where the daughter of a publisher, ofa very big paper in California joined the blacks who called their organization the Zebras. And they had some of these more radical teachings of the Nation of Islam, and they were actually going out killing white folks. They killed, they killed a few white people in San Francisco area in California.
And when we heard about their teachings, we identified them as persons who had taken some of the teachings of the Nation of Islam and created even a much more extreme organization. There is, I'll give you what's in the lessons that they used. In the lessons it says Muhammad, meaning the Prophet Muhammad and all Muslims will kill a devil. Yes. And the reward for killing and bringing four heads in at one time is, I forget, I think it's a trip to the Holy City mecca or something like that. So they could use that if they wanted to be violent, they could use that. And that's what they did. And I think they wouldn't have been able to even come up with any connection like that if it was not for an old man who was a pastor of a Christian Church. And he was obviously hurt deeply by white society.
And he joined the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and he became a minister in the Nation of Islam. His name was simply RT, RTX. And he began teaching only the more extreme and radical things of the lessons of the Nation of Islam. And the Honorable Elijah Muhammad learned of that and stopped him from being a minister. But he didn't stop meeting with people. And we know that he was on the East coast, but he moved to the West coast, he moved to the California area. I do believe he's dead now. He was almost 80 when he joined my father. He lived a long time.
He's dead now but we do believe that he was the one who preached on the East coast and caused the birth of an organization called Five Percenters. We know the one who really was known to set up the Five Percenters organization.
Speaker 2:
Five percenters. What does the five percenters mean?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Five percenters mean they believe in nothing but the material side and that man, man is G-d and they only believe in the material side and we believe that we can write our own philosophy of life, that we have the authority, every black man has this authority if he has the ability.
Speaker 2:
Splinter from the Nation of Islam.
Imam WD Mohammed:
Yes. They split from the Nation of Islam. Yes. And they're still existing, their is still Five Percenters around. In fact, the young girl in the office there, her boyfriend is a Five Percenter and some of them are more extreme than others. Her boyfriend is what I call a moderate among them very moderate person among them. They're are much worse members of that movement that do nothing but preach negative things about the white man. And their whole focus is just on the evils of the white man and the divinity of the black man.
Speaker 2:
Well, there was some justification for the evil of the white man.
Imam WD Mohammed:
Yeah, and the black man too. I think a black man too.
Speaker 2:
How old were you when you started to understand that maybe the Nation of Islam was not speaking of the true Islam?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Well, I can't say because I don't know. But I do know that I was about to do the only prayer that we knew, which in Islam, I'm sure you're familiar with prayer in Islam, but prayer in Islam is not this. This is called du'a. It means calling on G-d for help. So this is the prayer that we had, and we would do a standing or sitting, but formally it would be standing. We stand up in the temple. This is how we opened prayer in the temple and we finished. That's it. At home, the same thing. This is the way we pray, standing, not kneeling, nothing. Not bowing like, no, no sajdah, no prostration, just this. And at home, just anytime you wanted to call on G-d, you call on G-d like this. So my parents are gone to the temple meeting Wednesday night and it was a very special temple meeting. My father said, son, he said, we are going to have to leave you. He didn't leave me at home by myself, especially at night. This was like, the meeting was like eight o'clock starts at eight and it's not expected to be over until around 10.
Speaker 2:
How old you were? Eight or nine years old.
Imam WD Mohammed:
I am about, no, a little older than that maybe. Yes. I'm about maybe 11 or 12 years old. And my brothers, my older brothers are not there at the house. They took my youngest brother with them. Akbar, they took him with them. So my father said, son, your mother and I, we have to go to the temple tonight. There's something special we have to do. He said, we want you to stay here. So I said, yes sir. So they left and the frame house, wood frame house 61 16 South Side Chicago, and the house was already spooky with everybody there. It was spooky At night, I'd hear cracks and sounds of the floor I guess, adjusting to the absence of the pressure that was on it when we were walking all around. So the house is talking and I get a little afraid and I'm getting tired. It's almost 12 after 11 o'clock and they're not coming back yet. But he would do that. When he went out sometimes he'd spend long hours at the temple. So I'm tired, I want to go to bed. So I'm a little afraid. So I hold my hands like this and I said, I start to say what we say.
We said, Bismillah, La Ilaha Il Allah, Fard Muhammad Rasulalah. We didn't even pronounce it correctly. We said, Fard Muhammad Rasulalah. Now isn't that something? We saying Fard Muhammad is the Messenger of G-d, but consciously living with the idea that he's not the Messenger of G-d, he's G-d and the Messenger is Elijah. So we were saying that. And I'm seeing his picture of G-d in my mind, the picture that was popularized for us. I'm seeing this picture while I'm saying it. And something said in me said, before I begin that prayer, something made me uncomfortable. I said, Oh, Allah, I made my own prayer. I said, as a boy, I'm a boy now. Oh Allah, if I'm not seeing you correctly, please help me see you correctly. That's what I said. And then I said that, La Ilaha Il Allah, Fard Muhammad Rasulalah.
Speaker 2:
What prompted you to add that prayer?
Imam WD Mohammed:
I wasn't comfortable. I was afraid. I really wanted G-d to be with me. And I was afraid that maybe this is not the way I'm supposed to see G-d, this man.
Speaker 2:
There's something in you that saw this was not a truth here.
Speaker 3:
That's right. And that somebody is not truthful because I'm told that the white man is the devil. And this man, I'm looking at whose picture I see looks like a white man.
Speaker 2:
Logic.
Imam WD Mohammed:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
So how did you, okay,
Speaker 3:
Do you need tape? I got five minutes left. It was something like I said, it's too much for a child. Yes.
Speaker 2:
A child like you. Oh, do you want to pull your jacket down? Sorry.
Yeah. Okay. So as a young boy, as a teenager, how did you begin to understand the different nature of Islam?
Speaker 3:
I think it began very early for me, but a child won't speak things that the child knows would get him in serious trouble and maybe never get out of that trouble to his parents. We kept those things to ourselves, but often I would be with my brothers, especially my brother Herbert and brother Akbar, and we would discuss certain things that was bothering our mind has didn't seem rational for us as early as 14 in my life, 15. But having difficulty with the belief that G-d was the man that we had a picture of Mr. Fard, who taught my father. His ideas began for me much earlier than that, maybe as early as 11 or seven years old. And I do believe as a boy, I remember going to the temple. I remember sitting and I listened. I would listen. I had a lot of respect for the Nation of Islam and especially for my father. My mother put that in me and she would insist that I go to the temple well dressed and be disciplined, and she would insist that I give something in charity. So she made me conscious of it, the importance of it. She said, you don't have but a nickel give it in charity she told me yes. And she would make sure she would ask, You got anything in your pocket? One time I remember saying, no ma'am. She said, well, here, take this nickel. She said, if you don't have but a nickel, give something in charity. So I did. I practiced that. I'm sitting in the seats with the other members of the congregation, and I'm hearing these ministers speak and teaching and I'm listening. I was a small child. I'm sure that I was no more than 6, 7, 5, maybe five earlier that I'm sitting there and I'm listening to what they're saying, and I was entertained by them. They entertained me. I found it interesting.
But what stuck with me was what I got. You don't have to get things in a word by word or progression like a sentence, a complete sentence, a correct sentence in order for you to get a message from certain words that would be accented from expressions on their faces. I'm getting a message. And the message I got was that we should first of all be righteous and fear G-d, obey the teachings of Islam and respect the Honorable Elijah Muhammad as a Messenger of G-d, I'm getting these things. This is what I'm getting. And that I should respect all the ministers because they are his assistants. They're working with him to do this work. They're his coworkers. That I should have great respect for them and I did. And that we wanted the best for our human life. We wanted a life of excellence, that we wanted to be perfectionists in trying to make our life better and better and better. So for me as a child, what I grew up holding onto and appreciating was the belief in equality, belief in justice, belief in treating each other fairly and respecting everybody, even the white man that we called devils, but respected. And believing in a brotherhood, and that this brotherhood is a just brotherhood. Nobody's to be treated unfairly.
Speaker 2:
Where did you get this belief?
Imam WD Mohammed:
From them, from their preachings. Yes.
Even though they were preaching the white men was the devil?
 They preaching these other things too. Yes. And what was escaping going out more than coming in was the myth that I couldn't understand about the origin of man and white man and the black man and the negative teachings against white man, white man. For some reason, I wasn't buying all that. I'm not saying that I didn't believe I should hate white people. I believed I should hate white people, but something in me wasn't comfortable with them drumming it into me and drumming it into the people and talking about it, giving more time to that during the preaching hours than they gave to talking about G-d and man. I was more interested in G-d and man than I was in devil.
Speaker 2:
Are you saying that the teachings of true Islam were always there within the Nation of Islam?
Imam WD Mohammed:
A hint.
Speaker 2:
And you began to separate them out from the distorted teachings.
Imam WD Mohammed:
Yes, exactly. The Qur'an was there and even I would say a bait to bring us to want to one day, learn Arabic. We were given to learn, memorize Alif, Bey, Tey, Sey.. And that's not how I say it now, because I've learned it correctly now, Alif, Ba, Ta, Jin, Ha. That's not how we were given it. Why? So you could remember it.
Speaker 2:
This is the Arabic?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Letters, the letters you would say ABCs. He went all the way to Ha, the H. Fard did that and had my father memorize it and told him to teach the children that. Teach them Alif, Ba, Ta, Jin, Ha, first alphabet of the Arabic language he said.
Speaker 2:
When did you start to read the Qur'an for yourself?
Imam WD Mohammed:
When my father got a teacher for us. Our school in Chicago had its first teacher to teach us Arabic around 1949. The first teacher was half African American, half Arab, Moroccan, pardon me. And his father took him on the ship when he was a little boy. He said his father was what you call these Merchant Marines, Merchant Marine, I believe that's what he said his father was. He said, so he would occasionally be on the ship with his father and his father spoke Arabic. His father taught him Arabic, so he knew some Arabic. He wasn't fluent in Arabic. My father put an ad in the daily paper, a Chicago paper. I believe it was the Sun Times, but I can't be sure. It could have been a paper that was called The Daily News at that time. It's not existing, not right now. And I think one of the bigger papers bought it out. This man came for the job. My father hired him.
And how old were you?
Maybe 13. Couldn't have been more than 14. About 13 maybe.
Speaker 2:
And how old were you when you began to read the Qur'an entirely for yourself? Not in school, not being taught, but because you knew how to.
Imam WD Mohammed:
Were, well, that took some time, but I began reading, trying to read the Qur'an for myself and my brother Akbar, younger brother, who was also student under Professor Jamil Diab. He's the third teacher. The first two teachers, they did not work too well, the first one because I don't know, I think he was just not serious about it. The second one was very serious old religious man, but he was very old. He couldn't speak English well enough to be successful. So he gave up himself. I remember he taught us two lessons. He was trying to teach us some Arabic words, but he couldn't speak English well enough.
Speaker 2:
When did you start to appreciate the beauty an the poetry in the Qur'an.
Imam WD Mohammed:
Jamil Diab, Professor Jamil Diab was from Jerusalem. That was his home. He was a citizen of the United States and Chicago for many years, half of his life maybe. He spoke very good English and he was intelligent enough to know and respectful enough to know that he should not do anything to interfere with the Nation of Islam's influence over us. That he shouldn't say anything or teach us anything to disturb that. But he won my father's friendship and my father supported him as a teacher for the whole time that he was our teacher, our instructor. And under him we learned Arabic, to read small Surahs from the Qur'an, small chapters from the Qur'an with my father actually making it possible and encouraging it.
Speaker 2:
And as you began to understand that the Islam you were discovering was not Islam that was being taught....
Imam WD Mohammed:
Understand now, understand that as a human being, as an innocent child and as a human being, I'm having difficulty understanding something that was not rational all the time, but I'm not at all trying to prove it wrong. I loved my father and mother. I loved the Nation Islam, I loved the ministers. I loved everything about it. So I love it. I'm a really a strong Muslim of the Nation of Islam. So I found myself trying to bend and twist truth to make it sit or at least justify what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was the saying in doing. That went along for a long time.
Speaker 2:
Did you ever tell your father of your misgivings?
Imam WD Mohammed:
No, I did not. But he understood it and he didn't bother me. The first time that I spoke as a young student minister, well not even a student minister at the time, a young boy, a young boy making an attempt to impress the congregation that maybe I can be a student minister. It was on Wednesday night that the minister would invite anybody to stand up and come up and express themselves to see if there was a young minister, possibility that there's a young minister, a future minister out there. So they opened up for youngsters and others to come up and speak. And the minister was James, his name was James, minister James at that time, some ex at that time. He later became Sheik Shabazz, Sheik Shabazz, James Shabazz, a well-known loved person by us. He said, we want some of you young brothers to come up. And my friend Leroy and I say friend, this is my buddy.
We hang out. So he knows. He knows my sins that maybe my father will never know. So he's sitting over here and he said, I'm going up. And I was surprised when he said that, although I knew he had not the terrible problem of stage fright that I had. I was frightened to go up and he went up and he spoke. He did a good job. I thought he did a good job. So when he sat back down, I looked at him. I didn't say anything to him, but with my eyes I said man, you all right. You did a good job. And he looked at me and he said, chicken.
Speaker 2:
Did you go up?
Imam WD Mohammed:
I went up then when he said chicken. I was so afraid. When I went up, I got up out of my seat and I went up and I was so afraid. But I looked at the people and I saw their faces and they, now that I think back on it, they were so happy to see Wallace D Mohammed, the son of Elijah Muhammad, coming up to speak. So I looked at their faces and they were asking me, say something, say something, speak. I had to speak, and it just happened automatically for me. I came out, the true me came out. I said, we talk about the devil more than we talk about G-d. I said something wrong with that. I said, we say we shouldn't say the Christians shouldn't say in the name of Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ is not G-d. We say he's a Prophet, not G-d. I say, but we say In the name of Allah and in the name of His servant and Messenger the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. I say you all to say in the name of Allah, and we thank Allah for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. That was the first time I ever spoke, and I doubt if I was more than about 17, 18, maybe.
The real you came out.
Yes. And my father never stopped me and never criticized me for that. But the supreme captain did and he took it back to my father and said, he's saying something that's different and he's telling others to say it. He's telling the ministers to say In the name of Allah, and we thank Allah for His Messenger, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. No, I didn't say nothing. But my father never confronted me. I know the Captain, Supreme Captain Raymond Sharif took that to him because I was told, my brothers and others told me he did it, and he never changed. But the minister himself, who was much my senior, was also my school teacher once, so he was the principal of the school. Brother James, minister James, my father's assistant in Chicago at the time. He started saying it. He never said the old way anymore. He said In the name of Allah, and we thank Allah for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. And it spread all over, it went all over.
When you went up that first time, did you understand that something had changed in your life?
Yes, I did realize that I wanted to help my father make a better congregation, make his followers a better congregation. I was aware of that. And later in my years, like perhaps after I had a child, wife and child, my first child, Layla a daughter, I began to realize that it was something in the teachings of my father that was pushing me and I was unconscious of it. Now I'm aware of it at maybe 39 or 40, I'm aware that I'm just not doing this on my own. There's something in his teachings pushing me.
Speaker 2:
Is there something other than your teachings pushing you?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Yes, yes sir. Being pushed by two, one, a good rational, truthful spirit and language of the Nation of Islam. And on the other side, there is my desire to be the human being that I think is the true human being, the true human being, and to be that with all other human beings.
Speaker 2:
The definition of the true human being is?
Imam WD Mohammed:
A humane person, a kind person, a person higher than the animals, et cetera. Yes, I start to appreciate that concept of man more and more and wanted to be that man, that kind, that man, that ideal man more and more. And I start to appreciate language in the American society that encourage that kind of thinking. So I came to appreciate the constitution's concept of human being, Constitution of the United States concept of a human being and this democracy's respect for human beings. I came to appreciate that in the language of the devil or the devil's society right. In the white mans world. I came to appreciate it and strongly identify with it.
Speaker 2:
For you, what are the highest values of humanity?
Imam WD Mohammed:
What are the highest values of humanity? First of all, kindness towards self and others. Kindness towards self and others and truthfulness, truthfulness. And many other values, but I think that's where I start.
Speaker 2:
Very true. You went to prison when you were 31.
Imam WD Mohammed:
Yes, you're right. You got it.
Speaker 2:
What were you in for?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Well, actually, the members of the Nation of Islam followed the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's lead, and during World War ii, there was a draft. My father told his followers that we cannot accept a draft card. They didn't even get a draft card. Now here it is, 1952 instead of 42, and I should register at 18 for the draft. And my father, in fact, it was a little earlier than 1952 when I was aware that I should, but I'm aware too that my father's opposed to us going to service. So I told my father, I said, I'm going to have to go to jail. And he said, well son. He said, maybe I can beat it. I'm going to get some lawyers. He did. He got some terrific lawyers and they worked to keep me out of jail. It went on in the court for almost seven years, and the Selective Service accepted that I was a conscientious objector.
They got me classified as a conscientious objector. So they ordered me to go to Elgin State Hospital to do civilian work as a Selective Service person. So I told my father, I said, daddy, I said, I have a chance to go to Elgin State Hospital and learn to be a laboratory technician. I inquired and they told me I could. I said, I would like to do that. I said, that way when I come out, I'd be able to earn more money. He said, son, he said, that would be the same as going. He said you shouldn't have never gone through all that. You should have just went to the army. I said, well, they don't put those people on the front line. He said, I know. He cutting me off.
He said, I know. He said, but if it gets hot, he said, they will put you on the front line. He told me, I didn't feel that. I didn't believe that, but I didn't say anything back to him, of course. So I went away. He would never say, don't do it, because he didn't want to be on the spot that he could be charged telling me not to go to Selective Service. I knew that, and I wouldn't say anything to put him in a position where he would have to tell me that. I'm aware of his position and how serious it is. So I go on with this in me and in my heart that I'm obeying my father, but really I want to go to that hospital to do work as a conscientious objector.
Speaker 2:
And you didn't?
Imam WD Mohammed:
No.
Speaker 2:
And you went to prison?
Imam WD Mohammed:
And I was sentenced. Right.
Speaker 2:
How long were you in prison for?
Imam WD Mohammed:
I was only there for 14, about 14 months. I was paroled. When I first came up for parole, it was like maybe nine months of imprisonment or so. I was rejected and they didn't even give me reason why they rejected me, but I was rejected. They turned me down. The second time I went up, and by the way, when I was sentenced, the judge said, I'm going to give this boy three years. He's dominated by his father. That's what he said. He said he's dominated by his father. Then he looked at me, he wasn't speaking to me when he said, I'm going to give him three years, and he looked me right in the face. He said, I will recommend parole. That's what he told me.
Speaker 2:
What was it like in prison?
Imam WD Mohammed:
It was like, hell.
Speaker 2:
White mans hell?
Speaker 3:
Anybody's hell. For me, it was hell because I loved my freedom. I loved to be with my family. I loved my freedom. I guess everybody loves their freedom. It was very difficult. The first few months was terribly difficult. I was so having so much misery inside and it was so strong, it started to make me even imagine things happening that I wouldn't imagine those things happening if I was in a normal situation. I started imagining that my daughter would walk into the street and get ran over or something like that. Almost had nightmares. I woke up one night afraid that my daughter had fell from a high place. But she was only like maybe two or three, about three I think when I was went to prison. So it was very difficult. I remember a young man about my age, maybe a little younger than I, three or four years younger. He might've been maybe 20, 19 or 20, and he woke me up crying. He was a white man, white boy, young white man. He woke me up crying asleep, crying at night. And I didn't say anything to him, but the next day I got closer to him and wanted to be a friend. He knew it. So we became close friends.
And what was hurting him so bad he was in love with his wife that he had just married and they had, now they separated. And I too. I had more time with my wife than he had, but I was terribly missing my wife, being the husband of my wife.
Speaker 2:
He was Christian?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Yes, he was Christian. Yes, I think he was. I'm not sure. I think he was Jehovah Witness.
Speaker 2:
How did he view his friend being black and a Muslim?
Imam WD Mohammed:
How did he? There was nothing indicated by him to me that would make me uncomfortable with him as just a person. I accepted him as just a person, not white or black.
Speaker 2:
Well, that's the tolerance in America.
Imam WD Mohammed:
I think prison will do that for you if you got a friend in prison, you don't see any color.
Speaker 2:
And did your faith change in prison?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Yes, but it was a continuation because it was already changing before I went to prison. Before I went to prison, I'm seeing now that we have to make the teachings of the Nation of Islam more appealing to people who are free thinkers, who are rational and not afraid to question things. I was aware of that for years. In fact, I think when I told them we are teaching something that we are saying that the Christians are wrong to believe that Jesus is G-d, and here we are saying that this man is G-d in the name of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad name. I think then I was beginning to feel uncomfortable with this and trying to do something about it. And when I was in prison, I had a lot of help to think freely and independently.
I don't like to share this too often with people, but I'm going to share it with you because I think I should. I'm about to go to prison, but I'm in Chicago and my father's going to another city for a speaking engagement. And we at O'Hare airport and the security is there and I was trained in the FOI, the Fruit of Islam that teaches drill and discipline, moral discipline too. Spiritual discipline, moral discipline to the men. And I'm joining the Fruit because I am a male and I am a Fruit to secure my father. And I'm standing behind him because there's a big window pane that you could see outside at the runways, look outside at the runway. And the men of the FOI who were trained for this, their station are posted in certain areas to do just that, to be aware of what's happening outside and also inside. So my father turns around, I'm standing, he's like this close to me. He turns around and I'm standing looking this way. He turns around and he said, Wallace, what are you doing behind my back?
Are you trying to take my place? That's what he said to me. And it hurt me. It angered me. I was disappointed. I didn't think he'd say anything like that to me. So I said, daddy, I'm just trying to protect your back along with the other brothers. But I was hurt. I went to prison with that hurt. And I think that helped me to question him more, to question whether he is the Messenger of G-d or whether he is the man that I should obey with no reservations, whether it went against my own logic or against my own sense of what is morally correct or not. So that weakened that a lot. It was already weakened a little bit, but him suspecting me, really freed me to question him more freely and to disagree with him.
So it was in prison that I decided once I came back to the streets, I would never teach that teaching again. I would find another way to speak. I would never teach that teaching again. And when they released me, they ordered me not to do any public speaking. That was a condition for my parole that I do no public speaking. And my father liked that. I went home and I found out that I learned from him without him telling me that he was very comfortable with me not doing any public speaking. And when I began to speak public again, it was after I had been invited on the radio station, little radio station by African American host, a woman, female host, to come on her station and speak. She had learned that I was a kind of open-minded Muslim who had an interest in just black people, not just as being Muslim black people to be converted, but black people.
So learned of my praise for in the Urban League. And so she wanted to see this new thinking black Muslim who's also the son of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad the leader, the Messenger of Allah they called him, the followers called him. So she had me on her station and I have gotten much wiser now, so I know that I can't really come out with something that will be seen as an attack upon the Nation of Islam's ideas. So I chose to talk about nothing but myth. I said, in my opinion, the biggest problem for us, black people and all Americans is not the things that we are always addressing but a fantasy world. I say, myth. Myth enslaves us. I said, we are enslaved by myths. And she liked my conversation. She said, you ought to write a book on this. If you write a book, will you come back? I said, I sure will. The FOI., they alert to know when one of us is doing something. They had it recorded. They had somebody listen to me and record it. They brought the tape to my father, and my father said to me, it's on Sunday, I'm at his house. He said, son, we have a tape here.
Speaker 2:
So now what happens at this point?
Imam WD Mohammed:
When they brought this tape by the interview that was done by this host, radio host in Lansing, Illinois, they thought they were going to get me put out of the Nation of Islam again. I had been ex-communicated before or put out before. It was on a Sunday and my father, he said, son, we have a tape of you and we going to play that tape. He said Sultan, who was my nephew and assistant, like a nurse to my father, he's in his old age now. He's not in his best health. In fact, he's in worse health, but he's good in good spirits this Sunday. Every Sunday he would have at this big long conference table dinner, but at that table, you could expect almost anything. That table could change from a dinner table all of a sudden to court, he'd actually have court at that table with all of his top staff people from headquarters Chicago there. So he said, to my nephew, he said Sultan, get that tape and put it on. And they did. Now I wasn't afraid, but I was a little uneasy. That tape was going on. My father at one point stood up and we didn't expect him to stand up. He's weak physically too. He's not in his best condition, even as a sick man he was in very bad condition. But he stood up and his face, actually, I saw red pink in his face.
He was brighter than I am, but you couldn't see pink in his face except that he was really emotional, a lot of blood had to rush to his head. So he stood up and he applauded and he looked at my mother while I was still standing, my mother was at the table. That was expected too. Anytime on Sunday she was expected. She's the hostess for the table. He said, Clara, isn't this what we wanted? And my mother smiled. Beautiful smile. She gave that big beautiful smile and he said yes. So I looked at the face of the staff people around, I looked at their face, see how they were taking that. And he looked at Raymond Sharif, the Supreme captain and his assistant minister then who was Yusef Shaw.
And my brother was there too, assistant Supreme Captain Elijah. And many of secretaries who worked for my father and staff officials. This table filled with officials. He said, my son can go anywhere he wants and preach. So he freed me to go make speeches. At that point, I wasn't allowed to make any public speeches. He said my son go anywhere he wants to speak. And he looked at me, he said, son, and preach that doctrine. It wasn't no doctrine, but he said and preach that doctrine.
Speaker 2:
And did you then take over the Nation of Islam/
Imam WD Mohammed:
No, no, but I was free to go about throughout the United States where he have places, temples or places of worship and accept invitation from them to speak. And I started getting them. I got 'em. I went to New York, Boston, Philadelphia. I went all over. I went to practically every place in the Midwest area, all the big temples. I went to California, all over.
But you did eventually lead and then dissolve the Nation of Islam?
Yes. Actually, I'm speaking as a person now who as a minister now, who had been given special privileges from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. And through his staff, he's given me these privileges and they're hearing me speak now with more authority and support than they've ever heard me, known me to have before. So I am building a new spirit and a new thinking in the following of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, which he himself needed me to do or accepted I do. I am telling them that they have to prepare for change that's coming. I said, change is coming. I said, we're not always going to be able to do things the way we do. And I used my father's language. I said, he said one day there will come a need for a new teaching, new teaching. He said and the teacher, in that new time, he said that teacher would not necessarily be held or bound to any of the old things, or old ideas.
He said he, I quoted my father, I said, he may come with an altogether new message. He may not use any of the whole language. I said, so if the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said that, I say, we should be prepared to accept and make changes. And I said, the Qur'an, I put emphasis on the Qur'an. I said, has not been with us and not been in our reach. I said, when I was taught Arabic in a school that was established by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, by a teacher that he hired. I said, and I advised the ministers to study Arabic more because they had already started to study Arabic, study Arabic more so we can understand the Qur'an. I said, the Qur'an, you read the English. I say, but you don't understand the Qur'an. I said, if you knew how to read in Arabic, I said, I know how to read certain verses.
I can read in Arabic now, and I know the meanings. I said, oh, you'll see your new knowledge. So I was doing this to encourage them, kind of tricking them, encourage them to learn Arabic, to put more effort into learning the Arabic so they can read the Qur'an in its original language in Arabic. And no one was preventing me from doing that. I didn't receive any problems, but I was told that a few of the ministers were very uncomfortable with me. And one of them was Minister Farrakhan who was the minister of New York, that they were very uncomfortable with me. But I was permitted to do that. So this is the beginning of me being a factor, the main factor for change in the religious thinking of the Nation of Islam.
You spoke earlier of myth being things that enslaved.
 Yes, enslaved the mind and the spirit.
Speaker 2:
What did you mean by enslaved?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Well, I was speaking indirectly. I was speaking directly as far as my intent, but I was speaking indirectly as far as the reality to the following of my father and trying to get them to really look at what they've been taught and see that it's myth, a lot of is myth. The myth of the origin of man and et cetera, and that these things enslave us and they are the worst forms and their shackles are worse than the other shackles that we were in.
Speaker 2:
Looking at this country in the year 2000, what myths enslave us?
Imam WD Mohammed:
This country? For me, I don't like to do this, but for me, the Sunday School Christianity for children shouldn't be for adults. I'm sorry, I have to say that. Shouldn't be for adults. Adults shouldn't believe those things. They have to have interpretation for adults. If we don't, I think we limit our own intelligence.
Speaker 2:
You're talking about a literal translation?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Yes. The literal translation. Right, of the myths, what I call myths, religious myths
Speaker 2:
And what other myths?
Speaker 3:
Well, myths that have that we have because of our religious beliefs, that the white race is superior and the best. And Jesus is a white man. Peace be on him and that suggests that G-d is white, the white something. Which is true. He is a white spirit, being pure spirit. Yes. And that black people are descended from Ham. Now all Christians don't believe that all church people weren't taught this, but some denominations identify black people as the Children of Ham and cursed because of Ham. The curse didn't fall on Ham directly. Pardon me. G-d said, the curse won't fall on you directly, meaning Ham, but will fall on your descendants Canaan, and we are the children of Canaan. And another myth is that we are the children of Hagar. We are Hagar's children. This is in Christianity, church people. And it came to us, although it's not, I would say I believe that that story about Ham and black people being cursed is not believed by the great majority of the denominational Christians. But it reached us. And for us, we think all Christians see us as the cursed children, the cursed children. And that's what I would say entertaining in my mind while I was telling the woman who was questioning me on the radio program about my beliefs, and I was telling her that I think myths enslave us more than anything else.
Speaker 2:
There is a myth about Islam, that it is intolerant.
Imam WD Mohammed:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
It's militant. That it's political. How does this myth come into being?
Imam WD Mohammed:
The colonial days, the days of colonialism did serious psychological, emotional damage to many victims of it like slavery in the south did to us. And I believe many Arabs suffer similar kind of psychological wounds that we suffer as black people when we look back at slavery and et cetera. Or some of us can't get out of that time, we still think that we are not accepted fully by white people. And because of that, along with the political difficulties they have, like Palestine, Palestinians, and Israelis. They are dominated by people much stronger than them militarily. They can't defeat them. So they have to live with that reality. So they're desperate to fight off what they call the Israelis. They are desperate to fight them off. Now I'm going back into time, not just now, now is much better. But 20 or 30 years ago it's much worse, less than that maybe.
Speaker 2:
In the past few decades, much violence has been committed in the name of Allah and Islam, and it's made this connection between intolerance and Islamic faith. How has this come about?
Imam WD Mohammed:
We take for granted that because a person says he's a Muslim, he knows his religion. But Islam in most of the Muslim world perhaps, is not understood and known on the level that Christianity is understood and known in America. And it's because as many of the scholars of Islam say now, we don't have really Islamic governments. And Islam for many Muslim governments is persecuted, believers are persecuted. They're not allowed freedom to practice, to study their religion, learn their religion and practice it.
Speaker 2:
So you wouldn't call the government of Iran an Islamic government?
Imam WD Mohammed:
I would call it an Islamic government. Yes, it is an Islamic government. The reason there is different from the reason perhaps in other areas and most of the Islamic world. But I think the first reason is ignorance, religious ignorance of their own religion. Of our own religion. And when you have political conflict and you have desperate persons who are desperate to get their lives back in their own hands, their lands have been occupied by what they call foreigners. And their privileges have been denied them to live their religion as they want to live it. You have persons not informed in religion coming to an organization of perhaps a military man who's not perhaps informed himself, but he will also have a religious man, a spiritual man assisting him. And these two, both of them are ready for revolution, violent revolution, and they will begin to recruit. And the people they recruit will be, most of them will be people who don't know their religion that well. So they can follow, they can be blindly led. I'm not saying all these organizations are wrong, the people are bad. I'm not saying that because I don't believe that's the truth. But what I'm saying is the extremes to which they go to accomplish their ends is not approved by the Qur'an, not approved by Muhammad the Prophet, not reflecting what is real Islam.
In fact, hurting the image of Islam. To make the innocent pay for the guilty is not Islam not accepted, no kind of way, no way we can justify that. Like taking hostages, innocent people or hostages, taking hostages, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is not Islam.
Speaker 2:
Why do these people then do it in the name of their religion?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Because they don't know their religion that well. And as I said, and they're led by people that they respect, they think have knowledge of Islamic authority. But these people have been so psychologically damaged that they ignore what Islam says. I'm talking about the generals, I'm talking about the advisors, the religious advisors to the generals. These people are so hurt by what has happened that they can't think, can't think straight in Islam and they don't care to think straight in Islam.
Speaker 2:
Is calling for the life of Salman Rushdie. Is that also Islam?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Well, that could be considered Islam by some people if they go back and study history and get something out of history. But in my opinion, the justification for it doesn't exist because when an apostate was killed in time of the Prophet, he wasn't killed for rejecting Islam or for turning down Islam and going to another religion. He was killed for being a turncoat in time of war. So actually this ruling was ruling against persons who would go to the enemy side and change religions and be with the enemy during times of war. So it's actually treason. It's an act of treason in wartime and it was punishable by death. But since these persons are recorded in history as persons who changed their religion for another religion, for the enemies religion, the newspapers, they look at only that and say yes, apostate should be killed.
Speaker 2:
Why do you think, speaking of fundamentalist religion in general, whether Jewish or Christian or Hindu or Islam, why do you think fundamentalist approach to religion breeds intolerance?
Imam WD Mohammed:
We're responding more to what's aggravating us, what's torturing us, what's paining us than we are to the commandments of G-d. That's the reason for it.
Speaker 2:
And the intolerance is a reaction to our pain?
Speaker 3:
Well, in certain cases we are supposed to be intolerant. Not that we are not supposed to be into intolerant under all conditions in any circumstance. No, we ought to be intolerant. But this extreme that we go to that cause any moral society to see us at a bad image, that wouldn't happen if we did not let our miseries blind us to our obedience to G-d. The Qur'an, the Holy Book and the way of Muhammad the Prophet. When Muhammad the Prophet, was in war with people. He told his soldiers and all learned preachers in this religion called members of the Ulema, the learned scholars. They would have to agree with me and they would, the Imam is correct. They would say if they were present, he told his soldiers to see that you not attack any unarmed person, only those carrying arms against you. And he said, don't even harm their trees. They have to live on those things. So we are talking about a humane leader, Muhammad the Prophet, very humane person. And in spite of what Western world in some of this literature says about Prophet Muhammad as a fanatic, a war monger, he was not that. He hated war, he hated to go to war, he hated to kill anybody. The revelation had to come to him from G-d saying, now you are permitted to go to war. And the reason was that your people are being killed. You're being persecuted and killed.
Speaker 2:
In Orthodox Islam, how is Orthodox religion a religion of peace?
Imam WD Mohammed:
How is it a religion of peace? It is a religion of peace because the main purpose of Islam is to invite us to have a relationship with G-d that satisfies the need in the soul to be at peace. And a relationship with man that makes it much more easier for us to have peace on this earth. And that relationship with man is that you accept that all men are created by the same G-d and that all men are one human family, belong to one human family that began with our first ancestors, Adam, and you say Eve. For us it's another name, but it's definitely the first man and woman.
What name do you use?
Hawa, we say Hawa. But the name doesn't matter. It's the fact that we believe that all of us are descendants from one man and one woman, one father, one mother mates, husband and wife. So religion is intended to give us a picture of ourselves as a family in spite of our separate families, is to give us a picture of us as one family in the beginning. And the message to us that as it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end. That in the end you have to again accept that you are one human family so that you can have peace on earth. So religion, Christianity, and Islam and Judaism is all about peace. You wouldn't have religion if you weren't having this belief for peace in your soul and believing that there's a cause, reason for all this and G-d is the first cause.
Speaker 2:
Now in Islam, the Old Testament and what we call the New Testament are recognized as spiritual work.
Imam WD Mohammed:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
The Qur'an is the third episode, so to speak.
Imam WD Mohammed:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
As someone who knows all three of them, how does the Qur'an differ from the Old and New Testament?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Yes, the Qur'an differs from the Torah of Old Testament and what we call the Injil or the gospel, the New Testament in its firstly in insisting that G-d is one and you make nothing else of G-d with G-d. Even though you translate it as expressions of the one, G-d is one. But He expresses himself as Jesus Christ and as a Holy Ghost, three in one, this Trinity is not accepted by Islam or in the Qur'an.
Speaker 2:
Yet Jesus is accepted.
Imam WD Mohammed:
Jesus accepted. Not only is Jesus accepted, but also Christ is accepted. Yes, we believe that Jesus also is Christ. And we believe in the immaculate conception. We don't call it that, that's Christian language, Christian language or Christian geology. But we believe that Jesus Christ is not the son of a man, but Jesus Christ is the word of G-d and a spirit from G-d, the word of G-d and a spirit from G-d
Speaker 2:
In character, how are the two sets of writings different?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Well, in character you mean?
Speaker 2:
The Qur'an is a bit more poetic?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Okay. I thought that's probably what you meant. Yes, the Qur'an is rhythmic, more rhythmic and perhaps, no, not anymore poetic than the Bible, but more rhythmic. More rhythmic. And I would say with reference to sound more poetic. But to me, poetry comes in pitches, not just styles.
Speaker 2:
Could you recite some of the Qur'an to Arabic?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Yes, I can. Auhdu Bilahi Minas Shaitan Ar Rajim. Bismillah Ar Rahma Nir Raheem. Wal Asr, Ina Insani Lafi Kush. Ila Lahdina Amanut. Wa Amanut Salahati Wa Ta Watsaw Bil Haqq, Wa Ta Watsau Bil Sabe. That is verse that's called time down through the ages, the chapter, little small chapter. And it begins by saying, By the time through the ages, surely all people, all mankind is lost except those who have the faith and they have righteous deeds. And they work together to advance truth. And they cooperate for patience, for the sake of patience.
Speaker 2:
Given that, why has Islam been so maligned in North America?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Yes, because good people and bad people have been given power, power to rule nations, power over institutions, et cetera. And many times it's the bad person and you don't need too many bad people getting that shot to have the world messed up.
Speaker 2:
When did Islam come to America?
Imam WD Mohammed:
As far as we know, according to reports we have from Muslims who came to this new part of the world, we are told, and it's documented, I can't recall the author or the name of the publication right now, but it went from that publication and it appears in many publications now by Muslims, that the first Muslims were really on the ship that came from Spain with Columbus. He wasn't only the one that discovered it as you know, but the Muslims were thought to have come with the ship that came with Columbus, that Columbus brought to America. And we know that Muslims have been in Yemen Muslims, Yemenite. Muslims have been in Detroit for maybe 150 years for a long time. And in some parts of the new world, Portugal, not Portugal, Brazil. Brazil. And yes, I say Portugal too and some other South American states that Muslims have been there for a long, long time for a few centuries.
And in the United States it's believed that Muslims of Detroit, Ohio, every area and Chicago have been here for at least better than 150 years. In these places for better than 150 years and perhaps much longer.
Speaker 2:
In the black community in particular?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Muslims didn't really, we didn't become known as Muslims in the black community until the beginning of Ahmadiyya preachers of Islam coming into America and proselytizing in the black community.
Speaker 2:
In what year?
Imam WD Mohammed:
I think it goes back as early as the twenties. I'm pretty sure in 1928, 29, they were here maybe a little earlier, but at least back to the twenties.
Speaker 2:
And what was the appeal of Islam?
 Yes. Islam was introduced by the Ahmidiyyas as early as the 1920s. Yes.
 Can I ask a question?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
What particular appeal did Islam have for the black community?
Imam WD Mohammed:
When it was introduced into the black community? By preachers of the Ahmadiyya movement that had its origin in Pakistan, Lahore, Pakistan, it was introduced as the natural inheritance of all people. And you more than any other people speaking to blacks, they would be speaking to us, have been cut off from your heritage more than any other people. So you should know Islam is the natural inheritance of all humanity, of all people. I think that was the strongest appeal. African-American people since cut off some African history and culture, we have suffered an identity problem and we're looking for our human contents, we don't think we have all of 'em back yet. And an appeal for us to get our heritage, our human heritage had, I would say a big welcome in the African-American community. Many rejected Islam, not because that didn't appeal to them, it was because the religion itself was not as appealing to them as was the Baptist faith or something.
But Islam has many other appeals to us. I think the emphasis on rational faith appeals to many African Americans who lived lives of, I would say myths and lives of fantasy. This is my criticism. I think most African-Americans have a more shallow knowledge of their religion than most whites. Yes, there's a big white minority that I put in the same group. But on the whole, I think there are many more whites with a deeper understanding of Christianity than blacks have. And I don't think that's our fault. I think it's the fault of slavery and the after effects of slavery.
Speaker 2:
You could say the same thing to the extreme fundamentalist of Christian community,
Imam WD Mohammed:
Certainly.
Speaker 2:
How dare you say that you speak in the name of Christ and Christianity when your understanding of the religion is so shallow.
Imam WD Mohammed:
Yes.
No, no, no. As I said, as a minority. And the whites too. But I think more of us have that kind of religion than whites. We have a religion that means go, you've been serious too long. Go and take a big glass of wine of Christianity and let it all hang out Sunday at the church and come back home relieved so you can face another reality, another week of reality.
Speaker 2:
What is it about religion, do you think that makes some people so certain in that it gives them the power to say, I'm right, you are wrong. I'm saved. You are damned. I'm good. You are bad. Religion seems to give many people that power. What is it about it?
Imam WD Mohammed:
About religion?
Speaker 2:
Yes. They don't do it in the name of politics so much, or social movement. But in the name of religion, people will stand up and get very certain about who's damned, whose saved, who's wrong? Why?
Imam WD Mohammed:
Because you have a higher authority. You have G-d. G-d is a higher authority than the world, higher authority than the President or the principal of the school or whatever. So you have a higher authority. You have an absolute authority that you can use as your defense, that G-d said this. And both books, I'm student of both books, not just the Qur'an. Both books, the books, the Holy Book of Muslims and Christians tells us that there's a danger in going to these books without innocent heart, an innocent heart, that these books will leave the person who's not innocent further astray,
Speaker 2:
How do you find it missing heart?
In our book, it says, none can touch it except the pure heart, the purified.
 I'm going to ask you to say that again in your microphone.
Imam WD Mohammed:
in my book the Qur'an, says that none can touch the book except the pure at heart. It doesn't mean touch it with our hands. It means your soul will not really experience and touch the purity of the book and get the benefit of it if you have bad intentions or if you are not yourself an innocent person, you are coming into it for some self advantage. You want to use it as a weapon against somebody, your enemy. Or you want to put down certain people and you want to lift up other people. So if you have something like that in your heart it says it will do nothing but add to your disease. I'm giving you exact language of the Qur'an, it will do nothing but add to your disease. And again, I'm speaking of our book now cause I'm more of an authority. In our book it says, this book is made in two forms or characteristics.
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