06/28/2006
IWDM Study Library
2006 Pre-Convention Interview

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Abdul Ghani:
Thank you. Assalamu alaikum. We're here in Chicago, and we'll be talking with our leader, Imam W. Deen Mohammad over his leadership over the past 30 years. This will be a tribute coming up for the 2006 Muslim Convention that will be held here in Chicago, Illinois at the Hyatt in downtown Chicago. Imam Mohammad will also be giving a public address at the UIC Pavilion. It's located on Racine and Harrison Street here in Chicago. My name is Abdul Ghani and at this time we present to you our leader, Imam W. Deen Mohammad.
IWDM:
Assalamu alaikum. Peace be unto you. I'll begin by saying that the Nation of Islam which was built by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and this blueprint given to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad from an Arab or a Muslim from overseas whose name is W. Fard Muhammad, also WD Fard. It's important for us to know that Mr. Fard was interested in all African Americans and that Mr. Fard came from a people of India who were also under the British rule. Many of the Indians who were under the British rule, their skin color black, not Black people as we know Black people. But their skin color was definitely black.
IWDM:
They range from white to black. I mean whitest of white and blackest of black. The northern Indians are white color and they have mixed all together now. The Indians that lived in the hotter zone are black in skin color. When Mr. Fard came to America, he experienced ... He had dark color too. He was not very white-skinned. He was brown-skinned. He experienced some discrimination. I think what he experienced in his own country of India under the British with his people there and what he saw and experienced when he came to America had something to do with him accepting to assist African American people in the ghetto with their lives.
IWDM:
He came to Detroit, Michigan to the Black Bottom or the poor area of the African American or Black people's community. He began teaching of separation from white people and having your own. He told the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and other African Americans that he preached to or spoke with. He told them that the African Americans in America, the Blacks in America had a great past, that they came from an Islamic past and that they should return to their religion. So that gives you an idea of how it all started.
IWDM:
It's important also to know that Mr. Fard had all African Americans' interests at heart. He said that there were approximately 17 million of us existing when he came. That was around 1931. He said that there was 17 million of us. In his esoteric language or preachings, which is a kind of occult language, a secret language, he said that he had 17 million keys to unlock or to free Black people. When I was questioned by some investigators from the Intelligence Department here in the United States, this was just before the passing of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and I was put out of the community.
IWDM:
So they investigated me. They told me. They said, "Well, we know that your father, Elijah Muhammad, does not only help Muslims. We know that he helps other Black people, others too as well. He has even given charity to some Black Christians." This is what I was told by them. But I know from my own experience with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad as his son and as a minister preaching for him for the Nation of Islam under his leadership, I know that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad also had the interests of all Black people, not just those who were Muslims.
IWDM:
What I mean by that is this. He did not see Muslims only benefiting from his teaching. He saw all Black people benefiting from his teaching. That brings me to the direction that I have taken as the leader upon the passing of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in February of 1975. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad had set up an organization or had been successful at establishing an organization that included religion, preaching, schools, education, and also a strong emphasis, a great emphasis on business, building a business presence for African American people or a business life for African American people.
IWDM:
His economic blueprint is called by different names. He had farmland. He had businesses in the city that he hoped would be supported by farmland, such as grocery stores and selling meats and whatever. So the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's vision was not small in any way. His vision was community vision. Community vision is what Islam is all about. Islam addresses us as community and it asks us to accept responsibility for community life. So the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was really Islamic in his programs and in his designing of his programs. He was very Islamic.
IWDM:
Islam requires, I repeat, that the Muslims belong to community life and they be about establishing their own identity in community, as a community. So that has been the direction that I have followed. Also, it might be thought that I have a difference so much with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's teachings and with his programs, that I have been charged with the one that did away or destroyed his programs. Well, that's not correct. But I am the one who changed the thinking of his following, and thank G-d for help that I got to do that. You may be surprised to know that the biggest help I got to do that came from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
IWDM:
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad always encouraged me to be a man of scripture and not the Bible, the Quran, to be a man of the ... He always encouraged me to be a free thinker, a free thinker. He didn't hold me to the thinking of the Nation of Islam. He told his followers, especially his leaders, he said he's not going to preach like the rest of you. Said he's going to be different. Said he is going to use the Quran. He's going to be different. So the Honorable Elijah Muhammad prepared his leaders to accept me in my different posture that I took.
IWDM:
I took a different posture, a different posture or a different stand and posture from the Nation of Islam in that I came to establish the Quran, Islam as given in the Quran. This then was not an easy to understand, I would say, movement from Mr. Fard to my leadership or from Mr. Fard and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad to my leadership. It's not an easy to understand movement. If you don't see it as a strategy, Mr. Fard planned to introduce the Quran and real Islam into America, but he knew Black were militants and Blacks were angry with whites. So he sought the angry ones, the dissatisfied ones. He sought them.
IWDM:
They were receptive. They received his teachings. But he planted among them the Quran. Didn't encourage the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and his ministers or leaders to preach it, but he planted it among them and told them that that was the pure book, that was the holy book, that was the book without defect or errors. He pointed to that book only in that way, not to his esoteric teachings. He never gave his esoteric teachings that kind of sacred respect that he gave the Quran. So in time, he prayed. He prayed and he hoped in time that I, the one that he said would become assistant to my father and help my father do the work, he hoped.
IWDM:
At that time, I was just in my mother. He left right after I was born. In the early part of 1933 I was in my mother, still in my mother. In October 30th of 1933 I was delivered, I was born. Mr. Fard was still in touch with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, my mother, and the small community that he had started. He was still in touch with them and he sent my mother a message saying, "Take good care of the new arrival," meaning me, the new arrival. And then he was gone. Okay. Coming back to the present time now, to myself, I definitely have always, no doubt about it, I have always had an interest in all African American people and human beings, period, but mostly in African American people.
IWDM:
What should be expected of me other than that? It should be expected of me that I would have the interest of all American people at heart. Folk have a spiritual life together as well as a racial life together. Racially, we know we are tied together because we all came from Africa originally and we are called Black people. We have a history coming from the history of slavery, slaves, from the history of slaves to the present time, a liberated or a free people that have been included in the American citizenry and in the American society, American life. So we all share that history.
IWDM:
But we should understand that certain events in that history have had really very deep impressions, have made deep impressions upon our soul. Spirit really is an expression of the soul, mainly an expression of the soul. So African Americans, I have said in Detroit at the Apollo Theater there. I said that we have a champion inside of us and that champion is the African American soul, the African American soul, referring to the experiences that we had as slaves, the experiences that we had during the time of lynchings and discrimination, Jim Crow, et cetera, experiences that we've had both in the South and in the North as a subclass people struggling to get full recognition as citizens in America.
IWDM:
So these experiences, along with certain horrible incidents in the North, like the lynching of Emmett Till or the lynching type murder of Emmett Till in Mississippi, Emmett Till who was from Chicago and how it affected the North and how we have suffered even in the North not only discrimination and a depriving of opportunities as given to whites, but we also have suffered in the North brutal, physical treatment, brutal, physical treatment in the North. That time has passed. We hope it will never come back. But there are insane, deranged haters of whites and haters of Jews and haters of Catholics and haters of anything that they could find to hate, just something to hate.
IWDM:
They just have to hate something. Occasionally, we will see a demonstration of that hate. Even now it's possible that we will see a demonstration of that kind of hate that has lingered and stayed in some of the sick people of our society. But the point is that we have experienced this. It has touched our hearts. It has touched our soul. It has gone deep into our soul. It has influenced the way we feel, influenced the way we think, influenced what we want to achieve as a people. We have shared that experience, so we are all tied together, mournfully, by experiences, experiences, shared experiences.
IWDM:
We are tied together by that more than anything else. The black skin alone is not enough. You find Black people in Africa, divided and fighting each other. Their black skin cannot unite them and likewise for us in America. Black skin could never unite us. It has been our shared experiences on the road to progress that has made us a people of one ethos and one in the same ethos, one in the same, I would say, racial spirit, racial spirit. My leadership then has dealt more with the psychology of our struggle and more with the psychology of our behavior than with the physical needs that we have.
IWDM:
I have come to the conclusion years ago that building the psychology of the individual and building the psychology of the race, building the spiritual life and the mentality of the race and individual is the key for putting us into a situation where we will have the spirit, the ambition, the assertiveness to tackle the hard job of changing our physical picture in our neighborhoods, where our neighborhoods depend on outsiders for its business life. That should not be. That has to atop. That is really the scene that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was addressing too when he said we must build businesses in our own communities, in our own neighborhoods, and have those business to be quality business and have them survive and thrive.
IWDM:
So we come to the conclusion now. The conclusion is that here we are, 2006, approaching our annual convention, which will be held in Chicago at the Hyatt Regency downtown. We are bringing a message of not only spirituality, which is very important, extremely important that we know how to recognize our own spirituality so we can be successful in managing our own spirituality, not spiritual life, not religion, but spirituality. Manage our impulses. Manage our tendencies to give support to certain things that are no good for us. Manage those tendencies, and to manage those tendencies, I call it managing my own spirituality, managing my own spirituality.
IWDM:
You have to be able to manage your own spirituality. You have to have psychological insights into the nature of your spirituality to manage your spirituality. But that's a necessity, but that's not what we will be addressing at the convention. We will just be including that as an element of importance in the address for Sunday, the public address on the Sunday at this convention. What we will be addressing mostly is how to qualify for inclusion, how to qualify for inclusion, how to qualify for complete inclusion, the inclusion that a community asks for.
IWDM:
If we're going to be successful in establishing a community, we have to be successful as business people and as educators, as people responsible for education of our children, for the education of our little children and our bigger children and our teenagers, people responsible for our schools. We're going to have to be planning to be successful as people who know how to grow in the system of these United States to use the system, to benefit from the system as other ethnic groups do. We're going to have to be able to manage that. We have great leadership, great Christian leadership who have brought us a long ways and have realized, I would say, inclusion as people. But now we need inclusion as a community.
IWDM:
Our communities are not thriving financially, so they are not strong communities. They are very weak communities. If they're strong financially, it's because of us contributing to the tax base and because of us being a consumer people contributing to the business strand of those who come into our community because of our own neglect. We invite them into our own communities. So they come to our communities and they take over business that was boarded up, deserted. They put a strong business there, and they bring new life. One example is Madison Street in West Side Chicago.
IWDM:
When you travel down Madison Street, it's not the deserted street, business artery that it was some several years ago. Very recently, life has come to Madison Street, that separates north from south and runs through the West Side, predominantly African American neighborhoods or community. It is alive. It is alive because of Indians from India, Pakistanis from Pakistan, which borders on India, the border state on India, and Africans and other whites and some Arabs, all doing big business on that artery. So the consumers, who are the buyers, the consumers are African Americans, are us.
IWDM:
We are the ones that's keeping those people in business. This is not to attack them. No. They have the right to come in there and do business. America is a free country, and we believe in free enterprise. So they have the right to come in here and do business. But that doesn't excuse us from the shame of neglect on our part that we did not go in there and that we did not bring business life to our own neighborhoods. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad's way must be continued. We must continue his way of addressing the needs of African American people as not only a spiritual and moral need, which is strong, which is first. But it's also a material or business need.
IWDM:
So I conclude with that and say that I have followed the excellent life pattern and community life pattern that was established by the teacher of my father as a blueprint, Mr. Fard. I have followed the good works of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and I hope that as his son and as leader of many who followed him, I hope I'm continuing in the best tradition of the neighborhood concerns of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. I hope I'm traveling in the best tradition of the universal prophet of mercy to all people, Muhammad, the prophet of Mecca who was preaching on this Earth about 1400 years ago.
IWDM:
We're in the Islamic calendar now, about 1427 of the Islamic calendar, 1426 or '27 years since the migration of Muhammad and his followers to Medina, where he set up a model of community that has become an international model for Muslims' community life all over the world. So we pray with the traditional salute to him, peace and prayers and blessings and peace be upon our prophet and what follows of that traditional salute to the last prophet.
IWDM:
I say to you we are hoping to have the most impressive convention ever this year, 2006, at the Hyatt downtown Chicago. See me please on Sunday at the UIC Pavilion on Harrison-
Abdul Ghani:
And Racine. And Racine.
IWDM:
It's on Harrison-
Abdul Ghani:
And Racine Street.
IWDM:
... and Racine. So many thoughts coming through my mind, I couldn't get that. Harrison and Racine. See me there, G-d willing. Peace. Assalamu alaikum.
Speaker 3:
Walaikum assalam. Thank you very much, Brother Imam. Did you want to take a break for a minute?
IWDM:
No.
Speaker 3:
Okay. Many of the questions that is listed here you've answered in when and how did your mission begin. You elaborated on that. But changing that just a little bit, when did you know for certain that you had to prepare for this mission?
IWDM:
That I had prepared?
Speaker 3:
Yes. Yes, sir. That you had to prepare for this mission.
IWDM:
Oh okay. I got it. When did I know for sure, for certain that I had to prepare for this mission for my leadership to continue the work of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad?
Speaker 3:
Yes, sir.
IWDM:
When did I know? Well, I was told that all my life. I can't remember a time in my life that I wasn't told. My mother would remind me. My sister, Lottie, who's still living, she would remind me. I have two sisters. One's passed. Ethel passed, but Lottie is still living. They would remind me, say, "You're out there playing with those boys. You have to remember." Now, I'm like seven, eight years old or younger. "You have to remember that you're supposed to help your father, our savior." They called Mr. Fard their savior, the savior. Savior's Day, you know is celebrating his coming.
Speaker 3:
Yes, sir.
IWDM:
Said, "Our savior gave you his name." Rayya, called Lottie before, she was telling me. She said, "I used to have to go with a chalk that he wrote your name on the wall behind the door. Then I used to have to go over it with chalk to keep it bright." My mother would say, "Son, you're not to be like other boys." That's what she would tell me. Like other boys, she'd mean I'm not to let my spirit go to the streets. Okay. I'm not to be one of the guys on the street, with that street spirit.
IWDM:
She said, "You're not to be one of the boys, like the boys." She said, "You're to be different." That's what she would tell me. So I heard that all the time. She would say, "Our savior said that you going to help your father in his work." Now, you telling a little child, eight, nine, seven, eight, five, six, seven, five, eight, nine. I remember myself at five and six years old sitting on the front row in the temple hearing the ministers preach. All I remember is that they said Islam was freedom, justice, and equality. They said that so much I couldn't forget it.
IWDM:
Here I am now, a teenager, got a mustache, and my father's telling me, "You got a mustache now. You got to join the men." He said, "You got to join the men." So he would take me with him to visit meetings, even to meetings where he had to come make a serious decision on whether to keep this person in position or fire him. So I was there, a young teenager hearing that talking and all that. I said to myself, "Daddy really doesn't want to lose us." He wanted to keep his sons with him. But later on, I looked back now as I progressed in my own thinking because I accepted more responsibility.
IWDM:
More responsibility was given to me and I accepted it. I looked back and I said, "That man was wise." He was actually preparing me to assist him in the leadership. "Let me see how he runs things. Let me see the kind of things that come at him and how he deals with those things." So the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was very wise. He prepared us. It was not at any of those times that I became aware of the hairy decision that I had to make to take on responsibility for leading my father's followers. Never did that come to my mind, not even when I was preaching.
IWDM:
I was preaching as a minister from about '51 or '52 until I went to prison in about '60 and then came out. So I was a minister responsible for temple number 12 in Philadelphia. Even then, that didn't come to my mind. Only when my father showed sickness and he began to be weak and everything, then I started to worry about the future of the Nation of Islam. That was when I started to take it serious. That was in the early '70s, '70, maybe starting around '69, '68, '69.
Speaker 3:
So that's your indoctrination toward the leadership?
IWDM:
Yes. Now, I was released from prison January ... I can't forget it. Freedom is an important thing. You don't forget freedom. I may forget the day they locked me up, but I will never forget the day they let me go, January 10, 1963. Now, when I was released, I was released on parole. I was turned down for parole the first time. The second time I made parole. So I'm a parolee. I'm not free to do anything. I report to my parole officer. So the Honorable Elijah Muhammad advised me to be low-key and not to go on the rostrum, et cetera. He helped me because I couldn't do that anyway.
IWDM:
The conditions for parole would not permit me to do that. I was not supposed to go preach or get on the role and preach to the Nation of Islam for teaching, teaching of separation from whites and all that. I was not to do that, not during parole. So I had to serve my parole time out. It was not even then did I see myself coming in position to be responsible for the following of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, carrying him on, carrying his tradition on.
IWDM:
But at that time I did worry about the future of the Nation of Islam because certain things had occurred in Philadelphia and Detroit and some other places that was giving the Muslims a black eye or a bad face, charges of dope pushers contributing money to the Nation of Islam in Philadelphia, Detroit, Kansas City area and some other charges too of Mafia, Black Mafia forming inside the following of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, which was serious, very serious, very troubling for any of us if we heard that.
IWDM:
Most of the believers, I don't think they heard it. But law enforcement knew about it, and the top leaders of the Nation of Islam knew about it. Some of the followers had to know about it, especially in Detroit, Kansas City, and Philadelphia areas. So anyway, I did start to worry about the future of the Nation of Islam during that time. That was during the late '60s, late '60s. By '71 or '72, I was free from obligation to my parole, but I was also free to start preaching again. My father let me back. As you know, I differed with some things with Mr. Fard as being G-d, man being G-d.
IWDM:
I differed with that, not that I didn't love and appreciate the man. But I saw that having a religion that's correct is more important than having the man in a certain picture. We should take him out of that picture of G-d and put him in a picture of a social reform teacher or something. So I was making those changes not in opposition to my father. I knew better than that. I told Malcolm, "Nobody can oppose the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and keep his following. You oppose him, you lose his following." I knew that. I told Malcolm that. So I knew that. I wouldn't be folding on Elijah Muhammad, trying to take his place.
IWDM:
I even had a foreigner tell me. A foreign Muslim told me once. He said, "You don't put two swords in one sheath." I didn't even reply to him. He was saying that you can not be boss or Elijah Muhammad is boss. I wondered what had put that in his mind. Maybe he was trying to plant the seed of division in my mind. Yeah. Maybe he was clever enough to try to plant the seed of division in my mind. But anyway, I didn't even respond to him. I rejected him. I didn't like him at all for saying that. Of course, I wouldn't like him for saying that. What I was doing though, I had friends very close to me.
IWDM:
I had relatives very close to me. They would be asking serious questions sometimes and sometimes be evidencing the fact that they had difficulty accepting certain things as they were taught. So I'm thinking I'm among trustworthy friends. I'm just sharing with them, "Well, really what was not correct is Mr. Fard. He can't be G-d." I said, "He invited us to Islam. Islam has a book that is the authority for Islam. It's the Quran." I said, "The Quran does not allow that we say any man is G-d. That's the worst crime we can commit is to say G-d is a man, according to our Quran." So I would tell them that.
IWDM:
It got back to the lieutenants and captains. That's how I got put out. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad called me in to question. He said, "Son, you have some charges against you. You are charged with saying that our savior is not G-d. Who is G-d?" He said. That's exactly what he spoke to me. "Well, who is G-d?" I said, "Daddy." I said, "You have the Quran. You have more knowledge of the Quran than most of us." I said, "I won't answer that question." Well, anything is possible. But at least it kept me from ... I didn't have a sword to fight him with. I wasn't going to pull a sword out and start fighting him. I came to help him, not to fight him.
Speaker 3:
One quick follow-up question to that Brother Imam because in your statement-
IWDM:
That was meant. I'm so serious. Would he put me out? Would he put me out? I knew about the drugs. I knew about Malcolm's passing. I said, "Wow." I said, "It's going to take a lot to keep these people." That's when I started thinking seriously about it.
Speaker 3:
At that point when you started thinking seriously, was there a specific strategy that you had in mind to go about working with us to bring us through certain transitions because you knew the condition that we were in?
IWDM:
Yes. When I was put out, I knew that the following would have to be saved, saved from infighting and saved from the attacks from the outside on us, on what we believe and what we were all about. I knew that. So I went into study. I went into deep studies. I said to myself, "Most of the following of the Nation of Islam, they have been taught the Bible, to see themselves as a people like the Jews, persecuted and needing to come out from under the rule of their persecutors into an environment and a society of their own." That's the way I saw it.
IWDM:
I said, "So I'm going to have to study the Bible," because I was not a Bible minister. I was a Quran minister. I said, "I'm going to have to study the Bible and get familiar with the Bible." So I did. I've told the story more than once. I will not go over it again today. It takes too much time. But I studied the Bible. I came to the conclusion as to how I should use the Bible if I use it at all. I was already familiar with the Quran, but I also obligated myself to study the teachings, the occult, I hate to use the language occult, or secret teachings of Mr. Fard.
IWDM:
I knew I had to study that, so I did. That signaled me to world myths, to the mythologies of the world. So I went to libraries. I traveled out of Illinois. I went to libraries in other states, looking for books. I found books on mythology in different places. I read the mythology of the Asian people. I read the mythology of some African people, tribes or people, like the Egyptian mythology. I read these mythologies. All of this coming together was not my genius, but it was the assistance of G-d.
IWDM:
G-d was assisting me and giving me signals from Mr. Fard's teaching, signals from the Quran, signals from the Bible, giving me all these signals that brought me to do this kind of vast research and then digesting or extracting from all that research what I thought would be my strategy and a successful strategy for bringing the following of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad out of a language prison to freedom.
Speaker 3:
Allahu akbar. Allahu akbar. Thank you, Brother Imam.
Speaker 4:
Just two in one real quick, questions and one answer. In reference to the advancement in the community, how do you see the advancement of the community in terms of our better understanding of religion, advancement in Islamic studies, and the Quranic Arabic and ecetera? And then the last one is that had to do, as you already mention said, "We are a new people."
IWDM:
Yes. Yes. We are a people shaped by, as all people, shaped by our experience in community environment, shaped by experience in community environment. We as a people in the Bible and in Quran, there were people who were rejected by the society that they were in. Those people were blessed by G-d to make a transition, an exodus or a cultural and spiritual transition and find a new life. So we are a people like this. We were forced almost to seek a new life as a people because of us being separated so completely from any conscious traditions that we had in Africa.
IWDM:
We were not following any traditions that our people had in Africa. Slavery had just obliterated, had erased, had done away with all that. Even the roots had been ... All the roots, that's why we say we were uprooted. Being transported by Africa to the plantations really uprooted our life that we knew of, so we had no recognition, no way to retreat, no way to go back, to return. Mr. Fard acknowledged that when he said, "They could not swim that 1000 miles to go back home," meaning it's impossible for minds to go back to Africa and start all over again. We have to pick up our life here and build a life here for ourselves.
IWDM:
This will be our new origin, our new genesis. I gave a lecture once in New York, The Genesis of the African American People, a new genesis or a new beginning for the African American people. While I was preaching in front of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, it just began to vibrate very strongly inside of my spirit that, hey, we have to recognize that we are a new people. We are not like any other people in America. All these people follow past tradition. They are tied to past life traditions, past cultures, and everything, but we're not. So we're a new people. We are a new people born on this soil.
IWDM:
The first Americans, American Indians, called Indians, American Indians, they were here before the white man. But history says they came from somewhere else too here. They came to this land. This land was not populated. They came to this land and populated this land. This is what history says. Now here we are, brought here as slaves but completely separated from our past, babies taken from mamas and daddies and raised just to be workers on the plantation with no tie to home life at all. Home life was slave life. That's all it was. Gradually, we became acquainted with Christianity.
IWDM:
We became Christians, but actually the movement of the church didn't start until we were freed from plantations. That's when the big movement of the church started with the African Episcopalian church, Black church. It started. Even they are a new people. They are Christians. They have a Christian origin that began in the soil of the South. All of us have our origin, beginning in the soil of the South. So I said, "We are a new people." That idea helped me so much when I accepted that we are a new people. Our history begins in America. Our history begins in the South and in the North as a new people.
IWDM:
So we are new people. If we are new people, then G-d is obligated to help us, to work with us. In the Bible, G-d says that ... He asked the question first, "Will a man rob G-d? And yet, you have robbed me." G-d speaking, "You have robbed me of this whole people." Well, I began to see that as being something that we should be concerned with more than even the Jews because though the Jews ... They stopped speaking of the Jews in the Bible, that the world had robbed them. They were under Pharaoh. They were under Egypt, under Pharaoh. The world had taken them.
IWDM:
But the world had taken them, but they were still in touch with their religious life. They were still in touch with their religious history. They were still in touch with their life. Now, here the world had robbed G-d of a people again, but you robbed them more. You robbed more than the synagogue. You robbed more than the church. You robbed more than the mosque. You robbed the cradle. You robbed the birthplace. You went and took the baby out of the cradle and took him away from all that he was familiar with and started him off in a new environment and new circumstances where he had no way of being in touch with the religious life that he once had, with the business life that he once had, with the political life that he once had.
IWDM:
He had no way to go back to any of it. He had no way to recall any religious connections or anything. So this is the most thorough theft of a people that ever occurred on the planet Earth. So we are a new people. If we just register that and understand that, we will go farther. You don't even need the help from G-d. You will go farther. Your own nation will thrust you. Your own nation will push you farther, will urge you to go farther. A baby learns how to walk on his own power and energy, on his own intelligence, power, and energy. A baby learns how to crawl. A baby learns how to stand up.
IWDM:
A baby learns how to roll. A baby learns our language and how to talk on his own energy. What is that energy? The energy of new life. So if we accept that we are new people, we will have the energy of new life helping us. Now if you believe in scripture like I do, you will also know that G-d is on your side.
Speaker 4:
The advancement of the religion and the Quran and the Quranic Arabic?
IWDM:
Yeah. You know how we said, in one convention we said we can't stop now?
Speaker 4:
Yeah.
IWDM:
That's what I just said. We can't stop now.
Speaker 4:
I got it.
IWDM:
Yeah. We can't stop now.
Speaker 4:
Yes, sir.
IWDM:
With the light on, we have to build the leadership for Islam in America. We have to build the leadership for Islam. We have to do it in America, but we're doing it for the whole world, a new people.
Abdul Ghani:
Brother Imam, you have covered so much. The questions that I had in mind, I won't ask. But I would like to ask one question in reference to a statement. Of course, since you have came into your leadership and over the past 30 years you have visited so many different countries and you have met with different leaders. You met with the Pope of Rome, Pope John Paul when he was physically with us. You met with the king of Saudi Arabia. You've met-
IWDM:
Yes. More than one king.
Abdul Ghani:
Yes, sir. You met with the kings.
IWDM:
The kings.
Abdul Ghani:
Kings. Yes, sir. You met with them. You've also met with the president of our United States of America.
IWDM:
More than one of them.
Abdul Ghani:
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. During the course of this period, how essential do you see this meeting with them was in order to ... it helped to enhance in the role where you're trying to take us? How essential was that?
IWDM:
Again, the doings of G-d. The doings of G-d. The religious experience, people who were searching for themselves wanted to discover where they should be in the world under G-d, people who were searching for their destiny under G-d, if they have had a liberator ... I don't want to point to myself in this way, but I have to. If they have had a liberator, that liberator have been fortunate to be put in circumstances where that liberator talked to the top ruler in the land.
IWDM:
Joseph of the Bible and Yousef, the same Joseph of the Quran, Moses, Muhammad, you name them. Jesus Christ, anyone who fought for G-d, for leading people's lives, they had to meet with the top rulers. Yes, because G-d knows that the little boy, he needs to meet with the big man so he can see what's to him. Yes, sir?
Abdul Ghani:
My buddy and I, we really thank a lot for you and we don't want to take up all of your time.
IWDM:
Well, thank you. It's been my pleasure.
Abdul Ghani:
Yes, sir.
IWDM:
It's been my pleasure. I hoped for it. I thought it was possible. But I really had, I thought I would be rejected. My thoughts of my being rejected were much stronger than my thoughts that I would be welcomed to the Vatican, can be in the presence of Pope John Paul II. But I said to myself. I heard that Reverend Jesse Jackson was the guest of the Vatican one time. I said, "Just on the stress of him being accepted, my friend, the Reverend Jesse Jackson," I said, "I'm going to make a try," and I did. So I expressed my desire to make a visit there.
IWDM:
Someone may say and I could understand the question being asked, "Why would the son of Elijah Muhammad and a Muslim want to go to the Holy See, to Rome, Italy, the Vatican, and be a guest visiting the Pope of Catholicism, the Pope of the Catholic Church or the Catholic world under the Roman Catholic Church?" I knew that it'd be looked at as strange and people would wonder why. But you know what I said to myself? I said, "If the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's son is accepted in the Vatican to have an audience with the Pope, the head of the Catholic Church," I said, "that's going to make news everywhere. That's going to say that he is different. He must doesn't dislike Christians. He must doesn't have anything against Christians. He visited the Pope."
Abdul Ghani:
That's right. It did.
IWDM:
There turned out to be much more in it for me than what I thought would be in it. Much more.
Abdul Ghani:
A lot more.
IWDM:
Became much more than I expected. But just that alone was enough for me. I said, "If I can just have it hit the news that I visited the Pope and made a visit there as a Muslim, but as a Muslim who came in friendship to speak with the Pope and have an audience with the Pope. " I said, "If that is known, then that's going to free my community to move throughout the United States."
Abdul Ghani:
Yes, sir. And be more accepted among those-
IWDM:
Be more accepted by Christians.
Abdul Ghani:
Yes, sir.
IWDM:
It's important. This is a Christian country. It's extremely important that we go in friendship and move friendly through these United States with our Christian brothers and sisters.
Abdul Ghani:
Yes, sir. You've done just that too. I was blessed to be with you on that trip when you delivered the message there in Rome at the Vatican. I put it on television and we also encouraged ... You really would have to be there, I think, to feel the impact of the people, how they responded with your presence.
IWDM:
Well, I know some of our brothers, some of them openly will befriend us, openly befriend us. They've done that since the time of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad too, from the time of Malcolm even more, openly befriended us from the Christian church leadership. I know there were ones that said, "He grew up with us. He came up with us. He's been helped by the civil rights movement. Why did he go to the Vatican?" Well, if there's any question in the minds of our people whether I prefer Catholicism over Protestantism or not, I have to admit that the decision will crucify me because I have one arm going out to one and another arm going out to the other. I'll be stretched forever.
IWDM:
The center will never change. The center is Allah. The center's Qibla. The center's Abraham and the house he built. The center's Muhammad and his community. The center is Islam. They'll stretch me out.
Abdul Ghani:
Allahu akbar.
IWDM:
I don't want to be too smart. I love all good people. I'm no more interested in Catholicism than I am in Protestantism when it comes to supporting what's right and good.
Abdul Ghani:
I think this is one of the things, Brother Imam, that helps a lot of us who really are listening to you really as students is to see you have the interest and the concern for the whole of humanity, at the same time understanding all of the pressure and the punishments, as you was explaining a few minutes ago that we have gone through. Still, you want to reach out for everybody, to those ... I guess the message, is that necessary in order for us to be changed? Because if the atmosphere still exists in the others, I guess we'll probably never change, huh?
IWDM:
For Christians, Christ asked no less of the follower of the Christian. For Muslims, our G-d, Muhammad, our prophet, asks no less of us, that we have a heart that can have room in it for every person on this Earth, for all people. Strong language in both books, Bible and Quran, urging us to become charitable and openhearted where our hearts open up to accommodate all people, welcome all people. But I have to say this also, I'm a product of my people's experience. I'm a product of the African American people experiences as a people coming from slavery to freedom. So I'm a product of that road and that experience.
IWDM:
I'm a product of that. That has worked positively in me to connect me with all human beings because the issue is not how they treat a certain color. The issue is how do they treat human beings. All people are human. You see? So I'm the fruit of Islam and the fruit of the African American experience at the same time.
Abdul Ghani:
Yes, sir. There was one question that was asked of us and it was, how essential was it for you or what is the big differences when you made the change, when we were saying Islam and then you changed it to Al-Islam?
IWDM:
Yes.
Abdul Ghani:
What was the ...
IWDM:
Yeah. It's important for students of the Quran to know the difference. When you say Islam, you're talking about how I perceive as a person individually Islam and how Islam is in my mind personally when you say Islam. G-d addresses that in the Quran. He says Islamukum, meaning your Islam. This is really exposing those who have their own ideas what Islam is. But when G-d said, "And I have preferred for you the religion of Islam," it's not Islam. In the Quran, it's Al-Islamu deen. "I preferred for you the Al-Islam as the religion."
Abdul Ghani:
Alhamdulillah. Thank you very much.
IWDM:
Yeah. In house and the house have different meaning, right?
Abdul Ghani:
Yes. Yes, sir.
IWDM:
Islam and the Islam got different meaning.


