02/05/2002
IWDM Study Library 
Islam Wants Individual and Community Peace in the Soul and Established in Community Duke University

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Peace be unto you As Salaamu Alaikum. We praise G-d Alhamdulillah, Rabbil Al Amin who is the Lord keeper, cherisher of all the worlds. We witnessed that He's One. And that Muhammad to whom the Quran was revealed, is the last of the Prophets and the seal of the Prophets.
I'm very pleased again and honored, my community is honored that I've been, again, invited to come here on this campus of Duke University and address this audience, distinguished persons and believers, Muslims from around the area, and non-Muslims in this beautiful Duke chapel.
We should know, all of us should know Islam as a religion of peace because our greeting is peace. Our name is derived from the word peace, Muslim, and our religion is also derived from the word peace, Islam. But we are not always aware ourselves who embrace Islam or who accept Islam as our religion in America and I imagine in other places, still the world. You're not aware of this religion as a religion of peace and ourselves as peace makers and our greetings as a greeting of peace. We are more aware of ourselves as a UMMAH or community, an international body of people following our Prophet Muhammad and the book that He received from G-d to all of us, the Quran.
And it's very important that we do understand that Muslims are communities. And that Islam is a message from G-d to the people of the world, not just to Arabs or Africans, but to all the people of the world, to guide us into the best model of community life.
Muhammad, the Prophet, peace be upon Him. He was preaching the religion and given the Quran, as He received it over a period of 20 years, 21 years; however, during the first 10 or 11 years, He was in Mecca and the religion was not established yet. It was just being taught.
When He was given the invitation to leave hostile Mecca and the Meccans of that time to go to Medina, He finally did arrive in Medina and then He began to establish the religion as the religion of not only the human heart, but the religion of the human community. Prayers, daily prayers, five-time prayers were established and a center for teaching and educating the adherents and the knowledge of Quran and Islam, following the way of the Prophet began. And the community grew, was established under His leadership. In fact, He took His own hands and picked up bricks and worked with the workers to build the first mosque or masjid there in Medina. Peace be upon our Prophet and blessings.
G-d says to us in our holy book, O you who believe save yourselves and your families from the fire, yourselves and your families from the fire. And in another place, the fire is described, is given description. Fires that send flames leaping over the sentiments or the hearts of human beings. The fires of appetite, the fires of ill passions, the fires of disappointment, the fires of anger. Our Prophet wants that, prayers and peace be upon Him to someone He told him, do not be angry, do not be angry. That is, do not feed anger, resist anger when it arises in you or in us. We are to resist it. We are not to feed it. It's like feeding the flames.
We know that ill passions, appetites that are not lawful for the religious community can burn out human sentiments, innocence, good, healthy human sentiments can make us hard, insensitive, apathetic, void of love and kindness for one another or toward one another. And when we become victims of the fires, we lose our human identity as well as our religious identity. Worst is the worst is to lose our human identity and behave like animals. Be as cruel, beast, devouring each other, devouring each other's properties. This is the curse. The first taste of the hell fires, death and the hell fires.
Pakistan's president, I read in the Chicago's daily papers, rejected all forms of terrorism. The terrorism that we are witnessing now in the world is very strange and very difficult for just an observer to really identify or describe. Most of these Muslims who have the name Muslim, and I'm sure in their own hearts, they believe they're good Muslims who sacrifice themselves to get at their enemies, are not persons that have the common sins that we are aware of. They are not persons who want violence or want to destroy things. They're not persons who drink liquors, drink strong drinks or use narcotics. They're not persons who are indecent in their behavior as members of society, or as family members. They won't cheat on their wives.
So, they're not guilty of the popular sins that we are acquainted with. They have been driven to the point of insanity by horrible things that has happened in their lives. And we should, as Reverend Otis Moss, African American leader of a big Christian following in Cleveland, Ohio said at one of the interfaith meetings I attended hosted by him and our Imam of Cleveland, Imam Clyde Rahman, the Reverend Dr. Otis Moss speaking of the horrible tragedy of September the 11th. He said in his last words to us, "This deserves deep thought. We have to think deep into it." That's what he said.
And I felt that I was really thinking and feeling the same thing that he was thinking and feeling as he gave these words to the audience. This is not to excuse the crimes or any criminal. This statement from the President of Pakistan went on to say that he rejected all forms of terrorism and dropped customary excuses for Islamic militants battling for control in India, so that they can have Kashmir, which is a disputed area claimed by both the Indians and the Pakistanis. The statement followed a meeting with the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
When you have an opportunity to see your problem in a bigger picture of relatedness, these things are related. Our problem that we have in the Middle East is related to the problem that's in Kashmir and even outside of the Muslim circle. And whether it's related directly or not is related because what we do in one area affects all other areas in time once the news get to those other areas, and it affects the life and interest of others. That don't identify with our life, the Muslim life. That we could accept to meet with each other and talk and remain sober and respectful of one another. We can have more peace in the world, more peace in the world.
For those wounded by tragedies and bad treatments from others, they have their own opinion of what is right and wrong. They have their own opinion of what is justice and what is not justice, their hearts, or their skills for weighing justice and how we perceive what is right or wrong or what is just, or unfair, not just, depends on what our own circumstances are and what our own life is in those circumstances or under those circumstances.
Given the problems and complications in the peace effort for the Middle East or for the Mid-East, Kashmir and other areas, many who are wounded by the happenings, ugly happenings in the world are not in a normal human condition to hear what their religion has to offer to the situation. Not to mention being in a condition to listen to a representative of the United States. The president himself, many are not even open to listening to what their religions say. They're too hurt. They don't know enough about their religion to believe or have faith that their religion has answers or have solutions for them.
World governments, world orders that shape history and our shaping history, they should be expected to come up with the moral strength and fortitude to listen to victims of conflict like those we have in the Middle East, in Kashmir and in many other places. The complaints of these victims are important to problems, and hence also to solutions. Most Muslims do not study the holy book of Muslims, the Quran, called Koran in the media or by most Americans.
In the United States of America, public education is law. It is required of all citizens to have studies in government, in the elementary schools, in the high schools, and in the high schools, the law protects people's rights to be properly informed of the ideas, laws, and procedures, et cetera, established to protect citizens and to protect their government.
In the Muslim lands, how the Quran and Muhammad's life tradition should serve to guide and protect citizens and their government is not required studies. Moreover, by and large, their leaders, the minds of their leaders have not been allowed to heal from the wounds of the crusades, colonial domination of their lands and the heartened Israeli occupation today, which appears to be saying others have no rights to anything, if Israel wants to take it.
In the Quran, the holy book of Muslims, Allah, the Lord creator says to us, "And take the better there of." The sacred scriptures, the book of the Jews, or the books for the Jews, Torah and their books, the book of the Christians, the Bible and the Quran, all shows human life in its excellence, and also in its ignorance, in its sins. Holy scripture is a compliment demand, a warning against temptations, too. Temptations, inviting humans to divorce their up, what movement for Lower desires, to divorce their high calling for a corrupt life. All of this is given in history in our scriptures as a history of people who went astray.
If we go to these scriptures without good motive, clean motive, we will think we are recognizing something that we should accept and apply to our own lives or for the good of our own lives. And it'll be something really condemned by the scripture. We'll be reading something out of context or reading something without an understanding of what is being said by G-d and to whom G-d is speaking.
The Bible and the Quran are for leaders and for their public. But we know that many portions of Bible and Quran are too complex and too difficult to understand for the common person. What I'm saying is that the Bible and Quran are scriptures of the religious people, need to be taught, and need to be taught by honest, decent people who are well meaning, not those who are in it because they hate somebody, are in it because they want to put down somebody. But are in it because they love mankind, humanity. And in it because they want to contribute to the betterment of humanity, human beings all over the world, everywhere.
The Quran came down to humanity, mankind as a guide, as a guide to the best human behavior, as a guide to the best moral life, ethical life, industrial life, governmental life, financial life, devotional excellence. This is what the Quran came down to us to have us turned on to devotional excellence. Muhammad the Prophet, He said that G-d has inscribed excellence on everything or for everything. And He said another saying, "Whenever the believer endeavors to do something, the believer seeks to perfect it. Make it excellent."
The Prophet also has taught us that G-d is beauty and loves beauty, but we miss all of this. When we get into an entanglement with enemies, people we have complaints against, people we want to see punished for the wrongs they have done to us, and we lose ourselves. We lose more than our religious identity. We lose our human identity.
G-d in the Quran, He asked us to search the scripture with our spiritual curiosity and also with our rational curiosities to search the scripture. G-d does not want dumb believers. G-d wants informed believers, educated believers, believers having enough knowledge of their lives to manage their lives successfully in community with others who may not identify with them in the same faith or in the same life for that matter.
I quote the builder of the Nation of Islam, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. He didn't know the Quran. He didn't know how to read Arabic. He mostly read the Bible to motivate his people, his following, his African American following to inspire them, to give them a sense of the fear of G-d, a sense of the need, obligation to obey G-d. But he had a belief that the Quran was the bright book revealed by G-d, and that Islam was the right religion for his people and for all people, and that Muhammad was Prophet and messenger of G-d.
And he would often say to us, "In fact, I don't know any meaning of Islam that I received when I was a follower in that organization, that Nation of Islam, then the one he would give." And he said to us, "Islam is freedom, justice and equality."
Well, I always loved that message because I identified myself with the suffering African Americans who suffered during our enslavement in this hemisphere and who suffered after our emancipation from the slavery of the south, who suffered discrimination, rejection, social rejection, and two separate laws, one limiting our life and one given full freedom to the lives of white folks.
And I appreciate the message that said it was freedom because we needed to be freed and justice. We needed justice and equality. We needed equal protection under the law, so I identify strongly with the Nation of Islam and its message of Islam. That was a call to embrace and believe, in freedom, justice and equality.
Islam is religion of peace. Yes. But when I became more and more acquainted with G-d's attention to our own lives, as human beings, and how G-d describes his own creation, the path of excellence and the path of ignorance and self destruction. I came to know and appreciate myself as a human creation, much more than I had appreciated myself before becoming acquainted with the Quran.
And the more and more I read the Quran, the more and more I saw myself in higher picture and in a richer picture and in a more attractive picture and a more valuable picture. My perception of myself improved so much as I became more acquainted with how G-d pictures me or humans in his holy book.
I would like to not really bring trouble to the audience, but something have to be said if we are to really make progress so that we all can have peace together on this earth. Palestinians are victims, Palestinians are in prison. The whole people we call Palestinians are in a virtual prison and the hardened Israeli government, people have the key to let them out, have the key to lock them in. We have to look at the suffering of people, innocent people, all innocent people. And we have to look at the cruelties of people, all cruel people.
I have been to Israel. I have been to the Palestinian quarters. I was welcomed into the home of some of the finest human beings I've ever met Jews in Israel. I had dinner with one Jew at his home on Sabbath day. In fact, I participated in the Sabbath with them. I ate the Sabbath meal with them. Couldn't find a warmer person, couldn't find a more genuine human being I don't think anywhere.
But I experienced the same as guest of Arafat, with his people the same. And I heard from his people and him, "We don't hate Jews. Jews are our friends. Jews are our neighbors, and it's been that way all the time." What they meant is that before Israel was created in 1947, I think it was, they had lived with Jews, and they had no intention not to stop living with Jews as friends and neighbors.
One statement I read in the paper recently said the professionals need to be called out of the Middle East situation and leave the people alone and they'll find their own peace. Maybe that would happen. But I doubt it. It's more complicated than that, but we need our professionals to be open and to have the moral courage, and faith in humanity if not in G-d to listen to the complaints of all victims and do justice by all victims.
When I think of the Holocaust, my heart cries for the Jews, the victims of the Holocaust. But also when I look at some of the rigid rulers, leaders now in Israel, I see a creation of Hitler. You can become yourself so scarred by trouble in your life as a people or by trouble in your personal life, that you'll become unhealthy and unfit to do justice by other human beings. I conclude my talk. Thank you for the opportunity. Peace As Salaamu Alaikum.
Audience:
Clapping.
Speaker 1:
If anyone have any questions, please, there should be some mics. There are mics where the person can come and ask their questions? If not, please come as close as you can, and raise your voice a little bit or if you say the question, I'll try to repeat it so we can get it on the tape please. Yes. It's pretty clear. Yes.
Speaker 3:
Thank you. Mr. Mohammed, it's an honor to be here and I've heard you spoke. But I want to share a few quick quotes, make a comment and then ask a question.
Before September 11th, Peter Bayer, author of Religion and Globalization refers to Asian and Middle Eastern Muslims in the following quote, "Muslims are trouble that they are being asked to surrender the core of faith. The immutable sacredness of the Quran, as the price for inclusion in a global system currently dominated by non-Muslims."
And after September 11th, Osama bin Laden said the following words in reference to the event, "This is a clear proof that this international, usurious damnable economy, which America uses along with its military power to impose infidelity and humiliation on people can easily collapse. Thanks to G-d Almighty. Those blessed attacks, as they themselves admitted, have inflicted on the New York and other markets more than $8 trillion in losses. The losses taught those arrogant people, who see freedom as meaningless, if not belonging to the white race, a rough lesson."
And then I also want to, I have a quote here from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in his book Message to the Blackman in America. "There is much misunderstanding among us because of our inferior knowledge of self. We have been to schools where they do not teach us the knowledge of self. We have been to the schools of our slave master's children. We have been to their schools and gone as far as they allowed us to go."
Now I appreciate your patience. I want to share with you really quickly just my opinion, just my young opinion. I believe that racism, imperialism and colonialism still very much exist, although in different forms than before. I believe that Western society and its worship of economics is incompatible with the belief in G-d. I respect Osama bin Laden and his destruction of the World Trade Center. So, I have a question. Does Osama bin Laden deserve more respect from Americans who believe in G-d? That's it.
IWDM:
Can you repeat the question again for me? I'm not sure I understood the question. I didn't hear it clearly enough. I heard everything up to the last part of the question. Now ask the question one more time.
Speaker 3:
Okay. Does Osama bin Laden deserve more respect? Does his cause deserve more respect from Americans who believe in G-d?
IWDM:
All right. Thank you. His cause if we understand his cause to be justice, he wanted justice and wanted to see the world become a more just world, fair world, to see Muslims freer, to practice their religion and have respect for their way of life, et cetera. If that's his cause, if that was his cause, and if that is his cause, and I do believe that in his innocence, in his own innocence, because he doesn't see himself as a guilty person, he sees himself as an innocent person that he's fighting for the cause, for the just cause. That in his own innocence, I do believe that he sees his cause as justice, fairness. So, I would say to your question, yes, we do owe it to ourselves to study what created him and his actions and to respect his cause. Yes.
But that's still not to say, for me, I'm not saying he didn't do a horrible thing. A criminal thing. He took the lives of innocent persons, and he should be caught, tried and punished. But his case should be heard. We should know him better. There's never a justification for taking the lives of the innocents. And I will give you what G-d has given us in the Quran. G-d says, "Never depart from justice. Even when you are pressured by an enemy to depart from justice, never depart from doing justice." And G-d says for justice is nearest to piety.
Now is it justice because we are suffering to get our enemies, even if it means killing innocent women and elderly persons, children, some of them might be our friends that if we had a day in court, they would be on our side. We don't know who we're killing. It's never in my understanding accepted that we killed the innocent to get at the guilty.
And G-d says, "No bearer of a burden should bear the burden of another." When we hurt or kill the innocent to get at the guilty, we are putting the burden on those persons, their families, the survivors who will mourn their loss of their family members, et cetera.
And also, G-d says to us in our religion, "And die not except as Muslim." And Muslim means you die as a peace loving person, obeying G-d, following the excellence that G-d prescribed for you even in war with your enemies. We who know the history of wars in the time of our Prophet Muhammad, some of his followers were mutilated, horribly mutilated, but did he say they have mutilated us? Let's mutilate them? No. He insisted upon the best human conduct even in war.
New warfare that we see now is not accepted in Islam and the Prophet would condemn it. They'd be punished for that kind of conduct if our Prophet was here. Their cause should be heard, their own history as suffering people must be known. We know the suffering of the Jews and they have our hearts, all the hearts of decent human beings. But now should we only now look at the suffering of Jews and not also look at the suffering of others?
What I'm saying to you my dear brother in humanity, is that I agree with you but I don't exactly perceive it as you perceive it. And therefore, my reaction to it will not be your reaction. But I do agree with you that this world is terribly unjust, and America exports too much that is killing humanity and punishing and afflicting humanity, and we need to find answers more than muscle and power.
We know we can defeat, we have the weapons or muscles to defeat anybody, any nation. But maybe we have come to the end of that kind of way of settling our problem or differences or getting our way. Maybe now it is time for the Western powers to do what is given in the Bible to make their weapons into plowshares, et cetera, and seek other means. And I believe we are expressing the popular sentiments of the American public, and you may be surprised also Israel's public.
Speaker 1:
We have another question.
Speaker 4:
Imam Mohammed, peace be to you. I followed some of your travels through the Focolare Movement, and I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about your trip to Sicily. Just a week and a half ago, your trip to Italy, to Sicily.
IWDM:
Can you pick it up the mic up a little more to your mouth?
Speaker 4:
Okay. Could you tell us just a little bit about your trip to Sicily a week and a half ago?
IWDM:
Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. We received invitation from the Vatican, the invitation of the pope, John Paul II, to be his guest again at the Vatican with religious leaders from around the world. And it was, again, a great honor and a special opportunity not for me but more importantly for my community to be given that special invitation from such a wonderful leader for peace, and purity and kindness in the world. John Paul II.
What surprised me when I got there was I believe that at least a third of the participants, and there were hundreds, were notables from the Muslim world, from the various countries. I met my dear friend that I became acquainted with when I was a very young man, young like these students, members of the Muslim Students Association, the Assistant President and the others that I met here tonight. And I was a young man and I met this person who was also a young man, came to the United States for education like many of the young Arab men did. And during that time and now and they're still coming to different parts of the world for their education.
And I saw him first at my father's house with about 20 or 21 other members of the Muslim Students Association of the United States and Canada, and we became acquainted. We would meet on the campus of IIT, Illinois Institute of Technology, and we would have recitation of Quran, reciting Quran and rhythmic voice chanting, and also the congregation of prayer on Friday, we'd have it together. And he's the President of the Islamic Call Society based in Libya. And I had to give you that description of him because I don't want people thinking that my friend is Gaddafi.
He's a strong religious figure. And I did send greetings to Gaddafi by him though, because Gaddafi is another figure and Castro. These are figures that we don't know, we don't understand. We don't know what produce these personalities, these men, their mental mindset, their mindset, and what whatnot. We don't know them. All we know is the picture of him as one opposing capitalism and one fighting the United States. That's all we know. But we should look at causes behind these things.
So, I was able to meet many notables of Islam from around the world. I mean, scholars, great minds, and it was a great opportunity for me as a Muslim. And it was even a greater opportunity for me, as a believer in G-d and as a human being, a member in humanity to meet with people that I forgot who they were. I forgot they were Hindu. I forgot they were Buddhist because we had engaged each other in such a beautiful way. And we're enjoying each other's company in such a beautiful way. You forget what label is on the person, a wonderful experience.
Yes. And I met Chara Lubich I shook her hands on three occasions, and she is beautiful as she is always. And the youth and health is just radiating in her face as she's a blessed woman indeed. So, this was a great, great peak for my emotions and my spirit. Is there another question?
Speaker 5:
[inaudible 00:55:13].
IWDM:
Alaikum As Salaam. Do you think you might need the mic? Just lift your voice so I can hear it.
Speaker 5:
[inaudible 00:55:30].
IWDM:
How affect the...
Speaker 5:
Low income people.
IWDM:
Low income people? Well, not as much as it affects high income people. We're going to make it brother. Yes. Another question. Yes. Good evening.
Speaker 6:
[inaudible 00:56:36].
IWDM:
Changed. I missed some of the words. Have my view of this some changed. Something about life. What changed? What?
Speaker 6:
[inaudible 00:56:57].
IWDM:
Has it changed? Oh yes. Okay. Yes. Well, to be truthful with you, I was not converted to my father's way from the church. When I was born, my father had been for two years, almost three years already identifying with a new idea, a new belief. I think because of that, I was freer than most of the followers to think rationally and ignore those things that I couldn't understand. Just put them aside. Not condemn them, but just put them aside because I couldn't understand them.
For example, I could never understand. I need to tell you all this to explain, to answer your question. I could never understand even as a boy, before I reached my teenage, I couldn't understand how a Black G-d would create white devil to carry us through the hell that we came through. I couldn't understand that. And then they gave an explanation now. But for my little mind then and now, I can't understand it.
The explanation was that G-d had to prove his power over evil, that he could create evil and give evil the power to rule in the world and he will survive that. Well, in my little mind, even then I say he's G-d. He's supposed to know the answer. He's supposed to know he will survive it. So, who's proved it to? We believe that he survived. He survives alone and nothing can harm him. So, it didn't make sense to me then.
So, as I began to become more cognizant with Islam as Muslims believe it all over the world from the number one source the Quran, of course. And then I read books by Maulana Maududi of Pakistan, on the life of Prophet Muhammad, easy to read books, thought books. And it just endeared me so much to Prophet Muhammad, and gradually I saw myself facing those things that I couldn't understand and did reject, but I didn't put them down. That is, I didn't say the Honorable Elijah Muhammad told us a lie. That story about G-d is wrong. I didn't do that. I just left it alone.
But as I began to learn more about real Islam and the real G-d from the Quran and Muhammad the Prophet, I began to pick those things back up again and look at them. And I saw a powerful psychology, a powerful strategy to get Islam into the heart of the poor Black community. And I don't justify, I don't excuse the lies and the wrong, but I say, I appreciate the good intent of Mr. Fard and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. And I pray that G-d will reward them for all their good and that they're good will weigh heavier on the scale than their errors that they made in the name of goodness and G-d.
They didn't do it against G-d. They did it to help bring us to G-d. I did change. I changed a lot, but I was changing from the time I was a little fella. I remember once we lived on 6116 Michigan and Chicago, South Side, and my father and mother were going out to the temple, to the meeting called them temples back then. Now mind you, it was called temples. Called temples up until '55, maybe called temples. And the secret order called the Shriners of the Mason, they call that place temple too. You see.
So, they were saying something to us all alone, and their case, he didn't say it was a mosque. The place of Muslim is called mosque, not temple. He didn't say it was a mosque. It took a Jordanian, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad invited to teach us the high school students Arabic. So, we could learn Arabic and learn to read Quran in Arabic, to sit down and discuss with my father some problems of language that was very serious.
In the land of the Turks, in Turkey, they don't call Muhammad, Muhammad. They call it Mehmed. That's how they pronounce it, Mehmed. You know how we were told to pronounce that name, and I've pronounced my name that up until '53 or later Mucmud. All of us. They asked us for our name, we say Mucmed, Wallace Macmed, Apple Mucmud, Larry Mucmud, Emmanuel Mucmud. There's my brothers and sisters. Nathaniel Mucmud, even Akbar. No, no, he came. Yes, he was. Oh yes. Akbar too. Akbar Mucmud. He was old enough. He got caught too.
And our places of worship called temple. Temples, the holy temple of Islam. That's what we were called. But we have a lot to understand about the teacher, my father, Mr. Fard, and my father, his obedient student: Elijah Muhammad.
Yes. I'm sorry. I took so much time on that, but I just wanted to share with you. Yes. So, while you're coming, one day when they left me alone in that house on 6116 South Michigan, I felt afraid the house started squeaking. When the house cool and nobody in it, to start making noises. So, I raised my hands to pray. Like we were taught to pray, and I said, "Oh Allah. If I'm not seeing you correctly, please help me see you correctly." I was only about 11 or 12 years old. So, I started changing early.
Speaker 7:
Yes, sir. Hello. I wanted to know what your reactions were, if any, to President Bush's State of Union speech in which his opinions about Muslims were a little ambiguous, if not bluntly offensive. And as a result of this, Saudi Arabia and Iran namely stopped all communication with America. And I wanted to know what your take on his comments were.
IWDM:
I don't want to give you my opinion of his State of Union address, but I will say this. I read in the paper a statement from Colin Powell, Secretary of State, a man loved by most of the American people and by most of American people, I think by all of us.
He said that the war on terrorism must include poverty, must include poverty. So, he is touched by the suffering of the people of Afghanistan. That very, very poor, extremely poor country and people. And I just wish President Bush would speak more like Colin Powell at least at certain times.
Speaker 8:
As Salaamu Alaikum Imam.
IWDM:
Wa Alaikum Aa Salaam.
Speaker 8:
I don't have a question for you, but I have been wanting to do this for some time. And every time I get a little nervous, but I just want to thank you. I just want to thank you for teaching us. I just want to thank you for the strength that a Allah has given to you. I just want to thank you for being the brother that you are and for your guidance. And I pray that Allah just continues to guide you and continues to strengthen you. And I hope you'll be back to North Carolina real soon.
IWDM:
Thank you very much sister. And Allah strengthens me with the kind of support you just gave me for my spirits and my morale. You keep me very strong, people like you, and your prayers.
Speaker 9:
I have a quick question. I just had a question since coming to maybe the Nation of Islam and coming to the American Muslim Society, how have you seen women roles evolve? As in some of the higher positions like Imam, are their roles increasing?
IWDM:
The role of the sisters as teachers of Islam is not limited at all. As teachers of Islam, sisters have the same freedom and they get the same respect from the learned or the scholars of Islam that the men get for developing their minds and their knowledge of Islam and their spirit to serve G-d, to serve Allah, the creator of the heavens and the earth. No difference.
The title Imam is a role, and it is more symbolic than it is an issue. It's more symbolic. We have women making great contributions to the world and we have men doing the same now. And it seems that women are making more progress, especially in African American, our community than our men. Times are changing.
A woman, especially a mother, she has no problem saying to her son, "I want you to be the man." And she has no problem raising her son to be the man. Doesn't mean that her son is going to be higher in intellect or in any other way than the mother. Maybe the mother will always be higher in intellect than the son, but something is in her nature to want to have him know that she respects him as the man. G-d and Islam and Christianity wants to preserve that respect in society for the male.
The society, the world was made civilized because men went out from the home. They were free to do it. They didn't have to spend nine months carrying a child and another year, a few years caring for the child until the child could manage for itself. They were free to go out in the world and explore the world and open the world more and more to human life.
So, men will always be respected in religion for being the one that goes out in the public and address the problems of public life. It doesn't mean the woman is beneath the man at all, spiritually, intellectually, or in any other way. It's the value of that role of man in society, in history and in society that is preserved in religion. And sometimes the inferior saves the world, not the superior.
Speaker 10:
Oh yes. As Salaamu Alaikum my beloved,.
IWDM:
Wa Alaikum As Salaam.
Speaker 10:
This is not of a question but a comment and a thanks for many years I've known you. I met you at your father's house many years ago.
IWDM:
Yes.
Speaker 10:
In the '60s, he was in Philadelphia. We were in New Jersey. My father-in-law is the Nelson James Shabazz at that time in Newark, New Jersey.
IWDM:
Newark.
Speaker 10:
Yes, sir.
IWDM:
Yes.
Speaker 10:
And was [inaudible 01:12:08].
IWDM:
A strong man and a great man.
Speaker 10:
Yes, sir. He was always excited about you. The things in the life that you departed, and we've watched your life over the years and we really thank G-d for you and the things that you're doing. And we can truly say that you are, as an example, my father always lift you up and my family do the same thing.
Speaker 10:
So, came tonight. Just want to thank you very much for the work and the [inaudible 01:12:33]. I remember you came to Newark in 1976, I believe I told your first trip and I think we honored you there. And we appreciate that. So, we just want to thank you for that.
IWDM:
Thank you.
Speaker 10:
Thank you very much. Have a great day.
IWDM:
And thank you brother. Yes. Getting back to the sister who asked the question about being the woman and the role of Imam, how is the role, that role open to women. And she is from the Nation of Islam, which I am too.
In the Nation of Islam, a sister can be minister. That's no problem for us. A sister. That's no problem for us because minister is not exactly what Imam is. The ministers, they teach. They preach. Imam means one who leads the congregation in prayer. And he recites the Quran, it’s not du'a, prayer is not this, asking for blessings or protection calling on G-d.
For health or whatever, this is not so that doing this and in the temple of Islam and in the Nation of Islam now, the minister lead people in du'a, this, not prayer, not Salat. The formal Salat that requires that we use no language, except G-d's word, the Quran when we are performing that.
So, in my opinion, we could have ministers now. For women, men and women, they could be ministers altogether. There's no problem. But the role of Imam, there is a problem. It should only be male, man. Not females. It doesn't say he's better than you, no. Says that's his traditional role. From the time G-d gave word to the first man, it was a man that spoke what G-d gave to the world. So, it's different. I hope you understand what I'm saying sister.
Speaker 1:
Okay. One more. Okay.
Speaker 9:
Aas Salaamu Alaikum.
IWDM:
Wa Alaikum As Salaam.
Speaker 9:
Actually, if you don't mind, I like to make a comment to our guests and to our audience, and it's in reference to information that's in our holy book, the Holy Quran. And I like to share with you what G-d says in the Holy Quran. Because if you know what G-d says in our holy book, the Holy Quran, then you'll know us better.
IWDM:
Now you're helping me, you're helping me with the audience. I'm not going to share any of my honorarium with you. I want you to know that.
Speaker 9:
But this kept going over in my mind over and over while I was sitting down. So, I believe that it's a good thing to share, and that in the Holy Quran, G-d said that do not let your hatred for people cause you to swerve from justice.
IWDM:
Thank you.
Speaker 9:
And thank you for very excellent speech tonight.
IWDM:
Thank you.
Speaker 9:
Not speech. I don't want to say that, but your beautiful talk As Salaamu Alaikum.
IWDM:
Thank you. So, you have one more address. Is that he?
Speaker 1:
No, he was holding [inaudible 01:16:43].
IWDM:
Okay. All right.
Speaker 1:
Thank you.
IWDM:
Thank you.
Speaker 1:
We thank you Imam very much Allahu Akbar. That means G-d is the greatest and G-d willing Imam W. Mohammed will be back in North Carolina, two weeks, February 20th at North Carolina.


