05/00/2003
IWDM Study Library
IWDM Speaks on the Radio Broadcast

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Thank you. Thank you. Praise G-d. Thank you. Thank you. We praise G-d, the Lord cherisher of all the worlds. And we salute the last Prophet Muhammad who received the book called the Qur'an over 14 centuries ago. And we witness to all of the Prophets and servants of G-d and we wish peace upon them all. Ameen. It is a great honor to be here with you on this precious campus of Witton University. And I was hoping to meet and greet the President, but I understand he has to be out and we are very thankful to him for giving us the opportunity to speak to you today. And after hearing what the speaker just said, from the Department of Sociology, I want redo my address.
I told Imam Islam, Mustafa Islam, I said he made my job very easy for me. Yes, I can pass by some of what I was going to say after hearing the presentation that he just made on Islam in America. The picture is not only confused for the American people, public, it's also confused for many Muslims, for many Muslims, many Muslims. Scholars in Islam who meet together....In Islam, there's no priesthood. Scholars are the highest authorities in Islam. The learned scholars of good character are respected by all Muslim nations, all congregations of Muslims as our learned teachers. And they are the ones that supposed to have authority to speak to say what is Islam and what is not. And the scholars of Islam are not popular in the world today as they were in the days following the teachings of Islam by our Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace. And they're not popular because the world of Islam, the governments and nations are headed by persons who are political and who are not themselves that informed regarding the truth of their own religion Islam. And I believe that Muslims have much more freedom in the United States of America to live and practice their religion than we do in most Islamic states or most Islamic countries.
But I don't really fear the conditions in the world or think that it's something that is going to wipe out our religion. It is not. It's only challenging our religion. And our religion is responding to that challenge everywhere. Even where we are persecuted. It's responding to that challenge. And in America is an opportunity for us to really not only speak to the world about the true picture of Islam, but to speak to the Islamic world about the true picture of Islam. I think the situation is good, though it looks very bad. I think it's good. Islam in America goes far back. It didn't begin with African-American Muslims.
Islam was practiced by Muslims who came some claim as far back the Christopher Columbus voyage, as the voyage of Christopher Columbus. We don't know that's true or not, but it could have been, could be true. I have read a publication that says there Muslims on the ship with Christopher Columbus. I am aware of the Albanian Muslims. They have a strong community in Chicago. They've been there for a long time. Albanians have been in Chicago in the area I know for more than 70 years, maybe even longer. I know the Yemeni Muslims from Yemen in Arabia, being in Detroit before the Nation of Islam started under the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. And it's before 1930, 1930. There was Yemeni Muslims in the city of Detroit. Their names are even on the streets. That's how strong they were in certain areas of the city of Detroit. I was born on Yemen Street named for the Yemeni Muslims.
I was born in a house on Yemen Street and what was called, that still is I think called Hamtramck, Michigan. But Detroit is so big we don't think of that little Hamtramck, Michigan. When they asked me where I was born, I say Detroit. Europeans arrived to these shores and they arrived with their religion and you know the history. They were persecuted in their own land in Europe and many Christians came to America to have a new life, to start all over again in a country or in a place where they would have the freedom to practice their religion as they chose to practice it. America began with people coming here for freedom and freedom of religion.
This is our first freedom. Freedom of religion. And we now see Muslims coming to America and Muslims are coming to America for many reasons, but many of them are coming also so they can have their life, their religious life or freedom of religions. Islam, this history of Islam, we can't say it started with the arrival of the Yemenis people or the Albanians or the Palestinians. and Palestinians also have been in America for many decades living here as citizens of America. We can't say their arrival was the arrival of Islam because certain things in the air of America, knowledge of real serious matters prevented them from identifying themselves. Even right now, and we have a time similar to that time in the thirties, forties where if you say you are Muslim, you're most likely going to be perceived incorrectly. Person will think you are a antichrist, anti Christian troublemaker, et cetera. And the same thing has happened again with Bin Laden and the suicide bombers. So people wonder, are you trouble or you not? Am I going to have trouble from this person or not? I'm meeting Muslims in business who changed their names like they did, like those immigrants did in the thirties and forties when they came over here, they changed their name from Naim to Nate. Someone introduced himself to me recently. This gentleman introduced himself to me and he was Nate.
My brother Nathaniel we called him Nate. I was looking at him, I know he's from abroad and he said his name is Nate. So he told me, he said, well my name is Naim. He finally told me his name is Naim. But he said I wanted to make it easy on them that they say Nate. There are other problems that's causing him to say his name is Nate. And his partner was Kim. His partner was European American, white American, white American. His partner, his business partner, yes. So the beginning of Islam in America is not the beginning of Muslims in America. Muslims came to America but they didn't publish their religion. In fact, many of them kept it quiet and kept it covered, kept it secret because they didn't want to have trouble. And they said that they would have trouble if they identified themselves as Muslims. And this was real not only for them but it was real also for us who belonged to the Nation of Islam. I was interviewed for employment and I was told by the interviewer, you would be better off if you change your name. My name was Muhammad of course.
And I followed the suggestion of interviewer and I became Wallace Delaney. That was my work name, Wallace Delaney. And right now I'm getting information from social security concerning my benefits. And it's coming to me both in Wallace Muhammad because I worked as Wallace Muhammad also, coming to me both in Wallace Muhammad and in Wallace Delaney. The problem is real for Muslims, especially in the early years and thirties and forties. But even now since all these bad things are happening and we've seen Muslim names in the news like Bin Laden, we're seeing these Muslim names and these terrible things are happening. So it's making people wonder. If they don't know the truth of this Islam I don't blame them for having fear of people. They see that, they hear that and they don't know if you have any other picture to present other than the picture of violence, violent people, terrorists.
So I don't blame them at all by having serious concerns and being afraid of people living in their neighborhoods and growing in the United States if that is the true picture of Muslims or the true picture of Islam. Thanks now to the President, President Bush, he made it appear to the American people in the world that the picture of terrorists and terrorism is not the picture of Islam. And all of us Muslims should thank him for that statement of his statement respected by most Americans and respected by people of the world. The growing presence of Islam began with the African-American people, us blacks who came to call ourselves Muslims by a strange route. We were actually invited to have a world of our own and we actually believed that we would never have any good life or good future under the white people. The one who started the Nation of Islam formed language to attract the most dissatisfied of African Americans or black people.
And what he attracted was mostly those that didn't have much education, much formal education, but he attracted many who were very intelligent but circumstances just prevented them from having a good education. They were very intelligent and they still are very intelligent. Many of them are with us now. And they never got that much formal education. Some of them never finished grade school. My mother Clara Muhammad, my mother, she never completed grade school. She went to the seventh grade. My father only went to the third grade and he said he had to be taken out of school and had to be put to work in the fields to help his father, to help the big family they had. And he came up north and he met the stranger the stranger, a foreigner, not an American from across the water who introduced him to the name Muslim and Islam and gave him the idea to build an organization for blacks only.
And not only blacks but blacks of America only. For many years we could not have members who were African. We could not have even a Muslim from Arabia join us. They couldn't join us. It was only for blacks of America. And it was called The Lost Found Temple of Islam. Holy Temple of Islam or The Lost Found Temple of Islam, or the Nation of Islam. All of these names were given and the language is still in our records identifying us as the Lost Found members of the Nation of Islam or the Lost Found Nation of Islam. Our places of worship were called temples, not Mosques. This was done intentionally to throw people off that would be observing what was going on. So if the name Mosque was used, right away we would've been tied to and identified with world Islam and there would've been maybe more attention given to us or surveillance by the Intelligence Department than we really experienced.
But we were called temples, holy temples. And we thought that we were a nation in America and we were going to survive. And the white world rule, we were told that the white world rule was coming to an end. So we were in the Nation of Islam expecting that we would survive the white world rule and then our nation would be free to grow and prosper. That was what we were given. But I want you to understand that after studying the teaching of the teacher of my father, the one who conceived the idea and gave it to my father, my father built the physical structures, he built the congregation, he built the membership, he built the Nation Of Islam, my father. But the idea and the direction how he should go about doing that was given to him from this foreigner. He's in the encyclopedia Brittanica, I'm sure he's in the library maybe in many publications.
Fard, spelled F-A-R-D. W Fard or WD Fard, spelled F-A-R-D, Fard. This man putting together this idea he took something from Booker T. Washington. Booker T. Washington had a school to train and teach African Americans how to have business and financial success in America, education, business and financial success. And he made military drill a part of the curriculum and he said he did that to instill discipline in the African-American students so that they would be more disciplined. And it worked for him. So this man, Mr. Fard, he included for us the same thing, military drill. You may have heard of the FOI, the military unit, military unit of the Nation of Islam members as a unit for males called FOI and that means fruit of Islam, FOI, Fruit of Islam. And he also formed a similar unit for the females called Muslim Girls Training and General Civilization class. MGT and GCC it was abbreviated. Muslim Girls Training and General Civilization Class.
This is the concept that was given to my father. He also started a school to educate all the members. It was called the University of Islam, but there was no University level, there was no College level. In fact, when they started there was no high school level because what they attracted was mostly, as I say, those who didn't receive hardly any form of education above maybe four, five, sixth grade. And most of them were not higher than that, in formal education. But they were aggressive, they were Industrious, they were believers in G-d, strong believers in G-d. So among those who didn't have faith in their future and America, in America because of a law for blacks and all the other bad conditions at that time they were not, we can't say or think that they were not good people. They were good people, but people that didn't have faith in the future of black people in America, they were good people. They loved the church when they were in the church and when they embraced the new religion or converted to the new religion, they still had the same love for G-d only the name for G-d changed from G-d to Allah and from Jesus to Fard. We were taught that Mr. Fard, the man who came quietly and did his work and left after about three years, we were told that he was the G-d in the flesh, G-d in the flesh.
We have to go back to what I started to say earlier. My study of what he did, his works convinced me, convinced me then and convinced me now that he never intended for that organization that he gave to my father to build, to live forever. He intended that it live only for as long as black people were not having any encouragement from the American society that they could have a good future in this country. Once conditions changed to favor us believing that we can have a good future in this country with all of Americans, then his concept would be no more good for us. In fact, if we hold on to it, it would be bad for us. Very bad for us. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was given an extreme teaching that rejected white people as equal humans. Just a reverse, the reversal of what was done to us, we were told that we were subhuman.
So this new preacher from outside of America so that no, you are not subhuman, you are the true human, you're the original human and they are the subhuman. He called the white all grafted people. He said they are grafted devils. That's what he taught us. And if you are not W.E. B. Dubois, you are not Booker T. Washington, you are not informed of what is true history and what is not or what is real history for the world and what is not, then you will buy a myth and believe it is reality. And this teacher knew that. These people don't know, they don't know history. They don't know the reality of the world that they are living in. So I can say anything to them and they will accept it as reality. He told us Mecca, I visited Mecca, I made my first pilgrimage in 1967. He told us Mecca, in Mecca, this is way back in the thirties now, right during the depression, the Great Depression. He said that Mecca, if you would go there, you'll find the streets are paved with gold.
Well I went there in 1967 and there was sand and rocks for streets. And it's the Arabs taking over Aramco and getting that oil money that has changed things. You go there now, it's beautiful, it's very comfortable. The streets are paved, sidewalks and everything just as nice as it is in many of the kind of cities that we got here in the United States, it's very beautiful. But that wasn't the case. So he told us a lie. But the lie made us feel great to say we are Muslim. Well we know that there is a Muslim country where the streets are paved with gold. And later I read some books on slavery and the slave trade and in the book I read that one slave trader, to get more Africans to come aboard on the ship to be brought to America, he told them that in America gold was so plentiful, so you could just pick gold nuggets off the ground, pick the gold up off the ground. I said, well Fard most likely he read that. He said, well if they could tell that lie to the Africans to get 'em to come aboard the slave ship I can tell this lie to make these blacks that there was a great advanced world of Islam outside across the ocean from the United States of America. So he gave us these myths.
I studied myth too. The Romans, the story of their beginning is in two boys, two brothers who were lost from their parents and a wolf found these two babies, and the wolf nursed these two babies, Remus and Ramolus, the two babies. And the Romans said their whole race came from those two babies. That's how that race began from Remus and Romulus. And one was unfit for the future and one was. One was lost, was lost. I guess that's why they called us Uncle Remus. Do you remember that brothers? Remus was lost but Ramolus, he succeeded. He survived and became leader, the founder of Rome, the Roman people. This is myth of the beginning of the Roman people. It's not true. It's lies. No wolf found two boys and that never happened.
But if you don't know your beginning, you can put something together that's nice and then you read it. It's okay. Once you make it, you don't have to be pointing to the myth that much. So now we have come to a time in America has opened up to all of us. We can have a future here. We have to have a great future in this country that all the rest of the Americans, regardless of race, of color or even religion, if we are intelligent Muslims, we can have a great future in this country. So we should now look back at the myth that we were given of our beginning, of our origin and know that we don't need it anymore, the situation doesn't call for it, and we are not dependent on lies anymore for self-respect and for a good picture of ourselves or self-esteem. We can go right directly to the truth and we are getting opportunity to become better and better educated so we can go forward with a good condition and not have to depend upon or untruths to hold up our ego, go to give a boost to our ego.
I'm going to conclude this very soon, but before I do I have to mention some things that are troublesome. I'm going to go to a language that confused the picture of Islam. That is the problem for the true picture of Islam for Muslims. But in closing out this part of it, the history of Muslims in America must include the Ahmadiyas. They're not recognized in Saudi Arabia. In fact, the Ahmadiyyah and Moorish Americans. Moorish Americans was another movement of black people. Their leaders' name was Noble Drew Ali, Drew Ali. And we are told in the reports on him that he had a Christian name too, like my father. My father's name was Elijah Poole and the name changed to Elijah Muhammad. And Drew Ali had a Christian name also, but he changed his name to Drew Ali and they called him Noble Drew Ali. Like we called my father the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
The Moorish American Muslims, their purpose was to preach Islam to African-Americans, to give them a sense of connection with an Islamic past, with the Moors of Africa. And they pointed to Morocco as a place that we once identified with, Morocco. And we have also the Nation of Islam as I said, was formed or conceived by Mr. Fard. These groups all were in the African-American neighborhood, all were in the black community. Ahmadiyas, Moorish Science Temple or Moorish Americans as they were also called, and the Temple of Islam called the Lost Found Nation of Islam. All in the black community. And these groups all had unpopular ideas of Islam. The African-American Ahmadiyas, the Moorish American Science Temple, and also the Temple of Islam called the Nation of Islam that's headed by Minister Farrakhan right now. All had an unpopular idea of Islam.
And recently I read a publication by a man that I know very well. He's a friend of mine, a man I admire a lot. He's a Professor and teacher. He's a very educated Muslim, great helper to the cause of Islam in America. His name is Ahmad Sakr of California now, he lives in California now. Recently he put out a publication where he listed these unpopular groups and he called them all pseudo-Islamic groups, pseudo-Islamic groups. He didn't actually reject them, but he made it clear that these groups formed not as true Islamic movements, not true Islamic groups, but as pseudo-Islamic groups. Now I want to come to some of these troubling terms like jihad. You hear this jihad and the popular meaning of jihad in the public in our for the public is holy war in the media. The media has passed that on to the public. That jihad means holy war. Jihad comes from a word which means simply to struggle.
To struggle. And in Islam with our Prophet Muhammad, peace upon him it means the struggle against all that G-d forbids, the struggle against whatever is forbidden by G-d. The temptation, the struggle. And the first struggle and the best of the struggles is the struggle to keep the things that G-d forbid out of your own life, out of your own personal life. So the struggle with your own soul to keep these corruptions, to keep these things that G-d wants us to stay away from out of your own soul, that's the great jihad. That's the first jihad and that's the greatest jihad. But also the word of G-d, our holy book, gives the Prophet and us permission to fight those who persecute us and who take our land, drive us out of our homes. I'm using the words of G-d. It's not my words that I'm using. You are permitted to fight those who persecute your religion, persecute you because of your religion and drive you out of your homes, take your land. You are permitted to fight them.
So we do have also the physical jihad in war against those who want to deny us our religious freedom or take our homes and our land from us. Struggle in the path of G-d with your possessions and your own soul, with your very souls, struggle in the path of G-d. And those who would not go out and fight those who were persecuting them because of their religion and who was trying to take their homes and their land from them, if they would not go out to fight they were pointed out as a poor class, poor class of Muslims. That they're not equal, those who stay at home while others go out and fight are not equal with those who go out with their possessions whether rich or poor and with their own lives. And they go out to fight the persecutors of their faith and those who deny them the freedom to practice their religion.
So this is something that Americans should know that jihad firstly means the struggle in your own soul to keep your own soul presentable before G-d. That's the most important struggle. But just like Christians will not allow their religion to be persecuted and then to be denied the free practice of their religion, the same rights are for Muslims and it's given to us in our Holy book. And just as Christians would not like an invader to come in, take your homes, take your land and you will fight those invaders. We will fight with you. If anyone invades America, I will fight. They may be against just white people, but if they come and fight and attack America, I would ask all my supporters to fight them even though they say blacks are not our enemies, we just come to fight White Americans. We see them as our enemies and we will fight with you white folks against them.
You don't have to believe this, but I'm telling you this. This is the truth from my heart to you. Not only that my religion has made me this way. If there's an attack upon churches and the law is not doing too well, maybe the state or the government may say we need to have an army. I will be right with the first of those to say to my people who support me, join the army and defend those churches. Muhammad the Prophet, our leader, he did that in his day and time. He guaranteed churches protection, not only churches but other holy, sacred places of worship. He guaranteed them protection under Islamic law, under Islamic state. He guaranteed them protection. He mandated before he died, he mandated that the Jews who practice their religion are to continue to practice their religion as they did before, require no change in the way they practice their religion. So Islam did not come to persecute the church or to persecute the Synagogue. Islam came to fight for the freedom of religion for all good people, for all civilized and good people. This is Islam and I want to conclude on that note and thank you very much for inviting me here.
This would be an opportunity for those who need to leave to do so quietly and those who would like to ask questions there is a microphone here and a microphone here. If you'd come forward, we'll call on those who'd like to ask questions. And we'll ask you to ask questions and we'll have answers for you. We'll take about two minutes before we start.
Yes thank you. You are putting me on spot, but I have to respond because I have many Rabbis, Jewish friends. I've been in the home of a Rabbi and guest of a Rabbi and his family in Israel when I visited Israel. I do have friends and they're not comfortable with my statements on Israel, not comfortable at all with my statements on what's going on regarding the occupation of Palestine by Israeli military. Yes. My opinion is firstly for the Palestinian people that they should not use violence to achieve their ends that they hope for. It's not to me practical, it doesn't make sense. They can never be successful that way. They should do it the way Martin Luther King did it in America. He did it with nonviolence.
And I support Reverend Jesse Jackson, the appeal that he made. I support him and the appeal he made to Arafat to use peaceful means, non-violent protests and not to continue to depend on armed forces, armed forces to achieve something in that situation that they're in the Middle East. I've been to Israel, I've been the guest of Arafat in the Palestinian quarter, I've had a chance to meet civilians. And I believe that if a vote was taken permitting all citizens of Israel to vote and the vote was fair, clean and fair, I believe that most of the citizens of Israel would vote that the war be stopped, the occupation be stopped and the Palestinians be given a state of their own. And that would be the only justice and the only sane way in my opinion for Israel and the Palestinians to take. The only sane way for them to go.
I can't say more, but well, I will say this, I'm an American. I'm not only a Muslim, but I'm an American. And whether we admit it or not, some of you are still bitter Americans, black Americans, some blacks are still bitter. They still think the white man can't be trusted. I don't care how you feel about America, you are an American. Your sensitivities have been influenced and developed in this country and they're different from people of other countries. You meet people similar but very few. We have some sensitivity here and we don't like big bullies beating up on the little guy. We don't like that. And I'm sure President Bush, he's forced by circumstances and pressures that he have no control over I'm sure, but I'm sure he's not happy seeing the powerful Israel and its material might beating up on the little guys and using our weapons made here in the United States, by the United States. I'm sure that doesn't make Bush feel so comfortable. So this is an ugly situation and we can't accept it the way it is. And the thing to me, it gets worse and worse and you're kind of confused now. You can't hardly distinguish who is the terrorist because the tactics that's being used against Arafat and the Palestinians are certainly terror tactics. They have to make them so afraid that they're to accept not to resist. And I'm still a friend of my Jewish rabbis and I'm still a friend of Israel, but I'm not a friend of the wrong that they're doing there of no percent. Not at all. I'm against it.
Yes. What we are seeing recently, it's been going on but very slowly. What we are seeing recently, and I say recently, I'm talking over the last maybe 10 years, what we are seeing is that a change taking place for them that took place for us. We are seeing them now, they're becoming more interested in identifying with the whole of humanity. The interest in the Nation of Islam and Farrakhan, the interest in his people to want to present themselves as Muslims and be accepted by all Muslims of the world. And Minister Farrakhan, my friend, I have a personal history with him as his friend, and we differ as to how Islam should be preached in America.
So I don't think he ever rejected me as a friend, as his friend. He knew if he came to me with trouble, I would try to help him though I didn't approve of the image he was projecting of Islam and Muslims and himself. And the same for me. No matter how hot the language got between us back there maybe 15 years ago, I knew that he did not want to hurt me physically. I knew that he still had a place in his heart for me. It was a clashing of ideas or clashing of perception, et cetera, but we still respected each other and had the heart of friends. So I was just waiting and praying to G-d and waiting for him to change. And I believed that he would. Cancer has caused him to take more seriously, facing cancer. And we are not growing any younger. Both of us are approaching 70.
And so I think that his own personal problems that he has, health problems he has, along with pressures of the world now because these bad things in the news being responded to by the press, by the American press. So many people now are looking at what is Islam and hearing discussions on television. So he can't say that this idea of Islam that he has is the true Islam. He can't say it so easily anymore because most of his followers are hearing all these things and they're hearing them so regularly, it makes them wonder, well, what is this Islam we got? This Islam we got is not the Islam of the world, of the Islamic world. So he's having a lot of difficulty trying to keep his own followers now that have been converted to the old ideas that were un-Islamic in many areas and he's having trouble keeping them.
He told me, he said, I believe you made the change too fast. He said, I don't want to leave the following. I want to bring them with me. That's what he told me. And I was asking him about the language in their papers The Final Call, the weekly papers, and the language is not Islamic. The idea of G-d is not Islamic. The language is not Islamic. So I asked him about that. He said, I leave it there because I think that still those with us who need that. And I'm using my language now. I think he's trying to wean them off of that, gradually take them away from those teachings. I have faith that he will never revert back to the old picture of Farrakhan that troubled all of us. I don't think he'll ever revert back to that. So I invited the Nation Of Islam and our following to find some area that we can cooperate in.
And one is to help social life, the moral life of our poor communities and to try to do business so that we can bring better sense of business life to our community so we can have a role, a real role in improving the material state of our neighborhoods. So he's thinking about that and we may have some real cooperation in that area pretty soon. They have to come either to real Islam or they have to accept that they are not with real Islam. And I think if they can't do that, I think their numbers will continue to dwindle. They'll become smaller and smaller.
Yes he is. I'm convinced that he is aware. And he is aware that it can be dangerous for himself. He's aware that someone could pop up and take many of his followers away from him. That can happen. He's prepared for that. He's prepared to accept that. But I think he's a very wise leader, a very wise leader. And I think he's doing a great job. I think he's going to be successful. You cannot keep all of them. No one can get all the people. In fact, my satisfaction comes from my relying upon G-d and the words of G-d. G-d says to Muhammad Prophet, you have not been given the power to bring anyone to faith. Only G-d can give them faith. So if we know that and accept that everything is in G-d's hand, all we should do is be truthful, be sincere, and do our best, and G-d will do the rest. That's what I believe.
I perceive the changes that we should make for Muslims in America. We are working on it now. The changes that we should make is that we should not just see ourselves in America as Muslims in some relationship with the government of America and not with the American people. We should see ourselves as needing a good relationship with American people. We should form alliances. Our religion says form alliances, healthy alliances. The Muslim population in America, we should have leaders who are leading us into alliances with all good efforts of American people. If we have Christians who want to get rid of a prostitute house in the neighborhood, well, do we accept prostitution?
No. We should be with them. We shouldn't let them go to battle alone if we belong to that community or to that neighborhood. We should stand with our fellow Christians, our Christian neighbors, and anything that they're doing that's good and they need the help of the neighborhood or the help of the citizens, we should be ready to stand with them and not look at them as Christians, but look at them as people who cherish the same good life we cherish and want the same peaceful and clean neighborhoods that we want. And stand with them. So stand with your fellow Americans, stand with them, and every situation that you know your religion would ask you to be in.

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