05/31/1998
IWDM Study Library
Collective Purchasing Conference

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Introduction: The following lecture was recorded at the collective purchasing conference meeting, held at the Ramada Inn South in Harvey, Illinois, May the 31st 1998. The lecturer is Imam W. Deen Mohammed, Muslim American spokesman, and now Imam Mohammad.
IWDM: Praise be to Allah, as-salamu alaykum.
Congregation: Wa alaykum as-Salam.
IWDM: That is peace be unto you. Alhamdulillah, praise be to Allah the one and only G-d to be worshiped alone, no one is to be worshiped with Him or beside Him. We witness that Muhammad to whom the Quran was revealed is the last prophet, the seal of the prophets mentioned in the old and the new testament. As Allah says in the Quran to us that he is the one mentioned in the old and in the new testament. We witness that he is the one and we witness that the light has come, and the light did reach the west, and the west did have a revival of the intellect and revival of the sciences because of that, and we witness that. We witness that as a community now.
The world of educated people, of learned people, they witnessed that before we did, but they didn't tell us. But we were brought into Al-Islam and Allah blessed us to be Muslims to have faith in His word and we have searched His word and found it in the Quran. And now we understand it as it is in history. That it was the light that G-d gives. The Quran that brought to life again the activity of the human intellect and made scholars. Produced scholars, and later philosophers with a scientific orientation, and finally, the sciences as we call modern science that we have in this America.
All made possible because the Quran came to the world by way of the archangel Gabriel to Muhammad the man, the human being. And through him, it reached us the human family. Wonderful. Allah says of him that, “he is a mercy to all the worlds.” Muhammad our prophet is a mercy to all the worlds. A mercy means a relief. Mercy means relief. Mercy means better conditions behind worse conditions. Mercy means compassion, means caring for the life that was burdened, overburdened, and miserable. Muhammad, a mercy to all the worlds. We witness that he is the last prophet, the seal of the prophets mentioned in the Torah, and in the Injeel.
Sala lahu alaihi was sallam, the prayers and peace be upon him. We witness that he is leading this world now. If this world has a leader now, it's Muhammad, it's Muhammad the prophet. He's the messenger of G-d for the excellence of human beings, for the excellence of human life, human beings. He's the messenger of G-d for the awakening of the mental life of the people. He's the messenger of G-d for leading them to search the universe for higher sciences and utility to be used in human society. He is that prophet. It's all written in the holy book the Quran. I'm not saying anything so far that's outside of the text of the Quran. Everything that I've said to you so far is inside the text of Quran.
He is the prophet and its time that the more educated of us become aware of that. So, you can better serve yourself, yourself and your people, your family, and your society, and those that you wish to make a contribution to. If you want to be in a better position to do that, in a better state, in a better position to do that, then you should be very serious about what I'm telling you right now. Or you will be left behind, and I mean far behind. This is the day; the day is here. I call it the day of religion. Not the great day of judgment, but the day of religion. Praise be to Allah. So much for that, which is why we're here. That's why we're here, that's where our life starts.
Our life starts with our awareness of the message of Al-Islam. And it's important to the life and future of human beings on this earth. That's where we start and everything else should follow after that. And in a second position to that if we want to be successful. Allah hasn't blessed me because I just wanted to be somebody. Allah has blessed me because I wanted to be somebody obeying Him. Obedience to Him is what I wanted more than anything. And that's why Allah has blessed me. If you all want the blessings, then know that your obedience to Allah is your life. That's your salvation, that's your life, that's your real life. And if you cut that off, you ain't got no life.
You got no life, you've got no future. You've got hell, your future will be hell. We thank Allah for our presence here in this city of Markham. Where we have good work being done for the Muslim community under the leadership of Imam Darnell Karim. Who is supported by a group of educated professional people from our race, African Americans, and also from the Pakistani people, the Indian people, and others. Ethnic groups supporting the work to have Al-Islam progress in a good way, in the correct way here in the city of Markham. We're meeting here and we hope that everybody has been settled in comfortably. Found rooms you who are from out of town to your satisfaction. There's plenty of eating places around here.
If you want to visit my favorite stop. I have to go between my home and my daughter's home. Almost three times a week or more. And sometimes two or three times a day. I pass right by these places right here two or three times a day, right in my route. Our new building is right at our route too, the new facility. That houses, the Muslim journal now. And will house some business from our community of our community. It's right on the route too, right on the route. If you want to visit one of my favorite spots, the Wendy's on Halsted.
Only about two blocks from here, Wendy's. I don't know what you like. I don't eat there unless I'm hungry and can't get home in time. But I like their taco salad I think it's called. It's a big bed a lettuce in there, and then they pour that chili on top of it.
I eat it and almost start speaking Spanish.
Now if you want to eat a little better, there's an IHOP, international pancake house. IHOP right here south of where we are now on the, on Halsted. Just a little way on the west side of the street. You can’t miss it. There is IHOP. And immigrant Muslim is the owner, I'm pretty sure. So, you should be able to find something without pork there. If you just let them know you're Muslim, you'll have it nice, they'll make it just right. We have to begin our public address in a little while. Do I have the right time here, what time do you have?
Participant: 1:12.
Participant: 1:30.
IWDM: 1:30? 1:30.
Participant: 20 minutes to 2:00.
IWDM: 20 minutes to 2:00. Can I hear another one?
IWDM: Going, going, gone.
That’s what it sounds like an auction. That's what you get when you in with the black folks' neighborhood. Yeah, they don’t want to lets you go. We want company bad. "As salamu Alaikum, brother." "Wa alaikum Salam, brother." "How are you doing?" "How are you doing, brother?" "I am doing fine, Alhamdulillah." "How is your family, brother?" "They're doing fine too, brother." "How is George, brother? George? Do you know George, brother? How is he doing, brother?" You have to say, "Brother, I got to go." "I'll give you the therapy the next year. This year, I'm overburdened." That's just society, overburdened. We are more overburdened than anybody else in our souls.
All souls are just terribly overburdened because we haven't set our life aright yet. And our souls are demanding that we set our lives aright for G-d, the G-d is the soul. The soul has a G-d. Yes, the souls are demanding that we set our lives correct or right for our G-d. That's why the soul has its soul burden. If you follow the way of Al-Islam as it's being shown today in this world, you'll go right, and your soul will be pleased. Allah will bless you with the life that your soul is asking for and that's a good life. Praise be to Allah. CPC. I don't know, there's a lot to tell you about CPC, but quickly, let me tell you what's the most important to CPC.
Most important to CPC is that those responsible for it want Allah more than they want money. That's what's important. That those responsible for CPC, for protecting the CPC business interest as a business and its business interests. What's most important is that those people be people or persons wanting Allah more than they want money. We're being blessed because myself and few you with me want Allah more than we want money. That's why we're being blessed, and we are being blessed. No doubt about it, we're being blessed. You haven't seen CPC in action or you haven't seen the operations of CPC yet.
CPC is a concept, it's a vision for bringing us from dependency and no real representation in our neighborhoods as business people responsible for the business life for our neighborhoods. From that to a people with business life and with the responsibility for the businesses in their neighborhood. It doesn't mean outsiders won't be there, outsiders will still be there. But the controls will mostly be in our hands, where it should be. If a neighborhood is 100% African American. Virtually 100% African American, two or three whites or two or three somebody else there, then it looks ridiculous. It's a shame, it's a discredit, it's a shame on us.
As business people ourselves working in big corporations sometimes, being responsible for millions of dollars, a few of us in the neighborhood do and are qualified and doing that in those positions. They come back to their neighborhood, but somebody else that's responsible for the business life of their neighborhood, they have no representation there at all.
That's a shame and that's a shame that has been on us since slavery. When we were freed, we had leaders who wanted to take us out of that. A very noble one is Booker T. Washington, who had real practical plans and that worked. As a result, we got and still got Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama.
Fine African American institution as a result of that man's work. A man who put emphasis on what we call blue collar work. Blue collar work. Labor. Small business. Little white-collar work, mostly blue-collar work. He taught them how to make bricks. He taught them how to lay the bricks in the construction. When you go to Tuskegee, you see buildings built by the students of Booker T. Washington. Of that University, but they were followers of Booker T. Washington. You see that, we saw it. We visited it, we saw it. And they're well-build buildings, constructions and they look good now.
New ones that they have built recently, they're built on the same pattern, the same design as the old ones. They're just new, which means that the plan for those constructions must have been very good, good for even now. We had some very practical leaders after slavery, immediately after slavery, and we were making progress. Du Bois, the intellectual, WEB Du Bois, the intellectual, the philosopher. Why am I mentioning these people? Because these people are important for us if we want to be successful in business. If you don't appreciate education, you can't be successful in business. If you don't appreciate skills, skilled workers, skilled laborers, you can't be successful in business.
If you don't appreciate the builders, you can't be successful in business. So, we have to tie into this life. We have to tie into the life that is necessary, essential for us and our success. We have to tie into that life. What gives us more spirit, more faith in ourselves, more confidence to go forward with our business efforts is a history that supports us. The history of persons like Booker T Washington. If you say why are you leaning like that? I'm not tired. I have a bad back and I'm learning how to keep it strong, how to keep it from hurting me to much. I don't mind being embarrassed. The embarrassment is not nothing like this pain.
If I keep that pain away, I don't mind a little embarrassment, so I'm leaning on it. and I am not a young man either. At my age, I should be able to lean. In fact, I could have a cane or crutches even. It wouldn't be bad. Might not be a bad idea. When I come up here have me some crutches.

Well, you know the Bible said, “Moses was standing in the fields and orchestrating the battle, and he asked that two men come. One holding him up on the left side and one holding him up on the right side.” He had living human crutches. Two living human crutches; one on his left and another one on his right hold him up while he was orchestrating the battle. I guess it was a burden like this one I got. I sure need some crutches sometime. If we got this great source of energy that we can tap, why not tap it? There's a great source we can tap.
If you find any people driving, going forward in an impressive way, they're moving ahead. They either got a terrific insight that's above what other people have, more powerful for motivating them than what other people have. Or they got some knowledge of the past that's convincing them that they'll be successful pursuing the course. They'll be successful. Now, we got both. Allah has blessed us with some insight that most people don't have, believe me. And we got this support from our past, Booker T Washington. W.E.B Du Bois, who said that, “we'll be successful in the future to the extent we are willing to teach our children to think.” T-H-I-N-K, think.
Isn’t that something brothers, especially Imams? That this man, this great intellectual WEB Du Bois saw the need to teach the coming generation to think as very critical in our preparations for survival and progress. And while we know as Imams that G-d says, “think. And thinking brings profits, benefits. The most beneficial thinking is reflecting on G-d.” That's what G-d tells us. We know what it did for the ummah, the early community of Muhammad the prophet, prayers and peace be upon him. It produced great thinkers. W.E.B Du Bois said, "Think and pass it on to your children the exercise of the mind, thinking."
He was speaking or using this term as it is used in the history of the growth and development of the human mind or the intellect. We have a great period in history that is called the period of the thinkers. Do you know that? I know you educated people know that. The period of the great thinkers. Thinkers, it doesn't mean just having thoughts. All of us have thoughts. It means thinking for the betterment of human existence. Thinking to have human existence better. That's the kind of thinking we're talking about. That kind of thinking produced the many sciences.
The fathers that had that kind of thinking, they're called the fathers of thought, enlightenment, education. These are the fathers. Those great fathers we call the great thinkers, they were the ones who opened the way for their followers, and those generations to follow their followers, and the way of pattern and the traditions of their followers to come into all the great sciences you know today. Firstly, the schools of philosophy and then out of the schools of philosophy, the thinkers are called the philosophers. These two terms are synonymous, the great thinkers and the great philosophers.
Out of the great philosophical schools came the other sciences as the children of the philosophical schools, this is history. Astronomers, mathematicians, medical doctors, everything, business people, everything. The great mathematicians that gave birth to modern math, the modern thinking in this math, they're the fathers of the modern thinkers. Khawarizmi and from his name we get the English word arithmetic. Arithmetic from Khawarizmi that’s a Muslim, a great Muslim thinker by the name of Khawarizmi. We have the word arithmetic taken from his name.
The numbers we use, the number system is the system given to us by the followers of Muhammad. The numbers we have: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten or zero. These numbers were given to us by the followers of Muhammad the prophet. They researched the sciences and brought back the great knowledge to the world. Now, modern research says that the number system was produced by the Indians of the Far East. The Indian people of the Far East, but it didn't come to Europe and America from the Indians of the Far East.
It came to Europe and America from the intellectuals, from the thinkers that were produced by Muhammad the prophet giving them the Quran and teaching them the book. Yes, that's how it came. And so, when you look it up in the dictionary, encyclopedia now, when you look up these numbers, it won't say. Excuse me, my dear brother Attiq. It won't say, it won't give credit to your people. It will say Arabic numerals. One day they're going to change that I think, it's going to be corrected. They're not really Arabic numerals, they are man's numerals, isn't that correct? They're not Indian, they're not Arab.
If we discover something, we discover something with a human intellect that's the same for every human being regardless of his color or nationality. The human being's intellect is the same for all people. And it was given to us in one person, Adam. And it split up in time and became many, now it's in all of us. The only reason why we're able to make these great advances is because we have the composition of Adam in us. The man that G-d created and then exposed to him all the names and put him a little above the angels in respect to his intellect. Because he says to the angels, "Tell me these things if you know."
The angels said, according to the Quran, "We have no knowledge except but what you have given us." Obviously, they had not been given the powers of the human intellect. Then He told Adam, He said, "Now, Adam, tell them their names." Adam told them their names. We have Adam in all of us. Sister, you too, wake up sister, you have Adam in you. Every male and female got Adam in them. You got the same capacity that G-d gave the first man. And if we are making progress anywhere, in America or India or China or anywhere. It's because of us having still the composition of the first man Adam in us. That's the fact. I think G-d has made me a scientist. I'm speaking truthfully, I want to speak nothing but fact.
I want to be objective, speaking nothing but fact. Believe me, when I speak in intellectual circles, when I finish, I get the compliment often. They say, "I appreciate what you said because you're so objective." I've been told that "You're so objective." Another expression I'm hearing often now, "You're so clear." G-d knows I came in the smoke and I found my way out into the clear air. But I was born in a smoke. It was so smoky I could hardly see two feet, yes. Praise be to Allah. But look at the compliments I'm getting now from people with not one Ph.D., several Ph.Ds. Praise be to Allah. Now that should be a sign to you all that what G-d did for Muhammad the man.
He can do for any man if that man will just be obedient to Allah. And love Allah like Muhammad was. Yes, these are signs that the human family does not have to depend on educators or professional people. That anytime those with the knowledge oppress or deny, keep out the common people, the masses. Anytime Allah wants, He can take one of the common people or one of the masses that is fit for the job. And He can educate that person himself. He doesn't need the educated world. He can educate that person himself and then put that person in the circle of the educated. Put him there and they wonder how it happened.
I'm not of their school, I probably couldn't pass their test. But for what we need, I don't need to go to their schools. G-d freed me from their needs. I don't have to go to their schools to get what we need. Praise be to Allah, Allahu Akbar, praise be to Allah. Yes, so the most important thing for CPC is that we love Allah and want Allah more than we love and want money. That's the key. Now, I insist that those who are going to be working with me be people like that. Now don't think you can fool me. I'm very difficult to fool. But it's hard to detect that I'm on to you, very hard.
Because I'm not made up like you. It's very hard to detect that I'm on to you. You'll be with me for 10 years and don't know I've been on to you for 10 years.
So, what I ask you to do, just look at how much freedom I'm giving you. If I'm giving you more freedom, you know that I'm on to you.
See, I don't get rid of you because all of you are needed. All of you can do something, you can make some contribution. We need everybody. Anybody that just want to be with, we don't want to lose him. You just like our company. We don't want to lose you, buddy, stay here. Praise be to Allah. Now, if we have the key persons that's responsible for putting that money you're seeing in your account and not abusing it, not misusing it, not doing something with it they shouldn't do. Treating it as though it's their life and if they mistreated it, they're going to die. If we can have people in places like that, we're safe. The opportunity is more than what we are prepared now to take advantage of.
The opportunity is much bigger than our ability now, the ability we have now to really take advantage of the opportunity that's available. I just come from Bangladesh and I was prepared to go there. I've been thinking about them. That's another thing, don't think that I move without thinking. I don't move without thinking. I don't make any sudden moves. I thought on this a long time. I'm aware of Bangladesh. I've been thinking about it for a long time. I've received a stack of papers like that on the industries in Bangladesh. And how Bangladesh is exporting material and skilled workers to America and to Europe. A lot to America.
That thick, that long, that wide. That's the size of the material that I received on Bangladesh. Where did I receive those materials? G-d gave me those materials. How did G-d give me those materials? I was in Iran, Tehran. The city of Tehran, Iran. The capitol of Iran. I was there as invited guest of the government of Iran to be an observer at the conference of Islamic Unity in Tehran. I was there. While I was there, I'm aware that Iranians produce some very fine art. The best carpet the world has known. I was aware years ago. As a young man, I was aware of it. Produced in Iran. Iran used to be called Persia. Persian rugs. How many ever heard that word Persian rug? Raise your hand.
See how they're popular. Look how popular. Look at those hands up. Look how popular Persian rugs were. All of us knew about the Persian rugs that they were the best. That's what they told us, the best. That's what they told us over here in America at the shops, the Persian rugs are the best. Most likely none of us had any Persian rugs in the house. We just knew about them like we knew about the Rolls Royce. Didn't have one, but we sure the hell knew about it from the appetite. We got an appetite, man.
We've been hungry too long. Time to eat. Don't you all think it’s time to eat?
Congregation: Yes.
I do and I ain't talking about no greasy food on table either. Praise be to Allah. Yes, so I asked the Iranian government official. I said, "I come here as a religious person representing my religious community. But my religious community is badly in need of finances to finance our religious operations: schools, masjids, et cetera." I said, "So, we have gotten some business people together who, first of all, value our community and they want to see our community successful, and those business persons have accepted me to represent them." I said, "We have formed what is called a collective purchasing conference." I said, "It's really operating like a big distributor that get imports and buys locally consumer items and make them available to our market that's all over the United States." Now did I exaggerate?
Congregation: No.
IWDM: We got people all over the United States. You can go to anywhere in United States and there's somebody that identify with our community. Yes, so that's what I told them. I said, "We'd like to know what products you have for consumers. Nonperishable products firstly they are interested in. But also, foodstuff for the future." I told them, I say, "We also would like to know what are the possibilities for having our students come here and also study in some of your fine institutions. Study language, Arabic language, Quranic language, and subjects in higher education."
I told them that and I said, "Also, perhaps have opportunity to learn more about the Iranian business efforts that you have." Because they have an effort going strong, the Iranian people. They have a very strong business effort now to develop the infrastructure much better and stronger, and they're going to be success, Inshallah, very successful. I say, "You know we have a situation now. It's a political one. There's not yet a comfortable situation for our government and your government so that may become difficult." They mentioned the sanctions that I was alluding to the sanctions.
They say, "Brother Imam, there's a way to get around the sanctions. You'd be surprised, there Americans who are getting around the sanctions." He said, "There's a way to get around it." He said, "We will see what we can do." That was the end of that conversation. When I got ready to leave the conference and they were greeting me. They came and gave me that big package I just told you about. That long, that wide and about that big on Bangladesh showing me they're over that. They directed me to the best opportunity for us right now. Later perhaps, there'll be big opportunity, I'm sure, for us in the Palestinian quarters. Palestine, I hope they'll be called Palestine at that time in the future, and I hope that time will come soon, very soon.
There'll be great opportunities for us to do business with the Palestinian people in Palestine. Or what is called Israel now occupied by Israelis in the West Bank, in those squatters in the city of Hebron. A big business effort, a big business development there by the Palestinian people. Inshallah, we'll be able to do business with them, but right now, Bangladesh is so excited. We went there and we saw shops. See this whole area here? If you could multiply this area by about five at least maybe, yes, at least five, that would be one floor. They're sitting close together like you are and this is no exaggeration. They're sitting close together like you are with power machines. Each person has a power machine and they're making garments, denim wear. Sitting close like you are right there.
You see how some people are willing to work to have a good life, a good future without worrying about how they going to pay their rent or if the telephone going to be cut off. Why don't we get serious and just cut all of this foolishness out? Let's get real serious. If you want me as your leader, you have to get serious. You have to get real serious I'm telling you.
I told you all what I thought we should do when I was on Stony Island. And that's been over 12 years ago. I told you what I thought we should do. I said, "Look, you can't get nowhere like this. You have to do what my Mau Sai-Tung told these people to do."
You have to be willing to sacrifice. I said, "You all want big cars and ain't got no money to afford it." You got big colored TVs, you can't afford them. You got a nice carpet on your floor, you can't afford all that." My advice to you all was at that time, I said, "Let’s, why don't you all accept. Follow me and we're going to find land somewhere and we're going to do without all these modern conveniences, and still work for the system and make the same dollar, but spend much, much less." I said, "Instead of riding these big cars, let's make some bicycles or buy some bicycle." I mentioned the rickshaw that I saw plenty of as I did in China, in Bangladesh.
In the main streets of Bangladesh, there are almost as many rickshaws as there are automobiles on those roads. And the same was for China, the Communist China when I went there. Rickshaws. Rickshaw is a three-wheeler, a tricycle, it's a big tricycle. No, a little bigger than that. It's a little bigger than this three-wheel motorcycle. It's a little bigger than that. It's a three-wheeler with a big wheel in the front, with two smaller wheels in the back, and a seat on it like a carriage. Like an old horse and carriage was that had four wheels with a seat and passengers sit on the seats. And the driver is in the front.
A seat behind him and sometimes he sits on the seat with the passengers too. There may be one seat across and three or four of them can sit on that seat. Anyway, the one bicycling it, he's in the front and he's carrying his passengers. And he's pumping with his legs, and he's making money as a cab, Bangladesh cab. He's not throwing out pollution, all human energy. No pollution being thrown out in the air and they have a big pollution problem from the exhaust of the vehicles running the roads.
When I saw them, I said, "This is really backwards," I said, "but really not, this may be saving their lives." The cost of pollution is very high there. They need to do something real fast about it. I've been in many places of the world and found pollution is a very serious problem. Carbon monoxide in the air coming from the exhaust, the vehicles, gasoline, petroleum burning. Anyway, I told them, I say, "We can go back to that." Do you imagine how much money we'd save if we go back to that life? A lot of money. It was nothing that was unheard of, something that's ridiculous.

Then we can be able to afford better things than we can afford. We were on a strong. They're the Quakers, Amish, I think they're called Amish, Quakers and a few others. They don't conform to this modern life and they're not begging anybody for anything. No, they are not begging anybody for anything. We don't have to do that. I said take out all the plumbing, dig a well. Turn off the electricity, get you some candles. That's what I told you to do. You didn't do it.
If I had told you to get a Rolls Royce, I haven't seen one in about two months.
Even if you had to steal it, you got it.
You would have got it in my name.
“Brother, I don't care what you said, the Imam said get the Rolls Royce.”
Well we don't have to go that far back to make that big a sacrifice, but be prepared to be more cost-conscious. You want to be successful, you will this to work, be prepared to be more cost-conscious. Don't spend without figuring out the cost. The cost to you, the way you live, the cost to your children, the way they will live in the future. Think about that before you get to spend, spend, spend. On things are not helping to strengthen your tomorrow. We want a strong tomorrow, so be careful how you spend. Be very cost conscious, not for money, for a better future, for your family, for your children. So, they won’t be in the bad shape that we are in. They will be able to afford better things than we can afford. They'll be able to afford education even when there's not a scholarship, there will be money because we were more cost-conscious. Doesn't that make sense?
Congregation: Yes.
IWDM: Are you with me?
Congregation: Yes.
IWDM: Stand on your feet really quick if you're with me.
I got 50%, okay, sit down.
Thank you. We'll make it with 50%. I could tell you how CPC works, but you got the distributors here and they should know how it works. They've bought products, so they should know how it works. And every other product we buy is going to work the same way. For shea butter, any other product, it's going to work the same way. But I'm going to tell you this because I don't if they've got a memory of that. I have to keep reminding them of this. CPC is not really operating until we have catalog sheets available to be passed out to all of you all, to our consumers. So, you will see items that we have located and can purchase in volumes, big quantities.
You will see the description, you'll see the live picture of the consumer item. Whether it's shea butter or a lady's dress, a pair of shoes, a leather purse or hat, whatever it is. You will see it looking the way it looks when you get it. That's what we have to have. Professional, quality catalog, sheets of products, photos of products. And with the visual picture of the product, we'll read the description of that product and also the cost to you. There will be a sheet that we'll pass out that will have the cost to the distributor. That'll be only for the distributor. We'll pass out sheets that will have distributors' cost and the recommended or strongly suggested price for the consumer, the retail price, and the wholesale price.
All those prices will be there on the distributors' order sheet. The catalog order sheet. But the one that we'll make out in the hundreds of thousands. You need hundreds of thousands of sheets for the consumer that will buy retail. Maybe we'll have also the wholesale there available to the retailer too. Because there are many retailers who would like to buy wholesale because they have small operations.
We probably would do it like that.
Anyway, what’s important is that we would have sheets. That you wouldn't have to asking Imam W D Mohammed or called in the office or ask anybody there anything about the product that's available. You will know the source and you'll have the picture of the product, you'll have the full description of it and you'll have the cost to you.
And if you're going to also be a seller of the product yourself, retail seller of the company. You'll have the margins of profit that you can make because you'll see the wholesale cost to you, as a retailer. How much it will cost you wholesale. So, that's what we have to do. And we have to move on that quickly. And we can't move on that before we satisfied with the source. With our contact, that we have contact with the source. That we are satisfied with the source.
And we have formed the order sheet, the catalog sheet. That's what we have to do. “So, what’s holding things up?” That's what's holding things up. We are close to having that now because we haven't identified many products that we think will please all of us. From Procter & Gamble here in America. You're familiar with Procter & Gamble, the soaps and et cetera? Mostly soaps. That's how I know of them, soaps but they handle other things too. Even food, they have foodstuff as well. We have contacted them and we are pleased with what we see. We do believe for sure that we're going to be able to purchase from them and get the margin for our growth that we're asking.
We have to be able to compete with all the stores and that was the promise that I made to you. That if you support this, we will be able to compete with any store, Kmart, Walmart. It doesn't mean we'll be stronger than them but we'll be getting it from the source like they're getting it from the source. So, we'll be able to sell at the prices they sell and make the profits that they make. Maybe more profits than they make. If we plan our operations better, we might make more profits than they make. Maybe their cost might be greater than ours, you see. Are you ready to go?
Congregation: Yes.
IWDM: I'm standing up here doing a boogaloo in my body.
I'm so happy I'm doing a boogaloo in my body. Some of you are sitting down there like you want to go to sleep.
Now I'd like you to have a little comedy. I'd like to do a little, what they call. What do they call it? No. Where you set up different props and the comedy is based upon separate scenes. Skits yeah. But they got another name for this. Anyway, you know what I'm talking about, that's for sure by your replies to me. I'd like to have one showing me asking them, “Is this exciting news?” And the one that sleeps on it. Just all of a sudden, the scene change. And there's a grave, there's an open grave and push him right out the chair into the open grave, cover it up.
And then keep on with the conversation.
We want to live. We tired of carrying coffins on our backs. Dead folks on our backs trying to walk to the promised land. That's unnecessary, shouldn't have to bear that. We have visited the garment making factories of Bangladesh and we like very much what we are seeing. We visited one denim making factory. The one I mentioned to you that have so many machines just stretched out so far. All close together like you all are sitting and they working on those power machines. Behind them, they have about that much space. See that space? About that much space behind each row and they were throwing the garment back there.
The pattern, the pieces of the pattern that they're working on. They were throwing them back there on their little shelf or platform behind them. Throw it back there. The inspector of quality control would come by and pick them up and look at them. Inspect them occasionally from behind. And they were working on, producing. Young women, middle-aged, some, a few senior citizens, but mostly young people. Young people, there's a lot of young people. And a few middle-aged and very, very few senior citizens operating those machines, power machines
Guess who they were producing all those garments for? Kmart, Walmart. Sears & Roebuck. I can't tell you everything right now. But we have done our study of Bangladesh consumer item production. And we're convinced that it's a very, very exciting place for our start. Yes, we are convinced of that. Almost everything in dress ware, we can have it from over there. Ladies' clothing, men's clothing, leather, shoes. I mean stylish shoes. In fact, you're buying them over here and they're making them and you don't know it. As long as you buying, they are making them. Bangladesh and others. But Bangladesh is making a lot of them.
See, there is another thing you don't know about the State Department of the United States. The State Department, this country is obligated to help make conditions better for human life on this earth. Not just here in America but all over the world. That's a commitment that the founding fathers in this country imposes upon itself. Now we haven't seen that in operation. We see only the hurt that comes to people. We haven't seen the other side. But as a person that frequently visits the State Department now. I'm familiar with that other side, very familiar with that other side. For a long time, for many years, certain third world countries, that are, have been permitted to export their products to America duty-free, no charge.
I'm sure that that status is given to Bangladesh. I feel pretty sure because it's a very poor country. Just 15 years or more out from under a socialist regime similar to the communist regime, only 15 years. That's new. So really, its experiment in independence is relatively new and already they're making a marvelous showing for the future. I'm sure our government is impressed by that. But I haven't yet gone to our government yet. I want to see first what's happening in Bangladesh. My next move will be to go to the State Department. I'm going to find out there what the situation is for importing goods from Bangladesh into America.
Although the big companies are doing it but I have to know myself. I can't guess with their light, I have to see with my own light. I have to see myself exactly what the situation is. Once I see what the situation is. Now they have some problem over there, that government. Their government over their imposed quotas on the manufacturers. They can only produce for exports a certain quantity of a particular item. After they reach that quota, they can't export anymore. If I come as a purchaser for us and I want a product and they have already reached that quota, I can't get it. I can't get the product.
By us being a very significant and important community but at the same time a small community in numbers. Because those persons over there they buying for the population of the south side of Chicago. For the population size of Calumet City, they have a store in Calumet City. They're buying for that whole population. They're looking at that whole market and figuring out how many people out of this whole population will be buying our product. We won't be buying for that big a number, not in any one small region. But when we take our numbers in the whole United States, it will be. Regionally or locally, we won't be purchasing as big as their purchase.
They have also what they call oversupply. An example of this, Sears and Roebuck, they tell me, requires that they produce 5% above what Sears and Roebucks is going to order or take. If Sears and Roebuck does that, they guarantee Sears and Roebuck that if they want to throw out some garments when they're inspecting their purchase that they will seal in that with the number that they want.
So, that happens. This particular factory that I'm picking up right now, their quality control is so great that they tell me that they don't have any rejects. No rejects. They're obligated by contract to produce 5% over the purchase for Sears and Roebuck. That mean there's a lot of materials piling up. We can buy those at a much cheaper price than Sears and Roebuck pay for the same thing. The same exact thing, same exact quality. Now, if I wasn’t somebody that they liked on site. Or heard about and they like what I represent, you think they would let me in on something like that?
Congregation: No.
IWDM: They only let their friends on buys like that. Their real good friends. They're the only ones who know about buys like that, that exists. You go there, you would never hear that. Even though I told you, they swear, "Who told you this? No."
"I don't know anything about that. I don't know. Never heard of anything like that."
Don't try or I'll break your leg when you come back home.
And you know I can't break your leg at my age and in my condition. You know I can't break your leg, but I got somebody who can.
And they love money. And I got something for them. They know I'll give it to them because I'm a truthful man.
Oh yeah. You have to have guarantees in this business.
Yes, sir. You have to tie that camel twice. That's what prophet Muhammad told us, didn't he? He said trust Allah but tie your camel. Don't be a fool. Some of us want to test Allah. “I'm a leave this hundred-dollar bill on this park bench.
Allah would never let me lose anything. I'm going over here sit in the sun and come back there and my hundred-dollar bill will be there.”
When you get back there somebody be sitting there, they’ll see you grinning.
You would say I left a $100 sitting here? And they’re grinning. I left $100 on the bench here. And they still grinning.
Well, I went five minutes over time. I'm sorry. Let me close this. Let me close out.
Now, I think you see clearly where we are. That's where we are. You see clearly where we are. We have identified sources now but we have to clear it. We have to study all angles, all situation, all circumstances for us. Don't think we going to ship these products and somebody going to tell us, "Well, it hasn't happened in a hundred years but there are some pirates on the sea that took over the ship and you lost your goods." No, we going to have it insured so if it's taken, the insurance company will pay us the value of our shipments.
That's tying your camel, isn't it? Yeah. You have to tie your camel. That's what we're going to do. We're going to tie that camel. Let’s see if I have anything else that I don't want to miss anything before close out. This is very important too. We are so busy, believe me. I'm learning how to manage priorities or important things. You got a lot of important things and all these important things supposed to be finished today by 11:00 AM. All of them. Now, and you know good and well you can't finish all these by 11:00 AM. You can't do it.
Now, what are you going to do? Just take them one by one? That's the mistake most of us make. We just take them one by one. You end up taking care of the least important thing and having the most important thing made a lot of trouble for you. For either tomorrow or this afternoon. What I've learned, I got to weigh each of those things that I got to do before eleven o'clock. Then I take those that are most important for me to do, and I do those. If I finish those then I go back to those of lesser importance. If I can get them all, praise be to Allah, but most of the time I can't.
Now, once this business starts the moving, we are not going to have this problem. I'll be able to hire enough people to help me handle these important things I have to do every day. But now I don't have the money to hire them. All this is on me and a few other people working with me. We are terribly overloaded, overburdened. You're writing me to say, "Well, what about my gain on my investment?" You going to get your get your gain. Your gain is there. I'm not going to touch it. And like I said, anybody else touch it they're going to lose more than a leg. It's there, your money is there. You trust me, I trust you, you trust me. Your money is there. It's going to be there. Whatever gain you got is there. It is not going nowhere.
I wish you all just could consent to lock up your money for five to 10 years and when we see opportunity to release it. If it's five months from now, we'll tell you, "We've gotten so much to this return have been so big that we need to give you your money now." We will do that. We will give you your money right away. But why give you your money if you had it in there for a year. And all you got coming is $200? You got $200 coming. If you really crying and you want that $200, we will give you your $200. That's $200 in interest you got coming. If you invested $2,000 one share and it's been with us for a year, you have $200 coming. Would you have more coming if you put $2,000 in a bank? Would you have more coming?
Congregation: No.
IWDM: If you have more, let us know. We'll move it up. We'll move it up to a higher percentage. Okay, so you have $200 coming? Yes. Just a moment. Let me see.
For one year? No, you have $100 coming but you also got some gain on shea butter sales. So, all together, we've been looking at these shares, all together you finally got about $200 coming. There are investors with us who have $20,000, $30,000, we have a $50,000 investor. He hasn't made one call or said one line to ask, "How is my interest coming? You didn't send it last year. It’s been there for a year.” He says nothing.
Now, I don't mind if he says something. I think it's acceptable if he would say something. And if he wants it, he will get it. We will give him his interest. It's done yearly. If you started with us in the beginning, you might have two years coming now. You have two years coming now. You won't have three. Because I don’t think we've had it for three years. It won't be three years for a few more months. Then for some who started with us it'll be three years. I put some money. I bought a savings bond. I tied it up for 10 years and I brought it down after 10 years. It helped us a lot.
We were poor but we made a wise investment. And now with that money I was able to do some things for my wife and my children that I wouldn't have been able to do if I hadn't put that money in for 10 years. I locked it for 10 years so I can get maximum return for myself that I could get. I'm just telling you things so that you will know what the situation is so that you feel more comfortable knowing that we are not intentionally not corresponding with you or giving you a report. I would like to give you a report at least quarterly and we are going to do that. Soon as we get in position to hire people. And we are going to hire somebody. We see we getting in position to at least hire one good person.
We're going to hire one good person, qualified, good, season lady. A Christian lady, but she's professional and we been watching her. We know her. We've been looking at her for three years on her job. She likes us and that’s what make us want her. She likes us a lot so I asked her. I said, "What would you think about maybe working for us in the future?" I said, " I think we're going to grow and you might like what we have to offer." She said, "Wow, really?" She said. "Mr. Mohammed, just let me know. Give me a few months in advance notice." She'll be with us after July 1st. We're going to have her in the accounts department.
That's where her expertise is. We going to have her in the accounts department and then you will hear from us more often. You will get quarterly reports, maybe monthly reports of the increase in your dividends. How they're increasing. I think if not by the end of the year this sister's is going to be busy. This Christian sister, she's going to be busy. What I see developing by the end of this year, she's going to be busy. Because there's going to be business. Things are going to be moving, money is going to be coming in. She's going to be busy. But as the money come in, we will be able to financially hire more people. We'll be financially strong enough to hire more people.
We've got computers, computer operators lined up right now. Allah has blessed us with this. We couldn't do this. We got people who will volunteer to work for almost nothing for us. Experts on computers. We got a brother who could set up the system that will tie them all together on one system. A couple of them, three of them in Ohio. A few in this state. And we have one in Texas so what we're going to do is tie them all up into one system. So, they could be taken care of the accounting, the buying and the recording of everything for us, putting it in the computer system. We'll have a backup, a hard disk backup because I took a computer course. I took Data. Ngina you're here. Your mind is free. Mine is not. What was that course called that we took?
Ngina: Data Processing.
What do you call it? Data Processing. Yes, we took the course together. She was my security while I took the course. She sat with me. I had asked her to take it too so I could have security. So, she was performing two jobs; learning the course and also my security there. You say, "Well, if somebody ever bothers you, she wouldn’t been able to do anything.” Yes, she will. She'd be able to handle it. Even if she had to shoot him. She'd be able to handle it.
I don't have too much faith in martial arts. Because we've got too many automatic weapons around.
One bank they told me, “say, Mr. Mohammed, where's your security?" I said, "You don't see him?" "No." said, "That's the best security."
One brother, he was just feeling too confident that he was my security. I said, "Yes, he was good security all right." I said, "You know, they get men better than me, more powerful than me, more known than me, got big positions in the word. Presidents, et cetera. They kill them. They bump them off. They assassinate them." I said, "We trust Allah first." Yes, that's the biggest security. I told another one that kind of felt like a security brother. I said, "I got security watching security."
I said, "Now you don't know about them and you aren't going to know about them.” And that's no joke. All right. Yes, that's what we have to do. There can't be small, can't be small. This is no mark time mark thing. It's not the F.O.I. “Mark time march. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Attention. Attention. Fall out.”
This ain’t that. This is a bigger thing than that, much bigger than that. That was just a training in the elementary school. That was only a training to teach the mind to be sharp and be prepared to move the body quickly. That's what that was for. Now, to protect our interests you need much more than that. All right. I'm telling these brothers that jump on security, "Don't think you that important, brother." That brother that know how to keep that accounting firm and not make mistakes. If he coughs, we going to get him some cough syrup. If you cough, we're going to tell you where the drugstore is. Because we busy.
All right, thank you very much. We going to close out. And we'd like first for the distributors to have a few minutes to share with us any concern that they have. Because I'm sure we would like to know what they're seeing that we are not seeing. That if we work on it together, we can do a better job for all of us. Thank you very much. May G-d guide us always and forgive us, Amin.
David K. Hasan: As Salaam Alaikum.
Audience: Wa alaikum salaam
David K. Hasan: Brothers and sisters, many of you are heard from the distributors this morning. And we had an excellent breakfast this morning with Imam Rafah. And hopefully, inshallah, that the Imam, he’s got a public address. And at this point we would meet with the distributors with the Imam. Thank you very much and Imam Rafah. You've got everything straight. The little boss says he got everything great. Thank you, Rafah. Alhamdulillahi.
IWDM: Since you are not going to use this time. I'll take five minutes and accept questions. Okay. Yes, since they're not going to use it, I didn't know the distributors had already spoken. So, I'll accept maybe a couple of questions from our sister side and one from the brother side. Yes, from the brother side. Ys brother in the t-shirt with the glasses.
Speaker: Would you say it’s going to use one five years or so before we start to see what opportunities come out of it?
Mohammed: Yes, I'm saying that it would be good if that person could be prepared to leave that money in their account for five years. And that would depend upon the activity for the business. If the business starts to grow and their account now is growing, it's not just waiting on bank interest to accumulate. But there is investment, earnings, dividends piling up. We will notify you right away. Because the government requires that we not hold your money, that we give you your money and we don't want to do it either. We want to give it to you right away. Believe me, I'm more interested than the government is in seeing that you get your money.
If the money starts to grow, we will notify you that the money is growing now and we should be giving your money monthly. If there's a growth that will tell us to give it to you quarterly. A growth level that will tell us we should give you your money quarterly. If it goes above that level, we should give it to you monthly. I don't know. Some of you may invest so big and we have an accountant here, an expert here, I know him personally. It could grow so big, we might have to give you your money daily. Is that not right, brother accountant? It could grow so big the government might require that we give you your money daily. At least let you know.
This has accumulated and we had to report it. That this has accumulated this much, accumulated in 24 hours. We tell you this money accumulated in 24 hours, what do you want to do with it?" You say, "Well I want to reinvest part or all of it." We can do that but we have to report to the government that earning. Yes. All right. You're welcome but right now it's accumulating so slow until and we are so burdened down we don't have the workers to handle it. So, please be patient with us. Thank you. All right. Yes, one sister now. That was a brother. Doesn't any sister have a question? I'd like to hear one sister. Here's a sister right here. Yes sister. Alaikum as salam.
Speaker: Will you be given the option to maybe invest additional shares?
IWDM: No. Your money is yours to do as you want with it. You could take your money now. Reinvest it in the same product or you may decide not to invest in that product anymore. You want to invest in some other products. It's your money. It's your business to do whatever you want to do with it.
Speaker: What about more amount business shares.
IWDM: Yes. Oh sure. That’s whatever you want until we close out. At one part we going to close out. We're not going to be selling any shares. It wouldn't be fair to keep them open all the time. It wouldn’t' be fair to those who believed in it from day one. I'm telling you right now, we're getting ready to close out.
Yes, we are. We getting ready to close the door. I said at 300 persons purchasing shares that we would close out. I think we above that right now. You won’t to be able to buy into this company for a while, then we'll decide. The board will meet occasionally and if we see it's a good thing for the company to open up for more purchases of shares, we'll do that. That's the right of any company if I understand business.
All right. Okay. Thank you very much. As-Salaam-Alaikum. See you in a few minutes.


