February 1st 2000
University of Wilmington Address

Wallace Muhammad:
We praise G-d, and in His Name, we begin and we trust Him for results and we pray that our result is acceptable to G-d, and pleasing to you who have invited me here, invited us here. I want to begin by saying that I'm a product of, well, maybe an experiment, but for sure, a strategy. We believed in a myth that was for us reality, a myth of the origins of man, the origin of the world. I doubt if this myth will ever be that well known, like the many myths that I've read of in my studies and in my efforts to try to understand the reason for this experiment that I am a product of.
Wallace Muhammad:
If you would do some research, to find out how the Nation of Islam began that's led by Minister Farrakhan now, you would have to come across the name Farad, spelled F-A-R-D but pronounced F-A-R-A-D, Farad). Fard was not a Black, an African-American, or a Negro as we once called ourselves. We believe now that he was an Asiatic, from what is now called Pakistan, but when he came to America, it was not called Pakistan, because he came before 1947. It was just India. We also believe that he had bad experiences in America. Of course, you know many Indians or Asians are also black, colored, literally black, but he was not. He was a light brown skinned person, but even a light brown skinned person may have some bad experiences or might have had some bad experiences in the early 30s, or late 30s, or 40s, or 50s, or even the 60s in some parts of America, or in some circumstances.
Wallace Muhammad:
We believe that the bad experiences that this person had, perhaps going all the way back to his country, India, Muslim India, Muslim India, when Muslim India was under Britian, Great Britain, or England, the English people. However, when he saw our conditions as blacks in America, he sympathized with us. I believe he was motivated by anger, too, anger, a bit of anger, but I do believe that the man who brought the concept of the Nation of Islam to the ghetto of Detroit, finally to the bad areas of Chicago, then to Milwaukee, this man, Fard, he actually went to these cities and preached in these cities and got my father, Elijah Muhammad, started, showed him how to do it, how to preach the new message and how to organize the people.
Wallace Muhammad:
I believe that he sympathized with us and wanted to see a change for our lives, a change for the better, but I think he wanted to do something that was even more important to him or more valuable for him, and that is use us to speak to white America, the white world maybe, and also to speak to the Islamic world, to the Islamic world through us, through the new African-American that he himself was creating, called Black Muslims and also called the Nation of Islam.
Wallace Muhammad:
I believe this man got great help from great minds in psychology and history. I don't think he himself was that educated formally, and I'm not speaking without some circumstances that I'm looking at or some fact that convinces me that he was not that formally educated, but definitely a special person with a special mind, committed person. This man was successful in creating a myth and a language environment that would attract and hold African-American people who were dissatisfied with their lives in America and had no faith in their future, that one day they would have a comfortable place in American society.
Wallace Muhammad:
They didn't believe that. My mother didn't believe that. My father didn't believe that, and those who joined them didn't believe that. They believed that America didn't want them, white America didn't want them, and we would never have acceptance here. There would always be a hypocritical acceptance and not a real acceptance. That's what they believed.
Wallace Muhammad:
And this man was after only them. He wasn't looking for anybody else. He was looking for only the dissatisfied African Americans to join him. And how do I know that? He told my father, he said, "Don't try to get the educated blacks, to get those without the education, so don't try to get those that are satisfied to work with the white man and live with the white man. To get those who are dissatisfied, who think they can't work with the white man and live peacefully with the white man."
Wallace Muhammad:
So he told him who to look for, and he called the so-called Talented Tenth, Du Bois, and the educated African Americans, he called them the blood-suckers of the poor in the black community. He said that they were really supporting and working for the real blood-suckers that he called the white race, the real blood-suckers of the black people, the poor black people. So he saw the educated blacks, like Du Bois, who believed that we could one day be accepted in the system, that the law indicated and the philosophy of this land indicated that we would one day be accepted, that democracy, Christianity, true Christianity, true democracy, was more powerful than hate, racism, segregation, white supremacy, and that one day we would be accepted, which was true. It turned out to be that way.
Wallace Muhammad:
We saw the beauty of America and the American people overcome the ugliness of America and the American people, and we do have that comfort now as African American citizens in the United States. But the dissatisfied back there in the 30s and the 40s and the 50s, and maybe even the 60s and 70s, did not believe that and we still have some dissatisfied, despite all the good circumstances that we see, for us to have a good life in America. We still have some dissatisfied African Americans that don't believe that this is real, that this is hypocritical, that we are not really accepted or wanted.
Wallace Muhammad:
And The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he used to often say that nobody wants you but G-d. He used to tell us that. So we were put in a contained environment, a language environment, a language environment, and I'm speaking on this campus, and I'm sure that the department of philosophy, and biology, whatever, you understand what I'm saying, perhaps, better than some of our own followers, our own members of our organization, of our movement, the MAS, the Muslim American Society that I am a leader of and belong to. You perhaps understand what I'm saying and what Fard did, as I'm sharing it with you, better than even some of our Imams, I believe.
Wallace Muhammad:
There's a saying in physics that I learned, "No two things can occupy the same space at the same time." Well, I don't know if that's true or not, because I believe that my consciousness, my spirit, my soul, whatever it is, I believe it's occupying the space that my body is in at the same time. Maybe no two physical things can occupy the same space at the same time. But there's many sayings.
Wallace Muhammad:
We've heard that words make people, word shape people, and that's exactly what Mr. Fard believed and he was counting on. If he could create a new language environment, then he could make a new people, with a new mind, a new people, new sensitivities, a new people, and that's exactly what he did. He made a new people, and he called us black, and he called us Asiatics. Now, why Asiatics? Why did he call us Asiatics? He wasn't the first to call us Asiatic. In fact, I don't think that any of, I would say, the very special features of his ideology or his concept of society for us were originated by him. I think he saw something somewhere, and he just used it.
Wallace Muhammad:
So when he called us Asiatics, I believe he was studying the movement called the Moorish American Science Temple Movement. It was headed by a man named Drew Ali. Noble. They called him Noble Drew Ali, and he claimed also Islam, as did Fard, the teacher of my father. He claimed Islam, too, and he had his members, the followers, believing that they were Muslims and that their religion was Islam. But like the Nation of Islam, under Elijah Muhammad, the religion was far from being the religion of Muslims in this world, throughout the world. It was not at all. It was much, much different from what is Islam in the world.
Wallace Muhammad:
It resembled something, perhaps, that Islam could resemble something perhaps that's in the Trinitarian idea more than it resembled Islam, the idea Father, Son and Holy Ghost, the Trinity. Perhaps, it resembled that more than it did anything Islam, the idea of G-d in Islam. But it didn't even suit that concept, the Trinitarian idea in Christianity, because it took the spiritual idea and weakened it and made it of no effect on our lives at all. We were taught that materialism was everything and that even G-d never existed until there was material things, a material thing, and that G-d himself cannot exist outside of a material body, and that there is no resurrection or life after death. The only resurrection is a mental resurrection that takes place on earth in this life, the physical life, on this life.
Wallace Muhammad:
So this does not resemble any of the great religions. This was a new thing, perhaps somewhat inspired by something of ancient times, representing ancient times, from ancient times, and resembling maybe Pantheism a little bit and resembling also the Communist idea of materialism, dialectic materialism. I do know that the aim was to create a language environment that would be a strong magnetism, a strong magnetic pull that we just couldn't resist if we were not happy as Americans, that we would want to be this new black that this language environment would give birth to.
Wallace Muhammad:
Another thing I do know, that the teachings of the one who conceived this idea, and I believe he had help outside. I said I don't believe he was formally educated that much, but obviously, a great mind, a very brilliant, great mind. Something else that we have to look at is that he, Mr. Fard, the teacher of my father, he felt that we needed our egos pumped up, that we had had our egos deflated by the presence of the great white world and the limitations on our life. Education, denied access to a good education in the 30s, 40s, and many other things that we just couldn't have, couldn't share, couldn't even think that we could share, many of us. He wanted to make us think bigger than that, bigger than that small mind that we had, intimidated by the great white world and the vastness of the white man. He wanted us to think bigger, to have a bigger picture of ourselves, so he exaggerated our own realities. He exaggerated our own abilities. He said even that the black man is G-d. We have potential to be gods in us.
Wallace Muhammad:
He said that history has been falsified, that one time you had a great history. You were the superiors. You were the masters of the world, et cetera, and many of our Afro-centric people, they tried to document that, so he wasn't saying something that educated black people wouldn't also accept as lies. Something else that's very important is that he was not, himself, very interested in that, but he knew it would hold us. It would capture us from the white world, and it would hold us long enough for us to come into an independent mind, where we think independently and make independent choices, and are not giving ourselves to non-blacks or African-Americans to be shaped and formed by them or their influences. He wanted to take us away from all these other influences that may influence how we are formed and shaped or how we would lead it up, lead it off.
Wallace Muhammad:
His belief was that, if he could bring us to that position of independence, that we would then become our own Muslims, and his greatest desire was that we would one day become our own Muslims, and by that, I mean we would not be under the influence of other Muslims. He told my father, he said, "The worst thing you could do is let Indians, Pakistanis..." they weren't called Pakistanis, because they were Indians... "to let Indian Muslims come in." Indian Muslims were always here before Fard. They were always here introducing Islam into the African-American community before 1930, so he was afraid of that. He told my father, he said, "Never accept that they teach you. You teach your own people." He was making a new people, a new Muslim, an independent Muslim.
Wallace Muhammad:
He also wanted that we study the Qur'an, but he told my father, "Don't you teach them the Qur'an," Our holy book, or our Bible, is the Qur'an. He said. "Don't you teach them the Qur'an." He said, "When the time comes, your children will learn the Qur'an," and he said, "They will teach you." He said, "They can get it fast, brother." I'm quoting my father. He said, "They can get it. Their young minds, they will be able to get it fast, brother." So what did my father teach if he didn't teach the Qur'an and claiming to be Muslim? He taught from the Bible.
Wallace Muhammad:
Mr. Fard told my father, he said, "Study how the black preachers get and hold their congregations." He told him to go into the church, sit in the church, and observe them. Well, he didn't have to tell my father that, really, because my father was a Christian before he was introduced to Fard's ideas, and my mother was a good Christian lady. I'm not saying my father was a bad Christian, but he just was not a church-goer. My mother was a good Christian lady. She sang in the choir. She loved to sing the spirituals.
Wallace Muhammad:
She never stopped singing those spirituals. As a child, I heard my mother singing Christian spirituals. She would just change the language. If the language said Jesus, she would change it to Fard, Our Savior Fard. She would just change the language a little bit. She lit the house up, and it was so beautiful. I loved to hear her singing. She would wake me up in the morning sometimes. She would be in the kitchen working and she's singing. She sang in the choir of her church before she accepted the teachings of Fard, the teachings of her husband and my father, Elijah Poole Muhammad.
Wallace Muhammad:
There was a man in Detroit at that time who was a preacher and a powerful one. He was called Father Divine, and he, too, was introducing the black man in a powerful picture by introducing himself as Father Divine. And he suggested to his congregation, without saying it openly that much, that he was Jesus Christ, Father Divine, black preacher of Detroit. Father Divine, for those who know something about his history, we know that he eventually had a white wife. He had a black wife, and he had a white wife.
Wallace Muhammad:
And Fard gave us something similar. He said that G-d Himself was the son of a black man, black-skinned, fat man, and his mother was a white woman, so he mixed the two, white and black. He brought the two together, white and black, while teaching us that the whites were inherently evil, and they're the devil race on the planet Earth. And the two mated artificially by some black scientist, whose name was Yakub. Now, we've come to learn, as we get away from the old teachings and be influenced by the Qur'an, we come to learn that Yakub is the Qur'anic name for Jacob, the Prophet Jacob, who is revered in Islam, peace be upon him, along with all the other Prophets.
Wallace Muhammad:
So here is a black man called Yakub, the name of the prophet, and he was supposed to have been a scientist who studied the genes of the black man and found some way to graft the black out of the black man, a white man, by eliminating the strong pigmentation and working with the weaker pigmentation, he finally created a white race, and he created them to be a devil race. But strangely, that grafting, that biological work did not make them devils, and that's what many of the ministers didn't know. Many of the ministers working for The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, they didn't catch that, but I caught it. He said they had to teach them, after grafting them, they had to teach them to lie, steal, and master the black people. They had to teach them? Why they had to teach them, if they were already devils by nature, or if they were already devils because of this genetic grafting, this grafting of them out of the genes of the black man?
Wallace Muhammad:
It's something that will attract the uneducated, and that's another reason why I believe Mr. Fard didn't want my father bringing in educated, because they'll feel this is ridiculous. There's too many contradictions in this stuff. This is nothing but a joke. You know? Many of them would have ridiculed it. Although, you'd be surprised, it attracted some PhDs to join us, and I mean they were serious in supporting that idea and believing it to be fact or reality.
Wallace Muhammad:
But for me, what disturbed me was that a black man created evil and then charged the white man with it. Even though I was a teenager, I couldn't understand that. I'd say, "Well, I shouldn't like Yakub, the black man that made the devil. I shouldn't like him." I'd say, "He's the one that started all this business, the evil." You know? So I was having serious problems understanding the teachings of the Nation of Islam, even from while I was yet about 13. I think by about 13 it started.
Wallace Muhammad:
But I believed my father's sincerity. I know my father was sincere. I believed in his sincerity. I knew my mother was sincere. I believed in their sincerity, and I thought that perhaps his teacher, Fard, was sincere, and God blessed me to study it and study it and finally come to the conclusion that this man, Fard, created this thing as a strategy, to be a temporary language environment, to hold uneducated blacks, naive blacks when it comes to what the world is and how it's made and everything, what the history of mankind is... They're very naïve, uneducated, so not knowing hardly what the next state is, most of us didn't even move out of our neighborhoods. We lived and died in about a five-mile radius uneducated poor blacks, so we didn't know anything. He could've told us anything about the world.
Wallace Muhammad:
Mr. Fard told my father, he said, "You were taken from your own land in Mecca. The streets are paved with gold." That's what he told him. When I went there in '67 for Hajj, I found it with sand and rocks, and I couldn't hardly find any pavement to walk on. But we believed it, because how could we know? We didn't know anything about the world. We didn't even know anything about the next town hardly, most of us who joined the Nation of Islam.
Wallace Muhammad:
So I do believe that that was only a strategy, the myth and everything was just a strategy to hold discontented blacks long enough to get them to come into an independent mind where they believe in themselves and they believe they can make judgments and trust their own judgments, and then, later, they will start to study the Qur'an, and some of them would be educated, because he didn't say, "Don't appreciate education." He said, "Appreciate education. He said, "Appreciate science." He said, "Become civil engineers." This is writings from Fard. He said, "Become civil engineers, mechanical engineers." He told us that. It's in his own handwriting. So he didn't want us to remain ignorant, but he wanted us to be contained in that very peculiar language environment and become educated under our own schools.
Wallace Muhammad:
He said, "Don't go to the devil schools," meaning the white man's schools. "Have your own schools," so we did. I'm a product of elementary school and high school of Nation of Islam, built by my father, but the blueprint for it was given to him by this Indian Asiatic, who called himself an Asiatic. Getting back to Asiatics, why he called us Asiatics. Because he knew that the white man had given us a picture of Africa, a jungle of savages, retarded blacks, retarded human beings that can be just taken over by one white man without any arms or anything. Come among them yelling and swinging on ropes from tree to tree like a monkey, but because of his superiority over them, he could just master them and become a god to them, become a deity for the blacks. That's the picture of Africa we were given, beating drums and going half naked and acting crazy and being dominated by superstitions and vulnerable to anybody who will come in with a little magic, especially to a white man.
Wallace Muhammad:
So this was the picture of Africa, so he knew if he said, "Go back to Africa," like Marcus Garvey, that his movement would end up like Marcus Garvey's movement did end up. But he said, "No," he said, "Africa is not Africa," he said, "And America is not America." He said, "The whole earth is Asia." He said, "Originally, the whole earth..." This is part of his myth, one of his myths. He said, "The whole world was Asia, and the white man changed the names." He said, "It all was called Asia, so you are not Africans." He said, "You are Asiatics. You are original, black Asiatics." That's what he told us. This is documented in our lessons that we got. Farrakhan has this. His followers have this. So this is powerful magnetism, powerful magnetism. It's hard to break your grip with something like that once you accept it, especially when you have no prior knowledge of the history of man and his myths and everything.
Wallace Muhammad:
Now, I have to bring this to a conclusion very soon. He knew that things were going to get better in America, that America would not always be divided along racial lines and have laws enforcing segregation down South. He knew that was going to change one day. He knew that conditions were going to get better for black people one day, and he also knew that the following that was uneducated would have educated members in it one day. When that time comes, they would start to be suspicious of this created language, myths, worlds that Mr. Fard created for us, and they will question it, but he is hoping that they will be grateful to him for at least taking them from a worse condition and putting them in a situation to become their own bosses, to become their own bosses, and that they wouldn't hate him but they would try to understand him and search his language.
Wallace Muhammad:
He believed that if they searched his language after getting education, they will discover that he himself ridiculed his own language, and he did. He ridiculed his own language, and he promised that Islam would come. He told my father, he said, "There is coming another Islam," that another Islam will come. He said, "You will get another Holy Qur'an." And my father really believed that, and he left the Holy Qur'an with my father, and my father kept it hanging high on the wall.
Wallace Muhammad:
In the early 1950s, he had acquired for us an Arabic teacher, professor, Professor Jamil Diab, Palestinian, who's still alive and lives in Tempe, Arizona. He was my professor. He taught me Arabic. He taught my younger brother Arabic, who is a doctor and speaks Arabic fluently with the tongue of the best educated Arabic-speaking person, younger brother, Akbar, who's a professor at Binghamton University, Upper State New York, Binghamton University. He taught all of us Arabic, and 1952, or '53, or '54, during those years, we were studying and I don't know when it happened, but it would have to be between 1952 and 1954, my father said, he said, "Son, you all are learning Arabic." He said, "I have a Qur'an up there that our Savior gave us." He said, "I want you to look in it and tell me can you read any of it".
Wallace Muhammad:
So we had already read some of the Qur'an. Our professor, Jamil Diab taught us the Arabic lessons were to be able to read something from the Qur'an, so he brought the Qur'an down and unwrapped it. I had seen it all of my life. It was all my life I had seen that green book hanging up... No, it wasn't a green book. It was in a green cloth, green, velvet cloth with straps, green velvet, hanging on our wall. Always saw it there. But it, too, was a mystery. It was a kind of mystery, a taboo. It had power. It was sacred, but you can't touch it. Don't go near it. Don't try and get a ladder now and go up there and get that book. You'll be in trouble, serious trouble.
Wallace Muhammad:
So now, here we are being given permission by my father, my brother and I, to look at it and see if we can read it, so we open it up and as soon as he opened it up and looked at it, our eyes met. Akbar's eyes and my eyes met, and they met and it looked like as if we were saying to each other with our eyes, with the look in our eyes, "This is difficult. It's going to be difficult to tell Daddy it's the same as all the other Holy Qur'ans." That's what we saw. It was no different than any other Holy Qur'an in the Arabic language. The Arabic language was the same as the Arabic language in all the Holy Qur'ans that Muslims read throughout the world.
Wallace Muhammad:
So that was the beginning of my coming to the Qur'an and being influenced by the Qur'an. It eventually influenced me to give up all those myths and ideas that I couldn't be comfortable with and to come to accept that the Islam that all Muslims on earth believe should be Al-Islam, and that's the only true Islam. So I accepted that, and I accepted that. I tried to also be patient, understanding with the people who followed The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, because I was one of them. I had come from his ideas to accept this universal idea of Islam, so I wanted to be patient with them, so I began to wean them off of the language, the old language, as I was at the same time introducing them to the true language of Islam.
Wallace Muhammad:
Thank G-d, it worked. And I do believe that my father's teacher, plus the Qur'an, wanted it to work that way. I believe that was his plan to create something in the name of Islam that was not Islam but something that would be a powerful magnetic attraction to hold us in a language environment that was powerful until we could be educated and be independent-minded enough to choose for ourselves the Islam that's in the Qur'an and eventually the Islam demonstrated by Muhammad, the model man for Muslims and for all good people, Muhammad the Prophet.
Wallace Muhammad:
So I now would like to say to you that his purpose was to establish two Islams. But to also establish independent thinkers that wouldn't be destroyed by other schools of thought in Islam, in traditional Islam, as a strategy. I've already explained it. His hope was, his prayer was that we would study Islam and come to the correct idea and be pure-minded and pure-hearted, and G-d would bless us with the purity of the scripture called Qur'an. The strategy was so difficult for us, it made us struggle for clarity, struggle for clarity, and I thank G-d that he brought me to a clearer understanding of what the Qur'an is and what Muhammad's life means to us Muslims all around the world and to mankind.
Wallace Muhammad:
In my conclusions, Dr. C. Eric Lincoln, a great African-American theologian, he studied us. In fact, he made us popular, for he wrote the book titled, "The Black Muslims," for he introduced us to many people and many Christians that we perhaps wouldn't have been able to reach for a long, long time, for generations to come maybe. He describied the Nation of Islam Islam as a pseudo-Islam. What he meant by that, you have to ask him, but I have my own idea of what he meant. I believe he meant a protoplasm Islam, the beginning of the making of a Muslim man, but that, what we were given, was just protoplasm, just germs, just germs that will eventually become a man, a Muslim man, a Muslim mind, et cetera.
Wallace Muhammad:
Also, Dr. Lincoln said he had come to believe that those who came or were brought from Africa, from Muslim life and tradition, and separated from that life and tradition, and eventually lost completely from that life and that tradition, that we had a genetic memory, or genetic memories, and that's difficult to understand, unless you're a student of genetics or biology, the genetic life of man. That's difficult to understand for many of this audience, perhaps, but not for me. I understand genetic memory. I believe that all people have a genetic memory.
Wallace Muhammad:
Dr. Lincoln said the reason why that we are attracted to Islam and so many of us are so happy to be Muslims is that we came from Islam and we came from parents who were Muslims long ago, and that we have a genetic memory. But I would like to add in the conclusion of this presentation that we have even another genetic memory, and we share this with all human beings. We have a genetic memory of once being at peace with G-d and once being in a heaven of our only souls, a heaven, H-E-A-V-E-N, of our own souls. Every human being wants to get back to that happiness, that satisfaction, that peaceful state with G-d and with his own soul. There's a beautiful chapter in the Qur'an that tells us how all men and women are struggling to get back to that heaven that we came from, and there is a genetic memory. Adam was there, our first father. Peace. Asalaam Alaikum.
Speaker 2:
If we have a question or two this evening, just come forward so that I can hear you. There are mics. I wasn't sure. I didn't see the microphones in the aisles. If you do have a question or two, please come to one of the microphones in the aisles, and please identify yourself and speak clearly when asking your question. We'd appreciate it.
Speaker 2:
(silence)
Speaker 3:
Asalaam Alaikum.
Wallace Muhammad:
Wa Alaikum Salaam
Speaker 3:
May G-d bless you, my brother Imam Muhammad. My name is Abdullah Hakeem Ali. I can't remember where but I had occasion to meet you a few times when you were in Chicago a few years ago,and I have been studying islam your leadership ever since 1978, and I just want to take this opportunity to thank you for all the hard work you have done and you are doing, and I truly pray, with all my heart.
Wallace Muhammad:
Thank you very much. I appreciate you sharing that with me. Is there another?
Speaker 3:
And Allah will continue to bless you in your efforts-
Wallace Muhammad:
Thank you.
Speaker 3:
... and all of the supporters, and your helpers, and in your family-
Wallace Muhammad:
Thank you.
Speaker 3:
... present and past.
Wallace Muhammad:
Thank you.
Speaker 3:
You, Brother Imam, have really helped my life since 1978.
Wallace Muhammad:
I'm going to pass that back to you if you keep talking like that.
Speaker 3:
And you also have helped the life of my family. My mother became Muslim because of you. My sister. She's been to Hajj twice, so praise be to Allah.I just want to take this opportunity to thank you and let anyone who want to hear to know that truly I want Allah's continuous blessings on you as you travel and do this work for not only the African-American people in America, but for all people of this globe. So continue and may Allah forever be with you and grant you his peace.
Wallace Muhammad:
Thank you.
Speaker 3:
Asalaam Alaikum.
Wallace Muhammad:
Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you very, very much.
Speaker 4:
Asalaam Alaikum.
Wallace Muhammad:
Wa Alaikum As Salaam.
Speaker 4:
My name is Duane Trumbly from Raleigh. My question is about Malcolm X.
Wallace Muhammad:
Yes.
Speaker 4:
What did you think about the movie Malcolm X, and how did he fit into the Nation of Islam? Was he a great impact?
Wallace Muhammad:
Yes.
Speaker 4:
And what did his death mean? Did it scare people away, or did it bring in more Muslims to the Nation of Islam or the Black American movement? What happened with that?
Wallace Muhammad:
Yes. The movie was, in my opinion, a very good movie and pretty accurate, as accurate as we would expect, being that it was a movie. It was a movie. As for the importance of Malcolm and the life and history of the Muslims or the Temple of Islam or the Nation of Islam, there's no other person other than Mr. Fard, God of Elijah Muhammad, and The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, that did more to advance the thinking, the mind of the followers of the Nation of Islam than Malcolm himself. The Honorabe Elijah Muhammad recognized that Malcolm was a brilliant young man and that he would be a big help to the Nation of Islam and his following. He introduced him when he was yet a young man just out of prison.
Wallace Muhammad:
He introduced Malcolm to the other ministers, the other religious leaders of the Nation of Islam, and he told them that this is going to be my mouth speaking for me and the Nation of Islam. He said, "He's not going to do it the way you all have been doing it." He said, "He won't be just coming to the temple and reading something from passages from the Bible and asking for converts." He said, "He's going to help me build the nation," and that's exactly what Malcolm did. Malcolm was a great turning point, and some have described him like the Paul, like the Apostle Paul for The Honorable Elijah Muhammad. He was my friend and a very loving person.
Wallace Muhammad:
Many people don't know the Malcolm, the true Malcolm, and even he couldn't help it, even with white people that he called the devil, if he saw a white person having difficulty, he would show affinity. He would try to give them some advice. He would try to help them if he saw them having some problem. That was Malcolm, and at the same time, he called the whole white race the devil, and he considered them. But that was Malcolm.
Wallace Muhammad:
When he first saw me, he didn't just see me and say, "This is Wallace, the son of Elijah Muhammad." He saw me and he said... Yes, he did say it. "This is Wallace, Minister Wallace." I was a minister at that time, too. He said, "Minister Wallace," he said, "What are you young brothers doing to help your father?" He had an interest in us, in my father first, but also an interest in us. He wanted to see us doing something productive, coming into some important role. It's like, "What are you doing to help your father?"
Wallace Muhammad:
So he was a force for bringing us to a new energy. He raised our energy. He heightened our energy, and he gave us faith in ourselves to take this message outside of the small walls of the temple and take it to the streets. So he was the one who kind of revolutionized the spirit of the Nation of Islam and, perhaps, even the thinking of the Nation of Islam.
Wallace Muhammad:
Naturally, Malcolm's death... You asked about his death. Did it have any meaning? Yes, it does. Malcolm's death, I think, is a thing that happened to test the Nation of Islam, to test the Nation of Islam. The Nation of Islam is a powerful organization. Its members can hardly be shaken and loosed from each other, and many did leave when Malcolm was assassinated. Something was lost. Drive and spirit was lost.
Wallace Muhammad:
But The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was no dumb man. He's a genius in his own rights. He knew that the same thing that had impressed them before would impress them again. So right away, he started to put all of the brothers... All of the machinery of the Nation of Islam geared up to work for material showing, to get more land, to get more buildings, to do more materially, and eventually, for the following, that satisfied the spirit of the following so much that the effect of Malcolm was just about rendered null.
Wallace Muhammad:
But what is his message to all of us? What is his message to all black people? His message is that some of us have to die for our own independence. Some of us have to die for what we believe in. We have to die for truth, but if you studied Malcolm very carefully, it's a lesson also that says we should use diplomacy. We should be motivated by principle and by high cause always, even when we're angry, even when we're being threatened, our lives are being threatened. We cannot let retaliation or anger or war, fighting with somebody else over something, blind us to our principles or to our higher purpose and cause.
Wallace Muhammad:
I'm saying that with knowledge of Malcolm, and I regretted that he let the threat to his life and the desperation to establish himself and keep popular and keep image in the African-American community. He was a clean man now. He was a man of principle. He was a man of principle, but I think he allowed his emotions to take over. When that happened, it meant his downfall, so I hope we learn that lesson, too, and never, as the Prophet Muhammad said, "Never be motivated by anger." Is that okay, brother? Does that satisfy your question? Thank you.
Speaker 5:
I had a question. In your current practice, do you find yourself weaning a lot of people who are following Farrakhan? I'm not really familiar.
Wallace Muhammad:
Yes, you are. You're very familiar. Mr. Farrakhan himself has been observing what I've been doing for many years, since I started. And yes, I believe that it's a powerful influence for bringing about change, and that eventually most of their good people will come to where we have come. I do believe that. Yes, I do hope I'm weaning them, too, off of the things that's not good for their souls, yes.
Speaker 5:
As Salaam Alaikum.
Wallace Muhammad:
Wa Alaikum Salaam.
Speaker 5:
My name is Hakeem Abdul Al Raheem.
Wallace Muhammad:
Yes, brother. Pleased to meet you.
Speaker 5:
There's a lot of brothers in here. I was one of these, but Allah convinced me to meet a man in Philly whose name was Amar Abdul Khalifa.
Wallace Muhammad:
I know him.
Speaker 5:
I know you do, brother.
Wallace Muhammad:
Yeah.
Speaker 5:
He told me about you.
Wallace Muhammad:
Yeah.
Speaker 5:
He told me about your mother. He told me about your father.
Wallace Muhammad:
Yeah.
Speaker 5:
He also-
Wallace Muhammad:
How is he?
Speaker 5:
Well, this is years ago. I haven't been to see him. I've been to see him one time in the last three years.
Wallace Muhammad:
If you have any way to give him Salaam from me, will you do it for me, please?
Speaker 5:
InshaAllah.
Wallace Muhammad:
All right.
Speaker 5:
My question, brother... And I admire you, brother. I love what you're doing.
Wallace Muhammad:
Thank you.
Speaker 5:
But my question is why nobody going to try to do something for Ahmad?
Wallace Muhammad:
I did try, and I will try again. I will try again. If you get me information of where he is and how to reach him, I would like to go see him.
Speaker 6:
Good morning. I want to thank you and I've enjoyed listening to you. One simple question I want to present to you in your role. In about 20 years, do you envision somebody other than a son or grandson of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad being in charge of the world community of Islam?
Wallace Muhammad:
Yes.
Speaker 6:
I hope so, because that is the true state of Islam.
Wallace Muhammad:
Yes. I agree with you 100%.
Speaker 6:
Yes, sir.
Wallace Muhammad:
We shouldn't just wait for it to happen on it's own, we shoud do what we can while we are living to see to it that it is not seen as a family thing, but it's an Islamic democracy open to all of us.
Speaker 6:
Absolutely.
Wallace Muhammad:
Yes.
Wallace Muhammad:
Yes, we need
Wallace Muhammad:
Yes, sir.
Speaker 6:
Unfortunately as you know we don't have this open democracy in many Muslim countries.
Wallace Muhammad:
Your support is appreciated.
Speaker 6:
Thank you, sir.
Speaker 7:
Asalaam-Alaikum.
Wallace Muhammad:
Wa alaikum-As-Salaam.
Speaker 7:
I just want you to know, sir, that it is indeed a great privilege. It's one of the biggest privileges of my life to have been here to hear you tonight.
Wallace Muhammad:
Thank you.
Speaker 7:
I have your tapes and tracks. I learned my prayers through you. My question is, and I also have listened to Minister Farrakhan, and I have heard him also. And I would also say that in 1998 he was nearing the end of a speech, and he said, "Warith Deen Muhammad, I'm coming after you."
Wallace Muhammad:
Yes.
Speaker 7:
He said that your father is my teacher. We'll both go behind the door and stay there until we come to some type of agreement. My question to you, sir, is will that ever happen?
Wallace Muhammad:
Yes, I think it will happen. The recent statement that Minister Farrakhan made of his change of mind and his remorse, repenting things that he had said and rejected that has affected the image, the way Muslims are seen, our images, convinces me, especially while he's also worried about his age and maybe dying, I think these are the circumstances that I'm looking at and that convince me that he has finally come to the position that he's going to keep. I don't think he's going to change, and as long as he holds to that position, I'm his brother. I don't want him to give me anything. I just want us to embrace each other and support each other as Muslims and work together, he in his own role and we in our role.
Speaker 7:
Asalaam Alaikum.
Wallace Muhammad:
Alaikum-As-Salaam.
Speaker 7:
Now I would like another one.
Wallace Muhammad:
Yes.
Wallace Muhammad:
Thank you.
Speaker 7:
I just wanted to say this, that whether you are the Emir or what, I do know that in listening to The Honorable Elijah Muhammad. I have to pay tribute to him.
Wallace Muhammad:
Yes, I know.
Speaker 7:
He cleaned a lot of our lives up.
Wallace Muhammad:
I know. I know.
Speaker 7:
I love you all.
Wallace Muhammad:
Thank you, and I-
Speaker 7:
Thank you.
Wallace Muhammad:
Thank you, and I love you, and I love my father very, very, very dearly.
Jeff Cornwell:
As-Salaam-Alaikum.
Wallace Muhammad:
Alaikum-As-Salaam.
Jeff Cornwell:
My name is Jeff Cornwell, and I've got a two-pronged question. One, I want to get your input on your feelings of this great nation and our founding fathers and the Quranic teachings. Were they influenced by Quranic teachings? In my heart, they were, because Quranic teachings are universal, but I mean a physical impartation of that Quranic doctrine. My second part to that question is, in your travels, around the world in dealing with different religions, especially Christianity in America. What do you think it's going to take for mainstream Christians, our brothers and sisters, to gain a better understanding of what Islam is and the true meaning and that we're all the same?
Wallace Muhammad:
Well, I don't know if I could answer all of that, but I'll say this, that, yes, I do believe that the great builders of this great society we call America, its democracy, I believe that they were students of history and that they did study the history of Islam, the history of our Prophet, and they had to be influenced by that history and what occurred there. But today, even more so. We have people in government and the private sector that are now becoming acquainted with Islam.
Wallace Muhammad:
As they become acquainted with Islam, they're going to see that Islam is not a radical religion. It's not a religion for fanatics. It's not a religion for violent people. It's a religion for the whole of humanity. And its direction for mankind could take mankind to a life on earth pleasing to his Creator, his Lord. It's very, very similar to the direction that I find in the Bible for Christians, for Jews, the people of the book we call them, our holy book calls them, G-d calls them in our holy book.
Wallace Muhammad:
I would like to see not only Muslims rethink our lives as Muslims, but I would like to see African-American Christians, especially leader of the church, African-American church leaders, I would like to see them rethink their life as Christian leaders. I would like to see many, many Christians of all colors do that, because the Christianity that I have discovered... I studied your Bible. I read it through and through twice, and I studied it, and there's a much more beautiful Christian I find in the Bible than I find on the streets and in the other places where I go. So you, too, rethink your Christianity and get your help from your scripture, and this will be a much better world for us all. I'm going to have to leave. Peace. As Salaam Alaikum.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, Imam Muhammad. Before I conclude the program, I want to do something that is a bit spontaneous. Neither man knows that I'm going to do this to him, but I would like to ask Dr. Herberg and Dr. Jim MacGyver to join us on stage, please.
Speaker 2:
Applause.
Speaker 2:
Neither of them know. Every now and then I have what I hope is a good idea. I would just like the audience to lay eyes on the man who brought Imam Muhammad here 25 years ago and the man responsible for initiating his visit tonight.
Speaker 2:
Applause.
Speaker 2:
As my husband would say, "You can't do a thing with her." This concludes our program. Thank you for coming this evening.
Speaker 2:
Applause.


