February 11th 2000
Tribute to Excellence – Durham, NV
Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Speaker 1:
This is the national public broadcast of W.D. Mohammed: Muslim American spokesman. The following lecture, titled Honoring Excellence: A Tribute to Imam W. Deen Mohammed, was recorded February the 11th, the year 2000, in Durham, North Carolina. And now W.D. Mohammed.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
Thank you. Good afternoon. Our greetings of peace. As-salamu alaykum.
Audience:
Wa ?alaykumu as-salaam.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
This is a great honor and a very special occasion that I won't forget for the rest of my life. To be invited to the city and to have the honor of addressing so many distinguished persons. This is a very special gathering of a very special people. Our mayor and the church has welcomed us here, so this is really wonderful. And that's what I think G-d wants all of us to do is, is just open our hearts and our facilities to each other so we can get acquainted with each other, know each other better, so we can live together better on this earth as human beings serving the will of G-d. I thought I was (unclear). I was prepared to listen to you your honor. I thought you were coming first. So you kind of caught me off guard there. I was concentrating on that food. I don't eat breakfast in the morning, I eat it at noon, night, sometimes at night. I go until 12 o'clock or later. Midday I take my meal, and they had only peanuts and coffee and pop on the plane. So I was really having a good time.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
G-d says to us in our holy book, a revelation from G-d to Muhammad the prophet... We call it Quran. The Quran, that's the name of the book. Given in the text of the book. The Quran, Al-Quran. Well it's commonly called Koran. K-O-R-A-N in English. G-d says to us in that book, that man should not think that his creation is a bigger matter than the creation of the heavens and the earth. And what makes man so special is revelation. Man recieves revelation and then he follows the will of G-d. And that makes him very special. So what raises man up is the word of G-d, or the will of G-d. And without that, then he's not so special in this great vast creation. And science says that too. And I've always had an appreciation for science.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
As a student of science, I've had an appreciation for science. And I understand that. I understand that. I couldn't think of my own creation being more important than this vast universe. And the collective body of people we call humanity or mankind, is more important than any separate unit. Black, Africa, white, Europe, or Asia, Chinese, the Japanese. None of us are so important to ourselves that we can live alone and have our own separate agendas that don't respect what is best for the whole people on this earth. And we see that creation has been supporting human life and human intellect. The human being, as a social creature and as an intellect, has been interacting with creation to better his own life, and his own circumstances, and his own environment. Without that interaction with the physical creation, man's intellect couldn't go anywhere. And so we have to recognize all that and thank G-d.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
Thank G-d not only for the word, thank G-d that he revealed to us, thank G-d for science, thank G-d for everything. This is the attitude that we should have. And if we come into that kind of attitude, I think we can get rid of racism. We can respect each other better. Respect each other and welcome each other as occupants on this earth sharing one environment we call Earth that's becoming home for us. Modern science and technology is just making everything so physically and comfortable for us. In fact, the outer environment sometimes is more attractive to me than the home. Depends on whose home I visit.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
So everything began with G-d. The will of G-d brought about creation, and then creation supports human life. And human life comes to know the will of G-d by way of revelation. From G-d, the word from G-d. And we are able to have this beautiful existence on this planet that G-d, our Lord the Creator, intended for us. Unity gives birth to diversity and unity supports diversity. And I believe our world is growing so small that they're referring to it as the village. The global village is growing so small. And TV, and modern technology, and media, is just focusing in on the whole planet now and showing us ourselves in the complete global picture.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
And we have to accept that man is one community. And that's what G-d revealed in the Bible and in the Quran. G-d says in the Quran, "Oh mankind, you are one community. You are one community." And it took really the unfolding of G-d's plan to us in the natural environment to really bring us to recognize that certainly we are one community, and that community should be home. Man is born from a parent, a male and a female, two parents. And he begins as a family. One family. And he's then spread all over the world or who knows. Pop up here and there. We don't know how it happens, but it happens.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
And we find ourselves separated from each other and have to discover each other all over again. And once we discover each other and use our intellects and share the knowledge and share what we have, we could become one community again. And I believe the home condition is what G-d wants us to keep before us. The Bible speaks of home in that way, and the Quran speaks of home in that way. That idea is common in the three great faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. So I'm very happy to be here just to introduce ourselves to you. Those words were to introduce ourselves to you so you will know us better, how we think, and where we're going. And we're going home. Thank you very much.
Speaker 4:
Imam has agreed to take any questions that we may have in the audience at this time. So if anyone has any questions they'd like to address to Imam Mohammed, you can take your time so he can continue his meal. But if anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask Imam. Yes.
Speaker 5:
[inaudible 00:08:02].
Warith Deen Mohammed:
You heard the question?
Speaker 4:
The question is, he would like to hear about your journey. The evolution from the Nation of Islam to where we are now.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
I don't think you know what you're asking. You'll fall asleep where you're sitting before I finished, but I appreciate the question. Sometimes... Well, I think you have it in Christianity. The ways of G-d are not always simple. It's a very complicated thing sometimes. And I do believe that G-d intervened, as you believe. G-d intervened. And I think once you claim that G-d is sponsoring you, that G-d is your backup, you really invite G-d to intervene. And my father, he's embraced an idea that was given to him by a foreigner. He said an Arab, but he wasn't sure of it. We studied the writings of this person that introduced to him the idea of separation for black people, and a kind of religion, black nationalist theology or black nationalist religion, that he gave my father. This man convinced my father that what he was giving him was religion and was the word of G-d, was G-d's words. So my father believed it.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
My father was not an educated man. My father was born in Sandersville, Georgia. My mother was also born in Georgia, Cordele, Georgia. And they married. And poor, uneducated. They came to the north for better financial opportunities. And he was really naive, so this person could tell him almost anything about the world. He didn't know. He would believe it. And that's what he did. He gave him a myth. He gave him a great myth of the existence of man, the creation of the world. And he just reversed everything. Everything that was black, he made it white. Everything that was white, he made it black. He just reversed everything. And my father preached. I was a young boy, I used to listen to him. I always was curious. The message was very strange, so it would hold your attention. It would keep your attention. So I would always, even as a child... Small as a ... I can't remember a time when I wasn't sitting in the temple... They called it temples back then not mosque. And I was sitting in the temple paying strict attention to what they were saying and trying to understand something.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
And what came through very clear was that my father believed in G-d. No matter what he called that G-d, no matter what his perception of that G-d was, it came to me very clear that he believed in G-d. And he believed that we owe our obedience to G-d. And if we don't give our obedience to G-d, we going to get bad consequences. He made that clear to me. So I was a religious person in spite of the strange language environment that was really against religion proper. The language was against religion proper. It was not religion at all. But the spirit was religious. The spirit was a religious spirit.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
And I began to question the concept of G-d. I recall when I was... I know the address so I can figure my age, by the address. We were living on the southside of Chicago, 6116 South Michigan in Chicago, in little frame house. And my parents had gone out to the temple that night. They had temple also in the evening that night, eight o'clock to 10 o'clock, so they had gone out. And this was the first time they ever asked me to stay back at home by myself. They never asked me that before, and never after did they ask me to stay at home by myself. So I'm at home by myself waiting for them to return from the meeting, and I just decided to pray. And we were taught to pray like this. We pray like this. We were taught to pray like this, with our hands open like this.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
So I opened my hands like this and I said, "Oh Allah." I said, "Oh Allah, oh Allah." And I thought of the man that he told us was G-d in the flesh, Fard. And I was seeing the picture. We had a picture, photo a Fard. I was seeing his image. So something struck me. I said, "Oh Allah, if I'm not seeing you correctly, please help me see you correctly." That's what I said. So I'm letting you know as far back as when I was only 12 or 13 years old, I think I was about 12 years old, I had a feeling that something was wrong with the way we were perceiving G-d or looking at G-d, trying to look at G-d. And that curiosity continued and increased. And my father liked it. He never told me, son, I don't want you questioning anything.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
He told all of us. He said, "The real understanding is not on the surface." He said, "You have to dig under the surface." And he said, "Use your brain, use your mind, use your intelligence, and try to answer these questions." He said that much of the teachings that he was giving us was really a problem solving, and we should question it to find the answers. So I kept that curiosity. So finally the honorable Elijah Muhammad had to deal me as a person who's rejecting his idea of G-d. And I was charged with making trouble in his community, in his following. And the officers of the fruit, the F.O.I... We had a militant unit of men called the F.O.I., the Fruit of Islam, who did military drill and thought of themselves as the military unit of the Nation of Islam.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
Those officers, usually the ones like the captain or Lieutenant, they would charge you with causing trouble or deviating or something. So they charged me and they brought it to my father. And my father said, "Well son, I'm told that you don't believe in our savior." That's the way he put it. He said, "I'm told that you don't believe in our savior." I said, "Daddy, I believe in you." I said, "But I can understand why you believe in your savior." He didn't like that too much, but something in that answer he did like. And he told me, he said, "Well, you know what I have to do, don't you?" I said, "Yes, sir." So he said, "Son, you are put out of the Nation of Islam, and that means you can't visit your mother and you can't call her." I said, "Yes, sir. I understand." All communication cut off. If your family is inside the temple or a Muslim, no, communication with them until the punishment is lifted. So I knew. I said, "Yes, sir." So he asked me, he says, "Son, how can you not believe in our savior when you know where your father came from and what he has done for your father?" I said, "Yes, sir." I said, "I do understand that daddy." I said, "But really, you're the one who taught me to be curious."
Warith Deen Mohammed:
And I left it like that. So really it was me being encouraged by my father to question things and to just believe... I think I was born with a questioning mind, more so than the average child. I had a questioning mind and my father gave support to that. And I think that's what led me to question one thing behind another. And really my question was all coming from my moral sensitivity. I was not against my father's idea or against him personally or against his Nation of Islam. I saw so many wonderful things happening that was in that idea, for us: discipline truthfulness, trying to earn an honest living without depending on others, not wanting to be on welfare, not wanting to be down in the depth of poverty, but wanting to rise up.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
All of that was a part of the Nation of Islam's teaching. All of those things were taught to us by the honorable Elijah Muhammad in the Nation of Islam. So there was so much that I was very proud of and so much that I carried with great dignity, but it was the moral conflict. The moral contradiction and the spiritual teachings did not satisfy my soul's need for spiritual life. And that's what brought about the change. It was the search, it was the discovery that led to me embracing universal faith and humanity. Thank you very much. I hope I answered it.
Speaker 4:
Anyone else? Okay, at this time we will... Yes ma'am?
Speaker 6:
[inaudible 00:18:25].
Speaker 7:
I wonder if I [inaudible 00:18:32].
Speaker 4:
Yes. Yes sir.
Speaker 7:
The challenges [crosstalk 00:18:35]. Do you think some positives of the backwoods world and you could have them wishing [inaudible 00:18:53] G-d?
Warith Deen Mohammed:
The number one challenge for the Muslims in America is to correct how we are pictured. The picture of us is incorrect, and I would say Muslims are mainly responsible for that. There was a time when Muslims were not so responsible, I would say... The academic west, the libraries, and colleges, universities, they were more responsible because you were writing books about Muslims, and about the east. And most of that was not correct, it was prejudice. What was found in many of the libraries, especially in entertainment media, was insulting. Most of it was insulting. Picturing Muslims as heathens and well, wine drinkers. Yes, wine drinkers. And wine is forbidden in Islam. Strictly forbidden. All alcohol is strictly forbidden.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
And whore mongers, just sex minded people. So this is what I remember seeing as a child in the entertainment media and also some literature. I saw the same kind of portrayal of Muslims. But that changed. In time that changed. And the world began to... [inaudible 00:21:01] focus on. All the nations and Islamic nations began... All nations with majority Muslim populations began to come into focus as members of the United Nation, et cetera, and Muslims started to get that freedom more and more from colonial domination. And Muslims started to act on the world scene and trouble everywhere. India, Pakistan, India, Palestine, Palestinian quarters in Israel, trouble all these places. Then the Muslims now... The Muslims are starting to come into the world picture, and they are bitter, they are resentful. They are scarred, deeply by colonial domination denied of their their freedom and their rights to have the life that they believed that they should have.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
So what we get is a picture of the angry nationalist, not a Muslim. An angry nationalist. Whether he's Palestinian or Iranian, or whatever, we get the picture of an angry nationalist. And that nationalist... If he's a nationalist, many times he's also a terrorist. So this is the biggest job we have: to correct that picture of us. We don't love violence, we love peace. Our religion is peace. The name means peace. Islam, take it from the root word, means peace. Muslim, take it from the root word, means peace. [inaudible 00:22:47] is peace. How can some people with so much peace in their central language, for them, be longing for violence? That's incorrect. And if you would study the history of Muslims in the world. World history. You study the history of Muslims, how Muslims grew, you would see deaths, you would see the wars. The wars were imposed upon prophet Muhammad. Muhammad didn't want wars. He refused to even fight until G-d revealed to him that he should fight.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
He said that the believers should defend themselves. So he had to get a revelation to even fight and defend himself. He went to a little place called Ta'if in the hills of his country, to introduce the religion to those people. They rejected him and stoned him. And as he was leaving the little town, they continued to stone him while he was on the road. The stones damaged his body so much that it's reported that they could hear the slush sound of blood in his sandals as he went away from that city. So he wasn't inviting in a fight, he believed in peace. And then the Crusades came. The Crusades was a political war, not a religious war. That's just like Saddam changed from being a member of the Ba'ath Party instead of the Islamic (unclear). He changed from being a member of the Ba'ath Party, and he started presenting himself as a leader for Muslims just to get Muslim support for him.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
And that's why I believe the same thing happened to the Muslims and to the Christians. I believe that war was a war for more territory. That war was a war, a rivalry for land and power. That's what the war with the crusades were about. And very few of those fighters in the Crusades had really their religion at heart. Salah Al-deen, the popular crusader on the Muslim side, I believe he had Islam his heart because he didn't have no hatred for the people he was fighting. And he administrated during the (unclear), he administrated medicine. He administered (unclear) the ranks of the crusader Richard the Lionheart. He knew he was sick so he administered medicine to him. [inaudible 00:25:29] continued to battle. So it wasn't a personal thing. It wasn't a personal battle. He was sincere that's what I mean. He was sincere.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
Who from the Muslim side fighting non-Muslims now would feel sorry for a leader who [00:25:48] and knew he could help him and sneak in there and give him some help? So it's not personal. I don't have anything against this person, let me try to help him. I can help him, let me make his condition better, we wouldn't find it. So this is what we need to do more than anything else; get the true picture of Islam, the true picture of Quran first of all, because this is where we get our picture. G-d says, "[foreign language 00:26:10]." We are formed and created with the word of G-d. The word of G-d shapes us and forms us. So when you see the true picture of Islam as coming directly from the Quran, and the life of Muhammad the prophet, as a man, and as a leader of the Muslims, are for people of faith, then you would see the true picture of Muslim.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
G-d has blessed us to have that kind of interest and that kind of sensitivity. So we're not looking... We don't look to the Shiites, we don't look to the Sunnis, [inaudible 00:26:42], and the great majority of the Muslims. We don't identify with the great majority of Muslims in our belief. We don't look to them for guidance in Islam because we know the whole world has gone astray. We go to the word of G-d for guidance as we go through the example of Muhammad, as we perceive the example of Muhammad, not through their eyes. Not through the eyes of any particular nation of Muslims or any particular school of thought among the Muslims. Now I'm talking a long and a lot too much, but I want you to understand. For us, I don't believe... There's any problem for us more serious than working on the way people see us or perceive us and correcting the bad idea of us. That's the biggest job. And once we do that, I think there's nothing else for us to do.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
There's no other problem we have. I can't see any other problem. But I'm an American, and I used to believe I didn't have citizenship, that the country wouldn't give me citizenship rights, but now I'm convinced that I do have citizenship, and I'm ready to die for that citizenship. And I treasure it, I think a lot of it, I wouldn't want to be a citizen of any other country right now. Once you see Muslims, especially the way you perceive Islam, if you see us, you won't see us because we are thinking just like you and we want just what you want. We want the best, we're human beings. And we take pride in our country, and we take pride in our ethnic life too. I think the strange experience that I had as a followup of the honorable Elijah Muhammad and the teachings of the Nation of Islam has helped me in many ways too.
Warith Deen Mohammed:
It has taught me that identity is very important. To have your own identity is very important. And I said, when I gave my opening words here, I said that unity supports diversity. Unity strengthens diversity. I believe the more this world becomes a one world, the stronger our differences are going go to become. And that's beautiful, but they should be healthy differences. Healthy differences. Differences that are wholesome. The physical world of matter supports the great diversity of life and beauty, and that's the way it should be. And I said too much again. Thank you.


