04/02/1988
IWDM Study Library 
Unity in the Muslim Ummah

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Dear distinguished brothers under Al -Islam, I have to speak to you on the concern, and that concern is the unity of Muslims. The unity of Muslims. The unity of the Muslim ummah. Of the Ummatul Islamiyyah, the Islamic Ummah.
I would like to, I hope in a few minutes, within a few minutes, point to something on this side and in my experience in hopes that I will make it clear to you what I think is a major, real major problem for the unity of Muslims throughout our international community.
When I learned about this religion and the way that this should be understood, I had for many years, or almost a lifetime to some people in some areas of the world, believed in the teachings of my father and late leader of the African American Muslims, Elijah Muhammad. As I began to see the right way, the way of the Prophet, peace and blessing be on him, I began to wonder why someone would come to the United States of America, to the African American poor of Detroit, Chicago, and present the religion in a false way and I began to have great difficulty understanding why any sincere person would do that.
The difficulty for me was because the person who brought the misconceptions to us presented himself as a dear friend of ours. A dear friend to oppressed people, a dear friend of black people in America and throughout the world, presented himself as a savior for the black people, for the African American people. And won the heart, the heart of my father, won the heart of my mother, and that it seemed that he won the heart of all that he touched with his message.
I myself, in a position that made it again very difficult for me, being the son of the leader that he chose, knowing that my father was on welfare when he met this person. Poor, was a drunkard, drank heavily because he couldn't take care of his family. Knowing all his misery and how things had been changed for us financially, and we didn't have to be on welfare anymore. We were managing in a tolerable way and winning respect from many people, though we had a very strange and aggravating message for the American people, the white people. We were admired by them for our moral concerns. For our cleanliness, our bodily cleanliness and our nice dress.
We stood out among the poor African Americans as a disciplined, clean, dignified people. So, all of this weighed heavily on my heart when I began to realize that what we had received was misconception concerning Allah, our Lord, Muhammad, our Prophet, peace be on him, and the right way, the Sunnah of the Prophet, the right way to practice this religion.
So, I was kind of a victim of mixed emotion. Happy on one side, angry on the other side. Hurt on one side, and on the other side, feeling very good, you know? So, all of this was working in me, and I asked myself, I said, "Why did anyone have to come and present the religion like that?" I couldn't accept that it was a necessity. That our situation in America was so different and the times were so different that it was a necessity that someone had to distort the religion, present it in a false package to make it attractive for down-and-out African Americans. I couldn't accept that.
Not after reading the Quran in English, because at that time, I couldn't read it very much. Very little could I read in Arabic. Very little. I couldn't read hardly three lines, but I understood it in English. I had to depend upon English translation, and the English translation convinced me, it was good enough. It convinced me that it was not necessary for someone to come and present the religion in a false way to us.
Since that time, I'm speaking now that was back the early '60s, late '50s, early '60s when I was going through all these changes. Since that time, as the leader, in the absence of my father. my father passed, may G-d forgive him his sins and give him paradise. Since that time, I have begun to look not only at the mistake, if I can call it a mistake, at the mistake that Fard made, Wali Fard made, Professor Farad, whatever they called him. He went by many names, this mystic purported to come from actually from Mecca. I don't believe that. I believe he came perhaps from India, maybe Pakistan, what is now Pakistan.
Before I, pardon me, getting back... Excuse me, forget about that. Getting back to where I was. I began to not only look at what he did, also I began to look at what Muslims are doing today, now. They are not presenting the religion in a complete false package. They are not giving a different concept of G-d or a different concept of man, like we received from this person who introduced the religion to us in the early '30s, Detroit, Michigan, and Chicago. But still, there's a lot of trouble.
In my opinion, we still have a lot of trouble. We're still misrepresenting the religion. I'm not speaking of all of us, but I think on the whole, the religion is still being misrepresented. Among my associates, and I hope I'm not going... I think this is very important that I tell you these things-I don't want to be wasting your time.
We often talk about this, me and my associates. And I listen to them, I share their concerns, their grievances. They have some grievances when it comes to their experience with Muslims from abroad. Some of them have some grievances, and some of these grievances are legitimate, but some of these grievances are not. They're just prejudice on our side, some of us are prejudiced. We can't see straight, you know...the Muslim from Nigeria, the Muslim from Pakistan, the Muslim from Saudi Arabia. We can't see him with clear eyes. We have some problem ourselves. We are prejudiced ourselves, in many cases. But I know that some of our grievances are legitimate.
I mentioned earlier today in the brief talk that I gave this morning, that I feel, well serious injuries to our unity come from the way we present faith. Faith, Iman and tonight I said I wanted to talk about the other side, and that is the way we present the practical side of the religion, too. The practical side of the religion is half presented, weak. Not even half-presented, weakly presented. And the faith also is weakly presented because of following, I think, what is the Christian way of presenting religion.
Our Prophet, peace and blessing be upon him, I don't pretend to be a scholar. My education, my formal education goes no higher than 12 years. I have one course in English, from junior college in Chicago, which I got a C out of. The teacher told me, he said, "Well, if you had given it more time, you've got a B+," but I didn't get a B+, I got a C. So, I'm not pretending to be a brain. I'm not a brainy person. I don't want to present myself in any false way. I want you to know exactly who I am, what my qualifications are. My qualifications, if I have some, is because of my diligent and tireless study of Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet.
But I have these concerns, and I think if I share them with you, I think my heart will be relieved. And I think perhaps we will be in a better situation to fight the common problem that we have. I believe it's a problem that we all have. I began to look at the way others present the religion, and I said to myself, "Why do they have to present the religion to us this way?" They think we're ignorant? Are we too ignorant to understand it if it is presented in the right way? Prophet Muhammad, peace and the blessing be on him, he presented the religion to everybody in the same way.
If you were sharp enough up here, you got more than the man down there, but he did not present it in one way to the intellectuals, and in another way to the uneducated. He presented it in the same way to everybody. The uneducated sat with the educated, he presented it the same way. Now, isn't that the way to present it? Then the sharp person will get it on his level. The one who's not sharp will get it on his level. The person that Allah blesses will get it as Allah intended for him. The person that Allah does not bless, will not get it.
The Prophet didn't look at the audience and say, "Hey, these are white or black. These intellectuals are not." He didn't do it that way. We have to understand that. When you talk to the poor community, don't take for granted that these people are ignorant. There might be some brains out there to equal yours. Maybe better than yours. You don't know, so let's not take that for granted, but present the religion in an intelligent way and an effective way, present it in a way to appeal to the best that's in the man.
No matter who you are talking to, present it in a way to appeal to the best that's in the man. The best that's in his head, the best that's in his heart. And I guarantee you, if we would do this, we will have more people coming to Al-Islam. We will have more people behind us and more people supporting us, and more people admiring us, even if they are not converted to this religion. I hope you are understanding what I'm saying.
A big problem for us, same that we have for most people, is image. Image. Most people, and I think this come from the west too. By the way, I hate to digress here, but just for a moment, I want to suggest that our scholars, our intellectuals, our bright-minded people, do a study if it's not already being done. Do a study of the effects of colonial occupation in the Islamic world. Do a study of the effects and come up with answers, how this has affected the psychology of Muslim populations. How it has affected the psychology of the Muslim population. Maybe we will get some directions out of that kind of study.
Now, pardon me for getting away from what I was talking about, let's get back now. Image. Most of us are concerned about image, and this a Western problem more than anything else. In America, we are led astray because we're just caught up with imagery. I mean our own image. If we see a fellow, depends on how his image looks on television, whether we're even going to listen to him or not. We're not going to listen and wait and see if he has something sensible to say. We're just going to look at his image first.
And if his image doesn't come across, we through with it. We turn the channel and go to somebody else, go to somebody else. You see, look for somebody else. The impressive image. I think that's a big problem for the unity of Muslims, this image. It starts with the individual perhaps, but then it becomes the group image. The group has its image. If it's an intellectual group, they have their intellectual group image. If it's a nationalistic group, they have their nationalistic group image. If it's a cultural group, they have that image, and they are more caught up in the image than they are with the substance. Substance is what we should be all about. Not all this imagery.
Now these are common problems for people, and I believe we have serious common problems as Muslims throughout the world. I think we have very serious common problems. When I look at the international world of Muslims and think about it, well, we are hurt by what is going on in the political world, international world of politics.
It hurt us very much to see Muslim nations fighting each other. That hurt us very much. Iraq and Iran, that war with each other is continuing, it goes on and on and on, that hurts bad. That hurts the image of Muslims everywhere. Now, again, the Iranian, he has an image of himself, and I'm sure that he wants the world to think that his image is better, more appealing than the image of the Iraqi brother. Now, the Saudi brothers are involved, and the Saudi brothers, they want us to think their image is better than that Iranian image. Everybody is competing in the arena of images.
That's a great sin. I think we should take very serious, these simple, ordinary common people problems that we have. That have become now a burden on great men who run nations. Great leaders and great educators, this image thing is a burden on you. I don't think that the Ummah will ever unite if we are caught up in imagery. Our own image, how we are coming across.
In America, we have the same problem. Same problem in America. We meet different groups and they have different images. And some of our African American brothers are so bloody-minded that they are affected right away. If they meet the Pakistani, and his image is more impressive than the Saudi, the next time we see this brother, he's a black man trying to be a Pakistani. Talking like a Pakistani, trying to dress like one and everything-You know he's just gone way out. You'll be surprised of the effect of image on people. When the Prophet Peace and blessing be on him, said that those who follow the lifestyle of other people are not one of us. When he said that, I don't think he was talking about the store you bought your clothes from, or how you comb your hair, that kind of stuff. He was talking about what's here in the heart. What's here in the heart, what's in our behavior, how we behave towards each other, how we behave towards people, and most of all how we behave in the eyes of Allah, under Allah's eyes, and according to the teachings of Al-Islam and the Sunnah of our Prophet.
I look on the television when they're interviewing the Iranian brothers and their complaints, and I see the Iranian image. There's an image there, strong image. And when the Iraqis come, you see the strong Iraqi image. And when the Saudis come, they have a strong image. We should find the substance of this religion and try to put importance on the substance of the religion, rather than on the superficial appearance. The superficial appearance. You know, if we are not careful, as Muslims we shouldn't fall victim to these things, but if we are not careful, as Muslims, because we have brains, we are intellectual, we will fall into the image of the intellectual.
And then what you do, you push common people away from you, or you draw fools from the common people to you. If we want to do a great thing of good for the unity of Muslims, then we will study our past, under colonial domination and enforcement. I tell our brothers over here, we must study the effects of white supremacy and slavery in our life, because it certainly has left psychological scars, and we may be behaving as Muslims with a lot of the residue of slavery.
Imitating. Imitating, trying to step into the place of the white man. Hungering for the glory that the master had, now that we are free. And I think you have to examine yourselves, brothers overseas. You may be hungering for the glory of the masters that were on you, over you, you know. Allah says that he will not give the dominance to anyone who desires it. You know, you know the Quran better than I do. Allah says he will not give dominance to anyone who desires it. So, let's not wish for the upper hand. Let's wish for the even hand. Thank you. As Salaam Alaikum.


