02/01/1999
IWDM Study Library 
University NC

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Thank you. Thank you. Peace be unto you. As we say, our greeting is As-Salamu Alaykum. I need to find my glasses. Very pleased to be here again in this lovely city and on this campus. To the leaders and those who have assisted or sponsored this meeting here. Our Imam, the Muslim community, members in the administration of the University and all of you, we wish you Peace, Peace be upon you or Peace unto you.
Islam is a religion, as we say in Islam, after the Millat of Abraham or in the hope of Abraham, the great Prophet Abraham, the fatherly Prophet Abraham had a hope. He had a great hope. And Islam, according to our Holy Book, is described as a religion in that hope, in the hope of Abraham.
And therefore, Islam is a religion having much in common with Judaism and Christianity. The role of Islam in America is the role of Islam in the world, really. It is to invite people to a model, personal or private life before G-d. Islam invites us to have a model, private life, personal life before G-d, and Islam invites us to have a model, public life or community life. The role of Islam in America will be decided by our perception of Islam, our knowledge of Islam. We who believe in Islam and have accepted Islam as our way of life, the role of Islam will be decided according to how we perceive or how we study and know Islam.
Islam says of life, that human life has an aim, and the aim, the true aim in human life is the worship of G-d. G-d says in our Holy Book called the Qur'an, for English-speaking people who've learned, K-O-R-A-N, Koran... But we say Qur'an to pronounce it with the Arabic pronunciation, Qur'an.
The Qur'an says that G-d made jinns and men. Jinn is the term in Arabic language... Or in Qur'anic Arabic language, I must say Qur'anic Arabic language, referring to a race of people or family of people, I guess, that are not true people, but they are rational like we are, rational. And men and jinns can communicate with each other because both of them are rational. They both can reason. And jinns sometimes are among men or among people, and we can't distinguish them from people except when they reveal themselves. So, this jinn people or this jinn family is a kind of mysterious family of people or family of beings that we may say they are people. G-d speaks of Him creating both jinn and men. And He says that the humans and the jinns were not created except for worship. Except for worship.
Hence, the real meaning of rational life is the worship of G-d, for us is the worship of G-d. G-d has made us rational so that we would find Him. Find Him. G-d created us with free will and made us rational so that we would find G-d. And to worship G-d, I repeat, is the meaning, the true meaning of life. G-d has revealed the book, the Qur'an, to Muhammad, the Prophet of Arabia about 1400 years ago. He was born in Mecca, the Holy City, the venerated City of Mecca in what is now called Saudi Arabia, the peninsula of the Arabia, the peninsula of the Arab. And he lived a life that was honorable, a life that the people admired. And he was never seen as a person having bad manners or bad morals or bad behavior. He was always a person of model behavior, model behavior.
They recognized... When I say, "they", I'm referring to the pre-Islam people of his land. They recognized him as being the honest one. They called him, "The Honest One." They called him, "The Truthful One". These were two titles that they gave him. Al Amin and Al Sadiq, meaning The Honest One and The Truthful One. There's more to say about him that I would love to say about him, but that's not the focus here tonight so I will continue.
G-d revealed to Muhammad, that human life, and in the Qur'an we see human life, pictured as a life toiling, straining, to find purpose. And G-d says it is a life destined to find it in a meeting with G-d. So, this life that we are living, it is really existing for G-d. That's this nature, that's how it's made. It's existing for G-d, it's here for G-d. And we strive to find peace, to find happiness, to find purpose in life. And we are motivated to do that. And we are going to worship something. We are creatures of worship. We have to worship something. We will worship ourselves, if we can't find anything else to worship. We are going to worship something. And that's because worship is in our nature. Worship is inherent in our makeup and that worship is there, I repeat again, that worship is there for G-d.
Islam wants us to honor our priorities and G-d has given us the religion, revealed religion; revealed to us the religion so that we would be helped and really be free and able to honor our priorities to our satisfaction, or should I say, to our soul satisfaction. To our soul, we have peace. And the first priority is G-d. G-d is number one priority. We say in Islam, "Allahu Akbar", and that's exactly what it means. G-d is number one priority. Allahu Akbar. G-d is great. Christians say that too. I know because I listened to Christian Church services and I used to listen to one preacher who said... He came on, this minister, he came on, "G-d is greater. G-d is greater". I loved it so much. Even before I knew that when we said, "Allahu Akbar", we were saying that G-d is number one priority. But now I know that. But when I used to listen to that Christian ministry on TV, I didn't know that.
Yes. So, we have to order our priorities and G-d is the first. G-d is number one priority. And then our parents, G-d says, "... And revere G-d and also revere your parents." Revere your parents. Or in the Qur'an, the family ties. The family ties, but referring directly to the mother because the word literally means wombs. The female's womb. And your parents are revered. The close family ties. Revere G-d and revere the close family ties.
We know that it's talking about the family ties because in that verse of the chapter called The Women, we are told to revere G-d. And then G-d tells us that we all came from one ancestor, from Adam and his mate, his wife. Adam and his mate. And from the two of them we were spread all over the world, many men and women. And in that same connection, G-d says, "Revere G-d and revere the close family ties."
G-d invites us to life, invites us to life. When Muslims hear the call to prayer, the worship, our mosque is the focus for the whole community. It's like the nucleus for Islamic community or for a Muslim community. And from that mosque, we ought to hear a call, the call to prayer. And that call is really a call to life. It says "Haya Al Salat", that means, come lively or come alive to prayer or to worship. So, Islam is the call to life. And G-d says that He invites us to life. That you are invited to the life. To the life. Islam invites to conscious life. That's the importance. Conscious life. We have to live a conscious life. And Islam invites to life in community, to life in community.
Why has Islam attracted to so many African-Americans? Simply because it offers the African-Americans a new life. Many African-Americans are not happy with their lives, they're not happy with their lives. They have tried to be American and they've had difficulty. They have tried to be Christian and they have had difficulty. So, these that have found it difficult to fit into the congregation on the membership of the Christian Church and have difficulty fitting into this society as Americans. If something offered them another life, a completely different life, they will listen to it, they'll respond to it. And many of them will accept it.
Islam is not the first to offer us a big change like this for our life and new identity. The Moorish Americans, although they say they're Muslims but they don't identify with Islam, well now they are obligated to. Just like we have made a transition, we are changing from our secret religion, esoteric religion to an open religion. Moorish Americans are doing the same. So that's not so correct. I better leave that one and go.
But the Jehovah Witnesses, pardon me here, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Marcus Garvey, people, that's who I'm trying to find. The Garveyits did the same thing. They went with Marcus Garvey and they left the American identity and they left the church identity. And Marcus Garvey offered them a new idea of religion and a new idea of citizenry, of citizenship and citizenry. And also, another man out of Detroit Michigan, I believe who had a following also on the east, called the East coast.
Father Divine. Father Divine did the same thing. He was the church, a big church preacher, but he invited his people to perceive Christianity for themselves through his eyes, through his vision, through his perception to see Christianity as a black man's religion and Christ Jesus as a black man, Christ Jesus as a black man. And he himself claimed to have divinity. That's why he's called Father Divine.
And this man, this preacher came along, pardon me, he was a little ahead, maybe a few years ahead of the teacher who taught The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, my father who built the Nation of Islam in America. His name is Fard, his name is Fard. And this teacher Fard, came behind Father Divine and also behind the Prophet of the Moorish Americans, Drew Ali. Prophet Drew Ali. He came behind both those men and he looked like he borrowed from both of them.
He borrowed from Father Divine, he made the black man divine and he borrowed from Drew Ali, he made the religion very mysterious, esoteric, secret like. And he also borrowed from Marcus Garvey, from Marcus Garvey. He borrowed from him too. Marcus Garvey advocated Back to Africa. But when you read his teachings, his work, his work very closely, you see that he didn't really mean that all of us should go physically back to Africa, but he meant we should identify strongly with Africa.
We should reconnect with our ancestors and reconnect with that continent. That's what he really meant. And the teacher of Elijah Muhammad, he gave us the same kind of message, the same kind of message. Some of you have seen the Muhammad Speaks newspaper with African-Americans reaching across the water to Africa and an African reaching across the water and they're locking hands across the ocean, African and African-Americans are locking hands, which said that Elijah Muhammad wanted us to do what Garvey wanted us to do. And that's reconnect with our ancestors or reconnect with the people of our motherland and our mother country, our motherland, the continent of Africa. And all of that says what? Says that, the separation from Africa caused by slavery in America, plantation slavery in America, that separation did serious psychological harm to us. Psychological, serious psychological harm to us. It hurt our sense of identity.
It damaged our ability to be comfortable with our own identity. It prevented us from being comfortable with our own identity. And for many, life was just a pretense. We were happy, but like in a dream world. If someone would really ask a serious questions that reach deep down into our psychology or into our psyche, they perhaps would cause us to become very disturbed, very uncomfortable. Or Either they would have us in their hands, they could tell us anything, could guide us. And that's what Fard did.
Fard knew how to reach deep into the psychology and personality and psychology of the African-American person, reach deep into him as a friend and get his confidence and cause that person to just blindly accept anything Fard said. We accepted anything Fard said. We didn't question it. We had no desire. We had no ability to question anything he said because he had convinced us so thoroughly that he was the one to trust and America was the one to distrust. He was right and the white man was wrong and he was white too. But we didn't care. We saw him as a black man. We were around there telling everybody that Fard was a black man. And I saw his picture and I said... Hey, I was a boy. I was a little boy myself. I said, "That's a white man." But the grownups who followed him and believed in him, he was a black man. That's one reason why I had to change religions. I couldn't reconcile that...
Islam, in America had a very strange beginning. Very strange beginning. And I think you can now appreciate what I'm going to say to you better since you have some background. At least you can understand our situation somewhat. Many of you already know it, and I understand that. But those who haven't given it a thought, I'm speaking to you. Yes. So, Islam in America was an invitation to us to separate from Christianity or the church and have what we were told was our back home religion, that our people back home, that back home in Asia, Africa.
Would you believe this man told us we were Asiatics and we believed it? That's a fact. If I would really tell all the truth about what we were taught and the people would go away from here thinking that that man is either crazy or he's lying. That's how hard it is to understand. He told us we were Asiatics. We came from Africa. Everybody said we came from Africa. We know the continent of Africa. But he said we were Asiatic black men and made us believe it. Asiatic black men.
He said the whole world was Asian. Yeah, he said the whole world was Asian. He said before the white man cut up the world and called it, gave it names, the whole world was Asian. He said, "So you are the original people. You are Asiatic black men." And Noble Drew Ali taught his people the same thing that they were Asiatics. That's where Fard got it. Noble Drew Ali was the first to tell his people that they were Asiatics. And let me tell you right now, I've told you this before, but I have to tell you again why Noble Drew Ali wanted to... The people who followed him wanted the... People who followed him from our people, our race to call themselves "Asiatics", because he didn't want them to have the burden of Africa on their minds.
Because this world, especially when I was a boy, had pictured Africa as a place of savages. Tarzan introduced Africa to us. And the Africans were all stupid little monkeys for Tarzan. Yeah, they didn't have any sense. They had no civilization, no sense. So, this was the picture of Africa we had. So, to get around that ugly picture of Africa... Now you youngsters here on this campus, you are really fortunate. When I was a youngster, the world I lived in told me Africa was a jungle, a jungle of savages, barking baboons in human form. That's what the world that I came up there, taught me. In the movies, you go to the movies, that's what you saw. I would like to tell you a joke that one of our comedians told on Tarzan. We had a way of getting back at everybody. We didn't like it, we had a way of getting back at them. He really told one on Tarzan. He made Tarzan look more stupid than the barking baboon. But I'm not going to do that. I'm tempted, it's something. That guy told a good joke.
Yes. We were also told that we were G-d, that black man was G-d. And I think Fard did that to say to America, "You are telling these black people that white people are G-d, to make white America think about themselves, how they related to G-d and how they identify with G-d and how they picture G-d." White folks, I'm talking about.
Fard, this Arab Indian I believe he was an Indian from what is called the whole Pakistan right now. This man wanted the white man of America to see his own wrongdoing. So, he found some people who were so naive, so out of touch with, or really, not out of touch, but alienated from the world scene that he could tell them things of the world and they would believe it. He could tell them the world had 10 feet giants, 10 foot giants walking on the Continent of Asia and we would've believed it. We would've believed that. So, whenever he... He did tell us something ridiculous about Asian Japan. He said Japan built a Mothership in the year of 1419, was it? I think it was. 1419, somewhere around there.
And that wasn't far away, but we couldn't even suspect it. And he never appealed, made his appeal to educated African-Americans. He told the leader that he made the African-American person, he made leaders to take on, to carry on his work. Elijah Muhammad, he told him, "Don't be interested in them." He said they are the 85%, I think he said. The 85% and they are with the blood suckers, the 10%, who are the blood suckers of your people. That's what he told him. He said they're the 85% and they all went to 10% who were the blood suckers of your people. So, they were blood suckers too, he said. Following the 10% who were blood suckers.
And he said there were 5% who are us. We are the Muslims. The Muslims are 5%. 85, 10, 95. 5%, We are the 5%. The blacks who followed the white man was 85% and the white man was 10%. So, they couldn't be comfortable around us because we wouldn't even want them around us. We didn't want them. The door was closed to educated blacks until much later in the history of the Temple of Islam in America.
Yes. So, he could have told us anything. We would've believed it. And right now we have some African-Americans who say, I don't know if they really do, but they say they believe that the Mothership was built on the island of Japan. And that it's somewhere upstairs in the sky there, hovering high above in the sky just waiting, waiting for enough of us to become members of the Nation of Islam. And it's going to come down and get us and take us up in the sky and going to drop, rain down bombs on the white man and all the blacks that didn't wake up and follow the 5%. That's what they believe. That's what they're taught. That's what they believe. So, this is the beginning of Islam in America.
Now, some strange things have happened and what has happened with us, brother, it's strange. Can you imagine us coming out of that? And many of you, you have no college education. Most of you have no college education. You're with me. Most of you just have some grade school education and high school education. The percentage of better educated people is growing fastly now, since we have changed. Since 1975, the percentage of better educated people in our membership is increasing, increasing. Year after year, it is increasing. But still we have a great number of uneducated people in our following. But they have made this big change after believing those strange things. They have made this big change. Once you get a person's mind and have them believing in ideas like that, it's dangerous to try to change them. They'll go crazy.
Yes, you risk the chance that they might go crazy. It'd be too much, the shock, the reality is too much for them. They might go crazy. I felt like I was going crazy a few times. I look back at my experience, I felt like I might go crazy. I said, "Hey, I better back up off these thoughts." And I'm sure some of you felt the same danger. You felt the same danger. "Hey, this is going to drive me nuts if I keep thinking about this. Let me get away from this. Go outside and jump rope or something. Become a little child again until I could walk back up those steps." Good G-d almighty, it was difficult.
So, I say, it's a modern day miracle, really, that we have come from those strange ideas to accept Islam as it's presented throughout the world and be comfortable with, be comfortable with the real G-d of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Be comfortable with the real G-d and be comfortable with whites and blacks as all human beings, all in the family of humanity. And I know you are because you are comfortable with me. And you know what? I tell what I teach. I know you have changed. I know you're very comfortable with it. And we now wonder how we ever believed that way. And I'm convinced that none of us truly believed all that we were taught. No. But we forced ourselves. We forced our own mind to push out any thought of disbelief.
But the disbelief was there. Deep in the mind and in the heart was disbelief. But we forced the conscious mind to not to accept it, not to see it because we loved The Honorable Elijah Muhammad so much. We love what he offered us so much. We loved this new identity so much. We loved this new Nation so much. The bean pie, and the left flank, right flank drill march, etc, so much.
We loved it so much that we just wouldn't dare let any of those thoughts that would be suppressed, deep down, come to the surface and we face them. We couldn't face it.
You have to disbelieve before I asked you to disbelieve. You couldn't have followed me if you didn't disbelieve a little bit already. Now let me bring this to a close. The role of Islam in America is going to be influenced by the African-American Muslims of America more than by anybody else. I do believe that. And that's the way it should be. We are Americans. We didn't come here. We didn't migrate here. Long time ago, centuries ago, our parents were brought here as slaves to do work here, to serve as workers in the field. It wasn't our choice to come here. We were brought here.
These late comers, it's their choice to come here. It's their choice to come here. Those who come from Africa now those who come from Asia and those who come from other parts of the world, Muslims coming from Albania and other parts of the world to this country. From Bosnia now. There are a lot of Muslims here, from Bosnia. All of these Muslims are latecomers and their situation is not like ours. They come here, they come here to find better, better existence, better opportunity, opportunity to take care of themselves and their families, to get out of their bad situations overseas. That's why they come here, most of them. And to make money. Or just to make money. That's why they come here. We are here because we know of no other place. If they would tell me right now, "Go back to Africa.", I'd say, "Where?"
I'm not allocated. I don't have any Kunta Kinte relatives back there. I don't know where to go. Tell me to go back to Africa. I got to get permission from some country and I don't even know which country to ask because I don't know where I came from. And that's the situation for almost a hundred percent of us. That's our situation. So, buddy, forget about it. Forget about any going somewhere else. We are right here. And believe me, this is the best place to be. I've been there. I've been everywhere. This is the best thing to be, take it from me.
And sometimes those who survive a love hate relationship, they turn out to be the best friends. And I'm telling you, I have survived a love-hate relationship with that red man in the south. I say red man, I can't call him a peck anymore. No, I love him too much to call him a peck, but he's still red. Especially when the sun hit his neck. So, I survived the love hate relationship with him. And he's truly my brother. He's truly my brother. If I was young enough, I'd go to war with him and fight on the battlefield with him for this country, to save the North and the South.
I'm not going anywhere. This is my country. This is my country. I'm not going anywhere. And I have grown up mentally and emotionally to understand that just like I accepted the N-O-I, MGT, Nation of Islam and all of its strange ideas, I now can accept that the Klan and those that they've influenced can be converted and really believe they're right. I believed I was right. If they willing to change, I'm ready to embrace them. I have changed, they changed, I'm ready to embrace them and live with them in this country, in this great land. And work with them to make a contribution to this great land. And to save our children so that they'll be fit to carry on the responsibility of leadership for this great land. Yes, that's in my heart, that's what I want and I have no problem embracing, not only the White man, but the Southern White man, the one I used to call a peck. I have no problem embracing him, no problem at all. In fact, I feel a closeness to him. I feel that the lies that both of us have been told by our teacher Fard, and by their teacher, whoever taught them, that these lies made us hate each other. These lies turned us against each other. And once we catch onto the lies, and get the lies out of our life, we'll become the best of friends.
So really, the future of America is going to be better because extremes are going to meet and going to embrace each other, and throw off falsehood, bigotry, lies and deceit, and throw them off with a happy spirit. "I'm glad to get rid of this crap that oppressed my mind and oppressed my spirit and damaged my moral life, and I didn't even know it. I'm glad to throw off this stuff." You'll say to your brother, you're white brother, "I know your sickness," and he will look at me and say, "Yes, and I know your sickness." Then we can go forward with our lives in America and be stronger than people who haven't experienced such sicknesses. Be stronger advocates for our human family, for one humanity, people working together for the good of all people. I think G-d let us suffer these extremes so that we would be kind of refined by fire, refined for the great job that's still ahead in the past to the future. That's what I believe.
And Islam, as is preached around the world, is very much the same as your Christianity, except for the Trinitarian idea, which is not just a Trinitarian idea. This is what Muslim have to understand. The Christians are not saying G-d is three only. They're also saying G-d is One. Now that's not for you to understand. Your religion is Islam, let them understand that. And let us embrace each other as brothers and sisters and work for the good future of us all. The role of Islam is to call people to conscious life. A conscious private life before your Lord, and a conscious public life so that we will be witnesses before mankind that we are conscious of G-d. Thank you very much, and Peace. As-Salamu Alaykum.
Professor Ernest:
I believe that Imam Mohammed will accept some questions.
Public Audience:
Please give us one example of logic and revelation.
IWDM:
Okay, I don't need that mic they can hear me. Yes. Okay, thank you. There are two statements in Islam and from Qur'an. And I think if I explain the two of them to you, maybe the question will be answered to your satisfaction. In the Qur'an, G-d says that any who believes in G-d as a doer of good deeds have their reward with G-d. There is no fear for such person, nor shall they grieve. We understand that to mean they have salvation. They have salvation. If there's no fear for them, and they have no cause for them to grieve, that means the fear of consequences, G-d's punishment or G-d rejecting them. And the grieving is grieving because they're headed to hell fire.
So, if they're not to fear and they're not to grieve, then G-d is saying that He accepts such persons. And also to support this from Qur'an, Muhammad the Prophet says, this is reported in Buhkari and Muslim, authentic reports on the life of our Prophet. The Prophet, Peace be upon him, he said that G-d showed him heaven. And he saw in the heaven, Christians, the followers of Jesus and the followers of Moses. Christians and Jews, he saw them in the heavens, along with his followers, along with Muslims. So that's the picture given to us of the People of the Book, on the one hand.
I understand it this way, I'll explain to you how I understand it. If someone studies Islam or hears Islam taught to them, and they listen and they hear it with their rational mind, not a closed mind, they hear it with their rational mind, and then they reject it for some other religion, I personally believe you won't have salvation. I personally believe you'll not have salvation. Most Christians, they're content with their faith and they have no disposition to study Islam to be converted. So, they remain in their faith, they don't know Islam thoroughly. So, G-d will accept them with their faith, their religion, their faith will be accepted. Their faith will be accepted. And I don't think you could experience really studying Islam with a completely open mind and not become a Muslim. I don't think you can do that. I think it's impossible for you.
And if you didn't accept Islam, you would be a liar. You would be lying to yourself. You would be a hypocrite, and you'd be deservant of hell fire. I don't believe anybody can study Islam with an open, rational mind. Not an intelligent person, with a healthy, open, rational mind and not embrace it, not accept it. Why? I don't want to convert you to Islam, but Islam is really the purity of Christianity and Judaism. And it's that idea advanced to embrace the whole world and the whole humanity. And indication for that completion of Islam is in your Bible. It's in the Gospel, it's in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. I've studied the Bible, I know. Allah just revealed, G-d revealed to Muhammad the direction that the religion was supposed to take to reach its conclusion.
Now, please don't study Islam if you're not ready to be converted. You don't have to become a Muslim for me to live with you in peace and love you. Thank you.
Public Audience:
For those of us who are interested in making academic or intellectual contributions to the North American societies, what are some of the ways, some of the really important areas that you think we should consider in developing a way to contribute?
IWDM:
Yes, and making a contribution to the Muslim American Community. Our biggest need is really money, so that we can have establishments, material establishments. If we have material establishments, then we have facilities for our life. Life and community needs facilities, need physical establishments, physical facilities. And with these facilities, we'll be able to contribute to the culture of America from our own selves. We will be able to contribute to the civic life of this country from our own selves. But to do that we need money.
So as a student and as a person desiring to make contributions to the Muslim Society, which will also be a contribution to American Society if we do it directly. And my advice to you is to look at our material needs and see how can you be an influence or help to improve the material condition, the material state of our community.
Public Audience:
I love this discussion. What do you see as the unique role of women in Islam and women in American society?
IWDM:
The role?
Public Audience:
Yes.
IWDM:
The role of women? The role of women in Islam is to mother their children at home, and mother their children in the public. Yes.
Public Audience:
Perfect.
IWDM:
And let me make sure I understand this one, I was trying to hear, but I wasn't... Do you think that Jesus Christ, Peace be upon him, was presented in a way for the African American seeing him as the white image?
Public Audience:
Yes.
IWDM:
Yeah, they didn't reject Jesus, they rejected the white image, the white figure.
Public Audience:
Do you think that the Christian were incorrect in doing so?
IWDM:
I know that. In fact, they have not rejected the person, the person Christ Jesus who said, "Love your neighbor and love your brother as yourself," and all that. "And help the person who's lying in the road and needing help," and all that. They haven't rejected that person. That person they have accepted. Let me tell you something now, I don't think you experienced this, you're young yourself. When I was a child, the typical picture of Jesus Christ in our block, in our neighborhood was a blonde haired man. He didn't look Jewish at all. Although there are some Jews with blonde hair, but not many. He was blonde haired, yellow hair. He had yellow hair and sharp keen features. Somebody went to an extreme to let us know that he wasn't black, he was Caucasian.
And that would be on the walls, the bedroom walls. That figure would be on the bedroom walls, or a cross on the bedroom walls. In books, the Bibles that my people would read that was right there. So, you can understand some of us looking at that and having some trouble up here, and here, you see? Yeah. Yeah. It's not the real person. No, it's the physical image that we had a problem with, not the real person.
Wa Alaikum As Salaam.
Public Audience:
What advice would you give to those who still follow and believe in the Nation of Islam?
IWDM:
What advice would I give those who are believing in the Nation of Islam? What advice I would give them? There's a lot of advice, I'd give them from what we were given in the Nation of Islam. Think five times before you speak, and maybe you'll be correct. We learned that in the Nation of Islam. Think five times before you speak and maybe you'll be correct. Your word is bond. Your bond is your life. And be willing to give up your life before you let your word fail. I can give them a lot of advice from the teachings of the Nation of Islam. Do unto others that you would have them do unto you, that was also a teaching of the Nation of Islam.
Mr. Fard's father married a white woman and she was not a devil, but she was the mother of Fard, that's something else I could tell you. I got a lot of advice I can give them. To listen to those things. Think about those things that were taught. And be a little slower to make judgments. Think five times before they speak. That's all I have to tell them tonight. Can you help them get that message from me?
Public Audience:
Do you agree with that?
IWDM:
Yes.
Public Audience:
And I was wondering why did you decide that?
IWDM:
Why did I decide that?
Public Audience:
Yeah.
IWDM:
Because I heard him speak and I never heard any Muslim speak from inside America or outside. So clearly, so rationally. And was so comfortable with his language, and his language presented no problem to me because my language is very much like his. And he is much older than I am, and his knowledge of Arabic is much more than mine. His study of the Qur'an and the life of the Prophet is much more than mine. So, for the rest of my life or his life, he's my Imam and I'm his follower.
Public Audience:
African American can embrace Islam because we are able to develop a new identity?
IWDM:
Yes. A new identity. Yes.
Public Audience:
It's difficult to become American. Now with the push towards multicultural diversity, it's becoming easier and to become American, you said America is the best place to be, and you-
IWDM:
Let me explain that, "Best place to be." There's no place where I have found, where I have the freedom to express my thoughts and choose the way of life I want like we do in America. I haven't found another place like this.
Public Audience:
As the result of the American way of life.
IWDM:
Yes. It's not because of the money here.
Public Audience:
Right. Because of the American way of life.
IWDM:
It's also the American way of life to be like Farrakhan too. And like the Nation of Islam, and that's American. Be like you want to be. You can be anything you want in America.
Public Audience:
Islam has a way of life, America has a way of life.
IWDM:
Yes.
Public Audience:
What's the role of Islam? American way of life is the best way of life.
IWDM:
Yes. Islam has a way of life. America has a way of life. Christians have a way of life. America has a way of life. Jews have a way of life. America has a way of life. Buddhists have a way of life. America has a way of life. Now, if you're not in a mold of your own, your life aint... I don't want to say it.
Public Audience:
My question was... Why do you favor America for Muslims so much?
IWDM:
No, no, no. America's the best because it welcomes Muslims. That's why I see America as the best because it welcomes me and my religion. If it didn't, I wouldn't want to be in America.
Public Audience:
Understood.
IWDM:
Yes. But that's ignorance. When I was in Trinidad and Surinam, I experienced the same situation down there. There were the brothers of African descent, they had a problem mixing with the Muslims of Indian descent who came from India and Pakistan, places like that. And it was a kind of race thing there. But that's ignorance, that's not Islam. Prophet Muhammad, he led the African, he led the European, he led the Arabs, he led all of them and they all existed as brothers and sisters together. And they were happy with each other. I think the problem with us is that we don't know Islam well enough yet, we are learning Islam. The more the African-Americans learn Islam, the more they're going to be able to not only solve their problems, but they're going to be able to solve the problem of the newcomers to this country too.
So many newcomers to this country, they come here for conveniences, they mainly come here for conveniences. And they're told before they come here by others across the water, when they arrive in New York or wherever they arrive, they're told, "Be careful. Some areas you don't want to go to. You don't want to be walking freely or driving freely through the black neighborhoods." So, they frighten them. So, they come here and they come here for conveniences and they get frightened. So, they have problems too, it's not just on our side, the problem's on both sides. And many of those people are not living their Islam, they living their cultures. They're so deep in their culture, they can't live their Islam. So, we have to learn more. All of us have to learn more about our religion for us to live with each other like we should. That'll come, InshaAllah. G-d willing, it will come soon.
Public Audience:
As-salamu alaykum
IWDM:
Wa Alaykum As Salaam.
All I can say is, thank you.
Public Audience:
My question is, when we get back to those who are interested in becoming Muslim, and are interested Islam, how can we explain certain historical narratives that they have come across?
IWDM:
Yes. Well, I tend to be a little philosophical too. And I think many things become clear for me when I try to see it philosophically, when I try to see the picture philosophically. I think nations or Continents of people, or nations come into life just like a human individual comes into life. And if they have a lot of freedom, a lot of authority to express themselves and live like they want to live, and they reach a point when they don't want that anymore, and that goes into their spirit. And many will stop competing, they give up the struggle, they stop competing, they kind of get out of the race. They're just satisfied. "Oh, I've lived enough. I've seen my days. I've had my heyday." I think that's what happens to nations.
And I believe that's what has happened to Africa. Africa is an old nation. Africa is an old Continent and an old nation, maybe the oldest, we don't know. And I think the people have lived their glorious days before that, long time before. And that's not in their spirit anymore. It's not in their spirit to compete with civilizations. And that's not good for Africa. I think that G-d brought us here to this country. I think we came by terrible routes, pain and suffering and everything, but I think G-d brought us here. I believe there's a purpose here. So that we would be denied the life and we would have the thirst for life again. And the thirst for being builders again. A strong desire to be builders again.
And the children, now the new children of Africa in America will have this. And I think we are going to spark them from here, from this side. I don't want to turn our people to Africa because really I've been there and they need our help. There's not much they can offer us. We can offer them a lot.
Professor Ernest:
Well, thank you very much. And I can see there's many students here. I'm very happy to have him here on the UNC Campus speaking to classes as well as the public audiences. His role in the development of Islam in America has been very significant, and he has presided over a very major transition. Growing up in the Nation of Islam with his father, The Honorable Elijah Muhammad. But then moving on to a much broader and more inclusive vision. And one which is not only tied to international norms relating to Islamic Studies, how Islam is understood around the world, but he's also been trying to reach out to many different communities in this country as well. And so, I think it's very wonderful thing to have someone with his historic significance with us. And so please join me in welcoming Imam Warith Deen Mohammed.
IWDM:
Thank you Professor Ernest. And good morning. As we say in Islam, Peace be unto you or Peace be upon you, As-Salamu Alaykum. We thank G-d for our presence here and very happy to be again in this area. And the religion Islam is said to be the fastest growing religion in America. And we are not that excited about that, we are really excited about the quality of Islam, the quality of the teachings of Islam, and the quality of the persons who claim that religion, the quality of the adherent Muslims. So that's the big problem, it's not numbers. The big problem is, are people true to the content? Are they true to the content? And we in the African-American community, and the black community, we became interested in Islam, I believe, because we were mostly culturally deprived and very poorly educated. In fact, when the movement began in Detroit, Michigan in the, what we call the ghetto, the black ghetto, it attracted persons, parents, the mothers and fathers of children and their children who could hardly read.
And the first thing the teacher did who was an outsider, he wasn't an American, he was from overseas. Some say he was an Arab, but I'm pretty sure the evidence that we have points to him being Pakistani. Pakistan wasn't in existence then. Pakistan came in existence about 1947, I believe. But he was from that area that is called Pakistan now and from the city that is called Lahore, Pakistan. And I believe he was Ahmadiyya, a member of the Ahmadiyya Faith. And I'm saying this so that you understand how we have moved from one state of mind in religion to another until we arrived in the mainstream Islam, where we are now, in mainstream Islam. I believe he was Ahmed, but a kind of a renegade. Even among his own people there, the Ahmadiyya people. And I think he was very dissatisfied with the state of the world as most civilized thinkers were. And I do believe he was a civilized thinker, this man called Fard. He's in the Encyclopedia Britanica, I believe, and some other encyclopedias. His name was F-A-R-D, but it's pronounced F-A-R-A-D, Farad.
And I believe that he was responding to the occupation of his people's land by the British. And he came to America to help African-Americans become Muslims because he was also devoted to the propagation of Islam. Pakistanis were, for most of my life, more devoted to the propagation of Islam than say the Arabs or even the other Asian Muslims. The Indians and Pakistanis, they were more devoted to spreading Islam in the world. So, they came very early to America during the 1920s, perhaps even maybe earlier. But I do know of them being in America as early as 1924, I think, or earlier.
And they came to the African-American community and introduced Islam, opened some small mosques, small centers for prayer and worship and teaching. And Fard came as our record shows he came in 1930 to America, and he came as a peddler of yard goods. I don't know if that expression is understood by you now. Yard goods, fabric, fabric wrapped around, a bolt of fabric. He carried it on his arm like this. Sometimes he'd have several bolts of fabric, silk fabrics, and he would sell those fabrics in the neighborhood. He came in the African American ghetto selling fabric and he would tell African Americans who were interested in the fabrics, he'd say, do you know that your people used to wear this cloth and whole body covered up. And he told them that they were Muslims before. He said you were Muslims.
He said, you were not always what you are now. You came from the Muslim lands. You were Muslims, your people were Muslims, and this is the cloth you wore. And he got some of them to be interested in his conversation, what he was telling them. They wanted to know something about themselves. The big question mark in the minds of black people, "Where we came from, why are we here in America in this condition that we are in? How come we are discriminated against? How come we are treated so badly?” That's the big question in mind. That's a big question in the mind of African-American people back then in the thirties, in the forties and the fifties. And for some even now, it's a big question mark. So naturally they became interested in what he had to say. They wanted to know, hear from him, where did we come from? What about this land?
What about our past? Tell us something about our past. So, he would meet them, finally got some of them to welcome him into their home, and he would meet with them in their homes. And he started preaching a new message to them, a message of the glorious past of black people and how Islam is our natural inheritance of black people in America, and that we were really the superior race. He reversed the psychology of white supremacy where white supremacy says blacks are inferior. He reversed and said whites are inferior. Yes, you know the white supremacist language. So just give that to us. Now it's not white anymore, it's black. So, he gave us black supremacy and told us that our religion was Islam. Our religion by birthright was to be Muslims and not Christians. And as I said, because the people he was addressing were mostly poorly educated, culturally deprived people and not representing the better off blacks, he didn't go to the better off blacks.
He chose to go to those blacks who were most deprived and needed help the most. Those are the ones he went to. And he found an open ear and open heart among us. My mother told me that she actually visited one of these meetings before my father did. My father later became the leader. This man Fard chose my father to be the leader of his following and left his following with my father. My mother she said, I heard him one time, she said, and I didn't think of myself. She said, all I could think about was your father, my husband. Now mind you that this is very bad years for all Americans, not just blacks. These are during the years like the 1930, the depression was still there.
The bite of the serious depression, death. So, it was a bad time for all Americans in terms of employment and having a decent living. So, she said, I thought of your father, she said because your father had started to drink and he stayed away from home all the time that he never was at home. He was in the streets, said he was ashamed to come home. He didn't want to face me and the children because he had nothing to offer us. So, he just hung out in the streets with his friends who drank heavily. She said, sometimes I would have to go out and get him and bring him in on my shoulders. She said, that's how drunk he would be. I would've to walk him in on my shoulders. She said, "Wallce, I would walk him to the bed and I dropped him off my shoulders on the bed."
My mother was a very strong little woman. She only weighed 109 pounds and she was about five feet, three or four. But she was strong, very strong. She said "I would drop him off my shoulder onto the bed. She said in there he would be until the morning he would sleep and be there until the morning. Then he would go right back out in the street. He couldn't stand to be in the house. He'd go right back out in the streets." She said, so I thought she said, "Maybe this man can help my husband. She said, so I told my husband, she called him honey. She said, "Honey, there's a man that's teaching something and it's very different. So, he's saying that we once were great people and that we shouldn't be Christians, we are Muslims, Muslims is what we were before we were brought to America as slaves."
So, my father was interested right away she said, and he agreed to go with her to this meeting and he went with her to this meeting and she said, do you know that after my father heard this man teach us, she said, teach us. She didn't say preach. She said, after my father heard this man teach us when you were leaving the house where he spoke, he said, "Clara", that's my mother's name, yeah, of course. He said, "Clara, when you go back, you have to take all the pork out of the icebox." Some of you might know what icebox is, the cooler you put ice in. Well, we had big icebox. You put ice in the big refrigerator and it was the icebox.
She said, I thought about that. She said, I obeyed my husband. I went there. I took all the pork out of the icebox. She said, but I never told anybody this son. She said, I didn't throw that pork away. She said, I had a friend who had a lot of children, like I had so I gave the pork to my friend, but my father thought she threw it away. He told her to throw it away, throw the pork out. So Fard told them Muslims don't eat pork. So, he wanted to obey from the very first time he heard this man, he wanted to be obedient. She said, and this is very important. She said, "Do you know your father never took another drink after that first meeting?" That was the power. That man had some kind of power over my father.
My father never took another drink after that. So, he credits this man with the big change in his life. He gives the man all the credit for the change in his life. And the man made him a powerful leader. He became a very powerful and important leader in African-American life and history. The Chicago magazine, a magazine on Chicago listed my father, The Honorable Elijah Muhammad among 100 most influential Chicagoans. Recently, about three weeks ago, the Sun-Times listed him among, Sun-Times is not number one, like it's equal, next to Chicago Tribune, the two biggest papers in Chicago, Tribune, Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times. The Sun-Times listed my father among 100. African 100 Chicagoans who influenced the history of Chicago more than any other person. And they have that number open. They've invited people to write in, to send in the name of persons they would like to because they published 100, but it's still open.
They may publish more. And someone said to me in my community, said, "We gonna send in your name." I said, for what?" I said, I'm already represented by my father. Don't send my name in, but I understand the way they feel. My father represented one side, I represent a completely different side. He represented the need, an African-American to make improvement on their physical life and improve their education. Social reform is what he represented more than anything else. Although he needed religion to attract them. G-d is a powerful attraction. If you say G-d gave you the message, then somebody's going to listen to you. And that's what Fard knew. That's what his teacher knew and that's what my father knew and understood. But really the interest wasn't to teach us Islam. The interest was to, just as my father said, to clean us up and to give us a better mind so that we'd be interested in making improvements upon our own condition to improve our own condition in society, in the home and in the public.
That was the main interest and that's what was very much needed at that time. Yes. So anyway, I am getting at something here and what I'm getting at is that we had that big question mark in our minds. We weren't comfortable with our identity. We were called Negroes. And most of my life I thought Negro meant something else. I didn't know Negro meant black. And then until a Mexican was using the expression negro and it meant black, I understood some Spanish. I said, it just registered on me that Negro means black. And right now it becomes really an issue if someone calls us Negroes now, we are offended. Negroes. We are not Negroes, but black in Spanish or black in English. What's the difference? It's all the same. Black is black. We are called black. So, Negroes means black in Spanish and black in English. It's the same.
The only thing that's really offensive is nigger, because nigger was a derogatory term. It was something that says that you are less than the white man, that you are not fit for society like the white man is. So, none of us like to be called a nigger, but I don't think we should equate Negro to nigger. They're different. The two are different. Negro simply means back. Not that I'm suggesting we should call ourselves Negroes either because I speak English, not Spanish. But I think people should identify with their homeland. And this teacher, this mysterious, I'm gonna call him mysterious, not a mystic. A mystic is different. I don't believe Fard was a Muslim mystic or mystic in Islam. I believe he was mysterious but not a mystic. He was a mysterious person simply because he was taking his role from Islam and also from Christianity
In Islam there's a promise in the sayings of Prophet Muhammad, there's a kind of a promise. We won't say Messiah, but the Ahmadiyyas do say Messiah. They call him Messiah. We say Mahdi. Mahdi means someone who's coming to guide and G-d has gifted this person with special gifts to equip him with what he needs to guide Muslims back to the right way called Mahdi, M-a-h-d-i, Mahdi. So Fard was trying to come in the role of the Mahdi from the Islamic side, and he was trying to come in the role of Messiah from the Christian side. So he told my father that he was the promised Mahdi and the promised Messiah, he told him both that I'm the promised Mahdi and I'm the promised Messiah.
And he told The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, that you people, you are suffering a great loss. The loss of your connection with your past, your past history, your pathway of life, which was Islamic. He says, so what you have lost is Islam and you must get it back again. This is what he told my father. But what he gave of Islam was not really Islam. He told my father to study the Bible. He said, see, "You'll find yourself in the Bible. You are a lost people. You'll find yourself in the Bible." So, my father studied the Bible like Black Hebrews, some of you know about Black Hebrews in America, like the Black Hebrews. And everywhere he saw lost people, he said, that's us and the lost people of the Bible are the Jews.
So, we were identifying with Jewish people and Jewish history. And we were saying that we are the lost people. And the preacher of our Temple, these places were not called Mosque in the beginning, they were called Temples. Fard told him not to call the places of worship churches, to call them Temples. Some churches are called Temples as we know. And some Jewish places of worship are called Temples. But Temple was the kind of common term for the three faiths. He said call them Temples. I don't have enough time to go into all of this, but this man was really, really, really mysterious. I know exactly why he picked Temple, but I'll get away from that. I won't deal with that. It has to do with time. He believed everything was time. He conditioned our mind, but our mind will be wound up like a clock, kind of a stopwatch and it would tick as he set it to tick for so long until conditions changed to not favor that state of mind. And then the watch would stop ticking and we would be at a standstill.
We would have to say, hey, where did we go from here? He planned that. Tempo time. That's what he had in mind-time. Yes. So anyway, he treated us as the people who were lost from our past and the people who had lost our best property, which is Islam. And he said that the property had to be restored to us and he invited us to think, to use our own minds, to think our way out of bad conditions. He said, all of you get busy. He called us students. He said, all of you students get busy and try to solve this problem. The problem is how do we get ourselves out of the state that we were in into the condition that would please our souls, please our expectations of ourselves as human beings equal to all human beings.
So, this is what he did for us. This is Black History Month. Carter G. Woodson, I believe gave us this month. And Fard also chose this month for the movement's annual celebration. He claimed that he was born on February 26th. I believe he picked the month because it was Black History Month. He claimed he was born on February 26th and The Honorable Elijah Muhammad started having an annual Savior's Day because we called that man the Savior. My father introduced him to us as the Savior and also as G-d in the flesh. So, you see the Messiah in Christianity, he would call G-d in the flesh. And every year we would have Savior's Day, February 26th, and we would come from all over the United States, wherever his followers were, they would come to Chicago to what was called headquarters there. And we would have big celebration. We would celebrate the gifts of the Savior to us and our freedom from mental slavery in America.
The Nation of Islam under Minister Farrakhan still observe Savior's Day. They'll be observing Savior's Day pretty soon, 26th February of this month. But there are changes being made there too, because this man Fard, he put the hints and he put the seeds for the growth of true Islam in our minds and hearts. He put them in his collection of ideas from different myths, from Jainism, from the Jain religion, J-A-I-N I believe, Jain religion and from other religions in India, where he came from, I'm sure.
And also some myths that he created himself. He took from the Bible stories of Jacob wrestling with his brother Esau and stealing his birthrights and then stealing also his inheritance. So, he took that and he made the myth of the beginning of the white race. And he said that he didn't use Jacob because he knew we could go to Jacob. Jacobs was easy to find. He used an Arabic turner for Jacob. And we didn't know Arabic. He called him Yakub. He said it was the great scientist Yakub, his myth, and this great scientist Yakub severed the genes of the black people and discovered that white people could be grafted from black people. They grafted out of black people a white race. Before he did this, there was no white race existing. And it took him 300 years to produce a white person.
He ordered his people to follow his plan, to follow his formula, his plan for creating a new race. And they followed for 600 years. And after 600 years, they had white people. White people were created in what's the area called Patmos in the Aegean sea Greece over there where Greece is where he said they created a new race. And this race started to be the enemy of the black race. And this race used the science of their Creator, Yakub, to conquer the mind of the black race. And they eventually conquered the mind of the black race. And that's how we became inferior to whites and slaves in America. I'm giving it to you real quick, it's much longer than that. So, he said that Yakub was a black man now created the white race by grafting the white race out of black people. And that bothered my mind. I said, well, let's, that's fascinating, but how can he blame the white people if a black man created them to do this to us?
So, he really gave us language that once we became better educated or started to use our minds, we would undo his language. And when we undo it, we would at least be free of the past because we reject the past. The psychology is to have us reject the past. We'd be free of the past and maybe free of him too. And that's exactly what happened. When I first woke up to what was going on, I rejected him too. I said, this man, if I could find him, I said, I'd kill him, Fard. I said, if I could find him alive, I'd kill him for doing this to us. But as I studied his teachings more, I saw that it was really a clever scene to bring us from being dependent upon the thinking in the world, to trust our own thinking and find our way in the past to humanity by ourselves. And it worked. It really worked. So much for that.
Let me quickly in closing say that the Islam that we had accepted, because we didn't have Islam, we only had a bait. A bait, something saying Islam. It was only a bait. It was what Dr. Lincoln, you know Dr. Lincoln, he's in this area, the Christian theologian, Dr. Lincoln. here Eric Lincoln. He said that what he see as Islam and all like the Muhammad teaching is not really Islam, but he called it Proto Islam. And I haven't asked Dr. Lincoln what that meant, but for me it meant the protoplasm of Islam, not quite an organism yet.
And he also refers to the strong interest we have in Islam now as black people as a genetic memory. He said, we must have some kind of genetic memory in our genes that is awakened when we get a call to Islam. The past becomes active again inside of as a genetic memory and that's what is causing us to be attracted to Islam. I think it's much more than that. What we were deprived of more than anything else by slavery and discrimination of social rejection in this country is social esteem. The need in human beings to feel comfortable in a group with others and the use of our minds. The most precious creation for human beings according to the teachings of our Prophet Muhammad, the Prophet of Arabia is what he called the Aqil of the human being, the Aqil of the Insan or the human brain.
The heart is important for us becoming alive in our minds in a decent way. The heart is first, but the heart cannot take us to where we want to go. The heart cannot take us to where G-d wants us to go by itself. It's the brain that has to lead. The brain has to lead. The heart and the brain works together. But the brain is the one that's solving the problems in the world. The brain has given us this building. The brain has given us the streets and the structures that we need for the good life we are living and the good things that we enjoy. The brain has given all of us, all that. The heart has made out a requisition. "Give me a better condition." But it is the brain that found a way to do it. And Muhammad says, "The brain is the most precious thing that G-d has created."
I believe that was the greatest loss in us. So, anything that asks us to use our brain, we tend to respond to it more than something that just ask us to use our emotions. I'm talking about the dissatisfied blacks. I'm not talking about the blacks that were with Dubois, W.E.B. Dubois. Not even the blacks that were with Booker T. Washington. I'm talking about the blacks that didn't think there was any hope in America for them. Those are the blacks that Mr. Fard attracted. He found an ear among them.
And The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was successful in establishing them, in leading them to independence and I have been blessed by G-d to lead them back to Islam that I believe is our inheritance. Not all of us. Some of us came from Christians, some of us came from the different tribal religious of Africa. But a good number of us came from Islam. It is our inheritance and I have been successful in bringing us back to Islam and uniting us again with humanity. So, we can all work on this Earth together for a better future for all of us and our children. Peace be upon you, Assalamu Alaikum.
Speaker 1:
And so, I'm happy to say that Imam Mohammed will take your questions at this time for a few more minutes. So, I think if you have a question, let's see. No, that's okay. If you could just come up and state your question in the microphone and that way everybody can hear it.
Brad Matthews:
Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1:
Don't be shy.
Brad Matthews:
Hi, My name is Brad Matthews. I'm a sophomore from Boise, Idaho. And I was wondering if you could just speak a little bit more about your break from the Nation of Islam and sort of the specific events that led you to where you are now personally and spiritually.
IWDM:
Thank you. Yes. I remember my parents going to the Temple one night. This was the only time they did this, I don't know why they did it. It was a Wednesday night. They went to the Temple and I was about nine years old and they left me at home by myself and I didn't mind it until they were gone. And I started hearing noises in the house. Then I was very afraid. And I remember praying and we were taught to pray like this. We were taught to hold our hands like this to pray. We weren't taught the Salat, the formal prayer of Muslims. We were taught to make our prayer like this. So, I held my hands like this and I started just praying and I didn't feel comfortable. I was seeing Mr. Fard the one who we told that he was G-d.
So, I'm seeing him and I said, Allah, if I'm not seeing you correctly, please help me see you correctly. Young man, that was the beginning of my having difficulty with the religion that was given to me and supposed to have been Islam about white black supremacy, that was the superiority of black people over white and the great G-d, the black man as G-d. So, I had difficulty with it even as a young child. I never told my parents about that difficulty. I just kept it to myself. As I got older, something happened to me I think that is responsible for me being where I am today. Mr. Fard told my father and mother that they would have a boy and he was right. It was a good guess. And he told that them that was guessing. He told my father. And my father told the family "The great G-d, he says we're going to have a son."
If they miss and it's a girl is not a boy, they say, whoops, we missed that time. But he was full of jokes too. He told my father that. So anyway, his guess was right. It was a boy. We have cards now from him, post cards, that he sent to my mother and my mother left Detroit and came to Chicago as she was ordered to do. We moved from Detroit to Chicago when I was 11 months old. And we have cards that was sent before while she was still carrying me, said, "Remember what you promised that you'll give this boy to us and that he will help us in this work." When I was born, he sent a card, we got the card. He said, "Take good care of this boy. Take very good care of him. He's going to help your husband and myself in this great work."
So, my sisters and brothers, they said, "Wallace, we know who you are, you are WD", and he also used the D. I asked what's the D in my name stands for? She said, "I don't know." Her Savior was called also WD Fard. It's in the Encyclopedia too. So that helped keep my mind on more important things too, that I'm wearing this D that the Savior had in his name. So, they would remind me, you are WD. Some of the old members in the organization they would see me as a boy running around with other boys. They'd say, "Hey, you are WD." It made me conscious that I'm WD. It was too much for me. It was not set in my mind what it all about. But as I got older and started to study, then I started to research. It helped me. It was a factor for making me, bringing me to study Mr. Fard and all that he did and bringing me to where I'm today.
I have support from the senior members in the following of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, strong support because they know what my father said of me. In fact, we have Brother Muhammad sitting right over here, still looking young with white hair, but he still looks very young. He's one of them. And as I look closely, I'll find others maybe in this audience right here, who knows of that time and knows of my father pointing to me. And what bothered me the most I think, is that I do believe that this importance that was placed on me, freed me to think more and free us than other members in the association of the Nation of Islam.
Anyway, what bothered me the most was the idea of G-d. I never was comfortable with the idea of G-d and I wasn't comfortable with the language of the Nation of Islam that seemed to me to be praising us on the one side, but actually ridiculing us and making a joke out of us on the other side. So, I wasn't comfortable with that. I think that's what caused my break. I grew up wanting to be a decent person and my parents conditioned me to be that, to think that way and to want to be a decent person.
I wanted to be correct. I wanted to be righteous. I wanted to be truthful because they told me that's what Islam is. That's what Muslim is. Muslim is an honest person. Muslim is a truthful person. Muslim is a righteous person. So, I wanted to be a good Muslim in the context of that language. I wanted to be a good Muslim, responding to the invitation of the Nation of Islam in that language that you a righteous person, you are a truthful person, et cetera. So that's what made me uncomfortable with things that didn't respect my good nature, the good aim, the aim in my nature for righteousness, the aim in my nature for human excellence. If it didn't respect that I wasn't comfortable with it. So, when I learned from the Qur'an, the idea of G-d, then I preferred that as opposed to what I was taught in the Nation of Islam.
When I learned from the Qur'an, the concept of humanity, I loved that and I accepted it. I didn't like what I learned from the Nation of Islam. When I learned from the Qur'an, from the Holy Book of Muslims, the concept of this world as one united whole, a system of systems, but agreeing with itself and supporting itself and supporting all other systems, my system as a human being. When I learned of that, it has freed my mind and I embraced it to all people. Eventually, I came to embrace America. I see America as really the inheritance of much of our religion.
Now, you might not understand why I'm saying that, but I think the modern West America and the modern West is the inheritor of much of our religion. Islam started out as a religion addressing the needs of the heart and the brain and as a result of that religion appealing to the heart and the brain, we had a revival of the sciences, which you know it was the followers of Muhammad that sparked the life in the world to attract the intellect of man, to do research and study the creation, study matter, study his own life. And as a result, we have the Renaissance, the rebirth of interests in the sciences and interest in higher learning throughout the world. Thank you very much and I talked too much and too long.
Speaker 1:
Now I know that Imam Mohamed wants to go away with the memory of the excellent questions that are being asked here at Carolina and so would you Taylor?
Rona:
My name is Rona and I'm very interested in your greeting on coming and going. If you could tell me what it means and...
IWDM:
The greeting?
Rona:
Yeah, your greeting that you say--
IWDM:
As salamu Alaikum.
Rona:
Yeah, if you can tell me what it means and kind of its origin.
IWDM:
Yes. If you don't mind, you might want to ask another question, just a minute. Yes, the greeting Assalamu Alaikum.
It means, "Peace be unto you." And I believe Prophet Muhammad, when he began to preach the religion, a lot G-d revealed to him, but much Muhammad had to find on his own, with his own mind. And he knew that the people of the book had been approved, so the Jews were greeting each other, "Shalom Alaykum"
Speaker 2:
That's what I wanted to ask.
IWDM:
So, he adopted the same. In fact, he even directed his followers to turn to Jerusalem as a qibla, as a direction for prayer. And then later he had discomfort with that. The Ka'aba was very important to the Arabs, so he wanted, in his heart, he wanted that. So, he was praying one day and having difficulty, and the revelation came to him and said, G-d says, "We see you having difficulty and now we shall turn you towards a direction, a Qibla that will please you. Turn yourself to the house in Mecca." And that changed, and since that day we've been facing that house. But you see, the Jewish religion and the Christian religion have had some influence on the history. The Jewish history and the Christian history is also part of our history and part of our life. We say "As Salaam Alaykum". But let me tell you something else about this, that's why you're still here. Let me tell you something else about this-
Speaker 2:
You want me to get nervous?
IWDM:
Muhammad... No, please. I'm nervous. Muhammad didn't have a police force. No police force. The people were the police. And I do believe...Now the learned in Islam, I wish they would think about this because I think they missed this. I do believe the greeting was to obligate everyone to uphold the peace. It's not just, "Peace to you", it's, "Peace be on you". And, "On you", the word, "Ana" in Arabic, means you're responsible for it, so that you are responsible for the peace. That's exactly what it's saying. "The Peace is on you." You have to carry the burden of keeping the peace.
Speaker 2:
So, it's like, "Come and go in peace"?
IWDM:
Yes, coming and going. It's the same reading. Yes. But many Muslims, they say, 'Ma Salaam", "Go in peace" too. These expressions are okay. And they even say, , "Laytul Khair" "Good night", and "Sabaia Khair , "Good morning". So, all those greetings are good, but the best is, "Asalaam Alikum, "Keep the peace."
Speaker 2:
Thanks.
IWDM:
You're welcome. Thank you for the question. I know we've got some burning questions here.
Speaker 3:
Hello. Upon hearing about what people told you your role was as a child in the nation, I want to know personally how you felt about children's roles today in your following.
IWDM:
In our following?
Speaker 3:
Yes.
IWDM:
We want the children to be aware that we are going to die. We are not going to be here. So, we want every child in our community to know that the leaders they're looking at, the people who have the responsibilities now, they all going to be dead one day and it is not going to be too long. So, they should be thinking about that. The future belongs to the children. That's our message. And that's a fact.
Speaker 4:
I'm a bit unclear about the role that Mr. Fard played in your belief as opposed to your father's.
IWDM:
Yes.
Speaker 4:
You've told us that your father believed that he was a Prophet, the embodiment of G-d-
IWDM:
Yes.
Speaker 4:
How do you feel about that?
IWDM:
He believed he was G-d in the flesh.
Speaker 4:
Is that what you believe as well?
IWDM:
Yes, that's what he believed. No.
Speaker 4:
Okay.
IWDM:
No, I believe the way Muslims believe all over the world.
Speaker 4:
Okay.
IWDM:
Yes. There are many ways that this teacher Fard, this mysterious teacher Fard, influenced an interest in us that would finally bring many of us to real Islam. One thing he did, he hinted everything. And I don't know if you're familiar with this. This is a religious class too, is it? Yes, in the Bible is Zachariah, but in the Holy Qur'an there's also a Prophet Zachariah, On him be Peace. And in our Holy Book, Zachariah was given charge of Mary. He was the one to take care of the mother of Christ Jesus, Peace be upon him and his mother. And he was told in the Qur'an, he was told to just look after her. And so, whenever he would come to see how she was doing, she needed nothing. She was already taken care of. So, he was put in a position to care for her. He was charged with her care, but every time he came to check on her, she was already cared for.
IWDM:
And the story in both Books that he was to have a son and he was told not to speak for three days, and if he had something to say, to say it by some kind of sign. Not to speak, but to say it by some kind of sign. This man, Fard, left my father this story about Zachariah. And what he understood, and I understood, Fard to be saying is that the important things that I'm telling you, I'm not telling you with my mouth, I'm telling you with hints and signs. I'm fasting, I can't talk. So, he left a picture of himself, only picture he left for us to make public, was a picture of himself holding the Bible of the Muslims, the Qur'an, in his hands like this and looking down on it very piously. Like he's reading it as a pious worshipper.
And he said while he told my father that, "That the Black man is G-d, and I'm the G-d in the flesh, the Promised Messiah, Mahdi" he told him all that. But he also said, "When you talk to me, just call me, "Brother." He refused to have them call him, "G-d" or call him even a Prophet. My mother said he wouldn't let us even call him, "Prophet". He said, "Just call me, "Brother." And he said, "Islam is your religion, it's your natural inheritance." And he said, "The Muslims are your brothers and any Muslim country that you go in, you'll find that they will accept you as a citizen." The Muslim world is one community and every Muslim is a citizen of all Muslim lands. Now, that's not quite true, but that's what he told us.
He also told us the streets of Mecca was paved with gold. And when I went there in 1967, I found it knotted with rock. It was very hard to walk on. Especially with shoes on. And even with sandals. You'll wear out a few pairs of sandals in about an hour when I went there. Oil money has changed all that. It's very nice now over there. It's very comfortable, very beautiful over there now. But that wasn't the case. And I think he wanted us to have that shock to say, "Hey, that man lied to us." So, he wanted to hold us for as long as we needed him, and when we didn't need him, he wanted us to throw him away.
Speaker 5:
You spoke of the origins of the Nation of Islam being a politicized mission in that Fard and your father used religion as a mechanism to address social issues like economic and educational status.
IWDM:
Exactly, yes.
Speaker 5:
I assume that in contrast, that your focuses are more spiritual and religion in order to get to the essence of Islam. But what I want to ask you is that if you see your movement having a place in the politics of the black community today? And if so, can you speak to what that role is?
IWDM:
Yes. In our religion, and I believe it's true of your religion too, whether it's Christianity or some other great religion that you have. In religion, the real life is a spiritual life. The real life is a spiritual life. We know that this biological body of ours is very important. It's a human body. It's designed to house our human spirit. But the more important life is the spiritual life. And by spiritual, I don't mean just emotional life, it's much more than that. Spiritual life and religion is much more than emotional life. I mean the true life, the abstract person, the invisible person, that's the real person. Not the physical picture, but the abstract person is the real person. My intelligence, my spirit, my soul. That's me. That's my real life. All that's my real life.
So, once we have that established, then we have to look around and see if we have a physical container outside of us, beyond the limits, beyond this immediate area that my body occupies. Do I also have a good accommodation for this body and for my spirit? It's a must that we not neglect our needs in the world. Islam says, this is from the word of G-d, "Seek with the means that G-d has given you, the afterlife, but don't forget your share in this material world." So, this is a must. This is a balanced religion. So, as we are now comfortable with our spirits, we want the spirits to not be a ghost in the world. To not be a ghost in the world, we have to house this spirit and we have to have good schools, we have to have businesses, we have to have social centers, we have to have all of these things. So, we are back where The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was. We are back in the community wanting to build material structures.
Speaker 6:
I just have two quick questions. The first, the teachings of Elijah Muhammad and the Nation in Islam, and the current status of the Nation in Islam today, are the teachings still the same? And second, can you just briefly describe your relationship with Malcolm X? You're probably the closest I've ever been to Malcolm X. If you had a relationship with Malcolm X.
IWDM:
That hand has been in Malcolm X hands many, many times. Yes, we are not completely dissatisfied with the direction that the Nation of Islam has taken, because we believe that as we change that many of them will change. And that's happening. The Nation of Islam had, what I call, a transit following or transit membership. Only a few stuck and stayed. And I've seen hundreds come in over a period of about one year, hundreds of new people brought into the Temple, local Temple, the local place in Chicago, and I've seen hundreds go out. Come in and go out. And Fard didn't mind that. What he was doing was putting seeds in the minds of black people and he knew that was going to have an effect on their life, that it was going to influence their thinking and the way they would live in the future. Fard has also had a lot to do, through my father, he has had a lot to do with the change in the black community from what we were before, to the sense of identity and awareness of ourselves that we have today.
James Brown told me, the singer, the Father of Soul, James Brown. He told me... I was praising him for his song, "Black and Proud". I said, "That's good." I said, "We need that." I said, "We need to be told that, that we should be proud of black." You could actually get beat to death almost, back in the forties and fifties, if you called somebody, "Black". That was fighting. That meant you're ready to fight. You call someone black , and you ready to fight. "Oh, you black so and so", you ready to fight then, you see? So, James Brown, I was giving him credit for helping our people see that black is something that they should be proud of, not something that they should be ashamed of. So, he told me, he said, "Minister", he called me, "Minister" because I was a Minister for my father at that time. He said, "Minister, it was your father who made me change."
And the Reverend Jesse Jackson told me, not of himself, but he said, "Wallace..." We speak to each other like that, we're friends. He said, "Wallace, many of us see your father as our father and it is because of that man Fard." So, I really believe that Fard didn't mind us losing followers. All he wants to do is for you to experience the new language. He had new language, and the new language would be a germ in your mind to bring about change. Some would be lost, some would be hurt, some would never come back to the right path. Or come back to their good senses. But the great majority, he felt, would. And it worked. And believe me, we've lost many people to the mental hospital. So don't think about this too much. Don't think about our teachings too much back in the Nation of Islam. Please. It will send you to the nuthouse.
Speaker 6:
And your relationship with Malcolm?
IWDM:
Malcolm, yes, Malcolm. Well, my relationship with Malcolm was that of a Minister of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad. We all were Ministers of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad. And we became friends. People who are energetic and excited about doing something, they find each other. And they find each other and they become friends, they're bonded. Farrakhan was a close friend of mine. A few others were close friends. It was mostly those who were excited about the future and wanted to do something to make the Nation of Islam realize its goal or its objective.
I liked him as a person. He was a warm person. He was always trying to encourage you to do more for yourself and more for the Nation of Islam. He would ask, he would come up to a youngster. He would ask, "How are you? Where do you live?" He said, "What are you doing? You going to school?" "Yeah." "Well, what are you doing to help the Nation of Islam? What are you doing?" So he was that kind of a person. And when he met white people that we called, "Devils", he would have that same warmth. I've seen him sit with white people in discussions on television and he was just a warm person. He was a likable person. Malcolm was a very likable person.
And if I had an influence on him, it was to make him more comfortable with his own curiosity that questioned some of the things that the Nation of Islam was teaching. I think that's what I did. I made him feel more comfortable to question certain things that he wasn't comfortable with in the teachings of the Nation of Islam. And he took this to my father and he told me, he said, "Wallace, do you know what your father told me? I like that you're with my son." He said, "And that told me that I could stay with you and I could continue to ask you questions and get help from you." So, he felt that I was a little uncomfortable. He was asking me something at that time and he felt me a little uncomfortable to answer him, So, he was telling me that, "Your father has approved this." So, I answered his questions. And he was saying, "Everybody's teaching Yakubs History. He said, "I don't know Yakubs History and I can't even understand that." He said, "I can understand a need for a black Moses in America, for the Black man. I can understand that. But I can't understand this Yakubs History. I can't understand that." I said, "Well, if you don't understand it, why don't you just leave it alone? Forget about it." And he was comfortable with that.
Speaker 7:
As I understand it, the new path of Islam embraces multiculturalism?
IWDM:
Yes.
Speaker 7:
And as such, views all races as equal?
IWDM:
Yes.
Speaker 7:
I was just wondering if you could give me a spiritual interpretation of how you view equality of the sexes.
IWDM:
Oh, yes. Thank you. Very good question, thank you. Yes. I think what the perception, or the concept, of male and female in the Qur'an is... What the whole Qur'an is, it's... Pardon me. It's a discussion of the concept that came in Revelation before. So, it's not completely different. It's not different. It's more, I would say, in agreement than in disagreement with the idea of male and female in the Bible. G-d says, in the Holy Qur'an, that you were created from one Nafs, one Nafs. And one Nafs in Arabic means, "One person". One Nafs in Arabic also means, "One soul". Nafs means "Soul".
So, we understand it to be saying, "Soul", that you are created from one soul. That means the female soul and the male soul is the same. And therefore, the two creations are one. We have different roles in the history of man. Female role and the male role in the history of man. Mother, and the obligation to take care of the babies and the children, that keeps the mother to the home life, and frees the man. As one teacher said recently in a meeting we had in the, he said, "G-d gave the woman a heavy burden, and gave the man a light burden." He said, "How easy it is to carry this bird, and how hard it is to carry a child." So, we are different, but at the same time we are the same. Where it's most important, we are the same. "Nafsin Wahida", we are the same.
And that means also the intellect. And Muhammad really followed that in his practice as well as in his teaching. He told his men, "If any of you would have two of your daughters educated, you will get Paradise." So, he knew the woman should have her mind free to have education and to grow in society. He was conditioned even before called by G-d to be this kind of man, because his wife was a businesswoman. In Arabia, a woman could have wealth. So, his wife was a businesswoman and employed him. He was employed by his wife. He came to Damascus, the country I just visited. He went to Damascus for trade and doing trade for his wife. So, he was already in a position to respect women because he was not only the son of a woman, but he was also the employee of a woman who was his employer. So, he had great respect for the worth of women in public, and he encouraged them to have a voice in public matters, and he encouraged them to get education with men. And if you get education with men and you are able to have a voice in the public, eventually you're going to be free. And that's what America gives us.
Speaker 6:
Do the professors have any questions?
Speaker 8:
We've been talking a lot in class recently. In our class, African-American religion, we're still back in the 19th century, and they're talking a lot about the ways that whites, one way of controlling slaves was to prevent their gathering in religious gatherings. There was a lot of suspicion and concern about what would go on in religious gatherings. And I think in this country historically, there has been, from the white community, suspicion about allowing for black communities to gather and concern about what that would mean. And as we all know, Islam in this country these days is often vilified and seen with fright by white America and Christian America. I wonder if you could talk some about what it's like as a black Muslim community to have this history of discrimination based on race, and on top of that, a discrimination based on religious faith. And it seems like your idea is to be a model of ways to overcome that and bridge some of those gaps. But I wonder if you could talk to me about what that experience has been like and seeing the double bind of both race and religious bigotry at some level.
IWDM:
G-d made us one, and G-d also made us many. Different. Made us the same, and G-d also made us different. There's a need in us to have our own distinction while being in one family with humanity. So, I don't have any problem. I don't experience any discomfort myself. Not now. But back in the days when this country was ugly, two laws, one favoring white and one keeping blacks from getting into the favored situation, certainly I had problems. But now I don't have any problems. And as far as me being in a group, it's nature. Man is gregarious. I think that's the word, isn't it? Gregarious? Loves to group. He has to group. It's his nature to be in groups. Well, we are. We are, by nature, gregarious. We have to be in groups. Family is a group. That's the first group. The first group is your family.
And people who share the most in common, they tend to group. We tend to group. So, Muslims group because this is our religion. And Christians group, but that doesn't matter. And we have other bonds too. We have friendship bonds. I have Christian friends. I have some Christian associates that are very educated in Christianity. I like them the most. I don't like a dumb Christian. They behave so badly. And to tell you the truth, I don't feel that I'm with a Christian when I'm with them. We sit down, we have discussions, we enjoy our conversation. I feel I'm with a believer in G-d. The name, "Christian" and "Muslim" just goes away.
So, I don't suffer any discomfort. I'm happy and free and comfortable with my identity as a black man, I'm happy and free and comfortable with my identity as a Muslim, and I'm happy and free with my identity as a human being, a member of humanity. That's different than just saying, "Human being". And I'm very happy and comfortable with my citizenship in this great country. I don't have any problems. I'm a free man.
Yes.
Speaker 6:
Often we see where others attempt to play down or negate the contributions of black people in history. Could you speak to that?
IWDM:
Yes, we have American history, American history, we call it black history, but really I prefer to say, "American history". American history is also our history because we are a big part of American history, and we shouldn't leave it up to public education or public schools. All communities need leadership to preserve their path. The Jews have it, Muslims in foreign lands have it, and others across the waters have it. We all should have that. In America, as blacks, Christians, and Muslims, we should accept responsibility to preserve our history. Families should feel obligated to have their children know the past. And I think the best advice, or the best help, we can give is the help that is given in these words, "If you forget the past, you tend to repeat it." And I sure don't want to repeat that plantation page in our history. I don't want to go back there. And we are told by the thinkers, "People who forget their past tend to repeat it." And I think many of us are repeating it in the streets. We're destroying ourselves.
Speaker 6:
And the last question.
Speaker 9:
I get the last question.
IWDM:
Now, you're the boss.
Speaker 9:
I've heard lots in the press about Minister Farrakhan, and I know that he has a substantial following. I know yours is enormously larger, so how come people that I talk to don't know that you and your organization exist?
IWDM:
Yeah, that's an easy question to answer. He appeals to the cameras, I don't. He is big attraction for the TV cameras, I'm not. And he knows how to get that attention and I can't do that. I can't just say anything out of my mouth that'll just get in the news, I won't do that. So anytime that he can't get in the news, he knows how to get in there. He'll make a terrible statement and the TV loves that. They got him right there, and he's in the news. And then he is charismatic. He has what's called, "Stage presence". Yes. So, he's glamorous, he's kind of dramatic, he's glamorous, he's articulate, he's emotional, he's a big ball of energy. So naturally people will see that. They don't see the things walking quietly, they see what's making a lot of noise. So, I think that accounts for his popularity. But if you ever talk to him, ask him how popular I am. He'll tell you.
Speaker 6:
Thank you very much Imam Mohammed. I think that that gives us a real justification for being here today. This is a story that hasn't been told in the press and I think it's the job of the University to try to reach out and give a more complete account of something very important as what we've heard today. I'd just like to make one brief announcement that Hanan Ashrawi, who is a well-known member of the Palestinian National Congress, she will be speaking Wednesday afternoon at four o'clock at Duke University in the Griffith Theater in the Brian Center. That's four o'clock, the Griffith Theater in the Brian Center. Hanan Ashrawi is a very articulate spokesperson for the Palestinian position. So once again, thank you, Imam WD Mohammed.


