10/29/1997
IWDM Study Library
Coalition for Good Government

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
00:00 Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Allahu akbar. Thank you. As-salamu alaykum. We praise G-d. Al-?amdu l-ill?hi rabbi l-??lam?n. And we witness that Muhammad to whom the Qur'an was revealed is the last prophet. The Seal of the Prophets mentioned in the Torah and in the gospel. ?all? All?hu ?alayhi wa-Sallam way ba'ad. The peace, prayers and the peace be upon him and what follows of that traditional recognition of the great prophet Muhammad. I hope what... I came here with a Khutbah and I feel a little awkward among politicians.
[laughter]
00:56 S1: We have some great political figures here with us today from the East Coast. We have councilman Bilal, and here we have our councilman, brother Majeed, Nasif Majeed and there are others among us... With us here too, also here today. And I feel that these men are firstly committed to Islam and to excellence in their life and in the life of their work and service. They serve to have excellence for themselves and for those whom they serve. I think we should never think any of them would put the political interest over the religious interest. So I hope I clean that up, I tried to.
[laughter]
02:07 S1: I have a little son. His name is Muhammad. I named him Muhammad. My wife, she named him a name that I couldn't relate to at all. I even read up on the gentleman and still couldn't understand why she named my son Macmillan. Harold Macmillan of Europe. So, he didn't seem to like the name too well either as he got older. And the nurse when she asked me... She asked me and she said, "What is his name?" Now, this is in the nursery. He was just born there, we're in the hospital. She goes, "What is his name?" I said, "His mother gave him," She said, "Macmillan? Is that his name? Macmillan?" I said, "It's an odd name. I said that's the name she gave him." And then we came home with Macmillan. But, we called him Muhammad and he started correcting people. When he was about two years old he started that, "My name is Muhammad." He said, "My name is Muhammad."
03:13 S1: And I noticed he had my mother's habit of saying, "Thank you," a lot. My mother, she was a very appreciative person, always saying, "Thank you, thank you, thank you," to anybody that did the smallest thing for her. And, "Thank you, Allah." She was always saying that. "Thank you, my savior," she would say. "Thank you, my savior." So this little fellow here, he... This little fellow Muhammad, he has that habit. So I told him... I said, "I think your name should be Muhammad Shakir," and he said, "Shakir?" I said, "Yeah. Let me tell you what Shakir means." When I explained it to him, he said "Yes! I want my name to be Muhammad Shakir!"
03:57 S1: And then he met Officer Shakir in Washington. You know that Officer Shakir that works for brother Yusuf Salim? He met him and they made friends. And he learned that his name was Shakir also, so he was all excited. And I told him I'm gonna have it put officially on his birth... I'm going to have his birth certificate changed for him. I haven't got around to doing it yet but I'm going to do it very soon and he was all excited. And this is an attribute of G-d. G-d says he is the one who appreciates whatever good we do. He is Shakir, Al-Alim. Gracious, appreciative, and all-knowing. And I would like to say thank you, Councilman Majeed, and those who have worked with you to have me invited here to address this distinguished group of leaders, Imams, and public servants. G-d says, "Inna a'tainakal kauthar." "Surely, I have given you abundance." Abundance. And G-d says of Muhammad, "You were seen drooping and lacking, and G-d enriched you." And in another place, He says, "He expanded for you, your breast," your breast. So these references I've given you is to say that G-d wants us to have just what the Christians believe G-d wants them to have. And according to the Christians New Testament, they are told that their savior came so that they may have life and have it more abundantly. And G-d says, and surely you have been given abundance. Abundance. Kauthar.
[foreign language]
06:19 S1: "Therefore worship, be devoted to your Lord and work hard, strive. Put forth the best effort." And we just met a gentleman out there his name is Yusr. And it means, "Ease." And when I met him, he's the attendant for the hotel.
06:45 Speaker 2: Catering manager.
06:46 S1: The manager, okay.
06:49 S2: Catering manager.
06:50 S1: Catering manager, alright. So I commented, I told him, "I see you have a good name." He said, "Yes," he says inna ma yusri, yusra." I said, "Yes, that's what I'm striving for, Yusr." We're striving to have ease in our life, and we have gotten from... Can I give you this Khutbah I've prepared for you?
07:14 S2: Yes, sir. Please...
07:15 S1: I'm gonna try to do it in half the time that I expected to take. I'm gonna try to do it in 20 minutes. I thought it would take 40. I'm gonna do it quickly, real quickly for you. Because I didn't quite know how to fit into the theme. Yes, so I'm on it, I'm on my Khutbah, really right now. I'd like to also, let you be aware that, who are not aware, that I met the mayor of this city when I was invited here and brother Imam Abdul Malik was arranging my visit with the councilman Majeed and the local leaders here. And I was so impressed. This is a city, in my opinion, where there's nothing but green lights for Muslims. If you want to do something good, if you want to do something to make a worthwhile contribution to yourself, to your families, to your neighborhood that you're in and to the city or to the State, you have a green light in this area. In some places, we don't have that green light.
08:37 S1: We have yellow light. And in some places we have a red light, We can't move. So you should take advantage of these good situations, the good political situation, the people who have migrated to this great land of freedom, and I hope I don't sound patriotic in the ugly sense. "I'm patriotic, - dead serious. I'll pull out a gun and shoot a rebel." But not in that old sense, I'm not... I don't belong to that old idea of patriotism. I belong to a new idea, what is patriotic for American citizens. And it includes an interest in global peace and global justice. That everybody have it, not just us. Yeah. So I wanted to recognize the mayor, and I wish that you all would give warm greetings to him from myself. And I would like to say to you, I wish you peace and the mercy and the blessings of Allah and all that Allah has for His creatures from all His goodness. We say...[foreign language]
10:05 S1: All that He has is good for the human life, all of it, we wish you to get the benefit of it, that it be open to you. G-d wants us, believers in the faith, to have the best of all possible worlds. And you've heard the expression, the best of all possible worlds. Possible worlds for the righteous. Now, those worlds, I could elaborate on them and they would include much more than I have on this paper. So I'm not gonna go that far with it, I'm gonna go right to a few concepts of world. And before I do that, I want to also mention the importance of space. If you don't have that one room, that one room is called a room. "Oh, I have a one-room apartment." Some people have a half a room. They don't have a half a room but it's called room. So that tells us that somebody has kept this language that way because it's so important for a human being to have some room of his own. And G-d says, "The earth belongs to G-d." The earth, it belongs to G-d, Allah. That's what we're told in Qur'an. And G-d says in the, "Mosque, the earth is a mosque." The whole earth is a mosque. I don't think that's there for nothing. That's difficult for a common man, layperson in religion to understand. That this earth is a mosque? What do you mean by that? The mosque, we go there for Jumma prayer.
11:51 S1: We go there to hear a speech, a Khutbah, a lecture on religion, a sermon. That's what the other religious people would call it, a sermon. That's what we go there for. So how is this whole earth a mosque? That's given in the Qur'an to let us know that if you properly worship G-d, you have the whole world in your conscience. And you have the whole world as your living space, your room. The whole world is our room. And we should look at it that way, that Allah made this room for all of us. You have to share this one room with everybody on the planet 'cause G-d made them too. This is the sensitivities that if we come into these sensitivity, then we will have a new life. New sensitivities make possible a new life.
12:51 S1: Old sensitivities deny you new life if those sensitivities are not in agreement with the new circumstances or the new life. I mentioned once, in one of my talks that we need a climate for progress, climate for success, climate for progress. And most of my efforts that's what it's been to do. To bring about a climate for our growth. You can't have growth without the climate for it. The environment, the climate, the language, our climate is first decided by the language that we use, how we communicate with each other. And I when I say peace, am I saying what you're saying? When I say Islam, am I saying what you're saying? When I say, I love G-d, am I saying what you're saying, you see? So we could have the same terms, the same words, but be speaking different languages. But if our sensitivities can be made the same, then we would have the same language. Are you understanding what I'm saying?
13:57 S2: Yeah. Yeah.
14:00 S1: I hope so. Yes, so we want the best of all possible worlds. And by that, we want all of the life that Allah created us for and all of the worlds that He created for us. And He is Lord of all the worlds. First the cultural world. I'm speaking to people here that can help us make circumstances, help us create circumstances that will favor us having the life we want. That's the job of leaders. The job of leaders is not just to address circumstances, but to have a role in shaping the circumstances so that the future is better than the present. So cultural life, we are in this culture, we are in this cultural life. I'm getting mail all the time, Not too many weeks have past before, I'm receiving a letter from somebody, a piece of mail, and they're addressing culture, cultural life.
15:23 S1: They're saying, "Can I be... " One sister recently, she asked me, and she said, "I can sing. Can I be a singer and a Muslim." I was happy to hear her ask that question. That's the first time any of the sisters at all, a singer asked me that. Most of them think they can just sing, sing, sing, and it doesn’t matter... Doesn't have any bearings on their religion or anything I guess. But this sister asked that question, and it's very important. We should be thinking about getting help for these fine singers and performers we have, the artists. Whether it's drawing or singing, playing an instrument, or dancing, or decorating a home or a neighborhood, or whatever. We should start thinking about decorating the neighborhood. Somebody's thinking about it. Somebody's been thinking about it all along. That's why it's decorated the way it is.
[laughter]
16:35 S1: But we should start thinking about decorating the neighborhood, you know how we would like to see the neighborhood decorated. And even before we are at a position to really be responsible for that neighborhood, the neighborhood I'm in, I believe if I had some worthwhile ideas about influencing the cultural picture of my neighborhood, I believe I can take that to the city establishment and they would listen to it. That's how it happens. Somebody takes them some ideas, some plan. And what can work, what they think can work, they accept and pretty soon they implement and pretty soon we have that desire, that influence in our neighborhood. Neighborhoods are changing now because of the... presence of so many people from Asia and other places. So their culture is now beginning to influence our culture and what they call the one world market place that I mentioned in the address in Richmond, that the one world marketplace is here in America now, and the cultural picture for us as citizens of US is changing, already changed and it's going to change more and more. I'd like to see us making a contribution to this future picture of cultural life in America, especially where we live. There's a saying in Arabic, it says...[foreign language]
18:29 S1: And it's not they call an Arab proverb or an Arab saying, but we've heard it too. Teach a child, when he’s young, and it will stay with him. I think that's one expression. There's many expressions of this in America. In Arabic it means, "Giving of knowledge to the young," while they are young, "Giving knowledge while they are young is as engravement in stone," is like or as engravement in stone.
[pause]
19:12 S1: We should be looking at our children too and what's influencing them and we should be trying to ourselves making a good contribution to the knowledge that they will have in their lives while they're young that's gonna influence the shaping of their minds until they go to the grave. In Islam, we have our own mannerisms. Our own mannerisms. We shouldn't take our mannerisms from the madhhabs, from the schools of thought, that have been established before the discovery of America, before this land was discovered, before we had this kind of environment. Those great fathers of the four schools of thought, and even the one, the King of Saudi Arabia now, the Wahhabi School, which takes its design after another school. Those schools of thought cannot be imported to America and serve us. We can, as scholars, as students, we can benefit from studying those schools of thought, what they say about different things, different situations. And that help rebuild, progress is built upon progress. That's how progress in the life of civilization. It runs, it is built upon progress, our civilization claims a lot, but our civilization is really a continuation of other great civilizations and mostly Greek civilization. Especially when you're talking about how the society has been governed. And I'm sure you politicians understand what I'm talking about if you don't you better come to my school...
[laughter]
21:17 S1: 'Cause they ain't giving you that in your school.
[chuckle]
21:24 S1: Yeah. So we have something called mannerisms. So as leaders, we should be defining what is proper behavior and proper manners at home and in the public places, and in the workplace, you see. So it's a lot, there's a lot of work for us. We are in the same situation in America, that Moses and his followers was in, peace be upon the Prophets when he took them out of Egypt into the desert. We're in the same situation. They came from one life, and one life system that supported them and told them how to live and how to dress, and how to do everything, how to eat. To a situation where they had to rethink everything and design it so that it would be not in disagreement with what the Lord wanted for them, Jehovah, what they called Him, wanted for, they called him, wanted for them.
22:41 S1: We're in the same position, we acknowledge circumstance as Muslims in America, and if we are wise, insightful, conscious Muslims, then we are in the same position and we will know we are in the same position that they were in. We are in that position in America. So we can get help, we can take on another person's dress, and really, I think that dress is too small for us. We'd be bursting the seams. Yes, we can't take the... Adab, the mannerisms, the etiquettes of the Saudis the Bedouins, or the people who live in Jeddah. We can't take their culture and put it on us as a dress. And isn't that what the honorable Elijah Muhammad said was more important than anything else for him, he said, "I'm trying to put you on a new dress." Isn't that what he said?
23:44 S1: Yes. And the writer, Essien Essien-Udom, from Nigeria, an African student, who was over here studying for his Ph.D. He asked the honorable Elijah Muhammad could he study his community. The honorable Elijah Muhammad permitted him to do it, that meant that he could go and interview me, and he did, interview me and others, anyone he wanted to interview and the honorable Elijah Muhammad gave him that. He interviewed the honorable Elijah Mohammed, he had a lot of followers. And he came to the conclusion in his book that what the honorable Elijah Muhammad was doing was not so much religious or political, that it was cultural. That he was trying to give... Build upon the cultural life of African-Americans, so that we'll have a stronger sense of identity. And he was correct. He was correct. And that still is a great need for us... Language with no body is a ghost life, isn't it? You got language, but where is your body? You're a ghost.
[laughter]
24:44 S1: Who's gonna see you? But another ghost.
[laughter]
24:56 S1: So G-d wanted us to clothed the garden. Okay? He put the man in the garden and then he told him what? He said to, "Clothe the garden.". And we turned toward the little temple house in the desert. And we see it's wearing a dress. And the nations of Islam volunteer to keep that dress in good repair, the cloth, the skirt that hangs around the Kaaba. It’s a sign, that the life is naked when it comes here out of the womb of our mothers, and it has to be given a cultural dress, and the best cultural dress would be the dress that we design as worshippers of G-d. G-d says to the people of Quraish, He said, that I've given you food and drink. The one who feeds you and gave you a drink when you were thirsty. So that you would have safety. Safe. Safety. Safe travel for your journey over the winter and over the summer. And over the summer. The two extremes are here, the two extremes of climate, two extremes of the seasons. The winter and the summer. Two extremes.
26:45 S1: There's much to be said there but I'll just cut it very short. When we're enjoying our life and our condition is good, that may be called the spring or the summer of our life. But when we start to worry about it and conditions are bad, and we start to worry about the future, that could be called the winter of life. But it has reference more directly to the passions of human life, human passions. Human passions tend to go bad sometimes. And what caused them to go bad is affluence or abundance. We start to enjoy affluence or abundance, then our passions go bad. And many times we have the deceiver, another name for the devil, the Satan. Have him coming in... to serve what he believes to be G-d. That's the Satan now. To come in and to serve what he believes to be G-d so that our passions won't cause any loss to the rule that the Satan think should be preserved or kept.
28:35 S1: So he comes in and he would feed the passions unobserved, hidden from view. He will feed the passions and feed the passions. To hurry up the process, so that the summer won't be 10 years but only 10 weeks. You see? That's the Satan. Well, we tend to forget a lot. The human being tends to start forgetting his good life and forgetting his good disciplines and pretty soon there's corruption. And corruption sets in, and then the passions become cold. Very cold. It brings on the winter. So G-d, if He feeds us and if He gives us to drink, we won't have the trouble of the extremes, and the temperature, and the seasons. We will fare well through winter and through summer. This brings us to business, industrial life. Religion in Islam is comprehensive, is inclusive of all that civilized people want and feel that is honorable, decent to have in human life. I hear that some of the Imams have a little concern. They think I should just stick to reading scripture. And well, I can't even read scripture without doing what I'm doing, maybe hymns. Maybe they think I should have a hymn book, an Islamic hymn book and some dhikr beads, and that's all. Let it stop right there, but we can't do that. Allah wants us to have also material life, and a role in bringing about better material conditions for ourselves and for others on this earth. This is what G-d wants for us.
He has created us so that we will grow, G-R-O-W. This is Islam, this is expressed in Quran. He has created us so that we will grow, G-R-O-W. So if we get a good masjid. Have a good school and people, the town, public schools- says, "Oh, oh" looking at our fine school, and that's all we have, a fine school and a fine mosque, and we become satisfied with that, Allah will withdraw from you. That's not enough growth.
Allah wants us to have responsibility on this earth. He has created the human being to have full responsibility, under G-d, for everything G-d created. That's why he didn't stop and it even says the earth. The Bible says garden, and what we don't know, we don't know what the learned knows, and the high levels of Christian knowledge. We don't know what they know. So we think that when He says garden, maybe He means after death. Those that think it as a reference to this side too, they think garden only means a good religious life on this earth. Garden includes possibilities for man in space also, in space also, and G-d says, "traverse the skies if you can." The devils who were trying to get a hearing, they were trying to get a peek into the heavens, trying to get a hearing from what's happening on high. It says traverse the skies if you can, but you will not be able to do it without great knowledge and power."
That didn't say you couldn't do it. It gave you the answer. You want to do it? Get great knowledge and great power. The White Man got that great knowledge and power, and he went to the moon. Some of you probably don't believe he went there.
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: You got that witch man voodoo on your head. Black magic and superstition. You don't think anything scientific can happen, but if somebody said they meditated and went there you’d say, "Yes, I know you did because I did it too." "I was there last night."
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: This isn't to criticize anybody. This is just to point out a problem. We do have this problem. Even us that are healthy and think we don't have a problem. At least be a bit cautious, a bit concerned, because you are a product of the genes of those people who had a lot of superstition in them. We have to be aware that we're subject to be superstitious, we are subject to be doubting Thomases, we are subject not to give our full faith to what Allah says is possible for us.
So industrial life, G-d evolves the patterns of life, the pattern of life for any agricultural, substance or organ or plant, is already in the seed, the pattern for it is in the seed. When the seed gets the right environment, the seed will release that pattern. Then we see the whole picture that was locked up in that seed. G-d says He had created us as plants. Isn't that wonderful? That's to tell us that all the possibilities for you too, for your life, is not seen now. You are still a seed, you're a growing thing, but He wants you to have the full life that He created for you.
So we have evolving patterns. We have evolving patterns of ability to have good moral life and to have good rational life. When those patterns are evolved very highly, we see them manifest in a great academic development, we might call a tree of knowledge. Yes. When the social pattern evolves to its fullness, you're going to see government, and you're going to see government officials, you're going to see just what we have, the system of government in the United States of America and in other countries, they have their system but they're all systems evolved upon the created life and the created pattern. That's why G-d says, "This is the pattern, the pattern of fitra, which G-d formed Man upon." The Religion of Islam is the pattern of fitra which G-d formed Man upon.
We look at life and we see little children given to play, we look at the pet animals, the pets we have in our yard at home, we see how those little young ones of the mother are given to play. If we want to really study them as a scientist would study them, to see what knowledge we can get out of the study of their play, that would help us have a better society, for ourselves and for our children. We could do that, but books have already been written. They have done this. It's already been done.
G-d has put play into life so that the young life will be getting training for adult life. The skills for work begin in play. A little child is crawling around on the floor, interested in something, and finds out and learns as he kicks this off the table or makes it fall off the table, it makes noise and it rolls or just stands still, some roll, some stand still. The child is being educated while playing, being trained, and then the child will have an urge to test their strength and it will push another child and after a while they're fighting. They're fighting, but the fight didn't start as fight. The fight started as play. They were playing and the play turned into a fight. So defense skills are learned. The beginning of education for defense is in play too, G-d has put in play. Play, work, defense, and then competition. So in fighting, fighting each other, tussling and wrestling, after a while we learn that you don't need to do this just when you’re angry, this is pleasure. Let's wrestle, let's box, right? That is the thing. Why, to develop those skills.
Also, there's desire to compete and show who is superior to the other. So G-d has made the life competitive. All of this comes into the adult skilled world. We call it this and that, but it's nothing but what G-d has put in the seed and it has just had an environment or situation for coming out. It comes out and we see it as the work skills and everything, as defense, the army, and all these strategies and everything that they have, for all those things that manifest on a baby level or on a child's level before, and competition- So are we going to be an American and not be competitive?
Audience: No sir.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: We're not going to care about defense of the land? What we're doing, we're cheating ourselves, if we think that short, we're cheating ourselves. We're not letting ourselves have the full life that Allah created for us.
G-d says that you should believe in G-d, have faith in G-d. And says and believe in His messenger, have faith in His messenger. So we have a G-d that says to us, "I want you to believe in G-d and I also want you to believe in man." Now how many of think that way? That's exactly what He's saying. That I want you to believe in G-d, but I also want you to believe in man. Isn't Muhammad a man? G-d makes it very clear. He says he's bashar um like you. He's a human mortal just like you. The doubters they say, "It is said that a mortal has been made a messenger of G-d." They're astonished. They're surprised that the people are saying a mortal has been made a messenger of G-d. Because in some myths, mortals are never messengers of G-d. Only supernatural beings are messengers of G-d. Angels. Supernatural beings. Not mortal. They are astonished. They're amazed, because of the saying a mortal has been made the messenger of G-d or a messenger of G-d.
We are to have faith in G-d and we are to have faith in Man. Allah has faith in us. One of the names of G-d is Al-Mumin, means the Believer. If He's called the Believer, what is He believing in? [chuckles] He's believing in us. He created us and then gave us free will. We are subject to go away from Him on our own. You can go on your own. You're not under me, but I believe in you. I believe you're going to come back to me. I believe you're going to choose what I want for you, over what the Satan suggests. He's believing in us, isn't He?
If you can digest this fully, you're going to be in a very powerful position to have a good life and a progressive life. A life of enrichment, growth and productivity. That's that soft rain that comes down. If it finds the right soil, great life comes up behind it. The prophet says, "You will not believe-- enter the garden," pardon me. "You will not enter the garden until you believe. You will not believe until you practice loving one another." That brings us to love. G-d wants us to have faith, belief, strong faith and belief, and if it begins with G-d. If it progresses as G-d wants us to progress as G-d directs it, it's going to be strong faith for the prophet and be strong faith for each other.
We have to come to have faith in each other. How are we going to work together if we don't believe in each other? G-d says through Muhammad the prophet that He has prescribed for everything excellence. It says [foreign language] that means everything has been obligated to manifest excellence. Now if you look at the theory of evolution, you'll see the theory of evolution says that. That everything is evolving from lesser to greater, from crude to refined, from less proficient or efficient to more efficient. This is the nature of material. The material world.
G-d says "kataba," this is before these Western sciences, way before the Western science. You see how the perception was there before the world got it, before the world produced it for our eyes to see, or gave it to us in the high schools and universities or colleges or whatever. [foreign language] that he prescribed for everything excellence. If you understand it very perfectly, literally, G-d is saying that He obligated everything. That everything He made, He obligated it, by virtue of the nature G-d gave it, the design G-d gave the creation of that thing, its nature, it is obligated to manifest excellence. No matter how inferior a creature is, if you look at that creature in the early stages of its development, it has grown more excellent. Is that not a fact? A worm, fly, no matter what it is. Everything has developed from less to greater. Lesser to greater. More excellent.
Then G-d says, see how-- I'm going to wait because I want this taped too, and I don't want to miss anything. I don't want to cheat the next audience.
[laughter]
[background noise]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Bismillah. As-salamu alaykum. [unintelligible 00:15:41] 
Audience: Yes.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: G-d says see how the same rain falls in the same area, on the same area, but some things come up niggardly and others come up with a lot to offer. Same rain. This brings me to something else. We have to be selective. We have to be more selective. We have to have more interest and more concern for our children that are coming, for our future as a community, than we have for each other individually. We're letting the burden of individuals keep us from making the progress we should be making for the future.
When are you going to start weeding out the weeds? They say weed and feed, don't they? Weed and feed. Not feed and weed. Weed and feed. Get the weeds out and then feed. That's what we need to do. We need to drop a lot of burden. You all need to find the people that think like you think. You need to find live coals, so that you keep your heat.
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Then work with people like that, and we can have real progress. Lastly, my dear brothers and friends in Islam, G-d wants us, - there's a saying, "G-d is Al-Rahman." We're obligated to be like Him. G-d is Al-Rahim.
For us this is being in the image of G-d. This is how-- G-d says [foreign language]. Create yourself. G-d says create yourself. How many of us are doing it? We heard it but how many of us have registered? G-d says create yourself. He created you, but then He says creates yourself. Khalaqu. You create but [foreign language] with the creation tools, the building tools that He has given you. Create with the tools for creation that he has given you. He is Al-Rahman. We're obligated to be like him. Benevolent. G-d is Al Rahim, Compassionate. We are obligated to be like Him, compassionate. You will not have faith until you practice loving one another. Thank you very much. We ask Allah to guide us always and show us how to establish the life in its complete picture, so we will have life and have it more abundantly. Thank you very much. As-salamu alaykum. [foreign language]
Speaker 2: Brother Imam at this time probably a lot of us have a lot of questions.
Speaker 3: [unintelligible 00:19:21]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: That's why I'm taking the water. I'm going to need the water now.
Speaker 4: [unintelligible 00:19:35] One of the things that came up in our discussion today is how we can melt the concept of imams working with politicians without them feeling as though we're trying, for a lack of a better term, to cross over into their turf. Brother Imam, what do you suggest on us how we can achieve that?
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Weed and feed. 
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: I was just joking, I was just joking. I’m going to try to get you some help.
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: The problem might be coming from the imam’s perception of the religion, and the problem might be coming from the imam’s perception of his role in the religion, and the problem might be coming from the imam’s problems. If they’re coming from his problems, weed and feed.
If they’re coming from his perception of the religion, our religion is comprehensive religion. We can’t separate government concerns from religion. Government concern is one of the concerns that we must take up as religious people, if we’re going to follow the religion. The religion wants us to take up that concern.
G-d created us for government. When G-d says to the angels, "I’m about to put a khalifa" or "I’m putting a khalifa in the earth," that’s exactly what G-d’s talking about. I’m making a man for government. I’m making a man to be responsible for government. Until you have a worthwhile system of government, everything else is at risk, and everything else is going to be short lived.
Government is designed to create a situation for everything to have a place, to be established, and life, longevity. That’s what government is for. So that we can have the establishment we want, and have longevity for the establishment we want or for the establishments we want. The imam, if that’s his problem, I can give him a lot of help, if he’ll just listen.
The United States at one time, in its beginning, it had a big problem with government. Why? Because the people who came here, they came from a government or a system that dictated everything to them, and from a ruler who claimed divine power, divine authority. They were under the church authority. It was Martin Luther that broke that.
Right after that we had people coming into America having discovered this land. G-d did that for them. G-d made it possible for them to discover that. They needed a place, they needed a new place to start all over again. G-d helped them find that new place. It was America, where the Indians were. The Indians by Islamic law would have lost their land.
That’s justified the way they were treated. The way they were treated can not be justified. In fact white Americans in this country, they regret that the Indians were treated the way they were treated. Right now we’d like to see more happen for the Indians, more done to help the Indians, the Native American Indians.
By Islamic law they would have lost their land. You have rights to the land for as long as you use it. If you neglect it, your rights can be taken from you. This is Islamic law. It’s arrived at with Quranic support, from Quranic support, that’s where they arrive at it. They look to see, what does this language in the Quran say about this situation?
They may make the translation or the interpretation or extract the message for this particular meanings, for this particular new situation that’s not given in the Quran and apply it, so it really is Islamic law, that means it has its basis in the Quran and in the teachings of Muhammad the prophet.
It is Islamic law that if you get a piece of land and you do nothing with it, you don’t make it productive, it can be taken from you. The government of America, they have it fixed that way. Taxes will eat it up. After a while taxes eat it up, and you lost it or they’ll take it from you some other way, but they use the taxes so they get it because you can’t pay the taxes.
There used to be a law-- and some of these towns [unintelligible 00:25:20] --that if you don’t care for your property, they will treat it as abandoned property and take it from you, though you got a title to it.
They came over here to America, and they had an opportunity to build up this new life that their souls were hungering for, life of freedom, life where they could have their life under a law that will respect their will, the will of the people. They got it. Now we’re finding that president, Clinton, and he’s just part of a trend. I’ll say he’s a piece of a material flowing upon a stream that’s going in that direction anyway.
The next one that come in, he’s going to come right up on the same stream and he’s going to have to flow from the same direction. I’m sitting at a meeting at the statehouse and they’re beginning now to address the separation of this language, the separation of church and state. What can the government do with the religious community and not be violating the separation of church and state? They’re making very sure the conclusion is this, that the government is separated from the state so that no one religion will impose its self on all the citizens of America so that we will have freedom of religion. The purpose of separation of state in this country is to protect freedom of religion. That’s what it’s for.
It’s not to say that the government is agnostic, not caring about religion, or faith in G-d. No, to the contrary. Before the leader is accepted, he has to acknowledge G-d, he has to hear the language and acknowledge G-d in his inauguration ceremony. That tells us that there’s no real separation like some of us may think.
The position of government now is being recognized as not only a position for the protection of the freedom of religion, but also to support the interest of religion when that interest is in the interest of humanity. That’s why we have this new committee that I’m on, they call it sometimes the president’s committee, but it’s really the state departments’ committee.
It’s the state department’s committee but under the president too. That’s why we have that committee, to work with government so that we bring our resources and put them on the table with government resources, so that we have a partnership for better serving the needs of humanity. It’s exactly what is happening.
We should tell imams what I’ve told you here, share this with the imams. Tell them that their turf is too small to be considered in light of what Allah wants us to be doing. The turf is too small to be considered.
Speaker 2: I think I saw Councilman Hakeem [unintelligible 00:29:08] and then we got Councilman Bilal [inaudible 00:29:11].
Speaker 5: Al-Salamu Aleykum.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Aleykum Al-Salam.
Speaker 5: Brother Yusuf Hakeem [inaudible 00:29:12]. In our involvement in politics, we find that we have to work with people from all walks of life. Some we know like us, some we know don’t like us, but we have to find a way to work with them to get some things done. What I’m asking, does that also apply to the membership of the Nation of Islam? If they want to work in our campaign, if they want to do some positive things in the neighborhood, should we shun working with them?
[crosstalk]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: That’s a very good question and it needs to be answered. You should have no reason for rejecting anybody, unless it's a reason that can readily be accepted or understood by Christians that you work with, because they don't believe like we believe, that's not the reason. As long as they're willing to support the concern, or the person that you're trying to elect or re-elect, as long as they are willing to support that person and they are not presenting a problem that the Christians are seeing and troubled by, I don't think you should be troubled either. I hope I answered [unintelligible 00:30:43].
Speaker 6: [unintelligible 00:30:46], I know countless people have come to this situation. How do we handle that in that [unintelligible 00:30:59]? How do we--
[00:31:01] [END OF AUDIO]
Participant 1: [inaudible 00:00:09]. How do we handle that in that- how do we handle those kinds of situations? It's like [unintelligible 00:00:21] you said?
Imam: Yes. Yes, sir.
Participant 1: Brother Imam are you saying [unintelligible 00:00:26] coming into an area where--
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: From anybody. You mentioned Farakhan. I don’t care who it is. No matter how much we disagree with their religion or with their thinking of their programs, if the people we are working with want to include them, I would say you should go along with the majority, because we are in the great minority. Go along with the majority. If they don’t belong there, and they have been deceived, don’t you be the one to tell them that it’s going to turn out bad because maybe you’d be wrong. You’d be going on your knowledge but you could be wrong too. So, just leave it alone and hope that they won't go along with something that will embarrass all of you.
Now, sometimes a leadership will do things that the individual will disagree with so strongly that the individual will have to pull away from that leadership, and you'll know when to do that. If they discredit the local government of a local political effort, if they're going to discredit us and cause real trouble down the road, I don’t say go along with them when you know they're going to be discredited and it's going to hurt the image of the effort, and the image of the people behind the effort. I don’t say go along with it but pull out quietly and graciously. Say, "Well, I see you all really want this but I don’t want to be a part of this. That's all. I don’t think I want to be a part of this."
Don’t do that unless you know, you feel very, very certain that it's going to cause so much trouble that the effort will be set back and the city will be looking on this with disfavor. Okay, I think I've said enough there.
Participant 2: Brother Imam, the real virtue of what we're doing here this morning, this afternoon, has brought us together as a result of type of leadership from the shura and yourself in terms of the conferences, 1997 in particular, and '96, where we held workshops, and more specifically this year because we had the privilege of having a workshop on political awareness and involved Judge Sahid, and about seven or eight of the Muslim elected officials wanted to follow up immediately and come together and talk about how we could, with our varied experience, better serve our community, the Muslim community.
Here in North Carolina, you said had a lot of green light and I'd like to publicly recognize the effort of some of senator Shard, and councilman Magid, and the response from the Imam, and what we talked about this morning is how can we strengthen that because you have Muslims who are organizing all over this chapters of AMC and I think it's-- [crosstalk] One of the concerns that was expressed is not becoming camp followers in a sense, how and what direction do you think we should develop so that we can empower [inaudible 00:04:15]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: All right. I have at best a concern before and Imam Heman is aware that I had. I'm happy to have the opportunity to address it again. We have an effort now, a business effort to help the whole community, national community and our local, people who are non-Muslim. We call it CPC, Collective Purchasing Conference. We have that organization.
We are hoping that it gets more and more support, that it grow and expresses itself in many independent business efforts. What I mean by that, I hope that there will be communities and conferences develop or springing off of this, and developing independently. We will always, Inshallah, have one that will be more prominent than the others and that one will be in the national focus more than the others.
What I would like to see is a political awareness committee or group, you have the language better than I do, so you can come up with a name for it, but a national group that will represent the political interest of this following, the Muslim American society. I would like to see that committee appoint one or two persons to apply for a seat on the national Shura body, either as a consultants or as full Shura members. That would be decided by you all. I wouldn't want to see your leadership come under the Shura. Leadership should come under political people, political people who are involved politically.
Participant 3: Thank you.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: You're welcome.
Participant 4: Imam, what are your major concerns with that? You know, we appreciate and thank your leadership and here [unintelligible 00:07:18]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: I didn’t get that language. Can you speak [unintelligible 00:07:31]? My daughter tells me that I need an hearing aid. I’m beginning to believe her.
Participant 4: I said [unintelligible 00:07:37] we certainly benefited greatly when you got to in the House of the Senate in ‘92 [unintelligible 00:07:45].
Imam: I had some idea that's what you was talking about, my appearance and everything, but I didn’t hear it clear enough the House of the Senate. Yes.
Participant 4: And from that [unintelligible 00:07:57] Allah had blessed us tremendously in terms of having workshops and seminars and in fact there's a Sister Kadija who's running now for city council there, city wide.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Yes, congratulations. 
Participant 4: Yes sir. The concern I had, 'cause we've been having town hall meetings, and we have town hall meetings with the candidates, [unintelligible 00:08:18] we invite the Muslim community up. It seems as though we are slow to come out to this town hall meetings we've had. On top of it they've televised these town hall meetings from county hall [unintelligible 00:08:30] two back to back together for those who are running for mayor, those who are running for city council. [unintelligible 00:08:35] involved to come out and get the educational experience in terms of being able to question the candidates as well as we have issues that are of concern to us, like Eid’, Ramadan. The Jews and them Christians have these holiday and celebration they have, they're recognized [unintelligible 00:08:58]. I know that some of them are working on that for some other parts of the country, but that's a concern that we have and we wanted to bring that to you as well.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: All right, thank you. The [unintelligible 00:09:15] it helps that they come in and video her, and people would like to see more exposure for brother Imam Amin. If you will look at it, view it yourself, anything that they have done, their activities or anything they have done, that they wouldn't mind having us put on “W. Deen Mohammed and Guests” we will edit it and that would be good for us, “W. Deen Mohammed and Guests” and also good for you. It let's the Muslims see more of this interest, how it is growing and how you all are making some progress. That will reach some of them who have interest in getting involved politically and then they will make contact you see, but that's not the best way.
Prophet Muhammad, is quoted, it's said that he said, Peace be upon him, "We do not accept people placing themselves in a position or asking to be nominated for a position. We appoint them. In Islam, we have to remember that we're not quite like this society. We believe in appointment more than we believe in people campaigning for office. We believe in appointing. We would have much more help if we would just spend some time looking for help. Don't expect help to come to you look for help. Ask others, "Do you know anybody in this area?" Inquire who may be interested in, - you think may want to join our group so you have to be fishing like we used to do in the days of Islam, you have to go out and fish for what you need.
Right in the community, there's plenty help. There's plenty of help and they probably would be so happy to know about your activity there. Right in the State of Georgia out there you have people that don't know they want to be Muslim, those who want to work with you. You just have to find a way to reach them. The Jews, they select their leaders. The wise select their leaders their great leaders. They select them, they study them, and they find out that they have leadership [unintelligible 00:11:55] and they'll start helping them and getting help to them and the person that they've already selected won't even know that he or she has been selected until they have that person well informed and well qualified then they will appoint that person to the position. I think that's a little bit closer to home for a lot of you, but Islam is the same. We're supposed to look for promising people and we're supposed to give them the support that they need and when time comes you're supposed to appoint, ask them to accept the positions.
Participant 5: [unintelligible 00:12:37]
Imam: [unintelligible 00:12:46]
Participant 5: Brother Imam, thank you for coming down.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Thank you.
Participant 5: For meeting with our group, as you can see, we're a small group, this is a very strong group.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Yes it is.
Participant 5: We're very excited about this work that you've nudged us on to do. I had a question. When you spoke at the convention you spoke of the need to have our own communities to be able to call the adhan to be able to have that kind of control and influence in our community. Were you speaking symbolically, were you speaking in--
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: No, in real language. In the language of the common person. [laughs]
Participant 5: Sometimes we get accused for [unintelligible 00:13:33] we get it from our own people. We had an organization here that talked to us, as you know, the church has been building subdivisions for years, for the last 20-- It started with Nixon Johnson Administration almost. They've built these communities of 50 units a100--
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Yes, they're everywhere. In Chicago area too, yes, man. Very impressive too some of them.
Participant 5: Yes sir. We had them here wanting to talk to us about how we could empower our community as local officials, as the mayor, how we could empower our communities to obtain-- How the deals were put together, how they obtained the finances, even as--
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: That's what we need. We need that knowledge.
Participant 5: Even as a [unintelligible 00:14:24] when we're looking for land, the city can give us land because of the[unintelligible 00:14:29] tax roll and it'll be tax income-producing back for the city. The citizens encounters would do this for us but again not having the resources at our command we have to go to the traditional means of financing. How would that come across to some of our members?
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Yes, I think I can better respond to the question by sharing with you the vision for the effort that I'm heading up myself. We hope to have persons in our community and outside persons that are friends or confidants of persons that we work closely with, who have more knowledge, more experience, and can tell us more about how we can have a partnership with the financial institutions, with government. Mainly we want two efforts. One effort is just strictly business for profit the other effort is strictly business under not-for-profit, tax-exempt classification, you understand my language. Business is business.
[laughter]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Business is business and I don't know how to run any business except for profit. That's the only way I know how to run a business, for-profit, but they say not for profit that doesn't mean it ain't for profit it’s for profit. Yes, but that's a classification to protect you, protect that interest and that kind of investment is safe in the system and they protect it. We want both and we want as much progress as we can make for both we want both. By having the not-for-profit you are aware that we can get some government help that we can't get if this is strictly for profit if it's private.
Now, I'm not talking about just tax retention now, I'm talking about other help that we can get. They can give you equipment, that surplus equipment there are many ways they can help, and I've learned these things from our friends, some of them Christians. [laughs] Yes, so that's the way we are moving. We're moving in that direction. If we can throw up a nursing home for adult citizens, for our senior citizens a beautiful nursing home, and all we have to have is no capital or just a little bit of capital. They just want us to come in and we'll serve as the entity to work with them to do that.
Why shouldn't we have it when our senior citizens [unintelligible 00:17:53] and it will be to our credit, a credit to our name, you see? We want do that but we don't want to depend upon just involvments like that. That's why we want to go full speed with for-profit business and also a not-for-profit business. I hope I answered the question.
Participant 5: Very well sir. Thank you.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Thank you sir.
Participant 6: [unintelligible 00:18:16] Two things. First of all, this is not a question [unintelligible 00:18:25] Second is, a lot of insight was shared by you with the readers of Muslim Journal on the recent trip to Jerusalem about the treatment of the people in that area and I paid particular attention to national convention that you just mentioned the concern that we as a community should have for people in that position, Iraq, whoever, and to work with them.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: For the children of Iraq.
Participant 6: Yes, that's why-- [crosstalk]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Families and wives and children.
Participant 6: Small community of blue-collar people that comes from, as you mentioned, Iraq and the people that focus goes to the leadership of Iraq as opposed to the atrocities being visited on the children and immigrant people. How do you address that situation--
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Saddam the leader Saddam. Sanctions against Iran, against Iraq and excluding Iraq. Putting Iraq where it can't get benefits. Straining Iraq, putting in a position where it's going to be straining. If that over a period of time is not proven to be effective, I'm sure there's a lot of support in the United States government, in the State Department, among the congressmen and senators, there's a lot of support there for coming up with a different policy or a different strategies for getting results in Iraq. My position is that if children are now dying, suffering diseases, malnutrition, et cetera. Wives are being forced to lose their place in society because they don't have enough food for their children, enough health for their children, this is too heavy a burden on the civilian population to justify that policy stay in place. That's my position. They know at the State Department that I'm against it and I don't know what else I can say to you but that's it. You don't risk killing half of the members in your house to get the rats out. If you can't get the rats out without killing some of your children, you let the rats stay there till you can find a way to get them out. Yes?
Participant 7: Brother Imam, one of the things you taught us years go is the idea that words make us and if we want to remake the world we have to start feeding our minds new terms, new concepts, and you talked a few minutes ago about old sensitivities and new sensitivities. One of the things that I recognize that the word politician carries a certain negative emotional charge in terms with the American sensitivity.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Yes, it does.
Participant 7: When I had to have some of the Imams, if I'm going to a community, you will get a certain kind of automatic respect if you make a statement but once you wear the label of politician, then everything is political and you don't get the same moral credibility as if you're speaking from the Imams table. My question is that, at least from [unintelligible 00:22:40] let's have a better term that's consistent with Quranic terminology, Islamic terminology to identify us when we are simply expressing one aspect of the Muslim life. That's to live a life with our identity as Muslim that not so much [unintelligible 00:23:04] is there a term we could use at least when we are among Muslims to identify the Muslims elected public servant or?
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Yes. I think it's very difficult to come from Islamic terminology to Western terminology and suggest a substitute all the time because sometimes we don't have an exact replacement or a substitute for an expression because this line of thought is so different from what it would be in Islamic society. The public servant, representative, I think representative is the best one. Public representatives, they have representatives, all the Congress is the, the members of Congress, they are representatives. I think you can use that term generally. You could say, public representative. I think you could do that, and it might catch on in the general folks, but you will never get rid of this stigma because politics will remain, good and bad politics, in America and everywhere else.
Participant 7: [unintelligible 00:24:37]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: It's going to be light and darkness, day and night, it's going to be good and bad. There's good waters and bad waters are going to be forever until heaven and the earth has been remade by G-d, not by us. You have to live with that burden of politics. You got to use that language. If you're in politics you got to use politics. You have to use political servant. You're going to have to use the language. Every now and then you can, I would say, keep the mind healthy by occasionally using an expression like public representative, or like what the hypocrites say in the far extremes of the politics in this country, good politics.
[laughter]
Usually that's the one with the worst politics the one that said good politics. Public representative, just think about that maybe that can, serve, I don't know. Excuse me.
Participant 9: Brother Imam, I know that priority of Islamic students is tied around this discussion to talk about [unintelligible 00:26:11] in community. My question to you, a lot of emphasis and energy is being put into charter schools now. How do you see Muslims in relation to our Islamic schools? What do you think a person, especially Muslims, should be putting a lot of energy in trying to develop charter schools, should their energy be put into developing Islamic schools, although it might take more effort, more time to realize that effort.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: I don't claim to know too much about what having a school charter involves, but I think I have enough understanding- thank you- enough understanding to reply. What we want for our schools is not only a certification from us but we want certification from the local government or from an organization or an authorized body that the local government recognizes and supports, you see. We want that and if we have to get a charter to have that, then that's what we have to do. Is that sufficient?
Participant 9: The only concern I have in a charter school they tell you that religious instruction can't be part of the curriculum.
Imam: Then that won't work. That's why I admitted I don't have enough knowledge. That won't work for us.
Participant 10: Charter schools look different in different times, but we are moving with getting our accreditation from outside bodies that the government recognizes.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Good, that's all we need. That's all we need, and once you get that, I'm sure that you have more applicants, once it's known. You'll have more applicants who can afford to pay the tuition. I'm urging, I've been urging brother Imam to push for that.
Participant 11: Right now we have four schools that are working with our school group that accredits schools nationally and it's a three-step process [unintelligible 00:29:23]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Good, very good.
Participant 11: In six, eight months we'll have those four schools to get it and we're going to extend it to the other-- [crosstalk]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: That would be accreditation body to authorize accreditation. Great. That's all we need. Thank you.
Participant 12: I'm Ali Khan from Washington DC.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Can you excuse me a minute from the mic?
Participant 12: Yes, sir.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Thank you.
Participant 12: Being from Washington, I'm always asked about, "Do we have a political organization that can address problems related to our community?" The question that I have is that I'm concerned pretty much about how we can fund Muslim politicians so when they run for office, they have some funds which they can run, coming from us because we know that often times, whoever pays the piper often times calls the tune. I would hate to see a Muslim not elected because of lack of funds. This organization that we have formed, I wanted to find out whether or not you see it as a membership type of organization, where people were paying funds or should we primarily go to business people to try to raise funds to help support potential elected officials and even the ones who are running for re-election?
Imam: Yes, first, let me share this--[sound cut]
[00:31:35] [END OF AUDIO]
Participant: Share this with you, this thought with you.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: We are a developing, we are fledgling community. Just that little dog, like a little bird, just got those little downs on them now. We don't have the strong feathers. What I would say yes to now, it may not be what I would say yes to when we are testing out our wing feathers, and certainly not what I would say yes to maybe when we are flying, when we're in flight. [laughs]
What I would say no to now is not what I will say no to later. Right now, I think we should be, let me put it this way. There's a very strong issue right now and is being addressed. The candidates are getting monies for their campaign that is questionable, that is questioned, and how much role should government have in it.
If the government has too much a role in it. It makes the citizens a little bit concerned, it's a concern. Makes them a little bit nervous. If foreign governments makes them afraid, you see, so there are a lot of concerns. Now, I said that to say that that's the sensitivity that I have when you're talking about us having fundraising, Muslims raising funds for a Muslim candidate.
My fear is that we may then use our money to get the wrong man into office. We know money can get the wrong man into office. We know that. We might use our money to get the wrong man into office. That's the main fear I have. Another fear that I have is that we may use our influence, our money to put a person into office who's going to be more representative of Muslim community interest.
Now, if you could do that wisely like the Jews and others do it, where he's that kind of man, he's committed, but he's not going to let it be known he's not going to flaunt it, it'll work. I have some concern. I hope I just want to let you know that. I'm saying that you can get my approval for that for a political effort to finance candidates that you will decide that are worth getting some financial help, right.
Participant: [unintelligible 00:03:57]
Participant: [unintelligible 00:04:02] I'm originally from Washington, DC like my father but I’m here in Charlotte, and I have been here for a couple of years. I hear a lot of different information of our terminology. My brother put up an interesting point of our terminology in terms of national-level owe the local level and there seems to be a vast difference in terminology from the Republicans and the Democrats, and you have conservatives, you have the moderates, and then liberals.
Liberals are mostly kind of Democrats. It seems like African Americans tend to go more along with the Democrats, but then you have a lot of liberals support things like homosexuality. Then you got conservatives or Republicans most of the time on the far right, who would a lot of times cut back on programs that support African American [unintelligible 00:04:49] We see like we push it forward.
What would be and I get asked about different stuff from people in disadvantaged community about where Muslims stand on certain things. In terms of [unintelligible 00:05:02] terminology, the Democrat, the republican, the liberal-conservative far right, far left those types of issues where would we stand as a community?
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: We should stand where our religious knowledge and religious principle, say we should stand.
Participant: That's easy.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: G-d describes us as the Midway community. We shouldn't be to the far right, we shouldn't be to the far left, but when it comes to what is morally correct, and what is ethical, we have to be there and not somewhere else.
Participant: [unintelligible 00:05:50]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Sometimes when you're campaigning, you have to show that part of yourself that the people want until you can show more to them. 
Participant: [unintelligible 00:06:08]
Participant: [unintelligible 00:06:15] we hear certain times earlier this morning you talked about the Negro [unintelligible 00:06:21] experiences [unintelligible 00:06:24] they should have. You have identified [unintelligible 00:06:30] Indiana as some cities that could use our help or could be [unintelligible 00:06:38] showing how this one can transform the life of people in communities. Is there anything that you can think of, things that you might do to help [unintelligible 00:06:51] those cities or communities like that?
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Yes, you can help us target a town in these United States that is extremely embarrassing for African American people, firstly, and for the citizens of America. Let us look at it and study together and see if that's the town that we can invest in and perhaps bring it around where it would be a credit to us and to the citizens of this country. Then once we decide that we're going to invest in that then we have to work together with persons like yourself. Also, when I mean say a person like yourself, you’re an imam, I know but you're also a judge and you were a lawyer, you're an attorney, so you had to work with persons like yourself and also with developers. We have a few developers. With developers who know what we will need if we want to get land and start building or start renovating or rehabbing.
We need to bring all these experts together and sit together with those who have, like the educators who know the want for our schools like Imam Plemon Al-Amin and just get their heads together, and sit down and plan a development strategy for the town and we need our political advisers too. There's a lot of help that we're going to need from you all, but help me right now target a place, doesn't have to be [unintelligible 00:09:05] or Gary, or Harvey, it's another place we already in Harvey, and we are growing a little bit but that might not be the place.
Our brother from Chattanooga Tennessee I was thinking about Chattanooga Tennessee, we will have look for good political climate and a political climate that favor business growth among minorities or by minorities. That's what we need. I need you all to help with that too. We're looking now where are we going to put the first convention center and the convention center, it should be a nucleus for our national effort. It shouldn't just be a place where we meet as a religious body but a place where they meet as conscious people, political conscious, and also industrious people. We should have some businesses, offices there. All of our major efforts to address the needs and the quarters of our life should have representatives sitting with me to plan this. Just think about it and help find the place, help select the people, and help find the place.
Participant: [unintelligible 00:10:39] Chattanooga is the City Council President?
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Yes, I sure do. That's not what made Chattanooga interesting to me now because I didn't know about him at the time. I was on the plane and I mentioned a couple other places. The person sitting next to me said that have you thought about Chattanooga? Just overhead what I was saying, said, "You thought about Chattanooga Tennessee?" What they told me about the weather and everything else. All year round weather ain't too bad? I could stay there with arthiritus, I think.
[laughter]
I was really looking at Chattanooga, Tennessee, but you all look for me and get anything to me that you think I should consider. Thank you very much. There's another question?
Participant: Another comment.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: All right.
Participant: Thank you, Brother Imam. Points of cultivation. There are ruffly eight million Jews [unintelligible 00:11:55] Muslims? We don't have nearly the kind of power that they have. They [unintelligible 00:12:01] 30, 40 something members of Congress, very strong lobbyists. They make America go against their own interest. They’re so common. Do you envision an opportunity? You notice the African Black Baptist guy who mouthed off at us about CPC, the guy that end up getting in all the trouble with Dr. (unclear)?
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: I heard him. I know of him. That's fine.
Participant: You know that these people, the President, Vice President have been moving around the country. They cultivate these kinds of people with large blocks of constituencies. I would hope that if you-- You most certainly have earned the respect of the entire Islamic community in this country, without a doubt, hands down, and they all agreed to that. I would hope that some meeting could be called with the administration leadership.
I don't think we have a problem of what's probably been told to talk about the need for Muslim's ambassadors, Muslim's sister secretary high-level appointment because it’s not representative of America like the promise that he made. I don't get on the tail end of the administration. I think that might drop the system opportunities for us now as well as the near future. Not only that, what you're doing with the import business.
We should be able to tie to the Import-Export Bank to get large amounts of lines of credit to do [unintelligible 00:13:47] I would hope that in the near future that you will consider such a meeting with the leadership, with the administration, could you?
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Yes, I will. There's no need to wait. I favor that right now strongly [unintelligible 00:14:07].
[laughter]
I strongly favor it. We have many more supporters among the what we call immigrant Muslims, that we know the great majority of them support my leadership.
Participant: They certainly do.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Their leaders when you hear them speak and when they speak to us, you don't get that picture. The great majority of them support my leadership. I do believe that we can even win the majority of the visible immigrant leaders who are in power. Some of them now they're just recently in politics, but they have some of them in politics, most of them are in religion or religious work or charities, but they just came in charities too, very recently. Community, I mean civil rights, not civil rights, say citizenship rights.
They have organizations now to protect the citizenship rights of Muslims. We can get most of them [unintelligible 00:15:32] we have them. We can get them and we can call a meeting with persons of your respect in society representing us. I think you'd be surprised what kind of support we can get.
Participant: As a follow-up Brother Imam. I recall the bombings of World Trade Center and Oklahoma how you somewhat coordinated or I think [unintelligible 00:16:03] you nationally coordinated when you came by to condemn this act of violence. Called it despicable, deplorable. You said that [unintelligible 00:16:13] the entire Islamic community so much good in terms of the [unintelligible 00:16:18] and they have changed it. They started operating differently. I'm saying you have that respect.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Oh, yes we fight for it.
Participant: We have the respect.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: We fight to make the image of Muslims better because if it gets too bad, all of us suffer. We're all going to suffer. I'm doing it because of necessity, the urge of necessity, as well as doing it as a matter of principle. I'm doing it for both reasons. I think necessity is the stronger urge.
[laughter]
Thank you very much, sir. Yes, we'll have one more. How is the time going, Councilman?
Councilman: We're doing fine [unintelligible 00:17:07]
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: All right, so you have to watch the time now.
Councilman: Yes, sir. We want you to get something to eat before you leave. We'd like to get some pictures of the group.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: I'm hungry now. I can pass the food. That's not a problem for me right now because I did eat a sandwich before I came.
Councilman: Yes, sir. We have a photographer that he's going to be leaving, but we want to get a photo for this occasion.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Good.
Councilman: [unintelligible 00:17:36] the group photo and-- Any other questions?
Participant: I got one more on the 501.
Councilman: [unintelligible 00:17:45] Okay, maybe we could get the photos. Would that be all right with you?
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Yes. [crosstalk] he's [unintelligible 00:18:00]
Councilman: Brother [unintelligible 00:18:01]
Guest Speaker: Thank you very much Brother Imam and our community leaders. Thank you very much. As-salam Alaykum.
[apaplause]
Councilman: [Arabic language]
Congregation: [Arabic language]
Councilman: [Arabic language]
Congregation: [Arabic language]
[silence]
[end of audio]
[00:19:25] [END OF AUDIO]


