02/05/2002
IWDM Study Library
Duke University Raleigh Durham NC

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Warith Deen Mohammed: Greetings of peace be unto you, As-Salaam-Alaikum.
Congregation: Alaikum As-Salaam.
Mohammed: We praise G-d, alhamdulillahi rabbil-alamin, who is Lord, keeper, cherisher of all the worlds. We witness that He's one and that Muhammad to whom the Quran was revealed as the last of the prophets and the seal of the prophets. I'm very pleased again to an honor, my community is honored that I've been again invited to come here on this campus of Duke University and address this audience, distinguished persons, and believers, Muslims from around the area, and non-Muslims in this beautiful Duke Chapel.
All of us should know Islam as a religion of peace because our greeting is peace, our name is derived from the word peace; Muslim. And our religion is also derived from the word peace; Islam. But we are not always aware ourselves who embrace Islam, or who accept Islam as our religion in America and our mansions, and other places too, the world. We're not aware of this religion as a religion of peace and ourselves as peacemakers, and our greetings as a greeting of peace. We are more aware of ourselves as ummah or community and its national body of people following our Prophet Muhammad and the book that he received from G-d to all of us; the Quran.
It's very important that we do understand that Muslims are a community and that Islam is a message from G-d to the people of the world, not just to Arabs or Africans, but to all the people of the world to guide us into the best model of community life. Muhammad the prophet, peace be upon him, he was preaching the religion and given the Quran as he received it over a period of 21 years. However, during the first 10 or 11 years, he was in Mecca and the religion was not established yet, it was just being taught.
When he was given invitation to leave hostile Mecca and the Meccans of that time to go to Medina, he finally did arrive in Medina, and then he began to establish the religion as the religion of not only the human heart, but the religion of the human community. Daily prayers, five-time prayers were established, and a center for teaching and educating the adherence and the knowledge of Quran and Islam following the way of the prophet began. The community group was established under his leadership. In fact, he took his own hands and picked up bricks and worked with the workers to build the first mosque, or Masjid there in Medina. Peace be upon our prophet and blessings.
G-d says to us in our holy book, "Oh you who believe, save yourselves and your families from the fire." Yourselves and your families from the fire, and in another place, the fire is given description. Fires that send flames leaping over the sentiments of the hearts of human beings, the fires of appetite, the fires of ill-passions, the fires of disappointment, the fires of anger. Our prophet once said, prayers and peace be upon him, to someone. He told him, "Do not be angry." That is do not feed anger. Resist anger when it arises in you or in us. We are to resist it, we are not to feed it. It's like feeding the flames.
We know that ill-passions, appetites that are not lawful for the religious community can burn out human sentiments, innocence, good, healthy human sentiments can make us hurt, insensitive, apathetic, void of love and kindness towards one another. And when we become victims of the fires, we lose our human identity as well as our religious identity. The worse is to lose our human identity and behave like animals, be as cruel beasts devouring each other, devouring each other's properties. This is a curse, the first taste of the hell fires. Death and the hell fires.
Pakistan's president, I read in the Chicago’s Daily Papers, rejected all forms of terrorism. The terrorism that we are witnessing now in the world is very strange and very difficult for just an observer to really identify or describe. Most of these Muslims who have the name Muslim, and I'm sure in their own hearts, they believe they're good Muslims, who sacrifice themselves to get at their enemies are not persons that have the common sins that we are aware of. They are not persons who want violence or want to destroy things. They are not persons who drink liquors, drink strong drinks or use narcotics.
They are not persons who are indecent in their behavior as members of society or as family members. They won't cheat on their wives, so they are not guilty of the popular sins that we are acquainted with. They have been driven to the point of insanity by horrible things that has happened in their lives.
We should, as Reverend Otis Moss, African-American leader of a big Christian following in Cleveland, Ohio said at one of the interfaith meetings I attended hosted by him and our Imam of Cleveland, Imam Clyde Rahman.
The Reverend Dr. Otis Moss speaking of the horrible tragedy of September the 11th, he said in his last words to us, "This deserves deep thought. We have to think deep into it." That's what he said, and I felt that I was really thinking and feeling the same thing that he was thinking and feeling as he gave these words to the audience. This is not to excuse the crimes or any criminal. This statement from the president of Pakistan went on to say that he rejected all forms of terrorism and dropped customary excuses for Islamic militants battling for control in India so that they can have Kashmir, which is a disputed area claimed by both the Indians and the Pakistanis.
The statement followed a meeting with the British prime minister, Tony Blair. When you have an opportunity to see your problem in a bigger picture of relatedness, these things are related. Our problem that we have in the Middle East is related to the problem that's in Kashmir and even outside of the Muslim circle. Whether it's related directly or not, it's related because what we do in one area affects all other areas in time. Watch the news; get to those other areas. It affects the life and interests of others that don't identify with our life, the Muslim life.
If we could accept to meet with each other and talk, and remain sober and respectful of one another, we can have more peace in the world. For those wounded by tragedies and bad treatments from others, they have their own opinion of what is right and wrong, they have their own opinion of what is justice and what is not justice. Their hearts or their skills for weighing justice and how we perceive what is right and wrong, what is just or unfair, not just, depends on what our own circumstances are and what our own life is in those circumstances or under those circumstances.
Given the problems and complications in the peace effort for the Middle East or for the Mid-East, Kashmir, and other areas, many who're wounded by the ugly happenings in the world are not in a normal human condition to hear what their religion has to offer to the situation. Not to mention being in a condition to listen to a representative of the United States, the president himself, many are not even open to listening to what their religion say. They are too hurt, they don't know enough about their religion to believe or have faith that their religion has answers or have solutions for them.
World governments, world orders that shape history and are shaping history, they should be expected to come up with the moral strength and fortitude to listen to victims of conflict like those we have in the Middle East, in Kashmir, and in many other places. The complaints of these victims are important to problems and hence also to solutions.
Most Muslims do not study their holy book of Muslims, the Quran, called Koran in the media or by most Americans. In the United States of America, public education is law. It is required of all citizens to have studies in government, in the elementary school, and in the high schools.
The law protects people's right to be properly informed of the ideas, laws, and procedures, et cetera established to protect citizens and to protect their government. In the Muslim lands, how the Quran and Muhammad's life tradition should serve to guide and protect citizens and their government is not required studies. Moreover, by large, their leaders, the minds of their leaders have not been allowed to heal from the wounds of the crusades, colonial domination of their lands, and the hardened Israeli occupation today which appears to be saying, "Others have no rights to anything if Israel wants to take it." In the Quran, the holy book of Muslims, Allah the Lord creator says to us, "Take the better there of"
The sacred scriptures, the book of the Jews, Torah and their books; the book of the Christians, the Bible; and the Quran all show human life in its excellence and also in its ignorance; in its sins. Holy scripture is a compliment to man, a warning against temptations too, temptations inviting humans to divorce that upward movement for low desires, to divorce their high calling for a corrupt life. All of this is given history in our scriptures as a history of people who went astray.
If we go to these scriptures without good motive, clean motive, we will think we're recognizing something that we should accept and apply to our own lives or for the good of our own lives, and it will be something really condemned by the scriptures. We'll be reading something out of context or reading something without an understanding of what is being said by G-d and to whom G-d is speaking. The Bible and the Quran are for leaders and for their publics, but we know that many portions of Bible and Quran are too complex and too difficult to understand for the common person.
What I'm saying is that the Bible and the Quran or scriptures of the religious people need to be taught, and need to be taught by honest, decent people who are well meaning, not those who are in it because they hate somebody or, in it because they want to put down somebody. But are in it because they love mankind, humanity, and in it because they want to contribute to the betterment of humanity, human beings all over the world, everywhere. The Quran came down to humanity, mankind as a guide.
As a guide to the best human behavior, as a guide to the best moral life, ethical life, industrial life, governmental life, financial life, devotional excellence. This is what the Quran came down to us for, to have us turned on to devotional excellence. Muhammad the prophet, he said that G-d has inscribed excellence and for everything. He said in another saying, "Whenever the believer endeavors to do something, the believer seeks to perfect it, make it excellence."
The prophet also has taught us that G-d is beauty and loves beauty. But we miss all of this when we get into an entanglement with enemies, people we have complaints against, people we want to see punished for the wrongs they've done to us, and we lose ourselves, we lose more than our religious identity, we lose our human identity. G-d in the Quran, He asked us to search the scripture with our spiritual curiosity and also with our rational curiosities, to search the scripture.
G-d does not want dumb believers, G-d wants informed believers, educated believers, believers having enough knowledge of their lives to manage their lives successfully in community with others who may not identify with him in the same fate, or in the same life for that matter. I quote the builder of the Nation of Islam, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he didn't know the Quran, he didn't know how to read Arabic.
He mostly read the Bible to motivate his people, his following, his African-American following; to inspire them, to give them a sense of the fear of G-d, a sense of the need, the obligation to obey G-d, but he had a belief that the Quran was the bright book revealed by G-d, and that Islam was the right religion for his people and for all people, and that Muhammad was prophet, the messenger of G-d. He would often say to us, in fact, I don't know any meaning of Islam that I received when I was a follower in that organization, that Nation of Islam than the one he would give, and he said to us "Islam is freedom, justice, and equality."

I always loved that message because I identified myself with the suffering African-Americans who suffered during our enslavement in this hemisphere, and who suffered after our emancipation from the slavery of the south, who suffer discrimination, rejection, social rejection, and two separate laws. One limiting our life and one giving full freedom to the lives of white folks. I appreciate the message that said it was freedom because we needed to be free, and we needed justice and equality, we needed equal protection under the law. I identify strongly with the Nation of Islam and its message of Islam that was a call to embrace and believe in freedom, justice, and equality.

Islam is religion of peace, yes. But when I became more and more acquainted with G-d's attention to our own lives as human beings and how G-d describes his own creation, the path of excellence and the path of ignorance and self- destruction, I came to know and appreciate myself as a human creation much more than I had appreciated myself before becoming acquainted with the Quran. The more and more I read the Quran, the more and more I saw myself in higher picture, and in a richer picture, and in a more attractive picture, and a more valuable picture.
My perception of myself improved so much as I became more acquainted with how G-d pictures me or humans in His holy book. I would like to not really bring trouble to the audience, but some things have to be said if we are to really make progress so that we all can have peace together on this earth. Palestinians are victims, Palestinians are in prison. The whole people we call Palestinians are in a virtual prison. The hardened Israeli government people have the key to let them out, have the key to lock them in. We have to look at the suffering of people, innocent people, all innocent people, and we have to look at the cruelties of people, all cruel people.
I have been to Israel, I have been to the Palestinian quarters. I was welcomed into the home of some of the finest human beings I've ever met, Jews in Israel. I had dinner with one Jew at his home on Sabbath Day. In fact, I participated in the Sabbath with them. I ate the Sabbath meal with them. Couldn't find a warmer person, couldn't find a more genuine human being I don't think anywhere. But I experienced the same as a guest of Arafat with his people, the same. And I heard from his people and him, "We don't hate Jews, Jews are our friends, Jews are our neighbors. And it has been that way all the time."
What they meant is that before Israel was created in 1947 I think it was, they had lived with Jews and they had no intention not to stop living with Jews as friends and neighbors. One statement that I read in the paper recently said, "The professionals need to be called out of the mid-east situation." [laughs] Leave the people alone and they'll find their own peace. Maybe that would happen, but I doubt it. It's more complicated than that, but we need our professionals to be open and to have the moral courage, and faith, and humanity, if not in G-d, to listen to the complaints of all victims, and do justice by all victims.
When I think of the holocaust, my heart cries for the Jews, the victims of the holocaust. But also, when I look at some of the rigid rulers, leaders now in Israel, I see a creation of Hitler. You can become yourself so scarred by troubling your life as a people or by troubling your personal life that you become unhealthy and unfit to do justice by other human beings. I conclude my talk, thank you for the opportunity. Peace, As-Salaam-Alaikum.
[Applause]
Speaker 2: At this time, if anyone have any questions, please, there should be some mics. Are there mics where the persons can come and ask their questions? If not, please come as close as you can and raise your voice a little bit. Or if you say the question, I'll try to repeat it so we can get it on the tape, please. Yes.
Speaker 3: I have something written out here. I wish I had a mic, so should I just shout it out?
Audience: Yes.
Speaker 3: Okay. Mic? Thank you. Mr. Mohammed, it's an honor to be here and I heard you spoke, but I wanted to share a few quick quotes, make a comment, and then ask a question. Before September 11th, Peter Beyer, author of Religion and Globalization refers to Asian Middle-Eastern Muslims in the following quote, "Muslims are thought that they are being asked to surrender the core of faith, the immutable sacredness of the Quran as the price for our inclusion in a global system currently dominated by non-Muslims."
After September 11th, Osama bin Laden said the following words in reference to the event, "This is a clear proof that this international usurious gainful economy which America uses along with its military power to impose infidelity and humiliation on people can easily collapse. Thanks to G-d Almighty those blessed attacks that they themselves committed have inflicted on the New York and other markets more than a trillion dollars in losses. The losses taught those arrogant people who see freedom as meaningless if not belonging to the white race a rough lesson."
Then I also have a quote here from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in his book Message to the Blackman in America. "There is much misunderstanding among us because of our inferior knowledge of self. We have been to schools where they do not teach us the knowledge of self. We have been to the schools of our slave master children. We have been to their schools and gone as far as they allowed us to go." I appreciate the patience. I want to share with you really quickly just my own opinion. I believe that racism, imperialism, and colonialism still very much exist although in different forms and force.
I believe that western society and its worship of economics is incompatible with belief in G-d. I respect Osama bin Laden and his destruction of the World Trade Center, so I have a question. Does Osama bin Laden deserve more respect from Americans who believe in G-d? That's it.
Mohammed: Can you repeat the question again for me? I'm not sure I understood the question. I didn't hear it clearly enough. I heard everything up to the last part of the question. Now ask the question one more time.
Speaker 3: Okay. Does Osama bin laden deserve more respect? Does his cause deserve more respect from Americans who believe in G-d?
Warith Deen Mohammed: Thank you. His cause, if we understand his cause to be justice, he wanted justice and wanted to see the world become a just world, fair world, to see Muslims freer to practice their religion and have respect for their way of life et cetera. If that's his cause, if that was his cause and if that is his cause, and I do believe that in his own innocence because he doesn't see himself as a guilty person, he sees himself as an innocent person, that he's fighting for the cause, for the just cause, that in his own innocence, I do believe that he sees his cause as justice, fairness.
So, I would say to your question yes, we do owe it to ourselves to study what created him and his actions, and to respect his cause, yes. But that still does not say, for me, I'm not saying he didn't do a horrible thing, a criminal thing. He took the lives of innocent persons, and he should be caught tried and punished. But his case should be heard; we should know him better. There is never a justification for taking the lives of the innocent and I will give you what G-d has given us in the Quran. G-d says, "Never depart from justice even when you are pressured by an enemy to depart from justice; never depart from doing justice." G-d says, "For justice is nearest to piety."
Now is it justice because we are suffering to get our enemies even if it means killing innocent women, elderly persons, children, some of them might be our friends that if we had a day in court they would be on our side. We don't know who we're killing. It's never in my understanding accepted that we kill the innocent to get at the guilty. And G-d says, "No bearer of a burden should bear the burden of another." When we hurt or kill the innocent to get at the guilty, we are putting the burden on those persons, their families, the survivors who will moan the loss of their family members et cetera.
Also, G-d says to us in our religion, "And die not accept as Muslim." And Muslim means you die as a peace-loving person obeying G-d, following the extras that G-d prescribed for you even in war with your enemies. We who know the history of wars in the time of our prophet Muhammad, some of his followers were mutilated, horribly mutilated, but did he say, "They have mutilated us, let's mutilate them"? No, he insisted upon the best human conduct even in war. They couldn't even hack somebody up, that wasn't accepted, they had to kill them the swiftest and easiest way to cause least pain even to the enemy that they were fighting on the battlefield.
So, this new warfare that we see now is not accepted in Islam and the prophet would condemn it. They'd be punished for that kind of conduct if our prophet was here. Their cause should be heard; their own history as suffering people must be known. We know the suffering of the Jews and they have our hearts, all the hearts of decent human beings. But now should we only now look at the suffering of Jews and not also look at the suffering of others. What I'm saying to you my dear brother in humanity is that I agree with you, but I don't exactly perceive it as you perceive it.
Therefore, my reaction to it will not be your reaction, but I do agree with you that this world is terribly unjust, and America exports too much that is killing humanity, and punishing, and afflicting humanity. And we need to find answers more than muscle power. We know we can defeat, we have the weapons, the muscle to defeat anybody, any nation. But maybe we've come to the end of that kind of way of settling our problems, our differences or getting our way. Maybe now it is time for the western powers to do what is given in the bible to make their weapons into plowshares et cetera and seek other means.
[applause]
Mohammed: I believe we're expressing the popular sentiments of the American public and you may be surprised also Israel's public. You have another question?
Speaker 2: We have another question?
Speaker 4: Imam Mohammed, peace be with you. I follow some of your travels through the vocal argument and I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about your trip to Assisi. Just a week and a half ago, your trip to Italy to Assisi?
Mohammed: Can you pick the mic a little more to your mouth.
Speaker 5: Okay, could you tell us just a little bit about your trip to Assisi a week and a half a ago?
Mohammed: Yes, thank you. We received invitation from the Vatican, the invitation of the Pope John Paul II to be his guest again at the Vatican with religious leaders from around the world. Again, a great honor and a special opportunity. Not for me but more importantly for my community to be given that special invitation from such a wonderful leader for peace, and purity, and kindness in the world, John Paul II. What surprised me when I got there was I believe that at least a third of the participants, and there were hundreds, were notables from the Muslim world, from the various countries.
I met my dear friend that I became acquainted with when I was a very young man, young like these students, members of the Muslim Students Association, the assistant president and others that I met here tonight. I was a young man and I met this person who is also a young man, came to the United States for education like many of the young Arab men did during that time, and now they're still coming to different parts of the world for education. I saw him first at my father's house with about 20 or 21 other members of the Muslim Students Association of the United States and Canada.
We became acquainted, we'd meet on the campus of IIT, Illinois Institute of technology, and we would have a recitation of Quran. Reciting Quran in rhythmic voice, chanting, and also the congregation of prayer on Friday, we'd have it together. He's president of the Islamic Call Society based in Libya and I had to give you that description of him because I don't want people thinking that my friend is Gaddafi.
[laughter].
Mohammed: He is a strong religious figure. I did send greetings to Gaddafi by him though because Gaddafi, he's another figure and Castro, these are figures that we don't know, we don't understand. We don't know what produce these personalities, these men, their mindset and whatnot. We don't know them. All we know is the picture of him as one opposing capitalism and one fighting the United States, that's all we know. But we should look at causes behind these things. I was able to meet many notables of Islam from around the world, scholars of great minds.
It was a great opportunity for me as a Muslim, and it was even a greater opportunity for me as a believer in G-d and as a human being, a member in humanity to meet with people that I forgot who they were. I forgot they were Hindus, I forgot they were Buddhists because we had engaged each other in such a beautiful way, and we're enjoying each other company in such a beautiful way. You forget what label is on the person. A wonderful experience. Yes, and I met Chiara Lubrich, I shook her hands on three occasions and she is beautiful as she is always.
The youthfulness and health is just radiating in her face as she is a blessed woman indeed, so it was a great, great peak for my emotions and my spirit. Is there another question?
Speaker 6: As-Salaam-Alaikum
Speaker 2: Wa-Alaikum-Salaam. Do you think you might need the mic? If you could. Just lift your voice so I can hear you.
Speaker 6: In view of September 11th, how would that affect society in the low-income people as a whole in America?
Mohammed: Affect what?
Speaker 6: Low-income people.
Mohammed: Low-income people?
Speaker 6: Yes, sir.
Mohammed: Well, not as much as the high-income people
[laughter]
[applause]
Mohammed: We're going to make it, brother.
[laughter]
Mohammed: Yes. Is there another question?
[laughter]
Speaker 7: Good evening.
Mohammed: Good evening.
Speaker 7: Has your view of Islam changed very much from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's and if so, how has it changed?
Mohammed: Changed? I'll use another word because my view if something changed it's something about it like--
Speaker 7: [inaudible 01:06:04].
Mohammed: What?
Speaker 7: [inaudible 01:06:05].
Mohammed: Has it changed?
Speaker 7: Anything that's [inaudible 01:06:08].
Mohammed: Yes, okay, well, to be truthful with you, I was not converted to my father's way from the church. When I was born, my father had been for two years, almost three years already Identifying with a new idea, a new belief. I think because of that, I was freer than most of the followers to think rationally and ignore those things that I couldn't understand. Just put them aside, not condemn them, but just put aside because I couldn't understand them.
For example, I could never understand, I need to tell you all this to explain, to answer your question, I could never understand even as a boy before I reached my teenage years, I couldn't understand how a black god would create white devils to carry us through the hell that we came through. I couldn't understand that and they gave an explanation now, but for my little mind, then and now, I can't understand it.
The explanation was that G-d had to prove his power over evil, that he could create evil and give evil the power to rule in the world, and he would survive that. In my little mind, even then I said He's G-d. He's supposed to know the answer. He's supposed to know he will survive it. So, who was he proving it too?
[laughter]
Mohammed: We believe that He survived alone and nothing can harm him, so it didn't make sense to me then. As I began to become more acquainted with Islam as Muslims believe it all over the world from the number one source, the Quran of course. And then I read books by Maulana Maududi of Pakistan on the life of Prophet Muhammad. Easy to read books, a thought book, and it just endeared so much to Prophet Muhammad. Gladly, I saw myself facing those things that I couldn't understand and did reject, but I didn't put them down. That is, I didn't say the Honorable Elijah Muhammad told us a lie.
That story about G-d is wrong, I didn't do that, I just left it alone, but as I began to learn more about real Islam and the real G-d from the Quran and Muhammad the Prophet, I began to pick those things back up again and look at them. And I saw a powerful psychology, a powerful strategy to get Islam into the heart of the poor black community. I don't justify it. I don't excuse the lies and the wrong. But I say I appreciate the good intent of Mr. Farrah and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and I pray that G-d will reward them for all their good, and that their good will weigh heavier on the scale than their errors that they made in the name of goodness and G-d.
They didn't do it against G-d, they did it to help bring us to G-d. I did change, I changed a lot, but I was changing from the time I was a little fella. I remember once, we lived on 6116 Michigan in Chicago, south side and my father and mother was going out to the temple to the meetings, they called them temples back then. Now mind you, they were called temples up until '55 maybe. They were called temples and the secret order called the Shrine of the Mason, they call that place the temple too, you see. [laughs] They were saying something to us all along and he didn't say it was a mosque. The place of Muslim is called mosque, not temple.
He didn't say it was a mosque. It took a Jordanian who the Honorable Elijah Muhammad invited to teach us, the high school students Arabic so we could learn Arabic and learn to read the Quran in Arabic to sit down and discuss with my father some problems of language that was very serious. In the land of the Turks in Turkey, they don't call Muhammad, Muhammad, they call him Mehmed. That's how they pronounce it, Mehmed. Do you know how we were told to pronounce our names? I've pronounced my name that up until '53 or later, McMad. Yes, all of us.
If they asked us for our name, we say McMad, Wallace McMad, Ethel McMad, Larry McMad, Emmanuel McMad. They're my brothers and sisters. Nathaniel McMad, even Akbar. Now he knows, he came, "Yes, you are." "Yes."
[laughter]
Mohammed: Akbar too. Akbar McMad, he was old enough, he got caught too.
[laughter]
Mohammed: Our places of worship were called temples, the holy temples of Islam. That's what they were called. But we have a lot to understand about the teacher, my father, Mr. Farrah and my father, his obedient student, Elijah Muhammad. Yes, I'm sorry, I took so much time on that, but I just wanted to share it with you. While you're coming, one day when they left me alone in that house on 6116th in South Michigan, I felt afraid. The house starts squeaking. When the house is cool and nobody in it and start making noises, so I raised my hands to pray like we were taught to pray and I said, "Allah, if I'm not seeing you correctly, please help me see you correctly."
I was only about 11 or 12 years old. I started changing early.
Speaker 8: I want to know what your reactions were if any to President Bush's State of the Union speech in which his opinion about Muslims were a little ambiguous if not much offensive? As a result of this Saudi Arabian Haram, maybe they have stopped the whole communication with America and I want to know what your take on his comments were?
Mohammed: I don't want to give you my opinion of his State of Union address. But I will say this, I read in the paper a statement from Colin Powell, Secretary of State, a man loved by most of the American people and admired by most of American people, I think by all of us. He said that the war on terrorism must include poverty. He is touched by the suffering of the people of Afghanistan, that extremely poor country and people. I just wish President Bush would speak more like Colin Powell at least at certain times.
[applause]
Speaker 9: As-Salaam-Alaikum, Imam.
Mohammed: Wa-Alaikum-Salaam.
Speaker 9: I don't have a question for you, but I have been wanting to do this for some time, every time I get a little nervous. I just want to thank you for teaching us. I just want to thank you for the strength that Allah has given to you. I just want to thank you for being a brother that you are and for your guidance. I pray Allah just continues to guide you and continues to strengthen you, and I hope you'll be back in North Carolina real soon.
[applause]
Mohammed: Allah strengthens me with this kind of support you just gave me for my spirit and my morale. You keep me very strong, people like you and your prayers. Yes.
Speaker 10: I have a quick question. I just had a question, since coming to a new definition of Islam and coming to the America Muslim society, how have you seen women roles evolve in some of those higher positions like Imam to just imperials increasing?
Mohammed: The role of the sisters as teachers of Islam is not limited at all. As teachers of Islam, sisters have the same freedom and they get the same respect from the learned or the scholars of Islam that the men get for developing their minds and their knowledge of Islam and their spirit to serve G-d, to serve Allah, the creator of the heavens and the earth. No difference. The title Imam is a role and is more symbolic than it is an issue. It's more symbolic. We have women making great contributions to the world and we have men doing the same now. It seems that women are making more progress, especially in African-American community than our men. Times are changing.
A woman, especially a mother, she has no problem saying to her son, "I want you to be the man," And she has no problem raising her son to be the man. It doesn't mean that her son is going to be higher in intellect or in any other way than the mother, maybe the mother will always be higher in intellect than the son. But something is in her nature to want to have him know that she respects him as the man. G-d in Islam and Christianity wants to preserve that respect in society for the male.
The society, the world was made civilized because men went out from the home, they were free to do it, they didn't have to spend nine months carrying a child, and another year or a few years caring for the child until the child could manage for itself. They were free to go out in the world and explore the world and open the world more and more to human life. So, men will always be respected in religion for being the one that goes out in the public and address the problems of public life. It doesn't mean the woman is beneath the man at all, spiritually, intellectually or any other way.
It's the value of that role of man in history and in society that is preserved in religion. And sometimes the inferior saves the world, not the superior.
Speaker 11: As-Salaam-Alaikum.
Mohammed: Wa-Alaikum-Salaam.
Speaker 11: It's more of, not a question but a comment and thanks. For many years I've known you, I met you at your father's house many years ago. In the sixties we were in Philadelphia, we were in New Jersey, my father was Minister James Shabazz at that time in Newark, New Jersey.
Mohammed: Newark?
Speaker 11: Yes, sir.
Mohammed: A strong man and a great man.
Speaker 11: Yes, sir. We were always excited about you. The things in [inaudible 01:21:08]. We've watched you over the years and we really thank G-d for you and the things that you're doing. We can truly say that you are as an example. My father always lifts you up and my family do the same thing. I just came night, I just want to thank you very much for the work and the leadership. I remember you came to Newark in 1976, I believe that was your first trip, and I think we honored you there because we appreciated that. We just want to thank you for that.
Mohammed: Thank you.
Speaker 11: Thank you very much, [unclear].
Mohammed: Thank you. Yes, getting back to the sister who asked a question about being the woman in the role of Imam and is that role open to women? And she sees from the Nation of Islam which I am too. [chuckles] In the Nation of Islam, a sister can be minister. That's no problem for us, sister, that's no problem for us. Because minister is not exactly what Imam is. The ministers, they teach, they preach. Imam means one who leads the congregation in prayer and he recites the Quran, it's not Dua. Prayer is not this asking for blessings or protection, calling on G-d for help or whatever.
This is not Salat doing this and in the temple of Islam and in the nation of Islam now, the minister lead people in Dua, not prayer, not Salat, the formal Salat that requires that we use no language except G-d's word, the Quran, when we're performing that. And so, in my opinion, we can have ministers now. Men and women, they can be ministers altogether. There's no problem, but the role of Imam, there is a problem. They should only be male, a man, not females. It doesn't say he's better than you, no. It says that's his traditional role from the time G-d gave word to the first man. It was the man that spoke what G-d gave to the world. So, it's different. I hope you understand what I'm saying, sister.
Speaker 2: The last question. One last question.
Mohammed: One more? Okay.
Speaker 2: Yes, the last one.
Speaker 12: As-Salaam-Alaikum.
Mohammed: Wa-Alaikum-Salaam.
Speaker 12: Actually, if you don't mind, I'd like to make a comment to our guest and to our audience. It's a reference to information that is in our holy book, the Holy Quran and I'd like to share with you what G-d says in the Holy Quran because if you know what G-d says in our Holy book, the Holy Quran, then you'll know us better.
Mohammed: Now you're helping me with the audience, but I'm not going to share any of my honorarium with you.
[laughter]
Speaker 13: This has gone on in my mind over and over as I was sitting down, so I believe that it's a good thing to share. In the Holy Quran, G-d says that "Do not let your hatred for people cause you to swerve from justice."
Mohammed: Thank you.
Speaker 13: Thank you for the very excellent speech tonight. For that speech, I won't say that, but your beautiful talk. As-Salaam-Alaikum.


[01:25:26] [END OF AUDIO]

