07/10/2008
IWDM Study Library
IWDM Interviewed by Clyde Rahman
Hazel Crest IL

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Imam W.D. Mohammed: Man utilized the power of electricity. He discovered it, Benjamin Franklin, in the sky when the lightning was flashing and he got the idea to make an electric light. He finally, they would do it with a partner working with, he was an African American.
Interviewer: Lewis Latimer with Thomas Edison.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: That's right. Yes, that's what I meant. Thomas Edison found a way to get the energy out of the matter or out of matter, and used the same principle that he saw in the lightning to make a light bulb. Negative and positive. Friction to make fire and light. Everything has been made for us to utilize. Intelligence of man or people to utilize. We say man, we talk about mankind, we're talking about all people. Male and female, male and female.
G-d says to modern man, I believe the Quran addresses modern man needs. Modern man's needs, to come out of the darkness of ancient man. G-d made everything to be- made it with human intelligence. Everything is made for human intelligence. When our human intelligence or our intellectual curiosities, rational curiosities and intellectual curiosities engage the external world, there's progress for the mind and progress for the human community. That's how it all happens. Our guest, I want to say doctor, he is doctor, but the principal of Kennedy-King College, Clyde El-Amin, he mentioned the life of George Washington Carver. His interest in science and how he developed in progress.
His mind engaging something in his environment, farming and whatever, brought mind and matter to work together. Mate like man and woman, and he was able to produce many products. I would like to see a day come when human thinking becomes so original in the plan of G-d, become so original that all of us will have that orientation. All of us will have at least be inclined or have that disposition in our mind to appreciate everything that exists as a communicator, as Allah says in the Quran, of knowledge, science, and mercy. That you get it, then you should be as merciful as G-d was to you.
He relieved you by giving you this knowledge, now you should relieve your community. You should relieve mankind, people's life on this earth. You should bring your findings to their life like George Washington Carver did. He was anxious to get his findings to the scene of man's labors and problems so that we'd have better conditions for farming or whatever. I heard that he was the one that began to talk to the farmers how to rotate their crops.
Interviewer: He was.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: Yes, that's what I heard.
Interviewer: He was.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: This completes this section of this segment. Which means after we look at it, it might be developed into maybe several segments. We will continue addressing this concern for our life. That it forms in the best way possible according to the gift of G-d, what he has given us to work with, and that it continues to grow in the best patterns, so that we realize more and more benefits as a human community on this planet earth. It should start right with our life at home with our mothers and fathers or with our families. We should start right there to want to improve the condition of our home life and our neighborhoods, and make a contribution to the whole world.
I have really been pleased and given a better situation to work and do even more because of our discussion. The world began with thinkers coming together and discussing matters. Matters of importance to the life of people and the future. That's how the world began.
Interviewer: I've gotten some needed inspiration to go back to my challenge.
[laughter]
Imam W.D. Mohammed: Yes. As the world will continue to grow and live, it has to happen. That's what's happening. It's happening in separate quarters and circles. It's happening. The world is never as dark as it looks.
Interviewer: As it looks. [chuckles]
Imam W.D. Mohammed: Thank you and we hope to address you again.
Interviewer: Thank you Brother Imam.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: Assalamu alaikum.
[sound cut]
At this point in our discussion, and believe me, I'm really appreciating your presence and thank you for being our guest.
Interviewer: I'm getting a lot out of this.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: As I said, I introduced it in the beginning, I said we are introducing a series, and this is just a part of that series. We will be sitting again with you as soon as we can find time. Your schedule and my schedule permits, we'll be sitting again for the taping of this discussion. I would like to end this segment with supporting or just acknowledging, pardon me, what you've just brought out. Prophet Muhammad about the effect of religion on people and how it's superficial, cosmetic and they missed the real ingredients. The nutrients in the religion they miss.
Prophet Muhammad was brought a gentleman, a man who was following the religion spiritually and doing all the rituals. He prayed all the five prayers. He never missed his prayers. Other rituals, he was completing them. He fast and everything when the fast month comes. They gave this beautiful picture of achievement for the individual to the prophet. The prophet said, "Who takes care of him? Who provides his needs, his food, his clothing?" They said, "We do." "You're better than he is."
Interviewer: Wow. That's powerful.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: [laughs] Yes, it is. It shows that the prophet saw ritualism as Jesus Christ did. He put down ritualism too.
Interviewer: Sure did.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: He described it in the Gospel. He saw ritualism as a serious problem for the advancement of society. He let not them know, but that's there to let the world leaders know who will get acquainted with the prophet or with the Quran and the prophet, to let them know that the big problem for us in the world is ritualism. People have to have substance for their guidance, for the guidance of their life. Human beings begin as thinkers and all human life begins as a thinker, and the thinker develops into a philosopher.
Whether you reach that point of philosophical inquiry where you're serious about knowing the nature of things, not just the outer appearance, but you want to know what makes this work, what makes this shape up, take that form, et cetera, you become scientifically oriented before you even become scientific as we know science in the world today.
We all begin as thinkers and we all begin with patterns of thinking. Our thinking takes pattern. If we don't have an orientation that, I would say, has a source in matter in real natural world creation, if we don't have our beginning there, then we take pattern. Sometimes the pattern is faulty from the beginning. A faulty pattern. One faulty pattern follows another.
Most people are just I would say creatures at random thought and at random patterns of development for the growth of their mind or mentality. That's why the world is in such a mess. It seems like there's a job too big for her to say, everybody needs to be reeducated or we need to have some kind of supplements to our curriculum or education, that would include how concepts in nature, plant life, animal life, concepts in nature has inspired concepts in science and how you can see the helicopter in the world of insects and birds.
What's that bird? The hummingbird.
You can see that principle right in these animals before that-- Pardon me, that will make you not to be so frightened by the inventions of science and the modern man.
Interviewer: Yes, the scientists lose their mystique.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: Yes.
Interviewer: You see that they're all just basically studying, and copying, or using principles and they--
Imam W.D. Mohammed: They overwhelm us with their knowledge and with their creations. They mystify us to the point where we just, as you say, become paralyzed. We become paralyzed and we don't want to even deal with it. We don't want to even think about it. We don't want to ask any questions because the challenge is too much for us. The challenge is too much for us. If we could get more help, the nature series, if you've got a normal mind, a natural mind, you appreciate watching the nature. You appreciate that, and it's so good. Why don't they make it clear that we are not only showing you nature but we want you to know that really man's beginning is the beginning of his curiosity for understanding, for looking at and appreciating? Understanding these things, they're showing you that this is in nature.
That's how education develops. That's how science develops. They should tell the viewers that, that they don't [sound cut]. I think they think that everything is by science now.
Interviewer: [laughs]
Imam W.D. Mohammed: G-d says in the scripture, and the Quran and the Bible, I think, has the same story almost exactly. That's when Jesus Christ when Mary was fathering-- Pardon me. When Mary was about to give birth or carry Christ Jesus, peace be upon Mary and her son, Jesus Christ, she was put in the care at Zachariah. Prophet in the name of Zechariah. He's both in the gospel and in the Quran. Zachariah was told to fast three days to get himself in condition to care for her. Said, "And don't communicate, don't speak, except by signs."
It's just a figure that's kind of typifing the nature of scripture itself. That scripture itself does not communicate to us rationally. It communicates to us by symbols and signs, et cetera, by stories, picture stories, et cetera. That's the way you should leave it and that's the way you should leave the world. If the world doesn't wake them up the way G-d made it, leave them alone, tell him to go to school for education.
[laughter]
Interviewer: Well, that's something that you say that. I remember someone argued with me about-- We had an argument about literalism and the Bible. They were saying that their minister, they go to their church because their minister just- he just sticks with the Bible. He doesn't interpret it or anything. I asked him, I said, "Well, what does your minister do? He just stands up and reads the Bible and closes up?" He said, "No, no, no." I said, "Then he obviously, he comments on it. If you're going to comment, there's some interpretation there." They felt kind of stumped then. I didn't want them feeling that way, so I took the discussion somewhere else. I don't like people to feel like I've stumped them. That wasn't the point of the discussion.
I said, "I remember when I entered college, and for the most part, when I studied literature in high school, it's been pretty literal. You can tell us the story, it started, this was the story, this happened, that happened, this is the end. It didn't get much more sophisticated than that even in high school. I think it probably should have but it didn't in my high school.
When I got in college, everything was symbols and interpretation of what does it mean and the different levels on which you can understand the poem, et cetera. I use the example of Edgar Allan Poe, which I remember this poem when I had this poetry teacher, as she had us looking at this poem on five or six different levels. Honestly, I got tired actually, [laughs] but she stretched my mind. I said, "Well, if G-d created Edgar Allan Poe and Edgar Allan Poe could write a poem that we could interpret on five different levels and we all agreed that you're supposed to look at it that way, why do we think that the books that are supposed to be G-d's very words only to be interpreted on the surface and literally?"
[laughter]
Interviewer: I don't get that.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: No.
Interviewer: They said, "Oh, I see your point. I see what you're saying." They weren't the kind of go back into the comfort of their original belief, but I could see that I got them with that because that makes our intelligence grow. Why would Allah give us something that wouldn't challenge our intelligence? Say, "This is the book of guidance for you,: but doesn't even challenge your intelligence.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: Jesus Christ says, peace be on him. "If your child asks for bread, will you give it a stone? Break his teeth up? Kryptonite."
[laughter]
Interviewer: Wow, that's it.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: No, bread is supposed to be education, because it begins with the seed, and you grind the seed into powder, and then you add to the powder, water or whatever, and you end up baking it, and it comes out so delicious and chewable. If you would just take a grass seed, that wouldn't be so nice at all.
Interviewer: No, it wouldn't be. [laughs]
Imam W.D. Mohammed: In the Bible, they even call them the seed stone. So actually, what Jesus Christ is saying, "Why do you give them unfinished teachings?" You give him the teaching and the first stage of the raw stage that you get it in. Use your intelligence and break it down. Work that so they understand it, and give it to them so they understand it and appreciate it, and have pleasure tasting and digesting. That's what Jesus Christ was teaching them. In the Quran, it says that Muhammad the prophet, that he has been taught by G-d, mission by G-d, taught by G-d. He comes to you, to do what? To teach you the book and the wisdom.
Alkitab walhikma. The book and the wisdom. The wisdom means the logic for coming to a judgment, for forming judgment. That's the wisdom. The logic that directs you the way you should go to form a judgment on this particular matter. He teaches you the book and the wisdom and it says and also to purify you, because if you are not purified, if your mind is not cleansed on the pollution that the world put in your head is not taken out of it, you're not going to even be able to read the book. Not to speak of getting through the wisdom.
[laughter]
Interviewer: Well, I think I could be wrong about this, but I really believe that the world has gotten to a point, there's been progress in a lot of areas. You talked about globalization, globalism earlier and accompanying that has been technology that's made that possible.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: Yes, exactly.
Interviewer: I think that technology also makes it possible for a lot of us to have access to the mind of masses of people, and we didn't have that ability before. We didn't have the internet. Now you can start your own little radio station.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: Yes. [laughs]
Interviewer: Now with these digital channels coming out, I think in February, everything goes digital. Some of our technical folks here know what I'm talking about much better than I do. I know I got to change by television or I got to get something. I do know because we run a television station at the college, that there's going to be four additional stations for almost every television station in this country, and there's going to be stations available. You can take a radio station that you would only be able to reach people within a few square miles, maybe a couple of hundred square miles. Now, you can immediately reach the whole world with your radio. The smallest little radio station can stream, as they call it, on the worldwide web now.
If you can get the word out that your station is there, people anywhere in this country, anywhere in this world can go on their computer and listen to what you have to say.
I see that as a tremendous opportunity for us to get the messages and the symbols out that will, for lack of a better word, cure some of the problems, some of the things that hold us back. In holding us back, we hold the world back. If African Americans are held back, the whole world is held back.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: That's true.
Interviewer: There's so much that the world won't get.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: You do to one, you have done onto all.
Interviewer: You've done it to all.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: Eventually it will catch up.
Interviewer: Yes, it catches up with you. Now, we see other people's children with some of the problems that our children had.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: That's true.
Interviewer: Some people are just so sick because they went around dressing like our children. [laughs]
Imam W.D. Mohammed: No such thing as a black problem anymore.
Interviewer: There's no black problems anymore.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: Everybody black and everybody got problems.
Interviewer: Everybody got the problems.
[laughter]
I think that as usual Allah has provided us more than we need to do what we have to do and when we start doing it, we begin to see that there's more there than we thought was there when we started out.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: Yes, and do you know many of the teachers, educators in Islam, especially those from outside the black community, the African American community, in Islam they say that you're not supposed to give interpretation because no one knows interpretation but G-d. That's what they say,-
Interviewer: Yes, I've heard that.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: -but the Quran says very plainly and clearly that he gave us Muhammad as a teacher, who will also teach us the interpretation. It's called [unintelligible 00:22:18] who will also teach us the interpretation. The Quran, just as other scriptures, the Quran even more so emphasizes open expression, appreciation for rational thought, and we're not to bypass rational interest or rational curiosity, we have to address or speak to, pardon me, the rational curiosities of the people in the audience or in the congregation. You just speak to them too.
A Khutbah, most of us don't know what a Khutbah is and we think that Khutbah is saying sermon. Khutbah does not say sermon, because sermon, a sermon to be on a high level. It could be very logical, and rational, and sober. The Khutbah mean that it's always coming from the tool of intelligence that is working with the revelation of G-d. It's always a lecture.
Interviewer: Always a lecture.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: It's always a lecture. It's supposed to be [chuckles] but we don't know it, so a lot of the preachers in Islam they preach. They don't give a Khutbah. Preachers call [unintelligible 00:23:39] [unintelligible 00:23:40] mean you just calling. You’re just calling to G-d or you call into the congregation. [laughs] 
Interviewer: That's why we need that radio station.
[laughter]
Imam W.D. Mohammed: It carries also a picture of a screaming bird coming, trying to rescue its young, a screaming bird. It fears something is going at its young and the screaming bird is going after it. A bird can be frightening.
Interviewer: Absolutely.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: Even the little sparrow can be frightening, if that sparrow feels that its baby is-- [crosstalk]
Interviewer: Is being threatened.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: If you at the nest, or can come at you and look bigger than what it is. The preacher is like that, a typical preacher. All of them like that. Thank Allah. I'll listen to TD Jakes. The man is worthy of that big following he has.
Interviewer: Yes, I've heard that he's one that's trying to open the mind and appeal to the intelligence of people.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: Yes, he is. He's doing a good job. One of them. I just point to him as an example. I think we should close on this.
[sound cut]
The Bible, or scripture, and Quran, these scriptures are given on different levels so that the person who is uninformed and uneducated can get much to help his life. Life can be sufficiently taken care of by that, that's on the ground level, first level, but it goes to high levels, to the most, I would say, advanced intellectual thinker, goes to the highest level. Even the thinker of the saintly people, who have reached the highest level of intelligent progression for the thought. Yes, it's on all those levels.
What should be taken literal is do not lie, do not steal, do not cheat, do not deceive, do not be nasty, be decent, et cetera, do not be stupid, be intelligent. That's the teachings and scripture that should be taken just like it is.
Interviewer: Literally.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: Needs no interpretation because common nature tell us how to receive that and practice it if we have the decency to do so. We are closing out this segment here, which I think we have more than one segment.
Interviewer: I believe so.
[laughter]
Imam W.D. Mohammed: We do want to come back because I think we need to address this more again. The focus is everything in existence. Everything in existence has one word, the universe. Universe says, - one verse, so that should tell us that we should be able to read all of it as one and the same reading on one line, one statement. The statement should say G-d did this, not you.
[laughter]
Terms that we will be addressing will be the cosmos, which is the universe, and cosmism, which is the philosophy or study of everything that's in existence, to understand how it came about, and understand how it evolved, how it grew, and how we were expressed out of this great material source that G-d made, how or even if bore human life and how our life has to evolve too to a completion, come to a completion.
The thinking on this existence or everything that exists to arrive at some kind of conclusion for our thinking. The conclusion arrived that by Prophet Abraham and many of the early philosophers, both Greek, African, and others. Sometimes we think only philosophers are Greek.
Interviewer: Greek. [laughs]
Imam W.D. Mohammed: The Greek philosopher Aristotle started out almost worshiping the Africans.
Interviewer: That's right.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: The expression is cosmological argument. That's what we're addressing. This reasoning that Abraham went through, to come to the conclusion that this whole existence, everything, even us included, everything is tied by one logic, universal logic, by one logic, the logic of matter itself. The logic that holds matter material things together. He arrived at that logic and the systems that have formed upon that logic, the system of planets, the system of life on earth, et cetera, system that represents weather nature, weather in changes, all of these are systems.
He came to the conclusion that there must be a cause behind all this and Allah, he reduced the many G-ds to one. He said, "No, there are not many G-ds, G-d is only one, the Creator. It has begin with G-d the Creator and he called that G-d his Lord." meaning that G-d formed his life and created the necessary help that that life needs, so that his life would develop from lesser to greater, from inferior to superior.
Utilizing G-d's creation, we are told that G-d made everything, or everything that we find in existence, everything has been formed, put in our life or in our existence for us to utilize it, to make use of it. Utilize means to make use of it.
[00:30:16] [END OF AUDIO]

