New Madh'hab, New People
Question/Answer with Imam W. Deen Mohammed
00:00 Questioner: Secondly, Imam Mohammed, you have said in the past that significant cultures have developed their own schools of law or Madh’habs in Islamic history. Do you still hold that Islam in America will develop its own school of law or Madh’hab in the future? What are some of the contributions that Islam in America could make to the traditions of Islamic Law? 

00:33 Imam W. Deen Mohammed: The next question, do you still hold... Does Imam W. Deen Mohammed still hold to his belief or his position on Madh’habs and Islamic Law for America? Yes, I still hold strongly. In fact, I'm even more strongly holding on to that belief, now that I was, when I mentioned it several years ago. Yes, yes. Why? Because when you study, when we study the development of schools of thoughts for Muslims in the Old World, Africa, Saudi Arabia and other places, these schools don't conflict with each other, but they address different problems and issues and in their own special way. And they have more in common with each other because of them being contemporaneous, existing in the same time with the same situations for mankind in the known world at that time. They have more in common than we have now being a thousand years away from them, almost and continent away from them and a very new human society in America and the world now.

02:06 IWDM: I think it's necessary for them to even re-read and re-study their Madh’habs in light of the changes that have to come about on earth, to modernize man for good and bad, to better educate the public for good and bad. We need to study all that, the different kinds of environment, environmental situations we have and conditions we have affecting the human soul today and challenging religion to keep itself pure and to keep us on genuine characteristics in nature. We have to study this again.

02:44 IWDM: For us in America, we are new people. I heard the Christian respondent referring to us as a special people and that's exactly what we are. Before slavery and our migration to the north and our presence here now on this earth, there were no people such as we are on this planet. We are definitely a new social group on this planet. God has created us again. The children emptied of their life and put in slavery and God has restored to human life to the human vessel again and we are another people, a new people on this planet.

03:29 IWDM: You who study psychology, the development of society, you definitely will agree with me 'cause I'm not only speaking with respect for my knowledge, I'm speaking with respect for science, the science of human life and nature and society. We are a new people. We're definitely a new people on this planet earth. We didn't exist before so we are new thinkers. We don't think like Africans. We don't think like white people. We think like us. We don't think like Arabs. We don't think like Asians. We think like us.
[applause]

04:02 IWDM: Now why should the Islamic world be deprived of Islam being expressed through a new and innocent vessel? 

