10/22/2000
IWDM Study Library 
Radio Interview radio KKDA 
Fort Worth TX

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
This is a bad situation and he behaved in a way that is not, I would say, decent of a grand leader. And we should not think that white people are angels. They're human, just like we are. They can't be perfect. They're going to make errors. And they're going to wake up on the wrong side of the bed sometimes, just like we do. And we are going to have a bad encounter with them, in public and on jobs. And we know them very well. We say, "Oh, that's my friend, man. He's not racist. We have problems sometimes, but he's not racist." We have to understand that all people are the same.
Yes, excuse me. I was taking a swallow of water. Excuse me. Yes, we're not angels either. None of us are angels. And I heard it most. G-d said to the Prophet Muhammad, He said, "if there were angels populating the earth", G-d said to him, "I would've sent an angel to him." Meaning Muhammad, the Prophet was not an angel either. The prophets were human beings. We are human beings. We're all human. We're not perfect. There's only one perfect, I believe that's in the gospel, the New Testament. There is only one perfect and that is G-d.
I'm not hearing you. The volume is not that good, but listen. Can I call you Cheryl? You can call me Wallace, W. Deen, whatever. Okay, sure. We came from an extreme, as you know. I'm the son of Elijah Muhammad, the one who built the Nation of Islam, called black Muslims also. And we came from the extreme, the extreme that I came from. I was born under the teachings of my father, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and he passed in 1975. And what I was taught was very much like, I guess, the children of a white supremacist families were taught, that we're inherently different. And white people are born to be evil, and black people are born to be good, that's what I was taught., So I can understand the other side and have maybe more patience with what we identify as sometimes, a racist, than most African Americans.
Because of that, I have searched scripture and found scriptural basis or religious basis, for a lot of what we call, white supremacy or superiority in white folks. I've found scripture that could be misread, misinterpreted. In fact, not could be, it has been misread and misinterpreted as a convenience, really. As a convenience for one people over another people.
Yes, I hear you better now. I'm hearing you better now. Yes. Yes, I believe your question was why do I believe there are such extremes in the society? My father, why did he go to that extreme? Reacting to the extreme that we were being targeted by, and that was white supremacy. The Klan and all the other evils that we suffered as a people in this country before the law was made, right? You know? He was reacting to that extreme. He didn't invent the idea now. He had a teacher. My father was not an educated man. He was a very talented man, but not an educated man. He didn't get an education and he was taught by a teacher, and the teacher was a foreigner. I believe he was from India, what is called Pakistan now. The whole of Pakistan, I think he was from that area, but he was not an American.
They had suffered too, in India. They had suffered domination by the British and they lost a lot of their racial respect and dignity under the British. And I think perhaps he sympathized with us because he was almost staring at his own land. And then when he came here, he used our, I would say, our grievances with white folks. To come through our grievances to reach us with the holy book, the Qur'an. What I'm saying now is that I think he was more interested in inviting us to be Muslims, than he was in making us black supremacists. Yes.
Yes, it was. It began very early for me, really. When I was a boy, I was living on 6116 South Michigan in Chicago, my father's home. And my age couldn't have been more... I know what my age was at that time, living at that location. I couldn't have been more than about 12 or 13 years old. I believe I was about 13. And everyone was gone from the house. It was late at night. And you know, we had a house that squeaked when you walked the floors, and makes noise when you're not walking. When the house settled, it'd make noise, so I was a little scared. And I started to pray like they taught me to pray. And before I got out any words, trying to reach G-d, I was conscious of how we saw G-d. And I wasn't comfortable with the picture of G-d that I had in my mind that I got from the Nation of Islam and from my father.
So, I said, "Allah." Because you know, we call G-d, Allah. I said, "Allah, if I'm not seeing you correctly, will you please help me see you correctly?" That's what I said, I recall that. So, I'm aware that I was uncomfortable with the idea and picture of G-d that was given to me when I was a boy. I had no problem with the picture I was given of white people at that time. It was just the picture I was given of G-d that I had the problem with. The picture of G-d? It was a man. We had a picture of him. The teacher of my father, the one that I mentioned earlier, I believe that came from Pakistan before Pakistan... It was not Pakistan at that time. It became Pakistan in 1947. And this man met my father in 1930 or 1931, so the picture of him is hung on our walls. Nice, big picture of him, holding the holy book, the Qur'an in his hands and looking piously down at it as though he was reading it. But he looked like a white man to me, and they told me the white man was the devil. So, that was a contradiction.
At this moment, I'm not hearing you. You said why I asked about it? No, when I was praying, I was not comfortable seeing G-d as that person whose name is Fard, spelled F-A-R-D, but it's pronounced F-A-R-A-D, Farad. There was a picture of the teacher of my father, Mr. Fard, the one we called "G-d in the person of Mr. W.D. Farad, that's what we called him. "G-d in the person of Mister, or Master W.D. Fard." We called him "savior". We saw him very much like many Christians see the prophet and messenger of G-d, Jesus Christ, G-d manifest on earth, or G-d in the flesh. We had an extreme belief, much more extreme than the belief of Christians, because Christians believe in a non-material reality, too. They believe that the higher reality is the non-material reality, not the body or the flesh. We believed that the material reality was the higher reality, and the incident of man didn't exist, except in the material body.
So, we were very much like atheists on the one hand, while we were strongly spiritual on the other hand. And that was a contradiction too in our life, a religious contradiction. And then also, we believed very much like some Jews. I don't know if many Christians are aware, but there was some Jews who didn't believe in a hereafter or a spiritual idea. They put their own importance on the material life, and I think they were called Sadducees. And they didn't accept that there was a hereafter or resurrection of the dead. So, what I'm saying is that we were so odd. You know, we weren't the first people on earth to believe that way. Other sects believed that way too, and had to be corrected.
Oh, yes. Yes. The Nation of Islam was a mystery and many whites are still mystified with the leaders of our history, and what we believed. The Nation of Islam was a mystery and it was planned to be a mystery, to challenge our minds so that black people would think deep, and use all the muscles of their intellect to make us stronger intellectually. It was a marvelous plan. But it was also intentionally planned for us to, as we grow more educated and less worried and nave, that we ourselves will begin to question what we were given. So, it was planned that we actually find our way out of that, too. To get out of the dense darkness; as the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, "three veils of darkness." And we had to come out from under this with our own moral muscles and rational muscles of our intellect. It was a marvelous, I think, strategy.
And it helped American whites, too. I've had them tell me that. It made them look at themselves seriously in the mirror and wonder why they had done the things they had done to African American people or black people, during slavery and after.
And knew him? Yes, yes. The religious leader there, and they have several now, but he's Imam Ali Muslim. I go there almost two or three times a year, and they're doing a good, wonderful job there. They're investing in the neighborhood. They're building some housing, building some houses there, low-income housing. And we are very proud of what they're doing. I don't know if you're aware that Muslims have begun to do something to change the physical environment that they're in.
Yes. You know, I've been the leader now for over 25 years. When I became the leader, the greatest need at that time was for us to come back to the spirit of religion, and to be a people of faith first. And then address the material condition of our lives, after we had established ourselves again as a people of religion or people of faith. So, I intentionally didn't address business and material problems, to bring our people to the real life. The real life is a life of faith in G-d, and the development of our own souls. The moral and rational development of our own spiritual life. That's the real life. And if people are strong in that life, they can deal with the problems around them or in their neighborhoods.
So, it took me a long time with the helpers I had, who understood that need. I had many good helpers. Mostly men, but some women too. And over a period of about 10 or 15 years, we reestablished ourselves as a people of faith, valuing the abstract human over the concrete human. And that has now put us in position to address the material problems again, and we are making great progress. We have a national business effort to finance the religious community. Our school is the number one priority, and also to make a contribution to our neighborhoods, to the betterment of our neighborhoods. That other good Christians and churches are doing this, and they're doing a marvelous job of building, developing the community, putting up low and medium income housing, and just taking charge of the neighborhood with the help of business and government. This is a great time we're living in, and I'm very much excited about the future of our community with the business, national business presence of our religious people, men and women, of faith. They're just not in business for business' sake. They're in business to have a better religious life, and a better community life.
That was, I'm not hearing you well. Women in Islam? Yes, yes. Well, you know, we are not alone here, either. The popular notion is that women should be able to do whatever they want to do, you know? With their bodies and with their lives. And in our religion, we are very much like conservative Christians. We believe that G-d created a role for women and a role for men. A role for women and men in the house, and a role for women and men in the public. G-d said to us, "Men are responsible for women." That is, for the protection of women and the care of women, the financial care of women. And He tells us not because of any human superiority we have. G-d says to us in our scripture, "Because you have strong bodies, superior physical strength, and you have over the long road of your history, you have accumulated wealth. Money, wealth." So, we are obligated to spend our money and take care of our women, take care of our wives, our mothers, etc. And we are also obligated to protect them from harm that is in the public. This, G-d obligated us to do.
And in Islam, every man assumes as the head of his household, and responsible for his household. This is not different from what I read in the Bible. There's G-d and Jesus Christ is the head of the man. And the man is the head of his family and runs his family. It's the same. Both religions are saying the same, although we don't believe quite like the Christians when it comes to prophets, messengers. G-d, Jesus Christ, peace be upon him and his mother. But we are very close to believing the same thing. So, we believe that women should have a voice in the public. At the time of Muhammad, the Prophet, about 1421 years ago, the women were encouraged to have a public voice and we have history that's written and it's in ink. It is not going to be erased, of women in the public, challenging the ruler and asking him, "Why are these things existing? This is not Islam. How come we're suffering these problems?" The women are so proud and they were encouraged to speak out in the time of Prophet Muhammad 1400 years ago.
I have a knowledge of my father, though my father was not religiously correct when it comes to the language of theology or the language of religion, he was innocent of that. That was not his fault. He didn't put that together. My father promoted women and he didn't see any position closed to women. Women were heads of schools. In fact, at times when the men met with our Elijah Muhammad for a top level meeting in Chicago at his home, at his table, which was also his office. His office was there too. The power that he gave some women made some men think that the women were over them. So, I don't have any problem. All my life, I've seen women having the right to speak to men on the same level and sometimes speak down to us.
Yes. Yes, I'm here. I'm straining, but I can hear you. We're straining to hear each other. I'm straining to hear you. That's the truth. Cheryl? Cheryl, may I suggest something? I've had problems with phone hook ups like this, these phones many times. It's not the first time. More, better than 60% of the time, I have this problem. Yes, I'm going to make a suggestion. Why don't you invite me to come on your show some time when I'll be back in town. And if you tell me, I'll come in when you say so. I have no problem with women ordering me. You can give me an order, saying, "You've got to be here," and I'll do my best. Okay? Yes, yes.
More black women, I didn't get the last. What? Yes, yes. Yes, ma'am. But I didn't get the problem. I didn't get the... No, women can eat in public as men eat in public. As long as they eat together, that's no problem. Yes. I believe I understand what you're saying, and it's true that women are well separated at most public situations. They're separated and yes, it is also true that women in most cultures where Muslims live, in lands where Muslims live, women are not given the full respect that Islam asks us to give our women. And that's not the problem of the religion. That's the problem of the people, their culture. Their cultures are not in agreement with their religion.
I'm having such difficulty. I don't think this would be wise to strain to try to reply to them. I hope that I can come into your studio and be your guest. Yes, please tell the white gentleman if you speak to him, that I'm surprised that I made anybody feel upset. My purpose is peace, not to make anyone feel upset. Yes, that's correct. In fact, that's my job; to travel and visit the different communities of Muslims. Also, I'm the invited guest of Muslims outside of our association, those from different nations who have become national citizens of our country. They have their mosques and schools like we do. Some of them, and most of them have their mosques, and I visit them as their guest too. I'm also invited by the Christians and Jews. We want to get to know each other better so we can work together for a better world than we have right now. And I think we don't have a world that's too bad right now.
I think as citizens of this country, we have much opportunity, great opportunity, to do what we want with our lives. And that's all we can ask of the world. To give us the opportunity to do what we want with our lives. I didn't get the last word. Yes, the Nation of Islam, under Minister Farrakhan, I did. We had a great time there. A great spirit was there, but there was a great spirit in the air there. They had a great time as the guest of the Nation of Islam and Minister Farrakhan on the Savior's Day.
The last time? It was the last Savior's Day. It was February. Well, you know, Minister Farrakhan at the convention, the day after my father passed, that was the convention. It had been scheduled and we didn't postpone it because he wouldn't have wanted us to do that. So, we had the national convention and I was selected leader of the Nation of Islam. And Minister Farrakhan was one of the powerful ministers at that time who supported my being elected leader of the Nation of Islam. But less than three years, I think, after that, he... And I respected his differences and the separation was a peaceful separation. I'm happy now that we're coming back together. We still have a lot of differences and a lot of problems, but we are coming back together. And we're always going to have problems; we're human.
You heard that. Yes! I did too. I felt the same and I still feel that way. We share the same beginning, you know? We share the same history as black people, African Americans. We share the same history as followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, trying to be Muslims, as the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, "we're trying to be Muslims. But I look forward to that date, that time and place, you are acquainted with one of our imams here who has really, a strong role in helping the community in Tulsa right now, and that's Dr. Ahmed. So yes, he has all my numbers. Please let me know when I can return. Thank you very much now, and a good day to you.



