05/09/2007
IWDM Study Library
Sacred Activism and the Power of Inclusion

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
00:00 Speaker 1: He traversed the great divide of the races and the civilizations, and looked at his own father, and his own tribe, and his own religion of Islam and the Black Muslims and said, "It is time for us to love one another, to embrace one another, and this is my stand."
00:27 S1: And like Martin Luther, in the Diet of Worms, who said to the Papal legate, "Here I stand, I can do no other." And upon that stand, he changed the history of Europe. Like Martin Luther King, who said, "We do not begin to live until we're prepared to die for that which we believe in." And he changed the course of America. I wanna honor Dr. Warith Mohammed tonight, as a man who stands in that great tradition. Ladies and gentlemen, Imam Mohammed.
[applause]
01:16 Dr Warith Mohammed: Thank you, thank you, thank you. The President, Jim Garrison, thank you, and thank this beautiful audience. Thanks to you. I'm very happy to be here participating, and yesterday I was able to witness speakers speaking, and especially the main speaker, Robert Kennedy Jr. And I am very much pleased with what I witnessed, and thank G-d that I was able to be here yesterday and part of today, and to be your speaker is a great honor for my community as well as for myself. Yes.
02:10 IWDM: What I will be sharing with this special audience is really my personal experience growing up as a little child. My mother said she brought me from Detroit to Chicago in her arms when I was 11 months old, so I'm a Chicagoan, that's for sure. [chuckle] And my life has taken me... Actually, I began my life in fear, in an environment of fear, because my father had a very different teaching, and even it caused some of his own followers to get a little crazy in the head and we were afraid that they were gonna come in, break in the house and try to kill my father.
03:05 IWDM: I was told those stories of how he was pursued by enemies, when I was just a little boy, about eight or nine, seven or eight years old, maybe. And I've known real, real fear, fear that can quick freeze you. [chuckle] Yes. But to tell you my story, of my experience as a follower of the Temples of Islam, called Holy Temples of Islam also, and inside of another concept, those Temples were inside of a bigger concept called the Nation of Islam, and I'm sure you've heard of that, Farrakhan continues that idea. Yes.
03:56 IWDM: So as a small child, I remember once doing my homework, I was doing my school work and the problems were difficult for me, so I had been working on my school work for about two or three hours, or more, maybe. Anyway, I know I started after I got... I mean, as soon as I got out of school, I started on my homework. And the sun had gone down.
04:23 IWDM: Now, this was not in the long summer, in the long days of the summer, but like now, like this time now, I recall, I believe, 'cause to the way my father and mother was dressed too. So anyway, I'm doing my homework and something turned my head around, I look around and my mother and father, they're coming down on the stairs, from the bedroom area, to the first floor area, where I was doing my homework. It was a frame house, on South Michigan Avenue, South Side of Chicago.
05:05 IWDM: And they are coming down the stairs all dressed up, but the way they were dressed tell me that it wasn't too cold outside. They weren't dressed with thin clothes on, they didn't have thin clothes on, but they had the nice clothes, no heavy clothes on, no heavy coats or anything, and looking very beautiful. And my father caught my eye and he said, "Son, your mother's going with me. We have to go to the Temple. There's some business matters to be attended to."
05:38 IWDM: And we knew, pardon me, that on Wednesday night, if there was a meeting serious enough to get my father out, it was some violation of the laws of the Temple of Islam, and he was really going to be the judge at a hearing, like a court almost, like a small community court, and he was going to do something to somebody that they didn't want have done to them.
[laughter]
06:06 IWDM: So anyway, they greeted me and my father last... First, my father said to me, he said, "Son, we're leaving the house with you." Now, that's a big responsibility for a child, about maybe 13 years old, 14 at the most. I was about 13 years old, and not like most of the children they in the streets. I was a sheltered child. So I'm in that house and my father, mother gone, I'm trying to continue to do my homework, and the house starts squeaking.
[laughter]
06:42 IWDM: I guess the evening was growing and the night was coming and the house was cooling. I'm saying this now, but as a child, all I know was that the house was talking, you know.
[laughter]
06:55 IWDM: And I heard noises in the basement and I'm really afraid. So I... When you fear you turn to a higher power than yourself. So I was taught to hold my hands like this and make a prayer to G-d. So I put my... I lift my hands up like this and I said, "Allah, if I'm not seeing you correctly, please help me." Yes, that's what I did.
07:23 IWDM: So I recall that happening to me as a boy. And I believe that was the first time that I consciously had a problem with the teachings of my father. And the problem was that... He taught us, and my mother did the big job for him, because really most of my young years up until I was about 13 or 14, I didn't know my father on person, on sight. Or knew him personally. No, I knew him from my mother, through my mother. My mother taught me about him.
08:03 IWDM: So anyway, she told me that... In fact she pointed to pictures of White folks in the newspaper and she said to me, she say "Son, these are bad people." Now, I'm a little boy, maybe no more than about... I knew I was a little boy because she actually picked me up and held me in her arms while pointing to the pictures in the paper. And she said, "These are bad people."
08:33 IWDM: Now, I'm five years or six years older, and I'm seeing the picture of Mr. Farrad, the one they said is Allah in the flesh, incarnate, G-d incarnate, or G-d in the person, and he looks in every respect to me like a White man. The picture we have of him, he looks like a White man.
08:56 IWDM: So I never would, you know, go to my father with a problem like that. I was afraid and embarrassed and maybe had too much love for him, didn't wanna see him get upset with me. Anyway, I never took it to him but I kept it to myself. As I grew older it stayed with me, and I would be sitting in seats like you are sitting right now, and my father or some of his ministers would be up preaching and I was sitting somewhere in the front or near the front, and they would be saying things about G-d and it bothered me a lot.
09:31 IWDM: And later on, they talked a lot about the devil. I've heard a lot of Christian preachers talk too much about the devil.
[laughter]
09:42 IWDM: Well anyway, they talked a lot about the devil, "The White devil, the devil, the devil, the devil." I said, "Boy," I said to myself, "they talked so much about the devil, there ain't no room in their minds for G-d."
[laughter]
[applause]
10:02 IWDM: But I tolerated it. I tolerated it and lived and kept quiet, kept my feelings quiet. But as I grew older, I would have my friends, some of my friends would confide in me and they would be carrying burdens too, not understanding some of the conflicts in the teachings of the Nation of Islam, or the Holy Temples of Islam as they will call.
10:29 IWDM: And one time I shared my thoughts with them on G-d, and I told them, I said, "If we are not to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of G-d, that G-d has no son. Then why should we believe that Mr. Farad is G-d? And we know he was born. And he's not that old. He's not 1000 years old. So who was his father?" I say, "It seems to me that we are saying the same thing, just got it more confused."
[laughter]
11:16 IWDM: So anyway, they reported me.
[laughter]
11:23 IWDM: See the Nation of Islam had its own government, its own private government, and they had investigators, they had spies. Yeah, I was brought up for question. One time, one of the members say he saw me at a dance. So he's the captain, he asked me, Captain Sharif, supreme captain, he asked me, he said, brought me up before the congregation, he said, "Wallace, you're the son of Honorable Elijah Muhammad. And this brother says he saw you at a dance." I say, "Well, deal with him first because if he saw me, he was there."
[laughter]
[applause]
12:13 IWDM: So when the words got to my father, he called me in for a hearing, and he said, "Wallace, that you are charged with saying that our savior is not G-d. Tell me who is G-d?" I said, "Daddy, you read the Quran more than we do, and you've read it much longer than we have. Daddy, I'm sure that you know what the Quran says." Oh boy, did he get angry with me. And he tried to get me the say more, I wouldn't, and he put me out. That was the first time I was put out, excommunicated me.
13:00 IWDM: And he put a heavy burden on my heart and before I went out and opened two sachet cases up, and I could see Chris, big bills, money in the cases. And Sharif was sitting right there, the supreme captain was sitting right there for the hearing. And he said, "Wallace, you know that once you're put out of here and once you leave, you cannot contact your mother, you cannot speak to her, you cannot call her, you cannot come by here. See, you know the law, don't you?" I said, "Yes, sir."
13:41 IWDM: And I walked out, they excused me and I walked out to the door to leave... The front door, to leave the house, and my mother was right... My mother asked my father, she said, "May I go with him to the door?" He said, "Yes, Clara." And she went with me to the door. And at the door, her face was so burdened and so strained, and she said, "Son, why don't you go back in there and tell your father that you accept what he said?" I said, "Mama, who did Mr. Farad tell you all he was? Did he say he was G-d?"
14:17 IWDM: And she looked like her face was even more puzzled and she said after a few seconds, she said, "No, he did not say. He said to us not to call him a prophet. He said prophet was too big a name for him." And I said, "Mama," 'cause that bothered me then, I was really bothered. I said, "Mama, how can you ask me to accept that the man is G-d, and the man told you that prophet was too big a name for him?" She had nothing, no response, nothing to say to me, she was at too much trouble mentally. So I had troubled her mind so much. And so I troubled too, and hurt. I left.
15:03 IWDM: That was my excommunication. And I thought on that quite a bit and felt sorry for my mother having the problems that I gave her, problem for her thinking. And my father too, because I gave him a lot of problem. I could see on his face that his mind was strained. He was very strained.
15:29 IWDM: And to make a long story short, and get to another matter that I hope to share with you, I went to prison after my father tried to keep me free and win the case for me for a period of about seven years, so long I was begging to go to jail.
[laughter]
15:57 IWDM: Yeah, if you have some... A case hanging over you like that and you don't know when you... And I was in love with a pretty, pretty black girl of the Temple of Islam. [chuckle] And she was very pretty and I wanted to marry her, but I didn't wanna marry her and go to prison. So all that time we're waiting for the case to be... So I was happy to go to jail, that they finally sentenced me to three years in prison.
16:26 IWDM: And the judge, listen to the words of the judge to me before he gave me the sentence. He said, "This boy... " No, not to me, he's probably talking to me, but actually he's talking to the court... To the gathering that was there to witness my sentence. He said, "The boy is dominated by his father." He said, "And I'm going to sentence him three years, but I will favor parole if he comes up for parole." So that's what he told me.
17:02 IWDM: He felt sorry for me, I could feel it. But he left me with the words ringing in my ears, "The boy is dominated by his father." So I went in prison, separated from my community and my family, certain ones could visit me, but visits didn't come that often. Most of the time I lived with my own thoughts.
17:26 IWDM: I finally adjusted, it's very difficult, but I finally accepted that I was locked up and wasn't going anywhere, so I joined the inmates and made prison my home and found whatever pleasure I could find in it, the library, learning to type. I was, they made me a keeper of the forms, the requisition forms for the prisoners, for the prison. So if the laundry wanted form, they come to me. If any other department wanted forms, they come to me.
18:03 IWDM: And I was the only one in there. So I was in their reading books and I found two books on economics, one was on macroeconomics and microeconomics. Two big books. So I had plenty of time, I read both of them, and there was a typewriter for me to type into the forms, and I didn't know how to type. So they had a course in this Federal Prison and Sandstone, Minnesota Federal Correctional Institute... Institution in Sandstone, Minnesota.
18:36 IWDM: So I went to the course in the evening, I think it was one day a week, and I learned the keyboard. I learned to type with my hands, with all my fingers. So I would be reading and typing. One day, my boss, we called him the "screw". I don't know why we call officers in prison "screws". But we called him the screw. He came in and he saw me, and he said, "Wallace," he said, "Now, if you don't have any work, it's okay for you to read and type." Said, "But watch out for my boss." I said, "Don't worry, Patrick. No one will catch me again." [chuckle]
19:20 IWDM: And I was permitted to do that. So I grew to the point in my thinking that I said to myself, "Now, I'm nearing the time of parole." I'd been up for parole the first time, they didn't give me parole. And I remember the guy looking at me, White and... Member of the board. He had very blue eyes.
19:43 IWDM: His blue eyes were just outstanding, almost like cat eyes, shining in the dark almost. And he looked at me and he tried to scare me. He looked at me real stern like that and bucked his eye. "Am I the blue-eyed devil?"
[laughter]
20:00 IWDM: And I always been able to control myself pretty well. I said, "Not to me, I don't see a blue-eyed devil." They denied me parole that time, but I think that was working. The next time I came up, I made parole. I was paroled. And I had already made up my mind, I said, "I will not go back and join them and supporting or teaching this idea of G-d that they have."
20:28 IWDM: So my father made it easy for me, before I could tell him that I couldn't preach. He said, "Well, you know you're on parole." He said, "And you might violate your parole if you preach, so wait until you clear before you go back to the ministry." And that was just what I wanted. [chuckle]
20:52 IWDM: And when my time was finally up, and he permitted me to talk, I must have said the wrong thing. Brought me in the hearing again and excommunicated me again for the second time. But the second time it was very easy. I had found a welding job and I was able to take care of my own family, 'cause when they put you out, you get no help at all. No help whatsoever.
21:13 IWDM: And it's hard to get a job when your organization, your religious organization, is known to be very radical. And I'm the son of Elijah Muhammad. So one of the persons interviewing me for a job at one point told me, said, "Why don't you change your name?" And I said, "Well, I don't wanna do that." I'd say, "I did that before," and I did. When I was younger, I changed my name to Wallace Delaney.
[laughter]
21:47 IWDM: And it was because my brother, older brother, he got a job washing railroad cars. And then he knew he had to change his name, so he changed to Wallace Delaney. So I followed him. I admitted the name of Wallace Delaney, got a social security card in Wallace Delaney. And when I decided that I'd, that was wrong to do, to hide my identity.
22:12 IWDM: And I went to the Social Security Department and I told them that, that's the wrong name and I want my name to read "Wallace D. Muhammad", the name I was born with. My parents had joined this strange teacher, mysterious teacher called Farad, and they thought he was from Mecca. He wasn't from Mecca, he was from Lahore India, where Ahmadis, where a long time ago, before there was any Pakistan. It was all India. And Ahmadis lived in that area and that's where he is from. Now we have evidence of that.
22:47 IWDM: So anyway, I told them I wanted my name to read "Wallace D. Muhammad". They said, "Yes, okay." Now I thought I was gonna lose my account. But after I got the card, for some reason, I went back to the department for some reason, it wasn't for the card. And I asked them. I said, "Do I need a card in both Wallace Delaney and Muhammad?"
23:12 IWDM: They said, "For what reason?" I said, "Because I wanna have a record of my employment and I want my account." He said, "No." He said, "Your name is Wallace D. Muhammad and we put your name, a change of name. It's the same account." I felt so good about that, and now I'm getting retirement checks.
[laughter]
23:36 IWDM: Yes. And that's nice, that's nice. And it's not as much as I think I can do but it's good.
[laughter]
23:45 IWDM: Yeah. So, that's the story of my struggles as the son of Elijah Muhammad and a black nationalist. As the theologian... No, it was Franklin Frazier, I believe, that said this. He named us "Black Muslims". No, it was the theologian, C. Eric Lincoln. Wasn't it? C. Eric Lincoln, yes, of Georgia. Well, not of Georgia, of Atlanta. Emory? Emory University. So anyway, that time passed, and my father eventually got in worse and worse condition. He had a condition of asthmatic bronchitis. He had sugar, diabetes.
24:38 IWDM: And what else was he... Oh, and the tendency for his blood pressure to go up very high. So anyway the combination of things, plus him exposing himself to bad weather in Chicago, during the winter. He be hot and sweating, my mother would say, "Son, you see him going out there now, and he's hot, he's sweating and he's going out in that weather," she wanted help from any of us. But we couldn't stop him if he made up his mind to do something, he was gonna do it.
25:06 IWDM: So he went out in the weather like that on several occasions, so anyway he got bad sick, went to hospital and died. My father passed February 25, 1977... February 25, 1975. Yes, and I had visit him in the hospital and been with him, and he said... He got up out of the bed. You know, they say there's a revival just before the thing hits you, it looks like you are gonna be alright. Well now he was up sitting on the bed, stood up and talked to us.
25:52 IWDM: So I said, "Daddy, you're gonna be with us." Now tomorrow is his big day, the 26th of February yearly was the annual Saviours' Day Convention. Annual Saviours' Day convention. And he was expected to be the main speaker, the people were coming from all over to see him, so I told him, I said, "Daddy you gonna be with us tomorrow", I said, "You're looking good". I said, "I think... I believe you gonna be with us tomorrow."
26:21 IWDM: He said, "Well, son, I don't know. Maybe I will." Say, "G-d knows, Allah knows," he would say. He said, "But you all will be there." He didn't say, "I will be there." He said, "You all will be there." That was my last time seeing or talking to my father live. That next day, the people were all tense, about 15 to maybe or more thousand, could have been more than that, but I believe it was about 15 or more thousands had come to hear my father.
27:01 IWDM: And other speakers went before me, and they planned and told me my father planned that, but I've always had some powerful antennas, my antennas went up and said, "No, they're lying. This is their idea, not their father's idea." But I accepted it, believing that they were lying to me. They said, "Your father want you to come on last, he want Farrakhan to come on, then he wants your brother, Nathaniel, to come on, and you will come on last." I said, "Fine".
27:33 IWDM: So Farrakhan came on. He messed up. My brother came on, all emotional and just shouting, Nathaniel. He messed up.
[laughter]
27:55 IWDM: I came on and I said, "The winds of emotions will not shake or move the curtains of this house." And I told the people, what I wanted to tell them, letting them know that I was confident that if we chose to do what my father and our teachers indicated, and that is, when you don't have the leader that said he was the Messenger of G-d, to tell you what you believe G-d wants of you, then we must go to authority that he said was higher than him.
28:35 IWDM: Even though he didn't use it, he spoke from the Bible and from his own mind and his own thinking, but he told us that the Quran was the Holy Book, was the sacred book of Muslims. So I said, "That's the only alternative we have now, is to replace leadership, the leadership of Nation of Islam, with the sacred book." And they accepted it, and G-d blessed me to struggle.
28:58 IWDM: And I gave them certain language, I knew that we had been prisoners or contained in a language environment, in a strange esoteric language environment of Mr. Farads making. Very difficult for Christians or Muslims or Jews or anybody to understand. All they would do is say, "Oh, this is gibberish, this is foolishness, this is confusing," and run from it.
29:27 IWDM: But he designed it that way intentionally, and for us, especially for myself, there was guidance in it, there was a strategy that manifested in it, and a direction for us that I saw in it. And anyway, I start weaning this following off of that strange miss language, mythical language that was created by Mr. Farad, weaning them off that, hoping that they would finally get the common sense language and be comfortable with common sense language.
30:02 IWDM: And it worked, but it took many years. It took a long period of years. I started with the words "man" because I know we, we were all absorbed, the time is flying here, I'm gonna have to quickly... We were all absorbed... It was the idea of Black man being the supreme, and not the White man. This was a reversal of White supremacist psychology. It was reversed, and we became the supreme race, race, and G-d. And G-d.
30:38 IWDM: I'll tell you something funny. My father had me as the manager of the Muslim restaurant in Chicago, and Chicago is a place where the people would come from all over for the annual celebration, and they were coming for the annual Saviours' Day celebration, and I was manager, I had been made the manager. I learned how to cook right in that restaurant.
31:00 IWDM: And my mother was a excellent cook, and I watched her. As a little boy, I would sit in the kitchen and watch her, and she would let me so I became an excellent cook. And I was cooking in the restaurant and also the manager at the time, and these people, these brothers and sisters are coming in, this big, look like six foot two or three, heavy muscular Black brother, I mean, black Shinola, black. Okay? This is no metaphor.
[laughter]
31:28 IWDM: This is no symbolism. It was reality. Big Black brother walked in there, "Sisters, serve the G-d." Oh boy, did he angered me. "Serve the G-d." That big old man out there could crush me with one... Just do that and I'm through.
[laughter]
31:53 IWDM: But I went up in his face, I said, "Look, you don't come in here talking like that." I said, "You ain't my G-d." I say, "You look like you just come from work." I say, "You're struggling to stay alive. You're working hard." I say, "You ain't my G-d." And I went on back in the kitchen where we were working, I left him there. He looked like he was shamed, his face showed shame. Looked like he was ashamed of himself.
32:20 IWDM: Yes, getting back to where I was there. Yes. So, I left that idea and weaned the congregation off of the language that imprisoned our thinking. And G-d was with me, of course. Any faithful believer would not give credit to self for great accomplishments. No, G-d was with me, and my father opened a way. How did he open a way? He said, "My son is special." He said, "He was named by our Savior before he was born. While his mother was carrying him, our Savior named him."
33:11 IWDM: He said, "If he be a boy, give him the name," one of the names I use and that was Wallace. He was signing postcards sometime, I've seen postcards to my mother and father and my uncle. And he would sign it just "Wallace" sometimes. At other times, he would sign it "Wallace D". And at still other times he would say "W. Farad" but spelled Farad F-A-R-D, like it is in the encyclopedia and dictionary.
33:37 IWDM: It might be in the dictionary too, but I know it's in the Encyclopedia Britannica. His name, Wallace Fard, spelled F-A-R-D but pronounced "Farad". So anyway, my father helped me a lot. And I remember ministers sitting at the table with my father, and he said they had just been out to the Sunday meeting, temple meeting. My father didn't go at that time, my father was stayed at home.
34:06 IWDM: He didn't always go out, he stayed at home. Many occasions he would stay home. But we'd always have to come from the preachers, the leaders and the captains, the top officers of the Nation of Islam. If they were attending there, after the meeting, they had to come, even if they didn't stay for dinner, they had to come and report to my father.
34:28 IWDM: So we were all there and one of the ministers said, "Dear Holy Apostle, your son, he's different. He doesn't preach like we do." My father said, "Yes, brother, I know. He's not to preach the Bible. He's to preach the Quran." That's from my father. So my father gave me help, and I wouldn't be successful without his help and without the help of the senior members in the history of the Temple of Islam or the Lost-Found Nation of Islam in America. I just want to acknowledge all that and get that out of the way.
35:09 IWDM: And what I'm going to be addressing now, I think has a definite, a definite, I would say, likeness to what is Christian idea, and for Jews. And I would say, for Buddhists and maybe for many others, but they don't call it by the same name. Not... They don't call it by the same name. I was always myself more, I would say, attached to my father's expression of what Islam is, than I was to what he was teaching. And I remember the little boy sitting like on the second row, and I would hear my father saying, "Islam." He made...
00:00 Warithuddin Mohammed: And I would hear my father saying, "Islam." He made that point, a habit, to give a definition of Islam in the beginning of his address. And he would be addressing Christians who would come in out of curiosity, and those are the ones he want. In the nation of Islam, it's called fishing, you're fishing the lost member of the Nation of Islam. We regarded all the Christians as lost members of the Nation of Islam, which was not true because we know that there were Christians in Africa, before and during the time of the history that we were aware of, up till now. We know that. But we also know... We learn, pardon me. We also learn that a big portion of Africa converted to Islam. So we disregarded the animists, those who worship ancestor spirits or whatever, nature. And we disregarded to Christians, [chuckle] and we just pretended that all Africans are Muslims. [chuckle] And we would be trying to bring them back...
[foreign language]
01:19 IWDM: Muhammad told us we had to call them back to their own, O-W-N, their own.
01:26 IWDM: Anyway, I remember my father saying, "Islam is freedom, justice and equality." He stopped saying that maybe during the early '60s or... No, he stopped saying that around the middle '50s, like '55. Yes, around '55, he stopped saying that. And he started putting his retention on building a material showing for African-Americans and African-Americans neighborhood, economic plan he had, a business plan for the neighborhood, economic plan for the Black men in America, etcetera. So he stopped saying that, but what I recall and what stuck with me was that definition of Islam, that Islam is freedom, justice and equality. So even his saying, his meaning that he gave for Islam was shaping my spirit, moving my spirit and shaping my consciousness. And I became a person, very early in my life, who wanted to get people to see the identity as a human person, not as a human's person made over by the world or by our culture that has no decency, but a human in the definition of human created by G-d, and human in human innocence.
03:09 IWDM: So anyway, I would give lectures and my father accepted it. I would give lectures or preach on the identity of the Black man, I would say. I would tell them, because that's what they were excited about, the Black man. So I would tell them, "This is the identity of the Black man. This is your true value, this is your true worth, and you should appreciate it, and you should keep your true identity. Keep your originality, protect your originality," etcetera. And I would make parables and everything. And I was very popular as a preacher, with my father's followers, very popular. And well, to bring this to a conclusion, when I learn the Quran and not, again, not without the help of my father, the the leader of the Nation of Islam, he advertised in the local newspapers of Chicago, for a teacher. He said, "We have our own private Muslim school, but we have no teacher to teach Arabic in our school. We are looking for an Arabic teacher." One man, old man, he showed up for the job and I remember sitting in the class, and he looked at us, and he couldn't speak English. [chuckle] Very little English, not enough to even start the conversation. So he couldn't speak. He looked at us, and looked like... And he didn't throw his hands up but that's what I saw him doing.
[laughter]
04:41 IWDM: "I finished." He said, "Jaws, lows, teen, moves." He said, "That's all, I can't, I don't know English. I can't teach you." Jaws, laws, yes, jaws, walnuts, lows, almonds, teen, figs, mows, bananas. Jaws, lows, teen, mows." [chuckle] As I got older, I said, "They was trying to help us."
[laughter]
05:20 IWDM: He meant to start it off as a walnut, and you became an almond, and then you became a fig, and then you went crazy.
[laughter]
05:32 IWDM: Jaws, lows, teen, mows, bananas. [chuckle] So he tried to help us in his own way. The second teacher we got was a half breed. He was half African-American and half Moroccan. And he could speak English very well, but he was not quite what my father wanted. His character was not up to par. So anyway, my father finally got a teacher to come in, who was a Palestinian, Jamil Diab, wonderful teacher. And Jamil Diab gave us a foundation in Arabic, classical Arabic, that enabled myself and Darnell came right along later. Darnell Kareem, another classmate of mine, and a couple of young females, too. And my brother who speaks Arabic fluently. He was just very, very advanced in Arabic language. My father sent him to Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, and went from there to other university. And finally came back home, and he's a professor in upstate New York, Binghamton University, professor of Islamic studies and African studies.
06:50 IWDM: So this man was very successful with his students. Jamil Diab, we called him Professor Jamil Diab. He passed just recently in Phoenix, Arizona. So I owe and few others with me, we owe a lot to Jamil Diab but we owe even more to the honorary Elijah Muhammad. This man had two sides to his life. He had a public side, a public image that he gave, and he had a private image. He was not proud and boastful. He was a very common person. He didn't care for luxuries or for fancy rings and fancy clothes. He was not that kind of person. He was very comfortable with a little. My father, my father. And he's known to like women. I do, too.
[laughter]
07:43 IWDM: But thank G-d, G-d protected me from getting too embarrassed.
[laughter]
07:52 IWDM: My father, he believed, and I excuse my father because he really believed that he was entitled to those wives. He didn't know the strict law or the limits of polygamy in Islam. He didn't know it. So the limit is four wives and there has to be justification for them, for you taking on them, some real needs you have in your life. First wife, maybe she's too old to manage, and she agree that you take in another wife, or she's sick in the hospital, she can't function anymore. So there is reasons to take on them. And the main reason for polygamy was there were no institutions to take care of widows and orphans. So the men of means, of financial means, were trusted to take women, more than one, and also orphans, and care for the women and their children.
08:47 IWDM: And Allah says, G-d says it, that is, in our holy book, say, "If you cannot be just by them, then be satisfied with only one wife." So, if you can't provide... If you provide one with a nice home, you can't make the other one jealous. Have to have a home on the same level. And you have to care for the female who has high status in society, on her level. You can't say, "Well, I'm giving these other women, these other wives, money, too. And I can't give you enough for you to enjoy the same level of comfort that you're used to or that you had before." No, you can't do that. You have to give her up if you can't do that. Now, how many of the mens of means follow that? Very few. But how many Muslim men get more than one wife? Very few. So you hear a lot of talk about polygamy, but I wanted to let you know that most of the Muslims I know in the world and most of the men that I've gotten to know very personally, they have one wife in Islam. So one wife is a norm in Islam. Not many. But in America, where the religion is new, and these Black brothers, they heard they can have more than one, it's not normal right now. It'll get normal down the road sometime. But it's not normal right now.
[laughter]
10:16 IWDM: Yeah. Now, I have looked at our articles of faith for Muslims. And when you hear this about fundamentalism and fundamentals, that's not the Quran. That's not our religion. A lot of these fundamentalists are coming from their culture more than they coming from scripture. And many of them are coming from incorrect perceptions of what is the book. When you look at the fundamentals are the basic teachings of our holy book, and by the way, G-d says, this book is basic and mythical. One translator calls it allegorical. This book is basic and allegorical. Whoever prefers the allegorical or the mythical over the basic teachings, has in his heart, a defect. Yes, there's plain clear language in our Holy Book. So if they don't come from these clear basic teachings, then what are the clear basic teachings? Our Prophet Muhammad was asked on one occasion, "What is Islam?" Here is his answer, exact words, "Islam is to believe in one G-d or to witness one G-d, there is one G-d to pray." He didn't say how many times a day, he didn't say to witness that "There is one G-d and I'm his messenger, I'm Muhammad, his messenger."
12:02 IWDM: He said to witness that there's one G-d, to pray, to give in charity, to fast in the month of Ramadan, the month of fast, which was thought to be before the calendar was changed to be an Islamic calendar. It was thought to be a very hot month. And they said the days got so hot in that month, the camel riders would have to wrap the feet of the camels to ride through the hot desert. So anyway, to fast in the month of Ramadan and to make visit called Hajj or pilgrimage to the house. The house is the house in Mecca, Mukarramah, in the sacred city, Mecca. That's the house. And it is believed that Abraham and his son built the house, and the house was built as a centre for all mankind, not for one people, for all mankind.
13:03 IWDM: And that brings me to give you my commentary on this fifth pillar, the last pillar or the last principle, basic principle for us in our religion. And the Hajj is a annual occasion, it comes at a certain time, in a month called the month of pilgrimage, or pilgrim. And it brings people from all over the world. I made my first one while I was excommunicated. And there were some nice students at IIT. I got acquainted with them, and they told me that many of them from Canada and America was gonna make Hajj and asked me could I get up the fare of my expenses to go. I was welding at the time, so I asked them, "How much?" They said, "$500." I said, "Yes, I will have the money when it's time to go." I got up the money and I joined them and I went there. When I got there, the scene was just so overwhelming. I saw... I remember looking in National Geographic and seeing the different dress of people in different cultures around the world, and that was the scene there. Persons... Strange... I had never seen any dress like they had on, some of them. And the men had to take off all those dresses to begin the steps of the pilgrimage. They had to take off all their fancy clothes, all their cultural peacock dresses or whatever. They had to take them all off and put on two big oversized diapers.
[laughter]
14:55 IWDM: You wrap one on the lower part and then you put the other one on the upper part and throw it across the shoulder. Much like some of the Buddhist monks look when they have their upper dress on. So anyway, after that scene, now we're beginning the Hajj. Anyway, all the men... Not the women, women wear regular dress. And I came to understand that. Women didn't mess up the world, men did it. So anyway...
[laughter]
15:22 IWDM: We, all the men, all the males wearing these diapers, two wraps, one below and one up. And it's difficult to keep moving. I'm an American, right? And I dress like this, or in my casual clothes, but I don't have to worry about something falling off and somebody seeing something.
[laughter]
15:41 IWDM: So I am trying [chuckle] to learn how to hold those diapers on, the wraps on, like they do. And I'm having all kind of trouble. I'm going around the pilgrimage...
[laughter]
15:56 IWDM: Making the circles around the Kaabah, around the house, counterclockwise, like this. So I saw something there. So they learned that the son of Elijah Muhammad, and it was Maulana Maududi, one who is considered... He was from Pakistan, he died years ago. He was considered the present-day revivalist for Islam in the world by many Muslims, especially Pakistanis and Indians. So anyway, he was in the camp and he learned that the son of Elijah Muhammad was with these members of the Muslim Student Association of Canada and America, was there. He sent his assistant to where I was in our tent, our camp, and he said, "Wallace," the assistant said to me, he said, "Are you Wallace Muhammad?" I said "Yes." "Son of Elijah Muhammad?" I said, "Yes". He said "Come, our leader wants to see you." And I followed him and went to the tent and met him. And he said to his associates, he said, "They are coming into Islam." He said, "What we don't wanna do is try to teach them. Let them come on their own if they're coming in a good way." That's what he told his own associates.
17:31 IWDM: S1: And another member on Arafat Day, this is Arafat Day now, the day when we go ascend the mountain, a little mountain called the Mountain of Arafat. And it comes from Arafa, which literally means 'place where you get to know one another from different parts of the world'. So anyway, we're up there and another gentleman, he was from Saudi Arabia. And he said, "My father is here." He said, "My father he wants to meet you." So I went to his father and we met. And his father was expressing his feelings of happiness that I'm there. I say, "Yes." I say, "You know about how I feel coming here and witnessing these rights, these rituals, these rights?" He said, "Yeah?" I said, "I feel like I'm meeting a baby, the baby human." And he stood up and he said to the gathering on Mount Arafat, he said, "Warithuddin." They called me Warithuddin. My name is Wallace. "Warithuddin, he should be the leader of Muslims, of all Muslims in America." That's what he said.
18:55 IWDM: Now, I'm a young man. My age was maybe 25 or so. He said, "Warithuddin should be the leader of all Muslims in America." And I said to myself, " Why? Why is he so excited because I said I feel like I'm meeting a baby? Meeting a baby?" But that's actually what it's all about. It's about us returning to the innocence we had when we were infants and little toddlers, crawling and toddling around. Return to that innocence where you don't know Chinese, you don't know English, you don't know Russian, you don't know French. You know baby language, and you communicate from your soul, with your feelings. You express pain to get attention to your pain, you express pleasure to let everybody know, "It's alright."
[background conversation]
20:00 IWDM: And you cry. And we still, no matter how old we get, we don't cry in but one language. We laugh in one language, we cry in one language. G-d be with you wonderful people. And I wish I could stay with you for two or three days or nights. Peace be unto you. I love you, I'm with you, and I'm going to see how I can get involved in what you...

