07/1992
IWDM Study Library
Indianapolis Black Expo

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Imam W Deen Mohammed: Thank you very much. Vice-chairman of Black Expo in Indianapolis, Indiana. Reverend Nida and the Ministerial Alliance, dignitary, Imam Mohammed Sadiq, we would like to first say to you, thank you and those who worked to make the Black Expo happen here again in Indianapolis. We thank you and we salute you and your efforts, and we know that great benefits will come to all of us from your efforts. In time, all of us will feel the benefits of your efforts. I would like to speak to you for 15, 20 minutes, maximum I hope on achievers in education and where do we go from here.
My knowledge of achievers for African-American people or for black people in education is the knowledge of the history of education in our society of Muslims, the African-Americans that began by being called or calling ourselves members of the Temple of Islam or members of the Nation of Islam, and later we became Black Muslims because a great educator, a great man, a great mind of the African-American people, Dr. C. Eric Lincoln wrote a book on us, and the book was titled Black Muslims. It really went off well and soon we found ourselves even accepting, the name Black-Muslim.
Now, I would like to say to you in the very beginning that my talk is not really on the history of education in the Nation of Islam or for the Nation of Islam or the Temple of Islam, and the Muslims of our associations who are now, not called by any organizational name, we just identify ourselves as Muslim-American or African-American Muslims. I might address for the few minutes that I will be talking to you concerns a respect for something that our great religions respects. It may come as a surprise to some of us, when I tell you what this is. This is the natural world, natural life, and the natural world.
Many of us when we read our scriptures, whether it be Qu'ran or Quran as the people say or the Western word say. We say Qu'ran, that's the Arabic pronunciation of our Holy Book, Qu'ran. It's Quran or they say Quran. Whether it would be Quran or Qu'ran or Bible, we seem to pass by a great respect, a great tribute that is paid in scripture to the natural reality, to the natural life, and the natural world, matter, et cetera. The great men of G-d we call prophets, the inspired men and some of them were also women. In our religion, we know that at least two women named in our scripture for having received inspiration from G-d.
These two very well-known women in the scripture, the mother of Moses and the mother of Jesus Christ the prophet, peace be on them. Now, I was raised quite differently and the importance was placed, not so much on the other world but on this world. The importance was not placed so much on spiritual realm, but on this realm, the material realm, and I thank G-d for that experience as the son of Elijah Muhammad, as a member of the Nation of Islam, as a student of the University of Islam.
I thank G-d for that experience because it did something for my interest, my intellectual interest that made it possible for me to pay attention to somethings that the scriptures says about the natural world and nature that I think many pass over and they never register those things because we think religion is all about the spiritual realm, religion is all about the hereafter, religion is all about just being good, it's about virtue and morality, et cetera, but the great men who came into an understanding of the spiritual side of the human life, they were turned on when they observed the material reality.
They saw the workings of the heaven, the rising of the sun, the setting of the sun. They saw the happenings in the heaven, the storms, the lighting, and the rain that came down. They saw the stars at night, how orderly and peaceful, they saw the plants, and the animals, and they were inspired, not directly but indirectly. There was an indirect way that G-d brought them to their reality and to His reality. Our religions, whether we know it or not, pays great tribute to the natural world, and to nature. I won't go into any signs or mysterys, which I would love to do, but this is the wrong place. This is the wrong occasion.
I will simply say let it suffice that our scriptures pay great tribute to the natural world and nature as G-d created it. The nature as we say in Islam, in this religion, the nature originated or created by G-d Himself. The first nature, original nature, great tribute is paid to it. Now, we known that in our religion also, a human being is perceived more accurately as an intellect. Now I know for some of us, this is not easy, "An intellect? We're heart, we're soul, we're spirit."
Certainly, and ultimately, the heart, soul, and the spirit will determine whether we are successful, whether we're achievers or not ultimately, but, the beginning of life and the distinct description of human life must focus first on intellect because animals have hearts, animals have feelings, but they don't have a human intellect. We perceive the human being as intellect. G-d created the intellect. By intellect, we mean a creature with a brain, a mind, with an ability to see and then reflect, think on what he sees, think on which she sees, and then use the power of imagination not confined to the material reality, given freedom outside of the concrete structures to redo, alter, change what he sees.
To see a message in a material thing or in a concrete thing, a message for transforming what he sees. He transforms it and he becomes himself a creator. G-d says, "G-d is the best of creators." Meaning that there are other creators
besides G-d, but He is the best of creators. What elevates us above the creatures that are not human is that we have the special intellect, and we have the freedom to become creators ourselves. Now, when we were enslaved, what was the greatest pain for us? Human pain. Now, if human is more correctly intellect, the human intellect, not his feelings, not his heart, his sentiment, although that is very human, and I said ultimately, it will determine what happens to us.
The way our heart, the attitude we take in our heart, the position our hearts take. The make-up of our sentiments ultimately decides the fate of us, but our achievements must not ignore intellect. We cannot achieve without intellect, we can only go so far with our hearts, we can only go so far with our feelings, with our sentiments. We must need the intellect to come into human identity. We need the human intellect to come into humans identity. The little child without his mind being illuminated in the jungle somewhere, in the wild has no real human identity. He may bark like a gorilla, he may crawl on his hands and knees like an animal in the forest, and we will see nothing but just an image.
We will feel so hurt in our heart, say, "Look, this poor creature that G-d created to be human has not been permitted an environment for coming into his human form, into his human life," but once he come into a human environment where he hears the language of human being, he hears English, he hears Ebo, he hears some of the languages of human being, and he comes into his human identity because his intellect is there.
For the greatest need for us as slaves was not so much to get free from the physical chains. No, because many of us, while we were yet caring the physical chains, we were intellectually free, and immediately when they permitted us physical freedom, we became giants. Booker T Washington became a giant. Frederick Douglass became a giant, and they were born slaves. Because though they were physically captives, they were captives in the physical sense, they were intellectually free.
For education, we have to understand this, that education if it pays tribute to the natural world, if education will honor, respect, even have a sacred respect for the natural world that G-d created, for the natural life that G-d created, then education will be a powerful tool for bringing us another step toward our eventual goal. The eventual goal of African-American people is full illumination of the mind. Our souls always had a sense of where we should go. Even when we were in physical bondage, our souls had a sense of where we should go without the knowledge, without education. We were worldly naive, we had no knowledge of what was on the other side of the ocean.
We were confined to America into slavery, we had no knowledge, except what we were about to steal or get because of the law against reading. There was a law against giving a slave any knowledge, but even those without the knowledge like one slave in the history of our history called Julia, her soul told her something. She wasn't an educated woman, her soul told her something. Later on, she became a great person, a personality, but even when she was a slave, and having not even reading abilities, she's recorded in a book to have said, "The white race looks like G-d in the face, but acts like the devil in their hearts."
Now, I get a lot out of what she said. I think what she said is so full of information. About her, it says this that "My own soul tells me that you are not what a human being is supposed to be. My own souls tell me that." She was saying something else too. She was saying that you all like to identify yourselves with G-d, your image with G-d, but I don't see you that way. When I look at you, I see the devil. She was saying all of this. She said, "You look like G-d in the face, but act like the devils in your hearts." She was saying so much and her soul was speaking, her soul was saying that. Her soul knew that something was wrong.
Her soul knew that her humanity was not accepted, and her soul knew that those that didnt reject her humanity were only lying when they said they were having humanity or they were human. They were out of their human nature themselves, that's what she was saying, that's what she was realizing, and it was her soul realizing that. We believe that the intellect, the life of the intellect first dawns in the soul. It first dawns in the soul. We know a lot before even our minds, the intellect is turned on. We know a lot because we have a sensitive soul. We have a special psyche, and women are gifted more than us on that level because G-d created man for the field, and he created women to protect new life.
She's not having the resources of the fields back then, she has them now, buddy. Don't claim no superiority now, it's over. Yes, because she did not have the opportunity for developing her intellect as much as we were able to, she had to depend upon her soul power. She had to depend upon psychic sense, and right now, the woman is superior to us when it comes to psychic power, psychic fit. Buddy, when you're worried about whether to go outside or not, if you don't have anybody else to ask to go out, ask your wife. "Baby, should I go out tonight?"
[laughter]
She might know something's waiting out there for you that you can't see, you see. Shell sense it.
[laughter]
What made our school special was just what I'm talking about right now. Our schools put an emphasis on the study of the natural world, natural phenomenon, and human nature as G-d created it, not as we imagined it to be. Not as our culture presents it, but as G-d created it, and how we're going to know that? We know that from our scripture. Our scripture pays great tribute to nature, natural world, human nature, and it's called Deen Al-Fitr. G-d says, [Arabic language]. He says, "The originality, the nature." The originality that G-d patterned men upon. G-d patterned men upon an originality that G-d himself created.
G-d himself created that. Now, I can't think of any way of making you at least feel comfortable with an understanding of what I'm talking about than to point to newborn babies that are born in your home, most are born now in hospitals. When I was born, we was born in a home. We were too poor to have them born anywhere else. When we were born, the doctors would come to the house. This reminds me of my young brother Akbar, he was born right in our house. Yes, the best way to understand it is to look at a newborn baby. Newborn babies is born in heaven, don't you know that? Every baby is born in heaven. Tell me, what do you see in the nature of a newborn baby to criticize or to despise?
Congregation: Nothing.
Imam Mohammed: We don't stop to see something ugly or inferior until they get up and learn something of the world that is not right or not good. When we see them new as G-d give them to us, we don't see anything to criticize. I'm not talking about birth defect, that's the exception. I'm not talking about a birth defect, maybe an eye or a problem or something, those are birth defects. That's not the rule, that's the exception. When we look at the rule, we dont see anything to criticize. We see nothing but something to admire. We don't see any Marquis de Sade coming to us from the nursery. I've never looked at a nursery and my wife said, "Honey, this is the new baby, I brought home a Marquis de Sade."
[laughter]
No, we always bring home a beautiful, wonderful thing created in heaven. See, this is what our religion focuses on, and this is what Christianity focus on. I will not get into your business, Ministerial Alliance. I'm not getting into your business, but Christianity focuses on it too. It's very important to Christianity and to Islam that we have a sacred regard for nature, and especially the originality for man that G-d wants. If we say man, we mean woman too. I think all of us understand that. Yes, man means all of us, male and female. I will get into your business a little bit.
[laughter]
It says, "And He made them male and female and called them Adam." Male and female, one name, - Adam, that's in the Bible, so Adam is male and female also. Not just male, male and female. Man is male and female too. In science, they say we are having X and Y, right?
Congregation: Yes.
Imam Mohammed: X and Y, but they say the women have only X. They'll learn their mistake later.
[laughter]
There's still a little male chauvinism there, you see. They'll learn their mistake later. G-d teaches us in our religion that He made you from each other. He made the woman from the men, and he also made us from each other. He makes you from each other, male from female, female from male. Makes us from each other, and a great sign of that, and I'm not getting into your business, but this just something that we all know and we share this belief. The great mother of Christ, peace be upon his mother and him, he was born from her without a man. Yes, right?
Congregation: Yes.
Imam Mohammed: So I don't know how you Christians read that, but this Muslim reader is saying, "Men, don't think that G-d needed you to start the world."
[laughter]
He started it all over without you.
[applause]
I could tell you a lot about the developments of our schools, but I'm going to sum it up now in about three to five minutes I hope. I've said what I wanted to say. Our schools started out very much like your bigger efforts started in the south. Later, I came to know that some of our institutions in the south started in the very beginning of the history of black institutions of higher learning, did not have college graduates to head those colleges. The individuals were dedicated, they had imagination, they had courage, they had faith in their ability, and they accepted to head colleges, and they named them colleges.
We had an elementary school and a high school with a big name university on it. Why? Because we know what slavery did to us more than they did anything else was degrade us, put us down, cheapened us, lied about our values, made us feel ashamed, intimidated in a white man's great advanced world. That was a psychology of the founders of the Nation of Islam idea to have even the little children come into a school called university. They were learning nothing but elementary arithmetic, reading, writing, arithmetic, and science, but they're calling themselves students of the University of Islam.
When they went out in the streets from their little small world, because America was a big world that swallowed us up, we were very small in numbers and in size, but when those children went out in the streets, and other children would laugh at them, it wouldn't hurt them because the child who was laughing at them was a child from Betsy Ross Elementary School, and the child that they were laughing at was a child from the University of Islam.
It was a great psychology and it worked, because we were never ashamed, we were never intimidated, we weren't shy. If we dropped something on you, we could drop something on you, now.
[laughter]
Thank G-d out of all those exaggerations, because those things are good for you for a while, but once you get up and join the world of mature minds, then you have to face reality. Then, the myth and the psychology was powerful for us in our baby state, but now we join the world of men and we have to put down that exaggerated idea of our reality. It was good and it worked. We don't need it anymore. We are free. I think we're also free up here, and that's what's more important.
Our schools were established, our educators established schools, Booker T. Washington and others, Carter G. Woodson, these great giants in education, they worked to better the condition of their people. They worked to address the intellect to bring about the better condition. They worked to serve the needs of our minds, for knowledge and understanding, illumination, clear perception of self and the external world, of self and the white man. Why can't we continue in that tradition? Let us continue in that tradition. We are not through illuminating the mind of the African American people. We must continue in that tradition until we have an intelligentsia of African American people, guarding the interests of our race, and also serving the interests of this nation and the world. Thank you very much.
[applause]
[00:07:15] [END OF AUDIO]


