02/11/1998
IWDM Study Library 
Islam on Race Durham NC

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
The poor have a need to reciprocate the rich and the rich have a need to reciprocate the poor that they got rich upon. Did that answer the question for you, to some degree? All right. What's this?
Okay, so let's get Okay, he said two more. So, we will go two more. What do I think of Farrakhan? What kind leader is he? Well, I'll tell you one thing. Don't try to get these answers off television because it is showtime once he gets on television. Now I believe that more than anybody else in America today, Minister Farrakhan is giving the wrong image of Muslims to the public. But I know just like there were many in the leadership of the Nation of Islam when Malcolm and The Honorable Elijah Muhammad were together, working hard together, they're good people, innocent people also in the leadership and in the following of Minister Farrakhan.
This world is so complicated. Racism is so complicated. Finding yourself and being comfortable in America and being confident in America as an African American is very, very difficult. It's not easy. So, I can understand innocent African Americans coming to the call, answering the call of the Nation of Islam to unite for yourself and do for yourself and to take pride in your own creation above others. I can understand many of our people coming to that call as they did in the time of my father. So, I tend to be one and the same time looking at Farrakhan as my enemy and looking to him as a leader that's a product of a situation that we have in this country. A product of a situation that we have in this country. And if I could have patience with my own self when I was following Nation of Islam, if I could have patience with my brothers and sisters that were also following it when I was there, I should have patience also with the following of the Nation of Islam now presently. I have patience with them. I call them from what they're doing wrong, and I urge them to stop what they're doing wrong. But I don't want them to think that I'm their enemy. No, I'm not their enemy, I'm their friend. I want them to become better Muslims. I want them to know more about Islam. I want them to respect the religion of the Qur'an and to respect the Qur'an first of all, the word of G-d.
And don't shame us by saying things about Islam that's not true. That's what I want. But I have no dislike for them as persons, I have more sympathy for them as persons because I used to be in their position myself. And I do believe that in a way they're not helping the real Islam, or hurting, pardon me, the real Islam so much- They're helping it. Certainly, they are given the wrong picture. But who's helping them give the wrong picture? The media. The media's doing this. Ok. That's an opportunity for us to demand that the media give us a chance too, equal time to present the right picture. Maybe Allah wants it this way, maybe G-d of heaven and earth wants it this way. That they get this opportunity to give the wrong picture so it will awaken us more to our responsibility to demand equal time on television to give the public the right picture. So, this might be a situation for the great exposure for real Islam, who knows? So, Minister Farrakhan, my friend and my enemy, keep working, we are working too.
I think this is the last one too, right that expose the human.....
Yes. Okay.
Yes. Yes, that is a big problem. Why is it that the concept you espoused the human family first is not embraced by most of the governments or groups in this world. Racism and ethnicity is first and flourishes. That's true. That's true. Even it's true for Muslims. A Muslim Pakistani, whatever he is, he comes, and he tells you all about the beauty of brotherhood of Islam. All about how there's no racism in Islam, which all is true. All of that's true. And at the same time, the way he is disrespecting you as a human person makes you believe that he himself is racist.
They want to push not only Islam, but they want to push their ethnicity. "Brother you shouldn't wear this." Not all of them, but too many. "Brother you shouldn't wear these American clothes. You should dress Islamically." "Brother you should wear these oils; these are traditional oils" And some of us just don't want oils on us. I guess we all oily enough. So, if we don't... They seem to be turned on by his far eastern oils, "Those brothers, they will never be Muslims. Those brothers will never be real Muslims. They are just pretending to be Muslims. They are not following the Traditions of our Prophet." Big deal! Did our Prophet come to bring us some oil in a little bottle with a smell to it, from your kitchen. Did he come to bring us that or did he come to bring us the Qur'an and the model human life G-d want us to live? Huh?
So, we have to be concerned. Yes, countries, Muslim countries as well as non-Muslim countries, they're pushing race and ethnicity and they seem to be ignoring the human identity that all of us have in common. But thanks to G-d, the Founding Fathers of this great democracy we have, "Yes. He sounds patriotic." Yes, but not old patriotism. This is a new time patriotism. I'm not the old patriotic citizen, I'm a new patriotic citizen in America. Yes, they put the language into the introduction to this Constitution, the United States saying that "We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain rights that you can't take from them! Inalienable rights." That mean the government has no power to take this from those people. They're not given to the people by the government and the government cannot take them away.
Their Creator gave them these rights and the government cannot take them away. So here is the framers of this Constitution, giving equality to the citizens of the United States and equality reason or based upon the beliefs that the possibilities for freedom and excellence is not given by a nation to its citizens, but is given by the Creator to the citizens. And that we all have the same beginning in the world that G-d made for us and we all should have the same fair beginning in the nation that man designed for us. That's wonderful. Now, in this country we have seen the worst pictures of racism, in this country. In spite of their beautiful document we have seen the worst picture of racism right here in America. But that language was more powerful than all the other additions that were made to the Constitution. Making us one fifth of a man or two fifths of a man, I can't recall right now but making us a part of a man and not a whole man.
All that stuff came in but the purity, the real genuine truth that the Founding Fathers put in the introduction, it stayed there to overcome all of the falsehoods against our natural worth that G-d gave us. And today, what rules? The one fifth or the two fifths or equality? Equality rules, in the law before the courts, equality rules. So if more nations would have this in their Constitutions, if they would not base the worth of their citizens upon anything other than what G-d has created us or given us, they would have strong Constitutions and in time they would have more equality for their citizens and more equality for this human family that populates this whole globe than we have today. So, we have a lot of work to do.
I don't have much respect at all for most of the Constitutions of these other countries. That's why a tyrant can come into power. A dictator can rule and stay in place and they play on the ignorance of the people, play on the immaturity in the emotions of the people and they can mastermind. You know witich doctors have always been able to keep a following and stay in control, witich doctors. So that's all we have now in the world. Governments that are nothing but witich doctor rule. Witich doctor rule, playing on the ignorance of the people but thanks to G-d we live in a situation that's different. I believe that G-d has chose this place to serve the betterment of the whole world. Human family in the world, this place, America. It has been chosen, I do believe that. Where we've seen the life tested, the life have been tested. The biggest lies have been told to us and the biggest truths have been told to us.
And we have seen these lies and truths live together in competition with each other. And today we can say truth is triumphing over the lie. Truth has the victory, the lie is retreating. I think that's a sign of G-d, that's a sign from G-d. And as the rest of the world looks upon us, thank God for the powerful media we have now. We see them and they can see us. As the rest of the world look on us, they're going to have to take notice. They're going to have to be attracted and have some curiosities. How has this happened? I think many of the people that come over here, they're so jealous. They're so envious of the progress we have made for race relations that they either go to one extreme and pretend that everything is perfect, or they go to the other extreme and tell us it's all a deception.
Don't they buzz your ears sometime privately, "All of this is a deception. Don't trust them brother." And I think it's because there's a lot of jealousy there. They're jealous. A lot of Muslims don't support me right now. Do you think I would have to be dependent on you all to pay my rent, to keep my lights on? If these all rich Muslims really were fair by me? If I was a Christian leader and if I had turned from what I used to believe as a Christian, and come from that other extreme to the beautiful life that I now embrace, I would be getting so much help from rich Christians. They'd be so proud of me as a Christian who made that great turn.
They would know how difficult it was that I resisted my own father, could have had great wealth, lying and fooling people, tricking the people. I could have had great wealth. I could be rich. I could have come here in a Rolls Royce as long as this campus. Yes, I could have. Yes. So that would be Christians who would appreciate me so much from coming from where I was to where I am. That we wouldn't have no problem for a budget for Clara Muhammad schools, the budget would be there, everything would be there. Now here we got oil rich Saudi Arabia, I'm not doing this to get anything from them. They know I don't beg. I'm a proud nigga.
Yes, I don't beg, I don't beg. Because really all the wealth in the world will nowhere equal the wealth that I have in my heart and my soul now that I've come to the real life. So I don't need any money to satisfy my soul. Yes, but they got that wealth. I know me in my mind and nature, if I saw any of them making that great turn and honoring the religion after they had disgraced it and discredited it and I was rich like a... I would say, "What does the school need?" As one rich white man, he just gave Russia $500 million, Russia, $500 million. Another rich man gave I think so many hundred billion.
Yeah. So here... No, no, we can't. We'll watch them. "Great, sweet Imam. Your meat is so sweet and tasty. Allah bless you. You need nothing but Allah. You are so good. You are so good Brother Imam. Alhamduillah, you so good, you don't even need our wealth. You don't need money. Brother Imam, you don't even need money." Thank you very much. Let me get out of here.
Speaker 2:
For more on the Ministry of Imam W. Deen Mohammed, Muslim American Spokesman.
Speaker 3:
The following lecture entitled, What Islam Has To Say On Race Relations. Muslims In America: Planning Our Future was recorded at Griffith Theater on the campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, Wednesday, February the 11th, 1998. The lecturer is Imam W. Deen Mohammed, Muslim American Spokesman. And now, Imam Mohammed.
IWDM:
Thank you. Thank you. Our greetings is Peace. We say Peace Be Unto You and As-Salamu Alaykum. I'd like to begin by presenting the picture of Islam as it was given to Muslims, the followers of Prophet Muhammad himself. When the Prophet was asked, "What is Islam?" Prophet Muhammad, Prayers and Peace be upon him, the son of Abdullah 14 centuries ago gave this statement. He said, "Islam is to believe in One G-d, to worship that G-d and to pray to that G-d." And he said, "It's to give in charity, to fast the month of Ramadan and to visit the House." And that means to make pilgrimage... The House is the house in Mecca as a symbol for the unity of all mankind. It's a small cubicle house or structure that is empty now. Muhammad, the Prophet like Abraham, the Prophet, Peace be upon them, removed the false idols, the idols from the house and cleared it so there's nothing in there, just the empty house as a symbol for the unity of all people or the unity of mankind.
It is the Fifth Pillar of our religion, Islam, and most of the teachers or scholars in Islam, they call it the Pillar of Our Unity, the Fifth Pillar. The Fifth Pillar of Our Unity, the Unity of all mankind. And G-d gives us our common identity and He expresses it in our Holy Book to us as our picture. And G-d says, He's the one who gave us our picture, our sura, our picture. Surah is Qur'anic Arabic, our Arabic term meaning picture. And he made that picture most excellent. Picture is in the singular, G-d in Qur'an also uses the same term but uses it in the plural sense, not in a singular sense. So he has given you your picture, He's given us your picture, G-d speaking to us, all of us and have made that picture excellent. Some translators say most excellent, most excellent.
The term for excellent, Hassan, it means also most attractive, very handsome, beautiful. And all of us I think, would like to think we are handsome, attractive, beautiful. There's a need in our life to believe that we are beautiful or attractive and handsome. And G-d says, "And He made that picture most beautiful, almost handsome, almost excellent." If I remember my teacher giving me a grade in Arabic class, Palestinian who my father had hired to teach us Arabic at our private school. And he wrote Ahsanta, meaning excellence from the same word, Ahasanta. And so when I ask him, I said, "What is this word?" I was just beginning. I didn't know Arabic. I asked him, I said... And I still don't know it that well but I know it well enough to read the scripture, the Qur'an. He said, "That means excellent. You did excellent."
He said, " Ahsanta means you did excellent." So, I was very pleased with that, and I recalled that word. And when I saw it in the Qur'an, naturally I related back to the meaning that he gave me, that I did excellent. Many Muslim name their young male, their sons Hassan, their male children Hassan. And it means handsome, attractive, as well as excellent. Now G-d gives us the identity of ourselves that He want us to be most interested in and to take good care of that identity, to take the best care of that identity and that identity is human identity. And all of us, I remember hearing it a lot say, "You don't act like a human." We'd be acting up around in the house or somewhere outside, "You know what? You don't act like a human. You act like something wild. You act like a wild animal."
And all of us are conscious of being human, human, human. And science gives us a definition of what human is. And I think all of us have our own definition too of what human is. But G-d wants us also to know what human is from Him. And I want right now to give some other definitions of what G-d says man's identity is. In Qur'an, in our Holy Book, G-d says that He did not create the human being the man or mankind for any purpose other than service to Him. And in Islam we understand that the best compliment anyone can tell us is to call us the Servant of G-d, Abdullah. The name of our Prophet is Abdullah, the Servant of G-d. And G-d in Qur'an addresses all of us as His... The plural of Ab is Ibad. As His Ibad.
We are all the Ibad of G-d, the Servants of G-d. Males and females, we are the Servants of G-d. And so if we are put here, most importantly, our most important role, or job on this earth, meaning for being here is to serve G-d, then I think we want to know, how do we serve G-d? The Christian will turn to the Gospel, the New Testament. The Jew will turn to the Torah, we turn to our Scriptures, they are from G-d, with the Revelation from G-d to see how we are to serve G-d. And if we serve G-d as G-d intend for us to serve Him, then the Muslim will be a good Muslim. You'll be true Muslim. And a real Muslim, a true Muslim. The Christian will be good Christian, true Christian and the Jew will be a good... And for whoever follows the Scripture that came from Revealed Scripture, for his guidance, for the guidance of that people, they will have their life.
So, we have no problem living together if we live the excellence of our faiths. If a Muslim lives the excellence of his religion, the excellence of the teachings of Qur'an, the guidance in Qur'an and as exemplified in the life of Muhammad, who was a man who lived among us and lived as a human being, not as an angel or other world creature, he lived as a human being on this earth. He faced the human situations and G-d guided him how to have the best disposition and the best behavior and be the best leader for human beings, for our human community. G-d says, "If your community was a community of angels, I would've sent you an angel as a Messenger. Since your community is community of human beings, I sent you a human being as a Messenger." So, this is the Qur'an, this is our Holy Book saying that to us.
So, if we follow the excellence of our leader, Muhammad, who is really the model human person, that's what he is. That's why G-d in the Qur'an says of him, "That any who believes in G-d in the last day"... Now two conditions, not just to believe in G-d, but believe in G-d in the last day. Believe in G-d and believe in being accountable to that G-d for your behavior, for your life. So any who believes in G-d in the last day, Muhammad is an excellent model for them. Didn't stay for Muslims only. And that's another thing, brother Muslims and sister Muslims and brother Muslims, we have to realize that this religion is intended for mankind. Don't take it so personally.
It's the religion for mankind, for all people. And G-d says, if any have faith in G-d and believes in the last day means, if you believe you're going to be accountable to that G-d, then Muhammad is an excellent model for you. Why? Because Muhammad has that picture. Muhammad is that picture par excellence. That picture that G-d says, "He made that picture and he made it most excellent." Ahsan too tells us, that this is in comparison to something else. You relate this excellence to something else. We have many pictures because G-d says we are given our pictures in the plural, while we are in the wombs or in the stomachs of our mothers. We are given our pictures while we are in the wombs or in the stomachs of our mother. That's the physical picture, right? All of us get our physical picture in the wombs or in the stomachs of our mothers, that's where we get our physical picture. But we know it comes from the genes, it comes from the genetic line, how we will look.
But that physical picture is formed there. Nothing goes there but those microscopic things placed in the mother and she is the factory that turns out that beautiful child or that ugly child sometimes. I'm sorry. So the males and the female all come from the mother, males and female, we all come from the mother. And G-d said, He made you a pair, male and female. Not only did he make you from the earth, from dust, but he also made you from a pair of a male and a female. Made you from mama and daddy. And He shapes us in our mothers in the many forms, in many pictures that we find in the whole body of people we call humanity, the human beings on this earth. Now those pictures may not be pleasing to us, you know. So if you look in the mirror, at yourself and you don't like what you see, forget about that, that's not the important picture. The important picture is the one G-d made, that we all have the same.
It doesn't look different for any of us, it looks all the same for all of us. And that's human being in his excellent condition that G-d wants us in. The human being in the excellent condition that G-d wants him in, is a common picture for all of us. Now, if we would put importance on the common picture and not on these separate pictures then we would have no real serious race problems. At home with our family and we don't all the way always enjoy peace and harmony. I had a brother, every time I saw him, I knew there was going to be a fight. Either I expected a fight, he enjoyed just beating up on me. I still have him , but I don't have that brother. Thank G-d that brother changed, he's gone. I have a little brother now who's not like that.
But when we were children, that's all he wanted to do, is just beat up on me. And he wouldn't be satisfied until I was crying and hurting bad. Then he would leave me alone and the next day he would do it again. Every day I expected a beating from him. yes. So the human family is just like the family of two parents in a home. It is no different. We are going to have human problems. We going to have those that we gravitate toward and those that we don't gravitate toward, just like in a family. Two of my brothers, they ran together all the time because they were good company for each other.
They were better company for each other than myself and one of those brothers. And I gravitated toward my brother Herbert. He was not the next to me, one is over me by one brother. One brother Elijah, and then the older brother is Herbert. So kind of, we made it together as companions. And we would go places together and do things together, we loved the same kind of sports and everything. This is natural. Well, if people can accept to be natural and try to be excellent in whatever you are. This is what I tell the Muslim who are with me. This is what I tell audiences that I speak to in the African American community. I tell them, "Let's turn to the best of our natural life." What's natura?l To have the best of that. G-d evolves everything.
As Allah says in Qur'an and in the Bible too, I'm familiar with the Bible, this whole world was created to grow, grow, grow. And life is the growth pattern. After the Universe is settled and everything, then life is where we see patterns of growth, patterns of growth. But we know the scientists who studies the constitution of the earth itself, the physical Earth itself, they show us the patterns of growth even for the Earth. The layers of rock beginning from the liquid core of the Earth, they show us how these layers have grown and formed and how life itself has passed away and contributed to the layers. How they have formed on a sedimentary level. So life is growth and life is expression for human beings, expression. And a precious word for all of us is freedom. Freedom. And I think racism has something to do with this natural desire in us to be free. And to be free means to express myself. That's real freedom.
Freedom of expression, to express myself. I love to weld, I'm a welder. Really, I can't weld now because I'm busy with this work, but I'm a welder. I was trained to be a welder and I loved welding. And when I did a job, I would look at it, what a great satisfaction I had looking at what I had expressed of my skills, of my ability. Formed a nice piece of work you know, or corrected something or improved something, that's a great satisfaction for the artist, for the welder, for anyone. For the cook in the kitchen, I love to cook too.
It's great satisfaction when I see that meal on the plate and all the colors are looking so bright and beautiful. So you cook it too long and colors get dull. You have to know when to stop the fire and keep those colors nice and bright and pretty. And when it looks so pretty, I'm so happy. I'm so satisfied. That's my expression. Everything we do is an expression of our soul, ourselves, our soul, ourselves. The soul has a need to be expressed and the intellect is the brain that's given to us, I'm not teaching you all anything. I'm trying to remind you of something and get us to think in a certain groove.
The brain is there, the intellect is there to show the soul, the spirit how to express itself in the real world. When I say real now I'm speaking of material, I'm addressing the material. Because some mystics among the Scholars in Islam, they will not say this physical world, objective world is the real world. They say this is not... They say is the deception. Deception. They say this world that we see with our eyes, objective world, is deception, is not the real world. And I believe them but I don't care to follow them all the way. I just follow them part of the way. I'm not a mystic. I don't want to be a mystic.
Yes. So expression is what we need. Freedom of expression. And in America, thank G-d, we cherish this freedom. This is a sacred freedom for us. Freedom of expression. I think we have race relations when we get too emotional and don't try to be understanding even when a persons position or opinion or his mind, is something that you reject. If we could encourage understanding, being rational and seeking understanding, seeking to know why. Why certain white people are racist, don't want to accept blacks, we should want to know why. Say, "Well, we know why cause...." No, that's not enough. We need scientists, good, well meaning people to study the problem of race. We have done it but we need to do it again. We need to do it again and come up with... I think now is a good time to do it. In the 60s it was done but we were too emotional.
We were too fired up with our hatreds et cetera, to pay attention to these discoveries, the scientific... Well I don't say discoveries, observations, that learned writers made and they put it in books. So here is a scientific basis of identity, racial identity. Here is the explanation for a man being white and one being black and one having nappy hair or wooly hair and one having straight hair. Here is the reason for that. As we have gotten it from the study of the features and colors of human beings existing in various parts of the world.
I used to think, and I say, "Well, dark is spooky." It scares me. Well, it's true. It does. You put anyone in a very dark room, they ain't going to feel too comfortable. Especially if they haven't searched that room and turned the lights out themselves. If they search the room first and they turn the light out, they'll get comfortable. But if they didn't, they don't feel too comfortable. And that's what darkness will do. And some of us feel very uncomfortable when there's real bright light, because we're shy. And not all the time that we did something wrong. We ain't guilty if somebody seeing me, sometime we just too shy. We don't like that much light on us. We feel a little shy to be showing up too much, to be seen in too much light. That's human. And I used to think, I said, "Well we can't accept the physical conditions, the message that they give to us, that these physical conditions or physical features or attributes determine our worth as human beings."
I said, "But I have to accept that black is scary sometimes. I have to accept that." And then I thought that black was also deceitful, because I'm a little student of science. I don't know a lot about science, but I love science, so I'm a student of science. Been a student of science all these years and I'm a senior citizen now you can see it. So I've been a student of science for a long time. So I consider myself like a lay scientist if I can claim that. And I said to myself once, I said that black is a protection, it hides. And I noticed that the vital points on certain animals are black. So I said, those vital points are made black for protection of that animal, so that the animal, attacking animal will go to the part that shows bright, that bright part and attack that part and will miss the vital organs, the vital features or vital organs. A dog's nose is black and that's a vulnerable spot on a dog, very vulnerable spot, his nose. And very precious to him.
The nose of a dog is very expensive, especially if it's a hound dog, or hunting dog, very expensive nose they got. So it's black to protect them, black to protect them. And I don't know why my knees are black, but they're black too. Yes. So I saw black as a protection. And then one day I was looking at a science program on television, they have some wonderful science programs on public television. And I saw these white creatures in the artic where all the white is, just snow and white, and they were white. So I said to myself, "Well, white is a protection too." They are made white so that the attacking animal, animal that would prey on them won't detect them so easily. Then my mind came to the chameleon, that little creature that G-d made that will take the color of the color he's near or in. And I said to myself, "Well, all of these colors are protections." And then I recall G-d saying in our Holy Book, said, "Sib battuna Sibbatulah." And I've heard Imams, Pakistani, Indians, they like to say that "Sibga tuna Sibga tulah]." Our coloring is the coloring of G-d.
Our coloring is the coloring of G-d. So if we can understand that G-d has given us these features and these colors for our protection, and they are all understandable if we study them scientifically in the physical environment of life and matter, et cetera. So this is the answer we need to bring back. Some authors brought it to us in the 60s, I repeat, but the 60s were just too turbulent, too much trouble. We would trouble too much to give those writings our attention. And now those books are so old, I doubt if anyone can find them. I had one called Race and the Democratic Society, a very good book. And I had another one, The Explanation of Race. I can't recall the author of that one, but I believe the author of Race and Democratic Society, Eric Fromme, I think is his name. Yes.
I want to point now to our need to feel good about ourselves. We want feel good about ourself, not only as individuals. The student who's trying to get a good grade from the teacher feels so wonderful when they get that good grade, that B plus, that C plus that A, whatever. For me it was C plus, that's what made me feel real good, especially in English. So we feel good about ourselves. We want to feel good about ourselves and we want to be free and we want to feel good about ourselves. I think if we stop attacking the persons for their racism and start trying to understand, why? Why is this? Why a white man wants to tell the world that I'm white? I'm not black and I don't want to be black, I'm white and I want to stay white. Is for the same reason that some blacks will say the same thing if you would ask them, "We are black, we don't want to change. We want to stay black."
Now my understanding has improved greatly as a student of society and nature, has improved greatly. And my religion really have helped me to accept this. I wouldn't be too upset, too upset, if I would hear that my daughter is going to marry a white man. I wouldn't. I would just be a little worried. And in fact, one of our relatives, a little distant, more distant than a daughter, did marry a white man. I met him. I finally met him. I like him. I guess I felt just like many of you all in that small minority who had black men marry your daughters. I guess I felt about the same way or marry your niece or something. I felt about the same way. I wasn't comfortable at all, and I was hoping that I could meet him and like him.
So, when I met him, we started conversation. We just talked together and I poured out something that would disturb him to see how he would act. To see... But he handled it very nicely and he poured something out on me that disturbed me and I handled it very nicely for him. We ended up wanting to even hug each other before we left. Yeah, really. We had understanding. So I don't have any problems with that. I'm happy they're married. I'm glad she didn't marry a black man on welfare. I am. I really am. But there's something more important than that. G-d has put us here to serve Him. So there's something more important than mixing or worrying about race, intermarriage and all that. There's something more important than that and that is service to G-d.
If we put service to G-d above service to anything else, myself even my family. I have to put service to G-d above my own family. Because in this world, when this secular world, loses a sense of moral direction or gives up on moral life. I don't say it loses a sense of moral direction but when it gives up on moral life, when it doesn't trust that the public can be morally contained anymore. We have to have something just to support us. To keep us going. To keep us with moral interest and moral sensitivities. That's our religion. We have to rely upon what G-d has revealed because the secular world will not always give us the best guidance for moral life.
Service to G-d. Service to G-d is the best service. And where would to give that service? In community. Where are we to find the best conditions for our life so that we can live together in one family and yet take pride in our distinctions? A true father or a true mother, they don't want to see all their children just in one little picture. One copy of them or something else. They like to see diversity in their family. They like that this child is interested in art. This child is interested in football. Another one is interested in math. They love that. They don't want to see all of them just clones of the same person. No, they don't want that. That doesn't make them happy. So we won't be happy if we have all the different nationalities and races or ethnic group in a melting pot and turning out the same thing. Making all the same things.
I think unity supports diversity. I think unity supports diversity. And the more unity is aware... Pardon me, is in our awareness, the more we can appreciate diversity. The unity should be upon that sura, that picture of us that G-d says He made human and most excellent. Human and most excellent. That's where our unity should be. If we unite upon that, that's the more important foundation for us. We are firstly human. We are lastly human. Firstly human and lastly human. After we have had all our troubles with each other, we are going to find peace by being human beings toward each other. By being humanly toward each other or be humanitarian toward each other, with each other. This is the way G-d intend for us to be. So in concluding this, I want to say Muslims, concentrate, focus on Community life. That's where G-d want us to concentrate our efforts, our attention. On Community life.
And we all should focus our attention on Community life because this world has become one global village now and we are all in the same world together. The television, the powerful media, captures all of us. I don't care how far we are away on the other side of the planet, hidden in the backwoods, in the bush or in the great Amazon River or something floating down there amongst the trees and covered so nicely no one can see you, not even the birds. That camera will go in there and find you and show you to us on television. You see. So we are in one room now and we have to force ourselves to accept that we are in one room and if we want to have peace for each other, we have to respect what each other want in this one room. Me, I want Islam in this one room. I want to be a Muslim and I want Islam in this one room. I love America. I'm proud of my citizenship. I value it and I will die for it. This is no joke.
But my best citizenship is not my American or US citizenship. My best citizenship is my Muslim citizenship because G-d has given us a society, a religious society that's more valuable to us than any political order can ever be. And that's what make our political order strong. When each of us in our great faiths put strong emphasis on faith above politics and above even Government, then we make the best contribution to our Government or to our nation. As strong people of faith obeying our disciplines in our faiths, we make America strong and keep it strong. But if we lose that, the secular world will make all of us weak and it'll eventually make our country weak. So my message to you today is we are your neighbors my brother Christians and sister Christians. We are your neighbors. We are proud to be your neighbors. We share with you an appreciation for the growth and excellence of this great nation we call America.
We study its growth in excellence. How it has grown in excellence. We are so proud of it. And we are proud of this country for awakening our sensitivities so that we will have... Feel a moral obligation, pardon me, not have. But so we will feel them all obligation to do right by each other. That the Christian will look at himself again, who've been thinking his Black brother is inferior or his Black human fellow man is inferior, will look at himself and question himself in the light of what Jesus presented, Peace be upon Jesus Christ. And try to conform to the life and to the love or whatever that Jesus so beautifully radiated to the people who follow him and put down these selfish and crazy biases and follow your religion. This is what we want to do. If you do that and we do that, follow the excellence of Muhammad in our faith and you follow the excellence of Christ Jesus in your faith...
Really, we follow Christ Jesus too. Muslims believe in all the Prophets. So whatever excellence in Jesus, we respect it. Not only respect it, we study it and we get benefit from it. We benefit from all the Prophets. But our model Prophet, the last Prophet to us, he models the excellence that those Prophets were sendthere to model to the world. So we focus on him. But, pardon me, let us be true to ourselves. If we say we are Christians, let's try to be good Christians. Let's try to really represent what we are saying. And if we say we are Muslim, let us not take the definition of Muslim from Minister Farrakhan. Because something in your human nature and your human sensitivities doesn't agree with all that Farrakhan says. So, since you can't agree in your soul, your human soul, with all that Farrakhan represents, then don't turn to him for understanding of what is Muslim or what is Islam.
Let us take it from our Holy Book and let us take it from the Prophets and Messengers of G-d that G-d chose for us as models. And lastly, let us keep the destiny before us. G-d want us to seek Paradise. Seek Paradise. But not only on this Earth, to seek not only after this Earth and after this life but also on this Earth in this life. He wants us to seek Paradise. Paradise is something that G-d wants us to seek from the time we come into this world, forever we should be seeking Paradise. All life for the whole road of our existence on the earth, if we seek Paradise then we will automatically improve ourselves and our environment. Anyone who makes Paradise, a conscious effort to have Paradise, they won't live in funk and trash and garbage. You look at some...
Go in some homes of people who went to school, they got their High School diploma. Some of them even got the BS degree, and you go into the home and you say, "Hey, this look like this should have wheels on it. This should be picking up my trash on Wednesday morning." So we won't have that if we follow our religions and try to be the best you can be. And the army wasn't the first to tell us that. G-d says, "Be the best you can be." And G-d even tell us to be selective when reading the Qur'an. Because if you are not careful, you'll be so negative you'll select only those things that support your negativity. And you'll... That's why G-d says, "And before you read the Qur'an, ask G-d to give you protection from the rejected Satan, the devil." Because you're subject to be hurting, youre looking for justification for your hurt.
So, Palestine is hurting, and we are hurting too for Palestine. But the victim or the one who is uptight there, he'll be reading the Qur'an and says then, "And you'll find the Jews to be some of the most greediest people for the things of this life." And that's where he'll stop. He'll stop right there and he thinks he's justified to go out there and just do anything against the Jews. But if he stay healthy minded, he'll read further where G-d says, "And you'll find among the Jews a party of them committed to justice and fair dealings among men." Thank you very much. As-Salaam- Alaikum, Peace Be With You.
Speaker 4:
Okay. If anyone has a question for the Imam, please approach one of the two microphones and we'll alternate back and forth between them.
IWDM:
I hope I can hear the question. You got a mic. That's very good.
Speaker 2:
Is this working?
Speaker 5:
Okay. This goes back to just a couple points you made that I sort of would say go together, the idea of selectively taking information, be it the Qur'an or anything else and making a point out of it. And this goes back to what you were saying about science. I would argue that science in of itself, as you said, is a beautiful tool that people could use to understand race relations.
IWDM:
Yes.
Speaker 5:
But I'd say one of the big problems is that traditionally I would say right up to the present science is not based on objective criteria but subjective ones. If you look at, for example, anthropology in the 19th century, it was not really based on facts as much as going around collecting certain information, justifying in a nutshell white man is superior and that's why he rules the earth. And the reason I ask this is in the modern context, what worries me is when I hear things, not to just pick on one study but the Bell Curve study as an example. I would argue that that's selectively taking information to simply justify already held notions of race of blacks. And I'm just curious, how do you recommend dealing with not science but I would call it pseudoscience?
IWDM:
Yes. Well everything is growing. Everything is progressing. Everything is growing to become better and better, more perfect, more exact even science itself. Science itself is a learning process. It's a growing. It's a learning process. Experiments, mistakes, then we discover something to correct the mistake. And if it falls in the hands of the wrong people, we get their prejudice views of... Prejudice conclusions that they made. And I'm glad you connected it with what I said about the Qur'an because if you go to Qur'an with the wrong state of mind, you may come out a very bad fella. Yes. So I hope I didn't give the impression, which I probably did, that we can rely solely on science. We can't rely solely on science but with the purity of our faith, the purity of our religion and the help we get from science, we can answer questions of race and solve problems.
Speaker 5:
I just mean how do you think the black community and more specifically the Muslim community can respond to these, I don't know if I want to call them allegations but the results of coming with the wrong mindset? How do you think this can be addressed?
IWDM:
Well we have an academic... We are developing an academic, I would say group in our community who will help our leadership. And I believe that they should respect the sciences and also respect G-d's wish for us. G-d's desire for us. And if they do that, perhaps we will have the growing process too as everybody else. But right now we rely upon what our Scriptures say to solve these problems. We rely firstly and lastly upon our Scripture. But we can get a lot of help, again, I must say a lot of help is in science, if we will look at what science says about these things.
And there will be... There is a danger that you may pick up a scientific conclusion from someone who was not aware that they themselves were subjective and not scientific or objective. And they will give us their bias views and we will be quoting them thinking we are quoting what is scientifically true and it will be scientifically false or pseudoscience. So I think we have to keep our community aware of that and we who study to better present truth to our people, we should certainly be aware of that. Thank you very much.
Speaker 6:
I don't have a question Imam Mohammad. I have more of a response to that being that I am black, I am Muslim and I am a Scholar of science.
IWDM:
And you are what? I didn't get the last...
Speaker 6:
And a scholar of science. I'm majoring the science.
IWDM:
Yes. Very good.
Speaker 6:
And I agree with you sir. Just from the simple fact that it's not the usage of science that's bad... It's not science that's bad, it's just usage. And like the gentleman said, that the Bell Curve pointed out negativity, well you have to look towards science to negate that. If you just sit there and say, "That is wrong. That is wrong." But you don't bring to the table an opinion that brought it... If you don't fight that opinion with the same kind of weapon... They use science to justify that. So if you're going to negate that, you have to come back with science. So in that same sense, the usage of science is not bad. You understand what I'm saying?
IWDM:
Yes, I understand. And I appreciate that. Thank you.
Speaker 6:
That's my response to that. And I had that conversation in the wee hours last night so I felt that maybe my purpose was to state that right now as a Scholar of science.
IWDM:
Okay, well thank you.
Speaker 7:
Imam Mohammed. Many Americans and Christians feel fearful of the Islamic faith because there is so much in the mass media dealing with violence, not only in the Middle East, even on our own shores. How do you address the fears of many Americans who tend to associate Islam with violence, Mujahideens and so forth? We know that that is not all of the members of Islam but how do you address those fears in Americans and others around the world?
IWDM:
And regretfully we, that is the Muslim nations of the world have reacted to problems with the West, unfavorable circumstances for them that are caused by the West, colonialism, colonial domination and et cetera. And have not had a situation for themselves to just sit and quietly soberly study the West and what has happened and come up with a direction or with an attitude or disposition for themselves. A way of dealing with the West in a rational way and an understanding way. That's starting to happen now, we... But what I think that it's very important for us to understand is that what we see of Muslim in the media is trouble most of the time. People who have been scarred deeply by situations that they can't change and that are unfair to them. And they see America as a power protecting Israel and supporting Israel with great sums of money.
So, all of this reaches them, and they respond emotionally to it. So then we need to understand them. We need to understand their situation. We need to sympathize with them too. And they're not bad people. Many of them who have been driven to be terrorists, they're not... They weren't bad people. They're bad people now but they weren't bad people. And if they could get the chance, perhaps they will come back to being good people. We don't know. If they would get some understanding from us perhaps, and from Israel, perhaps they would come back to being good people. Muslims are not terrorists. We don't love violence. In fact, we don't even like to be angry. Prophet Muhammad, someone asked him, said, "Tell me something that can benefit me for the rest of my life since you're a Prophet." He said... Peace be upon him. He said, "Avoid anger. Avoid giving yourself to anger. Giving into anger."
That was his advice. And we who studied the religion from the Word of G-d and from him, we want to be like him. So we hate to give into anger. The Muslim is a person of peace. Muslim means a person of peace. Islam means the Religion of Peace and our greeting is, "Peace be unto you." As-salamu alaykum. How can the people who have so much Peace in their greetings, in the name of their Religion and everything in their be people of violence? That's a terrible unacceptable contradiction. We are promoters of Peace and Muslims were led by Muhammad the Prophet, Peace be upon him, to bring change in the world and to civilize the world or conquer the beast in our life or in our society with education. Not with the sword. That's the way it was meant to be.
But if people fight over land or power, then you're going to have a new character. He's going to walk that character. Change that character and that's what has happened. And this was all predicted that, that would be. Prophet Muhammad said that wealth would come and his community would be lost. And he said it would return to the ones that it came to in the beginning. And what does it mean? Those who love G-d's way, love humanity, serving G-d for the betterment of humanity more than they love materialism or more than they love wealth. They spent their wealth very generously to advance the message of Al Islam. And that's what I see coming now. We are at a time in the world when the world is becoming more humanly sensitive and the human sensitivities have more welcome in the world today. Good innocent human sensitivity have a much greater welcome in the world today all over, except for a couple of places. I won't name them.
So, we are coming to a time when we can again practice the best of our humanity. Live it and practice it and feel good and not have it dominated or destroyed by any powers. When Muslims are angry on television, it's not because of religious matters directly. It's because of a political matter directly or economic matter directly. Not religion. So we tend to think these terrorists are religious or responding to their religion. Some writers give fundamentalism as a reason for their behavior. Fundamentalism is not the reason for that behavior. Fundamental in our religion is the same as fundamental in your religion is. What is fundamental means you stick with what is more important. You stay with the basics. You stay with what is basic. You stick with what is more important in your religion. You stay with what is essentially your life and that is good. That's not bad.
But again, if the mind of the individual is drunk, then he will go to his religion and he will pick up the wrong thing. He will misperceive what's there and he will misuse it. Well this is what we have when people are driven crazy out of their mind because they don't have their home anymore. Their home is taken and here the same people took their home last year coming back to get another one of their homes. Yes, I sympathize with the Palestinians on the West Bank. And here they come for another home. So this drives them mad. Science tells us if you drive any creature to the extreme, that creature comes out of his normal form and you can make a monster out of a normal creature. Well, we know that. As Americans who study science, we know that. So why can't we look at the situation and have sympathy for those people who've been scarred very deeply and who have been driven out of their minds. So they're not presenting their religion to us, they're presenting their rage to us and the West is responsible for most of that rage.
Speaker 8:
As-salamu alaykum.
IWDM:
Wa Alaikum As-Salaam.
Speaker 8:
I wanted to ask you to do me a favor, pretty please and tell me one of your favorite Hadiths and please explain it for me. I'm really interested in knowing what-
IWDM:
The hadith that-
Speaker 8:
Any hadith that... A hadith that's a favorite of yours. I'm interested in knowing. I'm just very curious.
IWDM:
About slavery?
Speaker 8:
About anything.
IWDM:
I didn't get-
Speaker 8:
Anything. Just a Hadith that's important to you every day or one of your favorites. So just anything-
IWDM:
My favorite hadith?
Speaker 8:
Yes. Please.
IWDM:
I just guess gave it to you. Don't give into anger.
Speaker 9:
As-salamu alaykum.
IWDM:
Alaykum as-salamu.
Speaker 9:
As you know, our Muslim community in America is the most ethnically diverse Muslim community in the whole world.
IWDM:
Yes it is.
Speaker 9:
And even though it's an asset to us, it's a cause of a lot of prejudice and strife and segregation among us. I'd like to know what you think we can do Imam Mohammed to try to foster better relations among us. And to make ourselves more tightly knit and closer Muslim community with fewer racial biases among our very different ethnic groups.
IWDM:
We have to have leadership and I mean leadership in the broader sense now. We have to have leadership in the broader sense and our Imams and teachers of Religion, they have to see Islam in its full picture. In its full scope. And know that piety without practical works for the betterment of life and Community or life and society is not given any credit in Islam. Some people came to the Prophet Muhammad and they said that, "We have a very special person to present to you." To the messenger of G-d they said that, Peace be upon him. And when they presented him as a person that fasts. He did all the fasting. He prayed all the prayers. He did everything.
Muhammad says, "Well, who provides home and food for him?" They say, "We do." He said, "Then you are better than he is." So the pious leaders in our Religion, they should realize that that's a very precious feature of the Muslim piety. But they are to support all good works, all good services. And I think if the religious leaders would address the Jumu'ah and the community whenever we have time to address it, would address them on these practical needs in our life that you are mentioning right now. And don't be afraid to talk about race. They'll talk about race but they'll simply just quote one line from the Qur'an and they think that's enough. But the Prophet did more than that. The Prophet didn't just say, "The only superiority is obedience to G-d. It's not in your colors, not in your nationality. The only superiority is obedience to G-d." The Prophet did more than that.
He said there is no superiority. He went directly to it. He expressed it very clearly. He said, "There is no superiority of a White over Black and there's no superiority of a Black over White." That's plain language. That's plain language. And we should extend that further. The Prophet gave us the issue. He presented the issue to us. Now, we, imams should be encouraging Muslim students to study the problem of man in society, especially the problem for one race, a minority group and a majority group. To study the problems and to come from Islamic sources with the best solutions. We have to look at the whole community and study the needs of the whole community and hope that we will one day fulfill G-d's request to us. He says, "Let there rise out of you a community calling to all that is good and protesting all that is bad and not fearing the criticism of any who criticizes. And believing in G-d and having faith in G-d."
So, these are descriptions that G-d has given us. He wants an excellent model group to come out of us and we need to work on that. All of the leaders, the Imams, we need to work on bringing about, influencing the development of a model leadership that represents not just prayers, worship on Friday but represents the whole community interest. The whole interest of man in community. That's what we need. So it's not going to happen by you. I'm sure that you are making a contribution. You believe what you believe and I'm sure your own life is making a contribution to bettering things for us.
But I do too. I do mine. But we can't... We need a collective effort. We need a model group working as a leadership group to solve problems for us in the community and that's what the Shura should be about. But the Shura is about ....How much Zakat can we get? And is 2% enough in this time or should it be increased to 200%?
Speaker 9:
Thank you very much.
IWDM:
Thank you. Allahu Akbar.
Albert :
Good evening. My name is Albert and I have a lot of Muslim friends and we've been discussing a lot of the issues between Christians and Muslims as far as marriage is concerned. I know a lot of people are a little bit closed minded as to whether or not you should marry someone that's not within your particular religion. I wanted to just get a little bit of feedback from you because I know a lot of young women that are Christians and a lot of young women that are Muslims, they're inclined to marry someone that's of their same religion and that's more or less out of having been taught by their family or whatever minister was in their life. And I just wanted to get a little bit of feedback from you.
IWDM:
Yeah. A very important question. Let me say that the Prophet Muhammad, Peace be upon him, it is reported that he advised persons marrying to seek a person from their own locale first. And that's because the person from your own locale will most likely be a person that you understand, you know each other, you understand each other ways and that helps for the success of the marriage. But there is exception to that too. Sometimes we can't find the person that is compatible for us in our local circumstance and we have to go out for that person. When it comes to marrying out of your race, there's still even more serious concerns for having compatibility and having a peaceful life with each other.
For marrying out of your religion too can be a very serious matter. You can run into a lot of trouble. So unless the person that you are marrying appreciates your religion in you, values your religion in you and sees your religion as a compliment to your life and wants you to stay in your religion, there's a real serious problem. Real serious danger. Now, the Prophet is reported also... I don't know how strong the Hadith is. But the Prophet has... It is said that the Prophet taught the men that they should not marry their daughters to any but a Muslim. Not to a Christian or Jew. Not even to a Christian or Jew. They say it is acceptable that the male, the man, marries a Christian... A person of faith. A Christian or a Jew, person of faith. But not acceptable that the female, the woman or the girl, marries out of their race.
They said because the man has the authority. The man governs the society. So she would be put in a bad situation and the non-Muslim man will change her from being a Muslim and will have her children... Well, at least with the dispute that he will have the children come up being non-Muslim. Not Muslim. So we should look at all of that before we make decisions, judgments.
Albert :
Okay. That was it. Thank you.
IWDM:
Thank you.
Speaker 11:
As-Salamu Alaykum.
IWDM:
Alaykum as-salamu.
Speaker 11:
I remembered when you said that Allah had put us on this Earth as pairs. I was wondering if the lesbians were counted as pairs too.
IWDM:
If... Did she say lesbian? I'm surprised you know that word.
Speaker 11:
Thank you.
IWDM:
The question is were lesbians put here as pairs too, right? Yes. Non-productive pairs.
Speaker 11:
Okay. Thank you.
IWDM:
You're welcome. How is our time now? We've gone past
IWDM:
Okay. Yes.
Speaker 12:
As-Salamu Alaykum.
IWDM:
Alaykum As-Salaam.
Speaker 12:
I want to thank you for your words of tolerance and peace and to ask you to join us in turning attention to an area that is threatened. And I'm talking about the Gulf. And I was wondering if you were to meet with President Clinton, what would you say to him?
IWDM:
About the Gulf situation now, the present crisis?
Speaker 12:
Yes.
IWDM:
I've already asked the Secretary to prepare a letter for me that I'll sign and my letter to President Clinton will be this, that we don't think the interest of our nation will be served if planes are sent to bomb Iraq again. And that we think that that's going to hurt our interest more than help our interest in the long run.
Speaker 12:
I wanted just to add to that. That we have dedicated next week here at Duke to awareness of the plight of the Iraqi people and...


