10/21/1995
IWDM Study Library 
Race and Genetics in Islam
University of Wisconsin

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Thank you. Thank you.
Praise Be to G-d, the One Lord creator for us all. We acknowledge Him, we worship Him. We don't associate false G-ds with Him and we salute with the traditional salute of Muslims, the last Prophet of Islam we believe to be a Mercy to the world as G-d says in His Holy book, a Mercy to all the Worlds. Muhammad, the Prophet of Arabia who was with us on this earth about 1,415 years or so ago. We wish peace and blessings on all of you, on all of us. Ameen, We thank G-d for blessing us to be here and at this time on earth and the Muslim society of the world. We thank G-d for having people like you on this campus, the University of Lacross to invite us here so you can get a close up look at us. We thank G-d for people like you who are not afraid to look at or into the lives of people that are not like yourselves or who believe in an idea that you don't personally subscribe to. We would like to feel tonight that we are doing a service, service to ourselves, to Muslims, and a service to you, service to non-Muslims. Islam is a religion of Peace. Islam is a religion of over 1 billion human beings on this earth. Better than one fifth of the earths population today are Muslims. Islam has no place for racism. Islam has been misrepresented by guilty persons and also innocent persons and I do believe that the Nation of Islam, leader, leaders and followers for most of the history of the Nation Of Islam were innocent.
Innocent, worldly naive and open to be told any story, any story whether of the nature of fiction or the nature of myth and they would accept it as fact or as reality. And I do believe that those who designed the Nation of Islam for the African-American community or the black community, I believe that they themselves thought they were innocent. That is I believe that their intention was good. They were creating something that they thought they could control and labeling it Islam in hopes that when circumstances changed in America to give African-Americans a sense of belonging here with other Americans, an education would be available, that is equal education, available to African-Americans as it was to whites. That the new circumstances would arouse our curiosity and make us uncomfortable in our unreal beliefs and would eventually be the undoing of the plan or the idea that the architect of the Nation of Islam left us with. So, I'm not saying that as a Muslim, I'm not saying that they were completely innocent, but I'm saying that they thought they were innocent. They thought their intentions were good. Now, so much for that.
The procedure I would like to follow in addressing you for the second time on this campus. And thank you very much for having me back. I was here about two years ago and left with a wonderful feeling and it wasn't completely dead and I knew that when the plane was approaching this city, because something was rekindled in me that you had started or brought about by your goodness, by your peacefulness, by your sincerity. The procedure will begin with a look at Muslims and our involvement on the world scene. When Islam and Muslim life find expression, find expression, we sometimes get the wrong image of Islam. Islam has been misrepresented by those people who claim Islam. Now it is my understanding after a long time wondering why the contradictions exist, it is my understanding now that the Muslims of the world themselves had become distant from their own knowledge. The leaders of Islam today as a majority, the Scholars, the Ulema as they say in the Arabic language, the Ulema, they are saying in private settings and also before others, that Muslims have been living in the dark themselves as to what is true Islam and the obligations that they should accept. Muslims should accept that is. To attend the needs of the Muslim community and to do charity outside of the Muslim community.
When we see such behavior as that that was reported in the news and alarmed us all, the bombing of the Trade Center. When we hear of hijacking and the innocent being used to draw attention to the cause of the desperate from the Arab world or from Palestinians or from any Muslim country or place. When we hear of bombings that destroy and kill the lives of women, children, charged to persons who identify as Muslims, when we hear of persons wiring themselves up with explosives and making themselves a sacrifice just to injure, maim and kill, to get attention to their desperation, to their cause, we are seeing something that is as strange to Islam as it is to the best Christianity. And we know we have our quality Christianity and our not so quality Christianity, and we have our quality Islam and our not so quality Islam and we have our quality Judaism and our not so quality Judaism. The point here is to let the Muslims be on record for deploring such acts of terrorists. And let us be on record for sympathizing with the victims and for trying to in our own way, with our own means, trying to influence both the desperate ones who are trying to get attention to themselves and their cause, attention to their hurt and their cause, to influence them, to influence their hearts, to touch their hearts, to maybe signal a new kind of thinking in them and also to send a message to the Jews, to the Jewish community, to the Israelis, to let them know that that is not Islam, which they do know. The authorities in Israel know that. they know Islam. But to let them know also that there are Muslims that have the moral courage, the obedience to G-d to stand up and condemn those in their ranks who behave like that. Our look at Islam and Muslim life in America addresses a number of good features and also preachings and conduct as responsible for the discredit on Islam and Muslim life that we are experiencing and have been experiencing. The Nation of Islam in America. We'd like to kind of shift gears now and go from the international scene to the national scene America. The Nation of Islam in America. I'm sure the author of that idea named Fard, spelled FARD in the dictionary library, dictionary Encyclopedia Britannica, what is pronounced F-A-R-A-D, Fard WD Fard, WF Fard, Fard Muhammad.
He had different names. He gave his name in many names, gave himself many names. I'm sure that he knew that what he put together was not Islam. He was from, we were told Arabia and then there was some, looked like doubt. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad also told us that he believed he was a Turk from the Turkish people and after studying his handwriting and what I learned of him from persons who knew him personally close up and saw him daily, I'm convinced that he was an Indian from Asia, from the Far East, from that part of India that is now Pakistan. That's what I'm convinced of. And I'm convinced I repeat that he knew what he put together was not Islam. What he put together as a religion is farther from Islam than any religion I know of on this earth and that's a fact. It can easily be proven. Now why would he make something so strange to Islam and label it Islam? Because as I've already said, he wanted to create something temporary to hold the people, his disciples and the people that followed that idea until circumstances got better in this country to favor us feeling that we included here. And he put Islam on it so that Islam would be in our hearts, Muslims would be in our hearts, despite great difference between what we believed and what Muslims believe on this earth. We identified with Muslims, and we called all Muslims our brother, we thought we all belonged to one world global brotherhood. I give you the language of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. He said, when you join this Nation, you become automatically a member in the Muslim nations of the world. You have automatic citizenship in any Muslim nation. That's what he told us. Now, this country at that time when I was a young man listening to my father, teenager, young man, this country had two laws, one favoring white supremacy and the other one imposed upon blacks to make sure that we would never become equal, not to mention superior. So, you can understand victims of that world of yesterday, and I do believe it's a world of the past, giving an ear to a man that said to them, you are not inferior, you are superior. The one who labeled you in inferior is inferior. You are not the sons of the black darkness or the demon, the one who labeled you that they are the sons of the demon.
So, he just reversed everything and in our ears it was sweet In our ears, it was medicine to heal our pain painting and crushed ego. It was wrong, certainly it was wrong, but understand he was not talking to people who had education like Carter G. Woodson. He was talking to an audience where the average level of education for them was about the fourth or fifth grade elementary school. He didn't attract even junior college students from the African-American community or from the black community until he changed his emphasis from, I don't want to use the wrong term, from religious science for want of a better expression. From religious science to business sense and business development. When he changed his emphasis, then he began to attract persons who had a higher level of education. I recall the first College graduates or degreed persons to become members of the Nation of Islam. One, Dr. Lonnie Shabazz who had his doctorate degree in mathematics, another one, Dr. Salaam who was a practicing dentist. And in time he attracted even more in the seventies, late sixties and in the seventies. Malcolm X himself never got any credits from college. He did most of his studying during the 14 years that he spent in prison. He had plenty of time on his hands. So, he told me, he said, Wallace, I tried to go through the whole dictionary and learn the vocabulary of the dictionary. That's what he told me. And he told me that he studied many things. So, he actually educated himself while he was in prison. And the Honorable Elijah Muhammad came from Sandersville, Georgia with only three years elementary schooling, elementary education. He taught himself to write a nice hand, with a nice hand. He taught himself to read by just doing it and listening to others and getting his relatives who could read to help him. And I recall that when I was a man of 35, my father's hand was still poor, but much better than it was when I was a teenager. I thank G-d before he passed his hand looked like he attended junior college or college. He had a nice hand, but that's from striving, struggling and paining to make it correct, to make it right.
So, we are talking about a following that was worldly naive, a following that you could have told the moon was cheese and if you said it with a straight face and had education, they would say yes, it's cheese. They would've believed it. Now I used a quote from a publication which said, quote "Muslims in America are sending out mixed messages," mixed messages. Referring to Farrakhan and other off-brand Islamic groups. I'm not saying that to criticize him, I'm just saying that because that's the fact. I couldn't put it any other way and be truthful. Off brand. Yes, we are sending out mixed messages. The burden is on us to not to send out mixed messages. If we are sending out mixed messages to the Christian or to the American public, then we are responsible for how they are looking at us or seeing us. But what I'm saying now is that not only is the past, the ugly past when Americans in the West, were seeing Islam as an enemy, an enemy of Christ, peace be upon Christ Jesus, the Prophet an enemy of Democracy or the West, having the Crusader mentality in them.
A lot of ugly things came to the public through literature, through newspaper cartoons, comics through Hollywood movies, et cetera, to misrepresent mis image or wrongly image, pardon me, Islam and Muslim life. I'm not talking about that time. I think that time is mostly behind us too. Thank G-d. I think now the American people are better informed, less prejudiced, more open-minded, more inclined to embrace all cultures and respect all religions. Thank G-d for this time, best time I believe we've had on this earth since this earth was created, I mean for Christians and people of different religions. I Believe this is the best time since the earth was created. I'm now addressing our part in the distortion of Islam, in the distortion of the true image of Muslim and Muslim life. When we continue to say we are Muslims and identify strongly as Muslims and preach hatred, racial hatred, stand upon an idea that supports black dominance. And I know what the Nation of Islam believed in. My father was responsible for its life and his future for about 50 years, so I know what it's all about. And I know that the believers or followers of the Nation of Islam, they're told from the very first time they say they accept, they're told that the white man is a devil, wicked by nature, created by experiment.
A black so-called black scientist named Yakub, experimented with the genes of the black man and discovered that he could graft from the black man, a white man by mating lighter ones with lighter ones. Every time a light one was born, he'd mate the light one to another light one and continues to do that until he, in the language of Nation of Islam, grafted the gene, the black gene completely out of the black man and formed or created a white race, a white man or a white race. This is, what you would call that? Myth, fiction? What? I think is Fard's metaphysics. That's what I think it is. Yes, he introduced his own metaphysics. And we are not to get the meanings from the surface language. The meanings come only when we know how to unlock his metaphysics. Not talking about real white folks, skinned folks, not talking about physical black people. It's talking about abstracts. Now knowing exactly what the Nation of Islam represents, what it stands for, what it teaches, what it says it's aim is, anyone who is not worldly naive and has an education like Minister Farrakhan is consciously doing a great evil.
Therefore, I don't have the same respect and I would say sympathy and even tolerance with Farrakhan that I had with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and his followers. I don't have the same. Simply because the world is greatly different today and also the level of education for even the average in the black community is much higher today than it was in 1930, 1940, 1950 and even 1960. The average person is educated by irresponsible television, so we can't claim ignorance like we could claim back then. We are responsible ourselves in great part for the bad image of Islam and Muslims in the West and in the world. Also, America's media, television, radio, newspapers definitely has had and still has a role in the maligning of Islam and Muslim life or Muslim identity. We know that the media too has changed in recent times to try to be more even handed to try to report the truth regarding Islam and Muslim life. We appreciate that, but still there's too much, too much prejudice, prejudice, prejudice against Islam, propaganda against Islam, false reporting by the media to excite the American people and alarm the American people to think that Muslims are aliens among them, not real human like you are. And that Muslims are a threat to Western civilization.
There's so much evidence I could give you to show you that Muslims are not only accepting to coexist with Christians and Jews and others, Buddhists and others. We are not only accepting to coexist with Western democracy, but we are now searching. Scholars, religious leaders, students in Islam are doing research to see just how much opportunity exists for Muslims and Christians and other religions and for Islamic justice or Islamic idea of democracy to live together with you and work with you on the same problems that we have in common, on the problems that we have in common. This is what is going on. If I would read to you some of the language, you would think it's your own if I didn't say it was from a Muslim. Here is a Muslim publication here, little Muslim pamphlet that's put out and you can see the torch and the Statue of Liberty on it. And this organization or this institution, it's founded by very highly educated Muslims, not African-Americans, I think most of them are Asians from Asia.
It is called the Minaret of Freedom, and they have other publications by the same name, Minaret Of Freedom. And in the background, there is the Prophet's Mosque at Medina, Muhammad's Mosque right on the site where he lived. His home was there. So, they have focused, put the Torch of Liberty and the Prophets Minaret of the Mosque in the same focus. And I'll read what it says under that picture. Those who of their own free will and without compulsion act according to the Qur'an. To the Qur'an, or as they say Koran in the West. and the Sunnah, that is to the tradition of the Prophet, wear the turban of freedom. That's what they got on here on this pamphlet. This is just one organization. Muslim think tanks. I know of at least two of them. And organizations devoted to education and social justice, very much like this organization, that are believing and also saying to the American people, to the public and to the Muslim community of the world that Muslims have to be taught more about Western society, especially about the idea of free enterprise and Democracy. And also, they have to be taught more about Islam, Islamic social justice and business ethics in Islam. And when they're taught they will see a closeness, a compatibility, a common ground for Muslims and Christians to work together, cooperate with each other for a better life and a better future for all people. This is what Muslims are saying on the high levels, men and women of great knowledge and quality minds. That's what they're saying. Quality intellects. That's what they're saying. How can they believe these things? How can Muslims believe these things if Islam is what the public has been taught Islam is. I know you've heard that Islam wants a dominance on the earth and will not be satisfied until Christianity is removed, taken away, pushed off the planet. Yes, we do have small-minded, unfortunate poor souls among us making that kind of talk and they have been doing it for centuries. We know that. But they are in a small minority, especially among the learned. They represent a small minority. You have also in the Christian society, Christians that say such terrible things. I'm sure it'd make you not want to even say you're a Christian when they're speaking and others are listening to them.
We all have these very extremes. People claiming the name and living on the far borders or the farthest borders of the idea like Pluto too far away from the sun. We all have this. So, let us understand this and not be so quick to judge and stand upon false knowledge, false reporting and take a position against each other. I had the innocence to search the Bible for myself. My father told me it was a poison book. That's exactly what he said. He was told that by the foreigner that taught him. So, I came up as a child believing that the Bible was a poisoned book. And I know that any book can poison you if your mind, if you don't approach it correctly. Yeah, that's what I was told. The Bible is a poisoned book. But when I had the courage and the curiosity that my father again is responsible for, because my father that said study everything, question everything. That's what he got from his teacher. Study everything, question everything.
So, I picked up the Bible and started in Genesis. I didn't start, I didn't just say, well, I'm going to see what's in the gospel. No, I wanted to start from the beginning. I picked up the Bible and I started in Genesis, and I read the Bible through. I wasn't satisfied. I don't care how it confused me; I didn't care how much it made me uncomfortable. I was determined that I would read it straight through. And I did. I read it straight through once, I read it straight through again. The second time I read it straight through. I took notes. So, I think I had as much writing almost on the pages as there were in the print. And the result was I became a person believing in the purity of the Bible, the purity of the Bible. I'm convinced that there is a lifeline of purity running from Genesis to Revelation and I respect it and that makes it possible for me now to come up to Christians and embrace them and work with you. When I was given this kind of experience or sharing my experience with an audience once, after I finished, one of the Christians said, "Were you hinting that you are a Christian really?
And you know what I said to him? I said, yes. the Christian that I see that the Bible wants to produce, I am that. I am that. That doesn't mean that I believe what you believe on the letter or in the letter of the Bible, but in the spirit of the Bible, yes, I believe in the spirit. I identify with the spirit of the Bible. And I'm talking about that pure lifeline that I see running from Genesis to Revelation. And I believe in your virtues and we share essentially the same fundamental beliefs, not practice, but the same fundamental beliefs. Our beliefs are, and I'll give them to you in the order that they're given in Islam. To believe in G-d, His angels, the books, the Prophets and the books that came with them are the Messengers of G-d and the books that came with them. To believe in the ordinance of G-d, the law that regulates the benefits. The good benefits or the bad consequences of our actions, et cetera. And belief in the judgment, belief in the life after death. These are our beliefs. Belief in the life after death. So, if I wasn't giving these myself, if a Christian was giving these, you would say amen.
Because they're your beliefs too and those are our beliefs. We have practices that give expression to our life in society that distinguishes us from other religious groups, from other religious communities. We are to declare the Oneness of G-d not only with our tongue but also with our actions. And we are to pray five times daily and our prayer perhaps is the devotion that makes us most visible in the eyes of the world. And we are to give charity not only for our families, although that's the first obligation to the family, but to our community and also to people that are not of our faith. If our neighbor is a non-Muslim and we rest comfortably at night while our neighbor is hungry, the Prophet says, we are not one of the Muslims, we are not one of his followers. It was the life of Muslims that went to Indonesia that impressed Indonesians and caused them to be converted to Islam. It was the life of those people. Neighbor living next door caring about his neighbor that made the Indonesians curious to know what supports your life, what dictates this behavior in you. The business ethics of the businessmen. Fortunately, the businessmen that went to Indonesia, they were better than most Muslim businessmen. Impressed the Indonesian so much that they began to convert, inquire, and convert to Islam, and now Indonesia has the biggest Muslim population on this earth.
There's more Indonesians than there are Arabs and many other racial groups in Islam or ethnic groups in Islam. We think that this Democracy, belief in freedom, free enterprise, offers Muslims and everybody that comes here to establish their life here or that are here and want to establish their lives, an opportunity to do so. We believe that we can have a good life in America. We believe that we can have growth for Islamic life and Muslim communities in America and we are realizing that even now because times have changed in America. And we believe that the future promises even more justice, more opportunity, less prejudice, less racial prejudice and religious prejudice, bigotry and et cetera, and that we'll have even a better life here in America. We are planning our life, but we are also planning our defenses. Our defenses are not just for us, but our defenses are for the American society. We are planning how to defend, how to defend this life that we call American life. We are soldiers enlisted without any invitation from you. We have enlisted ourselves in the army of virtues and human kindness and faith in G-d to protect this life we call American life.
We value it, we cherish it. We don't want to see freedom lost and we don't want to see Christian values lost. You are the majority in this country. Our Prophet told us to defend the Holy places of other people and he mandated that Jews and others would have the right to practice their religion under Islamic government just as they did before Islamic government was established in Medina. When we know these facts of Islam, then we have to be the same in this day and time. No less is expected of us. We invite you to know Islam and I'm using a quote from an immigrant, those who have become nationalized citizens, one of their publication had a caption on it. "We invite you to know Islam." I have added- For yourself. And I think that's what they meant. We invite you to know Islam for yourself. Islam and the classification of communities, of the communities of man is the way that I think I can express Islam's concept of race and racial pride or race, the dignity of the races. Actually, in Islam there's no such thing as race. We don't have any word that's exactly what that word holds, the meaning it holds. No race. We believe that we are children of our ancestor and we are families of our ancestor. We are tribes of our ancestor, of our common ancestor. This is what we believe. And those tribes have formed nations. So, we are nations of our common ancestor, but we are not races. We don't believe that we don't have that kind of meaning.
We believe that our ancestor is best understood, common ancestor, is best understood as our common humanity. That G-d created our common humanity. Does G-d have to tell us, I made your physical body like this, I don't need to know that. I know something made this physical body. Tell me something that I'm curious about. What about this kingdom within me? Who designed it? It is wonderful. I'd like to know more about it. This physical body can cohabitate with animals. Some of us have done that thing. Yeah, so I want to know something about this internal body that wants more and more excellence that is supported by an aim, an aim in nature to be and express the best that is in me, the best capabilities, the best potential. That's what I want to know more about. I want to know more about my humanity. And that's what I believe that ancestor is a type of. Ancestor is a type of our common humanity that G-d created, that G-d wants in us. And if we build or generate our life upon that common ground or common soil of our humanity, we will have all legitimate children, legitimate children of our ancestor. Our culture will be a legitimate culture.
Our race consciousness will be a legitimate race consciousness. Our ethnicity will be a legitimate ethnicity. But if we don't do that, we come here looking strange to our original humanity and somewhere behind us, someone committed adultery. Thank you very much. I hope you understood what I've said and we are open for questions. May G-d guide us and have mercy on us and forgive us our sins and bless us and increase us in virtues and in knowledge and in industry. Ameen.
How about one more round of applause.
Excuse me. With everybody's questions if they would like to join in the question answer session, could you please pass your questions on the cards to the left and someone will come down the aisle to collect those from that side and those collect from the other side. So, if we could all pass them that way and we can facilitate the question and answer like that.
Host:
Alright, the first question that we have to be asked from the audience.
Question:
What is wrong with Farrakhan being pro-black? I feel empowered when I hear him. If whites still stereotype us, how has racism changed? Black pride is important. Pro-black does not mean anti-White. America is still racist as Rodney King and Emmett Till and every other beaten and killed black. I guess the question here is directed at the entities of Farrakhan being pro-black and how he has facilitated some kind of controversy with the media if you might want to address that.
IWDM:
Yes. Now thank you for giving me the opportunity to tell you I'm proud that I'm black. What I've said is support for individual sense of esteem and for group sense of esteem. My religion says the word of G-d, no need for Arabic. I'll give it in English. "We have indeed made noble all the descendants of Adam." That's what my book says. So that means the descendants of Adam on the continent of Africa has inborn, innate, created honor and nobility. Just as those on any other continent, people on any other continent. Also says "It is G-d who made your picture". Surah. In common language, it means picture. It is G-d who made your picture, how you look. When you look in the mirror, that's your picture. It is G-d who made your picture and made it beautiful and excellent. That's what G-d says, talking to every one of us, every descendant of Adam. This innate nobility is expressed in another way. The Prophet Muhammad said that G-d inscribed honor and excellence in everything that He created. So, Muslims believe as the Christians are invited to believe that G-d created everything, and He looked and recognized His own work, and He held it all to be good until something went wrong in the mind of man.
Yes, well, that's the way we believe. So, brother, my belief in my own personal worth and belief in my ethnic worth or my racial worth as comfortable for me is supported by the word of G-d and the Qur'an and the teachings of my leader, our Prophet Muhammad, Prayers and Peace be on him. So, I don't, I'm not suspended in space looking for myths or looking to create myths to support me, to make me feel good about myself. I believe in G-d and I have what G-d said of myself and G-d said that I am attractive, my features are excellent and I have inborn created nobility. Now to better understand this nobility, I'm on a campus, you should understand everything I'm saying, but sometimes we have what you call pollution, pollution and it messes up the hearing, interferes with the hearing. So, I'm going to state it in another way or I'm going to give some help to it by addressing something else. In England, they have not the Senate and the Congress, they have the Nobles and the Commons, but G-d is saying that all people He created are Nobles. He made no Commons. Now I'm proud. I'm black and you should be proud. Whatever color you are, you should be proud because G-d says He made our features, our descriptions, He made our humanity, He made it excellent. It's something in me, I don't know what it is other than this African blood that's in my vein that make me want to go in the back woods and get me a pretty Bantu woman or something. I don't know what it is, but I have a hard time staying with my wife. Tell her I want to go to Africa. I think I lost the wife over there.
Okay.
Question:
The next question would be one of the audience participants would like to know what is your view on the Shabazz case?
IWDM:
My view on the Shabazz case? Well, these are not easy questions. I remember Dr. Betty Shabazz, her and my wife, her husband and I, we were friends. We associated with each other. I remember the young child that she had at that time, Atilla, the oldest daughter, oldest child. But Qabila, she was the infant. So, I never got to know her. I just saw her a couple of times after she was a young lady. But I do know the family and I also know the horrifying experience she had as a baby in her mother's arms looking at the assassins with shotguns and pistols riddling her father through with bullets. That can do very, very serious damage to the psychology and the psyche of any person. So, I'm not ruling out the possibility that she's guilty of the charge, but my position is that she's innocent.
Question:
Next question would be, what is your position on biracial marriages?
IWDM:
Biracial marriages? Well, I agree with the article that appeared in the Lacrosse Tribune. It says that we have one in the same biological system. Biology for all races are the same. There's no difference in the biology of any group. Biology differs very slightly from person to person, but there's no evidence to support differences of biology or in biology for different races, for the races of people. And my religion supports that. What appeared in that article, I think that was today's Tribune, today's Lacrosse Tribune. My religion supports that. So, there's nothing wrong with white body and black body marrying. But now think about it for human beings, enlightened human beings, evolved human beings. Our marriage is not a marriage of biology to biology, but a marriage of heart to heart and mind to mind. And I find that groups have better chance for a marriage in the future of that marriage when they marry from their own group. But my religion does not forbid that any of us marry outside of our group, but we prefer to find mates in our own group. Now, if we had a mixed group, if we were mixed up like some blacks are in South America, they so mixed up. I had to ask them, are you really black?
Then it doesn't make any difference. It is the closeness that you have. The closeness. Some families, they don't want stepbrothers, stepbrother and sister to marry. It's because of that closeness they've had. They have become brothers and sisters. And it's not the biology, it's something more important than the biology. I hope you understand what I'm saying. Yes. I wouldn't die if my daughter told me she was in love with a white man and going to marry him. I wouldn't die, but I'd have to sit down for a while. And it has nothing to do with racism, it has nothing to do with dislike for another people. It has nothing to do with that at all.
Question:
Moving right along. Next question would be, what direction will Islam take in America today?
IWDM:
I think I've clearly indicated that, haven't I? Well, let me go a little bit further with it. We plan to grow in, up through the system. We plan to take every opportunity to benefit from the system. The system of Democracy, the system of free enterprise. We hope that five years from now we'll be called a Capitalist community. And I don't mean Capitalists in the wrong sense. I mean people having resources, capital, and not begging anybody but working to become as self-supporting and as self-sustaining as any other group in America or on the planet. That's our aim for the future.
Question:
Next question. Can you state something about the attitude towards women and the women's position in the Muslim world? The audience participant who has asked this question has perceived Muslim the world as being a man dominant, man dominated world.
IWDM:
Yes. Well, it takes a long time. That's a whole another lecture. That's a complete lecture in itself, but I'll try to answer it in about two minutes. In Islam, there's the equality of the sexes and also the inequality of the sexes. The inequality does not take from the honor or the dignity of females. It just recognizes the physiological nature of the two and the roles that have been cut out for the two by the planner, G-d himself. And we believe that though a woman has opportunity to seek a career in the world or public career, she should feel the role of mother and wife to be more honorable than any role she can have in the public. In the public establishment. Muslims elect women, I'm sure you know, of the President of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto. She has been elected now twice. She's the President of Pakistan. And there are at least two or three other nations, Muslim nations that are headed by women. If we don't accept to give our women visibility in the public and dignity in the public and authority in the public, how did those Muslim women get to where they are?
So that's ignorance. That's part of the ignorance that's on Muslims and on the world. When we study the life of our Prophet, we find that he did great work to get men to come away from the ignorance of that ignorant age and give honor and respect to women and accept that women have a voice in the public. Women in the early days of the Muslim society are recorded to have challenged their leaders, the Emirs, the Sultan, the ruler, the President of their time and bring him to account for his deviation or for his wrong position right before the public. Also, we know that we have inherited the knowledge of Islam, not only from men but also from women. The Scholars will quote the wife of the Prophet Aisha, may G-d be pleased with her just like they quote Abu Bakr, Uthman, or some of the more recent scholars in Islam. In fact, a great portion of Islamic knowledge that we stand on authored or reported at least, came to us from a woman Aisha, and there were other women also. You might say, well, but a woman can't be an Imam, can she? No. Why should she be an Imam when she could be more? She can be a Scholar; she can teach Imams. She can become the leading thinker in the Muslim community and actually decide how the Imams will write their thesis or write their Khutbahs.
So those are symbolic roles that respect the physiology and the role, public role that has been established for the man. There's much I can say to you from that, and we have wonderful leaders of the Islamic idea, the Islamic religion in this idea. One of them is a man from Sudan. In fact, the one responsible for the new ideological movement that has brought Sudan to now be a federation of states of autonomous states. His name is Turabi, Hassan Turabi. This intellectual and great thinker in Islam, he makes a campaign. He makes it a campaign to undo the ignorance about the worth and dignity and equality of women. He goes all over the world. He's a world leader. He has disciples everywhere in the Islamic world and he's just one who has that kind of prominence in Islamic society. But there are many who don't have that kind of prominence or recognition like myself and others that's doing it too. That's doing the same job. We are fortunate, the Nation of Islam following, to not be burdened with the cultural ignorance of many Muslim societies on this earth. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, our late leader, he put women in very important positions.
Women were among his national, in his national staff, and I know of one woman she recently passed. May G-d forgive her sins and grant her paradise. Flora Najee. Small, brilliant woman, tough woman, great mind. She could actually get Farrakhan in trouble. If Malcolm was around, she could get him in trouble. She had just that much influence and power. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad put a woman over the school, to head the school, so I followed him. When I became leader, I put a woman over the newspaper. And a woman's over the newspaper now. Not the same woman, but the Editor of our paper is a woman. Her name is Ayesha Mustafa. We believe in respecting women and valuing and cherishing their female qualities and we also believe that a leader, if he's going to be a good leader, he should recognize that G-d has also put female qualities in men, in males, and that if he divorced himself completely from mother qualities, he can't be a complete leader. He has to let the mother in him, the female in him express itself too in order to be a great leader.
Question:
Last question. Do you feel that one day G-d will bring all of the races together?
IWDM:
Yes, I do. Yes I do. He put us together when He created Adam, and we are going to have to come back together again. I do believe that.
Comment:
This statement reads like this. I do not have a question. Instead, I want to thank you for a genuine and positive message that I believe we should all adhere to and practice in our everyday lives, no matter what religion we believe and follow. Thank you.
IWDM:
Thank you very much.



