02/06/2002
IWDM Study Library
First Presbyterian Church Leadership Luncheon

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Speaker 1:
W. Deen Mohammed. Muslim American Society Leader. The following next year was held Wednesday, February the sixth, the year 2002 at First Presbyterian Church in Durham, North Carolina at a special Leadership luncheon.
IWDM:
Good morning. And as Muslims greet, "Peace be unto you, As Salamu Alaikum". (Wa Alaikum As Salaam).
They had that for [...]. In a few minutes, I would like to introduce ourselves to you who know us and you who don't know us in the way we want to be received. We understand our religion when we study it as Students of Religion. We understand our religion to be a compliment, a compliment to our Original Creation that G-d gave the first parent, Adam, before he lost it to the invitation of the serpent or the invitation of the satan or shaitan we say in our religion. And I understand that G-d wants for Muslims unity with all good people.
Our religion says that we are one family just as your religion says, we are one family, human beings, one family in humanity. And just like Christians know that the humans that G-d Created us to be is not necessarily the human that we are. So we have a model of the human being that G-d Created us to be is mystified in Christianity, but it's more open, openly given or expressed or communicated in Islam. Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, the last Prophet, we think of him as the last Prophet, didn't come to interrupt or disagree with the line of Prophecy and Scripture that was before Muhammad, peace be on him, and the Prophets and before Islam, as we know Islam in the world. G-d says in our Holy Book, that the community of man or human beings was originally one community. And this again is referring to the Scriptural picture of the creation of man and the beginning of mankind as a family on this planet earth.
And the Bible, I'm a student of the Bible also, the Bible says, "As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end". I believe that has reference, reference to many great ideas and concerns in religion, but I think it has more importantly a reference to the beginning of the human community. That we begin as one family and in the end, we shall be one family. And I believe that there's no time in the history of religion, better than this present time for us to address that need for us to be one family of human beings on this planet earth. We are not here in America, those who are with me and my association, we are not here to convert good people from their life that they are already established in. We want good people to stay in the good life that they're in. We don't want to disturb you because disturbing you may make you a worse human being than you would be if we didn't disturb you.
So Muhammad the Prophet, prayers and peace be on him, and the Servants of G-d, he took the same position. We follow his tradition. We follow him in what he did. He took the same position. He didn't come to bring good Christians from Christianity, or good Jews from Judaism. And the proof of that is the presence of Orthodox Christianity right now in places like Egypt, in Turkey and many other places where Muslims are the great majority and they're in the control of the government. Those churches have survived till now and they will never be bothered by Muslims or disturbed by Muslims. On the contrary, Prophet Muhammad insisted that Muslim society, if it had Christian churches in there, that we'd be obligated to protect those churches against deranged people, or extremists or people who just don't respect sacred things.
He obligated Muslims to protect those places and their sacredness from those who would disrespect that sacredness. Also in America, we take the same position that churches and mosques should live peacefully beside each other, and to respect each other, should be friends of each other. And I'm happy to say to you that with the incident on September 11th, after that incident, many of our Imam's got calls from Christian leaders, African American Christian leaders saying that, "We know what has happened, and we want you to know that we are your friends, if you need us for anything call on us." So we are one people in humanity and G-d has not sent Islam to do away with Christianity. Although many of the scholars of Islam, because of the damage to their psyche, by the crusades, the troubles of the crusades for centuries, the conflict between what they made, the Cross and the Crescent. Muhammad didn't even know of a Crescent. Later, centuries later, they introduced the Crescent to say that the Crescent is our symbol against the Cross.
That was a deviation from what Muhammad the Prophet, Islam really wants for us. And I think many of our scholars today are realizing that and they are trying to correct the picture that Muslim have of Christianity and our relationship, what our relationship should be with the good Christian society of the world. And lastly, I want to say that we want to communicate to our African Christian brothers and sisters who are our immediate neighbors, that what you base your dignity upon is the same thing that we base our dignity upon. And the same thing that the founding fathers of this great nation based human dignity upon. And I'll give you these words, "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. And are endowed by their Creator with certain alienable rights among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". And government cannot take away those rights or give us our dignity, government supports it. Thank you.
Speaker 3:
Okay. Thank you very much for those remarks. We most certainly appreciate them and we're going to watch over your lunch. It's not going to go away. I promise you we're going to get...
IWDM:
It's hard pulling away from Ruth's cooking.
Speaker 3:
I know, Ruth's cooking. Alright. The Honorable Wallace Deen Mohammed is been gracious enough to agree to answer questions. And if you would like to ask him questions about anything he said or about anything you want to know about the American Muslim Society, please feel free. This is your chance to ask questions or to make comments.
Speaker 4:
Yes. Yes. James.
James:
Imam, as we as a people try to work for harmony together, the challenges, [...] what do you feel we can do to move to a time you feel in terms of just bringing our different groups together?
IWDM:
Have more occasions like this for the better minds and the better characters in the leadership of our people to meet. And we can do it together.
Speaker 3:
Other questions.
Speaker 6:
[...] while we have to have [...] comment on your vision or your view for how government can be more supportive of faith based communities [...], help support anything like that?
IWDM:
I don't know if you knew this, but I'm a conservative. I vote as a Democrat, but I'm a conservative (laughing). And I don't like too much involvement of government in our life, no more than what's necessary. Yes. So I think government should know that whether you are rich or poor, if you're the man that G-d Created, you want the same dignity, the same respect and the same freedom. We don't want handouts. We don't want welfare. We want human dignity. And to give us that we have to have more support for full employment of people. More money has to be invested in industry, in business, to make opportunities, more opportunities for all of us who want employment to have employment.
Speaker 3:
Um [...].
IWDM:
Yes, well, I admire and appreciate President Bush for... mainly for two things that he has done or said. One is that the true picture of Islam is not terrorism. It's not the picture that we see of the terrorist. The second one is that he is behind, he supports faith based communities, having a partnership with big business, or business and government. I think that's where we can meet and work together. And I think that's the future. You know, we can't do it alone. We have to do it together.
Work with business and government to better our community life, to improve life in our communities, for our poor. And our image as a community. You know, we have exceptional individuals who have made...who've gotten rich in this country from the African American people. But when we come to the neighborhoods where they were born, where they live, where they have to come when they visit their families, we are not so happy to see the conditions of their neighborhoods. So this is where I think that we all can partner and do a lot of good for our common interest.
Speaker 6:
Your Honor [...], consistently [...]. The lack of effort [...]
IWDM:
Well, I hate to keep ringing the same bell, but I have to. It all has to be seen in the light of history, the history of Muslims. Muslims received this message from Muhammad the Prophet and the Quran, the Scripture and we're led by him to establish a new society, a society of Muslims that respected higher education. Soon after his work among us on this earth, education...higher education flourished, where it was not even existing in the old world. And, you know, the Renaissance that we had, that the West had was helped perhaps tremendously by that new message for community life that Muhammad led, Muhammad the Prophet led.
Now, it's gone. The glorious days are gone and the responsibilities on the thinkers in Islam, the scholars and the Imams or the preachers, the religious leaders to address it and addressing it over the many centuries. And especially during the present time, modern time has been very difficult for the psyche of those scholars and those religious teachers. While they know that Islam has this power to regenerate life for civilization. They see the West as an obstacle in the way, and they blame the West for interrupting their glorious life.
The Crusades, the Colonial Era, and now this crisis in the Middle East. They are not in a mind to read their Holy Scripture. I'm speaking of the leaders now the popular leaders. The popular leaders are the leaders of the jihad against the ones that they think have caused them all the problems, that's the West. So they are not in a mind to read the Quran as I am and get what I get out of it. If you are angry, I'm sure the leaders of the Klan, they read the Bible too, but look what they got out of it. So that's the reason you don't see them speaking out, nowadays they're silent, but they're thinking... they're thinking and believe me, they're hearts are human. They're against what's happened on September 11th. I meet with them. I know they are.
Wa Alaikum As Salaam.
Speaker 7:
[...]
IWDM:
Well, I don't love heated debate, but I sure love cool debate. I wish they would give you the opportunity anymore. But you know, if you haven't seen me, I don't know why, because I was the guest of John Paul II in the Vatican and also the guest of Chiara Lubich, the founder of the worldwide movement of Christians who think that the way to bring the whole world together is for all of us to practice Christ's love. You know, I've been their guest, and I heard, I didn't see it, but I heard I was on C-Span, I heard I was on CNN. Yeah. Yes. I got some big friends, buddy. I'm doing all right.
Speaker 8:
Let me ask a question. It's one of the questions raised last night. Did you notice from Senator Jenny Lucas, we have some outstanding women who are leading in our community.
IWDM:
Yes.
Speaker 8:
And sometimes there's some conversation about the role of women in the Islam community. Would you comment on that question?
IWDM:
Yes. Yes. Before the preaching of Islam in the pagan idolatrous land, where they worshiped idols and were what we call, what we would call backwards or savages. And a great measure of their life was savagery. Before that women were treated as a property of men. And they, but one thing was different, when it came to business or earning money, women could engage in business and earn money, even though they were treated as the property of men. But what they couldn't do was inherit wealth, they couldn't inherit wealth. Prophet Muhammad came and legislated that they also be given the rights, equal rights with men to inherit, right wealth. If their father is wealthy, they should be given a share. The Quran prescribed shares for females in the inheritance, along with the males, although less than the males, because males carry the responsibility for society and the Quran obligates males to be supportive of females.
That is the man has an obligation to support his wife. If she's rich, he still has the obligation. If she says I'm rich, but you have to go out and get you a job. She has the Quran to protect her. She has our Scripture protecting her. And men need that for their own dignity. I don't care how much, if my wife... if I was to have had a wife with, who's a billionaire, a millionaire, whatever, I would still insist that I work and that she have a share in my income, if she wants to take it, I don't care how much money she had. That's in my nature and our religion has brought it out more. So there are, there quality of male and female in Islam. It goes back to the same idea that we have in Christianity, that G-d says that He made male and female from one single soul, one single soul.
He made male and female. So that soul is referring to our original abstract creation. That means, not only our spirituality is equal, though expressed differently and affected by physiology and the engagement of the material world. Certainly man has made himself stronger in many ways, because of this freedom that he has had, that the woman has not had because she has had to attend the needs of family, bear children, carry life for nine months and then take care of it for years later, you see. So this has made for the differences. G-d says that you have a superiority in your physical physique. I'm giving you exactly the words of our Holy Book. You have a, speaking to males, you have a superiority in your physical physique, and you have a superiority in that you have been able to amass wealth. G-d gives us no other superiority. When the women get richer than us, we lose one. If they keep on pumping iron, we might lose the other.
Speaker 3:
Is there?
I said, we got that straight now. We're ready. We're ready. We're ready.
One more. Any other questions? Have time for one more question. Anybody. I want to take this opportunity to thank you for being with us.
IWDM:
I want to take this opportunity to get back to Ruth food (laughing).
Speaker 3:
[...] But before you get back to Ruth food, let...
IWDM:
Okay. Alright.
Speaker 3:
Let me say often today we say after September the 11th, and when we say after September the 11th, it's usually a talk about how our lives have changed.
IWDM:
Yes, sir.
Speaker 3:
I think after September the 11th, we're all aware of how much more we need to understand each other and to learn to live together...
IWDM:
And love each other...
Speaker 3:
As brothers and sisters, that's right.
IWDM:
And love each other.
Speaker 3:
And love each other.
IWDM:
And I love you.
Speaker 3:
And I love you. And thank you, G-d bless you. Thank you, sir.
Speaker 1:
For more on the Ministry of Imam W. Deen Mohammed, Muslim American Society Leader call 1 7 0 8 7 9 8 6 6 5 3. Or write Post office box 10 61 Kalumet City, Illinois at 6 0 4 0 9. For books, tape and videos of Imam Mohammed, call 1 7 0 8 8 6 2 7 7 3 3. Or write, Post office box 1944, Kalumet City, Illinois at 6 0 4 0 9. For Muslim Journals, the local distributor. And thanks for listening.


