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IWDM Study Library 
Excerpt of IWDM on Business at an Islamic Convention 
By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Thank you. Thank you. As Salaam Alaikum. Peace be unto you, that is. I really wanted to have on my new suit that the brother brought me, Imam Abu Qadir and his partner, business partner or associate who went to Thailand and brought samples and valuable information for us. But I couldn't get to it. What I'm wearing is a suit from Bangladesh. The suit I have on is from Bangladesh. Bangladesh is almost all Muslims and as Thailand has a big number of Muslims in Thailand. And the Muslims are factory owners in Thailand and Muslims are factory owners in Bangladesh. And the same opportunity that we had in Thailand, we had it long before Thailand, at least for two years now with Bangladesh. We also have it with Indonesia that makes beautiful garments, their factories make beautiful garments for Muslim women. And that opportunity there for CPC was opened up by our Imam Ezekiel Pasha. Ezekiel Pasha, who's sitting here. He's here. Yes, yes. So, we have representatives going from us to factories abroad to see what opportunities we may have with them. As you know, the Malaysian delegation is here for their exhibit with the Islamic Economic Conference, business Conference that's hosted and sponsored by the Islamic Society of North America. ISNA, ISNA. The president of that organization, met at the ceremony, met with us and others, other leaders and other Muslims and the Post Office Chief, pardon, the Chief for the Post Office and many other Muslims and non-Muslims too were there to observe the showing of the Eid stamp that will soon be coming to you, your mail because we are going to buy a big number of those stamps and put them on our letters when we are mailing. And at Christmas time we expect to see the symbols of Christianity and the snow and green life trees, the pine trees all on stamps. Well, we are happy to say that we are going to see an Islamic stamp designed by a Muslim brother here in America and I think I'm going to be mailing letters to just unnecessarily just so the stamp will be out there. More people will see the stamp. So, it's a great time for us. And we have discussed with Dr. Muzzammil Sidiki and also with the president of ISNA, working now to have in the year 2004, a big Eid, most likely in the Chicago area, a big, not Eid, sorry, Islamic conference and Eid also. We always joined the big Eid, but I'm talking about Islamic conference. Instead of having two separate conferences like we have now in Chicago, we are going to combine them and there'll be one huge conference that will permit us to have our own separate items on our agenda that are separate and shouldn't be brought together because they are items for our schools and other things that shouldn't be mixed. We'll have our own separate agenda. We'll be able to have our own separate workshops, Islamic Society of North America and Muslim American Society. But for most of the agenda, we will be meeting together a great assembly of just American Muslims or Muslim Americans. So, this suit came from Bangladesh. I'm not a model, but I just want you to see it from the back. It feels good and it will put money in our pockets if we have them made by our Muslim brothers in Bangladesh and in Thailand and bring them here. We are going to make money, money, money, money. Also, there's an oversupply of timber in Malaysia and we are looking at the possibility of importing timber to Illinois, Chicago. And we've already discussed it with the local departments of Illinois and Chicago. Departments, government departments. And they told us we are welcome. And really they say, we don't have enough of you. We need more of you to come put your list, your name on our list to bid for these jobs, government jobs, to supply us with anything that we are using. They welcomed us and I'm sure they'll welcome you in your state too. So, get ready for big business. I looked at that video that Imam Ramadan, our good friend John Ramadan, took at the facility CPC ComTrust, and I heard from my brother from my own father, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is his father and my father. And I can't believe anymore that Elijah Muhammad is dead.



