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Episode #1720
Imam WD Mohammed
Holloway: Jay Holloway,
Host
Mohammed: Imam WD Mohammed
Holloway: Tonight, the leader
of 2.5 million Muslims in America, son of Elijah Mohammed
and former chief minister of the nation of Islam, Imam WD
Mohammed is next on Black Issues Forum. You stay tuned.
Voiceover: Closed captioning
of this program on UNC-TV is made possible in part by a grant
from the FM Kirby Foundation. This program was made possible
with contributions to UNC-TV from viewers like you. Thank
you.
[THEME MUSIC]
Holloway: Good evening and
welcome to Black Issues Forum, I’m Jay Holloway. Tonight
we talk with Imam Wallace Dean Mohammed. He is the leader
of 2.5 million Muslim Americans, son of Elijah Mohammed, and
former chief minister of the Nation of Islam. Imam Mohammed,
welcome to Black Issues Forum.
Mohammed: Thank you, Jay.
Holloway: And Salaam Alechim.
Mohammed: Alechim Salaam,
peace be unto you.
Holloway: Thank you. First
if you can, clarify to our audience just what the difference
is between the different Muslim organizations in America,
and I understand your is perhaps the largest single Muslim
organization in America.
Mohammed: Yes. I think what
we have in America is really the reflection of what we have
in the international world of Muslims, because America is
a place, you know, where many Muslims come, students—especially
young ones—they come for education; but also older ones,
business people come here for business opportunities, and
for other reasons. I think for freedom too, for our freedom
that we have in the United States of America. And the differences
here are in school of thought, they call it school of thought
in the international world. Nevhap is the term in Arabic.
Many of the members of our African American community do not
subscribe to any particular school of thought, that’s
the difference between us and the rest of the Muslims who
come from abroad. We have just grown from our roots here,
I would say, as people who are wanting to be accepted in the
broad society with the same perspective and rights as anybody
else. I think that was the original motivation for us as Muslims
in America, and we just dressed ourselves in a culture that
is Islamic in appearance, but really the motivation was to
be in the spirit of our people for recovering the human purity
and essence, and the social dignity of black people that was
lost to slavery.
Holloway: So really we are
talking about African Americans, but they are more than just
African American, Muslims in America, obviously, right?
Mohammed: Yes, yes. We believe
that it is almost 50/50, the immigrant Muslims represent about
50% and we represent about 50%.
Holloway: Interesting. Another
point in terms of population, I understand that in terms of
population that there are more Muslims in America than a couple—at
least the Christian denominations, Episcopalian and another
one—and just as many Muslims in America as there are
Jewish Americans.
Mohammed: That’s what
they are saying, I can’t be sure, we can’t be
sure. All we know is that our numbers are really growing and
the small percentage of Mexicans, Spanish people, Hispanics,
and whites from American society are growing. It’s a
small percentage, it’s not even a 1% of us, but it’s
increasing over the years as the media begin to—I would
say—discuss Islam. It’s increasing the awareness
of Islam as a religion, as a major religion, and we are finding
that a few whites are coming, also joining the African American
community.
Holloway: Obviously, since
this attack on America and the war on terrorism now, there
is an increased interest in understanding Islam and the Muslim
way of life. Do you think Americans really are listening and
understanding what Islam is all about?
Mohammed: Yes, I do believe
many are. I believe that most American people of faith, Christians,
are interested to know Muslims and the image that we have
given, the picture that we are given of Muslims in America,
up until very recently, has been very incorrect. As you know,
that I was once the chief minister of the Nation of Islam
after my father passed, who founded the Nation of Islam.
Holloway: And we want to
talk about that in detail later.
Mohammed: All right. So we
have very recently come to see Islam presented in America
in the true picture, because the way it was presented before,
it was presented as a black man’s religion, and that
is far from being the truth, although Africans and blacks
represent a big percentage of Muslims in the world.
Holloway: September 11th.
Where were you and what was your involvement and reaction
on that day and since then?
Mohammed: I was in the Washington
area, I had just come on a plane, and I was coming to attend
a meeting with President Bush. He was going to entertain a
group of religious leaders, Muslims, on profiling.
Holloway: On September 11th?
Mohammed: Yes.
Holloway: You know, you don’t
hear much about that.
Mohammed: He wasn’t
there when we got there, but he was expected to arrive in
time for the meeting, which was to be at 3:00 p.m. I arrived
around noon, and when we learned of the trouble I was not
yet in the area of the White House, so we decided that it
would be too risky for us to risk trying to go there, that
we should stay outside. And the trouble was shocking. I thought—I
lived in Philadelphia for a while—I thought I was going
to have to go drive to Philadelphia by car and stay there
until we find out what we should do. But we decided to just
go back home, to drive back home, and that’s what we
did. And I was completely out of it.
Holloway: Home for you now
is where?
Mohammed: It is the Chicago
area. I live in the southwest suburbs in a little town called
Markham, Illinois. So Markham. So the next day I woke up and
I said, “Let me go turn the television on and see what’s
happening.” And I turned the television on and while
I was watching the television I realized that I was completely
out of my normal self, mind and spirit. What happened just
shocked me out of my normal mind and spirit. I was stunned
so much, I was numb, not quite conscious of everything. I
could respond to any intelligent question or any situation,
but it was not my normal spiritual condition, I was not in
my normal emotional or spiritual condition, and I just realized
that I was coming back to myself as I was listening to the
news, I said, “Wow, that thing is something else.”
It, to me, was like only something that Hollywood can give
us, you know? It was unbelievable.
Holloway: So how have you
dealt with that and being a Muslim American leader, and initially
it became the perception that there was this religious war
and it was against those of Muslim faith, and then it became
maybe Afghanistan, but then it was more focused to the war
on terrorism. What has been your observation?
Mohammed: Yes. Right away
when I hear that any Muslims are doing violence or contributing
to violence that involve hurt and injuries and death of innocent
people, right away I think of the psyche of the leaders of
the Islamic world that has been damaged, firstly by crusades,
centuries of crusades, war, to see who’s going to, who
will dominate, Christians or Muslims, you know? The globe,
the earth, for power, for authority, which went away from
Islam. Muslim scholars will all agree that the crusades, the
involvement of crusades had very little representation of
true Islam there. It was for power, same for the Christian
part too, in the crusades. And then comes much later this
colonial era that took over Muslim lands, mapped the Muslim
world, geographically speaking, and after that the Middle
East crisis, so these things that have occurred in the history
of the Islamic world have scarred the psyche and the emotional
life of Muslim leaders more than Muslim masses. The Muslim
masses haven’t engaged that that much, so we have leaders
now who are, in my opinion—and I’m taking a lot
time here but I think this is very important for me to say,
because I think that this is what we are missing, I think
President Bush should be—if he is not thinking like
this he should be aware of how we think, how we perceive the
state of Muslim psyche and the problems that we see coming
out of extremists. Yes, so now when we look at what is happening
here today in America, what happened on September 11th,
we have to reflect, we have to go back into history and see
what has produced this kind of mind, this kind of mind in
the Islamic world. And certainly it is leaders that are leading
this, it is not a mass movement.
Holloway: On both sides.
Mohammed: On both sides.
Holloway: You came to North
Carolina and have a schedule that is bringing you back and
forth here to speak at Duke recently, and I was there. You
said something to the effect that the Palestinians are victims
in this situation, and I think that it’s a good follow-up
to what you just mentioned, that they are in a virtual prison
and Israel holds the key to unlock this, and…but we
need to look at all suffering and all evil. What do you mean
by that?
Mohammed: Yes, yes. Well,
I meant, I was speaking from my personal experience. I was
a guest of Arafat, he invited me to come there to see the
conditions of the Palestinians, because he is desperate to
have friends in America. And I saw it, I have already been
aware of for many years the plight of the Palestinian people,
and I was identifying with them, because we have had similar
histories, you know, the treatment of us in the South…
Holloway: African Americans.
Mohammed: Yes, the discrimination,
segregation, and the horrible crimes against our own race
by Americans who said they were Christians, you know. I don’t
think they were, but they said they were Christians, and now
I can see that Palestinians held in camps…well, they
say they removed the camps, but what I observed was that all
the Palestinians, their freedoms are limited, and the system
that contains them that has been established there to contain
the Palestinians is very much, so much like Apartheid was
in South Africa that I have to say that that is another Apartheid
situation in the world, the design to contain Palestinians.
They don’t have business freedom, they don’t have
even social freedom. They can’t go to another area without
a permit to go to another area. Their permit in a certain
area permits them only to go to certain places. So they may
have relatives close by, but they can’t even go visit
those relatives, so they live in a virtual prison. The Jews
control…well, I don’t like to say the Jews, because
the Jews there are beautiful. On the whole the Jews are very
beautiful people, very humanly sensitive, like we find good
Jews here and everywhere, you know. But the government is
in my opinion made up of hardened persons who are really not
aware that they carry the problems and the scars from Nazi
Germany, the Holocaust and all that, you know? That is what
is driving them, that is what is driving them.
Holloway: So you are almost
associating them with the Hitler situation of the previous
World War with what is going on today, is that what…
Mohammed: Yes, well, Israel
was originally founded by persons who had to escape from Nazi
Germany, and I’m sure that the strong leadership there
still are those persons who came from Nazi Germany. It is
changing somewhat, but for the population it’s not that,
that is not the characteristic of the people and the public,
but that is the characteristic of the leaders in the government.
And few leaders have been moderate, as you know. The Prime
Minister is a moderate person, but he is a minority in the
government.
Holloway: The United States
has been an ally and supporter of Israel, but also has a similar
history within itself of oppressing African Americans. Is
there an issue of race here? And I want to restate a question
that one of the Duke students asked you recently at your speech.
He asked does Osama bin Laden deserve more respect from Americans
who believe in God, and you said yes, your perception is the
same but your reaction is different.
Mohammed: Yes, yes. By me
being aware of the poverty there in Afghanistan and the damaged
psyche of Arab leaders, I see Osama bin Laden as a man with
plenty of money and he is frustrated by the image of Muslims
in the world that he things should be much better, and it
should. He thinks that really Islam was the leader of democracy,
the leader of religious freedom in fact, and he is right,
he is correct, but we lost that to the West after the fall
of Spain, Islamic Spain, we lost that to the West, and that
loss is too much for the mind of many Islamic thinkers, and
they want to regain the glory, the days of glory for Islam,
they want to come back into those days. Now, here he has plenty
of money, he is one of the princes of the royal family of
Saudi Arabia, so he goes to Afghanistan—this is my opinion
now, this is my story!
Holloway: Okay.
Mohammed: He goes to Afghanistan
as Robin Hood. And he gives money to the poor, and he becomes
their leader, you know. So, yes, I think we should know the
whole psyche of Osama bin Laden. And when you see the whole
psyche of the man, his mind, his emotional make-up and everything,
we will give him a little more respect. But it doesn’t
mean we should excuse his crimes. His crimes…he’ll
have to pay for those crimes.
Holloway: Let’s move
now, as we move on to close the program. We have enough time
here. I want to ask you about the Nation of Islam. You still
say you identify strongly with the Nation of Islam, although
you’re not directly affiliated. However, you explained
the different perceptions between both. What is your, kind
of personal and religious relationship with them now?
Mohammed: We were family
under the honorable Elijah Mohammed, a man that some of the
most known and most admired African American leaders, I won’t
give you names, called “father” in secret. Okay?
They called him father, my father.
Holloway: But he’s
your real father?
Mohammed: Yes! They called him father of the new freedom that
we have, the new black freedom. They called him “father,”
my father, they call him father. Yes, I’m trying to
collect…
Holloway: Okay, so, in other
words, what is your personal and religious relationship today
with the Nation of Islam?
Mohammed: With the Nation
of Islam under Farrakhan, under Minister Farrakhan?
Holloway: Yes, yes.
Mohammed: I have never really
dropped my interest in the Nation of Islam. While I was leading
a great group of people, a great number of followers of Elijah
Mohammed, to worldwide Islam—Islam as it’s practiced
worldwide. I was at the same time, very conscious of where
the Nation of Islam under Farrakhan was mentally. And I was
also, when I was speaking to my group, I was trying to reach
that group, also, with my language. And I think God blessed
me to be successful. I think I reached Farrakhan with my language.
I think he had to listen to things that I was saying. And,
gradually, they have come closer and closer to what is Islam
universally, what is Islam in the global society of Muslims.
I will be attending the Savior’s Day of the Nation of
Islam as their guest during the weekend after the 12th
of February. It’s going to be around the 14th—13th,
14th, and 15th, I think. The celebration-observance
of Savior’s Day. They have asked me to lead the Friday
prayers, and, you know, the Nation of Islam didn’t have
any Friday prayers. This is a new thing that they have accepted,
too. And for Muslims of the world, it’s very important.
It says a lot when they hear that Farrakhan’s Nation
of Islam observing Friday as the day for congregational prayers.
This is a big, important thing. The prophet Mohammed said,
“The best day in the year is Friday. The best day in
the week, or the month, or the year is Friday.” Even
better than the two major celebrations to heed, holidays of
Muslims. So, it’s very important to us that Farrakhan
has now accepted to establish Friday congregational day. And
I’m invited to lead the prayers, which, one part is
prayer. We do two sections of prayer, which takes maybe 10
to 15 minutes, and the second part is a speech. So, actually,
he is trusting me to tell his people what Islam is.
Holloway: We just have a
few minutes left. Let’s talk real briefly, also, about,
you still identify with the movement for freedom and justice
and economic development.
Mohammed: Yes.
Holloway: Can you speak briefly
on that?
Mohammed: Yes, that’s
our native life, a native life. And Islam complements that
life. That’s why I am a Muslim. [LAUGHS]
Holloway: One other thing
that is, not necessarily on a real serious note, but the movie
Ali was just released, and you were featured in that movie.
Did you see the movie, and, if so, what was your reaction?
Mohammed: I missed myself!
[LAUGHS] I missed seeing myself in the movie, but I did see
my brother, Herbert. They didn’t treat him too nicely,
but the movie, in my opinion, for Hollywood, it’s a
great movie. And it’s true. It’s true. So, if
people want to see the real picture of Mohammed Ali and the
Muslims who were around him… Some Muslims around him
were around him for money, you know, that’s nature.
But, I want to correct this. My brother, Herbert, who was
his manager, was not only interested in money. It was, perhaps,
his interest, but equally in his heart was protecting Mohammed
from being used and not given fair deal in the boxing world.
He was his friend, real friend. My father didn’t even
approve of him boxing. When he became a Muslim, my father
didn’t even approve of him boxing at all. So to show
the Nation of Islam that was there beside him only for his
money, that’s not correct.
Holloway: What would you
have North Carolinians and Americans take away from the Muslim
society of America, American Muslim Society understanding?
Mohammed: Yes. Well, if we
have a lot to offer African Americans, it’s the new
found dignity that Muslims have, that really is based upon
what Christians originally in the freedom movement—originally
based their dignity upon, and that is what our constitution
supports. That we are the creation of God, and that we are
a special creation, and that society and government should
recognize that we have the inherent worth and value as citizens
and all other races and all other people, to support democracy
in a great, productive society. That’s what we would
like to give, share with our African American Christian society.
Holloway: Thank you so much
for being on Black Issues Forum.
Mohammed: Thank you.
Holloway: We appreciate it.
Mohammed: Thank you.
Holloway: And thank you for
watching Black Issues Forum. We’ve been talking
with Imam Wallace Dean Mohammed, leader of 2.5 million Muslim
Americans. If you’d like to learn more about the Muslim
Americans, Islam, or Imam W.D. Mohammed, visit our website.
We’d love to hear your comments, as well. You can contact
us by the email there on the screen, the website, or you can
call us at the telephone numbers, as well, on the screen.
For Black Issues Forum, I’m Jay Holloway. Please
join us again, every Friday night at 9:30, only on UNC-TV.
You have a blessed evening. Good-night.
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