1982-March-5

World Muslim News

Muhammad Speaks

Imam W. Deen Muhammad

WMN: In your August address made in Atlanta, Ga., you outlined a plan for us to establish a pioneer community somewhere, in the near future. My question is, what type of things should we who wish to be part of that venture be doing in order to be ready? — Bronx, N. Y.

IMAM: First, we are making a study. I have asked certain ones who have expressed interest in the idea -- if they feel that they are qualified — to make some contribution to the effort that would go before the actual on-site activity. They should do some study, explore different locations in the United States that would be possible locations where we would concentrate our community efforts.

It should be understood that we are not talking about moving all the people in our community to one location. We are talking about having one location as a kind of model of what our community ideas are.

It wouldn't be practical, I don't think, for us to just move people into one area — we wouldn't want that.

Many people are situated well already. They have established themselves on their jobs, or in business, and we don't want to uproot those good foundations to realize a program of concentrated Muslim community life.

What we mean is having Muslims live next door to each other as much as possible having Muslims live in one block, or one area and sharing a residential life with each other. And if possible, growing to the extent that they could be a part of a Muslim town where the mayor would be responsible for even the services of the town.

I think the first thing we have to do is study — explore all the possibilities,, and see what is more feasible and then bring or send those findings to me. After reviewing them. I would take what seems to be of more soundness, or what shows more professionalism or more practicability and then refer them to the Council of Imams. I would request that we have a meeting for deciding what part of the proposal or what steps we would take from that point or at that point.

What we should do now is study our needs in order to make the first step in that direction.

The first step would be to acquire some land or lo move into an area. We first have to find what area in the United States would be best suited for that. It should be an area that wouldn't involve a lot of expense because we are talking about poor people. We are trying to get away from heavy financial obligations; we are trying to reduce the cost of life so the meager incomes that we would realize would go farther.

So we wouldn't look to New York or any of the real cold areas, or any of the real rat race areas. We should be thinking of places where the weather is a little bit mild or kind, where the economic situation is good — a booming area: it should be an area with potential growth — the kind of growth we are talking about.

We are talking about people who are going to try to take some land and make the land productive, raise food that we can eat. We are taking about food processing, if we go to that point — processing the food that we raise.

We should take all those things into consideration while we are making our study or doing some kind of research.