1985-May-10

Muslim Journal

Muhammad Speaks

Imam W. Deen Muhammad

Recalling the achievements of the American Muslim community, the first achievement, quite naturally, was the achievement of bringing this religious community to be true to its name—to be true Muslims, to have the true content.

Another great achievement was to remove the structures of slavery, to decentralize the business interests of the community and put them into private hands; to remove the units called FOI, and MGT, and bring a situation where every Imam has dignity, every congregation has dignity, all on an equal footing. Free, as they should be. to invest in their own immediate regions and build their community locally without having so much demanded of them from a central office.

Freedom—Islamic freedom —is another great achievement that you have realized since I became your leader.

Also, this particular house we are in right now was under heavy liability. We had to pay Libya about $240,000, periodically, on a loan. That was killing us, strangling us to death.

My policy was different; we were not forcing people to come up with quotas of donations, so the money just wasn't here. How were we going to pay all these big debts? How were we going to answer all these big financial demands on us?

I went to Libya in the Name of Allah and asked the Libyan Government to excuse us from that obligation. No quicker than I asked, they granted it. 1 came home free from that responsibility.

I think when a leader makes a visit to a country and saves a community the obligation to pay $240,000 or more once or twice a year, that is a victory for that community.

Those are just a few of many things that we have been able to achieve since I came into the leadership with your support.

What about the next 10 years? The next 10 years are going to show up this past 10 years so much, that the only pan we should remember from this is that we came from the Temple of Islam onto the Sunnah road of the Prophet.

The progress that will come in the next 10 years will overshadow what we have done in the past 10 years so much that the rest of it won't even be worth remembering.

Trust my word. The only thing that was missing in our life was freedom—now this religion has brought it to us!