1986-September-5

Muslim Journal

We Must Project The True Image Of Al-Islam: Part 5

Imam W. Deen Muhammad

(Editor's Note: The following is excerpted from the Muslim con­vention address Imam Muhammad delivered July 20. 1986 at Cobo Hall in Detroit: In'sha Allah, Muslim Journal will print the entire address. This is the fifth installment.)

In the presidency of the United States, we need a man like Muha­mamd the Prophet, peace be on him, to fulfill the promise of Amer­ica. America has made a very fine and great promise of justice, freedom and equal opportunity to all citizens. That's a great prom­ise. But in order to realize that kind of promise you have to be willing to look at wrong in South Africa the same way you look at-wrong in other parts of the world. You must look at wrong in the black community just as you would in the white community and vice versa. You have to be just as sensitive to the need of one citizen as to the other: not only in domestic quarters, but also in international quarters. Only then will you be right in your heart and be able to defend the great idea of American democracy.

Most. American citizens are not aware that our country has not defended what it believes in: not even at home, unless it was forced to do so. And even then, it did it deceitfully for the most part. The international world is waiting on our country to defend its idea of democracy in the international world.
The leaders of our country have allowed themselves to become partners of people committed to an idea that is in direct opposition to the great idea of American democracy. They quickly do this for more material acquisition and dominance over the mind and spirit of man, globally. They will do every kind of devilish thing.

You may feel too small and too weak to join the oppostiion -and fight these evil influences at home and abroad but I am not, and I am not alone. There are men and women of my color and outside of my color, of my religion and outside of my religion, who have fought these influences long before I was born. Many of them are still here and I am with them and they are with me. We are one in our fight against the evil that seeks to globalize itself and take over man's spirit and deny him the great future that God intended for him. Don't think we are alone: we're not alone. If I am killed and buried tomorrow, more non-Muslims would attend my funeral than Mus­lims. because they know that my concerns are bigger than the small Muslim community of America.               

Most of my difficulties with you have been because I was too big; I had to go outside of your confines.
If you really understood the Qur'an you would know that the Qur'an makes you universal. It makes you a defender of the highest and most precious ideas and principles of man. Therefore you can't be pushed aside into a narrow corner. "Oh, those are Black Muslims. Oh, he's a Black Muslim," or "he's a Muslim only."
I'm not a Muslim only: I am a Muslim and I am a brother to every man and a defender of justice. And that's what makes this religion so dangerous. They know that the African-American man has to hypnotize himself to stay in the church, and that if he ever believed that Al-Islam was really a universally dignified religion he would readily take off his Christian robe and jump right into Al-Islam, the Qur'an and the Sunnah of the Prophet all the way. They know that.

They know what happened in Africa. Ethiopia was once a Christ­ian stronghold on that continent. But today the people in Ethiopia are not only Christians, there are also large numbers of Muslims. Wherever Christianity has been in Africa, today Muslims are there. Al-Islam didn't spread among Animist who have these so-called `primitive' religions, as much as it did among Christians of Africa. Al-Islam was accepted by the Christians of Africa. This is why they distort and misrepresent this religion.