In Black America; The American Muslim Mission

In Black America, reflections of the Black experience in American society. From the outset, during the 1920s and 1930s, the nation of Islam stressed a superiority of blacks as a race. According to the founder of the religion, who was known vericially as F.D. Freud, Freud Muhammad, and F. Muhammad Ali, mankind was originally black, a people had a weak and evil side which was white. The two halves became separated and whites were given some 6,000 years to reign, until 1984 when blacks would rule again. Today, the American Muslim mission has become a major economic and educational force in the black community. The philosophies of the organization are strikingly different from that of the late Elijah Muhammad. I'm John Hansen, and this week, our focus is on the American Muslim mission in black America. I'd like to say, islamalakum, which means peace beyond to you, and I'd like to correct you and correct a lot of our people.

We are not the nation of Islam. We are the American Muslim mission, and we are followers of the honorable Warat, Dean Muhammad, who is the son of the late leader, honorable Elijah Muhammad. Starting in the early 1970s, the nation of Islam started to alter its membership base. Expanding its appeal from prisons and ghetto streets to the black middle class. Much of the reason for this was the need for professional specialists to manage growing economic ventures. The Muslims are a religious organization in the sense that they worship a supreme being. There is no God but Allah, Muhammad is his apostle. Along with their doctrine of black integrity, the nation preaches discipline, abstinence, honor, cleanliness, and self-sufficiency. In 1930, after the disappearance of fraud Muhammad, Elijah Poo, who became known as Elijah Muhammad, seceded as head of the movement.

The nation of Islam also differ from more conventional religions in the directness of its appeal to what some sociologists call the black underclass. I spoke with Hameen Abdul Malik, and Nashi Rashid, resident of the man of the American move of mission in Austin, Texas. The nation of Islam had its inception in the early 30s with a leader that was described as the method for fraud Muhammad. It had its transition with Mashi Elijah Muhammad, and from that transition, it appeared about 30 to 40 years. We've after the demise of Mashi Elijah Muhammad into the leadership of his son, Imam Warat Yudin Muhammad. Being the resident of Islam, what are your duties and responsibilities here in Austin? As a resident of Imam, my primary responsibility is to worship Allah, the creator of the heavens and earth, and to be an example in philosophy, as well as practice, to be a leader in a complete

sense and a balance sense that is morally speaking, intellectually speaking, and spiritually speaking, and we, as human creatures, evolved through those three stages of human growth and development so that we may live humanly on a human plane, that is socially, economically, materially, academically, and politically. Okay. Over the years, up until 1984, there has been some association with the Muslims here in America, the bloody in America's somewhat of a separate organization. Has that changed since the death of the Elijah Muhammad? Yes, it has, John, during the time of Elijah Muhammad, he came with his message in a time where in America was steeped in white racism and white supremacy teaching.

What mastery Elijah Muhammad got from this Arab teacher who came into America, who we knew as Professor Farad Muhammad, and by many other names, was a reverse racist teaching Elijah Muhammad was not teaching us the true Islam, the truth of Al Islam, what he came with was a social message to remedy the white racist teaching that we had been steeped in, and he came with a black supremacy or a black racist, if you will, teaching. I was some of the Elijah Muhammad with some economic focus, being self-sufficient. The mission was involved in bakeries, starting their own educational system. They were deep in agricultural production. That's correct.

Is this still going on today, or a semblance of the operations that were started then? Yes, it is. We are as much involved, agriculturally, today, as we were yesterday. However, there is a slight difference in that, when Imam Warat the Muhammad came into office, there was a need for certain reconciliation, and that period has been established. We've gone through that transition. Now we, in a mode of economical development, it is the same program, on the same platform that the late Master Elijah Muhammad had established over his period of leadership. Economically speaking, we know that we are very deprived people throughout the earth, and Allah, the creator of the heavens and earth, has instructed us that we ought to utilize the substances that we receive from the Holy Quran, and strive after all that is good,

and seeking to hear after it. But then we are not to forget our portion of this life, the material balance of this life, and consequently, we have a program that is defined as M-Cop, and the intent of M-Cop is to bring about economical development, not exclusively for black people, African Americans or Negroes or color folk, but primarily for all deprived people. And we realized that the economical structure that we have in this country is one such that all people cannot benefit from it, with the M-Cop program that my leader, Imam Warat B. Muhammad, has established our regard, and so the Quran, is a program that would bring all people under one umbrella, according to their works. We all can benefit from this program.

So yes, we do have a continued effort in terms of agricultural development, economical development, and what have. We still have farms in various cities and other locations. Okay, is the educational thrust still there? The educational thrust today is as great as it was yesterday, and in fact, I'm convinced that the interest and the intensity of the consciousness of the Muslims in the leadership of Imam Muhammad for education is great. It's much greater than it was on his father. Param Ali, as a result of what Malik has stated, his father was teaching social reform and to counteract a disease, a cancer that was destroying our humanity. Now we encouraged to study, to hold the Quran, study the Hadith, the Sunnah of the Prophet,

to utilize those two authorities, those two authorities as platforms for when we go into the academic arena, such as into the colleges and universities for higher levels of learning. Okay. Is the newspaper still published? Yes, it is. Yes, it is. It has undergone a variety of changes as we have. It was, as you know, Muhammad speaks, and then it became the Balalian news. And now it's called the American Muslim Journal. Some time ago, it was having some conversation with a couple of brothers, and they were debating some of the fact they wanted to change their names, as far as their legal birth name. And also, they wanted to change their religious standing to become Balalian Americans. They wanted to be black, nor niggerals, they wanted to become Balalians.

Has this gone any further? Is this allowed now, can you all go down and have your ancestry, document, actually? It's encouraged. It is encouraged, even under the leadership of Honourable Elijah Muhammad. He encouraged us. He was the first one who informed us that our names, that we carried were just slave names, indicated the last slave master to own our four parents. And this is not something that is far into Muslims, the world over, because when a Chinese and there are many, many Muslims in China, when he becomes a Muslim, he changes his name to a Quranic name. So the American, members of the American Muslim mission are encouraged to once you know yourself to go and get a name of God, what we used to call a holy name. An attribute. I mean, it's expression. There's some principal reasons for the name change.

We as a people know, in scripture says that a house divided against itself, shall perish, shall not stand. And we are one humanity, and within that humanity, you have various ethnic groups. And we are what is classified as the Negro, the color folk, the black folk, the African-American, and now the valiant. If a politician or a clergyman, some other leader had an intent to address our community, they would find difficulties primarily because of that, because of the variety of names and titles that we go by. These various titles and names have brought about a measure of dissension within the makeup of the black community, of the African-American community.

So what we actually need is an identity. We have an identity crisis because the politician can't say Negro for the fear that he might insult the other segment that wants to be identified as black. Then you have another segment that wants to be identified as African-American. So consequently, it keeps that division within our family structure. So what we need, and even what the Muhammad was blessed, by Allah, to foresee that we needed an identity. And identity that we have today is valiant. However, we will accept to be called African-Americans, because after all, we are descendants from Africa. Has the dress code been somewhat relaxed and the women couldn't wear their hair open in public long dresses? This nature has-

It has. A lot says in the Quran that the man is a dress for the woman, and the woman is a dress for the man, such as night is a dress for day, and day is a dress for night. Takwa, which is an Arabic term in the translated expression means consciousness, consciousness to- in Obeyin Allah, consciousness in worship, complete worship, and in worshipin Allah, its first is to accept that he is creator and independent of all things, and in to pray, and to give in charity, to fans, and last but not least, hard to appear to image. The important dress is the internal dress, you know, as Jesus said, the kingdom is not in the physical skies, but the kingdom is within, and seeking you shall find, actually shall be given, and knocking your doors will be open.

So relatively to that expression, we are convinced that Allah will not deny a sister, brother, entrance to paradise based upon the righteous deeds as a consequence of the physical attire that they wear, after all those things, they are perishable, and they do not enter the kingdom anyway. I will say, in addition to that, of course the brother is 100% right, but I will add to this, we do not wear the indecent styles. We have not gone, we still have shoes, and well, I wouldn't say platform shoes were indecent, but we are talking about some of the styles, the halter tops, the short shorts, where the hips hang out from the shorts. I mean, in where the private parts of the body are almost visible, there are dress codes as he said for women, women don't have to wear white all the time, like they used to,

they wear, can now wear the colors, but they do wear long dresses and cover their heads at the mass did, and we asked them to dress modestly. And brothers too, we're not going to be out there in short shorts and skin type pants that show all our private shorts either. We dress modestly also. So in that respect, the clothing, our dress code has changed somewhat, but we still reject the indecent styles that are so prevalent in America. And also, your question does have significance relative to the silk shoes. If you put one in the air on those high shoes, the long range of factor that is back problem, and then eventually into the hospital. And of course, demand that manufacturing these shoes realize that. And it's a market, it's a game of exploitation. And so they manufacture these shoes and get you into the hospitals, and then you're going

to pay out extra numbers of dollars, et cetera. So that question does has a great validity. Imam Waterdeep Muhammad in the transition and demise of his father called us to the Quran, and the Quran invites us to worship, true worship, complete worship. He brought us away from the personality of the worship of entities, entities that are within God's creation. And he directed our attention and placed our focus upon reality, whereas the Minister of Harkhan has not done that. He did not do that, he did not accomplish that. When he was under the leadership of the Lady, the Master of the Elijah Muhammad, however, that is somewhat relatively, you can somewhat justify that, but there is a major difference in the differences that, under the leadership of Imam Waterdeep Muhammad, we'll follow in just one of the prophets and all of the five pillars that I mentioned earlier.

Is there still a somewhat misunderstanding among black Americans about the American Muslim mission? I think that the misunderstanding is a special question. I think receiving the mission as it was before 1975 on the Elijah Muhammad. Yes, I think we're perceiving it, but with a greater understanding. Because what is occurring within the, if we might use the term within the African-American community is not an isolated case of evolution and transformation, it is a movement that is occurring throughout the earth, and it is a movement that is occurring throughout the earth as a result of European exploitation, suppression, discrimination, etc. So even if we did not have the leadership of Imam Waterdeep Muhammad, the movement that we are defining here, and somewhat isolated and pertaining to black Americans, it would

have evolved to the point that it is now, it may have been on another influence, it may have been a communist influence or a socialist influence, however it would come about because the awareness that we are experiencing now is not refined and contained to the black communities, it's an awareness, it's a growth and a development with this universal. But do you particularly receive from the faith being a Muslim? I mean, if it were not for Al-Islam, John, I would be dead. And some people say you'd be pushing up daisies, but I would have been dead so long ago that I would not even be pushing up daisies. It's Al-Islam saved my life. It took away a crown of thorns that most black people wear on their heads. I used to wonder in my formative years when I was coming up, why white people treated us so bad, why, what had we done to them to make them hate us such?

I was suffering from the poison, Elijah Muhammad came with that antidote and it answered those questions. In his son, War of Dean Muhammad came and he just opened up the door. He made me to understand the truth of God, the reality of the world. He made me to understand who the devil was and how that he was not embodied in any one particular race and he made me to understand that the salvation for our people was not in any of the isms that were from this world, that the Democratic Party was not going to solve the problem of black people, that humanism, socialism, communism, I explored all of those.

We're not going to solve our problems and that the only solution to our problem was God and the purest and the most astute reality of God, a presentation of God, a revelation from God was Alice Lam and the Holy Quran. That's an interesting question and I think the fundamental answer to that is, Islam has allowed me to understand that there is a creator who is worthy of worship and there is a deity that deserves my obedience. When I observe the human creature, I see many shortcomings, I see many weaknesses, many defects, many imperfections. When I observe the creation such as the sun, the stars in the moon, I observe that they are not permanent but that they are only playing a role and that that role has been established

by the creator whose proper name is Allah. Islam has been that for me, it has allowed me to know that God is independent and that he needs nothing, that he beguess not, not as he begotten, that he always was and he always will be, that he is the cherisher and the sustain of all the worlds, as Islam has allowed me to know that God, the creator, is the one that evolved the human creature, the humanity out of darkness into light. It has allowed me to know that the devil, Satan, the enemy to humanity is the one that takes the humanity out of light into darkness, into corruption which brings me to the point of Ramadan, Ramadan is this might and we are in our practice of Ramadan which means fasting and abstention from the intake of foods and beverages and drinks during the course

of the day light hours, is the might for purification. If we fast properly, striving to please Allah, the creator, at the end of the third day fast, our senses which somehow becomes corrupt in the course of the year, they would have become refined, refined to the point in essence, whereas we can walk in this society among the corruptors, among the infiltrators, the agents and whatever, and not become corrupt, not become indecent to become immoral. Islam is salvation and it is not salvation for only the black people or the Arabs, but it is salvation for humanity.

We could Allah says in the Quran that if you bring all the men and all of their support together and ask them if they could exhaust in an effort to exhaust his bounty, he said they could not do it. If you supplied them with a sea, with the sea, with seven seas to back it up and all these seas constituted ink, which they could use, to exhaust God's reality, he said they could not do it. They would not only use of the first sea, they would use it and other seven seas, and they would find that God's bounty still exists. I've been speaking with Nashi Rashid, resident of the American Muslim Mission in Austin, Texas and Hameen Abdul Malik. If you have a comment or would like to purchase, they could set capitalist program, write us. The address is in black America, Longhorn Radio Network, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. For in black America's technical producer, Scott Compton, I am John Hanson, John is next

week. You've been listening to in black America, reflections of the black experience in American society. In black America is produced and distributed by the Center for Telecommunication Services at UT Austin, and does not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Texas at Austin or the station. This is the Longhorn Radio Network.