HALIMAH MOHAMMED: Daddy, I had another question and I think it is in line with your comments on Jerusalem. I recently prayed at the masjid where we grew up and I heard a description of it that was unfamiliar to me. They were calling it the "Nation's Mosque." I didn't understand that and had not heard that before. I always knew it to be Masjid Mohammed.
IMAM EARL ABDULMALIK MOHAMMED: I have also heard this language and I was immediately struck by it. This language came after the passing of Imam W. Deen Mohammed, and I believe that to be no accident. I think that is the intention of those who promote this language, that they are using it to be an attention-getter to draw attention to themselves, and to the fact that something important had changed in one of our most important and sensitive centers.
I don't believe those who use the language ignorantly intend any harm or disrespect. But I think it is the intent of those who promote its use to strike attention to themselves and the fact that there would be a great change, especially when it comes to our relationships with government authority and their influence in our plans. I don't believe that the ones using this language actually created it or manufactured it though. I believe the language was introduced to them by others and beneath their conscious mind. And I do think it is a concern for the same principle we see being challenged in Jerusalem, and that the orchestrators have manipulated some of our people in the same way.
You know, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad did not ever claim he was teaching from what we call now Islamic knowledge, but I certainly believe he was coming from what we now know to be Islamic sentiments. He took from his teacher and from the Bible and from the Holy Qur'an translation that his teacher gave him to make his point about the condition of black people's minds and identity and their possibilities in America. He was keen and instinctively aware of the duty that all human beings owe to G-d. He used certain language to describe the white race but he referred their judgment to G-d. He referred the black man's worth and dignity that had been oppressed and abused to G-d. He did not accept and did not sanction or defend the so-called black revolution in America at that time primarily because it denied G-d's authority over America.
He taught that if something is to be created or destroyed it would be by G-d's Hand and authority, not by a revolt of the people. He did not permit his followers to break laws and especially not to carry weapons. He said that what could a weapon do against G-d's command of the natural world and the power of earthquakes and snow and ice and mighty storms. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad believed in G-d, and the physical places that were associated with his teaching he called "Temples." He taught his followers that the "temples" were sacred because he associated the temple with G-d's authority in the life of the people and that what they wanted for themselves was approved by G-d, and that because of that the temples were to be defended with the lives of the people.
The temple may have been a simple storefront property but those followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad were ready to defend it with their lives. That is because the white world that was persecuting them was persecuting their human life, and that human life that was being oppressed in the white man's world was now safe and secure in any of Muhammad's Temples of Islam. He thought you had to get right with what G'd wants for you in terms of what you think about yourself before you can even present yourself to the white world for respect. In other words if you didn't have the acknowledgement and protection of Muhammad's Temples of Islam the white world would not respect your true, original self. They would only see you as their "so-called Negro" creation.
When you listen to Imam W. Deen Mohammed speak of his father and his leadership and his following he would hardly ever say "Nation of Islam" or "The Nation." He would almost always refer to that time and that following and that order as the "Temple of Islam" or when he was referring to those places where the following assembled themselves as "the temples of Islam." Maybe some people did not think of these things as significant, but I did when Imam Mohammed was teaching them, and I still do. Imam Mohammed saw that I respected these things, and he invited me to understand them from him, and when I presented my understanding to him he approved it and authorized me to represent him all over this nation and the world. I know that those pioneer members if they could hear what I am saying now would nod in approval.
Our attachment to America is not to government as such. Our embracing American identity is an attachment to that which authorizes government authority, and that is the enlightened will of the citizens and recognition of G-d's blessed endowment on human beings. We respect our government because it is a representative government of the will and values of the people, and by and large the people are a G-d-fearing people. They are a people that acknowledge a G-d over them, and they trust that G-d.
They believe that G-d enabled them and empowered them to enjoy a certain life, that He designated a certain life for them, and that once they become conscious of what that life is they they would be responsible to protect that life for all people and invite all people to enjoy that life. What is called 'American exceptionalism' is that America, at least in ideal, invites all people to enjoy what it says it has discovered of the human worth and that is what makes it 'exceptional.' It invites to the 'exceptional' life. But we are to pledge allegiance to our country as a nation under G-d's authority. Is this not the language?
Our religion says, according to Muhammed the Prophet's teaching that religion is sincerity. And the Prophet was asked, to whom? And he answered that religion is sincerity to Allah, and His Messenger, and the leaders following that principle, and to the people who follow the leaders obeying that principle. This is the reasoning used by the enlightened Muslim people when they place names on their places of worship. We say the masjid or the mosque is the mosque of Allah or masjidullah, or the mosque of the Prophet, or the mosque of some righteous Imam, or the mosque of the people.
The love of the people is a sincere love for Allah and His Messenger and all who devote themselves to that and their worship reflects that. It is not a political love, or a cheap love, or a negotiable love. It is an eternal and living, real love. This was the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's love for G-d and his people, and those that were responsible for putting their small funds together to erect Muhammad's Temples of Islam that later became Muhammad's Mosque and Masjid Mohammed.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed renamed those first three centers of our historical Islamic life in Detroit -Masjid Wali Muhammad, Chicago -Masjid Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and Milwaukee -Masjid Sultan Muhammad, and others like New York's Masjid Malcolm Shabazz after important and outstanding persons who represented our life and development in Islamic community. This was a tribute to our particular line of Islamic life. Most of the earliest places associated with us kept the name Mohammed, spelled differently but the same word in the Arabic language of the Holy Qur'an and Islamic history. When Imam Clyde Rahman of Cleveland asked the Imam what would be an appropriate name for the masjid they were building he suggested "Masjid Bilal." All of these names cherishing our life and history as a Muslim people brought from Africa to America, and wanting our Muslim life in this land under our own authority and direction with obedience to G-d in the disciplines and explanations of al-Islam.
The Holy Qur'an says that the masjids are to be established upon piety. I absolutely believe that this piety was in the heart of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and in the hearts of his sincere followers. He was not trying to impress government. The dignity of his faith could not be cheapened or bartered in this way. The temple belonged to faith in G'd. And under his son Imam W. Deen Mohammed's leadership it was no different.
The mosque or the masjid belongs to Muhammed the Prophet and his followers. It should honor the nation wherein it resides and its government, but that honor begins with and is authorized by the G-d who is above all nations and all governments. The mosque belongs to the nation in this way. It gives to the nation its best product, to serve the nation's highest human values and needs. This is an understanding between the American people of all faith communities and their government. The mosques, the churches, the synagogues are not to be violated. They are sanctuaries.
If government sees our understanding of this principle cheapened by some immature desire to impress it or get some resources or some attention from it, then we lose the value of the principle, we undress our dignity and expose ourselves to an element in government who want to use us for some interest outside of our Islamic and best American life.
I quote from Imam W. Deen Mohammed in the first pages of the book I wrote, "Our citizenship must be meaningful..." What he meant by that is that we must be our true selves in order to help our country, not an artificial self. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught his followers that their "true self is a righteous Muslim." This nation cannot offer an identity to its citizens above that. No nation can offer that. That identity comes to every newborn as a gift of birth, and all that comes with it was intended by G-d to enable the human life for its best purposes and best outcomes. Nations can only offer their citizens an identity that cherishes and complements that one.
'Ummah' is sometimes translated 'nation.' But for most, and especially our learned and guided Imam, it was an inadequate translation. 'Ummah' says a model more than it says a people. It is a people, but it is a model people. That is what we are called to. To be a model people for all of the human community, exhibiting the good and guarding the best interests of the people. You know, Imam W. Deen Mohammed called the office for the administration of his leadership "The Mosque Cares."
If those promoting the language "Nation's Mosque" mean by that 'Mosque of the Ummah (Community) of Muhammed,' or the Ummah of al-Islam, or some other clear language then they should clarify that. Maybe this is their intent. I feel certain, though, that the ones who introduced this language to them did not have this intent. I do pray our people see the conflict and correct their understanding and clarify their language.
December 22, 2017