Earl Abdulmalik Mohammed Speaks

QUESTION: Brother Imam, can you explain what it means for a people to be free?

IMAM EARL ABDULMALIK MOHAMMED: Allah says in His Book that we are not to enter into discussions of controversial matters except that we can stand confidently on a principle wherein there is a plain instruction of truth that settles it. Many great philosophers following all kinds of scientific disciplines have argued what is the nature of freedom. Social scientists, psychologists, spiritual teachers, political leaders, economic theorists, poets, movie producers and script writers, and many other types all have had their say on the subject.

We, that is the Muslims -and I am speaking of Muslims who accept to obey the Holy Qur'an and Muhammed the Prophet's teaching. We know there are Muslims who are Muslims in name only. They have no credible acquaintance with the Holy Qur'an. They do not understand what is meant by the Sunnah, or Way, of the Prophet. They do not know the Islamic life. They will be speaking as Muslims and offering a perspective on this question of 'freedom', and they will be coming from religious symbolism or guess-work. They think freedom is freedom to have an opinion in general. It may be that for many Muslims, too many Muslims. It is not that for those following the disciplines of Islamic thinking. We, following the Tradition of Imam W. Deen Mohammed, are free-thinkers following a strict discipline of understanding that respects above all else, Allah's Plan for human beings.

So, we must begin with Islamic thinking, and we must agree what that is. It is the Holy Qur'an revealed in the Arabic language to the human vessel, the human person, the flesh and blood human -Muhammed, the prayers and the peace be on him. And the Qur'an says in another place that never did mankind lose their good senses until they disputed that G'd raises His Messengers from mankind. If you cannot accept that a human being receives Divine Guidance and that that Guidance defines for humankind what is the best demonstration of human life and thinking through the life-example of that human vessel acting on that Guidance, then you are seeking the controversy, and not the principle of plain instruction.

In the existence of all Peoples there are the great Teachers. I am quoting from the Qur'an again here that Allah says that He raises from every People a Messenger. And He says further in this same verse that when the Messenger has been determined in all perfect fairness that People will not be oppressed. So, then, who is the Messenger for the African-American people? Are we not a People? Are we not deserving of a Messenger addressing us and our condition on this earth? We most certainly are, and I have spoken to the proofs of this various times.

The answer to this is also where we will find the answer to your question on freedom. It is that which has no controversy in it. It is plain and straight instruction of Truth. It is not symbolism. It is not guess-work. It is not error. With whom, but with that Messenger, and with the understanding that comes with that Messenger, serving the need for freedom in the life and sojourn of the African-American People, would be found the correct answer? The answer which satisfies the African-American collective soul.

The Tradition wherein an introduction, explanation, and application of correct Islamic teaching is established would have to be where the true Message is, and therefore the true Messenger, and finally the true definition of sacred freedom. For Muslims following the correct Islamic teachings there is no Prophet after Muhammed the Prophet. The Prophetic office is fulfilled in him, and he is also the Messenger of Allah. He is the Prophet and he is the Messenger. Some will say he is the Last Messenger, and that the Messenger status is subsumed in Prophethood. I agree with that by reasoning. The Holy Qur'an does not say that exactly.

In fact, the Holy Qur'an says literally that "messengers are always being sent..." The Angelic Office are Messengers of Allah, peace be on them. However, the message that has as its representative the Seal of Prophethood, would have to also be the final message. It is in its fullness of meaning in the aptitude and disposition of a People where we find its solidification as the Message for them. So, then, by reasoning, the Messenger who came to the African-American People is the Last Prophet, Muhammed the Prophet.

And how did he come? He comes in our Tradition of knowledge and circumstances. He was not presented to us with quite the same attention or emphasis as other nations or communities of Muslims. We found him in the demand of our souls for freedom from oppression in America. Our souls summoned the true report of his Sunnah for our circumstances. Our souls were under a heavy ugliness. And therefore, no Arab or Indian or African or Asian teacher with Arab, Indian, African, or Asian understanding and emphasis would satisfy us.

We could not know what freedom is supposed to be for the human life if we had not searched for it in our own souls. Prophet Muhammed searched too. Again Allah says in the Qur'an "We found you searching astray and We gave you Guidance." Searching astray, erring? Yes. The Prophet could search only with the resources of his own nature and goodness. That nature and goodness was not enough, not in vanquishing the errors in this world. He needed the Mercy and the Healing from the damage the world had done to his society. The damage of oppressors and oppressive thinking. Allah's Guidance was the only answer for the longing in his nature, in his soul.

So, if we adopted the language of other Muslims to describe our search for the meaning of freedom we would have been crippled as Muslims. We would have an obvious 'limp' in our understanding. We would have an obvious weakness and impediment in our demonstration of Muslim life. We would not have been 'free'. I have seen those who have this impediment. They are not free. It is most obvious in that they are the witting, approving slaves of human masters. It is not the American white man now, necessarily, but it is the clear residue from an abused psyche and the haunting of the plantation ghosts that they have never healed from. Their masters have titles like 'Shaykh', or coded, secret names, and they are taken off by groups that emphasize the study of symbolism.

Symbolism is the citadel of oppression, especially in religion. It is oceans upon oceans of darkness. Our Tradition broke the grip of the oppression of symbolism on us. Why are many of our People still enamored with it and following M.G.M. movie 'magicians' who lead them into the depths of darkness when Imam W. Deen Mohammed led us by the Radiant Light out of that darkness? It is because they have superimposed someone else's experiences over their pain. They are not healed. They require an authority over them that is not truly them because they are not truly themselves. They are un-free. What they have is not a reflection of their own deep thought and consideration of their human circumstances, and so they wear their Muslim life as if it were a life of great and heavy burdens. They are in a chained existence and never thought deeply enough to find the plain instructions of Truth.

So, here is the answer to your question. Freedom is found and embraced in our spiritual constitution. It is to move without impediments in a People's social psyche as the foundation for their pursuits in the physical world. It disciplines their feelings and their thinking. It regulates their choices. Freedom is to comprehend that you have a natural ability and right to seek for that which establishes any and every human soul upon the same and universal truth, and then to erect establishments sanctifying that truth in your own expression. It is not in the physical world first. It is in the soul first.

Freedom is to find in the soul what you are entitled to as a human, and then to manifest that entitlement in every worldly, temporal expression. A truly free people have their own independent life. They insist on their independence as a favor and blessing given to them by G'd. They are not satisfied with any existence except one of a free-thinking, dignified producer of wholesome human establishments. Someone will say, "Where did you learn to be a free-thinker? Who taught you? How did you come to freedom?" Even as this country placed me in its prison and now restricts my physical body's movement, I am yet a free man leading other free people because of the Islamic Tradition taught and demonstrated by Imam W. Deen Mohammed.