IMAM SHAREEF ABDULLAH ALI: As-Salaam Alaikum sir. I thank you for your answer on Imam W. Deen Mohammed's tradition. I had been influenced by others to doubt your sincerity and knowledge. I see now that those people had bad intentions. I am a very serious student of Imam W. Deen Mohammed. You were his National Representative. There is no disputing that. What was in dispute I don't think can be in dispute any longer to a sincere person. I think it is obvious that you are the one he wanted to lead our community after him and I am with you all the way. I wonder if you would answer another question on the Imam's tradition. You speak of his tradition being distinguished from other scholarly traditions in Islam. Can you elaborate on that?
IMAM EARL ABDULMALIK MOHAMMED: As-Salaam Alaikum Imam Shareef Abdullah Ali. I will keep my answer to this very brief because as I mentioned at some point in the near future I plan to address this subject in a broad way. I am thinking that we will have some classes and a public address, and we will take from that and publish a book on this subject. The reason we want to do this is to establish and contribute to the standard of how our community's knowledge is interpreted, understood, taught, practiced, and implemented. When we complete our work not anyone will be able to jump up and say they represent Imam W. Deen Mohammed's teaching or his understanding.
Our knowledge as a People is our responsibility to protect and teach properly. It is not enough for us to only repeat what Imam W. Deen Mohammed taught. To repeat knowledge as in rote memorization is not necessarily an understanding of it. In fact, many times it can be a misunderstanding. A case in point is how many have tried to disqualify me from the role he intended for me by repeating his comments on a person being an Imam in prison. If the Imam were here now, he would not be condemning me, he would be asking the leaders in the community why they are not hurt that I am in prison, and why they are not actively working to get me out so I can help him.
I could tell you many stories and recall instances when the Imam would point out to me the errors that were being made in communicating his teachings. It is not enough to quote Imam W. Deen Mohammed or say his name. We must understand the building blocks of his understanding as he taught it and value them as a very precious property. We must live in his language and communicate with it in the highest, most fluent and intelligent way, out of love and respect for what it is. Most of all we must believe in it with all confidence and sincerity. We must understand that it is the teaching of the one G'd sent at the End of Time -the Day of Religion, and in the context of the African-American people's condition, to address the world with the Qur'an. We must speak to each other, and must teach our children properly in the vocabulary of his reasoning. We must build institutions that encapsulate and are constructed from the solid, live-supporting bricks of his thinking. This is how we live and grow as a People. We are a People because of his knowledge. That is why I refer to us as the People of Imam W. Deen Mohammed. He wanted me to think this way. He influenced me to think this way. He knew that I would carry this forward and he trusted me to carry it forward. When I say, and others say of me, that I am his successor this is what that means. That I am succeeding in his Islamic thinking and that I am leading the way in that path of success. It doesn't mean that I am the chosen one. He didn't say "look for the chosen one and support him." He said "Allah will show us the one we should support." How will we see that one? It will be the one that Allah shows us as clearly distinguished from the rest in succeeding this way of thinking.
This is off of the question you asked, off of the subject a bit, but it is relevant. Someone will say "Oh, the Holy Qur'an is what makes us a People. The Sunnah of the Prophet is what makes us a People. It is not Imam W. Deen Mohammed's language. We need to live in the language of the Qur'an and Sunnah." I know quite a few who would say this who are Imams claiming to follow Imam Mohammed. And they have searched and searched the record to find something Imam Mohammed actually said to give them support. And so they point to him saying that you don't have to mention his name all of the time. Or, they point to him saying that what he has comes from the Qur'an and the Prophet, and when you have that you won't need him anymore. He knew the type that would grab hold to that and run with it in ignorance. He told me they will be running for eternity to nothing and nowhere except the hell-fire of dependency on other people to provide for them dignity and establishment. If it weren't for Imam W. Deen Mohammed's leadership they would be following a renegade minister of the Nation of Islam, and I am not referring to Minister Farrakhan. I am referring to all of those renegades who wanted anything and everything but the responsibility of human life on their shoulders. If they could cast that obligation off of them with blame of the white-man as devil they will do it that way. If they can cast that responsibility onto the shoulders of other races of Muslims or the American system of welfare, anything to excuse themselves from the obligation to advance their own life, they will do that. They have been around in one form or another since the time of the Honorable Elijah Mohammed occupying space and posing as leaders. I do not like to say it but they are nothing more and will never be anything but slave-ass niggers.
The scholars in Islam who are true to the Prophet's tradition will say that the People of Faith are the Ahlus-Sunnah wal-Jam'aat. Why do they say that? These people I am speaking of who claim to follow Imam W. Deen Mohammed while at the same time slyly attempting to influence innocent people against his teaching would say we are "the People of the Qur'an and Sunnah" and they stop there. I have heard them say it. Imam Mohammed spoke of them and their sly tongues for many years. I can hear them now: "Brothers and Sisters, I am just in love with this Qur'an!" But the sincere ulema (learned scholars of al-Islam) don't stop there as referring to the ummah as "the People of the Qur'an and Sunnah." The learned ones go further to complete that statement. They say "the People of the Qur'an and the Sunnah and the group that is established upon that." The learned go further because they know there is an Islamic destiny that must be completed. And they know that that destiny must be completed in the path of the Unfolding, as the jam'aat stands and bows and prostrates and sits, the path of enlightenment, the path of the sun and the destiny of the shadows, in symbol. In other words it must be completed in the West in New-ness. This is not exactly what you asked, but it is a description of the distinguishing Signs of the Mujeddid-Mahdi.
For now I will give you three special characteristics of Imam W. Deen Mohammed's tradition that refer directly to fundamental principles of faith and practice in Islam. These are only three of the distinguishing characteristics. There are many. One, I referred to in a previous answer. That is the 'uswah', or balanced foundation of character and conduct that is the basis of Muhammed's record of teachings and actions as our Prophet and the Messenger of Allah. When presenting Prophet Muhammed as the model for mankind in his "completed excellence", Imam W. Deen Mohammed was placing his heaviest emphasis and focus on the understanding of the Prophet's 'uswah', not ritual language, practices, or habits. His emphasis was on what forms and gives meaning to the ritual. This is fundamental to his tradition. That is, emphasis on the 'uswah' as contrasted with emphasis on the Sunnah.
Another characteristic that distinguishes Imam Mohammed's tradition refers directly to the concept or principle of 'tawheed.' The word, linguistically in Arabic, refers to 'oneness' or 'unity.' As an Islamic concept it is the language of the scholars that combines all of the Holy Qur'an's teaching and the Prophet's teaching on the systemic oneness and function of creation that justifies faith and worship of the One and Only Lord-Creator. The way that Imam W. Deen Mohammed encapsulated his teaching on this fundamental Islamic principle was by translating "Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Raheem" as "With Allah's Name, the Merciful Benefactor, the Merciful Redeemer." I am using the word translate, but what we refer to as a translation is more accurately described as commentary and explanation. Imam Mohammed's 'translation' is his teaching on 'tawheed' as it refers to three important and central concepts. It explains our faith as Muslims in Allah as first, the Lord and Creator, Existing and Providing for everything He has created, then, as the sole One worthy and deserving of our obedience evolving creation from the perfection of its origin to the completion of its purpose, and lastly, in all Ways, Names, and Characteristics with which we should properly perceive our Lord-Creator and His relationship with creation. Using this understanding is to perceive Him as "Lord of all the Systems of Knowledge."
This leads to the last of these that I will share with you for this question. It is Imam Mohammed's teaching that we are always re-turning to Allah, as contrasted with the idea that we 're-turn' to Allah at death. In other words, it is incomplete understanding to say that we 're-turn to Allah.' This teaching is the very important part of his tradition that explains the purpose, perfection, and fulfillment of human life and existence. It is Imam Mohammed's commentary on the verse in the Qur'an that is translated "from Allah we come and to Allah we return," that is the habit of Muslims generally to recite when learning of someone's death. It is also his commentary on the first few verses of Surah Al-A'ala of the progression toward human completion and the role of nature, potential, and Guidance in that progression. It is to say that our human lives have symmetry, form, value, purpose, potential, direction, and completion. We do not "re-turn" to Allah when we die. This is not correct. Our entire human existence is in the active pursuit of the destiny, which is the 're-turn' or 'turning-toward' our origin and purpose. We are 'turned' to our purpose in the womb, and we are 'ever-turning' to it to achieve our destiny. Oppression of mankind is the 'turning away from' (oppress ourselves), or the obscuring of (oppressive schemes) or the prevention of (injustice) the enjoyment of the benefits due to us as a consequence of our original created purpose and movements or paths toward the fulfillment of our created human destiny. The Imam's teaching is that we are always entitled to that, and our Islamic logic and emphases bring it into clear focus in every, single aspect of our existence. Therefore, we are always 're-turning' or 'ever-turning' toward it. In symbol, it is the Haramain, the two Sacred Mosques. We are 'turned' toward the first House, and then we 're-turn' through repentance for misplacing its importance, then we are 'turned-on' to and 'ever-turning' to the Lighted Path or Lighted Destiny: the promised life, the cherished life, the promised land, the beloved community, however we want to describe it. We 're-turn' to it as the essential fulfillment of Allah's Plan for our life. We may confuse this with death, but it is not extinguishing the life, it is fulfilling it.
There is much more to all of this, but as you see this is a big subject. Once we have completed the new book on Imam W. Deen Mohammed's tradition we will donate all of the profits to one or more of our deserving schools to help in the general scholarship funding for students. This is at it should be. This is what he would want. The fruits of serious study in his tradition should feed our future.
I know there are those with bad intentions as you mentioned who study closely what I am doing so they can pre-empt it and disrupt it. I say to them that Allah has promised Success to those who believe and who follow the way of obedience. Therefore, I do not fear or worry over the plans of the disrupters. They are no match for Allah and His Angels and the protection He is Providing for what we are planning for our Islamic life in America, and for my leadership after Imam W. Deen Mohammed and upon his tradition.
Praise be to Allah. We thank Him for His Favor on us in America. We are the People of the Holy Qur'an. We are the People of Muhammed the Prophet. We are the People of Imam W. Deen Mohammed. And that also means we are the People of the Islamic Destiny that came to us in a very special history unlike other Muslim peoples. We will never turn from our blessed tradition that is the guided tradition of our late leader. Succeeding this properly is what my leadership is all about.