QUESTION: Brother Imam, thank you for all of your comments and teachings. Thank you for your leadership. I am sending this by way of one of the men that is in regular contact with you. I live in a city with a masjid under darkness. I am a follower of Prophet Muhammed and Imam W. Deen Mohammed. I was emailed a statement that you made on "New People" and I knew you were the one coming after Imam Mohammed in leadership. I thank Allah for you standing up. I recognize you as the leader of our community and the successor of Imam Mohammed. My question is on what grounds should we oppose these oppressive leaders? I mean what do we charge them with against our community?

IMAM EARL ABDULMALIK MOHAMMED: The charge I make against the leaders of this Community is that they are moral cowards and intellectual cowards. They claim the dignity of Islamic faith and Muslim identity, but they are false. They have become aware that my teaching is morally and intellectually derived from Imam W. Deen Mohammed's life-long, life-giving teaching. That it is morally and intellectually in sync with Imam W. Deen Mohammed's teaching. That there is no alternate leadership focus competing with his teaching coming from me, and that even while my leadership is being supported and promoted by all of you, it does not violate or interfere in any way with the promotion of Imam W. Deen Mohammed's understanding, but in fact puts him in clear focus in a way that it has not since his passing.

That my teaching is an undistorted reflection of his teaching, so much so that if you were to take my name off of it and present it to any of his serious and sincere students with no mention of me they would bear witness and swear by it as his teaching directly from his mouth. Test it for yourself. They see its beauty, its truth, its strength, and their well-wishers indicate that they have been impacted by its clarity and moral relevance to the circumstances at hand in the moments in which we all live, but they refuse it for no other reason than it does not come from them and they are not capable of it. They would rather an inferior existence for the Community, or bring false and inflated charges against me, or find a way to discredit me personally, or take a weaklings argument: "Let's wait and see what happens when he is released," than to accept and support plain, direct, straight, clear truth.

Does this choice for them bring them personal relief? Does it improve the condition of the Community? Is it promising for our future? See their behavior and do not be confused. They are hypocrites. And for as long as they deny me and work against us and do not speak in support of my leadership, no one who honestly believes they are in the following of Imam W. Deen Mohammed should stand in any prayer ranks behind them without a soul-saving explanation that satisfies their Islamic moral and intellectual conscience.

A righteous man or woman would not be found near any one of them, except with the sharpest sword ready to severe a tongue, a hand, or a head.

We must defend our group identity, our group spirit, and our group determination, or we are fit to be the lackies and slaves of others. I do not question my associations. They are all pure, clean, and strong. You, who are with me, who receive these messages, understand what is ahead for me, and what I am prepared to do.