A.S.A Imam AbdulMalik Mohammed,
My question is: Why do people try to keep you in sin when you are trying to get out of sin?
Also, do they become sinful trying to keep you in sin?
Thank you,
Bro. Muhammad Ali
IMAM EARL ABDULMALIK MOHAMMED: As-Salaam Alaikum my brother Muhammad Ali. Please allow me to address something implied by your question before answering the specifics of it. Knowing you, I know that you would appreciate it if I brought attention to all that you are asking.
I treat all of the questions that come to me as very serious and very important. They are all very serious and important in different categories and degrees or elevations of importance. No one would take the time to ask if the matters asked about were not serious. Also, the devil is serious about hurting our efforts and so the questions that come from his dupes are very serious in their mischief.
When the questions are coming from persons like yourself they are of a different quality that I value in a higher way because in addition to the matter at hand these questions also reflect the elements of courage and wisdom. You are expressing and displaying courage and also wisdom when you ask me a public question in your name for everyone to see. You know by asking this question that you are subjecting yourself to isolation and ridicule and other forms of mistreatment by those who dislike me and dislike that you show me this kind of public respect. You are making yourself known publicly as my supporter.
You also permit me, with your question, the opportunity to provide leadership to our group on these important matters, where our people are sincerely needing help and not receiving good or suitable help to understand these things. In this instance I understand and want to answer your question in the broadest context first and then in the specific context. I know you are not asking for a general opinion. You are asking for a definitive answer. You are asking for the direction of the leader of our community and how our people should view this matter. I know that you know that this was always the difference between myself and many of the other Imams. They gave their opinions. I thought that my opinion should be uniform to Imam Mohammed's teaching in all matters.
When I answered a question in those days, I answered for Imam W. Deen Mohammed, his office of leadership, and his way. I never understood myself as an Imam independent of Imam W. Deen Mohammed's thinking on any matter. He did not command me to feel that way. He wanted me to make a free choice, and I expressed myself independently, but it was always an expression that was in the line of Imam W. Deen Mohammed's reasoning. All of these who are now agents of disorder in our community knew this about me then and they know it now. Even when Minister Wallace D. Mohammed differed with his father, it was in line with the spirit of his father's intent. Now I lead this community in Imam W. Deen Mohammed's way, and this is why he intended me to be leader after him. He wanted me to see in myself what you see in me brother Muhammad. I know that what you intend by your question is that which touches on something you feel is a serious matter in our life as a community. I really appreciate you, and I want to do justice to your question for the benefit of all of those I know that you intend that I reach with an answer.
Some of the people that send me their comments and questions do not want me or anyone else to know their identity. They give me a coded name or a false name to protect their identity. I do not mention this out of any disrespect. In fact, I understand them and why they are presenting themselves in this way to me. I do not blame them or feel any negativity toward them. I know they fear repercussions from oppressors, and other immoral types, who lie in wait to target them with some poison or some form of punishment. They are correct to protect themselves in this period of uncertainty and conflict in our community. This is also a display of courage and wisdom. Those who do this are also acknowledging my leadership when they ask me these important questions, and they are letting me know of the sense of danger and pressure they are feeling. They are feeling oppressed and I understand why. I respect them and I love them. I pray that Allah gives them increase in all ways to keep their faith strong. I look forward to the victorious day when they no longer are made to feel this way. I want to say to them that that day is near.
Then, there are those who ask questions to cause trouble. They hope I will make a mis-step that they can point to that will weaken me, or depress the support they know is growing everyday all around this country, or bring me into an unjust conflict with someone or some group, or that they can expose something about me that can be used against me in some way in the future. The calculation they have made about me is that I am motivated by the same things that motivate their wizard-like heroes. That is, they think notoriety and ego motivate me. So, they think in hopes of encouraging in me an ego-driven agenda they can push me along to eventually cause destruction for me and ultimately destruction of the succession of Imam W. Deen Mohammed's leadership and tradition.
These types are the evil ones among us who believe and trade in the Shaytan's methods of invitation to sin. Their strategy is to compliment you and encourage you in the interest of weakening you, or softening you toward sin, so they can discover how you are pliable to them so they can manipulate you through what they perceive as a weakness in your moral commitments and esteem. With me, this devilish type should have learned from the failure of previous schemes against me from many years ago and even recently that they will not be successful. If 7 years of an unjust imprisonment by the U.S. Federal Government has not stopped me, nor the attempted public lynching of me by the Muslim Journal and its agents of disorder could not stop me, then you would think that they would conclude that certainly I must have something that G'd has given me of His Protection from them and their plots.
(In the context of this answer on faith and sin it is necessary for me to make this statement. I do not like to mention an institution or an individual by name except in a way that is positive. If I cannot speak positively then I won't mention the specific name. This is the Islamic rule given explicitly in the Prophet's teaching and supported by the Holy Qur'an. But, where there is a notorious and intentional sin, it is justice to identify the name, and state the abuse and offense clearly and directly. I get no pleasure from it. I feel only sadness. Imam W. Deen Mohammed congratulated the Muslim Journal and its editor often, and he felt no pleasure when he was compelled by Islamic rules of respect and decency to call it out in its serious and intentional acts against him and his leadership. Those instances are well-documented. Out of consideration for the status of the paper and its meaning in our Muslim-American lives it has taken me this many months to speak publicly on the injustice it committed against me and my family.
The truth is that this once excellent media institution has fallen a tremendous distance from the high place it earned in our minds and hearts. By misplacing the importance of truth and not comprehending the weight of its obligation to obey and uphold Islamic principle, the Muslim Journal's credibility has become weak and suspect. With the obvious agenda to damage me and to discourage support for my leadership by reporting untrue, subjective falsehoods, it willfully permitted its own integrity to be spoiled by agents of disorder. These agents used the influence and reach of the paper to launch in a center-page article a libelous and slanderous attack on me, to which many who were associated with leveling it later retracted their names and denied their association with it. Their moral senses were awake when they realized the gravity of their sin, but not one of them thought enough of correcting this wrong to reach me or any others falsely accused with any clarity as to their intentions, or any apologies.
Compounding this sin with more insult, the same issue of the paper that reported those grave falsehoods, lauded the graduation and achievements of my daughter -Imam W. Deen Mohammed's granddaughter, who was valedictorian-Mu'alim of WDM High School's graduating class of 2018, on the front page. In one measure the paper reported a wonderful achievement, and in the next committed an obvious and major wrong. With such bold-faced immorality, we can find no Islamic sense, sentiment, or compass. It is fair to conclude that this moral confusion is the product of sin and bad intentions. For these acts there is nothing but justice due. Allah says that slander of Believers earns a severe punishment. He also says that justice by strict punishments are a Mercy from Him on the guilty and the innocent. All involved are accountable.)
Allah has given me and increased in me sincerity, patience, and humility before Him and His Authority. My faith is a true faith, and my commitments because of that faith are firm upon truth and knowledge, and not negotiable. In other words, nothing but the Divine Will makes a way for what I am doing. It is Allah's Will and His Purpose and by His Permission. If I was the arrogant, ego-maniac-womanizing-thief, like the agents of disorder claim, then nothing of Islamic moral life and understanding would have been preserved in me, and Allah would have barred me from any access to Islamic teaching or life, and you and the thousands of others like you would not be asking me questions or looking to me for leadership in our Islamic life in America in the tradition of Imam W. Deen Mohammed now, or at any time in the future. One of them will say "Oh, he is exaggerating. He does not have thousands with him." The true followers of Imam W. Deen Mohammed know what they are reading when they read my words. They know what they are listening to when they hear my addresses. No one can deceive them. They know what is real and what is fraudulent. That number of his devoted People, whatever it is, are with me.
Also, I want to make clear that this website, www.eamspeaks.com, is a vehicle for our message. It says "Earl Abdulmalik Mohammed Speaks," but that is not the story, not even the half of it. The emphasis is not on me, but I had to convey the message in my name for several practical reasons, not least of which was to clarify the way in which I am distinguished from others claiming to represent Imam W. Deen Mohammed. What is most important is what I am addressing on this site and why. I am not just 'speaking.' My words are the words of leadership and the activity of leadership, delivered in real-time, and succeeding, or continuing, in the thinking and methods of our late leader, Imam W. Deen Mohammed as the trustworthy, accurate, public and legitimate representation of the religion of al-Islam and the Islamic community of faith.
When I answer your question and other questions I am answering with a conscious awareness that I am representing the determinations of a People devoted to their Islamic life with a specific vision and spirit for establishment in this world. This is what is meant when I use the word 'tradition' to describe us. Our tradition of knowledge has specific aim and purpose. I am representing the perspective and certainty of Imam W. Deen Mohammed's way, the aim and purpose of his knowledge; and I am leading with the authority of his staff and sword in my hands, symbolically-speaking. I say his staff and sword. His staff, as in that which exposes falsehood and dismantles faulty logic for all to witness. His sword, as in his understanding and use of Divine Revelation or Guidance or specifically -The Holy Qur'an and Prophet Muhammed's Tradition, to wield as language defending us against the forces of oppressors and their schemes against our Muslim-American community innocence and determinations and values.
I did not ask for this. Imam W. Deen Mohammed designated me and prepared me in public view for all to see, that I would at the right moment use these tools for a purpose and need in our community's history and progress. He knew his way would be challenged after his death. By what? By sin and its appeal, just as you have indicated. The forces and strategies of sin had to be defeated. In order to preserve his way and reach the 4 generations of our People he wanted to reach, our People would have to fight back against those who would confuse our aim, obstruct our path, and attempt to take us from our sacred destiny as a People. Brother Muhammad, he intended that brothers like you would sense, then discern with clear eyes, what Allah Wanted for us in this time and how He was Protecting us. Imam W. Deen Mohammed wanted brothers like you to match those evidences with the individual you saw who was distinguished from all of the rest in quality of message, and strength of faith, in spite of any criticizers and adverse circumstances, to lead his People after him.
So, in this context your question on sin is no insignificant matter. It is not any common question. You are coming from a place in your soul where your expression is asking about a need that you sense must be addressed in the whole people to save them from destruction.
The sin environment or sin climate is the misleading environment and it pulls on us as a People. If we begin to see it in the life of the leadership or the institutions, then it won't be long before it gets into the bloodstream of the People themselves. If the People see those that they hold in esteem not able to responsibly uphold the good life, then how can we expect that the good life will be promoted and passed on intact. Everything the climate of sin touches it bends toward its way of thinking.
Our nature is not sinful. We are naturally inclined to good, not sin. But sin is a real invitation that can take us out of our good nature and form. The fact that we can resist its influence is instruction that our nature repels it. G'd assists us in our nature to repel it. We were not created for sin, and sin does not have the final influence in shaping us or our destiny as a human creation, unless we consciously permit it. We can make this picture smaller to make this discussion meaningful in our community life as a Muslim-American People. The misleading environment or environment of sin can exist and persist among us because of weak vision, or lack of vision especially in our leadership. Without correct Islamic vision we can get stuck in sin.
Some of our preachers do a masterful job of preaching the concepts, but they are very poor at addressing the real needs. Why is that? It is because correct aim and vision is needed, correct emphasis is needed, and you cannot have correct emphasis without a purified heart and clean intent. You must desire for yourself a purified heart and you must work for a purified heart. You must have a regimen that takes account of the condition of your heart. If you are not a prayerful person or at least inclined to prayer, then you are inviting corruption and sin into your heart. Prayer in Islam is association with G'd's Guidance, and the habits of the human being who exhibited in his life how to defeat the influence of sin. Prophet Muhammed shows us in his behavior, his thinking, his aspirations, a heart rejecting wrongdoing and seeking an increase in purity. The prayerful heart seeks to be obedient, and in that state of obedience sees clearly how the weighty concept in religious teaching is to be best applied in the challenges of human life.
If we put aside our values and our obedience to Allah in the simplest matters of common decency, then we are pushing Allah out of our lives and inviting sin into our lives, and we are simultaneously inviting Allah's punishment. The way of G'd is for human beings to seek repentance from wrongdoing and sin, and then to seek G'd's Forgiveness, and then to move on to the pure-hearted, productive works. When you see that repentance and forgiveness is not valued among a People, then you know purity is not valued. When there is no purity of intent, or no purity of pursuits in the moral nature and the moral spirit has been warped and misdirected, then there is no just conscience and no justice. If there is no justice among a people in their leaders and in their institutions, then total destruction follows very soon after. Moral destruction is followed by ethical destruction which is followed by material destruction. This all comes from the poison of sinful excess and the misleading environment. The Shaytan dressed up the environment to deceive man. The Holy Qur'an exposes him in his intent and his role as al-Ghurur. It is given in a report of Prophet Muhammed, the prayers and the peace be on him, that the creation was shown to the angel by his Lord and the angel said "How can any go wrong in such a creation?" And then the Lord-Creator showed the angel the creation after the Shaytan had embellished it and the angel said "How can any go right in such?"
The leaders of the misleading environment do nothing but mislead. The leaders in the environment or climate of sin, invite to sinful ways and sinful intent, and they make the sinful acts the popular behavior. If the institutions are advocating sinful methods and promoting among us a spirit of bad intentions where are we to look for salvation? How do we even know we are in the misleading environment or the climate of sin? We know it when we are failing our best, purest aspirations. We know it when we are openly denying truth and principle. We know it when we are making excuses for not correcting bad intentions and bad behavior. We know it when we are not being truthful about what we are allowing as standards that direct our thinking and behavior. We know it when our productive, good works are systematically ridiculed and shunned.
The misleading environment saps our best traditions of their strength to feed our life. A people without true faith and vision and a definite aim cannot defeat the threat of sin. A people without vision, or who have lost their vision will become slaves to a sinful order. They will have lost the strength in their moral muscles and moral reasoning to defeat even the smallest sin. Things that they would have never permitted in their space they tolerate now. They will have just finished the salat standing next to a brother, shaken his hand in peace, and go right to the next brother and shake his hand only with a morsel of sinful gossip about the first brother. I know you have experienced this. If we do not have the moral strength to check that on the spot, we will have lost the integrity of our moral vision because we will not have understood how the high principle contained in the greetings of peace are supposed to manifest among us in the most fundamental ways.
Brothers that I have had close to me in my personal space, that I have invited into my confidence and that know me in my personal morality, I have read where they have slandered me in public spaces. I do not speak in trashy, immoral ways about women. I do not have immoral interests in women. All of my relationships have been and are lawful and honorable. But, I have read recently where one person who was very close to me implied these things about me. They did not come right out with it, but it was implied. It was not decency that slowed them down. It was fear. They knew they were not telling the truth and they were testing the person they were speaking with to see how far they could get away with the lie. This is the way of the Shaytan. This is a clear indication that the climate and environment of sin is pushing hard and attempting to gain ground amongst our People, when in an Islamic community the culture of sin should be very weak, undetectable, or non-existent. The Muslim Believer says many times a day "I seek protection with Allah from the rejected enemy Shaytan."
Allah says in the Holy Qur'an that those who push away from evil are the purified ones and that they are inclined to adopt for themselves and apply that which is best. Their standards are the highest standards of human behavioral excellence. They do not accept that a sinful environment is inevitable. They are constant and firm in pushing sin out of their space, out of their homes, out of their families, out of their leadership, and out of their institutions.
Allah warns man to not take the Shaytan as something to worship. Those who refuse the vision and aim to strengthen our community by way of our finest tradition of Islamic faith and knowledge are inviting the misleading environment to take root. We have too many blind-attachments and blind-loyalties. We are attached to people and institutions sentimentally, and have lost the moral strength to position ourselves against those sentimental relationships when they mean nothing good for the life we say we want. To see a wrong and not be moved to remove it in some way is the evidence of the rooting of the misleading environment or climate of sin. Too many of our people are working as blind-slaves in that climate.
Thank Allah brother Muhammad. Allah has saved you in your sensitivities and your choices. We need 10,000 more like you from the African-American people, but 10 more Muslims like you will do to push this devil back that is blocking our way.