REMAKING A PEOPLE VICTIMIZED BY BLACK AND WHITE: ISLAM IS THE ONLY SOLUTION TO AMERICA'S ARTIFICIAL RACE NARRATIVE
A PUBLIC ADDRESS
BY
IMAM EARL ABDULMALIK MOHAMMED
LEADER IN THE SOCIETY OF MUSLIM-AMERICANS
As is customary for Muslims, we say Peace be on you, and we begin our address in recognition of the Lord and Creator of this world, and all creation. He is the Authority over all of it. Nothing can approach Him, in truth, except as a servant or devotee. He is not a human. He is not an angel. He is not a spirit. He is far above man's capacity to fully understand and perceive His Nature and Majesty. He has made us to know in our human nature that we should submit to Him. He says of Himself in the Holy Qur'an "that none can grasp Him in their vision, but His grasp is over everything." As Muslims we are most comfortable saying we are His slaves. We are the slaves of G'd.
There is no more honorable attribute for man than to be G'd's obedient servant. To understand this saves us from the horrors and abuses of human slavery to other men, or to schemes to erect false gods. To understand that G'd created us for the dignity of slavery to Him, dignifies the human purpose and separates us from schemes that want to take or usurp that dignity He intends for His human creation. The one who studied man's creation and understood that man's nature is to find the One he should serve with his life and talents, and then manipulated that nature and cast himself in G'd's Role, is the rejected enemy. We seek G'd's Protection from him and his schemes against the human purpose.
Praise be to Allah. Highly Glorified is He. He grants power to whom He pleases, and He strips off power from whom He pleases. For Him is the Creation, all of it. For Him is the Command, over all. We witness that nothing is deserving of worship except Him. He, that is All-Knowing, and Free of all wants, has no partners, and to attempt to join a partner with Him is to commit a tremendous wrong that leads to oppression of His human creation. We witness that Muhammed is His Messenger, the highest salute is due to him and our prayers to Allah on him for the peace. He is the last of the Prophets and is the perfected, completed human in his demonstration of human excellence and purpose. He is the liberator of mankind from false worship and the one sent to show us human life in true community pride.
We obey Allah and we obey His Messenger, and we in America of the African-American people brought here to be slaves were taught in an Islamic tradition that freed us from the world's manipulation of us. That tradition is the school of Islamic practice and reasoning taught by Wallace D. Mohammed, or Warithuddin Mohammed, or W. Deen Mohammed, whichever name is most familiar. He is the Imam of al-Islam and a Guided-Reformer, may Allah grant him the Mercy.
We want to address our condition in America as citizens of this great land. We speak as citizens who want the best for ourselves and for all citizens of all races and religions, ethnicities and creeds -all that make up the population of this great society that is the envy of all modern nations. It is said that America is one nation under G'd, and I believe that, and those who are with me as successor to Imam W. Deen Mohammed's way, are committed to that. We cannot be comfortable when our homeland is fraught with a spirit of divisiveness. Our religion commits us to speak to the Unity of G'd, the Oneness of G'd, and we understand by reasoning that human life is also one, and human potential is a singular gift, given to all human beings as their common inheritance and property.
Our Holy Book says, "Your Creation and your Resurrection are in no other understanding except as a single soul."
No nation in the modern history of nations has committed themselves to realizing the oneness of man's life with the same tenacity that these United States of America has. In spite of its great and heavy sins, G'd has favored us here. We believe G'd has favored us because of the commitment to this principle. We want to keep G'd's favor, and so we are compelled to address the problem that places the heaviest weight on us, and depicts us now in the eyes of other nations.
The American racial reality and construct has influenced this present world to see black and white in other than the way G'd wants us to appreciate the meanings of these colors and their importance in our human existence. Its false report is responsible for the misunderstandings between otherwise well-meaning citizens of this nation. American citizens are caught and manipulated in a world of ancient language that has been used to manipulate resources and oppress human souls. These colors and how we perceive them are responsible for building whole community identities as presented by the language of America -an American black people and an American white people.
This is not the reality as G'd made it. It is an artificial reality. G'd intends that colors associated with the human family, differences in physical features like textures of hair and shapes of noses and lips, all carry the traits, the intent, and the aim of nature. He made nature to contain purpose that is released and revealed over the arc of man's existence. The physical form tells us something of the beauty of nature in its infinite pictures and expressions. Human identical twins may appear the same physically, but even physically, they are not exactly the same, and therein is a lesson that the nature wants to reach for and realize all of its beautiful possibilities, even as it is shared and is the same.
Human life is one creation expressed as a "single soul" in the Holy Qur'an, and the color black, in this sense, speaks to the infinite reaches of beauty in that one common human nature. White as a color, is the partner of black, its shared property, and it expresses the purity of moral intent. But there is no morality without blackness. There is no moral intent without nature. This is blackness and whiteness in its beauty, in truth. Blackness carries intent in the nature. This is the true meaning of black. Black is nature, in its aim. From black comes white. From the black aim in nature comes the white moral purity to engage the world. This crazy world of language can have you thinking that the white people are the only pure, but all you need do is think briefly on the record of the white race in America and it will blast that myth into oblivion.
In Islamic teaching G'd has not made black and white to be perceived as opposites in conflict. They are not in conflict. Black as forces of darkness and white as forces of light are symbols. Black and white in nature describe human origin and consciousness, and are complementary and necessary to bring man to his full human life. So, what we are offering here is Islamic reasoning that has the potency to address and repair this breach in the American ethos. This Islamic reasoning provides for a new language of race in America and a re-making of race perception for all of us Americans affected by the false language of black and white.
America -though ideas of human entitlements based on human geographic origin preceded it- its construct as an idea of freedom and respect for the human destiny mixed itself with a deadening, oppressive hypocrisy. The American reality, the energies devoted and schemes concocted to create a permanent labor class based on racial characteristics and heritage as focused in the color of human skin, has created false divisions that have impacted the quality of human lives all over this earth.
These false divisions have established lines of war and strife between peoples. It has manufactured very real war zones. It has fed and nurtured the lie that nature supports a seemingly permanent and insurmountable notion of class and labor division based on skin color and racial categorizing. We know that in America there are divisions and gaps in the areas of labor and education and earning potential that have been and are enabled by the false narrative associated with the colors of human skin and racial classification. The truth is that its premises, the notions it is based on, are all artificial and false.
These ideas have created a notion of artificial inferiority in black people, and an artificial notion of superiority in white people. It has steered black people to an exploited, reactionary Hollywood sense of exaggerated race pride to compensate for the race lies effect on our human psyche. And it has made the white race think of itself as an invincible god-race, with the perpetuating and morally-corrupting goal of pursuing and justifying a manifest material domination view of the world and its peoples. The affected white man cannot perceive himself as anything less than 'super' human, and the affected black man is trapped into devoting all of his productive energy to proving to the white race that he is no less than human. This is the burden of the great lie of America's racial narrative and construct.
Only the true report of the purpose of man's creation will solve the problem. And that report has not been preserved in any source more clearly than the true report of Islam. We might say that the true report of Islam is the religion of al-Islam. No Muslim people on this earth are better educated for the task of explaining this distinction than those who came to America as slaves and found their Islamic identity in the story of the harvest of the Nation of Islam, its leaders and message, and its completion with Imam W. Deen Mohammed's teaching.
Skin color that is formed naturally because of man's environmental circumstances, colors that are natural to the earth, and that if we read them as G'd intends they speak beauty to us, have come to be characterized in the American artificial race narrative as causes for and justifications for denial of human potential and respect. Nature will speak truthfully to us about these colors, but to hear its lesson we must first acknowledge that our humanity is the same. The artificiality of color-consciousness is one prong in the scheme of artificial race superiority that obstructs our view of the perfect human life G'd created for us to enjoy. It is the pure Islamic teaching that brings us to this conclusion.
We cannot discern this teaching in other religions without a lot of help from well-meaning and informed preachers. They have to be educated to know and teach that the "Word" becoming "flesh" is referring to a body of knowledge that feeds man's life in whatever racial picture we can perceive man to be in. If we leave it to the typical preacher they will carry forward the same lies that hurt all communities of man, and exacerbate the tensions we are feeling in America right now. Black in symbol and flesh is education, and so is white. We know we are speaking in symbol because a child will tell you that the flesh we are looking at is not the color black or white. Innocent eyes and clean hearts, uncorrupted by the world's shades of oppressive tactics, will show us what is correct and proper.
We must have the true picture of Islamic teaching too. We have some current and historic ignorance that has to be shown as false when we are presenting Islamic teaching. The more I read of what is coming from the Muslim world as Islamic teaching the more I understand why our Muslim people in America and our message is so necessary and important. What is coming from the so-called Muslim world is not any help for us to solve these race problems. Their literature contributes to the problem. It is creating more confusion and trouble. The so-called Islam of ancient slave-traders and their present-day defenders that is so often cited by historians to make the case against religion in the world as the origin of racist ideas and the culprit for race-based oppression as an idea on this earth, is not al-Islam.
The Islam I am speaking of that clears the matter for understanding the reasons for the different faces of humanity and appreciating their value in realizing a common, dignified human destiny is the Islam of Muhammed the Prophet. It is the Islam of Bilal bin Rabah, the black man from Africa who saw freedom from oppression in embracing Muhammed's faith, the faith associated with G'd's Oneness and the Oneness of His Authority in man's and the world's created purpose as shown in the Holy Qur'an in Muhammed's teaching and demonstration. It is the Islam of 12th to 16th century Western Saharan Africa that fostered learning in every scientific discipline from the centers of education those black-skinned Muslim-Africans established, and chronicled the works and achievements of those black-skinned Muslim-African teachers, leaders, and human cultural champions in Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. Not that black skin makes the difference. Black skin is the circumstance. The humanity in the black skin that was awakened to its purpose is what makes the difference. But our Prophet was clear in identifying a problem that he knew existed and would persist in respecting black-skinned people in authority. He said "Follow your leader, even if he be a raisin-headed African."
Am I suggesting that there is more than one Islam? In actuality, no. But, in this mixed up world of language, there are many. Only one that is legitimate, but many illegitimate Islams. What I am saying is that there are many ideas that claim Islam and claim to be Islam, just as there are many false claims made to divinity by illegitimate gods. There is only one al-Islam that is preferred by the One and True G'd. One al-Islam perfected and completed by Him, and that supports the singular view of man's moral development toward his best and highest dignity and excellence on this earth.
Our Prophet predicted that there will be seventy or so presentations of Islam after him, but only one is correct. There is much to his statement that I would like to address, but it is not the focus for this address. But, what we do want to say is that the correct Islam, that which restored Muslim-African-Americans to the correct human path away from the falsified picture of their human lives introduced by America's artificial race narrative, is that which was taught by Imam W. Deen Mohammed in his special language and emphasis. His language is a reconciliation for Muslims in the modern world with Muhammed the Prophet's actual path, and a reform for the picture of humanity and human purpose that has been distorted by the lies told against the humanity of the descendants of African slaves in America's racial history.
In Islamic teaching, black says purity. In Islamic teaching, white also says purity. Black is the purity of man's original nature -the state or condition of the perfect healthy human heart. At its optimum and intended capacity it feeds everything in the human life, and if other influences make it unhealthy, or warp it, the human life is empty and full of disease. Blackness is goodness and excellence. The crime committed against the black people of America was not directed at us in color, but directed at us in nature. The white race of America that relied upon a criminal misreading and mischaracterization of sacred Scripture to justify their denial of our humanity, by way of the processes of that crime, desired to justify separating us from the nature G'd gave all human beings.
That nature is what catapults human life into all of its beautiful possibilities. Though they claimed a net moral good by bringing us to America and making us slaves, that we would eventually become civilized by way of assimilation with white America's civilization, they knew that our enslavement was for no other reason than to acquire wealth and bolster material power in the world. By willfully restricting our access over generations to suitable education, adequate housing, beneficial healthcare, resource capital, etc. the white race made a conscious choice to deny us and prevent us access to our humanity. This is what oppression is. Oppression is the strategies to bring darkness into the world. Darkness of what? The darkness of ignorance as to what are your inherent human properties.
The darkness that comes from the denial of access to enjoy the blackness of the nature, that is, the potential that exists there that G'd created to serve you. It was these diabolical strategies designed to deposit and brand, or to stamp, ignorance upon our consciousness as to what human nature is and what that nature entitles all human beings and human communities to, that led the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and his great following to say that whites were a race of devils.
But, the strategy of the white world and racist, white supremacist America was not to degrade blackness generally. They knew the immeasurable value of blackness. It was to convince us that our blackness was a curse and a burden, and that whiteness and white authority was salvation and civilization. They followed and institutionalized an artificial language construct for race, created for one purpose: to oppress and deny human nature. The white supremacist knows his language is a lie. But, it is propped up by systems and institutions that have an interest in the maintenance and longevity of that lie. Islamic teaching saves all people from the lie and its aim.
The symbolism in the economic sciences, sciences that invite rational minds to seek material wealth, teach that the aim in pursuit of financial stability and healthy economies is always to realize the black destiny. Business wants to be in the black, does it not? The black is the safety net. The black is solvency. The black is the good health and is the cherished status that all businesses want to have to verify and improve their financial health. They don't want to be in the white, which is a blank balance sheet; or the red, which is debt. They want to be in the black.
The language of the universal economy -macro and microeconomics, is the science of how communities share that which is granted to all of us for our human development. And in the religion of Islam we are given a picture of the universal world as a garden that becomes accessible to us by way of our pursuit of forgiveness. The Qur'an instructs that in order to derive the benefits from the garden forgiveness must be consciously pursued. What sin has been committed that requires the pursuit of forgiveness and the garden that is the expanse of heaven and earth? The sin of conspiring to cheat other human beings out of their human entitlements by denying that they were given the same free access to the productive properties of human nature for an honorable marriage with the material world. And how is that sin perpetrated? It has been perpetrated by way of the white world's false language race game, more specifically the crime of white supremacists and their racist strategies. It is this sin from which the artificial race narrative in America has been fashioned, and it is this sin which has burdened the psyche of the African-American people, and tainted America's claim to a democratic republic and social order.
This world wants to confuse us about these colors and their true meanings. Islam corrects it and preserves their best meanings for the family of man to benefit and grow. Islam does not inflate any people's ego. In fact, Islam deflates the logic of lies that aim at weakening the human being. It declares war on and victory over the vicious lies that want to cheat man out of his G'd-given human properties, and it challenges man to clear human society of these obstructions. It clears the path for understanding of what G'd created when he created the trustee, the 'khalifa', as the Qur'an gives the proper language for the human worth and role. G'd intended with Adam's creation that a ruler who rules with the supports from the benefits G'd has provided in their own 'black' nature, will also rule in obedience to G'd's will and plan. Islam teaches that G'd trusts man, that G'd, Himself, is the Believer in man's nature and destiny.
G'd trusts Adam's descendants with this natural human endowment, all of them. This includes the sons of Noah, no matter what the creators of the myth of racial hierarchy said about Ham and his children. Those taking from the story that Noah's son Ham was 'cursed' black turn a blind eye to or have a blind bias when it comes to identifying within their own races the liberal spreading of silly-mindedness, false righteousness, and moral decency that is signified in each of the three son's personalities. We cannot address all of these matters in great detail in this address, but in the months and years ahead we will continue exploring this teaching in the tradition of Imam W. Deen Mohammed's leadership.
The black stone, which the Prophet Abraham, the peace be upon him, took as a sign from G'd and placed as the corner stone of the House he built for the worship of One G'd, is for Muslims a symbol for the importance of the color black. It does not in any way speak to racial identity. It speaks to the common origin of human worth, the fundamental premise supporting human identity, the predicate base from which all human possibilities grow into their completion. In Abraham's hands the performance of man's nature as the necessary base for fulfilling man's created purpose, was placed as the corner and definition of our human existence.
Islamic history also says that Muhammed placed that stone back in its proper place with his own hands. And it was upon this sacred foundation and its meaning for human purpose, that Muhammed ascended and was shown the human destiny. That destiny belongs to all human beings. All human communities have a legitimate claim to its promises. It is reported that the Prophet said that when G'd created Adam, He showed him his descendants and his destiny, and He asked them "Am I not your Lord?" This is the promise. Adam was created from material, breathed into and formed with a planned spirit and destiny. Formed in the purity of the true meaning of black, which is G'd's plan for man in his origin and destiny, brought into view and realization by Muhammed.
There is much to discuss here, and we do not have the situation to go into all of it now. But, soon enough, we will have the opportunity, if Allah wills it, to teach and reaffirm these concepts in the manner that our blessed teacher shared them and taught them in the first instance, completing us as a real and viable Muslim people in America. He could not have done that, there would have been no opportunity for him, if his father had not raised the issue in his teaching of the true value of the Blackman and a message to uplift him. If any doubt why I am leader of this People immediately succeeding Imam W. Deen Mohammed, and the one he prepared and preferred, let them know that it is my grasp of these important concepts as the foundation of our message that distinguishes me from all other leaders. This is my message. It makes no difference to me if others see me as leader or not. I am not pursuing that. My mission is this message, and it is undeniably the quintessential message in the continuity of our Muslim-African-American leadership. Our group does not have a national organization to point to with some grandiose name, but that does not diminish the fact that we are a People. The last one known to speak for and represent us as a distinct People was Imam W. Deen Mohammed. I am the successor he preferred to deliver this -his message, on behalf of this People. If they could have delivered it without me, they would have. But they have not. So the need has compelled me to qualify and deliver. I can hear someone asking, "Why does he continue to mention this?" It is because there are designs on the failure of our message, and our standing and legitimacy as a living Muslim people. In publicly stating that we are a People and that we have leadership that follows in a tradition and a specified continuity, we are informing the world that we will not be pushed out of existence and we are determined to have our place in this world and in America fulfilling our special purpose.
We are the first and the lasting Muslim people of America, descended from Africa and slavery in America, visited by Mr. W.D. Fard, brought to a Muslim identity by Elijah Muhammad, completed in that identity by his son Wallace D. Mohammed, and devoted to the living and establishing of the truth of the correct picture of Islam in the school of W. Deen Mohammed's teaching, and sharing that picture in such a way as to support and focus the determinations of the African-American people to achieve their American and human destiny. No one delivers that message with the same clarity or effectiveness as I do. And that is because Imam W. Deen Mohammed prepared me, and the circumstances of our People requisitioned me for the job in this very moment.
Now, let us move to another important reference from Islamic knowledge that addresses these colors and their importance as they impact the quality of our human life in America. As I have said, Islam is the only complete and serious solution to the artificial race narrative that attempts to oppress American citizens.
No language in the Holy Qur'an debases human life -its origin, its purpose, or its destiny. The Qur'an points out that humans debase themselves, not by nature, but by choice. The uses of color symbolism in the Holy Qur'an speaks of moral ignorance, clarity, and purity. The Holy Qur'an's discussion of colors and forms speak to both man's troubles and his beauty, dignity, and excellence. Its teaching says clearly and directly that the variations in colors in the animate and inanimate worlds are a blessing and an education bestowed on creation by G'd. I do not want to quote all of these verses from the Qur'an because most people will not know how to measure and appreciate their importance, not even Muslims. But, I will repeat the verse where Allah says in the Qur'an that "He created the heavens and the earth in truth, He formed all of you, and further He made all of your forms excellent and beautiful."
And we have in another verse of the Qur'an where Allah, the Most High, says "And We most assuredly created you all, and then We formed you, and then We said to the Angels bow down to Adam and they bowed. But not Iblis (the devil), and he is not of those who are inclined to bow (to any human).
So, now, we can see how beautiful is the picture of respect for all of human life that the Holy Qur'an presents. Our Islamic principle says here clearly in these verses that the forms of the human person are all beautiful and excellent, and that the human person in the form that G'd created and the destiny He intended for man, is even above the creation of the purpose for Angels. Again, there is much here that in the months ahead we will address in more detail, but this is sufficient to energize our efforts at correcting this problem in America. We are not satisfied that those participating in the public discussion are acting against the problem with all of the necessary information or reasoning. How can they be if our perspective is not included, or we have cancelled ourselves out of the discussion?
Minister Louis Farrakhan does not speak for this, or our perspective. He represents a point of view but it is not our point of view. I know that he is not comfortable speaking for this or us, even though many who may hear or read this address and want to critique me have defaulted themselves to his representation. I know this because I have gotten word from his people that he is very interested, and they are very interested in me leading the discussion about how Islam addresses this and other vital matters for America. They understand me to be the voice of Imam W. Deen Mohammed's thinking on these matters. They need help because they are trapped in the same way that most black and white people are trapped in America's language confusion. They are trapped by the artificiality of the American race construct, and they don't know how to free themselves from the trap. That is something to think about. I know my friends and enemies will be chewing on that for a while.
Here, to complete this argument against the racial categorizations of man, the theories of racial hierarchy that have invited trouble into our perceptions of one another as Americans and as human beings -black and white, we have a statement from Muhammed the Prophet. He said "There is no superiority of a white over a black. No superiority of a black over a white. No superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab, or a non-Arab over an Arab. The only distinction between man is the quality of his regardfulness for G'd." The Prophet's statement here makes the argument against any theory of race or color or tribal or ethnic superiority. It cancels the argument and logic of even the more recent manifestations of race and color superiority like apartheid, Zionism, Aryanism, ethnic cleansing, anti-immigration, and white and black nationalism.
Those who are serious about improving the conditions of life and state of affairs in our present American society should take a close, critical look at what I am saying here.
Islam is a message of reformation, a message of clarity, for the whole world in its confusing and oppressive language systems. We are a People designated to introduce this world to the true message of Islam. Thank you, As-Salaam Alaikum.