The Mission of Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Imam W. Deen Mohammed’s vision was to see a community of people working together using the wisdom Allah blessed him to share with us to organize, motivate, and empower Muslims, Christians, Jews, African Americans, Hispanics, indeed all of humanity to rise up and establish the earth as a paradise for all and defeat the schemes of the wicked devils who rob, enslave, and manipulate the people to keep the earth’s treasures for themselves.
This vision includes the evolution and elevation of the African American; the Bilalian, from a people crushed into dust and then remade into a new people on the planet (there has never been any people like the “Negro” in the history of mankind) that have been fashioned and prepared by Allah to rise up to the plane of the prophets to inspire and be a force for the struggle for freedom, justice, equality, and fulfillment for all.
The vision is what we see as the destiny and where we are trying to go. The MISSION is what we must do in order to be able to make the vision a reality. For Imam Mohammed’s vision to come to fruition, he had a mission to accomplish. Imam Mohammed’s vision is really the same vision given by G-d to the prophets in the scriptures and crystallized in the vision of the last prophet to humanity, Muhammad, the prophet of the Qur’an. His mission, however, involved determining what applications of Allah’s wisdom were needed and what methods were required to impact and change our modern world to bring about the vision. This was his task; this was his mission.
The first thing Imam Mohammed had to do to successfully carry out his mission was to understand it clearly. Imam Mohammed was born in the midst of the greatest superpower the world has ever known and amongst a people whom the world reduced to the lowest of the low. Allah guided him to understand that while the 400 years of slavery and oppression foretold in the Bible crushed his people to dust, Allah breathed into that dust the breath of life and a new people with a new soul was born! Imam Mohammed was shown that this new soul that was created out of the ex-slave and his descendants was shaped and fashioned by their centuries long desire and struggle for freedom, justice, and equality such that their spirit and soul was molded in the shape of the mission of the messengers of G-d.
One part of Imam Mohammed’s mission is to spread this understanding of self and purpose to the African American people. His mission was to make it clear that our new identity goes beyond our ethnicity; that our struggle for human dignity and excellence and for full inheritance of our human potential is for all human beings. Our struggle is to become the struggle of all human beings against the oppressors of human beings.
The second part of his mission was to bring enlightened understanding to this new people so that they would understand how to bring about this transformation in the world and how to combat the forces of theft and destruction by those in power who have a different destiny in mind for the majority of humankind. It takes the knowledge and wisdom of what needs to be done in this day and time. Allah helped Imam Mohammed in this second part of his mission by rewarding him with the keys of understanding to HIS last revealed scripture to humanity and the model example of the last prophet sent to humanity.
To accomplish his mission, Imam Mohammed had to figure out how to impregnate the new soul of the African American with the enlightened wisdom of the Qur’an and the prophets in order to complete the evolution of this people. The enlightened wisdom will produce and intellect that when married to the “Dynamic African American” soul, as Imam Mohammed referred to it, would generate the kind of human that can be a factor for bringing about the vision of the prophets, which is the vision of Imam Mohammed.
So, Imam Mohammed had to start his mission where he found himself, as the leader of the Nation of Islam (NOI). He had to transform the teachings of the Nation of Islam; change the teachings of his father, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, in order to put the new knowledge into the people. He moved his community into the mainstream of American life to give it friendly soil to grow in. He moved the community into the mainstream of Al-Islam, in order to give it enriched soil to grow in. He eased the critique of Christianity and other African Americans and moved his community into good relations with all religions and all people. This placed the community in the middle of all aspects of mainstream life.
This positioning and placement of his community was a part of his mission. His mission was to prepare, stabilize, impregnate, educate, and cultivate a community that would be capable of driving the renaissance that would bring the vision into reality.
Another way of seeing his mission is seen by understanding the two eids; Al Fitr and Al Adha. The term Eid means to return. Fitrah means the original pattern or nature.
Eid Al-Fitr is the return to the original pattern upon which Allah created the human being. This is what we are celebrating on Eidul Fitr. After 30 days of fasting, removing impurities, controlling desires, engaging in spiritual cultivation and mental enrichment we return to our nature. Thus, we celebrate.
Eid Al-Adha the return to Enlightenment. Adha is from the word Duha, which means the Glorious Morning Light. It is the clear, brightness of the morning. When we complete the Hajj and all of its rituals in their truest meanings, we will have reached enlightenment. This is truly a cause to celebrate.
So, this is the mission, to bring ourselves and others back to our original human nature and to enlightenment and clarity in our thinking as human beings defined by Allah. The natural, enlightened human being will throw off the artificial mind and cultural decadence of our present world and purify the institutions of education, business, culture, and government and save the world from tyranny and oppression. The human being will do it, because that innocent and pure nature cannot accept the oppression and pollution. So, he will rise up against it and change it.
Imam Mohammed’s mission was to impregnate a community with this knowledge and spirit and to give that community the tools of wisdom to carry on the mission until the vision is achieved.
We believe the Imam successfully accomplished his mission and has transmitted it to some of his community. It is now up to his community to advance the mission forward.