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Books by
Marvin X
Love and War: Poems /
In the Crazy House Called America /
Woman: Man's Best Friend /
Beyond Religion Toward Spirituality
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Muslim Imam Warithdin Muhammad Makes
Transition
By
Marvin X
May Allah have mercy
on his soul and grant him Paradise.—Fahizah Alim
Bismillah-r-Rahman-r-Rahim. It
has come to our attention the great Muslim American
theologian, Warithdin Muhammad [1933-2008], son of
the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, made his transition
to Paradise. It was Warithdin who took over the
reins of power when Elijah Muhammad passed in 1975.
In taking the Nation of Islam into Sunni Islam, we
felt he threw the baby out with the wash water, but
in truth the Nation had become a din of iniquity,
full of thieves, robbers, dope dealers and sexual
deviants, the very antithesis of the personalities
Elijah Muhammad had attempted to resurrect and
reconstruct from the graveyard in the wilderness of
North America.
But no matter the failings of
some of Elijah’s students, there were many whose
lives were indeed transformed into better human and
spiritual beings, while the rest got Supreme Wisdom
but didn’t get it, and as a result the condition of
many Muslims is worse than that of the deaf, dumb,
and blind Christians they decry. How is it that
Muslims possessing Supreme Wisdom and Sunni Islam
exist is such poverty they are the mockery of
Christian and other Negroes, even the white man who
is overjoyed whenever he sees North American
Africans doing for self, thus relieving him of their
burden, as if he is not the direct cause of their
burden.
This very day, he has taken
billions of taxpayer’s money to bail out the
international bankers who have defrauded millions of
black, white, brown, and yellow people of their
fundamental wealth, their homes. Yet the bailout of
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will not help the poor
one iota, but is de facto socialism for the rich,
while more poor people shall become dispossessed of
their basic wealth.
Warithdin was steeped in Sunni
ideology that is mostly reactionary religiosity—one
only need look at the Sunni Islamic world with
billions in oil money, yet the people exist in
virtual slavery, poverty, ignorance and disease,
from the Maghreb (Northwest Africa) to the
Persian Gulf. In Sudan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan
and the Gulf States, the people are denied basic
human rights and democratic liberties. Little
opposition is allowed and except for the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in Palestine and
Hezbollah in Lebanon, there is no radical opposition
to the autocratic regimes, unless we call Osama Bin
Laden’s theology radical, but only in the right wing
manner and the Stone Age Saudi Arabian brand of
Islamic fundamentalism.
Toward the end of his life,
Warithdin turned back to the do for self teachings
of his father. In so doing, he mirrors Farrakhan who
is also turning back to the Supreme Wisdom of Elijah
Muhammad, since the teachings from his Study Guide
carried his followers nowhere.
As the followers of Warithdin
celebrate his transition, it is time for them to
make a great leap forward out of the grave of
reaction and let the masses see they indeed
understand the teachings of Elijah was the ultimate
truth for the present era. Clearly, the devil is the
devil, no matter what time or place, and he shall
appear in white face or black face, have no
illusions on this point. We must therefore guard
against being deceived, no matter if it is John
McCain or Barack Obama.
Finally, Warithdin did indeed
attempt to clean out his father’s house. But the sad
fact is that after his mission, there yet remain
devils in the house, faking as imams but have the
intention to practice white supremacy domination and
dictatorial authority using the Qur’an, Hadith, and
Sharia to legitimatize their iniquities, as in the
old regime, making mockery of all that Warithdeen
and his father attempted to construct. May
Warithdeen rest in peace and paradise for all the
good he accomplished. And may his followers heal
from their sorrow and celebrate the infinite
possibilities he engendered.
Marvin X (El Muhajir),
poet, playwright, essayist, activist, is considered
the father of Muslim American literature and one of
the founders of the Black Arts Movement, the most
radical literary and artistic movement in American
history.
www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com. He is now
booking engagements for 2009. Call 510-355-6339. His
latest book is How to Recover from the Addiction to
White Supremacy, Black Bird Press, 1222 Dwight Way,
Berkeley CA 94702, $19..95.
If you like this
article consider making a donation.
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Other Responses
(FinalCall.com) - The following statement was
released today by the Honorable Minister Louis
Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam regarding the
passing of Imam W. Deen Mohammed. Sep 9, 2008
CHICAGO - We mourn the loss of
our brother Imam W. Deen Mohammed. We thank Allah
for him and his great contribution to the ongoing
work of Prophet Muhammad
ibn Abdullah (P.B.U.H) and his
work of helping to create a better understanding and
image of Islam in America and throughout the world.
Our prayers and our thoughts are with the Mohammed
family, with the followers and all those who feel
our great loss.
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_5190.shtml
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The Shalom Center mourns the death of Imam W. Deen
Mohammed, may the memory of this righteous and
loving leader be a blessing to us all. This national
leader of the American Muslim community died
yesterday in Illinois.
Imam Mohammed,
74, was the son of Elijah Muhammad, the founder of
the "Nation of Islam." After his father's death in
1975, Imam Mohammed led his community to
mainstream
Islam. Those who followed him took a path similar
to that of El-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz ("Malcolm X") in
his last months after his pilgrimage to Mecca,
leaving racial and ethnic animosity behind in the
true spirit of Islam.
The communities
that followed W. Deen Mohammed are both more
numerous and more deeply rooted than the "Nation of
Islam"—while it became better known in white
America because of the animosities expressed by some
of its leaders.
May his
following continue to grow in numbers and in
spiritual depth, and may other Americans learn to
practice a loving and people-healing ministry, as he
did and they do.
Asalaam aleikum, shalom
aleichem—May peace rest upon us:
Arthur (Rabbi Arthur Waskow)
The Shalom Center: A prophetic
voice in Jewish, multireligious, and American Life
office@shalomctr.org
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We at the Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP)
mourn the death of Imam W. Deen Mohammed, a leading
voice of rationality, love and goodness in the
Muslim American community.
The account
below from the Chicago Tribune gives some sense of
his history in building positive interfaith
relations and in providing a powerful alternative to
the voice of the notorious anti-Semite and homophobe
who heads the Nation of Islam: Rev. Farrakhan.
I was
personally grateful for the several opportunities I
had to work with Imam W. Deen Mohammed. I found him
to be a man of great wisdom and compassion. He was a
strong supporter of Tikkun Magazine and the Network
of Spiritual Progressives and we had hoped to have
him speak at our 2009 convention in Washington, D.C.
and we were simply waiting to find a specific
location and date for that event before finalizing
the arrangements with him. Imam Mohammed provided me
personally with important protection when Cornel
West and I wrote our book together (Blacks and
Jews: Let the Healing Begin) and found ourselves
facing hostile audiences of Black Muslims who were
repeating some of Farrakhan's hateful teachings and
expressing hostility toward me that verged on overt
violence.
It was a
tragedy, though typical, that the American media
gave far more attention to Farrakhan, because his
hateful teachings were provocative and
attention-grabbing, than to W. Deen Mohammed whose
teachings of love and cooperation were largely
unknown beyond the Muslim community.
We at Tikkun and the Network of
Spiritual Progressives are saddened and mourn our
loss of this inspirational leader.
—Rabbi
Michael Lerner Chair, The Network of Spiritual
Progressives
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Imam W. Deen Mohammed was a spiritual wanderer who
was banished several times by his father for filial
impiety: once for remaining close to Malcolm X,
Muhammad's prized disciple who turned into a
critical voice within the Nation of Islam before he
was slain. In 1961, Mohammed refused to serve in the
U.S. military and went to prison in accordance with
his father's teaching that African- Americans
shouldn't defend a land of lynching and segregation.
While incarcerated, Mohammed studied the Quran and
found its teachings at considerable variance with
his father's. After his father's death, Mohammed in
1975 took the bold step of aligning the Nation of
Islam with mainstream Muslim beliefs and giving the
movement a new name, the first of several. In 1976,
Mohammed made a public appearance carrying an
American flag. He proclaimed the time had come for
black Americans to celebrate America. The following
year, Farrakhan broke away to revive the Nation of
Islam and its traditional teachings.
Mohammed's
lifestyle was markedly different from that of his
father, who presided over a religious empire from a
family compound he constructed amid the historic
mansions of the Kenwood neighborhood on Chicago's
South Side. Muhammad was surrounded by a phalanx of
bodyguards, dubbed the Fruit of Islam. Mohammed also
rejected his father's sometimes overtly anti-white
preaching?a rhetorical style continued by the fiery
Farrakhan, Mohammed's rival for leadership of
African-American Muslims. Farrakhan and Mohammed
long traded barbs and theological jabs before
publicly reconciling at a joint worship service in
2000.
"For me,
[Islam] is too big a cause for our personal problems
and differences to stand in the way," Mohammed said.
Mohammed was
also deeply committed to building bridges between
African-American Muslims and the increasing numbers
of immigrants from the Middle East and Asia. In
2003, Mohammed unexpectedly announced his
resignation from his organization, the American
Society of Muslims, saying he was frustrated that
many of its imams had refused to adopt mainstream
Muslim thinking. During his final years, Mohammed
lived quietly in a modest home in south suburban
Markham. He headed a charitable organization, Mosque
Cares, and spoke to congregations across the nation.
His lectures were reprinted in the movement's
newspaper, the Muslim Journal. But he had no mosque
of his own.
ChicagoTribune
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\posted 9
September 2008 |
