I thank all of you for inviting me to give this lecture in the memory of a great American
and a great Muslim, Malcolm X, known to us as EL-Hajj Malik Shabaz. It is an honor for
an immigrant Muslim who never met Malcolm X to give this lecture. This is due to the
recognition of the fact that more and more Americans are turning to Islam and more and more
Afro-American Muslims are returning to main-stream Sunni Islam. The dream of universal
brotherhood of all American Muslims as envisioned by Malcolm X toward the end of his
journey on this planet is coming true. More and more immigrant Muslims are embracing
their Afro-American brothers and accepting Malcolm X, whom I called in a previous article
"the Prince of Islam in North America," as a true leader of the Islamic movement in the
U.S.A.
Today's American Muslims are not the first wave of Muslims who came here.
Muslims have tried to come here ever since the 12th century. However, between the 16th
and 18th centuries, millions of them were brought here against their own free will. Not only
half of 6 million Africans but thousands of fair-skinned slaves of Turkish/Hispanic origin
from Morocco, Portugal and Spain, now know as Mullengeons were Muslims.
They were robbed of their names, religion and language and a new identity was given
to these once-free people who were made to work and live on plantations. Their sufferings
during ocean voyages, on Caribbean holding islands, and upon arrival on the mainland are
known to historians. The anger of the Afro-American soul, like that of Malcolm X before
Hajj, is the direct result of the oppression that their forefathers suffered.
Thus the re-discovery of
this "Lost Found Nation" and appearance of Master Fard and Elijah Mohammad
was a situational necessity. Although being a Sunni Muslim, I do not approve of the
theological and racial teachings of the Nation of Islam, retrospectively, I think it was the will
of God. It was God's way to let Afro-Americans realize their past and enter on a new
platform. Once you enter into a house through the wrong door and then realize it, you must
get out and re-enter through the front door. Thus many Afro-Americans who entered the
House of Islam through the wrong door of the Nation of Islam (NOI) are now re-entering into
Islam through the front door. Without NOI, there would have been fewer Afro-American
Muslims and, for sure, not a Malik Shabaz.
Historians have divided the life of Malcolm X into 3 periods - a) 1948 to 1964- the
NOI period, b) 1964 - the Black Nationalist Period and c) 1964 to 1965 - the Universalist
Islamic Period. However, I divide into only 2 periods, i.e., before Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca)
and after Hajj. Hajj had transformed the black militant Afro-American Nationalist to a true
Muslim, a Dayee (Muslim missionary) and an Imam (leader).
It is important to learn of his revulsion to the oppression and racism from his own
words as how he felt the pain. In 1963, while still with NOI, he said "The problem itself was
created by the white man and it was created because the white man brought us here in chains
against our will. It was a crime. And the one who committed that crime is the criminal who
should pay....You don't put the crime in jail, you put the criminal in jail. And kidnaping is
a crime. Slavery is a crime. Lynching is a crime.
And the presence of 20 million black people in America against their wil is a living testimony
of the crime that Uncle Sam committed, your forefathers committed, when our people were
brought here in chains.
"Now, you brought 20 million black people in this country who were brought here and
were put in a political, economic and mental prison. This was done by Uncle Sam. And you
think when you open the door a few cracks, and give this integration-intoxicated negro a
chance to run around the prison yard--that's all he's doing--that you'redoing him a favor."
Similarly in January, 1963: "We are trapped in a vicious circle of economic,
intellectual, social and political death. Inferior housing, inferior education which in turn leads
to inferior jobs. We spend a lifetime in this vicious circle. Or in this vicious cycle going in
circles. Giving birth to children who see no hope for the future but to follow our miserable
footsteps."
Malcolm X learned that though Christianity preached brotherhood, white America
could not deliver it to the "people of color". Thus he said on February 16, 1965 at Corn Hill
Methodist church, "I believe in the brotherhood of man. But despite the fact that I believe
in the brotherhood of man, I have to be a realist and realize that here in America, we're in
a society that doesn't practice brotherhood. It doesn't practice what it preaches. It preaches
brotherhood, but it doesn't practice brotherhood. And because this society doesn't practice
brotherhood, those of us who are Muslim--those of us who left the Black Muslim movement
and regrouped as Muslims, in a movement based upon orthodox Islam--we believe in the
brotherhood of Islam."
The experience at Hajj taught him and teaches us that after becoming a legal Muslim
by the declaration of Kalima, a Muslim must taste Islam by practicing it within a community
of practicing Muslims. The brotherhood, justice and respect for each other's rights that he
only dreamed and spoke in the past, was becoming a pleasant reality.
Thus in a letter from Saudi Arabia after Hajj, he wrote "Never have I witnessed such sincere
hospitality and overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors
and races here in this ancient Holy Land, the home of Abraham, Muhammad and all the other
Prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and
spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors.
"I have been blessed to visit the Holy City of Mecca, I have made my seven circuits
around the Ka'ba, led by a young Mutawaf named Muhammad, I drank water from the well
of the Zam Zam. I ran seven times back and forth between the hills of Mt. Al-Safa and Al-Marwah.
I have prayed in the ancient city of Mina and I have prayed on Mt. Arafat."
"There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all
colors, from blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in
the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America
had led me to believe never could exist between the white and non-white."
"America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from
its society the race problem. Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked
to and even eaten with people who in America would have been considered white -- but the
white attitude was removed from their minds by the religion of Islam. I have never before
seen sincere and true brotherhood practiced by all colors together, irrespective of their color."
"You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what
I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought-patterns
previously held and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult
for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have always been a man who triesto face facts and
to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always
kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every
form of intelligent search for truth."
"During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same
plate, drunk from the same glass and slept on the same rug -- while praying to the same God --
with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of
blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in
the deeds of the white Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African
Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan and Ghana."
"We were truly all the same (brothers) -- because their belief in one God had removed
the white from their minds, the white from their behavior, and the white from their attitude."
"I could see from this that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of
God, then perhaps too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man -- and cease to
measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their differences' in color."
"With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called Christian'
white American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a destructive
problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from imminent disaster -- the same
destruction brought upon Germany by racism that eventually destroyed the Germans
themselves."
"Each hour here in the Holy Land enables me to have greater spiritual insights into
what is happening in America between black and white. The American Negro never can be
blamed for his racial animosities -- he is only reacting to four hundred years of the conscious
racism of the American whites. But as racism leads America up the suicide path, I do believe,
from the experiences that I have had with them, that the whites of the younger generation,
in the colleges and universities, will see the handwriting on the walls and many of them will
turn to the spiritual path of truth -- the only way left to America to ward off the disaster that
racism inevitably must lead to."
"Never have I been so highly honored. Never have I been made to feel more humble
and unworthy. Who would believe the blessings that have been heaped upon an American
Negro?'"
"A few nights ago, a man who would be called in America a white man, a United
Nations diplomat, an ambassador, a companion of kings, gave me his hotel suite, his bed.
Never would I have even though of dreaming that I would ever be a recipient of such honors --
honors that in America would be bestowed upon a King -- not a Negro."
Let us summarize what Malcolm X did for us.
1. He challenged the African American, Africa, the World of Islam and all
humanity to rise and unite.
2. He publicly exposed the false appointed leaders of the Black American and in
the process demonstrated the real traits and reason of leadership, i.e.,honesty, intelligence,
a respect for logic, total submission to Islam, self-sacrifice, brotherhood and uncompromising
morality.
3. He awakened the World of Islam to their constructive appointment with destiny.
He also exposed the real enemies of Islam and how they must be constrained. His insistence
that we must return to the real educational, economic, spiritual and social substance of Islam
will not soon be forgotten.
4. He demonstrated that reading, learning and reason were indispensable qualities
for the economic and social development of the masses.
5. He proved that mysticism had no place in the World of Islam.
6. He proved, as many before him, that death could be no barrier to the fulfillment
of destiny.
7. He attested to the fact that racism has no place in Islam. On December 27,
1964, he said, "Well, this is why Islam is spreading. Islam has no color bar in it at all. There
is nothing in Islam that teaches one to judge a man by the color of his skin. No matter what
color you are in Islam, you are a Muslim - you are a brother."
We are reminded of the verses of Quran from Surah Al-Fajr as we ponder over the life and death
of a great American Muslim.
"O you Soul at Peace
Well pleased and well pleasing
Return to thy Lord
Return as My devotee
Enter into My Heaven"
To God We Belong To Him Is Our Return
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