Applying the Teachings of Imam WD Mohammed

New Africa: Can You See It?

New Africa is a vision of the future. No vision of the future can be transformed into a reality if it is not clearly understood mentally and felt spiritually. Imam Mohammed has been inspired to see our destiny and he has clearly articulated the chain of events that will eventually lead to the reality of New Africa.

Imam Mohammed has provided piercing insight into the plan of Allah for this people that have experienced a most unusual and peculiar history.  In order to fulfill this divine destiny, to communicate it to those who share this destiny with us, and to pass it on to the future generations that must internalize the vision and continue building its manifestation, we must work hard to grasp the concept of new Africa; its meaning and its demands upon us.

The concept of New Africa is a vision from Imam Mohammed. It is a concept that is connected with Imam Mohammed’s commentary on Allah’s usage of slavery to fashion a new people and his covenant with that new people. It is also connected with the Imam’s commentary, at the inception of his leadership, on how his community would redeem and restore the African American and remake the world and how his role as a Mujeddid would renew the evolution of the Islamic community. Finally, this concept of New Africa is an inspiration and strategy to connect the African American (Muslims from his community in particular) to the mission he gave us to build a model community.

New Africa is not simply about African American Muslims building businesses, controlling our own schools, and building our own Masjids, although these things will certainly occur when New Africa starts to manifest. If it were only about these things, then we could attain these goals by simply moving to a Caribbean or African country where the President is black, there are plenty of black-owned businesses, the schools are black, the Masjids are built by blacks, etc. In fact, we have that same situation in many of the cities that are dominated by African American populations.

Allah did not allow us to go through slavery simply to raise us to a level where we can do only what other people do naturally. No indeed, there is an extra special, extra serious purpose that Allah has planned for us and it is our command from G-d to understand this purpose so that we can dedicate our life to its cause.

Let’s first summarize what Imam Mohammed has said about the role of slavery in preparing us for the mission Allah has placed upon us. The African was so thoroughly captured, so completely dominated, so brutally assaulted, so reduced to dust and cut off from all hope and ability to save himself that he could only cry to his Creator. His bare soul cried to the heavens with such sincerity, with such fervor, with a pitch so piercingly sincere that it had the same purity of the cry of a new born baby. It was at this point that Allah took that new soul and breathed his inspiration into it and began a new creation.

Allah inspired many great men and women with courage and character to speak to our people and our oppressive nation. They said let my people go free. The march of the African American towards freedom transformed our country from its ugly past to an example of freedom and equal opportunity for all. It is Allah’s covenant with the people of soul to inspire and lead the world in the fight for freedom, justice, and equality for all and against the evils that attack the natural human potential of us all.

Among the many great and inspired men and women that Allah sent to us was Imam Mohammed and his father Elijah Muhammad. Most of us understand the contribution the honorable Elijah Muhammad made to the upliftment of the African American. He restored our self-esteem, confidence, taught us that we must think like a nation and unite to accomplish our goals. He gave us a picture of what our community should look like.

Allah has sent us an even more powerful mind and example in Imam Mohammed, but I contend that most are still grasping to understand how to best implement his concepts and how to best follow his leadership. While beyond the scope of this article, this understanding is essential if the true New Africa is to be manifested.

Imam Mohammed taught us in 1975 that slavery emptied out of us all of our human essence. Therefore, if you put the natural human being back into the person, he or she will begin doing everything that a natural human being does. We will build the schools, businesses, and the institutions we need. So the builders of the New Africa civilization must identify and learn the natural concepts that a natural human being must live and be guided by and then organize and promote these ideas in every form and fashion.

The builders of New Africa would be a community of people that organize to fill up the neighborhoods with messages (words) through books, songs, plays, lectures, discussions, that promote the life-giving concepts. By disseminating this information throughout the community, we shape the womb that feeds the mind of the people in the neighborhoods. This new womb will reform and reshape the minds of the people and produce more sober-minded people to help build New Africa.

To accomplish these things, the need for businesses to generate money becomes apparent and necessary to fulfill the mission. The need for education and dawah becomes critical to learn and teach the concepts and spread the ideas.

One more example of what New Africa builders need to know is the method that Imam Mohammed used to transform the Nation of Islam. If the Imam’s transformation method worked for us, we should be able to use it in the larger community to transform it. He has told us that by changing the language environment, by reinterpreting the concepts that we believed in, he was able to change our thinking. Similarly, New Africa builders should constantly learn the language of Imam Mohammed and identify how to use that language to change the language environment in our neighborhoods. We should organize and implement activities that promote the new language amongst the people.

What distinguishes Imam Mohammed from other leaders has not been the businesses that he has established or the schools or Masjids he has built. What has distinguished him from other leaders has been his powerful insights and interpretations of scripture, the science of human nature and human society, and his ability to read the signs in creation and apply it to highest wisdoms in life. This wisdom, coupled with his new model of character for African American leadership has set him far above the minds and behavior of previous African American and Muslim leaders.

It is upon the basis of these things that New Africa should be built, not the standard teachings that already exist in African American and Islamic thought. For certain, New Africa will establish the practice of religion (prayer, fasting, holidays, etc.) and it will build schools, businesses, and houses of worship. However, these are foundational practices and ideas that one can attain without the wisdom of Imam Mohammed. Let us make sure that we do not latch on to these critical, but basic ideas and overlook the new mind and unique ideas of Imam Mohammed that should be at the core of New Africa. Can we see it? I pray to Allah that we do.