ATH: Imam W. D. Mohammed(ra) Al-Islam and Nationalism

"So, we have a great problem of identity. If any psychologist today who is true to his profession would write on the state of the African-Americans, that the problem we had twenty years ago, fifty years ago, has not gone away, there is still a problem of identity conflict in the Black people of America. That is the reality. Now, this religion with its plain, clear guidance, gives us a new identity in a natural way.

Another thing we   have to understand is that ethnicity is one concept and Nationalism is another concept. Universality is still another concept. Now, let us look at something. Progress has depended on what? On leadership holding to a course, on leadership holding to a line of direction. That is what progress has depended on. Dear beloved people, that preserves for us a form of life. If you do not have a form of life that you conform to, then you are going constantly out of one form into another. You are a French man today, a Mexican tomorrow, a Spanish—you are just jumping from one form to another. But if you have a line of direction for your life, if you have a comfortable mold for yourself, then the world will not see you jumping in and out of these crazy bags.

They had us in dashikis about ten years ago. All of us were wearing dashikis and Afros, we had gone African. The average one of us was trying to identify with the African look. This was a reality about ten years or more ago. Since that time, look how we have been so confused. He is wearing paratroopers' bloomers, he is a Captain Hook—just give him any kind of image because he does not have a constant | form. You do not have a grasp on your own reality. And we have the answer.

So, dear, people, let us get out of this crazy thing and bring our ethnicity to grips, and be able to live in an ethnic body that is constant, consistent. We need to follow Imam Warith Deen Muhammad." Imam Mohammed (ra) In Harlem