Imam W. Deen Mohammed in a speech given in Baltimore, Md. entitled “A Spiritual and Community Vision: Building Upon Faith in G-d, Contributing to the Improvement of Our Neighborhoods and the Moral and Financial Strength of our Families” said: “We have a need in our souls asking us to accept responsibility. And for those of us who have been trying to be responsible, that need in our souls is asking us to accept even more responsibility, so that we will be able to establish and be responsible for community structures as much as possible, without us depending on other communities.
I am speaking of us as Black Muslims, as we have been called. I am speaking of us as African American Muslims, and in particular of us as the following of M.A.S. – the Muslim American Society. Most important among these structures that we hope to establish and be responsible for is to serve the concerns of our spiritual life and our academic interests and our business life. Soon, we hope to realize the model for our life in society. We hope to have structures built from the ground up, structures that will accommodate our needs to increase the number of our private schools and to make great improvements on those private schools that are now in existence.
We hope also to have among those structures that we will be building up from the ground social centers, Islamic theaters. That is, theaters that will give our people in the performing arts room and opportunity to express their Islamic life, their Islamic taste and their Islamic spirit through the performing arts. We hope also to have soon industry. We hope soon to have financial institutions, all built by us, produced by us and managed by us.
The primary motivation is not to have theaters for entertainment’s sake or to have it for education’s sake or for business’ sake or money’s sake. The primary motivation forming our vision for life and its future is our life of faith as Muslims – faith in G-d, which has inspired in us a new effort for the establishment of our self-respect as a group, as a race, as Muslims and in our human dignity.”
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The True Light 