Imam W. D. Mohammed(ra) "The Nation of Islam" Duke University (11/2/92)

Faheem Shuaibe

"I know minister Farrakhan very well we were close friends in the Nation of Islam and that friendship is still there we respect and love each other but we differ, we do have serious differences, how we are to promote progress in the African American community. But I must say as a leader of the Nation of Islam minister Farrakhan in my opinion has made great progress for the Nation of Islam. I don’t mean what he does to help young men to get their life in order to become productive I’m talking also about the image of the Nation of Islam he has really softened the image or position of the Nation of Islam regarding race consciousness and also the attitude towards government. But the paper to me is still anti-government and that is what I’m not comfortable with. If you criticize, I feel as a citizen of these United States, if we want our citizenship if we criticize our government we should criticize it in the interest of seeing it become better not to put it down, that is what I don’t like. But I think Farrakhan has good intentions and I know many of his people have come a long way and made a lot of progress as Muslims." 2/13/2004