So before I get involved in anything nowadays, I have to straighten out my own position, which is clear. I am not a racist in any form whatsoever. I don’t believe in any form of racism. I don’t believe in any form of discrimination or segregation. I believe in Islam. I am a Muslim. And there’s nothing wrong with being a Muslim, nothing wrong with the religion of Islam. It just teaches us to believe in Allah as the God. Those of you who are Christians probably believe in the same God, because I think you believe in the God who created the universe. That’s the One we believe in, the one who created the universe, the only difference being you call Him God and I–we call Him Allah. The Jews call him Jehovah. If you could understand Hebrew, you’d probably call him Jehovah too. If you could understand Arabic, you’d probably call him Allah.
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And also in that religion, of the real religion of Islam–when I was in the Black Muslim movement, I wasn’t–they didn’t have the real religion of Islam in that movement. It was something else. And the real religion of Islam doesn’t teach anyone to judge another human being by the color of his skin. The yardstick that is used by the Muslim to measure another man is not the man’s color but the man’s deeds, the man’s conscious behavior, the man’s intentions. And when you use that as a standard of measurement or judgment, you never go wrong.
But when you just judge a man because of the color of his skin, then you’re committing a crime, because that’s the worst kind of judgment. If you judged him just because he was a Jew, that’s not as bad as judging him because he’s Black. Because a Jew can hide his religion. He can say he’s something else–and which a lot of them do that, they say they’re something else. But the Black man can’t hide. When they start indicting us because of our color that means we’re indicted before we’re born, which is the worst kind of crime that can be committed. The Muslim religion has eliminated all tendencies to judge a man according to the color of his skin, but rather the judgment is based upon his deeds.
