Earl Abdulmalik Mohammed Speaks

IMAM IBRAHIM EL-AMIN: As-Salaam Alaikum Brother Imam. What are your thoughts on, His Excellency, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s efforts to take Saudi Aramco public, in essence, opening one of the kingdom’s most important state-owned companies to international investment? The upcoming IPO is expected to be the largest in history and will surely have broad implications for the social and cultural future of Muslims and their neighbors in the region.

IMAM EARL ABDULMALIK MOHAMMED:  Our relationship as a community, and in terms of our leadership, with the people and rulers of Saudi Arabia goes back many years. Of course all Muslims have Makkah and Madinah in our hearts. Our relationships with them go back to the time of King Khalid and King Faisal. Like most all of the Muslim countries, the Saudi rulers and the learned scholars there were very curious about the Honorable Elijah Mohammed and his following in those days. They formed some opinions about the Honorable Elijah Mohammed's following, and that curiosity eventually developed into religious and strategic interests of them toward us. Sometimes those interests were competing with each other. Imam W. Deen Mohammed influenced me to observe and treat these interests with a sober heart and wide-open eyes. May Allah Grant the Mercy to these honored ones.

The question you are asking I am answering as leader of our People, even though most of the local leaders in our association do not acknowledge me. I know that our People acknowledge me and I am serving them. I must answer with this responsibility in view, and taking into consideration all that I know and have experienced and was taught. I know that those leaders study what I say, as they should, and I know that leaders in other parts of the Muslim world respect what I say. I feel and honor the obligation to our People and our tradition of a special and blessed leadership not to permit the emotional, ill-informed, or stupid among us misrepresent our dignity. I am not a local mosque leader looking for charity. No matter if they acknowledge me or not, the local mosque leaders in our association will be better equipped to answer these important matters when they read what I am saying. I expect that our best business people are also paying attention, and certainly our members will have access to this.

We always feel very good when we hear of successes coming to Muslims. It is no less important to me if it is a Muslim individual or a whole nation, I am always thankful to Allah when I see Muslims doing well and succeeding. I see it as progress for the beauty and excellence of Islamic life. I am especially moved when I know something of the challenges that that People have had to endure or overcome to get to their achievement. I also take it as a responsibility to know details of the life of all Muslim Peoples on the earth. I study their history and the special circumstances of their development, and so I consider myself a student of Muslim Peoples and Muslim communities. I hardly ever mention the specifics of what I have learned because I am not a professor of history and I do not study these things to be looked to as an authority. What I learn helps me understand their decision-making in Islam, how Islam governs and motivates their life, and how they have met the challenges of existence in this world.

Because of Imam W. Deen Mohammed, I was able to experience interactions with the Saudi leadership. He encouraged me, and I studied his interactions with them, the good of those interactions and the not-so-good of them. I paid very close attention to what was comfortable for Imam Mohammed and what was not comfortable for him when he was having interactions with their government leaders and their religious leaders. I paid close attention to what was most important in his discussion, what he emphasized, and what was a consistent theme of emphasis. I put my trust in his vision for what should be the content of our relationships with them. I came to understand and see clearly what he valued and what he thought was potential trouble. I disciplined myself to sharpen my own sentiments, thinking, and language. I wanted to understand what our obligations are to our brothers in the Muslim world and what their obligations are to us. We love them as our brothers in faith and in humanity, and we share their pride as Believers. If Allah shows His Favor on any of us, then we thank Allah for that Favor He has given, and we desire always that those Favors be extended and increased, and that we strengthen ourselves to qualify and be deserving of those Favors.

If you study the Saudi People and the progress they have made as a society, as a People with national identity in less than 100 years, you cannot be anything but deeply moved and impressed with their determinations. Having access to resources is not the same as properly managing them. Managing resources, or wealth, is a high moral obligation. You cannot come to any conclusion except that Allah has Favored them, Helped them, and given them from His Blessed Provisions, and they have managed those Favors honorably. As I have said I have a sober admiration for what I see in them, and I have a wide-awake understanding of their interests toward us, both historically and presently.

I believe that the rulers, by inviting the influence of the learned people in the religion, have made excellent decisions for supporting the infrastructure needed to ensure the safety of Muslims traveling from every place in the world to observe our Islamic ritual obligations of Umrah and Hajj in visiting the Sacred Places at Makkah al-Mukarramah and also Madinah al-Munawwarah, the City of the Prophet. Also, I feel in a way indebted and also thankful for the attention that the Saudi rulers and scholars have given to supporting general education and the teaching of the religion in the proper way all over the world. Three of my children attended the Saudi Islamic Academy High School in the Washington DC area after they finished at Clara Mohammed School, and this high school is considered an outstanding school in the DC area. Not just as a school for Muslim students, but in general.

When I think about the Saudi People, I also see problems and concerns, and some conflicts that make me very uncomfortable. I would not like to mention those problems specifically, only that as a Muslim leader in our tradition following Imam W. Deen Mohammed, that I have them, and that they are very serious. It is not appropriate to mention specific matters unless you are authorized or invited to comment on them by those who are directly involved who have higher knowledge or more information than you do. Sometimes we can observe a behavior but because we don't have all of the information we cannot make a conclusion in certainty. Islamic teachings do not permit us to speculate on any matter.

I congratulate his Royal Highness King Salman and his son the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, on the progress of the Saudi People, and on their efforts to ensure a good and honorable progress. I congratulate and pray to Allah for the broadest and continued success of the Aramco Oil concern, and all that it means for the people of Saudi Arabia and their future as a faithful, stable Muslim society, and as leaders for Islam with Muslim eyes, hearts and minds on them, and the eyes of the moral and immoral world on them. I pray to Allah for more stability and progress in all areas of Saudi society as an Islamic society, and in their Islamic obligations as custodians of the Sacred Places. I will also say to all Muslims around the world, to the Saudi People and their Rulers, and to us here in America, to remember Allah more, to remember more of Islam, and to sin less.