- The World Islamic People’s Leadership
- 2nd International Islamic Conference (NOI.org, Feb./2000)
(FinalCall.com) – The World Islamic People’s Leadership was organized in September 1989, in Benghazi, Tripoli, Libya by Muammar Gadhafi. The second year after it was established, Minister Louis Farrakhan was appointed the deputy. Every four years, they convene to look at the condition of the Muslim world. The theme of this year’s conference was “And hold fast, all of you together to the rope of Allah, and be not divided among yourselves,” with focus on excesses and extremism in Islam. During the conference, delegates made reports on their particular areas, and offered plans for work that can be done to strengthen the Muslim world.
Representatives from 87 nations met in Tripoli, Libya Nov. 26-30. At the close of the meeting, the Gadhafi Prize was awarded to Dr. Mahathir bin Muhammad, the former president of Malaysia. He pulled no punches in delivering a hard-hitting speech to the Muslims and Western world.
The World Islamic People’s Leadership, under the direction of Secretary-General Dr. Muhammad Ahmed Sherif, called a preliminary meeting in the Maldives before this assembly in Tripoli. Again, to this meeting, he invited the deputy of the World Islamic People’s Leadership, Minister Louis Farrakhan.
›Minister Farrakhan was one of the speakers to open the conference, addressing the delegates from all over the world on unity and standing on principles. This was “the protection of the Faith,” he explained.
During the conference, their was a presentation of two papers that set the theme for dialogue and interventions. The first paper titled, “The Concept of Ummah between Essence and Reality,” by Atty. Prof. Ibrahim Al-Ghwail from Libya and the second, titled “The Origins of Excesses in Modern Societies: Reasons, Manifestations and Solutions,” by Dr. Abdullah Mohammed Sayed Ahmed from the Sudan. Minister Farrakhan was asked to respond to the papers, as well as to discuss his approach to how Muslims must address their community and the greater community when they live in countries that are predominately non-Muslim. The delegates to the conference called for a separate meeting with Minister Farrakhan to discuss his methodology in detail.
Minister Farrakhan counseled that the Holy Qur’an admonishes the believers to avoid extremes and adopt the path of moderation. He counseled that one extreme usually is the producer of another. What we are looking at in the Muslim World is the extremism, radicalism and the so-called terrorism as an extreme reaction to a cause that emanated from within deviation from the path of the Prophet and exacerbated by the Western World. During and after World War I, the Western World was determined to destroy the Caliphat and unity of the Muslims, breaking up their lands and carving out small nations with their own individual constitution and flags that would ensure that Prophet Muhammad’s idea of one Nation of Islam with no borders between Muslims would never be realized.
Minister Farrakhan further warned that even though the majority of Muslims are in disagreement with the killing of innocent people for political purposes, he said that, “We as Muslims believe that everything that happens is either the active or permissive Will of Allah (God).” Then, we have to ask the question, why does Allah (God) permit such acts that are so extreme? It is so the voice of moderation can ultimately be heard by the forces that have created this extreme reaction to their extreme persecution of Muslims. If it were not for the radical and so-called extremist in our struggle in the United States of America, the moderates like Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Big Six of Civil Rights would never have been heard by the United States Government.
In another intervention, responding to the question of his methodology inside of America, the Minister spoke concerning the fact that he never tries or uses the word conversion when he speaks to Christians or Jews, because the Holy Qur’an teaches that all human beings are created in the nature of God except the rebellious devil so all that is needed is to feed the nature of the human being with truth and the human being will evolve into submission to the Will of Allah (God).
Minister Farrakhan commented on Al-Ahzar University in Cairo, Egypt, which is over 1,000 years old and has 30,000 students from 95 countries. He was saddened to learn from one of the sheikhs from Al-Ahzar that the school was under threat of being dismantled. The sheikh explained that there is a desire by anti-Islamic forces to have students only attend school in their countries, i.e. if they were in egypt they would only attend Islamic universities in Egypt, if they were in Syria they would only attend Islamic universities in Syria, or if they were in Pakistan they would only attend Islamic universities in Pakistan. Minister Farrakhan expressed that it is that that would destroy the communication of Muslims in giving the students an international view of their religion. He further pointed out that it is the oldest Islamic university in the world, and that at all costs, we must protect and save Al-Ahzar University.
The reception of Minister Farrakhan was overwhelming, as delegates from countries all over the world extended invitations to him to visit their countries–from Spain to Madagascar, from Russia to Indonesia, they begged Minister Farrakhan to speak to their people. One delegate from Pakistan described it the best, when he told a member of Minister Farrakhan’s delegation that Minister Farrakhan’s words touched his heart; that he could feel the Minister at the core of his very soul. Minister Farrakhan discussed the value of dialogue, but he said that dialogue must be balanced.
The delegates had an opportunity to visit the compound of the leader of the Libyan Revolution and the Commander of the World Islamic People’s Leadership, Brother Muammar Gadhafi. Bro. Gadhafi was overjoyed at seeing Minister Farrakhan. When he walked into the auditorium, he put his hands in the gesture of unity to Minister Farrakhan, who was sitting on the front row.
Bro. Gadhafi’s discussion was based on persecuton of Muslims and the destruction of the Holy Book. He asked the question, “What are we doing to stop the extreme behavior on the part of governments that are frightened of the emergence of Islam.?” He stressed that Muslims must take a course of action to defend their faith. “What has been done since the desecration of the Holy Qur’an at Guantanamo? What have we done to show our disgust at the torture of Muslims at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo?” he asked. “We must not stand by and watch Muslims be tortured and say nothing,” he added.
He also pointed out Bro. Farrakhan’s work as an example of what can be done, and mentioned Minister Farrakhan’s desire to visit Guantanamo, for which permission was denied.
At the conclusion of his remarks, he moved immediately to embrace the new Grand Mufti of Syria, Sheikh Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun and Minister Farrakhan.
(For more information or comments, please email Minister A. Akbar Muhammad International Representative of the Nation of Islam and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan at [email protected])
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