New Nation of Islam leader praises Obama’s character
New Nation of Islam leader Marvin Muhammad says he has learned some lessons on resiliency, courage and humility from President Barack Obama’s display of character throughout a challenging presidency.
Muhammad, 61, who describes himself as “The Son of Man” and the teacher of Allah’s word and works, said he misunderstood Obama the candidate initially and did not vote for him.
“But after I saw how he conducted himself (in the White House), I realized I had misjudged him,” Muhammad said. “President Obama has brought me honor and honor to all black people.”
Muhammad, has often served as a Black History Month speaker at Southern University and is scheduled to do so again at 6 p.m. Thursday in the Southern University Nursing School Auditorium. This year’s topic: “The First Term of the First Black President: Is President Obama Good for America and Black People.”
Muhammad traveled from Mississippi to Baton Rouge to speak with The Advocate about his upcoming speech as well as his ongoing ministry,
He noted how Obama has faced racist insults, attacks on his identity and criticism about his leadership, yet he has run a dignified presidency. During Obama‘s health care address to Congress in 2009, U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, a South Carolina Republican, yelled out to Obama, ‘you lie,’ Muhammad said. Obama did not blast the man or attack him, but rather accepted the congressman’s apology.
“It’s not that he (Obama) didn’t know he’d been insulted or that racism would occur,” Muhammad said. He handled the situation with dignity and did not give into a screaming or shouting match, he said.
Obama’s attitude toward the Gulf Oil spill in 2010 was another example of his character, Muhammad said. “Obama said the people elected me to solve the problem and not to vent.” Obama is also a champion for the cause of the middle class, he has helped bail America out of a severe economic downturn and he wants to protect and promote small businesses, Muhammad said.
“Obama is not just the president for black people but for America. His job is not just to cater to us but for the whole nation,” Muhammad said.
Born the son of sharecroppers in Leland, Miss., Muhammad grew up in Los Angeles, but returned to Mississippi, where he lives in Lorman and established his University of the New Islam in Fayette for children in grades one through college-level.
A new school building is under construction, and he said he plans to continue expanding the program. In his magazine, “The Son and the Sun of Man Speaks,” Muhammad requests $100 million in funding toward the building of the New Nation of Islam.
Muhammad, who also works as a carpenter and barber, said his mission from Allah is to help raise people out of a spiritual grave or a sort of “dream world or matrix” in which they see the physical but miss the spiritual. He said the spiritual grave is a result of people’s own misunderstandings of the Scriptures because of tampering with and mistranslation of the Bible, he said.
“I’m here to make war on false ideologies,” he said, explaining he draws his teaching points from the Bible and the Quran and that one needs to study the Quran to understand the mysteries of the Bible. One false ideology in the physical world is materialism, he said.
“Look at all the people chasing money, and they think that will give them peace,” Muhammad said. “And yet look at those with money: Are they really with peace? Only God can give you peace. The Bible says to ‘seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.’”
Muhammad grew up in Christian churches and attended such activities as vacation Bible school. “That experience was necessary,” he said.
He converted to Islam in 1973 after attending a speech given by Elijah Muhammad, who led the Nation of Islam at the time. Louis Farrakhan is the current leader of the Nation of Islam.
Marvin Muhammad’s ministry under the New Nation of Islam is operated separately from the Nation of Islam.
Armed with Elijah Muhammad’s teachings, Marvin Muhammad said he moved to Mississippi soon after to build the foundation for a new nation (a new Jerusalem), teaching his people to awake to the understanding of righteousness, to come together as a new black nation and to do for self.
In his monthly magazine, Marvin Muhammad also described himself as the verifier of God’s messengers. “Allah promised all of the Messengers (including Jesus, Moses and David) a Son that would verify what they were teaching. So that is me. I’m the ‘Verifer,’” he wrote.
He said Genesis 15:13-14, which describes how Abram’s seed would be a stranger in a land not theirs, serving them and they would be afflicted for 400 years, refers to the slavery occurring to Africans/blacks. That 400 years of slavery produced the vessel, Son of Man, “who is I,” Muhammad said.
He said he does not harbor resentment toward white people. All people share the same bloodline, he said.
“White people came out of us so how can we condemn them? I recognize the white man’s accomplishments and I see the good and the bad that he has done,” Muhammad said.
When he speaks to people about how to treat one another, he said he leaves them with the message to “honor and respect as you would like men to do to you.”
He said about 3,000 people tune in to his live video conferences each Sunday and his website received about 714,800 hits in 2011 from more than 65 countries.
“Whenever I deliver an address, it will be delivered via Internet in real time and across the country where listeners can also participate,” he said. “Without this technology we couldn’t do this (outreach).”
ä ON THE INTERNET:
http://www.thenewnationofislam.com
This story was updated on Feb. 6, 2012 to correct the date Marvin Muhammad converted to Islam and his ministry’s Internet address.