We had a meeting in this area, I think it was Restoration Plaza, Community
Board 3, I think,
and everybody was up in arms about the drugs, the drugs was crazy.
And we found out at that meeting, or could have been at boys and girls
high school,
we found out that they had set a police, city administration,
and the thing that we learned, became aware from that meeting,
they don't have an answer, don't have an answer.
So, I'm thinking
what can we do? That's when Allah blessed me with the idea, you
know what,
let's have a 40 day anti drug campaign,
almost like revelation, wasn't revelation, I don't think... Well, I was
saying why 40 days? What was the... Look at the significance, 40 days,
40 night rain, 40 days and 40 nights, and the kind of significance in
the Qu'ran says, Allah says that a man reaches his full strength at
age of 40. So, kinda symbolic 40, right? And we thought that's enough
time to really do some real stuff 'cause if we did a five
days, this is a joke, even a week they'll be back.
So, I went and spoke to the commander of the 79th
and the burough president
of the Brooklyn North, Rayford, Chief Rayford, I think it was,
and I said, "You know, I got an idea
what we can do something real and that is
I propose that we have
on January 21st this big anti drug rally."
And at that point
we have 15 drug houses, "We want you to raid, you raid those
15 drug houses and get them out." I said, "In the past,
the problem hasn't been raiding these joints and getting them out,
but they come back." I said to them, "If you get them out,
we'll keep them out, we'll be your partners." They liked it,
and we've met with the highest brass,
so they did it. We had this big rally,
I gave them the signal,
and you could have seen it, you should have seen it
all at once they raided all 15 of those drug houses.
As soon as they raid them, they arrested them,
we put our men in front of it, and told people
no more drugs being sold here. So, at
first the drug dealers said, "Yeah, they'll do that for a couple of
days." But when they saw we were serious, 40 days and 40 nights
in the cold, freezing cold.
Sometimes the numbers got real low, like three or four brothers.
I remember one Saturday morning, man, we had a handful of brothers here,
the brothers kinda getting demoralized a little bit,
so I went to a Masjid called Masjid Makki Jami on Coney Island Avenue
at Fajr prayer, and I told him what we were doing,
the Pakistani Muslims, I said, "I want some reinforcements."
They came with me, they followed me, about 30 cars, 30 carloads of
brothers,
and when the brothers saw them, it was only for a little bit,
part of a day, but can you imagine
what it did to them, their spirits? And every once in a while,
we get an influx of people coming 'cause everybody want, now everybody wanna
become part of the patrols, it's historic,
the media's covering it. And what happened, again, divine intervention,
those
crack houses closed and never opened up again.
Sister comes here for Jummah told me, in number of occasions,
she said, "Imam, I used to be mad at you." I said, "Why?" She says, "You
know you had those anti drug controls, I used to cop my drugs
from one of these houses."
Now she's a Muslim.
You see the good, when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala blesses you it adds good
upon good upon good upon good. There was a drug dealer that I
never forget he was one... Very black guy, looked African,
during the end of the patrols,
maybe day after, two days after, he's across the street, on Fulton Street
in Bedford on the north side sitting down,
and I sat down next to him and said, "What's happening?"
'Cause I talk to people, you know what I'm saying, I talk to
them, my people. He said, "You know what, you guys put us out
of business." I said, "Let me tell you something better than that business
is Islam." The man took Shahada. I said, "La ilaha illa Allah, Muhammad
ur rasul Allah" He took Shahada. So,
and then slowly we blew it, 'cause we should have bought up everything
in this neighborhood,
smart people saw it and they saw what happened.
What we did was so famous as it was on major newspaper, every
newspaper, every newspaper in the world, they came, they covered it.
And in every once in a while, one or two police would be
on our patrols with us,
so they'd taken that partnership. People used to... We have the bus comes
on the Fulton Street, Fulton street bus
and you got the one who comes around I think
comes around and I don't know which bus that is. But anyway,
people when they used to pass us by,
everybody on the other side of the bus will come on this side
and they say, "There they are, there they are." You can see it,
the pride. A Jehovah Witness, old woman, never forget, one day,
she came into the Masjid, she said, "I'm a Jehovah's Witness,
I used to hate Muslims, but now I love Muslims."