Thank you for sharing your "self" with America tonight - in that tough sad moment. You made manifest to each of us the true value of being our authentic self. We forget, individually, that, by allowing the connection to others to flourish - even in pain, we promote the healing of ourself and of each other. Tonight you released the energy of your courage and allowed it to flow into all of us; while you blessed us in your vulnerability. I need that, and thank you.

Praise and thanks be to Allah for sharing this video. I am among those who by Allah's grace to have been touched by the soul raised by Allah within the American and more importantly within the African American community. It was written in short essay entitled " THE SERVANT AS LEADER " about another story by Herman Hesse about a band on a mythical journey . The central figure of the story is LEO who accompanies the party as the SERVANT who does their menial chores , but who sustains them with his spirit and his song. He is a person of extraordinary presence. All goes well until LEO disappears. Then the group falls into disarray and the journey is abandoned. They cannot make it without the servant Leo. The narrator one of the party,after some years of wandering finds Leo and is taken into the Order that had sponsored the journey. There he discovers that Leo , whom he had known first as servant , was in fact the leader of the Order , its guiding spirit , a great and noble leader. I relate this story because it illustrates a very important point. Imam Mohammed had a very unique role to play in our history. Some of his contemporaries did not understand his leadership or style of leadership. I embrace the theory that is advanced by the writer of this essay regarding the role of those special persons who in the course of time have spoken with great clarity and who possessed a unique insight. He shared an equal stature of some of the greatest thinkers of the past. He addressed the problems of the day and pointed to a better way for others to live life more fruitfully and abundantly. He grew in stature as people responded to his message of the Quran and it will continue to grow although he is not among us physically .His message will last as long as that message is not ignored. Farid Ansari Providence , Rhode Island