04/04/1997
IWDM Study Library
Improving Our Individual Worth

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Improving Our Individual Worth was recorded Friday April the 4th 1997 at the Martin Luther King Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The lecturer is Imam WD Mohammed Muslim-Americans spokesman and now Imam W D Mohammed.
Imam WD Mohammed: Thank you, praise be to G-d the creator of us all, we witness that He is one who has made everything and made everything to have honor and respect. And today our topic is individual worth recognizing individual worth. The way we intend to go about this topic or go about addressing or explaining to you what this topic is about, may make you think at times that I'm really not aware of my topic but I am. First, I would like to say that we again happy to be here in Milwaukee, this beautiful spring day and to have the special opportunity to address these youngsters, young men, young women that have been brought here. And we hope that they will appreciate, or we will have something to offer to their ears that they will appreciate.
We are Muslims but that shouldn't make any Christian feel uncomfortable because we are Muslims who understand that G-d cares for all of us not just for Muslims. G-d cares for all of us and we understand that G-d gave His guidance, His instructions to the prophets of the New Testament, the Testament of Jesus Christ upon him be peace, the Gospel of Jesus Christ so whatever we might call that New Testament. And we know that the same G-d who cares for us all gave the Old Testament to the people, for the Christians, the Jews and those who were before the Christians called Hebrews or by other names.
We're here in this center and we are reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr too of his great life and his great sacrifices he made, the great gifts he left with us to help make life better for all people. Firstly, for those who were denied their rights, but for all people. So, we respect him and, on this day, we pray for his soul that is in heaven, we feel sure of that, we pray for his soul. I'm aware that this G-d that created everything has many names, we say Allah, that's the common name with us for G-d, but Christians who speak Arabic they’re Christians, there are Christian Arabs who speak Arabic and they have been Christians since the time of Christianity. They were Christians before Al-Islam came to that part of the world, Al-Islam or the Quran and Muslims that came to the world what is called the Middle East, Arabia and that part of the world near Africa and Africa, North Africa and those parts about 1,400 years ago and little better. Before the birth of that new idea in the world, people were speaking Arabic in those parts and Allah meant G-d for them and Allah means G-d for them now.
So, we have people in that part of the world where Muslims are in the majority as speaking Arabic and that's their language that they have inherited that language from their forefathers and mothers and they call G-d Allah. We over here in America we seem to take things and make them all over again. We have a tendency to want to make things new, we want to make things in our own way and we want to make it so we like it.
Many have taken even Al-Islam and made it so they will like it, and they have made it different and it's not really Al-Islam as we see Al-Islam in the world and they have even taken the name G-d Allah in Arabic Allah and they have made that name mean something different from what it really means in most of the Islamic world. Which there are numbers of people in the Islamic world are one billion people now. One of out of every five individuals on earth. If we could count them that way would be a Muslim. One out of every five would be a Muslim because there's a little over five billion people on earth now and Muslims are a little over one billion Muslims on earth. And Muslims are not just black and not just white, Muslims are all colors. Muslims are brown like the Indonesians, the largest Muslim country in the world in terms of how many Muslims are there. Indonesia is brown people and Albania and Turkey and some other countries, even Syria are white people and the people of Nigeria and Sudan and other places of black skinned people are all over.
The Chinese people are called the yellow people, there are many Muslims in China, millions of Muslims in China, so Muslims all over and Muslims are all colors, Muslims are many nations and many ethnicities that we have on this planet earth. I'm just doing this to quickly acquaint you with Muslims because I am a Muslim and I want to feel comfortable here with you and I want you to feel comfortable with me. Now I recall working on a job as a welder. I lost my good comfortable place with my father because I differed with him about the belief in G-d. He had taught me all of my life to see Allah as a man, and as I got older and studied the book of Muslims that he also had, he had it too. But he was looking at it differently. My mind got to be freer and I started to look at it with an independent mind.
I started to see G-d differently, I didn't see the holy book of Muslims saying any place that G-d is a man. But to the contrary it was saying G-d is not anything that can be killed or that can be hurt or that can get sick or that can get tired. G-d is above all these limitations that we have as human beings. I said, well this man that my father told me was G-d he got sick. They told me he had a cold and they told me that he used to ask for tissues and handkerchief to blow his nose. I said, this man had to eat food. They told me he would say he was hungry and they would prepare him a meal, so that couldn't be my G-d, that man couldn't be my G-d anymore.
When I told my father that he didn't like that and he said, “This will make trouble in our community if you talk this way. So, if you're going to stick to that, if you're going to hold to that idea then I have to put you out.” So, he put me out of the community. They call it being put out of the Nation of Islam. He put me out of the community and he told me, “So, you know what this mean? You won't be to see your mother.” He told me that so it'll be very hard on me, he thought maybe I would say well I changed my mind, I'll stay here. But no. G-d was more important to me than my own life or anything. I told him I couldn't change so he put me out.
I had no other employment, I had worked for the Muslim businesses all my life so I had no other employment. So, when I went outside looking for employment. They say, well, where were you employed before, I say for the Muslims. Back then in those days the Muslims weren't looked at very friendly by the establishment. They didn't want to hire the son of Elijah Muhammad. I had a very hard time. So, someone suggested to me, maybe you should do what your brother did, who went out and got a job on his own, change your name. So, I did, I changed my name to Wallace Delaney and I got a social security card in Wallace Delaney and then I got a job.
Finally, I got a good job, I went to training schooling for six weeks and I trained to be a combination welder and eventually I got a good job. Now, I'm working on this job in this factory C &B Welders in Chicago Southside, and my supervisor he's with us, we getting ready to start the morning and he said, “well, Wallace let's get started.” I said, okay, so we went to the workbench to start on the work and he said, such is life. Expressions would rarely stick in my mind. I wondered why he would say such is life. He says, such is life. I started doing something, he said, “Do you know what you’re doing there Wallace?” I said, "I think I do." He said, let me tell you something, a little story. There was a fella, he was supervising a bunch of guys like I’m doing.
He said, “the guys would do things in a wrong way and they would insist that they were doing it the right way.” I said, no, I said, you are my boss I am not going to do it wrong. He said, “no, no, let me tell you the story.” He said, “they were insisting that they were doing it the right way. He would ask and say who told you to do it like that?” He said, “They were trying to give some explanation.” Then he would ask another one, “what are you doing there?”
And they would say, “I know how to handle this.” He said, “who taught you that?” They all would have to try to think who told them to do it that way. Who taught them that. When he finally asked all of them, he told all of them he said, “All of you told me that somebody else taught you to do that, somebody else taught you that, for what do you know on our own?”
The answer is nothing. I don’t know anything on my own. W.D Mohammed, Wallace D. Mohammed I know nothing on my own. I came into this world knowing absolutely nothing and everything I know came from somebody else. I may learn to reason and come up with new ideas, but if I trace it back where it started, it started with somebody else.
And the first human being that was put on this earth knew nothing. We got all of his knowledge we call Adam or Adam and Eve or whatever we want to call the first people, they got all their knowledge from what G-d made. They knew absolutely nothing until they got knowledge from what the Creator did, from what the Creator made.
Respect for the individual person. G-d created every individual person to be able to manage life, manage living, but the world eventually becomes man’s world. And when the world becomes man’s world, we have to live under rules that we decide upon together. The town’s people decide upon the rules that will govern their town etcetera. So, now we live under man’s rule, we live in man’s environment, and we live under man’s rule. So, the test for us becomes much greater.
If each one of us had been born like Adam and Eve were born, we would come into a good life. But we are not born like that, the world has changed, man’s world is here now. And man has learned something over the centuries of living and dying nations, not people. Living and dying nations. Nations have lived and died.
Worlds of men have lived and died and man is finally learning something. He is learning that he can’t manage all that he had thought he could manage. Our President now is calling for more help, President Bill Clinton. He’s asking for more people to help him. The world leaders not only our president, in Russia, in China, Europe, in Africa, everywhere leaders are beginning to realize that man took on more than he could be responsible for and he needs more help.
We hope that these leaders are beginning to believe that they need more help from their Creator, the Lord G-d that did all of this and made everything possible for us. We hope they are learning that lesson too and I believe they are. But definitely they’re learning that they can’t be as bold in their actions as the were in generations gone by. They have to be more considerate of respect, for the individual worth and for the individual intelligence, for the honor and respect that G-d created each human being for.
G-d created each human being for honor and respect. Your human person is what makes you deserve that honor and that respect. It’s not that you’re black, that’s not why you deserve that honor and respect. It’s not that you’re white that you deserve that honor and respect. It’s that you’re human that you deserve that honor and that respect.
Now we know honor and respect has to be given also to achievements. So, the person who has the achievements, whether it’s achievements of moral nature, achievements of moral character or achievements of intelligence, academic achievements, or achievements of just success in the world. We have to give respect to that, but no respect is greater than the respect that is due the human person as a human creation, except respect for that one that made that possible, and that is the Creator.
My son Saddi, we call him Saddi. His real name is Sadjiddeen Muhammad, but we call him Saddi. Saddi has a mind of his own and I do too, that’s why I differed with my father, I guess. Saddi has a mind of his own and I have learned that. So, I don’t waste a lot of my time and end up being frustrated, and worn out by Saddi.
If Saddi says something and I see he’s serious I just listen because I don’t want to wrestle with Saddi. He wrestles with you until the sun comes up and goes down again. Anyway, Saddi recently, last three or four years he had a big change in his life. Saddi used to be very hard to even speak to, to say, "Good morning Saddi."
Saddi would come back and give you some words, make you wish you had just kept walking maybe. Anyway, I want to share this with you because it made me feel awful good. I’m a praying man, I believe in praying to G-d, and Saddi knows that, that’s my son. I came to Saddi’s house to bring him something. He asked me to bring him something, I brought it to him. Saddi opens the door, he’s a man now, he’s living on his own.
He has no wife, but he got two children. He has a little girl and a little boy, our grandchildren. Saddi came to the door, its clean up week. So, they came to the door with him. Hey come in, let me see my sweetie. So, I greeted them all and I was in a hurry because I was on a business errand. Saddi says daddy, it’s time to pray.
We pray at certain times. Muslims pray at certain times. We’re supposed to do that unless something very important interferes with that we’re supposed to pray at that time. Saddi said “daddy, it’s time to pray. And I want you to know that really doing this has been the help in my life. Nothing else helped me, but this.” So, he didn’t say daddy come in. I was standing outside the door, I was just bringing him something, I wasn’t going to go inside his apartment.
He didn’t say daddy come in and pray. If he had said that I would have come in and prayed with him. But I know he was inviting me to come in and pray because he reminded me of the time to pray. I really was hurt. It was hurting me to walk away from his door. And as I was walking away, I said Saddi I’m in travel. I said Muslims are permitted to pray when they travel. I said you can ask your brothers who travel with me I pray in the car. He said “daddy, I remember that. You taught us to do that too.” He made feel very good. I still feel bad though because I should’ve went into that apartment with Saddi and prayed with him.
Individual worth. What is responsible for Saddi coming into this new mind now that’s making him deal with his father with more respect and deal with matters with more respect? Saddi is back in school, he’s in college now, he’s gone back to school. He dropped out of high school, he went back and took the GED. He's in the South Suburban College now. They selected him to represent math in his class and for his school. They asked him to join a special group of students. He refused to join the special group. And I think he made the right decision. Because his life has been under a lot of pressure. It’s still under a lot of pressure. And he didn't want to take on too much pressure. I think he made the right decision but at least he was offered to join a special group of students. We feel very proud of this. What accounts for that, what explains Saddi being able to do that it’s his mother, yes. His mother, she got so sick of being just tormented and worried to death about Saddi she was almost dying herself. In fact, I was dying a little bit too every weekend. Saddi came close to death twice, twice close to death. He got pierced through lungs with a metal object, a guy stubbed him in his back pierced his lungs, that was one time. He was sitting in a car a guy shot in the car and killed his friend sitting next to him and the bullet cut through his scalp of his head but he lived.
Yes, some credit goes to his mother who said, Saddi came to his mother said, "Mama I don't know what to do with myself." He asked her, he apologized to her for the worry he caused her. She says, "Saddi I'm going to take you with me when I go to the mosque.” We call the place we go to worship not church we call it mosque we don't call it church we call it mosque. The place of worship is the same. She said, "I'm taking you to the mosque with me every Friday." That's the most holiest day for Muslim is Friday. "Every Friday," she says and you're going to have to beat me up or kill me to keep me from doing it. Saddi says, "Mama I'll go to mosque with you." Saddi started going to mosque with his mother. She didn't just take him to the black people's place of worship, she took him downtown where different nationalities, different racial mix was there. And also, to the place on the south side where we are all the people that are responsible for that mosque.
Saddi eventually started going on his own, he eventually started telling his mother, "Come on Mama let's go, are you going today, you going to pick me up?" Because he didn't have a car at the time. He said, "Are you going to pick me up?" She would still go by and pick him up. She yes, she is to be given a lot of credit for what role she had in bringing change about for Saddi. But most of all is Saddi's own human self, that's to be given the credit.
G-d says to us that no one can have a change for the better not even a nation. If you in the United States get in trouble and it wants to change for the better, G-d says, "No individual and no nation can have change for the better unless they first have change from the way they think inside their own bodies, or inside their own minds, inside their own souls. We have to have a change inside before we could have a real change outside. The change inside comes about because we start to respect the individual worth. I'm not a tool, I'm not a doll, I'm a human being and a human being is the most special thing in this whole universe the human being except G-d. G-d said He made the human being if the human being will just conform, obey, respect, the best that the human being is. G-d says He made the human being even a bit higher than angels, a bit higher than angels. Really there's nothing created that's more precious, more deserving of respect and honor than the human person that G-d made, the human person that G-d made. The world makes us all over. I hope we all will be successful in coming back to the human person in us that G-d made.
No human person is born with a bad nature, a bad soul. Every human being is born innocent and good. We can get the evidence of this by just going to the hospitals, to the nursery today where little babies are just born and you won't see any tendency in those babies to be bad. They all are good, they all respond to your kindness, they all respond to your affection, they respond to your goodness, they will love you if you really love them. And G-d has given them a protection, a psychological defense. You can't fool a baby, you can’t fool the infant. You can have bad in your heart, bad intentions for that infant and you pick it up smiling, you be faking a smile, you're faking love and that infant starts to cry. That infant starts crying because G-d has given it a mechanism that registers that this person is not truthful to me, this person is not true this is a liar.
Wonderful creation the human person. What a wonderful creation the human person is. All of us start out good and innocent. Not only that, G-d says things that He made them in the purposes He made them for and as He left them for man was good. Even man as G-d left man was good. G-d says this. I'm giving you the Bible because most of you are Christian oriented, you're familiar with Christianity. G-d says in the Christian Bible that He made things on the first day, second day, third day, fourth day, fifth day, sixth day and the seventh day He rested from His works. It says that G-d says, “He beheld”, that mean in G-d's judgment everything was good, that everything that He made was good. Actually, He had made man too on the sixth day, He made man on the sixth day so that means man too. Then later the Bible says, G-d says. It's in the Bible, it's revealed in the Bible through the prophets from the Bible, that the man was made and that he was not good it was not good. The man sinned and it was not good. He sinned, he did the thing that G-d had given him a conscience to stay away from, he did it, he went to and he did it so then it was trouble.
Where is the explanation for that? Here is the explanation. G-d made the man and then Satan, the devil, the thing that comes in us that has no respect for G-d. The thing that comes in us that has no respect for truth, righteousness, fairness et cetera. That thing came into this person and he disobeyed G-d and listened to that thing. His conscience was created to say no to such invitations, to say no to such advice. But he didn't obey his conscience, he disobeyed G-d. When you disobey your good conscience is the same as you disobeying G-d. So, he disobeyed his better conscience and he did the thing that was suggested to him through his rational mind and this is called the Satan. Acting through your rational mind to tell you to come out of the decency that you respect and do the indecent thing or the wrong thing. That's called the Satan acting through your own rational mind, the devil. So, when this happened the man sinned, but the man wasn't acting upon what G-d had given him as an authority. G-d had given him his better conscience as an authority. And now he comes and accepts the worst invitation from himself and ignores his better conscience and gets into trouble. The man is not bad because G-d made the man bad, the man is bad because he disobeyed his better conscience. G-d made everything good. Everything was put into existence for the good of families and for the good of publics. When I say publics I'm talking about city, town, neighborhood, whatever public situation you think ourselves to be living in, I'm talking about public situations. So, G-d made everything and put everything into existence for the good of individuals I have to include too, families and publics, everything. G-d tells us in our holy book the Quran similar to what I find in the Bible, Genesis too. That we should look to the skies and see that space up there and how stars are so numerous up there and the space is so unlimited.
We don't know a lot of things, astronomers as much as they have studied the skies. Scientific studies have been made of the skies with telescope. Powerful telescope that can reach millions and millions of light years into the space, still they don't know the end of it. Isn't that something? Nobody knows the end of the skies, nobody knows if you travel and travel through the skies on a rocket or on a spaceship for thousands of years what you'll find at the end of it, nobody knows. Nobody knows the end of space. And G-d says, “that G-d has made the human mind to be free, to travel through space.”
We sitting right here right now we're traveling in the sky, aren't we? I'm talking about the sky and I'm sure your mind is on the sky. Your mind is not in this room right now. In this center, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr Center. Your mind is in the sky with me, we're traveling in the sky. And your mind can to go up in the sky and travel and travel and travel. And G-d says, everything you come upon, everything you see, everything you come upon, G-d made that to be a benefit to you. He didn't make that for the black or for the white or for the red or for the brown, made it for every human being to be a benefit to you. Now, if you could stretch your mind a little bit, and imagine this, it's real, it's not an imagination, it’s absolutely real.
The sun is given to you, G-d made the sun for you. The star, the biggest star in our solar system in our family of stars that we belong to. I should say planet because our planets are not true stars scientifically speaking. The biggest planet in our family of planets is Jupiter. And Jupiter was made for you. Mercury is the smallest and closest to the sun. Mercury was made for you. G-d made the clouds, the wind, the rain, everything, the sunshine, the earth, the rivers, the lakes, the oceans, the trees, the minerals, the resources in the earth, made all that for you. All of us can't enjoy that physically. I can't physically pick up these things in my hands and enjoy them. And say, “I'll take them in my home if I want to.” No, it's impossible, it's too big, it's too much. But I could enjoy everything with my rational mind.
Poets become great poets because their minds take wings as a mighty bird and fly out through the open space into the skies. And they see the beauty and the art out there. G-d has put all those stars together in an art. It’s a piece of great art. The big dipper, the little dipper, the many forms and shapes that we find the stars take. And the artist comes back with ideas, with new pictures. New pictures of beautiful things in his mind. And he puts them on a canvas. And somebody will eventually recognize that this is a wonderful piece of art. And he might become famous for that. But his mind was fed by the things G-d made for his mind, whether in the earth near him and in the skies distance away.
All of us are still enjoying the great field of material things that G-d made for each and every one of us individually. If we will just let our minds go sometime, let our minds take wings. Not on drugs. You will miss a lot of the trip if you try this on reefer or if you try this on crack cocaine. You will miss a lot of the wonderful things in this voyage into the skies. Let your mind take wings and realize everything out their G-d intended it to be a benefit to you, your soul, your emotional makeup, your psychology, your rational mind. You have to see yourself more important than you've been seeing yourself. I had to, I used to see myself just as Wallace. But as I begun to appreciate what G-d said about what I am, I began to appreciate myself as a computer that no scientist can duplicate, a computer that no scientist can match. No scientists can create a computer as valuable as the computer G-d created when G-d created me with my emotional makeup, my senses and my rational mind.
Wonderful creation, we should come to know ourselves again. Come to know yourself again.
Now G-d says. Maybe I should give you the story as it is. There was a man of G-d living in a terrible society, a terrible nation that had a terrible ruler over here. The ruler was called Pharaoh, one of the bad Pharaoh's of Egypt. This man was called by G-d, the Pharaoh was threatening to punish him, have him put in jail or kill him for differing with the Pharaoh. He differed with the Pharaoh, he had opinions that the Pharaoh wouldn't respect, and that the Pharaoh thought would make trouble for the people if the people start believing what this man was believing. The Pharaoh wanted to know, “Where do you get the authority to speak to me like this?” That's what the Pharaoh the ruler asked him.
“Where do you get the authority to speak to Pharaoh like this?” This man called by G-d, a prophet, he told Pharaoh, he said, "I get it from the one who created my form and thereafter gave guidance." Now, the scholars in the religion, the great thinkers in the religion we understand that to mean this, that when we know how G-d created us, we will have the guidance to know how to live. And G-d created us with senses. Sense of sight, sense of hearing, sense of smell, sense of taste, sense of feel. G-d created us with senses and also a sixth one that we seldom think of, intuition, intuitive sense, that can even go where these five senses can't take.
In fact, we believe the intuitive sense is a combination of all the senses working together as one instrument. They call it a sixth sense but we believe it's the five senses working together as one instrument. These senses are free, no one can enslave our senses, men have been locked up and put in jail for their beliefs. And when they released, they have improved their beliefs, they have improved their idea. They come out of jail sometime with volumes when they were in jail with nothing but just an idea but they come out of jail with volumes. Why? Because you can't imprison the intelligence, you can't imprison the senses of the human being. You can only imprison the body, the physical flesh. So, if we study how our form that G-d made, if we study it to see, "How does this work? What is this? What is this human in me? How is it created to work? What does it want?" And many other questions, a thousand more questions we need to ask. But when we have asked a lot of questions, about the human person that I am, we come up with the knowledge of how this human person is to be respected, is to live, is to be free. Freedom is the most precious thing we have. Freedom is what will make us better. Freedom is what will make us more responsible. Freedom is given to us to grow us up. Are you listening? Freedom is given to us to grow us up. A rock can't be free, a tree can't be free, an ape can't be free, a lion can't be free, not as free as the human being can be. G-d has created the human to be freer than everything. Freedom is given to us to grow us up. The more you exercise your freedom, the more experience you're going to have. Some of that experience will be bad but if you respect your good conscience, you will benefit even from your bad experience. G-d has given us the possibility to do wrong. When He made us free, He also opened to us the possibility to do wrong. G-d did that.
Let me tell you another little story. There's a story of the great wise king, Solomon. Two women came claiming the same child, a baby. The baby couldn't speak to tell Solomon which woman was lying. It was an infant. Both of them were claiming that infant. The matter was brought eventually to the king, and the king asked, "Who's baby is this?" he asked one woman. She said, "It's my baby." He asked the other woman, he said, "Who's baby is this?" The other woman said, "It's my baby." The king, knowing the nature of the good mother, he said, "Bring the baby to me." He took the baby and put the baby on the table. Back then, they didn't carry pistols, they had swords. He took out the sword, big long sharp blade, and he raised it, he said, "I'm going to give each of you half of it." When he raised it like this, one woman said, "No, give it to her. Give it to her, please." He told her, "Come take your baby." He gave the baby to that woman. That's how he discovered. He brought out who was the real mother.
Now, how are we to understand that as scholars? I'm going to share this with you religious preachers, teachers, scholars, who study the religion, study what G-d said. We are to understand it this way. G-d made us with human souls and with a rational mind, to be free, to have freedom of choice. He could have made us like He made angels. Angels, they can't do anything but good because G-d didn't make them to question G-d. G-d didn't make them to question what is right. They don't have that nature. Only man has been given that freedom, only human being has been given that freedom, not angels. G-d gave us that freedom because He rather see us whole. And whole for G-d means you have a rational mind, freedom of mind, freedom to have your own choices to be your own boss. Freedom to be your own boss. Be your own boss, I mean, the boss of your own self. G-d made us free to be bosses over our own self. And rather than have half of that and make us so that we can't think disobedience, we can't think to act outside of the law. G-d said, "No, I rather have them whole as I imagined them to be."

"I rather have them complete as I created them to be, than to have them split in half. Because to take the rational mind from the human person would be mutilating that human person. It would be just like cutting the baby in half. You’re dead, you’re finished, "If I didn't care to use my own free mind and rational mind, I might as well be cut in half, split in half, dead, slaughtered right on the table." How many of you want to respect what G-d have made you, a little more from this day on? Let me see your hands. How many of you that I have been talking to? Will you have a little more respect for what G-d made out of you? G-d made you precious, valuable, to be respected, to have great honor. Great freedom and responsibility for yourself to be your own boss. G-d didn't make any man to boss over you, unless that man accepts, that something you can turn to just boss over him. And each one of us can turn to G-d as authority. And G-d want us to call anybody else into question, if they abuse the right of their trust in the position of authority. G-d have made anybody an authority over us, G-d have made people to be trusted in position of authority. They have the right of trust, they have right to convince me that I can trust them, convince me that I can trust you to be my boss, convince me that I can trust you to be my mother. G-d have made us to have positions of authority as a trust. And when we fail that trust, we are not entitled to that authority anymore. I want you to know that when G-d made you boss over yourself, that's also a trust, and if you fail responsibility for that trust, you lose that, too.

I tend to like to imagine myself as the only person on earth like Adam was. I do that, really, to just free my mind to the maximum degree possible for me. And I look at myself, and say, "Well, what's here? What is in existence? I, myself. I am here. I." I look outside, and the earth, and I look out, and I say, "And the sky." Let your mind be free sometimes to think of nothing else being in existence, no other people, no other person, except you, the earth, and the sky. You don't have to think on it for a long time. If you just think on it just for a split second, you will find that your mind will relax, your mind will feel better. And remember what we said, that everything in earth and in sky was made to be a benefit for your pleasure. You want to be a little bit more courageous, your mind. You want to be a little bit more courageous, your senses. To go out and study these things, and become a scientist in some area. Become a scientist in some field of human interest. So, the world can have another chance if more of us will just think this way. And realize that everything has been given to man, for us to share. Material, wealth, power, authority, everything is to be shared. And we all as inheritors inheriting what G-d created us to have. We have a right to say so at least in how these things are shared. I hope that one of you or many of you and your generation in this town will rise up and become an influence for your whole town Milwaukee. For the whole town one day. And be an influence for better conditions and more fairness and more respect to the human person. Based upon the individual value and worth that G-d created us for. So, we have to have everything in its proper place and to know the purpose for which G-d intended it or created it. And believe that if we have respect for a thing in its place in its purpose that G-d intended for it. We can get that thing can have good and we can get good too, from a relationship with that thing or from a study of that thing, et cetera.
The world is quietly forming and also influencing a change of mind in all of us. This is a new day. There has never been a time on earth as good as this time, and I'm a Muslim. I know our Prophet Muhammad Ibn Abdullah, who was born in Mecca, the City of Mecca in Arabia. And left that town because that town rejected him and treated him bad so he went to Medina, another town. And he established himself and great following in that next town Medina. That happened about 1,400 years ago. Now I know of that time and believe me. I would love to have been back there to see our Prophet Muhammad to have known him personally. But if I was be given an offer now, this is fiction but if someone would say, “Wallace a one man has invented a time machine you can go back to 14th centuries ago and live in the time of Muhammad the Prophet.”
I would feel very heavy-hearted, sad. And I would say to the father forgive me Muhammad the Prophet but this is the most fascinating time ever. And I have opportunities now that you would love to have if you were on earth. May I be permitted to represent you here in this time? Where Christians, Muslims, and Jews are getting together and discussing how we should respect each other's religions and each other’s community. And have religious tolerance and have cooperation, so the whole world will be a better place for human beings. I would say, “Prophet Muhammad that might have been in your time.” The governments are calling on religious representatives from religions other than their religion. I’m a Muslim but I've been invited to join the state department in a committee advising the president and the state department. I would tell Muhammad, “forgive me I will see you after this life is gone. I hope to join you in the paradise. I would choose to stay in America. Because this is the best time ever for human beings Thank you very much and may G-d bless us all.

Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Our original intent was to have a few questions and we're going to go ahead and have a few questions. But just a few because of a situation here in the building. He said it’s okay? It’s okay, all right, we're going to have more than a few questions. Al-humdulila. Anyone has any questions particularly the youth, for the Imam. And the youth over here and now go right ahead.
IWDM: There might be exceptions but I'm looking at the general picture you are giving me now. What I say to the general preacher is tell them you have a right not to listen to me. The mess that we have made of this world, you have a right not to listen to me. But anytime you want to talk to me, let me know because I'm dying to listen to you. That's what I will say.
Speaker 1: Another question but come a little closer. We want to get it on so everyone can hear, please.
Speaker 2: Do you believe that the comprise not only got youth character but general in the world is because of the comprises we make? As of me I believe in doing the right thing.
IWDM: We were created, I've said this. And I’m saying it now and same thing in different words. I am going to say it again. We were created to live by the rule of conscience, the conscience G-d intended for us. So, we are created to live by the rule of conscience and the rule of conscience should be respected. It was Satan, the devil who is not like angels, Satan is rational. Satan has a rational makeup like us, Satan can make independent choices. Satan is created to make free choices, to think on his own. G-d made him what we call in our Islamic language a jinn, not human, meaning jinn, J-I-N-N. And jinn mean that they are creatures that are able to think like we think rationally, use rational minds, their independent minds. But they tend to act upon their own opinions. Not like man having a conscience over him and he was questioned what he wants to do a question was what his opinion is in light of what he sees as decency for himself or as right mind for himself, conscience for himself.
We are told that when G-d created everything, he told the Archangel, the greatest of the Angels, Gabriel. He said, “I'm going to let you see the world is are making it and when he showed it to the great Angel Gabriel. Jabreel in our language. Gabriel said, “What a wonderful world my Lord. How can a creature go wrong in such a world?” Then G-d says, “now I'm going to show you the world after Satan would have influenced it.” So, He then showed this great Angel Gabriel, the world as it would look now after the great Satan had his influence on it. 
And the great angel said, “my Lord how can any creature keep from going wrong in such a world.” So, yes, the world is a perilous place, very dangerous place for us, if we want to be right. Even among people that you believe to be right once you get among them, once you qualify to be accepted by them. You'll find that they are not as right as you thought they were. Sometimes you’ll meet a big disappointment. But if you are strong enough to hold on to your position that right is right. And I'm to only be right and I'm to even criticize myself when I'm wrong. G-d will eventually put you in a good situation. And nothing will be able to defeat you. Nothing will be able to make you sad. Nothing will be able to make you miserable. Nothing will be able to take blessings from you or benefit from you. You will know that your life is in G-d's control. When G-d has taken you into His special interest. And you know that everything's going to be all right. Even if someone put a gun and shoot you. You know the gun will fire. I may be dead but still going to be all right. Because there is a bigger reality. And you will be in G-d's special interest. That's what I like to say to you, firstly. Now, I'm answering his questions more directly.
This world is troublesome the way it is, because the special kind of democracy we have. This democracy challenges the human being in all of his power and value more than any other form of democracy or government that I can imagine. There's no other form of government on earth, not even in Europe, which is similar to ours. But their democracy is a little bit more different from ours. We live in what is called an experimental democracy. Experimental democracy. The founding fathers who designed this freedom for us. They believed that G-d most of all wants freedom and growth for human beings.
And they believe that if can get more freedom, there'll be more growth. If you take back any freedom, you limit the growth. So, they wanted us to be as free as possible so that we can have the maximum amount of creativity, production, invention, growth, general growth for us as possible. Now, I like this experimental democracy. But to tell you the truth, in some respects it makes me feel uncomfortable as a Muslim. Because while I know that we should respect the freedom of everybody. I know too that we have an obligation to uphold the rule of conscious. That means, to stand up for what is right. I'll give an example of what bothers me as it bothers you.
The availability of drugs, and the knowledge that many people are just not responsible to stand up to such temptations. It doesn't mean they're stupid, doesn't mean they're young or stupid or bad people. It doesn't mean that. You can find a man who just had a tragedy in his life. The tragedy has affected him so much that a temptation to take a drug that will bring him relief. To help get that off his mind, will be so great. And he's educated. Maybe he has a doctorate degree, but the temptation is so great. Now he takes drugs. Someone says, "Man, take these drugs man. It will only make you feel good man. It will make you feel good. Here, no charge, its free."
So, he takes the drug. As a Muslim, as a man of conscience, not a Muslim, just as a man of conscience, any man. I feel that that person shouldn’t be severely condemned. We should look at his circumstances, his situation. What condition was he in? Because after all we excuse crime. We excused the crime of cold-blooded murder. If the circumstances can be justified, to excuse that crime. This person was so troubled mentally by what happened. Until this person just took the gun and shot the person dead. And the judge would say, “that this person is ruled temporary insane when he did that. Excuse him for the act, just get them some treatment. Send them somewhere to get treatment”. And once they are treated sufficiently, they're released, they're free again.
The men who suffers or the person who suffers a lot in their life. And are driven to do a thing for relief, we have to treat them differently. We can't be coercing them or be so severe with the rule of law. So, what bothers me is that we have many people out there in this society like that whose personal life is so much so a troubling for them that they just want any relief. They almost about to commit suicide. They want any relief. Now we are allowing these drugs to be available to them. It's just like saying to a person who is so messed up inside that if you gave them a loaded gun, they might shoot you or shoot themselves. “This is a free society; a gun has to be available.”
There's a saying, I can't recall who said this. “That our form of democracy requires that each of us that we exercise a sense of self-control.” That's a saying. Not mine. I can't recall the author that said it. “Our democracy requires that each of us that we exercise a sense of self-control.” But again, I say as a Muslim, I'm not comfortable. Knowing that people can be driven by trouble in their lives to do things they can't exercise a sense of self-control. The situation for them doesn't permit them to exercise a sense of self-control. So, we have to then be our brother's keepers.
So, I disagree with carrying this freedom too far and permitting people to sell drugs to the general public, make it available to minors, to people who are suffering great problems, et cetera. I don't agree with that. So, I think our democracy yet need refining, we yet need to make modifications, make some changes on it. So, it can be the democracy that is decent enough for the wonderful person that G-d has created inside of this body for all of us, each of us. Did that answer your question?

Speaker 3: How about forgiveness and how much is given if we have toward each other.
IWDM: Christian religion and my religion. Says that G-d disapproves of certain things. And when violations are repeated, there is a point when G-d's wrath, His punishment comes of us. And G-d says, “His punishment falls upon whomsoever He has willed that it falls upon, but His mercy extends beyond His punishment.” His punishment is limited. His mercy is not limited. We should forgive as long as we see any reason to forgive. No matter how much the wrong is repeated, as long as we see a reason in the person that justifies us forgiving him again, we should be willing to be as G-d in that attribute of forgiveness. We should be willing to forgive eternally as long as we see the person making another effort to do right or to do good. We should never write them off.



