01/20/2001
IWDM Study Library
Public Address Pensacola, Florida

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Speaker: Thank you and praise be to Allah. As salaam alaikum.
Crowd: Wa alaikum as-salaam.
Speaker: We say Alhamdulillahi. It means praise G-d, the praise is for G-d. That's exactly what it means. But it also carries the meaning of thankfulness. Those who priase G-d are thankful. They appreciate G-d. They're thankful and we witness that He is the Lord who created the heavens and the earth everything in the skies and everything down here and we witness that Muhammad, a model human being, as Allah says in the Quran, for any who has faith in G-d and the last day. Or the destiny that G-d promises, the future, the end that all of us in our souls want and that's the good life. A good life, a satisfying life on this earth and Hereafter.
G-d gave us Muhammad the prophet, prayers and peace be upon him, as an example and we should strive to be the best we can be so that we will be accepted by G-d here and Hereafter. We pray the prayers and the peace on Muhammad the prophet [Arabic language] the prayers and the peace be upon him and what follows of that salute to the last prophet. We are Muslims. That means we are followers of that last prophet because it was only after G-d missioned him, formed him and missioned him to be the last prophet of that people on this earth recorded to be existing in that name Muslim.
Before him, there is no record of anybody calling themselves Muslim or the people who have devoted their life to peace in accordance with the will of G-d. Many want peace but it is the peace that G-d wants for them that G-d created them for. We in our religion, are Muslims, and that means we are peace seekers, peace lovers, but in accordance with the will of our Creator who made us and everything. This is a beautiful religion for those who love to be human and love human excellence. This is a beautiful religion. Any who loves the betterment of their human life, this religion fulfills your needs and also your dreams. Not only your needs but also your best dreams.
This religion fulfills it for you if you just remain faithful and strive. Don't be lazy, remain faithful and strive. We're taught in Islam that G-d is a worker Himself and that at all times, not a second not a split second that He is idle. See He is active at all times, not any small time in the measurement of time that he is inactive. Say he is at all times working and in a marvelous, doing a marvelous work. If we can't understand it as people of faith, you can understand it as people who appreciate science, if you appreciate science. Science has discovered that this world is not finished. Before modern science, the learned, they thought the creation was finished. They thought there were no more worlds being created.
They thought that the sky was finished and earth was finished and the only thing that was happening is what's happening in the life of man, to move things forward. That man, G-d had rested and now it was in man's hands to keep doing things, to keep making things, to make new things, to make a new world. But that idea has been shot down by the astronomers' telescopes that reach far out into the space that we think is dark and empty. Out there they discovered that new worlds like ours that we see in the sky are being born and they are being born one behind the other. Sometimes before one finished cooling off, another one is bursting into the space, into the void.
Filling the void with more stars, with more suns and more planets and more moons. That's going on all the time. Man couldn't see it without a curiosity to search the space, the distance and without the knowledge to make an instrument and a fine glass that could go much farther, billions of light-years more than his eyesight can go, his natural eye can go.
Islam is a religion that wants man to see the physical world that G-d made and reflect on it, think about it and see what messages there are for you in what G-d has done. That's the kind of thinker the early prophets were.
You'll find it in the Bible and you'll find it in our holy book the book of the Muslims, the Quran, where they studied the natural world and they said to themselves, "This is the handiworks of G-d." They called it the handiworks of G-d. So they received the messages, enlightenment from just thinking on and reviewing, looking at and thinking on the wonderful natural world. I've studied different cultures especially their myths, their stories of the world and how they thought the world came about. I studied this. The natives on this continent called the American-Indians, they had a belief- not had, they have a belief that's the same beliefs we have concerning the value or the meaning of these material objects in the sky, the natural world, for man, for human beings the meaning for human beings.
They put it this way. They said, "Everything that exists, exists as a communication to man." It speaks to man's mind. Everything speaks to man's mind. The ancient Egyptians, by the way, their language was made of the objects in the natural world. Sun, moon, wind, water, all these natural things. They took those natural things and they used it to speak, convey what they wanted to say to each other in the form of writing, hieroglyphics it is called. Some of you in this audience I'm sure are familiar with this. Getting back to the natives of this continent, who are here living on this continent as savages we say, but we know they also had great civilization in these parts that we now occupy.
The Spanish people in the South and the English-speaking people in the North, they had such great civilization that they influenced the calendar that we now have. Without them perhaps we wouldn't have this calendar that we have. Telling time, to know the time and seasons and everything and to know how to make your calendar in accordance with the movement of the heavenly bodies, the sun, the moon and other heavenly bodies, they got that from natives of this country. You've heard about of halls of Montezuma. Montezuma came from Europe and he got great wealth, silver but they also got great sciences from the remains of a great Indian civilization. Though we call them Indians but that's incorrect. They were not Indians. Europeans made the mistake of calling them Indians. They call themselves by tribal names, not Indian.
They have tribal names. They don't have one name for all of their people. They were never united as one country or one people so they don't have names for all of them, they have tribal names. Anyway, they got great sciences from those people. I have great respect for the original natives of this part of the world, North America and South America and I believe that one day they are going to have leaders that will lead them out of their fear of being changed by others other people's thinking and other people's cultures. They're going to break out of that and they are going to be a great people again on this earth like they were in their ancestors.
The Aztecs, the Mayans and perhaps many others that we don't know about passed away and we don't have the record of them. They will come back to it. I appreciate their wisdom, they have wisdom. They were left to them by their thinkers long ago before they gave up on civilization. When Montezuma came they had given up on the civilization. Inshallah, they will come back to it soon.
Now Allah says in the Quran, to Muhammad, to be given to all people who will follow it or who will accept the message of Islam. Allah says, "All who will not accept the message but will accept the truth for the many benefit who do not accept Islam, but they discover the truth in Islam and they benefit from that truth." The world has benefited tremendously from the Quran and Muhammad but the world has not become Muslim. A big percentage of them have, but all of the world, especially the Christian world more than any other part of the world, the Christian world has benefited tremendously from Muhammad and the Quran. Now, Allah says, "You'll find in the skies and in the earth signs." S-I-G-N-S, signs. What is a sign? A sign is a pointer. It points to something.
Or it is a reminder to remind you of something or it is a hint, hinting to something. A sign or symbol, sign. There are signs. You'd look at each other sometimes and, "I don't like the way you look. You feel all right? I see signs of worry on your face." Signs, they communicate an expression, an imprint, a shape, a concept that gives a message to the mind. So G-d says that signs in the heavens and on the earth. Now why are these signs for us? G-d made these signs for human beings with brains to think. Why are these signs to us? Because G-d has made us just like he made the world. The same G-d that made the outer world made the human soul and the human life.
He made the outer world to be a help for your human life. Not just a help in the form of substance, material substance for you to eat and drink and enjoy. That too, but that's not the bigger part of it. Not just there for you to use, utilize, to make tools, to do work and to use materials to build yourself a home, etc, and transportation. All of these things we do with what G-d made. These are the benefits of what G-d did. But that's not the highest benefit. There's a benefit higher than the material benefit. It is an abstract benefit. A benefit that you get once the material world has been digested abstractly by your human mind that G-d made. Then you get the bigger benefit.
Those who are behind in progress for the material world is because they're behind in this understanding. Once the people come to this understanding they will have leaders who will take their world forward. It happened before Muhammad, it happened at the time of Muhammad, and now it is happening in the time of WD Mohammed.
[applause]
We have a unique following. We've only been here for about less than 30 years growing into this new understanding and already we got supermen and superwomen in this following, who are going to take this world forward. They join others in the effort to better the life of human beings but they also have not left their obligation to see their lot, their pitiful lot rise up and go forward. This is a marvelous time we're living in and really I could talk to you for days and weeks and would need nothing but just a little rest and some food and water again and use the washroom, I'll be right on my feet again and I'd continue this conversation for days and weeks and months because it's just that big and it's just that interesting.
[applause]
A people rising from the ashes reminds me the theme that has been chosen, that you have chosen, you beautiful Muslims of Pensacola, Florida, under your Imam that's certainly alive and he has been alive ever since he met Elijah Muhammad.
[Applause]
[laughs] I think he was alive as my father said he was alive cold before he met my father.
[laughter]
He just found a good place to be. [laughs]. He found a good place for him. He stayed there with my father and he didn't have any migraine headaches following his son. Rising from the ashes, The Hon. Elijah Muhammad said once, he said, "The phoenix bird." Many times he would just start speaking and there would be no connection. There was nothing said before that he's commenting on. It wasn't a continuation of any conversation. It was really at the beginning of a conversation. He said, "The phoenix bird rises up out of his ashes every 500 years." Now you say I'm heavy, but, that's heavy.
[laughter]
If no one helps us to understand that this is to be interpreted, that's heavy, buddy. What is the phoenix bird? Where is it and how it got burned up? What has it got to do with us? A lot of questions. That's just the beginning of the questions. I got about 1,000 questions. [laughs] But that's what he said. Those who are spiritually attuned to the interest of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad we knew what he was talking about. We knew he meant that we had a chance even if we were still in our ashes that we had a chance to rise again. Yes.
The brother here has given us something that brought that phoenix bird in his ashes back to me. Now, I'm the kind of guy I don't like to leave you in the dark if I know where some light is. 100 years means death for your thinking when you're striving for a particular answer. You're striving, going on and on and on until darkness takes over and you can't go beyond that so darkness stops you and you have a rebirth for your thoughts. You will leave that particular pursuit and you go at it from another angle, you will pursue it and pursue it until you run out of light. Well, I couldn't complete it. I'm still in the dark so darkness takes over.
Now, you do that five times. Why five times? You have five senses that work to give you understanding. Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and feeling. You have these five senses working to bring from outside of you information for you to work with or digest inside. The eyes see the picture. The ears hear the sound. The nose sense what's out there in the air. The taste judge the quality of it. The feeling tested for the soul. We have these five senses working for us. They're our tools working for our brains. If you don't have these tools and these tools should go ahead of your thinking. You don't try to think before you see it. You shouldn't try to think before you hear it. You should let your senses go ahead of your thinking.
They're not to lead you but they are a lot like hunting dogs. They go out and find it and bring it back to you. Then, you study it and make decisions. What I'm telling you is not just for common thinking it's for scientific thinking. Scientific thinking, they have big words and I don't want to burden this audience with those big words. I don't the have time for it anyway. We are in a hurry. Why do something in a more complicated way when you can do it in a simple way? We're in a hurry. I'm tired of being dumb and poor.
[applause]
Every 100 years is symbolic. It means every time your senses are revived, and made fresh and excited to go after knowledge or life again, you have a new life. You can rise up from your ashes. That's all we have to do. That's the Hon. Elijah Muhammad, that was his job. He said you are mentally dead. If just can turn your senses on again you can rise up from your ashes. That's all we want to do here. Turn our senses on again so we can rise up from our ashes. The first sense to get us up from our ashes is our honest sincere good feelings. Good feelings.
Feelings are like moisture for a dried out mind. If good feelings give moisture to a dried out mind and make that mind pliable again. Make it have what they called adherence. It adheres. The dust flies away. The ashes can be blown away by the slightest little breath and the ashes move away. But if it gets a little moisture they adhere, they tend to hold together. The best thing to help the dead rise is innocent true sincere feelings. But if you have an insincere heart you're going to be in the ashes forever. Let your heart become sincere, straight, pure and innocent. Innocent of any wrong intent, not innocent of any sin.
G-d is the only one innocent of sin. Not innocent of sin but innocent of any intent, any desire to be corrupt. You don't want to be corrupt. You want to be pure. You want to be right with G-d. That's the sense. That's the sense you need in your feelings. Once you have that then a little light rain start to fall on your ashes. The ashes start to adhere, stay together. Pretty soon the seed that you never lose that's that eternal seed in the core of your soul. It never dies. Man is both mortal and immortal. There's a seed in your soul that never dies. It only waits for the climate to burst forth and give a beautiful life to the world.
Just as a dead seed of a plant and G-d says to us, "A parable of your development of your life in its development is the parable of a plant." Plants come from dead seeds. They're dead. In every respect they're dead. Some plants they call rocks, stones, date stone. They call it a stone. Date stone, it's not living, it's dead. But if feelings come there, if the moisture comes there to that hard seed it begins to loosen up. Loosen up. It's in prison. It's locked up. It's in jail.
In the jail of his hardened self that has become dead. It's in that jail. It's in that prison. It wants to be released. It wants to come out of the lockup. It want to get out of the lockup. Hey, don't forget what I'm talking about. I'm talking about you and your life. You and your life. It wants to come out of the lock up. It wants to be free. But before it can be free it has to have the right intent in its feelings. If it feels for the wrong thing it stays hard. Locked up. It's future locked up by its hardness. Are you hearing me?
Audience: Yes.
Speaker: Its future locked up by its hardness. Soften to what is right, soften to what is true and correct. Oh buddy, then, your future will be released from the imprisonment the prison cell of your hardness, of your hardness. The first effort in the senses should be that of feeling. If your feeling become innocent then the others can come to life. What's the next one there? The next one is sensitivities. If your feeling become right, your sensitivities will begin to flow, begin to flow. You'll have movements for your human sensitivities. You'll have direction for your human sensitivities. They'll begin to flow. There will be waves on the water of the beginning of your new world. A voice will come on the surface of the water, "Let there be light."
From the depth will come light and a new generation for you and your world. That you can have a world. Don't we want a world? I want more than an apartment and stinky place on a stinky street with stinky people. I want a world that smells good like flowers, and beautiful like the garden of paradise and have opportunities for me like this creation before man locked us out of it. Not good man, selfish men, bad man locked us out of it. Now, I don't know if I should call him man. G-d didn't call him man. G-d said to Jibril, the Angel Gabriel in the Christian language, according to our prophet Muhammad, prayers and peace be on him, G-d called Gabriel to come forth and he said, "Gabriel, I want to show you my creation that I’m going to create.
When Gabriel saw it he said, "My Lord, how can anyone go wrong in such a wonderful creation?" Then G-d said, "Now I’m going to show you my creation after Satan has influenced it." When Gabriel saw it he said, "My Lord, how can anyone go straight in such a creation?" After the devil influenced your perception of G-d's creation he made it almost impossible for you to have a straight life. Before the devil influence came into man's mind and thinking and into his world the world itself does not guide you to go astray. Not the world that G-d created. It guides you to go aright. Correctly.
Praise be to Allah. Wonderful teaching from Muhammad the prophet. Prayers and peace be on him. Inspired in him by the Lord creator of the heavens and the earth. Rising up from the ashes of slavery. I don’t know how those who wrote this topic or theme for us understood this language. I have not discussed the language of this theme with them so I appreciate not having discussed the language with them because it leads me to use my own imagination and come up with a translation of this language. For me slavery, understanding slavery and ashes. For you to have ashes you'd have fire. The great poets in the history of the poets from the beginning of time until now, they see passions as fire.
Human passions as fire. Love is a fire. Hate is a fire. They see human passions as fire. We know our love for for our life and our love for our G-d and our love for freedom was burning in us but it couldn’t be harnessed like energy. It couldn’t be harnessed to make a machine out of it. It’s a fire. You can harness that fire and make a machine out of it and put it into a machine and have that machine carry your life forward. Make your world more beautiful and more comfortable. We were slaves we were not able to use our passions to evict a better circumstance for us. So what happened? That just burned in us and couldn’t produce for us. While it’s burning and can’t produce, it burns us up.
Anger comes into the passion and it burns us up and pretty soon we are ashes. We are ashes we say, "Hey, we can’t get anywhere. All of our efforts leave us nothing but ashes." We want to rise up from this state. We want to rise up from these circumstances that have tied up and blocked all of our energies. Blocked our best desires. Can’t go forward and there's just tension. Tension creates fire. Science teaches you this. Tension if you can’t come out of, pressure is there, the pressure keeps building up then flames burst out and the heat of the anger and torment and dislike for what’s beening done to you just burns up the matter and the matter turns into ashes.
The beautiful matter that was meant to give us a beautiful future becomes all ashes but we can rise up again. Now is the time. This is the time this is the climate that pleases the conditions that we want in our soul. This is the climate that a white man is repenting, where Hollywood is repenting. What they have done to the black man. They can’t even make movies anymore without writing the beauty of the black man. Say he is a spiritual giant and he is the helper to the white man. If the white man didn’t have this spiritual giant he couldn’t be what he is. That's what Hollywood is saying. Did you see Unbreakable?" The African-American man he was prone to accidents.
He just kept breaking up his physical body. But he had something inside. He had an invisible superiority that helped others. Even Bruce Willis who had a superiority too. His superiority was that he was unbreakable. The African-American was not unbreakable. He was fragile. Getting broked up materially all the time. But inside of his body was a spirit and a spirituality that didn’t break up. It remained intact and it was superior to that of Bruce Willis. There was a picture of the two people, the black man and the white man. One superior in his physical makeup and protected in his physical makeup. The other superior in his spiritual makeup.
That’s a good picture and I like Hollywood for working on the ignorance in the minds of racist people. Trying to give them beautiful pictures of black and white needing each other working together. They're bring out a making a lot of movies like that now. We have to appreciate this change in the establishment. The establishment now is repenting its wrongdoings and trying to get their people to see that this man we have rejected, he is really a superman too like we are and we need him to survive and we have to enbrace him if we expect to go further. That’s what Hollywood is saying. It is not only Hollywood, it’s the giant industries.
They are also discussing how to better the business and better their service to their communities and they are not only inviting but they are going a step beyond that to bring more African-Americans, more blacks, into the world. To share that responsibility with them. Not just to be laborers, but to sit in the room, and think the future for the business. To plan it and get ideas. So this is a new time for us. This is a time when government is saying, "Yes, we know we're obligated to keep church and state separate but that is not to be taken as a separation between services."
The service of the government and the service of the religious establishment need to join so that we go forward with both the effort of government and the religious community, the faith community to make a better world or a better society for our citizens, for out people. This is a new time. In fact, I call this the hereafter before the hereafter. This is the hereafter before the hereafter and you black people who have been confused and having all those questions on your mind and they're so big and so heavy and you've been carrying them for so many generations that you stopped thinking. You don’t think anymore. You don't want to think.
One black woman told me, “it hurts my hand to think”. I was just trying to work on her a little bit. I was very ginger with her. I was delicate, I was considerate. I wasn’t pressing her hardly I was pressing her very softly. Just like that. Just a little light touching. She said, "I don’t want to think. It hurts my head to think." That’s the condition in many of us. We don’t want to listen to a rational preacher, a sound, simple plain sense preacher because it tells our senses to start acting again. Wake up, start thinking again and to think again is so hard.
Like a wheel made of iron. It was made to rotate but it’s made of iron and it rotates with iron, around iron and the rust has become so thick and so hard that you can’t turn the wheel. So you have to put penetrating oil on it and let it penetrate for a long time. Sometimes you have to put the wheel into the bin and let that oil work on it for days and weeks and now and then you try you see if it'll turn. After a while the penetrating oil manages to go through and it starts to turns a little bit. That's what we have to do with many of our people. We have to put a little drop of good sense on their rusty locks, and the Nation of Islam called it. We have to put a little drop of that penetrating oil on their rusted lock. Don't expect it to open now. Some of them so rusty you have to put it back in the old rusty tool bin. Let it stay there with the other rusty locks. Every now and then go back and check it, see if it'll move a little bit and pretty soon you'll find the key went, "Poop," the lock is unlocked. Now you can come into the world of useful things.
Audience: Allahu akbar.
Speaker: Allahu Akbar, G-d is greater. That's all we're saying. Rise from the ashes of slavery, and only in America. This nation was perceived by beautiful thinkers. Beautiful thinkers, the founding fathers. But look at the ugliness that came into the life of this nation. Not just the mistreatment of our people but the mistreatment of others too. Look how the Jew was kept out for a long time. Look how Protestants treated Catholics for a long time. Look how the English treated the Irish in their own land. I'm not talking about modern problems of England and Ireland. I'm talking about medieval problems and behind the medieval age problems for the relationship of English with the Irish.
When you know something about history then you can appreciate where we are today. The common people used to be treated as animals. The workplace, if you studied the history of labor in these United States, many workers had risked their physical lives to be employed. They had to accept that you may be killed, you may be injured and die. Coal miners, steel workers, bridge builders and many others. There was not even big dollars spent on safety for them. They didn't spend big dollars on safety for the workers. Workers would have short lives oftentimes depending on the nature of the workplace.
Diseases, filth, they had to work in filth, no appreciation for sanitation for the common people, so they were not valued. They were not valued. They were poorly valued, and lowly esteemed. Is that a new thing for the message of religion? It's an old thing. Jesus Christ, according to Christian religion and understanding, Jesus Christ because He was not born of the wealthy people and was born in a place where leaders were not and where progress was not. Because of Him coming from such circumstances it is said of Him to mock Him, to criticize Him. Who is this coming from? They name the place, said, "Can any good thing come from that place?"
Isn't that the same mentality that thought it was proper for us to be pushed down and shut out? The same mentality. So don't think that modern racism in America is a modern problem. It's an ancient problem. Dealing with this problem is a great feature in all religions, all of the great religions that we are associated with, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All these religions have that particular problem as a major feature. Muhammad himself is a conclusion for that particular dilemma, for that particular conflict in the thinking of so-called learned societies. He is a conclusion for that. Jesus is a sign of that, a sign of how that matter is resolved. This argument about, "Okay, G-d made these people like that.
We didn't make them like that. If they don't bring themselves up, if they don't carry for themselves forward, it's not our obligation to give them what we got and then make them equals in our society. G-d made them like that so that's the way it's supposed to be. They don't have a better future than what they have. G-d created them that way." Okay, the other argument is that, "No, whatever is one human being is in every human being at birth. The same hope for intelligence, the same hope for morality, good morals, the same hope for an industry, the same hope for whatever any human being is capable of doing." It's in every human being at birth from mama.
This is the other position. The Bible speaks of it in many ways. The Bible says, "Seven eyes went out to condemn man and seven eyes went out to lift man up, to show him worthy of having equal place on this Earth with other men." Seven eyes went out to condemn, seven eyes went out to approve. This is in the Bible. Many preachers read, they don't know what it's talking about. Don't you know most of the preachers are dumb and they don't know what they're talking about? They can only excite your emotions. Don't you know that most of the Rabbis are dumb and walking behind the learned Rabbis but can't see the steps the learned Rabbis are making?
They just have faith. They know they are suppose to stay behind the Rabbi. So the Rabbi that doesn't know he stays behind the Rabbi that knows but he doesn't know the steps that his learned Rabbis is taking. Don't you now there are many Imams in the same shape, walking behind a Imam but only can walk behind him? They can't see and understand the steps he's taking. We have most of the people in all these great religions they are walking in the dark, they are living in the dark. They are talking in the dark and they are speaking nonsense. They are just playing on your emotions or keeping you imprisoned. This is not to condemn them. This is to show you them so that you won't follow them in darkness, into more darkness.
When there are leaders in all these religions that are taking their people to the light. Yes, the last part of this thing says, "Surely, it is G-d's plan." Yes, it's G-d's plan. Allah says, In the Quran of Muhammad the Prophet, that Muhammad the Prophet is a liberator. Now the word liberator is not given there, but the language says that He is a liberator. Muhammad the Prophet is said in the Quran, "A man like Moses." You preachers know that, I mean you Imams I'm sorry. You, Imams. I mean the Muslims. I'm talking to the Muslims now. You, Imams, you know that. You know that. You were saying that in the time of my father. "To raise up from among your brotheren, one like unto Moses."
Okay, that's true. That's what the Allah says to us in our Holy Book that Muhammad the man raised up like like Moses. How was Moses raised up? Moses had a knot in his tongue and that knot means that he could not speak plainly. The knot in his tongue causing him not to speak plainly was not-- Nobody took his tongue and tied it physically and made a knot in it. The knot in his tongue meant his language was knotted. His language was knotted up. He could not take the knots out of the language. The language of the culture, the language of the religion, he couldn't take the knots out of the language. So his tongue is also symbolic of language. "How many tongues do you speak?" "I speak three tongues, English, Arabic, and Spanish." So tongue also mean language. Maybe he had a knot in his tongue and a knot in his language. So G-d gave him his brother Aaron. I don't know of a time when G-d missioned two brothers to be prophets or messengers at the same time.
So G-d gave Moses because he was not equipped to do the job but he was the one that G-d wanted to use. He gave him is brother Aaron as a speaker. Aaron, he was erudite. Aaron he had his speech was polished and smooth. Whatever he perceived that Moses wanted to say Aaron could say it for him before that high ups, the leaders of Egypt even Pharaoh. He went and spoke to Pharaoh but he spoke what Moses wanted to say to Pharaoh. He was his mouthpiece so to speak. Like Malcolm was for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in the best days of that relationship. Yes. Praise be to Allah. Yes. He had a knot in his tongue.
Muhammad the Prophet did he have a knot in this tongue? G-d said to him when he first called him. He said, "Read, Muhammad." He said read to him and Muhammad said, "I can't read." G-d again said to him, "Read." And Muhammad said, "I can't read." Then the third time and Muhammad began to speak. Meaning that he was receiving the communication and was able to convey it to others. So he could read. Another term for the same word that says read, is recite. All authors don't translate it read. Some of the translators out of Arabic into English they say, "G-d said to him, "Recite, Muhammad, recite."
He said he couldn't recite the same thing. He couldn't convey a communication to others because something was tied up in himself. His language was knotted up. The world knots up the language for everybody. Yes, yes. The world knots up the language for everybody. What do I mean by that? The language of the world comes from highly educated people and you cannot understand what they're saying without understanding their logic. When you learn the logic the language logic or the logic for that language the logic for grammar, etc, when you learn the logic for that language then you can speak that language. You can speak that language.
Every time you run into a logic, a rule of logic in the language that you don't know you run into a knot in the tie of the language. We know a language is tied together. Subject tied to predicate, noun tied to the verb, etc. If you can't manage that you never learn to speak Arabic fluently and understand it and definitely, you'll never learn how to read revelation and understand it. So Moses and Muhammad had not been taught religion, a revealed religion, scripture. They had not been taught scripture. Both of them had never been taught scripture. They didn't come among circumstances to know scripture.
They were out of the scripture and that G-d had to call them and awaken them and awaken their minds to the language of G-d. The language of G-d is Scripture. When Muhammad was told, "Read in the name of your Lord who created." That's when he began to understand. He had to begin to apply his thinking to creation and see creation as the creation of G-d and then see G-d's will and purpose in creation, and in the movement of creation, the movement of creation in the thinking of man, yes, but also the movement of creation and the forming of human society, of human society. These materials come into our life and they excite our minds, and they call us to interact with, engage these materials and produce a world and carry that world forward.
When he told him, "Read in the name of your Lord who created," then Muhammad's mind became alive and he began to apply his thinking and he began to understand what G-d was saying when he said, "Read, oh, Muhammad. Read, Muhammad."
A man like Moses, educated by G-d the world did not give him circumstances for him to be educated in to become the great leader to lead the world into a better future. But it was G-d who came and touched him and then spoke to his mind and his heart and brought him to the light. He came down from the cave, down off the mountain, down from the cave of darkness. There was no lamp in that cave there was no sunshine in that hole, that cave that he was in.
He came down from that cavity, in the top of the mountain, dark cavity, dry cavity, in the cave of the mountain and he came back to his people. To his people that he was worried about. Muhammad was a man who worried about the condition of his people. If we African-Americans don't have leaders that worry about the condition of our people then we don't have a future bigger than what we have now. We'll stay where we are now. We came out of slavery and made progress because we had leaders that were worried about the condition of their people. Frederic Douglas, and women too. Harriet Tubman all the many other, - Sojourner Truth and Benjamin Mays coming forward to our time now. Benjamin Mays, a great Christian preacher and thinker, Dr. Martin Luther King, if we didn't have those persons and we had them in the black movement and in the nationalist movement too, we had them, - Marcus Garvey, and Honorable Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X.
If we didn't have leaders who are worried about our condition we would still be back there where we were. We wouldn't have come forward. Now here we are we got leaders worried about more crumbs from the rich man's table. That's Lazarus in the Bible. Worried about more crumbs from the rich man table and others expecting the impossible. Give us what you got. The white man will give the poor dumb Negroes, excuse me for calling that, the problem takes me back to that language, that time and it just came out subconsciously or something. Not Negros, the black man. I'm sorry. [laughs]
If the white man would give the black man what he got civilization would be finished for both. Because we're still partying. After slavery we struggles for a while with our leaders but soon as the thing looked really good for us, start getting that big paycheck and having a white man saying we can't do this to them anymore." Honorable Elijah Muhammad talking bad talk, - bad mouthing the white man, putting him down. [laughs]
You little thing. We can put you on our little finger on a string. [laughs] (unclear) the whole world around on our little finger. [unintelligible 01:44:09] … swelled your head up something terrible. Now, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was just trying to awaken your courage that was buried under your fear, your fear of the white man, your fear of his superiority. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was a great medicine man and he knew how to bring your courage up from the depths of the fear. “Yes, we can take him and his whole world tied on our little finger and spin him around on our little finger”. That black man here that and was mesmerized. Oh he was mesmerized. He'd sit there and he would be looking at that black man and he said, “Who is this? This must be G-d. He said, “ If I didn't know his master, if I didn't know that Fard taught him, I would say he is G-d”.
Yeah, that's what we said. I didn't say that, but many of you said it. And I guess if I hadn't been his son raised up in his own house, I probably would have said the same thing. I know ne thing I said, I said to my father when he was getting on me about not appreciating his teacher as G-d, I said well daddy, I could more easily accept you as G-d. And do you think he looked angry? He tried to hide it, but it soothed hum when I said it. No father wants a son admiring another man above him. Let me say that again, No father wants a son admiring another man above him. Your heard that didn't you. So don't come to me jiving. “This is my son Ahmed brother imam. Oh he loves you, he loves you more than he love me”. Don't come to me jiving. You know you don't want your son loving me more than he love you. Be real, be your own self.
So these are the realities that we have to accept. So how are we going to get up? We are going to get up by following G-d's plan for our life. G-d has a plan for our life. And any people that have gone forward to become liberators and civilizers for other nations, they have discovered G-d's plan for human society. And they are lying to you if they are not admitting it. They are lying to you. The only way they can bring human society to be the leader for other societies to bring them out of stagnation, social stagnation, spiritual stagnation, to bring them out of that, they have to discover G-d's plan for man.
The possibilities for us to have a great progressive and beautiful world, buildings and science, and railroads, and airplanes, that possibility we will never be able to have it brothers and sisters unless we discover G-d's plan for man. Look at the nations that have it. The nations that have that ability, are the nations that have scripture. The west, the Christian west leads it. The Christian west has scripture from G-d. Russia didn't do anything, but take off from what was already existing. Russia didn't start the process of science and civilization. Russia just competed with the Christian west, and did great marvelous things until it ran to the end of its mental and industrial efforts including economic efforts. It ran to the end of it. And when it reached the end of it, it had to come back to G-d. So Russia put down that crap about materialism is everything, and man should seek guidance from materialism and not from scripture. It had to put it down. It only worked with it for seventy years. Many of us live longer than seventy years. So many men and women saw Russia come to life, and die while they were living.
Think about that. You want signs from G-d? These are signs from G-d for you to have faith, and come away from your ignorance. Come away from your laziness. Become energetic! Let the truth energize you. Not the truth of your mind, not the truth of the world's mind, let the truth of scripture, the truth of G-d energize you! And you will see, you will become a giant of a man. And you will soften to G-d's words, and He sends down soft rain on the ashes, on the dry places.
He won't beat it down, He won't send a heavy rain down. The Quran came down on the world like a soft rain. Not a hard rain. It didn't beat down on the world. Soft rain, coming down on the world. Touching you gently. Awakening your better senses, and your better sensitivities. So that you will respond to G-d. And G-d says, “What is wrong with you?” Speaking to all of us who are not responding. That you don't respond to that that gives you life. It doesn't mean life to eat some ribs tonight, or on the weekend. Life to drink some liquor and eat some ribs and party. That's not the life. Buddy, there are are animals that party harder than you do, and they go to work on Monday.
In my conclusion, and I can make it plain. If you don't see it plainly it's because you love the darkness more than you love the light. Just like a seed has everything in itself for its future, man's heart and mind and soul has everything that it needs, or that human life needs for the future of human life. What we read in scripture as guidance for our human life is not something that G-d brought from the outer world, or from alien worlds to our world. It's what G-d brought from our own life and showed us what we need to be guided by. And G-d says of Muhammad when he gave Him revelation said He revealed it upon his heart. Meaning that if you don't love it, you won't get it. He revealed it upon his heart. He revealed it because his heart was worthy of it. Worthy of it.
This nation conceived by the founding fathers built a society, civilization of citizens men and women, now men and women, built a nation of men and women upon the idea that every man and woman are born equal. And are made by their Creator to be entitled to certain rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Pursuit of happiness is about as broad as you can put it. Pursuit of happiness. That means whatever I have to pursue to satisfy my needs to be at peace and have a pleasant life, you should have the same right. And if you have it, I should have the same right. It shouldn't be given to some, and not given to all. This is the beautiful language that began the building, the fabrication of this great society we call democracy, or American democracy. If the founding fathers then base the treatment of citizens upon the belief that each citizen is the creation of G-d, and G-d in creating them did not put one over the other, but made all equal, gave each the same created life and possibilities. Muhammad the prophet he said that when he said, every child born is born a Muslim. And it's the circumstances the child is put it that makes it different. That meant that every human being is born with the materials that G-d wants for every human being. You're born with those materials, and if you're not interfered with, if the conditions in your environment is those that G-d wants you to have there will be no superiority of one people over the other. You will have people who excel in both races, or in all the people, and all the people will have representatives in the world in the highest places of man's world and achievements.
We know that all white people aren't going to be the leaders of civilization. Many white people in their circumstances I know they'll never going to be anything but what I saw them. And many African-Americans in their circumstances I know they will be nothing but what I saw. They are not going to come out, they aren't going to be our leaders, but in every people, if you don't make a plan, a devilish, diabolical scheme to shut them out of the blessings G-d created them for every people will have representatives in the highest quarters of the world. Leadership, and that's all we want. We don't want any white man to favor us, to give us any special favor. We know he can't do it. It's impossible. G-d won't even let him do it. It's not right. It's not G-d's plan for one people to take care of another people. To assure them they will be protected. To assure them they will have the good life, and comforts, etc. And they will be protected from other people, - protect us white man from your brother. I don't ask you anymore to protect me from your brother. I have people that will protect me from your brother, and they are on my side, they are black like I am.
We will protect our own selves from your brother. Just make the law right, and we'll take care of the rest. They are talking about, you better watch it, they are going to reverse this thing. You'll be right back where you were before. No they aren't going to reverse nothing. You can't reverse anything for a man. You can reverse something for a child, not a man. The black man is existing for the first time in his manhood on this earth. There ain't nobody that's going to reverse nothing for us.
G-d is on our side. And even G-d is looking at our condition now and saying, Well I can get busy on the new galaxies I'm creating. These boys are in shape now to take care of themselves. They ain't babies no more. They got some men among them. So even G-d is stepping back as a defender or protector, or guardian. He's not even working hard among us anymore. He says, hey that have some men among them. They can take care of themselves. And I feel good. G-d I feel good. Praise be to Allah.
So, the materials that we need to take our life to where we want it to go, we are born with those materials. But they are in prison. First the world put them in prisons with its difficult language, and its difficult understanding, and its lack of attention on the real need of every human being, and that is the need to understand their real relationship with their G-d, with their Creator. Most of us are sensitized in this world to think that our real relationship with our Creator is only a spiritual relationship, or only a sentimental thing, or an emotional thing, a moral thing, but we don't know that without a rational relationship with your G-d you will not go forward to manhood. I should really say to you as salaam alaikum and sit down. That's exactly what I'm going to do. Peace. As salaam alaikum.

[01:44:50] [END OF AUDIO]

