07/22/2001
IWDM Study Library 
Message to Men Atlanta, Ga

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Praise be to Allah. Thank you. Thank you. Praise be to Allah. Al-hamdulillah, Al-hamdulillah Rabbil Al Amin. As Salaam Alaikum.
We witness that G-d is one. We say "La Ilaha Illallah, Muhammadan Rasulallah There is only one G-d and Muhammad is the messenger of G-d. Salalah Alahi Wa Salaam (Prayers and the Peace be upon him.)
Yes, I was thinking what am I going speak to the brothers about that'll make them feel happy and like me? Nothing, nothing. The sisters, they're going strong in the world, you know? It was easy to talk to them. It's a little difficult to talk to you all, especially addressing you as males. Because you know our males have been wiped out almost. There was a time when we had the spirit as Imam Sabree mentioned, we had the spirit, the spirit was in us to make a better life for ourselves. And it was passed down to us by parents, grandparents, sometimes uncles and sometimes non-relatives that would like us, just take to us, and they would like us and they would give us the good advice and prepare us to survive and make progress in this world. But that's gone. Those days are gone. We don't have that anymore. But we thank Allah that we are Muslims and we have this religion, Al-Islam, and that is our salvation.
And as long as we stay here in this favorite, blessed place, we won't be lost or wiped out with the many. Praise be to Allah. That every community of believers, they have there I would say sanctuary, a place that remains unchanged while the world is changing all the time. And if we know our religion in its center, in its spiritual center, then we know our sanctuary. The Jews have their sanctuary. The Christians have their sanctuary. The Muslims, we have our sanctuary, and our sanctuary belongs to G-d. It's not called ours. It's called his sanctuary. It's G-d's sanctuary. So that center for our life as individuals and that center for our life as a community, it belongs to G-d. He is the owner of it, but we get the benefit from it.
It keeps us living and helps us to conform after we have been deformed, it helps us to conform again and be reformed. Praise be to Allah. Back to the original. As I was sitting there wondering what I was going to say to you all, I say, "Well, maybe I should give them a little introduction of Imam W Deen Mohammed when he was called Minister Wallace D. Mohammed as a young man preaching in Chicago before my father sent me to Philadelphia. They asked me to speak to the Fruit once. They said, "Brother Minister Wallace, would you speak to the Fruit? We need some motivation. They need to be motivated. The spirit is low. Would you speak to the Fruit?" I say, "Oh, it'd be my pleasure to speak to the Fruit."
Yeah. And I don't know if Imam Ibrahim Pasha remember, but I took a subject and I compared the fruit with a diamond. You remember that? With a diamond. And I made a point of saying that that product, what couldn't be made right away, the diamond is a product that took long, long time to be made. And science tells us it starts with prehistoric animals dying, going back to the earth, and their bodies and all reserves being formed from their bodies, and coal eventually being formed, coal. Some of you might not know what coal is. Coal is something like those biscuits, you barbecue it, but a little heavier and more solid. And before electric and central heating and all that took over the method of heating our homes, most homes were heated by coal, coal.
Anyway, I told them that from the coal, over a period of millions of years, they say, the cold is pressed, compressed, compressed, more and more and more and more. And the coal becomes a diamond. Isn't that something? In time, the coal becomes a diamond, and it's hard and durable. You could use it to cut steel. It'll cut almost anything. Use it to cut steel, very hard and durable. Now, I don't know how old I was back then, but I was young. I was young. When I look back, I say, "Boy, I was deep to be so young."
Philosophical. I can't remember a time in my life that I was not philosophical, always philosophical. The point I was trying to make to the brothers was that you can't be what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad wants you to be, the great people he wants you to be, overnight. It's going to take time. And the best things are made over a long period of time. The most precious things are made over a long period of time. Not hastily or instantly. That's what I was trying to impress upon them. And that they should not want to be weak or infirm, as scripture said, they should want to be strong and firm, durable, durable, and have the constitution to endure, be durable and have the constitution to endure and to perform a job that benefits society. So that's what I was trying to impress upon them. Long after that, oh, must have been 20 years maybe, at least 15 or 20 years later, Imam Pasha, my father was getting old, getting weak, reminding us that we have to prepare to keep going when he's gone.
And I had a dream, almost like a nightmare. And in this dream, some dreams are more lifelike than other dreams. More real-like. This dream was very real-like, it was in colors, and here I am, all of a sudden like dreams, I'm in a place like a wilderness. By wilderness I mean an uncultivated place. And I'm walking in the open plane, and I finally come to a big, huge pile of coal. Now, if any of you all seen coal, you know what I'm talking about, you know how a huge pile of coal looks. Big, huge pile of coal, like a mountain of coal. And this mountain of coal is in my way. I'm not being driven by conscious awareness of where I should go. I'm being driven automatically as if by spirit, a compelling spirit.
So, the mountain is in my way, and I didn't have any way to go except that way. So, I started to climb up the mountain. Now you who know coal, imagine climbing up a mountain of those barbecue biscuits, coal biscuits, charcoal biscuits, you know what's going to happen. So, I'm trying to climb up this coal. The coal is more solid than the biscuits, those charcoal biscuits, but I'm climbing and every step up, look like I lose more than 50% of my ascent. I go up like this, then the coal brings me down. It gives in, it gives. And I come down like this.
But gradually I'm going up, but I'm just coming down almost more than I'm going up with each step I take, upon me almost coming down as far as I stepped up with each step I took. So I finally got to the top, near the top, and I could not get to the top because every time I stepped up there down, down, coming down. As I got near the top, it wouldn't support me. Top wouldn't support me to keep going up. So, it was so vivid, that is so much like life, not many things I went to my father with. I told my father about my dream. I said, "Daddy, I had a dream. It was like real." And I told him, he listened to it, and he had no comment at the end when I finished, he didn't have any comment. And he said, "That coal, that means something, son. I don't know, but that means something." That's all he said.
So, I figured out. Oh, he left it to me, so I figured it out. I say these are black people. You want to grow up with the support of black people better? It is difficult. And if you want to get where you want to go, there's a big black mountain in your way, your own folks, your own people in your way. Because all of them want to get up. All of them want to get up. And if you try to get up with their support, oh buddy, you got it hard. But we've been fortunate. We have. We've been fortunate. We have. In fact, I couldn't have had that dream if we weren't blessed.
For a young son of The Honorable Elijah Muhammed to have that dream is a blessing from G-d, from Allah, that I had a dream like that. I had another dream too. I'm tell you one more and then I'm going to talk to you for a few minutes and let you tell me something or ask me something. It's okay. If I have enough time, I'll answer your questions if you want to ask me some questions. I had another dream, real, just like that dream. And I never learned to swim, I always wanted to swim. Since then, I had a couple of lessons from my nephew. I had two nephews, still have one, one died over in Saudi Arabia, Imam Sultan. Those guys, lifesavers. They had jobs as lifesavers and they were swimmers, both of them, his brother, Muhammad Ali, we call him Isa too. Jesus. He calls him Jesus. He's still living in good shape and can swim. They used to start swimming from my father's house, 48, 47 Woodlawn. And they'd swim down almost to Congress down near the loop in Lake Michigan.
So anyway, I had this dream, and it was the same as that dream of the coal. The dream starts with me being in a vacant looked like a wilderness, forsaken land. And I'm just walking, driven compulsively by some spirit to keep going in a certain direction. And in the distance, I see a beautiful pool, beautiful pool, the water looks so pretty. So, I start going toward this pool. Again, compulsively, as if I was just driven inward to do that. And my mind wasn't making any decision for me. And as I came near to this pool, there was a man and the pool had a wide edge on it like cement, nice cement, but it was painted beautiful, just a beautiful pool. Painted or either a marble or something.
And this man was standing on this ledge of the pool. And he looked at me as though he knew I was coming and he signaled to me without speaking to come to him. Without speaking, he signaled to me to come to him. So, I came, I came to him, and then he signaled to me again without speaking to watch him. No voice, just signals, signals. He signaled to me again to watch him. No gestures, no physical bodily gestures, anything, just mental signals, attention coming from his mind to mine or from his concern to mine. And he signaled me to watch him. So, I put my eyes on him and he stepped off of the ledge onto the water, and he began to move his feet like this. And he stayed on the surface of the water. And he went out in the center of the water and he continued to do that.
Then he signaled to me to come into the water. So, I came into the water, and you know how dreams are? You don't know how you got your pants off, but now your pants are off. Right? So, my pants are off and I'm in my shorts and I'm on the water too and I'm doing just what he did. And I was on top of the water. And that's how my dream ended. So, I told my father that dream, and know what my father said? He said, "Son, that means you're going to be a leader of people and you're not going to fall." That's what he told me. Praise be to Allah, I haven't fallen yet, but it tells us something else. That scripture also tells us in the same way with the picture, scripture gives us a picture and it tells the same. It tells us that getting the support of people is not getting their physical support or their material support, it's getting them to support you with their souls.
And if you can be held up by their souls, if their souls accept you to be supported upon their souls, you are the leader for them and they're the support for you. Beautiful, Allahu Akbar, beautiful, beautiful with great depth, great wisdom and great depth. So, we thank Allah. The soul is like the psyche in psychology, the soul is like the psyche. And in mythology, the psyche is pictured as a person, but the psyche is also pictured as a body of water, a body of water. In Greek myth, Greek myth. Yes. So, I thought I would share those with you all. Because these things I have experienced in my life, they have fed my mind and my soul. I just want to share that with you.
Now for a few minutes, let us look at the creation of man, the creation of man. The creation of man in religion, not in science or the secular world sciences, the creation of man in religion. In the Bible, the creation of man, the Bible says the creation of man was from the dust of the earth. And there has not been any rain to fall, and G-d caused the rain to fall. And then he formed the man from the earth. So, man was made from dust, according to the Bible's Genesis. But in order to form him, there had to be rain to form him. And in the Qur'an, we are told that man was made from mud. Well, the mud is the dry earth and the water again, right? So, it's not saying something different from what Genesis says, it's really saying the same thing, that G-d made man from the earth, but the earth having water with it or in it, that's what G-d formed man of.
Now, we know the Qur'an takes a step further, steps further. And it goes back as the Bible to clay to say something different. Says man was made from clay. Most clay has a reddish look, and that's why they chose clay because myth before religion gave this idea, ancient myths had this idea that that was a potter who found clay, and he took the clay and he formed the shape of a man, made the shape of a man out of clay. And somehow the man became animated and was a living person. So, this was really in ancient myths before it was in religion, and religion was really taken from the ancient myths. And speaking their wisdom, their religious wisdom through the ancient myths. The ancient myths.
Anyways, says he was made from clay. But then the Qur'an says not just clay, but clay that gives off sound. And the translator says sounding clay, sounding clay, clay that will make a ring. You'll hit it and it'll make a ringing sound. So, what is that telling us, brothers? It is telling us two things. Firstly, that all men are of one family life, one species, one family life. Red refers to the blood. Men are different by pigmentation, color, but they're the same by blood color. All blood is red, even the blood of animals is red. So that's why the blood is used.
And the Bible makes a big thing of this. The Bible says, "And the life of the body is the blood." This is in the Bible. The life of the body is the blood. And you hear the expressions, your life blood. Life blood, life blood. So, this is in the scripture. Now, getting back to this clay that makes sound, ringing sound, this in the Qur'an is really to question what was with the religious people before Islam or before the Qur'an. Yes, you are saying that man is made of clay. Meaning man is made to be shaped. Man is made to be formed. Man is impressionable. Human beings are impressionable. They're easily formed, influenced, they're shaped and their form can be influenced. Impressionable, that's exactly what it means. If you know the word in the dictionary, impressionable, human life is impressionable. That's all its saying when it says man is made of clay.
But the Qur'an comes back and says sounding clay. Sounding clay goes back to the clay of the myth, the Greek myth. It's the clay that the Potter makes and then he puts it in fire to dry it out and harden it so it keeps its shape. But what Allah is saying in the Quran, He revealed to us through Muhammad, is that yes, human life is impressionable, but human life is also disciplined. And once it finds a discipline that's for it, it will become fixed in that discipline. It will become rigid and you can't take it out of its form without destroying it. That's what is said, sounding clay. But better than that, it means when you become a person formed by conviction. Formed by conviction. If it's the right conviction, if you be informed by G-d, the one who created you, if it's the right conviction, you won't only respond, but you'll be able to respond with sound. With sound.
And it is to say that man is impressionable, yes. In his development, he's impressionable like fresh clay, fresh clay, but he has also the nature to harden and hold his form and resist anyone trying to change his form. And when he becomes like that, he also gives off sound. He speaks. Praise be to Allah. Yeah. Yeah. When you touch the fresh clay, a thumb and the impression is left. You touch the Potter's clay, you did something, and it does something back. It responds with a sound to what you did. Yes. And it could even be made an instrument, a horn or whatever. Yeah. Made into instruments.
So, it's a great beauty just to look at what G-d is saying about our creation and how he progresses our creation, how he made our life to progress from one form to another. And in Arabic language, clay is Taful, and the same that TFL, heavy TFL, and baby is Tifal. That same TFL. The only thing changed is the short sign, Kasra, on the T instead of the Ta, Fatha on the heavy Ta. So, the one little dash sign changes baby to clay or clay back to baby. Tafil, Tifal. Or Tifil, Tafal.
So, when G-d says that man was made from clay, he means made innocent like a baby, and babies accept to be influenced by their mothers or whoever they put in charge to care for them. Whoever's charged, they're put into, to care for them. They're just open to be influenced however that parent or guardian wants to have them influenced, and they'll come up just like There raised, until they get to a certain age, then they start burning and the clay gets hard. And pretty soon you can't do anything with it. It'll give you a sound back too. Yes.
But G-d wants us to know that we are one life, one family, and that he unites us by the power of our hearts, by the influence, nature and power of our hearts. He brought man and woman together by the power and influence, the nature of their hearts. And he made one human family of many descendants descending from one parent. So, brothers, when Mr. Fard taught my father that we are the Original Man, he was taking us back to origin and doing it in a very wise way because we were the dissatisfied. We were not dissatisfied of the African American people, or dissatisfied of the Negroes or the Blacks, so-called Negroes or the Blacks. We were the dissatisfied, he didn't appeal to the satisfied. He only appealed to the dissatisfied.
And he was taking us by a marvelous route to get us to come back home to our original nature, to our original selves. And he knows this world had made us think of ourselves as Negroes and inferior, as Black and inferior, that he wanted us coming back to our original self, the Original Man. And who is your own self? And who is my own self? My own self is a righteous Muslim. Didn't say a black man. My own self is a righteous Muslim. He knew that if we identified as Muslims and accepted to come back to our original innocence and purity and righteousness, that G-d created us when he made us babies from our mothers, that we would be at a good situation to come to our manhood one day that G-d created us for. I don't know what you all think when you look at me. When I look at the picture, at myself in the mirror or picture of me, I see a man.
G-d has made me a man, and all of you all who believe like we should believe as Muslim, you are no more boys. You are men. And if the white man feels your spirit or hear your mind, he will bear witness too. Ain't no boys no more. These are men. These are men. That's all I want to say to you. If you accept that, you can do the rest by yourself. All right, I'll be right back. Get your questions together. I'll be right back. I drunk about two gallons of fluid in this hot weather. I got to go, brother. I'll be right back.
Again, As Salaam Alaikum. It's really time to do exactly what you're doing. Go into the next thing on the agenda, and that's eating. And listening to the beautiful music. So, I'm going to move on. I got to get a plane pretty soon, so I only have a few minutes. But if there's some brother who wants to make a comment, a statement, or ask a question, please let me know. And please let's begin. I saw a hand back here first, all the way. Yes. Can you come here quickly? Yes. The sisters’ program, they had the sisters come up when they want and it helps a lot. It helps. It's very good. Yes, sir. As Salaam Alaikum.
Speaker 2:
As Salaam Alaikum. Imam Mohammed, the question that I have is with the three major religions, the Muslims, the Christians and the Jews, and we know the Jews have the horn as they make for their sound of call, the Christians have the bell, the Muslims have the voice. Can you explain, elaborate on why the horn and the bell?
IWDM:
Yes, sir. Thank you. Yes, sir. The Jews in the history of the People of the Book, they were first before the Christians. And the Jews were like, well, they were a people who needed the spirit of G-d to come into them so they could be directed to their contract with G-d or covenant with G-d. And the Christians were... Not the Christians, but the people who converted to Christianity, they were a people formed and ready to receive G-d, but already spiritual, having spirit, already having spirit. And G-d chose to inspire the Jews. We have it in Mount Sinai. Moses went up to Mount Sinai, and the Mount Sinai is called ??ri Sineen and it is a reference to spirit, to spirit.
So, the Jews were brought to go seek G-d, to have a covenant with him by spirit. The Jews also became Christians, but the real Christians are not the Jews who carried Christianity to those who became Christians. But the Christians, when we think of Christians, we don't think of Jews anymore. When we think of Christians, we think of Europeans who accepted Christianity. They were the first to accept Christianity. Europeans, the Greeks and the Romans and other Europeans embraced Christianity. And they were a people who had to get Christianity not direct by inspiration or spirit from G-d. They had to get it from the sound of the words.
And we have the expression now, ring, that word has a ring, a familiar ring. So, they had to get it from the sound of the word. And Muslims were not to be in either situation, where we had to search to find G-d and get a spirit in us to find G-d. I mean, Muslims of the world, not just Blacks, Muslim of the world, the people, I should say people at the time of Islam, the revealing of Islam, they were in a state where they didn't... They weren't in a state, pardon me, that would say these people need the spirit of G-d in them. The world had much of the spirit of G-d in us, but the world was not in the right shape. And the Christians had already indulged the word and tried to get the message.
The sound means the message in the world. So, when the church has the bell ringing, don't you all go out telling these things, no, this is for your benefit. You don't want to make others feel uncomfortable. Say where you get that, that's not true. They will say to you, maybe. When the church has the ringing bell, that ringing bell is still there preserving that idea of them as a people who had to get guidance from listening to sounds. If I had more time, I could show you. I could tell you exactly how this works. The sound of the word, just like I told you, Tifil and Tafal, they're similar. So, if you listen to the sound, Tifal, Tafal, the sound itself tell you that there's common connection here. There's a connection here for these two. Well, they listen to words and they found connections for the two.
I wish I had the time. You'd be surprised. This language is universal. It's not limited to any one language. If I had the time, I could convince you if you're intelligent and stay rational, I could convince you that what I'm saying is true, the language is universal and the sounds will connect meanings for you. Not all the time, but many words have sounds similar to another word and it will so happen at certain times or for certain situations it will so happen that that sound, that common sound reveals something to you. When you get the help from the two words, you get the help from the meaning in this word, you get the help from the meaning in this other word, that sounds like this, how that sound is similar. Then you will get help from that, and the meaning will come to tell you, to reveal something that was hidden when those words were separate and the common sound hadn't brought those words together.
I hope you're following what I'm saying. Now, Allah didn't want us to struggle like that. The Christian leaders, they were 300 years trying to sell an argument, reading scripture. And they were blessed to be helped by the sound 300 years before they came to a conclusion. And when they came to conclusion, they came to the wrong conclusion. They had a majority, had come to the wrong conclusion. The Eastern Church did not accept the conclusion that they came to. The Greek Eastern Church is still over there, still in the Middle East, and does not accept yet the conclusion that they came to about the three natures of Jesus Christ, they didn't agree.
Yes, but they were studying the sounds, trying to learn what is the nature of divine? What is the nature of man? What is man nature? What is G-d's nature? What is the nature of man? What is divine nature? So, for three centuries, they were studying, and finally they came to a conclusion. Yes. Now he mentioned that we don't have the horn, the bugle, and we don't have trumpet, and we don't have the bell. But we must have a human being. Bilal was the first one, giving the call with the human voice, Haya Al Salah, Allahu Akbar first Allahu Akbar then until the end. Haya Al Salah, Haya Al Falaq, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, La Ilaha il Allah.
It's the human voice. The human voice is used. What does that tell us? It tells us to bring it to a quick conclusion because I'm gone when I do this. G-d has evolved man and he has aided man onto the path of his progress or evolution with his spirit. First, his spirit, then his word, and then the man speaks. Peace. As Salaam Alaikum.


