05/18/2002
IWDM Study Library
WDM Evening Talk 
Masjid Khalifah Brooklyn NY

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Dear brothers and sisters, leaders in the community. Peace be unto you, As-salamu alaykum. We thank Allah for this day in Brooklyn, in this presence that we have here, this audience, this gathering, and the lovely, tasty breakfast that I just enjoyed. And also, for your leader, and our Imam leader in this area, Imam Adib Rashid. When man was created, according to both the Bible and the Qur'an, but the Qur'an is put a little differently. According to the Bible, G-d saw him alone, alone by himself, and it was not good, G-d said, that the man be alone. And I've heard others say, and I've come to see it. If you find a leader struggling alone, there's something missing in him. He doesn't have a wife that's helping him, or suitable. He doesn't have a relationship with the natural world that's suitable. Something is missing that's really important.
And I don't think nothing is more important for man than the correct relationship with a woman, and the correct relationship with this material world G-d made. And we have it in your Imam, Adib. We have that, and that's why he's not working alone. If the man is whole, and the man wouldn't be half that if he didn't have that woman. The woman is really a pointer, a sign pointing to even a bigger relationship that G-d wants a man to have. And that's the relationship with the natural world, with the material environment. And when G-d says the woman is your tilth, meaning your ground, that you're going to plant your harvest, what you expect to harvest, you're going to plant it in that ground and you expect to harvest it.
Well we also put our vital life in our wife, in our woman, our wife, and we expect a good harvest. We trust G-d that we have a good harvest of our life repeated, or another generation through her. But also as I said, she is a sign pointing us to another relationship that we need to establish if we expect to have our community life repeated and survive, we have to form that relationship with the natural environment, the material world that G-d created. So G-d is really subtly, quietly suggesting to man, very strongly, though speaking very subtly and quietly that he engage not only a beautiful woman, but engage the material environment. And we are on our subject. This is our subject for this morning.
But before going further with our subject for this morning, let me say that I have been here before, and I returned, and I see even more progress than I saw before. You are moving, and this makes me feel so good. And I know I'm just like many brothers and sisters in this community. We are not happy when we don't see progress. We are not happy when we don't see people working and people accomplishing things. So when we do find an area, a Mosque, a Center where that's happening, you'd be surprised how much energy, how much spirit and how much pleasure it gives us to go back home and even be more alive and more active, and more powerful to get accomplished more things even in our local places. So, this is a must that we have examples of life and not examples of laziness and idleness and stagnation and death. Thank you very much, you sponsors and thank you very much, Allah, for this leader, Adib Rashid and his supporters.
Praise be Allah. Praise be Allah, we are very pleased. Yes. And when he told me, I said, "Wow, I doubt if I can get that done." He told me that he got a fire alarm system put in here, and it didn't take no time to do it. And it costs $36,000. Big congratulations to you all. Big congratulations. That shows that you have something special. You have to have something special to do that. And believe me, I've been believing, and that is bigger than I am. And that is secured when I'm not secured, and that is permanent, and I'm not permanent. I've been believing in that ever since my mother and father introduced me to it. All right, I've been the man believing in G-d, and I have believed that if you try to please G-d, you are going to have the best life, and best situation possible for yourself. That's what I believe. So, my father used to tell people when they'd give big contribution, say "Brother, thank you." He said, "Thank you, brother. Allah is going to give you that and more."
So, what you give it may not be returned. Like you say, sometime you do business and you say you receive compensation in kind, whatever you gave, you get the same thing back. I give you dollars. I got dollars back. That's in kind. I give you chickens. I got chickens back, or I got some agricultural product back, which was in kind, it was in the same category. Allah may not give you compensation in kind, but you are going to get the compensation that's best for you. Allah knows better than you what compensation will make your life better. So, I'm not saying you're going to get this, you all are going to get your share at $36,000 in kind, but you are going to get rewarded equal to what you gave and more. Allah is going to do that. Praise be to Allah. Yes, now getting back to our topic and economics, the community of African American people have not yet shown that it's conscious of it's responsibility for it's community life.
Our neighborhoods are still depending on other than us, the residents, for business, life and for even the maintaining of property in good shape. We are like migrants, almost. We come to an area, we live there. Pretty soon, the area dies. Not attractive anymore. Or another area we become aware of, have a little more to offer us, and we have enough money to go there. We leave our area. We abandon our area, where we have established friendships with neighbors. We have established our spiritual life there, on that block next to our neighbors in that environment, in the stores that we frequent. And then we pull up sticks and just move like desert travelers, tent people moving from one tent to another every time we hear the Oasis is a little bit brighter, a distance away.
That's what keeps us poor. That's what keeps us poor. If we want to be comfortable materially as a people, we have to realize that what Islam offers us is the solution to this problem, because Islam requires that all Muslims not live separately, but live together. We are not Muslims if we don't live together. What do I mean by live together? I mean plan life together. Plan life separately, but we must also plan life together. If we are to answer the call of Islam, it's the call to community life. G-d says you are a community. You are the best of the communities, evolved for the good of all people. That's what G-d says of us. Antum kira ummtan ukrajal linnas , plain as day. I translated for you exactly, plain and simple. It says, G-d says you are the best community evolved for all people- Ukrajal Li nas evolved for all people. Now Ukrajal literally means brought out. It comes from the Arabic word, Kharajat. Kharajat. Ikraj It means to go out.
Ikrajat means that what that is speaking of was brought out. Now isn't this in line with the scriptures that came before? Nothing in the Qur'an is without a connection with the scriptures that were revealed before. Something in the scriptures before has a relationship to what you have in the Qur'an. I don't care what it is. So, when we hear this word that has translated evolved, and it does mean evolved, because a plant exit from the ground, doesn't it? A seed is buried in the ground. You bury it, you put it in the ground, and life makes it exit from the ground. And it comes into the open space, and it's visible. And it's part, it then becomes part of the visible world or the visible environment. Well, look, what G-d says is He has created you like a plant.
I'm thinking on money. This subject is called money. Okay? Money. That's what this subject is called. You can call it what you like, but that's what I got in mind, money. But money is to support life. The life that Allah wants for us, the life is more important than the money. The life is the thing. The money is the means to have the thing like we want it. The money is only the steps toward what we want. We need that money to step across over to what we want, you see? So we don't want to put too much importance on the money as something that our life needs. Our life needs life, and the life needs support for it. And that support is the earth. The material world that G-d gave us, and the money is nothing but a symbol or token of some part of this material world that we have managed to be responsible for, to own, to possess, to have in our charge.
That's all the money is. It's only a token, a symbol, all right? In itself, that's all it is. So when you buy, you take $500 and buy you a nice overcoat. Don't be like the stupid people and think of that overcoat as $500. Keep the looks of that overcoat as it looked, when you took it off the rack in your mind and say, "That's what I bought. I bought that overcoat, and that overcoat was worth $500." But he said, "I paid $500 for that coat." After a while, $500 becomes the prominent thing. The imprint on your mind, more than the coat itself, $500.
So if we go after money, I don't care how much it is. G-d knows, I could realize in my charge and my hand as my responsibility, $1 billion today. And the first thing I'll start thinking about right away, my mind will go off of the billion dollars. I'll start thinking about what that billion dollars can get us. Not the billion dollars. People that's fascinated by money, by just the token, the paper we call money, a dollar, they will hold onto it. You got a billion dollars and it's been 10 years and you still got a billion dollars, and a little interest. And so many things coming at you because the world know too, you got a billion dollars. That billion dollars is threatened from so many sides that we could hear a couple years later that you're broke.
Somebody have picked you out, found a way to get your billion dollars, because you just wanted to just keep the billion dollars. But if you right away say, "I got a billion dollars and I can get a billion dollars worth of goods, services, land, facilities to strengthen myself, my family and my community." That's the way we have to think. That's the way we have to think. And I think a lot that we have in this community, persons like that. A sister recently, I'm sharing this with you. A sister recently called upon me, contacted our office, CPC's office to tell us through the ministry. She contacted us to tell us that she just sold a house that was left to her by her husband. She's a widow. And she said she had $300,000, and she wanted to invest with CPC. When we finally got together and was able to talk to her and I learned that she wanted to make, now you listen to this. She's a senior citizen. She wanted $100,000 to go to the beneficiary, her husband, her present husband, she's married. That cut some of you pretty boys off, didn't it?
Yeah, she's already married. And she wanted another $100 to go to one of her close relatives, a female. And she said, "I want $100 to stay with CPC." See, that sister got her community at heart. She's looking to the future. Now she ain't only investing, but she's investing for CPC to continue to live in the future after we are gone. She's not the only one, but she's the biggest investor. But we have a few others like that who have told us that they want this money, a part of it, their money, the investment part of it, to stay with CPC should they die, and so much to go to their other persons they name. This is the spirit that I have in me. I make money. I'm taken care of by you all. I know for sure that I won't be put out of doors. I'll have a car.
I'll have the things that I have to have, but I have a lot of friends, a lot of relatives, a lot of friends and a lot of people that I took in like I did a pigeon once, little baby pigeon. I saw this baby pigeon, no mother came, and got it. I took that baby pigeon in and took care of it. And one day it would go away and fly, come back and alight on my shoulder. I was a boy about 14, 13 or 14 and one day my pigeon... Yes, I wasn't 14. I know. I remember now the address where we lived, I wasn't 14, because we had moved from that address while I was 13. One day I saw the pigeon, the pigeon came, you know, creatures are intelligent just like we are. That pigeon came to show me.
Didn't want to leave me forever and not tell me what was happening. That pigeon came with another pigeon. Wow. And the pigeon was still young, like a squaw, but big enough to be grown in a pigeon world. So that pigeon came and all the other big pigeon. And soon that pigeon noticed that I saw it. It didn't light on my shoulder. It turned right around. G-d is my witness. They turned around and flew away. It came to tell me that, "I found my mate. I found the mate, and I won't be seeing you anymore." Now, I was lonesome and hurt. When that pigeon was taken away, that pigeon was flying away. I was hurt and happy, more happy than hurt. That that pigeon had found a mate and was going on through this world to have its life.
Well, we can learn a lot from these animals, these lower creatures in the scale of life and evolution, we can learn a lot from them. That's why you find them in scripture. Ants, animals, pigeons, doves. They're in scripture. Yes, okay. Back to money. Look how this happened. I saw a piece of land. See if you want to grow, you want to concentrate some of your investments. You don't want things scattered off too far. If I have to leave CPC and drive downtown, or to the north side to another business that we acquired, look at how much time it takes me to go to the north side of downtown, and return back to where I live, or where we have another business. Look at the gas, the wear and tear on the vehicle, and the time. See, when you start moving up into business, you start investing into more and more time.
Every time you increase your finances and your financial responsibilities, your time becomes more valuable. I don't care if you increase it just a little bit, a little bit, your time increased in value. So after a while, somebody called me and said, "Hey, Imam. Can you go to lunch with me? Or can you go out dinner with us this evening?" When I didn't have much responsibility, "Oh yes". I don't even ask them how much time it's going to take. But as you move on in responsibility for investments, for finances, etc. "Oh yeah. Where are we going? I want to know how much time is going to take us to get there." I'm trying to see how much time it's going to take out of my day. I said, "Well, where are we going? Are we going right around the corner? About five minutes from you. Good."
I said, "Now, how long it's going to take? How long we going to be there? You want to have a meeting or are we just eating?" Oh no, we want talk. How much time you need? "About an hour. Depend on what it is." If it ain't going to give me money for my money. My time is money now. My time ain't time. My time is money. Somebody asked me to come somewhere and they say, they told me they got $500 honorarium. I said, "I will pay you $500 to never invite me again." What is $500? $500 is nothing right now just like telling me, "I got five cents, five pennies." That's nothing. In fact, it cost him five. If I were to make him pay my charge, would've been to him $500 for the five minutes I was talking to him. I'm telling you the truth. I'm not exaggerating anything.
Time is very precious and very valuable. The more you involve yourself in business or in important matters. Those important matters make your time very, very valuable. Very, very valuable. The Imams time is very, very valuable. You want your leader to be more productive. You want him to get more things done. Do not tie him up with petty things, with small matters. Take care of those small matters with other people and let him handle the big things, and he will do more for you in this community, and for himself and his family. Don't forget, we have to respect private interest, and that's something we need to be educated in, too. We ask people to come and work for us, and we think they're supposed to work for nothing. We think they supposed to give us their time for nothing.
You got a life. Somebody has to take you. You got something supporting your life, and you care about your private life. So does everyone else. We care about our private life, and we have to respect the private life of one another. So don't ask a man who has intelligence, education, resources, he has proven that he can produce. Don't ask him to give time, and you don't compensate him for his time. If he views it as charity, then G-d receives that. And G-d loves him for that and will reward him even more. But don't you ask me to give you my time. You won't employ me for nothing, and you were saying in your heart, "G-d will give him, G-d is going to bless him." I don't want you telling me G-d going to bless me. I tell myself that.
I'll pray and I'll tell myself, "G-d, I hope you'll bless me." I don't want you to tell me that unless you've already blessed me. If you've already blessed me, then tell me G-d's going to bless me, too. I like that. But you bless me first for what I'm giving you. Yeah, we have to become people of business sense. I don't know if you know this, but practically, every other racial or ethnic group on this planet see us as a whole race that has no business sense. I'm telling you, this is what they talk with each other. They laugh at us in privacy. When we not around, they laugh at us. "They can sing. They can dance. They have it, but they have no business sense." And they can't believe that CPC has business sense. They can't believe that this community under my leadership has business sense.
I talk to them, especially those Asians, except for a very few Koreans. I know some of you don't like Koreans, but I find them having much more respect for our business sense, for our intelligence as a people than many other Far East people in Asia. This, I hate to talk about my brothers, but this includes also the Arabs who are in the Middle East. They have no respect for us. They don't think we have business sense, right? Like some of the die hard racist, no matter how much you achieve, they want to charge it to something other than your intelligence. You didn't get this because you were qualified as an intelligent person or you didn't get this because you have business sense. You got this because you were lucky, or you are in drugs. Right away, they say, "Oh, he's in drugs. He's selling drugs. This is just a front."
They can't believe that you can do what they can do with your intelligence. So, this is not true. We know it's not true of us. That's not true of us, but it is true of us that we don't have enough of us working to see that we have the community life that we want in our souls, that we walk out of our home and look at what's out there in the environment, the physical environment. We don't see the creation of other people right in front of our eyes. Soon as we stop step out of our door, we're supposed to see the creation of our own people. Like when other races, Irish, Italian, Polish, when they step out of that door, they know what they're looking at. They're responsible for it. They know that they did it. They're responsible for it.
They're holding up what they're looking at. They're preserving what they're looking at. But when we walk out of our door, whether it's apartment a room or a house, most likely we are looking at something other people did, something other people are preserving. Now there has to stop. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad and many of our African American leaders, males and females like Booker T. Washington and others. They were struggling to get rid of that ugly picture of us as people who can't create anything and can't secure anything, but our own self in our little small world, maybe, and most of us can't do that. We depend on the government, on welfare, on charity from the masjid. Charity, we depend on help from outside just to do that. And nobody should be depending on that kind of help, unless they're crippled, deformed, retarded, some hospitalized.
There must be a real reason for you not to take care of yourself. The scripture, both Qur'an and Bible points to a time that's coming. And this is my concluding statement I'm about to put together here, points to a time that's coming, where the individual will have to accept responsibility for his or herself, and a time where when communities, one race will not be able to go to another race and to survive, or to have what it wants. One nation will not be able to go to another nation. All nations will have to stand on their own feet. All groups, racial groups have to stand on their own feet. All individuals will have to stand on their own feet. That's what scripture is pointing to. A time that's coming that all units, big and small will have to stand on their own feet. What do that tell us? Pardon me.
"Ka Kalakana Fil Ahsanee Taqweem". G-d says, "Surely We have created the human being in the most excellent model, or mold." And G-d says also, "Ka Kalana Kulee Banee Adam. "Certainly we have made honorable with dignity, every descendant of Adam." Now, what does the Bible prophesize? Where is the Bible coming from to prophesize like that? Every unit big, multiple and singular will have to one day support itself, is standing upon that determinant that G-d put in your body when He created it, a determinant that says you are not what you should be. Being idle, not producing, not taking care of yourself. You are not supposed to have everybody taking care of you. You're supposed to do what they're doing. If they could take care of themselves, you can take care of yourself. That's that dignity that G-d created us with. Speaking ! That's that honor that G-d created us with. Speaking!
It's demanding that we stand up and be the respectful and respectable creature that G-d created us to be. Respectful of others, but respectful also of our own self. You have these muscles, use them. You have this sense, use it. You have this love. Use it. G-d hasn't created any of us without love. Use that love. Make that law pay off for you and your close ones, as G-d calls them in the Qur'an, He don't even call them relatives. He calls them close ones. The word is from qarib, meaning near, close. And he call those, he used that language for your relatives. So, relatives is the word in Arabic and in Qur'anic Arabic, relative in the Arabic language is a word that means close to you.
Your wife is close to you, your children from her and you close to you. So these are the first ones, and Allah says in the book of G-d, close members have a priority. A priority. That means before you go out to take care of Imam W.D. Mohammed's household, be sure you're taking care of your own. Don't have your children crying, and you're trying to take care of Imam W.D. Mohammed. That's a sin before G-d. I know a lot of imams ain't comfortable with this, because you already ain't giving them nothing.
They say, "Oh, they going to give us less now." But this is more important for me to tell you this, even though I'm hurting an interest that has priority too, with me, and that is our Imams being taken care of, like they should. Being supported and given fair compensation for that time they give us. Okay, but I have to say this, brother Imams. I have to say this. These believers are not supposed to have their own house getting five day notice. They're going to be put out, their phone, threaten they going to cut the phone off, unless they have abused the phone. But if they using it sensibly, they're not running the bills up like they don't have a awareness of how much money they got, and they don't have enough to pay that bill, but they're not being stupid. They got a bill that's reasonable and can't pay it.
They're supposed to pay that bill before they give us money. Keep your phone on, stay in your own house. Be sure you got a place to stay. Don't be hungry. Don't have your children hungry. Don't feed them a cheap diet that will deprive them of nutrients and help for their development brain, bone, teeth, and everything. Take care of yourself and your family. That's your first obligation under G-d, your first obligation under G-d. Then, your next obligation is to take care of your community and the way you do that, support your community leaders. So, then you turn from your home directly to your mosque. Your mosque has the first rights outside of your home. Your mosque, your center, that's supposed to be working for your community life. And it is here in this town, in Brooklyn. Praise be to Allah.
So much for that. Getting back to the closing thought, we must prepare to be responsible for ourselves to the maximum degree. To the maximum degree. Doesn't mean that we are independent. No one is independent. Not even the whole world is independent. The world depends on G-d for its existence, and for its preservation, and we depend on G-d for our existence and for our preservation. And we have to depend upon each other, to an extent. We have to depend upon government. To an extent. We have to depend upon many things, and many factors to an extent. But we should be, if we want to be prepared for the future that G-d wants for us, and that G-d is going to force upon us, we ain't going to be able to escape it. We have to maximize the amount of responsibility that we take into our own hands for our own welfare, present and future, present and future.
This is predicted. And I see now that we are living in that time, President Bush is not thinking about taking care of Black people and no President following him, Republican or Democrat or other. Even if they come in with another party, they will not be thinking about taking care of Black people anymore. The clock has run out on that. Not only run out on taking care of Black people, but they're not going to take care of any people. We're living in a one world order. This one world order says many things, but here is what it says most importantly, to this point that I'm making in my concluding thought for you to keep with you. They're saying that everybody in this one world now has rights and claims.
And though we are very rich and powerful, we cannot treat our citizens in a way, or benefit our citizens in a way that does not respect what other citizens need in all parts of the world. This is the one world order that we are in right now. This is what's here. Now, the reason why we don't have more going out from us, and we have a lot going out. America, you'd be surprised how much America gives to help others, other countries, some of you know, but most of us don't. A lot of our tax money goes to help other nations with their publics, to help them manage their public, to serve their public. Much of our money. As you know, Israel gets a lot because of partnership, a secret partnership. You hear what I said? A secret partnership that Israel has with the United States. It didn't happen today. It happened when the United States was conceived. When the United States was conceived by the founding fathers, a secret partnership had already been formed with the Jews.
So don't think about, I can live with even worse than that. I can live with the devil, because I know how to keep him out of my life. He could stay right in my house. He could sleep and breathe on, and be so close to me. He's breathing on my neck. In fact, he does that sometimes. And I can live with it. He won't get into my life, thank Allah. It'd be just like he's not even there. He won't get into my life. Now, I'm prepared to live with the devil anywhere. And I'm anywhere. In Brooklyn, Chicago, wherever, I'm prepared to live with the devil. In fact, I'm prepared to have him, as I said in my bed with me, breathing on my neck, because he can't get into my life, thank Allah. He can get into my house though. And don't think he can't get into yours. I think he been in most of your houses. I hugged a couple of you, I smelled his breath on your neck. And I know it because I smelled it on my pillow.
Ain't nothing wrong with a little humor. It's good for the blood. Good for the blood, a little humor. Yes, so we have to accept that time in the future, promises us less and less from governments, and from other people. It says there's coming a time. This is Qur'an, when every soul would have enough problems of its own not to be bothered with others. And that time is here now. Everybody, they got enough problems on their own to be bothered with your problem. And Christianity, this is told in the symbol of the cross. Jesus took upon himself a cross, didn't he? And that cross was his cross, but he asked of his fellows that each of them take upon themselves their cross, bear a cross. It is the tradition of Christians to wear crosses, because this is what he left with them.
Now, what is that? What it says is that every individual must bear his own cross. G-d holds Muhammad the Prophet responsibility for the office that He gave him. He has them responsible for that. So he, as an individual had an individual responsibility to G-d, for the office that G-d entrusted him with. So in Christianity, that is his cross. That's Muhammad's cross. His individual responsibility that G-d gave him is his cross. For us, the responsibility that G-d created us for as individuals is our cross. Listen, please. This is very important. When you look at a cross, what do you see? You see, it is really a picture of two things, because these two things must become reconciled in man at some point, if he's to have the great life that G-d created him for. It's symbolic of you. Firstly, see? This is a cross.
This is exactly what it is. So when they put Jesus on the cross, really this, he himself is the cross. Jesus is the cross. He is the cross. This means himself in balance, the tight rope walker. He has to stretch his arms like this to stay balanced on that tight rope. So, the most you have going for you to balance yourself is this. This is good, but I can balance myself even better. I can have a more acute balance. A more, well, for want of another word, I'll just stop it right there. I can have a more exact balance.
I can be more perfectly balanced. That's it. By stretching my arms out to the full extent like this, to the full extent like this. So, we know that cross has more than one meaning. Cross has several meanings, and this is one of its most important meanings is that it means the person. And this is its first. I should say it's first and most important meaning, that this individual is in perfect balance. And of Jesus Christ, it is said in the Qur'an that they neither killed him nor crucified him. They didn't do either, but it was made to appear to them as such.
So this here appears to be when the man is here, looking pitiful and brutalized, blood dripping from the thorns on his head and holes in his hands and feet showing blood. This is a sign of cruelty, sign of cruelty, misery. It makes us feel sad. But the Qur'an wants us to see that this is an appearance to hide another appearance. This is a picture to hide another picture. Now under this picture of sadness of torture, of cruelty is another meaning. It means that Jesus lived all of his life in perfect balance before G-d. That's what it means, that his life was perfectly balanced before his Lord. And he died a Muslim, died in the perfect balance. From the Muslim nature, upright. That's what it means. So this is the real cross. The other cross hides this cross. It masks this cross, the cross that says Jesus died in the perfect balance. They're going to kill him, they're going to crucify him. He said, "This is the purpose for which he set me into the world."
"You're going to crucify me, you're going to kill me? Well, this is the purpose for which you sent me into the world. To give my all, including my life I have to. To make the ultimate sacrifice, if I have to. And if I make it and remain faithful to my Lord, never betraying Him. Never slacking, never short changing him, then G-d will record me that I died in the perfect balance. So, you didn't kill me. I came here to do this. I came here to do this.This is my purpose. You didn't kill me. I gave you my life. You didn't take it. I gave my life. You didn't take it. G-d sent me in the world to give it for His cause. And I gave it, how can you take what I give to G-d?" Are you listening to me? How could you take what I came to give to my G-d? Obedience, even if it means losing my life.
So, such a Shaheed is never killed, never crucified. He's obedient to his G-d. And he will give his all, rather than disobey his Lord. Now, it means that the time is coming when every tub shall sit on its own bottom. This is the Bible. Every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree. This is the Bible. The Qur'an says each one shall come up bound alone before his G-d, you ain't going to be able to pin the part to this one. Say, "Well, Brother Rahman can speak for me. I wasn't so bad. I had a problem, and he know he knows about it. He could tell you about it better than I can, G-d." No, nobody to look at, nobody to talk to. You are there by yourself before your G-d.
In this world now, the time has come that you can't point to brother so-and-so, sister so-and-so, or some problem you have in your leg. Well, there are people ain't got no legs that's productive. People got no arms, no leg and productive. I read about a man, wrote a book with his big toe. That's all he had left was a big toe. Arms gone, but he had a big toe. He called the book, "My big toe," because he used the big toe. He put a pencil between the big toe and wrote a book and made money. And there some have no book or nothing, but they have a mind. They're using their mind to continue to be productive. So whatever you got left, use it to continue to be productive. Because when you come up before G-d for your judgment, you ain't going to be able to have any excuses unless you use all that you had to live a productive life, and produce not only for yourself, but for others.
We're living a time when we have to be responsible for ourselves, We have to maximize, I repeat, the amount of responsibility that we will have for our own self and with respect also for our demand on us, to help our community. You must help your community. They are people crippled, but they love, they have such pride. They take such pride in being able to do something. They will get in the marathon and join the marathon crippled, walking on crutches, right? Just to show people, "My spirit is like yours though my capacity and ability is not, but my spirit is just like yours." They in that race, some in wheelchairs, you see them, in wheelchairs in that race. Isn't that a sign? That in our community, we can't excuse somebody just because they got one eye out or one leg off. No, this is as important as the marathon. Be the high spirited, grown spirited, people that we see in the marathon. You were handicapped. Still be productive. Be productive.
You don't have any schooling? Be productive. Do you know, The Honorable Elijah Muhammad for 30 years was supported by people who had no schooling? Those are the ones who attracted in the '30s and '40s and '50s. Those who had no schooling. They didn't have any schooling, but they had faith in what he was doing. And they worked selling junk, selling rags, cardboard, metal, old scrap metal. They worked washing walls, windows, doing domestic work, taking care of white folks' children, etc. Women and men, they all worked doing something and being the ones that supported my father, The Honorable Elijah Muhammad for 30 years before times changed, and we start getting help from people of a little higher level in education or in school, etc., or in society. In fact, it wasn't until the '60s that we start to realize a change in the picture of his following.
His following was almost 100% uneducated and poor until the '60s that a little change came when professionals, some better educated people start to join. Up to that point, I believe we could count them on one hand, those who had more than a high school education, we count them on one hand. We could count those who had a high school education probably without going past 100 for the whole following in the nation, in the whole Nation of Islam. You hear that? So, don't tell us that you don't have this and you don't have that. What you are missing is decency. Get some decency in your heart, and you will have the power to make a contribution to yourself, to your family and to your community. We're not accepting that stuff that you are handicapped. "I'm poor. I have too much responsibility." Take care of it. Hurry up and take care of that too much responsibility that you got. And don't take a month to do it because after 30 days we want to see you making a contribution to this community.
Get that house in order quick. I might have a secret thing going too. Somebody is going to be breaking down your door and whipping your ass. I mean, putting the old fashioned mama in the south, putting it on your ass, and when I say ass, I have nothing but a dumb donkey, a stubborn mule in my mind. I don't have anything like what you thought I had in my mind. Have you had nothing but a buttocks? We have no reason to whip you. That's all you got you, you're nothing but a buttock. We don't want to whip no buttocks. We want to whip a dumb ass.
This calling we got is too important for us not to jack each other up, for not being in the mind we should be in. Yeah, we have to start jacking each other up brothers, for not being in the mind we should be in. Is this Sunnah? Yes, it's Sunnah. We're responsible for each other. The brother is the mirror of his brother. Huh? The mirror of his brother. That means you are responsible to reflect to your brother what he should be looking at, that should be himself. The mirror shows you what you are looking at. And myself, the mirror shows myself to me. What Muhammad is saying, "You're supposed to show the brother himself."
Now, if he's not seeing himself and he's all out of shape, he's in the wrong state of mind. His spirit is bad. You're his mirror. Why don't you just show him himself. Is that making sense to you? Makes perfect sense to me. But look, we have practical examples too, from the history of our Prophet, Peace be upon him. Someone once reported to him, Muhammad, the Prophet that Believers were together at someone's home. And one of them got drunk, was drinking, they got drunk. He said, "All of you," he didn't excuse not a single one of them. He said, "All of you, each of you should have punished him."
So, that means we are responsible for each other. Now, you know we can't take a law in our hands. Muhammad had realized independent society in government, in Medina. At that time, they were not under another law. So, we can't take the law into our own hands. And the help for this situation is also provided for our... I've gone over time. Excuse me. The help for this situation is all also provided for, because Muhammad said we are obligated to correct the wrong when we see it. He said with your hands, if you find the circumstances for it, and if you can't find the circumstances to correct it with your hand, meaning take physical charge of it as well as mental charge. That's with your hand. He said, but if you can't find circumstances for that, then take charge of it with your tongue, speak out against it.
And sometimes, the circumstances won't even allow us to speak out against it. We get shot, we get killed. We get locked up, taken from our family, just for speaking sometime, out against or wrong under a dictator or a tyrant. A tyrant, a terrible ruler or a terrible regime. So sometime we can't even speak out here. He said, "At least have it in your heart to be against it." And that's the weakest of faith. He said, isn't that right? This is the Hadith. This is the saying of our Prophet, prayers and peace be upon him, Muhammad. Now, is there any time when you can't be the mirror for your brother? No. A mirror doesn't speak. A mirror is silent. You don't have to speak to your brother, but if you can correct it with your hands, if you have to. If you can't with your tongue, speak against it. If you can't find that, then in your heart, show him with the expression on your face, that you don't like the state he's in or the condition he's in.
My mother didn't have to do nothing just look at us. She didn't have to speak. She looked at us, and we knew to hurry up and get ourselves in shape before something comes stronger than that look. Yeah, so we can just look at each other and let each other know our expressions. But know what we do? The worst brother in the masjid, we go and kiss him. "Asalaam Alaikum brother." You're reinforcing him in his un-halal condition. That's what you're doing. And you are going have to pay along with him for contributing to his sin. Yes, yes. And it may not come when you're dead in that body. We might send that whip after you. We got many ways to whip. I'm just like my father. My language always practically need interpretation. We got many ways to whip. Believe me, we can whip now. G-d has blessed us with that.
He blessed us with ways to whip people, and we don't have to come to your house. Don't have send any guard or security brother to see you. We can reach you. G-d knows. He's given us the means to reach you, to make you life pure hell. We throw you in jail, too. Throw you in jail. I'm trying to lock you up with no physical means. I'm scaring you a little bit, aren't I? Good. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to scare you a little bit. I'm trying to scare you a lot. Trying to scare you a lot.
And In The Name of my G-d, what I tell you I can do, I can do. Okay? All right. But we don't want to hurt anybody. I'm the last one to hurt somebody. We want to help people. We want to love you. We want to help you make your life pleasing for you, and for your G-d. We want to help you get rid of the hurt, misery, fears, problems that you have in your personal life. And if you just follow the guidance that you have in Qur'an, and our Prophet Muhammad, and what we are advising you to do, accept our advice to you, you are going to have a beautiful and wonderful life. You are going to have a beautiful and wonderful community, and it's not going to be long coming. It's going be here like overnight. You going to wake up one morning. You're going to say, "Wow, I can't believe it. Look at all of this we have created."
Created. We have to create the life we want. G-d says, "Kalaqul bihi akfula", create using the box, that creating box G-d has given you for creating. Using what G-d has given you to create "Kalakul bihiakfula". Create using the materials for creating that G-d has given you. It has a reference first to character, but it goes beyond just character. And G-d says in the Qur'an, and G-d is the best of Creators. He is "Ahsanu Kalakeen". the best of Creators. So G-d is recognizing that He's not the only creator. He's the first Creator who created the natural world and everything therein. But then He created the human beings with human intelligence, with powerful imagination. And He have given us the capacity and the power to create ourselves. And we can create. To be creators ourselves, correction, to be creators ourselves.
He have made us to be creators ourself. So, don't just look at the world that you see. Have faith in your G-d that you can create a world, too. If we are not pleased with this world, that this world has given us, let us remember that G-d made us to be creators, and let us work on creating the world that will please our own hearts. And if we do it following my spirit and my leadership, my thinking, we will create a world that will get the world support for it. They will not be enemies of it. They will not try to destroy it before it's established.
They will welcome you and say, "Join us." And we'll be watching you with hopes that you will be successful. That's all they'll do. Don't be afraid. But the man that taught my father, he left these words with the people. He said, "Big things await the wide awake man." Well that wasn't true back then. We were really awaiting the big things. But now his Prophecy has come to its, pardon me, has survived and lived to see its day, its time. It is now that we have big things awaiting the wide awake man. Peace be unto you, be producers. Don't shame us anymore. As-salamu alaykum.


