10/27/2001
IWDM Study Library
Banquet Shreveport Louisiana

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
IWDM: Ethan, thank you for this day, this evening we're spending with you. This lovely atmosphere here, beautiful setting, wonderful vibes from you good people, and if I was just choosing a place to live without any other problems, I would tell the Imam, give me that house you got for sale. Brother Imam, if you got a house for sell there, I sure would want to move into it if I didn't have other problems.
[laughter]
I find that the smaller towns, when you find progressive people in these smaller towns, you have a better welcome. You have a better atmosphere and a better place to live. Especially if you've got family. Big towns are too complicated and have too many problems. I live in a small town in fact. I live in Markham, Illinois right now. It’s a small town Southwest of Chicago, Southwest suburbs of Chicago. But I'm Chicago. I've lived there practically all my life and Chicago is in my blood. I've gotten away a few times and ended up right back there in the cold weather. But it's alright. When you've got relatives and friends there that you've been knowing all your life. 
Chicago is something else. It has the most beautiful skyline I've ever seen. Now I'm not selling Chicago for the mayor or anybody. This is just an expression of my personal feelings. You should see the change in weather. You like spring a whole lot, you like summer a whole lot. But that winter (pause), it makes you love spring, summer, and fall in Chicago.
It got in my bones, so when I went elsewhere it took me a long time to get familiar with not having a really bad winter. But I kind of got used to Little Rock (Arkansas). I liked Little Rock; but, it just wasn't situated for me as a leader. I needed a place like Chicago where I can get to fly anywhere and get back to Chicago right quick. So, that was the problem there. Another place I lived was Rialto, California, and there, I stayed for about three years. I really loved it there. I could drive by car and be in Los Angeles in about an hour or less. I really loved it and the weather was nice; the community was nice. I thank Allah I learned that a brother went there and now we have a Masjid; we have a house of worship in Rialto where I used to live. When I went there, there was nothing there - from us.
I could name many cities. I've in Oakland, California for about three years. I liked that too. My father sent me to Philadelphia when I was a young minister. That was the first responsibility he gave me, to be a leader of a congregation. I went to Philadelphia and lived there about three years. I don't know why it's always three years, but I do know why I didn't stay in Philadelphia no more than three years. The judge sentenced me to three years in prison and I had to go do my time for not accepting to go into the army. 
I want to say to you that the theme you have chosen is one that is in my spirit. That is excellence. To be excellent. To do excellent. And in the spirit of most of the people, the believers who got their introduction to Islam, they're acquaintance with Islam from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
One thing about the Nation of Islam, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, it made it very clear to us that it wanted us to be at our best, at our best behavior. If we went to school, be the best student. If you worked, no matter what the job was, be the best worker; do the best job you can do. He said, "Even if you work for a white man give the white man an honest day’s work. So, we were motivated to do our very best. And some real giants came out of that Nation of Islam. Real giants. I say real giants because the circumstances that they had been in before becoming a member of the Nation of Islam had not given them an opportunity to believe in themselves, to believe in their ability to be superior above the average person.
But the Nation of Islam and its teachings and its great leader, the great man of wisdom and psychology, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, gave us that environment, that situation or circumstances for bringing the best out of us and motivating us, to have faith in ourselves, and the more we make a contribution to more than just our personal selves or to our family - but to the people, to the body, the collective body, the Nation of Islam - then we come into real Islam. And we find that that's exactly what this real Islam wants for us. It wants us to respect the best human life that G-d created when he created us, when you were born as babies. Respect the best human life and then build on that human life and build excellence for yourself.
Our religion, if you understand it, more than anything else, it wants us to be good and wants us to be the best we can be. As it says in the U.S. army, "Be all that you can be in the army." It wants us to be the best we can be and all that we can be of good. We have a wish that we wish each other. We say, "May G-d reward you from all that is good, from all that He has of good." From his good, His goodness; All of it. 
To wish you the best possible life you can possibly have, this is one of the greetings of Muslims. G-d in our holy book addresses us more as believers than as Muslims, because you are already Muslim. You don't find G-d in the Qur’an saying, "Oh, Muslims. Oh, Muslims." It's not that often that you find G-d saying, "Oh, Muslims," but He's always saying, "Oh, believers". Because we believe in Islam that everybody, as Muhammad the prophet said, everyone is born a Muslim and it is the circumstances that he or she is put in that make them other than that Muslim. So what is the meaning of Muslim if everybody is born a Muslim?
That means a Christian is born a Muslim, a Jew is born a Muslim, a Buddhist, everybody, Hindu, everybody is born a Muslim. That's what that means. So, what is it saying? What is a Muslim? I think we can use our good logic and we can answer that question. A Muslim is simply the best possible human being you can be. That's all a Muslim is. A Muslim is an innocent, sincere, excellent man or woman in their human nature created by G-d. In their human nature created by G-d. So, when we say that we are Muslims, we mean that we are converters or we have accepted this religion. If we really understand the meaning of Muslim, Muslim means that you are in the excellent form, nature, behavior that G-d created for all human beings, for all human beings. So, we believe that man and woman are good by nature, born good, not born bad.
I think when Christians say or when the Bible says, "Man is born in sin, it's not saying that babies are born sinful, it's saying that babies are born innocent, but born into the sinful world. Born into a world that's sinful, born in sin, born in a sinful world, but not that the baby is sinful. No baby is sinful. Every baby is an angel when they were first born. They are holy, they are righteous, they're innocent, they're good when they're first born. This is the human life that G-d gave us, and that human life, if we keep it and build upon it, we will be very successful and we will want to do better and better, you want excellence. Muhammad, the Prophet is a sign. Like Jesus is a sign of many great things, Muhammad, the prophet is a sign and Jesus is also a sign of this, that the world didn't make him what he was, but he was what he was in spite of the world. The world didn't make him what he was. Jesus Christ was born, peace be upon the prophets, he was born among animals. All the nice places had rejected his mother, his Blessed Mother, upon her be peace too. He had to be born in bad circumstances. But look who he was, the servant of G-d. A man that was going to change people and change the world. 
And the same thing for Muhammad. Muhammad was born among idol worshippers, of people backwards in ignorance, not knowing the Scripture, they didn't know any scripture. They weren't Christian, Jews or any people with a scripture. They were living like, what do you call? Living like- not primitive, but living like uncivilized people, that's the word. We call that time the time of ignorance, Jahiliyyah means ignorance. They were living like uncivilized people and Muhammad was living among them, but was he living like that? No. He was living among idol worshipers. Did he ever worship an idol? No.
G-d says of him in our holy book, “he has lived already a lifetime among you” saying to the Arabs and whoever was having difficulty accepting him as G-d's messenger that this man has already proven himself to you before I even called him. Before G-d called him, he already had a life of 40 years living as the most excellent, the most model human being. He never was harsh to anybody, he never cursed anybody. He was known to never tell a lie and G-d hadn't called him yet, he was living among people that were worshiping idol g-ds. That's proof that G-d made us excellent.
G-d calls him later after he had revealed to him and gave him the guidance that he became G-d's messenger, servant and messenger, the sealed last of the prophets, G-d says, "You will certainly find in him (Muhammed) that he is a most excellent human model for any who believes in G-d and the last day. What does the last day mean? It means that you believe in G-d and you believe that you're going to have to answer to G-d one day. That makes you conscious of yourself and you live a life that you feel G-d will accept. That saves your life really. That's your salvation, believing that you're going to have to answer to your Lord one day and having a commitment to work hard on proving yourself worthy of what He wants for you here and hereafter. I'm going to close out in a minute, this is very short. I'm going to go to sleep if I don't close out.
[laughter]
What I value from the Nation of Islam's time more than anything else, and believe me I value my mother, I value my father, all the good support I've gotten from them and the wisdom I've gotten from my father and my mother too. I had a grandmother that was terrific, my father's mother. I owe a lot, and I owe a lot to the pioneers in the community, the older people who loved my father so much, they would do for me, but to protect me. If they thought my mother didn't have enough food for us, they would bring. I've seen people, brothers and sisters bring food to my mother house when my father was in prison. They’d bring food to us, make sure we were eating good on the weekend, on Sunday. We had plenty of food. So, what I owe a lot, but what I owe the most to is what the teachers of Islam did for me. It made me believe in G-d. I don't care what we call Him, it made me believe in G-d.
I thought if I did wrong, I'm going to be punished. I thought G-d saw me. I thought I was always being seen by G-d, that I couldn't even think something bad without G-d knowing it. So, I believed in G-d no matter how we saw him and what we called him, I believed in G-d. It gave me that and it gave me also a strong, strong belief that I'm to respect myself and that I'm worth something, I'm really worth something of great value. And the most precious thing that I have, that G-d gave me is my freedom. I'm not supposed to be anybody's slave. That's what the Christian Church did for our people too. It brought them out of slavery and told them you're not going to be anybody's slave, you belong to G-d. That's what the Nation of Islam did for me. It taught me to believe in myself and to believe that no one is to take my freedom from me. No one. But at the same time, it made me obedient, and respectful. I was obedient, very, very obedient as a child and as a man. I'm still obeying my mother and she’s been gone a long time, and I still find myself obeying my mother and I love it. Yes, I love it.
When the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said Islam is freedom, justice and equality, he used to say that often. When he was teaching, he would often say that. He used to have a drawing on the blackboard and the drawing showed the world on one side and on Islam on the other side. And on the Islam side it showed a flag with a crescent star and it said on there, "Islam, Freedom, Justice, Equality”. That's what it said. Well, that went into me. I couldn't understand Yacub on the Island of the Pelan for 600 years and all that stuff. I was a child and that just doesn't go into a child’s head too well. But what was plain and simple was that “Islam is Freedom, Justice and Equality.” The older I got, the more that rang in my head, "Islam is Freedom, Justice and Equality." I love freedom. I love justice and I believe we should have equality. Equality under the law, equality under the rules, equal respect for each other as human beings created by our G-d. I believe in all that. That's what has made you Imam the man he is.
Then that man that Islam made, or that the Nation of Islam made, he went to the Quran. You see how I’ve come out successful. I went there believing in my own self-respect. I went there as an obedient person, wanting to obey G-d - whatever He wanted for me, that's what I wanted. I went there as a person believing that Islam is freedom, justice and equality. You can't sell me an Islam that doesn't respect me as a human person. You can't sell me an Islam that's going to make me a black man praying, fasting, and ain't got no money, ain't got no job, ain't got a car, speaking Arabic, but can't speak good English. Your Islam can't be bought by me because I was conditioned to be the best human being I can be by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and his Nation of Islam. And I thank G-d for it. Yes, I thank G-d for it.
[applause]
If we take the best that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad has given us, the best, you know his teachings to us was also a trial. You know that; he made that clear. That is a trial to test you, to test you. And we also know that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad never told us to say we are Right. He told us to say that we are trying to be upright. That's what he told us to say. "I am trying to be upright." It was a training, that's what it was. To get us in the condition to be our own selves. Who is your own self? My own self is a righteous Muslim. But he wanted you to think that that's not somebody else's self. In fact he told us, "Don't be like them." And he said, "My Savior told me not to even let them come into the temple." Who is he talking about? Arabs? Other Muslims outside of America? Outside of the black people? So, he kept us all to ourselves and told us they're not even to teach you. We can't even let him belong to the temple because if we do, they would change your minds. He protected us from their thinking so they wouldn't make us their kind of Muslims. I thank G-d that they didn't make me their kind of Muslim.
[applause]
Now, this is not to say all of them are bad. No, some of them are beautiful. I have a friend in Syria. I call him my Imam. That's how wonderful he is. I see him as a wonderful Muslim and a wonderful leader. I call him my Imam, too. He's an old man now. His name is Kuftaro, the Grand Sheikh of Syria. Kuftaro. He can't travel now because the government's hard on him for some reason. He speaks out. He's also called the Grand Sheikh of the mosque that he is over and founded, Abu al-Nur mosque.
So, I'm not saying all of them are bad; but most of them are bad. If most of them weren't bad the Islamic world wouldn't be in the shape it's in. That's the proof that most of them are bad. Look, we over here don't have near as much knowledge as they have of Islam. We can't speak Arabic. Most of us don't know Arabic, but we won't do the bad things that they do right in the eyes of the American public-- Violating the religion, violating laws of the religion, important laws of the religion, right in the eyes of the American public, letting the world see them do these things. We won't do that. We want to hide. Some of us don't even want anybody to see us smoke a cigarette. We are hiding smoking. Don't want another believer to see us smoking a cigarette. So, we have been made different. And we have been made different so we will respect ourselves and have faith in ourselves that we can use our own brains, our own good human nature and read the Quran and learn it for ourselves. We don't have to have anybody outside to teach it to us. And we can grow up in Islam and be the best Muslim this earth can produce.
[applause]
Yes. Look, did Muhammad have some Arabs to teach him the Quran?
[concurring murmurs]
There was no other Muslims around. Nobody called themselves Muslims on earth. But G-d came to him, didn't He? And G-d gave a man, one man, the Quran, and spoke to others - the world - through him - to the Arabs and everybody through Muhammad. Now, if G-d did that once, can't He do it again? He's done it again right here. But I'm not a prophet, I'm not a messenger of G-d. I'm a follower of Muhammad. But G-d has given me, Himself, what I have of knowledge of Islam, of knowledge of the Quran, of knowledge of Muhammad himself, peace be upon him. G-d has given me this directly and I can't have them coming from anybody else. Nobody else. G-d has given it to me.
Believe me, you may be a little nervous by me saying that, but believe me, the learned in the Muslim world-- those who know me, they know this. I don't have to tell them that because they know I couldn't do what I have done, and couldn't keep to the language I've kept with, and advance in that language without G-d doing it. They know that.
[applause]
Not only do the leaders in Islam know that, but the learned and pious people of the Christian world who know me, they also know that. Anybody that knows the way of G-d, they know what has happened to this man in your midst.
[applause]
The son of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Yes, and Clara Muhammad, my mother. Yes. So, we have been saved by G-d for this time and this great work. You continue to support your best people and know that Islam wants us to be excellent in every respect. It wants us to be our best. But it doesn't want us to be artificial people, adapting somebody else's mind, adopting it to yourself and adapting it to yourself, trying to speak like them, wanting to be them. That was our fault before Islam. That was our fault before education in America. Our fault was wanting to be what somebody else was, instead of wanting to be ourselves. That's why the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, "Be yourself."
[applause]
We're not going to imitate anybody. We're going to be our own selves. G-d has saved us from being their students. We're not their students. I know I'm not. I know the many that are with me are not. I know the ones that about to be that freaked out. That's okay. You're one of those that freaked out. That's okay. You're freaked out. We just hope you stay here long enough to freak back in. [laughs]
[laughter]
[applause]
Listen to the language of G-d in our holy book. He says, "Take the best thereof." He's talking about the Quran. Allah is telling us to take the best of the Quran. “And take the best thereof.” Now you may say well, "That mean that some of it is not good?" No, doesn't mean that. All of it's good, but some of it is less helpful than other parts of it. Take the best thereof. And, some of it allows you to escape heavy responsibility. And, some of it allows you to even not do the things you're supposed to do under trying times or under adverse conditions.
If you're weak, you're going to look for those weak things. You're going to look for the things that's for the weak person or for the person that has to face bad circumstances. G-d say, "Well, okay, well, if you're facing those bad circumstances, you don't have to fast." If you're facing those bad circumstances and if you can't get any Halal meat, you don't have to eat Halal. If you've got a cruel man over you, and you can't get away from him, and you're afraid he's going to kill you, and he's telling you, "I'm not going to give you any meat, but pork." Don't die. Eat pork to live; to survive. Just don't like it, don't like the eating the pork. Eat just enough to survive. This is what G-d says. This is what G-d says to us in our holy book. Okay, so the weak one looks for that. "Yes. Well. If can't get another meat, man, I can eat some pork."
[laughter]
"Well, I don't have to fast Ramadan. I have migraine headaches. I'm sick." Yes. Okay, so G-d say, "And take the best thereof." It's more to that than I'm telling you, okay. Also, scripture tries you. It tries you. If you want to go to hell, it's got a little help there for you.
[laughter]
G-d says, "Those who have a disease in their heart, it increases them in their disease”. Yes. It increases them in their disease. So, there's some bad there, too. If you ain't right, it's a dangerous book to be browsing through-- If you ain't right, because it'll take you right on to hell where you're going or where you want to go. It'll help you get there quick. Yes, so will the Bible. I'm a student of the Bible, too. Very good student of the Bible. The Bible will take you to hell, too, real quick. Real quick. 
In the Bible, it puts it like this. Put before you two ways-- Life and death. Choose you life. Put before you two ways, life or death, choose you life. Now, if you are one that’s got a death wish, the Bible will get you there real quick, buddy.
[laughter]
And Take the best thereof. Take the best thereof. So, when you read the Quran, don't look for the excuses to be weak, the excuses to avoid doing what you know you're able to do, be the good Muslim that you can be. Look for the strength. A real man looks for strength. He doesn't look for weaknesses. Real men want a challenge. He looks for strength and a real woman is no different. My mother was a tough little woman. She didn't want any excuses.
Peace be unto you. We salute your honorees and hope to be with you next year or soon in the future for another occasion like this. You're a great people. Peace. As-Salaam-Alaikum.
[warm, enthusiastic applause]


