1979-May-25

Bilalian News

Message of Economic Concern

Imam W. Deen Muhammad


With the Name Allah (In the Name of God), the Gracious, the Compassionate.

As-Salaam-Alaikum

(Editor's note: Following are excerpts from Imam Wallace Deen Muhammad's lecture delivered at Masjid Elijah Muhammad in Chicago, III. on May 29, 1979.)

All praise is due to Almighty God, the guardian evolver and sustainer of all the worlds. The blessings and peace be upon Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah to us all.

0 Allah, guide us, forgive us our faults, and grant us the blessings of faith. I bear witness there is no deity except Allah, and I bear witness Muhammad is His Servant and His Messenger.  Peace be upon him, his descendants, his companions, the righteous servants, all of them,  and  upon  us  in  America  and throughout the world:

I want you to live financially like I live. 

We shouldn't have more than one car to a family unless the husband and wife are working. If both are working they need both cars but if only one is working, why do you need two cars?

If you have two cars, sell one or give it to a good working person that you think deserves it.

"Oh. I need a car to run around while he's at work." Run around on your feet! I'm not joking, I'm very serious.

Put the money you have to save into savings bonds or savings accounts and let it grow if you don't have a profitable business operation or a profitable business investment.

As it grows your economic strength grows. What is the economic difference between us and the average Caucasian community? They have money growing while our money is going out, vanishing.

They tell me that we're spending between 880 billion and $ 130 billion every year.

If we take that money and distribute it equally in our community, we won't be poor, we will be economically strong.

We're not poor because the money is not coming to us but because the money is going out in the wrong direction.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad preached to you, "Don't waste your money. Save your money. Put your money to good use." I still have to preach the same thing.

He said, "Pool your money." I still have to preach the same thing. What I mean, by having to preach it. you're not yet acting on it.

There is some improvement. We have more members now with a little more financial strength, than we had before. But we're still on a low poverty scale.

Believe me, I'm not miserable. I have pleasures. When I go home today I'm going to eat dinner and enjoy my food.

Instead of buying pop, Kool-Aid and all that stuff. I buy water. Pop is bad for your health. Some of it contains coloring and other stuff that can even give you cancer.

You don't have to have pop or sugar water -I'm talking about lemonade. Lemons contain more sugar than oranges and it takes a whole lot of sugar to sweeten it. You're giving yourself diabetes, drinking all that sugar water.

If you would just stop drinking sweetened water, you would save a lot of money.

If you want to drink something, drink plain water.

"But I need vitamin C." Eat an orange. You don't need to drink a quart of orange juice, just eat an orange, that's all. One nice orange, two at the most, will give you your vitamin C.

Get out in the sun when it shines, that's the best vitamin C.

How many are ready to stop eating beef with me? No more beef until this community's economic status has been greatly improved.

I pledge, Allah is my witness, I will not eat beef again until this community is operating in the black and none of its members are begging for anything.

Nobody is going to spy on you or if we see you eating beef say. "Hey, you're eating beef." I f they do. they are not following your Imam.

Allah accepts our intentions. He judges us on our intentions.

If you break the rule pray to Allah to give you the strength to get right back on it and keep on it until you don't have a problem staying away from beef.

You who do real hard work like construction work — or real heavy work — it's OK if you want to eat beef.

But 1 '11 tell you what you can eat instead, to give you strength — dried fruit. Like raisins, dates, figs, beans, and peanut butter.

Eat peanuts, but chew them real good, until they are like butter in your mouth.

You can eat fish and turkey. Turkey is cheap, and turkey breast is rich in protein. So eat turkey breast, eat fish and if you can afford it, eat some lamb. But please cut out eating beef.

I'll tell you something else — the beef isn't fit for you to eat.

A lot of the sickness and overweight problems we have come from beef. They inject the beef with stuff to make it grow fast and the same stuff makes you grow real fast too, physically — get fat and ugly. Cut off the beef.

Plus they don't slaughter it properly. It's such a big animal, and has so much blood. Let| us stay away from the beef.

We are not staying away from it for health) purposes—not physical health purposes—we are staying away from it for financial health! purposes. That's our reason financial growth.

I've been telling you for a long time that 11 cut my own hair. But if you go to a Bilalian barber, this helps the Bilalian make some I money. So that's okay. But most of you can't afford a barber, I don't care what color he is. So you ought to learn how to cut your hair. Let! your wife, your daughter or your son learn how to cut your hair.

Allah is the perfect being. Allah is all! righteous,  truthful no imperfections in Allah. Allah is Supreme and Perfect without) any imperfections.

O Allah. Make us of those who purify them-1 selves and of those who repent, and guide us in) your path. Amen.

Peace be to you Your brother in service to Allah,
Wallace Deen Muhammad 
