10/01/2006
IWDM Study Library
ISLAMIC FORMULA FOR SUCCESS

And now, Imam W. Deen Mohammed.
Imam W Deen Mohammed: Cherisher, Sustainer of the world, Bismillahi Ir Rahmaani Ir Raheem. In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Compassionate. We pray that the peace and blessings be upon Muhammed, His servant, and His messenger, Salla Allahu Alaihi Wassallam.
Peace and the blessings be on Him and on His descendants, companions, the righteous, and Muslims, believers, we pray that peace be on us and that Allah help us in our efforts and make this occasion a success for Muslims- a success in the eyes of our Lord whose name is Allah Most High.
Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Aalameen, We praise Allah, Lord of all the worlds. I want to read from the chapter of the Quran, to begin with, the chapter by the title “Ash-Shams, the Sun”. I believe that the chapter has been read already in Arabic, Is that correct? Did you read Ash Shams in Arabic? Well, come on, let's read Ash Shams.
Imam Darnell Karriem: Aaoodo billahi minsh Shaitainir rajeem. Bismi Allahi ar rahmani ar raheem. Waash shamsi waduhaha. Waalqamari idha talaha. Waalnnahari itha jallaha. Waallayli itha yaghshaha. Waas samai wama banaha. Waalardi wama tahaha. Wanafsin wama sawwaha. Faalhamaha fujooraha wataqwaha. Qad aflaha man zakkaha. Waqad khaba man dassaha. Kaththabat thamoodu bitaghwaha. Idhi inbaAAatha ashqaha. Faqala lahum rasoolu Allahi naqata Allahi wasuqyaha. Fakaththaboohu faAAaqarooha fadamdama AAalayhim rabbuhum bidhanbihim fasawwaha. Wala yakhafu AAuqbaha. Sadaqa Allahu ‘aaazeem.
I'll give the English now from this English translation of the original text of Qur’aan, as you know it's in Arabic language, the pure Arabic. You might call it classical Arabic but actually, the revelation of the Qur’aan to Muhammed to himself, peace be upon him, was not literate but G’d inspired him with revelation. And the language of revelation in the Arabic tongue and the tongue of the Arab set the standard for the language from that time since.
Now when you study Arabic grammar in college, high school, elementary school, whatever level you study Arabic grammar on the yardstick or the rule for measuring the excellence of the grammar, the excellence of the language, the excellence of the expression and composition will be referred to Qur’aan. Qur’aan has really set the standard for the excellence of language, ever since it was revealed- and that is now a little over 1400 years ago- that in itself is a miracle.
Allah revealed to a man who himself was not literate, an orphan child, Muhammed the Prophet, the last messenger, revealed to him and the words came out on the tongue of an Arab, but the tongue was the tongue of eloquence, the tongue of fushaa the best Arabic set the standard for the language from that time on. That in itself is a miracle and if you understand it, is a miracle and answers to the promise of G’d in scripture, the Torah, the Old Testament, the Injeel--- the Gospel, it is an answer to that and I'm sure you people who are familiar with the Bible, you understand. Though you might reject [laughs] but you do understand. 
I want to read now this English translation by Marmaduke Picktall, there's many translations by scholars who have the ability to make translations from the Arabic language to another language and the Quran hasn't been translated into as many languages as the Bible has, but the number of translations are increasing now with great speed the Quran is translated in Spanish and the major languages.
Now, just a few years ago we didn't have it, and G’d willing the African-American man over here will have a translation soon, in English---American-English. Yes, because this American-English is not like European-English. So let me now read in English these verses and, mind you, no translation equals or has the power of meaning, the power of expression that is in the original text the Arabic text, nothing. That revelation- that language- is revelation itself.
Understand, the Quran itself, the language, the very language itself, the way the words are put together- formed and put together, arranged is revelation itself. Not only is the meaning revelation but the way the sounds come, the way the words are arranged, the way they convey a meaning, all of that is revelation itself, so no language can do justice. That's why every person who becomes a Muslim, you're obligated to learn Arabic, at least enough classical Arabic, not spoken Arabic, don't learn Egyptian Arabic, don't learn that---learn classical Arabic well enough so you can at least understand the essentials of the religion from the reading of the Quran in the original text, in the original language.
Now, that's not asking too much of believers, that would educate you and would educate you where you haven't been educated. It will give you an education in the area that you haven't been educated in. It will even make other languages more understandable to you.
You will appreciate other language more and it’s a shame on Americans---all Americans---I mean those so called true Americans. It's a shame on us that we know nothing but English and most of the people of the world know two, three, four, five languages. It's a shame on us.
So we follow the way of the American man---the White man over here and we Blacks, we have no interest in learning anything unless the White man is learning it, so we learn English and maybe say "Parlez-vous Francais?" and we are finished. 
So let's read now the English translation, the title is the Sun---in Arabic Ash-Shams---revealed at Mecca, this was revealed to Muhammed the Prophet, peace be on him at Mecca. Mecca as you know is a sacred city, a venerable city. The city is held in sacred regard, the holy precincts are there. The first house built by G’d's Prophet as well as his Prophets, Abraham and his son; Ismail or Ishmael as it's called in the Bible, Ibrahim and Ismail or Abraham and Ishmael as it's called in Bible or in the Western language, and not only that, the whole vicinity there is sacred and much of G’d's work and miracles took place right there in that vicinity, and mind you, it is the original, or the first house ever built to the worship of a G’d there in that place.
So this chapter was revealed there, some other chapters were revealed in Medina, most of the chapters are Mecca and Medina, that's how the chapters are. Either reveal in Mecca or in Medina. Now, we begin with the first verse that opens like all these other chapters of the Quran except the only one and that chapter has the same attributes of G’d given within the framework of the chapter itself.
The attributes that I am referring to now- the attributes of beneficence, the attributes of compassion or mercy and every time we begin reading the Quran, we say G’d, the gracious or the beneficent, G’d, the merciful or the compassionate.
It really baffles me almost to see anyone afraid of a book like that. A book that reminds you before you read it that G’d is gracious, he's giving and he is merciful, so how can I be a believer and not be touched and influenced, and have my own personality and spirit shaped by that description of G’d?
In fact it has been said by the messenger of G’d, peace be on him, and by the scholars since the early days of this religion under the Prophet, peace be on him, that Muslims are obligated as G’d is merciful, Muslims must be merciful and that goes for all of the attributes of G’d that G’d has created us with in human limits whereas he has those same attributes in divine perfection but he has shared with his creatures -with his creations- those same attributes.
As I repeat, it really baffles me to see people being afraid of the Qur’aan. I know some religions that I'm afraid of but not this one. With that opening, then comes the first verse, 'By the sun and his brightness-- actually I would translate, by the Sun and her brightness but that maybe 'he' is more correct but I would say, by the Sun and her brightness because the Arabic indication here---the grammatical indication here---is that it's her and not him
Waash shamsi waduhaha or we just say, and it's brightness, either its brightness or her brightness. There's another thing we can understand that in Arabic grammar, there is no neuter gender, it is either male or female. I don't know why everything has to be Trinitarian in the West.
“By the Sun and its brightness, and the Moon when she follows him”-- I guess that's why it says she “follows him”, I would say, when it follows it or when he follows her but I could have the weaker position, he could have the stronger. I'm not here to try to prove anything, not in that area right now. The next verse, “and the day when it reveals him,” actually it's talking about the soul isn't it?
“And the day when it reveals him, and the night when it enshrouded him” --- enshrouded him means covers. “And the heaven and him who built it.” now, that's talking about G’d, because we know we didn't build it, “and the heaven and him who built it, and the Earth and him who spread it out”--- G’d---“and his soul and him who perfected it.” Again, man and G’d who perfected the soul of man. Not every man, but he perfected the souls of some men.
Prophet Muhammed, he perfected the soul of Prophet Muhammed and left it as a bright light for us so that we can mold ourselves in that form or after that form “and inspired it” that Faalhamaha fujooraha wataqwaha and it is translated “inspired it with conscience of what is wrong for it and what is right for it.” So, conscience, G’d gave to us as a natural property. The world society makes us conscience but the first to make us conscience was G’d and that was the perfect conscience. 
I haven't seen a criminal baby yet in the nursery; in fact, we have to wait a few years for him, till we make him, right? “He is indeed successful who causes it to grow. Causes what to grow? Qad aflaha man zakkaha referring to the soul, but the soul has properties of piety and intelligence, which we will come to.
In fact it's missing here. It says “Faalhamaha fujooraha wataqwaha.” And inspired it with confidence of what is right for it and what is wrong for it and what is right for it. “He indeed is successful who causes it to grow” Qad aflaha man zakkaha. He is indeed successful who causes it to grow.
Now those who are familiar with previous scriptures revealed before the Quran, you know the importance of growth. If you're familiar with scriptures, you know the importance of growth. In fact, the condition to be accepted is that you have growth; that you have growth, now you may call it fruits, products, talents, however you may describe it, it's the same.
The proof of your qualifications to be accepted by G’d is that you have growth according to the scriptures, and here too if we understand. “And he is indeed a failure who's stunt- causes it to be stunted”---stunts the growth, hinder the growth, retard the growth, cause the soul to be degenerate rather than a flower garden. That tells us then, that G’d created man with a purpose and he created his soul with an aim. The soul has an aim, an inherent aim in the soul of man that it must seek and go after its destiny, its destiny.
G’d has given the soul a destiny; G’d has created man with an excellence. That excellence is in his soul, is in him when he is born like a seed, it has to find the right situation, the right environment, the right condition for its bursting forth, growth and maturity. So to say man is born in sin and iniquity, to say man is conceived in sin or iniquity; to speak of man in those---with those discrediting words is really ignorance.
Some people look at the fallacies of man, look at the defects of man, look at the problems of man, the complements of man, the lack of skill on the part of man, the ignorance of man, they look at all of these shortcomings in man and they judge him by his errors and not by his purpose; they judge him by his shortcomings and not by his destiny. They judge him by what he does in a bad situation and not by what he's created for; they judge him by trends that are influencing him because of bad situations in the world and not by the original trends that G’d set in him, the trends towards excellence.
So if G’d created me with the urge---the main urge in me it is towards excellence. Science, bears witness to this, science says that life is evolved; science tells us that the growth of life is evolution. Evolution means graduation from lower to greater, from lower to more; from weak to strong, from simple to complex, from inferior to excellence, that's what evolution tells us. But evolution doesn't say that none of these creatures that have been given to this pattern, that pattern is given to them.
They're going to align, they are going to go the way of that pattern, but it doesn't say that none of them are going to be defective; that none of them are going to fall into bad circumstances and won't really be the beautiful picture that they should be? No, you're going to have those exceptions to the rule, but the rule is excellence. Man has been created to be motivated towards excellence and that excellence is in him when he's born, he's created with it just as a seed has the quality of the fruit in it while it is dead---in it while it is yet ungrown---it is not grown, it is ungrown. It is yet ungrown, no growth has been manifested at all the seed has in it the excellence of the fruit, the quality of the fruit, all has been put into the seed. All the seed needs is the right situation for it.
And the prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, he said, "All people are born Muslim but it is the circumstances that they're put into that makes them otherwise," to be Jew, Christian, Hindu or whatever that happens because of the circumstances that you're put in.
In fact, science records that a certain man-- what is he called? Wild Boy or something like that, he was found by one of the social researchers who explore primitive societies to see just how societies forms before man has had a hand into it and they said that this boy—and they found that this boy had lost contact, was separated from human beings- from parents early before he could learn the life and ways of human beings but he managed to survive among animals.
It could not speak as a human being, it could not walk as a human being, and it did not behave as a human being. It behaved in every respect as an animal, but when that boy was found and brought in touch with human beings, gradually the boy began to take on the behavior and the personality, the spirit of a human being. This is a living fact, a testimony and scientific proof of what Prophet Muhammed said that you're born to be one thing but your environment your circumstances will make you be something else.
I'm not here to fool you. I tell you from the very get go, Islam is my religion and it's your religion. If you are a human being or if you are a planet, a star, if you are fruit tree, I don't care what you are Islam is your religion. And if Jesus was here, peace be upon him, he would say, "Yes." He would say, "Tell him again," and that goes for Moses and all the rest. "Where are you coming from mister?" I am coming from the same book.
“He is indeed successful who causes it to grow.” Some translations give the English translation this way “he is successful who spends on it,” who spends on it. Like I said, the Arabic meaning is so rich that it is hard to find a translation that would do justice. So it is good to even be aware of more than one translation by excellent scholars---not just one translation. Be aware of more translations by excellent scholars. Nothing is wrong with this translation, it is right.
He who caused it to grow will be successful---spending on it is what caused it to grow. If you spend on it, you cause it to grow. If you don't spend on your children's education, you will stunt their academic growth; spending on their education helps them to grow.
Now, you give dollars, but dollars is not what is needed for the child, dollars is needed for the rent bill, the phone bill, and etc. the electric bill, the Mercedes the teacher has to have, and the building, and the properties, and all of that is needed, and the taxes, and everything, whatever. That's what the dollars are needed for. Actually, you're spending on that child's education, but what you have to offer is not education but dollars to pay the educator to educate that child. So he who spends on it will be successful.
He who spends his knowledge in the area for the benefit of those that don't have it; although the first obligation is to you, don't be ignorant. You're obligated is to see that you get some sense, some intelligence, some understanding, knowledge, education. Yourself obligates you. And again G’d says that, and the Prophet has said that “Yourself obligates you.”
Well, that's our subject, isn't it?
Yes, the Islamic formula for a successful life. And you will not be successful---, and G’d tell us very clearly, very specifically here, "You will not be successful if you don't spend on your own self." Now, the trouble with us is we spend on the weakest identity of ourselves. Man is identified in many ways, we'll spend on our mortal self, we'll spend on our biological self, "Oh, it's going to be cold, I've got to get me some shoes. I want to spend fifty dollars for them. Someone will say, ‘I am going to get me a pair that cost $75 I've got to get those shoes". You spend on yourself. You're spending on yourself, right? "I've got to have that long, leather coat, man." "I saw one that goes all the way down to your shoes man I've got to have that leather coat."
He's spending on himself but that's not the way. That's spending on your more distant self. Man's self goes out, and his self comes in. The more he comes in, the closer he comes to the nucleus of himself. But if you can damage the very nucleus of that thing, you have destroyed that thing. You can hit a thing and hurt it from outer extremities and may not cause it any impairment at all. It will continue to function and operate as though you didn't even hurt it, but if you can damage the very nucleus of that thing, you have destroyed that thing. 
So we fill all our time, dressing up, covering, pampering, carrying the most distant self, the outer self, the extremities of our self, and neglect the sanctuary of man. G’d, He is telling us to spend on the sanctuary
of man, spend on the most sacred quarters of your life, your inherent essence of excellence and values, and spend on it. And precious is the intellect of man.
Precious is the conscience of man, the conscience that gives him the power or the sense---pardon me---to know right from wrong. We are not reading in English all of the verses, we stopped short of about four verses or five verses. We are reading only verses one through 10, and the last verse, the 10th verse, I'll repeat it. It says, "And he is indeed a failure who stunts it”, who stunts the growth of his own soul.
Have patience with me, I don't like to rush anyway. They used to call me slow, they still do. I heard someone that knew me from my childhood, they told one of the Imams, recently, he call to see how I was or to see whether I'm coming or whatever. "You know how slow he is, don't you?"
I don't like that. I don't like procrastinating. I don't like being slow because you miss the boat sometimes, right? I don't like that, but I'll tell you, hasn't been too bad for me. I haven't missed much. I found a lot of things that I was late for, I didn't want to be there with it anyway.
That's not aimed at you here, this audience. I have all the respect for you, I was very anxious to get out here on time but the security brother who's supposed to let us know when it's time for us to go, I said, "Let us know when it's time to go," Imam Hassan told us---Yes, I'll tell on them, I'll tell on them before everybody. Imam Hassan---Kareem Hassan told us when we went up in the room, it wasn’t time to go. I said, "Well, how much time we got?" "How soon we go out?" He said, "In about 20 minutes." So we went into the room and I said, "Okay---well they say that but that doesn't mean anything." Now I'm not criticizing them.
Sometimes, they get news from back at the scene that it's not quite time, so that 20 minutes may be extended to 30 minutes, maybe even for an hour. So I'm sitting and waiting and waiting, and now it's two o'clock. I'm feeling uneasy, I am feeling uneasy, I told my son, Wallace who was with me for the first time in a blue moon, I told him, "Something must be going wrong." He said, "Should I go and ---?" and I said, "Yes." I said "Go and see what's happened," so he went out there and the security guard brother said, "Oh, you're ready?"
"You didn't hear me knock?" So Wallace, said, "Yes, I heard a knock. But I think---an half hour ago---15 minutes ago, something like that”--- he said, and the security guard says, "That was the second knock."
So, I told him, yes, we did hear a knock, but we thought it was the next door. The knock was so soft it sounded like it was next door. The next door is right there like that, no more space than that, that's the next door and the brother's over there in that room too.
So we thought it was a knock next door, but we didn't take it for granted that it was next no—no, no. I told Wallace, you go to the door. He said, "Okay." He went to the door to see who knocked. He looked through the little peep-hole, he didn't see anybody. So obviously the security man tap-tapped then stepped away from the peep-hole. So I want you to understand what happened. He was sincere, very sincere, he said, "Well we didn't ask, we didn't want to disturb you, we thought maybe you were working on your notes." Because do be working on my notes. I'll be working on my notes up to the last minute. Sometimes in the car coming over, I'll still be working on my notes. But I told them early today, I'm ready to go now, even before we went up to the room. I said, I'm ready to go now, everything is finished.
But obviously they thought I had gotten back into it and was working on my notes. So we were late because of poor judgment; on maybe our part and on the security man's part. But definitely on the security man's part. Because I told him the phone rings why didn't you phone us? He could phone right? If I tap on your door, and get no results, I pick the phone and call you and say "what's happening we are worried?”
But as I said, I know him, he's very sincere, and I don't think we will have that problem again. See a sincere person doesn't want to create any problems. I hope you don't think I'm talking about the FBI, the FOI or the goon squad is going to get him.
Those were days of the caveman, the black cave man. We left those days long time ago. Not that you left them, but we left them but we left them. I can't speak for all of you. But I know we left those days. Doesn't mean we can't halal an animal now. Some men are so squeamish, they can't even halal chicken. We can halal it. We know our rights. Bismillah, Allahu Akbar and he's halal. In the name of G’d, G’d is greater.
That's all we have to remember, right? So when you subdue the animal, the animal doesn't spoil you. See, victory will spoil a man, won’t it? If he doesn't humble himself to his Creator; he has to humble himself before his creator, then victory won't spoil him. Look at how victory spoiled the Romans.
Look at how victory spoiled America. How it used to brag, arrogant nation! The British Empire bragged "The sun never sets on our territory." I heard myself as a child an American government representative say, I heard him on the radio with my own ears. He said "We can police the world." That's what I heard on the news as a child, I wasn't even in my teens, but it hit my ears and I have never forgotten it. In fact it's just like I'm hearing it right now; it is just that clear in my mind, that “We can police the world.”
That was when World War II was being fought. "We can police the world." Now he's got you saying “we can police this turf man." I wouldn't want to be a small policeman like that. I have read from the Soorah or the chapter titled "The Sun", to set the stage for this presentation. To say from the very outset that G’d created man perfect. It doesn't mean that man is an angel.
No our religion makes it very clear that when G’d created man he didn't create an angel, he created a human being; a creature given a limited free will; a creature that because of his own degree of excellence above other matter, other creatures, he is also put in tests and trials, more so than any other creature.
The angels are not tested like that. Animals are not tested like that. Man is tested. And he must earn respect and acceptance before G’d and civilized man by his own effort. He is going to make mistakes, but the natural urge in him is to grow towards more and more improvement. He's going to commit sin, he's going to be guilty of sin, but sin is not his purpose. Sin is not his destiny.
Since sin is not his purpose, not his destiny, we cannot say that he is sinful by nature. His purpose is his nature. You must define a man's nature according to his purpose, according to the aim in him; the aim in his life, the evolutionary direction in his life. You must define his nature on that basis. Not on the things that he may do while progressing along that line.
Because in an automobile the driver may stop to get a cup of coffee, that's not the purpose. You can't put a value on his trip, saying "the value of his trip is the cost of a cup of coffee." The man was going to see the president. He was driving to see the president. So it doesn't changed the value of his trip because he stopped and got a cup of coffee, and you're ignorant to write about his trip and say "Coffee, coffee, coffee” and emphasize coffee and forget that he's going to see the president.
Praise be to Allah. Believe me, we are Doctors of Science. And no I don't have a credential of DSR, MA, PHD, if I do good service to what G’d has revealed, I am a doctor; a doctor of science. Not Voodoo. So dear audience, believers, Muslims, people, because I'd have called you all Muslims already you know.
What we mean by that is that the nature---your inherent nature in life, is Muslim. That word simply means that that life is the kin in its form and in its purpose, to the whole external reality of matter. It's no difference in its form and purpose when it comes to conforming to the order of the universe that G’d himself made, it is no different; they are all the same. The sun and the stars are Muslims.
[An apparent glitch in the recording 59:10 switches to part of lecture called “Islamic Formula for Success”]…view, bad picture of themselves; poor self image, poor esteem of oneself. Those people are not expected to perform on the high standards of people who have that. No it can't be expected.
It beats me how when the so called learners, the scientists, social scientists---whatever-- behavioral scientists when they are discussing problems of individuals, oh they can really drive the point home to alarm and excite, the public, the leaders, the nation that something has to be done about this problem in society. “This poor individual is suffering psychological damage; social rejection and because of social rejection, he has psychological damage”, and they go on and on.
Poor self-image, no self esteem, we need money to spend, so we could keep the bills and they get the money. But when it comes to a whole lot of people, a whole group, the masses, black, white or green or whatever color, when it comes to these big groups of poor people, they will point out to the fact---but they don't point to the fact until after one of the poor have already called the attention of his own lot to the problem.
They weren't talking about the poor self esteem of blacks until Garvey, Frederick Douglass before him. Garvey---Marcus Garvey, Drew Ali and many others, and especially the Honorable Elijah Muhammed. They weren't talking about it until they made the point---until they made the point that the black man has been deprived of a comfortable self-image. That he has been told lies about his own individual human worth, and that has to be corrected, if the black man is to meet the challenges of modern times, and competitive world society.
Those were blacks who told us, it was members of our lot that told us that, before the social scientists, before the so called learned of Western- style scientists came out and began to make issues to get help for the problem. And believe me, no matter how sincere these people are in education, in the social field, no matter how sincere they are, they can’t do but so much, their ability to help the masses is greatly limited.
They will spend on individual problems, but they will not spend in satisfying significant amounts on the problem of the masses. And if they start to spend to correct the malfunction in the masses---and I'm not talking about the blacks only now---the masses, the uneducated, the unestablished, the uprooted, that's who I'm talking about, they will not spend, or if they spend, there will be right away, a counter-movement against their spending.
And that movement will be secretly spending to undermine what they are trying to accomplish. I say secretly. You won't even be aware of what's happening. All of a sudden you've got freedoms that you didn't have before. All of sudden, you have rights didn't have before. All of a sudden, they are promoting liberty on your part that you didn’t even have before you didn't dream of, you were afraid to even think of. Telling you, “you can speak up and do whatever you like.” That's to take the masses away from the new help that comes to them.
Now, I'm not telling most of you anything, you know this. But sometimes we have to be reminded that the masses are an unwanted lot. They're only wanted for a servant kind of role. And if there's no need for them in servant roles, they are regarded as a burden on society, that's how the masses are regarded.
Am I saying this to entice you, enrage you, to make you to make you become dissatisfied or angry with establishment? No. I'm saying this to get you to see, that you must be responsible for yourself. And whatever help comes to you accept it, if it comes clean; whatever help is extended to you and it comes clean from clean hands, accept it, be grateful to G’d and grateful to man, grateful to your fellow man. But don't depend on that, for great help comes in seasons. But you have to live throughout the year.
My religion tells me, that I should direct my attention to a blessed tree, whose fruit comes in every season, and that is not the world. That's not the world. The world fruits are seasonal. Do you remember the season of Kennedy, President Kennedy, and the season of President Johnson, and now you're in the season of President Reagan?
So you know something about seasons—don’t you? I think the Christians say, "there those who can read the face of the heavens, but can't read the signs- the seasons." They can look at the sky and say it's going to rain, they see clouds up there and they believe most likely it's going to rain, "those are rain clouds, and it is going to rain." They see the wind blowing the clouds away, "it's going to be fair weather." But they can't look down here, where everything is happening all around them, and say, "hey, it is winter." [Laughs] “It is winter in June.”
It is important to know that scriptural focus on man, on man as an identity is the answer for identity conflict, identity burden. The scripture's focus is upon man's identity as universal man, as common man. We know our identity differs depending on the interest we give ourselves to. We even identify a person as a mailman, but that identity of his is not as significant is nothing as consequential, as his identity as a creature who's a member in the material universe, and has a role, a purpose and a destiny in that reality?
That definition is much more significant, much more important for human's sense of well-being, sense of direction, sense of purpose in life than a simple identification of him as a mailman. But “the mailman” that is an identification isn’t it? He's a mailman.
Some of us think identity that's a traffic cop want is the important identity. He's Negro, he's black, and he weighs 198 pounds. Yes right, that's the identity that you live by. You're black, you're burly or you're frail, that's identity, "I'm black and burly, I'm black and frail, I'm black and homosexual, I'm black and gay, I am black and whatever."
I'm not making jokes, I'm very serious. Those are silly identities that we live with, "I'm black and female.” “I’m black and male.” “I'm black and masculine." The ape is masculine-more masculine than you. He’ll take your pants down; that that ape is bad, tough, and real burly. So that's not the identity that you should be proud of.
I'm on my topic: Islamic Formula for a Successful Life. The first step for being successful is to see yourself. For the moment you see yourself, according to the Prophet, peace be upon him, you know your G’d. How can man know G’d and not know himself? You have to know yourself first. And you know yourself by looking at yourself in the cosmic reality. "Oh, what is he talking about cosmic reality?"
Look, matter is continuous---matter is continuous. There's a continuity to matter. Matter has a unity. Matter has sameness. Matter makes up one family of matter, stars and all the bodies and things and that are in the universe. You are a citizen of the universe. You are a citizen of the universe before you became a citizen of Africa or a native son of Africa. You were a citizen of the universe before you became a citizen of the United States. You're first a citizen of the universe. Your identity begins in the universal reality. And that's where you find your essence. That's where you find your nature.
G’d said he made man and patterned him on the pattern which he patterned the whole universe. I hope we'll understand it as I go on. Allah says, with the revelation given to Muhammed the Prophet, speaking to the Jews and their stiff-neckness, their stubbornness that G’d revealed to them that they should enter the door, prostrate “waodkhuloo albaba sujjadan”  Enter the door, prostrate. You can enter the door, prostrate. If you enter it and have not been misguided, you can enter the door prostrate if the right picture is presented to you.
What do we mean by prostrate? The Christians say it in a different way. Say, "You cannot enter unless you come in as a little babe." You cannot enter unless you come in as little babes. G’d created first for us the cosmic reality, stars, heavens, earth, all of these combined, this one great endless material reality.
Now maybe you can't be as philosophical as I can be. I once had a white man brag---he wasn't a high class white man---he was a common white man, common white man but a white man of thought and principle. He said in my presence---and I believe he said it in my ears, he wasn't looking at me but I sensed that he just wanted me to hear what he was saying. Sometimes, man can look at a person and can pretty well guess what kind of mind is in that person. And when you sense that a mind is in that person that may hear something that other minds won't hear and you've wanted to tell some black man that, the white man would tell that in the ears of that man that he thinks will listen.
So this white man said, "The white man has great imagination and that has accounted for his success." That is what he said. "The white man has great imagination and that has accounted for his success."You'll be surprised how help comes to people from unexpected places. Now, I agree with that man; great imagination, imagination that shows itself to comprehend unreachable boundaries of this real environment. Not imagination to see what it can do unreal.
See the fools have great imagination too. But they stretch their imagination to see what they can do that's unheard of, that's unidentifiable, that has no place in the continuity of reality. They want to do something that's way out---way out! Their fiction is not appreciated by the critics of fiction and they wonder "how come, you see how it is, they do us man?" "You know the black man can write man, all the heavy prose the black man writes, all the great fiction that we write, man, when are we getting any recognition for our popular books man, the popular fiction of our writers, man?"
Your fiction is fictitious. It has no real reference. It's not a message of the truth in strange apparel. It's just strange through and through. We need to know these things so we can get our life in our own hands. So dear beloved people in talking about self-image; about the importance of self-image for a healthy sense of well-being, the bigger picture is the situation for the smaller picture.
If you put the small picture in isolation, you're in trouble. But if you take the small picture and put it in the framework of the big picture, now you've got a relationship. Now you got reality connected. Now you've got some way of defining a limiting definition.
The black man just keeps going with the definition of black. "Yes, black is beautiful, man." That is some light stuff to say about your identity as a race. Birds are beautiful, that's not a racial classification. "Well we needed that to combat the negative thing that the white man says." What did he say? "He says we're ugly, man." Well is all that you can do is just tit for tat? He hits you on the shoulder; you hit him on his shoulder? That's child's stuff.
He calls you ugly don't try to prove yourself beautiful. If he calls you ugly, try to prove yourself worthy, or try to prove yourself wise. Go for a bigger victory. If he calls you ugly, don't go for that little, shallow victory that he's trying to influence you. Go for a bigger victory. If he says "you niggers are sure ugly", say, "keep quiet brothers let’s see if can we show him that we're sure wise.” Because he'll let his daughter, marry an ugly wise man.
While we're all these facets of the puzzle, you have to understand this, that all white women are not beautiful. They know that. When the white man thinks of himself as the ideal race, the ideal beauty and all that, he's aware that some of his people are hideous. He knows that there are some of his people so ugly, that if he met them in high noon, he would be afraid. He knows that. [Chuckling]
But he, lifting himself up as the ideal picture of human beauty---man’s beauty--- has influenced you to think that he isn't ugly. Sure white people are beautiful, but white people are also ugly. With all their straight hair; a straight haired orangutan doesn't make him beautiful. But some straight hair black folks think they're beautiful, just because their hair is straight. H is so ugly that he looks like he should be apologizing every time he sees somebody. But his hair is straight so he's not even conscious of it, he is not even conscious of it. He doesn't even know he's ugly.
And some old brainwashed victim of the white man psychology from the women, she'll be fine. He doesn’t see anything but her straight hair. She’ll have a baby and the baby is born baldheaded and there is nothing there but the orangutan. And she's ashamed to tell people to "come over and see my baby." That is because she married his hair.
In order to be able to work safely with any concept, you've got to see that concept in its reality. Every concept is formed or born in the cosmic concept. It is the cosmic concept that has given birth to every other concept. Every animal, every plant, human being, everybody, every stone, every crystal, forms in the context of the cosmic world.
The white man has that understanding. He makes fictions and he pictures his heroes as cosmic heroes. They don't have United States citizenship. They have a citizenship in a cosmic galaxy. Now you tell me that hero’s concern is as small as yours? No, your narrow picture of your identity makes you very small.
Allah says "Oh man, think not that your reality is bigger than the external reality." He patterned man's life in his reality on the pattern, the order of the universe. You have universal disciplines in your nature, in your being by nature. You have universal discipline. It is those universal principles---disciplines---pardon me---that account for your well being. If you lose those universal disciplines, you will lose your sense of well being. You will lose your well-being.
We need the big picture in order to identify the small one; to find the place of the small one, the value of the small one. We need to know the role of matter, cosmic reality in order to appreciate the role of man. And Allah says that the heavens, the stars, the moon, all of those things glorify G’d. All of those things conform to his purpose. All of those things conform to His will. All of those things follow the nature and aim that he gave them and for that reason they remain. Their function is preserved for them, while man is constantly losing his functions as the excellent creature that G’d created him to be.
Racist views of ourselves did not come to us from common natural man. They came from men who gained the skills---who gained the insights and the skills to confuse reality and the skills to pass on a baseless pride to the fools that he pretends to buy for himself, but does not actually buy the foolishness--- he only sells it. If you think racist America was able to achieve the greatness that America achieved in the last hundred years you are yourself ignorant. It was not racist America that achieved that. No.
They used racism as an excuse to keep you out of the competition; to keep you fighting them in a battlefield of nonsense. What the heck difference does it make if you are white I'm black? Or “I'm superior because I'm white.” Or “White is better than black"? And then we're going to come back "I'm black and I'm better than you. Your skin burns in the sun, mine doesn't. You get sun rash, I don't." And then he comes back and he talks about you “That black is inferior. It’s a mark of inferiority.”
The people that sold the white masses and the black masses that idea, they are really speaking in a different context, a different framework of language, altogether when they are talking about “black man” and “white man”.
In their language white man is enlightened man. Black man is dormant man; his mind hasn't shined forth. His intellect hasn't been illuminated. So he's dark in intelligence. The light of intelligence hasn't sparked and lit his body and lit his life and lit his world for him yet.
That's what they mean when they say "you're black." Can't you sense that when white people in their intelligence circles while on media when they speak in an intelligent circle, can't you sense when they say black people, they are talking about something you don't know of? Can't you sense that they have a meaning that you're not aware of?
They are not talking about your black skin; they are talking about your failure to spend on your intellect; your failure to spend on your growth; your failure to come into enlightenment by straining your imagination---your imagination not to find fiction and falsehood. Not in that sense. 
You stretch your imagination to find unreachable boundaries of truth to try to find the framework of truth for you in this external world of reality; the framework of your existence; the framework of your conscience. Man's conscience should go out and expand. Expand your conscience. Expand, expand and expand to find self in creation; to find the place and role of self in creation.
To see if you can see a direction for man in creation and if you will set your imagination, your sensitivity, your senses, your sensitive nature, your sensitive being will feel what you can't see and you will begin to feel a purpose that you can't articulate yet. But eventually if you keep feeling out for it you will gain the ability to articulate the purpose that you sense for yourself in this external reality. That's the activity in the life of cosmic man.
So go on and tell them, a black superman is born. Yes, and not just now. I think Frederick Douglass was a black superman but we need to turn the race on. We need to turn the masses of African American people on to this kind of thinking, this kind of appreciation of image of self view, of self identity where we identify ourselves, not in white man history first.
We identify ourselves in G’d's handy work first and find our worth and our purpose in G’d's handy work first. And then measure the value that the white man wants to give us within that great picture of our reality. That's what we must do; stretch your imagination, don't be afraid to think.
What did Du Bois say, he said "teachers and educators of our black children, they will do a service to the extent that they teach the children to think", and we don't know what he means now. Most of us don't even know what he means anymore. When he says “think”, he means stretch the imagination. Go where the white man, dare lead you. Go where he is afraid to lead you; where he's afraid to lead you, lead not only us but he's also afraid to lead the masses to the field of resources. Because if they get into the field of their resources that G’d has created for them, they will be able to compete and demand a share in every quarter of life.
Not only that, they will not be restrained or restricted in travel by their American citizenship. As cosmic men, they will think nothing of going to see what resources that the black community can use in China. What resources that the black man can use in Kenya? They won't be afraid.
But now even though we know that as a citizen, we have the right to go and do business on this whole earth. Especially in any country that's not at war, or not a declared enemy of the American people. We have the right to go there. We have the right to go to Russia because Russia and America are cooperating now. We have the right to go to China because China and America are cooperating now in sufficient degree to allow American citizens to go there.
Long before it was known to the American public that China was a country that was moving closer to the American people and would allow the American people to form diplomatic relations and good relationships with China, long before that was even known, there were Southerners and Northerners down there in Canton, in the big shopping center, the big center for export.
I know because I visited---I was there as a member of a group in the American-China people friendship group. I went along with that group of American people. I saw in Canton Southerners, they weren't in our group, they came as businessmen. And while China was regarded by us in the United States as a place that we shouldn't visit, as a communist enemy, they were over there getting goods at a price that they couldn't get them elsewhere, bringing them back to the United States and selling them and making their business position stronger in their communities, because of their access to the markets or to the imports of Canton.
Do we have the courage to do that? No. It takes cosmic man to have that kind of courage. In fact, most of us, though we are accepted by law as citizens of the United States with the rights of every other citizen in this country, most of us have that chained elephant syndrome.
The white man says "you're free. Look, there is no chain." They back up, it's very hard to go forward. [Thank you very much. Someone apparently brought the Imam some water. He jokes: I better pour this on a living thing and see what happens to it first. No, I trust this man, I sleep in his house. Where is Sadjullah, I sleep in his house. But you didn’t bring this water from a faucet, did you? No, I don’t trust…did you bring it yourself? Oh, OK, alright I will drink it. Thank you, excuse me. I have a hidden security too. You have got to be careful.]
Look, if you say things that make people shake, don't trust the people that shake. Because it's human nature to defend the mortal life and if he's shaking, his mortal life is trouble. So no matter how good his heart is, look at how they wept after they set Jesus up. [Chuckles] Not that we agree with the story, but I am coming from Christian reports.
Look how they wept after he set the man up. Set the poor righteous man up and then weep as he went up for the bad treatment, they were weeping. Peter stepped by the doorstep and wept or something like that. And he was the main one that betrayed him, Judas and Peter, right? Peter said, "I don't know him." Now, I'm telling you that's not a denomination that I would never join---a Peter denomination.
That's if I was out shopping for a religion. I would not join a Peter's denomination. Because he betrayed the man while he was living; what can you say to me to convince me that after he's gone, Peter is going to be better? If he was afraid while Christ was living, peace be upon Christ, nothing can convince me that he's going to be better after Christ is gone.
From cosmic man, we look at earth, the home of the human being---Earth. Allah says "the earth is the place where you're formed, the place where you will live, the place where you will die, and the place from where you will be raised up again."
So earth is home isn’t it? Earth is home. We're narrowing now we come from cosmic boundaries---cosmic boundaries the big picture, now we see the earth in that big picture. We're getting closer now to the boundaries of human influence. But human influence is a failure by cosmic influence…
[01:38:31] [END OF AUDIO]

