mm/dd/2003
IWDM Study Library
2003 Saviors Day

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
00:01 Imam W. Deen Mohammed: He didn't like them because they were different. You read about their story, you read about G-d not liking the treatment that they were getting, and how G-d the Almighty, creator of the heaven and earth took up the issue, and took the side of the victim, and eventually brought help and salvation to the victim, and punished the victimizers, those who were doing the evil. You read these stories. And I repeat, I am no prophet, I am no special man. If I'm special, it's because I've been a good student, and tried... And I've tried to be a good follower. That's the only way that I'm special. But I say to you now, as I said to you when I was minister, Wallace Muhammad Deen Muhammad, preaching at 5335 Greenwood and preaching in Philadelphia and other places, for the honorable Elijah Muhammad our Nation of Islam, I say to you as I said to you then, I know we are special and I know what we all have experienced as a people, as what we will continue to experience as a people is no different from what other people that G-d came to and rescued experienced.
01:57 IWDM: We are experiencing G-d in our life, we are experiencing G-d being in charge of our life, we are experiencing G-d making the way for our life, and we are experiencing it just as feelings and just as strong as any of the people of the Prophets experienced this. It's not an individual in this time that is lifted up, visited by G-d, and lifted up and made the star in the heavens, it's a collective group, it's the whole people that have been selected by G-d. And He's lifting the whole people up as a sign of His great presence that He's still G-d, the Almighty and in charge of human affairs.
02:58 IWDM: That's the sign, brother, that's the sign. And I can quote you Scriptures to back up what I'm saying. I can quote Muhammad the prophet to give support to what I'm saying. Prayers and peace be upon you. Don't think G-d will stop working in the life of human beings. Any good sincere believer in G-d that have remained sincere over the years of their troubles, as the people face trials and tribulations. You remain sincere to your G-d. You can't tell me, because I know G-d has made his presence known to you in your life. Now, if G-d will make His presence known to us individually in our life, we know He's present in our life. We know it happened because He wanted it to happen. And we suffer and we still remain at peace inside. We suffer, and we still remain pleasant in our heart. Because we are so convinced that my G-d knows my suffering, and He loves me, so I needed to experience this and better is to come behind this.
04:45 IWDM: We have this strong faith that no matter how bad times get, your son holla at you and cuss you, and spit in your face, and you're trying to love him and save him from drugs or something. You bear it, you don't have a heart attack. You keep smiling, maybe this thing is spiritual. Go away from him and go in a room, he is hitting at something, rearranging things. So happy and the son just spit in his face. You know he's fallen dead, headed for death, that's G-d's presence in your life. If G-d will be present like that in the life of us individually, if a whole people is taken out of their original life are separated for what G-d intended to be their life, their original life is what he wants for all of us you see. That mean, that original human innocence, that original duty of the human being, that innocence, that love, that tenderness that you find in a new baby. If anybody... People, a whole people are taken from that, uprooted from their culture, and out of their human nature that G-d intended for them.
06:33 IWDM: But they still believe there's a G-d. And they believe there's a G-d of love and justice. Maybe the world had made them believe a white potato is G-d. And they see the white potato being cut and peeled, bought, being cut and peeled. And they see people eat. And they're eating the white potato too. Eat the white potato and still believe it's G-d. Now when they call on G-d, the white potato, do you think they'll get an answer or not? They will get an answer. Because they believe, it's instilled in their heart, white potato is a G-d. And they don't know the right G-d. They don't know how to perceive G-d. They don't know how to...define G-d. Or have G-d in their mind, or vision. They don't know. All they know is that they were told a white potato is a G-d. So when they call on white potato, G-d is going to answer them.
07:58 IWDM: See, G-d is not small like we are. Somebody is dying, crying and suffering and calling on you. He ain't call me. "Joseph, or Bill. Help me, help me Bill. Help me Bill." "My name is Jack." G-d is not deaf. G-d knows who's calling and G-d knows whether they're calling him or not. And I don't care. They can say, "Bill, Ralph, Mr. Farad, Elijah Muhammad." They could say, "Jesus Christ." They could say whatever they wanna say. G-d knows who's calling and who they're calling upon. And G-d is not gonna push you back because you are unaware, unknowing, or ignorant. G-d is gonna answer you. That's the G-d that I love. That's the G-d that I've come to know.
09:06 IWDM: So here are a whole people, enslaved. They don't know where they came from. Many of the children came from the Islamic life, Muslim parents. Talking about the slaves that were brought here from Africa. All they know is that the people that we among now, they say G-d is Jesus Christ. They say, "Oh Lord, Jesus, please help us." I read a story of a little book by a German white man. I believe he was a German. And title of the book was, The People Who Walked In Darkness Have Seen The Light. A great light. Speaking from Christianity, or from the church life. And he records in this book, that there was a slave back in slavery, the days of our enslavement. Her name's Julia. And he said this Julia said to her bosses, white men, that she was obviously not pleased to go along with their bidding. And she said, "You all look like G-d in the face, but act like the devil in your heart."
10:41 IWDM: Now, what was her reference for G-d? Her reference for G-d came from them. So that's why she said, "You all look like G-d in the face." We have seen the pictures of Jesus Christ, white man. He looks just like them. So she was saying, "You all look like G-d in the face." It mean you look like Jesus, it's Jesus who is the G-d. "You look like him in the face, but you act like the devils in your heart." If you can accept what I'm telling you now, you who go around with this big burden on your mind, you could be free from this time on. Why should you continue to talk to yourself? Trying to insist that some picture you have in your mind is G-d? And having problems getting the good benefit from a man like me, because I don't approve of that picture you have in your mind of G-d. Why keep torturing yourself? G-d is bigger than pictures. G-d is not a picture. G-d is the reality behind all pictures.
12:00 IWDM: Originally that's what the people were told, of the Scriptures, of the book. And I read that book, "Of G-d, make no image. Neither in the heavens or in the earth." That's what they were told, but you know they made images. This is Saviour's day. Praise be to Allah.
[applause]
12:41 IWDM: Allah tells us... I want to complete this but I'll stop this. I see this really at occasion like to testify. And you know you can stop testifying anytime the spirit says so. You don't have to finish it. You can stop on a high note, if they conclude your testimony. Yes, G-d says to us, "Oh you who believe... " As some of you who know Quranic arabic, you can recall, you know this language, "Ayuhalladhina amanu, ku anfusikum, wa ahlikum nara." "Oh you who believe, save your own self and your families from the hell fire or from the fires of sin." Now, everything, only those who trust me, follow what I'm saying and accept it. Many of you don't. Just, whatever you have in the Quran it must have a reference in Scriptures that came before. "Oh you who believe, save yourself." It didn't say call on a saviour, "And your family from hell fire or from the fires of sin." In the Bible it is said that Christ Jesus was responsible for someone being saved, but look what he said to that person. He said, "Go on", meaning you are free now from your problems. "Who has saved you". That's what he said, "Your faith has saved you." He didn't say any great magic power from him did it.
15:09 IWDM: The magic power was in their own soul. The magic power is the power of their soul to be innocent and wanna be right, and to love G-d and love his help that was coming to them at that time from Jesus Christ. Peace Be Upon Him. So he said your faith has saved you. So if my faith saves me, then it's something in me that is the cause of me having salvation. No soul can have salvation until change comes in the heart. When change comes in the heart, the right change, then you have salvation. In Islam Allah says G-d says to us, "You'll have no change for the better until you have a change in your own heart, or in your own soul. That G-d will not change the state of a people until they change what is bothering their own hearts or soul." G-d will not change what is bothering a people, "hata yughairu ma bi anfusihim." Until they say what is bothering their own soul, or your own conscience but your deep conscience, this "anfuhim" is a deep conscience. Means that conscience that's deep in there. Not the shallow one, not the one that's dealing with these matters all the time, these petty things, but it's the one that is deep, like when something hits you real hard, it goes deep, you feel it deep. You feel it in the depth.
17:15 IWDM: Well, we shut things out of our conscience, that we don't want to deal with, but the soul records everything. You can't shut things out of the soul, you can shut it out up here but it goes deep down in here and it stays there and the right thing happens, brings it up, brings it up. Well, you know when we doing these things against our own good future and against our own good life, something down in here lets us know it's not right. It will make you uncomfortable at times, it will remind you it's not the way, it's not right what you're doing. And we shut the voice out and keep busy, stay busy, but every now and then when you're not so busy, it will make its presence known. Well that's what G-d means, you have to have a change, you have to have the change of heart. A change of heart that comes from something deep in you. Your good innocent nature, that you wanna shut out. And when you have a change like that, G-d comes into your life. Just the same as having an honest repentance. An honest repentance, then G-d comes into our hearts.
19:00 IWDM: We as a people, we're not the same as we used to be. We used to have as our most important interest... And I mean the leaders kept us aware of this, church leaders, all our leaders, they kept us aware of the most important interest. We used to have as our main interest, the improvement of our race, the improvement of our race, progress for the whole, progress from the bad times and bad circumstances, into better times and better circumstances so that we would have a better life. That was the main interest in the hearts and minds of our people. But after the '60s, segregation gone, the lost fields, the disposition of government changed, more power working on our side, we started to celebrate better times. And got so caught up in the celebrations of better times, partying, laughing, making money and spending money, shopping and having fun.
20:55 IWDM: Got caught up in that and forgot the main interest. Became very selfish, small-minded, and very selfish. So the great majority of us have taken ourselves out of the promised land, or off the road to the promised land. But there are a few faithful ones still in religion, still in Christianity, still in Islam, but just like the Christians lost in the jaws of death, living ones, we have lost in the jaws of our living ones. You're now the walking dead. Yes, we only have a few. Just have a few, and you know yourself, we just have a few that have held on, still know that this that has happened to us, to bring us down and then lift us up is G-d's doing. I remember seeing a picture when I was a boy, later in my studies I ran across the same picture as a man. It was a newspaper clipping, and I saw the picture in book later, and the picture is a picture of slave on a slave ship, and he's sitting bound and chains about his head, chains about his head.
22:50 IWDM: Now why would chains be on the head of a slave, why would such a captive be on a newspaper? A slave is chained about his head, he can't ran with his head, chains is supposed to be about his feet. He can't hit anybody or opening the lock with the head except his thinking, so the chains on his hands, on his arm. His hands are chained behind him, or tied behind him, and his feet are shackled, his legs are shackled. But now they got chains about his head, what does that say? We are bringing him, and the chains that we really going to have on him, are not going to be the chains on his physical body, they are going to be the chains on his mind. We're going to put his mind on the lock in chains. That's what the picture is saying. Now the picture did not have come from the bad doers, the pictures could have come from one of the good doers among them, and just want to show what they are doing to us.
24:14 IWDM: Look the worst thing they are doing is not bringing these people physically and putting them physically into bondage, but the worst thing they are doing is bringing those people to America to put chains on their minds, to enslave their minds so that they won't be able to do anything for themselves to survive. Once we take the chains off their feet and off their ankles and off their hands, we can free their bodies but they'll still be tied up, enslaved by us and that's what we are.
24:49 IWDM: If you don't see your own future, if you don't cherish your own identity, and if you don't understand that identity should be given to you by G-d, and you don't know how to trace your identity back to its source, and notice your identity is not your physical picture, but your identity is your human quality that makes you a true man and a true woman, a true person, and situate you to make progress in a real world. It lifts you up above the ape. It lifts you up above the beast of the forest, it lifts you up above other human beings who live like animals but are not conscious of their own creation.
00:08 IWDM: If you are not in that, you are still a slave. Enslavement is enslavement of your mind. And Mr Farad, how did he identify this problem? As the mentally dead. Mentally dead. We who know the life. Know the difference between the mentally dead and the living. We are responsible, as Farad said, "What is the duty of a civilized man?" To teach civilization to the uncivilized. So we are not through. The old, "Wallace took over and did away with everything." That's your way of hiding, from your responsibility and justifying your bad on intelligence and non-Muslim behavior. That's how you justify it. Shame on you. That's not gonna help you a bit. Yes, I wanted to see all of us free. But not free to spoil our lives, free to do more good for our lives. And be responsible ourselves. Accept more responsibility ourself for our life. So the same thing you have done with the freedom that I'm responsible for opening up to the followers of Honorable Elijah Muhammad, is what the bad ones did when freedom came to them, with the Emancipation Proclamation. Freedom came to them, they were free to party.
02:31 IWDM: Free to drink every weekend. Work and make a little money and spend it on whiskey and women. Yeah. So, 'cause they say, "Well, you know, Abraham Lincoln, he did this. He told us nothing matters now, everything's in order. Do what we wanna do. We're free." Freedom for human beings is never the freedom, the limited freedom that you give an animal, that you have on a leash. Or that you have locked up in a dog house. Or a pigeon or a bird in a cage. When you free them, you free them for physical movement. But when you free a human being, you free that human being for mental movement. Mental movement. So when you are free, that's the time for you to do more thinking and to do more planning for your own good future. It ain't time for you to say, "I'm free, now they won't give me 90 days if I'm caught drinking whiskey. Or if I'm caught at the party, at a dance or something or going to the movie." There will be a time for doing those things. [chuckle] "I'm not, I'm not... I'm free now. I'm going to the movie. Go to party. I can smoke if I want even. I'm not gonna get 60 days out if they catch me."
04:13 IWDM: So your freedom is the freedom of an animal. That's no more than the freedom of an animal. You free the animal, "Well, I can eat over there... I can go over there. I'd eat all this grass up. I can go there and eat some grass now." [chuckle] "Oh I can go over there, there's a nice, some nice big grass over there. And beautiful things. I can go over there and sleep. And play with my female mates all day long. They ain't gonna come and put me up, take me to the field to plough or anything, I'm free." Therefore some people, just like animals. You're free so, "Yeah, okay, I don't have to go to work. I don't need to go to no work. I know how to make it. I don't need a job. Imma go to Brother Sharif's house today and eat." [laughter] "And I'll go to ma's later on. And I'll do my late prayer and tell mama I wanna do my night prayers too. I'd tell her we pray. And then I'll tell them, can I stay a little later cause I wanna do Tahajjud prayer. And they'll let me stay." "Alhamdulillahi brother.
05:42 IWDM: You're a wonderful brother. Sorry we don't have a cot or anything but if you don't mind sleeping on the rug brother, you can sleep right here. You want us to wake you up for Tahajjud?" "Oh no brother, I'll be here. I'll wake up. I'll make my Tahajjud. Don't worry, I'll do it." Sleep and go on to Voodoo Station and take a whole bath." And wash his drawers and put them on wet. And we see him the next day, we think he slept somewhere you know? We think he got a home, we think he got a partner somewhere. That's what he was doing with his freedom. And when he was under the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, if the FOI caught him without a job. Caught him loafing and taking advantage; riding on other people. Oh, he'd get a punishment. Yeah, he'd get jacked up real good and get a punishment. But no enforcement; no law enforcement. Nobody to put a leash around his neck, collar on him and a leash and hold him by his neck like a animal and walk him around where he has to go. And tell him "Stay," "Sit down," "Watch the house while I'm gone." Woof, woof, woof. [laughter] Nobody treat him like that. He say, "Oh I'm free." And he hangs out with other dogs, all day long, bow wowing and wasting his life. That's for animals. Not for human beings.
07:43 IWDM: Your life is your intelligence, take your intelligence away, you're dead as a human being. The world of science and medicine tells you that. When they pronounce you dead and your body is still there alive. Well, why have they pronounced you dead? Because the brain is gone. There's no responses anymore in the brain. So they say the person is virtually dead. Now, if you wanna keep them on life support, that's the family's decision but the person is dead. Right?
08:24 Speaker 2: That's right! That's it.
08:31 IWDM: I don't know, I can't be at peace myself, I can't be satisfied looking at our race... Still crying the blues, still blaming somebody else for our situation. Still living in neighborhoods but not responsible for their establishment. Having little responsibility for the upkeep of their neighborhood and for the progress of their neighborhoods. Not bringing in stores to supply the neighborhood with goods and foods, etcetera. Not deciding how beautiful the roads are going to be or the streets are going to be. Not making these major adult decisions and just occupying space. And paying other people. And making good money, those who are working and those who are not working taking bad money, a lot of it. Got money, spending like crazy.
10:01 IWDM: Going on today just as it was going on in the Nation of Islam time. And honorable Elijah Muhammad used to tell you, "Stop wasting your money. Put your money to good use. Don't go make the money and give it right back to the people that pays you." [chuckle] The honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us that. Thank you my brother. It's the teaching of my father too. The teaching of the best in our leadership in the history of our leadership. Yes, yes, alright. So we go, still in the same situation. You know we had rich people among us even when we were yet slaves? A few were not slaves. Very few but a few were not slaves in the north. And in some other places. And I read of one who was doing trade, planning to do big trade with Africa. While most of us were still in slavery on the plantations, still slaves on the plantation.
11:28 IWDM: After slavery, after freedom, Emancipation Proclamation, some of us got rich. In business, accumulated wealth. But the picture of us as a people, still was pictured as [11:48] ____ hurt our hearts to think about it. Now, here we are in this time, of opulence. Great wealth for the United States of America. And a whole lot of money coming into our pockets and going out into our hands and going right back out. A lot of money but no establishment. No power reflected, to tell us that these people are responsible for their community or for their neighborhoods like the Irish are. Like the Italians are. Like the Poles are, Polish people. And we could go on and on. Even the Mexicans that we thought was behind us in progress. I go through the Spanish community, through the Mexican neighborhoods and I see a Mexican language everywhere, on the streets and on the buildings. Their identity just glares at you. Flies right in your face, their identity, they have separate identity. The neighborhood says, "This is Spanish."
13:16 IWDM: Spanish people are going supporting no businesses. They ain't looking for McDonald's, they're not looking for Jewels, that's a big chain store in our area of Chicago or Dominick's or Safeway or some other. Most of them are going to their Mexican people. They belong to their racial or ethnic group and that's where they are spending their money. Here in the last 10 years, their presence has become so strong and their numbers too. Now we're no longer the biggest minority. The Spanish people have become the biggest minority and they're getting into government. They are becoming Lawyers, Judges, etcetera. They're making fast progress, progressing fast. But look at how they are living and look at how we live. The big difference. They eat tortillas, enchiladas. We eat McDonald's, Burger King. Our money makes Burger King bigger as a image, McDonald's bigger as a image. We give presence to others and hardly no presence to ourselves in our own neighborhoods. And you don't know how precious this commitment is that has some of us still working to give life to the mentally dead, to give new hope to the mentally dead.
15:22 IWDM: To give new vision to the mentally dead. To tell the people who have been cut off from their past life, who don't know how to be an African or speak that language or live that life that they once had on their continent in their fore fathers. They don't know how to do that. They can't go back to that time, it's an impossible thing. But we're telling them G-d has awakened in us, a spirit and a mind to situate ourselves back in the dust and have our people come to a life again just as Adam was made from the dust. We know how to go back to the earth, to be born again and move from dust, poverty of mind, poverty of thought. But move from dust into industry. Isn't that what G-d did for Adam, the first man? Don't try to imagine in your mind a time when there was no physical human beings on this earth and G-d made a man out of the dust of the ground by bringing water to the dust and shaping him and then breathing into that mould or that body. Seed of the earth, his breath and animated that and it started walking and talking like human beings. Don't look at that. Look at the dust of an impoverished mind. Look at the dust of an impoverished spirit, an impoverished soul. And look how G-d can sensitize you with the water of innocent and pure human feelings and you begin to be sad and then feel bad over your condition.
17:38 IWDM: So bad that you say, "I'm gonna make a change." And the water worked with the dust and a man is formed. It is a new man, made from the original substances that make a human being. And he forms and he has now, life and spirit and he can't be small anymore. He look at the animals and everything, he said, "Oh I am bigger than they are. My creation's bigger than theirs. My possibility's so much bigger than theirs. I can't live like a dog anymore. I can't live like a ox or a mule or a horse or a donkey anymore. I'm not them. I'm on a higher plain than them. G-d has given me human spirit and intelligence and freedom to use the tool of my intelligence to plough the world and turn it into a garden for myself." Now he has the spirit of industry and he comes up out of the dust and he changes the dust and he fills up on the world and builds the world of industry. Now, that happened before to men impoverished and G-d is telling us when men first started out on this earth, they all had to come from the dust. The dust of an impoverished soul, an impoverished intelligence. You're born ignorant knowing nothing. But G-d can bring dust to industry. He evolved dust into industry.
19:31 S3: Praise be to Allah.
19:34 IWDM: Now, you who are alive, you're not mentally dead. I know they're among us. You who are not mentally dead anymore. And whether Mr. Farad or not but most of us owe it to the presence of Mr. Farad and his faith in us that if we were separated from the things that kept us blind and held us back, we could find our way out on our own. So the greatest thing he did for us was break our dependence upon white folks. And gave us faith in our own selves that we could work out our own future. That's the best thing he did for us. And when he said he came on July the 4th, 1930, he's getting something to you. He's telling you he came on Independence Day. He's telling you, "My purpose is to work with you until I free you to be independently on your own."
[applause]
20:54 IWDM: Oh, he played many tricks on the world. Yes, he did. He played many tricks on the world. He calls us "The fruit of Islam." A wise man know how to talk in the ears of his co-workers or his workers and also talk in the ears of his enemies that will make trouble for his work. Hear what I'm saying, please. A wise man like Mr. Farad knows how to talk into the ears of his workers. He called all of us laborers, workers. And at the same time, with the same words, talk in the ears of the enemy who will make trouble for his work. So when he said, "Fruit of Islam" he's telling us, "You are the fruit of a new Islam." You gonna come into a new Islam and you'll be the fruit of that new Islam. I realize that Muhammad made that clear to us but he's saying to the enemy of his work, the jealous elders in the Islamic world, who don't wanna see a black man and a black people rise up and be a shining model for the revival of the Islamic world. They don't wanna see that.
[applause]
22:33 IWDM: And he knew that... He knew their nature. He knew their minds, he knew their weaknesses and he knew that they would spot what was going on and make trouble for you. So he picked them. The wise one who had the knowledge to see what was happening and be envious of it and try to stop it to get the glory for them and not us. They were wise enough to hear his message that he sent to their ears. This thing that looks very confusing... Confusing here. Look like I'm working against Islam. No, I'm not working for Islam, brothers of the East. When I leave this will be... These will be your sheep. This is the fruit of the product of Islam. Come and claim them once I have gotten them ready for you. Peace be unto you. As-Salamu alaykum.
[applause]
23:35 S4: W Deen Mohammed Publications at one. For more audio or video lectures by your man WD Mohammed call W Deen Mohammed Publications at 1708 862 7733. Or write PO Box 1944, Calumet City, Illinois 60409. For Muslim Journal see local distributors and thanks for listening.
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