02/10/2002
IWDM Study Library
Qur’an the Final Frontier
Hinesville GA

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
We greet with the greetings of peace, As-Salaamu Alaikum. We thank Allah for our presence here in Hinesville, Georgia. We thank Allah for the good, strong and sincere leadership we have here in Hinesville. Imam Bilal and his assistants, his supporters here, we are very happy to see so many of you from around the area, faces that I know. Many of you, I'm looking at your faces, and I know your faces very well. It's a very, very big pleasure for me to see so many in this town of Hinesville, Georgia.
I decided to just speak right in the same framework that have already been provided by the theme here in Hinesville for this weekend that has been very, very interesting, from what I've heard, and very productive. Yes. So, we are very pleased with what's going on here. I was really surprised myself by the language of the theme for the weekend. It's powerful, especially for students of Qur'an, thinkers in the knowledge of Islam. The Qur'an, the Final Frontier and Islam, the Last Development for the Human Being. Can we make this mic a little less sensitive?
We began always with G-d's name. With Allah's name, the merciful benefactor, the merciful redeemer. We witness that G-d is one and the creator of everything in the heavens and in the earth.
They're not hearing too well. One of these mics needs... It's when the mic that's carrying the volume to the audience. If I can identify that mic, we won't have any problem. I don't think... I got a lot of mics here. I have a lot of experience with high professionals, and they usually want the mic right to my mouth so I won't have to speak so loudly, and it comes very clearly when the mic is about like this, right to the mouth. Fine, but we have to take time so that you'll hear. And you shouldn't have to strain in here. That's no good. Now, if it's too sensitive, you have to turn it down. You have to turn the volume down a little bit. Are you hearing with no problem? In the rear, the very rear, last row back there, raise your hand if you are hearing with no problem. Very good. Excellent. All right. Excellent. Thank you very much. Engineers, thank you very much. Imam Plemon is an engineer, too. Yes.
So, we witnessed that G-d is one and only G-d if we are talking about the G-d that created the skies, and this earth, and everything down here and up there. If we are talking about that G-d, then we are talking about the same G-d. That's why in the Qur'an, we are told to say to the people of the book, meaning Jews and Christians, your G-d and our G-d is one and the same G-d. You can read the Bible, Old Testament and New, and read the Torah. If you have the Torah, or know where you can get the Torah, you can read the Torah, the teachings of the scholars and pious men of Judaism. And you can read those commentaries on the Books of Moses and you will see right away that G-d, for them, is the G-d that made the skies and the earth, and human beings. And when you read the Gospel, the New Testament, clearly, you read it. You will see that G-d for Christians is the same G-d. The same G-d. The G-d that created everything.
The difference comes when we seek to try to explain the self of G-d, the self of G-d. Muslims do not seek to reveal G-d beyond where G-d goes with us to reveal himself. Well, when Christ Jesus, peace be on him, left, he left the leadership, his followers, students of scripture, students of G-d, and students, even of the person, Jesus Christ. They had not yet learned enough about him even to really know him. So, he left them students, and they studied for three centuries or more trying to come to a conclusion; what is the self of Jesus? Is he human like all mortals, mortal human being, or is he human and divine? And it took them centuries to come to a conclusion.
And when they came to that conclusion, they didn't have near all of them in agreement, but it was published, though not with a consensus of agreement. It was published the way we read it now from that time about Jesus Christ and the New Testament. Peace be upon him.
Obviously, and when I say obviously, I'm referring to how Muhammad dealt with this subject. Obviously, we Muslims are to accept that Christians believe in the same G-d we believe in because Muhammad himself never stopped churches from existing, or being in Muslim land. There were churches and also Jews with their religious places, and he mandated, I'm using the term. This is a term used by scholars from abroad and writers from abroad. He mandated that Christians and Jews should have religious freedom.
I have read his own writing. He said there to go on practicing their religions as they did before Islam became the government order. He didn't even require that they change their services. So, he didn't try to order Christianity for Christians. He didn't try to order Judaism for Jews. And you would find churches, big ones, in Egypt. In the time of Muhammad the Prophet, you'll find big churches in Turkey, and you'll find big churches in many parts of the Islamic world. And they have had religious freedom there long before they got it in the West. Islam established religious freedom for Christians and Jews long before they got it in the West.
I have had rabbis tell me, students of their Torah tell me that they owe it to Islam and the days of science and love for science that existed for centuries in Spain, Moorish Spain, where Jews, Muslims and Christians were working friendly as friends beside each other, a friendly atmosphere provided by the Muslim government. They worked friendly beside each other, studying old sciences of the Greeks, studying all the sciences that had been neglected during the dark ages, and working together to give the world true sciences and also philosophy and many other subjects, or many other fields of knowledge. It lasted more than 500 years. So, we talking about the lifetime of people in the new world from the old world, about the whole lifetime of people in this new part of the world that came from the old world. Not to mention the life of the United States, much longer than that. So, that government lived much longer than the United States have lived, and they enjoyed peaceful coexistence and cooperation for at least three or four centuries. The government of Spain did not really collapse until about 500 years after it had been enjoying that kind of inclusion of the religions, the three major religions working together to help mankind. Scientists of the West, we know. Historians and scientists of the West and many others.
Now, government people who were informed of what happened in the history of Islam and Moorish Spain, they write, and readily acknowledge, and they actually express appreciation for that long period of time that Moorish Spain opened itself to the great religions of the world to work together for the betterment of mankind. And they say that we wouldn't have had what we call the Renaissance in the West if there had not been, first, a Renaissance in the East made possible only by the Qur'an and the leader Muhammad, the Messenger of G-d. Peace be upon him, our first teacher. First guide and first teacher in Islam, Muhammad, to whom the Qur'an was revealed.
With that said, I want us also to understand that Islam is a religion that's to be practiced by people all over the world. Islam is not a religion that is made for one geography and not the other geography. It's not a religion made for Arabia and not for Afghanistan. It's not a religion that's made for Arabia and not for Chicago where I live, my hometown. It's a religion made for people wherever they are on this planet earth. It's a portable religion. It's a religion that you can put in your bag, in your briefcase, and carry it wherever you want to go. Islam has no priesthood.
Listen carefully to what I'm saying. These are the important features of Islam. It has no priesthood. It has no order for qualifying its leaders to preach Islam, or to teach Islam. For to qualify us is our respect and studious labor to understand G-d's word given to us in the Qur'an, and the Qur'an is not to be kept by any priestly order or by any clergy. The holy Qur'an language will never become a dead language. It's not given to us as Arabic to practice in some kind of a religious circle or order, and we have to have another language now for our secular world or the public. No. It is the language for the common man. No matter how much you're deprive of formal education, if you say you have become a Muslim, you have converted, or you were born a Muslim, you are obligated to study the Qur'an. You are obligated to learn to read if you don't know how to read so you can read the book that G-d gave to all of us, learned and unlearned, rich and poor, this is Islam.
Well, what is your role Imam? What is your benefit? If you can reach me, whatever I have to help you with. That's what it is. But if you can't reach me, you won't have an excuse in the day of judgment. G-d say, "Didn't you know the Qur'an was for every man and woman?" "Did you try to read it to see what I said there?"
And we are obligated to study history if we can find the history, and it's available. We have to study history to learn Muhammad the Prophet. We have to learn him because he is our first guide. He's our first teacher. He is our model of the human life Allah wants in all of us, that he created us with. Muhammad didn't say, "I come to represent a model that G-d didn't create when he created Adam." No, the same model he created when he created Adam before Adam was deceived to come out of that model. So, it is a natural inheritance that Muhammad want us to know; that we want to see projected before our eyes the model that G-d created us to be before Adam, our father, was deceived to come out of that model.
We are still the descendants of Adam. In whatever G-d created for Adam, we still have it. Just like I still have whatever human possibility G-d created for Elijah Muhammad and Clara, my mother and father. I still have that because I am their child. G-dextends what he gave the first creation, and it continues to be extended. All of us have in us the Muslim that Allah wants us to be. As the Christians say, "Christ within us." Muslim within us. Adam within us.
Christ is called, in Christianity, the second Adam. Adam coming back after overcoming the deception of Satan. So, he overcomes the deception of Satan, and he's shown to us again in his purity before the Satan deceived him. And that purity is called Christ. Islam and Christianity are not differing regarding this. Islam called Christ the original Muslim. Christianity calls Christ the Christ, or Christianity calls the original Muslim Christ, or the first Adam. And Islam called the original Muslim Muslim, and Muhammad the model. So, for us, we have our Christ. Our Christ is the model of Muhammad, and the Christianity's Christ is a model of Jesus. And Muhammad said, "In the end of the world, you shall see Christ and Muhammad together." And I've just put them together for you. Praise to be Allah. Thank G-d. This is a new day.
The Qur'an, what is to be read. That's the meaning of Qur'an; what's to be read. The scholars say, in Islam, from around the world, our teachers, they say "or recited," "and recited" either way; "What is to be read and recited," "What is to be read or recited." Because the Qur'an is recited. The prophet established that practice of having all the people who learn Islam recite the Qur'an. No matter what your position or status is in the society, you are obligated to learn to read Qur'an, and recite it.
How many Muslims do we have here today? Raise your hand. I don't mean Muslim in the technical sense. Muslims in the history, in the popular sense, raise your hand. How many Muslims? Oh, yes. Very good. Very good. How many of you know the opening chapter of our holy book called, Al-Fatihah and you can recite it? Look, that's the way it's supposed to be. Our public is supposed to know how to read Qur'an. And that's the most important chapter; the chapter called Al-Fatihah, The Opening. It's the most important chapter and it is called the whole book condensed. Like you go and get a concentrated drink and you have to mix water in it. Well, the whole of Qur'an is said to be... By the scholars, by the learned in the religion, highest learned people. It is said to be the condensed form of the whole Qur'an. That one chapter that we are obligated to say in our prayer, formal prayers, and at all formal occasions, and most Muslims say at least one line of it for all serious situations.
Bismillahi Rahmaani Raheem, at least that much of it. Yes, all right. Which says, "With G-d's name, the Merciful Benefactor, the Merciful Redeemer." Or as some translations give it and we accept it, "G-d, the Beneficent, the Merciful." And many translations now that have reached America read, "G-d, the Mercy Giver, the Compassionate." They've got different ways of translating two names of G-d, Ar-Rahmaan, Ar-Raheem. But I want you to know that there's a whole chapter that elaborates on the meaning of Ar-Rahmaan, and the chapter's name Ar-Rahmaan. So, if you read that chapter, if you want to know more about how to see G-d as the Ar-Rahmaan, read the chapter by that title name, Ar-Rahmaan in the Qur'an.
We are going to be discussing this, the mercy of G-d, in more detail as we go on with this presentation here today. So, the Qur'an is a book to be read and recited, a book that is reading and a recital. Where does this meaning come from? We have to understand that Muhammad told his followers, and G-d tells us also in this book, that what he gave Muhammad is not something newly formed, but it is what was revealed to those who came before Muhammad. And a clarification of what was given from G-d and an explanation so we'll know how to apply it in our time of life, so we will know how to see it and apply it to our life. And it is a conclusion. And that's what is given here. The Qur'an, the final... How is this word here? I got so many things going through my brain right now. The final frontier, or the last frontier. Yes. And it is a conclusion.
There's a chapter that is translated "The Conclusion." It's translated "The Conclusion," but it also translated "The Unity," which tells us that for Islam, the unity is the conclusion. The word plainly says conclusion, but the language also says unity. The language of the chapter also says unity. It begins with unity of G-d. The oneness of G-d. Qul huwa Allahu Ahad, saying G-d is only one, or one alone. Qul huwa Allahu Ahad, G-d is one alone. Meaning that he has no G-d s with him. That's what the Old Testament says, "Make no other G-d s before me." That's the Old Testament, and Qur'an came back to reinforce that. Qul huwa Allahu Ahad. Say G-d is one alone. That means make no other G-d s with him.
Surahtul Ikhlas], The Conclusion. The chapter called The Conclusion. So, Qur'an is revealed also to conclude matters. But what matters? Not the matters of our pop culture necessarily. It doesn't address this kind of stuff. The matters of revelation. What has come to the people of G-d, from G-d, as revelation. It comes to conclude those matters, and the books that they receive also tell them to expect the day when the matters will be concluded.
So, the Qur'an is in fulfillment of the prophecy that was given to all the people in the book, telling them to expect the day when the matters shall be or will be concluded.
Muhammad the Prophet received the first words of the Qur'an, and these first words say, "Your Lord is the creator." First words to Muhammad. Didn't tell him, "Your Lord's name is Allah." He didn't hear that word until after he had received the first communication from G-d. Later, he heard G-d gave him the word Allah in the communication. But the first communication contained no name Allah in it. It said, "Read in the name of your Lord who created mankind from a small plot of blood. Read and your Lord is most generous," as a third verse, "who taught mankind knowledge and how to record it."
The last of this verse and the last of the verses that came to him with the first communication, "Who taught mankind what mankind was not before knowing." And G-d says in another part of the revelation... This came much later to Muhammad. He says...
If all the seas, bodies of waters, seas, were doubled in number and they were made ink, the water of those seas increased by twofold and they were made ink, the water made into ink. And all the trees on earth were made pens with this to write, they would all be used up before the words of G-d could be used up.
Now, aren't we poor students when we think that all the words of G-d is in the Quran? I only need about 100 pens to write the Quran, and maybe less than a quarter ink. And all this can't be in the Bible either, can it? Or in the books of the Hindus, about their nirvana and whatnot, and about the illuminated Buddha is to get all that's written in those religions and all the other ones. You still won't have all the words of G-d. And he's still teaching, right? G-d, he's still teaching. I'm a student of G-d. I'm still learning. And that's the truth. The living truth, the plain truth, the unadulterated truth. And it would've suited me, if I could have whispered that in each of your ears and no one, but you heard it.
I would be happy. Still on the Qur'an as the last frontier. In the Old Testament, we read that blood is the life of the body. And in the New Testament, we read that blood is the spirit of the New Testament. Blood...
Read in the name of your Lord, who created the first verse given Muhammad and the second verse given to Muhammad proper on him. Read and pardon me, upon me, who created mankind from a clot of congeal blood? That's the second one. Is this the Bible also? Yes. And the Bible, G-d reminds the people of the book. When I found you, this is their scripture, I'm giving you. Now, when I found you were wallowing in your own blood, it means the blood from the birth.
From the birth. Birth blood, the blood of the woman that bore them. Of their mother, when she delivered them, comes out blood and water, correct? Yes. So G-d says to them, remember how I find you. I found you wallowing in your own birth blood, the blood of birth. Does it really mean that they were wallowing in? No. It's to them, clear, but the others, it has to be explained. The Jewish learning teachers and rabbis, they know what that means, that he found them socially confused and socially corrupt. And without the spirit of social community life, as G-d wants them to have it in their bodies and in their people.
So they were lost from their social calling as a people and as a community, and G-d had to guide them back to the path of that leads them back to their true nativity. So they could follow their true lifeline, true lifeline, and become a great people as G-d wanted them to be. We may say that G-d found us after slavery. Our people, the whole people, African Americans are Blacks, wallowing in our own blood. And we had to have Frederick Douglass and few others
To stand up out of that blood, as a man in the mold, G-d wants to be, and then lead the rest of us. So our race would come to stand up as one man, as one man in our social establishment created for us by our G-d. I don't need the holy ghost help coming like that. What is this breathing? Can we cut that air off or whatever? It's not hot in here to me. And I'm up. Oh, that's rain. Oh, we can't stop that. It's too... It's too big for us. Well, let's imagine it's angels cheering.
The religious people, especially for Muslims, community is the body. We are not supposed to see our body in our personal body. When you look in the mirror and see yourself, brother and sister, that's not the big picture. When you see your whole community, that's the big picture. So that's the self that we want established. We want establish the self, the collective body. And that is no more than what G-d has reached. The first man with Adam. He didn't want Adam to see himself in his own personal body. And that's why he reveals in Genesis, Bible Genesis. That Adam is not to be seen as one body. Adam is to be seen as humanity, a collective body. Adam, the person, we have to see the picture of the whole humanity, what G-d wants for all nations, what G-d wants for all races of people.
The collective body. It is really coming down out there. I have to know you are hearing me in the rear, raise your hands in the rear. You're still here? Wonderful. Well, we going to rain too. R-E-I-N, pronounced the same, but a little different. The spirit of the community is what we want. Not one person's spirit, but the spirit of the community. I was once in Saudi Arabia with some of the learned teachers over there of religion. And when the meeting was over, we set to have our great, to bring some tea and whatever. And one of them near me said, "you know Imam Mohammed, Adam was a community." I said, "I do know that I read it in Genesis. Yes." He said, "and Abraham was a community." So I'm listening now. And he left it there.
And I think where he wanted me to take it was, and Muhammad is a community. But he didn't say that. See the saying a hint is enough for the wise. A hint is enough for the wise. So he stopped it right there. He didn't say, and Muhammad is a community. He said Abraham. And he said, Adam, then he said Abraham. And he left it there. So I carried it. That carried it. His next step. I knew what he meant. He was meant to say, we are Muslim and Muhammad is also a community. And we do say, this community is the community of Muhammad, the prophet. He be upon him. He was the one that G-d gave the vision to how to establish it. And he was the one who actually established it in his lifetime. He established the Ummah of Al-Islam or the international community of Islam. So he is a type... Adam is a human type for all people. Abraham is a human type for all people. And Muhammad is a human type for all people. How do we know that he's not a human type just for Muslims, but he's a human type for all people? We know by G-d's words, G-d's own words. G-d says to us in the last revealed book, the Qur'an. G-d says to us in Muhammad, you have the most excellent human model for any who believes in G-d and fears the last day for any who believes in G-d and fears the last day, or believe in the last day, meaning that you believe that there's not only G-d, but G-d is going to hold you accountable for the way you live.
G-d is going to hold you accountable for the way you live your life. So in our book, we are told that Muhammad, the prophet is a model for anyone who believes that. And the people of the book believes that. They believe that. They believe in G-d and they also believe in judgment, the judgment day, that they have to be accountable to their G-d. So when G-d tells us in the Quran, Allah tells us in the Quran, "Muhammad, that is certainly Muhammad is a mercy for all the worlds, to all the worlds." Doesn't it sound like the same language that we find in the New Testament, and in Christianity and Christian theology of Jesus Christ, that he is of mercy. He comes to bring peace to the whole world. He's a mercy to the whole world, it's the same.
So when we understand these religions in their pure logic and in their beautiful language, we see that these religions are addressing the same major concerns, the same major concerns. And the most, the biggest of all the concerns is that we perceive or see truth correctly. Firstly, truth of this big war we have of heavenly bodies, and the earth and all of this beauty and wonder. That we see it directly, that it reaches our thinking mind and we give it thought to understand what should our relationship be with it, what should our respect for it be, how dependent we are on it; and therefore, how respectful of it we should be, etc.
But also, is to have us look at our own selves and don't just see the human form, the body and the extra higher reality on the inside of the flesh and understand, this is free. Listen, closely what I say, I try not to waste a single word. We have to look at ourselves as human beings, as created things, people, humans and not take our own creation for granted, but look at it to appreciate it as a thing of value. Has G-d given us something of value? When I look at myself in the mirror and I see Warith, your imam, and my imam too. Warith would be lost without his Imam W. Deen Mohammed. But I look in the mirror and see the person, the body, I want think about it as a Muslim. Muslim is a thinker, Muslim just doesn't live, and act and react. Most of them is a thinker. When you give your Shahada, your Shahada says, "Don't convert until you have thought about it."
That's what your Shahada says. "Don't convert until you've given serious thought to it." Okay. So we are thinkers, no matter how low we are on the level of society, or education or in education, we are obligated all of us to be thinkers. In fact, in Islam, you not to be called a man, unless you are thinking for yourself. The word for man means you're thinking for yourself. If you're not doing that, you're not even entitled to be called a man, not in Islam.
Allahu Akbar. So, we look at ourselves as a creation of G-d in the mirror. Look at this body, this body is something else, I don't have time. But if I had time, I could show you things in your own body that you would really hold and cherish for the rest of your life, if you hadn't come by this from some other prayer or got it yourself, you would love what I say to you and cherish it for the rest of your life. And one day I will. In fact, I've already put it in some of the publications that we have. They have it written, what I've said or maybe you'll find it one day, what I said about the human body.
Now, but even more important than the human body, the human body is the first Muslim. The human body is the first Muslim. So before you get the world's mind in you, and before you get your own mind in you, that you work with, while working with the world's mind or with the world outside, you are a Muslim from heaven or a new creation of child from heaven. That's what you are. Muhammad said this, I don't have time for all the language that all this references, but Muhammad, the prophet said, this peace upon him, "And you only have to go to any hospital to where the newborn babies are, and you look at those newborn babies and they will be Chinese." And.... If you look at them and see, can you tell that they're..., that they're different, as far as they're expressing? They're expressing themselves.
See if you can find them expressing themselves in Chinese, in Yuroba, in ..., in Urdu or Hindi, or Arabic or English, you won't find any of them communicating in these languages. They learn these languages after they come into our world. G-d gave them one language, the language, responding to their reality that they have their world that G-d gave them and he created them. And, they're in the world of sensitivity. They're in the world of feeling. When they open their eyes, they in the world of their sight and hearing and they start to get stuff from us and right away, their communication is polluted, polluted by what we are saying around them, by what they're hearing, the noises we are making around them. And by the things they are seeing, we got in their environment, they've become polluted and the soul becomes polluted.
Because when it comes here from G-d, it is not polluted, they are pure. They are born like angels from heaven. They're born like pure soul and they are pure souls from heaven. And this purity, they are ready to obey mama. They used to have law, criminal law in this country, in America that said, "Criminology can be inherited," so they authorized certain criminals to be sterilized, so they couldn't have more babies, thinking that would keep down criminals in the society. They finally had to give up that position in criminal law. And they had to establish that no human being can inherit from his parent, or his mother or father, criminal behavior. That was established. And I'm saying this to say to you, that's evidence supporting what G-d revealed to Adam, what he revealed to Moses and Jesus, Abraham, and Moses and Jesus and Muhammad, what he revealed of human creation. That human creation comes in the world pure and innocent, until something happened to deceive it out of his own nature that G-d created it in.
So when they say that it can't be inherited, that mean Allah did not create any criminal, Allah did not create any sinner. You hear that?
Allah never created a sinner. Sin comes after. So when you hear that the expression, "Born in sin," understand it means that baby was born into a sinful world. Doesn't mean sin was in the baby when G-d made it. When G-d made the baby, the baby was made without sin, no matter how much sin the mother committed, no matter how much sin the fathers committed, or the whole family line have committed. No sin can go into that baby that G-d made, until we put it into that baby. Praise be to Allah. So we don't even have such idea in Islam, there's no such idea as original sin. Ain't no original sin. G-d is original, and human beings, and the mold, and form and nature that G-d created, his original, that's the original human being. And, that original is called a Muslim. And, what is my own self? My own self is a righteous Muslim. Did you learn that?
You got it in our school, right?
Praise be to Allah. All right. So, Islam wants for us a brotherhood and our spirit is the spirit of brotherhood. Our spirit, the true Muslim community spirit is the spirit of Muslim brotherhood, that includes sisters, like man includes woman in the dictionary. Man means man, male, the male in the family of human beings, but man in the dictionary and any good dictionary also means males and females. Man and mankind. Same for Islam, no different. The spirit is the blood. And for us, the spirit is the spirit of Muslim brotherhood and sisterhood, or Muslim brotherhood, which includes sisters.
Allah is the name of G-d, but don't make no big deal of this. You make a big deal of it and you use Allah in a way that says you don't believe Allah the same, as G-d for Dews, And Christians and others, you going make your G-d small. You going have Christians and others thinking that you got some little homemade G-d. They going to say on earth that's, "They talking about the G-d of those people, they ain't talking about the G-d of everybody." Allah is nothing but a Arabic word for G-d. And the study of the word, the study of this history tells us and this is not concluded now, but most of us who study this religion, and study the Arabic language and the use of Allah, the name, Allah, in Islam, we have come to the conclusion that Allah combines two words that came long time ago, Al, which means the, and illah, which means G-d. They were made up combination and the combination became one word, which means the G-d, the G-d. That's what Allah means. The G-d.
Now, if you don't think Allah is the same for Christians, go to Lebanon where Christians have lived before and after the coming of Islam to the world. And you listen to... There have been Arabs too, they were always Arabs. They were Arabs for as long as they remember. Before that, they belonged to another people. But, they are Arabs. And Arabs too, if you try to trace the Saudis back in history, there was a time when they weren't called Arabs, they were called by some other name. But those people speak that language, Arabic, are called Arabs. And in Lebanon, there have been Christians before and after the coming of the Quran and Muhammad, the prophet, peace be upon him. You ask them, "How do you say G-d?" They will laugh. They say, "Allah." That's how they say G-d, Allah.
So in their churches, they are saying Allah. Allah, that's what they are saying. And not I pointed to Lebanon, because there are a lot of Christians in Lebanon and churches in Lebanon, but there are Christians in Egypt too, and churches in Egypt. And in many other parts of the world, we find Muslim, a Christian in Muslim lands practicing their religion. And those who speak Arabic, they say Allah. You think they say G-d, you think they use English? They don't use English, all they know is Arabic. That's their language. They say Allah. So, please come away from this foolishness.
Allahu Akbar, G-d is greater. In the Quran, Allah is the name for the creator of all worlds, and man are in humanity, mankind. The Quran was revealed to be a communication with a script form and a style, divinely ordered, the style of... The form and the style of the communication is divinely ordered to empower it, in order to have it reveal itself. Reveal itself. Now, first it is given to a human being, a messenger, a servant and messenger of G-d. Then the servant and messenger of G-d, he reads it. So G-d told Muhammad when He gave him five little verses, He told him to read, that was the first verse, read. The first words that Allah communicated to Muhammad, began with the word read. Read in the name of your Lord, who created, who made everything. Read from your Lord to Muhammad, the word read from your Lord, or Allah to Muhammad, carries the meaning read to understand, not just read, but read to understand.
Now, is it that the way education want us to read? In school, you ain't just read, you have to read to understand. If you read, just to read, you are not going to get good grades. But if you read to apprehend, if you read to understand, you are going to get good grades. And, that's what Allah told Muhammad when he gave him the first word of the Quran, the holy book. He said, "Read," and He conveyed the meaning to him, "Read to understand." Moreover, Allah says, "Allah, that's G-d, shall also teach you, Muhammad." G-d shall also be your teacher. G-d shall teach you. How did this man with no formal education and no prior knowledge of scriptures, holy scriptures, he lived among idol worshipers, people who worshiped G-d s that they made with their own hands, they carved out a wood, or made out of stone, or craved from stone, or made with clay or something else. Those were the G-d s they worshiped. They didn't have Bible among them. They didn't have no formal, or religion that is classical religion in the history of civilization with them, they didn't have it.
So how is this man going to read and I'm coming from the definition that's given in the Bible that says, "Read, read once, read twice," it's in the Bible. And nothing that Muhammad came to give us of a major importance, is not in the Bible or not in somebody's religion and a religion that is important to the world, not just any ordinary religion. So Allah told him, "That He, Himself, "G-d shall teach you." Listen, the first communication to Muhammad, Allah says, "Allah the teacher." "Allah, G-d is the teacher." And if any man has become a teacher, it's because G-d was his teacher first. And his forefathers is not in him, but I know who my teacher is. My teacher's G-d.
And would you believe that my father said that I would be taught by G-d.
Yes, my father told me in the front of others, while others was listened, "See, I got mine from G-d and the person of a man," he say, "But he will get his from G-d, not in the person of a man, by way of revelation." My father said that to me. I don't know how that man knew so much. But it has happened. I couldn't be a witness before it happened, but now that I know it has happened, now I'm a witness, that's what my father said has happened. G-d has taught me and is teaching me.
Allahu Akbar. Now, Muhammad left something for us too, Muhammad gave us signs of the end of time. And one of the signs of the end of time Muhammad said would be that, "There would be a person that G-d would teach himself." G-d will be his teacher. This is in Hadith, establish Hadith, that G-d would be his teacher. Oh, I hear silence almost, like the world that's come to an end. Isn't this something, how you can hear silence? Praise be to Allah. We thank G-d.
Yes, Allah called Muhammad and Muhammad predicted that in the end of time, G-d will teach one of his followers. G-d will be the teacher of one of his followers. And G-d has clearly said, I've given it to you already, that he's taught mankind. He's a teacher for all people. They can't have true civilization, unless they have someone of a human being that received inspiration, revelation from G-d.
Allahu Akbar. G-d is the greatest. G-d is He, is Allah, is He who created all matter, all life and all humans to reveal life to them. G-d has to reveal our own life to us. Do you think we would have civilization and have government, like we have it continuing, if our society depended on nobody but us with common knowledge?
No, indeed. Even this civilization, and this government is protected by angels and men of deep insight into revelation, and the cause of those angels and those men, our government has longevity. Our civilization... (silence).
... that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator, not by their government. And are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights among these life, liberty,
... and the pursuit of happiness. Those are powerful words. Those words contain and protect the longevity of our government and this way of life. Because they recognize G-d and those words are protected by angels and the great men of insight, who know what G-d has revealed. We in our churches, and in our mosques and in our synagogues too, we be preaching and think we got something over somebody's head. Yeah, there's something over your head, buddy, a whole world of angels and learned men. And, you've just got a little piece of it.
Now G-d, so it is G-d that created all matter. And made it possible for human beings with human minds intelligence to get the sciences, to get the sciences. But man gets off the path of true nature, true nature, and he gets into his ideas of reality and loses the original truth of what reality really is. So he goes into darkness as the dark ages, as we have it in the history of the dark ages, and then G-d has to come again to a man. Find one worthy who kept his human decency and come to him, and then deposit it in him again, G-d's own life, so that his mind and intellect will be illuminated again, be lit up again, come on again.
And he will be able to, with that light given to him by G-d a spark, in his intelligence by G-d, he'll be able to call fallen humanity back to the ways of truth and reality. That's what happened during the dark ages when Islam brought to the world by Muhammad, the prophet, interrupted the darkness, it's in the Bible. "There will be a famine all over the earth," the Bible says, "It won't be a famine of food, it'll be a famine of hearing the word of the Lord," that's the Bible. So, it'll be darkness and darkness will have the people starving without the food that G-d wants them to eat. And the Bible says in a New Testament, referring to the communion that Jesus established for his disciples and his followers, the Bible says, "And the bread is the doctrine," meaning the bread is the teachings of the New Testament.
The bread is the doctrine of the New Testament and the blood is the spirit of the New Testament. So here bread, and meat, and blood, and wine and water have to be understood, its talking about knowledge, a certain knowledge that G-d reveals. And when He reveals it, it comes into your life and into the world of mankind and believers, especially as the first germ of life. And it is compared with the natural development of life in the mother, so it says that, "First, He takes water and he makes the water blood and causes the blood to clot, and then makes the fetus lump." And He makes the lump uniform, and then He puts into the lump, bones, gives his structure." "And then he closed the bone with skin, give it sensitivity and completes His human." "And then He breathes into that body, a breath again." "And it becomes a new creation, that's what G-d said." Hey, you got those braces on my feet, I feel like floating...
"Hey, you got those weights to put on my feet? I feel I'm going to start to float." Now, I told you all yesterday, "I may have to call on you to put some weights on my feet. I'm getting light, I might start floating. And I sure don't want to sppok up anybody, I want you to stay down here with the real goodies." And G-d did this to reveal not only the material world that holds science, but he did it so you can get the benefits of science. Because science is the tool that will improve upon your existence. And science is a mercy, that's G-d's second mercy.
And he says in the book to the people of the book, he says, "And I will give you two portions of my mercy." It's fulfilled in every chapter of the Quran except one, the ninth chapter. And in the context of that chapter, the two mercies are mentioned. Bismillah, in the name of the G-d, or with G-d's. Ar-Rahmaan, one mercy. Both of these words are from Rahmah, it means mercy, describing G-d. G-d is merciful twice, he's Ar-Rahmaan, merciful once. And he's Ar-Raheem, merciful twice. And to respond to what was prophesied in the old book, and the books given to the people of the book, here comes these chapters reminding them of the promised two mercies. Ar-Rahmaan, Ar-Raheem.
"And they received the mercy of correction on their spiritual perception. And then G-d guided them in the perception of the objective world, the material benefits. And the Muslims became the new ones to introduce true sciences to the world." This is history now. Arnold Toynbee, American historian, he had written about it. And many others. He's maybe the greatest historian in the west, in the modern world, Arnold Toynbee, he wrote about it. So this is preserved in history that it was the Muslim civilization that flowered after the coming of the Quran, that made possible the revival of intellectual interest in true science. And the result was? Thinkers, and students, philosophers and medicine men, the doctors came to Syria and came to Iraq, yes Iraq, where centers of higher education were established by Muslims after following Muhammad to prophet. They came up from all over the known world to Muslim centers to have their intellects revive, and science given back to the world. This is history. Okay. All right.
So how is it a mercy? It was this reveals book, the Quran, which invited thinkers to see the world objectively. To see the practical benefits of it. Not in a room of a priest, or pious man's romantic mind. That looks at the sky and sees so much beauty in it, and preach that to his congregation. It's beautiful. But what about the tools, and the utility that G-d has put in the matter? Sun, Earth, winds, water, everything, fire for man to use. Discover as science, and then put it into use in his own community so he can have kind weather in a harsh mean desert, where temperatures are averaging 120, 130. Now he can have the air conditioned, and he sits in his house in that hot place, and he feels no heat.
So science have made his life more comfortable for him in that desert. And when he didn't do nothing but travel on a camel or a donkey somewhere in the heat, with a umbrella or covered his head and white cloth to keep from burning up in the desert while making a trip. Now he done paved roads, he sits in a Mercedes Benz, he cooling it all the way across the desert in the heat. Science brought him that. And man wants you to see him as the creator of this new world. When G-d is his teacher, G-d gave him his lab to work in. And G-d inspired him to know how to use the brain, the human computer that G-d made for human beings, he created us with it. So how is man going to get all the credit for this?
This is a great message at the conclusion of things, during this time I call the time of the day of religion. That man has lied to himself, and have lied to the publics, and have us thinking that man is to get their credit for all these things, when man is a beneficiary himself! He has benefited from G-d's objective world, have benefited from his human nature, his rational senses, his human sensitivity, and everything else. He's nothing but a flesh computer made by his G-d.
When he makes a computer, does the ones who gave us Apple computer, do they sell us Macintosh or whatever, do they sell us that this is a gift from G-d? They claim that computer they made for themselves, for mankind, for men, for industrial men. So why don't they acknowledge that they are a computer, and without them being a computer, they would never perceive how to get anything from G-d's creation, not to mention science. They wouldn't be able to perceive how to get anything from G-d's creation. And they wouldn't be able to perceive how to make a computer that they have made. So why don't they admit that they are G-d's computer?
It wants us to seek. Seek, S-E-E-K, seek. To make good use of everything G-d has created for man to utilize into community life, bring into community life, put it to service. Muhammad says, "It's forbidden that any student learn, or acquire, or want to acquire knowledge and he has no practical plan to put it to use for other people." So it's forbidden that he even go after that knowledge. If he has no plan to put it to practical use so other people can benefit and have a better life, then he's forbidden to even go after it. Our religion doesn't permit us to rack our brains and study scripture, for us to go out from human society a hermit or something, or a priest and... What do you call it? Not a monk, or something else.
All right that okay. Go out and live to himself on some pillar in the sky, levitating. He's levitating somewhere above the stores, and the business, and the shops, and the liquor stores. He's out of touch with liquor stores, and gambling houses, he's out of touch with men going to bed with women, he's out of touch with all that. He got the scripture of the book that's meant for the whole world, that's meant to make our world comfortable for us. He got the book, and he done levitated somewhere way out from civilization and the happenings of man's world, and he think he's gone to heaven. And he got a big following among us, worshiping him, and we're sending him our money. I'd like to kill that bastard. And I think that's just what I'm doing.
Another reference says the Earth was made to amply supply human needs, and human life. It's in the Quran that the Earth was made by G-d to amply, that means more than enough, to give us more than enough, to amply supply human life. Human needs, and human life. Needs refer to just basic things that we all expect to have. And that is food, clothing, shelter, and to move about, etcetera. Amply means, and it'll be given later, I'll just keep going. Plus, it's going to be given later here. Yes, so in connection with that saying that G-d has made the Earth to amply supply human needs, and human life. I'm going to add again this reference from Quran, "If all the tree were made into writing pens, and all the seas increased and doubled and made ink, they would all be used up before we could use up the words of G-d. By the words of Allah as given in Quran.
So G-d is referring, Allah is referring in Quran to more than just sacred script. Quran, Torah, Old Testament, and Gospel or New Testament. He's referring to more than that. He's referring to the whole objective world that we can perceive with our eyes, or hear with our ears, or can register with our five senses that are existing all out here, and in us, and everywhere. That's why Muhammad said, using the same term for the words of script in the Quran, G-d revealed to him and he taught us, "There are Ayats in the skies, and Ayats..." Script, words, verses, words. .".. and Ayats in the Earth. And whatever's in between." And in another place that says, "and in you as well, in you as well." So here, the thinking person, the intellectual and the scientific minded person is told by the Quran and by Muhammad that, "Script for you to read is in the skies. And also in what's in between Earth and heaven, and what's in the Earth and also in you."
So they began to study the human-being's form, and out of it came anatomy, the sciences. And later, so many different sciences just of the human form. So many different sciences. And up in the sky, they started first with astronomy. The Arab were directed by the Quran and Muhammad to study the skies, so they brought back the sciences of astronomy. And then they start studying medicine, it's the in between, on the Earth. They start studying herbs, and things in the Earth, and out came more sciences to improve medicine, et cetera. And they just went and they studied everything, they even studied geography. And they were the first ones to start mapping again, communities on Earth. It was the Arabs who learned from Muhammad, and not just Arabs, some of them were not Arabs. Some of them were Jews. Some of them were Spanish. Some of them were Persians. They were protected from many different people, a wonderful time.
So G-d reveals something that is addressing man in his greatest possibilities, for life and comforts on this Earth. So don't think religion, the Quran, is just for you to go and make five daily prayers, or one, or how many ever of you make. And go to Hajj, visit holy precincts in Mecca and see the first house built as a house of worship, that was built by Abraham and his son. Peace be upon them. Don't think that's the whole of the religion, the bigger part of the religion is education, sciences, technology. The building of a world, and making it more comfortable for all people. All people, every color, every nationality, high and low, rich and poor. That's what this is. Now I think you see why the world, why many in the world don't want you to get it.
So this is really a bigger door open for you to get what you are asking governments for, than governments have for you. So you'll find some governments that will... They actually fight and shed blood to keep this religion from being presented in the true ways, in their own countries. Do you find many Muslim governments that won't allow the free preaching of Islam in their countries? Because they know if they do, Muslims are going to catch on, because they can't get it. G-d has locked them out. The political minded, G-d locked them out. They can't get what G-d has revealed. The material minded who just want wealth, they can't get it, G-d locked them out. But they know themselves that G-d gave it to a man that was not educated by the world. And they fear if the spiritual people are allowed free studies, and free preaching of this book, there'll be another Muhammad on the scene. And his world will be bigger than theirs.
Allah says in this holy book, "None can have access to it except the purified ones." And again, he says, "This book is guidance for the G-d fearing, those respectful of G-d, and respectful of sacred matters." And he has locked out those who don't have Taqwa, who don't have that sacred regard. Locked them out! How powerful G-d is, he can speak to the world and no ears can hear but the one he wants to hear.
Praise be to Allah. Elijah Muhammad, our former leader, honorable Elijah Muhammad. He left the same teaching with the rest of our leaders that he left with me, he didn't give me something that they don't have. In fact, he told them about me. He wasn't talking to me, he was talking to them about me. So they actually had a little more than I had. He perhaps told them things about me, that he didn't tell me in my own ears. Yeah. But look who got in the door?
And it wasn't no multi-verse. No twin, I don't have any twin. No multiple verse. Only one germ was allowed to germinate. That's a sign, that's what I'm sharing with you all. It's a sign, and I challenge anybody. And I don't do it except for G-d's glory, I want nothing. What I want, I can get it. I could have kept it, I could have had right now. I wouldn't have lost Shirley if I didn't want you all. So I want you all, got her in the pitches. And she got too big in the pitches, it gave herself hell, and me hell too. Poor Shirley, but she repented. But I'm so scarred, I don't know the way back to her house. And I love her. And I love her. Praise be to Allah. But G-d is the best knower. We cannot plan our own lives, except as G-d plans. Allahu Akbar.
So look how it happened, that's a sign to us. G-d gives us all kind of support for us to believe, and be united solidly, and be strong together. He gives us all kind of support, but we always looking for a way out of the light, instead of looking for a way to see better with the light. We're looking for a way out of the light. "Oh, it's too bright. Let me get out of here." Yes he says, "None can get into it but the purified one. It is guidance for those who have reverence for G-d, reverence for their parents, reverence of sacred matters. Even if your parents strive with you to get you to believe something that G-d has not given you a foundation for." He have not supported that, but your parents are striving you to believe something that you don't have anything in your religion to say that's okay. G-d says, "Do not follow them in their disbelief, but keep good company with them in this life until you die."
So even if your parents reject you for becoming a Muslim, you should be striving until you die to stay with your parents. And to love your mother and father, love your close relatives. Even though they say, "Don't come by my house." You should do what I did when my father told me not to come by my house. He told me not to .... "Don't worry your mother, you'll get her in trouble. Don't even try to call your mother." That's what he told me. That was the law of the Nation of his Islam. That if you disagree with important things, you would be excommunicated, and you couldn't have any contact with your people. But he had also, that same man that put that kind of restriction on me, while he was in prison serving time for not signing up for the draft, World War II. He probably wouldn't have had to go to prison, if he had just signed for the draft. He wouldn't even put his name on the draft because he wanted to say, "We don't accept this." And he was imprisoned in Michigan.
He wrote to my mother, he said, "Give our son this." And what was it? It was these words from the holy Quran. Luqman's advice to his son, in the chapter called Luqman. And it says in there, "If your parents try with you to get you to accept or believe there's something that you don't have any basis or grounds from G-d for, don't follow them. But keep good company with them in this life." Meaning until you die, or until they die. Now I didn't know this was working in me, but it was, obviously it was working in me. I didn't consciously look at it, it was my nature now. It was my nature not to accept that I don't communicate with my mother and father. So he put that law on me, he put the nature of Islam law on me. But when Saviors Day came around, before Saviors Day I would write him. I'd say, "Daddy, your Saviors Day is nearing. And I want to wish you a very successful annual Saviors Day convention." I would write him that, tell him that.
And my mother, I'd find ways to reach her to tell mama, "Don't worry about me. I'm doing fine." I was doing fine too, but in your estimation maybe I was not. Because one brother said, "Oh, he's doing bad. His clothes look bad." My clothes just didn't look rich. I had on nice clothes, they were clean too. Praise be to Allah. No, he's trying to hurry up and get out of here now, I know the time is passing, and has passed really. Yes.
So now, we've come through Muhammad's own life. Muhammad's own life, and we have touched upon it, speaks to this idea that G-d himself created everything, and G-d has the power to renew or bring everything back. G-d's world that he wants for human beings does not depend on civilizers from among men, it does not depend on even saviors from among men. It doesn't depend on sciences, men of science and technology, it doesn't depend on them. G-d can return the order of the world whenever he wants to, by revealing it to, as he says, "When I want someone, I don't have to have a child." G-d doesn't have to have a child.
He say, "I select one that I've already created." That's what he said. "I select one from among those I've already created." And he selected Muhammad from the men that he had already created, he selected Moses from the men he had already created, he selected Abraham from the men he had already created. And he created Adam, our father himself, peace be upon him. And if you study the gospel, you'll find one of the writers of the gospel saying of Jesus Christ's lineage, the genealogy of Jesus Christ says he was born of Mary. And so on and so on, going back, tracing back, and back, and back, and back. And it gets to the first man, Adam. And Adam who was created by G-d.
So Jesus recognized that, he didn't say his father was not Adam. And in Christian theology, he's called the second Adam. And in the Quran, Allah says, "Yes, Adam did fall victim to the seducing voice of the Satan, this the devil, the Satan. But he repented, he came upon a word from his Lord, and he repented. And his Lord accepted his repentance. So we don't have in Islam a picture of Adam as a sinner, without also having a picture of Adam as one who was human, and had human imperfection. So he did sin, and he was challenged by the most subtle creature in the Earth, according to Genesis. Genesis says...
Receive any light challenge, he received a challenge from the wisest and most subtle, most deceitful and trickiest creature in the creation, Satan. And Satan caused him to slip, Quran don't say he sinned, say he slipped out of the clothing that G-d gave him. It meant out of the protection that G-d gave him to dress his own soul with, he slipped out of that, and became victim of the Satan, the devil. But it says that he met a word from his Lord, and he...
Quran don't say he sinned, it say he slipped out of the clothing that G-d gave him. It meant out of the protection that G-d gave him to dress his own soul with. He slipped out of that, and became victim of the Satan, the devil. But it says that he met a word from his Lord, and he repented. And I believe this means not in his own time did he meet a word, but much later in the history of the rise of man, the ascend of man or the rise of man into true civilization, much later in the history. And I can tell you exactly the time, when Jesus Christ was born. Adam met a word in Jesus, Adam met a word from his Lord and repented, and his Lord accepted him.
And I can tell you that I heard some things that my little heart and mind couldn't be comfortable with, from my father's teachings, when I was only 11 or 12 years old. I remember praying to G-d and saying, "G-d, if I'm not seeing Allah, if I'm not seeing you correctly, please help me see you correctly." I can say to you that Adam, in the genes of Elijah Muhammad, by the name Wallace met a word from his Lord and repented, and G-d accepted his repentance.
And G-d accepted his repentance. Allahu Akbar!
So, Muhammad's own life is also a mercy to us. And that's why G-d says to us in the Qur'an, "And Muhammad is a mercy to all the world." Speaking to Muhammad directly, he says, "I have not sent you to be any other than a mercy to all of the world." He can't just be for Arabs, one continent, and one people, got to be for all people. A mercy for all of the world.
The community, called the ummah in Arabic, the ummah. And the word is derived from the word "umm," means mother. If I say "my mother" in Arabic to anybody on the streets in Arabic speaking lands, I say, "Ummi." They know what I'm talking about. I'm saying, "My mother." If I say ummaeey, they know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about my Islamic community that's international. I'm identifying my mother, that's my international mother called community. ummaeey, my community. So, the ummah, or the ummaeey is our community, and it is our second gift of mercy from our G-d. So, G-d gives enlightenment, true enlightenment...
... as his second mercy. But then, those who follow Muhammad the Prophet, your community is a community of guidance. It is a community of business. It is a community of industry. It is a complete world. It is a complete community of medicine, sciences, military people, and everything. Yes? Our community is also a community of military people. We don't believe in turning the other cheek until we don't have any cheek to turn. We will turn the other cheek once, and we'll come at you when you try to hit the other side.
In the Bible, it said, "Turn the other cheek. If they ask for one, let them have the other one. If they have to ask for another, turn." Yeah. Only way I'll do that is if I can't do anything about it. And that's why the Bible says it because they couldn't do anything about it at that time. Because the Romans would've given them hell and they'd be fed to the lions, and swug up and hung on crosses, so that was survival instruction. Well, now that you don't have to survive and nobody having your life in their hands, you have a law protection, somebody slap those cheeks, check to see if they did that on purpose. If they did it on purpose, don't give them a second chance.
The Qur'an gives us two gifts of mercy in my conclusion. Purity brings us back to that original newborn child's innocence, where we are not out to hurt anybody and we are ready to listen to good advice coming from anybody, beginning with mama. Mama trains us to respect good advice no matter where it's coming from. So, we return to that original purity, and then G-d guide us into the practical application of spiritual sciences and also the sciences of our objective world. So, with that, I conclude this address that I have made here today, and I tell you that it's a special treat that you have gotten this message. There are people high up in religious sciences that would like to be sitting right there where you are right now. Thank you very much. Peace. As-Salaamu Alaykum.

