11/10/2000
IWDM Study Library
Cleveland, OH

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Imam WD Mohammed:
Praise to Allah. Asalaam Alaikum. Their called sins, sins of a person without a mind over their behavior. We know these common sins, carnal sins, are common sins also. Greed, jealousy, envy, et cetera. What are we about? What is our purpose here on this earth? Why are we Muslims? Why do we come together like this? Because of G-d,. A people cannot stand up for themselves or anybody else or anything else with carnal sins, especially greed being put upon them, being promoted in their appetites and they permit it to happen. G-d says to us in our Holy Book, "Be a people of justice, witnesses for G-d. That's why I'm here. Since I was a little boy, my parents conditioned me and good senior members of the Temple of Islam that were close to my parents, they helped them, my parents that is, conditioned me to be a child wanting to obey G-d and willing to do what is just and right. I owe my righteousness to G-d firstly, but I owe my righteousness also to the teachings that I got from my parents that encouraged me to be the way I am and from the senior members of the Temple of Islam that was close to my father and mother and helped them condition me to be what I am. I didn't start being a righteous person or trying to strive for righteousness when I changed and begin to see the religion correctly. When I was not seeing the religion correctly I was the person I am now. And this is not just true of me as it's true of some of you too and some of the members of my family, my father's children from my mother by my father.
G-d says, "Be a people of justice, witnesses for Him, witnesses, for G-d." G-d says this to the Muslims, the followers of Muhammad the Prophet, the prayers and the peace be upon him. G-d is saying this to them. Aren't we them? I am. I'm a believer in the Qur'an that was revealed to Muhammad the Prophet 1400 and about 21 years ago. I'm a believer in that. And my father always held up that book above everything else that was in the Nation of Islam or the Temples as a sign to us that one day that book was going to overcome everything that was in opposition to it. That it is higher than whatever else we have.
And G-d says also to us in our holy book, "Men are maintainers of the women." Men are established as a people to be responsible for the women, for the women. And you know you can recall who have been with us for a long time even before I was the leader. You recall the Honorable Elijah Muhammad having the National Convention and several times he had big lettering, huge letters. You could see them as soon as you entered the door of the big hall or the big arena or the big convention facility. You could see those big letters Protect Our Women.
I'm addressing women immediately. Women as we know women immediately, but I'm dressing alluding to all the wombs that have born us. And we are not only born of flesh females. We are born also of correct knowledge and incorrect knowledge. Incorrect knowledge birth the wrong minded people and correct knowledge gives birth to the right minded people. But we we're not also born of knowledge. We are also born of the food ee are fed. The baby in the womb of his mother could never be born if the mother didn't eat food. And if she carefully selects the food she has in the interest of the life she's carrying, that promises us even a more healthier birth.
When G-d says to us, "Be a people standing for justice." G-d is saying to us that to be a people you must be standing. You are not a people until you stand up. The word Awlauna and Gawamina, the objective form of the word both have in their meaning if you're students of Arabic terminology both have in their meaning standing up erect. The word is derived from the word Qun, means to stand up. Qun, to stand up. Alahuna is called the people. But the word tells us that the people are persons standing up together, standing up together. We still have this meaning in the languages of many cultures or nations around the world. That meaning is there for them. In our English language we have standard, the standard, the word standard. And we also have the expression, stand up for it brother, stand up for something. We have those expressions.
So we know that the meaning to stand has a rich, rich message and also an ordinary message. G-d is not giving us the ordinary message when He tells us to be a people standing for justice. He's telling us that we have to stand up together for something worthwhile for all the people, for all the families, for mankind in order to be a people. And the Bible, the book of the Christians and Jews. Jews and the Christians, there is a saying that has captured my attention since I was a young student studying, I was not even a minister yet and I read in the Bible it says, let's go and break all of their bonds. I think it says bands, but I want you to say bonds first and then bands, the word the Bible uses. Break all of their bands and cast them as under so that they be a people no more. So here according to the Bible, there's another condition that is necessary in order for us to be a people or a people in the meaning that the Bible gives. And that is that you be tied together as one, tied together as one. And G-d says, this community of yours is one united community and I'm your Lord, therefore worship me.
Bismillah Ar Rahman Nir Raheem. I believe that what I'm going to say to you in my language is really my expression of the most important thing that is said to us in scripture. Man's job on this earth is a job of serving family. And man began as one family according to the scriptures, sacred scriptures. He began these kindred scriptures as the scripture given to the People of the Book and the Qur'an. That man began as a family and the first parents were Adam and his mate. Adam, the man created by G-d and his mate formed the first family. So by just common reasoning, all people are one family because they all came from one and the same father and mother, parent. But we know that G-d gives us in scripture that He scattered us, caused us to be scattered all over earth and we became different not only in our cultures but also in our natures. We came from one original nature, but our living apart from each other and then being fed mentally and spiritually by the environment that we chose eventually even changed our nature. So don't think that people are just different in color. People are different by nature, and their nature is expressed as their culture or in their culture. That's why you feel more comfortable in your own culture than you do in somebody else's culture like Chinese culture or Indian culture or even Arab culture. You feel more comfortable in your own culture. Now I'm not speaking for that person who has had so much difficulty trying to live their own life that they surrender to the life of somebody else.
What is our foundation as Muslims? What establishes us? A certain belief establishes us. And that belief is simply and believe me, it's different from the belief of Christians and Jews. Even Jews don't have the belief foundation that we have though in it's expression seems like it's the same when I express I believe in G-d. Yes, Jews and Christians do too. I believe in praying. Yes they do too. I believe in the angels, et cetera. They do too. We can go on and complete all the articles of faith and we see that we believe in the same thing they believe. But there is a Kalima, in English, a creed, C-R-E-E-D, and that creed distinguish us from them. What is that?
That's the creed There is but one G-d only, and Muhammad is the Messenger of the G-d. That's our creed. The Christians will say there is but one G-d and Jesus is His son. May G-d grant peace to His servants. That's what they will say. And the Jews will say there is but one G-d and we are his only begotten. That's what they will say. So we are different aren't we? Shouldn't be try to know ourselves? Did the teacher of my father come here to just have us celebrate blackness and go after the material things of this world. I don't think so. That's not what he did to me, didn't work on me that way. I think he came here to tell us just what I just told you. Now let me give you his words. He taught us to know ourselves and to be ourselves, but he also asked the question for us to answer and then he answered it. And who is my own self? Answer: My own self is a righteous Muslim. Ain't it good?
And he was echoing the teachings of our Prophet Muhammad who came a thousand and a few hundred years before the teacher of my father. And that one said, every child born is born a Muslim. What is he saying? That it's the nature, it is the original nature of every human being to want to obey G-d, love G-d, and be thankful to G-d for it's creation and all the beautiful and wonderful things G-d created for us to use and benefit from. It's the nature of a human being to want to do that. So if you have that desire, if you have that in your heart, then you are conscious Muslim.
But if that's not in your heart and you are just going after the things in the right way, you are an unconscious Muslim. And the work of the Qur'an, the word of G-d is to awaken your consciousness so that you become alive in your mind and be a conscious Muslim. It takes time to do that. When people have lost everything, even their own identity, it takes time to do that. So the teacher of my father had a plan to gradually bring us to consciousness. And he said, we have to raise the dead. He was talking about us. To get back the Lost-Found. Connect him back to his own. And we thought it meant to his own color. Meant to his own original nature, to his own rightful inheritance. To have a life of a Muslim is your rightful inheritance.
 So we have the creed, La Ilaha Il Allah, there is but one G-d, no G-d, but the G-d, that's what it says, meaning no G-d, but one G-d. Muhammad Rasul Allah, Muhammad the man, human being like us. G-d says in our holy book, say to them, talking to Muhammad, Ana Basharun Mithlakun, I am a common mortal, flesh and blood person like you. Not an angel, not a spook, a man that eats and shop in the markets marries and have children love his relationship with his wife. Not a monk, not a hermit. He's the Messenger of G-d. Not to Arabs, but to the whole of humanity. I can back this up with Qur'an and Sunnah. Oh believers, Muslim believers. G-d addresses us in the Holy Book as believers and addresses us very few times as Muslims. Mostly He address us as believers. So what does that tell us? That to be a Muslim doesn't necessarily mean that you are alive. Doesn't necessarily mean that you are conscious. Doesn't necessarily mean that you are a believer because you say you are a Muslim or because we accept to even address you as a Muslim. Because whether you have that graduation for your mind or not, we know that in you is the original Muslim.
Peace unto you. G-d says He promises us life and a good life. I'm giving you Qur'an, but I can also give you a Bible. Bible says the same thing, the words are just slightly different. G-d says He promises us life and He wants for us life. And He says and a good life. When He says good, He's not talking only about moral things, moral questions or moral concerns. He's talking about the full life because He makes it clear. He says, And good establishments, and good establishments. See, we use the same word or the same meaning to refer ourselves or to identify the precious quality of life. The precious quality of life is advancement, advancement, growth into better and better.
So the word for people which means to be standing up has a reference to establishment. Because once you are established standing up, not in your body alone, but you're standing up in your good morals, you are standing up in your good spirit, you're standing up in your good principles, et cetera, et cetera. When you are standing up like that, you can sit on the throne and still be seen by those onlookers as a man that's standing though physically he's sitting down. He's standing up in his principles, he's standing up in his spirit, he's standing up in his moral excellence, et cetera, and what will stand us up? The guidance of G-d. The man never stood up like that until the guidance of G-d was on this earth and in the breath of man. Yes. Life, a return to that focus life. Life gets better with the hearts of the people wanting better, wanting better conditions for themselves, yes, but also for others. G-d is not the G-d of one people. G-d is the G-d of all people. Like a parent is the parent of all their children or all his or her children. He's not going to be happy with his children if some of his children want one of the children or two of the other children cut out.
Cultivation. Cultivation. When G-d created our first father, He gave him this world as his responsibility and there was no others with him to claim that position. So he had no contenders. It was open to him. And the him I'm referring to is all men because he was the father of all men and his original nature and potential is in all men. So actually G-d was giving that to all men, but he only qualified one to begin it. Adam. And He didn't say Adam, there's no G-d but Me. So you remember Me and worship only Me. He showed Adam not Himself first. He showed Adam the angels first.
Adam was doing nothing. This is in Islamic theology. I'm speaking from Islamic knowledge sources. Adam had done nothing. He was just a concept. He was just a plan with G-d. And G-d chose to reveal His plan to the angels. He said to the angels, I am making a man in the earth, a mortal human being in the earth. And when I have fashioned him into shape and breathe into him of My spirit, bow down to him. Telling the angels to bow down to him, make sajdah to him, means submit your will and your plan and your purpose to that of G-d. And I'm telling you that my plan, will and purpose is to make a mortal human being in the earth and give that mortal human being responsibility for his own life, for the life of the generations and for the world or the earth that he's put into.
And the Bible says that G-d told the man to cultivate the garden. The original earth uninfluenced by the Satan, the Shaitan, the enemy of human beings was a garden of paradise. This is believed in all the major religions of the People of the Book and Muslims. It was the garden of paradise. Now we know that the intended garden of paradise is not for G-d with man is not this physical world, but it is the soul of every person, the soul of every person. Because you can have a garden of paradise outside your door, but if there's a hell in your soul when you walk out doors, what you'll get is more hell though outdoors is a paradise. You'll never know it. You'll never get the benefit of it. Cultivate, that's what G-d, what the man to do, cultivate. And we know the history of the rise of family, the growth of family into communities and societies, nations and cultures. We know the history of it. The history of it shows the growth of the mind interacting with its material environment. The human mind interacting with its material environment. The material environment signal certain messages to the human mind. And the human mind attracted will go and engage the material world.
Firstly, as a farmer, the agriculturalist was the first. But behind the agriculturalist comes the manufacturer, the industrialists. And in time this wonderful world, material world of plenty that we have in these modern times, that's history, that's correct history, that's history that every human being that wants to do better with their life under some leader needs to reflect on or at least have it in the leader to reflect on that. So the leader can keep us in touch with the history that have stood us up as men, as a people. So we will avoid that that takes us down from that high place.
So G-d charged the man with responsibility to cultivate the garden. And then the the Qur'an came and revealed to the world that there are two gardens, not just one. Now some of them are high in the sky among the people of earth. They knew that there were two gardens, but they wouldn't share it with the rest of the world. They knew that when G-d said cultivate the garden He was not talking about only one garden, talking about the garden of the human mind or the soul. And also talking about the physical environment that we have to live in and be born upon and exist upon and progress by the utilization of it, the correct utilization of it. And G-d says, "And He has made for your use whatever's in the skies and whatever's in the earth." Now, believe me, when I was lost from the original teachings of the Nation of Islam, first teachings of the Nation of Islam and uncomfortable with some of the things that I was taught. And began my search for freedom, clarity, and the opportunity to be the person I believed G-d wanted me to be, I turned even to Communism to see what do these people got?
They were very popular when I was young boy, Communist ideologies. Even before I was born, it had reached some very important figures in our race. One was a singer, singer and dancer, Paul Robeson. Another one was Richard Wright, I believe. Yes. And others, even some females among in the leadership of our people were turning toward the Communist ideology because American life was still holding us as slaves or second class citizens. So when I began to think for myself and my father taught me that, think for myself. He just taught me to be careful because there are consequences. So I understood the consequences. He taught me to think for myself and be careful there are consequences, yes. But anyway, I went and got the books on Communism, Marxist ideas, Engles, Lenin, and I read their philosophies. I read their teachings, but I was also reading the Bible.
I was reading the Qur'an and I was reading the teachings of my father's teacher, the teachings of Mr. Fard. I was reading all that at the same time. My wife Shirley, if she was here, she could be a witness and tell you say yes, say he would be up all night. I'd go to bed and get up in the morning and he'd still be at the table and the whole table would be covered with papers and books. So it gave me an opportunity to reach other ideas and other bodies of knowledge and examine them with a heart and mind not to prove any of them right or wrong, but to expose my thinking and mind and thinking to them so that my mind and thinking could make a judgment, an independent objective decision. That's what I was doing and G-d made me that way. I couldn't make myself that way. So as I was reading and reading, I came to the conclusion. I said, what's in these other books are really of very low value when I look at what G-d has put in this Qur'an. And that's my position now even stronger than it was back then.
Now what's in those other ideologies is inferior, much inferior to what G-d gives mankind in the revelation called the Qur'an. The best of what the Communist ideas were offering me were given to me in the Qur'an. The best of what they offered me. When I say offered me, I couldn't accept everything they were offering. But a lot of what they were offering I liked and I accepted it. But when I looked at what G-d offered me in the Qur'an in the same vein I said, Why I'll be a fool to go Communist while this great wealth of this goodness that they have discovered or given to people is in my Holy Book, the Qur'an. Every Muslim should feel close to the Qur'an. You should feel the Qur'an closer to you than your mother, closer to you than your wife, closer to you than your daughter, your son. You should feel the words of G-d closer to you. And I don't have to tell you to think about that. You know what G-d is supposed to be in your imagination. And you know He has first rights to not only your thinking and your behavior, but He has first rights to your heart.
The focus is still on life. But now we are turning to life in its relationships. Cultivate, G-d says cultivate. Cultivate your own soul. That's the first garden. And cultivate this earth, the material environment that G-d created to be a help and a support and a condition for your birth, your growth and your progress, your gathering together as G-d says, your meeting. Having a bad life or a good life depends on what we do with our ties of dependency, with our ties of dependency. None of us would even have a life if G-d hadn't put in us, clocked into us to accept our mother as our first friend and our best friend, and obey her and trust her with our lives. The infant born to the mother. So that relationship, that first tie with the womb that bore us is what made it possible for us to have this teenage life, this life of manhood or womanhood. Because if we had been different in our mind and spirit, some mothers would've threw us in the garbage can. Because G-d has clocked this into the life nature of the baby born to trust momma, and see mom as first friend and best friend. We made it. We made it.
The first tie of the dependency in our memory is our dependency on our mother. Hence, the sacred words of our religious books urging us to reverence our close tie of family and honor our mother and our father. Human history is a history of families choosing to hold on to that decent respect in the family for the protection of human life. When you break from that decent respect, you put human life in jeopardy. In these times after the age of Aquarius and all the other Hellenic days we got behind us, what is being emphasized by government, by business and by religion more than any other thing? A return to family values.
And G-d said He made us one community and we were one people in the beginning. That we descended all from one heritage and we are one family in the beginning. And scripture came later and said as it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end. And whether you recognize me or not as the man I am, I know that this is the end of time on this earth. But it is not the end that some people imagine, the burning and destruction of all living things on earth. G-d will not destroy living things. G-d destroys things that won't live. I know this is the day of religion. I know this is the day of judgment. And the day of religion and the day of judgment is a day of rejoicing and a day of weeping. Rejoicing by those who were decent enough to hold on to their human decency. So they have earned a right to live in the new day. But a day of weeping for those who spent their life in the wrong way and did not earn the right to live in this good time. So it's a day of weeping for them. It's a day of weeping for them. Since there are two gardens, the garden of the soul and the garden of the physical environment, human existence can be in a paradise while hell is everywhere. And human existence can be in hell while paradise is everywhere.
Family is our focus now. Scripture tells us of the first father being deceived by the enemy of mankind. He's not the enemy of your carnal appetites. He loves you when you want only the carnal appetites. Shaitan or Satan is the enemy of your spiritual appetites, your life. That's your true life. G-d says, And He breathes from His own nafs. Himself, from His own self. He breathed into the man He made. And that's what made that mortal a living man a living person, when he received the breath of life. Not this breath that every child has to get to be separated from the mother's body and have an independent life his own. But it's the influence of G-d's will. That's the breath that G-d shares with every human person, something of His ru'h, something of the influence, of His own will.
And that is our essence. That is our precious life. That is what gives life to our spirit and to our thinking. And if we don't have it we don't have life. Not in our spirit, not in our thinking. Our original father was deceived and the family of mankind went astray because he was deceived by the Satan. And we know that man couldn't meet the challenge. G-d created a being that He knew would be unable to meet the challenge on his own. Muhammad the Prophet gives us this in a report. He says, peace be upon him. He says, G-d showed, called forth the angel Gabriel. He said, Gabriel, see my world I'm creating. And Gabriel responded, my Lord, how can anyone go wrong in such a beautiful world? And then G-d in no time in an instant showed the great arch angel, Gabriel, the world after Satan had his way with it or his influence in it. And the arch angel Gabriel quickly responded, my Lord, how can anyone go straight in such a world?
Thus the challenge is too big for a man and angel. If the angel can think on it's own. Most angels cannot think on their own. They weren't created to think. They were created to act. That's why when you're doing wrong, your own nature just goes steadily against you, against you. And no matter how much you cry and suffer, some of us will rush to you and pick you up. But your own nature is not moved by your crying. Is not moved at all by your crying. And Allah says, and the angels, they go directly unswerving without any hesitation or deviation to the order, take care of the business. And there are those that have been created by G-d or made by G-d to serve goodness, to respond to goodness. Wherever it is they respond to goodness. And there are those who don't have that nature. Their nature is to give their attention to bad, to wrong. And they go and give it. They bring suffering, misery and death and they ain't got no way of knowing how bad it is for you. The others, theirs is to find good or to recognize good and serve good, increasing in it and protect it et cetera.
Wonderful creation G-d has made. So I repeat, the first family was lost because of our first father being deceived by the Satan. And Allah says He took your first parents out of their original dress. And He said and that dress is the dress of righteousness. So as scripture gives it, it was necessary for a rebirth of humankind on this earth. And that was brought about with Noah, Noah the Prophet peace be upon the Prophets. Noah came and we have the family of Noah after the family of mankind began with Adam. We have the family of Noah. Now, what is important for the family of Noah? For the family of Noah? Water. Water. The family of Noah, the big issue was water. And the water got bad because the water lost its original disciplines. It broke out of the systems that it was to be contained in and it overflowed into bad and corrupt places. And the filth and corruption got into all the water and the whole of mankind was in danger. And G-d blessed one of them, Noah, to know how to build a vessel to ride the filthy water and not permit filthy water to come into the vessel until the water subsided and all the waters went back into their ordained places.
And then the world was born all over again. And that is the Family of Imran. And I'm not giving them in any calendar order. What is important for the Family of Imran? After man has been given a second lease on life, he has another chance to live again, The Family of Imran was concerned to keep the corrupt and the pure separated. So the high priest in the Family of Imran would once a year sacrifice the blood that was tainted, impure, corrupt. Sacrifice it by a kind of trick of imagination, expose the innocent blood to the view of the people. So it looks like he's sacrificing the innocent blood because the innocent blood was what was killed. The animal was killed and the blood of the innocent animal was shown to the people. So it looks like he's sacrificing the innocent, but he's not really sacrificing the innocent. He is sacrificing the guilty. He is getting rid of the guilty by bringing to the consciousness or to the view of the people that is innocent in their life.
So it's not really a real ritualistic slaying of a physical flesh. It's a sign of a teacher showing them in their own nature their innocence, their righteousness or their original Muslim self so that they will be able to stand against corruption and survive the works of the Satan and the Shaitan. The Family of Imran comes to it's finality with the birth of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Peace be upon him and his mother. He was of the Family of Imran. And he is to be sacrificed in Christian theology. And his innocent blood is to be shown to the viewers.
And a sign of that was given in the time of Moses when he, according to the Bible, fixed a serpent in the top of a cross. And the Bible says whoever looked at that sign was healed. And the New Testament says as it was in the days of Moses as a sign, so is the Christ sign given in this time. So we have that in the book. So what should we be focusing on when we are thinking about the Family of Imran? That family was dedicated to keeping the flood from ever coming on earth again by having their leaders, their priests, their high leaders secretly working to protect the moral life of the people with a ritual and secret teachings. And then come Jesus. And he's a mystery. He's a sign and a mystery. So it is again, a secret method for saving a life against the corruption, against the Satan. A secret method. Jesus being called a mystery is being called a secret. He and his mother were signs and a mystery and putting it in plain common language, they were a secret for the salvation of mankind.
Couldn't reveal it because the Satan would only be armed more strongly against it if it was revealed to the Satan. So they kept it a secret from the Satan. Then we come to the family of Abraham, the family of Ibraheem, the family of Abraham. Oh no, Is that a family too? Yes. Oh, Allah, bless Muhammad and the followers of Muhammad as you did bless Abraham and the followers of Abraham. But what word is used, it is translated followers. But what word is used, is it really Followers? No Alee. Alee means descendants, family. Bless the family of Muhammad, as you blessed the family of Abraham. So this is not a family carnal relatives, this is a family of spiritual relatives. And that's in the scripture too. When one of Noah's sons were being lost and he pleads to G-d, this is my own son, won't you help me? And G-d told him, your son are those who follow you in spirit. Not to tell Noah this, but to tell the people that want to study the book and understand that.
Speaker 2:
That was what G-d was telling the people, not Noah, Noah knew it, but he used Noah to speak to people, to tell the people, no, I don't regard his flesh and blood as the important matter, but it's the spirit that I have put into them that they're following that I regard as the important essence of their life that tie them together as relatives. Muslims are brethren. The Family of Abraham. What is the focus for the Family of Abraham now? What is our focus? Our focus is given in that dramatic event that took place in the life of Abraham. Nothing is more dramatic as an event in the life of Prophet Abraham. Peace be upon the servants of G-d, then his tests that he was given in his sacrificing his son.
He saw on a vision a sheep. There that sheep coming up again. There that sheep again. Say, well, you didn't mention the sheep before Imam. I did. You didn't get it? I did. Here's the sheep again. And G-d shows Abraham in a vision, a lamb, and the lamb is being sacrificed, killed. Abraham take this as a message from G-d that he has to kill his little innocent lamb son, the only one he had at that time, only son. So clear I tell you. It's so plain the truth, if you are sincere and innocent studying the scripture. The Jews say that was Isaac, right? But Isaac is the second born, not the first. And the sacrifice is the sacrifice of the firstborn. The only begotten, the firstborn, the only begotten. So anyway, he sees this vision and he's troubled. Even a bad father would be troubled. I have to kill my own child?
So this was a good righteous man and an intelligent man too, Abraham. So he was very troubled, very much troubled to the quick of his bones in the depths of his soul. And he was gritting his teeth while he was doing it, while he was preparing himself to kill his own son. In other words, he was very unpleased, displeased with what he thought G-d was ordering him to do. He was going to do it because he's a man that has to obey his Lord, his Lord. But it was really anguishing him some terribly. And he told his son what he had to do and his son had no knowledge or nature to do anything but what G-d wanted for him. So he told his father, Father, do what G-d has asked you to do. He submitted himself, the sheep or lamb. Submitted himself to the slaughter and his father put him on the slaughtering block. I imagine the butchers in the history of butchery designed that block in accordance with their imagination of the block that the first child of Abraham was put upon. He put him on the altar, it's called altar. He put him on the altar and he was about to cut him with the knife. And G-d spoke to Abraham and said, Abraham, you have already completed the vision.
 It is not slaughtering this physically, but it is having it in your heart. The willingness to slaughter it in your heart, the willingness to sacrifice that which is closest to you, most precious to you, to please your Lord, putting your Lord above your love for your own child, your first born you have finished, you've done it already. Now I'm going to teach you how you are to fulfill this vision. You are to expose the life of the body to the viewers. There it is again. You are to expose the life of the body to the viewers so that they will be educated in what upholds the flesh, what support the bones, what feeds the bones, and make it possible for the flesh to be held up. You who are better educated in this, I don't have to back up. I can keep going forward.
And it is a sheep, a lamb of the sheep. It's a lamb, member of the sheep family. And when someone say he's sheepish, it means that he won't fight back. He won't stand up to tough guys. He's sheepish. I thank G-d that this religion sacrifices the sheep for the man. So Abraham is the great teacher, the great Imam, the great leader that solved this problem for the People of the Book, the scripture. That's us too. He solved this problem of knowing what to do with the sheep in us. You have to educate the community, teach them the life blood of the sheep. And this is a lifeblood that's dear and precious. It's sacred. But we don't want ourselves to be like that only. We don't want to drink the blood, we don't need the blood, but we want the knowledge, the flesh. Don't eat the blood, eat the flesh.
Imam WD Mohammed:
So don't give the community of religious people a sheepish sermon. G-d didn't create you to tolerate these evils and to give space and way in the world to the followers, to Shaitan and his followers. G-d created you to stand up to them. So understand this essence of your life, this blood of the sheep. But don't eat it. Don't teach it to your followers, don't teach it to your families, but understand it. Yes, it's beautiful that G-d has made us loving and not wanting to be violent and be willing to even suffer death, willing to kill ourselves. That's the beauty of our soul. That's a beauty of our nature, the beauty of our minds. But don't teach it to the people. Don't create a sheepish community of religious people. We need soldiers to stop Satan, and somebody have to cut the throat of the goat. And don't eat his blood, eat his meat, get the knowledge of the goats behavior, the goats nature and the goats behavior. All knowledge prepares you for a better future.
So Abraham is a great reform man, reforming the thinking of the people so that their spirit will be stronger to fight the Satan and his influences. Now, we don't go directly at Satan when we fight him. G-d say, fight the schemes of Satan for his schemes are weak, they're not strong. Fight the schemes of Satan for his schemes are weak, not strong. And he can only hurt you with his schemes. If he present himself to you no way he can harm you because he's so, so grotesque. He is so deformed as a creature as a creature that you would just turn from him and no way he could attract you if he revealed himself to you. So all the only way he can be in our world and affecting us is through his schemes. And G-d says and fight the schemes I repeat of Satan for his schemes are weak, W-E-A-K, weak, weak.
And I have to do that because I have some people when they listen to me, I don't know where their good common reasoning goes, it might appear in print, W-E-E-K. And some of you will say, Imam have a very, very special way, a very unique way of communicating because they have gotten you too. The family of Muhammad is a family, understand now family, the real meaning of family in this text is followers, followers, followers who follow in the spirit. The family of Muhammad now is a family after the order of Abraham, the order of Abraham, the hope of Abraham or the destiny of Abraham. The Prophet Abraham, he conceived or perceived the destiny that G-d wanted mankind to pursue. And that was his hope, his milah and he lived to work to get us into that future life, hope for the future, that G-d created us for, Abraham. And his method was to educate mankind, not just to give him faith and spirit, but to educate mankind. So we owe the process of correct education to G-d firstly, but to Abraham secondly. The first schools and colleges were not built by other than the People of the Book. They were built by the People of the Book. Then the next great colleges and schools for the people were built by the Muslims, the great scholars that followed Muhammad the Prophet.
And after that came public education for the West, for the Christian world. That's history. Can't argue with that. Each built upon a higher memory. I'm speaking of those previous leaders of the family of mankind. Each build upon a higher memory of human needs and human dependency, a reference for the human life of relationships, relationship first with parent, mama first, then daddy. And then a relationship with G-d because your parents want you to know your G-d. And then a relationship with your G-d, your maker, your creator, and then a relationship with other important matters in the life of society as you grow and mature and your ability to shoulder and manage, to shoulder your own responsibility and manage your own life as an adult.
Think, that's what G-d says to us. Think. And without a doubt thinking bring profits, you'll gain by thinking and you lose by not thinking. And it's the strategy. One of the great strategies of Satan is to occupy your mind to the fullest, to the maximum possibility so that you will have no thought and no will and no spirit to think outside of what's occupying your mind. And that's the kind of life that Satan brought us to where the husband and the wife has to spend most of their time trying to feed themselves and clothe themselves and house themselves and their dependents. And have little or no time at all to think outside of that interest.
But then if they got any time, Satan influenced the culture. So that when you want to relax, you are still being entertained by him through the culture, the songs and dances and other interests, pornography, sex, perversion, all of that that's intended to occupy your mind so that you will not have any time to think back to your original nature in its innocence and purity given to you by your G-d, your maker, your creator, your original self, your rightful inheritance that will really put you on the throne if you hold on to it. Life without the cultivation, life without the cultivation of sacred ties of the dependency. Man is great, man is super, but man is also weak. We cannot manage this life without G-d. The strongest falls. Hitler was a very wise general, a master of strategy, battlefield strategy, Hitler.
But he was doing a wicked thing and his purpose was wicked. So G-d brought him to his end by man's hands. But he as a report is given, he was never killed by any of the people that he was against. He was killed by his own hand. He committed suicide, took his own life. Did he have power? He had power. You who are aware of this history during the second World war and before I am, I was a child, but I was aware of those things. And if you were born when I was born, it was so effective and so mind shaking that it reach even young people. I was a young boy, I wasn't even a teenager, but it reached me. What I heard on the radio, not our radio. We were forbidden to have radios. Yes we were. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad wouldn't permit us to have radios, but I heard it on the radios of the other people in the public.
And what I saw in the news, I could read a little bit, I could see the headline. I saw and read the news and what was in the conversation, it was in the conversation of the people. It was a terrible war, World War ii. And I heard what they were saying about Hitler and I heard his voice, they would have Hitler's voice on the radio. Oh, he was an electrifying speaker, powerful mighty speaker, hypnotic voice capture you and hypnotize you almost. And I'm sure he hypnotized those that followed him in that wickedness. No human being in his right mind and nature would follow that kind of man unless he was hypnotized. Hypnotic voice. So we know that no matter how much you are gifted, no matter how intelligent you are, doesn't mean you're going to be successful. Well, success depends on you not going against G-d.
So we must cultivate the sacred ties of relationship. That with our parents, especially our mother, and that with our G-d. And G-d says, And reverence the close family ties that bore you. Reverence G-d, reverence G-d and the close ties, family ties that bore you. A life without respect for the close ties of relationship that G-d created and designed for us is a life without meaning. A meaningless life or an abusive life. A life of a mind void, savage. Can I say mind void savage. Because many savages have beautiful lives because their mind is not void. But there's a type of savage who is void in his thinking void in his mind, and all he know is self-destruction and destroying others, destroying property, destroying civilization, et cetera.
Think that's what G-d wants us to do. Thinking frees us. G-d created us with a human body that is Muslim in its nature, but He created the mind to be over the human body and education to rule in the mind over the human body. So he put a six in charge of the five didn't He? He put a six in charge of the five. And G-d says, use that six. Think. And He says, Surely thinking will profit you. And He says, and the most precious of thinking is remembrance of G-d. Oh, my soul is so filled with the sensation that I get from remembering G-d. Or with the Holy Ghost as the Christian Church would say. We are going to pause for a moment and I need to so they can change the tape.
We should think on the history of growing things. Growing things. Allah says in the Qur'an, And He have created you for growth, created you for growth. And He didn't say what growth, He said for growth in this particular reference G-d says, I created you for growth. Now G-d wants us to think. What is the most precious growth for us? We grow in many ways. What is the most precious growth for us? The growth of our own souls in accord with the will of G-d. That's the most precious growth for us. And G-d says, And spend on your own soul so it will increase in its value. Spend on it. You spend on your family, your family increases in value. You spend on your house your house increases in value. And so on. Or your yard, or your business, it increases in value because you are spending on it. And G-d says, "And spend on your own soul." So it will increase in value. And I'm saying that so it will increase in value. I'm saying that, but it's implied in the revelation in the book, in the scripture. Says then he who will not spend on his own soul, he is certainly doomed to failure and to be debased, to be brought down to the lowest of the low.
Kakaba Mandasaka. That's the Arabic for what I just said. And G-d speaks the truth. So think on growing things. You who are in touch with history, with rural history, with the history of mankind from the dark ages of ignorance into the bright ages of enlightenment. Think on the growth of things. Think on the history of human life in society, how human life over the long, long trail or train of history has come from ignorance and animal, pure animal existence, whether pet, animal or wild animal to what it is today, enlightened human society. Think on that history of growth. So we'll know how life came to be established and came to be good and pleasant for human beings. There was a time when the workplace was a horrible place for the Western world. We know of slavery, the plantation and how horrible that was for many or most. But most of us don't know of the horrors of the workplace. So we need leaders if we don't do it. We need leaders. We need Imams who will just not read hymns and songs and spiritual messages, but will read the history of man's struggle to stand up and will share that with the congregation so we will know how we have progressed as industrialists and as workers on this planet.
It was horrible. People had to accept the risk of their life to earn paycheck. There were no work laws to protect children from being put in serious, dangerous situations to help the older people earn money. No work laws to protect the hired from industrial pollutants, poisons, et cetera, and from risks that shouldn't have been accepted. Building high buildings many workers died in ancient times and in medieval times and in modern times. Died. Many. The cost was great to human life just to build a high building. So don't forget these things. If you want to be prepared to help people survive the present and keep the best of the present and go into a better future, you have to be sensitive like I am and register these things that I've registered so you can lead the people better and be worth more as a leader to human beings or to your congregation. These times are the best of times that's coming now. But there are the times that won't carry the burden of past times.
You're going to be eliminated or you're going to wake up and be among the saints. The 144,000, the stars. And I used to hear my mother singing in the kitchen. She would wake us up, we would be in the bed, she'd be already took her bath and down in the kitchen working. Oh, when the saints go marching in. Oh, when the saints, go marching in. I want to be one in that number when the saints go marching in. Now 12 by 12 is 144. Am I right? 12 by 12 is 144. And that's a square. And that's the Ka'bas design. And I want be one in that number. I want to be one in that number when the saints go marching in.
Allahu Akbar. The beginning of this precious life that G-d wants for us establishes itself upon the original nature that G-d created for every human person, a nature of respect for mama, daddy, family, family values, and certainly G-d Himself. And it enables us to benefit from the skills that G-d has created us for with this magnificent, marvelous hand that we have to work with our magnificent, marvelous mind, our intellect, and it brings us into the process of learning, education. And it establishes us as adults responsible for those things we were created to manage. Don't you know were created to manage your own self? So if you're not doing it, you're not doing what you were created for. And you were created to manage more than your own self. You were created to manage other responsibility so that you join others in a collective effort to be responsible for the collective body. So most precious for us is our precious family values and uppermost in that list, at the top of that list is the guarding of our relationship with the one who made us, created us and made all things that we like and need possible. G-d.
I want to close this by bringing our attention to our specific interests and present activities that we are involved in or supporting to put us in a position so that we can be a better service to G-d and to our life on this earth. And that is with our effort to struggle, to answer G-d's call, to be responsible for our environment. We want a family role in the management of our houses, our apartments. A family role, not a worker's role, not a paycheck earners role, not a spender's role, a family role. We want a family role of responsibility in our homes, in our apartments, rooms, in the streets and in the neighborhood. And in the neighberhood.
And we know we are not the majority in these neighborhoods. Christians are the majority in the neighborhoods where we live. So that means we are going to have to really respect and be sincere about working with Christians, good Christians to strengthen our life in society and especially in our neighborhoods. We are going to have to have projects that bring us and them together, working for the project and being responsible for the projects. We have to accept the responsibility for even the life we want as Muslims has to be shared with some non-Muslims who want the same family values, who cherish them and want the same family conditions that we want. And if we will let that be known to our neighbors, our neighbors will not be afraid of us growing.
You're afraid of somebody growing in power if you know that they're your enemy. And you're stupid to let a few enemies grow right around you. Wisdom say, stop 'em. Wisdom says stop 'em. Yes. And that's what will happen. I'm not telling you this to get you to do it the right way out of fear. I want you to do it out of love. Out of love for the precious Muslim life and out of love for the precious Christian life. Do it out of love and let us rise up brothers and be a people. Let us stand not only in our flesh, but in our spirit, in our best principles and our best morals. Let us stand in our love for others and self. Let us be a people standing as witnesses for G-d, as witnesses for G-d, and let us accept a family role in the management of our neighborhoods. Let us join the business efforts of good people outside of ourselves, but let us have also an independent business plan that we ourselves are responsible for, to put more business, more life, more support, more knowledge, more business know how into those innocent and good efforts that are already being made. Let us join those that are doing well. Let us help those that are not doing well, but are well-meaning. And let us accept the responsibility ourselves for establishing and owning businesses in our own neighborhood, and deciding ourselves the material and the cultural future of our neighborhoods. Thank you. Peace. Asalaam Alaikum.


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