02/24/2005
IWDM Study Library
First Sunday Address
By Imam W. Deen Mohammed


00:08 Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Thank you. Thank you. Praise be to Allah. We thank you. Praise be to Allah. We thank you and we thank G-d for our presence here. We say...

[Al Hamdulillahi rabbil alameen]

00:25 IWDM: We praise and thank G-d who's Lord keeper of all the worlds. We witness that he's one, the G-d of all of us. In our Holy Book we are told to say...

[ ilaykum wailahuna wailahukum wahidun]

00:43 IWDM: Your G-d and our G-d is one and the same. There is but one G-d that's what that's saying. That there's only one G-d. The others are false made by man. We want to greet you with peace as we always do. The Islamic greeting is "As-salamu 'alaikum."

01:08 Speaker 2: "Wa'alaikumu s-salam."

01:10 IWDM: We wish you G-d's blessings always and we witness that Muhammed to whom the last revealed book the Qur'an was revealed, given to him, is the last of the prophets, a seal of the prophets. G-d's messenger, G-d's servant, and his messenger.

01:33 IWDM: He is our example for good behavior and for good character and for productive work that Allah created every human being for. Hence, G-d says, "Muhammed is a model, is an excellent model for any who believes in G-d and believes in being accountable to G-d." This is what G-d says to us in our Holy Book, the Qur'an. So Muhammed is not just a model for Muslims, he's a model for human beings, for all people. A model for any who believes in G-d and believes in being accountable to G-d.

02:22 IWDM: And Allah G-d says of him again, so that we know that he's for all people. G-d says, "Muhammed is a mercy to all mankind."

[rahmatan lilAAalameena]

02:44 IWDM: Have mercy to all the worlds. This is Mu?ammad, so we cannot make this religion small; it is not small. Maulana Maududi, perhaps the most popular of the recent reformers, scholars who reformed, who bring Muslims back from deviations, who bring Muslims back from a dull life to have enthusiasm and drive, a reformer. Maulana Maududi said on Mount Arafat some years back; I happened to be there myself a long time ago, [chuckle] must've been 40 years ago; and Maulana Maududi learned that the son of Elijah Muhammed was making a Hajj and was on Mount Arafat at the time.

03:47 IWDM: So he told his people to go to the son of Elijah Muhammed and tell him I invite him to come to my tent. I did. I came to his tent; Pakistanis always have big numbers in the Hajj; I came to his tent and when I walked up to him he greeted me and asked me to sit near him. I sat near him, and then he began to speak to those who were in his tent. There were many and he said, "Islam is a religion on ideology for the reformation or the reform of the whole world." And that means Islam is a universal message, it is for all people, it is for all lands, all nations, all people. And if we understand the Christianity, it is the same. It is a message to all people of the world.

04:53 IWDM: And the Jewish scripture, though it's not propagated like Christians and Muslims propagate our religion, our faith, but Judaism also is a religion or guidance from G-d to all people, to all people, not just Jews, to all people. And it was Judaism that was extended to the world of the Europeans and others to the whole world by Jewish leaders. And as a result, there's a new mission and a New Testament. So we can't separate these groups. We speak of them as Abrahamic faiths. We all identify Adam as our first father in the human nature, and we identify Abraham, or Ibrahim in our Holy Book, Abraham as the second father, second father. And these three faiths identify father Abraham and father Adam.

06:30 IWDM: Actually, if we understand it, father Adam extends as a creation; as a creation, he extends into Abraham on another plane, and a second father comes out of him, a second father comes out of Adam, out of the essence of Adam comes a second father. And it's understandable if we understand Jesus in Christian teachings being the second Adam, a second Adam. We may differ somewhat with the number, where it's placed, but Jesus is second in the ascension, in the ascension or the ascent of the human soul, ascending upward to gain more, more and all of its life that G-d wants for it. So it is life expanding, life rising up.

07:45 IWDM: As G-d says in here, created us as a plant. A plant that's first a little seed, like a dead thing under the soil or under the earth, and it comes out and it grows upward until it reaches its fullness or its maturity, or its fullness as a life, completeness as a life. And G-d says in the parable of human life is a parable of a plant, or that of a plant, meaning it starts from nothing, you can't hardly see it, it's buried in the earth. Our children, they start in our mothers' bodies, in the bodies of their mothers, and we don't even know they're there until she tell us. And we don't see it for nine months or until it reaches the stage when it wants to get out of that small confine and get into this big world of ours, then we see it. And it kind of turns over just before it comes out. It's sitting up, and then it turns over, pushes his head down and comes right out. Puts his head down and come right out. It says unless you become as little babes, that means we have to stop standing up so straight and so rigid.

09:18 IWDM: And we have to humble ourselves to the fullest extent before our maker, the Lord creator of everything. That's what religion is all about. It is about being complete in your recognition of G-d. If you recognize him, then be complete in that recognition. Don't put your small-time thing before your duty to G-d. Yes, our religion says, in the Holy Book, in our Holy Book, "Save yourselves and your families from fire." This fire is a fire of human passions. Scriptwriters called poets, they have since time began I guess; for writers, they have always referred to human passions as fire. And our singers in recent time, they sang songs of that fire and they call love a flame, a strong passion, a strong appetite. We have to save ourselves from the fires.

10:55 IWDM: It is something how man can become scientific and know all about human nature. He knows the science of blood, bones, the heart, everything, the eyes, the science of sexuality, and a fine woman can make him nothing but a dog. [laughter] It doesn't have to be a fine woman in everybody's eyes, just a fine woman in his eyes. Take him down to the dogs. So that tells you that we need something bigger than man to save us, especially in these times when life is all about styling. We need something bigger in our lives, bigger than styling. Many of us don't know we're styling. Now I used to wear an FOI suit and believe me when I put it on I just felt different. [laughter] I felt like my manhood woke up in me or something. [Laughter] I felt like I had authority I didn't have before. And I would walk, I was styling. [Laughter]

12:39 IWDM: The Honorable Elijah Muhammed said that, "My is-- " I'm quoting now--"My job is not so much to teach you religion, but to put you in a dress, a decent dress. Say G-d came to dress us up." Yes, that's what the Honorable Elijah Muhammed said. And really, if you understand dress, when you are born from mama, no clothes have been put on you. The doctor got you or the nurse took you or you delivered and there is the baby naked, you say that the baby is naked. Why do we wear clothing? We wear clothing because we are naked in our own minds. The horse come here dressed up for cold weather, whatever, but we don't; we don't come here dressed up. We come here naked in our minds.

13:52 IWDM: But now just look again, what are the clothing for? What are clothes for? Clothing is a protection. Clothing protects me from bad weather. Clothing protects me from exposure, from exposing myself to everybody. So it's a private thing. It helps me preserve my privacy, and I want to look good in my clothing. So you buy nice clothing, you should. You want to look good in your clothing. But what we have to understand is that the first clothing is the clothing of human life; human life; human life in its innocence and in its purity; human life in its innocence and in its purity. No wonder the question was asked to Adam in Genesis of the Bible. “Who told you were naked?” And in our Qur'an, there is reference to the same situation, where G-d says, "And it was Shai?an," the Shai?an, Devil, the first deceiver, and the worst of all deceivers; it was that one, that seduced you and your mate to come out of the original clothing that G-d puts you in. And it says, "and that was the clothing of righteousness," the clothing of righteousness.

15:25 IWDM: So what is that saying? Righteousness is not something a preacher has to give you, preaching the Bible. Righteousness is something that you were created with; you were created to be righteous. Righteousness is your nature. It's an inherent quality that we're born with; the need and the drive to be correct, truthful, clean, decent, trustworthy, righteous, righteousness, sincere. 
Yes, that's all in the nature of the baby, the baby's nature. When the baby is born, he's born already with all of that.

16:16 IWDM: There was a time in the history of criminology in the United States that I read about, a student studying for this job I got, when criminology in the United States had taken a backward move and was believing, yes, it didn't last long, believing that if they would sterilize, kill the nature to reproduce in the criminal, kill it by sterilizing them, that they would save society from criminals that would be born from criminals. They soon established that, that was incorrect, it was false. And they said that criminology cannot come from a parent to a child. So it's learned; it's not inborn. It's not born with the baby. It's learned from the world, learned in the world.

17:23 IWDM: Now many of us perhaps are not living to go to heaven, but you should be. And let me tell you something, you've already been in heaven. When you were in your mother, you were in heaven. And when you came before the world tarnished you or left its bad influences on you, you were in heaven. And whether you believe it or not, it took me all these years but I'm in heaven. I was in heaven as a baby before the world influenced my thinking and my nature, and I'm in heaven again because I found the way back to heaven. And when you hear G-d says, "And to Him you must return." He only mean return to the person that he created. Return mean, like I said, "I wish my child would come back." You're talking about one who left the church or one who left the mosque, the temple or whatever. And it hurts you that they're gone. And they're leaving that lifestyle that you loved them in, make you feel as though you lost them.

18:56 IWDM: You say, "I just pray to G-d all the time that my child will come back to me." So you mean come back to that life that made him pleasant in your eyes, and made you so that you didn't have to worry so much about his wellbeing. Yes, you want him to return to that. So we have to get rid of a lot of mystery. Mystery wastes time. This world is too fast, going too fast for us to be held up with mysteries.

19:33 IWDM: Heaven, where is heaven? We'll know where heaven is when we understand what the meaning of heaven is. We think of the heavens as the sky.; we look up, the sky. What does that mean? Heaven is more advanced than all that I see around here. Heaven is elevated high, elevated high. Heaven is established high; high in the sense of meaning, substance, and also quality, quality. So if you can accept this from me on this day in the city that I was born in, some of you all want to take away my birthrights.

[Laughter]

20:39 IWDM: "Oh, the Imam is from Chicago; he lives in Chicago, that's his home." I thought the place where a child was born is also his home.

20:55 IWDM: And he should never lose that home. Yes, yes. So yes, I was born in Detroit, and Detroit is my home.

21:10 IWDM: And my father was redeemed in Detroit.

21:20 IWDM: And became a new person, a new man, and did wonderful things and earned the title, Honorable Elijah Muhammed. Yes. And I'm just continuing his good works. He said his main job is to put us in a dress, and he said a decent dress. Now that you have heard me comment on what is the real meaning of dress, he means put you in a decent lifestyle, put you in an honorable, decent lifestyle.

22:01 IWDM: Now, some tricks of psychology begins concerning dress, might begin for us with the sisters wearing the dress that I see a few wearing right now, the head piece and the dress, white long dress covering her whole body except her face. But for the brothers, it began with shine your shoes. Do not come to the temple with shoes that are not shined. And if we smell you while we're searching you, and you know we're going to be up close to you to search you, and you know you're not going to get into the meeting without being searched; if we smell you, we might send you home and tell you to take a bath and put a crease in those pants. Respect yourself, and respect this house that you're coming to; wear your decent clothes.

23:05 IWDM: Now, we thought that was all about black nationalism, Nation of Islam, style. But no, when you read the Qur'an G-d says, "And wear your beautiful apparel at every place and time of prayer or masjid." That's what he says in the Qur'an. So that's also the requirement in Islam before Mr. Fard and the Honorable Elijah Muhammed asked us to clean up ourselves and wear our beautiful dress when we come to prayer or when we come to the temple for service or for worship. What I'm saying to you is that we had a lot of help from Mr. Fard and from the Honorable Elijah Muhammed. We had a lot of help to get where we are today. A lot of help in more ways than you know, a lot of help to your leader now, that you say is your leader, W. Deen Muhammed; I call him my Imam too, Imam W. Deen Muhammed; We had a lot of help to get him where he is now and to bring him along our prayers, a path of progression and progress to come into the Qur'an, not as an import from Saudi Arabia or from Egypt or Pakistan or somewhere, but as a natural growth in the soul of the United States of America made suitable for that growth by WD Fard and Elijah Muhammed.

24:51 IWDM: The Honorable Elijah Muhammed put us in a new dress. There was a student at the time he was doing his dissertation for his PhD. His name is Eisen ud-Deen, he was African. Long time ago, this was before Malcolm got popular and he asked Honorable Elijah Muhammed, he said, "For my dissertation that I'm writing for PhD, can I interview some of the ministers and some of the regular followers?" Honorable Elijah Muhammed gave him permission. He interviewed me, he interviewed other ministers, he interviewed Minister James Shabazz, last before he passed, and we called him Sheikh James Shabazz. He interviewed him, he interviewed Honorable Elijah Muhammed, he interviewed and he came to the conclusion after he studied the following and temple of Islam or Nation of Islam on the Honorable Elijah Muhammed, he came to the conclusion that the Honorable Elijah Muhammed my work, was the work of bringing African Americans into a new culture, a new culture; another word for culture is dress, isn't it, a new culture or into a new cultural dress That was his conclusion.

26:16 IWDM: Now, let me come back to dress. I've spent a lot of time on dress because your dress had become so inflammable; you're on fire, most of you. Most of you, I see in the streets, you're just burning all the time; just in flames, engulfed in flames because you're wearing volatile clothing. Well, anyway, when you think of dress, how dress influences personality, how it influences ego, ego. It can make a guy that had no enthusiasm, had no strength in him to stand up straight. He goes sad and droopy, dull. You put him in a uniform and you don't have to give him a gun or a whip; just put him in a uniform and put some medals up here on his chest and stuff and that guy will perk up, "Oh, fellows, come on fellows." 

27:40 IWDM: When I was a little boy about eight or nine years old. There was a corner, near us, a busy corner and there was a guy who would be out there at a certain time every day. He had his own uniform. He took some pop bottle tops, pop bottle caps, and he stuck them on his coat, so they look like medals. And he'd be out there directing fellows, directing traffic, pardon me. "Come on! Come on! Hey, get up!" [Laughter] He was somebody. [Laughter] I'm ashamed to admit this, but it happened to me. [Laughter]

28:25 IWDM: It was a long time before I went to the movies. In the Temple of Islam, you couldn't go to the movies. You could be actually put out of the Temple of Islam if they found out you had gone to the movies. So, this time, I went to this movie. It was John Wayne; Duke, Big Duke. I saw it as John Wayne movie he had a special walk, didn't he? John Wayne had a special walk. He would walk like he feared nothing and nothing should mess with him and he held his hand kind of like he was ready to draw at any time. Even though he is walking, one hand was swinging, wasn't getting too far away from the pistol. I watched that movie for about an hour and fifteen to the half, I guess, more. I came out of there walking like Duke, walking like John Wayne. I'm moving like him. [Laughter] I'm in his spirit. He passed his spirit onto me, and I'm seeing myself in his clothes and his hat, alright; his boots, with his gun. So there I am. [Laughter] I didn't take nothing but about, I think it was about two or three steps like that, and it registered on my mind what that movie had done to me. And I said, "Let me get out of this." [Laughter]

29:57 IWDM: Dress, dress can reach your soul inside of you and influence your soul to want to agree with the dress you're wearing. Tonight, can't you see the problem with the man thinking he's naked and then letting the Satan, the Shaitan, the Satan suggest that he clothe himself? Yes. Now, passions, strong appetite; love is a passion. Hate is a passion. Any appetite in extreme that affects the heart and cause the heart to register the appetite, you give your heart to it, it is a passion. Life is relationships, relationships. The first relationship is relationship you have with the opposite sex. And then from that relationship come children. And the children then have relationship both with parents and with each other. And we're told that we came from one parent of a male and female or one soul of a male and female, saying that soul-wise or as for the nature of the soul, male and female are one, are one; they have no difference.

32:12 IWDM: So, life is the same for both males and female. The woman who cry if she's hurt; some women won't cry when they're hurt. They're tough; they may be too tough to survive. And the same for men; some men will cry, some men won't cry, they are too tough. And I say the same, may be too tough to survive. So the nature of the soul has to be in male and female. If you lose your human emotionality, if you lose the ability to be hurt in your heart, you've lost your human wholeness. G-d made us like this so we will register the hurt of each other. So we will do something about what's hurting each other. Yes.

33:15 IWDM: Also, before leaving that I must say that the growth of human life is seen in the connections you make with your intelligence but more importantly with your heart. You give your heart to a relative or a friend. You give your heart to a stranger. The heart does not reject any human being or human life that needs it. It can be a stranger. You can't even speak that stranger's language but you see a stranger on the road suffering, suffering; he's fallen on the road and he's suffering, he's in pain. And you speak to him and you can't understand his words. He doesn't even speak your language. You're desperate to find some help for him. The heart is where we all should be, but we reject our own heart.

34:23 IWDM: A suggestion is made to the mind and we become selfish and directed selfishly. So we pass by the hurt of our family member, our hurting family member, we pass by the hurt of strangers. But G-d wants to awaken in us the true human spirit, the true human sensitivity, and that brings me to something else. G-d want us to look at the world of nature and natural things that He created and let those things speak from their pictures to our intelligence and our hearts. Yes. Sensitivities, when you cry, hurt, water from the heart, a little water come down, tears come down. Sometime they come down not because you're hurting but because you're so happy. You can't hold back the water of sweetness. A sweet water will come down, water. And we're told that all life had its beginning in water.

35:58 IWDM: And so water is the beginning of our innocence, beginning of our natural, beautiful, sentiments, feelings, as human beings. But now, if you go to extremes in the water and neglect to go to school and be educated or neglect to rise in knowledge or education, you will have nowhere to live except in your water, except in water. So you'll be like a fish with his head underwater. And he can't bring his head out of the water. If he does, he'll die because his whole life has become that life of the water. And there are many of us like that in these churches and in these mosques and whatever, these places of worship for Muslims, Christians, and others. Many of us are like fish with our heads underwater.

37:10 IWDM: We're afraid to take a chance on lifting our heads above the water. G-d didn't create us to be fish. All we have to do is lift our head above the water, and we'll find that we are not limited to water freedom. Our freedom is to come on land and get the benefits of living on land, but we have to have the courage to trust that I won't die if I lift my head above the water. Some of us are in water up to the ankles, some up to the knees, some up to the chest, some up to the neck, some are submerged. Now, if you're going to be submerged, don't stay there, your mission is on the land. If you're going to be submerged then the soon as they duck you under for baptism, you got to come back up.

38:21 IWDM: And you know, we take full baths too. We don't call ourselves Baptists but we take full baths too. Praise be to Allah. Thank G-d that is, praise G-d. Yes, so our relationship, we have to be very regardful of relationships. Relationships are connections. Male and female connects and when they connect, now they can produce. If they don't connect they can't produce. You can't reproduce yourself unless you connect with your mate; the two of you all connect, now you can reproduce.

39:06 IWDM: That's a sign, I that said that whatever in nature, we should regard these things and see them as message givers." They're breathing out messages to us. Silently, that is; silently sending off messages to our intelligence. So if you can't reproduce your life without having a female or mate, and this has no intent to put down homosexuals or lesbians. As far as I'm concerned, you have all the freedom you want, just don't bother me. [Laughter] Yeah. 
Tape 2:
00:03 Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Now, we want to reproduce. We want to reproduce the garden. G-d put us in a garden of paradise, and the picture of that garden called Eden in English, or in Christianity, the Bible language, Judaism, too, in fact, Adnan is Eden for Arabs, same word. It's not in the Qur'an as such, but the Arabs, you study their culture, you'll find that they have a term called Adnan and it’s Eden. It means Eden and it's the garden of paradise; it comes from an ancestor that they have in their myth. In their myth, there are stories of their creation or beginning. They have this parent and they believe that their life go back to that parent where life was good for human beings. So they do have kind of concept for the Eden, the same as the people of the book, the Bible.

01:03 IWDM: Yes, so anyway, the soul always wants peace. It can't have peace if the mind is in trouble; it can't have peace if the body is in trouble with the environment. Life is threatened for one reason or another or by something. It can't have peace. It can't have peace if quality of life is going down; it wants quality life; it wants excellence. The drive and the human drive in the soul is for excellence. Yeah, thank you. And if you don't, if you don't do your best, you won't be happy. No. You know you half did it, you won't be happy. It doesn't have to register on your mind. Your home environment, you're rushing to see somebody or you're rushing to go shop, whatever it is, but you left the toilet and the room in a mess. You left the kitchen in a mess. You left the bedroom in a mess. Only thing that was looking halfway straight was the front room because you don't want outsiders to know what goes on in the bedroom, and in the toilet, and in the bathroom, and in the kitchen.

02:44 IWDM: Yeah, so you go to work or go to see your friend or whatever, or go to shop, and you wonder how come you don't feel good. Or any psychologist could tell you you're not feeling good because your soul won't accept what your mind imposed upon it. I don't think there are another people more unfulfilled in their souls than the African Americans of the United States of America. No matter how much encouragement we get to say, "Hey, we're doing fine." Colin Powell, great achievement for our common life, for our total life as a people; great achievement for our life: Colin Powell. A man that white folks would support for the presidency of the United States, and I mean white folks in big numbers would support or will support Colin Powell to be President of these United States.

04:19 IWDM: But then there's one that we're closest to: Oprah. Look, how successful that woman is as a TV host hosting her show. There is no white woman or anybody else that ever achieved what she has achieved as a TV host for her show or for any show. None of them had achieved it. She's the biggest thing in the history of such shows, yes she is, and she has got plenty of money, plenty of money. She gives gifts, big gifts of money to certain charities or certain causes that she feels she should support, big money. But that is not enough to make us feel fulfilled in our souls. No. And why do you think we can't feel that achievement, feel that we have achieved? Because people are connected that belong to the same history. We belong to the same history. No other people have our exact history. No other people experienced life as slaves.

06:05 IWDM: Life as second-class citizens or as put-downed citizens, put out of the benefits of the law and freedom that others had; put out of that. No other people have had our history, not that exact history. So we call each other soul brothers, we don't even know what way they're coming from. If I'm your soul brother, that means we came from the same situation or circumstances for our soul as a human person. This world didn't just cheat my body. This world, during slavery, cheated my soul because G-d didn't intend for man's soul to be born in slavery.


07:02 IWDM: G-d intended for the soul to be given to a world of freedom, where he can compete on equal terms with others. And that was denied to us. So we have a history that we share, and that history should be more important to us than the color of our skin. If we really take that skin thing to its logical conclusion, if we mean that our blackness is really the blackness that we get from the sunshine, or the blackness that we got as a pigmentation of the skin from our parents, if that's what we think our blackness 
is, we can never go forward as a people with such idea. No, we can't, and it's worse for us; in fact, the only people who'll be worse off calling themselves black and thinking the skin was really the important thing would be if the white people would suddenly wake up in the morning and all of them started calling themselves black. Now we, we're not in that bad a shape. But I got a daughter that almost; her skin is as white as many white people's skin. One of my daughters. And I've got children whose skin is black enough to be called black, and you ain't telling no lie.


08:47 IWDM: But we never raised them in a way that would influence them to give more importance to the skin color. When they say, "Only skin deep," your blackness is no more than skin deep. In fact, it's not even skin deep because I had a little friend with me, friend of my son, his name is Ramon. He's not Spanish, he's us. His name is Ramon, nice name. And my son was grabbing him, they were playing, and my son actually scratched him on his leg. So he showed me. He said "See? See where he scratched me, look. Here's where he scratched me, look!" So I saw an opportunity to work on his psyche game. I said, "Wow!" I said, "You are white." He's black, really black skin. But when he got scratched, the scratch is white. I said, "You're really white."I said, "Yes, it looked black on the top, but just scratch a little bit, man, you look white." 

10:02 IWDM: I remember when I was a boy maybe about 14 or 15, and I heard black men talking about how tough they were. And back then, they were using knives a lot, now they use guns a lot. They were using knives a lot, saying "Yeah man, that nigger was up in my face, screaming and hollering at me. Man, I reached and popped out my blade. Man, I hit that nigger with my sharp blade, man. And you should have seen the white open up."

10:35 IWDM: Yeah, they used to talk like that, the white of the flesh. If your knife was very sharp and you cut a black man real quick, his skin show... His meat shows white beneath. Yeah, the white of the meat, it will show white until the blood rushed to it, and then the blood covers the white. So all of us are white beneath the skin; beneath the fine thin layer of the skin, all of us are white. So what makes some white, and some black? The sun? The north, up there north, in Europe, especially near the poles, they get very little sunshine, very little sunshine. They call the sun of the day, the midnight sun; call it midnight sun because it's dark. It'd be dark in the daytime, and they're just getting a little bit of light of the sun. So if you stay for generations and generations, for thousands of years in that kind of climate, I guarantee you the blackest man, the blackest man you know will eventually, not in one generation, but eventually over a long period of time, he would lose his blackness because your color comes from the sun.

11:58 IWDM: And if you don't have exposure to it, you won't get dark skinned, but it takes thousands of years, maybe millions to change color from one extreme to another. This is no more than science. This is just general science that I'm sharing with you. 
Yes. And the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, in one of his lectures that he gave, he said, "And we get our color from the sun." This is in the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's language, it is there, it is still there. In other words, we can prove this. We can get that speech or get the newspaper clipping, article, whatever; we can show you where he said that, "We get our color from the sun." So we shouldn't put all of this importance on the sun. I mean, on color, pardon me, on skin color. Don't put all that importance on the skin color.

13:00 IWDM: I must admit that certainly skin color also is part of G-d's creation. And it sends a message too, from the object that G-d created to our own intelligence. So what message should we get from our black skin? In Christian or in Western culture---I shouldn't say Christian because Christian has to go back to the Bible and Christ Jesus, and Christ Jesus in the Bible does not uphold these falsehoods. I'm a student of the Bible also, a very good one. Yes, I'm telling you, if you want to challenge me I welcome you to challenge me because I'm a very good student of the Bible as well as of our Holy Book, the Qur'an.

13:58 IWDM: Yes. So anyway, you couldn't support this if you went to the Gospel of Jesus or the New Testament or Jesus Christ
himself, his life. You couldn't support this idea, couldn't support this kind of idea. In fact, you'd find just the reverse. You won't find a put down of black, you'll find a lifting up of black, a raising it up as excellence. But somehow it comes into Christian culture, comes into culture of Western people, European people, and American people that black also is degraded, black is degraded. One time, I was in the presence of--I got to watch the times here---I was in the presence of a white man and he was talking to us but through something else. And he said, "Suddenly, it's dark in here."

15:01 IWDM: Well, we knew where we were. We knew he didn't see many of us, not that often. And he couldn't let it be. He asked the woman that was with him, he said, "What is the color of the dress you picked, was it black?" He didn't say, "Was it black? Was it black?" So I said, "His life is really strange." I said, "You love black dogs, you love black automobiles, you love black caviar when you go to high-class restaurants." I said, "it's very strange." They became very silent and I could see hurt on their faces. That's all I said. I didn't say any more to them. So somebody's been tricking us, haven't they? "I can't stand black." A friend of mine who was a Pakistani, he said, "Once I went to a restaurant in the South," he said, "And I guess they thought I was colored, they told me I couldn't eat in that restaurant." He said, I said to them, he said, "I can see your cooks back there, behind there." He said, "They're cooking your food." He said, "I'm sure they're putting their black hands in your food."


16:34 IWDM: He said, "Why do you accept to have black people cook your food and put their black hands in your food, but you can't serve me some food at your counter?" And he said he walked out. He just left. So the world is not what it appears to be. Truth is not easy to identify in this world. This world is a world of deception and it's given in the scripture. It is a world of deception. It is a world designed by those class or separate group, so that your psychology will be sickened, poisoned and sickened by their language. And your soul will be brought down and weakened and you will think that you can't, you just don't have the nature, you're not made like them, so you can't succeed. You will buy consciously or subconsciously, unconsciously, you will buy the game and live in accord with the game. Put yourself down. This is a time when you have to stand up on your own feet, respect your own life.


18:01 IWDM: And thank yourself. Thank you very much. And think yourself equal in creation with everybody and anybody.

18:13 IWDM: G-d did not create inferiors and superiors; G-d created babies with all they need to become the President of the United States, the banker, the scientist in the lab, the politician, whatever. He gave them---the solider on the battlefield. He put everything in every baby, everything. And the circumstance that that child is put in is like the suitable ground for the life of any plant or seed of any plant. If you put it on stone, it can't have a chance. It can't grow in stone, not meant to grow in stone. If you put it in the desert, it has no chance. Unless you turn the desert into an oasis, bring water there, it has no chance to live. But if you put it in this, put it in a good environment, you're going to see it grow and reach its potential, reach its maturity, that G-d created it for.

19:18 IWDM: It will become whole. Maybe his appetite will not be for the military, but that potential will be shown in something 
else. And it will achieve in something else as high as any person can achieve. There is no born inequality. There's only born equality. That's why G-d says, "Khalqa fa sauwaa, khalqa fa sauwaa." G-d says He created and then established equality. So G-d is saying that in terms of your original creation all human beings are equal. All human beings are equal. Look at our females. We thought females couldn't do certain thing that male does, right? Now our female, they got muscles like you and everything. [They're knock you out if you get out of line. I mean knock you out, not stun you, knock you out. 

20:24 IWDM: They're driving trucks, big trucks. The bigger they come, the more the female likes it. Why? It is because she'd been held back from her potential by chauvinist leaders in the society, males. She'd been held back. Now her day of freedom and opportunity is here and she's showing you, "I can do what you did. I can do what you think you can only do, that only you can do. I can do it." But let me warn you females, if you keep trying to show us that you can do everything we can do, you're going to lose your beauty appearance. I haven’t ever seen a male as pretty as the prettiest female unless he was kind of bent or twisted, you know what I mean? 

21:23 IWDM: So we need to dress up in the original clothes, clothing, first; the clothing of human nature and human life. Dress up in those clothing first. Then you can put on it, your culture, your ethnicity, your black skin, you can put it all on it. Only the true human soul and the true human life that Allah made, that G-d made, can hold up these other burdens we put on it. Yes, people who make a big deal of their skin color as their identity and forget human nature as their identity, they are going to lose eventually any identity that's worthwhile or worth respecting.

22:13 IWDM: So in my conclusion, I want to say to you that we should keep the journey for eye sight and the first step in journey for eye sight is self. See yourself and your originality and the life that G-d creates when every baby comes to us. See yourself in your mate, not just with your mate, see yourself in your mate because you are one whole, you are one soul. Male and female are one soul, one human soul. And see yourself also in your establishments. You have it in your own nature as a creation, as something made by the G-d that made everything, you have something in your nature that won't let you have peace. Your soul will not rest until you have productive work or at least you have a neighborhood or a community life.

23:23 IWDM: See, we live in two realities; we live in the reality of our own personal life and we live in the reality of the people who share the common history with us. And if they're not achieved, our soul doesn't register success, or achievement. But when they present a collective picture of achievement, the soul is pleased. Isn't that wonderful? That G-d has made us individually human, but has made it so we cannot have our own individual or separate paradise or heaven until our brothers and sisters show the picture of good that they have achieved.

24:21 IWDM: G-d says, "Seek and what I have given you, paradise; the life of fulfillment of desires, the fulfillment of desires. Happiness. Seek it in the things I have given you." If nobody go out and use what Allah gave man or use what he made, his creation, we would still be without anything. We wouldn't have a thing. We'd be naked like an animal, running around on the ground like an animal trying to find something to eat. He said, "Seek in what G-d has given you or Allah has given you; the end life, the life of achievement. And don't neglect "Wa laa tansa" and don't neglect your share "nasibaka" of the world "minad dunya, minad dunya." And don't neglect your share of the world. And then G-d says, again these are my concluding statements to you from G-d, from our Holy Book. And G-d says again---but I find the same ideas and the same encouragement, the same promotion of human life in the Bible--- the same. And G-d says, "Seek in what I have given you, the life of fulfillment, the end life, and don't neglect your share of this world; your share, 'nasibaka', your share."

26:54 IWDM: So that says you should only seek your share, not my share. Once you get your share, don't mess with mine. Don't say, "I've got my share, now I'm going to get his too and make my share bigger." No, G-d did not will that; but the enemy of mankind will. That's what Shaitan mean or Satan; it means he's the enemy of the human family; the enemy of mankind. He wants to keep control over the people so he wants to be having control over wealth, control over the production of wealth; he wants control. Now, he is a spirit, he's a spirit and he wants control.

27:52 IWDM: Now, why does he want to control? He wants to control because he wants the dominance. He doesn't want to be under human authority. And if he's not deceitful, the human being can achieve what Allah, what G-d put him on earth to achieve, if he's not hurt by the Satan or the Shaitan. Shaitan knows that to keep him from becoming the ruler and the responsible one for the order of human life on earth Shaitan has to get dominance, seek dominance, and get dominance where he will have the control. The control in business, the control in pleasures, whatever, he wants to control. And by forcing government people and everybody, he gets control even over the government. He can get control over the government.

29:00 IWDM: Thank G-d for powerful idea that came from our founding fathers. That idea lives and survived terrible times slavery, our enslavement, and many other terrible times; that idea lives to conquer those things because it's a powerful seed of fairness, righteousness, and justice; a powerful seed. So eventually, it saves us from all these other interruptions that interrupt life and tend to give life to bad authority or to bad rulers. 

But we also should understand this, that without the influence of money or anything, if you go along with the lifestyles that the cultures have in them, many lifestyles you could pick. You don't have to wear the lifestyle that takes away your good senses, but you go and you shop and you see it on TV, these instruments are powerful. They come into your home, you turn on TV, it's an innocent TV, and you're an innocent viewer. But you watch that thing long enough, you go out and buy you the lifestyle that the Satan loves because that lifestyle will make you spend your money on dressing up in that lifestyle instead of dressing up in your pure of humanity.

30:33 IWDM: Yes. If you dress up in your pure of humanity, then he knows you're not going to be spending more money on superficial appearance. And not putting some money in the bank for the future of your family. He knows you're not going to be doing that, but he doesn't want you to be putting money into your bank account for the future of your families. He wants that money spent. He wants to know that there's no other influence in your life that can contend with him. And if you're after preserving family, the quality of family life, he doesn't like that because that doesn't give him the power or authority over your life. And there is nothing that has proven to be more successful in the life of human beings to save their families than the belief that we are the creation of G-d, created for a special purpose, a higher purpose that we can find in any kingdom of life. In the whole kingdom of life, we find no higher purpose than the purpose given to G-d's creation, the creation of human being.

32:05 IWDM: The elephant is big but the elephant cannot achieve what man can achieve. Nothing living can achieve what the human being can achieve, so we are a special creation. You know, family, you can hear, you can see in the language, family, familiar, familiar. So those with whom you have a good familiarity, a familiarity that doesn't bring tears to your eyes; [chuckle] those with whom you have a good familiarity, family. His scripture says, "G-d has not made you different for you to despise one another or rise over one another, tower over one another. But he has made you different so you become curious and want to know one another." "Lita'arafu," that you'll get acquainted with one another.

33:15 IWDM: And if you get acquainted with one another, pretty soon you will have a familiarity with the Chinese, you have a familiarity with the African, or Mexican, or whatever. You can develop a familiarity with them and you enjoy their company and you enjoy their presence just like you would with one in your own family. So what does that tell us? If G-d created us different to attract us to come back to each other and get to know one another and just get to know us big, not to get to know me in my skin and in my flesh features, but get to know me in my real picture. I am an intelligent being; I am human; I have human appetites and human tastes.

34:09 IWDM: And I live far away in a country, a nation called Japan, a place called Japan. And I have this kind of product and that kind of product, and are you interested in them? Oh, yes I believe I would love to have this in my house. So you shop with them right? And we shop with one another. So the one world economic order that's bringing us into one order or one world, one economic order, one business order, one world order is because we have met each other and got acquainted with each other, and come to know each other. Not only as life, but as productive life, and we have been attracted to each other's products. And G-d is bringing us together. See how it is in many ways that G-d bring us together. His material world of reality, and resources is bringing us together whether the preacher preach straight or not.

35:05 IWDM: And I'm not talking about just a Christian preacher, Muslim preacher, da'is, we call ourselves, da'is, preachers. Da'is means you call somebody and you holler loud if they're far away, you know? Da'is. So this is the purpose of life; this is the beauty of life. We all are one soul with each other and we're everybody in human form. We all are one soul and that soul has been made to register what happens in the environment and to pursue what the soul had been created to find and use for its comforts. And eventually, that brings us all together because we have to depend on one another now that we have connected all around the world. We have to depend on one another. Because how we live in one place will quickly affect how we live our life in another place. So we can't afford to be insisting upon our nationalism that won't recognize that we are more than separate nations; we are one humanity. Thank you very much.

36:36 IWDM: Thank you. Thank you. G-d says, "Quu, quu" not pulaquu. "Quu." That's Quranic Arabic. "qoo anfusakum waahleekum naran."

37:00 IWDM: Save yourselves. So while you're waiting on a Savior, don't fail to do what G-d ask. Save yourselves and your families from the fire of passions that will burn out all the quality of your human life. Thank you. Peace.
