07/03/2005
IWDM Study Library
IWDM Lecture
Chicago IL

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
IWDM:
Thank you. Thank you. Our greeting with peace As-salamu alaykum, that is peace be unto you. We are thankful for our presence here today on this Independence Day 4th of July weekend in Homewood, Illinois. We have planned an evening, pardon me a weekend and tomorrow, an outing on CPC grounds, the grass area on 167th St, 2979 W 167th St between Kedzie and Richmond. We planned an outing, family and friends outing and we invite you to bring your barbecue pits, your chairs your umbrellas, whatever you like to bring and enjoy the day tomorrow.
IWDM:
There will be also an address tomorrow made, a business address, an address on business, how we are coming with our business and what we see in the immediate future for the business. The prospects are good so we want to share that with you. Also, we want to say we enjoyed very much, Muslim Journal's banquet yesterday evening and the breakfast, I was here but I had a meeting with some business brothers from around the country on the purchase of business suits in volume so we can increase the financial strength of our community by supporting our good business people and working with them, cooperating with them to make business.
IWDM:
But at breakfast I heard there was a breakfast here and I saw the breakfast group that looked like it was going very well and I was wanting to join them for my stomach's sake and also just to join them in the spirit. So this is our first Sunday address. I'm here, thank G-d, and thank you for your support. I'm here once a month, one Sunday in every month except for times when other things of greater importance or equal important may cause us to change something and we want to save money for Memorial Day so there wasn't any good sense in us bringing you from distant places here twice for the Memorial Day weekend and for the first Sunday address so we combined them.
IWDM:
We just gave the first Sunday address during the memorial day when you don't have to be off work, take time off, work most likely you are off work you didn't have to work, and we have coming up now pretty soon the biggest event for the Mosques and for this community and the following of [inaudible 00:04:00] Muhammad, the annual address and gathering for the convention in September, the last of August and September so it's too close for us to have another first Sunday so we won't have first Sunday in August.
IWDM:
We'll just come the convention, inshallah, so after this first Sunday address, the next time I'll be addressing you most likely in this area in the Chicago area will be at the convention and we have some major changes for the convention and I think I should bring those to your attention right now. We have been asked over the years, and I say over the years, over practically all the years we've been doing it, we have been asked to find ways to make a purchase, to purchase a facility that will accommodate our convention crowd and that's big, so we haven't been able to raise enough money for that but we haven't given that up, we're still working on it and I think we will realize it in maybe a shorter time than we think.
IWDM:
We've also been studying the amount of money which many of you have brought to our attention that we're spending a lot of money in hotels and we see that we're spending like a million and a quarter, a million and a half or more outside of our community just to have a convention, so we'd better go back to the practical days of our history here in these United States when we didn't do that. So the focus should be on the convention the purpose of it is to inform all of our members around the country and outside of the country because they come in from Bermuda and different places, to inform all of our members on the state of their community. How we are standing, what's happening good for us, if we have some problems that's serious enough we should bring those to your attention too and we should give you a clear idea on the plan for this community.
IWDM:
What we want now and what we want in the future, the immediate future and distant future, so that should be the main purpose of the convention and we know that all of us enjoy being with one another once a year. We meet our relatives and friends that we hadn't seen perhaps in maybe two or three years but they may be attending the convention and some we see every year so it's a good time for us to be together with one another too. That's a great benefit that we are together with one another in support of our community plan. That's great. Yes and we should have a plan we should know the plan. We do have a plan. We have a community plan, a clear plan but all of us should be aware of that plan and we should know how we are progressing with that plan and that's the main purpose on the annual convention.
IWDM:
So the dining and giving the hotel $30 for a plate of food and the Mosque here is getting $5 maybe or $10 at the most that hardly covers expenses, it doesn't make sense, it doesn't make business sense so don't be surprised if the announcement comes out real soon saying no hotel downtown and you may have a new plan presented to you, a plan that really starts with this very hotel, Homewood Hotel here. We have a good relationship with the manager here... Thank you. And he belongs to an Association. They have affiliates, affiliate hotels and hotel services. So he's a very good man and the management here is very good, excellent.
IWDM:
So they have introduced us to some publications of theirs that we're looking at and we look at the possibility of using a lot of small hotels around here, and with all those small hotels and they go over too, they go East and then go West more and if you go West to Cicero, there is a big Convention Center there. We'll look at the possibility if it's available at that time for us to have Jummah at the Convention Center. The Convention Center I'm sure they have space that will accommodate our Jummah congregational prayers. They will accommodate the Friday congregational prayers, I'm sure they have enough space, but if not I will do what some of the Imams do outside of this area. I don't know if [inaudible 00:09:59] but I've been outside of this area. I've in big public park grounds and we have had thousands on the ground and the weather was nice, it didn't rain on us. I wished at one of the meetings I was in I wished it would rain because I was so hot I just needed some rain drops to hit me.
IWDM:
So we can do that, we can have it right on the public grounds. Costs us nothing. Most likely it'll cost us nothing. We can have the Jummah prayer. But we're hoping to have it indoors at maybe the Convention Center in Tinley Park... I said Cicero, that's Harlem. More West, more farther West, but right out here in this South area, the Southwest area. Also, on CPC grounds we can get a lot of... believers can gathered there so we can have food serving and socializing and whatever there on those grounds too, so we're looking at it and we hope to come up with a plan and a suggestion for a plan for the convention utilizing these small motels in the area and hotels in the area and also the ground spaces that's available to us.
IWDM:
Inshallah, it'll save us a million and a quarter to a million and a half or more dollars every year. Now if you just take a fourth of that, put most of it in your pocket and head home, I know you need it, but if you just take a fourth of that 25% of that and put it in the Africa... pardon me, the New Africa Convention Center fund, it wouldn't take us too many years to have enough to build us a facility, brand new from the ground that would accommodate our annual convention and also... Yeah. And at the same time put expert professional management over it and it could make money over the years renting and leasing space out to others so they can have their conventions or whatever, weddings or dinners and whatever. Would you object to us having a church come in and have their meetings? You are good Muslims. We could rent the space and make money over the year because we wouldn't need it what maybe four or five times a year. Okay. So it's going to work better than I thought. I was so nervous. I said, "Wow, they're going to be so disappointed."
Speaker 2:
[inaudible 00:12:59].
IWDM:
Yes, we'll do the best thing and everybody be happy. I do believe. Thank you very much for supporting it. So, if this is an indication then we are on the way. All right. We've been discussing it a lot and we feel good about it. You've got to feel good when you're looking at over $1,000,000, a million and a quarter or more of your money that's going for nothing but some chicken and stuff... Lord have mercy. I'd rather go back to the farm and live on it. Get away from the city altogether. So we praise G-d [Foreign language 00:13:45]. Allah that is G-d. Allah is G-d. Allah is the name of G-d, it's not a name for some different G-d that's not in the Bible. No it's just the name of the same G-d that's in the Bible.
IWDM:
The Koran and the Bible have the same G-d and Allah, G-d that is, says to us in our holy book The Koran, he says to Muhammad not to us, through Muhammad he says to us, "Say to the people of the book...", that means Jews and Christians, "Say to the people of the book specifically...", but it also means another group that was still existing too, I thought they had gone, they're not gone, they're called the Sabians. "Say to the people of the book, our G-d and your G-d is one and the same." So you know [inaudible 00:14:42] you shouldn't have anymore confusion if you had any that we believe in a different G-d. Say, "Oh, but they believe Jesus Christ is G-d." Well Allah knew that when he said, "Say to the people of the book our G-d and your G-d is one and the same." So we don't question what G-d has revealed. G-d has revealed that and we accept that.
IWDM:
And also G-d says, "To every people was given a law and a way." And G-d also says in our holy book, in the Koran, "For every people or every community, there is clarity, clear perception." G-d wants, no not that there is, G-d wants for every people or for every community that they have clear perception, that they see clearly, that they have clear perception and guidance and a strategy, a strategy. The way we are created, we are created to come together with one another like we have come together today. Our nature is to come together. Male with female to reproduce, but people with people, persons with persons, to come together. This is the social nature of all social creatures, not just ours. G-d says to us in our holy book, "There is not a community of creatures that does not have life like yours." Now what is that speaking of? You know, the holy scripture doesn't just talk about people.
IWDM:
The holy scripture talks about certain animals, certain birds, ants, insect, bees. It talks about animals and those things. So G-d says in our holy book, "All of those creatures have communities." The word is the plural for Ummah, Umum. That they have Umum, U-M-U-M if you're writing it. Umum. Because I can't read what some of you all write after [inaudible 00:18:02]. I don't know what you are writing. I said, "Did I say that?" Please write English not transliteration. It'll help us out a lot if we stick to English. Don't try to transliterate, especially when you're hearing something. If you don't know it yourself, don't take a chance. That's no small thing you're doing, that's a big thing for you take a chance on giving your readers the wrong word, wrong understanding, so we shouldn't do that. Yes. So the community of every people, and this is going back a long time it's a tradition into the traditions of people that have passed.
IWDM:
Then G-d wants, adding to what I just told you from the Koran concerning the promise of G-d to us that he will give us clear perception, lead us into clear perception and guidance. Clear perception, guidance and also he promises us strategies and that he will show us the way of other people. Now why is it important that we be shown the ways of other people? Because one day, we're all going to have to live together. Yes. G-d knew and he inspired men and women to know that humanity is a family of mankind on this Earth, though separated by land and sea and whatever, that one day the growing, multiplying of people, the growing of populations and the progress for them with transportation will one day bring them all together and they will be tied together like we are now. The time has come. We are tied together economically then we are tied together by the means of communication, radio, television, etc. and transportation.
IWDM:
There's no transportation now for one nation and you just stay right in that one territory, no. These planes go to other nations, they connect and everyone who is in the business of transportation, he is now globally oriented not just nationally oriented. Look at Federal Express. Go all over the world. You can take a plane and go to another country and there you see Fed Express, taking care of business, delivering mail, whatever, and that's just one of them. So the world has become what it was expected to become and that is one living quarters. The whole earth now, the global community is the living quarters of man, and we have to be aware of our relationship and our ties with one another.
IWDM:
They are economically, they are in a big way culturally too, but certainly strong economic ties we have with all the people around the world, all over the world and you go in a shop now and who's putting food on the business table? All the nations, you might get food from anywhere, everywhere. Food is coming from everywhere. Nice food. So you have a section in the big chain stores, ethnic food. You're buying the food of other people. Some of them you don't even know the people but you're buying their food. You don't know them at all. Majority. The life of the majority and how they live, no. If you live just your life and your children lives to the way the majority are living in the public, you are losing your life and you're losing your children. You are losing your children.
IWDM:
A long time ago, religion was a serious matter for most African-American and for most poor people, for most people period, in this country. Religion was a very serious matter and we were expected to have the behavior of our religion. Certain words and vulgar language or indecent words, you weren't supposed to speak those words. Certain behavior you weren't supposed to have. If you dressed half nude, like went out half nude girl or lady, went out half nude practically everybody thought she was a prostitute or a very indecent person. Didn't think she was a churchgoing person or believer in the church. We didn't think that.
IWDM:
We thought she was lost to the world of indecency and crime. Yes. But now it's popular to be naked out in the public or expose yourself out in the public. And some of the ladies who dress very indecently, showing everything, a man looks at her, depending on who the man is and what she reads into his face, and she looks at him with a mean look when really he should be looking at her with a mean look. She looks at him with a mean look, "I didn't give you permission to look at it." I was sitting on the public transportation once in the front of the bus when the seats permit you to face, long seat.
IWDM:
So I'm sitting before this woman and she's looking at me with that look I just described, and she's pulling her skirt down like this... Looking at me. Pulling it down. So I always have been a little risk-taker. I take risks. If she might've had a brute with her he might've killed me on the bus. I said, "If you wanted it down you should have had it down before you got on the bus." That's all I said to her. I said, "If you wanted it down you should have had it down before you got on the bus." She didn't say anything to me. You know, there are stories in the Bible that the entertainment world have made humor out of some of it. One is Noah's Ark. The big boat that saved all the people that was fit to be saved when the world was covered by a great flood, a flood that covered the whole Earth it said. No place for people to live except on that boat. And I heard the entertainment world singers singing about those stories, and what this singer was saying was those stories are not necessarily true.
IWDM:
He didn't say they weren't true, he said not necessarily true. He didn't say they weren't true, they are not necessarily true, and I remember as a young minister preaching for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, you preach for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad you preach for a fish. You're just fishing, you know. You throw your hook out, snap it back, see if you got anything on it, you know. So anyway, I was preaching and Noah's Ark came into my mind and I said, "Now, how in the world did they build a [inaudible 00:27:19] very small number, but then they added animals. They saved all the animals too. I said, "Boy oh boy, did they need a garbage truck or some system for treating manure and stuff. I don't know what kind of advanced methods they had to handle all that crap that those animals and everyone else was letting out if they were eating."
IWDM:
So anyway it was just, to me it was difficult to understand how that could be, how that could happen. And then I wait until I get here over 60 years old, and there the Noah Ark it appeared to me. I saw it, right in the United States of America. All the animals on the boat and all the people on the boat. Yes, but the worst thing was those that were drowning outside of the boat. They were drowning all outside the boat, people drowning, fighting the water trying to save themselves. [inaudible 00:28:36]. Yes, the waters of your feelings, the waters of your hurt, the waters of your happiness the waters of your corrupt happiness, your corrupted happiness. We are dying. All around the boat we're dying. And where's the boat? The boat is the religious teachings. The boat is the religious teachings that hold someone in. They don't leave him. They stay with those religious teachings and just stay clean smelling, they don't booboo on the boat.
IWDM:
So it is true. Yes it is true. You know it says that as it was in the days of Noah? Isn't that in the scripture? So it says that that time I going to come again. Yes it is here. The boat is bigger than ever, and the waters are bigger than ever, and the drowning victims are more than ever. Yes that's what I believe. I'm saying to you that if you don't have a connection for your life, with a community, spiritual community, religious community. social community, with a community, and for us it's a religious community because most of us are religious in America. If you don't have a connection with a community like that, then you will get lost from your own life security. Your life has to have some certain security. You just can't do anything with your life and hope to keep it. You'll lose your life.
IWDM:
It doesn't mean you necessarily have to lose this physical meat, flesh and blood body, but you will lose the life inside that body which is more important than the meat or the flesh and blood. You will lose the life inside the body. You will lose the discipline that keeps you in a certain behavior, that keeps you from behaving like a insane person or keep you from behaving like a mad criminal or just a self-destructive person. All of this is happening because we are not in the community life that G-d and time established for people. You can't change these ways. These ways are eternal, so to speak. These ways are eternal. You can't change them, so if you're a Christian and your life is miserable and you're spending most of your time chasing fun or looking for fun, play, dance, singing, music, looking for that kind of fun, I call that fun, that isn't necessarily happiness.
IWDM:
All our fun is not happiness. I guess that's why they said fun, funny. And funny sometimes means abnormal, right? Yeah, that's a funny dude over there. Yeah you know the expression. Yes. So this is the world today and it is very serious people, very serious. We are losing our lives by the millions, yes we are. You know science has invented destructive weapons now that can destroy a people and leave their building standing. Now think of the time that we're living in and think of the structures that used to support most of our lives. Those structures are still standing aren't they? But most of us have been killed. Isn't that a fact? Most of us have been killed. We've been killed morally, and that's most important for us, the moral life. We've been killed morally. We have lost the sense of decency that we had once in the establishment of the church or the mosque or the synagogue, whatever it was. We have lost that and we need to get back to it. We need to get back to the purity of our religions. Don't let corruption take you over. Though it be popular for the world or popular in the public, don't let indecency and corruption infiltrate your life, invade your life and take your life over and then dictate how you should live. That's what it's doing without your conscious approval.
IWDM:
It is dictating how the people live. This is very serious. So G-d wants us to know that every people have evolved, grew up upon the good nature he created, that G-d created. They have grown up and built themselves up as societies, communities, nations, upon recognition of the good material, good human essence, good human nature that G-d created. Nobody had to give it to him from the outside. Born with it. Just grow it up, treat it right and it will be grown one day and it will be learned, knowledgeable one day and it will be a fine model of human life one day. But if we leave the teachings and ways of systems that have lived for thousands of years and have kept people in good form for thousands of years, and you grab something, a spirit. You grab a spirit out of Hollywood or a spirit from the record industry and you let that come in you and govern your life, too bad. That is too bad.
IWDM:
We have to stop that. And G-d says, "They all have strategies. Their cultural strategies." If you be governed by cultural strategies, you won't be happy at all because cultural strategies have no respect for human decision-making. Cultural strategies do not respect your interest in decision-making. You have no decision in the matter. No. Before you know it, your mind and everything have been captured by the cultural trends and the strategies. Your mind has been captured and you are just doing what you have been clocked to do. Yes you have been clocked to do something and you are just doing it and you don't have any choice in the matter. And you don't feel it when it's you, just you when it's one-on-one. You don't feel it too much, but you feel it when your son is lost from you. It got your son.
IWDM:
You feel it when it got your daughter, got your favorite child that you was hoping was going to be a doctor. Got him, then you feel it. Oh you want to go to anybody. You go to preach, you go back to church, but it might be too late. It might be too late then. Yes. So understand this, the works that influence corruption are not the works of good people. No good person would do that. Only the Satan that we call Shaitan would do that. No one would have a plan to corrupt the public but a devil, a Satan, a Shaitan. So G-d says to us in our holy book, "Surely such as intoxicants...", that's drinks that make you drunk and drugs that take you out of your senses, "Surely intoxicants, gambling and games of superstition are the works of the devil, Shaitan, [Foreign Language 00:38:44], therefore stay away from that."
IWDM:
Now you know of a time time when the people of this country had a strong desire to prohibit the sale of alcohol in this country, and they did. They did it. Well really I don't think it was the good people that did that. You know what I think it was? I think it was the Satan that did that. He influenced them passing the law to prohibit the sale of alcohol the Satan did that so that he would make you more desperate for alcohol and embarrass those who wanted to prohibit it. Satan is clever, very clever. Yes, I think he's the one that did that. Righteous people, they don't want to make it a law that you don't drink. They want a chance to convert you from that habit. They don't want to impose a law on you. [Foreign language 00:39:53], let there be no compelling or compulsory in religion forcing people to do things in religion. This is our book and this is the Christian book too, other people's book too.
IWDM:
You're not supposed to enforce your religion on somebody and those who have done that, they have repented that. They have lived to see it was wrong and repented. Yes, most of them that imposed their religion on others. So we have gone beyond our hour of the broadcast. I hope our audience enjoyed what we had to say, the radio audience enjoyed what we had to present today on this day of the independence, the celebration of the independence of our country, the 4th of July. I keep saying independence because we are going to talk about independence in just a few minutes. Independence Day. You know, for most Americans it's a day that we don't have to work maybe and a day we have all our relatives and friends all coming over for a barbecue, so it is Oscar Mayer day... and Kool-Aid, lemonade, Kool-Aid.
IWDM:
But let us not forget while we're having our necessary fun, let us not forget the real meaning of this day, Independence Day. You know, independence is really a word that carries more meaning and has more value than just freedom, you know that? Why do you want freedom? Why do you want freedom? Why did the slaves want freedom from the plantation slavery? Why did we want freedom? "Oh so we won't have to be given [inaudible 00:41:58] slave masters won't have to be ordering us around." Well you are right, that was the majority. But for a man like Frederick Douglass, for those who were intelligent and who had intellect that wanted to grow and wanted to be more knowledgeable and wanted to have more benefit in the world that's given to others outside of slavery, no slavery was not just that.
IWDM:
Slavery was an opportunity to be on your own, but not on your own the way a lot of us are on our own today. Not on our own to behave unintelligently, but on our own to realize more and more, oh, the possibility for our intelligence. For our brains, for our intelligence. So we wanted really, independence where we wouldn't have to be subject to another man dictating to us and ordering us about and controlling our everyday life and activities. We wanted to be free from that so we could exercise the authority that G-d gave everyone of us at birth and that's the authority to grow up as a human being with a human mind and human intelligence and make decisions for yourself and to choose for yourself the way you want to live daily.
IWDM:
Now, if that is really the need that was in us as slaves, look what we are doing to that now. Those who are giving themselves true to fun, folly, fun, party life, foolishness, dancing, sex outside of the context of the system of marriage, just sex for sex sake, those people, you are not at all getting the benefit of being free from the plantation slavery. You're not getting the benefit. They didn't want to be free so they could have sex outside of marriage just for sex sake, to have have fun just for fun sake. No, they didn't want to be free for that. They wanted to be free to build the excellence of the life G-d created them with and for, that's what they wanted. They wanted to be free to build the excellence of that life.
IWDM:
Now, here we are, we are off the plantation. We're in these cities. On the plantation you had no authority. The house you slept in belonged to the master, or the barn you slept in belonged to the master. The ground you worked belonged to the master. Where you played, the space belonged to the master. And when you look at Chicago and suburbs, the building belongs to the master. The business belongs to the master. Where we play belongs to the master. Yes. Where you go to get your entertainment, the place belongs to the master. Who is the master? The culture. No more an individual. The culture. The disease, corrupt... using Pope John Paul II's expression, the culture of death.


