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IWDM Study Library
Material vs Spiritual Interest

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed

As Salaam Alaikum. Peace be on you. We praise G-d, the one and only. We worship up none but Him. And we witness that Muhammad, to whom the Qur'an was revealed about 14 centuries ago and some years is the Prophet prophesied in the Old Testament and the New Testament, the seal of the Prophets, the last Prophet, the Mercy to all the worlds. Upon him be the Prayers and the Peace. And upon us be peace, Ameen. We have a topic here that I hope you'll benefit from as I have and enjoy it as I have. I just planned it and I've been thrilled. It thrilled me just planning it. That's because I have an interest. I have a strong interest in these things. The material interests versus or challenges the spiritual interests. This is something that has been studied by builders of civilization, not only by Prophets or preachers of religion or the spiritual community, but this is something that has been studied by civilization in general, societies in general. They have had to study the problem of organizing society. What problems stand in the way of the organization of society so that society will be organized into one system. See, even if you are primitive, even if you are savage, if you belong to a community of savages, you have to defend yourself against others who might not like you or might want to take what you have, might want even to take your territory that you occupy, your land that you are on. So, you have to organize. Conditions inside us and outside us force us to organize as a society in time. We have to organize. In the history of organization of society, we still have what we call tribes. Tribes. There are tribes in much of the world, they're still tribes.

And in the Far East, in Africa, in the North, in the far North, there's still tribes. And in the South too below us. In South America, there are still people who recognize their tribal identity, their tribal identities. And this is a unit or name for the coming together of the bonding or grouping of people that goes all the way back into ancient times, into ancient times. There were great tribes. These tribes are called by different names in different parts of the world. But in English, they're still tribes. They're still tribes. The history of our Prophet, Prayers and Peace be on Muhammad, goes back to a family, a tribal family, a big tribal family. That tribe is called the Quraish with a K sound. Quraish, called the Quraish tribe. It was the most respected tribe before the Prophet received revelation from G-d and became the Prophet, Peace be upon him. His tribe that he belonged to was the most respected tribe among many tribes of the area now called Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia. We want to first try to understand how societies are established.

Societies cannot establish themselves unless they have some discipline that they agree on. They have to agree on some kind of discipline. Like a family. A family can't keep peace for themselves unless the wife and the husband and their children when they come, agree on some kind of discipline that they have to have in that house or have in that family. So, it is for the tribal group or for the societal group, the group of people forming a society. They have to agree on certain disciplines and usually the agreement is by consent, not imposed, not forced. It's by consent. They accept it. This is natural, it's nature. It is natural that we should have these rules to go by, these rules to follow. So, in the study of the progress of society on the path toward civilization, we find that in the early beginning of these societies, in the ancient times, way back behind us now, they formed just as families formed and they took their order or the rules they had to obey just like we take it in a family, we take it to be natural. It's expected. Our nature calls for that. In time, the challenge from outside, the challenge of materialism, the challenge of material things, interaction with the material, things, putting our minds and our hearts on material things, began to influence how we are made up inside. In time the outside changes the way we are made up inside and we then present new problems for the system of society, for the order or for the system of society. We present new problems. The worst problem that develops is what we call material interest void of human interest, material interest that doesn't respect human interest.

That's the worst condition that develops. This condition, without taking a lot of time reading scripture and everything, I'm just telling you these things and I'll tell you that scripture says this, or scripture has support for what I'm saying, scripture prophesies this. Bible, Old Testament, New Testament, the Qur'an. Many of us, we don't think of the Qur'an as a book of prophecy, but the Qur'an is a book of prophecy. It is also a book of prophecy. The Qur'an also prophesies Muhammad, the Prophet of the Qur'an, Peace be upon him, the one who received it. He himself prophesied also of the coming of material interest, where material interest will become so strong that the human interest will not be there, only the material interest.

We thank G-d. We say Allah in Islam. We thank Allah that the world right now is not in that kind of a condition. It was threatening to be in that condition during World War One. It increased in World War II, with Korea, Vietnam. It was still progressing. By the seventies, material interest almost had destroyed human interest for most. Material interest had almost destroyed human interest for our culture, our society, our culture. The culture is the whole life in all of its expressions. The whole life in all of its expressions is properly called culture. But to more identify the strongest influences on us from the outside, we look at religion, entertainment, politics, the media, television, radio, television, movies. All of these particular entities represent strong, strong basis of influence in the cultural life, in the cultural life. And if you are not strongly grounded or established in religion or in politics, well even if you're strongly established in politics, it doesn't make much difference depending upon the nature of your supporters.

But if you're strongly established in religion, the culture is not necessarily a big danger for you. It's not a big threat for you. It's not really a danger. But if something happens and the people's interest in their religion is changed to cause them to take their religion lightly, then the outside influences from the entertainment world and the media, entertainment media. Other things begin to dominate. Begin to dominate the makeup of yourself inside and will change the way you are made up inside. And pretty soon your humanity will be out of you. And what will be in that flesh body of yours is another creature. Another creature like a monster, like an artificial creature have been created inside you again. So, this happens. The subject we have taken is no subject for you to brush aside or to take lightly. This is a very serious subject. This is really the subject of man, all along the history of man from the earliest beginnings of society to the present time.

This has been the subject. How can the people live and keep the life that G-d created for them? How can they keep their nature pure, true and human? Human, most of all human. How can they keep it human? That's been the test of time. That's the test of man down the road of time. That's the test. How to keep his humanity, how to keep the human in him and not allow it to be destroyed by other interests and mainly material interests. We are sorry that we don't have enough chairs to accommodate everybody, but I'm standing too. I wish you had something to lean on. I'm leaning on something here. I got a bad back. So, they wouldn't mind if you put your hand on the back of that chairs you know. Some of you have weak backs, you have to get some help from somewhere. Or if you don't mind, if you got something to sit on, you can come up here and sit down in the front here on the ground here. Nothing wrong with that. That's natural for man too. Sit right down on earth. Yeah, alright. Okay. Sorry for having to digress there a bit.

Now. I'm addressing a major theme in scripture, major theme in scripture. But a concern that is older than the known scriptures we have. When we read in the Qur'an of nations of ancient times, long before Muhammad the Prophet, long before the Qur'an as we have it, there was no Qur'an, no Muhammad the Prophet, no Qur'an. And we are told by G-d that there were great nations that existed before. And we are given description of them.

And we are told how man was blessed in those times and how their bad behavior caused them to lose G-d's favor and G-d's favor was taken off of them. And they met their doom and they were erased from the earth and no one could find any trace of them, they're gone. Only the scientists, the archeologists dig up something, find proof that they were here. Alright. So, we shouldn't think that these concerns began with Muslims proper or with the followers of Muhammad. No, these concerns were before. We shouldn't necessarily think that these concerns began with the Old Testament people. No. Even before them, before the Old Testament people. Now if we think about this, G-d tells us about the creation of the first human being on earth. The name given him is Adam. G-d tells us about that and G-d tells us that He spoke, G-d spoke to Adam. If we believe that, then we have to believe that the most ancient society was a society under G-d because Adam became the father of generations and all the generations still now. But even while he was on earth himself, he produced many children with his wife, he produced many children.

And they are supposed to be the first people on this earth. Then we can't agree. If we really believe, if we are religious people, if we are religious people and we agree with what scripture says, then we can't agree with the world report of the beginning of society. So, we can't think that ancient societies were not religious societies, ancient societies were religious societies. Now when we look at the ancient societies in the history, ancient Greece, ancient Egypt, these two perhaps are given the most pages in the libraries at encyclopedias that we read from the library from our own private library, ancient Greece and ancient Egypt. These two ancient, ancient people, I have some knowledge of them, I have studied some their history and I know that they had an idea of how society is created or made originally. So, all of these ancient people, they have their stories. They have their stories of the origin of man or the origin of established society, established orders. They write them in what is called by us now or the scholars or the researchers.

Creation myths, creation myths, M-Y-T-H-S, creation myths. When we study these creation myths, if G-d bless us with the eye to penetrate the insight to see into what they're saying. When we study them, I have and I say we come up with an idea of the beginning of society that resembles the idea of the beginning of man in scripture. In scripture, they tell it as myth. Scripture tells it as revelation. All right, are you following me? Now, we don't recognize anything that does not, any report that does not recognize G-d first. Most importantly, we don't recognize those reports as reports that have credit and can be taken in by us or used by us as our reading books for us to make conclusions, to draw conclusions upon. No, we don't take those books in and use them for reading and make our own conclusions upon what those books have in them.

We don't do this. So, in a real way, we dismiss those books, or we discredit those books as being worthy of being on our shelf for our research and for our present and future purposes. Alright, you hearing me and following what I'm saying? I hope so. Now that doesn't mean that we don't recognize that they have some of the truth or they have a resemblance to our truth in them. No, they're just not respecting G-d enough. Their inclusion of G-d is not clear enough or strong enough for us to put the stamp of approval on their book and bring their books into our use for our purposes. When Allah tells us in the Qur'an about the nature, the original nature of the human being and the human community, not just the human being, then Allah tells us about the original nature of the human person to get us to understand the original nature of the original human community. To help you understand this, the Bible speaks of Adam a person in the plural, P-L-U- R-A-L. In the plural. So, there's Adam one and there's Adam many. Adam means one person and Adam means the many.

So whatever G-d is saying about the one person, it's important for us to know that He's trying to get us to understand the true identity or the true nature of the many. So, we will have what I'm calling in this text, the common identity, the common C-O-M-M-O-N, the common identity for all of us. That's what society have had to strive for. That's what the builders, correction, that's what the builders of society have had to strive for, a common identity for all of the citizens in their publics, a common identity for all the citizens in their public. Now they perhaps didn't use that language, citizens. They had other names, but now we use citizens and when we translate even the language from the history of our Prophet Muhammad, Prayers and Peace upon him, when he's distinguishing between the leader and the people that he represents, when we translate, we have to say public. We say the leader and his public. And the Prophet told us something about the relationship and the obligation of the leader to his public. And it's given like this. The Prophet was asked, "What is sincerity?" And he said, "Sincerity is what we owe Allah. And sincerity is what a leader owes his public."

Now let's begin where we left off and we were addressing the need to establish a discipline, a discipline for the society. And we were saying that when G-d gives us Adam, the person, to look at, that G-d has given us that picture to really show us the picture that should be the group, the picture that should be the group. So, G-d gives us a singular to show us what He wants for the plural, for the plural, for the many. That's why in the Bible, Adam is spoken of in Genesis as one person. And he's also spoken of in Genesis as a plural, a group of people.

And the language tells us that. Says, and He named them Adam. In the beginning He named them Adam. So, Adam is taken from the singular to the plural, to the many. Now in Qur'an, this is the same. It's the same. The meaning and the message is the same. That though Adam is one, Adam is also the plural. And how does G-d tell us that? In many ways in the Qur'an but I'm going to give you one reference. He says, G-d says in the Qur'an to us that He is the one who gave us our picture, our design made us look the way we look. And He says that He made that design or that picture most beautiful and excellent. That's what G-d says. He speaks of one picture, one design, one look that He gave for all people. Now where's that look? That look is not in our separate identities.

That look is in our common identity. Now, when you take us separately, we are Africans, we are Europeans, we are Asians, we are black, we are brown, we are white, we are different colors and different looks when you take us separately. But science, man has studied too outside of the context of scripture, man has studied and has built another context that is not called scripture. It's called the secular world disciplines, intellectual disciplines, the secular world intellectual disciplines or the sciences. The secular world sciences like history, math, English, astronomy, et cetera. All of these subjects that we have to learn in public school and private school too, they're the same. They're just as important to us in private school as in public. All of these subjects that we call world sciences or world histories or whatever, they give us a definition of the human being that is our common identity, our common identity. The common identity for all people, no matter where they came from, what land they were born or in is human. That's the human. That's the identity. The human is the common identity. So, no matter how we look, what color, what shape, what speeches, we all have one identity in common. We all are human. We all are human.

Now, the human picture is not a physical picture, but we have a physical human body to give us or to refer us to the human picture inside the body, right? Common human body. So, when we think of a human being, we don't think of the shape of a tree or the shape of a bear. We think of this shape we are looking at right now when we think of a human being. The point I want to make is that G-d designed this shape too, this shape we got. This is the picture too. This human picture you see in the mirror of yourself when you're stripped of the manmade things that are on you. That's the picture that G-d made too. And He made that most excellent too. And it doesn't matter whether it's black or brown or yellow or red, or whether the hair is nappy or straight or features are sharp or blunt. It doesn't matter. It's most beautiful. It's excellent and most beautiful. And again, the secular world sciences tell us that man's ability to progress and rise above the animals has a lot to do with his physical construction, the way he is designed physically. Other animals can't do with their front paws what we can do with our hands, et cetera, right? Our eyes are situated so nicely. We stand erect. Science called us in one of its expressions. Homo erectus, the erectly standing, straight up standing human. Before the world of secular knowledge pointed to the human physical establishment, physical design to tell us something about it, that it is great, it has great symmetry, it has great advantages for man in the animal world or in the world of flesh. G-d in scripture pointed to it also. Yes. So, Allah tells us too about the symmetry, or the erect position and well-balanced position of the human being in the Qur'an. In the Bible, in other scriptures and also in the Qur'an.

Abraham, the second father, he is called the one who is upright in his nature. He was upright in his nature. Abraham Hanifa. Talks about how he was in his nature. He was complete and upright. Well, he wasn't complete at first, but he was upright in the nature. And he struggled with himself to have himself please G-d. And finally G-d says that he delivered himself before G-d complete. Complete. So, he reached also, he reached the completion. And for his soul, for his soul, for his inner nature or his human identity, he reached completion for his inner nature or for his human, true human identity. And he's called our second father, the second father. And now, getting back to the more important message here right now is that that picture that G-d is giving us of the single person, one person, is to show us what we should be as a group. The plural body, the plural body, the many. What we should be. We are going on now to something else. But before we do, I want to have a few little comments on the struggle or the challenge from the material on the spiritual or to the spiritual, against the spiritual. We are told about this test for us in the very beginning of the story of the origin of human life in scripture. When G-d says that He made Adam and made him right and gave Adam the right guidance, and gave Adam his responsibilities. And later came Satan or the devil and tricked Adam, tricked Adam. The Qur'an, the word is translated, he seduced Adam.

G-d is telling us that He made man originally perfect as he should be. But man had to develop more internally and to develop more internally, not only as a brain or as an intellect, a mind, but he also had to develop as a heart. He had to develop as a soul. He had to develop as a spirit, as a spirit. He had to develop all of his whole being in his faculty. He had to develop more. He was like a new baby in the world, a baby on the path to his destiny for society. He was a baby in terms of his destiny, the road ahead for his destiny as a leader or model for the human society. So, he was like a baby. So, the Satan was too shrewd for him. The Satan had more insight into the nature of the man than the man had himself. So, Satan was able to trick him out of his original nature that G-d put him in. And in time you know, he ran into trouble and he fell down. And his generations, his children were seen not looking like human beings. They were not homo erectus inside themselves. They had become animals, beasts, savages, et cetera.

So, it is only after we begin to listen to the adversary, that's one of the names of Satan, the devil, the adversary. What does adversary mean? Mean that he is against what G-d wanted in you, what G-d put in you originally and G-d, what G-d wants to stay in you as your true self, your true identity, your true self. Satan is against that. He is not. That's why Allah tells us in the Qur'an to bring us closer to the understanding to help the people of religion to understand better. G-d does not make the devil the problem for G-d. G-d says to us that the devil, Iblis he's called in Qur'an, is our enemy. He's the enemy of man, the enemy of man. That's what he's called. He's called the enemy of man, the enemy of mankind, the enemy of humanity. He is the enemy.

That's the adversary. Adversary means he is against. Your adversary, the one against you, opposing you. So, he is the adversary. He is man's adversary, not G-d's adversary. In previous scriptures or in previous times before, Satan was put up as the adversary of G-d, like he was in some kind of a test with G-d, challenging G-d. No, he does not challenge G-d. He challenges our original nature and makeup and identity that G-d gave us and wants to stay in us. He challenges that. So, he's our challenge. He challenges us. He's our adversary. The devil is our adversary. He's ours. G-d, does not have a contender, ain't nothing big enough to contend with G-d. We have a contender. So, the trouble starts when we start listening to the adversary. We start listening to the voice that says, don't keep in this form that G-d puts you in. Don't. Don't take so much pains to stay in that form. G-d put you in. You can get more wealth, more money, more pleasures, more joy, more this, more that if you come out, ignore that, forget about that. You are missing too much. You see, when we start listening to that voice, then that's when the trouble comes. Now we have falsehood called also in scripture darkness. Why is it associated with material? Because it seems to us that material puts us in the dark.

Night, night's going to come and night's going to come and we're going to be in the dark down here except for the man made lights or the moon that may be shining a little bit. We are going to be in the dark. What is that darkness? It's shadow of the earth. So, if we take any material thing, we can block light with a material thing. Material thing blocks light. Now that's only symbolic. Don't think that ignorance or darkness or trouble comes only because some material thing block the light. No, it's just a term. It becomes a metaphor. It becomes a symbol, a term for other things that are not physical that will block the light for us. Lies block the light of truth.

Hard heartedness blocks the light of humanity. Rudeness, cruelty, et cetera blocks the light of your humanity. So, we have these things that are invisible, abstract, in the abstract, but they cast a shadow in the world of abstracts. I hope you're following me. In your world of abstracts, they cast shadows and put your right aside in the dark. When this challenge comes, we begin to be in trouble. And G-d said when Adam fell into trouble following the suggestions of the devil, the Satan, G-d said to the angels got disappointed and everything and they said, "Oh, you have created something that's going to really be problem." They said to G-d, "You have created something that's going to cause bloodshed and bring many problems or many burdens to the world." G-d says, "When I have inspired him of my own spirit, then you all submit to him." That's what G-d told the angels about the man He was making, the humanity He was making, creating. He said, "When I have inspired him of My spirit, you all make submission to him. Submit to him." That means bow to him. Actually, it means make complete submission, prostrate to him. That's what G-d said. Now what does that tell us? That tells us that man was originally given his own original nature and his original nature from those influences was enough to keep him in good shape and protect him and preserve him. Until the seducer came along, the adversary, and suggested to him and tricked him out of his own mind that G-d had given him.

That's what that tells us. And it also tells us that there is a need for the human being to have in addition to his own good nature and influences of that good nature, the direction in his mind, in his intellect that G-d wants for him. So, the man had to be taught, the man had to be educated by G-d in order for him to stand up against all the tests that's coming from the outside, including Satan, the worst of all the tests. He had to be educated by G-d. So, Adam represents like the new life in his perfection, like a new baby in the nursery, in the hospital nearest us now, born just now. That new baby is born innocent, born without crime, born good like an angel.

But that baby has not learned this world. So as that baby is exposed more and more to this world, that baby is going to have to be taught, educated in order for it to keep its good nature that G-d wants us to have. Same thing for the evolution or for the progress of groups or societies on the path toward the civilization, on the path toward the destiny that G-d wants for the human family. Not necessarily the civilization in the definition that we have seen civilization. When I use civilization doesn't mean that I am looking for civilization in the definition that we have civilization in the history books. No, we are looking for civilization in the definition that Allah, G-d Almighty wants for us. We have made great progress as an American society, we have made great progress toward that destiny, but America still has a little way to go before America satisfy that great destiny, that great picture or definition that G-d has given to us in the scriptures. But it is definitely ahead of most nations. The United States of America on that road is definitely ahead of most nations. And if I thought you could stand it, I'd say all nations.

I just said it. And maybe it's because we're here. That'll help it a little bit, won't it? When we study, I have to say sciences because that's what it is. When we study the sciences of scripture, scriptural sciences, scripture has stories, scripture has songs, hymns or whatever. Scripture also has science, science and sciences. When we study the scriptural sciences, we find that the scriptural sciences are saying to us about this original nature that should be the nature of the society for the many, it's saying that man is created by G-d and that includes woman too. Man is created by G-d, to be able to sense what he should give support to when it comes to what kind of home, political home or whatever he is to live in. What kind rule he's to come under. G-d has created him with a soul, with a monitor that senses when something is good for him, or if it is bad for him. Now we lie, we don't always give the true report that that monitor has given us. We lie sometimes, oftentimes we lie. But if we are truthful to that monitor, we can use just the voice of our own souls to protect us against a wrong direction that a leader want to lead us in. So, man's history or I would say secular world knowledge and also scripture tells us that G-d has given us a sense within ourselves that respects Mother nature and also the nature as G-d created it. Mother nature or I should say, or the nature as G-d created it. Men of insight who wanted to lead their societies or their groups to establishment, to strong establishment as a public order or a body of people. They have had to come to that insight and respect what the nature G-d made says should be the order of society. And when they have come up with their understanding, they have been inspired, they've become courageous and they easily defeated those who were not inspired or who were not enlightened, who were not turned on to that kind of understanding. They easily defeated them because that spirit in them was a stronger motivation in them than was the motivation in those that oppose. They have had to come to that insight and respect what the nature G-d made says should be the order of society.

And when they have come up with their understanding, they have been inspired, they've become courageous and they easily defeated those who were not inspired or who were not enlightened, who were not turned on to that kind of understanding. They easily defeated them because that spirit in them was a stronger motivation in them than was the motivation in those that opposed them. So, if they fired up their citizens, they fired up the subjects or the population, the publics, they fired them up with a new faith that we are organizing, we are banding together based upon our common reality, based upon our common identity, based upon our common need, our common aspirations, we are banding together. So those who band the people together or call the people to unity under that kind of voice and with that kind of insight and direction, they were stronger and their people were stronger. So as a result, that call has lived while other calls have died. When we look at the word political, political. Political goes back to a word that has to do with conversation, people talking to each other. The word Poly, meaning to meet together, to discuss things or to talk, Polly, The word Parliamentary in government or in politics. Parliamentary for the old world, for England. Parliamentary. And for the Caribbeans, for many places. The word parliamentary comes from this same word meaning to speak or to talk. It's interesting to me that scripture says that man has been formed, inspired and formed by word, G-d's word, the word, by word. And now we find that the language that we trace back to the word, the spoken word is used in Parliament and government and used in politics to connect us with great meanings, with great concepts that we have to have in modern civilization. It's interesting to me that this word has evolved so far and so high and have become so important even for government, the word. Because Poly, Parliamentary, politics, all can be traced back to just word. Word that you speak, the word. Now, also when we look at the term public, public, and poll. We go to the polls to vote, right? These come from people, meaning people, people, individuals getting together. They form a body. The body is called the people, right? The people. So here we have word and people, word and people.

And believe me, what accounts for our progress more than anything else is the relationship that we have had with words. And G-d says to the angels when He was trying to convince them that My man is not going to be a disappointment that I'm making, He said to them, "Tell me your names." And the angels couldn't do it. They had charge over matters outside themselves, but they didn't even know themselves. So, G-d said, "Tell me your names if you know." And they said, "Oh, we know we do not know. We know only what you have taught us or given us." That's what the angels replied. Then He told the man that He was making, He said, "Adam, tell them their names." And he told them. He told them their names. And when he told them their names, they all bowed down and they made prostration except one among them, Iblis, the Satan. Satan, Iblis who became the devil with his rebellion. With his rebellion, he became the devil. Now I'm saying these things as food for thought along the road just as food for thought to help you see the picture and appreciate the texts or the subject today.

So, I think I may say now and feel comfortable saying this, that everybody will agree with me, that the first bonding that brings us together is the bonding that our own nature gives us. Our nature gives us that bonding. G-d made us in the nature to want to be bonded to each other, to have the strength of the many so we can meet the forces outside and later also the forces inside. Because later the world, because we progress along the road of civilization, that means sciences, et cetera. Because we progress, we get bigger challenges. Brother Chairman, he mentioned in his comments before I came on that we are having today a beautiful situation here in touch with nature, the trees and everything. Well, when Adam was put in the garden, everything was cool, right? Everything was mellow. But when the seducer opened his eyes to the possibilities for a new environment, trouble came. Right? Now the story is told to us in Islam like this-Says that G-d wanted to show the Arch angel, Gabriel, he's called Jibreel in our scripture. He wanted to show the Arch angel His creation that He was making to put man in before He even made it. So, He showed it to Jibreel. And Jibreel saw it. And when Jibreel saw it, Jibreel said this. He said, "My Lord, how can anyone go wrong in a world like that?" And then G-d changed that. He removed that screen from Jibreel and He brought another screen up and He cast another scene on that screen. He showed him another one. He said, "This is it after Satan has influenced it." And when Jibreel saw it, Jibreel said "My Lord, how can anyone go straight in a world like that?" Peace and blessings be Upon the Prophet. That is to tell us that when we stay in touch with the original nature, and again the secular scientist supports this. Margaret Mead, the student and professor of the social development of primitive societies.

She used as a case reference a people called the Tasadin, I believe. But if that name is not correct, just charge it to my own failure to remember the right name. But she did use a primitive group as a case study. She used the pygmies, I'm pretty sure it was the pygmies, a group of the pygmy. And she said that they had no violence among themselves. They didn't know violence among themselves. They didn't know betrayal, they didn't know deceiving each other and being crooked to each other. They didn't even know that. So that was proof. Now we talking about just 30 years ago maybe when she discovered, when she wrote about this. We are talking about in our own time in America there could be a group or she found a group that was innocent in its human nature. So innocent, they didn't have any need for criminal law, criminal law or anything. They had no need for it. Isn't that wonderful? That's wonderful. So, if you can find any group of human beings that are not hurtful to each other, that won't deceive each other, that's a proof that G-d has made it possible for all of us to be that way.

Because they don't have any more nature than we have. They have the same human nature we have or we have the same human nature that G-d gave them. So, we accept then that G-d gave us the makeup, the human makeup, the nature we need to bring about the unity and the bonding for us that we need in order to establish ourselves as a group or as a society.

And that G-d Himself have made us a monitor inside that tells us when life is bad and when its good, that when it is burdening or torturing the soul and when its not. G-d has given us a monitor that tells us that. And G-d has given us an aspiration, a spirit, a hunger, a desire for more, for M-O-R-E, A desire for more. G-d has given us in ourselves a hunger or a desire for more. That we not satisfied with what we got. G-d say, get more. That's G-d saying that. Anytime your nature say I should be more important than I am, I should be of more value to myself. I should be of more value to my home, to my family. I should be of more value to my neighborhood. When that voice is saying that to you, I should be of more value to my town. When that voice is saying that to you, you respect it, you embrace it because that's G-d's message to you through your own being telling you that He didn't create you to be as small as you still are. So, it is G-d that tells us that we shouldn't be around here naked while other people are clothed, and our neighborhoods shouldn't be naked while other neighborhoods are wearing fine clothes. You know what I'm talking about? I think you do because you know my language now.

Yeah. A naked neighborhood, you know what it looks like, looks like an insult, an offense to the eye. So, G-d want us to have clothed bodies and clothed neighborhoods. So, we don't want to be walking around here naked or living naked. We want to be clothed. To be clothed, we have to be responsible for property. For property. It is a demand in your soul that G-d made that you not only have your own self, but you also have in your responsibility property. Property. That's why the Constitution, I would say the introduction to the Constitution of these United States recognizes the right of every individual citizen to have property, to own property. It recognizes the right as not as a right that the government gives us, but as a right that G-d the Creator gives us. We hold these to be truth. That all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights that you can't take away from them because it's their nature to have it. With certain inalienable rights among these life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If you study that language, pursuit of happiness in the document of the Constitution, go to a school that teaches the Constitution or constitutionality or whatever, go to the school, they will tell you that that expression, the pursuit of happiness means that every citizen is entitled by his own nature, the fact of his own group being or creation to have property and own property.

It is saying that a man or human being can't be happy without property. That's what it's saying, that G-d has put it in your nature to have property and you can't be happy in your soul without property. Now I understand why so many blacks are sad in the land of plenty. So, G-d has put a direction in our nature too. G-d has put a sense of direction in our nature. G-d has given us a sense of being, a sense of what we should be. And G-d has given us a sense of direction that we should not stay here with little or naked. We should go forward and be clothed. Isn't that wonderful? Wonderful G-d. Now we hear this talk about empowerment, empowerment, economic empowerment. And that is the, I would say, the message now coming from our aggressive leaders. That we should have economic empowerment, economic empowerment. Well, when we look at where G-d puts us, when He makes us, what He leaves us with and what He gives us naturally, if we look at that and then question whether we have that now or not, I think if we have a lot of us, if the majority among us, we are not where G-d put us when He made us, we are not in the humanity. We are not in that original picture, in that original design of us that G-d made for us when He put us on this earth. I think we should not go to economic empowerment before we address the need for us to come into our true identity as created beings by G-d. So that's why it have taken us 20 years. I've been preaching now for 20 years without the National secretary or the Supreme captain spying on what I do. Yeah, I don't think they're spying on me anymore. I've preached, what I'm saying that I've been freed to preach without hinderance for now 20 years or more.

And what we have accomplished is getting us to fill in our inside life, in this life within us to fill its needs, and to feel what it wants of us and what it wants in its relationship with G-d. We've been working to get the inside life to feel that and to want that. And I'm happy to say that I think the majority of you in the association with my leadership, the great majority of you, you are now in a secured position regarding your internal state internally. The life within is secure. Now you have to get the circumstances outside that will dress you up and dress our community up, our public up. We have to dress our public. We have to dress ourselves and dress our public. And to do that, well they say economic empowerment. I'm going to say I'm talking about the same thing, but I like to use just a plain old word, economic establishment. We want to establish ourselves economically. The destiny of the group, the destiny of the group in the road to civilization or to establish society. It includes material establishment, material establishment. Now, when G-d selects a people for the destiny, please listen to me very attentively. When G-d selects a people for the destiny that He wants for all people, when He selects a people for the destiny, G-d does for them what has to be done. And sometimes what He does for them hurts them, but He does for them what has to be done. Now I'm going to give you a story from the Bible and the Qur'an as a picture supporting what I'm saying to you right now. The story of Jonah. Jonah was a man that G-d had communicated to. And He had communicated to this man that he should go from where he was to another place called Nineveh. But Jonah got distracted. Something came up and took his mind off of what he had, his message and direction he had gotten from G-d. So, before he knew anything, he was on a boat out at sea and couldn't see anything. He was down in the hull of the boat, sleeping beside the cargo, sleeping beside the cargo. The cargo mean the goods, the material goods. He was down in the boat, sleep in the hull of the boat, sleeping up against the material goods, the cargo.

And G-d didn't want him to stay there. G-d wanted him to get on where he's supposed to go. So, the storm came up, it started to rage on the high sea and the boat got in trouble When the boat got in trouble, they had a whole lot superstitious people on the boat. They're saying, "Why is this boat in trouble like this?" Say, "We have a man on here, Jonah." Say, "He's down there sleeping in the hull of the boat." So, they believe that that trouble on the sea came because of him being there sleeping. Sleeping. These men on the boat, they carrying material goods, they got their mind on business, they business people. They got a shipment of material goods to deliver to its port. And here's somebody sleeping down there up against the material thing. Are you hearing me? Well, let me hear Amen out there. All right. Okay, so they said, "The trouble must be him." As a businessman. I would say so too. So, they get him up out of the hull of that boat. They brought him up and they didn't ask him any questions. They just threw him overboard out there in the raging sea. And you know G-d had to do it. Here comes a big fish called a whale nowadays. In the Bible just says a big fish. Here comes a big fish. We might say a whale. And it swallows Jonah up because that's how, that was his diet. His diet was eating things smaller than it. So, it swallows Jonah up. But Jonah, Jonah got the seed of G-d's message or direction in him, and the fish didn't like the taste of it. So, the fish couldn't stomach Jonah. So, the fish went to the shore and puked Jonah up on the sand. It puked him out there on the sand. The fish say even you don't taste good to me. You got that seed in you and you sleeping in my belly.

I imagine he was still sleeping in the belly too, of the whale. So, he pukes him up out at sea. Now listen. We believe as followers of the scripture, the Bible and Qur'an, we believe that G-d did that. All right. If you believe that G-d will take a person or a man that He loves and want to put in a good situation, that He'll take him and put him in a worse situation than he was in. You believe that. If you believe that story, you believe that. Because Jonah was in a better situation when he was on that boat sleeping in the hull, resting up against the cargo or the material thing. He was in a better situation then than he was when G-d put him into that raging water and let a big huge fish swallow him up.

Now, if you believe that then, you believe that G-d will take Jonah from his town and put him on a ship and bring him into a storm, put him in a bad, worse situation than he was in, than he was when he was in his town, and then throw him off the boat into a sea of uncertainty and have a fish swallow him up in his belly and he'd be in there. I don't want to be in no fish belly. And put him in that circumstance. You believe that G-d would take a man from better circumstances to worse circumstances, and into worse circumstances. And according to the quote of Qur'an, the Bible doesn't say this, not clearly, but the Qur'an makes it very clear to us that the third situation was too painful.

He wasn't in the belly of the fish anymore. He was cast out on the seashore, but there was no food for him out there. There was nothing for him to live on out there. And Allah says to us, G-d, that is, said to us in the Holy Qur'an He caused the gourd plant to grow up on the dessert, on the sand and it grew up on his body, the plant. It was a vine plant and it wound up on his body, grew up on his body and the leaves above his head gave him shade against the hot sun. So, he had been cast out on the seashore and the sun was very severe and torturous and he had no water for his thirst. He had no food to eat. And G-d shaded him to give him a little relief in that bad situation. So I repeat, if you and my audience, if you and our audience, if you can agree with that story, that G-d takes a man that He wants to go to a certain point or a certain destiny and puts him in worse circumstances, and then again in the worst circumstances, and again and even worse circumstances, that G-d's way is to do that, to get the person where G-d wants that person to eventually go, then you must agree with me. And I believe it so strong that I would stand up against the whole world.

If all the trees would start speaking now and tell me I'm wrong, I would argue with these damn trees until they conform to what I'm saying. But I don't think that's going to happen. Do you? If you do go to sleep, please. No, the trees are not going to start arguing with me. Now, here is my message to you, but not only to you now, because we as a group, our situation is no different than it is for many other ethnic groups in this world and some of them right here in America. I say to you as groups needing to go to your destiny, I say to you that G-d put you in Africa originally and G-d put you in America on the plantations. G-d put you on the plantations and G-d brought you to the north, to these northern cities. You who came up here, alright? And G-d puts some of you in Churches and some of you in Temples, G-d did that. And G-d now has put us out of the Temple into the Mosque. G-d did that. And G-d has set us now on the destiny. You who are with me, G-d has now set you on the destiny.

All the trouble is behind us. The town that made us forget our purpose, Africa, it's behind us now. The ship that was hit by the storm, the plantation life, its behind us now. Oh yes. Oh yes. The fish that swallowed us up, I won't name it, is behind us now. Oh yeah. That big fish, that big fish that swallowed us up is behind us now. Huh? Okay. That sand out there that WD Fard put us on, its behind us now. Okay? Yeah. He put us on there. And the Honorable Elijah Muhammad before he passed, he said we got a three day journey.

Isn't that what he said? He didn't say it with those words. Here's how he said it. He described a thing that was going to happen that was like three stage rockets, that would take us from first stage to the second and in the third and home. That's what he was describing in his talks on the Theology of time, et cetera. Yes. Now he put it in his language, but how did Jonah say it? Jonah was out there on that dessert in that bad situation, he said, "I got a three day journey." And when the son of Elijah Muhammad stood up, what did he tell you? Three stage development. Right? Alright. Okay, so now the bare sands out there and with no food and no drink, it's gone. You can't drink sea water. It'll make you spit up. Got too much salt in it. And that's what Fard gave us. Sea water. Too much sea water. Can't drink a lot of that water. You spit up. Some of you all keep drinking. I keep seeing you spit up. Yeah, you're spitting up. In fact, I put a little poem together on you. I call it the frog resting on the log.

Yeah, I might share it with you one day. He either too wet or too dry. He can't speak because he got too much water in his mouth. And he never chews anything. He just swallows. Yeah. I'm going to tell you about him sometime.

Alright, all of that is behind us now and here we are united with humanity for the first time. We are not separatists. We are not saying we are Africans and don't recognize the rest of G-d's family. We are united with humanity now and we are united under the banner of Al Islam with a community of people that number 1 billion plus, 1 billion plus. And they have in their natural resources the greater percentage of the oil reserves for the whole world. So, they ain't in a bad shape dollar wise. Dollar wise, they're not in a bad shape. And some of them are our friends. They haven't treated their brother Joseph as they should treat him, but I'm still calling them our friend. So here we are. Here we are, and I'm telling you that G-d has done this. So, if G-d did that to us, have faith in the future. Believe that G-d is still with us. Believe that G-d is still with your leaders. I'm not a Prophet. You don't have to be a Prophet. G-d is going to be with man and woman and people and children and people forever. All you have to do is deserve His help. And I do believe I deserve His help. And I do believe many of you with me deserve His help. And His help is going to stay on us as long as we deserve His help. And His help is to help us into establishment. Not part establishment or partial life, piecemeal. No! The whole thing.

G-d is going to make us strong, economically strong in education. Our schools are going to become healthy and strong and model schools. Our Masjids are going to give the best dawah. Oh yes, the best dawah. And our home environment is going to be good, sound, stable, healthy and progressive. Supported by Muslim businesses, supported by Muslim neighborhood businesses, by Muslim neighborhood transportation, trade and investment overseas and at home. And at home. Yes, we are going to thrive and become G-d's proof that He can take a man up from nothing and make him a model in the eyes of the world. That's what G-d wants to do. Those trials, those setbacks, Africa, the voyage across the sea, the plantation experience, all of that has set us back to zero in terms of where we should be in our humanity as a destiny for our people or for society.

Set us back to zero. G-d wants to show His power again through us, so that the world will look at G-d again and say, G-d, what a wonderful thing you did with these people. Don't you know G-d is always planning a wonderful work. He took people up in the past and He brought them up from nothing. They were not seen or recognized. The societies all around them laughed at that. If they start having a spirit to do something for themselves, the society laughed. "Oh, can any good thing come out of them?" Nothing is coming out of that. And that's what they've been doing to us. Laughing at us. "Oh, let the niggas struggle.

Let the blackie struggle. Let those, don't worry about them." Now they have more respect. "Oh, the African-Americans, don't take them seriously, don't take them seriously. Let's keep our plan as it is. Don't take them seriously." Yes, G-d wants to show His way, His power, His way, His will, His spirit. G-d wants to show it and He has chosen us this time. If you were G-d, if you were G-d and you saw the state of the world, you saw Asia, with their great achievements, and you saw the Turks and all the other nations with their great achievements. In India, all around with their great achievements. And you saw all of this coming together. And then you see Africa, Africa in this state, and then you see the pure Africa laughed at. They laughed at us before they brought us here. Don't you know that? Yes, they did. They laughed at us when they called that continent, that landmass Africa. They laughed at us. You know what Africa means? Overly sex charged. The word aphrodisiac comes from Africa.

Africa comes from a mythological female deity, a G-d in myth, false G-d. Her name is Afra Desais, Afra Desais. You can look it up in mythology. The mythology of the Greeks, it's a Greek name. It came from Greek, Greece and it's put on that whole landmass. And they separated the peninsula of Saudi Arabia from Africa under the ancient Kush. It was all together. The Kushites ruled all that, including Saudi Arabia. They ruled all of that. Great civilization existed way back in time called Kush. They ruled all of that, including Saudi Arabia. Queen Sheba. She came from what is called Yemen in Saudi Arabia, bordering Saudi Arabia. They're not together. They're another, they're two separate states, but they're all in the same peninsula. Yemen, they all belong to the same. And if you look at Africa, only a little strip of water separates Africa from Saudi Arabia. Only a little strip of water.

You can throw a stone. At one point, you can throw a stone out of Africa into Saudi Arabia with your own hand. You can do it. It's connected in one little place. They looked at it. They looked at it and remapped the whole world. When they were remapping the whole world, they separated Saudi Arabia, that peninsula from Africa because wasn't just, if they did it on the basis of political separation, that doesn't mean anything because the continent itself, the whole landmass of Africa was under different political bodies, under different political establishment. And they separated the whole continent of Africa up like that. They said Nigeria, Sierra Leone, all these places. They did that. The colonial powers did this. The Africans didn't do that. They renamed and remapped the whole world almost. Yes. So, when you look at it, you will see, and the science of continental, continental, continental order and how continents separated originally, there's a science for it. They have looked at Saudi Arabia and Africa and they concluded that Saudi Arabia belongs to Africa. That's their conclusion, not me only. That's their conclusion, that Saudi Arabia belongs to Africa. I have been in Saudi Arabia celebrating the national holiday of Saudi Arabia, their national day.

I was told by one of the government people who was sitting by me as we were witnessing the celebration, the national celebration, he said, "You recognize the music?" I said, yes, I do. I said, it sounds African. He said, "Yes, it is African." That's what he told me. He would further tell me that the influence on their music was African. And know what I told him? I said, well, that's understandable. You are just a short swim away from Africa. But the adversary, I give him a general name. The adversary is trying hard to keep us out of Islam because Islam is a way, a connection again, with the great majority of Africans. Over 50% of them are Muslims. And if we become connected with that great mass of Muslims again in Africa, they fear the future for them, with us and our big numbers in America. Now, I try to tell them, don't fear. They have no need to fear. G-d has constituted us for friendship with good Christians, with good Americans, all good Christians and all good Americans. And that kind of friendship will never be put down by me or by those who are with me. We will never disregard that friendship with Christian Americans. All good Christian Americans, Baptist, Catholic. We don't look at denomination. We'll all get good Christian Americans. That bond will never, friendship bond will never be disregarded by me. It will always be taken very seriously. It'll be a sacred concern with me, and I believe it'll stay that way with you when I'm gone. So, they don't have to fear really. We are here to give our allegiance to that good life, to become their allies on the path to the destiny that G-d want all of us on or all of us in, pardon me. We are their ally. We are their happy ally. We are happy to know what G-d wants for man. We are just celebrating and we want to be the ally to complete the road, the travel in the road to the great destiny that G-d wants for all of us. So, they don't have the fear that we will get power and we will start thinking about how we were treated in 1920 or in 1820.

And start some trouble or be motivated by hate or something. That's impossible for me and impossible for you who have come into this mind that I'm in. It's impossible for you to go back and let that poison come into your system and take you off this course that we are on. It's impossible for you. So, they don't have anything to fear. And let me tell you something. Mr. Fard himself told me, no superstition, no dream, no vision. Mr. Fard himself, no revelation. Mr. Fard himself told me that he was questioned by the FBI. Say, "What have you done to these people? You made a lot of trouble." He said, "Barking dogs don't bite." And I'm the witness that we sure haven't bitten the white man too much, but we'll sure shoot each other up. But we going to get out of that. All that's going to change. I can see Farrakhan right now. His head is heavy. Yeah, he looks like the old picture of the thinker. His head is heavy and he's trying to figure out a way to work himself right into unity with what I'm doing without losing too much respect. He might figure it out. And even if he don't, I'm going to take some youth serum. I hope to outlive him or at least outlive his mind.

The Qur'an was put into our midst by the hand of WF Muhammad or WD Fard. It was put into our hands. And because the Qur'an was put into our midst, we are now on this path. And I say to you, I have given you the story of Jonah to show you that just like Jonah was directed by G-d, pushed by G-d, even put in bad situations by G-d, so has G-d been working with us. And we will eventually go to the destiny. G-d is with us. His hand is on us. He will never withdraw from us. We'll have to withdraw from Him. Thank you and Peace be upon you, and don't worry about materialism. Just keep your whole nature as G-d created it. Keep your humanity and keep in Al Islam. Your religion is your protection. So, we pray to G-d for guide always, and when we slip or make errors or go wrong or do sins, we pray to Him that He will accept our repentance and grant us mercy and guide us again. Ameen. As Salaam Alaikum.



