08/03/1996
IWDM Study Library
Plan for Making Life Better

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Speaker 1: The following lecture by Imam W Deen Muhammad, Muslim American spokesman for Human Salvation, was recorded at Tolleston Park in Gary, Indiana, August 3rd, 1996. His topic, A plan for making life better in Gary, Indiana, a partnership with Muslims and Christians supporting decency and working together for the good of the community.
Now, Imam Mohammed.
IWDM: As-Salaamu-Alaikum.
Audience: Wa-Alaikum-as-Salaam.
IWDM: Praise be to Allah that is peace be on you. We praise the one G-d of us all. The G-d who created everything and made everything possible for His creation, everything in it, including man. We salute the last prophet in Al-Islam, Muhammad, who received the Qur’an, the last of the revealed books, from G-d. A little bit more than 1,400 years ago in that part of the world that is now called Saudi Arabia. On that peninsula in the city of Mecca, the venerated city, the sacred city. Visited by pilgrims who make a Hajj yearly to that city.
We know the city of the Prophet later became the city about 200 or so miles away from Mecca on that peninsula of Arabia. The City by the name Medina. We know a little something about the story of our prophet as a citizen of those two cities. But I would like to, before going into my presentation. I would like to share with this audience a little bit of that history. That I think will have a bearing on what we are going to say in this beautiful situation out here on the G-d's sky today in Gary.
We must understand that Muhammad, the leader, the prophet, the last prophet, the seal of the Prophets. The leader for all Muslims all over the world, the one billion of us or more. That this human being, and that's what he's called by G-d in the Holy book of the Muslims. "The human being", this human being was not formally educated. He was not like some of the prophets who belong to a kind of traditional study situation or traditional school situation. He was not one blessed to be in a situation like that. He was a common man with mother wit who had not gone to any institution or to any teachers or tutors or for knowledge or education. He was unfamiliar with scripture. He was not familiar with the Bible or the Old testament. He was not familiar with the New Testament. He was not familiar with scripture. He was a man engaging in business, known to be trustworthy by the citizens of his country. And they trusted him so much that they used him as a bank in that primitive time in primitive society. I mean primitive in the sense of industry, commerce, banking et cetera.
That primitive environment used him as a bank. When they would leave their homes or leave their town, they would take their treasures or their wealth to him and ask him to keep their treasures or their wealth until they returned from their long journey or from their trip. He was called to Al-Amin, the trustworthy one. Why do I think this story has bearing on the topic?
He was also from the commercial town, Mecca. When we look at Mecca and at Medina, the town that he went from and later became a resident of that town, that city. When we look at these two cities or these two towns, we see Mecca having more of a business or commercial characteristic. And Medina not having such a characteristic, having more of a human environment atmosphere and a strong social atmosphere. It was the Meccans, he himself was born in Mecca. He was a Meccan. Muhammad himself was a Meccan first, a citizen of Mecca.
The Prophet, peace and blessing be upon him, he was persecuted by his own hometown. Mecca persecuted him, Mecca rejected him. Medina opened its arms to him. And because of envoy coming, a group of men coming to invite him to Medina from that city of Medina. The prophet accepted the invitation and later became a citizen of Medina. And the city of Medina is now called the City of the prophet, not Mecca. The city of Medina is called The City of the prophet. It is also called the City of the Enlightenment because that is where he established the community of Muslims. And that is where the bright light of Al-Islam and the Muslim order, or the Muslim society, lit the sky and spread from there all over the world now, all over the world. But first to Europe, to enlighten Europe, and reawaken in Europe intellectual endeavors or scientific studies and works. All started because of this man.
Remember now, the point is, two points I'm making. One is that he was not formally educated but the most excellent person in his human makeup up. And two, the second point I'm making is that he was a businessman. But when he received a message to inspire the humanity of his fellow citizens, they rejected him. And they were a commercial people, more so than the people of Medina.
In fact, the commercial port right now, Jedda is near Mecca, is situated at Mecca, very close to Mecca. The commercial port for that area. Yes. The prophet's life is an example to us and to the people of the world, not just to us, but to all people. His life is an example and also a message for all people of the world.
G-d calls him in the last scripture, the scripture given to Prophet Muhammad. We call the Holy Quran, properly Qur’an. That book, G-d says of him that he is a mercy to all the worlds. These things have to be studied. You know language has to be studied. It has to be studied, and we have to have our mind in a situation to understand how to apply what we are reading. How to relate it, what are we going to relate it to, how to apply it, what we associate this with. Our mind has to be in a certain situation.
I think if we see the prophet as a liberator, not only of individuals, or of tribes, or groups of people, but a liberator of city life, a liberator of community life, we will see the prophet in the way that we should see him. G-d sent him as a liberator to liberate city life, to liberate community life. When I say city, I say it for the word of a word that could cover everything. We don't have a word that could cover everything other than city, but not just city.
If we live in any situation together and we have living space on this ground, on this earth that G-d made. We have homes together, we have a need to cooperate with each other because we are situated as residents of each other. Then we represent the kind of community gathering that the prophet was sent to liberate.
I don't think we need to be liberated so much as individuals because we find among us many now liberated individuals. I find many Muslims that believe they are liberated. I can tell by the way they live and the way they express themselves, they are liberated.
Many liberated Muslims, and also, we can find many liberated African-American Christians or many liberated Christians in Gary, and in Chicago and all over, we find liberated individuals. But when we look at communities like the communities we are associated with, those communities are not liberated.
Now, what do I mean by that, a community is not liberated. A community should have enough dignity for itself as a community to not feel that it is oppressed, or that it is rejected, or that it is treated unfairly by the system or by the government.
Most of you here, you feel that as a community, we don't have the dignity that majority of the other communities of people, ethnic groups or racial groups, have in America. And you're right. And this is depressing. It's depressing to go through a Chinese community and see a great Chinese business presence. And to see Chinese running powerful institutions in their neighborhood. And to go through other neighborhoods, the Polish neighborhoods, the Irish, et cetera. And see them in control of the power and the situation there. And to see a strong business presence there. And then go through our neighborhoods and can't find that.
We see other people with a strong business presence. We see other people in control, and we are just having power as employees of the system. That's a situation that has been addressed by our liberators since we came to these cities from the plantations. That's been the situation they have had to address. We have had many of them who have tried hard to change that situation for us. Marcus Garvey from Jamaica, and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. They are perhaps the two most noticeable of those people that have done that, of such persons that have tried to liberate us from that community situation.
Now, we are living in a time of too much freedom in certain respects. People have too much freedom. They have so much freedom that their freedom is hurting them. Still, we don't have this liberation of the community. There is not the liberation of the community. We want the liberation of the community. I want to remind you again that I perceive and feel most certain that our Prophet Muhammad, upon him be the prayers and the peace. That he's given to us by G-d as a model, as a guide, as a leader, as a liberator to guide us to the liberation of our community life. With that, I want to continue with this presentation.
This meeting here is a result of my asking for it. This is my personal interest here. I asked for this meeting. And people supported me and made it possible for us to have it. I asked for this meeting. I asked for this meeting, not just for Muslims. You may think my language is directed to just Muslims, but it's not. I asked for this meeting for the city of Gary. In hopes that we can have a better situation for the citizens of Gary with Muslims accepted and being involved. So, that we could maybe target Gary, among a few other cities. To make it an example of the open opportunity that's here for us. If we would just accept it, walk into it. The open opportunity for African Americans or any other people in our situation to come out of that bad situation and establish or liberate their community, that's the purpose.
We are looking at a few other cities. And I think we should look at every city where we are in great numbers. And we are, I would say, the main reason for the city having difficulties. Why do I say we're the main reason? If we were more productive as a community, business would be coming here. It wouldn't have left here. Business would be coming to Gary. It wouldn't have left here. I say the same thing of Robins, Illinois. And the same thing of all the other small towns where African Americans have great numbers and, in many cases, they are the leaders, they are the mayors.
Now, I'm going to present a few pictures to you, and I want you to think about them. Because I believe that in the simple things that G-d has done is the great help that we need to do the great things that we should be doing. And G-d is the creator of this human body that we take for granted, this physical flesh and blood human body that we take for granted. Our Prophet Muhammad, prayers and peace be on him, he pointed to the human body to direct the Muslims to how they should work together in cooperation. He said, "We, the Muslims as a community, should be as the body. The members in the community should be to the body community as the members of the human body is to the human body."
All of these members, they work together for the good of the whole body. All of them will come together, if they can, to answer a need in any member. If the finger hurts, right away, your mind goes to the finger, your sympathy goes to your finger. This hand will go and help this finger, everything that can reach out of this body that could reach this hurt member will try to reach it and help it. Isn't that a beautiful picture of how we should be? He said, "In our cooperation, in our functions and in our cooperation for the good of the whole community, we should be as the members in the human body." Then he went on to give an explanation like I just gave you.
This human body then is a great gift from G-d to us. It is a favor of G-d to us. You'd be surprised to know that the people who are on top of the world and in charge of things, the people with the power, they are the people who are blessed to see the human body as a body with a great message, great message for the order of man. They have benefited so greatly. We, the ignorant and the poor, when I say ignorant, ignorant of what happens in the sky. We know what happens down here on the grass root level, but we don't know what happens in the sky. We are ignorant of what happens in the sky. We who are cut off from the happenings in the sky of man's world, we don't know these things so we can't benefit.
We are constantly at the mercy of the changes in the world. The changes that take place in the world, the changes that take place in the order of the city. The order of the city life, trends, fads, how we dress, how we live, what we eat, what we are turned on to, the kind of entertainment we prefer, the mood in the entertainment. We are turned on to all these things. These changes are what keep us going or stop us from going. We are not in charge of our own life. We don't have a vision. We don't have a direction for our own life as a community. We don't have a vision for our own life as a community. Because of that, others are thriving while we are failing. It shouldn't be that way because G-d is a generous G-d, and G-d is a G-d who loves all of us equally.
In this human body, we are aware, we should be aware that all the members in this body are tied into one system of feeling. Our feelings in this body serves to support all the members in our body. Now, when we look at our community, it's different. We are not like this human body. Some's feelings are turned toward this thing or this person, other's feelings are turned toward another thing or another person that put them in opposition or make them enemies of each other.
We should have our different feelings, but we should be tied into one feeling, into one feeling that will make it possible for us to carry out our community functions and to realize success as a community. We need to be tied into one feeling. The community feeling is the feeling we need to be tied into, but we need to be taught what should be the community feeling. We need to be educated to know what is our place, what is our reality in the community feelings, in the community feeling, F-E-E-L-I-N-G, in the community feeling. You say, “Oh, I got the feeling.” That's good, the holy ghost feeling, I hope I keep getting it too. I'm telling you, the holy ghost feeling, I think it only comes because G-d want us to be inspired or driven to the community feeling. He loves to see us a people caring about each other, cooperating with each other, sharing the burden of each other, and working for the good future for each other.
In this body, as we study it, we'll see a sign of not only the sentiments that a community should have or promote for the all the members, but also the industry too that we should have. This body is a sign of industry. The body drives us to get food, drink, to keep its supplied. It takes what we put in it, and it converts it into material to keep the body in good shape. That's industry.
As G-d inspired Muhammad the prophet to see, the members in this body are working and cooperating together as members in a society should be working and cooperating together. Wonderful it is. Look, G-d didn't put our vision back here, G-d didn't put our vision down here. He didn't put here in the industry. He didn't put the vision even in the industry. Here you have the heart. Oh, it's so wonderful. The human heart is so wonderful. It can bring you out of the grave. It is so wonderful. Out of the grave of death, the death of your humanity. A change of heart can bring you back to humanity again. But it's not even on top. Look what's on top, the head. The head.
The head is not necessarily better than the heart, but it is more useful for the good of the whole body than the heart. Why I said its most useful? Because even the heart has to send its messages to the brain. In our religion, great respect is shown to the human intellect, the human brain, the human intellect.
Our prophet, prayers and peace be upon him, he said, and it's recorded in the volumes by Buhari, who recorded the sayings of our prophet in a methodical way and in a scientific way. He did a scientific kind of compilation of the sayings or life happenings of our prophet. Peace be upon him. In these volumes, it is said that Muhammed the prophet, speaking of the intellect, the brain, the intelligence, the rational ability of human beings, he said, "G-d never created anything better than the human intellect." Now, I would like to see anybody challenge that.
What do we see in our system of life, in our Human order? What do we see that has rewarded us more than the human intellect? Nothing. The heart is there as its mate, as its assistant. The heart has a great place, I'm not saying that it's not. The heart has a great place, but it is the intellect that gave us shoes, by G-d's grace. Gave us shoes, clothes, suits, a hat, automobiles, tools to work with, industry, machinery, mechanization, modern technology, the modern technological world. All has come to us because of the great intellect that G-d created. All the heart in its existence can't do those things. It's only the intellect than can do those things.
Do we train the heart of human beings in these schools and universities? Or are we training the mind, the intellect of human beings? What I'm saying this for is to get us to come out of our overly sentimental, overly romantic moods of people who stay in an overly sentimental, and in an overly romantic mood, they can't hold up the great structures of the world. You can't hold up the structures of these cities and you're giving to such moods. You have to get into a rational groove and let your rational strength rule in your body of your emotions, and in the body of your sentiments, and in the body of your fantasies. Whether they're fantasies of romance or other types of fantasies. Let rational life rule in you, and let it get support from the moral life. Let it get support from the passionate life. The heart, from the passionate life. But never let it be subjected to the passionate life or to any other forms of life. Not even the moral life. Because when you subject your moral life to your rational life, you lose the strength and your reasoning to even know what is sound for moral life, to even know what is correct for moral life.
A stupid people can't rise to high morally. To rise high morally, you have to use the intellect, and the intellect enables you to rise ethically, ethically. That's the combination of moral substance and rational substance working to bring about ethical life. You can't do that without the rational life. And some of us we're goody goodies. We're beautiful goody goodies, but we don't have enough respect for the human intellect, we don't have enough respect for rational life. We don't have enough respect to seek rational strength to know where we should go with our whole life, the family life, the community life.
And I don't think any of these great religions intended for the people to be in such moods. These religions were not given to us to make us milk sobs, to make us soft tomatoes, to make us swamps. No, these religions were given to us to firm us up. Isn't that what all these religions say to us? Firm up. So, we're living together. That's one thing that's true. We're living together.
Gary has African Americans living together. Chicago has African Americans living together in great numbers. So, we're living together, and again, we're not living together. We're living together in the terms of our physical nearness to each other. To really live together means to live for the good of the whole. That's really living together. When you live for the good of the whole.
A man and a woman, when they live for the good of each other, they're living together. They may be sleeping in the same room, in the same bed, they may be sleeping on top of each other taking turns. But that doesn't mean that they're living together. If they're living for each other, then they're living together. That's why when you're married, what they say is you have to accept that you're one, one. You become one. What does it mean? That now you're not supposed to have any two worlds, his world and your world. You're supposed to have one world. You're supposed to be working to keep and preserve or keep and advance that one world. Your lives should become one. Your hope should be united in one hope. Your future should be united in one aim that you both have. Two separate aims but they should unite in one aim or in one future.
This is the way the community should be. As members of the community, we should have leaders with a vision, the insight and the vision to show us how we are to find focus, to find the scene. The scenery or the scene for that unity. That one aim. That one hope. That one future. We want to live to serve our present needs, to protect the best of our past, preserve it and keep it with us. And to take us on into the future that will constantly improve. We don't want to have any stagnant idea of what the future is or what the future should be. We want to have a dynamic idea of what the future should be. We want a future that will be constantly growing, constantly improving, constantly showing a community progressing and becoming more enriched.
This is not just talk. This is the life I live. It is very important if we're to be successful and really realize good life as a community. And again, remember I'm not only talking about Muslim community. I'm talking about the community of Gary, Indiana right now. If we're are to be successful and realize what we want as a community. We have to have something that the wise had long before modern times. Long before there were ever a people calling themselves Muslims and preaching the religion Al-Islam on this Earth. Long before that as we know it. Long before that, long before Muhammad was born. Peace and blessings be upon him. People had these ideas.
As a student of scripture, I'm convinced that long before the New Testament and long before the Old Testament also, there were people, societies, communities, towns having this interest that we are about to share with you here.
We have to be aware as a farmer has to be aware. Scripture gives us the farmer too. So, that we can look at the farmer and get a lesson from the farmer who farms the land. We have to be aware as a farmer has to be aware. In order for a farmer to be successful as a farmer, he has to be aware of the possibilities for the land that he settles on. He has to be aware of the possibilities for the land he settles on. He doesn't want to settle on land that has a lot of boulders in it, big rocks, a lot of trouble, a lot of big trees and tree roots, a lot of big tree roots. That's too much work, that's too hard. He doesn't want to settle on a land that's starving for nutrients. He wants a land that has nutrients so it can supply the plant, the seeds that he is planting there. He's looking for a rich land, he wants rich land. He wants rich land, and he wants land without a lot of trouble in it. Those big rocks and those big tree roots, all that's trouble in his land. He's looking for a nice, open field, and he wants the land to be healthy, to be supplied with the minerals necessary to bear the life and grow it as he wants it. He has to have water there. He looks and he wants to know, "What in it?" When he finds that situation, that is where he wants to settle, and that is where he wants to farm.
Now, if we could look for towns like that instead of just moving where the conditions or the changes in urban life puts us, if we could have leaders that will look for neighborhoods. Say, “African-Americans should be looking at this neighborhood.” Not to move in there because the rent is low, not to move in there because the houses are beautiful. Move in there because that land says to us the future is beautiful, the future is great. That's what we should have. We wonder how come some of these ethnic groups don't want us in their neighborhood. It's because it is because they had a vision, they had leaders among them with a vision. And they looked in Chicago and they picked that area of Chicago. They decided that is there, in that area of Chicago that they should invest in their future.
Now when we come in there, we are upsetting the situation. I don't blame them for getting this upset, now that I know what's happening. I don't blame them for getting upset. Now, it shouldn't be racism, it shouldn't have racism. Racism shouldn't be the reason. The hatred of another people because of their color or because of where they came from, that should have no bearing, that should not be the reason. But we planned this, we studied the area before we came here from Europe. We studied this area, we picked this area. If they had the courage to tell us, they're afraid that we might do the same thing. They don’t want to educate the fools because they want to use the fools as communities for exploit. Now that's a pity that people are like that but they are. Not the great majority, it doesn’t take the majority of Irish to have such design on another people that are weak. It only takes a few, powerful rich Irish to have such design on a people that are weak. And they can affect what they want to affect and bring about that situation.
I believe most humans are decent and loving. I do believe that. If you saw this late movie, Time to Kill. If you saw, if you didn't see it, you should see it. Because it tells us something about ourselves that we can be proud of. And it tells us something about all people that we could be proud of. That all people are basically human, that they are basically human. You just need to awaken that humanity in them and you’ll have a companion that you can talk to. Yes, the movie was great. I'll just make it short.
We have to stop condemning people and charging their behavior to racism. We have to stop that. That's not near all of the answer. A whole lot of other elements, a whole lot of other factors we have to look at in order to understand what makes a people behave toward us like they behave. The whites have to do the same thing. I think they're learning this too. They can't look at another people whether they're Asians or Africans or whatever. They can't look at another people and decide that it is because they're in that characteristic or in that racial makeup that they're presenting problems to them. No, that's just part of the reason. The real reason is always in rational truth, not charge word communication. It's in rational truth, that's where the real answers are.
That great perception that we need is, I think, told in many ways by the ancient. It was an attention on the sky that made them see the sky as a deity, as G-d, and called the sky heaven. That's what caused them to do that. G-d never revealed to anybody the sky is heaven. It was man that looked to the heavens, and when he saw something up there, an order up there, it revealed or imparted information to him or signals to him, that signaled understanding, and information, and guidance. And the result was that he felt that he became so much indebted to the sky order. That he said, “the sky order is the order of the gods.” And this was in most ancient religions. Whether you go to Africa or to Europe or to Asia or even to America and you search their religious experience. And you'll find that at one time in their religious experience, the history of their religious experience, they saw the sky as the order of the gods. Later, gods were down here too, but the gods down here and the study of this kind of mythology. The gods down here on Earth are always the minor gods. They are minor, lesser. The greater gods are in the heavens.
One mythology shows us the beginning of the origin of the gods as in heaven. And the gods were sent down from heaven to Earth. And the major gods created an order of the minor gods. One mythology presents that idea. Now, we're not talking about G-d. We know G-d is G-d. And religion was advanced by G-d's inspiration to man. Religion was advanced to bring man to realize that nothing in the order of creation, not even in the order of the sky that's creation too. All of this say nothing about creation is G-d, but the one behind it all that we can't see, that's the G-d and the only G-d. Now we have come to that most advanced, most mature, and most advanced idea of G-d that is the correct idea of G-d.
So, I'm not saying this to give a special value or any special importance to these old concepts or old notions of what G-d is or where G-d is. No, I'm saying this only to show that in man's interest, he has wrongly perceived objects, but because of him having a rational interest in the total environment, he has gained much wisdom that has helped him to get where we are now today. And our present world is owing much to many insights of the ancient. This one I am sharing with you today is one of them. It comes to us from the ancient, it comes to us in the Bible, now it comes to us in business, in the commercial world.
Insha'Allah, before I finish this presentation, you will understand this progression or see this progression.
So, the farmer, he's no small man. The commercial world was first supported by the farmer, not industry, not the steel mills, by the farmer. The farmer gave the world, not only food for the table, but it gave it the house it lived in. Yes. Also, the house we lived in, the farmer. And the farmer is also the land, those who manages the land. They also gave us transportation. They made the buggies for the horses to pull. All made from the land of a farmer, all tied into agriculture.
It wasn't until the invention of the machine, in what we call modern industry, that the world stopped being supported by agriculture or the farmer. And started to be supported by manufacturers, industry et cetera. This is told to us in religion.
The first man, Adam, where did we see him? On the land. And the story of him is his growth, because of his growth from the things that are produced out of the land, is that not so? Yes.
So, quickly we could see the other side or the supporting picture for the picture that I'm presenting to you, when we look at the beginning of man as Adam. And his family and the story of them how they survived from the things that were produced out of the earth. And how they became so strong and mighty as nations. Just by surviving and utilizing the things produced out of the earth. We ought to be sensitive to these things, we need to be told these stories again.
You know why most people aren't successful in these modern times? It is because modernization, mechanization, industrialization, commercializing life has taken us away from nature and the real things that G-d produced out of the Earth.
We need to know the sciences of those things again. We need to know the role of the natural world in man's life. How it has played a great role to bring man into industry and modernization. So, they found out that really, community life began when the leaders of the community start thinking like a farmer think. You have to think like a farmer think. Look for a good situation to begin your community.
You want it to be able to support your future, your present and your future plans. And then be aware that you shouldn't be only alert to what's now, but be alert as much as possible to what's coming.
The farmer plans to put his seeds in the ground in the spring at the right time. He plans to reap them before it's cold. Then he plans not to eat all he reaps. He wants to store some of it for the winter. He won’t to take his seeds from the fruit and from the plants that he got. He won't take those seeds and eat them up or feed them all to his cattle. He said, “I need some of these seeds to plan come next spring.”
The farmer, he's a man that's aware of the changes of time. He's aware of the seasons that the changes of time bring. He's aware of the obligations that the changes of seasons bring or places upon him. He's aware of those things. Any of our visionaries, any of our political leaders, any of our community leaders, if they would take on the mind, the mental disposition, the mental alertness of the typical good farmer, there's no way for us to have a bad stagnant community. We will have progressive dynamic communities. Oh, I'm I bringing you something? No. I only bring you this because G-d has moved me to say these things to you while and after I read scripture and studied the world. You just can't read scripture now. Read scripture and study the world and you can see the place of scripture in the world. And you can see the place of the world in scripture. But you have to study, be interested in both, the scripture and the world, in order to come to that kind of good situation for yourself and your people or your community.
The farmer, he doesn't want just to survive. He wants to progress. So, he plans both for survival, and he plans for progress. I may use another term in the place of progress, he plans for prosperity. He wants to be prosperous one day. He plans for prosperity. And that's what we should plan for, both survival and prosperity. This is no new wisdom. Ancient Wisdom.
To make it and get ahead, the farmers had to know, and for some concerns, they had to guess, speculate. They had to guess how much and what to prepare for. How much I should prepare for? And what I should prepare for? So, he's not just going to plant anything, he's going to select what he wants to grow. He's going to select it carefully, depending on what the future is going to ask for his people. I feel that my people need this in the future.
He plans for the present and also for the future. He selects carefully what he's going to produce or work with. The farmers were helped by what was called “signs in the sky.” I remember my grandfather, he was the son of a big farmer. He also was a farmer, but a small farmer. My grandfather, he would go out, and sometimes first thing he would do is look up to the sky. And he would tell us what he saw. "Well son, I think it's going to rain," Or he said, "Son, it's not going to rain."
He would even go out at night and he look up at the sky. He said, "Son, you see the way that moon is? You see the way that star is there?" He says, "It's not going to rain." Then sometimes he points the moon, "You see that star there, my son? You see the moon the way it's tilted there? It's going to rain." Whether these signs were full proof, but we don't know. I don't think they were so scientific that they didn't make mistakes, they didn't go wrong sometimes. But obviously, the farmers passed to parents, their fathers passed it on to their sons. Because they had seen that it was reliable more than it was not reliable.
Sometimes they missed, but it was more reliable than not reliable. So, they passed it on to their son. So, their sons would have that kind of information. And so that they could know what to expect from the environment that affects the farm situation. Yes.
We are told that men look at the skies for signs and also for direction. To help their situation as farmers or as producers who produce things from the ground or from the earth.
When they study those signs and the indicators and the seasons for planning, for working the ground, for collecting food in harvest time or in harvesting time. And for storing up the food planning for the winter and being ready when spraying comes to plant again. When they did that, they felt very comfortable. A farmer, when he had done all his homework, he could rest in winter and feel so comfortable. Winter was his recreation time. That's when he would sit and relax with the wife. He didn't have to go out and work hard. In the winter, he had a good situation.
The boss was realizing the good comforts of his labor, benefiting from the comforts of his labor. But when winter comes for us, we harden up like the ground.

And we can't produce a thing. What I mean by that, when winter comes in the season of the feelings or sentiments of our city or our nation. When winter comes and the government is cold toward us. And the white race is cold toward us. We sit in our winter homes and become hard like this snow and ice out there on streets. When we should be comfortable. Saying, “Look at how hard they are toward us now, but look at how comfortable we are in this season, in this winter season because of our labors. Because of our well thought out labors.
You see now I've left the world of concrete and I'm trying to enter now the world of abstracts. Terminology, from the concrete terminology to the abstract terminology.
All right. Scriptures forecast the coming of threatening developments with the power to the deform life, the life given to us from our creator. Threatening development that's coming with the power to deform life. That means change you from a human being that G-d made to being another creature, something foreign, something different from what G-d made you.
And they said that this would happen through the natural makeup, through the way that we are naturally made, this would be possible. As G-d made us upon nature, the world would unmake us and deform us upon the same nature. I'm not speaking of any conspiracy. I don't believe in any great conspiracy, so great that it can explain everything bad happening to all of us and to all people. I don't believe in no conspiracy that great unless it is a conspiracy of only Satan himself and this is in Scripture. Only Satan himself is to be seen as the conspirator who is so wise, so powerful. He has such a powerful influence over weakness of the weak people that he can bring about a global conspiracy, only Satan.
I'm not going to deal with my Irish competitor or with my Polish competitor as though he's powerful, as though he has the power to be that kind of conspirator. He has not the power to do that. He has no more power than we have. But the Satan has power that we don't have. Satan, he has power that we don't have. Because, in the first place, we don't have the nature to close our ear to goodness. And not hear anything good and plan all evil and feel nothing. Feel no sorrow, no regret, no nothing. Satan does, Satan can do this, Satan has that nature. We can't be that.
Human beings cannot have a conspiracy over the whole world, it's impossible. Only Satan can have a conspiracy that covers the world. Most of the humans that are in his system, are in Satan's conspiracy, they don't even know what they're doing. They don't even know that Satan have gotten them. But again, the best way to defeat Satan is to defeat his scheme. That's the only way. You can't defeat him unless you attack his scheme and defeat his scheme. You what me to tell you what is part of his scheme?
Prejudice against Muslims in the African-American community. Prejudice against Christians on the part of the Muslim in African-American. Division, dividing us up because of our religious differences and having us not working with each other because we are different religiously. Having us work against each other, not support each other because we are of a different religion. That's part of Satan scheme. That's a scheme we need to fight. Fight that scheme. Our religion should make us closer. My religion asks of me very much the same that your religion asks of you. So, that should bring us together. It's much easier for me to cooperate with African-American Christian than it is for me to cooperate with the African-American Atheist.
So, our religion should be an encouragement for us to work together not a prejudice that's pushing us apart. And I know because G-d has rid me of this prejudice. I don't have these prejudices in me. I know what I've experienced after being rid of these prejudices. I have been among Christian leaders, devoted people to that Christian religion. We have been talking about common interests and I have forgotten that they weren't Muslim. At one point I didn't see them as Christian, I saw them as myself. We were just believers in G-d together. I didn't see them as any less believer in G-d than I was. Any less worthy of G-d's help than I was.
That difference between us just vanished. And I've told them to their faces and some of them if they were here. Some of them will get reports, because we will put this in writing. Many of my tapes are put in writing. They are going to get this report and they're going to hear. They'll say, "Yes," they're going to remember. I told them that I'm not seeing you as a Christian. I'm seeing you as a believer in G-d. At one point I told them, at one point in the development of the purity of your faith. At one point you become one and the same with all of the pure in faith. You become one the same though you have different knowledge, you have different disciplines. You become one with each other when you become equal in that maturity, in the growth and maturity of your faith. The purity and maturity of your faith, you become one with each other.
And your best partner is not just any brother in your circle. There are Muslims that I would not work with as I could work with some of these Christians who have reached that degree. Christians that have risen to that degree of sincerity, maturity, and purity in their faith. I can work with them and can't work with my Muslim brother who has not developed out of his raw body. He's still in his raw primitive body. I can't work with him even though he called himself a Muslim like I do. He read the same book and say that's the book like I do. He has the same G-d perception that I have.
All of us have to have the same G-d but all of us don't have the perception of G-d. He has the same perception of G-d that I have. But we are different because he hasn’t matured in his faith to really be the perfect decent human being to other human beings. So, I would rather work on a plan to develop our community even business wise. If I can't find a Muslim brother with that degree of maturity. I'd rather work with a Christian, let the Christian and Muslim work together to plan a business future of the community.
But thank G-d. When the right understanding comes, your community will have many rising to that level of maturity in faith, many. So, I'm not saying that we are poor in faith. No, we are rich in faith. We have many with that great maturity. But I want the many out there that are listening to me. I want them to know that just because you call yourself a Muslim that doesn't mean that you can help your community more than a person that calls him or herself a Christian. They may be in better shape morally, better shape rationally, better shape in terms of their respect for each other and humanity than you are. They may be better to advance your own community.
But now we want a picture from scripture that I think has a great message for us. I'm not going to claim to be an inspired interpreter of scripture. For that reason, I'm going to tell you that this is possibly a translation of this idea that I find in scripture. Or we may translate it this way to show the political reference or the political significance of this story. The story is story of Jonah. The prophet Jonah, the treatment he got from G-d may have in it a great lesson to give us a big help.
Now if we can translate this story under a political reference. We're translating it to try to fit it in a political context. If we do that, we come up with a lot of help for our self. The picture of Jonah is a picture of a victim. A victim of his own ignorance, of his calling. And his calling is a great calling. When G-d calls you it's the great calling. So, he's ignorant of the great calling he had, that G-d gave him. And because of that ignorance of his calling, he began to suffer and we see his plight going from bad to worse.
In our human potential is help for every one of us. If we will try to be sensible and if we will look for what is sensible and what is truly necessary. Too many people are driven to get the things that are really not necessary in their life. And the things that are really necessary they're not making hardly any effort to get those things. The things that are really truly necessary in their lives. I believe that freedom from physical bondage, freedom from mental bondage. And the worst kind of bondage I think is mental bondage. Where your mind cannot do things to help you that you need for help because the mind itself is enslaved.
And believe me, those who are still with the Nation of Islam. Whether it's under Farrakhan, or my uncle John in Detroit, or Salis, whoever. If you still with the Nation of Islam, believe me, understand this, brothers, I used to be with you. I was born into the membership. I didn't convert. I was born into the membership. Believe me, the real freedom that the Nation of Islam said it offers us is mental freedom. We're not called physically dead in the Nation of Islam's ideas, we're not called morally dead in the Nation of Islam idea, we are called the mentally dead. And we're told that a savior came to us to bring back or bring resurrect, or bring back to life the mentally dead.
The possibilities for all of these freedoms are really in the natural makeup of ourselves that G-d gave us. That's why you read the Constitution, these Founding Fathers, they knew that. Founding Fathers of the Constitution, Jefferson. They wrote into the Constitution, "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. And are endowed by their Creator with certain rights, inalienable rights." That can't be alienated from you, can't say this doesn't naturally belong to me, that's what it means. When it says inalienable right, its saying that no one, the government or no power, no person can say that these rights are not really naturally belonging to you.
With certain inalienable rights, among these: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit of happiness is interpreted by the interpreters of the Constitution. It's interpreted to mean the right to have property, the right to own something, your house, your car, your land, your business, et cetera. The right to own property, that's how it's interpreted. Now, I'm saying to you that I understand, I perceive this language in the introduction to the Constitution or in the Declaration of Independence.
I understand this language to be saying that this document recognizes that G-d has put within every human being the desire for the same life. The same quality life that all other human beings want in their highest dignity or in their most excellent nature. And this document says that all human beings have in their nature a desire to be free, to have the freedom that G-d created them for. The human freedom, the freedom of the intellect, the productive mind, or intellect. That all human beings have that in their nature. G-d gave it to them.
The government can't give them that, the government can't assign to them these rights, the government can't give them these rights, they got it already. G-d created them with it. And I understand it to further say that G-d has put it into the nature of the human being to want to have material dignity. To want to have the same freedom to own the land, to own property, to own businesses, to own the commercial establishments et cetera. Yes. G-d has created us this way, that's what the writers of this language are saying. That G-d has created us this way.
If all of us citizens here in Gary, can really believe this. Do you need a motivation speaker? What motivation speaker can tell you more to motivate you than that. That you were made for success. G-d made you for success. G-d made you for honor. G-d made you for intelligence and intellect. G-d made you for freedom, G-d made you for wealth, or for prosperity. I believe it. I believe it so strongly, I'm convincing others.
They didn't come to Gary just for a prayer.
No. They caught on to a new tune. “Our leaders playing a new tune. It says money, good homes and friendship in all walks of life.”
I don't blame you for coming this time. Now, summing this up about Jonah. Let me identify the important things in the scenery. Jonah was told by G-d by way of inspiration to go to the great city of Nineveh and warn that great city. Jonah got into something else, obviously. I don't know what it was, maybe he was eating barbecue, I don't know. Listening to one of these popular singers, I don't know what it was. But something distracted him. I don't know what it was.
Could have been a night out on the beach with the pretty ladies in their bathing suits, I don't know. Something distracted him, he forgot. He got off track. The next thing he knew he is out at sea, in a boat. What I say, the next thing he knew? No, the next thing that's reported. He didn't know a thing. The next thing that was reported is that he was out at sea on a boat. Sleeping in the hull of the boat. Lying up against the capitalist cargo.
A storm came up and the sea start raging. And the masters of the boat feared that the boat was going to be destroyed. So, one of them remembered that there was one on the boat that was not one of them. And he figured that this person on this boat that's not one of us must be the problem. He said, "Go find Jonah." And when they found him, he was sleeping. Sleeping comfortably up against the capitalist cargo. Cargo means the goods that are carried across the water for sale at another port.
He's sleeping down there in the hull of it. The hull means the belly of it. See, that's the belly of the ship. The hull of the ship down where they put the cargo, that's the belly of the ship. He's down in the belly of the ship leaning up, resting, sleeping, snoring against the capitalist cargo. Now, they said, "We got to throw him off this ship. If the storm is to subside, we got to throw him off this ship." They took him and threw him off the ship. Nowhere in the scriptural reports do you hear that Jonah said a thing. He ain't say anything yet, has he?
He didn't say, "Why you all wake me up? What are you all doing with me? Why are you throwing me off the ship?" He didn't say a thing. Obviously, he slept through it all. They threw him off the ship in the raging sea. They threw him off the ship into the raging waters, into the raging sea. And along came a big fish, called whale now by us. But really it doesn't say whale, originally the scripture didn't say whale. It says a big fish. Along comes a big fish and swallows him up. Now he's no longer in the belly of the ship. He's in the belly of a fish but he is still in a belly, right?
He's still in a belly. He's taken up out of the belly of the ship and thrown overboard into the water. Big fish comes swallows him up. Now he's in the belly of the fish. From the belly of the boat into the belly of this fish. And in the fish, he caused a problem. He was a strange diet in the fish belly. The fish couldn't stomach him. Fish stomach got upset and he didn't even want that Jonah in the water that he had to live in. He carried Jonah to the shore, to the land and he spit Jonah out on the land. That's how distasteful he found Jonah.
Now I said, I don't claim to have the divine inspiration to translate or interpret this. I said I'm translating this on my own, applying it to political reference and business reference, commercial reference. Political and commercial reference. I'm doing it and applying it under those two references, political or government, political and commercial. Here's my interpretation. Any people that can't realize progress is because they haven't answered the inner calling and when you don't answer the inner calling you become a victim of the world. Now, the government is the boat. Not necessarily the boat is the whole government but the boat is the government.
This particular arm of the government is the commercial arm of the government. Because it is carrying goods to be sold at the ports. And the government is carrying this kind of people on it. And this kind of people have no industry in them. They have no imagination to get up and think how they can create wealth. They're just sleeping, they're mentally dead. They're sleeping up against, resting up against the favors of the cargo, the favors of capitalism. They're just resting up against it. Another story that resembles this, I would say, is the story of Lazarus. He was in the rich man's house satisfied to just wait for crumbs to fall down from the table that the rich man would drop while he was eating.
So, this is another picture really of the same kind of person in their makeup. Here is Jonah now, he's in this situation. Jonah now it’s not Jonah the prophet. The prophet is a picture revealing to you something that is in people. Something that’s in the society that makes the problem for you. So, here the story is telling us that people who don't have an interest in their own potential, in developing it, realizing their inner life and their inner potential they will be in that kind of situation. They will stay in a comfortable situation until trouble comes from the government or from that particular arm of the government, from the commercial arm, from the economic quarter.
When trouble comes then they're going to look at and see where this trouble is. “Ok! We got a lazy group of people here who are not interested in the developing their own potential, they're not interested in developing their own inner resources. And they are just enjoying what we produce or what our world produces with no real role in producing this wealth. They are not one of us. Throw them off the boat in the raging sea.” Now the water's angry with them too. Water rage, everything raging. The wind is raging, the water is raging. Here comes the big fish he thinks that's something to eat.
Now, what is the big fish? The big fish is the ignorant capitalist. He's the big fish that swallowed up all other little fish. He lives on the weaker people. He just swallows them up with no thought. The whale doesn't take in something and taste it, and chew it, and think on it, munch it. "How's this compared to the meat I caught yesterday." No, he just swallows it. It passes all the system, no senses. Goes right into the belly just to produce more volume for the whale. That's all, give them bigger volume. So, this ignorant greed in the system snatched Jonah up. Said, "I use this lazy nigga." Excuse my language but I like to drive home the point. Said, "I take this lazy nigga."
When they got him in there and pretty soon, he makes trouble for that system. "Say, what in the hell have I swallowed? He ain't even fit to being in the water that I live in as my home. Throw him out on dry land." Threw him out on dry land where there were no trees, no plants, nothing, nothing but sand. Dead. Threw him out where there was nothing. Now, what is this story telling the wise? When you have people like this in you, if they don't improve when they get from one situation to another, if they show no sign that they're going to change, eventually throw them out completely on their own where they don't have nothing to survive upon but their own efforts, own initiatives, own abilities, throw them out on the sand.
I don't know how the Bible, I can't recall the Bible saying this. I know it's in our holy book, the Qur'an. Allah says to us in the Qur'an that, “G-d in His mercy, He caused the gourd plant to grow up on Jonah. It wound itself around him and produced leaves above his head to give him shade from the burning sun on the sands.” That was G-d's mercy to him in that bad situation. I'm going to conclude by asking you this question. If G-d. You, who believe in scripture, and I do believe we have mostly scripture believing people in this audience.
You, who believe in scripture, you have the same story that I just gave you. You have it in your Bible if you're Christian. Jews have it in their Bible if they're Jewish. We have it in our book. The Jews have it, the Christians have it, we have it, we got the same story. Tell me, if we can accept that G-d will take a person or people. Really the person is to show us what's happening to the community. If G-d will take a person or the people from a situation to a worse situation and then to even a worse situation. Why can't we believe that G-d's favor is still on us when we're in bad situations?
Some of us say, "Oh, G-d's favor is not on us or G-d is not with us." Well you don't know that? Maybe we are not in this situation because we're discriminated against by the whites. Maybe we're in this situation because G-d wants us in this situation. And this bad situation that we don't like is going to force us to wake up to our calling. Thank you very much and G-d, guide us always, forgive us our wrongdoings. Always forgive us, our Lord and show mercy to us. Amen.
Speaker: For more on the ministry of the Imam W. Deen Mohammed, Muslim American spokesman for human salvation, call our right WDM publications. Call 1-708-862-7733 or write post office box 1944 Calumet City, Illinois, 60409. For Muslim join, see local distributor. Thanks for listening.


