06/28/1981
IWDM Study Library
Fourth Sunday Hookup
By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
If we expect to understand this world, we'll have the wrong approach to the problems of this world unless we have the right approach to the obligation that we have as creatures in this world. We are not responsible for the sun performing its duties, or the moon, or the clouds, or any of these things upon which our very life exists and needs to survive. We are not responsible for those things. We are not responsible for lamb and beef, fish and chicken, pork, greens, apples, and cobbler.
We're not responsible for all that stuff being here. All we do is look at it and taste it. If we like it, then we start eating it. And if we like it enough, we try to grow a lot of it so we'll never have to do without it. Now, don't we have an obligation? We have an obligation to appreciate the foundations of life. To appreciate the wisdom that is in nature. Before man's brain saw the light, he was more faithful than modern man. At least he tried to find who was responsible for all the benefits he found himself in.
He looked at the sun, and he said that's G-d. Or he looked at the moon, he said G-d. Or maybe at the river and saw how it brought life and fish. And in the case of the Nile River, rich soil was deposited on the land so he could grow his food. But he said, oh, the Nile is G-d. He was sincere at least in acknowledging his obligation to be grateful for benefits that he wasn't responsible for. And on the whole, humanity has been pretty sincere, pretty truthful, and pretty sincere because we know in time man has put down G-d that failed his expectations. We have the case of Abraham when he was observing the heavenly body. He was seeking a concept of his Lord, of G-d, that would satisfy his soul. He had rejected the concepts that his people, his father, and his society had offered to him.
He refused to worship dirt and clay, wood, and iron that the tribes fashioned into G-d, refused to worship them. So he had gone out away from the influences of his immediate society. He had gotten himself off into the gratitude for the influences of the natural world itself. He was observing the heavenly bodies, and as he observed them, he said, "Oh, that must be the G-d." Because they seemed to have had a more dignified, a more glorious place in the environment, the physical or natural environment, than those small earthen-made things that his people were worshiping.
But as he observed, he saw the sunrise. Finally, he saw the sunrise after seeing other things that must be a G-d. So finally he saw the sunrise. When the sun rose in the morning so gloriously, he said, "Oh, this must be the Lord." But we observe now that he didn't give up searching. And as the sun said, he said, "Oh no, this can't be my Lord." So Abraham, in the words of the Qur'an, concluded that the real Lord is not one subject to the limitations that are on His creation. He is beyond the limitations of His creation. Creation is a servant, and it must have a master. He saw everything else performing a service. He saw nothing in the universe that was independent. He reasoned scientifically that the sun wasn't independent. It's going to go out one day.
If you sleep today, you're going to sleep a final death one day to come. Now, Abraham was correct. Modern-day scientists tell us that the sun is slowly going out. One day, it's going to completely become solidified and then will be just a cold mass floating through the universe. That's going to happen one day. Now, it's good that the prophets didn't need the modern-day scientists to tell them those things. Allah says in the Qur'an, everything you behold with your senses is passing away. It's just a matter of time; everything passes away except the reality of G-d. His manifestation will never go away, but the manifestation of everything else is under constant change. One day, what we see now will disappear, and lose their place and function in their role, in the great scheme of things we call the universe. Yes. So the prophets, they came to the conclusion with the guidance of G-d that none of those things are lost.
So when we say Bismillah, you must understand what we're saying. We are speaking from faith, but we are speaking in the vein of knowledge and science. Nothing worthy of worship, but that one, Him alone, and nothing can be compared to Him. He has no comparison. So is saint so and so. No. Is it Ibn Arabi ... No. No. Muhammad himself, can you compare him to G-d? No. Jesus Christ, no, no. Imam Warithudeen Mohammed? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Nothing can be compared with Him. It's too much for us. We are people of faith.
Praise be to Allah. This faith, we call the religion of Al-Islam, distinguishes for us the safeguard that G-d has established for us within our structured life, from the structured life itself. This religion allows us to see faith distinguished from structured life. But it shows us that structured life is dependent upon faith. And G-d tells us in the Qur'an, and I say, "G-d, because I want you to understand who I'm talking about. " I wish I had a better English term. If I say Lord, you might think I'm talking about some Lord that you know, that I don't know. So I think G-d, for want of a better term, I don't like G-d, and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad brought that to my attention.
He said this word dog is G-d, when you spell it backwards. It reads dog." And ever since he said that, I have never wanted to use the word G-d. I always want to use Allah because I know now that the term dog in English or G-d in English is connected with the doggish inclinations in the people of the left, that really they have been given a theology that is designed not to bring them up to the excellence of their nature, but to reduce them to the lowest affair in time. Oh, Mr. How can you attack Christian theology like that? Dear beloved people, in just two minutes, I'm going to tell you why. Christian theology directs your mind and your devotion, your spiritual devotion to a human concept called the Son of G-d, Jesus Christ. And in doing that, it blocks your spiritual growth. Instead of bringing you to universality, it brings you to tribalism, racism, materialism, and self-worship. Yes. So instead of lifting us to the high peak that G-d wants us to be on, it operates in us kind of suddenly, like witch doctor medicine. It eventually brings us to the lowest ebb of human life. In fact, we can't call it human life.
Now, let me point to some developments in hopes of giving you an example of what I'm talking about. I just read the paper today, and the third page headline says that crime is rising in the cities and in the suburbs. Why? Crime shouldn't be rising, not now. For the last few months or maybe almost now half a year or so, America has been breathing the air of G-d consciousness. Morality has been breathed back out into the air. Respect for the religious institutions has been breathed back into the air. The media have picked up on this, and the media is supporting faith in something, faith in something bigger than materialism, faith in something bigger than self. The Qur'an has turned us away from the me orientation and has guided us now to look outside of our small and narrow self and our small and narrow concerns to see that there is a Lord, there's a G-d over everything. Some people say this is brought on by the movement, the new rise of the moral majority, as they call themselves. I don't think so. I think a moral minority has come in and just robbed the common person of the credit that he's due for this rise in moralism, rise in respect for G-d. This didn't start with a moral majority. The moral majority represents the church. The church didn't come out here in 1975 and battle the spirit of atheism, the spirit of materialism.
It was the common man who came out here in 1975 and began battling these evil forces. The church was playing consort, playing girlfriends with these evils. And we came out and denounced all of them, and we haven't let up. I sit in conferences with the big people of the churches, and I know what they were talking about in 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978. They were moving under the influence of expedience, just like they always do. They were talking about what's necessary to keep the status quo, to keep the system intact. But when the common man, not only me, but there are more of us than me, came out here and began to point the finger at the leadership and at the institution and charge them with the state of the life of the masses, they finally got the nerve to come out and themselves to denounce the things that they were themselves responsible for.
Yes. If the general masses came to a faith of spiritual and moral degeneration, that they began to worship clothes, worship shoes with high heels, worship big hats, worship heroin or some other form of narcotics, worship sex. If the masses came to that state, tell me who was responsible? Who had their life? Who had that trust? Who had that confidence? Wasn't it the institution? Yes. And the main one was the church. The church played the greatest role in the confidence of the people. And if the people lost that confidence and went to worshiping those destructive idols in their lives, then who was to blame? Christian is to blame. They say, who shot JR? And they finally came out with it and made a big thing over it. Like it was really something that was real. I thought it was just a soap opera.
I thought it was just something that belonged to a soap opera. They had a big meeting out there and went somewhere. They called people from all over the country, paid great expenses, to have a big meeting just to find out who shot J.R., and the answer was Christian. Now I didn't send him that note. I didn't have anything to do with that. That was their pure confession. Who is JR? JR is Junior. Junior is the little man depending on leadership. And without leadership, he becomes a criminal, a tyrant. He dominates the lives of the people because he doesn't see the value of human life in society. So he becomes a criminal. He takes over the material power and the material forces. He becomes the dominant. He becomes the demagogue. Yes. But then, who's responsible for this? Look what happened to Junior. Now, who killed him humanly, morally, and spiritually? Christian did. Praise be to Allah. Praise be to Allah that our eyes came open before they told us that. So we don't follow them. But we congratulate them for a few confessions.
We have to come to see the human life in its wholeness, in its wholeness. We live a life of disorganization. We live a life of guesswork. We live a life influenced by the tendency to gamble. We have been led by materialism and the bad influences of social media, with materialism to abandon intelligent living. But in addressing you, dear people today, I have chosen to use the term personality, in hopes that our talk on personality will bring us to understand the vital life-supporting function of personality in society. Personality is defined as distinct patterns of mind and behavior. Now, a dictionary may give different definitions. But the definition of personality as distinct patterns of mind and behavior goes directly home to personality in its truest sense
Was the one that I took these words from. That is, it represents the distinct behavior pattern in our lives, the way we think, the way we act, that amounts to our individual personalities. Now there's also a term that identifies people in personality. The expression is group personality. Society has a group personality, and then it has individual personalities under group personality, right? Individual personality generally reflects group personality. It's not the bigger one. It's not the ruling personality. The group personality is the ruling personality. The Lord who created everything put in us a nature to accept expansion, to accept bigger dimensions of life and expression. So it is our nature to adopt this personality. That's our nature. Ain't nothing wrong with that. That's the way the Lord made it. We should conform to group personality.
Allah, who created everything, evolved the human being along a natural line of growth and progression. And human beings came naturally into the proper group personality. Then man got the hint of the wisdom of the science supporting this manifestation. Then he began to alter the group personality. He began to make for himself or form a group personality, so that the individuals and the society would be enslaved, and be subject to whatever influence he wanted to direct them by. I ain't talking about no mystery. I'm talking about the facts of your life now. Then, the struggle for the believer is to struggle against the effort on the part of the guilty one.
The guilty one aims to take the human society out of its natural personality and put the people into a slavish personality. What I mean is that you have no control over yourself, over your personality. Your personality is not the result of your effort. Your personality is formed just like the uprooted things or the displaced things formed in society. I'm talking about the physical environment now. A plant that is uprooted when the wind casts it away might find itself on the riverbed. It might find itself in the sand. It might find itself on a tree top, on a root, or maybe even on a mountain. But it has no say so over where it will be tomorrow.
It ain't rooted in nothing. It has fallen or been knocked out of place, so the strongest force that comes along decides where it will be tomorrow. Isn't our life kind of like that in this material-supported cultural mind that Americans have? Isn't our life just like a dead leaf in the wind? Is dust cast about by the wind? We don't know where it's going to fall. We don't know where it's going to be. And most of us have no permanence in life above animal description. An animal knows where it's going to graze tomorrow. You know where you're going to punch your clock tomorrow. An animal knows where it's going to go to bed tomorrow. You know where you're going to go to bed tomorrow. An animal knows where it's going to get its sex. You know where you're going to get your sex.
All right? But your plans are no bigger than that. You just want to graze, lie about, and have a good time on that level. I'm talking about the average citizen of this country. I thank the Lord that in this day and time, I don't have to say this and bear the crushing weight on my heart that my people are the only ones that fit this situation. They say what goes around comes around. And they sent us around so many times till it finally came around to them. Yes. So, we are not describing us. We are describing the poor, misguided, unattended humans in this society. I thank the Lord. I ain't a junior no more. I'm a senior. That's right. And those who embrace what I talk about, they become seniors too.
Junior is the one who responds to creation, and he allows the demands of creation on his life to set and determine his life. The seniors respond to the Creator, and they visualize with His guidance and support that which enables them to determine the state and future of the political matter.
With His help. We can't do it without the help of Allah, but we can do that. We don't worry about how we're going to eat tomorrow. We don't have animal fears. We don't live in a consciousness on the animal level. Our engines are not tied up in getting bread tomorrow, lamb chops, bean soup, rye bread, black bread, or whatever. Our energies are not tied up in that. Our energies are tied up in keeping the vessels of humanity from falling into the hands of the slave masters. People will enslave us under the yoke of materialism, lust, vulgarity, violence, and destruction. Yes, those forces are waiting to enslave us.
Look, be aware there's going to be a shortage of pork chops. There's going to be a shortage of lamb chops. There's going to be a shortage of apples. That's what the economists do. G-d's prophets never did anything like that. They tell you there's going to be a shortage of good sense on the power of the individual, because we see the workings of the devil. He's coming with his forces to take away the intelligence from the command of the individual. Prophets have come to alert us to the stress on our intelligence so that we will keep our balance. Who is better for you? The one who will feed you like an animal or the one who will feed you like a man? The prophets come to feed your manhood. The leaders of this world come to feed your animal appetite. Oh, you like poison? But brother Imam, that's not true. Look what the founding fathers did. Look at the democracy we have built.
And consider how much better off you are as an American. You are better off as an American than you would be if you were some of the natives, some of the nationals. Okay, all that is good. I'm not going to give you any mouth about that. But what we overlook is the fact that those contributors to the good life of the human being were following the same thing that I'm trying to get you to see right now. There's no credit to them, except in the sense that they had the goodness, the moral stance, to follow what G-d had sent to his prophets for us.
Yes. Consider Russia or any true communist society. And by the way, Russia is losing a lot of this real communist makeup, losing it to the march of time. Oh yes. But consider the life in those societies where they claim to be representing the justice of the rights of the common man and proclaim the same openly. But look what they give man to live by. They tell man that this creation of the matter is constantly undergoing a change that is brought about by the very nature of the matter itself. It is evolving life,
Expanding matter and evolving life. And man being part of this, no different than any other part of any other matter. He's just another part of it. Man, being part of this, he's also being advanced, too. He's also being pushed forward by this process. They give man a concept like this, a concept of a natural process that occurred by accident. They don't know how or what started it. All they know is that it started. And once it started, it was his nature to continue like that. It has no purpose except that. And that it is evolving man to become more like the natural phenomena itself. It is bringing man to conform to the natural phenomena.
So matter has its nature. Production has its nature. Since the human being must eat, he must have clothes. He must have shelter. He must have material things to live with and live by. Then he, too, must live under the concept of this natural growth, this natural dynamic in matter. So his whole life now, his cultural life, his spiritual life must now be dictated by the belief in this natural phenomenon. They call this dialectic materialism, where materialism is under constant strain and stress. And the fact of the strain and stress accounts for the consequences, the results. And that man is to study his life just as he would study the farm.
Just as he would stay up late, trying to study and cultivate some math figures. Or just as he would study the physical seasons, winter, spring, summer, and fall. Or just as he would study physical diseases in his body. He is to see it that way. And he is to plan in response to what nature is doing. Isn't this communism? He is to plan in response to what nature is doing. So what have they done? They have brought man below animals. Because the animal does that, but on a plane of existence that has evolved him and also has secured him. Man ain't secured in no concept like that. That has to be enforced. They have to use the might of the power of the guns to enforce that on a man. That's not something that a man accepts readily. That's something that has to be enforced upon a man. Something that has to be compelled and executed against the human will. Man doesn't want his moral life, his spiritual life, his spiritual aspirations, patterns, to be reduced to some physical mold that can be defined completely in terms of the physical sciences, physics, chemistry,
No, that's why Russia is failing. That's why Russia couldn't get to the moon before America. It wasn't because America was better, morally speaking. It was because America was better in its attitude. America wasn't better morally speaking, but at least it was better in attitude. He said there is a Lord, and then the people have a right to worship Allah. There is a reality that our knowledge doesn't completely explain. And the people have a right to subscribe to that kind of belief. But America was a whore. America was a pimp. America was a dope pusher. America was an enslaver. America was a capitalistic, materialistic bastard. Yes. But at least that bastard had an attitude better than the attitude of the communist people. So who landed the man on the moon? The bastard. Yes. Now we know all Americans are not bastards. The excellence of America is not a bastard. I'm going to go due to the lateness of physical time. The whole is equal to the sum of all its parts. And if that's true, then a bastard landed on the moon. Don't shiver. I'm closer to the bastard than you are. And we're going to make that bastard legitimate, yes. They like me in the belfry because I know how to ring the bell. What can we do about the things that are happening on top? Can we approach the top directly? No. We are seen on the bottom level. No matter what we do, we are regarded as members of the common people. And I'm talking about myself too. I'm your Imam. And many among the high powers respect me, and they give me great respect. But because I address you, they have to regard me as one of the common folks. If I were to choose to stop addressing you, I wouldn't have to go to college. I wouldn't have to get a degree. I wouldn't have to do anything, but just join them. And they would have me addressing them. And they would invite me in to work with them. And I would suddenly become not one of you. I'd suddenly become one of them, and I'd be no more one of you.
But they understand divine providence, and they know I can't help myself. I'm living the only life I know. So I address you. Don't you know that what I understand is easier for me to address those on a higher level than I address you, because you don't understand what I'm talking about? You have a strange mentality. What you laugh at, they take note of it. Serious note. And this is no credit to me as an individual. It's a credit to what? The word of G-d. It's the divine word that has made me see the light. Yes. It's no credit to me, unless it's to my attitude. Yes. My attitude brought me into understanding. So if I'm to get any credit, it's for nothing but an attitude. Right!
So don't think I'm trying to get you to look at me as some big story or something. No, that's not the point. I'm trying to get you to see that the people you respect are most likely beneath us in knowledge. That's what I'm trying to get you to see. And until you can see that, you can't become a part of what we're doing. No. You can't mean very much in what we are doing if you don't see that. What we are doing has to have people who support it. People who are committed to it. If you think somebody else is wiser than we are in what we are doing, then you're not committed to us. You're committed to them. Though you hear my Lord, you're not committed to us. You are committed to them. Oh, he wants us to worship him, to think he knows it all. I don't know it all.
So you know that woman washing at the well? And the New Testament says ... Now this is not my book, this is the Christian book. The New Testament says that Jesus began to talk to her. And she says she met a man who told her everything he had ever done. She didn't say he told me everything I will do. She said he told her everything I had done. Now, believe me, we know everything you've done. We have the medicine. But we can't tell you what you are going to do, although we can predict that pretty closely. We do know what you have done. That is, we can interpret your behavior. We can analyze your behavior like a doctor. And we can prescribe for you the medicine that will put you right again.
We can explain your mental problems, your emotional problems. We can explain the things that are happening in your emotional makeup better than the man you gave $50 to. Yes? Why? Because knowledge from G-d has come to us, and it's better than the knowledge of the world. How is the human being to be identified if he's not to be identified in his mental and physical behavioral conduct? On the physical level, the human being fits right in the same category as matter, with the animals. It is only on the civil level that the human being is seen above the other group. Is that right? All that about your personality, according to the dictionary report. It's a report. Nobody knows anything. I'm going to say that again. All of you, including those who work for the Bell Telephone system. Nobody knows anything. All we can do is report. All the knowledge in the world ain't nothing but a report. And for us, most of it has been reported incorrectly.
The dictionary says that personality refers to the mental patterns of behavior and also to the physical patterns of behavior. All that goes to make up personality in a person. Now, let us go to the Christian language, as I'm speaking to most people who have been exposed to Christian influence and logic. As a man thinketh, so is he. Isn't that what they say? But let us go back and get the whole thing. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. What does that tell me? Allah says in the Qur'an that He entrusted it to his heart. Is that right? The revelation that G-d gave Prophet Muhammad was entrusted to his heart. And Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, said, there's a lump of flesh, according to the word of G-d, that when it is good, the whole body is good. And when it is bad, the whole body is bad. And they asked, "What lump of flesh is that, Oh, prophet of G-d? He said the lump of flesh is the heart.
So let us go back now to the saying in the New Testament. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Now, I think I can proceed with this definition. So we come to the logical conclusion, which is that I am defined not as the animal, not as a tree. I'm defined as a human being, and I don't take on my true identity or my true characteristics or my true personality until I begin to respond to the movement, to the urge, to the impulse for excellence that comes not from the animal sense but from the sentiments of the heart. There are sentiments in human beings that tell us - you shouldn't do that, that's shameful, that's beneath you, that's beneath your dignity.
Yes. And if a man thinks in that kind of mind or thinks with that kind of attitude, then he's thinking as a human being. But if he stopped thinking that way, then he just stopped thinking for profits, thinking for advantages, thinking for power, thinking for steak, then he's thinking like an animal. He ceases to be a man. So it wasn't only those great prophets that said this. One of the scientists, one of the great philosophers, said, "I think. Therefore, I am." He said, "I think. Therefore, I am." What do you mean, I think? Therefore, I am. Thinking doesn't mean what you do. It doesn't mean that's what the average one of us thinks about. Thinking is not just an activity in the mind. That's not thinking. We don't think that way. The way we do thinking is to say Subhanallah. Subhanallah. We are not just allowing thoughts to come through our minds. We are following a pattern of thought. And then we come from that pattern, and we come to another one. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. And we come from that pattern, and we come to the last pattern, Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar. That's thinking. And Allah says in the Qur'an. Faith surely increases you by the power of thought. But not any kind of thought, planned thought, systematic thought, directed thought, goal-oriented thought.
All right. If salvation hasn't come to the Negro in America, salvation never came to anybody. And I'm not calling you Negroes, but I just wanted to speak deep in your conscience. Well, I have just been up here about an hour, right? So I got a few more minutes, I think. You know, our mothers and fathers used to watch over the development of our personality because at that time, the influence of the church was strong. But when the church abrogated, stepped back, and allowed the media and everything else to take over that role, the parents got away from that, and they stopped watching over the development of the child's personality. And all of a sudden, now the child is coming at the parent with a bat or with a knife. Parents have been neglecting this responsibility for all those summers and springs and winters and falls, but now the child is threatening the life of their parents. Then the parent says, oh, hell, I've got to do something. I don't know. I got to put this boy in a home, in a juvenile home, or kill him, or I'm going to have to get out of here and let him have the house. "Now they say that, you know, some of them say that. Scripture tells us, and especially the Qur'an tells us, that a day like this was going to come. It's plainly written in the Holy Qur'an that the day is going to come when the child is going to punish the parent for parental neglect.
Yes. It doesn't put it in those words that I'm giving it, but it means just what I am saying. People are going to turn their minds away from the true reality and give their lives to fleeting things. The failure to meet their own obligations was going to eventually result in a kind of blind grief and blind sensuality, where each person goes after what satisfies them immediately. They forget about the consequences down the road. This is what I'm telling you, and it's from the Qur'an. It says that when the time comes, no one will be able to get any pity. Everybody will be so wrapped up in their own woe.
The mic and sound went down, too. It wasn't just this mic. Maybe it was just too much fire on the line.
One thing we have to grow to accept. And that is that we don't control anything! We just do our best with the name Allah. And we have to accept that this is not our best at all. Now, let's continue here if we can.
Getting back now to the subject. The whole movement from slavery, from self-rejection to dignity, Allah has produced that movement. Oh, would Allah help us when we were Christians? You bet He would. You needed help from the kings until Moses received the scripture and criterion, and the scripture and criterion until the Torah came, and the Torah until the Qur'an was revealed. Yes. Allah helped the people of all those disciplines until they finally came into the full reality He wanted them to come into. Now, look, how Muhammad came to the Arabs. Not to them per se, but to them because of circumstances and a necessity. All right? Because we know that as soon as he formed his leadership, he formed it so it would be representative of the different races. He picked from the Arabs, he picked from the Europeans, he picked from the Asian, and he picked from the Africans. And he put them all into his ambassadorial leadership. Is that right? So we know he didn't come to give the message to only Arabs. Allah says so clearly that the message is for all the people, all of you, for the whole of humanity, the complete humanity. It's written there so plainly in the Qur'an.
So we know better than that. But look, he himself was an Arab and was born out of that community of Arabs. He was a part of the community belonging to the Arab people, and they had experienced a history. So G-d blessed him with the insight to tie his people's life into the prophetic life, into the divine progression. So Allah revealed to Prophet Muhammad that they are the descendants of Ismael, whose father was Abraham, whose mother was Hagar. And these precincts surrounding the Kaaba have been proclaimed to represent humanism. They have in their history a connection with a reality, a connection with a providence of a movement that G-d has been nurturing forward. Now, do you think that having this understanding will allow me to overlook our connection to the Kaaba and this movement to bring excellence to humanity? No, I see the divine hand in my life. I see the divine hand in the history of my people. I see my people, even under Christianity and under other religions, still moving forward towards the excellence that G-d intended for them.
So you think I'm going to look back and say, G-d was not protecting this? Wasn't G-d protecting the Kaaba from idol worshippers? And who was Kaaba? Isn't the Kaaba nothing but a type of the man himself? The Kaaba is nothing but a symbol of the human being himself. Now the temple was defiled, and the army came to do away with that defiled temple. And G-d stopped that great general Abraha and kept his great herd of elephants back. The war elephants were turned back without an army. Yes. Why? Because Allah has marked the Kaaba and its surrounding area as sacred ground. Allah has marked this spot for dignity. General Abraha, go back. Your army ain't needed here. You can't go on. You can't go forward. Go back.
So Hashim was sitting there. One old man without an army, without even two soldiers. Not even one soldier. He said that Abraha, the army leader, said, who's going to protect this town from me? Hashim said, listen, I have no G-d here. It is not mine. It belongs to G-d. G-d will have to protect it. What does that tell us about our precious human excellence? The essence of the human beings that G-d intended for excellence can never be protected by human forces. Allah will protect it. Always.
Now, don't go back to say to whoever he is that the Imam says that the Kaaba represents the human vessel of excellence. I know he's wrong. How can he do that and still call himself an Imam? The Prophet didn't say that. Now, here is something else I can do. The Kaaba wears a dress all the way down to her ankle. So the Kaaba is not a symbol of man's individuality, but a symbol of man's collectiveness.
Oh yes. Every man can find identity in that symbol because they all came out of the same human womb. Oh yes. So the Kaaba wears a skirt and is veiled from head to toe. The world hasn't been able to see up under her veils. But G-d is telling us that with the guidance of Prophet Muhammad, that there the secret stands. And it is revealed. It is dressed in a cloth covering it from top to bottom. G-d has opened the way for the vision of Muslims to see inside the temple. Oh yes. We know what it stands for. Ain't veiled no more.
It is dressed now not to hide wisdom, but out of respect. Oh yeah, veiled out of respect. Dearly beloved people. In my conclusion, I want you to understand that this is a movement. I mean the movement of our life up from ignorance and servitude. This is a movement that G-d is watching over. None of us can turn the hand of this movement back. Anyone coming up to do something inferior to what I'm representing now for you, they will eventually fail. Because the Almighty doesn't intend for us to stay back. He wants us to go forward. Yes. And He will make us go forward. Yes.
In spite of our position, we will go forward. Nothing is better for us than this religion of Al-Islam. And the honorable Elijah Muhammad, even in the days of his time, when the true light wasn't here in its completion, for us all to see and understand. Even in his day of partial darkness, the honorable Elijah Muhammad said, "The Bible is the graveyard of my people, and Islam is their salvation." Now tell me that G-d didn't give him vision, that G-d didn't give him an anticipation of what had to come. Certainly, he did. Oh, that means he's a prophet? No, Allah revealed to the earth. Allah said He revealed to the earth. And He revealed to the mother of Moses. He revealed to the mother of Isa. He revealed to the earth. He revealed to everything. That's right. That doesn't mean he's a prophet. He's not a prophet. Maybe he doesn't even rate a saint. Maybe he doesn't even rate as a good Muslim. But G-d reveals to whomsoever He wills to reveal and what he wants to reveal.
And He has given to every person something of His 'ruh'. "Oh, but that doesn't include the Christians. That doesn't include the truth. It just says, it doesn't include those who don't have faith. Indeed, it is left there for us to accept the idea that it includes every human being. And He has given every person, every preacher, something of his ruh or spirit. Ruh is an inspiration from G-d. That's what ruh is. Inspiration from G-d. So if I say I'm an inspired man. A lot of these latecomers are trying to say they are a prophet. Not only am I an inspired man, but most of my Imams are also inspired men. Hamidullah is an inspired man. James Shabazz, I've known him since I was a small boy. He's an inspired man. Yes. My grandmother was an inspired woman. My mother was an inspired woman. My wife is an inspired woman. Yes, and many of you out there are inspired people. Yes. Doesn't mean that you hear funny noises or you get some weird messages from an unknown station. It doesn't mean that at all. It means that you have the human spiritual insight to interpret the better ruh or inspiration and be pretty accurate. That's all it means. Praise be to Allah. So Allah has blessed us with insightful leaders. Since we've been in the predicament we are in, from the very start of our troubles and tribulations. Allah has blessed us with inspired people, and we shouldn't forget that. We should see the whole upward movement of our life as a people, as a divine work. That G-d has led it because He has. And we should never turn our faith and our mind away from respect and faith in G-d.
And Muslims, I'm sure you know, but let me remind you, if you've forgotten. If you don't know, let me tell you. Muslims are firstly a people of faith. We believe in that, that is bigger and greater than us. We live intelligent lives. We live in the structures that have been erected for us in our religion. The structures that are called the five pillars of Al-Islam that structure our community life. You know those five pillars. They are the declaration of faith in one creator and belief in His Prophet Muhammad, who is a universal prophet. That's number one. The other pillars are fasting, prayer, charity and the Hajj. After the declaration of faith, prayer, charity, fasting, and Hajj. So we know those things. And we know that within that structure, we have our whole life.
We pray. We give for the love of Allah, our Lord, as a duty, and also give freely as a gift for the growth and maintenance of our society. Is that right? To help promote the excellence of our society and to bring justice to all members. We also have to commemorate the blessings of G-d and practice self-restraint. It is much needed for the well-being and faith of society. We also make Hajj to Mecca as a duty, an obligation to fulfill once in our lives. We accept this as a duty, though we never go there. We still perform it because of the intent to make it. We don't have to make it until the means are there.
So if we should die before the means come, we still made Hajj if the intent was right. Because the idea is in our heart. Every time our brothers go, we go in spirit with them. Is that not right? Yes. So we perform those things, and we notice that those five fundamentals give the basic structure to our community life. And that's no hocus pocus. Standing up for Lailahaillalah Muhammadan Rasulullah brings about physical changes in society. When we come together in salat, and we pray as a unit behind one leader, a leader that we keep in check, that if you say that prayer wrong, we say Allahu Akbar. This corrects and pulls him right back without going up to him, saying, Brother, you made a mistake. Let me lead it. No, you made a mistake, and I believe you will correct it, brother. Isn't that a beautiful religion? To the man who addresses G-d, me, as an individual, I have the right to correct him, even when he's addressing G-d. If he said it wrong, I can say Allahu Akbar, then he can say it right, or I can just say it right. And he's obligated to say it right behind. If he knows that I said it right, or if he doesn't know that I said it wrong, and he knows he's wrong, he's obligated to say what I said.
That's right. See, some of you always say that if he makes a mistake, put him out of his place. If you make a mistake talking to G-d, brother, you go up there and take his place. But that's not the way it is done. When he makes a mistake, we correct him. He stays in his place. This tells us that in this religion, no human leader is seen on a divine level. All of us can make mistakes. And we don't expect to have any angel or divine leading us. We correct him and support him because he's capable of making human mistakes. What a beautiful religion.
If they both made a mistake, admit it. Nobody heard but the visitor, and maybe he'll say something. But if everybody hears it, they won't even bring him back out. They'll say he had a heart attack. We will have a new Imam. He makes mistakes. This is the religion. Now, so we live within this structure. Dear beloved people, what holds up all the other pillars? Isn't that Laillahillalah Muhammadan Rasululla. Prophet Muhammad says that if all the other pillars fall, one can hold up the roof. He said that one is Laillahailallah Muhammadan Rasululah.
Is that, according to the Qur'an? Certainly. Whoever holds on to the belief that there is no G-d, but one G-d, will eventually be brought up, even if he is in the depths of hell. Whoever holds onto that will essentially be saved, no matter what his circumstances are. But now, tell me, you know, I know making prayer together, that's a social performance as well as a physical performance. So men like to come together because they're gregarious by nature. And they are political by nature. They like to follow leaders. Men are like this. We are militant. We are soldiers by nature. So you know, what holds up the prayer? Faith in Allah? Yes. Faith in Allah holds up the proper prayer. But what holds up men just come together to pray? The social instinct in the male. That's why it's not even an obligation on the female. She can come and join the prayer, but she's not obligated to it.
She's only asked to come out on the Eid day. So it's shameful for a woman if she doesn't come out on the Eid day, and can do it. But she doesn't have to come to Jumah. Yeah. She doesn't have to come to Jumah. She's welcome. She has a right, but she doesn't have to do it. It's not an obligation. That tells us that Jumah is an exercise of the male station. And the female comes out to support it. The sisters, when they do come out here and see us in Jumah, they say, "Insha’Allah, I support you, son. " They talk to Allah in a different way than we talk to Allah. They talk to Allah in the spirit of a woman, of a mother, with tender social sentiment for society. You pray as Allah taught you to pray.
As men, we are conscious of being soldiers. We stand shoulder to shoulder, and we go down like mechanical men. And come up like mechanical men. The spirit is following Allah's command, but in Jihad. Yes. We are following Allah because we know that He is the one who has ordered us to do jihad. I'm not talking about holy war, I'm talking about the struggle for excellence, of which the highest sacrifice is the loss of my personal life in the battle for it. I don't think this is hurting you to keep talking to you today. After all, I haven't talked to you in a month.
Now, let me go on because I don't want to keep you. So we live a structured life, and we do these things, out of our devotion to Allah in the spirit of fear, taqwa, devotion to Allah. Also, we do it because it is a social necessity, that we give in charity, that we earn our living by honorable means, and that we give clean money for the progress of the society, and that we repent and suffer remaining patient and persevering, even in difficulty, war, misery, pain, and the loss of respect to myself as a male in my family. Society is looking at me with their nose turned up, but I still pray. I go down into sajda, and I pray as a pained soldier, no dignity loss. But what keeps me in prayer? Faith. Oh yes. Let me tell you. I'm sure many of the people who long ago turned their backs on salat, the real meaning of salat, are still making salat.
But we will have people, men will come together, go shoulder to shoulder, and they'll make salat. But in the final analysis, what holds up the proper salat? Faith in our Lord. Not my interest in militancy, not my interest in social history, but my interest in pleasing my Lord, who will see me tomorrow when the politics are over, when the economics are over, when the earth is over. He will see those who anticipate the meeting with their Lord. Is that right? Those who believe, those who believe in righteousness, believe before it's verified. Ain't been proven to my intellect. Those who believe in doing righteousness. They believe a moral influence on their intellect. The intellect hasn't seen it yet, but my heart saw it and accepted it. Those who believe in life and those who anticipate meeting their Lord. Is that right? Yes. Look at the verses of Chapter 25, called the Criterion in the Qur'an.
And you will get this, and it's also in other chapters, where these are characteristics of the true believers-those who have faith. So, actually, what holds us up is faith in what Allah says? Look at the sky. Look at the Earth. Look at those six balls up in the sky. They hold their places, and you don't see any pillars holding them up.
And look at the birds fly, and no movement on his part. Seems as though he's just being held up by the air. Is that right? They see the bird held poised in the sky. Ain't beating the air. He ain't making any effort at all. He's just gliding all over the heavens. When you look at the heavens, do you see any pillars holding them up? So Allah is telling us that an invisible power is the strongest power of all. The power that you can't see is the strongest power of all - holding the earth up, holding the Sun in its place. What is it caught between the heavenly bodies? Obedience to divine plan. Each one is keeping his distance in obedience to his Lord. Each one performing his duty out of faith in his Lord. So with each one maintaining his orbit out of faith in G-d who created them. They all then support each other. And isn't that how faith is? If my faith is right in me, when I meet you and see your faith right in you, then you make prayer with me. I was strong by myself. Now, when I meet you and find you have the same faith I have, boy, we can now attain and achieve a universe of possibilities. See, I don't have to be in comedy anymore. So, I can have a soul system. Whoa. Say I was alone. I was roaming the heavens as a comet, full of fire, full of spirit. But I was just going through the heavens, and then I met someone like myself. And then met others. Together we can reform a company by our joint efforts that come so easily. No fishing. We don't burn out anymore.
Dear beloved people, understand that when Allah says that the human soul was first established on the water. Isn't that what Allah says in His book? You will read it. It says that the human soul was first established on the water. What does that tell us? It tells us that although you move from the principle of pure faith, pure spiritual faith, to a principle of social order and development, your salvation is still faith. It was established on the water, and water is still needed for the land. For a land without water is called what in the ground? A dead land. Is that not right? It's a dead land, and we know that's what's happening. Yes. So let's understand that. We are people of faith. If anything has made your Imam, your Imam, it's his faith. His faith in Allah. Unshakeable faith in Allah. His belief that Allah will show him what he doesn't see today. And I'll move based on what I see today until Allah shows me the next step.
Yes, faith. And I challenged the world. I challenged the world in 1975, and I've done it ever since. And if I were to tell you the truth, that over these six years, I've grown sixty years. Yes. But I challenged them just as boldly when I was a baby in the crib because I wasn't coming from what I knew; I was coming from faith. That's right. Victory one told me I could win another one. Oh yes? That's right. So each year, I speak with the same confidence. In fact, you don't find me speaking to most of us as I used to speak. Why? Because our confidence has built up in me, and in you. Yes. Confidence has built up in me. Why am I saying it? Why should I say this? And when confidence has built up in you, that makes me say, why should I say it to them? They understand. So I don't brag. Even then, when I was bragging, I was bragging not to bring attention to myself. I was bragging to bring attention to the theology of what Allah was doing within us, so that you wouldn't look through that serious stuff on our side.
That's right. And believe me, Allah is with us, and Allah is going to carry us on and on and on until we become established as the most excellent community in this part of the world and on the face of this earth. You might say, Well, Imam, can you show me that in the Quran? Yes, yes, yes. But I'm not speaking from the Qur'an right now. What are you speaking from then? I'm speaking from private situations. Am I entitled to that? I believe so. I read in the paper two days ago, and I think it was in a magazine called Woman's World. I think it's a credible magazine. And in this magazine were scientific reports in which three of them were identified by name. The report said it is now scientifically established that there is a psychic phenomenon, and it is not limited to certain people. They say anybody can have it. They say that actually everybody has it.
This is scientific information that actually says that everybody does have it, but it manifests in some people more than in others. It's more observed on a massive kind of scale among children, in little children more than among older people. Why? Because children haven't yet learned to depend on their intellect. They depend upon the innate spiritual instinct that Allah has given them from birth. All right? Yes, what else did the report say? It said that they have found that it is not limited to males. Both males and females have it. Both the male and the female have it. And they've also found that it can't be increased by any effort on the part of the individual. They say the only thing that seems to increase it is total relaxation. These statements are inside the report.
Now, if I had the time today, if I had the time, I could show you in the Qur'an, everything that I just told you. Yes. But we don't have the time. So I'm going to have to do it real quick. What I mean is that I don't have the time to give you a scientific paper. So I'm going to just have to give you the book. Allah says in the Qur’an that He has given up His role to every human being. All right? That's not enough. All right. And He revealed to the mother of Moses. And he revealed to the mother of Isa. All right? Okay. Now, it says of the soul. He excels who invests in his soul. And, he fails who neglects to invest in his soul. This is a message to all of us. So that's telling all of us that we can progress by investing in the development of our souls. How do we develop the soul? Meditation. Proper kind of reflection. Concentration on excellent growth. Right direction. Right disposition. Right worship. All of this helps us to progress the soul. People are people. But again, what does Allah say in the Qur'an? I know this is a hasty job. I would get you very specific verses to back all this up if I had the time. Now, says that no soul, no one knows in what land it will die. Is that right? No soul knows in what land it will die. Okay. What did this scientific report say? It says no individual has command of it. He has it, but he himself has no command of it. He can't do this when he wants to. It has to be a time when he's just naturally in tune with it that he doesn't even understand himself. This is said in this scientific report on the phenomena in the psyche of the spiritual nature of human beings.
So no one can tell you, and they can do nothing. No one can say American Airlines will go out of business. No. You can't go to him and say, "Look, I'm thinking about investing in OPEC. I heard you were psychic." And he says, "No, don't invest. OPEC will crash next Thursday." No, you can't go to anybody to do that. They lie to you if they tell you those things. It's not within the individual's command, but everybody has it. The person who goes out on the street and comes back to the home, bringing a loaf of bread. And the wife said, "Hey, that's what I wanted you to get. I wanted to tell you to bring back a loaf." And you brought it back. He didn't know that his wife wanted anything. He didn't know anything. He had no command over that. But, there's that loaf of bread. He didn't foresee anything. He registered something. Now we don't have time to go through all of this today, but I know a lot of you are interested in this.
You spook it. I didn't call you spooks. That's a word I learned when I was a child. Yes. Now, let me tell you something else. The other phenomenon was here too. A reality that hasn't yet happened. Know about it before it happens. This is a fact. Ain't no superstition thinking, but nobody has a command over it. This has been scientifically documented, now that nobody has command of that. I got to witness it right now. So this, which is not much something that some of you have experienced, I know. We were walking down the street, a person we hadn't seen in a long time, and I was talking to my friend about that person. And I said, we are going to see that person before we get to the end of the block. I didn't know that, but I felt such a strong effort to express faith that that was going to be. So I told him: "Before we get to that corner of the block, we're going to see that person." And we saw him, and he was amazed. I was surprised. He was amazed. So I'm not going to hold you any longer.
There's a lot that accounts for the survival support in your personal life and the life of society that G-d has revealed in His scriptures and made available to us, made accessible to us. You need it. You need to be taught it. It won't spook you up when you get it right. It will make you more rational, and it will make you more humble. It will humble you. You won't be thinking that you will be the G-d of somebody. It will dignify you, make you more excellent, mentally, and in every other way. At the same time, it will bring about humility in you that'll make you a lovable person. Make people like you because it'll be for real. Yes. So let us remain in the path of Allah, remain devoted to Him and Him alone, worship none but Him, and let us grow in the image of the true, truthful human being that is given to us in the most excellent type, Muhammad, the Prophet, peace be upon him. And let us realize that all of us are entitled to our own distinction, our own reality, that Allah has not made any people to be a copy of another people, that Allah has not made any individual to be a copy of another individual.
We must have the desire, the will for growth on our own part. We must select our growth for ourselves, and Allah will bless us. This is the excellence that I hope to live to see come to our people, so our people won't be taking on the personalities of other people, and won't be so impressionable that they just fall into anything that comes along with a great pain and a dead past. Resolute, I promise, goal direction, servants of the Lord for life and death, contributors to the growth of the whole society. Oh yes, this is what I hope for, people who will gain emotional stability, who won't let a song take them out of their religion, who won't let a party knock out their religious sight, who will walk through the hells of temptation, yet remain devoted and hold fast, so that they come out with the same mind you went in with. Those who go from the mosque and stay away for a year, then come back, and they haven't lost a thing. That's what I want to see. And that day will come into our community life. As-Salaam Alaikum ...

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