05/28/2000
IWDM Study Library
Achieving Community Establishment in America

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Warith Deen Mohammed: Peace be unto you, Assalamu alaikum.
Crowd: Wa alaikum as-salaam
Warith Deen Mohammed: We praise G-d. Alhamdu lillaahi Rabbil 'aalameen. The praise and the thanks is for G-d the Creator, Lord, Cherisher of all the worlds to witness that He's one. The G-d of all people, the Creator of all things. The one who sent messenger, prophets after one another, following each other until He sent Muhammad, the prophet. The seal of the prophets, the last of the prophets. With the last revealed book, the Quran, we witness that that prophet born in Mecca, what is called Saudi Arabia now. It wasn't called Saudi Arabia at that time, the Land of the Arabs on the Peninsula Arabia and the City of Mecca, the venerated City of Mecca.
It's very important and sacred to all Muslims that city. The (unclear) of the house there built by prophet Abraham and his son, Ishmael. In the Quran, their names are Ibraheem and Ismial, two prophets, father and son, peace be on you. We know that before Muhammad the prophet began his mission as a mercy to all the worlds as G-d says of him in the holy book, the Quran, Mecca because of that house was the venerated city.
Islam came and revived the understanding and meaning for the people of that house. Muhammad, the prophet, as you know now was the one that G-d chose to speak through. To reveal the last message for all mankind, the Quran, and to direct, all the believers, the Muslims that is to face that house in prayer and to go to that house at least once in a lifetime as a pilgrim or Hajji. That is to say to you, believers, Muslims, and if there are non-Muslims here, this is also to aquaint you with this. That is to say to you that Muslims are a world community.
We are an international world community. Islam is a message for all the worlds, for all the worlds. Islam is a message for every nation, for every people. Islam is not a family of one color. Islam is a family of all colors. All the colors of mankind are in the human family of Islam. Islam is a prescription for the whole life of the human being, the whole life of the human being. Nothing, no important need for human beings is left out of Islam. You know they say you shouldn't reinvent the wheel. Well, that's correct but the wheel that I'm looking at is not the wheel that G-d revealed. Then we have to have another wheel.
[laughter]
That's not reinventing the wheel, that's giving the wheel that's useful to have. [laughs] That is to say, Muslims all over this world are responsible for the smallest thing that you need in your life, to the biggest thing that you need in your life. For me, really G-d knows I don't have to have what I've got. I've got it. I love it, I appreciate it. I thank G-d for it.
It's a great honor that I'm the leader I am and have your faith and your trust. That's a great honor, but G-d knows that's not what I have to have. I'm happy, as a private citizen, with my wife, my children, grandchildren, my great-grandchildren with a sandwich like you had today maybe. [laughter] A cool glass of water, a juice or something, TV if I got the time or a good movie. Rest get up to go to work again.
Repeat that every day. Get a vacation maybe every once in a while, go to another state with my children and grandchildren, and wife if I can afford to take her.
[laughter]
If I can afford to take her. These children ain't as heavy on my bank as my wife.
[laughter]
That's not a complaint. That's to say she is bigger than the children, even bigger than mine. I would be happy, G-d knows that. They say when someone telling you something and you can't quite believe everything they're saying, they say, "Take it with a grain of salt." Whatever I say, to you take it in humor, you take it in good humor. If you don't understand, just take it in good humor.
[laughter]
Yes, this is all I need. I'm happy with that, but that's not the way it was to be. I'm the son of Elijah Muhammad and my life was decided for me before I even he knew I had life so it wasn't for me to decide my life. It was already decided for me before I was old enough myself to even realize that I have a life, and I'm thankful. I'm very thankful and grateful, but G-d knows that I'm ready to give this position up as soon as we can find somebody that can do it as well as I can, or can do it successfully. Can be successful in the leadership and have your support like I have your support. As soon as we can get one, and I'd like to be his assistant or his assistant’s assistant or his assistant’s assistant’s assistant. [laughter] That will be fine with me. [laughs] We're working real hard. I pray and work to get that person. [laughs] We have to. We have to, not only work to have good leadership. We have to work to have good leadership after that good leadership. Good leadership after that good leadership. We have to work for that, and we all should be working for that.
Now, this is Memorial Day weekend. This is the day that families get together because we are off of work. The season is good the climate is usually nice, it's raining but the weather is good. We hope for sunshine so we can have family hours or picnics as a group club or something for us as a community, just have a nice time. We know it's Memorial Day. Memorial will mean that this day, honors somebody, or persons that should be remembered. They are the people who made sacrifices that lost their lives, fought and lost their lives so we could have this peace and security that we enjoy as citizens of the United States of America.
We honor them. We must pay tribute to them on this day. Also, we must take full advantage all the time, I'm speaking to the leaders now, directly to the leaders in our community. We must take full advantage at every occasion when there is a holiday that give us time off from work. We must take full advantage of that opportunity to meet together. For every important interest that we have, as a community, to strengthen, to look at, to study the situation with our schools, our masjids, our business people, our financial needs.
I said, "our financial needs." Senior citizens have to be taken care of, the sick have to be taken care of, the little ones without parents have to be taken care of. These are all obligations (unclear) very clearly in the holy Quran. The weak have to be taken care of, not to mention our investments, they have been protected. Somebody's financing them. As much as possible, we want to qualify to finance our own investments so we have to work for that, we have to work at that.
It's not going to happen unless we work for it. Allah said that nothing for the human person except that he strives for it. [foreign language] There is nothing for the human person, except that you make a real hard effort. You have to strive for it. (Arabic) means it's difficult. You're going, you're going, but not with ease, with difficulty. That's our history. We are a people, who have come up from slavery and now free. That's what we have to do, struggle.
As slaves of those who were slaves, they had to struggled to keep their life, struggle to not be killed by their masters, struggle to survive. That ugly rule over that part of the world until a kinder, more humane rule came into existence. They had to struggle. When an opportunity came for them to be free from plantation, confinement, confined to a certain piece of land, like a camp, like a work camp or something. Like prisoners in a work camp. When the time came for them to be free from those circumstances. They have to strive and struggle more because no one except the very few that you would meet, accidentally.
Every once in a while in a lifetime of just a few of us do meet white person, male or female, most likely female, who sympathize with you and your situation and want to help you in that situation so that you could have a better life. Most of us, 90% of us couldn't expect that. I would say 95% of us couldn't expect that. Even though we were free, we still knew that there was always someone that may take everything from us, after accumulating knowledge, skills, professions, build a business. We know in history of slaves who were freed and they build pretty businesses, pretty businesses, but they've were destroyed, their businesses were destroyed by hateful mongers, hateful white folks. That's just (unclear) business, but many they would work hard to establish a business and knew there was a risk that they can be wiped out in just a few minutes by some hate monger, or stolen from them, lose it to somebody else, (unclear) in the pocket. That ended, those times are gone. There are still the need to strive and struggle, and be aware that there are some around that don't want you here. They don't want to have you to have anything. [crosstalk] Now, it's not only white folks, it is some of your own folks. [crosstalk]
Living right next door to you, living in your own house sometimes, and certainly, in your own mosque, in your own community. Those who don't want to see you succeed. They are planning, scheming, and plotting, to see that you don't get what you're after, or you lose it. That's life, that's life. (unclear section). Don't you aggravate (unclear) when people leave her. We need you to aggravate us us (unclear). [chuckles] If we don't have you around, we might go to sleep.
[laughter]
We might get so (unclear) and comfortable, we might go to sleep. [laughs] So that (unclear). Allah chose that life for us, He chose that life for us, a life of struggle, a life of struggle. There's something always contending with you, especially if you want to be right. There's something always contending with even your own nature, your own soul. You have a tendency in yourself, to say, I'm tired. I had someone tell me, he said, “I'm tired”. I said you can't be tired right now. [laughter] I said you can be tired after you finished what I told you to do.
[laughter]
I said you have time to be tired after you finished what I told you to do. I said after you finished what I told you to do (unclear). When you finished what I told you to do, you're off for today. So be tired when you're finished. Now that was a child. [chuckles] I wouldn't talk like that to a man or a woman. It was a child, and I was ready to become Clara Muhammad on him. [laughter] All she needed to do was correct you one time. You'll never make that mistake again.
Yes, what is this all about? Why is religion so important for us? Religion for some people is a past time, is a recess from life, recess. A past time, something to do when there is nothing else important to do or something that you just do for pleasure, only. For some, religion is a deception. Yes, a deception. They got their religion to hide their true life. They have religion to hide their true life, so religion is a deception. Their religion doesn't have the power or the influence to correct their chosen life, the life they choose to live.
The life they choose to live has the power to affect how they regard their religion. That's why I said, for some, religion is a deception. For us, religion is the life, the life. If we were in a Muslim land or if this land, well, not the land, just say a neighborhood. If we could be successful, (unclear section)... reading about the Lithuanians who came to Chicago long time ago.
They have a strong Lithuanian community, and a lot of things had happen over the decades to make them feel uncomfortable and uneasy, to worry about whether they are going to be able to keep that neighborhood for Lithuanians, but they are still there. I believe if you could go there and ask them, each neighbor in the neighborhood, ring the bell and knock on the door and ask them say, "What church do you go to?" I guarantee you, 90% of them go to same church, and 90% of more of them go to the same church.
Lithuanians, they came to this country, - maybe I should tell you what my topic is. I'm talking you don't even know what the topic is. I didn't, I'm sorry. I hope you all didn't put a topic in the paper, but did you do that? I hope you did. If you did, then I hope I'm in line with that topic. I might have given you a topic but I can't recall giving you a one. The topic is the life of the human family. They all come here to have their life that they choose. They want the life that they chose to live.
Lithuanians come here to have the life that they choose to live. Now, “segregation is wrong. Segregation is evil”. But people should have a life, to have their own life in their own area and we should regard it a with sacred respect. Not want bust up their family, bust up their neighborhood, destroy their religious family. We should not want to do that. If I have to go back in time, if I had to plan a strategy for breaking down the walls of segregation, I would have done it with respect from people who came to this country to choose the life they want to live because they couldn't have where they came from. They were persecuted. They were denied of freedom.
I would have a strategy to respect their life, their dream as much as possible and only cause trouble for them when there was no other way to achieve justice except to have a confrontation or to have trouble. That's what I would do. I wouldn't just have that as a strategy. I would make that public. I would proclaim that in the beginning of my effort to make things right for my cause. I would proclaim that. I tell them in my statement of purpose that we have a sacred respect for the life of people who choose to live their own ethnicity, their own culture, and support their own religion, the religion of their choice. I would make that statement.
I would be a man like Muhammad, the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, the prayer and be meeting on him. He was this kind of fore sighted person. It made me the man I am because of knowing about Him. The Quran he was given the holy book for all of it and about his life the model life for all of us. I am the man I am because I strive to conform and be in agreement with what Allah wants for human beings.
I know that when Allah wants for human beings is given to us in the last Prophet Muhammad, of Arabia prayers and peace be on him. I would have that kind of strategy and I would make friends and reduce the number for my enemies. [chuckles] If that has been done, we would have much more opportunity in Chicago, and these other states of United States to work and strive. And makes strides, accomplish things because there will be less fear of us. There will be less hatred in people because of us.
The climate would be much better. The climate for our presence and growth would be much better(unclear). But our movement was left to be exploited by politicians and people of greed, politicians, and people of greed. They come and they join the leader. They join the leader and tell him to make our decision. You have our dollars behind you. You have our voice with you, etc. But they have also a plan for themselves. They have a plan to put you in positions where you can open up areas for yourself, and when you get an area for yourself, they have plans to come in here too.
Maybe they were also not wanted in that particular area so they have planned you're coming in that area and your coming in to that area will open that area for them to come in that area also. Then they know that you have been the deprived of a history or a tradition of success and community life. They know that they’re the better prepared, they're the better equipped. They’re the better prepared to succeed at community life. When you get in there, they get in there too because of you getting in there. Then they come in and get a great benefit, they establish themselves. They become rich.
They open up businesses and this and that, financial institutions and everything and just bloom and blossom, high level, high-level of production, and you're still struggling. On the top of the earth like a little bug. I wouldn’t say a bug because brother (unclear) and I don't know whether was he trying to tell me, brother, Imam, I bug you a lot, but I'm an intelligent bug.
[laughter]
(unclear section.) He's also a friendly bug. I wouldn’t kill him, I'll just open the door and try to get him out of the house.
[laughter]
I think he's gone, I don't see him. I think he has caught a plane. He might be bugging somebody at the airport.
[laughter]
You, brothers (unclear section) I hope you think you can do that. You have to think you can do it to do it. Remember it ain't all roses (unclear section). There are a lot of thorns. [chuckles]
The life, the real life, the true life of the human family. Allah didn't create us to have the life of Arabs. Now I know you like that. [chuckles] Allah didn't create us to have the life of Africans. Some of you like that.
Allah didn't create us to have the life of European people. Allah didn't create us to have the life of African-American people, Negroes. No. Allah created us to have the life of the human family. That's the life. The life of the human family. If we strive for the life of Black people, we’re limited by our own purpose. Yes, we’re limited by our own purpose if we strive to have the life of African-Americans or Black people or Africans or Black people. You’re limited by your own purpose. What is the life of Black people?
What is the life of Africans? It maybe used to be glorious at one time, but they don't have it now. There's nothing over there I want to go shopping for, not in terms of the life that I want. That's not to put Africa down. That just stating the fact for me, that's all. Yes. The reason why a certain people have been successful and rise above other people in the world, and gaining respect from other people in the world for great achievements. It's because they didn’t go after tribal life. They didn’t go after Irish. They did not go after English life. They went after ideal human life.
Human life is what pulls all other life up. All other life rises up as human life rises up. Human life will lift all other life up. Human life. We look at our educators and our leaders, and we think on how do you measure them? What criteria do you use to understand their achievements? Do you say, "Oh, he was well educated." That's why he was successful. What about all the Hon. Elijah Muhammad, he was not educated at all. He had to teach himself how to write. Had to teach himself how to read. He told me I could even write my own name in a nice hand.
He said I had to struggle to do that until I get a nice penmanship. My father told me that. He only has three years elementary education in the South, Sandersville Georgia, in that area. Poor, Georgia, only three years education. What is three years education? Nothing. You have children that's in the third year right now. How much education is that? What can you do with that? Three years now, that’s like six years back then and maybe like seven years. Three years now in the average school of these cities in the United States, that third-grader got more education, more knowledge, more skills then maybe six or seventh grader had when my father was in school, and that's a fact.
Look back there and think where my father was in terms of formal education, nowhere. Nothing. Look how successful he was, and drawing attention to his cause and having supporters for his cause. Many of us supporting his cause, maybe African-American supporting his cause. That's how successful he was. We look at Frederick Douglass. What really made it possible for that man who was a slave to come up north, run to freedom, escape slavery, and become a world-renowned statesman? Europe knew of him as well as America. Respected him highly as well as America. What was it? Was it education? He was mostly a self-taught man himself, Frederick Douglass. We know that he went to school and he achieved.
He was an educated man, but this man was rising all the time before he acquired those degrees of education. He would rise so that tells you there was more motivating him and more supporting his rise than just formal education. Formal education is a must. I know we have to have it, but if you're intelligent and you have a great cause, a great aim as Booker T. Washington said or as the Hon. Marcus Garvey said, “You can succeed in spite of your lack of formal education.” The greatest reformers of his Earth in the history of mankind were not educated formally. Moses was not educated formally.
Jesus Christ, peace be on him , was not educated formally. Muhammad, the last prophet was not educated formally. When you look at the world to see who has the greatest influence in this present world is the followers of Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, peace be upon them. This is the reality. I'm not just talking. I'm choosing my words like I would choose my steps if I was walking on a tightrope. You ever went to the circus and saw tightrope walker? Do you see how carefully they walk, they step. They won't fall down. They want to get to the end where they have to go. I'm choosing my words like a tightrope walker, chooses his steps or her steps. This is no plaything. This is no guess word.
I'm trying to share with you what has started the world of civilization and what redeems the world of civilization when it becomes uncivilized and what the whole world of people have to come under one day. It doesn't mean everybody will know it or understand it, but they will come under it one day and that day is very close by. Do you hear me? That day is very close by when the whole world is going to be under leadership, world leadership that works not for race but works for the human family with a perception, with a picture, with a view that have come into the possession of wise people and saintly people from the mouth of G-d Himself.
From the mouth of G-d Himself, yes. And I have studied it, I've studied the sacred words, and I have seen it with my own eyes. It has equipped me to communicate it to the wise and saintly people of this world. They hear it, they understand it while most of you do not. They welcome me, the light is on for me in the whole world. There are no dark areas anymore for me. [crosstalk] I'm telling you that if you would just have faith like I had, faith has brought me to where I am now. For many, many years, I was struggling for the right understanding, struggling for the right picture, struggling for the light in the dark areas but my faith was strong to start with. As G-d began to bless me with understanding of the sacred word and understanding of the mission of the last Prophet Muhammad. My faith began to be increasing, increasing, increasing until now it's still strong, I believe it's impossible for people to stop me. Yes. You know the statement should be that I believe it's possible for me to succeed. No, I believe it's impossible for people to stop me. Because G-d approves what I have chosen to be as a human person.
G-d approves of what I've chosen to be as a human person and G-d is going to protect that life. Yes, and that life lives for G-d, it didn't live for itself. That life lives for G-d because the person who has that life, that person knows that it only has that life because G-d has favored with this person. Yes, that G-d has selected that person, favored that person with His mercy and sent an angels to guide that person and to assist that person when that person needs that help. Until that person arrives where that person wanted to be.
Where did I want to be? I wanted to be comfortable with myself. Isn't this the need that drives all of us? We want to be comfortable with ourselves. Sometimes a sister marry a man that she thought was going to make a good man for her. She's an honest, faithful woman and she's a hardworking woman too. She doesn't mind working and helping him out, but the more she helps him out, the more she sees that he's doing wrong. The more she helps him out, the more time he got to go out flirting. Now, she's thinking she made a mistake. I got the wrong man. That man looked like he wanted nobody but me.
Until I started helping him out, freed him up so he'd have more time on his hands, now he's got time to go out there and just flirting. So he's going out and he's flirting all the time, making my life miserable. I had to give him up, cut this man loose. Sometimes it's hard. But to have the life that you could be comfortable with, a lot of these sisters, they cut their brothers loose, cut them loose. He said, "You know I love you." She'll say, "I'll always love you, but nothing's going to get you back in the door." I heard one say, "You know what these other women are to me?" I heard the sister say, "What?" "Nothing." She said, "Just go on back out there with nothing."
[laughter]
Everybody want the life that they can be comfortable with. Man, woman, child, everybody. We want the life that we can be comfortable with. The problem is that sometimes we get the life that we think will make us happy, but later down the road, it terribly disappoints us. Disappoints us, disappoints us and then we have to choose again. We have to work again to establish ourselves in the life that we think will make us comfortable. This is the history, not of a person or an individual, but this is the history of nations. This is the history of nations.
Nations are the same. They struggle, they come up and they struggle for the life that will make them comfortable. The life that will make us comfortable is the life of environmental beauty. Let us make a god to this dream of ours. Let us call this god the god of beauty. This is the history of nations. Then they erect the great god to their aim, to their purpose in life and they will call that god maybe Apollo or something. Maybe Apollo, god of beauty.
They would give it a name, and that nation will be strong because they have that god, they have the ideal life, they have that dream picture of what they want to be as a people and they have a god now, that will remind them always that what we want is a life of beauty. And later down the road, they have beauty, disappoint them. Beauty disappoints them. Some have chosen war, strength, manpower as the ideal life. Build our manpower. Let us have the strongest army on earth and this will be our security. Our borders we will be protected, no one will dare attack us. We will have freedom that others don't have.
While they're in fear, we will be partying, drinking and making love to our wives, et cetera. We'll have an annual day of celebration, celebrating the victory of our nation over other nations. Our independence, et cetera. Yes, and in our home, we have the individuals, they'll be doing the same thing. They're trying to get the life they want. Let me make short, over the long road of history, from individuals and nations, striving to have a life that will make them comfortable, there have been some very humane, decent, human mind, human-hearted, human soul, human spirit, human love, humane persons.
Wanting to find not what would make them happy, but wanting to find what would make the maximum number of human beings happy. The maximum number of human beings happy. They think not for themselves, they think for the family of mankind. Because they were innocent and charitable, G-d chose some of them to be His messengers, to be His prophets. G-d revealed to them, to those special people, that want not something for themselves, for their families, for their nation, or for their race, but only wanting something for all human beings, everybody in human form. Because of G-d selecting them and revealing to them the life, the life.
G-d revealed the life. We cannot know the life unless G-d reveals it to us. Impossible. The same G-d that created us physically to look like humans also has to reveal to a human being, that's worthy of his revelation, the life that we need to make us happy. We cannot get it, except from Him. Isn't that rational? Isn't that logical? Isn't that justice? If I got my physical life, this human body, this biological form, with this intelligence and everything that makes me the person that I am If I got this from a G-d that created everything.
If I'm looking for the ideal life to live and have this body and to live for in the world environment, should I be free to get that on my own when I wasn't free to get this body on my own? I wasn't free to get this body on my own. G-d had ordered that if you want the life that He created the body for, you have to also get that from Him. And we have it in the language. Maybe you don't know it in the language of all the men that G-d appointed, but it's in the language of everyone He appointed. To speak to this life, to address this condition that we need as human beings, to have life.
Adam, the first man he created, in the narration of the story about his creation, we see that He created him for a particular life. In the Bible it gives us a story of a man being created and then put in the garden. A garden means a beautiful place, a lovely place especially back then. A paradise, the garden of paradise, a heaven on earth or a heaven on some land just in his environment. A heaven in his environment wherever it was in the sky or the earth wherever the man was. A heaven. He put him in the garden.
When he put him in the garden he advised him, G-d advised the man. He said, “Eat of every tree,” this is the Bible. He said, “Eat of every tree.” Here is G-d telling the man to feed himself and enjoy the abundance of life and food. He said, “Eat of every tree but that one tree, the knowledge of good and evil, do not eat of it.” This is the Bible of Genesis, the Bible of Genesis. Now here is the first human being created by G-d. According to this reveals knowledge called bible and scripture, the man was cautioned by the same G-d that made him, created him. Not to eat of a certain tree in the garden. That tree is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The knowledge of good and evil. He said that, “The day that you eat of it you will surely die. You will surely die.” Here is a proof that if this person G-d created for life eats of it he will lose that life. He will lose the life that G-d gave him that G-d intended for him. He will lose the life that is truly his life if he eats of that fruit. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That tells us brothers and sisters that G-d is saying in Genesis, G-d is saying that human beings are created by the G-d and the G-d is the same G-d that created them in the form that they're in, also gave them the life that is best suited for them.
If they leave that life or lose that life, they will die. Does it mean they will die physically and be put in a physical grave? No, they will die spiritually, spirit wise, spiritually. They will die, the spirit will die. The spirit that G-d gave them when he created them, they will lose that spirit. They won’t have that same spirit. They will die to that spirit and therefore they will be dead, virtually dead. G-d created them to have that spirit, human spirit and G-d created them for that particular life.
If they don’t have that particular life, don’t they have another life? They are dead, because if I was born to have the life of Wallace D. Mohammed and someone takes the life of Wallace D. Mohammed from me then I become the life of maybe Abdul Rahman Salim. When I go home to my wife as Abdul Rahman Salim, she’s going to say, “Where’s my husband?” If she can't get anything from me but Abdul Rahman Salim, I’m going to have to leave the house. I can’t stay there.
When people ask her, “What happened to your husband?” She’s going to say, “He’s dead. He died.” If we lose the life that G-d created for us, that ideal human life that G-d created for us we are virtually dead. We are dead. Dead people and we can have some of our relatives in our house that we really love. They can get taken away from the life that the family knew and chose for themselves and they can get another life that’s so different from the life that they chose for themselves that when that person come around it’s just like they didn’t come around at all.
In fact it’s worse, it’s just like having them come about in a cofin and walk in your house dead. It’s worse than having them just come around. It’s like them coming around in a dead body. Because you know that’s not him anymore or that’s not her anymore, we don’t know this person. We have to have the life Allah wants for us. The one who created us from the beginning, in the beginning.
We have to have that life, then we have happiness indeed. When we have that life we have the support of G-d’s angels. We have the support of the angels. That's what He told the man when he created him in the life he wanted him to have. He said, “The angels will support you. And the creation will yield up its resources to you, yield up its treasures to you. If you go out of the form I created for you, you’ll lose all that." The angels won’t work for you anymore.
The creation won’t yield up, yield its treasures up to you. No. Instead of great opportunities and abundance good, goods and services for you. You’ll be cast out to bite the dust, cast out to bite the dust. This is what the consequences were according to Genesis. When we look at Quran to see the beginning of man, it is told the same story, the same story is told but with a different narration, different narration.
A new narration telling us the same story. How man did not exist and the Creator of everything stars, moon, sun and everything up there and down here. The earth, the land, the rivers, the sea, the oceans, the trees, the plants, the animals and everything, the wind and weather the Lord that made all this except that there was no man existing then He created a man. Created the human being for the first time.
G-d wants us to be educated, be informed, be taught the knowledge of our own life. The real life, the life of every human being. The life of humanity not the life of a people in a particular color or the life of a nation in a particular political order but the life of a human being. G-d wants us to know. G-d tells us the story of the beginning of things, the beginning of creation. He tells us the story of the beginning of human life to give us a picture.
This is a picture G-d is drawing, G-d is painting a picture with words. G-d is painting a big screen before our eyes. Beautiful pictures, pictures of things, men and, challenges for the men to get us to see the life he wants us in. Yes, so Allah says in Quran that man had not been created yet and G-d introduced to the angels the man that he was about to create. He said to the angels, “I am making, forming in the earth a Khalifa.” The angels got disturbed because Khalifa meant to them something that they were not able to be comfortable with so they got disturbed.
They told G-d, this will cause disturbances in the Earth and bloodshed. G-d responded to them with the words, "When I have given to him of My own spirit, then you make submission to him. You accept him. You make submission to him. You yield to him. You bow yourself down to him." That's what G-d told the angels. Now, this is no ordinary creation. G-d is talking about the beginning of human life. G-d is talking about how He began human creation. G-d is talking about me. See, that's what's wrong with some of you.
The logic in Islam, if you want Islamic logic the Islamic logic is the logic that does not abort itself. The logic in Islam is the logic that does not abort itself. It keeps the life until the life is delivered. It does not abort itself. Some of you all you can go (unclear) you stop too soon. That's the story how G-d created the first person. That's not only the story of how G-d created the first person. That's the story of how G-d created every person. Every person. That's the story how G-d created Wallace D. Mohammed, yes. If I follow the logic of that being my first Father. Then where is my first father now?
You say, "Oh, he died a long time ago." He died a long time ago? I thought he had a wife and children. And I thought I was one of his children. So I know some of Elijah Muhammad is in me. And I know some of Clara Muhammad, my mother is in me. So if that was my father, carrying the logic all the way home delivering it and not letting it to be aborted. I come to this conclusion that the first man is in me. He has to be a in me. There's no other way except that he is in me. If I am his descendant. Oh, but it's been so long. That doesn't matter.
If He's not in me I'm not a human anymore. Because His beginning is the beginning of human life. If I'm not him then I'm not human anymore. That's the only way I can not be him. If there's still human life on this Earth then he is still on Earth and his many children. The Bible tells you that and the Quran tells you that. That this man is just not one person, but the man and one person is a type, one type from many that come after him.
Audience: Takbir
Yes, he said G-d is greater, yes. Glorify G-d, yes. That's what he said. Praise be to Allah. Now, you know if you are going to work tomorrow I would speed this up.
I have no spirit to speed it up. I got many disciple here. You are all not my disciples if you are faking then go home. Go get a sandwich. Go get a drink or something whatever you like to do. It's fine with me. But I'm not going to speed this up because if we drive this home clearly, and we get the picture clearly then you all are as successfully established in your life as I am. This is what establishes us in our life. It's clarity on what we are. Why we are created? Why are we here on this Earth? And where will we take this life? And what is our freedom? How much can we do with our human possibility?
Once we have that acknowledged, we are established in our human life. And no one can deny us success. No one can deny success. So there are certain people in this world they are going to be successful. Everybody waiting for the United States to fail. This government has angels protect it. This government saints, saints, holy people protected it, not directly all the time. In fact, most of them don't get protected directly. They protect out of sights.
They are not fully recognized. Holy saintly people with knowledge from G-d are protecting the good achievements of the United States in its purpose as a nation. So don't look for this nation to die, not now as long as you are responding to G-d. As long it's trying to better its human life and get in position to get more of the real human life and to make possibility better for others to have real human life. As long as this nation is positioned that way, don't you expect nothing except more progress for the United States of America. That's what I want you to come in to. I want you go with me.
Come into this knowledge. Come into this position. And once you've come into it, nothing will cause your death or cause you to fail, but your own suicidal spirit or behavior. If you can kill yourself, you will do it. But that's the only way it will come you will have to kill yourself. I'm giving you the plain truth. Now, here is Muhammad the prophet, prayers and peace be upon him. Uneducated, all of his people. Not educating in scripture. They didn't know what the Bible was about. They could argue the points of logic as students of scripture, the Bible, Judaism or Christian they couldn't do that. They were what you call unenlightened people.
That's what they were. They're called that the Arabic language that period was called the period of jahiliyyah. Jahiliyyah means uninformed, unenlightened. Unenlightened. They did not have light on his life that G-d created for human beings. They did not have the light, I repeat on this life that G-d created for human being. And because they didn't have light on that life that G-d created for human being, they were out of that form. They were out of it. They were idol worshipers. They were bands, tribes, going about in bands with their chiefs. Each follow his chief.
(unclear) on that life that G-d created for human being, they were out of that form. They were out of that. They were idol worshippers. They were bands, tribes, going about in bands with their chief, each following his chief. Claiming territory.
Making a member of their own race who is not under their chief pay a price for crossing the border of their territory, into their territory. "When you have move through my territory to Syria, well, you have to pay us so much, so much." They will fight each other over that. They will kill each other, over something like that.
"Oh, you're not going to pay, okay, if you're not going to pay, then you have to pay the price. We're going to kill you, don't come to me, if you come to me, you're going to be killed." They're fighting over things like that. Couldn't organize themselves to have one political order or idea for all of them, and they all were of one geography, one peninsula called Arabia.
But they couldn't have a sense of unity for themselves, they couldn't have a sense of order for themselves. Their life was a life of rivalry, rivalry, fighting each other, competing with each other with animosity, not with of love. That was their life. And Islam came. The Revelation came, and light came on. The life that G-d created them for.
When they saw that life that G-d created all people for, and they saw Muhammad as the living proof of that life, they fell in love with that leader. They left their chiefs, and they made Muhammad the one chief of all Arabia. One chief. He united all the tribes into one human family.
They spread from the peninsula of Arabia into Africa, North Africa, West Africa, went over to Persia, and went all the way over to Europe, finally into Asia, and now in America and all over the world. From that one man, from that one effort, assisted by G-d to put life- light L-I-G-H-T, to put light on the life that G-d chose for all people.
To tell you that you are Khalifas. Yes, G-d said, "I'm making in the earth," to the angels, "I'm making in the earth a Khalifa." This is a term that's Quranic. The Arabs had themselves to be taught the meaning of Khalifa. Muhammad had to teach them the meaning of Khalifa, because Khalifa has never been given them, their language didn't have Khalifa in it, until Quran came.
Muhammad had to tell even the Arabs what Khalifa means. If you read the Quran, the Quran tells you but you have to have- you have to study- the term itself, and you have be assisted by G-d, to come into the real full life of just what this is.
Khalifa in plain language, according to the teaching of Quran, Khalifa is a human being that G-d Himself made, He designed him, He ordered his life, He gave him this special design that makes him this special human being. That's a Khalifa. This Khalifa has in his spirit and in his nature a desire to stay with that design that G-d gave him. He has a desire not to lose that. He wants to keep that design that G-d gave him for his human life.
If something takes him out of that, he's uncomfortable. If something tips him from out of that, or influences him to move from that, he's uncomfortable. He wants to get back with that. That's his nature, that's his natural desire, to get back with that. G-d said to the angel, "I'm making such a person in earth." They were (unclear) by that because they knew that human beings, some of them, will stay with it and some of them will not.
Those that will not stay with that because G-d was making human beings also free. G-d never made human beings without also making human beings free. It's the world that takes away our freedom. G-d create every human being free.
G-d was making not only a Khalifa, but he was making this particular person to be free, to be free to think on his own, to have his own opinions, to have his own choices, to choose some other life if he wants and come out of the life that G-d put him in, if he wants.
In the Genesis, the serpent deceives him, offers him another choice and makes it look so nice and so easy and so right that the man is deceived by this serpent, and he eats of the fruit of the forbidden tree and loses that life that G-d created him for. In the Quran, it's very similar.
It says that Satan made a suggestion to him, and he accepted or followed suggestion of the Satan. He and his wife both, and they both fell from the high place that G-d created them for in life. They were expelled from the garden of paradise. Same story that we find in Genesis.
Now, all of us are also created to be honest. I don't care how dishonest we have become. We were all created by G-d to be honest. We were all created by G-d to appreciate kindness. That's why all babies, they cling to their mothers, because their mother, they learn from their experience, helpless, can't feed themselves, can't take care of themselves.
They learn that this one takes care of me, feeds me when I'm hungry, clean me when I'm filthy, makes the bed comfortable for me when it's not comfortable, make my clothes dry and comfortable, my diaper, or whatever. So this is the one that cares for me.
That human being in the form of an infant naturally attaches itself to that mother, or to that person. Sometimes the mother is dead, and another one is doing that. Attaches itself to that person and feels indebted to that person. And grows up and will actually blow your brains out if they had a gun and saw you hurting that person. Yes, appreciate that person. It's in the nature of all human beings.
G-d did much more for us than our mother did, but we don't think back, we don't-- as Allah says in the Quran, "Why don't men think back on his own life? Just recall how he came into existence and how he have come to be where he is now? Why don't he rehearse his own history, of his own individual beginning, from a mother, to where he is now. From the womb of our mother, to where he is now?"
We know that we weren't born just to be unkind to the one who is kind to us. We weren't born like that. We weren't born to be distrustful of a person that have proven that we could trust them. All of us have in our own human nature capacity, ability to be trustful, and to be a person of faith. Of faith. A believer. The world wants to take that away from us. What world is that? W. Deen Mohammed, what world is that that they want to take faith away from us? The world of the devils. The world of the devil, the same one that deceived our first father. It's still around to deceive us. The world of the devils.
They want to take away from us an appreciation on our spirit, a tendency in us, an inclination to trust those that prove themselves trustworthy. To have faith in those that prove themselves worthy of our faith in them. The devils want to take that away from us.
It's because if we keep that trust, we will begin to become stronger and stronger and followers of G-d and his prophets. Because there is nothing in creation or beyond that is more deserving of me trusting it, but the one who gave me existence when I had no existence. I had no existence, and the creator gave me existence.
I know I can trust him, he gave me existence when I had no existence.
Not only did He give me existence but he assisted me with human sensitivities, and human perception, and human intelligence, and human freedom. He assisted me so I can grow and improve upon my own life and get more and more out of life. And get more and more out of the world and things in the environment.
He created me like that, so I know I can trust the one who trusted me. He trusted me with my existence. He trusted me with the tools of my intelligence that raises me above the capacity and possibility for animals. And then he gave me freedom so I can do anything I want with my powers. Now, if I can't trust one like that, what can I trust? How many bosses do we have that will trust us like that?
How many government on earth are there that trust human beings like that? Only the Creator that created us trusts us like that. So when you come to really know the logic of Creator, for believing in Creator, G-d, then you also come to know that G-d is the one that has the greatest faith in you.
And I love Dr. Schuller for many reasons. Who is Doctor Schuller? He's a Christian evangelist. He has a television ministry, a big one, impressive one. Dr. Schuller said, when he's speaking to his great audience, his worldwide audience, he said, "I believe in you, and G-d believes in you." A powerful statement and a true statement.
If G-d doesn't believe in human beings, he would never trust us with this freedom that we have, that stones don't have, trees don't have, animals don't have. Only human beings have this great margin or great dimension of freedom that we enjoy, that we have and should be enjoying. Freedom.
He created the roach, and I've studied the roaches' history. The roaches, they've always been around. The roaches, you can't keep them out of high places. They were in the house of pharaoh, the roaches, they were in the house of the pharaohs, the pharaohs, the rulers of Egypt, that kind of ancient Pharaoh, reign of the ancient pharaoh. They got so tired of trying to exterminate and keep them out, that they made a roach a god.
[laughter]
A roach is one the gods of ancient Egypt. But one thing about that roach, he walks the same way today, that he walked (unclear section)... ancient pharaohs. And he does the same dance (unclear) . He sings the same way, he flirts with his wife the same way, he has changed nothing. The same shoes he wore in ancient Egypt, he wears today. He hasn't changed not a thing.
But man is free to expand his imagination, and see new pictures for himself, and say, "Hey, I'm going to get this kind of shoe, and this too, and that kind, and that. " He just decorates himself, like that freedom of mind. He said, "Oh, I like to fly like an eagle. He says I can't do it right now, but I'm working at it."
After a while, he's sitting in a jet, looking down on an eagle, and say, "Hey, you buddy, if you follow me you will die. Stay down there, fly down there, saying, (unclear section) flying over me, like an eagle, flying way over an eagle. This is man.
So, Muhammad the prophet, prayers of peace be upon him, he said, "He the person who has known himself, has known his Lord." When you really come to know yourself, how special you are, and this great freedom you have. Then you know, you don't guess, you know there's a living G-d that loves you.
There's a living G-d that loves you, and that the (unclear) of humanity. From the beginning to today, and has insisted you and me to come back into the high life that He created them for. So that those of the future will have a chance to keep moving forward in the mode of human excellence. So they can have that great life on earth that G-d had created them for.
When you come to know that, you, yourself as a creature, with this special (unclear), with all these special talents raised above all other creatures. You know you couldn't do that for yourself. So the logic is someone or something did this for me. So you find your G-d after you find yourself. The logic is to see self and when you see self in true self form, then you know that G-d did this.
I can't do it and animals can't do it because I'm over them. Mother nature can't do it because this has put me above Mother Nature, yes. You say, how are you above Mother Nature in this human type? G-d said everything of the earth and the sky will yield it's treasures to you if you obey Me, in this form I created for you.
That's what G-d said. So G-d is saying, all that it's in the sky, that means stars and everything. Do you think, " [unintelligible 00:18:35] ." Look, when you come into this mind, into this knowledge of yourself as a creation of G-d, they say tornadoes are coming , [unintelligible 00:18:50] which direction are they coming?
Or which direction (unclear)? (unclear section) . But you don't panic. If they say we don't know, say I'm going to bed, I'm going to rest, I'm going to sleep like a baby. Because I know nothing can happen to me unless my Lord permits it.
Yes, so we do believe that we're having a protection, even against Mother Nature. And isn't Mother Nature, science? Science is Mother Nature. If something is created to behave this way, it it's affected by this particular other powerful, other matter. Then that's Mother Nature, isn't it? For here is Mother Nature serving the world of mankind, science serving the world of mankind. The way that matter behaves under certain conditions, and with certain things. We get a certain definite reaction a definite consequence. Man sees that, he observes that, and then he says, "I can use that in this particular project, and we can have great power for man. For the factory, or for medicine, whatever." It depends on what he's studying.
The one who discovered Polio, no, not that one, but that one, too. The one who discovered the- yes. Polio- no, not Polio. Penicillin. Thank you. The one who discovered Penicillin. He was looking for something else. He wasn't looking for Penicillin. But he left his sandwich on the window, and he was so busy with his scientific work or experiment, he forgot he left his sandwich on the window.
Mold accumulated on the bread, and the little breeze from the window blew the mold off the bread into his experiment. He discovered that a lot of the germs have been killed, all those, the germs, all the germs have been killed. He didn't know how have the germs been killed.
He was looking for some of the way he killed the germs. Then, the bread with the mold on it, and the wind comes in and blow the mold, live mold, on the bread enters the experiment, and he says, "The germs are dead, what did that?" Then he finally notices there's the bread, there's the mold, and mold from the bread has fallen into his experiment. That's how we got Penicillin. Now, who gets the credit for us getting Penicillin?
He was looking for something else, he wasn't looking for Penicillin. The wind came, a little light wind came and blew the mold from his bread into his experiment. That's how we got Penicillin. You can read up on this in a dictionary, you can read up on encyclopedia, Britannica Wikipedia, World Book, [unintelligible 00:22:32] whatever. You can verify what I'm telling you here today, okay?
All right, so this is how we got Penicillin, you know how valuable Penicillin has been? [laughs] What was that? Was that Mother Nature? Yes. It was Mother Nature for a particular kind of life to meet another kind of life that it was not meant to be compatible with, was detrimental to and destroy that other kind of life. It so happens that other kind of life was bacteria, that was causing great sickness in man, in people at that time.
That mold, Penicillin and mold, was the answer for that particular experiment to get rid of that bacteria. That was Mother Nature. G-d definitely has made Mother Nature the servant of man. Mother Nature the servant of man. This story is told from Genesis to Revelation. It's told from the beginning of the Quran to the end of the Quran.
Understand this, that whatever I'm telling you, I am speaking from my knowledge of Quran. Whatever I'm telling you, all of this about the mold. I'm coming from my knowledge of scripture. This story that I've just told to you of Mother Nature, it is from the beginning of the Quran to the end, it's from the beginning of the Bible to the end of the Bible.
Most people can't see it. Investigate it. They abort the logic before the logic is developed. Just a little onger now. Here is what we have to understand, that the call to religion is the call to the life. The life that makes us happy, that makes us happy and we don't want any other life after.
The life that makes us feel now for the first time, "My life is complete. I don't need any more. I'm constituted now in the way that I want to be constituted." What do I mean by constituted? Put together. "I'm put together now in the way that I want to be put together. My feelings, my thoughts, my spirit, my hopes, my aspirations, whatever. I'm put together now, in a way that makes me perfectly content with myself. Now I know I can live and be successful anywhere I am."
Put me on the moon, if it is human beings can live there, I'll be happy, baby. Yes, I will. If human beings can live there, I will be happy, because my happiness is not something that's injected into me. It's not something that comes from without. My happiness is something that has been turned on inside of me. It is just blooming and active, lightening [unintelligible 00:26:02] it's an energy field right in here somewhere.
It is just feeding my whole being. It makes my brain expand, and though the flesh is here in the skull and can't get out, the life of my brain fills the world, and searches the world, and explores the world. It goes on a work visit that also pleasure visit. Exploring the universe, and not missing anything down here either.
Yes, this is my life inside. If this could happen to all of us, if we will just accept that G-d has made us very, very special, and have not made any other living things [unintelligible 00:26:57], this special. If we will just believe in him, it is easy to believe in him, just recall your own greatness and know that you could not have this greatness had you not been helped by G-d.
Created in the first place, and then kept after you've created. The call in Islam from the break of dawn, before the sunrises, is G-d is greater. Yes, the first word we hear in the morning that wakes us up, in a real Muslim environment. A real Muslim neighborhood, the first words we hear, is G-d is greater, Allahu Akbar.
After we hear that, we hear I witness there is only one G-d, and then after that, we would now hear that I witness that Muhammad is the messenger of G-d. Then after that, we hear, come to prayer, and G-d said that never did a nation fall until it stopped praying.
Never did a people or a nation fall until they left off or stopped praying to G-d. It says, come to prayer. What is this "come to prayer"? For me, what's the value of it, what does it mean? I'm coming to prayer. Come to success. Come to success, your prayer is your guarantee that you will have success if you continue your prayer.
That's your guarantee that you will have success. That's a connection, by prayer, you connect again with the G-d that created you for the first time, and that same G-d can create you again. Create you again all over. I'm not the human being that I was when my mother gave birth to me.
I am, in my flesh, in my biology, in my original life, yes, I am that person, but as a mind, as a consciousness, I am a new person. I'm not the teenager that I was when I hung around with Leroy, and brother Imam Darnell Karim. Yes, because of that attachment, I am a new person.
Connected to G-d through the words of G-d in the Quran, and through the example for human beings as a human, as a life on this earth, though Muhammad. I have connected with G-d through his word and through his messages, I have connected with G-d. I am connected with him and I know I am connected with him. You say, well do you have to go through Muhammad?" No, I studied Muhammad, now I don't have to go through Muhammad. I go directly to my G-d. Do you have to go through to the Quran? No, I studied the Quran I go directly to my G-d.
The Quran is still my number one diet. Yes, it sustains my life. My number one food is the Quran and the teachings of the life example of Muhammad the prophet. Yes, I eat divine food and mortal food. Divine food are the words of G-d and mortal food are the life examples of Muhammad the prophet. That's what I know gives you the life if you have faith in it.
As I conclude this, we agree to trust kindness, trust kindness. G-d is the most kind that's (unclear) in the Quran, the most kind. G-d has been the most kind to us, trust G-d. Have faith in G-d. G-d created us above animals and other things in creation and gave us a margin of freedom that he didn't even give the angels. Hear that? G-d gave us a margin of freedom that he didn't even give the angels.
We cannot benefit from this great capacity that G-d has created us for if we don't respect decent, moral, ethical, human thinking. Intelligence. I'm a witness myself of what can be done for a person to bring them to be established in this great life.
My father, he was a leader of something, and he told me and his other followers especially his ministers, those who could get near him, I was invited to come to his house and his company. He told us, "Don't just read but think deep."
And he was talking about what he was giving us. He said, "Don't just read, but think deep." Reading and studying to search the depths of the message or the language or the teaching, is an exercise for your intelligence. It's an exercise of the brain, it will develop the brain more and more.
Not questioning things, not being curious, not trying to see is there more into something than appears to the eye on the surface. Not being interested in doing that is limiting exercise for your brain. People who will not just read but look- I went to a college, junior college and I took English to learn how to speak better so I could do my job better with you.
I took literature. They will give you a passage to read, maybe the whole book. They'll give you a passage to read. And as you read that passage, they don't want you to tell them just what you read, they want you to tell them what you found with your reasoning power, with your logic, with your intelligence. What did you find in this that was under the surface?
They want you to give them the interpretation of what you read. They want you to give them what was motivating the writer. The writer was motivated by something. They want to give you what the writer intended for you to get. Now everybody that reads the writer's story may not get what the writer intended for you to get.
But the intelligent ones who know literature and study, they have come to a method, a methodology or method of how to determine with the intelligence, with the knowledge of language and grammar et cetera, reason, how to determine what this writer wants you to see or wants you to get from this reading.
They ask you, what was the writer's purpose? What was the writer trying to communicate? (unclear section). I'm sure many of you have heard this, what is the moral of the story? They'll ask, what is the moral of the story? You just can't read on the surface give back just what you've read. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was not a college professor, and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad didn't know their methodology.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad gave us a challenge and that challenge exercises the muscles of our intelligence and made his son very strong in the muscles of the brain. Yes, I'm not bragging, I'm just sharing this with you. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad effected me like this with his teaching, made my muscles work hard, my mental muscles. Made my mental muscles the muscles of my intelligence work hard to see what is in this language.
Especially when I say, "He made me sharp sighted. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad made me sharp sighted." If he didn't make me sharp-sighted, I would have done just what most of you all did. Just read it and just said that was it, passed over it. But I read where his teacher said, "To speak well you must learn, how to use the terms properly."
To think well you must learn how to use the terms properly. He had terms. If I don't learn to use them properly, I'm not speaking well. What does it mean? He wants you to speak? Yes, he wants you to speak. Speak to who? He wants you to speak to the public. Tell the public about him, tell the public about the mission you have.
He wants you to tell them, but you can't speak well to that public whether it is in the temple or on the street. You can't speak well to that public until you learn how to put the terms that he uses in the proper places, in the proper place. When I heard that, oh boy, was I encouraged, I was encouraged. I said, now I'm searching with more enthusiasm, what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad started me searching.
But now I'm searching with more enthusiasm because I believe now if I can break the code of this language, then I'll be able to use these terms properly, and I will be successful when I speak. That's what he said, and that's what I followed, and I am successful. If I weren't successful, you wouldn't be sitting here at this moment right now. You, the followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
I'm looking at the many faces who followed my father before I became the leader. I'm looking at your faces right here before me right now. You would not be here with me making this 180 degree turn from what we used to think and believe if I were not a successful speaker. I'm a successful speaker because I followed the advice, the instructions of the teacher, Mr. Fard who taught my father.
I followed his instruction to study the terms and struggle with them with my muscles of my mind and intelligence. Struggle with them until I can put them in their proper places so I would know what the writer, the composer of this composition wants us to know and wants us to do with our lives.
You can't all walk that path, you can't all do these things that I've done. (unclear section). Look, I have seen it, I have come to it, and I know for a fact that Mr. Fard wanted me to be a Muslim with all Muslims of the world.
Mr. Fard wanted me to find the Quran as my holy book and lift it up above all the nations of the world. He wanted me to follow Muhammad of Arabia, the model human being for all people a mercy to all the nations as G-d says in the Quran. I know Mr. Fard wanted that for me. Yes, well "What about your father?" My father wanted me to be a new man with a new mind and believe that there were new things in store for us. He had great hopes that I would be a leader after him. That's what I [unintelligible 00:40:15] . I know that he did not see the way, he did not know how to get there where I am, he did not know, no, he didn't. But he believed that something was coming that will take us into another dimension, and put us where our hearts and souls desired what we need under G-d.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad believed that. He had faith in that. Yes, he had great faith in that. I can share with you many things that he said out of his own mouth to back that up, but I won't take the time to do that.
So let it be enough to believe that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was an intelligent man and he was a hard worker who worked hard to see not just Muslim Blacks, but all of us in a better condition. All of us, all African-Americans in a better condition.
His job was not just a job of making African-American Muslims. His job was a job of having all African-Americans come to G-d and have a better life, a life that G-d created them for on this earth, that they be equal, have equal opportunity to achieve equally, or equal with the other people, with the white race, number one, first. Yes, this is what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad wanted.
He wanted to better the condition of the African-American people so that we would not be making ourselves inferior, will not be intimidated by the white man's achievements, but be brave enough to seize the opportunity and have faith in ourselves that we can rise as high as he has gone, and maybe outstrip him. This is what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad wanted for us.
So Islam is a call to life, Hayya alas salah, or come to prayer. Hayya means life. Hayya alas salah, come to prayer. Hayya alas falah, come to success. Faith is the beginning of life. If you have no faith, you have no life.
With faith in G-d, your intelligence will work well for you. Rejecting G-d, your intelligence works against you. With your intelligence working well for you, you will come to see a new world of reality, and a new world of possibilities for your mind and all of your skills or your human tools, and you have to have faith again.
Yes, faith has to come twice, faith first is the faith of an innocent baby. But the second faith is the faith of a person of great knowledge, of great understanding. You become a faithful person again. Another higher level of faith, and that faith will put you in a situation to manage your life and be very successful with your whole life.
You will not have identity problems, what they call identity crisis. You will not be wondering who am I? Am I Africa? Who am I? Am I the black gods [unintelligible 00:44:21] . Who am I? You will stop going on trips, and you will be comfortable at home with your true human picture. G-d says that He is the one who gave you pictures while you were in your mother's stomach or in you mother's wombs.
And he made your pictures beautiful and excellent. What is the picture? The picture of the true human person in the excellence G-d created us for. The true human person in the excellence G-d created us for, in that confident form, that confident position.
That position of faith in yourself and faith in G-d, you will start to be successful, establishing your life, not only for yourself, but for your neighbors, your neighborhood, your town, and if you want to, the whole world. Yes, you can draw [unintelligible 00:45:27] those who are planning the future for the whole world, and build the whole world better for those who are coming tomorrow.
Yes. You will have prosperity, prosperity will not be a guess. It will not be something that you're thinking about but don't know how to find it or have it. Prosperity will be right at your fingertips, and if you keep to your direction as a Muslim, keep turning to your qiblah in prayer, you will be successful. Thank you. Let us enjoy this great life that G-d has connected us again to.
The life that he created our first fathers in and our first father was like a baby in that life because he had not experienced life in conflict with Satan, the devils, and with all the other things that are challenging human life in creation. He was a new person like a baby, our first father, to the wise serpent he was nothing but a baby.
To the forces of nature that would challenge him, he was only a baby. But as G-d expanded his mind in time (unclear), the man became so mature, and so educated, so wise, so beautifully informed of what the world is in his nature, and what the universe is in its nature, and he has nothing to do now, but keep his contact with his G-d through prayer.
And Allah said, and every creature He made knows its mode of prayer. Let me repeat that one more time. He said every creature that G-d made, - G-d said every creature He made knows its mode of prayer. Let me repeat that one more time.
G-d said every creature He made knows its mode of prayer. Now, you said that you all pray like this, and then this and this, buddy when you get afraid, you pray like, “Oh G-d help me”. You pray like that.
[laughter]
That's nature. Every creature knows it's mode of prayer. Thank you. Peace. As salaam alaikum.
[laughter]
[applause]
[00:48:00] [END OF AUDIO]

