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IWDM Study Library
Community as an Aim For Muslims

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Praise be to Allah. Asalaam Alaikum. Alhamduillahi Rabbil Al Amin. That is the Praise and thanks is for G-d who is the Lord, Cherisher, the Keeper of all the Worlds. We witness that He is one, that G-d is one, and we witness that Muhammad to whom the Qur'an was revealed about 14 centuries or so ago is the seal of the Prophets, the one promised in the scriptures that went before the Qur'an. He is the last of the Prophets Upon him be the Prayers and the Peace and upon all G-d's servants and upon us be peace. Ameen. What we will be addressing you on today is community. Community as the aim for Muslims. Community as an aim for Muslims. G-d says that He made us a community and He made us the best of communities that are evolved for the good of all people. That's what G-d tells us in the Qur'an. And I would like to, for the benefit of us understanding how we in this association, we blacks or we American, blacks or African-Americans in this association of Muslims, how we came to take the position that we have taken and to dedicate ourselves and devote ourselves to the effort that we are dedicated and devoted to.
And I must begin with our beginning as Muslims. There's no other way. We began as Muslims under the influence and terminology or the language of a man we know as Mr. Fard, Professor Fard. One time they called him Prophet Fard and later he was introduced as G-d in the person. G-d in the person W. Fard Muhammad and also called WD Fard. We have to begin with that person because before that person came and made contact with some of us, we had no knowledge of any Islam. My mother and my father had no knowledge of Islam until they met this man. And those in our association owe their knowledge of Islam firstly to that man. Now that man, I have come to know him very well. That man had also a cause of his own that he kept disguised.
Believe it or not, I know a lot about his personal life, not just about his works. I know a lot about his personal life. He came from the part of India that is called Pakistan. It wasn't called Pakistan when he came to America. It was called all India. The city where he came from is Lahore, that area, what is called Lahore, Pakistan now is called that. Since 1947 it has been Pakistan, that area. The religious group that he belonged to was called the Ahmadiyya Anjama. The Ahmadiyya Anjama. I also know that he was not satisfied with the Ahmadiyya Anjama.
He was dissatisfied with the Ahmadiyya Anjama, though he had great admiration for many of the Amirs or leaders of the Ahmadiyya Anjama. So they regard him with respect, the leaders of the Ahmadiyya Anjama. They regard him with respect, but they also kind of hold him a distance from them. They keep him at a slight distance from themselves because they knew that he had ideas that were radical for the Ahmadiyya Anjama. This man that I'm speaking of now I know also that he was hurt by the circumstances for not only the Muslims, but the circumstances for all Indians under British rule.
I repeat that Pakistan didn't get it's independence until 1947. Mahatma Gandhi, the great revered Mahatma Gandi, he also was working at the same time that the Pakistani Muslim leadership was working for an independent state, an independent Islamic state. Mahatma Gandhi was working also for the independence of the Indian people from Britain. And his work was one of passive protest, passive protest. He was against violence as you know. Some of you might know or many of you might know, might know something about this history. The British are very proud people, the English, very proud people. And sometime their rule has been cruel, even brutal. If not in a physical way, certainly in a psychological way. They tend to crush the ego and hurt the psychology of their subjects so that they bend the psychology to fit their own plans or their design on the people and humble or crush the ego so that the people will not have the courage to resist them or fight them or think they can overcome them.
So there's a lot to be said about the psychology, the war psychology or the psychology for dominance of the British empire or the British people. However, the point that I'm making here is to show you in part so you'll understand the circumstances that this man named Fard was in so that you'll better understand why he did and said the things he did. He was bitter. He was a bitter citizen of India. He was in a land that was taken from him and his people by the British. So he was bitter. He didn't like the British. He didn't like the British, he didn't like the white folks. He was not a white man. He was a brown skinned man, Fard. A brown skinned man, but appeared to be white. But his skin was not white. A little sun, a little sun on him, stay in California for a while and he'll become as brown as the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was. And many of you knew the complexion of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. But his hair was like straight. So he was Indian, no doubt about it. He was Indian.
He was also bitter and I think even more bitter, or more dissatisfied maybe I should say, with bitterness because of the state of the Muslim world, the state of the Muslim world at that time. I think if he was here alive with us today, he would be bitter still because of the state of the Islamic world, which is a serious matter. So he disguised his protests, his protests against white supremacy and his protests against ignorance and absent mindedness in the Muslim world leadership. He was protesting them both. And anyone can see right away without even thinking about it, that he hurt the image of Muslims, Islam. He seriously hurt the image of Muslims and Islam, and he seriously hurt the image of the white race. I'm not going into detail. Most of you understand all the little small details, so I'm not going into those small details. I'm just telling you what was his situation so that you would better understand why he did what he did. And why do I say he disguised his protests or his cause? His cause was to fight the influence of white supremacy in the world and to be an influence for ushering in the real Islam. That was his cause.
He did it in a very strange way and many of you who don't particularly like that I'm saying these things, you perhaps have a whole lot of thoughts that are bothering you right now. He did it in a very strange way. Where did he get this strange way of doing this? He got it from his understanding of the thief in the night that is in the New Testament. It says of Jesus Christ, who is celebrated on this very, very special Christian holiday Easter. It says of Jesus Christ, that is his resurrection is celebrated on this very special day Easter, that Jesus Christ, Peace be upon the Prophet. We don't buy these non-Muslim or non Qur'anic versions of his life. But it says that he came as a thief in the night. This is one of the sayings of Jesus Christ, the Prophet. So the Christian, the gospel, the gospel people, the Christian world.
If they really want to understand Jesus, they should also understand that Jesus came not revealing himself completely, but hiding his identity. According to the gospel, he came as a thief in the night. There are many things that I can say about what Fard said to my mother, to my father, to my Aunt Bernstein in Detroit right now. She's up in age. But to my Aunt Bernstein and to many others, seniors that have gone away. Sister Vanadoc, who passed away at about a hundred years old. And would follow me around even at over a hundred years old. She would appear wherever I spoke. That sister was terrific. Well, she knew Fard personally too and I could tell you things that he said to them, things that he said to many and they have left these things not only with us, but many of the old senior members who was back there in the early thirties who met Fard and heard his words and heard the Honorable Elijah Muhammad supporting Fard.
They passed on even to the law department because they were confronted by the police for their radical ideas and activity. They were confronted and they told the police department some of the things that Mr. Fard said about himself. And they told the police department and the press and us that Fard said, "You are not seeing me now. You're not seeing me in my holy robes. That one day you'll see me in my holy robes." So what is this saying? This is saying secretly by way of religious esotericism or religious symbolism, it is saying that you don't see me in the culture or in the life that I really have chosen for myself. You see me in a disguised culture and in a disguised life, but one day you'll see me in my holy royal robes. And I bear witness that the robes of true Islam are holy and royal robes. And the robes, the dress of real Islam is certainly a holy dress. I bear witness to that, but he didn't come in the dress of real Islam. He disguised himself. This is what we were taught by him and this is what I have come to interpret and understand very clearly. Now, he put his protest under our protest, he hid his cause in our cause.
He came and discovered our protest. He came and discovered our cause. When Fard came to America, there was already the teachings of Noble Drew Ali, the Moorish Science Temple of Islam in North America. Ali's teachings were very mystified, too, very difficult to understand without study and deep insight. His mystical number was seven, seven. And upon that mystical seven was understood, it was understood that the teachings of Drew Ali was also a science. So the temples were named Moorish Science Temples of Islam. So Fard wasn't the first one that called a place of worship temple and had the people in it thinking they were Muslims or identifying as Muslims.
It had been done before Fard’s coming by the Honorable Drew Ali. And by the way, there's some of his followers with me right now. In fact, I have a star in my security and he came from the Moorish Science Temple. Many of his association friends, they're still with the Moorish Science Temple, but he's here and he tells me that there is a spiritual bond, a bond of brotherhood between them and the people of my community and me. And we pray Allah that that bond will grow and grow and grow. Yes. When Fard came, there was also Marcus Garvey's movement. So he didn't come when there was nothing happening to take us from white people's thinking. Drew Ali tried hard to take us from white people's thinking and Marcus Garvey tried hard to take us from white people's thinking. Marcus Garvey's motto was one G-d, one people, one destiny. And he tried to bring us to be reconciled in our hearts and respect all Africa and all African people so that we will have healthy spirit between ourselves and our motherland and the people, our people of that land.
Marcus Garvey. This is not to teach about Marcus Garvey. This is to show you the circumstances that Fard came into. Now at the same time, there was also a Christian preacher who was saying something very much like Fard starts saying. His name, Father Divine. Father Divine also was organizing blacks and teaching them to look to black leadership and was trying to provide for blacks, African Americans. He was also doing the same. So here we have, I know that the real followers of these groups don't like the term movement, but for want of a better word right now, I have to say movement. We had the movement of Drew Ali, the movement of Father Divine, and the movement of Fard. And when you look at them, they were all alike in that they were seriously trying to get the African-American mind to throw off white authority.
That was their main effort. To get blacks or the African-American mind to throw off white authority. And they all thought that religious effort or religious ideology or terminology was the best weapon or tool to use to bring that liberation about. Marcus Garvey was a man who said one G-d first, and Drew Ali was a man who said Islam first. Fard was a man who said Islam first. So they all had that in common. They were always saying religion first. They all were saying religion first. I don't know if Father Divine saw himself as a thief in the night or Drew Ali saw himself as a thief in the night, but I know for a fact that Fard saw himself as a thief in the night, meaning that he didn't intend for his followers to forever be in the Islamic picture or the temple picture or the Mosque picture, whatever you call it, that he puts them in, that he put them in. He intended that one day they break out of those clothes and come into the right dress So Fard I repeat believed that in order to succeed with his secret work that he had to disguise it, he had to put it in disguise. He had to disguise the cause and disguise the protest. He was protesting also as I said, ignorance in Islamic leadership of the world, the whole Islamic world.
Therefore he wanted to put a group of people into a situation where they would be thinking independently and he was hoping that a number in his following would one day be blessed to uncover what he shrouded and see that the real intent was to bring about conditions and circumstances for Islam to be raised up in America. That happened. I believe he prayed for it as a Muslim, not as the WD Fard we know. I believe he prayed for it as a Muslim follower of Muhammad, the last Prophet. I believe he prayed for it that one day in his following there would be some that would get curious enough to even seek to take the shroud off of the real Islam so that they'll be able to see what is real Islam.
There is nothing in his message of I would say psychology against white supremacy that is real Islam, nothing. Where you find real Islam is in his hints that the Qur'an is really the answer and in the respect that he obviously had for the Qur'an. Because the only picture that you know of him has him holding the Qur'an in his hand with great reverence. He's paused and in a position that shows respect, love, reverence for the Qur'an. That's the only picture that you know of. You don't know of any other picture unless I showed it to you. Because I have a picture showing his face. You'll see his face, you can see his face. And I have another picture of him praying with some of the Ahmadiyya people. He's praying, he's standing in line with them praying and the picture goes way back to 1930. Same man. He's standing in line, he's praying with them, with some Ahmadiyyas.
Now let me continue. Mr. Fard said of Islam, if you know how to read his language and symbolism or in picture form. He gave us a flag and the flag looked like the Turkish flag. The new moon, the crescent moon, star in the crescent moon, and the field red to represent the sun. And the Honorable Elijah Muhammad when he was teaching in his early years of his work during the thirties, I imagine, although I was born in 33, so I can't know too much about the thirties, although I do know something about the thirties. I certainly remember Akbar being born with his black reddish complexion. When he was born he was a black reddish baby and I remember seeing that. I can see that black reddish face right now, and I think his face is still black and reddish, although it just looks black when I look at it, it just look black. But it's got a lot of red in that face of his.
He was born in 1939, so I'm a big boy about five or six years old when my brother was born, when Akbar the baby and our family was born. So I do know something about the thirties. I certainly know a lot about the forties from the time that the Muslims began to be arrested for not getting draft cards and supporting the wars, World War II. I know a lot about that. I can recall a lot about that even maybe more than some of these, those who were men back then because they tend to forget. What hits a child's mind, leaves a deep imprint. So I remember very vividly a lot of that, a lot of the years, the forties. I remember a lot very clearly. And then the fifties. During the thirties, during the forties and during at least half of the fifties, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's teaching was mostly on WD Fard and his role as a savior for the black man and the promised destruction of the white race, of the white people, especially America.
Because it had enslaved the black man. The promised destruction of America. He taught on that a lot. So he had a blackboard, he would begin preaching from the blackboard. On the blackboard was two symbols, two symbolic pictures. On one side was a cross representing church and he charged the church with being the enslaver, saying that they had enslaved us spiritually and mentally. This was a charge, that the church enslaved us spiritually and mentally. And there was a cross and a black man wasn't on the cross. No man was on the cross. The cross was just there, but a black man was swinging from a limb in the same fashion that white terrorists used to hang black people in the South and in the North sometimes. Not often in the North, but sometimes. So the black man is hanging, the noose is around his neck and he's dead hanging from the tree with the rope around his neck. And there's the symbol of a flag. The flag is there. That flag I just described to you that looked like the Turkish flag. And there were initials on the corners of the flag and the initials said freedom, justice and equality. That's what the initials said, freedom, justice and equality. And the staff of the flag, the initial on the staff of the flag said Islam.
So I'm convinced that Mr. Fard, whom I love and respect, remember with great affections, Mr. Fard was saying mainly to the Islamic world or leaders that Islam is freedom, justice and equality. And you all have left freedom, justice and equality. That's what he wanted to say to the Islamic world. When you put Islam at the staff of the flag, you are saying that the purpose of Islam is to be the staff for and staff means support, is to be the support for freedom, justice, and equality. Now if Fard had taught that message or spoke his mind plainly when he came to America, he would've been deported or killed secretly or killed openly, no doubt about it. Because many didn't come with very disturbing messages like that. They came with very moderate messages in a way, but just because they boldly identified as Muslims or as followers of Muhammad, they were deported or persecuted, imprisoned, persecuted. That's what happened in the thirties, in the forties and I don't think they could have fared too well in most of the fifties preaching and saying that they're Muslims making it known outwardly. This society was anti-Muslim. This society saw Muslims, Islam as the antichrist.
The literature, whether it was entertainment literature or academic literature, all of it was geared to discredit Islam as a legitimate religion and to portray the Prophet and the Arabs as fanatics and as vulgar, lust filled human beings. That all the Muslims wanted was wine and women, a lot of women in a haram and liquors. Now you know liquors are forbidden in Islam, but they would portray Muslims as wine drinkers who love to have a lot of women to have sex with. This is how Muslims were portrayed. And also as the antichrist. Right now you have some fanatical evangelist movements that right now are working secretly and openly to get people to believe that Islam is the antichrist, that Muhammad is the antichrist. And also they're trying to get the people to believe that after Communism has been removed as a threat and a fear, now Islam is the new threat and should be the new fear. This is what they're trying to do. So we should understand these things. We are Muslims and we want to be successful as a community in America, so we should understand these things.
Now as I go on, I'm not going to be referring back to our beginning in Detroit, and in Chicago, and in Milwaukee. These are the three cities that formed while Mr. Fard was still here. Detroit, Michigan was number one, Temple number one. Chicago was Temple number two and Milwaukee became Temple number three. So I won't be referring back to this. So because I won't be referring back to that beginning, I want you to know right now that much of the skeleton in the construction that I'm building, the bones came from the thinking of Mr. Fard, especially the governmental structure that I'm trying hard to get you to appreciate and build more and put flesh on. The governmental structure. The bones, the most important bones, the bones for government structuring, I got them from Mr. Fard, who gave me a sense of government and a love for a sense of government in my life. The average militant follower of Fard wouldn't call it government, they’ll call it Nation of Islam or they will call it just discipline, that they feel indebted to Fard for their disciplines that uphold their lives. Well, I see those disciplines as disciplines to help us realize a sense of government.
Now that I myself understand the conditions, oppressive conditions on African-Americans and Muslims in the earlier years of our life as Muslims in America, I have sympathy for Mr. Fard and Mr. Elijah Muhammad, and I tend to want to clear them of every wrong that they have done, but only G-d can do that. Because I believe with all my heart that Fard started out being innocent and his intent, that his intentions were good, his intentions were innocent, though his works were not. He used to say that the work had to be done at any cost. At any cost mean even the cost, the cost of your own truth or the cost of your own personality, the cost of your own true position. At any cost would cover all of that. So he said the work had to be done at any cost. And then he wasn't a man that really thought he was G-d.
And we have this from my mother and from many others who knew him. Some of my brothers will tell you things, they're here right now. My older brothers that are older than I am. They will tell you things that they know that will make you know If he was saying that, he was also saying that he wasn't G-d. If he was saying he was, was also saying he wasn't. Yes. He wanted us to help him even do his work of bringing about circumstances for the victory of true Islam. He said to us, now here he is asking us, "What means and methods must be used?" Now here a man with a job, a great job to do and he's asking his students to help him come up with the answer- what means and methods must be used. Now, some of you want to believe that that man was really G-d. And some of you are right here with me right now that want to believe that, that he was actually G-d almighty and he is still G-d almighty. That's what you want to believe. But let me tell you something now about me and him. I mean something you can witness.
Now if he's G-d and he tells me, and I understand that he was telling me what he was telling anybody else in his following, he was telling me. In fact, I'm a very special man and I am a very special man from his following. And it's because he made me very special when he called me WD, gave me his secret letter D. Now, and none of you know what the D means. Nobody from Fard’s time knows, nobody from my time knows what the D means. So it's still a mystery. The D. And I got it, I got it. My name is Wallace D Mohammed on my birth certificate, I was born Wallace D Mohammed. Now if he tells me to come up with the answer to help him solve the problem, I have the right to help him solve the problem. If he says, "You all get busy and solve this problem." Isn't that what he said?
That's his teaching. We got it in pamphlets. In little booklets. If he said to me, asking me what means and methods must be used, then even if I believe he has all that power, even if I believe he's G-d almighty, he has given me the right and the freedom to use my own mind and come up with my own answers as to what means and methods must be used as to solving the problem. Now, if I applied my own ingenuity, if I use my own mind, if I use my own ingenuity and I have come up with my own answers, which of you can beat me in a court of Fard for what I've done? What I've done is justified upon what Fard invited me to do.
Yes, I used my own mind, and I used my own means and methods helped and aided by Fard. I used my own means and method and I used my own intelligence to solve the problem. And I have solved it. You see it, here it is. Now for you who are still spooked up by the mystery and the mystified Fard, I want you to know that I ain't in no bad situation even if Fard is G-d, I ain't in no bad situation. I can meet him right now and say, Hey, I didn't do anything but what you gave me the right and freedom to do Now what complaints you have against me?
Now, he also told the Honorable Elijah Muhammad that the Qur'an that he left him with was the Qur'an that he would need in order to really be victorious, to achieve the real goal and purpose. And to establish things properly, he would not do so until he had that Qur'an. But he told him, don't you try to read it, don't you study it. He said, "That's a Qur'an that I wrote myself." Isn't that what he said? He said, Fard told him that that Qur'an, I wrote it myself. Now if you understand the method and language and ways of these self appointed thieves in the night, they can speak with G-d's voice and feel that they're committing no crime and they're doing no wrong. So he will speak as G-d, but he knows he's not G-d. He knows he's not even the last Prophet, but he can speak as G-d. And when he speaking, he disassociates himself from that authority. When he's speaking, he's hearing it just like you hearing it, that G-d is saying that. He said, I wrote it with my own hand. He didn't write it with his own hand. G-d wrote it with the hand of the scribes that heard G-d's word from the mouth of Muhammad Ibn Abdullah of Arabia about 14 centuries and so ago, that's how it was written. We saw the Qur'an. My brother Akbar and myself was given the Qur'an from my father. After we learned a little Arabic, my father wanted us to look at it because he's curious to know what is in this book.
It was kept in a kind of shiny green cloth and it would hang up on the wall and it's higher than every other thing in the house. That's how it was kept all the years that I saw it. So my father brought it to me and my brother one day and he said "Akbar." Called him first. I don't know why he always went to Akbar first, especially when it came to Arabic. He would go to Akbar first. I guess Jamil Diab was telling him that Akbar was the brightest student in the Arabic class or the brightest, the best Arabic student that he had. Jamil Diab would say that, he would. But my father should have listened, asked Jamil Diab or listened to Jamil Diab what he said about me. He said, "But Wallace is the best translator."
Praise be to Allah. Yes. So I had the better ability to translate Arabic into English, English into Arabic. I don't know about now. Akbar is a doctor. He's got his PhD and he speaks Arabic so fluently that the professors, the scholars, the doctors from Arabic lands, they tell me that Akbar is speaking a language on the highest level. Says his Arabic is the best. So he matches his Arabic with the best of the scholars born in Arabic speaking lands. Yes, okay. So when we looked at the book right away it didn't take us nothing but a glance. That's all it took. Akbar and I, as soon as we looked at it, our eyes met each other. We looked at the book and then Akbar eyes and my eyes met. And we had the look on our face like we say, how are we going to disappoint him? And we said to our father, daddy, this is just the Qur'an. No different. It was just all in Arabic same as all Qur'ans. It was just a Qur'an.
We praise Allah, we seek Him for guidance, we turn to Him for forgiveness and mercy. We accept the Qur'an that was revealed to Muhammad Ibn Abdullah, the seal of the Prophets, the last Prophet, G-d's servant and His Messenger, the Mercy to all the worlds. We accept the Qur'an that was revealed to him and we accept him and his life as the model life for all Muslims and for all people. We pray that G-d keep us firm in this position that we have taken with about 1 billion Muslims or more around this world. And that He continue to show His mercy to us and aid us on the path to Him and to the life that He created and chose for us.
This religion of Islam is a religion that builds in its following, an appreciation for universal truths. Universal truths. Not a truth that is just accepted as a truth in my tribe, but not accepted in tribes beyond me or beyond my land. Not a truth that is just accepted in my race but is not accepted in the other races of the earth. Not a truth that is just accepted in my nation and in its academic research and studies and et cetera, but a truth that is accepted in the schools and academies of people around the globe. A universal truth. This religion encourage its following to grow in mind to appreciate universal truths.
It does it by inviting us to be more rational and less emotional. To avoid extreme passions, especially the passion of anger. As the Prophet said, "Avoid giving yourself to anger." This religion wants us to appreciate universals and to respect as the most precious part of the human life, the gift of reason, the gift of reason. G-d created human beings and made us different from all other flesh that He created. That difference is in mainly in that He gave us the gift of reason. If we could not reason, we could not rise above savagery. We could not rise above primitive animal life if it was not for the gift of reason. Muhammad the Prophet said, Upon him be the Prayers and the Peace, that G-d did not give us anything more valuable or precious or more precious than the power to reason, the gift of reason.
This religion wants us to go on from that comfortable position of seeing our superiority over other animal or flesh life or over other life in our gift of reasoning. Islam wants us to go from there to really trust our ability to reason. The Prophet Muhammad, Prayers and the Peace be on him, he is reported to have said to one of his companions, "What would you do if you didn't have the Qur'an to solve or answer a problem for you?" And his companion said, "Then I would go to you. I would turn to you and would depend upon what you have left for the answer." He said, the Prophet said, Prayers and Peace be on our Prophet. He said, "Suppose you have nothing from what I have left with you to answer the question?" And he said he would use his own ability to reason.
That's what he said. He would use his own ability to reason. And the Prophet smiled. He was really pleased with his answer. He approved of that person's answer. And that is called in Islam Ijtihad. The Islamic term for it is Ijtihad. It means struggling with the desire to please Allah and to honor and respect the position of Muhammad the Prophet. It is struggling with your intelligence, with that kind of special reverence for G-d and also that special respect for Muhammad the Prophet. You are struggling to get the answer that you couldn't find in the Qur'an and you couldn't find it in the Prophet's sayings, in his works or in his life. You're struggling to get the answer. So that's a third option that's left to us. In fact, it's a very high option, very, very valuable option that's left to us. We are first to go through the Qur'an and use the Qur'an and then we go to our Prophet for the answers.
And lastly, we have to go to our own intelligence and trust our own intelligence as long as our intent is to regard Allah as He should be regarded, that is regard the Qur'an as it should be regarded and regard Muhammad the Prophet, the Messenger of the Qur'an, the Messenger of G-d and the one who first recited the Qur'an in the ears of any human being on this earth, the first human being on this earth. Go to them with respect and then if you can't find the answers in those two places, rely upon your own intelligence, upon your ability to reason and try to find the answer.
Allah says is that we are one community. He said this, your community, is one community and I am your Lord. Therefore, worship only Mans This is what Allah says to us. So that makes it unacceptable that we build our community in America and see it as not being a part of the international community of Muslims on this earth. G-d says of this community, of this international community on this earth as it was first I would say established by Muhammad himself the Prophet under his leadership in Medina. And as long as it keeps to the form that was established in Medina under the Prophet, Prayers and the Peace be upon him, this saying of G-d is true for all of us in the Muslim community life.
"You are the best, most beneficial, most benevolent community evolved for all mankind." That's what G-d says. I imagine that if this particular statement of G-d could really enter our hearts and minds and be accepted, there would be nothing to keep us from being a progressive people. What can stop us from being a progressive people if we believe that what G-d says is true and what G-d says can't be changed. So G-d says of us, "We are the most beneficial, the most benevolent community that have evolved for all mankind, for all people."
When we accept this idea along with another saying of G-d and that is that He neither created man nor jinn for any purpose other than to serve in His plan. He created us to serve in His plan, to serve His will in his plan. We are on this earth. You want to ask, what is my purpose here? Why am I on this earth? Why am I a human being? Why do I have this independent thought? Why have I been made to think on my own, question my parents, question the law, question the state of a affairs. Why have I been created like this? This is what the great thinkers have had to deal with haven't they, called free think thinkers in classic history of man's freedom. They're called the free thinkers. They have had to think about these things. Well Allah give the answer. You have been created for the purpose, only for this purpose and that is to serve Me. G-d speaking, not me. See I said it. I use it just as the mystic used it. I said to serve me. Now, if you take that out of context, you will go and say, Imam WD Mohammed said all people have been created to serve him.
But that wasn't for me. That was for G-d. Yes, G-d says that He created every human person, male and female, all of us to serve Him in His plan. Not in our plan, to serve Him in His plan. Praise be to Allah. Because Iblis wanted to assert the right or the authority that he was created to serve G-d in his own plan. Yes, Iblis asserted the right and authority that I'm created different than human beings. You created them to just wait for help. You created me to serve you in my own plan. And he said, I got a plan. And G-d rejected him for the human being that would obey Him. For the human being that would obey G-d, G-d rejected Iblis and told Iblis that you will see that you're going to fail and eventually it'll be my human being that you all will have to accept and make Sajdah to. Right? Sajdah mean that they would have to yield and bow their nature to the nature of the man that G-d was creating.
Not that their bodies had to make Sajdah, their disposition in their spirit and in their mind had to make Sajdah to the man that G-d was making. And that's what we have to do today. We have to bend our disposition to the disposition that G-d created in Muhammad, the last Prophet. He said of his Jinn that my Jinn used to bother me. He didn't say it just like that, but he was asked, do you have a Jinn too? He said, yes, but my Jinn became Muslim, meaning that his Jinn submitted. That's what Muslim means. Submit to the will of G-d in peace.
Yes. So G-d says that He made us expressly to serve Him in His plan. Now, I would like to at this time invite you to become more comfortable with other people that G-d reached with His word and reached with His Messengers and His Prophets. and gave them to the vision of how to serve G-d in G-d's plan. G-d didn't say we the only community that He evolved. He said that we are the Khaira community that He evolved. Now if you understand Khaira, technically speaking, being very technical, it is not really saying that you are the best community. It is not really saying that you are a better community than they are. It's only saying that G-d has favored you with more utility than He favored them with. Khaira means utility. He has favored you with more utility than He have favored any other people with. Now whether you regard that utility and use it or not, that's another matter.
And G-d says in the Qur'an, "And who has made forbidden to My servant the Khaira, the good and useful things that I have created for My servant." This for all of us. He said, "They are for them in this life and they are for them exclusively in the hereafter." This is what G-d says. What are these good things, Khaira? Well, we begin with the good character and the good virtuous life. That's Khaira. Because these things are utility. A lot of people don't understand that for an ignorant race or for a weak race of people who are backwards in civilization, you can't bring them right into money. They can't keep it. You have to first build up their first life. And their first life is spiritual life and behavioral life. You have to build up their spiritual life and their behavioral life. You have to refine them so that they are morally strong and appreciates a virtuous life. That's what you have to do first.
And the next fields of these Khairas is what you know very well. Money, good home, social acceptance, status in society, et cetera. And that kind of dignity comes to those who know how to make money, manage it so they don't lose it, and invest it wisely so that it enhances their personal life, their family life and their community life. Praise be to Allah. So this religion wants us to have a sense of identity that makes us feel good. That's why the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he didn't ask, "Who are you?" And teach you to say, I'm just a black man.
He gave it to you in another way and the other language he used, it touched you more deeply. He taught you to say that I am the black man. I am the original Asiatic black man. That's what he taught you to say. Now I don't know why he didn't say the original African black man, but he chose to say,,,, Yes, I do know why. I have to blink my eye on that one. But look, he said to us, you are the original Asiatic black man. And you had to learn that before you even got accepted in the membership. Along with some other statements.
But he also taught the Honorable Elijah Muhammad that taught you, who taught us, to ask, What is myself, Who is my own self, What is my own self? And he gave us the answer. My own self is a righteous Muslim. So if any of you all would argue with me that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad didn't tell you your identity, I would have to tell you, you are incorrect. He told you your real self, your true self is a righteous Muslim. And he told you that you must get a knowledge of yourself, your own self. He said if you don't have a knowledge of your own self, you will never be able to be successful. Isn't that what he taught you? Now upon what he gave you, what am I to study so I can come into a knowledge of my own self? He said, your own self is a righteous Muslim. So I must study the righteous Muslim so I will know my own self.
Based upon what he gave us. Now, what does self want? Self wants what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, you had a right to want. Self wants the good life. Every self, every individual, whether in America or whether in one race or another, every individual has been given the spirit and the nature, the soul to want a good life. And I don't care how much you get of this world, if you haven't got the good life, you are not going to feel at peace with yourself. We got blacks, African-Americans who have a lot of money. They don't have to be worried about no money. They got plenty of money. They got so much, they're giving million dollar checks to black colleges. Yes, they got plenty money. Some of 'em give million dollar checks to the whore house. They got plenty money. Or to the gambling table. They got plenty money, but they're not happy yet. They're miserable in their soul. And we'll read about one of them committing suicide one day. "Hey, why that man committed suicide all that money he had?" I'm committing suicide to get it and he got it and committed suicide. Yeah, you committing suicide to get it. When you out there thinking you can beat the man, beat the white man's system and his law as a dope pusher or as a thief, you're committing suicide slowly. Yeah, he just set up little plans for you and sit back and relax and smile. "Well, because of them there'll be a lot of taxes we won't have to raise."
Self wants the good life. Self wants the good life in community. G-d says that He has created the human being to be a community. So western science, social sciences, et cetera, they'd say to us, giving us scientific language for understanding our identity, they say to us that man is a social creature. That's their language. I'm giving it to you verbatim. Man is a social creature, means that he has a gregarious nature, that he, like sheep and cows and other things that like to group together, that he has that same nature that's in animals. He has to group together. In order for him to realize his life, he has to group together with other men, other people, other human beings, pardon me. That the social life is the prerequisite, is the first necessity, in order for him to come into his human life. He will not have human behavior unless he first have social condition for himself individually. He will not have rational sense and growth for his mind and education unless he accept to be a social creature. This is evident, this is fact. But Allah in the Qur'an gives it to us even better. Allah says that He made us community and community life is a necessary, is a necessity, is a necessary requirement in order for us to have the established human individual life. We must have it in community life. The first unit is the family. Islam places great importance on the family unit.
Allah goes to go so far as to tell us in the Qur'an that family has a priority when it comes to rights and that priority and that right is given to them in the book of G-d. That's what Allah says in the Qur'an. Great emphasis on family. And the Prophet with his rounded complete human development, the Prophet often was seen asking individuals about their families. He wanted to know how is the family. And if he saw them having some shortcomings regarding their respect for the family and respect for support of the family, he would bring the family importance to their attention so that they would be able to overcome their shortcoming. This was the Prophet. Family, very important. Family, very important. This family idea is really given to us with our creation. G-d says when He created us, He created us from one ancestor Adam. And made from Adam his mate and made from the two of them, many men and women to populate the world. So G-d says to us in that picture of our beginning as a biological life that requires reproduction, et cetera, in order to stay on this earth, G-d says to us in giving us that picture, G-d says to us that really all people are one family. Though they have migrated and become very distant from each other, they are really one family. So Muslims believe in the brotherhood of the Muslim community. That means every Muslim is my brother, but we also accept the brotherhood of man. That G-d made all men from one ancestor.
And really Islam is given to us by G-d to invite all men to again become one family. But one family of Muslims, one family under G-d. Self wants the good life established in community. Now family, self brought us to family. Family wants to be the good life model. The good life model. These are the natural aspirations in human beings. The original, G-d-given refined aspirations that G-d created in the human being. Family wants to be the model of the good life in the community. You can recall your family. I know I can recall mine. Even before they got the understanding that we have now, my father, my mother, my grandparents when I studied the language that they left me telling me about themselves. I can read in that language a desire to have respect as a family. The Pooles, that was the name of my father before he became Muhammad. His name was Elijah Poole. The Pooles wanted respect for the Pooles.
I don't know what your name was, but the Johnsons, they want respect for the Johnsons. This is the family, a sense of family. You want respect for your family. And when you heard that, if you were the kind that stood up for that family respect, when you heard that one of your relatives were letting down, that respect was discrediting that respect, it hurts you. And sometimes you say, "Oh, we don't even own that nigga. Oh that nigga don't even belong in our family." You would reject him. You would cast him out as a member of your family because he was letting down the family respect that you upheld.
Now, I don't speak too long often, but if any of you get tired, you have to leave, don't think you're going to offend me by leaving. I never jump to the conclusion, say that person leaving because they don't like what I'm saying. You might be leaving for relieving for the same reason I may have to leave if I talk too long. I might have to go to the washroom. Alright, so we have that natural G-d-given sense of family pride. You want to have a family pride. That's really a reflection of the human community pride that G-d created all of us with. Allah says in the Qur'an Adam that we, G-d says that "We have certainly made noble and honorable every descendant of Adam." That means every child, every human being. So that honor and nobility is in you by virtue of your own nature that G-d created. Nobody can make you not noble, nobody can make you not honorable. You have been created noble. You were created honorable by your G-d.
And if you are lost from that, if you have been lost from that position and understanding, then let G-d call you back. Let Al Islam bring you back to that. Family wants to be the model. The good life model. The good life model. So the relatives in my home that I live with, when they have that natural sense of self-worth and self-respect that G-d created in them, then they want their lawn to be kept up. They don't want their lawn to be in weeds and the neighbor's lawn looking beautiful. So they'd be tired as hell. And if the neighbor wasn't next door with a beautiful lawn, they certainly wouldn't go out there and cut that grass. But just to keep that sense of respect and family honor, they go out there and cut that grass.
Well as a race, we got a lot of grass that have come up in weeds buddy, and time for us to go out and cut that grass. Family wants to be the good life model. One writer on economics, commercial life and the rat race, the race for the bucks, for the dollars. He wrote a book called The Status Seekers. And he pointed out that a lot of people, this urge in their creation, their nature, their natural makeup, to have that honor and that respect and to have people look at them admiringly, the urge is so strong that they will actually undermine themselves economically just to have a show of financial success. The status seekers. They'll be driving the big car of the wealthy, of the most wealthy. They'll have the home of the wealthy, they'll have the conveniences of the wealthy, material, conveniences of the wealthy, but their financial position will be precarious, very critical. And they may go out overnight and find 'em in the soup line or committing suicide.
Yes. So if we don't know how to respect and manage this great life that G-d created for us, made us higher than any other flesh creature in the creation, then we will certainly be destroyed by the very forces that were intended to lift us up. Here we are in the Hyatt Hotel, big fine hotel, all us poor blacks. And we feel good because we know this is dignity. Say, where would y'all meet? In the Hyatt. Where? Oh, downtown Chicago on the lake. White folks served us chicken. And they made it taste almost like ours girl. I'm going next year to the Convention. Are you going to be there? It's in September. Yeah, I'll be there girl.
I have to have me a new outfit, but I'll be there. So it's natural, isn't it? And we have to learn to manage it. We have to also benefit from this universal religion of Islam by appreciating the natural world that G-d created, its natural resources that He made to serve the community of man. And the sciences, that that natural creation treasures. We have to go into those treasures, the treasures of the sciences, discover them, utilize them, and appreciate them as G-d's creation, and as part of G-d's second mercy to mankind. The sciences. We have to appreciate it with the respect that the Prophet gave knowledge when he said that those who go out to get the great knowledge, the higher knowledge for the purpose of sharing it with others, learning it themselves, acquiring it themselves, managing it themselves, and then giving it to others so that more will be able to do the same, have the same benefit. Said those who do that with knowledge, they will be in a rank in the heavens next to the Prophets themselves.
So that tells us that the only human beings that are deserved to live next door to Prophets in heaven are the people that appreciate their brain, their intelligence, their rational faculties, and use them to acquire knowledge and put that knowledge to good use and share it with other people. Just as the Prophets have gotten the revelation from G-d, but they didn't hoard it, they didn't say, this is just for the Prophets. They didn't say it's just for the saintly class. They say it's for all people. The Prophets gave it to all people eventually. Our Prophet and even the early ones, though they spoke locally and didn't have a knowledge of this big world, of it's totality. So they couldn't give it to all people. They didn't even know where all people were. But G-d intended it from the very beginning that it'd be given to all people and the Prophets were like that. So those with knowledge, if they become like the Prophets and share it with all like the Prophets did, they would have a room next door to the Prophets in heaven.
I was watching a program on TV, I think it's called the Mclaughlin Hour, and they were discussing naturally the candidates and how things are going for this country politically and economically. And they had as a person in their presentation, Dr. Ted Peters, who is of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, Berkeley, California. I said, now here are the Christian Christians, Christian leadership, a member in Christian leadership. He has a whole project, institute, for studying and examining the two bodies of knowledge, revealed knowledge and natural science. Isn't that what Islam did for the world? It brought them to appreciate not just revealed sciences or revealed knowledge, but to appreciate the natural sciences? And because of the Qur'an with that great message, inviting man to see all of the wonderful Khaira, of the great utilities as coming from his G-d to be utilized for his own community life and progress. Because of that teaching In the Qur'an, we had a reform, or I would say yes, they call it reform, but they also call it renaissance, a renaissance for sciences. And it was the followers of Muhammad the Prophet with Islam, with the Qur'an and Islam that led that new renaissance on this earth. And because of that new renaissance on this earth, the Protestant movement came about. And also the secular world sciences came about.
President Bill Clinton said recently, if we have strong families, we will have a stronger America, a stronger America. Now if you believe the President, then let's apply the same reasoning to our condition. We are a community called the African-American community. If we have strong African American families, we will have a stronger African American population. By the same reasoning. I didn't take anything or add anything to it, I just used what the President said. Now the President of these United States said that. He's bigger than I am. If we have stronger families, we will have a stronger America. So that's what Islam comes to do, to give you appreciation for the group. And man's society is a society of units of society. The first unit of society is the family, and we go on to other units. Pretty soon you got many, many, many units of society and all these units together make up the total society. But the first and more important one is the family, the family. Man, wife, and children. That's the most important one.
And the economists are saying for America today, that if the families can be made healthier and the families can be made more productive, more successful financially, that that will be guaranteeing in the future, the economic future for America. Families. I've shared this with you several times since I've been leader of this community. We were fortunate to go over to China when it was Red China and when it didn't have good relationship with America. We went with a group called China People, American People, Friends. It was a group formed to promote friendship between the citizens of America and the citizens of Red China at that time. I don't know who told them to invite me, but they invited me to go with 'em and I did. I went with 'em. I wouldn't lose that opportunity to go to China. I would probably never see it in my life. So I took advantage of it.
The Prophet said, "Seek knowledge even though it'd be in the far country China." So maybe that saying had some influence on my decision too. Anyway, I got that trip to China and do you know what our host told us about China? They wanted us to understand their national spirit, the will of their people and national spirit for progress. They wanted us to understand something about their life, what it's based upon, what it's founded upon. The ideas, the values it was founded upon. So they told us, they took us to an area that there was kind of excavating, discovering the life that was in this town hundreds of years in the past. In fact, I think it might've been a few thousand years in the past. I can't recall right now. I don't have, that's been a long time since I've looked at my notes. I did take notes on that trip too.
Anyway, they showed us graves in this area and they said, notice this grave. It doesn't have any material things on it. Now notice the other grave, it has material things on it. He said, those graves that have the most material things on them are the graves of a man and a woman that were married and had a family. So he says, that tells us that men come into material growth because they accept responsibility for family. And all of us should be able to understand that. If you responsible for a family, you're going to have to get some money to take care of your wife and take care of your children. You've got to go out and get some money. And G-d created that life in you. G-d made you like that. G-d made you to have family. And the Prophet says, whoever does not accept marriage, which means don't accept to have children and have a family life is not one of us. That mean you can't even be a member in the following of Muhammad if you against marrying and having children or having a family. Doesn't mean that you will be cast out for not having children. We don't even question that, have no right to question that. But if we find that you round here advocating bachelor life and no children, or a single life and no children, then we have to cast you out. Yeah, because Muhammad said, you're not one of us if you do that at.
So I learned over there to respect the Chinese people even more. Made me closer to them, brought me closer to them when I saw the importance they placed upon family life and how they saw the family unit as a condition even for the economic building of the economic society, that really the economic, the building of the society economically depends upon families valuing family life or people valuing the family life. Now, I would like to give you, in the last portion of this address, I would like to give you a little picture. The picture that I want you to see is the picture of cities or towns and roads connecting them.
And I want you to see the inner city with its streets connecting the blocks. And I want you to put this thought in mind- That building community is like going from nowhere to the town. And after you or even before you decide that you're going to accept the responsibility for building communities, you must also accept that there must be roadways connecting community and community, connecting city and city, or town and town. And I want you to have in your picture here that when you're moving in the city, you are not going on long trips, you're going on short trips. Short trip to the chain store, to the food store, short trip to the transportation line, short trip to the place where I work, right? Short trip to my Mosque, short trip to the school, short trip to the entertainment house, whatever. All these are short trips. Short trips to the bank. All these are short trips. And the cars, they're going on short trips. So they have stoplights, and they have stop signs, and they're stopping often, stopping often. But the road that connects you to a town, especially if you don't have anything, the road to that town is long. The distance is long. So you won't have a whole lot of stop signs, you won't have a whole lot of stoplights.
Your movements are not in the town picture. Your movement is from nothing to the town picture. And you have to go a long way to reach the town. You are not reaching the town just to join the town on the stop and go roads or stop and go streets. You want to reach the town as the developer of the town. You want to be the developer of the town. You want to be the man that manage the town. You want to be the men and women responsible for the lively activities of the town, for securing the resources of the town, for investing or planning investments of the resources of the town. You want to be the boss in the town.
So to be that, you are going to have to step out of the womb of the town. You got to get outside of the womb of the town, and you have to see your race having nothing, nothing in terms of town, city establishment. And then you have to plan the journey to the establishment of that town. And it's a long road. It's like the roads, the interstate that connect towns with town, but they have made it for the people who have big and high aspirations. So there ain't going to be a whole lot of stop and go. You can drive for a hour, no red light. Hours, no red light, no stop sign. This is what Islam will do for you. Islam will give you the mind to plan your community growth to become developers of your neighborhood and your town. And it will show you the long road to that great victory. And it will not have you stopping at every little corner or every so many yards. You'll be able to just roll on ride on and ride on for hours before you stop.
Oh buddy, this is the life that Islam invites us to accept. This is the great responsibility that Islam wants our men and our women to accept and then work on it so that we will be able to have our own neighborhoods managed by our own and run by our own and be responsible to our own self. And we can go and walk just as a white man walk. We can walk as the developer walk. We can walk to the White House and knock on the door, call upon them with the same assurance, with the same pride, with the same sense of accomplishment, with the same demand for gentleman respect that these great white developers have when they go to the White House. When they go to the White House, hell the White House throw out the red carpet and they bow their head. Because the White House is nothing but a tool. That's all it is. Government and economic, government and politics. They're the tool of the developer. The developer supplying the citizens with what they need to survive and progress. So government has to see itself as a servant of the developer. They won't tell you this. They tell you they're the servant of the public. They're not the servant of the public. They're the servant of the developer.
And they try to give the public the best they can. But the developer charts the course, the developer determines the future of the people, the developer. And isn't it worth remembering that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, before he passed, created something called, what's it called? Progressive, Progressive Land Developers. I think that's Prophetic. I think that's Prophetic that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad with no more than three years of elementary education from Sandersville, Georgia came up with faith and what he had and had the courage to invite a community of poor, uneducated, mostly illiterate followers to help him build Progressive Land Developers. I think it's Prophetic. Now is the time for Progressive Land Developers. Yes. Now is the time for Progressive Land Developers. And not in that small concept that we had back there with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. In the big picture that I'm sharing with you today.
To be successful traveling this road that connects towns, cities, to be successful, we are going to have to understand that what Allah prepares us for in the Qur'an and with Muhammad has already come, is here. No more are we to look for the world to become one community. The world has become one community. And the great leaders of these nations, they realize that this world has become one community. They can't reverse the trend. Allah has ushered in this trend with the forces of nature, with the forces of human nature and the forces of the nature of society, G-d has ushered in this trend. We are in one world now economically speaking, and we are never going to have the privileges that we have had as separate nations anymore to use the resources of other people for our good, to have our own citizens on a higher level of economic life, on a higher level of consumer, consumer life.
And the other people starving at a lower level. Their earning ain't nothing but $500 a year and our earning is 50,000 a year or 1500, 15,000 a year. That time ain't coming. That time is going away. Going away. So we have to prepare for the new stage for competition. We have a universal stage for competition. It's a global stage for man's competition. We are going to have to, the African American followers in this association, followers of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam in this association, prepare yourself to compete with the international world on this new international stage,
Adam Smith and all those great minds who advanced economic thinking for this Western world, for America. They talked about the social contract. You'll hear talk of that social contract now in the air, that social contract that they're obligated to honor. The social contract where the nation, this new nation conceived by the Founding Fathers, it has to respect the social needs, the family needs of all of its citizens and work to give better social conditions to its citizens. And no matter how much pressure is on the economy, it must honor its responsibility to advance the social life of its citizens, to aid and assist the social life of its citizens and it's families. So they can have education, so that the children can have education, so they can have jobs and employment so they can realize good families. They have to honor the social contract.
But I'm telling you that the world now must honor a new social contract and that social contract must regard every nation and all of the citizens of earth with the same regard. So we in need now of a social contract, a social contract that gives the same respect to all nations and all citizens of the world, that they're entitled too to have their children educated properly, to have their best sons and their best daughters gets the education that they're qualified for and get the conveniences in the world that they qualify for. So we have to honor that now. The whole world has to honor that. Globalism and globalization. This is what G-d has ushered in. So let us prepare ourselves for it. Let us tighten up our grip. Let us tighten up our muscles, let us firm up our flesh. Let us be more than begging niggas. Let us be managers of our lives.
And we can do it. We can do it better than it's ever been done. It makes me very proud when I hear that some of our members had the courage to tackle a big financial project like that one they recently tackled in Houston, Texas. We congratulate them. We want to see more of that. This facility has given a big portion of its floor space to the propagation of this religion Al Islam. They're going to be producing books, Islamic publications, and also serving the Islamic dawah from one of the floors in this big facility in Houston. And they've acquired more land next door to the Masjid. They're going to build a new Masjid and school. So they're really planning growth there. Take me too long to share all the good news. There's so much of it. Take hours and days and weeks to share all the good news. But you can give us the bad news in about two minutes, but you stretch it out to all day long and all life long. Just talking about that two minutes of bad news. I ain't talking to all of you. The ones I'm talking about, they know exactly who they are.
Praise be to Allah. We are not left alone. We have help, but we don't want to ask for more help than we need because if we do, we are going to defeat the spirit of growth in us. The spirit of growth in us, it really forms in our denial and the denial that we have had to live with in this country as people. Yes, it is what we have been denied that fuels our spirit for progress. We were denied the right to be responsible for ourselves. Yes, if we would sum it all up into one statement of what we were denied, we would denied the right to be responsible for ourselves.
During the years of slavery, I should say the generations of slavery, we were denied the right to be responsible for ourselves. We were freed by the law of the land, but we came under racism and a segregated law in the south that continued the denial of the right for us to be responsible for ourselves as citizens of this country. The law has progressed, conditions have changed, and now we realize more freedom to be responsible for ourselves than we have realized in the whole history of our people on this continent. We have more freedom now to be responsible for ourselves than we ever had.
So if we now accept too much help from our good Muslim brothers in Libya, in Iran, in Saudi Arabia, in Malaysia, in Pakistan or wherever. In Nigeria, or wherever. Sudan. If we want too much help from our good Muslim brothers, it's going to work against the spirit in us to grow. Because the spirit in us to grow is fueled I repeat, by denial of the freedom and opportunity and the right to be responsible for ourselves. So we don't want no more help than we have to have. And I'm moving towards some help because we can use it and we need it. We be foolish not to have it or not to accept it, but we want the kind of help that will permit us to still be comfortable looking at ourselves. We won't see the beggar, we'll see men, women, proud men and women respecting themselves in their own creation. Yes, that's what we want. And I am heading up an effort. I am heading up an effort. I'm inviting those who want to join me, write me or get in touch with me. Let me know that you want to join me. Not join me to do khutbas. I got a lot of Imams already joining me to do khutbas. Join me to build economic dignity for the African-American Muslim community
And to be a model to all communities. Not just to us, for us, but a model to inspire all communities. Yes, that's what we want. My father was a courageous man, bold and courageous man. I'd be less than a decent son if I didn't respect his great noble aspirations. And I don't even have to make any effort to respect him. It's in me. It's in my flesh. Came from him. It's in my flesh, came from my ancestors who were brought from Africa to here. It's in my flesh. I don't have to force it. This is something that's forcing me. It's pushing me forward.
So we are going to have an association of business people who trust Imam WD Mohammad with 100,000, with 100 million, with $1 billion to make purchases, to make investments, to do what we have to do. That's what we are going to have. I'm not talking about something that hasn't started. We've started realizing this already. One brother in Chicago told me, he said, "Brother Imam, I have 40 some thousand dollars. They're ready waiting on you to use them." And it's going be more. But we are not going to strain anybody. You've got a hundred dollars, that's a hundred dollars investment into a purchase that will be brought back to you and your own independent business person. Through me, you will get the buying power. That's all. I'm making myself available to you so you'll have the buying power. I'm not going to run your business. I'm not going to own your business. I'm not going to dictate to you, you'll be as free as I am to do your own business. But through me, you'll have the buying power. Now if you can find another person in the United States of America or in the world, go and find them. But some of them like me and their comfortable with me, we are going to be very successful.
Over the years that I've been living and working in my kitchen, well, it started with me watching my mother work in her kitchen. My mother told me, told the sister, she didn't tell me. She told the sister who worked in the kitchen. This sister was a little disturbed by me being in the kitchen because everybody put her out of the kitchen when they started cooking. So she's looking, my mother felt her looking at me and wondering how come I was still in that kitchen. My mother said, "Oh sister, I don't bother him. He's been like that ever since he was a little fella. He just liked to sit and watch me. He doesn't bother me and he won't get in my way. One day he's going to be a good cook." Now I got a product, first product. Oh yeah, Egg Mate Sausage.
I haven't given it to a child yet that didn't come back for some more and just kept coming. I had to tell them, No, I don't want to hurt your stomach. Just wait a minute, hold up now. That's enough. All healthy ingredients. All healthy ingredients. If you got some that was here, anybody got some yet? Oh, look at that. Yeah, you got some. That's free samples, wasn't it? No, wasn't no free sample. That's advertisement. That's product promotion. I'll get the benefit later. See, I ain't going to lie to you like the commercial world does. Free samples. There ain't nothing free. Yes, Egg Mate Sausages. Now I've envisioned a logo for it. It's going to have an egg standing up with little legs and feet and standing up and it's going to be speaking to the sausage standing up too. And it's going to be telling the sausage, it's going to say, "I can fry with you baby."
Now don't take this for a joke, but believe me, I'm an humble man and I know I don't have any authority, power, or office that any of you can have. Whatever power or authority I have, any of you can come into it. I know that. I'm not a Prophet, I know that. That's what I'm saying. But let me tell you something. G-d is with me and His angels are with me. Yes. And that's what the Prophet promised us. Say, if you strive to please Allah, you'll reach a point in your discipline that when you speak, it will be as Allah spoke. When you strike somebody, it'll be as Allah struck them, et cetera. So when I'm making my Egg Mate Sausage, it's Allah making the Egg Mate Sausage. It's got to be good to the children. Children got to love it.
I'm not saying I reached there, but I'm giving you the idea. Yes. So I got a number of products, a number of products. I got something, a meal like the Chinese food that you can put in a carton, little carton. You can prepare it real fast. They can take it home. Just like Chinese food. We going to call it New Africa. New Africa Fried Rice. New Africa this, New Africa that. Yeah, oh yeah. We are going to have business strips. New Africa business strips. We are going to have malls, New Africa malls. Don't you know we need a New Africa?
People came from other parts of the world. They have their New Israel in America. They have their New York from Yorktown and in Europe, huh? Yeah. Oh yeah, they have it. They have their New Holland, they have their New Holland and New London and all these things. New England, they have all that. It's time for New Africa. New Africa. Muslim New Africa. Yes, Muslim New Africa. That's the vision for our business communities. Muslim New Africa. That's going to put us in a spirit and into a mental frame to really evolve in a new personality, a new group personality, a new African-American personality and into a new African-American culture, New Africa. Now I know Moses in his role as a Prophet. And Moses was a unique Prophet among the Prophets. Abraham unique, Moses unique. And Prophet Muhammad is not called a man like Abraham. The community is called a community after the order of Abraham. Right. But the Prophet is called a man like Abraham.
I mean, pardon me. The Prophet is called a man like Moses. Yes, you understood. But I'm thinking of something else and rushing, stumbled over my own language. The Prophet is called a man like Moses. How is the Prophet a man like Moses? In more than one way. First way is that the Prophet was not educated by the world and Moses was not educated by the world. So they both were Prophets raised up by G-d, from illiteracy, from illiteracy, and then put in position to be responsible for the whole life of a nation. Yes. So that's where they have the likeness. But what did Moses have to have to come into that responsibility for his whole nation, for his whole society, his new nation. He had to have the vision to appreciate all the necessity, all the necessary developments of a society. So he knew that he would have to respect the doctors, he would have to respect the lawyers.
He have to respect the farmers, the agriculturalists. He would have to respect the metal workers. He would have to respect the musicians. He didn't leave out nothing. And he called them all together and he inspired in them all leadership for that new nation, for that new community. Now I'm a witness myself if you not. G-d has qualified me for that to serve you that way. I can help. I can inspire you all into all the developments necessary for society or for community and neighborhood, town, city, whatever. I can inspire you into that. And I can help give you the inspiration, I can help give you the sensitivities, I can help give you the faith in yourself for accomplishing that. Not only that, I can help advise you technically, G-d has equipped me to advise you technically how to go about that.
Now, why don't we just accept the person that have proven himself before you. I've proven myself before you. Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Allahu Akbar. Praise be to Allah. Allah have made all this possible for us with Islam. I have proven myself before you and you know me. If you don't know me, ask my relatives. Ask my neighbors I used to live with. Go and trace my history from the very beginning. Whatever I've done show it to me. I'm proud to face my history. I love my history. G-d has blessed me to be an honorable man and I thank Him for the honor that He has given to me. I'm proud to say I'm a follower of Imam WD Mohammed. I myself follow you Imam WD Mohammed. And as long as he continued to obey G-d and put G-d first and love G-d and His Prophet and the Qur'an like he does and love his people and love justice and love truth and love progress, I'm going to continue to follow this man, WD Mohammed. So I invite you to accept the leadership that I accept, the leadership of G-d, His word, Muhammad the Prophet and WD Mohammed. Peace be on you. We pray for guidance and mercy always, Asalaam Alaikum.

