07/24/1977
IWDM Study Library 
Fourth Sunday Broadcast

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
With The Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. I bear witness that nothing deserves worship except Allah alone and I bear witness that Muhammad is the slave servant and His Messenger. Dear beloved Muslims, brothers and sisters, and visitors. As Salaam Alaikum.
I want to thank the Sister, Nesla, for all those kind flattering words she spoke of me but I want to correct one thing. It slipped, she didn't mean it. I'm not the Almighty.
I would like to begin with the reading from Holy Qur'an. We won't keep you too long this evening. In fact, most of the time is spent. But today we are speaking at Fourth Sunday. We are speaking to many brothers and sisters, to many Muslims and visitors throughout the national community by telephone hookup.
So, we wish all of them the blessings, guidance and mercy of Allah and we hope that He will guide us all into more understanding so that we will have richer and better lives. I want to begin with the reading from the Qur'an.
The chapter that I'm going to read from now is called Shams, or the sun. In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. "By the sun and its glorious splendor. By the moon as it follows, it meaning the sun. By the day as it shows up with the sun's glory or the brightness of the sun. By the night as it conceals it. By the firmament and its wonderful structure.
The firmament meaning the sky above and its wonderful structure. By the earth and its wide expanse. By the soul and the proportion and order given to it. Here the Qur'an mentions the soul being proportioned and ordered.
Most of us in the Western society, we don't think of the soul being proportioned and ordered. We don't think of the soul having any definite design or structure. We think of the soul as an invisible entity like spirit, something that is fluid or something that is like a gas.
But here the Qur'an is telling us, Allah telling us in the Qur'an that the soul should have a definite structure or it should be proportioned, and it should meet the order that is given to it by G-d. And the next verse reads, "And its enlightenment as to its wrong and it's right. Truly he succeeds that purifies it. And he fails that corrupts it."
I read through verses one, pardon me. I read verses 1 through verse 10 of that chapter. Now I would like to read the chapter called The City, Balad. With the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Every chapter of the Qur'an opens with the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful, except one chapter in the Qur'an.
And that chapter, by popular authority, is reasoned to be a part of another chapter and not an independent chapter, though it is given as an independent chapter.
So, this opening puts us in the right frame of mind, in the right spirit. If we have in our heart crooked things, bad intentions, the opening verse acts against that kind of wrong mind or spirit to set us in the right frame of mind and in the right move to receive guidance from G-d. With the Name Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
"I do call to witness this city and you are a free man of this city, speaking of Prophet Muhammad, and the mystic tithes are the tithes of parents and child. Verily, we have created man into toil and struggle."
"Think he that none has power over him? He may say boastfully, "Wealth have I squandered, meant spent freely like as our self. Wealth, have I squandered in abundance. Thinks he that none watches or sees him? Have We not made for him two eyes and a tongue and two lips and have shown him the two highways?
Here the Qur'an mentioned two highways. We have heard about the way of sin and the way of righteousness. "But he has made no haste on the path that is steep."
One path is a downhill path. It's the easy one until it gets too steep, then it's hard. If you go down a path that's too steep, you have to struggle like the dickens to keep from falling on your head.
But most people like the downhill road because there's no effort. They need no effort. They can just go at ease down. They don't like to pull up.
But G-d says that He has created life into toil and struggle. He wants you to use your muscles. Continue it says, "And what will explain to you the path that is steep?
It is freeing the bond man. What is the bond man? The bond man is one who is a captive, who is in captivity as a slave and has no power, no freedom.
It's the freeing of the bond man or the giving of food in the day of privation. The word privation mean a day of want. When people are hungry, when people are starving, when people are in serious needs of the fundamental, or the necessities of life.
It is defeating of the bond man and the giving of food in the day of privation to orphan to the orphan with claims of relationship. We think of orphans as having no parents, but Allah is reminding us their parents might be dead but they have relations.
Every child had a mother and a father. And if the mother and father are not here to care for them, they still have a claim. And it's the duty of society to take, accept responsibility. And that duty falls on the nearest kin, the one nearest to that person first. And then it falls on others.
Or to the indigent down in the dust. The word Miskenan is translated indigent. Miskenan means a person who have met with great misfortune. Maybe yesterday he was all right, but suddenly today he's in great need of help. This is Miskenan.
So, some people they live in castles, but something, a tragedy happened, occur in their lives and suddenly that person is out there on skid row as a bum with no help, no money, nothing. So, the Lord's reminding us of our duty to care for such person. "Then will he be of those who believe and enjoy patience."
So, G-d is telling us that belief is a thing that grows or results from something that has to be in us from the very start. Do we say, "Oh yes, I believe in Allah, I believe in G-d. I believe in the Creator?
Christians will say, I believe in G-d and his son Jesus. Jews will say, I believe in G-d and Moses. But what is this if the life is not bearing witness with what they're saying?
Likewise, for Muslims, if we have faith, then our deeds, our actions in society should be in accord with the faith that we profess. Then will he be one of those who have believed and enjoin patience and constancy and self-restraint, and enjoined deeds of kindness and compassion. This is the Qur'an. This is Al-Islam.
People have said of the Muslims that they're fanatics, that they believe in spreading their religion with the sword, that they believe in violence and killing. The Qur'an is the only book that I know of that prescribes severe punishment for people who give themselves to a life of violence.
The violent man in the Qur'an is to be punished because he inflicts the society with the wound, the wound of fear, intimidation, and fear. And this kind of threat on society the Qur'an say is worse then outright slaughter. If you terrorize the people and intimidate the people and terrorize the people, a bunch of wild, crazy gangs, roaming the streets and threatening the lives of society.
The Qur'an speaks of such wild gangs and give real hard punishment for such persons. Says then will he be of those who enjoin patience and constancy and self-restraint and enjoin deeds of kindness and compassion. So let us not forget that Allah invites us to Islam so that we will be builders of life and not destroyers of life.
Every verse says Allah is Ar Rahman. Ar Rahman means He is the one who provides those things that we use to build up life. And right behind that attribute says He is Ar Raheem, means that He is kind, compassionate, merciful, that He forgives over and over again and He extends His graces even to those who don't realize that they're being given any graces at all.
The average person who says a prayer to G-d and thank G-d for something, he thanks him for things that are visible before the eye all the time. Oh G-d, thank you for the daily bread. Oh G-d, thank you for Mary. Oh G-d, thank you for making me well. Thank you for not letting them lock me up.
We pray for these things that are before us all the time. But Allah says He's Just. He's Generous, He's gracious, and He's Ar Raheem, Merciful. That He extends this, He extends it.
How many of us think how merciful G-d is to create parents for us that have in them by nature a love so strong that the average parent will lose their own life for the sake of that child?
The mother will stay in prison almost for nine months to two years giving the care that that child needs. At night, she wakes up, the middle of the night, she goes to the baby, she nurse the baby. She changes the wet diaper. She washes the baby. She dries and put nice scent on the baby, nice little smell on the baby. Wrap the baby back up, hug the baby. Stay right there at home with the baby.
She wake up in the morning. She didn't get a good night's sleep. The baby is calling her again. She comes sometimes stumbling almost she's so sleepy and she comes to the baby. She gives the baby the baby's needs.
And finally when the baby rest the mama she'll get some time to rest. Many times she can't even rest then. She has to cook while the baby is resting.
Or she has to wash the clothes while the baby is resting. Or do some other duty while the baby is resting. And she goes on through this nine months, two years, sometimes three years. And some of you keep her so busy, she does that for 15 years straight and 20 years straight sometimes. Yes.
Look at the grief, look at the great love, the great sacrifice that G-d has put in the nature of the mother for her children. You see?
So, this is Ar Raheem. He has not only given it in the individual, in the individual object or in the individual being, but He has extended it through the nature of mating, the womb.
The mother, woman, made for the man. This mating brings out another beautiful sign of G-d's merciful graces. Is that right? Well, we wouldn't see that if the male didn't come together with the female. We wouldn't see that.
All of these wonderful things that are in the female would not come out unless the male come together with the female and give her another new kind of life, a motherhood, right? And with this new light, we see all the other beautiful things come out.
And then she gets the little children. We see more beautiful things come out. And look how soft she is. She lies there and she rests. The baby is feeding on her. She's just a nice and peaceful and agreeable.
But after that child get up so big, G-d has put in her nature to be firm when she has to. She'll grab that little sucker by the collar and shake him out his shoes. Yes. To keep him from destroying himself.
And if she sees, taking the mind and the spirit on and started destroying himself. That same tender mother will grab that sucker by his collar and shake him until his shoes come off. Yeah.
You see how wonderful Allah is to us to make a creation that speaks to the mind with some knowledge and understanding that no human being, no creature, no combination of creatures can write up or discover the wisdom of G-d that He's put into the creation itself.
Now I would like to have a word on superiority and then we will go on into our talk and hope that we will close out in about 30 minutes. Masculinity is a problem. Femininity is a problem. Everything is a problem.
When you think of our most serious problems, they are problems of nature. The most serious problems we have are problems of nature. It's nature to be free. It's nature to be masculine. It's nature to be feminine. It's nature to be of many colors. All of these are nature, natural things.
Our natural things have become our most serious problem. Things that don't trouble what we call savage man, trouble wise, modern man. Go among the savage. He's not hung up on no masculinity, femininity, freedom, sex, and color.
Bilalian, or black people as we call ourselves, have been used to different colors and have been living with different colors thousands and thousands of years. In fact, they even have so-called white people born in their family. We don't call him so-called white people. We call him albino. But albino, he's as white as a white man.
So, as far as physical color is concerned, Bilalian people, they know, they're used to having different colors even a pale man, right? Called an albino. I'm not saying we are the only ones that have albinos now. Other people have albinos, too.
But because we are so far from being albino and we have one, it stands out. And there's no problem for the savage man. But so-called civilized man, oh, it's a big problem.
Over on Market now, a bunch of crazy people breaking out windows, hurting innocent children and old people, turning over cars. Worse than a herd of crazy rhinos in the jungles of Africa. Human beings.
Don't you know there's something wrong with your mind? Is something seriously wrong with the mind of the western world for people to be behaving like they behave? We have to get to the root of it, get to the bottom of this thing. What is the reason for that? There has to be a reason.
They've taught me democracy. They've taught me Christianity and I'm still crazy? The problem lies somewhere. Is that right?
They've told me that I belong to the greatest country, the greatest society. We are the most civilized, the richest, the most learned. But we only lead in the wealth, in the technology, in education. But we don't lead where leadership should really be if we are to keep society whole intact, and healthy.
Leadership should really be in the individual. If the individual loses the ability to lead himself, what good is any other leadership? If the family loses its ability to contain itself and lead itself, what good is any other leadership?
Go to the home. Where is the leadership? No leadership. Talk to the individuals. Where is the leadership? No leadership.
If a man could come up, a doctor, he wouldn't have to be a doctor of psychology, just any sensible person. If we could resurrect one right now from a hundred years ago and let him come here and look at America and go outside and speak to somebody, he'd say, "Good G-d Almighty. Why didn't G-d let me stay dead? Everybody on earth have gone crazy."
Yeah.
Women’s lib. Homosexual lib. Unisex, unisex. Uni means one. G-d didn't make any one sex. G-d made two sex. And that's how He advances life with two sexes one male and one female. Oh, we want unisex. It's going crazy.
What is behind all of this? A feeling that I have been short changed. I have been denied. The women lib, they feel they have been short changed. They have been denied. "Oh give us what we're due, what we're due." But what are you due baby?
"I want your pants, your jacket, your toes." After a while they asked for something that even G-d didn't give him and I can't give it to him.
And then another man, he stands up. Say, what's your problem? "Hey, I want equal opportunity. I'm a homosexual and we have rights like everybody else."
What kind of complaint are these people making? Here's a Black man, or a white man, a Bilalian or Caucasian homosexual. "I want my equal rights."
Well, you got the Bilalian right or you got your Caucasian rights, you got American rights, you got the rights that males have won for themselves. "Oh, that ain't enough. I want special rights. I want the right to carry myself as a homosexual. And the right to have a job, over children, over the church. I want to be minister, preach and teachers in the school. And this is me. So why should I hide me? I want respect for me."
Well, what good is knowledge, what good is education, what good is religion if everything is okay? We don't need any truth. We don't need any religion. We don't need any special knowledge if everything is permissible and okay.
If homosexuality is as good as natural men and natural women. And they argue that homosexuality is natural, they say it's natural. But if somebody come here with two or three legs, the homosexual won't call him natural. The homosexual say, "Hey, look at that deformed man."
Yeah. The homosexual. If you come here with two heads or something, the homosexual won't say natural. Homosexual, "Look at that deformed woman. Look at that deformed man. Look at that freak." That's what the homosexual will say.
But he go and jump on somebody that is ugly and tough looking. Muscles like his. Jump on his back, on his front, on his head. And he don't want none of us to say, "Look at that freak."
The trouble with our world, we have lost contact with common sense. We've just driven ourself crazy with a lot of philosophy, ideology, philosophizing on truth and freedom, and this here and that. And we've just philosophized ourself into insanity.
What is the superiority? All of us want to be superior. We don't want to feel that anybody is above us. We have to be equal with everybody.
That kind of equality is crazy. Ain't no such thing as an equality where everybody is going to be equal in every respect. I might be equal with you in one sense, but you are going to be superior to me in another sense. So, we can't be equal in every sense.
Got equal rights for Negroes, equal rights for women. Now, equal rights for homosexual. You need to come and listen to Chief Imam.
And I tell you, the real life is within. Within the body. If G-d's given me four feet, do you think I'm going to use four if I can use two? I see that He's given the majority of the men two feet. Now, if I'm born with four, I hope they can fix me so I can walk with four. I mean, walk with two. Pardon me.
And if I can't walk with two in my mind, I'm going to identify with men that walk with two. I'm not going to let this strange accident take me and make me give my mind to it. Right.
I could have been born with four arms, four legs. I'm not going to look at an octopus and say, "I'm your relative," just because I have eight like he has. No, I'm going to look at the truth. I say I'm a human being. I see most human beings have two legs and two arms.
So, though I come out funny like this, something went wrong. Inside, I'm going to see myself as I should see myself, a human being. You understand?
Now that's some crazy funny pictures I'm saying to you. But what I'm saying is this. A man can be born physically in a form that society doesn't accept. That doesn't mean that that man who was born like that should accept that and try to legitimize it in the society.
That man should realize that he has a stronger life and that life is the internal life. You understand? That life is the internal life.
Now, if G-d has made me physically in some form that make me question my masculinity. I don't have hair like other men. My muscles are not tough like other men. Maybe my breasts are a little bigger than other men. And my voice is softer than most men.
If I know that I have been made male, so how do you know that? There is a way to know it baby. If I know I've been made male, with the right kind of teaching that we have, I'm going to overcome this female-looking body. I'll grow muscles internally. It'll be so strong when the weightlifter look at me, he won't see a frail looking feminine person; he'll see a man. The average person are not seen from without; they are seen from within. A frail person, if he's strong internally, he gives a strong image. Is that right? But a strong person outwardly, if he's weak internally, he gives a weak image. Is that right? Yeah.
So, thank Allah that He has made a life in matter that doesn't have to be formed or deformed by matter. But isn't that something we should be really thankful for, that how Allah has not made us a slave to matter? We are rooted in matter, we grow from matter, we learn from matter and we increase our knowledge, but we don't have to become a slave to matter; not even if that matters is my own body.
And I'm going to tell you something that you most likely know. Most of the homosexuals are homosexuals in their mind and nowhere else. There are very few who have some kind of freak thing that happened to them physically. Most of them had the freak thing happen after they were born all right. Sometimes it's the home environment that caused it, and other times it's the society that caused it. And sometimes it's just the individual's ignorance and weakness, and the absence of guidance and strength, falls into something. We have to straighten ourselves up. If we are going to be a strong people, we have to stop trying to give license to things that shouldn't have life. "Oh baby, don't let nobody tell you what to do with your body; that's your body." What you mean your body? When it stinks, don't those people live around you have to be bothered with that stink? And if it smells good, the people around you appreciate it. If it dies, the people around you are going to have to bury it. Your body and you can't even bury it when you get through with it.
"Don't let nobody tell you what to do with your body. You go on and have that abortion girl. Later for that nigga." If I make an investment in your body, you and your body owe me something. If I take a woman as my wife, I love her, I care for her, I share my wealth with her, I work eight hours, I bring money home to her, I keep her protected, I feed her body. My energy that I put out keep her body as she wants it to be. Then she gets a baby. I invested my sperm into her body, and this crazy society going to tell me the woman has all the right. It's her body. Her body, but she got something of mine in it. Is that justice? No, you didn't understand the question. Is it justice for them to ignore the man's right? This world is crazy. Supreme Court giving women the right to abort the baby, to destroy the baby saying it's her body, she has the right. No respect for the men.
Do you know why this society gives all of its attention to the woman, even though that attention means the woman's destruction? Do you know why they do that? It's an old, old game. A society that fears that it can't keep its men satisfied, that it can't give its men what the men should have; it has to cripple, enslave or destroy the men. That's the only way. They have to either make you a slave, lock you up, or destroy you. Slavery is out, society doesn't accept it. Jails are too expensive and society won't accept them locking all the males up just simply because they don't have anything for us to do, right? All right. What's the only other answer for them? It's to destroy the man. Destroy the male.
The Bible and the Holy Qur'an says that they destroyed the male and saved the female. They destroyed the men and saved their women. This is their way. It's an old ancient way. If you can't run a society as it should be run, and if the males are out of jobs, don't have nothing to do; destroy them. Take all their rights from them. Rob him of his fatherhood. Rob him of his masculinity. Put his woman over him. Give his woman his male organ and give him a vagina. Sit his woman on top of him. Excuse the language, but I want you to get the message plain and clear.
So, I know the women, they look at us and I know how they feel. A woman by nature is made to give herself to security. A woman doesn’t want to be insecure. G-d has put a nature in her that makes her restless and unsatisfied until she can find security. When she looks at the males, and I'm not talking about Bilalians, I'm talking about all people. Caucasian, everybody's suffering. When the Western world look at their males, they see a bunch of weaklings, a bunch of weaklings, a bunch of deprived weaklings. Don't have no authority. Don't have no masculinity. I know you say, "I have." Well, bless you, brother. You are one in a few, one in a few that still have. All Praises due to Allah. We're going to celebrate after a while.
This is a shame. See, those people who started the world out, they had good intentions, at least for accumulating wealth. They really thought they were going to accumulate wealth and have so many jobs. They thought that people would have so much wealth, and there'd be so many jobs, that there would be a need for labor. But they didn't see down on a road far enough. So, all of a sudden now, well, we don't have jobs. They still have the same old mind. We have to follow the same old disciplines, the same old philosophy. We can't go against our philosophy. We don't believe in doing things this way, we have to do them that way. When you run into serious trouble, you have to question everything. And this society has run into serious, most serious trouble.
The males have no protection, no security. The females have nothing to put their trust in but themselves. How long can we live like this? Superiority. We wouldn't be hungering for positions of superiority if we had some kind of natural base in reality. We don't have any base in reality, so we're grabbing like what they call a drowning man, for a straw. You just reaching up to the top of the water for anything. You just want to grab something, because you don't have any base. You're not grounded.
The Holy Qur'an says, "The superior among you is the most righteous among you." That person who's more right is the person who's a superior. This eliminates all of this problem of jealousy, envy. "He got more knowledge than me. I hate him." "If I had had his opportunities, I bet you I would've been smarter than he is." You can if, if, if yourself into a grave for a thousand years, you'd be around here if-ing it. If I this, if I that, if I... "Oh, I could have been as rich as he is if I had been lucky like he is." If, if, if. Thank G-d that you are a human being. That's the best start you can have. You are a human being.
Again, the Holy Qur'an says that the best of the creatures are those that have faith for righteousness and goodness and truth, and who practice good deeds. And the worst of the creatures are those people who practice bad deeds, who have no faith and practice bad deeds. These are the worst people. I've seen men that couldn't write a decent letter, couldn't give a clear speech, make hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then I've seen men with Doctorate degrees can't even make a quarter. The Qur'an says that Allah gives the wealth as He pleases, to whomsoever He pleases. It says that He restricts it or holds it back from whomsoever He pleases. We don't have sense enough. We see life. We see the facts of life. We see the man go through college and he learn, and he learn, and learn, and he still can't make nothing. We see the man that didn't learn anything. He talk, he sound like he's dumb, but he got a big bank book. That should teach us something.
And happiness, who can give you happiness? Do you think you can go to a school and learn how to be happy? No amount of education can teach you how to be happy. Those circumstances are in the power of G-d. And really, if you understood, the key is it's in your own hands. To unlock that power so it will flow toward you or in your favor, all you have to do is make your mind and your heart right, even if it means risking, losing friendship where you got friendship, losing opportunity for worldly advancement where you got those opportunities. Even if it means losing your precious wife, your precious husband, your precious son or daughter, your precious mother. If you will just have the strength to make a stand on truth, for truth and say truth is going to be the light in my life from here forward. Truth is going to be the hand that leads me from here forward. Truth is going to be my master from here forward. If you will make that kind of commitment, you will see a change take place in your life, a change for the better.
You will start experiencing miracles. You don't have to know Allah. If you will just commit yourself to be truthful, stand on truth, act on truth, follow truth, commit to truth. You don't have to know G-d. You don't have to know Allah. That will bring you into the knowledge of Allah. Yes, that alone will bring you to Allah. Why? Because G-d has not made human beings knowing Him. G-d has made human beings feeling Him. And that feeling is to move us to truth, and truth will lead us into the hand of G-d.
In the Qur'an, Allah, one of Allah's name is Al-Haqq, "The truth." He is the truth. I find a truth here, a truth there. I find truth everywhere, but Allah is The Truth. When I find Allah, I really find the truth. Good G-d Almighty. I found the truth of relativity, the truth of human nature. Now I found G-d, and all these truths look small in the light of G-d. Allah is the truth, and He is a truth that you can't get. He has to give it to you. You can earn it. See, you can't get the boss's money, can you? If you do, you're subject to be arrested, put in jail for a crime. You can't get the boss's money, but the boss can give you his money for services rendered; is that right? All right, well, Allah is the same. You can't get Allah, but Allah can give you Himself. You can't get Allah. Impossible. If you set out to get Allah, you'll never get Allah. But if you set out to obey truth, Allah will give you Himself. Do you understand?
Yes. So how come I can't set out to get Allah and get Allah? Because you can't come to Allah in the right way until you first submit to truth. There's some requirements. For every great thing achieved, isn't there some duty to perform, or some payment to make, or some qualifications needed? But the qualifications to get Allah is first to obey truth. As I believe the Bible says, if you have not obeyed or followed in small things, how can you be expected to follow or obey in big things? Do you see? So, the way to earn the big blessing is to show your obedience in the small things.
Some of us have color superiority. "Oh, I'm black. I know my blackness is better than their whiteness." You might be right. You might have better knuckles too, better toenails. But is that what you're going to place importance on? So, the man who walk around and say, "Oh, my toenails are stronger than their toenails." "They burn, sun shine on them and burn their skin. My skin can take it." Good. Is that all you got to boast about? You should have a little more than that. The man can carry an umbrella, he don't have to burn. He can keep his clothes on. But what do you going to do about letting some sunshine of knowledge come into that dark head of yours, so you will have something within? You see?
Yesterday we went to have a discussion on the effects of Caucasian images, or images, period, Caucasian and otherwise, in worship. And I got there. I met a man from the 1960s who was beautiful in his blackness. But that's not enough. You might not know it, but G-d has blessed me with more knowledge of blackness than any of them have. Whenever I go to their meetings, I went to one in the Caribbean. Doctorate people, people with Doctoral degrees, got their little school, their little thing together, teaching blackness. I asked them a couple of questions, and they just shriveled up. Don't you know if blackness was the thing to teach, the most qualified person to teach blackness would be a successor in the Nation of Islam now called World Community of Islam in the West? The voice of the Nation of Islam was the most consequential voice on blackness. So, if the blackness was a thing to use, it look like we would be using it here.
They pick up something, they go back to African traditions, brag about how black people were able to survive in the jungle and still keep their humanity. I got something greater than that to brag about. They took our fathers from the jungle and our mothers and brought them here to the plantations of the South, put them in chains and called them subhuman, and limit their movement and growth to animal movement and growth for almost three centuries. And here we are still human. If I want to find something to brag about, I don't have to go to Africa; my successes in America are bigger than anything that ever happened in the past.
I am not talking to you to make you turn your mind from Africa. You might be crazy, I ain't. I recognize Africa for what She is. I recognize our brothers and sisters over there for what they are. I love my ancestors, bad and good ones, strong and weak ones; I love them all. I don't have no hangups. Black, no hangups. Do you understand? When I look at a man, if he ain't got nothing inside, he can be white as snow, as The Book says. He won't look like anything to me, but a big white slimy matter. When I look at a man, he could be black as pitch darkness, but if he ain't got nothing inside, he'll look to me like a black fly. Color don't say nothing to me. I ain't got no hangups like that.
But if I wanted to talk about blackness, I could be out there and take the lead from any of those people out there talking about blackness. Because Allah has blessed this community to learn more of the truth on blackness than they have learned out there. You want to call yourself African. He said, "I'm an African, not an Afro-American." And he used Marcus Garvey's name too. Said Marcus Garvey and others, that he called us Africans. Marcus Garvey never called us Africans, he called us Afro-Americans.
And then what is African? What is Africa? Africa is a land, a continent, it's not a name. It's okay to identify with the continent, but before identifying with the name, look the name up. Learn something about the name. You might take up the name of a slave master who came to Africa, or maybe just became popular, and somebody said we're going to name Africa after slave master Africanus. And I'm giving you the truth. Africanus was not the name of a native of that land. Africanus was a stranger who went to that land, and they put Africanus on that land. And you can get old maps right now that won't have Africa, it will say Africanus. But later they dropped the foreign pronunciation and made it more English and said Africa and African. But the name is Africanus. Scipio Africanus was not a native of that continent. He was a stranger who came to explore it, looking for things. And another one went there fighting by the same name, Africanus. Two popular Africanus; Leo Africanus and Scipio Africanus.
Now this is not black studies, this is true studies I'm giving you. Don't tell me to call myself African. I'm working on getting Africans to stop calling themselves African and call themselves Bilalians. The whole country should be named Bilalian. That's right, the whole continent, pardon me, should be called Bilal or Bilalians. "Oh, they'll never accept that." Not if they got a pig head and crazy mind like you got, I know they won't accept it. They can come up with a better name, I'll accept another name, but just get rid of that old name of the conquerors. And I'm sure if the Indian ever woke up, came into power, they wouldn't like for us to call America America, because it's too after a name of a stranger; Amerigo Vespucci I think his name is. You see?
All of this naming of continents came up recent in the history of people. People never went about naming continents. Do you know what this is the result of? Imperialism. Empire building. These empire builders, they wanted to put their name on continents to show that we don't only have a state, we have a whole continent. So, they called this continent America-
... your frustration and build it up, because the more you prolong it, the more it's going to build up. See, if you admit it now, your suffering is quick. But if you go on argue with me for the next five or 10 years, 20 years from now, you learn that I'm right, oh, it's going to be hard on you.
The only big continent they couldn't name that wasn't Caucasian was Asia. Those people didn't allow them to come in and change their culture and take over the land. They kept that country kind of locked up against the invader. Now they were conquered, but they were never overcome. They retained their traditions. They retained their land, they kept it. The invader came, but he couldn't occupy it. And I think it was mainly because Asia was just too big. Caucasians had too much on their hands, too many people and too much land to have, and he couldn't find enough dummies to handle it for him from among those people. So as a result, Asia has the name of a Mongolian ancestor, He-Xia. They called it Asia. One of the oldest dynasties you can find in the history of the Chinese people is called He-Xia, and it's pronounced Asia.
Where did you learn these things from, Wallace D. Mohammed? From following truth and giving myself totally to G-d. Well, time is passing, we'll get out of here, don't worry, and you'll be all right. Your legs will be hurting a little bit, back and whatnot. It's better to have that than to have arthritis or something worse. Now, before leaving this particular thought, on the problems of the modern society, modern human beings, of unnaturalness, I want to point to the things that we should never forget, to hold dear, and precious, and to increase our knowledge on these things that we can. The Qur'an, Allah, Prophet Muhammad, the Muslim world. You are Muslim, you should know something about the Muslim world, the Muslim world, the history that is, of the Muslim world, and the Muslim communities of the world today. What are they doing? What are their problems? What are their setbacks? How have they advanced? You should be interested in such things.
Now don't let that take you completely out of America. No, you should know America better than you know the foreign countries, of the Muslim world, because you live here. A person should know their own home first. So, we do have a fair knowledge of our own home, but that needs a lot of improvement too. Learn more about the land of Chicago, the United States, Western Society, increase your knowledge. Many of you now, who are depressed, can't get started in the morning, can't do the things you want to do, "Oh I want to go downtown, but I don't have the energy." "Oh I want to be a good wife, I don't have the energy." "Oh I want to be a good father, I just don't have the mind."
If you start feeding your intelligence, life will come into your whole body. When intelligence is being starved, it causes the whole body to feel sick, lazy, limp. Increase your knowledge. The Qur'an have a verse, Al-Fatiha, and in the Qur'an, says that these are the most often repeated verse, the often repeated verses, the opening prayer, the first chapter, Al-Fatiha. Muslims should study Al-Fatiha, every Muslim should know how to recite Al-Fatiha in English by heart. You should study it, if you don't know what the Beneficent is of what the Gracious is, look it up in the dictionary. If you don't know what the Merciful is, look it up in the dictionary. "Oh, I have an idea of what it means." Learn more about it. So, learn your religion, learn Al-Fatiha, learn your religion, learn a lot. And the best way to learn these is by reading the Qur'an. Read the Qur'an, become more familiar.
And we have many good books in our library here, now in Islam by many good scholars. These books are available. Get these books and learn more about that, that you are a part of. The Qur'an says that Allah, causes the day to follow the night and the night to follow the day. And that He merges night into day and He merges day in tonight. Now to a poet, this might have some messages, to a believer, it has a great message. To the average person maybe it says nothing, "What do you mean night follows day, day follow night, what is that? I don't understand that old talk." Day follows night, then night follows day. Knowledge leads darkness, ignorance leads knowledge. Do you know that? Sometimes knowledge leads ignorance, and then at times, ignorance leads knowledge. The Western world is suffering now because knowledge is being led by ignorance.
So, we are living in a time when darkness is leading light, light is following darkness. Then the book says that He merges darkness into light, means that those who are wise, they will one day come under the death of ignorance. It will merge into their light of understanding, and turn it out. And those who are ignorant, who are dark, who are ignorant, one day light will merge into that darkness, and wipe out the darkness and turn the light on for them. So, Allah is telling us in this beautiful symbolic verse, He's telling us, that the power to turn the light of wisdom, knowledge, and understanding on for people, is in My power, is in my hand, just like the giving of night and day. And I have established night and day as a sign to your mind, that the learners are not always the leader, sometimes I eclipse the learned and put the fools in the leadership.
And no matter how strong they are, they make every effort to keep the ignorant out of their knowledge. I in time merges the ignorant in on the wise, push them out, turn it over to the ignorant. Yeah, and then He brings the intelligence in, and push the ignorance out, and establish intelligence or learning knowledge. This is a wise G-d, a just G-d. See, why would G-d take away knowledge from us? If you use knowledge as a tool, to corrupt and enslave life, shouldn't G-d take that tool away from you? Though it's a good tool, but you don't use it for the purpose that He has designed. So, shouldn't He take it away from you? And if the leaders with the knowledge are unfit, shouldn't He put the ignorant before them, and make the ignorant the leaders? I might be in the dark, but my moral strength, my spiritual strength, might be a greater saving power for society, than their bright knowledge.
So, shouldn't G-d put me ahead of them, if I'm more fit for the leadership? And then G-d chose us in His language. Oh, I'm not going to let you go until G-d lets me go. And then G-d shows us in His language, that Allah shows us in His language that the ignorant people, sometimes, come into leadership, and they fall under the forces of success. And without intelligence, they can't hold, keep that leadership.
Then G-d had to take away that leadership, emerge the light. So, then He had to bring the intelligence in, and take the leadership away from ignorant people. You understand? So, He merges the light into the darkness. He gives the darkness the world, that is give the ignorant people the world, the leadership. But the ignorant people, because they don't have knowledge, they begin to think that they're superior and better, that their worth is in their muscles or their color. There was a tribe of our ancestors, who thought their superiority, was in the knowledge state that they had, of the astronomy, the sky, astrology. And they felt that they knew the heavenly body so well, that they could go on and survive and survive and survive. And that no matter what happened to the world, eventually they'll come back into power.
What did they end up doing? Spending all their life jumping up to the sky. And right now, you go among them and you'll find him over there. Jumping up to the sky. That's all they have, is just the jump, everything else is gone. He once had the leadership, but it was taken away, because they failed. If G-d gives ignorant people the leadership, they should be grateful to G-d, and they should try to increase their understanding and their knowledge, so that light won't have to be forced in on them, they will turn the light on for themselves. You see? Likewise, G-d says that He rotates the rule in the earth. Say He rotates the rule in the earth. He gives this nation a chance to rule, for a time. He says so that it will be known how they will behave.
How is it going to be known? If the races of the earth are the people of the earth, the families, don't get the opportunity to rule, then how do we know who's more worthy? So, G-d says He rotates the rule. The Chinese gets the time to rule, a so-called African, Bilalian, he gets the time to rule. The European gets the time to rule. The Indians get the time to rule. He rotates it. And then He wants His man to reflect, that's one of the instructions that G-d gives to us. Don't just look ahead, don't live in the present and just look ahead. He says also look behind you. G-d says reflect. Look back, and see how these nations and races have ruled. What lesson will we get from this? We'll find that color don't make a just rule.
You can be Caucasian and your rule might be corrupt. You can be China, Chinese, your rule might be corrupt. You can be Indian, you can be African and your rule might be corrupt. The thing that makes the just rule, the right rule is that that is in the heart. If the heart is right, the person is going to be right, the rule will be right.
And the book says that Allah looks not to our faces, but to our heart. That's what the Bible and the Qur'an says, that Allah looks not to your faces, but to your heart. He doesn't care what color you are, what nationality you are. "Oh, I'm the son of Homie Hoshema." Well, who in the hell is that? That don't make you be anything. All of us are the sons of one father. Isn't that a fact? If you trace the human beings back to their first ancestors, we all came from the same. So, all of us should be equal then, but it ain't the case is it? If all of us are the children of a king, then look at us now. Are we all Princes? No. We Niggas, Blacks and Bilalians, Africans, all kind of other crazy things. Don't worry about your ancestor, unless you want to learn from your ancestor.
If you just want identify the co. I know I had a great ancestor don't worry about that. If you can't find a piece of history, showing you a great ancestor, don't worry about it. I guarantee you, you had a great ancestor. I don't know how far it was back, but I guarantee you, you had a great ancestor.
At one time in your family line, if you can trace it back far enough, there was a king, a queen, a great warrior, a great learned man, great learned woman. You can trace your ancestry back far enough, I guarantee you'll run into great people. Every other person will. Now I want to quickly, speak on life, and how that life is described to us in scripture and close out. The main purpose of scripture, both Holy Qur'an and Bible, is to save the life that Allah created for human beings. That's the main purpose. Allah don't want us to lose the life that He created for us.
So, He sent men, inspired men, to guide us back to that life, when we get away from it. That life according to the Qur'an and according to the Bible, I don't see the Bible here today, is described in this way. Our origin is in moral life, moral life. No human being comes into some other life before they come into moral life. All of us come into moral life first. Before we learn to argue with the rules of logic, reasoning, we have already come into a moral mind.
And we argue on moral principle. Is that right? This is nature for human life. So, the Qur'an and Bible tell us, that G-d created us first as moral creaturers. We are moral creaturers first. From a moral creature, we grow to have other branches, but we are all raised, we should, keep that base, that base or keep our life rooted in moral life. Once we leave moral life, we die. As human beings, we die. Moral life in scripture, is called in many places, water, water. And we know that in the physical world, water is a necessity for life.
Your grass needs water. Your flowers need water. Your animals need water. You need water. All life need water. And people who migrate look for land that they can settle on, first thing they want to know, is there any water on this land? They don't want to have to wait for rain. They want to know is there a river, a creek? If there's no river, no creek or nothing, pond it. They want to know is there water under the ground? So, they'll dig and see can they get a well, right? And the Bible tell you that Abraham went out digging wells.
Look in the Bible and find the beginning of Abraham's mission and you'll find that he went about digging wells. Now we think that he was digging physical wells. That's not what it means.
G-d is telling us that the beginning of life is in morality. Abraham went out tapping the moral strength, nature of the people to bring up in them, the water of moral strength, not the ground, but the people themselves. Abraham's teaching was tapping the moral base in the human being and bringing up the moral strength planted in it and righteousness in the people. So that's what it's symbolic of. So, the origin is in water or in moral makeup. This is what G-d is telling us. This is a formula for preserving, for preserving our lives. Now, you may have many problems. It might be a financial problem, it might be a spiritual problem, social problem. I don't care what it is. First thing you should do is look at your moral makeup and see if it's in that order. And if your morals are in bad shape, begin working on your morals first.
Because life can't grow in poison water. If the water is polluted in poison, no matter what kind of life, financial life, I don't care what kind of life it is, it's not going to grow healthy and strong in that polluted water. So first, make your moral life better. Improve upon it, and every other thing will be easier for you, if it's right. What does the book say in Genesis? Says that, three, pardon me, four. Four rivers went out from the garden. You have read Genesis, you will recall this and became heads, heads. Four rivers went out from the garden and became heads. What is the garden? The book tells us that G-d put the man in the garden. Is that right? And made the woman as his help mate, as his helper, and charged him with tending the garden, taking care of the garden. So, what is this? It has two meanings. For the society, it means the religious society, the religious community, that G-d gave his man. Who is His man? The inspired leader.
The Messenger or Prophet. He gave him the garden, means a community with people, religious people. His wife represents the religious people, and He charged him with tending the garden. That means taking care of the ground, the trees and everything. All of these things represent something too. You don't have patience for all of this today. The ground represents something, the grass, the trees, everything, the birds, all these things in the creation represents something. I mean, it has a symbolic meaning, that should be interpreted in a religious sense, or in a spiritual sense, and not in a physical sense. What else it means? For the individual, it means your own individual conscience.
As an individual, your garden is your own conscience. And in your conscience, there should be you, and you should be the leader who obeys G-d, in your own conscience. And you should be making everything else in your conscience, follow you, as G-d dictates it. You understand? In your own conscience you should be the leader and you should be obeying G-d a hundred percent. And you should be leading everything else in your conscience behind you as followers, as a religious community, so that everything in your conscience submits to G-d. You see? This is what it means for the individual, but for the society or for the world, it meant that G-d established righteous, righteously guided men, and He charged them with taking care of a religious community, and providing everything that that religious community needs, for them, at least attending it, helping, to see that these things are available and kept preserved for the people, for the life of the people.
Says Four Rivers went out from the garden. Now what is this referring to? If four rivers went out from the garden, then a fifth was the garden, is that right? Four rivers went out from the garden, then the garden must have been an ocean or lake or something, right? And the rivers are now coming. So, we have four rivers and a fifth thing and a fifth thing, all right? The garden then is the religious life, which is the fifth.
The rivers are the rational mind, the moral mind, the spiritual mind, and the material mind going out from the religion, and going out from the conscience of the people. All of these things should be together in man's conscious. You understand? And all of these things should be in together in religion. Rational life should be in the religious life, likewise, moral life, spiritual life and material life. You understand? And all of these should be in the conscience of the individual. What satan, with his trick. I'm not talking about an invisible spirit. I'm talking about a wicked minded world. Satan, with his trick, deceived the religious people, took over the leadership and the religion, and began to divide and conquer.
Now see how far this divide and conquer thing goes, much further back than the Latin people who use. It goes back to Genesis. Divide and conquer. Divide the man's rational life, from his moral life, his spiritual life, to take it and take it all and divide them. And you see the fingers are five and one of them are more important than the rest. That's the thumb. It's not the longest, but it's the most important. Is that right? See, in fact, you only see two joints shooting up from it, three shooting up from the other. But the thumb is the most important.
Because it can grip even without the finger. It can grip the hand and hold something. If I didn't have a finger, finger, look, my thumb can hold that. You see? Well, we could hold two if I just had this finger, we can hold two like this, you see? But this thumb grip, it gives the grip, it ties the four into one fifth, is that right? To give a grip, to make a power. And it has a strong grip. It can grip, make a tight grip. So, a thumb is a very important one. But we have four others. They all important, and they work together. They all work together. Five fingers work together. Is that right? Yes, they work together. Now, what I'm giving you now is what they call symbolic teaching. What this is good for? What does the Christian history tells us? That originally fish was the sign of the Christian people and not a cross.
The early Christians, they didn't use a cross. They used fish. What did the fish mean? It meant life of morality, life of moral strength or moral life. Moral life. And this is the beginning, the religious development. It must start in a moral basis.
John the Baptist, how did he begin his mission? Baptizing in the river Jordan. Is that right? Now the book says that one is coming after John, who was baptized in fire. Is that right? Baptized in fire. Now Jesus is identified as the one who came behind John baptizing in fire. But let us understand that though he baptized in fire, it doesn't mean that fire and water have to necessarily be different in this particular sense. I'll give you an example from the scripture. Elijah told them to wet the altar. He said, pour barrels and barrels, pour more barrels on the altar. Water. And then he prayed. And the fire, the water blazed up as fire, which shows us that in the religious language or in scriptural language, water can be transformed or converted as fire. It can be water, and it can also be fire. So, because we're talking about fire, don't think, we're not talking about morals. Water in the sense of liquid water, means moral teachings that are peaceful, peaceful. In the fiery symbol it means, fiery, fiery or aggressive, attacking language.
And didn't Elijah use fiery attacking language on.... Who was it? Jezebel, wasn't it? And her false Prophet? Yes, he used fiery attacking aggressive language, but it still, the beginning is water is in water. And Jesus told his disciples, he said, "Come and I will make you fishermen of men." Is that right? Fishermen of men. So, Jesus began his mission, and that's the beginning of his mission. When he started out, he told Peter and others, he said, "Come I will make you fishermen of men." So, the beginning of Jesus' mission was in water. He told them that he would make them fishermen of men, meaning he wanted them to pull men out of water. What does this mean now? Why would he want to pull them out of water if G-d want all of us to start in water? Because that water was unfit. The moral consciousness of that people that Jesus was dealing with in those days had become polluted, filthy, unfit.
So, Jesus had to fish them out of that water onto land. So, what do we mean when we say fish them out of water onto land? When a fish comes out of water, if he can't breathe, he dies. Isn't that right? So, it means take them out of the moral base and bring them into spiritual life. Air is symbolic of spirit. So, Jesus preached spiritual doctrine to those people who were already grounded in a moral philosophy and he converted them from that moral mind into a spiritual nature of submission to the will of G-d. Isn't that right?
And read the Bible. He didn't establish the morals. Isn't that right? He questioned the morals but He didn't establish the morals. He questioned them that condemned the prostitute. He questioned those that put importance on cleaning pots and doing things in certain ways. Isn't that right? So, He didn't come to establish the moral teaching. He came to take them out of moral teaching and bring them into spiritual life. And after spiritual life, they have to come into moral teaching. Isn't that right?
Now, moral base is first. We have to have a moral base. But there's something even before that moral base. And what is that? Spirit. Spirit. But we can't build society on spirit. We can only contain people in the spirit. But to build society, we must begin in water. Isn't that right? I'm talking about practical society, the practical world life. You can't build society just in a spirituality. You have to have a moral base. Not only for religion, this is true for any part of society. They must have a moral base first to build on.
All right, so the book tells us that G-d, to give life to a human being, He breathed His breath into the nostril. Isn't that right? And the man became a living soul. Isn't that right? Now, He breathed His breath in the nostril and the man became a living soul. Then He had to do other things to the man before that man really became a full human being living a full human life. He breathed His breath into his nostril, then He made for him a helpmate. Isn't that right? And He led him on and on and on to make him complete.
So spiritual life is the first life. When our little babies come, the first thing they have is a spiritual inclination toward us. Isn't that right? They follow us because they have a spiritual inclination toward us. They follow mama, they follow daddy, they follow the family. And they will obey us because they sense, they feel what we want from them. Isn't that right?
But after they get older and can understand, we begin to appeal to their moral sense. Isn't that right? You say, "Why did you do this, John? Didn't you know that was wrong?" Isn't that right? But we don't say, "Didn't we know that was logical?" Say, "Why did you do that, John? Didn't you know that wasn't logical?" No, we say, "Didn't you know that was wrong?"
Because the first life for the society, when it comes to structuring society, is the moral life. We learn right from wrong, good from bad, sweet and sour. Isn't that right? We learn this first. And then after that life, we come into a higher life. So, from the consciousness, from the conscious life that G-d creates grows the moral life, which it should be the base and the saving, the saving food for the whole society. Water, moral life.
Then we grow into what we call rational life. Rational life. If we're lucky, we grow into what we call spiritual life. Now, I'm not talking about the first kind of spiritual feelings you get. I'm not talking about spiritual feelings. Spiritual feelings is a sensation. Sensation doesn't necessarily mean living or life. Things have a sensation before we say they're born. Isn't that right? So, in our feelings, we have a spiritual sensation. We feel G-d, we feel truth, we feel righteousness.
But spiritual life means a disciplined life. A baby comes here and he can't sit up, he can't crawl, he can't walk. So, he's in life, but he has no control of himself. He hasn't learned discipline. Isn't that right? But once he learns discipline and he can walk and balance himself like us, he can use his mouth, he can use his tongue to speak, his eyes to see, his ears to hear, then we say this is a whole child. Isn't that right? But he has to grow up to be a whole child.
Likewise, for our spiritual makeup. We can have spiritual sensations. That doesn't mean we have spiritual life. Our spiritual life hasn't been structured. And G-d says that He made the soul and gave it its order and proportioned it. Isn't that right? All right, so we have to come into the proper structure. When we come into the proper structure, then we can live spiritual life like the birds live on the Earth.
The birds have a road in the air. You can't see his road, but he knows it. He takes this road in the air, and I believe he follows it better than you can follow the one on the ground. He follows his road, he knows his destination. The wind blows, the wind shifts, he knows how to shift his wings, how to move his tail, how to tilt his head, or raise it, to give him the balance and the order that he needs to keep him going smoothly in his spiritual flight. Isn't that right?
All right. This bird, because he's coming to a spiritual field of movement, he has a superiority over the other creatures and the animal kingdom. You don't know that? The lion, as bad as he is, he can't get up and catch that bird. When the bird gets caught, it's an accident. He doesn't have to get caught. If he sees it in time, he can get up and leave it, right?
And when he gets up, it puts him in a superior position as an observer. The bird go up in the treetop and he's watching all the little creatures moving around. He sees the cat before the cat make up his mind to do his thing, right? He's up in the treetop, he's looking all around, flying all around, he looks all over the kingdom. And that high-flying bird, the eagle, the eagle goes up so high that he looks all over this whole country. Goes up so high he sees the whole country. Sees things moving a hundred miles away. He can see where you're going before you make up your mind to go in that direction. You, see? So, they use the bird as a symbol.
Then we have the fourth one, which is the beast. The material-minded people can't think anything but material. They're called the beast class or the river of the beast. And the book says that four rivers went out from the garden and became heads. Isn't that right? Now look at the world. I'm talking about what the book says. Now let us look at the world and see if that has happened.
Logic has been separated from other branches of knowledge and given an independent classification. Isn't that right? And we have the rule of logic. Isn't that right? A head. Then we have morals. Morals have been separated too from all the others. In fact, they have separated morals from religion.
They'll tell you in the church, "Oh, don't come telling me what's clean, what's right, what's wrong? That's the Old Testament." Isn't that what they tell you? "All you have to do is just believe on Christ." So, morals have been separated from the religion. And they say the rule of moral judgment. Isn't that right? Morals to come ahead. Morals, rational rule, spiritual. Spiritual kingdom. Right? They speak of it as a kingdom.
And they got spiritual people calling themselves mystics and whatnot, who divorce themselves from logic, from moral argument, from everything. And they say all you need is the spiritual to dictate to you. Isn't that right?
So, we find people classified as spiritual, people classified as moral, people classified as rational, and people classified as material. Isn't that right? When they all should be one. People should have all of these classifications, all of these descriptions within themselves.
G-d has given us five fingers. That's what the wise people who gave us this language are trying to tell us, "Don't lose these fingers. Don't let them go out separate. Keep them in the garden. Together, they are a fist and a tool, an instrument to do work for you, to defend you." Isn't that right? And to comfort. Same hands, if you touch somebody with them, sometime a hand touch says more than a thousand words. Isn't that right? Just lay your hand on the baby. Big baby and small baby.
And sometimes that hand says more than all the speeches that the poet could make. Yeah. So, the wise people use these four rivers going out from a fifth to show that society has been divided against itself, has been dismembered. I hope you understand. Not the physical body. The dismembering of the physical body is nothing when you compare it with the dismembering of the internal body. If someone can go into me internally and dismember me internally, oh, they have destroyed me. All the physical members can be intact. If I'm dismembered within, I'm destroyed, I'm finished.
And that's what we have, a dismembered society. The rational life should be in harmony and at one with the moral life and the spiritual life and the material life.
Water is the beginning of life. You take a dry seed, you put it in the ground, right? What starts that seed to growing? A child said water, and that's right. That's a smart child. Water. Not sunshine, not wind. Keep it away from water, the sun can shine on it, the air can be on it, everything can be on it and nothing will happen. But let a little rain come, or you sprinkle a little water and leave it alone, it'll begin to soften up. It's a dry, hard seed to start with. Isn't that right?
But that's symbolic of moral life. It will start to soften it up. Pretty soon, it starts opening up what it has been holding secret, right? Something pops up and stretch out of it. After a while, it peeps up through the soil. Materialism ain't strong enough to keep it down. Breaks up through the surface of the material soils and peeks its head into the spiritual world. Isn't that right?
And begins to grow. And it grows and grows, and as it grows, it gets stronger and stronger. But it's keeping balance as it reaches up in the spiritual world for spiritual life and the knowledge, symbolic in the symbol of sunlight. It is also sending its root down deeper and deeper. The more it stretch up, they all go down a little bit more, root.
Let us work together. I'm up here reaching with my branches for spiritual life and knowledge. Keep going down, roots, so you can get water, moral life. Isn't that right? A little plant, they have little roots. They're in proportion. They're in balance with the top, with the branches that's reaching up for the spiritual life and for the knowledge. Isn't that right? For the sunlight.
Okay, but a big tree, it's got long-reaching roots. They stretch all out. Some water may run over there. You want to go over there and get a little bit of it. Some may run over there. So, he want to reach out and get it, and then he sends a taproot down. He going to tap a well. Isn't that right? Yeah. That root that goes straight down is called a taproot, and that root goes down because he wants to tap a well. He doesn't want to give it out.
A moral base. Isn't that right? Now, if the earth stays dry, maybe G-d will send a cloud and it rains. But that plant is a wise old plant. Like the squirrels, it ain't going to wait depending on just a rain. He's going to sink his root deep, so if the rain don't come, he still will have some water to drink. Isn't that right?
Now, if the rain never comes, that well going to dry up in the earth. But G-d has fixed it so the rain comes eventually. Some places, well, a desert's been dry so long and trees can't even grow out there. But G-d has made a special kind of tree on the desert. A cactus. Isn't that right? I love it.
Now, believe it or not, the way I'm talking to you now is the way people talked in the beginning. The strongest signs to speak from are the signs that G-d created. Now that we got the Qur'an, we don't have to feel for the understanding. We have G-d to guide us through it.
All right. That cactus, it has its roots sunk too, but not deep. No need to sink it deep. Ain't nothing down there. But how does it survive? G-d has put needles on it. Sharp, fine needles stick out in the air, and they're designed so perfectly to do their job that they can collect enough moisture when it's not raining out of what seems to be a hundred percent dry climate. If any amount of moisture is in the air, it can be 2%, the needles of the cactus are designed to pick it up. Yeah. And He has designed the skin of the cactus so it don't give up water. Too hard to get, the cactus ain't going to give it up.
So, a thirsty man who's dying of thirst, if he can find a cactus on the desert, he can cut it open and get him a drink and save his life. Isn't that right? See how powerful G-d is with His signs? And we look at G-d's creation and we say, "Why did G-d do this?" To teach us something.
The main purpose of the creation, after giving a physical life, that's in the beginning. We can't have what we want until we get started. Isn't that right? So, we build a house. Isn't that right? But the house is not the end. We build a house so it can house a human being, or a dog or whatever we put in that house we make, right? So that's not the end.
When G-d made the physical world, that's not the end. Don't try to see the end of creation in creation. See the end of creation in the message, the purpose that it served. That's how we are to see it. And if you see it that way, you'll be happy. You'll come into paradise on Earth while you live physically. Because all of these seemingly disturbing things, they won't disturb your peace. You'll understand that these are great messages from G-d, that He's working all the time to enlarge the mind of the people.
I'm going to conclude this today by tying it in with the four creatures that Daniel saw, that Ezekiel saw, and that you find in the Revelation. It says that four creatures went up. Isn't that right? Ezekiel people says that a ship went up and four creatures went up. One had the face of a man and the others had the faces of animals. And one of the faces was the face of a bird, the face of a fowl. Isn't that right? Not one had the face of a sea creature, not one had the face of a fish. Daniel, Ezekiel, Revelation is telling us that the Prophet saw the time when the rule, the leaders of the world who will be ruling over the world says that, when the ship went up, it was like the sound of many waters.
They didn't say it was many waters. It was like the sound of many waters, or as the sound of many waters. Waters in this verse in the Bible means people. It means simply people. And when a lot of people respond to something, it does kind of sound like water disturbed, especially at night. If you've been on the lake or near a big body of water at night and heard the roughness of the water, it does sound like a lot of people sometimes, especially if a little wind is blowing too. It sounds like a lot of people. When people respond, just like you. Can't you hear yourself? Even now, you're saying "oooohhh." You're saying something, but when it all comes together, it sounds "oooohhh".
So, there's a sound of many waters to let us know that he's not talking about monsters, he's talking about people. People. It says and the ship went up into the air, went up from the ground, meaning that it went up on the spiritual throne. That's all it means. It left material plane and went up on the spiritual throne. And not a moral being was in it.
One was vision, went up to get vision, use the spiritual power to get vision. All the rest, all the other three were beasts. Isn't that right? When they should be rational, moral, spiritual and material or economical. The economical life, the financial life is part of life.
The Qur'an says and the Bible says that G-d creates us or raise us, grow up in the earth as a plant. Plants is symbolic also of agricultural life. If we study the growth of society, the growth of life, human life, of civilization, we find that it begins in agriculture. Isn't that right? It begins in agriculture. And what do we mean when we say agriculture? We mean cultivating plant life. If we have cattle, that's a part of agriculture. But agriculture is mainly referring to the cultivation of food, plant life. Animals feed on the plant life, they're a part of agriculture.
All right. So, if we have four beasts now, and the Bible says, "Here is wisdom. Let him who have understanding," I think it says," count the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man." The number of a man. And it says his number is three score and six. Isn't that right?
Now, go and look in Chronicles, I believe it is, and you'll find... If you don't find it there, look in a good concordance, Bible concordance and you'll find it anyway, most likely. But it is there. I can find it for you. If you don't find it, I'll find it for you if it's necessary to save your soul.
This same number appears earlier in the Bible. And what is it? Wealth. It says, "And the amount of wealth that Solomon was given in one year," I believe it says, "was three score and six talents of gold." This was the wealth that he was given. So, the same figure is used in the end of the Bible, so it must be referring to this earlier missioning.
Now, I'm just trying to reason with you who study Bible. You know what it said later, if it's repeated, it has meaning connected with the earlier statement. In Islam, in all major religions, the beast of man is called his material nature. If he's not careful, this material nature will destroy his human nature. This is the beast of man. This is a beast that will devour the human being, eat you up, destroy you, and you'll become nothing but a physicalized materialistic beast.
So that's all it means. Wealth is the temptation. And the more we follow wealth, the more we try to increase our wealth, the more materialistic we become. Why? Because we are giving all of our life forces to material. And if you give all your life forces to material, eventually all of your life forces are going to take on the nature of material. And the nature of material is to lie dead until acted upon by something else. Isn't that right? That's the nature of material, to be dead, at rest until acted upon by something else.
Now, if you give your nature to materialism, then you are going to lose your life. You are going to become dead and you'll become subject to the influences of the world. The things that act upon you will rule you. Do you think a materialistic person rule themselves? They don't rule themselves. They are ruled by the forces of the world. They're ruled by sex, greed, lies, filth. All of the weak forces of the world rule the materialistic people. And the main force ruling them is materialism because that's what they're giving all of their life forces to.
This is the beast that the Prophet saw that would come upon the world. Didn't he predict it rightly? Our present state tells us that those men thousands of years ago predicted perfectly exactly what was going to happen to this Earth. They said that the world will come under the power of materialism, under the symbolic name beast. And that under the power of materialism, we will lose our morality. We won't have our moral strength. We will lose our morality.
Not only that, the intellect will go blind. Though it's powerful with knowledge, it won't be able to see. They said that darkness would cover the Earth. With all our material knowledge, we are not able to see as human beings. And the only life for us to live is human life. Once we give up living that life, there is no other life for us to live. We become beasts given to the forces of materialism.
And the Prophets also said that the beast would not only rule, but the beast would speak to the people. What does this mean? How can materialism speak to me? We didn't need Moses to come back, or Jesus, not even Prophet Muhammad. The people of the world have rose up and they have started denouncing their leaders.
And from what voice are they speaking? From the voice of materialism. What is the voice of Communist China? The voice of materialism. What was the voice of Russia? The Bolshevik Revolution. The voice of materialism. What is the voice in America right now that's complaining and making charges? The voice of materialism. You might say, "Oh, there's a humanistic voice speaking now." What is it responding to? The pressures of materialism.
So, when the scripture tells us that the beast of materialism will speak to us, it means that the beast of materialism, that materialism is going to wake us up, is going to shock our dead conscience and make us realize that there are problems, serious problems. And those problems are in materialism. That's all it means, that the beast is going to speak to us. It speaks to some people and it says to them, "I have to have what they got." Isn't that right? It speaks to other people and it says to them, "I don't want their sickness." But it's speaking to both.
Materialism is speaking to the materialistic person and telling him, "You have to get on top or you have to get your share." And it's speaking to the humanistic people and it's telling them to avoid this sickness. These people have been driven mad. Isn't that right?
In the end, the book says that the beast will speak. Oh, yes. The Qur'an says, "And He shall raise up a beast and the beast shall speak to them." And the beast shall speak to them.
And the Bible says that Balaam rode the donkey, and the donkey spoke out against Balaam. Now, we think this donkey to mean something else maybe.
But this donkey is talking about the poor, ignorant classes who are made to burden, to carry materialistic world. Who are the donkeys that carry the materialistic world? It's the ignorant masses. The ignorant masses are the common workers, right? All right. But still, the Bible is talking about materialism and the Qur'an is talking about materialism, and the thing that Prophet Muhammad says, that the Dajjal will be riding the donkey is the saying of Prophet Muhammad. The one-eyed Dajjal. What did it mean one-eyed Dajjal]? The Qur'an says that G-d has given you two eyes, a tongue and two lips. Prophet Muhammad says that there will come the one-eyed Dajjal and he will ride the donkey. The same thing. Here is a leader, or a force, or a ruling world, riding the ignorant masses and it has one eye. It doesn't have spiritual vision or moral vision. It only has material vision. That's what it means. It means that it won't have spiritual or moral, or religious vision. It will only have material vision. All it will see is material, and it will be riding the backs of the ignorant people. This is the Dajjal.
And the Prophet Muhammad says that this thing, when it comes, it will be a sign, the end of time. Is that right? The Bible says the same. The Qur'an says the same. The Hadith says the same. We have lived to see this thing manifest. Now don't you see, brothers and sisters, that all signs point to this day that we're living in as the end of time? How much plainer can you get it? This is the end of time. I don't mean that something is going to happen, you're going to wake up tomorrow morning and the earth is going to be tearing all up. That earthquake has almost stopped. Been tearing up for a long time. The wise leaders in religion guided by G-d, they saw an earthquake happening in the social life of the people. They weren't talking about physical earthquakes. You read in the book, it says, "And there will be a great earthquake," and we think that it means a physical earthquake. No. It means a social earthquake. An earthquake happening in the social life of the people and the life of society. And the Qur'an says, "And that G-d will reveal to the Earth". Says, "And the Earth will behave as though it was responding to Revelation." Said, "And it will blow out its burden, and the people will say, 'What is wrong her'?" Meaning Earth. What is wrong with her?
Isn't that what we've came to think? Haven't we been saying that? People have started to, "What's wrong with life? What's wrong with the world?" We see all of these freaky things happening. People behaving crazy. Nations doing things we've never dreamed of. Members of the society doing things that we can't explain, can't understand. This is life. Physical life. It's not guided by intelligence, it's just the nature, the physical nature, the nature rebelling against the artificial pressure that's been on it. This is what the Prophet saw. Said, "The beast will speak out. The Earth will wheel and rock like a drunkard man" the book said. The Bible, is that right? Some of you maybe have read it. The Earth will wheel and rock like a drunkard person, like a person drunk, and we thought it means the ... that is the spiritual people, the church people thought it meant the physical earth is going to wheel and rock. No. It means the society, the leadership the nation. Instead of going on like they've got intelligence and like sense, their kingdoms are going to be conducting themselves as a drunkard.
And haven't we seen that? So don't play scripture cheap, that's the point I'm trying to drive home to you. Don't play scripture cheap. Yesterday, at that meeting with our brother, he played scripture cheap and he thought that he could come up with his own scripture that would be better than scripture. Let me tell you, the Bible has been distorted, has been abused, it has been messed up, but the Bible is still powerful because a lot of truth is still in it, though it's covered up. And a lot of it is in there very plain. And anybody who comes up on this earth playing the Bible cheap, I'm telling you, they're babies. They're babies playing with something that they don't have knowledge of. The Bible contains great knowledge for the preservation of life on this earth. It contains great messages of revelation to make us understand what is happening now in the present. The Qur'an contains the same, without all of the confusion and misguidance that we find in the Bible. But let's not play either book cheap.
The minds to whom G-d revealed, the knowledge we find in the scripture, in The Bible and Qur'an, those minds were great minds. They saw and understood life, what was happening then and they knew that with the mind the world had then, if it didn't come back to G-d, that it was going to come to the end that it has come to. It was going to fall under the forces of materialism, under the force of greed, vanity, selfishness, and human life was going to be starved out. Look at our life now. People are paying a psychologist, 10, 20, 30, 40, $50 an hour to have him do what? Listen to them. Life has become so hard and so much of a burden and a pain to look at and listen to, that we have to go to a doctor of the mind and lay up on a couch or something, and do nothing but talk to him. And he says, "How do you feel? Do you feel better?"
"Oh, I feel much better, doctor. I feel much better." All you want to do is just talk. This world done got so solid as a material mass, you can't even speak. Your voice can't go. You talk to your wife, she can't hear. Wife talk to you, you can't hear her. Children try to talk, they can't hear, you can't hear, they can't hear each other. Don't you know this is a sick world? A sick, sick world. I've had people come to me, "Imam, I want you to help me out with this. So-and-so, and so-and-so. And so-and-so, and so-and-so, and so-and-so ... and you know what, and so, and what, and you know what I'm talking about? And that, and that, and that, and that, and this, and that, and that, and this, and that. Thank you very much, brother Imam. As Salaam Alaikum." Poor man didn't have nobody to talk to. He don't want to hear anything, he wants to use his mouth. People won't let him talk. He's thinking, but can't talk. Nobody to talk to. Asalaam Alaikum.
Speaker 1
Yes, sir.
Speaker 2:
All praise is due to Allah.
Speaker 3:
Well, for those of you that are awake, I'm sure you enjoyed the Imam's lecture. Alha Now, is there anyone that's visiting that has been with us-
Speaker 4:
... 77, because the buses will be leaving at that time. They will be ... pardon me, the buses will be leaving at 6:30 AM, for the airport. Now, I'm going to make this announcement again, when we get a little quieter.
IWDM:
... I don't like the number of the beast and I don't like the number of the angel. I don't want anybody just numbering me. I don't like numbers. Not for people. I don't even like to tell my age. This letter is from our dear brother, Abdul Aziz Shabazz, and those of us that have known him for a long time, we remember him as Brother Henry. The message reads, "Parents, please do not leave your children here at the school unless there's a program that they're in, and if they're in a program, they should not come hours before time and they should leave immediately after the program is over. If you do not give us this cooperation, your school will be destroyed. The children are all over the school, including in the ceiling, on top of the roof." Well, he's sure getting the message to you all right. "We do not have help to watch and clean up behind the children. All of our help is volunteer now, so we need your help to come out and help us to keep the Masjid and the school clean. The doors are open Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to about 11:00 PM, especially the school, and Saturday from 8:00 AM to about 5:00 PM. Also, Sunday from 8:00 AM to about 5:00 PM. We need the cooperation of the brothers to volunteer to help us on the Masjid and school doors during these hours."
Now, there are two brothers who've been very faithful, three. Two here every day and one who comes, I think, most of the days during the week, a part-timer. And I know one of them, he's Brother Wali, who has been very close to us, and like a family member. In fact, he has been a family member. Brother Wali and the other brother, I know him too. I can't think of his name right now, but I know him too. And I don't know how you feel, I'd like to know. I'm sure you feel like I do. Don't you get a better feeling now when you walk in, the brothers are at the door there, and receive you? I know you should be getting a better feeling.
The next announcement or statement, is to the New York area. Now, the New York area Muslims have a really heavy burden, financial debt burden, there. In fact, theirs is almost equal to ours. Not much difference between there and ours here at the National office here, if we can call it a National office. I feel that the only way that burden out there can be handled is that all the people in the area have to combine and work together to get that debt off of them.
In the area, there once was one Central Mosque, or Masjid, and one leadership there for all of them, and as we know, that was Imam Abdul-Haleem Farrakhan. And Brother Farrakhan came to Chicago, and what happened in recent months that each Imam in the area, when we said that the authority was going to be put on local Imams for the running of the Masjid, each Imam kind of went his own separate way, but that can't be. If all of those Imams and all of those neighboring Masjids, neighboring the Harlem Masjid, if all of them were part of the debt and they were all in it from the start, if it was a burden that was once the burden of all of them, then it's not fair to the Harlem Masjid, the Harlem Masjid Malcolm Shabazz, for the rest of them now to say, "We have our individual Masjid, and we have our individual self autonomy, so let the Harlem Masjid take care of the financial problem." That can't be.
The leaders can't do each other like that. All of the Masjids there have to accept to make contributions to pay off the debt there in the area, until it's paid off, and to relieve the community, since there are Masjids that are close by each other and some of are within 15 minutes drive from each other, 20 minute drive from each other. Instead of paying rent separate like that, if the Masjid in Harlem can carry all the people, then all the people should come to the Masjid in Harlem.
If there are any who have some sentimental attachment to their Masjids, then they should make that known. It's kind of unrealistic now to let sentimental attachment come into the question when there is so much debt to be paid off. If we can save money by coming together in one place and the distance is not that hard for us to drive to it, then let us save money on the monthly bills and use the money we save to pay off that heavy debt that's on the community there. So, I hope everybody will cooperate. I visited Queens Masjid, in Queens, New York, the Queens Masjid. The Imam there, he's very proud of the progress he's made. He told me, he said, "We have gone from 30 people to 300 people within the span of a few months," I think he said six months, I believe. That's a great increase in attendance there. It shows they're really progressing as far as meeting people and converting them to come into the Masjid. But, I think if those 300 people would unite with the hundreds, the other hundreds in Harlem, and deal with the real problems that's facing the whole area right now, and then after the problem is kind of brought into controllable proportions, manageable proportions, then they can go back and reestablish themselves in Queens. But, I think right now, they all should come together and work on a common problem.
And occasionally, maybe once a month, the Imam could go to Queens and rent some hall just for one day, and could have a big meeting in Queens so that the people would still feel the presence of the Imam in Queens, but this could be a once a month thing, and the regular meetings could be held in the Harlem Masjid. Now, that's my advice and I hope that it will be followed. I'm not going to regiment anybody or force them to do something, but that is my advice, I think it's good advice, and I believe that's what we should do in the New York area. The Imam Rashid, the Resident Imam there in the area, the Woodycrest property, that's a big property. It's paid for. The only thing needed there is some upkeep. I would like to see the Imams in the New York area come together and work it out between Woodycrest . The Imams of The Bronx and Imam Rashid, and see can that property be utilized so that most of the Muslims in there, or all of them get the benefits of having that property there.
Brother has supervised the management of that property very well so the Imam can continue that supervision organized so that all the Muslims in the area are given an opportunity to get the best and fullest use of that piece of property. It's a big piece of property and can serve a lot of purposes, and I like the proposal that was brought out here to me, by the Imam from that area. Now lastly, and this is also to the area here. I have received contributions over the last couple of weeks or almost three weeks now, and I'd hate to miss acknowledging any contributions, but today I don't have the names with me, but there are about three or four names that I have, some of them I can recall. A couple of them I recall right off, right now. But I won't try to name all of them today. I'll remember, Insha Allah , next time I come, to give you the names of these persons and the marvelous contribution that they made as a personal contribution to myself. I thank you very much and I promise you that it will be put in one of my special charities and used wisely for the benefit of all of us. That's if I don't have to use some of it myself. And that will be using it wisely too, for the benefit of all of us.
I have to mention a sister who is fresh in my mind, in fact, the largest contributor so far . Single contributor here recently, Sister Amina Abdullah. I don't know if she's still here. Sister Amina Abdullah is still here? Sister Amina Abdullah? Here she is. Will you please stand, sister? Thank you very, very much. I made a count and, I'm telling you, I'm a spiritual man and religious man, and my heart and life is rooted in truth, Islam, serving Allah. But I'm telling you, I know that I have to keep the material in its place too, and I sure counted that money, and I don't think I made a mistake. Five 20s. I think that's $100. Thank you very much. As Salaam Alaikum.
Speaker 5:
Now, the juniors who had the presentation that they wanted to give to the Chief Imam, will you please come up quickly and make your presentation? The juniors.
Speaker 6:
As Salaam Alaikum. The Queens Masjid is going to have a bus outing this Saturday. Anyone that wanted to go out with the Queens Masjid on their bus outing this Saturday, to Bear Mountain, tickets will be $6. So, what you have to do is contact the Queens Masjid for further information. As Salaam Alaikum.
IWDM:
I've just been given one of the shirts of the All Star team, and they were showing their appreciation for me coming out on the opening day of their game, ball team, and All-Stars, that's all right. On the back, Islam International Corporation. Boy, that's all right. So I'm going to wear it. I like these shirts. I like shirts like this. We're going to, one day pretty soon, maybe not this year. We're just starting, but I believe next year, you're going to see some of your sons and young girls and boys that you admire in some good competition. Sports competition. I hope that one day, we'll be able to go to different cities with a real good team, a baseball team, a basketball team, a drill team . There's nothing wrong with drilling, as long as you've got your life and mind in the right place, you know? We don't want any 10 soldiers. But, if it's just to show the art, the art is beautiful. It's a beautiful art. I like to watch it, and it's good for discipline and coordination. It's really good. So, I understand that there's a brother who's very good at that, so he might start training some young men with the drill team and basketball team, baseball team.
And I'm telling you, in the East, the land of the rich Sheikhs, I was told that they pay teams real good to come over there. They like to watch those basketball games, and football and baseball game, and they pay real good. I'm not joking. So, we're working on it. We're working on it. When we get a team in real good shape, I'm telling you, I'll fly with them. We're going to fly over there and see can we get some of Sheikh's money. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If they're going to pay others, why not pay us? That's right, yeah. We can use it for the community, and we can use it for our people. Look here, we can't get too much money. I tell you, I don't like to go over and ask the Arabs, or Sheiks, Muslim, anybody for anything, and I won't do it unless I'm forced to. And All Praise is due to Allah, I thought I was going to be forced to do it, but the First National Bank has okayed a loan. Herbert Mohammed has agreed, along with myself, an account to back up the loan. We are writing the checks. We're going to start paying off debts on some properties we were about to lose tomorrow. Insha Allah, we're going to save them.
Insha Allah, we're going to save them and we'll have money coming in later to pay the debt, and everything will work smoothly, Insha Allah.
All praise is due to Allah, we bear witness that Allah is the Greatest. So now at this time, brothers and sisters, without any further ado, I shall now bring before you, Brother Imam Darnell Karim, and he will recite the closing prayer for us.



