12/13/1986
IWDM Study Library 
Community Awareness and the Role of the Individual
Gary, Indiana 

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
To the Muslims and to non-Muslims, we greet you all with peace. We put our complete trust in the Lord of the world, and we begin, Bismillah hi Rahman nir Raheem. With the name Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. We give all praise to Him. And we pray prayers and blessings on the last and universal messenger, Muhammad the Prophet, peace be upon him and on his descendants and his companions, the righteous all and on us. Ameen. Thanks to Almighty G_d, Allah, as we say in the language of the Muslims, I have many years of experience and I'm not disappointed at all today with the audience. I have been speaking before audiences now for 30 some years and I know you cannot always expect the people to respond according to the value of invitation. The value of invitation suggests to us that we should have the downs out the area here and inner area here, the big area, there's another very big area right here. It indicates that we should have that big area and that should be filled, that should be thousands really here. Gary is not small community. Gary is a big community. It's not big as Chicago but it's a big community. There are many, many people here who need to hear something good.
So, you may feel disappointed but I don't feel disappointed at all. As I said, I have a lot of years of experience and I have come to meetings and we were expecting a big crowd and there was hardly 50 people present and I'll tell you exactly what happened, but I'll tell you as we progress along. Let me, in the very beginning of this address before going into any of the details we have outlined here, let me also express my appreciation to WLTH and WWCA for the invitation and also my appreciation to our assistant for public relations matters here, Bother Ali, for making things happen here so we could address the radio audience of WLTH and WWCA.
I feel very good about those opportunities that we had. I feel that the results were good. The hosts were very intelligent and very respectful. They were very kind and intelligent people, both Gary and Jesse of WWCA. And I'm hoping for an occasion to address radio audience both for WLTH and WWCA again. In fact, we are coming to believe more and more that the media is where we should be giving our attention. You need money to take advantage of the media as we should and we need big sums of money that is, and right now we don't have such sums of money but with the funds that are available to us, we are considering what we can do to take advantage of the media, radio and television. There are many of Muslims who have taken advantage of cable television throughout the country and because of that excellent programs of the Muslims can be seen in several states of the United States and in some places very regularly. Those programs are on very regularly and they are excellent programs. Our address today is community awareness and the role of the individual. We are coming from our own Islamic knowledge and experience. Allah, Most High, says in our Holy Book, "Yaa ayooha latheena amanoo", O you who believe, Alaikum anfusikum, your own selves obligate you. Alaikum anfusikum, your own selves obligate you." Now as we go on inshaAllah, G_d willing, we hope to bring you quotes from the Holy book, the authority of the Muslims and also the life of Muhammad the Prophet to whom the Holy Book was revealed about 1400 years ago in a small land, peninsula, called Arabia, in the desert. A land mentioned in the Bible long before our Prophet Muhammad received the message of Qur'an, the message of revelation, divine revelation. The mentioning of that land that's in the Bible in the scriptures called Bible, or the Torah of the Jews and the kind of prayer and the kind of prediction which says, "water shall run in the desert." Which means, hope shall come to the desert, hope shall come to the desert. Muslims are obligated to turn toward the Holy house in the desert called Kaaba. A simple structure, no one lives in. It doesn't house any furniture. It used to house idols, false gods, after Abraham had built it to the worship of the one G_d, the creator of the heavens and earth, in times, his great works, his great message was neglected and forgotten and over the period of time that house came to house homemade gods of man, of ignorant man. It is said that there were about 364 or 369 of such false idols in that house when Prophet Muhammad came victoriously to that place in that land and cleaned the house of false worship. The name of the house, Kaaba, the term itself literally means connections and we know that social life is just that, a life of important connections. It begins with the connection of husband and wife and then parents and children and from that simple social life, evolves what is now the great world population and society of this globe. The Muslims turn in prayer five times daily toward that symbol of our unity. We're reminded of the beginning of man and the life that G_d intended for him. G_d didn't intend that man live to himself, that He intended that man live in a situation with others, and that he lived in accord with the best motivations possible for him. So that area is a sacred area, it is a prohibited area where the wrong doings are outlawed. Even wrong on the part of the spirit is outlawed. Not only are we to prevent ourselves from behaving wrongly there, but we are to prevent ourselves from even feeling wrong there. Now we know that that symbol Is really a sign of what Allah wants us to keep with us all the time. A sanctuary within ourselves, a belief in right over wrong, a belief in inherent goodness of man and society. A belief in the destiny of man as a social creature, as a social creature. A belief in the dignity of man as an honorable social creature.
Allah, Most High says that "certainly all the children of Adam were given nobility, were created with honor", all the children of Adam. Now I don't know if you consider yourself a child of Adam or not, but I know according to the teachings in the Qur'an and according to the symbol of our Prophet, the teachings of our Prophet, all of us have one father in Adam and a second father in Abraham and both of them were honorable, honorable men, honorable fathers. We are not to look down on neither, with respect to excellence in the Father Adam and the excellence in the Father Abraham. And our religion also teaches us that no one can go to heaven, no one dies, and no one is resurrected, except in the form of Adam, or on the design of Adam, on his design, on the design of Adam.
Adam is the natural man. In our religion, faith calls us to be reconciled and invites us to become reconciled again with the excellent nature that G_d made when he made the human being. We are of no shameful nature. We are of no sinful nature. Our religion tells us that we are of the excellent nature that G_d in creating man, creating him of an excellent nature. It is ignorance that make us see the nature as bad. It is not the nature that’s bad, it's the nature is crippling us because we are bad. And it's a shame that we live in a world that has so pitifully pictured the human being's nature. Human being in his true nature is best situated for progress, best situated for excellence in every way when he's situated in his true nature. Muslims have an obligation to promote excellence to promote excellence. We believe that the driving force of life, life's momentum its driving force Is a pursuit of excellence. We've heard the expression necessity is the mother of invention and many times we find ourselves in circumstances that we terribly dislike and we begin to look for some outside person or some outside development to blame. Sometimes, in fact often it is, the fault of external factors, things beyond our reach outside of us, but also it's very often that the fault is with ourselves. We are obligated to promote excellence. Community concern should begin with self. Community awareness should begin with self. We should see ourselves as a community. Each individual is a community. He lives in the environment of himself and that environment is a community for him. You can hear voices and not be crazy.
You hear the voice of your past, you hear the voice of your present, you hear the voice of your future, you hear the voice of your experience in a given situation and then you'll hear your voice and its coming from a different experience and a different situation. So, you'll find yourself speaking to you from different places, from different circumstances, from different concerns in your person, in your voice and it doesn't make you crazy. We live and a very complex life. Human life is not simple and silly. We may believe in a way to make people think that, but human life is far from being any simple silly thing. When Allah created the human being, He created a marvelous thing, a very complex, a very evolved creature. Man with all the science of technology, can't produce a computer to replace man and we're all excited now about the computer. Oh, you can't be a high school graduate unless you know something about computers and the computer that all the other computers are being modeled after, and none of them can match it to you! When the science was new, the leaders in the field, they were certain that they were going to be able to replace man with a computer. But here recently the voices coming from the top of those people saying "no, it will never happen, it'll never happen. Our hopes will never be realized." Man can never produce a computer to replace man, because whatever the computer is, depends on man. So, you shouldn't think of yourself as just some ordinary thing. You are a world within yourself. Our basic concern is the promotion of excellence. So why will these people come to Gary, Indiana? Do they think they're going to make their religion, the religion of Gary? Do they think they can take the black people from the churches and bring them into the mosque, the Masjid of the Muslims? You know, those thoughts on your mind. The first programming, first program I was on, indicated to me that somebody's terrified when I come to this town. Now I don't know why my presence should terrify people like that. Now every address should have a focus. There should be a specific area we're looking at. In our focus for this address, we're looking at the individual as the best circumstance for progress. It took me all these years, I'm up there, going down there. I'm not a youth for a very young and youthful man anymore. I used to feel like ripping and running and jumping fences and going and joining the marathon. All that has changed. I'm trying to now use my wisdom to rest better. I had a feel of what was most important for us as a focus and a direction in religion. I had a feel for it, but I couldn't see it clearly. So, it was for the most, part just a good feel for it. But with the help of Almighty G_d, with the help of Allah, remaining patient, continuously searching the scripture, the Qur'an, our holy book, and not backing off the problem, no matter what happens and listening to others also who have knowledge. See a lot of us don't want to do that. We think we all the ones got knowledge.
All of those signs brought me to really see what should be in focus, when we come out to address the people. We all were formed by circumstances and I was born to the honorable Elijah Muhammad in October of 1933. My late father and honorable leader, may Allah forgive him all his sins and give him the paradise, he had been himself a professed Muslim for about two years or more before I was born. When I was born they named me the Muslim name. I have never been named Poole. It was my parents' name. My father's name was Poole before he changed it to Muhammad. When I was born I was born to Elijah Muhammad and Clara Muhammad, formerly Elijah Poole and Clara Evans and I have my birth certificate right at home right now and I can look at it occasionally, because I liked what happened. I liked what a turn in history came with my birth, because before my birth the members of my family were not named Muhammad. They were not given the name Muhammad that is, but with my father and mother identifying as Muslims when I was born about two years or so after their conversion, they named me Wallace D Mohammed. Since then, that time back there, I have come through many, many experiences and all of my experience has been experience of a person who was trying to be a good Muslim, to the best of my knowledge. Now I can't tell you what was going on in my mind when I was two years old, but to the best of my recollection, I have been struggling to be an excellent Muslim, all of my life. I said that we are formed by circumstances, the circumstances of the honorable Muhammad's teaching, the circumstances of the Nation of Islam, formed me and I used to believe that the best way to help self and others, the best way to approach progress, need to progress, was to call people to an organization, to call people to a nation.
At that time, we were called the Nation of Islam, the lost found Nation of Islam in America. To give you the full wording, the lost found Nation of Islam in America. That's what we were called in the official documents of that organization or that nation. And I believe that the best way to approach the problems of our people or problems of the people that we would be interested in, was to invite them to join the Nation of Islam. Invite them to come into an organization and put the organization before themselves. Put the organization out front. My belief has changed. I see now that we lost many years of great work and great fruits, great products, great production, because we were not able to see where the real focus is for the Muslim life. Only very recently in my life have I really understood. Not very long ago I was promoting community of Islam and in order for us to get energy and initiative to be motivated to do things big, we needed the big thing before our eyes that we give ourselves to, to bring about that motivation, that initiative. I was wrong. I was wrong.
Not that we don't need to take up the concern of community life, certainly, but I was approaching it the wrong way. I was trying to get the individual to going by focusing upon community and now G_d has blessed me to see that you get the community going by focusing upon the individual. And I am telling you, for me that's great relief. I'm free now. I thought I was free before but now I know I was not free before. I'm free now. You can tell I'm free. I'm not hasty. I'm not a rushing. I'm not desperate. In fact, I can say amen right now and sit down if you want cause I know everything is going to be taken care of. The situation is good in the heavens and not bad on earth. "Everything gon' be all right." Oh yeah.
So, the best we can do is focus upon the individual. Now the idea that the individual is more important than the creation is something that the Muslim is warned against. We know that the individual is not more important than the creation. No indeed, this creation will abide. We come and go. Not only will we come and go, but whole communities will come and go. Nations come and go. But the law of G_d and the constant creation, it abides. We're not bigger than the creation. No, no, no, but we're a wonderful and marvelous creation. Allah says that He has patterned man on the plans that He gave to the very creation, itself.
And then He gives us a religion and it’s called the religion of Fitra. Fitra is a Muslim term, a Qur'anic term, a term from our Holy scripture. We shouldn't say an Arabic term, it's a Qur'anic term. You don't say Bible terms are English terms. You say Bible terms are Bible terms and Qur'anic terms are Qur'anic terms. The language is Arabic, but the term is Qur'anic. Deen al-Fitra, see, you got to come home with these, haven't you? The Arabic is a language. When you say the term Arabic, you're speaking in generality. But if you say the term is Qur'anic, now you're speaking in specifics, you're bringing the thing home. Some of us think to be a good Muslim is to put on an Arab robe. Look like an Arab, talk, like an Arab, and walk like an Arab.
Some of us think to come into real Islam, you got be a full Arab. They represent a small minority of Muslims on this earth. The great and vast majority of people believe that Muslims in this religion, are not Arabs.
They’re Asians, they’re Africans. About one half the population of the whole continent of Africa is Muslim. In fact, the biggest and best and most glorious history Africa has is its Islamic history. Nothing but fact. Indonesia, one Asian people, the population of Muslims there, almost equal the number of Arabs on the planet earth today. We can single out one nation and that one nation has a population almost equal all the Arabs on earth today.
So why is it that we think that our religion is an Arab religion?
I'm talking to Muslims. Christians are not responsible. So, what is said about Muslims, to Muslims. So how is it that we think of this religion as a religion of Arabs? Is it because the Prophet of this religion, himself, is Arab, Arabian? Maybe so, but let's look at Christianity. They say Christianity began with Jesus, a Jew, but nobody says all Christians are Jews. Nobody thinks Christianity is a Jewish religion. Now if rules can play down genealogy and Jesus, we should be able to play down genealogy of Muhammad. Peace be upon the two great Prophets. So, Muslims, we are at fault ourselves for allowing the prejudices and the ignorance of the world to come into our life and spoil our own Muslim character, warp our own Muslim knowledge, our own Muslim minds. We're at fault ourselves. We must constantly be on guard against lies, propaganda, lies against righteousness. Don't you know righteousness is the most attacked thing on earth? If you want to get by without being attacked, be wrong! Don't give a ----- about anything and you can walk without people pointing a finger at you. The more you take up the responsibility to be right, you are on the spot. People want to get lies against you. Now is your little righteousness bigger than the righteousness of G_d's Prophets? So, you can imagine now how they have been lied against. You can imagine how Muhammad the Prophet has been lied on knowing how hard it's for you to carry your righteousness and not be lied on. Why do people fear right? They're more afraid of right than any other thing. You want to know why you don't have a good audience here? This city is afraid of right? But not only this city, Chicago too is afraid of right. We get a much better reception when we go to small towns, away from the big city problems. See, Gary is so close to Chicago, it has no immune system. Gary has no mind of its own. It has no immune system of its own. It's a sizeable community right next to a big giant community, Chicago. So, when Chicago get the flu, Gary gets much worse than that.
No immune system. So, we are focusing on the individual as the best circumstance for progress. The individual has to know himself. Now many of us have given up on the search for self. I remember when I was a boy, that was an occupation of the black intellectuals. That was an occupation with the black intellectuals, with the educated of our people. Self.
Confronting self. Know self. But today self is not that very important anymore. Race has become more important. But how can you know yourself as a race and not know yourself as an individual?
A race is made up of individuals who are given to a certain circumstance that brought them to be a race. So even though we are the black race, but what does that say to you as an individual?
We are the black race?
But now I want to see myself. What am I as an individual? Say, well you have to find yourself in the black race. The black race has a history, slavery, emancipation, civil rights, equal opportunity, no opportunity. So, the black race has a history. You have to find yourself in that history. I need a better identification for myself in that, that ain't good enough for me. That's not enough to motivate me as I want to be motivated. The great figures and great men in our history, they made that great contribution, the great sacrifices. We must honor them. But none of them in their life and their sacrifices are sufficient to motivate the African American citizens of this city, Gary, to make them take advantage of necessity and bring necessities to be the mother of invention. The Arabs, recently came into it oil reserves. This is recent in the history of the Arab people. The Arabs have survived in the desert with no land that they could cultivate. They had to go from one water hole to another separated by miles and miles of pure sand. And when they get to the water hole, it's a small place. The best they can do is set up a few tents there, load up their skins, their water bags with water and move on to another oasis, to another water hole. But in those circumstances of scarcity, of death, the desert is dead, they have been able to survive down through the centuries, generation after generation. Not just to survive as a spider or as a wolf, but they have been able to survive as a family, as a family of people. They have been able to maintain family life, family traditions, business life and enjoy trade. The city of Gary is no desert. When you look out there you don't see hundreds of miles of stretches of nothing but pure sand. If I go out there in the weather breaks in the spring, if I go out there, I can go start my life anywhere in Gary. But look how the citizens of Gary, for the most part have accepted a situation of no progress. Industry that attracted the people to come here and live here and to stay here has all but gone and disappeared.
And most of the people here are waiting on charity or some new industrialists and they wait, just as many of the foolish in religion, wait for the pie in the sky. They wait until they're dead, their children will be dead, that family name will be lost, from the memory of the city of Gary, waiting on some external thing to happen. When the real factor is in you, you are the best factor for change. But you have to be situated rightly. You have to be situated rightly. When Allah created man, He situated man rightly for marvelous things. You have to be situated rightly. Some of us, we're so short-sighted. We think that answers ought to be given to us the way our mind expects. When you don't know you just don't know. Then you shouldn't burden the person that knows with your limited knowledge or your ignorance. Say hey, rescue me this way or do not rescue me at all. Some of us don't have the patience to sit down and be re- awakened. For many of us, the awakening day never have come. We've never known an awakening day and we don't have the patience to sit and be awakened. We say someone has to have some money to help us. How much money you brought to Gary? Did Qadafi give you $5 million? The Saudi's give you any money? A powerful Muslim man from abroad, powerful in wealth, came to the city of Chicago and offered the mayor enough money to run the city of Chicago without any budget headaches. This happened recently. Offered the mayor, of the city of Chicago, enough money to put all striving minorities to work, to put them not only to work but all of them that are eligible for business, there was enough money offered to put all of them in business that were eligible. The city of Chicago rejected that offer. It’s not supposed to happen that way. If you start accepting big gifts of money to change your condition from bad to good, you're going to be beholding to the givers, whether they say change our .... or not. You could only be given so much and then you're owned! Now I don't know how much you're worth but when people start giving you, pretty soon they're going to mine you.
Now if you accept $5,000, some of us need to be sold, cause we ain't hardly worth $500. Whether you see yourself as being worth $,5,000 or more, you might yourself being, I'm worth much more than that. But there is a point that will be meet, cause you will be sold If you accept people to just come and buy you into a good situation, pay for you to get into a good situation. That's not the good way. We attempted to accept gifts, to accept that kind of help. We're going to need a change. But the wise will look down the road and will say, "yes, I’ll be in a good situation, materially, but will I be able to live with it, spiritually?" I often have given this little poem, it’s in Arabic, and it’s an Arabic poem. It's not Qur'anic. It goes like this, "Al hattu lay ju majadee, wa laysa fee tauwabee, rabba tu rabbee walatee, teehalaqum ladee, wa letu ardhal khafasan innan khunan dahubee." The bird is saying, longing for its natural environment, its natural life or habitat. The bird was singing a song to its master to let its master know that it was not happy. And the bird said "Al hattu lay ju majadee". To be locked up is not my thing. "Wa laysa fee tauwabee". I can't find the goals that my spirit seek in this small confinement. "Rabba tu rabbee walatee teehalaqum ladee." He said, the natural environment that my Lord created, that's my habitat, that's my home." Wa letu ardhal khafasan", and I'll never accept to live in a cage." Innan khunan dahubee."
Though it be all gold!" I'm telling you, I learned that poem when I was a teenager and I can't forget it. You know why? Because Adam still lives in me. Adam, father Adam still lives in me.
And Allah says in our Holy book, He certainly made noble of dignity and honor every son of Adam. So, I have a nobility. I have a sense of an inner worth, a precious worth, values that my creation possess by the very nature of that creation, that just won't allow me to submit to just any kind of circumstances. They may have me but I've never given myself to them. So, in a real sense, I'm free, though I'm locked up. You know what I'm talking about, we're all the same. Now we should have an aim, an aim that we see in the focus. The focus is on the individual as the best circumstance for progress. The aim then should be to further the acceptance of a plan which promotes progress by promoting individual resourcefulness and authority. Now this is what makes people great and the short sidedness and the fear to grasp this, is what makes people small. We think of the continent of Africa, what a great continent. What a resourceful continent in terms of minerals that are needed now, right now and have been needed for a long time. Gold, uranium diamond, just all kinds of resources in Africa.
But the people of that continent are stagnant. The people of the continent are not dynamic. People of the continent are not moving forward. Now we know we have some sporadic bursts of energy. Nigeria flexed its muscles about 10 years ago and then let it get sloppy overnight and now it's making another go at it. And it’s the biggest and most progressive nation in Africa, Nigeria. It also has the biggest Muslim population. Oh yes, oh yes. I met the Nigerian president at a meeting in Washington. He was a guest of the politicians in Washington. The government and the politicians and some of the politicians there who represent you in Washington were so ignorant that they didn't know the Muslims were in great majority in Nigeria. They were trying to talk with me and trying to make me think that the Muslims are in a small minority and mostly Christians in Nigeria. Dumb. Well, pitiful. Now if he was a man who didn't have access to the library, couldn't read, never finished high school, I wouldn't talk about him like that. But here's a man who finished high school, finished college, and been representing people in Chicago, there in Washington for years and trying to make me believe that Nigerians have Christian majority and the Muslim was just an insignificant minority in Nigeria.
I said, don't you know that man he leads the people. He is a Muslim himself. I said, you might've heard that he had a non-Muslim as president that speaks for the goodness for the excellence of Muslims, that they would let a minority people be president over them. Though he's not a Muslim. Wake up time! Should be every day.
Sun wakes up every morning and sleeps for real long periods in the winter and seems to be up all day in the summer. Now some of us are like that. I'd like to be better than the sun. Yeah, I'd like to be better than the sun. Man doesn't have to submit or succumb to his environment. Say, Hey, it's cold. I'll sleep as long as I can. Ain't nothing exciting happening. Get up and make something exciting happen. Now in proceeding, going forward with this idea that we hope to bring to you and conclude it within 15 minutes, we make big mistakes, which is a common mistake on the part of people who want to do better with themselves or with their lives. We make the mistake of putting too much importance on the immediate.
Now the immediate is important, but don't think of yourself as immediate. You are immediate and you are also future. And the best way to attend your immediate needs is to have a view toward the future. You must have a view toward the future. Look into the future. Progressing with yourself is like progressing with a motor vehicle. Now you get inside a motor vehicle and turn on the ignition, you get it started up, the more you look at the environment where that vehicle is immediately, the more you going to remain right there. You cannot drive that vehicle looking where it's at that particular time. You have to look in the line of progress that you hope to follow, with that vehicle, in order to move that vehicle forward. Have you ever got in a vehicle and started it up and just looked nowhere but right there where you were, and it got to go? You've got to put your eyes into the line of progress and sometimes there's all kind of obstacles in the way. Now If I go right where I'm going and don't turn, I got to be superman. I've got drive through the John Hancock building. Sound like a bad driver. Run right into the John Hancock building and then look around at the white man and say, "see, told you he won't let us go anywhere." You're supposed to be able to maneuver.
Learn something about your great potential, learn something about your great personal assets. Learn something about your tremendous power for doing things, with nothing. Man comes to nothing and makes something. And there was a time in the history of civilization when men were just outgoing and were adventurous, were seeking challenges. They would run away from the town that had everything already done for it. They couldn't stand to live there. It was no challenge and they would go somewhere where it seemed like there was no opportunity whatsoever and they looked at that place and they got a vision. And before they died, they passed on the responsibility to a student or to a son or to an employee.
So why should we give up today? Why should we look at the circumstances that are not favoring us and "oh, what can we do?" You can do marvelous things but you have to be rightly situated yourself, within yourself. Yes, we need to further the acceptance of a plan which promotes progress by promoting individual resourcefulness, individual resourcefulness. Whether you're using the resources or not, know this for sure, your resources are being used. Just because you are not using them, no reason for you to think that they're not being used, Brother. Your resources are being used. People are capitalizing on your idleness, capitalizing on your uninitiative, capitalizing on your laziness, capitalizing on your neglect in your personal life, in your neglect in your family life, in your neglect in your community life. There are people and powers and individuals and companies capitalizing, making money on you. Say "well, ain't making no money on me. I ain't doing nothing." That's what you think. Do you turn a television on?
Then you're doing something. Do you turn a radio on? You're doing something. Do you get sick? You're doing something. Do you hurt anybody, including yourself? You're doing something. People are making money on everything you do. Are you dying? You're doing something. People are making money on your mind.
Some of us are stupid because we've given our mind and our sensitivity to the manipulators who want us to sleep, until it's all over. So we ..... or, let's deal with the immediate. "You come here to Gary, how about my rent? My rent has to be paid. You got any help for me man? You come to Gary? I need a job. I ain't got no job. I can't live when you, you ain't got no job for me. You can't pay my bills." You need life, and to get life you need something to believe in. Is that all you got Mr. Imam? Is that all you come here with? Something for me to believe in? Yep, buddy, that's the beginning of it. Now many more things are promised but ain't none of it coming until you first believe. You need life in you. Belief is life. If you're lying on the bed, sick with a cold, and you don't believe you're going to get well, the life you need is belief that you're going to get well and if belief that you going to get comes into you, you will have life working for you. But as long as belief that you're going to get well does not come into you, you don't have life working you.
Life is not present, life can't work for you If you've got a job, if you don't believe that that job is important to you, then you won't have the job long. I don't care what you have in your life of importance, it involves belief. You have to have a belief in it. You have to have faith in it. You have to trust it. Ain't nothing guaranteed forever. Some of us make the mistake of being pessimistic, instead of living with the reality that is present, we start dying with the reality that we expect!
Are you following me? Some people can't live with the reality that is really visible and present. It's there, its real. But living with the reality that they expect. "Well I know I'm going to lose this job." Now the reality is you got this job, but you can't do much with it because you're constantly thinking that you going to lose this job. So you go to this job and you tell the employer, that really, you shouldn't be on that job. Your belief cripples you with the employer. But if you believed that that job was valuable, you would go to that job and impress the employer. You don't come to the job (head down, walking slow). You don't believe in that job. You ain't got no faith in that job. You believe that job is going to end soon or it ain't taking you nowhere. If you believe in a job, you go to the job like this, (head up, walking briskly, ready to work) Right? And the employer looks at you, "that boy has a future in this company." You don't want to believe in anything. Oh I'll never put my faith in a leader again. Why? Why? Did we get civil rights without a leader? Did we get out of those chains without a leader? Did we get this so-called freedom to let everything go without a leader? You ain't got nothing without a leader. So why are you going to quit behind a leader now? "We don't need no leader. I'll never put my hopes in a leader again." You know you shouldn't put all of your hopes in no leader, but you should always have some faith in a leader. And if you don't have one that you can put faith in, you should be looking for one that you can put some faith in.
Leadership is the way of man's society. Leadership. You need leadership. People need leadership. The individual needs leadership. The home needs leadership, the neighborhood needs leadership, the community, the church, the Mosque, the synagogue, the city. Everything needs leadership. The nation needs leadership. The United Nation has to have leadership. Got to have leadership. Ain't never going to be a time - out for leadership. Back up. Pick up your brains that you dropped somewhere. So, we hope to have everything solved right now and go right to the immediate interest to the immediate concern. I need my bills paid. My wife is threatening to divorce me. You may never have been married. Some of us think that just because we got a paper that we married as a legal item for legal processes, for the courts. You don't have to pick that up anymore, until there's a legal question. Hey, hey, nice, but can you see now what happens when I go to the audience and it's much smaller than I expected? We have a hell of a good time. I don't need no big party to have a good time. Don't take a whole lot of people to make me feel good. It'd be much better if we had it, but if we haven't got it, it ain't going to stop nothing. And this is what makes our enemies just shrivel up. "See them niggas want a happy time down there. All we did to keep that crowd down, you tell me them Muhammad niggas had a good time down there?" You bet your bottom penny!
We want to get right to the meat, get right to it, get right to it, man. "How am going to pay my bill? My grandmother's in jail. My baby's sick. Both our cars been repossessed. I've been out a job for 10 years. What can you do to help me man? Don't talk to me about no belief. I ain't ready to listen about nothing, no belief." Well look brother, it'll be good for you if you submit to arrest, than let me arrest you. Tie you up to that post there until I'm finished talking. I sympathize with your state. I sympathize with your condition. I know you don't have the patience to wait or to believe in anything. I understand that. Because with all those mishaps in your life, I understand but I can see because I'm not in no mess. And to take it from me, you need to be locked up, if necessary, long enough for somebody to get you back on the path of belief. You've got to believe in something. Some of us think religion, "Hey, is that all you got to offer us is religion." Some of us preachers put down the most valuable material that we have and take up the inferior material and thinking it going somewhere appealing to the people with dollars in our hands. That's not the way the message of religion, If religion is worth itself, if it's worth what it claims to be, the message of religion cannot be measured in terms of dollars. Men that believe in G_d did not have anything. Job got wearied and he sat down in the dust. Now that’s the Christians doctrine, that’s the Christians book. Not the Muslim's. Job got weary, Job got out of it. Job sat down in the dust and had nothing but belief in G_d and belief in G_d brought Joseph out of dust into industry!. Times are not bad because people are trusting religion. Times are not bad because people are trusting G_d. Times are not bad because people are trying faith. Times are bad because people have given up on all that! Every time man has made a very little sincere effort, to live honorably, in the presence of G_d, big things have happened, big things have happened. We have history to tell us that. Moses stood up and defied a great nation and a great power, a man who claimed to be G_d in the flesh, Pharaoh. Who in the language of our Holy book told Moses I know no G_d but myself, Pharaoh. Big boastful, dictator. I know no G_d but myself. He said, Hey, tell my engineer to build a scaffold to the sky "that I may go up and climb up upon it and maybe get a look at this G_d that Moses say speaks to him from heaven." They made mockery of that man Moses. But that man Moses standing firm on belief in G_d, bearing patiently all the ridicule and whatever, remaining firm for G_d's sake. That man lived to triumph over Pharaoh and the Egyptians, according to that history. High it is in Muslim history as well as Christian history. We can go on identifying the times when one man stood up firmly and wouldn't be shaken, firmly to do what G_d bid him to do. And every time it has happened, big things have occurred. Big things have occurred for the dignity and freedom and progress of man. Big things have occurred.
Muhammad, about 1400 years ago in Arabia during the time that is called the Dark Ages, in the darkest quarter of that time called it the Dark Ages, stood up firmly and would not be shaken. His tribe was such an honored tribe. It was the most honored tribe of the tribes of Arabia. He was born of the tribe called Quraish. And the leaders of the tribe said to Muhammad, says Muhammad, you are our blood. You are a son of the most respected tribe of Arabia. We do not like having to come against you. Tell us what is it that you want?
If it's wealth, we've already agreed Muhammad, that all our tribes will come together and we will share our wealth with you until you become the wealthy, the most wealthy of all our men. They say is it a pretty woman? We are giving you the most beautiful women of our tribe. Is it power? We will make you the authority and the power among us and we will not do anything or make any decision, before consulting you Muhammad. This is what they said to Muhammad the Prophet, peace be upon him. Muhammad listened and would not budge. So, after a while they lost patience with him and they sent word to him by his uncle who had been his guardian. He was born an orphan and his uncle said, it seems that I cannot protect you any longer. Please son, don't make me do the impossible. Muhammad looked at his uncle with tears in his eyes and Prophet Muhammad said, "if they could put the moon in my left hand and the sun in my right hand, I would not turn back from this mission." So, his uncle looked at him, his uncle loved him very dearly, he was the most beloved person among those people. His enemies also loved him. They couldn't help but love him. He was such a wonderful person. But he presented such a terrible conflict in the life, a terrible trouble in their life because they weren't ready to re-alter their lives or to alter their lives and remake their lives anew. And when G_d says the whole thing has to be changed, well that's It.
See, you can't go and negotiate with G_d. Well G_d, how about me keeping half of it and giving you half? G_d said, well go on and hold on to that half you got and watch it dwindle to nothing. You're foolish to try to negotiate with G_d. bargaining G_d, are going to pressure G_d. Like we got eternity to be around here dealing.
So, his uncle, upon hearing his reply, looked at him, he looked at his son in a way, his son, he cared for him as his own child. And he said to Muhammad well with me, say go on and you'll find me with you and beside you as always. So, you see, when you stand up, you hold out, you don't give in, you don't weaken, when you stand up for what is right and proper, ain't nothing in the future for you but success. Nothing in the future for you but success. Even if you die, you die successful. Yes, praise be to Allah. Now the best way to attend the immediate is to have a vision into the future. Some of us want to have, oh, I would like to have my circumstances beautiful and bright. In order to do that, the best way to get your circumstance, your immediate circumstances in good order and beautiful and bright, you want the light on your immediate circumstances? Put your immediate circumstances in the bigger picture. That's the help you need. You need light on your near circumstances and that light will come from the bigger picture. There are paramount circumstances, circumstances that power over yours.
And many times, we're not able to because we can't look beyond our immediate circumstances. We're not able to see that our circumstances have now come under the influence of external circumstances and really these circumstances are out of my control. Yes, we look at America and some of us, "aw, this country is certainly in bad shape. We need a new president." Where is he coming from? Maybe the handwriting is on the wall. Where is he coming from?
You better get yourself together. Maybe it'll come from your loins, Yes! But now you ain't got nothing in you. You ain't got nothing going for you. And certainly can't look for it from me, can you? And if everybody begin to think like you and join you, we're finished aren't we? Men who study developments, they have written books to help us understand what's happening now in America and what we can expect in the near future. They identify major trends in business, in the lifestyles, in the culture, in politics, in industry, et cetera, et cetera. To help us see just where we are now. What we can expect out of America's life, out of life in America now, and in the near future, in the near future. There's one trend that seems to be dominating now. It’s the trend called globalization. One world concern. Listen to the leaders of our nation. Listen to the ones who are discussing the problems of our nation on television, in the media, in good newspapers. You, listen to them and hear what they're saying. They're telling us, these authors of books, many others, they're all telling us that we are living in a changed world.
That the day of America's glory is gone.
That old glory has gone and we shouldn't be expecting it to return. We are wasting our time expecting it to return. All we need is a new man in the White House. See, you can paint the white house to another color. It still won't help you.
Still won't help. Only so much can be done because the world has changed and the time was coming, and the wise knew it was coming, long before it arrived.
They could have told you 50 years ago, that in about 30 or 50 years, America will not have the power and influence in the affairs of man and nations, that it once had. They could have told you that. In fact, I'm sure many of them did. They were predicting that the change has to come. Now dear audience, many of us, we don't want to stop our activities. If those activities are not establishing you, if you're not getting anywhere, what's wrong with bringing them to stop? Some of us, can't stop our activities. I used to sit often with a certain fellow who thought he had a genius for breaking riddles, solving unsolvable problems. And I was attracted to him because he had such endurance. He never gave it up. He stayed on it all the time. Every time I met him he was ready for a heavy conversation. So, I was attracted to him. I have that same kind of persistency in my mind. So, I just had to tell him one day. I said, you know something, I am finding it harder and harder to tolerate your company. I wish I had the saying the children have now. I would have told him that. I would've said, "you talk too much, you never shut up!"
I told him, I said, you are too caught up in your own thinking. I said, you can't stop. You need to come to a stop. I said, just stop. You have a knack for accomplishing the impossible? Accomplish that. Just stop thinking on your own. And that's what many of us need to do. We need to stop thinking on our own. Come to a complete stop. Say, I refuse to listen to anything I 've got to say. Maybe they'll even get started again. So, this global trend, this global trend, this trend toward a one world society is really the trend now that's affecting the lives of individuals and nations. The big boys have decided that that's the way it has to go. There ain't much we can do. There ain't much we can do, but accept that reality. Now, it might surprise you, but actually it has been G_d. that has been alerting us, from day one, to the coming of this particular time, the triumph of this trend over all other trends. Yes, G_d has been warning us, preparing us for it. And those men and those nations or societies that have been blessed to have that kind of knowledge, protecting its interests, they're fairing well today, but those that were caught unaware, they're in bad shape.
Bad shape. We don't want to be told things that we think of as no consequence in our life. We need to learn self. Self, as established in great, great wisdom. Not by a fool.
The average guy out there, staggering and slumbering and sleeping on the corner, may be ready to tell us about self. "Yeah baby, I know myself baby. Let me run it down to you baby. Yeah, the self is heavy baby." He may take us way out. Galaxy XXX to tell us about the great, self. Hanging out there in Galaxy XXX and "man, that's what you have to do. You have to plug back into Galaxy X XX baby, then you get to self, man". We've got to go on to learn, establish this wisdom and can sight long established wisdom that has endured the times and the ages and the changes of the world, to rescue man again and put him on his feet afresh. For the Muslim, the source for finding the true self is the Qur'an, the Qur'an and the direction in the life of Muhammad the Prophet. For the Christian, it should be the Gospel. For the Jew, it should be the Torah. For the Communists, it should be the Communist ideology. Everybody should have a reference. Now me out there in "Death Valley", nothing going for you but trouble and you reject all our references. Closed are hope for you. Allah says to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, "Say not, certainly I can give life to the dead, sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, limbs to the lame, that they may walk, but can you give sight to eyes that don't want to see? Can you give hearing to ears that don't want to hear?" So, there's no change coming for you until a change comes into you. You have to change your mind, change your way of thinking. You have to start feeling differently about yourself and about things outside of yourself. You have to start judging, put your own feelings in the court. Bring your feelings to trial. Bring your own self to trial. The power is within your reach to transform your whole G_d damned worthless life.
Excuse the language. Ain't nothing wrong with damn. No, ain't nothing wrong with damn, unless you're part of it. You ain't going to do it by defying everything. The spirit of defiance is in this despicable society.
Your own young daughter and son, they got to talk to you like you don't know anything. You don't have any experience. Your age over them, your years mean nothing. Got the defy every thing you say to them, Defy every suggestion you make. Got to defy out of defiance. Just upon the defiance they have to defy. Why you want to disagree with me? They don't know, the spirit of defiance. Whether its right or wrong, good or bad, whether it hurts them or kills them, they've got to defy it, cause they are caught in the spirit of defiance! Now its a feeling in a lot of our grown ups, ain't nothing but rebellious children too, have become nothing but rebellious children. Won't listen to an ounce of sense, won't respect anything. Got to cater to your ignorance, got to walk with you to Nutville, in order to talk to you. You ain't want to be no company. You don't want talk to me. You ain't want to smile. You ain't going have nothing to say to me. You won't even respond unless I walk with you to Nutville. Ain't no hope coming for people, that’s coming to people like that. You have to first reject your own self when you see yourself as a problem.
Reject yourself. Big people will reject themselves for another chance at life. Yes, many times that's what you have to do. That's the meaning in religion when we say "die, that you may live." It is not America, not the south side of Chicago. It's not the nation itself, now that's being watched, monitored to guard the interests of society in the world. No, it's the globe. It's the whole globe. Many nations are now producing nations, that weren't producing anything just 10 years ago. So those nations, they used to be just open markets for the producing nations. Now the markets of the producing, the past producers have shrunk. It has been shrinking, because others are coming in as producers. They're are nations that we never dreamed would be competitors today that are competitors today. Japan, West Germany, Brazil, and few others, demanding their share. So, how's America going to get more? Can't get it. Too many out there competing for it now. And this trend is gaining momentum. Every small nation, ..... now, Libya, doing business with many African people, have joint ventures with African people, developing industry together. So, it's becoming a factor of influence, in the markets in Africa, markets that were only once open only to the non African. The European. Times have changed. Times have changed. Saudi Arabia, the country of sand is now producing more wheat than it can contain. So, it now sources wheat to some neighbors. I believe some of it goes into Africa. I'm almost certain of that. Times have changed. Time has changed. Now there's one market that hasn't changed. That's the market of the African American. It hasn't changed. It's never been ours and it's still not ours. It’s a market just laying there. It just lay. It just lie. It just lie. It goes and ..... there and it waits for somebody to come in. When I was a boy, the same, basically the same ethnic makeup of the people doing business in our community, was there when I was a boy. When I was a boy, there were some Arab, stores, Greek stores, Jews, yes. They had the businesses. We had hardly nothing, hardly anything. It hasn't hardly changed. There are a group of stores, supermarkets in Chicago south side that I have looked at and admired for the last 25 years or more. It looks like about 50% of those stores now have been taken over by immigrants.
It's disheartening. What has an Arab who comes to the United States got going for him that we don't have going for us? Well, he got that Arab money. If he got that Arab money, how come he will come here and work on the corner where you won't work and stay on the job 12 hours. You won't, working his own business, on his own location. He doesn't come driving up in a big car, open up the cash register twice a day and take out the money and driving back off. He's there working all day long. So, if this Arab big money that makes a difference, what is that keeps that Arab, with his big money, on that job working, staying there and you won't? That should tell you he ain't got no big money. If he had big money, he wouldn't be there! If he had big money, he'd be downtown, be over a bank, be at the stock exchange, if he had big money. He ain't got no big money. He's poor, just like you. Many times, he poorer than you.
So now I ask the question again, buddy I must ask it. What makes the difference between him and you? He got faith in something. You've got faith in nothing.
He's got a belief working for him. He got a set of principles and values that he gets from his family tradition, from his religion, or from his family tradition. He's got a set of beliefs and values that disciplines his thoughts, disciplines his feelings. And you don't have any kind of self control. Nothing controlling the way you think. Nothing controlling the way you feel. You think any way you want to think, you feel any way you want to feel. You don't bring your thoughts and feelings under any authority. You live from one miserable harsh condition to another one. From one zero to the next. Because you won't accept to have your life put in some kind of container. You don't walk around with your life outside of a body. G_d created you and gave your life to a body. And, if it wasn't for G_d designing this body to function, you wouldn't have any life whatsoever. It's the Mercy of G_d that wake you up in the morning or at night. It's the Mercy G_d that you go to the bathroom. It's the Mercy of G_d that you eat something. It's the Mercy of G_d that you drink something. It the responsibility was ever left to handle life in your hands, you'd be dead right away. You don't have the ingenuity, you don't have the ingenuity, you don't have the get-up-and-go to brush your teeth.
You want to know what's wrong with the majority of us? That's what's wrong with the majority of us. Too lazy to get up and sweep the floor. No order in our lives, no concern to make the room, get up and make the room presentable to live in. Live in hell and go out with all that torment in us and pour it out on a neighbor. Pour out on a poor old victim, a senior citizen. Pour it out on a poor child, shoot some dope in his arm, sell him some reefer. Sell him some coke, sell him some smack. Drink some liquor with the buddy on the corner. You're a zero, that won't have faith in anything. Stand around and envy everybody else that's getting somewhere. And you won't accept that your life come under any discipline. Ain't Nobody got nothing easy to offer you. It ain't never been that way.
You give nothing, you get nothing. If you're ready to give something, if you are ready to give something, if you feel appreciative for the little bit that you still have. I feel that blood in my body! My head is aching. My feet are killing me. My back is hurting me.
I'm not out yet. I still got life in me. And I think about tomorrow, I say, well hell, I'd like to be around here tomorrow. I'd certainly like to enjoy a nice bowl of soup, steak dinner. I can imagine what it’d be if I could eat without all this pain in my teeth. Sure would like to take a stroll down the avenue. Back all broken up on me, I'm in misery. Well, if I I’ve got that much left in me, I've got something to be thankful about. So, no matter what your situation is, have something to be thankful about. Do something to be thankful about. Say thank G_d I'm not worse off. And if you would have the right spirit of gratitude in you, the spirit of gratitude in you will begin transforming your whole life. You know anything, you'll wake up and say, well hell, what happened to that back ache? What happened to that tooth ache? Say, what happened to the cripple. This guy, this young man's going to rip and run. And it happened as a result of something happening within you. Well we're going to bring it to a conclusion now. Some of us don't like a sermon, you know.
"Don't give me no sermon man." You better take a sermon instead of a summons. Cause I see the angel of death. He got a whole lot of citations for a whole lot of you. I swear I see the angel of death. He got a hand loaded of citations. Got your names on it.
I really, I hope to come back to this city again soon. Cause what we have accomplished so far here today was really just sensitizing. Sensitizing the community, for something necessary. That's all we have accomplished. But we would like to come back and address you again, and share with you our life plan The sacred life plan for happiness, for fulfillment, for real progress. But I'm going to conclude this by bringing again some concerns to you because there's some of you out here that's not Muslim and you are not anything else. And if I would come to this city believing firmly that what has come to me as guidance and understanding in religion is the best possible for man on this earth. If I would come here, to this thing and speak to you, feeling that way, believing that it wouldn't reflect that in my talk or in my action, I would be in some sense, a phony. So, I will come to you straight. We have been cheated! Who am I talking to? Who am I speaking of? I'm speaking of African Americans. I'm speaking of black America. We have been cheated! We were brought to this country and made slaves, brought here for the purpose of slavery. We were brought to this country and made slaves. The Grace of G_d, the Mercy of G_d, the courage of our .... ones and our intelligent ones, going all the way back to Frederick Douglass and Dr. King and even the black nationalist spokesman. Yes, we've been cheated. We came from the circumstance of slavery out of that, into so - called freedom, Emancipation Proclamation, so called freedoms, right? And it was a freedom, a legal freedom. But the situation for enslavement was still existing, wasn't it? Segregated South, Jim Crow South denied us equal treatment. Its assisted. And it wasn't until many, many, many years later, almost a hundred years later, cycles about a hundred years later that we realized a situation for ourselves in this country. Yes.
Think about that. Here's what I want you to see and recognize. From slavery to freedom, from slavery under Christian Americans, to freedom under Christian Americans. From slavery under Christian Americans to freedom and to the church of Christian Americans. We didn't have a religious choice. African Americans from slavery never had a religious choice until freedom time. And we started exercising our own authority to choose ourselves, the religion we want. Sometimes the mental chain is much stronger than the physical chains. Is that not a fact? Sometimes the mental chain is more stronger than the physical chains. We could be separated or relieved or free from physical slavery, but the mental chains hold you still. And right now, the vast majority of African Americans are not good Christians. They're bad Christians. There's only a small minority of our people that are good Christians. The great majority of our people are bad Christians. And it's the bad Christians among our people that are afraid to think. Afraid to think religious choice. You never had the freedom to choose religion for yourself.
Thats not a means or a choice when there was nothing but churches. Thats no choice. You bring a people out of slavery, from Africa, a land with the tradition of Islam. A continent with a Mosque built on it. A thousand years ago, or more. A continent were families used to live in accordance with Islamic family life, an Islamic sense of plan. A continent that saw great tribes and great nations rise up and get the names of empire. Muslim empires, they called them empires them in modern history. Muslim empires sprung up on that continent. Now when they freed us, they didn't say, well look, you are free now, you don't have to come into the religion of my race. You don't have to come to the religion of our fathers. We would like to tell you about your past. Many of you didn't come from heathenism. Many of you are the descendants of Muslims. Your people back in Africa, their religion is Islam. Their G_d is called Allah. He's the same G_d for everybody. And their Prophet is called Muhammad. If they were descent, pure , upright, honest liberators, they would have felt obligated to tell us the truth about our past and to give us a sense of respect for the religion that they now have to respect, whether they like it or not! So you, brother and sister, with me, we never have been given a choice. They let us out of slavery and led us nothing to look up to but a church. Now if I would come to this city and not invite you to question Christianity, to question and to see if the institute is for you, in light of what Islam has to offer you. If I wasn't coming here to also invite you to look at Al-Islam, to weigh Al-lslam, to evaluate Al-Islam as a discipline for the ears of African Americans, to evaluate it along with Christianity, if I didn't do that I'd be in some degree a phony. So, I'm telling you, you have been the victim. You were not given a choice. You were taken out bondage and then shown only one thing, and that’s the church. Couldn't even choose a Synagogue. You couldn't choose the meeting Temple. No slave knows nothing about that. They nothing than about a church. Say hey, come to Jesus and they made Jesus blonde haired. Long blonde hair. I remember that when I was a boy. They don't even paint Jesus like that anymore. The lights are too bright. Yes, they used to have Jesus in the black neighborhood, skinny white man, skinny peck-a- wood, long yellow haired, blue eyed. Eyes were so damn blue, almost blind you. Talking about "he's a Jew!" He was a _______, a Georgian, he was a cracker and they wanted us to see him that way, so we would be worshiping him through the image. So that the newly freed man would still be a captive. Captivated and captured by the image. If I wouldn't tell you these things, I wouldn't be a friend. I wouldn't be honest. I'd be a phony.
The first church for our people was the AME Church, is that not fair? That's history.
How was that church founded? The whites would not treat us right in their church. So, the blacks had to go out on their own and started their own church. That's how the first church of the black people was established. That's history. And when they first opened the church, the black preacher was not allowed to preach by himself. A white man had to sit up there on the podium with him. He had no role there except his presence. He didn't do any preaching. He didn't do any amening or anything. He just sat there while the nigger preached, for the congregation to know, "this nigger____ don't think he can get big-headed now. I don't care if he got the bond or the word of G_d and he say he's got G_d. G_d, ain't bigger than this authority that I represent" And if he did wrong, they'd lock him up and the Bible and all his holy sacraments and everything else and take them all and lock him up in jail. That's our history. That's why they don't want me talking to you. They don't want me on the radio. They might seek to find glory. They might, seek to find Jesse Copper. They might seek to get those men out of there to go out there and talk to the people. Now anytime a people is that afraid of something, they're some lies. Why be that afraid of me? They're more afraid of a good Muslim than they are of a communist. They opened doors and city up to communists, but terrified by the presence of a good Muslim in town. That's to show you something, that should open your eyes. That should tell you that the ideology or the greatest consequence is not communist ideology, its Islam! Because anytime a whole system will shut itself to keep out the influences of Islam, a whole system will shut itself, immobilize itself, sensitize its citizens, hire stooges and dumbbells, everybody to help keep down the importance and the presence of the true religion. Islam.
Anytime a system will go that far to tell you that the precious idea is not communism, but Al Islam. The idea for transforming man into a dynamic creature, into a dynamic creature, into a productive creature, into a creature that won't be bought or sold, it's not communism, its Al Islam. Communism is all ready of property of men. And Islam can never be a property of men. It's a property of Allah. Any man that’s got bad intentions, he can't even pick it up. If he picks it up, he can't hold it. He might pick it up accidently, but when he sees he's got it, he has to let it go. Thats what they're afraid of. Be aware of the propaganda. We have been conditioned just like the whole world has been conditioned. The people that wanted to play down the importance of Muhammad, the Qur'an and Muhammad and Islam, they worked the machinery of propaganda for centuries and gave all kinds of false perceptions about our religion, about our Prophet. Tried to make the people see it in some narrow, crazy, heathen light. Some woman called me, while I was on the radio, she said, "isn't your religion an ism?" Though I had taken her, although I sensed her voice that her intentions were bad. She didn't fool me. I knew from the very voice when I first heard her voice, I said, this woman got bad intentions. I didn't say out on the radio, but I knew. She said, well isn't you religion an ism? I said, it's a religion. It's a kindred religion with Christianity and Judaism and also Sabianism and some other authentic legitimate religions. Its a religion. She said, she asked me again, she wants to ask again, while she's constantly talking to cloud the issue and smoke screen everything so she can establish endless smoke screen that she's self creating the image of us that she wants her listeners to see. So, she's pretending to be asking a question, but really she wants time to cloud the issue, and she's already married and lied against presence. So she said, I just can't understand how come you just won't admit that yours is an ism? So, I said the word for religion in our holy book is deen. I said, when it speaks of our religion, it uses the word deen. When it speaks of Christianity, it uses the word deen. When it speaks of Judaism is uses the word deen. It’s deen, deen for all of us. I say now, is Christianity an ism?
So, she wouldn't answer me because that would mean that she is there for a legitimate cause.
She can't answer me She's not there for no legit, she didn't call for that. So, I didn't expect for her to answer me because I've had experience and it ................ serve many I 've talked to on the radio.
Excuse my language, I have a way of bringing the message home, you know. So, I told her, I said, Miss, I said, Christianity is not an ism, Judaism is not an ism. I said, our religion is not an ism, its religion. And let it be like that, ended it just like that. So, we have been told a lot of lies and if you are not seeing this religion for yourself, from the pages of The Holy Qur'an and the true life history of the Prophet Muhammad, then you owe it to yourself to go to the Holy Book of the Muslims and to the true life history of Muhammad written by believers in him, not by people who want to hide him from the world's eye, or distort what he was about, before. the world's eye. not by people like that. Read about him, by people who believed in him, by people who love him. If I want to read about Jesus Christ, should I read about Jesus Christ from atheists? I should go to people who believe in Jesus Christ to learn about Jesus Christ. And you should do the same if you want to know something about Muhammad the Prophet, that's up to you. I hope that you will come into a situation where you can make free choices, where you can think on your own and make decisions on your own. Not influenced by white America. Not influenced by Negro America.
Influenced by what is right, by right motives. I hope you can come to a situation where you can make decisions on your own. But if you can't, then this its,... I'm not going to weep forever. I don't think any of us should weep, not forever. We've got to move on. But in my conclusion know this, that if you want to really gain respect as a people in America, you have to stop going along with the plan that the white man had for himself. He didn't bring you here from the roof, he brought us here from Africa. We are here and we should be as independent of European life as the Chinese, as the Korean, as the Cuban. These people are not totally absorbed in European heritage. You are not a European, your ancestors didn't come from there. You owe it to yourself to establish your own birthright, to establish your own identity, to establish your own ethnicity, to establish your own feelings, to establish your own way of thinking. You owe it to yourself to do something other than a white man, you're no white man! You also owe it to yourself to look back in your past and recognize the great Islamic presence in your past. And then if you're not ready to be a Muslim, at least say, this is my heritage.
Ain't no way for me to know that I wasn't the son of a good Muslim when they brought my ancestor here and put them in slavery.. Ain't no way for me to know that my genes didn't come from the loins of excellent Muslims in Africa. No way for me to know that. In fact, there's a hell of a big chance that my genes did come from excellent Muslims. So even if I had more interest in becoming a Muslim myself, I owe it to myself to cherish that heritage, and as a Christian, invest in our own heritage. The white man, he preserves things, that of his past and he's not today, he preserved because that's his heritage, that’s from his past. So, what’s wrong with the Christian churches, spending some of that money, using some of that offering money to open up an Islamic cultural center, not because they are Muslim, but because they lost their beliefs and identity. They lost their belief, the preservation, of a heritage. What's wrong with that? Oh, can't do that. That's against church. But you can embrace communists. You can welcome communists in your life and to the United States and to share the blessings of this country. We can welcome communists here. They don't give anything. They don't care. They don't honor the Prophet Jesus. We honor Prophet Jesus.
We honor him just like we honor every other man sent from G_d. We honor him and his blessed mother. We honor them. If you can't come near or Muslim, but you can welcome a communist into your arms, you are a dirty damn hypocrite! And I'm not speaking to you here, I'm speaking to America. The so-called majority of the Christians are nothing but dirty, damn hypocrites. They are frightened by the presence of Al Islam and by the presence of Muhammad. But they embrace the person who says he doesn't believe in G_d. He cares nothing about religion. They'll embrace him and defend his right to the blessings of America. Dirty damn hypocrites. You need to know the truth about yourself. Not speaking to you few people here, speaking to America. I hope that it get out to them. It will.. Believe me, everything I say gets out, gets out in high quarters, not on the level of the drunk out there in the street. He'll never hear it.
So, we owe it to ourselves. When are we going to really be men and women? Afraid to believe something that is not approved by white society? Unless it's something ridiculous that won't upset white society. We'll become a real nut and change our whole lifestyle. Even talk backwards.
We'll find a way to reverse the language, be a recorder in reverse. You'll do anything for attention as long as it doesn't bring the wrath of white American society. But if we think this ain't going to be welcomed by white American society, "they going to really look at me and take me serious" as a problem or a threat? They ain't ready for it. Cowards. Cowards. You know, ain't nobody going bother you if you start acting like a fool. Ain't nobody going to seek to persecute you or arrest you for acting like a fool.
You'll do that. But invite you to something sensible and dignified. If it causes friction in this society, oh, I can't do it. But you'll risk your life to sell dope.
Stick up innocent people. Rob banks. You do that because it doesn't require any constructive thinking on your part. It gives your life to a gamble. It doesn't require any moral disciplines on your part. So, you can go for a gamble. No good! Can't put up with that always.
Right. I pray Allah strengthen the true believers, make you more courageous and more aggressive with the truth. Don't come to these cities and allow the people to put you back on the shelf, to put you in the background. Pretend Muslims are dead. A Muslims there now, they don't have anything anymore, they've gone out of business. Don't allow that. Demand the same presence and the same respect that they give the Christians. The law of this country protects our freedom of religion the same as it protects the Christian freedom of religion. Ain't nothing on the law book to say freedom of religion in this country is freedom from Christianity. It's freedom from religion. And whether you have the courage to take advantage of your rights or not, you have the same freedom to be a Muslim in this country, that Christians have to be Christians in this country and I, for one, tell them and they know that I'm determined not to back up. I don't back up off anybody. I don't back up on anybody. My religion is legit. My values are excellent. My religious idea is pure. My religious aspirations are honorable. I don't back up for anybody. And you should be the same way. Don't back up for anybody. Now in concluding this, I say again that what we've done was just sensitize audience to accept the changes that has to come about. And first of all, the changes in ourselves to be upright, honest and well meaning. To be the excellent creature that G_d made us. To accept responsibility and to accept authority and we don't look for the world to come and rescue you, but do what you're supposed to do, what G_d created you to do. You get up and prepare yourself to rescue the world. As salaam alaykum.



