02/18/1989
IWDM Study Library
IWDM at Long Beach CA

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed

As-Salaamu Alaykum.
Alhamdulillahi rabbil ‘aalameen, was salat was salaam ‘alaa rasoolihi kareem sallal-laho ‘aalyhi wasallam wa ‘aalahi was sabeehi ajma’een ammaa ba’d. All praises are due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. Peace and the blessings be upon Muhammed, the prophet, upon his family, his descendants, his companions the righteous all and upon us, in peace. 
We are very happy to be here and we thank Allah for the opportunity to address the community and believers and the public around, here today in Long Beach, California. We had a wonderful, very wonderful and joyous occasion last night at the [... 00:21:39] called the mass marriage. We called it a group marriage, but I guess that is what they call mass marriage. It was very, very beautiful and very touching. It lifted my spirit and made me feel very, very good to have the honor of participate as I did in that beautiful ceremony last night, last evening.
We are going to be speaking on Muslims and the future of America: Muslims and the future of America, Muslims in the future of America. 
Dear believers, members of the public---invited public, the way Muslims view their American citizenship is changing. Not only our attitude is changing, but also immigrants’ attitude toward American citizenship is changing. This change favors more positive citizen position or posture for Muslims in America. 60 years ago, 40 years ago, or even 15 years ago this could not happen. America's attitude does not invite but threaten certain ethnic and religious groups. Today, this un-American American attitude towards non European descendants and towards non church followers is still hurting some citizens and hurting the nation, the United States. This issue of a claim to a white European rooted church-America is unfashionable for most Americans today. Therefore, this in my opinion is a new day, is a new time for Muslims. A changed America especially in terms of American people attitude towards ethnic groups, immigrants, towards African-Americans and towards the religion-- the religion of other people.
This is a new day in America and I think what explains more than anything else, my position and my success with you is this change in America. We would be out of order and almost out of our minds in trying to teach and push forward at the same time the things that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was teaching and pushing. There is no place for it in America today. Our brother and dear friend Imam Harun Abdullah, he was telling us about the Honorable Elijah Muhammad saying that he was not teaching religion, that you do not teach religion in hell. I've heard my father, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad many times say that, that we are not teaching religion, we're preparing you... 
But it was only when I was listening to Imam Harun Abdullah that it is dawning on me that that is the truth. There are no pulpits in hell. I never heard of people making salaat in hell. He was right in his decision based upon what he believed; he was right the thought that he actually believed that that was hell, that America at that time was hell, then he is right, he shouldn't have been teaching religion in hell. He should have been-- what do you call it-- turning up the heat, that is what he did. 
Now, do not get the wrong idea. Somebody would think that “he didn’t care about his father” he said his father was turning up the heat in hell. Well he was. See, there are two ways to look at hell, you look at hell as a place where sinners are being tormented but there's another way to look at hell; you look at hell as a place that burns up sins. That is why sinners are put there so that it can burn up sin. You're not actually in hell itself, in the real hell you're just in a hellish condition and you can turn up the heat and burn our sins people would still be left to enjoy better times and that was the case for many of us. We survived the heat of the hell the white man created for us. I hate to call him the white man, I like to just call him --- just a man, a European man, I hate to call him a white man.
My father once told me---he knew I hated to call them white, he said, "Son, you ought to see their skin up under those drawers." [Laughter] I still didn't want to call them white---pink, red, different colors. They didn't look real white to me and they do not like real white. Nobody wants to be white. No, nobody wants to be white. If you're white you look like a ghost. White meat is bloodless meat, no blood in it. That is white meat. Nobody wants to be white. One European-American lady, she was looking real good and I admit that, you know, some people who have racial prejudices they can't admit that the race they have those prejudices against have some good things too. But I admit they've got a lot of good going for them. But this was a real pretty European-American woman and she had been sun-tanning to get herself a real beautiful golden tan. As a matter of fact it was copper, she was dark and I said, Hey, you better be careful looking like that one of us is going to grab you for one of our own women.
Yes, I pick on them sometimes. But I thought I saw something in her. I saw that she wanted to say, "I am dark, but I am not black. I am not you." I just wanted to pick on her a little bit. Hey, you look like a nigger woman there. You're going to get grabbed by a Blackman I know you do not want that. Lighten up on that tan.
Times have changed, circumstances have changed we are living in a new day. America is not the same for the people who used to be mistreated in America, under discrimination, white supremacy and whatever we want to call that, that were hurting us in this country. But not only for those but also for those people who used to enjoy being the privileged majority of this country, things have changed for them. They no longer have the same advantages that they used to have. Times have changed for them. America has come to a situation where America cannot favor any particular group. Not even its previously protected group the European-American stock or their descendants, they can't, not anymore because the world has been internationalized and nations have come under that same influence. That has happened over there in the Middle East, in Africa, especially in Asia and everywhere, there is an internationalizing going on where you can't look at a particular people or a particular race because the world and its resources are being claimed by different nations and different people. And if you are going to enjoy the benefits of the resources of the earth, of the globe, international world, you have to have respect for those nations that make up the international world.
So our country no longer has the same immigration policies they've had during World War II, and even later. The country is open to Asians but at one time it was not. Asians are coming to this country by the thousands and thousands, and Cubans and Haitians and Arabs, Africans and people from Haiti, and everywhere. And just recently they have started to flood the United States. The citizenry of the United States has drastically changed in just a few years, so to speak. The country is not looking like the same country that existed 10 years ago, not to mention, 20, 30, 40, 60 years ago. We're looking at a new country, we're looking at new people, we're looking at a new citizenry for America.
What invited or what made it possible for all these different groups to come into America and find a home? Changed attitudes that we mentioned in our opening---changed attitudes; America has changed its attitude---the majority of American people have changed their attitudes. There are some factors responsible for this change in the attitudes. It didn't just happen by itself, it didn't just happen. There some factors involved. Most importantly, in my view, it is the plight and success of the life of the African-American people or what we used to call black people, Negro people. Now we're not supposed to use that language. Some of our leaders and others represent like Reverend Jesse Jackson when he speaks everybody has to obey. He says, "No longer can be it used. It is African-American” Not Afro-American either, African-American. We shouldn't be afraid to say African-American, those who say Afro-American they were afraid to come all the way out with it so they cut it short, Afro-American.
That is not saying Africa that is not saying African. The Italian-American, he doesn't say, “Ita-American” or “Ital-American”, he says “Italian-American”; Arab-American; Jewish-American, French-American, Polish-American. They do not cut it short. But the black man he is so scared with slavery just behind his back, he can look back there and see the whippings ... he can see all that stuff just at a glance. When he asks of his identity he says, "Afro-American". 
Yes, the greatest factor for change in America, our situation that we were in and our determination to not stay in that situation and the good help that we have got from other people, the so called white and European people European descendants in America the good help that we got from them. And what I would have of you is to take that movie---I remember the new ... on television, powerful times when the two Jewish young men were killed for going down to help promote a change of mind down there, and to investigate the situation in hopes that there would be a change made down there. They were killed along with one of us, an African-American, and so we have to acknowledge that the change has come mostly because of our own spirit and determination but with great help from other people in America. That change made possible a healthy social change for all America, for all America. Once you acknowledge decency for the worst treated people, for the people that were treated worse in the land then you have acknowledged decency for all the people in the land. And we were the worse off people in terms of how this country looked at us and treated us, we were the worse off. Some of you say, "We still are the worst off." Well, I do not know about that. I do not know if I can agree with that. Not today. I see some people worse off than us. Not on the whole---but I know some people on a whole we are the worse off---just because there's so many of us, in bad shape. But I do know of some small groups that are worse off than us. In fact, I know of a small European-American group worse off than us. The Appalachian white man, the so called white man of Appalachia is worse off than us, much worse off than we are. But that is just a small group of that European American people. You can find other groups too, much worse off than we are---much worse off than we are. So let's not think, you can't sing that song. You stop singing that song it is out. That we are worse off than he is, he is always … we are the most worst off, we are the most mistreated, we are the most put down and all that. You have to stop singing that song and I look at some of you all on television complaining and you can hardly walk away from the microphone, weighing 400 pounds. He is fat, greasy, got a ring on every finger and crying the blues. See I get a little crazy sometimes. If I was in the audience I'd say, "Hey, what you need now is a plan---to get at her and chase her until you lose half of that weight." I would frighten the hell out of him, and run some of that weight off. We have got a lot of problems but the circumstances in America are much better now than they ever have been.
In fact, let me tell you something, I've travelled a lot and I know circumstances for freedom are better in America than anywhere I have been, and I told you I travel a lot. The circumstances for freedom, isn't that what we were all about? Isn't that what our struggles and our complaints were supposed to be for---the freedom? We wanted freedom that is all. We were not telling the man to put us on welfare and to give us free housing, to give us a check every week whether we work or not, that wasn't what we were asking for. We were asking for freedom, freedom to be free in this country like the European American man, we wanted to be free like he is. Free to live where we want, free to work and earn the same pay, free to purchase property, and to enjoy it without somebody threatening us. We just wanted to be free, to have the freedom that others have in this country that is all we wanted. Now, if we have reached that point---and I think we have---now there will always be some problems of discrimination because people are human. You can't hope for a day to come in this country or in any country where you will not have some problem with people. People are human and they are subject to human weaknesses, they are subject to their own prejudices, they are going to be miserable and they are going to take out that misery on others. They are human. You go to an employer or to a company and they may not treat you like you think you should be treated and you may have a just complaint. But it is different now in America. You do not have to take that. You can go and bring that to court, and charge them with that discrimination against you. So it is a changed country, and that is all you can ask of a country. Parade what is the truth, so everybody will know it. So the truth will be for and against everybody equally or the same. Yes that is all you ask from a country. You can't ask a country to make your neighbor like you. No, you can't ask of a country to make another race like you that is unreasonable.
Some of us, our habits and attitudes, are just that: make everybody like us blacks. No, that is ridiculous. We have to accept that some people aren't going to like us and some of us are not going to like some people. I know I do not; there are some people I do not like. Not that I hate them, I do not hate them, I love all the creatures of G’d but that particular person in that creation, I do not like them and I am honest with myself, I do not like them, and I ain't trying to like them. He has to change some first. When I recognize he is changing something I will start to like him. I do not bottle it up so I pick on them. I see them acting funny and crazy; I let him know that I am superior to him. I drop something on him to let him know that I think you are immature, socially immature and I am socially mature. You are thinking I am inferior and you're inferior, I am over you. I have refinement and civilization and you are a savage. I let them know when I want them trained you never, never, know I do not care what it is. If they start some stuff, I check them you know. I told one, he was sitting up there in the coach with me, we paid the same price, neither one of us wanted to or had the money to pay for first class. Now, he is sitting in coach and I am sitting in coach. My seat is on that row where three chairs are, he and his lady, wife or whatever, I thought she was his wife she looked nice---a nice lady and a nice man, sitting there on the seat and my seat was over there at the window. I wanted to go to my seat, he looked at me and he said, "What are you doing here nigger?" He didn't say that, but they can so much with a look. "What are you doing here nigger?" He looked at her and she looked too, you know like, "Well, here comes something stinky." I am used to it. I looked at them and I knew they didn't want me in coach too so I said to him, "I would like to get to my seat over there, can I get to that seat over there? I am waiting. I am sitting over there that is my seat. He very reluctantly pulled his leg-- his leg was sticking all the way out as he had an aisle seat. Our seats were next to first class. Nothing was in front of us but the partition that separated first class from coach. As I went to step by him, he put his foot so he could trip me---yes he did. My foot touched his heel but I was on guard. Be on guard all the time. Be on guard. But he didn't hurt me, he didn't trip me. But I just touched his foot, so he puts his foot in my way. So I stopped---when I was 17 or 18 his face would have been busted open. One powerful left hook would have knocked his face open. But back then I was different. I stopped and said to myself, now I have got to use something else in the place of the left hook. I can't hit him with a left hook that will get me in too much trouble. So I said: You are almost in first class. ...I remember the time when a black man would either be afraid or he would behave in the wrong way. "This ain't your plane. You do not own the damn plane. I paid the same thing you paid. I have the same ticket you have buster. Get out of the way so I can get to my seat." No, you have got to be a little bit more sophisticated; move up, go up the ladder of sophistication and you cut it and the pain is so much more. They tried to warm up to me after I told them that. Oh, and I just treated them like they were not fit for my company. No warming up. Maybe next year if I'll be on a plane with you, see you and recognize you next year and you still acting nice, maybe then I'll warm up. What am I saying? Most of us are too quick to warm up to ugly people. Do not be quick to warm up to an ugly person even if your heart has turned, resist that. Do not even allow your heart to lead you. Your heart has changed and your heart says, "Go easy he is sorry." No. He is sorry but you need some time. Say, “Yes, I know you're sorry, but you're going to get two years in the penitentiary because you just committed a crime. You need some time.” 
Things have changed because attitudes have changed and the worst of all attitudes, for us, was that attitude of the European people, European-American people that they were the race G’d authorized to own and manage the whole earth, nations and resources. That attitude made them look at us as property their property, not just for property, they look at us as property from G’d. “G’d gave us the Negros from Africa because we need them to develop this new continent. We need them to cut down the trees, open up the wilderness, we need them to go in the swamp---clear the swamp, we need them to pick the cotton, we need them to serve our G’d.” Yes, so they showed them the blessings of G’d. At the same time, they are them who are Christian-minded in kind of decent way many of them thought that this was a blessing for us. That they took us from heathen lands and brought us among them where we could eventually become Christians and be accepted like they are. And that is what happened. The Quakers supported the freedom movement and other religious groups---but not as much as the Quakers---and...come in and help the African-America people, the Baptists were helped by them. Because they felt that if the man, if he was Christian or if he was baptized he had to be accepted as a human-being with a soul just like ours. They started to regard us as human-beings with souls like theirs because the life of Christianity came into the African-American people. But when heathenism was there they too looked at you just as an animal. But they had tenderness in their heart for animals. All the European-Americans were not complaining. They had tenderness in their heart for animals. Just like right now, you'll find many of the people of America, they have tenderness in their heart for animals and they do not want you--- they will treat the animal sometimes just like they treat a brother or sister of the family. When the animal gets old they treat the animal just like they treat grandma. If the animal jumps up on the chair and eats something out of the plate, they do not want you pushing the dog off their chair, they will stop you right away. “He is a member of our family with fleas. We do not allow that.” We have to understand there are all these differences in the make-up of the people and be thankful for Allah, or as the Christians say, “To G’d”. Be thankful that we have survived the ugliest times in the history of man; we have survived. And believe me, I have said it, some people were mistreated terribly but never were a whole people written off as sub-human and treated as brutally as we were treated during the days of slavery. That page in life and the years of lynching and torturing and burning and terrorizing by the Klan and other white supremacy people that followed. No people in the history have suffered like that. The Jews, they say 6 million of them were put in the ovens, but how long did that last? That was for a short period of time. Generations were not put in the ovens, children of those were not marched to the ovens, but it was generations of us that came through those terrible, terrible times, the children expected no more than what the parents had to suffer. They expected the same. They knew they were being brought into a world and raised up and would come to the same end that their parents came to; never having being accepted as a human-being equal to other human-beings, never having been treated decently or fairly but singled out for all kinds of abusing. Any old treatment among European-American people that wanted to take out his freakish vengeance or his freakish nature on a prey in the society he would find one of us and take it out on us and he knew that if he was caught and nobody saw it he would go free or that if he was in the right place and the right time or situation he would go free. And even if he was caught he would never be killed for killing one of us. That time existed not for one generation, but several generations, for many generations. 
So I do not like hearing people staying in America singing the blues too long without making it up. That is not fair. It is not fair to them. Because everybody who suffered a lot and they are decent and know about our history, they will not tell America of their suffering without saying-- but you have to remember, we have citizens who were really mistreated in a cruel way even more than we are ourselves. Or chain...or we would like to do something to help them, or that we would like to do something to help them, say something. Or we would like to remember them. Yes, it is okay to remember the suffering of the Jews, not only is it Ok to remember the suffering of Jews but it is a moral obligation to remember the suffering of Jews. Any American citizen is made to feel bad if he show any sign that he is not in sympathy with the Jews, voicing and telling about their misery and telling about their suffering. And the Jew can go all the way back to Pharaoh’s days and bring up what happened to him in the land of Egypt 3,000 plus years ago. And nobody say, “Why bring that up? Why dig up an old dead dog? Why feed a dead horse?” Nobody says that to a Jew, nobody thinks to say that to a Jew. Everybody ears are wide open. Why, because the Jews are Moses, the Jew's Jesus. The Negro is Dr. King. Reverend Abernathy, Marcus Garvey Malcolm X, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. That is the Negro’s Jesus. Carter G. Woodson---but those people ain't big enough. They didn't part the Red Sea or G’d did not part it for them. The heavens did not open up for them. Clouds didn't lead them to the Promised Land and all that. There was not a great phenomenon of the universe working with them and bringing great miracles or representing great miracles and such. You do not have those happenings of the Jews, you see. It is different. I am trying to explain something. I am trying to explain something to you so you won't be a sucker. Do not be a sucker. I do not care what kind of man can come out of heaven flying on a page of scripture that is as big as Los Angeles and I see him come down out of heaven. He comes down here with that plan and I will say straighten up sucker. He is not going to spook me up. I am going to test you too. If you are not human I'll find out. I thank Allah for making me this way. That is right, I do. I thank Allah. I love myself this way. Praise be to Allah. Times have changed in this country and because times have changed in this country we are in a good situation.
Now, today we are in a good situation. 15 years ago we could not have been in a good situation in this country. No, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he thought the only way to get a good situation was to have separate states. Well let me tell you something I know personally, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad used that as a strategy. He never intended to get separate states. He never intended to; he used that as a strategy. But he wanted us separated, that is for sure. I am glad that he didn't really actually mean that we were to have separate states. Because all they needed is for us to be in separate states then they could just drop something on that state, and all of us would be gone. Yes, if you got an enemy it is best to be all mixed up among them. Excuse me.
So I believe very, very, very firmly that this is the time now for so-called minority groups, underdog people to push forward. This is your time. I do not like to see the European-Americans give up on civilization. I do not like to see them give up on leadership for civilization. I do not like that. If I did, I would have a secret movement. I wouldn't be saying the things that I say so openly, because I know everybody hears what I say. The people who are in power can benefit from what I am saying get their due. So that is true. I do not want to see-- even the people that dominated me until now. I do not want to see them mistreated, I do not want to see them lose anything that they have achieved and booked in excellence. I do not want to see them fall back in the race. I want the best for everybody. If they can do more, I want to see them do more. If they can go ahead of us I want to see them go ahead of us. If they can stay ahead of us, I want to see them stay ahead of us. Now I know some of you can hardly take that. But that is the truth. If they can stay ahead of us, I want to see them stay ahead of us. We should want the best. And the best is not to make something inferior, to go ahead of something that is superior. The best is to let the superior go forward. But I am convinced firmly again, that today because of their doing and because of G’d’s justice, they are not superior in spirit and not superior in potential anymore. Not anymore. Minority groups, we are superior in spirit and if we could just get rid of this good times, frolicking foolishness play thing. We give our life to play and foolishness. If we could just get rid of that and turn it off and become more serious-minded; oh we would make so many great strides in this country. And in a few years we would be equal competitors for any people in this country---in a few years. But we can't do it until we get foolishness out of our lives, get all that foolishness out of our lives. Do not live for Saturday night fun. Do not live for show-off. Do not live to show off. 
Live for establishment. Live for establishment. That is what our talk is about today: That there is opportunity now for us to establish ourselves in America. We should be the people most influencing the future of America---we. It is a shame if we let immigrants come in who do not know the white man, the African people, who do not know the other people--- we know everybody. We know the Jew, we know African people, we know European man we know everybody. Because while they were going and being busy in the world, and just getting the world we were looking at them. We were being mistreated by them, we were being held back by them, we were being kept back by them so we were just looking at them because there wasn't anything to do. And believe me, the average one of our people, especially a middle-aged old person, they can really maneuver around the European man because they know him; they know him so well. Now these newcomers come in and you are frightened because you do not know them. "I do not know a Pakistani; I do not know this Arab." That is what you think. So you are frightened by them. Yes you do know him. He is the same as the other one. You know him. If you had decent confidence you will see that he is the same as the others. Once you've learn European white man and his racism, you know every one of them. Because he is the final type, he is the final type. He is the phenotype. Nobody can beat him at what he did. They are only following in his tracks that is all they are doing. They are following in his tracks that he made. So they are letting you know if you know him-- you know him. If you know the European-American racist, you know any other one. “Imam, Are you're saying that the Arabs are racist?” Yes. There are Arab racists; Pakistani racists. I am saying only what I know. There are some Nigerian racists. They are blacker than me, hair more nappy than mine, Nigerian racist. I had to look hard to find those among the Sudanese but I found them. There are some Sudanese racists, and we can go on and on and on; racists from all the other people. But the worst racists that I have found are in Asia Far East---the Far East. In Asia Far East Asia, and the other ones I can't tell. Some are in Far East Asia. The worst are from Far East Asia. The other, I am sorry I just can't tell you but they run in second. It is a shame. I'll tell you this, they wear long clothes. Their dress makes them look like a bald eagle with his tail hanging down...and his wings dropped low. They are out of sight. Yes, I have found some terrible racists among us. And they have no excuse for it because if they believe in what they say they believe in they would just have a heart attack, waking up to see themselves in that form. 
Yes, all right. So we are living in new times, a different day and the future should be great. Now, what are we going to do about the people? What are we going to do about them? If you believe what I said thus far, and I said this, that we live in a time where people are free in America. We are free. We do have freedom in America. If we run into problems, we can carry it to the court. Or we can do something by ourselves; we do not even have to take it to court. I do not say to get out of order you do not have to break the law, if we just bring enough people to bring attention to their wrong. Demonstrate. Do not stop demonstrating. If it is necessary, bring enough people to bring attention to the wrong that is being done. You will embarrass the people. You'll force the media to come out and things will be changed. This is a free country, at last. Yes, Dr. King said, "Free at last, free at last", what did he say? "Thank G’d almighty, we are free at last." Yes, but while he was saying that he was really prophesying. He did not mean that we were free then but he made it so close I can see it. I could see it I could see it so close that I can see it. I am going to speak about it just like it is here because I can see it, just that real. So he spoke as though it was really there right then but it was not. We know it wasn't free at last, not when Dr. King was alive and working. We were not free at last. It took his death, and a lot of other things had to happen, before it all was made right in the law and the courts of the land, and in the air of the country because the media supported it. The media supported that. The media came out and gave support to this new respect that we had won, with the help of other Americans in this country, for ourselves. So we are living in a new time and I am going to speak now to the Muslim's future that we hope we will have in this country and what I think we should do. Not just to African-American Muslims but to all Muslims in this country.
First of all, we should begin by realizing that when we say we have a comprehensive religion--- and you who are not Muslims, do not think that this is not of interest to you, this is of definite, this is a real interest to you because our idea of a future for Muslims is a future for all decent human-beings, all decent people. We do not really see Muslims in a religious label only. Some of you Christians, we consider you to be better Muslims than some of our Muslims who are under the label or just having the label. Yes, we want the content more than we want just the name or for somebody to call us that. We want it to be that. We want the content and if we see the real Muslim content in a person that is not a Muslim we are more at home with that person, living next door to them, working with them in our business, having them as our employee or our employer, than we are when one who says he is a Muslim but we do not see the content in him. We do not feel that kinship with him no matter what he says. So understand that.
I work very well with people who are good Christians, and they can be good something else, Buddhist, anything. I work very well with them, as long as I see that that G’d wants as I believe that G’s wants in the human vessel. As long as I see it there I can work good with him, I do not what he calls himself. Buddhist, Christian, Jew---I do not care what he calls himself. That doesn't make any difference to me. I am happy to know that he is the kind of human-being Allah wants him to be.
As far as confessing a religion or professing the creed that I confess and profess, that is not a big issue. That is why I talk about Muhammad--- peace and the blessing be on the prophet---he did not pry into people’s private thoughts and ask that they confess and everything. He didn't require that. If you accept to be Muslim, good; if you accept to respect Muslims, then good, you accept to respect Muslims but are you a Muslim? Did you do your Shahaada; did you make your declaration of faith? Prophet would do that. He was satisfied with people being decent people. Then he invited all to the religion and that is the way we should be.
We should be satisfied with people being decent people. First of all, we want decent people. Our invitation is to all people. We should be worrying more about our own selves living up to the claims we make; being true to the label. And the only way to be true to the label is to have true content. You buy something off the shelf at the store and the label says a certain thing and you open that bottle or that box and the contents are saying something different, you do not want that. You are ready to complain. You're ready to make an issue, right? Right. Well, make an issue with yourself when you look in the mirror and you say you're a Muslim and you see something else, you see Farmer Joe.
We begin with understanding that Islamic life is comprehensive. We say it and, you know we Muslims know, we say Islam is a comprehensive religion and what does it mean? Islam is a comprehensive religion? It means that Islam is a religion that leaves out nothing important for human-beings. That is what it means. Islam is a religion that leaves out nothing important for human beings. Islam is a religion that accommodates all of the appetites of the human-being; all of the spirits of the human-being; all of the concerns, interests, and ambitions of the human-being. You have to live with ambition, Islam accommodates that. You have economic ambitions, financial ambitions, it accommodates that. You have cultural ambitions, it accommodates that. You have industrial ambitions, you have military ambitions, and Islam accommodates that. Whatever it is, Islam accommodates that.
It is good for people. It is a natural requirement in the good life of the human-being. See, that is what is meant in our religion when Allah says that this is a religion on the pattern of creation itself; the pattern upon which He created Man. That is really a powerful language, a revealing language, wonderful language, beneficial language, in so many ways, in such a profound way. Yes, we need to think about that a lot but that is not the topic for the day. That requires 20 minutes or two hours for me just to talk about that. But I was trying to summarize it in a few words.
The first Muslim is the human-being that is living in accord with his best human motivations. I do not care if he professes any religion. He doesn't have to profess any religion. But he is living in accord in his best human motivation. That is the first Muslim. Allah created that Muslim and then he gave revelation to guide that Muslim into greater potential, a greater expression of his potential. But that is the first Muslim. When you hear a common person speaking good common sense he is speaking as a Muslim in our religion. I am not establishing any new criteria here. I am not establishing any new foundation or basis, for anything. I am speaking straight, pure, simple Islam.
When you go to another people, whether they be in an undeveloped land or a developed land, and you find them by human nature - in the habit of human nature, respecting each other, loving each other, having sympathy for each other, giving charity to the ones who need charity, worrying about the condition of their young ones and their weak ones, their sick ones, and mistreated ones, you see Al Islam in practice. I do not care what religion they profess, that is Al Islam. Why? Because my Lord, Allah, has said that this is a religion that is patterned on the pattern of creation itself; the pattern on which he created Man---the pattern upon which he created Man! It is saying to us that this religion has been here before the pronouncement. This religion existed before the pronouncement of the faith. Again, I am not establishing any new thing. It is believed by all learned people in this religion, by the scholars, imam, teachers, all the students of this religion; it is believed and understood by them that prophet Muhammad did not bring Al Islam, he brought the Qur’aan. Al Islam is the religion of nature every prophet before him had been in Al Islam, even the man that was not a prophet and the woman that was not a prophet, a child who didn't adhere to any revelation or to any scripture or to any teaching at all if he was in his true human nature, he was a Muslim.
Now we're really going to get some real help, now we're going to get there---it is really heavy, heavy--- my religion teaches me that the Sun is a Muslim, the Moon is a Muslim, Jupiter, Mars and Pluto and all of them are Muslims, the great star Sirius, Muslim; the wind, the water, the rain, Muslim; the air, the fire, everything Muslim because they are doing what the creator designed them to do.
And if those bodies of the heavens, the material bodies and the material environment obey the laws of its creator- they are Muslim. A Muslim is the name of a behavior, Muslim names a behavior. And once you conform to the excellence G’d created you for, you are Muslim whether you know it or not, whether you profess it or not. I can preach to you this religion and insights and invite you to come up here and declare As shahaadu an laa ilaaha illa Allah I bear witness that there is but one G’d and as shahaadu anna Muhammadan rasoolul Allah and that Muhammad is His messenger. I can preach that to you for three to four hours here and if you were a Muslim before I started talking and after I finish you say, "I am sorry I do not want to join you all, you walk out a Muslim.... 
Now see, this is what our competitors do not want us to tell the world. So they keep us in a fight with them all the time arguing over theological kryptonite---they keep us arguing and splitting atoms of kryptonite, you know; so that our attention won't be on the simple powerful message of our religion. So they tie up the energy of our intellectuals, of our scholars they tie up their energy.
Adding issues, bombings, drugs and all of that keeping them in some kind of crusade all the time, you know? I've learned that this world is petty upstairs but they are real worthwhile down here. So I do not want to go up there unless it is up there to my Lord. That is the only way that I would want to go up there. 
What I am saying is I do not want to be in the ivory tower or Eifel Tower or Ivory Towers of Al Islam; I do not want to be up there. I see up there and I say, hell the higher region is cold, cold, get up there and be instantly frozen; drop down here and sound like silverware. I don’t want that. I prefer simple plain religion. Now G’d blessed me to grab some support right like charity which is a help.
Prophet Muhammed said that “if his followers---he is talking about…if some would take a road up to the mountain and others would take the road down to the plains he would prefer the group that took the road down to the plains to the ones that took the road up to the mountain. So he preferred being on the level to high altitude, right? That is all that I am saying. Because at high altitudes the blood level is affected you lose blood levels, at high altitudes you start hemorrhaging. It is very cold up there---I know because I fly---it is very cold up there, you won't believe the temperatures up there. The captain said that "Well, it is about 80 degrees below zero out there”---80 degrees below zero, I mean we are not flying very high that is just ordinary heights. They go way up there and it gets much colder than that. It gets so cold that you could sneeze and your sneeze will stay in the air long enough for you to photograph it.
[Laughter]
It is cold up there. What is he trying to tell us is don’t be trying to go up to heaven; if you don’t want that kind of cold. Allah tells us heaven is everywhere. He says paradise that He has promise, its expanse where is it? Its expanse tells you where it is. It is as the heavens and the earth---heavens and the earth. So I do not have to go up there, if I go up there I am going to do just what those astronauts do; I am going to get some protection because I know that it is cold as hell up there.
If I have got to go up there I have got to get me a spacesuit I am sure if G’d's wants us up there he is going to give us some spacesuits. Yes, you can't make it up there without a spacesuit. You have to have your own oxygen as there is none up there.
Do not believe that stuff about Superman- do not believe that. A little baby up there on an Ice Planet, and he is sitting down and he just run around out here in a new environment---a new planet--- and he is running down the road chasing trains and stuff.
He sees the train and gets to the crossing before the train. He catches up with the train and out runs the train. He didn’t come from Earth, how does he breathe like that down here with no suit on---just a cape? Blue underwear and tights...I guess that is why Superman has died he is not popular any more. I guess some people laughed at him and the producers say “do American public now, do American citizen we can’t show that kind of stuff too much anymore”... 
Come on. You've got to give it to…Yes, we are living in new times; mass confusion. We are experiencing new times and we all---many of us---are struggling to get back to where we were. We started out all right. The primitive started out right. He started out believing in justice and not only believing in the Lord of justice. He believe that there was a G’d over all of this and that G’d had created him and that that G’d was not favoring the mistreatment that he was receiving from the European-American man. He believed that; he believed it in his soul. 
He believed in so strongly that he would commit a suicidal act. Nat Turner committed a suicidal act. How in the world Nat Turner with his little group could free himself from slavery when the whole South was “slaveland”. And the North would capture you and send you back down there; they would put a net down. So if he was guilty of---I wouldn't say guilty but he was a slave that rose up with arms against his master, they would capture him and hold him for the South. So you know that he knew he was going to die for sure of it. So he did that just to put something on the mind of the people that were in control. He just did that to put something on their mind. He knew he was going to die.
Now maybe John Brown might have thought that it was possible that he might not die. Maybe he thought he could awaken the good conscience of a lot of his people and maybe he would be successful, maybe he thought that.
I am sure that African American slaves knew better---knew that that meant death once they got it. But he was successful and that tells me something else. See a man in the wrong---and that is why I believe so firmly that I had nothing to fear coming into this position, behind the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, my father, I wasn't afraid of anything.
People told me, "You do not know, people believe strongly in that and this and that and that and that. Some of them are dangerous, aren't you afraid for your life?"
I said, "No. I realize that there is a real danger but I am not afraid for my life, no." I was afraid for their lives.
"Yes. I am afraid for their lives and the state they are in." When you're motivated to save life, you don’t have time to think about death. Now I believe firmly that a man who is a notorious, wicked person, a criminal person, is not going to be helped when I meet him in battle; G’d will help me, not help him. He is not going to be helped; I am going to be helped. So I may be much weaker than he is. I may be the less equipped to battle than he is but G’d is not going to help him; G’d will help me.
All I have to do is have no fear and be pure in my mind and in my heart and in my intent and in my purpose, be right. When I go against him I am not worried about the outcome. And most of the time, you do not even have to fight because he is convinced that he ought to just leave you alone. Yeah, I could probably squash him like a little fly. I pity him. G’d put me in charge, yeah I pity him.
I met crazy people before and straightened them up they got sober right away. I do not fear. They are looking at me all crazy and strutting their stuff around. I look him right in the eye---dead in the eye---they do not see fear; do not see nothing but peace. I see them start weakening right before me, going on about his business. [Laughs] Now I hope you think that will work for you, now. I do not know if you--
You have to do some of that for yourself. You hear what I said? You have to discover that for yourself. That has got to work for you a number of times. You have to live it. Don’t invite let it work for you a number of times. Let it work for you over a period of years. Don’t you go out there and…
I learned that even as a young man that because of my goodness in me, I am firm. See some people are good but they are not firm. You think you can be good and that be good and firm. When they see your goodness and your firmness, they respect it. They'll tell you their mind about what they are going to do to you.
That is a sign that we have a wonderful Creator. He creates a being that even though he let his soul and nature become corrupt, he become corrupt, evil and wicked and criminal but when he meets something that is real and genuine, something in him tells him to respect it.
Getting back to what we were saying. What we were saying is we have a great opportunity now to work on establishing ourselves. That should be all of our purpose, to work at establishing ourselves. Yes, that should be all of our purpose, to work at establishing ourselves.
The best way to establish the group of ourselves, the lot of ourselves, is to promote what we are promoting. What I see as true, true democratic principles, true, genuine democratic principles, or principles of democracy. And that is that we promote individual responsibility, individual responsibility for self and society---individual responsibility for self and society, not collective responsibility for an individual and society.
That is what the Jew promoted for us but he got a different principle for himself. Yes, I am not talking about individual Jews. Individual Jews will guide you sometimes in the right way or differently---many times in the right way. If you meet a Jew and you present yourself right, Jews have many faults but I find that they do like to help you if they meet a type of person that they like. You have to present them something like that.
They will give you good advice many times, but the movement---the political movement by the Jewish…is different. They want mass movement, mass movement, and mass demonstrations. They all the time, they want people just complain, complain, complain, be dissatisfied, be dissatisfied, raise hell. That spirit has come into us and most of us are like that. We think, "Oh, we ain't got anything to do." So that is an issue. Nowadays we all come to life there is the issue.
Look, you do not wait for battle to make progress. You go to battle because something is in the way of progress. You should be working in times of peace when there's no issue, no battle, nothing to take you to the battle field. That is the time to be working to establish you. The best way of doing that is to implore people to take upon themselves responsibility for self and society.
Again, I am not selling you anything from myself. What I am telling you is religion, what I am selling you is democracy. Take it upon yourself, responsibility for government.
The President Kennedy---may G’d forgive him his sins and grant him Paradise---when he said, "Think not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country," he was speaking in the same spirit.
He was addressing the same concern; a country cannot progress for long trying to do everything for its people. The best way for a country to move forward is for the people to accept responsibility for their country.
Individuals must accept responsibility for not only themselves but for the collective concern, for the collective concern, and that is what is meant in the symbolism. A man carries the world on his back, a man lifting the whole Earth or for you Christians, a Christian carrying a cross---now we know that cross can be just you. You know I heard the expression “double cross”--- that is two crosses, you are a cross and you carry a cross that is double cross
I am not talking negatively, I mean two crosses. I am giving you the meaning of double cross that is two crosses. It is a sign that you carry yourself.
Yes, you carry a cross that is a sign that you carry yourself. Isn't that what good Christianity teaches you: to carry your own self? Carry your own self. You wear a cross around your neck it means that you are checked by your own self; you carry your own self.
That is what our religion wants, but our symbol is not a cross, we don’t go for a symbol. Our religion wants the same thing look it wants for you to carry your own self. To carry yourself, but to carry more than yourself: to carry society.
In our religion, society is as one person, but not only in our religion but in science, society is one person. We identify the language in science: group personality. What does that mean 'group personality'?
It means that all these people fit in one personality, though they have separate personalities they all fit or identify in one personality. So then one personality, what is that personality? It is like a person, isn't it? If the artist is drawing he would draw one person. Then he would put on there: the collective body of this group under one person, under one individual figure. Are you following me?
That is what the artist would do, he will draw one person and he would call this “Africa” or call this “the African American” or call this “the Chinese American” or “China”. He will make one man and in that one man he would put language describing the personality, the spirit, the soul, and the ambitions of the whole people.
And in the Bible there is the same language as that, saying “bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh, we are one man”. That was the support the people were giving to one of their great leaders in the Bible; they told him so that he would feel that they were really with him and he could be comfortable with their support, "that we are as the bone of your body, of your bone and flesh of your flesh."
So what they were saying was that “we identify in your purpose” and now if you understand it, they were not identifying in his person as 'King by such and such name', 'Son of such and such person', mother, son. They were identifying in his body as representing his person as supporting the ideas that they knew were good for the whole people. So when he identifies in the thinking and the ideas and the purposes, etc that are good for the whole people, then they identify in him and they all become like one person.
So we have our own group personality: African American, as estranged as we are, as separated as we are from each other, as diversified as we are, in our purpose as a people. Do you know we are the most diversified people in our purpose as a people? Religiously, we have a group that has got to be Christian, a group that has got to be Muslim, a group got that has to be something else. And politically, a group has got to follow Jesse Jackson, that is…for all of us, politically.
Then there's a different kind of political thinking in all these groups, this clique follow this kind of political thinking, the next day they follow another kind of political thinking. This fraternity is influencing the religious thinking in this body, another fraternity---a different fraternity influencing another all of the time. These people want pot pie. 
These people want to come together to have a party, a party all of the time. They are more interested in having a big party. They are in the party, party they are all about having fun, and drinking and dancing and sharing each other’s room. Yes this goes on. And there is a group of our people in politics and that is all that they want. They are in politics just for the fun that they can have; traveling to the different hotels. They are the business, they are doing both of the business but their joy is in having these privileges to go to the hotels to party, to drink to go with this woman, go with that man, to spend the money of the tax payers. Yes, there are a lot of them like that. 
So we are so divided, and when we're not divided we become divided automatically if someone asks us to agree on something. The natural impulse in us now is to disagree first, like it came out of heaven: “And the Lord said you must disagree.”
We have to disagree first, “well, I do not think we should do it that way”; “well I do not think we have to go that route”; “well I do not think we should all be of that mind and persuasion.”; “I am entitled to my own opinion” and it just goes on and on and on never coming to any end that is good for everyone. But still in spite of that great division in us, lack of unity of purpose. See as a people we will never all dress the same, we are never going to have the same appetite, and we will not have the same taste for food or same taste for anything. We are never all going to have that, we are different, we should take pride, and we should find pleasure in that beauty, that is beautiful when people can differ in those things. 
Some want the whites to eat everything they eat, “Okay, do you want any coffee? Coffee's good for you.” And he likes it black, “Don’t put that cream in your coffee, it is better black. Can't you tell the difference? Taste it black.” “Well, I do not like it black.” “Taste it black.” We do not want that. Some sisters are the same way, you ask for eggs, “How do you want them?” “I want them over easy.” “That is not good for you.” “That is the way I've been fixing them all my life, my mother fixed them that way.” “Yes, but I haven't been with you all your life. Your mother didn’t fix them for me.”
I am just being plain and simple with you, you know. These kinds of things make life so much trouble for us, make life so burdensome, so miserable, you know. We can't accept differences in each other. We have to accept differences in each other, you know; as long as those differences are not hurting our single purpose. But we must have a single purpose, we must agree on a single purpose and it is only necessary to preach identity and a single purpose to a group, to an ethnic group, to a homogeneous group. It is only necessary to preach that when they have lost what is natural for them, this is natural for people. When something that has happened in their life like slavery---like that peculiar institution of slavery, like the plantation days, that ugly image of us that we bought or accepted from the white man along with his foolishness and his wickedness?
Now we are lost and we do not have a single purpose for our group, we do not have a personality for the group that is really based in nature. Our personality for the group is to bend in the air. It is given to the changing winds of the culture, isn't it? Yes. We take on different images, we just change images. I remember when I was a boy we didn't look like we look now. I am talking about spiritually. Spiritually, African American people didn't look like how they look now, we looked different.
We had a different group spirit and a different group personality. But the winds of the culture, the trends of the other societies they come in and they change us into different forms. We just keep changing what we are.
Thank G’d, a little bit remains because of genetics. Genetics’ power- I think genetic power is what makes it possible to retain a little bit of that unity of life for ourselves.
You can see how right now, here we are here. And you can see the strain on us for us to come into a situation where we all are going to address the same message. And if the message is serious and goes home, oh, the people that looked upset do not look upset. When I came in here today you didn't look like you look now.
That is because you're coming into the same spirit. Gradually you are coming into one spirit, one purpose, and one mind. You're going in the same direction. Your life force is going in unity now. People you look different, and that is wonderful. That happens for us because we know something is seriously missing from our lives. Our nature tells us that even if our mind doesn't register it.
Something is seriously missing from our lives. It is what other tightly united groups have that is missing in us. Those closely-knitted groups; they had it, Japanese, the Cubans, see we thought they were a bunch of wild people in the hills wearing beards.
And just carrying guns and were all about foolishness. They came to Miami and took over the city. ...plenty of governmental ability, they are ruling the whole city banks, business, government...Not only them though, other people are coming in.
Why are they successful and we are not---I mean as a group? It is because they have something that was given to them by nature--- circumstances that unnatural circumstances, have not taken away from them. I am sure you understand what I mean by unnatural circumstances. It is not natural for people to believe they are inferior because they are black or because their hair is natural. You see a sheep got nappy hair, he is not inferior. The black leopard, he is not inferior; the black leopard is not inferior, so how come the black man is inferior? The nappy head sheep is not inferior, how come the nappy head man is inferior? The blunt face gorilla is not inferior, how come the man is inferior?
The blunt face gorilla he meets the sharp featured monkey and...He is not inferior, so it is not the mark of inferiority in the animal kingdom, so how come it is a mark of inferiority in me? Then the white man must be hypocritical, he must be a hypocrite, to say my hair is nappy and that it is a sign that I am inferior. And then he asked in a certain period of their history, he asked that all of the justices, all of the jurors---the people of law, jurisprudents---to wear nappy hair. They used to wear wigs, nappy hair---sheep’s hair. Are you aware of that? That was a sign that they had knowledge, they had the law sheep’s hair. So if you hate nappy hair why do you all wear that with such pride? You say black skin is bad, but you have got a black dog that you are kissing on, and both of you are eating off the same hamburger; and it is blacker than me. So what is that? Black caviar and you're bragging about it. Eating black caviar, you know a lot of us we had to cultivate the taste---cultivate the taste sometime mean to get up the nerve---we had to work up the nerve to eat black caviar, because it looked like dirt.
You know we did not want anything black. I remember, my mother saying “son, I hear that people put green coloring in their cake and they eat the green cake. I can't eat green cake.” Some of us can't eat black caviar. Just looking at it, something about it turns us off.
Sometimes black or something, you do not eat. Since I am on food here a little bit, I am going to tell you something that will help you out. I know you are sensitive, but let me tell you something, we have got to stop asking for well done, everything. “How do you want it?” “Well done.” See, they do not keep food like we used to when times were hard it had to be burned to taste good. But you do not have to eat that cheap food anymore. Stop talking about well done.
“I can't stand it if I see blood in it. That meat is pink, take it back.” You are not satisfied until it is black. It has got to be almost black, and then it is good. It is chewed like cardboard and then it is good? It is good now. Black is chewed like cardboard. I know that you are sensitive; I told you that you were sensitive. “I am not going to eat any blood, you a savage.” I have never read anywhere in any scripture where it says that you are to take all the blood out of the meat before you eat it; make sure there's absolutely no blood in it before you eat it. It says, “Do not eat blood poured forth” It says in the teaching of our religion and the Jewish religion to slaughter the animals while the body is alive so the jugular vein is cut and in its struggle in death the blood pumps out. So most of the blood will get out, the majority of the blood will get out, so you're not to eat “blood poured forth”---just blood by itself out of the body of the animal. It says that you are to get most of the blood out on the body of the animal by slaughtering the animal properly. But to say “not to eat blood”, how are you going to do that? Some blood is trapped in all of the meat. Now, you're going to have to cook it until it doesn't look like blood anymore.
You eating burned up blood, burned blood. Now, I am glad you're offended now, I know you're offended. You are eating burned blood and you feel good eating burned blood and I feel better not burning my blood that much. The meat tastes better when it is not burned that much. It chews better for me not burned that much. I do not like any meat that is chewing like it is cardboard. That is no good. Believe me, meat like that has lost most of its value. You are chewing on something that has lost most of its food value when you cook it hard like that.
You do not have to accept it now. I have no authority to make you to accept it. I do not take upon myself any authority whatsoever to make you or to make you feel bad and disgusted. You can go home feeling good. But believe me; I am telling you from my heart, our people need to stop asking for rust and cardboard.
Do not tell them “well done”. When you go to some of these places you are going to run into people that do not like it. "Well done?" "Yuck!"
… And you are fools enough to hack it and hack it and cut it. It is real thick. I do not buy it. I like myself, you know. I like myself and I want my health, I want to eat what I pay for. I want a piece of nice steak that I can eat as food.
...A steak like that when you cook it properly when you cut it, it is going to have some it is going to have some pink inside...too, you do not like...I think that some of us are not aware that we still want to fight the white people the European American people over the color issues.
That might be a subtle way---a subtle subconscious way of fighting. "How do you want your steak?” "Black." Burnt is called black. That is what you're saying when you say "Well done." Because they have medium well; they have rare, medium, medium rare. They have medium well, they have well. You ask for that last one, you get the piece of wood.
Excuse me. We have a little echo here, but it feels like the heat is breaking it up. It is getting hot up here. Now, so much for that, although there is a lot to be said, or yet I would say on habits like that in us that need thinking about that need to be really looked at very seriously and some intelligence applied. So, in my judgment we should now be working hard to establish ourselves; establishment, establishment.
It is natural for a newly-wed couple, man and wife, to be concerned with establishment; it is natural. People used get married and they get married because they want a better life. They get married for bigger things. They want more responsibility. They do not want to just have babies, they want a house.
Yes, when you get married, they want a house. They say, "Honey, we are going to work and get us a house." Poor people down in the South, I know it because I used to hear it. My father and mother and others talk about what the things they would be dreaming of and wanted to work for. They get married and the man would say, "Baby, we are going to get us a house one day."
Or the wife would tell him, "Honey, we want to get a house". Now that woman helped that man a great deal when she told him she wants a house. She gives him something to work for; she gives him something for the future to work toward. That is the truth. "Let's get a house," now he is going to put all of his energies into trying to get her a house. So, he will work.
The wife nowadays, she wants a television she wants a color television, she wants a leather coat. Well, all I have to do is go snatch that off somebody's back.
That is not anything for him to work for. That is not any long range; long distance route to plan for nothing you can’t get that real quick. You just take that off somebody and say "Here baby here is the leather coat you asked for."
You haven't given him anything yet that will discipline his life. See long range goals discipline the whole of your life. Just one good long range goal could discipline the whole of your life even what you do on Saturday when you are off work will be influenced by your goal. See that is the difference between the people that have some big ideas in mind some big things they are working for and people that have nothing but just Saturday night on their mind.
So, we should be working for establishment. Muslims do not be afraid to work for a home, if you live in an apartment you have children or step children, do not be satisfied to live in an apartment. One day you want to have your own home. And do not let the real estate people tell you that this is bad time to buy a home.
It is always a good time to buy a home. It is never a bad time to buy a home. Work for a home, work to get you a home one day so you and your family will live in a home. If your career is such that living in a home is not practical for you, you would be better off renting an apartment or you will be moving about and all that or your job sends you around that is different. Your circumstances make that not practical that is different, but for most of us we do not have that kind of situation. We should be working for a home.
Not only that, we should be working for masjid. So I said not only for individual responsibility, but our religion and through democracy require individuals that they expect to carry the burden, the concern, the need, the future not only for themselves but his whole society. So we shouldn't be, as individuals, we do not need the imam to come up here and say, "Brother, you should be concerned for this mosque, you should want to see this Mosque improved." No, you have done a wonderful thing here in beautifying that piece of property over there, making it look like a beautiful Mosque that was built from the ground. That is how it looks from the outside to me. And when the inside is done I want to come here. I will make a special trip here, I'll take my money out of my budget or out of my allowance that I get and I will come here on my own and I will pray in that mosque the first day it is open. I will come here the first day it is open, I do not care what day of the week it is just give me a notice and time so I won't put anything in that spot on that day I won't accept anything or appointments. I am going to come here and I am going to pray in that Mosque.
To me that is more valuable---to you, to me, and to us, than a mosque that was bought for $2 Billion dollars, 400 thousand gifts from Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. That it was built from the ground that is more important. It was made by you and your efforts, made beautiful by you and your efforts.
Yes, that is wonderful. We want more of that. Not only that, talking about the Mosque now, I hope I do not hold you too long.
[02:07:21] [END OF AUDIO]

