12/03/2006
IWDM Study Library
WDM on Knowledge, Education and Day of Religion 
Pt 3 
By Imam W. Deen Mohammed

00:04 Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Again... As-Salaam-Alaikum.

00:05 S?: Wa alaikum assalaam.

[foreign language]

00:11 IWDM: The praises for G-d, the Lord of all the worlds, or the Lord of all the systems of knowledge. And we witness that he's one and has no partners with him in the governing or managing, of management of the heavens and earth. And we witness that Muhammad, to whom the Qur'an was revealed is his servant and his messenger and a mercy to all the worlds as given in our holy book, the Qur'an. Upon him be the prayers and the peace in these traditional words...

[foreign language]

01:03 IWDM: And what follows of that salute to the last prophet. I think I have more here that I can give you in the next hour which is partly spent already. We have about 45 minutes Insha'Allah, G-d willing. So what I have to do is take a few minutes to select from my notes what we can handle for this rest of this time.

[pause]

01:58 IWDM: Okay. How many of you are in the audience now, today, here in Homewood at this pleasant spot that I grow to like more and more every time I come here, how many of you were present at Masjid Taqwa that had been opened to my students, my class by our Imam, Dr. Mikal Ramadan? How many of you are here today who were present at our last class meeting? Oh, good, practically all of you. Practically all of you here, wonderful. Wonderful. You know we were talking about commenting on language of the Qur'an and one of the chapters of the 30th or last section of the Qur'an, juz' or section, [ARABIC]. The section title about what are they debating or discussing? And then it says about the great news, the great news. And we were given attention for our discussion to the heel, H-E-E-L, of the foot. And I promised that I was going to further comment on it, didn't I? I did. And I got a message through one of the brothers coming from someone who was there, present, and he said the Imam promised that he was going to show us how to apply the knowledge. Well, I did that too. But I think this person was really being sarcastic, saying, "He's dropping all of this heavy knowledge and nobody can use it. What can we do with this?" Well, if you can't use it, do like the people of the Bible who were trying to get to the promised land.

05:29 IWDM: And they were argumentative, rebellious, doubters, and had troubled their prophets all along the way. So finally, the word came telling them G-d is going to rain from heaven, rain down from heaven for you, manna and quail. What you need to get your life for, and on the way, so you can get in the Promised Land. Saying that manna is going to appear on the ground in the early Fajr time of the day, and it's going to appear as little dew drops that appear sometimes in the morning on the grass and on surfaces, little small specks of water, saying it's going to resemble coriander seeds, a little small seed with a nice smell. But when sun come up, the sun is going to cause it to disappear. Like when the sun come up, the shine and the warmth and the heat takes that little small, the little small specks of dew right off the ground as though they never were there, and dry them up. So it says, "So, before that happen, let every man take his portion that he can get and get it into his own house." Not a wooden house that you prepare and you can go in and out of it like that, or a house you build of material from the ground and you go in and out of it like that, no. The house of your own mind, spirit, soul, et cetera. Taken internally, that's what it meant, internalize it, meaning take it into your own house.

07:53 IWDM: Now, I don't know how we read scripture and can't make connections. The world just disconcerts us, that is, it disarranged our intelligence, our intelligent thinking so we can't even be helped by intelligence in the mind. Can't make the connections with other intelligence in the mind that has a bearing on the need, the issue or the subject. We can't collect our own thoughts for a given task, especially in religion, because we're used to following Happy Feet. [laughter] Don't forget that movie.

08:57 IWDM: Yes, so it says, "Take it into your own house, because if you wait 'til the sun get up, too late." What does that mean? Take it in while you are inclined or in a spirit to take it because if you wait until your mind become active in the day on matters of the daylight, you're going to lose it. So, take it into your own house. Didn't Jesus describe his body as a house? Yes, in the Bible, he describes his body as a house and that he lives in that house. And then he invite all those who will follow him or believe in him to come into that house, the house of his body that conforms to the will of G-d. And the body is called also a temple, the temple, yes? 

10:22 IWDM: So, he asked or he wanted to ask, but he just made a statement that the Imam is going to show us how to apply it. Tell me, the light is shining on in this room right now and we are comfortable because the light is shining in here. But if suddenly these lights go out, we won't be too comfortable, will we? And if every day, you got up and the sun didn't get up, and you know it's supposed to be daytime, and every day you're getting up, and it happened for seven days now, you've been getting up and no sunshine, like the sun has been eclipsed so thoroughly there's no sunlight anywhere, how would that make you feel? And if on the eighth day, the sun came up again, or came through whatever was blocking the light, and shined on you for another bright day, look how happy you would be. Now that's just what the Lord has done for you with the son of Elijah Mohammad. Now don't ask me how to apply it, [laughter] each one of you, look at your need, look at your own personal circumstances. Now if your circumstances and need is that of a gnat, don't ask me big questions with your little small self.

12:14 IWDM: If your intelligence was big enough, you wouldn't even ask me such question, how to apply what you have given us. Your brain would be turned on. Your intelligence would be energized. Your thoughts would be coming so fast and so powerful you would be so grateful and so full that you'd just be waiting for me to conclude so you wouldn't disrespect me, so you could get to work with your new mind and new intelligence.

12:51 IWDM: G-d said he made the day for livelihood and the night for rest, huh? Now we may use the night in different ways and use the day and abuse it, but G-d said he made the day for livelihood, for activities that support your needs and the community. And he made the night for rest, so you would be rejuvenated. And he takes you in to a quiet, peaceful place and he turns the lights of the world out. And he lets you hear the voice of Elijah Muhammad's son. Huh? 

13:31 IWDM: And it rejuvenates you, repair you for the rising sun, huh? So when the light come on, don't ask me how to apply it, take your manna into your own house before it dries up and burn away in the light of your small mind! I hate to talk to you that way, but you asked for it.

14:07 IWDM: Allah says, highly glorified is he in the Qur'an, talking about trees. We always follow up on so whatever we give the broadcast, the live broadcast, we follow up on it the second hour. Allah says, "And there are some trees out of which comes fire." Hmm? 

14:35 IWDM: Fire. And he calls the tree, green tree. Green tree. A green tree, what does it mean? A baby tree in the evolution of human intelligence for community life. It's a baby tree. Green means first. See, those things that are green are usually the things that appear after coming out of the dark womb of the soil, the top soil. When they come out of the dark womb of the soil, the sunlight paints them green. Hmm? 

15:28 IWDM: Yes. The roots are white out of the sunlight, innocent and pure as G-d created them. But the life of the plant turns green in the light of the sun, like the grass, like the vegetables that turn green, like the leaves of the tree that are green. But here is a tree supporting leaves with a wooden body, strong body of wood, hmm? 

16:13 IWDM: And the green comes after the tree and the bark about the wood and the branches branching out and the leaves coming to form on the small branches, on the very small branches, the leaf. If you see leaves growing out of the heavy wood, then that's a tree that dropped its seeds and that some of the seeds got lodged into crevices of the bark and took root in the crevices of the bark, and that's why you see the green leaves on the trunk of the tree growing out of it. Hmm? That's not the normal circumstances. The normal circumstances would have the leaves forming on the small, very small branches that branch off from the big ones, and they appear green, and they appeared green, beautiful green. And in the fall, they appear even more beautiful for most trees, most plants. Yes, so the green is the first phase.

18:01 IWDM: And that's why the grass is a symbol or a parable of the grass, is a parable of the life of the son of man in the Bible 'cause it's the life... First phase of the life. And the green is not woody or hard and stiff, the green is soft. So this is a baby. So when the fellows on the street, during my boyhood and early teens, they say, "Oh man he's green." They meant he wasn't yet grown up in his mind, that he was ignorant of the matters of life that were important to the guys on the street or he's green. There's a lot to be said about this color green but let's stay with scripture. Jacob, he came to Laban or Lebon and he wanted Laban, the father, to give him his daughter, Rachel. And Laban accepted that he be given Rachel on the condition that he work seven years for her as a dowry, I guess. So Jacob believing that, he worked seven years. And at the conclusion of the seven years, he came for Rachel. But Laban told him, "Oh no. The first seven years was not for Rachel, that's for Leah." Now Rachel, as the name implies, she is the spiritual community. She has means to rise up from the earth and sail through the skies. But Leah, she is of the earth, she can't take to the air and fly. So that was a great disappointment for Jacob 'cause he came for the spiritual community, not for the material community.

21:21 IWDM: So what happens before this agreement takes place? He invites the landlord, the boss, Laban, to agree upon something that will permit him to get establishment on Leah's land, I mean on Laban's land. And he said to Laban, he said, "There are cattle. Will you agree that all the cattle that come rain-streaked, R-A-I-N streaked, striped, be mine and those that are not born rain-streaked be yours." Rain, the play on the spiritual life. And Laban agreed to it, he said, "Okay." He said, "All those that come rain-streaked will be yours. So Jacob set up a situation to have cows give babies that would be rain-streaked. All of the symbolic are mysterious. He said esoteric, if you can understand what I'm saying. He said, "I'll have the cows when they come to drink water facing the plant that I have stripped the outer covering off of to show the cows what's under the cover of these trees or these plants." So he stripped the some of the outer covering off and what was shown or what appeared was the white and the green of the plant, of the meat of the plant.

24:16 IWDM: The white and the green, that's what appeared. So, those cows that came to drink, and he had did that thing in their sight so that they, when they're drinking, they couldn't help but see that. They gave birth to babies, or calves, that were rain-streaked, rain-streaked. So that's how Jacob got cattle power. Now, to save a lot of conversation, and a lot of time, 'cause for some of you it doesn't make any difference whether it's a half a minute or 10 hours... And I don't have, I have my students out there, among them is a good number that I don't have to waste all that time with. So, to make it short, the cows are students. They are students, and Jacob are going to make them professors. He going to make them scholars, but they're going to be his scholars. They're going to be his professors; his scholars. So he's teaching them about the nature and inner workings of life and he's showing them the spiritual life running side by side with the cultural life, with the cultural life. The innocent moral and spiritual life running parallel with the cultural life, with the innocent cultural life, which is the green, the green. So he's showing them how, in Jacob's order for society, originally, the two life urges or concerns were running parallel in their original nature.

26:32 IWDM: They run parallel, and they are good. The green and the white. Yes. Hmm? Yes, so this is attractive to those calves, I mean to those cows who are going to bear the new generation of scholars. This is attractive to them. He excites them with his insight and to the culture of Laban. And he educates them in ways that they had no way of being educated before. So now their loyalty is no longer to Laban, their loyalty is to Jacob. Hmm? [chuckle] And the same Jacob managed to trick his own brother up in the womb of the mother so that he came out first to look like he's the one that's justly due the first claim to inheritance. So at first, he tricked him up in the womb, he took his brother's birthrights. And then he also fed him pottage and took his inheritance. [chuckle] Yeah, this is Jacob. Not Jacob the prophet, this is the world that schemes to rob man of his inheritance, of his rights and his inheritance. This is the wicked world, I'll again repeat, not Jews, not the prophet Jacob, but that element among the Jews. Alright? Working to take man's rights and man's rights to life and man's right to his inheritance away from him. Yes. And that's the murder of the innocent original man. Hmm? Yes, you should recall that language.

[background conversation]

29:00 IWDM: So after he worked seven years for Leah, he gets Leah. And you see how he got Leah? [laughter] So I guess Laban said, "I've been watching you. You isn’t going to get Rachel. I isn’t going to give you Rachel. I see what you're doing. I'm going to give you Leah." [chuckle] So you have earned the right to have... " Yeah, you get the scholars behind you, how is Laban, and Laban isn’t nothing but a symbol to them, a mysterious symbol, he's not a man. He's not a person. Laban represents the moral culture; the moral culture, or milk from which we get butter and cheese or labnon.

30:04 IWDM: Alright, so yes, get my thoughts back where they were.
