11/30/1979
IWDM Study Library
Jumuah - Masjid Malcolm Shabazz

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
I bear witness that nothing deserves except Him alone, there is none like him. And I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger. We praise Allah and give all praise to Him alone and we ask the promised blessings upon Prophet Muhammad, the last of the Messengers or the last of the Prophets of all mighty G-d. We ask His blessings upon his companions upon the righteous servants, all of them, upon us here in America and throughout the world. We ask Allah's guidance. We ask us forgiveness for our faults, we ask that He purify our hearts. Dear beloved brothers and sisters, we have gathered here on this day, Jumu'ah day Friday for our Jumu'ah service, Jumu'ah service. Muslims take very serious the Jumu'ah service which was first established by Prophet Muhammad, Peace and blessings be upon him. The Muslims do not believe in the Sabbath. There is no Sabbath in Al Islam.
There is no holy day in Al Islam. All the days are the same. Allah brings us together. All of our efforts to unite ourselves will be defeated eventually if we don't make Allah the purpose of our whole lives. This is the meaning. Man and his five senses as G-d created the idea. We all know that we have five senses. We see, we hear, we taste, we smell, we touch. All of these are natural. These are natural senses and it is from the five natural sense that man has been able to get meaning out of his life and knowledge from the environment. Five senses. It was not only that. And it's a scientific of man's life that actually we have five and not six, we don't have six senses. And when we understand fitrah, we also agree that five is the figure. Five is the figure and not six.
For Christian people or those who have Christian background, Christian education, if you familiar with the Bible there are two places in the Bible where five is mentioned in this same context that I'm referring to now. The Bible says David took out five smooth stones from the water, five, not seven, five. And the New Testament has Jesus talking with a woman at the well and he said, you have had five husbands and the one you have now is not yours, five. Husband, for those who study Bible it means authority, means a head, a ruler, authority. The Bible says that the man is the head of the woman or the husband the head of the wife, symbolically speaking. And Jesus is the head of the man. So we know that in Bible context, a husband also means ruler, a father. And we know it from many parables of the Bible Jesus himself spoke of himself in a parable like that as a gardener, a husbandman.
But our first body, biological first body, we have five senses that rule in our first body. These senses play a major role in our lives. And because of the higher senses in our lives, we sometimes confuse them and think that this is another sense, not another sense it's the same sense just with a higher expression. So man is not to speak of six, he's five. And G-d has marked us with five. Five fingers on each hand. Five toes on each foot. Yet we see six all through the Bible and finally at the end of the Bible, six is the number of the beast, it's not the number of the human being. So we are not looking for a sixth sense, we looking for our common sense. So we should arrive at common sense first and from common sense you get all the other sense Seven has another meaning. Six has another meaning.
Let bring together our good five senses. If we respect our good five senses this is something we all share in common. We all feel, we all see, we all hear, we all smell, we all can taste. And if you apply those rules to the higher levels of the mind, you'll see that the five senses are always operating in man. The scientists studies the five senses. Dear Muslims of the world it is important to hold on to your identity and not lose your identity. We live in a time of great confusion. Opposites are coming together that shouldn't be together. And if you don't know your own distinction, your own identity, then you are subject to lose your Muslim mind and your Muslim conduct. There are many people selling religion for $2 a book, $4 a book, and you can go into almost any book shelf and you can buy you a piece of religious philosophy, a piece of secret doctrine for $2, $3, $4. You can stand on almost any street corner and get a new interpretation of the Qur'an, A new interpretation of the Bible, a new idea about what life is, how life should be directed.
The world is crowded, it's hard to protect yourself in a crowded world like this. Your children are mixing with other children and their minds are filled with so many opposing ideas, conflicting ideas and principles. But it's hard for you to even warn your child against the voice that is out in the street because how can you describe it? How can you define it? It's so mixed up. It's so varied until it's hard for the mother to even say Son, you're to look out for such and such. There's too much to look for. She just say be careful.
There's too much out there, too much out there. Everything that's coming together right in our backyard, the front yard, you see. Everything coming together, all kinds of mind, all kinds of ideas, all kinds of bad habits and good habits all mixed up. How are we to survive in a world like this? It is going to take great effort, great effort, tremendous effort on the part of every sincere person to survive in a world like this. We can no more think as innocent children. This is good, that's bad, distinguishing that bad boy from that good boy. It's not that simple anymore.
The best boy now may be dangerous. Yes, and the bad boy may have a lot of good to offer. It is not that simple anymore. The good life of the people now is so confused that you don't know whether you're shaking the hand of a Christian, a priest or devil. You don't know what you're dealing with. Person may carry a Bible cross around their neck or some zikr beads and a Holy Qur'an under their arm and you don't know. Could be a devil, could be a saint, could be anything.
In fact, the person might not know who he is himself. Yes, he might think he is a priest for G-d might be a devil, you know. Life is so confused now. It's important for Muslims to know what a Muslim is so you'll always keep before you what a Muslim is. If you don't, the world will confuse you and they're putting out so many books. You got Christians and Jews and even atheists writing about Al Islam, writing on Prophet Muhammad, writing on the Qur'an, on Al Islam. You go to the bookshelf and pick up one of those books and you come back home. The Meaning of Al islam by Mr. Shaw. Great, great book. And you read it and it send you 72 trillion miles out in space from Al Islam.
We need unity more now than ever. The unity of the Muslim is more important now than ever. We need support for leadership now more than ever. We need to keep our focus on our leader now more than ever because everything is trying to lead us. Everything is calling our attention. Everything is trying to pull our life and if we don't keep our eye focused on our leadership, we'll be led astray. We have to become protective like we used to be in the thirties and forties and early fifties and sixties. We were very protective minded. We were conscious of the bad influences and we were protective minded. We wanted to protect ourselves and we wanted to protect our brothers and sisters. We have to become like that again because we are faced with a time now that is really more detrimental to our minds and our lives than the thirties, the forties and fifties were. Don't be afraid of power. Be afraid of weakness.
You need power and power is in you sticking to your religion, knowing your religion, keeping your identity as a Muslim and supporting strong leadership. That's what power is. Weakness is in being lax. Just let things come in and out your mind from any sources and if it sounds good, it's good. No. Things are designed now to fool our senses, to fool our senses. How do you survive in a world that makes it's every effort, the exploitation of your purpose, that tries to deceive your focus. You can't survive in a world like that unless you have knowledge. You have to have knowledge or you have to be dead to that environment, dead to the world as scripture says. You have to be dead to the environment or you have to have superior knowledge.
Don't overestimate yourself. I can handle it. I can handle it. I want to go down and talk to this group, their discussion, the cosmic powers of the mind. I can handle it. Maybe you can and maybe you can't. The best way to handle it is to stay out of things that are not for you and that kind of stuff is not for Muslims. Al Islam is for us. We have the Qur'an, this is our book. We follow our own guidance, we don't follow other people's guidance. We follow the guidance that Allah has revealed. That's the guidance for us. This world now as it is now is making every effort pull the life away from its good senses. And it's trying to change life from intelligent behavior to vibrations behavior. You respond just to a sensation. If it felt good, then it's good. If it made me happy, it's good. You can get something to make you happy and laugh you crazy and you'll go to the mental institution laughing. So everything that make us happy is not good.
The human being has a threshold. We have a tolerance point that can be destroyed, and once it is destroyed, the intelligence responses are gone. In this environment we are force fed, force fed to drive us to the point of over saturation. For what, what is the purpose of this? Why are we given all the Super Fly we stand and then Superfly is dead and a new thing is in fashion and we are given all that that we can stand until it dies and it's no more. This is an old trick of the devil, to feed you influences so he can control you and to benefit financially from his feeding you and to burn you out on that and bring in a new fresh thing. And just keep you going from one slavery to another slavery that feeds their greedy pockets.
That's the life we are in. That's the life we are in. Look at the money we spend on clothes. Clothes, clothes, clothes, clothes, clothes. Look at the money we spend on records, records, records, records, records. The money we spend on just trying to get a big charge out of something. Oh I got to have a big charge. And as fast as we burn out on one thing that's brought in fashion, a new thing is right on the market. Before that thing can go out, before it's gone from the market, a new thing is there to build you back up to a great peak, a great charge.
We need our energies organized to produce a better life ourselves, for our children, for our families, for society. But we can't get our energies organized because so many things are appealing to us, to our appetites, to take our attention away and take our energies away and just disperse the energies and the mind out in the influences of the society so that a man is really all broken up, disunited, disorganized, his vital forces going in opposite directions instead of being centered somewhere for his own personal benefit and for the benefit of his loved ones, his family, his society. This is an old trick. This is nothing new, old trick. Every so often material goods, that is the production of material goods reaches the peak and money become the main interest of the society. When that time comes then the good life of the people is brushed aside for profit, for moneymaking. That's the kind of time we have been in. That's the kind of time we are still in, but no one really cares about the individual. Who do you think cares about you as an individual? Allah, the righteous, nobody else. Do you think that television care about you as an individual?
What do they say over tv? Everything, it's pathetic. Everything. They say everything and they appeal to all kind of appetites. Today they'll be talking moral talk, tomorrow they'll be talking against the thing they said, the moral thing they said today. And more constant than anything else on TV is the appeal to get you to spend with no sense. Senseless spending, to make you do senseless spending. That's the great effort of television to make you do senseless spending. And they getting the people to follow them too. The people do just what they want them to do. The people spending senselessly. How are they successful?
They're successful the cause they can deceive your senses. They can deceive your senses because you don't give your senses to Allah. You don't give your senses to Allah. Anyone who doesn't give their senses to Allah, they can be deceived. If you give your senses to Allah, Allah will protect you. Your faith will keep you protected. Allah will be protecting you. Your good nature will be organized because you're given your senses to one Allah. If you don't do that, then you exposed. You are open to their attack. As they tell you, nothing matters but you. You the only thing in this world that matters. And that sounds good to you you see. Oh, I wish my husband would talk to me like that. And the brother, he says, I wish my wife could recognize me. I wish she could see what I am.
The little children there, they're saying too, I wish mommy could say something nice like that to me or I wish daddy would say something nice like that to me. Only you matter. You the only thing in this whole wide world that matter. So the effort is to invade our minds, our conscious, our soul nature, the nature of the soul and to just take it over under a pretense that they are going to serve our individual needs or take care of you. You are the most important person in the whole wide world. We believe it, so we sit there and we listen.
When they get through with us, we are finished. We ain't no more good to society. We are only good for the sponsors, the TV sponsors because we going out and buy toys that our children don't need. We are going out and buy food that we don't need. We are going to buy shoes, clothing that we don't need. We are going to spend money on self-destruction because you the only one in this whole wide world that matters. Yeah, I'm snorting coke, it's my business. It's me. I'm going to abort this child. It's my business. It's me. This is my body.
Yeah, I'm drinking again. It's me, my body. Yeah, I'm going to divorce this nigga. You just married him last night. I'm divorcing him today. That's my business. Yeah, I'm planning a robbery. It's my business. You ain't going to go to jail for is sucker. It's my business. So they breed the thinking in us to destroy the society. They don't care about the society. They want your money. Even crimes brings money into their pockets. I'm talking about the big satan. The big satan, not the small thief. The big, big thief. One who robbed the whole earth. Yes, they've exploited this country, used up this country until there's no more possible now to do business in a seemingly honest way. That the only thing possible now is crime, dishonest business and crime.
So really they're pulling up stakes. They don't want it. See how the cities are deserted. See how all the strong decent elements in cities are gone away from the city. The people who used to want to keep a good store here, they're gone. People that wanted to keep a good piece of property here, they're gone. You see how the schools deteriorating, how they're being abandoned? No more help for the schools in the big cities. Why? Because the getting is not as good as it used to be. There's not as much wealth to take out of the city as there used to be. So it's not attractive to them anymore. So let it fall. And while it's falling let us get all we can get.
Let us break every tie that's bind people together in some kind of loyalty or some kind of mutual respect. Let's destroy the unity of the father and the mother, the unity of the family. Let's destroy the support of the individual for his neighborhood, for his religious institutions, for the institution of learning, for their schools. Let's destroy even their support for the government. Let's make them more important than government. Let's make them more important than religion. Let's make them more important than G-d. Let's make them the only thing that matters. So we can break every tie, break every bond so there'll be no force to deal with but the individual. That is an evil scheme, and that's the evil scheme that we've been living under and we're living under right now. Evil scheme, the only thing can save you is Allah.
Don't turn your eyes from your own religion. Keep your eyes on your own religion. Don't think it's church religion. It's not. This religion is standing. The church has failed. We have historical proof for this. Communism has tried to topple the Mosque, the Mosque still stands. Even in Communist Russia the Mosque still stands. But a whole nation, a whole people. Russia was once Christian, turned to Communism. Right in our backyard, Cuba. Was Christian, turned to Communism. But look in Asia where Al Islam has spread. Even in Europe, where Al Islam has spread. Inn China, where Al Islam has spread. In Communist Russia and Communist China where Al Islam has spread, the people are still holding on to Al Islam.
They even have the freedom to practice their religion. They have to do it secretly. But yes, the Muslims are still there. Their numbers are not decreasing, their numbers are increasing. Yes, this religion can stand up to the scheme. Christianity was not established to deal with this kind of thing that you have in the world today. Christianity was designed for innocent people, sweet, loving, beautiful people. It's a religion for babies. That's why the Apostles in the Bible, they say my little children. Paul, speaking to the grown up Gentiles, my little children. Peter speaking to the grown up Gentiles, my little children. And you never hear one of the Gentiles speak back to them and say my little children. Because they weren't little children.
They were from the Jewish people and they had major knowledge. They weren't little children, but the Europeans did not know about that knowledge. It was being introduced to them. So they were little children. And those little children brought it to America. And when you came in as a slave into their little nursery you were an even smaller child then they are. So how is your baby religion going to stand up to the man web of deceit? No, indeed. Can't make it. Can't make it. The church is falling. Every time a test come like this, the church falls. Church can't survive it.
The Pope, what is he preaching now? Universalism. He's not preaching Catholicism. In order to stand and be recognized and get some supporters, he has to come out of the tight Catholic church and he has to preach Universalism. In fact, I just read in the paper today where he's quoting the Qur'an. He didn't admit it but he quoted the Qur'an. He said that the 700 million Catholics and over 800 million Muslims and others, Christians and Muslims must compete with each other in emulation of good. That's a quote from the Qur'an. Allah in the Qur'an He challenges. The good Jews, the good Christians and us to compete as though in a race for all that is good.
If there's anybody surviving now in this trying time, that person is embracing more and more Islamic teaching because the only thing can hold up society now is Islamic teaching. Materialism is failing. We've had ourselves our fill materialism. Now the materialism is killing us. If you just keep eating it you lose your human form, you're no more human. Most of the materials they are on the heroin or something else artificial. Smelling old socks or something. Yes, materialism has gone to his feet. And now the materialist, in order to keep eating the materialist, he has to become a freak. Yes, he has to become a freak. He just can't be natural. I heard one materialist that say about two years ago. See, I can't enjoy that no more. I have to have a young boy.
That's the punishment of G-d. Allah is punishing us. He's punishing us for going so far astray from the nature that He created us in. Punishing us. So where is the world going if it's not coming to Al Islam. It has to come to Al Islam. Now don't you be a fool and think that somebody else has some dignity to compete with yours. No. That they all rank the same. No, they don't rank the same. Al Islam is a rank all to itself, it has no competition coming from nowhere. Well, why do we see that savagery in Iran if Al Islam is such a dignified religion? That's something you are going to learn if you stay around on earth. You are going to learn just why that savagery is in Iran and when you learn maybe your attitude will change.
Oh yes. Dear beloved brother and sisters, the human being, I heard the learned man very learned Caucasian man, I can't recall his name now. He said on television, he said that the human life is seen in the curiosity of a human being. And he says once a man loses curiosity, he sees to be a man. Now, I don't say I agree with that statement a hundred percent, but there's a whole lot of truth to that statement. That was his definition of a human being and man, curiosity. Now I say that's good and it can be bad too because we have a curiosity for many things. We have a curiosity for self-development, for knowledge, for information that helps develop us in a positive way and we have a curiosity for destructive things you see? So it's not always true that the curiosity is all of it.
 A healthy curiosity, a human's curiosity an intelligent curiosity is the life of a human being. If you look at the human beings in our society, you'll see that we are basically of two descriptions. One, it's seeking to just get pleasure out of life. Self-gratifying, self-gratifying appetite. That's the majority. And the others are those that are looking for self fulfillment. They're looking to improve themselves, to get more out of their worth as an individual. They're looking for self fulfillment. They want to enrich their individual life. They don't want to stop until they have developed every potential.
They want to get the fullest harvest possible from their life. The harvest of self-gratification is a dangerous pursuit dear people. And that's what the people want you to have in this society. They want you to have the mind to just look for things that please you as an individual. The human being hasn't become a very great and important creature on this earth because he has been centered, interested in his own individual appetites and needs. He has become the great, the great supreme creature among the creatures of the earth because he has broadened his interest. His interest has grown from himself as an individual to his wife, to his babies, to his neighbor, to his neighborhood, to his state, to his nation, to the world. And as his interest left himself and began to include others outside of himself, he became a great creature. He was able to do great things. He distinguished himself from the brute beast because his interest left self-interest and went out to include others in his interest.
The charges that's coming off the media, newspaper, magazines, comic books, everything, movie houses, everything is saying forget about everybody else. You the only one that matters. We should catch those devils and hang them or chop their heads off. Believe me, if we could identify them, we should catch 'em and then execute 'em on TV, on prime time. You see how easy it is to be a savage and a fanatic in a world like this? And you know me, I'm not a savage. I'm not a fanatic, but I like to execute 'em because their crimes against humanity are outrageous. Outrageous, deserve swift punishment. Oh yes, but they're here. So the only way we can fight them is to develop our human strength, develop our good human potential under the light of almighty G-d. Can't do it in the dark. We can't guess at it.
We don't know this fine machine called human being, human nature well enough to guess at its operation. G-d has revealed the Qur'an, it guides us. It tells us how to get the best out of this machine. Let us follow G-d's guidance. As long as we follow the guidance of Allah, we safe. We have to raise the level of our conscience from just the blind kind of sentimental life to a rational life. We have to come to the Masjid and hear the Imam talk and the Imam has to be aware of the need in the human being for rational understanding. The 'Imam must study the Qur'an and he must give the people a line of wisdom, a verse of wisdom, a chapter of wisdom. He must bring out the beauty, the logic of the Islamic life and he must impart that to the people so the people will be rational as well as emotional in their religious life.
Sure, we want to be feel good. Sure we want to feel good, but there come a time when you have to accept to feel bad. Yes, say look, when I pull this tooth, it's going to hurt. Yes, I know it. Get that thing out of my mouth. Yes, you reach a point where you are ready to endure pain to get rid of a problem. Now our life is filled with problem that keep us going from uncertainty to uncertainty. We want to feel good but we have to have knowledge to operate on ourselves when it's necessary. Knowledge to say no you don't do that. No you don't buy that. No you don't take up company with those people.
Time for the good forces in the world to come together against the evil forces, against the bad forces. Time for us to collect our lives as Muslims under the light of Al Islam so that we keep our lives Islamic. And it's time for us to reach our hand out to the sensitive people among the Christians and say to them, you want the same good moral life that we want. The enemies and the environment are the same for both of us. Say we are friends, we have common interests, common concerns, we will fight together. Let's shake hands. We need each other and we should do that also to Jews who are well-meaning, who are working for the good interest, for the good wellbeing of life and for its progress. Yes, but when you stick your hand out, make sure that your hand is a Muslim hand. Don't get confused and let stick out a Baptist hand and call yourself a Muslim.
So we have to know something about our religion. We just can't steal Muslim, we have to know something about our religion. Our religion is a very easy religion to understand and follow. It is a religion that requires that the human being give his appetite to the discipline that G-d has revealed. I'm not allowed to just like anything I want to or hate anything I want to hate. The guidance of G-d tell me what is acceptable, what is halal and what is haram. What is permissible, what is forbidden is decided by the revelation of G-d. You know even this old mind, well if you want it let her have it. I can't stand to see her suffer.
I can't stand to see society suffer. I can't stand to see the future suffer. If individuals have to suffer so the future won't suffer, then let individuals suffer. We want to suffer when it's necessary. That's why we fast during the month of Ramadan. We practice self restraint so we'll know how to live with a little discomfort. Isn't it uncomfortable? It's not comfortable when you hungry for food you can't eat it. You're thirsting for water and you can't drink it. That's not comfortable, but that's life. You have to learn how to restrain yourself in order to do better and get better and avoid trouble. If you don't have no kind of muscle of self restraint you are an easy tool for anybody that want to use you. Yes, you're subject to be made a victim of anything because you don't have the muscles of self restraint. How much dope could they sell in our neighborhood if we had the muscles of self restraint. Could they divide us one against another?
Could they isolate us from each other and just use up our monies and use up our life, deny us the credit of our labor, deny us an opportunity to even work. Could they do this if we had great self restraint? No. Our muscles of self restraint would be the power we need to overcome what they're doing against us. We'd be prepared to battle them with nothing but our own human strength. Yes, as terrible things are in this country for me and you, for Bilalian people and other people of the masses, the unfortunate masses, the poor masses of people in this country. Don't you know we need a real, real shocking demonstration. We need to demonstrate our disgust with this life in a way that would shock the minds of the people. But who is prepared to give that demonstration. Most of us are not because we are not prepared to go to jail, we are not prepared to be hungry today and next week. We're not prepared to miss the welfare check for three or four weeks or maybe a few months. You see?
You can't do a thing, no strength. We need strength, self-discipline to tell yourself I will not have that though I want it, but what I want beyond that is more important to me than that. So I'm going to do without that to get what's beyond that. It takes strength, takes strength. Get rid of this appetite for self gratifying things, pleasures. Think of improving your life, making the worth of your own individual life better, increasing the worth of your own individual life so you'll be a source of strength for yourself, for your wife, for your husband, for your children, for your neighbors, for your friends, for good people in your community and outside of your community. We have to live with each other. We have to live together. We have to pool all our energies together to save society. We just can't live for ourselves as individuals. The life is too confused, too burdensome. Dear beloved brothers and sisters believe in Allah, who created everything. Get rid of your desire for self glorification. Don't want to see yourself lift up in the heaven, and the angels singing. Try to please Allah and Allah alone. Don't try to please me. Try to please Allah. If you try this you'll be successful. Anything else you'll keep failing.
Try to please yourself you're going to fail. Try to please your loved ones you're going to fail. Stop doing that and try to please Allah you will start being successful. Prophet Muhammad says, I have come to you with two authorities, the Qur'an and my own example. And in another place he says, none of you will be a believer until your inclination follow what I've come to you with. Our appetites, our desires are not to go away from our religion, our Qur'an and the example established in the life of Prophet Muhammad to go after this man after this fashion, after this personality, after these goods. No, we are to discipline our whole life with the yardstick of our religion.
Take that role and discipline your whole life. If you want to enjoy the material things of life, then check Qur'an and see what rules should be applied as you go out to enjoy the material things in this life. See what it demands of you as a person going out for the material things in this life. If you think you're so handsome that everybody should swoon when they look at you and that has become your mind and your life, your own beauty, then search the Qur'an and see what rules should be applied to your mind. See what the Qur'an says about vanity.
Yes, there is a prayer or statement that is a prayer also that was left to us by Prophet Muhammad, Peace and blessings be upon him. "Oh Allah, make my internal self beautiful as you have made my external self." Because that's what matters, how you look on the inside. That's what really matters. The outside can destroy you. You see? So we have a guidance to follow dear people. One Allah and associate nothing with Him. Get away from this idea that G-d is a mystery that can be found in human beings of some discipline you see. Some special holy man or something.
Stop looking for Allah in yourself. You'll never find Allah in you. Look for Allah in the Qur'an. This is revelation. If you want to find Allah read the Qur'an. That's how you find Allah. Don't get by yourself and start to find, I'm going to find Allah. Pretty soon you hearing things and you think that's Allah and we hear from you and you writing us from some mental institution or something and wondering how come you are there. How come they got G-d? Isn't that something they even locked up Allah. Oh this is a terrible world. They even locked up Allah. Allah told us that think not that our form, the human creation is a bigger thing than the universe.
That's wisdom to protect us. G-d has put man in this creation and has given him the tools, the potential for mastery in this creation. But man, he is prone to be deceived by his own successes into thinking that he has some special divinity or some special power. No, your special place is given to you by Allah. That's how come you are able to master your environment. Allah has given you that, not because of you. You stopped following Allah and start depending on yourself and everything in the environment will start to master you. Yes, dear beloved brothers and sisters, Allah says, Let us come to common terms between ourselves and you. This is a Muslim saying to Christians and others who are guilty of associating G-d's with G-d. That we raise not up from among ourselves Lords other than Allah.
That's very clear, very plain that no individual should ever think that he or somebody in his creation or his society can be a G-d. Oh he is the G-d. Here is the G-d Jesus Christ. He is the G-d. G-d has manifested in him. G-d is in him. Oh no, the flesh is not G-d but G-d is in him. How is that any different from the one who builds the idol of clay or iron and he says, here's my G-d. And you say, oh, that's not G-d and you break the clay. He say, oh, I knew the clay wasn't G-d but G-d is in the clay. You haven't hurt G-d. You only broke my clay.
And we shoot the G-d. This brother Joseph, he say he's G-d. You see, we shoot him, we kill him and his worshippers say, you didn't kill G-d, you only killed his body. Well the one who makes the clay body can say the same thing or the iron body or the glass body. He says, this is G-d. He can say the same thing. You didn't hurt my G-d, you just destroyed his body. And in the Qur'an shows us that really the one who makes the human being a G-d, he's just as stupid as the one who makes the clay G-d, or iron G-d, or wood G-d. They say, Oh we know that these things are not G-d but they are mediums to bring us to G-d. Through these things we reach G-d. In other words, the thing we made with our hands housed the spirit of G-d. You see, that's what they said. The same thing that the Christian will say who thinks Jesus to be G-d. Oh his flesh is not G-d, but his flesh housed G-d. G-d was in him.
This is a serious thing for us. Very serious thing. You'd be surprised to know how many Muslims have been led astray, have been led away from real Islamic thinking to really accept this un-Islamic thinking and to believe that man is also divine. That man has divinity in him. That if man gets the spirit of G-d in him, then he at that time G-d is in him. then there is G-d. Some of them use the expression in the Qur'an that Allah is the hidden and the manifest to mean that G-d is hidden, yes there's an aspect that is hidden, there's a form that is hidden, but there's a form that is apparent that you can see. Know many things are apparent. Allah is never physically apparent. And this physical thing is by its own presence and nature, inferior, imperfect subject to decay.
Is there any dying thing in Allah? Is there anything that must be fed in Allah? Must be nourished, must be kept up. No, Allah is independent of creation. He needs nothing of creation. He never changes. He never was born. He never will die. Everything else is passing away, undergoing change and decay but Allah undergo no change. Time, years, slumber, sleep, nothing of the material nature touches Him. It's Allah. But you'll find some people who say they're Muslim believing that a man can house Allah. How can a man house Allah? Oh but brother, the Qur'an says that Allah hovers between a man's heart and his desires.
Certainly, but you can't say there is Allah. You don't say there is Allah when the Qur'an says, Anywhere you turn your face there is Allah. So if somebody say Allah is in brother John so-and-so. I say, well how can he be when the Qur'an say anywhere I turn my face there is Allah. So there is Allah everywhere, any point there is Allah, there is Allah, there is Allah. Any point there is Allah. So how can He be housed in a man? Oh, something of Him is in me. I have something of his Ruh. Okay, you got something of His Ruh. Okay, something of his Ruh alright is in you.
So you are telling me then that you've got a piece of Allah and somebody else may have a piece and Allah just in pieces all about. I got something of His Ruh in me. So Allah just pieced up like that, huh? We have to be aware of this kind of thinking, this kind of thinking keep us from getting the benefits of our religion. Yes. We can never get the benefits of our religion when we are not having the right concept of Allah. You see, Allah says that He has given every human being something of His Ruh. To visualize this as some composite physical thing that there is spirit or energy in me and you from Allah is wrong.
That leads to shirk. It leads to idol worship. The deification of a human being. That's wrong. What does it mean when I say that He has given a human being something of His Ruh? Ruh is a word meaning inspiration, force, drive, et cetera. It refers to an influence, to an influence. You get influences from the material world. The influences from the material world sometimes help us. But if we are not careful, the material influences can destroy us. Is that right? So the material influences are not the influences to save human life. What influence will save us? The influences from Allah.
How do we get His influences? The power of influence from Allah comes to me. It'll come to me if I return to my original nature. It comes to me from revelation. Allah is unique. He is not creation. He inspire in us wholesome thoughts and wholesome ideas. He is not a force to disconcert, to disperse our forces so that they just go against each other. He is an influence to unite our forces to bring them in harmony and into a good productive working order. By His very being He does that. From everything of reality there are influences. If anything exists, it has influence. Everything, the book, everything, anything that meet the mind has influence. So if we concentrate on the existence of Allah, the oneness of Allah, if we see Allah as He should be seen, then we have influences coming to us from Allah. And Allah has made our nature as human beings agreeable with that influence. He has made us to want that kind influence. He has made this life natural. He has made this life to seek higher development. He has made this human life to seek unity.
Life seeks unity. Human life. The human being wants to see things in their wholeness, in their totality. This is the thirst from the human being. To bring the pieces of the puzzle together until it's whole, until it's complete. This desire in us searching for understanding in the world and the environment. And as we search and search and search, we find more evidence that this creation is one. That this creation is under one law and it's one creation. And we come to the inclusion that it had one designer, one Allah. Our very nature leads us to the Oneness of G-d.
Our very nature leads us to worship that G-d, to submit to that G-d, to give our full life and service to that G-d, our very nature inspires us to go in that direction. So our Allah has put it into our nature to find Him. Yes it is put into our nature to find Him. We have in our nature the desire to see things unified, to see wholeness, to see unity, to see consistency. We don't like finding discord, we don't like finding disunity. We don't like finding things broken up and scattered from each other. We can't rest until you find another piece. We want to see things in that totality. Is that right? Yes. So our servant nature lead us to find wholeness, lead us to find unity. And when we find it, we find one. Allah is one. And He has made the whole creation on the principle of oneness. He has made our lives on the principle of oneness.
So we have in us the very driving force that is of Allah being. His driving force, His oneness coming from His uniqueness. Is that right? And we had enough of a driving force to find oneness. So in this sense alone, are we in the image of G-d? We've not in the image of G-d, but G-d has given us a driving force that is like His being that drive us to truth, to oneness. And if you study the history of society, the history of man, you see that man is growing more and more to wholeness, more and more to oneness. There used to be tribal arguments. Now there are arguments in the United Nations, right?
Yes, used to be local, now the five global because G-d is bringing things whole together. He's bringing the pieces of the puzzle together so that man will see that creation is one. Humanity is one. Your creator is one. Yes. Oh, I got the spirit of G-d. Do you have the spirit of oneness? If you don't, you don't have the spirit of G-d. Oh, I got the spirit of G-d. Do you have the spirit of truth? Absolute truth? Well, you don't have the spirit of G-d. And that spirit doesn't come to you by G-d saying Whew and you breathing it in. It's in your nature. It's an influence in your nature. One G-d has created you and the stamp of oneness is on you and everything else He made.
And your life is driven toward unity and oneness and you find peace and you find dignity when you find wholeness and unity and oneness and one G-d to worship. This is a simple knowledge that will bring us together and make us productive and progressive. it's as simple as that. That's the knowledge that enable a man's intelligence to reach his full potential. Anything else works against the growth of the intellect, the idea of unity, wholeness, oneness, and seeing one Allah responsible for this, that brings about the best production in the intellect. Everything else deprive the intellect of its full production.
Can you see now how one Allah, alone by himself is necessary for the growth of intelligent life in the human beings? Your morals and everything else are tied up with that. You can't have intelligent life without having good moral life. The greatest genius, if his life wasn't established on strong morals, eventually he was proven to be a fool. His genius will be eventually be proven to be ignorant, be a fool. And we've known many so-called genius that didn't have good morals and because of the absence of good morals, their wisdom was self-destructive, brought them to a disgraceful end.
This is simple knowledge that you need brothers and sisters because most of you are just like me. You are not graduates from any college. All you have is little knowledge that's out there in the streets. You have no great understanding of the subtleties of this world, the scheme plot higher knowledge of the world. You don't know nothing about it. All you have is a little common sense and a little bit of knowledge you picked up here and there. But dear brothers and sisters all we need is to understand the third pillar of faith in Al Islam. That there is no elah, meaning nothing worthy to worship, to pray to, to fear. No elah but Allah. There is no deity except Allah, that He's one alone. He's responsible for all creation, for every blessing that we have. He is the giver of life and the taker. Nothing can happen without His permission. This is the faith, the belief in one Allah, knowing that He's one and given your whole life in willing service and obedience to Him. That's the key. Once you've done that, something happens internally, the senses come to order, the soul comes to rest, the cloudy picture is moved away and there's a clear path soon to follow. And lives begin to be productive, satisfied, rational. Rational. One Allah is the key for bringing about rational behavior in the people. Superstition, plurality of G-d's, many G-d's, never bring about intelligent behavior in the people.
Their intelligence is subject to the condition, to the circumstances. Change the condition, change the circumstances then a people that were once behaving intelligently start to behave like they have no sense at all. That's because the intelligence have not yet found the reality. And the reality is that G-d is one and He has created everything to yield to His oneness, to yield to His oneness. And in yielding to Him and Him alone, everything is brought in harmony, in some kind of consistent harmony with each other. Don't you know man can't live at war with his environment. He has to make peace with his environment. The environment is a tempter. It tempts us, but we have to deal with it.
We have to learn to build the environment and to not let the environment enslave us, but to use it for Allah's pleasure. We have to find common relationships, the common link between us and everything in the physical world. This book, it has a place, it has a service. The earth, the physical ground, it has a place, it has a service, I have a relationship with it. We can find all of that by giving ourselves to the worship of one Allah. That's the key, it's the key to intelligent living. That's what I'm trying to say to you dear brothers and sisters. The belief in one Allah is the key to intelligent living.
Your forces, your energies will then be influenced by that that is conducive to the better development of your life. Your life won't be under adverse influences anymore. The influences will be productive. They will be helpful. How can Allah promise the believers? Freedom from grief and freedom from fear or from worry. Because once you worship Him and Him alone everything that was once adversely affecting your life will begin to affect your life in a good way. The things that once made trouble for you make no trouble for you anymore. You benefit from them. All praise is due to Allah. Allah can give you the benefit of His whole creation. But you have to first recognize that this is His creation, not yours.
And that He owns it by Himself. Nobody's sharing it with Him. He owns you. You belong to Allah, all of us. Well what do I have that belong to me? Your free will. That's yours. That's what you have that belong to you. Your free will, that's yours. You can accept it or you can throw it away. But now what does Allah ask of us? He gives us everything. Nothing we have of ours except our free will. But then look what He asked of us. Now I have given you everything. Now you have free will that's yours. You can use it as you please. I won't interfere with it.
Now since you yourself couldn't have come into that free will without Allah. Then all that I'm going to ask of you, and if you do this, I'm going to give you the best you can dream of. I'm going to give it to you. Sell that free will back to Me. That's what Allah asked. I've given you everything. You have nothing that doesn't belong to Me except your free will. That I accept no ownership over it. I'm giving it to you. You've got your free will, take it. But now, if you want to have the best life possible for yourself, sell that free will back to me. Isn't a wonderful Allah? He owns everything and then He gives me free will and He won't take it from me. He asked me, Look, I have the life that you want. I have it. I'll give it to you for your free will.
And if we give our free will to Allah, we will never be a slave to anything. So actually He is giving us a chance to come into a bargain that will guarantee me I'll never be unemployed. I'll never be owned by anything else. But if I fail to come into that bargain, I'm subject to be unemployed. Yeah, I'm subject to be owned by other things. And believe me, you're headed into slavery if you don't have Allah. You are there or you are headed there. Allah is the only thing that can save us from slavery. Slavery to our own appetites, slavery to our loved ones, slavery to the physical sources of life, slavery to the government, slavery to the leader. Don't you know people are slaves to everything. Some rather be slaves to that pole.
Yeah he ain't got nothing else to knock on. He comes in every door and he looks at the pole. And he can't work. He can't work. He can't take care of himself, can't keep his life up. He just had to come in and look at the pole. He'll look at it and he might go home and he come back again and look at it. That's all. The human life has to have something ruling in it. Allah say, I've not made Jinn or men except for My service. You have to serve something. G-d has put service in your nature. You have to worship something, you have to devote yourself to something. He has put it in your nature. And if you don't give it to Him, you're going to give it to that pole. Or to the pretty girl with the shake, shake, shaky.
You going to give it to something. And anything you give it to other than Allah is going reduce you. It's going to degrade you. It's going to enslave you dear people. We talking on the Oneness of Allah and how the Oneness of Allah is necessary in our life in order for us to live an intelligent life, in order for us to prosper as an individuals and as a society. Brothers and sisters let us appreciate our own individual identity, our own distinction as Muslims in this world of Christian Jews and others. And let us never give up the Islamic teachings because these teachings are the only clear and pure teachings.
Other teachings were lost. The purity of those teachings were lost. The Qur'an was revealed pure to bring back the purity that was lost. And it came as a completion of G-d's revelation. And that purity is preserved, it's protected by G-d. Allah made the statement in the Qur'an and the Arabic is still the same. We are not talking about the English. The people translate. The Arabic is still the same. The purity is not lost. Not one part of it. Not any part of it is lost. All we have to do is pick it up again. Study this Qur'an and let it be the light in our life. Let it be the light guiding us to Allah and guiding us to our dest9j7 in this life, to our own individual rules, duties, et cetera, in this life. Don't go to the psychiatrist and ask him. Come to Allah. Come to this religion. If they would let us preach Al Islam in the mental institution for just 15 minutes in the morning and evening, we could save this country billions of dollars. The people will get their senses back.
Three G-ds and Jesus Christ on a cross drive people crazy. And that's enough there to drive people crazy and just think of all the other stuff that they're feeding in the minds of the people. Every Muslim should make it his and her business to learn the fundamentals of your religion. Our religion stands upon five pillars. La Ilaha Il Allah. That's the first pillar. One Allah alone to worship, to obey. And Muhammad is His Messenger. Why is that one pillar Shahaadatain making two declarations in making one pillar? To preserve the purity of worship in Al Islam. Prophet Muhammad can never become a Jesus Christ, a son of G-d, because the very first pillar protects us from that. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. He's not Allah.
He being the last of the Messengers then it's corrected for all. Jesus was a Messenger of Allah, not Allah. Although the Qur'an itself deals with this particular problem in many places. But just the first pillar of Al Islam alone protects it and sets the matter straight. La Ilaha Il Allah-No G-d, no deity except the one Allah. Muhammed is the Messenger of Allah. Then we have prayer. Prayer. And the brother, when he called the adhan so beautifully, he says Hay Al Salah, rush to prayer, come to prayer. And then he called behind that Haya Al Falah, Haya Al Falah. Rush to success or come to success. So prayer is the second pillar and look what prayer is for us. Prayer is internal development.
Internal development, to develop the internal life of the Muslim, to keep him away from filth, crime, indecency, et cetera. But it is also Salah. Salah takes place. And many times it's silent, man praying you can't see no visible sign he's praying only by his position right? And he's praying, in fact you can't tell. I could be like this and be praying. I'm not making proper Salah but I'm praying you see. So Salah is something that develops the person internally, but Salah in Al Islam also develop outwardly. How? Because when we recite Qur'an in our prayer, we are reciting wisdom, knowledge, education, it's coming into our lives. This book is education, it is the best education, it is the superior education and when I recite this in my prayer, the education is coming to me. Education cultivates the mind.
It cultivates the mind. You see? So brothers and sisters is just a purifier. Falah is cultivation. You know what is literally Falah? It's a man who tills his soil. Al Falah is a farmer. He tills his soil. He goes out, he breaks up the soil with the plow, he beats the clogs down, mix the soil, he puts the grain seeds in, he nourish the seeds and the seeds come up. He pulls the weeds out, he gives the water, he watches over them and slowly step by step, a life is growing and it eventually bears fruit, right? Yes. Well this is like your mind, your mind. Ideas come to your mind. They develop. More understanding comes. More understanding and more understanding comes. Finally, you get the complete understanding and the fruit. You have the fruit, the idea, bore fruit, you've got the understanding. But before you got the understanding, the idea was developing more and more. You were seeing it better and better, more and more in its details. Is that right? Until it gave you the understanding, you've got the knowledge of it. It bore fruit for you, fruit for you. Now we know even our deeds, everything, bear fruit, the deeds bear fruit. But isn't your mind like a field?
That if you plant an idea in it, if it gets the feeding, the nourishment it needs, doesn't it grow and become bigger and bigger, richer and richer and finally we reach the understanding, the knowledge of that idea and it's like reaping the fruit. The fruits of a harvest. Prayer does that for us dear brothers and sisters. It is Al Falah. But shouldn't we also take this to mean that the Muslim life is not all purification, but it is also labor? The Muslim has to till the soil, he has to fight the enemy. A farmer has to fight the enemies of his crop. He has to watch over and protect his crop from the enemies. There are weeds, there are bugs, there are different things.
So the call to prayer telling us, come to purification, come to right devotion to G-d, but also come to work. Come to work around here. Oh it sounds so beautiful. This is spiritual. But when I hear Falah, I think of a farmer out there man with a plow, raking clogs and growing something, producing something for the society. Well, let us not just listen to the call to prayer like a bird or hermit or something. You get the vibe and you never vibrate yourself. Let us listen to the call and understand that Allah is telling us, cultivate the internal life and cultivate external world.
Cultivate the internal life and cultivate the external world. Allah told Prophet Muhammad to clean himself when he makes prayer, to clean his clothes also and to clean the place where he prays. So cleanliness has to start with us, but it should move out. Your environment has to be cleaned up and Allah says the whole earth is a Mosque, didn't he? So if we are to carry this to it's farthest end we're to clean up the whole earth. Oh yes. So shouldn't we want a decent clean world? Shouldn't we want an active world, a productive world? Do we want to see men idle, thousands of men standing around in the street Idle? No work is a necessity for your wellbeing. It's your nature. Your wellbeing means what? Don't be satisfied to be just idle walking around out in the street.
Look how we demonstrated so we can sit at the counter in the south to eat hamburgers with the Caucasian people. Here are thousands and hundreds of thousands of men out of work, getting welfare. But how many of you will mass together and go demonstrate for jobs? Say we ain't got no job. Demonstrate for jobs. This big old city filled with people that's idle. All of you should be demonstrating, you should go down there to the unemployment office or wherever it is. Go to our mayor's office, to the Governor's mansion. Say we want jobs. Can't live like this any longer. Poor living and welfare is killing our masculine gender. We can't live like this anymore. The trouble was made before I got here. Start trouble. You need to make a little trouble to stop the trouble. There's more dignity in a man asking for a job than it is a man asking to ride the bus with a white woman. They have to change this law. I'm married to a white girl. I can't even go to Georgia with my wife. Yeah, some of us had that problem you know. We couldn't even take our wives to certain parts of the United States. So the laws had to be changed so we whites and blacks can all be together. We are all together now and look at our plight, look at our place in the world. Still terrible, disgraceful. Where's the dignity? And it's not just me and you anymore. It's a whole lot of Caucasians.
The blessings of this country have been reduced so much until they make all the poor masses of people suffer now. Yes, and you were the first to be denied, the first to suffer. And let me tell you, you should stand up and be the first to lead the rest of the masses out of this suffering. Stop being weak and afraid. What you afraid of? They going to blow your brains out? I'd be happy to get my brains blown out asking for my manhood back. If that's what I'm going to die for I'd rather die that way. I don't want to die in the bed with the whooping cough or something man, If I'm going to die I'd rather die that way. I died asking for my manhood back. I didn't ask for nothing but a job that would bring dignity back to my home. My wife has to respect me. She can't respect me if you paying her.
The government has become daddy and everything. Paying the wife and will take care of you brother. If you men can tolerate that I don't know what's wrong with you. I can't tolerate that. You know what make you tolerate that? Only you matter baby. Whole wide world just you, just you. The whole wide world just you. That have driven you crazy, but I don't listen to that stuff. Let us come to sane intelligent religion, worship only one Allah, let us follow leadership. This world is too problematic for you to go around here with a holy Qur'an and each of you become your own Imam and you don't need me anymore. You need me or you need somebody like me. You need somebody who understand the Qur'an and can help you. Allah has made Imams and leaders to lead the community.
Don't walk away from leadership. Always seek someone to be over all of you. If it's not me, immediately start looking for somebody else so that you get the best you want, the best leadership. If I'm not the best, then you should get rid of me and get better. You want the best leadership. That way all of us are lifted up to the highest degree possible for us. If we have the best leadership among us, then all of us have a chance to get the best education, the best guidance, the best help. The Qur'an is our guide but how many can take the Qur'an and go off by themselves.
They might end up worshiping that pole. Dear brothers and sisters there much I would like to say to you, but we have gone way over the time. Now I hope to come back again and every time I come back I'm going to talk to you and I'm going to tell you what I think you should be hearing. It doesn't all the time please you but you think about it. This is what we should be hearing. Sisters support your brothers. Support the men. This world wants to turn female against male, male against females, parents against children, children against parents. It is an order to turn all of the things that should be joined against each other.
So don't let the world put you and your men folk at a war, senseless war against each other. Don't be afraid to say that I think a man should be over the house. A man should be over the house but he shouldn't have to say that. The wife should run the house in such way that everybody knows a man is over the house. If the man has to say that, then he really shouldn't be in that house, he's going to make lot of trouble. The sister has to be over her children and the man has to be respected by his wife and the man has to respect his wife and not interfere with her rules of the children or with her supervision in the house. If she would think the bed looks better on the left wall brother, it looks better there than it looked over here. I didn't think it could look that good darling. She's been doing that for about 50 million years and you've been out in the woods with the animals for about 50 million years. She knows better what to do in that house. So let her have it. That's her domain let her have it. She want to put green paint on the wall tell her green is very pretty.
Yes. What is that? To get a kiss that means something. Yeah, you want to get a real kiss? Just stop trying to be a wife and a mother and a husband all in one. Let her be a mother and let her be a wife you be a husband you see and you'll get the real kiss for the first time since wedding day. I didn't know that woman could still kiss like this. Most the relationships don't know kissing anymore. They do anything they spit on each other. Did you have a nice day today darling? What was that a kiss, good god. Call that a kiss, all that spit on my face.
You get so sexy until you get disgusting. You get too sexy and disgusting and nasty. Hey, come here honey, I didn't kiss you today. You feel like you need a bath after she get through kissing you. Good god, let me go brush my teeth and clean up. We can overdo everything and a lot of you people, you think you still got love and you ain't got no more love. It has turned into nothing but just filthy, sordid sex and you just treating each other like dogs. Yes. Come here honey, I know it. I know you've been wanting this. Let's get funky. But where's the beauty in life? Where's the beauty? Where's the tenderness? Where's the realness? All gone.
And that's what this world makes for us. Start respecting each other and you'll see normal relationships come back. The innocent, nice affections come back. Love with a meaning will come back and brother, I think that's worth you giving the wife a lot of freedom in the house. That's right let her run it. But sister, every now and then, do for brother, what mama did a hundred years ago or so. I was thinking about getting some turnip greens today. You think you have a taste for some turnip greens honey? Okay, I'll get some turnip greens. How about chicken? Oh, that'd be nice. All right, I'll get some turnip greens and chicken and make some potato salad or something.
Yeah, that'd be nice. Don't follow TV. Don't follow this world. You live together. Anytime you live together you owe each other respect. If one go out and buy the food, don't ask the other what they want to eat that ain't right. Now sisters should be ordering the food. If the brothers doing it, that ain't right to start with. But if a brother going to buy the food, he could ask the wife what would she like. And it would help if the children are there too when you're asking. Find out what the children like too.
Okay, we gonna have string beans, potatoes and some lamb shank. If you can afford that. The whole family dine together, they sit down and eat together. Don't ever say, get off my couch. Say get off our couch Turn off my goddamn TV. Turn off our TV. Bring me my shoes. Don't throw my shoes over there. That's okay. You wear those shoes, but all of 'em live in the house. All of 'em sit on the couch, all of 'em watch the TV. How come it's your house, your couch, your TV? You know how come you're saying that? Because you don't have nothing else. You don't have your life anymore. You don't have no relationship with the people in the house no more. So you only see your things as being the physical things in the house. That's a shame. Now if you want to bring the life back, just give up the physical things and say come here my husband, come here my son, come here my daughter. Get off our couch. Leave our TV alone.
All praise due to Allah. We need to just reorganize and reorientate our whole lives. Just do it all over again. Go back and see where we went astray and start doing things in the right way. Ask Allah how to do it, please Allah, and you'll see, you'll find a way. Try to please Allah and you'll find a way to do it. But if we try to please ourselves, disrespecting what is due to the other person we'll never find a way. Let's work for Allah and for his pleasure. Please him, ask him Oh Allah, is it right the way I'm doing this, is it right the way I've treated such and such? Is it right For me to claim all this for myself? Allah can bring peace and order to our lives if we obey Him. Dear brother and sisters, in my conclusion we have to accept the fundamentals of our religions and the basic teachings of our religions and live those teachings and never make excuses when we are not able to live those teachings. Admit that we were wrong, that we made a mistake, that we felt victim, we got weak and say this is not proper. This is not the way. And as long as you respect what is right, there's hope for you.
If you be honest and truthful and respect what is right, there's hope for you. We are not going to all be perfect. We are going to make mistakes, but let us never let our mistake take the place of righteousness. Say Oh, I don't have to do right. This is okay under these circumstances. No wrong is okay under any circumstances. We should always strive for what is right, what is best and proper. Our brothers and sisters, let us pray. Let us pray with respect, not pray like a ritual. Don't go through a motion like you're doing a new disco dance or something.
Pray with fear in your heart, with love in your heart. Fear of Allah, the love for Allah. Pray with due respect for Allah who has created everything in you and pray often. Pray in the morning, pray in the noonday. Pray in the midday. Pray at night. Don't go to bed without praying, pray. Pray to Allah and be the example to those who are influenced by you, your friends, your children, whoever that you enjoin with. Be an example for them to help encourage them to come to a better life. We have to be responsible for each other.
Some of us have such influence that we can lead great groups of people in our community to self-destruction also success in society. We should accept that responsibility. Don't you know when you've got people looking to you and admiring you, following you and your habits, don't you know you carry a great responsibility and Allah is going to punish you for leading those people astray if you lead them astray? And he'll bless you and reward you if you use that advantage, use that influence to guide them to the proper life. So let us learn the fundamentals of our religion and practice those fundamental in our lives. Every pillar of Al Islam is to be practiced in our life. We don't make the hajj every year, but the significance of that hajj should be understood and we should be having that spirit in us all the time. The spirit to put aside our prejudices, our vanity, our nationalism for the sake of having the whole society enjoy the benefits of life.
Dear brothers and sisters, don't forget that our religion is not all know. We don't know everything. Our religion is also belief and faith. As we earn reward from Allah because of our obedience and because of our faith as well as because of our duty, our actions, the things we do to earn rewards. In fact, work without faith gets nothing from Allah. And faith without work gets nothing from Allah. Why? Because both are empty. If you have faith and you don't want to do anything, your faith is empty. And if you work and you don't have faith, your work is for yourself or for somebody else it's not for Allah.
So let us understand these things about our religion and keep the right mind, keep the right attitude, keep the right spirit in ourselves. And love and appreciate Allah enough to give our whole life as a service for Him. Nothing is too great for Allah. You see this people in Iran, they're prepared so the news says to give their physical life to keep Al Islam. Now many of us can't understand that because we don't know enough about the religion, enough about what's happening over there to understand it. But you just know this and this will be enough to give you some understanding. Under the old Shah, the Ex- Shah, Muhammad, yeah Riza.
 Under him the religion was persecuted. Good sincere believers were tortured, maimed, held in prison, Religion was persecuted. Now under Khomeini, the religion is held up. The religion is held up. The religion is more important than anything else. So there are people that there who say we are ready to die for Al Islam. They will die before they see Al Islam taken away from them. And see, you should be the same way. Not that our religion is persecuted in this country. We supposed to have freedom of religion here in America. And I appreciate the freedom to practice our religion in this country. But we still have to be prepared for the worst. And you should be ready to die physically before you allow anyone to stop you from practicing Al Islam and following the teachings of Al Islam. Yes, you should be prepared to die physically and the good believers they are. They would rather be dead than to stop believing in Allah or to stop practicing that religion. They would rather be dead. A whole city of fanatics over there.
That's the fanatic you want to be. Yes, that's the fanatic that I want to be. I want to be a fanatic to the extent that I'd rather be dead then the disobey Allah. That's not fanaticism, it's fanaticism to go kill yourself out there speeding 90 miles an hour on one of these side streets, that's fanaticism. To go rape a woman 84 years old, that's fanaticism. Break in a house, take the goods out of the house. That's fanaticism. You risking your life for small things. But the one who risk his life to please Allah that's a great thing. And Allah is so great that our total sacrifice is not fanaticism, it's good sense. Yes. Dear brothers and sisters, this is a trying time. It's a time that can easily cloud your senses and make you go astray from your religion.
The atmosphere is charged. Be careful. Keep your good Islamic sense. Don't let them make you ashamed of your conviction, make you ashamed of your devotion, your steadfastness. Because they want to do that. The weak people in religion, they want to make the strong follower shamed of their devotion. Oh, you really pray five times a day? Man, what you doing putting your head on a rug. You really do that? That's your business. That's between you and Allah. Don't put your head on the rug for him or for her. You put your head on the rug for Allah. And the satisfaction that you derive is given to you from Allah. it's apparent. People will try to shame us. Allah says that if one people fail him, He'll raise up another people who will obey him and who won't fear the criticism of any criticizer.
That's not in the Qur'an for nothing. One of the schemes of the devil of the wicked world is to make you feel ashamed of your goodness. They want you to feel ashamed of your goodness. Isn't that a devilish thing to do? Try to make a person feel ashamed of their goodness. Oh you goody goody you. They make sincerity something to be ashamed of. Oh you really pray to G-d like that. You really do that. You really don't drink. You really don't eat pork. Oh my goodness. And the way they say that make you feel that you're stupid. Oh my goodness. And if you weak you begin to feel ashamed of your goodness.
Be aware of all these evils that are out here to take us away from Allah. If you'll remain steadfast and faithful to Allah, follow the leadership that you have in me. Accept what I have given to you. I have given to you the Qur'an of the Muslim world as the authority. I've given to you Prophet Muhammad who was established in the book as the last Messenger to the world. I've given you that and I've given you my leadership and I uphold these things. I stand myself on what I teach and I practice myself what I have given to you.
So dear beloved brothers and sisters, if you hold fast to that you'll be successful. You'll overcome all of your setbacks. You'll rise from a position of disgrace, weakness, disorganization, inferiority and helplessness in society to a position of dignity, strength and progress. If you will there's no way for you to grow but to strength, dignity and prosperity if you hold on to this. So why hasn't it done it for the rest of the Muslim world Brother Imam? Because they failed it. They failed it. Wherever you find Muslims standing up for what Allah has revealed in this Qur'an, you find Muslims making success. You'll find Muslims progressing. Where you find Muslims compromising, trying to satisfy the world and taking half the Holy Qur'an and tearing it off, saying I follow this that's left. You'll find Muslims that decaying and living in disgrace and the world is marching over their backs.
It has been proven and it can be proven at any time. All you have to do is have the guts to stand up for it, to accept what it offer you and stand up for it. You have the guts and you'll find success. I don't care how poor you are, how bad opportunities are. They're bad here in New York, especially in Harlem. They're bad in Chicago too. Conditions are bad everywhere in these big cities. Well I don't care how bad conditions get. If you remain faithful to Allah and to the message of Al Islam, I guarantee you that you'll be faring well while others who are not doing that will be in misery.
You will fare well. I don't care what happened in this world, you will farewell. And let me tell you something else that perhaps many of you don't know. You don't have to die. You don't have to be killed. You don't have to be injured. They can't put a mosquito size bump on my head unless Allah allow it. That's right. They can't cause you one atom of trouble unless Allah allow. Don't think that you have to be beat and killed, many lives have to be lost. No, those who will be lost, they should be lost. Something missing in them. You give yourself firmly and completely to Allah to pleasing Allah. You ain't going to be lost. Oh Chief, suppose you get killed tomorrow. Suppose I do. I don't believe I'll get killed tomorrow. So I get killed while my work is finished. There's a better man than me who will come up and lead this community.
No, I know Allah gives you the rewards of your work and I know Allah will good people in this world and not wicked people. He will not let the good people get killed off and leave the wicked around here. He'll only do that if you are too weak to stand up for your goodness. But if you're strong enough to stand up for your goodness, Allah will keep you here and He'll let the wicked be knocked off. Maybe a holy phony gets knocked off but not a real obedient servant of Allah. Did Prophet Muhammad get knocked off?
But you ain't Prophet Muhammad Chief. But I am a man trying to measure up to him for Allah's sake. For Allah's sake I'm trying to be as good as Prophet Muhammad as I possible can. I want mama has to be measure up to his if I possibly can. I want my sincerity, my devotion to measure up to his if I possibly can. And if I desire this, Allah is going to protect me and bless me. Or if I have no idea, well can't be too good in this world. You can't stick your rump out too far for Allah's sake. If I take that attitude, you're going to read about me in the paper because I won't have the protection from Allah.
All of us can't be leaders like this. But Allah bless a community at times to have a leader like that. And when He bless a community that that kind of leadership, believe me baby, He has decided to give that community victory. So don't you fear, don't you fear. Allah has decided to give us victory. Ain't no defeat coming you defeat yourself. I pray Allah to guide us to firm faith, unify our hearts, give us the strength to live our religion without shame. Create in us such appreciation, such an appreciation for our religion that we feel shame when we are not measuring up to our religion. And that's the natural shame of the Muslim. He should be ashamed of not measuring up to what his religion asked of him. Dear brother and sisters, let us remain faithful. Never compromise our faith. Study the Qur'an, don't be satisfied to just say Asalaam Alaikum, Wa Alaikum Asalaam. Learn more about your religion. Read the Qur'an so we can learn more about your religion. We have good books that we have distributed, distributed in the community. Don't just keep the book on the shelf in the house and never read it. Read good Islamic books. Make progress. Learn more about your religion so when you are in a discussion or somebody asks you what is your religion, you'd be able to explain it to them. Every Muslim should be able to tell people what is your religion. You should know the basic belief and the basic practices, the fundamental practices or fundamental principles of our faith, of our religion.
You should know the general knowledge. So if you don't know it, make an effort to learn it. Your Imams are obligated to teach these things. If you do this, you'll grow and become strong and stronger as a Muslim community as Allah has given us this religion, has given us away out of all of our past misery. Dear brothers and sisters, I hope that when I return here I'll find more of you knowing more about your religion, being able to recite more from the Qur'an. There was a time when we had a habit of knowing things by heart from memory. And the average one of us under the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's leadership during the thirties, forties and fifties could recite practically everything that he had given us in the form of lessons.
We have to develop that same kind of force, that same appetite for knowledge that let us learn to recite portions of Qur'an. If you don't know Arabic, learn to memorize in English until you learn Arabic. Learn Qur'an. You know when Prophet Muhammad began to teach Qur'an to the people they had to learn it. They have to memorize it and Allah says in the Qur'an it has been made, it has been revealed in a form easy to memorize. There is no chance that someone could burn up the scripture and deprive the Muslim community of the revelation because many people had memorized the whole of it by heart. It was first put in the hearts and the minds of the believers before it was put on paper. When it was put on paper, it was put on paper by those people that committed the whole book to memory. And it was set by memory because many of them had committed the whole Qur'an to memory. Prophet Muhammad he didn't have the Qur'an on paper, he had it in memory. G-d revealed it to him and he memorized it, he kept it. He memorized it and he taught his followers to memorize it. Right today in the Muslim world, they tell me that there are still children, 12 years old sometime even 7 years old to memorize the whole Qur'an, have already memorized the whole Qur'an. We have in our community some youngsters who are well on the way to memorizing the Qur'an. Eventually we'll have hafiz, the powerful one who memorized the Holy Qur'an.
Dear brother and sisters, we are not in this religion like we are into a fad. This is life. This is Allah that we worship. We're in this religion to stay. We're in this religion forever. Our children’s children forever. We hope that they will be raised up in this religion. So let's make the future better for our children than it is for us by learning as much as we possibly can. We'll be a challenge to our children Your child will say, mama memorized 20 chapters from the Holy Qur'an. Makes the child feel that he has to at least memorize 20 or more. Let us promote progress by progressing ourselves. Dear brother and sisters, learn more about Prophet Muhammad. We should be able to quote from memory 10 or 20 common sayings, known sayings of Prophet Muhammad. I'm ashamed at some of these communities today, they know no more sayings of Prophet Muhammad than we knew under the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Under the Honorable Elijah Muhammad the ministers, some of them knew more things than they do now under my leadership. I know ministers who were ministers under the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and they knew more sayings then know now under my leadership. The materialism came in and their mind went material and they forgot everything. Now we have to come back. We have to balance our life, get our thinking back, have to appreciate our religion more. A lot of you don't know, but some of the fine habits the Honorable Elijah Muhammad had, they were Hadith. He was copying Hadith. He was trying to live himself up to what the religion was asking of him. A lot of you don't know the Honorable Elijah Muhammad prayed at his home and he put his forehead on the ground. He prayed, he made proper prayer.
I don't know what concept he had of G-d. I never asked him. But I know before he died he had the right concept because he discussed it with me, he told me. And a lot of things that he didn't say before he said to me before he passed, even life after death. He said, son, there must be something after death. Yes, that's what he told me. See, so a lot of us don't even know him. We think we know him. We don't know him. Some of the ministers, they think they know him. But how many of them could you catch in privacy with their head on the floor. Huh? I have walked into the room of my father and found him with his head on the floor. He was praying like we pray now. How many of his ministers would you catch doing that or even standing up like this very seriously. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad he was a sincere man. Do I have a statement from him that would make me conclude that he accept everything and we should believe it. No, I didn't get that from him. But he made a statement to me and let know he didn't believe that Mr. Muhamamd was G-d.
And he told me that he believed that when he said son, there must be something after death. So I think just changing those things was enough indication. If the man had lived on, who knows, who knows. But Allah's the best knower. He had established a certain image. He had done a great work. He had brought people a long ways from filth and laziness. And so he had done a great work. Perhaps if he had made that drastic change before the people, it would've been too much for them to understand. And Allah is the best knower. He's gone now and his son has brought it him. And the son didn't have to bring it in fighting his father. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was alive. It was him, not nobody else. Minister Farrakhan, Raymond Sharif, Brother Abass Rasul. None of them gave me the freedom and opportunity to come back to the community and preach. It was nobody but the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. And I can bring you a man right now, he's in in St. Louis. I sent him to St. Louis to the Imam there. He was the one over Chicago. I can bring him here right now. Give him a lie detector test. If you want can talk to him. And you'll find out if you have the right intent to find the truth. You'll find out. He will tell you that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad brought me back from the streets branded a hypocrite. I was being branded a hypocrite in the streets and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad brought me out of the streets and told that brother look, you don't talk so much. Let my son talk.
And really we were getting along pretty well. But my father heard that he was talking a lot and my father didn't want him to talk so much and my father said, look, you don't talk so much, let my son talk. But he told me right in his presence, he said, Wallace, you teach. He said, son, I got you out there to teach. He said, you do the teaching. This was about six months before he passed, alright? About six months before he passed. So the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is G-d. knowing what I represent, knowing I had been put out many times for saying no, I can't say Fard Muhammad is G-d. He knew that. Now if he said, I want my son to teach, he's saying that No, Fard Muhammad is no G-d, my son is right.
But I guess he felt he owed him a debt and for so long he had been teaching. He couldn't change the people right away. They couldn't see him changing so drastically. And maybe, who knows. He was taken off welfare and well his success came because of Fard Muhammad. So who knows, he might've had some kind of debt and he just couldn't do it directly. But he tried to say, well I'm glad to know I got a son that don't have that debt, don't owe Fard nothing. Yes. I think this is a great thing that has happened in our community, a great thing. One leader come up with something altogether different from what is taught in Al Islam, in Christianity. in any religion.
He made great progress and he bringing people out into forward thinking and bring their morals up and discipline them nicely. Make them conscience of doing something for themselves and working together. Then along come his son and bring the people back. Put them in reverse About face. We used to say "Attention. About face."
FOI. You remember that. That was the most important command. "Attention.". Got to get your attention first. Now turn all the way around. "About face." And the son come right up behind him and about face again. Make about face again away from those ideas to right ideas. And yet seek the desire for unity, for moral upliftment, for progress. Oh, that's a miracle that you rarely see in history. A miracle that you rarely read about in history. That alone should make you strong members of this community. You should pray like the Muslim "Oh Allah, let me die not except in a state of Al Islam. Thank you very much.
Alhamduillahi Rabbil Al Amin. All praises due to Allah, the guardian evolver, sustainer of all the worlds. We give thanks to Him, we praise him for blessing us the world that is with His Messenger, the most noble of Messengers Muhammad, Sa Ala Alahi Wa Salaam. We ask blessings upon him, upon his descendants, upon his companions, upon the righteous servants all of them, upon us in America and throughout the world.
Or Allah, please bless the Iranian people with success in their struggle for human dignity and for Islamic society. Oh Allah, bless America and the Iranian people with peace and justice. Ameen. Dear beloved Muslims, in my conclusion I ask you to return to your homes with your new determination to live more righteous lives and more complete lives as Muslims and to keep your eyes on a future that is Islamic for yourself, for your children, for America. To have faith that Allah can bless this land we call America to become an Islamic land. We have every right to wish that this country become an Islamic land. This country welcomes the freedom of religion. So we have as much right to wish that the land become Islamic as the church has to wish that it become Christian. The church has had a chance to make it Christian and they have failed. They have lost their Christianity. Now we should hope for a chance to make it Muslim and say we won't lose our Islam.
Stop doing that and try to please Allah and you will start being successful. One Allah. Prophet Muhammad says, I have come to you with two authorities, the Qur'an and my own example. And in another place he says, none of you will be a believer until your inclination follow what I've come to you with. Our appetites, our desires are not to go away from our religion, our Qur'an, and the example established in the life of Prophet Muhammad, to go after this man after this fashion, after this personality, after these goods. No, we are to discipline our whole life with the yardstick of our religion.
Take that rule and discipline your whole life. If you want to enjoy the material things of life, then check the Qur'an and see what rules should be applied as you go out to enjoy the material things in this life. See what it demands of you as a person going out for the material things in this life. If you think you're so handsome that everybody should swoon when they look at you and that has become your mind and your life, your own beauty, then search the Qur'an and see what rules should be applied to your mind. See what it says about vanity
There is a prayer or a statement that is a prayer also that was left to us by Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. When you're beholding your own image and you admiring it so say Oh Allah, make my internal self beautiful as you have made my external self. Because that's what matter how you look on the inside. That's what really matters. And the outside can destroy you. You see? So we have a guidance to follow dear people. One Allah and associate nothing with Him. Get away from this whole idea that G-d is a mystery that can be found in human beings of some discipline, some special holy man or something. Stop looking for Allah in yourself. You'll never find Allah in you. Look for Allah in the Qur'an. This is Revelation. If you want to find Allah, read the Qur'an. That's how you find Allah. Don't get by yourself and say I'm going to find Allah.
Prett soon you hearing things and you think that's Allah and we looking for you and you writing us from some mental institution or something and wondering how come you are there. Well, how come they got G-d? Isn't that something they even locked up Allah. Allah says that think not that our form, this human creation, is a bigger thing than the universe. That's wisdom to protect us. G-d has put man in this creation and has given him the tools, the potential for mastery in this creation. But man, he is prone to be deceived by his own successes into thinking that he has some special divinity or some special power. No, your special place is given to you by Allah. That's how come you are able to master your environment. Allah has given you that. Not because of you. You stop following Allah and start depending on yourself and everything in your environment will start to master you.
Dear beloved brothers and sisters Allah says to us in the Qur'an, let us come to common terms between ourselves and you, this is a Muslim saying to Christians and others who were guilty of associating G-d's with G-d. That we raise not up from among ourselves Lords other than Allah. It's very clear, very plain, that no individual should ever think that he or somebody in his creation or his society can be a G-d or she's a G-d. Where is G-d? Jesus Christ. He is the G-d. G-d has manifest in him. G-d is in him. Oh no, the flesh is not G-d, but G-d is in him.
How is that any different from the one who builds an idol of lay, or iron? And he says, here's my G-d. And you say, oh, that's not G-d. And you break the clay. He say, I knew the clay wasn't G-d but G-d is in the clay. You haven't hurt G-d you only broke my clay. And we shoot G-d. This is brother Joseph. He say he's G-d so you shoot him, kill him. And his worshippers will say, you didn't kill G-d. You only killed his body. The one who make the clay the body can say the same thing or the iron body or the grass body. He says, this is G-d. He can say the same thing. You didn't hurt my G-d. You just destroyed his body. And in the Qur'an Allah tells us that really the one who makes the human being a G-d he's just as stupid as the one who makes the clay G-d or iron G-d or wood G-d. They say, oh, we know that these things are not G-d, but they are a medium.

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