03/19/1978
IWDM Study Library
Reconstruct the Family Life
Milwaukee WI

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed

Thank you. With the name Allah, Most Gracious, Most Compassionate. I thank Allah for blessing me to be here with you again in Milwaukee. I appreciate Alderman Johnson's presence here today, Imam Mustafa Ali, we intend to be back. Milwaukee has really been making big changes since the Imam Mustafa has been here and we really appreciate the work that's being done by him and the support he's getting from the good people in the community, here in Milwaukee. I would like to begin with the verse from a chapter in the Qur'an titled Mulk in Arabic. This word is translated dominion by some translators and some translators translated the kingdom. Some translated the rule. I would like to elaborate just a second or two on the meaning of Mulk. Mulk means that the control over, the control over everything in existence, the skies, the earth, and everything in existence, all lives included.
That that control belongs to G-d. The mulk belongs to G-d. I'll now read the first verse from this chapter titled Mulk, the control over the universe. It says, "Blessed be He in whose power is the control over the universe. And He over all things has power.
He who created death and life that he may try, which of you is best in works, in deeds, in works". In Chicago, we have the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and Reverend Jackson is now ... well, for some time now, he has been pushing for excellence in the schools, excellence in education. His organization, as you know, is also called Push, P-U-S-H, Push. Once, not so long ago, maybe a generation or so ago, all Americans believed in excellence or all Americans were taught to believe in excellence. In our home, there was a belief in excellence, the theme in everything that was done in the home.
The mother, she would cook for excellence. She wanted her pies to taste the best, to be the best. She wanted the rice, the meat, the stew, whatever it was, the chicken and dressing. Whatever it was, she wanted it to be the best. She was a pusher for excellence. The mother and the father wanted the children to have the best manners, the best manners. They wanted them to have the best character. They were concerned with the quality of their children. America, as you know, used to preach excellence. American people were taught to uphold high standards, quality life. If you performed a job, you were to perform it with respect for excellence. You didn't just want to do a job, you wanted to do an American job. And an American job meant a job that reflected the best skills, the best qualities, the best quality of work.
There are a few companies around now that insist upon excellence, but even those companies have really relaxed their rules. They tolerate a lot of cheap work, inferior work. We don't have to make any long study or any thorough examination of our lives today, of America's life today, to see that America has fallen from her high concept of excellence, from the high principles and standards of life that we once as a nation strove for, worked hard for. The problems that we have in our community life are problems that have come about because people are no more driven by principles, principles, and the desire for excellence in their life.
People are careless. People have no standards anymore. People have no fear anymore. People can't be shamed anymore. We have lost the good life and we complain. Why should we complain so much? Is this what we want? If this is the life we want, we should be happy. We shouldn't complain so much. How can we have strong financial homes and strong financial communities when we are living the life of drunks, playboys, delinquents? We shouldn't expect strong homes and strong communities when we're living the life of drunks, reckless people. We respect no principles. Fear nothing, not even G-d. Talk lightly about G-d. Talk lightly about the things we used to reverence most, Almighty G-d, righteousness.
But we still say we want the things that we set out to get. If we want them, then we are going to have to review or take a second look at our own life records to see how are we living. Are we really walking the road that leads to where we want to go, or are we walking a road that takes us away from where we want to go? The truth is, we are walking a road that takes us away from where we want to go. So how do we expect to get the things we want when we are walking away from the things we want?
There is proof that we are dissatisfied with the life we have. In the very fact that I'm here today, speaking to you on a subject that you've chosen, "Reconstruct Family Life". There is concern. People want to get the family life back. We know we've lost the good family life. The things that we want in the streets has to first be in the homes. If we don't have the life we want at home, it's not going to be in the streets. All of us, I believe, realize that the streets are unsafe in most of the big cities.
Not only the streets, even the homes are unsafe. Without protection, that is. We spend a lot of money on elaborate security systems to protect the house, spend a lot of money on iron gates, iron bars to the doors, iron bars to the windows. We lock ourselves up behind bars and we still feel unsafe. Most of us feel this, and most of us don't like it. But how can that ugly picture be changed before the street is changed? And the street can't be changed without first changing the life in the home. You might say, "Well, I'm not one of those dangerous, destructive, self-destructive elements in the community. We live in a decent house and our home is safe and peaceful."
It is your duty, in the face of the terrible things that are happening to our life, it is your duty to come out then and help us battle to turn the life of the many around so that all of us can be peaceful and safe and home. The problem runs way back. It's a very ancient problem, and we are blindly facing the doom that also goes way back. It's an ancient thing that comes around when people without guidance try to manage their own affairs in a world of picking. If we were living in the desert where there is nothing, we wouldn't have too much to worry about. But we live in modern cities where there's plenty of wealth, where people live very close to each other. Homes are stacked up on top of each other almost.
There's food within reaching distance that's not mine. Clothes within reaching distance, that's not mine. Plenty of money within reaching distance. That's not mine. Plenty of pretty girls within reaching distance, but that's not mine, you see? So the life is very hard for us without having something that we respect. There has to be controls in our life that we respect. That's the only way to exist. We read the history of great nations, Rome, Greece, Babylon, Nineveh. We read how those great nations rose to their greatness, enjoyed great wealth and plenty of freedom. At the height of their prosperity, achievements, they started to die, fall down. Often there was no enemy army that came in, attacked them, defeated them. They just let go of everything and fell down. A man, if he has the money, he will go miles and miles and stay away from home for nights and days to find a solution to a business problem.
Here we are. We have a problem that is a business problem, a family problem, a national problem.
And most Americans don't have two minutes to spare to sit down and talk to each other and see can we come about some sensible solution. How much patience do you think G-d should have with us? Oh, G-d. G-d, what about G-d? G-d, G-d, G-d. We've been talking G-d and getting nowhere. You've been talking G-d and getting nowhere. You haven't been living respect for G-d. If you had, you'd be getting somewhere. History shows that those people who had a genuine respect for almighty G-d, got somewhere. Abraham got somewhere. Moses got somewhere. Jesus got somewhere. I know what they say. They say he got himself crucified. But according to their own history, the very people that crucified him worshiped him. The very people that crucified him came to worship him. According to their own history.
Muhammed, the Prophet, the universal prophet, he got somewhere. In less than 15 years, he brought a whole peninsula from paganism, barbarism, narrow tribal hatred, racism, vulgarity, to be the torch bearers of moral, spiritual and scientific light, not to just Arabia, but to the whole then known world. There is not an achievement in the history of social reformers to match that achievement.
They were able to make those great successes, great strides, and realize those great victories because there was genuine respect for Almighty G-d. You can call your G-d, you can call your G-d Allah. You can call your G-d by any name, as the Qur'an says. Allah says in this book, say, whether you call me by the name of the gracious or by the name Allah, doesn't matter. He's the All Hearing. G-d loves to see us seeking to know His name better, seeking to find a better name to call Him by. But G-d doesn't judge our intelligence in the choice of names to call Him.
As the scripture says, both Bible and Holy Qur'an, G-d looks to our hearts. If the intention is right, if the intention is good, almighty G-d hears us. But if a deceiver comes to G-d, he shouldn't expect to be heard. And aren't we are a nation of hypocrites. Look at what Jesus preached. Look at the life he led. When Jesus was faced with a trying situation, what did Jesus do? Jesus stopped what he was doing and he prayed to Almighty G-d and he showed fear. He showed submission. He showed devotion. He got down on his hands and knees and he put his forehead on the ground and he prayed to Almighty G-d. The dope pushers are on us. The vandals are on us.
The crooked people in government are on us. Worse than all of that, we are on ourselves. Seeking high degree, pleasure. Seeking great charges. Oh, I want a great charge. Give me a great charge. Make it 250 watts, 250 volts. Great shot. Say, that might kill you, brother. 'Give it to me. Give it to me, baby. Give it to me.'
Crazy, self-destructive, suicidal people. Dear beloved people, we have to turn this thing around. We have to turn it around even if it's by force. Because if we don't turn it around, a small people will take us over, or a great nation will take the whole country. How long do you think the world will sit quietly knowing that the American people are a pushover? If this silly childish kind of mind, continues to grow, as it is growing, pretty soon we can't even depend on our army. The people who are there at the push buttons. Pretty soon we won't even ... In fact, now I'm wondering.
He might not hear the signal. He might be high. We don't know what's going on. All we know is that the American people are degenerating. There's something retarding the community life of the American people. The family life is retarded. This city life is decayed. The leaders of government are desperate. Say, what can we do? We don't have supporters. The national production, material production can only be so much. In the better days, government tried to satisfy trouble spots with money. Now there's not enough money to satisfy trouble spots. So government leaders are desperate. What can we do? We don't have enough money to quiet the dangerous elements. We can't buy these people away from the self-destruction.
How can we manage our lives? They're desperate. How long do you think things can stay this way? Sometimes I think the people behind bars, the people that are serving time in jail are better off than we are. They at least have an opportunity to get away from the forces of destruction and get their minds together again. We are out here in the forces of destruction. Say, "Chief, Imam, what is destroying us? What are the forces of destruction?" The mentality. The way you think. Those are the forces of destruction. Your thoughts. It began when you thought you were born in sin. It got worse when you thought you were born free. We have to get the life back together. Say, is there a way? Certainly there's a way.
How come we are not able to do anything about our life? It's because we've never been given anything to work with. Say, well, how have we survived? How have we become the greatest nation on earth?
A charge. A powerful charge. But anything that gets a charge has to be recharged and when you run out of a recharge, you finished. Pretty soon, it's just like shooting black flag on bedbugs or roaches. After a while, they don't feel it. You spraying and you wonder how come those things ain't falling. It got used to it. Well, we have recharged ourselves so many times until it doesn't affect us anymore. Gotten used to it. And things have gotten worse when you don't see the charge at producing results. Why? Because the charge has lost its effect. And believe me, the charge has lost its effect because there is a diabolic, wicked, mind, planning the downfall of the American people.
Not my downfall. Not the African American downfall. Not the Muslims downfall. Our
downfall. Well, I don't know if I was introduced properly or not, but I say some outrageous things, and I hope they will outrage you because that's what you need to be - outraged!
Respect for G-d has been declining, declining, declining in America. Respect for G-d has declined so much in America now that to say G-d is to make people leave you.
You want to have people walk out, just start acting like you really believe in G-d. Say 'I don't have no time for that. The man's wasting my time, or he's offending me'. Look like they compete with each other to see who is the boldest in playing lightly over the respect for G-d. Don't you watch the TV shows? Don't you see how lightly they play with G-d on
television? How lightly they play with G-d in the cartoons of the newspaper. How can we
keep our life together if the media is going to play lightly with G-d?
The Christian home should be protected first by G-d. Are you a Christian or what are you? If you're a Christian, shouldn't your home be protected first by G-d? And the next authority under G-d should be G-d's word. Whenever you lose the fear of G-d, you should pick up G-d's word and say children respect G-d's word. Husband respect G-d's word. But is that the American Christian life? Oh no. You have lost the fear and respect for Almighty G-d. Still claim to be Christians. If we invite you to Al Islam, you say, "I can't come. I'm a Christian." That's not the reason you can't come because you're a nobody and don't want to be somebody.
Everybody want to go back now to nature. Let's go back to nature. Get me back to nature. Hey, baby, what you got there? Oh, I got a Butterfinger. You eat that mess. I don't eat that man. Go down and get you, what do they call this stuff? Sesame seed. Sesame seed .......That Butterfinger will kill you, man. Hey, baby. You got any snort? Same one that won't eat the Butterfinger and want to snort Pitiful, pitiful people. Sin now is more widespread than ever before. Senseless, reckless living. More wide spread now than ever before.
Got the psychologist describing the personality. The problem in the personality of American people as a death wish. That American people are troubled with the death wish. That they really wishing for death. They want to die. Why do you want to die? Because something has been planted in your subconscious. You know that when there's no other way out, when there's no other way out, you've done all you could to handle the situation sensibly that you should follow G-d. The last thing to do is crucify yourself. So your reason, you tried to live a life of sense. That hasn't brought you happiness. So you say, "Well, next thing to do is kill ourselves.
Give up. Commit suicide. When you don't check your child that you see is about to give his life to crime, who is tearing down your home, who's making problems for you, that's going to take you into court and make you pay money out of your pocket that you can't afford because your living standard now is at the bottom. When you let your child bring you down financially, morally, don't you know there's a suicide wish in you, the death wish is in you? You've given up on life. A man who hasn't given up on life, if he see his child tearing the property down, putting himself in position to be arrested and taken to court, that man snatches his child back from that danger. Say, "Come here, son. Can't let you go that way."
 I remember as a child here in the mother's, when the son started to go down, began to get dark a little bit outside. Many times the light, the street light hadn't come on. It was just a normal thing to hear a voice calling out. Sometimes we could hear a voice from the other block. "JOHNNY, LISA, that was a mama that cared about her children. Now it's Johnny and Lisa calling out. "MAMA. MAMA." Mama's out somewhere and they don't know where she is. It's getting dark and they don't know where they're protection is coming from.
We have to get the life back. The only answer for us is to get intelligent grip on our life. People can't live by emotion. People can't live by sentimental charges. People have to live by light. The light of sense. The light of reason. The light of intelligence. Life! That's the only way you can live. The only other way is to live by charge. And that's not living, that's dreaming. Oh yeah. That's dreaming. Day dreaming or night dreaming, it's dreaming. Church leadership. Mosque leadership. Synagogue leadership. All have been cheating the people, pacified, and holding the precious knowledge back. Fearing that if the masses get the precious knowledge, the Priest, the Rabbi, and Imam will lose his precious position.
America has to come to speak one language. That's the only way out. As long as America speak to the general public with the tongue of children, of children, and speak to a select few with the tongue of adults, everything will continue to go down, down, down, weaken, fall apart. The answer is this. America must put down storytelling. We must stop telling stories to grownups. The worst stories we've told grown ups are the stories in religion. The only way to solve this problem is to make the clear truth known in the public. We have to free the people from the monopoly
that symbolism and ignorance have had on the mind of the masses for thousands of years. Scripture tells us, both Holy Qur'an and the Bible tells us that the real problem of the world is darkness and not physical darkness, but the darkness of ignorance. The darkness of the absence of knowledge. People have never been given knowledge. They have been given excuses. They've been given stories. They've had their senses divided. You go to school and they teach you to tackle a physical problem with rational sense. They teach you to tackle physical problems and problems of a physical nature with rational sense. But you leave the school and you go home and you go to church and they teach you to tackle human problems with mysticism, fairytale. This is the real problem.
We have to go to the textbooks and we have to tell the children in the early grades, in elementary grades, the middle school, the high school. They all have to be taught the simple truth about human life. Human beings must be given the knowledge that enabled the individual to operate his own life in the light and not in the dark. Instead of telling people that we all descended from one individual called Adam, who was made from a clay model, formed out of the earth, and breath was breathing to that clay model, and that clay model started walking and living as a human being. Instead of telling them the fairytale. Let's tell them the truth, that the fairytale hides. The fairytale is the cloak covering up a real truth.
The Holy Qur'an said G-d didn't reveal the religion that it should be hid. He revealed it that it should be preached openly and clearly. We have to stop telling people they're born in sin. We have to separate allegory from real teaching in the Bible and let the people know that the immaculate conception is not the flesh born body. The thing that is immaculate is the will in the individual to submit to the will of G-d. That's the immaculate conception. That a human being is born on this earth with ability to submit his whole life, his whole will, his energy, his physical drive, even his sex drive, that he's willing to submit it to G-d and say, "G-d, I will use my sex as you instruct me to." That I will use my physical power, my mental power, my energies of my mind and my soul.
G-d, I will use them as you instruct me to. That is an immaculate conception.
Flesh has been used as something to speak through, to say something to people. Long ago, people lost the truth that the thing that is being spoken through is not the thing. It's the idea embodied in the thing and not the thing. To procreate or to spread our bodies on this earth, we have to mate with the female and the male has to give something of himself, his vital life. He has to give his vital life to the female and the female has to receive it. The female has to cherish it. She has to be loyal, devoted, loyal.
If she doesn't cherish it, respect it, value it, and cherish it. She might abort it. Or she might live in a reckless way and cause it to be aborted or cause it to grow up with defects. But if the male and the female respect the life, then the life has protection. The great message is spoken through the female and the male. The female and male is not the message. The message has to be interpreted out of the male and the female. A man, when he gives of his mind, of his soul, when he gives his finest principles, when he offers his finest sentiment to people to help them, aren't he planting his precious seed, his most precious seed in the womb of the society?
If the society cherishes that precious gift from that leader, they will become pregnant with that precious seed, and his fine principles, his fine concerns will grow in the hearts, in the mind, in the interior of the society. They’ll become pregnant with the life that was in his Lord and that life will grow and multiply on earth. That's the immaculate conception. That's the immaculate conception. It doesn't have to touch flesh to produce itself. Society is formed of one mind. One mind. If that mind gives itself to G-d, the people are formed in the right image.
Until that leadership fails, turn away from G-d. When that leadership turns away from G-d, then the right image is not there anymore the people become the children of the bad image. They become the image of the bad image. This is all the book is talking about and that's very important to know, that the society is formed by the leadership. If the leadership is in the bad form, the society is going to be in the bad form. There is no way to follow leadership and not be influenced in your own mind and personality by that leadership.
Our problem is not a physical problem. Our problem is not a financial problem. You go into some of our homes that are on welfare, you find a color TV, got more wealth than the ruler of some country. I'm telling you the truth. Some of our welfare people got more material wealth than the rulers of some nations. I've been in the home of some of the rulers of nations, and their home didn't have the wealth that some of you welfare people have in your house. So how is your problem a financial problem? Your problem is financial ignorance.
Cultural ignorance. Financial ignorance, that's your problem. Not finance. You get money, but you don't know how to use it. You waste it. You try to live like the man who owns the company that owns you. Yeah. You say he got a color TV, how come I can't have one? Because his color TV is not a yolk around his neck. And yours is. He doesn't feel his color TV hanging on his neck. When you buy your color TV, you carry a slave yoke. Go into some of your homes, you're poor. We go in your house and we stumble over money. Can't hardly get through your door without stumbling over some money.
Your child got bicycles and cars, everything in the door. We can't even get in your house. Have to call you or somebody to move the bicycle. $200 bicycle. $180 bicycle. $120 bicycle. Baby, come move this money out of the way so we can come in the house and speak to you. Come in there, the color TV is going. Ain't nobody in there watching it. You come down, you ain't worried about it being on. It's costing money on electric bill. The tube is ran out. You going to need a new one sooner. You ain't aware. You don't care about it wearing out. You don't care about the electric bill going up. You're rich on welfare.
Yeah. Come in there and look at your house. You got all kind of fine hot pieces. You drink out a glass and drop it into sink. You don't mind breaking it. You're rich. Don't you know you're a crazy people. Talking about you, you're free. You're crazy. Now you call a crazy person free, then you're free. But I think a person who's lost their mind is in prison. That's why they can't control their body because their mind is locked up. I tell you things and some of you think I'm just talking to charm you, or talking to make you cheer, clap, applaud.
Now I'm going to whisper it to you. Your life is in the hands of a diabolic power. That's the way I should tell it to you. Your life is in the hands of a diabolic power. You don't have your own senses. Somebody else got em ... You wake up and you're still sleeping. Your eyes are open, but you're sleep. Then maybe you'll believe me. We've been given ideas that take the mind of the human being away from it. It puts your intelligence under the force, under the power of lies, falsehood, artificial humanity. Your human nature is not real. It's artificial. If we want to go back to nature, let's go back to nature, but let's take a good look at nature. In my conclusion, let me give you a quick example of how we should go back to nature. They say we are born free. I say that's a big outrageous lie.
The baby is born of his mother after the father put the germ there. That baby's life that forms in the mother belongs to the father and the mother.
That life forms in the mother. It gets its complete form in the mother. For the whole time that it's being formed, it's locked up. Not free. It's locked up. Not allowed to have any say so at all. Mouth shut up. Eyes closed. Not even allowed to hear a grownup's conversation. Closed up in the womb of the mother's belly. And when it come out of here, it's all finished. It wasn't able to say, "I don't like the way you're making my toe." Couldn't even see how the toe was made. Had to get everything, his features, everything had to be completed without the baby even seeing it. Couldn't say nothing about it. Couldn't resist it. Locked up in a tight cell. Baby get about seven to eight months. See the baby showing they want to get out. Elbow, stick out the mother, make a print in the mother's stomach.
Make an indentation, a bulge. Trying to get out. Can't get out.
I know you want to get out, but you wait. You have to wait until time for you to get out. Locked up. Okay, the baby comes out. Happy to see this baby. Released from jail. But then we say he was released, but now he got a leash on his neck. Baby let out of jail with a rope on it. We call it the umbilical cord. Umbilical cord. The umbilical cord, that's right. The umbilical cord. A rope running from the mother to the baby. The doctor, a grown up, has to then cut the baby off the rope. You talking about born free. No, born free. You're born in captivity.

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