04/09/2004
IWDM Study Library
The Spirit of Our Success
Louisville KY
By Imam W. Deen Muhammad

We praise Allah, the Lord and keeper of all the worlds, who cares about His creation and particularly, His human creation. And the best of His human creation are His servants, the messengers, the prophets. And the leader among those messengers and prophets is the last prophet, the seal of the prophets, Muhammad, to whom the Qur’aan was revealed more than 14 centuries ago. We salute him with a traditional salute, ?all? All?hu ?alayhi wasallam. The prayers and the peace be upon him, Wabad, and what follows of that salutation.
We witness that G’d is one. We worship of none but Him and we witness that Muhammad is a mercy to all the worlds, the servant and messenger, and servant of G’d. We are very happy to be here in Louisville, Kentucky, at this beautiful grand, exquisite structure the Galt House.
I did not know Louisville was as big as it is. I had the wrong impression all these years. I knew they had a big fellow from here. Muhammad Ali, the greatest fighter that ever stepped into the ring.
It has really been a great visit for us thus far. I think it is going to just keep moving with more and more energy until it concludes this evening, sometimes this evening. Let us be grateful to our G’d, firstly. Let us be grateful to all of those that have helped us along the way to become better human beings, more conscious of ourselves as a social group, lost from Africa, not knowing how to get back there and trying to find our way to establish our life individually, and our life collectively here in the new world, the United States of America.
Let us be grateful to everyone from slavery until today that have done something to help us on this path, the path to our honor. And the greatest honor we can ever have is the right relationship with our creator, our maker, G’d, Allah Subhaana Wa Ta'ala. Glorified and highly praised is He. Yes, so I am prepared to go right now and start right now. But I made a little change in the program; obviously, the program keeper or the program holders here did not know of that change.
There is one of the Imams among the many who work hard to have us go forward and be successful in the right way and in the right picture, who has worked with me very diligently, very faithfully for now better than maybe eight years. And he is very significant in the success that we have realized in these recent years, in the last five years. He is none other than Imam Abdul Malik, the resident Imam of Baltimore, Maryland. I ask you to hear him now.
[Pause in recording.]
Yes, I was so comfortable there listening to him, I just forgot.
[Laughter]
Praise be to Allah. Before I begin the address to you today, let me say that last night was a wonderful, beautiful, high-spirited night. The program was wonderful. It was actually the--- conceived by---the idea itself began with Imam Clyde Rahman of Cleveland who is a great---he is a great promoter of fundraising for us in our community. He is often coming to me to get my permission for him to do something in my name. I am conscious of the fact that---sometimes I wonder how I am going to pay my phone bill. I know where to go to get the money now. I am not hopeless, because if I just tell you all I need money, you are going to give it. I know some of you out there are going to give it to me. I know that.
So I am not saying I am hopeless. I am not hopeless. I do not like to ask for money. That happens to me very rarely now, very rarely am I without money to pay all of my bills, because of you supporting me so faithfully, supporting the ministry and before the ministry, the Mecca fund. Most of you that started out with me when I first established my own ministry separate from the Nation of Islam, you started out with me then, you have remained with me ever since. And those who are on the list of donors now supporting my ministry, most of them are the same ones that supported me from day one. That is faithful. That is loyalty.
Yes, so when I am asked “what do I think of an effort to raise funds for me in my ministry”? Right away, I hesitate; I do not feel that I should agree to it, because you are already doing that. You are doing that on your own and you are doing a beautiful job of supporting Imam W. Deen Muhammad [coughs]. Even though we can use more money many things, we would like to have a budget that would take care of our staff, our employees for a year in advance. We would like to have that. We do not have it.
I listened to Imam Clyde Rahman and he does not know really how to get my agreement. He does not know how. I hope he is in here right now. He does not know how to get me to agree to something like that. He said, “Imam, Brother Imam, Imam, we want to do something big for you. We want to give you a million dollars, maybe $2 million.” I am listening. “Can we do it? Can we do something for you?” I am listening. I am thinking too at the same time while I am listening to him. I am thinking of the time. He said, “25 years of your leadership.” I said, “You are right.” “And we want to do something for you.” I said. “Okay, I agree.” I agreed because of the time, 25 years. And I agreed, because I think we need something like this to give us the opportunity to reflect and recall our steps from 1975 on the leadership of the most unique black man that I know of in the history of black people, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
We need this day to recall where he put us and where we have come since that time, from since that time, this has given us the opportunity. And Allah is with us, G’d. Those who do not know who Allah is G’d, Allah says, that is G’d says to us in our holy book. He says “say it to them”, meaning the Christians and the Jews, and also another group that was called Serbians. They still exist. Some Serbians still exists. He says say to them, “Our G’d and your G’d is one in the same G’d.”
We know who Allah is, and now I think the intelligent, educated people of the world know who Allah is. They know that Allah is G’d, the creator of the heavens and Earth. G’d for everybody. Yes. I know that it has been that G’d, that is a G’d, that has been with us all the time, all the time. When they brought us from Africa to be worked here as slaves, sold to slave masters, G’d was with us then.
And the day that they declared us free, and some of us were so hungry for an opportunity to develop our minds, to educate ourselves, writers on that day of freedom say slaves could be seen in the field when they heard the news resting on their plough handle, the plough, handle of the plough, with some paper, or literature, or book in their hands trying to read.
Now, look what they were doing, when they learned that they were free---trying to read. Why? Because they had been held back from the freedom to learn, to educate themselves, to read, that is what they were held back from---now it did not say, these writers did not say that when they heard the declaration that they were free, they rushed to get a bottle of wine, they were seen rushing to get some liquor, some were seen rushing to eat, to go where going somewhere to eat. That some was seeing dancing in the fields, I do not know of any writers that have said they were dancing in the fields.
Think about that, but the writers said they were seen resting on their ploughshare trying to read some piece of literature. That should tell us a lot. What does it tell us? It tells us that the most precious part of our life is our human intellect, our human intellect. The mind that wants to learn the mind that wants to be an instrument for the betterment of the individual's life, and for the betterment of the individual's environment, the world all around him or her that is the most precious part of our life. I have heard them say, “Oh, no, our heart is the most precious part.” Believe me, if your mind dies, your heart can keep living and you are virtually dead.
We know the importance of the heart, the heart is the mate of the intellect, they are mates like male and female, they work together for the good of the life. And the heart must be right for the intellect to get benefit, and do the good work that G’d created it to do. The heart must be right. But we know the heart can be wrong and the intellect can be very productive. [Laughs] If that was not true, we wouldn’t have all this great production we have in Chicago, and we know a lot of it was owing to the works of criminals, liars, thieves, oppressors.
Chicago, I am sorry, I am speaking of Chicago, not Louisville, Kentucky. I wouldn't dare say that about Louisville, Kentucky. Yes, so a lot of the great work we have in cities, big cities like Chicago, we know that work is the work of a lot of people who are corrupt. So the mind can still produce though the heart is corrupt, but the mind can't produce as G’d intended for the mind to produce unless the heart is right; the heart has to be right.
But when the heart is right, the heart only wants to assist the mind, it does not want to lead the mind, the heart only want wants to assist the mind. So the heart is like a loving, sweet, genuine wife of the intellect, of the mind. And it can be ignorant too, like the mind can be ignorant. Nat King Cole told us that in his song; “My Foolish Heart. And it touched me I was a young man, 14 years old, with hair starting to grow on my chest, and already on my lips.
I had these things, sideburns, sideburns growing down to my chin almost. I was a hairy young fellow. I was in trouble all of that energy growing that hair got me in trouble. When he said “My Foolish Heart”, I went and bought his record. I went and bought that record, right away I bought that record, “My Foolish Heart”, because it was sure in pain. That pretty black girl had me in some kind of pain.
I smelled her long after she was five miles away from me in her house, and I am in my house, I still smelled her like she was right there beside me. I do not know what she used, but that soap had a wonderful smell in my nose. My nose knew but it smelled that she was still there. Yes. Our hearts can be foolish, our minds should be the boss, not our hearts. The heart just enables the mind to keep going straight like a woman, a good woman, a good wife. She will let her husband lead, take the lead, especially, in matters of the world. She will let her husband take the lead.
When I say matters of the world, I mean even matters that he is more familiar with than she is. Even the decoration of the house say, “Honey, I want this house decorated.” She will tell him to do it. Very few women will say, “Honey, I am going to decorate this house. Go get me some paint and get this, and that.” Well, she will say, “Honey, I want this house decorated,” and she may be really a better select of the right colors, and everything, right paint, and everything than he, but she respects him so much in his position of the man of the house, that she will pretend she does not even know too well, what to do about this job of decorating the house. And sometimes he is ignorant enough to think that he really she does not know, but she gets the house decorated.
Yes, that is the way the heart is too. The heart sometimes knows the mind is foolish, and the heart will very easily suggest to the brain, that maybe you are wrong. It will not strongly suggest that, it will very subtly ease up on the brain, “You might be wrong.” We call that our whispers from our souls. We say, “That is a whisper from my soul.” But who knows what is the center of the soul? Who knows where the soul is located in our bodies?
We do not know, it could be in the stomach like some far easterners think, that the soul is in the stomach. It could be where the heart is, it could be the heart. It even could be up here, we do not know where the soul is. We do not know where a center is, but I think most likely it is where the heart is. The center is where heart is, that is my opinion. Yes, so much for that. We need this day of celebration to think the life and the struggles that we have made to get where we are today.
I mentioned yesterday---yesterday evening at the banquet, pressure, how pressure work to advance our life, to free us eventually, pressure. When I was sitting there enjoying the meal, that chicken was so tender, I ate it all, and a little more than I usually eat; two big pieces of tender breast, chicken breast. I ate it all. I was trying to be, what they call that, sophisticated---I am going to leave a piece, so when they pick up the plate they say, “Oh, he wasn't greedy, he wasn’t starved.” Then I said, hey, I cannot handle this, this sophistication has to go out the window. I ate the last little piece.
The music was so beautiful and great, and my half-brother, that man got a voice and he can sing. Rasul, he can sing! I mean, he has a beautiful voice, professional skills as a singer, a vocalist. I am not saying this to tell him to go into that business, now we do not want you to do that. If you are more valuable to us where you are now as a preacher for G’d's cause, and we hope he will stay there, not going to entertainment.
In fact, any one of you in position, such positions here, if you have professional skills of that type, you can make more money with us than you can out there in the world of entertainment. Yes, we will make you a star. You will sing for us and we will make some money too. Praise be to Allah. Yes, I was thinking about pressure, and I said to myself, The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was certainly the creation of pressure, pressure. Most of our great minds and producers are the creation of great pressure, great pressure. We all are people who have lived on the pressure for all of our lives, generation after generation.
Anytime you think of your position in the world of societies, the African-American people. If you are conscious, you are going to be under pressure. There is a pressure on your mind and your heart that we have been held back, and we need to do more to catch up with the world. No matter how much advancement we see in our name through an individual, or in an individual, like Oprah Winfrey, like Bill Cosby and many others, that is not near enough to remove the pressure of the poor representation that a people of 30 million making good income when you compare our income to other groups, and yet our picture in the world as a people, is nothing for us to be making any big celebration over.
Yes, we cannot celebrate yet the achievement of the race we cannot celebrate yet the achievements of the race. If we would right now today think of having a day to celebrate the achievements of the race, our race, our people, we would really be celebrating the achievement of our people back in time, not now. Because for the last 20 years almost, we have not been achieving as a race, we have only been achieving as individuals. So there is great pressure on us yet, and some of us are conscious.
Minister Farrakhan is conscious, My Imam, W. Deen Muhammad is conscious, and many of you on the both sides in the Nation of Islam and here, many of you are conscious, and you are not happy with the picture that you have in the world have of yourself as a people. You are not happy with that, and many of you are supporting our business effort, not because you want to have wealth, you are supporting that business effort because you see that there is a chance, there is a good chance that it will be a contribution to the betterment of that picture of us as a people that should be responsible for much more of our life than we are responsible for.
And I know that is why you are with us and you are the best, and we are going to be very successful. Because we have a business group we call Private Distributors, Private Label Distributors, having as our instrument, our purchasing instrument, CPC, Collective Purchasing Conference. I know we are going to be very successful, and it is because the people who are, who make up this group---this business group---are not in it for selfish reasons. We are in it because we want to see our personal families dignified, but also because we want to see our group family, the race dignified.
Another thing that is so special, in fact, the most special thing about this group is that we know there is no dignity, not true dignity, not lasting dignity, unless we are serving G’d Almighty that made all of these things possible.
These pressures, pressures, pressures; I am a scientist in my own right. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the environment that he produced, that created for our minds following strictly instructions from his teacher the one we were taught to call Savior, W. Deen Fard Muhammad, W. F. Muhammad, W. Fard Muhammad, he had different names. And all those names have a message for us. He did not do anything unnecessarily.
Yes, they produced an environment like a great magnet, and we were like dust, iron dust; dust that magnet just whoop; it is so powerful that it just bring us as gust of iron dust as soon as the magnet came into our presence, the gust of iron dust just whoosh and we clung to that magnet. That is how powerful that magnet was. We could not break from the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad---too powerful! Some of us left the walls of the temple, got out from under the pressure of coming to the meetings three, and four times, five times a week, and other pressures, but that dust was still clinging to the magnet.
We could not get away from it. Some of us smoked cigarettes and when a Muslim walked-in, we would try to swallow it up, put it ...do something with it. [Laughs] We could not get away from it ---powerful magnetism---a people under great pressure. Under pressure to prove the white world of supremacy of white supremacy, a lie. They lied against your birth-rights, they lied against your inheritance, they lied against your original pattern that is with G’d. No one has a pattern on our creation but G’d, and they lied against the original pattern that is with G’d, and Frederick Douglass could not stand the pressure. Elijah Lovejoy---you know about that Elijah? He was way back there he could not stand the pressure. David Walker could not stand the pressure Booker T. Washington could not stand the pressure, out to prove white supremacy a lie. Dubois could not stand the pressure, Mr. Fard came when Drew Ali was very popular with his Moorish Science Temple. The Honorable Drew Ali could not stand the pressure; he had to rise up against it. Mr. Fard came when Father Divine and was preaching that “If you want to see Jesus, look at me”, and was calling himself Father Divine. The white man did not do anything about it either, because the white man understood the pressure.
Yes, and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he could not stand the pressure. When he heard that there is an invitation to go another way, he asked no questions, and that is what my mother said and what my father told me. When he heard Mr. W.D. Fard speak for the first time, he asked not one question, the only thing he asks is, “How can I become a follower, a member?” And the story is told by my family, by my father and mother, and by us now, their children that on that night, he had one dime in his pocket, and he took out that dime and gave it to Mr. Fard when they asked for charity.
Can you imagine Mr. Fard asking for charity in 1931 while the Great Depression was on? The Great Depression was on, and many whites were out there standing in soup lines. Do you imagine where the African Americans, the blacks were? Many whites were standing in soup lines. Rich Whites lost all their money, they were jumping out the window killing themselves, this is history. Actually committed suicide, some of them, they could not stand it.
Now here the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is, if he had a dime, I am sure he was saving that to pitch in with his friends and maybe become a shareholder in one-third of a bottle of whiskey. That is what he had that dime in his pockets for, and I know this because my father and mother told me about that situation at that time. He gave his last dime to Mr. W. D. Fard, and here is what Mr. Fard said---the man was psychic, the man was psychic---“ He said, he did not tell my father, he said to the people, “Elijah just gave me his last dime.”
He named him that night, Elijah Kareem. Kareem because he was generous, and Kareem has two strong meanings. One is generous, giving freely for good causes, and the other meaning is honorable and noble. Kareem, honorable and noble. So he gave him that recognition because he was on that, night or that evening generous, very generous giving to a good cause, giving to a causes his all, and look, it had to be the will of G’d that he did not have left 11 cents to give. He did not have 11 cents to give he had 10 cents, that is all he had to give. And 10 represent your conscience, your mind, your active living mind, your conscience. He had 10 cents to give, a dime. Now, you who know about fighting, boxing, you know the referee want to know that you have your head clear, and if you are not up by 10, it is all over.
Well, one thing I am happy about when it come to me, I do not need you to brag on me in this particular respect, I know that G’d has eased my way, and have given me knowledge for the path, and I can walk it, baby! Praise be to Allah. Yes, I am not bragging, I am rejoicing, I am thankful. Praise be to Allah. Yes, so the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was already in the grip of G’d. Yes, he was.
G’d had him go there with one dime in his pocket so that it will be in the record as a symbolic testimony to the fact that G’d was there with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad when he came as a hopeless black man, beaten down by poverty, and beaten down by the ugly image of his race that white world gave him, beaten down; beaten down at the pride of education, beaten down and spiritless. His wife had to bring him to the meeting, he could not come on his own---my mother brought him to that meeting. A lot of you do not know that.
The first meeting with Mr. W. Fard, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was brought to that first meeting by his wife, and our mother, sister Clara Evans Muhammad. We are celebrating 25 years, and the wheels are rolling, and the ride is good. Praise be to Allah. Yes, my mother said, she said, no my sister Raya is here, I like it when I am talking to you about the past that she is here or I have a witness and I do not think that any of us who could recall all this as well, and as vividly as my sister, she have kept in touch I guess that is a blessing of Allah too. Allah has conditioned her, prepared her to retain what happened, to give it to us if when we need to, and I am sure she can give much more than I am giving of this. But my mother said to me, she said, “Son,” she said, “I said I am going”--- I have to give you this other little piece of it. It was a friend, a girlfriend, of hers who told her about the meeting. She did not know about this Fard either. A girlfriend of hers told her that there is a man, and He is saying that we were not always like we are, that we were once living in our own land, and we wore fine silks.
He said to my mother according to my mother's words to me. She said, “I am going back,” and I do not know what the night was. I cannot recall, I am not going to try to say, but she said, “I am going back to hear him.” She said, “Would you like to go with me?” and my mother said, “Yes.” She said, “And son,” she said, “I thought that maybe I might hear something, I would see something that would help your father.”
That is why she went, all of that is a sign of G’d to me, I do not know what it is to you, but it is definitely a sign of G’d to me.
She said “we heard him speak”, she said, "Do you know son?" Which shows that all these years after that occasion, it was still amazing to her what happened. She said, "Do you know son?" I know her voice, the son knows his mother's voice, the way she said, "Do you know son?" The way she said it, told me that that was a mighty, mighty, occurrence. Something happened that day, great gravity. She said, "Your father never took another drop of liquor after that."
One time, hearing Mr. W. D. Fard, she said, "And you know what he told me?" She said, "Son, he told me, he said, “Clara, when you get home, you got to take off all that pork out of the icebox."” Because Fard had talked about whiskey, and about pork, and all that, say, “You have to take all that pork out of the icebox, and throw it away, throw it out,” that was her word, “Throw it out,” and then her voice changed, she said, "Son, I could not throw that pork away."
Now listen, listen. Now, do not jump to conclusions, like one sister did. I gave a speech, and I said, "I walked into my home once and saw the television on, and the children were there around the television, and there was this pornography." We had HBO---human body odor---and pay-per-view---you are surely going to pay-for-viewing with your moral life, and everything else, if you are not careful. So we had that, and there was these very obscene, sick, erotic things going on. I am telling you, when I saw it, I wanted to just take the TV---I wish I had a sledgehammer, I would've banged that TV once with the sledgehammer, it would have been broken to bits. It would not been usable, I know that. Anyway, I saw this, I told my wife, I said, we have to get rid of this. She agreed.
Sometimes you innocently slip into these things. You are buying it for a good reason, but you are not conscious that there is a possibility that when I am not here, and the children, they do not even have to turn the TV on. You could have left it on the right channel, on the channel for that, and went away, and it was a nice program. But the TV is still on, so when the time for pornography comes, time for it to come on, there it is, and the children are there to see it. I told her we had to get rid of that, and we got rid of it, we got rid of it. We stopped subscribing to pay-per-view, and human body odor, HBO.
The sister I heard her. I got the tape of you sister, you are probably here too today, she said sharing this after I gave it. You give or say something, and they say if you pass it to 10 people, you might not recognize what you said after it reached the 10th person. So she said to an audience too, she was talking to believers, she said, "Yes, the Imam said that he had---" And you know the story, I am going to get right to what she said, she said, "He had something done to the channels so they could not see it."
Meaning she was leaving it for the audience to think that we wanted to see it, but we did not tampered with the channels or something so the children could not see it, but we could still see it. Like we were hooked on that putrid stuff. Now, do not think, "Oh, he is a puritan. He is a puritan, He is a puritan. If he was in power, he would not even let us watch HBO and pay-per-view." Yes, I would. Sure would, that is your business but do not bring that funk in my house.
And believe me there are a lot of valuable programs on HBO, and pay-per-view, a lot, but I did not want it on there at all. No, I did not think that maybe I can call them up, but I hear now they do have a way, there is some way now that you can control it where you do not have that indecent showing on your channel. So you can get HBO now, and pay-per-view, I think they have a way---I am pretty sure---I've heard that, they do have a way that you do not have to have the indecent programs.
That is good, that shows you what decent people can do, it wasn't because of me, I do not think, but decent people, the pressure of decent people will keep this world right. Praise be to Allah, with the help of G’d and his angels, of course. So anyway, my mother, she said, "Son, I could not throw out that pork." She said, "I had a girlfriend who had more children than I had, and she was poor, and I could not throw out that pork, I gave it to my girlfriend."
I know my mother, she did not say, "Do not tell this to anybody." But I know she meant I should not tell it to anybody. She told me, she said, "I did not even tell my husband." I understood why, I wouldn't have told him either.
That little man, he was just like the Elijah of the Bible, he could bring fire down from heaven on here. Sometimes he would not know when to lighten up, if then he brought it down on and burned up, and turned to crystals, and ashes, He is still bringing the fire down.
[Laughs]
If you were lucky, if you survived, buddy you sure wouldn't do that again. Or not let him know it or be in his company. [Chuckles] Anyway, I learned a lot from that, what my mother was telling me, I learned a lot, and I am still learning from it as I recall it, I am still learning from that. G’d was with us, G’d's been with us all the time, working out of sight, is not that an expression? Working out of sight, it has two great,---boom---G’d working, and not seen, and His work is out- of-sight. Yes, he was working out of sight all this time.
We know the story from there the Honorable Muhammad eventually proved to be a great, great faithful believer in Mr. Fard and Mr. Fard made him the leader of all the ministers. His title given to him by Mr. Fard was Supreme Minister. He left the Honorable Elijah Mohammad in charge, I was a little baby, and I did not know that. I wasn't there to witness any of this, all of this was taught to me by those who did witness it.
John Hassan a faithful friend and supporter of my father who worked as chief investigator in the Nation of Islam in Chicago, and also, a special business secretary and assistant for the Honorable Elijah Mohammad. He told me, he said, "W. D." He called me W. D, he did not call me Wallace, John Hassan always called me W. D. He said, "W. D." He said, "When the savior left, he told us- the people you can hear people sniffing, they are shedding tears, they are crying because he had to leave. He said he told them, “You do not need me anymore,” he said, “Hear, H-E-A-R, hear Elijah,” that is what he told them. After being on the job of not building the Nation of Islam, on the job of preparing the Honorable Elijah Mohammad to take over, he left, and said, "You do not need me anymore, hear Elijah.” And Elijah faithfully worked in obedience, in perfect obedience to his teacher. I saw him in the last years of his life, and he was so pressured by information that he could not argue with, that he had no way of knowing for most of his life as a leader.
But now people from Arabia were coming to him, people of Pakistan were coming to him and they are telling him what Islam is. The average one of you from circumstances even much better than my father's---a man, a foreigner can come to you and tell you the most outrageous things about the life of people abroad and you would have no way of saying, “You are a liar or you are truthful,” because you do not know anything about life abroad, not on that level of education that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad had and not in that time that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was in, when Mr. Fard made his appearance.
No, the uneducated deprived of education, information, culture, etcetera, they had no way of questioning Mr. Fard, he could have told them that Saudi Arabia is a black man's country. All black people over there, he could have told them that. He wouldn't know, how would he know the difference? He had no way of questioning his teacher and he had no will to suspect his teacher since his teacher was appealing to him to join the effort to dignify and lift to dignify, and lift up the black man. He had no interest in questioning him, just like you have no interest in listening to me if I questioned. You are still in the grip [laughs].
Yes, and you think I am angry with you? No, I love you, if you come here, I will kiss you. I love you so much I will kiss you and I will kiss you and kiss you, and try to kiss you until you wake up. Yes, I love you, I cannot help it. G’d has made me, yes, G’d has made me to take over where my father left off and to keep bringing you closer and closer to where you have to go, to be at home with yourself and at home with your G’d.
Great pressures, great pressures on the soul of the African-American, on the soul of the black people; great pressure because of the lie told against our worth as human beings in the world of human beings---great pressure. You know, if you tell us especially when -- you know, if you tell a child something ugly, very ugly against how that child perceives his parent, you put a terrible, terrible pressure on that child's heart and mind. Likewise, when you tell a people who do not know, have been separated and excluded from information, separated from and excluded, kept out of information.
They do not have access to the records, they do not have access to the facts of history and you tell them that they are subhuman. Put it in documents that protect the order of this society, the constitution of these United States. That “He is 2/5th of a man”, 2/5th of a man, and then we know that, we hear that, we know it. Maybe Dubois with his intellect, with his knowledge of people living in France and people of a different opinion, maybe he could hear that and not be pushed down in his dignity or out of his dignity.
But the ignorant, they cannot argue back when they hear that, it just goes partly into the mind and reaches the soul, and without their mind even reacting, and it begin to work as a poison, like a terrible virus that sneaked into their system, and they do not even know what is making them so docile. What is intimidating them when the opportunity is there but they are afraid to step into it, they do not know what is holding them back. But it is that poisonous germ, the lie of their worth as a person and a people that went into them and they had no education to fight it, and started to take away their strength to even stand up as a human being.
You can still be religious going to church, getting the Holy Ghost---and that is not ridicule---I sometime get the Holy Ghost. The Nation of Islam did something to me, my body just cannot jump too much under the Spirit, my body wants to stand still, but inside man, I am rolling, I am doing the holy roll, and everything else. I am shaking and trembling, and speaking in tongues inside.
[Laughter]
Yes, you can be a devoted church-goer and when your folks say, “Let us do a great thing,” you become speechless, you cannot respond, you have no will to join them in doing a great thing. A foreigner comes in with the same invitation and you jump up. Why? Because it was a foreigner, it was somebody else who said that you were not worthy of any great challenge. 
When they come in, “Oh, “Yes, oh, yes, we could do it. We could do it boss.” You do not say ‘boss’ but your behavior is saying ‘boss’. “Yes, we can do it.” But even that person, they have been overcome by that germ and intended to kill their will, to be the man and the woman that G’d intended them to be. Even such a person still has that pressure on them, pressuring is not going on. That pressure is on you. It is going to stay on you until one day you wake up in your soul and say, “I am through with this inferiority in me”. G’d created me for great things and did not create me for any reward less than what he created any other person for.” You are going to rise up and do something about your state. Yes sir, and I know it is coming. But in this day in time, I know that you who are in that state cannot be reached by anything except Mother Nature’s work on you. We do not have to worry about you. You are so few now. I really ask our ministers, imams, do not worry about them.
Do not spend any time on them. Do not waste two minutes of your talk on them. You say, “Well, look how long you have been talking on them---more than two minutes to be sure.” I am not talking to them. I am talking to you so you will be in better position to help yourself and them. I just want you to know their state too. I am not talking to them but I am reaching them a little bit. The way to reach them is not to talk to them; talk to somebody else and let them hear.
Praise be to Allah. Great pressure, now look, G’d says to us not only in the Qur’aan, but the Qur’aan is very clear and expressive... It says there are signs in the heavens and in the earth, and as well as in your own self, in human beings. It says but most of the people go on heedless, not paying any attention”. G’d did not say there are signs just in those things of the heavens, that the great prophet Isaiah and others saw and commented on. Allah revealed to Muhammad, the prophet, the last of the prophets that those great signs up there are for all people, the common person, all of us. Those signs exist for all of us in everything. So I am looking at science now; I am looking in science to see what the signs are. There are signs in everything. You cannot alter G’d's creation. You cannot change it. You cannot take it out of its natural state and put it in a state -- and in that creation’s a power that G’d created it with to communicate messages to the intellect of man. I mean man and woman. I am looking at technology and I am reading signs because that is still G’d’s creation. And it never is deprived of ability or its power to send messages to the intellect of man. I am looking at technology. I am also aware of science theory on the beginning of the earth and how the earth is made, how it is constituted, how it is made up right now. And when you think about it, and many -- this is nothing new to comparison that I make. These comparisons have been made I guess 1,000 of years ago by religious students who study the revelation of G’d, G’d's revelation to man. I am looking at what we have been given as a picture of this earth, and we are told that the earth is solid on the outer surface, solid in its outer surface but in its interior, it is liquid and the liquid is fire, liquid fire. There is proof of that when we see a volcano, and there comes the liquid fire shooting up through a crevice, through an opening in the earth's surface or in the earth’s floor.
We do have proof of that that would make us agree with science. Yes, that liquid fire is coming from somewhere called lava. That that liquid fire is coming from somewhere, so we do have proof of it. Now this liquid, when we see it cooled on the earth, it was not liquid like water. Water remains liquid after it has cooled. Freeze it too much and it will become solid but it would be solid water. If you put the heat to it, again it melts very easily, very quickly.
So what comes out of the belly of the earth or out of the interior of the earth, deep interior of the earth is really earth. But the heat is so much that it cannot solidify under the pressure. That is what science says, it is pressure. How is that fire staying there and continues to stay there all of this time and it does not go out? Pressure. This is the theory of science. Theory means belief. This is the belief of science but a belief that is based upon some evidence or some rational support for it.
Theory, it is a theory. No different than faith really. The faith of Abraham that is exactly what the faith of Abraham was. It was a belief but based upon some rational support for that belief. The earth -- are you are getting impatient? My time is very valuable now. When I started with you in 1975, you could have given me $5 an hour. Now you insult me if you give me $500 an hour. It will be a big insult because I make more than $500 an hour speaking to non-Muslims. They pay me.
This great mass, the earth, solid surface we are walking on, it puts pressure and gravity---gravity puts pressure on the earth surface. It causes such great heat in its interior; the heat is so extreme it melts the interior. In fact, the interior had never been anything but melted because of the mass and the gravity, the pressure from the outside. And that pressure breaks through weak places in the surface of the earth. If something happen like an earthquake or some other natural phenomena happens to shift the plates, the solid plates that hold up the sand and the earth, the soil and etcetera.
If something happens and makes a crevice, an opening that hot interior shoots, spurts right up through it. It happens in the water, in the ocean as well as on land. This is science. G’d say that in everything in the creation there are signs. What He has created is His word. The whole collection of matter, or material existence bears the will of G’d to express itself as a testimony to the presence of G’d and to the fact that G’d is its maker. So it speaks these messages to us, to the mind or the intellect of the human being.
What message do I get out of this liquid core that remains liquid because of so much pressure on it? It is a sign of how G’d advances creation on the path to its destination or its destiny. We as a people, we have been under great pressure. And in our core is this liquid fire. Liquid fire made by the pressure of the world that said we are black people and inferior, two-fifths of the human being as white-supremacists charge against our humanity or against our human life.
That is the pressure along with other pressures that have us boiling inside. An interior cannot really solidify; it remains in a fiery state. Every now and then, there is an Elijah or somebody to shift the plates of the surface, and a crack, a crevice and then, and there is a Malcolm spewing fire all over the land.
There is a fire Farrakhan and my Imam, W. Deen Muhammad spewing fire all over the land.
They say, "Whoa, let us get away from the mountain." [Laughs] The lava is rolling down the mountainside. It is going to kill everything alive in its path. [Laughs] But after we cool, yes, after we cool, we come back and pick up gold, pick up silver, pick up copper that have been thrown out; precious elements that have been thrown out of the belly. “We thought Elijah was just spitting up fire. Elijah spit up some precious metals that are not only good for the black man but good in the treasures of white America”.
Think about this, there are signs brothers, signs. Oh yes, in everything that G’d has created, there are signs. I can go on talking to you about this fire---hat is not the end of it. Oh, it has a lot of messages. It has a lot of messages. It is sometimes good to release your fire, especially when it will not let you form a productive surface. [Laughs] It won't let you form a productive surface. But if the world would just stop when so much pressure on you, you will not keep spewing it out and messing up the surface.
It will be contained and the surface will become more solid, and in time, it will just soften. It will just soften to the rain and become productive, become a paradise with so many beautiful things growing on it. That is because you have suppressed your anger for the sake of growth and beautiful production. And you cannot do that. You cannot do that as long as the most, I would say, attention-grabbing thing is arousing your anger. You need something to come into your life as a strong attention-grabber that is not arousing your anger but soothing your nature.
And that is the message of Elijah Muhammad that says, "G’d loves you and G’d has come to destroy your enemy and deliver you from his grip." Oh, that is so soothing. Now I do not have to give a lot of my attention to the white people as a threat to my life because I have been told that G’d got something coming for them. G’d got something for them. I do not have to worry about coming out of there boxing with them. I cannot box with missiles any way.
[Laughter]
Now my attention is given more to the soothing teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad that respects my dignity and my human worth, and makes me feel good. So the fire inside begin to quiet to let our surface solidify. And growth comes and the rain touches us all. This is wonderful. That is exactly what is happening. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad and others started it but we are here to keep it going. Yes, we want to keep it for you, the great soothing, soothing reality so you won't be too occupied with the wrong that the white world has done to you.
See they can---there is a psychology if you can engage a person in something that you control, you can take over their lives completely. If I can keep you angry with me, day and night, I do not have to worry about you going anywhere because I am holding you psychologically, because you will not see that you are wasting too much time with me even though I am a big trouble in your life. You are wasting too much time with me. You have to have some time to keep your own life and to build your own life. You cannot keep your mind on me all the time.
When I was young minister, around 1954 or 1955, I recognized that. I recognized that we in the nation of Islam were being kept from freedom to work and produce more for ourselves by the habit of just dwelling on the white man as evil, and the devil, and a reason for us having all our problems. We dwelt on it so much that I say, "Hey, how can we really free ourselves to work on our own life, and to build up our own selves up if we are going to spend all this time talking about this white man, the devil?" So you know what I said to them as a young minister, and not if I was 23 years old when I said this. I said to them, "You make the devil more important than you make G’d when you talk about the devil all the time, and talk about G’d only a little." That is what I told them then.
Oh, you are criticizing the nature of Islam? You are criticizing your father? My father did not think that. He heard it. He knew it. He never once told me to stop. I even went further than that. We are just reviewing the history. Good, that is what we should do. I went even further than that. I told the ministers; I said, "We are wrong to say in the name of Allah and in the name of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad." I said, “This sounds like the Christians who say, In the name of G’d, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.”
I said, “Nowhere in the holy Qur’aan where I have read in the name of G’d and in the name of something else or somebody else.” That is what I told them. Now I have to admit that I was young and naive, [Laughs] but G’d's hand was on me just as his hand was on my father when my father reached into his pocket and gave Mr. Fard his last dime. Yes, so I told them that was wrong. Now you say, "What did your father think did he put you out?"
No. He did not put me out. The only one that openly resisted me or showed that he was not going along with that suggestion was our supreme Captain at that time, Raymond Sharrief. He would make a point of getting up behind me and he would say, "In the name of Allah and in the name of our dear holy apostle, His messenger and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad."
He would make a point of saying that. I was young and naïve---but I was mature at the same time. You think I got up there and said, “Oh, He is telling you all that you shouldn't,” I was just as quiet and comfortable. I never got up and even indicated that I was displeased with what he did but I kept on doing what I thought was right. Chicago, New York, all around the United States fell in line with my suggestion.
Malcolm and all of them start saying, "In the name of Allah." and I suggested them to say, "And we thank him for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad,” and they followed my advice. So even way back there, my influence was growing on the Nation of Islam to change it so that it will one day be where we are today.
I am sure Raymond Sharrief was the first one to go tell my father that he is saying not to say in your name and my father probably said, I do not know what he said. I am psychic too.
He probably said, "Is that so?" and left it just like that.
If you come against the flinty stone, you will get bruised.
He would say, "But if the flinty stone comes against you, you will get ground to powder."
[Laughter]
Now you know, even if you were bad, that will make you tremble a little bit. [laughs] That was good for me; maybe I was feeling my Cheerios.
[Laughter]
I know one thing; I sure heard his words and got the message. You know, the power of creation is the will of G’d. Listen to what I am saying. The real power of creation is the will of G’d. G’d created it. His will is in it. It cannot exist except His will be in it. He cannot create something with his will, or I should say He would not. It is not logical. That is what I mean when I say He cannot. It is not logical that the creator would create something with the power of His own will and then leave it to exist separated from His will.
It also needs the support of His will after he created it. Whatever He has created, it still has the support of His will on it as an influence. And in His nature and development, it has His will as its strongest influence. We call that will the will or the force, life force. The will of life or the life force and nothing is stronger than the life force. The life force is so strong that G’d permit us to do something that He forbids us to do when we are helpless, under the life force, the life force of starvation.
When starvation comes, life resists---life says, "No, I cannot let this soul die. I cannot let him die. I cannot let her die." The human being that was made to eat what is attractive for a human being's appetite will eat something that is not attractive to a human being to survive---the life force.
The life force is the strongest. It is stronger than our learning. It is stronger than our intelligence. It is stronger than our conscience of what is right and wrong. That life force, so G’d says -- G’d know how he made us. G’d, in the Qur’aan that wonderful revelation. That complete and perfect revelation, that eternal book. He says to us, "If you are forced by starvation to eat the pork, eat it but only enough to satisfy the life." You do not satisfy the appetite. You will say, "I am glad, I was starving.”
"I haven’t had this pork chop and any pork chop in a long time. Wow, this pork chops are so delicious." If you do that, you are going to hellfire. But if you are starving and your enemies say, "You can have a little piece of this pork chop if you will just do my biddings," and you are helplessly in his grip, and you are dying from starvation, you can take a bite. But take it hating it. See, that is how a loyal support of revolution is. The enemies capture him and he cannot---he had to go along with them part of the way just to survive. But he hates every step that he takes in their favor, against the favor of the revolution.
The good believer, if he was put in that position and starving, and knew he was going to die if he did not get a little bit of food, he would take it hating it. Take the food, hating the taste, hating it, and it probably tastes better than lamb chops. See, some of you all, you are Muslims because you have been hypnotized. I am a Muslim because I've been made wise. I do not see a nasty pork chop.
I do not believe pork chop---all these fine looking gentlemen, all these good sense, Japanese got all that brain they got and everything and dignified people, wearing them nice suits and everything and they eating that pork. Do not tell me it is nasty. It is got to be tasty. They would not be eating it like they do if it wasn't tasty. Your faith is weak if that is all supporting you that it is nasty. "Oh, I do not eat pork it is nasty. I do not eat pork it is poisonous. I do not eat pork. 
Yes, so G’d's will is still in everything He made. He said in the Qur’aan in scriptures before also that he has put His spirit, something of His spirit in everything. Something of His spirit in everything. That is His will, the influence of His will. His spirit is the influence of His will and He puts something of it in everything. So now, I am saying to you---are you tired?
Do you want me to wrap this up so you can go?
Okay. I do not want---we are celebrating, so I do not want to make you feel angry. Please, brothers, if you are old as I am, go on to the washroom and come back, please.
[Laughter]
I will wait on you---because that is what I will do. They know what I will do. The security brothers know what I will do. They are believers. Just a minute. Excuse me.
Praise be to Allah.
Praise be to Allah. Yes. How can they give their attention when something stronger than the life force has got their attention?
[Laughter]
Praise be to Allah. Praise be to Allah. We are going to just have to slow down until they come back. Now though I said men, I know you sisters too, are human beings you have got the same human nature that we got. I will not go to the next point until they return. But I will just keep commenting on where we are now, right where we are now. Yes, the life forces, the life forces. G’d created us and He knows the life forces and He has revealed the religion of Islam to Muhammad, the Prophet, for us and as a mercy to all the worlds, to have our life forces assisted by the Word of G’d, by the Word of G’d.
He want our life forces to be assisted by the Word of G’d. The most productive of all life forces in us is human intelligence. Human intelligence, the most productive of all life forces. The revelation from G’d, to the Word of G’d, it comes to assist the human intelligence so it can go all the way to where G’d created it to go. And where is that? We know, what G’d said to the man and to the angels upon me when he created the first man, first human being, Adam, He is called, our first father. "Peace be upon him,"
G’d said to the angels, "I am making a Khalifa in the earth." Then He said, “When I have breathed into him of my spirit, of His Rooh.” See and you cannot say ‘Rooh’ without breathing out. When He has breathed into him of His Rooh, G’d says, in the first person, I have to say it as in the Qur’aan, G’d speaking to the angels. “When I have breathed into him of my spirit.” Not like Genesis in the Bible, that says -- See, they’ve heard this before, that is why I am---because this, they have heard before.
But in my plate, it is delicious. It is delicious every time I eat it. I hope you would enjoy it too. I can eat it over and over again, on every day, every meal. I love it so much. It says, “When I have breathed into him of my spirit, then you make sajdah to him”. Sajdah means complete submission, make completion. What are you sending down in submission? Your whole life. But what goes down and touch the ground? The forehead and what do the scientists say of the forehead?
They say “your brain that is conscious, where your consciousness is, is here in the forefront”. We put that forehead to the earth, to the ground, to the floor, and the nose, the tip of the nose. What does religious sign says? The nose of Adam was the beginning of his life. When He breathed into his body the breath of life from G’d and became a living soul. They will say, the nose is the beginning of life for him. In some of these secret, study orders, orders for the study of G’d’s word, the sciences of religion, they say the A in English is really the nose.
The first letter in the alphabet is really the nose. That capital A, like that, and with a cross there, with the line across it. Yes, so He said, "He have given to everything, something of his Rooh”, something of His spirit. He said to the angels that, "I am about to create a Khalifa on earth." What is a Khalifa? The word ‘Khalifa’ comes from a word that means, behind you, behind you. Behind you in what sense? Behind you in time.
So the Khalifa is the one that wants to go behind in time, away from the world that is in his face to see if I can connect again with my beginning as the creation of G’d. If I can, then I will get hope to have something to support my position that I need to take against the world as I see it. That is a Khalifa. He is a great reformer that reforms, forms over again. It is not a strange form. It is the form that was there before. Reform, make all over again. Yes, and he said, "I am about to make a Khalifa."
They did not want the world changed. The angels did not want the world changed. They had no dissatisfaction until G’d mentioned what he was about to do, they were pleased. I know some of you are saying, "Well, how can angels be wrong?" Iblis was their leader according to the Qur’aan. That is how they can be wrong. He had not yet manifested Satan, the archenemy of man's nature that G’d gave him. He had not manifested yet.
But when the test came, it was manifest that Iblis was not a true willing servant of his creator. He thought he was. He even claimed that his defiance was not really to defy G’d but that his defiance was because he was convinced that the man that G’d was going to make from mud fashioned into shape was not equal to him in worth. He said to G’d, "You created him from mud fashioned into shape and you created me from a fire that gives off no smoke." Think about that.
All from the fire, they translate, of a scorching wind but in another place, is it a fire that gives off no smoke. [Laughs] I know some people like that. I know some minds like that. They get heated up and repent nothing. See smoke means it is giving up its impurities. It is giving up its impurities. It is repenting. That is what it means in scriptural language; that smoke that is smoke in that connection. It means it is repenting. The spirit is repenting.
He said, “You made me of a fire that gives off no smoke." He was talking about purity. He is so pure there is nothing in me to repent, but this creature you are going to make, he is going to have to repent”. And G’d says, "Yes, to them. Well, yes, there is going to be trouble on earth because of my creating him. There will be bloodshed, yes, but I know what you know not," G’d said to the angels, "So when I have breathed into him of my spirit, make sajdah to him."
Now understand that. What is G’d saying? That man in his first form is not the man that G’d created man to be. But when he has been inspired by the Word of G’d and the will of G’d become active in his life, as the driving force of his life; not his flesh but the will of G’d comes into him as the driving force of his life then you angels, submit to---I bear witness that if you come to that state, the angels will make sajdah before you.
Yes.---Do not worry Cuz I am still where I was before. I said I will not go to the next point until you get back. Yes, that is my cousin yes he just sat down with that walking cane---Yes, so Iblis, Allah says in the revealing to Muhammad for all of us. He said, "Iblis became puffed up with pride. Puffed up with pride.” Abaa wastakbara, he refused to bow with the angels, to say with his bowing, “I accept the man that you are creating G’d.” He refused. And his refusal established him before man had even been put on his mission; just created it but not put in his mission or on his mission.
Already, the great arch enemy was there. We think of the devil as a threat to man's life or his moral life, or his obedience to G’d but we do not think of Him as the enemy of all mankind. That is what he is. He is the enemy of all mankind because every person in the human family, no matter what the color, no matter what the level of advancement for that person, education-wise or material-wise, every person is created for the life environment of the Khalifa, for the life environment of the Khalifa.
And you are not going to be satisfied in your souls until you have the life environment of the Khalifa. What is the life environment of the Khalifa? We can get a peep at it. G’d says that he created the man and He created him to be the Khalifa, and he is made to be of service to that man---meaning male and female, if you understand the religious language, the scripture language. To be of service to that man, that Khalifa, whatever is in the sky and whatever is in the earth.
The Genesis tells a similar story and the Qur'aan makes it more understandable. The Genesis said that He put the man in the garden and then charged the man with the responsibility to keep the garden. He made everything, the trees and everything for that man. The garden was made for that man. Yes, do not think of a physical image. This flesh image, do not think of that that is not the form that G’d establishes in that great dignity of Khalifa, not that form.
The spirit behind our success, do not forget what I am talking about. That is my topic; the spirit behind our success. Life is concrete, physical, like this in my flesh and my clothes, this thing’s material. Life is abstract or transparent like the air you see through it. It does not hold an image for your physical eyes.
What do you think is the better part of you? Your physical picture or your abstract picture? I hear some saying abstract picture, that is true. That is true. And if you think of yourself as a human being in human form, in a human body, in a human physical picture, but the best part of you is not that picture that shows up in the mirror, the material mirror, but the part that is transparent, you will be in a position to have happiness that you have not experienced if you have not been thinking it way before.
That pretty girl in Hollywood is recognized for her performances as an actress and her beauty. When the beauty starts to fade, often she loses her mind and may even commit suicide. Think how many lives that have gone to live in Hollywood that could have been saved if they had been told this truth that we are dwelling on right now. It is the truth that all of us know really but we do not give it much thought or attention with our minds, yes. Life transparent is much more productive as tools or instruments than a life concrete that we can see as material.
Dear people believe, I was born a card-carrying member of the nation of Islam. A lot of you do not know that. When I was born, a card was issued and it said “Wallace D. Mohammed is a Muslim, a member the nation of Islam”. To the law-enforcement it said, “if you find him other than a Muslim, take his card and punish the said bearer. Punish the one who’s carrying that card”. That is what it said.
You tell me I wasn’t formed in a very special way. My very special environment. I was. Coming under this kind of language and health by the magnetic attraction that is in the Nation of Islam for blacks who lost their dignity, their courage, et cetera, oh buddy, that is a very special environment. Whether for good or bad, it is a very special environment. Now, if it is for good, it is going to produce a very special people that will live and work for good, for goodness.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, whose name was Poole before, so you might hear students of the history of nature of Islam referring to him, now as Elijah Poole Muhammad. He built the Nation of Islam. However, his teacher Mr. W. D. Fard, conceived the idea, it was his idea. That body's language, the term body refers to the Nation of Islam, the language of the Nation of Islam.
Do you know all of us; we are kept from the world, kept under the influences of the languages of the world. I am not talking about Spanish, English and all that, the languages of the world, we were kept from the influences of the languages of the world, their language of culture, their language of theology, their language of physics, et cetera, and we were kept from the languages of the world. You could not convince us no matter how much education you had from the world. You could not convince us that our idea of reality was not right. Okay, do it now.
Because of the powerful magnetism of the language environment that we were put in that was created for us, for the new growth, for the new birth, for the new development of our people being shaped and created all over again for a new and mighty role in the life of ourselves and in the life of mankind. I hope you are hearing what I am saying. I know some of you are but you do not have to be educated---I do not have college education. I only have three hours credit in English. I did that so I can just speak little bit and stop saying, “Ain't you and I ain’t studying you.”
I just want to kind dignified of my own tongue a little bit that is only if I went there. Not that I do not want to go there, I wish I had the time to go to several colleges, I do and get several degrees. That is what I hunger for in my mind and intellect, I do, but I do not have the time right now. The work in the field is too demanding for me to go away that long, from this work. I study on my own, do not think I do not study. I study on my own.
Like the Honorable Elijah Muhammad did after he was awakened in his mind. He did a lot of self-study. He told me, he said, “Son, I did not have a good penmanship, I did not have a good hand, so I taught myself to write a good hand, penmanship.” Mr. Fard said to the members of the Nation of Islam, he said, listen to this please you students, ''To speak well, you must learn to put your mathematical theology in its proper terms'', “in its proper terms”. What does that say? That the language I gave it to you, the terms that I have put it in are improper. The challenge to your intellect is to now study it and put it in the proper terms.
So it is problem solving in there. That is problem solving. Your teacher gives you a problem. It is a problem. It is not worked. You have to then study that problem and work it out successfully, and come up with the right conclusion, or the right answer. So here is Fard giving us the language of the Nation of Islam and telling us that you will not be successful unless you learn to put your mathematical theology in its proper terms, or in the proper terms.
Do you have any old soldiers here who memorized those? Stand up. Let me see how many here who memorize those, and are familiar, with what I am saying. Everybody that remembers reading or hearing what I have said, stand up. Yes, look at that. Look at it. You do not have to bring fire down from heaven; I can bring fire up out of earth. It is short distance.
Praise be to Allah. Now let me continue. The point here is to share with you in this 25th year celebration, an observation that enabled me to present the spirit behind our success long before there was the occasion for me to tell you about it. Yes, I have always known the spirit behind our success since the day that I became aware that I was to take a stand in this cause; I knew the spirit behind our success. I did not know all the language, the language was still a great puzzle in my mind---I am talking about the language of Mr. W. D. Fard.
It was still a great puzzle in my mind, some of it. But, I understood what the spirit behind our success was. It was my own humanity. There is a tape of me in 1955. A brother who is on my security had it in his possession and he brought a copy of it to me. I was amazed when I listened to myself as the guest speaker invited by Imam, minister---sorry, pardon me---Malcolm X, to speak. I think it was the Jersey area, New Jersey area. I am pretty sure it was New Jersey area.
I spoke for I think about an hour and 15 minutes, or an hour and a half. For all that little time. And I am listening to the tape just a couple of months ago, listening to it in my car. I had it on my audio tape recorder, player. And I did not say anything during all that time that I could not play to you right now and feel a comfortable. Nothing against the Qur'aan; nothing disagreeing with the Qur’aan; nothing against the concept of G’d that we should have as Muslims that is in the Qur’aan; nothing against Muhammad.
Nothing that would even make any believer think that I had some idea that conflicted with what Allah has said about Muhammad the prophet. Nothing. I am telling you, I did not know Imam W. Deen Muhammad back then, but now I can tell you Imam W. Deen Muhammad, in 1955, was on the job doing a marvelous job of lifting up that dead matter, dead matter of the African-American people so that it would become conscious of his destiny with his Lord.
Yes. By doing what? By appealing to the powerful life force in the human being. Yes, the life force that is there and alive because of the will of G’d being in our creation. I was appealing to it and the crowd was responding. The audience was responding to me. I was just talking about our humanity. I recall something of that right now that I've said to them. I said, ''This world has deprived you of your original individuality.'' That is what I said to them. “Your original individuality that G’d gave you and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, wants you to have it back.”
That is what I said. What's wrong with that? I could say that in Mecca. Anywhere. Nobody will be disturbed. No. I just kept addressing the need for us to awaken to the original identity because Muhammad was told to tell us---Elijah Muhammad---was told to tell us, for his teacher told him to tell. Say, “Tell them that they are Muslims. That is their identity. They are Muslims.” But I saw more in that statement than just Muslim. I did not think he meant that we are Muslims in a religious sense only. I thought that he meant that our original nature, our original type, was Muslim. And that is exactly what Muhammad the prophet left with us.
But I came to see that the spirit that was working in us to keep us achieving against the charges against our own human world, in a white supremacy’s world. The spirit moving in us to have us achieve was really the will of G’d inherent in our nature and it was our true human identity. The true human identity is the effect of the Will of G’d on your essence to form you in the pattern and in the picture G’d wants you to be.
So we have a right to be dissatisfied called, being called niggers and Negroes. We are dissatisfied even being called black. Now, a lot of you do not know that. But you are not satisfied being called black and I know how good it makes you feel, brothers of the Nation of Islam. “Yes, I am a black man”. You feel real good on the surface but deep down there in your spiritual core, something is not yet satisfied; because to say you are a black man is just to tell the white man, “I am not happy with my own color.” That is what makes you feel so good.
You can tell the white man now he used to make you saying, somebody call you black. I mean, when I was a boy, call another, one of us black, and you've got a fight on your hands. But it was the Honorable Elijah Muhammad working a strategy that was left with him by his teacher Mr. Fard. It was that that brought us not to be ashamed of black, black, the color black, and to wear it with pride. “Mr. Soul”. What is his name?
James Brown. I saw him and got a chance to meet him in person. I wanted to congratulate him. For what? For the song I am Black and Proud. When I did, he looked like he just came to a standstill in his thoughts and sensitivity, like I put him in limbo for a second. He was like dead, not existing. Then he said -- he came back alive, he said, ''It was your father who changed me and made me want to sing that song.''
But I am trying to explain to you now why it is so, why it is such a happy thing that you are with now, "I am black. I am black". It is because the white man have said for 400 years, at least 300 years that Black is a shame on humanity, that the identity is a shame on the human person. So you want something to give you relief from that condemnation of your legitimate human worth. When you are told that you are black and proud, and given some kind of logic behind it, oh, you are so happy to have it. But I repeat, deep down, in the core of your life, in your soul, you are still not satisfied.
Because you are more than black. You are much more than black. Before you were black, you were something else greater. Okay, what in the hell was that? Before you were African, you were something greater. You were a human being. That is the greatest identity that any creation can have. Nothing can be better in creation than that identity: human being. All the other identities are to accumulate in response to that identity. I am human so I want to dress well; now I have my pride, my cultural identity, my ethnic identity, clothing, the first one, the human identity.
So the ethnic identity is an expression of growth and an expression of my human identity. Necessary because I live in a material environment and in a social environment and I have to communicate in all of these forms or expressions. So my human identity has to communicate in the cultural life. It has to communicate in the political life. It has to communicate in the political life. It has to communicate in all of these lives.
Distort the human identity and all of the other identities are going to be distorted. Hurt the development of the human identity and all the other developments are going to be hurt. Bring the person back to the true human identity and he can start growing again, unfolding again, expressing himself again, in all the other languages and forms and they will all be beautiful. Every garment he threw upon his human form will be new. It says in the -- it was the Satan who caused you to slip out of the original dress. He has caused your father to slip out of the original dress that He put him in.
What was that original dress? The dress of righteousness. The dress of righteousness. The human form is sacred. It becomes deformed if we put untruth and unrighteousness in it. That deforms it more than anything else. If we want to keep the human form we have to remain innocent in truth and we have to remain morally good, morally good, loving, more excellent, and loving excellence that is compatible with our original human nature that G’d Himself made. Yes, yes, you are the original man if you are in that form--in that form.
Allahu Akbar. According to the last prophet Mohammad salla Allahu was salaam, the prayers and the peace be upon him, who received the sacred book, the Qur’aan, the term Muslim names man's prehistory, spiritual life or nature, as well as the person who has consciously accepted Islam as his way of life, the Qur’aan as his book and Mohammad as the messenger of G’d, his leader, his prophet.
Muslim meaning has two very important meaning in Islam. Muslim means one who follows the guidance of G’d, the Qur’aan and the prophet, the messenger, and Allah says, “And obey G’d and obey his messenger.” So those who follow that, they are Muslim, they are called Muslims. But long before, there was a conscious Muslim and a system of knowledge to establish Muslim life on this planet. There was the inherent Muslim in your very creation.
Your very creation is Muslim. The world of Western science calls this Homo sapiens. The world of science calls it human being in the prehistory form or state. But the world of religion, especially Qur’aan, calls it Muslim. Every child is born Muslim and circumstances make the child something else. That is the teaching of Mohammad the prophet, verified in the record—hadith-those collected by Bukhari, a Russian, way in the early centuries of Islam and by the other scholar, the other researcher, collector of hadith, pardon me, Muslim; Bukhari and Muslim.
Now, if we have to go out to eat, I will not permit it. I know you cannot be facing starvation that soon because I saw some of you eating breakfast like you will not have lunch. The terms Muslim and Islam are derived from the verb aslama, aslama, which means “to be resigned, to be at peace”. Resigned, to be at peace. That means it is your comfort. It is your human comfort to be at peace. It is not something that you impose upon your spirit, upon your life against His will. It is something that your own life and will wants to be in as a state for your life, a state of peace. So, resigned to peace, that is what it means.
Now, the Qur’aan on the origin of Al-Islam explains this existence of this kind of state, of this kind of person in his soul, in his prehistory soul. When I say prehistory, I mean before man learned to have a society. Before man had learned to write and record things. When man was yet what they call primitive, when he was yet what they call primitive, not having a refined language, etcetera. This was already his nature. The nature to want to be connected with his G’d and to be in a state of peace for his soul.
When you study the development and growth of societies from so-called primitive order to advance orders, you see men forming as a spiritual community before he forms as any other kind of community. That is because he is originally spiritual; the will of G’d influence on him, makes him spiritual. He is originally spiritual. As Scripture says as it was in the beginning so shall it be in the end. G’d made you to be spiritual, in the beginning and after this world of materialism warped your spiritual life, deprived you of your humanity. Again, you are going to have to be revived, recreated again, with the word of G’d, and His will, and His word, to again become a spiritual community.
Islam is a spiritual community, the Ummah of the prophet. It is a spiritual community returning us back to our original identity that abstract picture, that is much more important than the material or concrete picture. Allah says in the Qur’aan, G’d, “That there be not any altering in the pristine nature created by G’d.” In Arabic, it says this religion Islam lilddeeni haneefan fitrata Allahi allatee fatara alnnasa AAalayha la tabdeela likhalqi This religion of Islam is a religion of the origin. The religion of the origin, the beginning in the garden of paradise that which he patterned human society upon. G’d patterned human society upon it.
La tabdeela likhalqi let there be no changing, no altering, in the pristine nature created by G’d. G’d revealed to Muhammad that he created human beings correct, not inferior, and not sinful. He created you perfect in your original type that was in the garden of paradise before you were seduced out of your form by the Satan. That this religion that He is given you now, is not something taken from scholars, not something taken from idealists and imposed upon your original self. But it is the complement to your original self. G’d know what complements the original pattern-[Audio ended before the Imam concluded speaking].

[00:58:00] [END OF AUDIO]

