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IWDM Study Library
From Africa to America-An Islamic Perspective
(Parts 1-5)

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed

Peace be on you, as Muslims greet, as-salaamu alaykum. We praise G’d the one and only for us and all people. We witness that he alone is G’d and do worship, that is, worship is owed only to him. And we witness that Muhammad, the last prophet, the messenger of Allah and the mercy to all the world, he is a mortal human being, the messenger of G’d, and not a divine person, or not a G’d himself but a mortal human being that G’d gave us as a model of our human excellence. We witness that he is the messenger of G’d and we pray the prayers, and the peace be on him, amen.
Let me first say that we are very pleased with our visit to this lovely and beautiful historical city of Charleston, South Carolina. We are so pleased with it, until we are already making plans to come back with family members just for a week or two of relaxation and discovery.
I have seen so many of your faces already that I know very well, especially the imams. We want to say to you that we certainly appreciate the strong support that you give the Muslim community of America and our propagation efforts. 
We have a topic that we are very, very much interested in---not only for the Charleston Muslim community, but also for the Charleston African-American community, and, really, for the African-American community all over these United States. A few years ago, it came to me that our people have wanted a day in the calendar year to celebrate our life. We say, our heritage, our ethnicity, but I'd like to say our life, as a people. The excellence of that life originating for us as a racial group on the mother continent we call Africa and extending now into America, and well established and growing in America; and we have to include the Caribbean and some other places.
So we hope that one day we will be a part, not the leaders, but a part of an effort to celebrate the excellence of the African family tree; the excellence of our traditional life, at least one day yearly, one day yearly, a one-day celebration. It was thought that we are interested in doing this as Muslims and that was an era for which I am partly responsible myself, I guess. Because when we put things together it is automatically expected that we are going to lay claim to it as being all ours. This desire is not all ours and many other things that we will be talking about today are not all ours.
I like to greet the African-American audience always as an honorable audience. And if there are any non-blacks or non-African-Americans in the audience, we definitely are greeting you too when we say honorable audience. And I like the term honorable audience because we have been people who've been dishonored; people who've been discredited, dishonored; people who have been really denied our inherent dignity during the ugly years on this continent and in the Southern part, especially in the southern part of the United States---those years of slavery and after.
In fact, it is only recently in the history of our people in America that we have started to believe that America is equally for us---we didn't believe that years ago. We thought that America was for white folks and we thought that America would never accept us as equal citizens. But thank G’d for good American people of all colors, and especially for the efforts of civil rights leaders and Garveyites and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's people for the efforts of all those who protested that very strongly. We are grateful to them who made sacrifices too of life, money and everything to bring about a better day for us in America. We are grateful to all of them for this change that we appreciate so much.
But we have to realize that this has not been the case-- only in recent years, only for our present young generation is this thing new and the past is non-existent. But for us the past does exist. And we believe, like many African-American leaders who are not all Muslims, we believe that if we forget that past, or separate completely from that past and not pass on to our children, this new generation of ours, the knowledge of what happened from Africa to America, we will be making a terrible mistake.
I would like to mention, also, that I find it very pleasing to read in the profile that I was given by the imam that was sent to me, mailed to me, and also with the cooperation of my public relations people, especially brother Marzook Al Ja’amee who is based in Dallas Texas. That information to me was very helpful and I was very pleased to read that most of the blacks---in quotation, "blacks"---most of us here are homeowners, and this is unique for us in the United States. We do not find that-- I do not know of any other place in the United States where that would be so. Also, I am very pleased to know that the African-American people are the black people who came from Africa, brought from Africa, we should say, as slaves; more correctly, we were brought from Africa in ships to be sold as slaves here; and were sold in the markets here as slaves to the whites who needed slave labor. That is great; I think, for us to know that you were used in industry. Many parts, most of the parts of the South were used just as farm labors and domestic servants. But here, I think you are very special for that, although I know a few other places, our people were used in industry. They were used to build constructions. They were used as carpenters, bricklayers and iron workers.
And they tell me, that much of the work that we look at when we go through the city of beautiful Charleston we are looking at the work of African-American people. It is gratifying, very pleasing also to know that of the 31% of the population that you represent, you represent also 30% of the workforce in beautiful Charleston. This is not to say that you're happy here, I know better. You didn't tell me that, I had to read about those things. 
I hope that you have patience with me, I don't intend to give a long talk; a brief talk. But have patience with me as I take my time and deliver this brief address. We, Muslims, believe that our "first father”---and I put "first father" in quotations and you'll understand why---was created for obedience to G’d. G’d who made everything, all humans, all men, and all women. In conjunction with that, as Muslims we believe our "first father" was created to think production, to think establishment, to think progress and to think security.
We praise G’d and we say Alhamdulillah, we praise G’d for revelation, for revealing to the prophets his plan, his purpose, and his direction for all human beings. And we accept that the father for us, African-Americans or blacks, is the father for all people. Education for us is sacred. Education begins in the created body of knowledge by the meaning here for body of knowledge is the world as G’d created it. We believe that the sun, moon and stars, and everything outside and in space, including the Earth and all that's within the Earth was created by one and the same G’d the creator who's one and one alone.
And we believe that in the act of creation, in carrying out or effecting the act of creation itself, G’d produced for us the biggest, the best, and the truest body of knowledge. A full view of the concept of knowledge should have in focus basic true-to-nature-real-world definitions. It should show us the processes of nature and should bring us to see the utility for us, for the human beings, for the human community in that great body of knowledge. Allah, most high G’d, says that “he has made useful to you and has made whatever is in the skies and in the Earth to yield to you, to yield to you, to give its service to you”, G’d says that.
Whatever he has made in the skies and in the Earth, he has made it to yield to you, to every human being, to yield to us; only if we use our good nature and our good senses can we get that benefit. He has made everything to yield its utility up for our benefit. We look at the world we call the modern world, the western world and we see how the western world has utilized the knowledge that G’d created. How the western world has utilized the knowledge that G’d created and has advanced industry, science, technology, and improved upon the state of human being on this Earth. We see that.
We should see that not as the gift of white man---Muslims, we should see that not as the gift of the white man, we should see that not as the gift of scientists and industry; we should see that as the gift of G’d. That is the gift of G’d. I don't think we can appreciate our life as an ethnic or racial group in the way that we should appreciate our life until we first understand the reality we call the natural reality, or the created world that G’d made, with us in it included in it. 
G’d want us to see ourselves as individuals and also as community. And G’d wants the utility that he created that we call the universe, the great body of knowledge from which everything else comes, that benefits man and our human life---except revelation that G’d sent directly from himself through the angels, to men.
G’d want us to see that utility coming to us for our community. The community of the African-Americans, or even more importantly, for the community of the people, the whole United States, the nation, and even more importantly, for the community we call the international community. When we look at this word community, we see---we may come by two words: “come” “unity”, C-O-M-E, come unity---community come unity. Well, that is what I'd like to say to my African-American brothers and sisters come unity. Come unite, come unite for the establishment of the human individual in society.
This is the aim, purpose for real democracy; it is to establish the individual person, the individual human being in the society. That, I believe, is the greatest gift or the greatest use or benefit we find in our religion of Islam when we study the Qur’aan, our holy sacred book. When we study it and study the life of Mohammed the prophet, the greatest use, benefit that I see coming to us is the knowledge of how to grow into a truly just society. A truly fair and just society where the individual will be focused, and his right to have establishment in the society is focused. To me, that is the best benefit that our religion offers.
The concept of knowledge or, I repeat, the body of knowledge offers the definition of life. More than that, our life purpose and our “social responsibility”---this for Muslims is a very important word. Our prophet Mohammed the prayers, and peace be on him, he said that to marry is half the religion, to marry is half the religion. I believe the scholars in Islam will agree with me that to marry means to accept your “social responsibility” as half of your religion.
I would like now to address something very unique for us as African-Americans. I'm speaking of those African-Americans who were inspired, called first, C-A-L-L-E-D, called by the Honorable Elijah Mohammed and inspired by his word or his teaching. That group, we have something, I think, that is very unique. Not that other African-Americans don't have it, they do. I'm talking about the desire for self discovery, the desire for self discovery. The desire for self discovery was ignited by W. Fard, also called W. Fard Muhammad; the same man is called WD Fard. I don't know if all Muslims that share this experience with us or identify in this history with us---those of the so called Nation of Islam today. And I say, "So-called", because we only have one true nation of Islam, and that is the one that has one billion members. It is an international nation of Islam.
I don't know if you agree with the expression satirical; satire, you know, is a word we find in literature. The one who produces satire is actually covering up his work; he is hiding his works, he hides it under satire. We find that some of the greatest criticism, some of the most appreciated criticism of oppressors and oppressive life, dictators and oppressive life that they create for us, bad life they create for their subjects some of the best criticism has been put into that language we call satire. I'm convinced after studying Fard for all of these years, that he put his work in that form of literature we call satire.
But the people he call to his voice were not on a level of education to understand that kind of work; the work of a satirist. So he could not really introduce himself as he should have been introduced, or he could not introduce himself correctly at that time. We know this of him, that he himself said, he was not introducing himself correctly at that time when he was among the African-American people, teaching them and making the Honorable Elijah Muhammad his minister, or his supreme minister, or his spokesperson. He was not introducing himself correctly according to his own words.
And he put it in this language, he said to the followers back then, he said, "You see me now in the clothes of the white man," he said, "one day you'll see me in my royal robes, royal robes." We were informed by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad that what he meant was, that he wore the clothing of the West and that he came in disguise as a white man to fool the white society; to fool this white society. We thought that it just meant his complexion, his skin color. That he had the skin color that would deceive this white society and make them believe that he was a white man.
I have come to understand that he was talking about his work, his literary works. He put his literary works together, in a way that would make the white learned people in education or in literature think that he came as they would come. When the truth of the matter is that he put into his teachings the germ or the suggestion for bringing us into true Islam. But it was a big risk and that's why he said, "Oops, I missed that time." …Thank you, thank you (he is given some water as he clears his throat). I hope you're hearing me clearly out there. They have got a lot of receivers here.
With his satire on the evils of the white race, and the nature of the black, the original man, he ignited in us a strong desire to discover ourselves or a desire for self discovery. Except for Fard’s own contribution to our work or desire of self discovery, I think that being made slaves here in this country was the second most powerful influence for self discovery in us.
To take a people from their past, and then raise them as babies, and deny them any connection with their past as a people free or as a people before slavery, has the power, the influence or the effect of igniting in the thinking ones of that people a desire to get back to the original point of origin and discover self again. I must repeat that Fard made a contribution to that when he gave his teachings of the origin of man and identified the ones who brought or put us in bondage as an inherently wicked or people wicked, wrong by nature, and identified us as innocent people, a G’dly people; or by identifying us as the original man. And if I can point to what I appreciate and still appreciate most in the Nation of Islam works or in Fard's works, I must point to that, that what it did was ignite in us a desire to think and discover ourselves.
That desire is still burning in us; still burning in me the desire to think and discover myself, to know myself better. We received a lot of help, but the way it was given to us makes it difficult for people that are not informed on a high level of education. We were told that our original self is “a righteous Muslim”.
And we were told that “the black man is the first man or the original man”. I would like to say to you today that the only truth in that statement is the truth that every man can appreciate, no matter what color his skin may appear to be, black literally, white literally, brown, red, yellow, no matter what color his skin is literally, the truth in that statement is a truth that all men can appreciate. Because what it is talking about is not the physical color, when it says original man, it is talking about the original consciousness of man.
The problem for us is not in our pigmentation; the problem for us in our consciousness. If we have weak conscience or corrupt conscience, and this is a kind of a contradiction because the term conscience usually suggests something good. But we know that we have many people in society---and it always has been---who are conscious, but they are bad as hell. Then what we are talking about when we say “original conscious”, we are talking about man's first state of mind where he is a baby, a baby in his mental makeup, and he is not distrustful, he is trustful.
He does not have knowledge; the world has not given him any knowledge yet. He has no light in his brain to go by, he does not even a have flash light of learning. So he is a black child in that sense, he is a black baby in that sense, he is “original”---I hope you understand. But G’d intended for us to have more than just that blackness or that faith in our future, in our intelligence, in our future, our mother and those we have to depend--.
[00:30:28] [END OF AUDIO]
On us rests the responsibility for the dead. Fard asked the question, he said, "What is the duty of a civilized person?" And he answered it to Elijah Muhammad. He answered it. He said, "The duty of a civilized person is to teach civilization to the uncivilized." Now, I changed the language just slightly: the duty of a mentally alive person is to teach mental life to the mentally dead, and that is what we are trying to do.
That is what Islam will do for us if we just trust Islam. But it is our responsibility also as students of Islam to communicate this in the language of the people whether they are Muslims or not.
You perhaps have noticed that I do not care to be seen only as a Muslim. I want to be seen also as an African-American, as a member in the African family. If you have seen that, then you are correct. That is exactly the way I feel. I do not want to be seen just as a Muslim, I want to be seen as an African-American, as a member in the African family tree or people. I am going to get to something even more important than that in a few minutes, I hope.
Much of our burden that causes us to feel hopeless, causes us to feel still oppressed---and we are somewhat oppressed---all the weaker people in the society, I am sure are feeling oppressed, and they will give different reasons why they feel oppressed. We have been conditioned to give only a racial reason for us being this way or feeling this way. For everything that hurts us, the automatic response is to say racism that is automatic. A lot of it is racism, but I am sure a lot of it is not.
We cannot expect a society of mixed people, European, descendants from Europe, descendants from Africa, and now in many other places; we cannot expect the society of mixed people like this to really be better by us than we are by ourselves in our own private homes.
We do not call each other racist when we suffer some problem at home. We look for an answer, "Why did you treat me that way?" I think it is time for us in America to start having the same orientation in us, or the same makeup in our thinking, where we do not charge it to race. But first, we look to see what the cause of it is before we call it “race”.
A white man looks at us and frown, “racist”. A white man hollers at us for getting in his way, “racist”. A white man turns our application down, “racist”. That is not always the answer.
What do you call the black man when he turned your application down? What do you call a black man when he hollers at you in the street? What do you call the black man when he cheats you out of something? You do not call him a racist; that is just human weakness. So that is how we have to see a lot of the problems we have in our society.
Believe me; if we stop seeing it as a race problem and start seeing it as a human problem of human weakness, human defect, human immaturity, and start working at maturing our society or working for more of our members to have social maturity and moral maturity in them, we will really start begin to realize some progress.
Do not expect to come out among other people and find a better situation for yourself than you find at home with your own people. Get that home in better shape and as your home gets to be in better shape and you get reputation for having good civilized human homes, the world will accept you and treat you better.
It is hoped that we can come to an idea of race that will be healthy for us and not burdensome, and not negative. A concept of race, or heritage, or race and heritage begins for us, and I am speaking for our group, Muslims with us, a concept of race and heritage begins for us with a concept of human life, human life. That concept, to me, is more important than African-American life---human life.
African-American life cannot form, except upon human life. If it forms upon anything else other than true human life, then it is going to form as a deformity and it is going to make nothing but misery and burden for us. It is going to increase our burden, not relieve us from burden. It is going to increase our burden, and I think that is what has happened for too many of us. Too many of us have missed the positive shock effect, the positive psychological effect of Fard's teaching on black man. They have come to an idea that all you have to have is just knowledge that you are the black man and you are “G’d”. If that is all you have gotten out of Fard's teaching, you are in more hell today than you were in before Farad came, I guarantee it. We are asking for a revival of a calendar day. It was attempted, but it has almost gone away now.
I do not want to name all the groups that attempted to have some kind of calendar day, but believe me, when the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was celebrating Savior's Day, he was attempting to have a calendar day, not to just celebrate Fard coming to us as a savior, but to celebrate our life. He was including, in that celebration at one time, eating together, and enjoying a special diet together that had become a culture symbol, an element of culture, an element of a distinct culture in our lives as followers of the honorable Elijah Muhammad.
Dining is part of culture, an important part of that culture. What you eat and how you socialize when you eat, it is a very important part of culture. In fact, it is the beginning of a culture. That is how culture began for man and his private family, eating and selected a certain food and having conversation and socializing at the meal that is the beginning of culture. When you rest from work or from the field, you are eating and socializing, so now you have a fear to sing.
A song is born right there in that situation. A dance is born right there in that situation. Medicine is developed. Traditional medicine is developed right from that situation. Clothing events are developed right from that situation. So what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was starting was something that could possibly grow into a full culture for his people in time.
I am not just addressing this, I do not have a degree from college, Essien Udom who made a study of the followers of Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he interviewed many of them, I am sure it was over 100, I think it was close to 200 or more that he interviewed, which is a big sample for that study. He came to the conclusion that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's greatest contributions---now, I am using my own words but this is the conclusion he came to, I am not quoting the book exactly word for word---the greatest contribution was his contribution to cultural identity. That the making of cultural identity for his people that is needed for all African American. Some of us have been influenced by certain interests, religious and church interests. Others influenced by nationalistic interests, others influenced by entertainment.
We had a lot of divergence effort to establish our cultural identity, and the overwhelming influence is America's cultural air. So we all are deprived of coming into a real cultural identity by America's overwhelming cultural air. The TV is just too strong for us. What is coming off of the tube is just too strong for us. What is coming out of Motown and these other record producers is just too strong for us. What is coming from the gang language on the street is just too strong for us. It is too strong for us. Those influences are too strong for us because we do not have a nature-based movement for establishing for ourselves cultural identity.
That life must start in human excellence the same way G’d started it, when He started the first human family. It must start in human innocence and in human excellence. That is compatible with the best of human nature as G’d created it. We want to revive that interest in a calendar day. Some of you are familiar with what they call Juneteenth. Raise your hand if you're familiar with it. Good, I see that a lot of us are familiar with the expression Juneteenth.
That was an effort on the part of our people to have a day to celebrate once a year on June 19th, if I am remembering---June 19th I think. It is called Juneteenth, but the day is June 19th. So those with me, we would like to revive that interest in having a yearly calendar day and hope that one day it will be recognized as an ethnic holiday for us, not only here in America, but in Africa and everywhere the descendants of our forefathers are; a day of celebration for us to celebrate, not just our local life, our local ethnicity, but one to celebrate human excellence in the African family tradition.
Wouldn't that be wonderful? Celebrate human excellence in the African family tradition no matter where we are on this earth. It does not have to be led by Muslims. In fact, I refuse to lead it. I will only lead Muslims. We want others to lead themselves and all of us make our independent contribution to that great annual day of celebration. But all of us must agree that we are going to not celebrate throwing of bone, voodoo and all of that stuff, we are going to celebrate the movement of civilized man in the African family.
And I am not talking about Afrocentrics either, because they missed the biggest chapter in the excellence of the African life---Islam.
This brief address invites us to focus on: number one, true to nature concepts and meaning. Islam invites us to be intelligent as G’d created us, not in some fancy, in some superstition, in some imaginary reality. G’d instruct us Muslims to be scientists, to think as scientist think. To respect the natural world and extract from it the knowledge that G’d deposited in it for us to establish great societies upon---science.
So as we abide by G’d to come into appreciation for the natural world and the science that it has in it as its treasure, as its language for man in his progress, we are also inspired to look at our self ethnically with the eyes or through eyes of a thinker---a scientific thinker, and let us work for more objectivity when we are trying to define what the black man is, what his race is, what his ethnicity should be, what his culture or life should have in it. Let us be more objective, let us realize that G’d created us to be men respecting the natural world of knowledge and to be scientific thinkers.
All of us cannot do this, so we are calling for an intelligentsia again. We once had an intelligentsia. We once had, in fact, an African-American intelligentsia, and that group, I refer to as an intelligentsia, we had many great men like W. E. B. Dubois. I would include even Booker T. Washington. Booker T. Washington, he was just not a man talking about having businesses, self help from businesses such as hair beauty shops, barber shops, restaurants, grocery stores. The man had an interest also in higher education and he had an interest in not only that, he was working for higher education and he was working for higher skills to create higher skills, to produce African American people capable of having higher skills and getting the top dollar in the work market. This is what he wanted, and not only that, as Dubois was more than an educator and a political activist etc. Dubois and Booker T. Washington, both of them were also philosophers. They were philosophers. I've read their writings. They both were philosophers. They had great philosophical thought. Both Dubois and Booker T. Washington wanted our people to think philosophically, to find a vision for them, the vision for their destiny.
Garvey, he in a practical way he was trying to get us to see our aim for us. What is the aim for the whole black people? He wanted us to have one single aim. He wanted us to have a group purpose, a group aim. He wanted us to have a sense of common purpose and common destiny; common purpose and common destiny. He wanted us to sense where we all should be going and that we all should be in unity cooperating with each other to get there because it was not for any one particular group of us, it was for every one of us. That aim, that purpose, that destiny.
These men were philosophers. Booker T. Washington, in his writings, he speaks of, and I quote "An idea of life". Do you not know that is a philosophical statement? The man was advocating that blacks have an idea, an idea of life. That is a philosophical statement and that is why we are so divided now in our life directions because we do not have a group sense of life, and a group idea of life. If we all would become Muslims overnight, we would have a group idea of life. The idea would be this Islam, Muslim life, but we really do not expect that. G’d said that “if He wanted all people to believe the same, He would have made them that way”.
G’d will not force all people to be one thing. He gives the best, He offered them the best, but He leaves for them many other choices. G’d have offered us all kinds of food to eat, but He left for us the cheap and no good food too. Likewise, rich ideologies, G’d have offered us the best ideology to live by, but He has made available to us many other ideologies.
So let us not expect that all of our African-American people are going to be Muslim. Some of our African-American people who are Christians are more advanced in the road that I am talking about now than many of us are. So we do not need all of us to be Muslims, to have progress in the road that I am addressing right now. We only need all of us to agree on some basic thing.
Secondly, we need to focus on the proper… [Recording interrupted]
So it is not just our knowing these things and saying, "I believe in these things." It is making your whole life, all of your life activity, all of your connections, all of your social connections, all of your acquaintances, all of your socializing, all of your visits to places to making all of your life conform to those five. To what you say you believe and what you say you have as the basis for your life, the five---the mighty five. It is conforming to that that is the duty of every Muslim. You say, "Well, Imam, do you do that?" I try hard to do that. None of us is perfect but I am not weeping. I feel good over my life. I think I am doing a pretty good job. Given the circumstances for my Muslim life in America, I think I am doing a pretty good job. And I am working for the day when we will have a piece of this America for ourselves; not only one piece but many pieces of this America for ourselves. Where we will have a mosque and school within our reach, we can walk to it. Where we will hear the Adhan called over the air on the minaret, we hear it five times a day. We will be reminded as we should be reminded by a muezzin, a person appointed to carry out that responsibility and many, many other things I hope to see realized in my lifetime, so that I can more perfectly live the fullness of my Islamic life according to the principles of faith and the mighty five.
Allah says, in the Word of G’d in a holy book, "You are the best community, khayra ummatan the best community." Khayra” doesn't only mean best in behavior, best in virtues, best in morals; it also means best in usefulness to yourself and society at large. Allah says, "You are the best community khayra ummatan the best community." ‘Ukrijat brought up for what? “Lin-naas”, he raised up, raised up---they say “evolved”. One translator translated it as “evolved” for all humanity or for all people. Raised up, brought out, it means brought out evolved for the good of all people. That is what Allah said. "You are the best community."
What am I saying this for? To make you feel special? No. We should see that as an obligation more than a charge for our ego. We should see it as an obligation. When Allah tells us, "You are the most useful community to all people evolved for the good of all people." Allah is not telling us something to make us stand above all people or to make us have an ego bigger than all people. Allah is telling us to make us see that our responsibility is to all people. Our responsibility is to all people.
The great intellects, the great minds that were formed immediately in the period of Islam, in the following of Mohammed the prophet, may G’d be pleased with all of his great disciples, all of his great followers---those great people they didn't only establish civilization, revive the sciences for Muslims, they did it for the whole international world. It was because of that great contribution, the civilization and the sciences that the west had that period, it is called the Renaissance or the Renaissance, which brought in industry, modern science, and now technology.
All of it is owing to the introduction of the Qur'an by G’d through Gabriel, Jibreel and Muhammad, the last prophet. Understand that, if you do not understand that Muslims, you are missing. Now G’d said that he have evolved us to be the most useful community to all people and he says of our prophet that he has given Muhammad to the world as a mercy to them. That he is a mercy to all the worlds. He says of our qibla---the house that we visit and turn to five times a day in prayer. He says to us, "Do not worship it but worship the lord of that house." That is Allah, the lord of that house. "fal ya’abadoo rabba hadha albayt”. Therefore worship the lord of this house."
Now he told us to pray, to turn in prayer toward it. It is our orientation, it is the hub. It is the hub. Or what do you call the center--the axis? Yes, of a wheel, the axle, the axis, the hub; the hub or the axis. If we are all in one wheel---and we are---we form a circle around the world when we pray toward that point. Then the qibla, or the house, which is the qibla---qibla means direction---is the hub for us, the center focus, the house, the point of orientation that is our qibla. The word qibla means that.
What does G’d say of the house there that is raised up? That is the symbol or the sign of the Qibla. He says that it is the most ancient of houses raised up for whom---Lin naas, for all people, for all people. I can go on, and on, and on and tell you how this religion is clearly stated to us as being a religion for all people, all people. And G’d says that this religion that I have preferred it for you. So Muslims, I am not speaking to Christians, I am speaking to Muslims. Muslims you must understand that in our religion, Muslims must understand that G’d's preference of religion is Islam. His preference for human beings is Islam.
And I told you he has given us many kinds of food. We are free to have all the choices but there are better food and worst food. And like that also it goes for ideologies and religion is ideology or religion mean ideology. “Oh religion is not ideology”. Yes, it is. Religion is ideology. Not on the secular plane. That is the only difference, it is ideology. Our religion is built upon the idea that there is one G’d and that he created man on an original human pattern and complimented that pattern with Islam the ideology.
Now here is the one that may get me in a little trouble with the---how can I refer to them? The Muslims that claim to have the first patent on Islam. Now Allah says of us, Muslims, all of us, that we are the best community raised up, brought out or evolved for the good of all people; but G’d also said and I quote, in English, it appears in the most recent issue of the Muslim Journal: "Let there arise out of you a group of people inviting to all that is good, and enjoining what is right, and forbidding what is wrong, they are the one to achieve success."
So what is the condition that Allah gives for us if we want to be successful in life? They are stated right there and I repeat them for you: We have to be a people or a group of people inviting to all that is good, all that is good and forbidding all that is wrong. That is the condition. [Chuckles] That is the condition. Allah says in the Qur'an, "Who has forbidden the good and useful things that Allah has made for his servants?" Which tells us that some ideology holds some things that G’d wants us to have for our good and for our use forbidden. And Allah revealed the Qur'an to say to us, "No, it is not forbidden." If I want to ascend to the height of my spiritual development, I do not have to become a hermit, a saint, a celibate, a celibate. Celibate means I do not want women I do not want sex---I do not have to become that.
Some people in religion, they think to achieve the height, the utmost of their spiritual refinement or development, they have to leave those things to go off. Muhammad said "Those who do not accept the marriage are not of me." So any of us that start advocating no marriage, the prophet said, you're not of him. Forget it. Sisters, I thank G’d for creating me to have a natural appreciation for you.
There is no chance for me among the celibate when G’d created me. No, no. [Laughs] They couldn't have gotten me. I do not care what circumstance I'd fallen in, they wouldn't have never gotten me. When I was asleep, I had a desire for a woman. Something unconscious in me. You know what is going to happen when I wake up.
I am going over the time, but please, I want to finish this. With this last invitation that G’d gives us, G’d invites us to become a group to bring out from you, he says. He is speaking to Muslims, means let there be out of the Muslim community, the general Muslim community, a special group. I ask for intelligentsia, something that we once had for the African American people. Here is G’d asking for an ideal conscious group of people to work for the good of the general Muslim community.
Now it doesn't mean we are going to have one of these. We should have one of these in America; every Muslim nation should want one of those special groups working for the general welfare of the Muslim community, setting the example that G’d wants for the whole general society or the community. I do not have to tell you that I want you to bring out from your group, from those in my association; I want to see that there rise up a group---I rather not say it in my own words, I am going to the quote: "A group inviting to all that is good and enjoining what is right and forbidding all that is wrong."
Every Muslim group no matter how small we are, if we are national group or we are a community group, or an ethnic group, we should feel the obligation to have this special model for the general community. So let us work on it, let us work hard on it. It is forming. I can identify some of you in it, it is forming. G’d says, "They are the ones to achieve success." They are the ones to achieve success. I want to kind of interject something here, before concluding with my last note is going to be on democracy and the new world order, how we should see that, but I want to interject something here.
Something occurred in the Nation of Islam. I am talking about the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s satirical Nation of Islam---something occurred in it. The element that occurred was the emphasis placed on the Bible more than on the Qur’aan. The Bible was seen as the sacred book but there was more emphasis on---the Qur’aan pardon me, was seen as our sacred book but there was more emphasis placed on the Bible and on using the Bible in our lectures and in our invitation to others to come to Islam than it was on the Qur’aan. This conflict here: emphasis on the purity of the Qur’aan, and emphasis on the usefulness of the Bible for bringing our people from what we called the mental death or from the graveyard, and the dislike for the cross as a symbol and the love for the crescent as a symbol.
Some of us now, we value the crescent more than we value the Qur’aan. Those who identify with Fard and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, I am inviting all of you to listen to what I am saying and come out of that conflict, put down the Bible as your guide. Stop using it to convert people, use only the Qur’aan. Leave the Bible to Christians. I am inviting you also to take your symbols out of your preaching. The Prophet never had a crescent with a moon and star when he was preaching.
That developed much later. Our religion is not about a moon and star. Our religion is about everything G’d created. I know what you are using – “the sun, moon, stars is everything”. I do not believe that and you cannot prove that to me. Sun, moon, stars are not everything. Because we were told the sun, moon, stars, freedom, justice and equality. Isn’t that what we were told?
Congregation: Yes.
Yes, the sun, moon and stars stood for freedom, justice and equality. You may say that is everything but I do not think so. You will not have the sun, moon and star before you have Allah. Get Allah, you have something that will give you the sun, moon, and stars you won't have to make a big deal of it.
Democracy, I have come to be seen as a person who really loves and appreciates this brand of democracy we have in the United States. And I do; but more important for me as a Muslim and as a citizen of this country, is that I appreciate this democracy because this democracy recognizes G’d above the nation, and credits G’d with His vision for the life of this nation, with his vision for this idea we call democracy. It credits G’d.
I shouldn't have to remind you of the language that is used but I will: “We hold these truths to be self-evident” and it goes on to say “that man is created by a Creator”. It goes on to say that that Creator has created man with rights that no one can take away from him. It says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident”. That forms not only the introduction to the concept of this nation; it forms the basis to the concept of this nation. It forms the heart of the concept of this nation; it forms the spirit and lifeblood of the concept of this society, this democracy. And because of that I appreciated it.
No language like that was used before the Qur’aan came to Mohammad, the last prophet. The great fathers, the great Greek philosophers, they did not come up with any such language. Though the civilized Christian society of the West value them and credit them with much of the language or the design of this democracy we have, we know that they themselves call those people heathens, pagans. And they do not want us to go back to ancient Greece with our life and our society.
And it was the not Greece, or the philosophers, the great men of Greece that brought them to see this new concept, this wonderful concept, the freedom of democracy. It was the revival of the sciences, the transformations and work, study work that was done on Greek philosophy by Muslims who extracted the best and threw away the worst; who extracted what was useful and threw away what could not be used.
They extracted what was compatible and useful in the forming of the ideas that already were---I would say---pointed to or implied in the teachings, or in the revelation the book we call Qur’aan, and in the life of the Prophet. The life of Prophet Muhammad -- we have to understand this too, brothers and sisters---Prophet Muhammad was not just a teacher of faith and religion. Prophet Mohammad also taught sciences. He taught sciences. He gave scientific explanation for things, to individuals. This is reported in his teaching, in his words. He promised us that if we follow him, he would lead us to the fount of abundance, to the fount of abundance, kauthar.
Muslims, let us appreciate American democracy because American democracy recognizes a Creator and actually sought to design its idea for a society with respect for what was intended by the Lord G’d creator. That is why we appreciate this democracy.
We do not appreciate the permissiveness in this democracy. We do not appreciate that this democracy gives the same freedom to a criminal that it gives to a decent citizen. We know that the law will catch him one day and take it away from him, but the law will let him go and go and go, and while he's not locked up he is criminalizing us, our families, our children. He is making hell for us in our neighborhood.
So to say that drinking is legal, drinking alcohol is legal. They say narcotics are not legal right? But the drug alcohol is legal---to me that is a contradiction. Now, we know that by saying drugs are illegal you do not stop people using drugs. If they would say alcohol is illegal, they won't stop people from using alcohol, we know that. The society will agree that if people are just using alcohol in small quantities and not making a lot of problems, we will agree we won't be upset because those people are not locked up.
But Mohammad did not seek every person that took a drink and locked them up. He did not do that but for the sake of us having a healthy morality, a healthy human moral nature and morality conscience, we need our society to be honest and truthful and consistent with this idea of what is right, what is virtue, what is moral; to be consistent.
Alcohol is doing a lot of harm to society; we do not want to go back to the days of prohibition. Do not go back to the days of prohibition do it this time the right way. Just say it is wrong and leave people alone, and catch him only when they violate or make a big problem. Do not go around hunting and sneaking in the backyard to see who's making liquor. That is what created all the problems. The way they treated it that created all of the problem. They did that so they could justify making it legal again. They only made it illegal because there was a strong, moral, Christian pressure on them to make it illegal.
As soon as they got the law passed, then they set out to make the law of none effect by raiding the homes and all that stuff. They created the problem to make the laws change back and make alcohol legal again. We can do it, let us make it legal again. You say, “Brother Imam, but you accept this country the way it is.” You are wrong, no conscious American citizen accept the country the way it is until it gets the way we think G’d wants it. We are not satisfied with them selling liquor in this country.
There are a whole lot of things that this country allows that we are not satisfied with. We are free citizens of this country, with equal citizenship. So if we ourselves want to see change in this country, we should not wait for Christians to do it, let us work for those things, but let us do it with strategy, with patience, with intelligence: “wajadilhum biallatee hiya ahsanu”. Let us argue and debate with them in the way that is most intelligent and excellent, and let us have patience to see the society change its mind and laws will be passed.
Already there are small communities in the United States where liquor drinking is outlawed. Do not think this is impossible. There are a lot of other things we want to do. We want to make this a better America.
Now, leaving democracy and coming to this expression “new world order”. How should we see that expression new world order? We should see it as the advocates of this new world order or the people who announced the new world order see it. We should also see it with our own eyes, and through our own knowledge, with our own knowledge.
I believe that when they speak of the new world order, they are telling us that economic conditions and the closing in on the populations, the problems that we share internationally, have taken the priority off of national life, and national purpose and security and has put it on international life, international purpose and international security.
The whole global community now has become more important than any of its segments, even the great United States of America. I believe that is what they are trying to tell us: That we will now have to compete as industrialists, as educators, as business people---whatever; we have to compete now not in our own limited context the United States, we have to compete now in the international community in the global context. I believe that is what they are saying.
I accept that, I believe that. And I believe that is a natural urgency that G’d has created to force man to say, laa ilaha illa Allah and to say that man is one community. Allah says that to us in the Qur’aan, “One G’d one community.”
But I also think we should see the new world order as a world order where the individual is going to be established in society. What do I mean establishing the individual in society? It is establishing the individual in society as a conscious member or citizen in society with responsibility for upholding his life and everything in his possession or under his authority. This is what the law requires of us, and that time is growing up on us.
We cannot escape it, we cannot excuse people saying that they're ignorant or they're poor. No, we have to educate them. If they're ignorant lets educate them. If they are not informed, let us inform them. We cannot make them rich, the way to make them rich is to give them a better mind, to give them a better sense, to give them what G’d intended to be in their brain.
Give that to them and they will become more responsible, and they will become more supportive of the whole life of the society. And that individual or the establish individual in society means that that individual is entitled to his share in the international world; his share in the international resources. All of us will not get it.
G’d, offers everything to all of us and then He favors some of us to be more fortunate than others so that we can get it and then share it with the rest. Well, let us believe in that. Let us believe in the great station that G’d have given the individual person. The individual person -- man and woman, sister you are included you are not out of this. Allah does not say the thinking men without also saying the thinking women.
He says the thinking -- speaking of our great virtues, of our great properties that he created us with. He mentioned the power of thought, the extra power to exercise thought. He says, “And the thinking men, and the thinking women.” He says, “The most productive tool" is what: “The tool of thought.” Allah says that. What did W.E.B. Dubois say? “We will progress in the future to the extent that we teach our children to think.” I have to conclude now but I do not want to. I wish I could stay with you for all day and all night long. Peace be on you, as salaam alaykum.


