04/08/2008
IWDM Study Library
Radio Broadcast
Parts B and D

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed

Part B
Imam W.D. Mohammed … the meeting of science and religion is occurring to dispel myth, oppressive myth, or as I said in that tape many years ago that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad had them play it with me being present to hear, what I was going to be charged with. [chuckles] The myth of mythological G-ds. One of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt was established as a powerful ruler. No one could disagree with him without taking a risk, a great risk of being killed or driven out of Egypt. On the prophet be peace, prophet Abraham refused to recognize the authority of the pharaoh over the authority of Allah.
Pharaoh placed himself above Abraham's respect for divine authority and he warned Abraham of consequences. Pharaoh's position was that Egypt was like no other place on earth, and Abraham would not be able to find knowledge, science, and guidance for his mind and heart in any other place. Pharaoh's attitude caused him to see Abraham as a lost soul without guidance. Abraham disagreed. Speaking to Pharaoh, Abraham said, and I'm giving you a quote from the Qur'an, from the Bible, the Holy book of the Muslims, "The one who created me will guide me."
Congregation: Amen.
Imam W.D. Mohammed This pharaoh has been preserved in history as a lesson to worshipers.
Male speaker: Oh, yes.
[background noise]
Imam W.D. Mohammed I'm quoting again from our Holy book, "Who then is more oppressive than him who fabricates a lie on Allah to have the people go about ignorantly in error? Certainly, Allah does not guide the society of oppressors." Qur'an 6:141, continuing questioning religious myths. For attending the major issues in prophecy, this is the end of time that we're living in right now. The sacred Word personified along with this anatomy of bones has come into America with the people of the book, Jews, and Christians followed by the Muslims whose book is the Qur'an.
Knowledge without understanding is as a social issue of bones without any meat on them. This is a Bible quote, "Son of Man. Can these dry bones live again prophesize to the four winds." 
Back to the Holy temples of Islam in North America. In fact, the full sentence is, the Holy temple of Islam in the Wilderness of North America. Just in case some of you all don't know what wilderness is, is where there are a lot of wildlife.
[Background conversation]
"Again, the temple of Islam. You must learn how to put your mathematical theology in its proper terms." This comes from the lessons, workbooks, and assignments to members and students of the Nation of Islam, under Mr. Fard for the first two years or almost two years, and thereafter on the leadership of the honorable Elijah Muhammad. Like some members in the temple of Islam, following my heart, my heart refused to have my mind engage bold flagrant contradictions, charged to divine, to G-d, and to divine order and authority.
In time my desire to have it right drove out sentimentalism to have reason serve my need for better understanding. Teaching that I previously did not favor in the Nation of Islam, were now I'm getting my attention and you say, "Well, you should have favored everything." How many of you all have favored everything?
[laughter]
You favored the honorable Elijah Muhammad saying that the black man is superior to the white man. You favored the honorable Elijah Muhammad saying that you have been deceived by the white devil. You have favored a lot of things, but I never saw too many trying to explain Yakub's history.
[background conversation]
[chuckles] Teaching that I previously did not favor, was now getting my attention. Example, blacks made the devil. "Oh, you don't have it quite right. Yakub made the devil." The same papers that said Yakub made the devil say Yakub was a black man.
[background conversation]
The black man is all righteous. I'm giving you what we were taught. The Nation of Islam's teaching is filled with loaded, with boldly presented contradictions. We can't deny that.
Male speaker: We're doing it.
Imam W.D. Mohammed It was done intentionally to wake us up one day. Another quote from that time in that material, 'lesson material', "The white race is a race of devils." That is one that the honorable Elijah Muhammad used a lot. "Hey, you are a race of devils."
[background conversation]
He said it like he mean it.
[laughter]
Another quote from that time in that teaching, they mean white folks, they are, "born devils."
[background conversation]
[silence] Professor Fard chose to do his work among poor black Americans by presenting himself as his own words, "The Son of Man." Now if Mr. Fard was ever approached by anybody, to answer for saying that he-- I know him, I knew him very well and I know him very well. Although the record in history will say we never met. Anyway, he wouldn't say that. He wouldn't admit that. He would pass it off with a joke or something, but he did say that and he went further than that.
He said, "We were brought here by the slave traders and deprived of all knowledge of our past and there was no way of any help coming to us. Our help did not come to us until, 'The coming of the Son of Man in the person of W.D Fard." That's the lessons. That's what we received back then and it came from Professor Fard himself. We know that he intended for us to see him as the Son of Man.
Church people, my father was not a person that supported going to church. My mother was a strong church person and the father of my father was a preacher having his own congregation. He was named Wali later, but his name was William Poole. William Poole, later he became known in the temple of Islam as Wali Muhammad, and they called him father because he was the father of my father. The believers mostly called him father. They called him Father Muhammad.
For the general audience or for the white world, the role he chose was the role of a satirist. What is a satirist? I did some research, not just the dictionary. I did some research also. In myth, the satirist is a creature of the wilds, but in literature or with a reference to literature a satirist is the one who ridicules the world he's living in or he designs language to really attack and hurt the world he lives in, but he always hides himself. He hides himself and he hides also his work. He hides it.
When you read it, you will take it just for fun or for exciting novel or something, but when you understand what he's addressing with his metaphors and with his allegorical language, when you come to understand it, you see that he's really dissatisfied with the political order of the time or with other things that are happening in his world at the time of his writing. For outsiders, the Temple of Islam only makes sense as satire.
It doesn't make sense if you take it word for word literally. If you take even its message to our own members, to the members, if you don't see it as allegorical or not literal, figurative, you will certainly miss what Mr. Fard brought to America. [silence] Give me a moment here. We'll continue just in a moment.
[pause 00:13:50] 
[background noise]
All right, just a couple of more minutes. I'll be with you.
[pause 00:14:32]
Professor Fard, the one that came from overseas was working hard for a result, to get a certain result in our life and in our community. Honorable Elijah Muhammad understood him to be like Christ Jesus, Allah, or G-d in the person. We were told that he was born of a white woman and a black man. "G-d is black." That's what we were taught, G-d is black- [silence] -and blacks are the superiors. Though deprived of the knowledge of self, under the white world or under the white man. That's where we were told. Blacks are superior.
[pause 00:16:22] 
The dictionary meaning for the term black, we'll give a long list. There'll be a list of meanings. Black has many meanings. Some familiar meanings as churchgoers, if you recall the Bible, the Bible says sin is black, sin is black. The same Bible also says that the Holy Ghost overshadowed Mary.
Male speaker: Yes, it did.
Imam W.D. Mohammed The Holy Ghost overshadowed Mary. If I'm black, tell me what color is the shadow?
[background conversation]
If a shadow is dense enough or big enough, it puts us in the black.
Congregation: Right.
Imam W.D. Mohammed That is to say in the dark. Many of us are not familiar with general science to know that night is only a shadow. That's all nighttime is. Out in the countryside where there's no city, developments, no electric lights, anything, if you've ever been in a situation like that, you can't see your hand before your face like this. So dark, unless the moon was shining or something, you can't see your hand before your face. That's how dark it gets.
That night or that darkness is caused by the turning of the earth away from the sun. The absence of sunlight. It's only a shadow, it's the shadow of the earth produced by the other side of the earth or by the earth as a ball and now the light is shining on the other side of the ball, and the ball is so big, it puts darkness, it blocks out the sunlight so completely that you can't see your hand before your face if you don't have the help of some kind of light or moonlit night.
When the Bible says the Holy Ghost overshadowed Mary it is saying that the Holy Ghost, blackened Mary, blackened Mary. If the holy Ghost blackened Mary, what does that mean? What are they saying about Mary? The Holy Ghost is of a spiritual nature.
Male speaker: Yes, it is.
Imam W.D. Mohammed Mary is of a spiritual nature. One of the meanings of spirituality, one of the descriptions of spirituality in religion is black or blackness. Allah says in the Quran, he made the night to precede the day. The night to come before the day. For Mary, this was an experience she was having before the birth of her son Jesus Christ, peace be on both of them. Once He's born, there won't be any more darkness, for He will be the light of the world.
Congregation: Amen
Imam W.D. Mohammed Isn't that in the bible?
Congregation: Oh, yes.
Imam W.D. Mohammed Okay, and Allah says in the Quran I repeat, He made the night to come before the day, to precede the day. When you read the beginning of creation, the beginning of creation in the Bible does not start in the day, does not start with light. The Bible says there was darkness, and the Spirit moved along the face of the waters. Darkness upon the deep and the Spirit moved along the face of the waters. The Spirit began on the surface of the water where image can be seen.
If the right conditions are brought about, and the water is still, not in motion, it will show you, your image.
Congregation: That's right.
Imam W.D. Mohammed That's right, yes. In myth, there is a story of Eros and Psyche. Eros the male, Psyche the female. They went to the waterfront and they looked down and they saw their images. They jumped into the water. Both of them jumped into the water together. Another meaning of black is faithful, faith, and faithfulness. Why do you think priests and leaders in religion choose to wear black?
Male speaker: Yes, come on.
Imam W.D. Mohammed Don't forget the topic.
[background conversation]
No, the first topic, the major topic, don't forget it. The meeting of religion and science. Why do you think they wear black? It is to say that I am dead to this world and alive only to the word of G-d. "I'm a man who keeps the faith. My life is firstly in my faith, not in this material flesh, not in this material world." 
In the world supported by science, black is formal dress for the most serious and most special occasions. Black? Formal dress, formal dress. These are good meanings for blacks, good meanings for black. [clears throat]
[silence] Now let's look at white. I know white has many meanings too, right?
Male speaker: Oh, yes.
Imam W.D. Mohammed [chuckles] Pure, and because it is always associated with light and purity, because the sun is the biggest and most important purifier in the solar system or in our existence, sunlight itself. Heals sicknesses, kills impurities, and my mother would hang the clothes out and believe me, this fresh smell that they would have back then when I was a boy after she hung them out in the sunlight and they came in the house dry, was better than the smell of any of the clothes that are laundered at the laundromat.
[pause 00:26:22] 
[background conversation]
The Bible speaks of whiteness and associates whiteness with purity and light. The same Bible also gives these words that are aimed against a people who were corrupt and it says, "Your white is the white of leprosy", and leprosy is a contagious nasty and dangerous disease, nasty disease, leprosy. Your white is the white of leprosy, is the white of a disease. White supremacy is a white of leprosy.
Male speaker: Oh, yes
Congregation: Amen.
Imam W.D. Mohammed The story of the three sons as interpreted by some religionists in American history and charging us with being of that behavior or that mentality or that disposition that, that particular son took that is condemned by the Bible. Three sons, one saw his father nakedness and saw him drunk. This is the holy man, this is the prophet, [silence] prophet Noah. He saw his father's shame and he went and got some cover and he covered his father's nakedness
[00:28:42] [END OF AUDIO]
Part D
Imam: In "the original salute". That's in quotation because that's exactly how it was given to us. This original salute was given as a sign pointing to enlightenment. This is heavy stuff. You all don’t know what you came into. When the police department found a way to charge the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and put him in jail. Later, the FBI came, raided the temples, raided homes, and took the lessons, the old lessons and teachings so they could study them to see how dangerous the Nation of Islam or the lost found Nation of Islam or the Holy Temples of Islam were in these United States.
I'm going to tell you something later. I better tell you now. After studying those lessons, they executed the law on my father and all the rest of us for not accepting the draft and practically all the abled men and many of the senior citizens who wouldn't even be inducted or drafted into the army if they had just got a draft card. After the draft card, they would have been examined and they would have found them unfit or too old to go to war.
They didn't even accept or carry a draft card. They wouldn't get a draft card, so they went to jail. Old middle-aged, all the young went to jail. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad [unintelligible 00:01:58] In Chicago, it left us maybe no more than about 30 or 35 members. Went down to almost nothing, that small, but they were very strong people. 
Yes, it has taken over home life, disrupting home life. We let our life go to the streets. I tried to keep my children home. You tried but your children went to the street and we all didn’t get together to address the issue as a major issue. [unintelligible 00:02:53] and addressed this issue as a major issue. In Islam, if the community fails, the whole community, everyone in the community is to blame. We have to admit that our community failed.
We didn't rise up against these things as a community, and say this cannot happen. We cannot tolerate this. No. We did not, so we all are to blame. Allah says, "Your life and resurrection is as that of one living soul." What is Allah telling us? Before you can leave the good life that Allah wants you in or that G-d wants us in, you have to lose it here, right here with your heart and soul. You have to lose it there first.
That's where it starts first, in the individual. In the individual. If it's to come, if the good life is to return or if we are to have a resurrection of our spirits, it has to happen there in one person. Well, Allah has given us great help, great help. A new day is here. A bright day is here. Relief has come in one soul, Barack Obama. This ain't politicking. I keep this separate from politics. I wrote this to be separate from his campaigning, but I have to connect it with him because Allah, G-d has blessed him to aspire for the presidency of these United States.
The same Allah, G-d has blessed him with strong support from strong and rich white Americans, European Americans. Whether he gets there or not, the victory is already--
[silence]
One person that we identify as a black man or as a negro, a so-called negro or as an African-American to going with green lights in the road. No red lights, green lights in the road, in the road to the White House. Green light.
They tried to divide us along color lines, white and blacks. He'll win this state because he had a lot of blacks there. He has proven them to be wrong. He won't win this state because Hispanics are going with Hillary Clinton. He has proven them to be wrong. This is the day of awakening for sure. We have been warned but our leaders, most of them in religion, I didn't say in Christianity, I didn't say in Islam, I said in religion, our leaders, most of them in religion have not stayed with their human values. Most of them have separated from their human values.
They value showbiz, they value sensationalism, they value money, they value fancy cars, they value rich houses to live in. Lost human values, so how can the people be safe when their leaders are blind, deaf and dumb. We have to get our home life back and the only way to get our home life back is to awaken again to our human essence. Essence means the most important part. Essence means what represents the value of whatever you're talking about.
You know you'll get an orange and right away, you want to get the juice out of it, don't you or you want the eat the inside, don't you? I've never seen anybody get an orange and chew from the outside. He's going to go into it. You want to get to its essence. To get the home life back, we have to stand upon our human values again. We stood up to the white man who is enslaving us, we stood up to plantation rule, the plantation rule over our life. We stood up to it. What were we standing up on? Our sense of our human value.
If we return to that now in these homes, we could inspire our children. Husband and wife can be long loved for one another. You can’t belong to one another if it's only about sex like an animal. You have to have something stronger than that because you are much above animal life. Allah sent you seven stratospheres up above animal life. You just can't have sex and plenty to eat and dress fancy. Look how fancy the peacock dresses. No matter how much you women try to look pretty, you can't outdo that peacock.
[laughter]
That’s not where it is for human beings. Human beings don't have to look pretty. You have to feel pretty, that's the difference. You hear what I said? Human beings don't have to look pretty, human beings have to feel pretty. Human excellence is all about essence. Outward is beautified by what is established inwardly if you've got the right thinking in your heart. The Bible say, “A man is as he thinketh in his heart.” If you could disconnect your thinking from heart, you're not a man. You don't have life. You’re on the way to death, destruction, loss of human values, and loss of community excellence. One follows the other.
If you lose appreciation for human values, it won't be long before community values will disappear and community life will be lost also. That's what has happened to us and we can save it all. Just go back to human essence. Stand upon human values, your appreciation for your human worth. Stand upon that again and you can bring your home back into civilization. Civilization means progress for moral life, progress for material life, progress for education. Civilization means progress all around. Progress. Well, if you just stand up on human values again you can bring home life back into civilization.
There is no civilization at home. When you wake up and you don't hear nothing about MF and all the other bad language, cheap language. It works against education. There's a very good word in the dictionary to describe what you're angry with, but you've got a convenient word – it’s a MF. Everything is a MF, so that reduces your vocabulary. Your vocabulary becomes very small. See how life is battling to get rid of that that's in the way of life. Don't blame it on the white world. Stop blaming on the white world. It’s over for the white world. The white world has been brought down into the same battlefield everybody else is in. It’s the battlefield of life and they are losing just like everybody else is losing.
You have to wake up to the prophecy that there’s coming a time when life itself will speak out. Life itself, as G-d constituted, will speak out and life itself will start punishing those who have abused and mistreated life. That's where we are now and I'm at my conclusion. You don’t got no excuse? I don't have any excuse. G-d has made it very clear to us and G-d has given us a great helper in Barack Obama. Peace to you all here and in the radio listening audience. Peace to you and stay with the best that you have. Don't put down your excellence for something worse. As-sal?mu ?alaykum
Congregation: Walaikum asalaam [unintelligible 00:15:20].
NEW LECTURE
Imam W.D. Mohammed: The Quran, the book is basic expressing plain logic, common sense. Practical and figurative using in metaphor and allegory. Those who prefer the figurative over the basic they have in their heart a disease, that's from the Quran. Outwardly, the majority in the leadership of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam express both what is literal in the scriptures and what is figurative. However, most of their interest appears to be bound up in the mystical, the figurative that we find in scriptural language. Scripture warns of this tendency revealing an eventual conclusion, and I quote to you now.
This is from the Bible, “Darkness covered the whole earth.” There was a famine, not a famine of food, but a famine of hearing the word of G-d. That's the Holy Bible. Quote, “Allah created the darkness and the light, one following the other in succession.” That's the Quran. The expression “darkness” refers to concrete objects. In the long trail of history, man relying upon his intelligence while being under the fear and awe induced in him by objects in the universe believe the sun in our solar system to be a G-d. The only thing he had to do is just to search the myth. 
The sky myth. The myth and the different mythologies of the old world Greeks, Egypt before Greece and other parts of the world. You search the language of their mythology and you will see what I am addressing right now very clearly. Many other figures in the composition of the world, including man himself, have been worshiped mistakenly as G-d. The same Allah who created concrete existence created the human brain, the human heart. He created the human brain and the human heart for his mercy.
Freedom from the dominance of the concrete world is what Allah wants for us. Freedom from the dominance of the concrete world is one of two divine mercies given and promised to us in holy scripture. A second statement we are listing here is given in these words, “Islam is freedom, justice, and equality.” I love that language. Recently, a publication was sent to me. This publication is produced by non-Muslim, produced by Christians and right on the front of that publication were the words freedom, justice, and equality. Allah is my witness, I never noticed any language like that before anywhere except in the Nation of Islam.
That’s right. There are many signs, brothers and sisters. The sisters are here? Are your sisters here now, some of you? If you are, let me hear you. Any sisters in here? Thank you. Allahu Akbar. See, the sisters have always known Allah is greater. It’s the brothers who thought the black man was G-d.
[laughter]
The sister never believed that. She just went along with the program. The Sister’s Supreme Captain Elijah once was telling some of us, we were gathered together like we do and having little chats. If I was him I'd have so much energy to disappear a miracle would have been performed right there. They'd been looking for me and I turned into smoke or something. "Where did he go where did a brother go he was right here just a minute ago." [laughs] Yes, we know of the presence of Muslims who have migrated to the United States and took the oath of citizenship. Our religious community knows them mostly for their involvement in the propagation of religion or doing Dawah. We know them also in their professions as medical doctors, business people, different various businesses or business careers.
Since they have settled in America. Some have been established in institutions to service the needs of Muslims, while also making a contribution to the life of people in America. The minaret of freedom is one of the number one of publications made possible because of Muslims building institutions devoted to learning and devoted to social reform. I'm very proud of this. This didn't exist for most of my life. We didn't have Muslims from abroad involved in things like this. This is a recent development for Muslims in the world in America and in Europe and in the world.
Now, let me continue. The Minaret of Freedom, Minaret of Freedom. That's their name and they have a wonderful publication. I get it, I try to keep my subscription paid for. Sometimes I'm so busy I forget. They keep the publication coming to me and I eventually I pay them for it and get back on the track. I don't know how many of you all were serious F.O.I but I was. I was a serious Junior F.O.I and I was a serious senior F.O.I. To let you know how serious I was, my number when I got to be a senior F.O.I was 52 A. That was my number, that was Fruit number I received when I turned to adult. When I got to be grown, they gave me. I remember that little Secretary he was short rather small body thin body brother. As I approached he had nothing but joy in his eyes and he said, "Brother Wallace your number is 52 A."
You don't know a lot of you can't feel what I felt coming up as a junior Fruit, marching in the Junior Fruit. Actually sometimes drilling the junior Fruit myself as a lieutenant in the junior Fruit. Now here I am accepted among the men and my number is 52 A. That was a great time for me. I guess I felt like those young boys feel when they join a what do they call it Bar Mitzvah or something like that. My mind got too many things and I think I pretty near pronounced it correctly, yes. Fruit attention. All right, we still got some men in here. Praise be to Allah. As you were. In the US military, our men learn to salute men who rank above them. We salute the stars and stripes, Old Glory. I do it myself. A lot of all you can't stay with me. You really know me for what I am. You have difficulty staying with me.
On special days they put the flags out on the street that I have to use. I walk I go and do a run around the track for exercise, keep myself in some kind of health. When I walk down that street and I come to that big American flag hanging up there, I'm going to show you what I do for the white boss. That's what you call it, I call it our flag. The nation's flag, we the people's flag. When I come at that flag I'm walking right. (He does a salute)
Speaker 2: Go ahead chief go ahead.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: Upon entering the temple's auditorium, we learn to salute the flag of the lost found Nation of Islam. It used to be showing every time you, soon as you got in that door. You looked ahead up there to where the speaker is going to be. If he wasn't already up there, what you saw was the Nation of Islam flag. We were trained maybe they lost it as they got into black power and money and fancy clothes and diamond rings and all that stuff. That's that 1960 bunch. They probably lost a lot of that but we didn't lose it. We had it. We salute the flag of the Nation of Islam. While saluting the flag you were looking at this was a good while ago, because they took that away after some time. See the honorable Elijah Muhammad was no stupid person he was very wise, as things got better for us in the United States, the honorable Elijah Muhammad removed the sign of a black man with a rope around hanging from a tree with a rope around his neck.
That's what you would see with the flag on a blackboard. They painted on the blackboard, a black man hanging from a tree with a rope around his neck. In the same area of the blackboard, there was a cross. On the other side, it was the Nation of Islam, lost foundation of Islam flag. It had letters on the corners freedom, justice, equality, and on the staff Islam.
Just be patient with me here. We learned to salute the flag of the lost foundation of Islam. It was first introduced to us under the leadership and authority of Professor W.D. Fard or W. Fard Muhammad. The expression was original salute. Original salute and the temples we saluted any brother of any rank, who was on post as we approached him to relieve him and take his place on that post.
[00:28:31] [END OF AUDIO]

