05/07/2000
IWDM Study Library 
First Sunday Address by WDM

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Takbir!
Audience: Allahu Akbar!
Our greeting is peace unto you, As salaamu alaikum.
Audience: Wa-Alaikum-Salaam.
We always acknowledge our dependency on the Lord that made everything and provided for us before we were even in existence. The world was here. The world made by the Lord, creator of the heavens and the earth. In Islam for Muslim, his name is Allah. That is G-d. He made everything. And it is said that he created everything. Whatever's in the skies, and whatever's in the earth, all existence that was here before man got involved. That he made all of that for man. All of that for man. And for man means humanity, or the human family, males and females.
We know that most of us, we can't benefit from this great world that G-d has made. We benefit only a very little or not at all. For many of us, we approach it in the wrong way, and get harm rather than benefit. But we believe that man is the only creature, the only living thing, that can get great benefit, and use or utilize what G-d has made or created, in the skies and in the earth.
Both religions, we call Christianity and Islam, also the people we call Jews, these three religions share much of what was revealed. We have similar scriptures and we have similar beliefs. And the three religions believe that everybody, all people, that is everybody, has the quality of excellence. The human excellence in them. Something has to bring it out. Something has to bring out that excellence. If you put it in a bad environment for that excellence, very difficult for it to come out to, to present itself. But if you put into a suitable environment for that excellence, then as G-d says as it is revealed, that our creation is similar to the creation of plants. And if you have good environment for plants, the season is right, the soil is right, the ground is right to feed it, and the rain comes, sun shines, it gets what it needs from the environment, then it comes up well. It matures and gives its full potential, or its full capacity, to the environment that supports it.
And man benefits. Man benefits. Plants cannot use this world like man can, and animals cannot use this world like man can. So that should be enough to make you believe, or to have you believe with the great inspired teachers, Messengers. Prophets of G-d. Believe with them that the matter that exists all about before man was put here for man. Not just for him to consume physically, or for him to benefit from this great system of matter physically or materially, but more importantly, to inspire him. To influence his life, to want to understand it better, to want to use it in the correct way, and benefit from it.
It should be not only food for the stomach, it should be food for the mind. And it also should be food for the heart. We see in the great material scheme of matter created by G-d. We see beauty, we see peace. We can look at the sky on a clear day or a clear night and it inspires peace in our soul. It influences us to want to be peaceful and serious, and at our best. It brings out the good that is in us. Our goodness extends its arms, hands and arms, to the skies, to the beauty created and to the treasures that are so many and so great that are in the material scheme of matter.
So, we are living now in a time when it's very difficult for people to stick with the best life that they have. Too many things are taking your attention away from your own good life and from your ability to keep it good and realize progress for it. You know, it's believed that our existence as humans began in heaven. And then we were awakened in the earth, but it began in heaven. And we were awakened in the earth. It is also believed that we were put in situations in this earthly existence. We were put in situations to challenge us. To challenge us, to make it not so easy for us to keep the good life, or to realize the growth of that good life in an environment that challenges it.
We are challenged like a plant is challenged. Don't think human life is the only life that's challenged. Some plants can't grow in rocky places, some can. Some can even send their roots into the small cracks and crevices of cement or rock and manage to survive. Many can’t. When you really think philosophically on human life and the challenges in how a human life is challenged by obstructions, by things that are in the way of us living and keeping the good life, and you consider those things that are in the way. You come to believe that really, that human life is put in conditions and circumstances that hold it back to develop its muscles. Not just the physical muscles, to develop its mental muscles. Intelligent muscles and its moral muscles. To develop its muscles more.
You know, one who wants to be physically fit. If you never accept to have force work against you. The weight lifter, he has to work against the barbells with the weights on, and he has to try to manage to push that weight up, or to pick it up, until he's able to do it, or able to do more of that kind of physical work, his work. And also, the person who learns a skill on a job, or is given difficult work to do for pay. The more you do it, the more you develop strength, muscles, and skills. So, this world is not easy, but don't say it's not good. You can't tell a fighter, punching the bag is not good, skipping the rope is not good, boxing, training for a fight and getting hit to be in shape is not good, this is life. Life is the same. And anyone who wants life with no difficulty, a life with no challenge, is really not living. A real man wants to be challenged.
A real woman doesn't want a man who wants to do nothing. She doesn't want a man who wants to be more feminine than she is. She doesn't want a man who will watch her carrying weights around, take the garbage out to the garbage collector, dig the yard, rake the grass, and he sit around and look like he doesn't exist. She doesn't want that kind of man. She wants a man that wants to rise up and be about something worthwhile. That's life.
We are losing communication, the ability to communicate. And the proof of that is the language that we are hearing, even from our youngsters. They keep saying "like, like, like, like, yeah. And you know, like, and you know, ........., like, like." How come so many likes? How come you just can't say what you're talking about? Everything got to be like something. That's an indication that we are losing the intelligent ability to communicate. I heard a youngster recently say, he was on his cell phone. And I guess he was talking to his girlfriend. Didn't have to be, though. It could have been his sister, just a female, Sue let’s say Sue. He kept saying "Sue." And he kept saying, "Sue, now what that mean, Sue? What did that mean?" And he kept asking "Now, what does that mean?" He'd talk a little bit, he'd say "Now, Sue, what does that mean?" You need translation. People are talking and they're understanding themselves what they're saying, but they're not making themselves understood by listeners. Losing the ability to communicate.
There are very popular quality publications coming out, and they are informing us, the public that is, that we are losing the ability to even be educated. Losing the ability to be educated. Now, it's not just poor boys or African Americans, or black children, but it's boys from all families, from everybody that are performing very poorly in school. Their performance is getting worse and worse. This is what we are told. This is information given to us by the media, printed media and other media.
So, what is causing this? Many things are influencing what's going on. One is we are out of touch. And the most important is, we are out of touch with the real life and the real challenges that G-d provided when he created the world for man. So, we have to find a way to connect back again, to get back to a relationship for our... not just our stomachs, but for our minds, with the material world that was here before man. This earth, with these abundant resources to be utilized by the human intelligence by man. And community, of course, because man has no real purpose outside of community. If man is not in community, he has no purpose. He has no role to fulfill. He has a role only because he is a figure belonging to the social, the social body of mankind. The social body of mankind.
He belongs to a family. He belongs to a family of people, and a family of people that require that they live together, that people live with people. We couldn't have progress if we did live by ourselves. Only living with others, we learn how to do things together and live together, grow together, multiply together, or increase our population together, and provide for that population growth, or provide for the family, the social family. Not the private family, the social family.
And today we are experiencing also a challenge that pretends to want to bring out the play of a child that is in us. You know, all life, animals, most of them, very few. In fact, I don't know any animal that doesn't grow out of a strong desire or urge to play and just play all the time. The little puppies they come and they're so playful, they just want to play, play, play, play, play. But as they get older, they play less and they're more serious. And that's true for life itself. But we find today many, many youngsters and some seniors, some older people too, can't find interesting things to engage. Life is not exciting for them. To think is not adventure anymore. Think is a pain. So, they want to drown out or force out thoughts that say, "Give me some attention." And they want to make room for thoughts that ask for no attention. Ask the intelligence for no attention. Ask the mental curiosities for no attention. They don't ask for any attention. Too busy. Why? What are we so busy with?
You know, if you don't invite into your mind, intelligent things that make sense, and healthy things that contribute to good life... The world of today is busy, busy, busy. And it has a lot of trash. Trash it just keeps growing. And there's mental trash, mind trash. And there's plenty of it around. And it could make money. So, they give your mind that trash, you are not interested in anything serious. You like something that you don't have to think about. Something that you don't have to respond to except as a child. Play, be happy, feel good, have fun. So, the result is the intelligence. But this is muscles not being used. Human intelligence, the muscles of human intelligence, are not being used hardly at all by many of us.
So, you lose the muscles of human intelligence. You can't communicate clearly. You can't handle your family responsibilities. You can't even carry your own self. You let your own self die and have to be put away in a mental hospital, or locked up in prison, or killed on the streets. This is what we are seeing. We are seeing the elimination of waste. Human waste. Wasted human lives. We are seeing the elimination of those lives. It's like the survival of the fittest and the time of the savages. It's a survival of the fittest. Those who can't make it, they're knocked off by the strong. They're starved out by the strong. The strong take their land. They have nothing to produce their food. When they are eliminated.
We're again seeing the survival of the fittest. Where the morally fit, oh they're going about their work, their intelligence is still alive in them. They have mental curiosities. They're studying new things. They're producing. But that's only a few. The great many are being eliminated.
When you don't have any life, but a life of a cell phone upside your head. You don't have any life, but the life of the rap music. You don't have any life, but the hunger for sex. Not for a wife or a husband, for sex, just the hunger for sex. You're being eliminated. Yes. You're being eliminated. And the world will carry you for a long time. For as long as you help the economy. Long as there are plenty cell phones to buy. DVDs to buy. And you can pay your electric bills at home. Too many of you have become an economic, or financial economic burden on the system. Believe me, the same people that don't care about your morals and will feed you anything into your mind and hearts just to make money and get you out of their hair, the same powers that be will find another swifter way, more swift, quicker way to elimination. And that time may be close at hand.
So, I'm not really speaking to you who don't care about your lives. I'm speaking to those who still have some moral life left in there. And they have the strength to listen to what's intelligent and respect it. Those are the ones we are trying to reach right now in the radio audience. And everywhere that our voice goes. We are trying to reach them, because we know that many of them have slipped or accidentally got into the groove of those walking away and running away from their real life for the life of play, perverted sex, and foolishness.
These times are very, very serious. Most are not going to make it. The great majority won't make it.
We have to appreciate things. We have to feel that we owe something to somebody. Don't just live like you haven't received anything that you should be thankful for. If you have human life, you have the greatest gift that you'll find in this material creation or this material universe. Human life is the greatest, the greatest thing or most precious thing that you'll find in the whole creation, in the whole of creation. Where can you find something more valuable than a human being? Nowhere, nowhere. So, you are the most valuable of all things made of all things existing in the material scheme. You are the greatest.
Now, if you treat your life with no regard whatsoever, you don't care what happened to it, you'd rather follow filth and foolishness, then shouldn't you have a punishment coming? So, really, we can't pretend that these people that are suffering bad life, are not responsible for their condition. No matter what influenced you, you have the ability to make moral choices. You have the ability to make the intelligent choices.
Now, when you don't use your own good tools and powers that you are born with, just like every other human being, male and female, you don't use those and you let your own life just go to waste or become disgraceful, disgraceful, you are to blame. No matter how much of that blame is on the culture of entertainment or whatever, it was your choice. You chose it. Nobody locked you up and forced you to be addicted to the things that take you down. You accepted it. You accepted that. You chose that, so you're responsible.
Many people don't think of the devil anymore. I remember a time when people thought of the devil. You had to go to church or somewhere to hear about the devil. I guess life has become so devilish, no one thinks about a devil existing somewhere, hidden away somewhere, you know. Yeah. Hell is so present and so clear. I guess it says, "Oh, the devil is so common now, there's no need to mention his name." But when we were young, we used to hear the devil, you know. In fact, we'd hear the older people, they'd be saying, "You know, you got to get the devil out of you, boy." You don't hear that anymore.
Few things, if we just accept them, can give us new lease on life, can turn us on to want to have a better life. Just a few things. You know you get punished for the things you know, and for the things you don't know. Yes, you do. I used to have people tell me, they'd be giving me a problem, and they'd keep saying, "Well, I didn't mean it." After a while, I'd get tired of that. You just keep causing me problems and just keep saying every time I check you, you say, "I didn't mean it."
Look, you run into my car out there with your car on the street, and you get out your car and tell me, "I didn't mean it. Oh, I didn't mean it. It was an accident." Where's your insurance for having accidents. You're supposed to have some insurance to take care of my car when you have accidents. That's life. Some people are prone to accidents. They just have a habit of causing somebody else problems, and saying, "I didn't mean it." Can't live that way. No, you're going to run into the wrong person, you'll have to pay up. And sometimes the price is so serious, you never have a chance to say "I don't mean it" again.
The worst time has been prophesied long ago, that these times are coming when populations would be so thick, life will be so crowded. The environment where we live will be so crowded with people that you just won't be able to find a place away from trouble. People will be living in conditions, and they'll be living in such great numbers that they'll be multiplying themselves and also multiplying the environment, what they use, what they consume, and the waste all would be piling up.
See, these times were seen hundreds, and actually better than 2 or 3000 years ago. There were thinkers looking at how life existed and how it was growing. They knew that if it continued, and it would because that's the nature of life, to reproduce and keep growing, and to use the environment to feed its life so it will keep its life, and provide for its life the things that make its life livable and comfortable. So, they knew that in time, this process was going to cause big problems. The people will be living so close together, you won't be able to avoid trouble. Trouble will be pushed in on you.
Look how many moved to the suburbs a few decades ago, and look how some of them that moved to the suburbs to escape the ghettos, the growing of the ghettos... See, ghettos grow, too. So, some moved to the suburbs to escape the growth or the growing of the ghetto, and the suburbs became new ghettos. They began to have rising crime rates, et cetera. So, they reinvested in the inner city, and invested very heavily, and built very costly structures so that the ghetto, BeBe kids, won't be able to afford it, but they found a way to escape, didn't they? Yeah, they found a way to escape.
Believe me, if you look at all these factors that are working, you'll see that money, money is the most significant of all the factors that are operating to reward some and punish the many. Yes, money. So, you're being not discriminated against by law anymore, you're being priced out.
Yes, and when you look at the trouble that we see in the ghetto, or in the inner cities where poor people are in great numbers. When you look at the conditions and risk to life, the risk to moral life, and all other quality forms of life, when you look at the great risk, you can't blame those people for not wanting to be in situations like that. You can't blame them for not wanting that life to crowd them out and prevent them from having the life of their choice. So, if they use their wealth or whatever they use to protect the life of their choice and keep the life of their choice, you can't really condemn them for that.
The time is out for poor people with poor masses to crowd to the President, White House, the federal government and say, "Look, this is unfair." Satan has deprived you of any legitimate argument. Yes, he has. He has fed your weaknesses, and have proven that the majority of the masses or the poor people, the majority of them are not responsible for themselves and they don't care. They absolutely just don't care.
When we were struggling up from slavery to get our share of this America, the dream or whatever you want to call it, we had arguments. We had an argument that the majority of intelligent people listened to. We said we were entitled to these things as human beings, that we're entitled to education. We're entitled to have a good moral life. We're entitled to have the freedom to raise our children, and have income, have responsibility for our families and not be owned by a plantation slaveholder that would order us about and even run our private lives, separate even husband from wife, separate children from parents, sell your child to a slave master 500 or 1000 miles away.
So, we had a legitimate complaint, and we had an argument that would eventually reach the ears of moral minded and intelligent people, and we would get enough support to change America. And that's what happened. But now, tell me, where is the argument for the conditions in the ghetto, now? What arguments you have? You don't show appreciation for education. The strongest motive in the slaves for them to be free, they wanted to be educated. They wanted to read, they wanted to learn things. They wanted to prepare themselves to make it with dignity in the world.
But where is the argument now in the many who care nothing about things of value, but care more about a cell phone being upside their head all the time, walking, riding, sitting, and sleeping. Go to bed with them, go to bed with a cell phone. Not a pillow, a cell phone, resting their ear on a cell phone. And the music got to be up so loud. Now, you know old folks ain't that deaf. Retired old people ain't that deaf. If I had a gun, I think I'd have shot the person that turned the radio on while I was in the car trying to read. I'm trying to read something, and all of a sudden blast. Blast, turns on, the volume was up high as sit could go, so when they turned the radio on it just blast. Riding down the street and radio up so high, and bass is so strong they vibrate your car. Now, I didn't ask for no vibration. It should be a law against it. How come you're disturbing me? I don't want be vibrated.
So, we are making an appeal to those who still have some moral life in them, to those who still have respect for what is intelligent, for what makes good sense. We are appealing to you to get help from the good teachings and good preachings that are still available in this world. In your churches, in your mosques or your masajid in your synagogues. Don't think the Jews are not having trouble. They're having trouble too. There aren’t any religious people that are not having big trouble, trying to keep their families together, trying to save the lives of their youngsters. Big, big problems, big, big trouble.
But every effort counts. We will make our effort, and we won't give up, we'll go to the grave doing this work. We will not give up, and we know that we are reaching enough to justify us not giving up. Yes, so we won't give up. We need your help. All of you who are decent minded and want to have an intelligent human life, we need your help. We need you to do more than just live for yourself or for your family. No, we need you to live for human life. We need you to live for human life because human life on this planet is threatened. We need you to live for human life. And if you live for human life, you care about everybody. If you live for human life, you want to see everybody's life improve.
It requires more than just talk. It requires that you be an example. Keep your property up, like many of our people are doing now in the inner cities. I remember when I was a child, we had a bad reputation for letting our property go down, for not keeping our lawns up. But we have progressed a lot. There are some beautiful neighborhoods that you can go through from the South Side of Chicago, and everywhere we live, you can find beautiful homes, beautiful lawns, well taken care of. So, we have made a lot of progress,
But some of us are so selfish with that, so selfish. A little kid walks on your grass, "Get off my grass, BeBe kids" I can't say what I can, what I really know they say. What I heard; I can't say it. I can, but I won't today. Don't be like that. That child perhaps is living in a place that you wouldn't think of living in, crowded, having a bad life. Even if he walked on your grass and caused some damage to your rose bush, if he was having fun and not doing it intentionally, it'd be a good deed for you to go out there and say, "Come in, come in my yard anytime you want to." Say, "Would you like to have glass of lemonade?" Say, "Next time, try to avoid knocking down the rose bush because I have to replace that now. But you are more important, you are more valuable than that rose bush, son."
See, if all of us would do a little bit, we can beat this thing. Satan wants you to come from your ugly side. Satan wants you to say, "You little nappy head nigger, you get out of my yard before I get something and shoot you, boy. Call the police on you and have you arrested." Satan wants you to come out like that. Now, you want to really hurt Satan? Come out as I advised you to come out, then you'll really put a hurting on Satan.
Satan survives upon the miseries of human life. That's how he survives. If you get your life together, Satan ain't got nothing to feed on. He got nothing to do, nothing to do. But if you open your life to him, to come in and ruin it and wreck it, for benefits to him. Oh, you're saying that Satan wants money? Yes, because money is power. He wants money because money is power.
There's an advertisement out right now. They're advertising a movie, and they leave a lot for curiosities and not telling you much. It says six plus six plus .06 on a black background, like it was written on a blackboard. I know you've seen it because they're so popular, advertising the new movie coming out. Well, let me tell you where they're coming from with six plus six plus .06. Now really, they changed it a little bit to make it interesting, to make it look like arithmetic or math on a blackboard. And they say, "You've been warned." That's what the sign says. "You've been warned." Yes, sir.
Now, I have shared this with you all many times. Our hour will be up too soon, be up in 10 minutes, but I want to share this with you again. When I knew that I was going to be a leader in religion and be responsible for helping my father who passed away in February, 1975. When I knew that I said to myself, "I have to learn the religion of the people that we have to talk to and preach to about Islam." I said, "I shouldn't talk to them and not know what their life is all about, not know the important ideas and principles that holds up Christian life."
So, I said to myself, "I never had an interest in reading the Bible," but I said to myself, "I'm going to read the Bible, because I should be acquainted with what they believe in." Not only that, my mother, she converted from church life to follow my father's teaching, Elijah Muhammad, The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, founder and builder of the Nation of Islam in America. So, I said to myself, "I owe it to my mother to learn what produced her, what produced her and made her such a beautiful mother."
"Oh," you say, "oh, the Nation of Islam. No, my mother was not a drunkard. She was not on drugs; she didn't use drugs. She didn't smoke. She didn't drink liquors. And she wore long dresses, she covered herself, her nakedness. She didn't display negative vulgar or any indecent display of herself before she became a follower of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad. She was a decent church woman that believed strongly in G-d, and prayed and sang. Not a radio, but her voice would wake us up in the morning. She'd be singing in the kitchen while working in the kitchen, she's singing.
Singing church songs of praise to G-d. And most of those songs she learned in the church, and she just would leave out certain names, or add the name, a certain name to make the song acceptable to her. But she continued to sing spirituals of the African American people, or the Christians in this country. That was my mother, so I owe it to her to learn the Bible and know what made my mama the woman she was.
Yeah, yeah.
And I certainly owed it to those that I'd be telling, when they'd walk into the temple and have a seat, I'd tell them you got to change, that you need to join the Nation of Islam. How do I know they need to join the Nation of Islam, and I don't know who they already are?
All Right.
So, I studied the Bible. I made an oath to myself. I say, "I'm going to read the Bible from cover to cover, from Genesis to the last word of the Bible, Revelations, the last word of Revelations, the end of the book." I said, "And I'm not going to stop to question it. I'm going to read it straight through." Because I knew that if I started questioning it, I would be years reading it. I knew that. And I wanted to go on and read it and get it over. So, I made an oath to myself, serious promise to myself, that I'll read it through. I did. I did. But I also, at the same time, before I began, with the same state, the same oath ... a part of the same commitment or oath was, that after I read it through the first time, I'm going to read... I said, "Then I'm going to read it for a second time, and I'm going to read it to pick it apart."
Yes.
And that's exactly what I did.
Yes, sir.
But the first reading prepared me for the second reading.
Yes, sir.
The second reading wasn't that difficult, because I read the Bible through, without questioning or examining and doubting and picking things apart. I just read it. So, it gave me a lot of respect for it, gave me a lot of respect for the Christian society of the world.
Yes.
For the church. Gave me a lot of respect. And I read it again and studied it. And I think you're perhaps looking at maybe one of the rarest of students of the Bible that you will find on the planet earth. You're looking at the man right now.
Yes, sir. Takbir, Allahu Akbar!
My Imam W. Deen Mohammed. Yes. I don't back up off of anybody. No. I don't care if it's the Pope of Rome, or the archbishop or whoever, the convenor of the Baptist conference, the top pastors. I don't care who they are. I don't back up for anybody. No. And I feel that where they want to take me, I can go with my own life. I don't need their candles. I don't need their flashlights, I don't need spotlights, I don't need headlights. I don't need anything from them. I can go with my own light, and they can cut their lights off if they want. And I'll go with them in the light. Thank G-d. Yes. That's what G-d did for me.
All right.
Yes. Because I was innocent and sincere.
That's right.
And in my final words to you and the radio audience, remember that I was appealing to you all who still want to do something with your lives. You still have moral sense. You have some moral sense. And you still respect your ... and human intelligence. So I've made a strong appeal to you to live, not just for yourself, but live for others who need you. Live as a human being and care about all human beings on this planet earth. Care about human life, and don't waste too much time. Don't spend all day long trying to help somebody that's insisting upon going to the trash can.
Yes, that's right.
Don't you go to the trash can with them. And I pray G-d always be with us. And if we live the good life and live it as we should, that it be the best help that we can give those who don't care. That's the best help we can give them. Thank you. And peace be unto you. As-Salaamu-Alaikum.
Wa-Alaikum-Salaam. Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.
Well, we're taking a long time here. It's still busy back there.
Yeah. I'm trying to come as near as I could to the spice that we use for the EggMate, and you know we're not processing meat anymore, but we have a brother, Akbar Salaam, from New Jersey. Akbar Salaam in Newark, New Jersey. He's been in the meat business for well over 25 years, and 30, maybe 30 years or more. And he has the EggMate formula, and it's very good. I don't know if some of you all know about him and want to purchase from him, but if you do, but still, you have the same problem. Because shipping costs will be a lot coming from that far distance, Newark, New Jersey. But those who live closer to him, and you can drive your car or your truck to his business, I strongly recommend that, because he has excellent products. And he slaughters, he has halal thabihah, has halal products. Thabihah means slaughtered according to the Islamic rules for it, and halal, it meets the halal requirements, too. And his products are very good. Meats are excellent. That's brother Akbar Salaam of Unity Halal Beef, Unity Beef, Halal products in Newark, New Jersey.
I'm going to try to sell him the spice I got here. I don't know. I didn't contact him yet, but I'm going to contact him. I'm going to try to sell him our spice. These spices you're getting now, this is below cost spice, below cost spices you're getting. And all the spices are good. But the black pepper, gourmet, is gourmet black pepper. When you see it, you'll know it. When you see it, look at it, smell it, you'll know it. It's a real high-quality black pepper. So, my advice to you is, don't miss the opportunity. If you're going to buy, if you're cooking, all your own cooking, you shouldn't miss the opportunity now. Because you're not going to get prices like this. When we run out of this inventory, the price is going to be more real. They going to be good, though. We're going to keep the price real good for you, but they going to be more real.
These spices are just a quick turnover, cash prices that we can use the cash to invest in suits or something, which is good money. Suit business is excellent. Excellent. I don't know ... if I was a drug pusher, I'd be thinking seriously about buying these suits and getting out of drugs. Yeah. I mean it. I'm serious, very serious. This opportunity I've seen, haven't seen a better one, where you make ... you invest two or three ... you invest $1, you get two or three back. You invest $10,000, you get 20 to $30,000 back. You ain't going to find that, you know. I don't know of anything like that, without you losing money. Because when you get big, big returns like that, they are high risk investments, high risk investments. You ain't got no guarantee you're going to get anything. You might lose. You lose money. You know what these banks are paying you now, to hold your money? That should tell you what you get. If you saving with a bank, you know what they giving you. IRS ain't even interested in it. Show them, the IRS probably just overlook it. Two or three pennies.
That's right.
Okay. Want them to kind of finish back there. No more activities outside these walls. We cannot take any of our business outside these walls. Do not block the entrance way out there, or the traffic way for the hotel management, for the desk, and for these rooms out there. Everything from now on has to be within these walls here. So, we have made space on the back wall for all of you to have space. That's for the recorded products, the Mosque Cares, W.D.M, Ministry, Mosque Cares, and for W.D.M. Publications, for Muslim Journal, whatever. It all has to be inside, and on that back wall, back there. Everything that's sold or passed out to anybody. Okay. So that's clear. So, I guess we can almost start now. Seems to be quiet back there.
I'm not sure, but I think I saw brother Wali Bilal from Philly, yeah, Philadelphia. They have, I think for two or three weeks now, for a month almost, they have put out a paper. And that paper is really a welcome newspaper in this community. We appreciate it very much. It's excellent, Brother Bilal. Brother Imam Wali Bilal, back there. Excellent. Excellent job you're doing. And in time, inshallah, I hope you get advertisements, circulation grow, you get people to advertise in it, and to keep contributing to the content, excellent materials to the content. I think you've got a great future. Allah be with you and increase you, Ameen. All right.
That's Philadelphia. That's a place where I call home too. I stayed there for three years. Our first child was born there, Laila, and really the way it was when I was there, it was nice. Then things changed in the '60s, the upheaval, demonstrations and the brutality that the civil rights demonstrators suffered, in some of those cities. And then the death of Dr. Martin Luther King just made our people panic and go wild, and just justified those that wanted to see us lose. Justified them coming behind our destruction, and making even more trouble for us. Yeah, those cities haven't healed quite yet, I don't think, but they're getting back. They're pretty close to getting back to normal.
I don't know if I'll go back there to Philadelphia or not, but I sure think about it a lot. I love Philadelphia. That's where my father sent me. Honorable Elijah Muhammad sent me to be the minister there, late 1958. No, might have been fall of 1958, mid-1958. But he sent me there, and I was received so nicely by those believers there. They gave me the love that they wanted to give my father. And they treated me very, very nicely. I lived in a house with a couple of pioneers, and I would have my ... whatever I wanted. They asked me what I want to eat, and I'd have whatever I wanted.
I wasn't eating much back then. I didn't eat that much. I would eat very light on one day. Next day I would eat regular meal. One day, I'd eat very light. Thin soup, thin pea soup or something. And then the next day I'd eat a full meal, like that. That's how I was eating. In good shape. Stayed in pretty good shape. Difficult now. Very hard.
Yes. Let's see. You know what the things I was talking about today, the problem we were talking about today, and the people, problem living and just holding on to the traditional good life of human beings, in America and around the world. Very difficult, loss, cut off from that traditional life. Even though they're going to churches and things, going to mosques, going ... but still the influences are so strong to just take over your ... occupy your mind and everything, that most people are just separated from that excellent, traditional good life we used to live.
Muslims, we are told by our Prophet that we should not follow the life habits of other people. We don't follow their life habits. We have our own life habits, and we should stay with our own life habits. We have our own lifestyle. We don't go out shopping in the streets for lifestyle. And how do you do that? When you've got to have the latest fashion in women clothing, or men clothing, you are following the lifestyles of the people. You're not following the lifestyle of Islam, if those clothes don't respect Islamic modesty for men and women. See, if you go to Saudi Arabia and to many other Islamic countries, you'll see men wearing dresses in many places. They wear dresses. They may have pants up under them, but they wear dresses. And those dresses cover their pants. Because many times a brother is more indecent than a sister in a short dress, when he's wearing tight pants.
Yeah.
He exposes himself wearing tight pants. And this is accepted in the west, it's accepted that men wear tight pants and expose themselves, but that's not acceptable Islamic dress. So, we should never dress like that. Recently I was in a town for an engagement there, speaking engagement, and a couple, married couple asked me ... they wanted me in a photo with them. And they were seniors, and had been in the community for a long time. And I was made acquainted with them. And I wanted to give them what ... if that's all they wanted, was the photo, I wanted to give them that. So, I sit with them in the photo, but the way we were sitting, and the person in front of us with the camera, I said, "Now make sure you're shooting us from the waist up." I said, "Not down." I said, "You're getting the upper part of the body, right?" "Yeah, yeah." I get the photo and they got everything, my knees and everything. And I was sitting relaxed, in like a table situation. And I just don't like to have a pose like that, somebody shoot me like that. But luckily my pants were loose-fitting. So, it wasn't hurting. Wasn't as hurting as it could have been, for them to take my picture like that. Yes. So, modesty is the thing. Modesty, decency. Decency, modesty. That's what's important. You can have a long dress and be still indecent.
That's true.
Long dress showing your body, showing your body too much. That's no good. It can be more seductive, more indecent than the woman with pants or with a short dress, if you wear a long dress and it's just hugging you in every place. So, sisters, you all should be aware that it's not just a long dress, it's Muslim sister modesty, Muslim woman decency. That's what it is. Yes.
Yes. So, the Prophet said, peace be on him, he said, "Whoever follows the styles or habits, life habits, of the people are not of us." So, he actually made a separation. So, if we follow that hadith, and we see someone, brother and he's indecent, and indecently dressed, male or female, and if we ostracize them, or disassociate ourselves from them, we're being in accord with the teachings of the Prophet.
That's right.
And I wouldn't want to do that to anybody, but we have to take seriously the life we have chosen. We have chosen a life form, and it saves us in these troubled times. If you don't keep to your life form, you'll be destroyed with the people who are being drowned in filthy water, being drowned. (silence)
I wish ... I think a lot of you all are aware of what's going on in these days, but I wish more of us were aware of what's going on in these days. We are actually living in the end of time, the end of time for prophecy. For prophecy. We are living in the end of time. Nothing that has been prophesied is left out of what's going on right now in this world. Everything is happening right now. Yes. Everything. And we were talking ... started to talk about the six plus six plus decimal zero six. When I was reading the Bible, I came across 6, 6, 6. And I had heard about it as a child, as a young child in the temple, listening to the ministers preach, and my father. I had heard about 6, 6, 6. That's was the number of the beast, heard about in Revelation, it appears. That is 6, 6, 6. Says, "He who has wisdom, let him count the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man ... that is the number of a man. And his number is six, three score, and six."
That's how it's given, six, three score, and six. See, I've always been a student in my makeup, my mental makeup. I'm a student. So, I didn't just read it like I guess a lot of the ministers did. They read six, says three score, and they said 6, 6, 6, but I want to know what ... how come three score is another six. So, I looked in the dictionary and I found the score is 20. One score is 20. So, three times six ... three score, three times 20 is 60. So that's six plus 60. That'd be 66, right? Yeah. I'm trying to bring you along. I know what I'm saying. I just want to make sure you ... six, three score, six, and then three score is three times 20, 60. So that's 66, and then it said, "and six." So that'll be 666, or 6, 6, 6, three sixes. That's in Revelation.
What I didn't hear in the temple was what I found in the Bible when I read the Bible through. And that was that the weight of taxes collected was 6, 6, 6. That's what it says in the Bible. So, it's not only associated ... this number of the beast is not only associated with a man, a wicked man, or a wicked figure of a man. I say, figure of a man, a wicked figure of a man, who's Shaitan, also the figure of Shaitan, or the image of Shaitan, the Shaitan, the devil, but it's also given as the weight or number of taxes that were collected in one collection at a certain time, during a time period when a certain king for the Jews was not popular with the Jews. He was very unpopular with the Jews.
So, this king was being criticized and condemned by Jews, and for taxing them too heavily. He was taxing his people too heavily. And it was given as 6, 6, 6, his weight. Then Revelation comes much later in the Bible. Revelation comes, and identifies this number with a man who's a beast and a man, a man who was beastly, or a beast. And we know him, we think of that figure as Satan or the devil. Now there in the sayings of the Prophet, there's the Dajjal, Dajjal, L at the end, Dajjal. And Dajjal is pictured in the hadith, sayings of the Prophet, riding
a donkey. Riding a donkey. He's supposed to be one eyed, he has one eye blind, one eye he doesn't see with. That's just to symbolize or to say by way of symbolism, that is to say that he had no moral vision. No moral vision at all. He was not moral at all. Immoral, completely, totally immoral. Blind to moral concerns.
He's pushing materialism. Don't look for a person, don't even look for a race. Look for condition. The Prophet told us to fight conditions, not to look for a devil in form, but to fight conditions. He told us that when he gave the book.... as G-d revealed the Qur'an to him and he gave it to him for following, and he reported it to the following, and then educated them and taught them on their particular concerns.
G-d says, ... put there..., "Fight the schemes of Satan, for his schemes are weak." Fight the schemes of Satan, for his schemes are weak. We understand, G-d makes it very plain in the Qur'an that drinking or partaking anything, you have to understand that khamar is the word for drinks or intoxication. Khamar. But khamar does not mean just whiskey or wine, liquor, something with alcohol in it. It has no direct reference to alcohol at all. Its reference is to anything that takes away your clear mind and makes you intoxicated. Anything that intoxicates you and interferes with your ability to speak clearly, behave clearly, and be in control of your, ...have moral control of your behavior, or your thinking and your behavior. Intoxication, that's what it's against. It's against any form of intoxication.
So, somebody said oh, reefer's not in the Qur'an. The Qur'an doesn't condemn reefers. Does reefers interfere with your clear mind? Your clear thinking? Does reefers make you high? Do reefers, pardon me, make you high? Yes. So, you're intoxicated, you've become intoxicated. It's a drug that intoxicates. So, it's forbidden. Anything...that's forbidden.
You can apply this to also indecent invitations from a man to a woman, or from a woman to a man. The poet speaks of love as being a wine, and the poet speaks of lust as being intoxicating. Intoxicating. When you look at the word khamar, or khimar, khimar and khamar, khamar is intoxication, khimar is hijab. khimar is the hijab. Women used to wear, like they still do, a big covering over their head that comes down over the shoulders and this covering is called shawl. The common word for it is shawl, that women wear. A shawl.
You see these women from Saudi Arabia and immigrants in different places now, they're in magazines, on the news, on TV, they're in the market places, and you'll see them with this big headpiece on. The headpiece is so big it goes over the shoulders and it covers the upper part of the body. It's over the head. They wear them nicely, it looks stylish, they look real nice. That is a khimar, khimar. The reason why it's called khimar it's from the root is to intoxicate. To intoxicate. Because the women would wear these big headpieces like that, and they would show their breasts to a man they wanted to tempt, they would have it hang so their breasts would be showing. So, they'd show their breasts. They would use it like a flasher. Take the part of it and do this and throw it over there and watch the man, then they'd take it and flip it off. You see how.... see what .... the devastating, you see.
Revelation came in the Qur'an saying women of the household, of the Prophet, do not go in the public unless you are completely covered or dressed. And to take your headpiece, your shawl, or khimar, or hijab, not a veil, hijab does not mean veil, and throw it over your breasts so your breasts are not seen in the public. This is revelation that came to the believers through Muhammad, of course by the medium of Jibreel and Muhammad received it in human language and spoke it to the people. Praise be to Allah.
This is decency. Decency. That's what we want. We want decency. We want obedience to God. We want to avoid getting in situations to have our life taken over by Satan. That's what happens when you give up more and more, compromise more and more of your decency, or of your rules for your life, you're just creating bigger and bigger openings for Satan to come in. He will come in and take over the whole life. Before you know it, you don't have any life anymore. Yes.
The Bible, in many places, is very clear. The Bible says sin is death. If sin is death, it doesn't mean that you're going to be dead physically. It means that when you become sinful you are dead. Humanly you're dead. In G-d's presence you're dead. In the presence of decent people, you're dead. Unconscious. Dead to any good sense when you give up good morals. So be aware of these things.
We won't be going too much longer, it's 5:00 and we want to close out in a few minutes. But I also, yes. I also want you to know that you're hearing a lot about...now that was about Satan. You're hearing a lot about Jesus Christ, peace be on him. Movies coming out about Satan, The Omen coming out again. And a lot of talk about Jesus Christ at this particular time. Your Imam is talking about Jesus Christ a lot. Even when you don't know I'm talking about Jesus Christ, I'm talking about Jesus Christ. Yes. Jesus Christ and Muhammad, the Prophet. They both represent the original excellence that G-d created when he created human beings in the mold that he wants human beings in. The original purity, original excellence, the complete life. Not just the spiritual side, the social life. The community life.
Allah, He made the whole life. The whole life is a life that lives community. That's the whole life. Community is everything that is important to individual life. Community provides jobs for income. Community provides laws to regulate the society and protect us against the criminals, against our own selves. Hm? Yeah. So, its political, government, it's political, it's spiritual to begin with, it's moral, it's ethical, it's cultural. Its' everything. That's why Allah stressed, that He says "Antum khyra ummatan ookrijat lin nas." You are the best of communities evolved for the good of all people. Raised up or evolved for the good of all people.
He speaks to us and He says you, speaking to all of us, antum G-d speaking. He didn't say you are an island. He didn't say you're a tribe. He didn't say you're a cult. No. He didn't say you're a business group. He said you are community. And that's what Jesus signified. Jesus represents a community. He's a plural figure, not singular. He represents a community. Abraham before him represents a community. Abraham, a plural figure, representing the community life. The community and the type of human behavior and thinking and aspirations that we should have in ourselves so that we contribute to the life, to preserving the life and extending the life, increasing and progressing the life, of community. Of community.
So Muslim life, can you talk about Muslim life and not include business? Or making money? Cultivating land? Developing properties? You can't talk Islam without mentioning that. Doesn't G-d tell us that there's more than just one kind of resurrection? He talks about the resurrection of the human soul that loses itself, go away and strays morally and loses its life. But He also says look to a town where the roofs are in bad repair, falling in. The place is neglected. But there is, for it, a resurrection. Huh? Says likewise is the resurrection.
So, G-d points us to material neglect in the neighborhood and he tells us that we should want to see for that neighborhood, too, a resurrection. To see it restored. They call it a renaissance. A renaissance, a renewal. Bringing back the beauty, bringing back the value and the beauty and the life. So let us remember that we are here for community life.
We are called ummah. Ummah. After the word mother. Umm means mother. Ummun means mother. Ummun, mother, ummah, community. They translate also sometimes nation, but it's not a political nation. This is a human nation. This is a human community nation, not a political nation. The ummah is not a political nation. You are under G-d, you're not under a king or a president or a political figure. You're under G-d. And you're under the Qur'an, not the constitution of a government, a physical government. You're under the Qur'an. G-d is always, and will be always. The Qur'an is eternal book. So, when nations come and go, we will still be here. Ummah. Our ummah will still be here because it's provided for by G-d himself and its constitution is in the Qur'an that was revealed to Muhammad for all times for us. This is how we should look at it.
The world is shaking up now. The world is shaking up. We don't know how it's going to turn out. You can't be too sure. I think the constitution of these United States will live, will survive all the troubles that we may face. I do believe that. But who knows, maybe it can't survive an onslaught by Satan himself. So far, he's gone ahead of everybody and he has set everybody up to be knocked down by him. Yes, he's gone ahead of everybody, set them up to be knocked down by him.
Look how the Catholic Church is suffering now. Criticism. Yes? Suffering a lot. Look how boldly the criticizers are. I just read a publication today. Just a couple minutes more. I just read a publication today, yesterday and today, where this writer of this article is referring to the Pope as a German Shepherd. And referring to him also, his name is pronounced Rottweiler. But not spelled as Rottweiler, but calling him German Shepherd and Rottweiler, together in almost the same breath. Rottweiler is a dog. German Shepherd is a dog. That's bold. No respect at all. No respect at all. Who can speak of the Pope of Rome that has so many sincere devoted followers throughout the world with that kind of disrespecting spirit but a son of Satan himself?
You can't find Jesus Christ in one man, human, flesh human being and you can't find Satan in one man, flesh human being. This is a state of mind. That's what it is, a state of mind. For accomplishing Satan's work. Whoever supports that, they are supporting the devil, Satan. Yes? Whoever acts out that work is Satan. Yes. But you can't look at the person doing the work, you kill him, you haven't hurt Satan. Killing him ain't going to hurt Satan. Satan's probably got the, in fact his death may give birth to five better than him. Yeah. Yeah. Five weak ones might hear his death and become so strongly committed to the work, taking up the slack for him, so we have now a greater force than even he was. So, you can't go at individuals.
We're told in the lessons your reward is a trip to the holy city of Mecca. What do you have to do, bring in four devil heads at one time? Some stupid person not following the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's good advice and caution, may go out there and take four white folks' heads off, four white men's heads, and bring them back and say I want my trip to the holy city of Mecca, here I've got my four heads I'm presenting them at one time. That would be foolish. But believe me, somebody was teaching that and lost his head. They cut his head off. Brother Turk. They cut his head off. He was found with his head off. This was years ago. Because he was teaching that teaching and telling them that it meant just what it said. He was telling those who were listening to him that it means just what it said, take four devils' heads off. Well, he lost his head.
These are very serious times. We are right on time. We are right on time. You read what they're saying about Christ Jesus, you read what they're saying about the works of Satan, I've already given you all of it and more. That's right. I've given you all of it and more. Praise be to Allah. Allah came it to us and he opened us up for the light. He put the light in us. Believe me, a lot of them they couldn't use the language that they're using now if they hadn't heard what we have been saying. They didn't know how to use that language. If they did, they would have used it before. But now they use it very plainly and clearly. That's right. And we know why.
But that's good. Scripture says in the Bible, says and the hell will help prepare the dead to meet their Lord. That's what they're doing, hell is preparing. I've got no doubt what's being done by these Jews and some other people, that I got being doing, done by you. Yes. They are giving witnesses to what I've been telling you. Strong witness to what I've been telling you.
I want to conclude it with that. Just keep your eyes open, stay faithful to Allah, as you have. He's not through with us yet, don't think so. He's not through with us yet. No indeed. We've got work to do. Big fields await the wide-awake man. Hm? Get busy to raise the dead by the thousands. Praise be to Allah.
That's what he said, that’s what Mr. Fard said, WD40, not me. I'm W.D. Mohammed, I'm not WD40. Yeah. He says big fields await the wide-awake man so get busy and raise the dead by the thousands. What dead is he talking about? He made it clear. Mentally dead. So, thank you and Allah be with you all always. Be with us always. And be determined to help all of our people. That's what you have to do. Not just those that convert to Islam. We're determined to help all of our people.
Now, I may not be as optimistic as Mr. Fard was, but I'll tell you what he says and want you to understand it. He said, when he was here in these United States with my father, and preaching. He preached too to our people. There pioneers, maybe some of them still living that actually heard Mr. Fard. Saw him and heard him. Don't think that he's a mystery, he wasn't no mystery. He actually worked among us. He was a mystery in one sense, hiding in scriptures, but as a person he was not hidden, he was among us. He said that there were 17 million of us at the time when he came. That's the number he gave for the population of African Americans. The highest figure I think they gave it as 11, around 10 or 11. Something like that. He gave it higher. He said there were 17 million of us.
He said that the teacher had 17 million keys. 17 million keys. So, what is he saying? He's saying that he has a solution to unlock and free the life of every African American. Unlock their life that Satan had locked up. He had the keys to unlock the life of every one of our people. I have never been without a love in my heart and a desire in my heart and a heavy concern on my heart for all of our people. We are the victims of the one circumstance, white supremacy, slavery that began this, physical slavery, the taking of us from Africa. We are the victims of the same thing, all of us. How can we separate ourselves from African American Christians when we are the victims of the same thing? All of us come from the same terrible beginning on the ships and in the plantations. Right? How do you separate yourself from them?
So, this ain't about getting black people to have thikr beads, and dress in thobes, and make so many rak'ahs, sunnah and nafi and everything. It ain't about that. This is about restoring the life that we were denied and that we were blinded to. The excellent life that our creator created us for. This is about restoring that life. How can we do that work with just some of us that call ourselves Muslims and not be interested in all of us who suffered the circumstances?
I mean, this is nothing but plain sense. Don't think your Imam hasn't gotten big help. Black Side, they that interviewed me. They finally got it on TV. A lot of you all missed it. You probably saw it and didn't get it. They didn't point to Dr. King, they pointed to your Imam. This is the man for the future of the people. Allahu Akbar. That's not to discredit Dr. King. He's big in my eyes. Sacred and big in my eyes. But Dr. King is gone. Thank you. As salaamu alaikum.
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