09/02/1996
IWDM Study Library
The State of The Muslim Address - Islamic Convention Pt 1

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
As salaam alaykum, peace be upon you. We thank Allah, the one Lord over the heavens and the earth and everything there is, who created everything, who made excellent the human creature and gave us the most excellent models as leaders and examples to us, His servants, the messengers and prophets of the scripture and the best of them, the last of them, the completion of the human excellence that G’d intended for all people, Muhammad the Prophet, upon him be the prayers and the peace, salla Allahu alaihi, wa’baad..
Before going to my typed notes here that I hope will guide me and keep me from talking too long---a little boy who just made six years old, July 6, 1996, not too long ago, he told me, he said, "Are you going to talk long?"
I said, "I do not know." I said, "Should I talk long?" He did not reply right away. I said, "Should I talk a little or talk a lot?" He hesitated. He said, "Talk a little---and talk a lot."
I told him I understood. I am going to try to do that.
But before I begin this address, I have to make some comments first of all on this people of this community. You, many of you who came to the Qur’aan, though you did not pick it up or touch it because you were not invited to do that, but you did accept that the Qur’aan was the holy sacred book and not the Bible. You did that in the early '30s, through the '30s, through the '40s, through '50s, through the '60s, through the '70s until 1975, February 26, when Allah brought change about and I became your leader by your consent. Praise be to Allah.
I have to say something about you. I have observed you over all the years of my life. As a little fellow, I was attracted to look at the followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad; to look at your faces, to look at expressions, to listen to what you had to say when you were socializing and when you were listening to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad or talking about the teachings. I had an ear that wanted to hear what you were saying, your expressions. And I believe Allah has made me to know you very well. Today, in White Plains, New York, for our 1996 Islamic Convention, I want to say to you, I am very happy. I am very pleased with you. I am very proud of you.

Praise be to Allah. I have seen this following start out in a very honest and sincere way, very religious, strongly believing in G’d, believing that we were true Muslims, believing that we had the real Islam. I have seen us change from that sincerity, from that religious character, to a black image character during the '60s, the last half of the '60s and the '70s and the early '70s. I thank Allah that now after 20 years, we are coming back we have come back to the sincerity, to the religious character.
We have a good spirit now. The spirit of the following is the spirit of G’d fearing people, the spirit of Muslims. We still have a long ways to go for the many of us, to come into the rational mind of the good Muslim.
To have the rational mind of the good Muslim, we have to have the knowledge for our intelligence, the knowledge for our brain that G’d has given to us in the last revelation, the Qur’aan, and in the teachings and example of the prophet, the last and seal of the prophets, Muhammad. When we get that knowledge, we do not all have to become scholars.
There is some simple basic knowledge for our brains, for our reasoning that we need to have, so that we will be also Muslim, believers in our rational makeup---in our rational makeup. Right now, majority of us our rational minds accept but do not know. We do not want to live in the dark. We want to live in the light, in the light of faith and in the light of ‘ilm---knowledge in Islam.
I encourage you who are thinking not only for yourself or yourselves, but you are thinking for the good of this whole people, the whole community, I encourage you to continue to study studiously the Qur’aan as a rational person and as a person of faith, continue to study hard, qualify more, improve your Arabic, arabiyya, lugata arabiyya improve the Arabic language so that you will be able to read the Qur’aan and understand it in the Arabic script, the Arabic text.
So that we will have better qualified leaders to bring our people forward more and more, not only into the spiritual side of the religion or the just belief but the knowledge itself, the logic, the rational teachings, the rational guidance, et cetera. This is a must.
Our guest from Malaysia, Dr. Mohammad Minuity, is a brother in Islam that I met in Malaysia as a guest of his organization, the Muslim Youth of Malaysia or ABIM. I went there, really, because I had met many Malaysian Muslims over the years that I have been serving this community. And they all, each one, encouraged me to want a visit to Malaysia and more than half of them invited me to come to Malaysia. I am sure that all of them, each of them would want me, would have wanted me and still would want me to visit Malaysia. So I went to Malaysia mainly because of the impression I had of Malaysia from Malaysians that I had met, Muslims that I had met in this country.
When I learned of their organization, the Muslim Youth Organization, and learned of the principle tolerance or accommodation and tolerance, that the leader of ABIM just shared with us, I was even more excited about the visit. Because I wanted to see very much that society that took the position that I feel very much convinced that Muhammad the Prophet took, prayers and peace be upon him. And that was position the position of a person totally devoted to G’d and rational. If we cannot understand our leaders and follow our leaders with our good common senses, with the brain that G’d put in our heads something's wrong with those leaders.
I will not follow any leader just with my heart, or just with my spirit. If I cannot follow him with the common senses that G’d gave me I am going to look for somebody else to follow. I believe Prophet Muhammad is importantly for us and the world, the Prophet that was established upon the excellent intelligence or the excellent rational mind of the human person. And at the same time the excellence of faith both. He was established in the excellence of faith and also in the excellence of intelligence, human intelligence, the rational mind, and because of that he is the last prophet and the last example to us.
He did not just represent that. He applied it for the establishment of the Ummah, the Muslim community in Madina, the first government of Islam. He applied it for the establishment of the Muslim Ummah, he applied it for good relationship with non-Muslim nations. Do you know Prophet Muhammad had good relationship with Christian Ethiopia of Africa?
First nation, they did not believe it---they were not Muslims but he had good relationship with them. He had good relationship with, really, the Christians of Europe. You read the Qur’aan, G’d revealed the religion to Prophet Muhammad and recognized the excellence of the followers of Jesus Christ even though we are told by G’d that they have strayed and most of them are corrupt, but a few of them are believers.
And they want to advance the same good that the Muslim wants of the Ummah should be devoted to advancing, the same good. So G’d pointed that out to us and because of that the early Muslim Ummah had good relationship with the Christians, most of them. The early Ummah, the early community under Muhammad the Prophet, Salla Allahu Alaihi Wasallam, the prayers and the peace be upon him, in it is earliest days it had extended the hand of friendship, accommodation and tolerance to the Jewish community of Madina. There were elements in the Jewish community who were devils, they were Satan. There were the followers of Satan.
There were elements in the Jewish community of Madina who were devils and they helped create hypocrites in the ranks of the believers, caused a lot of trouble, instigated a lot of trouble for the Muslims, within the ranks of the Muslims and also with other people other tribes that hadn't converted to Islam et cetera. So then the separation came separating the Muslim from the Jews. But never has G’d said in the Qur’aan that all Jews are bad. Never has a prophet roused his community to hate Jews per se, never. In our Qur’aan G’d tell us of the Jews to say most of them are corrupt.
G’d, I bear witness, and most Christians are corrupt. I bear witness, G’d, most of the people who call themselves Christians, they are corrupt, and I bear witness G’d, most people who call themselves Jews they are corrupt and, G’d, I bear witness that most people who call themselves Muslims they are corrupt. I bear witness, G’d. I am a witness, yes. I am attracted to the people of Malaysia mainly because of what the Muslim government stands for there, and because of their support for that Muslim government, the support of the non-Muslims for the Muslim government of Malaysia.
I am attracted to that country, and I hope that we will have another visit soon to Malaysia and follow up on the proposal that we presented when we were there, to ABIM, the president of ABIM and other the Secretary General of ABIM and to the Deputy Prime Minister who used to be the Deputy Prime Minister---second man in the political power structure of Malaysia. The Deputy Prime Minister used to be a student of ABIM and also an officer of ABIM. I met him, very wonderful person who may one day be the Prime Minister, number one man, we think. It could come soon, we do not know---the next election, who knows, if he choose to campaign for that position. But we are satisfied with him as number two man.
We would be satisfied with him if he was number 10 man. The wonderful person and we are happy to know that such persons are in the top leadership of the government and the Muslims are making such wonderful contribution not only to the good life stability of the Muslims of the Malaysian community, but also they are making that contribution to all the citizens of Malaysia whether they belong to one religion or another, or whether they belong to one nationality or another. This is wonderful. I did not think that there was a Muslim country on this earth today that had such an open mind, open policy toward the public in general and had such a pluralistic makeup in its citizenry. This is wonderful.
I am very excited about our future relations with the people especially the ABIM, this Muslim organization and with the establishment of the Malaysian people. We hope to have an association with them. We hope to even work on Dawah materials with them, myself with their learned people, some of their learned people.
Some of our other imams our learned imams will also be working Inshallah with some of their learned people to put out materials jointly authored by a Malaysian and also by an African American Muslim. That is what we hope. We also hope that we will benefit from their institutions of learning especially the International University---Islamic University in Malaysia and the mosques there are very beautiful too.
You would just love the visit if you were not going there for any other purpose but to go sightseeing. You would love the visit. It would be more than worth your ticket just to go there for sightseeing especially if you are Muslim. [laughs] So many other benefits that you can get just by going there and we hope that one day we will benefit from their institutions of learning.
We hope that we will also benefit from a study of their culture, of the Malaysian people's culture, how the different ethnic groups and the different people with different cultures and different cultural backgrounds, pardon me, how they are living together in peace and working for one nation, the one country, Malaysia. We want that in America and we are getting there. It is coming gradually because most Americans now of good minds who are leading their people, they are supporting that.
The President, Clinton, in one of his address that he made at the Democratic Convention, he stressed inclusion, and that is what we have to do. We have to recognize that all people were created by Allah and if He created them, He must love all of them. He created them for the same thing he created all of us for. He created all people for the good destiny---for the good destiny--- that Allah has made possible for His human creatures.
We cannot take any people out of the humanity and we cannot take any people out of the competition for the good life that G’d wants for all of us. Let us compete in the spirit of brothers and sisters in humanity, brothers and sisters in humanity if not as brothers and sisters in religion. Let us compete as brothers and sisters in humanity and pray that we all will one day be brothers and sisters in religion, if G’d wills that.
So, I would like to say much more about our interest in a real lasting relationship that will be carried on by our sons and their sons' sons and our sons and daughters for generations and generations to come. Something that we want with Malaysia to be eternal if it can be at least perpetual. We want it to be perpetual, not ending, not ceasing, not stopping. We do not want to ever break the relationship that we are trying to form with the people of Malaysia.
I believe it is very important in the future of the Muslim community here to have that relationship with the people of Malaysia---especially the Muslims---particularly with ABIM, this group. I also have to say that the Imam of this New York area, Imam Pasha, he has more than earned the recognition that the Shura gave to him: Man of the Year. I have watched him and been in close contact with him, hearing from him by phone, by mail, letters et cetera.
When I saw New York Times put out an article on him as the Imam of the Malcolm Shabazz Mosque or Masjid, on the front page of New York Times, in a pious position sitting down in salat, I said to myself, "If he did not achieve anything but that, or Allah did not grant him anything but that, he have achieved more than most of us have achieved in all the cities of the United States with our hard work, our hard work Dawah. Because that picture went all throughout New York, New York City and America, US and outside of the US---the New York Times is no cheap media. It is thought of as number one newspaper in the United States.
That was a great recognition that we appreciate so much; and we appreciate The Times for having that interest in putting the Imam on the front page. He did not hit it once. More than once he was in the New York Times. And I mean given prominence in the paper, they are very obviously appearing there writing in pitches and the real practical side---not Islam though, but just recognition for what he had done in a very practical way. He has made a real physical imprint on the environment there where the Malcolm Shabazz was.
I go to the area now it looks cleaner; it looks more progressive the former vacant lot has a market there, named for Malcolm, Malcolm Shabazz Market. The peddlers---I used to be one myself. I know how difficult it is to peddle, to sell goods on the streets especially if you are truly an actual human. It is very difficult. He took them out of one situation they thought they were going to lose, they thought they were getting on and going to get in a worse situation, "We cannot sell on the streets. We cannot sell in front of the retail stores."
They were upset and they were thinking that, "We are being betrayed." But the result has been that they have been able to earn money just like they did before and those who are really working hard in that market they are earning more than they did before. Not only are they earning more money, but the revenue to the city now is making the city feel very grateful to the work of Imam Pasha, the leadership of Imam Pasha.
Then I read in the New York paper of Imam Pasha, this writer was saying that not since Malcolm X has there been a leader for the African-Americans of Harlem. They are pointing to him as the first one that is making an impression on the community there and in that environment, convincing them that maybe the Blacks---African-Americans of Harlem have a leader that they can trust again. Praise be to Allah, this is wonderful.
I wouldn't have felt that I had taken care of what I should take care of here today without mentioning that. Again as I have much more to say about Dr. Muhammad A Manudy, I have much more to say about Imam Pasha. But I will try to do what my little friend said, the six-year-old, "Talk a little and talk a lot." 
This is our annual convention 1996, National Islamic Convention. When we thought we were the wisest and the truest of Muslims we used to have national convention---it was called The National Savior's Day Meeting. It meant a lot to us; it meant a lot to our spirit; it meant a lot to us for our unity, it meant a lot to us for our sense of belonging to each other our Temples as they were called back then and later our mosques. We had a greater sense of oneness and brotherhood, or paternal bond because of that annual day, once a year. I have had them tell me--- some of them they would tell me---I have heard them say in my presence and also I have been told, "I live for this day. Every time I come to the fountain, I go back and I keep it for a year, for a whole year. It lasts me for a whole year.” What I am seeing now in the last few years of our national convention, that the same thing is happening again. I find myself given a spirit that doesn't die it lives in me until the next convention, yes.
When I came here to this convention I came here still with me the spirit, the excitement, the enthusiasm, the good results that I got from the previous convention. G’d have given us this. When G’d gave us the Eid, the Eid ul Adha where Muslims from all over the world go to Mecca to visit the ancient house, the first house built for mankind to the worship of one G’d, the Ka’aba, there. When we go there once a year we get something that lasts us a lifetime, really, a lifetime. G’d has it open to us through his servant and messenger, Muhammad. It has been established for us as a yearly visit. Believe me, I am proud to say that we got a few in our community that they go to the Hajj every year and they are not rich, they are poor.
They are poor, but they are fortunate. One of them have relatives working for the airlines and they got so such good benefits, they do not worry about travel. They get on a plane any time they want and go wherever they want to go. That is a great blessing from Allah. But many of you, if you had a ticket to go to Hajj every day you still wouldn't make it.
These are outstanding people we are talking about who have an opportunity to make the Hajj and they are making it every year. This National Convention is very important for us, very, very important for us. If you can go and vacation for a week or a few days on the weekend to one of the vacation sites in the United States for nothing but a little relief from the pressures on you, you should feel much more obligated to make a family sacrifice if you have to. Allah will recover what you lost, will more than pay you back what you spend so that you will be present for these annual conventions.
It is very important that the small number of Muslims in America come together in as bigger numbers as possible in the public of the United States so that America will know that real Muslims are here in America. We are also grateful to this town, this big little town, White Plains, New York, for its warmth, its hospitality that it have extended to Muslims. It is not Muslim, it is Christian and it is Jewish and it is something else others I do not know of. But I know Muslims are a kind of strange visitor in this town of White Plains.
They do not see Muslims around here. But they will know from now on Muslims and they will be telling their friends, "Do not tell me about those, do not tell me about the Muslims unless you know what you are talking about. Those people came to our town in White Plains."
I feel very good and I have prepared some notes and I came here to address you. But G’d is my witness, highly glorified is He, G’d is my witness if I know you want to say amin, or amen, and go to the next program I am ready to do it with you.
[Laughter]
We have had some very valuable words shared with us today. Given to us, extended to us today from our honorable guests from Malaysia and also from our very lively Imam Pasha. I will see if I can really finish this up with that young fellow. Let me say this. Most of us who followed the Honorable Elijah Muhammad were not expected to know exactly what was happening to us. We were not expected to know what was happening to our minds in that learning environment, strange learning environment we called the Nation of Islam in the wilderness of North America are the Holy Temples of Islam.
We were not supposed to understand what was happening to our minds, we were not supposed to understand what was happening to our spirits. No, we were not supposed to understand it. It was it was a plan. It was like a prescription from a spiritual doctor to get us into something and hold us by powerful attraction until the grip of Christianity was broken, and until the grip of servitude to white authority was broken. That is what it was intended for. But we were not supposed to understand it, were not expected to understanding it.
It was too high above our head. The scheme, the formula whatever we want to call it, the scheme or the formula for bringing us out of the clutches of Christianity, or out of the clutches of the church, or out of clutches of the white man, it was too high above our level of learning for us to understand it. The majority of us came from not only the people who were poor in their pockets, but also poor in their heads. African-Americans first got acquainted with Muslims in the late '20s and in the early' 30s. The first to introduce Muslims to African-Americans was the Honorable Noble Drew Ali. He started the Moorish Science Temple.
There is a similarity between the two. You can see it right now. He identified as Muslim, but called the place of worship a temple. That was before Fard came. Then W Fard came and he did the same thing. He called the houses of worship or the places of worship temples and he gave them numbers. The first one, Temple Number One, Detroit Michigan. Then they went from Detroit to Chicago and they set up the second temple, number two in Chicago.
Even while Fard was here they went to the third one. Went to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and set up a third one in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. All of the temples after that were established without the presence of W Fard Muhammad under the leadership of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad went to Washington DC himself and visited the homes of African-American Christians and found a friend, Brother Benjamin and his wife, Sister Clara. Found a friend in there in Washington that welcomed, opened the doors of their private home said “you could stay with us and where are you living? You paying the hotel? Do not pay the hotel bill, stay with us.” I realized mama was looking for a private home to stay in. Brother Benjamin and his wife sister Clara, and by the way my mother's name is Clara, the wife of Elijah Muhammad is Clara, who passed away about 1972, I think.
The home was open and temple number four started writing at home. Temple number four, Washington, DC started right at that home. I realized Elijah Muhammad built up a following there and eventually before Malcolm and Malcolm came, he had number five, number six, number seven, and I believe number eight. Yes, I believe so, number eight.
He had this temple. Malcolm came, he was so energetic, new blood in the ministry, energetic a young man who was current---the old ministers, a majority of them they were not current. They can hardly tell you what happened in the news today. They only could tell you what Isaiah said. They could tell you what Ezekiel said---the Bible, they were Bible people, but they could not tell you what happened in the news today.
Malcolm came and he was not a Bible man, he was not from that kind of orientation, a Christian orientation, a church orientation, he came from the streets. He was in touch with what was happening in the public life, and because he was, he was better suited to introduce the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's works to the public than those ministers that he called too conservative.
I do not agree with him. He became too radical too, so I do not agree with him, but I appreciate him for his contribution to the works of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, not any one single person ever contributed more to the works of Honorable Elijah Muhammad than did Malcolm X or Malcolm Malik Shabazz, Malik el-Shabazz.
Getting back to the history, a few years after Noble Drew Ali in the early '1930s, a man more unorthodox and stranger than was Drew Ali or more of a stranger in the Muslim population of the world than was Noble Drew Ali. Mr Fard, he came and began introducing the African-American of Detroit, the poor, the most deprived culturally and in every other way of the citizens, African-American citizens of Detroit.
He went to them, he did not go to the intellectuals, he could have sought them out, he did not seek out the African-American intellectuals, he went to those who suffered the greatest losses in White society. He went to them and introduced himself and began preaching.
I must repeat to you, and to say it again, what he came with as Islam was very, very strange in the Islamic world. The Islamic world has never heard of anything like that. They could not believe it and many of them now, they read the papers, and they can go back and get Detroit papers that will tell them about Fard. If you cannot get it from the Detroit newspaper, go to the police department. The police department will share with you its records and you will see W D Fard, Mr. W D Fard picture on the newspaper back then. In the newspaper being arrested and the charges against him. You will see that, you will see his picture in their newspapers and he was their leader, not Elijah Muhammad.
Now, I do not know why Muslims outside of America especially those who propagate the religion or devote themselves to the teaching of religion, just won't accept that Elijah Muhammad had a teacher from outside America that claimed to be a Muslim and claims to be from Mecca teach him what he was taught and established him, appointed him to be the leader, and left him with the problem. 
I do not know why they cannot accept that. That is the fact, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was the son of a Baptist minister, a small, small Baptist minister from Georgia, my grandfather called William Poole, later Wali Muhammad. He was a son of that Baptist minister. He was not a church going son. He disagreed with the preaching of the preachers. He was what you would call a black sheep in the family. He would rather spend his time out on the streets with his buddies, laughing and talking and drinking than to go to church, that was the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. He was not a bad man, never was he arrested for stealing or doing anything like that. No, not a bad man but just an African-American that could not find comfort in the church---at least not the way they were preaching, I will be like Muhammad heard him save his own life. He said, "I could not accept the way they were preaching in the Bible." Meant that he thought it should have been preached differently.
He finally met a man who agreed with him. That said, "This is wrong." He accepted that man and that man gave him something he called Islam and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he hardly ever got out of Georgia except to come to the factories of Detroit looking for a better financial situation for himself and his big family. He never knew anything about Muslim, he never knew any Muslims. Here's his first contact, his first contact with Muslims, somebody calling himself Muslim. First time he knew about Noble Drew Ali, but he was not following Drew Ali as some of them think.
I have met some of their leaders and they say, "Your father was a member of our Moorish Science Temple first. We know it because that is our fez on his head." Fard called his temples or his places temples after Drew Ali and he also gave his first followers, the men a fez like Drew Ali wore. That doesn't mean that they were Moorish America, no, Fard just used that. He used what Drew Ali had used.
Yes, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad did not know anything about Islam, when the Honorable Elijah Muhammad went to prison for refusing to fight for the country---or to take out a draft card; or to just register with this country and its war against the Japanese and the Germans in World War Two, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad refused.
When he went to prison, he did not know anything about real Islam. When Fard introduced Islam to him, he introduced something that was so---I would say---different. I know the words to use but I have to use the words that you can accept.
He introduced something that was so different that it completely engaged and occupied every brain cell in his head. He could read a book later, now he has been introduced to Islam. You think he would go and say, "Let me find a book on Islam and read it." If he found one by accident and he picked it up, he is not going to read anything but Yakub's history in that book.
I do not care what he says in his language, I do not care how straight his language is, when he read it, it is going to support Yakub's history. It is going to support the black man being G’d. Because what Fard gave him was so different, it had such a powerful hypnotic effect on him that he could not see nothing beyond that.
If you said this is a Muslim, he saw one agreeing with him, and if he did not, he condemned that person, "You do not understand Islam yet, brother. I do not care if you are from Al-Azhar in Egypt. I have seen him do that. I do not care if you had 50 years study in Al-Azhar in Egypt. You do not have the real Islam, brother. Why do you not let me teach you?"
So Fard had some powerful medicine, powerful magnetism. He told us that the white man's world began with an interest in magnetic power, right? He was hinting that he is going to begin his world, too, in us with the same interest. An interest in magnetic power. I am going to create something that is such a powerful attraction. That is going to be a powerful magnet. It is just going to bring them to it and they are not going to be able to break from it.
A review of that time back then, late 1920's, the 1930s it is almost a must, for us who want to better prepare ourselves, to invite not only those who were in the Nation of Islam and the Temple of Islam like we were---in fact I was born in there, I was born in it. I was born October 30, 1933. My father was following Fard at that time, and Fard was present at that time. My mother was a devout follower of his at that time. They remained so. I know, I was born in it.
If the Imams with me, if you want to be better qualified to invite African-Americans to Islam, even if they have not been converted to the Nation of Islam or the Temple of Islam, you need to go back and become acquainted with was happening in the religious atmosphere of that time the late 1920's, the early 1930's, and for a time afterwards.
Why do I say that is very important? It is very important because African-Americans, whether they have turned their attention to the teachers that aren't Elijah Muhammad or not, you have been affected by the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. You may be Catholic, you may be Protestant, you may be a Holy Roller. I do not care what you are. Your mind have affected by the presence of that little powerful black man, Elijah Muhammad in America, whether you are conscious of it or not.
The way you are thinking have been somewhat shaped by the presence of Elijah Muhammad in America. If we are going to bring you forward into better life and a better condition, we who want do that or assumed that responsibility, we should really study those times that Fard came into.
During that time, the late 1920's and early 1930's, a kind of apocalyptic-air had been created. By apocalyptic, we are talking about prophecies. Prophecies, preaches. Those scholars are interested persons in Christianity, in religion, where it is taking us. What it says about the beginning of things and the end of the world. Those people were excited. Their minds, and intellect were excited. In the late 1920's and the early 1930's, they were very excited.
They thought that 1914 should have been the end of the world. Not the Temple of Islam, not Drew Ali, not the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Christians. It was published in their papers. You can go get the papers; all of this can be verified. One thing good about America, they record practically everything. All of this can be verified.
The Christian mood and the Christian spirit was the spirit of people that had been touched by apocalyptic prophecy, apocalyptic teaching in Christianity. They thought that the world would have come to an end in 1914, but it did not. That did not make them believe any less that the world was near its end. They still believed it. They thought it was coming in any day at any time. Fard comes at that time. Not that he would come, he was already there. He comes to the mind. He comes in to the mind that I can do this thing.
There was a report in the Detroit area, by people and the press reported what they said. A space craft appearing over Michigan, the state of Michigan. Not hearsay, these are newspaper reports. They said that, "It appeared so big, that people described it as a city in the sky." This is the press---Detroit Press. They described it “as being so big it appeared it was like a city in the sky”. This is happening while Fard is thinking about how to do something here.
I am familiar with the Bible. I know about Prophet Ezekiel in the Bible. I know about the Ezekiel wheel in the Bible. That was there many, many generations; hundreds of years before those people looked up there and saw a wheel in a wheel in the sky. Fard knew too about the Bible. He told African-Americans that that spacecraft, that the people say they saw, the Japanese built that.
In 1919, I think he said, way back them, late 1919 I think it was. In 1919, you could tell them anything. Half of them could not read the newspaper, they were illiterate. The majority of them could not afford a radio. No news. The only time they got news is when they were told to go to jail.
All right. Henry Ford also, back there, at that time. Henry Ford---his would have missed all of us, but it wouldn't have missed Fard. Henry Ford was pointing a finger at the Jews and accusing the Jews of being people that you cannot trust. American government had better watch it. At the same time, Adolf Hitler was rising up in Germany. And at the same time, an atheistic idea that said, "Forget about G’d, let's be all the material society. A society based upon the dynamics of materialism." Communist Marxist idea. It was rising too during the same time.
So Fard did not come in a time when everybody was content to believe that there is G’d, he came in a time when there was a great number of people on this earth questioning, "Is there a G’d at all and should we listen to religion at all?" The communist Marxist and those who follow that idea, they were calling religion “The dope, dope, drugs, for the masses of people”. That is the time that that Fard came into.
There were many Christian writers who are theologians, learned people in the Christian religion, they were questioning the nature of the government and if those governments were really governments that people should support. And they were preaching that the real kingdom is coming, it is near, and the people should get ready for the new kingdom, the promised kingdom. They were preaching the end of the world---the end of the world. This is the time that the Fard came in. Right there, in Detroit area, there were African-American church leaders preaching strange teachings to African-American people.
Many of you perhaps still know about Father Divine. Father Divine was popular on this East Coast, right? Philadelphia, but he also was popular in the Midwest, Detroit, and Chicago. He was popular, he had a following there. And Father Divine told his people, if they want to see G’d, to look to him. He was a black man and he said, "If you want to see G’d, look to me." He called himself father Divine.
Fard came into this kind of atmosphere. This is the kind of atmosphere he came into. This is the kind of language environment that he came into. Now can you understand him coming up with his strange ideas? I think I would have come up with some strange ideas. If I had been back then that time, thinking or trying to find a way to awake people's mind. I might have come up with a strange idea like that myself. I do not know, if G’d had not guided me.
We are trying to present to you knowledge---knowledge of the environment and things that were happening in the environment, so that you will be able to understand the rise of our community.; the great role of Islam in the rise of our community. Mr. Fard comes in, and he introduces the sacred book of all Muslims to us. The Qur’aan that he left with Honorable Elijah Muhammad is the same Qur’aan that is with us now, the same one read by Muslims all over this world ever since the time of Muhammad the prophet.
Or I should say recited by them and studied by them, ever since the time of Muhammad the prophet, prayers and peace be on him. The same Qur’aan, the only thing that was different was it was translated into English by teachers, leaders, scholars of the Ahmadiyya Movement. Of the Ahmadiyya movement. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad had Mohammad Ali's translation of the Qur’aan, translated by the Ahmadiyya Anjuman, the Ahmadiyya movement based in Lahore, Pakistan at that time. I think it is still is, but they are outlawed, they cannot preach publicly. That was the Holy Qur’aan he had.
As for the Arabic, it was the same, no different. In fact, I have one at home, I can pick it up and read the same. That is the Qur’aan that is what it was. Here the Qur’aan was put into our midst by the hand of Mr. Fard.
He introduced it as the book that G’d approve. That is what he told the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, that the Bible is not a holy book. I am giving you what he said. He said “The Bible is a poison book.” He said, "This is the holy book---The Qur’aan.” Did he tell him to study it so that he can teach it? No. He told him, "Brother, do not you worry about teaching this book." He said, "Your children, your sons, they will learn and they will teach it later."
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad respected the book so much he hung it on the wall---I was a little boy---I can see it right now, in a shiny material, green, light green color, real almost Kelly green, real light green with straps. The straps were like a purse with the Qur’aan inside, hung over a nail on a molding near the top of the ceiling, hung high. Yes it hung high in the home of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
Before he even had a house, apartment, living, renting apartment. A lot of you do not know that. You think the Honorable Elijah Mohammad was born with a Mercedes Benz. He was born with poverty, in poverty and with poverty on him, and most of his children really knew poverty and they still know poverty. [Laughs]
Yes, praise be to Allah. Look at that beautiful audience out there. Turn around, everyone. Just turn around, look back there.

Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar. That is what happens when you get your soul right. Our guest, our honorable guests, what did he say? He said, "Allah said, he is not going to change the conditions for our people outside, until they change the conditions within themselves." As our interior has gotten better, G’d have awarded us more. The more we get better internally, the more G’d is going to reward us externally. Allahu Akbar.
So Mr. Fard definitely wanted us to revere the Qur’aan. He wanted us to respect it as the holy and pure book. Not only did he want us to respect it as the holy pure book, he wanted us to want that book.
How do we know it? From his own words in his own writing. He said, "Whoever can solve this problem, his reward will be a Holy Qur’aan Sharif." That is what he said. He tempted us to try to solve the mystery in his own language. He said if we are able to solve the mystery in his language, our reward will be the Qur’aan. I solved the mystery and my reward has been the Qur’aan. Praise be to Allah.
Now, all you have to do, most of us have seen a picture of Fard. If you have not seen one, even though you with me and you do not agree with Farrakhan leadership, I give you permission to go visit Farrakhan and look on their walls and see the picture of Mr. Fard. You will see him holding the Qur’aan in a pose that says, "This book I love it. This book I humble myself to it."
A very pious pose, he's holding, looking very sincere, very pious very respectful of the book. There is a lot I can say to you all and I think you ministers---I am sorry you imams---but I think you know that.
They know I love them. They are better than those that did not have any appreciation for any scripture. It is my belief that he put the sacred book among us, calling us Muslims and by placing the Qur’aan in the context of his own experiment. Understand this, in is his own experiment with abstract reasoning---with abstract reasoning. I have to explain this to most of you, but there are among you many in the audience and behind you that understand abstract reasoning.
Abstract reasoning uses concretes to talk about that that is not concrete, it uses physical thing like this (knocks on podium) to talk about something that is not physical. It will use a physical thing to talk about your spirit, a physical thing to talk about your moral life or a physical thing to talk about your mentality or your mental make-up. It will use physical things to talk about things that are not tangible, not touchable, not physical. This is abstract reasoning.
I may say to you that lot of esoteric languages has abstract reasoning, metaphysics, abstract reasoning metaphysics. These language that uses the material to address the non-material, are using the abstract reasoning, if it follows some kind of logic.
Now, Fard said, "Islam is mathematics" his words---not my words, not Elijah Mohammad's words, not father's words, his words. He said, "Islam is mathematics." Well if that is so, I will just go and study mathematics if I am going to take him literally that, “Islam is mathematics”? Well, you keep the Qur’aan; I am going to study mathematics.
Something in us told us there that was more to understand than what was reaching the ear. Human beings are not completely without brains. Even though they have been deprived of having contact with education as opposed to educate. They have some brain so something in us, and we have a human soul. That is what's important. Something in us told us, "We cannot understand this." It sounds good, so we just followed it rhythmically---rhythmically, like you dance to the music.
It sounds good from this man who said we are black and superior, period. Sounds good from the man who said we are black and G’d, in our state that we live in. It sounds so good you can say, snails eaten raw are delicious, “yes sir, praise be to Allah.” Snakes make the best bed partners, sleep with snakes, “yes sir, praise be to Allah.” You could not hear anything wrong from a man that said so much in such a powerful way to you, to make you feel good about yourself. You could not hear anything, nothing he said out of his mouth would have been wrong. He could not say anything stupid.
Four men went up in a mother ship---a plane with a wheel in a wheel. They went up in 1919, they are still up there. No toilets and no food. "Yes sir, yes sir. All praise is due to Allah". “That mother ship coming to rescue you all. Take you from this devil and destroy our America.” "Yes sir, praise be to Allah. I know it is the truth".
You would be physically dead, if that good white person had not come to your house and gave you some help. "Every white person living and dead is the devil; even those in the wombs of their mothers are devil. They are devils by nature and cannot help themselves. Yes sir, praise be to Allah. I know it is the truth."
That was a powerful magnetism. The Honorable Elijah Mohammad said, what his teacher told him to say, what Fard told him to say; “The white race is a race of grafted devils.” How did he say it? He said that “Black is original, black man is G’d.” Now you know, we believed all of this in degrees. We accepted it wholly as a rhythm in our life or we accepted it wholly or it is just a rhythm or…. happy mood or a happy tune; a happy movie, "Praise be to Allah!"
[01:53:47] [END OF AUDIO]

