04/03/2005
IWDM Study Library
IWDM Lecture

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Peace be unto you. Our greeting as Muslims is As-Salaam Alaikum.
Congregation: Alaikum as-salaam.
Again, that greeting says peace be unto you. We thank G-d that is we say Allah in the language of the Quran, our holy book. We thank Allah for our presence here and we trust Him with our thoughts and with our intentions. We pray that He always guide us and protect us from errors or from ignorance. We witnessed that He is one and He cares about all of His creation, everything that He has made and the skies and the earth. And He cares especially about His human creation, the creation of the human family on this planet Earth.
We are one family as G-d says to us in our scriptures. That He made us from one soul. And He made of that soul two, a male and a female. And from them, all men and women that populate the planet Earth. We are forced to take seriously, in these times, we are forced to take seriously our identity as a human family. Human beings are all one family. And the world was made big enough to accommodate all of us. And to give us our needs; food, clothing, shelter, movement, exercise, pleasure for our souls and pleasure for our curious minds, intellects. But all that has changed now. We're running out of space.
Too many people have populated the earth and we are closing in on one another. We can no longer afford to ignore the existence of other members in the family. The world is becoming one world order, as they say. For some, that order may be an economic order, for some, it may be a political order. But for us, it's a community order. We are becoming one community. Where we have to care about each other, be considerate of each other. And work for the betterment of the whole family. And be willing to make sacrifices. That is, not to have it all for ourselves but to share with those who don't have.
We have transportation, it has progressed so much that we can connect almost within 24 hours no matter where we are on this planet earth. We can connect, whereas in the past, not too many generations behind us, it took months and sometimes years, depending on your mode of travel, to reach the place you wanted to reach across the ocean or across the land if the land is wide and spacious. Like Asia and some other lands that we are aware of. It would take months of travel before we could connect with the person we wanted to see or talk to. All that has changed.
Scriptures, both our scripture, the Quran, the scripture of Muslims. And the scriptures of the Christian, the Bible, the Holy Bible, and the Holy Quran. Both these books they tell us of a time coming. And when we look at this time that we're living in, if we have any sense at all, we'll say the time has arrived. What is this time? It is a time that will draw people together and will force people to respect the rights of their neighbors. A time when we will not be able to escape our actions or hide our doings. We will not be able to live on an island and dominate that Island and mistreat the natives of that island and it be secret or remain secret for as long as we live.
No, if you do something on an island now, one of these major networks will know about it. And pretty soon they all will be reporting it on the six o'clock news. So, we can't hide from each other. We are brought into one big living room where we can turn on our television and see what's going on everywhere in the world. The time for us to become more human. Now, isn't this something? The time for us to become more human is right now. The time when we need to become more human in our thinking, more human in our feelings, more human in our planning for our future. More respectful of others while we are planning our future. More respectful of the future of others and how what we are doing is going to affect them. So, this time is here.
It says, that every tub must stand on its on bottom. I know some of you Christians remember that. Every man will have to sit under his own vine and fig tree. These are the Christian sayings. In the Quran it says, “there's going to come a time when man is going to have to face all that he has done.” Now, most of us think this is after we are buried and put in the physical ground and put away for good, forever. No, not necessarily. Whatever G-d tells us of our life, the nature of our life and how our life is made to respond to the environment and to one another. Whatever G-d is telling us in that focus, it's not just for the spiritual Kingdom to come after the physical is done away with. But it's also for the spiritual life while we live on this physical earth. That these things are going to happen.
G-d is saying, no matter what man does, bad and good, and no matter how ignorant he may be of G-d's plan. And G-d's plan we mean how G-d planned the natural order. And how He planned the human order. And how they affect one another and what conclusions there are in the future according to the plan of G-d, according to G-d's plan. This is what we mean by G-d's plan, what G-d has ordered. No matter what we do, and we do sometimes do our best and we have good intentions. But it was not to last for long because it couldn't anticipate natural progression.
Nature is progressing at the same time we are progressing. Nature is progressing. We belong to nature, not only to our own thinking, we belong to nature. So, we plan and we find that later on these things we planned are no good for families in the neighborhood. We have to change the whole plan, reorder, we scrap that plan and tear things down and build all over again. But G-d knows ahead of time because G-d planned it all when He planned natural world and the human world. When He planned the two worlds of man and the natural order, He knew exactly and He knows exactly what's going to be the conclusion of these things.
If you are sensitive and if you care, we're going to ask you to make a commitment, just make a commitment, make a commitment to yourself, a private commitment. Say, “I'm going to start working toward being more mindful of others and how I'm affecting others while I'm planning how I want to live and how I want to advance my life.” Just make a vow. We may not get but 1 out of 100, you'd be surprised what 1 out of 100 can do. Sometimes it only takes 1 out of 1,000 can change the whole land. Let us make a vow that we are going to try to be more considerate of how we're affecting others with our own life and our own plans.
Believe me, there's an urgency on us to do that. I remember Southern parents; they raised their children very well. They would tell us, don't make a mess even if you don't mind being in that mess, be considerate of the next person. They don't want that mess in the house or they don't want to have to face that mess. So, we have to be more considerate. The urgency is on us, I repeat, to be more considerate. What does it take? And all of us need a little more exercise than we're getting, very few are getting enough exercise.
How much do we have to spend when we walk into a nice store in our neighborhood and we see trash? There's some person that didn't care and one thinking, just dropped a big piece of trash there, maybe left the chicken and the bones and everything right there in the doorway, and we step over to get around or something and go right on in there. That's unconscious living. And G-d never made human beings for unconscious living. He made us for conscious living. And he'll punish us if we don't respect our good conscience.
What does it take to take it up off the ground? And caring it if you don't see a trash basket? Say this was hurting your customers as they're trying to come into your door, say you have a place for me to put this trash, sir or ma'am? How much does it take? Just a little bit. If all of us would just try to be more conscious. Space. Living space is very important. It can change the way you feel; it can hurt your workday. You in a living space are all cluttered up. G-d made you and your spiritual composition just like He made the sky above us. The sky is orderly, ain't got trash all over it. It's an orderly sky with things look like perfectly arranged. If you studied scientifically, you can’t find hardly any flaws in it.
Then it seems to keep that pattern, just hold to the pattern. A beautiful orderly sky above our heads. I don't want to live up there, I want to live down here. But let's take the message of order from up there and incorporate it into our lives down here. Let us love order again, like the old folks used to tell us. “Keep those things in order.” I was a little young man, I was studying Arabic and the teacher gave us an Arabic Tremor, although I was a teenager at the time, about 15 years old maybe. He gave us an Arabic Tremor and we were learning how to read and speak Arabic from this little Tremor. One of the stories in the book was about a parent teaching their children how to be responsible for their own possessions.
It said put everything in its proper place. I said, "I heard that before. In fact, I got hit once by mama for not doing that." Well, the world needs this common intelligence that we should all have, but we lose it because of a hustle and bustle world. Taking our attention from important things just to make it through the day. To have the check at the end of the week or end of two weeks or a month or whatever. The world is putting a lot of demands on us to work for none human things, inhuman things. If you're spending all your time trying to manage the burden of your relationship with machines and typewriters and other machines. And going to the store to get something to eat, not to enjoy it, but just to survive. Because the average person now, when they want to enjoy, they go to a nice restaurant.
But what you go and shop for, most of the time in the store, is just something to help you survive. "I need of some this, I need some of that, I need some of that." You put it in there and you don't have no time to cook it hardly, so most of the stuff you're getting is already precooked or cooked. You don't have time to cook, you're working a job and a half or two jobs. The best you could do is look at the washroom and keep going. Your time is just taken by the world of physical things that are not human. And that can take away all of your natural human life if you don't work consciously on preserving it.
You have to work consciously on preserving it. We should understand that we live in a new time. When the human beings are all being brought together. And we are challenged more now than at any other time by the need to stay a family and stay loving and caring about one another. And we should begin at home. As we are told, “charity begins at home and spread abroad.” That's the same message for Muslims in Al-Islam, charity starts at home and spread abroad. Start right in our homes and say we share this space, and nobody's conscious in here but me. I'm going to be the one picking up trash, putting it in the trashcan or whatever.
I'm going to be the one cleaning the mirror in the washroom, washing the soap dish, cleaning the soap dish, mopping the floor if I have to until somebody else wakes up in this house. We have to be prepared to make big sacrifices. The time is just that urgent. If you would care more about each other, you'd save money. When you don't care about each other, you're going to have a mental case in the family if you don't already have one. There is going to be a mentally sick person pretty soon in that family if you don't care about each other. We have to care about each other and care about each other brings us closer together, brings us to love one another.
A lot of us are suffering because we don't believe we are loved. "Every time I see mama, she's running out the door, and I can't get her to talk to me. She can't even talk to me. She's too much in a hurry all the time. And Daddy is the same. I can't hardly talk to, he's gone. Dad is not here most of the time." Conditions like that can drive people to be deranged psychologically, be deranged mentally. Let's stop that and make big sacrifices. I asked you on one of the first Sundays just recently to consider, if you are unemployed, consider donating your time. You got time, you ain't employed. Donate your time to your neighbor next door who's working.
He doesn't have enough time to take care of his yard, he doesn't have enough time to walk his dog. He doesn't have enough time to paint his house. Tell him, "I got plenty of time, can you buy the paint, sir? If you buy the paint, I'll do it." He might say, "Man, are you crazy?" Say "No, but I was talking to a fellow and he said idleness can drive me crazy. So, for my own health, will you permit me to do some work for you, you don't have to pay me unless you want to." We have to come to that kind of mind. And G-d is with us, don't ever think G-d is not with us. In both religions, we are told, don't think G-d is not hearing you. G-d is always hearing you, and don't think He's far away, He's always near.
This is the teaching of our holy books, the books of the Christians and the book of the Muslims. Never think G-d is not near and not aware and not caring about you. He's always caring about you. Because if He didn't care about you, you wouldn't have made it this far. Because justice would take all of us out. You don't want justice, believe me, you want mercy. Justice will take all of us out. It won’t be nobody around here. Just know that G-d is always caring about us and let us strive to give more of ourselves to others. I heard a man tell a woman once, she said, "Well, I don't have anything anymore.
All my children gone and I'm just lonesome, all by myself. And I am miserable." He said, "Well, what do you think you should do?" "Well, if I just had my children now, if I just had somebody with me that cared about me.” He said, "Well, miss, why don't you go and care about somebody else." He said, "just go out and find you somebody to care about, find somebody to like you or worse off than you and care about them," and that was the answer. Once the person did that, she was telling her story and she told it to me. She said how her life was just changed because she stopped thinking about her own problems and miseries and she started looking for others to assist in their situations.
And G-d is with us when we want to do good by others. But if we don't care about others, G-d will leave us alone. You know anything you don't have anybody with you, nobody caring about you. Because you stopped caring about others. Don't follow the ways of the world, the ways of the world are never to be followed by those who want to be successful in life. And when I say the world now, I mean the visible world. When you walk out of your house and you walk down the street, down the neighborhood, walk through the neighborhood and you see people look like they are healthy and people look like they are sick, you see people look like they are sane and people look like they are insane, you see people look like they are lost and out to do harm to hurt somebody, you see all of this in the public life.
Then when you turn on television, you see picture of the public life, if they show of the public life, most of the time they show the public life as a life of hustle and bustle, fast living, living for sensual pleasures, sensual pleasures or pleasures connected with sex. Even if it's a dance, you can tell by the dance, the dance is communicating sexuality or sexual promiscuity or sexual indecency. The dance and the life are all promiscuous. Even the way they dress, the way the people dress that show on TV says that, "We are more sex than anything else."
What’s that singer, he sings a song, a Sexual Healing? Well, he sure needs it now. He said those words it's been years ago, sexual healing. That's what the society needs, it needs a sexual healing because we are making the sexual organ bigger than the brain and everything else. Giving it more rule in our life than we give our heart and our intelligence. So, we are just messed up. The average one, even the one that looks to be seen to be successful, the average person that appears to be successful has been made a slave of sexuality. Yes, just a slave of sexuality. So, we have to turn this thing around, and we will.
We don't have to turn it around for everybody, turn it around for a few. A few can bring about a change. All it takes is a few, a special few can bring about a change. In fact, Margaret Mead said that's the only way it ever happens. It's always a special few that brings about a change. You know from Muhammad the Prophet himself; he began with just himself and a companion, Abu Bakr. May G-d be pleased with him, peace be on our prophet. And a few others collected around him and just a handful of people gave the others the leadership that they needed to turn their world around.
The world of the idol worshipers, pagans, they call them now, were turned around. The infighting that was going on, tribes fighting each other, all that came to an end, no more fighting each other, they united for the betterment of their society. All that happened within, really, about 10 or 11 years. Because for the whole time of the prophet's life working was about 20 years. And the first 10 years or 11 years was hard life for him and his followers. Because he was persecuted, they were trying to get him harmed. To get him to give up his mission, to give up the religion.
But he survived it. And he had about 10 years of actually working without the problem of war, persecution and wars. And in that time, he established a society that eventually became the leaders in education, the leaders in science and the leaders in education, the leaders in civilization. They became that. In just 20 years, half of it given to just surviving against the persecutors and the other half building, doing the work. It may take longer for us because I don't think any prophet or any saint or any other creature ever existed on this planet or ever had life on this planet ever saw what we are seeing today.
Believe me, the prophets foresaw that the great prophets foresaw that. The prophets of Judaism or the prophets of the Jews, Christians and the Muslims. And our prophet Muhammad of the Muslim, they all saw it. They saw that a time was coming that would be much more difficult than their time. And they saw a time that was coming that was going to open up bigger opportunities for success in the life of religion than any other time. And we have lived to see all of it, we have come to all of that. We have come to a time when just common life is so taxing, so burdensome, very difficult just to manage common life.
But we have also come to a time when so many opportunities are open to us. If you really take advantage of the opportunities that are open to you. Look, we have media now that can reach millions and hundreds of millions of people, billions of people, we can reach them. Their dawah they had to go on a horse and travel to the next population to preach with the message. Now all we need is enough money to get on the television and we can speak to millions and millions, billions of people. So, the advantage is much better.
Then education has grown so much. Common knowledge back then was much beneath common knowledge in this time. You know we are the most intelligent generation this earth has produced? Yes, high intelligence, great intelligence, bright, brilliant minds. And I mean educated, knowing a lot. Back then it was hard to find someone knowing how to read letters, knowing how to read a book. But now education is public and everything, and books are everywhere. We have so many newspapers, you just can't read them all. So, the time has favored our generation more than it favored any other generation before us. And the time has taxed or burden this generation more than any generation before us.
If we can just think, there was an African-American kind of philosopher, also was a civil rights activist, a law man. But I think he was an activist and a philosopher more than anything. His name is W.E.B. Du Bois. He said to his people in his day, he said, "We will progress in the measure that we are willing to teach our children to think." Now, thinking used to be important. I'm used to hear parents say, "Are you thinking?" Now we don't even ask, thinking is not important anymore, forgotten that activity, thinking.
I guess it's because we are thinking about so much on the wrong thing, I guess nobody want you to think. We are busy thinking on the wrong thing, that's for sure. But we need to think. What W.E.B. Du Bois meant was, he meant think life, think intelligence, think progress for your people. That's the kind of thinking he was talking about. If we only teach our children to think. What does G-d tell us in our holy book the Quran, He says, "Think for thinking certainly brings you profits. Think for thinking surely brings profits," or "brings you profits."
Really, the progress of man begins with the thinker. Right? Yes, man was lost among the animals. But then there comes the thinker. And he just sat down and he began to think. And he thought on the order of the heavens. And he thought of what was going on down on earth for human life. And he was inspired to want to know why are these things ordered like this. He wanted understanding of the external reality. And it brought him to even wonder, "What is my purpose? I'm now a thinker." So, he arrived at an identity for himself. He said, "I'm a thinker."
And it's in the Bible, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." It means his existence depends on how he thinks in his heart. So, here, the Bible, the Revelation in the Bible gives something extra to the philosophers call to people to think on intellectuals or men of curiosities to think. It gives something extra when it says, "As a man thinketh in his heart," that's very important. Because the heart will influence your thinking. The heart influences your thinking. And if your heart is right, most likely your thinking will be right. But if your heart is not right, most likely your thinking will also be not right. So, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.
That means as our appetites influence. Our appetites for material things but also our appetites for spiritual things. Like being in good company or being in the company of people that you enjoy, that's a spiritual interest. Being in the company of people that you enjoy being with, you see. However, the thinking is, the thinking in the heart is very important. Thinking in the heart. Thinking that respects a need to be aware of your appetites and how your appetites influence your thinking.
The first seducer, Satan, or Shaitaan. He influenced the thinking of the man that G-d put in the garden. Created for peace and success and put him in a peaceful garden. A good situation that’s what garden means. A good situation for his existence and then the Satan, the enemy of mankind, he came and seduced him. What did he tell him? He told him, "Don't think that G-d meant these things the way that G-d put them. No. You won't really become blind or die. Your eyes will come open, and you'll become as G-d and as angels." Here he's appealing to the man's appetite to improve his own situation, to better his own situation, and influencing him to ignore what he perceived as instructions or moral obligations. Telling him, "No, don't worry about this moral issue. Don't worry about that. Follow your curiosities because if you do this, you will live forever." This is appealing to his own selfish needs.
That kind of influence is like influence coming from the heart. “Now you've convinced me that I have been shortchanging myself and denying myself in ignorance. And I should not obey these instructions that I got here that says, don't do this thing. But I should follow my curiosities so I will have more to enjoy and longer time to live.” So, this is a selfish kind of position that the man was tricked into. He was tricked into the selfish kind of position. It caused him the loss of his moral life. Yes, the Satan says, "No, you won't surely die, but when you die morally, you're dead." We don't want to miss the good advice in these lessons that's in scripture for us. When you die morally, you are dead, yes.
If you want to stay alive, then keep good morals, keep good intentions, work for good things, not only for yourself but good things for others also, and you'll get back into paradise, and if you stay that way, you'll stay in paradise. We believe that you can be in paradise and in hell right here on this earth. People say, "Oh, when I die, I may go to hell." No, no. You're most likely in hell already.
And both books tell us, if you don't experience it on this side, you're not going to get it on the other side. So, let us not worry too much about the unknown. Let us deal more with the known and have faith in what G-d has promised that have not come true for us yet. Have faith in His promise that He's going to give us what He promised. But we're going to deal with this reality that we can understand and make a better life for ourselves on this side. So, we will have the admission ticket to go into the next. Because that's what G-d says for both Muslims and Christians. If you don't get it on this side, you'll have no admission ticket into the next world. Our time is moving on.
Audience: Take your time brother Imam.
IWDM: Also, we have to change our attitude toward the vital structures of society. And the way to change our attitude, we have to have a quick, I would say, review of these things. If you're dealing with the problems in the neighborhood of crime and all of this. And you see the police locking up people, passing by some, locking up others. And after a while, one of your children get taken by the police, locked up in jail. Or you hear your neighbor's son got locked up, and you start crying. “Well, why don't they do something about the condition? Why don't they provide more of this and more of that? Our children wouldn't be tricked or enticed to get into this kind of things.” You start looking for others to blame.
Somebody to blame. After a while, you join your children in putting down law enforcement. “Yes, they know better than anybody else.” Pretty soon you don't care about anything but yourself and your own little interests. You don't support the vital structures of your town or of the society. That's no good. That's what Satan wants. Satan wants us to not to appreciate law enforcement. Satan want us not to appreciate the fire department. Satan wants us to have hell and plenty hell in our life. Satan want us to be cut off from all good. Satan want us to love a life of misery. Why? Because he's the one that financed that life. Satan finances the life of the foolish. Satan finances the life of the corrupted. Satan finance that life.
I'm not talking about something that's not real. I'm talking about something very real. I'm talking about greed. Greed to the extent you don't care about human life anymore. And you don't even perform a function as a sensitive human being anymore. You're just looking at the power that you can get when you've got the material might out of the money, the riches in your control. You may go home and look like a perfect human being. Sit down with your children, treat them so humanly, so nice. And wife and all your loving and nice beautiful family.
Then you go out to your job in the world, your job in the world is just to collect more and more material wealth so you will have more and more control in the lives of others. So, Satan can look like a perfect human at home, but he's a beast outside. Yes, oh, yes, he's a beast, a perfect beast outside, but at home, he might look like a perfect human. You may say, “What is this man saying? He sounds like he's saying something like what his father said?” No, not exactly what my father said. My father just made it possible for me to have the freedom to think this way. His things were so shocking until he shocked me into having the freedom to think this way. I don't believe what he taught. No, and he didn't either because he didn't practice what he preached.

He didn't. He said all white folks was devil and then invite a white person to come and have coffee and discuss things with him at his table. I just saw a black brother, I thought he was one of his top friends too. And then he tells my mother to go out and get that gold trim China for our guest. "We got a special guest here, Clara. Go get that gold trim China for our guest." He didn't say that to that black brother who was over there drinking out of that regular cup we drink out of. So, he didn't practice what he preached. So, it didn't affect me to be negative, or to be ignorant and think every white person is my enemy. No, he didn't raise me that way, my mother didn't raise me that way. They raised me to be intelligent, to be sensible, and respect all people, and appreciate good where ever we found it.
That's how he raised me to be. But his preaching that, it had a way of really making you independent. It kind of made you an independent thinker. Most of us are always blaming the white race for our problems. Our people blamed the white race for our problems. And then he's saying, “the white race is nothing but a race of devil, they can't help it. It’s their nature to do bad, they got to do bad things, they can't help it, it's their nature to be bad, to do bad things.” Don't you know the white man heard that? Yes, white man heard that. And I do believe the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s voice in the world for the time that he lived was more therapeutic than anything the white man ever had come into his world.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Elijah Muhammad, my father and the leader of us, that man, what he said to the white world in their ears had more power to heal them than anything that ever happened to them in their life, in the history of white people on this earth. He said, "You can't help yourself; you've got to do evil.
Because you were naturally born devil." The white man said, "Who is this guy? We haven't heard anything like this since Frederick Douglass." Frederick Douglass said, "You claim Jesus Christ and democracy, but your behavior is such that would shame a nation of savages." And that, again, was healing for the white leadership at that time. And pretty soon you see what happened. "We got emancipated from physical bondage. And, believe me, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Magazine, Channel 11 Magazine, public Channel 11 Magazine.
Those two publications would not have listed my father, the Honorable Muhammad, among 100 persons that they recognized, those two publications recognized as influencing the history of Chicago, would not have recognized him if they didn't see deeper than the average one of us see when we look at the life and works of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. So, the time is here, the time for us to take on more than just our personal burden. It's time for us to accept that we live in this world together, we contribute to its betterment together, or we mess it up together.
Let us not be in the company of those that mess the world up, let us choose to be in the company of those that are making the world better. I was on the news today, some of you might have seen me on the news. I was on NBC. They interviewed me on my relationship with the Pope John Paul II. And they asked me about that relationship and I gave them quick answers, it was a few seconds, a minute maybe. I gave them answers, and while I'm giving them answers, I'm thinking, I said, "The average member in our following--" I'm talking about us, Muslims who are associated with my leadership.
I said, "The average one, they don't know what has happened." When someone comes from the neighborhood I came from, with a father who came from the neighborhood he came from. And do the things that we did, obeying my father, ok? And then you hear that the son of that man, Elijah Muhammad, Wallace D Mohammed, received a welcome in the Vatican by the Pope, the Pope of Rome. The leader of the Roman Catholic Church for all the world, got followers in Africa, Chicago, everywhere. You don't know how important that is. G-d inspired me, says, "If you don't want to live and die right here in these small walls, you better go out and share your thinking with others who have power and who can keep you in history."
Not for my sake but for our work sake. I wanted to get myself in a situation where I could guarantee you that we won't be forgotten. But at the same time, if I'm accepted. And, believe me, I have been accepted by people in great, great, great positions in the world. I've been accepted by them. People of great power and position in the world. If we accepted, look at what happens to our image. Where they have an image of us as black people, as separatists. People who just want something for their own black group. Not even too much interested in the other blacks, they're also in that same situation in the neighborhoods, but they're just in their own little world. So, who wants to remember you? Nobody.
Look, you got nothing, they got practically everything. If you want to work, you got to go to them for job, yes, the majority of us got to go to them for a job. Look what happens when your representative, your leader who speaks for you, with and without your permission. Because somethings that I know you wouldn't approve of me saying. But I know it's going to be good for you, I take the chance, I take the risk, that you'll like me when I come back home. And I say those things. Look at the doors that are open up now. Look when your boss sees your leader on TV talking with the Pope of Rome at the Vatican.
He looks at you differently. He says, "No, he belongs to that group that follows that man we saw TV, the Pope was embracing him at the Vatican." Whether you know it or not, poor brother, your circumstances for you getting out of poverty has increased tremendously because of your leader choosing the route in the world that I have taken.

Let us recognize the new day, this is a new day. I don't know what you think of me embracing the Pope, but understand this, I follow the Quran and I follow Muhammad, the Prophet to whom that book was revealed. And he sent, when he was being persecuted, he sent some of his followers to Ethiopia, to a Christian land to see if they could get some help there, be rescued from the persecution that was going on in their own land, in the land of the Arabs.
He sent them there and they were able to present Al-Islam in a beautiful way to the Christian ruler. And the Christian ruler gave them political asylum in his country. And refused to give them back to the Meccans who finally arrived behind them and demanded that their citizens be given back to them. The Christian ruler refused to give them back. He said, "I find no fault with these people." It was our prophet who received the revelation from G-d that said, “Rome was having problems, the Christian world was having some serious problems. They had to suffer some defeats.”
And Allah revealed to Muhammad the chapter call Rome or Romans. The chapter could be called as Roman in the Bible, but also there's a surah, Rum in our holy book, the Quran. Words came to Muhammad saying, “that this defeat will not be permanent, they will recover from it.” We should know these things, and Muhammad the Prophet, lastly, Muhammad the prophet said, and I'm going over time, we have only an hour, and I'm going over that broadcast time.
Muhammad the Prophet said, in the end, pointing to the day of conclusion that I see as right now. All matters, all great issues for the religious communities of Christians, Jews, and Al-Islam, all these great issues that we have in common, passed on to us from generations gone. These issues now are before us and before the whole world and these issues must come to a conclusion. So, we are living in the day of the fulfillment of prophecy, the conclusion of things, the conclusion of these great issues. Sexuality, wealth, racism, all these things are now being concluded. All these issues have to be concluded. Many other issues that I don't have time to name right now, major issues for the peoples of religions, they're being concluded now.
Muhammed the Prophet has said, "In the end, you will see me and Christ Jesus together." What is that saying? That's saying to us, we are both servants of the same G-d. And we are serving the same needs in human community. And you're going to see that our purpose, our work is the same. That is the betterment of human life and community life under the G-d Lord Creator of us all. That time is here and I thank you for giving us your attention. I hope that we didn't lose our radio audience. If I did, I plan-- I'm told I didn't lose you. Thank you very much. I'm losing my sight, though. I need my eyeglasses, I can't see my watch too well. Well, good, we have five more minutes.
That's great because I'll take the rest of the five minutes just to talk about the relationship that we should have with Christians right now. We are in America. America's majority are Christian, we are the minority. We shouldn't ask the majority to meet us halfway. We should be willing to do what they say Muhammed did. I don't even know if it's an authentic saying of the Prophet. But they say Muhammed is known in the western world for being the one who will go to the mountain and not expect the mountain to come to him. Will go to the mountain and not expect the mountain will come to him. That means some things of big importance and you know they are of big importance.
Don't stand and wait for those things to come to you and ask you, "Would you like to get along with us or would you like for us to give you some assistance, we have some common interests here? Would you like for us to be your friend in common interest?" No, you go to them and say, "I need you because our values are compatible and our interests in humanity is almost the same, are the same. We need you, we want you to be aware of us. We're small but we make big efforts." That's true of us, we are small but we make big efforts. Then, you'll see that these big mountains will embrace you, will welcome you. And tell you, "You are our friend and we can live together."
So, don't wait on the Christians to come to you, Muslims. Your Imams, do what our Imams here are doing. Go and meet our Christian brothers who are heading the churches in our neighborhood. Go meet them and let them know that we are not in the neighborhood to take from the Church. We are here in the neighborhood to embrace and connect up with all good, and work together for the betterment of our neighborhood. To strengthen our neighborhood, to make it more healthy, and make it more dignified. It can't be dignified if all of us are going to be working against each other, and knocking each other, tearing down each other's good works instead of working together to increase the good works for the benefit of the whole.
We have to do that and we are going to do it. We're going to continue to do that. And we're going to be like that small envoy for the Prophet who went from the persecution and went to Ethiopia and spoke with the ruler of Ethiopia. We don't have a ruler of Ethiopia here. But we'll go to the Mayor, representatives from us, go talk to the Mayor. Let the mayor know that we are Muslims and we are friends of all good people, and we are supporters of all good establishments. Go talk to the Mayor and tell him we are a friend of the police department. We're not the friend of anything bad no matter where it is or who is in. But we are the friend of all good establishment and all good efforts.
We won't turn against the police department because a policeman was in the news today for doing crimes or committing crimes. See, the devil wants you to be against the things that will work for your success. So, they will publish that the police is corrupt, the police are corrupt right now. Yes, the police are corrupt, but you’re talking about individual, not the police department, not the whole thing. And if all of them are in a certain area, all the police are in a certain neighborhood, if all them in that department become corrupt, it's not going to change me from respecting the value of law and order and the need for a police department in our neighborhood. It'll never change me, and don't you let it influence you.
Don't you let your children, because they're impressionable, and they're young, and they are looking for somebody to blame too. They know the thugs that they have to deal with and they say, "Well, I ain't no hope nowhere. Look what the police did." One report of a bad policeman can shatter the faith of impressionable people. Let us be alert for that. A leader like an Imam, your religious leader. A leader in the Bible says "Before the rooster crows three times," you have to be like a rooster, a rooster is alert. We don't even know what the farm life is anymore, but a rooster is alert. He's up before every other thing and he's alerting the family, "That is daybreak, daybreak coming now."
If anything comes in the area, he warns them, "Something is in the area." He's alert, he's visual. My mother had me help her raise a chicken, take care of garden and raise chickens. That rooster be like this, his head, looking left and right, left and right. Turn around, look back. He's on guard, he's on duty all the time, he lives on duty. Well, for the people of the Bible and also for Muslims of the Quran, we are told to be alert and watchful. Be watchful, be on the watch. Well, the Imam must be that. It doesn't mean you're a chicken man but imitate that much of the chicken.
Be alert for what's hurting us, of what can hurt us down the road. Be alert and bring that to attention of other people so that Satan won't get us off the position that G-d wants us on. That's on the position of faith and trust. If you lose the nature or the sensitivity to have faith in each other and to trust each other. When they tear down your trust in law and order, pretty soon they'll tear down your trust in each other. After while you're not trusting anything. Not even trusting G-d. Know that, and I know my time is up now.
I have spent my time. Thank you very much, our radio listening audience. We're happy to have you with us again on this first Sunday of the month. We pray G-d keep us all, bless you with good life and protection from Himself. And as I said earlier, we need mercy because justice will take us all away from here. So, let us live and thank the G-d of mercy. Because G-d is the G-d of mercy. He cares about us all. He doesn't give up on us. We give up on ourselves. Thank you. Peace. As-Salaam-Alaikum.
Audience: Wa alaikum salam.
Speaker 2: Takbir.
Audience: Allahu Akbar.
Speaker 2: Takbir.
IWDM: Allahu akbar. G-d is greater.


