02/08/1998
IWDM Study Library 
Role of Diversity in the New Millennium 
Jackson State University 
Jackson, Mississippi

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
The Role and Importance of Diversity in the New Millennium, was recorded at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi February 8th, 1998. The lecturer is Imam W. Deen Mohammed, Muslim American spokesman. And now, Imam Mohammed.
IWDM:
Allahu Akbar. Thank you, G-d is greater. Thank you. Believers, Muslim people, As Salaam Alaikum. That is, Peace be unto you. We witness that G-d is One who cares about all of His Creation and especially His human creation as focused and modeled, and exemplified in the life of His servants, the Prophets, the Messengers of G-d. And for the Muslims, the Last Prophet, the Seal of the Prophets, Muhammad, the son of Abdullah. May the Prayers and the Peace be upon him.
We are very happy and very much encouraged by the visit to Jackson. Again, our visit here, and the work that the Muslim community is doing under the leadership of the leaders here and the Imam's especially the Imam Hasrudin, who is the sponsor of this occasion here in Jackson. We're very much encouraged today. He took us to the site where the new Masjid is and the plan, the building plan that you have is beautiful and we just stretched our imagination ... in fact, we didn't have to stretch it. The site itself stretched our imagination for us, and we could see so many wonderful possibilities for your community here on that eight and a half acres of land that's situated so wonderfully. The natural environment there is just perfect. The land raised from the outer area, it's like a platform. Raised platform of land where the Masjid is and the schools, and I imagine other facilities will be there, and it just looked like an ideal place. Like a dream place. A place you would dream of establishing a nucleus for your Islamic life in the public environment. So, congratulations to your leaders and to you.
And the future for us in the coming millennium, the third millennium. We will be moving into the third millennium. We will be saying 2001, 2002 and on, and on, and I'm prepared to live way up in that third millennium. I don't know if I'll make it or not, but I'm prepared. I have no hopes of dying early in the third millennium, and I hope you won't be hoping for that either. Not for yourself or anybody. We should think of life. People think of death too much. I won't even buy life insurance, because it has a strong death message. I'm trying to change my mind because it's practical to buy, especially if your relatives are okay. I'm thinking seriously about getting me some, but I don't like the thought of preparing to die. I prepare to live, not to die.
Yes, the future is going to be a future where we're going to be able to live much longer. That's what science is telling us. That's what the medical world is telling us. They're telling us the future ... the immediate future is going to favor us living much longer. Much longer, and I believe it. I have faith in that. I believe that. As people of G-d, as people of Scripture, people who follow Scripture, Holy Books that come from G-d, we should believe in the future of man. A lot of us don't, but we should. We should be believers in the future of mankind, or humanity. You say man, when we say man, we mean humanity. Mankind. We should be believers in the future of humanity because that's what G-d's Revelation is all about, is that He created us to be in a garden. He didn't put us in a ghetto. G-d put us in a garden, and the garden means, for man, back then, that was the age or the time period of the agriculturist who raised animals, tend to fields, cultivate the land.
So, for them, the most beautiful scenery was the garden where food and fruit orchards and flowers, and all of the beautiful things that grow out of the earth ... It wasn't these skyscrapers. They had no, I would say, symbol of beauty that was Sears Tower or the Empire State Building. I imagine, those things would look ugly in their paradise, you know? But, for us, we look at beautiful structures, high structures, beautiful buildings. To us, this means people are really getting along well there. That's where the money is. That's nice. But, for them, life was what we would think of as a beautiful garden, and most of us still have that need in our life to have, even if we have the nice, big structure, the building and the paved walkway and the paved driveway. We still want some beautiful, natural scenery. We want beautiful plants, and grass and trees. We want all of that. So, that's still a symbol of beauty of us. The garden is a symbol of beauty. And comforts, and satisfaction. Not only for the physical, but satisfaction for the soul. The right environment gives peace and support to the soul. The beautiful, natural environment.
So, G-d put us in the garden we're told, our Scriptures tell us. G-d tells us that not as much to get us to know how He started us, as to get us to know how He would like to see us end. G-d would like to see us end up in a garden, so really, the goal of man is to have the best possible life for himself. The best possible life for himself. So anytime you hear news from the medical field or news from the industrialists of better times coming from human life, let us have faith in it, because that's what G-d put us on this Earth for. To have better and better all of the time, until one day, we feel as though we're in paradise, though we're here on this Earth. Now, I know that's not the end of it all, but G-d says, to us, He has promised us the fulfillment of our desires if we obey Him. And those who obey G-d will not be desiring something against G-d, or something that G-d disallows. We may fall victim to that thing, but it won't be a desire that we feed, you see?
So those who follow G-d, believe in G-d, they're promised from G-d that they will have a life where they will be well established. G-d said He will give us good establishments, and G-d puts us in our mind to let us know that we shouldn't be ... let the Satan, or the devil, the thieves and robbers who want to keep people out of the good life for their own selfish ends, we shouldn't let them influence us to think that religious people are supposed to have all of the spirit and no body. G-d says, "Who has forbidden my servants the good things of his life?" He says no. G-d says no to that. Those things the not forbidden. Says, "These things are for them and more exclusively for them in the hereafter." Isn't that wonderful? And then we have the language of the materialists. I'm not using materialist in a negative sense now, I'm using materialist in a good sense. The language of the materialist, the people who move the world, the material world, their language is goods. That's their language. Goods. We don't have anything so we hardly use that. If we say, "Good" we mean good behavior or something like that. But, when they say good, they mean money, or something that has value. Financial, material value when they say goods. Goods and services, goods and this, goods and that. G-d says, "Who has forbidden the good things of this world?" The goods of this world? It's not for my servants. Said, "No. These are for them and exclusively for them in the hereafter. What is G-d telling the cheaters, the liars? Those who are greedy for material benefit for themselves at the expense of others life. The life of others that they're to live on this earth that G-d intended. What is G-d saying to them? "You want my servants to think that they should have all spirit and you should take the world. But, I created the world for those who will obey Me, and you will be out of it in the end. It will be exclusively for My servants in the end. You're going to be cut out of it." Isn't that the promise? Isn't that the promise to those who keep mankind out of the promise that G-d gave to him? The promise is, that they're going to the hellfire. They're going to be the losers. They're going to lose all of it in the end. But, in the meantime, while they gain, because G-d will give them a chance to turnaround. And G-d says He increases His favor on some to see will they turnaround. Will they repent, as the old folks used to say in the house, they say, "Give him enough rope, he hangs himself." That's negative. G-d gives you enough rope and hopes that you will use it to secure yourself, not hang yourself, but ropes are used to secure things too. And G-d extends the rope from Heaven, to us. The rope of Islam, to secure us. Not to hang us. And G-d says to hold on to the rope that He extends to us. Said it is the firmest of all handholds. It's the firmest grip you can get. The grip on G-d's rope. He says, "And hold thee unto it altogether and be not divided." This is G-d's word, you know?
Getting back on the problem. The problem is that we are ... I'm talking about the goody-goody, now, I'm not talking about the bad people. The goody-goodies. Because really, the goody-goodies are responsible for the world being the baddy-baddies. Yes! Who do you think G-d is going to hold responsible? G-d ain't going to say to the criminal, "Hey, you all messed up this thing." G-d is going to turn to those who say they know what G-d wants and say, "Why did you all let this happen?" Now, He might not say it just like that. That's my voice. See, my mother came from Georgia, my father did too. So, I talk like an African-American whose parents came from Georgia, you see? Now, G-d doesn't talk like that. He's not from Georgia, but it'll be the same thing.
We have to have faith in G-d, and we have to have faith in humanity. G-d says, "Believe in G-d and believe in His Messenger." Who is His Messenger? A man. Believe in G-d, but also believe in a human being, and G-d makes it very clear that this human being is a human being like you all. G-d says to Muhammad in our Holy Book, the Qur'an, says, "Say to them, 'I am a flesh, mortal person like you are'." That's what Allah says to Muhammad. It's in the Qur'an. You can read it. If you fast Ramadan and kept up with your reading, you read it already, less than a few weeks ago. Yes, during the month of Ramadan. Says, "Say to them oh Muhammad. Say to them, that you are a mortal flesh, human person like they are". Basharuun means, it comes from skin. The word Bashir comes from skin, and it also means to give good news. To inform. The word means also, to inform, or to give good news to people. To the people for whom that good news is. So, Bashir means flesh. That's what it means, like your skin. That his feelings are like your feelings. That's exactly what it's trying to tell us. That's the message that's being bought home. That he's a human being with feelings just like you have. And he's not super being, he's no super being, he's not G-d-man, he's no angel. No, Muhammad is a mortal person like we are. That's what G-d says of him in the Qur'an. And G-d says had the Earth been populated by angels, He would've sent an angel to you as a Messenger. But, since the Earth is populated with human beings, he sent you a human person, as a Messenger.
That's the reasoning, you see? Yes, okay. So, the future, we have to believe in the future. I have great faith in this future and the present, if we would just do some research. The present state of humanity on this earth is better than it has been in the whole history of the earth. Never has humanity been in a better state in times of comfort for themselves, than we are in right now. The Prophets never saw anything like this. They hoped for something like this. They never saw anything like this. Not only for humans to human, or human with human relations, but also nation and nation. Nations have never been as willing to live together as they are now. Nations. People belonging to different races, or different nationalities, they've never been as open to living together in peace with each other as they are today. This the day of the fulfillment of G-d's promise to Abraham. This is the day of the fulfillment of G-d's promise to Abraham. We see problems still, but we see problems in the light of the heightened expectation. People, 100 years ago, 50 years ago, not to speak of hundreds of years ago, they couldn't dream of where we are today. They didn't even have the power to even dream this far in the room of human progress. No, they couldn't. Couldn't even dream of it. If they did, their dream would be opaque. Their dream would be very hard to understand. But, today, we could see possibilities for our practical life being so good. In fact, some of us are so spoiled that we have just been shocked out of our good senses. I imagine, deep down in, I believe in ancestral presence and personal presence, and I'm not spooky, I'm not superstitious. I'm a Muslim. I don't worship my ancestors. I'm not an ancestor worshipper. But, I believe in an ancestral presence and my own individual personal presence. I believe Allah is here with me right now, my ancestors are here too, in me. I believe that. Because, after all my biological body came from my ancestors. That's where it came from. So, whatever was in them, of biological form, is also in me. They passed it on to me. I'm the continuation of their biology. Is that not a fact? See, I'm talking plain talk. I'm the continuation of their biology. So, at least in biology form or make-up, I am my ancestors, and also myself. And you want to really have your imagination stretched? I am the first man on this earth, and also myself. How can I be from the first man if the first man is in me? See, I'm a real man and I know what male and female human is, and what it brings about. So, if there was a meeting of Adam and Eve and somebody came from them, and from them, and from them, and from them, on and on, and on, and on and finally me, that still is me. Adam and Eve is still right here. Presently in me, biologically speaking. Now, if it's not meant biologically. Okay, let's get it started all over again . But, I know that we came from human beings beginning on this Earth. And whatever a human was, biologically speaking, it's still here presently, in terms of our biology. It's still here, presently. And that's the way it's supposed to be. What G-d made us originally, is to stay with us forever. Now, with that stretch of imagination, everything else should be easy. We should have faith. I repeat, Have faith in G-d, have faith in man. When I say man, I mean the community of people we call humanity, or human. Have faith in the destiny of the human being, in the mold created by G-d. In the mold created by G-d, we know ignorance reshapes us, takes us out of the mold created by G-d. We can lose our good human sensitivity, our good human balance, our good human intelligence, our good human aspirations. We can lose all of that if it's put in the wrong environment. It can influence us out of that wonderful mold, but in the mold, I repeat, that G-d created us in, let us have faith in our destiny. Let us have faith that, that destiny, that the end is going to be beautiful and good, and rich, and rewarding, and fulfilling, not only for my mind, but for my soul.
The third millennium, is the millennium of hope. Of hope that will bring sleepers to wake up. People idle, get busy. Those without faith, to be aggressive for the good end, for the good destination. That's what I believe. I believe it so strongly, I put my life on it. I talk to the people that surround me every day. Every day, I'm telling them these things are real, that destiny is in sight. We're going to have the best conditions on this Earth, than we've ever had in the whole history of man. That's what I'm telling them. Now, those who want to say that the death, or the trumper, or whatever it is, you want to blow that sad tune and send people down to their graves, you can do it until I come around. When I come around, you got to stop that. Because, that's not where G-d wants us to go. G-d doesn't want us to go down in our spirit, or down in our world. G-d wants us to go up, forward, ahead, to bigger and greater things, and more rewarding things. This is why G-d put us here on this Earth. So, this destiny is determined by two realities that G-d created. His will being the sustained force. Now, a lot of us don't know, but no matter how talented you are, how fortunate you are to have what you have, your sustaining force is not your superiority. it's not your talent even. Your sustaining force is G-d in you. Is Allah inside you. Is G-d in you. The sustaining force is always G-d. G-d is the sustaining force. He exists always. He never was created or came into existence. He has been forever. Hidden reality is too much for our small minds to grasp, or to catch, capture in completion. We can only capture so much of G-d's reality. G-d has existed always. We can't even think that way, because we are perishable. Our nature is life, death, life, death, life, death. G-d's nature is life, life, life, life. Never was anything but life with G-d. So, because we are of a different nature than G-d, we can't even think of ourselves having never been created or having never been born for the first time. But, of G-d, never was He born, and never was he parented. Never was he born, and never was He parented. Never did He parent anything from Himself as a child. To extend Himself. You extend yourself like that. Yes. Me and my first sweetie, we got together and we extended ourselves, and we had our third sweetie, Laila, our oldest daughter. And that's how we have to extend ourselves. But G-d says He does not have dependency like you, or like anything in existence. He does not extend Himself like a parent, parents a child to extend Himself. "La Muala" And never was He produced by something else. "La Muala" Never was He produced by something else." Huw Alahu Ahad". And there nevel existed, or will exist, anything like G-d. That's what G-d said. And then you know what the scholars said after G-d said that? The scholars said "Kalas" It's finished. Let's stop the debate. The debate is finished. And they call the Surah Ihklas . Means, The Conclusion. Surah means The chapter. The chapter. Words that I've just given you, that small chapter, from that small chapter. Yes? Diversity. Very important. Diversity is a very important part. G-d is one. You're getting, from me, a discussion on the highest philosophical level. You are. You're getting it from me personally. You're getting instruction from me on the highest philosophical level in Islamic knowledge. Now, G-d is One. G-d is unity. One. Everything else after One is extended by One, and because of One. You can't count without One, and everything you say after One, has One in it. It's just a multiplier of One, to make what you're saying. Two, or two billion, or 50 trillion. You're talking only about the extension of One. Huh? Yes. Now, one also represents wholeness and completeness. Completion and wholeness. One, wholeness, completion, completeness. It represents all that. One. One. So, one of the most powerful attributes of G-d, for man's benefit, as an individual and also as a society, or community, collectively speaking, is to recognize the reality of G-d, as One G-d. The first thing communicated from the Prophet, to the people, from G-d was, "Know you, your G-d is One." That was the message. And from that, came a lot of other Revelations later, but that was the message, One. One. So, G-d has created two principles. And those principles, both of them bear the will of G-d. The principles are male and female. And G-d says, of the two principles, male and female, that they were one soul, and He cause them to be two, male and female, and caused them to mate with one another, and they produced all of the men and women on this earth. This is from G-d. Revelation. Both Bible and the Muslim book, Qur'an talks of this.
Now. For the individual who has really inherited his father and his mother, what is this?. I don't agree with science all the time. . So listen. The individual person, the person that has inherited from mother and father, he has, in himself, both male and female. I am Adam in myself, and I am also male and female in yourself. So, brother, never think of yourself again, as being all man, all male, and no female in you. That's incorrect. You have male and female in you, but male dominates in you, and therefore, your role in life is male, but your essence is both male and female. And for the female, sister, never think of yourself as all female again. There is no man in you. Maybe that's why we hate each other, compete with each other, have this bitter rivalry going on, because we think we're aliens. We're not aliens. We came in one package called soul. Human soul, humanity, and G-d split that atom and caused it to be male on one side and female on the other side. But, when He split it, it got back together. And when it got back together, it put male and female together, it came out in a child that came out physically a male but having mama in him too. Nobody can tell me my Mama Clara ain't in me. I look in the mirror, I can see Mama Clara. When I look at myself at certain angles in the mirror, I look more like Mama Clara than I do like my father, Elijah. Yes. I do. I see my father, I look in the mirror at a certain angle, I, "Hey, that looks like daddy." "There's mama." If I go this way, that bottom lip comes like that, that's mama. And I look at my eyes, I see my mama. Yes. So, I don't need no scientists to come out of the lab and tell me, "No, you're incorrect. Mr. Mohammed, you're incorrect. No, you're not female. I say, "Well, what is it I look like? I look like mama, man? Where that came from?". Some children look just like mama. The males, the boys look just like his mama, not like the father. And G-d makes it very clear to us that He made you from one soul. And then he says again, and He made you one from another, male and female. He made you from a male and from a female. That's the Quran, plain as day. G-d said He made us in one soul, yeah, but also, he made you from a male and a female.
So, let me get to the male and female principle, which is not always applicable, consistently, without exceptions to the rule. There are exceptions to the rule. Every rule but G-d's rule, there are exceptions. Yes. So, personally, here I am, an individual, I should be alive in myself, and I should have an interest in myself. They call it self-interest. My self-interest is a kind of a negative word. It sends off negative waves sometimes. Self-interest. But, let me tell you, there's two self-interests. One, is a holy self-interest, a sacred self-interest, and the other one is a sinful self-interest, or a wicked self-interest. Self-interest, interest in yourself to better yourself with no intent to harm anybody else, oh, that's a holy, sacred self-interest. Yes, it is. And G-d says, to the person, the individual self, the individual person, if you're a Christian, you'll find this in your religion too. G-d says, "Whoever does not spend on his own soul, he will be a loser." Spend on your own soul. If you don't, you'll be a loser.
Now, the word for soul, in the Qur'an is Nafs and it also means your own self. If I want to say my own self, I don't know any way to say it plainly than to say Nafsi. That means my own self. G-d says, "Whoever does not spend on his own Nafs will be a loser." But you should spend on yourself, not to corrupt yourself, but spend on yourself to edify yourself, to build up yourself, to advance your good self, and to purify your form. To purify your form. The process of purification is very important, because we are born into a world that will confuse us and lead us astray. Lead us into the wrong moral paths. Also, this movement of self, person the individual self, it wants to realize growth for me, personally. Don't be ashamed to want to get more. Don't have any cutoff for the growth, and betterment, and improvement of yourself. Don't have any cutoff point. Oh, he's not talking the material, he's talking spiritual now. You are wrong, sir. I have no cutoff point for myself when it comes to possibilities to make money. I don't have any cutoff point. So, what if you could make 50 million, would you do it? Yes. What if you could make 50 trillion? Yes. And any other number you could imagine bigger than that, yes. But the moment I want it and go to accept that it's going to hurt you, okay my self-interest is now corrupted. But, as long as I want this great wealth, and I don't want to do any harm to you, that I recognize your needs and respect your needs too, that means my enrichment is going to benefit you. And that's the way G-d made it. G-d made it for some people to have more spirit, more aspirations, more appetite, stronger stick-to-it-iveness than others, so they can gain much, so that the whole gets the benefit of their exceptional resources and powers. Yes, that's how G-d wants it. Don't think we're going to ever have equality in everything. All people are going to be equal. We'll starve to death. You sure will. You'll starve to death. That's not the way of G-d. G-d created some people to produce much more than others, and that's the way it is in nature, in the natural world. Some plants produce much more than others. Some land yields much more value than others. Other lands. And G-d said to look at the land getting the same benefits from the elements that the other land is getting. Same sun that shines on the productive land is shining on this land. Same water that falls on the productive land is falling on this land but look how things come up out of one land inferior and of the other land, superior. That's what G-d said. G-d is putting a parable to us. So, we may understand His ways. G-d wants us to grow in the complete dimensions of the human model that He created. That means G-d wants us to grow in charity. If I ain't going to have no money, how can I grow in charity? Not want us to grow in begging, only. Wants us to grow in charity. Wants us to grow in giving. G-d wants us to have more and more, to give more and more. I have to have more and more, to give more and more. And G-d wants the need to be kind and charitable, He wants it to be expressed, and never chirped.
So, there are a lot of people needing and there is no money for my charity. Nobody to give anything to? We want to kill human life. We want to abort the human nature. No, we don't want that kind of world. We want to have the equality of opportunity. That's the equality we want. The equality of opportunity, and then let the best come forward, and let the best be responsible for those that can't make it, as well. Isn't that the way G-d wants it? I know you know it and you don't have to read it in the book. G-d created you with a soul to know that. Your human soul that you have right now is sitting there within that peace and then your own human soul tells you, "Yes, that's the way G-d wants it." And you are correct as any Scripture ever was. So, this individual life and growth, it should be one focus for us. Then we should study this individual life and we should see that it can't really have its own life unless it puts its life in the community life. We can't have the life we want for ourselves, unless we establish it in society with others. Unless you're an alien. You have to be an unnatural person. Some people say, "Well, I'm through with marriage and I'm through with business, and I just want to meditate. I want to see if I can float this 200 pounds of flesh in the air, and I want to sleep on the air, eternally." Look, that's not for human beings. That's not a human being. That's a stranger. The human being wants to have life, a husband, children, family, good living quarters, and wants to have expression for all of its powers and abilities. Expression, and this life, this personal life has to be expressed in society, in community life.
The Bangladesh engineer, builder, architect who designed the Sears Tower in Chicago ... it was the tallest building for a long time. Maybe it still is. I don't know. I think they might have built a bigger one somewhere. That man lives in Bangladesh, thousands of miles away, but he has expressed himself in Chicago. That's fulfillment for the soul. Don't you think that man has a spiritual attachment to that building he designed? Certainly, he does. He doesn't only have a monetary profit attachment to it. A money, financial attachment to it. He has a spiritual attachment to that. The greatest rewards are rewards that reach the soul and touch us spiritually. Those are the greatest rewards. So, when you are created and you're doing something, you're exercising your spiritual ability that G-d created you with, and you see your life in your works. Your vision, your pain, extended beyond you, thousands of miles across the ocean into another great land. There, your structure stands. Came out of your head. So, G-d said to us, whatever is in the skies, or whatever is in the Earth, He has made it to render its utility to you. Wow. G-d has made the Heavens, the skies and the Earth to submit to my plan? You know why I act like that? I believe it! It rubs off on my children. The more my mind has grown, the more my flesh has grown. My two daughters, both, are honors students. Straight A students. Both of them, and I give them no special attention. I'm not a school teacher that's giving them the lessons of the second grade before they get in the first. I'm not doing that. I give them nothing. I let the teachers handle everything. The only thing I give them is my spirit. They know my spirit and they know my devotion to G-d. I share with them what my mother shared with me. A realization that G-d lives eternally, and He's present everywhere, at all times, and that you have to answer to Him for all of your behaviors. They're aware of that, and because they're aware of that, they're just special children.
And they're no freaks. They're true human beings. That's right. They're not trying to be something they're not. If they came in here, you would think they would just ordinary poor kids. And one of them represents her school, first, second, third grade. She's in the third now, but when she was in the second, she represented her school in the Math Olympiad. Math Olympiad. Straight A student. What does that tell you? I have a theory, that if you will devote your intellect, not just your heart, not just your spirit, devote your brain, your intellect to G-d, in complete submission, G-d will bring the genes of your body containing that orientation in them and pass it to your children. It'll be passed to your children and your children will grow to bigger, bigger dimensions. Bigger and bigger dimensions.
Takbir!! Allahu Akbar!! Yes, the person, that individual person. The individual person's destiny is to establish himself in community. That's the destiny. Any society that won't give equal opportunity to its citizens to have full expression, as much expression as they have the ability or the nature to have in society, that society, in some measure, is enslaving its citizens. Not only that, it can be done so subtly that the influencing of the culture, the music, the kind of entertainment you prefer will be dwarfing your intellectual growth, making a midget of you when you should be a normal man in normal man's height. Yes, so this is the world. We have to know the guiding of G-d, know what G-d intends for us, and fight all influences to hold us back from the great station that G-d is guiding all of us to, and that's the fulfillment of all of our good aspirations. All of us. So, this is the millennium that I see coming. A millennium that will have national and international organizations on alert to see if any society is depriving its citizens of the right to the life that G-d created us for. That's what I see coming in the future. It's shaping up. I'm meeting with big organizations, World organizations for addressing problems of the environment, the natural environment, the environment and also for the problem of human growth, nature and growth are meeting with them all of the time, and this is where the world is going. The world is getting itself together to answer the call of G-d, for the first time on this Earth. Yes. The Christians are calling it the coming back of Christ, the return of Christ. For us, it is the day of religion, "Yau Mi Deen", the day of religion. For religion to be exalted and respected as it should be respected, and will be questioned. Religion is going to be questioned. Is this what you call Islam? Is this really what G-d gave to Muhammad? Is this what you call Christianity? Is it really what G-d gave to Jesus Christ, Peace be Upon him.? What He gave the world through Jesus Christ? So, we have top level people already beginning to rethink their own thoughts on religion. They're doing that and I am meeting with them. And that's another miracle, that here's a man that only finished high school, and went to college and got about three ... I can't forget. The hours I have are so small. I know I got three. It might be four, or five, or something like that. Only has that much. No credentials that the world respects. I don't have any credentials that the world respects. McDonald's will tell me, maybe I'm not qualified. So, all you have is a High School Diploma Mr Mohammed? But this little fellow has respect from people in the top of the world order. I say this with such relief. I say this so easy to you. You know why? Because I know I didn't do that. I didn't walk up there. I was lifted up there.
I don't feel big. I know who I am, of course. I know who I am. Believe me, I know who I am. Often I say, "Hey, Wallace. Wake up." I know who I am. I'm just an ordinary person, but I have been blessed with extraordinary circumstances. Extraordinary circumstances! And those extraordinary circumstances have had the effect of bringing my soul to be devoted completely to G-d, and that's the answer. I've devoted my soul completely to G-d, and G-d has lifted my whole life up to the heavens. So, we must see ourselves as individuals and seek to improve our individual personal world as much as we can. We have that duty to G-d. G-d created us to have that responsibility, to not manipulate your own self. Don't manipulate your own welfare. Do as much as you can to better yourself and to improve upon yourself in every way. Your morals, your physical health, your mental life, your intelligence. Work to make your whole life better. You have that duty from G-d to do that.
And if you do that, you will become a better, I would say, product in terms of market appeal in the society, on the table of the society, if you do that. The world will have more respect for you, will see more value in you, and will invite you to more opportunities, if you would just spend on your own self and start to spend on your own soul. The word Nafs means self too. Spend on your own self for the betterment of yourself and seek to purify yourself where you cut off bad influences. Keep corruption out of your life. Keep yourself pure for G-d's sake, as pure as you possibly can. For G-d's sake! Fight disease of the mind and disease... When I say the mind, I don't mean in the medical sense. Disease of the mind in a mentall sense . Disease in the way you think. Fight the diseases in the way you think, so that your mind can be freer to grow big for the responsibilities, for the big responsibilities that G-d created each and every one of us for.
And don't think that you can ever realize fulfillment, satisfaction for yourself and your soul without contributing to the growth and betterment of life for others. That's what we're put here for, to do the best for ourselves so that we are qualified to be a big help to others. And then live your life so that your family has a better life, your neighbors have a better life. And let it grow until your neighborhood, and your city, and your nation has a better life. See your life contributing to a better life of your whole world, the international society of man. That's the end. That's the end of it. That's the goal. G-d said, "Kan Nafsin Ummatin Wahida." That's that people were created by G-d to be One community, and that's what has happened. That's why I say this is the day of the religion, the fulfillment of G-d's promise on Earth for us. Not after Earth, but on Earth the promise is that man will again one day see himself as one community.
We are speaking now of One world, a global community. We're speaking now of the economic order, the one world economic order. We're speaking now of nations not operating arbitrarily and not making decisions that effect the world. Not doing that arbitrarily, but sitting down together and respecting the rights of each other, and the aspirations of each other, the will of each other, respecting that, and contributing to the whole world scene, so that the whole world scene improves and not just their local areas of their nation only. This is the new world order that's coming. I don't know what President Bush or Reagan was thinking of when they said new world order, and I don't care to know because I feel satisfied to know that the new world order is the world that G-d wants for us. And that's going to be the new world order: The world that G-d wants for us. And we should prepare ourselves for that.
The diversity, I repeat, the diversity is for us individually. Diversity is for us individually and it's very important. And I think my individuality is as sacred for me as my plurality. It's as sacred for me as my plurality. If I lose my individuality, I cheapen my existence in the plural bodies. So I must, I must improve upon my individuality, strengthen my individuality, enrich my individuality. I want to see a black man become the richest, and the most productive, and most excellent black man. Man. Man. I want that for the white man. I want that for the red man. I want that for every man. I want that every man... And I'm speaking now not as Wallace. I'm speaking now as a preacher that has been energized by G-d's word, not Wallace. Yes. I want that for every man. I want that every man has the best and the most that he possibly can have on this Earth. Now, if the military want that, you know we should. "Be all you can be." Somebody going to catch onto that and they going to be sorry they said it. I'm joking now. Yes. So this is the great world.
So some of us, we don't know. We in the dilemma. "Oh, you're talking about the improvement of your black race, you're a racist. And if you pretend that that need does not exist, you diss your own people. So here we are. In a dilemma. I'm afraid to talk too much black talk, and I'm afraid to be silent on that subject. If I talk too much, they're going to call me a racist. If I don't talk at all, my own people going to call me a traitor. There's the dilemma. So G-d solved that problem for us. You are to care about yourself. You are to build your identity. You are to enrich your own image and picture in the world. You don't want people looking at your picture and.... "Oh, excuse me." Now I told you that I came from Georgia.
I have a hard time keeping that Georgia biology out of me. It awakens sometimes and speaks without my permission. Yes. So, you don't want to see your image put down, cheapened. And people say, "Let's see the world picture. Where is the family of man?" And there you are standing in the picture looking like doodoo. Excuse me again. Yeah. I don't want that. So let us do the most we can to lift our life up and advance our life forward. And let's recognize that every people have that right, not only the right, but have the duty from G-d to lift their lives up and advance their lives forward. Then we will be making the greatest contribution that we possibly can make to the betterment of the whole world, of all people.
Yes. One of our speakers last night, the former Governor, said... Former Governor William Winter. He said that he believed G-d had put us on this Earth to develop our talents. I believe that too. Has put us on this Earth to develop our talents. According to the Gospel and the Qur'an, He's going to reward us if we have done a good job at that, at developing our talents. The Bible tells us so many talents was passed out and a different kind of talents was given to each one. And some took their talents and they used them. And when the good sheperd came back to see what had been done with these talents, those who presented their talents, and they improved upon them, they had multiplied them, and enriched them, they were rewarded very generously. They were given generous reward. But those who neglected or hid their talents, they got nothing. They were losing. So that's Christianity. That's the Bible and it's also the Qur'an if we understand it. G-d says, "Whoever spends on himself will get the benefit and he will save his life. He will lift his life up to have good life." He profits by that. That's what is meant. He profits by that. And whoever neglects to spend on the betterment and growth his or her own self, you debase yourself. You put your own self down.
So African Americans... I would like to have more. Everybody would like to have more. Yes? I don't want it to be made too easy for me, because I know making things too easy for me will make my muscles grow weak. I don't want things so easy that I don't have any muscles to use. I want a nice challenge for life in this world to keep all my muscles firm. I don't want to lose form. I don't want to be made a soft, overripe tomato. I don't want to be put in Pampers or Huggies. My spirit is too mature and too strong for that. I have a strong spirit. I have the spirit of a man, so I don't want to be pampered. All I want is the law to be straight. I'm not looking for the days when every white person will look at me, and love me, and speak to me on the street. If I say, "Hi." You say, "Hi." If I say, "Good morning." "Good morning!" If I say, "Good night." "Good night!" "Have a good day!." I don't have to have that time come in my life, when every white person I meet will be so nice and respond so nicely.
I expect some of them look at me and say something ugly to me, for my good word. May say something ugly to me. I expect that. That's not going to change my agenda. It's not going to change my program for my own future. Not at all. And I have a reality that helps me stay sane. When I go back home, some old people that's from my own flesh and blood and my own immediate family... Some of them won't even say good morning when I walk in the door sometimes. "Good morning! Here let's tidy the house." So if I have that problem at home, I can sure put up with it out there with white folks. But now when white folks ignore me, it's got to be racist. But when my own relatives in the house ignore me, it ain't racist. Well, that's true. In the house it's not racist. And it's true also that in the public it's not racist. Most of the time, almost 100% of the time it's not racism. We've got to understand that people are of different qualities, and people are in different states.
You'll find this white man this morning, or Wednesday morning, and he had just been upset, or somebody or hurt him, or he's harboring some bitterness. You might meet him next Thursday morning and say, "Good morning." The same white man that you thought was a racist. "Good morning, sir." We understand ourselves to be that way. How come we can't accept that a white man is nothing but another man? He ain't nothing but another man. He's subject to our same weaknesses and our same problems. He's subject to be affected in his life the same way we are affected in ours. So let's get this racism out of our environmental language as a child's word to signal us to say, "He's my enemy just because he didn't respond the way I think he should respond." It's time for us to clean the air of racism, and the first step we should make to do it is to stop identifying every problem that comes from experience or interaction with a white person as a problem of race. It's not.
I used to think white people were unnatural. I did. My father taught me that and I used to believe it. "White people, they're unnatural." The last 10 years I've been looking at you- Good G-d Almighty . Yeah. "The white man will never let us get anywhere. You know that. You know that. I don't know what you all getting that program together for. You know the white man ain't going to let you get anywhere. The only way we're going to get anywhere, we've got to deal with whitey first. We've got to deal with this race thing first, brother. We ain't going to get nowhere." Just follow his family around. They spend every penny they get every two weeks, or every month, or every week, they spend it with the white people. Now you tell me that ain't unnatural?. G-d Almighty. They say, "Don't strike the hand that feeds you." They ain't got one for us. We striking the hand that feeds us and putting all of our resources in that hand at the same time. We got one stick beating the hell out of this hand, and the other stick going in the pockets and giving to him with the other hand. Invent a new dance . You've got a stick beating him in one hand, and the other hand's going in your pocket and giving him all your money. Don't nobody spend with him but you.
We had another speaker, and I collected notes from both of them for this taping today. Our other speaker was a business man, very successful with McDonalds franchises. An African American. He said to us at the banquet, "We must teach our children the definition of functional citizenship." Functional citizenship. When he said that, I registered that very deeply because I believe the third millennium, the future, the immediate future we're coming into, is going to require of each citizen more willingness to accept more and more responsibility for our individual citizenship. We're citizens, not just of a house, a home, a family, a neighborhood. We're citizens of the United States of America. What burdens the United States of America will eventually burden us if it's not already burdening us. So we should live our lives so that we make life of all citizens of America less burdened, less burdensome. And this is the new education we need to get. This is the new community, the new environmental education, or social education. We need to be giving to each other.
We live in the greatest, in the boundaries of the United States of America as citizens, and citizenship means you are obligated to respect and contribute positively to that country that you belong to. People naturally have a spirit to do that if they're not made bitter or turned across their nation. They have a natural spirit to do that. We have to overcome the setback that we experienced spiritually, not just materially as subjects, slaves, and people discriminated against in this country. We have to overcome that and look at the new reality and say, "Well, hell. The people that designed that order, they're not around here to talk to." The ones that designed that order, the order of discrimination, the order of slavery, and segregation, and discrimination, white supremacy, they're not around anymore. If they are, they're silent because they know their time has gone. They're silent.
So let us not keep grieving over that time and let us not keep harboring bitterness in us because of that time. Let us realize that that time has gone, and thank G-d that it's gone. Thank G-d for the great leaders, from Frederick Douglass to Dr. Martin Luther King, from Nat Turner to Elijah Muhammad or Malcolm X. Let's thank G-d for all of those who did something to change things for the better. And thank G-d most of all. But let us not weep and moan. Lamentations will do away with you. The Jews learned that. They lamented... Lamenting means to feel sorry and to sings songs of regret and sorrow. Lamenting. They did so much they had to have a chapter in the Bible called Lamentations. And they learned the lesson that there has to come an end to just crying the blues. Let us stop crying the blues and start looking ahead in the road again.
Let us do what the slaves did. They saw "Hey, Proclamation ending slavery. They said, "Hey. This is time for me now to look at myself and my own needs as a human being." So they had been deprived of education. They wanted to right away get books, become literate. They wanted to educate themselves. Big thrusts was made to educate African American people by the civil rights movements, by the leaders. It wasn't called the civil rights movement in that time but it was. Big ideas. Big thrusts was made to make education available to them because education is a tool for success in the future. It's the most precious tool. Except for your moral life, it's the most precious tool for progress in the world. In fact, morality in the best state, without education will still keep you back. You can be a goodie goodie and never get out of the ghetto, but with education you can get out of the ghetto. And better than that, with the right education you can change the ghetto into a paradise. And that's what we want to do.
Peace be unto you. As-salamu alaykum.


