06/07/1997
IWDM Study Library
To Each Is a Goal

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
W.D Mohammed: Who cares about all of His creation, especially His human creation. We witnessed that Muhammad, about 1400 now and 15 or 16 more years ago, was selected by G-d for his human excellence to be the last prophet, the seal of the prophets mission, in the Torah and in the Injil. That is, the Scripture given from G-d to the prophets, to the people who are called Jews. The Scripture revelation given by Jesus to the people who are called Christians.
We witness that Muhammad is the prophet mentioned in these Scriptures as one coming to free the people from all forms of slavery and to lift the heavy yolks from their backs that weighted them down. This is given to us in our Scripture, in the book called the Quran. We witnessed that he is that person. I looked and I saw the expression here which says that, "You are about liberating the human intellect and you credit Islam with this interest of yours, that you've got this interest in liberating the human intellect from Islam."
Before going further with this, I want to say something that's been stirring in my soul, filling me up with joy since I have witnessed the graduation of 21 high school students and sitting here witnessing the words coming from former high school students who went on, gone on to very prestigious universities and have performed in a very excellent way as was evidenced in their words to us tonight. What I'm witnessing is the strong belief that we are a living witness of what the Quran, the Islam can do for the intellect of the human being.
I myself, as most of you know, I don't have any credentials that would be recognized by anyone. My formal education is high school education. I attended junior college just so I could learn better how to speak and be in a position to read more and read faster. I thought junior college could do that for me. It helped me, but I ended up taking a speed reading course, and that really helped me. I don't have those credentials, but I'm a living witness. That the Quran can qualify you.
I have studied Scripture. My concentration has been the Quran. That book have put me in the company of the brightest minds on this Earth. They welcome me among them. They don't ask me about my credentials. Praise be to Allah. This is a witness. We are witness. We are witness. The biggest witness is really in history, the history of Islam. The land of the prophet, when he was born and a young man, and still he began to change that land. That land was without civilization as we understand civilization. That land was without education as we understand education. There was no institutions of learning for those people.
Now, Jews lived in that land. They lived in Medina. Jewish people. There was a Jewish community. The land I'm talking about is what's called Saudi Arabia now, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They lived there and they had their Jewish traditions still strong. They were reading the Torah. They were businessmen. They were surviving, but they were not having any reform movement among them. They were not having any rebirth for them of civilization or vision. They didn't have visionaries.
The same situation was for the whole world, not just Saudi Arabia. The whole world was stagnant. There was no excitement for the human intellect. G-d chose, selected a person who was brilliant, bright minded, excellent in his conduct, truthful and honest person. He was known for that. He had that reputation. I heard reputation mentioned by one of the students today. He had that reputation and G-d selected him to be His messenger and His servant to all people, the last prophet, and revealed to him the Quran, the Scripture called Quran.
That wonderful human person began to share what G-d gave him with others, and within a matter of, really, about 11 or 12 years, because for 10 years or 11 years, he was persecuted and was not able to preach freely or to do his work freely. It was only when he was given an invitation to lead the city of his birth, Mecca, and come to Medina where people said, "We welcome you there" that he began his real work publicly. Within about 11 or 12 years, there was the rise of scholars, intellectuals.
Within a relatively short period of time there were great institutions of higher learning. In Damascus, Syria, Baghdad, Iraq. Iraq, what's called Iraq now, and even in Africa, deep in the heart of Africa, Timbuktu. In Morocco, what is called Fes now - Fes, Morocco. Finally, to Spain - Cordoba, Spain. Great institutions of learning, great activity for the human intellect. A new excitement. A great birth of the new visionaries for the world to call the world back to the attention of the human intellect so that the human intellect could produce, so that man would have civilization reborn again and would have progress and a good life in the future.
Now, I've recently had the opportunity to sit with the man that I had known of for sometime but never met him and never thought of him as anything other than just the Grand Sheikh or the Grand Mufti of Syria. Recently, I had an opportunity to meet him, and sit in his company, and listen to him, and have a little discussion, share thoughts. He said something to me. He put it what I already believed, but he put it in such clear words and made it so plain.
He said, - we were talking about Islam, how, with Islam, there was a revival of the intellect, revival of interest in the sciences, and what we call the renaissance of Europe that made possible the great progress we have for education, industry, and sciences in the world now, in the United States in America and in the world. We're speaking, talking about that and this fine scholar and intellect in Islam, the Grand Mufti of Syria, who is an old man now.
You see his picture in the journal, you Muslims who read the journal, his picture will be in the journal. Old man now, but active in his mind, still very active mind. He said, “The West has a leader and the leader is not the philosophers of ancient Greece.”
The Leaders are not the leaders they point to in their own history. The leader is Muhammad, our prophet. As soon as he said that, I recognized, "You are correct." He is the leader because it was Muhammad who received the revelation from G-d of the Quran. It was Muhammad who shared that as an obligation and as a love, he shared it with people his fellow man, and told them that it must reach all people. One of the sayings of the Prophet, peace be upon him, is that Islam must go wherever there is sunshine and shadows.
That's all over the world. [laughs] That's all over the world. He is the leader, he is the one that brought the interest back in the intellect. It was under his leadership that the interest in the human intellect came back to man on this earth, to the people, to the nation. It was because of him, G-d selecting him that education was lifted up as a high goal for society. Public education was not started in the West. Public education was started on the peninsula of Arabia back then called the Land of the Arabs by Muhammad the Prophet.
That's where public education started. He instituted public education, Muhammad did. We had to go for all these centuries, the West, that is, before we had public education. Public education is something recent for the West. Yes, a lot of you don't know that. You think public education have always been, it's a recent thing for the West, and for the world, other than for Islam. There was no such thing as private education under Muhammad the Prophet. Only education was public education, that's what it was, public education.
It wasn't public education in the sense that we understand public education paid for by our tax dollars and then in another sense, it was, really, it was too because it was the taxing that made possible the payment for those who needed to be financed and they couldn't pay for it. For many, there was no taxes, it was just the teachers volunteering. No pay, no people working for pay. Only the poor would be paid for their work, the poor, but those who didn't need a job, they volunteered and they did the teaching and expected no pay, their reward was with G-d.
And their reward was in seeing their work appreciated by their students, by their subjects, the people. Muslims should start thinking differently about the achievements of the West. We should see Muhammad as the pilot for all of these achievements. There wouldn't have been these achievements if it wasn't for Muhammad selected to be the messenger of mercy to the world, there would not be all of these achievements. He is really the leader of all the true advances and healthy advances that this civilization has been able to realize.
Muhammad is definitely the leader. Now, if you, after eating, still feel alert in your mind to strain in a little bit, I'm going to continue what I have here. Now, what gives us true freedom, and the most complete freedom, the healthiest freedom, the most lasting freedom is freedom of the intellect. Freedom of the intellect. The rational mind with all of his other, I would say, resources, or products, the rational mind. That's what gives us true freedom.
The great philosophers, thinkers, who first brought man's attention to the value of freedom, the value of freedom. They didn't think of freedom the way we think of freedom. They didn't think of freedom as freedom to do anything you want or freedom to be your own boss. That's not the freedom that they were thinking about. That's not the freedom that carries this (unclear) value. That's not the freedom, but today when we speak of freedom, right away we think of freedom for the individual to be their own boss.
Just 100 or so years behind us or less maybe, well, 100 or so years, there were slaves in America and they were our fore-parents. They were our parents, before us. Freedom for them meant freedom for the intellect. I know what you're thinking, "No, it meant freedom from the plantation," but why did they want to be free from the plantation? They wanted freedom from the plantation so they could go to school, so they could read books, so their children could be educated. That's why they wanted freedom from the plantation.
Some of them had become very accustomed to being housed in a shanty, or tool house. You don't call it tool house, but I'm just trying to give you a picture of it. They had become accustomed to that, it wasn't a miserable life for them. They had become accustomed to that, sleeping all night, the sun go down, they go sleep, sun come up, man say, “Go to work,” they were ready, he slept all night.
The weekend come, the man say, “Okay, have fun, you all have fun.” They drink, laugh, dance, play, get drunk maybe. They were accustomed to that. They didn't all carry chains. The ones who carried change were the ones that the man, the master or the boss feared would run away. They didn't wear chains, no more chains than you wear today.
[laughter]
Yes, so it wasn't that freedom that was more important to them. It was the freedom of the intellect that was more important to them. Report says that when they heard they were free, you could look out in the field and see workers at break time. Not going to sit down somewhere to lie under the tree and in shade like they did at other times when they were slaves, but leaning against their plow with a piece of paper in their hand trying to read.
Piece of paper, anything, they just wanted anything to try to read. This tells us that the most precious life of the human being is the intellect of the human being. You take away the intellect, you got no more than an animal. That’s you got left, an animal. You take the intellect away from a human person and what you got left, I repeat, is nothing but an animal.
It may be a nice animal, like a rabbit, or a deer, or a dog that won’t bite. Then it could be a vicious animal like a hyena, a rattlesnake, or something worse. This attention to the intellect is attention to the life that G-d created to be Khalifa. To be Khalifa, you mentioned a Khalifa, today the students mentioned Khalifa. This is the life that Allah created to be the Khalifa. Now I'm going to put my glasses on, I'm trying to do without them, because they are not really my regular glass, I picked up the wrong one, but they help, they got a little power to them.
That part of Arabia is called Jahiliyyah, which means ignorance. The Muslims gave it that name after they became educated by Islam and the prophet, the Quran and the prophet. Then they gave the time that they were living in the name Jahiliyyah, it means ignorance. Al-Jahiliyyah means the ignorant age. There's much to say about that, but we’ll quickly try to run through this.
Now, here comes the prophet receiving revelation, a messenger and servant of G-d called the last prophet, the seal of the prophets, receiving revelation from G-d. This revelation, it has an effect on the intellect of human intellect, to bring it to life, to make it want to digest everything within its grasp. That’s what happened back there, back during that time. The intellect was awakened and the persons who indulged it or embraced that message, they became so active in their mind that they just wanted to digest everything that their intellect could touch, see or even imagine.
That’s how they were able to produce those centers of higher learning to attract the intellects from all over the world to come and see what they were doing, because they were so active as intellects and so devoted to the one G-d who created everything, it made them universal. They didn’t think of, “Do this for Arabian glory.” No, that was-- It couldn’t have entered their minds. Do this for Arabian glory. No, for the glory of the Arabs, wouldn’t enter their mind.
It was so universal that even while they were on the peninsula of the Arabs, they had people representing the major colors among them in their leadership, in the very early and in the very beginning of this great work or mission. There were people of the different colors, the different races represented in their leadership. It wasn’t an Arab leadership, their leadership was made of the different colors, black, brown, white, red, all of them, the Africans, the Asians, the Europeans, yes, the Europeans. All was included in the leadership.
The Quran came as a food for the whole life, but the focus was on the needs of the human intellect, the needs of the human intellect. Now, in order for the intellect to grow, the intellect must not be narrow, local, selfish. The intellect must be broad, generous, far reaching if it is to grow and really become the productive intellect G-d created it to be, so the belief in one G-d tied all things together and made all creation, the creation of one, one and one only.
Everything became equal as creation of G-d and human beings became equal with each other, as creation of G-d. They couldn’t look to one race or one person from another land as being inferior to them or superior to them, because they were seeing all human beings as the creation of one and the same G-d. The basis for their inclusion in that creation, pardon me, the explanation for the inclusion in that creation was that he created them human persons.
Human persons for them back there meant he created them to be ruled by intellect. To come under the rule of intellect. Now, anyone who is not under the rule of intellect, they are animal. I said anyone without the intellect, animal. Right? Now, I say anyone not under the rule of intellect is an animal. What am I saying? I’ll make it a little clearer. You cannot have your own intellect alive for you or operating for your, but if I have mine operating for me and you obey me, you are under the rule of intellect and you are not an animal.
If you don’t have your own intellect ruling in you and you have no other person with the intellect ruling in them, that is influencing your behavior, or deciding how you should live, then you are an animal. You’re no more than an animal. Nothing qualifies you to be a human but respect for your intellect, or respect for the human intellect and obedience, under the rule of intellect. What makes revelation so wonderful is that it says the intellect didn’t create itself, but it has a creator.
The intellect didn’t design its existence and its purpose or its destiny, another did that and that’s G-d. The intellect is brought under G-d, that’s what makes it so wonderful. That makes possible what is written in the introduction to the constitution of the United States by the founding fathers, we hold this truth to be self-evidence that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator recognized as G-d.
A lot of us don’t know that. We go through high school and don’t know, never know, didn’t register on us that these men who designed this way of life we have we call America democracy and freedom or whatever, that they put G-d above themselves and everything else, one nation under G-d. Somehow it seems that we miss that nowadays, we don’t hear that language, one nation under G-d. This idea that we have in America is not new in the history of Islam, that’s what Islam gave.
We said it perhaps differently, more connection with G-d as the giver of revelation, or the communicator of revelations, more said about that experience, that spiritual experience but the same idea that there is one G-d, the creator of everything. Now, let me go to the Quran and hope that you can follow what I’m going to give here and appreciate it. The theme here is, how is it expressed, to each is a goal, is that right?
To each is a goal. Now, that’s taken from the Quran. It’s taken from the holy book, the Quran. G-d says, “To each is a goal toward which G-d is turning that person. Therefore go as in a race after all that is good. Wherever you may be, G-d will bring you altogether in unity.” In unity, you don’t hear unity, you don’t read unity, but if there is jamiyyah. Jamiyyah means will bring you all together in one, will bring you together, but all together, jamiyyah.
This is Arabic, it has to be translated. Jamiyyah mean altogether, will bring you together but all together, you won’t be separated from each other, you’ll be in unity. We are all together in America, but we’re not in unity. It’s not just bringing you together, bringing you together in unity. That’s what Allah is saying, wherever you may be, He will bring you together in unity and understand that Islam is a religion of unity.
It believes in the unity of matter. It believes in the unity of human life. It is the religion of unity. That G-d will bring you all together or bring you all together in unity. The same book tells us that G-d gives men, persons a mission, job, responsibilities, to deliver His Words to others so that the many will have it.
To teach them and warn them of the things that are in the way of their good future. The bad consequences that will come if they don’t follow right guidance, the Guidance of G-d. He sends persons for that. He also says that he has created this world, including man, to come under natural forces. Whether you do the act that he wants you to do or not with your own free will of free choice, with your own right freedom to choose, if you don't do it that way, it's going to happen without you doing it.
You don't have to do it. G-d has created this world to come under natural forces and that includes man. He, his own life will come under natural forces, that includes also his moral life. If he doesn't use his moral life as G-d intended to, his moral life will come under natural forces. That includes his rational life. If he doesn't use his rational life as G-d intended for him and use his rational life, his rational life will also come under natural forces. Natural forces will marshal him on the way Allah intends for him to go.
We have had our great spiritual leaders to teach us and warn us, but man's own, I would say, marvelous performance as a creator himself created so many things and gave us a man-made world that surrounds us at home and industry. Man-made world surrounds us, so we forget about G-d's World that He made. We become conscious of only man and his greatness. That time has been on us for about 30 years and what it has done?
It has punished our moral life, it has punished our spiritual life, it has punished our rational life and it has really made our leadership bankrupt in terms of producing great leaders for us. Men who have vision into the future, to show us the road, to point the way to us, to point the way for into the future, we don't have them any more. What's working to force a direction for us, to force a sane direction for the world?
What's working? G-d's, natural forces and the natural forces are operating now in man's world. [chuckles] His computer is a natural force. He makes it, he designed it, but now it becomes a natural force. He can't control it himself. No, he can't. He says the computer is here so this is what we have to do. In order to perform now and compete with others, this is what we have to do.
Not only the computer, television, communication media, he created it, but look what it has done without him foreseeing it. It has put light into the alley that he used to rape the nations in the dark alley. He used to rape the nations in the dark alleys of the world, he used to rob and rape nations. Now the communication media won't permit him to rob and rape nations in the dark alley. No more dark alleys, everything is on television.
Used to have to wait months to hear somebody cry. He stuck me up and they took my belongings, now it comes to you just that quick, natural forces taking over. Now the world says we have to accept the reality and G-d says the reality is coming. You can't stop the reality, and when it comes, it's going to knock out the brains of falsehood. The reality is coming and when it comes, it's going to knock out the brains of falsehood. You can't stop it. [chuckles] Now they're saying we must accept this reality. Who's saying that?
The leaders of nations. Their brightest minds advising them and supporting them. They're saying that we have to accept that G-d is one, the G-d of all of us, nothing was made possible except by that G-d so the people have G-d as their protector. We have to respect that, their righst to the land the G-d-given rights, their rights to freedom G-d-given right, their right to decide how they want to live on their own land in the future, it's their right given to them by G-d.
What was written for us by these great free-thinking designers of the American democracy now has to be respected in the whole world, that all people have that same right. We can be proud as Americans because it was Americans who latched on to this kind of thinking and wanted to see it become the thinking of the citizens of this new world. We can be proud as Americans.
We can be proud that Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of the great president Delano Roosevelt, we can be proud that she introduced or spearheaded the interest in universal human rights when she was alive. We can be proud of these things, but let us understand the reality today. The reality of today is that this world has gotten too big for man to handle, gotten too big for man to control, his own creations is now too big for him to handle.
He must obey the realities in his own world and say we can't have it that way anymore. I hope you're following me, all right. Quickly now I hope I can round this up and say goodnight. We look to a center we call our Qibla. There in our vision is a simple little structure called 'the house' in fact it's called 'the home'. It's called al-bayt which means 'the home'. Pilgrim go yearly to Arabia, it's called Saudi Arabia now, and this is that house in Mecca.
We are told that the house was built by two prophets of G-d, Abraham and his son Ishmael, in the Quran, Ibrahim, and Ismail. Peace be upon the prophets. We're told it was built by those two prophets, the father and the son. Father Abraham and his son. Allah says in our holy book, the scriptures we call Quran, as Muslim followers, Allah says that the house was built for all people, not for one people but for all people.
Islam being that it's an invitation to all people, it has gathered all people and formed all people in one society called the International Society of Muslims or the ummah- the ummah of Al Islam. The community- the world community or International community of Islam. In that society of Muslims we have all the colors on Earth, all the nationalities, all the people, all the races on earth. When we make pilgrimage once a year to that place, if we can afford to go there once a year, some rich people do.
Some people live close poor, they live so close they can do it every year- you will see all the colors, you'll see every race, all the tongues, all the different languages will be there. All the different dress styles, cultures, ethnicities will be there. They will be calling that house that they came to visit, - home. Call the house, the home, al-bayt, the home, the home. What it is really? It's the home of mankind. It's the home of all people. That's what it's called.
Now if I may go on. It is also believed that that house represents the beginning of the human family on Earth. Some people, they have a myth, an Arab myth or a Muslim myth- an Arab myth. Actually, I understand it predates even the mission of Muhammad the prophet- our prophet. The myth says that the foot of Adam was there, his footprint was there. First man on earth, Adam.
Seeing as a place too, a place of origin for all people. A place of origin for all people and a place where a symbol stands that communicates to the ones blessed by G-d to interpret the symbol. It communicates to them the idea that we all are one in our first and most important creation. The first and most important creation for us, and the last, is the human creation, the human creation.
It says that we are all one in one human creation and we all have one beginning in that creation. G-d said, "If you turn all of your faces to that place, to that Symbol, turn all of your faces to that symbol in that holy house, the place of worship, he will bring you all together in unity no matter where you are scattered on this earth." What is that plainly saying? That if you people, no matter how you become scattered from each- separated from each other, maybe some will go on and live in a foreign land.
They will speak of another language, they'll get another language. They'll be separated, but if they ever turn their faces to here, meaning if they ever accept this origin for them, if they ever accept this symbol representing their oneness as creation, they will be all brought together in unity. Industrial strives made for it, like never been heard of in history, only fiction or myth can create something to make us maybe believe that there was something better than what we have, but we know it would be only a fiction, a lie, a myth.
Never this man on this Earth have the great progress for industry that we have witnessed in this time, in our life here in America. Never. Science, technology, all these, but look.
[audio cut]
W.D Mohammed: -tolerated. Dr. King, what was he dealing with? Racism.
[audio cut]
W.D Mohammed: Tolerated. Dr. King, what was he dealing with? Racism, racism. In this great land of industrial progress unheard of in history, education, sciences, all that, great, but racism. Ignorance, racism is ignorance. Racism stood in the way and it still stands in the way for some people. Racism stood in the way of this country realizing its own bright destiny. Racism stood in the way. It was Islam, better than 1400 hundred years ago, that addressed racism.
The prophet said in his farewell addressed to the multitudes making pilgrimage in the holy precinct, he said, "There is no superiority of a white over a black and no superiority of a black over a white." Now, who would say something like that but a man whose mind had been liberated by G-d. No, he wouldn't have said that because we had always thought there's only going to be white over black, never going to be black over white.
He knew, he knew the nature of human beings, he knew the possibilities for the human intellect, for the human being in his nature. He knew the possibilities. G-d inspired him to also say no, no superiority of the black over the white, because in time this thing may reverse. Black people may come as a great power and they may dominate white people and enslave white people, deny white people their rights. He said, "No superiority of a white over black and no superiority of a black over a white."
No high grade for anyone on any basis other than obedience to G-d, obedience to G-d. I may become very wealthy- you see how divine the revelation is? I may become very wealthy and if he has said there's no superiority of one color or another and left it there. Then "I'm wealthy now, Yes, G-d said there's no superiority of a black man over a white man, but white boy, I got more money than you, I'm your superior" or we might say intellectual because we have all kinds of superiority. We have the arrogance of the intellect.
A man thinks he has some special right, G-d created him in some special way that he didn't create most other people. He thinks he has an intellectual superiority or a superiority given to him because of his superior intellect. G-d eliminates all of it and says, "No superiority except on the basis of your obedience to G-d." That kills all chances that someone will use their superiority over the many to enslave the many. No superiority except in obedience to G-d. Here's another idea that the West has that we have to understand that is not western. It was revealed by G-d. G-d says, "Turn your faces towards here, to each is a goal." To each. [Arabic language] To each is a goal. I have a goal, you have a goal, all of us have a goal. You might want to be an Imam, another one might want to be a doctor, another one might want to be a banker.
All of us have an interest, that's what it means. An interest that's pulling us. An interest that's pushing us or pulling us to goal at a certain direction with our life. All of us have a goal.
G-d wants to recognize all of our interests. That's what G-d is saying. G-d recognize individual personal interest. The community or the society under this law, when it writes up its laws, it should respect that human beings are individual and respect their individual motivations or their individual aspirations and don't deny them individual freedom. This is Islam. Don't deny them. This is Islam. And we think of it as the west. Don't deny them individual freedom but accommodate their desire to live their lives according to their own vision or choice, individual choice.
The only thing that will stop them or stop everybody else too, even the ruler, if he goes after something that will hurt the good direction for human life. It says, "Go as in a race after all that is [Arabic language." This [Arabic language], it means all that is good for the good direction in human life. Go after it. This is true democracy. This is true freedom. Go after it. No matter what place you've been-- Because your interest is going to cause you to separate from each other, your interest is going to pull you apart. You have different interests, so it's going to pull you apart. You're going to be scattered.
Somebody's going to Egypt for studies. Somebody's going to Malaysia and they may stay over there. They might stay over there a long time. Who knows what's going to happen. These different interests pull us apart. Marco Polo went to China. [laughs] Went over to China from Europe. He went to China. These interest will pull us apart but as long as we keep our respect for the origin, the common origin that G-d revealed and keep our respect for this common excellence that G-d revealed because it is in the human intellect that the house stands for. The house represents a home, a society for the human intellect, a community of the human intellect, a society under the human intellect.
Yes, so as long as we keep our respect for that, we will be in unity with each other. There will be no chance that racism was coming to us and separate us. No chance that we get color prejudice and start looking at each other as black or white or yellow or something. No chances if we stick to that origin and to that knowledge that G-d gives us in that wonderful symbol of our excellence as human beings. The excellence of the human intellect and its destiny in community. Its destiny in community.
The only problem for the scholars in Islam on political thought and social order is that the West put so much, too much intention on social. Social is important but social is just a necessity, a need, or nature and a necessity that brings us to realize that community life should be the life that we live, that we should live life in community, that there should be one order, one law for the society, one law for the order for the community or for the order, one law respecting all, each and every one of us, in our life and in our need for the future. That's community.
That's why G-d gives us a symbol of a house not two people. He could have given us a symbol of two people, a man and a woman standing together and a child maybe [laughs] in the arms of the lady, in the arms of the mother. He could have given us a symbol like that but animals live like that so you need more than that. You need the intellect. You need to first recognize the intellect that separates you from the animal and then you need to know that that intellect was created to establish government. A government order to govern the community life. This is the meaning.
G-d says also to us, He says He is the one who gave us our identity while we were in the stomachs of our mothers. He's the one who gave us our identity while we were in the stomachs of our mothers. Then, G-d also says that He is the one who made most excellent your identity, one identity. Here G-d speaks of many identities, your identities. He's the one who gave you your identities, plural, while you were in the wombs of your- or in the stomachs of your mother. Then, He speaks of one identity that's for all of us. He says He is the one who gave you your- created you and made your- or gave you your identity and made your identity most excellent.
[Arabic language] This is one identity. One identity for all of us. The symbol, the house represents that identity. The one identity. He made it most excellent meaning that it's better than these other identities. I'm conscious of the time because I know it's late. I know it's gone. G-d wants us to be conscious of our separate identities. I'm a black man, good. He's a white man, good. He's a red man, good, a yellow man, good, but what's more important? I'm a human man. He's a human man. We are human men. We are human men. That's what's more important.
The identity that He made most excellent is the human identity, the identity for the intellect, for the rule of the intellect in the human life. That is the identity that he made most excellent. Civilization had to go against what? The man of intellect had to go in battle, had to go against the man who didn't respect intellect called the savage. The savage. Civilization, it had to fight the savages so that it would have a place on this earth. Savages perhaps would have kept civilization from coming to mankind but those who respect the rule of the intellect under G-d, they say, "Not only do we have a need to have this for ourselves but we have a duty to our Creator. It's G-d's will that the human intellect be established and respected, have life and a future on this earth." They fought so that the human intellect would have life and a future on this earth. You don't find any progress for civilization without great devotion to the development of the intellect. Am I right or wrong? Yes. Any great strive for civilization, it will show great concentration on the respect for the intellect and the development of the intellect's education. Education. Education is the forerunner of all kinds of progress. Am I right or wrong? Think about it. Education is the forerunner.
There were nations before who had great material might, they built great ships and they were strong men, physically strong, with weapons. They conquered lands, took over lands, dominated most of the known world but what did they do to advance education? What did they do to advance the intellect? Nothing. One group was called the Vandals. Because they disrespected what was left by others of knowledge, of civilization.
They just wanted to destroy it. They were so jealous of it, they just wanted to destroy it. Knock it down, destroy it. Yes, that's how they wanted, you see. Don't miss the light that G-d is giving to us. Don't miss the light. Think about it. Get the light and appreciate the light. He is the one who made our one single picture and He said, G-d said and He made it most excellent. Then, G-d says, "Oh people," Oh people, speaking to all the people on earth.
[Arabic language] "Oh you the people, all people, have respect for Allah, for G-d, your Lord who created you from a single person." From a single person. Now, this single person is again not male and not female. Because G-d says and from this single person, He made its mate. He made its mate. It was at that point when they became two, that sex came into the picture. Before they became two, there was no sex in the picture. Excuse me. Before they became two, there was no sex in the picture. There was just one and at no indication in the language, in the grammar that that was a man.
I know the Arabic. I am speaking as an authority and I don't know, there could be Arabs out here who master Arabic language. I don't care. In fact, I hope they are here because they will witness, they'll be my witnesses if they speak the truth. Yes. No sex came into the picture until there are two of them from one. When two of them are made from one, then sex comes into the picture. One is a male and the other one is a female. G-d said and He spread from them, those two, male and female, all the people you see on earth. All the people on earth came from those two.
Now, what is that one that is talking about? Talking about that surah that He made most excellent. The surah that He made more excellent. We all evolve from that one human type. It can be put very plain and simple that male and female were made from one human type and all people that descended from them are one in that one human type. I don't even have to read this, I just said it. [unintelligible 01:03:07] all are of one and the same created form. That's just another way of saying, "I'm through with that. I can keep going." Okay. Now, G-d says to us in Quran also, we're getting rid of it page by page.
I can't have patience with the speakers who just keep talking and I don't see any page he's looking at. As long as he's looking at a page, I know it has to end pretty soon. 
[laughter]
W.D Mohammed: I know it's going to end. Well, I used to talk with no papers and they didn't know when it was going to end.
[laughter]
W.D Mohammed: Sometimes it didn't end at all that night. The sun came up. That's no joke. 
G-d says also [Arabic language], "By the fig and the olives and Mount Sinai and this town made safe, we certainly created the human being in the most excellent mold or form." The human being. Talking about the same one. That single one. Using the same language.
G-d says [Arabic language] and be made more excellent. Your single identity. Here it says, "By the fig and the olives and Mount Sinai and this town may safe or secured, surely we made the human person--" The one person, the one identity, "In the most excellent mold or form." Established form. Then G-d says, "But thereafter of consequence."
Of consequence of what? Misguided? Errors? Wrongdoing? That most excellent one is reduced to the lowest of the low. Is reduced to the lowest of the low. Degenerates, to become the lowest of all living creatures. Now you know there is nothing living that can be lower than a human being that wants to just keep going down, down, down, down. [laughs] Nothing. A human being is the best living creature and also the worst of all living creatures. It is one that was made to be human being. What we'll save that excellent creation from that degeneration or from that degeneracy, what will save him? “Except those who keep faith and good deeds”. Faith and good deeds.
G-d says, "Never did a people decline, our suffer declined until they gave off praying to G-d". They gave up. They gave up stopped putting importance on praying to G-d. That's faith, isn't it? Saying the same thing, faith. You give up faith, you're subject to a fall. Your nation will fall. The whole nation would fall. Now America and the world is trying to get the people up again.
It's trying to get this world in order again. It doesn't want racism anymore. It wants racial harmony. I know because I'm meeting with the high up. This is what's on the agenda. They want racial harmony now for the world. They want inclusion for everybody now. Right. This is a new direction. The new emphasis for the future of this globe. They want economic justice, et cetera. They want respect for sacred things again. They want respect to come back to the G-d that made all these possible again. This is what they're asking for in the high agenda of the world.
G-d says, "Except for those who keep faith and have good deeds and good work," Keep good work. And in another place Allah says in the Quran, "He will surely succeed (and some student mission is tonight), who've spent on his own soul." He will certainly succeed who will spent on his own soul. Now this word spend means be charitable to your own self, for the good life and development of your own self, and it means to want to have a good moral life. To want to have a good moral life.
To want to have yourself purified. We usually think of the flesh as needing to be purified, but you could take baths 50 times a day and be the nastiest person on this earth, if you're nasty inside. Yes. This purification-- The best way to clean yourself up is to start from within. Clean yourself from within. You don't start to wash your body until something happens within. Something within say, "This is not comfortable. It's not pleasant." Then, what's inside orders you to do something outside, so you start washing the funk away. The interest goes inside before the action goes outside.
G-d wants us to care about our own soul and to purify our own souls, want to be clean internally. Get a desire inside of you for cleanliness, truth, righteousness, et cetera. That's spending on your own soul. If you don't spend on your own souls, then for sure the one that neglect to do that will be de-based, will be degenerated to the lowest of the lows. Where is salvation then? Where is my salvation? My salvation is in keeping faith under G-d, to have faith with G-d ruling, that's where my salvation is. My salvation is to know my real truest and most meaningful identity.
That is not myself as a black man or a white man or a yellow man but it's myself as a human man. To know my real identity and to keep that real identity and to know that that identity is excellent because you do something that other creatures don't do. You think, you imagine, you envision. You create and recreate. You alter and change your life and your environment. You have an intellect that makes that possible. That's where your excellence is.
If you keep it under G-d as G-d wants it to be or intended for it to be. Well, the prophet that liberates, the great liberator predicted to come in the end the world or in the end of time, that's the liberator who will give us the communication from G-d and the leadership that will make possible the greatest freedom for our intellect in obedience to Creator or to G-d. Again, G-d says in Quran, "G-d is the one, the most merciful G-d, the beneficence G-d or the benevolent benefactor." He is the one who taught the Quran [Arabic language]. Taught the Quran, taught the revelation, [Arabic language]. G-d taught the revelation.
So G-d is not only the revealer, He didn't only reveal things but he teaches what he reveals. How was Muhammad, an uneducated man able to rise to be the leader for the movement of revival of education on earth? How was he able to do that? Because he had a teacher and as there's a hadith that says there will rise up one, G-d will raise one up and he will be a teacher and G-d would be the one who would have taught him. G-d will be his teacher. This is not pointing to me know. I'm pointing to Muhammad the Prophet? He taught the Quran and created the human being. Now it sounds backwards, doesn't it?
We know creation first and then education or learning or teachings, but here the Quran reverses the two. Puts the teaching first and then creation. In the beginning, G-d educated the man from his creation. He created him first but in the end G-d educates [laughs] the human life and brings about a creation, another creation by the application of applying education, creates him again. Create him and educate him. That's the beginning order of the world, the progression of the world but he loses it all. Now G-d has to bring him over again into the enlightenment.
G-d educates him so He can recreate him. He brings his creation back in his excellence that he created the first time by education this time, by revelation and education. G-d reveals and teaches him and He creates him. These are not my words. You speak Arabic? [Arabic language] [laughs]. He taught him the Quran and and created the human person. Didn't it happen on the dark continent- the dark peninsula, excuse me, of Arabia, of the Arab? Weren't they without the form that G-d wanted for them? They were jahaliyya, savages ignorant, without the intellect ruling in them?
G-d gave them the Quran by way of revelation and then taught them the Quran and created them over again. Yes. He did it for Muhammad, he did it for the people of that time. Now the Quran came into the ghetto of Detroit, Michigan. The Quran came into the ghetto of Chicago, Illinois. The son of Elijah Muhammad devoted himself to it and he has been created all over again. You all are being created all over again. Yes, we have come into a new life, we have come into a new disposition of mind, soul, spirit and everything. We're just come into a new disposition. We are a new people. We've been made new by the revelation the Quran.
These students, they're a new breed. These Muslim students? Graduates of (unclear) High, they are a new breed of students. A new breed of African American students with new life in the intellect, new possibilities for the intellect, new aspirations, bigger appetite in their intellect. It was (unclear) [laughs]. That's because the revelation has come and it has touched them and it's recreating them, creating them all over again.
The man that He created is not 180 pounds man, [laughs] so fat or so thin or so black or so white. The man that G-d created is the intellect, obedient to G-d, to Creator. An intellect who has a natural urge in it because it belongs to G-d as a product. As G-d's product, it has a natural urge in it to live out the destiny for it's human intellect. Now, I want to conclude this. Can I? All right? Let's see, can I? May have to go one more page, I hope not. Yes, I do. One more page. G-d says also, "Read in the name of your Lord who created the human being from a clot," Small clot, a little like germ. G-d says again, for the second time, "Read and your Lord is most generous."
The one who taught man how to use the pen." Taught him how to write, that's what it means. The one who taught man how to write. You might say, "G-d, didn't teach me how to write." You might be a doubting Thomas. "G-d didn't teach me how to write. Men learn how to write on his own. He had to experience that." You cannot write without something to bring to your mind a concept. The first writing was picture writing. They were only using the pictures they got. Who start the writing? Who gave the ABC? Who gave the ABC to the one who was writing, to the one who drew a picture of the sun on the horizon just coming up and that meant daybreak? Who gave him that picture?
The G-d who created it. Right now, we think we write but we don't, but still G-d is writing. We can't have any language except from G-d's work. All our language has come from G-d's work. Now, because we take the salt and put it with the pepper and have salt and pepper taste and the salt was found naturally with the salt and the pepper was found naturally in the field or the garden with the pepper. "No, G-d didn't make this salt and pepper," or, "G-d didn't make this salt and pepper taste, I made that." G-d still made it. You didn't do nothing but take the salt and put it with the pepper.
I'm sure somewhere on this earth, the wind blew strong and blew some pepper on the salt and somebody had salt and pepper before you did.
[laughter]
W.D Mohammed: They just didn't record it maybe [laughs]. 
It says ,"Read in the name of your Lord who created. Created man from a small life germ." It goes on to tell us about the life. In other words that G-d who created you and make you a social order. Makes you a social order. "Read again and your Lord is most generous." The one who made you an academic order. An academic order. From the academic order, comes all the progress. All the progress come from the academic order.
That's the two stages, the two progressions for human life. Social excellence, family excellence, social excellence, the excellence of man in society. Then, there's intellect going for him. Then you have the excellence of education and all that advantages that comes because of enlightenment, intellectual freedom and productivity. Now, we are at the conclusion. We can conclude now. Lastly what I want to bring your mind is this, that we got to stop thinking of good and bad- good as the condition for all things to happen, got to be good. We want to be good but Adam wanted to be good too. First man that G-d made. He made him to be good and he wanted to be good.
But a subtle creature came up that had the knowledge of his psychology. He had knowledge of Adam's psychology and he suggested something to Adam's mind, that appealed to Adam's mind so strongly that Adam forgot about good and bad. He bought the thing that Satan were selling him. He was good. He was made good. We know he was made good. The great learned man in the religion science. They say that Adam was created a bright, pure and perfect being. His purity was enough to protect him against the subtlety of the serpent or the snake or the beasts or the devil or the Satan, Shaytan.
That tells us that man cannot be protected by goodness alone. The best protection for man is his enlightened and correctly informed mind. Rational mind or intellect. That's the best protection for him. Prophet Muhammad, in my conclusion, peace and blessings be on him, the prayers and the peace be upon him, he didn't say the saints, the ones who have no sin will be in rank next and stationed next to the prophet when the world is finished. He said, "The scholars will be in stationed next to the prophet when the world is concluded." That's what the prophet said. The scholars.
Now you know the scholars can't be immoral. One affects the other. If you let yourself become immoral, it will hinder your intellectual progress. If you let yourself become irrational, it will hinder your moral, progress. Thank you very much. Peace and may G-d guide us always and forgive us. As-salaam alaikum.
[applause]
[01:23:20] [END OF AUDIO]

