05/18/2002
IWDM Study Library
Breakfast Banquet Masjid Khalifa 
Brooklyn NY

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Alhumdullilahi Rabil Alameen.
Dear Brothers, Sisters, leaders in the Community. Peace be unto you, As Salamu Alaykum. We thank Allah for this day in Brooklyn, in this presence that we have here, this audience, this gathering, and the lovely, tasty breakfast that I just enjoyed.
And also for your leader and our Imam leader in this area, Imam Hadid Rasheed. When man was created, according to, from the Bible and Quran, in the Quran it's put a little differently. According to the Bible, G-d saw him alone, alone by himself, and it was not good, G-d said, that the man be alone.
And I've heard others say, and I've come to see it. If you find a leader struggling alone, there's something missing in him. He doesn't have a wife that's helping him or suitable. He doesn't have a relationship with the natural world that's suitable. Something is missing that's really important. And I don't think nothing is more important for man than the correct relationship with a woman and the correct relationship with this material world G-d made. And we have it in your Imam Hadid. We have that. And that's why he's not working alone.
Yeah. If the man is whole, the man wasn't half when he didn't have that woman. The woman is really a pointer, a sign pointing to even a bigger relationship that G-d wants the man to have. And that's the relationship with the natural world, with the material environment. And when G-d says the woman is your tilth, meaning your ground that you're going to plant your harvest. What you expect to harvest, you're going to plant it in that ground, and you expect to harvest it where we also put our vital life.
In our wife, in our woman, our wife. And we expect the good harvest. We trust G-d that we will have a good harvest of our life repeated or another generation through her. But also as I said she is a sign, pointing us to another relationship that we need to establish if we expect to have our Community life repeated and survive. We have to form that relationship with the natural environment, the material world that G-d Created. So G-d is really subtly, simply, quietly suggesting to man, very strongly, though speaking very subtly and quietly, that he engage not only a beautiful woman, but engage the material environment. And we are on our subject. This is our subject for this morning.
But before going further with our subject for this morning, let me say that I have been here before and I return and I see even more progress than I saw before. You are moving. And this makes me feel so good. And I know I'm just like many Brothers and Sisters in this Community.
We are not happy when we don't see progress. We're not happy when we don't see people working and people accomplishing things. So when we do find an area, a mosque, a center where that's happening, you'd be surprised how much energy, how much spirit, and how much pleasure it gives us to go back home and even be more alive and more active and more powerful to get accomplished more things even in our, in our local places.
So this is a must that we have examples of life and not examples of laziness and idleness and stagnation and death. Thank you very much, you sponsors. And thank you very much, Allah, for this leader, Hadid Rasheed and his supporters. (Allahu Akbar). (Clapping).
Praise be to Allah. Praise be to Allah, we are very pleased. Yes. And when he told me, I said, "Wow, I doubt if I can get that done." He told me that they got a fire alarm system put in here and it didn't take no time to do it. And it costs $36,000. Big congratulations to you all. Big congratulations.
That shows that you have something special. You have to have something special to do that. And believe me, I've been believing in that that is bigger than I am. And that that is secured when I'm not secured. And that that is permanent and I'm not permanent. I've been believing in that ever since my mother and father introduced me to it, all right. I've been the man believing in G-d, believing in G-d. And I have believed that if you try to please G-d, you are going to have the best life and best situation possible for yourself.
That's what I believe. So my father used to tell people when they'd give big contribution, say "Brother, thank you". He say, "Thank you, Brother. Allah's going to give you that and more". So what you give, it may not be returned like you, sometime you do business and you say you receive compensation in kind. Whatever you gave, you get the same thing back, you know. I give you dollars. I got dollars back. That's in kind. I give you chickens. I got chickens back or I got some agricultural product back, which was in kind, it was in the same category. Allah may not give you compensation in kind, but you are going to get the compensation that's best for you. Allah knows better than you what compensation will make your life better.
So I'm not saying you're going to get...you all are going to get your share of that $36,000 in kind, but you are going to get rewarded equal to what you gave and more. Allah's going to do that. Praise be to Allah. Yes.
Now getting back to our topic, economics. You know, the Community of African American people have not yet shown that it's conscious of this responsibility for it's Community life. Our neighborhoods are still depending on other than us, the residents, for business life, and for even the maintaining of property in good shape. We are like migrants, almost. We come to a area, we live there. Pretty soon the area dies, not attractive anymore. Or another area we've become aware of have a little more to offer us. If we have enough money to go there, we leave our area. We abandon our area where we have established friendships with neighbors.
We have established our spiritual life there on that block, next to our neighbors in that environment, in the stores that we frequent. And then we pull up stakes and just move like desert travelers. Tent people moving from one tent to another. Every time we hear the oasis is a little bit brighter a distance away. That's what keeps us poor. That's what keeps us poor.
If we want to be comfortable materially as a people, we have to realize that what Islam offers us is the solution to this problem, because Islam requires that all Muslims not live separately, but live together. We are not Muslims if we don't live together. What do I mean by live together? I mean plan life together. Plan life separately, but we must also plan life together. If we are to answer the call for Islam. It's the call to Community life.
G-d says, "You are a Community. You are the best of the communities evolved for the good of all people". That's what G-d says of us."Anthumm khayra ummatin, Okhrijat lilnnass." Plain as day. I translated for you exactly, plain and simple. It says, G-d said, "You are the best Community, evolved for all people." "Okhrijat lilnnass; Evolved for all people". Now Okhrijat literally means, "brought out". It comes from the Arabic word, "Kharaja, Kharaja". 'Ikhra means "to go out". Ikhrajat means that, what that is speaking of was brought out, was brought out.
Now isn't this in line with the Scriptures that came before? Nothing in the Quran is without a connection with the Scriptures that were revealed before. Something in the Scriptures before has a relationship to what you have in the Quran. I don't care what it is. And so when we hear this word that is translated "evolved", and it does mean evolved, because a plant exits from the ground, doesn't it?
A seed is buried in the ground. You bury it, you put it in the ground and light makes it exit from the ground. And it comes into the open space and it's visible. And it's part then... it then becomes part of the visible world or the visible environment.
Well, look, what G-d says, He said that He has created you like a plant. I'm thinking on money. This subject is called money, okay? Money. That's what this subject is called. You can call it what you like, but that's what I got in mind. Money. But money to support life. The life that Allah wants for us.
The life is more important than the money. The life is the thing. The money is the means to have the thing like we want it. The money is only the steps toward what we want. We need that money just to step for us over to what we want, you see.
So we don't want to put too much importance on the money as something that our life needs. Our life needs life and the life needs support for it. And that support is the earth. The material world that G-d gave us. And the money is nothing but a symbol or token of some part of this material world that we have managed to be responsible for to own, to possess, to have in our charge.
That's all the money is, only a token, a symbol, all right. In itself, that's all it is. So when you take $500 and buy you a nice overcoat, don't be like the stupid people and think of that overcoat as $500. Keep the looks of that overcoat as it looked when you took it off the rack in your mind and say, "That's what I bought. I bought that overcoat. And that overcoat was worth $500." But you say, "I paid $500 for that coat." After a while, $500 becomes the prominent thing. The imprint on your mind, more than the coat itself, $500.
So if we...if we go after money, I don't care how much it is. G-d knows, I could realize in my charge, and have my hand, it's my responsibility, $1 billion today. And the first thing I'll start thinking about right away, my mind will go off of the billion dollars. I'll start thinking about what that billion dollars can get us. Not the billion dollars. People that are fascinated by money, by just the token, the paper we call money, a dollar, they will hold onto it. They got a billion dollars and it's been 10 years and you still got a billion dollars and a little interest.
And so many things coming at you, because the world knows too, you got to a billion dollars. That billion dollars is threatened from so many sides that we could hear a couple years later that you broke. Somebody have tricked you out of or found a way to get your billion dollars. Because you just wanted to just keep the billion dollars. But if you right away say, "I got a billion dollars and I can get a billion dollars worth of goods, services, land, facilities to strengthen myself, my family, and my Community."
That's the way we have to think. That's the way we have to think. And I thank Allah that we have in this Community, persons like that. A Sister recently, I'm sharing this with you, a Sister recently, sent us or called, pardon me, contacted us. Our office, the CPC office to tell us through the ministry, she contacted us, to tell us that she just sold a house that was left to her by her husband. She's a widow and she said she had $300,000 and she wanted to invest with CPC. When we finally got together and was able to talk to her, I learned that she wanted to make... Now you listen to this, she's a senior Sister... senior citizen, she wanted 100,000 to go to the beneficiary, her husband, her present husband. She's married. That cut some of you pretty boys off, didn't it? Yeah, she's already married.
And she wanted another a 100,000 dollars to go to one of her close relatives, a female. And she said, "I want a 100,00 dollars to stay with CPC". See that Sister got her Community at heart. She's looking to the future. Now she ain't only investing, but she's investing for CPC to continue to live in the future, after we are gone. She's not the only one, but she's the biggest investor.
But we have others like that who have told us that they want this money, part of it... their money, their investment, part of it to stay with CPC should they die, and so much to go to their other persons they name.
This is the spirit that I have in me. I make money. I'm taken care of by you all. I know for sure that I won't be put out of doors. I'll have a car. I have the things that I have to have. But I have a lot of friends, a lot of relatives, lot of friends and a lot of people that I took care, like I did a pigeon once.
Little baby pigeon. I saw this baby pigeon, no mother came and got it. I took that baby pigeon in and took care of it. And one day it would go away and fly and come back and light on my shoulder. I was a boy about 14, 13 or 14 and one day my pigeon... Yes, I wasn't 14. I know, I remember now the address where we lived, I wasn't 14. Because we had moved from that address while I was 13. One day I saw the pigeon, the pigeon came.
You know, creatures are intelligent just like we are? That pigeon came to show me, didn't want to leave me forever and not tell me what was happening. That pigeon came with another pigeon and the pigeon was still young, like a squab, but big enough to be grown in a pigeon world. So that pigeon came and the other big pigeon and soon as that pigeon noticed that I saw it. It didn't light on my shoulder. It turned right around. G-d is my witness. They turned around and flew away.
It came to tell me that, "I found my mate". I found a mate and I won't be seeing it anymore. Now I was lonesome and hurt. When that pigeon was taken away, that pigeon was flying away, I was hurt and happy. More happy than hurt that that pigeon had found a mate and was going on to its world to have its life.
Well, we can learn a lot from these animals. These lower creatures in the scale of life and evolution. We can learn a lot from them. That's why you find them in Scripture. Animals, pigeons, doves, their in Scripture.
Yes. Okay. Back to money. Look how this happened. I saw a piece of land. See if you want to goal, you want to concentrate some of your investments. You don't want things scattered out too far. If I have to leave CPC and drive downtown or to the north side to another business that we acquired, look at how much time it takes me to go to the north side of downtown and return back to where I live or where we have another business. Look at the gas, the wear and tear on the vehicle, and the time. See, when you start moving up into business, you start investing in the more and more, time.
Every time you increase your finances and your financial responsibilities, your time becomes more valuable. I don't care if you increase it just a little bit. A little bit, your time increased in value. So after a while, somebody will call me up and say, "Hey, Imam, can you go to lunch with me?" or "Can you go out to dinner with us this evening?"
When I wasn't...didn't have much responsibility, "Oh yes". I wouldn't even ask them how much time it's going to take. But as you move up in responsibility for investments, for finances, et cetera, "Where? Where we going?" I want to know how much time it's going to take us to get there. I'm trying to see how much time it's going take out my day.
I said, "Where are we going?"
"Oh, we going right around the corner, about five minutes from you."
"Good," I said, "Now how long it's going to take us? How long we going to be there? You want to have a meeting or just eating?"
"Oh no, we want to talk."
"How much time you need?"
"About an hour."
"Depends on what it is. If it ain't going to give me money for my money; my time is money now. My time ain't time. My time is money."
Somebody asked me to come somewhere and they say, they told me they got a $500 honorarium. I say, "I will pay you $500 to never invite me again." (Laughing).
What is $500? $500 is nothing right now. That's like telling me, "I got 5 cents, five pennies." That's nothing. In fact, it cost him five... If I would make him pay, my charge would've been to him $500 for the five minutes I was talking to him. I'm telling you the truth. I'm not exaggerating anything.
Time is very precious and very valuable. The more you involve yourself in business or in important matters. Those important matters make your time very, very valuable. Very, very valuable. Imam's time is very, very valuable. You want your leader to be more productive? You want him to get more things done? Do not tie him up with petty things, with small matters.
Take care of those small matters with other people and let him handle the big things. And he will do more for you and this Community and for himself and his family. Don't forget, we have to respect private interest and that's something we need to be educated in too. We ask people to come and work for us and we think they're supposed to work for nothing. We think they're supposed to give us their time for nothing.
You got a life. Somebody has to take... You got something supporting your life and you care about your private life. So does everyone else. We care about our private life and we have to respect the private life of one another. So don't ask a man who has intelligence, education, resources, he has proven that he can produce. Don't ask him to give time and you don't compensate him for his time. If he refuses as charity, then G-d receives that. And G-d loves him for that and will reward him even more.
But don't you ask me to give you my time. You won't employ me for nothing. And you are saying in your heart, "Oh G-d will give him, G-d is going to bless him". I don't want you telling me G-d is going to bless me. I'll tell myself that. I'll pray and I'll tell myself, "G-d, I hope You'll bless me".
I don't want you telling me that unless you've already blessed me. If you've already blessed me, then tell me G-d going to bless me too. I like that. But you bless me first for what I'm giving you (Laughing). Yeah, we have to become people of business sense. I don't know if you know this, but practically every other racial or ethnic group on this planet sees us as a whole race that has no business sense.
I'm telling you, this is what they talk with each other. They laugh at us in privacy, when we are not around, they laugh at us. "Oh they should sing, they can dance, they laugh, but they have no business sense". And they can't believe that CPC has business sense. They can't believe that this Community under my leadership has business sense.
I talk to them, especially those Asians...Asians. Except for very few. Koreans, I know you all don't... some of you don't like Koreans, but I find them having much more respect for our business sense, for our intelligence as a people than many of the Far East people in Asia.
This, I hate to talk about my Brothers, but this includes also the Arabs who are in the Middle East. They have no respect for us. They don't think we have business sense. You know, like some of the die hard racists, no matter how much you achieve, they want to charge it to something other than your intelligence. You didn't get this because you were qualified as an intelligent person or you didn't get this because you have business sense. You got this because you were lucky or you were in drugs. They...right away they say, "Oh, he's in drugs. He's selling drugs. This is just a front."
They can't believe that you can do what they can do with your intelligence. So this is not true. We know it's not true of us. That's not true of us, but it is true of us that we don't have enough of us working to see that we have the Community life that we want in our souls. If we walk out of our homes and look at what's out there in the environment, the physical environment, we don't see the creation of other people right in front of our eyes as soon as we step out of our door.
We're supposed to see the creation of our own people. Like when other races, Irish, Italian, Polish, when they step out of that door, they know what they're looking at. They're responsible for it. They know that. They did it. They're responsible for it. They're, they're holding up what they're looking at. They're preserving what they're looking at.
So when we walk out of our door, whether it's apartment, a room or a house, most likely we are looking at something other people did and something other people are preserving. Now that has to stop. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad and many of our African American leaders, females and males; males and females, like Booker T. Washington and others. They were struggling to get rid of that ugly picture of us as people who can't create anything and can't secure anything but our own self and our little small world, maybe.
And most of us can't do that. We depend on the government, on welfare, on charity, from the Masjid, charity provided. We depend on help from outside just to do that. And nobody should be depending on that kind of help, unless they're crippled, deformed, retarded, some... hospitalized. It must be a real reason for you not to take care of yourself.
The Scripture, both Quran and Bible, points to a time that's coming. And this is my concluding statement I'm about to put together here. Points to a time, point's to a time that's coming, where the individual will have to accept responsibility for his or herself and where a time when communities... One race will not be able to go to another race to survive or to have what it wants. One nation will not have... will not be able to go to another nation.
All nations will have to stand on their own feet. All groups, racial groups have to stand on their own feet. All individuals will have to stand on their own feet. That's what Scripture is pointing to. A time that's coming that all units big and small will have to stand on their own feet. What did that tell us? "Qad khalaq"...Pardon me,
"Qad khalaqnaa insaana fee ahsane taqweene." G-d says, "Surely we have created the human being in the most excellent model, or mold." And G-d says also, "Qad karumna qulee bani adam". "Certainly we have made honorable with dignity, every descendant of Adam".
Now, so what is the Bible, what's the Bible prophesied? Where is the Bible coming from to prophesize like that? That every unit, big, multiple and singular will have to one day support itself. Its standing upon that determinant that G-d put in your life when He created it. A determinant that says, "You are not what you should be". Being idle, not producing, not taking care of yourself. You're not supposed to have everybody taking care of you. You're supposed to do what they doing. If they can take care of themselves, you can take care of yourself. That's that dignity that G-d Created us with, speaking. That's that honor that G-d Created us with, speaking.
It's demanding that we stand up and be the respectful and respectable creature that G-d Created us to be. Respectful of others, but respectful also of our own self. You have these muscles use them. You have this sense, use it. You have this love. Use it. G-d didn't create any of us without love. Use that love, make that love pay off for you and your close ones.
As G-d calls them in the Quran, He doesn't even call them relatives. He call them "close ones". The word is from "Qareeb", meaning near or close. And He uses that language for your relatives. So relatives is the word in Arabic, in Quranic Arabic, relative... and in the world of Arabic language. It's a word that means close to you. Your wife is close to you, your children from her and you, close to you.
So these are the first ones and Allah says in the Book of G-d, "Close members have a priority". A priority. That mean before you go out to take care of Imam W. Deen Mohammed's household, be sure you taking care of your own. Don't have your children crying and you trying to take care of Imam W. Deen Mohammed. That's a sin before G-d. Now I know a lot of Imams ain't comfortable with this because you already ain't giving them nothing.
They say, "Aw, they're going to give us less now". But this is more important for me to tell you this, even though I'm hurting [...] interest that has priority too with me, and that is our Imam being taken care of like they should. Being supported and given fair compensation for their time they give us. Okay, but I have to say this for the Imams.
I have to say that these Believers are not supposed to have their own house, getting five day notice they're going to be put out. Their phone threatened, they're going cut the phone off unless they have abused the phone. But if they're using it sensibly, they're not running the bills up like they don't have any awareness of how much money they got and they don't have enough to pay that bill, but they're not being stupid. They got a bill that's reasonable and can't pay it, they're supposed to pay that bill before they give us money. Keep your phone on, stay in your own house, be sure you got a place to stay. Don't be hungry. Don't have your children hungry. Don't feed them a cheap diet that would deprive them of nutrients and help for their development, brain, bone, teeth, and everything.
Take care of yourself and your family. That's your first obligation under G-d, your first obligation under G-d. Then your next obligation is to take care of your Community and the way you do that, support your Community leaders.
So then you turn from your home directly to your Mosque. Your Mosque has the first right outside of your home. Your Mosque, your Center, that's supposed to be working for your Community life. And it is here in this town, in Brooklyn. Praise be to Allah. So much for that.
Getting back to the closing thoughts. We must prepare to be responsible for ourselves to the maximum degree. To the maximum degree. Doesn't mean that we are independent. No one is independent, not even the whole world is independent. The world depends on G-d for its existence and for its preservation. And we depend on G-d for our existence and for our preservation.
And we have to depend upon each other to an extent. We have to depend upon government, to an extent. We have to depend upon many things and many factors to an extent. But we should be, if we want to be prepared for the future that G-d wants for us and that G-d is going to force upon us, we ain't going to be able to escape it.
We have to maximize the amount of responsibility that we take into our own hands for our own road there. Future, present and future, present and future. This is predicted. And I see now that we are living in that time. President Bush is not thinking about taking care of Black people. And no President following him, Republican, not Democrat or other, even if they come in with another party, they will not be thinking about taking care of Black people anymore.
The clock has run out on that. Not only run out on taking care of Black people, but they're not going to take care of any people. We're living in a One World Order. This One World Order says many things, but here is what it says most importantly, to this point that I'm making in my concluding thoughts for you to keep with you. They're saying that everybody in this One World now has rights and claims.
And we, though we are very rich and powerful, we cannot treat our citizens in a way or benefit our citizens in a way that does not respect what other citizens need in all parts of the world. This is the One World Order that we're in right now. This is what's here.
Now, the reason why we don't have more going out from us and we have a lot going out. America, you'd be surprised how much America gives to help others, other countries. Some of you know, but most of us don't. A lot of our tax money goes to help other nations with their public. To help them manage their publics, to serve their public. Much of our money.
As you know, Israel gets a lot because of partnership, a secret partnership. You hear what I said, a secret partnership that Israel has with the United States. It didn't happen today. It happened when the United States was conceived. When the United States was conceived by the founding fathers, a secret partnership...
Of my life...
He can stay right in my house. He can sleep and breathe on me, and be so close to me he breathing on my neck. In fact, he does that sometimes and I can live with it. He won't get into my life, thank Allah (laughing).
It would be just like he's not even there. He won't get into my life. I'm prepared to live with the devil anywhere. Anywhere. In Brooklyn, Chicago, wherever. I'm prepared to live with the devil. In fact, I'm prepared to have him, as I said, in my bed with me breathing on my neck, because he can't get into my life, thank Allah. He can get into my house though, and don't think he can't get into yours. I think he's been in most of your houses.
I hugged a couple of you and I smelled his breathe on your neck. And I know it because I smelled it on my pillow (laughing). Ain't nothing wrong with a little humor, it's good, good for the blood (laughing). Good for the blood, a little humor, you know. Yes.
Yes, so we have to accept that time in the future promises us less and less from government and from other people. Says, "There's coming a time", this is Quran, "when every soul will have enough problems of its own, not to be bothered with others". And that time is here now for everybody. They've got enough problems of their own to be bothered with your problems.
In Christianity, this is told in the symbol of the Cross. Jesus took upon himself a Cross, didn't he? And that Cross was his Cross, but he asked of his followers that each of them take upon themselves their Cross. Bare a Cross. It is the tradition of Christians to wear Crosses because this is what he left with them.
Now, what is that? What does that say, that every individual must bear his own Cross. G-d holds Muhammad the Prophet's responsibility for the office that he gave him. He held him responsible for that. So he, as an individual, had an individual responsibility to G-d for the office that G-d entrusted him with.
So in Christianity, that is his Cross. That's Muhammad's Cross. For the individual responsibility that G-d gave him is his Cross. For us, the responsibility that G-d Created us for as individuals is our Cross. Listen, please. This is very important.
When you look at a Cross, what do you see? You see that it's really a picture of two things because these two things must become reconciled in man at some point, if he's to have the great life that G-d Created him for. It's symbolic of you firstly, see? It's a Cross. It's exactly what it is. So when they put Jesus on the Cross, really, this...he himself is the Cross. Jesus is the Cross. He is the Cross.
This means himself, in balance, the tightrope walker. He has to stretch his arms like this to stay balanced on that tightrope. So that the most you have going for you to balance yourself is this. This. This is good, but I can balance myself even better. I can have a more acute balance. A more... well, for want of another word I'll just stop it right there. I can have a more exact balance.
I can be more perfectly balanced. That's it. By stretching my arms out to the full extent like this, to the full extent like this. So we know the Cross has more than one meaning. The Cross has several meanings and this is one of its most important meanings is that it means the perfect...
And this is its first, I should say it's first and most important meaning. That this individual is in perfect balance. And of Jesus Christ, it is said in the Quran that, "They neither killed him nor crucified him". They didn't do either, but it was made to appear to them as such. So this here appears to be, when the man is here, looking pitiful and brutalized, blood dripping from the thorns on his head and holes in his hands and feet, showing blood. This is a sign of cruelty. Sign of cruelty, misery. It's it makes us feel sad.
But the Quran wants us to see that this is an appearance to hide another appearance. This is a picture to hide another picture. Now under this picture of sadness, of torture, of cruelty, is another meaning. It means that Jesus lived all of his life in perfect balance before G-d. That's what it means. That his life was perfectly balanced before his Lord and he died a Muslim. Died in the perfect balance from the Muslim nature of life. That's what it means.
So this is the real Cross. The other Cross hides this Cross. It masked this Cross. The Cross that says Jesus died in the perfect balance, said they going to kill him. They're going to crucify him.
He said, "This is the purpose of which He sent me into the world. You going to crucify me? You going to kill me? Well this is the purpose for which He sent me into the world. To give my all, including my life, if I have to. To make the ultimate sacrifice, if I have to. And if I make it and remain faithful to my Lord, never betraying Him. Never slacking, never short changing Him, then G-d will record me that I died in the perfect balance. Huh? So you didn't kill me. I came here to do this. I came here to do, this is my purpose. You didn't kill me. I gave you my life. You didn't take it. I gave you my life, you didn't take it. G-d sent me in the world to give it for His cause. And I gave it, how can you take what I give to G-d? Are you listening to me? How could you take what I came to give to my G-d? Obedience, even if it means losing my life".
So such a Shaheed...such a Shaheed is never killed, never crucified. He's obedient to his G-d. And he will give his all rather than disobey his Lord. Now, it means that the time is coming when every purse shall sit on its own bottom. This is the Bible. Every man shall sit in his own vine and fig tree. This is the Bible.
The Quran says, "Each one shall come up, bare and alone before his G-d". You ain't going to be able to[...] to this one. Say, "Well, G-d, Brother Rahman can speak for me. Now, I wasn't so bad. I had a problem and he knows about it. He could tell you about it better than I can G-d."
No, no. Nobody to look at, nobody to talk to. You are there by yourself before your G-d. In this world now the time has come that you can't point to Brother so and so, Sister so and so, or some problem you have in your leg. Well there are people ain't got no legs that's productive. People got no arms, no legs and productive.
I read about a man, wrote a book with his big toe. That's all he had left was a big toe. Arms off, but he had a big toe and he called the book, "My Big Toe". Because he used the big toe, he put a pencil between the big toe and wrote a book and made money. And they're some that have no book or nothing, but they have a mind.
They're using their mind to continue to be productive. So whatever you got left, use it to continue to be productive. Because when you come up before G-d and Judgment, you aren’t going to be able to have any excuses unless you use all that you have to live a productive life and produce not only for yourself but for others.
So we're living in a time when we have to be responsible for ourselves. We have to maximize, I repeat, the amount of responsibility that we will have for our own self and with respect also for our demand on us to help our Community. You must help your Community.
There are people cripple, but they love, they have such pride. They take such pride in being able to do something. They will get in the marathon and join the marathon, cripple. Walking on crutches, right? Just to show people, "My spirit is like yours, though my capacity and ability is not, but my spirit is just like yours". They're in that race. Some are in wheelchairs, you see them, in wheelchairs in that race. Isn't that a sign that in our Community, we can't excuse somebody just because they got one eye out or one leg off?
No. This is as important as the marathon. Be the high spirited, strong spirited people that we see in the marathon. You are handicapped. Still be productive, be productive.
You don't have any schooling? Be productive. Do you know the Honorable Elijah Muhammad for 30 years was supported by people who had no schooling? Those were ones he attracted in the thirties and forties and fifties. Those who had no schooling. They didn't have any schooling, but they had faith in what he was doing. And they worked selling junk, selling rags, cardboard, metal, old scrap metal. They worked washing walls, windows, doing domestic work, taking care of white folks' children, et cetera.
Women and men, they all worked doing something and they were the ones that supported my father, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad for 30 years before times changed and we started getting help from people of a little higher, higher level in education or in school, et cetera, or in society. In fact, it wasn't until the sixties that we started to realize a change in the picture of his following.
His following was almost 100% uneducated and poor until the sixties, then a little change came. Then professionals, some better educated people started to join. Up to that point, I believe he could count them on one hand, those who had more than a high school education. We could count them on one hand, we could count those who had a high school education probably without going past 100 for the whole following in the whole Nation of Islam. You hear that?
So don't tell us that you don't have this and you don't have that. What you are missing is decency. Get some decency in your heart and you will have the power to make a contribution to yourself, to your family and to your Community. We're not accepting that stuff that you are handicapped, "I'm poor" or "I have too much responsibility". Take care of it. Hurry up and take care of that "too much responsibility" that you got, and don't take a month to do it. Because after 30 days, we want to see you making a contribution to this Community.
Get that house in order quick. I might have a secret thing going too. Before you know anything, somebody's going to be breaking down your door and whipping your ass. I mean, putting an old fashioned mama in the south, whipping on your ass.
And when I say "ass", I have nothing but a dumb donkey, a stubborn mule in my mind. I don't have anything like what you thought I had in my mind. Now if you had nothing but a buttocks, we have no reason to whip you. That's all you got? You nothing but a buttock? We don't want to whip no buttock, we want to whip a dumb ass.
This calling we got is too important for us not to jack each other up for not being in the mind we should be in. Yeah. We have to start jacking each other up, Brothers for not being in the mind we should be in. Is this sunnah? Yes, it's sunnah. We are responsible for each other.
The Brother... the Believer is the mirror of his Brother, huh? The mirror of his Brother. That means you're responsible to reflect to your Brother, what he should be looking at that should be himself. The mirror shows you what you're looking at it, myself. The mirror shows myself to me. Well, Muhammad is saying, "You're supposed to show the Brother himself". Now if he's not seeing himself and he's all out of shape. He's in the wrong state of mind. His spirit is bad. You're his mirror, why don't you show him himself?
Is that making sense to you? Makes perfect sense to me. But look, we have practical examples too, from the history of our Prophet, peace be upon him. Someone once reported to Muhammad the Prophet, that the Believers were together as someone's home and one of them got drunk, was drinking, he got drunk. He said, "All of you," he didn't excuse not a single one of them, he said, "all of you, each of you should have punished him."
So that means we're responsible for each other. Now you know we can't take the law in our hands. Muhammad had realized an independent society in government, in Medina at that time, they were not under another law. So we can't take the law to our own hands. And the help for this situation is all also provided for.
I'm going over time, excuse me.
The help for this situation is also provided for us. Because Muhammad said we are obligated to correct the wrong when we see it. It says, "With your hands, if you find the circumstances for it, and if you can't find the circumstances to correct it with your hand"... with your hand mean take physical charge of it as well as mental charge, that's with your hand.
Said, "But if you can't find circumstances for that, then take charge of it with your tongue, speak out against it". And sometimes the circumstances won't even allow us to speak out against it. We get shot, we get killed, we get locked up, taken from our family just for speaking sometimes out against a wrong, under a dictator or a tyrant. A tyrant, a terrible ruler or terrible regime. So sometimes we can't even speak out here.
He said, "At least have it in your heart to be against it. And that's the weakest of faith," he said. Isn't that right? This is the Hadith. This is the saying of our Prophet, prayers and peace be upon him, Muhammad.
Now, is there any time when you can't be the mirror for your Brother? No. A mirror doesn't speak, a mirror is silent. You don't have to speak to your Brother, but you can correct him with your hands if you have to. If you can't, with your tongue, speak again. If you can't find that, then in your heart, show him with the expression on your face that you don't like the state he's in or the condition he's in.
My mother didn't have to do nothing, but just look at us. She didn't have to speak. She'd look at us and we knew to hurry up and get ourselves in shape (laughing) before something comes stronger than that look. Yeah. So we can just look at each other and let each other know with our expressions, but you know what we do? The worst Brother in the Masjid, we go and kiss him, "As Salaamu Alaykum, Brother." [...]
You are reinforcing him in his un-halal condition. That's what you doing. And you are going to have to pay along with him for contributing to his sins. Yes, yes. And it may not come when you're dead in that body. We might send that whip after you. We got many ways to whip. I'm just like my father. My language always practically need interpretation. We got many ways to whip. Believe me. We can whip now.
G-d has blessed us with that. He blessed us ways to whip people and we don't have to come to your house. Don't have to send any guard or security Brother to see you. Mm-mm. We can reach you. G-d knows. He's given us the means to reach you. Make your life a pure hell. He'll throw you in jail, too. Throw you in jail. I'm trying to lock you up with no physical means. I'm scaring you, scaring you a little bit. Good, good. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to scare you a little bit. I'm trying to scare you a lot (laughing).
Trying to scare you a lot and in the name of my G-d, what I tell you I can do, I can do. Okay. All right. But we don't want to hurt anybody. I'm the last one to hurt somebody. We want to help people. We want to love you. We want to help you make your life pleasing for you and for your G-d. We want to help you get rid of the hurt, misery, fears, problems that you have in your personal life.
And if you just follow the guidance that you have in Quran and our Prophet Muhammad and what we are advising you to do, accept our advice to you, you are going to have a beautiful and wonderful life. You're going to have a beautiful and wonderful Community and it's not going to be long coming. It's going to be here like overnight.
You're going to wake up one morning, you going to say, "Wow, I can't believe it. Look at all of this we have created. Create it. We have to create the life we want. G-d says, "Khalakum bi ahkhallah", Create using that box, that creative box G-d has given you for creating. That...using what G-d has given you to create. "Khalakum bi ahkhallah". Create using the materials for creating that G-d has given you.
It has a reference first to character, but it goes beyond just character, and G-d says in the Quran, "And G-d is the best of Creators. He is Asaluu Khalaqeen", the best of Creators. So G-d is recognizing that He's not the only creator. He's the first Creator, who created the natural world and everything therein. But then He created the human beings with human intelligence, with powerful imaginations, and He has given us the capacity and the power to create ourselves. And we can create, to be creators ourselves. Correction, to be creators ourselves.
He had made us to be creators ourselves. So don't just look at the world that you see. Have faith in your G-d, that you can create a world too. If we're in our place with this world, that this world had given us, let us remember that G-d made us to be creators and let us work on creating the world that will please our own hearts. And if we do it following my spirit and my leadership, my thinking, we will create a world that will get the world support for it. They will not be enemies of it. They will not try to destroy it before it's established. They will welcome you, say, "Join us. And we'll be watching you, with hope that you will be successful". That's all they'll do. Don't be afraid.
That man that taught my father, he left these words with the people. He said, "Big fields await the wide awake man." Well, that wasn't true back then. We were really awaiting the big fields, but now his prophecy has come to, pardon me, has survived and lived to see its day, its time. It is now that we have big fields awaiting the wide awake man. Peace be unto you. Be producers. Don't shame us anymore. As Salaamu Alaykum. (Clapping). "Takbeer. Takbeer."


