05/08/2008
IWDM Study Library
IWDM in San Diego

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Male Speaker: With no further ado, I invite our beloved brother Imam and leader, Imam W.D. Muhammed to come forward and address us. Can you out around of applause? Thank you.
[applause]
Imam W.D. Mohammed: Thank you. Thank you, we praise G-d. Bismillah Rahman Rahim, with G-d's name, the merciful benefactor, the merciful Redeemer. I greet you, peace to all of you all. As-salamu Alaykum?
Audience: Alaykum s-salam.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: Had such a wonderful time yesterday and enjoyed the program so much. It was so excellent until I just want to just talk about yesterday, but I knew I can't do that.
[laughter]
That's where my mind and heart is right now. We have to share the words of the presenters with our readers of the Muslim journal. I'm hoping I get all of it, so we can share it with our readers more. We want more than just the audience of yesterday, that was here yesterday to get what we received. We want as many as possible to get it and that's what I'm going to be trying to do. Get it to as many as possible. It shows that we are really in the same place, whether are Jews, Christians, or Muslims, or other.
If we are really sincere and blessed by G-d to be where he wants us to be, we are in the same space. Prophet Muhammad, peace, and blessings be on him. He said, "In the end, Jesus Christ and Mohammad will be seen together." The first place I look is at what's happening in the following of Christ Jesus and Muhammad, peace be upon him. The son of Elijah Muhammad, my Imam. Warith Deen Mohammed was invited to the Vatican some years ago and again invited to the Vatican. The only Muslim from America there along with the other leaders from around the world, religious leaders from around the world. If Elijah Muhammad's son can be received at the Vatican by the Pope and be embraced by the Pope because we actually embraced, hugged. I was watching security, I didn't know what was going to happen.
[laughter]
I came out with no scars and no bad feelings. I didn't get my feelings hurt by anybody. They welcomed me, and that's a sign. It's a sign, a great sign that we can't always judge the book by its cover. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad's history as a leader is a book, but sometimes the person furthers away from the scene may get a better view of it. The following of the Honorable Elijah Mohammad know him as a fiery preacher preaching the end of the white world and all of that, but the students of scripture, the religious people firstly, saw him and said, "There must be more to this than what's appearing on the surface." They studied the Honorable Elijah Mohammad.
There are religious people all around the world. Buddhists, Hindus that have studied the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, naturally because he stood out like a sore thumb in the United States of America, and the sores that he was showing, nobody else had been showing those sores, you know? [laughs] He attracted people to look into his movement, not just look at it, but to look into his movement and they came to a conclusion that this is not just a bitterness being expressed. This is something deeper than that. That is why I was welcomed at the Vatican. That's why I was welcomed by the World Conference of Religions of Peace, The World Parliament of Religion, and others.
They have welcomed me and they have welcomed me because they have seen that there is a real serious connection for what was our experiment, we call it our first experience with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and whose teachings is an experiment, was an experiment, and an experiment to bring us who were disconnected from our past history and introduced into slavery in the South Plantation Slavery, which was designed to test the human spirit and the human nature, to see if everything that supports that spirit and that nature is taken away deprived of that, that supports this human spirit and the human nature. Can the human nature and spirit survive that? Can it survive that?
Is G-d's word really true and is His plan and strategy practical? We're going to test the blacks and see if they survive with their human nature and can they rise without getting help. That was a plan for us and then the temple of Islam came as a plan to prove that though we had been lost from self and lost from our purpose on this earth, we could be reconnected. Mr. W.D. 40 I call him, Mr. Fard, Professor Fard. He came with the temple and established the temple as an experiment to see if we could rise and he believed with all of his heart and being that we would rise because he said it.
He talked, well, G-d speaks the same way he was aware of how G-d speaks, so he was trying to speak in the same way and let G-d speak. G-d says [Arabic language] the people is past tense, the people were once one community all unite together on this earth. Is that true that they all exist? Really is shaping up now, right? It's starting to have faith in that, in these late times in the United States of America. The year 2008, we're starting to believe that, but G-d said it 1400 plus years ago, that to Muhammad the prophet, peace be on him, that the people were once one community [Arabic language] but Arabs understand the Arabic language better than non-Arabs. The students and scholars of the Quran and Mohammad's life, prayers and peace be upon him, they understand that to be speaking to the future more so than to the past. Though it uses a past tense verb [Arabic language] and Allah also says in the Quran [Arabic language], you [Arabic language] you were past tense. [Arabic language] You were the best community evolved for the good of mankind, all people. Allah says that in the Quran. He said were, when. All the ummah that the Mohammad the Prophet our leader, the last prophet established in Medina. That is the ummah. Were, was it destroyed? It was not destroyed. It lived and prospered. So, why is the expression were? You were the best community is speaking to the future. When you look at the Muslim population on earth today, would you say Muslims are the best community?
Audience: No.
Imam W.D. Mohammed: The behavior doesn't say that. A surviving few or a minority of them still is the picture of the best community evolved for the good of all mankind and along with others. We're not excluding others who have also had a remnant. I believe the Bible say a remnant will be saved, I think, yes. There is a remnant of them like there's a remnant of us but for the majority for our publics, we can't say that's true. We're in the worst condition we've ever been in. This didn't just happen all of a sudden. I remember the organization that devotes itself to the propagation of Islam but mainly to reviving the Muslim following for Islam throughout the world.
They were in the (Taubleky?) Society. They were in Chicago and they contacted me. They knew how to reach me. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was so well known, they knew how to find his organization and they found me and I was not a leader at the time. They said, "You're the son of Elijah Muhammad, we want to invite you to go on out with us for the Muslim's child, a boy, about 13 or 14 how to read Al-Fatiha. I'm thinking that all of them knew Al-Fatiha and well acquainted with the Quran. At least knew how to make their prayers and everything. That was not true and I'm talking about almost 35 or 40 years ago.
Now, look at what the problems offer all of us keeping our families, keeping our children from being lost to the world or to the streets. That's a problem for all of us. We are not in that picture anymore, the best community. Actually, that saying in the Quran also speaks to the future is something for us to work for, something for us to strive for and accomplish. It was not accomplished in the past. Look at the criticism we find in the Quran of the Arabs. Where was Muhammad the Prophet at that time? He was among the Arabs. Actually, even in his time, it was a few who were exceptional and in the model life that Allah want for us but the many even of the Arabs, they were not.
They were following up on faith but they had not insight into the teachings to know the strategy for helping humanity on this planet earth that's revealed in the Quran and demonstrated in the life of Muhammad the Prophet. We're living in the best time ever. I got notes here and it's for a more formal setting than this. I'm going to put them right back in my pocket.
[laughter]
Yes, we're living in the best time ever right now, best time ever. Never have the populations of the planet earth witness a time like this when Muslims and Christians, leaders from the Vatican and leaders from the sacred precincts of Mecca are meeting together and talking peace, and talking tolerance and cooperation for the betterment of the people on this planet earth. That never happened before.
We had kind leaders from Christians, we know that. It was a kind leader in Africa, Ethiopia the land of the Al-Ahbashi that welcomed they persecuted followers, a group persecuted followers of the Prophet Mohammad and protected them, gave them political asylum there and protected them from the Meccans who pursued them and demanded that the Christian leader turn their citizens over to them so they could take them back to that country and punish them and that Christian refused to turn the Muslims over to that group of Arabs who were pagans, not Muslims you know.
That is a beginning of good relations for Muslims with a Christian ruler. Now, when we really think when we're reading the Quran, the great philosophers of the time, the great philosophers of the Greeks and others even before the Greeks, the great philosophers they were thinkers. They thought of themselves as thinkers and one of them said, "I think, therefore, I am." The Quran came to Muhammad the Prophet and in the Quran, Jesus Christ, peace be upon him as a male is called a thinker and it means male. [Arabic language]
Men are still thinkers more than women are thinkers but the same Quran that recognized the identity of the human life as a thinker, also acknowledges that women are also thinkers but it points to man as being typical of that nature to think and think about things. Well, sisters, I've just been in the house when you were raising your children.
I didn't have time to think just listening to you and the children. I had to get out of the house where I could go somewhere and think. I can see men being more the thinker than the female, I can see that. Not only Jesus Christ but then all of us. In the Quran, the male is called [Arabic language] thinker. If you read the Quran as a thinker you will know your religion much better but if you read the Quran just as a reader, a person reading a piece of material, you may never see the beauty and the depth of your religion.
When you read it as a thinker you come to see the closeness for the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Yesterday was a beautiful day to support all of us who want to be together with our brothers and sisters of other faiths. Want to be together with them in the human spirit, want to be together with them in the human aspirations so that we can have a better world for all human beings.
You will see after reading the Quran as a thinker, you will see that our speakers came from our place, from the Muslim place and our Muslims came from their place, from the Christian from the place of the other faith. We share one place in common that's what I'm saying. We share one important place in common. The scripture, the Bible says, "They'll be looking for Christ Jesus and some will say, He's in the sacred chambers I believe." The sacred chambers, He won't be there.
They'll say, "Oh, He's in the mountain," He won't be there. It goes to say that He will be in the heart of the earth. In the heart of the earth What is central for the human temple that G-d builds, not that we build? Not that the Nation of Islam under the Honorable Elijah Mohammad built necessarily or any other religious house that you have in a different religion. You notice the term temple is even used by people that are not people of the book, Buddhist, Hindus, it's temple. The Masons, they use the term temple also, Shriners or Masons.
Temple comes from what? Time, doesn't it? Time, tempo, time. G-d has put human life on this earth to come to where He wants it to come, to come to the best condition for mankind. He put us on this earth for that destiny and G-d has a time-clock, man didn't make it. We have our time, our calendars, and our time-clocks but G-d has a time-clock too and He has put life on earth so that it progresses, grows, G-R-O-W-S, grows, progresses.
No matter what stands in the way of progress for the life He has formed and put in this earth it will not stop the growth. It will always overcome the blocks, test over the barriers, defeat all obstacles in its way because G-d created it, His will is in it and it can't fail, the life He creates. G-d says, "Wait until G-d comes with His clock," this is Quran. Allah says, "Wait until Allah comes with His clock."
There are community dynamics that were naturally at work. It's an activity, and a process that man didn't make or create. It's part of the makeup of human nature and nothing can prevent it from succeeding. Times come when it looks so gloomy and foreboding for human nature, for the life that we want on this planet earth but over and over again, man overcomes it, the community that is of human beings overcome it to keep progressing, to progress further.
I believe we're living in the time for the conclusion of the great issues of prophesy or scripture. We're living in a day of the conclusion. Never before have the human beings on this planet earth been all connected all around the world and we are being connected in the most serious ways now and that is economically. We are being connected economically and therefore we have to be connected politically.
Time is gone for one nation to be operating independently, no it has to operate in concert with other world leaders and other societies around the world. There has to be agreement, there has to be acceptance, inclusion, recognition of others' rights just as you recognize your own right. Others' political rights, we're trying to give the world democracy and no one nation should give other nations its plan, its political idea. All of us should be free, all nations should be free to choose for themselves what will be their political idea. We want justice, justice is more important than American democracy.
[applause]
Thank you, and the time is here for that and we have our dear president George Bush who I think is justifying his way of handling things at home and abroad on the belief that he can't represent the American people anymore listening to them. That we have degenerated so much as a people given our moral nature that we see in the public display, on the streets, TV, in the entertainment culture et cetera. He’s registering all that. I guess he said they don’t qualify anymore. I have to protect their interest my way and on my own. I believe that’s the conclusion he's come to. This was the second term I think. Yes, it was his second term when he was been elected for the second term. A reporter approached him. He was walking perhaps to the airplane. I’m not sure whether the airplane, I think he was leaving the White House not coming back. He could have been coming, returning. I can’t recall right now, but that picture comes to my mind right now, I will make a few comments on it. He had a little dog about the size of a Chihuahua.
[laughter]
While he was giving attention to the reporter, the little dog [barks]. He said, “Wait, you will get your turn.”
[laughter]
I think he was speaking to the American population.
[laughter]
But getting back to the point, I feel for sure that we are living in the time of the conclusion of the great human issues, issues of human rights that we find addressed in the scripture. Did you know that the scripture is all about human rights? G-d created a human being. He created the human being for the most excellent life. No other life existing is more excellent than a human being in the model presented by G-d, seen in Jesus Christ and we see him in Muhammad.
Christians are to be Christ-like. They have to follow Christ model of human life on this earth. Muhammad didn’t come bringing something new or different. He came plowing the same field that Christ Jesus plowed before him, the gardener. G-d says of him in the Quran that you will certainly find in him, Muhammad, meaning in him an excellent model [Arabic language], an excellent model for any. He didn’t say for Muslims only. He didn’t even say Muslim.
For any who believes in G-d, who have faith in G-d in the last day. Which means, again, I’m stating it again, for any who believes in G-d, put their trust in G-d, and believes in being accountable to that G-d, that’s what the last day mean. That you also believe in been accountable to that G-d, for how you live on this earth, for how you live your life. That’s the meaning. He’s a model for any of us. Then Allah also said that He is a (Arabic).
(Arabic) means that human model that has same nature as all other human beings, errs, and repents, or errs and have to repent et cetera. Same nature, mortal person. Not an angel. Not a G-d. Not a divine, a mortal person. He is a mortal person just like you are. What makes us mortal the word has in it a reference to that, that you have feelings. You are (Arabic). You have feelings. Not only is he a mortal subject to the same limitations and hurt that you may have, but he is also with you the same as you when it comes to human feelings, (Arabic) the outer surface of this flesh that we feel.
You go down deep enough you might not even feel anything. [Arabic language]. A mortal person like you are [Arabic language]. Like you are. G-d didn’t send us an angel or a divine without human nature. G-d sent us His word that is divine and through our prophet or in our prophet and he gave it to us. The vessel that G-d deposit that into just like us. The prophet himself evolved. Yes, he did. He was already satisfying in G-d’s presence as a human model. He did not know revelation. He did not know scripture. G-d caused him to ascend in his nature. To ascend up to the high level of purity, of innocence and purity and clarity. The seventh level, the level of our second father Ibrahim or Abraham.
He went up there, and G-d carried him in a line of travel from the Kaba, which is the center for all mankind in Islam. Others may not have that same symbol as their center, but for Muslims, in our religion, the Kaaba, or the house built by Abraham and his son is that center. G-d calls him to rise from that center there at that spot up into the seventh heaven where Abraham ascended and is.
From there, He sent him in a line of travel. He was taken to the far mosque in Jerusalem, which is in of vicinity of the ruins of King Solomon, where Jews go daily to the Wailing Wall mourning or weeping the loss of that great achievement on the planet earth. He returned from there. Now, mind you, at one point the prophet was leading his following in prayer and they were facing Jerusalem. G-d didn’t order it.
The prophet thought that would be proper since that was the place of Moses and Solomon, the place where great progress was made for community life on this planet Earth, but it burdened his heart because he was not centered in political achievements, or material achievements. He was centered in human nature and spirit symbolized by the Kaba, the house that Abraham built for community life.
He was carrying a burden on his heart and G-d addressed him saying, "We have seen you under your burden. Now, we shall direct you to a qiblah, a direction for your community life center, for your human center in your community life. We're going to direct you to qiblah that will please you. Now, turn your face toward the most ancient of the houses in Bakkah," one of the old names for Mecca. The direction in prayer and for hajj it was always there. The direction in prayer also was there, was made there, was established there. There is our center. Our qiblah for bringing us all together no matter what race, what nationality, what color, what ethnicity, all of us are united there.
It's the fifth pillar of Al Islam. The pillar of the unity of mankind under G-d, of course, under Allah, highly glorified and praised is He. You know to get where Allah wants us to go, we have to become as Adam when G-d made him. If you understand him from Bible and from Quran, Adam is a single soul but he is a figure representing all people, all people. He is a common essence of all people. Adam, their common essence as created by G-d and directed by G-d. The Bible speaks of Adam in the singular and the Bible speaks of Adam in the plural concept. Not just a single concept, but a concept that is inclusive of all people, all mankind. The Quran speaks of him in the same way, Adam.
You know he fell from the high heavens or from the high position given to him by his creator when he listened to the suggestions of the enemy of all mankind. This is Quran, the enemy of all mankind, the devil, satan, Lucifer, Shaitan, given all these names. The most important name you should remember is that he's the enemy of all mankind. What is he? Is he a man? No, he's the enemy of man, he's not a man. What is he? He is fire.
That's what he said to G-d. He said, "I will not accept, submit to this rule you want to put into earth, a mortal you made from the earth. You made me better than he. You made me of fire." To really understand him, he is a fire that gives off no smoke meaning he has nothing to repent. In his own mind, he thinks he has nothing to repent, "Why should I burn and give off smoke? I burn but I don't give off anything, don't give up anything." A self-contained fire. [chuckles] Burning on his own will and power. He's really a big braggart, arrogant, boastful, and thinks he has every right to decide matters for the whole of mankind on this earth arbitrarily. "I don't have to consult anybody." Where are you looking for him? You're looking for him somewhere?
[laughter]
I see somebody looking.
[laughter]
The first place to look is in your own heart. That's where he wants to get. He wants to get right into your heart. Anywhere you find a convincing picture resembling what I've just told you, all the descriptions of Satan, be careful. Don't get involved there.
[laughter]
Acting arbitrarily, being boastful, thinking yourself more important than everything else, and making decisions without consulting decent persons who qualify to contribute to whatever plan we have for our communities or for our world, include others when you want to plan the future for mankind or the future for your community, consult others. The believers are those who conduct their affairs by shura [Arabic language]. They conduct their affairs by consulting each other who qualify as people of good character and knowledge and experience. We consult them. We put our heads together. We don't go it alone.
This is the future and this is time for that future. Not just for men or leaders, but for nations to put their heads together, to agree that we can't go it alone. To put their heads together when they want to plan life on this earth for a community of people, because your community can't live alone anymore. I remember hearing as a boy in my early teens the radio. We couldn't have radios but others had radios. I've heard this on the radio outside to the car radio and I heard our great leader of the United States say, "We can police the world."
Now, I was a boy. I'm a boy in my early teens, and we underestimate the mind and thinking of our youngsters. I hadn't talked to my parents. I hadn't talked to anybody. I just heard it. When it hit me, right away, I didn't like it at all that the leader of our nation was saying we can police the world. Why would we want to police the world? We should police the drug dealers and police over them and the criminals, not police the world. That didn't settle in me so well. It was an irritation, and it stayed an irritation until I got old and could understand what's happening in the world. It still is something that I think was a very arrogant statement, very selfish statement, a statement of a dictator that was the president for our democracy. That's a dictator speaking, that's not a man that accepts democracy and want to live democracy.
If there were ever a time for us to come together and for us to aspire to reach the highest possibility for the excellence of human life on this earth the time is now. Time is right now. This is a time of opportunity, great opportunities. The issue of human rights being concluded right today we're living in the situation on this earth now where we can conclude the issue of human rights. Whether the issue of human rights can be promoted and embraced and accepted by all people on this planet earth.
Thank you for doing such a wonderful job. I've been made aware of what the Church of Scientology is doing. I'm convinced that they are going to make a big difference for the human spirit and the human life and the future we want on this planet earth. They are making a big difference and they want to make a very, very big difference. We want what they are achieving for ourselves and others and in our own place and in our own way, we are promoting the same human dignity, the same human rights. We want to benefit from you have worked out for yourself shared with us so we can benefit too.
I can't conclude today without saying that Dr. reverend Tony Wolf, he's here, he's still here? Oh, there he is. Tony Wolf. When I first heard your name, they said Dr. Wolf, I said, "Did he come here to get the sheep?"
[laughter]
After getting acquainted with him and hearing him yesterday you're welcome to come among our sheep and sit at the head of the table sometimes.
[laughter]
One of the best speeches I ever heard. In fact, I think it is the best I ever heard. That showed the picture of human life that I believe G-d gives us in the scriptures Bible and Quran, and perhaps in other scriptures as well. He did such a beautiful job of bringing the light in the depths of the darkness up to the surface where we can look at it and see it in our own language and with our own eyes.
I pray G-d keep him to do that work and all of our presenters that we witnessed doing such a wonderful job yesterday, keep you all always and may increase you in help and support so your work could virtually increase. Peace be on to you. As-salamu alaykum.
[applause]
[00:15:31] [END OF AUDIO]



