03/22/1987
IWDM Study Library
Sacred Life Connections
McCormick Inn
Chicago IL

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
(Editor's note: The following article is adapted from an address delivered March 22, 1987 at the McCormick Inn in Chicago, Illinois.)
As-Salaam-Alaikum. Dear gathering, Muslims, and distinguished guests here today from Chicago and around the country and, I may say, around the world, as we have distinguished Muslim guests here, whose home is in the Middle East. We appreciate very much your response to the tribute and also your response to this Sunday's Ta'aleem, here at McCormick Inn (in Chicago). We pray Allah's blessings upon this occasion and trust Him for the results.
Our theme, as most of you might know, is "Sacred Life Connections." I believe this is the second time that this theme has been addressed, in the regions; the first time was in Los Angeles.
A Passion For Excellence
First, we would like to remind you that in the Los Angeles address, some of the points emphasized for this theme was a belief that Muslims are to have not just an awareness of excellence, but a passion for excellence.
And also, we mentioned in the Qur'an in this connection, and also the Sunnah of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. The Prophet had said, peace and blessings be upon him, that G-d, Allah, has prescribed excellence in everything. If you perform the simple task of slaughtering the animal to make it proper for consumption, according to the rules of Halal, the rules of Al-Islam, the Prophet said, do it with the object of making it a perfect job. Make sure that your knife is very sharp, so you don't do a sloppy or messy job, so that the least pain comes to the animal; that's excellence in slaughtering. And he said that Allah has prescribed excellence for everything. And we mentioned in that address in Los Angeles (on March 8) that that's not to be left in that category then we are to seek excellence in whatever we do.
Brushing Our Teeth
We even mentioned a simple routine thing of brushing our teeth; we should take that seriously, and brush our teeth with an object of doing an excellent job.
The Prophet peace and blessings be upon him also said  and we mentioned this also, we're just kind of bringing you up to where we are  "(The) believer, when he takes up an endeavor, he seeks to perfect it;" whatever he enters, as an endeavor, as a task, as a job, as something to do, he seeks to perfect it. 
The Implications
What implications does this have for Muslim life?
It assures us that if we follow this principle, we will have a good strong progressive life admired by all people. We will have a life that will be qualified for competition in anytime of man's history, and in this day and time in the United States.
We mentioned also that G-d has given us that awareness and responsibility and the resources available to Muslims. And those resources begin with ourselves. We have great resources. 
Acknowledgments
At this point, we would like to make some observations, not observations, we'd just like to make some acknowledgment and give recognition to some things that are very important, if we are to really understand what is being presented here today, under this theme.
The Best Artist
The first of those recognitions is that we be a people passionately motivated towards excellence. The best artist is the enthusiastic artist; the artist that is seeking excellence with every stroke of his brush, that's the best artist.
And if we look at any field or path that man or woman may accept, and apply the same principle, we will come up with the best.
The best musician is not the musician that plays for his own ear, without an awareness of competition with other musicians of his field, and of his likings. More, than that, he is in competition with his potential. His potential is challenging him to measure up to what G-d has put in him. The great musician will perform with that awareness and will please us and win our admiration. We will applaud him, and be thrilled at the end of his performance. 
When Imams Lecture
When we as Imams decide we are going to come before our congregation and make a khutbah, lecture or sermon, if you want to call it a sermon. A khutbah just means a nice intelligent lecture or presentation. We should also be aware of that obligation on us. We should take our time and give serious thought to what we are going to present before we come before the people. We should go to the best sources for the material that we are going to use, and we should try to keep in mind all the time the object of what Allah wants before us, while we are preparing, when we come before you, and we conclude it.
This is the principle that will make the difference for Muslims in the world. We believe that Muslims have the best situation of any creatures in this universe. Now, I'm aware that there are non-Muslims out here today; every time I speak, there are non-Muslims present, and I'm aware of that. We welcome all the non-Muslims, even the non-Muslims who say they are Muslims, we welcome all of you. 
Other Religions
We are aware that the believers of Christianity and Judaism believe their religion puts them in the best situation. I'm sure the Buddhists and the Hindus believe the same. The person who believes in his religion, believes that it puts him in the best situation; if he didn't believe that, he'd get out of that religion, to get in a better situation, if he's got sense. So we believe that.
What Puts Us In The Best Situation?
Now, if that is true for us, if we are really the people in the best situation, what puts us in the best situation? It's our connection with sacred life. That's what puts us in the best situation. Now, Muslims are aware that we are not the only ones in that best situation. We recognize that G-d also put the People of the Book, the Christians and the Jews, in that best situation. And for that reason, G-d, Allah, says to us in our Book, the Qur'an, through the Prophet: "Say, we have no contention with you," meaning with the People of the Book. Our contention is not, Christians, Jews, and people who have a legitimate religion from G-d. Our contention is with the unG-dly who want to un-establish the G-dly, who work against the good life of the G-dly.
Our contention is with the idol worshippers, the corrupted people and the oppressors of the good life that G-d created for all of us, the believers in G-d.
More than once Allah says in the Qur'an, our contention is not with you, meaning the G-d-fearing people. Now we know that we are going to have clashes, and conflict; history has recorded centuries of conflict involving Christians and Muslims. 
The Crusades 
The Crusades, as you who are familiar with history, know, lasted for centuries. Muslims also fight each other and Christians. And Christians fight Muslims. But that wasn't something that was called for by Muslim teaching in the Qur'an or even the Prophet. No indeed. If Muslims are to understand the centuries of war called the Crusades, and Muslims involvement in it, Muslims are to understand this: that, that war was politically motivated, and the only thing that was sacred or holy about it was the innocent involvement of people who were brought into it, by the great political forces of the West, of the Church, to curb, strangle and wipe out a religion, if they could, that they were fanatically and politically opposed to. 
Moral Responsibility
And it is a pity (and we mentioned this in our last address), that Muslims didn't retain that original purity and sense of excellence in terms of what we are obligated to do morally in any situation.
It is a pity that the Muslims didn't remain with that great high sense of moral responsibility in all situations, and come out and meet that challenge from the West, not sharp swords and great weapons, but first of all, with the right moral response.
It's a pity that they didn't carry the message of Al-Islam first, in the war against those people. They should have brought first, the best that Allah wants the Muslims to carry forward. They should have brought it in an argument, against those people who were seeking global dominance at the expense of discrediting and stamping out and oppressing a great religion, that came to make their lives better as well as to make our lives better.
Did The West Win?
It appears, maybe to some, that they won. But did they really win? "Oh well, the West is in power, not the Muslims. The Christians are in power, all over the world, not the Muslims, so obviously the West has won."
Well let's see if that's really true. Now if the battle was for material dominance, the West won. But the battle was for humanity, and the West lost, because the Muslim world today retains much more of its true humanity than the West does.
In Muslim countries, people don't have to put bars all over their windows; they don't have a dope or cocaine culture. Children in Muslim countries don't curse out parents. We don't have a decline of human qualities in the Muslim world.
The Muslim World Has Grown
Since it came into the light of Al-Islam, the Muslim world has steadily grown in human qualities. In-spite of the setbacks for them materially, politically and in many ways, Muslims have grown in human qualities.
Understand that Al-Islam came to the Muslims and found them in a state of heathenism. Those people weren't Muslims, they were converted to that religion. They were converted from paganism, heathenism and no belief in G-d, except the idols they made.
They had no respect for women, each other, or their national life. They were divided as warring street gangs against each other, doing things that would shame any normal human being, then and now.
They would have sex right out on a public road. They would also bury their daughter alive as ritual, because they didn't want to have many girls. They felt their manhood disgraced when they would produce many girls. They didn't want to share their food and resources with girls who couldn't fight in the wars and couldn't work the land. So they would kill their own girls. It's mentioned in the Qur'an, in a very wonderful, beautiful verse that says "for what was she killed?"
... for what was she killed, G-d said. And we know that there are a few excellent personalities from the people of that time who were not overcome by that terrible life, just as it is today. We have an epidemic of moral deterioration in this country but there is, in this country even now, people who are not affected by it, people who have stood clear of it, people who hold their head and their life above it. And they're not from any special class. They're from the rich and the poor, they're from the educated and the uneducated, who have the moral life and the love for that life strong enough in them not to succumb to the bad moral influences that have taken away the good life of many good people in the western culture today. Praise be to Allah for his blessing. That's a blessing from Allah. When people are able to survive the great super pressures of popular life, they are blessed by Allah, they are blessed by G-d, because our nature is to accept the way of the majority.
Nature says, "If you don't know what's right or wrong, follow the majority," and if the majority are allowed to establish their way over a minority, in time most of the people will follow that way blindly and many of them consciously. Many of them will do it consciously, even thought it be a way that is despicable, a way that is degrading, a way that is really ugly, filthy, vulgar. They don't care, they'll follow it because it's the thing of the day. We have people right in this audience today that are doing things that they were ashamed of years ago, but they're doing it now with no conscience. It's the thing. It's the in thing. So we should be aware that Muslims have been put in a light that doesn't necessarily image them rightly or properly. When you look at the Muslims in the crusades, in the centuries of the crusades, you'll get an image of Muslim that won't be proper. There are a few outstanding figures in the crusade, like Salahuddin. He fought but he wasn't fighting because he hated Christians. What he did demonstrated that he had no hate. He was also a doctor.
He was the general and also the victor in that great war but he was a doctor also, a physician. And he learned that his chief opponent, King Richard the Lionheart, who was leading the war for the Christians, he learned that he was sick and he knew the medicine to help him, to give him. He sneaked into their ranks, found him in disguise. He disguised himself, found King... this is history. Found King Richard the Lionheart, administered the medicine to him, got him well, went back to his men, and came and licked and beat him again. Now, that's the Muslim image. That's the Muslim image. So, we've got to fight. You won't let us be at rest, we've got to fight, but I'm a human being and I know what will help you when you're sick. Let me help this man. Went and helped him. Now, I know what many of us would say because we're not developed to that extent. Many of us would say, "I'll never do that for my enemy trying to kill me, uh-uh (negative)."
Well, you know, we praise the pope of today for his forgiving heart like Christ. Peace be upon Christ that he went and forgave his would have been assassin, the Turkish fellow who's in the prison over there in Italy. He went and forgave him. He forgave his for his attempt on his life. Didn't forgive him once, I heard. I learned in the news that he had forgiven him three times and is seeking to release him. The pope is... They say the pope is sure to ask for his release. But you didn't know that there was a Muslim who went to Richard the Lionheart as a physician and administered medicine to him, and then sneaked back out of the ranks of the enemy like he snuck in, like he sneaked in, and got back with his army and got in front of the army again, and dust the butts. Excuse me, excuse the language, please?
When a man is real popular, when he's up front, he's real popular, he gets a lot of credit for really attributes of the common person. He gets a lot of credit. Just like me, I've received so many credits for a team, that's all of you, are entitled to. You're entitled to recognition for the same achievement, you know, but of course it's me because I'm in focus, the leader's in focus, I get all the attention. Oh, he did this and he did that. Most of what they say, I did no more than what you do all the time, but you do it on a small scale. Your focus and your stage is smaller but you're doing the same thing all the time. There's some of you, if you were in my position, you'd probably be doing more than many of those respect that they have credited me for. Sure, that's the truth. I know some of you are shy. That's not true, too, that's one of your great attributes. But it's true. That's true.
I think G-d has blessed me with a few talents but not that many. Most of my talents are the talents of the ordinary common person. I mean, you have them not just in your potential but you demonstrate them. You demonstrate them too, you just don't have the focus that we have here. The stage is not yours. And some of you ain't ready for the stage. The stage that I have is a challenge, you know? A lot of people, oh, they're so sweet and that's so nice, they're so humble, they're so easy to get along with, until they get the stage. Oh buddy, then you see something come out you didn't know was there. A horn pops out here, a horn pops out there, a second tongue comes out. G-d almighty. Start turning green and purple.
We also should understand that the Muslim world has only recently come into a situation where they are responsible for their own state of affairs. Muslims have been, for a long period of time, under western power. There has been occupation of Muslim lands by western forces. In fact, practically all the Muslim lands, until maybe the middle or late 40s. All the Muslim lands were under western forces. Egypt had to get its independence for Muslim power. So did most of the other Muslim countries of Africa, Muslim states of the middle east.
Under the Sunnah of the prophet, the Islamic life. They didn't only take over political authority in the Muslim lands, but they very carefully, very skillfully, very carefully, took over the institutions of the Muslims, took over the intellectual work of the Muslims. Oh yes. And many books that we think are authentic Muslim books are really nothing but Orientalist books influenced by Christian western authorities. This is a fact. We have to understand that. If their religion is that great, mister, why is not the Muslim community of the world in a better shape? Well, I hope these acknowledgements we're making will bring you understanding of why the Muslim is not in the excellences that we are almost bragging about. And I feel to brag about it. I don't want to think of myself as a braggart but I feel to just blow the horn and blow it loud. If we could understand that, then I think we can clear the air for really listening to what we have to present today.
So, "Oh well, what about your women? We heard that you are backwards in the treatment of your women." You have to see the whole picture. Many of the attitudes that Muslims have toward women were given to them by those western powers that dominate them. Don't you know the west just very recently recognized the woman as being anything above a piece of property? Recently. Oh, it feels so good in American democracy. Oh, we are so happy in American democracy. We have a right to be. But don't think this has been the case for long. Oh, this just recently happened. The authorities in so-called Christian-doom said the women didn't have a soul, and their sorrow as the tempter to evil. Yes. And won't allow her to get the education that the boys were allowed to get. She was treated as a piece of property and a temptation linked to Satan. I'm telling you what real strong authorities in Christianity said, and it's still on the pages of their history.
When did women get their equal rights? Just recently. It was after us, wasn't it? Yeah, the black man. The black man got his and then the women got hers. The women got hers after the black man got his. They've used us as the battering ram to open the door for everything. Gay rights, everybody rights now, hey? We don't want to spend a lot of time on this because actually what I'm doing now is just trying to bring some things that represent big false images in the mind of people about Muslims. And we have to acknowledge that in the days of the prophet and in the immediate time following the prophet, where our religion and our life and our community was represented by the most excellent preachers G-d ever made, the followers of the prophet. The true followers of the prophet, the best followers of the prophet. His companions, his followers who migrated from Mecca to Medina, and those who held out their arms to them, the people of Medina then Ansars, the Muhajirs and then Ansars. The Khalifs and their successors who carried the real banner of Islam for a long time.
We must acknowledge that those men with the Quran, with the teachings of the prophet, with the example that he established, that G-d established for us in him, peace me upon him. Those men brought that forward and they brought women from backwardness to advancement. Oh yes, where the women realized not only freedom in those days but also dignity and respect.
Women realized not only freedom, but also dignity and respect, which is something the women of America have not yet realized. She may sense a great amount of freedom, but she can't sense a great amount of dignity and respect. In this society, she's used as something to satisfy the lust of low-life men, with money or without money, with sense and without sense. When she's pictured in the media it is to sell some commodity. She's there all lustful as a temptation. She's being used as a slave of commercialism, and the great respect that she's entitled to is thrown away. She's treated as a sex object for the lust of lustful men, to tempt them to buy an article that they perhaps wouldn't even notice if the appeal hadn't been made to their sexual lust. We have to understand that.
A Savage Society
A society that will make it popular for a woman to publicly show her breasts, curves and give the illusion of even her private organs to viewers is still a savage society, at least in one dimension of human life.
So don't feel too proud, woman, of your freedom in America; the man is shrewd, he uses you as a tool, and tells you, 'you're free.' The freedom that he's given the woman has been freedom that he exploits. Right now women are still making less than men for the same job.
Not For Black Men
Now, this is not for black men. Your hope for employment is with your woman. You don't have a job. The majority of us don't have a job and aren't prepared for work, and much of it is not our fault. We've been outwitted, tricked.
There is something else that we should be aware of, and that is, Muslim greatness and the greatness of the Western world. Many of us are not aware that achievements of Muslims made possible the achievements of the West, particularly in science.
The West was oppressing the intellect of the masses, their women and neglecting their intellect. They had gone off on some trip thinking that they were G-d and that man should exercise that G-dly potential or force in him, and that he should exercise it so that he will grow more and more into his G-d-image. They were so fascinated by that thing, that they neglected the good life that G-d intended for man on this earth.
And it was the Muslims directly motivated by the Scripture from G-d called Qur'an, the Last Book, the Last Revelation, and by Muhammad the Prophet, peace be upon him, his teachings and his life, who entered enthusiastically into the field of scientific research and improved upon what had been put aside, ignored and lost, from the great worlds of science that had lived before the Muslims, especially the Greeks.
Muslims Revived Science
Muslim's revived those sciences, and involved non-Muslims and non-Arabs in that work. Because of that, the spark for that kind of regeneration, reached Europe and brought about what is known in history as the Renaissance of sciences and culture. Algebra and the numbers that we use today called Arabic numerals: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine; adding, algebra, all came from that great, great excitement of the intellect started by the Qur'an and the great leadership of our Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, and his noble Companions and followers.
We can't go into all the details; that's not the purpose. The purpose is to put the matter straight, to do justice where justice has not been done. You'd be surprised at how many connections in language, knowledge, the sciences and the discipline that we brag about in the West, go back to Muslims and the great age of the Muslim people.
The Strength of Savages
The worse of the Europeans had fallen into savagery and the qualities and attributes that they prided themselves in, and glorified, were the strengths of the savage. That's why Richard the Lionhearted, had a sword that stood almost as high as he stood. They had to have muscles to even lift it. He had something that didn't have to be sharp; he'd just hit some bodies and he'd break them in two. He had the taste of the savage. There is a book written by Richard Allen, called Nationalism and the Fertile Crescent. In this book he mentions how during battle, Christian forces met with Muslim forces, and the Christian soldiers noticed that the Muslims were neat and clean even on the battlefield.
They said (he quotes some of them) that these people take time to shave, wash, bathe, and to scent themselves. The writer says that "much of their refined life was influenced by contact with Muslims on the battlefield." On the battlefield, he said, because there wasn't hardly any opportunity at that time, for any other kind of meeting together, where they would have an exchange of information, knowledge or influence each other's lives.
Muslims Were Established
Also, we should understand that Muslims were established for centuries, as the leading people on this earth. Now, how long has America been established? How long has the United States been at the top? Not as long as Muslim Spain was on the top. Muslim Spain, according to Western authorities, was on the top for five hundred years.
Many other writers, especially Muslims, say six or seven hundred years was the life of that great cultural development and birth of excellence that took place in Spain under the leadership of Muslims from North Africa.
Many Were Black
And at that time many of them were as black as most of us in this audience. The people who brought that great culture to Spain were Muslims and also as black as many of us in this audience or most of us in this audience.
We know the mixture of the races has been increasing, with time, especially in those parts of the world that were inviting intruders to come in and rob the land of its mineral resources and values, and dominate it and use it for strategic bases, etc.
So the lands attracted such people and they went in there as they came into us.
Do you think all this white blood we have in us was our doing? The same thing happened in Africa, too, among Muslims.
Many of the whites that went to Africa left their blood over there, and the physical features of the people have been changed.
The Sudanese
The Sudanese that we see today are black, but they are not as black as they were when they were at their peak. They were blacker when they were at their peak and had great sciences and were impressing the world with their culture, civilization, fine laws, and great teachings of civilization and discipline. When they were their heyday, of cultural excellence, they were physically blacker than they are today. Since that time, the blood has been mixing and mixing and mixing.
Al-Islam and Africa
A writer of a book called "Democracy and Race,"; it might be "Race and Democracy, "by the name of Boaz wrote back in the 40's about the achievements of Africans under Muslim influence; Africans who were converted to our religion.
He points out their achievements in his argument against racism, and the oppression of black people in America, at a time when there was still segregation, discrimination, and white fountains and black fountains in the South, and the same kind of humiliation for us in the North, disguised in another way; many times in the same manner.
This writer wrote about the excellence of the Africans, who were influenced to be converted under Al-Islam. He said that their great history and remarkable achievements occurred upon their contact with Muslim Arabs and the religion of Al-Islam.
He mentioned Askia the Great, and many others. He mentioned Ghana, Songhai Mali, of all these places, and he documents the facts that he presented. He says any white who believes that blacks are not capable of the same kind of achievements that whites are capable of, should take a look at what blacks did in Africa, in the 16th and 17th Centuries, under Muslim influence.
A Shame
We need this kind of thing to be brought out, to clear the air. It's a shame that the African-American is given black studies on college campuses but this great information is played down, and the black man comes out of there, wearing dashikis, bones, and glorifying the primitive man, the semi-savage in his history, instead of the excellent, civilized man, the Muslim man of Africa.
We know that some Africans, like the people of Ghana and a few other places in Africa, especially Egypt, and Sudan, had their period of great history before Al-Islam's advances in science. But history cannot recall for those people of Africa, any achievements to equal what they achieved under the influence of the Qur'an and Muhammad, the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him.
The White Man Is Guilty...
Now, the first thing we'-d like to say, is the white man hid that fact. He played down the truth and kept from reaching black students on the campuses.
That white man is not innocent. He is guilty of being so afraid of a free negro, that he will lie before he will allow him an opportunity to come into his freedom.
He will lie about the fact of his own past and the facts of the history of the black man. He will lie about it, ignore it and play down the greatness of the man in his past life as a Muslim.
Also  and we must be aware of this  brings out the point, which is very shrewd  I know it from my own experience as a young man going to the movies and looking at cartoons and reading funny papers, in this country  that the way they present the African man to the world makes the world think that most Africans live in jungles, and hunt as a jungle man, when it's only a small part of Africa, now and then that is typical of that kind of life.
Most of Africa is not a jungle of hunters with bows and arrows and spears; it wasn't that way then and it's not that way now.
You should be aware too, that although we made great progress along the road of putting down or burying the hatchet as they say, making amends about the lies that we've told on each other, especially the lies the Western world has told on Muslims, still a lot of progress is yet to be made.
Though great progress has been made, still a lot is yet to be made. Because right now in America, the reality of the Muslim, your Muslim brother, presence, numbers in Africa are still played down so black Americans won't be aware of it. We talk about Africa as though Africa is Christian or worshippers of ancestor spirit? I mean a college man, not just the ordinary person in the street. That person in the street doesn't know anything. All he knows is Tarzan and Jane. There's some black people thaba Ga Ga. That's all the average man knows.
I'm talking about the college person, the college man on the campus. The average college man on a campus of our kind. He thinks of Africa as a land where land Christianity dominates oh primitive, semi-savage religion and culture. That's what he thinks. When 60% of Africa is Muslim and the other 50% is divided between Christian and many other religions, also primitive religions and no religion at all. Just like over here some Africans don't have any religion that is identifiable.
We have to say these things to clear the air. Now, at first, you notice I first said the first thing we have to recognize is the white man's part in this thing. Secondly, we have to recognize our own part in this thing. Then our intellectual Blacks in Christianity, and atheism. Who know the truth of their great path as Muslim but scared to tell it because they dislike it. They dislike to be connected with it, they're envious, they resent it. They resent that G-d blessed black men in the image of Muslim and blessed them with recognition that should be given to America and should be told the black men of America. They resent that.
They are fanatics, Uncle Tom's, weaklings of the worst kind. Don't have a valid passport today. You don't. I know because I get the same passport you get and I go abroad and many of the white people laugh at it when I get to the immigration. "Hey, how'd you boys get over here?" That's what they ask us. So, my passport doesn't carry the same respect that the white man's passport carries. I still carry a stigma. There's a stigma over me. I carry a stigma and my passport when they see me identified with the passport, my passport does not get the same respect from most of the people in immigration around the world.
And you who travel you know I'm telling the truth. Some of them are so insulting you want to just say, "Take the damn thing I'm going back where I came from." You're so insulted you don't even want to go any farther on that journey. But you look at them and your intelligence rises up in you because you have a purpose bigger than the petty fool that's standing there. So, your intelligence rises up in you and you're saying to yourself, "I have to show a better image than this savage is showing."
So, you take is abuse. You don't even respond to his abuse. You just take his abuses and he stamps your passport and you go on about your business not saying a word to him. So, we have to be humiliated like that. Even today we have so called liberated, totally free black people in America. I mean that's something to think about. That's something to think about. Don't be fooled, that has a lot to do with our poor economic situation in the United States.
Now, a lot of our policy and a lot of our backwardness in terms of businesses, et cetera, failures a lot of it is our own fault. But a lot of it is also the denial of equal access, of equal access. how bad he is, how negative he is, how criminal he is, how thieving he is. He can get a bank's money. He can go places you can't go. He can make connections we can't make. He can get an okay to bring stuff in this country and we can't get it. If they have no law to stop us they will use every trick in the book to prevent us from coming in with the same resources that white man can bring in. That's a fact.
My own life is testimony to it. I have experienced it myself and not only me, many others. The non-Muslim preachers have told me the same thing and experienced the same thing. Not only that, you don't have to go outside to a foreign country. Right here in America. You get yourself situated to do something big in America, right away some sinister influence come and get you and there is no law to check it. It's too subtle. It's to disguise There's no law to protect you. The only protection you've got is yourself and the right to unite and meet that corruption. Hard to find a [black man with a courage to do something to the establishment].
So, you're left alone, and you bite your lip, you bit your chick and you say, "G-d damn it, if I was only in a better situation." If only had 100 more men like me we'd beat the hell out of this thing. See, when right is on your side it makes you ten times stronger than a man who does not have right on his side. So, don't think they are great challenge. No, we just don't have any help. If we had a few people strong like us we could wipe these courage out of our path because right is on our side.
I ain't never seen a wrong man [to bad for me to fight when he was fighting and that's G-d's truth, as I see it. Maybe I'm fooling myself. I don't know. Maybe I'm fooling myself, but I've never seen a bad man too bad for me to fight. If I have to I'll go to war against any bad man, and I think I have the greater path to win because he ain't supposed to be there anyway. G-d didn't make the earth for him.
All Praise be to Allah. This has to be said to clear the air. Muslims are meeting around the world, not just us. We're small. Small in number. In America, the small minority in America and also we're doing the best we can. We have people in the Midwest and the East, South, and West. Meeting with Christian preachers, civic leaders, government people meeting with them and joining them to advance the good life and good opportunities for all American people. Meeting in dialogues with Catholics and Jews to make it possible for us to work on the problems of all of us, the common problem, without the unnecessary conflict between religious people who say they believe in the same G-d and identify with the same chain or the same great line of prophets.
We're trying to do all that. We're trying to clear it up, but that's not enough. Muslim leaders in Saudi Arabia are doing that to meeting with great leaders of the Roman Church, many visits have been made to the Vatican and representatives from the Vatican have made many visits to the Islamic world. All that's going on, and we are working on our small situation or our level to advance the good life all together because we have a commonality that is stronger than our differences. But that's not enough. That's not enough because every time those who are in control of the life that is, of the state of affairs that exist now that oppress man here and else where. Every time they hear of us moving toward each other they step up the sophistication of their attacks to discredit, to undermine, to suck up all the resources, to block the passage now you're upset. To hurt the image, to create some destruction, take the minds of those who are getting an interest in that away from that interest into something else.
This is going on. Those are the powers and influences of the Devil. The Devil. Some of you don't believe in devil. We say in our religion "Nar Haqq" Hell fire is real. It ain't no superstition. There's no superstition. There's no imagination of the thing. No. Hell fire is real. The Devil is real. Yes. Satan is real. He's no imaginary creature. That that he exists and he's not operating in some realm of reality that man is not connected with. He's operating in the realm of reality that man knows.
Now, I know some will say, "Well, he sounds like his father now." Now, there's Elijah Muhammad's son. Well, if I ever told you disagree with my father on everything I made a mistake. I ain't never disagreed with him on everything. In fact, I agree with him on most things and disagree with him on a few things. And believe me I never believed in a devil that makes you chicken soup you can't eat and make you head revolve on a swivel . No, I ain't never believed in nothing like they had in that movie. What's that movie? The Exorcist.
No. No. Really a man of our profession to see a man of the cloth, a Catholic priest in there with that kind of foolishness. I never believed that.
You know, it's good that we understand but don't make a mistake of going out hunting the Devil. You can never find him. He will lose you every time. You think you've got him and he turns into a priest and look so nice and you have to stop going on the path of looking for the Devil. You don't look for the Devil you look for human beings doing wrong. That's what you look for. G-d didn't send the prophet to go hunting after the Devil. He sent the prophet to go and establish a truth and to lead the opposition. So, let us be the same way. Let us go out to establish the truth and be prepared to meet the opposition. And opposition is going to come from bad human beings. We can wipe them, defeat them so that they don't block, deny us from the life G-d has intended for us, that we will defeat the Devil. That's the way you defeat the Devil. Going to him directly you will miss him every time.
At this point now, I think I can talk to what you see as sacred connections, like sacred connections. They are no different for us than they are for other people that G-d has blessed. It's through guiding and understanding. If we understand it, we document called the United States Constitution. Its Declaration of Independence that kind of introduces it or the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States makes statements based upon a recognition of possessions, properties of every man and woman that are deemed sacred.
I don't know what meaning you have in your mind when we say sacred. The first meaning that comes to mind is holy or used in the church or used in religion. But the dictionary also gives us the meaning of this word as something given deep respect, something that is deeply regarded, appreciated, reverent, respected highly. Something highly of value that stays of permanent value and is G-d respected so much and it's called sacred.
The Constitution regards the attributes that are inherent in man, that are native to human life, that G-d created when he created man as being sacred and those attribute or those qualities, those attributes and qualities or whatever you want to call them, that essence, that original essence that represents the real life of man is a sacred connection for us. And when we get away from that we're getting away from our real life, our essential life. We are going to lose our essential form. We're going to lose also our freedom that G-d intended for us, for after all there is a freedom that devil wants for us and there is a freedom that G-d wants for us and the freedom that Allah wants for us is not the freedom that the Devil wants for us.
The studying the history of freedom, the process of freedom. Man's involvement with freedom, studying the history of it in America's life and you will find that the quality of freedom rises in the charts, rises and weaken a people and starts going down. It is not the same freedom today that it was yesterday. The leading intellectual, the leading giants who made a great contribution to the human advances of Western society, to the great power of the United States because it was upon their contribution that the United States got the respect it got in the global world, got the respect in the global world and was given the freedom that it received in the global world to do its plots all around the world. It's because they recognized something in the people] of the United States that justified them opening up their arms and allowing the new civilizer to come into their country and bring the benefits there. Yes.
Now, those great men and women, they saw freedom as the freedom for something that was inherent in man. The freeing of something that represented the excellence of man. The freeing of something that represented man's greater possibilities as a human being, as a human being. Their object was to preach and convert an oppressive world to respect a productive excellence in man that G-d created them with. That if you respect it and it will bring greater economy. It will influence greater civilization. It will result in a greater power, a greater nation than you have ever seen. That was their belief and they preached for that recognition, they taught for that recognition, they even they even fought wars for that recognition.
Yes, but in time, that concept of freedom was lost. [inaudible 00:23:07] of permissiveness in this country that started even earlier than the '70s but got great image during the '70s, during that time period the quality of freedom . It went down, down, down until freedom now has become a totally new thing. Freedom in the mind of most of us not is the freedom just to do as we please. Most of us have even stopped thinking of freedom in the context of the law and that's not necessarily the great freedom that man must go after. Not the freedom of the wrong that's necessary. Sure, we want the right to vote like everybody else, equal vote. We want the right to do business, the right to live in any neighborhood we choose to live in. Certainly, we want all those rights. We want equal dollar for equal work. We want all that, but that's not[yet the great freedom that G-d missioned man for.
G-d missioned man to go after freedom. Don't you know that. G-d missioned man to go after freedom. Moses a liberator. Prophet Muhammad, a liberator and for the Christians, Jesus Christ is a liberator. And many of us in the religion of Judaism, Christianity, and even Al-Islam, we understand just what that liberation is all about. That liberation is not just so we can do business in Chicago like everybody else, so we can have the same passport or the same citizenship papers that everybody else has. No, it's more than that. No, there's more than that.
Man has a destiny and now we have hit upon another sacred connection because G-d intended for man is a sacred connection. Boldest sucker on Earth. Yeah. Some notorious at any sense. Just want to be notorious. Want to be the one that get in the most passing away, no matter what it is. We don't care what it is, New direction in our life at all. No direction. It's whatever gets attention, whatever sends the shock waves, turns on the adrenaline as they say. Whatever excites the imagination. That's what kind of period we've come to where there's no direction and those who of their senses all they want is an animal reward. Yeah.
When you work for nothing but a check to pay the rent or to pay the house note or to put some more clothes in the closet, on your back, to buy another piece of equipment, a new car, a washing machine, and electric stove whatever or put some food in your stomach you're working for animal benefits. For an animal you want food. More food benefit today and he wants to rest well today. He wants to go out show off after he's fed and if you can decorate him, a fly work hard on being presentable for nighttime or play time. I say where is that fly going start peeping . I was going to see him in his vanity. I had to walk with that fly.
You ain't the only one that wants those things. Those are animal appeitte . Yeah. When you don't really material things of this world and gratification of the flesh senses then that's all you want. You want no more than animal ... Those things are open to the animals. Those his great accomplishments. The human being should be pursuing excellence. Excellence with a passion. G-d said he made us in the most excellent mode, in the most excellent model. Ahsani Taqween he made us excellent model so we should be pursuing higher things. We should be pursuing quality. That's a sacred connection. Quality is a sacred connection. Because G-d made us for excellence.
Isn't quality another way of saying excellence? . Yes, quality, represent a norm or state of excellences that's what it is. So, when we say quality has gone down in America we say at the same time Excellence has gone down in America and that's what the authorities say. Those people who study the trends and study the condition, they have reported on the condition and they say that we are steadily losing quality of life in America. And I heard recently that the economic indicators for the future at least to the year 2000 are not pointing to any recovery but points to more of the same. That's what the experts are saying right now.
An at least in year 2000 we cannot expect the living standards of Americans to improve. Rather than improving we can expect that the living standards of America will go down because of the global trend. The global trend. The global trend has overcome now the natural trend of America. The natural trend of America is not strong enough for the global trend. Now, the strong trend in America is not national anymore it's also global. So, we find America now changing its whole strategy when it comes to what we expect of our citizens of this country as long-time leaders, citizens of this country. Yes, it's changing.
We can expect to have less and see newcomers having more. Yeah. Because that's the trend in the world America used to invite people to be blessed with her appreciation of her acquaintance. Now she goes out and please to people. some kind of relationship with her. Time has changed] and we must recognize and accept that. So, do think you go get some democrate and everything going change. A new machine is going to come and you're going to be protected by the big white farmer again. It's over. It's over. That time is gone. That time is gone.
What do the leaders of the Democratic Party say? In response to one of our leaders was our time has come. Our time has come. Your opposition response says your time has ended. Your time has ended and that's the truth. We must accept it. If we believed time for us to be pampered some more, time for us to be carried on the back of the white man some more, if that's what we need then that time is gone. Not come, it's gone. It came and now it's gone. The brother said Allahu Akbar that's life and I'd like to add something to it. Praise G-d. Yeah. Look, I don't like to digress so much from this subject but all this is in the subject.
I just don't have too much intellectual discipline when it comes to handling a problem like this. We should look at the situation for African American people just as we looked at the situation for an individual who suffered the same experience and the same kind of problem. If you take any single person and put them in the situation that our race is put in because they were brought here for slave work and then carry them through that child pardon me the same kind of experiences that we went through as a people where we were used by the North to make the South anger and great part away from the North and direct at us. We were used to furiate the Southern so much that it produced a monster that [inaudible 00:34:55] of inhumane treatment of other human beings, the black man.
If we take an individual and put him through the same experience and then say you're free but don't [inaudible 00:35:20]. That public fountain that the bird shits in, don't drink out of it. It's for the whites. You drink out of that water over there for the blacks. Excuse my language. I have a purpose in using it that way. I like to bring you down to the front so when you get down to your little small self you think better. way up their in your imagination you can't think. So every now and then you're going to hear me use an unbecoming word. It's to bring you back down on the plane of reality that you should be on.
For imitating the white man, imitating his language unconsciously, imitating thought imitating his ideas, imitating in the way he perceive and solve problems. You some much of a imitation sometimes to bring you back here. But I'm working on cleaning up my tongue now. I'm doing pretty good.
Very serious believe me. Very serious. We have been used when ever it was convenient by the white man, by the white man. If he had a problem, if he thought that we could be used-
If he had a problem, if he saw that we could be used to make that problem easier for him, he used it. Oh, yes. You don't take a people who recently been freed, at a time when you are fighting your own racial member, your own racial brother, and in victory put the slave that you took away from your brother over him, and encourage the slave to be insulting and overbearing, arrogant in that position. That's what happened during that period they call Reconstruction.
The North authorized former slaves to form and fulfill an authority over their former masters, the white people of the South. And then give them a psychology for that man who was a former slave. He should have been given some orientation. He should have been orientated for that position. But they received no orientation. In fact, they were sensitized to make a bad job of it, to create more bad feelings between blacks and whites, to take the pressure off of the Northern white man, so he could go on and build up the North and build up the United States, while the white man take out his hate and his vengeance and his soul stain on us. The white man of the South. While he take out all of his bad feelings on us.
That's what happened. And right now, we need to recognize that and need to approach the Southern white man with a new sense of what occurred, and don't blame him so much. He was the lesser educated. The Northern white man was the better educated. The Southern white man was the lesser educated. His cultural background was the reason. The man from Boston and New York, his cultural background, he had a long history of great culture. They descended from aristocracy. Only a few in the South descended from that. Most of those that poured into the South and was a citizen of the South, they came from dungeons and prison camps in Europe. They were poor specimens of the human race, and they were just battling for survival in the South, in the wilderness.
It was the responsibility of the more educated, the more global informed Northern man, Eastern man, to treat his brother in the South with more decency and more respect and not use his slave as his brother in such a diabolical kind of experience that we had to go through. Yes. See, we should understand that. And, of course, the Southern white man, which this new sense of what occurred. Don't have to talk about it with him. Don't talk about it. But just show him that you are a different black man. That you're a different black woman. That you recognize that all of the misdeeds for black and white in the South was not the responsibility man of Southern man, but their Northern masters had the greatest role in it.
Yes. Right now, I get more real genuine warm feeling from whites in Atlanta, whites in part of the South that I go, than I get from whites in Chicago. Now, I know things are not that good for us, but if you look where the white man is in the South and look where the black man is behind him in the South, then look where the white man is in the East and the North and look where we are behind him, why, we're doing a hell of a lot of better in the South than we're doing in the East and the North. That's a fact.
Well, what has this got to do with sacred connections? Well, that's intelligence. I'm talking about coming into your good common sense again. And common sense is a sacred connection, buddy. Praise be to Allah. I feel very good. I haven't felt this good in a long time. And you know why I feel so good? I'm with my friends. Ain't nothing like coming together with your friends. Yeah. And I was sitting up there last night, and I saw faces coming in. Oh, buddy, I felt so good. Faces I hadn't seen in months, some I hadn't seen in years. Made me feel so good. Young ones, middle-aged ones, very old ones. But all had the spirit of goodness on their face.
I didn't see hardly any bad-looking faces. I said, "Boy, this is really wonderful. Really wonderful." Yes sir, I feel very good today. I feel so good today, you know you can do anything with me you want to do. Ya you can. You can tell me, "Hey, stop talking." I'll stop. Yes. You can say, "Hey, just stop talking now, we got this." I'll stop. Or you can say, "Hey, we don't want to listen to you talk no more, can you sing?" I'll try. I'll do my best.
See, this is not the first time I've made these statements. Perhaps I've making them in a different way, but I've made these statements before. I made this statement between a group of intellectuals, a group of policy makers, a group of South people who granted me an opportunity to talk to them. And when I finished my talk, they rushed to me, they shook my hand. You would have thought I was some great celebrity. They were telling me, "Your observations are correct. We know it." Yes.
In fact, if you could read enough books, you would find some writers from the past and now saying the same things I'm saying to you right now. Maybe not in the same words, but it's been said. But it hasn't been made popular. It's our responsibility to make the truth popular.
Yes, so I say if we would do the right thing, if we want to see just how serious or how deep the damage is to us, to the psyche of the African-American person, we have to treat the whole race as an individual, and look at what we should expect in an individual after that individual goes through that. And one authority says in a book on what he calls, he calls us in his article, pardon me, he calls us the historical man. The historical man. Out of all the egregious we have, and you know we have some tremendous history, but I thought we were the only one who had been insulted in our manhood and insulted in our socialist scene like we have been insulted by slavery, and the slavery of the fashion that we had experienced in this country. I thought we were the only ones.
But reading about the English domination of the Irish about a century I believe ago, made me think again. Why, they were treated so bad. I said, "Boy, we do have a likeness in history. These people were treated the same way." But the extent and the degree of it was not as bad. In our case, it was a whole people. For all the years of slavery, and then for about a hundred years after. And not only were we treated that way, but we were told that we deserved it. That we were created naturally inferior. That we weren't a human being in the same sense that the white man was a human being. That our humanity was deficient. That we were not quite completed. That G-d stopped a little bit short of reaching man when he was moving us up from the monkey. And even had the nerve to put it in the Constitution of the United States as a percentage of a man. That we are a percentage of a man. And it takes so many of us to equal one of their man when it comes to voting recognition. That's just history. That's American history.
And not only did it influence the political language of this country, it also influenced the society of this country. It is just recently that they took the ugly things out of social science that were in social science because of that kind of attitude toward black people.
So we have come through something. And don't think you are not capable of great things. You've already proved you're capable of great things, to come through those centuries of that kind of treatment and embrace the white man, smile to him, meet him with your humanity. Oh buddy. That speaks to your greatness. I believe that G-d, in evolving people, have given some quality of excellence that he has not given others.
They're in us, but they're not pronounced in us as they are in the white man. And we have some senses, some attitudes that are pronounced in us that are not pronounced in the white race. And one of them is social maturity on a base level. Now the white man, he has social maturity at a high level. But when you look at his base, a savage is represented down there. You see more savagery on the base then you see civilized man. But you walk into Africa, among the unlearned. You walk into the black South side ghetto among the unlearned. Go to Philadelphia to the black neighborhood among the unlearned, go to the dumb black man, go to the wasted black man, the drunk black man, and go to him and you will find that that black man has still, buried under the rubbish of what this world has piled on him, the dignified, socially evolved man.
Tingling in my spine. Oh, buddy. Now, I try to understand these things. I try to understand these things. The white man had us in a situation. We couldn't deal with it. Why, there was slave nations that couldn't deal with it. They had to come and bow their head to it. What could we do in the slave field? In the slave town? Or the past ages. People going to talk about us because we bowed our head on the plantation. Well hell, there were great nations, free, with armies and navies, they're bowing their head, too. White men were bad. They were bad.
It took some wisdom to survive as a black man in days behind us, buddy. That's right. Most of us would have been exterminated like the Indians if we hadn't have had that kind of sophistication to know how to pretend something that wasn't in our hearts. Yes sir master. And at night when the moon wasn't shining, we wouldn't even do it during the full moon. But at night when the full moon wasn't shining, we'd close all the, put the blanket up to the window. Oh, G-d. Please save the heart of this man. I'm going to kill him, kill him.
Yes, I recognize that we have yet in us the evidence of a higher social evolution than what we see in most white people. You move into their neighborhood, they act like you wonder if they're really the people their histories say they are. They act all crazy. They lose their respect for their own intelligent. They throw out all their morals and just start acting like a primitive savage to show their hatred or their dislike for you moving in their neighborhood.
You don't have to move in their neighborhood. They can be in your neighborhood and see you well off, see you look like you're doing good, and they will take the risk of having a black man giving a black beating, a black man's licking. A black man's licking can be something else, man. And say ugly things to you that hurt your feelings. They try their best to put a hurt on you that will last you for a long time.
See, and they know how to hurt intelligent black people. Some of them got on the elevator with us and the man looked at the white woman and he said, "Suddenly it's very dark in here." Now, I wasn't in his neighborhood. He was in my neighborhood. "Suddenly it's very dark in here."
And I had one just recently race some savagery and he was still just peeping above the image of the parrot. Half his eyes was just all savagery, so he had to respond to him. The best thing to do is not to even respond to him. But he had to respond to him. He said, "Yeah." He said, "This darkness that you see in here is light." He said, "We're shining." He had to say something. And when he said that, I remember what I heard a white man say when I was a kid. "I don't call you son because you shine, I call you son because you're mine."
Them crackers are something else, you know. I guess they're the Hoosiers up there around in our part. They call them Hoosies, I guess. Hoosies. We call them Hoosies. They're the same folks. They're the same folks. Got a bad experience down South, heading back home in Europe. So they've got a genetic problem and also a historical problem. Both of them are the same degree. That's bad. We're going to have to tame them with our display of true human excellence. It'll win every time. It'll win every time, I'm telling you. It'll win every time.
All right, I'm not going to hold you much longer here.
Speaker 2:
No, take your time.
The thing that we have identified here as being sacred connections, but have you never thought of them as being a sacred connection? But learned men, learned men, builders of democracy thought of them as sacred connections. Yes, they did. We hold these truths to be self-evident. Huh? All men are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights by their creator. Among these are life, life. Life itself, the human life. Not any kind of life, but the human life. When you come out of the human life and come into another life, come into the savage life or into a freak life, you're not entitled to that kind of respect.
Speaker 2:
No, no, no.
Life, sacred life. Liberty, sacred freedom. The pursuit of happiness. Huh? Sacred destiny. And G-d created man for all of those. Not according to the Bible alone. In fact, it is clearer in the Quran than it is in the Bible. If you don't believe it, read both books for yourself. Yes.
In fact, some of the very language that I find, some of this beautiful, fine language paying tribute to the excellence of man that G-d created, some of the very language that they used, I find the very likeness of it in the Quran that came 1,000 years, at least or better, before they ever wrote it or thought it. Yes.
I mean the language. Now, we know the ancients, they have said many of these things, but not in the language that the Quran used that is in our Holy book and not in the language, the very language that we find in the Constitution of these United States. I mean, the way it has been composed and put together, the connections that are made are the same. That should tell us something. That the great builders of Western democracy did not rely upon Western sources only, but they went around the world and they took the best of what they could find, and they hid the evidence from the naοve masses. Yes.
Don't you know that to be a good President of these United States, accepted by the high brass, you have to be acquainted with the fundamental teachings of the Quran? You have to have an understanding, a knowledge of the Muslim holy book, at least in its essential spirit and teachings. You have to have a knowledge of that, even if you have to go to a secret order to get it. Oh, yes.
So don't underestimate the value of Muslim sources of knowledge and the contribution that that knowledge has made to the vast modern world. Don't underestimate it. Many things have been kept secret because the society was too backwards, too primitive to be told it. And even now, if the truth was told, most of the American white population would not be able to take it. There would be a great public disturbance. Oh yes, great public disturbance. They wouldn't be able to take it because they have been sold Christianity with too much narcotics. They haven't been given the sober dose of Christianity. The Christianity they were given was given with too much narcotics.
And if the truth was told to them that raises Muhammad up and makes them look and start comparing him with Jesus, the two prophets, peace be upon them, most of the white Christian masses would be in a bad situation. Oh, yes. It would be a public risk. The security of the nation would be at risk. It would. It's going to take time. It's going to take time. And I believe that G-d has intended... Allah, I like to call him Allah.
Speaker 2:
Allah.
You know, Christians, they don't have to participate in this. But Muslims say, "Allah."
Speaker 2:
Allah.
Now, say, "G-d."
Speaker 2:
G-d.
You see the difference?
Speaker 2:
Yes.
They both touch the heart. When I said, "G-d," touch the heart. When I say, "Allah."
Speaker 2:
Allah.
When I say, "Allah."
Speaker 2:
Allah.
Oh, buddy. Allah.
Speaker 2:
Allah.
G-d, it made me go up and down. When I say, "G-d," I ain't going up. If anything, I'm going down. G-d. But now say, "Allah."
Speaker 2:
Allah.
Oh, it sends me up to high and then brings me back down to the sober plane of reality. It does, and I believe that Allah has intended us to be the greatest factor in bringing that about. When we, the African-American, come up from the image that they have seen and accepted, and to the real image of the Muslim man, oh, buddy. They won't look to the Quran directly. If they looked to the Quran directly, they would go crazy. They ain't quite ready.
They'll look at an image. They'll first look to us, and then a healing will start to take place. And those that work through democracy haven't been able to heal of the white race. A healing will start to take place, even in those that think they are really the top representatives of Western democracy. A lot of them are far from being culturally and humanly or socially evolved. Far from being it, and they're sitting up in the halls of power. Sitting in the seat of power. Sitting up at the control, making decisions that affect the lives of all Americans.
And really, they're little more than the Tarzan ape man that they had in the fiction. Just a little more than him. They regard all people that they think they can help the same way that Tarzan regarded them. The, "I've got something that can control their lives and not just call them a little charming word or call them charming, work on them and give them a little spiritual. Send my spirit into them, and I can come out naked. I don't have to be decent. I can come out naked and acting crazy. I can hardly talk, but they'll follow me." Yeah. And that's how some of them are. On a real intelligent level, they can hardly keep a good intelligent conversation with you.
They've got doctorate degrees but they don't have what goes along with it. Their heart will not allow them to display the excellence of their so-called achievements. That's right. Even when we reach out, look at that. Yeah.
Not all of them, but we know a great deal of them, a greater number of them fit that description. So when they see us come from the level that they think we are, they thinK we're fixed on, they don't think we can change and be resurrected and lifted up by Al Islam. And then if they know what we've been ministering for these last 10 years or more, but with more knowledge, with more tact, with more sophistication, with more representation in terms of institutions to our credit. Institutions to our credit. Foods, banks, industry. Yes. When we have acquired that, we're going to acquire it. We're on the way. Yes.
We don't have no program for making what we're doing in that area visible to the people. No, we don't have any program for that. The business people that need it, they know what they're doing, and they meet locally. They don't even have a national apparatus to bring them all together. They meet locally.
But I've been in Atlanta, Georgia recently, and the African-American Muslims are well-represented among the African-American power moving business people in Atlanta, Georgia. They're well-represented. We have some visibility in Atlanta, Georgia, and it's coming in other places. Oh yes, it's coming in other places.
So we're coming. Yeah, we're going to hit that. And what we're doing is solid. Allah says, "What is with you is temporary." Those are the things that have no sacred life connections. What is with you is temporary, perishable, passing away. What is not permanent will remain. Some of the Christians, they were blessed, and the blacks, too. We have some, a few. But their influencers are both of no consequence in this terrible day of deterioration for Christian morals and values. They're hardly of any consequence.
But they had it, too, that belief in something solid and permanent. That respect for something solid and permanent in the makeup of man. A constitution that goes back beyond me, that outdates me, outdates my father, outdates my ancestors. That goes way back to a time they call Melchizedek or something. Yes.
Yeah, they have a recognition, a respect for something that's in them now presently. They aren't saying that they've lived and survived. It hasn't been delivered. Not one iota. If they're in full force, but we get disconnected. We get disconnected. The confusion in history, the confusion in the life of man, the confusion in our own life, that brings about a disconnection of attachment, and we become alienated from our own selves. And we stop to see ourselves as no one at all, and we just come down harder, and we go with no spirit. And we fall behind and lag behind the people that are making advances.
But as long as we can be turned on again to our sacred connection, oh, the plant perks up. It meets the sun and it starts checking out its limbs. And it says call on me, I'm here. Yes. See, that's what we have to have. We have to be turned on again so that can outdate, outdate black consciousness. Outdates Africanism or African, black nationalism. Outdates America. Outdates Americanism. Outdates the white man. Outdates the Christopher Columbus. They can go back there before the Pharaoh built the first pyramids and find that there was there then. When they were left nothing but Allah created there was there then. The same person that's here now. The same person that's here now.
That's the common sense reality we have to accept. You don't have to set your imagination too far to believe that. We hell are your flesh of your father and mother. But you phases it back. You can go back a million years in a still the same. Your circumstances have taken you away from the connection. There's not only a physical connection. Every single entity has a corresponding abstract entity. It has also an energy entity. Yes. For every physical entity there is a corresponding energy entity.
I don't know if it's true or not, but they say they have been able to take a picture of some kind of radiation or some kind of something that is the image of the physical person. At least they say they are. I don't know whether it's true or not, because they bring out a lot of things just for effect, to produce new causes. So I don't know whether it's true or not, but I know they say that. But I know one thing. Science says, and I believe it, I know it, that for every physical entity there's a corresponding energy. Energy.
Now, what I want to say to you, that if the physical is still there, and the physical is still here, you can trace the physical back to the first man. The physical is still here. Do you think what was in Adam, the first man, is not in you? How can that be? That line has not been broken. There's a continuous generation. The line has not been broken. Whatever was in Adam is still in all of us. It hasn't been broken. Look it all up.
Now, if that is there, there is a corresponding energy body for that. And if I go back to my respect for that, G-d is going to bless me just by going back to respect for that. G-d is going to bless me to be fed by the energy body connected with that. I'll find my mind working better for me. I'll find my heart working better for me. I'll find my morals working better for me. My moral organ, my moral muscle will work better for me. I'll find my spirit, oh, just moving better for me. Everything starts to perform better for me when I start respecting what G-d made me and discrediting the man called white man for what he has credited himself with. He credited himself with making me. He says he took me out of Africa as a savage and blessed me and put me in America and gave me opportunity to come human being in America.
But I know upon the recognition of what G-d has revealed, I know that no man and no environment and no time can improve upon me. No. They cannot make me not one iota better. No. They can only help me realize what is already here. What is already here. And I don't give a man much credit for suppressing what is here and releasing it a little bit at a time when it's convenient for him, and then telling me I ought to acknowledge him as the liberator. I don't give him much credit.
Let me tell you something, and you African-American brothers of mine, you should know it and you still are all African-American brothers. That don't give the white man too much credit for freeing us. Because whereas he has allowed us to have a major freedom that he took from us, he has not yet allowed us to have that measure of freedom that Allah created for us.
(silence)
Getting back to the Constitution of the United States, and in recognition of this vital life that we are talking about. There's a stir now among certain Christian authority to get back to that respect for that life that G-d created and to make our leaders, our political leaders and government leaders acknowledge the aim from G-d to the greatness of America. There are reverends, there are preachers, representatives of Christianity who are asking that the schools, the students in our schools, public schools be taught the connection from the Bible and the precious idea of freedom and human rights in the Constitution of these United States. They say we have to stop treating that document as purely a political document, but it must be recognized as a religious document as well.
Now, they might not succeed because of the heavy, heavy kind of situation that exists in support of this thing that they call separation of church and state. Now, they might not succeed in getting the kind of recognition they want from the politicians and the government people. But I do believe they're going to succeed in bringing a respect again, some government, some of the politicians, for that kind of connection. In fact, it's growing now. It is growing now. It's winning support right now and it's going to increase.
For Muslims, we have to realize that this is a good time for us in America. Economic predictions are not good for the next 20 years, they say, maybe, or more. But they don't predict any serious thing happening that's going to cause any great alarm. We're just going to have to learn how to not splurge and waste so much and be willing to accept that other people live, too, around the globe. Third world people. Poor people, nations around the globe.
Don't you know America was living high on the hog that belonged to the whole world? That hog that they was living high on belonged to the whole world. It's now a part of the world. That's my ham, sucker. You don't have this no more. They thought they came in their profit of hogs, and now America ended up with nothing but the head. Hog head cheese, that's about it.
But I repeat, we should understand. If a person doesn't realize the situation for themselves, they're in the dark. You can have all the faith in your ability. I know I'm equipped, I'm ready, I'm ready. But ready for what? You've got to know your situation so you know what to be ready for. Yeah.
The potential is there for advancing you and advancing the world by your own efforts, by your own contribution to it. But you can't apply it until there's a situation. You have to have a situation for it. So we have to know the situation. And many of us, we were so knocked out by the glow of the news of organizing Muhammad's passing that we just became disconcerted. We didn't have no sense of where to go or what to do. It dealt such a terrible blow to our psychological makeup, to our sense of balance and direction, that we have just been lingering, kind of suspended in space. Yes.
Now, we have to wake up and realize that the honor realized in Muhammad was not disappointed at death. Death didn't disappoint him. He was prepared for it. He was ready for it. He was expecting it, and he was working hard like a beaver to do all he could before the plot ran out on him. So the self, he fought a good fought, he fought a good fight. So we don't have to weep. He fought a good fight. He wasn't disappointed. He said, "One sun is sitting and another one is rising."
That's the soul of a man with hope. That's not the soul of a man disappointed. He said, "One sun is sitting and another one is rising." That was one of his last words. You might say, "Oh, he was talking about himself." No, I'm not. I'm not. The only thing that made me think of myself when I realized that you're going to think of myself. And I started realizing that some of you all are thinking I thought about myself, and that made me think of myself. I wasn't thinking of myself. I'm thinking of the light. The light that was in us before it was in Muhammad. The light that he tried to advance. The light that he knew would keep living and would rise up again after a temporary fall. Yes.
One sun is sitting but another one is rising. I witnessed today, and if he was here, he would look at us with love. Yes. I know what he'd do. I know him very well. Are these people prophets? I said, "Yes, sir." I can go on knight Ali.
And I could see my mother standing by, see a smile. She said, "I'm going to rest very well too, honey." So you know the children are affected more by the hurt of the older ones then the old ones themself. The older ones have to come to the aid of the children and say, "Honey, no, it's not that bad. Honey, no. Don't cry. It is not that bad." So that's what they'd be doing to us if they were here, seeing our fellows who won't stop crying. We're going to cry until judgment day. If they could come here, they'd put their arms around you and say, "Honey, it's not that bad."
Say don't think we're weeping. We are happy. If they could communicate with us, they'd say, "Don't think we're weeping. We are happy."
Because I'm sure the Elijah Mohammad didn't expect this much longevity to be existing this soon behind his past. I think he expected a long period of almost total inactivity. In fact, he told us. He said all of this going to belong.
But he also told me that in modern times we don't accept predictions of prophets that weren't authorized.
Congregation:
That's right. Yes.
But he never said he was as a prophet. I said, well, that's a prediction I'm going to try like hell to beat.
So I set out to fight again. Those explore those resources that he predicted that would take us away, that would unseat us. I went out right away to fight against them. Because he had commissioned me to not shy away from prophecy that I don't like. You prophesy something I don't like, my father sensitized me to go after it. Prove it wrong. Beat it, defeat it. Tell it "Back up." Say, "Go back there and predict again, sucker."
That's right. And that's the kind of courage we need. We need the courage to say to anybody that say anything negative, anything to dull our spirit, to set us back, to say to them, "That ain't in me!"
Congregation:
That's right.
Say, "Sucker, you're appealing to something that's not here. It ain't in me to respond to your negative talk. I'm a forward moving creature. Today, tomorrow, and always."
Congregation:
That's good. That's right.
That's how you have to meet the opposition .
Congregation:
That's right. That is right.
See, and I learned from the Uncle Toms of the past. I learned how to survive till I can do better. How to do a little bit in the light and a whole lot in the dark.
But you know they thought I was a new thing in Islam. Yeah, they thought I was a new Islam spiritualist. Holiness. Sanctifier. Wanted nothing but a angel existence. Ready to live permanently and internally in Dhikr. Deep spiritual meditation, uninterrupted. Untouched and unmoved by worldly matters.
That's what they were trying to mold me into. So since I saw the intention of the heavy boys, which the control was in their hands at that time, I went along with their game. See, I had a little bit of the gene awareness of how we survived during the white man's cruel domination. So I'll give you what you want in this day and time, but I'm going to kick your behind on the latter day. And I lived to do it didn't I?
Congregation:
Yeah.
And I just say like the man said last night, I just nailed that machine. And then I got your help to carry it away to its burial place. And we buried it and put the dirt on it. And we put gauze all over it to lock it to make sure they have no resurrection. And if it is, going to kill it again.
Congregation:
Yeah.
Oh yes. now the Prophet peace be upon him. In concluded this we're going to address this same scene, and continue the same lines past, in hopes to bring out more understanding on what we're talking about. Our Prophet blessings be upon him. He told us that the life of a brother, of the Muslim brother, is sacred. He said not only his life, but also his blood, his property. Huh? His property is sacred. We are not to violate his life. We are not to violate his property.
If we would just take that one saying of the Prophet... I'm talking about African Americans. African American Muslims. If we would just take that one saying and let it digest completely, thoroughly, and saturate our body and our conscious with it, and we start living that idea where we don't violate our brother's life. We don't violate his property. His wife is his wife. His children are his children. You don't start trying to influence his children in your direction. Discredit him. Diminish his worth in the eyes of his own children. No you don't do that. That's the devil who'd do something like that.
But we must practice to the fullest, what the Prophet has told us just that one thing. Oh Buddy. It would serve to bolster us up, bolster us. To give us new image, greater image in our own eyes and in the eyes of this society.
Oh yes it would. They'd say, "Well those people respect each other. Those people are trusted among each other. They don't have to worry about their Muslim neighbor or the Muslim brother violating their life or their property."
Huh? See the Prophet has given us volumes of knowledge. But that one little bit, look what it would do for us.
And another thing he said that is precious for us in this sacred connection, don't you know social life, that it's essential? That it's base? It's sacred? The Prophet said that my sunnah is through marriage. And if you don't do it, you're not following my sunnah.
His sunnah is to marry. So I don't care what kind of condition existing in the United States now, in the cultural fusion that they have, that makes people don't want to marry. You should do nothing like that brother, your wife. And if you're not qualified to get one, you should be struggling like the dickens to qualify yourself for a wife.
Because the same Prophet, great, great man. The true image of Allah wants us in . I'm talking about in terms of that originality. He also said to marry is half of your religion. Now as a Muslim know that and you accept that. Do you want to go on forever with half of your religion?
Congregation:
No.
I don't. I would like to have... I don't want to meet G-d and G-d say, "Whoa, whoa, I see. I see. We see." You know, G-d say, "We see." "We see you. You meet us with half of your religion."
Oh, I'd be so hurt. Oh Lord.
Congregation:
Yes sir.
See brother? You can get dhikr beads in all the colors in the rainbow. And they can hang around your neck until they can't see anything but your eyes. And stay in deep meditation and dhikr and Salah to last for 10 solid days or years. And when you come out of there, the Muslim man who embraced the religion just last week, and accepted the Muslim marriage, would be so far ahead of you that it'd take you that 10 years again to catch up with him.
Brother, the thing that grow you and me up is the ability to manage well a shared situation with another human being. Nothing, nothing helps us, and grow us up, and make it possible for us to realize our great assets. Nothing helps that more than accepting a relationship. A situation wherein you share authority in that situation. You share life in that situation. You share freedom in that situation. Don't you know you have to share freedom? You ain't free to push me out of the bed because you like to crawl or wallow all over it.
Say, "Hey sucker, what? Do I have to put a partition on this bed? Do I have to make a doggone partition down the center of this bed?" Say, "I don't care if you could come over this way, but do it gently." This is real ain't it? This is real.
Now you know every time I talk about something, people think I'm talking about my own life. And don't you know, you know much more about life from leading, and hearing what's going on in other areas, than you know from your own personal experience?
I can't talk about it... my concerns between a man and woman because people will think that I was involved in that. Do you hear me Imam? Yeah. I don't know you had all that experience. And we don't talk just from experience man.
So brothers and sisters, it's very important that we understand our religion, and understand that our religion, just like all other blessings that Allah gives... Our religion is a blessing of Allah. Has the good days and bad days. The good day of our religion was interrupted by Western dominance, white supremacy, and the industrial advances of the Western world. Yeah. But now it seems that time... the wheel of time is revolving us backwards to a good day for us. And I do believe that Al Islam is on the rise, not to test for a long, long, long time. I believe that once the lives of the Western world has known it, it stays. Not for a while. For long, long, long time. And if you were to read the great men of perception, great analysts, and the scientists, the Western world alike, are saying themselves, you will agree with me that if they cannot predict any better certainly we with our limited foresight should not be foolish enough to have hope beyond.
Huh? No! This is a good time for us! It is a good time for all ethnic groups in America. That kind of forced patriotism, that puritanical patriotism that the white man has for democracy, is out. The legitimate freedom, the legitimate patriotism is rising. It is not all about making America a great power to rule over the world, to become the savior or civilizer for all the downtrodden, downfallen.
No! It's all about ethnic groups. Ethnic groups, individuals, families coming into the glory that G-d intended for them. This is our day! This is no dead man day for black people in America. It's no bad day for Asians. It shouldn't be no bad day for us! We have to come to the same fine discipline. The fine discipline, the fine vision, the fine dedication, the fine commitment to self, to family, to future! And we will see. We can advance in this country just like the Koreans, just like the Siamese, just like the Asians. Just like anybody else. Yeah. And this is the time for it.
Yeah. Oh yeah. Believe me, this is the time for it. Do you think the establishment would like to hear what's going on here? Things right now? No indeed. Man, they'd rather see a thousand Hitlers, black or white, than to see what is happening here right now. Because they can connect the string out and make the Hitlers just keep moving. Just keep moving. And any time they want, they start pulling the thing in on the Hitlers. But something like this, they ain't got no say.
No, they don't like this. But how come they tolerate it? They tolerate it because time has come. They can't help themselves. If they would come in here physically and try to stop this, they'd end up creating such a mess for themselves. Oh, they'd create a mess for themselves. It will be the end of the world for them. Yeah for them. It'll be the end of the world for them. And they know it.
Congregation:
Yeah.
You know, in my conclusion, the late leader Elijah Mohammad, he said... and he was quoting, really, Christianity because you know his familiarity was in Christianity more than Islam. And that moved him to alter his circumstances. He hoped that his future generations would have better circumstances. And that has happened. He would say, "Hell helps prepare the dead to meet their maker." Remember he said? "Hell helps to prepare the dead to meet their maker." Now Hell have already helped us to meet our maker. Now if you think Hell is going to cheer us all the way down to our glory, you're crazy. 
As-Salaam alaikum.



