07/05/1998
IWDM Study Library 
Faith and Devotion to Family- A Better Life is Near

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
The following lecture, titled Faith and Devotion to Family: A Better Life is Near, was recorded Sunday, July the 5th, 1998, at the Ramada Inn, Harvey, Illinois. The lecturer is Imam W. Deen Mohammed, Muslim-American Spokesman. And now Imam Mohammad.
As Salaam Alaikum. Praise be to G-d. We say "Alhamduillahi Raabil Al Amin.". Praise be to G-d, the Lord cherisher of all the worlds. We witness that He's one the Lord G-d for all of us. We're told in our Holy Book to say, "Our G-d is your G-d" speaking to Christians and Jews. "Our G-d is your G-d, and your G-d is our G-d." This is what we are told to say in our Holy Book to the Christians and the Jews, what is called the People of the Book, meaning the people of Scripture. Say to them, "Our G-d is your G-d, and your G-d is our G-d."
We have one G-d who created everything and created human beings to serve Him. Our G-d says in our Holy Book, He did not create the human beings or the jinns. That's another race or another family of creatures who have the power to think and reason like we do. We believe that G-d created not only the visible world of human beings but also a world that we don't know quite well, another world called the world of the jinns. They also have the power to think and reason and to make their own decisions.
We're told in our Holy Book of them, that they heard the Qur'an being recited and some of them said, "We have heard the recital and we believe." So, we have to accept that some jinns also accepted the Qur'an, accepted the Qur'an, the revelation called Qur'an, the revelation that Muslims follow throughout the world 100... pardon me, a billion, a billion people, over a billion people now on this planet following this book that we're talking to you about right now, the Qur'an. That is said of the jinn race or the jinn family in the Qur'an. So, we have the human family, and we have the jinn family. We have the human race and the jinn race. They said that "We have heard a wonderful recital and that we bear witness that it is the truth." Yes.
Let us begin with unity. Let us begin by accepting our unity, that we are all people created by G-d. We have one and the same Maker. One made us all. The Creator created all of us and created everything else that we have to have to support our life. All the supports for our life were created by the same Lord that created us, us humans. We want to be also in unity with the people of faith. There's no reason why we should be against each other. You believe in G-d. We believe in G-d. You Christians believe in G-d. We believe in G-d. You Christians believe in a life of faith. We believe in a life of faith. You Christians believe in high standards for moral life and you believe in an ethical society for man. We believe in the same. You Christians believe that government should be fair by its people, that you shouldn't be dominated by a dictator or shouldn't be ruled by oppressors. We believe the same.
We have so much in common. We essentially want the same life, the same life. I know Christians who say, "Well, you Muslims don't drink." I know Christians don't drink. Better than that, I know Christians who won't allow liquors to be sold in their township. So we have people that we like to live with, live beside, like to be your neighbors and work with you for the good life that all of us want. And that's a life respecting what G-d wants for us, for human beings.
So, we praise G-d and Muslims salute our Prophet, the last Prophet who is a Mercy to all the worlds, not just for the Muslims but he's for all people in all worlds. Muhammad the Prophet, we salute him. We say "Wa Salam Alahi Wa Muhammadan Rasul Allah ", the Prayers and the Peace be upon Muhammad, the Messenger of G-d, "Wa Abdahu, and His servant, His servant Muhammad. Allah says of Muhammad, the Prophet who came 14 centuries ago and a little better, with the message of Islam, a message that came to reestablish the validity of Scriptures that the Prophet's received and to do that not for the Jews or not for Arabs, but to do that for the world. That's what G-d blessed Muhammad the Prophet to do, to establish the genuineness, the validity of the messages that came to all the great Prophets, all the great Prophets.
We should understand that a Muslim has to believe in all the servants of G-d that we find in Scripture, all of them. We believe in Jesus Christ. We have to. If we don't believe in Jesus Christ, we're not Muslims. We believe in Moses, the one that we usually associate with the Jews. We believe in Moses. If we don't believe in Moses, we can't be a Muslim. We believe in all the Prophets, and we believe in the Books that they received. We believe in the Books that Moses received from G-d, and we believe in the Book, the Injeel we call it, that Christ Jesus, the Prophet received from G-d. We believe in all of it.
We're not so strange in the Christian world when it comes to seeing Jesus as a Prophet because there are denominations of Christians who also say Jesus is a Prophet. So we should understand that we're not so far apart as some of us think we are. We're not that far apart. If I would list for you right now, quote for you right now, the Articles of faith, the essential beliefs of Muslims, you will find that they're very much your beliefs, and you're Christian. And I will do that for you.
We're told firstly to believe in G-d. Then we are told to believe in the angels, G-d's angels, who are Messengers also like Prophets. We are told to believe in G-d, to believe in G-d's angels. We're told to believe in the Revelation. One logic supports the other. If you believe in the G-d, then how come you don't accept what the G-d did or what the G-d sent or what the G-d established? So we start with G-d. That's the first. That's the most important. We believe in G-d. We believe in the angels. We believe in the Revelation. We believe in the Prophets who received the Revelations from man and the Books that they received from G-d. We believe in those Books, His Books. We said G-d's Books. We believe in G-d's books that He gave these Prophets, these men, these Messengers that delivered messages to men. And we believe in the Day of Judgment. We believe in the Day of Judgment. We believe in the resurrection after the death, the resurrection after the death. We believe in the resurrection after the death.
We believe in the qadar of G-d. For want of a better term, we have to explain this. There is no translation that does it justice, I don't think, and not in English. We believe in the qadar of G-d. The qadar of G-d is explained like this. It says the qadar of G-d that regulates good and harm, that regulates good and harm for everything. So if you approach anything yourself, if you engage yourself or indulge yourself or anything in the environment where you live, you may get good from it, you may get harm from it. You may get benefit, you may get harm. We believe that the qadar that regulates that is from G-d, the qadar for regulating that is from G-d. We say "Min Alahi Ata Alah" , from G-d, the Most High. It is from G-d, the Most High.
Therefore, if we approach the thing as G-d intended for us to approach it, the human beings to approach it, we will get the good. We won't get harmed because G-d intend only goods for his creatures, no harm. If we approach it the way He intended for us to approach it, we get the good. If we approach it in the way that He didn't intend for us to approach it, we get the harm. We get the harm of it. That starts with the simple lesson like, don't put your hand in the fire. That's the wrong way to use it. Don't put your hand in the fire.
So, these beliefs, these beliefs are your beliefs. I don't believe I gave any belief that the Christians don't also accept. Maybe you don't call it the qadar of G-d, but you believe in that. You believe in that, too, that G-d has made the rules in the universe, and what happens have already been decided by G-d. If something hurts you, G-d made it that way. G-d created the world. G-d made fire. You're not supposed to cook yourself with it. You cook your food with it. So we all know that, and it makes good sense, right? It's common sense. Sometimes the most learned of the society, they approach something incorrectly.
Now, we know that we have experienced a lot of problems, brought a lot of good, but we experienced a lot of problems, too. With urban renewal, urban renewal in Chicago area, it helped a lot, but it also set a lot of people back, and it hurt a lot of people. In fact, it cut a lot of people out of a life. So we know about urban renewal. Our great minds came with that plan, urban renewal. We know it brought good, and it brought harm. It brought good, and it brought harm.
Our speaker last night who spoke to us briefly about the push and pull effect, he works for the Department of Energy now. Brother Marvis, he used to work for the Environmental Department, Department of Environmental Control... Protection, pardon me. He used to work for that department under the government state. He was telling us how important the environment is and how certain things that have already been done are affecting the environment very seriously, and the future looks very bleak. It's not encouraging at all if we don't get cooperation from the public to protect our environment in the future and eliminate problems that we have. I'm sure most of us are aware of these aerosol bottles and the damaging effect that they have on the ozone level in the higher regions of the atmosphere. He mentioned this last night briefly, I believe, Brother Marvis. We were aware of some other problems that we are having.
I was in Bangladesh far away, which I'm going to tell you, I want to mention Bangladesh again later. I was in Bangladesh, over there in the Far East way over where India is. I think you know India better than you know Bangladesh. It's over there in that area: Malaysia, Indonesia, India, all way over across the ocean in the Far East. I was in Malaysia, pardon me, Bangladesh. We were traveling down the road. They had just started developing. Only 15 years they have been free to develop their society. Prior to that time, they were under a very domineering Socialist government, so they couldn't realize what they wanted to realize. But now they're free of that, and they're pursuing what I think is Democracy, and the future looks very good for them.
But they're fastly moving to industrialize Bangladesh. So they have factories, a lot of textile factories and leather making factories and other factories they have. They also are doing some other manufacturing that's not causing any problem as we can notice to the environment right now. But they have so many vehicles on the roads, and the exhaust is really frightening. They have a long road that takes you almost to one end of Bangladesh to another, I guess, at least the commercial area. The vehicles are so heavy and so thick on that road, just like Los Angeles, heavy traffic road, interstate highway or just like Chicago interstate highways that connect us to take us from the North side to the South side of Chicago suburbs, north suburbs, south suburbs.
You know how you have to creep along on those roads sometimes, almost at a standstill? That's how Bangladesh road is, the main road. I can't remember the name of the road. That's how that road is. It looked like to me it's about six or eight lanes. They don't have everything marked like we have. Believe me, they get around, and I don't think they have any more accidents than we have. And no stoplights. I don't remember seeing a stop light. And they're making it. They respect each other, and they're not colliding with each other.
But the exhaust is so heavy you could see it just hanging in the air. I felt really, my life threatened, my health really threatened seriously by that. The only thing I dread, I intend to go back to Bangladesh, but what I dread is having to be in that traffic again. I just might get me a donkey and take a back road. Yeah, take a back road and stay away from that area. The other areas are very beautiful. The air is clear and everything. It's a big land. It's kind of spread out a bit. We traveled quite a bit in Bangladesh when we were there. There are areas where the air is beautiful, clean and beautiful. There are elevated areas that are very nice, very nice. So much for that.
Let me get back to our address today. Now, we want to support families, families, neighborhoods, neighborhood communities. We want to support families and neighborhood communities. That means also support individuals. Individuals don't live outside of families or outside of communities. The only way for individuals to live is inside of families or inside communities. So if we support families and communities, we are going to support individuals. There's no way. So we don't go to individuals. If we want to help people, don't have your program to help individuals, unless you're a doctor or something. That's different. Administering medicine, we have to come one by one. We have different complaints. But if you want to help the social life, the social life, the community life, that's what I mean by social life, if you want to help the community life of people, then help community life and you'll also help individuals because those individuals live in the community.
And usually, the problem for the individual is a problem for his community. They don't exist separately. They're always together. If there's a big problem of us employing our youth today, that's not a problem of our youth. That's a problem of our community. If there's a big problem of us paying for crime and suffering under crime, that's not a problem for criminals. That's a problem for the community. And that's not a problem of criminals. That's a problem of the community. Something went wrong for the community life to give opportunity for crime to grow and spread so. Something went wrong for community life to give teenagers the mind that they have to organize and have big gangs, big organizations to protect them, that that's the only way they can survive. Something went wrong with the community.
So, if we want to solve problems in our society, we have to look at our communities and see can our communities do more to serve the good life, the traditional life, the good traditional life of families and neighborhoods, or neighborhood communities. That's what most of the preachers that I'm meeting with, leaders in religion, Christians, Muslims, and Jews and others, Buddhists, that's what most of them are saying, that we have to address the community. We have to contribute to the betterment of the community. We have to address family life, and we have to serve the establishment of good families. This is what they are saying. I believe that's what G-d wanted us to do from the very beginning. That's what G-d wants to do. G-d puts our eyes on family, and G-d puts our eyes on human beings living in community.
Adam himself, if you understand Scripture, see I'm talking about the Bible now, Scripture very subtly identifies Adam not as one man only. In one context of the Scripture, Adam is identified as one man only. In another context of the Scripture, same Genesis, Adam is identified as a plural person, as a plural person, as a person depicting a figure, depicting a group, a community, people in great numbers, male and female, it says. He created, G-d, male and female. "He," meaning G-d, "Created them and called them Adam," that one name, one single name, "and called them Adam" in the day that He made them. This is the Genesis. I'm quoting it to you.
Now, how are we to understand that? Here is a man called Adam and he was made one single person, but later G-d addresses him not as a single person but as a plural body. And we have heard the term, the Adamic people or the Adamic race, meaning that all of us are Adam, all of us are Adam. So all of us are Adam. And if you understand it, Jesus is supposed to be, in some Christian schools of thought, Jesus Christ, Peace be upon him, he is presented as the second Adam, the second Adam.
I'm familiar with the Bible. I read it twice from Genesis to Revelation, and I read it once studying it. I read it once probably just reading it. I read it the second time reading it and studying it. I've never gone to a seminary. I've never gone to any Christian institution to be ordained a minister. But I feel like I can do a better job than most preachers that I hear in my neighborhood preaching if I wanted to preach Christianity. I believe I would've served the Gospel a little better than most of them. That's what I believe. Now, that's not my religion, so I'm not going to do that. I respect those who are doing that, and I don't want to interfere with their work. And what I'm saying is preachers, if they were in the audience and know the Bible, what they will agree to. They would say, "Yes, he's correct."
So now Jesus comes in the Bible, Peace be upon the Prophets. Jesus comes and he also presents himself not as one person but also as a plural body, as a plural body, members in Christ. That's what he said. If you accept Christ's message and believe in him, you become members in Christ. So here, people are now seen as a Christ body, a Christ body, the same as it was for Adam. So the same idea or the same logic that is found in Genesis about the single person and the plural person, we find it also carried over into the New Testament addressing Jesus Christ the Prophet, Peace be upon him, as a single body but also as a plural body, as a plural body. Which tells me that G-d doesn't want us to get our mind off of ourselves as a society or as a community. G-d want us to see ourselves as a community.
They have an expression among the teachers of Islam, the learned ones in Islam, and they say it's a saying of the Prophet himself. It goes like this. It says, "The control of G-d is on the community, the collective body of people. The control of G-d is on the collective body of people. "Allah Jamaiyatti, for those who speak Arabic, "Allah Jamaiyatti." The control of G-d is on the collective body of people." How do they explain what that means? How do they explain that? They explain that by saying that G-d holds all the people accountable, and He holds them accountable in society or in community life. That's how He holds you accountable. If you come out of community life and you say, "Well, I don't want to belong to the society of human beings anymore. I want to be a recluse. I want to be a hermit. I want to be a saint living away from people," well, you've taken yourself away from G-d's concern. That's not G-d's concern.
G-d's concern for human beings is to have them live together as families and communities and to support each other for the betterment of their families, for the betterment of their communities. This is what G-d wants from day one till this present time. This is what G-d wants of us, to live with our families as a family unit, have family organization, have respect for family authority. Families should have authority. Families should have authority over family. Muslim law respects family authority. Say we have a problem between husband and wife. G-d says, "Get witness from her side of the family and get witness..." If they can't settle the matter, "Get witness from her side of the family and get witness from his side of the family and bring them together to solve the family problem."
So, here's G-d respecting family and empower families to live in peace and preserve their peace and keep their peace. G-d respects the family as family authority, the family organization and the family authority so much that it tells the leader in Islam, we can't impose our own judgment upon families. We have to bring the families together, and we have to listen to what the families are saying, if they want us to be with them in counsel. There's nothing in the Qur'an that says an Imam has to be with them, nothing. They can meet together and solve their own problem.
So here is a religion that goes directly to the individual, male and female, and tell you how G-d wants you to run your life. When G-d says... Pardon me. When the Prophet told us of G-d, they say, this is a legitimate quote, that's why I'm not sure so I'm putting it as I see it, but I do know it is acceptable. It's a sound statement. It's a sound statement that stands up. Now, whether the Prophet said it or not, I haven't searched the reports enough to know that he really said this. But the authorities say he said it, "That the control of G-d is on the collective body, the collective body, on the group of people."
It means that he holds us individually responsible. We belong to a collective body. You belong to a family. Family members will be held individually responsible according to our religion, and I believe it's yours, too. According to our religion, G-d will hold the members of that family individually responsible. The father, if he was there, if he's living, he'll be held responsible for things that he neglected. Saw it all going wrong and wouldn't straighten it out, saw the family needing help and wouldn't answer them, he's going to have to be held responsible. Mother, if she's neglecting, she's going to be held responsible.
Children, don't think you excused. If the child, the daughter, the son was in the family and didn't value the family and didn't respect the family interests, saw things hurting the family and didn't answer the call of the family, those children also will be answerable to G-d. Even if they're minors, they'll be answerable to their parents in this world as minors. But when the judgment of G-d comes, they're going to be answerable to G-d for how they disrespected their family, how they disrespected the family interest, how they disrespected mama, how they disrespected daddy, how they disrespected their sister or the brother, how they disrespected the property of the family, how they disrespected the personal property that their mama entrusted them with. G-d is going to hold them accountable for all of that. And I am a student of the universe. I study nature and how things evolve. Believe me, I see a logic in the universe itself that tells me, yes, G-d is going to do that. So much for that.
All of that is to say this, family is no small matter. Family is a big matter. This whole world began with a family. That's the belief of the people who received the revelation from G-d by way of the Prophets. We believe that this whole world was populated by one family, that was the family of our first parent, Adam. Adam had a wife, a mate, and Adam and his mate produced the first children, and that was the first family. And that first family is what G-d created. All of us have come from those procreators, those parents, those original parents of ours. All of us have come from them.
So, if all of us have come from them, then it's easy to understand the statement: Human family, human family. All human beings are really one family. We are the family of the first parents. Adam and Christians say Eve, Adam and his mate. We are all the descendants of Adam and his mate. And that was the first family according to revelation, the Bible, Qur'an, the People of the book. That's according to that Revelation that we identify with you, that man began as one family on this Earth, and all other families, all other nations and communities came out of that family. We say came out of that family. Came out of that family means we came from the orientation that G-d put that family on.
Does that means that we are really outside that family in terms of our genetic belonging? No, genetically we still belong to the one family. Genetically, we are Adam. The first father, his genes are in us. Impossible for it to be otherwise. His genes are in every one of us. His blood is in every one of us. His flesh is the flesh of every one of us. Impossible to believe otherwise. I said impossible to believe otherwise. If you accept Revelation, if you accept Bible, Muslims, if you accept Qur'an, then it's impossible to believe otherwise.
We want to talk more about families and community. But I want to look at neighborhoods. When I say community, I'm thinking about neighborhoods, neighborhoods, neighborhoods and ethnic communities. Like African Americans, we live mostly together, and where we live in Chicago forms the African American community, the African American ethnic community. Then you'll find the Polish people and the Irish people and the others. Now we have a big number of Arabs and Indians from Asia living in Chicago and in Chicago suburbs. They represent a big population, too, now, fastly growing population and a big one. So all of these are ethnic communities. We have so many ethnic communities in Chicago.
In the West, some areas of California, the people are so mixed it's so stupid to think about "your race." It's absolutely stupid because you are just one. You're just like, if you put pepper and salt and curry and all that and about 20 spices and you sprinkle it on something, and one little piece of spice going to say, "I'm curry." Hell, who cares? Who cares? When I eat, I don't really taste you. So many other spices here it'd take a scientist to identify you, food specialists to identify you. So who cares? That's the way this America is becoming. California is just example to us of what is a sign to us of what America is becoming.
Years ago, the magazines came out, several years ago, one came out "The Browning of America." You remember a caption like that? The Browning of America. Well, that's exactly what's happening. So many people are coming and mixing until when you look at the American public now in one big scene, like the taste or whatever, you look at that, the white is spread out there like in my hair. You look at my hair and you don't say it's white. You don't say it's black either. There's too much white there. So you say it's gray. Oh, he's gray. He's gray-headed. So when we look at the big public now in a situation like the taste that bring people all together from everywhere, we see a brown crowd. Yes, that what you see, a brown crowd. You look out there, that's what they look like, brown, because there's not enough black to make it black, there's not enough white to make it white, so it looks brown. The big crowd looks brown. So I agree with them, The Browning of America. America is browning.
What I mean by this is we're not going to see any more of the extremes, extremes. Black is one extreme. White is another extreme. We're not going to see any more extremes. We are going to see the common people, the common people. Black kind of fades out and disappear, and you lose awareness that the black is there. Same thing happens to the white. So it leaves us to look at what people, it leaves us and do nothing but look at people. That's the way G-d made it in the beginning, and that's the way it's becoming now for us in this new world in the West, well, new world everywhere.
But before going to certain, I would say, benefits that we think we can join with the Christians and increase those benefits or be contributors, before going to that, I want to mention something that's very, very extremely important for us. What is the great benefit of having Revelation from G-d? What is the great benefit of saying, "I live a life of faith. I believe in G-d. I believe in G-d's words or His Scriptures, Scriptures from G-d. What is the great benefit?"
We may say, "Well, the great benefit is salvation. Your soul will be saved." Yes, that's true. But what is the great benefit right here now? What is the great benefit for me in my daily life? "Well, to save your soul, to save you from damnation is a good..." Yes, I agree. I'm not playing down that. That is the most important thing, salvation, yes. But salvation is a kind of vague term. For the Christians, salvation is one thing. For the Muslims, salvation might be another. It may not be exactly the same thing. But if we mean meeting G-d and G-d saying, "Yes, I accept you. You have been a good servant," as the Bible Scripture says, "My good servant welcome. Welcome home, My good servant." So if that's what you mean, then, yes, that's the most important thing. It's to live so that we will be presentable before G-d, and G-d will say, "Welcome home, My servant." Yes, that is the most important thing.
But let's look at our practical life. I'm a businessman or I'm a teacher or I'm a welder, I used to be a welder and I love welding, or I'm a welder, how will it benefit me? And I'm a family man. I'm a father. I got a wife that's looking to me and depending on me to uphold my part of the bargain. And I got children, and I'm a father to them. They're looking to me, too, to keep my relationship in the family with my wife and with them and to uphold my part of the bargain. So I got all this. How can I benefit from this religion now? How does this religion help me to be a father I want to be and to keep the family life we want to keep and to have a good future in community life or in America or in Chicago or wherever we live? How is this religion going to help me?
The way this religion help us live in the context of creation, in the context of creation, the big context is a whole universe, everything, the whole skies and Earth and everything. The smaller context will be this town, Harvey, or the bigger town that I've lived most of my life in, Chicago. The smaller context will be that town. Even smaller than that will be my neighborhood. Smaller than that will be my family or the home where I am. So, we narrow it down to the smaller, smaller, smaller environments, but G-d has prepared us to live in any environment and have the best life possible for ourselves.
How have G-d given us this help? G-d has given us this help by telling us to respect structural supports. Listen to the language, respect structural supports. The human being is a structured life. G-d has designed this life. No doctor designed this life. No scientist designed my anatomy and how my heart and lungs and vital organs work. No doctor that designed that. No doctor gave me that. The doctor had to study that. My creation has produced a world of scientists. My creation that G-d made has produced a world of scientists. The scientists have studied my skin. My skin has produced the branch of scientists. Scientists have discovered my blood system, my circulatory system, my blood system, another group of scientists, another whole world of scientists. They have studied my heart, another group of scientists. They have studied my eye, another group of scientists. They have studied different parts of my eye, and different parts of my eye have produced different groups of scientists.
So, look at what my body has generated, what my body has generated. My body has attracted intelligent people who want to know how to service my body, have attracted them, and they have studied my body to learn from my body how my body should be serviced. They couldn't learn from somewhere else. They couldn't study a dog's body and learn how my body could be serviced. They couldn't study a tree and learn how my body can be serviced. They had to come to what G-d did and study my body as G-d did it to learn how they should serve my body.
Now, if I am to serve society or to serve my environment, shouldn't I have the same good common sense to study that environment that G-d did so I will know how to service that environment that G-d did? This is the precious benefit. This is the great benefit we get from Revelation. This is the great help we get as religious people. We respect Christianity.
There was those who took a divergent path and went off respect for G-d. Not the people of Russia, not the people of the Communist bloc or used to be Communist block. But the government, the leaders, the politicians, the thinkers, the political theorists of the Communist bloc, they went off and say, "No, we can't accept the idea of G-d for our government," and they denied people public expression of religion. They lived only 70 years, and they faced their death, and the whole world have seen them lose power. They are no longer a power.
In my lifetime, it looked like just yesterday, there were two great world powers: the Communists and the Capitalists of the West. The capitalist West and the Communist bloc were the two great powers, and we didn't know who was going to win. We didn't know whether the Communist bloc would win and we would find ourselves all under Communism if we survived the nuclear war, if we survived the nuclear war. We said we didn't know whether we're going to end up all being Communists or under Communism or not. But we see just in 70 years, 70 years, the life of one person, it's finished, gone, no more threat. Isn't that a sign from G-d?
You people of faith, your faith should be stronger if you watch what is happening in the world of real life and real people and real history, real events. If you're watching and studying that, this new time on this Earth should encourage you to get closer to G-d, to trust your G-d more, to trust your scriptures more, to be better Christians if you're Christians, to be better Jews if you're Jews, and to be better Muslims if you're Muslim. Yes! So you're not thinking. Something's wrong.
Here is G-d is producing miracles on this Earth in the '90s, Before the end of this century, G-d has produced miracles and has shown us miracles bigger than the miracles of crossing the Red Sea, much bigger than that. That's a small miracle crossing the Red Sea. Here is a people, a great people called the Russians, the Communist bloc, able to shoot a vehicle up with human beings on it and land them on the moon, send vehicles out from Earth and land them on different planets out there in the space competing with another power, the United States. Our government doing the same thing.
One say, "We believe in a G-d." The other is saying, "Well, we don't bother with G-d. It's not important to us. What we are doing, G-d is not relevant. It got no relevancy here for religion in G-d. What we are doing is studying the dynamics of materialism. It has nothing to do with G-d. We don't believe in creation. We believe in materialism. We believe in material." And G-d say, "Okay, you've got 70 years, buddy. Then I'm going to knock the foundation out from under you." G-d does that, performed this great miracle before the world, and we don't register it as a great miracle of G-d.
The biggest help that G-d gives us that the world does not always give us, it gives us some time, is the awareness of structural supports, structural supports in the context of matter as matter exists and preserves itself. I hope you're following my language, as matter exists and preserves itself. So G-d gives us an awareness of structural support. So here I am. I'm a human being, and I'm a human structure. I'm a human design. I have human identity. I'm not a stone. I'm not a light fixture. I'm not a dog. I'm a human being. No other pattern is like mine. If we could say the material world has produced all this and the material world has title to patterns, or G-d, the Creator who did all this, has title to patterns, there is no pattern like mine. There's only one pattern for human creation, one pattern.
So, G-d has done that. That's my identity first. Before I'm black, I'm human. Before I'm white, I'm human. Before I'm Japanese or yellow, I'm human. Yes. Before I'm African, I'm human. I don't know how long Africa has existed, but I know whenever it started with people, the first people were human. So my first identity and my most important identity is human. That's what distinguished me.
I can communicate with language. I have common language with human beings. No matter if they learn Chinese, I can learn Chinese, too. Any language a human being learn, I can learn it, too. I can speak with them, and they can speak to me in my language. If they want to learn my language, they can speak to me in my language. G-d has made us to be able to communicate with each other, but not with the baboons. So this is our identity, and this is the most precious identity, a human identity, an identity that labels human structure, human composition, human content, human life. Human, that's what I am. That's my native life. That's my native life.
I don't know if there's a land called human land. I don't think so, but I believe the first land that existed for human beings was human land. That was before they called themselves Africans or French or Asians or whatever. They were humans. I don't know what term they had in that language that they had, but it translates human. It was human. Yes, yes, it was human land. G-d says, "As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end." This is the Christian Bible. If you understand it, it's Muslim logic, too. "As G-d created you in the beginning, you must return." That's Islam. "As G-d made you or created you in the beginning you must return."
You may go far away from what He made you and be hissing like a snake or barking like a baboon or something. You may do that. But one day G-d's law, G-d's will, G-d's force upon you is going... and creation, not only you, but upon everything that you have to use to support yourself, is going to force you to come back to the state that G-d puts you in in the beginning, the human state, the human state, the human state that's needed to support good families.
If your humanity is not there, how are you going to have a good family? If you don't have the condition of a human being in you, how are you going to have a good human family? So your family will be a baboon or a hyena family. Others will be looking at their neighbors, "That's a hyena family over there next door. I wonder how they got to be like that." Well, we may not know how they got to be like that, but if we appreciate human identity, we sure know what to call them back to. We can get them back to what they were when G-d made them. And that's what it's all about, structures, structures that G-d made, that this material universe supports and promotes and preserves and survives by preserving or promoting that, how this world survives and protects itself, keeps itself and promotes itself.
Don't you know, everything is undergoing stages of change for the better, for the better? Everything. Now, that tells us G-d is a good G-d. Science tells us that really people weren't Homo Sapiens. Science says this, not that we buy it. But I'm telling you, I'm giving you the logic. We buy the logic, but not necessarily the explanation. Religious people, we buy the logic. The logic is that you aren't always as capable and resourceful and productive as you are now, that you once existed on a much lower scale in the evolution of life, and that in that lower scale of evolution of life, you were like a primitive animal, an animal, a weak animal. That's what scientists say, Darwin theory, whatever you want to call it. That's what a scientists say.
Now, what does Scripture say? Scripture says that originally we were created weak. Originally, we were created weak. So G-d says we were created weak originally, but He says we were created also for growth, progress, and promotions. We were created for growth, progress, and promotion, so we're not going to always be in that weak stage that G-d created us in. We are going to grow and develop into stronger and more resourceful and more productive life. That's what a scientist says, and that's what Scripture says. So, we are a life that's constantly being promoted.
And if we understand the need to be aware of structures as they are existing in the system of matter that G-d made and how they're supported and preserved and promoted in that system, structures, my life, my human life is a structure. Community life is another structure, for human life to realize growth and possibilities that are in us waiting for the right kind of environmental situation for us to realize them. So when we get the right environmental situation, we can realize this great potential in us, this great capacity, a great potential of human life. Yes. So life is promotional. Life is the growth. It's growth. It's developmental.
If you are hung up on racial identity and you are not thinking with common sense, not using the powers of the human intellect, not engaging this world, this great world of material things to know how to relate to it, how to live with it, and how to benefit from it without bringing harm to yourself or your family or your society but bringing benefits, realizing benefits, if you are not having that kind of mind and you are hung up on your identity, your race, you're a black man, you're an African, you're a white man, you're a European, whatever, you're an Englishman. If you are hung up on that identity and you are not engaging this universe with your intellect as G-d wants you to engage it, you are going to be left out.
Most likely, you are already left out, but you are going to be eliminated because G-d is marshaling mankind, his life, is marshaling his life, is making him come together to see each other, to recognize the common life and the common goal or the common purpose or the common destiny for the human spirit. G-d is marshaling the human beings together. He made this world so the ocean is not too wide to keep us separated. No, He didn't make the oceans too wide to keep us separated. No, He created the man with a desire, with a spirit, a desire and with a brain that will enable him to cross the ocean and shake hand with his brother that he never saw before, discover a member of his human race that he didn't know exists. Don't you know, the known world before 1492, that's our history in America, they did not know these people we call American Indians existed? They didn't even know they existed.
So here is G-d, G-d created the world and the human brain and the human spirit to be able to support each other. So the Earth supports the human brain and human spirit with wood. The man see a log, a dead piece of wood floating on the water and see a bird riding it. He said, "Hey, maybe I can make me something to ride that water." So, he makes him something and ride the water.
Where they got it from? They got it from the bird riding a dead branch, huh? No, he got it from G-d who created the water, created the dead branch to float on the water, created the bird to alight on the dead branch and to give man a message to his mind, "Hell, make you a boat and cross that water." Hold me down, baby. Oh, lordy, lordy, lordy. Now, that's what gives me the Holy Ghost. That's what gives me the Holy Ghost. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, that's what gives me the Holy Ghost.
G-d says in the Scripture, "We have made no just estimation of G-d." We have terribly underestimated G-d. That's what the Scripture says. And I'm a witness. Scripture tells us that G-d has a definite plan for human beings and it's to be realized in this Earth. That's why He made us in the heaven and put us in the Earth. It's in this Earth we are to find our ends, our goals, our ultimate life. We are to find it on this Earth, and we are to find it with our wives, with our children, with our neighbors, with our community. That's how we define it. G-d has decided that. We can't get around it.
We have to stop being so hung up on just ourselves. The world of commercial consumerism, commercial life, consumerism is pulling us apart, pulling us apart. But this is a challenge. I think this is G-d's will. I don't think this is a curse. We have to just meet the challenge. We have to measure up to the challenge. The commercial world is so complex, and it's appealing to our appetites and giving us appetites we never dreamed we would ever have. It's entertaining our minds, occupying our time. Just to take care of our families, we have to work sometime two shifts, two jobs, at least one and a half or a whole job and a piece of a job. Some of us have to work two. Sometimes we have two or three workers in the house, and all of them have to work full-time and part-time just to take care of the bills and keep that house nice.
So, they're busy. Here's the commercial life taxing our life and taxing our time so much. And we get a kiss on the run. You brush your teeth and you say, wipe a little toothpaste off, "Okay, baby, see you later. Catch you in the morning. Catch you in the morning. I'll see you in the morning." They'll wipe a little toothpaste off. You don't want to put the toothpaste on the mouth. "Okay baby." And you lie in the bed watching TV, right? Yeah, I know what you do. I know what you do. I'm human like you. I know what you do. You lie in the bed watching TV, and you should be watching each other.
You should turn off the TV and say, "We ain't got no time for no TV. In the morning, we going to be ripping and running. We ain't going to have time to even speak to each other hardly in the morning. "Say, we got time to watch this TV. Let's look at each other, sweetheart." You're going to cut that TV off and just look at each other. If you ain't got nothing to say, hell, let us lay down in the bed with your dumb selves and just look at each other. Maybe just look at each other and put some thoughts in your head.
But there you got an alien in the house, an alien in the house. Ain't even human. Entertain all of you all. And you're talking to it, too. You're talking to that alien. "Yeah, yeah, okay, okay. I knew that was going to happen. Hey, hey, hey, get ready. Boom. Hey, hey, hey, kill him. Kill him. Shoot him. Hey, hey. Oh, don't do her like that. Don't do her like that. I'm going to put her down. I'm gonna put her down. I ain't watching this show no more." Got all that conversation with an alien called television and a member of your species laying there neglected. I know it's not that bad for all of us, but it's that bad for too many of us.
We have to strengthen the family, and the only way to strengthen the family is make the family more important than these possessions. "Hey, get out of my refrigerator." I heard that when I was a little boy. "Get out of my refrigerator." I was thinking, "Well," I said, "What do you mean 'Get out of my...' The refrigerator got food in that all of us eat." All of us used the food in that refrigerator. So why she keep saying "my refrigerator"? So I was a protestor when I was a young man, boy. I say the family would be more happier if you'd stop saying "my refrigerator" and say, "our refrigerator." "Get off my couch." Mama, we'd like to see this couch clean. But if you stop saying my couch and start saying, "Get off of our couch," if you want to keep it nice, you'd probably get better results. And we did. That's what I taught my family, and we've gotten better results.
See, we've become too selfish, too possessive. That's this commercial consumerism world. You're just consumed. Just consuming for this. I guess nature got something to do with it, too, aging. Because if you ain't got faith in G-d to help keep up your life and keep you thinking positively and in a healthy way, you just get sick. So I believe just aging got something to do with it. I've seen people 25 years old, beautiful, 28 years old, beautiful, 30 years old, starting to get a little ugly. I ain't talking about physically ugly. 40 years old, getting real ugly now, getting cold, used to be nice, and getting possessive, getting real possessive. "Good G-d almighty. Don't throw that out." Been looking at this thing for 20 years in this house. Nobody have used it for 20 years, and I can't get $5 for it at the pawn shop, the junk yard, nowhere. It ain't got no value. It's just occupying space. "Leave that alone. That's mine. Don't touch it. That's mine. Don't touch it." Too possessive.
Now, I know this is striking the quick of some of you. I know you, it's just cutting right down to that nerve. I know it. But this has helped. When you go to the doctor, the doctor say, "Hey, this going to cut to the nerve now. I done put all kind of deadening in there, but still you might feel it a little bit. But after it's all over, you're going to be in much better condition." That's what we want. That's what we want. We don't mind little pain if we're going to feel better later and won't have to suffer that problem.
So, we want strong and better families. I don't even know any way to invite you to become stronger and better families without pointing out to you the things that weaken families and hurt families and push members of the family away from each other. We don't want anything pushing us away from each other, the television, the material things that we love in the house. We don't want wealth or anything else pushing us away from each other. If those things are doing that, then we have to use our human intelligence and examine it, study those things, and study their value to us as human beings and as families. Study their value to us and put those things in their proper place again.
No, they ain't number one. G-d is number one. They ain't number two. My life is number two. My family is number two. So they must be number three or four or five or six or seven or eight or something. Put them in their proper place so we can keep the human life and the family life in good time, in good shape, and in good health so we can prosper here and have a good life and meet each other and not hurt each other. Don't you know, a lot of killing in the street is because there's killing in the house? Yeah. Somebody in the house just killed my feelings, just killed my feelings. Treat me so bad I ain't got no human feeling anymore. I go out there and kill somebody for $50 because my human feelings were killed in my house by somebody that didn't have any feelings for me.
Allahu Akbar. I want to invite you today to just study everything again, those important things to you, especially if you're having difficulty with those things. Study them again. Look at them again. Try to see them anew with a fresh sight, with fresh eyes. See them anew and put things in their proper places. Put G-d first and above everything and respect everything that G-d has created to be respected, everything.
I don't know anything that G-d created that He didn't say He created it for respect. He created everything to have a respect. If you don't respect... Muslims don't eat pigs. But if you don't respect the pig, you're missing something in your religion. G-d created the pig. That's an animal. Now, if you're driving down the road and the pig is in the road, you shouldn't say, "It ain't nothing but a pig." I don't care if I hit it or not. You should be as careful not to hit that pig as you would be not to hit a lamb because G-d created that life, too. Thank you very much. I'm going to leave you right now, but let's meet again soon because we got a lot to talk about. Peace. As Salaam Alaikum.
For more on the Ministry of Imam W. Deen Mohammed, Call 1-708-201-9692. All right, Post Office Box 1061, Calumet City, Illinois, 60409. For WDM Publications, call 1-708-862-7733. All right, Post Office Box 1944, Calumet City, Illinois, 60409. For Muslim Journal, see local distributor. Thanks for listening.



