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IWDM Study Library
Every Group has an Ethos that Unites Them

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Announcer:
This is the National Public Broadcast of Imam WD Mohammed, Muslim leader.
Imam Plemon El Amin:
The son of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Imam WD Mohammed.
Imam WD Mohammed:
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Praise be to Allah. Thank you for receiving us so warmly. We thank Allah for our presence here and we worship Him, we worship Him alone. We associate no deities with Him. And we witness that Muhammad, to whom the Qur'an was revealed is the seal of the Prophets, the last Prophet and G-d's mercy to all the worlds as G-d says in our Holy book, Mercy to all the worlds.

Yes, and Imam Idris, he introduced something very important for us as Muslims in America, living in a country where Christians are in the great majority. And that is that it was Christians who first showed Muhammad and his followers’ kindness. A Christian ruler of what is Ethiopia now, it's called the land of the Habashi, accepted an envoy that was sent to Ethiopia. The fact it was the Prophet himself who sent them. He suggested that they go there, and he said there's a kind ruler there and they should go there to seek a place to escape from the persecution in Mecca. So, they went there and one of them who was not expected to be the learned one, but he knew Islam, he knew the religion, he knew Qur'an. The others were thought to be more known for their knowledge of society, things of the world, important things that would be expected in people who come to speak to the ruler of the Habashi, you know.

But this common man, one of the common ones, spoke to the King, to the ruler and recited to him a passage from the Qur'an on Christ Jesus and his mother Mary, Peace be upon them. And when he recited to them the story in the Qur'an of the blessed Mary and her son, Christ Jesus, Peace be on them, the ruler said, "What you've said is very similar to what we have." And when the Meccans, who were very angry that Muhammad had some followers who escaped and went to the land of the Habashi, Ethiopia, they right away went out to catch up with them. They couldn't. So, they finally arrived to the ruler of the Habashi himself and they demanded say, "These are our citizens. Turn them over to us." And they charged them with teaching something different and disturbing the society of the Meccans, who were idol worshipers.

To make it short, the ruler refused to return them over to these Meccans and told them that. He said, "I find no fault with them," and he refused to return them. So, we owe Christian society, Christian world at least thanks, thanks and appreciation. And we owe them I think our allegiance. We should be their allies in all good works. And I am an ally of all people doing good work. Yes, yes. That's the way Muslims are to be. And that's the way the Christians are in their excellence. You find a Christian in his or her excellence, you forget they're Christians. After you live with them or spend a little time with them, you just forget you're talking to Christian or being with Christians. You feel you're just being with yourself or with your own kind. That's if you are in your excellence. Now, if you out of your excellence, it won't be that way.

Yes. Well, we thank Allah for our presence here and we pray Allah guide us all the way in everything that we endeavor to do in His name or in the religion Islam. Because whatever we do as Muslims in G-d's name, it reflects on our religion, and it reflects on us. People will blame all of us for what some of us do and people will think, some of us who misrepresent is the image or the right way to see all of us, a correct picture of all of us. So, we have to be very careful not to in ignorance, do something, to say something to spoil what is really Islam and what is really the Muslim picture, the true picture according to Qur'an and according to the life of Muhammad, the Prophet. Always people think I speak just at random or speak just the spirit. Whatever the spirit say, I speak. And they love me. And they really complimenting me when they say that. They think I'm some special guy, some real special guy from heaven or somewhere, I don't know.

Anyway, a sister gave me, she heard me give a lecture and I mentioned the Fig tree and Jesus Christ, what it said of him in the Gospel, the New Testament. And next class when she came, she brought me a bag of real nice figs, some of the best looking figs I ever seen. Dry figs, some of the best I ever saw. And I was so happy. I saw them. I said she brought me some figs and they were looking so good. But she handed them to me as though she was handing me the Holy Qur'an or something.

She handed them to me and she said, she said, said, I believe she was an educator at one time, I think she's retired now. But anyway, she said, "I have observed you and I think the way you speak, it's the fig. It's the fig tree." And I had preached on the graduation of the soul, how the soul graduates. It's according to Islam. And it's the same in Christianity, I do believe. I'm a student of the Bible as you know, and I think I'm an excellent student of the Bible. Yes, it's a graduation of the soul that has everything that we need in our life. G-d put it in our soul. Soul is like the seed of your whole life and the soul is the first to register what you need. Then the soul communicates this to the other parts of the body, mainly the brain, the conscience. So, these graduations that the soul wants for us are given in the Qur'an as the Fig, the Olive and Mount Sinai. Turie Zaytun, Wa Turie Sineen. The Fig, the Olive and Mount Sinai.

So, I was speaking on this and describing how the fig fruit is just so full of seeds, many, many seeds where the olive only has one. That's the difference, main difference between the two. The olive has one seed, but the fig come before in our development. The fig come before the olive. The many brings us to recognize one. The many brings us to recognize one. And this is really logic in college and university. This is logic. You go from generalities to specifics, to specifics. Even in logic, you go from generalities, many, many things considered looking for the logic. And you come to a specific, one logic that ties all things together or it sets the premise that we can follow, guides us into what we are looking for. To be the logic, road of logic to take us to what we are trying to perceive or understand or arrive at.

So, I told her, I said, it's kind of spontaneous. I said what they call spontaneity but for thought, for cognition, for the mind, trying to perceive and understand. And you'll be straining into understand something or to put things together in a logical fashion that may be puzzling you in a particular context of knowledge or context of whatever it is, scripture, whatever. You'll be straining and all of a sudden you get a burst of ideas. You just get a big burst of ideas. So many beautiful things come to your mind. That's the blessing of G-d, the Holy Spirit, the blessing of G-d. You get all these beautiful thoughts and you say, oh, you're so happy. You are thankful to Allah. You say, oh, thank you Allah, thank you Allah. And light comes on and it's light, bright light, so many wonderful thoughts coming together. Put the light on for you. But then you still haven't found the one logic that ties everything together, ties everything together. That logic enables us to have rational logic. Rational logic. And I explained to them that the first development, the stage of development described as teen, or fig.

I said, we still have language in English that can help us understand what the fig is all about. If you say or use expression that is a figment of your imagination, I said that tells us that that idea is not lost from English language. And then I told him, "And G-d taught Adam, the names of all the things." I might've lost you that time. Yes. And G-d taught our father, Adam, the names of all the things-"Alama Asma Kulan." He taught them the names of all the things and then exposed them to the angels, exposed them to the angels, put them where the angels could observe. And then He told the angels to "Tell me your names if you know," and the angels couldn't even tell G-d their names. But the man was created to name all things. Adam, our first father, the developer, the man that G-d put on the land. Made him of the land and put him on the land so he would produce from the land and develop the land. That man is the man that G-d says He taught all the names. I need my glasses now here. So anyway, when spiritual searching, when the mind is spiritually searching, motivated, you move by the spirit, by the soul and the spirit, the search. That is the fig tree. And when you trust faith, you trust truth. You trust righteousness and you believe that there's a G-d that will reward you for trusting that way. And you are straining to understand. G-d calls ignition, ignite, star bursts, spontaneity, beautiful verse, so many beautiful ideas. And you know that you have been blessed by G-d.

And Muhammad says that's a step in the excellence of man's life as a rational being. He can't understand with his rational mind, some spiritual matters or some things that are very complicated, too much for his mind at the time. But if he strains and if he is having good intentions, purity of intentions, if he's having good intentions, G-d eventually rewards him. When we hear in the Bible, I'm not here teaching, preaching Christianity either. But how can I ignore the Bible when Allah tells us, our G-d who revealed the Qur'an to Muhammad, tells us that this Prophet of ours is a Prophet mentioned in the Torah and in the Injeel. That is in the Old Testament. And in the New. That this Prophet is mentioned. Then G-d goes on to give us a description of this Prophet. Says he's one coming to take all yokes of bondage slavery off the people and to purify them, et cetera. So, if G-d says he's in the Bible, G-d has already directed me to go to the Bible. Because if He says he's in there, He didn't say he's in there, but don't look in there.

If He told me he's in there, then G-d knows He created me to go and see what He's talking about. So, I went to the Bible to see what G-d is talking about, and I found the exact language in the Bible that is in the Qur'an of Muhammad the Prophet. I found it in the Bible. Yes. And then G-d says, also speaking of the Qur'an, "In the Qur'an are the books that were revealed before in their corrected form." So, here's the Qur'an. G-d is telling me our Qur'an contains books that were given to Moses, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. So, we are really misguided, maybe intentionally by the Satan. Maybe it's the attempt of Satan to misguide us like that to turn us against Christians and the Bible. Then it could be just our ignorant leaders in the history who left the purity that Muhammad gave them. And they're envious and they're afraid that the Christian world may convert some of us. So, they don't have the faith. They're not strong like Muhammad's faith and the faith of the early followers of his. They don't have their strong faith. They wouldn't send you to Ethiopia.

All right, that's okay. We trying to save time, but I'm cheering all the time. I'm so happy. I'm just applauding constantly. Yes, my home is with you all. The home of my soul is with you folks, you folks, I love you so much. And this is not something that happened overnight. It happened over a long period of time over all my life. And as an old man, I'm getting to see it in full bloom and it is wonderful. Yes. So anyway, bringing this to a conclusion so we can keep going. They fear that if we read the Bible, we may be converted to Christianity and leave Islam. Many of them fear that. But if you got something that can't stand the test, don't sell it to me. I don't buy it. I'm not the kind of person to buy it. If it can't stand the test, I don't want it. See, if I don't write notes, I'll be all over the place and we'll be here forever. I have to write notes. "Imam gave that book for hours without no written text." I say to myself, you don't know it is written. I just don't need a whole lot of writing to follow what I want to follow. Doesn't take them a lot of writing. Just a direction for me, a plan and a direction. That's all I need. Yes.

So, I want to begin by saying I'm afraid that if we don't get our hearts back to where they were when we were sincere and innocent, following the best of our leaders, African-American leaders, Frederick Douglas and all those. And then the religious leaders, all the good religious leaders that we followed, we were sincere. We had good intention and we loved our leaders for their courage and their moral strength, courage to give us what they knew was best for us. We didn't want leaders that would permit us to do just anything and everything. Or if we were wrong, to look over our mistakes just to keep us as their friends or their followers. We didn't want leaders like that. We wanted leaders who were true leaders. Leaders who were true brothers and sisters, leaders who would tell us when something is wrong with us that was standing in the way of our progress, of our good life and our progress in the world. That's the kind of leaders we wanted. And we had them, we had them. But something happened in the early sixties. New leadership came. They misunderstood the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and they thought it was all about black and power, being black, being superior and having money and power. They went after the things of this world and lost their own souls as the scripture say. So that's what happened.

And now after that has happened, we find our people with leaders that's not real having the spirit and the moral strength that the old leaders had. They're great orators, they're great speakers, but they don't have something that those old leaders had. So, they're not reaching something in us, deep in us that is hungry for help, hungry for help. That life for us didn't start with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. That life for us didn't start with his teacher, Mr. Fard. Great people. But that life didn't start with them. That life started even before Frederick Douglass, that life started with the first slave that started asking questions and didn't get answers. Why am I a human being like him? But he owns me and he's free to go where he want to see his relatives and marry who he want to marry, but I'm not. I'm his property like his horse, or like his cow, or his dog, or his mule. Or like his chicken. I'm just his property. Why is this? I can't ask him. He might whip me. So, there's a G-d somewhere and I see the master praying. I hear him talking about G-d. If you are really G-d, answer me please. Why have you assigned him to that life and me to this one? And we both seem in my eyes to be the same life.

Questions like that the slave would ask. Just like Muhammad looking at the misery, the miserable lot of his people in the Jahaliya time, Idol worship time or the time of ignorance. And carrying the burden of their ignorance on his heart, going away from his people, away from traffic and their conversations and their every day routine life. Going away from them up into a mountain called now Jabil Al Nur, the mountain of enlightenment or the light because he went up there and received the light. It wasn't called that before he went up there. He went up there with the burden of his people on his heart and he didn't know how to call on G-d. He wasn't a man of scripture. But he knew or believed that the universe was an orderly universe, that it had a definite scheme or design. And that suggested to him even before he met G-d, that there was one logic tying everything together. So, he went up there crying to the higher heavens for understanding and G-d responded, and G-d communicated to him with five short lines.

Communicated to him. And the Bible says if you knock long enough, there will be an answer. Say, you go to the door and you knock, don't give up, keep knocking. If you're knocking on the door that G-d has made to open for you, it will be open sooner or later. Don't give up. So those slaves, they were sincere and they were not seeking a small freedom. I'm talking about the real ones. I'm not talking about the dumb ones that have been on like animals satisfied with what the master had ordered for them as a life. I'm talking about those whose inner core consciousness that is out of touch with my mind. But nevertheless, it's a consciousness we call soul. Those who were in touch with that, those are the ones I'm talking about.

Yes. So, they didn't want for us any small freedom, the freedom from the plow and the field that we plowed, or freedom from the immediate space that the master kept us on so we could go and travel outside of that area and see what's on the other side, or freedom to play when we want to play. No, they were seeking the bigger freedom. They were seeking the freedom to connect themselves with the world that G-d made, the whole heavens and earth, skies and earth. They wanted freedom to be connected with that. And they wanted to know where am I in this great plan? Where am I in this great world that you made G-d? And what should I be doing here? Should I be having this small life of a slave? I don't think so because my soul is not satisfied with this small life. My soul knows better. Yes, that's the kind of thinkers they were. And they're the ones who began to be dissatisfied with their circumstances and have courage to change it. Frederick Douglass, as you know, you know his story, how he was under a slave master who was kind to him and who had a wife who really saw great value in Frederick Douglas and thought he should use his intelligent mind. So, she would go and bring him books to read.

But when he got a master that was pressured financially and saw Frederick Douglass only as money, a price that he could get if he sold him, he became pressed. He was pressured by financially. And he said, well, I have to sell him. He didn't want to sell him, but he sold him and he sold him, pardon me. The good master sold him to a bad one. One who just wanted money and the bad one didn't treat him like a human life, treated him like something he bought. Animal. But one day Frederick Douglass got tired of it in the road and he's a tall stately man as you know. You've seen this picture or heard of it. And I guess he dropped one of those short rights on the jaw of his master and dropped his master in the road, left him there sleeping, and he went on to freedom. Now how come some of you all want to forget Frederick Douglass?

Look, he was much bigger than Joe Louis. Joe Louis punch was good too. He was punching for our dignity too. But there was a man who threw one punch and took our life out of slavery, at least in his body. And if one succeed, the whole succeed. If you understand. G-d says in the Qur'an, your life and your death is as the life and death of one person. Your life and your death is as the life and death of one person. That was said in the old scriptures too before the Qur'an. Why? It only takes one person if they get the freedom and get the power or the position, one person can lead the whole people into darkness or into corruption, ignorance, and finally into corruption. One person can lead you into death, moral death, intellectual death, et cetera. And one person, if that one person be alive, one person can save our life or can lead us into life. And that's what it means when it says your life and your death, the life and death of one person. If one person is dead and they get the right position and influence and power, they can take the whole people down. One person. Look what Hitler did to his people, took the whole of Germany down, didn't he? Yes. One person.

And in Christianity they say one person took us down. Adam. Say when Adam fell victim to the suggestions of the devil, the Satan, he brought the whole humanity down, brought a whole people down. Everybody suffered his fall because he fell, we all fell. And it's true if you understand that. Because what he represent, what Adam represent is in all of us. And since that fell in him, it mean it fell in all of us, not just him. The world came under the influence of something that killed that for all of us, not just one man, not just one physical or mortal person. No, one type that G-d wants to stay in all of us, one human type that G-d created to be the real human being in all of us. When the world of Satan brought that down in one, they brought it down and all of us, so all of us died the death of that fall.

And so likewise one, one coming alive in that is the resurrection of all of us. All of us can have life if one come alive. And that's given in Christianity of Jesus Christ. That the second Adam, Jesus Christ is the second Adam and in him all people can live. But for us it is put a little differently. And we don't see that type first Adam or second Adam as two different types. They're the same type, whereas Christians or the people of the Bible or the book, that book, they will see Adam as one type of that. And Christ is another type of that. Whereas we see it as that life or that human type in its original state that G-d put it in. That's Adam. But it hadn't dawned into the consciousness of the man yet, hadn't dawn into his consciousness. He had not become educated as to what is this type, what is this life, what is this nature to describe it.

He was just living it naturally and it was his protection until Satan suggested something to him that was too big for his rational mind, too big for his rational mind. His rational mind couldn't handle it, so he fell victim to the suggestion of Satan and he went astray from that original type. Yes. Now, Jesus come now. And Jesus is conscious of it. It's not just a nature in him saving his life, but he has a nature and he's conscious of that nature. He's knowledgeable of that nature. So, they call it the second Adam. We don't call it the second Adam. We call it the same Adam in progression, in progress. He is developing, he's a developing life. The type is developing and the type goes from Adam according to the description Muhammad the Prophet gave us in his describing his ascension and his travels, night visit travel, and his ascension up into the heaven. It went from Adam to John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. And it went from John the Baptist and Jesus Christ to Yusef or Joseph. And it went from Joseph or Yusef to Ezekiel. Some say it's Ezekiel, but what we do know the name is Idris. And by the way, we have Idris right back here.

And it went up from that level, the life, the human type developing, growing up, going into his full picture, developing into the full picture or into the full scheme and plan for his life that G-d created it for. So, it goes up to Aaron, Prophet Aaron, and then up to Moses and finally up to Prophet Abraham, Ibrahim, to finally Prophet Abraham. Seven levels, seven levels. And everyone is a progression of Adam's life. That's why he's called Father. Every one of those came out of Adam's life. They were in his picture and his picture was releasing that that had to be released to fulfill the picture that G-d wants for man, Adam and all people. How do we know that? G-d says there's seven above you and seven within yourselves, meaning that whatever was revealed to us or shown to us by Muhammad that's in the elevations, the seven elevations, they're also in us. And you think Christians are missing this knowledge. If they were missing this knowledge, why do they speak of a seventh son?

So, there must be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 sons. And the seventh son is the one that's blessed the most, huh? And we are told that Abraham was in the highest heaven, highest heaven, the seventh heaven. But all those levels are excellent. And G-d says, do not discriminate against My servants. Do not make distinction that discriminates against them. Do not say that Abraham, because he is in the highest heaven, that Abraham is better than Adam. No, you don't say that. Abraham is not better than Adam. Abraham is just better situated than Adam. And G-d situated him like He situated Adam. The credit goes to G-d. Yeah, just better situated for the end that G-d wants on this earth. Abraham is better situated. So don't say any Prophet is better. No, they all were excellent and equal in their willingness or in their spirit, in their will to serve their G-d. Yes. So, coming back to where we were, we have to get away from this spirit in us to separate ourselves from our Christian brothers and sisters and even separate us from our black brothers and sisters or our African-American brothers and sisters, thinking that we are some kind of natural enemies. That we are just fated to be in competition with them.

And we are not to mix with them. We are not to approve of them. We are to work to overcome them, work to defeat them and become the leading people over our African-American Christians. Take the neighborhoods from them. That's not right. And that's not what Allah wants for us. Our life as a people will punish us. Our life itself will punish us if we go against our other African American brothers and sisters. Don't you know that no matter what you convert to, you were, before you converted to that, you were belonging to the life of your people. And what makes our life real for us is our common experiences, our shared experiences, especially those experiences that were very, very important or strong in our life, whether negative or positive, whether bad or good. Slavery was a bad circumstance. We shared that as a people. Slavery had its way of making impressions not only in our mind, but impressions in our soul. Those impressions in our soul, give picture or design to our soul and makes our soul distinguishable, different from the souls of other people. It is because we experienced in our genes, the genes that our fore parents gave to us, or we inherited from our parents. We experienced slavery, American type, American fashion, southern land fashion, plantation land fashion.

Irish didn't experience that. Polish, Jews, Italians, none of these Americans experienced that. We experienced that. And it has put impressions. It has put print, print design on our very souls. And we are different. We are not like Africans. Please leave if you like. You have my welcome to leave. We are not like Africans. No, we are not. An African come over here that didn't experience what we experienced for two or almost three centuries on the plantations of the south. And not only the south but also north.

The President of the United States, once it was united, the whole land was united. He was not just the President of the northern states, he was the President of all the states. And he and his cabinet, the Congress, the Senate, the whole government was turning their head not looking at what was happening in the south. And it took a rebellion on the part of the good people, white and others who knew it was wrong and knew it shouldn't be tolerated. The Quakers, the abolitionists, it took their effort and the able spokesman, they had, spokesperson they had, Frederick Douglass.

To bear so much on the country and the time came. See G-d says, wait until I come with my clock. Wait till I come with My timepiece. You got your timepiece and you are planning your world and you got your world planned something to happen at five o'clock your time. But I got something that I have planned too and it's going to happen at five o'clock My time. Alright, all right. Yes, so Almighty G-d let us remain in that situation until the time came for us to be freed from that. And He had already abled persons, sincere persons, existing and in place to put pressure upon the government, upon the heads of government. And they did. And the matter was resolved and we were physically free. Now we experienced the life of slaves. From the life of slaves, we experienced the life of so called free people, free from physical bondage, but that life was still a life of torment. Yes, the Klan terrorized us to take all of the courage out of us so as free people, we wouldn't dare show muscle to the white man. The Klan tried to do that with their terrible terrorist tactics. That's exactly what they used. The Klan used terrorist tactics to put fear in us so we never would rise up or would never would try to show manhood or muscle in front of the white man, but it failed. That failed too. You can't kill the original man.

No, you can't hold him down forever. He'll rise again. And he never accepts that you take him out of the life as G-d put him in. He will never, even though consciously he can't go back to where G-d put him, but his soul just won't accept it. Because that's where the seat of the life is of the original man. The original man's life is seated in his soul. Deep down there. Yes, Praise be to Allah. Now, does science represent, recognize what I'm telling you all? Yes. I'm a student of science. I'm a student of sociology. I'm a student of psychology. I've been to college for a few hours, a few hours sitting under a professor. But I've been in college for over 40 years sitting under my G-d, studying His universe and people and everything. So don't think this man is a fool. He's a wise, wise person. I'm not speaking, I'm not speaking looking at myself. I'm speaking, looking at the man that G-d has made over myself, out of myself and put him over me. That's what I'm looking at. And he is a learned man, learned man. He doesn't feel embarrassed or intimidated no matter how high the knowledge is of the people that he's the company of or the guests of. Nothing intimidates him. That's this man that G-d made, the son of Elijah Muhammad, WD Mohammed.

And G-d has given that great Imam an anchor, so he won't go up in the sky and get lost. G-d has given him an anchor. The anchor is Little Wallace who was sitting on the floor in the kitchen watching his mother cook and the sister, maybe about five or six years old. And the sister who was helping my mother, she said, son, don't you want to go out and be with the children? And my mother spoke before I could answer. I wasn't going to answer anyway. I didn't feel I had the authority to answer her. My mother was to answer her. My mother did. She answered right away before I could say anything. She said, "Sister, he's not going to bother us. He always liked to sit and watch me cook." Say, "He not going to speak. He's not going to say a thing. He just sit there quietly." She said, "One day he's going to be a great cook." That's what my mother said. And the prediction has come true. I can cook in the kitchen and buy my food from the market, from Jewel Food store or from any other food chain. I can cook. And believe me, this is WD Mohammed, not Wallace speaking. I can cook from the pulpit too.

And I think, thank you brother. I think that's what my mother was saying. Unconsciously her soul was speaking. Say this man, this child is one day going to be a great cook.

Praise be to Allah. Yes. So as an Imam, I can't get bigheaded because that little humble Wallace won't allow it, but he submits to his Imam in matters of religion and understanding. So, what is that? Soul and intellect. Soul and intellect. The soul is still Wallace D Mohammed, born of Clara and his father Elijah. But the intellect is what G-d has formed and created and made so big and great. And I thank him and I thank you all because if it wasn't for me being born among you all, G-d would never have selected me for that. It wasn't selected for me. It was selected for us, the people as a whole. Praise be to Allah.

Yes. So now, they call it in the language of the dictionary, something that binds all the people together who shared a common experience down through their history, up through their history. We want to look at it. They call it ethos, E-T-H-O-S, ethos. They say every group have its own ethos. This is invisible. The ethos is invisible. It's an energy, it's a feeling, an energy that holds us all together in one life. And when we speak, we speak from that ethos. We speak from that single soul. So as an individual, I have a single soul. As a person sharing life of my people down through history, I have a single soul. That soul is the soul of my people. And they call us soul folks, don't they? Yeah. That's no black man's invention. That's a white man's description of us. Couldn't no black man put Soul Train on TV.

He ain't got enough money to pay to keep it on there that long. He can't afford to put it on there. And if he can put it on there, he can't keep it on there no more in about two or three hours. So that's not a black man's creation. That's the learned white man's description of you. He said, here are people who haven't found the light. So, they can't structure their community life, but they're terrific. They're beautiful entertainers, powerful entertainers, and they have beautiful rich souls. They make a great contribution to the spirit of America. They love you for that.

They call us soul folks. Soul Train. Where is that life that we all share together? Where is it expressed more than any other place in the church and in entertainment? That's why they call us soul people. It's expressed in the church and in entertainment. I don't know how sharp some of you are or how deep some of you all have been, but I know some of you all can follow me all the way. Now Jesus, according to the New Testament, the gospel, he was looking for help. He had work to do. G-d assigned him work to do. Now he had to find the people who want to help him get it done. So, he went out and he found a fisherman, right? 12 of them. Fishermen. Representing the hours, the 12 hours of the night or the 12 hours of the day. I think they were really representing the 12 hours of the night. And Jesus Christ went out to get them, to invite them to come and be representatives of the 12 hours of the day. So, he went to them, they were out in the water, and he told them that he would, if they would follow him, he would make them fishermen of men, not fish, but fishermen of men. This is gospel word for word, which many of you know.

Now they were to go to the land, follow him into the land away from the river or away from the banks of the water. Come out of the boat. We have another reference to the light or the conscious world that he was trying to bring them to, so they would be servants working for the common people and speaking the language of the common people. Do you know until Christianity in that fashion and Islam as we know it in history came, religion on this earth was for the few, the elite and not for the masses. The masses had religion of their own ignorance, superstitions, et cetera. But religion didn't come classically to the people structured upon logic, et cetera, until Christ Jesus. And then following him, Muhammad the Prophet, Muhammad the Prophet. Oh yes, it came with Moses. Yes, it did. But look how the Jews kept it among themselves. And they still do. Yes, they do. So it was not for the general public, it was not for the general masses. It was still for an elite. But in that case, in reference to the Jews, the elite was the whole Jewish people. But out of the whole Jewish people, they select gifted ones.

They're carefully watching the children to see which one will be gifted. When they discover a gifted one, even every family knows that if they have a gifted one, they're to get help from the Jews for that gifted one. The whole Jewish people are obligated to help a gifted one. So that's how they work and that's how they live. And I don't envy them really. I praise them, I admire them. They are a powerful little people. Yes, they are. And they have achieved many wonders on this earth that have benefited all of us. So, I don't feel bad. I don't hate Jews. I don't envy Jews. I don't dislike Jews. I think we should stop even hating the Klan. The Klan, KK,K. Hate them for their behavior, hate them for their work, but don't hate them as people because many of them are victims just like we were victims who thought we were doing right as they thought they were doing right. But if wake up time now. The light is going to burn up all those things that were created for darkness. Praise be to Allah. Yes. So let me get back to where I was at.

Oh yes. People, our people in our composition as a people, we are more emotional than we are logic, more emotional than we are reason or thinking or intellect. We more emotionality. And scriptures describes a people like this as scripture, as people, pardon me, as people in their first stage, first stage of development, first stage, the baby stage. Mr. Fard knew that. Mr. Fard knew our state as a people. Doesn't mean we didn't have some great minds like Carter G. Woodson, for whom February has been named as what? Black History Month. Yes, thank you. I didn't have it in my notes. I depend on you. Yes, though we had men like them, those men are the exception. If you put one grain of sugar or 10 grains of sugar in 50 gallons of salt water, somebody taste it, "Hey, this is salty." And then you tell them, "Well there's about two teaspoons of sugar in there." "Well, I don't taste it." Yeah, we got two or three teaspoons of logic, rational thinking, for structuring our life. But it's in 50 gallons of salt water. So, we still soul people. And I'm telling you scripture describe that as the baby stage in the development of man that G-d plans so that man will be qualified to manage his life on earth, on the land, in competition with other people having their lives too on the land. Can't compete with them if you're in the baby stage because they're not in the baby stage. They're above that. So, when the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was questioned by Muslims from overseas and asked, why is your Islam so different? People came, they believed in his sincerity. They heard him, they saw what he was doing to clean us up. They were learned. I'm talking about highly learned. Men from the Islamic world came to my father's house. I've been there and saw them come there and saw them sitting at the table, saw them asking him questions, heard them asking him questions.

And they ask him, why is your Islam, why is it so different? And they weren't angry, they weren't attacking him. They believed that he could give him some answer that perhaps would relieve them so they could go on back home and say, "Well, they going to be all right one day." The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, "Well, our Savior came to clean us up and he left me here to clean my people up and that's what I'm doing." Say "We are trying to be upright in Islam." He said, "We are a baby nation, a baby nation." Now don't think it means a government of laws, legality. No, because the American people, long before we had anything, knew anything about it. The American people had called all the tribes of the Indians Nations. The Sioux Nation the Sioux Nation, called them all Nations.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad came and he said, pardon me. Fard came and the Honorable Muhammad told us that we are a baby nation in that time. We are a baby nation. So, when he said that to those learned men from overseas, they understood. From the Far East and the Middle East, wherever they come from. Pakistan, India, Palestine, wherever they come from. Egypt. He told them it is a baby nation. They understood what he was saying. It meant that what you're looking at now is something that is not developed into the form that Allah wants us in. But it's in progress toward developing into that form like a baby is in toward becoming an adult. It doesn't have all the characteristics internally, neither externally that an adult has yet. But it is in progress toward having all of that. It doesn't even have the physiology yet of an adult. It can't even produce another human being. It can't mate with a female and produce reproduce itself. But in time the physiology will change and the child will have sexual power and become sexual potent. And if he mates with a girl too, who has become the same, he can reproduce life himself. You, see? So, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad says it's a baby nation. That mean we can't even reproduce ourselves yet, but we are on the way. It's a child growing up. Isn't that beautiful? Yes, I think it's very beautiful. Yes.

Often in history people suffer a setback. They're dominated by people who care nothing about their lifeline. As a people. Lifeline, as a people, I'm speaking of your living history, your life and your history that lives. So, they care nothing about that lifeline, the lifeline of a people and they seek to destroy it. And even people of scripture, they know the psychology for destroying a people by destroying their lifeline. And in the Bible, this has some words like this in the Bible, like these in the Bible. Says, let us go down and confound their language so that they speak no more and only babble. You hear that? Yes, I know some of you hear it. I wish every one of you hear it that's sitting in here. Except those who came to just be tormented by my presence. I don't know why you come just to look at me and be tormented by my presence. I wouldn't choose that for you. I love you a little more than that. Anyway. Then again it says in the Bible also let us cast their bands asunder. Let us cast their bands asunder so that they be a people no more. Let's destroy those family traditions that they had, so that they won't have any social bands, holding them together as a people. Let us destroy their spiritual bonds that held us together as a one type of conscious for whole people. Okay, so we are talking about the life of a people. We have a single soul that's mine. It is mine only. That's the soul of Wallace D. Muhammad. That's my soul. It's different from all other souls. Just like my fingerprint is different from all other fingerprints, but I also have a family soul. That's the soul I have Clara Muhammad, Elijah Muhammad, and my brothers and sisters. I have a family soul. That's what you feel, that feeling that you feel that we are family. That's your soul.

Your soul have developed a soul again, soul multiplies too. Your soul have developed another soul. That's your family's soul. Jesus Christ said in my house are many mansions. In my soul, on many quarters. Now as I go on, I'm going to give you the full picture of what Jesus Christ was talking about. So, I'm in my soul. I must first care about myself. G-d has put me in charge of myself. By virtue of Him creating me to live in the privacy of my own world. G-d has made me responsible in my private world for myself. And the proof that He wanted me to be responsible for myself. I can't pass it on to mama. Not when I get old enough. When I learn enough. I can't charge mama, daddy, brother, sister, nobody, neighbor, nobody. I can't hold anybody solely responsible for the condition of my life inside of my own private world.

And that's my soul. That's my individual, my private soul. But now I'm a part of my family. I belong to my family. We all share one life. Even genetically I'm tied closer to them, more so than anybody else. So now I have a family soul. A family soul too. There's a second room in the house, isn't it? Right? Okay. I form friends. Some people make such a collection of friends until friends form one spirit coming from one soul. Now another spirit has been born. It's the spirit of my associates, the soul and spirit of my associates. Yes. And it keeps multiplying. It keeps getting bigger and bigger. It should continue to grow. Until you wake up in your head with your heart knocking on the door. You should wake up in your head and open your heart to every human being walking the face of the earth. And you should say to yourself, "G-d made me them and made them me. We are one human type. We are one human life."

And no matter how bad or ugly they look or how bad they become, I should never throw them out of the rooms of my heart. Now that's difficult for many people. Difficult for many people. Well, when G-d created Jesus, He created a man who had enough room in his heart for every person on earth. And Muhammad was raised up not in a religious community like Jesus Christ, Peace be on him, on them. He was raised up in a tribal situation and he was a child of the most honorable tribe in the tribes of Arabia, among the tribes of Arabia. But he didn't have a knowledge of the world and especially the spiritual world because he was not that favorite or privileged to have scripture and knowledge that would open his heart and mind to all of that. So he was, I'm sure he was looking at mostly the social dimension like Moses was when he started out. He was looking at mostly the social dimension, how his people were socially organized and how tribal rivalry was preventing them from developing better a social community for the Arabs. He was not looking so much I think, I don't think at their spiritual life. I don't think he was looking at that at all. I think he was looking at their social life, how they were treating each other as members in a social context, as flesh and blood, as families and tribes. That's what he was addressing. But when he went up to get the answer, G-d gave him the whole answer. G-d doesn't give you any half answer. If you ask for something, G-d, if G-d answer you, He's going to give you the whole answer for your situation, not just what you see. We're going to give you the whole answer for your situation.

And G-d gave it to him. The whole answer for his situation. And Allah speaks of this in Qur'an of him. Says, and have not We expanded for you your breasts. It means its hearts. Your heart. Have not We expanded for you, your breast, your heart. So, Allah educated him, taught him, revealed to him and educated him and showed him the things in religious knowledge that Jesus was just born to have. He was born among people of scripture. Zacharias, the mother of Jesus. They were all following the house of Aaron. Peace be upon them. So, they had knowledge. They were knowledgeable in scripture. So now if Muhammad heart was expanded, why was it expanded? It was expanded so that he would have room in his heart for the whole of mankind. Hence, G-d says, "You are a mercy to all the worlds," not just to one people, one nation. No, you are mercy to all the worlds. Getting back to us now. You see what I'm doing? Okay. It's plain to me. I hope it's plain to you. Okay. Alright. Getting back to us now. We as a people, as the saying goes "Up from slavery." That means up to formation zero. Listen. Speaking of a people being developed, where did we start? From zero. Those who were enslaved were no people. People doesn't mean human being. People mean organized human beings. People mean organized human being. We were no organized human beings. Our bands were cast asunder and we were a people no more. So, we started from formation zero. Or the new baby coming from the mother as the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, we are a baby nation. You can start earlier than that. In fact, I do believe, I know the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he didn't have what is available to us now of knowledge and understanding. He didn't have it. Not a scripture. He didn't have it. And you have to accept that. Even his teacher, I believe his teacher had it, but his teacher couldn't give it to the Honorable Elijah. Muhammad, take too much time. He was in a hurry. And that's what he said. Hurry, that's in the lesson. The very word, hurry.

So, he had three years to stay among us, nearly four. He had no time. His time among us was limited. And he used that expression too. Limited time, limit of time. Yes. So, he was in a hurry. He couldn't do it. He even told the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, don't you try to teach them the Qur'an. Say, you leave that for your children. Some of them will learn Arabic, saying your children will do that. You just do what I've left for you to do right here. Do that. Okay, so a great plan. So, I do believe Mr. Fard understood what I'm telling you right now. But really, we were not in any delivered form from the mother. A child delivered from a mother is in the Bible too. We were in this form that's in the Bible. The people whose life had been taken away from them by empires and they had been made subject in territories, ruled over by the empires. Roman empire was the one that you're most familiar with in the Bible, we are most familiar with in the Bible. They described their own life at the time when they first got help from G-d and they're crying to G-d and thanking Him for saving them, for saving their life from the pitiful state that it was in.

And the person in the Bible says, "You found him wallowing in my own blood." Wallowing in my own blood. So, what is that describing? A life but not a person. Yes, a people. But in the picture here it's saying that when you look at the graduations of life from the time of inception or pregnancy to its full development, I was a little more than semen. I was blood. Blood had not yet clotted, had not yet congealed to form a fetus lump, a lump a morsel, red morsel of meat that's mostly blood inside. I had not even reached that state, but the blood was fluid and I was wallowing it in my own blood. That's how it's described. Now, these stages are given in the Qur'an. I'm not teaching you anything that doesn't have a likeness in the Qur'an. Okay. So, we as a people trying to form ourselves as a people after slavery and the real sense we were no people because we had no organization, no social organization that would make us, qualify us to be called a people. Technically speaking, even our spiritual life had not been rationally structured. We had no rational order for our spiritual life. So, we started in front day zero.

I didn't have this knowledge that I have now. When I was preaching for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in Chicago, Fifty three, Fifty third and Greenwood. And in Philadelphia where I went, where I was sent by him to go in 58, 59, 60. I didn't have any knowledge like this, but something moved me to say to his followers, to us, to me too. I listen to what I say too. And if you're intelligent, you will too. Listen to what you say. Don't just make it for other people to hear. Be sure you hear it or you might want to correct it. So anyway, I said to them, we are not like other people. We are new people on this planet earth. Our beginning is not in Africa. We lost our life and we cannot connect back with it to continue it. Our beginning is as slaves in America.

So, our beginning is a beginning of a new people. We are forming our thinking as a people. We are forming our spirit as a people. We are forming our life plan as a people on this continent that we were brought to where we lost that lifeline and any possibility of bringing it back together, putting the pieces of the puzzle back together and having it intact. You should think about that. That's what I want to press upon you today. And if there are some non-Muslims here, good. You should be here my brother. This is not for Muslims, this is for black people, what I'm giving you today. For all black people, for all African Americans. If you're not here, you are missing something. And I'm telling you, G-d is giving you what I'm giving you now more than He has given you anything else.

G-d gave you a chance in this land after you lost all hope maybe, or lost your life. G-d gave us a chance in this land to have life again. Thank G-d for good people, for a Constitution that had the power to help us get where we are. Thank G-d for that. For the Founding Fathers who wrote the truth that will make us free. Yes, they did. They wrote the truth that will make us free. I ain't going to leave you guessing what I'm talking about. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator, recognizes a G-d, a Creator. With certain inalienable rights or unalienable rights. Among these, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That's the truth that will make you free, but you have to be educated in that truth. You just can't hear it. The ring of truth is not enough to stand the man up. He has to be structured. He has to receive edification as the Bible New Testament says. He has to receive edification where he sees the logic, how it's connected, as Ezekiel said. And the hip bone connected to the thigh bone. He has to see how everything is connected and structured.




