mm/dd/1998
IWDM Study Library
Annual Islamic Convention
Excellence and Freedom, Our Common Motivation
Los Angeles CA

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Praise is to Allah and we always greet our audience whether Muslim or non-Muslim or mixed, with the greeting meaning peace be unto you, As-salamu alaykum.
Audience: Wa 'alaykumu s-salam.
We thank Allah again for the opportunity and health and good spirit to come together as Muslims and to invite the public of Christians and others to hear what we have to say. We thank Allah for this opportunity and we thank Allah for your being able to answer the invitation. Last night was a very pleasant night, the ninth annual banquet was very pleasant for me and for all who attended that banquet. And very helpful in many ways, even though the audio system, what do they call it the PA system? PA system had little problems but we were able to hear the speakers. The Imam didn't have everything happening or unfolding exactly as he wanted it to but it still was a very excellent evening for all of us.
I was so impressed to learn more about, I knew something about the awardees from other engagements out here where I was your guest. I was still very much impressed by the qualification of our people who were awarded last night. Among them was Mr. Celestine and I had recalled seeing a program on television and also reading some literature on the history of our people in the armed service especially in the Air Force. And of how our airmen were able to impress the Air Force in the army with their bravery and with their skills and ability in combat as pilots. When I learned that one of the honorees last night Mr. Celestine was there. When I recalled I thought I'd said, in fact I told him. I said we've met before and he looked a little bit puzzled but we had met before. But my acquaintance with him was really from reading, watching television and then reading about him, seeing his picture in the paper and seeing his picture on television. He rose to the rank of brigadier general. That's really something and that's just one of his great achievements. He has others just as amazing and just as gratifying f
or us as African American people.
I don't know if you still share, I'm speaking of you individually now. I know among you are many who still share this. I'm speaking to you individually. I don't know if you still share what was part of our I would say positive spirit, good spirit, positive spirit. And that is to find enjoyment or to have enjoyment from the accomplishment of another African American, whether we have any accomplishment or not. When we hear about the accomplishment of another black person or African American, and we enjoy in it and we share in that accomplishment. We share in that achievement. Because we began not individually, we began all together. Our history in this country is not the history of some single person beginning his life. It's the history of us beginning as a group. We were put down as a group and we have to get up as a group. And we who are still sharing that positive spirit we have been strengthened, encouraged and just made to feel much more comfortable upon learning about the great achievements of our people individually like Celestine and many others. And my talk today has a lot to do with that common spirit that has counted for us staying on the up and up and having the faith in ourselves to go forward.
I would like to speak first on Al-Islam because I think we have an obligation as Muslims. I have an obligation as a Muslim to address Al-Islam whenever there is an opportunity to do that. Why? Because not only in this country in America but in the world, Al-Islam is a misunderstood religion. And when I say in the world I'm not looking over or excusing Muslim countries. From East to West, North to South, in most Muslim countries, our religion that is called Islam, Al-Islam in the text of our holy book is misunderstood. It is misunderstood. Now as an African American I already carry the burden of my own human worth misunderstood.
You know now that I'm aware too that Al-Islam, the religion that I'm very proud of now and very happy about, knowing it's misunderstood I have to take some time out to address Al-Islam. And I'm doing that in the interest of this presentation that we have for the day. And I want to read from a small publication that I think is an excellent publication. The Saudi Embassy in Washington DC, they have done a lot of good work since that embassy was established here in the United States. This little small booklet I know the Imams are familiar with it and some of you too is called, “Understanding Islam and the Muslim.”
I just want to read from this book just one paragraph. Well, one paragraph but I want to point our attention to also another caption in this book, another subject heading in the book. This book begins with Bismillah al rahman al rahim. And we know that means in the name of G-d, most gracious most merciful or we may translate it differently but the meaning is still the same. In Arabic the meaning is the same and when we translate it differently, we are just attempting to be closer to the meaning that's in the original Arabic text, the Quranic text.
I'm quoting this book, “What is Islam? Islam is not a new religion but the same truth that G-d revealed through all His prophets to every people. For a fifth of the world's population Islam is both a religion and complete way of life for Muslims. Muslims follow a religion of peace, of mercy, of forgiveness, and the majority have nothing to do with the extremely grave events which have come to be associated with their faith.” That's the end of that paragraph. What are these grave events that this paragraph is referring to?
The paragraph is referring to fanaticism, blind fanaticism that's attributed to the Muslim world. The worst in this fanaticism is the new development we call terrorism. Now what we see as an effort on the part of desperate Palestinians, or other desperate segments of Muslims in armed struggle to get attention to their own situation, to tell the world we are being persecuted, we are being oppressed that may come across to us in the media as terrorism. I'm not attacking that kind of behavior, I am attacking the behavior that allows the one who is trying to get attention to his problem, a justification for killing people who are not even a part of the problem, innocent passengers flying on a plane. That's the thing that we see as evil.
I didn't want to just condemn terrorism without making it clear that we do not have the same way of looking at Arabs who are trying to get attention to their problem, Palestinians wherever or whoever they may be. We're not looking at them the same way that most of the media looks at them. We're not looking at them the same way. We know that they have a just cause, we know that they have been persecuted and oppressed, dominated and oppressed for 50, 100, and more years by Western colonial power that got control of their lands, dominated their land, dominated their culture, decided how they were going to practice their religion, put limits on how they could practice their religion. And took over even the education in their countries, and influence even the way they perceived, or still perceive, or understand their own religion. Understand this is no light matter, this is a very serious matter. Muslims in the world if they are misrepresenting Al-Islam today, it's not only because of their own shortcoming. More importantly, it's because they have been dominated, and even their system of education, their religious teachings, their mosques, their schools have been dominated by Western intruders, who wanted their knowledge to be presented in a way to not make trouble for Western intruders. They have experienced that, they suffer that, and much of the confusion about what is really Al-Islam, and what is really a Muslim is owing more to colonial domination. Egypt and the Muslim nations on the continent of Africa with Egypt, the Middle East, India out of which came Pakistan, all of these parts of the world, Muslims sections of the world were once under Western domination or colonial domination.
Even Saudi Arabia though never occupied by Western forces, even Saudi Arabia had to march to the dictates of Western colonial power for a long time. Yes. The first king of Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia didn't even get the name Saudi Arabia until the first King Abdul-Aziz. When he came into the power, he came into power with the support of Western power, with the support of Western power. He formed an allegiance with Western power, with our president back then.
And I'm sure in order for him to realize the establishment of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as he wanted to realize it, as a student of the great intellectual. Well, I don't think they like for us to call him intellectual, but he was a great man of intellect. I'll change that for the sake of not irritating my Saudi brothers, big Saudi brother.
King Abdul-Aziz came into power as a student of the great intellect Abd al-Wahhab. And the school of thought he brought about to bring the people of that peninsula that came to be called Saudi Arabia after the King Saud, this king I'm talking about King Abdul-Aziz Saud, that school of thought he brought about in Al-Islam, it didn't exist before. I'm saying that to you brothers because some of you don't have the courage to support me.
[shouting]
Cool it, cool it, cool it, quiet please.
You don't have the courage to support my call for a school of thought to form by us under us here in America.
I'm letting you know that schools of thought didn't stop with those first four.
Islamic world is not so backward in their thinking that they can't accept a new school of thought. So, we have the school of thought called the Wahhab, the Wahhab school of thought, they're called Wahhabis. It didn't exist before King Saud and that revolution that was really initiated, I believe, by Abd al-Wahhab, the intellect. And that would speak for the wisdom in our religion, and the Quran is the head of that wisdom, that points to the intellect as the great focus for bringing about change for the betterment of society.
The intellect is always in the background and really should be in the forefront of all healthy change for society, the human intellect. That’s why we say Adam began life for man on this earth, Adam the prophet peace be upon him. Why? Because he is a symbol of the beginning of the human intellect in community, its role in community. So, let me continue now on Al-Islam by going to another heading in this same book that's published the Royal Kingdom Embassy in Washington.
This caption addresses, “Diversity in Islam.” This is not me saying this, this is the learned men in Al-Islam speaking as members, or as persons in the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington DC, the Washington Embassy, Saudi Embassy in Washington DC. They're saying this that Al-Islam is a religion of many cultures, not one culture, “diversity of cultures”. They give here in this book the architecture design for mosque, for our holy places of worship as evidence of this “diversity of culture”. We have to get away from the idea that a mosque with a big round dome is Islamic. That's not Islamic, that's more Christian than Islamic. Now I know I sent some ways through you then.
That's more Christian than Islamic. It was the Greek Cathedral and Turkish Cathedral that first used those big round domes. Muslims didn't bring about that. We’re talking about the Orthodox Church not the modern Church, you know the modern church cathedral, England cathedral, but the Greeks, Turks, and some others, no, the round dome, the round dome, that comes from them. The Arabs how in the world they could have that when they didn't even have a flat roof before 
Al-Islam unless they go way back in their culture.
The people on that peninsula now that we call Arabia they didn't know anything about structures like that unless they dug up some ancient remains of a civilization that their people did have that the Quran mentions, many, many hundreds of years perhaps thousands of years or more before they're coming into Al-Islam. When Al-Islam came to that Peninsula they were a tribe of Bedouins. Bedouins means people who travel long foot, travel by camel, by mule, by horse, but in the desert, you can't do much traveling by mule and horse. You need the camel, so if you didn't have a little money there wasn't very much traveling you could do in the desert. Camel cost money unless you going by foot. So, Bedouins are people who go about and move, I hate to associate with them with gypsies but if you know something about the life of gypsies before they, or even after they come to a civilized country, they still are like that. They don't move into your town and say this is where the gypsies are going to establish themselves in America, like the Irish did and the Poles, the Jews, they came to New York, they say, "Let's put up here." That's the Jews.
The Jews came to New York and they say, "Let's put up here." The gypsies they're not like that. The gypsies look at a situation and say, "How much quick money is here?"
They look for an oasis, like a Bedouin in the desert. They look for an oasis that will serve their need right now and they might not visit that oasis until they come back. They've got a travel plan and they're going to pick up some quick money here, there and everywhere, but if they work in just within a certain region, they know they will be back so they have a map of the oasis.
They have a map of the oasis, you see, and that's a kind of good picture of the situation of the Arabs of Arabia on that peninsula that is now called Arabia, before the preaching of our Prophet, the prayers and the peace be upon him and all the prophets, Muhammad ibn Abdullah, the prayers and the peace be on him. We have a diversity of culture in this religion we call Al-Islam or commonly referred to as Islam. You know our topic for the day is excellence and freedom. We're speaking on the topic of excellence and freedom, our common motivation, our common motivation. I would like to continue now addressing Al-Islam the religion, but within the plan of this topic as a necessary part of this topic.
And I want to address now something that is a problem for us. And if you don't mind, audience of non-Muslims and Muslim, Muslims and non-Muslims. If you don't mind, I want to speak very privately with my associate, Muslims who come from my background, my heritage, African people, African American people. When I say African American people, I mean all the names that we're known by.
We've gone through a lot of transitions, don't just point to this temple of Islam under the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. No, we have gone through a lot of transitions. I want to speak to you in a very private way, with the public listening in, looking in, we invited them here and I know this is a public address, with the public looking in or looking on I want to speak to you very privately.
I want to begin with secrecy because I think when a people are put in a situation that doesn't allow any light on their life and they wake up just like a person who has suffered amnesia for a long period of time and all of a sudden now they want to see themselves, but they have suffered amnesia. Now, we didn't exactly suffer amnesia, we were given amnesia.
When we were completely separated from our past, life, history, culture, et cetera, that we had in Africa. We were given amnesia. I think when a people are put in a situation like that, they naturally are attracted to the unknown. Because they find themselves in a new reality that presents them as the unknown. And when The Honorable Elijah Muhammad accepted from his teacher, who was a foreigner, he was not American, the X be put on us after our first name, I believe what he was doing was accepting his reality.
I am X, I am the unknown, but that's a wonderful situation from which to begin. Because the first man created had to begin from that situation. G-d had to teach him the names. He didn't know the names. And when G-d told the angels and the creatures in His plan, G-d told them, “when I have inspired him of My spirit, of my spirit.” If it was in his top shape, the West couldn't have come over there and bought slaves and took slaves and brought him back here to America and don't forget that. Europe didn't go to, and America later, to Africa and purchase slaves only. They purchased slaves and they kidnapped slaves; they did both.
They purchased and kidnapped, and there was a lot of kidnapping acknowledged until The Honorable Elijah Muhammad started telling the story from his own mouth and from his own background, teachings and mind. Then they started to say, “no, it wasn't a whole lot of kidnapping, there was a whole lot of selling. Muslims sold you all to us.”
I'm addressing the secrecy because I think that we were conditioned to want or be attracted to secrecy. Secrecy, not only that, human beings G-d has created us to know, created us to know. That's our natural calling, the natural calling of our intellect is to know, to know everything that's possible for us to know, that's our natural calling. And the more obscure a thing is, especially if it can be made attractive in its obscurity. I hope you're understanding clearly what I'm saying. I think I'm speaking clearly. Especially when it's made really attractive in its obscurity, the more we’re drawn naturally to it. Right now, if somebody starts whispering, all of our attention would go on that person whispering, right? Our sense of self-respect will tell us, “no, don't, restrain yourself”, but something that's in us, "I want to hear what they saying."
Being the son of Elijah Muhammad, having been nursed as an infant by my mother, his wife, Clara Muhammad, with the milk or the dietary food of Elijah Muhammad's mind and his teacher Fard's mind from infancy and having lived to observe my father's life at home, in the temple, as a teacher of his people, and as a man interacting with his ministers, his captain, his secretaries, et cetera.
As a man interacting with persons that we identified as white people, with Jews at the Kosher market that I saw when he took me with him to the Kosher market as a little boy. And he would say, "Son, these Jews, I don't know how come they are so ugly and they eat the best food." Now you know, he prejudiced me against even the Jews appreciation of themselves as being a beautiful people while I was a little boy and from that day on, I didn't see nothing but ugly Jews. And there are some ugly Jews but there are many very pretty Jews. Barbra Streisand is an attractive woman, and she's just one of many very attractive Jewish women. But I couldn't see them. Having experienced all that as a son of Elijah Muhammad. Now, understand that I was just one of six sons from my mother by The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and not the eldest as most people think. There's only one younger than me and he's really bigger than all of us because he has the title, Doctor.
He studied in Al-Azhar University, the most prestigious university and claim to be the oldest too although Morocco, they have something to say about that. They claim one of theirs, Morocco, is older. Anyway, that very prestigious university, it will admit that that's the most prestigious. My youngest brother Akbar, he attended that university. And I should tell you this, he attended the University of Islam under Honorable Elijah Muhammad first. And he acquired a knowledge of the Arabic language as a student of that University of Islam first. Then he went to Egypt and furthered his studies in Arabic and in Al Islam. He returned to the United States as the student of academia.
To tell you the truth, I had to get acquainted with him all over again. And he was my brother that I slept with in the same room, we shared the same room, my bed here, his bed over there. We woke up together, went to bed together and we laughed and talked together, we ate cheeseburgers together and everything else. I had to get acquainted with him all over again when he returned as a student of academia. He eventually acquired, earned the title of doctor. He is now, well known, respected intellectual. Respected in Islamic circles, respected in black circles, respected in college circles or university circles. Akbar Muhammad. So, I had other brothers, I'm not trying to say I'm the only brother, there are other brothers.
And I think when the Imam before me who introduced me, Imam Hassan, I think when he referred to me being associated with persons and having greatness if I have greatness, because of my association with father and some others. I think he's mainly referring to The Honorable Elijah Muhammad because that's what it is and Jabir. You get the pronunciation right, Jabir Muhammad. He used to be called Herbert Muhammad. My point is the point to this secrecy, this tendency to be drawn to secrecy.
We were conditioned to have a big appetite for knowledge and the method of exciting that appetite was one, to exaggerate our worth or value in the family of people. To claim, to reverse the psychology of white supremacy, more correctly, to repel the negative influence of white supremacy by reversing its psychology to favor us. Making us, “the people who descended from G-d and therefore we are the divine race, divine children of G-d”. And making our color, black, “the sacred color, the divine color that G-d himself is a blackman.” Just reversing the whole thing.
Reversing the idea that we were cursed for something that we did to believing that the white civilization is cursed for something its father did but where the problem came me, is when the father of the white evil was identified or is identified as a black man by the name Yakub. That was a contradiction in the great mighty super package of the Nation of Islam that just bothered me from a child. When I heard it as a child, I didn't like that. My mother influenced me to be a good boy. I'm telling you, I'm serious. My mother influenced me to be a good child. My mother influenced me to be a truthful child. This is what she bred into me, and she influenced me to be an honest child.
When I'm now seeing that the one who started this evil was a black man, it made me feel sorry for his victims, the white men. It worked that way on all of us, not even all of my brothers.
The point is there's a need for knowledge and G-d has created darkness as a means of making us appreciate light. Allah does not say that He created the world from light to the dark. He says, “He brought us out of darkness into the light. He says that, “He created the “Dhulumat wa Nur”. First the “Dhulumat”, darkness, then the light.
This is in accordance with Genesis, there was darkness over the earth. Darkness upon the deep and G-d said "Let there be light" and there was light and the day begins with the night then a dim light. It said that, “that was the evening and the morning the next day”. That's how it all started, you see? I'm addressing this secrecy because I want to see us freer to realize the excellence that G-d created us for. And I think that's the common aspiration of our people whether they be integrationists, separatists, black nationalist or other, whether they be Christians or Muslims.
Whether we be Moorish American, Muslim Ahmadiyyah, Muslims of the Nation of Islam, or Muslims of the world. I don't want to hurt anybody unnecessarily. We have that in common, a belief in our excellence and the destiny for that excellence. So, I’m addressing this secrecy because I see it has become a real problem for us continuing to be free to pursue that excellence.
If you use darkness to make people appreciate light and once the light come on, you start dimming the light and exalting the darkness, you're going to create a problem where they're going to have to start all over again from X to get to the known. One thing that serves this tendency to indulge this secrecy, secret wisdom was The Honorable Elijah Muhammad's role in this. And his role in this was created by his teacher, the person who's not American, W. Fard. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said to his ministers, his students, all of us were students of the Honorable Muhammad who were his ministers. I was one of them. I was a student from the time I knew myself or could hear any word, because I was right in his house. It was his son. My mother saw that I was a student. She saw that. All of us that were ministers, we were the students of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. And I've been in many minister meetings or I should say staff meeting. Very few of those meetings were really ministers meeting. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he wanted the captain and especially the secretary, both male and female in his staff, in his top staff. He wanted to see all of them equipped in the best way for dealing with our problems and advancing us in the society. He would have them there too, not just ministers. But I've heard him say many times to the mixed staff and also to a staff of all ministers. He said, “you all have to get away from just picking up the Quran and picking up the Bible and going back to the lesson that our savior gave us”, referring to Fard. And just give it, the word, as you see it on the surface. He said, "brother, you have to dig beneath the surface." That's what he told us. And he'd be speaking to us in the singular. He would say brother. He'd be looking at one individual at that time, but speaking to all of us. He'll say, "Brother, you have to dig beneath the surface." He said, "Allah has blessed me with the wisdom and I want you to have it too." That's what he would say.
I recall being a young boy in my teens and there was a brother called Kamal Aziz and there were many others. And they were old at that time, they were old men but very youthful in their physical appearance and in their mind, very youthful, very youthful. Studious, fast-moving because that was one of the requirements on the Muslim. We were told, “get up to the modern time, quick thinking, fast-moving”. All right. That’s what we were told. So, no matter how old you are, in order for you to fit and be comfortable in that membership, you had to make that old arthritis, get out of your mind and step very bristly. Quickstep, quickstep, quick moment. The old brother, they'd come in there and move and they come in and stepping like this.
That's no joke. This was long before Malcolm ever knew anything other than pimping or whatever his life brought him to at an early age. Yes. Now, let me tell you what characterized those brothers that we may call elders. They weren’t, I'm just using this for the purpose of this talk today because they weren't really elders. All of us were of one class. We were students. I don't care how young, how old you are. All of us were studious and students. If we will categorize that particular group in the following of Honorable Elijah Muhammad, we would have to characterize them as persons diligently and almost 24 hours around the clock working to unlock mystery in the old teaching of W. Fard. They were called lessons of W.F. Muhammad or W.D. Fard, lessons. I remember them cause I had to learn them like you teach your child the Lord's Prayer, ABC, et cetera.
That's how I was taught this. It began with the English lesson C number one, the first thing my mother taught me, English lesson C number one. Then she taught me the student enrollment. Then he didn't, but I was big enough then to go now and join the men. They taught us and he made it available, but they taught us in the school and in the temple, they taught us the problem book, English lesson number one, C number one, problem book number one, problem book number two, all of that. Actual facts, the history from 25,000 years, all of that. “The deportation of the moon which took place so many trillion years ago. The hanging of the sun in the sky, which took place so many trillions of years ago and everything. How the moon split. A piece of it became earth and the other piece, the smaller piece became our new moon. And that's how comes it looks like a sickle now in the sky. It has to go back and tell us that it once was just a piece, so it forms a sickle in the sky and then becomes full for us, to remind us that it once was just a little piece. Or dead, from death to a little piece, then it comes to its fullness.” Telling us this story of what happened because the mad black scientist couldn't get everybody to speak the same language. He wanted to get rid of diversity of culture. So, to get rid of the diversity of culture and bring everybody into speaking one language, he drove a tube of dynamite, deep into the earth, that was then the moon. It wasn’t earth then. It was moon then. And he drove it so deep that it went to the point of the diameter and going to that deep in the earth and to what was then the earth, he was able to blast the earth apart from itself. It was 100% dynamite. It was 100% black powder.
So, he was successful in splitting our home like that and cause us to fall in space for about 36,000 miles and drove the other piece out about 12,000 miles. It was such a thing. That was long before the mad scientist grafted the white man out of our genes by eliminating black after he discovered that there was a little brown on that blackness. I don’t know where he found it, he must have found it in the blood.
Anyway, he discovered a little brown and he found a way to favor the brown and disfavor the black. And it took him 600 years to get the black completely out and reduce the brown to white and make what is called a white people or a Caucasian people. Long before we were told that story because that’s recent, that’s like 6,000 years ago, but the other story that I’m telling you about, trillions of years ago. And the same great genius that was able to come up with a new creation myth for a man named X or for a man to be properly identified as Mr. X.
The same one who had that genius, he also had the genius to give us also the idea that we were 
“G-d” and that American was doomed to be destroyed. And Europe too, but Europe had a period of grace given to it after America would be destroyed. The same one who told us all of that named this man before he was born, Fard. He named me Wallace D Mohammed. He named me Wallace D; he had already given my father the name Muhammad. He named me Wallace D Mohammed or Wallace D and never told my father or mother what the D means in my name. He actually named me Wallace X Mohammed because I didn’t know what that D meant in my name.
And as I got older and start dealing with the problem. You don’t mind me. I didn’t come out here to do a quickie today.
We have some really classic history behind us. When he gave that name to me, he also burdened me with an unknown. Any child should want to know his name, especially when he told the guy he's named from “G-d and the person of WD Fard”. That’s what we were told, that Fard was 
“G-d in the person”, so now here I got a name from “G-d in the person of WD Fard or WF Muhammad”. He had a lot of names too. I won’t call them aliases because I think Fard was an alias himself or itself. Anyway, it bothered me so much until one day I had to ask my mother what that D was in my name. I said, "Mama," I said, "What is the D for in my name?"
She said, "Wow, I thought you would never ask me that." She didn’t say anything but her face said to me, "Wow, I thought you would never ask me that. Now here I am put on the spot." I could see she was in trouble. She looked at me, a mother loves her child, and she wanted to tell me something so bad. I believe she was thinking to tell me a lie, but she was the one who raised me to speak nothing but the truth, so she couldn’t do that and she was not a liar. My mother was no liar. She said, "Son," her exact words I’m giving you, she said, "Son, I don’t know." She said, "I never really remember him telling us what the D meant."
That’s what she told me. Now I wasn’t going to stop there because I know her boss was Elijah Muhammad, so when I got an opportunity, I asked him the same question. He was sitting down at the table where he always held his meetings and stuff. He was sitting down at the dinner table. That was his also conference table. You take the plates off, it’s a conference table, and it was a big one and a long one. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he knew just how to get his guest ready to eat what he had for them in the abstract.
He invites them first to the concrete that he knows they love; bean soup, baked chicken, gravy, and rice, and everything and pies, cake and all that.
He'd invite them to all that. He knew they wanted that and they would be in the spirit to take the abstract food after they ate the concrete food, and everything. Anyway, when I put the question to him the same way I put it to my mother. I said, "Daddy, what the D means in my name?" He went through the same changes my mother went through. I saw he was in trouble. He said almost the exact thing she said. He said, "Son, our savior never told me." That was his words. He said, "Son, our savior never told me what that D means." I know some of you all are shocked that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad there was something that he didn’t know.
I know you’re shocked because now the people of blackism are teaching that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is “G-d”. I know it shocks you, but back then, we weren’t taught he was “G-d”. We were taught he was G-d’s apostle, G-d’s messenger, G-d’s servant, et cetera. When I saw him puzzled like that, the D fell back on me like a heavy X. I said, “well, I see I’m going to have to carry this heavy X until I can do something with it myself”. Circumstances changed to favor me, coming up with a meaning for the D. Believe it or not, my sister we call Lodi all of our lives until I became the leader, she wanted an Islamic name, so I suggested to her the name Raya, so now she’s called Raya.
My sister Raya, she heard me say, “that nobody in the Nation knows what this D means”. I said, I asked my mother and my father. She learned about this and she said, "Wallace," she said, "I believe I know what the D stands for in your name." She said, "I remember him saying that his name was Wallace," she said, "Durward Fard." That’s exactly what she said if you call her right now. Some of you got the phone number.
I’m sure, because she has a lot of connections all over the United States. That girl never had an important position in Nation of Islam, but I’m telling she got connections in every major city in the United States. And sometimes she looks so youthful and pretty I forget she my sister. I do. She's attractive to me. Maybe not to some of you all. Now, don’t think that she’s going to look the same way to you as she looks to me, but I look at her and I say she's attractive. I imagine I could have married a good woman that looked like her.
Now I need to be kind of changed all over again to marry anybody.
We’re living in terrible times, especially for selecting a mate. If you’re healthy-minded and forward-looking, oh, especially an African- American or black, they ain’t got much hard to get it, it’s a terrible time for selecting a mate. Anyway, she told me, she said, "I think I recall him saying that his name was Wallace Durward Fard." I said, "Now, what is this Durward?" I was encouraged to search because the Honorable Elijah Muhammad had provided us with Arabic teachers, and at that time, we had a very excellent Arabic teacher who could speak English well and also Arabic so we were progressing.
In his mind, he was associating it with Dawud, which is David, so that was my reasoning. Then I later met another man who claimed that he knew something about Fard. He was a foreigner. Not directly, but he said that indirectly, he had an awareness of Fard, an inside awareness of Fard. He began to tell me that the D stands for Darood, not Dawud. Not Durward and not Dawud, which is David, but Darood, which is a name in certain thought, Islamic thought or in certain Islamic circles mostly in India, which has now become Pakistan and still part of India. Muslims are still living in much of India.
This Darood is a prayer for the success of Muhammad, it’s salatul Ibrahimiyya. That's essentially what it is, the prayer for success of Prophet Muhammad. “O, Allah make Muhammad successful and the followers of Muhammad successful as you made Abraham or Ibrahim and the followers. Allah bless Muhammad and the followers of Muhammad as you blessed Abraham or Ibrahim and the followers of Abraham or Ibrahim”. That's essentially with that prayer is. When he told me that, it made sense. See, nothing would make sense to me if it wasn't serving the advancement of 
Al-Islam in our mind, in our heart, and in our lives. It didn't make sense unless it was serving that. That made some sense to me.
And I finally came to accept that the D for me is Deen, D-E-E-N means religion, Deen. I don't believe Fard gave me Deen as my name, but that's what I feel comfortable with, Deen. This same man who told me that he had inside knowledge of Fard secret thinking and work also told me he didn't give it to me as a question. He said, “he”, meaning Fard, “wanted you to be named Warith Deen Mohammed, the inheritor of the faith of Prophet Muhammad”. Or who knows? He could have had himself as Muhammad too in his mind because Fard also was called Muhammad.
He could have had himself in mind meaning that my religion now is a secret and I want the son of Elijah Muhammad to be blessed to get the religion in its true image, not in its secrecy. Why do I say that? I'm sharing with you, I said this is going to be very private, didn't I? Why do I say that? I don't say anything without some rational support for it and that was my conditioning under Elijah Muhammad's work. He conditioned us to find realness for everything. Find some solid, rational support for everything even though he gave us X.
All right, now, the support for what I'm saying now comes from what many of the first followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, some of them got their name directly from Fard himself. They still living. Don't think all of them dead, see I got living witnesses. They used to say, and I'm familiar with it, I heard the Honorable Elijah Muhammad say it many times. That Fard when he first started preaching to our people, they were Christians, they were not Muslim. He was trying to convert them to his idea of what is Muslim. He told them that you see me now in the clothes of the cavy, meaning these clothes. He called the white man a cavy. Cavy mean a cave dweller.
Yes, he was the one that used all that language, that insulting language that we have. He was the one who gave it to us. Yes, he said, "Now you see me in the clothes of the cavy," and we have pictures of him dressed like this but a little bit more conservative even than I am now. Very conservatively dressed in the Western dress. He said, "Now you see me in the clothing of the cavy." He said, "One day you will see me in my sacred rope." That's what he said. Now, I believe that he was one of the radical thinkers in Islamic theory for bringing about the dominance of 
Al-Islam on earth. Among the thinkers in Al-Islam, there are those who secretly work for the dominance of Al-Islam on Earth.
I believe that he was one of them and represent one of the most radical of them. And among them in Al-Islam, they are the Sufis. I'm sure you know about. Most of Muslims I'm sure you have Sufism and the Sufi. The Sufi group of Muslims, they are very much like the Old Testament, and I will say New Testament too because the New Testament mention them. A community of Jews, among them you found the most humanly, the most human type, and among them you found the most inhuman type.
Among them, you found those that advocated universal harmony, universal peace, universal brotherhood, and also, you found among them or you can find among them if you study like I have the history, those that advocated racism. But it wasn’t called racism, it was called the chosen few. You can find it. Among them you can find those who put the heavier emphasis on the spiritual life and the spiritual destiny for man and those that put the emphasis just on the other side on the material life and the material destiny for man. They're identified in the Bible right now as Sadducees. The Sadducees were the ones who put the emphasis on the material reality and the material destiny.
I believe that Fard was one of these types. I don't think he was a "Sadducee". I don't think he was a “Sadducee” thinker in Al-Islam. Now put Sadducees in quotation, I'm not saying he was really a “Sadducee”, I mean of that type. That's what I mean. By comparing him to that type, I'm only saying that he was of that type in his thinking. I'm not saying that he was really a “Sadducee” type of Muslim thinker, but I'm saying that he borrowed from that to produce the effect and get the results that he wanted.
He believed that we were a people in the extreme of spiritualism, and that the Christians who converted us to Christianity feared, now this is not all his language, it is in my language, but I'm analyzing, I'm interpreting it. They feared us coming into any idea of life that would make us come alive in our conscious as real or rational thinkers. Why? Because if you come alive in your mind as a real rational thinker, you're going to ask for answers. You going to want to know what in the heck got into the white man's mind in the first place to make him say that, “I was black and inferior by creation or by nature.
What came into his mind in the first place to make him write me off even in his constitution as part of a human being and not a whole human being?” So, we were gone, that's not all of it, that's just starting into that stuff. They knew that we would even become suspicious of Christianity because it was given to us from the hand of the white man. And because the “G-d” was imaged in a white figure the picture of Jesus the prophet, peace be on him. This is just a very private intimate conversation I'm having with you, and I'm inviting the public to look on and look in.
So, being aware of all that, and by the way, I'm convinced now. In fact, for the last five years, I've been convinced that he really didn't work alone. He said he came alone and he said he worked with many, with others. He said both. But he left the Honorable Elijah Muhammad to preach to us that he worked alone. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he didn't mention too much about, when he was teaching us, he didn't mention too much about that Fard said, “that 24 scientists met in the holy city of Mecca to decide how they were going to handle the problem of us in America, and they decided to send a messenger to us to teach us of our own, his name was WD Fard or Wallace Fard Muhammad”.
He didn't tell us that, that was in the lessons, but he kind of shied away from dealing with that and he stuck on one thing, “that he came along by himself”. Because Fard also said that. He said, "My name is WF Mohammed. I came to North America by myself." But you see, it's not really a lie, it's not really a contradiction. They could have sent him, but they didn't come with him. That would still be correct, wouldn't it?
Congregation: Right.
It would be correct. It could have been a group that did the thing and send him to do the work in America, and he came from that group by himself to America. But he didn't leave it just there, he said, “no one wanted you”. That wasn’t only the Honorable Elijah Muhammad saying that of him, we have in his own words. He said, “that no one came to help you”, meaning us, “until the coming of WD Fard of G-d in the person. No, he said not G-d, he said until the coming of the Son of Man, which is in Christian theology is G-d, that’s Jesus as G-d. “Until the coming of the Son of Man in the person of WD Fard.” Am I quoting that right, is that pretty accurate?
See, I got witnesses up here and out there too. Okay, so Fard cannot excuse himself completely for the thing that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad believed so strongly. In fact, he never changed it. He died; he didn't change it. The only thing, he had to do something else to help us get out of it, but he never denied any of that. He never changed it. No, not even to me, his son. The only thing I can say that he said to me that would have been a contradiction, or that would have been saying that was wrong, but he never said that was wrong. He was sitting with me one day, and this was not long before he passed, at the table, at the dining table, that was also the conference table. And he said, "Son."
Just me and him, I think my mother was there, but just me and him was at the table. My mother was there, she was moving back and forth between the table and the kitchen.
He said, "Son, I believe there is something after death." He said, "There must be." Now why was he saying that? Was he saying that to me, this is my interpretation, my grasp, was he was saying that to me because he wants to tell me that, "Son, I now change my belief? I now believe that there's an afterlife."
No, he was telling that to me because he know that I had been reading the Quran, and I had been getting a new interest in Al-Islam and that I was leaning toward accepting myself, the Quran idea of life and that I was believing that. He didn't want to die and leave me here without some support from him for what I had to do and carry as a burden. He wanted his son to be freer, to do his work, for me to do my own work, and I think that's why he told me that. That wasn't the only time he helped me, he helped me in many ways. Yes. Just a moment. Allahu Akbar.
Congregation: Allahu Akbar.
Yes, he has helped me in many ways and I'm greatly indebted to him. But just like it is prophesied, I'm not believing in this, I'm just using it because it goes good with it. He prophesied that Jesus would have to destroy the very temple he built up. He said, "I'll destroy this temple in three days." Talking about the very temple that he had constructed. So, I've had to destroy a temple in three days, that doesn’t mean that I wasn't attached to it sentimentally. But when you have to do a thing, then you do it. When I say when you have to do it, I mean you have to save your life and your people's lives. When you have to do that, you do it and you don't shed tears while you're doing it.
You shed tears after you accomplish your work and then you cry.
Praise be to Allah. Now, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad shared that with me. I have to go fast with this now, time is running out, so I'm going to come back to secrecy. All of that information on the circumstances for my growth as a person, as a thinking person is important if you really want to understand what has happened. So, that's why I took a lot of time and digressed to tell you about those things. But I have to go back to the secrecy now to make that point and quickly move on, I hope. Now, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad encouraged us to search for that that was hidden in the teachings of his teacher. When he saw that that was presenting a problem, after a while, we had an order of esoteric G-d.
Or I should say masters, Godly masters, divine masters of Nation of Islam esotericism. Esoteric mean secret doctrine, secret wisdom. It refers to secret doctrine or secret wisdom.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad saw it was a problem. And our people in the public were beginning to be radical and brave to challenge the white American and white authority. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad saw that that kind of teachings could get a lot of them killed. They would get killed in ignorance if that teaching continue to be propagated by his followers. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad himself put a ban on the old document.
He took them out of circulation and he never condemned them, but he took them out of circulation and he said, "None of you all know how to use this but me. I'm the only one that he," meaning his savior Fard, "Is qualified for this," so he took them out of circulation. With those documents out of circulation, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was able to change the emphasis from religious secrecy to doing something practical on this earth now. Here and now. He came out of prison from serving a five-year term, which he served four years. And he told us we can't do things the old way anymore. He said, “we have to come out of this backward kind of thinking we got”.
He said, “we have to make a showing for ourselves that will attract our people”. Because he was all about getting our people from the white world, that will attract our people. He himself opened the first business. He bought it from that very same person, Kamal Aziz. Kamal Aziz had a small restaurant on 31st in Wentworth. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was approached back by Kamal Aziz. Kamal Aziz learned that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was looking for a place to open a business for the temple or for the Nation. He approached him and told him, "I have a business and I can't manage; I don't have enough money."
He asked the Honorable Elijah Muhammad to be a partner with him in that business. This ain't no second-hand information. I got this from my father's mouth. My father told Kamal Aziz, he said, "Brother, what I want to do," he said, "Even though I'll do it myself, or in my own name." He said, "Brother, everything that I do is for our Nation," so he said, "You couldn’t be my partner in the business." He said, "I'll give you a good price for your business, whatever you ask." Kamal Aziz gave him a reasonable price; the Honorable Elijah Muhammad bought that business. He bought that business and he opened up a grocery store in one half of it. It was a pretty good spacious facility at that time, in our mind at that time.
The other half, it had two numbers. You could see it had two numbers. It had two numbers, not just one number, there were two numbers. One place, but two numbers. Two numbers for the address. He opened up a restaurant in the other side. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad did this, not somebody else. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad went to the place, got people to clean it up, painted. He ordered the fixtures, set up the businesses. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad contacted wholesalers. He ordered the groceries, put in the stores. He ordered everything. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad set the menu for the restaurant. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad hired the cook.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was the manager. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad didn't hire a butcher, he was the butcher. He cut the meat, he got him a butcher chart. He went to the wholesaler, he told him that he wanted to open the store. He said, "Give me your chart." The wholesaler has such faith in the Honorable Elijah in Muhammad, he taught the Honorable Elijah Muhammad how to make good cuts, clean cuts, and nice cuts. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad learned it. He went there and I as a boy saw my father take a half of a cow and take it off a hook, throw it down on the butcher's block, the wooden block and start cutting it. Lamb too.
He hired us as children to handle chicken. My brother had worked for Iowa Poultry at 7010, Stony Island, a Jewish place. Where the temple is now used to be a Jewish neighborhood. I and my brother used to work in that neighborhood. I rode bicycles delivering chickens, and turkeys, and other things to Jews during the holidays. In that neighborhood where the Temple on Stony Island called Mosque Maryam, now. Now, anyway, and peace be upon the Mother Mary, the mother of Christ Jesus, peace be upon him and his mother Mary.
Now, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad did that and later, he included baking. And he got my sister who already knew how to cook by my mother. All of my sisters had to know how to cook and we were bakers. You couldn't be as Muslim talking about you got a husband and children, a woman and you don't know how to bake bread? You can't cook a bean pie, or 100% cheese pie, or a carrot pie and all the other stuff? Sister, where have you been, come here. Some sister would bring you into and say, “come on here, sister”. And make you learn right away. Anyway, my father had my sister and another sister from the community. He hired them in there and my sister became the head baker.
My sister Ethel later became the supreme captain. He was the head baker in that facility on 31st and Wentworth. I was a chicken dresser and a delivery boy delivering groceries to the Muslims. My brother Elijah, who became supreme captain assistant and later supreme captain under Raymond Shareef, he was also poultry dresser. We killed the chickens, picked them, cut them up, everything. We were doing that in the back in the garage behind the facility. All that we were doing, that was the business started. So, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad put his emphasis on business. He later came grew that idea to the economic plan, a blueprint of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam for his people.
He came from that emphasis of religious secrecy, studying wisdom to the emphasis of doing something practical for yourself and making a material business showing on this earth while we live to attract our people to see that there is hope in the Nation of Islam. That there are answers for them and also hope for material establishment with the Nation of Islam. That was the key. After then, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad began to attract African Americans in larger numbers. It wasn't long. I'm talking about now, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was released in 1946, early '46 or late '45. By 1952, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad already had emphasis on business and Nation.
It had taken on kind of a political image and the business image or economic idea. Malcolm came during that time in 1952 or '53 directly from prison he came, all excited and well prepared to advance the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's message and the work of the Nation of Islam. That's to give you some idea, but what I'm talking about is secrecy. That tendency towards secrecy didn't die. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad just stopped that activity from being visible. They were sneaking and still reading. A lot of trouble was caused by them. A man that was attracted to that and wouldn't do it in the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's face, he went to the West Coast out here, Minister RT.
As a result of his blind experiencing with high explosion, the secrecy of those documents, he influenced the development of a group called the Zebra Group. And the Zebra Group was actually doing the thing that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad feared that would happen if he kept those things in circulation. On the East Coast, another man was doing the same thing out there and the result of his work was the five percenter who caused a lot of unnecessary trouble for themselves and others. Now isn't it different when you get a man to talk freely and openly with you about things? I'm not the only person that know these things, but the others don't want to talk freely and open with you about these things.
If they do, they going to give the Honorable Elijah Muhammad credit for having more rational sense, than they give him credit for having that and they're afraid that that will attract you to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad as a rational thinker. If you do that, you're going to put aside just as I have done, you're going to put aside myth, whether it is created in the interest of black people or not. You are going to put aside myths that cripples you when you want to work in a real world, and they don't want to do that. They don't want to see us put aside myths. They pretend that myth is real, that myth is reality. They want us to hold on to the myths because the myth is a strong attraction to people that are X.
Congregation: Allahu Akbar.
I'm getting to my point on secrecy. And I used to talk all night long. I start in the evening and we'd see the daylight breaking. I wasn’t the first one that talked for long like that. I was told that my father and his teacher when they began their work in their early '30s that they will stay up all night talking, teaching, and go home in the morning. Then some of them would say, "We don't want to go home." They say, "We can go to bed right now." They say, "We will rest on the floor, we want you to continue." That's how magnetic it was. And I guess that's what Fard meant when he put in the lesson.
“Unlike attract and like repels”. And the idea that the whole evil that we call the great white world started when a little boy aged six playing with two pieces of steel that were magnetic. Well, he certainly was being serious with two pieces of steel, feeling that was magnetic.
The secrecy didn't stop. The secrecy hasn't stopped yet. I have people that love me, but they're not quite satisfied with me because I don't favor secrecy. And some of them, we have to use them in key positions because we don't have better workers. And when they see me doing something they don't like or when I'm getting to be known for something that they think predicts death and final death for that secrecy, they'll do dirty little things to hurt me. Like changing one word in the logic that I said on a tape to hurt that logic so when you get it, it’s embarrassing. You say, "Well, the Imam is still trying. He's struggling but this is not logical." They do little devilish things like that. Not only that, they meet in cliques.
They have cliques and they meet together in these cliques and they have their own agenda for our life and future. You support me. When I say you, I mean the vast majority, the big number, they support me as their leader, you support me as your leader, but among you are cliques that have their secret idea and secret agenda for our life here in our future. In Atlanta for the 1992 convention, I made a strong and sincere appeal to them to get out of that secrecy, we need one language for our unity and progress, not hidden secrets. And if they are really better for the future of our people than I am, I invite them to come and meet me in a public show, in a public debate.
If you're sincere, let's prove it. Let's prove that you are better qualified than I am with all your advisers who have the theology of time that has a X in every word. If you are better qualified than I am to carry us forward, I challenge you to meet me in a public debate or a private debate. A debate where nobody but Muslims of African American. They've got to be black, that will be the qualification, you can't get in unless you're black and Muslim. I challenge those in my staff that's doing this and I challenge those in anybody else's organization and staff that's doing it because I'm tired of it.
We have to be free to pursue our excellence, that's what it was all about from the very beginning. Whatever mystery that was put before us, it was to attract our mind and excite activity in the head, turn the brains on so that we would pursue our excellence that G-d created us with. Allah most high says in the Quran that secrecy is not permitted in Al-Islam, meeting together in secrecy is not permitted in Al-Islam unless it is for advancing honesty, decency, righteousness among people. It ain't for advancing one people over another, that's no justification for meeting in secrecy, to advance one people over another, no.
There's no justification, it's outlawed in Al-Islam for African Americans, for blacks to meet in secrecy to plan our advancement so that we will be above or over other people. And that's what Afrocentrism got in its soul, in its spirit, that's the idea in its spirit and that's why old Nations of Islam X-ism can embrace Afrocentrism. Allah also tells us in the Quran that the Quran is given in two particular characteristics, Muhkamat and Mutashabihat. Muhkamat means that that is rational and that that takes form in rational and that that can be grasped by a rational mind and be applied in a practical way.
And Allah says, that is the basis or the foundation of the Quran. Allah says this, not WD Mohammed. Allah says that that is the basis or the foundation of the Quran. He says but there are some who are magnetically drawn to the shubahat. To that that is abstract, to that that is symbol, so that that is symbolic they're attracted to that. Allah says, not I, Allah says and in their heart is a disease, in their hearts is a deceit. Because they prefer that over the plain rational teachings. That's the proof that they are diseased in their heart. Look at those who preach Al-Islam and can't agree with me and find what they emphasize in Al-Islam.
They emphasize that that is symbolic, that that is allegorical, that that is mysterious, they emphasize that and not the practical teachings of this religion. When they emphasize that that is practical, they don't give Allah in the Quran and Muhammad credit for that, they give themselves credit for that. They call it mister so and so, minister so and so, imam so and so plan for the black man. When I began teaching the Quran and I mentioned that G-d blessed some of us to have insight to understand, to know the Ta'weel. That is how to interpret that that is vague, that that is obscure, that that is mysterious.
I was challenged by those who claim that they were standing upon real scholarly authority in 
Al-Islam, not in the Nation of Islam, this is in worldwide Al-Islam. They quoted the Quran where it said it. They said, “the Imam doesn't know this, he's not aware of this, his intentions are good, he is well meaning. Where Allah says, “no one knows the Ta'weel but G-d”. No one knows anything but G-d.
When G-d challenged the angels to accept His new creation, the human man, the khalifa, the new man to rule in the society of men. Most of them, they couldn't do anything, but acknowledge. They said, "G-d, we have no knowledge except what you've given to us." When we make hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca and circle the Kaaba, we say, "Allah, you know, we know now."
Certainly, all knowledge is with G-d and when you get down to it, when you actually get technical, we don't know. Allah knows. We can't know unless Allah create us to know, guide us to know, help us to know. Yes, we know that. But the Prophet Muhammad in his saying, and G-d and in His word in the Quran, let us know that the Ta’weel is known by some. Because the Prophet himself is told to tell the people, what is the best Ta’weel, what is the best interpretation. What does he say? He says, "To be honest, to be righteous, to do good, to promote excellent, righteousness, that is the best Ta’weel." That's the best interpretation.
So, what is he saying? There are a lot of mysteries to be known, but if you're not interested in advancing righteousness, you're not interested in advancing excellence for the society, for humanity and society, then you do not have the right Ta’weel. You don't have the right understanding of Ta’weel or you can't have the right interpretation. So much for that secrecy now.
It is my belief, and I get support for my belief from my history, from my religion, from the history of my religion and the Muslim people and their society. And also, from the history of Western society in its pursuit of excellence. I get my support from both. From men of excellence, from people motivated by excellence. From the Quran itself, which is revealed to us to motivate us into our excellence that G-d created us for.
I get my support for believing this idea that the world itself is destined to force us, when I say the world, I’m talking about the natural world. The natural world phenomena, natural world events, that that gets out of the hand of man, whether it’s started by man or not. That's what I'm talking about. We may start something from Allah's creation, but eventually it's going to get on our hands if we don't serve G-d the way He intended for us to serve in the ordering of creation and in the ordering of our own lives. It gets out of our hands.
It is my belief that eventually natural phenomenon, natural happenings that are too big for man to handle will force us to do what Allah wants us to do, what G-d wants us to do. Whether we belong to Christian religion, or Al-Islam or something else. They're going to force us to do it. I believe that that natural force now is on us. The President of the United States, he can't do his own thing. The President of the United States, he can't do our own thing. He can't do America's own thing. I want to make it clear when I say our own thing. He can't do America's own thing. He can't just look and read what is good for America without being sensible enough to see also how it's going to affect other nations.
Whether it's good for other nations at the same time, it is good for America. This natural force now is upon the world. And it's forcing, dictating the course that the world must take. Yes. There was a time when these powerful men could rise up with their ideology and they can preach their ideology and convert great blocks of men to their ideology, just as Karl Marx and others did. Just as Adam Smith and others did. That time is out, that time is gone. Can't no individual or single person or group of persons get together and imagine an idea for bringing men together in great masses and conquering, or advancing themselves on this earth anymore, that can't happen anymore. That time is out. I don't look forward to come until something happened in the creation to bring about really a new physical earth. I'm telling you it is out. That is out.
Knowing that, I now want you to see your own situation as a people. When say you, I'm talking about myself too. Dr. C Eric Lincoln, he loves what he believes to be the real interest and the real aim in the Nation of Islam as conceived by Fard and as established under the leadership of the honorable Elijah Muhammad. He loves what he sees there. I do, too. And he describes it in a way that I'm comfortable with. When he describes what he sees as something trying to arrive, not yet arrived. You know the Elijah Muhammad said, “your savior has arrived.” But he never says what you want as a life has arrived. I'm talking about what we want as a life. It’s something that is coming, but it's not yet arrived completely.
Dr. C. Eric Lincoln, the great Christian theologian, who wrote the book on the black church, a book that has just about become a classic now in America, maybe even overseas too in some quarters. And also wrote the book Black Muslim, that helped put down Elijah Muhammad and his followers on the map, Black Muslim.
I give credit to a number of things and most important among them for our popularity for us coming out into the view of the people of America. First of all, it was the honorable Elijah Muhammad emphasis on business, doing something practical to have a showing. After that, it was his able mouthpiece. And believe me, that's what he was. Malcolm was a mouthpiece for the honorable Elijah Muhammad. There was no such thing as a Malcolm. No Malcolm was known until Malcolm was excited and enthused to be the mouthpiece for the honorable Elijah Muhammad.
He was better educated formerly. He had a better background when it came to cultural upbringing in the sense of America's idea of culture. He had a better background. The honorable Elijah Muhammad was the man who came from a worse history of poverty and deprivation than Malcolm. Malcolm came from a kind of intellectually proud people. His brothers and sisters we're intellectually proud people. His oldest brother was the greatest influence in his family. A man who was educated and very proud of his intellect. The honorable Elijah Muhammad, he was proud of his intellect only because he had a great idea given to him by his teacher, Fard. But as far as looking back into his past as a studious person, the honorable Elijah Muhammad had nothing to brag about. He didn't even know how to read and write. He had to teach himself to read and write. He learned how to read and write after he was up North or a man. He always was curious, so he was always trying to learn. He did learn to read and write. We want to get these things straight. See the picture as it is. Not as some of us want it to be.
I see certain things as being very important for bringing us on the map or in the public view. To be included, new emerging independent nations of Africa. Egypt got its independence and Ghana. After a while, a lot of nations of Africa got independence. And pretty soon they changed the whole color of the United Nation. Now, when we look at the United Nations on TV, you see a picture of color. Before it was white. Before 1945 when it was born, at that time, it was white. Only 50. Now it's 175 members and a big number of them are Asian and African.
He said, in the beginning only one African was there, Liberia. He's well aware of the history because he's in that field and activity so that's good he's here. You see how G-d blessed me with an angel? Praise be to Allah. Okay, there we have it, but the color of it quickly changed and this had an impact on us, as black people or African American people, so that helped excite us. Malcolm had the advantage too, of that new conditioning, that new wave of influence that was positive in the African American mind and heart and spirit.
Malcolm had also that advantage too because he came along right in that time. In addition to that was also Dr. C. Eric Lincoln, the great theologian and scholar who wants to advance his people. He's not just a Christian. He's also an African American who wants to advance the life of the African American people. When he wrote the book, Black Muslim, he also sent something out, that made America say, "Hey, these people are here and they are not insignificant. They are to be reckoned with."
Reader's Digest came out with an article on the honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam. And in that article, back then they called the honorable Elijah Muhammad the most significant black man in America. They didn't say, Malcolm. They said, “Elijah Muhammad, the most significant black man in America”. How come now Elijah Muhammad is insignificant and only Malcolm is significant. Somebody's been doing a thing, haven’t they?
Now I'd be the last one who wants to take credits from anybody and especially Malcom, because I loved him, admired him. He influenced me in many ways and he certainly brought a new energy to the following of the Nation of Islam that accounted for us just growing leaps and bounds. But we were growing leaps and bounds from the honorable Elijah Muhammad platform, from his foundation. And we were going leaps and bounds with the honorable Elijah Muhammad's message, with the honorable Elijah Muhammad's economic blueprint, with the honorable Elijah Muhammad's challenge to white America. Remember that, it's wrong to steal from one black man and give credit to another black man to advance your own thing. 
Lastly, I will mention another thing that happened to really bring America's attention to us that we were in America and we're here to be reckoned with. We were not something to be ignored. It was the news special of the news reporter and commentator, Mike Wallace. He did that thing, “The Hate that Hate Produced”. And the message it sent out to white America with powerful. But at the same time, the exposure it gave us in the black man's eyes was also powerful. It said these people are here. They are a thing to be reckoned with and not ignored.
I get back to Dr. Lincoln's description of what the Nation of Islam was in terms of its claiming to be Islam. He said it is a proto, P-R-O-T-O, a proto-Islamic idea, combining black nationalism and religion. Now is that clear or not? That's clear. Now, why we want to look for other explanations. Some of us don't want to accept that this thing is simple, though the big X was given to us. It ain't an X now. That's how come the X are gone. Malcolm even put down the X before he died. He identified himself as El-Hajj Malik Shabazz.
Now just so we don't get off on the wrong foot again. It was the honor of Elijah Muhammad who gave him the name Shabazz. He was Shabazz before he split with the Nation of Islam. He was no longer Malcolm X. He was Minister Malcolm Shabazz before he left the Nation of Islam or before he was forced out of the Nation of Islam. Now, be quit please. This sideline cheerleaders I got there; they sometimes mess up my presentation. You bring a new spirit that’s foreign to what I'm all about.
Now proto-Muslim, proto-Islamic, Dr. C. Eric Lincoln is not being insulting. He is really trying to pay a compliment but what he's saying to us. He's saying in a sense the same thing that Allah says to us when He says that He created us from thick water, despised, look down on. He created us from sperm. The great scholar and theologian, he doesn't want to say sperm like idea. He doesn't want to say that. He says proto. Protoplasm is the basis of life, isn't it?
In the Quran, the thick water is given as the basis of life. I believe it is mostly protein, but we see it is protoplasm. Protoplasmic more than anything else in its constitution or in its description. So, that's what he's saying. I'm proud to tell you that I came from the Nation of Islam sperm, Protoplasm. And because I was sensitized in the right way, I have become a man. Praise be to Allah. As the blues singer says, a real man, M-A-N, man. That's what the blues singer said, I heard him and I liked it. I think that was Muddy Waters. Some other probably sung that number too. And that's what we came out of too muddy water, wasn’t it?
Thank G-d, look where we are now. Now, dear people let us look at ourselves, coming from the unknown, not knowing our own selves, wanting to have light, not darkness on our own self. And wanting to be comfortable with what appears once the light is on, be comfortable with that, whatever it is, is equal to the best of what is in any other people. And that it is of its own nature or natural creation that it is equipped, qualified to compete with other human beings in a competitive world.
That's what we want. Am I speaking to your soul? If your ears are open and you're sincere, I'm speaking to your soul. I'm touching your very soul. I don't speak to your whims, your excitement, your fads, your desperation to grab anything and say it's real just to feel good about yourself. I don't speak to that. I'm speaking directly to your soul with respect for your intellect, with respect for your rational mind. And that's what I want other black leaders to do.
Our soul and its ego, wants established identity. Meaning. When we say identity we mean meaning, real meaning, true meaning, actual meaning, fact meaning, true to life and truth in fact meaning. Our soul and its ego want established identity of self. We want it upon common sense basis. Not mysticism, in the shroud of myth, and error, misconception, untrue. We don't want that. That's not what our soul wants.
Allah Most High says in Quran that He has made us, has created us, or made us nation and tribe for the purpose of having us attracted to each other out of curiosity, to want to know the truth of each other, to want to know each other. Li ta’araafu, for us to get acquainted with each other. A philosopher in his right, a psychologist in his right, understand this and see great depth and great wisdom in this. Understand and see great depth and wisdom in this, especially the historian who's also a philosopher, who’s also a person getting the benefit of psychology. When he hears that statement, he appreciates it. It is a statement that is very, very significant and it has great ramification. Very, very great and rich ramification.
We know that man was isolated from himself. That is the world society of men, we were isolated from ourselves. And the great history of advances for civilization couldn't have come about until there was a great migration, and great movement, great opportunity, invention of boats, and et cetera for man to go from his little small world and meet another world of his own fellow man. In venturing out from our small world to meet other worlds of other men, of other races, and other nations, and other people, it enabled us to have much, much greater progress for civilization.
We speak of the great weapons of America and the West, but where did they start it with? Where did this great movement for advancing the artillery or the weaponry of war come from? It came from China. Marco Polo, the great adventurer, he went to China. 
For the purpose of having you attracted to each other, because when yours is different than mine. And Fard said unalike attracts. And he was right.
When yours is different from mine, I’m attracted to see,” How does this work? What that’s about? Where did this come from? How good is this? How well is serves?” This is what account for great progress for man on this earth. Now, if you get an idea for advancing your own self, or your own race, your own people, and your idea discredits other nations, then you are deprived of this condition that you need in order to develop an advanced civilization.
Why? Because you then have a selfish way of looking at everybody's accomplishments. You will discredit the accomplishment of your enemy. You’ll discredit those accomplishments. You will try to keep from the ears of your followers, your clones, you'll dupes. You will try to keep from the ears of those people who serve you blindly, you’ll try to keep from their ears, knowledge of the greatness of other people. That's the very knowledge they need in order to be inspired to be bigger themselves, and to benefit from that common resource.
For we all have one creator, and all of our resources is a common resource because it's all owes its existence to that One Common Creator. And G-d want us to have the benefit of all that He has created. That's what is going to really make us a giant of a people on this earth.
It is now being said that we African-Americans, we Blacks, have a worse showing for our unity now than we had even before the movement of integration. And that's the truth. Except for the Nation of Islam and a few other black nationalist movements, our people, on the whole, had a better sense of unity then than now.
In spite of even the Nation of Islam, separatist’s idea. You can see that when you see Malcolm. How he addressed the problem of the black community, and how he related to other leaders that he disagreed with. Adam Clayton Powell, whoever they were, even Dr. Martin Luther King. You can see that even in spite of the great difference. It was a sharp difference between Nation of Islam, and the civil rights movement, or the movement for integration. A great difference.
In spite of that difference, you saw that even we Muslims had a better sense of closeness and brotherhood with African-American people of Christians or what they were than we have now. All of us no matter what bag we're in, all of us want to see this condition improve. We want to see us have a better sense of unity. Because it’s hurting all of us. It hurts the way the world sees us in their eyes. It’s hurting our individual efforts. Some of us want to establish ourselves as doctors, as lawyers, as preachers, mathematicians.
I don’t care what it is. Some of us want to establish institutions, medical institutions, medical facilities. Some of us want to establish businesses, cooperation, and all that. We want to operate our businesses in our own community, and we can't get support for our work. We can't get support for our aspirations because our people are turned on so much to some false destiny for blacks, and so much to getting things without any principle, without any moral sense, without any moral obligation. So much to getting over without any more sense or moral obligation that we can't have this support for our very positive and very much needed work.
It’s all right. The need for us is the same need that we have in the total world, in the total population of nations. It is the need to find agreement, which shows our many colors agreeing in truth, in one truth, in one light, that's the answer. The many colors of the rainbow, they agree in one light. And they are manifested, are made visible by one light aided by something that will reflect, or give individual image or identity of visible picture of the light that's in the colors or the light that's in the one essence.
I'm comparing our oneness now in our colors with the oneness of light. Light in its purest form shows no colors. We have to come to excellent state of human mind with respect for other people and ourselves, that our mind when we viewing other people have no color. It is pure like the pure light. Then we have to have the sense to see our particular circumstances in history. Our separate history, our separate life, our separate aspirations coming out of one life, out of one original substance, or essence, our human being. Coming out of the one to express itself in its beautiful array of color. We have to see that and appreciate our distinction as people. We have to love our distinction as African American, as black people.
And our color is not really black, our color is beautiful. It is all colors. We are all colors. We're not just black. If we want to really get technical. I will shatter that whole interest and building us up upon idea that we are black. If I'm black, then a Mexican is black. Bring him in it too brother, open up the rank for him too brother, Afrocentrist and all of you all. If I'm black, then an Asian is black. I'm talking to me personally; you're looking at my skin.
If I'm black, then majority of the people on this earth are black. Because the majority of people on earth are not black or white. The majority of the people on this earth are my color. If somebody is justified in leading a movement based upon color and calling all people to identify in that color for domination of the world, it should be somebody looking like me because we are in the majority.
I think even Senate want a majority before they make conclusions. But Hitler disrespected majority opinion and so did Pharaoh. Now, I want to come to something else and we tied it all together. Under a tent with peace pipes in hand. Jews, Christians, Muslims and democracy look like a strange company of bedfellows. However strange that maybe, Muslim, Christian, Jews and democracy are growing, moving slowly and in some instances fastly into agreement under one focus. What is that focus? Cooperation for advancing the good life of man on this earth.
Peace, peace. Even though global economic demand and human rights are pressing, for this meeting of the minds something very special shared in common is sound enough to support the steps we are forced to take. This company of strange participants in democracy are fans, enthusiastic supporters. That's what I mean by fans, F-A-N-S. Fans of one and the same heavyweight champion.
This heavyweight champion is a shared belief in the human equality of essence. We believe in these great religions. And democracy gets its idea started upon that belief, European democracy, American democracy. Great democracy that’s perceived in the eyes of modern world and in the eyes of our ancient fathers of this idea. G-d is the creator of it.
This equality is seen based upon the common essence of the human being. That though we are of different colors, different races, different nations and different colors. Though we have different potential and ability, and therefore, different levels of achievement for ourselves, G-d, when He created us, He created us with the same essence, with the same potential, with the same capacity. But in time, circumstances for that potential, circumstances for that capacity, are favored or disfavored in time, by situations that we find ourselves in.
But that doesn't mean we didn't start out with the same equal ability or the same equal essence, we started out with the same. This is not something that we debate over. This is not something to be debated. We're ignorant if we start to debate this as Muslim, or as Christian, or as Jews. Or as people who believe in the great concept of democracy, that we have given in the introduction to the constitution the preamble. And within the constitution that survived and that is the permanent life of the constitution. We will be stupid to try to debate this.
Some of you all think the Imam is coming from, “Oh, there he goes again. He's trying to establish something and he's talking big things. He's exaggerating.” You're stupid. Go to school please. I'm telling you really, you who contend with us among us, I beg you go to school. Because you can’t even help us with your low level of education and ignorance.
If I was in your shape, I would do the same thing the honorable Elijah Muhammad did when he met Fard. “What you offer to me is beyond my knowledge. And it looks like it's for me. I'm going to keep my mouth shut. Talk, Fard, talk.”
We all believe in that common essence. We all believe in that shared equality of man. We couldn't have this government if we didn't believe in that idea. Is that correct? You all know that, you studios people. You people working in government. That's the foundation of the idea of government. That's the foundation of it. We cannot have a democratic process that we have in this country. We cannot have any idea of equal opportunity and all that. We cannot have the end of segregation in this country. We cannot have any of these great advances for American democracy without that basic fundamental sound support, original beginning points for democracy.
The idea that all of us are created by G-d with the same human essence, the same human type, the same human potential, the same human capacity for life and progress on this earth. That's the idea. If you see me as patriotic, if you see me loving America, it's mainly because I see the likeness of that idea in Quran. And in form of government that Prophet Muhammad (saws) prayers and peace be on him, introduced and established.
That's how come I love it because I see the likeness of it. I don't think they could have come into it as they have come into it without Al-Islam having come first. Without the Shura of Muhammad coming first. Without Prophet Muhammad being inspired and guided by G-d first to bring them back to that movement that was in Greece and some other places to find the idea form of government for man. It was a followers of prophet Muhammad who dug up the Greek wisdom, who improved upon the Greek wisdom, who was able to bring the West and shock the West out of its sleep and bring it back on the path of civilization and progress for the great idea of democracy.
A shared belief in our inherent excellence. A shared belief in the inevitable unescapable destiny of that shared essence. This is not just coming from my mouth. This is in the Quran. And it is in the treatment of this idea found in political theory and in other bodies of knowledge. It's not just in the Quran or just coming from my mouth. We believe that G-d, the will of G-d, the force of G-d, the law of G-d for us is best understood when we observe what happens in the material system of matter which includes also the human system of life and activity. We believe that it is understood best when we look at that. Because after all, G-d was unknown and He created the world so that he would be known. You understand?
So, if we are to know G-d, we can't be looking for the day when there was nothing. We only know G-d by looking at the something that He created so that He would make himself known to us. And there is a lot I want to say but I can't just talk forever. Because necessity is kicking us in the rear saying move on. When I say us, I mean, all of us. Speaking firstly to my race, African Americans, my ethnic group but I'm speaking to all of us. Necessity is kicking us in the behind, “you too slow, move on”. We believe that it is the will of G-d that the excellence that He put in us when He created us find the right climate and fertile soil for it to burst forth into a beautiful structure, beautiful form, beautiful life structure. And grow and multiply and fill the earth with the excellence of man. That's what we believe. We believe it is inevitable. There's no escaping, we can stop it.
We are where we are today, you're here listening to me today not only because you selected to, you're here today because that potential drove you took. You're here today because the common essence and its power, drove you here. And I'm here also for the same reason. I'm speaking philosophically but I'm speaking plainly. We can't escape this destiny of our excellence. Our excellence must be established and I'll tell you the truth. If I have to, I will put down the identity of a minister or an Imam and put on warriors’ clothes. And I'll actually declare a physical war on our people that refuse to accept that we go into our excellence. I'm telling you. I'll break the peace of America. I break America, I will become a violent man in America and break the law of America.
I will declare a physical war on some of these people if I see that that's going to keep us back from our excellence but I don't think it is. I think if you will accept to meet more like we are meeting today. And if you go back and share it and be strong enough to defend what you believe in. Don't listen to a person who's teaching you blackism, gone off the course of blackness into blackism. Don't listen to a person teaching you that and not speak up and say, "Look, you are sending us back into slavery. You're taking us back into the unknown. You are crucifying us with the X that we are coming out of. That we are leaving." Stand up to them and we won't have to have that physical war. If we have it, I'm telling you, chicken feathers going to fly and bloods going to be spilled.
There's no person more serious on the battlefield than a person who is convinced totally that G-d is with him. African American family, we are urged to identify the focus for our African American unity in, under and by that same light of our common essence, it's potential for excellent establishment. Our struggle begins in the original protoplasm of the world's struggling societies. We can't come up with a different interpretation for us, and a different method for us advancing ourselves that can't be found anywhere else.
We must use the same methods that G-d has established that all people use. If we have become X, we have to come into the light of our identity the same way all other people had to come into the light of their identity. That is by recognizing first, the truest and purest of our identity, the human identity that we find in our common human excellence. I don't know how we're going to continue to view the great able spokesmen for the honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X who later chose to be called as El-Hajj Malik Shabazz. I don't know how we’re going to continue to view him but I was happy to read an article in the Wall Street Journal titled, Malcolm X, Conservative Hero by Kevin Pritchett. This is the November 10th issue of The Wall Street Journal.
In this issue, they tell about the radical man, they speak of the radical man. They speak of the angry man. The article speaks of the man who confronted white America but the article also speaks of the substance of that man, speaks of the force behind his anger and that is the thing that he affirmed and that's where we've gone astray. That's where we have lost ourselves. That's where we've gotten in trouble. 
We have given ourselves to the habit of only registering what is hurting us, and not registering what is good for us. Only condemning what we don't like and not affirming or giving credit to and acknowledging and holding up what we like.
We were advanced as a people, because Frederick Douglass came not only to condemn the white man, for his evil or for his mistreatment and abuses of humanity. And their treatment of black people, but he came also to assert the positive. He came also to assert the excellence of man, that he insisted upon claiming for African Americans, for black people, for black slaves, as well as the white man who insisted upon claiming that for himself.
Frederick Douglass, he came into view to insist that the white world recognize that whatever excellence G-d put in them, he put the same in the black slave. And if they had any respect for the purity and for the real intent in their Christianity. If they had any respect for what Christ Jesus, the prophet, peace be on him, advocated. And if they had any respect for what the founders of the constitution recognized, then they should come out of their shameful behavior and accept to treat their slave as a man. Free him, and change the whole America, so that he would have the same accommodations in America that they have.
And thank G-d, our great leaders, Frederick Douglass and many men. And women among them, Sojourner Truth, Mary Mc Cloud Bethune. Many, they have impressed me. They are in my mind. I'm busy now, and I didn’t include it in my notes, but they are staring in the back of my mind, many of them. Some radical, but they all were moved they got themselves killed, because they were too radical for their time. David Walker with his David Walker appeal, got himself killed and many others got themselves killed, because they were too radical, they wanted too quick the change to come too fast and too drastically for their time.
But they all have something in common. They were saying to America that, "You say you believe in G-d and the Creator is one, and the same thing that He put in you, He put in all people. And your Christianity, your gospel and your great thinker who formed this idea, conceived this idea is to bring about this democracy, they had a respect for that. You are out of form. You are out of order. Your society is influenced by greed and money and power. Come back to your true essence. Take the fangs out of your mouth and become a human being, a man again."
They were responsible for getting support.
Their message eventually reached the heart and reached the mind of many whites, who were trying to do something by themselves, but now they fill encourage. They said, "Look at the great example, the great orator we have in Frederick Douglass." This man must be impressive enough to convince our leaders in America, and even people of England, of Europe, to convince them that they should not hold a brilliant intellect like this in bondage. Well, after all, he was born a slave, so was Booker T. Washington. And they formed as a great intellect even while they were still slaves. Because their circumstances were different from the circumstances of the majority of the slaves.
Frederick Douglass first had a good master who encouraged him to learn and read and study and improve his mind, while he was just a slave. I'm passing over a lot of this that's not really absolutely and it’s not really that much needed to complete this. Among the great men that have had that positive influence on us and have led us forward into our excellence, W. E. B. Du Bois. W-E-B Du Bois, the one who really conceived the idea for the NAACP, he is the founder of that. An educator, a philosopher, a great intellect. He pointed to the problem of race and said that it would be the issue to address for the 20th century. That's what he said, race. How come we still have this great problem of race? We can't say that America is geared up now to support race and racism. It's not. If you say that you're fooling yourself. It's not geared up to support race and racism.
Maybe some elements, some private interest groups are. Maybe that is a prevailing tendency in the business establishment, maybe. I'm not sure of that. But I know one thing, it's not something overly expressed, it's not something openly worked for. Why? Because the majority opinion of the American people is against it. And the majority of the American people are not black, they're white, or some other color. We are not a majority, we're a minority here. So, why does it still exist? Why is it still a problem? On one side, it is because African American people are still in the process of establishing their identity from the beginning, from that simple, despicable identity in sperm, protoplasm. And we're striking out in the dark.
We have this new sense of our identity, we have this new sense of our power, we have this new sense of our manhood, though we're in sperm. Flesh and blood man with a symmetry, that'll hold him, strong bones, to deal with these problems. But we find those who don't have that strong structure and symmetry, they're trying to address the problems of the world from a situation of sperm or protoplasm. And because of that, they're asking for big things, while showing themselves, unprepared even, for small things. That is trust.
The world can't trust people who are talking crazy with the future of a neighborhood, or with the future of a town or with the future of a business establishment. We have as a need in our souls, the need to be compensated in full. That's a need that's driving us. Now, what I'm talking about? Am I talking about reparations, am I talking about America owes us something for working us as their slaves and not paying us every day, or giving us the salary that we should have earned as free people? No, I think that idea was just to get attention to something else, that we need to be compensated.
I don't think our great men of great minds really had it in their belief that the white world would go back and look at every payday, at every day we worked as slaves, on the plantations and figure out how much we've got coming to us. No, they gave you all that was coming to you when they promised you a mule and 40 acres, and believe me, that was symbolic. The mule is, "Well, we think your brain is a mule head, mule brain. We going to give you the freedom to have your mule, your brain, your mule brain, your donkey brain, and we're going to give you 40 acres to work on, or to cultivate."
That 40 acres is symbolic too. "We're going to give you no more than your original capacity, your original potential. We will let you have free, your original potential, and your donkey sense that you have now after centuries of slavery and et cetera. Now, go with your donkey sense and your G-d-given freedom, your 40 acres."
They were arrogant, drunk on their own greatness. They had become drunk upon the wine of their own greatness. Because Frederick Douglass was certainly no donkey, and he had certainly already got more than a mule and 40 acres, while he was yet a slave. Neither our soul, nor world community conscience can have relief until our humanity gets full compensation, both from the world and from us. Full compensation both from the world and from us. I think the world has gone a long way, in granting us that compensation. Equal opportunity in America, great men in Politics, great men in The Armed Forces and women too. When I say men, I'm not overlooking women, or excluding women. Great men in the system of education, great men from us in the system of education. We can't ignore this progress, for us and for America, for our democracy, we can't ignore that.
The world has gone a long way, I repeat, towards compensating us, for its insults and injuries to our equal essence, or our humanity. But I see us being more negative, than we are positive, in our treatment of our humanity. And I don't want to show you all the ugliness. I'll just give you one example that's right quick for me to grab. I was getting ready to return the rented car back into Hertz Rental. I stopped to get it some gas, because I don't want to pay that big price for the gallon. If you don't bring it back full, you know what they do, they charge you a whole lot for the gallon, because they have to fill it up. They have to have that filled. It’s extra, they have to go out of their way to have it filled. They can't give it quickly to another customer, so they make you pay for that. This is in Little Rock, Arkansas, that's where I was.
I came from Chicago; it takes me a long time before I get Chicago out of my genes. Although I've been living in Little Rock, Arkansas now, about three and a half years, almost. But you know, this is the South, and this is the Southwest. I didn't think anybody could give a warm friendly, completely innocent greeting, to another one, and not get a return. At least, some return, or some acknowledgment, that you greeted them. Here was an African American, he looked like he was as advanced as I was. Dressed like me, or better, looked as intelligent as me, and as mentally alert as I am or better, maybe. We're using almost the same pump and I got there a little ahead of him. I got out of the car I said, "Hi, how are you doing?" He looked at me and just said, "What is wrong with you mind? So, I guess an angel was there again brother.
A white man was down on the far pump. And he heard me greet him, and he looked at me, he said, "How do you do?" I said, "How do you do?" Now that says a lot. For the state of our mind, with regard to how we accept and treat each other. I don't have to talk about black on black crime, all that stuff, how we don't support each other's businesses, and all that stuff. I gave you one little example of what's going on, when I told you what happened at that gas pump.
Now, if I was the kind of person, just think, suppose G-d would have made me go into amnesia.
Then woke me up, and I saw myself, G-d changed my form, now, I'm no longer an African American, I'm no more a black, I'm Asian or something. And I remember that experience, but not my own identity. I would say, “the blacks, they're racist, ain't no hope for them, they're hypocrites, don’t pay no attention to them”. I would have been turned off to any respect for African American people. I would have stopped seeing white man as a racist by himself, and I would have start seeing Blacks as racist with white people. Because if he had treated me that way, and I was another color, I would call it racism. Isn't that what we do? When we say, "Good morning Sir," and he'd look at us as if you're crazy out of your mind.” We see a racist. Ain't that the first thing? That's the first impulse, “racist”. It's much worse from one of your own kind to treat you that way. Much worse.
The worst treatment doesn’t come from outside, the worst treatment come from inside. W. E. B. Du Bois, he left us with something. He said, "Progress for us," African Americans, Blacks, "in the future, depends on how much willingness we have to promote independent thinking, on the part of our children, or our people." He put it this way, "The measure of progress depends on the measure of our willingness to teach our children to think." He was a philosopher. I know he didn't mean just to think, because you can think and destroy your health. You can. You can think and make yourself physically sick, from just thinking about a certain thing too long. You'll need a doctor, a physical doctor.
So, when a philosopher, or an educator says think, he's talking about think in the tradition of human excellence. He means think as an intellect, think as a rational person seeking to make improvements upon their humanity. And the qualifications that they have as their property, inherit property, is the cause of them having that original humanity. That's what he's talking about. And freedom, the great idea of freedom, is not the idea now we have of freedom. Today with the freedom meaning now that everybody is free to do their own thing. "Oh, you want to walk backwards, walk backwards sucker. You have your right to." "Hey what you laughing at him for, don't bother him for walking backwards. If he wants to walk all the way to the store backwards? The store is five blocks, I'm trying to help the guy." "Well, he wants to walk five blocks backwards, leave him alone."
If it was possible for us to fly, actually to be birds and fly, many of African Americans would be landing backwards.
That would be a hell of a feat.
But some of us would manage to do it.
I know it's late, but what I have for you is very, very, very important for me, and I believe for you too. But I know it's very, very important for me to say this to you today. The Nation of Islam, I think, it had at its purpose more than anything else, not just confrontation with white people. That was a necessity. White people had us segregated, white people had us in a bad situation when the Nation of Islam was formed, and for most of the lifetime of the Nation of Islam, so that was a necessity. But what its real purpose was, because that's all we hoped to overcome that, didn't we? We hoped eventually to overcome that by one event, or by one happening or another. We hoped that one day will overcome that. So, what were we going to continue with? It was the real purpose.
The real purpose was to connect our life forces, the intellect, the sensitivity, our faculty, all of them. All of our human sensitivities and faculty connect that back with original nature, and our appreciation for original excellence. For what purpose was that for? So, we could have a good situation for advancing our excellence and competing in a world of enlightened individuals from different races. That's what that was for.
The real purpose was, to give us enough faith in our own original creation. Original creation, that’s what was made by the original man. In our own original creation give us enough faith in it, to make us have faith in our own ability to think for ourselves, and to think independently. That's what the purpose was. That was what the main purpose was. A slave needs to be taught how to appreciate what G-d created him to be. And he needs to be taught to have faith in what G-d created him to be. And he needs to be taught to pursue the excellence that's inherent in what G-d created him to be. That's what the need is. Though, Fard came with his different methods and methodology and terminology, that was the purpose.
Though, the honorable Elijah Muhammad struggled with the X that Fard left on him, that was his purpose. So, our purpose, dear people, that's why I say I know I can bring about a healthy feeling for us again as a people. I can lead, I can't bring it about, G-d will bring it about, but I can be a factor for bringing us into a healthy situation for our soul. A health situation for our spirit, a sense of unity of spirit, a sense of unity of souls, a sense of unity of destiny. I can help us get into that great situation.
I can be a factor for that change for a better situation. It's coming. Many of those who are with me, they already had it.
They're not downhearted. They don't look into the future and see nothing, but darkness and trouble. They see light and opportunity and they're determined to get what they deserve, and that's equality and everything else that this world loves.
See, when read the Quran, we register things differently. There are a lot of blacks who will read the Quran, and they won't register what we register. When G-d says to us in Quran, He says, "Who forbids the good things that G-d has approved for His servants?" Who have made those good things that G-d approve for His service forbidden? See, we will look at that and we say, "Yes”, thinking with the rational man. Questioning things whether they are shrouded in secrecy and what not. Questioning things that just doesn't register well on my intelligence, or in my intelligence." Yes, what are the good things?” Yes, getting some money? Yes, that's another good thing that some people once said was forbidden to Blacks.
Getting a corporation, rising to influence the destiny of the town I live in. Yes, that's all open to me. That's some of the good thing that some people in this society say that's forbidden to you, Wallace. No. No, it’s not. Get some of the good things that G-d has promise me. Becoming a banker, becoming a financier, loaning money to my people, getting enough where I can finance their new entrepreneur aspirations or desires? Yes, all that. That's a good thing. “La Tansa Nasibaka Mina Dunya”. Don't forget you share of this world. Yes, that's for me too. Thank you, G-d, I won't forget it. Don't neglect your share of the world. Thank you, G-d, that's for me too. We read the Quran, and we register things of importance a little differently. Thank you.
Now, Du Bois encourages us to think and have faith in our ability to realize profits, and advances for ourselves with the tools of our own independent thinking. Du Bois encourages that. I'm saying you, the Nation of Islam, the main purpose is that. I would like to say to you also, Fard has as his main purpose that. I would like to say to you also, that I am not accepted by certain Muslims in Islamic world, because I advocate that. They want us to give up this habit of trusting and believing in our ability to think for ourselves, or think independently. They want us to give that up.
Now, would you believe that Prince Muhammad Al-Fisier, a Prince in the Royal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? The head of the religious department of the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington DC. Would you believe that he, actually, became irritated so much, that he insulted me? Insulted my essence, insulted my qualifications as a human being with an intellect, because I refuse to give up the habit and practice of thinking for myself, and thinking independently?
Most of the people in the leadership of the world, they want servants, they want slaves. And the reason why Al-Islam caught on so fast in the world during the time of the Prophet Muhammad, prayers and peace be upon him, because he came to break that kind of slavery. The Quran came to break that kind of slavery. The Quran was so powerful in breaking it by saying to the Muslims, all of us who accept Al- Islam, you are not anybody's slave. All of you are the Ibaad of G-d. The slave of G-d.
Allah came with Al-Islam, with Quran, Muhammad the Prophet, and he claimed us all. He claims every human being, man, woman, black, brown, yellow, red. He claimed all of us as His slaves, to take us away from the slave master.
Now, if I'm G-d's slave, how can I be your slave? If you're telling me to do something that G-d tells me not to do, how can I be your slave? I can't be your slave. When G-d say He created me to enjoy the production of my mind, and its resources and to utilize it, so that I bring into utility, or make utility, out of everything that's in the skies and everything that's in the earth. G-d told every one of us, that He created us to utilize all that's in the skies, and all that's in the earth, for the advancement of society and human life and well-being on this earth.
Once I learned that and some man who are wrapped up in priesthood or prince hood, are all wrapped up in his own divinity, cannot tell me to come out of that. Buddy, I am a M-A-N, man.
Allah knows there's nothing in me that want to hurt somebody else. There's no intent in me to take credit from anybody else. There's no intent in me or desire in me, to discredit or take something away from the Royal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. When I broke my relationship with them and refused any financial support from them, further financial support from them, I broke my relationship with them based on his treatment of me. When that changes, we can start a whole new relationship.
I'm going to include this with that, and say to you that I think I have done, with the help of G-d, a good job.
Praise be to Allah. Praise be to Allah.
Praise be to Allah. Praise be to Allah. Thank you. A good job of addressing the topic that we chose for this occasion. Thank you and we pray to Allah always to forgive us our shortcomings, our sins. Have mercy on us and favor us with His guidance, and with understanding, so that we continue to promote the excellence that He created us with to be established. Not to lie dormant. As-Salaam Alaikum.


