04/07/2002
IWDM Study Library
First Sunday Public Address
“Khalifah in the Role of Moral Life”

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Allahu Akbar that is G-d is greater than anything we can imagine or know. We greet you with peace, our greeting in Islamic language is As-Salaamu-Alaikum.
Audience: Wa-Alaikum-Salaam
We praise G-d we say Al-hamdu lillahi rabbil 'alamin, that is praise be to G-d the Lord keeper and sustainer of all the worlds. We witness that He is G-d and G-d alone, He needs no help to manage the heavens and the earth and all things. He says no one comes to Him except as a servant. Praise be to G-d. This is the one G-d, the G-d of Abraham, Noah, Moses, Jesus Christ and Muhammad, the last of G-d's messengers, the last of G-d's prophets pardon me.
In our holy book, we're told that there are prophets more than those that are named in Scripture. We're told that G-d's grace teaches to help people, moral teaches good people to help other people. He says, I quote now what is in the Scripture, "Never was there a community of people that didn't receive a messenger from G-d." G-d raised up prophets or messengers from among all the people, this is the teachings of our holy book.
I believe it is also the idea in the Bible, I'm a student of the Bible also. Yes, I read the religions, trying to read something on the religions of the world, and I was impressed by something in the tribal religion of the Native American people, because I thought it to be the likeness of what is in the Quran. The Native American people, we call Indians of this part of the world of this continent and it's lower continent, North and South America, they had a belief, and still have a belief some of them, that everything that exists: trees, rivers, wind, rain, stars, everything, the earth, the things that come out of the earth, that grow out of the earth, including ourselves, everything has a message to man's mind, a message for a man's thinking, for a man's conscience, his thinking, a message.
This is exactly what G-d says to us in our holy book. G-d says, "There are signs in the heavens and signs in the earth, and also there are signs in you." G-d also says, "But most people pay no attention to the signs. They go along heedless, not paying attention to the sign, but some people do." Those messengers and prophets of G-d, they began their journey to truth, they were seeking truth, they were truth seekers, and seeking truth they met G-d; eventually they met God.
If they didn't give up the search, they eventually met G-d. They were thinkers, later they were called seers because they were blessed to look into nature, look at things and see more than normal or average people would see. They were called seers S-E-E-R-S, and they were also called prophets later. Prophets, because they would see and also predict, they would see things, and based upon what they saw, they could predict, they made predictions.
We have in our world the coming of the rise of man as an intelligent life or thinker, and as a leader to lead the whole life of the people: spiritual life, business life, the whole life of the people; life in community. We see philosophers, thinkers, that's what they are, that's what were, they were thinkers. The Quran called them thinkers. Philosophers along with prophets because prophets also thinkers, and they brought knowledge and understanding that actually gave birth to a new breed of philosophers, another breed of philosophers; religious philosophers.
What I'm hoping to bring you is the connection for what we see as world leaders and inspired leaders that were guided by Almighty G-d, the creator of the world, creator of all things, there's a definite connection. We believe that not even science can be found without G-d's help. Science, that man didn't become knowledgeable of the sciences without G-d's help.
I have read story of certain-- well life of certain scientists, and they said more than one you'll find several of them among the scientists saying that they worked but there was and also something happening that they didn't make it happen, they had no control of it. For example, Pasture, his name, the one that brought the science of how to make milk more safe to drink and the one who discovered-
Audience: Insulin.
IWDM: -the vaccine. I know, I'm sorry. I'm not needing help right now, thank you.

I appreciate your help. Someone is talking to me in the audience here. He said he was experimenting with germs and he was looking for something to kill these bacteria in his experiment. Just like scientists or thinkers, deep thinkers who concentrate their thoughts and stay with the idea, they sleep with it, they go to sleep with their project on their mind. He had eaten a sandwich and had forgotten he left it on the windowsill above his experiment.
The wind blew, got strong, and blew mold off his bread into his experiment. One day he came and he was looking for the bacteria, and the bacteria all was dead, they were dead, all the bacteria were dead, that's how he discovered his science. He was working, but the wind blew mold into his experiment and the mold killed the bacteria. He got help from G-d, that's just one example.
Like I'd said earlier, there are several among the scientist who say that they have this kind of help. And those who were religious, they thank G-d for the help they got. Those who were atheists, they charge it to accident; it was just an accident. That's life, that's the world. I'm happy to be with you on this first Sunday in a beautiful weather Allah G-d almighty has blessed us with this weather, beautiful sunshine, nice weather. We've been enjoying a whole week of just almost perfect weather here in the Chicago area. In Markham, my town where I live and this area, Chicago area, beautiful weather, couldn't ask for better. I come home at night, I want to sleep outside.
I don't want to come into the house, I want to just get on the grass, put me a blanket or something and sleep outside. It's just perfect. Our theme today, our focus for this presentation today is Khalifa. That's an Islamic term, but it connects with Christian terms also and with Jewish terms also for a certain figure, certain moral figure. The topic for this afternoon is Khalifa, and the moral role or in the role of moral life; Khalifa in the role of moral life.
In human society, Khalifa is true human being, the true human that G-d wonderfully created male and female, men and women or people. G-d wanted us to be true to the best of our human nature. Human nature is free because our minds are free. We're not like anything else G-d created. G-d created nothing with the free man to question its own form and if it wants to destroy his form or build on his form or improve upon his form.
G-d created nothing like that, except, according to our religion and Scripture of the people of the book of, heavenly religious, we call them, the heavenly books or heavenly religions Jinn, the Jinns, the only other creature that was created that have this ability to alter his own form, nature, mind, et cetera. A roach lives today as roach lived 5,000 years ago in the palace of the Pharaoh haven't changed a thing, he still lives the same way.
Things are essentially the same life. They have made perhaps a multiply the earth and produce more species, but those that were already produced they'd show no ability to alter their basic nature. Their basic nature remains the same. Whereas human beings are free intelligence, free will, free intelligence and will, we can alter our own nature and form. I don't want to point to any altered creatures but I'm sure you will see one in your home, maybe more than one altered creatures. They are no more than the type of human that G-d made us when He made mama and dad before the world changed it, of thinking of people who wanted to play with life changed all that.
Babies come here with no intent to do anything but grow into the form that G-d made them for. That's the only intent they have. Every baby in Asia, in Europe, in Africa, in America, no matter where these children are born, they are all born with the spirit and a life to come into the human form that G-d intended for all of us. And it's only a crazy warp-minded environment of mad people experimenting on life that alters that and make suggestions or suggest to human minds to the minds of our young people to do things against their original nature, to change and alter and even destroy their original nature.
Nobody would have somebody come on television and spin around their head like a top upside down and called it a brake dance. Nobody would do that but somebody that has no respect for human life, spinning on their head like a top, doing the break dance. That's just one of the little things. Many things that have happened in the last 40 or so year, that it makes the foolishness that the world used to know look like no foolishness at all. It ain't nothing even noticed in light of what has happened lately in our society.
Getting back to the Khalifa and the role of moral life. Adam, the first man according to Scripture, it is said of him in religious science myth and tradition-- cultural traditions are the tradition of the culture of the people. It is said that he was a pure being. He was not impure, he was not immoral. He was a pure being; not immoral, not having bad behavior or bad morals or bad faith.
He remained in that pure state until Satan and Christianity, Shaitaan in Al-Islam, the devil in plain English, seduced him out of his original nature, or his original form. Thereby brought mankind, the whole family, the whole human race, to sin. This is the belief in Christianity. In Al-Islam, we believe very similar to that; that man was deceived. This is the same story exactly when it comes to how he come to fall or lose his human life that G-d put in him, that G-d made him for.
He was seduced or deceived by the Satan. We won't go into the story of how he was deceived or anything like that, that's not the purpose of this presentation. Nonetheless, he was created for moral leadership. He lost that opportunity to continue in his growth towards more and more human excellence, because he listened to the seductive voice of the Satan, or the Shaitaan, or the devil, first devil.
In the Holy Bible, we find Adam in Genesis, just as we find Adam in the Qur?n, in the beginning of the human race or the human family. In the gospel, we find Jesus Christ, peace be on the service of G-d and all of them, we find Jesus Christ. We also find in the gospel, a connection for Jesus Christ with Adam. The Bible says that Jesus Christ came his lineage, his line, his life line is to be traced back to Adam.
We call the Christ Jesus Christ, we call him the Christ, but we also have to know--if you don't know, I'm sure most of you perhaps know, that Adam is the father of all human beings including Jesus Christ, Adam. Though the Scripture doesn't give him an immediate father, his lineage is traced back to Adam.
Now, how can that be if G-d is His father and He had no mortal or no man or a human being male as a father? How can that be? He had a mother and his mother was of flesh, and his mother had a mother and a father. From the mother's side, his bloodline is traced back to Adam, the first man. From the father's side, it’s not. That should be crystal clear to you, shouldn't be any problems here. I hate if we have problems. I had enough when I picked up what my father left us to work with. I had enough no problems, I sure don’t won't give you any. He gave us a lot of help, he didn't give us only problem, he gave us a lot of help and also problems, I want to make that clear.
Adam, according to Christian theology, according to Christian teachings, Adam, the first man, and Jesus Christ is the second man or the second Adam. Now couldn't it be-- since all men make mistakes, could it be that when Jesus kept saying his father he was talking about Adam and not G-d all the time? Could it be that he was saying my father, Adam father and also referring to Adam sometimes?
When He said, "I have to be about my father's business." We know G-d, the business of G-d is the business of keeping the whole universe, caring for all things that He made. That's the business of G-d, and maybe he has business bigger than that that we don't even know about. Who knows? I'm a free-thinking myself. I'm not afraid to think, especially when I know my intentions are good. I'm afraid to think if my intentions are bad, then I'm afraid to think. As long as I know my intentions are good, I'm not afraid to think. I'm a free thinker. I thank Allah for that, I thank my G-d for that.
Anyway, I can't myself come to a conclusion whether Jesus Christ was referring to the Lord G-d who created all of us and we all are His dependents like children of parents depending on their parents. I can't be sure that he was saying Adam or saying G-d or was saying G-d all the time when he said my father, referring to G-d all the time, or referring to Adam all the time when he kept saying my father because he did say my father every time he referred to G-d, almost all the time but not quite all the time.
What we do know, what is established in Christian education, Christian religion and religion education, is established that Jesus Christ is the second Adam. Now, the story of Genesis is to be seen in the Quran as the story of the Khalifa where G-d says before any human beings were existing, He had made His world with no human being were existing, G-d says to the Angels, He says, "I am making a mortal in the earth." G-d calls that mortal a Khalifa, He called it a Khalifa. He said, "Surely, I'm making a Khalifa in the earth." Inni jaa elun fil ardi Khalifa. That's in the original language of Quranic Arabic. That's what G-d said, "Surely, I am making in the earth a Khalifa."
I began this address by referring to the Khalifa as the moral life that G-d intended all human beings for, the moral life that G-d intended all human beings for, male and female. Some thinkers in Christianity obviously don't believe that original sin or that idea of original sin goes all the way back to Adam before Satan seduced him. Original can mean first too, it doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be in you but it could have gotten in you like a germ you catch.
Since this is the first one recorded for human life, it would be the first sin. The idea that all of us are born with that, that when G-d made us He made us to sin, is wrong. In my understanding as the student of the Bible, it's wrong for Christians and Jews to believe that. In our holy book, it is not accepted that people are born in sin. G-d says in our religion, that He made man, made us and made us good not sinful or not looking for sin or wanting to sin.
We have a free mind, free thinking, and free will power. We make choices, we choose to sin. G-d didn't make us to sin. G-d made us to make choices and we are guilty of making the wrong choices not G-d. This is the way we believe and my understanding of the Bible supports that belief, is not against it, the Bible is not against that, it supports that belief, but you have to understand it, you have to see.
I guess you have to be looking for it, but usually you find what you're looking for even if it's not there. Your mind has set so much on it that you think you've found it. You think you've found what you were looking for and it wasn't even there. You come up with a lie, you come up with something to justify your wrongdoings, you twist the Scripture, you misread or you read something in the Scripture that wasn't there.
You make mistakes even reading and you say, "Yes, this is in the Bible." If somebody really challenge you that knows the Bible, they can prove perhaps that prove to you that, "No, that's not in the Bible the way you got it. There's something in the Bible all right, but not the way you had it."
Getting back to the Khalifa. G-d says to the Angels, "I'm making a Khalifa in the earth." The Angels were disturbed by that and even challenged G-d. The challenge came from the jinn who has free will, so he is in free spirit, he's free being in his intelligence, in his spirit, he's a free being, so he didn't accept it either. He even became the contender with G-d, that's one of the names of devil in religion; these religions I'm mentioning now, contender with G-d, he became a contender.
Jacob became a contender and he became long time after Adam. Jacob also had this same nature to question G-d and to challenge G-d's way that he established. Jacob was called a contender, but he repented too, Jacob repented his ways and G-d renamed him because he repented his wrongdoing. G-d renamed him and called him Israel. He was first called Jacob, and then G-d gave him a new name, Israel, because he left his old tricks.
Now that was only Jacob, that wasn't for everybody. Those who was in the business, they stayed in the business, they didn't follow Jacob out of that business and Satan is their leader. The first man, did he reach the destiny, did he reach the goal that G-d wants for us as human beings developing our human life upon his excellence? No, he did not, he did not reach the goal. He was deceived by the Satan and his generations were attracted to the earth, to the material things, interest in material things, and his generation, according to the Bible and according to our understanding of his life in the Quran too, Adam, his generation became devoted to material things and they developed agriculture, they developed iron making metal works, they developed music playing on instruments, and they build great buildings, in time his descendants from him built great buildings.
We owe to them that first stage, that first phase, in the growth for man's life to where G-d wants us to go, we owe Adam in his form after he was deceived, we owe him even though he had gone astray from the progressive line for his moral life, he had gone astray, we still owe that nature that G-d gave man that we see in the Adam, the type the person we call Adam, we owe him for the life of industry.
Now if you can accept this, his generation; the life, the role of Adam from dust to industry, and there is no accident that the Scripture says he made the first man from dust. Man has now become associated with and given credit for great industry on this earth. Periods brought industry in and civilizations fell down, they were destroyed, they lost, they deteriorated, some of them just deteriorated then humanly, morally cetera, like we're deteriorating right now in our public life. They deteriorated and their whole society fell down and lost interest in creativity, in production et cetera and industry, and they lost the excavators digging the earth and they find signs these people once existed and they had great buildings, they had streets, they had homes.
They find that buried under the earth, this is mentioned in the Quran too; that some of the earth covered and you can't find a trace of them anymore, this is in the Scripture. Anyway, we owe that disposition in human spirit, mind, body, we owe that disposition that was in Adam to be curious. He just wanted to know that, that's how the devil, the Satan, got into him because he was just so curious, he wanted to know things. Through that hunger, the Satan seduced him and got his attention and got him off path, got him off the track, got him off the moral path that G-d put him on.
Now, if we are to come back to that moral life that G-d intended for us from the very beginning when He made the first man, we are to come back into that life upon the help that we get from our physical life that G-d gave us. Nothing spooky about the physical life that G-d gave us, this body, this flesh and blood body, it is obedient to the laws of nature that serve its excellence.
When you're hungry, your body let you know you’re hungry, the body wants you to stay here. When you're about to put to something in your mouth that will make you sick, the body warns you; makes you remember. Memory comes from the body, memory comes from your flesh body, it's in your flesh body, you forget something it ain't going nowhere it's in your flesh body.
Your flesh body will let the memory come, bring that thing, let that thing come back to your mind to warn you that, "No, you don't want to put that in your mouth, you don't want to eat that, that'll hurt you." If you're about to commit a big crime that's going to mess up your life forever, you feel fear; they call it mortal fear, that warning is coming, again, from your flesh body. That warning is from your flesh body.
Don't underestimate the role of your flesh, the role of your flesh body, in determining what you do and how far you'll go with your life. Don't underestimate the role. Muhammad the prophet has so much respect for the flesh body that he never stood for big shots or anything like that, he wanted to discourage that kind behavior in society. He wouldn't stand for big shots, big shot come in and he wouldn't get up his seat and stand for the big shot. We do it out of respect, whatever, we're innocent most of the time when we do that, but some of the time we're not innocent we're looking for a favor from the big shot. Anyway, he didn't do that.
I guess this was the first time his followers, his disciples and his followers, had seen him witness a procession, a funeral procession, a burial procession. They were coming with the dead body, they were carrying it on their shoulders, taking it to a place where they were going to enter it into ground and bury it. When it got near Muhammad the Prophet, peace be on him, he stood up and waited until they had passed with the body, then he sat back down. His companions, they said, "Why do you stand for a dead body?"
He said he did nothing but obey his master. What was he saying? What we started with in the beginning of this talk, on original sin, he was saying that the body was not guilty of any sin, only the person the that was in that body was guilty of any wrong. If that person did wrong, it was not the body's fault, it was that person's fault. He stood recognizing the great works of G-d, the creation of a human form in flesh that obeys G-d to the very end and we, as his master, G-d put us inside that flesh to be his master is to serve others.
If we are really bent on a really strongly decided upon doing a wrong, the body will warn us, if it's a real danger to us, the body will warn us, sometimes it warns us with such force that you'll actually sweat or you'll start trembling. The body will make you tremble before that thing that you're getting ready to do. It tries to warn you but the more you do it, the less patience the body has with you.
You keep on doing it-- I used to say this when I was a young man preaching on 5335 Greenwood, no also on Stony Island, I used to say this that the body it comes to you when you're about to do stuff that's real terrible, it speaks real loud. I exaggerated, I demonstrated it like, I said, "Don't do that" and you do it again, next day you do it again, the body will say, "Don't do that." The next day you do it again the body say, "Don't do that." The next day you do it again, the body will say, "Don't do that." The fifth day you don't hear anything. The fifth day you can't hear it at all, so you're on your own doing your wrong thing, ain't nothing to tell you to stop or come back.
Moral life is depending on our flesh. The society can convert our minds to sin and wrong, even our great leaders that we respect they can guide us wrongly, but the nature to obey the right thing never leaves the flesh. Anytime your spirit changes and you don't like what you see and you decide that you're going to question these bad things, that you don't want this kind of life that's imposed upon you by the majority of the people of the society, soon as you have the faintest interest and rebelling against the wrong doers over it against their way, the body starts feeding your mind.
It brings your mind things that will support your way of thinking and helps your thinking until you become strong enough to articulate, to speak intelligently, to your society and call your society back from wrong and they'll call you a prophet or a messenger or inspired person or a Dr. King or something. This is the way it happens. This story of G-d making a Khalifa is to tell us, don't worry about losing moral life to the extent that you want to kill yourself or want to check out of this world or get off as that guy said in that movie, "Let me off. I can't take it anymore. I want to get off. I can't take it anymore."
No, you never have to come to that desperate position where you're ready to kill yourself or you're just giving up now. Some of us kill ourselves by falling into the slop, into the filth that we rejected. Saying, you can't fight, join it. You can't beat it join it. We don't always kill ourselves physically, but we kill ourselves by giving ourselves to moral corruption as good as bad things of the world, of the society. That's killing yourself too.
Now at this point, I'd like to say to you that when we're talking about life and death, people dying or being killed in Scripture, don't think of physical flesh that the person was killed physically. Not all the time, in fact, that's not the big subject of life and death in Scripture. The big subject of life and death in Scripture is the life and death in moral life. Moral life, moral death. For the Christian audience, the Bible says sin is death. I guess that's why the Bible say that Adam, he accepted the suggestion of the Satan, but it never say that he died instantly. Did he?
Audience: No.
No. Because it doesn't want to give you the idea that he died as a mortal. He continued to live as a mortal, as flesh, he continued to live but yes, he died. The moment he accepted Satan's suggestion, he died in his moral life. Moral life died. The moral life died and that's the worst day. That's the death that G-d want us to be watchful of and keep away from and never want to die morally.
Allah says of Christ Jesus, say no he didn't die on the cross, said they neither crucified him nor they did kill him but it appeared like that to them, to those who were reading or those who was looking at his life, it appeared like that to them. Instead of him being killed or crucified, he was lifted up to G-d. His moral life had never been spoiled. He was still perfect and excellent in his moral life. G-d lift him up to heaven to Himself. This is Al-Islam, this is the teaching of Al-Islam in the Quran.
Now, if holding on to your moral life will save your life after the mortal flesh is gone and will merit you being brought up to heaven to G-d then it is not only Jesus Christ that receives that, but any man or woman or child that holds on to their moral life and don't let it die and don't give it up. When the physical body is gone, G-d will lift them up to Him in heaven. This is what we have to believe because is in our book; in our holy book. It's in the Bible in different words and a different way.
Have faith, never give up. Don't fear, have faith, and never give up. Doesn't mean that we are not going to be afraid, when we say don't fear, we mean don't let fear or being afraid dictate how you're going to think and live. Remember G-d when you fear. G-d will strengthen you in your faith, and your fear will be lite not heavy, and temporary, it'll go away. G-d says for those who keep the faith, there is no fear for them nor shall they grieve. Fear won't take them down, and worry or grieve will not take them down, because the moment they remember their Lord, their burden will become lite.
Now, we come now to Jesus Christ as a second Adam. He was perfect and excellent in his moral body and his moral life, perfect and excellent in his moral life. G-d rewarded him for having that excellent. G-d won't put clean holy substances in a rotten container. The moral life of Jesus Christ was kept intact, as the Scripture say, without spot or blemish. A lamb without spot or blemish. Lamb means peaceful, loving person, not a vicious person, not a person who got anger, but a person peaceful like a lamb. G-d rewarded him with guidance. G-d taught him. He educated Jesus Christ from a child.
Our holy book says that he spoke while he was young in the cradle. We speak of the cradle of civilization, don't we? Cradle also mean beginning, but it doesn't mean he was in some little thing we made, our hands made, a little box or something they made, with baby diapers on crying and wetting on himself, no. He was in the cradle of his human development. That was a cradle. He was in the first stage of his human development, in the cradle of his human development.
Even in that first stage, on that first level, where he could not rationally pick out things and debate things, he was not able to do that yet. He had not been educated to that extent. He felt with his heart and his soul, he felt what was right and what was wrong. He spoke as a baby in the cradle. He would say, "G-d does not mind that. G-d would rather have us go this way."
He was a leader even in the cradle. He spoke and he was a leader even in the cradle. The first level in the flesh connects us with the material world and our own material life. It drives us to want to take care our hunger for food, water, for a beautiful place, a surrounding to live in, to have our wives taken care so they don't worry about how the baby is going to eat. That's the first level.
Eventually, doing that, the man produces so much that he got more than enough for his family and he joins hands with another man and another man and another man, and pretty soon they build a city in time. They build a city and they have industry. All of that came from Adam in his flesh, in the nature of his mortal life. All of that came from him, but they were not able to get true sciences. They were able to have science because by experiment, watching what G-d did, one story, like this, same man observed lightning striking a forest and setting the forest on fire.
When the fire subsided, there was no more fire at all of it had gone out, the same people went back into where the woods were, now they've gone it had burned out, and they discover metals, the wood, the forest fire so hot, it melted metals, it melted minerals, pardon me, and other things in form like a metal. I worked for Bethlehem US Steel. I worked for those refineries as a welder, and first they had me pulling molds that when there's a welder, it was a hot job.
I know something about steel industry or steel making, I know something about that. I'm sure that the coke and other things that you put together to make iron or steel, perhaps all of that was in the forests in some form and the fire came, melt it, they came back and they found metal. Man, this is the story of how man discovered how to make metal tools and especially weapons. First thing he wanted to make was weapons, that's man alright, and also cook his food. They came in and found animals that had been killed by the fire, burned by the fire, but all the flesh wasn’t destroyed. They smelled it, it smelled good. They took it, it tastes good. They say that's how man started cooking his food, cooking his meats.
All that was given to Adam, but the type of science we have now you have to have an orientation in your mind that says, "I'm going to work on this, but I'm not going to let my thinking influence what I'm working on. I'm going to study how these things act and behave if I put them under certain experiments, and I'm going to let these things teach me what they are and how they can be changed by fire, or by ashes, or by whatever the test is, or by bacteria, whatever the test is."
He listens and watches the experiment, he doesn't let his own interests or his own feelings or even his fears or whatever, come into their work, keep himself out of the work. Now, that could not be given to man without G-d revealing to man. These exact sciences, we are wrong when we give the world credit for these exact sciences. The world could not have gotten these exact sciences unless G-d communicated to man the power and utility that He put in His creation for human use.
Is there any proof in history for that? Yes, there were religious leaders before Al-Islam and most of the great scientific works and experiments were done by religious people, Christians, but something happened and they lost it; they lost interest. When Muhammad the Prophet was born, intellectual interest almost had died in the whole world, scientific explorations, studies, et cetera, lost from the world. It wasn't going on anywhere.
Allah revealed to Muhammad the Prophet the first five lines of a revelation, the first five lines of what He said to Muhammad, is addressing the intelligence of the brain of the human being in its position to want to know and understand things. G-d says to him, the first words He said to Muhammad, he said, "Read in the name of your Lord who created." G-d is saying to Muhammad to read, and Muhammad didn't know what to read. "I'm not reader, I don’t read Scripture. I'm not a man of Scripture." He was not. He didn't even belong to a religious order, any body of people that had Scripture, although scripture was available in the man of the Arabs but it was very rare, hard to find a person who had a Bible or had even some knowledge of Scripture that G-d had revealed.
Muhammad didn't know no religion as such. He was frightened by this new experience he was having. He didn't like it. Like Abraham when he had a vision to sacrifice his son, he was frightened by that. He felt that G-d wanted him to do it too. He felt that he had to do it because G-d was inspiring him or guiding him to do it, but he was so fearful, very fearful and afraid. Muhammad when G-d spoke to him saying, "Read." I guess Muhammad said, "I'm not interested in these religious stuff, I'm a businessman. I'm a practical man. I'm not spiritual, I’m not interested in that. G-d, do I really have to get into this?" He start feeling chills, he was all shook up.
I didn't want to tell you that story but it's there, we’ll finish it some other time. Let's get back to the point. Science, true sciences, could not have been discovered, not even an interest to go at it, if it wasn't for G-d. G-d says in Quran and there are worlds that G-d made that you see and worlds that you see not. The Quran even said that there were invisible worlds. At the time, man didn't know that there was the invisible world of bacteria, it hadn't been discovered yet, micros hadn't been discovered, but later man finds a whole other world of living things, microscopic life organism.
It was not discovered before the Quran. Check your history, check your records. When this came to Muhammad about creation, He said, "Read in the name of your Lord who created," that mean made things, all the things; you included. Don't forget how I started this, I said the Indians, the Native Indians, believe that everything made has a message for man's intelligence for human life.
All right, don't forget that, put it all together. Don't lose what I give it to you, don't let it slip out of place, keep it all together. Thank G-d. Also, in the Quran, G-d says, "Everything that you see embodies knowledge." Everything seen or know embodies a knowledge, a science, it's ilma. You ask any Arabic what is ilma, he'll say science. Right now, it may be a native-born Arabic speaking person in the audience, sometime there are when I speak. If there's any native-born Arabic speaking person, Arabic is your language you're born with, stand so I can see you if you're here.
Well there's none here today, too bad, fella, you’re missing a lot. It's ilma, science. Everything embodies a science, higher knowledge, an ilma. In the time of Muhammad, the Prophet, we didn't have all these sciences of the human life, but now you've got sciences of the blood, science of the skin, and even different parts of the skin, science of the hair, science of everything, science of the eye, and different parts of the human eye, science of everything. Everything, we have it now, but it was said long before it was ever known by man. Said in the Quran still there, 1400 and some years old where G-d said “wa see a kuli shay in illmen” you’ll find it just like that in Quran, that He has caused everything to be extended and expanded and to embody a knowledge, a science.
Muhammad the Prophet even associated his dream with science. He had a dream, and he told the people about his dream. He said, "I had a dream and, in this dream, milk was oozing out of bones." Bones and he said, "What is the meaning of that dream?" He said, "Science." “Ilm” Now, in our time we know that Calcium is needed if you're going to have bones and Calcium is also in the milk. You have to drink milk in order to develop your bones and develop the human way. We know that now but Muhammad had it in a vision in a dream over 1,400 years ago. About 1,400 years ago.
I'm making progress, I think so. I'm not going to be here as long as you think, Insha’Allah G-d willing. Now, I'm saying my position to you is and I'm not trying to impose anything on anybody. G-d knows that if you really want to get rid of me, just let me know you're not interested, I'm gone. I don't want to give you anything you don't want. G-d knows that's the way I am.
Represents the doorway to the sciences. The doorway into the sciences and the doorway into the structuring of an industrious, productive, moral, ethical work. Jesus Christ represents all that to them. Now, this might surprise you, don't think that science weren't known by the ancient people long time ago. Long before Muhammad the prophet, long before Jesus Christ, long before Moses, even Moses, before even Moses. The ancient people of the world and I don't think it was just Egypt but Egypt we know they had great sciences.
Before the worlds that we have been discussing had these sciences, the Egyptians, the ancient Egyptians had these great sciences. Don't let Pharaoh, the bad Pharaoh cause you to think "Those bad people had all that?" They were not all bad, the Pharaoh was just one of the leaders. The Pharaoh that persecuted the Hebrews was just one of the leaders. There perhaps there were other bad ones but in my studies of the Pharaohs, the dynasties, of the Pharaohs, Egyptians, Dynasties, they had very excellent people. They had long periods of peace and social excellence. G-d bless others with that and G-d tells us that in scripture. G-d tells that in scripture. Don't think you're the first and only. There are nations long gone that He blessed and they had works even greater than yours, some of them, some of them. This is told to us in scripture by G-d.
Okay, I am telling you that Jesus Christ does not represent only one that comes to tell the world, "Stop doing wrong, stop mistreating the weak people. Start loving each other, start helping the little guy, come to the rescue of the weak and the suffering people." That's not the only Jesus. In fact, that Jesus is not a big deal. We have those people all the time in society, women and men. That love to do good and they see wrong they're going to tell you, "Don't do that, don't be like that. Help that person. Don't treat them like that," and they would stop what they're doing and come from what they're doing. Maybe they're going to an important meeting or something. They would actually stop just like the good Samaritan. In fact, that speaks more in to support what I'm saying than anything I could say to you.
The good Samaritan. Jesus pointed to a man that was already doing what they should do. He said the Rabbis and all the mean religious leaders and all have walked down that same road and there was a man suffering lying in the road suffering and they just walked around him and say some walked in the other side of the street or other side of the road so they wouldn't be bothered, they wouldn't have that conscience bothered by him.
Some they wouldn't have any conscience at all, they would walk on the same side of the road and walk right by him and do nothing for him and he's suffering in the road. Jesus Christ said along came the good Samaritan, and the good Samaritan came and had compassion on him. Samaritans is from Sumer. A place called Sumer. He was named after a place, a city like, an area and he was named after that he was called a Samaritan. He was saying "Along came the Chicagoan." Yes, that's how Jesus practiced speaking. "Along came the Chicagoan." So, he was saying, "Along came the Samaritan." That mean a person that came from another town.
Along came the good Samaritan and he saw him and had compassion on him. He took him and gave him his help and he had to keep going because he had a destiny. He had a job too. He had to keep going. He went and found somebody and asked them, he went to a rescue place and he went there and he said, "Take care of this man and when I return I will pay you." He said he will pay.
Now this is really deep. This is really deep. What is this saying. First, its is saying that that room that Jesus Christ came into, it was unconscious filled with people that had lost their moral sensitivities, their original pure and innocent moral sensitivities it was lost. They were just seeing suffering and death passing by with no attention at all and here comes this man from Samaritan. A different area. He comes through that area and he has compassion on the suffering person in the road.
That's what He's saying on the surface but what He's also saying because it says He promised He was coming back. It's saying that that same nature, that same moral make up is in Jesus Christ but he's using another figure to point to something that's in himself. He's teaching and using another figure but He is the one teaching. He is the one that's trying to change these things but he points to another figure, if you can go with me a little more, a little deeper.
He's also saying something that will miss most of the educating in religion. He is saying, "Your goodness is not originally your goodness. Your goodness is divine goodness. It is put from you from G-d." He can guarantee that you going to get help because it's not him alone that's doing this, he is an instrument. The good Samaritan is the instrument of G-d.
Or like in Islamic teaching sciences, we the human being, the whole human family with all our abilities with all of our tools of whatever says we are nothing but like one hand of G-d. G-d has one hand doing things and the whole human race is nothing like this one hand.
Say He has another hand that's taking care of the non-human creations. Stars and planets and earth and all material. Inanimate and animate living things, He's taking care of all that with one hand and he's taking care of human life and human affairs with the other hand. You are acting as just as his hand. All of us together represent nothing but his one hand. Isn't that something. That is something.
Yes. It's a description given in metaphor. Using pictures to teach us, because G-d has no hand like this. If He put all human beings together, they don't look like that hand. They look like, it was of human beings but that's G-d's hand according to that teaching which is to tell us that just like we use one hand, G-d used the whole human family. All human beings. He's using all human beings, like we use one hand and that would be our right hand because human beings are building things and doing delicate work and healing and operating and performing surgeries. That must be His right hand.
Look what G-d says in another place in the scriptures, He says to Satan, "Why you don't accept my special human that I made with my two hands?" In one place He said, "All the human world, is just like His hand. In another place He was making this special human being, He used both His hands; both inanimate and natural world and the human being and human life. He used both human life, conscious human life and inanimate where all the natural world and He brought them together and reconciled their purpose in the mind of this special creature, so that He use his creation as it should be used to benefit all human beings. Wonderful.
Jesus Christ is much more than you think he is. He's much more than you think he is. He is a sign, a mystery and a sign of wondrous things. This idea of the person embodying science, the sciences, the knowledge and being the guide for others, or the doorway for others, it goes back to ancient Egypt.
In the myth or story the great Osiris, O-S-I-R-U-S, I think it's spelled. The great Osiris was credited with being Lord over all the people. He was deceived by his daughter; his daughter deceived him and caused his death. His son, who was a bad son got possession of his body, the dead body and he took the dead body and dismembered it in many pieces and he hid it on the trees and in different places, he scattered all over the known world and hid portion of his body everywhere.
Now to make this interpretation very short for you, G-d is one, His creation is one, everything as a scientist tell us, everything is related. Everything comes under one law, though for each thing is a separate law, sometime many laws for one but there's a one law over all the things, universal law. The Universal law affect everything that's in it. All things are tied together by the rule of law that G-d made for those things when He created them, in them, it's in their nature to do that.
The world won't take us back to the wholeness of truth. They won't take us back to the wholeness of education, to the wholeness of knowledge, they give us the education of government, of civic education, of city, the education of government, they give us the education of culture, they give us the education of medicine, they give us all these different branches of education, thousands of different fields of branches of areas of knowledge.
They give them to us and they invite you to come and study them as though your area is not connected to other areas. They made little effort to tell you that they're all connected. They will make no plain effort to tell the student that look, this is but a piece of the whole knowledge that exist in the total works of G-d. This is just a little piece of it, were just done a little piece of it now but all of it you have to understand, exist in everything that you see in the skies and the earth and yourself and everywhere. The wholeness of matter, the wholeness of truth, the wholeness of science.
They don't make an effort to do that because if they did that, it will expand your mind. That expands your mind and that makes you less selfish, that makes you less arrogant, when you achieved your degree in this low place here, you understood that you achieve a degree in a little speck. That that was a little speck of the world that you got your PhD in, like one grain of dust. You will understand that? They don't want humble people, they want proud people. Who am I talking about? Their leaders that have strayed away from the form, moral form of life that Allah created all of us for.
Come to the third stage now, third level. Muhammad the Prophet, he said there come a time when his followers will see not only his followers, the world. Christians too will see Christ Jesus and Muhammad together. That mean not an opposition to one another, not fighting each other, not threatening each other as Christians in the history of Islamic Christianity, some of them rulers believe that Al-Islam was a threat to Christianity and they went out to destroy all the power and strength of Muslims whenever they found them existing in a buildup way or established way, they want to break that power, break them up, put them down so they would be helpless or it would be helpless on the Christian power.
That went along for centuries and then when the Muslim are ruling, some of them too they left, they stray and they didn't care, they were just like the rabbis and others that walked by, the man helpless in the road and just left him there, did nothing for him. They lost their moral responsibility of their mission, moral mission in the world. They lost it and for centuries, in that society nothing but neglect, neglect of human life, neglect of the calling that G-d wants us to respond to. Neglect, total neglect of it. They all did that.
Now, here comes Muhammad the Prophet and he represents the third. Adam, step one. Christ Jesus, step two. Where are we going with the step one, step two? We're going to the ideal society that G-d wants on the planet earth. We're going to the destiny for a human life in its most excellent picture. Destiny for human life and its most excellent picture that's where we're going. Your nature if you're a conscious human being responding to the best motivations, the best sensitivities in your life, you want nothing short of that. You accept that you can't get what's not reachable for you, you accept that but you hope that somebody in the world will continue and make this world better and better until it get to be that beautiful world that you picture in your heart and mind, or in your soul, sometime you can't even see it with your eyes but it touches you, you feel it in your soul and all is not right yet.
You will do better than this, it has to be better than this. That's the destiny. That Muhammad the Prophet come behind Jesus Christ, after Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is a spirit. Jesus Christ was motivated spiritually to do the wonderful things that he did and G-d took him spirited into the paradise and showed him the perfect world that he wants us to have for human beings. G-d did that for him. G-d did it also for Muhammad. Muhammad too, motivated spiritually, the third dimension moving in the first level, step. Jesus Christ same third dimension moving in Adam and he lost it. Same third dimension moving in Jesus Christ and he kept it, he died with his moral life intact. Whenever he died, we don't even have a record of when he died, but whenever he died, he died with his moral life intact.
Then here comes Muhammad the Prophet, one, the third-dimension walking in the moral flesh. The second one, Jesus Christ. The third dimension working in his conscience, they speak of Christ conscience. Yes, so this third dimension is working in his conscience and he's moved by he’s responding to his excellent moral life and he's not liking what he's seeing, not liking what's happening so it's spirit against the spirit of the world and works and he works, and he points to something coming after him, he says, "I have to go away. I can’t stay with you always." That's in the Bible, "I have to go away." Said "but nevertheless, the father will send you another comforter."
Comforter, who are they talking to? The people who are not dead morally. Who are bothered by a terrible world and they can't be comfortable in their souls and Jesus Christ tells them, "I have to go, I know it’s sad to tell you this but if I don't go away, the Comforter will not come to you. I have to go away, for if I go away, the father will send you another comforter." That's what Jesus Christ said in the gospel. Now I told you from the beginning I'm a student of the Bible ready to take a test from anybody including the Pope in Rome or the President of the Baptist convention. I'm ready to take a test from him or anybody else.
Yes, the Bible says, "If you got a light, don't hide it. Don't put it under the bushel." If it is a right light you sure want people to know it because you want people to know that G-d has blessed you and them if they accept it with a light so why hide it? You ain't proud, you're humble but you're grateful. You want to acknowledge who gave you this. You want to share it with somebody else. Not keep it to yourself, that's a wicked person, a very small brain person. No heart at all.
Muhammad the Prophet comes, now he is the third step but he has the same third dimension working in him. What is the third dimension? Spiritual. The spiritual dimension. In the name of the Father, The son and the Holy Ghost, one, two, three. Sprinkle water one. sprinkle water two, sprinkle water three. Muhammad the Prophet taught us, that if you got three people you got a congregation. The third one will be the leader so you conduct your prayers, you could even have Jummua prayer or our more sacred day, Friday prayer with just three people.
The third one stands in the front like a triangle; two in the back and one in the acute angle. He's in the front leading us in prayer and two of us follow him. Yes, so that tells us by way of interpretation that our leader is a spiritual leader. He is a leader that G-d has blessed with the spirit to follow his will and his way, yes. Praise be to Allah, so Muhammad now, he's that one. He's the spiritual leader but he's also the third dimension, the third step I mean. The third step is the step into the community life that G-d created Adam for and guided him for and also produced Jesus Christ from Himself as a word in the spirit from Himself.
That's what Al-Islam says too it is not just Christianity, that He's born not from a man but that G-d produced Jesus Christ as a word from Himself and a spirit from Himself. This is Al-Islam as well as Christianity. Here, he produced Jesus Christ for the same purpose to bring us closer to the ideal society. He showed it to Abraham. Abraham saw it by the way of vision, and Abraham began to tell the people "This is the right route we should take." He was a second father after Adam.
Then these other prophets come, Moses. Moses selected Joshua to take them into the promised land and the picture that it gives us is actually a physical land with people living in that land and having their places there. We think it's physical. No, G-d never authorized anybody to go and take somebody else's land. Take their town for your purpose, no. I hope you know how far reaching my statement is.
G-d never authorized any people to go and take somebody else's land for your purpose, no. This is a spiritual kingdom. The promised land is not a physical place, it's a spiritual kingdom. It's a condition that you want to bring about in people; it can be on the seas, it could be here in America, it could be all over the planet earth. That’s where G-d wants it all over the planet earth. G-d wants it everywhere. It's not a particular place they came here talking about, "This is a new destiny; The promised land," just to justify putting the Native Indians out of their reservation, locking up their life, just to justify it. To make it easier on us to bear, they said, "This is the promised land."
Not that I'm totally against a more prepared people, conquering a people that is less prepared to make the life that you want, but they should try to bring those people into their lives. They didn't come here to say, "We have this knowledge and we have this science, and we have new weapons. Can we introduce these things to you? Can we share this big vast-- We have knowledge of how to cultivate your wilderness.” Did they attempt to win those people as citizens in support of this new vision? Citizens and supporters of the new vision? No, they didn't say that we have a new vision and we would like to introduce it to you. Would you welcome this here, if you would, this part of the world can become a great productive area. No, they didn't do that, they treated them as savages.
That were to be moved out of their land, moved out of the way of the new builders. And even locked up on reservations or whatever. They did it wrong and believe me most white people in high places and also down on the low level with the poorest of us, all of them are touched by that and they don't like what happened to the Native Indians. American people don't like that. It'll only take a few bad people to impose something on all the good people. There was just a few in the strong positions they imposed it upon the good people and they give their justification for it. They occupy your mind with their story and their life that you forget about what happened to the American Indians. The Mosque Cares getting ready to make a contribution, they ask us for a contribution; we going to give them a contribution to help more Native Americans get a college education. Yes, because knowledge frees everybody. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, "You want to be equal to the white man; get equal knowledge."
Let me tell you, if you learn this religion like you supposed to you'll be equal to everybody and anybody. Learn it the way you're supposed to learn it, you'll be equal with everybody, anybody because nobody will be your superior. All of them going to be on the same level with you. G-d levels the playing field, G-d does that. 
In my conclusion, here comes Muhammad now, and Muhammad, the Prophet, he dislikes the world, just like Jesus Christ did. He disliked the world as it was in-existent for him, and he goes away from his people with a great burden in his heart. He goes up in the mountain to get away from everybody and he finds a little hole up in the mountain, a little cave and he goes into that little hole.
He doesn't know G-d, he's not calling on any G-d by the name Jehovah or calling on G-d by the name of Allah, he knew none of that. He was not a member of any religious society. He's just calling on whatever is in control, whatever has made this world, whatever has caused things to be, "Can you please help me find a way for my people who are divided on tribal lines. Who are ignorant and treat their own people bad."
That's the negro right now. "He called us Negros," I just want you to remember yourself that's why I used negro. Call you black, you don't know, you can't remember. I call you a negro, you remember yourself. That's us right now. We're just giving ourselves to foolishness fun at any cost. Have fun no matter what it costs you. Costs you your marriage costs you your family costs you your children just have fun. Costs you your business, just have fun. The average black African-American that fails in business is because he can't manage his pleasures. Fun kills it. Kills his future.
All right. Now let's come home to this town. To Chicago to Markham to wherever we are. Homewood wherever we are. Let's come home with it now. In my conclusion, dear people, I hope you've understood what I've been telling you. G-d put us in this world to stay morally alive. Morality, our moral life is not an accident, it's a choice. It's a choice. You have to choose moral life. That's why I said scripture says, "I put before you two ways. The way of life and the way of death. Choose you life."
Now I hate to do this but today I think I should. Do you know what some of these great thinkers were looking at when they said I put before you two ways? They were looking at a fanny of a woman. They were looking at how-- but they weren't looking at it with a bad mind. They were looking at it with an excellent mind. Not with an immoral corrupt mind. They were looking at the fanny of a woman. They saw that out of one place one door comes new life. Babies. Sons and daughters. And out of the other one comes stinky waste.
They associated the one that throws out the waste as the system of society that get rid of impurities or that that is offensive to life. They looked at the other opening as the door of life that gives us new human beings and human and moral excellence. Huh? They're so close together. Out of one comes the system rejects the bad, the waste and the other one the system rejects the waste too but liquid but the main purpose is bigger than that urine, its human life coming from the other one.
We have one for human life out of the other one comes corruption. I have put before you two ways choose you life. This goes a long way. I could talk to you five hours right now on just those two doors. Those two openings one giving us our new life and the other one getting the waste out of the body. I could talk to you for five hours right now and wouldn't get sleepy. G-d knows that I can do that but I can't do that. I'm closing right now.
Just think about that. Think about that and choose you life. Know that G-d has created every one of you male and female Khalifa. He says that He put Khulifah is the plural of Khalif. He put Khulifah on the earth and all of us have in us, inheritance, the power, capacity, potential to do things that is the life of the khalifa but you will lose it if you don't choose moral excellence. Thank you. Peace be upon you. As-Salaam-Alaikum.
I'm back at the mic here. As-Salaam-Alaikum. Our time is really short now. I was supposed to actually be gone from here and I'm sure some of you all were too. We're going to be able to take but two questions from males and two questions from females. We have one female now here. We have one more female and then we have two males after the female. Yes, sister.
Audience Member: My name is Diana. I'm a Muslim.
IWDM: You're from this area?
Audience Member: I'm from Chicago.
IWDM: Chicago?
Audience Member: Yes. First question is related to when you was talking about the brothers are supposed to get married and then bills and society. My question pertaining to that.
IWDM: Yes. Let me hear it.
Audience Member: What's the Muslim men marrying Christian women which we know are permissible for them. The Muslim men are leaving their Muslim women aren’t married and we know that the non-Muslim men are haram for the Muslim women to marry. What are the Muslim women to do?
Imam: Yes ma'am. You were to do exactly what some of the big leaders over the Islamic world government do. They get fed up with their own women. They come to America and get him a pretty Christian woman and they have her take Shahada and marry her. What we need to do is find you a good Christian man and have him take Shahada and marry him.

Audience Member: I didn't know that was allowed.
IWDM: Once he takes shahada he is a muslin.
Audience Member: I'm not asking this for myself. So many havn’t been married in a long time. I just don't like to see them-
IWDM: I know.
Audience Member: I want everybody-
Imam: It hurts me too. You're not the only sister that has come to me with that. Other sisters come to me the same problem is they our brothers, they go and marry Christian women and they are plain single with Muslim sisters.
Audience Member: Right.
IWDM: I'm getting that. I think they hurt you and they hurt me. They hurt you and they heard what I said.
IWDM: But I got-- I'm single you know. You know I'm single? Yes, I am. I'm still single but at my age it doesn't make much difference. I'm still single and I'm getting proposals from 80 to 90.

One sister eighty something and almost got me. Right now, I'm committed to one that almost 80 years old.
Audience Member: I understand that. You're beautiful and I know. I want to support you-
IWDM: Now you see why I walk out there with security for more than one reason.

Audience Member: Can we get raw shea butter
IWDM: You can get it from us and you can get it-- I believe you will not find it as low in price anywhere except overseas. You have to go to overseas and get it. You need to talk to. You need to come to the office. Please, please, call the office, call the CPC ComTrust office ask for Safah that’s bro Rafah’s daughter. Fine young lady. Ask for Safah and she will tell you what you need to do to get the raw shea butter. I'm telling you our prices much lower, like 50% or less than you find anywhere. You are welcome. Allah bless you too, my sister, and bless you to healthy young sisters find good husbands. And have the good Christians brother take shahada. I’ll give him shahada.

IWDM: Okay, okay, next, please. Alaikum As salaam.
Audience Member: Thank you very much.
Imam: Thank you.
Audience Member: Thank you very much for the questions and answer period. Hopefully, it's in line with you have said. But you spoke about Muhammad. Prophet Muhammad (saws) peace be upon him is leading us into the spiritual world to help us--
IWDM: No, not the spiritual world. Leading us into the Promised Land. The order that G-d wants us to have on this earth that kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That's what I'm talking about. No, but he's leading us by our spiritual life.
Audience Member: Spiritual life?
IWDM: Yes. To come into the promised land.
Audience Member: Okay, spiritual life. Okay, my question is, you mentioned about the two highways and being in a system. One is for purity to bring about or improve on their life another to give them to waste. I would like to know as the system, what we used in our community here and ratification of Imams.
IWDM: Yes.
Audience Member: I would like to--
IWDM: All of them don’t have that. That's up to the people locally. They make the rules locally and some of them don't call for ratification of the Imam yearly or a vote of confidence, some of them don't fall for that and I'm not to impose any laws upon them. They follow the Quran and Sunnah way of our prophet and that's it. Yes?
Audience Member: My question is I don’t if you just answered it but those of us Centers that do have the ratification. Can you give us any insight as to what you called procedural process of ratification? [crosstalk]
IWDM: Yes, first in a leader you look for him to be a decent person. The moral life is first. You look for him to be a decent person. If he knows every hadith ever recorded, he can recite the Quran forward and backwards, be a Hafith forward and backwards and he doesn't have moral decency, he's not worth two cents for us in that position of leadership.
First you look for decency in an Imam, compassion on the people, compassion on the old, compassion on children, compassion on the weak, the sick, the feeble-minded, compassion. You look for a man that has decency and a fine heart of compassion.
That's what you look for first and if that's in a man that's knowledgeable, you prefer that man, but a knowledgeable one he don't have that, you have to go down in the degrees of knowledge and pick up that man whatever level he is. If you can't find one high grade, can't find one middle grade, you have to go to low grade in terms of education to get a leader but he's decent. You have to be satisfied with that one. That's how you choose.
Audience Member: In the ratification is there any systems how we call it, system or process.
IWDM: No, use any system you want as long as it makes sense and get the job done expeditiously. Okay, we have one more I believe, two more.
Audience Member: I want to know what moral life is.
IWDM: You want to know what moral life is? Moral life is feeling ashamed to do something mamma and daddy or daddy said don't do. That's moral life. When you do something bad that mamma and dad said don't do and you don't feel any shame or you perhaps laugh, it's funny to you, you don't have moral life. She understands me.
Audience Member: As Salaamu Alaikum, Brother Imam
IWDM: Alaikum Salaam
Audience Member: Peace to your family
IWDM: Thank you. You're pretty clever, sister. You came in with two questions.

IWDM: Now since you brought the child first I can't give you your question, I'm sorry. Hold it till next time and peace to you
Audience Member: As Salaamu Alaikum
IWDM: Alaikum Salaam
Audience Member: Brother Imam, you spoke of the spirit and I can follow you as far as the three levels and how that’s interpreted. This connection question has two-part if I may. The spirit and the soul as I have grown up should I consider the spirit oneself and the soul in oneself to be of same or are they separate?
IWDM: No, they are different.
Audience Member: It is! Alhumdulillah!
IWDM: The soul is the entity all to itself and it is sensitive to everything that's happening that puts you in danger or make you feel comfortable and safe. It registers what's good for you and what's bad for you. Everything, not just moral issues, but everything that's good for you or bad for you. The soul is sensitive to that and it register that. It’s the thing that monitors life for the mortal creature.
And the spirit is a direction in that life. When that life finds a direction, it wants to take you there, it wants to take you to excellence and want to take you someplace else to over here in this society, you want to leave society and to find your life in another society. Well, what is working for you to get you to turn from that and go that may be rational but it's also spiritual and you can't do it without spiritual. I have a spirit for it before you can think about it. First you have to have a spirit for it.
Spirit means moving. Soul is stationary and it's just feeling and responding to what's happening, but it occupies the space as big as the universe. The soul can sense for you interest on the moon or any place, near or far away, the soul.
Audience Member: Would you accept a second part of the question?
IWDM: Would you repeat it?
Audience Member: The second part, I did not put it together, because I wanted to hear you.
IWDM: Yes, please.
Audience Member: We were talking about the dimensions and you mentioned the three dimensions. In my youthful years that caucasian man is always been able to give us the physical signs via TV or whatever, then put it in such a form as you clarified that we believe it to be. There was a movie called the fifth dimension and I've heard man of G-d speak about in the number five. Would I be overstepping and asking is there dimensions beyond the three in which you explained.
IWDM: Certainly, certainly. There are many dimensions beyond three. We are to establish ourselves in the third dimension that is in our spiritual life upon faith in G-d and goodness justice, et cetera. That all comes under G-d. Why? Because, the flesh if we establish ourselves in the first-dimension flesh we'll lose, we'll lose our lives. We establish ourselves in our rational mind the second dimension. The rational mind Eventually lose our head. There is no guarantee that any PHD possessor of a thousand PHD, there is no guarantee he is going to keep his more life but we have established our lives in the spiritual.
The spiritual means Your spirit obeys before it even reach your mind. Your spirit obeys G-d, you give your spirit to G-d. As long as you give your spirit to G-d, whatever comes to your mind it’s going to be what G-d accepts.
If it's not your spirit is going detected. Your mind is going to be too weak for your spirit. When you establish your yourself in your spiritual life upon faith in G-d your life is strong enough to deal with any dimension; first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth any dimension, even the ninth.
Audience member: Thank, you very much.
IWDM: Allah be with you on and on brother stay with you. Ameen.
IWDM: Okay, is that the last one?
Audience: Yes
IWDM: Okay, peace be upon you As Salaamu Alaikum. We should have the best convention ever. We got Christian leader and Muslim leader coming from the same country, African country. They are coming as friends of one another and they're coming as guests’ of 2004 Islamic convention. That's not all; we have a lot of goodies. The youth, they are going to have a better program too now. Because I have asked, I haven't spoken to him but my daughter supposed to reach him. The Dean of students for cultural affairs at the Cross University in Wisconsin Imam Ronald Shahid. Will you stand please? He will see that we have a good, excellent program for our students from Elementary level to High School inshallah.
Audience: Allah Akbar.
IWDM: But tell them be like the families and children and the nation of Islam time.
[silence]
IWDM: Under our leader the Hon. Elijah Muhammad. Before the 60th that blinding us. Before the 60’s the 60’s came and blinded us and even our ministers most of them went blind during the 60s. Before the 60th we want to be like those family. We loved and cared about each other.
Yes, the troubles of one sister brother was all our trouble. That's how we were and, we cared about our children and our children didn't come to do the things that they do in the cultural atmosphere of this world.
Play and dance and have fun. No, we don't want to have fun that is not Islamic progress. We want fun for these children to be Islamic progress. If the fun is going to be Islamic progress, we want that. If the fun is not going to be Islamic progress, it's going to be something to make them forget what Al-Islam is all about, what Islamic leadership is all about, what we are trying to accomplish now and this time. Then, we don't want them to have that fun. Tell them to stay home and have their rap. Stay home


