06/06/2004
IWDM Study Library
The Focus on Life is Wholeness

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed

W.Deen Mohammed: Praise to G-d. Come to light. Come to the light. Praise be to G-d, the Lord keeper of the world. Peace be unto you, in the greetings of the Muslims As-salamu Alaykum.
Congregation: wa?alaykumu as-sal?m.
W. Deen: We thank Allah, that is G-d for our presence here today and we are very pleased to see you together here. We are thankful for the opportunity to address many who are listening now. The cost of the system and the arrangement that we've made with radio stations. We are beginning today with the thought of the present time. The present time which we live is a time that was hoped for. A time that the people of G-d, those of the scriptures, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and others besides these three major groups expected a time to come one day when people will be all together in one community that is living as a family. Living as one big family. The family of mankind. The humankind.
The Scriptures tell us that natural forces, natural developments in the life of human beings as families, as tribes, as communities, as nations, as groups living together under one system. Natural system. That time has come and they speak of it as one world order. When you hear the expression one world order it's talking about what business life has brought about or what the system of economics has brought about. Business life. Business has tied us all together.
But one nation survives on may be good enough until that nation becomes aware of what another nation is surviving on. When all of us, the many nations, the many groups of people living on this earth become aware of what each other possess and what each other survive upon and what each other enjoy. We then want to have more if we have less than others. We want to have a better life if we have a worse than others.
It's the nature of human beings, men and women to want to share with others and help those who have worst conditions than ours. This is human nature, so eventually, opportunities open up for people to engage each other in business, for people from the far East to sell to people in the far West. Engaging each other in business brings you to become acquainted with each other. You come to know each other.
Muhammad the prophet was a businessman before he was called by G-d to be a Messenger before he was awakened to his role as a prophet, or lifted up or raised to his role as a prophet and was made the Messenger of G-d to all people. Before that, he was a businessman. He had gone out of his country, not like many of us who never leave sometimes small neighborhood that we're in. We go no further than the grocery store or other places we need to go just to take care of our home life. The home needs.
I've met people who had gone no -- They'd never gone out of their neighborhood. Just right in their neighborhood. That's where they live all their life and die there. In fact, I met somebody recently, and I was asking them have they traveled outside. They said, "No". They'd never been out anywhere but in their own hometown. Muhammad the Prophet had gone to Syria. It's a distance away from his hometown, Mecca in Saudi Arabia, as a business person.
So, this traveling from his hometown as a business person, and by the way, he was employed by Lady Khadija, the woman that became his wife. May G-d be pleased with her. Before he became the messenger of G-d, he was employed by her. She was the businesswoman and that land that we think of that time of heathens or pagans. They were engaged in business and doing trade outside of their country. The proof is the life history of Muhammad the prophet.
Among other things that we know, but that's the living proof for all Muslims is that he was employed by his wife. This is his history known by people throughout the world. Muslims, all Muslims know this about Muhammad the prophet. Employed by a woman and she became his wife, and he continued his employment with her after he became her husband. She hired him because he was trustworthy and just fine, very fine human person.
She was not the only one who trusted him. He was trusted by his people of his town, where he lived. They called him al-?Am?n, the trustworthy one. They called him al-Sadiq, the truthful one. These were his nicknames. Names he was given before he became the Messenger of G-d. Muhammad the prophet.
Anyway, business eventually brings people together. Man is described in Science as a hunter. A hunter by nature. He's a hunter. He had to hunt to survive. That was before this modern world of transportation and all these systems of transportation and systems of this and that. Before the world was systematized the way it is, man had to leave his home and go out to hunt for his food and many times also for his clothing. He would go out and hunt animals. In the cold regions, the man did that. The man protects himself from the cold. He would go out and hunt animals and skin them and get their furs, clean them, clean the skins and use those skins to protect him from the cold.
Business life is very, very important. Why do we want business? Because we are made human, we have flesh. Flesh needs food, flesh needs protection, flesh needs housing as protection etc. The needs of our flesh, our mortal life eventually bring us to become business people and brings our world to become a business world. We hear our political leader, our government officials, talking about one world order. That's what they are addressing. They're addressing the time in which we live, where business interest has connected us all around the world. Has connected all of us and the wood (unclear) in the business world I mean by (unclear) the intelligent ones, that is experienced ones, intelligent ones they see that the best life for them separately is the best life for them all together.
Well, you have smaller businesses, small businessman. It's becoming active on the world scene producing products that the world needs. As products go from his country to a far distant country. He's a small businessman, he's a small businessman. That's an opportunity for the small businessman to become a big man. He produces an item. That item is desired by the Saudi Arabians, an item is desired by the people of Mexico, desired by people in science. If he knows that that item has some appeal and those far distant places in those markets and he can make the connections, - he can ship it there, well he becomes all of a sudden, a supplier of a product of goods on the international scene.
This time cannot tolerate racism getting in the way of world progress. If we are racist there's not much room in the world for us anymore. This world cannot tolerate independent minded people who think only for themselves. World cannot tolerate that anymore. The time has come that is given in the Bible in certain languages, in the Qur’an and this language, [Speaking in Arabic]. That people were once one community. One community like one family of human beings. They didn't know color as a division for them. They didn't know nationality or nation as a division for them. They didn’t know ideology as the division for them. They only knew that they were the same life, same life human life. That's all they knew.
They were like our babies that come today or yesterday, or will come tonight or tomorrow. Those babies come here crying in the same language. Their sounds sound all alike. Their expressions are all alike. Their nature is the same. They are not of one nation or another. They are not of one culture or another. They are new and they belong to one life rather they be the child of Chinese or the child of English person. They are one life. That's a sign to us from G-d that he made us one life.
And the Scripture moves, want to motivate us, want to stimulate us, want to excite our interest in knowing the purpose for this life. The purpose for this life, why are we here? Why are we different? Why we can do so much more with our freedom than a bird or an animal? Because we have the power to think and the power to imagine and the power to work for what we imagine. Now, maybe a bird or an animal can think and imagine, but for some reason, they can't do with their imagination what we do in ours.
Because we have used our imagination to clothe ourselves and make ourselves look different. We have used our imagination to produce a totally new man-made environment for ourselves. We are not creatures depending on that, that has sprung up naturally out of there. We have the power of imagination to imagine even a different world for ourselves. And we have created transportation that makes us move about better than fish, move about better than birds. We out do them all. We are the amazing life on this planet.
I wonder what's wrong with a human being that can't be moved by what I'm saying? G-d made every human being to be moved by human excellence. The possibilities that are not open to animals and plants and nothing living. He made every human being to be moved by that. That should stimulate you. That should touch your life inside and make you engage in what I’m saying. You should be fastening your mind on what I'm saying. You should be saying, "That's the way I've been thinking all along." And feeling good that somebody else thinks like you did.
We read these simple expressions in Scripture and to us they're just simple expressions. We read the expression prophet called the people and he called them to wholeness, wholeness, W-H-O-L-E-N-E-S-S, wholeness. Muhammad comes behind those prophets before him and he calls the people also to wholeness and he stresses it even more, more. Why Because G-d had picked the man that had gone outside of this country and he saw the life of Syrians and other people. In his mind was ready to work for the wholeness of life because he had seen more of life.
Those who get the opportunity to see more of life their minds expand. Those who don't get a chance to see more of life they can be blessed by G-d. G-d can reveal to them and G-d can awaken in them an interest in the universe. He can be in this little small place physically and never went out of it. But he has his mind awaken to travel. Mind travel to the stars like Abraham did. But understand Abraham was also a man that was forced to get out of his own land. Because he disagreed with the worship of false gods. He had to leave that land to have peace. He was also a traveler. He also saw more of the world and he wanted wholeness. He wanted wholeness. Praise be to G-d. Said, "Go on" in the New Testament, "Go on, you're okay now." You are whole, W-H-O-L-E. You are whole.
When you think about nothing but sex, you're small. You're so small. If you think about nothing but sex, you are smaller than an animal in heat. Do you hear me? If that's all on your mind, sex, you can do no more with your life than an animal in heat. The Satan, the Shaytan, the enemy of human life wants to regress as many as possible. Want to retard. A lot of you don't know what regress is. You can't understand regress. But I'm sure a lot of have heard you're retard. Want to retard as many as possible so that there'll be more for a few.
The devil is a businessman too. The Shaytan is a businessman, first and last. He's a businessman. It's all about business with the Shaytan. He said, "Hey, I got a plan for this money." He got a plan for the world money. Not just America's money, world money. The Shaytan has a plan for world money. He wants his plan to be supported by all our money. He has a world plan. He wants America's dollars to support his plan. He wants European dollars to support his plan. He wants Asian dollars to support his plan. This Shaytan is what you called devil spook you up. That word spook a lot of you all up. But the devil is real. Ain't no spook. The devil is real, he's reality.
"Oh, he sounds like his father now." Well, you don't know my father. Because he said, "A black person can become devil overnight." No, the devil can be in anybody. The devil can be in anybody. But I tell you if you want to find Satan, Shaytan the big devil, don't look in the black neighborhood. Ain't enough sense there, - what I'm talking about business sense. Ain't enough business sense there, ain't enough money sense there. Don't worry about the devil be in your own neighborhood. You ain't got enough business sense in your neighborhood. The devil's in your neighborhood, he is in there getting your money. He sure ain’t one of you.
G-d has created us naturally to grow as Allah said, as G-d said to us in Qur’an. To grow, to grow how? To grow in every respect. To grow in whatever way necessary. Every way demanded of human life and community. Yes. We have to grow in business. You have to grow in business. Not just spiritually. G-d has created us to grow in business. When he says, "Be fruitful and multiply" in one book, that's the Bible. Be fruitful and multiply. It's not talking about sex as much as it's talking about be productive industrially and multiply as a people, your production. It's talking about your production as industrial people more than it's talking about sex. Why does G-d have to reveal to some man, or woman, or messenger or something, to tell me to have sex. I learned that when I was about 12 years old. I didn't need a revelation and let me go on my own. I will be fruitful and multiply like a rabbit. I have to restrain that, I only know about to tell me to increase it. I have to pull that back. Wake up. It's bigger than you think.
Then the Scripture says, in our Scripture Quran, although I'm a student of the Bible too. It says, "No fair estimate, have they made of G-d." Some people have lows, so lows, small G-d or the G-d is so small. Smaller than they are. Yes, I got a G-d that's smaller than they are. That's no good. That's no good. We have to seek excellence. That's our nature. G-d has created us to seek better, excellence, better, to want better.
Our focus for this address is on life, wholeness, wholeness. By wholeness we mean, completeness for the plan of that life. G-d said, "He has created the life, a parable of our creation as life." It's the parable of a plant and a plant comes as a seed, so does human life. It comes as a seed and from that seed develops a life. That we can perceive it's a man. It's a male, it's a female. It's a man, it's a woman. Is it plant to seed? Se say, Oh is corm, it’s sweet, it's tomato, whatever. But it comes from a little seed. When you look at the tomato seed, you don't see a tomato. When you look at a corn, a seed, a kernel, you don't see a ear of corn. But you do see corn. Some life are different. Some life won’t show you what it's going to be in its seed. But some does like, like corn. One kind of a corn that you put in the ground, it looks just like the one you eat. Some plants, you put the seed in the ground, you hide it, you bury it, put it away. When right conditions come, moisture, warmth, etc. It burst open, comes out of its confinement.
Do you know some of us mentally, in terms of where we should be in this world, what we should be doing in our life. We are nothing but seeds, little hard seeds. Haven’t even broken out of your first confinement. That prevents you from having the freedom to engage the world. The material world, the air, sunshine, universe. You're confined, you haven't even got in you yet an interest to engage these things like Abraham did. He looked up to the far heavens and he wondered about those things in the sky. Mind traveled and he finally came to the conclusion, that this is one system of matter, the universe is a wholeness. Though sky and earth be separated, they work together in a system, for weather and other things. He discovered the wholeness of the world and he declared that the one that designed this marvelous creation is G-d. And he vowed that he would have no other G-d. Only one G-d.
[applause]
Yes. Again, coming back to the parable of human life, the plant. Some of us are like the seed like the small seed. Some seeds will respond to the conditions of life for the growth of life, and they will not only produce a plant and a fruit holding their seed to be reproduced, to use again but they will reveal their own origin. They will reveal their own identity. Like the corn, but the corn hides it too, doesn’t it. You have to take the shucks off the corn, the seed, its identity. Though it produces identity, just like you put it in the ground but when it produces it for you to eat or get it again, it covers it with shucks. It must appreciate its fine work. It puts fine silk next to the corn and then it covers it with tough stuff. That's packaging something that it cares about. He has created us like a plant. Parable of our life, our creation is that of a plant.
That simple grass, that stuff we walk on, cut, let weeds kill it. That grass will grow up and show where it came from. You put a grass seed in the ground. That grass is not satisfied until it shows you a grass seed. If you leave it alone and it's going to grow and mature and the last stage for its growth is to show you itself, and that's a grass seed. Same thing you planted, exactly. And it's not covering it up like the corn. It's exposed. You can see it with your eyes. All those seeds, right at the top. Right in the top, grass seeds, all in the top for you to see. It's ready to put back in the ground, its life just as it received it from G-d. Puts it, ready to put it back in the ground just as it received it from G-d. And the Scripture said, "What is the son of man but grass."
Life. Life. G-d gives us life and he gives us this special life that I began with. It's a special life that he gives us. It's not the life of a plant or an animal. It's the life of a human person. He made the human person to be the fruit of life. All life is created to bear his best fruit and that's human being. That's the human being. This whole world has been created to bear or produce the human being that G-d wants. The human being that G-d wants. Once it produces the human being that G-d wants, it has its best caretaker. Grass never had the dignity that it got until man.
(Gap in the tape)
In this area in Pakistan and India, the sun is very hot like in Arabia, we call the umbrella, umbrella. We call that same umbrella and we think of it protecting us from rain. They call it Shamsia and that means protecting them from sunlight. Sunlight and sun heat, so that's what they have to use it for. You can get a stroke over there. I mean a black man can get a stroke in Saudi Arabia, walking about with his head exposed in that hot sun during summer time. So, anyway, he proposed to them that, "Since we all need umbrellas, why don't we buy umbrellas together? Have a person make a purchase of umbrellas for all of us." My friend, Muhammad Abdullah is his name. Muhammad Abdullah told me, he said, "In a few years they had a lot of money coming in from umbrellas." Their people buying umbrellas. He said, after the umbrellas, they went into something else. He said and now his people, all of them, their are no poor person in his followers. All his people are wealthy people. He and all his people are wealthy. They are so wealthy that they have a celebration celebrating his vision for them and they weigh him every year on a scale and whatever he weighs they give him that weight in gold. I asked Muhammad Abdullah, I said, "Has he gotten fat?"
[laughter]
People are greedy for money, he might be weighing 1200 pounds now. [laughs] He's eating to get more gold. Fattening himself up to get more gold.  And that will shorten his life. He won’t be able to spend it long. No, from what I learned of him, he's a disciplined man, a modest man but his people still insist on giving him his weight. Whatever he weighs, they weigh him and once a year and they give him that weight in gold a year. I don't know if you know about gold but if you've got two pounds of gold you've got a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Am I allowed to take part?
W. Deen: [laughs] Yes. So, we said it didn't have processing once a month but if the man comes in bigger and we can serve the man without losing money, we will increase it to twice a month. We will increase it to weekly if we have to but we will have to have cost management as I told him in the beginning. We have to have cost management. We intend to serve all of you. I've mentioned disruption of our operation. We have had to change the persons. The persons who were handling these things they're not there anymore. We got new people. We had to train new people that knew what they were doing.
Some of you want information, we can't get it as fast. We have someone now, they're receiving training. I think now if you call, you want information on your account, you want to know the status of your account? I think you can get, pretty quick. Sister Zanobia should be able to get that information for you pretty quick. Allah has blessed us to have a sister offer her service and I remember her from way back. I observed her as a young man and I saw her as a person strictly for business. She wasn't in any foolishness she was strictly for business. She stood out among the business secretaries of my father. She stood out. She's just a very valuable person in the business, anybody's business office and she has accepted to work with us.
I believe she's here in the audience now. She's sister Arlene. She's here. She has not been transferred yet but she will be transferred. Sister Arlene is right here. Yes.
[applause]
Sister Arlene, they're already doing some things together already. Just have faith in us, don't ever give up. I'll never give up. I'll never give up. I'm not going to give up, I'll be working until I die and I believe we're going to have what we're working for. Okay, Yes? Next.
Speaker 2: Thank you for that and we'll be waiting. We will be waiting.
W. Deen: If you would like to over and speak to sister Arlene right now, she's right to your left.
Speaker 3: As-sal?mu ?alaykum
W. Deen: wa?alaykumu as-sal?m.
Speaker 3: You just about answered my question with your last statement about never giving up. When you spoke of the body and the head, following the leadership.
W. Deen: Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 3: I wanted to know when you have some individuals that deviate from the head, that sets themselves up sometimes as heads but they're not in accordance with the leadership and then you have people that are trying to be supportive of the leadership although my faith in Allah and my faith and what he has blessed you with, you always seem to find out what's going on. But what can the people do that are trying to support their leadership? What can they do to people who can't set themselves up as little heads that are mediating from the leadership? What effective and intelligent way? Because you want to do something, you don't say, "Allah, don't bless the Imam, and the Imam always knows. Why don't these people see that but at the same time you're there. You see things and you want to do something, you want to be effective to them. How do you take a role in this?
W. Deen: Yes. The first one. Prayers and peace be on him, Muhammad the prophet said, "Help your brother whether he's in the right or in the wrong." And they said, "How do we help our brother?" There was a surprised that he would put it that way. They said, "How do we help our brother when he is in the wrong?" The Prophet gave a simple answer, he said, "By pulling him back from wrong."
In Islam, the head sometimes gets punished by the body, yes. You go out and get drunk, you get in trouble, don't you? You end up in jail, maybe, drunk driving. The head, sometimes, gets punished by the body. You go and you're vomiting, you're all sick, you're getting punished by the body for doing the thing that you shouldn't have done.
[background noise]
And I used to like to watch the Three Stooges sometime, that one of them, he's so silly, his head wasn't right, he would just beat his own self sometime.
[laughter]
I was going to think it's Curly. I don't know which one it was but one of them. He just beat [shouting] he started beating his own head. Now, don't you all beat his head physically but attack him with words, attack him with words. If you're not strong enough to do that, leave him by himself, leave him by himself. I wouldn't tolerate a leader that going against what I support.
[background noise]
If he's not supporting the good that you support, you should punish him if you can. Ask him nicely to change, if he can't change you have to put pressure on him and if he doesn't yield to pressure and he's too strong for you with his goon squad or whatever it is. Leave him. Leave him and his goon squad.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
W. Deen: You're welcome.
Speaker 4: As-sal?mu ?alaykum
W. Deen: wa?alaykumu as-sal?m.
Speaker 4: Forgive me. This is first Sunday, that we come together, this great gathering?
W. Deen: Yes.
Speaker 4: With all this business, effort, supporting the religion in totality. Is it possible that we can use this Sunday before you can come on, exchange ideas, how we help?
W. Deen: Certainly. Yes. Before I come on, if you want to have business meeting for strengthening our business plan, the whole plan, any part of it, all of it or any part of it. I encourage you to do that. You have to sit all together and discuss what we can do and how we can do it better, how we can work together. But if you all could just study ways that you can work together. You have many little towns like we have several little towns here in the Southwest Suburb of Chicago. You have one main city, say if it’s New York or wherever, Los Angeles, but you have a lot of this little small city or some big too around. If you can cooperate, isn't that what Islam tells us to do? Allah tells us, he says, " Cooperate." So, if we would cooperate, struggle but also cooperate. If we will cooperate the effort so that a thousand pounds is ordered ones a month from one town, five thousand from another town, pretty soon you'll have enough poundage to have one truck with one shipment come and then pick up your goods and bring them to one location.
Everybody drive from their location to that one location. I think you used to do that in the Nation of Islam one time? Yes, you drive from your different location to one location and you pick up. And you all can chip and buy a big freezer, buy refrigerator or freezer. Invest it so that that one location will serve all the area, the immediate area. The little towns close around.
That would work very well.
Imam Harun and his staff, his secretary, his treasurer. You know, Imam Harun of Long Beach California? Some of you know him as I do. He's been around a long time. Well respected pioneer in the community. He's up in age but still working. I mean he's up in age, he's older than I am. I mean he's a good person, he's old as I am but he's still working, still active. Allah has blessed him with some faithful young men in their 40s and maybe younger, who are working with him and they're actually doing that. They get products ship all the way to Long Beach California, but they got others ordering with them. So, when you put enough products in a trailer, a semi or a trailer and ship it. You can bring that shipping cost down to just pennies. Whereas, when you're shipping, you want to ship 500 pounds of products to New York or someplace, the cost is going to eat up your profit. You won't be able to sell. You can't be competitive. You can't sell it. Best you can do is you eat it yourself and you're eating some expensive stuff.
[laughter]
Yes. The price go up so high because of your shipment. You can't ship, the shipping is too much, shipping is too much. These big companies that’s how they ship, because they got several big semis going to the location where there is the source, and they’re shipping it all over the country but they're shipping full semi load, the whole thing is filled. If refrigerated truck or freezer truck, it's filled with thousands of pounds of products, that's how they make it. So, we can't do it that way. We have to look at other alternatives, how we can manage. Yes?
Speaker 4: Thank you.
W. Deen: You're welcome. That's a hardworking Imam. He's not just for rituals, he is for work. You got a good political head on him too. That's right. Anytime you can get the mayor to pay for my trip to your city once a year, you got a political head on him.
[laughter]
And I mean the mayor who doesn't have plans. Yes, that's it?
Congregation: Yes sir.
W. Deen: I can't see you the lights in my face. See, so you all want to see G-d, all that bright light, you won't able to see a thing.
[laughter]
[01:14:30] [END OF AUDIO]

