04/27/2008
IWDM Study Library
San Diego CA

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Thank you. Thank you. We praise G-d. Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. With G-d's name, the Merciful Benefactor, the Merciful Redeemer. I greet you, peace to all of you all. 
As-salamu Alaikum.
I had such a wonderful time yesterday, and enjoyed the program so much. It was so excellent, until I just want to just talk about yesterday, but I know I can't do that. That's where my mind and heart is right now. We have to share the words of the presenters with our readers of the Muslim Journal. I'm hoping I get all of it so we can share with our readers. We want more than just the audience that was here yesterday to get what we received. We want as many as possible to get it, and that's what I'm going to be trying to do, get it to as many as possible. And it shows that we're really in the same place, whether we are Jews, Christians, or Muslims or other. If we are really sincere and blessed by G-d to be where He want us to be, we're in the same place.
Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessing be on him, he said, “In the end, Jesus Christ and Muhammad will be seen together. The first place I look at is what's happening in the following of Christ Jesus and Muhammad, peace be upon him. The son of Elijah Muhammad, my Imam, Warith Deen Mohammed, was invited to the Vatican some years ago, and again, invited to the Vatican. The only Muslim from America there along with other leaders from around the world, religious leaders from around the world. Elijah Muhammad's son can be received at the Vatican by the Pope and be embraced by the Pope, because we actually embraced, hugged. I was washing security. I didn't know what was going to happen.
But I came out with no scars and no bad feelings. I didn't even get my feelings hurt by anybody. They welcomed me. That's a sign. It's a sign, a great sign, great sign, that we can't always judge the book by its cover. The honorable Elijah Muhammad's history as a leader is a book. But sometimes the person farthest away from the scene may get a better view of it. The following of the honorable Elijah Muhammad know him as the fiery preacher preaching the end of the white world, and all of that. But the students of scripture, religious people firstly, saw him and said, "There must be more to this than what's appearing on the surface." So, they studied the honorable Elijah Muhammad.
And they are religious people all around the world, Buddhists, Hindus that have studied the honorable Elijah Muhammad. Naturally, because he stood out like a sore thumb in the United States of America. The sores that he was showing, nobody else had been showing those sores. He attracted people to look into his movement, not just look at it, but to look into his movement. And they came to a conclusion that this is not just a bitterness being expressed. This is something deeper than that. That is why I was welcomed at the Vatican, that's why I was welcomed by the World Conference for Religion and Peace, the World Parliament of Religion, and others. They have welcomed me.
They welcome me because they have seen that there is a real serious connection for what was our experiment, we call it our first experience with the honorable Elijah Muhammad, and who's teachings was an experiment. An experiment to bring us who were disconnected from our past history and introduced in slavery in the south, plantation slavery. Which was designed to test the human spirit and the human nature to see if everything that supports that spirit and that nature is taken away, deprived of that, that supports this human spirit and the human nature. “Can human nature and spirit survive that? Can it survive that?
Is G-d word really true, and is His plan and strategy practical? We're going to test the blacks and see if they survive with their human nature and can they rise without getting help.” And that was the plan for us. And then the Temple of Islam came as a plan to prove that though we have been lost from self and lost from our purpose on this earth, we could be reconnected. So, Mr. W.D 40, I call him. You know him as Mr. Fard, Profession Fard. He came with the Temple and established the Temple as an experiment to see if we could rise. And he believed with all of his heart and being that we would rise because he said it. He talked. Well, G-d speaks the same way. He was aware of how G-d speaks, so he was trying to speak in the same way how G-d speaks. G-d says, "Kanna Naasu Ummatul Wahida, the people is past tense. The people were once one community united, all united together on this earth."
Was that true? Did they all exist? So, really, it's shaping up now, right? We're starting to have faith in that in these late times in the United States of America, year 2008. We're starting to believe that. But G-d said it 1400 plus years ago to Muhammad the Prophet, peace be on him, that the people were once one community. Kaanna Naasu Ummatul Wahida. But Arabs understand Arabic language better than non-Arab. So, the scholars, the students and scholars of the Quran and Muhammad's life, prayers and peace be upon him, they understand that to be speaking to the future more so than to the past. Though it uses a past tense verb “Kaanna Naasu Ummatul Wahida”. And Allah also says in the Quran, kuntum, you were. You were, past tense. Kuntum khaira ummatan ukrejat lin nas, you were the best community evolved for the good of mankind, all people. Allah says that in the Quran. He said were? When? When? When? When? You say, “Oh, the Ummah, that Muhammad the prophet, our leader, the last prophet established in Medina. That is the Ummah. Were? Was it destroyed? It was not destroyed. It lived and prospered. So, why is the expression "Were"? You were the best community. It's speaking to the future.
When you look at the Muslim population on earth today, would you say Muslims are the best community? Their behavior doesn't say that. A surviving few, or a minority of them, still is the picture of the best community evolved for the good of all mankind. And along with the others, we're not excluding others who have also had a remnant, I believe, the Bible said. A remnant will be saved, I think. There is a remnant of them like there's a remnant of us. But for the majority, for the publics, for our publics, we can't say that's true. We are in the worst condition. We are in the worst condition we've ever been in. This didn't just happen all of a sudden.
I remember the organization that devotes itself to the propagation of Al-Islam, but mainly to reviving the Muslim following for Al-Islam throughout the world. They were in the Tabliki society. They were in Chicago, and they contacted me. They knew how to reach me. The honorable Elijah Muhammad was so well-known. They knew how to find his organization and they found me, and I was not a leader at the time. They say, "You're the son of Elijah Muhammad. We want to invite you to go on out with us.” For Muslim's child, a boy, about 13 or 14, how to read Al Faatihah. I'm thinking that all of them knew Al-Faatihah and well acquainted with the Quran, at least knew how to make their prayers and everything.
That was not true, and I'm talking about almost 35 or 40 years ago. Now look at what the problems are for all of us. Keeping our families, keeping our children from being lost to the world or to the streets. That's a problem for all of us. We are not in that picture anymore, the best community. Actually, that saying in the Quran also speaks to the future. It's something for us to work for, something for us to strive for and accomplish. It was not accomplished in the past. Look at the criticism we find in the Quran of the Arabs. Where was the Muhammad, the prophet, at that time? He was among the Arabs. Actually, even in his time, it was the few who were exceptional and in that model life that Allah want for us.
But the many, even of the Arabs, they were not. They were following up on faith, but they had not insight into the teachings to know the strategy for helping humanity on this planet earth that's revealed in the Quran and demonstrated in the life of Muhammad, the prophet. We're living in the best time ever. I got notes here. It's for a more formal setting than this. I'm going to put them right back in my pocket.
Yes, we're living in the best time ever right now, best time ever. Never have the populations of the planet earth witnessed a time like this, when Muslims and Christians, leaders from the Vatican and leaders from the sacred precincts of Mecca are meeting together and talking peace and talking tolerance and cooperation for the betterment of the of the people on this planet earth. That never happened before. We had kind leaders from Christians, we know that.
It was a kind leader in Africa, Ethiopia, land of the Habashi, that welcome a group of the persecuted followers of the Prophet Muhammad, and protected them, gave them asylum there, political asylum there, and protected them from the Meccans, who pursued them and demanded that the leader, Christian leader, turn their citizens over to them, so they could take him back to that country and punish them.
That Christian refused to turn the Muslims over to that group of Arabs, who were pagans, not Muslims. That is a beginning of good relations for Muslims with Christians, a Christian ruler.
Now, when we really think, when we are reading the Quran, the great philosophers of the time, the great philosophers of the Greeks and others, even before the Greeks, the great philosophers, they were thinkers. And they thought of themselves as thinkers. One of them said, "I think, therefore I am." I think, therefore I am. The Quran came to Muhammad, the prophet. And in the Quran, Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, as a male is called a thinker. It means a male, dhakr. Men are still thinkers, more than women are thinkers. But the same Quran that recognized the identity of the human life as a thinker also acknowledges that women are also thinkers.
But it points to man as being typical of that nature to think, to think about things. Well, sisters, I've just been in the house when you were raising your children, and I didn't have time to think just listening to you and the children. I had to get out of the house, where I could go somewhere and think.
So, I can see men being more the thinker than the females, I can see that. Not only Jesus Christ, but then all of us. In the Quran, the male is called dhakr, thinker. If you read the Quran as a thinker, you will know your religion much better. But if you read the Quran just as a reader, person reading a piece of material, you may never see the beauty and the depth of your religion. When you read it as a thinker, you come to see the closeness for the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Al-Islam. Yesterday was a beautiful day to support all of us who want to be together with our brothers and sisters of other faiths. Want to be together with them in the human spirit, want to be together with them in the human aspirations, so that we can have a better world for all human beings. You will see after reading the Quran as a thinker, you will see that our speakers came from our place, from the Muslim place. And our Muslims came from their place, from the place of the other faith. We share one place in common, that's what I'm saying.
We share one important place in common. The scripture of the Bible said, “they'll be looking for Christ Jesus and some will say he's in the sacred chambers. He won't be there. They'll say, "Oh, he's in the mountain." He won't be there.” It goes to say that, “he will be in the heart of the earth.” What is essential for the human temple that G-d builds? Not that we build, not that the Nation of Islam under the honorable Elijah Muhammad build necessarily, or any other religious house that you have in different religion. You notice the term "temple" is even used by people that are not of the people of the book. Buddhists, Hindus, use temple. Temple. The Masons, they use the term temple also. Shriners or Masons.
Temple comes from what? Time, doesn't it? Time, temple. Time. So, G-d has put human life on this earth to come to where He wants it to come, to come to the best condition for mankind. He put us on this earth for that destiny. And G-d has a time clock. Man didn't make it. We have our time, our calendars and our time clocks, but G-d has a time clock, too. And He has put life on earth so that it progresses, grows, G-R-O-W-S, grows, progresses. And no matter what stands in the way of progress for the life he has formed in this earth, it will not stop the growth. It will always overcome the blocks, pass over the barriers, defeat all obstacles in his way because G-d created it, His will is in it, and it can't fail the life He creates.
G-d says, “wait until G-d comes with His clock.” This is Quran. Allah says, “wait until Allah comes with His clock.” So, there are community dynamics at work, naturally at work. It's an activity and a process that man didn't make or create. It's part of the makeup of the human nature and nothing can prevent it from succeeding. Times come when it looks so gloomy and foreboding for human nature, for the life we want on this planet Earth. But over and over again, man overcomes it. The community that is of human beings overcome it to keep progressing, to progress further. I believe we're living in the time for the conclusion of the great issues of prophecy or scripture. We're living in a day of the conclusion.
Never before have the human beings on this planet Earth been all connected all around the world, and we are being connected in the most serious ways now, and that is economically. We are being connected economically, and therefore; we have to be connected politically. The time is gone for one nation to be operating independently. No, it has to operate in concert with other world leaders and other societies around the world. There has to be agreement. There has to be acceptance, inclusion, recognition of others' rights just as you recognize your own right, others' political rights.
We're trying to give the world democracy and no one nation should give other nations its plan, its political idea. All of us should be free. All nations should be free to choose for themselves what will be their political idea. We want justice. Justice is more important than American democracy.
Thank you. And the time is here for that. And we have our dear president, George Bush, who I think is justifying his way of handling things at home and abroad on the belief that he can't represent the American people anymore, listening to them. That we have degenerated so much as a people, given our moral nature that we see in the public, in the display, public display, on the streets, TV, in the entertainment culture, et cetera. He is registering all that, and I guess he said, "They don't qualify anymore, so I have to protect their interests my way and on my own."
I believe that's the conclusion he's come to. This was the second time, I think. Yes, it was his second time that he was being elected for the second term. A reporter approached him, and he was walking perhaps to the airplane. I think he was leaving the White House, not coming back. He could've been coming or returning. I can't recall right now, but that picture comes to my mind right now, and I'm going to make a few comments on it. He had a little dog, a little dog about the size of a Chihuahua. And while he was giving attention to the reporter, the little dog, "Woof, woof, woof, woof." He said, "Wait. You'll get your turn."
I think he was speaking to the American population.
Getting back to the point. I feel for sure that we are living in a time of the conclusion of the great issues, human issues. Issues of human rights that we find addressed in the scripture. Did you know the scripture is all about human rights? G-d created a human being. And He created the human being for the most excellent life. No other life existing is more excellent than a human being in the model presented by G-d. Seen in Jesus Christ, and we see him in Muhammad. Christians are to be Christ-like. They are to follow Christ model of human life on this earth.
And Muhammad didn't come bringing something new or different, he came ploughing the same field that Christ Jesus ploughed before him, the gardener. G-d says of him in the Quran, “that you will certainly find in him, Muhammad, meaning in him, an excellent model, Uswatan Hasana, an excellent model for any, it didn't say for Muslims only, didn't even say Muslim, for any who believes in G-d, who have faith in G-d in the last day. Which means, stating it again, for any who believes in G-d, put their trust in G-d, and believes in being accountable to that G-d. That's what the last day mean. That you also believe in being accountable to that G-d for how you live on this earth, for how you live your life. That's the meaning. He's a model for any of us.
Then Allah also say that he is a basharoon. Basharoon means a human model that has the same nature as all other human beings, that errs and repents, or errs and have to repent, et cetera. Same nature, mortal person. Not an angel, not as G-d, not a divine, mortal person. That he is a mortal person just like you are. What makes this model mortal, the word has in it a reference to that, that you have feelings, basharoon. You are basharoon. You have feelings. Not only is he a mortal subject to the same limitations and hurt that you may have, but he is also with you, the same as you when it comes to human feelings, basharoon. The outer surface of this flesh that we feel. You go down deep enough; you might not even feel anything.
It says basharoon mithlukum, a mortal person like you are, mithlukum, like you are. So, G-d didn't send us an angel or a divine without human nature. G-d sent us His word that is divine and through our prophet or in our prophet and he gave it to us. But the vessel that G-d deposited that into, just like us. And the prophet himself evolved, yes, he did. He was already satisfying in G-d's presence as a human model, but he did not know revelation, he did not know scripture. So, G-d caused him to ascend in his nature, to ascend up to the high level of purity, of innocence and purity and clarity. The seventh level, the level of our second father Ibrahim or Abraham. He went up there and G-d carried him in a line of travel from the Kaaba, which is the center for all mankind in Al-Islam.
Others may not have that same symbol as their center. But for a Muslim in our religion, the Kaaba, the house built by Abraham and his son is the center. And G-d caused him to rise from that center, there at that spot, up into the seventh heaven where Abraham ascended, and is. And from there, He sent him in a line of travel, and he was taken to the far mosque in Jerusalem which is in the vicinity of the ruins of King Solomon, where Jews go daily to the wailing wall, mourning or weeping of the walls of that great achievement on the planet earth. And he returned from there. Now mind you, at one point the prophet was leading his following in prayer and they were facing Jerusalem.
G-d didn't order it, but the prophet thought that would be proper since that was the place of Solomon and Moses, a place where great progress was made for community life on this planet earth. But it burdened his heart because he was not centered in political achievements or material achievements. He was centered in human nature and spirit, symbolized by the Kaaba, the house that Abraham built for community life. He was carrying a burden on his heart, and
G-d addressed him saying, "We have seen you under your burden. Now, we shall direct you to a Qibla, a direction for your community life center, for your human center in your community life. We're going to direct you to a Qibla that will please you.
Now turn your face toward the most ancient of the houses, in Becca, one of the names, old names of Mecca, and the direction in prayer and for Hajj." It was always there. That direction in prayer also was there. It was made there, established there. There is our center, our qibla for bringing us all together no matter what race, what nationality or what color, what ethnicity, all of us are united there. It's the fifth pillar of Al-Islam, the pillar of unity of mankind under G-d, of course, and under Allah, highly glorified and praise is He. You know, to get where Allah wants us to go, we have to become as Adam when G-d made him. And if you understand him from the Bible and from Quran. Adam is a single soul, but he is a figure representing all people, for he is the common essence of all people, Adam, their common essence as created by G-d and directed by G-d. The Bible speaks of Adam in the singular, and the Bible speaks of Adam in the plural concept, not just a single concept, but a concept that is inclusive of all people, all mankind. And the Quran speaks of him in the same way, Adam. And you know he fell from a high position given to him by his creator when he listens to the suggestions of the enemy of all mankind. This is Quran. The enemy of all mankind, the devil, satan, lucifer, shaitan. He’s given all these names, but the most important name you should remember is that he's the enemy of all mankind.
What is he? Is he a man? No. He's the enemy of man. He's not a man. What is he? He is fire, that's what he said to G-d. He said, “I will not submit to this ruler you want to put into the earth, a mortal you made from the earth. You made me better than he. You made me of fire.” And to really understand him, he is a fire that gives off no smoke, meaning he has nothing to repent. In his own mind, he thinks he had nothing to repent. So why should I burn and give off smoke? I burn, but I don't give off anything. I don't give up anything, a self-contained fire burning on his will and power.
He's really a big braggard. Arrogant, boastful, and thinks he has every right to decide matters for the whole of mankind on this earth, arbitrarily, don’t have to consult anybody. Where are you looking for him? You're looking for him somewhere? I see somebody is looking.
The first place to look is in your own heart. That's where he wants to get. He wants to get right into your heart, then anywhere you find a convincing picture resembling what I've just told you of the descriptions of Satan, be careful. Don't get involved there. Acting arbitrarily, being boastful, thinking yourself more important than everything else and making decisions without consulting decent persons who qualify to contribute to whatever plan we have for our communities or for our world. Include others when you want to plan the future for mankind or the future for your community. Consult others.
The believers are those who conduct their affairs by Shura Baynahum. They conduct their affairs by consulting each other who qualify as people of good character and knowledge and experience. We consult them. We put our heads together. We don't go it alone. So, this is the future, and this is time for that future, not just for leaders, but for nations to put their heads together, to agree that we can't go it alone. Put their heads together when they want to plan life on this earth for a community of people, because your community can't live alone anymore.
I remember hearing as a boy in my early teens, the radio. We couldn't have radios, but others had radios. I heard this outside on a car radio, and I heard our great leader of the United States say, “we can police the world.” I know I was a boy, I'm a boy in my early teens. We are underestimate the mind and thinking of our youngsters. I hadn't talked to my parents. I hadn't talked to anybody. I just heard it. And when it hit me right away, I didn't like it at all that the leader our nation was saying we can police the world. Why would we want to police the world? We should police the drug dealers and police over them and the criminals, not police the world.
That didn't settle in me so well. It was an irritation, and stayed an irritation until I got older and got to understand what's happening in the world. Still it's something that I think was a very arrogant statement, very selfish statement, a statement of a dictator that was the president for our democracy, but that's a dictator speaking. That's not a man that accepts democracy and want to live democracy. If there were ever a time for us to come together and for us to aspire to reach the highest possibility for the excellence of human life on this earth the time is now. The time is right now.
This is a time of great opportunity. The issue of human rights is being concluded right today. We're living in a situation on this earth now where we can conclude the issue of human rights. Where the issue of human rights can be promoted, embraced and accepted by all people on this planet earth. Thank you for doing such a wonderful job that made aware of what the Church of Scientology is doing. And I'm convinced that they are going to make a big difference for the human spirit and the human life and the future we want on this planet earth.
They are making a big difference and they're going to make a very, very big difference. And we want what they are achieving for ourselves and others. And in our own place, and in our own way, we are promoting the same human dignity, the same human rights. And we want to benefit from what you have worked out for yourselves, share with us, so we can benefit too. I can't conclude today without saying that Dr. Reverend Tony Wolf is here. He's still here? There he is, Tony Wolf. When I first heard your name, they said Dr. Wolf. I said did he come here to get the sheep?
But after getting acquainted with him and hearing him yesterday, you are welcome to come among our sheep, and sit at the head of the table sometimes.
One of the best speeches that I ever heard, in fact, I think it is the best I've ever heard. That showed the picture of human life that I believe G-d gives us in the scriptures. Bible and Quran, and perhaps in other scriptures as well. And he did such a beautiful job of bringing the light and the depths of the darkness up to the surface where we can look at it, and see it in our own language, and with our own eyes.
I pray G-d to keep him to do that work, and all of our presenters that we witnessed doing such a wonderful job yesterday to keep you all always, and may increase you in help and support for your good works to increase. Peace be unto you, As-salamu Alaikum. 


