03/23/1996
IWDM Study Library
How to Live with Self and Others
Boston

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Speaker 1: By Imam W.D. Muhammad titled Islam, How To Live With Self, With Family, With Neighbors, With Another Race. Was recorded March 23rd, 1996 in Boston, Massachusetts.
[applause]
Imam W.D: Praise be to Allah. As salaam alaikum.
Audience: Wa alaikum asalaam.
Imam W.D: Praise be to Allah, the Lord, Creator, Cherisher, the Sustainer of all the worlds. We witness that He's one and has no partners or helper in the role of keeping the creation. We witness that Muhammad, the prophet of the Quran and the Prophet of Islam, the Prophet of the Muslims and a mercy to all the worlds that that Prophet Muhammad born in Mecca, Saudi Arabia what is now Saudi Arabia about 1,400 and some years ago is the seal of the prophets, the last of the prophets, G-d's messenger and his servant. We salute him with the salute of peace and prayers be upon him, Amin and upon us be peace, Amin.
We are honored. I say we because I represent something more than myself. If I represented only myself, I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't be known by any of you. We have been honored here in this little brief time that I've been present here in Dorchester, Massachusetts in Boston. We have been honored here by our very distinguished and honorable elected officials, your elected officials. I say our because I identify with you.
We are very grateful to them and to the city for the respect that have been given us, shown to us on this occasion. We hope that we can serve in an excellent way our cause which also includes the welfare, the good life and good future of mankind everywhere in this city of Boston and everywhere. I would like to before addressing the language in this subject that we have-- Excuse me. How to live with self, with family, with neighbors, and with another race. I would like to address the Strand Theater.
This theater reminds me of a theater in Chicago where I was raised up from a little boy, from a baby really. My mother brought me to Chicago when I was only 11 months old. That theater's name is Regal theater. The Regal theater. The purpose of that theater is the same as the purpose of this theater, the Strand Theater. We lost that theater because of bad times in Chicago. Financially bad times for African-American people.
For our African-American neighborhoods, the theater ran down. We lost that theater but because there was a person who valued that theater and a businessman, African-American businessman right on the south side where the theater is. Because of his caring about that history, the theater was open again and in a much bigger and beautiful structure on the south side. Mr. Joe Garner who has his cosmetics products, hair preparation products, and some other businesses. Properties and businesses. He used his money and he got other support and now the Regal theater is open.
We have three theaters now that I know of that have long history. They are open now and they are back on the job of keeping the good life, the traditional life and values of the African-American people. The Strand, the Apollo, and the Regal theater. There are a few others. I'm going to make it my business to get acquainted with all of them because I feel that this history is very important to us.
Believe me, I know the people who are behind these theaters, our African-American support like, Percy Sutton, who was behind the Apollo Theater. With his support, he and his family they reopened the Apollo Theater in New York. I know that all of these people behind these theaters they are not only interested in us singing and dancing, but they're interested in us keeping a good moral life, having faith in G-d and having an ethnic-racial culture or identity of our own.
They want us to keep our folkways that are good and excellent. They want us to leave those habits that are bad and degrading. They want us to not forget the good training we got from our excellent fathers and mothers and grandparents in the south and in the north. They want us to not forget the excellent contributions to our behavior. Our behavior at home, our behavior in the public, our behavior in entertainment that has been affected by such men as Marcus Garvey and before him Frederick Douglass. Also, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and many others have made contribution to our improved behavior at home, in the streets and in entertainment.
They have also helped shape our tastes and refine our taste for clothing and our tastes for food and our taste for entertainment. We want to preserve that. We have such men who will sacrifice some of their wealth to preserve these theaters, these institutions for us that we will know ourselves and live better and better and grow better and better in to better and better spiritual and cultural form. We salute them today too on this visit to Boston.
Mr. Percy Sutton and Mr. Joel Gartner in Chicago and to the persons who I'm not acquainted with them. The persons who are responsible for the Strand Theater being open and functioning in this city. 
would like to share with you some thoughts I had on- well, of concept of tree. I have noticed as a young boy that cats would chase birds and sometimes climb up a tree to try to get a bird. Also, dogs will chase cats and sometime the cat would run up the tree.
The tree is a mercy to the animals, especially to the weak animals. That's what we need. We need something that's a mercy to the weak, for the weak. The big cat couldn't go out on a little limb that the bird was on. I saw a bird just waiting on the cat like he's thinking, you think you can come out here? I guess the cat thought he was going to fly away. The bird just sat there and waited on him. He tried to come out there and he hit one or those little thin, little light branches like a switch and down he fell for a long drop. It wouldn't support him.
I saw once a dog chase a cat. The cat ran up the tree. I said to myself, "He's already out of reach of that dog. That dog can't climb a tree," but that cat look like he said he's so afraid of that dog he looked liked he said, I better get out here where I know he can't manage." The cat went out on a small limb that could only support about the weight of a cat. He knew that dog got up there, he couldn't be supported on those small branches that he was supported on.
To me, that's the way Islam is. That's the way religion is if it's really interested in bettering the life of people. Religion is like that. It provides for the weak a refuge from the strong. It provides for the weak a refuge from the strong. You can run. You can run to something that if they get on it won't support them. If a person is materialistic and all they want is this material world. If you run out on the of branch of human kindness if they come out there to get you they're going to drop and their fall may be very, very, very long, very long fall. [laughs]
G-d has given us a religion. If we live it and practice it, it will protect us from the strong. You don't have to worry. It will protect us from the strong. We have G-d as our protector but we also have our faith as our protection and if we live this religion of faith, we have to keep the faith and live it that is a protection for us. The strong can't get us. I remember, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he was teaching saying things that were really very disturbing in this world or to this world, but because of the good behavior we had and the good loving hearts and minds we had we were protected.
We didn't suffer. We weren't afraid of anybody. We weren't fearing a Klan was going to come, or the police is going to come and storm the place, storm the doors break in and kill us. We weren't afraid of that. We didn't live with fear, we lived with faith and we were beautiful in our hearts and beautiful at our spirit and mind. G-d protection was on us and since the passing of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, we have been trying to learn better, what is this religion, Islam?
From this Imam-- The earlier speaker said here-- Not speaker, but the Imam said here, Imam Talib I believe it was he who said that this religion wants us to live the best, be the best and that's exactly what Islam wants us to be, the best. When we come into Islam and its best references, purest references, first number-one reference is Quran and then the lifestyle of Muhammad himself. How Muhammad, the Prophet lived this religion.
With those references and with the religion motivating us always and moving us always to be the best, we can be very successful in this world and we have been very successful. Following the direction that we find in the Quran and in the life of Muhammad the Prophet. We have now come into, I would say a renewed spirit, a renewed spirit. We were drooping for a while, beaten down by disappointments, but it look like we have outlived that troubled period of time and now I see a renewed spirit on this community, in this community.
It tells me that we are on the way to progress again, not to any small progress the dreams of a poor individual but to big progress, the dreams of visionaries who envision the future for communities, nations and the whole of humanity on this earth. We are on our way in the road of progress, progress for our community life. This is really a good time for us. G-d most high, highly glorified is He, He says to us in our religion, "and follow the best thereof, and follow the best thereof."
This is a religion that puts emphasis on excellence, excellence. It wants us to strive for excellence in everything that we do and follow the best thereof. If you're given a book and the book asks you to do a number of things or give you a number of guidelines for a better life, don't look for the weakest things to follow. Look for the strongest things to follow. Look for the strongest points and make sure that you don't neglect those strong points. Try to live those strong points. That way your life will be a strong life and your life will be a life of excellence “and follow the best thereof”.
Muhammad the Prophet has also told us of G-d. He says that G-d has prescribed or inscribed in the nature or in the natural makeup of everything excellence, excellence. Therefore, if we understand the saying of the Prophet we believe that I am born for excellence. G-d has created me for excellence. If He has inscribed that upon my very nature, upon the very makeup that He made himself that's me. If He has inscribed it upon it, then that means it's there before I'm aware of it. It’s there before I'm conscious of it. It’s a part of me. It is me. It’s my life, excellence.
Isn’t it wonderful? The Prophet didn't say that G-d did this just for people, he said for everything. What does this tell us? This tell us that everything that G-d made was made-- It was made to grow and progress or evolve into more and more excellence. When we hear of the theory of evolution in our schools, high schools, and colleges and universities, when we hear the theory of evolution, we as Muslims we should want to relate that to that the guidance on evolution that we have in our region called the Quran and the teachings of the last Prophet, Muhammad.
We should want to relate it to that because here is the secular world telling us that everything man, animal, even the material world is undergoing evolution or underwent an evolution, an evolving. It starts out crude and small. As it grows and live it grows out of its crudeness and out of the smallness, that all life was once one cell. From one cell it became many cells and finally into a complex creature like we are, the human being. This human structure. This human anatomy. This human biology that we have grew from one simple cell to this complicated very fine machine that no other machine can match the living human machine.
Grew to be that. Is that against the Quran? G-d says and He created you from a small clot, a small clot. From a (clot in Arabic). Some of the scholars who interpret this. They say this (clot in Arabic) is a small living thing like a little small fish-like thing, a swimming thing. They say this (clot in Arabic) is really the life germ. It’s the life germ itself that evolves from the simple little thing creature that can't be seen by the naked eye into what you are and what I am. Grown up human being.
Everything is in the state of evolution-- Undergoes stages of evolution until it evolves to where G-d intended for it to go out to be. This is secular world science but this is also religious knowledge. From the Quran and from other religions if we understand it. If we are evolving then we should always agree with that that is promising us a better life and more progress because that is our destiny, that is our destiny. That is where G-d want us to go.
If G-d is evolving us then G-d want us to always accept to be a little better, to grow a little more, to progress a little further. Then he prescribed or inscribed excellence for everything. What does G-d say of the community? He says to us Muslims, "You are the best of the communities evolved for all people." You are the best of the communities evolved for all people. Think about what is said here.
G-d says we are the best, [foreign language]. That we are the best of the communities evolved for all people. This tells us that there are also other communities, evolved for all people. This new nation we call the United States of America, it is a new society among societies of the world. We who know something about its history, how it was conceived by its founding fathers, we can agree that this is a society or a community evolved for all people. It admits citizens from all parts of the world and once those citizens become citizens, they are given the same treatment under the law that all other citizens are given.
This is a country conceived for all people. It was conceived to accommodate all people. People seeking freedom, freedom from oppression. People seeking an opportunity to live a better life, to have more progress for themselves, not only as individuals but as communities. The Irish came here because they want a better life for Irish. The Polish, the Jews, the Spanish or the Spaniards, the French, all of them except us.
[laughter]
Imam W.D: We were brought over here for our worst future, but because of the nature of this idea called America, Americanism - or more correctly put, democracy, because of this idea, we too have benefited in this country. Though they brought us here for a worst future, we have a better future now. I know you will say it's because of Islam and Allah, yes, but also because of this idea that invites all people to come who are denied and persecuted. Denied the life they want in other places, - come here it's because of this idea too.
We have to thank Allah for that. We are people who should believe that we are created to progress. We are created to not stand still but to progress. We are created not to stay on the same level but to graduate to higher levels. We are created not to have small things and be satisfied with small things, but to be motivated to have bigger things and better things. This is what we have to believe just from this one statement and G-d says he has inscribed excellence for everything. He also says of the community, we are the best community evolved for the good of all people.
What Islam gives us to situate us for the good life and progress is ideas that are powerful. You accept those ideas. You don't have to be a scholar but if you just accept the idea, if you just believe that G-d intends this for you, you want to be better situated spiritually to accomplish more in your life. Just being told this. We weren't no great minds, but Honorable Elijah Muhammad he too was no great mind, not formally.
He didn't have any education, he was almost illiterate. Only three years of elementary school education from Georgia and you know what that three years was back there when he was a boy. Nothing to give any notice to, but he was motivated. He wasn't a scholar, he wasn't a great mind, he didn't have education. When was told you are the best, the righteous, the powerful, he believed it because he thought G-d was saying that to him.
He believed it and just believing it put him in a better spirit to have a better life, to have a better future, to make progress for himself and for others. Don't underestimate the Word of G-d, Its powerful message, Its potent force when it comes into your head, and into your heart, and into your mind. You don't have to be a scholar. I don't think you have to digest it as a scholar digest it. All you have to do is accept it as an ignorant person accepts it who believes in G-d and trust G-d. It will start to work on your life. It will start to work on your mind and on your spirit. It will start to work in your soul as yeast in bread. It will start to raise you up and make you better.
[applause]
Imam W.D: Praise be to Allah. So what Islam gives us, situate us better. To have a good life and to have progress. How does Islam prepare us for global progress? "Oh, the globe is too big, I haven't learned how to live and manage my own apartment yet, brother Imam." Well, let me tell you something. If you get your mind made up to try to live, to have yourself respected on this earth, in the community of men, on this whole globe, I guarantee you that power, that potent force in your head, in your soul and in your spirit, it will grow you up. It'll grow you too big for your apartment and after a while you'll to be too big for your house. You'll be too big for your block, you'll be so big until we will see you out here representing Boston.
[applause]
Imam W.D: Don't think small. Don't think small. Always think big. If the Honorable Elijah Muhammad had a magic, if he had a miracle, that was his miracle. Talking big talk and getting big results from small people.
[applause]
Imam W.D: Now, Allah wants us to know something about our relationships with each other. Allah wants us to know how the value of our relationship with our mate. Man with his mate. Woman with her mate, the man. Allah wants us to know the value of that relationship. That relationship wasn't created for us just to have sexual pleasures, that's beneath most animals. Most animals are also social animals. They are not just sexual animals, they're also social animals.
They don't have sex just for each other, they have sex for their children, to have babies. They realized that once they have babies then they have to stop putting so much of their investments in just sex. They have to start putting some investments in the future of their children. This is the teachings of G-d to us and our great religions, in the Quran and in other books, if we understand it.
G-d wants us to know more about the value of these relationships so that we don't think of sex as intelligent people. We don't think of sex just on a sexual level. We think of sex as the foundation. The beginning of something good, something big, something great, and that's the family and society of man. When you look at a flower as a student of botany or studying the flowers, you look at that flower and you see it open up. You know its sex organs, you can look right at its sex organs, they're exposed, but they don't suggest any indecency. They're is so beautiful.
Here, G-d has given us a sign that I want you to see sex, your sex like you see a flower. It's a beautiful thing. It should make a contribution to society. The bees go to the flower and they help mix the pollen, so that there will be germination, growth and multiplying of the flowers. The flowers yield something to the bees and the bees take it and make honey. The bears like it and we like it.
[laughter]
Imam W.D: It's message to our intellect and to our social interest is much bigger than it's value in just sweet honey. Yes. G-d wants us to see sex in its social role not just in its physical role. Then we can have more respect for our families. We can have better families. We can have more respect for our relationships. Man to woman, woman to man and have better relationships, better marriages, better families.
This world drums up lusts and makes sex funky. Yes, so you have to fight that. That's Satan's influence. That's the influence of Satan, wants to destroy the social role of sex. Your family is brought down, your neighborhood is brought down, your society is brought down. And all of you living nothing but for really monster's pleasures. Yes, some of the great artists who do satires on the society. They write the whole-- They picture the whole society as nothing, but a society of animals, monsters. Yes, because that's how they interpret it.
These people have fallen from the great platform of human excellence. They’ve fallen from that and they are falling to a life that is beneath any normal creature. Their life now is lives of monsters. They’re living the lives of monsters. We don't want that. We want to live the life that G-d intended for us, the life of human beings. Now, a man has to also understand the relationship for him with his possessions.
Most people can't manage the relationship with their possessions. They will get a new job, a good job and they will get much more income and they will have much more material things in their lives, nice cars, nice home, posh furnishing and everything. They will have all that. Rich environment in the home, but they can't manage the relationship. They can't manage relationship. For everything, there is a relationship. Science says this and religion says this. For everything, there is a relationship.
You are not going to be left alone and unaffected by that relationship. If you're making $200 a week now when you start to make $2,000 a week, if you had a problem in your relationship with 200 you going to have 10 times that problem when you have 2,000. The problem going to be multiplied, intensified at least 10 times, you see. Therefore, for everything there's relationship and there's one relationship that if you accept it, and then accept revealed guidance from that. That’s G-d.
Your relationship with G-d, if you accept that relationship and honor that relationship, regard that relationship as you should regard it and follow the guidance that G-d has revealed. That relationship will protect you from all other relationships.
[sound cut]
[silence]
Imam W.D: That’s what religion does for us. It gives us a protection for all relationships whether it's with myself because I have to have a relationship with myself. Some people you can leave them alone by themselves and that self will kill them in about two days. Yes, you have to be able to manage a relationship with yourself and a relationship with your wife or with your husband or with your husband's sister and with your children and with the neighbors and everybody. You have to manage these relationships. In Islam, we're told that the first conquest and the greatest conquest should be the conquering of your own self. You have to conquer your own self, to tame your own self, civilize your own self, refine your own self, command respect from your own self so that your own self live the honorable life that G-d intended you to live. Then you walk in pride, you walk with dignity. You walk with a sense of great accomplishment. To hell I matter as my own self.
[applause]
Then you won't feel the pressure of racism in the air. Say hell ain't no white man managing me." Ain't no combination of white nations managing me. I managing my own self. G-d says-- We have certainly, - G-d's speaking saying we have certainly made honorable, that means made noble. Noble, N-O-B-L-E. Honorable. You know it's the English that claim nobility more than any other nation. The Englishman claims nobility. He claims it and he hates everybody else that don't understand.
The Irish didn't catch on to that nobility. He put some hurting on the Irish. The Scots and the Black they couldn't catch on to that idea of nobility. He put some hurting on the Scots, on the people of Scotland. He put some hurting on them. "You look like a white man, but something is wrong with you, I may have to beat you until you learn what this nobility is all about." G-d says you've certainly made honorable, made noble. Every child of Adam. I don't care how white you are or how black you are.
According to the language of the scriptures, Quran, Judaic Bible and also the Quran Bible, Quran and the Judaic, the Torah all of them say the same thing. According to those scriptures, no matter how white you are or how black you are, you are child of Adam. G-d says he made honorable, noble, every, [Arabic language], you speak some Arabic? [Arabic language] means every. Each and every, [Arabic language], descendant Adam of Adam, [Arabic language] certainly indeed. [Arabic language], we're made Noble and honorable. [Arabic language], every descendant Adam of Adam.
[applause]
Now, if you let that statement enter your head and you believe it, it's going to enter your heart, it's going to enter your soul, it's going to enter your spirit, it's going to affect your spirit and you're going to start growing out of your inferiority because G-d said He made you noble. Noble men qualify for all positions in a society, ain't that right?
Audience: That's right.
Imam W.D: That’s their history. That’s not our language. We didn't make Nobles and Lords, they did. If you accept that, you must then walk with pride. Not with shame on you, walk with pride and say, "G-d-- Maybe I don't have the education. Maybe I don't have the skills but G-d created me to be President of the United States of America. To be the president of this Bank. To be in charge of trade or commerce." You have to believe that. We have African-American men and women now in this country moving up into these very special positions that we thought we would never get into. The doubting Thomases they said, "No, white man will never let you get there." but those who believe in their own inherent nobility they said, "The white man don't have to let me, I'll get there on my own."
[applause]
Now, we are shown one man so that we who believe in what G-d has given us because G-d hasn't given any man something that he didn't give every man. Not in his natural creation. In our natural creation G-d gave us all the same but it's the mercy of G-d that gives some of us better situations than others, better circumstances than others, better opportunities than others. Because of that in time we are more qualified than others that did not get these favorite situations or favorite circumstances or opportunities, right?
Yes, we know that these differences exist and we understand them, but we come right back to what is given by G-d to us in scripture that is that when He created us He created us [Arabic language]. He created us and he made us all equal in our creation. That means whatever another man was given to work with or to live by or upon for his future, he gave it to every other man. He didn't give one race something that he didn't give the other race. He gave all the races the same. That’s what the Quran is addressing when it says, our holy book is addressing when it says he certainly made honorable and noble every descendant of Adam.
We come to the idea now in Islam that's called Tawhid. Tawhid comes from a word meaning one, that's just one O. N. E. one. Tawhid, can be translated maybe literally oneness, oneness. What it really says is this, that G-d is one and upon that fact or that reality, we must reason then that G-d's creation is one. That is that the creation must have a unity. The creation must have a law that's throughout. That runs throughout that whole creation. The creation must not be foreign to itself and without being also akin to itself and that its unity is stronger than its diversity. Its oneness is more powerful than its diversity.
We are many and diversified as living things are. Animals and plants and all thing, are many and diversified. We are many and diversified but the unity, the common, the sameness, the commonality. The sameness is stronger than the differences. It is not our color that holds us together, it's our humanity that holds us together. We are not held together even as a family at home by the colors. If that was the case, then we'd have to carefully select the color of the husband or the color of the wife. See, I want my family stay together, so I better make sure she's exactly my shade. Because differences in colors are going to break up my family. That’s not the case. It’s the humanity.
It’s the same human life that we share with each other. I have the same life, human life that you have sister. You have the same human life that I have sister. That’s what G-d means when he says that he made male and female of one. He made us of one and he made us two of the one thing, of the one person he made us two. From our one humanity, he made us male humanity and female humanity. Then he spread from those two many men and women, nations and tribes all over the world.
This is what G-d teaches us. We are the same. That's why husband and wife can sit down and talk to each other and resolve their problem as long as they respect each other as equals. The man says, "But I have a superiority over her." Yes, you do and G-d tells you what that superiority is. It’s in your muscles and in your wealth and in your money. Now, if you ain't got either one of them, brother, you're out.
[applause]
As far as your soul, G-d made her soul and your soul the same. She's a human soul and you're a human soul. Her human soul evolves into a humanity and yours evolve into a humanity. Your humanity is not superior to her humanity. Her humanity is not superior to your humanity.
This is reason from the concept about the idea of Tawhid. This idea tells us that the creation is one. That this material and universe of stars, planets, and moon. Everything, satellites, all these stuff out there in space. This vast universe of so many material bodies in space. When you look at them, you can see a unity. Allah said, "Look at it. Can't you see that it was joined together once? Though it appears separate from you now. Earth and sky?"
That took science, astronomy, to show us that earth and sky are united. Man used to think that earth was the center of the universe. This was like a platform that he was sitting on and all the other stuff were nothing but lights in his ceiling.
[laughter]
With knowledge, with science, he come to know that he isn’t nothing, but a light in the ceiling too.
[laughter]
That the earth itself isn’t nothing, but a light in the ceiling and a small one out there. He came to believe that this material world, our universe is one system. That's said in the term or the expression uni-verse. Uni meaning one. Verse meaning verse. One verse, though it has many verses. We can perceive it in its totality as a uni-verse. Isn't that wonderful?
Audience: Yes.
Imam W.D: As one single verse. I guess that one single verse would be, "It's universal law that holds it all together." There's a universal law holding all these material creation together and having it operate in a way that makes it serve life and mankind. This Tawhid goes on to say that though we are of different nationalities or races. We are one people. All of us are brothers and sisters. I know this sound churchy to you Muslims.
[laughter]
It's the truth. When we say Islamic brotherhood, we are saying the same thing that Christians say when they say Brotherhood. Islamic brotherhood, what is it supported by? Islamic brotherhood is supported by the belief that G-d made the first parents and all the people on earth are children of the first parents. They are created brothers and sisters.
The Muslim want to go back to that idea. He wants to accept the person no matter what skin color they got or what nationality they have. He wants to accept them as his brother in one family of Muslims. That's the brotherhood of Islam. Is established upon the brotherhood of man. The belief that man is a brotherhood. All people form one brotherhood.
We are brothers and sisters of each other. Not in the flesh anymore, because the flesh has multiplied and families have been formed that are closer to each other in their physiology. In skin color and other things. These physical descriptions and also spiritual descriptions. We become different, right?
Audience: Yes.
Imam W.D: It is not that we are brothers and sisters in that, but G-d made you from one single human design. One single human pattern. You know something about patterns?
[laughter]
G-d made you from one single human pattern. You're mixing and going to different parts of the world and taking on the environmental influences. Being formed by those influences into different features and different people, have not made you different in terms of your human pattern. You're still the children of Adam. You're still the children of the original pattern. In that, you are spiritual, soul-wise, brothers and sisters. Right?
Audience: Yes.
Imam W.D: Yes. This is the common idea. How is this going to help us to live with ourselves, to live with our neighbors, and to live with another race? How is this going to help us? Don't think about it.
[laughter]
Don't think about it. You don't have to think about it. Let it enter you and accept it. It does its own work. It does its own work. Once it goes in you as a potent force, it's a potent germ, it's a potent life force. Once it goes into you, it starts to reshape you if you've shaped wrong. You don't have to think about it. Accepting what you're being told now from the scripture, is going to begin to influence the shaping of your mind. The shaping of your feelings. Your thoughts and everything. It's going to make you conform to that idea that you' have accepted.
If you accept the idea of Tawhid. It's going to make you conform to the idea of Tawhid. It is going to prepare you to live with yourself, with your family, with your neighbors, and with another race and make success on this earth. It doesn't mean everybody going to be beautiful. It means some people are going to be in good shape and others will not be in good shape.
The ones in good shape, they will be able to manage their lives and make contribution to the betterment of the whole society. They'll be able to go out front, they'll be able to do charity with a kind word and ignore the ignorance of the savage who's backward and retarded socially. He still carries the idea of a superior race in him. You'll look at him and see him as nothing, but a little small creature that came out from under the stone in the daylight and ran back under the stone because the daylight was too bright for him. You'll pity him and you'll want to help save him until he can mature socially and come out from under the stone into the light.
[applause]
I'm not saying I'm a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I'm not. I believe in cracking his head with a club or with a bat or something. When he's trying to do harm to other people.
[applause]
If we don't kill him. I believe in getting him some medical help.
[laughter]
Put him back in good shape then put some more shade on to me. Work on him until he can gradually come out into the sun.
[laughter]
[background noise]
I know this city has been marked. We read about it in Chicago. Boston, city with more institutions of higher learning than any other city in the United States, but got a race problem. I hope you can give this to the press. W. Deen Mohammed, Wallace D. Muhammad said at The Strand Theatre today. Boston has no race problem. Boston has a mind problem.
[applause]
That mind problem is not only in the whites, but it's also in the blacks. If you get the problem out of your mind and they get the problem out of their mind. It isn’t no race problem. It's just two retarded social groups.
[laughter] Something is wrong with us when we have to charge everything that another race does to us as racism. Something is wrong, something missing up here. You go home and you complain to each other, say, "Look, I didn't tell you can wear my shoes, what you doing wearing my shoe or why you slept in my bed and didn't make it up". I didn't tell you to sleep in my bed, now, you can't sleep in my bed. White the man tell you, you can't sleep in his bed, he's a racist."
[laughter]
We had to stop blaming everything on racism. Start listening to these new scholars on the campuses. Listen to these new African-American thinkers on these campuses, who are telling us that we just gone too far with these ideas of the past. We need to rethink them and come up with more logic, in order to deal with the problems of the future. This is a new thinking now, we have to embrace that new thinking. We have to be more rational now and less emotional, more rational and less impulsive to survive in the world to come. The world to come is the world that the Quran prepares us for, more than any other book.
The Quran prepares us for the coming world, more than any other book and it should, because it's the latest of the books. We believe in the evolution of the messianic figure, the messianic person. We believe in the evolution of that messianic person, starts with the first man, Adam. He's a messianic figure and it ends with Muhammad, the last prophet. He brings us to the idea of the global community that man is one community. [Arabic language]. That the man, all people are one community.
You have to prepare yourself to live on this earth as one community, one community of man. You respect each other, you learn to live with each other, cooperate with each other as Allah tells us in the Quran and cooperate with each other, support each other, - upon what? Righteousness and regardfulness, and deny each other your cooperation or your support when it's upon what? Sin and bigotry. [Arabic language], sin and bigotry. The Quran is telling us to deny another Muslim or anybody our support if they're asking them to support them on some racist idea.
Audience: That's right. Yes.
Imam W.D: If they're advocating hatred for another group of people, we are not to give them our support. We're to deny them our support. I think Farrakhan is a strategist. I think Minister Farrakhan is a strategist. I think he's a great game worker and who knows maybe Allah has him here for that purpose. Maybe we're getting a lot of benefits from his strategy and his game work but I know I'm not going to support him where he stands upon racism.
He asked me to come and join him upon some racist idea, that one race is superior to another or that one race is the friend and other race is the enemy. We've always had some white friends among the people. Even during slavery, we had some white friends. Never was a time when they all were our enemies. A lot of them died to get us in a better situation. I know it was just a very few. Very, very, very, very few but we had some people way back there.
[laughter]
I guess I can say we meet a whole lot of progress. I can count about four or five right now, that I know that's my friends, white folks. In fact, - it grew up to ten already. If I keep counting I may come up with about 25 white folks, that I know as my friend.
[laughter]
If we judge like G-d judge, G-d in the Bible tells a prophet that wanted to see the town destroyed, "If you can find one good man in there, I'll save the town." Why? Because, if there's one good man there, there's proof that there can be many good men there if you change the conditions. If there was only one good white man during our enslavement, that was proof that if we work on it, we could change the condition and there could be more good white men and that's exactly what happened. History and experience proved that to us that there were not just a few, there were many good white men and women. They just had to be worked on for a while.
I'm going to conclude this by saying that Muslims should start always with self and you should try to do as much as you can to keep yourself in good shape and good order, in good condition, then you should go to the thing that you're responsible for. If it ain't a child, if you got an apartment, you're responsible for that apartment, try to put that apartment in good condition. If it's a vehicle, try to keep that vehicle in good condition because, Allah, your G-d is going to judge you by your treatment of the things in your responsibility, not just human beings, children, but also material possessions.
Start with yourself first and then move out of the individual self to see yourself as a member of a society, sharing a part of the responsibility for that society and try to live up to your responsibilities as a member with a share of the responsibility for that society. Whether that society be your family, your neighborhood or the city you live in or the world you live in. Try to grow up to that and as a Muslim, know that your job, your main job is to support the growth of Muslim community, the growth of Muslim community is much more than a little storefront to have meetings in. To do prayers in or Jumu'ah prayer. It's much more than that. The obligation of a community is as big as what you see when you look at Boston.
You should be striving to grow up your community so that your community is recognized as being responsible for housing, for neighborhoods, for businesses, for political life in that area and you should be tied into the government, the local government and the federal government. You should be tied into that. You should have people representing you, tied into the local and federal government, because you're part of the whole nation and you should be in competition with other people who are tied into the local and federal governments. You should be in competition with them.
You should feel that G-d has prepared you to be not less than anybody else. You shouldn't be looking at the world saying, "This is a white man world," you should be looking at the world and saying, "This is G-ds world." The earth belongs to Allah. Allah says that in the Quran and Allah says the earth is my Mosque, the earth is my Mosque and that's what G-d says in the Quran, the earth is my Masjid. Some of you all have forgotten English, you don't know what Mosque is anymore, so I have to say Masjid. G-d says the earth is my Masjid, my Mosque, my house of worship, the whole earth. Are you a Muslim?
Audience: Yes.
Imam W.D: Is China on this earth?
Audience: Yes.
Imam W.D: G-d says, "China is my mosque, my Masjid." So if I get the means, the wherewithal to do more than represent Islam in America, to represent it also in China, I should go there with no second thoughts. I shouldn't be thinking like "I can't do nothing in China." G-d says China is his mosque. G-d says England is his mosque. Paris is his mosque. All these places, mosques! G-d says Ghana is his mosque. Nigeria is his mosque. Now shouldn't you feel bad? Knowing that you came from over there, and his mosque is in bad shape?
Audience: That's right.
Imam W.D: Yes, let us work to have community establishment, and community establishment as G-d would want us to have it means providing everything that a community requires. That's what it means. You don't have to have a separate government to have that. Other ethnic groups have been doing it all the time. You go to the Irish quarters of Chicago you find the Irish running the government, local governments. You find the Irish running the banks, the businesses they're running everything. And they're tied in to all the other governments so that they are not left out, or short-changed so that they cooperate for the benefit of the whole so that they don't hurt the whole. They stay in tune to what is happening so that what they are doing isn't effecting any other part of the United States in a bad way. We have to have sensible responsible people with big minds like that to rise up in this community, and take on more responsibility.
Thank you very much. May G-d guide us to the truth, and have mercy on us always ameen.
[01:11:15] [END OF AUDIO]

