09/05/2004
IWDM Study Library
Muslim Convention
Building Model Community Life

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
[applause]
00:01 Warith Deen Mohammed: We praise G-d with the expression, "G-d is greater." Peace be unto you, the greetings of our religion in the Muslim world is, "As-Salaamu-Alaikum."
00:14 Speaker 2: Wa-Alaikum-as-Salaam.
00:16 IWDM: I just saluted my captain.
[laughter]
00:25 IWDM: We always begin with G-d's name, the Merciful, Benefactor, the Merciful redeemer. We thank him for our presence here. We thank him for another convention in the City of Chicago at this pavilion. And we thank him for keeping our hearts and our minds in the right place. We thank him for giving us the courage to be different years ago when it was very unpopular to be a Muslim in the City of Chicago. We thank him for making it possible for us to continue our life from a child's circumstances, from a child, little child, little baby circumstances, till today, when we have circumstances in these United States and in this Chicago, favoring that little baby surviving and growing up to be a fine man with dignity and honor, as a producer contributing to the society and also to the Muslim life. This is what I see when I look back into the road of our strivings as a community of poor people, under the honorable light of Muhammed. And in 1975, February of 1975, I began the effort to carry you further into the road to our establishment, bringing with us that, that was to live, and separating myself from that, that was to die. And I thank the Lord, creator of the skies and the earth and everything, and people, his special creation, I thank him for the good brothers and sisters who will never turn around and go back to the dark days.
[applause]
03:41 IWDM: You know, I see shea butter as a basket, put on the river, we're gonna float it right down to Pharaoh's Kingdom, and it's gonna be picked up by the lady of the house.
[applause]
04:10 IWDM: We have a lot to be happy about. We have a lot to feel good about. In fact, there is much more in spite of the bad times that we're living, economically, politically. The political climate is not too good, in the world I'm speaking of, not just in the United States. The political climate in the world is not good, bad. The economic climate here is not what most Americans can feel good about. We want it to get better. The moral climate here in America is terrible, terrible, very very ugly. When we see our public behaving as though they never had any moral life in them ever is terrible. But we find that there is always a number of the people that are not taken down by the bad things, that a bad time brings. There are the number always that won't give up their moral life no matter how popular it is to give up your moral life. They're always those who are industrious by nature. They love work, and their souls call for work. And they will never be idle, they will never accept unemployment. They will work for themselves, if that factory shut down that they were working for. They will never be out of work. So G-d have made man special. G-d has made the human being very special. He cannot be destroyed by what man does.
06:49 IWDM: Even though man, knowingly or unknowingly may take up the plan of the Satan the Shaitan, the Satan the Devil himself and give the way of the devil freedom, to take over the lives of families and neighborhoods by letting his schemes be established over our life or in our lives, but there are always a few Christians and others. I have known Christian neighborhoods, no liquor stores here and they were so united, that they were able to keep liquor stores out of their neighborhoods. They didn't want liquor stores, local liquor stores to bring other things that they don't want and other people that they don't want who care nothing about life, care nothing about civilization, care nothing about morality and they didn't want that disease in their neighborhoods, in their Christian neighborhoods, so they organized and put enough pressure on the governments, on the town office to keep the community, the neighborhood for the church. Save it for the church and keep the taverns out. My heart go to Christians like that, I'm with them, and I just hope that one day, we will see the common good, the common interest for righteous people, for people fearing G-d more than their life, to please their Lord the creator. I'm hoping that the day will come when we will not see people struggling to save environment for their life that they want, and we Muslims will look at them and "Oh those are Christians", no we'll say, those are our people. Those are people of our souls.
[applause]
08:53 IWDM: And people of our spirit.
[applause]
09:00 IWDM: That's what I'm hoping for. We Muslim leaders, we talk about what we're supposed to do, we talk about we shouldn't allow liquors and... To be on our table. We should keep halal, word and Jewish for the Jews is kosher. We should keep our life halal, keep our homes halal, our food halal, keep all of this halal. But you see another person out there struggling and they keep the neighborhood you live in, and you're just two on the block, the neighborhood belong to them, and you see them struggling to make it a decent neighborhood and you just ignore what they are doing. You don't identify with their suffering, with their concerns, you don't identify with their work, you are not a part of it, you act as though you are from Jupiter or Mars or somewhere and you just walk right by them and walk right away from what they're doing, as though it's forbidden for you to join the good work to make the place better, for human life under G-d. We can't continue to do that. That won't work. The state of the world is not good at all. I believe we're living in the end of time, the end of time as prophesied. Not the end of time for the the natural system created by G-d, not the end of time for the sun that rises that we all know, not the end of time for the night that comes and the day that comes. No we'll still have night and day.
10:40 IWDM: Not the end of the time for trees and plants and other things, and animals that we love, and rivers and whatever, that we love and the beautiful life that grows upon the Earth, not the end of time for that, the end of time, according to prophecy. The end of time for man to go away from the calling of his best nature. I repeat, the calling of his best nature. Which is there because G-d made human beings for their best nature. G-d didn't make us for the foolishness, he didn't make us for the nasty life that some of us love to live, he made us for the best that is in human nature. And our religion stresses the best. G-d says to us in the Quran. He gives us the Quran, the Quran is a history, the Quran is a teaching, a guidance, but is also history. So we'll read about how other people lived When you read the Quran, those that were good and those that were not good. We read about the destruction of the corrupt ones, we read all of this. And if we are not careful while reading, if our appetites are corrupt, we'll be reading and thinking we are reading guidance, and we'll be reading warnings, or I guess pitfalls.
12:31 IWDM: And we'll be thinking we'll be reading guidance, we'll be reading of a people, who were proud and boastful, while doing wrong things, and we will lose the full picture, and we will think that our G-d is saying that it's okay to be that way. I know persons who have fallen victim to that, they will be reading something and think that's to be applied to Muslim life and Muslims are supposed to be like that, boasting. But if they were reading clearly and keep the connections, read it in the proper connections, read it with the proper connections and in the right context, they would clearly understand that this is not what G-d wants for us or for human beings, this is what G-d is condemning.
13:27 IWDM: And they take it and they become believers in what is not Islam thinking that it is Islam. So G-d says to us in the Holy Book, speaking of addressing the contents of the book. He said, "And take the best there of." Science says that life advances because it's selective. It then feed on that that will corrupt it, deform it, destroy it. It looks for the better food and in selecting the better food, it continues to grow and develop. And it looks for the best environment, you think a bird will put his nest anywhere? It looks for the best environment. Even a low animal, looks for a clean place to start a family. So selective. G-d tells, speaks to our nature, the better nature in us, He says, "And take the best there of." G-d says, of the Quran, this, the book has been made allegorical with metaphors, with pitches, with words that say one thing and make a common person see one thing. But it is addressing something entirely different. Something different, entirely different. But using these pitches, to get our attention, in hopes of us learning how to translate the pitches into the language that we are supposed to read and understand for understanding. So G-d says the book has been made allegorical and basic. Listen carefully. And basic.
15:56 IWDM: The basic teachings are the plain language teachings that any ordinary person with the ability to read or listen to the language and understand, can understand. But the book is also allegorical, difficult to understand, even by educated people if they are not experienced or used to hearing the language of scripture. Experienced in or used to hearing the language of scripture. And G-d continues, He says, "And those in whose hearts is a disease, they prefer the allegorical over the plain teachings." That's why we have so much un-Islamic behavior in the Muslim world. We leave the common sense plain teachings and take up that that we think gives us the freedom to do wrong in the name of righteousness. I'm a lover of nature. I travel a lot, because of good situation I'm in as your leader. I've traveled a lot, plane, flower, mountains and... So I see mountain tops that many people will never see from my neighborhood. I see mountain tops, and I love science, so I read about mountains too. There are mountains that are old and worn out. No place for the skiers to have their fun skiing on the ice, icy tops, icy slopes, worn out. No vegetation growing on them like a bald-haired old man. Nothing there to attract anybody.
18:34 IWDM: No water flowing down from the melting ice to form rivers, new rivers to attract animals and other life and make fertile basins or fertile land. On each side of the river, like the river Nile that comes down from the mountains of Ethiopia and flow down and cut through the land. Leaving the picture behind that resembles the form of a snake. No rivers. Most of the governments of the world today offer no spiritual support, no spiritual help to the souls and spirituality of their people. Don't think of the physical mountain out there, somewhere in the geography of this earth, in Asia, or Africa somewhere... Europe. See this as description of something that is in your own life. A mountain that is in your own make-up, and then look outside and see if you can find the world. Having something that you want... Like that, that you want in yourself established to serve people in the world. Water is a fascinating, very fascinating thing, water. Science describes it as H2O, gases that in a certain combination, became liquid water. Hydrogen two gas. And I know because I'm a welder. I've used Hydrogen and Oxygen in my work, Hydrogen two and Oxygen one, H2O. Those two gases, the molecules of them, they come together and form what all life must have, water.
21:29 IWDM: And G-d says, in the Quran, also in the Bible in different language, maybe different words, maybe in different contexts too, but it's there, all life began in water. All life began in water. Human a being is a very special flesh, a very special flesh belonging to the flesh, that G-d made. Because G-d made the sheep flesh. G-d made the goat flesh, and many other animals' flesh. And G-d made many little creatures' flesh, worms' flesh. He made us flesh. But we are very special flesh. When we hurt, water comes down from our sky, from the mountain. Water come down and roll down our cheek. And we don't have to be sad for water to come down. We can be so happy water come down from the eyes of the mountain and roll down our cheek. And G-d says, in our Holy Quran, the same as in the Bible, again, maybe in a different context, different language, different context, but it's there. Said it's G-d that created you. It is your creator, that created the sky and the earth, and trees and everything. The one that created you, He created you to have laughter and tears. G-d created you to have that.
23:21 IWDM: So if this is mentioned in Scripture, then it is mentioned because this is very special and unique for human beings, that we cry tears of sadness and tears of joy, and tears of joy. Now, if no rivers are coming down from the mountain what has happened? There's no feelings anymore. No rivers coming down, no feelings anymore. Our Lord says in the Quran, "And there are some rocks that are shaken and they open and split and release water. Water comes from them. Rock hardening. So, when our leadership, our leaders and our leadership becomes so hardened that they can't feel the suffering of the society, can't respond to the needs of the suffering souls in the society. They have become dried up maybe like that bald-headed mountain that I saw from the plane. Or maybe there is water but it's just kept up in the top of the mountain. It has hardened and nothing has heated it up.
25:12 IWDM: But we know people like Dr. King, many before him and after him, they had the power to speak and warm up the climate. And cause the ice to melt, in the government, in the top of the mountain. And rolled down as rivers, so we can have new life and beauty on the land. Yes, we know that.
25:46 S2: Allahu Akbar!
25:46 IWDM: Yes. Allahu Akbar.
25:53 Speaker 3: Do you want to put it down?
25:54 IWDM: Don't. No. No. It's okay. It's okay.
25:56 S3: The camera people, they say that the microphone is in your face.
26:00 IWDM: It's okay. Are you hearing me all right out there? What about back in the... All the way back? Yes. Yes. They are hearing. I have almost... I have almost as many years as he is old, experience talking into mics.
[applause]
26:28 IWDM: [chuckle] Praise be to G-d. Now, why is water so important in religion? I've mentioned already that G-d says, "Every living thing had its beginning in water." And we know it's important to the church. In the parish rituals, the water is important, important to Muslims in our worship and especially on the Hajj, the yearly trip we make to the Holy House, the common house of all people called Bayt Al Ullah. Al Bayt, the first house built for mankind in the worship of G-d. It's not talking about the water we drink. The water we drink is just a symbol, a picture, a sign of the water in our own human makeup, in our psyche, in the human soul and psyche, in the human feelings and concerns. That's the water. That's the real water. That's the real water, you see? And just as water makes us feel better, even spiritually. When we are sweaty or dirty and we get into that shower, and that water begin to work on that filth and sweat. Oh, you feel so good. You run the water bill up. Don't wanna come out of the shower. So G-d has created the world without to speak to us of the world within. And the world without is a sign. The world within is the real life. And G-d has made the world without to support the good life we want within, as long as it doesn't become corrupt or too polluted or too confused, and getting away from the laws that G-d intended. It serves us well.
29:02 IWDM: We're living in a time, I said, that I believe to be the fulfillment. The time of the fulfillment of prophecy. G-d says, "And to you, and to me... " Pardon me. He says, "And to me you all must return." That's what G-d says. He says He created us from one soul. That mean we had one spiritual origin. One spiritual origin. We come from one spiritual life, our Father. And we all are one in that spiritual life. And we may choose to go against that spiritual life that G-d intended for us and we may take on spirits that will be working against the true human spirit that G-d created for us. But G-d say, "And you will go your separate ways and you will make your problems for each other. But one day, you all have to return." Now looking again at water as a symbol or as a message to us of what's in the soul or psyche of human person. The water in the mountain tops... I'm a student of science too and I love science. I'm not a scientist. I think I might be a little bit somewhat of a scientist. [laughter] But I know I'm a student of science. I've loved it ever since I learned. I read the first book, I had the teacher tell me the first thing about science. I loved it. I've been a student of science. So anyway, I have learned that rivers come from mountain tops. Would you think that? You wouldn't think that.
30:49 IWDM: Science have to tell us these things, or someone who have experienced while going up in the mountains and they been around the mountain often enough to see what happens, would tell us those things... Could tell us those things. The ice in the top of the mountain, when it melts, it runs down the mountain and it form rivers. The Nile river, as I mentioned earlier, is formed in a high mountain in Ethiopia. And the water come down and... I don't know it be... It's just millions of years old. [chuckle] Don't know how old it is, you know? It formed the river called The River Nile, which is said to be the longest river on earth.
31:30 IWDM: And that river is two colors according to the African people. Ethiopian people, I think, it's white. And I believe... Or blue. I'm not sure. But when it passes through Egypt, it's a different color. I believe the White Nile is from Ethiopia and the Blue Nile is Egypt. I'm not sure. I'm not sure of the color now. But I'm sure that there are two colors, they call it White Nile and Blue Nile. The longest river on earth. And the whole Egyptian people, the Egyptian people, were dependent on the Nile for their economy, their food supply. And their economy because the Nile would bring fertile earth from other places, at the same time giving the land water, keeping land watered from other places. And the river runs, so the river washes out, washes the fertile soil to both sides and keeps the land fed with the water so that more things can grow along the banks of the Nile.
32:56 IWDM: And the river alone, as I said, supplied them with food, produce, enough to sustain the life. And at one time, according to biblical history. At one time Egypt was the bread basket for the whole world, for the whole known world. That people came from all over. And the story of Joseph tells us that. Joseph was sold into slavery by his own people, his own brothers. And he end up being discovered by the rulers that he was there. They discovered him because it was... The word was getting around that Joseph was a seer. He could see the future. So the country was beginning to endure a bad time, and being threatened. And the pharaoh wanted to bring him up, the ruler bring him up to him and talk to him and see what he thought of what was happening to his rule. So he liked him so well, he made him... Took him in, and the Pharaoh's wife, the big lady, fell in love with him. They put him over the store houses. They put him in charge of the distribution of food and goods. So that tells us that at one time, according to scripture, Egypt had become so productive in food products and other things too, that people were coming from distant lands in hopes of getting some food or some help from Egypt... From Egypt. Now America is like a modern Egypt. Yes? It has its high mountain and it has its Nile river. And it has... Sold into slavery. And today Joseph is about to be put over the store house.
[applause]
35:53 IWDM: And he's going to be kind to his brothers who sold him into slavery. [laughter] When the brothers of Joseph came in bad times to Egypt that was doing well, to get some rations, some help. When they saw Joseph they thought "Oh. It's hopeless now. Egypt got him over the store houses? We sold him into slavery." But they found him to be just what they didn't expect, they found him to be a brother. Forgot... Didn't charge suffering... His suffering brothers with the crimes. He ignored the crime, he put their crime aside and he gave them help. Wonderful story, a beautiful story. But it's not just a story of Jews, of Arabs, of African-Americans or Blacks. It's the story of every people who suffers such thing of caring in the life of that people to make them slaves or helpless in the society of other people. Physical slavery made us helpless like that. But after we were physically free, mental, as Mr. Farad said, mental slavery or mental death put us in a bad situation like that, where we could not make it on our own, stayed down, couldn't get up. Even though a few of us had the strength to try to get up and did get up.
37:53 IWDM: Majority of us did everything to see that they failed, that they did not succeed, That's because mentally, we are dead. Not dead. Not dead... Your mind works to know what time it is when you wake up in the morning, to look at the clock, or look at... Out the window and say, "Hey, sun has gotten up." You're not dead to those kind of things, you can function that way. But when it comes to knowing where your heart should be, you're dead. When you go out of your house and leave your wife, I don't care if she fuss at you every time you come in the house. You go out of the house and leave your wife with children that needs your presence, and you will turn your back on the wife and the house and children because of sexual desire for another woman that you met. Your heart is dead.
[applause]
39:14 IWDM: Your heart is dead to the social life, the family life that G-d made for you. Your heart is dead to it. When you walk out of your neighborhood, that ain't got a... African-American business anywhere in sight. And you drive your car, five gallons of gas away from your neighborhood, five gallons of gas away from your neighborhood, way to the north west side somewhere, to some white person's store or a store operated, but by another people, not your people, your heart is dead.
[applause]
40:12 IWDM: Now, there is in the Bible, says, "as a man thinketh in his heart, as a man thinketh in his heart." So, we shouldn't just think with our rational ability, if you wanna think as a human should be thinking, you should be thinking with your moral life in-touch with what you're thinking, with your moral life sensitivities in-touch with your thinking. You should be thinking with your human interest in-touch with your thoughts, you should be thinking with your wife and your children interest at heart, so much at heart that if you think something against their interest, it reaches your mind. This is natural life, and it tells your mind, "Don't do that, that'd hurt the family." So when we say a people are mentally dead, we don't mean that they don't have a mind to go and work for McDonald's, they can go and work for McDonalds, what McDonald's got for them to do it, they can do it. But when it comes to keeping a human spirit at home and human love at home, and making sacrifices to keep the life at home good, they don't have any life to do that, they are dead to that.
42:01 IWDM: We are here in this place right now, and hope to be here again next year, this time. And we are working in during the week, during the months in the year in many places, why? What is our main reason? We are Muslims, that ain't enough, that ain't enough. G-d says that He made us, and formed us in the stomachs of our mothers. Now, I know you can get very technical, which some of you like to do. But what we see is the stomach of our mother's growing, that's what we see. We don't see that technical explanation you wanna give me right now. We see this Mama stomach getting bigger and bigger, okay, and when the baby is delivered, we see the mama's stomach go back to normal, not big anymore. G-d says he made us, formed us in the stomachs of our mothers, and he made our pictures most beautiful, beautiful. Made us beautiful. And G-d says again, that he is the one who've made our picture single, single picture, not plural picture, not more than one picture. 'Cause all of us have our individual pictures, we have our racial pictures, we have our individual pictures, and G-d says he made our pictures single picture, and he made it, the most excellent. What is that? What is that saying to us? That you should not be thinking about your identity as a race and thinking that's more important than your identity as a human being. The single picture that G-d made of us is that he made us all human.
44:15 IWDM: Science, in order for it to study, treat, and improve upon human life condition, Medical Science or whatever. They don't send us to school to study a white man's life or a black man's life, they send us to school or teach us what is a human life, what is a human anatomy, what is human skin, what is human hair, what is human bone, what is human blood, etcetera. So in order for science to treat the body, and help the body be healthy or overcome a disease or a fault, or some kind of problem, it has to identify the body as the human body, the system as the human system, etcetera. It's no different for spiritual world, for the spiritual world. If we wanna treat this spiritual ills of ourselves and of the whole world, we got to look not at racial pictures, not at national pictures, not at ethnic pictures. We have to keep before us the human picture. African-American leadership, Church, and wherever you are, Government or wherever you are, you got to stop making your racial picture more important than your human picture.
[applause]
45:56 IWDM: And then we can do something about these ills, then we can do something to establish ourselves. We have to first be established in our human form, before we can be established in any other form in any good way. If you are not establishing your human form, when you try to establish yourself in your racial form, you're going to establish a mess. And likewise, for any other form that you wanna establish yourself in, if you had not established good in your human form, you make yourself a mess. And this whole country, tolerating the mistreatment of blacks for over 200 years, and tolerating the law in one part of the country that treated us like we were lepers, with some kind of disease that if it came too close to other people, they would be diseased. Drink at the fountain of your own people, like you'll contaminate the water. Don't sit in this seat in the bus, Rosa Parks changed all that. Sit in these seats for the blacks, you can't eat at this counter, this counter is for white folks. Oh, the North wasn't guilty of that. Yes, the North was guilty of that. That should have bothered the North so much that the North wouldn't have tolerated it one day.
[applause]
47:35 IWDM: Yes. I'm not asking for claps now, but thank you. [laughter] I'm not asking for you to cheer me. Thank you it though. Yes. So we can't say, we can't... Don't blame the North, no. They were playing games. And I'll tolerate you doing your thing as long as your thing ain't hurting my thing too much. But soon as the time for industrialization came and machinery, new machineries to replace the cotton workers, the cotton pickers, the cotton gin was invented, these new things came and they didn't... And the North didn't see where that situation down there was good for the North. It was bad for the North. The North put its minds on factories. So in order to develop our factories and increase our factories like we want, we gotta get rid of that slavery down there with all those human machines picking cotton, so we can make a cotton gin, we don't need them anymore. So let's change this thing. "Oh, Abraham Lincoln freed us." Yeah, but a lot of economic pressure on him. And a lot of other things pressuring him. He freed us. No. You freed yourself, by telling them "This is enough." And then G-d gave you help by bringing in circumstances. [chuckle]
48:58 IWDM: Yes. To make the world a little more softer. I was coming, getting ready to... Dress up to come out here today, and I'm sorry to get off a mic. But I have to tell you this, it fits so well. I was getting ready to dress to come out here today, and my mother used to dress me when I was little a boy, and she wanted to do it herself. I could dress myself, but for certain occasions, she wanted to put the finishing touches on 'em. And oh, oh when she got me like she wanted that... Her smile, she had a bright smile, bright gold teeth. Yeah. That gold teeth would be sparkling, that gold tooth be sparkling and she would be smiling, that bright smile that lighten up her black face. And she would say to me, "Now you're looking like I want you to look, my boy." And she would pick the tie and everything. So I kind of depend on that right now from a woman and there was a young woman in the house with me today. What are you folks thinking?
[laughter]
50:04 IWDM: Good G-d, Almighty! G-d Almighty! The world is so low, you can't get up.
[laughter]
50:17 IWDM: And I said, "I have two ties here." I said, "I like both of them. Both of them go with what I'm gonna wear." This the one here, this the one she picked. I said, "Both of them go with what I'm gonna wear." So she, very sensitive, because you all make all the people so too sensitive when it comes to me. "You don't tell the Imam what tie to wear, even if he asked you to. You don't tell him what tie to wear." So I guess she's been influenced by that kind of stuff. So she hesitating, "What I tell you which one to pick." I insisted I said, "No", I said, "Tell me." She said, "Both of them looking good, nice... " I said, "No, if you were gonna wear this dress, which one would you pick?" She said, "I would pick the one with the circles, the dime because it's softer." Softer. The other one had square designs like a rectangle, square designs. She said that circles are softer. And when she said that I said, "Wow." I said, "That's why a beautiful night of stars all those rounds stars in the heavens, is that why it soothes my soul, is softer on me?" "Yes." Thank you young lady for bringing my attention to something that tests my soul. Yeah. So, let me continue and conclude this. Now, water is clear, transparent, you see through it. Tasteless, if it's pure water, tasteless and without smell.
52:25 IWDM: It's preferred by people who haven't been eating junk food. Fast food stuff, junk food stuff, processed foods, ready packaged stuff. Pop or sugar water, carbonated sugar water. People who have gotten used to drinking what man sells for you to drink, pretty soon they don't want any water. "Oh. I don't know. I don't like the way water tastes." I'm giving you the words that I heard. "I don't like the way water tastes." Well, don't you know, and when you don't like what the scripture is telling you to accept as your spiritual life, it's because the world have destroyed your ability to taste by giving you the wrong thing all the time.
53:43 IWDM: So, it's not easy. It's not easy to stop drinking pop, but sometimes the doctor will tell you, "If you don't stop drinking pop, I can't help you." Now you wanna live, you have to cut out that pop, don't be drinking that pop. You gotta stop that. And if you're sensible enough, you'll stop drinking pop. And after a while, it might take you weeks, or months, or some months, or maybe even a year... After a while that water... Your natural taste will come back. Your natural ability to taste will come back and you will love the taste of water. You will say like I hear some people say... Now I heard them when I was telling I hear sometime that, "There's nothing like the taste of water." And really it's tasteless. It's tasteless, but it gives the mouth and the taste buds. Isn't that something? Here's something that's tasteless. I ain't talking about salty water. I'm talking about plain water. Here's something that's tasteless, but on the taste buds is so agreeable. The taste buds like it so much. Those are signs, my people. Those are great signs.
55:08 IWDM: We need to change the way we think, change the way we live, and we need to take our life up with our own hands. I think Booker T Washington was saying that when he said, "Pick up your buckets where you are." That was after slavery. The people, the slaves, they didn't know what to do. "Oh, I don't know how to employ myself. Now I'm free. Before I could go to the master and work for the master. And he would see that I had a place to stay. And he would get me up in the morning, so I go out to the field and work." Now there's no boss in your life like that. No one mastering your life like that or taking possession of your life like that. So the slave is lost. Lost in a free world. Booker T Washington said, "Pick up your buckets where you are. Whatever you learned in slavery that you can use and now in freedom time, do it. Start there and build yourself up. Build your life up." He said, "If you used to take care of your Miss' hair, you knew how to take care of her hair and make her look pretty, open up your beauty shop and do that. If you farmed well for the master, get your piece of land and farm for yourself." Booker T Washington was a very sensible leader. Very intelligent, rational, practical leader. Yes. I mentioned him, but there are many others to mention.
56:52 IWDM: We have to take our lives up into our own hands. Don't be satisfied looking at TV at one Bathen in Egypt, or at one Miss Fanny, who's doing very well in Egypt. Now I hate to do this, but I don't know how else to do it. [chuckle] Don't see Mr. Keys... I think his name is Keys, Republican? At his popularity that the Republican Party had given him overnight and say, "Oh, we're getting some place." Don't look at Oprah Winfrey. Terrific lady, biggest thing in talk show television, white or black. Don't look at her and her great success, at her millions of dollars and say, "Eh, look at us now."
58:10 S2: For more information on Imam Warith Deen Mohammed, call the Mosque Cares at 708-798-6750. And thank you for listening.

