05/22/2001
IWDM Study Library 
Lecture Harvey, IL

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Speaker 1:
... Broadcasting W. Deen Mohammed, Muslim American Society leader. The following khutbah, or sermon, was recorded Friday, June 22nd, the year 2001 at the Harvey Islamic center in Harvey, Illinois. The khateeb, or teacher, is Imam W. Deen Mohammed.
As Salaam Alaikum. Ash Hadu Anla Ilaha IlAllah. Wa Ashadu Ana Muhammadan Rasul Ullah.
Dear Believers, Peace unto you. We witness that there is but One G-d, we worship Him in prayer, and worship Him with our whole lives, and worship Him alone. We associate no deity with Him. No son, no wife, no person, no nothing in creation do we associate with G-d as a G-d.
G-d is G-d alone. And He needs nothing from anything outside of Himself. He exists independent of all things, Allahu As-Samad. That's His attribute, Allahu As-Samad. As-Samad means He exists eternally, not needing anything outside of Himself. And Allah says, "I don't need that you should feed Me". G-d is not one to be fed by someone. He needs no food.
He never hungers. He never sleeps. He never slumbers. He never is tired. Never is tired. Never is affected at all, by anything. He is independent, existing alone, resisting any attempt to aid Him or to change Him. He cannot be changed and He cannot be assisted. Only by His servants. It says that no one comes to Him except as a servant. We serve Him and we worship Him. Serving Him is the same as worshiping Him. That's why our whole life is service and our whole life is worship.
To say "Abdul Allah", I worship Allah, is also to say, I serve Allah. The same. It comes from the word meaning servant. 'Abd is a servant, 'Abdan. A servant, 'Abdul. Servant. And the highest station or place we can have in creation is that of servant. And G-d made everything to serve Him. The sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, everything serves G-d; serves Allah. And we are His human servants, His human servant. And that is the best name or the best title anyone can have is the name or the title 'Abd, Abdullah. We all are Abdullah. Allah chose Muhammad the Prophet, and He called him His servant. He said my servant.
And He addresses all of us in the Qur'an, our Holy Book, "Ya Ibadulah". Oh, Servants of G-d. All of us are the Servants of Allah. We are created to serve Him. Says that He did not create the men or jinns for any purpose, except to serve Him, for any purpose other than to serve Him. And when you accept that you have been created to serve your G-d, who created everything, and you, you have a good life. That's all you need. Once you do that, and you mean it in your heart, you'll have a good life. When you accept that your life was given to you for you to serve your G-d with that life, to serve your G-d with that life.
And not the G-d that didn't create the heavens and the earth. That's not a G-d. If some G-d didn't do the creation of the sky and the earth and man, that's not a G-d. There's only one G-d, and that G-d is the one that did all this. And if you accept, again I say, that your life, the purpose for your life is, to serve that G-d, you are going to have a good life. From that instance, from that instant, you are going to start having a good life. No way, except, but for you to start having a good life. Most people in religion, they don't understand religion.
Most of them know the religion only by faith. They don't know it by good sense, or by reason, or by logic. Allah says in the Qur'an, "Most of them only know the religion by faith". Oh yes, I believe. My faith, this is my faith, but have no rational understanding of it. If they had a rational understanding of worship of G-d, their life would be in good shape. That's all you need. Allah says "If one holds to believing in the one G-d, though he'd be in Hellfire, if he holds to that belief, it'll pull him out of Hellfire." It'll pull him out of Hellfire. That belief, will pull him out of the Hellfire.
And it will, I know. Praise be to Allah. Islam is worship and we worship G-d with our whole life. That is to say, worship for us is not Friday alone. It's not a Sunday. Worship for us is every minute of our lives. That's worship for us. And worship is knowing your G-d. When Muslims convert, when the Muslim converts to Islam, or Christian or anybody, but actually, it is the Muslim that's converting. Even though it be a Christian, it's the Muslim in the Christian that's converting to Islam.
When we convert to Islam, we say 'Ashhadu'. That means: I witness. I witness. To witness something you have to know something. You can't witness something without knowing something. So, a Muslim is supposed to become a member in the following of Muhammad the Prophet, and a member in Islam after knowing something. Not just on faith. After knowing something, not just on faith, not just on feeling good. I could be a feel-good preacher and you all could've had this place filled up. There'd be people standing all out there. So, you need a whole lot of feel-good people to do anything, but you only need a few witnesses, and they can do wonders.
I'd much rather have the few that know something than the many just believing and know nothing. Dumb. Yes, dumb. Just thinking religion is feel good. Oh, I feel good. Thank G-d. No, religion is feeling good alright. But it's not that temporary feel good. The real religion will make you feel good all the time. No matter how bad circumstances are for you. You'll still feel good. The real religion, Praise be to Allah. And Islam is prayer, we pray. We have to pray, you know 'Salat'. Make the Salat. And the Friday Jumu?ah is to teach us something about Salat.
To teach us with a silent message, a sign. It teaches us with a silent message with a sign. Instead of doing the four Rakats for the noon day, we only do two, cut them in half. Only two Rakats for the Salat Al-Jumu?ah, that replaces 'Salat Al-Dhuhr', the noon Salat. But it's made up for, as I heard one learned Imam from India say, it's made up for by the Khutbah. For the Salat Al-Dhuhr has no Khutbah, just four Rakats. But the Salat Al-Jumu?ah has two Rakats, which is half of it, half of the four and a Khutbah.
So, this is a sign to us. I won't explain it to you. It's a sign to us that you have two Rakats at noon day on the, on the congregation day. Jumu’ah means congregation day. The big congregation day, that's what Jumu’ah means, congregation. So, on the congregation day, you have to make only two Rakats, but you get a Khutbah. And the Khutbah is given in two sections. One, two. Praise be to Allah. So, it's a sign. A wonderful sign. And Allah says to us, every creature in His Holy book in Qur'an, every creature knows his mode of prayer, Salat. Every creature knows his mode of prayer. That means a bird also prays to G-d.
The insect, you think is nothing, crawling on the ground, prays to G-d, makes Salat. That means the sun makes Salat. And the moon and the stars make Salat. You either accept what G-d says or you don't. If G-d says every creature, He means everything in creation. That's exactly what He is saying. Everything in creation knows its mode of prayer, but more specifically, living creatures. Living creatures, but also the heavenly bodies. We know that the learned leaders in Islam, in the history tradition of the Prophet's teachings and life, they have taught us that the earth is Muslim.
And the heavenly bodies are Muslims. Meaning that they obey the will of G-d. And we know, from what Allah says of them too. He said to them, "Come", meaning follow My will, obey My will. Come, willingly or accepting or rejecting. And that creation replied to G-d, the heavens and the earth, everything that's created. Not man, though. The creation replied to G-d, we come willingly. Huh? The creation says, "We come willingly". So that means the earth, moon, stars, all these things and what we call the inanimate world, or the nonhuman world of creation, all of these things are, willingly, obeying G-d.
Now we know it's philosophical meaning that requires you to have good intelligence, and you have to be an intellectually curious person. You have to think on this to appreciate what is being said fully. It requires intelligent thought. We know it. We know that. And we can pursue it with our rational mind and come to a conclusion and understand. Yes, and agree in what G-d says. Yes, G-d, I witness with my own rational mind in my own intelligence. I witness that the creation that you made obeys you willingly.
Science teaches us that all this creation struggles to find its order. It struggles to find its order. If there comes an explosion that would throw things out of order, those things thrown out of order, science says, will be struggling to get back in the order. And they'll eventually find order. Bodies are knocked out of their orbits, out of their tracks that they make, their circles that they make in the heavens around other bodies. They are knocked out of there, but they'll struggle to find another orbit. And they won't rest until they find another orbit where they can again, be in a system, designed by a Creator or by a Designer. And they conform to that. So that tells us that it is their nature. It is the nature of matter to conform to the laws and the system in order that was created for it, or made for it, or exist for it, if you are atheist. I have no problem with the atheist. The atheist sometimes is a better Muslim than a so-called believer.
Yes, so-called believers sometimes become a hypocrite and twists up, messes up religion when talking about G-d. The worst thing you can do is do wrong in the name of G-d. The atheist, if he's doing wrong, he's not saying I'm doing it in the name of G-d. So, I can tolerate the atheist much more than I can tolerate the person who says he believes in G-d, but his life is farther from the religious life than even the atheist's life. He's a devil in the path of G-d, on the path of G-d. A devil, a Shaytan. Yes, or one of the followers of the Shaytan.
Every creature knows his mode of prayer. Allah is saying to us then, Subhana Wa Ta Allah (Highly glorified is He, Most High), is saying to us then that your mode of prayer is in accord with the nature I have created. Just as everything in creation is following a law in obeying the design that I made for it. Similarly, your Salat that your Prophet has led you in, established for you, is My mode for you. Your Prophet led you to My mode. Muhammad the Prophet, Sa Ala Alahi Wa Salaam, (Peace Be Upon him), he's the one that taught us how to pray. You won't find it in Qur'an. You'll find a little bit in Qur'an, but not enough to know how to do these prayers. Muhammad was the one, inspired and guided by G-d, to teach us how to pray. And he taught us how to pray. He led prayers for 20-some years.
And Sajdah is supposed to be the best position in the prayer. No position in Salat is better than Sajdah. And we begin standing. The first position is standing. Erect. Standing erect. Erect means in perfect balance. Standing in perfect balance.
And I've explained this on many occasions. This position that we take is evolved. Nobody really teaches you how to stand. They just try to encourage you to stand, the baby. They encourage the baby to stand by maybe helping the baby pull up on something, but the baby has to get this by himself or by herself. The baby gets this balance by himself or herself. So that actually the ability to stand is an ability that's evolved. It's an evolving ability. It's evolved. It's not taught. It's evolved. And when you can stand like this, it's so comfortable after you've done it for a while or for some days. It's so comfortable to stand. You do it unconsciously. And the moment you become unconscious; you fall. Yeah, if you go sleep, bar none, you'll fall. You either wake up or you going to fall. The head is the first to drop.
So, this is an evolved feat. Accomplishment, what I mean by feat. This is an evolved feat. And it becomes so comfortable, you're not even conscious of it. No effort at all. Like the bodies in the heavens going about in their balances. Seemingly without any effort. And this is how we begin our Salat. We begin our Salat in this standing posture. And what is this symbolic of? Spiritual balance. Spiritual balance.
And we go from that, and we put our hands on our knees, bending over in Ruku'. We put our hands on our knees and hold ourselves by our knees, right? You used to walk on those didn't you, but you don't, you didn't call it walking, you called it crawling. So, you go back and put your hands on your crawlers in Ruku'. And you come back out of it and you praise G-d, Sami' Allahu Liman Hamidah Rabana Lakal Hamd. Yes, Allahu Akbar, G-d is greater.
This is a picture of, not only the evolution of one person, but it is a picture of the evolution of man. That's what we are getting from G-d, through His wonderful prayer mode. We are getting a picture of the evolution of man.
Now I went back and I touched my knees. I returned to my infancy or to my, yes, my infancy where I was crawling. Yes. Because a toddler is expected to takes some steps. When you're crawling you're still an infant, right? Yes. Okay. Then you rise up and you go all the way down into Sajdah. And before G-d taught anybody with sound, G-d taught with signs. And that's why He said there's signs in the Heavens and the earth, and as well as in you. Signs everywhere. Ayahs saying what we call a verse of Qur'an. Same word that means a verse...
Ambulance ...That's an emergency vehicle. If you don't have an emergency, always respect those vehicles. Emergency vehicles. Yes. Yes, so all of these are signs, signs, signs, and sign is called in the Qur'an, Ayah. Every verse of Qur'an is a sign. Huh? It's called sign, Ayah. Ayat, the plural, signs. And G-d asks "What sign will they accept"? Huh? Yes, and what sign will they accept? Many signs. So I returned to what I said. The first teaching was not audibly, was not with sound. The first teaching was silent teaching. With figures, objects, pictures that your eyes saw. And your mind wants to think about, it wants to perceive, look how beautiful. Maybe you were attracted to its beauty. Then maybe you were attracted to its mystery, "Oh, how mysterious this is". The intellect loves mystery. The intellect loves beauty. And the intellect loves simplicity. Isn't that some intellect?
The human mind, it loves beauty, it loves mystery, it loves that that challenges it. Hard to figure out. It loves the complex. It loves the perplexing. It loves that that challenges it, make it so difficult. What is this? How is a test to be made out of this? The mind loves to indulge this. But the mind also loves beauty and the mind loves simplicity. That's why, when you look at the sky on a clear night, your mind feels so good. In fact, it reaches you all down deep in your soul and makes you feel so good inside. That's because it's so simple.
It seems to be so orderly, nothing is confusing there. But after a while, you begin to wonder, how is this simple looking picture, managing to stay there like that? It appears that way every night. I've been watching it for 40 years. How does it? So, after a while, the intellectual will be turned on to try to solve, to answer the question, how is it maintained like that? And that will take him into the mystery of it, huh? Then it becomes a mystery. Even the sky will become a mystery then. But the child that looks at the sky, it's no mystery to the child. It's a mystery to the deep thinker. It's simple for the child. It's just a simple picture of beauty. A simple, beautiful picture. So peaceful and nice.
Every creature knows its mode of prayer. So, we are created to evolve. We evolve from our knees to standing erect without effort, seemingly without any effort. The same way the individual evolved, so the community of man evolved, our civilization. Civilization evolved the same way. Not to stand up with the body, but to stand up with your thinking.
Try to stand up with your thinking, your thinking falls down. Your thinking nods, your thinking goes to sleep, your thinking collapses. But eventually man finds some logic to live by. He finds an ideology, he finds a concept of community life, he finds a concept of how the community life should be governed, or ruled. And finally, he can be comfortable standing up in his thinking.
And G-d says He made man what? Thakr. A thinker, made man a thinker. And He wants us to stand up in our thinking. But we need His help. So He takes us back from this posture that we are so comfortable in, but it's a miracle, it's a miraculous speech, it's done by nature that G-d gave us. And a baby knows it's a miracle achieved, every child that you see stands for the first time, look at the expression on that baby's face when it managed to stand and not fall. Oh, that expression tells you something about that child. That child say, "Wow." Not with his mouth, but with his expression. "Wow, I did it." And it may be shaking and nervous, but the instance that it gets that comfortable balance, that expression says, "Wow, I did it." And then look at you, hey, if you can, why are you not applauding?
Praise be to Allah. Every creature know its mode of prayer, Allah is saying to us that our mode of prayer is the mode that He created for us. It's the mode that He created us for. And it's not just these rituals that you're doing, it's not just these things you're doing, but it starts with this. It starts with this, you in the balance and it starts with this. Okay. You want to think? Okay. Give it full attention, not half attention. Give it full attention.
Give it full attention. Because if you don't, your thinking will not be able to hold you up like your nature. If you don't give your full attention to your origin, Ka'aba, Qibla, symbolic of our origin as a community. Our origin as a community is in that sign called Ka'aba and Qibla. Qibla meaning, before. And Allah says it is most ancient of the houses made for the worship of G-d. And it is Ahl al-Bayt, it is the first of the houses made for the worship of G-d. So, you are looking at the first house, made for the worship of G-d. And it's a house. What that mean? It mean that you were there, that was your home. So, actually we are turning toward our first home aren't we?
Yes, Ahl al-Bayt, the first home. Bayt also means home in Arabic, not house, means home, bayti is my home. If I say bayti, it means my home. So, G-d says that house, it says Ahl al-Bayt, the first of the house but actually it means also first home. So, the first home for man is his home with humanity, with all men. That Qibla is a sign of the unity of all people. It is equally the home of white, black, yellow, red. It is equally all of our home. It is all of our homes equally. Your home is not your home more than it is mine, it's not my home more than it is yours. This is our home equally. And this is directing us in our prayer, isn't it? We have to turn towards Qibla first. You're facing Qibla and you're facing me, the one who's giving the Khutbah and the Qibla is in front of you too.
Praise be to Allah. You have to think, don't just exist, think. Allah says He made us "Thakr Al Unta", thinkers. He made us male and females. And Thakr means thinkers. Oh, He didn't make the females to think? Yes. He said to them "And the thinking men and the thinking women". Yes, they have that function too. But we are identified as the thinker.
All right. Praise be to Allah. Wonderful. We are the thinker brother, and you should be a thinker. You should think your way out of poverty. You should think your way out of crime. You should think your way out of ignorance. Because you a thinker. And thinking is a key, it'll unlock any door if you keep working at it. Just don't give up. Be patient. Don't give up, it'll unlock any lock. And our life is filled with locks, problems, right? Filled with locks, problems. But don't give up thinking, keep working your key, you unlock those locks. Don't depend on too much from the Imam.
Imam is mostly sign. And most of that talk misleads. Yes. Most of the talk of the Imam misleads. Don't got you, right? And I think it's because the world is so much of a problem for the Imam, that he is entangled. The world has entangled him. And he can't even handle the world anymore. And he's trying to handle the world for you. And really he can't handle the world for himself. So, he makes a mess of our lives. Most Imams make nothing but a mess of our lives. They're not helping us. To to help us, they have to help us with our natural life. Don't help me go to sleep on dhikrs.
Don't help me go to sleep in sajdah. I go into sajdah and rise up again, better than I was before. I make sajdah. But if I'm going to put my head down for you and rise up worse than I was before, I'd rather not make sajdah, leave me standing,
Praise be to Allah. Dear believers. G-d wants us to know that the religions before Islam lost the way. And they went from Creator to something else, to shirk. They went from Creator to shirk. Shirk means false belief, wrong belief in G-d. They went from Creator to Shirk. And Allah is telling us that creation that G-d made obeys G-d. And if you just obey the laws that He created for you, you will be in good condition. Muhammad, the Prophet was in good condition when G-d chose him to be Muhammad, the Prophet, the Messenger of G-d. He was in good condition. And he had not gotten revelation. He was not belonging to a church or synagogue. He was not following any religion. And he was in good condition. Why? Because his life was in the mold of behavior that G-d created for it.
He was in that mold of behavior that G-d created for it. He wouldn't go against his better nature. He wouldn't go against his better moral nature. He wouldn't go against his better rational mind or rational nature. He wouldn't go against it. He would always follow the best of himself. And in doing that, he became the best. He became the perfect human being that G-d wants. And G-d says, "He's already lived among you a lifetime".
And the lifetime is a lifetime of the natural man. Meaning as a natural man, he lived among you his whole lifetime as a natural man. And you didn't find fault in him. Before I called him, you had not found fault in him. The society of Muhammad called him the truthful. The society of Muhammad called him the trustworthy. And isn't that what it takes to make a society work for everybody. Trustworthiness. Somebody has to be trustworthy. Find one man or woman that's trustworthy. Then that one can be our leader and we can have the whole society beautiful and wonderful. But you can't have it until you at least have one person trustworthy. So, actually the condition for bettering the Arab people and the whole world was already there in Muhammad as an obedient man to the mold of worship, our behavior that G-d created him in and for.
Philosophical, but plain sense too. Praise be to Allah
Now we make sajdah... Look, you've seen pictures of the womb. Science had to show it to us. We didn't know. All we know has been the baby's born, comes head first if it comes right. Comes head first, if it comes right, it comes head first and the head is down, right? The head is down and we take the baby out and the baby got its head down in sajdah. So actually its birth into the world is a birth from the position of sajdah.
Now do you think these signs are existing with no connection to what G-d revealed before, or what the great teachers taught before in the path of religion? I'll tell you, they have connection. And if they don't have connection, it's not revealed. G-d didn't give it. If there is no connection. G-d didn't give it. They have connection. And what did the teacher, the righteous teacher say to the rich man in the Bible? He said, you have to be born again. Isn't that what he told him? Nicodemus, you have to be born again. And Nicodemus said, "How can I go back into my mother"? And the answer was not; he wasn't helped.
He should think. He thought about money long enough to get it. So, he was given all the help he needed. You have to be born again. Now you wise enough to make money. You should be wise enough to figure out how you're going to be born again. Praise be to Allah. Wonderful. No knowledge is more beautiful and more rewarding in terms of the pleasure you get from pursuing it and seeing how it evolves and how it weaves itself into a beautiful pattern. Witnessing that is the greatest pleasure I know. And that's the path to G-d. That's why it's so pleasureful. Pleasant. Because it is the path to G-d. And how do we know that? Muhammad, the Prophet says, "Whoever goes out on a path seeking knowledge for good purposes, he goes and enters the path of G-d". He goes out on the path of G-d. Praise be to Allah.
Every creature knows his mode prayer. So now we have seen the sign showing us that we went from a standing man and we return to the posture of a baby in the womb of his mother. Sajdah. Science shows it to you. Now you can go look at the anatomy. You can go to Science and Industry Museum, or a good encyclopedia, maybe a big dictionary. You can see the baby in the womb and how, when it reaches that nine months, eight or nine months, it's making sajdah. Bent over just like we are. Pictures of the baby in the womb show exactly what we do on the floor. Sajdah. That's the picture. So the question is asked in the Scriptures that came before. How am I going to be reborn? Can I go back into my mother's womb? And then you're told, "Make sajdah". Make sajdah. From your evolved position, standing position, go down to the knees and accept that at one time you couldn't stand on two. You had to go on four, like an animal. That's submitting, isn't it? That's submitting. That's true submission. See, just to say, I submit, that's just a statement.
But if you recall that you once didn't have the ability to stand up like this, and you were crawling around on fours, like an animal. And then you recall still further that once your head was resting upon the creation of G-d and you had no ability to handle it yourself. Some of you can get all of this. That is wonderful. Your head was resting on the creation of G-d, like we rest our forehead on the ground in sajdah. You ain't holding it up. Allah's Earth is holding it up. You're resting it on Allah's Earth.
So, you are being reconciled again with the original order of things created by G-d. Reconcile means you are brought back into working order and agreement with the things that Allah made for you to work with or to be involved with. That's what it means. You're going back, accepting that G-d created this world so that G-d can rest my mind. G-d can rest my thoughts. G-d can rest my head, but I must rest it on what He did. He made the earth to give birth to me and out of the earth, you will be brought forth.
Praise be to Allah. And after we come up from sajdah, we don't finish our prayer standing. We finish our prayer sitting. And we know Kings sit and rulers sit. And what they sit upon is called the throne. Yes. So, it's not a sign of what individuals can do or what is expected of individuals, per say. It's a sign of what man can do if he returns to G-d, not individually, but what man can do if he sincerely returns to G-d. He can go back and recall his evolution, the history of his rise. And he can make the proper connections, the true connections and realize again, if he forgot that G-d made all this possible for him and its G-d, that will make other possibilities for him. So that he can continue to evolve or continue to make progress. As a conscious, rational, moral society. Society. It's not a picture of man alone. It's a picture of man as a pattern for the whole society. You're listening? Not a picture of man alone, but a picture of man as a pattern for the whole society. Praise be to Allah. And this is in Scripture.
All that I'm saying to you is in Scripture. I'm not saying anything outside of Scripture. Mr. Fard said, "Islam is mathematics and mathematics is Islam". And we can prove it in no limit of time. Well, that's a little tricky there. I say to you that what I'm saying to you is in Scripture and I can prove it to you in a limit of time. No limit means you may have to give a man forever. I say I will do it in a limited time. Praise be to Allah. Every creature knows his mode of prayer.
IWDM:
Let's make connection with Scripture that came before. Jesus is supposed to have said to his disciples, "I leave you this prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, give us this day our daily bread. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That's the prayer. Give us this day our daily bread. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven".
IWDM:
Can't you see that that's what Muhammad is teaching us, that he's given us the understanding of all that. In fact, he's given us a tafsir on their knowledge. It's a commentary. It's a tafsir on their knowledge. Give us this day our daily bread. Can I be born again? How can I go back into my mother? It's answered in Islam. Give us this day our daily bread. It's answered in Islam. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. Thy will be done. InshaAllah. Thy will be done. MashaAllah. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. On earth as it is in heaven. When we look into heavens, we don't see confusion. We see order. We see obedience to laws. And we see peace. That appears to be peace in the heavens. Peace. Give us a kingdom down here like that one up there. It was asked for by a man that was leaving them. He was leaving. He was going away, but he made that prayer and left that prayer with them.
IWDM:
Now, where is the answer? I repeat the answer is Islam. In Islam. The Christians that followed Christianity or followed what they believed to be the teachers of Christ, the teaching of Jesus Christ, peace be upon him. They did not know how to establish themselves in the world. They saw themselves as unwanted in the world, in the world, mostly unwanted. They saw themselves as strangers in the world. And they were persecuted. And they were told that they would be persecuted. It was said "Render unto Caesar what is Caesars'; And to G-d what is G-ds."
IWDM:
So they accepted a divided world, didn't they? But they accepted that those who had the other part of it were the boss, were the bosses. Render unto Caesar, what is Caesars'. What is that? Your money, your taxes, the money he asks for, out of your earnings. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto G-d what is G-d's. Islam came and reconciled the two. No, the world belongs to G-d. "Al Ardu Masjidullah". The Earth is the mosque of G-d or the masjid of G-d. This is Allah in the Qur'an. So this is not Caesars. This is Allah's mosque. What you're feeding on and exploring and using to make your money is Allah's mosque. This money belongs to Allah's mosque. Nothing belongs to Caesar. It belongs to Allah's mosque. So, see how G-d comes back and takes back what the world steals from His devoted servants, takes it back from the world and gives it to His devoted servants, and in such a powerful way.
Everything Caesar was claiming now is Allah's. You see how come the followers of Prophet Muhammad were successful.
You see how come the followers of Prophet Muhammad were so successful? That in a matter of 20 years, they were the leaders in the world? 20-some years they did. Yeah. A matter of 20 years or more, they were the leaders of the world. Miraculous accomplishment. Because they were educated. I started off by saying, what I said, I said, "G-d doesn't need us to feed him." Let's make a connection with scripture. It is said in the Gospel that Jesus complained that he was hungry and nobody fed him. So what is the statement saying of Allah that he needs no one to feed him? What is He saying? "That wasn't me." That's what G-d is saying. "That wasn't Me that said nobody fed him. That wasn't me."
If you can't make connections, you can't have light. When you're thinking, you have to make connections and they have to be correct connections. And then the light comes on. Like when you plug the plug in, you plug in that light, you twist it around, man, and turn it back around, it ain't going to give you no light. You have to put it in the way it's supposed to go. You stick it in your pocket or in the water faucet, you ain't going to get no light. You have to put it where it's supposed to go and then you'll get some light. Praise be to Allah.
You all don't have jobs to do, don't you? You don't busy yourselves doing anything. 80% that I'm looking at are just idle. I ought to keep you here until the sun goes down. At least you would've done something, if nothing but listen to me. I know what you'll say: "Well, I'll get up and leave". You will only get up and leave if Allah permits you to get up. You cannot get up and leave on your own. Allah will have to permit you to get up and leave. Nothing happens except that Allah permits it. G-d permits it.
Okay. So, let's look now at this eating. Is it just physical eating? Like we eat a piece of fruit or the fig that he says, "Curse the fig tree, it has no food on it for me. I'm hungry." It took Allah's help to me in the Qur'an to make me appreciate the Bible. Because I thought it was an insane book. As a young minister for The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, I said, "This is a book for the insane." That's what I did, really. Because I read it. A man come up to a fig tree and just because it had no figs, he cursed it. Ought to feel sorry for it.
You ought to give it some more fertilizer or plow the ground around it or put some water on it. Find out how come they doesn't have any figs; how come it's not bearing figs. But curse it? I think that's a maniac. "Oh, fig tree, I'm hungry. You have no figs. Curse be on you, that you wither up and bear no fruit ever again." That's a selfish maniac. That fig tree should come up in the Judgment and say, "That disciple of yours? He's mad, G-d. G-d, he's a madman."
But now that I understand it, it's beautiful. G-d blessed me to understand it. The keys are in the Qur'an to unlock the Bible. G-d blessed me to find the keys in the Qur'an and I unlocked it. But I had to keep thinking, keep turning, and I had to be patient. Finally unlocked. So now I know what the fig tree is. It's not the fig tree that produce the figs that you buy in Jewel's. Maybe jewels, but jewels like fine things that you wear. But not that Jewel's, not that store. Yes. And not that fig tree. It's the fig tree of your thinking mind. It's the fig tree of your thinking mind.
But is it right to curse it? No. This wasn't Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ never did that. The Bible says he did that, but Jesus Christ never did that silly thing. Even in the true meaning, it's still wrong to curse it. Do we have a connection in the Surah? Muhammad said, "G-d did not send him to curse people." That's saying that that's incorrect; to think that Prophets came to curse people. So, he did not send me to curse anybody with curses. No.
Now, we still have a connection in English with figs. With this kind of thinking for the fig tree. This kind of meaning of fig tree. It is a figment of your imagination; fig-ment. "Oh, that's a figment of your imagination." Meaning you have no education to support that. You have no science to support that. You have nobody else with authority that we respect to support that. That's only a figment of your imagination. You thought that up. That's what you envisioned. That's what you pictured in your own mind, without anything to support it from what we know as supports for logic, our supports for rational thinking. "Oh, that's just a figment of your imagination." So, we still use it, don't we?
So, what does it mean, then? Let us let the language help us understand what it means. Because Adam's language is still here. Adam's dead, but his language is still here. So, you still have "figment" from Adam. The meaning from Adam, from the first man, is still here. It may not be in the church. May not be in the masjid. But it's still in language. In some languages. It's in the English language. It is a figment of your imagination. So, Adam's descendants, or by some way, the meaning has stayed with us. Either Adam kept it or his descendants have kept it. The descendants following the language of Adam have kept this meaning for us. It is a figment of your imagination.
All right. So, what does it mean? It means that's what you arrived at by thinking on your own with no guidance from science or no guidance from learned people that we respect. So, it's just natural activity of the mind that has the power to imagine and think and come up with something. Right? Imagination. But should it be cursed? No. Should say, "Cursed be the fig tree because it bears no fruit"? Sometimes it doesn't bear fruit, but it doesn't mean that it's bad. Doesn't mean that it's worthless and we should curse it. "By the fig and the olive and Mount Sinai, surely man has been created in the most excellent of molds." So, they had a fig... The fig is given its honor back. With the revelation given to Muhammad, the fig is given its honor back.
And we know in science, in the scientific world, especially in the commercial world right now, the workers are sometimes aided by soft music, heavenly music, that's playing quietly as they're working. And what is it given to them for? To help relax their natural mind so that the original creativity can work. So that the fig can work. The fig. Symbolically the fig in man's intellectual ability. Or in his thinking ability, the fig can work so he can be more imaginative and more creative. So, science and commercial world recognize that you shouldn't curse the fig and throw it away. I hope you're following me. Some of you still got your hospital bands on. I got something for you too. And it's, I love you. I love you so much that I hope that you get some of this too. Praise be to Allah.
The question was asked to Muhammad, Peace be upon him, "What is the better Islam?" Now, mind you, a person asking a question like this is coming from a hidden position. He's coming from a position that's hidden. He's not coming straight. He's not coming out in the open. "What is the better Islam?" Prophet Muhammad, wise and perfect man for G-d, he didn't say what I would've said. I would've said... I'm a little dumb, now; I'm not quite... I'm not that wise. I'm not perfect. I would've said, "What the hell you mean? What is the better Islam?' There's only one Islam." But Prophet Muhammad answered him. He said, "To feed the hungry." "To feed the hungry." Praise be to Allah.
And he added something else. But my focus is on hunger. Talking about hunger. I began with G-d needs nothing, nobody to feed him. We hunger. G-d doesn't hunger. All right. So, he said to feed the hungry. Now, it begins with what you know and understand. It begins with what the ordinary people know and understand. So, answering this man before others who were uneducated, unlearned in scripture, et cetera, he didn't harm anybody. Muhammad didn't harm anybody. He helped everybody when he answered that man. I might have harmed somebody, the way I'd have... I'd say, "What the hell you mean? 'What is better Islam?' There's only one Islam. What are you coming here for?" I would've disturbed the peace. But Muhammad kept the peace, kept everybody comfortable and peaceful. He said the better... No. He just told him to feed the hungry. He said, "What is the better Islam?" Muhammad said, "To feed the hungry."
And I said... Let us start with the first answer to the question. The first level of meaning that everybody can grasp. I didn't eat today. I don't have a job. Nobody gave me any money. I don't have a home to go to and get food. I'm hungry. So, somebody need to feed that hungry person. And the government of America, it has food for that hungry person. And most governments now have food for the hungry. And we still have a lot of hungry people, but there is... You can go to the government and get food and go to churches and get food. And come to some Imams and get food. You can. I know Imam... I know several. But I know one, in Villa Park. If he really believes you're hungry and you went to Villa Park and told him you're hungry, he would take you and get you some food. He'd feed you. And you'll be fed. And I do believe our Imams will do the same thing. If they believe you. Yeah. But if you come in for some shiest, then that's different. Yes. So that's the first level of understanding.
Now let's go to the scriptural level of understanding... in the Bible. Let's start with the Bible. Because the Qur'an has to continue G-d's revelation wherever it left off. If it left off with Jesus Christ, Muhammad has to take it from there and continue it, to take it home. Okay. So, in the Bible, it says "Bread is the doctrine". Doctrine. And it says blood or wine... "That wine is the spirit of the New Testament". Or the spirit of the doctrine. The spirit of the New Testament, wine. So, here's a new meaning now for eating and drinking. The Bible has introduced to us a new meaning for eating and drinking. We eat bread physically, but it's a sign of us eating or digesting, mentally. Food for thought. See, everything is here; it ain't going nowhere. "Oh, that's food for thought." So, the scripture raises us up from the concrete level to the interpretive level of interpretation or transformation of these meaning... The words are turned.
And we are taught by the gospel that bread means doctrine and doctrine means teaching. Do you know that? If you don't, then you've learned it today, please. Especially if you want to be an Imam. You better learn something if you want be an Imam. Doctrine means teaching. So, we digest the teaching, digest it mentally. It is food for thoughts. And we eat it with our mental graspers. We eat it and we digest it. Put it into our mental makeup, where it helps maintain the structure of our minds like physical food maintain the structure of the body. Right?
But we also thirst. We need to drink. And the Bible says that the liquid or the blood or the wine... which is that wine is nothing but another picture of the blood... Is the spirit of the New Testament. The spirit of the New Testament. And it says that you should follow scripture in letter and in spirit. Not just in letter and not just in spirit, but it in letter and in spirit. If you follow it that way, you're not going to be a dumb follower. Because you're going to be following it as a student of it. And "letter" means as a student of it, the doctrine. As students studying the teaching or learning the teaching; the doctrine. And you're going to follow it in spirit. In fact, you need the teaching to improve your spirit. The spirit without enough teaching is not such a good spirit. Maybe your innocent spirit, but your spirit can become much more stronger, much more powerful, if you become better educated in the doctrine or in the teaching.
Look how we were introduced to become Muslims. We were all called students in the early years of the Nation of Islam. Every member of the Nation of Islam was called a student. And when you came in, you got a student enrollment. What they gave you to answer for questions was called student enrollment. And you couldn't even get in until you passed that. The student enrollment. So every member was called student. And the man that we came to call a G-d, I a G-d, under The Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Mr. Fard, W. Fard Muhammad, W.D. Fard, he conversed with us as a teacher with students. "Say Harry, your teacher is waiting for you to complete your assignment". Everybody's a student. This is a wonderful man that came to put our eyes back on important things in religion. That religion is not just feeling good and shouting and carrying on.
G-d wants your mind helped. And he called us the mentally dead. He didn't say physically dead. He's says, "Forget about the physically dead. No help for them." That's what he said. And I know I can't help them. There ain't nothing I can do for them. Maybe cut some weeds away from around the grave site and put some flowers up there or something. And I hope they knew I did it, but I don't know if they knew I did it or not. So, he said the mentally dead. The mentally dead. He made religion all about helping the mentally dead. And he called himself a teacher and called all of us students.
Isn't that coming in the picture of the Christ in the New Testament who comes as a teacher and tells the people: "My body is really doctrine. Don't look to me as a person. Don't see me in human form. See me in the form of teaching." That's exactly what the man is saying. But they deviated, they went astray. He said, "Don't look at me as a human person with this physical body. Look at me as a body of knowledge. My body that I want you to see is the doctrine. And the life of this body is not the blood of animals that's flowing in the veins of flesh of the animal world. The blood in this body that I'm offering to you, that I'm showing you, is the spirit of my message. The spirit of my message." His message was the gospel, called the gospel, or Injil in Islam. The New Testament. The spirit of the New Testament. The spirit of the gospel.
Now, if I didn't know Islam, seeing this understanding of Christianity, G-d knows I'd be a Christian. I would. If I hadn't been guided by the Qur'an first to see what's in the Bible. And if I had come to see this led by the hand of a priest or something in Christianity, I would become a Christian. Because it's so beautiful. It makes sense, it's beautiful when interpreted. It's beautiful when seen correctly. But it was insane the way I was looking at it. And that's what I called it. I called it a book of insanity for insane people. And if I didn't have that knowledge I have now, I would still be calling it the book of insanity for the insane people. I would still be calling it that. Because just looking at it without understanding, it's a crazy book. I have to say, it is a crazy book.
The first thing I couldn't understand is why G-d, a loving G-d, who's supposed to have the power to do whatever He wants to do, why would He take an innocent son? If He could make one, why would He take an innocent son and have that son suffer like the Christian world say he suffered for sinners? To me, that was insane. And it became more insane when I followed the logic that they give.
Now, this ain't really His son. This is Him. Well, He's suicidal. He's suicidal. Now it become more insane. This is Him, he's suicidal. He looked at the world and said, "Oh, I regret that I had done this." That's what it said. It repented Him that He has done it. And look at His work. That's His work. And He says, "Repented Me that I did this. I regret that I did this. Now I'm going to go in and commit suicide for them and let them know that I've committed suicide for them to get them back home." As a student, a young student in my late teens and early twenties, I said "That's a madman. That is insane. This is a picture of a madman". Can't you see that Satan has had a hand in forming the language of religion for this world?
And I've received a message from Rabita. From our old friend who is a Secretary-General of Rabita now... I think he got demoted because he was a minister. He was a minister of... He had a big job before. I don't think as big as Rabita, but maybe Rabita's the more urgent need and they put him there. Great man; great, great ability and resources. They put him there as the Secretary-General of Rabita and I got a message from him saying that the Jews are translating the Qur'an and they are making a message out of it. And says, it's not the first time that it's been done in history. They have done it before. And it's a need for the Muslim world to make Qur'ans available to Jews. So, they're going to be producing Qur'an to distribute them among Jews and Christians, because these Jews and Christians are going to read most likely this new translation by the Jewish people. Jewish so-called scholars of scripture translating the Qur'an.
So, it's always we are having problems, but don't worry about it. I wouldn't worry about it. Doesn't disturb me. It irks me a little bit, but the discomfort is gone. They cannot succeed. No. In fact, they are only going to help people wake up to real Islam. Yeah. It's going to backfire on them. Praise be to Allah.
So, I want to conclude this with the last reference that I made, and that is a reference to eating, not physical food, but eating, meaning digesting, feeding mentally on knowledge, proper knowledge, and digesting it to build the body of knowledge for yourself. Like you have a physical body for yourself. So, I want to conclude it with that.
And, now when we look at what Muhammad said, "What is the better Islam? He said, "To feed the hungry." You got it? Now you got it. He said to feed the hungry, and that's what he was all about. From the beginning of his mission, he was about having literacy raised. Having all those who couldn't read, learn to read. Had to learn to read and write. Learn to read and write. And that message of Islam is, read. The message of the Qur'an is, read. Read in the Name of your Lord who created, read. That's the message of Qur'an. The name of the Qur'an is Al-Qur'an, meaning that which is for reading and reciting. Qur'an means, that which is given for you to read and recite, the Qur'an.
The State of Illinois, I'm proud of it as a citizen of Illinois, but I'm also proud of it as a human being with good senses. The state of Illinois has had a wonderful campaign, to raise the level of literacy in the state of Illinois, for many years now. I went on a walk with the State of Illinois, once. Yes, the brother right here, we were together in the walk, sitting right here before me now. Yeah.
You youngsters, you youngsters, you youngsters, you girls, that didn't look like dhikrs you were bowing to. You should say "Audhu Bilahi Mina Shaitan Ar Rajim", to keep the Devil... the rejected Satan from playing piano on your nerve cord. Don't let Satan use your nerve cord for guitar, okay, and take your mind away from G-d and you lose your life. And you have misery and hell in the future. Be careful.
Yes. So, we return to the right meaning now. It's not just physical eating, that's another thing that made me think this religion is for savages and the insane. Because they said, "Well, we're eating this bread, and the bread is his flesh. And we're drinking this wine, the wine is his blood." I said, "That's what cannibals do." Cannibals eat human flesh, and drink blood. Savages and cannibals. I mean, this is a horrible religion.
But how well a beautiful thing is protected, and disguised, so it will survive a savage cannibal era, in the history of man. There were cannibals, savages, who loved to shed blood. Made shedding blood a sport. Caesar made it a sport, feeding people to lions, et cetera.
Now, to get the religion to come past that kind of ruling order, it had to be put in pictures that they liked. This was a trick. It was a trick to get them to think that, "Yes, we're like you. We think like you do." And they were stupid enough to buy it. Until the Christians began to make trouble for them, and then they start feeding Christians to the lions. But they still didn't... in fact, I think maybe it happened the reverse way. The Christians were sincere and they fed them to the lions, and then the teachings were disguised with the approval of their king, and then they didn't have to kill them anymore. This is suitable. This is our language.
Yeah. It's good to understand what has happened to bring us to where we are today. The world, the way it is today. Praise be to Allah. Again, it was Mr Fard, teaching my father, who called this the wilderness. And the civilized world that we were admiring, and fearing, and worshiping, he called it the caveman's world. The caveman's world. Made a powerful satire on Western civilization, and their greatness. And he's right, great in one respect, but nothing but a pagan, a savage and a cannibal, in another side of their life. In one side of life, beautiful and excellent. Other side of their life, a pagan, a cannibal, a savage.
And believe me, Mr Fard, did as much for the white world, and maybe more, as he did for us. Maybe he did more for the white world than he did for us, because he caused them to think... And don't think they didn't look at it. I'm not talking about the fools, I'm talking about the ones who are responsible for protecting the life of America. Life of this government, and the future of this government. That's what I'm talking about, I'm talking about those people. The FBI confiscated his writings, and they studied them. They interrogated my father, kept him up at night in the prison. They kept him up at night. Wouldn't let him sleep, drilling him, and asking him questions, thinking that he had some knowledge that he didn't have, that would help them understand what Mr Fard did.
But my father didn't have it. Only thing he had, is what he had. what they caught him with is all he had. So, they was drilling him, trying to find something else. There was nothing else. So, you got a connection with Japan. It was during the World War with Japan. During the World War II, with Japan. Yeah, you have a connection with Japan, and they tried to intimidate him. They tried everything. They tried to charge him with treason and sedition, it didn't work. They tried to charge him with trying to subvert the order of this government, subversive activity. They couldn't do it. So, they got him on a charge, contributing to the delinquence of a minor. See how devilish they are? How sneaky they are? They know that when a ignorant people, that can't hardly read a newspaper. When they hear that this Muslim leader was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, they going to think he was doing something sexual there. That he was doing something perverted with youngsters.
But it only meant that he was keeping them out of public school, because he insisted that they should go to our school, Muslim School. So that's what they got him on. They convicted him on, failing to obey the draft law and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Meaning, he kept his child out of their school. That's what it meant. Thank our Allah those days are gone. And The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Mr. Fard, and all of those including myself who followed them, we have paid a price, and victory is here. We paid a price, and victory is here. Praise be to Allah.
So, I hope you have digested what I've given you. And I hope that it will make you stronger in your faith. If you digested it properly. If you saw it correctly, and took it correctly, you are stronger now in your faith than you were before. I don't care how strong it was before, you stronger now. And also you are in a better position to do more constructive things with your own personal life. And also with the world.
Islam comes to free our mind to serve our G-d, the Creator of everything. In this creation... to serve Him through creation, and through man's world. Man's service to man's world. And Islam comes to free our spirit. So, our spirit will be free. See, the spirit can't be free if the mind is not free. You free the mind, and then the spirit can be free. Yeah. That is no different from what the gospel said that Jesus did. Jesus gave sight to the blind man. But how did he make the blind man see? He took mud, dirt, and he put spit in the dirt, out of his mouth and he made it mud. And he pasted it over the blind man's eye. And when it was washed away, the blind man said straight away, "I could see," he said.
It's symbolic. It's a metaphor. It means that he took a certain teaching and he gave it to one who was mentally blind, not physically blind. He took a certain composition of knowledge, aided by the spirit in his own voice, and preaching. Because spit symbolic of the spirit of his own language and preaching. And he mixed it with the material earth, material reality, and he made it mud. A composition of knowledge, symbolized as dirt and spit. And he fed it to the man's mental vision, and the man's eyes opened up and he could see. Praise be to Allah.
So, Islam is not superstition. Islam is Al-Haqq, the truth, the reality. It's not superstition. So, get around that stuff, and those miracles, okay. Let people believe in those things. "Oh he took some mud and he put it on a blind man." Because you want to believe it happened that way. Good. Maybe it did. I don't know. Maybe it did happen that way. But now I know a better way it can happen. That means much more. I'd rather be physically blind, and turn the light on in my head, man. I mean, I don't mind being physically blind, if you turn the light on in my head. But if I had a choice, I'm going to be seeing physically, but be blind here. Take these eyes buddy, and give me a eye in here so I can see mentally.
So, the better Islam, is the Islam that teaches the poor, who want knowledge. The poor and uneducated that want knowledge. The better Islam is to teach them. Don't leave them ignorant. Educate them. And as you educate them, they become more responsible for their own life. And they become better contributors to the life of society. As the Christians say, "It's better to teach a man how to fish, than to give him a fish.
So let us see the light, and not love the darkness. Don't love the darkness. See the light and stop loving the darkness. And its darkness just to want religion so you feel good. Just to want religion to shout and sing. Sing and have a good feeling. Let it all hang out. Cry, laugh and moan, and shout. Go back home to the same old house. Same old problem. Same old life, and wait for the next Sunday, or next Wednesday night or something, and go and have a blowout again. It's like doing the two-step.
You don't need but this space, you ain't going nowhere. You're not going any place, because every time you take one step up, you got to take one back. You can't even back up and make progress. Because every time you take one back, you got to take one forward. So, it's to hold you in place. Two-step.
The world is open to us now. America is no more a hostile country for African Americans, or for blacks. It's open. Let us wake up and take advantage of it. We can't do it, if we going to have religion as superstition, have religion that's fun. Religion, Allah says, "Do you think He was at play when He created the heavens on earth"? You think He was playing when He made the stars and sky, and the earth, and everything? "No, He wasn't playing. Why you playing?"
Why do you think in the metaphysical schools and all that... Why do you take your religion to be a play game? That's not religion. You're playing games. That's what our Lord said to the metaphysical world. You're playing games. You have all these clubs. Supposed to have all this science, and you play games with the knowledge. It's not for playing games. It should be for educating the ignorant. "Oh, they'll give a donation to a school, to a college." But their thrill is playing games.
That's their biggest thrill, just playing games. And some of you all are the same way. You come into a little knowledge, it fascinates you, and you spend all your time trying to show how much you got out of it, or how much you can get out of it. Instead of getting the message... The message is, get out of the entanglement of language, and get out there and plow the earth, and grow corn, and rice, and sell it to the market. And raise some animals that are halal, so we can eat. And build some homes, so you have pride in your own community. Pave some streets, make a town. Inherit, inherit, inherit your position that the community gave you. That's the message. We are not unlocking this language for you to be fascinated by the game of unlocking it. If you do that, you following the Devil. You following the Satan. That's what he wants you to do. He wants to tie you up with that fascination, so you do nothing in the world. Leave the world to him.
So, let's come away from that, busy yourself in the world. You're supposed to be free mentally, so you can do something with this real world. Not go and look for more... mind boggling, or mind locking-up terminology. Oh, let me see. I think I was going to look at the book of Isaiah again. But you're not going to look at the book of Isaiah, your eyes are out my buddy. You can't see a thing. If that's what all you want to do, you want go look at the book of Isaiah? You better go look at the book of labor, industry, and higher education.
Because with your mind locked up, like it was locked up before The Nation of Islam helped us, you couldn't appreciate that. You couldn't go in those directions. You were frightened. You were intimidated by this man's progress. It was too much for you. You didn't think you could manage it. But with the new understanding that you are given, you feel that you can manage this world of white man. The world of the white man. Well that's what you should do. Say look, he deceived us. He had us following the wrong light, and following the wrong reality. Superstition. Make believe stuff.
Now Islam come to free my mind, to turn me on to G-d's world of created matter. So, I can inherit what G-d has created for me. A great job in the material realm, in the material reality. Making this material reality, or this material world an accommodation for human souls and spirits. So that they'd be happy, and pleased, and free of the haram, and free of the evil, and prejudices, hatreds, or whatever. They'd be free of that. To enjoy what Allah created for us. That's what we want, heaven on earth. As much as we can have it.
But if you don't have the mental ingenuity, the mental excitement and ingenuity, to do what we are doing, then at least have the mental excitement, and the mental ingenuity to follow us and to do what we asked you to do. There's nobody here that can't contribute to this great work. All of us can make a meaningful contribution to this great work. No matter how uneducated you are, if you still have your sanity, if you're sane, you can make a real contribution to this great work. But you can't do it looking at yourself, looking in the mirror, walking and seeing nobody but you. You got to put this vision of community in front of you, and see that there's somebody doing the work of creating this vision of making this vision known to us.
Started before my time. But now I'm doing it, making this vision of where we should take our whole life as a society, or as a community available to you, understandable by you. So when you see it, then accept to do... If you don't know, you have no initiative of your own, or if you have no plan for your own resources, for your own personal resources within this plan, of ours. Don't plan something outside of this, you're are not with us if you do that. We have a plan for the community, and you going to plan some life or yours outside of this, you're not with us. You are working against us. You're seizing all our production, our fuel, and energy, and resources for production, you seizing them all. And you encourage somebody else to do the same. Don't do that. "Oh he's done his job now. He's given us the Qur'an and the Sunnah. We can read the Qur'an, and follow the Muhammad the Prophet now. That's all we have. Ain't nothing else to do".
This is a community effort. This is a job for people working as a community, not as individuals only. And we have to find our individual future, inside the community vision. That's where you should have your individual future. You should be planning your career inside this vision of our community. You should have a career in our community, and in our vision of what life should be for us. Not outside of it. I hope it's clear to you. And I hope you have it in your heart to do the right thing.
We pray Allah give us guidance always.



