09/03/2000
IWDM Study Library
National Convention Chicago Ill

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
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Speaker: Praise be to Allah. Thank you. Praise be to Allah. Thank you very much. Thank you. Believers, Muslims, all peace be unto you. As we greet in Islam, "As-Salaam-Alaikum."
Audience: Wa-Alaikum-Salaam.
Speaker: This is a great day for us again, having these very special, distinguished guests with us today from the Office of the Grand Mufti, the great Sheikh Ahmed Kuftaro. Really a special blessing to have his son here with us today. Allahu Akbar.
[applause]
It is also a great joy for us, deep in our souls and in our hearts, to have Minister Louis Farrakhan, the honorable leader of the Nation of Islam with us today.
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I'm personally grateful to him for making the efforts he has made to arrive from Africa in time to address us on this occasion.
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We are, as you have been told, we are addressing the community and their guests in many sites around the country. In this area here, we are addressing the Muslim gathering and their guests at the Harvey Center, and also at Kennedy-King College. There are three audiences in this immediate area here, so we thank Allah. We did that because we thought there possibly would be an overflow, if we tried to have everybody here at this one location. I do believe that we would have had an overflow, if we had tried to have everybody here at this location.
We are hopeful, we're always hopeful, we're looking for the biggest results. I was thinking that every place would be filled to capacity, though we still have plenty of seats here. But we thank Allah. Allah rewards us for our good efforts, and what He gives us pleases the believers. I have several things that I would like to bring to your attention before getting into my address. I would like to say that we're very happy to hear that the Prime Minister of Malaysia, the Honorable Dr. Mohamad Mahathir is a guest of the United States. He's in the country and meeting with representatives who have interests in doing trade of business with Malaysia, and we are definitely among them.
We are very happy, again, to have the company and friendship of a great international movement founded by its leader Chiara Lubich. A lady that I believe to be a servant of G-d and an inspired servant of G-d, inspired by G-d. She's not a Muslim, she's Christian, Catholic. I have met her, and she has touched my soul very deeply with her message of Christ's love, and how everyone of us in the world can practice that, and have better families, and better communities, a better life. Christ's love is in Islam as well. Our Prophet Muhammad said, praise and peace be upon him, "You will not enter paradise or the garden of paradise until you have faith, and you will not have faith until you practice loving one another."
We have this in common with these beautiful Christians of the International Focolare Movement. I have found after getting acquainted with them, making very significant visits to Rome, and the Vatican, and being in the audience of the Pope, and returning to the Focolare people, and discussing what had occurred, and how I was affected by it, and listening at their concerns and their preaching of love for one another, and sharing and unity has caused me to see many other things that we have in common with them.
There's a saying in the Bible, well, a statement in the Bible from Jesus Christ, peace be upon him. He said to his disciples, he said, "Wash, W-A-S-H, wash you one another's feet. Wash each other's feet." I take that as a sign, not only to Christians but to all people of faith in the world, as a sign that we are going to have to serve each other, support the cleanliness and the purity of each other. When the time come, that is here now, a time that is making life too much for the old way in order to support.
We live like we did generations ago. We won't be around here. We can't live separate to ourselves, take care of our own small affairs. We have to join the effort of the many, and work together. By doing that, we all can survive, and eventually have the good life that G-d created us for. We welcome Focolare representatives from New York, Mariapolis city, a model city of the Focolare people in New York area. They have many of those models around the world. Sherry and Julian, who are sitting with us, and I believe you've already heard from them. Sherry and Julian, we thank you for your presence.
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We are planning a very big occasion in New York. In fact, we have succeeded with the planning. We're just waiting now for the calendar date, so we can have the event. It will be in Washington, D.C. November 19th? 12th. There's something else November the 19th. I should have the notes here. I don't have this in the notes. November 12, in Washington, D.C. I'm planning to be there with my family, my children. We all plan to be there to witness a very, very timely address, an important address by Chiara Lubich, the founder and leader of the Focolare Movement, and by Iman W. Deen Mohammed. My Imam W. Deen Muhammed will also be addressing you all. The daily papers that we have in these cities of the United States, we didn't expect to find it. We expected to find nothing but either language and news ignoring us, like we didn't exist in the world.
While Muslims have been a major percentage of world population, not just recently, but for a long time. Muslims have been a major part of this world's population. We didn't read about them, it was as though they didn't exist. When we finally started to hear of the Muslim world in the media, television, and the printed media, et cetera, radio, it was mostly negative stuff that misrepresented Muslims and our religion Islam. Time has changed, and is changing. There will always be enemies of Islam. There will always be enemies of Muslims. There will always be enemies of just good people. I don't care what you call yourself. There will always be enemies of good people.
Many think there's no greater threat to their world and what they want than the rise into power or recognition and presence of good people, righteous people, because if good people rise in recognition and power, bad people are going to have less representation in the establishment. And they don't want to lose that. Well, that's something we have to accept. We have to be prepared to meet the opposition, to struggle with our best life, and be victorious. You should believe that you will be victorious if you keep faith in G-d, because G-d says, "Surely, the believers must win. They must be victorious."
Our whole life, will be without any support, our worth, if one thing was taken out of it. That is tawhid, the belief that G-d is one. The belief that G-d is one, and everything has to, one day, conform to His will, what He wants. And the belief that He is the only cause that brought in the existence of the natural order, of heavenly stars, planets, moons, weather, and whatever that is in this earth, the land and whatever it produces that supports us. Without it we could not exist. One G-d is responsible for all of that.
One G-d is responsible for the clothes you got on right now. Those clothes were made with what G-d created. One G-d only is responsible for the transportation you used to get here, because that transportation was taken from what G-d created, et cetera. I can go on. We have nothing, this building, these lights, all of this. One G-d is responsible for us having this, because all of this came out of what He made. The knowledge that the scientist has in his head, and in his books, and in his records, et cetera, it all came out of what G-d created. We would have nothing without G-d providing it for us. Nothing.
Allah says, "Even your emotions." He is the one who gives you laughter and tears. And tears don't always have to be sad, or indicate the sadness, or point to sadness. Tears can be tears of joy, but also sadness. Allah says it the holy book the Quran, His book, He says, "And He gave you your faculties of intelligence, speech, everything, G-d is the giver of that." No two did that. Everyone else who claims to be a g-d, we can go back in their existence, and find them wearing diapers or maybe no diapers, and just dropping little drops all over the ground, on the floor.
Only one G-d, only one G-d is to be given the credit for creation, and what man and woman are able to do with creation. This is tawhid. This is the belief in Islam, called the belief in the oneness, G-d's unity and oneness, and the belief in the oneness of His creation, the unity and oneness of His creation. Science, I'm a student of science. I loved science when I was in elementary school, in high school. I have continued to follow science, and I'll be following science for the rest of my life. I love science. I'm a student of science. Science tells us that the creation, heavenly bodies and all, are one system of one and the same nature.
One system of one and the same nature. The moon is of the same nature as the matter we have on this earth. So is the sun, so all the stars in the heavens, everything. They all are under one universal law, and that their existence is tied together. There is a unity. Our existence is just a little part of that, just a small part of that. G-d says, "Oh man, think not that your creation is a bigger creation than the heavens and earth." That's what Allah tells us in the Quran.
We began with tawhid, and we share this belief in one G-d with Jews and Christians. And because we share that belief in one G-d with them, and the belief that we all were made from one and the same origin, one and the same ancestry, Adam and his mate, we have an opportunity to do more than look for faults and problems. We have an opportunity to look for likeness, similarities, and to get to know each other better, and to change history. Put down the cross, and the crescent as symbols of conflict, and pick up the common language that we have each of us from G-d, and go forward with human life for a better world. We have that opportunity, and I'm [Pause in tape 00:53:14] on taking advantage of it.
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When we look at life, creation, the beginning of human beings, and the history of man, written by man, and the picture of human society given to man in revelation, and how we have been created to live in accord with the best that is in us, and how G-d made us like that to live in accord with the best that is in us and to grow upon the best that is in us. The best motivations, the best imaginations, the best dreams, the best hopes, the best ambitions. G-d has created us to go with the best that is in us and with the best that can come out of us. That's what He have created us for.
When we look at the history of man's struggle to go follow it with the best that he got from G-d as a gift we find two major movements or trends. One wants to put human beings down as creatures of great worth and beauty. The other wants to counter that, go against that, by announcing the beauty in the excellence of the human creature, publishing it so that more people will see the other side, the better side, and that G-d has really not put man down but G-d has established man in a great, great excellent mode of life conduct or behavior.
G-d says in the Quran, "And indeed we," meaning G-d in His servants, "Have made you or created you in the most excellent mode." And again G-d says, "And He has made your forms and your pictures excellent and beautiful." This tells me that G-d lifts us up. G-d puts us up. He shows us as creatures of beauty and great value and great worth. Some of you don't read history, you're not familiar with history, you don't bother with that, you ain't got time. You can hardly read your grocery list. I understand but some of us do. Some of us do.
I recall reading the words of a poet philosopher or a philosopher poet. I give you his words, "To ere," make an error, make a mistake. "To ere is human. To forgive is divine." Now if you read that and most of the persons who hear read that they would like it. They would like it. I've been in the audience of speakers and they have used it in their speech, it was a part of their quotes and they used it positively But I have never been affected positively by it. First time I heard and felt it, I read it. I said, "This is terrible. This is terrible."
If I believe this I'm going to give up on my life. If I take this serious I'm going to give up on my life because I'm only inspired by what G-d has told me of my worth. That I'm a creature of beauty and great work. That I'm the highest creature in the order of matter. In the order of material things, I'm the highest creature. I marvel at how this material universe exists and functions and supports life and so many. So, I'm a great admirer of the universe itself. Even the plant world, the animal world, I'm a great admirer and lover of the beauty and the art, and et cetera, that I see in that.
Now you're going to tell me that my human nature is only a nature that eres, makes mistakes. And if I have good in me it's not from my human nature or it's not from the human person, it's from G-d the divine. Everything is from G-d. Everything is from G-d originally. My human creation is from G-d. G-d made it. To forgive is divine, what do you mean? To forgive is divine?
When you put the statement the way is put by that poet philosopher, "To ere is human, to forgive is divine." When you put it that way then you are distinguishing the human from the divine. All right. If you distinguish the human from the divine, I, as a human, I have no credit. I get no credit for being a forgiving person. If I'm divine that credit goes to the divine not to me, not to the human. That's what that philosopher is saying. The credit goes not to the human the credit goes to the divine. "To ere is human, to forgive is divine."
G-d has made us forgiving. G-d made us forgiving. Just like He made us to eat and sleep and want to play or have a good time, He made us all so forgiving. Forgiving is as much our human property as is our speech, our appetite for things, the way we walk and live, it's as much human as anything else that weve got. Forgive, to forgive. This shows that trend that wants to put human beings down. So, the poet, the philosopher poet, that made that statement, he's with those, or at least under that, trend and influence that wants to put human beings down.
Is this in scripture? Most certain it is and especially for the Western world that produced that philosophy poet I'm talking about. In the Bible, it's a revelation really, it's revealing, it's a revelation. It is said that seven-- I have to give it to you like it is in the Bible then maybe I'll give it to you in my language. Seven eyes went out. Seven went out to prove human beings unworthy. This is not just in this saying, this is in other places in the Bible too of how there is effort to put down the inherent value of the human being, the created value of human beings.
Seven eyes went out to disprove man's worth and seven went out to prove man's worth. These are the two movements that I mentioned, the two trends. One is to put man down, the other one is to put man up, to say he has value, he's entitled to govern himself under G-d. He's entitled to be represented in the government, he's entitled to influence the government. We the people, he's entitled to that. Government of the people by the people, he's entitled to that. Are you following me or are you sleeping? [laughs]
This is the fella that wants no attention for himself, only for what G-d wants. I want no attention for myself. So, sleep on me but don't sleep on what I'm telling you that's from G-d to help you get to where you should take your life.
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Yes. It is clear. It is very clear to me that we have a struggle and this struggle will go on forever. A struggle to hold up our life and to defend the excellence of human life against the Satan and those that will follow him to put man down. That's what we have as eternal struggle as long as we exist in this world, to go forward with our life and to hold up the excellence of human creation that G-d gave us to overcome all inferiority. He gave us piety, He gave us devotion to Him, a devotional life, a devotional nature, that we have to carry to Him and say, "This is for you G-d." If I devote myself to myself I will destroy myself. "This is for you G-d." He created us that way.
If we go to him for guidance, and we have guidance now, we don't have to pray for guidance, guidance is here. We have to pray for the willingness to obey guidance, for the faith to appreciate guidance. We don't have to pray for guidance, guidance is here in the Quran and guidance has come to the other people of the world. We don't have to pray for it, it is here. We have to pray for faith in it to increase and the willingness to obey with our whole life to increase.
Allahu Akbar. So, the issue, the number one issue in the life history of humans is that issue. The most important issue for human life is really simply put human life, human life. To perceive human life correctly as the creation of G-d and to know its purpose under G-d and pursue that with all the energies you got in your being. Serving G-d can be summed up in two words, human progress, human progress. If you progress with the excellence of your human life that G-d made for you, you are already on the path of G-d.
Do you think when we are in the dark, confused, miserable, lonesome, left alone and ruled by the slave masters of the South, do you think those slaves who believed there was a G-d of justice and wanted to survive the bad rule, the bad order of the word and hope that their children, if not them, would one day be alive when things changed because they knew there was a just G-d that wasn't going to tolerate it forever, going to bring her in to that? Do you think they weren't on the path of G-d?
They were on the path of G-d. When you turn to G-d and follow your best life, the best that is in your creation, you are on the path of G-d, you're on the sirat al-mustaqim. You're on it. Don't think we just got on the sirat al-mustaqim. G-d creates every baby on the sirat al-mustaqim. Every baby born from his mother, she or he is born on the sirat al-mustaqim. Muhammed said every child is born Muslim and it is the circumstances that it is put in that makes it something else, a Jew or something else, a Christian or something else or a monk or something else or a heathen or an atheist or something else.
This is what our prophet said. Our prophet said that. And I've come to believe that what the Christians identify as the Christ's nature, or the Christ in them in human beings is no different from what we are to understand by the expression Muslim in your nature, the original Muslim in your nature. We have been created by G-d to be on the path that leads or brings us to Him. To Him I mean by that to the life that He created us for. That's when you go to G-d. You think you're going to G-d just to meet G-d, you're going to see him in person and have his company and sit and chat with him and say, "G-d, I finally got to see you."
Your meeting with G-d is the meeting with yourself in the destiny that G-d planned for yourself. That's your meeting with G-d. When you get there you'll be in the presence of G-d.
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You will know yourself and you will know your G-d. And G-d says to us in our holy book, to that self, not to us, correction. He's saying to us who would have been victorious with our righteousness, with our excellence as human beings, He says to us, "Oh, per self, or person, pleased and pleasing, pleased with yourself and pleasing your creator. Enter you among my servants, enter you my paradise." That's what G-d will say to those who will be victorious with their human life in its excellence that G-d created for them.
What is G-d saying? Your destiny is to join one another, into you among my servants. And your destiny is to be pleased with yourself and pleasing to your G-d, your creator. That's your destiny and when you get there you'll be in your paradise and when you get there you will meet your G-d.
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Praise be to Allah. Praise be to Allah. Okay. We struggling people, in this rich land, mighty land and mighty rich and in this land of poverty, shameful poverty, shameful poverty. It's a shame on the rich that we have people suffering poverty in this rich land but it's a shame on the poor that they haven't responded to the call from their own human excellence.
There's a call calling you. It is coming from your own human excellence. It is saying, "You know you can do more than beg. You know you can do more than just wait for somebody to put something in your mouth or to give you some clothes. Get to lazy a-s-s up and do something for yourself." That's what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad told us.
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Yes, that's what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad told us. Wake up to your own responsibility and stop waiting on somebody to do for you what you can do for yourself. That's what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad told us and I heard it and I appreciate it. I've lived with it all my life and I'm a Muslim. And all the good features of my life and all the good achievements in my life are Muslim. but it didn't start with me accepting or knowing or appreciating Islam. It started with me accepting and appreciating my own human excellence and following a man that said, "Get up and respect it or you get no help from man nor G-d." [laughs]
Thats Elijah Muhammad, he put it straight. You know among the most important reasons for human existence according to Sacred Scripture is purification. G-d says He wants that you be purified and He wants you to be willing to accept burden and hardship to keep your purity. It's not always easy to keep your purity. You can go to a party tonight and it'll be very difficult to keep your Christian, Jewish, or Muslim purity. But G-d says He does not want hardship for you but He wants that you be purified.
A struggle against the things that want to take your purity away from you is difficult but that's not what G-d wants for you. He wants you to be purified. But to be purified you have to accept that it's not always going be easy to keep your purity. You have to accept the difficulty to respond to G-d and grow in purification. Purity. And I don't think it's just a simple fact of science that the baby that G-d makes in the mother comes out of her with a certain period of immunity against diseases. A purity created by G-d. I don't think that's without significance. I think that is to tell us that G-d wants you to be pure, G-d can make you pure, He can protect you against diseases, but He has put you into this world so that you will discover the difference.
The difference, there's corruption and there's virtue or righteousness. He wants us to discover the difference. There's love and there's hate, He wants us to discover the difference. They're cruel authorities that will be over your life and they're merciful and kind and loving caring authorities that will be over your life, and He wants us to know the difference.
G-d says that He has created us that we should grow. And He wants us to grow in purity. He wants us to grow in charity. He wants us to grow in faith. He wants us to grow in knowledge and learning or education and He wants us to grow in the ability to manage our life in a material world. He wants us to grow in industry and science and industry, et cetera. He wants us to have a complete life that he made possible for us. He doesn't just want us to have a spiritual life. Some of us get so burdened and so stressed, so burdened and stressed by the daily activities that you have to keep up just to live another day and go to bed again.
It's so much it's so burdensome on some of us that we give up half of the life and be satisfied with this one half. G-d says to us in the Quran and it's in the Bible stated in different ways. [Arabic language]. Seek, go after what G-d has provided for you, for the end, for the destiny, for the meeting with G-d, for the greater achievement the [Arabic word] the [Arabic word], the hereafter we say in English. He says, "But do not forget your share of responsibility in the material world. [Arabic language] Don't forget your share in the material world. 
We have to share, we're created equal and we become not equal because of the circumstances we are in. And none of us can be equal down the road, we're only equal in the garden. In the garden we are equal but once we come upon the path, the path of work, the path of labor, the path of struggle, to earn the paradise that's down the road, and the end of the road, we are not equal anymore. All of us are not situated to succeed as others or equally together or as others may be situated to succeed.
Some of us are born with greater physical strength, some of us are born with greater mental strength but don't look at that and say, "We are not really equal, are we?" Yes, we are. No matter how you are unequal or inequal in terms of your intelligence and in terms of your industrial ability, et cetera, you are equal in terms of your spirit and in terms of your moral life. Your moral life. You are equal. And it doesn't mean that the person who surpasses me in an intellectual ability or in industrial ability is going to be always ahead of me.
Because he can run into a moral challenge that may put him on Skid Row or in the mental hospital and I may succeed with my life and he'll be in the back loss. So, the equality is the equality of spirituality and the equality of moral life. That's where we are equal, and that's what will get us into paradise. Allahu Akbar. G-d says He has created you that you may grow, that you may grow. Grow you know all of that. We're born we know we're going to grow. If we don't grow we're going to die. But G-d means an inclusive growth.
Not just your body, your flesh, and bones, but growth for all the beautiful and excellent life you have including your beautiful physical presence, growth for your intelligence, growth for your moral life, growth for your ability, your skills, your everything. Growth for everything that is excellent in your makeup. G-d wants total and complete inclusive life and growth for us. He created us that we may grow. And He says He created us like a plant, and a plant is charitable. A plant is charitable. I don't know any plant that's not charitable. It always has more than its own life needs.
The grass may be the simplest of plants that we think of right now but the grass gives us so much beauty. Thats His charity to us. It gives us beauty that's his charity, that's charity to us. It gives us beauty, it gives us the carpet, a beautiful carpet on the front lawn on the back lawn and in the industry in the parks of our city. It gives charity. It feeds the cows; certain grasses are very good for the cows. It gives enough food for the cows, so everything in plant. Trees, they give a place, a home for birds, shelter for birds, leaves to cover them give them umbrellas against the rain.
G-d is saying to us that He has created us to be like those plants. Don't just live selfishly but live so that other things will be supported by your charity. In being that way, we are assured of growth, the righteous growth, righteous growth. Selfishness won't make the human family rich. Charity will make the human family rich. Selfishness doesn't make the worker work hard. The desire to help others makes the worker work the hardest.
G-d knows best what's for us. G-d knows best what's for us. And G-d says, "What is the matter with you? What is with you that you don't respond?" When it is the Lord that created you, who calls you or invites you to life, not death. And G-d says of the Satan the enemy of mankind, not so much the enemy of Joel, or the enemy of Sam, or Robert but the enemy the excellent human being with all of his excellent possibilities that G-od created him for, in him, the Satan is the enemy of that person.
He's jealous of that person. He envies that person. He doesn't want to see that person go forward with the best of his or her life. Because to do that means you're cutting Satan and his follower out of a big place in the world. He's against that. He's a number one enemy of all human beings, the Satan. And G-d says of him, "He invites you to shameful conduct, shameful behavior, and he threatens you with poverty." Where is he? Look for those who're inviting you to shameful conduct. Look for those who're telling you, "It's bad to be poor, and you should rather be criminal than to suffer poverty." Look for those who're giving you support for that, and you will be in touch with the Satan, the Shaitan, the devil.
Some of them black, aren't they? Some of them white. Some of them yellow and red, different colors. They come in all colors, don't they? These devils. Well really, they are just bodies that have been possessed by the Shaitan himself, the bigger devil. They are the manifestations of the big devil. Who's that big devil? I don't know. Maybe sometime when you have a desire to do wrong, maybe you'll discover him before I will.
Search your scripture, it highlights those two trends in history. The effort to put man down, and the effort to defend man against that put down. In my opinion, more so, than any other people, my people. I'm speaking as an African-American or descendant of Africa in America. My people have been the victim and the beneficiary of the historical occupation by man with this issue. The issue is coming to a conclusion. We have lived to see the day when that issue is coming to a conclusion.
The world is changing. A new world is coming in, and I'm not speaking in the language of Bush or, either Reagan or anybody else who're talking about new world order. I'm not into that language; that's another language. I'm talking about the new world and the new world that's coming that the slaves when they saw no hope, there was no life, and they knew they couldn't survive forever because there was a just G-d against to it.
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I'm speaking in the language of the Christian church that I've heard on radio since I was a little boy saying to give us hope that this sinful, oppressive world will not be on us forever. That there was the deliverer, our G-d. That was going to bring in a new world order.
[silence]
I'm addressing African-Americans now, or what we call black folks. No, I didn't say that-- I found no humor. You did, by I didn't. I can find humor though. I love humor. I can think about it again and find a whole lot of humor. Our life as a people coming out of slavery and forced to make an effort to defend our G-d-given human work, and advance it has brought us to where we are today. Those who have been successful. That has brought us to where we are today. That even brought you to become Muslims. Yes, it did. I am a Muslim. I tell you this, I am a Muslim because my struggle to bring my human life forward from the lies white supremacy burdened my human life with.
My effort has been just that. To bring my human life forward in its excellence. To not accept or be a victim of the lie against my credits as a human being, or against my human worth I have been struggling to bring my human excellence, my human life forward. It has been that interest that has positioned me to be more interested in Islam, to be more interested in the Quran, and to finally learn from the writing of Islamic scholars and true historians, the great human beauty, human model, Muhammad the man, the messenger of G-d and the Seal of the prophets. To come to know him, it has been that in me that have been pushing me to find in Islam what I want. What is good for me, and to find in Muhammad, the prophet, peace be upon him, what I want, what is good for me.
You may not be comfortable, some of you, with what I've told you of myself. But think of your body, your physical body. G-d created it. Don't you want to find the food that your body likes, and be able to enjoy, and thrive with [unintelligible 01:30:47]? You want to find a food and a drink for your body. You want to find the proper clothing for your body. You want to find for your body what your body is dictating to you, it wants, or it should have in order for it to be taken care of properly and be pleasant. Pleased. It's no different for your soul that is in your body. It's no different for the soul. G-d has created your soul too. to have the appetites. And the first requirement is that you take care of first things. Are you listening?
The first requirement is that you take care of first things. Do you know if you should be captured by an enemy of Islam, and that enemy of Islam tells you, you will not get any halal food for me, that G-d permits you to save your life and eat that, that is not halal until you've been given a better situation? Do you know that? First things first. G-d made me first a Muslim, and a human being in the excellence, or in the excellence He wanted for me. G-d made me that.
Do you think my struggle, my work, my labor, my choices are not those that G-d will approve if I'm obeying that excellence that He created for me? No. If we could succeed with a material world, with the burden of carrying responsibilities in this material world, by doing nothing but responding to the original excellence that G-d created us with and for, then G-d wouldn't have had any need to come into our lives with revelation, with the Quran, with scripture, et cetera.
We cannot go forward in this complex material world to reach the destiny that G-d wants us to come to just on our original excellent creation; my human creation. Because the world as G-d said, I've told you earlier, is too big for man to manage. So, G-d has to give us revelation through his servants, the messengers. Revelation comes to aid us, to tell us how to meet the challenge of Satan, and to tell us how to meet the challenge of the material world and be successful. But that don't mean I wasn't created a Muslim. That don't mean I was already on the path of G-d. You all have to repent the bad judgment of your own self. You have to repent your treatment of your Christian relatives.
You have become a Muslim. and you say to your Christian relatives, "I can't come visit you anymore unless you accept Islam." Muhammad didn't teach you to do that. Peace be upon the Prophet. The messenger of G-d didn't teach you to do that. "I'm sorry, mama but this is it." Your brothers and sisters you separate them. You don't t have friendship anymore with your brothers and sisters from your same father and mother you don't have friendship with them anymore because they are Christians and you're Muslim. That's a shame. That is a shame.
G-d says to the child in the Quran, in His book the Quran. He says, "Reference your parents, respect your parents. Reverence your parents. And when they get old and start to be a burden on you don't let yourself become irritated or get disgusted and say even as much to them is [Arabic word], but lower to them the wings of compassion as they cared for you when you were a child and could not help yourself." This is the teaching of a respect for parents. Then G-d says and here is the point I'm coming to, "And if they contend with you to have you accept or worship something that I did not approve for which you have no knowledge from me to support. What does G-d say?
In that case, what should we do? That's that Christian parent that's contending with you. You're Muslim, what did G-d say you do? "Obey them not but keep good company with them in this world." You all have to get rid of what you were conditioned to do under the teachings of my father and I understand that my father did not know the Quran. My father read and preached and tried to resurrect us with the Bible, not with the Quran. You have things that you can't panel and you think is from G-d.
The learned Christians, those Christians who understand the Bible they know that you're not supposed to take everything in that Bible literally. They know is also a trial; the Bible itself is a trial. If you will accept it from me the Quran is a trial too. It will try you. If you want to go on the darkness, if you want to go astray, if you want to become a big devil, you can find something in the Quran that you will not perceive correctly and it will take you to hell fire or maybe start forming you into a great big Satan.
Yes, and the proof of it is we have them the history of Muslims. We have Muslims who became big Satans. We have to progress with others not just by ourselves. G-d wants us to know that He created us and we were one in the beginning and He made this world as a place as is given in the Quran. Now, brother, Atik Mahmood, has created a beautiful poster with this saying on it from the Quran. He created the earth as a place to draw us together, as a place for drawing us together. And that as we were one, in the beginning, we have to become united again in the end.
G-d says He knows best who has followed His way, the way, and He knows those who have gone astray. G-d is telling us that we can't become the big judge to judge other faith communities and to say they are going to hell and we are going to heaven. The reality that I see in front of my eyes in this world has caused me to have sensitivities, different sensitivities, that I didn't have when I was younger and caused me to be prepared better, to read the Quran and understand it more correctly, and understand it more correctly.
Muhammad, the Prophet, said that G-d showed him the heavens and he saw in the heavens the followers of Moses and the followers of Christ Jesus. Peace be upon the prophets. You think you ain't going to have to go into a heaven where there are Christians and Jews? You haven't heard the saying of your prophet and my prophet. The perfect man Muhammad, upon him be the prayers and the peace.
I'm telling you this out of an urgency. I see the time of day and we don't have time to be wrong anymore. Time is out for being little g-ds on this earth. There's only one G-d, Allah. Black man is no G-d, white man is no G-d. Only G-d that made everything before we knew anything or could exist that's the only G-d. Black man is no G-d and the white man is no G-d.
[applause]
Over the long road of history black man have defeated white man. And in modern times white man has defeated black man. And in future times we don't know white man may have another whipping coming from a black man. We don't know. We don't know what's going to happen in the future but we know from the past. G-d has said it and we know from man's history that He rotates the rule and He gives it to whomsoever He pleases.
As faith community leaders representing nations and communities of faith everywhere in the world we, that is the nations, are coming together. I know because I belong to organizations, international organizations, world organizations like the World Conference of Religion and Peace, the Peace Council and other organizations, I'm a member of them and blessed to be a member of them. And I know what we are discussing.
The better people in the leadership of the faith community are coming together so we can think and plan our future all together whether we are Muslims, Christians, Jews or others. This is a new time that didn't exist before. People weren't doing that before. The greatest model we have of a nation encouraging unity and making it of less importance than differences or diversity was the 500-year rule in Spain under Islam; Muslim rule. Now, we know that it had a bad turn later, corruption set in and the rest. The church rose up conquered Spain from the Muslims. And I won't tell you the whole story. It's not necessary. Why go through that pain and sadness?
But I think again in the history of nations, civilizations, we have a time that is the opportunity for us to work together. In that Muslim ruled land Jews and Muslims worked together. And Jews say today in their writing I've read it, that the best time that they have had as Jews was that time when they were citizens of Muslim Spain and enjoyed the rights of every citizen. Jews have their life and to carry that life forward.
In the Quran, G-d says He has made the earth a place to bring us together. We know that we will make Hajji, we make it not as blacks or as African-Americans, we make the Hajj as Muslims. And we expect to see all the people of human family represented there at the Hajj. We know that 5th pillar of Islam to be the pillar of the unity of mankind and the family of man - the pillar of the family of man. Says in the beginning in the Garden of Paradise, there are not a more important drama than the historic struggle to free the best in human creation, to have the best possible in human beings. Go forward so we will have a beautiful world for all humanity.
When nations lose their enthusiasm for advancing community and advancing the vision for community life, and when they lose the desire to keep their populations constantly going forward with their whole life - their moral life, their intellects and their industry. And when they accept to become complacent, often in the history of man, there is no way left for them other than to accept the death of their nation. Or to call up the best that is in their subjects and have their subjects join the best of their leaders at the leadership table for the task of planning a renewal and a better future. That's what is happening today.
Our prophet Mohammad, the prayers and the peace be upon him, he pointed us to signs of the end of time, the end of the world. I won't give them all, I'll just give you one. He said, one of those signs would be that common people would be competing in the building of skyscrapers. We find that time is here. That time is here. The Honorable Elijah Mohammad, before we could really get any proof that we could do all these things, he was forcing us to think that way, to think big.
He said, "Let us build a nation." And he put cartoons in the Mohammad Speaks- in the center of the Mohammad Speaks. Cartoons that showed if Buck Rogers could see the future, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad could do. Cartoons that showed us with airfields, planes for cargo and passengers. Huge farmlands producing our food. He wanted us to see a picture of us where he hoped that we would be one day. Not a picture of us where we were in his time, but a picture of us where he hoped we would be one day.
I do believe with every atom in my being that the Honorable Elijah Mohammad had Muslim ancestors on the continent of Africa. And I believe that I am a descendant of Muslims. Not Animists, not idle worshipers and not Christians but Muslims from Africa. I believe that I am descendant of them.
I believe that's why I'm in the position that I'm in to talk not only to you Muslims, but to talk to every African-American about the path of G-d. The path of G-d that goes back further than Quran and Bible, goes all the way back to the original Muslim that G-d created. And that original spirit that G-d put in man to take his life up. As one of our great leaders said, "Pick yourself up by your own bootstraps." To take our life up and collect the best of it and say "This is what G-d wants for me. This is what G-d approves of." And go forward with it against every opposition, against white supremacy, against every opposition, against even the Satan himself; the Shaitan himself. Go against it to get our life where G-d created it to go.
The Honorable Elijah Mohammad was inspired to put in us faith and hope, and courage and boldness to challenge the life that we're living and say "Hey, this is too inferior. This is too cheap. G-d didn't create me for this. I'm going forward and I'm going to become one among the masters, one with the masters of the Earth."
[applause]
Allahu Akbar. Another great leader said, he expressed his hope, Marcus Garvey. He said the day would come when the black family will join the constellations of the heavens. So, let us not forget who we were and who we are and why we have been struggling to improve our life. And have more respect for ourselves and more respect for the other races, for the other nations of this planet earth. Don't forget. And don't think that Islam just began for you when you learn the word Islam. It began for you when G-d created you. Thank you, peace. As-Salaam Alaykum.
[01:52:00] [END OF AUDIO]

