09/02/2001
IWDM Study Library
Islamic Convention - We Cannot Stop Now

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Thank you. Praise be to Allah, thank you. Thank you, praise be to Allah. We thank Allah for our presence here at the Muslim American Society Annual Islamic Convention. We witness that He is G-d, the only G-d. We witness that Muhammad, the last of the prophets to whom the holy book of Muslims, that is also the book of others if they will accept it that that prophet is mentioned in our Quran, and in our holy book.
It is written that he's also mentioned in the Old Testament and New Testament, properly called the Islamic language, the Torah, and the Injil. We witness that Muhammad was given to this world to bring it to its final place as an excellent creation under its creator, G-d most high as we say, Allah Ta Allah. We witness that Muhammad did the work to unite the world of mankind, to bring respect for all human beings, the common person in all human beings.
We witness that he is that one that Allah says him in the Quran, mentions him in these words, that Muhammad is an unlettered messenger, prophet. Unlettered means, he did not receive education in scripture. He was never in touch with teachers of the scripture, no rabbi, no monk, no priest. No one tutored him, no one schooled him, but he was already in human excellence.
His behavior was never tarnished or influenced by the ignorance of his time. His people worshiped idols. It is recorded they worshiped 399 idols-- 369 pardon me, idols. It's also recorded that they went about circling the house built by Abraham and his son, may peace be upon them. If they didn't have money, if they were of low stature or status in the society, they had to go around the Kaaba in the nude.
Imagine sisters you being poor, not belonging to the educated group or to the rich, having to go around the Kaaba in the nude with men who also had to go in the nude if they were of low stature, to walk around it in the nude. It was that prophet who was also so respected by the citizens of Mecca, his countrymen, and the Arabs of that peninsula we call now Saudi Arabia, that they when traveling abroad, it is reported that they would bring him their belongings.
There were no banks back then, not in that place. They would bring him their precious belonging and ask him, "Oh Al Amin, will you hold these until I return from my trip to Syria." Wherever they were going. He was called the trustworthy one, he was also called as-Sadiq, the truthful one. G-d chose him and said of him, "You have already lived." Or He was speaking of him to us, "You've already lived a lifetime among you."
Meaning that he had lived to see 40 years, which is a lifetime back then for many whose life expectancy was much shorter than ours in this modern society, and a lifetime for any person is 40 years old. At 40 years old if you don't have it, you're not going to get it. He had lived honorable, he had not worshiped idols and that was the way of his countrymen, to worship idols. And he had not been in anyway a person that others would dislike because of some flaw or defect in him as a human person.
I can go on to tell you about him for hours, in fact, I have it as one of my projects and I've had it for some years. If G-d blesses me to continue to live and be healthy, I'm going to write myself a book on the life of Muhammad, the Prophet Salalah Alaihi Wa Salaam. I have to do it because, I want others to see him through my heart and through my eyes, or my mind, as they have seen him through the heart and mind of many great writers on the life of our prophet. May G-d bless them for their great contributions.
Now, Muhammad we think of him, he was a prophet of prophets. Most of us in America, we think of prophets as people coming to pronounce doom and put down people. Oh, for your sins, you are going to be destroyed. The Day of Judgment is coming, it's very near, it's close. You sinners, you better repent or you're going to be destroyed. Woe to the sinners. Of him, it is said that he didn't come, and he said it himself of himself. He didn't come to curse anybody.
Muhammad the prophet didn't come to curse anybody, but he came to build people up, to build people up in the excellence that G-d created us for. G-d says of him that he's mentioned in the Torah. He's mentioned as one coming to take the heavy slave burden off the back of the people and to break every bond of slavery so that they will be free to worship their G-d.
In that connection, Allah says to Muhammad, after he had progressed and survived ugly persecution, cruel persecution, on him personally and on his wonderful followers. G-d told him, "And fight them." Meaning, fight the aggressors, fight those who are denying you your religion and fight them until there is no more persecution. Listen very carefully, fight them until there is no more persecution, no more killing, threatening and preventing the people from having the religion and worshiping G-d as they wanted to. Fight them until there is no more persecution and religion is free for G-d.
Here is a prophet G-d is telling us his role, he was one who came with a mission that G-d gave him to free people in religion. We have to understand Muslims and my friends who are here and hearing my voice, who are not Muslim, we have to understand that Muhammad the Prophet came to fight for the freedom of religion, and to establish the freedom of religion and history bears witness that he did that.
Churches and mosques in the time of our prophet and for a good while after and even now stood side by side. They lived side by side, the mosque, the holy place of worship for a Muslim, a masjid as we call in Arabic, and the church side by side. Allah obligated the Muslims, if they saw a heathen, an idol worshiper, or anyone who professed religion, but if they saw that person abusing and mistreating the sacred relics or the sacred things like the cross of Christians, Muslims were obligated to stop it. We were obligated under Muhammad to protect the churches from ungodly people.
So, what has happened in history that we have is wrong idea? You go to Egypt now, you see big churches. I did. I've been there. Big church, and Egypt is a Muslim country. There are many countries that are under Muslims and been under Muslims, and you'll find churches. Those Christians go to their churches, and they have their religion. They have their worship. Look at the situation for relations with the Jews in the Middle East and Palestine for Jews Israelis and the Palestinians. But, we also know that they were welcomed there. They lived there, the Jews lived there up until World War Two when the Zionist movement started to get them, they were oppressed and treated inhumanely by the Nazis under Hitler, to get them a new Homeland.
Then, a problem developed for the relationship of the Muslims with the Jews. It was a political thing that was imposed upon peasant Palestinians, peasant Muslims, Arab Muslims. It was imposed upon them. I'm not here to condemn Israel. I'm here, I hope, to straighten out the thinking of some of you. If the people of Israel, the Jews can get what I'm saying, I hope that it will sober up their mind and make them rethink their attitude, and their hard position they have taken against the Palestinians.
[applause]
Yes, this is our annual convention. And we're Muslims. And Muslims are one family. Muslims are one community. What happened to Muslims in Kashmir, the Middle East or any place is of special interest to us, if we're sober-minded true Muslims. Yes, and if I was a Christian, I would be against injustice. Christians have to be against injustice. A decent person, if I didn't even believe in religion with my heart and nature I have, I would be on the side of those who are being treated wrong. Those who are denied justice, I'd be on their side. Those who are denied the rights that G-d created them for, I'd be on their side against those who were denying them those rights.
It's just decent of a human being to be on the side of the person who's being ill-treated and denied their freedom and their rights. This is not to say that my good friend, Arafat, the leader and the president of the Palestinians is all good, none of us is all good. But under the circumstances that they have had to suffer since 1947, I have to give my heart to them because, what they have suffered is enough to drive a human being out of their mind. And thank G-d, they have been able to keep their senses, their human senses.
[applause]
We know some of the rulers, the leaders that the Israelis voted into office were beautiful people, decent. They worked for peace. They did it sincerely. They were sincerely working for peace. But these hardliners, they have been hurt so much by Hitler and the horrible thing that was done to their people, that it has warped their human senses and it made a monster of many of them. And they don't know it, but they have imitated and copied Hitler and the Nazis.
[applause]
I want to tell my Jewish brothers and sisters of Israel, remember the horrible things that happened to us on the plantations of the south. But look how beautifully, we have embraced white America after the horrible things stopped.
[applause]
I used to sell The Chicago Defender when I was a boy about the age of our youngest child, our son, Muhammed Shakir Mohammed. In fact, I was a little younger. I started when I was about eight years old, I believe. I used to go through the neighborhood with my mother-- we were poor, very poor back then. But my mother kept us clean and looking good no matter how poor. Sometimes, the clothes were given to us. I used to wear shoes given to us. We were clean, always clean. My mother saw that we had a bath every day. The influence of the teacher my father who gave my father to the Quran, the holy book, the Quran. Yes, clean young boys. And my mother kept me handsome. I looked much better when she was taking care of me.
[laughter]
The truth is, I obey her like she's still right here looking at me and ready to check me. That's how I obey my mother right now.
[applause]
Yes, so, I would go through the neighborhoods, Chicago Fione, I didn't pronounce it correctly. Just like those who sold vegetables and watermelons, they never pronounced everything correctly. Look like it sells better when you mess up the pronunciation, Watermelon here, watermelon here." I would go through the neighborhood, I said "Chicago Fione paper, Chicago Fione paper." It wasn't Fione, it was Defender, Chicago Defender. "Chicago Fione paper." And they would come out and buy papers from me. Well, can you imagine that little boy now on the front page of the Chicago Defender?
[applause]
If someone had said, "Little boy, one day, you're going to be on the front page of the paper." I tell you what I wanted on the paper because I found out as a child, that the men would buy my paper if a pretty woman was on the front page. When there was a man, I was happy, I knew I was going to sell papers. "Chicago Fione papers, Chicago Fione [chuckles]--" I'd be showing the pretty woman, they'd be buying the papers. [laughs] I was very proud to see an article and a sketch of me on the front page of The Wall Street Journal. But for some reason, this touches me a little more deeper and I think you know why. Because I sold this paper as a little boy, and this paper has stayed into existence all these years. We have to give credit to the African-American publisher of this paper.
[applause]
Also, I owe it to the Eid stamp. It's in connection with the Eid stamp [laughs], and that's wonderful. Our Eid stamp, designed by a Muslim of America.
[pause 00:23:18-00:23:32]
What I'm going to present to you here today is not so much a statement, or a speech, or anything, on the state of the Muslim American Society. It is not that so much. That was the responsibility of all of us today. And the presenters that you have heard from, I think they have done a wonderful job of letting you know what is the state of Muslim American Society. I would say it's healthy and well, and ready to assert itself, and carry its life forward in a magnificent way, not as individuals, but as a community. That's what I'm seeing. The spirit is great.
When we visited as a Chinese-American friendship group, I was thankful to the group to invite me to go along with them. Communist China, many years ago, we visited them, and the first thing the host said to us when we arrived at the meeting place, he said, "The situation is good in the heavens." That's what he said, "The situation is good in the heavens." What I want to say to you today, that there were times when I thought you all were going to drive me to the church.
[laughter]
You were hard to reach, I'm telling you. Not the small number of you, I'm talking about the great number of you, very hard to reach. You looked at me like you were saying, "Are you ready for some more of these evil looks that we're giving you? You came out again this Sunday to get these evil looks we're going to give you?" Yes, looks like you enjoy just giving me evil looks. But I can say now that the situation is good in the heavens.
[applause]
We have finally got our religion back. What do I mean by that? You say, "Well, Imam, we didn't have the Islam religion when your father was with us." You didn't have the knowledge of Islam when my father was with you, but you certainly had faith and religion [applause] and patience. You had patience that many people don't have. You had patience with my father to wait and see him deliver what he promised. For now, over 25 years, you've had patience with his son to wait and see me deliver what he promised. What he promised. Money, good homes, friendship with all the good people.
[applause]
Praise be to Allah. Yes, praise be to Allah. We praise G-d of the most high because, we know we couldn't have done it. He made the situation for it, and He gave us the spirit to keep going. Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim, with Allah's name, The Merciful Benefactor, The Merciful Redeemer. We stand here today, and I can say to you, you got your religious spirit back.
[applause]
I was determined not to leave it up to us alone, but I've broken on. I knew you wouldn't like it, many of you, especially the leaders. But I thought they would love it after they see results. And I think most of them do love it now after seeing the results. I said, "I got to take this message that we have given our own selves. I have to take it outside of these small, narrow walls of confinements we call temples or mosque."
I said, "I have to do that." I said, "I can't trust these people with their present mind, with our future." I said, "I'm going out there and show Christian America, I'm going to show our Christian Americans what we are and who we are and what our preaching is, so they will know me, and if I die, they would tell the world and tell you the truth about W. Deen Mohammed."
[applause]
I was determined to do that and I did it. And I have to acknowledge the man that has done more than any other person to help me get the correct picture of Muslims and Imam W. Deen Mohammed to the public of America and the world. My son, stand up, Abdul Malik.
[applause]
Earl Abdul Malik Mohammed. Thank you, thank you. I thank G-d for him. He has done a wonderful job and is still doing it. He's on-the-job. In fact, from what he tells me, he's getting ready to put it out there in even bigger dimensions and bigger picture than he has done so far. He's getting ready to enlarge the picture. So, if you don't like it, buddy, you better go home and grit your teeth and bite your fingernails because you can't do anything about it in America because, we have American Christians knowing who we are and what we represent.
[applause]
G-d blessed us with the circumstances. I came to know a wonderful lady, Chiara Lubich, the president leader of an international body of wonderful people practicing Christ's love and inviting others to practice Christ's love, love for one another. Since meeting her, I have seen the influence of her purity and her sincere devotion to the practice of love. "Love ye one another," have good influence and good effect on us. Muslims who have embraced them and have shared their programs that they gave with them, sitting with them. We have gone to Rome with them; we went to the Vatican with them; we were the guests of His Holiness, John Paul II, with them.
We have had cultural excitement and cultural programs that lift our spirits and thrilled our hearts with them in Jordan and many other places. You, beautiful for Focolare you, beautiful Focolare people, male and female, we thank G-d for you and your great lady, the blessed lady, Chiara Lubich.
[applause]
I think G-d has given the world a little- small picture in us, of how people from Islam and people from Christianity-- Now, mind you, they also have some Muslim members. They have other religions among them, but they're mostly Christians. So, G-d has given the world a picture of how a sincere, strong devoted Muslim, with people following him and a sincere, devoted strong Christian woman can embrace each other and appreciate each other's goodness under G-d, and bring their following together as one congregation. We're the congregation of love for one another when we meet and then share the programs together.
We're not Muslim and Christian as much as we are one people sharing the belief and love you one another. Muhammad our prophet says, "You will not get into the garden of paradise until you have faith and you will not have faith until you practice loving you, one another."
[applause]
He said, "Love for your brother what you love for yourself." In this time of wars between Muslims and Non-Muslims, the leaders, the Imams, and the scholars tend to think that means, love just your Muslim brother. We are brother will all people in humanity, not just religion. For humanity in Christianity and Judaism in Islam, humanity is one family from one ancestry. We are the family of human beings. We are brothers and sisters in humanity.
Where is the proof of that? He didn't say what the neighbor was. He's on record for caring about Jews like he did his own followers. If a Jew was mistreated, he'd come to that Jews rescue, just as if that Jew was his own follower. They didn't have to be of his faith. Muhammad didn't have to say, "Are you Muslim?" He didn't ask anybody, "Are you a Muslim?" If they needed help, if they were being treated wrongly, he was on their side.
We are people of the Quran and we're told that the people of the book, the Jews and the Christians, he says, "There's among them a special group. They work for justice and fair dealings among people." Then G-d says to the Muslims, in our Holy Book, "Be you, a people working for justice and fair dealings among people." Allah is telling us in our Holy Book, "You're not the only that I have chosen to work for justice and fair dealings among people. Join the others and you all work for justice and fair dealings among people."
[applause]
The history shows that Muhammad embraced the good leadership of the Jews and he embraced the good leadership of the Christians. That's on the page of history. Allah says of him, "And he is the mercy to all the world. Rahmah al il alamin." Our Malaysian brother mentioned this reference. He spoke from this reference in the Quran. Allah says Muhammad the prophet, the seal of the prophet, the last of the prophets. He says that Muhammad, He has not sent him except as a mercy to all the worlds. To all the worlds. And believe me, I know all the worlds have benefited from Muhammad's presence and his great work that we have inherited on this planet earth.
[applause]
I'm coming to the heart and to the real focus for my presentation. I can't just go right to it. I never can, it seems [laughs] but I'm just about there now. The focus for us now and I until I conclude is the human being in his form and spirit that Allah put him in when he was first made, we call the creation of Adam. I'm talking about that form and spirit or human makeup, sensitivities and all, that have survived and can't be destroyed.
Go to any hospital and see the newborn babies in the nursery. I don't care what color they are, they're all the same. They cry the same, they will love you the same. They will do-- will take to the mother that feeds them the same. You cannot find any sign that they were born demons. I've never been to a baby and the baby said, [growl] like an animal. No, baby no. They don't do that. They're ready for you to love them. They're so sensitive in their souls that if you fake your love, they know it. They'll start crying. [crying noise] They're telling mama, "This is not a true person here. I'm afraid of this person."
Even if you have fear, the baby will pick up your fear. You will be fearing that the baby is going to reject you and the baby will reject you. The baby senses that you arent peaceful, you arent comfortable in your own soul. You mean no harm to the baby, you don't intend any wrong, you want to love the baby, but you're afraid that the baby isnt going to love you back. The baby sense that something isnt right in your peace, in your soul. So, the baby will starts crying and won't be comfortable with you touching it or holding it.
See how wonderful G-d 's creation is? Don't think the story about G-d creating the first people in the garden and they were innocent and pure. Don't think that's just for that time. Every baby born and ever born was born pure and innocent and Muslim. The Christian will say, "Christ-like." We say "Muslim" because we have been taught to say that by our prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Prayers and peace be upon him.
Our struggle, that has brought us to love Islam so much, let's try to understand it while I'm giving you what I have here on this paper. We don't say we were good people or not deserving of a punishment. When the slave buyers went to Africa and bought slaves or took slaves, and brought them over here to work in the South as laborers, as slave laborers, we don't say that they were innocent.
History tells us that we were fighting each other in Africa. Some got victory over others. They would have captives, people that they didn't care about, from the enemy side. They would have children of those people they didn't care about from the enemy side. They would sell those children to the slave traders or masters. That need is [inaudible 00:40:30] that the bush [inaudible 00:40:35] to harvest the cotton. Let us have the right picture. Let us see it straight.
History has it, American history has it, that while some were slaves, in the early history of our enslavement on this continent, there were Africans who came to America as free people. They were not slaves. They were not sold into slavery. It's recorded that there were a few of them, who themselves, had slaves. They had their own people. They had blacks too as their slaves.
This is history and it didn't begin with black people. I read in world history that whites also enslaved whites and sold whites in some parts of the world. And blacks enslaved whites long before the United States and the colonies here had slaves. Africans had white slaves. Some of them. It was just a time of license to have slaves. Thank G-d the time is gone.
[applause]
We got a new kind of slavery now. The slave of the dope pusher. The slave of insane violence, et cetera. The slave of the new lifestyle in the streets that disrespects Christianity, disrespects Islam. The new lifestyle, where guys walk down the street, grabbing themselves between their legs and they don't care who look at them, drawing attention to their private parts. That's slavery too. Slavery to a new and corrupt culture and lifestyle. We still have to work to free the slaves, emancipate the slaves, because now, there's a more subtle kind of slavery.
Now, what I'm going to say and be discussing, I'm going to say it plainly to you right now. We went to Islam for the same reason that blacks went to Jesus Christ, Christians, black Christians, African American Christians, went to Jesus Christ. Why did African American Christians in the past go to Jesus Christ? Because, they had no other friend with power that was working to protect them. They went to Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ was given to them as a friend, their friend. We went to Mr. Fard Muhammad, the teacher of my father who was not an American. He came from abroad.
We went to him because he said he was our friend and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad told us he was our only friend that nobody else wanted us. That's what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad told us. We went to the temple or to the temple of Islam or to the mosque, they've later called in the early '50s, they started calling it mosque. For the '30s, for the '40s, it was not called mosque, it was called temple, not mosque. We went through that because, we needed a friend and the teachings of my father re-friended us and made us feel that we for once had a powerful friend.
We didn't care what he called his G-d. He could have said Hallah. He didn't have to say Allah. He could have said Ha-Hallah and told us that that man loved us or that G-d loved us and came to sympathize with us against our oppressors, against those who discriminated and segregated and brutally treated us, inhumanly treated us. He could have got us to love Mr. Halla. I dont care who it was. Because when the whites back then, embraced Jesus Christ, their friend, their savior. Are you hearing me?
Audience: Yes.
Imam: I hope you are because, this is necessary to get us where we have to go. Slavery uprooted us. This is given to us by many authors writing on slavery and how the slavery took us and enslavement of our people on these shores, took us from Africa, caused us to eventually know nothing of Africa and then gave us a picture of Africa that was false. Tarzan, a white man in Africa and all the Africans who were nothing but like baboons and monkeys. That's the picture of Africa we were given in this country 50 years or less ago. I used to be in the theater not 50 years ago or less than that, sitting with our people, Christian African-American, Christians, blacks, and seeing them laugh at Tarzan, making a fool out of Africans.
Thank G-d that day has gone. We were uprooted from our cultural life to have a situation for spiritual fulfillment. We have to have a sense of ownership. Ownership. Every religion, the great religions I'm speaking of, they came to strengthen the people they were calling. That those religions were inviting to come to G-d, came to strengthen their sense of personal worth, individual human worth, and their sense of entitlement to great things. Their sense of possession of great things, their sense of ownership of great things. The Jews said G-d said to them, "This land, I give to you." Land. G-d told them they were owners of land, and not just one acre, a good, big, wide expanse of land.
And Islam comes to tell all Muslims, "That earth belongs to G-d and G-d made it for you and all the people he created." He says, "And seek with what G-d has made available to you." The promised home in the hereafter, but don't' forget your share of this material world. [Arab language] and don't forget your share of this material world. That's what G-d tells us. Allah gives us a sense, a strong sense of possession, ownership, as His trustee. We know the earth belongs to G-d. Allah says the earth belong to Him and the earth is the mosque, the masjid. A mosque. A place of worship. It means the whole earth was created by G-d to be a place of obedience to him.
That's what it means when He said that [Arab language] Allah. When He says the earth, whole earth is the mosque, the place that worship for G-d. He's saying that He made this whole earth to be a place for us to worship Him with our hearts, with our spirit, with our hands, with our skills, with our knowledge, with everything we do, we should be worshiping G-d. If we do it according to the best motivations and the best sensitivities in our human makeup, we will be pleasing G-d with everything we do. He made us to please Him with every act, with every devotion, with every interest. He made us by human nature. He made us to please Him.
[applause]
Praise be to Allah. There is a mystic, the mystic, the great mystics. The love who loved G-d so much that they don't have much time for the world-- hardly any time for the world. Such great minds. Pure creatures. They have shared with us this saying that G-d said. "I was a treasure. Listen, I was a treasure to be discovered. I was a treasure to be discovered." So, He made, He created people, He created human beings with freedom of thought, with freedom of mind, with freedom of spirit.
Because, He knew by freeing His creature, His creature would be able to use his human intelligence and study and search the creation of G-d and would finally acknowledge that no man could do this, no force in the heavens and the earth could do this, there was a G-d behind it all and he would discover his G-d in time. G-d knew that when He made His man, His woman too. Praise be to Allah. In our nature, in our natural appetite as clean pure humans, we have a hunger to discover G-d. To discover G-d and He has made this beautiful world of His as the prophets say in Old Testament they behold the wonderful of the wondrous handy works of G-d. By his works by the beauty of the stars in the heavens at night and by the wonderful things plant and animals and the beautiful streams of water running through the land.
They know about all of that art and beauty and power that there is an artist behind it all and that artist is G-d. Yes, man was made and created and given freedom and given the freedom to study and work and be curious and examined and re-examined and imagined so that he would discover G-d. Isn't that wonderful to know that we were created to discover G-d and why do we need to discover G-d?
We need to discover G-d because we can't manage this human life by ourselves. It will wear us out. It will wear us out. It will wear our parents out, it will wear the children out. This human life cannot be managed by us alone. We need the one that made it designed it and gave it to us as trust, yet trusted us with His own creation.
[applause]
G-d says, "The greatest and most productive power comes when you reflect on G-d." When you remember G-d and think on G-d like the thinkers did that came to be the seers and the prophets of old that the greatest power is in thinking and reflecting on G-d. Remembering G-d and reflecting on G-d. It says that is the most productive force. We as a people, in our very nature we knew that there was no help from us in the south under the white slave masters except to please a slave master. So, we did whatever we could to please him. 
Someone said before me earlier here that we didn't rebel. Well young man I want to tell you we did rebel. Nat Turner fought to free us from slavery and he knew he couldn't do it but he knew he was going to be killed but he was ready to have a demonstration that would put something on the mind of the white man that all your blacks will not take this and keep their mouth shut. We will fight you and have you kill us if you want to but we will not accept this indignity.
We will not accept this humility, we will fight you, we are not brute animals, we are human beings just like you. Nat Turner fought them and they killed him. There were others who rebelled too their leader was a white man and America called him crazy. He wasnt crazy, he was so good and so determined to tell of white Americans in the world that it's not accepted under the G-d that you dehumanized these people and treat them like beasts and brute animals to do your work and tell them that they are not godly and tell them that they are subhuman. He said it's not right and John Brown went out with a few rebel blacks and he fought his own people so that we would be free one day.
John Brown, a white man. I love him. I love him. I pray that his soul is in heaven. We have to get it straight. All right. Nat Turner, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, all of these and many others that I'm not even mentioning. Ida B. Wells and many other men and women put their life on the line, made great sacrifices, struggled with us to get us up on our feet in dignity and in self-respect with all other human beings on the same level of human essence with them.
Yes, they did. They were caught and they lost their lives many of them. Elijah Lovejoy lost his life and many others lost their lives but they didn't stop, they didn't stop because they were being killed. Right behind that one would come up another one. Sometimes two or three at one time, some preaching in the Midwest, some preaching in the north, some preaching on the East Coast. They just kept popping up ready to die.
[applause]
And knowing that they were going to be killed, knowing that they were going to be killed. Look at the Jews that went down south and protested segregation with us. Men and women lost their lives. They knew they could be killed but G-d has put in us a true creation of His. The human creation not in the world's mold, not the world style, not in the world's pattern but in the pattern G-d gave. The pattern of Adam, the first man that was pure in his nature and in his pattern.
G-d has put that in every one of us black, white, brown, everybody. You can't mistreat one of us and the rest of us like it. They're going to be some among us that will join the black, join the white, join the red, join anybody that's human in their defense against you and well be ready to give our life. We don't give a damn about our life when it comes to the life of humanity.
[applause]
When G-d blessed me to have your support and I became your leader, those who thought that they could make us back up and give it up after the Honorable Elijah Muhammad sent word by a messenger to me and here was the word, "Minister Wallace, Chief Minister, we have gotten word from someone, some people, they said don't go out of the house today you will be killed." I got so angry instantly. I said, "Tell them I had no plans to go out of the house today until you brought me this message." Some of you may say, Well, you're foolish to want to be killed." 
No. I was wise and I knew how not to be killed. If I had showed fear, they would have killed me. Either by killing me outright or making me so afraid, they could tell me when to go out and when to stay in. I can't live that way. I've had freedom, human dignity and freedom in my body ever since I can remember. I was never a fool. I was never a coward and I was always a person that wanted freedom and I was always ready to die for it. Even as a child I was ready to die for my freedom.
[applause]
I couldn't make myself that way. It took the nation of Islam, that environment. It took the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, his boldness. It took all of that, it took his teacher, WD Fard Muhammad, it took all of that to make the person I am. A person that believed my word has bond my bond is life. I will give my life before my worship fell. A person that says, "I will face hell and death rather than give up my dignity." You hear what I said? I said I'm a person that will face hell, hell fire and death, eternal death, before I give up my dignity.
[applause]
My dignity is in my freedom, my dignity is in my freedom. To be the person I want to be. I don't want you making me the person you want me to be. I'm going to be the person I want to be. Thank G-d we in Great America, that defends freedom of choice. I can choose the temple, I can choose the church and the Muslim mosque or the church. I can choose what I want in America as long as it's decent and honorable. I can choose what I want in America. 
In fact, I don't have to be decent and honorable there's just a law to catch me and hurt me or punish me and take my money but I can be an Al Capone, I can be a Marcy Dacade, I can be anything in America. [laughs] Thank Marcy Dacade we have freedom of choice and thank Marcy Dacade we still have the human nation us that Marcy Dacade gave us. Our choice is excellence, our choice is righteousness, our choice is to be Marcy Dacade 's servants.
[applause]
Praise be to Allah. We have recent publications by beautiful authors letting us know that all of us didn't come over here as enemies or worshipers of the spirits of our ancestors, or worshiper of idols in Africa. And all of us didn't come over here as Christians. In fact, Christian America never wanted to believe that they were bringing Christians from Africa and putting them in bondage here. They didn't want to believe that. So, they didn't want to accept that the slave traders would bring Christians from Africa here.
So, if they didn't like that, they didn't want to enslave Christians then, who are we the children of? We're the children of idol worshipers, animist, the parent spirit worshipers or were Muslim, one or the other. So, these books new books they document that many Muslims were brought to America in slave ships. Then, there is whether you want it or not, whether you like it or not, you may not want to be a Muslim. But many of you who are not Muslims you have a natural hunger and urge in your soul and in your spirit to be reconnected with what you were cut off from.
Dr. C. Eric Lincoln, he said in his studies, he's a great theologian, a great African-American theologian. He said that he believes strongly that there is a genetic Islamic genetic memory in black people. That means, you don't remember it but your genes, your flesh, your body remembers it. Your body still remembers that you were once Muslim. Your body, your human body with the genes from your father in here (self), still remember that you were Muslim and that's why you have an interest in Islam.
That's why you have an interest in Muslim many of you not all of you and that's why you are happy when you become Muslim and you can wait until you learn Islam. You don't mind inside your body the genes are shouting, "I'm back again where I was before in Islam." Your mind can't shout because you don't know Islam yet. But I have learned Islam and I shout with my whole being, flesh, mind, soul and spirit.
They're going to put us out of here at 5:00, 5:30 or so but I'm doing my best. I'm trying to skip over those things that have lesser importance and get it done quickly because I don't want them to turn the lights out on us. I will miss something or just go pass some of this, but what I want to say is this, many people have been the victims of inhuman demonic horrible oppressors. I as a student of the ways of G-d and man I'm convinced that it was the will of G-d that we be put on slave ships and be brought to this country, this continent.
I'm convinced it was the will of G-d. They could not have done it if G-d had not accepted it as our fate that would put us in a situation to come out of it as a reborn people and scripture talks of it. See how the metal, the gross metal is put into the refiner's fire and how the impurities are made to separate from the purities of the metal and a better and more durable and pure substance is created because it had been put into the fire. 
Plantation life, life in America up until the 60s was hellfire. It was a fiery furnace fired up by the demons, warp-minded white people who had lost their sense of what Christ really was to them and they had done this to us. They had put us in the fiery furnace but it didn't burn out anything but our impurities, the pure at heart has survived it only burned out our impurities. Now, we're ready as a new people to serve our G-d and to lead humanity, back to humanity.
[applause]
Yes, G-d has prepared us to use us in this conclusion of things for man on the earth. Yes, this is the day of religion this is the conclusion of things. He has prepared us to use us in this day of the conclusion of things so, that we will be a witness to them that G-d is G-d and there is but one G-d, the one who created man and everything. And that no matter what happens for His human product in the world He has power to reestablish them as he intended for them to be established. 
So, I'm not worried about CPC, G-d is in charge. I'm not worried about Com Trust, G-d is in charge. Someone will say, "Oh, you better be careful. Whitey might reverse it and have us in slavery again". I'm not worried about whitey, G-d is in charge and G-d has always been in charge and your calendar is long. G-d 's calendar is short. It seemed like it was just last week that we had racism and ugly racism glaring at us, staring us in the face in the South and in the North. I experienced it also in Chicago it seemed like it was just yesterday, almost.
It is gone. Oh, I hear you, No it's not gone. Well why don't you get rid of it youre free. [laughs] If it isn't gone, you get rid of it you free. If you need me, call me I'll help you get rid of it. I'll do my part maybe more than my part. I'll do some of your part too because I know you're much weaker than I am. If you think racism is still a big issue. Look here the need for us to be responsible for ourselves and our families and our houses and our apartments and our neighborhood, our children and our block and the trouble on our block that's the bigger issue right now buddy.
[applause]
Praise be to Allah, thank you. So, all of our troubles for the innocent it's nothing but test, trial, and test and a refiners fire to drive out from us the impurities so that we will become a pure people like refined iron and steel. It becomes harder, it becomes more resistant to rain and rust. It becomes harder and more durable and long-lasting. So, you should be a very special people.
The man who taught my father he said, "I can sit on the top of the world". He wasn't talking about what he saw then. He was talking about what G-d had blessed him to envision that would come out of us in the future, when America would open up, open up and we would have a chance to really establish our life, ourselves.
He said, "I can sit on top of the world" a future picture he saw, and I can tell anyone that the most beautiful nation is in the wilderness of North America. And he was talking about the Nation of Islam and the members that he had brought together under the Honorable Elijah Muhammad my father with no more than three years education, elementary education from Georgia. A man that didn't know nothing. He didn't know anything but just existing in America and trying to fight for his life like an animal. Like a nice animal, like a nice doe, a deer, like a nice rabbit. That's all he knew. And a man came and put something in his head. He put a seed, a germ in his head that just fed his brains and his life.
It was really nothing but the seed of the germ of the true human beings essence. He put back into the man, the human essence that he had lost. That the world had taken away from him. He put back into that man, those human essence that G-d made and it just burst him open. It just stressed him out. It just made him see further and made him more determined not to be treated like less than a human being.
[applause]
What am I trying to say to you? Don't you think that you just became something worthwhile when you joined the temple of Islam. Don't you think that you just became something of importance when you said you were Muslim. You were important when you didn't know what you were. G-d knew what you were. You were important when you didn't know what religion should be yours. G-d knew what you were. You were His human vessel that He created and the world had defiled that human vessel and He knew that in time you would throw out, you would puke up what defiled you, and your human essence would begin to manifest and burst forward in you, to make you the great giant that G-d created you to be. 
[applause]
It has happened. It has happened in America. It has happened in the greatest and most powerful country on Earth. It has happened in America. There has been a new birth. Those who are with me from my father, you are not the same black man. You are not the same black woman. You are a brand-new people on this Earth.
[applause]
You're a brand-new people on this Earth. You have a brand-new spirit, you have a brand-new will, you have a brand-new intelligence, you have a brand-new mind. And if you think like I tell you to think buddy, respecting G-d 's word and Muhammad the model human, you will have brand new thoughts. And when you have brand new thoughts, you will be walking behind me and working with me, and I won't feel your weight anymore. You'll be standing on your own two feet.
[applause]
So, accept the ugly past as G-d 's will. A condition to forward you into the wonderful, bright and brilliant creature that G-d has made. The new African-American in a new Africa on these shores. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that wonderful?
[applause]
Yes, it is. If my father had not presented Islam the way he presented it to us, I would not be a Muslim. Because when I got older and started studying on my own, I was attracted to communism and Malcolm was too. He told me the same thing that, he was attracted to it while he was in prison. I was attracted to communism because I couldn't understand everything I was taught. There were too many questions unanswered. I mean serious questions. There was a conflict for reality. G-d made me to be free as a rational thinking human being. My father and mother never worked against that development in me.
They encouraged me to think. To use my own good senses. My father asked me and said, "How can you, knowing how our savior found me and your mother, poor, drunk, not my mother but my father, drunk, etcetera and look how he has dignified us? How can you say he is not G-d. How can you reject him?" That's what my father said to me. I told my father, I said, "Daddy, I could better accept you," I said, "but that's your savior, but I can better accept you." I didn't tell him this, "because you're not saying you're G-d. You're saying your teacher's G-d." I could not accept a man as G-d. That was not in my reason, not in my intelligence. To accept a man as G-d.
Once a brother - I was manager of the restaurant. I was a young minister in Chicago. I better look at this time. We are going to have to stop. I was a young minister and my father had made me the manager of the restaurant. And I had grown up home, delivering groceries and cleaning floors at the store. Being in the restaurant he asked me to go work in the restaurant, I went there and I just automatically just started cooking. I was a very good cook. He thought that I was doing so well with the restaurant he made me manager.
Then one savior's day. The big convention for the nation of Islam coming and the brothers were coming off. They were coming in more from Chicago. They were coming more to the restaurant. I guess hoping that they'll see out of towners or just the Muslim like to be together. This big black brother named Robert, big black brother, strong. He was strong enough to just take my hand and break it. Take my leg in his hand and break it. He could have taken my hand and just twisted it and broke every bone in my neck. That man was terribly strong.
We all knew him and called him Big Robert. Big Robert came in the restaurant, he said, "Sisters, come serve the god." Because we were taught that the black man is a god. He says, "Sisters come serve the god." I immediately heated up and I walked out the door right quick. Walked out the kitchen door right quick and I said, "Hey. You're no G-d." I said, "You're not my G-d " and my little self was just like little David. I put fear in Goliath. That man was afraid of me. I could see fear in his eyes and he went on and sat down and I never had any problem with him again coming in there like that. 
[applause]
How are you G-d, and you break wind just like everybody else?
[laughter]
You stink like everybody else. You can't even put yourself over the white man and you're going to tell me you're over the Heavens and the Earth? You need to go to a psychiatrist fast.
[applause]
You say, But we, we gave the white man 6000 years to rule us to prove that we can survive his cruel rule. Well the 6000 years have been up. What's going on now? We have given him an extension of time. Yes, we know you have. We know you have. He's going to keep getting the extension of time because can't deal with him. [laughs] Thank G-d. G-d will deal with him and G-d has dealt with him and brought the beauty and the humanity to flower in the white people of America and have pushed the beast back out of the Americas life. They're hiding now. There're still Klansmen in Illinois, Southern Illinois.
Therere Klansmen in Northern Indiana. We know the Klan is still around and some worse than Klan members are still around. But one thing, this environment is not inviting them to come out and they know it. They're hiding. We will uproot it and thank G-d that we have wise people on Earth that know how to put us back in the soil, in the dirt, you hear me, dirt. Back in the dirt of the Earth or find us where we are in the dirt of the earth, and give us an environment for our new birth and new growth. Thank G-d that there're wise people that know how to do that.
We had wise ones come to us and that's what they did. Found us in the dirt but brought the environment. The mental environment, the spiritual environment, the human environment, brought it back around us like clean Earth, fertile Earth without poisons of an industry without the thing that will kill the life germ and we have come to birth again out of mother earth. Out of the womb of mother earth we have been born again and we're rising up erect as human beings. Homo erectus, rising up perpendicular to the square. We're rising up as the Mustaqim.
Muhammad said to a man, he asked him a question, a young man, he said, "Tell me something that no one else can tell me prophet, meaning since you know G-d, since you talk to G-d, since G-d is talking to you tell me something nobody else to tell me. He said, Say. It means speak with your own mouth; youve got to do something. Say. Qul, he said. Qul in Arabic means say. 
Amantu; I have accepted faith and thereafter be Mustaqim. He said to [Arabic language] means thereafter be Mustaqim, upright in your nature. Upright in your nature created for you by your G-d. That's what he said. Let your behavior be correct after you say you believe. Let your behavior be correct after you say you believe.
Let your behavior be right after you say you believe. If you should stumble and fall or err, remember your religion, remember yourself that you're supposed to be upright and straighten up again, so that you stay presentable before your Creator. If you do that over a long enough period G-d will be with you in everything you face and in everything you do. I know it. I don't believe that I know that. I more than believe; I know it.
Muhammad the Prophet says that the human being striving to please Allah, to please G-d says he tries so long over and over again. Whenever he makes a mistake he goes to his G-d and says, forgive my mistake forgive my sin. He says he does that for so long if it becomes his nature. He's taken back to his original nature that G-d put in the garden before the seducer seduced our parents out of the nature.
He comes back to that nature and Muhammad the Prophet says, when He speaks its as though G-d spoke, if he hits you it's as though G-d hit you. When I write the formula for Egg-Mate it's as though G-d wrote it. When I tell them how to direct and manage Com Trust it is as G-d wrote the prescription. I know it. I'm doing nothing. I'm no more than an instrument.
G-d is the doer. But He has given me the freedom to get credit for it if I want. But thank G-d, I know G-d. I know His presence in me and I know His presence outside of me. I'm not going to take the credit for what He's doing. He is building economic dignity with me as his instrument and you as my workers working with me.
G-d is building economic dignity not only for African-American Muslims but for poor Mexicans, poor Spanish -speaking people, poor whites, all of you I invite you come on in because G-d is building economic dignity for the poor. For those who think they cannot rise economically. This is the work of my father. That's why I said to you earlier and we thought Elijah was dead. Elijah's not dead.
When you looked at that screen didn't you see Elijah? Isn't that what Elijah showed you when he was living? Didn't he show you the same things? Didn't he put it in the center fold of them of the Muhammad speaks and you see it again. He's gone but you see it again. That's Elijah.
[applause]
And G-d was with him when he didn't know the Quran and he's even more with his son that carry Elijah's genes in my body. He's even more with the son more because his son knows the Quran and loves it and will follow it and lifts it up above all books written by man. The Quran, the sacred script of G-d. I lift it up, up above all the works of men and I lift Muhammad up above all the leaders of men. He is the most excellent model for any people who believe in G-d and the last day. That's what G-d says in our holy book of him.
I'm concluding this now, we have had Nat Turner. We've even had the white people died for us like John Brown, who knew he was going to be killed by his own people. He knew he couldn't beat them. He knew he couldn't liberate us from the great multitude of whites and their establishments. He knew it. But he put himself on the line and gave his life to demonstrate to his people the heavy gravity of their terrible sin against our humanity.
Frederick Douglass the great statesman, who was a slave, and had a kind master who prevented him to educate himself brought him books to study so he would be better educated. But his first master ran into financial problems and he told Frederick Douglass, "I'm sorry but I might have to sell you so, I can get some money to keep myself out of debt and from being financially destroyed".
So, he sold Frederick Douglass to another master and it hurt his heart to do so. The next master was not nice like the first one. He treated him like a slave, like an inferior. Frederick Douglass one day was so insulted by the treatment he was getting from his master, he hit his master. I imagine he did this. I imagine his master will just stand up there.
[applause]
He fell. He couldn't take that brute force of the slave. [laughs] He was too delicate for it. He knocked him out on the road and he went by foot until he reached the north, in the land where there was not a law protecting slavery, up north. And he became the great statesman.
He joined the abolitionist, good white Christians who were working hard to get slavery abolished or ended of taken off the books. He joined them. He's so impressed the president at that time, Abraham Lincoln, that Abraham Lincoln consulted him and benefited greatly from his mind and his knowledge and in time we were emancipated.
We were free and when we were freed, as reported by writers of that great day of our emancipation, the slaves could be seen running to grab anything that they could read. Newspaper, piece of a book, a page out of anything just to read it because they had been denied the freedom to educate themselves. They had been denied the freedom to read because reading will educate you.
Allah says the first words of Revelation to our Prophet Muhammad, he told him the unlettered prophet. He told him he said, "read".
The first words from Gd. He didn't say I am Allah not like Moses was told- I am G-d et cetera. No, He didn't say I am Allah. He said to Muhammad, "read" and then he introduced one of His attributes after telling him read. He said read in the name of your Lord one of the attributes of G-d, Rabb. And Muhammad, after G-d repeated to him several times. Muhammad began to understand and he began to receive the words, the revelation, the words of Quran that was meant, intended, for all mankind. That's how it happened; He said, "read".
So, now here we are free. Remember our parents who experienced the first day knowing that they were free. Remember their hunger, their appetite that they had an appetite to learn to read. So, they could be free indeed. No human being is free if your intelligence is enslaved. If your mind is enslaved, you're not free.
I had a pigeon once. I got the pigeon as a little small thing couldn't fly and I fed it and loved it and took care of it and it learned to fly. If I hadn't permitted it to have the freedom G-d gave it, it would still be my captive. But one day it would fly away from me and come back and light on my shoulder. That's such a thrill for a young boy, I was about 12 years old or maybe 11. I know I couldn't be more than 13 because we lived on 6116 Michigan Avenue in Chicago and we moved from there when I was 13 years old. I know it, I couldn't be more than 13 and that pigeon would come and right back on my shoulder. It would fly here. 
One day, the pigeon was on my shoulder. I had it outside. I just felt almost like it was talking to me. I could almost feel it was saying, "It hurts my heart to have to leave you." It flew off my shoulder and joined another pigeon in the air. I never saw it again. And I was happy when I saw it flying with a member of his own family. I was happy. I was a child but I was happy to see it now with a pigeon who could really speak its own language, speak the pigeon language. In its social environment that G-d made for it. 
I was happy to see it join another pigeon. Now white folks be happy to see us. Join another black man. Some white people are scared to death when they see us loving each other. They think we are going to be remembering what they did, and get together, and bring big numbers, and hurt them. Buddy we don't want to hurt you. we're not going to punish you for what your fathers did.
We have forgiven you. We're praying to G-d that your forefathers won't burn in hell too long.
[applause]
Yes, they're scared to death when they see us on the streets talking to each other, and smiling, and look like we are enjoying each other's company. They are scared to death. Don't be afraid. I let that pigeon go with his family. Let us go with our family. We're not hurting you, we just want to be free. We have no intention to drop droppings on you or anything. We don't even drop any droppings on you buddy.
We are human pigeons. We are human birds. We're not going to mess you up at all. We want to keep your environment clean. We won't even flush your windshield on your car man. We dont do that white brother. Let us go to our family and be happy so we can be better citizens of America and make a bigger contribution to the United States of America and the world. Let us go free.
Don't work against us becoming Muslims if that's our choice. America's land of the free and home of the brave. Damn it I'm brave and I'm free. And you can't take it away from me. I'm going to have freedom of choice. I choose Islam, I choose Quran, I choose Muhammad, I choose this religion for myself. And as long as my children are under my supervision and not of age to make their own decision, I am choosing Islam for all of my children. As long as my wife will like me, will love me. She don't have to love me as long as she respects me. I choose Islam for my wife.
And that's my responsibility. I hope you all feel the same way. Thank G-d we are free at last. We are free at last. You're not free when you're just free from physical bondage. You're not free until your mind is free and your human spirit is free. Your human spirit will take you where G-d wants you to go. If you've got that human spirit that will follow what G-d wants, your mind will be blessed by G-d to know how to get your body there.
We're tired of being spooks in America or anywhere else. We are no spooks. We have a human body like everybody else. Don't tell me to accept G-d, immigrant Muslim from Pakistan and from Egypt and other places. Don't come over here and give me a life of Muslim ritualism. I had enough ritualism. I feel the genes of my fore parents. They are in me. I have a distaste for too much ritualism.
I want reality. I want reality. And I want a place in this world. I want to obey G-d. I want to get my share of this material world. Don't give me a spirit and tell me I can't have a body. G-d didn't give me a spirit and tell me I can't have a body. G-d gave me a spirit and he gave me a material body to house my spirit. Now give me a material environment to house my mind and my spirit, that is African-American.
We want to see new Africa. We want to see new Africa Islamic theaters. We want to see skyscrapers go up and we build them. We want to see shipping lines, and trucking lines, and transportation lines all over in our neighborhood. We want to walk outside our house and we want to look at the products, and the construction, and the industry of our own people, Muslim African-Americans in New Africa on these shores.
That's our rightful inheritance at the creation of G-d. G-d has created us for this. That's our natural inheritance and we will accept nothing less, nothing less. They have Spanish town, they have Chinatown. Damn it get ready for African-American town, Muslim New Africa. And I will say it. I know you've been waiting for it. You've been waiting for me to say it. We cannot be stopped now.
[applause]
[01:38:17] [END OF AUDIO]

