09/04/2002
IWDM Study Library
Public Address with NOI 
Chicago Ill

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Thank you! Praise be to Allah. Thank you. Thank you. Praise be to Allah, thank you, thank you. Thank you! Praise be to Allah, thank you. Thank you, praise be to Allah. Thank you, thank you. Thank you.

IWDM: Thank you. Wa Alaikum salaam. Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar. La illaha illala, wa lilla ilhamd. For G-d is to praise, there is but one G-d. Our Holy Scripture tells us to say to the people of the book, that is Christians in particular, because there is a mystery there for us and them and what they believe in. Say to them, "Our G-d and your G-d is one and the same," and I know that.
I have experienced friendship and togetherness for the common cause, and that is, a kingdom of peace on this earth for all people under G-d, the one Lord, Creator. I have experienced with the leaders of Christianity and other religions that oneness, that belief in the one G-d, that is the Creator, the Cherisher of all the worlds. I've experienced that with them and I don't have any hesitation to embrace good Christians and trust them like I trust good Muslims.

Peace is the greetings of Muslims, we say, "As Salaamu Alaikum", peace be upon you. Actually, it has two messages. One is, I'm extending to you the wish that you have peace, and the other is, even the stronger one, that you're obligated to keep the peace. Alaikum means you're obligated to keep the peace. In the time of Muhammad the Prophet, there was no police force, there was no police department.
The promise to the people of the book and to us, it's the promise to all people, is that there will come peace and security, and that the Word of G-d, the law of G-d would be written upon the hearts of the people. And if we have the guidance of G-d, His commandments, His law in our hearts firstly, before everything else that the world offers us as protection. We don't need a police force, we don't need a police department. We would be the police.

I'm not telling you to stop calling 911.

I'm telling you that you're obligated to your belief in G-d, you're obligated yourself to be a peace-keeper, and the first duty is to keep peace in your own soul by being right-minded and having right behavior.

Peace is in righteousness. Yes, peace is in righteousness. There's no peace for the corrupt people. Until they repent, there's no peace for the trouble-makers until they repent. There's no peace for the liars who lie and give us false pictures of things, false pictures of reality, false pictures of our human nature. There's no peace for the liars until they repent. Peace is not in confusion, lies make the biggest contribution confusion. Peace is in truth. It's a big job for this world to come to peace, to work sincerely and openly. To achieve peace as a big job.
Ill tell you right at the beginning of this speech and I think I have had most of my good Jewish friends. They're still my friends. I don't know how I'm looking in their eyes now, but they're still my friends. I won't break my friendship with them because they don't like what I'm saying nowadays. No, I won't. There is no peace for three who represent military power and might, who represent a choice to use military. There is no hope that they will achieve peace. They're occupied with the thought that they can fight each other and achieve peace and they can beat up on one another and achieve peace.
The way to achieve peace is to not respond to a situation until you yourself and your soul are at peace with your decision. I cant believe that President Bush, our President that I respect, is at peace in his soul with what he is doing.

I cant believe that the general Sharon, he's at peace in his soul for what he's doing. Arafat, the little guy that's being beat up on I include him too. I don't believe he's at peace with what he's doing. If I was him, I would refuse to use any material weapons. The Reverend Jesse Jackson went to him and gave him the best advice. If I was him I would refuse to use any material weapons. Long ago I would have told my people. "Don't pick up any material weapons. Let the world see the big guys doing the bad thing."
The way that the little guy can show up the big guy, "Just take a whipping. Keep taking a whipping, dont hit him back. The world is looking at what is going on. You can't defeat him, you cant whip him, he is too big for you." In fact, your weapons you got perhaps he gave it to you or they came from him, by some route.

I liked when they were throwing stones and I'll come over and help and throw some stones.

We want peace but before we can have peace, we have to have peace in our souls. In our scripture, G-d says, "He does not change or take a trouble of a people that's bothering them until they have a change of heart." They have to change what is bothering their souls. Then G-d will help them. He will help them. Isnt this the message of Christianity? Repent. First repent and then you see the help of G-d. You can't receive His help and you're not repenting your wrongs.
There is reported in the sayings of Muhammad the prophet, peace be upon him, that there was a man seen in a distance, an open area with his hands reached out to the sky, pleading and begging G-d and complaining, "How come you leave me in this misery? The saying of the prophet goes like this, it says, "His clothing was Haram, his behavior was Haram, his place is haram. All his things, all of his expressions, haram." Haram means sinful. Forbidden in Al-Islam, haram.
How can he expect an answer from when he is all haram? That's the same point, the same logic. You have to repent first. Come with a repenting heart and then G-d will help you. This world is doing too much wrong to expect G-d's help. We have to first repent our wrong and I think the answer is not far from us. As Minister Farrakhan has said, "If we all be true to what we are invited to; Judaism invites to righteousness. Christianity invites to righteousness, Al-Islam invites to righteousness. Well we all be true to the invitation we are given in our religion.
Peace is easy. Achieving peace is easy because peace is the lifeblood of the great religions. Yes, it is. Peace is the lifeblood. There's a caption in the Quran, the caption is righteousness and under that caption we're told what righteousness is. Says righteousness is neither turning your faces East nor West. I am explaining myself what I perceive this to mean. Righteousness is not or neither in the rational sciences nor in the spiritual sciences but righteousness is in the doing of believing in G-d and in the doing of good by your fellow man. That's righteousness.
We say the proof of the pudding is in the eating. So how can we say we are righteousness and we are allowing and contributing to the misery that my leader Dr. William Vinland has mentioned to us that's going on in Africa and we know that that's not only the one place, for that misery. Similar miseries are going on all over the world. In Asia, certainly in the Middle East where that conflict continues to go on there. With all these miseries and all the neglect, neglect of human life and all the wealth that exists in wealthy America and wealthy Saudi Arabia and a few other very wealthy and powerful top nations in wealth. How come all the misery?
Peace is in sharing so that all benefit and have a better life. This is Christianity, this is Al-Islam. Peace is something that we can get from uninformed, uneducated human beings even from animals. There are animals that like to come to the rescue of a suffering animal. It has been recorded that even an animal that can't even speak the language of the other animal, he's not of that family, he's not of that species, he sees an animal suffering, they have seen animals of another species, not that kind of animal go and show sadness and try to do something to seek and get response from that suffering animal. Go to the aid of another animal.
We can speak, we have the same human language. Black, white, yellow no matter what our color, we can speak to each other, we can learn the language of the other and we can speak to the other. We can speak any language another human being speaks if we want to. We can communicate, we can have one language and we see the misery all over the world and not move to do something to change this ugly picture. We are not righteous, we're wicked and there's no peace for the wicked. I think that's written in Scripture.
G-d says in our scripture, "Certainly we have made honorable the sons of Adam." What does it mean? G-d says every human person has been made honorable by his or her creator and G-d also says that He has created us for His mercy. All people are created for G-d's mercy. Can we bring the world of Nations especially their leaders to respect this? This is not only something that G-d has revealed in religion, the secular world, our political leaders, the good ones they press too for this kind of respect from the nations of the world.
The wife of President Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Delano Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt she is known in the history of this nation for going throughout the world promoting respect for human life. She advanced the awareness of the need to support human rights in the International world. She did that. It's just our nature to want good treatment for human beings, it's in our nature to respect human life.
A world that is not respecting human life, a public that is not respecting human life it is really outside and distance from its own true nature. I again want to say to you that we find this kind of compassion even in animals for a life that they don't even belong to. A human being can be suffering and a dog will come and moan and try to get some adult to come and help this poor human being, a dog.
I want to say to the world of civilization, you should stop calling people dogs and monkeys, they are better than us. Dogs and monkeys are better than the world I'm looking at. In our holy book G-d says, "The universe exists to support fair and just conclusions." G-d can make this material scheme, this vast universe of stars and moon, stars and Suns and moons et cetera and this earth. He didn't make it so that it would support unfairness, support injustice. No.
G-d says He made it to support fairness and justice and we find that without religion being respected by most of our publics, without religion being respected by most of our national leaders. That's a fact. The march of Justice continues. The environment itself is making demands on our behavior. The world that G-d made is making demands on our behavior and is making demands on the behavior of our national leaders. They didn't decide the population growth it's out of their hands so now the world is all being mixed, people are all mixing, they're not separated by distances like they used to be. By oceans and vast stretches of land. No. They all brought together and G-d promises what? That there's going to be a gathering of all of you. He promises a great gathering.
Well, we may look at this spiritually and look at this by interpretations of scripture and et cetera and see it in many ways but just look at the plain truth, reality, the plain common-sense truth of what's happening. The physical reality itself. We are feeding on it, we are multiplying in numbers, we are coming together because there is not enough room to stay apart. That's the world that G-d made is marshaling in His plan and driving us to His conclusions. He has conclusions and He's driving us to those conclusions. There ain't enough room now to stay away from a black nigger. There ain't enough room on earth to stay from a black nigger.
So, don't give these civil right advocates and everything don't give them too much credit. If you take a assumptive credit away from G-d, lot of them can't help themselves. Nothing they could do about it. It got to come to grips with the issues, with the problems. No way to escape anymore. Muhammad the Prophet told us that G-d has inscribed excellence upon everything. If we will believe in the inherent meaning that they were born with it, the world couldn't give it to him. Like our Constitution says or like the introduction to the Constitution says we are all are endowed certain inalienable rights, life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and we are equal under our G-d the Creator, created equal.
This is a recognition of properties and value that no one not even your government can deny you because you're born with it. You're born with it, G-d gave it to you. If the world of leaders can recognize the inherent honor and the inherent excellence of every human person doesn't mean you performing in a accord with the best that G-d have made for you. No, you're dumb to it and the public world is the creation mostly of the spiritual thieves and liars and with them is the commercial leaders that are driven by greed. They reach us with influences from pulpits and influences from commercial interests and they give us the picture of ourselves that they want us to have.
Soon you don't even know your own self, you're completely out of touch with your inherent honor, you're completely out and out of touch with your inherent excellence but you can be helped and the help is with G-d both for Christians and for Muslims. The help is with G-d. In Al-Islam G-d says and take the best thereof. Why don't we use just human intelligence? You don't have to believe in G-d even. You got human intelligence, you can reason, you can think so if you have a choice to be an ally dog or a greyhound. What is your choice?
Make better choices. You don't have to believe in G-d just make better choices. If you make better choices then you will connect with the growth of human life, the historical growth of human life. Yes, a baby grows up to be adult. A baby society grows up to be adult too. Grows up from behaving like a baby to behaving like an adult. A society. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad he told us that we are the baby Nation of Islam in America meaning that we were not yet grown up, that we are still subject to baby behavior that we're still subject to baby thinking, that we're still subject to baby dependency on men that are not black.
He wanted to get us to understand that reality and want to grow up to be adult Muslims in an adult Muslim society or an adult Muslim nation not a baby one. G-d is greater. He said Allahu Akbar, that is correct. Allah wants not hardship for people and yet we found our life just so difficult. Well if G-d doesnt all this hardship for us, who's putting it on us? We're making more money and the hardship just keep increasing. It used to be that we expect no one but a healthy bodied man to go out and work and pay the rent, pay for the food, pay for the clothes, take care of the wife and the children and everything. Now we got to have the man, his wife, his babies too going out hustling to pay the bills. Life gets harder and harder and harder while we grow more and more.
We say in science, technology et cetera, greatest nation on earth but life gets more burdensome with each day that passes because of something being terribly wrong in this society but not just in this society in the whole world. In the whole world something is terribly wrong. We have to repent. Peace is in sincerity, peace is in righteousness peace is in respect for that that is due respect. That that your intelligence tells you is due respect and you don't respect it you can't have peace.
There's so much disrespect now in the family. You'll speak to your child and it's been going on so long and they have so much support from the world for it, you accept it. All right, I'm not going to bother you no more. Your little eight-year-old child kicking your butt and you're telling them I ain't going to bother you no more. Something is wrong, something's terribly wrong.
Allah wants not hardship for people, rather Allah wants that we be purified. It is in human nature to want to be purified. A baby crying the mother goes and check to see why my baby keeps crying. She goes down she find filth on the baby. This baby is not old enough, not grown enough, not progressed enough in age to even know what nasty means but it already knows that nasty shouldn't be on my buttocks. G-d gave it that sense. G-d gave it that sense to want to be clean so what's wrong with growing up wanting to be nasty. Get down- get down- get down. Why do you want to be nasty? Why do you have a spirit to be nasty?
Babies don't want to be nasty. They are born with enough sense to know that filth shouldn't be on them. Something is terribly wrong. It can all be changed almost like that but we first have to have that instant change in our own hearts. The Christians have a sign in Jesus Christ as the savior of all mankind. They have a sign in him. We have a sign in the house that we make pilgrimages to once a year. G-d says of that house, that is a house built for all people. He didn't say for Muslims, it says the house built for all people.
It says again that house is full of blessings, do you hear that? That house is full of blessings for all mankind and where that house is, it is a place of trust, it is a place of security. You can go there with your jewels and no one will bother you. Not the faithful. Now we know nowadays you can get two or $3,000 together and you can carry your corrupt self over there pretending you're one of us but the great majority of us can put your money, your wealth and we don't care how much it is. Right down there and we slip by, we're not going to touch it. A place of safety and security.
Isn't this the promise in Christianity to? Christ Jesus in the nativity scene. As a little baby and he's in that scene with animals to say that G-d did not only put this goodness in human beings, He also put it in animals. There are animals that you can trust that you can put your baby among those animals and the animal won't hurt your baby. As I said earlier they're animals that will come to the rescue of a man and I read where animals came to the rescue of a baby and the animal was moaning and groaning making sound wanting somebody to come and help that baby because the animal did not know how to take care of a human baby.
This is pointing to what? Pointing to the goodness of your G-d that created you. He made the world like that. He put that goodness, not only in man but in animals so that tells us that G-d is a good G-d. Now G-d have made you rational, G-d has made you able to think and understand things. Why can't you think and understand that? And then know that your life is in progression and know that not only your life is in progression but the community of mankind on this earth is in progression.
Behind us we had Crusaders, behind us we had brutal barbarians, behind us we had a world of human savages who loved violence and thought that it was a proof of their manhood just to be brutal and beat up on weaker nations but we have progress out of that. You who study the history or the evolution of animal life. You know that on this earth they used to roam huge creatures. Suppose they were here now to terrify us. Huge dinosaurs. You saw the movie. Suppose you had that passing by your back window. But G-d didn't intend for that to stay. That's a message to the intelligent thinking persons of earth, that's a message to tell you, I put these bad things here to tell you that I don't want you like that.
Now I've done away with them and I have left the more peaceful survive. Isn't that a message to intelligent minded people that the will in creation is against violence, is against the brute that has no respect for things? And there our youngsters going out there looking for something to knock down. They wake up in the morning looking for something to knock down. If they don't find anything in their way to knock down they might knock down you. They might even knock down their old senior daddy, senior citizen, their own daddy. They might knock him down. "Well daddy stay the hell out of my way then if you don't want to get pushed."
We're losing our humanity, we're losing our original nature, we're losing our original character, we're losing our original excellence, we're losing it and is it happening by accident? Doctor IzaDeen Ibrahim, a man that I met at my father's house. He's a great man, a very popular man, a scholar, very well educated, respected in the Islamic world. He's from Egypt but he's real more known perhaps even more now in the Emirates where he has lived and served governments and Islamic interests et cetera. The little city for a publication that I get after becoming acquainted with the Focolare movement and the great leader the Blessed leader Chiara Lubich.
I read in that little City magazine a few issues back that they interviewed Dr. Ibrahim Ezzeddin and they were asking him about problems for Christian and Muslim relations. About 9-11-01 and other things. He said, "Christians and Muslims would not be enemies and would not be working against one another had it not been instigated." Now if I understand in my conclusion as I understand the great beauty and the great mysteries that are also great and beauty of Christianity and Islam, we have ours too, as I understand it. It is telling us that we should know the life that G-d created and know that an enemy has come into the picture and is working against life as G-d to created it to take it out of the picture G-d put it and including your own human life.
And that life bonds, life survives and continues by bonding and if it's shed something, if it disconnects with something, it disconnects with that that is harming its bonding. Disease, filth, whatever. Life is good, the life that G-d created is good and it bonds. Our Kaaba is a symbol of this bonding. Life connects and bonds to become bigger and better, bigger and more useful. Bigger to render greater services under its Lord its creator. This is life.
Now death works the opposite way. Death disconnects what life has connected and the enemy of mankind you call him Satan, we call him Shaitaan it is said of him by Muhammad the Prophet in one of the reports by Bukhari and Muslim, may G-d bless them, give them paradise for their contribution. It is said that our prophet reported to his followers. He said, "G-d called the great angel Gabriel, Jabreel in Al-Islam, in the Quran. He said, "I want to show you My creation that I am creating." This was before earth and everything was made and Gabriel he saw it. He said, "My Lord, how can anyone go wrong in such a wonderful world?"
Then G-d just instantly caused the scene to change and He showed the world after Shaitaan or Satan as the Christians call him had his influence on it. Say he set allurements, he decorated it for himself, for his own interest. Satan sent allurements and he decorated the world for himself and when Abraham-- I mean sorry, Gabriel saw it, Jabreel saw it, he said, "My Lord, how can anyone go straight in such a crooked world?"
We who claim to be scholars and Islamic teachers, we shouldn't just hear this like it's some story for the baby that you're going to put to bed tonight. Read it to him and let him go to sleep. Let me tell you a story honey. It's a story of the great angel Gabriel and how G-d showed him the world before Satan. You better look in your backyard, in your front yard, you better look down the street you, better look on the TV, you better look all over this world that you're living in to see signs may be that this is still going on. They're still changing, the evil ones are still changing the picture of truth and reality so that you will be confused and led wrong and will never find way to your own self not to mention G-d.
In my conclusion, G-d has revealed that whoever comes upon knowledge, a path to knowledge and you're not selfish, you didn't go out to seek your knowledge because you wanted it for your personal self, you did it because you wanted to make a better contribution to the society or to the world of mankind. The prophet has taught us that that person went out and entered or stepped upon the pathway to G-d. You can't just find G-d with your heart especially with your eyes all confused. You have to start using your brain, the most productive tool G-d gave any living thing, the human brain.
You have to start using your brain against influences of this world that gives you hypnotic music so that you're not under the rule of intelligence, you're under the rule of swing, rhythm. Yes, so you have to resist that, you have to use your brain. Use your brain, use your good senses, make intelligent choices and have a better life and support others.
Muhammad the Prophet when he came he obligated those that were ignorant, illiterate that once they learn something he obligated them to go and find another person in need like yourself and teach that person. He made the public teachers, public school teachers, he made the members in the public, public school teachers. We talk about having public education. How much more can we have public education than what the Prophet Muhammad gave us? He said everyone that's taught go out and teach another one.
He really wanted to extend it to the public to everybody. And seek the best there are. Don't make poor ignorant choices. Seek the best thereof. Both religions invite to excellence, both religions invite to righteousness, both religions invite to peace. You cannot have peace if you have those things that reduce your worth as a creation of G-d. You can't have peace if you don't support justice.
Justice is the doing of what is right, justice is standing by what is right. If you don't stand by what is right you cannot expect to have peace. The Palestinians if we just listen to what's in the air or just read a headline or caption and not the whole paper we'll think that the Palestinians are the bad guys and they are alone in the doing of what is bad. You need to read everything and if you read everything we talk about our press but our press is good. I think we have an excellent press, the American people. We have an excellent press.
You take your daily paper and don't just read what appears on the front page all the time. Come through the whole paper and you'll find a writer, a columnist or a writer or a commentary giving you the piece of the information that you miss by just looking at the headline. You have to read the whole paper. The editors can't permit those who want to support Israel and not also permit those who want to support Palestinians who are being mistreated. They have to also let the writer who wants to give the Palestinian side make some contribution and reach the readership. That's fairness.
The editors are excellent because I read. I'm not going to name anyone in particular or any paper in particular but I read reports on what's going on over there and I've been reading for months and years and I have found in my daily newspaper the truth about what is going on in Palestine. I have found writers pleading, appealing to the American people to look at this sad picture for the Palestinians while you're also looking at the problems for Israel.
I thank you for your presence here and I thank G-d that I'm present here.
I'm convinced beyond any doubt, I'm convinced that good Christians and good Muslims can work together and bring a much better world in than this one we live in now. I believe in the Christians' hope for a new heaven and a new earth and I hope a lot of our leaders will not be in there for long. Thank you and let us live for peace. We are Muslims by name and the gospel of Jesus Christ says, "Blessed are the peacemakers." Thank you! peace be unto you. As Salaam Alaikum.

Host: Dear brothers, sisters, Muslims, believers, for those who are leaving thinking that this is over, it is not. This is a special celebration for us, to our annual convention and Imam Mohammed is going to take questions from dignitaries and the press for a few minutes. I want to emphasize and underscore dignitaries and the press. We know that Imam Mohammed travels around the country and more often he has allowed those in our community to ask questions. We will have an opportunity and have had an opportunity as members of this association to ask questions of our leader. On this occasion he is going to take questions from dignitaries and the press for a few minutes.
For those who have questions, if you will come close enough to the stage so that we can hear your question and repeat it for our audience, and as that is happening we want to acknowledge two dignitaries that are on the dais this afternoon. They were not able to make remarks because of time constraints, but they are leaders in their own right and worthy of recognition at this time. First, we want to recognize Joanne McGuire. Joanne would you stand? She is with the Arch diocese of Chicago and we're glad that she is here and also Abdul Hameed Duggar. Would you stand sir?
He is the director of the Islamic foundation in Villa Park, Illinois and a good friend and supporter of our Imam, Imam WD Mohammed. Thanks to both of them as well as to our other dignitaries from which you have heard. If there are any questions from any of the dignitaries or the press-- Also, let me acknowledge Mr. Terry who is with the Chicago Tribune. He has been with us since Jummua prayer and we're glad that he is here also.
If there are any questions from dignitaries or the press, Imam Mohammed would entertain those questions at this time. Could you come forward a little closer so we can hear the question? We don't have a microphone. No, we don't have one. If you could just come close enough. Just say it loud enough for me to hear and I'll repeat it.

Host: Jamal Abdul Halim from the Milwaukee, Journal Sentinel.

Host: The question, brother Imam, is he would like to hear your vision for the future of Al-Islam in America. Is that the question? Right.
IWDM: Let me first tell you what is my perception of America the beautiful. My perception of America the beautiful is that this country was founded, build up by people who were persecuted in their own lands for their religions. Persecution came mostly from governments. They were persecuted for their beliefs. There was rivalry and a lot of governments were under pressure to persecute a group that was smaller, a group that was weaker because of pressure on it from the larger group, the larger citizenry. I can't just say the governments were bad, no, the people too were bad. Their citizens were bad too. They were persecuted.
They came here so that they can have a chance to have their life, to have their religious life. We know that the first freedom for the people of the United States is the freedom of religion. That's the first freedom. Our first freedom is the freedom of religion. The freedom to have our religious life under G-d. Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, all people are protected. Their right to practice their religion in the United States of America is protected by law, protected by the law, by the constitution of these United States.
Now that you see that picture and that's not all the features of America the beautiful now, but I'm just pointing to that one because that one served the purpose that I'm looking at. We are Muslims and we know that there was a time in this country when ignorance was deciding how the American public looks at Muslims and Al-Islam. Now that the truth of our Holy book in Al-Islam is being presented not only by Muslims or by Christians and many Christians in the powerful positions at the media, television and et cetera permits.
We are not looked upon anymore as people who are heathens. We used to be called heathens. That used to be the way they looked at Muslims, you're a heathen. That mean that you don't have civilized spiritual life, you don't have civilized religious life, you have the religion and the life of savages. All that has changed. Now that I'm aware of this change, I'm enthusiastic, I'm excited about working for the future of my family, my Muslim family, myself, my children, my grandchildren. I have a few great-grandchildren now. Look at the language. Child, grandchild, great-grandchild. That tells us that we expect generations to come to be better than us, not worse.
We're the child, but we expect the next generation will have a grandchild and the one after that we'll have a great grandchild, and that's the way we should be thinking, and America invites us to think that way. America invites us to think for the future of our children, think for the progress of our lifeline so that we have better, more useful and more productive people coming from our loins for the future.
Al-Islam encourages us to invest in our life. If you don't invest in your own life, you will perish. This is Al-Islam. Invest in your own life, if you don't, you will perish. You'll be no more. In America we have this opportunity to build a community of Al-Islam. Community of Muslims for our children, their children and the children to come many generations down the road or up the road. We should not be ignorant of this freedom that we have in America. All I want to know is what the law says. Some of you say, "Oh, you know the white folk's aint going to let you do that'". Im not worried about what they will let me do? Does the law protect me? That's all I want to know and the law does protect us. There is nothing that I see that will make me believe that there's a limit on how far we can go building our Islamic life.
You have to do it by doing mainly two things if you haven't done it. You have to study your own thinking and question it. You're in America, you've been here a long time, all your life. Your father's life, your mother's life, your father's life, but you're in America. This is called the land of plenty, it's called the land of the free, it's called the land of opportunity. I don't care what the treatment of the attitude of people are. I'm going by what the law says, that's what I'm going to go by. This is the land of the free, I'm free. This is the land of opportunity, I want to get it. This is the land of plenty, where is my plenty?

I better get it. I don't have it, I got to get it. You can't get it now by separating yourself from the land. America ain't my land. You are helping to people that don't want you to have a piece of it, when you take that position, it ain't my land.

If you want to succeed and achieve on this land for your psychological benefit, you need for your psychological benefit, for your minds health and your spirits health you need to claim your rights to this land.
Be prepared to do more as much or more than other people to protect that right because you need more than they need and you haven't enjoyed what they have enjoyed. You're hungry, you're deficient, you're without. They shouldn't be in the front of the line running after the blessings of America. Niggers and Negroes and black folks and African Americans, they should be all of you. All should be racing to get a big share of this blessed land, the United States of America. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he said, "The whole thing is doomed". He said, "All of this is going to be destroyed". 
He said, "Get busy and get you some land". Now, ain't that something, now, that's something. He still announced that G-d is going to destroy all of us, and at the same time told us, "Get busy and get you some of this good land." He was real. He formed the cooperation, the name of the cooperation 'progressive land developers'. Bought thousands of acres of farmland in Alabama and different places, even in Michigan, close by us here, but at the same time he was telling you, "G-d is going to destroy America." Well I had the good sense to hear what he was saying that I couldn't understand and also hear what he was saying that I could understand. I acted upon that I could understand and that is get me some of this good earth, while I live.

Yes, this is an excellent question that, this is a very, very good question that we are given here. "What do we see as a future for the Muslim community?" Follow the best that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad has given us, as Muslims and obedience to G-d. The G-d revealed in the Quran, the G-d of all good people. The messenger Prophet revealed in the Quran, Muhammad the Prophet. Follow in obedience G-d and also the human model, Muhammad the Prophet, but La tansa naseebaka min ad-dunya. This is Quran I just gave you in Arabic, Quranic Arabic. "Don't forget your share of this material world." Now, I said I don't see anything that's limiting us how far we can go on the road working for an Islamic community, a Muslim community in America. I want to tell you that I have no problem agreeing with what Minister Farrakhan said.

Hold up, but you got to do it with love. You got to do it with love for your G-d and your religion, your sisters and your brothers, and also those of your neighbors, the love your neighbors, Christians and all, you got to do it with love. You got to do it with love for the great history of the great American people, for their good achievements. They have achieved more civilization in America since the black man started fighting for his own dignity than they ever achieved before in the road behind us hundreds of years. They have achieved more for mankind since the black man got in the picture and started fighting for his own dignity as a human being. America has achieved more civilization, more humanity since we got in the picture than it did in all the centuries before us.

I don't think white people will be all that upset if we take the lead. Now, to tell you the truth, I don't see that happening now. Looking at our situation right now, I don't see that happening but just in case it can happen, I don't think white people will be all that upset. They'll say, "Look at these people that came- that we brought here to this country. Now they have taken their freedom, responsibility for their freedom. Look how they have progressed. Look how they are building fine neighborhoods, safe neighborhoods, drug-free neighborhoods, you can't even buy liquor in their neighborhood."

A lot of them saying that, "Oh, these people are- they're Christ-like model. I don't know much about a Muslim model, but they look like a Christ-like model to me." When one of us campaign for the presidency, you may find more whites supporting that person campaigning than blacks. That could happen. One of us in time could become the president of the United States and we will be in the position to choose our cabinet. The country might be so proud of us that non-Muslims will be coming up saying, "We want to be a part of this government, a part of this new government headed by a Muslim president."
That could happen, and if that happens, many religious people or spiritual people I know that are not religious, many of them will be so impressed by that. They will get serious about religion. Let me tell you something, we have more Americans without religion than we have with religion. And if Al-Islam can get them, let's get them.
But don't do it unfairly. Don't put down your Christian brother, don't put down the Christian religion. That ain't the way to get there, you will not get there that way. Respect the good in everybody, respect the value of everything and be truthful and welcome like they did in Spain. Welcome Christian and Muslims to work together for the good future of the country.
In Spain they welcomed the Jew and the Christian. Spain existed for 500 years on the Muslim rule, Muslim, Christians and Jews working together. This is not something that haven't been done already in history, we're talking about something that already been done in history. It can be done again in the United States of America, but I'm not selfish. G-d knows, I'm not going to even work too hard to make all Americans Muslims. I know you want to- you probably don't like me for that. I'm not. I want to first make Muslims, Muslims. Thank you very much.

Host: We have time for two questions. As this gentleman is coming forward, this is a question by Wally Akbar Muhammad of the Atlanta Voice. "Are there any plans for Economic Cooperation and programming with the Nation of Islam?"
IWDM: Yes, that's an easy one to answer. The answer is a strong enthusiastic YES.

My father, like all of us who-- I didn't come from Christianity, I was born under my father's teaching after he had converted, but I still identify with my parents who came from church and you who came from church. In the church, they have a saying, how that saying go? I can't recall it right now. I can't get the exact words and I will spoil it if I don't put it in the exact words.
I just want to say this, "If we--" Yes, I remember now. "If we, as Muslim Americans in this country, are not attractive enough as business people to our fellow Muslims who recently came here from other countries; the Palestinians, the Pakistanis, Indians, Chinese, whoever, if we are not attracted to them as people who can manage business for themselves, and they are not ready to form business ties and economic ties with us, wouldn't it be awful foolish not to have business ties or economic ties with Minister Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam?

We would be dumbbells, I'm telling you, outright dumbbells, and I know we're not that. Yes, a people should first have charity at home. That's the Christian language, charity at home first and then let it spread abroad. We should look for business connections too with our own people firstly and then with others. I think if we really sincerely put our heads together with Minister Farrakhan in his great following and leaders that are with him and the leadership of the Nation of Islam, we can do something in a short time to increase the finances and the ability of us to finance our own needs.
Yes, we could do something very soon to increase our finances and our ability to finance our own needs, and we certainly need that to happen.
Then we will be attractive to Pakistanis, to the Palestinians, to most Chinese Muslims, et cetera. We will really be and they might come knocking at the door and they might be begging us to enter a relationship with them, a business relationship with them. I pray Allah that happens, I'm ready for it. Thank you for the question.
IWDM: Alaikum As salaam.

IWDM: Yes, so pleased to meet you.

IWDM: Well, by obeying our religion. Our religious says Muslims are brothers of one another and what affects one affects the other. It says that we should be as a human body, our prophet said, peace be upon him, "If there's pain in one member of the human body, the whole body reacts to it." When the corn is bothering me, it's a problem for my whole body and my head is the leader, so I should go to the rescue of that foot, right? Well, that's what the prophet- that's the picture the prophet gave us of the sensitivities that we should have for one another and the willingness to respond to the problems of our brother.
If we are Muslims, we're going to be like that, but how can we help if I don't have any way of being in touch with you or you don't have any way of being in touch with me? Allah tells us, G-d tells us to form alliances raabitu to form alliances Raabitu. This obligation is first for Muslims to form alliances that are good for the good of all Muslims and the good future of all Muslims, so let us form some kind of alliance. Let us have ties, that's what I'm saying. Let us have ties and let us meet with each other and let us meet periodically, not whenever crises come, but let us meet periodically. We should be planning our future as Muslims in America as an organized body of people and our leadership is responsible and see that that happens. Thank you very much. Could you read it?
Host: This is a question from James Muhammed, The Final Call News. "As we approach the anniversary of 9/11, what specific advice would Imam Mohammed give to President Bush on basically three points: the Mideast peace initiative, war and terror, and the war on Iraq?"
IWDM: Well, I'm not one that thinks of myself as a person that will be respected by the president United States. I don't have that much faith in me going and advising him, and I'm not the person that will advise him in an audience like this or in a situation like this, pardon of me, before an audience like this, thinking that maybe the media will publish what I said or record and will publish what I said. Finally, when it will get to the president, I don't like to do it that way. I like to go to the president and talk to him, and if he welcomes me, I will have a whole lot to say to him.
If he welcomes me, I have plenty to say to him because I love him, he's our president and he's doing a lot of good. This trouble in the world now, Palestine and Israel, the conflict there for Palestinians and the Israelis and this war on terrorism, on the terrorist it's given us just one picture of the president of these United States. I try to keep up with the many things he's doing, he's doing more than just that. That's one thing he's in and it's probably taking more of his time than anything else now, we know that, but he also is doing other things.
If he just go to church and stay there for maybe 10 days and just have Cheney or somebody handle things for him and just lock himself up in the church for 10 days and keep the Bible open and seek the best thereof, Mr Bush. Even while you're reading the Bible, seek the best thereof, choose the best thereof. Read the Bible for 10 days and stay there until he has a change of heart. Then go back and meet with Mr Sharon the Jew and Arafat, the Muslim and see if he can influence them to have a change of heart.

That's what I'd like to see happen, but I'm not advising him.

If he advised me, I have a whole lot to say to him and I can say it in about 10 minutes. I know he's busy and have very important matters to attend to, so I wouldn't take much of his time. Ten minutes, and I would give him a lot to think about and I may convert him to believe that the way of life is always to be supported, and the way of death is never to be supported.

Host: We have time for one more question from a dignitary or a member of the press. Seeing none. 
IWDM: Yes. This is Labor Day weekend. Have a good evening at the Jazz Fest or wherever you're going. Don't be surprised if you see me in my child. Tomorrow we promise good weather, enjoy it. America is beautiful.


