IWDM Study Library

The Significance of Air and Water: Part 1b
Imam W. Deen Mohammed


00:19 Imam Warith Deen Mohammed: Complacent means you accept the circumstances. You don't try to fight or surmount those circumstances. You don't try to get over, you just put up with the circumstances. You become complacent. Water has a tendency to become complacent. Is that not right? Yeah. But if it has a right texture around it, it will become active. Change the texture from one that is sealed to one that is opened. See, the Bible says, "Say no more. It is sealed." The Holy Qur'an begins "al-Fatiha," it is opened. Now, you tell me this ain't a good day. If this ain't a good day, you a devil, or one of his key helpers. I think even the distant helper of the devil will say this is a good day. Say, "This is a good day. I don't think I'm going back to the devil's headquarters." [laughter] Praise be to Allah. It's alright.

01:36 IWDM: Alright. Let us go on now with this. Being that we recognize, now, emotional make up, its essential discipline, how it can be affected as we have discussed it under liquid of water. Now, let's see. Can we go on now and look at air, look at air a little bit? Air is a means for the transport of smell. And it's indispensable if we are to have the sense of taste. This is science. This is science. If I make a mistake, some of you students from elementary school, high school, doctor science, general sciences, correct me. Let me know.

02:42 IWDM: I know that's what Mama said. She said, "Son, the reason why you can't taste the food, you gotta bad cold. Your nose is stopped up." And then they gave us a diagram in science, how the air and the nostrils has to open, at least in some degree, so that the air comes over the bridge and goes down into the mouth where the food has to be tasted. Because you're not actually tasting, you're smelling, like the snake who sticks his tongue out all the time in air because he's learned that he could taste better in the air than he can with his tongue in his mouth.

03:37 IWDM: And actually, his sense that enables him to have mobile direction is his tongue. His eyes are not very good. [chuckle] His other senses are not very good. But his tongue says when it touches air, man, it's terrific. And you know that beast started out as a worm, in Scripture. Says Jacob is a worm. And then he became a serpent, a snake. Then he became a dragon, and, lastly, a flying cockatoo, managing the air. And the Book says, "And he became a prince of air." And who did he listen to, to get this great knowledge? The serpent in the garden spoke to him.

04:44 IWDM: I think that's enough for some of us. Alright. We don't want to start a Bible class, I just wanted to make the connection. Praise be to Allah. What I'm giving you is the wisdom of the wise in the highest quarters of human society. Now, you can distrust it or trust it. When you get this kind of knowledge, you're a man. When you get this kind of knowledge, you are a ruler. I don't care if you don't have a kingdom. You are a ruler. And Allah said he was going to make the man a ruler in the Earth. Isn't that what he said? He said, "I'm going to put a Khalifa in there. You might not appreciate him now. You might not think he's worthy of your obedience." Said, "But when I breathe into him of my spirit, you better fall down and accept him." Now, that ain't science. That's Allah's word. And we believers accept it over science.

[pause]

06:08 IWDM: Now, let us also understand then that relative to the land mass of the Earth and its land and physical contour, air is the more extended sphere of activity. Isn't it? Yes, alright. So we are going from the center. The center of gravity on axles. And moving out from the axle, we move up on the axle, we move out to the crust of the Earth that supports life. Plant life, human life, everything, right? Buildings and everything, right? The crust supports that or the solid mass, we call the thick crust of the Earth. It supports that. Above that crust are also living agents. I would say life-supporting agents. There has to be moisture if you're going to have life on that crust. And some of us laugh at water because we've been under the Atheist influence. "Well, did you hear the Imam? Did you get all that water?" "I got so much I still have it dripping from my tongue. I got so much it's almost drown... I'm choking on it." Belittling something that they don't fully understand. Belittle that thing that their eye has been prejudiced against. So that their superior would be able to rule them as their slave. Yes.

07:44 IWDM: How can a Muslim speak lightly of water as a symbol or an agent for life? When Allah says that all life starts from water. And He says that He rains down blessings from heaven. Causes the winds to move the clouds laden with water. And He carried them to a thirsty land that is dead. And they rain out, and there comes up life. So how can a believer play water, too? I don't know. I don't believe these people that talk like that around me are Muslims. They must be Atheists. Well, I see how you live in the fire. Guess you don't like water. So that's where you're headed for if you're not already in it.

08:44 IWDM: You know too much of anything is no good. Allah says, "This is the mid-way religion," and guard against extreme. So we are not to become too emotional. But we have to understand that emotionality is the first sign of life in a human being. If you don't have no emotionality, you're dead. Emotionality is subject to moral ruin. Just like water will dissolve things even if they're dirty. It will become polluted with dirty matter. Putrid, rotten matter, right? And it becomes not fit to drink. And the qualifications are the conditions for ablution water, a wu?? water, is that it has no smell, no taste, and no visible matter in it when you look at it with your eyes. In other words, it should be pure of foreign substance. Isn't that a sign that we should preserve the purity of our original emotionality that Allah created? So you don't want materialism to come into it, it ain't fit for ablution. You don't want vulgar or rotten, decaying matter to come into it, it won't be fit for ablution. Even a small amount is not acceptable. Praise be to Allah.

10:27 IWDM: So now, looking at the air and seeing how we understand the need for discipline in this particular form or expression of our lives. In fact, it is a form and expression of our lives. Both. If there was no air, life can't come up out of the ground. Life can't manifest without air. Human beings must have air. All animals must have air. Fish must have air. All sea creatures must have air. Vegetation must have air. All life must have air. And look at the beautiful side of air. You know we all drink water from another form of life. We drink water from Mother Earth. But we get our air from a different form of life that is also growing or living, called organic matter, is that not right? We get it from plant life. From plant life we get our breathing air. And from us, or from animals, the plant life gets its breathing air.

12:03 IWDM: They need each other in order to maintain life and to grow, don't they? The animal life need the plant life for its life and growth, the plant life needs the animal life for its life and growth. And what the plant life produce, the animal eats. What the animal rejects, the plant eats. No, don't think about waste. That's the imperialist idea. Not in this connection. Don't think about waste. There's a higher revelation here than that. Yes. So here, the animal life giving off its air for the plant life. Plant life giving off its air for the animal life. And here, the animal consuming the plant, what the plant produce. And here, the animal feeding the plant or the plant feeding on what the animal rejects. Yes. And the creature that stands out as the most peculiar of all the creatures, and the free-est of all the creatures. He has a great amount of freedom in all of the creatures. He is omnivorous. He eats everything. And Allah says, "See how He has provided your needs?" You cannot count the ways in which He has provided for your needs. Try to count them up, you cannot do so. Most generous in providing for our needs. Oh, yes.

14:15 IWDM: Now, dear beloved people, let us continue with this aleem don't forget, it's the aleem, an occasion for learning and teaching or teaching and learning. Now, we find that the human being is one of the few animals that eat everything. The camel eat everything. I don't think he relishes another meat, but weak and hungry, rather than die, he will eat anything. The goat is another, and there are a few other creatures. But the most omnivorous of all animals is the man. [chuckle] He'll eat a stone. Doesn't he eat stone? Yes. He eats stone. Some of you who pop your pills before coming out here, you're swallowing stone. [laughter] "Well, I guess, I'll take me a little zinc." Say, "I'll be back tonight, Ruth, about 10:00. I got something to do, but before I leave, I'm going to take my zinc pills." Or your iron, whatever. Some take salt tablets, which forms a rock, right? Calcium tablet, a rock. Yeah. Iron tablets and also zinc tablets and other tablets that come from solid mass, inorganic mass, right? So, he is... Minerals, yes, thank you. So he is omnivorous. He eats the inorganic matter, he eats the plant, he eats the animal. And if there was something else, he would eat that too. So he is inclined to be consumptive. He's just ready to devour.

16:55 IWDM: And the prince who ruled the air, he didn't stop until he got the society to accept to eat any and everything. "Man, I didn't know you'd ever eat that." "I didn't either, man." Just a fad of the time. Raw octopus, and squid juice... Mountain oyster. A lot of you don't know what that is. That's the part of the pig that even a pig won't bite. And they said that's them trading places. Pork belly, bacon, pork belly. They put a nice name on it, bacon. Pork belly. And the dudes that was doing trade in 'em, they was turning up their nose at the people that's buying all the pork belly. That show you the attitude of the people on high that exploit the weaknesses of the masses, cultivate tastes in them that Allah didn't give 'em. Allah didn't give you no taste to eat all that salt. But once they cultivate the taste for you, then you don't appreciate things with little salt. You just got to have bacon or salt pork.

18:36 IWDM: I remember someone told me once... I consider him a friend too, and we never had no conversations like this. Our conversations were strictly limited to mechanical work, factory work. But he said, he was commenting on a dog, and he said, "Where I came from, we were told to always give our dog, and all of our animals, a little salt." He would put salt on the bones for the dog. He would sprinkle a little salt on the dog bones. He would give 'em a little salt every day. He had bad dogs too. They were protecting the plants, bad dogs. I think he told me one of 'em had a crush of several hundred pounds in the jaw. That's a high folks thing. You don't even think to measure the pressure of your dog's bite. We were not excited over the signs of G-d. To the white man, he's been excited a long time over the signals of G-d.

19:50 IWDM: Alright, so we find that the human beings is omnivorous. He has a greater fear of interest, greatest fear of concern. His consciousness extends, goes beyond, the limits of the ordinary creatures. The bird can get up in the air, take to his wings, and ride the air. Wise man looks at this and sees it as a signal from the creator, a signal to man that here is another boundary, here's another fear that you should enter. Follow the birds. So the wise man followed the birds, and now he goes on the 747. Right? He studied the birds. Studied the bird's contour, studied the bird's symmetry, studied the bird's measurements, in terms of balance and proportion. And then designed him a ship. And the first time he did it, he failed. He went back to the birds. He says, "What are the relationships of weight to symmetry? Weight to body?" He went back and studied the relationship of weight to symmetry, weight to form, weight to this and that. And he began to work on it and work on it to be more accurate in copying the bird. When he got it down pat, he flew. So who taught him how to fly? The Creator. Who gave him the blueprint for flying? The Creator. Who gave him the science for flying? The Creator. Now he's come and tell you, "Don't believe in nothing but yourself."

21:45 IWDM: These ungrateful bastards that ought to be killed. That's right. Any human being, after knowing this, tell the world, tell society, "Forget about religion. Believe in yourself." That's the ungrateful bastard that deserves outright death. And excuse my language. I want to say even more, but I'm one of the subjects of discipline, that's keeping me mindful. Alright, so air represents an extended fear, a fear, fear for activity. And it is also very vital, number one, if we're to have life. When we come from the mother, what shocks the system so that it comes on and functions independently? Air. Air. So inside it is very necessary. And the prophet Abraham, peace be upon him, he says, "G-d, Allah, not that I don't have faith, but tell me for my heart's sake, how are the dead brought back to life?"

23:10 IWDM: And Allah says, "Train four birds and put one on a mountain, each mountain, put one on a mountain, a bird on each mountain. You'll find that they will come back to you after you have established them on the mountain." [chuckle] Isn't that wonderful? Yes. Says train four birds and then put them on four mountains, then you'll find that they'll come back to you. And it didn't say the other word, but that's what it means. After you have put them on the mountain. And what is the mountain? You have given them dominance. You have given them rulership. Mountain is a symbol of government, it's a symbol of rulership over the other surroundings. So it means that after you have established them in the government, they will come back to you, praise be to Allah. Okay, train them. How do you train birds? Birds have to be trained to fly. The mother bird trains the bird to fly. [chuckle] Yes. So give them, what kind of training? Spiritual training. Give them spiritual training. Teach them spiritual movement, spiritual travel, spiritual balance. Train them in spiritual skills and discipline, and then put them on the mountain. And they'll come back to you because there's no higher training for any creature.

24:52 S?: Allah Akbar. Allahu Akbar.

24:55 IWDM: Where you gone go? Where you gone go after he did that except back to the teacher that gave that? So dear beloved people, the enemy is not supposed to be ruling in the air, you're supposed to be the ruling in the air.
