02/01/1998
IWDM Study Library
Islam, Prophecy, and Todays World
Cleveland OH

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
[pause]
0:00:17 Speaker 1: The following lecture, titled, Islam: Prophecy and the Present World was recorded Sunday, February the 1st, 1998, at Masjid Bilal, in Cleveland, Ohio. The lecturer is Imam W. Deen Mohammed, Muslim-American spokesman, and now Imam Mohammad.
0:00:36 Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Peace be unto you all. We witness that G-d is one we say.
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0:00:41 IWDM: We praise G-d, the Lord sustainer of all the world, we witness that He is one.
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0:00:48 IWDM: That He is one, and there is nothing likened to Him.
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0:00:53 IWDM: For G-d says...
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0:00:55 IWDM: In the Qur'an, and translated, "There is nothing at all existing, that is like Him, that is like G-d." And we witness that Muhammad, to whom the Qur'an was revealed, the last revelation from G-d, the last book from G-d, the Qur'an, or Koran as the Western people call it. That that one who received that book about 1400 and some years ago, that that one is the Prophet mentioned in the Old Testament, and the New Testament. Popularly, in the Torah, the book of the Jews, and that they received from their prophets and our prophets, and the book of what we call the Gospel of the New Testament, we call the Gospel the Injil, as it is called in Islam. That Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon Him, prayers and peace be upon Him, He is the one mentioned in both these books as the liberator, the one who's coming to free the people, free the people with the guidance of G-d, which would translate into revelation and education, revelation and education, revelation and true education, and guidance for the people.
0:02:11 IWDM: He's prophesied in the books of the Bible, as one coming, as Allah says in Qur'an, to take the heavy burdens off the people, to free them from the shackles that were on them, bonds of slavery, and to take the heavy burdens from their backs that were weighing them down. This is how it's given in the Qur'an, and I found the likeness of that Quranic statement from G-d in the Old Testament myself, in several places in the Old Testament. I found the likeness of that saying that is in the Qur'an, the saying that our prophet is the fulfillment, He's the answer to the promise of one that will come and free the people from all forms of slavery, and take off their backs the heavy burdens that weigh them down, that weighed them down.
0:03:03 IWDM: So, this is a relief coming to human society, and that's not only a revelation, but that's a prophecy. It's prophesied in the Bible, and we have to understand in the Qur'an, that that's more than just a revelation, that's a prophecy, because that didn't... It wasn't answered completely in the time of Muhammad the Prophet, when He was living in the peninsula of Arabia. It didn't happen for everybody, cause we were not yet here, in this part of the world, when the Prophet was working on this earth, we were not yet here in this part of the world.
0:03:37 IWDM: And, there are many other people who are suffering similar kinds of circumstances that we suffer. Many Spanish people and many others. We think of ourselves as being the only ones in our predicament, but there are many people in our same predicament, and speaking of those who feel are still restricted, you can't live the life that you want to live, the decent good life you want to live, you feel you're blocked, you feel you're handicapped, or you feel that you just don't have the opportunity. There are many others just like you, around the world now, not just in America. Many people like us who are suffering in this country without answer for ourselves. There are people all around the world in the same situation, and Muhammad the Prophet is their leader. They just haven't met Him yet.
0:04:27 IWDM: When they meet Him, they will know that He is their leader, and He can lead them out of the miseries that they are in, if they would just follow Him, as G-d directed Him or presented Him to us in the Qur'an, and in His life, that He lived, on this Earth, among His friends, His companions, His family members, and the people at large. Praise be to Allah. The topic that we have chosen today is, Islam, Prophecy and the World. Islam, Prophecy and the Present World. Now, I'm not just seeing prophecy in the context of Islam, as we know Islam. We know Islam from Qur'an, and from Muhammad, the Prophet, prayers and peace be on Him. But if we really understand what G-d is saying to us in the Qur'an, and in the teachings of Muhammad, the Prophet, then we must understand Islam, in the life history of human kind, or in the life history of man on this Earth.
0:05:47 IWDM: Because we are told, and by G-d, in the Qur'an, highly glorified as G-d, that it is G-d that spoke to Muhammad, the one who created Adam, made Adam, and started life out. So, that means, Islam then, must be the religion of Adam and all people who followed Adam, all the human generations that came after Adam. Islam was the religion of those people, because they knew the nafs. It was their... It is their religion, that was their religion, and their prophets didn't come with any religion different from the religion that G-d gave Muhammad. Their prophets came with the same religion, Islam. And Islam begins with the very name, Islam begins with the name. When we understand the name, that's where Islam begins, and the name Islam means, according to learned authorities, not just me, but I agree with them, I've said it now, and I consider myself also a learned authority. [chuckle] I do. I don't brag about it, but I have to admit that I'm now a learned authority.
0:06:53 IWDM: I've studied the same material they studied, the same history they studied. And I came to the same conclusion, after previously agreeing with them, before I came to my own conclusion independently, I had already agreed with them. I followed them because what they said was good and it sound rational, and it sound straight to me. And they said Islam means to, firstly, it means that you yield, you give up your own mind, and your own plan for yourself, you give it up to G-d, and you accept that your will be submitted to G-d. Your will is given to G-d, to serve G-d. Submitted to G-d means you give it for G-d's service. Whatever service G-d wants for it. So that's the first meaning of Islam, it's to give up what we got in our mind for ourselves and our own ideas of how we should plan our life, to give that up and say, "G-d, I can't do it by myself. I can't do it, I don't have the power or the knowledge to do it. You have the knowledge, you created me, you show me. Tell me G-d, how am I to live my life, how am I to pursue my goals, or my aims in this life."
0:08:06 IWDM: So because of the human soul crying out to G-d for that kind of guidance, G-d responded to them and G-d responded to them and gave them guidance from the very beginning. He created the first man, the first human being, with the natural inclination to do that without guidance and it was the Satan who deceived them. The Shaitan, the Satan, the devil who deceived them and had them confused, so they started to do things that didn't reflect that they were giving themselves entirely to G-d, their will to G-d. And as the Qur'an say, the man realized his wrong, and he turned to Allah, turned to G-d Almighty, and repented after meeting a word from G-d. So he met with a word from G-d, and he turned to G-d and he repented and he became straight on the path on the right way again, you see.
0:09:03 IWDM: So this is the history. So the first meaning of Islam is to turn your life over to Allah, that's what it means, simply. So don't try to carry it by yourself, and don't take charge of it without Allah's help. Don't make decisions about it without G-d's approval. To put your life in Allah's hand. Now, isn't that the true beginning of religion, for every sincere person, whether he calls himself Christian or Jew, or whatever? That's the true beginning of religion. You say to yourself, this life is too much for me. I want G-d's help. That's the first step of Islam. To yield it up to G-d, say, "G-d, you take over for me. I can't manage this by myself." And the next step then, after you yield the will to G-d, the next step is to then seek to practice or seek to live as G-d wants you to live, want to please G-d with all your life, with your whole life, want to please G-d.
0:10:11 IWDM: That's a Muslim, one who yields his will to G-d and he wants to please G-d, he wants to give his life to G-d in submission, and he wants to give his life to G-d in service, in submission and in service. He wants what he does, his work, his everything to be acceptable by G-d. And we have this... And who's the first Muslim? The first Muslim would be the first man.
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0:10:47 IWDM: But Muslim is in two perceptions. We have the understanding of Muslim in two perceptions. That means, we have two ways of looking at what a Muslim is, two ways of looking at what a Muslim is. First way of looking at a Muslim is the way that we know now after Muhammad the Prophet. And that is a Muslim is one who accepts Muhammad as the prophet and messenger of G-d, and follows the religion as Muhammad demonstrated it, that is the Qur'an and his Sunnah, his life, the Prophet's life, his own life traditional practices, that's the popular definition and most proper definition of what a Muslim is. Correct? One who believes in one G-d and believes that Muhammad is the last prophet and messenger or servant of that G-d and that He received the Qur'an from that G-d, as guidance for the world, for all people, for the believers and all people. That's a Muslim.
0:12:00 IWDM: But in the guidance in the Qur'an, Allah says that this is the religion of Abraham, Prophet Abraham, Prophet Abraham called Ibrahim in the Quranic Arabic language. That this religion is the religion, this way of ours is the way of Ibrahim. And Allah says of Him, not directly, but it's understood by the scholars that Allah is referring to Prophet Abraham, and when he says that they're saying in the Qur'an, "And I am the first of the Muslims." And I am the first of the Muslims. He's the father of a new generation of people on this Earth. Nations. Father of nations in the Christian language. In our language, he's the leader, he's the Imam of the nations, G-d made him the Imam of the nations, of the generations, the new generations on this earth, the Imam of the nation.
0:12:58 IWDM: Ibrahim, Prophet Ibrahim, and our prophet came to fulfill what G-d promised Abraham or Ibrahim. So he comes with the religion of Abraham, Ibrahim, our father Ibrahim, and he comes also with the order for our community life that G-d promised Abraham. Abraham never lived to see it, but he was promised, it was promised to him. And Muhammad comes to fulfill it. It's fulfilled in Muhammad. The community life that G-d wanted for us and promised to Abraham, that his children or his seed, his children, his children not in the biological sense, but more importantly, in the sense that they follow him in the spirit, they follow him in the spirit.
0:13:49 IWDM: Yes, so that's the most popular definition of Muslim. But we know that Muhammad the Prophet said, prayers and peace be upon him, that everyone is born a Muslim. This is what Muhammad said, in Bukhari Muslim, you find this in most authentic hadiths, the most authentic reports of what he said, you will find it there. He said, "Everyone is born a Muslim." And it is the circumstances that that person is put in, that makes them a Christian or a Jew, or a Buddhist or something else, or a monk or something else. It's what, the circumstances they are put it in that makes them different.
0:14:29 IWDM: So what is the Prophet saying? He's saying that we are Muslims by virtue of our creation itself. We are made Muslims by G-d. And the baby comes here Muslim, and it's the world that makes the baby different. That's what we're hearing from the Prophet. Now there are many places in the Qur'an, I can give you evidences of this. Prophet wasn't saying something that wasn't in the Qur'an. He was speaking some Qur'an also. In fact, everything he said was either directly from the word of G-d, as revealed in Qur'an, or either it had his support in the Qur'an. Prophet didn't say or do anything that didn't have his support in the Qur'an. And that's again in fulfillment of prophecy, said, "One will come and he will say nothing of himself. But he will only speak what G-d has given him." See, yes, his life will not be his life of his own, but his life will be the life that G-d guided him to, or intended for him as a model for the other people.
0:15:24 IWDM: See, this is Muhammad the Prophet. And it had been coming for a long time. Now, so much for the name Muslim. Now, how I've talked about how a Muslim, it's to be understood, to be understood in the history and the context of Islamic history. And then it's to be understood in the context of Revelation. Beginning with the first man, Adam himself, and how the Prophet reported to, really, what he's doing, what he's pointing to when he's pointing to that life that he says all of us have until the world takes it away from us. He's pointing to really our Adamic nature, isn't he? Adam, he is pointing to the Adam that's still in us. G-d created a human being and G-d created that human being a Muslim. And that human being is still with us, in us, because after all, if we are children of that one, whatever was in that one is still in us. That one that's living, surviving through us. He's not really gone. How can he be gone if we're his children? His life was given to us. Before we died, he imparted his life to us. And we are now his children, meaning we have inherited his biological life. But more importantly, we should be inheriting his spiritual life.
0:16:44 IWDM: And his spiritual life is a Muslim. [laughter] Praise be to Allah. No, I want to connect this now with the topic: Prophecy, prophecy. It is my understanding, I want to say perception, because sometimes these words kind of get passed some of you all. It is my understanding that just as G-d put into the person he created that was Adam as a male and female... I said person that he created, I should have said soul that he created. Just as G-d put into the soul that he created before it was multiplied into people, many people, Muslim nature, Muslim disposition, Muslim inclinations, Muslim aspiration and Muslim urges, Muslim urges. Just as he put that in the soul that he created. And that soul became male and female, and produced many descendants, so have G-d designed the whole life, the whole life of the world. And he has put in the life of the world something from himself.
0:18:13 IWDM: That's not only the human world, but also the non-human, the inhuman, the non-human world. He put something in the human world of himself, and he put something in the non-human world of himself, animals, plants, the non-living matter, inanimate matter. He put in all of that, something from himself. That's what the big prophecy is. There's prophecy small and prophecy big. Small prophecy deals with family problems and tribal issues and things like that. The big prophecy deals with the will of G-d in his creation, and how the will of G-d in his creation is going to determine finally, the outcome for everything, it's the prophecy. Prophecy. Prophecy is not guesswork. Prophecy is either direction from G-d, which is not guesswork, but the truth. The truth that will prevail, or prophecy is a statement that is based upon a strong foundation, a strong rationale that the guided ones come to after they have studied G-d's ways, G-d's revelation and G-d's ways.
0:19:47 IWDM: So this is the big prophecy, the big prophecy is what's going to happen to humankind. What's going to happen to the environment that humankind has to be supported by, that you have to live on and live with and progress upon. What's going to happen to that? It already has been told by G-d in scripture. Even before Qur'an, Qur'an is not 1500 years old yet. Even before Qur'an it was told a long time ago. The Qur'an brought it all together and made it even plainer, made it clearer and plainer. What's going to happen. When we look at scripture and try to see this major movement of the will of G-d, affecting our life, human life is going to behave eventually. Well, all the time really, but particularly in the end.
0:20:49 IWDM: And how the environment is going to be shaped, the big prophecy, again, the big prophecy, and how the environment is going to be shaped. The beginning of the world as told by G-d... Excuse me, I have to adjust my belt. It's the age, the age, the age makes the belt line bigger and the hip line smaller. [laughter] So the belly pushes the belt off of the hips. [laughter] I'm fighting that. Ah, yes, back to the subject. [laughter] Yes, so now, the environment that G-d shows to us in the beginning is an environment that is described as a paradise. He put man in paradise, he created the man and put him in paradise, the Qur'an calls paradise, the garden. The most common name for the paradise in the Qur'an is the garden. Although the Qur'an, in the Qur'an, in the book of G-d, the last revelation of G-d, the word paradise is used too, but I think only one time, maybe one or two times, Firdous is paradise in the Quranic Arabic, Firdous. But Jannah is the most common term, Jannah, it means the garden.
0:22:33 IWDM: So he created the man and he put him in the paradise and there, he had no troubles, until the Satan came into his life and deceived him out of the good form that G-d had put him and his life in, his mate in. This is the Qur'an, that Satan came and deceived them out of the clothes, the clothing that G-d had created him in. And what is the clothing? You think it's a fig leaf, or maybe polyester? [laughter] No, the clothing that G-d put the man in was his flesh, his flesh. How do we know? And says, G-d says in the Qur'an to us, "And he formed the bones, and then he clothed the bones with flesh." So we know that the clothing that G-d put him in was his flesh and that means his flesh was Muslim, his flesh was not an enemy of his, his flesh was his friend until the Satan took him out of those clothes and put him in some other things, some thinking, a thinking that led his nature, his body wrong. See? This is how we should understand that. So G-d, in the beginning, what he had for us as an environment to live in was paradise. And we were in good condition too, we were Muslims in the right state, in the right nature, until the Satan took us out of that.
0:24:12 IWDM: Now, that begins the path of evil, corruption, misery, suffering, death. And the death is not the physical death, all of us die physically, that's no shame. The death is the death of sin; this is scripture. The death is the death of sin, the death of wrongdoings, the death we die because we go against the right way. So it's the death that we suffer because of our sins. When we give up righteousness for a life of sin, the Spirit in us of the Muslim is dead, gone, it's dead. And the sensitivities of a Muslim, dead, the spirit that leads you is dead and the life that makes you conscious is dead; sin has killed that for you. When the Prophet, prayers and peace be upon him, said, "Everyone is a Muslim, born a Muslim, and it is the circumstances that that child is put into that makes it other than a Muslim," then the Prophet is giving us some light that we can use to really see and understand our own human life and how it is affected by outside circumstances, even we are able to understand our internal conditions, that if something is wrong here, it has affected me from the outside, but it has affected me also internally, so I have to see the effect of the outside on me inside.
0:26:26 IWDM: How has the world affected my thinking? How has the world affected my feelings? How has the world affected my opinions? The world shapes us all over again and we'll find ourselves arguing against something that's for our own good and we won't know that we are arguing at this part from a position that the world has created for us. It isnt ours. I had so many people arguing with me over something and I have to stop them sometime and just remind them, I say, "Look, you think you're defending your point, you isnt defending your point." I say, "You never have had the freedom to come to that point." [laughter] Right? That is... I won't tell you what it was because I don't want to bother anybody that's sitting here comfortably on the floor right now, it might disturb you. But they was arguing a point, arguing a point, and the point they were arguing, I know that they never came to that point on their own, they never came to that kind of thinking on their own. They were given that thinking from the circumstances they were in as a human being and they're arguing it as though it's theirs.
0:27:46 IWDM: So, you know, you have a right to defend what's yours to the death. You do, you have a right to defend what's yours to the death. But know what is yours and what is not yours. [laughter] You're defending somebody else's. I've seen two people arguing and one of them said, "Oh, hell, man. This is useless. That isnt even my interest anyway." [laughter] After suffering so much in the argument, he finally realized that he was arguing somebody else's point. It wasn't even his. [laughter] But he heard it and he took it and he fighting for it. Many times we be fighting for Satan's point, and don't know it. We think it's our point. That's what Satan did to Adam. Yes, our first father. He sold him on an idea, on an opinion, and had Adam pushing for it. Until it got Adam in enough trouble that Adam started looking for some help outside of that. And he saw the word of G-d that turned him around. [chuckle] Praise be to Allah.
0:28:56 IWDM: So the will of G-d is working in all things, as the old Prophet said. The will of G-d, and as the Qur'an says, if you understand, the Qur'an and Muhammad, they say the same thing. The will of G-d is working in all things, and the will of G-d is eventually going to overcome all things. And the will of G-d is not just a spirit, although he said, "I have given everything something of my spirit." This is what G-d says in Islam, in the Qur'an. "I have given of my spirit, something of my spirit to all," not to some, to all. Yes. So it's not only the spirit or the force moving in you, like a urge. And all of us human beings, we know we've experienced a urge. If you start to do something real, real terrible, you get nervous inside. If it's something that would mean terrible consequences to others or to you, you feel something terrible start happening here. That's your own soul, very uncomfortable with what you're thinking about.
0:30:04 IWDM: So you feel something real terrible in here. And I'm sure that you have also experienced an urge to do something good, something right, that you know is right. But to do it also what means that you may have to face terrible consequences. And the same discomfort comes, right? Very uncomfortable there, you see? So something inside of us knows what's best for us. Isn't that true? Something inside of us, deep in the soul knows what's best for us and it tries to help us when we are in serious situations, very, very serious situations. It tries to help us. Now many times, we have our thinking already made up, don't we? Our thinking is already made up. We call it our thinking, right? I say it's not yours. Our thinking is already made up, so we go against. We go against it. Trembling, scared, break out in sweat, break out in sweat. Still go against it. [chuckle]
0:31:12 IWDM: So Allah has, in this world, in us and in this world, more than just his will spirit. He also have in this world his plan. When he made things, he also made things to bear his plan. To bear his plan. Just like a plant bears the plan of his creator. That plant comes here, the seed, the apple seed comes here with the plan of the creator of the apple tree. The creator of the apple life is in the seed we call the apple seed. And that seed has a plan for a new tree and a new generation of apples. That's the new tree. Is that not true? And you look at the seed, you don't see a tree. You look at that apple seed, you can cut it, split it in half, you don't see a tree. But if you take it and study it with a microscope scientifically, you'll see that that seed, that apple seed, has a different fiber pattern than anything else that exists. Just like we have different fingerprints.
0:32:27 IWDM: It has a different fiber plan than any other seed that exists. It won't look like a peach seed, it won't look like a grape seed. It has its own fiber pattern, when you take the microscope and look at it. And you put that seed in the ground, if it gets what it needs from the environment, it's going to come up an apple tree and produce itself all over again. Repeated apples, apples repeated in existence again, right? Well, if you understand Islam the way you're supposed to understand it, Islam starts with the creator, with the creator. And what the creator created bearing his will, bearing his will and his plan. So no matter what we come up with... You know, we have these dreamers dreaming up ideas for how life should be lived or how the spirit should be understood or how the political world should be ordered. We have all these dreamers, men will dream, women too. We'll keep dreaming, we're not going to stop dreaming. But Allah has a plan and none of our dreams can overcome his plan. None of our planning can overcome his plan. Allah says, "They plan, and G-d plans. And G-d is the best of planners."
0:33:57 IWDM: So, G-d intended for man to be a Muslim. Meaning one, saying, "G-d, I don't want to take this life into my charge and be responsible for it. I want you to tell me, how am I to live it?" That's the beginning, that's the Muslim, first step to be Muslim. And then after that, we want to live our life so that our life pleases that G-d. Pleases that G-d, everything we do thereafter. We want it to be acceptable in the presence of G-d. This is the Muslim, the complete Muslim. So G-d gives in time man guidance for overcoming the influence of Satan in his life and in his environment. Most of the religions, they prepare their followers to fight the influences of Satan in their lives, in their personal lives, in human life. To also help your brother, help your sister fight Satan. Help your family, help your friends, help your sister, even help a stranger fight Satan.
0:35:17 IWDM: To my knowledge, none of them but Islam makes it very clear and plain. None of them except Qur'an and Muhammad makes it very clear and plain that we are to be responsible for a public life that Satan just kept out of. So these other religions, they can have gambling in the neighborhood, they can have vices in the neighborhood. The law will do its best to keep the trouble down, [chuckle] or keep the problem at a minimum. But they could have it. Satan can set up his quarters, his workshop on any corner if he likes. That's okay. It's a democracy, it's open to everything. Not for Muslims. For Muslims, you are not supposed to help Satan, you're not supposed to support him in any of his wrongdoings. You're supposed to fight these schemes of Satan. And the schemes of Satan is to work through the weaknesses of human beings. To find human weaknesses, and then work through those weaknesses to get control of their future, their lives, their lives and their future.
0:36:38 IWDM: This is the scheme of Satan. So Muslims are to fight the schemes of Satan. "Oh, where is that brother Iman, in the Qur'an?" If you read it last... In the month of Ramadan that's just behind you a few days, you read it already; if you completed the book, you read that. Allah says, "Then fight the schemes of Satan, for surely his schemes are weak." And why are they so weak? Because those schemes are dependent upon human weaknesses. And if human beings will just use their strength against those schemes, they got the stronger part of themselves against the weaker part of themselves. Is that clear? Yes. See that's how you understand. Surely, his schemes are weak. Because his schemes depend upon our weaknesses. And all we have to do is come with our strength against our weaknesses. That's why ultimately, who is the fight between? The fight is between my Muslim position, and that in me that threatens that Muslim position. My fight is with myself.
0:37:48 IWDM: And if I bring my strength against my weaknesses, I can overcome. I can overcome. Yes, Allah, never put heroin within the reach of human beings. No, and heroin is a very strongly addictive drug. But I know persons, even before this particular time that we are in now in my leadership. I know persons who have so much faith in what they heard from Elijah Muhammad. That they put down a long, long history of heroin addiction, cold turkey, no help from any professional. Praise be to Allah. I've seen their arms, black track all of it down, and needle marks in other places. Yes, and they gave it up. That shows that the strength is stronger than the weakness. The strength is stronger than the weakness, so we can overcome all of these things.
0:39:00 IWDM: The prophets looked down the road and they saw something coming and they had this kind of perception that we are discussing right now. So we are getting this perception from revelation. That's where it comes from, this understanding of how to look at things, comes from the revelation, what G-d revealed. They looked at... With the light that G-d gave them, they looked at the world and what was developing. And G-d inspired them to predict the conclusion of these things, how it's going to all end. Okay, so this environment is going to become more and more a problem. What is smaller now is going to become much bigger in the future. People are going to be multiplying in numbers. There'll be more people, that means living quarters will become more thickly populated. We think the market has a population problem now, too many people in the market? Say oh wait for the generations to come, it's going to be compounded. The problem is going become much greater.
0:40:16 IWDM: That's what they predicted, and they said the community life, but the Bible puts it as city life, the Qur'an puts it also as city life, but the Qur'an goes directly to it, crowding, crowding, crowding, the crowds are going to become bigger and bigger. And then there's the late terminology that begin with urban renewal, crowding. They start to bring us the problem of what crowding is doing to our life, how crowding is distorting, influencing and distorting the very composition of human life. That is making human beings all over again, crowding. And they did experiments to show what happened to certain animals. If you put them in too small a confine, too many of them together, in too small of confines, if confines are too small for them to have room, that they turn into another creature. They lose their previous sense of behavior and they become creatures with a new and more destructive behavior, violent destructive behavior.
0:41:29 IWDM: This is what science experiments told them, scientific experiments told them this, they studied it. They studied crowding on animals to see how crowding of human beings look. So they didn't do the right thing, they had the right information, but because of the problem of crowding, they moved upon experience rather than upon guidance. And they say, "Oh, we need projects, stack them up." And they stacked people up in these projects, in Chicago, in New York, all over, stacking them up in these projects, and they start behaving just like those animals, that they had cooped up, too many in too small a place. Just like those animals start striking out and hating each other, people start doing the same thing, hating each other and ready to kill and beat each other down for nothing. Science didn't tell us this first, G-d's revelation was the first to tell us this. That the conditions are going to be compounded, and the city is going to become oppressive, and the big cities are going to become the places of great sin, suffering and death. The cities. And certain old cities in ancient time appointed to. So you see those old cities, see how much trouble that was in all the old cities? Like Babylon, like Nineveh, like ancient Egypt.
0:43:05 IWDM: They were... There's going to be more than Egypt, there's going to be more than Babylon, and they are going to be worse than their predecessors. This is scripted, it's a prediction. Revelation comes to tell the world that you are not created to be different people separate from each other. You're created to be people all alike in your human creation. And then human to each other, working together. That came with the Qur'an and Muhammad. That's where that came from. So, Allah gave the last prophet, the seal of the prophet is the last Prophet Muhammad, the guidance for the world, to teach the world how it is to understand itself in its plural body, or in its total numbers of human beings on this earth, that in your plural body, you're one people, you're one people, you're all human beings and you have one origin and one destination. One origin and one destination, and your origin is... What you were in your origin, that's what you're to be in your destination. In your origin, you were Muslim. In your origin, you were one community.
[foreign language]
0:44:47 IWDM: In your origin, you were one people or human community. In your origin, you were giving your life and your future for G-d. You were serving G-d. So in your destination you must be the same. Is that in the Bible? Yes. As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end. What G-d intended will prevail, that's all it's saying. It's saying what G-d intended shall prevail. We have in Qur'an in the chapter, that G-d says, "Oh, soul, you soul," speaking to the soul, "Pleasing and pleased."
0:45:51 IWDM: Prove this with what is happening now in the economic world, economic world. Allah says... In many ways, Allah posted this material end, how he decides also the material end for man. Allah says, "And the spirit man also is given, both of them are given in the Qur'an, and in the life of our prophet." So see how Allah shrinks the land, draws it in from its borders, just cause it to shrink from its borders. It's not as large as it used to be. Now, this is very profound on a physical level or in the physical scene. This is actually happening to the continents. Yes, that's what happened to the continents. Yeah, they surrounded by water, they were separated somehow and they became surrounded by water and the water just keep, just washes up on them and washes away their borders. And in time, these places are going to be small, land going to be spread out. Who knows what's going to be the contour of the features, the looks of the land. Billions of years from now, we don't know.
0:47:07 IWDM: Science can speculate or predict based on certain knowledge that they have. They can predict and it's a wonder that they're not predicting... You know why they're not predicting? Cause if they predicted, they give help to the people that's on these lands, and they don't want to give any help. So, rather than predict the future, if they can discover the past, they can also predict the future. Because the same thing that worked to show them how that came from there here now, to where it is now, tells them what's going to happen from here to another distance of time. But they don't want to tell us what's going to happen there, but they'll tell us, "Yes, these continents used to be together." That's one theory, that these continents, Asia and Africa, and even America, they used to be all together and something happened beneath the surface to cause volcanoes and land mass changes, etcetera, and some oceans to appear, to come in from around the borders, oceans to come in on the borders, and now you have these oceans here where land used to be, the land has gone down, and land has gone up. The land comes up with volcanic explosions, in the ocean, takes place in the ocean and it throws land up.
0:48:27 IWDM: You see, so really, enough of that happening under water can throw a mountain up where there was no land. A mountain can be thrown up out of water where there was no land, that can happen. And I believe that's what has happened in many places of the world. That's my speculation. And I can speculate just like they can. [laughter] And sometime my speculation might be better than theirs. Yes, just like they predict the weather. And they say... This happens all the time, you should ask the brothers around me, they'll tell you, I'm well known for this. They say, "Brother Imam, it's going to be... " What they told me, recently, "Oh, brother Imam," they say, "There's going to be four inches of snow." I say, "What?" "It's going to be four inches of snow tomorrow." I say, "I don't think so." [laughter] I say, "More like maybe one, possibly two." I say, "Maybe one." The next day that's exactly what it was. [laughter] And that's not one time, that happens often, it happens often. I have a strong soul sense, my soul, I have a powerful soul sense, and I can sense things and I don't have no control over it. You who experience this, you know, you don't have any control over it, but once it's there, you realize it. You are aware of it, you are aware of it, that something is here, saying something.
0:49:45 IWDM: Not speaking in a man's voice, speaks in no voice. It just come readily to your mind and not in language forms, it comes to your mind, and you put it in language form. Yes, so this is experience, they call it psychic or something. I say just a great soul, great sensitive soul, I got a great sensitive soul. I tell the brothers, I say, "You see all those little insects? You ever watch insects crawling around?" I say, "Especially those with little antennas." I say, "And the little antennas be going out in front of them like that?" And sometime they raise them up, and they do that. They sense something, from a distance, so they raise them up. They're like the, antennas go up here in an electronic field. When you want to pick up distance, you raise the antennas up. So those little animals, they raise those antennas up, and they pick up things from a distance. So I tell the brothers, I say, "Well, my antennas was up." That's what I tell them. I say, "Well, my antennas are up," I say, "I think so and so, and so and so." So they won't tell you all this because, I got them afraid, I got them...
[laughter]
0:50:50 IWDM: Yeah, really, I got them so spooked up, some are afraid to even think bad around me. [laughter] Now isn't that a blessing? [laughter] So they won't share these things with you, though, very few people they'll share this information with, but they're experiencing that all the time with me, those who are with me. I just get those things. And it didn't just start with me, I was a boy. I hope you don't mind me sharing this with you. I was a boy when this happened, I was a teenager. I'm walking down the street with my friend, he's still alive, he will verify this. His name is Leroy, slave name, Little, Leroy Little, X, something X little. It's been so long, I forgot how many Xs he had. [laughter] But anyway, he's my friend, very close friend. And he was interested in a certain girl, and something hit me while we were walking down the street. Now we saw this girl that he was interested in, we saw her on 47th Street, south, near Cottage Grove, but now, we're around 62nd Street walking.
0:52:16 IWDM: Now, that's a long way from 47th Street, isn't it? We're on 62nd Street walking. And something hit me, I say, "Leroy," I say, "What would you think if I told you we're going to see such and such person, and you saw her." He just looked at me and he said, "I don't know," he looked puzzled. We walked about a fourth of a block and there she was. [laughter] Now I have witnesses to this, a living witness to this. Not only that, when I was much younger than that, I guess I was about 12 years old, maybe 12 years old, 13, maybe. My little brother, Akbar, he's living too. Now, I isnt going to tell you no... I'm not going to tell you anything that I don't have a living witness for. He's still living too, he could verify this. Me and Akbar were just having our normal kind of activity in the house, talking as boys would talk, he was five... Almost six years younger than me. But we were together more of the... Because the older boys had gone out, mostly gone out of the house, married or gone out. So it hit me, I said, "Akbar," I said, "I can tell you what's on your mind now."
[laughter]
0:53:29 IWDM: No, this is true, this is no joke. So Akbar looked, his eyes, testy, he said, "Tell me what's on my mind." And I told him, he said, "Yeah, that's... " He said, "Yeah, that's what I was thinking about." And he's a living witness. Yes. He's in Upstate, New York. He's a professor on the campus, Binghamton University, he's a professor up there. Yeah, he's a living witness. And I can go on and tell you, Muhammad Ali's wife, she said, "I heard that you could... You a psychic, you could tell... " I say, "Yes, I am."
[laughter]
0:54:13 IWDM: She said, "Could you tell me what's on my mind?" I say, "I don't know," so I had to... See, it doesn't come when you command it. You can't command it. She said, "Can you tell me what's on my mind?" I say, "I don't know." But something hit me. And it hit me, I said, "Yes," I say, "I can tell you." She said, "What's on my mind?" I say, "I don't know what it is." I say, "But I'm going to describe it to you." I say, "What I see is something looks like a fried egg. Sunny-side up." "No!" she said, "No!" I say, "What is it?" She said, "I'm looking at the sun." I say, "At the sun?" She said, "Yes, I was seeing the sun." I said, "Is it cloudy?" She said, "Yeah." I said, "Where is the sun?" She said, "It's outside of the cloud." I say, "That's the egg, sunny-side up."
[laughter]
0:55:11 IWDM: See, she had not given language to what she saw. So I couldn't get language. She didn't give any language, she just saw something. So when I saw what she saw, maybe her mind didn't make a good cloud scene. [chuckle] Maybe it looked more like sunny-side egg in a frying pan, you know? [laughter] I saw a sunny-side egg, that's what I saw. No frying pan, but just a egg, sunny-side up. That's what I saw. So, you have to... What am I saying all this for? Believe in the self that G-d created. See, this is the self that G-d created... G-d created us to have this human soul that's powerful. It's a powerful human soul and if you will give it to G-d, you will start to realize a lot of his resources that you can't realize now. Oh, you...
[foreign language]
0:56:02 IWDM: You soul, old soul that wants to be satisfied. Return to your lord. That's where you'll get that satisfaction. Return to your Lord. Pleasing and pleased. Pleasing G-d, firstly. If you please G-d, he's going to be pleased. Pleasing and pleased. In you among my workers. In you, my Paradise. Isn't that beautiful? That's English and it's beautiful. You read it in Arabic. Oh, it's so beautiful! It's so beautiful. Ah! Powerful in expression and beauty. So, this economic world now, it's doing exactly what is predicted that it would do. It'll be influenced by the Satan and the Satan will be riding the human life like a man rides a dumb animal. And you won't be in control of yourself. In other words, there'll be no head of yours on your body, you have a rider on your body and the rider will be the thinking of the Satan himself. His thinking for you, will be riding you, and you won't be able to come out of your ignorance, you won't be able to come out of your servitude, your helplessness. You won't be able to come out of because you'll be having as your rider, instead of your own mind and your own head, the Satan himself. Through the material influences, through the commercial life, the material influences.
0:57:42 IWDM: Yes, so the perception of the economic life of this whole world now, is seen as being one economic life or one economic system. They call it the one world order. And they also call it the world economic system. The world economic system. No more national, no more America, no more this, but the whole world now is under one economic system. And the players, speaking of political blocks or political units, the players are the nations. America is one of the players, China, a player, Japan, a player, Germany, all these players. And they're looking now at one game, one field and one game. One field, the global economic conditions, and one game. Who's going to win? Who's going to out-compete the other? That's what they're doing. And because of that, national and global politics are affected. So if you no more have a political agenda for your own nation, your political agenda must also be a piece on the table, on the playing board. That's all it can be. Your political agenda must be a piece on the playing board with the nations of the world. So, they wonder how come President Clinton has all this popularity in spite of the attacks upon his character, upon his moral life, he still came out powerful, more powerful than before, in the polls.
0:59:56 IWDM: And even the predictors, the professional, they wonder, "How did this happen?" And then, what happened is it make them come to a different mind. It makes them come from a biased mind to a rational mind. And then they look at it again and then they start to explain, "What's the cause?" "He really spoke to the people." And before he was charged with not speaking to the reality of the people. That was the first response. He didn't address the reality of the people. But after they were shocked to come out of their prejudices and out of their biased positions that to could be rational, then they looked at it again and they said, "Well, his State of the Union Address was very effective and very popular." It reached to the people. It was what the people want to hear. Yes, so what they want to hear. They want to hear that the president is going to give big business whatever it wants, and going to give Israel whatever it wants. That's what they want to hear.
1:01:06 IWDM: That he's going to give big businesses and Israel whatever they ask for. But the President wants to help human conditions. President's saying, "Well, social security, we have to do something about it." We have to protect social security. And the president's saying, "Well, we have to make education top priority." Better and improved education, top priority. This is what the people want to hear. Yes. So this is the one world order. So along with these trends that were predicted by the prophets as they were guided by G-d, for the material life and the spiritual life, also comes prediction for the moral life. The moral life. As man began to come to grips with the challenge of Satan in the material world, or through the commercial life, he's going to then be in a better situation to see the damage that's been done to his moral life. So these things start to be corrected at the same time. As you correct your moral and economic perception... Pardon me, as you correct your material and economic perception, it's going to help you correct your political perception.
1:02:30 IWDM: And as you correct your political perception, it's going to help you improve your moral perception. They all work together and the world shall become new all at once. This is prophecy. There shall be a new Earth and new Heaven. And G-d shall gather those on the earth and those in the heavens. Did you hear that? That's the Qur'an. He didn't say he's just going to gather the ones from the earth, he said he's going to gather those in heaven. This is judgement day. Who has gone on up to heaven and got passed, and didn't belong there and they're going to have to be gathered again for judgment. They're not talking about that heaven. It's talking about the heaven of man's political order. Man has created his own world. He has created his own political order. And in his political order, there are those that are in the Earth, dead, deaf, dumb and blind. And there are those that are in the heavens of man's political order, the seers, the wide awake. But they don't belong in heaven, they belong in hell. Some of them up there belong in hell, so they're going to be gathered on the Day of Judgment.
1:03:40 IWDM: Just as those on the Earth shall be gathered on the Day of Judgement. So G-d is going to bring them down from their heavens and put them in the hell where they belong. Yes. And those that are on the Earth, deaf, dumb and blind that didn't listen to their moral nature and their human nature, their original Muslim that they have inside their soul, they wouldn't listen to it, so G-d is going to gather them also for the hell fire. And that's going to happen in the end of time when G-d roll up this creation like a scroll. This is Qur'an. Roll the creation up like a scroll. The stars and the sun and all of that would be rolled up like a scroll and he will cast it, he'll have it and he will cast it away and then he will bring in a new creation. That's G-d's word, the Qur'an. And he will bring in a new creation. That all is perishable and all is vanishing except the presence of G-d.
[foreign language]
1:04:37 IWDM: Except the presence of G-d. That he will cast it all to go away as if it never existed. And then he will bring it all back into existence a new creation. And when they see it, they say, "Oh, this resemble what I saw before." Isn't that a wonderful G-d. Wouldn't you like to see that sweetheart that passed, that died? Yes? Died loving you and you loving her. Wouldn't you like to see her again? Now, if you got in heaven and you saw something that didn't look nothing like her, have nothing that she had, you'll be disappointed. That'll be a most disappointing awakening in heaven. But if you wake up and say, "Oh, that look just like that girl." And you speak to her and she say, "Yes, this is me."
[laughter]
1:05:26 IWDM: Wouldn't that be wonderful? So the G-d, the merciful G-d who created us, he's not a G-d that disappoints us. No, he's not a G-d that disappoints us. Satan disappoints us. Now Satan is the one that will promise you a girl. And you wake up and you see she looking just like that girl. There she is. And you go over there and go to touch her and she turn into Michael Jackson's monster. Now, that's how Satan... Satan loves to disappoint you. [laughter] Take care brothers, take care. Let us take life into our own hands for Allah's pleasure. And let us accept responsibility for the public life for Allah's pleasure. Do it for Allah's pleasure. That Allah created you for this great responsibility. And it's a great dignity that you'll enjoy, a great sense of self-fulfillment that you'll enjoy if you accept the plan of G-d. So let us have the Muslim community establish on this geography we call the United States of America, and let us have the halal in that boundary and haram outside of that boundary. Peace and may Allah guide us always and show us mercy, and accept our repentance. Amin. As-salaam alaykum.

