2003
IWDM Study Library
SPEECH TO BROTHERS IN HOUSTON TX
(Parts 1)
By Imam W. Deen Mohammed

00:04 IWDM: Assalamu Alaikum.

00:06 S?: Walaikum Assalam.

00:10 IWDM: Bismillah Rahman Raheem. With God's name, the merciful benefactor, the merciful redeemer, we witness that He is one alone, has no other with Him in the run or rule of the universe that He created, except as servants of His. He says none come to Him except as servants. We know that He has angels and men in His creation and also jinn. And all the other things that are more distant from human life. He has created and He is the creator and God of all of that, and He says, "Is it not for God, the creation and the command?" Then He says that human beings, men who want to take responsibility for the world, should understand the logic that they themselves advocate. The rules of logic, of human logic, should establish for us that the God who created everything has a right to say how it is to be used, ordered, shared as servant.

02:15 IWDM: We believe, that brings us to the Quran now, we believe that Quran is communication from the God that created everything. That God is eternal, existing without change in His nafs. I use the word nafs, that's a Quranic word, because person is not exactly nafs. The way a 'person' is used is not exactly the way 'nafs' is used. That God has not any change in His person or in His nafs, I prefer, and He have never had a beginning and never has an ending. He is the same now as He has been always. And as He is now, He will always be, no change in Him. It is not for us to use our little brains or our little nafs to try to question what God has revealed of Himself. Now and again are looking for other explanations, or other ways of perceiving Him after He has revealed Himself, highly glorified is He.

04:08 IWDM: It is said in the Quran that Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, when he will be answering before God regarding what his followers said of him being a God also, he will give this. And his answer, along with other statements that he will give, he will give this, "If I had done so you would have known it. I know not what is in your nafs, but you know what is in my nafs." So, if Jesus Christ, who's called in both the religions of Christianity and Islam, is spirit from God Himself, Roh, the spirit from God Himself. And he himself, Jesus Christ, is saying in the Quran that, "I know not what is in the identity of God's essence." Of God's essence, His nafs. Then why should we be fools to be trying to rack our brains, to know what is in God's nafs.

05:45 IWDM: As advanced as our sciences are in the West and now in the world, the efforts of the scientists are efforts of many nationalities, the nationalities of the whole world now. Not lead by only Western people or Western minds. The effort in science lead by minds from all over the world. And the Asians and some others are advancing and becoming more and more important in the effort of science for the whole world, not quite like it used to be, just Europe and America leading everything. Not that way anymore, but some men...

06:30 IWDM: Getting to the point, the best minds in science, if we had them right here today, present now, and I would ask them the question for us, "Do you have a map of all matter existing? Do you know the end of space, where it starts and stop?" They would say, "No". They would have to say no to both questions. So if we don't even know how to understand and perceive and understand what God has done, we call this His works. We don't know the limit of it, we don't know where it starts and where it ends, then why should we be racking our brains trying to know everything about God's nafs? That's what threw the Christians off in the Nicene's debates, conferences, councils they call it, in history. That's what threw them off. They were trying to understand God's nafs and they came up with certain conclusions that didn't satisfy all of them; they remained divided, but the majority imposed their thinking on the rest of the world. But not on all those that were to share in decision, 'cause the Eastern church right now differs with the Western church. And there are different denominations of Christianity that differs with the popular idea about the nafs of God.

08:20 IWDM: So that's what I wanna tell you first, because our perception of reality is great and have been very productive for human society. For man, life in society have been very productive because we of these advanced societies, these leading societies today, believe that man is not the highest order. That the divine order is the highest order, and over that order, is God Himself, His own nafs. We wouldn't have the conveniences, the transportations, the communication advances, the great advances in science. We would not have this beautiful, powerful, advanced world and its sciences and industries, etcetera, and benefits to human life, comforts, if 
it had not been for God communicating His will to a human being. Because it is not those societies that did not receive this communication that have their nation with all of these great advances. It is those that received messages from God and have that communication that have realized all of these great advantages. So God has proved His presence by rewarding those who accepted His communication and held on to it, with the most advanced material world as well as the most advanced spiritual knowledge.

10:19 IWDM: Isn't that wonderful? You all got to wake up to modern day realities. Modern day realities that support faith in the God and faith in His revelation. And as I told the sisters, this part is for both brothers and sisters. As I told the sisters, we are blessed. The Muslim world is in trouble, their publics have been abandoned, their leaders have abandoned their obligations to their publics. Their publics are used just for the benefit of the political entity and the commercial life. They are not included at all in God's covenant or in God's message to mankind. They are not included at all. Muhammad, the Prophet, said that his nation would come under darkness, that his following, his ummah would come under darkness. But he said, "Just as it was raised up by God the first time, it will be brought up again." That's what Muhammad the Prophet promised. I believe in all my being and all the life that's in me, I believe that that time is here now and the place, for that re-awakening to the best of what God gave Muhammad, to us through Muhammad, is happening in America under the spiritual leadership of the son of Elijah Mohammad.

12:18 S?: Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar.

12:21 IWDM: That is my firm belief. And if you will believe half as much as I believe, we will be able to do in America what the Muslims were able to do in Arabia, and in that world, at that time. And we won't have to wait long to see it come about. Just as it happened for Muhammad the Prophet in about 12 years or less, it will happen for us, too, in about 12 years or less. But in a much bigger way because there are advances for transportation, advances for communication. We live in a much more equipped world for supporting the da'wah and the message and the vision for Muslims on this earth. We have much more going for our task than they had in that time going for their task. So look, wake up and have faith that you have been selected for a great work.

13:40 S?: Allahu Akbar.

13:43 IWDM: Why us? Why somebody else? If this is God's plan, you say, "Why us?", I ask you, "Why somebody else?" The people of Moses came from bad circumstances. They were servants in a strange land and their life was controlled by their masters. And God was not pleased with that. So He raised from among them a liberator. And they became the modern day Jews, the Jews that have all these sciences and all these skills and all these advances in the world of our time. The Jews. It happened in the time of Jesus. If you understand scripture. When the learned, the bosses in the society of that time, when they heard that the people were excited about a man called Jesus, peace be upon him, when they learned where he was from, they said, "How can anything of worth come from that place?" That's what they said. Arabia was called the Land of Darkness of the ignorant that worship idols, worshipers of idols, pagans, idols. Idol-worshippers, who had no civilized honor to unite all the citizens of that land, called the Land of the Arabs. And Allah chose Muhammad the Prophet. And he became their leader. And look at the contributions that his following made to the modern world.

16:08 IWDM: Sciences, higher standards of moral life, higher appreciation for ethical life, higher appreciation for civilization and His excellence. That's what came along. So now, we were separated from our past, like history, and brought to America to be their servants and their slaves. And we were separated from our original life more completely and more thoroughly than the people we call Jews were separated from their life under their masters. And we were confused concerning who is God and what is our place in this world or in the scheme of matter, material universe that He created. And we had to give upon those who captured us and moved us for that information.

17:34 S?: Yes, yes.

17:37 IWDM: Now, look at all the... Stop right there, don't come any further. Stop right there with us as slaves in that situation. Little children taken from their parents and raised with no knowledge of where they came from or what their life was before. Stop right there and tell me, if the God of justice came to the rescue of Jews who were in that situation. The God of rescue, of justice, came to the Christians, to give him the covenant through this poor man from these poor people of no repute, or no great reputation. And if the same God of justice came to Muhammad, who were a member of a people who worshipped idols, and they were not counted as being important in the world order of that time. And then He raised him up, and gave His covenant to him and his followers. You seeing us in the picture? 

19:11 S?: Yes, yes.

19:14 IWDM: How can anyone see that reality of history and God's intervention, intervention in the life of people that bring about justice for those cut off from Him, and not understand that God has to do something special for us? 

19:39 S?: Allahu Akbar.

19:41 IWDM: God has to do something special for us. It can't be what just what He did for anybody, it has to be something special for us. In the same fashion that He rescued those people, He must rescue us. In the same fashion. I'm a Muslim because I believe that God is doing that. I'm not a Muslim because I have the Quran. We had the Quran when we were ignorant. We had the Quran when we were not following the way. We had the Quran and thought we were wiser than the Muslims abroad who had the Quran. Am I right or wrong? 

20:27 S?: That's right! 

20:28 IWDM: We had the Quran, we read English, we were reading it, but God chose to make your leader the man who believes the way I do, me! He chose me to be your leader. Chose the one of you with my thinking. He chose not me, He chose my thinking.

20:54 S?: Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar! 

20:57 IWDM: My flesh mean nothing. God chose my thinking. He chose me because of my thinking. My brother's body look like mine. He didn't choose my brother. Some people confuse me and say, "Herbert! Is that Herbert?" I say, "Hi."

[laughter]

21:12 IWDM: When I'm in a hurry I don't even have me thinking that I'm not Herbert. But Herbert wasn't thinking like Wallace. God didn't choose Herbert, God chose Wallace. God didn't see in Herbert something that made that person special to God. But He saw in Wallace, before Wallace was born, something special that would be in Wallace. So He put Wallace in a situation to be looked upon different, before he was even born. "Oh this, we don't wanna hear this." Well, leave.

[laughter]

22:03 IWDM: Those who wanna hear it stay. I'm not here to ask you for a damn thing, you understand that? I'm not here to ask you for anything, I don't want anything from anyone. God has given me more than I need, okay? My stomach can be filled to satisfaction, and I can hang out with the alley dogs.

[laughter]

22:26 IWDM: And my stomach will be filled to the satisfaction. I'm not caring about my stomach, I'm caring about my soul, my heart, my mind...

[applause]

22:40 IWDM: And you can't give me money into my soul, into my heart, into my mind, because that belongs to Allah, okay? So don't think I'm here for your worship. I don't want you to worship me, when I finish I wish you could forget me, and not see anything but what we have to do. And just do what we have to do. Don't look at me. Yes, but I'm just giving you the facts. God chose me before I was born, and put me in a situation to become your leader, before I was born. The respect for me before I was born was already put in my family, so that when I came they were already saying, "This is a special child. He is the one that's going to help my father, help their father." "My father," my brothers and sisters would say, speaking of their father, they would say, "My father", or "Our father." I didn't know the importance of any of that, it didn't even dawn on me, I was a little child, I couldn't register all that.

23:47 IWDM: But when the time came for me to move forward, in my father's interests, Elijah Muhammad's interests, to help him with his work among us, I was turned on to the importance of the mission and I've been working ever since as a leader. First as a minister in Chicago, then as a minister in Philadelphia. Went to prison, came out finally as a minister again, authorized by the man who rejected me. Same man who rejected me, put me out of the community, my father, brought me back in and authorized me. And authorized me and then obligated me to be like the rest of his ministers. He told his top people in the staff in Chicago at the meeting in his house, he said, "They have brought me there to have me rejected again".

[laughter]

25:00 IWDM: They had a tape that I had made of something I had said on the radio and they thought that was going to get me thrown out again. My father had heard the tape and he liked it, and he told them, he said, "My son can go anywhere he wants and preach." He told his staff that, with the supreme captain present, "I'm telling you in the presence of my son that you don't make any trouble for him. I don't care where he goes, he can go and pick a notice here." He says, "Son" looking at me, "Preach that gospel." I have no gospel. I never had any gospel. [laughter] But he, from his understanding, he said, "And preach that gospel." That's what he said, meaning that I'm telling you bosses onto me, that my son is not obligated to teach what I taught you all. I'm freeing him to teach what he got on his mind. My father did that, authorized me in this life before he died. That's the power of God. And now you have accepted me, and many of you lost interest because I didn't stay where you thought I should have stayed. You are gone, but really do you miss him? Do you miss any of them that's gone? I don't. That's the power of God. That's the power of God. Allah protects His own interests. Allah-God protects His own interests. He doesn't need us to protect Him, and He brings about these things, not us.

26:48 IWDM: We are only tools and instruments, material that He has in His control. He is doing the work really. This is what I firmly believe, and I need people around me today who firmly believe what I believe. We can do great things if we who believe as I believe come together and work for the ends that we know God has made open to us.

27:27 S?: Yes, sir.

27:29 IWDM: Now, all the signs are clear and plain. Clear, very clear. When I started out, the Islamic world was not in quite the mess it's in today, when I started out 25-30 years ago. And many of you would look and say, "Oh, he's gonna teach Arabic? He's gonna teach... He's not an Arab. They know that language, he doesn't. He's like us. He knows only English. He's gonna teach us the son of the Prophet, the way of the Prophet. He doesn't know it like they know it. He just one of us." Look how God has punished the Islamic world for their own neglect in their Islamic life. Look how He had punished them and taken all the credits away from them. What credits do they have for us to look at them and say, "We must make our own leader by them, their thinking and their standards." What credits do they have anymore? They don't have any credit anymore.

28:58 IWDM: We know they have Al-Azhar, one of the finest university it didn't have a 1,000 years, great university in Egypt. We know they have these great centers of Islamic knowledge, education, etcetra. We know they have them. But they are too weak to meet the challenge that is coming from their spoiled life. They can't even educate leaders to go to the top of leadership in their own countries that will serve the good life of Muslims. They can't produce that, they are not even producing leaders. So you are absolutely dumb. You are stupid if you turn away from what God has done for us here in America and look at them for hope. Your hope is in them, you're lost, you're finished, you're gone.

30:00 S?: Allahu Akbar.

[applause]

30:13 IWDM: Yes, you brothers, we need you. You're men. And we need you to stand up to these sissies in defense of what God has blessed us with. Tell them, "Take your prayer rugs and your beads and all that stuff, take it back home. Go back to your country with it." They really wanna start off like the followers of Muhammad started off. I'm thinking these are failures and that's all we want. Subhan'Allah, Subhan'Allah, Subhan'Allah. That's all we want. Take your beads, your rosaries. Take them back to your country and sell them to your own people. You wanna start off just like the followers of Muhammad started off. We don't want your prayer rugs. We pray on the sand. We pray on the grass. We pray on the wood floor, the cotton. We don't need your rugs. Give your rugs back to Aladdin in his lamp.

31:18 IWDM: Yes, wake up to the things that are more important. That's what I'm saying. Wake up to the things that are more important. Leave these trivials that have become the values in the Muslim life, that is dead and gone.

[background conversation]

31:43 IWDM: This is not to say they don't have excellent minds among them. Certainly they do. They have strong and excellent, learned, brilliant minds among them. In all these countries you'll find some great thinkers, highly educated Muslims. And now females too are growing. They're growing in knowledge and leadership in many places. But they don't have the vision. They don't have the knowledge of just what went wrong and how to correct it. They don't have it. If they did they could make change in a few days in their own countries, but they can't. They can't make change.

32:33 IWDM: Oh, it's because of the big Satan, America, dominating everything. Nothing is too big for God. Nothing is too big for God. America is not the problem. Their own ignorance is the problem. We don't need many of you brothers. We only need a few of you all. What did Muhammad say? One learned Muslim is harder on the devil than, how many? Than 1,000 ignorant ones. So you don't need a lot of help. You just need very few. That's what it's saying. You don't need a lot of people, a lot of men, to accomplish this work. You need just a few. And that's the way it was in the past. Muhammad started off, prayers of peace be upon him, he started off himself and a few friends. Called it companions. But look how they multiplied in numbers. It was the few who attracted the many. It's not gonna happen any differently in any other time in our history. It's going to be a few that attract the many.

34:10 IWDM: Now you know yourself. You know those among you too who are alive and those who are dead. So let the living come forward and the dead be awakened by the great works that we will do. Yes, our works will awaken the dead. What is this Islamic world missing most of all? It is missing basic concepts and the most important perceptions for the human mind. Especially for Muslims. They are missing the correct perception of even God. Sure, they say Allah is One, but they're not knowing Him as they should. They say Muhammad, they're missing the perception even of Muhammad the Prophet. They say yes, they say Muhammad is God's messenger. He's his s
ervant and messenger, he's the last prophet. But they are not perceiving him as Allah revealed him originally in Islam. They are not. They are perceiving too the unity of mankind, but they are not perceiving it as those early followers perceived it. How do you know Imam Warith Deen Mohammed? I know because God has blessed me to know. That's how I know.

36:07 IWDM: They are not perceiving Muhammad as he should be perceived. That's why they want him to be in competition with Jesus Christ. They say, "Oh, we want the Christians, we want the West." But they're attached to Jesus Christ and it is still is forbidden the way they are attached to him, believing he is a God. So let us challenge them with Muhammad, let's show them Muhammad, the messenger of God. But you are missing the important things in the picture of Muhammad, the messenger of God. So when you come with your challenge to their Jesus Christ, they laugh at you. How is he equal to the son of God? To Christ, Jesus, the son of God? Their knowledge of Muhammad is not full enough and clear enough to defeat even the shirk; the false belief in Jesus Christ as the son of God.

37:16 IWDM: And the logic that they bring from Quran, which is powerful logic about the universality, the oneness of God and the oneness of actuation. The oneness of His creation in terms of His nature and His place in the order of a map and partly it is belonging to one system. One system of matter is oneness, the oneness of creation or oneness of matter, the material scheme. They can bring all that logic, but they don't know that the ones who came up with this idea that Jesus Christ is God-manifest, that he is the son of God, they faced all that argument before they came to the conclusion that he is God. They faced all that argument and they believe that that idea is consistent with that logic. So when you come with your language that you're impressed with and you think it's going to impress them. Every now and then you get one or two, the great multitudes of the Christian leaders and thinkers stay in their religion. You're not changing anything at all. Your accomplishments are very, very small.

38:39 IWDM: When the world of Christianity was backwards, the world of the Christians were backwards scientifically speaking in terms of science and higher order for civilization, they were making converts from the Christian world, right? Yes. But when that that caused it impressed the Christian world with their advances, their knowledge and in science, etcetera, and their vision for the world, the Christians were impressed with that. But once the Christians were carrying on to them and they were viable for their own intellects, or intellectuals, and their scientific thinkers got into the field and into the work, they start doing it. And their leaders and the works that they're doing started to benefit their society, then their society started to reap the benefits of their labors. Then their society looked at the Muslim world and they don't see anything in the Muslim world anymore that's attractive to them. And the Muslims want to hide their leaders.

39:53 IWDM: See you can hide something and lose it. You ever hid something and lost it from yourself? That's what the Islamic world did. It hid the precious knowledge of this tauheed and of the perception of human value and God and everything, they hid it. They hid it so long for so many generations that they have lost it from themselves. They can't find it. But God is the finder, isn't He? The life giver is also the finder. And it has been found, where no one would expect it to be found.

[laughter]

40:46 IWDM: Among these Negroes, these blacks, in the ghettos. A child of a unlearned man, Elijah, uneducated man. No credentials at all. And his wife, another, an uneducated woman. Now, for the learning minds of this world, say, "Oh no, a guy like that, he ain't got nothing. No matter what he says, don't believe him." But the learned in the spiritual world, the learned in the scripture world shouldn't think that way. You should say... Your mind should right away be drawn to the magnet of what is happening, and your mind should witness that this is the way God does things.

42:00 IWDM: The Islamic world, so afraid somebody's gonna come up and have the power to challenge it and win support from the Muslims, away from them. They're so afraid of that, they will twist the truth. They will hide the truth. They will fight an innocent thing, and try to embarrass it, turn you away from it. They'll do all these dirty things, because they're so desperate to hold on to the little bit they still got.

42:43 IWDM: But all they have to do is say, "Imam Warith Deen Muhammad, son of Elijah Muhammad, who gave a concept of Islam that was completely wrong and in contradiction to what actually God revealed". Now, from his son has come a man that could have taken his followers, the following of his father, and become very powerful and wealthy, and would have been a big problem for Islam in America.

43:26 IWDM: But he chose to give up all that, risk being poor, and without the following of his father, to stand up for the truth. Leaders in Mecca, leaders in Arabia, leaders in Egypt, leaders in Pakistan, leaders everywhere, should be standing up saying, "We recognize God's favor on WD Muhammad, the son of Elijah!"

44:00 S?: That's right! 

44:09 IWDM: And they should be making me the leader of Muslims all over the world. Yes, they should! Is that what you want, Brother Imam? I told you, I want nothing. I want absolutely nothing for myself. I don't. So you think I'm gonna work for that? I ain't work for that. That's not my interest, that's not my happiness, being the leader of all Muslims in the world. That's not my happiness. If God wants that to happen, God will bring it about. I know what God wants to happen. God wants the people that the world put down to have Imam Warith Deen Muhammad as their leader. That's all I'm interested in. That's all I'm interested in. And I believe, what we can do here as Muslims in America will be enough to bring about change throughout the world for Muslims, for Muslims. That's what I believe.

45:22 IWDM: I'm not interested in being their leader. You see how I address you, think I want something? If I was a man with an appetite for these things that you all want... I'm not speaking to all of you, just some of you... I wouldn't come here, dressed like this. I wouldn't ride second class on the airplane, coach, economy class. I wouldn't take Southwest Airlines, don't even have a seat. I have to come there early to get a seat. You think I would live like that? And really, I don't like to talk to you about myself. God is making me talk to you like that! That's not in my spirit, to tell you these things about myself. So what do I wanna talk to you brothers about? Your important place in the scheme of God's creation. That's what I wanna talk to you about. If you wake up the value, that Allah your Maker establishes for you, you will be motivated.

46:41 S?: Yes, sir! 

46:42 IWDM: You will be motivated, you will get new spirit. Your mind will come alive for the second time.

46:50 S?: Yes, sir! 

46:50 IWDM: You will get a new mind. You will become more productive than you ever have been. Allah didn't create life to die. Allah created life to live. Allah didn't create power to produce nothing, Allah created power to produce, okay? He created every human being the same. He didn't create any human being differently. But as Muhammad the Prophet says, it is the situation or the circumstances that you're put in, that makes the difference. So you put a child that is meant to be a Muslim, you put him in a Christian environment, most likely he comes up a Christian. And likewise for any other environment you put him into. You put him in an environment of Chinese, he comes up speaking Chinese. You put in an environment of English-speaking people, he comes out speaking English! So it's the environment that makes the difference.

48:01 IWDM: But look how powerful God is. Muhammad, like Jesus, is a sign, and Muhammad answered the sign. Jesus Christ may be upon the service of God. He's put in the nativity with animals. Nativity means his birth, the birth. He's put in a picture of the nativity with animals. And Muhammad, here he is, a child. Father dies before he can know him. Mother dies also. And he never really grows up under his mother. She's gone. He's orphaned. And here he is among idol worshippers who have no sense of a political order that can provide for the whole peninsula of Arabia for all the tribes. One order, one political order, one political system. They were not even politically united, as nations or governments are supposed to be. And he's one of them. He comes up among them, never worshipped idols like they do. Never was boisterous like they were. Never was insensitive to another tribes' life and needs, like most of them were. They were rival tribes. Never had any flaw in his human character, and was that for 40 years. All they had was great meaning and signs, had great meaning and scriptural signs. Never had any flaw in his human character.

50:09 IWDM: God saw him qualified as a human creation before He gave him the message of Allah's law. And He revealed in the book that He gave to those people, for the Arabs immediately who were there, because he was an Arab living among them saying that he has already lived among you for 40 years or for a life time. So his value as a human person, to become your leader and the leader for the whole world or for all mankind, has already been established in his human excellence, upon which he evolved naturally. He evolved upon his natural life. And he evolved just as God wants all of us to be perfect in His human model, without flaw. Huh? 

51:14 S?: Yes, yes.

51:15 IWDM: Then God gave him the guidance for all times. The mercy to all nations and people, the Quran. And made him mercy to all the worlds. That's what they're missing. That's what the founding fathers got. And they perceived the order of this society and based it upon that perception of human life. That human life, created by God, can survive all tests of human society. If a society can go backwards, can become corrupt, but there is always exception. A human being can keep his good nature and his good life intact inspite of all the things and circumstances that says, "There's no hope in a society like this. There'll be no man surviving without any damage to his soul or to his human nature." So they said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal." I mean, all men get this, it doesn't mean that we're gonna keep it or express it. But all men get it from God. That they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, that are rights that you can't separate from them or take away from them. Among these: Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And are endowed by their creator. It doesn't say endowed by Jesus Christ. It says endowed by their creator. These were Christians formulating this document. They didn't say endowed by Jesus Christ. They say endowed by their creator.

53:37 IWDM: Peace be upon Christ Jesus, endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these, it didn't say he was named in all of 'em. Among these, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Here are the founding fathers, whose resting world had been turned back on to rational life, intellectual life, and the sciences, producing a group of political thinkers who are now perceiving the way, perceiving human life, the way Allah revealed in scriptures before, but also in the Quran even plainer. They were perceiving how God wanted man to see himself or perceive his own life, to establish a premise, a basis and a premise for developing a document that would serve the life of the whole society or the nation.

54:46 IWDM: That's what they received. They took it and made it the central focus, the rejected stone became the corner. They took it after Muhammad had already found it, and helped them to see how to find it for themselves. They found it and they took the rejected stone. What is a rejected stone? Man in his mold and in his model and in his nature given to him by his creator. The world then rejected that man and put him down, "Aw, he's stupid. If he doesn't happen to find spark in him, if he doesn't have this enthusiasm and this inspiration that we have for searching for the world, for utility, then he just like an animal, he's no more than an animal." They regarded the human person without what they call the divine spark or illumination, they regarded him to be no more than an animal.

55:51 IWDM: So Jesus had put it on animal, to say this thing that you regarded, that is no more than an animal, God chose it to be your leader. And Muhammad the Prophet said, "They will see Christ Jesus and Muhammad together." Isn't this what his prediction? Yes. What did they mean? What did they know about this? How do we understand what they said, what do they understand about that? I'm talking about the Muslim leaders of the world, what do they understand about that? The political leaders know nothing, they ain't interested in Quran and Muhammad. I'm talking about the scholars, what do they understand of all that? That they're gonna be together, what do they understand about that? You know what all they understand? Is that what Muhammad received is from God, and it explains what Jesus Christ receives, and it explains Jesus Christ, and when they see that, they will see Muhammad and Christ together. That's true, that's wonderful, too. But this is not talking about just understanding Quran. How many are gonna understand the Quran? You won't understand the Quran and learn it as Muslims learn it unless you believe in it, you have to convert to it. What I'm talking about you don't have to convert to it. Our Christian leaders don't have to convert to what I'm talking about. If there is any learned Christian out there right now you might be hiding, you might be there.

57:32 IWDM: If there is any learned Christian in my audience right now, you love what I'm telling you and it's helping your mind and your thinking and your own religion right now. And you maybe haven't even thought of becoming a Muslim, but you really like what I'm telling you about Muhammad and Christ Jesus. Well, sometimes you don't get.

00:00 IWDM: Something about going directly to it. You want to get Christians to become Muslim? You want to go right to them and say "Here's the invitation, become Muslim." No, become what you should be. And your bright, beautiful presence, your light will attract them to Islam. But if you just go and give them an invitation, and your life looks like shit, you think they're gonna come to it? "Oh, he used bad language." I use your language. You don't call it poo poo, you call it shit. I want to speak plainly to you. Effective peace, effective language. Not weak language. Yes, okay... So this is the situation we in, brother. We have to know ourselves as God revealed us, okay? When we come into ourselves as God revealed us, we will highly value our creation. We will be more humanly sensitive. We will be more humanly alive and therefore, we will be more situated to progress as a human society. That's a must. It's a must. Look, sometimes God puts something in you and it's just the working of that thing that he puts in you that you express. It hasn't yet dawned in your mind. It hasn't become a part of your thoughts.

01:52 IWDM: But He who created you already put it in you to want to get to where he wants you to be. So look how we started off. Wanting to know ourselves, is that right? In the nation of Islam, that was the big question. And what is my own self? And be your own self, and get the knowledge of yourself. Wasn't that it? Yes. So here is the thing that God wants to bring us to. Just working in us as an influence. It has not yet been connected with the logic yet, no. But it is being expressed to stay alive in us long enough for the meet with the Quran and Muhammad, the logic. Praise be to Allah. Allahu Akbar.

03:05 S?: Allahu Akbar.

03:07 IWDM: Okay brothers. So, this has been staring at me since I was a young Minister in my 20's and even before. You can get tapes of me. They still got a few. I didn't even know they were around. You can get tapes of me when I was a young minister preaching for my father. And I amazed myself. I had forgotten what I was talking about back then. And you can hear me and feel me straining to bring the brothers to a higher appreciation of their own worth as human beings, as persons.

03:46 IWDM: And especially as members in a group called African-Americans or Black People. You can feel that, you can hear that, you can see it. Now, God has now brought us in contact with His word and it is clearly established in the Quran what is the value of a human person. And just like the founding fathers say, it is so powerful as a creation from God that no government can take it away our control. We must learn to see ourselves as God revealed human beings. The African-American people, we in a worse situation when it comes to identifying our worth and value that most of the world is, especially the Muslim world. We in a worse situation. We have become hung up on this term 'black', or 'I'm black'. We don't say African, we say black. Black is more important than Africa now. Are we a black people? What does that say? That doesn't say much. You a black people. What do you mean when you say you're a black people? You mean you're the human beings that survived slavery in the south and all of that? Well, say it like that then. That means a lot. That says a lot. We human beings that was put down below animals are called monkeys are inferior humans. We have survived all of that to be present in the leadership of America in these great times and bad times. Say it that way then. But just don't say you're black. What that mean? Nothing. You're just black. That's nothing.

06:00 IWDM: They got black Indians, they're blacker than you. There are black Asians, they're blacker than most of us. Most of our black ones, they're blacker than you. [laughter]

06:16 IWDM: So you wanna see your superiors, superiors in black skin, go to Asia, go to India. They're blacker than you. So our problem is this hang-up we got on color. Black. That's the trick of the Satan to use the prank over you to make you go into reverse or go to the other extreme and copy his logic and use black. He's superior, he's white. So you go and reverse it for yourself, but using his logic. You say, "You superior, you black." That's the scheme of the Satan and Satan has lost to Islam.

07:13 IWDM: Islam is preached by the son of Elijah. Satan has lost. Now, if we think of our identity as a race and we are occupied by thoughts of our identity as a race, or our identity as a people of culture. We have our own culture. Or people of soul. We have our own soul. Different from the soul of other people, our own spirit, different from the spirit of other people. As a group. Group has group spirit. Members of a group, they have the group spirit. Members of a group, they have the group soul. Members of the group, they have the true cultural tastes. So you do have a distinct life that is more than just your color. You have a distinct life that makes you different, and the human picture than other people.

08:25 IWDM: That's true. But if you make those descriptions of you more improper than the one Allah mentions and reveals in the Quran. He says He is the One, God the Creator. He's the one that gave us our different features; a fit picture, when we were in the bellies of our mothers, forming us as a life in our mothers and we come out with the features of our mothers or our family, father and mother and family. He says He gave us that. If you belong to a black family or African family, He's the one who gave you your black picture. It's created by God. It's the creation of God. So then God's saying that, "I'm the Creator of all of your different variations of colors and features going across nations and also among yourselves in your own family. I'm the one who ordered the way you get your picture, the way you get your features and your colors, etcetera."

09:33 IWDM: God is saying, "I gave you that." God is saying, "I gave you that. So you are approved, in fact. I approve you in your racial identity. I approve you in your national identity, etcetera." But God says what? He says He is the one who gave you your features or your pictures when you were in the belly of your mother. In fact, I can say that fa ah'sana surakum. Then He made most excellent your single picture. But it's a single picture. The picture you have in common with all people. The one that's more important than all of the rest. Your human picture. Your human picture. May I be excused for a minute and come right back? 

10:34 IWDM: Take a couple minutes break. I'll be right back. We have to leave soon. I have to leave soon. He is the one who made most excellent. The word, ah'sana, it means better in quality, better in worth, better in performance, it's just the best. Now if you put all these other descriptions, like you take a hanger, or structure and you wanna put other garments on it. You wanna put the garment of racial identity, the garment of ethnicity. You wanna put all these garments on the raw structure, the first structure. They will break down that first structure and they will all be lost as trash. But if you make the first structure right, it'll be strong. It'll hold up all the others you put on it.

[pause]

12:01 IWDM: Okay. We'll continue now. Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim. So as Muslims, we're finished with the identity hang-up. We know what Allah wants for us in terms of how we view ourselves, and how we relate to one and another. Allah wants us to understand that the creation that He made first is the best for us, and He made us human and our soul and He gave us human intelligence, and He doesn't want us to ever get out of that mold, the mold of human sensitivities, human intelligence, and human intelligence. As long as we stay in the mold of human sensitivities, pure human, excellent human sensitivity and we respect our human intelligence... Allah didn't give us ape intelligence or monkey intelligence, Allah gave us human intelligence. As long as we stay in the mold of the life Allah created for us and gave it to all of us the same, the common human creation that He gave all people on this earth, as long as we stay in that mold and appreciate that life, then we're safe for all the other developments.

13:52 IWDM: And lastly, before I leave you... I'm gonna have to leave, we'll only have time for maybe one or two questions, maybe. I'll keep your questions, I'll find a way to answer your questions, get your answers back to you. Through your leaders, I can write the answers and give them back, send them back to thee. Allah gives us answers for all of our needs. Especially if we are Muslims, Allah has revealed all the answers in his Quran for us, our book, the Quran, and he has revealed in Mohammed also the answers we need. His creation is really revelation for us. The creation of Mohammed himself, as is the mystery of Jesus, is revelation for us. We won't have unity and the more we talk about it, the more disunity we get.

15:04 IWDM: Our leaders, our scholars, our daddies, our preachers, all talking about the need for Muslims to have unity, and as I said, the more they talk about it, the more disunited we become. So, we're not making any headway following those who've been leading us. It is as plain as day in the Quran how we are to keep our unity, how we are to perceive our unity, and keep it. Plain as day. Allah says, "For each is an interest that is turning him or her." The word is wahj, it means your individual interests. And it is in your face, a window or mirror that we look into it, we can see your interest? So the wahj is called face, for each is a face God turns you. It's not face really, it's Wahj, but it's the play on face, so really the interest comes from the term 'face'. See? So for each is the interest by which G-d is turning, by which you're being turned. Therefore, turn your faces toward this Masjid. What are you talking about? Masjid al-Haram. He's talking about the Masjid at the Kaaba, the Kaaba. That's the Masjid that he's talking about. That Masjid at the Kaaba is a Masjid for receiving all the nationalities, all the different people in the world who are Muslims, right? 

17:33 S?: Yes, sir.

17:33 IWDM: There are all the different colors and nations and everything come together there, and they have salat in that Masjid, at the baitun, the Kaaba, what is called the Kaaba, the house, the most ancient of the houses for the worship of God, the Kaaba. So, wherever you are, your interest in God is saying that I approve of you having your individual, localized interests. That's what God is saying. Look how wonderful God is. He's solving our problem. He's bringing comfort to our souls. He's saying, "I love you in every mold I've made you. I love you in your color. I love you in your race. I love you in your drive. I love you in your national picture. But what's more important to you, is the first picture I gave you. Your human picture." So, for each of the interests, I will have interest in culture, interest in Science, interest in whatever, business. I'd have my own personal interests. No matter what our interests are, God approved all of these interests as long as they are decent and of good intention.

19:05 IWDM: Nothing natural has God denied you. Whatever you desire naturally He approves of that. So, can we talk about African-American as African-Americans and say, "Oh, I'm making you black. Don't make any credits to the race. This is not Islam. Muslims have to keep that out of Islam." You're wrong. God wants us to see the beauty and excellence of all of our pictures. What saves us is that we hold on to the common identity with all people, and that's the most important identity. I'll keep repeating, that's the human identity and the human excellence intended for all people by God. God intended that for all of us. The excellence of human nature.

20:05 IWDM: So, how do we get our unity back? God says, "So, turn all of you, your faces to this house." That house symbolizes the unity of all the people upon the pure, human nature, an excellent model, human model that God made. That's what the house symbolizes. The house is a sign, a symbol, for the unity of all people from Adam, all the human race. That's what it's a sign of. So, if you all turn your faces toward this Masjid, wherever you may be scattered, God promises... He says, "I will bring you together." So, God has promised us that He will bring us together, no matter how far we've been scattered. No matter how distanced we are from each other. He will bring us together. And all we have to do is turn our interest back to the common human life and human excellence that God created in all people or for people if they haven't expressed, they don't realize it yet. That's what God says.

21:18 IWDM: How can anyone's race or his interest in his race hurt him if he accepts human excellence is better than racial excellence? If he accepts that human excellence is better than national excellence, because those things will become weak and corrupt if you don't build them or establish them upon human excellence. "Lift me up, and I'll draw all men up unto me." That's Jesus Christ, right? "Lift me up. Lift the human excellence that God intended for all people. Lift it up for other people to look at, and I will draw all men up to me."

22:17 IWDM: And God says, of Muhammad, you certainly have in Muhammad the most excellent model for any who believe in God and the last days. And he's a mercy to all of the worlds. That's how you bring Christ Jesus and Mohammed together. That's how they are brought together. Peace be on you. We pray that God keep us for his purpose and that we wake up to it and become more productive as Muslims and as African-Americans.

23:00 IWDM: In excellence as a Muslim means in excellence as a human being, number one. And also it means in excellence as a member or as a race, as African-Americans. So, we want to build upon our human excellence, but we don't want to dress up our human being looking like a white man or an Arab, or an Indian or a Pakistani. God approved of us as Africans, and as African-Americans. And we wanna beautify that picture with the same light and guidance that God gave our human excellence, and we will keep always the human life first, and then the other lives second. Thank you very much. Peace to you. May God keep us for his purpose. Amen.

[applause]

24:07 IWDM: Thank you. So we will get the questions and I will see... Some of them may be repeating the same questions or sometimes you put in different word, but asking the same thing... And I will do my best to send these answers back, so the Imam can read them to you, read my response to your questions or your comments. Thank you very much. I have to get the plane now. Assalamu Alaikum.

