01/02/2005
IWDM Study Library
FIRST SUNDAY LECTURE CHICAGO IL

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed


[background conversation]
00:04 Warith Deen Mohammed: Allahu Akbar. We say God is greater, greater than anything imaginable. God is greater. We greet you on this second day of the New Year, and by the way, we wish you all blessed new year. We greet you in peace as we always do in this religion of Islam. Our greeting is Peace be Unto You, Assalamu Alaykum. We praise God, Alhamdulillah e Rabbil Aalameen. That is, we praise God the Lord and cherisher of all the world. All that is in the sky and all that is down here. We witness that he is one and he cares about all of his creation and especially his special creation, the creation of human beings. And we witness that Mohammad is the seal of the prophets, the last prophet. We salute him in the traditional salute, the prayer that the peace be upon him in the Quranic language of Arabic, the Quranic language Sallah Allahu Alaihi Wasallam and what follows of that traditional salute to the last prophet. We are grateful to Allah for our health and our presence here to address the radio listening audience and we appreciate you caring to tune in for this occasion, for this live broadcast. However, there is something that has to be done before announcement was overlooked and we do have an announcement. So I will now give way to Leilah Mohammad, the supervisor at the Mosque Cares. She has some announcements.

01:57 Speaker 2: With God's name, the merciful benefactor, the merciful redeemer, Assalamu Alaykum, peace be unto you. Just briefly, I'm going to read this first announcement. The Mosque Cares is accepting donations for the victims of tsunami. 100% of your donations will be given towards this effort. Send your tax deductible donations to The Mosque Cares, PO Box 1061 Calumet City, Illinois, 60409. Please put Tsunami in the lower right corner of the envelope. Cashiers checks, or money orders only. Allahu Akbar. We also have on sale trinkets made specially for The Mosque Cares from Mexico. These trinkets have Allahu Akbar engraved on them as well as I Love Allah. They're made from stone from Mexico in beautiful natural colors. They are $5.00 each. Excuse me, I believe $5.95. Finally, the last announcement is we are making plans for our African American History Program the first Saturday of February, which is February 5, 2005. Details will be announced in the next Muslim Journal, or you may call The Mosque Cares at 708-798-6750 for more information. Thank you. Assalamu Alaikum. The Imam Mohammad has just said that the trinket price has a special lower rate at $3.00. Thank you. Alhamdulillah.

03:53 IWDM: Again, we greet you in peace, Assalamu Alaykum. We praise God the Lord sustainer of the worlds. He is most merciful. The merciful benefactor, the merciful redeemer. Or as is translated often the beneficent, the merciful and the compassionate, the merciful. He is Ar-Rahman Ar-Raheem. Those are the two names that we translate meaning, both meaning, the God of mercy. The God of mercy. Mercy firstly and that He gave us the life we have. He made us human. And He made the world to support us. To support our life and God says that He has made the earth to give us everything that we need for our life. All of our aspirations, God says can be fulfilled on this earth. Praise be to Allah, that is Praise be to God. We addressing community, the individual life and community. How we are to build up our communities so that our souls will be pleased. The human soul cannot be pleased unless you do what you were created to do. When you do what you were created to do then your soul will be pleased. But as long as you have not fulfilled what you were created to do or created for, then your soul will not be happy and you can't be happy if your soul is empty and sad, and pained, or hurting. God wants us to care about ourselves. God wants us to value ourselves.

06:01 IWDM: Nothing communicated to man or brought to us as education or news has respected our value as God has respected our value. In the world today there are publics, populations influenced, their way of thinking is influenced by Judaism, Christianity and Islam. There are other publics influenced by Buddhism, Hinduism and many other religions. Great numbers of people, a great majority of people on this planet are influenced by those major religions. And all of these religions place great value on the human person. And all of these religions invite the human person to wake up to the human value that they have by virtue of their creation, by virtue of their creation, that they were created human. If you're created human you have special, special possibilities for your life.

07:22 IWDM: Possibilities that are not not open to any other life but human life. Not even to angels according to revelation scripture, not even the angels have the freedom that human beings have. Not even the angels have the freedom throughout their creation and recreate and get the great satisfaction in their souls and in their spirited minds, the great satisfaction of doing things worthwhile, beautiful and helpful to society, to the community, not only community of the family of man but to the community of animals as well. Man has made history. History. And if you study history you see that man has made progress. If you go get a book that is 1,000 years old and look at the environment, human environment, its miseries and etcetra, its diseases etcetra and look at it now, you'll see that man has made progress. If you get a history book and read of what was existing for us just 200 or 300 years ago, you will see we have made progress. I have been living as a Chicagoan for most of my life and I know Chicago 70 years ago. I know Chicago 70 years ago. Okay? When I was a baby in Chicago, that Chicago was not the Chicago that I look at now.

08:58 IWDM: It was backwards. It was a backwards city, when I look at the city of Chicago now. Traveling around in the city was not as convenient as it is now, the smell of the air in the city was not as nice as it is now because horse-drawn vehicles, or horse-drawn carriages were going down the streets and the horses were dropping their waste on the streets. And you could smell that sometimes, as you walk or ride down the street. So man is making progress. And how are we making progress? We are making progress by building upon that that worked, that others did before us. Building upon that that worked, that others did before us. Building upon that that was good for human life that others left with us. Building upon the progress in the material environment, that others left with us. Fathers and mothers passing on their life story, passing on the life story of their mothers and fathers. Passing on to their children. Passing on the wisdom and the good advice. Passing on the good nature to their children. This is how we have made progress. If we stop doing that then we will not have progress. We start to go backwards instead of forward. We start to go down instead of up.

10:28 IWDM: This is life and this is history. So let us all recognize this, become aware of these things and think seriously about life, don't make a joke of life. Don't take life for joke. Don't make your life a life of play; a life of play. You are not babies anymore. I am looking at an audience here of mostly grownups, very few children in here, very few babies that I'm looking at. So you don't make your life a life of play. God gave us play to train us for adult life and adult responsibilities. When you play you use your muscles, you use your reflexes, you use your endurance and that's building you up to be able to have a good job, and manage a good job, and not get tired so fast. It's building you up to have physical skills for an adult responsibility, for a life of adult responsibility. So don't even take play and children for fun. No, it is fun alright but God gave that fun to teach the children skills that they will need for an adult life of adult responsibility. We should understand these things and wake up. We should prepare ourselves to live in a world that offers a human being much more than the world of the past offered human beings. We should be thankful to God for that. If we don't believe in God, we should thank whatever we imagine is responsible for that.

12:00 IWDM: We should be thankful. The point is to be thankful, be grateful, be thankful, be appreciative. And when you do that, your soul will like you more. But when you don't do that your soul won't even like you and your soul will make you destroy yourself because your soul wants to see you punished. Your own soul hates that you disrespect the wonderful creation that God has made you. No other creature has been made free to manage his own life and manage his or her own nature. No other creature has been made free to do that. The animals can't manage their own nature, they can only live within and under their own nature. But a human being can manage his own nature. You can take your nature into your own hands as your responsibility, and you can improve upon your own nature. Every child that's born is born crawling around or lying around and eventually crawling around on all four like animals. No matter how beautiful the baby, no matter how high the parents were in cultural development or whatever, the baby comes here crawling around, lying around and crawling around like an animal and not able to speak a language.

13:27 IWDM: It learns a language from us. And according to those who study the development of society, scientists, they say if you leave a child alone and not have that child supported by human beings or intelligent human beings, leave it alone, if it's found by animal and live with animals, it will think itself an animal and it will try to behave and even try to speak like the animals, make sound like the animal that they survive among. History, this is history too, history have shown us that. So don't think that God wants you to stay on your all fours. God created you to stand up on two feet. And there are monkeys that stand up on two feet and apes and other primates standing up on two feet. And there are some birds that stand up on two feet. See, I like to watch the penguins do their little shuffle. They walk on two feet. So two feet is not enough, to stand on two feet is not enough. But that's a start, you have to elevate yourself. And we learned from the wisdom of the ancient. We learned by way of revelation that if you care about yourself and you invest in yourself, you spend time on making your nature better. You spend time on making your intelligence better. You spend time on making your morals better, if you spend on yourself.

15:03 IWDM: If you spend on your own self to increase your own value. You can become the person that can bring relief and happiness, cleanliness, civilization, education. You can bring the beautiful life that we can imagine now in this time. Don't you know that just 2,000 years ago, 3,000 years ago human beings couldn't even imagine living like human beings live now? They had no education, no science. They had no evidence that would give them that kind of mind and thinking that they would think like we think with the opportunities that we are looking at and be able to proceed to go farther with our life like we can go farther with our lives. So we are very special people, in spite of all the trouble you're facing and all the bad news you're getting by way of television and whatever. In spite of all of that, we are blessed to be on this earth at this particular time. Sometimes it takes disasters, natural disasters to wake some of us up. Look how the people who have suffered that quake in the ocean, the grounding, seeing a wave 30 feet high coming at them, that's frightening.

16:27 IWDM: That's enough to wake up the real person in that body. And maybe that's what we need to happen to us some time, a great tragedy to wake up the human person in our bodies. Because most of us are not respecting the human person in our own body. And we wonder how come we have so much trouble. We wonder how come we're suffering so much. We wonder how come drugs are being taken by everybody. Because those bodies are only flesh, the human being is gone. Bring the human being back into those bodies, and you'll see a difference. You'll see a difference in the way they behave. You'll see a difference in the way they behave before the temptations of drug, before the temptation of violence. When the human being is in the body as the way he's supposed to be or way she's supposed to be in the human body, we can handle drugs. We can handle the temptation of drugs. We can handle the temptation to become violent. We can handle the temptation to put our burden on everybody else, to pour our misery on the public. On the public transportation, on the public traffic, drive so we get somebody killed. Drive so you deny them the opportunity to make a left turn at the corner.

17:42 IWDM: This is what going on, rudeness. Rudeness and cruelty on the streets. Motorists out there, out to make another motorist miserable. This is a sad time for the state of human life in the human body. So come back home. Have the human mind come back into those flesh bodies you got and appreciate that God has made you more valuable than any other living thing. We degrade ourselves. We put ourselves down when we mistreat human life, especially our own. I respect a suicide bomber who has a cause who think he will attention to his cause by killing himself and hurting his enemy by killing himself. I respect him more committing suicide in that fashion although it's not permissible in our religion to do that. We leave that only to God, we never should take our own life, only God should say when we die, not us.

19:14 IWDM: We don't say when we die. We didn't say when we should be born or when we will be born and we shouldn't say when we die. That's God. That's God's right and we take a right from God and we have to be punished for that if we do that. So we know that's terrible. But what is worse than that is those who have committed suicide taking drugs. Those who have committed suicide just beating up on people, they're killing people, they're committing suicide, for eventually somebody going to beat up on them and kill them and they are dying fast. Many millions are dying all over the planet earth because of insane behavior, suicidal behavior. So this is a suicide that is ugly and more degrading than the suicide bomber. Let us wake up, it's wakeup time. We should want to know something about this fine life that God has given to only humans. We should want to know something about it. And every religion that I know of that is practiced or lived by great numbers of persons on this Earth, they attend that need to bring to the consciousness of their following, human values. Human values. So that they will respect human life and the society can make progress. You cannot make progress if you don't respect human life.

20:52 IWDM: If you respect human life, we can make progress. If you don't respect human life in your home you may be in an apartment or you may be in your own house, but if you have members that are sharing that environment, sharing that space, if they don't respect human life, that space will be made a hell for all the members occupying that space. There's no difference for the town or the city, if the people are not respecting human life then their behavior is going to make a hell for the rest of us. A hell for everybody and really that's what life is and most of these, the portals of these big cities is hell, is hell, it's a virtual hell. The suffering that goes on, on this earth today, it doesn't look any less frightening to me than what I learn that hell has for those who are going to hell. Hell is place where you burn. You will burn and you will burn and will be burned up. When I see families miserable, mothers miserable, grandparents miserable, seeing their sons and daughters on drugs, going to the graveyard, violent prone, sick with immorality, sick with moral corruption. They are looking at that and can't do anything about it, that's hellfire. That's a fire that burns all the time. That's a fire that burns and won't stop burning and we are living in it and we are not burned up, we'll just burn burn burn burn burn with no end coming in sight, we think. Yes! 

22:36 IWDM: But we can turn the thing around. Bring the human being, put the human being back in the body. Put the human being back in the body and we will see a great difference, that's what religion is all about. If it's about anything that's what it's about. Religion is not about you going, going going and shouting and pretending holiness, and faking and carrying on and go out and leave the place, leave the church, or the temple or the mosque or whatever it is, you leave that and go right back to the same old life of self-destruction, making others miserable and making yourself miserable. That's not religion. Religion is beautiful. Religion is intelligent. Religion respects human life so much that it wants us to have the intelligence to manage human life for ourselves. This is Islam, this is Christianity, this is Judaism, this is Buddhism, this is Hinduism, every religion wants you to have the intelligence to manage your own life, to manage your own self and to get the satisfaction of seeing your life progress and knowing that your actions, your behavior is what made that happen.

24:00 IWDM: I came up in bad circumstances, and I'm not the only leader that's doing well, who came up in bad circumstances. I came up in bad neighborhood circumstances. I was a child, and I could walk out two blocks and run into a prostitute or run into a wine head. Sometimes I didn't have to walk anywhere, as soon as I stepped outside, there was a prostitute or the wine head or sometimes a drug addict. And people didn't care about themselves. Or one thing, they were victims of the instruments of the devil, right, drugs and whiskey and stuff. But now, we are victims of the instrument of our own selves. We are not hooked on drugs, we are not so poor that we have to drown our misery with alcohol. We live in nice apartments, we have color television, we're doing very well.

25:05 IWDM: But still, the human life is not respected. We are mistreating our own human life, mistreating the lives of other human beings near us, our loved ones, our friends, our relatives. Parents abandoning their responsibility to their children. And I am not talking about responsibility to see that they have food on the table, or to see that they have clothes to wear. The greater responsibility is to see that they have good sense, to see that they have intelligent human behavior. And parents are abandoning that responsibility and letting the children do their own thing, and say, "Well, what can you do? Everybody's doing it." Well, I'm telling you, those who think they'll go to hell, by themselves or with a whole lot of company, you're wrong. You're wrong. You don't have company when you go to hell. You go to hell alone. And if you have company, the company increase the hell, so you still alone. You still alone. Hell will surprise you. In fact, I think it has surprised most of you already. 'Cause you don't even know you're in hell. It snuck up on you. Yes, there are some religions that believe hell and heaven start in this life while we are physically living on this earth. Some religions believe that. My religion is one of those religions that believe that hell starts in this life and heaven also starts in this life, but you don't get the fullness of either until this life goes away.

27:12 IWDM: Then you'll wake up in another reality, and you'll get the fullness of your good life or the fullness of your bad life. It will be completed for you. This is a belief that is in at least two of the major religions that I'm aware of and maybe more than that. There are not many religions that are leading the publics of the world today, not that many religions. The religions that you don't know of, and there are many, thousands of them, they have very few followers, very few followers. They don't have big followings. The big followings belong to the major religions. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism. These major religions, they have the majority of the people in the publics of the world, in the publics of the world. So, can we then say the state of the world is to be blamed on these religions? No, because I read these religions. I've been studying these religions for 40 years or more, and I know these religions, and I know I can read the beauty of these religions, the various religions, I can read any of those books, and I am put in a mind to respect what I'm reading, appreciate what I'm reading, and put great value on what I'm reading.

28:55 IWDM: So if I can go to these religions, that is go to their holy books, and read this, and get this kind of feeling, and get this kind of a lift in spirit, it lifts my spirit when I see their beauty and their wisdom and their purpose. Their good, pure purpose. When I see it, it makes me feel good, it makes me happy, and I am soothed by what I read. So it's not the fault of these religions, it's the fault of the publics. The public life goes astray from the religions, and we as individuals get weak for the public life, and we leave the good teaching the good family gave us, our good parents gave us, and we join the public life. And go to hell. The public life, especially in the modern world. Or I should say not modern anymore, I should say the industrial world. The public life in the industrial world is a life that lets you know right away it's all about money. It's all about money. You step out in the public, you see people trying to get your money. Soon as you step out there, and you see some activity in the public, most likely somebody trying to get your money. In our neighborhood sometimes, certain quarters we live in, poor folks and people that have lost respect for human life, we come out in our neighborhood and we can't hardly find a dog. Dogs are disappearing. [laughter]

30:53 IWDM: I mean, I used to see a lot of dogs when I was a boy. Dogs are disappearing, everything's disappearing. Now a prostitute gone. She not selling nothing, she's gone. She done found another bag or another gig. Yeah. [laughter] This world is really strange now, it's really strange. Now in order for us to appreciate human life, we have to appreciate community life. There's no way to appreciate your life or human life, your individual life without us or you and us appreciating community life. God didn't make us to live outside of community, God made us to live in community. God didn't make us to go to the mind that life is all about me. God made us to go to the mind that life is indebted to my family, life is indebted to my community, life is indebted to my city, my state, my nation. Yes, that's how God makes us. God makes us with intelligence to appreciate life and community and to understand that that's the only way you can have life. "Oh I don't want nothing, I'd rather just be by myself."
00:01 IWDM: What about the electricity? What about the water? What about the heat for the house and telephone? You going to do all that all by yourself? Can you bring all that into your house and to yourself, by yourself? No. The reality is that you don't ever live alone, you always live the life of community. If you didn't have community life, you wouldn't be able to survive alone. You'd have nothin'. You'd have nothin' but bad earth.

00:33 IWDM: And I don't think this pampered generation that we have today can survive on the bad earth. You'll go out there and cut your throat real quickly, or look for something to kill yourself real quickly. "Oh, I can't make it. Where am I goin' to stay tonight?" On the street. Up on a branch, afraid some dogs will come get you to climb up the tree, go up high on the branch. Hug the branches and go to sleep. Get a few winks. You won't be able to sleep too long, now. You'll be sleeping like every few... A couple of minutes, a minute or so, a half minute and waking up, you know? 

[laughter]

01:23 IWDM: Some of us are against government, we're against everything. Oh, everything is corrupt. And when we look at you that's what we see, corruption. But everything is corrupt. Reject the world. Reject everything. But try living without anything but yourself. The big world is out there, big earth is out there. You think you can find some seeds from a nut or seeds from an apple or somethin'? Or seeds from corn and plant it and have the patience to wait for it to grow? And then get out there and gather it? Go out there and work and bring it in? Take it into your house or into your yard, where there's no house and no grass and no flowers. Can you imagine, get you some dry wood or somethin', build you a fire, you think you can cook it? You think you can survive like that? No. You ain't got the spirit. You don't have the spirit and endurance to meet the challenge of a natural environment without man's work in it.

02:39 IWDM: Wake up! And let us appreciate life more. Let us appreciate livin' in community more. Let us realize that we own community life for the things that we enjoy on this Planet Earth, some community life. Whoever's responsible for the community or for the neighborhood, we owe them. The government order that protects the order of the neighborhood and the order the city, we owe that order. We pay taxes, we pay for that. You're supposed to, as a service to all of us. Don't be angry because you have to pay taxes. Be angry because your taxes are not directed properly or used in the best manner or in the best way. Don't tear down the system, correct the things that are wrong for the system, and help the things that are right for the system, but don't turn against the system.

03:40 IWDM: The system managed to give us an environment where we can live as human beings and feel comfortable. You can't feel comfortable when you turn yourself loose out there with animals. You can't escape human civilization. You can't escape man's progress. Embrace man's progress because man's progress is really your progress. Whatever man is able to achieve, it's a proof that God made you valuable because you have the same thing that man has. You have a brain. You have hands to work with. You have a human soul. You have the same thing the achiever has. Whatever the achiever has, you have.

04:33 IWDM: "Oh yeah, but I've been held back." Well, don't you think the first man was held back? He go out there and plant and build a little house, storm comes through, knock his little achiever's house down, wash out all his works. He go out in the morning, look, ain't nothin' there, and he worked all his life for it. Did he give up? No, he didn't give up, even though he might have been old, too weak to work. His children and the young folks related to him and his friends, they got busy and pretty soon they had another house up. Another house up, another living established for themselves.

05:24 IWDM: Are we prepared to do that? We let somethin' wash us out, wash us out, knock us down, and set us back, "We finished." We're on welfare eternally. No spirits have changed. Wake up! Some of us we want the life that respects the value that God gave us and put in us. We want a life that respects that value.

06:00 IWDM: I don't want a life where I don't have to use my brain. Muhammad the Prophet, he said, "There is no greater thing that God has made, than the human brain." And when we look at the work of the human brain, we know the heart makes a contribution. The heart gets the brain started, and the heart makes requisitions to the brain. The heart said, "Oh, that's a beautiful house there, but it's a little bit rough." Or, "It doesn't have enough flowers and plants. Put some trees around it." This is the heart speaking, right? And the brain listens to the heart. And the brain says, "That makes sense."

[chuckle]

06:46 IWDM: Then the brain goes on and said, "I've to achieve it." Right? Make that beautiful house that your heart wants. Make it beautiful and comfortable like your heart wants it. Yes. But, what did the work? Was it the heart or the brain? The heart makes the requisition, the brain does the work. Yes. So we have to respect your brain. Respect your brain. And know that your brain is above the brains of all other living things. That you're favored with your brains to do things that they cannot do. Don't you know a roach still lived like a roach did, 3,000, 4,000 years ago, [laughter] in the Palace of Pharaoh? I know it because I read about the history of the Pharaohs. And they got pictures of the roach. Yeah, they got pictures in stone. They carved in stone, roaches. I don't know why? I guess if these roaches don't stop bothering us, probably one day, some of us going to have a religion, and we going to be putting some roaches up in stone, too. "Oh, these adorable creatures. These everlasting creatures, a roach." Might give 'em a place in the heavens.

[laughter]

08:05 IWDM: Yes. Look, I'm making humor. [laughter] But I'm not carrying on for fun. I'm very, very serious. Very serious. So the roaches, the way he moved, the way he lived, 3,000 years ago in the Palaces of the Pharaoh, same way he lives right now in your palace. Same way. Same way he crawls around, same way he... When you turn the light on, he runs and get a hide and go. You know, and you turn the light back off, he's out there busy, trying to find his sugar or whatever you dropped off the table, stuff you dropped off the table. Maybe a half of pork chop or somethin', [laughter] a half a chicken, whatever you dropped off the table. You ain't got no money, but you just worked the garbage collectors more than any other people. The rich don't work the garbage collectors like our poor folks in our neighborhood. Work the garbage collectors. Yeah. So, I don't know what it is, but there's something dragging out those roaches, and ol' rats and things. And they're busy, but they don't have no advancement. They don't have no history to show that their life advanced. They're still living on the same low level of nature that they were created upon.

09:34 IWDM: But man was created upon a life, human nature. But he was also created upon animal nature. And he rose up out of animal nature. He woke up to his own value, and he saw himself higher than the apes and the other animals, the monkeys and dogs and things. And then he pride himself, and he said, "I'm human." Meaning "I'm not meant to act like a dog, I'm not meant to be an ape or a wolf or somethin', I'm meant to be human. I'm not meant to be a buzzard, not even a eagle. I'm better than that." And man proved in time, that he is better than that. He proved that he's better than all the animals at everything that they can do. Man watched the ducks flying from the air. Fly and land in the water. And some of them will go down deep in the water. Swim in the water, swim like a fish in the water. Duck. Then come up to the surface, rise the surface. Then take off from the surface and fly in the air.

10:44 IWDM: Man finally caught up with him and said, "Look, I got more on you than language. I got more on you than freedom of movement. I'mma show you something." Man made a vehicle, go in and hit the water, go down in the water, come up, take off from the water, that's what the duck too do. Whatever man saw anything else doin', eventually, he was able to do it. The eagle fly above the storm, the man said, "I ain't going to be satisfied till I make me an airplane to fly above the storm." Now, we got airplanes fly high above the storm. Fly above the storm. The clouds, lookin' down on the cloud. Lookin' down on the lightning. Flashing in the cloud. Looking down on it. That's man. And that's what every one of you are. You're human. You're human.

11:34 IWDM: So, wake up to your human value and stop disrespecting the great value that God made you. If you have a friend or a child, and you give that friend or child a precious thing as a gift, for a birthday or whatever, if you see they don't care about it, if you see them leaving it on the floor with the trash. It hurts you. It hurts you. And I know God doesn't hurt like we hurt. God is protected from this vulnerability or these weaknesses that we have. I know that. But you should at least imagine that whether God experienced hurt or sadness or not, how you think God is, is by you. When he sees you take the most precious thing he gave, anything in the world, never gave any life or any living thing or nothing dead, the value that he gave you. Then he catches you putting your body in a garbage can. That's what you're doing by the corruption that you let come into your life. You're putting your body, the gift that God gave you, you're putting your life in the garbage can. Yes. And asking the government to pull it out. And now they don't pull it out. They stopped pulling it out. It goes on the garbage truck. The garbage truck takes you and your garbage to the garbage dump.

13:22 IWDM: That's sad. But that's the state of many of us right now, some of us listening to this live broadcast are in that situation where you're treating your own life as garbage. And blaming everybody but yourself. Blaming everybody and everything, but your own self. Wake up to great value that you have as a human being, wake up to the great health that you have for yourself as a human brain, human brain. Not a freak brain. If you let the Satan's temptations, his vices and whatever get you into a life of corruption, and you like it, you got a freak brain, not a human brain. You ain't happy unless you bounce them down like a yo-yo, you got a freak brain in your body controlling you. You have turned your human brain off. It ain't on for you anymore. You got a freak brain working in your body or working in your head for you.

15:00 IWDM: Wake up to your excellence, human excellence. Wake up to your human excellence and come back to human life from the hell you've made for yourself, following the way of the immoral public. Don't go the way of the immoral public. Wake up. Be at the controls yourself. You know, there's no better friend or helper than the true person that we were born with when we came from our mothers. When we were delivered from our mothers as babies, we were delivered true people, true people.

15:58 IWDM: If you go back to that innocence, to that goodness, to that innocent life we call the life of the infant or the baby you'll be going back to your true life. And if you can get back connected with your true life, then you'll have a spirit to build upon the goodness and upon the excellence of life, and not live a life of recklessness, insane pleasures, violence, drugs, alcohol, stupidity. Some people give the life a stupidity, and they are competing with... They're looking for stupid persons so they can have some competition. Yes! They live the life of stupidity and go outside to see if they can find a stupid person, so they can have some competition. "Oh this guy, bet he's nuts, let me show him." [laughter] "He hasn't seen, he hasn't seen a fool, but he's seen me." That's what happens when we get separated from our human life.

17:29 IWDM: So we have to get it together, please. You're hurting us, your life is hurting us. Most of us don't care, but there are many of us that do care. And as long as they're human beings separated from their human spirit and human life, suffering, corruption, violence, misery, we can't be happy. We can't be happy at home. We can't be happy anywhere. We can't be happy until we see you come back to your human selves and appreciate the values of your human life. Then we can be happy. We need that if we're going to change the look of African-American neighborhoods, our black neighborhoods. We know we have individuals who excel, who are making more money than blacks ever made since we've been on this continent, in this part of the world. Yes, making big money.

18:43 IWDM: But how do you think they feel when they go home, turn on the news, turn on television, and get the reports of the black neighborhoods? When they hear the state of the black neighborhood or see the state of the African-American or the black neighborhoods. How do you think they feel? How do you think Oprah Winfrey would feel when she becomes conscious of the neighborhoods of African-American people? How everybody but a black man can make business in our black neighborhoods? How do you think she feels? She has to feel bad.

19:27 IWDM: So none of us can really be happy and be free from the misery of all of us until at least we look at life and resemble people who have a conscience. We don't resemble people who have a conscience. The Spanish people have a conscience. They're conscious of being Spanish, they're conscious of respecting their own family, respecting the Spanish people's life. They have a pride. They take pride in work. Now, we know a lot of them are violent too. The big evils of the city, they're just too much for many people, but still their achievements are better than ours when we look at the community life. I can go into a Spanish neighborhood and ride down the streets for blocks and see nothing but Spanish stores, Spanish businesses advertised, riding for blocks. I come back home to my neighborhood. Boy! I'm telling you.

[chuckle]

20:38 IWDM: So we're economically dead. As a people, we're economically dead. See, I didn't say commercially dead. You're commercially alive. You spend some money, but you're economically dead. See, economics is the science of how money works, and how those things that represent money work. Goods, material goods, etcetera. So economics is the study of that. It has to do with the life, the material life of society and how it's converted into money, and how money is a medium of change for us to buy these material things and live in these material quarters. Economics.

21:26 IWDM: So since we are not having business, producing wealth, we are economically dead. We may be dollar-wise alive. We may be business-wise alive. Yeah, you dress up in your business suit and you go and you work, you go and work for somebody's business. Might be in your neighborhood, most likely it's out of your neighborhood, and you come back to your neighborhood, but you don't have any business in your neighborhood. So your business, in business, you're alive. Money-wise, you're alive, but economically, you're dead. Economically, you're dead.

22:17 IWDM: And let me tell you something. When you read of the great religions, how they speak of multiplying and everything, and great love for family, and multiplying their family in numbers, and increasing, and children, the joy of a man who has more sons and daughters, the joy of the mother and more children, until the blacks are free from Satan, and then the joy is no more. Having big families. We got everybody wanting to cut down on the number of children. We've changed everybody.

23:01 IWDM: Some say, "Well, if I have too many children, I'm going to have too many headaches." I got another child that's going to go to public school. I can't afford a private school. And the public school is just what it says. Public school. School with the public in it. Got all my children going to that school. And honey, I know we had planned to have 25 children like Grandma and Grandpa had down in Georgia, but let's make it one baby, not 25. How about two? I think maybe we can manage two." And sometimes two will give 'em so much hell, they wish they hadn't had any.

[laughter]

23:51 IWDM: So times have changed, but not because plenty is not here. We have more than we ever had. Times have changed because the mind has changed from being religious and human to being public crazy. And with that, I want to conclude this part of this address. It was a live broadcast, and we are happy to be speaking to you, and we hope that you will tune in every first Sunday. I wish I could talk to you every day. It might happen, too, one day. I wish you could have live broadcasts every day, but our friends and our human family and radio listening audience, we appreciate you being with us, and we hope to see you next first Sunday, first Sunday in February, for this live broadcast. We want to thank our sponsors, and we want to thank the radio station for welcoming us. And we wish all of you all a beautiful, prosperous, blessed New Year. Peace be on you. Assalamualaikum.

[foreign language]

25:28 IWDM: Well we are coming now...

[pause]

25:53 IWDM: The Quran, Muhammad the Messenger of God, it was no big deal for me to conform to that. In fact, it was a relief for me to conform to that. My human nature, my human soul, just wouldn't let me be. Knowing with my mind and my knowledge, with my mind that we were not in accord with that, made me uncomfortable, and the more I got with that, the more comfortable I got in my soul and in my mind. Yes. It was no big deal for me to do that. I had plenty help to do that from my father. My father told me to think and be intelligent. My father told me to think deep, and not to take things on the surface without digging beneath to see what's under it. So he trained me to dig and see what's under the cover of the book. What's under the cover of the language in the book. And when I obeyed him, I started pulling out stuff that said, "This temple will have to be torn down in three days so we can raise it up again." So I said, "Well, the temple wasn't put here to stay. It was built to be torn down in three days so a new one will be erected, praise be to Allah."

27:28 IWDM: And that's what we set out to do under my leadership, thank God, and we accomplished it. And we accomplished it. But still I look at you all, you look like you're still waiting, look like it's February 1975. [laughter] I think it was about 5 o'clock when I was speaking. [laughter] And you look like you still right there at that time, looks like I'm greeting you this first day. Your faces look the same way. I'm not speaking of all of you, but too many, too many in this audience right now, your faces look just like they did at the first day, like you do not know, you have no idea whatsoever [laughter] of where we are and where we going.

[background conversation]

28:21 IWDM: Well let me tell you where we are. We are 40 years from slavery in Egypt. And all the old heads that couldn't get a new ideas in 'em are dead. And Joshua is saying, "Let's move on." That's where we are. And Joshua's saying, "Don't forget why we're here. We chose not to stay slaves under Egypt, Pharaoh. So don't forget why we're here. We're here to build a new world of our own. We're not here to ask for another master. We didn't have an easy time leaving Pharaoh. He killed a lot of us. He tried to kill all of us, that white supremacist, Pharaoh, but we escaped him. With the help of good people and God's angels, we escaped him. Now we're in a new land. We are out here in the desert." And there ain't no welfare department to go to. If it is, you should imagine, you should force yourself to say, "No" to welfare.

29:54 IWDM: Welfare resembles the plantation life, only it's worse. 'Cause the plantation life kept busy my nature, my man nature. It kept busy my man nature. It kept me busy going out and working, and using my man muscles, my adult muscle. It kept me getting up in the morning. And going out and working the fields. Coming back in tired. But I was strong. I could lift 150 pounds or more. I was strong. Now, the pimps can't lift anything.

[laughter]

30:40 IWDM: Yes! So actually it's worse than... The situation now is worse, than plantation. At least, with respect to somebody that says, "Okay, up! Get up!" [laughter] "Go into the field! Let's do a day's work!" But now, they ain't got nothing, bored to death. "Oh, man, gimme, gimme, gimme a joint. Lemme smoke a joint. I'm bored to death. You got a joint, man?" After a lot of joints, he's throwing up, gotta take something stronger. After a while, he's not even human. He looks like a stone in the face. Looks like an old tree, with no leaves.

[laughter]

31:28 IWDM: Looks like bark is what my brother said. [laughter] He says, "Wallace, you should have seen So-and-so-and-so." Say he's really messed up his life, says he looks like dead tree walking. [laughter]
00:01 Warith Deen Mohammed: Yes, just wasting our lives and everything, so we have to change all this. And we're going to change it by doing what I've been speaking on for now a hour and around 10 minutes. That is, seeing ourselves as not individual life, community life. Every person has to see himself as community life. You know the great wisdom in the Scriptures, that you read and you don't understand 'em? Things that Jesus said, to get his people to see, "What is the real life?" Others said it in the Old Testament. It was said in the Old Testament. Of David, the same thing was said... David's men said to David, they said, "King, you are flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone." They was telling the King, "You can depend on our cooperation because whatever you're here to serve, we're here to serve the same. And we going to serve it as though we are one person. You can depend on us to conduct our life in accord with your own personal life. If you can trust your hand, you can trust our hand. If you can trust your feet, you can trust our feet. Because we're telling you, King, we are one body. We are bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh."

01:27 IWDM: Then Jesus come in the New Testament and he tells his following, "You're members of my own body." Huh? Members of our own body, of my own body. And if we understand Islam, Islam requires of us to say... Islam says, "Your life and your death is as the life and death of one single person." If one person can live, all the rest can live by following that way of that person. But if we follow one who's corrupt, or stupid, or insane in his behavior and in his life, then he takes all of us to death who follow him. So we live in one and we die in one. And if there's any single one of us, whether it be a prophet, or a saint or whatever, or a wise man or a teacher, or whatever, if there's any single one of us, male or female, that is able to rise up in the life that God created for us, to draw others unto us, so they would have the life too, it is only because we have risen up in the human nature that God created us for.

02:37 IWDM: Jesus Christ was able to say that because he was in the perfect human nature that God created us for. Yes. David was able to say that before Jesus Christ because he was in the perfect human nature that God created us for. Muhammad is given to us, and God says of Muhammad, "You will certainly find in him an excellent model of life, for any who believe in God and the hereafter." Huh? Yes, God gave us him as the model of life for us to emulate. Become like that life, live like that. This is the human type. This is the human life. Don't behave like those out there destroying the neighborhood, corrupting the neighborhood, making the misery for families. Don't follow these crazy people. Find the one who will establish on the human pattern that God the Creator, the Designer of the stars and the sky and Earth, and whatever's in the Earth, follow that person. And I'm sure we can find more than one.

03:40 IWDM: We're not so extinct that there's only Imam WD Muhammad, standing up in the human model that God wants us in. No, I'm sure there are others, you can find others. But we're very rare, very rare. I heard my father say at the table once... He was eating, and like when he did all of the time... They call it table talk. And that's the language that's given to Prophet Muhammad. But he did have... Southern people, they got table talk. That's just the way of folks, regular folks, is to eat and have conversation. Enjoy, and socialize, and have conversation. So well, one of those times, my father was talking. He said, "Well," said, "There was a woman, and she had a bone, and she was seen in the public walking with a bone in her hand. And somebody came up to her to say, 'Woman. Why are you carrying that bone?' 'That is the bone of a man. Bone of a good man.'" Good men were so rare, so hard to find. [laughter]

04:58 IWDM: That she was holding onto the bone of one that died. It was the bone of a good man. You parents, raising your children, spending all your money on 'em, struggling, spending, not giving in to the corruption of the public life. And your daughter, taken by one of these young men, and you have to send her money to take care of her and him? I know some of you all want to walk out, go to graveyard, and pick up, "This is where George died, let me see if I can find something there." Take it and walk through the city, walk through the downtown area, and hope somebody ask you a question. "Yeah, this is the bone of a good man." [laughter] Now, let me get back on a serious note here, although that's serious. It is serious. God want us to see with our eyes. God want us to see clearly with our eyes how we are to know ourselves and the external world. God want us to know ourselves and the external world. If you can take a lesson from man's world, it can put you back in a situation or in a position to appreciate what God offers us. And God always offers the best.

07:02 IWDM: You look at man's world, everything he got, in order for you to benefit from it, you have to use your good sense. Man makes shoes, if you want to wear shoes in a certain way, you put 'em on. You don't cut a hole in the bottom and try to stick your foot in that way. They got a place there to put your foot, your foot goes in the top. You put your foot in, if it laces up, you lace it up, if it doesn't buckle up, you buckle it up, if it just slips in there, you just slip in it, and you walk in the shoes. But there's some kind of sense, there's a amount of good sense that you need to benefit from anything man-made. Like this cap I'm wearing here, it's supposed to be worn like that, I can't stick it on my chin. It won't work there well, it goes on top of my head. A car, most of the youngsters want cars. Even before they get old enough to drive one, they want cars. Everybody wants their own car.

08:21 IWDM: But when you get that car, you got to use good sense. You got to follow the good sense, instructions, that they give to licensed drivers. And the manufacturer of that car who made that car, he knows more about that car than you. He knows how to treat that car better than you do. Now, isn't God a manufacturer of our human bodies? If you believe that, shouldn't he know better how to take care of this human body than we do? So we don't have a... They give us a manual, say, "Okay, service this car at the next 5,000 miles or whatever. Service this vehicle, and do this, and get this, and get that." They ain't even got a religion. You got your Bible, you got your car bible there. Or you got your, whatever it is, automobile Quran. [laughter] You got your Automobile Quran, and it's going to tell you, how many prayers it... How many wudu', how many dhuhr, and how many salats, and how many rakats in the salats. It's going to tell you all that, and it's going to tell you if you miss these, miss too many of these, your value is going to go down.

09:39 IWDM: Maybe you'll still be driving this car, but the value is going down because you didn't keep up the service. Huh? Yeah, so when we look at man's world, don't we see sensible instruction? And don't we find ourselves conforming to the direction that they give us? To live in this man world, you have to follow direction that they give us, that man's world give us. Now, you want to live in the world of spirit, the world of God, and the world of soul, and heaven and whatever, but you don't want to follow any direction, you don't want to follow the book that the Maker gave us. The Maker gave the book to Moses, and before heaven, gave the book to Abraham. The Maker gave the book to Jesus Christ, the gospel, the good news, and the Maker gave the book to Muhammad the prophet, peace be upon his servant. The Maker gave 'em those books and those books are for us. And all that you have in your world is nothing in comparison to what God gave those servants of His. Nothing. Your world would not be surviving, it wouldn't be even established if it was not for human beings, believing, having faith, in those great servants of God, and preserving what they left and building a new world by the blueprint left to them from those great servants of God. This is what I know to be a fact.

11:09 IWDM: We would have no democratic republic if it was not for wise men, perceiving and seeing the wisdom in scripture, and the direction for human society in scripture. That was the only way they came to this great idea we call America or call the democratic republic. That's the only way they could have gotten here. I can prove that to anybody got some sense, and got some knowledge, you have to have sense and knowledge. Anybody read... If you read, you know history. I can show you from scripture what it... And shine light of scripture on history, I can shine the light of scripture on political history, I can shine the light of scripture on industrial history, the history of industrialized nations. I can shine the light of scripture on all of them. And I can show anybody with good common sense, I can prove to you that the scripture was before them with the pattern, with the blueprint of how to establish that life. But you're being cheated out of a valuable life because you are weak for it. That's the only reason why. You are weak for it. You eliminate yourselves. Nobody else eliminates you, you eliminate yourselves. Because you follow sleep, you follow death, you follow surrender, so you eliminate yourselves. I have no spirit to sleep in the face of work to do. I have no spirit to die. We pray, wholly for tomorrow, staring me in the face. Lo.

13:38 IWDM: Wake up people, please. It's time to demystify this world. Take that mystery out of it for the common man, he's the only one that carries the burden. And he's left in the dark because he can't be trusted with his own life. But that's the way of one disposition of mind under God. There are two main dispositions of mind under God. One is the disposition that you can't trust the common man with his life, so you have to hoodwink him. You have to keep him in the dark. The other position is, that he's a valuable creature created to rise up to any challenge, but God gave us this life as a test or a trial. It's to test us as the human body, you hear what I said? To test us as a human body. They say the body congregation. Huh? The body congregation. Now, there are many people in the congregation, but they use the single noun, body. The body of the congregation. Well, that's exactly what we're talking about. One single person, but in many. One in the many. In one living body pattern that the many live on or that the many live by. And therefore the function, this essential function of life, is the same for all of us equally, as though it was one function and not many functions in many individuals. Yes.

16:20 IWDM: We're given language and we need to be educated. Religion, if it can't be trusted to the majority of the people, to the masses of the people, and it has to be entrusted to just the enlightened person, or the person that's given revelation, we'll stay in the condition we in right now. When most of the people non-productive, with terrible burden on their souls, know Jesus Christ, peace be on Him. He said of them that, "You will arrest me in the night, and everything that I've done, I have done it in the light." Then Muhammad comes along continuing that work. God says of Him that, "We've given it to you that it may be delivered or given in plain language for it to be made clear and to clear up matters that are confused or in error. This is the way." And great progress was made for the masses of people in His day and time. How come it's not done in these days? Great progress was made.

18:31 IWDM: And it was the common person, the common men, that followed him. Common people, slaves were freed. And even before that freedom, they were already insisting upon being called a Muslim, or follower of Muhammad the Prophet. And we know what happened to one of the slaves called it out because he wouldn't denounce the religion. And his masters taunted him to get him to denounce the religion. And a companion of the Prophet, Abu Bakr, came and bought him from his master, so he could have freedom to practice his law or to practice his religion. So Muhammad attracted the masses of the people. And there's a saying of his that makes it very clear what he's all about. This saying goes like this. It says that, "He was offered a path through the mountains to get where he had to go. And he was offered a path through the plains. He chose the path through the plains." This is a saying of Muhammad the Prophet, prayers and peace beyond Him. What does that mean? It mean Muhammad was saying to them, "I am not of the nature to want to rule over people. I don't want to establish a government to control people and rule them. I refuse to establish a governmental order. My mission is not to guide people in the building of governments. My mission is to guide people in the building of human life, human families, human communities."

20:29 IWDM: That's what Prophet Muhammad was telling them. Islam is a religion of freedom, justice, and equality. This what my father told me, and the more I learned about it, I said, "Good God, almighty, it must have been an angel that brought them that kind of language, that Islam is freedom, justice, and equality." Had to have been an angel of God's messenger. Had to bring a messenger in some form, a bird, or something. A cat once brought me God, whether you believe it or not. A cat once brought me help from God. Yes. And I still practice the wisdom I learned from that cat. I practice it right in my home. It helped me a lot. And I've shared with members of my family, and I've shared with my friends, what that cat taught me. My cat, called P Two, Pastor Two, it was a child of its mother, mother was a panther one. Both are black, beautiful, black, female cats. Yes.

21:25 IWDM: So I'm sure that that message, strong message... Look how easy it was. I heard it when I was six or seven years old from the ministers, from my father. He used to say it regularly in the early days, '40s, even the '50s, he was still doing it. Islam is freedom, justice, and equality. Well, that makes sense. You're telling blacks to leave the church and become Muslim? Why? Why should we leave the church and become Muslim? Well, for freedom, justice, and equality. That's reason enough. And Elijah, "That's reason enough. Count me in." Why? Because we were, in this country, denied equal citizenship. And that lasted all the way up to the '60s. We were denied equal citizenship. So when the Honorable Elijah Muhammad began preaching, there was no equal citizenship for us in this country. You might say, "Well, that was in the South." No, everywhere.

22:39 IWDM: In the South, it was just more bitter, more cruel, and bolder, shameless. But in the North, it was existing, too. The same belief that you are inferior, you are not human like white folks, and you shouldn't be accepted in their society with them, to share their society with them. Stay to yourself. I remember reading the Chicago Tribune want ads as a boy in Chicago. I remember those want ads now, and I know Elijah, and I've got his brother here... Elijah might have another brother here. Members of my family, we can tell you that Chicago Tribune had want ads that said, "White Only." "Whites Only." They let you know, "Don't even go and ask for that job." "Whites Only." In Chicago, this ain't Mississippi. I'm talking about Chicago. Not Jackson, Mississippi, or whatever, Greenberg, whatever, no. This is Chicago I'm talking about. And we have had blacks lynched in Chicago. Why? Because he was in a neighborhood after dark, and some whites caught him and asked him, "What was he doing there?" He said, "He was coming home from work, he worked late." They lynched him. You recall that Elijah? 

24:02 IWDM: Yeah? In Cicero. Cicero. Workin' over in Cicero, and they lynched this young man. Brutal killing of this young man. So we're not talkin' about, "Oh, well, you wants to put the blame on the South." No. The blame has to be pointed on the white supremist system that was ruling everywhere in America. White supremacy was the rule everywhere in these United States. You all want to excuse the North, excuse Boston, excuse that. Who was the president of Boston when they had us on the plantation? It was the same president that was voted for by those people who had us on the plantation. They voted one president, not two. They didn't vote one president in for the plantation South and another president in for the East and the North. They voted one president in, so that one president was supported by all those white bigots that was mistreatin' us in the South. He was supported by them. They voted him in.

25:19 IWDM: And he was catering to them, not changing the system, until the time came when the Quakers, and others, and Jews joined them, and mainly Frederick Douglass, mainly because of Frederick Douglass' determination and his skills, his mental skills, his education, and his ability to articulate the problem, to speak very clearly, sharply, and to reach the hearts and the minds of whites in Christianity, and shame them out of that ugly thing that they were supporting. That's what happened to change things. And it was changed, thank God. And thank God for all the good supporters we had from Christians and from Jews. Thank God for a human soul that couldn't accept to be devaluated, and put down below his dignity. Frederick Douglass and many like him, males and females. Thank God that they still stood up in their human nature, in their human excellence, and demanded their rights. Thank God for that. But now you look at the world today, and you see the laws have changed. Thank God for that too, that the laws have changed. We can go to court now, and we can get the sentence to punish the people that deny us our rights. We know we can get that now.

26:44 IWDM: But you waitin' for Jesus Christ to come and pick you up in his arms and say, "You won't have no more worries now, Mary. I'm here for you. I'll make sure the lights are turned on at night in the house, and I'll make sure to turn 'em off at bedtime, whatever time you like to go to bed. And I'll make sure the water bill's paid and I'll cleanup the kitchen for you. I'll make up the bed and get all this stuff you got sprawled all over the room. I'll take care of all this for you. And that boy that's on drugs, I'll take care of him for you too. That daughter that won't go to school and just want to lay up here in the bed with that pimp of hers, I'll take care of that for you too, honey." You're waitin' on Jesus Christ, some savior to come in. God says to us in our religion...

[foreign language]

27:46 IWDM: "Oh, you who have faith, save your own selves and your families from the fires of passion." Passion for wrong things and not passion for the right things. God says, "Save yourself for it." So don't think you're going to get a Jesus Christ to come to you, and take on your burden, and do everything for you that God made you to do for yourself. Don't hope for that. God wants you to see the great edifice that He made when He made you. So He says, "Observe the sky." I'm gettin' a little warm here. I don't know if it's the heat, but it's warm in here. I don't believe in mistreating myself. [laughter] See, some people care more about lookin' pretty than being comfortable. Yeah. Young lady go out, she got a outfit she has got to wear. It's 10 above zero and she got to wear this outfit. And she out in the cold weather of Chicago, the wind is whippin' her, and her breasts is showin', breasts is all showin'. The body is all naked almost, like she wearin' a swimsuit. She have a good time. Christmas Eve, New Year's come, she's in the bed, sick as a dog. [laughter]

29:47 IWDM: Now, I care more about life than I care about the way you look at me or how you feel when you see me. I don't want you to say, "Oh, he's handsome." Nor to say, "He's ugly." Shoot, I put a monster coat over me and I get in a monster's fur and look ugly. I don't care if that's what it take to keep me warm, and keep the cold, keep me from getting sick tonight. And you don't have to like the way I look. Turn your head. [laughter] So God says, "He had made this world, and He made it to support our life, and to give us all that we need for our lives." Isn't that wonderful? And God says, "When this world is finished... " He says, "The Hereafter that He'll give to those who earned it, it will be the same as the space of the skies and the Earth combined." So God didn't say in our religion... And I don't think he said it in other people's religion either. God didn't say, in our religion, that when you get to the Hereafter, after this world, you're going up in the sky. He said, "If you want to go up and die go up in the sky. But also, it's going to be the space down here too." The Hereafter is going to be the space down here and the space up there. All of it. That's going to be the space for us to occupy." Now, is that good news? 

31:35 IWDM: That's what Jesus Christ came to give to the world, and some of 'em got it. Yeah, some of those favorite leaders or saintly leaders, they got the right understanding. God frees our soul to live in all the space that He himself created. And man has gone through the skies. And man has also occupied the earth. And He says when they get to the new life, they will say, "This resembles what we were in before." You hear that? This is not me talking. This is what Muhammad The Prophet left with us from God talking. Says when they get in that new life, or new world, they'll say, "This resembles what we were in before." Well look, if God is going to do justice by me, don't give me something looking like ET. For a white in heaven, I want somebody lookin' like Shirley or some of these women that I fell in love with while I was down here on the Earth. That's what I want. Now, don't mistreat me and call it Heaven, God. Well, God ain't goin' to mistreat us. He said, you're going to say, "This resembles what we had before."
00:00 IWDM: He brought me some water, and my throat is as clear as a whistle. I'm going to leave it just like that right now. I don't even got time for the water, but I'm tempted. I really need to drink it. I love water, especially good water. The older I get, the more I love water. I guess it's because I can't hold it like I used to.

[laughter]

00:27 IWDM: No, really, believe me I'm not drinking it for cough.

[laughter]

00:38 IWDM: Now, God tells us plainly, but how many will see? God made it easy, but for us, it's difficult. God made it very easy. You don't need everybody knowing how to get to the new world, or the promised land. You only need one knowing. If that one is decent, that one is going to share it with everybody else. So the signs that God want us to see, nobody ever expect everybody to see it. That's not the way of God. That's not the way of intelligence. The way of intelligence, and the way of God, is to give it to one, the one give it to others.

01:48 IWDM: And what's the good in this? Is it just economy? "Oh, God made it less difficult, or less expensive on him, by giving it to just one." No, it's not just economy, it's not just to make it less a problem. God knows human nature, and he wants to awaken human nature in us. He knows if he gives it to one that's the right one, that one is going to share it with all the others. And that's going to awaken in the others, that same charity, that same goodness. When they see it displayed by one of them, they love that person, and they're influenced by his goodness, and they become good or better. So this is how Allah awakens the best that's in us, by giving it to one, and the one shares up, and then we love him because of his goodness, his generosity, his unselfishness. We love him for that, and that awakens that same thing in us.

03:01 IWDM: The same excellence that he has, that begins to be nourished, nourished by his sentiments, and by his goodness. Nourish the ground, for that thing to spring up in us, and become a great life. This is the way of God. So don't think when I speak all of you should know. "Oh, I'm waiting to see if he going to say the right thing."

[laughter]

03:30 IWDM: You know the right thing? Where you come from? 

[laughter]

03:36 IWDM: Please let me get acquainted with you.

[laughter]

03:43 IWDM: Sure didn't come from the ghetto world, if you know the right thing. 'Cause you would've changed that ghetto. You'd be doing just what I'm doing. You'd have a business in the ghetto, or you'd be telling the people to wake up to the absence of business in our name. Do something about these neighborhoods. Yes, you'd be on the case. So don't pretend you know something, be like I am. And I got this from the saints before me. We say we know nothing. God you know, we know nothing, cause whatever we know is only because of your mercy. Only because of your mercy, and your love, for your creatures, that we know. On our own, we know nothing. We come in the world knowing nothing, and some of us go out the same way. We do.

[laughter]

04:47 IWDM: Okay, so God talking to us. I know there are many who say "Oh, what is he doing? He ain't supposed to be doing this. If he's really blessed to see these things, he should know he's not supposed to be sharing this with the common people." God says, and the scriptures says, "Observe how the sky is raised up over you, raised high above you." The sky. And He said, "Observe the camel. He got humps that raise up on his back. Camel." And he also says, "Observe the mountains, how they are raised up." So God pointing us to things that are structured higher than us, the canopy of the sky, way above us. The distance seem to be immeasurable, we can never imagine where it stops. So far, out of reach. And mountain, we see some mountain. And I've been at the base, or at the foot of some mountains, and looked at the top, and had a little experience climbing. So I know, it's hopeless for me to want to climb up the top of the mountain. It will wear you out, defeat you, you'll be found dead up there somewhere, or they start falling back down. Raised up high. And God says there signs in these things, in the creation itself, and also signs in you, also signs in you.

06:47 IWDM: So what is God talking about then? When God tells us to observe how the sky is raised up over us, is God telling us just to look up at the sky? Like a dog or a monkey? They look up at the sky, what's the sky going to do for them? They've been looking up there at the sky for millions of years, the sky hasn't changed their life. So God says, "Now observe the sky." What is he saying to us? Not the sky of that creation, the sky of your own creation. That's what he wants you to observe, the sky of your own creation. But take from the world that I made, a lesson. Let my world give you a message, for a ordering of your world. Now, see how my sky is raised up so high and beautiful, you see how peaceful it is? 

08:04 IWDM: When the clouds go rolling by, and they're in the lower, lower regions. There's blue skies far out there above clouds, and when you look out there on a clear night, and you observe my creation, my artwork, my design, my order. And how quiet it is up there. Isn't it restful? How peaceful it is. Now when you make your sky, pattern your sky after mine, so when your subjects, look up at your sky, they feel peace, they feel order, they feel the absence of trouble, they see beauty. This is the reason why God is telling us about the sky. You don't need a Prophet come tell you, "Look up at the sky, look up at the sky." Rats look up at the sky when they go outside.

[laughter]

09:20 IWDM: But they can't get up there. See the sky and how it's raised up. Now, for English-speaking people, the sky is called heaven. Heaven. For Arabic-speaking people, it's called sky. That's right. Ain't no heaven for sky, and sky, no two words for sky in Arabic. There's one word for sky in Arabic. So if you want to say heaven, then you still have to say sky. So the little child that hears his father, or mother, or brother, or uncle, or somebody saying, "Yes, one day we hope to be in the heavens." He going to hear, skies, no different word. Same word for when the stars in here, and when the clouds come down. Block out, blot out for us, and the same one, that's what he going to hear. One word. "Skies." And when he hears heaven, he's going to get a picture of the earth. Clear waters, pure waters. Gardens underneath which rivers flow. So I don't want to look up to find gardens. I don't look up to find rivers, I look down here. So in Arabic language, when you hear the heaven, your mind comes down here. And here's when you hear English, heaven in English, your mind go up there. And it's true, peace is up there, what you need for your soul, as a condition, is sky. What you need for your mortal life, as a condition, is earth. And God didn't make us to be spirits without bodies.

12:06 IWDM: God made a body for a spirit to come into, not a spirit to get rid of a body. There's some people, some holy saints, think the spirit has to get rid of the body. I have to say, this body is non-existent, the body is non-existent, and then I can live the spirit. But God wants you first in a body, and the body invites the spirit. And then God made for your soul, a sky. What is sky then? In this world, you have more than one sky. You have Hollywood sky. Hollywood sky. Los Angeles, is a place where they make most of their stars.

[laughter]

13:11 IWDM: Los Angeles, Los Angeles, lost angels. A sky full of lost angels. If you're lost in Chicago, we'll we give you a role, we'll give job acting, and you can go straight to heaven.

[laughter]

13:29 IWDM: Become one of the stars in heaven. Go straight to heaven. Don't be a lost soul that Chicago sent. "You have acting talent, come here and go to heaven." So the secular world, they feel so bad looking at the religious world. Taught the preacher to heaven, is saying to heaven all the time, they're going to hell all the time. They say, "Hey, look, we ain't trying to compete with God, but we going to tell him to come here and be stars."

[laughter]

14:05 IWDM: Stars in the heaven? Okay, well, I want you to know there's seven heavens. If you forgot, there's seven heavens. And one of those heavens is of heaven of business accomplishments. One of those heavens is a heaven of material achievement. One of those heavens is a heaven of the fulfillment of material aspirations. Material aspirations. Yes. Says see the mountains, how they are raised high. How they're structured, and how they're raised high, the mountains. That's material establishment, great material establishment. Symbolized, or pictured as a mountain. Moses went up in the mountain, and the Jews came out rich.

[laughter]

15:11 IWDM: Dr. King went up the mountain too, he said, "I've been to the mountain top." But look at the ghetto, look at the neighborhood, what mountain is that? No change over his followers, not economically. They're still described as economic failures. Yes, their neighborhood is a business failure, the neighborhood of the blacks and African Americans, one big business failure. So what mountain did our Moses, Dr. Martin Luther King Junior, go up to? The mountain of enlightenment. The mountain of light, the mountain of enlightenment. He was able to see with his intelligence, and his education, he was able to see the future.

16:21 IWDM: Yes. For those down here, on earth, so you go up on top of a higher mountain, you look down on everyone. It's like being in a plane. Some planes don't fly as high as some mountains are raised up. That's true, that's a fact. So when you go up to the top of a mountain, you look down on earth, you look down on the people all around. So he was enlightened to see the future, for society, on this earth. And he was ready to die. He knew they didn't want him around, and he knew they were going to kill him. But he was telling us, "I'm ready to die, because I know they can't stop it. It's inevitable that freedom and justice be established." That's what he saw. He saw the hand of divine intervention, and he also saw the purpose of God, for the creation of man in society. And he knew that their way, was in direct opposition to the will of God, and the way of nature.

17:29 IWDM: And then eventually, the way of nature and man will work him out of this bad situation, and there would be no more segregation. But there would be equality, and opportunity for all citizens. He saw that with his wisdom, and his insight, and he got great help from the Bible, to understand it. And he was ready to die. A real Muslim, or a real Christian. Christian, I mean, being like Christ nature. A real Muslim, and a real Christian, ready to die anytime God calls. Anytime! And we're happy to go, if we know it's God that's calling us. We're happy to go. Yes. So the sky, how beautiful it is. Beauty, order, peace. Isn't it wonderful? On a clear night, that's the feeling you get in your heart, and your soul, from looking at the sky. Beauty, order, peace. Now wouldn't it be wonderful if we could reflect on our Imams, who lead this community in America, and a few places outside America? Talking about this association that you are in with me.

18:56 IWDM: Wouldn't it be beautiful if we could look at them, and when we look at them, they give us the beauty of stars in the heaven? They give us the security of honor, and not conflict? And they communicate to us, impart to us from their statutes, peace for our souls. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Well, that's the message in sky. God is saying, "Man, hope for a sky of your leaders, of your stars, like my sky that I made for you." That's what He's saying. Seeing how the mountains are raised up high, and God says He raised them up like that, so that the earth would not give away or shape with you. What earth? The earth from material accomplishments. If you don't want your business to shake and fall, if you don't want your material life to crumble, then establish men in the leadership of business. Solid like a mountain, and towering up with material achievement for themselves, like a high mountain. Don't follow nobody, got peanut shells all around him, unless it ain't nothing rose up higher than his peanut shells. He's eating the peanut, he's dropping the shell. Find a man with achievement, and model yourself after him, and make him your business leader.

20:45 IWDM: You see the great wisdom? You see how God is communicating? Now, you'd rather go and follow somebody that's going to tell you to count the bees. Count bees and make so many rock eyes, and do this, and reach the sky. "No brother! The sky is a sky! What is this foolishness that brother, that Imam is telling you? No, the sky's a sky. Everybody know the sky. God create the sky, he mean the sky."

[laughter]

21:13 IWDM: Did you pay your Zakat? Put in the basket, brother.

[laughter]

21:24 IWDM: "Did you make Salat? Make Salat. Here, here's my rock. Make Salat. You make now, brother. You make now. Yes. You make now." And you fool, you make your Salat, and he's looking around for another fool. "Hey, over there."

[laughter]

21:42 IWDM: "Come here, come here brother. Come here, come here. Did you make your Zakat? Did you make your Sadaqa? Oh no, Imam Muhammad, he's wrong. The mountain is the mountain. Moses made up a mountain, a real mountain. These stupid stuff the Imam Mohammed, that he's been talking about? You leave that brother. You're going back to Bid'ah, you're going back to Elijah Muhammad darkness!"

[laughter]

22:08 IWDM: Well, you help yourself. If that's the way you're going, come to me physically. Come over here. Muhammad the prophet said, the time will come when they will see Christ Jesus and him together. He was saying that, right now, or in these circumstances, or in this time, for the circumstances that man have to accept, you can't see us together. You'll think I am an adversary, or I am in competition, in some kind of competition to pull away from Christ, to take from Christ his following, or to hurt the Christian hope. No.

23:03 IWDM: He said, "You'll come to see one time, there's come a time that you'll see us together." I mentioned the prophet being given the freedom, or the right of choice, to choose the path to his destiny, that takes him through mountains. Or to choose the path that takes him through the plains. And he said he chose the path that takes him through the plains. I choose to fulfill my mission with the masses, with the common people. Not with the mountains, the rich, the mighty, the bosses, the rulers. No! This is good, but if you take what I'm saying, in another way, it's bad.

24:04 IWDM: If you think that I'm saying, he went out to topple governments, you're wrong, and that's bad. That's a bad perception. No, he was saying that religion connecting people back with God, does not depend on material wealth, and power. It does not depend on academic knowledge, and power. It does not depend on all of these mountains of achievements, and power. It depends on nothing, but the common person in his best human spirit and nature, responding to the invitation that God has given me to give to them. And a new life will be bred. A new life will be bred. And from the ground will come up new, new worlds, and a people who will eventually have their mountains. But they'll know that the mountain didn't make them, the spirit of God, and their guidance made them. And also made them able to raise up their mountains. This is the way of religion. Was Jesus Christ any different? No. That's why he said, "You'll see us together." Jesus Christ is preaching in the Bible, being welcomed into the city. And the people threw their palm. Easter coming up pretty soon too. In fact, I can already smell Easter. This materialist over here, he got these holidays so close together, as soon as one's gone, you start smelling the next one.

[laughter]

26:03 IWDM: Thanksgiving, Christmas. Just stay in the house, and eat popcorn, and drink the colorful tea, and whatever. And Christmas will be there soon, you only got but a short wait. Easter, will be here soon, you don't have but a short wait. It's okay if we live for God, and not for the holidays. Then the holidays are beautiful. Live for God, and the holidays will be beautiful, and without hangovers, or that other stuff, without a jail term. More people from the ghetto, go to jail in the holiday than any other time. And if jails weren't so crowded there'd be more of them going to jail. But now, the police just take them out and tell them, "Go on home, man. We ain't got nowhere to put you."

[chuckle]

27:04 IWDM: And you didn't do nothing. Put out the eye of your friend on the dance floor. You stabbed him in the eye, you didn't nothing. He was blind in both eyes and all that. You go on home man.

[laughter]

27:28 IWDM: Yes, getting back to Jesus Christ. Peace be on the service of God. Jesus Christ is preaching in the Bible, coming into the city victorious. Victorious. And they threw palm down, branches, leaves, in his path, for him to walk on. Not a red carpet, but a green palm carpet. That was their livelihood. Palm trees supported that. That was their livelihood. So they threw what they cherished, what they valued, and submitted and said, "You're the man, not us. We trust ourselves, and our life, and our way of life to you." So they dropped it at his feet. And he rode in on a donkey. Rode in on a donkey, victorious. Riding in on a donkey. The same Bible in the Old Testament, have Baal riding a donkey, and keeping a donkey in donkey life. Now, who the donkey? As everything's a sign, God is speaking through signs. Who is this donkey? Moses was trying to lead his people, and they were so busy questioning him, and doubting him, that they made so much trouble. He could have gotten what he had to do done much faster, if it wasn't for them just constantly questioning, and doubting, and making trouble for his leadership.

29:14 IWDM: So God blessed him with a sign, to show them that when they saw it, it was a healing for them, to take them out of that argumentative state of mind, where they wouldn't be just disputing all the time, with wisdom and guidance. Instead they go on with, said as the ignorant say, And the ignorant who say... That's the way that section of the Quran talks. "And the ignorant ones they say, these are the ones that miscontent, that are always doubting, and contending with people. So the donkey is a unruly animal isn't he. He is given to changes of spirit. He'll just be cooperating with you, he doing the Boogaloo down the road. [Then all of a sudden, the donkey goes bonkers and will stop.]

[laughter]

30:32 IWDM: You'll get out there, and you'll talk to him, get back on his back.

30:38 IWDM: One man said he got off one, a donkey like that. And he said he took a two by four, said he hit it right back in the face with it. Said he got back up there, he rode without trouble for awhile.

[laughter]

30:49 IWDM: But I don't think so! The nature of a donkey, no, you had to kill it. And he said, "Well, you kill it, you'll kill your ride too."

[laughter]

31:08 IWDM: So what he said, of this donkey, this donkey represents that type of spirit and mind in people. Donkey can be a white man, red man, yellow man, but most of the time, it's a Negro.

[laughter]

31:38 IWDM: It is said in the Bible of Jesus Christ, "Peace be on Christ Jesus." It says that, he told the leaders, the establishment...
00:00 IWDM: He said to them, "Give me your tired and unwanted." They're tired.

00:08 Speaker 2: Yes.

00:09 IWDM: Your way doesn't bring them happiness or peace. And you don't like them, they're not producing anything. They don't contribute hardly anything to your establishment.

00:20 S2: That's right.

00:21 IWDM: So why you should you carry this burden on yourself? This is a strategy, right? 

00:26 S2: That's right.

00:27 IWDM: Jesus Christ is using a strategy. Guided by law, he's using a strategy. If I go to those people, they think that they know everything, they're not going to listen to me.

00:35 S2: That's it.

00:37 IWDM: But if I go to the common people, they don't think they know everything, they're going to listen to me.

00:41 S2: Right.

00:43 IWDM: Now let me reduce the amount of trouble that I can expect from them by appealing to their need to get rid of this burden. That was his strategy.

00:57 S2: That's right.

00:58 IWDM: So, he didn't go through the mountain, either, did he? He chose a path through the plains. He reached for the rejected masses. Now, understand that way back there in that time, it was just a few people that weren't discriminated against.

01:17 S2: That's right.

01:18 IWDM: All females were discriminated against.

01:20 S2: That's right.

01:21 IWDM: They thought males were the only one that had the divine spark. And all ignorant people were discriminated against. They didn't have any morals or ethics that demanded of them that they open up schools to educate all their public. No, they regarded their public like dumb animals, that should be treated like dumb animals. Work, if they don't work, beat 'em. They get in your way, they won't move, shoot 'em, hang 'em, kill 'em. That was the order of that time gone by.

01:54 S2: That's right.

01:54 IWDM: Okay? So he was appealing to, not just Mecca, some of you all saying, "Oh, yeah, I knew Jesus was for the black man!" [laughter] Yeah, you know that donkey came in with that donkey, [chuckle] into the city, big [inaudible]. That's us. [laughter] That's us, you know? Now back then, the masses of people, the public were all cheated out of education, cheated out of equal treatment. They all were treated like animals, and Jesus came to save communities, not governments, communities, 'cause the governments were responsible for the communities being left in the situation they were in.

02:37 S2: That's right.

02:38 IWDM: So he came to save communities, and he came to offer a strategy, and a way of life to the government, that would benefit them down the road. So he used a strategy to get them to open the way for him, and not persecute him, or stop him. And he said to his disciples, he said, "Go, and you will see a donkey. Untie it." Untie it. What does he mean? He doesn't have faith in anything. That's what it means. He doesn't have faith in anything. He's not tied to anything. They saying, "Find a donkey that's untied, except but one tie, and that's the tie of matrimony." No, they didn't even respect matrimony. Aren't we in a time like that right now? 

03:36 S?: Yes, sir.

03:37 IWDM: Where the masses don't respect matrimony? They marry for material convenience, and not really to have families? They don't marry to have family, they marry to have material conveniences. And play, a plaything, a bedroom to play in.

03:55 S2: Yeah.

03:58 S?: Go ahead, Brother Imam.

04:00 IWDM: Yes, there's a time like that again. Don't think we so far from that time, that, look, the material world changes. The establishments change.

04:16 S2: That's right.

04:16 IWDM: The common soul of people, it can go back while the world is going forward. We can regress while the world is progressing, because we are really creatures of spirit. And when our intelligences doesn't support life  anymore, we can't make sense of things anymore, the spirit life starts to rule. And when the spirit life rules, we follow spirit, spirit to play, spirit to have material conflicts, etcetera. We follow spirits. Life needs the pattern that God created for it, and as one of the Imams said from abroad, it means that manual that the manufacturer gave the prophets. So that they know how to manage the soul of human beings.

05:26 S2: Yes.

05:37 IWDM: So, in my conclusion, religion is sincerity, as the prophet said. And religion obligates the people, or the public, and their leaders, to be sincere about one another. When prophet was asked, and he said, "Sincerity, religion, sincerity... Sincerity, by who, or for who?" He said, from the people to their leaders, and from the leaders to their people. Leaders are supposed to be sincere with their public. With their congregation or whatever. And the public or congregation are to be sincere with their leaders.

06:30 S2: Right.

06:36 IWDM: You don't be crooked with each other. Vote people there, and then go back to your homes. As soon as you run into a little difficulty, you start saying what they ain't going to do. "Oh, you know they don't let us do that. They got it, they control it, they going to keep it." That's the negative talk we hear coming from these hypocrites. Voters that are hypocrites. Vote somebody, and then come back, and when you get a little problem at home you start knocking the establishment, knocking the system, and knocking even the political leaders that you voted in. Blaming everything on them that it ain't going to work. 'Cause you were too lazy to make it work. You don't have a hope or a dream or an ambition strong enough to lift you up and guide you forward against odds, and against problems, to overcome, to go over hurled barrier behind barrier. If you have something in your life that you believe in, you don't let no wall stop you. You just get to whacking that wall, and then you start thinking, "How am I going to take this wall down or climb over it or dig under it or go through it?"

[background conversation]

08:05 IWDM: Okay. So Imam W. Deen Mohammed will not change. God has made me the man I am, and I will not accept to be any other kind of man. And if I see something in your secret language, and God give me the spirit to see it, God knows if I see it I'm going to share it with my brothers and sisters. I'm going to share it with my loved ones. I'm going to share it with my friends and my family members. And I'm going to share it with the most distant human being on this planet earth because that's my nature. I will not keep secret I know something will help a person. And this world got you all under falsehoods! Think of the sky, don't think any more about heaven in the sky. Heaven is wherever God want to give it to you. And I think God wants to give us heaven right here in Homewood and every other town we're in throughout this United States. God wants to give us heaven, but you have to learn Imam W. Deen Mohammed's ways, his strategies for getting the mountain to smile on us as we pass through, walk in the plains. Huh? You have to learn my ways. Thank you very much. Peace. Assalamu Alaikum.

[applause]
