07/26/1992
IWDM Study Library
Understand Social Obligations
Terrace Ballroom
Newark NJ

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
As-sal?mu ?alaykum.
Audience: Wa 'Alaykum al-salaam.
Al-humdulila hirabbil aalameen. We give all praise and thanks to the one Lord Allah, the one Lord for us all. We believe in Him. We put our trust in Him. We witness that there's no other deity, nothing to worship other than Him. We witness that Muhammad is His servant and His messenger. We're very pleased again to have an opportunity to address you here in Newark hosted by the Masjid Muhammad of Newark and your Imam Ali Muslim. We appreciate your strong emphasis you've made with Imam Ali Muslim and the staff of assistants that he has, to make this visit a success.
Allah has rewarded your efforts and we're very pleased. We have taken the topic today that is perhaps most important for us in viewing ourselves as a community. And that is social obligations as we should see those obligations or as we should understand that, social obligations. Muslims are to have a sense of unity. Unity is the most important word of distinction for Muslims. By that I mean, if we would pick any other word and say, "What word distinguished us most from others?" It would be unity.
The most important concept for Muslims that give us our uniqueness, our difference, our special looks, our special life is unity. First, we believe that G-d is a unit, one, Wahid. We believe that He is one, Al-Wahid. And cannot be made two, or three or more, only one. That unity cannot be broken or changed. And we believe also that this creation is one. That all things though having their differences and their independence, et cetera. All things belong to one whole, to one systemic whole. Sun, moon, stars, earth, planets, animals, everything that exists including us belong to one systemic whole.
And we believe that it is this great-- Some English or some scriptures will say- some other religion will say, the great handiworks of G-d. We believe that it is the great handiworks of G-d that has guided, inspired men to arrive at the idea of one G-d for it all, one Lord for it all. And we also believe that the community of Muslims no matter how far distance we are from each other, from one side of the earth to the other, Asia, Africa, America, the northern countries, the southern countries, the poles, everywhere we exist, we say we are one community. Ummatan wahida. One community.
Oneness is very important for us. When I begin this talk of how we are to understand social obligations. That first point to this oneness. From one, we get two. From two, more, many, and it keeps multiplying on and on and on. But what confuses some people and it takes some kind of philosopher, the philosopher, the inspired man to see that the aim in multiplying or the aim in diversifying is to strengthen, to increase, to make it more important the unity. First of all, we need a sense of this unity in order to understand our obligations, a sense of this unity.
They tell us in the West too that when a man marries a woman, then he becomes one with her, right? He becomes one with her. They have to see themselves not as two though they're married, two people coming together. When they're married, they're supposed to see themselves as one. They're supposed to become one unit. In Al-Islam, the name for husband and wife really tells us that separated from each other we're the halves of each other. English tells us the same thing in this language, mates of one another, my mate. The left glove is the mate of the right glove.
A left shoe is the mate of the right shoe. That's what mates are. You split an apple in half, one half is the mate of the other half. Mates means when they come together, they form a whole. When you bring them together, they are a whole. You can't work with a left-hand only, not well. You can't walk with a shoe for a right foot only, not too well. You need two. So, in order for that function or that performance to be whole, you need both of them. That's why they call mates of each other. Very important to understand that.
We're basing the whole talk now on the need for a sense of unity, oneness, and unity, need for a sense of unity. Life for a Muslim. Life starts for a Muslim as one life but the purpose of that one life is to realize its functional unit, or functional unity, or functional wholeness, W-H-O-L-E-N-E-S-S, its functional wholeness. As one person a male, I'm one, I'm whole, I'm a whole male person, but this male person does not exist to function alone. This male person exists to function with a female. In terms of my functional wholeness, I don't have it until I have my sweetheart.

Then I have my functional wholeness. I can't have my functional wholeness just with this male. Now, some of us try to do it. All of us can't follow those that go in that other direction. If we expect to stay right here on earth. It is the way of extinction if everybody follows it. It's very important to understand that. And when we feel this loneliness in our hearts and in our souls, when we feel miserable and lonely, it's because you're not enjoying the wholeness of your life. It doesn't mean you're going to feel that wholeness because you're with somebody. You can be with somebody and that just might not be the mate for you. Maybe you can work on this situation you know, and make that situation that's not right now right, by working on it. We can many times. Many times, all we need is a little sincere work on it. Then you become compatible. Then you can live as the functional whole with that person. But it doesn't mean we going to feel that just because you're with somebody. In our religion, the creation of the human being begins with Nafsen wahida. Nafs is translated soul, its translated person.
One single person or one single soul. Nafsen wahida. One single soul. Said that, He created us nafsen wahida and made from it is mate, wa khalaq minha zawjaha. And made from it it's mate. So, now two came from one, right? That means originally, we ought to see ourselves originally as one before we become male and female as a functional whole, we ought to see ourselves as one singular one. Now how can you get a female out of a male without a female already being there? See this old idea that the female was created from the male, we have to look. Slow down a little bit brother and listen to the language. Wa Khalaqa minha.
It doesn't say minhu? Wa khalaqa minha. I know some of you speak Arabic. Wa khalaqa minha and He created from it. Sister, we can translate He created from her. The same ha we use for it is used for her. Wa khalaqa minha zawjaha and created from it its mate. That's to tell us that the entity we are talking about is not a human person like we see here. It's not talking about this person you see here. There was no Adam existing like you see me existing here. A man like this. And then G-d went and created a woman out of him. No, Allah created the person. Allah created the social person. The social person. The social soul. The soul with the social nature. He created the soul, with the social nature and then He created from it a male and a female to function as one social unit. One whole.
Yes, that's how we are to understand that. See, I do things that others don't do and they tell me that I'm already retired. They want to see me quit, but I tell them to keep watching me I got another surprise for you yet.

They say, Brother Imam, what you have done, you have already earned the paradise. You have guided all your fathers following to the sunnah of the Prophet. Brother Mohammed, you dont have to do anything else.
Well, how about earning another paradise?
Wa beth tha minhuma Rejaalen kathira wannisa. And He spread from those two that was a functional unit. He didn't create the multitudes of people until that two individuals became a functional whole. What is that saying to us? That's not saying to us simply that once we marry then we can have many children and that's how the world was populated. All the females and males on the earth came from two like that. Well, thank you I might need that. That's our special brother here, brother Dawud. Thank you very much.
It's not saying simply that. No. That's true we accept that. That the whole world could be populated from a man and a woman, that's right. We keep that tune, pretty soon the whole world is populated. But it's more importantly for us is saying something else. It's saying that once you have established the functional social life, you have the foundation and the pattern for filling the world up with nations. Tribes and families, tribes and nations because all of them should be founded upon and should be patterned after the original social nature G-d created us with. That's what it's saying. That G-d multiplied the nations.
Multiplied the people on this earth upon the original pattern of their social nature that He originated Himself. We dont want to invent any idea of social nature. We don't want to try to create or imagine some idea of our social nature. We want to discover what G-d intended to be our social nature. And G-d has revealed in the Quran. But I want us to have this kind of reasoning, this kind of curiosity because if we have this, we will find it better in the Quran. If we don't have this kind of sensitivity, we read Quran and still come out with a Sunday school fairy tale. That's not enough.
Not enough for men and women if we want to establish society and compete in this world with the established societies of the world. We have to have more than that. And He spread from those two many men, and many women. I want to digress a bit. I'm going to come back to the idea of social obligations. But first, we want to turn the light on a little bit more in our own circumstances. Why is it so difficult for African American people to establish themselves as a people? There are reasons for that. It seems to be very difficult for us to establish ourselves as a people. We have the least amount of functional, social life of all the people I know.
The Indians, the American Indians the first natives of this land according to history or as far as we know, they have less progress in America. America has not dealt with them in a way that has kept them more out of the main life or the mainstream of America than us. So, we have definitely a great advantage over them. But when it comes to a sense of being a people, we have less sense of being a people than even the American Indians. Let me tell you something about the American Indians. The American Indians, they were no different than most people. The Peninsula of Arabia when the prophet came was very much like the American Indian.
All these individual tribes, all these separate governments. Very much the same. Having their own household gods, their own hand made gods, images of the gods that they worship. Each tribe having its own. The American Indians were very much like the Peninsula of Arabia that's now Arabia, was very much like that when the prophet came. And when you look at Africa, except for some major occurrences in the history of Africa, the first builders of the pyramids, the ancient Egyptians and a few of the great kingdoms of ancient time. The kingdoms of ancient times and then the kingdoms that came about after 1400 years ago with the advent of Al-Islam in the world.
We see the kingdoms coming about that brings about a difference or that represents the difference in the way that people believe. But when we look at the history of Africa, life history of Africa and take out these separate kinds of major occurrences that happened to give the people a higher sense of civilization or illumination of their minds and the new idea about how reality should be seen. How we should see the heavens and the earth and man's purpose and all that. When we take that away what do we have? We have small tribal religions and they still exist over there. Small tribes having their tribal religions and each man has its own image of G-d, his own idea about life hereafter, and everything still has the same thing. So, don't think the American Indian was too different. Now, when conquerors come in, and you say, "What has this to do with social obligations?" Well, many times you read a book and they have a preface or they have an introduction. Sometimes that introduction is big, because you need a whole lot of introduction in order to be ready for the subject matter or the content. So, just have patience with me.
Now, when a conqueror comes in, and he looks at your situation, and he says now, "How best can I achieve my dominance?" If he's a wise conqueror, and he's not decided upon exterminating you, the natives he found. Then he has to come up with a plan that will in able him to have you live with him, live in his society that he's going to impose upon yours. To have you live in his society with the least problem from you. So, one way to do this is to look at the divisions of the people, that they are proud of.
See pride is a strong force, a strong motivation in people. They'll look at them and see, what are their strong divisions of pride that they have in their division, and then feed that pride. So, the conquerors who came and conquered the first natives of this land, we call the American Indian. They saw that these tribes took pride in their tribal distinctions. They took such great pride in it, that each one had its own government. Each tribe had its own idea of government and they were entitled to their own idea of government.
Now, a conqueror that came in and his purpose was not to dominate the natives, he would have looked at these divisions. The people hes conquering, they belong to many nations and then he sets the example of how a nation should be. "I am nation, I'm independent of any other nations. I will not let any other nation intrude upon my territory. I will not let any other nation involve themselves in the private affairs of my nation." So, this has its own settling to the native tribes telling the chief "No. Don't interfere with my internal affairs.
I'm Apache, Sioux, do not interfere with my internal affairs. So, they fed the division of those people. Now, I'm bringing it home, you got to come home, come on home baby.

Now, this may do that to you, boom, and you going to hit me back. Some of you are going to want to hit me back. It didn't help us to call us a nation in America. We're a nation in America. We the black nation in America. We're the black nation in America. Okay, we the black nation in America and who the others? This is just the Muslim we talk about. You see? So, here we have created an idea of a nation, now nobody can interfere with our internal affairs, right? Internal affairs, don't intrude. This our territory. We run this nation. It's all ours. Then our object now is to bring everybody, African American, everybody black into our nation, right?
That's the purpose of it. The purpose of establishing it is to get all us into our nation. That's freeing the white man to say, "Well, we got a long time, that we can rest for a long time. How long will they be working on that? They won't be in our hair. We got them in something to keep them occupied for a long, long time. They may be around here, maybe around here till the Indians come into a new transformation. Trying to get all these black brothers and sisters of theirs into that Nation of Islam. He knew it was impossible and he himself already a nation. He already established and he is telling big powerful governments, having hundreds of thousands armed soldiers, heavily armed with the baddest artillery anyone imagining they can have.
He's telling them, "Don't intrude. Don't come into my personal affairs. Don't interfere with our domestic affairs." and here we are, thinking that we have some independence here, in his territory. Far unrealistic things that we bought as a reality. You know what I heard the honorable Elijah Muhammad say once about separate states at the table with his top staff? He kind of chuckled. He said, I know they aren't going to give us no separate states. They went to war with their own brothers.
So, you know how they killed up their own brothers. He said, "But I use this cause. I know some of them would like to see us in separate states."
He said," I'm asking them for $20 million."
See a lot of things we bought. There's a lot of things we bought; we didn't understand what it was all about. We didn't know the wisdom, the plan, the schemes of Elijah Muhammad. We thought there were things that we'd actually have to do. "Oh, I dont like that Wallace took over. We wont have our separate states anymore. He saying we going to live right here." Well, my father said that too. Said, "We don't have to go nowhere. " Said, "We can live right here".
That was after '58. Back in 1958, '59, when he went abroad, he went to Saudi Arabia in '59, '58 or '59. Late '58 maybe early '59. He went to Saudi Arabia. He went to Egypt. He went to Sudan, I believe too. He went to Pakistan and when he saw the great Islamic world, he came back and he told us, "We got to do something right here."
I'm telling you all this to prepare you accept something that want to say. It is very simple. We cannot realize the sense of people, a sense of a whole people. We cannot realize our sense of being a people. Because we are fed so much confusion. So much myths. Myth, fiction. Some of you don't understand myth. You understand fiction. You read fiction books. See fiction movie. So much myth, so much fiction. We've been fed so much of that. And it's started right with Christianity. Christianity is loaded with myth, thats kin to fiction. Yes.
You try to live it in this world. You will end up in a strait jacket.
Yes. Might get yourself killed.
So now, that's what makes it hard for us. And wise civilized nations, when they conquer another people, they know how to feed their myths. Feed their need for imagination, superstitions, myths, unreality, non-reality. They know how to feed that. To give them something comfortable for their level of intellect. See a baby likes to hear stories and the more complex the story is, the more odd, out of natural, out of the natural. The more you can alter and twist reality out of its reality, the more the baby's charmed and fascinated by it.
You show the baby a human being with a nose on his knee, he laughs. Yes, because you know that's way out from reality, the nose isn't supposed to be on the knee. You make the baby a cartoon and he come smell the food he put his knee up on the bowl.
Smell it you know. Then the kneecap opens up and swallow something.
The baby's mind is curious and the baby wants to understand complex things when it's born. It comes here with an idea to understand very, very complex or confused things. The baby looks for something confusing. You get a baby a simple ABC blocks, but you also left a toy there, that can run by itself. Which one the baby going to spend his time on? The ABC block or a toy that will run by itself? The thing that rouses his curiosity most, that's what the baby wants to entertain itself with.
That's the nature of the mind. Allah created this world too big for our minds when we come into this world. It's too big. It's too complicated for our mind. Really, although this world is real, when we wake up in this world, we look at one big myth. One big fiction. Yes, this is myth to me, how that sun comes up there, rises up there, lights the day and heats us up and how it's rising. All that. All of this mystified man. Mystical and he created myth out of that. He created something he called myth and the myth is to be interpreted. When you interpret the myth, you get the knowledge, the truth. You get the reality that the man saw.
He presents reality in the clothing of myth, to say to the world of learned men that when I first perceived this view, the external world, it was clothed knowledge. It was not naked knowledge. It was clothed knowledge. The real knowledge I couldn't see for the garments over it. The garments of myth. One writer, he wrote this book called The Mask of Oriental Mythology. The mask. A mask that covers the face of oriental mythology. The mask is saying to us that what is presented as a myth, is a covering hiding the real identity. It's a mask on the face of the real thing. It hides the real identity or the real definition or the real thing, the real reality.
That's what it's saying. This is all part of nature, but if you can play on that need in a people who haven't evolved their intellect to know these things and feed that interest in them just to look at and be entertained by complicated things, you can hold them up from their destiny on this Earth, keep them entangled. That's what they call entangling the people. You entangle them in their own interest. You take their own interest and make their interest the ropes and the knots to entangle and tie them up. This is the scheme of people who come to dominate, to take over you. We have it really in the Quran, says, the spider web is the flimsiest. The most flimsy house is a spider web.
The most flimsy house is the spider web, but the spider will make his web outside your house, inside your house. Outside your house and inside your house. When you see the web just made today, it looks like an old thing. The threads look so old and soon it gathers dust fast. And it gives the appearance that whatever was there, it isn't there no more. This thing is old and he just made it this morning, but it appears old. If you didn't know what's happening, "That's an old thing there. Ain't nothing living there." But he's living in there. He got him a little hole, a little sac and he's sitting in that hole, looking high up like it came from ancient time. Like there is no presence of life there, but hid away in there. And soon as you're attracted to his thing, you get on there and you're stuck. You can't pull yourself off because it's so attractive you can't get your foot out of it. "I'm going die here. I can't get away."

And he got a fix so that you signal him. The cords are pulling and signaling him. Yea, one got stuck.
He goes down and he know how to preserve you just like you are. He'll leave you like you ain't been touched. He sticks something in you like a straw and he sucks out your insides. He drinks him up a Brother Rasheed Shabazz shake.
Then he leaves you on there. He leaves you right where you were all the time. You look at him like you're alive too. You look like this, but you're dead. You dont have any more internal organs anymore. All your internal organs gone and you looking old as the web now.
The Prophet and his companion, peace be on him and may G-d be pleased with his companion Abu Bakr. They were in the cave and a spider made his web over the mouth of the cave. So, the enemies that were pursuing them, when they came to the mouth of the cave, they saw the spider web there, they figured nobody was there. This thing has been vacant or has not been used for a long time. There's a spider web. The spider web had recently done that. His house looks old right after he makes it. Looks ancient. He never makes nothing an ancient looking house. 76 trillion years ago and all that. An ancient looking house.
They look at the web and they say, "Nothing's here. Nobody been here." They kept on going. G-d saved the prophet and his companion with the spider web. The saw the spider web, they thought that the prophet never was there, but he was there. What is that telling us? When they looked at what the prophet was teaching in the early- beginning of his mission, they reasoned it to be a spider web, but it was not. It was not a spider web, but it appeared to them to be a spider web. "You all don't worry about Muhammad. Let's go home. He's tied up forever. He'll never get out of that entanglement. There's nothing living here. There's nothing alive in here. Nobody lives here. This place hadnt been used." I'm certain that they heard one of his teaching and thought that was he was teaching was a spider web. But its no spider web. It says the spider's house is the most flimsiest, is the most weakest of houses. The weakest house. Weakest construction.
The way to find our life is very easy. It's not that difficult, it's very easy. We do not live in our present. This life, present. Right where we are now. That's not where we should live. We should live in history. People live in history. Not where you are presently only. But you live in history. Now, sometimes something can happen for you or for a people and it can be so great that it makes what happened before, hardly of any significance. And that becomes the starting point for them again, so they'll make a calendar saying this is the beginning of us, right? That happened in the case of Al-Islam. Al-Islam was such a great event in the life of the people who were called the pagans and the Arabs and et cetera. It was such a great event in their life that when the prophet moved from Mecca, which was a center for idolatry, the Kaaba itself was a house for all their pagan gods. When he moved from there and left their persecution and went to Medina and established the order of Al-Islam, the society of Al-Islam, that marked the beginning of a new history. It was the start of a new calendar. The history of Muslims starts with Hijra and that is the migration of Muhammad and his followers, peace be upon him, from Mecca to Medina. A major event can mark a new history.
That also tells us something else, that a people when they make a great major change in their life, they need to mark their calendar beginning with that major change. They need a new calendar. They need a new sense of beginning, a new point of origin, a new sense of where their origin is. They need a new sense altogether. Now, we know we were brought from Africa, this is history. Im not off my subject, believe me, I'm on it. I told you its going to take a long introduction.
When we were brought from Africa to America that was a big event. It's an ugly event, a sad event, one that took us out of our history, out of the context of our life as people living in that history. Right? We lost all contact with the history behind us and we knew nothing but slavery.
Few of us kept a little bit of knowledge but in time it all was gone and all we knew of our past was what the white man would tell us. That's what happened. That was a major event.
In my opinion, it wouldn't be unacceptable for us to make our enslavement the beginning of our history. It wouldn't be unacceptable. But also, we managed to survive generations of that worst kind of enslavement, the worst kind of enslavement ever written, ever known in the history of man.
This is documented by the Encyclopedia Britannica and other sources. Ours was the worst slave history in the history of the man on this earth. In terms of the way, we were treated. In terms of what we lost from our humanity, et cetera. The damage to the mind, the intellect, et cetera. Ours was the worst in the history of man. It wouldn't be unacceptable if we would mark the day of our liberation as the beginning of our history. What is it that he is suggesting? That we create our own myth? That we write our own history? That we create our own myth? Well, Think about it.
Let me keep talking. Im not even going to tell you what I'm after, you figure it out for yourselves. I know one thing I'm after. Getting us in a better situation all the time. That's what I'm always after. Getting us in a better situation to make more and better use of our life here in America or wherever we are. I mean Africa, too. Caribbean, wherever we are. I would like to see us in a better situation.
If we would mark a calendar from the day of our inclusion into this society when all segregated laws were abolished. No segregated court that upheld segregation was respected anymore. When the law became one law for African Americans or for blacks in this country. When equal opportunity came and we could feel free to go to court and demand our rights to live in America, anywhere we want to and to have the same opportunities that the other citizens have when they become citizens or that were the citizens of this country before.
That's a great time. We're talking about major events. Don't you know how life is filled with major events? Major events, some very powerful and negative, some very positive. If we would mark a calendar from that. Do you know what I'm telling you?
The reason why don't feel a real strong sense of people is because we don't have what other people have. The Chinese have a calendar. Everybody's got a calendar but us. The Jews got a calendar, everybody got a calendar but us. Why can't we have a calendar? Now, Muslim, if we would mark our beginning from 1931 or whenever Elijah first said, "Get off my back or we're going to see that you do not have place on this earth to stand yourself. That was a bad man.

If we would mark our calendar from the day that Elijah got his independent voice and drop his myths and spiderwebs down on America, that wouldn't be unacceptable either. But all our people might not accept that because of we're Muslims they're not. But I'm saying, think about it. I think a good start to give us a sense of people would be to find a major event in our life as a people and make that beginning of a new calendar. And do it so that we get the support for it from the great majority of African or black people in this country. And I think would be on good start for realizing the sense of identity.
It should be backed up with an annual day, an annual day where we celebrate our identity. Where we celebrate our history, our exodus on the continent of Africa and our entrance on the continent of America. Celebrate it, celebrate those great strides we've made as a people, as a race on the continent of Africa and here in America.
Bringing the two people together as the honorable Elijah Muhammad wanted by locking hands from across the ocean, bringing the two people together. And at the same time establishing ourselves in our unique African American identity which is very important. Very, very important.
We are not just black; we are American now. We are more than just black, we're American now. I don't say I'm an American with the permission of the white man. I don't say I'm American after the likeness of the white man. I'm an American with my own permission. I'm an American after my own likeness.

It's my own soul that has inspired me to train this man for myself. My own soul-inspired that. I saw enough hope, enough opportunity, enough compatibility with the American way of life for me to say "Yes, this is my life too." I feel as independently American as any American that ever came here or was here before. That's the way I want all of us to feel inside. That we're not claiming something after somebody else. We're claiming something of our own initiative, with our own eyes. We're making decision with our own minds, it is our own judgment that's saying, "This is my country."
And this is my country. This is my country. America. I'm an African American. You need to feel comfortable with that. Yes, you do. Irish American? That's nice. Italian American that's nice. Jewish American? Oh, that's nice. African American? What's wrong with that? I think it's very, very nice.
It doesn't leave me without my connection with the motherland. African American. I'm sure that Marcus Garvey, this is social I'm talking about, this all addressing the social need. Marcus Garvey, I'm sure that when he said Afro American, he wasn't saying that because he didn't know how to say African American. He was saying that because he was afraid to even hint Africa to Niggers in America. I am almost 60 years old. I'm not a young boy. I'm almost 60 years old. I'll be 59 in October. Calendar wise. But sisters dont be afraid to approach me if youre young now.
It is said that Joshua made the sun stand still. I look at that calendar a lot. Now dont write me any letters, I don't have my office set up yet.

It isn't too bad to have a little fun? There's another phase some people don't like in us. They come from the ice zone and there are already sharp edges on them. You know! We cant' smile too much. You cant say that in the khutbah. I never said it was a khutbah, its a public address.
Yes, I know how to skate around the monuments.
This is very important, what I'm on, we're going to have to include it in a few minutes too, but it's very important what I'm on. Now we live in history people, and we got to understand that we live in history as a people of a land. Original land. So, we live in history as descendants of Africans. What we call Africans today, don't think they were always called that. In fact, most people on that continent don't even today, refer to themselves as Africans. No, they don't. They only do that for the sake of the universal language. When you go to an Egyptian, you ask, "What is he?", he's Egyptian. You go to each one, "What is he?", he's this, he's that, never say African.
Very seldom do they say African. Why? Because the name African was imposed upon the continent. It's not even African language, it has no origin in the African language, that term. This is called America now. Did the Indian call it America?
Crowd: No.
The man that conquered, he gave it the name. The new conquerors give the name. Once the whole continent of Africa, there was a map for it, and it was called Kush. Because there was a great, black empire, great, black kingdom there, that was influencing, had dominance over the whole area, over the whole continent, so the man that wrote the map he called it Kush. The whole land. Later on, in the history, it was called Ethiopia, whole land, now thats even foreign. That's even a foreign name, but Kush is not.
After Ethiopia, it took on other names, one time it was called Sudan. The map, you look up ancient map, the whole continent, it got one name on it, Sudan. Why? Because Sudan was so big and so powerful as a civilization there, it just dominated the whole territory called it Sudan. So, there are lot of things to learn, I have learned this and if you accept it, you'll be in good shape.
Don't put too much importance on names, unless you can handle them yourself. If you can't handle those names yourself, hear them, let them go in and out your ear. If you can't have them, I mean by that, it doesn't digest well with you. Pass it right on through your system, don't go and spend no time on it, it isn't that important. That's what I've learned. The names that you understand around, the names that you can handle, those names the name that you should live

