01-07-1994
IWDM Study Library
Nationalism and Al-Islam

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Speaker 1: On January the 7th and 8th, 1994 in Chicago, Illinois, Imam W. Deen Mohammed, Muslim American Spokesman for Human Salvation conducted a two-day lecture series on the campuses of Malcolm X College and the University of Chicago. The title of this series, Nationalism and Islam and how they have influenced each other. We now present Part 1 of this series recorded at Malcolm X College January the 7th 1994.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Al-?amduli-ll?hi rabbi l-??lam?n [Arabic language]. In brief, what I have said is we always praise G-d and give thanks to G-d. We worship Him and Him alone associating nothing in worship with him. We put our trust in Him, and we salute the last prophet Muhammad, the messenger, and servant of G-d. With the traditional salute, the prayers and the peace be on him on his descendants, his companions and what follows of that traditional salute to the prophet, and us be peace, al-Amin. 
Were very pleased to be here tonight to support a very worthy cause. That is the radio broadcast and our business people who have carried that responsibility for some time now. As it was said, only a few of them have carried that responsibility, and I still accept them carry the responsibility. This interruption in the broadcast is temporary, and I'm sure that they're going to be successful in raising money and acquiring money to keep the broadcast on. Once it's on again, you should make it your decision to never let it be off again unless you buy a station.
I was listening to the words saying, let's not be disillusion. I've been doing this now for a lot of years, and some of my best audiences have been small ones, smaller than this. [laughs] Have been some smaller than this that I appreciated more than I appreciated some that was very large. So, we're not in control of these things, Allah, G-d is in control of everything. We just plan and do our best and leave it to Allah. Leave it to G-d. It doesn't stop me. I'm just as happy to speak to one man if he's sincere. Praise be to Allah. We do want to record this though, because we can pass it around to others later. All right, brother John.
[background noise]
All right.
[laughter]
The topic we want to talk on today is Islam, and how Islam has and-- pardon me, Nationalism and Islam. How Islam has influenced nationalism and we should add and how nationalism has influenced Islam. You see. I didn't want to put too much into the wording, but we want to talk about nationalism and Islam. That's what we are talking about, and two of them have influenced each other. I don't want to begin with the Nation of Islam. The Lost Found Nation of Islam as it was called when I was a boy. You know, we never did-- We never heard just the Nation of Islam.
When I was a young boy and a young teenager never heard just, The Nation of Islam. The Lost Found Nation of Islam. Then, later on, just to have it, just to cut it short we'd say just the Nation of Islam. When we read in the papers or booklets about the Nation of Islam, it would identify the Nation of Islam as the lost-found Nation of Islam in the wilderness of North America. That was the complete description of this Nation of Islam. The Lost-Found Nation of Islam in the wilderness of North America.
When we look at civilization, civilization itself, how nations have come into power, how communities have grown and organized, and formed nations and nations have become powerful, and began to compete with each other, war with each other. Formed bonds of allegiance with each other for benefits of more power, more land.
When we study the history of nations, we see those who follow the line of civilized progress, surviving those that just go for power without some kind of value checking that power. The nations that have survived have been nations that have upheld civilization, that have lifted up civilization, and have pledged themselves to always be committed to protect, preserve, hold up civilization. Those are the nations that have survived.
We have come to a time now where any nation that will turn to barbarism or indicate that it has no civilization checking it anymore, it is condemned immediately and some or all of the nations right away stop it. They stop that nation, they put their nation out of business. So this is progress for man. This is a lot of progress for man on earth.
We have a term in the language of Islam. When I say the language of Islam, I'm having reference to the Quran, and the true life of Muslims and the true history of Islam. That's what I have in reference to. We have a term in Islam, Al Islam and it's called Ummah-tun, means nation. Ummah-tun, translated nation, but is this nation like the nation of the United States, America, or nation like the nation of Libya, or the nation of China, Russia, these nations? No, it's not. This is different. This nation is quite different.
Nations to become nations, they have to achieve some kind of order for their society and some kind of purpose for their society. What are they committed to? Surviving? Economic growth? Most of them are committed to serving the members of that nation or their nations. That's what their commitment is, to serve the members of their nation. So, if we can just stop there for a minute and we know this is the case, wherever you go all nations pretend to be serving their members. The members in their nation, their citizens, whether they are doing it or not, they claim to be doing it.
If nations then are really established and valued for protecting their members, their citizens and serving the welfare the good of their citizens, then nations are really established for the human being, and that nation's progress as individual members begin to want more of their human life, their human life, not their destructive life, or beast life, animal life, their human life. The more they desire their human life and put pressure on their nation to accommodate their human life and their human aspirations, the more the nation progresses, the more the nation itself progresses as it accommodates the human growth of this individual members. Am I making myself clear?
Now, we have two movements for our purpose here tonight, that gives character to nations. One movement is the movement that does not hold G-d to be the authority, The authority. The other movement that gives character to nations, is the movement that ignores G-d and just establish that national purpose, without bringing their nation under G-d, Allah G-d.
Strangely enough, most nations in medieval times and even in ancient times, while in ancient times and medieval times, we had the two. We had great nations, really great nations; they were either searching for G-d or claiming to be serving G-d. Even ancient Egypt claim to be a divine order, we say Pharaoh, the ancient Egypt, that was no divine order, but they claim to, the claim that, they claim that.
When we look at the Quran and see the issue taken up in the Quran the issue of nation and national life. The Quran is not teaching us, politics and government. The Nation of Islam is showing us what accounts for the long life and success of nations and what brings about the demise or the death, the destruction and death of nation. It gives us the history of one nation after another. It tells us that what brought about their end was their disrespect for G-d.
As long as they regarded G-d in the right was, were sincere in regarding him, G-d permitted them long life and permitted them growth and power. When they left off, having regard for G-d and started to dismiss G-d as the important matter for them, they begin to decline, begin to have trouble, and finally, fell to destruction. This is history. We know historians may give other reasons for the fall of certain nations, but as believers in Allah, we say the nation's fall because they don't respect G-d, because they lose respect for G-d.
We don't have to go away behind us to see this. America wasn't as I will say fair by its citizens. When it comes to recognizing color, national origin, the color of the skin, America wasn't as fair to its citizens 30 years ago, 50 years ago as it is now, but America was at least having an awareness in the public that G-d has to be respected 40, 50 years ago, maybe even 30 years ago. And when America had that, America had leadership; America had power, whether it was like the not. Then came the disrespect, the loss of respect for sacred matters, the loss of respect for G-d in the public.
Never think that the public leads itself. The public never leads itself. The public is always led by influences bigger than the public. Public cant lead itself, public always led by influences bigger than the public. What I mean by bigger, more powerful, having more power, more influence. For then the nation allows its public, to be taken from G-d consciousness to be taken from a respect, awareness of G-d and the respect for G-d. Has America lost, because of that? Yes.
America still has leadership in some areas. America still has a lot of power, but America does not have the respect internationally, the power in international arena, or there authority or leadership, In the international arena that it once had, it has lost that.
We've come to a time where leaders in America seem to be bankrupt. They don't seem to know themselves, how to lead their nation. It is pitiful. But for some reason, America is still more intact than other nations for some reason. Im going to give you my reasons; I say my reasons because this is my opinion. I am going to give a reason my reason.
My reason is that America is a country that took up itself in experimental idea, and experimental idea. America is a nation started off believing in democracy, but It didn't have democracy and what it tolerated for centuries was not any democracy. How could it be democracy when we were enslaved in physical bondage, and treated like brute beasts? How could that have been in decent kind of democracy?
So, that was not really a civilized democracy, but it committed itself to democracy and because it committed itself to democracy, it has grown more and more human. It's society, the society the nation, the power the government has grown more and more human. Trying to respect what? Its citizen; its citizen. That's what we began with it citizen, the individual member citizen.
So, it couldn't exclude us forever. It had to include us in the citizenry of this country. The people of strong or moral life, better respect for G-d, they just couldn't tolerate us being in slavery and classified as sub-human and second class citizens forever. They couldn't tolerate that. So, the pressure came to bear from the humanity of the people and we were free eventually from physical bondage, because nations must be established for their member citizens and in time, every member citizen has to get the same respect, same justice, that every other citizens gets. That has to come if they keep that commitment.
Now, we have many nations that were brutal savage nations, they just organize for material power, for conquests, to conquer another people, they organized for that. To impose their way on other people and to use other people as their resources. Their labor, their wealth whatever they had, just is taken to themselves. In other words, they were animals feeding on others. They were animals, animal nations feeding on others that they would conquer, subdue.
We have the wild people of Asia, the wild people of Africa in history, the wild people of every continent have done that, they have done that. Sometimes it looked like they were so mighty. It looked like they had the power, but we see that eventually, they have to submit to the G-d fearing nations.
This is history. If we only can have enough patience to go back and study what has happened. Not just two or three days or two three years or two three hundred years ago. Go study as far back as you can. Go look at what has happened, what has develop and what has happened on this earth for human beings. If you don't come to accept G-d you got to be out of your mind. Or you are a devil? Or you are Satan. You have to be out of your mind because the will of G-d is plain the will of G-d prevails all the time.
When we look at the present nations we see Russia, the Soviet Union just lost its power. It's no more competitors. Isn't that something? Look Allah say it, and we wonder about things like that you know. Allah says, yes they were rejoicing and all of a sudden, - the night they were playing happy the day and it was all over for them, happened like in one day. Well, that's almost how it happened with the Soviet Union. It happened so fast we had to shake our heads. We thought we were dreaming maybe or having a night some kind of-- What do you call them? Fantasizing under some spell or something? Is this real? Am I awake?
It is true. Let me bring something else to our attention. Before the Soviet Union failed China had already failed. Now, some of us think, well China's still there. China is a big communist nation. No, China did it the cool way.
[laughter]
Yes. China did it the cool way almost passive war. They locked the notorious four. I'm using that language and it's not my language. Who were the notorious four? Hard communists people. Hard core communists that wanted to bring Mao image back. Wanted to revive the old fervor for Maoism. They didn't succeed. They didn't succeed they failed. They were imprisoned. Their fate is over now and ever since then we have seen a more and more moderate kind of line that the great country of China, Red China has been taking. This should wake us up. These things should wake us up.
I used to say as a minister for my father. I used to say any nation that would deny G-d and would establish itself on an idea that did not give recognition to G-d that that nation would have to fail, that that nation would not be preferred over G-d-fearing nation or a nation that acknowledge G-d, even though the nation that acknowledges G-d was more sinful in our eyes than the nation that did not acknowledge G-d.
Believe me I've seen socialism in the Soviet Union and communism. I've seen it as being less sinful when it comes to the popular sins that we know of in religion. I've seen those nations being much less sinful than America. America and Europe the West to me has been the most sinful of all nations. Even now in my opinion America's the most sinful of all nations. But, if we look closely and see that the American people on the whole and the government, because of the position of the American people, respect G-d. Then we must say even though America has the most sins America doesn't have the worst sin. The worst sin is to deny G-d. I don't know what you all thought I will come here to talk about tonight.
[laughter]
Well, I'm talking about nationalism. We have to set the stage for what I'm going to present to you and in order to set the stage we have to see the truth. The truth is the will of G-d prevails. We forget. We forget yesterday, last year. We forget history and we lose the moral sense to really perceive truth. You have to have the moral sense to perceive truth. You forget to look back, you forget to study what had happened and then you lose the moral sense. Then even if somebody came and showed you what happened you wouldn't recognize it, because you already lost the moral sense. The moral sense is gone, you know.
We are Muslims and as Muslims we should believe in everything that Allah has revealed in the Quran for us to believe in. Even if we don't know we should order ourselves to accept what Allah has ordered for us. Yes. The prophet Abraham peace be on him the prophet Abraham. Did he like what he had to do? No, he didn't like what he had to do. I imagine he was gritting his teeth when he was thinking about, "This is too much for me." But his faith was sound. His faith was whole. So, he had to do it even though it was hurting him, killing him almost. What was that? He had to offer his son as a sacrifice. Yes.
But Allah is not a G-d of our imagination. He is the real G-d. He didn't want any blood sacrifice. That's what the scripture says, right? G-d does not want any blood sacrifice. Allah says in the Quran that blood does not reach him. When you sacrifice no blood comes to Him. He does not accept the blood. He accepts your taqwa. He accept your G-d consciousness. That you are conscious of Him and you fearing Him and you want to obey Him. That's what he accepts. Your taqwa. We are to believe in G-d. We are to believe in G-d's angels. We are to believe in the prophets, in the books, the revelations from G-d. We are to believe in all these things.
I believe in angels. G-d says we have to believe in angels. I believe in angels. We are not just under the G-d. We are under G-d. We are also under His angels, because he has ordered His angels too to carry out certain responsibilities in our lives. Yes, they have charge of certain matters in our life. If we just set on going the wrong way and we're determined to go that way and no kindness from parents and friends and G-d no mercy from G-d in any form reaches us then the Angel of death takes over.
G-d puts the Angel of death in charge of us and take away the angel of mercy. The angel of mercy is taken away and you are left only with the angel of death. Nations are too. [laughs] Yes. Nations are too when they prove that they are not worthy anymore of G-d's grace, his mercy then the angels of mercy pull back and leave them to the angels of death. I don't want to be left to the angel of death. No indeed. Freedom is a great word, but not freedom to do our own thing. Freedom to do G-d's will. That's the great freedom. That's that precious freedom. That's the freedom that makes nations great. Freedom to do G-d's will.
A nation like the United States of America and other Western nations even maybe others can be included too believe that it is the will of G-d for every human being to have the freedom to enjoy to the fullest, the human life. The human life-- Do you hear what I say? I'm going to say it again. The human life. When you give up trying to be a better human being, and you start behaving as a wild crazy animal with the rabies or something, you lose that protection. You lose that respect from your nation. They lock you up and they tell you, You don't have any freedom now.
Sometimes we have to not just look at the public life and the shopping mall, and these places to see what reality is for us in our nation, because if we look at these places and look at the streets, we say, Our nation lets us kill ourselves, destroy ourselves, kill each other, destroy each other. Our nation let us put dope in our veins, drink liquors, and just mess up our families, and everything. We may come to such conclusion.
Go and look to the jailhouse, go to the penitentiaries, and you'll find people that do that locked up. We have to admit that Satan has a powerful place, powerful role in the nations. I think some nations they grow so tired of fighting with Satan that they just give up and say, Satan, you free too. This democracy is for you too.
Then freedom is a situation, become a situation, for all the forces of that society to be in competition with each other. It becomes a highly competitive society eventually if freedom is continuously promoted; it becomes a highly competitive society. Competition becomes so great until you're competing all day long. Every day you have to compete.
In time, this kind of freedom brings us back to the raw order of society. When I say raw I mean savage. Raw, savage order of society, where everything is in competition with the other for survival, these things had been predicted. See it would take too long to tell you all this. I'm telling you a whole lot. I'm giving you a whole lot. It will take me too many hours to give you all that Im giving you, if I would give you references from the books, take too long, much too long. When communism raised its head, the religious leadership began to think the end of the world was very near.
The religious leadership, not just one religion. That's why I'm saying leadership. It was not just one religion said that the end of the world is here. Some even gave the date 1914. You will find it now in some books written by very brilliant, intelligent, learned people, that 1914, - the end of the world. Those that were telling this, they were speaking decades after 1914. Quoting back to 1914, 1914 the end of the world. We may chuckle but if you slow down, Elijah Muhammad said the end of America was in his time.
And I agree with him [laughs]. I agree with him. It was. America as America has been known died in Elijah Mohammeds time, and a totally new America is here now. This is not the same America. That America is dead and gone. Western power as it was dreamed to be, died when communism became a thing. They knew what was happening. See, communism just didn't come up and jump up all of a sudden. It had to grow and develop.
There had the people thinking that way. There had to be organization, work done, and get support for it. That really the birth of communism most likely came even before Marx himself. Marx was a brain to bring about what they wanted. He was the brilliant one to bring about an articulated, and articulate what they want. I'm sure they were planning in secret all the time to bring communism on the face of the earth. When they found the right people to be responsible for it, then that was established.
They got the support for it and it was established. Think about this, in 1930/31/32/33, during these years, a lot of things were going on that were making the religious world think that Armageddon was here. They saw the communists forces and the free world forces one day coming to clash with each other, because they were inherently against enemies, by nature enemies. The two ideas are by nature enemies of each other. Communism and democracy, they are by nature our freedom.
The two are by nature enemies of each other; One controlling everything, and controlling labor, business, everything from a central power, or central authority. The other allowing all these things to be free and to operate, they call it free enterprise. So, these two systems were enemies by nature of each other. Then one says no G-d in its idea. The other one says G-d in its idea. I'm referring now to the documents, the precious documents of those two ideas.
In the preamble or the introduction to the Constitution of the United States, G-d is recognized. G-d the Creator is recognized. It didn't say G-d the Son; it said G-d the creator is recognized. But in the communist idea, and Ive read the communist papers, G-d is dismissed. They base everything on the nature, law, dynamics, or materialism. That has failed now. I want to say that again. That has failed now.
Look what happened to the religious leadership. The religious leadership, reading their scriptures and Muslims reading Quran, all of them begin to think, This is the big day. The big day is close. The angels began to work for G-d, and the men began to work for G-d. Some of the men get confused and they think themselves angels. When you get real desperate, the work for G-d, sometime you may get a little drunk and confused you see. You get too heavy headed.
They lose their senses and they think theyre no men, now they're angels. They are working for G-d. We got to bring this day on. Got to bring this day on. They come up with their scheme. Allah says in the Quran, highly glorified is He, "They scheme a scheme, and I scheme a scheme." G-d schemes a scheme.
[laughter]
Now, how are we to understand that? I think we have to understand it just as is given literally. We also to understand it in a higher and more important picture or too, than just scheme a scheme, and scheme a scheme. Man schemes a scheme according to his capacity, power, ability et cetera to scheme a scheme. But G-d schemes a scheme quite differently.
How does G-d scheme a scheme? G-ds scheme a scheme, before you scheme a scheme. [laughs] G-ds scheme a scheme before you scheme a scheme, and whatever you scheme, is dependent upon the scheme of G-d. Whatever you scheme have already been taken care of by the scheme of G-d that was before your scheme.
So, here come all of the volunteer soldiers for G-d, and they are going to bring the Armageddon on. Nationalism, nationalism. What makes a religious person, a sincere religious person now, get really, seriously interested in nationalism? The day of Armageddon is close. The day of Armageddon is here. We were told that the time of Armageddon had come, and it was the Crescent against the Cross, Cross against the Crescent.
As a boy, I used to sit in the temple, on the seats, and look at the blackboard. One side of the blackboard was painted. The other side was for work, for writing, putting notes, and making figures of whatever he wanted to do to get his message, his speech across. Usually, the meeting started with the painted side facing the audience. Newcomers would come there and what they'll see was one of us with a rope around, - hangman's noose around his neck, hanging from a tree, and right next to him, a cross.
On the other side you would see a flag, look like the Turkish flag, flag of the Turks nation. It had F, J, E, and I on its corners, four corners. The letters stood for freedom, justice, equality, Islam. Islam was in the staff. Islam was in the staff of it, and freedom, justice, equality, were on the other three corners. There was writing between the two drawings, the writings said, "Which one will win the war of Armageddon?" That was used for years. Yes, that was used for years. Before the Hon. Elijah Muhammad stopped using it, discontinued that.
Armageddon, what is Armageddon? Armageddon is the gathering together of forces that are determined to dominate the Earth. Gathering together for a showdown, to see who will survive, who will rule, and be the victor. It is believed that the forces will be the forces of corruption, and the forces of decency. The forces of corruption, and the forces of decency. Forces of decency, led by G-d-fearing people. Forces of corruption, led by the unG-dly. This is what is believed.
Some have even pointed out, pointed to certain places on the map, thinking, "That's the place for the great showdown. That's the place for the O.K. Corral shootout. There it is right there, Palestine in Jerusalem, you see?" I'm not a preacher of the Bible, but I think the Bible say, wherever the carcass is, that's where the eagles will be gathered. So [clears throat] I'll ask some time to take the pain out of these things. [laughs]
Believe me; the war of Armageddon has been on for a long, long time. [chuckles] That war's been on for a long, long time. Since the dawning of civilized man, that Armageddon has been on, but certain times bring on a climactic hour. A climactic hour, where the forces just become so huge, and so great, and sin multiplies so much until it brings about the end of the order for the whole globe, the order that was known before, the end of the global order. This end and a new order come about.
Don't you know Islam brought in a new order for the globe? The globe hasn't been the same since Islam appeared in Arabia. That's right. The globe hasn't been the same since. 
So all of these forces are in competition with each other, and nations are in competition with each other. Men get confused, and they think they are not just men, soldiers or human soldiers in Allah's army. They think are angels in our Allah's Army. They get confused.
They get confused, and they act out the life, and the role, and the aspirations of a-
END OF SIDE ONE
When the angel, really, has no power to do anything except conform to what G-d wants, without question, without deviation, without any rationalizing. Angels don't rationalize, men rationalize. I was told that [chuckles] a certain person-- Well, I have to say, that the teacher of my father, I agree with you that he was not G-d. He was an angel. Say he was angel.
Well, if he was an angel, fine the angel. The one that I know was a man. Now, but did he himself act as an angel? Yes, yes. He assumed the role of an angel also, though he was a man, but in my understanding, based upon my knowledge of religion, he was never anything but a man. You can't be an angel if you're a man. [chuckles] A man is a man, an angel is an angel. You can't have the both of them.
Now, let us look a little closer at what we're talking about here now. Some of us think that the Hon. Elijah Muhammad, just on his own, introduced his teacher as G-d. That's not true. We have the words of his teacher speaking in the first person, not the second person, or third. Speaking in the first person he says, speaking of us in our condition, our sad, pitiful state here, he says that no help came to them. That they had prayed for help, they sought help from everywhere, no help came to them, until the coming of the Son of Man.
This is his words. This is the words of the teacher of the Hon. Elijah Muhammad. Now anytime he calls himself the Son of Man, and says that his coming is the coming of the Son of Man, he is saying not an Islamic language, he is saying in Christian, western language, that he is G-d. We go to the Bible, where Jesus wanted his identity to be clear, according to the Gospel, according to the Bible.
Everything in the Bible won't stand up before the Quran, okay. So, let's have that clear. And this won't stand up before the Quran. He said to his disciples, he asked them, "Who do you say I am?" Obviously they couldn't give the right answer. He said, "Peter, who do you say I am?" he spoke to Peter, his Apostle, his disciple Peter. He said, "Who do you say I am?"
Peter's answer was that he was the Son of Man, the living G-d. This is Peter, the Son of Man and the living G-d. According to the Bible, Jesus was satisfied with Peter's answer, that the Son of Man is also the living G-d. Son of Man and the living G-d.
If you want to prove the Bible, you have to take the Bible to prove it. You can't prove the Bible going outside of the Bible. Where's the proof that this is the right understanding? The genealogy of Jesus is traced back to Adam, the first man. He is the son of man, by that reasoning. The gospel also says after tracing his genealogy back to Adam says, Adam who was the son of G-d, Adam, who was the son of G-d.
The Bible Gospel says that Jesus is the son of Adam, but Adam is the Son of G-d. Therefore Jesus is the Son of G-d. This is in the Gospelbut I'll show it to you anytime you want to see it. I hope you look it up yourself. This is in the Gospel, the New Testament. The genealogy of Jesus, find it for yourself and read it. It says this. Now, how come he's the son of G-d, because he had no father? Adam had no father. I'm giving you their reasoning, not ours. He had no father, he had no mother. G-d made him and placed in the earth.
The Bible saying just like G-d created Jesus. He had no father, no mother, nothing. He came directly from G-d that he had done this also for Jesus. That Jesus had come directly from G-d. While at the same time in his flesh, he had descended from Adam, who was flesh, the first flesh. That's what it's saying. If Fard now takes this same language and he says that I am the Son of Man, he's saying the same thing.
Now, I shouldn't be allowed to go out of the context, just like I shouldn't be allowed to go out of the context of the Bible to prove what I said that's in the Bible. I shouldn't be allowed to go out the context of the teaching of Fard, to prove what I said about him either. Now, do we have any further proof of that idea? Yes. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, that his teacher told him that there was no G-d but man. Man have always been G-d and that is passed down from one man to another usually the son. Passed down from one man to another and that G-d stays in them. G-d in the man all the time and that the first man created himself.
This is what The Honorable Elijah Muhammad told us. He said that's what his teacher told him. Here now is a new idea of G-d, concept of G-d, and also a new idea of the concept of man's origin, a man's beginning. New idea, the same idea of the G-d-man or the flesh and blood, G-d-man, same idea. It's the same idea. The teacher of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he is working in the Bible and in the Gospel and not in the Quran.
He says, again, I come as a thief in the night. There are plenty of followers of his still living, followers of Fard, not the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. There are still followers of Fard still living and they say that when he came, he said you see me now in the garments of the cavy. Cavy meant the white man. These dyed garments. Dyed garments. Colored garments. He said one day you'll see me in my holy raw robes. This is what he taught them.
What is he talking about? Is this man talking straight talk? No. He's talking in double language. The language has to be understood by translation. You have to translate his words to understand what he's saying. Is there any proof in his work teachings to back that up what I'm saying? Yes. He said you will not be successful unless you study and use the proper terms. You have to come to use the proper terms. If you are to speak well, that's the language. You have to be able to use the proper term in order to speak well. What is he talking about? This is the man talking double talk. What is he talking about? When he says speak well. He means speak clearly. He means to speak plainly. To know plainly what is being said, you have to know the terminology and be able to use the words in their proper terms. That is saying that terms that you're looking at are improper. They have to be taken out of those improper terms and put in the proper term.
Now, he says he comes as a thief in the night. I'm talking about nation, still talking about nationalism, influence on Islam, and Islam influence on nationalism. How now are we to understand the thief in the night? Is it a thief just a literal thief in the night? The kind of thief that any man on the street understands when you say the thief in the night, no, it's not that kind of thief.
This is a thief coming in the night means coming into your hereditary life. Into your hereditary life. What is your hereditary life? The life that you don't control with your conscious mind. That's your hereditary life. This is a thief coming in your hereditary life. He's coming into your hereditary life so that he can operate through your hereditary life and bypass your conscious. He's coming so that your conscious won't be able to detect him. He's going to steal from your hereditary depository. He's going to steal from that without your conscious detecting him. Without your mind detecting him. That's coming as a thief in the night.
Now, this is not approved in the light of what the Quran has established. This is only in the Bible, only in the Bible. But he says he comes that way. He comes as a thief in the night, wearing dyed garments. What is dyed? Colored. What is colored? Falsified. What is a garment? Knowledge. You wear knowledge as your protection. You wear knowledge as your clothing. Just as we wear clothes to make us more decent in the public. We wear knowledge to make us more decent in the public. Just as clothes give us a protection, knowledge gives us a protection.
He's coming with a garment of knowledge that is false. Falsehood has put into it. It has been made false. Dyed, colored. At the same time, he's charging the white man would be in the colored man. He said who is the white man, the so-called white man. He didn't except that he's white. He says who the so-called white man? Yakub's grafted devil, the skunk of the planet Earth, right? Before we said that, he said the colored man. The so-called White man. Yakub's grafted devil, the skunk of the planet Earth. They call him the colored man first. Then he said Yakub's grafted devil, the skunk of the planet Earth.
Colored man means false man in that language. There's another we have to understand. You can say something in common language, take that and put it in an uncommon language text it will say something altogether different. What you say in the common language, put it an uncommon language text will say something altogether different. I can give you many examples of that.
Now let's get back to this competition. We have this great competition going on. Great competition going on. Men anticipating. Men of great ambition, great devotion and great knowledge. They are competing with each other and nations competing with each other to get the prize. Who is going to be the victor? They are warring with each other. Don't you know Fard actually made war on America's life? Yes, he made war in America's life with his teachings in the African-American community. He was declaring war on America's life and he was operating through the hereditary life forces of us. We were not even conscious of the war that we were being put into. We were told not to fight. Says don't fight, don't fight him. Allah will fight him alone. They say leave it to Allah. All we have to do is just to teach and bring our people, but leave the actual fighting with the white man to Allah.
Fard was fighting with the white man through us, and we were his unconscious army. Unconscious of the war that was really going on. Let me tell you what I have come to conclusion. The conclusion that I have come to. The teachings of Fard has done more for the white man of America and the world, than it has done for the black man of America in the world. You may say how is that? It has shown him himself. It has made him, - forced him to look at his subject black man, black woman again.
Forced him to look at him and think about it all over again. It has forced him to look at himself and question his own mind, his own position. His own I would say, not only position, but his own pledge. His own commitment to his way of life, to his objectives. Made him look at himself and look at his plan again for his world and find himself his big mistakes in his own life. Fard's teaching has helped America and the West the white man to find the big mistakes that they made in their own life.
He turned the light on for them more than he turned the light on for us. In fact, he turned the light off for us and turned the light on for them. He did, but turning light on for them help them and turning light off for us helped us. But I still say he helped them more than he helped us, but turning the light off for us helped us. When he turned the light off on our perception of reality, he helped us. Our perception of reality and what we got in the white world.
We saw the world of stars and earth and everything and man and animal, we saw it through the eyes of the white man. When Fard gave us his new idea of everything, then we had to see everything through the eyes of Fard. When we saw things through the eyes of Fard, we were in nothing but darkness, but we thought we were the light. I know I was in the light brother. [laughter] You might be right, but you're not understanding me.
Now, you know arithmetic is arithmetic. It was arithmetic before Fard, it's arithmetic still. If he turns you on to arithmetic and arithmetic is working well for you, you're right. Money was money before and, money is money now. He turned you on to money and money is working good for you, and you're right. Using your five senses you say, "Well, he taught me to use my five senses." The Christian that believes in his Christianity, he says the same thing that he uses his five senses.
If your five senses won't bring you out of darkness, out of confusion, out of falsehood, then you have five senses that you think you're using but you're not using them. Your five senses are enslaved by falsehood. You see? I agree with you when you say, "he improve certain things like money," but as far as our brain, Fard, did not improve our brain. Fard did not improve intellect. Fard did not improve our common senses. We were doing much better with our common senses before Fard than we were doing after Fard.
Yes. He improved our moral sense or he improved our moral sense because he made us condemn the white man for our immoral behavior. That made it easy for us to change our immoral behavior, because we weren't at fault anyway, it was the white man. When you tell a man something is his, he hate to put it down, even though it's nasty and filthy and stinking.
If he'd been calling it his all the time and bragging, "This is mine. This is mine." Say, "Man it stinks."
He didn't stink. It's nasty. It ain't nasty, that's your opinion. If you tell him say, "Hey, man, you know the guy that you don't like?" Say, "You know where that suit came from you're wearing?" He said, "Well I don't know. I forgot where it came from." Say, "Well, it came that guy. That guy man he tricked you into wearing that suit." Take off this suit and get rid of this suit.
We were ready to change our mind, change our thinking, change our moral senses because we were told that the white man had given us that suit, we had to throw it away, throw it off. In throwing off the white man's what we thought was a white man's moral thinking. We took on our own independent moral thinking. We began to try to be Muslims in our morals and that was good. Not saying that he didn't have pluses, he have a lot of pluses and also minuses.
A lot of positives and also negative. Now, nationalism is good if we understand it in a different kind of language texts or language context. But in the political context nationalism have been more injurious to the citizens than anything else I know of. Nations in the name of nationalism, or the name of the national good or the national will have done terrible things to other nations and also to their subjects. We know that.
Those nations that came didn't separate themselves from national identity, but those nations that saw a bigger purpose for humanity and began to work with good people and other nations. Other nations that were never committed to good ends for the good of humanity. Those nations became more and more human, less and less beast or man animal. Nationalism in the political context have not been good. It's been ugly.
It's the ugly word. Nation. What is nation? We look at the word nation. What are we seeing? What is the word? We learn things by experience like a child. You learn things like a child by experience. A child learned to call that floor to call this light. It knows that's a light because you told it that's light. It knows what it's experiencing from the light, I can see in the light. It comes to know light by you put into it in saying light. Comes to know floor, by you saying, "This is floor," and it's walking on.
It learns that when I walk on this floor, it learns that by experience. Some words are not so easy to learn by experience as those words. Nation is not that easy to learn by experience. We learn by experience too. The average person only know by experience what a nation is? We hear them on TV, on the radio state of the nation. We learned that America is a nation. All the people together this is a nation.
We learned that all the people together under one authority, under one law, under one ruler that's a nation. That could be a lot of things other than the nation, couldn't it? Yes, it could. It could be a lot of things other than a nation because I'm sure that some people were already organized together in one group under one authority, occupying one geography and were not calling themselves a nation. We know that. This is history. Why is this word nation so precious? Because the word nation refers back to origin, origin. The teacher Fard, and not only him that other religious teachers too that have this love for this term nation. He chose the word nation, not in the political context but in the spiritual context, that G-d created man to be a nation. Not nation in the political definition, nation in the definition that takes the concept back to origin.
We have it in Quran where the religion itself is taken back to origin, Al Islam, the religion of Islam, Din Al-Fitrah the religion of origin, originality, the religion of originality, that originality that G-d patterned man upon [Arabic language]. That originality that G-d patterned man upon. This is a nation, this is a real nation. Isn't it kind of a coincidence, a strange coincidence maybe that the term nation, the English term nation, when you take it back to its root, it goes back to origin.
What was in the beginning, native nativity, nation, they all have the same route. When we call ourselves a nation in the Quranic language, we say ummah. G-d says that He made us ummatan wahidah. Long before the founding fathers said one nation. Allah said He made us ummatan wahidah. You are one nation, one nation. Now is this ummah the same as nation in English? Yes and no.
Ummah in its meaning does not influence a political idea at all to develop, it does not influence the development of a political idea of a nation. It is a religious community, it is a religious community, it is a community under G-d's authority, following G-d's will, as given in G-d's revelation, following the Quran. That is this ummah. That's this ummah, this nation or this community. Ummah also takes us back to origin though, because ummah is an ummah and ummatan ummah and 'um, mother.
It's from the same origin, from the same root, they're from the same. Mother and nation are mother and community from the same. The interest with nation in Fard's work is hope. It is hope that that interest will eventually bring us back to originality. Really the purpose with Fard's was not to make us a political nation, the purpose with Fard is to make us a community after the original nature that G-d created us for, or created us in, that original nature.
This is Fard's idea. Nature too is connected to the same word, the -ure is a suffix, as the -ion is a suffix, the stem is the nat-. Nature, nation, nativity, origin all these tie into the same thing. We're talking about the beginning life, life as G-d created it and intended it. Now, some of us will right away think that the beginning life, - my time is up, the beginning life, - I just looked at the clock.
That the beginning life is life in savagery. No, Muslims are not to believe that way. Religious people are not believe that way. We believe that the beginning life was the life in paradise, the life in the garden, the life of our first father and our first parents. Isn't that the way we supposed to think? When we talk about the origin, we don't go to the bad happenings in history to see that origin, we go to Revelation to see that origin.
Revelation from G-d says that He made us good and obedient to Him, and in the nature that He intended for us and He put us in a garden of paradise. You see? Fard want us to go back to Eden. He wants us to go back to that nativity, he wants us to go back to Eden. The proof of this, he's talked about the original man, didn't he? That's a big theme. That is a big theme in Fard's teaching, the original man. He claims that the black man is the original man.
Let me tell you, when he said black man, he was not speaking any more to the blackest one of you than he was speaking to the lightest one of you, when he said black man. The people he was speaking to were the victims of western civilization, the victims of plantation slavery, the victims of discrimination in the United States, et cetera. That's the people he was speaking to. He's speaking to those people when he said, the black people, the black man. He said, you are the original man.
Now, I said he wasn't speaking to the blackest one of us any more than he was speaking to the lightest one of us. Why? Because he's speaking to that that is inherent in us, he was speaking to the hereditary life that G-d created and the language of the introduction to this constitution of these United States say that all men are equal, born with certain inalienable rights, born with these rights. The Bible talks about a common heritage and a common heredity, doesn't it?
Pardon me, not the Bible, the introduction to the constitution talks about a common life, a common inheritance, a common hereditary treasure. It says in inalienable rights that we're born with and endowed with by our Creator. That's what it says. Here is a constitution identifying us all together on equal footing, on equal plane, because of our equal claim to be the original creation of G-d. Is that not true?
Audience: Yes.
Here is Fard saying to us that you are the original creation of G-d, but instead of saying original, he says the black man, [laughs] then he qualifies it by saying original black man. Is that not true? You who know language. He said, original man is the Asiatic black man. He makes back and original almost synonymous, doesn't he? The original man is the Asiatic black man. He said that Asia the name for the earth before it was split up and called by other names.
Asia is a name that he gives in his own language text, Asia is a name he gives to the earth. Just forget now, he's talking about the one place there's no other name for any other place, any other country, or any other continent, but one name. Now, lets get rid of this one name that he gave us, Asia, and lets say earth. The original man is the earth, black man. Now we didn't say Asiatic, we said earth. The original man is the earth, black man.
Earth Black man is the way of saying the black man that the earth produced before man changed things. This is the original man, black is (unclear). What come before our learned mind is our nature, is that not true? The nature. The nature is our hereditary life. That's the nature, the hereditary life. The life we inherit from our fathers. I can't inherit my fathers mind, if I'd never seen my father and I've never heard a word from my father, I would know nothing of my father.
I would have certain hereditary factors in my life, that if somebody saw me that knew my father, "Hey, boy, what was your father?" They might be the one to tell me who my father because they knew my father, right? They recognize my father in me because I carry hereditary traits, hereditary marks from my father. The hereditary life is our original life, the conscious life is the life we learn in the world. G-d made the hereditary life, didn't he?
The first man, the first human being on this earth, he had his hereditary life, she had her hereditary life and G-d made it. G-d put them together and mated them together, and they passed on their hereditary life to their children. See, hereditary means nothing but you got it from somewhere. You inherited, you got it from there, it was passed down. Strangely enough, the language for putting us on this earth is down, isn't it?
Well, he comes as a thief in the night. Comes as a thief in the night in dyed garments. Now what is his purpose? To save the black man, his purpose was to save the black man. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said that nothing was stronger in Fard than his desire to kill the white man. Now, we were told that he came to save us, but The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said that he had no stronger desire in him than his desire to kill the white man.
Now, my believe is this, that he was one of those who read the writing on the wall for himself and came to the conclusion that the time of the white rule was up. Now, all the forces are going to be competing now to see who will get influence over the minds of the people of earth. That's the rule. The rule is not political nation, the rule is not a army, a physical army, the rule is by influenced, that's the rule. Who will get influenced over the minds of the people of earth?
Being a Muslim now, he would like to see the war won for Islam. He devised a scheme to win the war. His scheme is to use the donkey of the white man to bring about the fall of the white man. Now, this was taken from the bible too. There was a man riding a donkey, right? He had abused that donkey. An angel came and changed that donkeys mind, and that donkey refused to carry his rider any longer.
That donkey was certainly transformed from the image and life of a donkey to the life and voice of a man. He spoke to his master with a mans voice and not with donkey voice anymore. This is the bible. Here is Fard now, he's using the donkey of a white man, where really that ain't enough to say donkey because the white man had other donkeys, the donkey donkey. The twice over donkey of the white man. Or the three-time donkey of the white man.
I don't know, you've got to make a distinction between us and the other donkeys that the white man had. He comes and used the donkey now to really dethrone, see making him get down of his back that's means he's dethroning him. To really dethrone or take out of power his rider. Believe me nothing has broken the power of the old white America more so than the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad that he got from Fard.
Nothing else has worked to influence the society and influence the leaders, and to just go in and throw poison and gas into their minds, to change their thinking and confound their heads. Yes. Nothing has worked to do that more so than the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. They say where does he come from, who is this strange man? You think the communist doctrine was studied by America?
I don't believe any doctrine has been studied more diligently by the Intelligence Department, and other wide people of America, than the teachings of Fard that he gave to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. I've studied it. Yes, I've studied it. When I saw that we were wrong, I said well, I'm going to have to know it, so I studied it. I came to the conclusion that the insight of Fard definitely superior to the insight of most people in religion.
His works were wrong, he did wrong things, but his insight was definitely superior to the works of the insights of most people in religion. He's a man of great insight. Now, here he is. He's taken it upon himself to lead his army. One man. He said, "I come alone." He said, "I will do it by myself. Im the Son of Man, tread the wine press alone," et cetera. See all of this same language he's taking it from the concept of the Son of Man in the gospel, and in the bible.
One man takes it upon himself to compete with the world for influence over the thinking of the people on this earth. One man. Through us he, and I repeat, he has had great influence, his influence has been great. No way that I could have been produced if I hadn't come out through that experience. No way that I could have come into the mind that I have, if I hadn't come through that experience. Im going to have to close in about 10 minutes. Yes.
It is the way of G-d to respond to an issue according to the gravity of that issue. Now, we cant even see G-d responding to the light matters, do we? No light matters, no, but the more serious the matter is, the more influence that the happening has, the more G-d will become involved and this is good sense, isn't it? The white man didn't do no small wrong when he brought us from Africa and made us to believe that we were inferior to him by nature. By nature that we were created inferior to him. This is what he made us believe. Don't blame just the south for this. The north believed that too. Some of them still believe it. That was no small sin. That's no small crime. To bring a people from their land, native land and put them in bondage and make their children believe that they are born inferior to other people. Then have those that are taught that look or think back across the water, across the Atlantic to their people over there, and think that they're even more inferior than we are.
This was the mind that we had 30 years ago. Some of us still have that mind. Believe me, some African American still have that mind. We think that we are superior to the black people on the continent of Africa, because we were raised by the white man. That was no small crime. It's a big crime. Crimes of that magnitude call on or warrant, prompt a response from G-d. Now, here comes the Fard now, with an idea. A scheme. That's what it was. A scheme. Powerful one too.
He comes with a scheme now to break up the order of the white man's thinking. To confound his mind. Shatter his thinking. Make him have to go back and rethink all of his knowledge. All of his direction. He operates through the black side of the black man psychology of the black man's soul of psychic. He's operating in the black of the African American man in his hereditary life. Anytime you come in and you are taught that black man is god and he made himself.
The white man is the devil grafted from the black man, and it was a black scientist by the name of Yakub that grafted the white man from the black man and helped him to get up and get the knowledge and everything and gave him guidance to rule the black man and then blame the white man for all of that. He got to be working in the black side of your nature and life. The conscious side can't buy that. When I became conscious, I couldn't accept it anymore.
How in the world can you a black man create a devil then blame the devil for the wrong that he does? He said that he can't help it. That's his nature. He was created to do it. But the black man created it. He could have helped it. He'd didn't have that nature. When I started to think, when my conscience started coming to me, I couldn't buy that anymore. It made me feel like we were wrong. Here we are now taking the blame off the white man and put it on ourselves. We're worse than the devil we made him.
Then taught him how to do wrong. Didn't just make him. Made him and taught him how to do wrong. Taught him lying, stealing, and how to master the black man. That's Fard's teachings. Now, if you could have, I don't know if his followers are still here, but if any of Fard's followers, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, I started to call him daddy, because I love him very much, that's my father. If any of the followers of Fard and The Honorable Elijah Muhammad are here, I'm glad we have you here, you don't have to raise your hand don't put your spot.
If you are here, if you can with your conscious mind, tell me that you accept that-- I gave it to you exactly the way it is in the writings now, I didn't change anything. If you can accept that, that that's correct. Then you're either a devil or you still don't have your conscious mind. Why would a man that's trying to help us, he's trying to help humanity, that's what I'm trying to tell you, Fard he really thought he was being a savior, a servant of G-d to help humanity get their burden off of them.
Now, how could a man believing he's doing the will of G-d or serving G-d helping us, and tell us something like that? Because he was helping us. See, if a man goes and select the donkey level mind of the people for a great scheme and he's a good man, his hope is that one day a donkey will see the light and be transformed into a man. Once the donkey sees the light and is transformed into a man, then he has flaws in his works for the man to see.
The donkey can't see the flaws. When the donkey begin to see the light or begin to want understanding-- I hate to go to Genesis because this is not Quran. Genesis said the darkness is everywhere over everything. It said the spirit moved upon the face of the waters and G-d said, "Let there be light." There was light out of darkness. That's really the way it happens with us. The waters means your sensitivities and your spirit begin to be against your sensitivities, or to be concerned about your sensitivity.
Why am I having this sensitivity? Why am I attached to this? Why do I have feelings for this? Why am I afraid to break from this feeling I have with this? That's the spirit moving on the waters. After a while, the spirit gets so strong until it shakes the water up. If you shake water up enough, light will be reflected in it. Just do it. Just take water and disturb it. Look like it gets light into it when you disturb it. Whatever a man says with his tongue, he has seen with his eyes.
He can't say anything that he hasn't already perceived. He perceived that when you disturb water, it shows light, when it's resting it's black. When you get disturbed enough in your sensitivities, then you want to separate those sensitivities. I'm going to reject that sensitivity. The water starts to part. You rejected part of it, and then the light comes into it. After a while you say, "No, I can't go back to that." You're thinking right now.
I'm using these metaphors to really describe things that's been going on in a lot of us. Now, you say, "I can't go back to that water." That's going to have to stay on the other side and separate yourself from the sensitivities that were holding your good senses down, drowning your good senses. Your good senses begin to grow, don't they. Then your intelligence begin to grow. After a while, you're speaking with a man's voice. No, I won't accept that foolishness anymore.
Paul says, "When I was a child I spoke as a child. A man is supposed to be speaking as a man."
So he takes it upon himself now to compete with all the (unclear). To compete with a wise of the world for influence over the minds of the people. And he's a Muslim so he's hoping that the result will be that the ones that come to the light will choose Islam. He knows it's a hit and miss kind of thing. It's like gambling. It's a gamble. He knows it's a hit and miss kind of thing. He had two chiefs; my father and my father's brother. My father was his chief minister, my father's brother was his chief FOI officer. My father's brother was uncle Kalat. Both brothers were having babies, children at about the same time. He told my father to name of his son, it'll be a son after him. Wallace D Muhammad. He actually, - we have cards where he wrote Wallace D. Just Wallace D only on them, because he was trying to hide himself from the intelligence department.
He just put Wallace D on some card. It didn't say Wallace D Muhammad. Wallace D. It wasn't a popular name, this is a name he used outside of the stage away from the public. Wallace D. In the lesson you ain't got no Wallace, you just got WD, WF, WD, like that. Anyway, he told my father and mother to promise that they would name me WD Wallace D Muhammad, and they did. Wallace D. I was already Muhammad, and my father was Muhammad.
Wallace D, they named me Wallace D. But he also influence my father's brother Kalat, who was a second chief in the Nation of Islam under Fard to name his son Fard. It's a gamble, right? Well, if you don't get it in Wallace, don't get it in Fard and in one brother, you maybe get another. He's gambling. Now, I don't know what Kalat and my aunt taught my cousin Fard, but they didn't produce.
[laughter]
They didn't produce. Yes. Why would he do these things like that and what is he hoping for? He's hoping that once the thinking starts working and he worked on one himself. That was myself. He worked on me himself. Not directly, I don't think he ever saw me in that day, physically I never saw him as child, physically never saw him but he worked for me. By giving me the name and telling me the story of the giving of the name. He worked on me.
That name and the tie with him and my father, all of that now is working on me. It has to work on me. So here he is working on me now in hopes that I will come to Islam. I will come into the religion, I will come to my father's way, but I'll be thinking differently. How's he going to make me think different now? How is he going to give me more independent thinking? Because now I'm almost made an equal with my father. You see, look at the psychology.
I'm almost made an equal to my father. Here's my father chosen by this man, and here I am named after this man. You know what they used to tell me when I was small? When I have my head side ways, they say, you look like him. That's what he used to tell me. So all this is to feed thoughts in me. All this is to make me conscious, make me get more serious, more conscious of that, - see he looks like our savior. That is what they used saying, I was a boy. I'd be sitting reading or something, - after a while they had me spooked up. I was looking at him like--
[laughter]
I'm looking at his picture on the wall and looking at my picture.
[laughter]
Now, let me tell you where he told my father to look to find understanding for this. He told him to look in the bible under Zachariah's. Zachariah's gambled, they threw lots. Right?
Audience: Yes.
Okay, they gambled. My father, he was trying to hint to you all what was happening. I don't know if he identified it with me. I thought he identified it with the goal of the teachings. The goal of the teachings itself, the teaching as a life germ. Not me, physical person. The teaching that he got as a life gem, and this life gem will it produce the child we want? Meaning will it produce the knowledge body that we want. This body here is just a raw protoplasm, germ, that we're throwing out here in the womb.
Now, will it produce the child we want, or will it fail? So the Hon. Elijah Muhammad doing his last great religious lectures, The Theology of Time, in one point in his talk he said, "Oops, I missed that time." That was telling us that it's a gamble right, that it's a gamble. You don't always get what you're working for. Luckily, Fard's plan worked. He got the black man. Believe me, I don't care if they Baptists, Catholics, all black people in America have been influenced by the teaching of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
They don't have to say they believe in him or follow him, but all of them have been influenced by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's teachings. All of them have been made over again by the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Weather they buy everything he said or not, they've been made over again by the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Reverend Jesse Jackson that includes you
Audience: Allahu Akbar.
I thank Allah that his scheme, his gambling worked well. [chuckles] I thank Allah. Out of it has come a person that he himself named, gave his name to. That's the leader and no more believing in what he taught, have rejected what he taught and now stands upon the Quran and try to teach exactly what prophet Muhammad taught, the prayers and the peace be on him. Yes. Look what came out of that. 
Now, I'm telling you that Nationalism in the political context have been more injurious to human beings than any other idea. We don't want any political idea of Nation for ourselves.
When we say nation, we want to understand that we are talking about a community of people following the will of G-d as given in their holy book, the Quran. Lining up behind the first Muslim of this proper nation Muhammad the Prophet, who has received the Quran from G-d.
He was not a man on a trip trying to find G-d. He was trying to find a better way of life for his people and found G-d. You who follow the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad the old teacher, you are further behind than he was himself when he died because he was bringing us closer and closer to where I am now and where you are, that are with me. That's what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was doing.
He was gradually influencing and trying to in a very skillful way, without hurting your faith in him, He was trying to ease us into a better situation where we will be able to come out of things that were hurting us in that old teaching. So let's accept the right meaning for Nation. The right meaning for Nation is people seeking to be in their original form and their original state that G-d created them for. They're all accepting that G-d is the authority over them and following their scripture, the revelation of G-d.
That is the light they follow. That is a great Muslim Nation. It is an international Nation. It is a Nation of Nations. An international Nation. More correctly, an Ummah. We can't find a better term, Ummah, taken from 'mother,' 'Um' means mother. Yes, I wish I could tell you more. I wish I could tell you a lot more. I really do. I will say this, any Muslim that's looking for the return of Jesus Christ, he doesn't understand his religion. Jesus Christ and his mother, peace be on both of them, were no more than signs of Prophet Muhammad and the Ummah of Muhammad.
Audience: Allahu Akbar.
Imam W. Deen As-sal?mu ?alaykum. May G-d guide us right and have mercy on us.
[01:49:28](END OF PART 1)
PART 2
Speaker 1: On January the 7th and 8th 1994 in Chicago, Illinois, Imam W. Deen Mohammed a Muslim-American spokesman for human salvation conducted a two-day lecture series on the campuses of Malcolm X College and the University of Chicago. The title of this series Nationalism and Islam and how they influence each other. We now present part two summary and conclusion of this lecture recorded January the 8th 1994 on the University of Chicago.

Imam Mohammed: As-salamu alaykum.
Audience: Wa 'alaykum al-salaam.
Imam Mohammed: That is peace be on you, we praise G-d Al-hamdu lillahi rabbil 'alamin. We witness that there is nothing worthy of worship except the one G-d. Aashhadu Alla Ilaha Illa Allah Wahdahu La Sharika Lahu Wa Ashhadu ana Muhammadar abuduhu Wa rasuluhu, sala allah alayhi wa sallam. [clears throat] And we witness that there is no G-d except the one G-d and that Muhammad is the prophet, the messenger of G-d and His servant that is the prophet who received the Quran, the last book or last revelation from G-d. [clears throat] we salute him with the traditional salute that all Muslim give around this earth, around the world, and all that is included in that honor, or respect pardon me that is paid to the last prophet of G-d.
There was a professor who recently-- I gave a speech to students on misconception in Islam, and the article was brought to my attention as I was leaving Malcolm X today upon finishing the address there. I was very pleased to see this professor pointing out things to the students that if they would accept what he said, would clear up a lot of misconceptions. One was the misconception regarding women and he was explaining that centuries ago, long before the West began to recognize that women were deprived of their rights that Islam came to address the rights of women and address the rights of women and promoted the rights of women and gave legal protection for the rights of women.
He goes on to mention other things too that are misunderstood about Islam and what he said that should ring home for all of us is that Islam the very word means peace, and that's what most sincere Muslims think Islam to be. We think it to be peace, and in spite of the confusion that is in the world regarding Islam, that gives Islam the image of violence, the image of aggression, the image of a force that wants to dominate all other people, all other ideas, all other religions et cetera. In spite of that Islam is a religion of peace, it's a religion of peace. Islam has tolerated under its rule other religions, other ideas, and long before there was this democracy we call Western democracy, Islam introduced the ideal democracy.
It's a shame and pity that troubles came and Muslim leaders and governments and people responsible for the society of Muslims were taken off track it's a shame that that happened. We are thankful that now after many, many long years of subjection to Western power under colonial rule, the Islamic Nation, Muslim societies have gained independence and now we have a revival for Islam not only here in the west in America, but throughout the world. We have some very able members of the scholarly society of Muslims in Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia all over the world in fact. We have brilliant minds of Muslims that are rethinking, researching Islam to bring back the original purity of that religion.
We are confident that the movement that is on now and is strong now in the world it's going to be very successful. Evidence of that is here in the community of the people who have been removed from truth further than any other people have been removed and that is the African-American or the black people in this country. We have been removed from the truth further than any other people were removed but among us now is the voice of Islam. A demonstration of a determination to accept or believe in Islam and practice Islam as it was given to us from the prophet himself Muhammad, prayers and peace be on him. This is a determination among us now.
I say among us because I find that there are many Imams I started to say ministers, well they are ministers too, there are Imams among us that I feel great support from. When I think of them I feel great support for Islam from them, so it is not depending on one man anymore, it is not the choice of any one man, it is the choice of many of us now who have come from the teachings of the Temple of Islam to follow the way of the Quran and the way of the prophet. It is our choice and among us are outstanding women with great minds, brilliant thinkers in Islam who are sharing our children and our children to come that Islam is here to stay and it's not an adulterated, Islam it is the true straight Islam.
I wanted to begin on that note so that nobody will be sad that is Muslim. If you are Muslim this is not the time to be sad, this is the time to rejoice.
Audience: Allahu akbar.
Imam Mohammed: Praise be to Allah. I want to quickly kind of summarize what we talked about last night. Now yesterday at Malcolm X College, we addressed the subject of nationalism its influence on Islam and [clears throat] we were looking mainly at Islam in the United States of America because [clears throat] as you will recall especially you who are 50 years old and older, you will recall that for most of our life as young people, we didn't know of any Islam except the Islam that was given to us in the Temples of Islam, that's the only Islam we knew about.
If there was any other mention of it it was most likely a derogatory, a slanderous kind of remark that we would hear in the public or that we would read in some newspaper or something or hear on the radio. Eventually with the work of the Temple of Islam under the leadership of the Hon. Elijah Muhammad, [clears throat] the name Muhammad began to be known and Mohammed vanished from there. As a boy, all I heard was Muhammad, they would call my name Muhammad and they would call us Muhammadans, not Muslims, Muhammadans. Muhammad and Muhammadans.
But with the Hon. Elijah Muhammad's work and the Temple of Islam, the name Muhammad started to be known around I would say 1960. The change came in the spelling of the name around 1955.
We all began to pronounce the name Mohammed, I'm not going to tell you how we pronounce it before. You would really laugh, right, but we had to grow in knowledge, we had to grow in knowledge and be guided in the right way and be ourselves freed from a lot of ignorance regarding Islam, even though Islam was given to us in name, and the holy book was left with us, the same holy book now, mind you. The Quran that all Muslims read all around this world was given to my father, Elijah Mohammed in the early '30s. Most of the ministers of Fard the teacher of my father, they had the holy Quran, the holy Quran was an Ahmadiyya translation.
It was translated out of Arabic into English by Ahmadiyya movement, an organization of people now that's outlawed in Pakistan, outlawed in Saudi Arabia and if I'm not mistaken, Egypt too has outlawed them, and maybe some other Muslim nations or governments has outlawed the practice of the Ahmadiyya movement or the activities of that organization, they don't permit it in their countries. Now, I, myself, came to believe that my dear friends that I had, I had some very dear friends Ahmadiyyas, they got acquainted with my father, they got acquainted with me. I had some and my belief was that they should look at what they had done, and look at the idea that they had followed, just as we did, and just as we changed, I believe that they should have changed. I still believe that they should change, but I'm not one to say that all Ahmadiyyas are bad. I know that's not the truth, many Ahmadiyyas are very sincere, faithful believers, but they have misconceptions, they have misconceptions. We had misconceptions so we should understand that of many of you here you're very sincere, just like I am, but you know we used to have wrong beliefs. Right, and no matter how sincere we were, once we knew the right way, our sincerity gave us the strength to break from the wrong way, and go with what is true and correct, so we thank Allah for that and we pray that more of the people who are following different ideas that have been introduced into the world as Islam will do what we have done, come from the wrong that has been put into the religion or in the name of the religion, and accept only what is sound, pure, acceptable in light of the teachings of the Quran, and the teachings of our prophet, that's what we have to do.
Now, to summarize what we said yesterday, first, I would like to mention what we said regarding nationalism because we were invited to become a nation or to identify as a nation of people in America, and that invitation was so strong that I think we should go back and look at what happened and that's what we were doing last night. We were looking at what happened, what happened to cause us to identify as a nation, the Nation of Islam, or the Lost-found Nation of Islam, in the wilderness of North America, given all the language, that's the complete language that was given to us, not my language.
What happened to introduce us to that? To sum that all up, there are two movements for nationhood or for national life, one is the movement of political people and that movement is based upon worldly values.
The other movement is the movement of spiritual or religious people and that movement is based upon spiritual values, religious-spiritual values, and the learned people, the wise in religion that have great secret-- I have to use, I don't like to use secret, but to make what I'm saying clear, I have to use this language with you.
Have great secret knowledge and understanding of the mysteries in religion, and the mystery of the world. The religion does not only have mystery, the world has mysteries too, and they have great insight into those mysteries.
They're able to chart a course for surviving the problem of the world, sometimes when they chart a course, and they are sincere most of the time, I would say all of them are sincere, all of the religious people are sincere. When they take up this work, they wouldn't even gain that insight if they weren't sincere. It's your sincerity that puts you in a situation to gain secret knowledge and understanding.
Yes, so they chart a course, sometimes that is against the will of G-d, against what G-d allows and they assume authority and assume roles that are really not acceptable in light of what G-d has revealed, that a man take on such roles. The worst assumption is to assume that a man is G-d, or for man to assume that he is G-d, that's the worst of those assumptions but Fard he dealt with that idea in such a way that really he didn't produce too much of a problem, little education will permit us to correct what he did, just a little education will permit us to correct what he did regarding the claim that man is G-d.
You see, all we had to do was just study the Quran with a rational mind and we see right away that the Quran is against that, that's condemned we have to give that up, you have to throw that out, but what he did, that really presents the problem was separate us and our reality from the reality of the real world and the reality of other people. He made us a separate people from the world community of people and gave us a feeling that we were the superior by nature so he reversed the kind of racial teachings of racial supremacy. He reversed it and gave it to us in the reverse. Instead of making it favor whites, he reversed it to favor blacks and gave it to us and got us to believe that we were to be a nation. The nation that we were to be if we understand it, it was a religious nation, even under the Fard. Fard wasn't calling us to a political nation, there was a writer who wrote about the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and he was disappointed he was an African Muslim, Essien the Essien-Udom who wrote Black Nationalism. He had interviewed members of the nation of Islam followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and he wrote that book, and he came to the conclusion, two conclusions that I think are worth noting here.
One was that what he saw the Nation of Islam trying to achieve more so than anything else, was a cultural identity for the black people in America. A dress in this world life, a dress of knowledge, a dress of habits, a dress of behavior, a dress of thinking, a complete dress for us in this world, a cultural dress. He also expressed a sadness, a disappointment in himself, that we were not political. Here was a studious person, a man doing his dissertation for his Ph.D. degree and he did get his Ph.D. degree to the best of my knowledge. I'm sure he did. This is no dummy, this is no ordinary thinking person, this is an informed educated person and he comes to the conclusion that the nation of Islam was not at active politically, it was not geared to be active politically, this was his conclusion and I agree. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was telling us to separate from the world order and he was wisely guided to do that so that he could keep us under G-d and could keep us under a religion. Why do I say that that way? Because religion was not strongly established in us except as a spiritual force or a faith. We had no great knowledge of Islam and Honorable Elijah Muhammad never pretended that he was given us any great knowledge of the religion.
The Islam that he pretended he was given us great knowledge of was not the religion but a mathematical language, a secret science or a mathematical language. I'm using the language of his teacher, mathematical language.
Mathematical language is another way of saying true language, exact language, but symbolic language, that's another way of saying that and I'm not just going on my ideas, I've done study research. When we give the language of mathematics, we give the language of symbols from the most elementary beginnings of mathematics to the most advanced language of mathematics. We speak in symbols, we say one and one are two, one and one are two what? [laughs] We're talking in symbols we say 3X and 2Y equal 40. That has to be explained, doesn't it? We have to know what the man is dealing with in mathematics to understand that language, in its context that he's using it, then we find out that he's talking about one apple and one apple are two apples, now it's clear, right?
He said, you have to learn to put your mathematical terminology in its proper terms, this is Fard that's what Fard said. You have to learn to put your mathematical terminology in it's proper terms, meaning that the terms that was given was improper. Now we summarize this last night but is good to review or go over. I mean we gave this last night now we're trying to summarize what we gave last night.
All right, so we concluded then that there is a religious movement for a nation and also a worldly movement for nation, and the religious people, they have their movement for a nation, in competition with the world's movement for a nation and believe me, among the worldly people have always been a movement to bring the world under one authority, among the worldly people.
The communists tried to do this, the socialists' communists tried to do this, the Marxist, they tried to do that, they thought that they could eventually spread their idea all over the world and bring all nations under communism. That would have been a world power, centralized world power, under one idea, one government, one group of leaders, dominating all of us over this globe. If we can see that movement for dominance over all the world by a power or idea and a power to invest it into a group of leaders in the early history of people on this earth as given in scripture, kind of culminating, coming to a climax, coming to its peak in communism then we can say that the end of the world has come for competition with G-d.
Yes, and I do believe that we're living in a time of the end of the world, for competition with G-d, G-d has defeated all of his competitors and nothing made that more possible than the revelation we call the Quran. A Christian nation, is seen as the winner in the battle, a Christian nation, it is the Christian west, America, mainly, that is seen as the winner, because these two the forces of communism, and the forces of democracy as believed by the American people, we're the main two forces in conflict and since communism in Russia collapsed then America and our President Bush, Reagan, Bush, and all of these, they're seen as the winners, the big victors, but let me tell you something, they did not win that war, Islam won that war.
[crosstalk] Neither capitalism nor communism have been able to contain and satisfy their subjects and the people are going out of the enslaving yokes of both communism and capitalism, and where are they going to? They're going to that peaceful (unclear) between the extreme - Islam, Al Islam. Yes, this is a great day for us. Not a day to be sad, but a day to rejoice, praise be to Allah.
Now, we summarize the talk on this nationalism and we say that we're born to be nation, but not nation in that political definition. Nation derives from word meanings, original or birthplace. Original first place or birthplace, and those people who want to identify as a nation, the learned ones, they feel a duty on them to preserve the original excellence of human nature and human life. That's what they're committed to, all of the laws that they accept and approve for governing their society, those laws are intended to work to preserve the original excellence of man's life, that is his hereditary excellence, his excellence by birth, by nature, by the very fact of his creation, am I making myself clear? His excellence that creation gives him but not of itself, of the will of G-d. G-d has intended this excellence for man, and he has designed the creation, to give him or to evolve him up into this excellence, and men, I say who over nations, they are not fools don't think they are.
Men could not rise to the position of authority and govern thousands and millions of people without some knowledge or insight into the natural nature and behavior and destiny of human beings. They gain that knowledge and then they become guardians, guardians of that sacred light, guardians of the sanctuary of life, a sanctuary of human life, they become guardians of that, and as long as they don't permit corruption and crime to bring down their order of society, G-d keeps them in power.
We wonder how come Castro has survived, the great pressure from America and the West, it is because G-d wants him to stay there. He couldn't stay there if G-d didn't want him to stay there. We wonder how come Gaddafi of Libya is still in power after all attempts by the superpowers to remove him, it is because G-d wants Gaddafi there, and they can't remove a man that G-d wants to stay there.
They have no power over G-d, so these people stay there. I'm not praising these people, I'm not saying that these individuals are my choice of an individual. I'm simply saying that these people are good for their nation and until they are better people for their nation, G-d will preserve them for their nation. Those with that secret, insight secret look into things, are with that, I would say blessed sight is a blessed sight. They have been blessed with the sight. Now, all people that are blessed don't prove worthy of the blessing that they will get. Nevertheless, G-d, He says, You know what Allah says? When it comes to desiring this world is treasures, G-d says he opened it up to everybody. This is what Allah says, he opens it up to everybody. Good and bad people, not only the good people, but he opens up also to the bad people, but he says his special favor will only come to those who obey him. Will only come to those who obey him so G-d lets us know don't be shocked, don't be surprised, don't be disappointed that people that are not truthful, people that are not good people gain great power and authority, gain, amass great wealth, get powerful in this world, don't be surprised. He's open that up to everybody, and that is the way he tests them and test us too, he test them and he test us, but the special favor is only for the devotees who devote themselves consciously to obedience to G-d. The special favor is only for them. Now, some of you all might look back, I don't believe any of you are here because you are here, you came here because you like me, and I'm here because I like you. Yes, I told the brothers with me in car, he says it's very cold, I say is very cold. I say really I'm thinking about staying home and I would stay home that was last night it was bad, I said but they are going to be a few pioneers out there.
I say they are going to go out there regardless to how bad the weather is, so I have to be out there too regardless how bad the weather is. [laughs] Yes, so I'm not talking about you, I know where your allegiances is, your allegiances is on the right side your allegiances with Allah, your allegiance is with the Quran, your allegiances with Muhammad the prophet, and you allegiance with me as long as you think I'm going right according to that allegiance, order of allegiance.
G-d, his revelation, the prophet and if the leader respects that, then you go along with him, so I know that, but there are some I'm sure that look back. I'm glad to know that some around me they don't mention the good old days as often as they used to. [laughter] They used to be always telling me "Yeah, remember in the good old days," and it used to bother me because I said to myself, what good old days are better than these days? Because for me this time, now is a good day, you know? I didn't like it but I understood them and I respected their sentiments, you see? But there might be some that look back and you might feel that we had more power, more wealth, a better image in the world, in the heyday of the Temple of Islam than we have now.
You might feel that but I know there's only a few here but that doesn't mean anything. I know that we have a better establishment and better image now that we've ever had. We've never had the establishment and good image that we have now, not in my lifetime. This is the best in my lifetime, praise be to Allah. We are going to gain much more than that.
Sometimes I think because I'm looking down the road, and when I look down the road and see how far I want to go, I wonder how long my life is going to be? I must going to live to be 200.
[laughter]
I'm telling you I've got a long way, I see a long way into the road and I'd like to get there. I believe I got the help I need to get there, I do believe I got it. Because I couldn't see that far if I didn't have that help. [laughs] Who knows? Who knows what Allah will bring about? Who thought that the Soviet Union would crack up that soon? Nobody thought it, not even government leaders anticipated that happening, no, so who knows what can happen all of a sudden and just change the circumstances on this earth and overnight we could be saying Allahu Akbar from the skyscrapers over America.
Audience Member: That's right, nothing wrong with that go ahead. [laughs]
Imam Mohammed: Should we want that?
Audience: Yes.
Imam Mohammed: We are Muslims, we should want the best for America, and to say, good morning, to say shalom is good, but to say As salaam alaikum is best. [laughs]
Audience: Allah Akbar yes. [laughs]
Imam Mohammed: We have individuals blessed with great knowledge, do you think Satan himself was a fool? Do you think Satan himself didn't have insight? [laughs] He couldn't put forth the challenge he put forth unless he had great insight and look, Satan himself had previously been in charge of the order of angels.
Audience: Yes.
Imam Mohammed: Yes, think about it. He's the one that temps man to go astray by promising him more insight, more knowledge, more power. He promises to give man a position of greater power and authority on the basis of greater knowledge and insight. That's what he promised and you know, Allah says, I was speaking not of Satan, I'm speaking of those who assume roles and authority, under the intoxication of their own idea of themselves, you know our own idea of ourselves can intoxicate us?
Yes, it can because a strong drug, so Allah says that, they pray and Allah give them a blessed child, and when they're given that child, then they associate others in the blessing other than G-d in the blessing, well, I know those of the temple of Islam that do that. Some of them secretly, some of them that still hold to the nation of Islam idea. They secretly acknowledge that G-d has blessed me, they secretly acknowledge this, they don't preach it, but they secret acknowledge that yes, we have to admit, G-d bless the Hon. Elijah Muhammad's son Wallace, but they don't believe that it's the real G-d, the only G-d, they associate something else in the worship of G-d. Fard or something you see? And themselves. They are the ones who lose the blessing, they lose the blessing. We were very sincere under the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. We were very sincere and we were not knowing exactly what would be the final step that we would have to take. We didn't know, even the Hon. Elijah Muhammad couldn't tell us what would be the final step we would have to take, but we the sincere ones, we were prepared to take whatever step we had to take.
We weren't ever prepared to give up all sincerity and because of that, we separate from all that is against the Quran, and against the teachings of the last prophet. We separate from it, and we're the ones that are the blessed ones.
Yes, we're the best ones. Best above all black people on this earth. Not just in America, we're blessed above all black people on this earth. I've sat in meetings with the leaders of Islam in Africa. I've met them, I've observed them from a distance, I've seen what they are all about. Some of them are better, wiser, more decent than others, but on the whole, Africa needs a revival. Islam needs to be revived for Africa people. Most of them are given to superstition, too spiritual, so spiritual that they don't even resemble anymore the followers of Prophet Muhammad. The followers of Prophet Muhammad were rational people, rational thinkers, practical people. People that believe that engaging the world and doing business in the world and making progress in the world for the betterment of the world, for the good future of the world. You don't find that in many places in Islamic society anymore. You don't find Muslims working unselfishly. Working for the good of the world community, the global community. We have them certain places. We do in certain countries outside of America. We have such persons and they're getting world recognition now, a few of them. I don't want to mention any of them by name, but I have to mention one Inamullah Khan of Pakistan is one, Inamullah Khan of Pakistan is one, (Vikor? Hamdani?) another Pakistani and we have a few in Egypt, a few in other places who are working hard as Muslims but to achieve the end that G-d want us to achieve on this earth that includes all people and not just us.
See that's what put the West so far ahead of us. That's what has put the America and the West so far ahead of the Islamic world. Their interest and devotion to the whole community of people. They haven't always been right by the whole community of people, in fact, even now. They're not right by the whole community of people but they have made a lot of improvement and they are improving their sense of responsibility to the global community. They are improving that. That's why Allah let them continue to stay in power. Why should Allah put a Muslim into power? I can't think of a country that should be put in power. Not a Muslim country that should be put in power until it makes more changes itself to accommodate what Allah want's in the Muslim society. Yes, they have to make more progress to accommodate what Allah wants in a Muslim society. After they do that, then they would be worthy, and who knows? Allah has the power. If they would do that, maybe Allah would right away put a Muslim government in a situation where a Muslim government would be in a position to give direction and help and aid to the whole world. The whole world community.
Saudi Arabia, in spite of problems with their way of government, some problems with their way of government. The only problem I have with their way of government is that they have a family all the time ruling, that's not Islamic. They don't like me for saying this because they look at me as their favorite child. Well, they just don't-- They don't like it, I can't help. I look at them as my favorite big brother too.
[laughter]
I'm going to have to tell the truth about my favorite big brother. Their idea of government and rule has to be changed. The rule has to be open to all citizens not just to family members.
So much for nationalism. Let's talk a little bit we've mentioned Armageddon. Armageddon. Armageddon is coming together of the unG-dly forces against the G-dly forces. Civilization and decent people coming against those that don't respect civilization and decency. This two forces coming together for a showdown. It is my belief that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's teacher though not educated, you know he claimed., - in fact, all of his big claims most likely were false.
[laughter]
Believe me. Now, the truth you find it where he's not claiming something, but all his big claims were false. He claimed that he was educated by his parents, went to the best universities of the white world, and also went to the university, Peach Pyramid University in Egypt. Now, you find that university. I've been there. I wasn't a fool enough to ask them there where is Peach Pyramid University.
[laughter]
I understood enough about Fard and his teachings not to ask that question when I was over there. I thank Allah that I had been educated a little bit before I went over there. I didn't ask for any Peach Pyramid University.
END OF SIDE ONE
Imam Mohammed:  he came July the 4th, 1930. Came on their celebration day when they celebrate their independence to break their independence and bring us into independence. That's what I believe is the reason for that date, calender date being given and their independence certainly has been broken, our independence has certainly come.
[laughter]
You see he said, "Oops, he missed that time."
[laughter]
But finally, they rolled the dice and said, "got it that time. 
[laughter]
Yes, yes this is too much for playful minded people. If you're a playful minded, this is too much for you. Yes. America does not have the independence that it wanted for itself in its lifeline. The independence it wanted in his lifeline was the independence to be the police of the world. The independence to impose its idea of society on the whole world. That was the independence it wanted. That independence has gone and never coming back. Can we thank G-d for that. That independence has gone and never coming back. The independence that was needed in us was the simple kind of independence. Independent judgment, independent thinking, independent opinions, independent of the white man's influence, independent of the white man's training that he had given us, and we have come to that. We have come to an independent mind. That's what we have come to and we couldn't have come to it without coming through slavery.
You see Fard wasn't here with slavery. Don't think slavery hasn't conditioned us too for this great blessing. Yes, bad circumstances,but those bad circumstances have conditioned us for a great blessing. Slavery and then religious errors. Religious misconception or errors in religion. We suffered all that and G-d blessed us to free ourselves from both slavery and religious errors. G-d blessed us to free ourselves, but the conditions and circumstances for us coming into this kind of dilemma, or hard to work out situation was slavery. Because slavery made us give up faith in our own intelligence. Yes, that's what slavery did. It made us give up faith in our own intelligence, but the pressure wasn't enough to kill all of us mentally. There were few slaves that remained alive to represent the other slaves. And the greatest one of them in history that we're able to find it's Frederick Douglass.
Audience Member: Allahu Akbar.
Imam Mohammed: Don't you know Frederick Douglass was a blessing from Allah?
Audience Member: Yes, sir.
Imam Mohammed: I hope I'm not holding you too long here. It's very revealing to me. When I look at the life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass was a man who suffered two extreme treatments from slave masters. One slave master was a very kind man, who though had him as his property, or his slave, wanted him to be educated, and provided circumstances for Frederick Douglass to be educated. He would've never been educated if his master hadn't done that. He became a lettered man, a brilliant mind. He was created for that. The circumstance, faith stances, gave him the opportunity and he became that.
His master could not afford to keep him anymore and needed capital, money, so he sold him to another master. The other master was a inhuman person. This is Frederick Douglass' own description. The other master was an inhuman person and he denied Frederick Douglass opportunity to continue to develop his intellect. Frederick Douglass actually had a physical confrontation with that master, and Allah saved his life. "Don't you know that's G-d when you can strike a white man, strike your master in that time, and escape. That's G-d with you."
He actually had a physical confrontation with his master, fled from him and got freedom. Not got freedom, but fled to better circumstances in the North, where there was not slavery. Don't think during slavery, or even after slavery, that our people came from the South and found freedom in the North. No. You came from worse situation and found a better situation in the North. That's all.
You didn't find freedom in the North. When I was a boy, there was no freedom in the North for black people. Not in Chicago. I lived here, I know it. There was no freedom for us in Chicago when I was a boy, a teenager, and a young man. There was no freedom for us. What kind of freedom? You had freedom to be a black man in the North. A black man in the North meant a subject in the North, just like it meant in the South. Only just different degrees, and different psychology for containing you. Thank Allah that time has gone.
Audience: Allahu Akbar.
Imam Mohammed: Unless you just want it to be here, it's gone. [chuckles] The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he made democracy real for black people. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, "If I survive, my people will be free." "You race of devils, you filthy skunks, Allah ought to mop you up from the earth." Do you know, if he kept talking that talk, black man would be free. That's the conclusion that we came to last night, that in spite of things being incorrect religiously, when it comes to theology, or idea of G-d and religion, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, his teacher, and Honorable Elijah Mohammed ought to be given credit, for two things.
For popularizing Islam. Though it was given incorrect, but at least, it was popularized. The name Muhammad et cetera popularized. For popularizing, I would say, Islam, yes we have to say that. Not in its idea, but in its name. Not in its idea but in its name. They are to be given credit for popularizing Islam, its name, and also for bringing about, influencing, change for equality in American society. They are to be given credit for that. Never would the North had supported Dr. King and that movement, if the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's movement wasn't growing, and threatening to convert all blacks to his way.
The white man himself got the greatest benefit, because he was in position to have more knowledge and understanding of what took place on this earth. He was in the best position to benefit from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and his teacher Fard. They got the best benefit. I'm sure that in secrecy, their great learned ones met in secrecy, and said, "Look, we have to look at, study what we have done, and study our own idea, and where it is intended to go." Again, in light of what we have found in the secret teachings of this man, Fard. I'm sure that they did that. I'm sure that they came to the conclusion that they had to fulfill the promise to all their citizens, and had to free the country from the grip of racial arrogance.
They begin to do that. It wasn't just for economic benefits. No. Some think it was just for economic benefits. It wasn't for economic benefit. They could have done it in a different way. Many ways they could have done it. They wanted to clean up their act. The pressure on them to clean up their act came from the teachings of the Temple of Islam. Clean up your act before the Honorable Elijah Muhammad gets to big, in America. Don't you know the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is strange, but this is true. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad even converted some whites.
When I came into the leadership, I met a former Catholic, Sister Dorothy. I just knew that she was attracted to come, because I said we can't discriminate. We can't keep out any people, even the white people have to-- The doors have to be open to all people. I thought that's why she was among us. The brother who introduced her said, "No, she's been a Muslim for some time." She said, "Yes, brother." I was called minister at that time. She said, "I accepted the Islam under your father." A white woman, who knew she was a white woman.
Audience: [laughter]
Imam Mohammed: I'm a black man, you see. What I mean by that, I'm a man, a conscious man, and a real man, a thinking man. No spook, I am not crazy. I said, "You're going to have to tell me how could you accept the Honorable Elijah Muhammad? You're a white person." Here is her answer to me. She said, "He said the white people were the devil." That's how she understood it. She said, "I saw the behavior of my people, and I agreed with him that white people were the devil." She said, "I didn't believe he meant that all, every white person, was the devil. I felt that I was not guilty of what my people were guilty of. I felt that he was a just person. I felt that I was not a devil, and that I would be accepted."
She said, "I followed him." This is a white woman, former Catholic. If we can find one person from the white race that closed their ear, closed his or her ear, to what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was saying that shut them out, and listened to what he or she wanted to hear, and felt accepted-- I'm sure there were other whites. Not just one, I'm sure there were other whites. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad told me once, and I didn't like it, he said, "Son, do you know something?" He didn't say devils. This is when he was teaching us that they were devils. This wasn't the last two or three years of his life now, when he started hinting that we should change our attitude toward white people.
He said, "Son, you know, some white people send donations to me." I didn't like it. I got to say, "Well, yeah, they send--" I didn't tell him that. You wouldn't dare speak your mind to him unless you knew it was going to be approved by him. I said to myself, "Yes, they're sending you money because they want you to advance your thing." They keep us away from them, out of their hair. That's what I said to myself. I didn't say that to him though. I didn't like that. A few things happened when I was yet believing in Honorable Elijah Muhammad that I didn't like.
We were at a meeting once. Malcolm was the main speaker. I was scheduled to speak too. A guest there, among the dignitaries, was a KKK, Ku Klux Klan leader. It wasn't J B Stoner. Rockwell. Rockwell was there, being honored. Not just accepted in the audience among the dignitaries, he was being honored. The person who was talking, addressing the gathering, mentioned him with pride, that he's here and allowed him to get up and speak.
He spoke. He said, "We see your leader as a man like our leader." His leader, Hitler. Adolf Hitler. That is how he's paying respects to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, say, "We see your leader as a man like our leader." What he was thankful for is you're not telling black people to mix up with white folks. That's the only reason why he was there. I didn't like it. I got up and burnt-- I set fire. I set the place on fire.
[laughter]
Imam Mohammed: My time came to speak, and I set the place on fire. I told him he wasnt welcomed.
[laughter]
Imam Mohammed: Yes, I told him you're not welcome. You're welcome here. I said, "If the white folks are devils, he is the worst devil right here."
[laughter]
Imam Mohammed: I had a whole lot of help to get on the sunnah path.
[laughter]
Imam Mohammed: Yes, I had a whole lot of help to get on the right path. That time, of Fard, was a time when people, religious, especially religious, wise in religion, were thinking that the end of the world had come. They looked back and they said that 1914 was the end of the world. A new world of coming about-- Henry Ford, pointed to the Jews, pointed them out as troublemakers. Hitler was gearing up to destroy the Jews in his country, or force other people to take them.
Henry Ford over here, he wasn't kind at that time. We know the Ford family is not guilty of this, I don't think, but at that time, that Henry Ford was pointing to Jews as the troublemakers in American society. There were other religious leaders that were predicting that the whole idea of a society needed to be looked at, examined, and corrected. Corrections and improvements in the system of education came about because of that time.
We used to be regarded as subhuman by the social sciences of America. They didn't regard us equal human beings with other men, but that act was cleaned up. When Fard came, he didn't come in a time when everybody was accepting that the world was okay. Fard himself came in a time when there were many leaders speaking out against the order of the world. Don't think that he's some strange invention, he's not. He's only strange because we don't have the knowledge of what was happening back then.
Also, his claim that man is G-d. That wasnt no claim that he popped up, came up with. Father Divine was calling himself G-d. There was others among us who was trying to get us to believe that they were divine, that they were G-d. That when we talked to them, listened to them, that we were hearing G-d, and that whatever they said, that was G-d saying it. Father Divine and a few others were saying that they were G-d.
Fard didn't come and introduce some idea that hadnt already been introduced. When he called us the Asiatic black man, Drew Ali had already introduced that idea. It was Drew Ali's language, Noble Drew Ali' language, that said, "Black-- We, are the Asiatic black man." Drew Ali said that before Fard said it. Also, Drew Ali gave us Islamic dress before Fard did.
It was in early '30s, that Fard gave us the same fez, almost exactly like Drew Ali's followers wore. We still have pictures of the original Fruit, the first Fruit of Islam in Detroit, with those fezes on.
My uncle Kallot was head of the Fruit. He's wearing one of those fezes, standing right in the center of the photo, the portrait that they took. The brothers are lined up all behind him. The captain, the Supreme Captain, he was called the Supreme Captain, he's standing in front of them with his fez, looking just like a Moorish-American, so much like them until they found out about that picture and they begin to claim that really, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was before, a follower of Drew Ali.
That's what they believe. But we know the family, we know the life of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. He never joined Drew Ali's movement. He was not. Fard introduced that, and copied certain things. Before, we had military drill. This is important that you hear this. Before, we had military drill and some kind of institution under a black man, Booker T Washington introduced military drill as a way to bring about better discipline and better self respect in his students at Tuskegee University. Yes. Fard knew of that, that was happening.
Before Fard himself questioned misconception and all the false education, or mis-education, Carter G. Woodson had already made a claim that America was incorrectly educating us, that its education was a misconception. He wrote a book, I think by that title, -- The title of his book I believe was Mis-Education. Mis- Education, meaning that instead of educating, you're not educating, but you're going against what should be education.
When we see the circumstances and everything, and I'm just giving you a few things that happened. He came up with the idea of the Mother Plane. We wonder where he got that. People in Detroit were told and it was on the paper, main paper of Detroit back in the early '30s. They were told that the people had spotted a ship in the sky. They say the ship was so big it looked like a city.
Imam Mohammed: Fard knew about that and he introduced the same. He told us that there was a ship built on an island of Japan in 1919. A ship that was superior to any weapon that the West had, America, the white man had. That ship was just hovering above the earth, waiting for us to learn about Islam. Once we learned about Islam, the next ship was coming and take us away. Carry us to back to home, wherever that was, wherever that is. Carry us back home. We thought it was the holy city of Mecca. Carry us, but he'd said that we were gotten from the banks of the Nile. That's a long, long river.
Imam Mohammed: [laughs] He said we were taken from the banks of Nile, but we thought we were going to be taking back to Mecca. Another contradiction. Anyway, after taking us away, rescuing us, then the ship that was equipped to be a warship too, having 1500 bombing planes, each plane having three bombs, each bomb equipped with a drill to take that bomb into the earth a mile deep, timed to explode only when it have reached a mile deep, and throw up a mountain a mile high, then throw out poison gas, and kill everything moving--
[laughter]
Imam Mohammed: That is not enough yet. After killing everything moving, then there would be a wise one who has the power to bring about a shortage in the gravity. That shortage in the gravity would set the atmosphere afire and burn for 300 and some years. Only after America's air, and America's soil has turned up like that, its air burned for 300 years, I think, 310 years or something like that, then we'd be able to come back to America and populate it again. Then it would be like a new garden. [laughs]
No. Pardon me. It would take it so many years to cool. I think it'd be about 1000 years all together. You had to wait for so many years for it cool off. [chuckles] That's what we were told. The idea for such imagination was already in the air. See, it wasn't too difficult for him to come up with those ideas. We used to think nothing but a god could do that. That's because we didn't know anything. We didn't know anything about what happened, what day it was then, now, or whenever.
We also mention our life trials too. I believe that injustice in the name of G-d obligates G-d to come and bring justice to the victims. This old American order that enslaved us, it was an injustice in the name of G-d. They used G-d as their support for doing what they did. They said it was intended that they bring us and enslave us. Put the beast in bondage and give the beast the chance to accept Jesus Christ. This is what the Church leadership was saying.
Even the Mormons were guilty of it. If they weren't guilty of it, they wouldn't have said here recently, in recent years, that the beast have suffered enough, and open their doors to blacks. Now, they might didn't say beast, but they said we, they have suffered enough, and they opened it up. Suffered enough for what? What crime did we commit? The truth is that many that they enslave were Muslims. We weren't heathens. They didnt bring all heathens over here, idol worshipers over here, and bless them, gave idol worshipers, heathens, a chance to have real religion, to believe in G-d, and live in a G-d-fearing society. No. Many of their captives were Muslim human beings.
We read where they said, and Dr. C. Eric Lincoln, he's coming out with a book, G-d bless him to complete it, that's supposed to be documenting these things. It's going to be a very informative book regarding Muslims in slavery. It's going to be a very informing book. He said, not a few, he said he got 400 or more already that he have identified. According to that, history says that at one point, they decided that they shouldn't bring any more Muslim slaves to America.
They said because the Muslims were influencing the rest of the slaves. That's what they said. The time my father came to Detroit, there was no knowledge of any Muslims influencing any blacks. If there were Muslims influencing the slave, they must have been successful in either changing them, from being Muslims, or killing them all out. I believe that anytime, a people in the name of G-d, do a terrible injustice to another people, that obligates G-d to come to the rescue of that people.
We're no prophets, we're no G-ds. I condemned that soon as I called you to Islam. After my father, I let you know, we cannot be G-d. Only one G-d. Not creation, but creator. We are no prophets, but our history is a prophetic history, and our success now is a prophetic success. It is a prophetic success. What is happening to us is on a prophetic scale. On a prophetic scale.
If I didn't have knowledge, sure knowledge, of the real meaning of prophethood in the scheme of prophecy, and in the scheme of G-d's plan, I would declare with all the power in my being, that I'm the prophet of G-d, that I'm the messenger of G-d, because no other man would be more worthy of saying that the son of Elijah Muhammad. I would say that, but I know better, so I tell you, no. It's incorrect.
I'm only a blessed man, an Imam. A leader that G-d has permitted to be given good circumstances for my development, and have blessed me to come upon the Quran, respect it, study it, get knowledge and insight, and come to the right way. Don't think this is no small thing that has happened. This is a grand thing that is happening, that has happened, and Allah is with us as He was with Muhammad, the prophet.
He's with us as He was with Abraham. He's with us. Don't have any doubt, don't have any fear. He's with us. I don't have any fear at all. No fear at all. I'm just waiting to move a little bit more in the road.
Audience: Allahu Akbar.
Imam Mohammed: Now, for this particular occasion here, after summarizing the talk last night, and there is so much that I would like to tell you in that same time frame, and in that same reference frame, but we have to keep going. I'm sure that Allah is blessing you with insight, blessing you with understanding, and you will help each other to understand better what has occurred on this earth, in our lifeline, and in our history.
What I want to say to you now, on this occasion, is that though we are not a political nation, we have to see ourselves as a society separate from the world, but as Allah says in the Quran, brought out or evolved, for the good of the whole world, to serve the good ends; the whole world. That's a great mission, isn't it?
Audience: Yes.
Imam Mohammed: That's a great mission. Muslims all over this earth should know that Allah have brought us out of the world order of things, into the Islamic order, to be an example society, and a witness for G-d, for the good of all people, to live the excellence of the Muslim life in the eyes of non-Muslims, so that they can see another option, so that they can have another choice, say, "Maybe I like that way of life."
Allah didnt intend for us to come and make war against these people and force our way upon them. The early wars were because the idol worshipers were denying Allah's prophet, Allah's messenger, Muhammad and his followers, the right to practice their religion. That's why wars were made. When we look at nations like Egypt, and a few others, where Christians, Jews, and other people have always lived as citizens, and haven't been mistreated or persecuted, we can accept, I believe, that, that is not Islam, to say that Christians have to be destroyed because they're kaffirs, the Jew has to be destroyed, because he's the enemy of Islam.
No. Among all people are good and bad. That's told to us very plainly by G-d in the Quran that you will find a party among them that promotes justice, talking about the Jews. The same thing for the Christian community. You'll find them not all alike. Some of them promote good standards for society and justice. Are we to see them as our enemies? We are to see among the Christians, supporters, partners, in the struggle against evil on this earth.
We are to see among some of the Christians, and among some of the Jews, such persons. That's why you see me joining the interfaith dialogues. I'm not the first one. Muslims of Pakistan, Egypt, some other countries, and Saudi Arabia, they have been in dialogue with the Christian leadership and others. Not Jews. [laughs] That's to come, I guess. They've been in the dialogue with Catholics and Christians. As we gain more knowledge of our Quran, and more knowledge of how Prophet Muhammad, Prayers and Peace Be On Him, lived Islam and demonstrated to us, we will be in a better situation to survive and make progress on this earth, unselfishly. Not just for us, but for all people.
G-d says you are the best society, brought up, or evolved, for the good of all people. That's what Allah says in the Quran. He also says of our symbol that we turn to, and that represents for us a focus, for giving unity to all of us, regardless of our color, our national origin, the Kaaba, the holy ancient house. G-d says that it is the ancient of houses built for all people, [Arabic language], built for all people.
This is what we should know. The crusades, colonial domination, troubled the Muslims, and entrapped their leadership. Just entrapped their leadership in that ugly time zone where their minds can't think clearly. We have to have a healing period to heal the Muslims that have suffered so much under war with the Cross, the War of the Cross and the Crescent, and who have suffered so much under colonialism. They need a time of healing, so they can come out of that time of pain and suffering, and think clearly again.
Bad times, very troublesome times, trouble, can make you lose your senses. You know that.
Audience Member: Yes sir.
Imam Mohammed: Bad times for Muslim societies have troubled them so much until the leaders lose their good senses. All they can see is Jihad with a physical piece of iron, steel, or something, or with the weapon they buy from Russia or America. That time is changing. The voice of truth and reasoning is coming back. Yes. Praise be to Allah. We want to not give up the idea of being responsible for governmental life.
Muslims are not to leave government to others. We are to assume responsibility for government. Firstly, in our own life. That's one thing. Another thing we have to understand about Islam, Islam doesn't require that governments be removed before our government is established, because our government is not of the nature that their government is of. We don't need their place for our government. We don't want their place for our government, but we are to establish our government.
We are to see our own community as a community under Islam, even though we be under the law of the Constitution of United States. We should see our community under Islam. Can we do that and still be accepted in America? Certainly. America has a strange kind of freedom and democracy that permits you to have your own separate government, as long as your government doesn't seek to overthrow the United States Government.
It doesn't mean that we'll have our presidents. No. You can do that too if you want, you can. You can have your own president, just don't interfere with the law of the United States, but we don't need that. All we need is to recognize the word of G-d as the uppermost supreme authority. The word of G-d. Then, work hard to bring our life more and more to conform to what Allah wants for us in the Quran, and as Prophet Muhammad has demonstrated it, Prayers and Peace Be On Him. That's what we have to work for.
What am I saying? I'm saying that we're looking for a time in America when we will have neighborhoods that will be Islamic. They have neighborhoods that are Italian. They have neighborhoods that are Irish. They have neighborhoods that are Jewish. A Jewish neighborhood is a religious neighborhood. An Irish neighborhood is a religious neighborhood. [laughs] We'll have neighborhoods that are Islamic. We'll have Islamic rules for those neighborhoods. No pork sold, no whiskey sold, no gambling allowed, no oppressing another, no double standards for justice. The way is open for us to establish an ideal Muslim society in America.
Thank you very much. That's what we work for, and we pray G-d, bless us with more opportunity to gain that. Ameen. As-Salaam-Alaikum.
Audience: Wa-Alaikum-Salaam. Takbir. Allahu Akbar.

[01:24:40] [END OF AUDIO]

