09/03/2006
IWDM Study Library
LEADERSHIP IN THE NAME OF G-D
PT. 3
By Imam W. Deen Mohammed

--00:00 Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Wild games had become very popular in New York and civilization, civil government had disappeared and New York was occupied by wild folks, wild motor cycle riders and others, and eventually vines and growing plants made a jungle of New York, covered it all over. In time, knowledge and science tell us in time if man neglects his world, in time you won't even find a trace of it. Iron will rust and become dust, the iron structures, the steel structures will all come down. Not to mention the wood that will deteriorate much faster, so all those things will go and the scripture says, "Search, travel and search and see what became of great nations before you." How you don't find hardly any trace of them any more. They have been buried under the ground. Buried under the ground. In time wind will cover them with leaves and other things, yes, rain will help bring them down, rain and wind, the weather will wear 'em out. Trees dropping leaves, the leaves keep piling up, few thousand years they go back to the earth and become dirt, the leaves.

02:05 IWDM: And all those organic things, and the earth keeps rising up and what you made keep going down, and pretty soon you can't find any trace of the material accomplishments of a great people. So what gave us power will also bury us and put us out of site and that's God's creation, so God says, "Think not man that you are bigger than the creation. You are not bigger than the creation. Think not that you are bigger than the creation. The creation supported you coming here and the creation will take you away and erase your presence forever." Yes, we think ourselves too important, we think ourselves too wise, we think ourselves too mighty. Put the mightiest of you tough men in a small room with an ape and we know what will happen. [laughter] Don't let you have nothing but your muscles, don't let you have a pistol or anything, not even a knife, put you in a small quarters with an ape and we know what would happen. I hear you now singing soprano.

[laughter]

03:53 IWDM: Don't be tough that make you small, don't wanna make people think you're tough and show your toughness to people, that makes you small. Yes, man has become sterile mentally. Can't come up with a vision anymore to advance his world. We had great men with vision in our past, great men of vision who helped advance the human life for the American people and women, great people, but the intelligence is becoming sterile now. Our males on the street level end up worse. We are becoming show offs, bullies, we're becoming a global species of little daring big men, little daring big men, aren't we, Mr. President Bush? Several years ago, I was a guest of Yasser Arafat in the fomenting Palestinian quarters. A camp rigged and designed, obviously to me to contain Palestinians under extreme pressures to take away the human qualities of their life and to drive them out of their human form, out of their human sensitivities. While there as their guest, I observed their distressful existence but I also observed unflinching moral and political determination and their human concerns which included human concerns also for Jews. Feelings for Jews, human feelings of Jews. And I know Palestinians are a humane people. They're not what you see and hear about. They are a humane people.

[applause]

06:19 IWDM: We have to qualify for freedom and economic empowerment. The African-American people coming from slavery, seeking opportunities in this world, had our attention, our interests, our focus put on this world. Our politicians and all, they had to put their attention on this world, coming in. Once you get in, you should stop putting so much attention on this world, and put some attention on your past, on your human essence, to see if you can better your human essence... So you'll be qualified to get more freedom, and to have economic empowerment. Troubled lifestyles that we see in the street, they're blinded, people are blinded by troubled lifestyles. Rich cities of the ancient were walled in. They had special gates through which a tourist might enter. Cairo was one of those great ancient cities. And it had civilization, scientific achievements over most of the world, and at one time, I'm sure, over all the world.

07:50 IWDM: And a story is told, to tell us the nature of myth, or to introduce us to myth. In the Egyptian mythical religion, it is said, goes like this, that to enter that city, you have to solve a riddle. You come to the gate, and there is an oracle above the gate: A mythical creature that could speak to you in your language. And this mythical creature called the Oracle would ask, "What moves on four, then on two, and lastly, on three?" The answer that you give should be, "The man. The man. The man."

[chuckle]

[applause]

08:56 IWDM: Now, if you can't answer the question, you cannot be the man! [chuckle] Religion is ordered to keep the need in the human soul, and its expression in community life, most important, uppermost on man's agenda. So you can work for money. You can work for knowledge. You can work for popularity. You can do all that forever, but if you don't have the essential life of the human creation on the agenda as something you're supposed to study, and keep, and watch, to know when something is influencing it out of its form... When something is working against it, to see if the culture is hurting it. You have to have watchers. All of us can't be watchers! So you should choose those good leaders of yours, in the church, in the synagogue, if there's a Jew here, and certainly in the mosque, the masjid. You should choose those good leaders. Without leaders, you're doomed! Without leaders, you're dead! Without leaders, you ain't gonna have nothing, eventually, 'cause Satan and his influence is gonna take it all from you! 

10:21 IWDM: And I'm not talking about a mystery. Satan is real. Hellfire is real. Well, if it's real, show me Satan, look in the mirror! [chuckle] You probably have become so corrupt, all you gotta do is look in the mirror! God says to us, "All you who believe, save your own soul, and save your families from the wildfires of blind passions." That's the Quran, our Holy Book. For both religion and secular society, family life is first. Family life is first. The whole world of achievements has to be seen, traced, tracing back, going back to family. Man is a family. Small community, the first unit of society. The unit or community unit that's called family. It all originated from there.

11:35 IWDM: And that's why God want us to identify with the whole human family on the planet Earth, so that we will be prepared to survive and enjoy all the riches God created for us, and not destroying each other. So God tells us, we all came from a pair, a male and a female and they had children, and family was established. And those families progressed and became tribes and nations. God tells us how it all started and how we got to be where we are. And he says, he did that not that you should tower over each other, with your egos, but that you should wanna know one another, become acquainted with one another. Why? Because if you become acquainted with the people from a distant land that you call strangers, and the savage, he wanted to conquer everything other than himself. So if he found other people then he wanted... If he thought he had the might to do so, he wanted to conquer them and take their land and take over their lives. But that's the ignorant man. That's not the divinely guided man. So God says, he did not make you different for you to tower over each other, look down on each other, despise one another, and want to dominate one another. But he make you different so you will be curious, to get acquainted with these new people, or the other people. And when you get acquainted with them you'll find that God gave them something he didn't give you.

13:19 IWDM: God gave them a land and environment that you have no experience in. So when Marco Polo went to China he came back with a lot of help for his people, didn't he? And I'm sure that Marco Polo didn't say, "Take an army into China." He was so happy to learn the things that they had, that were not available to him and his people. He brought those things home and said, "Hey, look at this! Here is something we never saw before." And I'm sure it was more than silk. I think it was gunpowder, that the Chinese was using for festivals, setting of like we do on fourth of July. Beautiful, different colors exploding and everything. But that Ku Klux Klan man, when Marco Polo brought it back, he saw it. He saw a way to kill people with it.

[pause]

14:46 IWDM: We have to return to family values, as the folklore our people stress all the time. Be family. Be family at home, and be family with all people. Be family. That one thing can save our community life if we would just accept it and act upon it. Be family. Be family at home, and be family in the community with all your neighbors, with all people. In the time of Mohammad the prophet, they had no jails. They had no jails. They had no hospitals, as such. They had no family service, institutions as such. The obligation was on the people. The rich was to provide for the poor. So often those children that would have been orphans and left in the streets to survive on their own... The Quran and the teachings of Mohammad the prophet, peace be on him, ensure us then, to share their wealth with people who need it and to take those children and their mothers, widows. Save their widows from temptation to prostitute themselves so that their children could be fed and survive. To take that problem away from them by telling them, "Yes, I will take care of you and your children."

16:38 IWDM: So they raise those children, those orphans, as their own children. And that's what prophet Mohammad told them. They don't call them slaves, but call them my child. Your own child. Or your son, or your daughter. Now, was that not connected with prophecy and scripture? It was connected with prophecy and scripture. For it will reveal that those who would accept the guidance of God, and live the word of God, that He would inscribe the law upon their hearts. They would have it in their hearts. We don't have to have all these taxes spent on law enforcement, jails, penitentiaries. We don't have to have that. If we can bring human life back to the plan of God, we would be much richer than we are now. I'm telling you, just loads of money could be saved. Shiploads, truckloads of money could be saved if we would just have in our heart, to be kind, to have mercy. What was that other one? Forgiveness.

18:12 IWDM: If just those three. If we would just live with those three. Kindness, mercy and forgiveness, we could save our community a lot of money. A lot of money. Now, who are we benefiting by following this way that we have in the world? Turning our backs on the guidance of God? Who are we benefiting? The Satan? The Satan. Who are you benefiting when you go and buy, take the earnings that you got this week or got for two weeks, you're paid maybe bi-weekly or monthly, however you're paid, and you take that money and you go to the grocery store and then you go buy all this stuff and you bought 10 pounds, you throw out five pounds? Who are you helping? Satan. Satan wants the money to come back into circulation. No matter how dirty it is. Bring it back into circulation. Drugs, drug business. That's what Satan wants. He doesn't, you're dying of drugs. Your family is hurting. The parents are suffering 'cause the son turned into a drug addict. It's paining you. It's paining us, the neighbors, everybody's suffering because drugs has taken over the life of the family or the neighborhood.

19:38 IWDM: And other things, other crimes, taking over the neighborhood. But somebody's paying for all of that. Dollars buy drugs. Dollars buy all of these sins that we are committing. Dollars buy them. And the Satan want the dollars to grow fast and big, fast as they can and big, so that they get back into circulation, dollars get back into circulation. And Satan is the greediest of all creatures in the community. He is the greediest of them all. So he wants that money to come, he doesn't care how it comes. He's so greedy, pardon me, his extreme greed makes his brain work only for money, control and dominance. So he's been doing this since man was put in the garden. He started when the man was put in the garden, he started. So he's way ahead of everybody else when it comes to how to get money to move, and how to get money to grow. He's responsible for most of the growth of money in these United States. Satan! Oh, quiet down Imam. I'm as quiet as I can get.

[applause]

21:12 IWDM: We have cellular phones now. And you don't know the message in cellular phones. Most of you don't know the message in cellular phones. It means you have been reduced to nothing but cell intelligence. You have no intelligence in your mind anymore. You only have cell intelligence. I'm trying to wake you up. Telling you, go back to your cell. Go back to your human cell, and see what happens to it. To cause you to lose your precious life. Observing man, the free thinker, the philosopher, and the scientist, how they engage in the study of mother's nature, the natural existence outside and inside, and how progress was realized for man in society or in community, and civilization grew, wealth grew, conflicts grew. The good life grew, the good life grew. Family is where socialization originates. And it's not just socializing with each other as we do at a party or at some happy occasion, but socialization is the knowledge that we get from each other when we engage each other. Your intelligence speaks to me. My intelligence speaks to you. Your concern is passed to me. My concern is passed to you. We see that we can fair better if we cooperate and support each other in the common cause, or for the common good. That's how man progresses.

[applause]

23:36 IWDM: Thank you. Numbers increase in time. For mother nature, ruled societies, birthed society and ruled in societies. And then Man, he gets all this knowledge, and then you see, he knows how to use mother nature. He knows how to exploit mother nature. In time, he then become the enemy of mother nature. We have to return back. Our main motivation should be the motivation to preserve the best of human existence, human life, human existence. And to preserve it, you have to be aware of its line of progress in history, its line of progress in history. We're not asking all of you to carry this burden, we're just trying to wake up the many so that few good ones can take the lead and have more support from all of us, from all of us. And say, "Our Lord, God willing, that is coming, that is happening." We look at these simple things, food, we buy food outside of our community, we bring it into our community. These necessities like food, clothing, shelter, transportation. These necessities should be the responsibility of every individual sharing the life of neighborhoods or sharing the life of community.

[applause]

25:31 IWDM: And we should have our leaders, the strong leaders, leading the way and all of us should be supporting them. Look at the money we can have in the poor African-American community if we would just be determined to have all the grocery stores owned and operated by us. "How can you do that, mister?" If you see the great purpose and the great benefit that can come to us from doing that, then you would have the energy, the courage, the patience to support a program, to not go outside of your neighborhood and buy your food. Wait until your brother who's qualified to build that store and operate that store, gets that. And then work for it, promote it, drum for it. Go out and beat the drum for it, let the whole neighborhood know we're not gonna accept this going all out of our neighborhood to buy something like food. We came from farms in the South, we know how to grow food. Let's have the black farmers become strong again. You can solve these problems.

[applause]

26:51 IWDM: The story of the first man is to tell us that God made man powerful, resourceful, he can manage for himself in a wilderness or in a environment that has not been developed, not been developed. So you should ask yourself, without looking at the bible or Quran, ask yourself, "How did the first people exist? How did those exist before there was industry? How did those exist before there was science and industry, before there were carpenters, and welders, and whatever. Doctors and Lawyers, how did they exist?" They're the ones that started all of that for the industrialized nations. They're the ones that started it all. China was much like that maybe 30 or 40 years ago. China didn't have foundries. Mao Zedong... A little more than 30 or 40 years ago, Mao Zedong, he gave his people the faith in themselves and they produced iron and steel in the backyards. He told them, he said, "We can do this and we can do it on our own property." So he started iron. And look now, how China has become so big and competing with other nations for recognition, especially economics. They have such a huge workforce. They present strong competition to the industrialized nations.

29:16 IWDM: God knows I've been willing. It's like I told you on Stony Island, that's been 20 something years ago, I think, that you should stop... If it takes it, if that's what necessary to get us to grow our community and business so we can support our own school with our own money, support our own religious life with our own money and advance our community with our own money. I said if it's necessary, you should be willing to give up this money you're spending on cars and start riding bicycles. Do like the Chinese, make a rickshaw, make a cab looking bicycle and put a couple of you big strong brothers that like to show off muscles. Hook you up to them and have you take the delicate ones and the ladies shopping, wherever they wanna go. That's what the Chinese were doing when I went over there. I went over there years ago and that's what I saw them doing. I bet you the rickshaw is still over there. They're probably much few in number, but I bet you still over there where you can give a man a few dollars or a dollar and he'll take you where you wanna go and it's comfortable too. You sit in the rickshaw comfortable. It's nostalgic. I think something inside say, "Oh. This was mama pushing me down the street in the buggy."

[laughter]

30:58 IWDM: It is something very pleasant about it. Some of you have been downtown, and they still have horse drawn buggies or something. You can get on and go for a ride around the city. Right? Around the downtown area. They take you for sightseeing in the downtown area. Why? Because it's nostalgic. We hear a lot of talk about heredity. Even inheritance is in the language of the founding fathers.

