1989-09-05
IWDM Study Library
The Truth about Al-Islam: An overlooked role for Muslims in world leadership
McCormick Hotel
Chicago IL

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
(The first annual United Islamic Cultural Convention. From Chicago, Illinois)
As salaamu alaykum, that is peace be unto you. We witness that there is, but one Lord and creator, only one G-d, one divine. That is the creator of the heavens and the earth. The proper name for Muslims, the most proper name for Muslims and most common name for Muslims is Allah. And we simply say G-d in English or in the West. And we witness also that Muhammad the Prophet is Allah's last prophet and messenger. And we believe in Allah and we believe in his messenger and we strive to obey Allah. And we know obedience to his messenger is obedience to Allah because Allah has established the messenger, Prophet Muhammad. And Allah established his life.
And Allah said of him that he was of the most excellent conduct. And Allah says of him that he is a model for any who believe in Allah and the last day. So we accept him. We believe in him and we trust in him and we strive always to live the life of the Muslim, to live the life of this religion, Al Islam, which is the life of Muslim. We pray the peace and the blessings of Allah, the prayers and the peace be on Muhammad, the Prophet, and on his descendants, his companions, the righteous, all.
We pray peace and the blessings of Allah be on us. This address today is given mostly with the Muslim community at large in mind, the international Muslim community. And we hope that this address will reach many in the international Muslim community, that is, in the international Muslim population of this earth. You've already heard the number, a great number, about 1 billion people. It is said one out of five, that has been already said too, one out of five persons on this earth is declared Muslim. We are addressing the need for us to recognize a role for Muslims in world leadership.
There are many ways to see the most important concerns for Muslims. I've heard different qualified speakers speak on our most important concerns and I have enjoyed and appreciated what they had to offer. However, sometimes it's the thing that seems to be not so important that is the most important. When our prophet Muhammad preached the religion and lived the religion, he worked hard for growth in individuals. He worked hard for growth, I repeat, in individuals. He had a number of companions, associates. Most of whom were his companions and associates before he became prophet.
They were either associated with him as friend as Abu Bakr, the Siddiq, may G-d be pleased with him. Or they were relatives like the great Ali Ibn Khatabb, may G-d be pleased with him. So the prophet had an interest in people as persons and as individuals. He was seen building up women, building up men, building up children. He would have conversations with children. He would talk to the youngsters. He had an interest in building up the individual. But we don't look at him that way. It's not the habit of us to see the prophet in that light and in that role.
Our habit is to see him as the leader of the multitudes, which he was, which he is, still now, he's leader of the multitudes. How can that be? In as much as we obey and follow him, he is leader where we are leaders. Wherever we are leaders he is leader. In the degree that we obey him, that we accept him and love him and obey him. He's still the leader and he's the leader forever until judgment, yes, he is the leader.
We think of him as the leader of the multitudes and we think of him, his main work as the work of trying to build a nation, yes, build a community, the ummah. If you study Qur'an, you'll see that the Qur'an does not show an effort, a plan to build a community. There's no effort, no plan shown in the Qur'an to build a community. There's an effort and plan there to build people individually. The ummah is mentioned later and when the ummah is mentioned in connection with people who first must be built up. Build up people then you have a community.
Allah says you are the best community, now He says it but something has already happened. He says, "Brought out for the good of all people," you've already been brought out. You have been brought out now there's a community. How were they brought out? Was there a call? "Community of Muslims, come alive community that G-d wants come alive, come into existence!" That's not the way it was done. The appeal was made to the individual concerns, the individual's problems, individual's interests, the individual's nature most of all. The address was made to the individual and to awaken the individual and get the individual turned on. Once the individual is turned on in the way, Allah wants us to be turned on, everything else follows of natural consequence.
So what are we overlooking in the world? In time we've become too much excited about competing with others. We're too excited about competing with others. We know we have to be aware of the competition, opposition, competition; we have to be aware of that. We have to be prepared for opposition, for competition. We have to be prepared for that but that's not what the Muslim life is about. The Muslim life is about establishing the person that Allah wants walking on this earth, living on this earth, achieving on this earth. That's what the religion is about, establishing that person that Allah wants. So we began with the idea of one, Allah created Adam, one person, one man, one person. And from that one person he made mates, male and female, and then from the two of them, he made all of us, so how did the community of the world start?
It started with an interest in one person and that interest in one person was Allah's interest. It started with Allah's interest in Adam and from Adam, we get the whole humanity, the millions and billions now populating the earth. The focus was on one and Allah says in the holy book, in the Qur'an; your life and resurrection is like that of one person. What is that saying to us? That is saying to us, if you want to resurrect the whole people, concentrate on the individual.
If you want to resurrect the whole people concentrate on the individual because they're not one solid body. They are bodies in a group, they're single bodies in a group. And if you address the unit, you'll reach the community. If you address the unit, you'll reach the group. If you can excite the unit, you can excite the many why, because though they are distinguished one from another by their names, by their levels of ability and so forth. By their sex, by their color or by their race, though they are distinguished in these many ways, there is a type that represents self and persons for all of them. There's an essential type we call the essential human type that Allah wants.
And if you address that type that Allah wants, you will be addressing all of them individually, you'll be addressing all of them equally. You won't be favoring any of them, you won't be overlooking any of them. You will be treating them all as equals and treating them equally if you address the essential human person. The essential human type that Allah wants in all of us and that Allah created in all of us. He made all of us that. In the Constitution of these United States, pardon me?
In The Constitution of these United States, we find an identity for man, not all men, for American man. But as citizens of America, we find identity there and that identity, though put in the male, is for females also. There's an identity there. We hold these truths that all men are created equal. So there, the Constitution recognizes the sameness for all people. They are created equal, or .. "We hold these truths that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator." So there the Constitution these United States recognizing a creator or endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. With certain rights that shouldn't be violated. With certain rights that shouldn't be taken away from them. That's what it means.
And among these, it goes on to say, life, life. So The Constitution of the United States does not base itself upon the identity of a race, it does not base itself upon the identity of a nationality. It bases itself upon the common type, the universal type, the person that all of us, are or is. It bases its identity upon that. The Constitution I've read it, you read it yourself, it is supported not by any racial identity. It doesn't give any racial classification for the man that the Constitution is written for. The constitution is not written for a particular racial man or the nationalistic man. It's written for the universal man, it's based upon the life, needs and aspirations of the universal man. The common type, the person that's in every one of us, the same, no different.
That's the man that Allah created. That's the man Allah wants in all of us. Men and sister, if you understand, that's the same person Allah created in you and the same person Allah wants in you. Now, it so happens that in time, man gets off the natural track, Allah created him on that natural track. In time, he gets off the natural track and he loses his original nature, he loses his original form of life and Allah has to reestablish him. He repents, he's burdened and pretty soon he knows that something is wrong and he'll cry out for help. And Allah will answer him every time he turns to him, Allah comes and answers him and establish him again. So what is that precious role for us that we should be aware of? To guard, to work for, to support, to promote the establishment of the human person. Now, what do we mean by establishment of the human person? By establishment, we, I'm referring to the evolved human person.
Now, when we look at something as simple as a wheat plant, the wheat that you make bread from wheat. When we looked at something as simple as that, it's a plant with roots, with the stem, with a head on it. But how is it identified? The wheat plant is not identified for its root, it's not identified for a stem or the blade, it's identified for its product. The root comes, the blade shoots up and it grows all up and it gets ahead of... And after a while, the last thing is its product, it's a wheat seed.
Now all plants are not identified for their seed. An apple tree is identified for its fruit with the seeds in it. But a wheat is identified for its seed. Why, because man appreciates a thing for its worth and Allah gave man the capacity and power to give names to things. We know that in the story of Adam, he created Adam and then empowered Adam to give names to things. So man gives names to things according to the worth of those things to him. So the apples desires for the whole apple, not for the seed and the core., He was more attracted to the whole apple. So he named the tree, apple tree and we think of apple not seed.
But he valued the seed of that wheat plant more than he did the other part of it; the foundation, the roots or the stem and all that, the grass. The grass looks pretty but he didn't name it for the grass, he named it for the product, the seed, he named it wheat and we take the wheat, and we make bread. So, we value the wheat for the bread, for the wheat and the plant for wheat seed and the bread that we make from the seed. Yes, likewise, for all the things. If you study all the things that man has named, sometimes you find something going off. That's why we are talking about the subject, looked like something went off and he didn't name, he didn't follow the same logic. Something went off just like right now we're called black people. Something's going off.
Are we valued for blackness? Are we valued for the color of our skin? If that's so we are certainly cheaply valued. If that's the worth that people see in us now is our skin color, we have a cheap value on us. Well, you may say, well, what about other people? What about the Chinese? When you say Chinese right away, you think about a people in culture, a people in history right away. When you say black, you think about a people in racial confrontation, you think about the burden on the people. But when you say Chinese, you think about the achievements of the people, Chinese right away. Chinese, I know they made China, they discovered gun powder, the Chinese great warriors too. So right away the Chinese egg foo young and fried rice.
Right away, you start thinking of what those people are known for, what they do. You start thinking of the positive things about those people, they're worth to you. But soon as we say black, right away racial vibrations go all through the audience, it automatically kicks off racial vibration soon as we say black, so something has gone wrong.
We should be promoting concern for the establishment of the human nature and the human person, that means so much but that's not enough. We have another side to it too and that is the promotion of growth for the intellect. Man is valued first of all, for his excellent form among the many forms that Allah created. The human form is seen as the most excellent. I don't want to be any other form maybe you do, I don't, might find somebody here that's dissatisfied with their form but I wouldn't want to be any other form. And I know about angels too and I respect them and I love them too and value them in G-d's scheme but I don't want to be angel either.
I would like to be angelic in my mind and properties and behavior, especially behavior, I would like to be angelic in some certain respect but I don't want to be an angel because an angel was limited. If they weren't limited, they could have named the fame and when Allah asked them to name the things they could not and then Allah didn't choose the angels to be the Khalifa. He chose the human, Adam to be the Khalifa. And we know that Khalifa, that man. That Khalifa, that great type that we are talking about now that we all hope to grow into or toward for the fulfillment of our needs inside and outside too. We know that Khalifa is to really be seen in Prophet Muhammad, the peace and the blessing beyond him. If we understand he is the fulfillment of that Khalifa, the Khalifa himself was in evolution.
He was in the process of being, or becoming, as they say, some people say, so he had to be gradually brought to his completion. Adam was not the final, Prophet Muhammad is the final Prophet, Adam is not the seal of the Prophets Muhammad is the seal of the Prophets. Likewise, if you go behind the Prophet for the earlier prophets, none of them represented a seal or a completion, or a conclusion of only Prophet Muhammad represented that.
And that is why in the heavens it was our Prophet who led all of them in the prayer. He's a leader for all of them, which means that they represent a progression toward completion. It begins with the first step and then a second step, they represent a progression toward completion. So it was though the first man was a long way from that final completion that Allah wanted for Prophethood. It was a long way from that, he in his soul, in his aspiration, he was aiming and reaching for that. Adam himself was reaching to become Muhammad and every Prophet behind him was reaching to become Muhammad.
And finally Muhammad comes, he is the human destiny and the destiny for the Khalifa. He is the destiny, he is the end-product, he is the completion for all of them and that urge is in us.. We are not prophets, but that urge is in us to live the fullness of the identity that Allah created for us. To live that identity, to come into that identity, to come completely into it, to be the complete person, the complete human being that Allah intended us to be.
He intended all of us reach fulfillment. We won't be Prophet but he intended that all of us reached the fulfillment. If he didn't, then he wouldn't have told us that you will find in Muhammad the Prophet, peace be upon him, an excellent model for any who believes in G-d and the last day. So that's telling me that Allah has raised up Muhammad the last Prophet, as the model, the end product that he wants to put before all of us to make that end product appealing to all of us, so all of us will try to grow into the Sunnah of that end product.
Yes, so that tells me that inherent in my very nature, inherent in me is an urge to become like the Sunnah the Prophet, to become that complete man, that complete person. Praise be to Allah. There are Arabic terms for this. There are Arabic terms for the complete man, or sometimes called also the perfect man and that's one thing we can be. We can be perfect human being, perfect human being doesn't mean that you don't make a mistake sometimes. See perfect human being doesn't mean G-d. We can never be anything but a small and illegitimate G-d. But all of us can be great human beings.
So what is overlooked, in my opinion, the thing that's hurting us more is that we are putting too many things ahead of the greatest concern and that is the promotion of established human person and the promotion of growth in the intellect for all people. You'll find that some societies will be failing because they are not promoting established human person, now remember what I said about the established, I mean, the evolved human person, in his inherent aim, he has come into in his natural inherent native aim. He's growing into that, he's coming into that. The human being in his evolved concept, not in his growing our baby, our feeble weak, no he's born like that Allah says we all are born weak. And we know that we are born babies, we are all are born weak but that's not the end product that Allah wants.
When we look at the seeds we sow as a farmer, that's not the end product we want. We are giving those seeds to an environment and we hope that in time, we'll get the end product we want. So if somebody say, "Hey, what do you care about all that little trash there, or look like little rocks. What do you care about that stuff?" If they don't know what comes from those little rocky looking things, they will say, "Hey, why you waste your time throwing all those little rocks around all day long, you throwing all these little rocks and stuff around." And they come two months later and the man there eating from it and feeding the work and got business running a big truck and a car and everything and got a processing factory and everything. Well, I understand now.
It's the same for us, we look at the human being in his weakness, in his undeveloped state and we esteem him to be nothing. Trash people, some of us will say that, trash people, worthless people. In fact history tells us that was the attitude of society to look at certain individuals that were non-productive inferior trash. And they abused them, took advantage of them and even suppressed them and kept them on a level of trash. Kept them in a situation of trash because they didn't have any regard for them, any respect for him.
Allah wants us to have a regard for just like the seed that the farmer regard, he doesn't regard it for what it is now, he regards that seed for what that seed will be. He regards that seed for what that seed can become, he's looking at what the potential in that seed, he appreciates that seed and value it for a potential. He would say, "I know this is nothing but a seed but this is a potential cornstalk. And one cornstalk can keep me from being hungry for one day." You see, one corn he said that one seed is a potential cornstalk. And there's going to be several ears on that one corn stalk from this one tree. Qur'an mentions this. And on each ear of corn, there are going to be a hundred grains, hundreds of seeds. So he looks at it and values it not for what it is at that particular time but for what it will be.
And this is something we are overlooking. When I say we are not talking about us just here in America, or just in, certainly not here in this place here today in McCormick Inn Hotel, this facility. No, And I'm saying this, ... what we are overlooking. I'm talking about the nations, the societies of the world and now who are responsible for the behavior of the societies of the world?
It is the so-called established people. For Muslims who are we talking about for Muslims? We are talking about the heads of Muslim states, we are talking about the heads of strong Muslim institutions, the institutions of learning and whatever that's what we are talking about. And those are the people we are hoping to reach today to let them see that there's a greater purpose and a greater role that we are playing down, we are overlooking. And Muslims have left it centuries ago, didn't just happen, they left it centuries ago. So Muhammad came and he worked hard to build up the human establishment, to build up the dignity and worth of one single person, male and female equally.
It's takes too much to go over all the history that's not the object today. The object today is just to point to a great concern that I think is hurting us throughout the international Muslim world, because we have given other things more priorities than that thing. And this should be given the greatest priority.
Dear beloved people, don't you know that war zones are made because that particular duty is overlooked? If we work hard to build up the human person, we would have much less trouble of war zones all over this planet earth. Certainly if we had been working in the Middle East to build up the natural human person in his human excellence, that Allah intended for him before 1947, or whenever Palestine came into existence. If we had been working for it in the Middle East, there would never have been a state imposed upon the population there because those human beings would've been so excellent in their human form and in their human nature. That would've been a great number of them representing a strong, even though they'd be a minority, there would've been a strong minority of them that demand respect. And the whole international world would say, "No, they can't do that to the Middle East."
We would've had enough support all throughout the national world to say, 'No, you cannot do that to the Middle East." But when we fail our responsibility to attend the need, to establish the human excellence that Allah wants in us, the purpose for which Muhammad came and presented himself and G-d presented him that purpose. When we fail that dear people, we invite all kind of troubles and we won't have the sympathy of the majority of civilized people on our side, because they say you have neglected your human life. And because you have neglected to establish your human life, human life is not play and fun and foolishness and making babies and sex and all that stuff. Human life is human intelligence.
Human life is human intelligence, human conscience based in human intelligence and it includes so many other great concerns and aspirations. Human life is the first building block for civilization, that's what human life is, true human life is the first building block for civilization. Just like I was talking about that farmer with his seemingly worthless seeds, those who don't know what seeds are, yes. So you throw out a human life in its right form and put it in its right environment. If you value the human person, you going to make the environment respect that human person. A man goes and he works hard to build a nice home, he makes a nice home, he labors hard he sweats for weeks and months to build a nice home. What is he building that home for? Why is he sweating the day after day?
Why is he snapping up all of his money and everything? He wants an environment for something he values. That's his wife, that's himself, that's the children they hope to have yes. That's the kind of work you get when you really appreciate the life and know the value of the human person. Oh yes. Similarly, the same way it is for the whole civilization. When we appreciate the individual and value the individual, we will build a great house we call civilization. We will build a great house we call nation. We will build a great house we call the United States of America. Don't you know the idea, the beauty, the worth, the power, whatever we find of value in this great nation you call the United States. Don't you know it was built, it was requisitioned.
You know what requisition means? Requisition means that something is here asking that we get something else. So it was the focus on the ideal human person, that the founding fathers wanted to protect and give opportunity to and protect by law. So that human type and human person will have freedom prosperity here on this earth, in this land called America conceived and established for that human person. Requisition in all of his laws, requisition in all of its duties, requisition in all of its values, material, et cetera. Requisition by the human person himself, this is the truth and its simple truth, its powerful truth.
Now we've talked about the human person in his design that Allah wants. Maybe when he first come here, he doesn't impress us very much. But Allah says, "Wait." Certain number among the angels, Iblis, was a great rebel, the most notorious of those that looked down on what Allah was about to do but Allah told them, "Wait." Say wait until I have breathed into him of my spirit well, what is that? Of my purpose, of my will. Wait until he'd be inspired with My will and be inspired with My purpose and be motivated by My will and be motivated by My purpose. He said, then make your vow and submission to him.
And all of this is naturally in us. All of this is our native potential. It's our natural born potential, all of us are born with this. And don't you know that's what the Constitution is saying of that great human sight, that every person is born qualified for what we are granting this citizen of the United States. Every person by nature is born, birthed into the world, qualified for it because we can't give it to it. Have been given to him by his creator.Endowed by his creator with certain inalienable rights among these life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Now you think that ain't Islamic, that is Islamicly focused, may I repeat that? That is Islamicly focused.
And I've studied the Bible and I've found great signs of this great wisdom of the high wisdom in the Bible, the great plan in the Bible. I've studied other religions and I've studied other books by great writers, great philosophers and political idealist and et cetera, I've studied. And I haven't yet come up with anything that is more evident than the Qur'an, as the support for the great vision of the founding fathers of these United States. I'm sure they read Bible and they read Plato and they read the great Greek philosophy. I'm sure they read all of that, but I'm sure that they had to stumble down that road until they got the Qur'an.
We are not talking about something that we can't prove. It's proven by history that the Qur'an, Prophet Muhammad demonstrating it, made possible the rejuvenation of the fallen nations of Europe and that ancient world back then. They had fallen. And it was the Qur'an, the presence of the Qur'an, and our prophet demonstrating that life, demonstrating it, that made possible their reawakening, their revival, their Renaissance, the return of civilization and excellent standards for them. The Qur'an and our prophet, yes, broke the darkness. And what Allah says that He has brought us out of the darkness into the light. You know what that means? Out of ignorance, savagery, into civilization and higher learning, great intellect, higher education. The work of a prophet is the work of a civilized, especially when he finds his people without civilization. The work of a prophet is the work of a civilizer. The greatest civilizer in the history of man is Muhammad the prophet. Peace and blessings be on him.
And look how tactful Allah made our prophet. So he tells us certain things to do, to clean up, just to have good hygiene and things. And just common sense, good decency, good hygiene. And to perform your prayer. Then he says almost apologetically because he knows the weakness of the unestablished person. In his excellence I'm talking about. That excellence. Evolved excellence. Says, G-d does not want to burden you, but he won't let you be purified. Isn't that so nice. Isn't that so nice. Oh, that's so nice. Such a loving G-d.
You'll never find that kind of kindness and love and consideration typical, even in the best mother. Sometimes those she'll manifest it. But I say it is not common and typical. The average mother say, "Look here, boy. Now I've been teaching you to wash your face and clean your stinking self up for years. And I still got to tell you to go to washroom. Get to the washroom and do something about your stinking self."
But theres a whole peninsula of stinking people over there. In what is now called Arabia. Only a few, just a very few, you had to search with Sherlock Holmes. you had to search with Sherlock Holmes's looking glass to find them, to find the one that wasn't stinking. Whole peninsula over there, stinking, and look how kind Allah was. Clean up yourself, clean up yourself. It's not my desire. I don't like to see your burdened, but I wish that you be purified. Beautiful, beautiful.
And that's another thing we overlook. We overlook the part of Al Islam that appeals to our strong human sentiments. We overlooked that part of Al Islam. And in doing that we are overlooking our role to advance that, to promote that. If we were sensitized, that we should be in that regard, we wouldn't have waited for the United States of America to progress its democracy, and to grow to where its people have the conscience to go and look for suffering people and try to bring aid to them. To look for the sick, to look for the hungering people, to look for the neglected, the uneducated, and to try to bring information, intelligence and education to them. We wouldn't have waited. We would've been working hard like the Prophet Muhammad and his early followers. We would've been working hard to go to the aid of anyone who fallen from the pedestal of established person, established human being. We would've been going to their aid. We wouldn't have waited for the Civil Rights Movement. We wouldn't have waited for the protests, a demand that this civilization claiming to be the highest civilization on earth to release its slaves, to stop discriminating against them, to stop making double laws, treating one as an animal and another one as a human person, we wouldn't have waited. We would have found some strategy.
Even if we didn't have the material might. If we had been sensitized, as we should be sensitized throughout the international Islamic world, our leaders, our people in government positions, our people over institutions, our people over the nation, our people over the economy, our people over the products of the country. People in power, people with power, they would have insisted that an attempt be made to shame America. To shame America, and to bring America from his ignorance, and from its abuse of the people now we call the African Americans or black. Yes. There would've been a voice coming out of the Middle East, saying our prophet came and he had a great strategy for correcting this wrong in society. May we share with you this strategy? If they couldn't get any results, they would've been maybe even a stronger appeal, and did something even more embarrassing for America. They would've said, "Look, rather than see those human beings treated like that. They're human beings. Have them come here. Our country's open. Send them over here. They'll be better over here living with us on our level of development. Industrial development or economic development. They'll be better over here living with us, than living in that misery you have them in."
They will say, "Well, may we have an opportunity to take that burden off of you? May we invite them to become Muslims? May we invite them to join us in a Muslim land where they will not be treated as subhuman?" But there was no effort, no effort. Why? Because they had lost something. Wherever Prophet Muhammad found people mistreated like animals, treated harshly and cruelly, his anger went against those people that were treating them harshly and cruelly. And he invited them to Al Islam. And he wanted them to hear the message, the call of Al Islam so that they won't tolerate any more of the abuses that they were receiving.
Look, the great message, the appealing message of Al Islam to the dignity and to the great work of the human being, to his inherent worth and pride or dignity, whatever you want to call it, ringed into the ear of Bilal while he was yet a slave and changed him.
Though the slave master still held Bilal in slavery, still treated him like subhuman, Bilal had changed. He was no more a slave. He no more could accept slavery. He refused to obey his master in things that he knew was beneath his human dignity, beneath what Allah intended for him as a human being. He refused it. He refused to worship false idols and his master was so embittered, he began to torture Bilal, torture him.
And what happened? One of the followers of Muhammad the prophet, be upon our prophets, came and he didn't say, "I'm going to kill you for doing this." It wasn't a crazy, radical step taken to give that human being Bilal a chance to be human being. He came to him and said, "How much you want for him?" And he paid Bilal, Bilal who was of our color, even darker than me. He paid for the Bilal's freedom, because Bilal didn't want to worship falsehood and didn't want to be subhuman anymore. Now you have now a real example of what is given in the words, Allah never changes the state of a people until they change what is in their heart or what is in their soul.
Yes. It says bi anfusihim, until they change, bi anfusihim, until they change what is bothering or disturbing their persons or their soul. So none of us can really say in truth that our soul is not bothered by the way of life that the average one of us are living in America. No, none of us can say that. The way of life that the average one of us give him or herself to in America is a burden on our conscience. But since the great many are doing it, and the establishment or the super culture supports it and promotes it, we don't have nothing to prick our conscience, nothing to remind us of the shame, but our own little selves. And most of the time we can't be in privacy with ourselves to even hear our own individual voice, our complaints against the state of life that has been cut out for us in America.
So, we can only hear the approval coming from the many, coming from the television, and coming from the newspaper, and coming from the many. We can only hear the approval. We have to fight like the dickens to go and hear what our own soul is whispering. We have to cut off the TV. We have to cut the record player off. We have to maybe leave the house.
Now, you know if a prophet had to leave the city and go up in the mountain, away from everybody to hear his better side, his better voice, and hope that Allah would speak to him through it, you know, we have to do something. I don't think there's a mountain far enough away from all of this trouble and confusion we have in these big cities of America. The ignorant lifestyle, reckless destructive lifestyle, the noise. If you ain't used to it, you'll get shocked. You might have a heart attack. Yes. If you can make one room soundproof, and you go and stay in that room for three days, and then come out of that room, you might have a heart attack.
But there's an easier situation. The automobile. Just let one of these average youngsters have your automobile. And when he gets through with it, you get in there and turn on the motor. You get in there, and turn on the ignition. And when the ignition comes on, the radio come on at the same time, and you might have a heart attack. Sound like an explosion. You turn the car on, the radio come on, sound like an explosion.
And they're used to that. They like that. They just in the car, just going right on it. Now why they got to try to look crazy, too? It ain't enough to be acting like that. It got to look like it. Everything.... he's saying with his face, everything is out of order.
Now you know they used to have in primitive societies, might even can find one now somewhere in the jungles. In primitive societies, they used to have witch doctors, magic men who would work tricks on the nature and behavior of members in the tribe so that he would get an obedient following, a fearful following that would fear him and do anything he'd say. And sometimes his medicines and chemistry, chemicals, would send some of them just into that kind of shape. They be... And if he ain't getting no obedience from him, he'll point to...the curse, you see the curse. You beware, beware of him. he's cursed, he cursed. I put the curse on him!
Now in civilized society find that kind of a thing existing. They go in there and kill the witch doctor. Kill him! Now who's going to come in here and kill the witch doctors that's got our young boys. Now who going to find the witch doctor that's got your son or your child behaving like that, and kill him. Don't you know, that kind of thing couldn't happen. That evil couldn't get to that degree if we had respect for building up the human person. Our religion Al Islam, our Qur'an, our holy book Qur'an, and our prophet obligates us. Allah, obligates us by what the prophet is established for. And by the Qur'an, he obligates us to work always to keep and protect and keep an environment in a situation for the excellent human life Allah created and intended to grow and flower in the human being.
Yes. We are obligated to do that. So whenever we see society falling off the great pedestal of human excellence, we should be troubling along to the extent we organize together. And if we can't make an appeal safely and get respect of that society that is doing that evil, we have to meet even in secret and plan and work together for what? Allah says in most of the secret meetings are for no good. The secret meetings are only good if they're made for what? To promote righteousness, decency, fair dealing, respect between person and person in society. So someone has been off the job.
Now, I hope we don't go through too long here. I'm going to try to keep it within a reasonable time.
Let us look now at an automobile as a picture of something for us. We have to understand that just looking the part is far from being enough. And that's what this world approves today. You don't have to be anything. Just look the part. Muslims, we can't accept that. The hollow vessel with nothing in it is good for nothing but the fire. That's our opinion. You must have the established substance that Allah want there, not just a picture of it.
You'll look at a car and you see, oh, that beautiful car. It might look like it just came from the showroom. Look at that beautiful car, and you admire it. Oh, how nice it is. Now, if you go to start it up and nothing happens, you grab the steering wheel, and it's loose. You know it ain't connected to nothing. You hit the brakes and they lose, too. You know they ain't connected to nothing. You go to mash the button to roll the winners up. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Look how the worth of that car has fallen. Well, that's the same way it is for a human being that looks like us in picture, looks like what Allah wants in picture. But when we communicate with them, we find nothing functioning under the cover. So it says the life. Allah says that he will give us a life, a good life. Allah promises us that. That he will give us a good life.
He will establish us in a good life. He promises us a good life. The good life is this ideal destiny that we are talking about for the human person. That's the good life that we want. We naturally are growing toward it if we'll just listen to our better motivation. We are naturally growing into it, but we need the help of Allah. We cannot realize it as to our satisfaction without the help of Allah. And we will lose what we gain, if we don't, at some point, turn earnestly seeking the help of Allah. Not any imaginary G-d. The real G-d. Yes.
So, in order to have a functioning person, we have to have that Allah intends for that person, the human properties, the human nature, and the property's operating. They have to be working. They have to be working and operating for him. A functional being has to be in this picture here. A functioning human being, a functioning person. Now, if society will affect my behavior in such ways that my mind, my human sentiments are no longer suiting or meeting this identity, agreeing in this identity, then what have we here? We have a foreign life created, or we have a dead... In fact, no matter what we have, if we don't have the human type in there, the human being is for all intents and purpose, dead. Dead. He's not there. Just like that car, beautiful picture. Dead. Dead car. Nobody wants a dead car. Now by design, we are human beings. And by design, what we mean when we say we are human beings, we mean we are creatures of intelligence, or creatures with great potential for intelligent behavior, intelligent life, intelligent aspirations. That's what we mean.
Now our Al Islam values the human person, essentially or basically for that excellence or that superiority in him over other creatures. He's valued for his intellect. He's valued for his intelligence. Read the Qur'an over and over and see what is the language there. The language is questioning men's disrespect for the value of intellect and intelligence in the human being.
So whether we have 90% in this audience or in our association, 90% that love stupidity, care nothing about education, that doesn't hurt at all or change at all our determination to bring to their conscience, the great value of intellect that Allah created in them. So our duty is to go to people who are behaving crazy, behaving like animals that have gone insane. People that disrespect things that should be respected. People that are abusing themselves and destroying themselves and ignoring the obligation to their families and to their community, neighborhoods. I mean, by community, their neighborhoods. We are to go to those people and invite them to come back to human conscience, to see the human being in its true worth and realize that everyone has that great possession. Every child is born in the world with that great possession.
And all they have to do is change their attitude, change their ugly disposition and get a spirit to follow good sense. Don't go there and tell them that you have to have faith in Prophet Muhammad if you expect to change. Don't go there and say, "Oh, you first have to believe in Allah before there be any change." Don't do that. Don't go and say, 'Oh, first you have to get some morals, and you get some good morals in you before you have any change." Don't say that. Go and say, "You have already in you what is needed to great make you better than the people you're associating with?"
You already have with you in your possession, the equipment that you need to rise up from this low level and compete with the people that you are now dependent upon. That's the way we should talk to them. Say, "Look, you were created to be a sentimental person with human sentiment to be caring and loving." Yes. That's true. That you were created to be strong and muscular and to push you around. You were created to display authority and to feel good over power. That's true. But most importantly, you were created in intellect and intelligence. And if you respect yourself as a creature of intelligence, you'll have all the other changes you need coming after that.
We first, we should appeal to people to respect themselves as creatures of intelligence. Here again, there's an overlooked role for Muslims in world leadership. When you think of world leadership, what are you thinking about? Are you thinking about industry? Are you thinking about political philosophies, political ideologies? Are you thinking about business opportunity? The growth of wealth? Yes, all of that is world leadership, but that can't get anywhere until they're worth established in people. And that's why America has fallen so much as an industrial power and has fallen so much as a leader among nations. It is because this precious foundation that we have been talking about now for an hour has been neglected. It has not only been neglected it has been warred upon. Yes. And that's why we have the big problem we have now. That's why we have the lost esteem for the country that we have now. And that's why they don't see a quick turning point for the country. Because there has no quick turning point for this terrible neglected foundation. The human foundation.
See the Muslim shouldn't be going about the world telling other nations, "You have to be free because G-d loves you." That's true. But that's not enough. You should choose to be free because G-d loves you. You should choose to be free because you are a human being just like everybody else. That's good, but that's not enough. Because when you say a human being, just like everybody else, that youngster that's going about... That guy, when you say you a human being like everybody else, he say, "Yeah., man yeah, know it !" He has gotten attached to another meaning for humans. And he ain't nowhere in touch with the meaning that Allah intends for him. So it ain't enough to go back and tell him, "Yeah, you human." We did that in America. Now when I say we, I mean the country did that in America, during the sixties. All the trouble came out, and what happened? They came with that sweet talk. Love. Got enough love for everybody.
Stranger walking down the street want to kiss you. Peace and love. Yeah. That happened right in the cities.. And then after a while we saw them with cats in the house and they weren't just for pets. They were for eating. Yeah, you remember? Yeah. Same wayward bunch. Go protest against the establishment. They going to live off of cat meat. Yeah. This was in the news. Yes. Ivy Leaguers, too. Yeah. Among them, these people that did that were some Ivy Leaguers. Those who were once leading students in some of the best colleges of the United States.
They lost their sense of worth. They lost the ability to identify their true worth and started seeing themselves in the dark, through confusion. So in time, what happened? They became so soft, they weren't good for nothing. I'm talking about the majority. Majority of Americans became so soft, they're not good for anything. They ain't good to keep strong homes. They're not good to keep a strong job market. No. Job market weak, because ain't no strong disciplines in the workers of the job market. So the country had to save itself and change the immigration laws and everything to encourage more stronger people from societies that wasn't affected like this to come into America and give America a few more years to live.
Yes. You want to know why all these different people coming from all over the world? Because ain't no people in the United States to hold the United States up. We've been wiped out. Wiped out by ignorance, abnormal behavior. That's the ugliness. That's the shame. That's the hurt on us who have let ourselves fall like that in the United States.
And on our institution and our leaders who allows that and didn't come out strongly against it, even if they had to go to civil war. Civil war would've been better, but they wouldn't have had to go to that extent. Could have brought us back to our senses, but there was big dollars, big money, easy, quick dollars. See a foolish person, you can get all their money. The person whose got sense, you just going to get the amount he could afford to spend. I was reading the other day, where we, as an African American people spending 8% of the national spending. We represent 8%, so this report says, of the national spending. We are not 8% of the population. So we are spending much more than is represented by our share or numbers in the population of this country. And that tells us what? That our spending indicates that we are well off in this country, materially or financially. Our spending, if people look at nothing but the record of our spending, that data says that these people are better off financially than most of the Americans.
Because we are spending much more than our share in the population. You understand what I'm saying? Our share and the number of people in this country says that we should be spending much less than what we are spending. What are we now? 11% or more? 12% maybe of the population. They say about 11%, huh? They say we are about 11% of the population. So here we represent 11% of the population, but we are spending 8% of the whole national spending for all the whole country. And just 11% of the population. And we say we are poor. There are other groups that I'm sure represent much bigger numbers than that of the population but spending much less than that of the national spending. And we don't need any figures to tell us what's happening. You go to any house of these people that call themselves poor, go there and see how they live.
You go into what they call a middle-class white, middle class European American, and they won't have, on the whole, you won't find them with as many cars, and as later cars and models, as many TVs, as many phones, as much carpet, you won't find them with that. You won't find them with as many refrigerators and as much stuff in the refrigerator. We can kill the baby crawling around the refrigerator by opening the door.
And another good indication of our heavy spending that we spend more than other Americans... And we not even talking about the rich minority. There's a powerfully rich minority that's making oh so much, a million times the money that we make as individuals. Million times our salaries. They're making million times our salaries. And some of us have as much consumer products in our house and in our environment, as those people making all that money. And then we say we're poor. How can you be poor? How you poor? And you got a big car, all them cars out in front of your house. People can't find a parking place. You got a car, your wife got a car. Sometimes you got two. She got one.
Three or four teenagers in the family, each one got a car. You need a parking lot for your cars, a garage or something. City garage, a city garage, or parking lot or something, just for the cars. But you poor. Go to that house. Yeah, go to that house. I guarantee. I'm not exaggerating. Go to that house where the two grownups got three cars, and two or three or more teenagers, each one of them, got a car. Go to that house and stay there long enough, and you'll see the lights go off, the phone go off. It's their house, so they don't get no five-day notice or nothing. They just lose the mortgage or something. They lose the whole house. In time, the whole house is gone. That's a shame. Why? Why is that? Is it a moral issue? Certainly it is. Is it a social issue? Yes, it is. Is it a family issue? Yes, it is. But more accurately in our identification, identifying the problem, it is an issue of ignorance. The failure of that person to be intelligent.
Nothing dignifies us more than an appreciation for intelligence. Don't you know that? Yeah. Nothing disciplines us more for a better performance than an appreciation for our intelligence. Appreciation for my black skin is nothing like as powerful as my appreciation for my intelligence. In affecting change in me for the better. Making me a better person, making me a more productive person, more progressive person, a more aggressive person for good. No, nothing in me, no sense in me or myself is more productive or more powerful for my good future than my sense of intelligence and respect for my sense of intelligence.
Yes. Those are the people that run the world. Not people that look at themselves in the morning and see how...what color their skin... Oh, baby... I'm looking a little pinkish today, huh? Oh boy. I got to do something about that. You know that's my pride. Now he's looking in the mirror and seeing an intelligent person, an intelligent manager of finances, an intelligent manager of property, an intelligent manager of employees. He's looking at an intelligent person. Our religion requires of us that we promote the human type that Allah wants in us, and that we promote the growth of intelligence in that type. Thank you very much. As salamu alaykum.

