11/27/1994
IWDM Study Library
Support Religion for Social Dignity

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed

Praise be to Allah. We say alhamdulillahi rabbil al-ameen, the praise and the thanks is for Allah, the One G-d who is the Sustainer, Lord, Sustainer and Cherisher of the worlds, because we witness that He's One and One alone. Sharing responsibility for the maintenance of the universe and our own life...
This maybe ago is the... Was to come in prophecy and also by way of the prophetic office, by the way of the office of prophets, is fulfilled in him and the matter is completed, the matter is completed. It's concluded. We pray the traditional salute, the prayer that makes the traditional salute, asking the prayers and the peace upon him and what follows of that salutation or that salute, traditional salute among Muslims to the last prophet and upon us be peace and G-d's mercy and His guidance.
We ask always that Allah bless our efforts and purify our intentions for the effort and then reward our efforts but he's the best to reward as he says in his own book, the Qur'an. He is the best to reward efforts. We are very pleased to be here again in this facility in Newark, New Jersey. As your guest, hosted by the masjid here in Newark, the main Masjid, the central Masjid or the biggest Masjid we should say, the biggest congregation here in Newark.
Having this Imam, Imam Ali Muslim, who is a very devoted, loyal, dedicated and serious supporter of Al-Islam and the Muslim community and the Muslim agenda and the Muslim agenda is based upon what Allah has revealed to us as our responsibility in the Qur'an and in the life of his messenger, his servant and his messenger Muhammad, the prayers and the peace be on him.
We are very pleased to be here and we think that the topic of the subject we are to address today is a subject that needs really to be presented to the general society of America and particularly to the African-American people, in the society of this country whether they believe like we do or not in religion, because we more than any other people have unusual kinds of problems or peculiar difficulties coming to grips or accepting our social responsibility, social responsibility.
The word "social" refers directly to human relationships in society, human relationships in society. The first social obligation is to one's closest members: your family, our family, our families. The social obligation extends outside of your family community and to the general community. I would say for people who tried to establish their lives in accordance with the ideas that they have in their religion, they have three circles that they have to be aware of as circles for their life and their livelihood.
The first being, the family as we already said, then the second would be their religious community and the third would be the general community. That's the situation for us. We have to be concerned about family firstly, then for the Muslim community, and lastly for the general community, the town beginning with the neighborhood that we live in because it's not Muslim. I don't think we have any Muslim neighborhoods yet. We hope to have something. That you have to begin with your neighborhood and most likely even your neighbor next door.
I think this topic is one that needs more discussion, openly, publicly that is, not just in institutions. We know these institutions working on social problems and creating social problems. Not that we are not doing something wrong too, we make mistakes too because we are not in the light, but they're going to do what they're doing. They've been doing it for generations and they have good times and bad times, that is they make good contributions and sometimes they mess up for society but we certainly have those three circles.
Two of those circles belong to us as Muslims, our family and our Muslim community. We should be striving to do everything we possibly can to establish social responsibility for ourselves as individuals, for our families and for our Muslim community, for our Muslim community and that's what Islam wants for us. We are going to continue, but I just want to speak on this thought that I have already put out there to you, that this topic is one that needs to be heard or needs to be made important not just for us, but for the general society and particularly for the African-American members of the society.
There is a man who wrote a book and in his book, African-American Man, sometime ago, a long time ago and in his book, he didn't give a lot of space or time to the idea, but as good writers do, they write on their subject and they never really most of the time, refer to their subject by name. You read the whole book and no reference to their subject by name but the whole book is treating the subject, telling the subject, taking care of the subject, addressing the subject, the whole book.
This writer, he must have said this with every chapter, but it was just one place where it was written very plain. He said, "Somewhere along the path of my life, I got separated from my social responsibility," and man did that hit me because I have always felt that the teaching of Islam under the honorable Elijah Muhammad.
Now don't anyone think that when I say something positive or something complimentary of that time in our life that I'm trying to say we should go back to the good old days. But those old days we've had was the days we don't know about, the days in the womb of our mother, when everything was perfectly paradise. She was catching cold for us, she was having cramps for us, she was awake for us, she was moving about, doing things for us, she was having headaches for us and we wasn't doing nothing but living in heaven.
All of a sudden, after nine months, said, "Get out of here, get a little taste of responsibility." I don't want to go back to those days. I like being responsible and I don't want a savior anymore. I want to save myself. This is Muslim. Allah says oh believers, save yourselves. He didn't say, "Turn to a savior," or "I'm going to send you a savior but now I'm just sending you a prophet, a teacher but one day I'm going to send you a savior to carry you on his back." No, that oh believers be responsible for yourselves, save your own selves and your families.
This is an appeal that G-d makes to us individually, for us to not only accept responsibility for our own self individually, but also for our family. It is a very personal responsibility. G-d says, "All believers, save yourselves and your families from the fire." We're going to get back to that fire later on in the talk. Now, when we were made slaves, then generations ago, so long behind us for some of these youngsters, they don't know what we're talking about.
When we were made slaves, properties, the physical properties of other people, white folks who bought us or took us or stole us from Africa, I don't know, I think more were stolen than sold. Here, since the Arabs have come back into the world picture, their enemies want us to believe more was sold than stolen. All of us felt something across the Atlantic, you had to be in touch with a buyer. It wasn't a lot of traveling going from the Atlantic, going from that direction here. The traveler was coming from Europe there, not from there to the buyers.
That says a whole lot right there. At that particular point in the history of our life, and for me, that's the beginning of the history for us. I know. You all might not take that too well. We should have a calendar that says our history begins with us being put in bondage here in America? Yes, because that was beginning of a new life and new life begins in confinement.
Every individual is confined in the womb and then you are released to the world. Sometimes, the Lord G-d, Allah subhana wa ta'ala, highly glorified is HE. He selects a people for a special creation. He wants to create a special type and he will send them back into circumstances similar to the circumstances that a life germ is put in, in order for it to develop inside confinement. It was in confinement that we started to have thinkers who began to think their way out of confinement.
We think of the birth as being something that's totally physiological, but that little baby, when he reaches a certain number of months in the womb, it ain't all physiological. It's determination working too. You can see the elbow jutting up, "Let me out of here." Knee come pop up, foot pop up. Whoa, what is this? It is a tough one here I got here. There is an active one here. In the circumstances of the plantation slavery, the slave life, we gave birth to great minds. I would say that those circumstances gave birth to great minds. Frederick Douglas, perhaps the most notable one of them all was born a slave.
Lived a slave until he was a young man and then broke from his slave master, from his second slave master. He didn't break from the first one. The first one was humane and allowed him to get study and to get educated. The second one he got because of bad circumstances or the financial circumstances for the first one. The first one had to sell him to a second slave master. The second slave master was a typical redneck, a typical slave master, the typical slave master.
Douglas wasn't used to that kind of bad treatment as a slave. So Fredrick Douglas struck him, actually hit him and knocked him down and out. They might not say that. They don't want us to know that black men was knocking white masters out. Believe me, this is back then. I saw him. He actually hit that man and he knocked him out. Now, you know if he hadn't been awake, if he hadn't been unconscious, most likely Fredrick Douglas wouldn't have gotten far but he put him to sleep for so long, he didn't have the time to give the news until Fredrick Douglas was long gone.
Then he came Northeast Coast, there was no slavery and began another life and became an author of the United States who influenced President Lincoln, influenced his thinking and everything and made a great impression on the world at that time, was invited to Europe. Well, then made impressions on them.
Fredrick Douglas, born a slave. Well, he was just one perhaps the most top standing of them all, but there were others too, men and women who came from slavery and then took on the role of freedom fighters, freedom strugglers. Women like Sojourner Truth and others, not just men, they dedicated themselves to the liberation of their lot, the whole of their people.
That's what we mean by lot. Yes, so at that point, we were separated from our social responsibility and for me, that point should be again at the beginning of African-American history. That's the beginning of African-American history and I think all of us should identify in that history. Muslim, because we are Muslim, it shouldn't mean that we are less interested in the life history of black people on this continent.
No, we should become even more interested in the life history, the good times and the bad times, the struggles and straight achievements in spite of barriers or difficulty put in our way and in spite of the extent to which conditions were created to actually take the human soul and spirit out of us. That's what the slavery, the heart, the hardness of slavery back then. It was designed to actually take the human soul and the human spirit out of those people so that there wouldn't be any trouble for the cruel master. Cruel master can sleep and less conflict.
He's not worried about that turn or anything. In fact, at one point, it was written in that publication that the black man has become docile. He has no will to resist, no will to complain even. He has become docile. That's what they wanted, the slave to be docile. Docile means wanting to sleep, wanting to go to sleep all the time. That's what it means. If you leave him alone, he'll take a nap and if you don't keep urging him on, he'll just take a nap. He's docile. I'm exaggerating for the point, I'm exaggerating for the point. You can look up docile if you want in the dictionary, but I think I have a skill with these words. I might even write my own dictionary one day.
Yeah. When the movement started to awaken enough again, human soul, human spirit. Human spirit is a productive spirit. Human spirit is a responsible spirit. See a lot of us, we miss the meaning of just what human is. If you look in dictionary, that's an ordinary dictionary, you look up the word "human" and it has maybe a few entries, a few explanations. The main one, they would say they use a scientific term. They say "Homo Sapiens" am I right? Homo Sapien. What is homo? Homo is a man, but can be also a woman.
That's why now they call the women homosexuals too. See, the more society put pressure on the masters of language to be more correct with their meanings or the definition, the more we find their masters of language changing the policy and allowing us to have a different usage of the word. I know the time when you said homosexual, it didn't refer to anything but a male but now they're using homosexual to refer to both males and females, both males and females. That's correct because homo, what they have for me in man really mean essentially the human identity, the human identity. That's what it's referring to.
Really, the word "man" is used by us and not women as such in that particular definition. Originally, man meant woman too. That's right. Even in Islam, that's right, the Qur'an said he created you from nafsin wahidah, from one person. If you read the Qur'an in Arabic, you read it very carefully, this one person was not Adam alone because it said that he created from its mate, then Adam comes and then the woman comes distinct from each other.
Originally, the word means both male and female. Whatever the Khalifah is, the man is not that by himself. Please listen. Whatever Khalifa means, the man is not that by himself. It takes the woman with him. He has to become that nafsin wahidah again before he qualifies to be the Khalifa. It takes the woman with him, has to have the two operating then he's the Khalifa. You say, "How are you going to get a woman back into the man?" He had be born again or have to be created by Allah with the sensitivities that a woman has.
He has to have both the male sensitivities and the woman's sensitivity if he is to be the best, the type of ruler that G-d wants for us on this earth. Allahu Akbar.
Allahu Akbar.
Takbir.
Allahu Akbar.
Takbir.
Allahu Akbar.
Takbir.
Allahu Akbar.
Allahu Akbar. Praise be to Allah. Let me organize these papers. I was going through them and I got them a little out of order. I have to put them back in the order I want to have them in. Just take a minute. Okay, I dropped one there.
I'm supposed to have one with five on it. That's okay. Oh, I got it. I think I have it right here. No problem. Yes, now I'll be back in business. Just a few more words on this idea that the life, the bad experience of slavery as it began down in the south on the plantation is really the beginning of our history as people in this part of the world or in the world, but actually what has been created and some of you who know me have been knowing me for years, this ain't the first time that I said this.
Some of us actually represent a new human creation, or a new social creation. I would think that's the strong minority that we have of free thinkers. By the way recently, an unpopular African-American, the conservative who sits on the Supreme Court as a judge, Supreme Court Justice. You all know who I'm talking about. He was a keynote speaker in Chicago and he made this statement and it was published in the paper the next day.
He said that he invites blacks to become freethinkers. Now, that's no new invitation. Dubois said to the extent that we teach in the measure. Pardon me, to the extent that we will go to teach our children to think. That means think on their own, think independently, trust in their own intelligence to the extent that we will go to teach our children to think will be the measure of our freedom.
What is he saying? That we will expand the measure of our freedom, we will have more freedom the more we think independently or the more we think on our own, pass it down to the next generation. Think on your own. Think on your own. I never told the Muslim journal to put that statement in the paper, that they keep in there now on the page, on the educational page or I could say the academic, whatever.
I think it's educational page, the school page, academic page of that paper. The statement ends with me saying that I will never give up the treasure or the dignity that I have thinking for myself, that I'll never give that up. I'm going to always think for myself. They chose to put it in there and I thought... There are three of them in there now. One of them was actually taken from the prophet himself, his own saying and that the Muslims or the believer endeavors to do anything, whether it's to draw a picture or sell some goods to the market, on the market or get a good score in school and a student or clean up the house, whatever, cook the meal.
It says the Muslim, the believer, whenever he's endeavor to do anything, seeks to perfect it. Seeks to perfect it. That tells me that Allah says whatever the Messenger offer you, accept it. Allah has made obligatory and made an obligation on me that when- the prophet says something, I accept it without questioning or without doubting it. The believer is indicated how they obey the prophet. When the prophet would ask them say, "What day is this?" That was one of us would say to anybody, "Well, hell, man, it's Tuesday." But, they wouldn't answer before they said, "Allah, his messenger, knows best. Allah, and his messenger, know better," for correct English. They would answer, "Allah and his messenger know best." Then, if the prophet would continue on and indicated his state to them, that he wants a reply from them, then they would say it. That's the kind of respect they have for him, for his authority. No, we're not to give that to anybody else because we don't have any but one prophet.
But, what I'm saying is that we are to still give that to the prophet. We are living 14 centuries later, and we're many generations from that time. But, that same respect should be given to the prophet by good believers. By knowledgeable, good believers. We shouldn't question what the prophet said. We should say, "We here and we obey."
Because he didn't make mistakes. If he did, it all was corrected right on the spot. If he made a mistake, G-d wanted him to make the mistake so the mistake would be corrected, and so the mistake would be a lesson, too. And a learning. And a light for the people. So, this is how it was done.
But, after he completed his work, no mistakes, then he spent his life in no mistakes. He said on the day of the pilgrimage, the Farewell Pilgrimage, the last speech and the last speech at the pilgrimage, he asked his Lord behind each statement, behind each court he made... He asked the people first, "Have I not delivered the message?" And they witnessed bold witness he had. And then, he had asked his Lord to witness, to be witness of what had occurred at...
Of course, what is that saying? That the prophet, at the time of the Farewell Pilgrimage, had completed his mission. His mission was complete and had nothing left to be done.
So, that means what the prophet left with us is for us to accept, not to question. For us to accept. If we question it, we question it, have a complete faith in it. We question it to just see how we can better respond to it, to know it better so we can better respond to it. That's all. We don't question as one that is rejecting it or one that has any thought that it possibly has an error of something. "It might be the normal." We don't even approach it that way. So, the prophet, himself, has obligated us to accept responsibility to be responsible.
There's a thing... Yadullah, the hand of G-d, ala jami'a, measn the hand of Allah is on the group, meaning the collective body. Jami'a means the collective body. If we say, "Bring the people together, put them together" or "collective," it's the same thing. We say, ij'ma'a, jami'a.
So, jami'a means after the things have been made into one bunch or into one collection, put all together. So, if the hand of Allah... The hand, what does the hand mean? Allah speaks of himself as having two hands just like we have two hands. Yadayn is two hands. Are we left to really wonder or guess at what these two hands mean? No. Allah says in one hand, just in one hand alone, he holds the whole universe. All creation in one hand alone. And he says to... I'm referring to the Qur'an so we know and understand so we will know that the understanding is clear and we not in doubt as to what it means.
Then, he asked Iblis, the fallen angel in Western theology, the Western Christian theol... He asked Iblis, "What is the matter with you that you refuse to bow or accept that to this man that I made with my two hands? That I made with my two hands. He said, "My two hands." So, we know now what the "two" means. The studious thinker, right away, he comes and go, "You know now what these hands are." One hand is the hand of the creation. The other hand is the hand of teaching. With one hand, he teaches Man himself. G-d, himself, teaches Man. With the other hand, he created the whole world that he has to later teach Man about with the other hand. Isn't it wonderful?
Excuse me. I have a little virus, but I hope you feel good about it as I do. Two or three days ago, I got relief from it. So, this is just the after-effects of it. Just like the after-effects of slavery. Well, I had my Emancipation Proclamation about three days ago, so you know how happy I am. Yeah, it's a small deal, now. A small thing. Unless somebody magnifies it for me. They done magnify it all after effects.
Yes. So... "Hands," now. What is "hand"? Look in English to understand what hand means? Handicap. Handicap means that he's impaired. His ability is hurt. Seriously hurt. He handicapped, right? His national ability is in impaired. Seriously hurt. He's handicapped. Handle. Can you handle this affair? Means, do you have the ability to take charge of this affair, doesn't it? So hand, hand, hand must, even in English, hand must have a meaning originally in responsibility for, the ability to manage, right? The ability to manage. And if you have the ability to manage, then you can accept the responsibility for it, that particular thing, if you have the ability to manage. Can you manage driving a car? Okay, they give you a license, right? If you can manage driving a car, they give you a license.
Manage. Manage. That's different, pardon me. Can you handle? That's the word I want. Can you handle it? So... And most of the things that we have a handle on, that handle is this main control, isn't it? The handle is main control. Handle. The main control. So, we can come to the conclusion, then, that "hand" means control. The control. The entity that represents the control is the hand. Now, G-d is saying that he has in his control the whole creation that he made. Isn't that where it's supposed to be? Yes. And G-d says it. Is it not there for G-d, both the creation that he made and also the authority of the commands? Hm? This is Islam, the Qur'an. Qur'an. Yes.
So, we understand then that means that G-d has two main controls. Two main controls in the creation and the life of Man. The natural control from the creation that he made... He has that control in our lives... And the other control is controlled by way of enlightenment. And he has that, too. And I'm a witness as a student now for about 50 years, serious student. Tried studying the word of G-d, studying the ways of the world. As a student, now for about 50 years, I'm a witness that Man has no great achievement whatsoever that he doesn't owe reveal knowledge for. He owe it to revealed knowledge. Revealed knowledge.
Without reveal knowledge, he would still be drinking out of skulls and chasing women and beating them over head with sticks, with tree limbs and stuff, to get his pleasures. But, he had been civilized. And the first civilizer was the one that G-d guided who turned back to his G-d by way of study, researching the creation itself. Man turned to the creation that bore him to his mother, so to speak, and he questioned his mother and his mother pointed him to his father, symbolically speaking, metaphorically speaking, G-d Almighty. This is how it happened.
I don't think that it's correct for a Muslim to use that kind of language. It's not. I used it. I said, metaphorically speaking, and I'm going to clear up the mess by telling you it's forbidden for us to use that kind of language in Islam. But, there's no metaphor for G-d. But, since the Christian world have that kind of language and it was easy for me to make my point with it to you, a Western product, I used it. I did it.
So, if I say he made his man with his two hands, with both his hands, what did this tell us about that man that G-d has as our first father? Because we know that he's referring to Adam. But, for the scholar in Islam, especially for the blessed scholar in Islam whose thoughts have been blessed by G-d, we know that Adam was incomplete when he was made and his completion began with the next prophet and the next prophet and the next until the last one. With the last one, his creation is complete. Creation of Adam is complete. So, the creation of Adam was not completed until Mohammed was created.
And how did Allah create Mohammed? Ar-Rahmaan, the merciful G-d, The Beneficent G-d, the merciful benefactor, Khalaqa Insaan, pardon me, Alamal Qur'an, that's first, Khalaqa Insaan. He revealed the Qur'an, taught it, and then created the person. So. Mohammed was the creation twice. The two hands. He was perfect in his natural creation before the revelation came, and then G-d came and created him with the other control, the hand the revelation. And then after he completed him, he said, "Ar-Rahmaan." Not G-d the father. The concept is non-existent. Not G-d's son by the holy ghost. The concepts of none-existent. G-d, the merciful benefactor. The one that Jesus is just a sign of that attribute. He's only a sign of that attribute, the merciful benefactor.
G-d has a hundred attributes, and those hundreds can be multiplied by thousands and millions. A hundred just represents one completion. A completion of one series from one to 100. G-d has a hundred attributes. And here, this one that you turn to as your merciful benefactor has just one.
A good clear view on the Khalifah... On the Khalifah. Now, if we can understand the concept of Khalifah, we have a good perception now of that concept, what the Khalifah is. I can now begin with that in bringing out what I want to bring out for this topic.
So, Man, in the role and authority or power that G-d planned for him or intended for him is depicted or pictured given in a concept as Khalifah. Khalifah. Now, G-d says in the Qur'an that he made not one, but many. Made us, whether we qualified for it or not, he made us Khalifahs. The plural is used, as used by me, khulufaah. Not just one Khalifah. Many.
So, actually, what Allah is saying... and I hope you can hear me clearly. I think that we're having a nice system here. PR system. Nice. Do they call it a PR system? PA? PA? Yeah. See, when I was a student of Islam, I knew what it was called right away. PA. Yeah. So, we thank Allah for this lifestyle. I don't have to talk loud. I can talk very softly and not aggravate this cold, this throat. The last stage with me in this cold is a coughing. And if I strain my throat now, I'll get hoarse, you see. I have a little slight hoarseness now. Anyone have a little hard piece of candy, that would be nice. Right up here. Let's start up here. I have no need to get it from the airport if it's right here. That'll help.
Now, if all of us are created with, born with, a capacity within us to be Khalifah of G-d... And that's what the whole story is to tell us, saying that Adam is a father of all people, every human being... The story is to tell us that we all have the capacity to be whatever that first man was created to be.
He was created to be Khalifah. And we don't hear that term used in Islam until after the prophet. Right? And then, they named their leaders, their rulers, Khalifahs. Prophet wasn't there to say that was correct or not, or incorrect, was he? Tell me if I'm wrong. I'm thinking that they use great scientists and muftis and sheikhs and Khalifahs are here. Tell me if I'm wrong. I'm ready for debate. I don't back up off debate. It does nothing but energizes me.
Yeah. So, there was nobody called Khalifah in the time of the prophet. After him, the believers got together and they decided to do a psychological thing. Said, "Look, a big officer. We have lost him. So, our ruler has to be big or the people will not pay attention to him." We need a big officer that at least be so magnified in the eyes of the people that they would give him respect because the prophet was magnified so much in our eyes. Just a preacher or a imam, that ain't going to do it. He has to have a bigger title.
So, they went and did little study and research, and they came up with the justification for calling their leader the Khalifah. But, believe me, the only Khalifah we had since the passing of our prophet, the only Khalifah we had was Mohammad the prophet. And whoever occupied that position, claimed that position after Mohammed the prophet, he was nothing but a shadow of the Khalifah. He was not the real Khalifah. And thank G-d for blessing with him with personality and the character to at least be a shadow of Mohammed the Khalifah.
Now, I don't talk about this to outsiders, and if you in here you're no outsider. You don't come into Newark and join us in meetings like this if you an outsider. That's right. You're an insider. Okay. What race you belong to, what organization you belong to... You're here today, you an insider. Even if you FBI, CIA, at this convention spying, I don't care. I don't care who you are. If you are here today, you're an insider. These are risky waters here. You better be careful coming in this place up here. And you do well to think about it before you decide to come here. No ugly criticism. Really.
I'm saying that as a compliment to you all in Newark, that you're serious and they know you're serious. So, when they come here, they come here respectfully. At least with some discipline. If they got some disrespect, they contain it.
Now, I'm going to say something that I haven't said before, but that I wanted to say a million times. There's a sign in the short life of the Khalifahs. I think only one of them had what you might call a normal, good life. There's a sign there for us, and we'd be fools not to take it as a sign. Hereafter the passing of the prophet, Khalifahs, rulers are betrayed, assassinated one behind the other. Their life's not long with the people, except for one. And really his wasn't very long. That's a sign.
To me, it's a sign that we should study this office of Khalifah. What happened to them should make us want to study the office of Khalifah. Why this happen? How come the people treated them this way and they were such unquestionable authority? If they qualified for that. You see? Not to say that they didn't. But, don't you know if prophet Mohammed... Praise and peace be upon him... If he had seen any one single one of his companions reminding him or bringing to his mind the idea that this person in his behavior and in his ability, Khalifah... Don't you know he would've called some of them? "Oh, my. Khalifah Omar, Khalifah Abu Bakr." He never called any of them "Khalifah."
Why? Because Khalifah is not to be worn by any single one person. Khalifah is all our title. It's all about title. And if we get a person who qualifies to lead us in that role, to be that kind of person, we should never call that person himself singularly by himself "Khalifah" unless we are doing it as I'm doing it now. We are saying that G-d treated us all to be a Khalifah. And here's the person here who indicates to us, in his person, that he has grown into the dimensions of Khalifah. He has the qualities, the dimension of Khalifah. He has measured up to the dimensions of Khalifah. Then, we refer. But, to then make that a title? No. Because when you make it a title, it's just like calling your leader, "the king," "the prince," or "the high priest," right? It's the same as doing that. You're going to separate him from the people. So, he's a Khalifah. So, we worship him. There's a lot to be said about that. A lot to be said about that.
So, I think I've already told some of these brothers in practice that it's a mistake. It was a mistake that they called their rulers "the Khalifah." If they had continued to call their rulers "amir"... Because that's a title that we have justification for from Qur'an and from the life of the prophet. Where is the justification from the Qur'an? G-d says to us, "In order, by what has been revealed..." Command or amirah... And G-d says to us, "Order upon the principle of shura..." Mutual consultation, meeting the mind, the mutual meeting of the best minds, discussing the matter and coming up with a consensus, a judgment that they all support. Right? That's what G-d says. This amara upon that, and the prophet says, "No matter how small the task is, if it involves more than one person, choose you an amir." An amir.
So, from that, we can conclude that we can call ourselves amirs. So, the biggest amir? He's over all of us, right? Yes. See the President of United States is far from being the only president. There are a million presidents, more than that, in this country. But, they're presidents of corporations and other things, right? But, they're presidents, too. But, we have one president who is President of the United States voted in by all the people. He's the President of the United States. So, we could have emirs here and amirs there, emirs over sweeping the floor. When the bakery closes down, amir. Who's amir for the sweeping, he becomes our presidents. Imagine that. "You amir? Come here. Take charge, brother. You amir."
I believe if that had been done, wouldn't have had so much entry, so much undermining, so much trouble for Islam. But, Allah, too, is the foreseer, the all-knowing, and the foreseer, and he has a plan to override all plans that may develop. And his plan, as I understand it, as I perceive it, his plan was to bring more attention to this term "Khalifah" because the people were not educated enough back then to understand what is Khalifah. They were just introduced to it. But, the full meaning of it had not been given to them. And it took them years of study, studying the life of the prophet, and it only was a few of them, a select few among the top scientists are the top scholars and Islamic scientists, to come to the conclusion that the prophet is Rajilun Kamal. It means that he is the perfect man.
And he's also Rajilun Kamal. He is the complete man. He is the complete man, and the complete man is the perfect man. Once G-d has completed the man as he intended for him to be made on his earth, then he becomes the perfect man. Because perfect means meeting and satisfying the purpose or the designer or whatever, right? Then, it's perfect. So, when the man has met the qualifications were expected from him by G-d, then he's not only compete but he's also perfect. And the indication that Mohammed was a perfect is with the proclaiming the Qur'an to be complete and perfect. On this day, I have revealed for you your religion, huh? Completed my favor on you. Have perfected for you your religion and completed my favor on you, huh? So, this is in the book. He completed this favor on us and perfected. So, completion and perfection go together. The completion is the perfection. When it's complete as G-d intended, it is the perfection.
So, Mohammed, according to Lady Aisha, was the reflection of Qur'an. Moreso than that was the living Qur'an walking among us. That's how she described him. That's how the wife described the husband. So, if he has been the vessel for the revelation, the last revelation of Qur'an, and G-d has deposited the whole revelation into that vessel to cause a scholarly lady, Aisha... May G-d be pleased with her... To identify him as the embodiment of the Qur'an. That's what she said. See, they didn't speak English. They spoke Arabic.
As the embodiment of the... She's an embodiment of... He, pardon me, pardon me... Is the embodiment of the Qur'an. Then, it's his identity. It's his... Because she was asked to describe him. If his identity, then, is really the embodiment of the Qur'an, the Qur'an walking, living among us, expressing itself among us in mouth with words, and also with deed... Then, if he was that and the Qur'an was completed and perfect, then he himself's also complete and perfect.
So, the scholars' reason that Mohammed is the answer to an age-long expectation that was on the wise of the world, that man was being moved by his creator, by his shaper, to better and more-complete form, that he's not finished. That's why I says I will be what I am. I shall be what I am. What I am, I'm not yet. But, I shall be what I am.
Now, the Bible confuses the word of G-d with the flesh. So, when Moses was asked, Moses asked for fear that he wouldn't be able to have a thing of importance big enough to the demand and the respect of his people. We've already touched upon that. Where he was, where that... Oh, I'll just go back there and tell him, "Moses said this. I'm in trouble, G-d." I said, "Who must I say sent me?" Some translated, "I Am that I Am sent you." Others translated, "I Am what I Shall Be sent you." Huh? And even "I Am that I Am" in English, "I Am that I Am" mean "I'm not yet what I can be or what I'm going to be." "I a this I am" mean "I'm already." "I am that I am," down the road I am. "I am but I'm not yet that," I am. Huh? You see? So, even the English in the first wording or in the first expression said it, but it was too subtle. It was too difficult.
So, later, translators had to make it a little more plainer. "I Am what I will be," or "I Am what I shall be," what I shall become. I'm already that.
So, who could say that?
Who could say that with any more confidence than Adam himself, if he knew his creation? Adam doesn't want you to say that. Adam should say that. Somebody say, "Who are you, Adam?" If Adam knew that he was created to be the Khalifa and that he really was incomplete, but it was coming. See, Adam, he represents the line of life that continues. If someone say, if I would say, Muhammad was Adam, am I incorrect? No, I'm not incorrect. I'm perfectly correct. Muhammad was Adam in completion, in perfection. He's Adam. Adam starts with the first creation, the first act of G-d to create his man.
Mind you, Allah did not say to the angels, "I have created a man." G-d never said to the angels, "I have created a man. I want you to respect it." G-d says, "I'm going to create a man. I'm going to create a Khalifa." If you look at the term that's used in Qur'an, I hope you have patience with me here today. I don't want to bore or strain in anybody. If you look at the expression in the Qur'an as a person who has studied that word, that word has grammatical rules for it, grammar, how it is to be explained grammatically. You will know that G-d was saying not that, "I created or that I am going to create." By reason, yes, I'm going to create.
But actually, what G-d said is, "I am creating. I am in the act right now of creating a Khalifa, I am making a creator." Where am I making him? In heaven? Fil ard, in the earth. Isn't that what it says? You read it right? In Arabic. "I am making in the earth a Khalifa." That's what G-d says to the angels, but it's okay to translate it "I'm going to make in the earth a Khalifa." That's okay. I'm not saying that we should do away with that translation. No, that's okay.
But for teaching, you should make it clear that the verb says, "I am making. At this time, I'm doing this. I'm making now. I'm making," a ruler or a Khalifa in the earth. And then G-d spoke to Adam. Adam was the first step in that work, in that plan. Adam had in himself at that time the concept G-d created, and the concept at that time had all future possibilities in it. Although Adam, at that time had not awakened to all those possibilities. All the future possibilities were there.
Adam, when he was made, he became father of all the generations, father of even our leader, our father, the last father, Muhammad. Father even Muhammad the Prophet. Yes, because we know that. According to the teachings of the Prophet, Adam was the first concept. Out of him, it was possible to have all the other concepts, according to the teaching of the Prophet. It was possible to have Jesus, the Christ, peace be upon him. It was possible to have after him, Joseph, Yusuf, peace be upon him, and Idris, the fourth, peace be upon him, and Harun, Aaron, the fifth, peace be upon him, and Musa, Moses, the sixth, peace be upon him, and Ibrahim, Abraham, the seventh, peace be upon him, and Muhammad, the completion of all of them who led them all in prayer, peace be upon him. He was the eighth. He led the seven in prayer.
This is Islamic teachings. He led the seven in prayer, even his father, Adam. He led his father, Adam, in prayer. He led his father, Ibrahim, Abraham, in prayer. What is this telling us? That here is the son, the last son in that progression, in the prophetic progression. The last son, he leads even his two fathers in prayer. Did he lead them in anything else other than prayer? No, only in prayer. What is the prayer? The word. What is the word? The Qur'an, the completion and the perfection that they all aspired to reach. Now, here is the answer coming in the last one.
He leads them in prayer to demonstrate to us by way of metaphor, to demonstrate to us that here is the line of growth, completed. Here is what Adam wanted. Here is what Christ Jesus wanted. Here is what Joseph wanted, Yusuf wanted. Here is what Idris wanted. Here is what Aaron wanted. Here's what Moses wanted. Here is what father Abraham wanted. This is what they all wanted. They wanted the arrow to reach its target. Here it is, fired out of a bow, traveling along to the destination as though they're one. Reconciled perfectly, hitting the target perfectly.
It says he met him on the far horizon. It was a long ways from Adam's day, a far horizon. But that spirit finally got there. The job was complete and perfect. This is the way we should understand it. If Muslims are taught like this, am I teaching you anything that strains your brain? Isn't this easy on your head? Praise be Allah. The only justification for not making something general knowledge is that it will burden too much the common thinkers. I have a witness here that you common thinkers, I'm one of you. You're not burdened. You're relieved.
I dropped it down on your head like a feather, didn't I? Praise be Allah. What is their justification for withholding this knowledge from their masses? They're slave masters. Intentionally or unintentionally, they are slave masters. This is the common knowledge that will protect us and allow us to grow in strength and in quality, numbers and quality. This is the knowledge we need.
If they would give their followings, I'm speaking of the Muslim world. If they would give their publics, their following what I give you, they wouldn't have to worry about Christians coming among them, converting Muslims. There'd be no threat from Christianity. How can there be a threat from a lower plain to a higher plain? G-d has been raising this up from lower plains to higher plains, and we claim that Abraham and us sit on the highest plain. How can that be any threat to our zone from these zones beneath us?
This is not to speak the disrespect of the speaker, disrespectful way of Christianity and Judaism. No, it's not, at all, but it's simply to say, if that's all they have, what was written for them, we don't have anything to worry about. Now, G-d has progressed their thinking and enabled them to extract from what has been revealed to their part of the world and see the light Itas it should be seen in this completion and perfection. We still don't have any threat from them. We should make them our allies. We should become allies because we have been blessed by G-d, all of us, to come to the promised land. So much for Khalifa.
Now, the purpose in me dwelling on that concept, that idea of Khalifa like this for all this long time, because I believe that's our strongest starting point. When we want to understand, "What is my existence? What is this thing here?" I call it me, my flesh, my body. See, little babies, they can teach us something. We say, "I'm going to take a bath," but listen to the little baby sometimes. Sometimes, there's a little, alert baby among in the house, young, young, young child in the house. You're saying bath and the baby will say body, "Do I have to wash my body?" Body.
That's what you are. You're a body and conscience. Conscience is in the body. Consciousness, excuse me. This is not for anything but to put some air up under it]. As I come out, I catch cold. My heat goes straight out the head, comes out of here. I'm glad I have a vent. It is a little warmer here today. In fact, I'm going to ask you permission to take it off, but if I start to feel cool, I have to put it back on because the head is sensitive.
Now, Khalifa, talking about Khalifa. We've dwelled on this term all of this time to establish that the starting point for us in understanding what we are and where we should be going is Khalifa. It is the start. It gives us the complete picture that should be the motivation in our life for every interest that we have. For every area or field of interest, Khalifa should be the thing that generates confidence, hope in us. What can we not accomplish if we believe ourselves to be the Khalifa? If we are believers in G-d as Muslims.
Allah says that he has made everything in the sky. That mean the universe or the external world. He had made everything in the sky, the skies, he said, skies, plural, samawaat, everything in the skies and on earth, that he made it to give its service to his Khalifa. He puts Khalifa into the plural, meaning there will be Khalifas made all over the world, and they will be generation after generation. They will continue just like the generation of man. In fact, the Khalifa is the real line of the generation of man. It is the real line of the generation of man.
He says that he had made us khulafaa or Khalifas in the earth. If we understand that and we see that our starting part is Khalifa, something that's not finished, the finish line for the Khalifa is Muhammad. With Muhammad, all of us, if we follow the revelation revealed to him and his pattern, his pattern, his sewa, his pattern. Yeah, I wish I had a blackboard. I really do. I love a blackboard when I'm dealing with subject.
Now, look at this. And please keep this right here unless you tell it to a confidant, your confidant. What does [sew mean? Sewa means this, level. See that? That's what [foreign language 01:15:44] means. Now, if the prophet has a sewa we're to see it in a horizontal. We know the prophet was also created to stand up on his feet and be a man. You put the two together. What you got? Don't say it. Just keep it in your mind. Put the two together. You see what you got? All right.
Isn't it happy? I'll just say, doesn't it make us happy when we get the light without the darkness? Christmas is coming up here. We hope we won't crisscross anything. All right. Praise be to Allah. The starting part is that point. As long as we see ourselves in our ability, in our creative ability, our inherent, our creative ability, as long as we see ourselves, native ability, all refer to say, as Khalifa, then we don't need anybody to motivate us. Who can motivate us better than G-d? Allah is the best to motivate us. Allah has said to us that all of us in our essence, all of us in our pristine nature, in our original capacity, all of us have the potential to be his Khalifa on this earth.
Now, I want to tell you something that you don't have to whisper about. There are learned Muslims that I have met from different parts of the world, particularly from Pakistan, India, and Palestine, Palestinian, hinted very strongly to me by or from Saudi and Egyptians, that maybe Allah is making a Khalifa in America. That's what they're saying. I had some Asians come up to me and even told me, "But imam, you are the Khalifa." I told them the same thing I told you all. The Khalifa, not meant to be one man. We all are Khalifa. If we have someone who qualified to be the leader for us all, then that person should be separately called a leader for that group or the imam, but not Khalifa. That term is reserved because it is the property of the common person. It is the inheritance of the common person. If you make it the title for your leader, you take the common people's mind off it as their inheritance. They told me that. I witnessed, inside they were telling the truth. A Khalifa is being made in America. Oh, yeah.
I want to now digress from dawah, preaching, teaching the light, teaching the light, giving the light. It's just like military maneuvers, military maneuvers. A military man, if he's qualified to lead his army, he won't just go to the enemy. He will go to the enemy, and then at another point or another time in the battle, he would direct his soldiers look like they're going to retreat or going away from it. All that's done to assure them, getting to the enemy for the damage they want to do. We're going digress. If you're in the military, we're all going to digress for a little while.
Now, here is another point that I made on the West Coast here recently, but I see that we should make it now here, too, that we should be aware of and being aware just by itself, conditions. The biggest job of light is conditioning the life. That's the biggest job of light. See, when light comes, it doesn't always show you where you can go, but light makes you feel better inside. Light is relieving darkness and burdensome. That's when you want do things. That's why G-d said he made the darkness to oppress and made the light to liberate.
That's automatically one maneuver. I'm sure you who study, you understand what I'm saying. You understand my correct translation of that from the Qur'an. Now, pardon me, light, conditions. If light conditions us, as well as clear the environment so we can see where to go and how to go about it, what is this conditioning? I was about to say the conditioning is that it makes you feel better and it makes you less burdened. It makes you more prepared to act or to move, to do the things you have to do. It enlivens you. That's why the light is also called life. It enlivens you. It makes you more alive, feeling more alive, more active, got more energy to go now. It actually energizes you. Light energizes the spirit, just like the physical electricity energizes whatever it's sent into.
The light energizes the spirit. It also gives comfort because with light, this light becomes warmth too. Same light that gives us light also gives us warmth, goes back to sun, original light, the biggest light we have, the one that only Allah can hang up in the ceiling. It is hung up there. All of the lights lose their attention. They don't stay here anymore. They still exist, but they have no stage anymore, once Allah hung that big sun up there in the daytime.
We go back to the first light, the sun. What is the role of that light? This is the light that we should be comparing the light of revelation with, sun light. The sun light is a sign, a metaphor in our world pointing us to really the true light, which is the light of revelation, the light of enlightenment, divine enlightenment. That is a sign of that. Let's look at the symbol now and a sign of the real thing.
This sun does not only clear the environment for us to see things and approach them more safely and manage them more safely, et cetera, all this, but it also energizes us. It contributes to a happier day for us. Look how bright day. Isn't this a beautiful bright day? I've heard men of wisdom, wisdom in scripture, ancient scripture say that originally the sun was not a symbol of light, though it was a light. They say it was a symbol of happiness. It was a symbol of happiness. The light, the sun coming up meant happiness. The light of the sun meant happiness. The influence was happiness. This is what it meant to ancient people, that I'm told. I believe it. I believe it. I also did some research. I believe that in ancient times, they saw it mainly as a symbol of happiness, not just light.
We know that it is the element behind all other developments. The sun influenced weather more so than anything else, correct? The sun acting upon the earth, acting upon the environment, maybe not directly all the time, but the sun in its role influences weather more than anything else. It is the force behind all weather, cold, heat, cold and hot, rain and snow, sleet, everything, tides. We say the moon controls the tide. That's what they say. The moon has no light of its own. The moon has no phases without the sun. Its phases are caused by the sun and its path and its relationship to the earth in that path, around the sun.
This is how we have to explain. We explain whatever's happening to the moon, whatever happened to the earth, if we explain it, we have to go to the sun and explain it. Right or wrong? Now, plants grow, not really because of the rain. Rain is an additive. Grow because of the sun on the earth. The earth is the womb. The earth has the germ, but the sun must feed it. Now, before even there were germ in the earth, there was the sun. And the sun in time made the germ for production. Right or wrong? Scientific thinkers, I'm sure just instantly, you see it all. Yes, because we know before there was animal life, plant life, then animal life, and a lot of dying and decay, finally made humans soil. Is that science or not?
That's how human soil came into existence. Now from human soil, we get all the great production, All the great production. Things coming up and dying, dead, building up the soil is what made it possible for us to have the richness of soil here that we have now. G-d made his man, from what? Humus, not just soil, Humus. [Arabic].
He made his man from [Arabic]. He made his man from rich soil, fertile soil, and especially [Arabic]] is for the people of that time, their language, Masnun means soil, mud. You get a lot of light, a lot of fertility in the soil. It's hotter than the soil without fertility. You work the soil, you know that, right? You put this hand in this soil and fill it, then put it in sand. Sand is cooler. Put it in sand. (silence).
[Put it in sand, the soil cools. The sand, the soil, cools. The more fertile soil is warmer.
Masnun is a play on, it might be offensive to your smell. Sometimes, they just says it's from stinky mud. They translate from stinky mud. That's not an exact translation. Ain't nothing there stinking, but it just says that it's warm. It has heat and it's something that you might despise.
But out of that come the possibilities for your life and your future. Isn't it wonderful? It's wonderful. Yes. What built up all of that human for the life to be created out of? The sun. And the sun appeared to ancient man to rise up really from the bowels of dirt. The ancient man was not scientific. He didn't know where the sun was coming up from. Only thing he thought, it was coming up, and out at sea, it looked like it dripped some of its fire back into the water. He thought it was coming out of the water if he was at sea. Or if he was on the ocean, then the ocean was the east. When it rolled out of the ocean, he thought the sun was actually rising up out of the water. It appears actually to be dropping some of his fire back into the water. I've seen it.
It doesn't come up clean and clear. I mean clear the water. Then it rises up. You see beneath the sun, the illusion that the sun looks like dripping some of its fire down into the water that's coming up. G-d has made the rising of the sun on the oceanfront or lakefront, or things like that, to appear to the man that it's actually coming up out of the water. If the land is open, it appears that it's coming up out of the earth itself, that the sun is actually coming up out of the earth. If the land is not open like our city land, it looks like it's just flying across the sky. In any explanation, without science, it's a spooky thing, isn't it?
Only science took the spook out of it. We know now that it's just an inanimate body, a fire of burning materials. We know that now, but ancient man did not. First man did not. He was in the thulum, the oppressive doctrine, and he was being formed. G-d formed him to believe that a G-d is doing this. This is a sign to me that I have to read. How should I read this, my Lord? but he believes in his Lord. He know that something did it all. How am I to read this, my Lord?
He finally comes to read it as G-d intended him to read it, that that's the potential of the earth rising up out of the earth, that the potential of the earth comes up out of the earth to light the earth. Now, look at your earth, your body. You've also made a sun to rise in your body, in the dead matter of your body. Once your potential rises up and frees itself from the bowels of your personal body, it will light your world.
Yes. It was a sign that G-d gave ancient man. Then, the language becomes confused in time, and they take the sun to be G-d. Well, we went a long ways from the battle line, didn't we? We got down in valley and canyons and round hills, and everything. But now, we got to get back on the line, the direct line to the target.
So, I may say then, that the Khalifa can be metaphorically depicted as the sun, couldn't it? Yeah. Metaphorically pictured, or depicted as the sun. The Khalifa. Not the S-O-N. The S-U-N. We must come to understand religion. The life picture of religion, because when we're talking about religion today, we're talking about religion in a completely new picture, or new focus, or view from that, that men had before what we call the traditional or classical prophets of G-d.
You know, we talk about Adam ... history, man's history bear witnessing to certain development in the life of religious people. And, we can go back to a time when religion for man was what modern world came to call, heathenism, paganism, idol worship. I believe that paganism, or what we call paganism, heathenism, idol worship, I believe that this represents a decline in religion. I believe that originally, man did have what we will call, for want of a better term, primitive religion, but his primitive religion was not a corrupt thing like we find in much of paganism, or heathenism. I believe that his religion was the best that he could come about in his, then, human condition and circumstances. And, I believe that he saw, as I just explained earlier, things in the environment as messengers themselves of the G-d behind it all. He saw these things as messengers. The sun is a messenger, giving him a message. The trees, or the particular tree that attracted him, his attention more than others, as a messenger. Giving him a message.
Now, it's interesting to me, to note that in some languages, S-U-N, the sun outside is neutral or a neutral gender. In some languages, it's masculine. In some languages, it's feminine. Now, if my reading, that I established earlier, is correct, that the sun may be used as a sign or symbol of Khalifa, the potential that's in us, that's once it's freed or released, it becomes the light of our world. If I'm right, correct in that, then look how well this language problem supports what I'm saying? They can't give a gender to the sun. One language says it's a she, another language says it's a he. Another language says it's neutral. Isn't this the same problem we have with our own selves? This sex problem we have? We can't decide whether we should be man or woman, female or male, or unisex, or what. But, in our potential, we're both and the best reading as I said earlier, he must have both in him. Sensitivities of both in him in order to be a good ruler.
Now, you know, that takes a lot of the macho out of the man, doesn't it? Look at your body. If you're a normal man, come up naturally, normally, that right muscle is a little stronger than that left one. So actually, you got a female side and a male side. But, the scientists say most of your best help for your intellect comes from this side and not from this side. Isn't that what they say? So, the weaker side physically is the stronger side when it comes to intellectual ingenuity. You know, the beginning of the intellect for Adam didn't come until he had a wife. Hey, I'm talking straight, man. Actual facts. A history of language. A scripture, et cetera. Yeah, yeah. He didn't even know he had eyes until he got a wife. Wife caused his eyes ... His wife caused him to lose his sight. No, he just had to have a light in which to rest, so he could wake up and have more energy for another day, and a better day. Because, each time he went to sleep, when he woke up, he woke up better. More prepared for the day. Better prepared for the day.
In Islam the wife wasn't the cause of it. The wife ain't a partner with the serpent in Islam. The serpent is acting by himself, and he is deceiving both, the male and the female. He is causing a problem for both of them, and the woman is not helping him. She's not his partner. In Islam. Understand that about this brother who's preaching Islam now. The point I want to make, and I .... We got to watch this time. When it comes to this, I don't mind missing a meal ... if I have to. It's 3:15. Inshallah, we'll step it up. 3:20 almost. Going on 3:20. Yeah.
Now, the point that I want to make here, is this. That, religion for man, in the first stage ... religion has taken man to two stages. One hand, second hand. Religion, for man in the first stage, was man in the hand of G-d that represents the natural possibilities before revelations, you understand? Understand what I'm saying. That should be very clear. Now, religion for us begins with Adam, the first man, and the first man, with us, means the beginning of the strain in the intellect for enlightenment. So actually, beginning of religion for us is the beginning of revealed religion. A reveal to Adam, huh? Yes. G-d revealed to Adam, if we understand it. G-d reveals to Adam because G-d says, "I have breathed into him of my spirit." That means the gift of inspiration, divine inspiration and revelation. And G-d says, "He came upon a word, and he repented." The word was the word of revelation, and he repented for his wrong, and G-d accepted his repentance.
So, he's not the man of sin, he's the man of human nature. He's capable of making errors, he's capable of sinning, but that's what G-d created him for. G-d created him to learn by experience and to grow by experience. Not to repeat the mistakes he made, but to learn from them so he doesn't make them in the future, and be prepared to, perhaps avoid even bigger obstacles in the future, because he already met with the smaller one that later alerted him more, you see? So, we see it as a learning progress. We see, what they call a weakness in man, we see it as a component of his strength. If we didn't have the ... also, the capacity to err, along with the capacity to want to be perfect, we wouldn't progress. The angels have only one capacity. The capacity to be perfect. They don't have the capacity to err, to make errors.
But, it wasn't the angels that G-d said he put the degree over man, it was the Khalifa that he said he made a degree over the angels. Aww, I wouldn't exchange this human nature for nothing on earth or in heaven. Not even for Allah. Now, I know that might disappoint you. It's not in my nature to want to be Allah. I know Allah is the biggest, Allah is the best, everything. But, it's not in my nature to want to be Allah. The most attractive place for me is the place of human life and possibilities. Human life and human possibilities. That's the most attractive space for me. It's not in my nature, now that I understand G-d and the world, it's not in my nature to even want to approach, in any small degree, being G-d. No. Nobody could've started in that direction but a fool. It's a fool that started in that direction. A fool in wisdom, in revealed knowledge. Had to be a fool in revealed wisdom to start in that direction. Unimaginable. Can't even imagine. And, just the hint of it is so oppressive, it almost wipes out my existence. Yes.
To be an angel? No. I've been created for adventure. An angel never had any adventure. Angels just had errands to run. G-d created me to love adventure. Yes. So, let us not just hear the word religion and not know that there are two major progressions for religion. One is the progression for the man, and limited to five senses, analysis or perception of things, including religion. That's one progression. The second progression is the sixth possibility for man. The sixth possibility for man is revelation. Revelation made possible for him because G-d his created him with another sense. Intuitive sense. An intuitive sense. A sense that brings all the five senses together and acts as one. All senses in him come together, as a philosopher had said ... Western philosopher too ... All senses come together in him to function, or perform as one sense. They say, even a physical man, or a woman, loses their left arm, or left eye, what was in that goes then, to shift its power that it had to the other one, and the other one, the remaining organ or limb becomes stronger, huh? This is what they say they have finally discovered.
Now, I think that when all of those five die, or become as dead, when you say, "Oh, Allah, G-d, I have strained to find the way with my five senses. They have failed me. I dismiss every one of them. I don't trust any of them. G-d, wherever you are, guide me." Those five senses, then, become one sense. You put them down, and nature brings them all together, and they become one sense. And then you know, the thing you're having experiences you've never had before. What's happening to me? I'm seeing things while I sleep. I'm getting messages while I sleep. I wake up, and the narration continues. Now, that's some heavy information there. It done got heavy now. If it stops when you wake up, that's one phase, but if it continues after waking up, it's a dream. That's an everliving life. It has been turned on, not to go off.
So, you wake up from sleep and it keeps on without breaking its line of communication. No break in communication? Continued, pure, easy, free flowing communication, and it left off with "she," and you woke up, it continued right from "she." It starts from "she," no break in the communication. That's what happened to prophets. Messengers of G-d. They get that kind of communication from G-d. When, they become as black stone, the matter has died to its senses, and become as a black stone, deader than human soil, but so rigid, so rigid, hard, solid. And on that solid foundation, comes the understanding. Now, we're going to get to another hard level before we leave here, I hope, and it ain't going to be the stone, the black stone. It's going to be another, yes. Praise be to Allah.
Now, if we can understand that then, we should be aware of the tendency to become heathen, or pagan, or prehistory man, pre-classical man, in our religious makeup. There's a tendency. Don't think that's in the past. That dominance is in the past. We're not dominated anymore by that kind of world. But, the people are still here. We still have people who are in that first stage religion. They're in religion, not to open their minds up. They're in religion not to see their intellect grow. They're in their religion just to feel good and be free from sin, and have hope that they're going to have another life after this one. That's all they're in religion for. They're in religion, in the first stage. Those who are in religion in the second stage, they're in religion to improve the condition and state, and function efficiency of their intellect. Their minds. You find most religions, they devote some of their monies to having their own schools, don't they? It's a pity we don't have stronger schools. Inshallah, we're going to get there. So much for that. And, I segue again, digress, but all the way to the promised land. And, I don't think they got to the promised land. I don't even know if they got there yet, but ... We know it took a lot of battles, didn't it? You read the scripture, a lot of battles were fought trying to get to the promised land.
So much for that. Now let us come... Now, beaming in on the target now. What is the key role for man if he is to be successful with his life and responsibilities on this Earth. What is his key role? Khalifa. Khalifa. That's the key role. The Qur'an is the key and Al-Fatihah, is the first, the opening. Al-Fatihah is a hint to key. G-d doesn't call the Al-Fatihah the key, but he gives it the title, the meaning that hints to, alludes to key. Then, he says in the contents of the Qur'an, that the whole Al-Fatihah in its entirety, is a capsule of...now this is the scholar speaking, not me. The best of the scholars of Islam. They say that the Al-Fatihah contains the whole Qur'an. In Al-Fatihah is the whole Qur'an. Not in its narration, but in its purpose and in its power. That's why you can read only [Al-Fatihah in your prayers, because the Al-Fatihah, is the essence of the whole Qur'an. This is how they get it, and it's correct, as I understand it. I witness. See, it's correct without me witnessing, but I just want you to know that I witness to. G-d has blessed me to be a witness. Yes. Now ... Excuse me.
Key. Key. He says, in the Qur'an are keys, many keys, to what? To the skies, the heavens. Keys. And with Allah are the keys. This is Qur'an, and if you understand it, the keys are ... access to the keys made possible by revelation. So, with the Qur'an, we can have access to the keys for the skies and Earth, and with those keys, then we unlock the treasures, and then they render their yield to us. Huh? Yes. I'd like to talk more on each of these things, but to save time, I have to keep going. Now, here, if we understand it, the Qur'an and Muhammad belong together. The word and the purpose, G-d's purpose on Earth in man's life, belongs together, don't they? They must be reconciled. They must be brought together so that man, and the word of G-d, which is also the spirit of G-d, the inspiration of G-d, comes together in one, and then gives to man ... time, female and male, all nations ... give that to them, then that word, in man, in a material body will have the same effect on our possibilities for our life ... that the sun had on the dead earth for the possibility for life on Earth.
We see what the sun has done in time. It has just fed and grew life all over Earth. Life from the lower level to the highest of man, huh? Most complex, that's man. Now, we can recreate, can't we? We can have another creation, then. Yes. If this translation is correct ... this commentary, I may say ... if it is correct, then we can have another life, can't we?
... lower level on the plane of the authority may also be qualified by the people to pass an order. So, actually, it can go up, it can go down, delegating the authority. You don't say, "Can anybody give orders to the President of the United States?" No, not directly. Indirectly, yes. President, he has advisors, and some of them may see him going in the wrong direction. They will come with the logic, or with the correct information, they will inform him and he will have to change his idea, or change his decision and come up with something else, right? So, here, we have authority coming from a lower level to a higher authority, in man's society. This really speaks for a great democracy. When a man of higher can't take correction from a man beneath him, he's not ready for the idea of democracy. But, the man ...Allahu Akbar, the man on the lower level, he should be sophisticated enough to know that you're not to aggravate this man when you come to him.
So, after all, he's a bigger grinding wheel than you are. He might just hide all the evidence and grind you to powder, and sweep you right on out of the government. And, his [big wrong] might not be discovered for five to six generations. Lord, I'm saying, we have to be intelligent, and we have to be circumspect. Circumspect means, know what's happening all around, not just where you are. That's circumspect, you see? The focus is on individual, but we don't believe that the many are to lead the few. The few are to lead the many, and the many are to be a kind of gauge, a kind of gauge or a kind of monitor for the few to study to get indication when they are getting off track. After all, what you are doing is serving the group. You're serving not yourself, and not only the few. You're serving the many, right? So, the signals for your direction when you can't get it on your own from knowledgeable sources, Qur'an and the life of the prophet, are the people themselves. The people themselves. G-d will direct the leaders and caution the leaders through the people, themselves. The majority.
So, when you see something affecting them and they ain't pleased with it, question yourself if you're administering to them. If they're not happy, if they're not pleased with you, question yourself if you're administering to them, because Allah will speak to you through the people. He will speak to you from himself, his word, he will speak to you from the prophet and he will speak to you from the people. Isn't that what the prophet says? He told them to ... take advice. Yes, to take advice. To take advice, or to seek advice, and the question was, from whom? The prophet says, from Allah, right? And his messenger, and from those that you charge with authority, or responsibility. That's your Amir, your leaders in authority. Those in authority. He says, also from your [Arabic] and it means, your constituents. You're in a position of a leader, you have people influenced by you and your leadership, they are your constituents, seek advice from them too.
That doesn't mean just go to them and say, "Congregation, what do you think about this?" Yes, you're supposed to do that when it's necessary. But, it means also, you're supposed to monitor their state. When you see their state, that they are not pleased, or unrest, it should make you question what you're doing, and they will be a signal to you to get back on the right track, or to come away from something you done got involved in, et cetera. This is how it works. The whole. All the important parts work together for the success of the whole. This is a true democracy. When all the people are included in the shaping and promoting, or directing of the interest of the community. That makes for a true democracy.
As a philosopher, we may go a little bit further with this idea now and say that even though, because, philosophical thought, it doesn't only act, or make conclusions upon what is established, but it makes conclusions of what is alluded..., pardon me, what it's even alluded to, or what is possible maybe even though be in the hereafter, that far away. Now, since Allah, even though he favors just a few of us to realize so much of that capacity, the potential he's given us, that we're able to rise to the top, he has deposited in every single one of us. Every single one of us have it. We have it, or he or she has it. Now, the idea, for the society then, must acknowledge that. So, in the idea, the social idea or the political idea, whatever we want to call it, that we have to give us a sense or a perception of our society, how it should operate, that language should also say that each person, male and female, though they don't express or manifest the ability that G-d deposited in every human being, the laws, the land, the authority in this land, the law, the community, the authority in this community recognizes each and every person as being equal to the top person in the society, based upon what G-d intended for you. You're equal.
So, I'm not to see any person, male or female, no matter how less learned they are than I am, or no matter how bad they're behavior, I'm not to see them as an animal, or as a beast of burden that I'm to take and put all the physical burden on, make it do all the dirty things, take the broom sweep the broom. I'm supposed to be worried about his state, and I'm supposed to be trying to come up with ideas to reach his intellect. To turn his intellect on, so we never give up on any member of our society. The light of every member is the same light that each of us may claim, so we are to treat them with respect, and if we see them in a bad condition, we are not to put them in an oppressive situation where they can never come out of it, where they think that G-d intended for them to do nothing but sweep up the trash at the end of the day, or wash the pots, the pans at the end of the day. No, we're supposed to be hurt by that brother's situation. By him being locked into a groove, or a pattern like that. It should hurt us, and we should be trying to reach his intellect to let him know that greater things await you, brother. Allah means much more than this for you.
We should have this kind of compassion on the people. And if we have that kind of appreciation for each individual person on the equal level with the best of us, and we have that interest in freeing them for greater possibilities in their life, then we are really doing the job of Khalifa. We are really doing job of Khalifa. It won't be long if we're going to improve stuff. Now, so the community interest is bigger than the individual interest. The individual possibility works with the community or with the environment and the community to bring the environment and the community to its better future. You see? But the individual can't do it alone. The individual can't go nowhere without community interest because the community interest is the second component. It's individual interest, that's the number one component. In the individual interest inherently is the community possibilities. Are you reading me clearly?
Yes, in the individual himself, he has inherently, naturally put in him by his creator the possibility for the community future. So he is like the seed then, right? And the seed has to be planted in the field. The field must be the environment or the context for his future possibilities. So if we don't alert him and awaken him or place him in community interest, he has not much of a future. So we have to do two things. We have to, as clear as we possibly can, perceive the individual as Allah intended for him to be perceived in his concept. And then perceive the community interest as best we can based upon Qur'an and the life of our prophet, conceive the interest and then bring the two to be reconciled. Say, "Brother, you are a possibility for great things. You are really of the future of the earth in a seed form."
But the seed must be placed in earth, and the earth will feed your seed. Isn't that what happens? And the sun spirited, gives spirit to that seed. The sun spirits that seed. It gives spirit for it, spirit to it, and it energizes it and also supplies it with another form of energy. They call it chlorophyll. Is that it?
Chlorophyll, chlorophyll. It's green, isn't it? Yeah, it's green. Growth, growth, that's what green is, growth. You see? And we know that this is the way the tree goes. Isn't it? By the sun having a chemical effect on the leaves and the leaves feeding the tree and the roots. The roots taking up water and stuff, but also carbon. The tree is mostly carbon, isn't it? The body is mostly carbon. So that carbon is mostly coming from the leaves, if I'm correct, if I remember my science correct. Right? Come from that chemical process that's produced by the sun's effect on the leaves that makes them green, but also makes them take in energy, chlorophyll I believe it's called, chlorophyll. But also the chlorophyll enabled them to bring about the process of the changing that energy into carbon. Yes, carbon. The wood, photosynthesis. That's what they call it, photosynthesis. The process, photosynthesis. It's a big word. I'm trying to watch those big words, but that's the process.
But that's how the tree grows, not just from the roots, but also from the leaves. The leaves breathe, breathe and receive energy from the sun. They're taking in the oxygen, air, not oxygen, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide., But it has the same in it, huh? One dioxide, one oxygen. It's taken in and it's also take feeding from the sunlight by the process of photosynthesis, yes. And that's how the tree is able to get that big body, big, strong body. All plants must have leaves or some shoot to come out that will receive food from the sun. Right? If they don't, they can't grow. The mushroom, it grows in the dark, but it looks like it is a womb baby to me. And that look like a baby out of the womb to me. It look like a womb baby to me. I don't want to be in mushroom. I tell you that.
Yes. Now, in perceiving the society, the interest of the society is very simple. What is the interest of our society? The interest is to perceive ourselves first as social creatures. When our Lord tells us over, over and over again that he's made us as plants, plants also have male and female, they generate and they grow together. That's how they grow best. When you put certain grass to itself and keep other grasses out, that grass flies best, live best. So even the plant life flies best because it congregates better. It congregates or when it hangs out together, when they hang out together they find that if they get all mixed together they find weed and everything killing and strangling their lives, right? They find foreign life affecting their life negatively.
But when they grow together, they grow so nice together. If you put foreign plants as close as you put some plants of the same life form, you will not be able to get the abundance of growth that you'll get if you let those plants will get to themselves. So that's what Allah is telling us, that like should be with the like. And certainly the corrupt should not be mixed all in with the non-corrupt. If we are clean and decent, we don't want to have all the undecent people mixed all in among us. In fact, if I could I'd have sitting in a certain box over there. But we can't. G-d has given us no authority. The instruction from the prophet is that we don't have authority to look in their heart and mind and determine the value of them. Allah knows their value. So we can't judge that.
We may think a brother who drinks and set him over there with the corrupt. And that brother who drinks may be in heaven a little higher than us when we are resurrected. We don't know. We don't know. Maybe the drinking that you did with Islamic science made you a bigger drunk than he is. So you don't know. He may be on a higher plane in heaven than you. So it's hard for us to do that. But sometime I would like to see a good situation where all the corrupt, I know they're over there. I'd have these people that I have to talk to right here, I said, when I talk over there I have stuff for him to say. You're going to relax for you to address them, knowing that they're over there, you know? But we can't do that.
Now, what do we have to see first? That Islam is a religion that focuses the light on man and shows him firstly, principally as a social creature, that G-d intended for him to be a social creature, not to be satisfied being an island or on an island all to himself, that he must make and become bigger social units, family, tribes. And then until you embrace the whole community of man on this earth and see yourself as a member in one family, with all people, so man is a social creature. Man is a social creature. And the spirit of the Qur'an is social inspiration, social inspiration. It feeds our social aspirations. This word social is bigger than we think it is.
By social, we don't mean just associating with each other physically, but our dependency on each other, as members of a world or a society, we want to keep the focus on the community, the Muslim community right now. As members of the Muslim community, our dependency on each other brings us together. And our love for other brings us together. So here we have a love for each other that brings us together and a dependency on each other that brings us together. And pretty soon, we find that the teacher of the school has to be tied up full time in doing that. But there's also a need to have business growing in the community so that a business person is feeding business, taking care of business.
... social context and term of people keeps expanding, it grows. And as it grows, there is more demand for more things to take care of the needs of this growing people, right? At a home, he could have the regulation of the home in the parent. He can have the regulation of the economy of the family and the parent. He could have the regulation of the morals and the parents, discipline, the laws that discipline the family, being the parent, everything. Everything can be in the parents. That's a small unit. He can manage that. But when they stand to involve hundreds of families, he can't manage that. So it can go out and if it's nobody but him and his family, he can go out, take his sons out with him, they're able to with him, go out and plow the field, bring in his own food. Don't need nobody to regulate the economy for us. Right? Take care of all that.
But when we multiply in the social unit, it's the social unit that's getting bigger. The social unit gets bigger and brings in demand for industry, for more sophisticated government, more complex government ideas, and everything else we can think of. There is not one other single influence responsible for the growth and development of society, other than the social principle or the social influence. Am I correct? Yes. You think about it. Science will tell us these things, but think about it. But look, now, go back to the sun as a symbol. The sun, I said earlier, that it is the principle behind all the changes in weather and the growth and everything, isn't it? So here you have now me saying that the social interest, the social principle is the influence behind all the other growth and possibilities. Can't we then say the sun is also a symbol of man as a social unit? And the Khalifa is male and female? And the purpose of female, male and female is to have generations? So that's the social principle. So the Khalifa is the social principle. He is the sun. He is just a social principle.
And now we are talking about religion, how religion offers support to the community for community empowerment, community empowerment. And what it offers also for economic dignity. But I would say the motivation for economic dignity in the plan of G-d is first social dignity, social dignity. And what I've established to you over this long time that I've been talking is a real interest in the social dignity, the social honor. G-d says that he has created everything in honorable pairs translated also noble pairs. Nobility means a lot to men of intellect and women of intellect. So he says he's created everything in noble pairs. Then Allah says he has made honorable or noble every child of Adam. You see why now? I mean, you see the understanding of that now? Because they're inherently the Khalifa. So he made honorable and noble the son, every son, or every child of Adam, both male and female, can't be separated. So male and female, that when the two come together, they represent the social interest in this language, the social interest, right?
The beginning of the social interest. And G-d says that he made us how? In pairs. Isn't that what he says? So this is proof and revelation that the social interest is our nature. So he made us in pairs. And then he goes to take away that macho insanity. He says that he made you one from another. After he said he made you from one person, then he comes back and he said he made you one from another. Meaning a male is made from a female and a female is made from a male, made you one from another, the social, the social principle, the social interest, the social principle. The beginning of the great construction of this democracy that have all lived every other form of democracy or other form of government until now and it is really a kind of beacon light for the rest of the world.
Right now it's serving as that, right? We have other nations coming under pressure to bring their democracy or to accept democracy or to bring their democracies up so that their democracies won't shame man on this earth. Not that we are satisfied with this democracy, it doesn't mean that at all. But I'm just pointing to that. And the beginning, I repeat, of this movement, the movement to construct this great idea of democracy started with what? The social principle. You who studied the history, you know it started with the social principle. Man identified as a social creature by nature. Inherently he's a social creature, not a political creature. Inherently he's a social creature. And it is his social interest that solicits our requisition of the political establishment and every other establishment. So if we neglect the social life, the social interest, the social dignity of our community, of our people, we are aborting all of those other great possibilities. Aren't we? Because the first womb is a social interest. It's going to give birth to all the others. So if we don't tend the first womb, the first mother, look what's going to happen.
So I think I'm giving you a key for making your community a progressive, productive and progressive community. Now, maybe I'm dreaming and I'm not on in the world of reality myself, but I don't think so. You all have to wake me up if I'm dreaming. But I think I'm awake. So if I'm awake and you say I'm awake, then don't hear what I'm saying and go home and rest on it like you rest on a good dinner that you're going to pass most of it out tonight or tomorrow if your system is regulated. Yeah, so don't do that. If you do that, if you find something is going out, be a scientist. Pick that crap up, man, and get a microscope and see what came out in there that I digested from the Imam last night. I didn't mean for all of it to go out that way. Maybe you discovered something in there for agriculture.
What I told you is simple. I told the brothers when I was coming down, I said, it shouldn't be many questions when I'm finished because my plan is to make it so clear no one will have a question. So that's what I've tried to do. And I brought you to the point where I wanted to bring you, and I can say what I want to say now away from the subject but yet in connection with the subject, with no difficulty whatsoever. We must be different. We can't go on being just like we used to be in the past. We must be different from the majority of the African American people. We must not follow in their pattern of behavior. We must not follow in their moral behavior. We must not follow in their social behavior. We must not follow them in their business behavior. We must take on a new business behavior. And we must demand that we have business people in our community that can supply us our needs. Our grocery needs, our clothing needs, all of our needs. We should put pressure on them.
Say, brother, you're qualified. Brother, you have so much education. Brother, why don't you go on back to school and complete that education or why don't you take the education you've got now and go get some specific knowledge in this particular area. We think you can be a good grocery store operator. We think you can be a good a banker, a good financier. Let us put pressure on our people that have promise, that tell us by their qualifications that they can do more for us than they're doing. Let's tell them that you have an obligation to produce, not just for yourself, brother. Your interest is community. Allah created you for community interest. The community is a social entity by its nature that G-d gave it. And G-d created you, brother, to contribute something to your community, to provide for your community.
We are supposed to be providers. To provide you must have something. So that means you have to own something, you got to be responsible for something or own something. You have to make it produce and come up with the supplies or the provisions that the community must depend on. We can start with simple things, with easy things, start where we can start. I don't believe in going after the impossibilities and stepping over the possibilities. That's stupid. But a lot of our degreed people will do just that. You come up with a simple vision and then make it so damn complicated... Excuse me for the language... that will make you go home and you have locked bowels for two weeks.
Hell, what's happened to the beautiful idea we had? And we don't want that. Yeah, so this world, they give our people practical knowledge, but they give them so much imagination and theory and dreams in terms of where they can go individually. So they forget to put the interest first on the tools that they have to use get where they want go. And they put all the attention on the mirror, looking at the picture of how I'm going to look when I get there. And they can never get there because they can't stop looking at themselves what they're going to be when get there. Support African American business. And start first, if you're a Muslim, with your own Muslim brother. Support your African American Muslim brother's business. And if there are any non-African American Muslim brothers in your congregation, make no distinction between them. They're just like the black ones. They're in your congregation. Once a brother is in our neighborhood or in our congregation, no color matters at all. He's with us.
The brotherhood of Islam is more powerful than the brotherhood of blood, of race. So you make no distinction if he's in your community. But if he's outside of your community, why help the Janglese... ain't no such thing as Janglese. Don't look it up. It ain't even in the dictionary. Why help the Janglese Muslim community and you belong to the African-ese, the African American Muslim community. You belong to African American Muslim community. Is your community so strong and so solid that it can now give aid to the Janglese community? Or do you need aid? You need aid, you keep your effort here. Support yourself and build yourself up strong so that your hand will not be like that. Your hand will be like that one day.
Yes. And that's the honor, so says our prophet, prayers and peace be on them. That's the honor being able to do that to somebody else and then help bring them up. Praise be to Allah. So this is what I want to see. I want to see the community, Muslim community continue to have an interest in our community, grow in the government, grow in the politics of this location, of this area. Grow in business, support your good business people. Business people, form an association. You already have it, but I'm telling you again, because there maybe some here that's not with you. Business people, form an association that will not jeopardize the members of the club or the members of the association, but bring the members together so they can benefit from each other's resources. And I'm talking about most of all mental resources, intellectual resources, brain resources, brain resources.
Come together so we can benefit from each other's experiences and mental resources. You see, because the knowledge that is missing in you and perhaps even those working immediately with you, may be with another brother that belongs to your congregation. When we all come together and share freely each other, without charging each other things, benefiting mutually, you are having social interaction on a higher level than just entertainment and eating and dining. This is the more productive level of social interaction. And your ability multiplying growth much, as much as I would like to say to you, I could stand here and talking to us this time tomorrow, and I won't finish. G-d knows it, but I have to go and you have to go. Thank you very much. May G-d forgive us our shortcomings and our sins, and grant us 


