05/11/1997
IWDM Study Library
Leadership in Community Life
Grand Rapids MI

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Praise be to Allah. That is Praise be to G-d, who created the skies and the earth and everything and the human beings for His worship. We witness that He's one and that He has sent to human people, human communities since the beginning of time Messengers from Himself, guides to guide us, teach us to teach us by word and by also by example. Messengers called also Prophets. Prophets and Messengers. Since the time of Adam till today, the time of the first ancestor till today, we witness that Muhammad to whom the Qur'an was revealed is the Messenger, uneducated or untutored Messenger mentioned in the scripture that would be a teacher and a liberator to break all the bonds of slavery and the worst of slavery. The worst form of slavery is what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad used to call the mentally dead, the mentally dead, the enslavement of the intellect, the enslavement of your rational mind.
We also would like to acknowledge at this particular time that people were once one community under G-d and G-d chose to have them differ. G-d permitted us, created us to be different, to differ with each other. So we differed with each other mainly because of our geographies where we were born, those geographies, the climate that is the climate of one country produce people in one sensitivity and provided them with work, one type. And in another land far away, quite different in climate, they were formed of different sensitivities and learned different skills or different kinds of work. And G-d said He did this so that we will one day want to get acquainted with each other or so that we will become acquainted with each other and benefit from each other. So this world has become now as what they say, the global village, one world society. Made one world by communications, modern communication, television and all the other computers and all the other technologies we have. And the world has become one world. We can see what's happening in Asia Far East on television, the news this evening, six o'clock news. Or the news, whenever it comes, we can see what's happening in Asia. We can see what's happening in Africa. We can see what's happening all over the world. It can be brought right into our living room. So man can't hide from man anymore. There's no back alleys, dark back alleys.
The world has become one bright street, one bright Broadway, where everything can be seen and brought to the eyes of all of us. The big corporate businesses, they have been made aware of this before, perhaps before even the media was because they have to deal with people in their different areas of the world and in their different circumstances. So they have become aware a long time ago that the world is becoming one global village. And there must be the recognition of people, nations and their will for themselves. And their will for themselves has to be respected and there can no longer be a monopoly on the resources of other people or monopoly on the resources of this great earth that our G-d made produce abundant things for us to enjoy and utilize for our own good life, human life. No one people or no one nation can claim that anymore or have a monopoly on it because of military might or some other advancement over other people.
So this world is becoming more and more a world of justice, not by man preaching it into existence and not by nations, even America. Doing things to bring it into existence is something that has happened very naturally because of natural causes, manmade causes, but also natural causes. Manmade causes have gone beyond man now, he can't control his own creations and his own works have gone beyond his own control. As one speaker recently put it, there are trends, global trends. There are things happening in the business world and in the social life of people that are really beyond our ability of corporate world or governments to control it. It has gotten out of man's control. This is the will of G-d prophesied in the scriptures that one day, the natural forces, man's own life is also a natural force. The natural forces will usher in G-d's justice, G-d's justice, G-d's justice.
So we are living in that time now and this is a good time. So my main message to people nowadays in this time is to don't be downhearted. Don't be sad. Lift your heads up. Be happy. This is the best time on earth for man ever in the history of man today. This time is the best time ever for man. Our Prophet is the Muslim Prophet Muhammad to whom our holy book, the Qur'an was revealed in his day. In 570 AD he was born and he lived and preached until he was 62 or 63 years old.
And his time was a time of darkness and ignorance. People living savage lives or barbaric lives and happy in their folly, happy in their foolishness. And it was the Qur'an, the scripture revealed to Muhammad the Prophet in Saudi Arabia it's called now, but it was just called then the land of the Arabs, the land of the Bedouins, the roamers of the desert, the Arabs. It was called that. And in a matter of 20 years, all of that changed. The world changed eventually, and people of all colors and all nations begin to want to see civilization rise again. Respect for education rise and respect for human beings rise. So as a result, within a matter of a few hundred years, we had the great revival of the sciences in Europe called the Renaissance. Martin Luther as you know, he began to revive the Christian society or reorder the Christian society because of the revival that he was experiencing himself.
And then came the Protestant, Protestant world and later the Democratic world, what we call now Democratic West. All of that developed as a result of the enlightenment that was brought back with the teachings of Muhammad the Prophet on the peninsula of Arabia about 14 centuries and maybe 15 years ago. So now we are realizing a different world. And as Muslims, we have to read the signs of time today and then look at our religion and see what our religion has to say about these times. Our religion has a lot to say about these times. Before going further to show how community, in fact of what I want to get at is community life. G-d reveals religion to us and give us guides, teachers and guides to guide us to the community life that is best for our human creation, for the human creation that G-d gave us. The best human creation we have is what G-d gave us. So before going into that, I want to just mention something else that's easy to understand, especially for middle aged and older people, but even younger people will understand it.
With man's world, good comes and sometimes bad comes also, we know this. I'm referring now to the effect on our minds, on our ability to reason, to think straight, to think in a rational, reasonable, intelligent, logical way. So man's world sometimes inspires this. In fact, it does. Inspires that in us. It assists the minds intelligence. And at the same time, on the other hand, I'd rather say it that way. On the other hand, man's world also has a dullling effect, a crippling effect on the ability to think intelligently, to reason, to follow logic, to follow good sense.
It has the same effect also on skills. On skills. The skills that we can come into on our own. Because of man industrializing the world and taking over industry, we don't have and they don't have the urge or the desire to do very much in an industrial way on our own. So in societies where industry hasn't developed very strongly, you'll find common people, common communities of not very enlightened people or not very educated people, but they will be survivors. They will be survivors, they'll be creators. They will have skills, they'll have crafts and skills, they'll be able to do things. They could make boats for themselves. They could have transportation on the river. They could make carts to be pulled by horses or mules. They could build houses, homes for themselves. They did all this without the industrialists, without the big Corporate world. They did these things. And they were able to sell and barter and make money and survive and live a pretty good life, some of them. But now when industry comes and replace all that, over long haul, it seemed to lose that they lose those natural abilities. They lose those natural skills. But we don't only lose the skills, mental skills, mental skills, but we also lose crafts, skills with the hand. We lose those skills and we lose industry. And the big industry takes over our lives.
Now, in situations where we didn't have that happen for us in the societies of the world, we don't have gang problems like we have here. We don't have people destroying each other and killing and interfering with the progress of the society like we do. You have one people trying to take over another or one people claiming that this town belong to us or this area pardon me, belong to us. And they'll have tribal wars or fighting over hunting grounds or something like that. But you won't find the breakdown of the family itself or the breakdown of the society itself like you find in the modern world. And that's because as I said, this is recognized by those who study society. And we can pick it up in their notes, in their articles or periodicals and whatever, or in libraries and encyclopedias on these different things on these developments.
As I said earlier, the industrial world seems to have a positive effect and also a negative effect on us. Now, that's the industrial world. Then comes in the commercial world. And the commercial world sometimes, most times, is much worse than the industrial world. The industrial world will just cripple us, take over our lives and impose situations on us that says you don't have to do nothing now but watch TV and go out of your house to work and go back in and get some rest and go back to work. But the commercial world now, it appeals to our appetites and it will sell us more than what we really need. And it will sell us something we don't really need. A lot of things we don't really need. And it will take our minds off of home and family and put our mind on getting the new thing, having the new convenience, et cetera.
So the commercial world comes in and it does another job on us. And still worse is the entertainment media, entertainment media. Entertainment media then presents us with the popular person who has all these conveniences. And this television is in every home now. So our families are exposed to this, our little children are exposed to this. Our weak-minded and strong-minded members in the family are exposed to the same thing. So how come I can't have that car? How come I can't have that television, that color television with 69 channels or with 120 something channels? How come I can't have that? They have it, it's on TV. It's on TV, mama, how come we can't have that? How come I can't have those $160 sneakers, gym shoes. They're on TV mama, they're at the store. They're at the mall. We can go down the mall and get those mama.
So mama now, she can't handle all this is too much for her to handle. So she's almost going crazy. She doesn't know how to give any answers and she thinks since it's on TV, she's supposed to give it to her son. So she's working, the husband working, but all the children that can work, they're working just to try to keep up, trying to stay in style. So this is what happened to us. And we say, oh, our life is in a mess. We can't handle the responsibilities anymore. We can't handle the responsibility of family anymore. We can't handle responsibility of managing our households anymore. We can't keep our children anymore. They're gone. They're gone from us. We are losing them. You didn't do this by yourself. You had big help for all of this. Not only that, disrespect for G-d, the weakening of faith in G-d and sacred things.
We didn't do that on our own. The world has done that to us. And now the world is realizing that and they want to change it. They say "Oh, this is a one world society now and the business world can't survive with all of these people not being responsible and not being conscious." So now all of the great institutions that used to support the unraveling, the unraveling of our life now want to put our lives back together because they see the handwriting on the wall. They see dooms day if they don't hurry up and do something about it. So now we have all the bad guys on our side again. This is a good time in spite of all the trouble, this is a good time. This is a good time. G-d's justice has come at last. And we have Presidents now speaking as though they went to the seminary to be educated.
Yeah, they're speaking like religious leaders. President Clinton. Look what he's saying. Look what General Colin Powell is doing. Here's a man who was trained to kill the enemy, trained to defeat the enemy. Enemy on a battlefield. But what has he come out with? An idea and a program to save our youth, to save the youth who have no fathers in their homes, who have no role models. To give by the year 2000, to give 2 million role models to youngsters that don't have any role models now. And he's been successful in getting, attracting big Coroporate business to his idea. And they have pledged great sums in material contributions and also in grants, money, to help bring this about. And there are organizations, the religious organizations that are working for justice and peace in the world, such as the World Conference on Religion and Peace, WCRP, the World Peace Council and the World Parliament of Religion and many others. Muslim World League based in Mecca, Muslim Congress in Pakistan. All of 'em are thinking the same way. I'm in touch with all of 'em. I'm a member of most of them. In fact, I'm an honorary International President of one of the biggest of them. Yes, and I know what's happening. So the world now is geared decently. It used to be geared very deceitfully. It used to be geared up very deceitfully. But now it is geared up very decently to help humanity get consciousness back, get consciousness back. The consciousness that G-d created us for. Respect for that that is bigger, respect for that that is superior. And G-d says to us in Islam, it's in Christianity too. If you know how to identify it, the language is there. Says "Man, think not that your creation is a bigger creation than the skies and the earth."
This world that G-d's made, G-d made is bigger than us. We can't manage this big world that G-d created without G-d's help. That's what G-d wants us to know. That this big world of skies and earth is too big for you man to handle by yourself. Then G-d puts in man a tendency in his nature, a tendency in his behavior that gets him into trouble. But G-d is proud of him. Young boy, like some parents, mothers. I know mothers, I seen my mother, she'd be looking at me doing something, being mannish. She say, mannish, boy, you're mannish. But she'd be smiling. She'd be so happy that I at least want to be a man, like to see a little boy want to be a man. She said, you little mannish rascal you, she'd be smiling. I wouldn't be in trouble. Well, G-d looked at man after He made him and He said, you little mannish rascal you. You going to get yourself in trouble with that behavior. But that tendency in your behavior, G-d says, He puts it this way. He said, And G-d, after creating everything, He invited the angels and the mountains said, who wants, the mountains are symbolic of something else now. He says, "Who wants to accept responsibility for keeping this world that I have created?" Said the mountains refused, the angels refused, the mountains refused, and man rushed up. "I G-d, I'll accept that responsibilty."
And G-d replies, replies not directly to him, but for all of our benefit says, "Man tends to be cocky and fool hearted biting off more than he can chew too often." Yes. Well there's a lot to be said about that. Urban renewal in Chicago, I don't know about in Detroit and Grand Rapids all around. And by the way, sisters Happy Mothers Day to you wonderful creation. The women, the mothers, and to all of you women because every woman, every female was created to be a mother. And just because you don't physiologically have children or something like that or have children from your own body of biology, that doesn't mean that you are not a mother. That's why the Catholic church, they call all the women serving mothers. They call 'em mothers because that's what you created for. You're created to be a mother.
And the Honorable Elijah Muhammad used to say in the Nation of Islam that the black woman was created to be the mother of civilization. So you all have a big motherhood responsibility. Yes, because I believe that. I believe that G-d created all the females to aspire for that role of being mothers of civilization, taking care of man even after he have gotten so mannish that he think he can replace G-d. Still, your mothers will say, look at that mannish boy and correct our thinking and help us back, get back on the road to civil life or to civilization. Yes. Now I want to back up again a little bit and go back to this reasoning ability that we lost, these skills and reasonability that we lost. You know if we were just left the alone to have our normal good senses, if someone would come and tell us that the tree is G-d, we would laugh. We would just laugh. Ancient man is supposed to have believed in all kind of things as G-d, but ancient man didn't believe that those things were the G-d alone by themselves. They believed that all those things together, all G-ds together made up the G-d ship. So he was just believing that in a lot of G-ds, you see, a lot of G-ds that made up the G-d power, the G-d power. Not quite like us. Some of us in modern times we'll look at an Afro comb and make it G-d. This is G-d, man. This is G-d. We are really strange. And we will take something that may, something that we can ourselves conquer and defeat. We know we can conquer that thing and defeat that thing and we'll say that's a G-d.
But if you just use your common good senses that a child, in fact I've experienced some children have this kind of reasoning, Where is the power in physical things? Some of us tend to think that as one youngster told my stepdaughter here recently, he was a youngster affected by some idea of G-d that's strange in my mind, in my view it's strange. And he told her, he said, I can't believe in any G-d that I can't see. That's what he told her. So he was trying to convert her from believing in a G-d that is not material. So he said, I can't believe in any G-d that I can't see. So I said, think about it. I said, the biggest material thing you can look at is supported by something you can't see.
I said, and that's the earth. That's the biggest thing in our eyes is the earth. And science tells us that it's floating in space and you can't see what's holding it up. Science tells us that. And we know every other body out there. They say Jupiter is bigger than the earth in it's mass and it's size. And we know Jupiter too. The telescope shows us Jupiter. And nothing visible is holding Jupiter up there. So it's an invisible power between these bodies that these bodies have, and they act on each other with their invisible power. And that's what holds all of them in space. It's called universal gravity.
So shouldn't that be a sign from G-d to us to not to put all importance on the reality that you can see with your physical eye? Now look at man's progress as a creator himself, as an inventor, as a scientist, as an industrialist. Look at his own world of creation. The greatest strides he have been able to make were made possible by discoveries that we can't see with our eyes. The molecular structure of things, the atomic structure of things. We can't see that with our eyes. The energy that is used, the atomic energy. We can't see it with our eyes, but look how much power it has over the things that we can see with our eyes. Shouldn't that be a sign to us from G-d? Don't put so much importance on the thing you can see. Then look at us, human beings. You look at me and say, "Oh, I know him. I've seen him or I've seen his picture."
But there are people who support Imam WD Mohammed, identify with this community and they have never seen me. I'm sure there's some never saw my picture. Yes, because there are new ones coming all the time. I'm sure there's someone with us never saw my, waiting to see me or waiting to see my picture, but already they're following us. So what is he following? Is he following what he can see with his eyes? No. He's following what he heard with his ears or what he read on the paper. He's following a language, a reasoning. That's what he's following.
And what am I really? Am I this 180 pounds of flesh? And that's too much. I'm sorry to admit it. No, I'm not that. I'm my mind. I am my mind and I am my sensitivities. I'm my sensitivities and my mind. I'm my emotional makeup. That's what I am. And my intelligence. I am my taste, my taste for food, my taste for values, my taste for principles, my taste for decency, et cetera. I'm all these things that you can't see with your physical eyes. So the real person is the abstract person, more so than the concrete person. The real person that you love and know is the abstract person more than the concrete person. That's why G-d with scripture have described us as spiritual beings. Spiritual beings. Because it is the unseen makeup that's the better makeup, the true makeup, the makeup that more correctly identifies us. So let's get away from this thing that Satan has put into us to make us just gravitate toward material things and the concrete thing and say, this is the real thing, here is the real thing. The real thing is more the unseen than it is the seen.
And some people say, "Well G-d, I can't see G-d." Yes, you can see G-d, but you can't see G-d with these eyes. Moses wanted to see G-d, but he thought he wanted to see Him with his eyes because his people had raised him to think that he should see G-d. In our Holy Book. his people asked him say, Moses, show us G-d in body. Who you talking about you talk to some G-d. They said show us this G-d in body if you want us to believe in Him. This is what our Holy Book tells us that the followers of Moses told him, challenged him. "Show us this G-d walking around like we are in body." Jaratan is the word in Arabic. It means in body, in this body, visible material body. And G-d says that they asked a terrible thing, a terrible thing, but they didn't understand the gravity of their wrong, the gravity of their sin, the gravity of their absence of faith, the seriousness of it.
By gravity, I mean the seriousness of it. They didn't understand it, but they asked the thing that would outrage the heavens and earth so G-d says. So Moses being an uneducated, untrained person, he's trying to lead his people into a better way out under oppression, the oppression of Pharaoh. So he's going to try to get some answers for his people. So he said, "G-d, let me see you." Not for himself. Because his people were putting the pressure on them. On him, pardon me. Let me see you. So G-d says, you can't see Me directly. You can't see Me directly. So our eyes, physical eyes, can't see G-d directly. Like I look at that curtain or the drapes. I see this mic, I see it directly. We can't see G-d like that. But we can nevertheless, we can see G-d. How? Indirectly, by reference, by reasoning. It is our rational mind that enables us to understand the existence of G-d and to perceive the existence of G-d.
Perceive not only the existence of G-d, but perceive also the overriding will of G-d. G-d's plan in creation, G-d's plan in the life of people. We can see that, but not with these eyes, with our rational mind's eye, with our rational mind's eye. G-d never promises a believer that you will see Him with your eyes. Your eye. What Eye? So what will happen? All of us going to have one out? No, it's the inner eye, the eye of your good sound, intelligent reasoning. That's the eye that you are able to see G-d with. It is a vision inside you that you're able to see G-d with. So these things are important for us to understand, especially with our youngsters being so confused in the streets nowadays and coming home telling us things that disturbs us. Oh, my friend said that he would never believe in a G-d that he can't see. We have to have a reply to them. We have to tell them something.
So we believe in the bigger over the smaller, the bigger over the smaller. And we believe as Abraham believed that this universe, all this material world that we look at it follows laws. So G-d says who, pardon me, Abraham says the G-d, real G-d is not the one that follows laws, but the real G-d is the one that made the system of laws, the system of laws. So Abraham reasoned that nothing that we can see in this system of matter is G-d. And the whole thing taken all together can't be G-d, but G-d is the one who designed that system and can't be seen directly. But if we study that system, that system will suggest to us an artist, a designer behind it. And that is the G-d. Yes, in truth, G-d is invisible to these eyes. And so are we. If you've only seen me in this physical shape, you have never seen me. But if you've seen my mind, my feelings, my thoughts, my direction, my vision, you'll see me. Thank you very much for that. Now we want to talk about leadership a little bit in the remaining of the time and the time is passing. Talk about leadership just a little bit.
Community is the situation that G-d wants for all people, all religious people. He want us to have a sense of community. G-d our Creator wants us to have a sense of community. G-d did not create man to be alone. He made Adam, but Adam wasn't finished until He made Adam a mate, a woman, so that Adam would have children and so that the family of Adam would have community life. Community life. So G-d wants us to have community life, and as long as we don't have family, wife or husband, family and community, we are alone. Alone in the Bible in a scriptural sense means that you have no situation for your destiny to get where G-d wants you to go. You don't have a situation that will help you get where G-d wants you to go. So community is the necessity. And G-d says to us it is more important for us to see that G-d has made us a community than it is for us to see that G-d made us man or G-d made us woman.
G-d says that I have made you a community, a community, a united community worshiping Me, for My worship. So G-d made us a united community for service to G-d. But service to G-d is to be understood in service to mankind or in service to humanity, in service to ourselves and our families and families extended, extended until we reach the whole human population with our service. That's how service is to be seen. Because our Creator, who's G-d, He needs none of our service. He needs none of our service. So everything that we do, that is of use to human beings that is beneficial, benefits human beings, G-d says it's an act of worship, an act of worship. Can you believe that? Yes. G-d says it's an act of worship. So the doctor who's, who's trying to help a patient or who's working on his medicines, mixing them to help a patient, in our religion, that doctor is doing an act of worship just like the Imam who is leading the people in prayer.
In fact, his act of worship is more important than the Imams act of worship. If the Imam is not supporting his act too. Yes, if the Imam does nothing but just lead people in prayer, according to our Prophet, his devotion to just the spiritual side is not as important as the people who are doing something constructive in the community to help other people. And this is Christian, it's a message of the Gospel too. You can't be holy unto yourself. You can't have rituals on the clouds and expect for G-d to give you credit for your work if you don't have some work down here in the community of people. Yes. So both religions are saying the same thing. So we need a community situation. First community is formed or it is developed upon an idea. There must be an ideology. There must be a conception of how community is to be developed.
That idea comes from political theorists, but in religion, in scripture, in sacred scripture the idea come from G-d. And the Qur'an brings these practical matters to us more so than any other revelation that ever came before. And I think it's because man, mankind was moving more and more to have to depend upon the practical things in order to survive and live in a civilized way with other people. Backward nations are sometimes conquered, oppressed, and even enslaved upon what rationale or upon what judgment? Upon this judgment- That they are a detriment to civilization. They're interfering with civilization. They're holding back the march of civilization. So the civilizer use that to justify him coming in, conquering him, taking over their resources and pushing them aside. Yes, that happened to the American Indian, the original natives of the new world.
So I think this emphasis on practical things is just something that time and progress was going to bring about. So G-d saw it and missioned Muhammad to teach us to look at the practical things. G-d says, "Seek with the means that He has given you the afterlife, the hereafter, the destiny beyond this world. But G-d says, but don't forget your share in this material world." Now you won't find that plainly said it like that in other scriptures. I haven't found it, but it'll be hinted in other scriptures. It'll be hinted in other scriptures. But in Qur'an, in the Muslim Bible or in our Holy Book, it's not hinted, it's said plainly. I can give it to you in Arabic if you want it. A few of you speak Arabic, you want it.
You ask any child speaking Arabic, Christian. And a lot of us don't know that they're Christian Arabs. They've always been Christian Arabs. They in the great minority in Lebanon and in some other places, they're Christians, they've always been Christian. They didn't all become Muslim. Some of them remained Christians. And if you ask the Arab Christian or the Arab Muslim say, what does Dunya mean? He'll say, Dunya means the world out there, this world, physical world. And G-d says, "Seek by the means that I have made possible for you." The life after the world is called the Ahkira, home after this world is finished. But don't forget... This is common language. See, scripture has some very, very sophisticated language, but it also has common language too. Wal Atanza, tell any Arab, Wal Atanza, he knows what that means. Don't forget.Wal Atanza Fi Baka means your share, speaking to you individually and not speaking to us as a group. Individually.
G-d wants every individual human being to know you have a share. He created this world. Your Creator created this world for you as well as He created it for anybody else. He didn't say this is more for George than it is for Sam or for Mary. No, He created it equally to be shared by all of us. It's just as much yours as it is anybody else's. That's what G-d wants us to know. When He say your share, He wants us to know He's the one that created this world and He created it for you as He created it for everybody else. You have an equal share in it. So don't forget your share in it. That's what G-d says.
Don't forget your share in this material world. So that's the balance, that's the practical balance. Then the teachings of the Qur'an, the teachings of G-d to us in our Holy book, and also the teachings of the Prophet, goes on to show us how to organize our life. We are community. We are to be a community. And this community is established upon firstly upon the belief that a Creator did all this. We are not on our own, G-d is over us. That's firstly. Then secondly, that G-d has endowed man, human beings, woman and man, because understand that man originally meant both male and female. It was not just from one. Originally the human or man meant both male and female.
He made them in the beginning and He called them Adam. This is Bible. And the Qur'an gives it this way. And He made them of one entity, male and female, of one entity. That means He made them human. Then He causes them to become two and mate with each other and produce many men and women. So we all are the product of an Adam, of something called Adam that really is naming nothing but our human, common human identity. The common human constitution that we all have is called Adam. G-d made us human. That's all G-d is saying, I made you human, male and female. And from you came many children all over the world and populated the world.
So there's no need for that sexism in Islam or in religion, we don't have, shouldn't even have the issue of sexism in religion. We shouldn't have that. It's the ignorance of the leaders in the religion that's letting the problem go on and on and on. The informed in religion, they should explain clearly what is meant by male and female and give what G-d says. G-d says that He made us of one single entity. That means, and believe me that's what He said. You are probably saying, well this man talk differently. No, listen to the thinkers now in Islam, they're talking exactly as I'm talking. The thinkers in Islam talking exactly as I am. Thinkers among the scholars talking exactly as I'm talking. That means that man's soul is no different from human soul originally. Originally. The only thing makes his soul different is that he engages in different things in a different situation, different environmental job, different environmental situations for his job, for his work, et cetera. So his soul began to be affected by his indulgence, what he indulges in. But it's the same soul, same soul G-d gave the female. If she take up his practice and follow his masculine traditions, in time her soul will become just as his, her soul will be influenced by the same circumstances, by the same work field or situation.
And she'll become her soul just like he is because they are one in the same soul. No two different souls, same soul. And likewise it is for her spirit. The man is the spirit of G-d, but the woman is not the spirit of G-d. This ignorance exists in church hierarchy, in religious hierarchy. And maybe right now it may be in, who knows, in some of the high floating Imams of Islamic world, it may be in them too. The idea of that G-d gave us that. But the spirit, no it's not, he didn't give the woman her spirit. But Allah says in Qur'an that He revealed to Mary, peace be upon her. He revealed to Mary just like He revealed to a Prophet and He revealed to the mother of Moses, Peace be Upon them, just like He revealed to a Prophet.
So not only men receive communication from G-d. And how did they get it if it wasn't by spirit? They got it just as a male got it. They got it by spirit because G-d does not give us anything except by spirit. We receive something of His spirit. He inspires us with something of His spirit and we become inspired to know what G-d is communicating to us. And in terms of man's intellect the same. And that's being proven now. And let me say something to you African American brothers out there. You young African American brothers, if you ain't careful, the females of the black community is going to be the master species. And you are going to be the service species if you ain't careful. Because they're going to get higher knowledge and they're getting a better job. And you are running around there playing cops and robbers.
So wake up before it's too late. You going to force these young girls to get some Asian husbands, Chinese husbands, maybe some Arab husbands. Some of 'em already did that. Lord have mercy. Well, well I am at the age where I slowed down. I done got so slow until I don't even know I'm moving anymore. But lemme tell you, the prettiest Asian I can find in my own race. Yes. The prettiest Arab I can find in my own race. G-d has done something to this African-American people, that He put the best of everybody right in our own family. And believe me, with that African flavor, it makes it a little bit better, especially for an African man.
But what I'm trying to get to here is the community. It is necessary for us to have an orderly, organized, established community vision or view before us. So if we read the Qur'an and study the life of Muhammad the Prophet, we can see, not all of us, but those who want to be responsible, those who want to accept responsibility in the leadership. We can see how G-d has ordered our community life. And then there's the few select persons who can see this. They should be responsible for sharing this community knowledge with us, and helping all of us to come into a clear, strong sense of what our community life is to be. Christianity also gives Christians a sense of community and a plan for their community life. Judaism gives Jews a sense of community and a plan for their community life. Now we put too much burden on government when we expect government to order our community life. Government is not for that. Government is only to provide those services that we need government to provide that we can't provide for ourselves.
So we are not to ask government to guide us to G-d. We are not asked to ask government what we should eat and not eat at home, what we should drink and not drink at home. We are not to ask government to establish our values, our family values. That should come from our religions. It comes best from G-d. And this is a country of government, USA, United States of America. This is a government that respects religion, respects the rights of religion, the freedom of religion. The freedom of religion is more than just the freedom that believe in G-d or to go to church. The freedom of religion is the freedom, your right, and freedom to establish your Christian life upon Christian values, upon Christian principles, upon Christian logic, upon perception and appreciation of what Christian community life should be. And the same it is for Islam.
So we are here in America and we are here as Christians, the Jews, Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus and others. And it seems that some people have a strong sense of what their own life is and should be and others don't. Descendants from Africa in America, surviving slavery, surviving separation of segregation, of Jim Crow days, Jim Crow law. We have suffered the greatest departure from our traditional life. Now, if we are going to be religious people, we should be the ones who are more conscious and more active. Trying to find what this religion requires of me in terms of how I should live with my husband, how I should live with my wife, how I should treat my children, how I should have a household, how I should live with my neighbor, what I should aspire for in the neighborhood, in the town, in the city.
How I should respect the government, what I should ask of the government, what I shouldn't ask of the government, but the demand of myself. We should be having these questions in mind. If we have these questions in mind, we'll be growing better people for leadership in the future. So the answer for leadership is not a simple one in these times, the answer for leadership is for us to get back to basics, get back to basics. Not basics as we hear it from others, but basics as we discover the basics when we look at what we are to be in our own constitution. I'm supposed to be Islamically constituted. So where are my basics? Where are my basics? Where is my basic value?
G-d put me here to accept certain responsibility. What is that responsibility? Responsibility for my own soul, yes, but also responsibility for my family. G-d says, "Oh, you believe! Save yourselves, your own souls and your families from the fires of sin." That's what G-d says to us in our Holy Book. "Oh, you who believe! Save your own soul and also your family from the fires of sin." Now, some of us think of sin as just being sin in the flesh. We sexualize it too much, sexualize it too much, make it sexy. But lemme tell you something, the most damaging sin is not sin that you commit sexually. The most damaging sin is a sin you commit with your reasoning. With your reasoning, the way you think. The most damaging sin is a sin against your human intelligence that retards you and make you act like a fool when you should be acting like a grown up. Those are the most damaging sins. So when G-d tell us to save our souls and save our family, G-d doesn't mean just save it with the moral, with the list of what is morally correct. G-d want us to save it with the list of what is rationally correct. What is rationally correct? G-d want us to be in good intelligence and G-d want us to love knowledge that elevates human life, that makes for advancement for human society. G-d wants us to have the same responsibility that developers have that develop these cities. G-d wants all of us to have people in our race, people in our families, people in our community, in our neighborhood, that accept the same responsibility that the white neighborhood accepts, accept the same responsibility that the Asian neighborhood accepts. G-d didn't give us unequal responsibility. Thank you very much and let us develop that idea more and more so we will have greater and greater leadership.


