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IWDM Study Library
IWDM Interview Saviors Day
Detroit MI

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Imam WD Mohammed:
Yes, I tried very hard to be in Detroit for the Saviors Day. Actually, made it to the airport in time. I was in time for my flight. But I heard the, as we were leaving the agent, ticket agent, I heard her say B9, but she must not have said B9. She said B8 I'm sure, but I heard B9. I don't know how I heard 9 but that's what I heard, B9. So I go to B9 and I'm waiting, and before I went in my direction, my son Muhammad, Shakir Muhammad, and brother Rafah, brother Rafah, they had to go back to the counter because my son, there's somebody traveling with a son, that's named Muhammad. And the person is believed to be a terrorist or sought as a terrorist. So I've been having this trouble for a long time.
It's several years, years now. Every now and then I've lost a flight. Maybe two or three times I've had to lose my flight because they couldn't get it processed in time for us to make the plane. So this time, this was one of those times when he had to be checked, he had to go back to the counter. And once they checked, because now it's much faster, I have him take his passport with him. I got him a passport, so he has proof of his citizenship. So he takes his passport with him, but still they have to call security. They have to call security to clear him and then read his information on the passport. So they had to go there. Now I'm at the gate I think I'm supposed to be at, right? And they tell me the plane is delayed at the gate. I'm just so sure I'm at the right gate I didn't ask them, where's the plane going?
So I'm there waiting at the wrong gate, waiting for the plane to come in. Plane was very late coming in, but it's not my plane. When it gets in, they say, "Oh no, you should have been at the other gate." Now they made it. Rafah got my son safely to Detroit. They made it to Detroit. They on the plane waiting for me. Plane takes off, No Imam WD Mohammed. And it's on a Sunday, so traffic is very heavy on the weekend, Saturdays and Sundays. So they tell me to go to a certain gate and I could perhaps get a flight to Detroit, but they couldn't guarantee it because I would have to go standby. So I went there and I wait for that plane. It came in. Soon as it got in, they didn't call anybody. In fact, right away they said the plane is full, plane is full. So I couldn't go on that plane. I stayed there. No, I stayed there like 3:30 at the airport trying to get something and I was unable to get it. And I said, well, Muslim supposed to tie his camel. And under the circumstances I tried to tie my camel, but still nothing happened. I wasn't able to go to Detroit. So I believe that some of you are here today that was there in Detroit. And I thank you for understanding and thank you for your great spirit. Thank you for your presence here today.
And InShallah, I will go over the important matters that I had for that occasion. Now I'm going to give you what Mr. Fard was giving us. I was a baby at that time, but he was giving it to all of us. I'm going to give you what Mr. Fard, the teacher of my father who actually taught my mother how to cook the Nation of Islam food, what came to be the Nation of Islam food. He actually worked in the kitchen with my mother, showing my mother how to make those dishes. Brown the rice and everything.
And he also did it. My aunt has passed away too, but he also taught my aunt. She was one of the secretaries, one of his secretaries. I'm talking about the one who taught my father, not my father. She was one of his secretaries. And he taught her how to cook too in her kitchen, taught her how to cook. My Aunt Bernstein, who passed away a couple of, a few years ago in Detroit, Michigan. Yes. So this man that I'm talking about, he spoke in language that he called mathematical theology. This is written in the lessons by him. This can be proven. So I know there's a lot of doubting Thomas's in here and a lot of those who want to keep to their old way of thinking. But if you are here, then understand this, that I love you just the way you are. You don't have to change a bit. I love you just the way you are because I know even though you hold those old original ideas, you are good people. You have good hearts, you mean well, you live good lives and I love you. I love you very much. But I wish you would accept freedom. Freedom is here now.
And he promised freedom, justice and equality. That's what he promised. Freedom, justice and equality. That's what he said Islam was. And it used to be written on the blackboard, painted on the blackboard so you couldn't erase it off. And it had the American flag on one side and the Nation of Islam flag on the other side. And between the two flags, it had the bad treatment that we were getting back there, a black man hanging from a noose, from a rope on a tree, from a tree, tree limb. And the letters on the national flag, the Nation of Islam flag were FJE. And on the staff, the staff of the flag was I. And the letter I stood for Islam. And that was to say to us that in Islam you are promised freedom, justice and equality. And I remember the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in the earlier days when I was a preteen and a teenager.
And even a little after that, whenever you walked into the temple door, you opened the temple door, the first thing you would see if the speaker wasn't speaking would be that blackboard with that picture on it saying what I just gave to you. And the Honorable Elijah Muhammad would hardly ever miss saying on Sundays when he gave his speeches, his talk or his message, he wouldn't hardly ever miss saying that Islam is freedom, justice and equality. That went into me as a boy and as a teenager, it went into me. And I knew, I was shown pictures of our people, actual lynchings. My father saved old papers. He saved old papers that showed actual lynchings of our people were hanging from a tree. One picture I remember seeing, it looked to me like it was at least five. It might've been as many as seven or eight black men hanging from trees where they lynched them in a group. They lynched a number of them, not one person.
And they were hanging in a group. I remember him giving me a picture. I don't like to tell you about it. I don't like to look at it. I don't like to think about it. But I have to tell you, because what I'm going to bring before you, it helps my delivery, to make the delivery clear to you to tell you this. Then you see how I was affected as a child. Yeah. They had one picture of a black man hung on a tree and a fire, firewood had been put up under him and the flames were burning, burning, burning him from him from the foot up, burning him from the feet up. A child doesn't forget things like that. Okay? So my parents made sure that I knew the bad treatment that our people got under white supremacist rule. They wanted to make sure I know that and they made sure I knew it.
And now here's a child knowing how bad his people are treated by the ruling people, the whites. And he hears that Islam is freedom, justice, inequality. What do you think he's going to remember? That Islam is a verse from the Quran or that Islam is a religion of the Muslims of the world. Or that Islam's Prophet is Muhammad the Prophet. You think he's going to remember that? No, he's going to remember that Islam is freedom, justice, inequality. And it goes into the child so deeply and makes such a strong and irreversible, unremovable imprint that it lives with that child until death. I will live with that until death. Islam will always mean more to me as freedom, justice, and equality than it means to me as anything else. And if it wasn't a true promise to the human soul of freedom, justice, and equality, if G-d hadn't inspired me and guided me to discover that that's exactly what it is, a promise to the human soul of freedom, just and equality.
If He hadn't guide me to discover that I wouldn't want anybody's Islam the way they read it from scripture. This is Saviors Day. I'm giving you a Saviors Day message right now. The way that the world of Muslims read the Qur'an to people, to me, I might as well take Buddhism. I might as well take Christianity. I'm not so impressed. See, I don't need a different identity. Some of you all strive for another identity. Being black or negro or colored people just too much for you. You want to get away from all of that. So you like to be called Muslim and you like to speak Arabic and you like to dress like people overseas.
I don't need that. And I love you just as you are, but I don't need that. I need freedom. I need justice. I need equality. Equality of opportunity in this world. Don't block me. Allahu Akbar. So to understand this stranger, and that's exactly what he was- a stranger. The people in the ghetto of Detroit, the poor, the most depressed areas of the ghetto, Detroit, that's where he came. And they were not educated. The average one had no education, hardly over grade school. Most of them, the great majority had under grade school education. Those that joined Mr. Fard. And he designed a letter for you to be approved to come into the Nation of Islam, be a member. He designed a letter that forced you to practice handwriting. Now that show you how uneducated the people were. So he made them get interested in improving their handwriting by saying, you cannot come in until you write this letter in a good hand so it's legible and readable and can be read without any problems. So some of them had to send their letters many times before getting their letters approved. Yes. So the first thing I'm addressing here is conditions in the time. Conditions in that particular time. We are talking about Detroit, Michigan. Area of Detroit, the poorest and worst-off area in the black community. And the condition. Uneducated, uneducated people, but sincere people, very religious people. And a few, very smart.
Few were very smart. In fact, some of them belonged to the Masons. Some of the brothers in the thirties, early thirties joined Mr. Fard from the Masons. That language attracted the Masons because they have a similar language and it attracted Eastern stars. The sisters, African American sisters, black sisters who also belonged to a similar group. They're all similar. Masons, Eastern Star, and the teachings of Mr. WD Fard. I'm sure that some others came in that were also from that same kind of language, but they weren't Mason or Eastern Star. They was something else. Moorish Americans came in. Few Moorish Americans joined the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Mr. Fard and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. In his time, they joined him too. Moorish Americans and Moorish Americans have similar language. They have that similar language. What they say on the surface or what the word says to the average mind is not the real meaning.
The real meaning is what you get by translation or interpretation. So that's the time we're talking about. Now, how did Mr. Fard present himself? He first presents himself as Professor Fard, not as a Prophet, not as G-d. He presented himself as Professor Fard. This is history, this all documented. If I had to produce proof of this, I can go get the document and show you. Right on top of the book says Professor WD Fard. Sometimes he called himself WF Muhammad. Sometimes he called himself WD Fard and WF Muhammad. Sometimes he called himself Wali Fard Muhammad. He spelled it out, spelt the W out, Wali Fard Muhammad. So he referred to himself by different names, but he introduced himself as I said, first as Professor Fard, Professor Fard. Professor is a teacher, an educator. That's how he produced, presented himself first. How is Jesus known? Jesus is known as the righteous, the son, son of G-d, and also the son of righteousness, righteous. He is known as the righteous. And what is predicted of his coming when he comes? How is he going to come? As a thief in the night. That's what the Bible say. He comes as a thief in the night. He will come as a thief in the night. And that means under the cover of darkness, darkness will be hiding him. And how else is he coming? He's coming to punish the wicked. This is his second coming. He's coming to punish the wicked. Yes.
And who is he coming, hat is he coming to steal? He's coming to steal a people from a world, to steal a people from a world. And he's justified to steal these people from the world because the world stole them from G-d. Now, I'm not saying what Mr. Fard is other than I'm saying to you that this is how he came and I'm going to continue to talk about it. I'm not dealing with anything but what's real and recorded for him. Okay. But don't say he was wrong. If I'm wrong, Fard was wrong. I'm just saying what he said. And later I'll be saying whether the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said. And if I'm wrong, then the Honorable Elijah Muhammads wrong. I don't lie. You all should know that by now. I do not lie and I do not deceive. No, I do not deceive. I'm not going to twist something and form it for my purpose. No, I'm going to give it to you just as it is. Or I won't give it to you at all.
Alright, so first thing we should look at is the time and circumstances during the early thirties when Mr. Fard came. He came just on the heels of the Great Depression. So not only African-Americans or blacks, but everybody in America was suffering. It was a bad time. There was a very bad depression. Many rich people committed suicide during that time. They lost all their wealth. The banks had no money, they couldn't give them their money. And I mean this was recorded in newspapers, newspaper, old newspapers. Go get 'em now. You can look this up. You can go and tell the Free Press. What is that Detroit Free Press? I think that's what it's called. Yes sir. I bet you they could look up all this and verify everything I'm saying that went into the public. Yes. And some things that didn't go in the public went into the news about Mr. Fard because he had a confrontation with his followers, had confrontation with the police department, violent confrontation. So they had to record what this thing is all about. So I'm not talking about something that's not recorded. It's recorded. So anyway, the times, we have to understand the time. Now in those bad times, there were African-American leaders. There was W.E.B. Dubois, who were trying to advance our people with respect for the system of the United States. To advance them and pressure the government and the people of America to admit African-Americans or blacks into politics. Into politics and into the system. The system. That was mainly his role. W.E.B. DuBois, a great leader, educated leader, very educated leader, great leader.
The other one was, there was many, but I'm dealing with those who were working for freedom right now. The other one was Booker T Washington. Tuskegee, the University, Tuskegee College and University. Built by him with the help of his students. Great man too. They built the structure. You go down there right now; structure is still standing. You'll see a beautiful brick structure, beautiful brick structure built by WEB, pardon me, by Booker T Washington and his students that he was training in vocational knowledge, vocational knowledge, something you can go get a job with right away. Brick layers and other trades that he was giving them down there. But in the religious focus now, we also had African-American leaders. And the one that's the most outstanding, well, I have to say two of the outstanding, although the Christian was of much more popularity than the Moorish American Muslim. But there was the Moorish American Muslim, Noble Drew Ali.
And there was the Christian Father Divine, Father Divine. Father Divine was very well known by all American leaders and many common American folks. African American that is. Just many just common African American or black folks. He was known by them. What was he saying? You have to see what was going on so you'll know Mr. Fard in that time and in that environment. People respond, especially leaders or teachers. They respond to issues in the, current issues in the environment and current conditions in the environment. That's what they see. That's what they register and that's what they respond to. That's what they address. So before Mr. Fard had some different view on Jesus Christ, Father Divine had a different view. Father Divine told his following, I'm not quoting myself, I'm quoting reports that were published. Father Divine told his following, he said, "If you want to see Jesus Christ, look at me."
And at the same time, he was calling himself Father Divine, Father Divine. And he told his followers, "If you want to see Jesus Christ, look at me." So I don't think it was one earlier than him to bring the picture of Jesus as a black man to our people. I think Father Divine was the first. After him you know there were others. There's some right now they got pictures of black. Jesus Christ is not a Jew or a white man. Jesus Christ is a black man. They picture him as a black man, nappy hair and black skin. So anyway, Mr. Fard took his cue from what was happening already.
Pardon me, one I missed. I got to get him now from the Caribbean, Garvey, Marcus Garvey, the Honorable Marcus Garvey. He was in that time too. Look at all these things happening in the early thirties. Marcus Garvey in that time too. What was he preaching before Mr. Fard? Back to Africa. Back to Africa. But he didn't mean actually get on a boat or take some transportation to go to Africa. He meant bring your mind back to Africa. Put your mind back in Africa. Don't buy the white man's picture of you. Don't buy the white man's opinions of you as a people. But put your mind back in Africa. He was a great man too. Marcus Garvey. Honorable Marcus Garvey. So this is what's going on in Mr. Fard's time. And I understand that Mr. Fard came from, he say the East, and he did.
But we were told that he came from Arabia. He didn't. He came from India. Now he came from India and his people in America were subjective and couldn't find anything but cheap servant type jobs. His people, Indians. The Indians. They came over here in such great numbers they identified them, the Press, the newspapers of America. Press. Identified them as East Indians. East Indians. And I think they still identified as East Indians. They identified 'em as East Indians. These are Indians that we call that we know now as Pakistanis. Pakistanis. In India. They still have 'em. They're the same people. Don't think Pakistanis, pardon me, and Indians are different overseas or in Asia. They're the same people. They're exact same people. The only difference is one is a Muslim, his religion is Islam, the other is Hindu. The other one is Hindu. His religion is Hinduism. That's the only difference. And don't think that the only Muslims over there are Pakistanis. There almost 200 million Muslims that are Indians.
Indians, not Pakistanis. They still belong to India and they call themselves Indians, not Pakistanis, but their religion is Islam. They're Muslim. So anyway, that's where Professor Fard came from. He came from those people and he was not at all happy with the American people, especially with those who made America the white supremacist mind. He didn't care for them. He didn't like 'em at all. Now understand now that here his people are, they're working in the Caribbeans, they're working in America as indentured servants. And they came from what was to be later in 1947 Pakistan. But that territory was all India during the early thirties, during the thirties, up to 1947. It was all India, India. And all those Muslims in what the area called Pakistan now were not called Pakistani, they were called just Indians. And they were under the rule of the British. And they had to pretend to be servile and curry favors from the big whites of Europe, of the British. They had to be towards them like many of our Uncle Toms had to be towards the establishment here to survive and get opportunities. So they had to pretend to be happy as servants.
Now he comes here, Mr. Fard. He comes here with that hurt on his heart, how his people are treated, were being treated in India. And then he comes here and see the ones who came here were imported here, imported here to be laborers and how they were treated. Then he looked at us in the ghetto and he sees our condition. Don't you think he's going to sympathize with us? Sure he is, because he's our brother in suffering. How did he introduce himself to us? Your brother from the East. These are his words. Exactly. Your brother from the East. That's his language. So he was our brother in suffering and he felt our suffering because he had felt the same treatment coming from the same white people, same white race, the white race. So he saw Father Divine dissatisfied with a white picture as G-d and presenting himself as a black man, as Jesus Christ. And Father Divine. Then he said, well, I like this.
So he said, "Who is the original man?" Asiatic black man, Owner. Come on, you know. Maker, Cream of the Planet Earth. Father of civilization, G-d of the universe. Wow, I didn't know so many of you all survived. But what did he tell my father G-d was and my father told us. He said, G-d is power and force. That's exactly what he said. G-d is power and force. So here he comes and gives us a completely different meaning for G-d. G-d for Christians is the one who made everything. Creator, maker of the worlds. That's G-d. And I know for the ignorant masses in Christianity, uneducated masses in Christianity, when you say G-d, the first thought that come to their mind is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, the picture and person Jesus Christ as presented to them by the Church.
You think I'm supposed to like that? You think I'm supposed to like that our ignorant people looking at a white picture of a white man, the very same people that gave us all this hell and made our life most miserable for over a hundred year, 200 or more years. You think I'm supposed to like that? You think I'm supposed to go gingerly with that and touch it real nice. and don't disturb the picture? Something wrong with you. That's a crime. To do that to the mind and hearts of people, that's a major crime. Give them a picture of G-d in the image of the same people that gave them a life of misery worse than any life history have recorded. Yes, I'm not talking about now. I'm talking about back then. And we can't forget that. If we do, we are crazy. We are just absolutely stupid.
And messed up, almost insane. And we don't care about our own people. Anybody want to pretend that that doesn't exist you don't even care about your own people. You should never forget that. Not to hate anybody, but to know how you have been formed in the past. What influenced the conditioning and the forming of your soul and your sensitivities, your feelings, your fears, and et cetera. You should want to know what happened in your past to make you the person in your soul, sensitivities and spirit that you are today. That's more important than to know, than knowing that your face is black, that your flesh is African, goes back to Africa. It is more important to know what has shaped something more important than the flesh. What has shaped your sensitivities, what has shaped your soul, what has shaped your hopes even. What has shaped your hopes. That bad condition formed our hopes. Hopes to be free of it.
Hopes to sacrifice. Sacrifice heavily to have our children better prepared so that maybe they will be able to live to see a better day and have an opportunity to grow free as human beings with human minds and human intelligence in a new circumstance. If you don't want to know that, you'll cut off from your own life. Saviors Day address in Homewood. Not in Detroit, in Homewood. So we have to be aware of those first times and the circumstances of that early time when Mr. Fard came in to help those that the world thought could never be helped. The world had written them off. They can never be any more than dumb brutes, lost minds and souls.
So what is the issue for his time, of Mr. Fard, the early thirties? What is the issue? The major issue? The major issue is helping a people that had been enslaved, separated from their history and their cultural roots and had nothing to depend on for their own future and to come into their hands nothing at all to depend on. They could depend on nothing to take their future in their own hands and go forward. Nothing because they had been cut off from the past. If you cut people off thoroughly from the past, they'll never be prepared to go into the future on their own unless you cause a revival among them, which means a change of mind.
You have to cause a major change of mind for them where they separate themselves from what had their minds before completely. And that's what Fard was able to do. Professor Fard was able to attract our people mind and separate our minds completely from what was before feeding our minds and shaping our minds. And that was the white world and Christianity. So he separated us from those two things and in doing that, he freed our minds to find self. That's what he did. So he was definitely our Savior and he is our Savior. Yes, he was our Savior and he is our Savior.
And you can take this to your Guru, Sheikh from Pakistan or Egypt or wherever he from. You take it to him and you tell him that Wallace D Mohammed, not Imam. You don't have to say Imam. If he asks you to, who is Wallace D Mohammed? Say Imam Warith Deen or something. But you don't have, just tell him Wallace, just tell him Wallace. Tell him Wallace said if you don't like it, he knows why. Because you are a party to the things that have hurt our life. You are a party to it. And he doesn't care about what you feel or think.
Now, you know I wouldn't want them just sitting out there and having me talk, say these things with them sitting right out there. "Oh, is this in the Qur'an and Sunnah?" You ain't in the Qur'an Sunnah either. "Well, Imam have done his job, brother. The Imam have brought us to the Qur'an and Sunnah." What are you talking about? I brought you to the Qur'an and Sunnah. What do you mean? Is that what you see as my role and my work, I brought it to the Quran and Sunnah? You had the Qur'an before me. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad gave you the Qur'an by Maulana Muhammad Ali. You all had it. You could have read it.
There were books on the Prophet. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad had some in his private library at his home. And he never told you you couldn't read 'em. So what do you mean I brought you to the Quran and Sunnah. You already were to the Quran and Sunnah , but you couldn't see a damn thing. So why don't you, and I'm not going to apologize for my language. So why don't, because I'm speaking to you. I'm not speaking to you honest, good people. So why don't you admit that we had the Qur'an and couldn't get hardly anything out of it.
And we knew about the Prophet, but we had no interest in searching for him and studying him to learn all about him. And it was my Imma or your Imam is what you should say or whatever, W. Deen Mohammed, Wallace D Mohammed, who opened up these books and made them appealing to us. So he has been the one who translated language so we could read it as it should be read. That's what you should be saying, and not saying, "Oh well you got your right." You should be ashamed of your petty selves. Jealous hearted, petty selves. Okay, so we looking at the early time period, and those were the circumstances that helped Mr. Fard put his appeal together to appeal to the minds of the down and outs of our people. He told my father, don't even worry about that 10%. He said "They're blood suckers working with the enemy." What did he mean by 10%? He meant the educated Blacks. He said, don't even worry about them. I'm not going to be bothered with them.
Now we move up, let's move time up. We come now to the change times. Yes sir. When America is considering not only physical freedom, that was already considered before Mr. Fard came. Emancipation Proclamation, the physical freeing of blacks from plantation slavery. Not that time period. Now here come another time of freeing, of opening up, America opening up to give more freedom to blacks. It's a time when America is being pressured to give blacks Civil rights, equal opportunity, citizenship, legitimacy, et cetera. Now in this time period, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad comes out of prison.
I'm not talking about the sixties. W.E. B. Du Bois, NAACP, had been working for that for us for a long time. So the Honorable Elijah Muhammad comes out now in 1947 after being imprisoned for five years. And before those five years sentence, he served just about five years. When you take the time that they had him locked up in the County jail in Chicago, and the time he served after sentence in the Federal Penitentiary, Milan, Michigan, you have about five years. But they also locked him up in Detroit. So the whole time that he served in prison may be more than five years. So anyway, he got all this time alone. Not to preach. He can't preach. He got all that time alone. So the Honorable Elijah Muhammad started to think and look into what Mr. Fard gave him. And he came out and he said no.
He said, we've been in these little small places. I'm giving you his words. Coming out with a Holy Qur'an and Bible, under our arms and preaching to the people for a few hours and going back home to do nothing until time to go out again with the Bible, Holy Qur'an up under our arms preaching. He says, we have to stop that. He says, we have to make a change, a material change in our environment. Say we have to do business; we have to grow business to attract our people. Old way won't get it. That's what he told his Ministers. Then he came out and he gave his attention to business development. And this is a major change now for the interest, the focus of the Nation of Islam on what is our primary interest, a major change. What else he did? He asked that all those lessons be brought in and that we not use them.
Honorable Elijah Muhammad. That all of 'em be brought in and we not use them. And you know, who have been around, you know you weren't able to read those lessons to the following for a long time. No, we weren't supposed to do that. What did he say? He told his Ministers, leave that to me. Those are his exact words. Leave that to me. So they weren't supposed to preach from the Problem books anymore, which they used to do when I was a boy and a teenager. They used to preach from the lessons, the Problem book, 14 questions and answers, Lesson C1, Problem book 1 and 2. So that's what they used to use. And I'm telling you, they were in a world, they were Rosemary babies.
I don't know if you saw the movie, the Rosemary Baby. That was a secret order and they believed that Rosemary would produce a baby and this baby would be like their next Lord. Their Lord. So a secret order. Yeah. So that's how it was. And they thought even drinking black coffee would improve your intellect and also your psyche. And looking at water to see if they could see worlds and civilizations in a glass of water. I'm not just doing this for criticism, in fact I'm not doing it for criticism. I'm doing it to help you see where we were and where we should go. Yes. So the conclusions that we draw on that old first order of Muslim mind in the black community under the Honorable Elijah Muhammad or in the Nation of Islam, the first conclusions that we bring is that as he himself envisioned himself coming in the night, as a thief in the night. Coming in the clouds, riding the clouds of confusion, of misunderstanding regarding truth and religion. He comes riding that. Riding that means he has the ability to handle those matters. He has the ability to handle those dark issues, those secret issues. So he comes riding in the clouds. This is the Bible of Jesus Christ. And he puts himself in that role. Mr. Fard, Professor Fard. And he comes as a thief in the night and comes in dyed garments. I'm using the language of that time. He come in dyed garments. Where this language come from, dyed garments? It comes from the Bible, Joseph. Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers.
And the brothers wanted to hide their crime from their father. So they brought some of the clothes, clothing of Joseph back to their father. Say we couldn't find him, but we found his clothes. And they had put animal blood on Joseph's clothing to make the father think that he was killed by some animal. The father didn't believe 'em. He didn't believe 'em, but that's what they did. So this coming in dyed garments is also attributed to Jesus Christ, that his garments were stained. Huh? His garments would be stained with the blood of the wicked. So Mr. Fard says of himself to the early believers of Detroit, he said that I came in stained garments. But he added to that in the garments of the cayvees. In the garments of the cayvee. Cayvee comes from cave meaning that they are the people whose life history goes back to caves.
They were dwellers of caves, caves of Europe. That was his teaching. So he come with dyed garments, meaning he came presenting himself in the white man's world as a product of the white man's world. That's exactly what he meant. So they wouldn't suspect him and see him and put him out or export him, deport him, pardon me, or kill him or lock him up. So he came in the dyed garments, meaning the clothing they like, that they have, their clothing, And the issue for that time period, I repeat is saving our people from the darkness of that time, saving our people from the darkness of that time. Now look, when the Honorable Elijah Muhammad changed, he put all that language out of the way. Now you who don't have education on the level of college and university, you should write this word if you are taking notes. The word is spelled E-S-O-T-E-R-I-C. You know the word; you don't need to write it. E-S-O-T-E-R-I-C, esoteric. And the noun for it is esotericism. Esotericism. It could be esoterics too with an S. But esoteric is an adjective. I say the writings of Mr. Fard are esoteric. What it means? That his language is not the language of ordinary people. So ordinary people can't read and understand what he writing. It means his language is the language of a secret order. A secret order.
And the language is known only to members of that secret order. So others read it, they don't know what it's talking about. Was this something new that Mr. Fard created? No, he was aware that this had been done in history, that this is a way of people who want to advance their cause in a hostile world, a world of enemies who are enemy to what they're trying to do. So they put it in a secret language so it won't be understood by the persons that would stop the work if they knew what was going on.
There's a lot to be said here, but we must keep moving on. So the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he said, put all those things away. Why? Because those things were holding our attention and the Ministers of the Nation of Islam, it was holding their attention and they couldn't do the work that needed to be done, the practical work that needed to be done. So this secret order had run, pardon me, had reached the end of its usefulness so the Honorable Elijah Muhammad believed, and we had to put it away so it wouldn't be engaging and attracting our mind. And it's powerful for attracting the mind. Powerful. Mr. Fard called it Magnetism. Magnetism, powerful magnetism. He knew that it would attract the minds of people who needed to get free of things that was too big for them to handle. He knew it would attract their mind. And his hope was that some of those attracted to it would follow it and search it and come to see that there hints all in it. There are hints in it, hints pointing to a future that there's coming a time when you won't be having this and you won't be reading this, but this is going to point you to your future. So it's a strategy. It's a temporary vehicle for carrying you forward.
It's a hidden vehicle for carrying you forward in a world that would stop it if they knew where you were going. Yes, there are those who tried to stop me when they knew where I was going. They were supporting me up until they were able to see where I was going. When they saw where I was going, one of 'em trained in college to know religious language and also hidden religious language or secret religious language. And when he saw where I was going and I was determined not to be put in the mold that they wanted me in, you know what he told me? Go on. He said, go on and die. That what he told me.
And I said nothing. But he knew that was his last day under me until I died. Unless I died. So he went away. I never saw him. He never came back. I inquired of his whereabouts and his condition because I love him. He became a carrier of mail. And he was a big official at the top under me. And now I hear he's a mail carrier. That hurts your heart. But he couldn't decide direction for me. No indeed. And I hid myself from them until I knew the following had caught on to what I was talking about. Or at least the magnetism had changed from the old magnetism of the Lesson and Problem books and whatever. And the Honorable Elijah Muhammad called for a Nation. It had changed from that to that new language that I gave you all in the beginning of my leadership. Yes, G-d blessed me to create a magnetism too. And it held you. Yes. Man is mind. Words make people. Yeah, I'm telling you, you swallowed it whole line and sinker. Hook, line and sinker.
And thank G-d I was able to pull the fish out of bad waters. Yes sir. And transform the fisher man. So we can get our freedom on earth. Praise be to Allah. Yes. So now the forties brought changes, 47. 47 on changing time. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he had changed his main message or interest in his message had changed. Interest in his message has changed from that Problem book language and all that. And the mystery of Fard and the black man. He had changed from all that to building a Nation. That's what converted Malcolm. That converted Malcolm. So Malcolm in the early fifties became a preacher for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. And the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he said as soon as Malcolm was released from prison, Malcolm came straight to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's home. I saw him myself perhaps before his own relatives saw him. He came straight from prison to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad at his home in Chicago. And you could tell he looked like he was straight from prison. In good health and good spirit. But looking like he had been out of the sun for a long, long time.
14 years I think he was given in prison. I don't know how much he served, but he served a good amount of that time. So he came to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. But before he arrived, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad told his family at home, and I was in his presence when he said this. He said, I got a young Minister coming, said he's not going to be like these Ministers, old ministers, just satisfied to have the Holy Qu'ran and the Bible up under their arm. Say he's coming and he's going to help me progress and build the Nation. That's what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said. And the Honorable Elijah Muhammad knew that he was attracted to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's new focus for his message, new viewpoint, new focus for his message. So he came out and he proved to be just what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said he would be.
He was very productive, hardworking, and had a terrific spirit, a terrific spirit. That was Malcolm. Malcolm X later called Malcolm Shabazz. So that time changed. Now that was early fifties. By the sixties there was a lot of trouble in the public life, in the institutions, in the Churches and Colleges and what of our people, but manifest or seen on the public scene or in the public life. Demonstrations by our people and very brutal treatment from law enforcement in the South, but also in the North too. Some bad things happened. So all this bad scene pushed a lot of the Church people to Black Nationalism, and to militancy, militancy. SNCC the Black Panthers and others became very militant. Now what do you think influenced them? The teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the Nation of Islam and the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. So don't underestimate the value of the Nation of Islam in the life of our people.
No. Also it was that Nation of Islam that influenced blacks to give more attention to material, to business and material growth and development. It was the Nation of Islam had the greatest influence on that. The Nation of Islam. Their leaders will tell you this in private. Some of them will tell you openly in public. Say, well it was the Nation of Islam that influenced me to change and be this way and do this thing like that, yes. So don't underestimate it. Yes. So anyway, now we are living in a new time. A new time and a changed time, a changed focus and a change registering in the mind and in the heart of what's important. So can't you see that the movement of Islam as started by, in the African-American black community by Mr. Fard, or Professor Fard, was something formed to go stage by stage. One language to take you to a stopping point.
I call a way station, where you stay there and get yourself together to go from there to another point. And then the next point is also a way station. You have to go from way station to way station until you get home. Home to what? Tell me. Freedom. Hey, you got it. Freedom, Justice and Equality. That's the main point. That's the main point. Not that you're going to be Muslim, not that you're going to be Arabs. That you're going to have what your soul called for, what slavery and mistreatment under white supremist America took away from you and deprived you of. The right to stand on your own feet, be in your own mind and be able to question anything that exists. The white boss and everything else, even Jesus Christ, as he's presented in the Bible. Be able to question everything with your own free mind, independent on your own feet so you can come into your own independent leadership. And that's why he said he came July the fourth. He didn't come July the fourth. That's a prophecy that you are going to have just like this country. It celebrates it's independence. If you follow my guidance, my hidden guidance. It's hidden. You are going to eventually come to your independence.
Where you'll not be under the rule and influences of the white man's world and his thinking and you'll be able to with that free mind and independence, you'll be able to read the Qur'an, and G-d will help you find the true Islam. Yes. G-d has brought me by the hand of Mr. Fard, Professor Fard. G-d has brought me.... He's an instrument of G-d. That's what I'm saying. Mr. Fard was the instrument of the All wise and All powerful, Most high G-d. And He have brought me by the hand of Professor Fard our Savior. He has brought me to the Bible and I read it and it opens up to me, all of it. Not part of it, all of it. He brought me to the Qur'an. It opens up to me not part of it, all of it, believe it or not. So what does G-d say in scripture? You have robbed me a whole people. So if the world robs G-d a whole people, it obligates G-d to save and bring back, redeem a whole people. Non-Muslims are realizing that the leadership of the African-American people, all of them, is not in the leaders that the world know. The leadership is in the teachings and spirit of the people following from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad to Imam W Deen Mohammed. Look, G-d awakened this in my soul and my psyche long before I came into this position. I looked at our people. I thought about our condition and I said to myself, we are a new people.
That's what I preached as a young Minister. We are new people. We are not the same people. We are not the people they brought over from Africa. We are not the people that were on the plantation. We are new people. Those circumstances on the plantation separated us completely from the old life on the continent of Africa and made it absolutely impossible to escape that we come into a new mind as a new people. Your mind is what make you what you are and who you are. Your mind. You ain't got no mind, you're nobody. So we came into a new mind. Coming into a new mind makes us a new people. New mind brings you into a new spirit. Yes, it's a new mind that brings you into a new spirit. The new mind brings you into a new spirit, brings you into a new perception of things.
So we are entirely new people. I stressed this when I was a young minister in my twenties and I'm stressing this to you now. Please think on what I'm saying and believe it. If you can't understand it fully believe and accept that we are not the same people anymore. We are brand new people. G-d has made a new people on this planet earth. And how did He make it? He let us be subjected to all kinds of cruelties. He let us be taken away from our roots, taken away from our lifelines, deprived of our lifeline and separated so thoroughly from the past that whatever came into us has to be new. Yes, G-d permitted that. The way of G-d is mysterious. People have always said that the ways of G-d are mysterious. Yes.
But this I said too, I say in the degree that G-d let us be reduced, He is obligated to repair it and give us equal measure. Equal measure. So if we were reduced from consciousness as a human being in our own natural rights, and if we were reduced from being a people to being individuals depending on another people, He has to give us in measure what equals that. So He has to give us our conscience back as individuals. And He has to give us our ability to establish ourselves as a community of people. I don't want to say government because I don't want you to think it's political. This is not a political language. But He has to give us in equal measure, our sensitivities, our spirit, our aspirations to be an independent body of people on the land.
Yes. So He's evolving us as a community. A community with the sense to govern itself. When all governments pass away and fail, we will have the sense to govern ourself and remain a government. A government of the righteous. Right. Following G-d's light. We'll remain with the ability to govern ourselves. The world is not great, America is not great because of America's idea, political idea. What is great is the opportunity it gives others to come to this land of democracy. That's the great part of it. Yes. The freedom that it offers for opportunity, to have opportunity to start all over and build your life and build your world here in this plurality, plurality, or plural system. In this pluralism. It gives you opportunity to join it and compete and see can you advance your life and make your life a beautiful picture in this quilt, this cultural quilt under the law of the land. Yes, it gives you an opportunity to do that, but what's greater than this, greater than that for the survival of a people in their chosen life. Chosen life. You have to choose life. You follow me because I said choose life. I didn't say I'm going to force it on you. I didn't say you have to do it. You chose this life. You chose the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and you chose that life. And when you saw me, where I was going, where I was standing and where I'm going, you chose this life.
And G-d created us to have free choice. Huh? Freedom of choice. So now the important thing is that you identify your life presently and identify the system of this life that I give you. Identify it, identify in it and keep it in your heart and your mind and your spirit. Pass it on to your children. And in time, this life that I have shown you is going to endure, outlive, every political form of government. They all can pass away, even in United States of America can pass away. But we will still be here and we will still be living this light that G-d has opened up to us. I said light L-I-G-H-T.
Now in my conclusion, things as difficult to understand and believe me, I know the language. I know what's more difficult to understand. The earth is going to burn white man's world for 390 years. That's after a shortage is made in the gravity. There'll be a shortage in the gravity, in the air. And it will set off a fire, cause a fire. And that fire will burn over America for 390 years. And it will take so long, so long for it to cool off. Then people will be able to come back and inhabit, live on this land. But it's going to have to burn for 390 years and it's going to take 90 years I think to cool off, something like that.
Yeah. You remember sister? Oh, okay. I thought she wanted to help me with the reading of it. I welcome anybody. 600. How long going to burn? 610 years. And then 390 to cool off. Yeah, that's right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. See, we all had to learn it. I knew it once. It's been so long though I can't recall. Yeah. And to tell you the truth, I had my ears open for Freedom, Justice and Equality more than I had my ears open for that. But anyway, I do recall it. So it burns for 610 years and takes 390 years to cool off. So altogether a thousand years before the land can be used again by people you see come back in and inhabit the land. Okay, what does this mean?
610 years. What does that mean? 600. Don't pay no attention to the zeros. Look at six. G-d is said to have made the man on the sixth day and His making of the man was the correct making of the man. Then the devil in the world want to make him over. So it refers to the correct making or the correct life that G-d wants for man. And what is the six? It's also freedom. Freedom. It means freedom for that life. Now, that life going to take 600 years, that means it's going to be dead in you for that period of time. But in the 10 years, 10 years, it's going to be coming into the conscience. The 10 years going to be coming into the conscience after being dead for six long periods, called the a hundred years each.
Yes. Now going to take 390 years to cool off. So it's going to get free. But now it has to cool off and it takes 390 years to cool off. The 300 is the spirit, your aspirations in the soul. They want to go, but they're going to be dead for three long periods called 300 years. Death in Arabic is a hundred. It's a play on death. The Prophet said at the head of a hundred years, there will come a reviver, at the head of every a hundred years. So the hundred years is not a calendar hundred years. It means when life has gone from one to zero, two zeros. Out of the consciousness and then out of the behavior that totally left you dead. So that's 300 years. And then three hundred ten, now it comes into the conscience. I mean 390, 390, pardon me, it comes into the freedom appetite or the aspirations. And then the 90 means new birth. But this new birth is just not nine. It has a zero. That means the new birth is going to come into your conscience. What birth? The birth of a people, the birth of human life in its right state. The birth of a people, the birth of a nation. Nine periods in the mother. So it's going to come into the conscience and it's going to progress the development until the development is complete. Nine periods to birth life.
So that's what he's saying. It's going to need all that time to cool off. And what's cooling it off? Not an emphasis on freedom, but an emphasis on bringing life back. See freedom, movement in certain people, it brings nothing but trouble because they don't have vision and direction. But when the interest stop being free for my freedom, then it will start to be beneficial for my life.


