01/21/2006
IWDM Study Library
Cramton Auditorium Howard University
Washington DC

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
We praise G-d. Thank you very much. We praise G-d we witness that He's one and cares about all that's in the universe, his creation, everything, and cares especially about the life and progress of human beings. We salute the last prophet Muhammad, who received our sacred book the Qur'an over 14 centuries ago in a desert area, the land of the Arabs, now called Saudi Arabia. We salute him with ?all? All?hu ?alayhi wa-sallam, the prayers and the peace be upon him and what follows of that salutation. We thank G-d for our presence here and I'm happy to be again here in Washington DC, nation's capital, and especially to be here today with you all on the campus of Howard University. We have come a long ways, and we have had good help. Before the Nation of Islam, we had excellent minds developing and developed in the leadership of black people on this continent, African American people as we call ourselves today. We had excellent help and the best help did come from those who had broad view. Very broad view. Not now in their thinking and not now in their concerns and interests, but very broad. Wanting to address the community life. Community life. We have the church leading the way.
[foreign language]
The church was established in our schools, the schools that our children graduated from and became very productive persons. For us, for our life, for the progress of our life. They were educated in schools established by churches, by the church. And The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he came and he was quite different but he also was moved to move others to be interested in the bigger picture. The broad picture, the broad view, the bigger picture, to take upon ourselves, even though we were poor in the pocket we weren't poor in our hearts. We weren't poor in our minds. We were just poor in the pocket, but to take upon ourselves the responsibility to better our material environment. The great work of building a nation, as honorable Elijah Muhammad would say over and over again to us, we are building a nation, are in the common simple language of today, now that we are thinking more in a practical way and in a plain and simple way to achieve and accomplish things in a environment now that welcomes us or at least feels obligated to welcome us because of the progress that the Civil Rights Movement made with the pressure put on the civil rights movement and on this world by the honorable Elijah Muhammad, that little big man, we have now equal opportunity.
We have now courts that will protect the rights of our citizenship if someone deny us those rights or if an institution deny us those rights. We do have the law on our side and we can take the matter before the courts. So we've made a lot of progress, and we have come a long ways. And we've had a lot of good health. The focus is still the same. What brought great joy to my heart was when I became familiar, became familiar with scripture, with our holy book the Qur'an but also with the Bible. I did something that my father said I was not raised to do and he's right there. Sure, I was not raised to study the Bible, but I did it because I felt an obligation to do that if I'm going to address people from Christian life, and most of his followers, practically, every one of them, came from Christian life; originally they were Christians. Now I'm not speaking of the lifeline of black people, or lifeline of African Americans, you know, go back to Africa. And you know, when you go to Africa, you see a great presence of Muslims in Africa, and they were there when we were brought here from Africa on slave ships. The Muslims were there, divided like they are now, and having a lot of trouble then, back then, like they're having now.
And so here in this country, our life goes back to the church, the plantation life, and the harrows of that life wiped out almost every trace of Islamic heritage, even the memory of it was wiped out. That is not to say that all of us came from Muslim lands or from Muslim life, no, many, and in fact, the greater number might have come from traditional tribal religions of Africa, and some from Christianity. But mind you, not many from Christianity, because when the persons of the church learned that Christians had been enslaved, brought from Africa, and made slaves, they put pressure on them to not to do that. They didn't want Christians put in slavery, subjected to slavery. But we're here now. And a great theologian, Dr. Lincoln, he said, he believed, this is the word of Dr. Lincoln, he said he believed that our interest now in Islam, black people's interest in Islam, whether they follow Honorable Elijah Muhammad or after his passing away, Minister Louis Farrakhan or whether they are with Imam W. Deen Muhammad's association, Dr. Lincoln believed that there is more than just a conscious interest. He believed that it's genetic, he calls it the genetic memory. Genetic memory, that's what he called it, and I do believe that too.
And that's what the forefathers of Africa believed, they believe that we inherit more than flesh, we also inherit will and even impart habits and everything unconsciously from our ancestors going way, way far back into the past, into the past. But whether we are black, brown, yellow, red, or any other color, all of us have the original life and the original nature, and the original will that G-d put in the first human being that was on this planet Earth, the Creator did that. So we trace all of our life, our social nature, our spiritual nature, the spirit in man, and his social nature, we trace it all back to our first forefather called Adam, called Adam. And please, don't see Adam as flesh, see Adam as a human type, and see Adam in the abstract, not in the concrete. See Adam as a disposition of nature. G-d made the human being to stand up erect, to have a will to stand up erect, not only in his physical posture but also in his morals. To stand up erect and to use his intelligence and produce, produce and produce for the benefit of other human beings, not just himself, not doing it selfishly, but doing it to benefit the family, the family.
That starts right in our little house, but it should spread abroad until it includes every member of the human family, because that's what Adam represents, he represents the original type for excellence that can bring excellence that is human and connected with all human beings. G-d... Yes. G-d...
[applause]
Thank you. G-d says that He made us from one soul, nafsin waahidah in Arabic, Quranic Arabic. He made us from one soul, and then He made of that one soul, its mate, female. So male and female were once together in one soul, like you students who study life, Biology or whatever, you have one, you have one, and then the one, it splits and become two, and they keep multiplying. So G-d says He made them of one Nafs, one soul, and then He calls it to separate and become male and female. And then He produced from the two of them, all the men and women we find on this planet Earth. This is the Qur'an, these are the exact words of the Qur'an, of our Holy Book. Is that picture any different from the one that we get in Genesis? In my opinion, it is not. The same is given to us in Genesis. Then we should understand... With that, we should understand that Muhammad the prophet didn't come with a lot of knowledge and insight that was given to him, and nobody before him had it. No, he came to reveal to his people and to the world what G-d revealed to him, of that that was revealed to prophets and messengers before him. This is the Qur'an and this is the teachings of our prophet.
So we Muslims, I'm speaking to you in particularly, right now, we should never think that the Qur'an is separate from the Bible, separate from the Torah, is separate from the Injil, or separate from the Old Testament and separate from the New Testament, the Gospel of Jesus Christ peace be on him, and peace be on the servants of G-d. Never think it's separated, the Arab world, the Muslim world, the national... I shouldn't say Arab, I meant to say nationalist Muslims. Nationalist Muslims and spiritual Muslims or religious Muslims are having a lot of trouble trying to get their life together and trying to unite with each other and work for the good of the Muslim international, Ummah. Having a lot of trouble doing that. They can't do that. Something is blocking it. And I think the main thing blocking it is that we are going as though we are of a separate lifeline that has no connection with the lifeline of Jews and Christians.
[applause]
Thank you, Praise be to G-d. Al-?amdu l-ill?hi rabbi l-??lam?n. Praise be to G-d the Lord, sustainer of the worlds. Yes, this is a very serious matter, and I hope that from the son of Elijah Muhammad, a little big man, and the son, just a little man in my eyes, I hope they will hear what I'm saying and will register it, and maybe they will begin to change the way they look at things. And progress. Yes, so now here we are in this time of opportunity, this is definitely the time of opportunity. Look, people wear out like an individual wears out, an individual keep working hard doing the same thing, and maybe he'll come into a great, great fortune, or great productivity one day. He lives in the products... Upon the products of his labor, and he has successors from his loins or from his family, and they are living also upon the products of his labor and extending his labor. And they produce so much, they don't have any worries at all, no cares, no worries. Everything is taken care of.
After a while, they become bored, the individual becomes bored. "I'm gonna leave this to others I've had enough of this." Well, you don't have to always say that, but those people who push the world forward in times gone by past, they have become so tired and bored that they're just throwing up their hands, saying, "Oh I've had enough of this, let others do this now." The spirit wears out, not only for an individual but wears out for people. The interest and the spirit to keep up the work wears out, not only for individuals, but also for people, for nations, and that's what we see in the world now. Also in the President... Also in our country, in the United States of America, you find great spirit and great interest in people on the grassroots level, and people who have never been responsible for the controls of the national life, they've never had the controls of the national life in their hands, but they have a great will and a spirit to produce for the whole country. I'm not here for politics, but I think Colin Powell would have made a much better president... Would have made a much better president.
[applause]
But he was not ready to accept the responsibility, his wife wasn't ready for him to carry that, and maybe... And I do believe it wasn't the time, it wasn't the time, the time wasn't his, but I believe the time is gonna come very soon, and it might not be a Colin Powell, it might be a female, it might be a female, a white, it might be one of us, a female Black, an African-American, I don't know, but I know eventually, soon, we are going to have motivators step into that position. President of the United States of America. To motivate human life all throughout these United States.
[applause]
We haven't had that in a long time. We had that in presidents more often, in 30 years ago, or 20 years ago than we have now. We had presidents like that, presidents that had the life of their people, the life of the whole people of the United States on their minds and in their hearts. And when they spoke, they spoke with a strong spirit, and we felt them in, "Hey this is a man we should support, this is a man we should support." Not just blacks, I'm not saying we, I'm talking about Americans. Americans felt the person, in, "Hey this is the person, a man we should support." Well, we haven't seen one lately.
[chuckle]
But we are gonna get them, they're coming. And what I want to bring home today, with the help of G-d... What I want to bring home today is a motivation that should be in every human being, and G-d has established that in Scripture, in Scripture to His servants. He has established that He wants a certain motivation in every human being. And until the human being had that motivation in the presence of G-d, the human person is not yet born. What is that motivation? And we leaders are responsible to reach everybody we possibly can reach that are in our congregation or in our hearing range, in the hearing range of our words. We are obligated to reach them. Don't think you're doing a great deal speaking Arabic. You get up and speak Arabic, and nobody understands it but you. The congregation, they didn't go to school.
[applause]
I never did that. I've been able to speak a lot of Arabic for all the time you've been knowing me as your leader. I had already gone to school. As a student, high school student, I studied Arabic as a high school student. And then, I continued my studies for all the years before I came into the leadership. So, when I came into the leadership, in 1975, February 1975, after the passing of that big little man, I could have come up there and said.
[foreign language]
I'm speaking masha Allah... I'm giving your language.
[foreign language]
I could have done that, and I could have done it better.
[laughter]
[applause]
Yes, I could have. I could have written my speech almost completely in Arabic. But who am I gonna talk to? You don't speak Arabic. What would be the purpose? It would be stupidity on my part. Yes, that would have been stupidity on my part. And I would have walked away from the convention, 1975, with nobody following me. Most of my daughters and sons would have left me. They'd say, "Hey he's gone crazy." I would have been by myself. But I didn't speak to you in Arabic. In 1975, February 26th, I spoke to you in English. And we have to speak to each other in English. Stop showing off with Arabic.
[applause]
We have to understand why we do these strange things. See, we lost our identity to a plantation slavery. And some of us think that we just pick it up like you shop for clothes downtown or in the Shopping District. "Oh, I like this Pakistani identity." "Oh, I like this Egyptian identity." And we're just shopping for identity and come back from the shopping plaza.
[foreign language]
Yes, we have to stop looking for an identity. The identity is human, human being in the best condition. That's the most productive identity any flesh can have. You hear me? Any flesh; black, white, yellow, red, I don't care what it is. The best identity any flesh can have is human identity in its best picture, motivated to have excellence. Motivated to have excellence. Excellent morals, excellent intelligence, excellent work, excellent production. Excellence, that's the most... And G-d said, "Excellence... " G-d said to His servants that He revealed religion to, He said to them, "Excellence is inscribed upon the nature of every human person." Excellence. The world of foolishness can take us out of the spirit, but when a baby comes here from its mother, if it didn't have excellence inscribed upon its nature, it would never stand up, it would walk, it would never speak our language. So, bringing into focus now what I want to bring into focus for this occasion, I'm going to now speak or address Eden, the garden, paradise.
Many of the scholars in Islam, they know this, and many learned it in the religions of this world, the great religions of this world, they know what I'm going to tell you. They are not looking back when they are looking at Eden, they are looking ahead when they are looking at Eden. Eden is a picture G-d gives us for us to work to bring it about on this Earth. And G-d is telling us that man's soul and the outer creation is all connected together. We are one as a people and we are one as creation. Man has to engage the Earth. He has to engage the external world with his mind and with his heart. With his mind and with his heart, not just his mind. In the Qur'an, Allah says that he has extended everything, caused everything... This word is hard to explain with one word, he has caused everything to come into existence and then spread out from a center, spread out from a core or from a center, and extend and multiply itself, extend itself and multiply itself, and create many, many, many from itself, from itself, create many or produce many. Not only our regeneration or reproduction, but this is true of matter itself.
The same is true of matter itself. It comes from an origin, from a core unseen, and then it spreads and it manifests itself, it shows itself and it continues to reproduce itself and spread and spread and spread. And every time it reproduces itself, it gives independence eventually to that that springs off from it. But they all stay within one system, within one law, so they don't lose the lifeline like African-Americans do. Don't let the interest take you away from the lifeline. Interest should take you away from another profession or another person doing another work, but interest should never take you away from the excellent lifeline of African-American people.
[applause]
So he says that he has caused everything that exists in creation, everything, to extend knowledge and mercy. In many... In several places, I would say about... Correction, not many, but in several places in the Holy Qur'an, in our sacred book, he says: Ilm means knowledge, Ilm also means science, science. But then he also says, G-d also says in our holy book, Ilm and Rahmah. Science and mercy, science and mercy. And, now, that is to say, that if you work with knowledge and be scientific-minded, eventually your work is going to be of mercy in the human community. Isn't that what education does? Isn't that what science does? Isn't that what it does? It brings us benefits that relieve burden on human life. It enriches the environment, the community so much. Think how hard it was just to travel a thousand years ago or less. Travel was really very difficult. People died just traveling the distances that we travel now, and we take them for granted. We are comfortable traveling a thousand miles, but people died traveling a thousand miles. A lot of them couldn't make it.
So why have we been relieved of that bad condition, those bad conditions? It's because of people pursuing excellence with knowledge, with the tool of knowledge and science, pursuing excellence using the tools of knowledge and science, and they have brought comforts, and what G-d calls in the Qur'an, mercy. Knowledge, science, working it, and what you have coming as a result of that mercy to people suffering bad conditions of life. Well, this is what we have to think about. Now, what is the common mind that G-d wants in all of us? We think it's too much some of us. Oh, in fact, I know a lot of my friends who are scholars in Islam, they say, "Oh, he'll never, he doesn't know... That won't work. You can't give the people but so much, you know." Well, I think I can give them everything that I believe I can give them. And I believe I can give them the mind that G-d created for Adam and invested in all of us. Allah, that is G-d, wants us to believe that we can carry our share of responsibility for the conditions of human life, for the conditions that he want in human life, or for human life.
And when G-d says he put the man in a garden, in a beautiful place, he's saying that that's what I created, every human being, every human individual or every human soul for, to be in an environment that is healthy, that is inspiring, that is beautiful, that is productive. Every individual. So if you accept that and you're a good believer in G-d, I don't care what name you call yourself, if you accept that and you're a good believer in G-d and you accept what I'm saying, please understand what I'm saying. I'm gonna repeat it again. Every human person is created to want to be motivated and want to have a share in responsibility for the condition of human life and willing to make a contribution to the environment to bring it closer to being the Eden. The paradise on earth, not in the sky. On earth, that Allah, that G-d created us for. Every human being can accept that, if you accept that the Creator created you for that, you are on the road. You'll be motivated positively, you'll be motivated forever. Forever. It won't die, that spirit will live in you forever if you accept it. You'll be motivated and you won't get up in the morning and feel good, looking at the floor of your bedroom, all cluttered with everything you drop. You didn't hang anything in the closet, you put everything on the floor. You have nothing in the dresser, nice beautiful dresser you bought. Nothing in the dresser, but junk and everything you take off is on the floor.
Your spirit will change and you will say, "I can't live in this hell anymore. I got the spirit of G-d in me. I can't live in this hell anymore." And you would go out of the bedroom and you go in the kitchen, you see the kitchen. It used to be a challenge, dirty dishes all piled up. The sink is stinking like the toilets, that haven't been flushed in a month. You will walk in that kitchen and you'll say, "Hell, you ain't too much for me. I got the spirit of G-d in me. The spirit, that He put in Adam. The spirit, that He gave Adam and He made that spirit human. Came from G-d, made human in man." And you look at that kitchen and you say, "Hey, you ain't too much for me." And you won't leave that house until that kitchen is smelling like a rose garden and sparkling. Yes. And you would do that to your house and you would walk out in that neighborhood and you would say, "Hell, I'm tired of this funky neighborhood and Imma get with somebody... Let me see, who I can go to. The precinct captain and let me bring this to his attention. Let me get with people and we gonna change this funky neighborhood." Yeah, you'll do that. Man was made and woman was made of the same spirit, same soul, same motivation, same power. Same power.
I know some of you are surprised to see these women knocking out men nowadays. They used to didn't do that, but now they'll knock out a man. I mean a strong man too. You didn't think they could do that. They got physical power and they got mind power. They got soul power, they got spirit power, they got every power you got in your origin because they came from the exact origin you came from. And if we don't do the job brothers, they gonna do it. And let me tell you something, I'll follow them. I won't call them Imam, but they'll sure be my leader. You call it what you want, Imam or whatever, president or scholar or whatever you wanna call it, but if we don't do it, I'll follow women, if they'll do it. But we gonna do it together, aren't we? Yes, we gonna do it together, because the help of G-d is here. The help of G-d is in the books and the help of G-d is here. Now, Allah says to us, he knows that this life is gonna present tests, challenges and gonna put burden on you, but he says, "Know that your G-d is a merciful G-d and He does not put burden on anyone, more than they can bear." That's enough for me. He said he doesn't put the burden on anybody more than they can bear. That's enough for me. Well, Imma keep bearing burden, because I know G-d didn't put more on me than I can bear, and I'm gonna use my good senses.
See, I know when to say it's rest time. I know when to say it's rest time and I take my rest and you know, rest isn't just sleeping, brother. Rest is getting work off your mind and getting rest on your mind. And Allah said, he made females to mate with males, to do more than be a clothing for them, but also to be rest, R E S T, rest for them. So I know how to rest. I know how to get the big work off my mind and rest, okay? And then, resting, what it does? It repairs you. In fact, a word for going to bed to sleep is repair. It repairs you. So after I get repaired, I go back out there in the work field. But carry nothing to the extreme. Don't try to do everything a freak tried to do with his wife or his girlfriend. Don't try to exhaust yourself to the freak's extent. Just have a intelligent human being night with your sweetheart, okay? And then, you'll be able to get up repaired and refreshed for the work field. G-d says, "Not that I want to burden you, but to purify you." To purify you. Purity is in the sky as you go higher. The pollution, very little of it can go up, but so high.
The higher you go up in the mountain or in the air on a plane or a helicopter or whatever, the more you leave the smoke and impurities down here. Think about that. Everything that G-d has made... The native Indian, the natives we call American-Indian... The Native Americans, we call Indian, I studied their religion too and they say exactly what our religion said, in this respect, that everything in creation or everything in the world exists not only as an object or a thing, but it exists as a message to the mind of human beings. It's a message. It gives a message to the mind of human beings. Yes, so we want purity and purity is high above. Now here's what we miss... It's in Scripture, it's in the Qur'an, it's in the Bible, it's in Scripture. Purity is also below. The air is pure up there. The earth that bears and produce life again, it purifies the life. You put the life with dung. What the life needs is the nutrients, the elements, etcetera, that's in the dung. The earth will filter that product that you put in the earth that's filthy. It will filter it. The plant comes up smelling sweet. Why? Because there was a filter filtering the earth itself, filtering all of the impurities that shouldn't go into that life. It filters it.
Now you know you can scientifically alter the earth makeup itself and you can produce harmful things for human beings. But if you leave the earth and you put the life, the seeds in there, they come up from impurity growing with dung, cow manure, and other things feeding it. But it filters out the impurities and put only that that is good for the life, whether it's a little blade of grass or a big tree or a farm, a garden, or whatever. It puts only that that's good for it in there. So it filters it to make it healthy, to make it nice, and make it fit to eat. In my conclusion, these are great signs from G-d and G-d wants us to do what? He says, dress the environment. See, he put the man in the garden of paradise and then told the man to be responsible for dressing it. In other words, the world of natural beauty is crude, in its crude state, or in its undressed state, for human purposes in community down the road. We have to take that rich environment of so many beautiful and wonderful products, we have to take it and utilize it.
So G-d says, He made everything in the skies and everything in the earth to be utilized for the benefit of human community. For the benefit of human community. So we have to take those things and utilize them. That's dressing the garden. When you take out of the raw products and you make a finished product for the people in the community, you are dressing the garden. You are dressing the garden. Oh, the white man has really dressed the garden then, hasn't he? Yes, buddy, he has. Now it's time for the black negro African-American here in these United States to do the same thing the white man been doing. You become the man, too, and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with any man, white, brown, Asian, what have you. If he's in this country, stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him and let him know that he's not alone, another man is present from the black family line to dress the garden. And dress the garden, and dress the garden. Look now, he doesn't just want us to make physical progress only, material progress only. When he said, "Dress the garden," he's talking about everything in the garden. You yourself, you are in the garden. Also, dress yourself.
When you turn toward the Kaaba, brothers and you turn toward the Kaaba, sisters, too, they turn toward the Kaaba. But the brothers need this motivation more than you sisters. When you turn toward the Kaaba, brother, what do you see? Do you see a house naked? You see a house with a dress on it. That house is symbolic of the soul of all people, the common human soul that G-d created, and we are to dress that soul. And G-d says to spend on your own soul if you wanna be successful and whoever spends on his own soul, he will be successful. That's what G-d promises us. And whoever neglects to do that will certainly fail and G-d said it's gonna come, it's inevitable that you fail if you won't have the interest to dress up your own soul.

