04/11/1998
IWDM Study Library 
Identity Workshop Oakland, Ca

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
As Salaam Alaikum. Praise be to Allah. Alhamduillahi Raabil Alamin. The Praise and the Thanks is to G-d, the Lord and Sustainer of the universe, who cares about all of His creation, especially His human creation. We witness that He is One and the deservant of complete obedience from all of His creatures. And that Muhammad, through whom the Qur'an was revealed, Muhammad, the son of Abdullah, is His servant and His messenger. And He is the one mentioned in the Torah and in the Injeel as G-d has revealed in the Qur'an, as the liberator who will break the bonds of slavery, free the people from all forms of captivity to take from their back the heavy yokes that weighed them down and break all the bonds of slavery, and free them from all forms of captivity.
This is Muhammad the Prophet. And that has already happened with the message of the Qur'an and the message of Al- Islam. Enlightenment came to the world again. Firstly, on the Peninsula of Arabia, the land of the Arabs, as it was called, and then to the known world in a relatively short period of time. And Western historians acknowledge that it was the message of the Qur'an, the message of Islam, and those new thinkers that brought on the enlightenment of the West that we call the Renaissance, revival of interest in the sciences and civilization.
So, this is the Prophet who brought freedom to the intellect of mankind. If you can free the intellect, the whole job of freeing people is done. But as long as the intellect is enslaved, then the job of freedom is not done. So, G-d knew how to free the slaves from the bondage to others, other than G-d, and that was by enlightening their intellect, by awakening their minds, their intelligent minds, enlightening their minds so that they would have enlightened intellects. That is the way to free people from all forms of captivity. All forms of captivity. As a people, we have been free on the pages of history for over a hundred years. But again, as a people, many of us are still slaves. Not slaves to a white man in the South on a plantation, but slaves to ideas, slaves to influences, slaves to appetites, slaves to our own small thinking that won't permit our intellects to have freedom, and therefore, our souls can't enjoy a sense of freedom because our minds are not yet freed. This is at the bottom of the identity problem for African Americans. We have an identity problem or an identity crisis because our intellects are not free. Our minds are not free. Our thinking, not free. More specifically, our rational thinking is not free. And that's the condition to us being free. Our rational thinking has to be free. Our rational thinking cannot be free until that thinking is in touch with and responding to and not conflicting with the nature created by G-d, or your real true self. The nature created by G-d or your real, true self. I hope you have time to flesh over this kind of topic. It could be helped a lot by exchange between myself and you. We should have some kind of exchange. Muhammad the Prophet was obviously a healing creation blessed by G-d or protected by G-d and preserved by G-d in his human purity and in his human excellence. Muhammad the Prophet, Peace be upon him, didn't have to be converted to good behavior. His behavior was always excellent behavior. Before he was called to be a Prophet, his behavior was excellent behavior. This is history and also this is Qur'an. This is history, I repeat, and this is also Qur'an, that Muhammad did not have to be called to good behavior. He was already doing good behavior. He didn't have to be made a good person. He was already a good person. He didn't have to be converted from superstition, he never believed in superstition. He never followed superstition. He didn't have to be converted from idol worship, he never worshiped any idols. He is a man without Revelation, found to be in the human condition that G-d wants for all people. You'd be surprised how revealing that is, when you're looking for something to excite your intellect. You'd be surprised how revealing that is in the history of man as an evolving life. That's a testimony directly from the Creator Himself, that no matter what the world does to blind the mind, the intellect, contained within the safety of the human being, G-d's creation, is so powerful it can survive it all. So, there was one soul on this earth who had survived it all, that was in the condition that G-d wanted it in. And then G-d selected that person, that He created and protected for that purpose. He selected that person and made that person the universal liberator to all mankind.
Yes, and it is much bigger than we imagine it to be. Much bigger than we imagined it to be. I mean Islam. And the Lord says in Qur'an, "That they have made no just estimation of this". We got to wake up a lot before we can see the big picture. The wonderful value of the Qur'an, the Revelation from G-d, Muhammad, and Muhammad the model person, the model human. If you could study Scripture, not just the Bible and Qur'an too. If you could study the world scripture, you would see that what has engaged the people, mind, what has invited their minds to come, and look at something, and devote their mind to something more than anything else has been the condition of man and the belief that man can rise above conditions that hold him down or hold him back. This is what turned people to G-d. They believe that G-d said that no. G-d doesn't want us to be like this. G-d created us to be better than this.
That G-d made us to be better in this or we have angels. We have gods that are better than this, and if we could get help from those angels or help from those gods, even the polytheists had an idea like that, that his condition should improve, said we could get help from these angels or help from the gods or from the stars, whatever they believed in. We can be better than this. We could have a better condition for ourselves than this, so this is the timeless struggle of the human soul and intellect, the belief that life can be better. And where is the help- To find it and turn to it so that life would be better. Identity. So, on the outset, I want to make it clear to you that identity problem can only be solved if we return to our original identity. Original identity. And the original identity for everybody that's human is human identity.
Simply that, human identity. And you may say, "Well, all of us have human identity." Well, just keep listening please. This is special day for Christians this Sunday. I don't know how I go to sleep and just let them invite me everywhere but home on these special days, even on my birthday, somebody planned to keep getting me out of my home on my birthday, so I'm kind of working on it consciously now to keep them from having me come out on all these special days. Sometimes we need to be with our family on these special days. Oh, Imam said he'd like to be with his family today. I didn't say that. So we would like to expand greetings of Peace in this day, this season, spring season of Holy celebrations for Jews, who I'm sure have observed the Passover; for Christians who have fast the Lent, 40 days of Lent, and are observing Easter, and for Muslims who have observed the celebration of Al Adha, the Eid Al-Adha, the day of celebration for Muslims who participated, that is who made the hajj, and for those at home, too, we all join them in the celebration. The 10th day of the month of the hajj, pardon me. The 10th day of the haji, the celebration of the victory for the hajjis, and if any of you all made the hajj, we'd like to congratulate you on your visit to the Holy Precincts, and to G-d's house in Holy Mecca, venerable Mecca, and to salute you Hajji and Haja.
For us in America, perhaps the problem of identity is greater than for any other people in America, I know. I would think around the world, but certainly for all the people in America, if we could look at the problem of identity in them, we'll see that ours is more serious than any of theirs, but people of all colors suffer some identity problem.
Don't think they don't, but we just have something that occurred in history that keeps us aware of our identity problem, and the need to improve upon our sense of identity. We have something that occurred in history, and that was slavery. We were separated from Africa and we were enslaved in America. And we have more generations behind us that were slaves than we have before us that are free, that have been freed. The biggest portion of our life in America is told in the history of our enslavement. So, it's not something that happened 1,000 years ago. It's not something that happened so far back. We can't get a clear picture of exactly what happened. This is something that happened relatively recently in the history of man in America. Not to speak of man in civilization or the man in the history of civilization, but man in America. It's something that happened fairly reasonable fairly recently.
Some of us have living relatives right now who were children in slavery. Yes, right now. Yes, so that is why I think we are more aware of the problem than most people, but believe me, most people I meet Europeans or whites. You say whites. I don't like to say white and black because that language is charged, and it's just to keep us thinking of each other as enemies, so I don't like to even use the language white and black. We have European people who are suffering identity crisis. I meet with them and travel in airplanes, and different other places, and we get in a conversation. I say, "You look Irish. What's your nationality?" And it opens up a conversation and they reveal to me that they have an identity crisis. So don't think we the only ones, but we the only ones within an identity crisis that won't let money come into our pocket, won't let the bank account build up, won't let the performance in school get better.
We have an identity problem that's affecting us, that's hurting us when it comes to progress in a real world. But for them, it's not that serious. They'll think about it, and they'll quickly take their mind off of it, and get right back to the matter at hand. They have no problem just living with reality, but we do. We have a problem living with reality. I'm a student of psychology. I've been a student of psychology for I'm sure 40 years. I'm a student of psychology. I haven't gotten formal training at a University or College or something, but I'm a student of psychology, and I think I'm a pretty good one. I'm a pretty good educated student of psychology, so I tend to, I think dwell more on our identity problem than most African Americans, than most African Americans, even those who write books on the identity problems for African Americans. I don't think they have studied it as long and as deep and as thorough as I have studied it. I read their books and their books are not that serious to me. They're not that serious. They're hitting and missing and not hitting often, but I hit almost every minute. I'm hitting.
Yeah, yeah. Almost one hit per minute. Yeah. Yes, lost identity. Lost identity. Isn't it something to take note of that The Nation of Islam got so popular in the African American life here in America? It still is very popular because of Farrakhan, a very, very great charismatic, magnetic speaker. And very intelligent, too. Don't underestimate him. He's intelligent, sharp witted, a thinker, an educated man. He has college training in his background, so it's still very popular in the African American, The Nation of Islam. And it's noteworthy that The Nation of Islam's teaching dealt with identity problems. Yes it did. It asked the question, and what is my own self? It's a question, so the teacher obviously who taught The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Mr. Fard, obviously, he saw us with an identity problem needing to have the question answered, Who am I or what am I?
And he thought to solve it by starting you off in a new history of your life, a new history of your life or our life. I put myself in there. A new history of our life beginning with him coming and starting our brains to work again are new in a different way from that thinking that he came to do away with, and he asked the question, What is my own self? And he answers it. My own self is a Righteous Muslim. Now, the reason why you still have an identity problem is because you haven't yet had it cleared up in your head what a Righteous Muslim is. Yes. If any of you all still got problems, you're still looking for yourself is because you haven't had it clear in your head yet what a Righteous Muslim is. Once it's clear in your head what a Righteous Muslim is and you accept that you are one, you have no more identity problem.
You have no more identity problem. So, the problem began when we were taken from Africa, this problem, the major problem that we had, not that the problem itself began. No, I'm sure Africans over in Africa right now. Many of them have identity problems. I believe they suffered very serious identity. In Africa. Because, after all, they didn't name themselves Africans. That's something most of you don't think about. You don't know and you who know, you don't think about it. They didn't name themselves Africans. Outsiders gave them that name. It was the new movement for conquest by the western man that gave names to big areas and then gave names to small sections in the big areas. Renamed the globe, renamed the geography, the geographical community was renamed by Western conquerors.
Asia didn't get his name from the Asians, but the majority of the Asians were calling themselves a word that well is translated Asia, but it's not Asia in their language, it's not Asia. That's American. That's English language, and the whole land came to known as Asia because of Western influence. People were satisfied to call themselves by certain regional names, and those regional names were enough for them, good enough for them. And they all shared the big land together and they had their names as regional names or local names, tribal names, et cetera, and that was enough for them. The Egyptians never called themselves Africans. They never called themselves Egyptians. Are you all hearing me okay out there? I don't want to get too close and I don't want to start singing again. You know I was singing when I came up here.
Yes, so Egyptians never called themselves Egyptians. I mean, Egyptians, and certainly they never called themselves Africans. Those names were imposed upon them. Right now, Egyptians do not call themselves Egyptians. They call themselves by the same name they've had for thousands of years. They call themselves Misrej. Misrej. An Egyptian, you ask him, what are you? What is your nationality? What are you? He'll say, "Misreji." He doesn't say Egyptian, Misreji. Now if you ask him, "Well, what is the name of the continent here that you all share together?" He will say what the Western world told him, "Africa." He'll say Africa. When we study the maps of Africa, we find that there was a time when Africa was not on that land. The word Africa is not on that land. Who needs a name on the land? Strangers.
They need a name. The local people don't need a name. They know the name in their local towns, but a stranger need a name for the place he's going to, so it was the strangers who put Cush on that map. The land we called Africa once, C-U-S-H. That name was on that map, not Africa, and the strangers called it the land of Cush, the land of Cush. There are still some ancient maps surviving that have Cush on the whole continent of Africa, not Africa. Cush is on the land, not Africa. You know what the word Africa means? Just what the white man thought it was. Highly sexed, can't control the sex appetite. That's what Africa means. Highly sexed can't control their sex appetite. From the word Africa, you get aphrodisiac and a whole lot of other words. This is nothing new to some of you out here, but I'm sure to most of you sitting down there, this is new to you. You thought a black man had put the word up there. Huh?
You thought it meant black god or something? Yeah, I guess it does mean black god. Black god of the zinc of the potency pill or something. Yes. So, this is what we should know, so how are we going to arrive at our true past when even when we think about Africa, we are using a language that didn't come from us. So how are we going to arrive at our true past going through the avenues cut out by the same people that you resent having influence in your life now? That's a white man. I use the term because that's the way you see it. I want to speak to that mind you got. That's the white man. You see the white man is the one that's making all the trouble for you now, and then you go and you pick up a term, you think is yours. It's his, Africa.
So how are we going to overcome all that? By coming back to our originality, our originality, and our originality doesn't necessarily have something to do with a particular land. Our originality has everything to do with the life that we belong to. What life form we belong to. Black people? No, that's not a life form. That's a life, not a life form. What life form we belong to? The human life form. That's the form you belong to. We belong to the human life form. If we can come back to the originality of the human life form, we can solve all identity problems. If you have a seed and it's the seed of an apple, you look at that seed, it doesn't look like an apple. It doesn't at all look like an apple. But, out of that seed comes apple, so that seed has apple in it. Apple is in that seed.
That's the very good description. G-d says, and He's created us like plants. This is not just the Qur'an, this is other scriptures, too. Go back to plants to compare, to study the evolution or the life of people. So, if you could see what is truly the seed of human life, of human life in its true form, human life like that apple seed is the seed of apple life in its true form. If you could see the seed of human life in its true form. You look at it, you don't see your picture. Just like we can't see the picture of an apple in an apple seed, but if you being an intelligent creature created by G-d to use your brain and to understand processes, occurrences, occurrences and processes, you've been given a brain to then understand that and to follow that logic.
Then just like we can follow the logic of an apple seed, put in the right environment, in the ground, in the right environment will spring up a tree, and in time a blossom, and in time an apple. You'll follow that logic. You can follow that logic. That ain't a puzzle in your head. If it is, it's because you got some stuff in there, and while you wrestling with some stuff while I'm trying to talk to you. Get that crap out of your mind and empty your head first, and let's talk. Yes because I'm going to open up for questions pretty soon. I want to hear what you got to say. Yes, so if you can follow that logic, you should be able to follow the logic. Here is the human seed. The human seed is this life I call human stripped of all of its accumulated identities.
If I can strip it of all of its accumulated identities, I will end up with the human seed, and then you'll be able to see how this seed took on accumulation, accumulated forms to become you. Now if you want to get you back, put that seed in its right environment, in its right thinking environment because you are a thinking creature. Not only the philosopher said that, G-d says that of us. We are thinking beings, females thinking beings, males thinking beings. This is the Qur'an. So, our, I would say most essential, most essential description is thinking, being, and science comes up with the same answer. What are we? Homo sapien. What does it mean? That's Latin, isn't it? In English thinking beings, Homo sapien thinking beings. And G-d says, And the thinker is not like the female.
"Al dhakir kil unta". And the thinker is not like the female because the female has been created to receive, give a space, a place for the thought to come in, and find rest, and have development. The female. And the male has been created to eject the thought into the protected confines that the female has been provided with. Huh? Yes, so "Al dhakir kil unta", The male is not like the female or the thinker is not like the receptor. Isn"t it wonderful? Lost identity, that's what we are addressing in this time now, lost identity, but we can easily come back to the bare form before other forms grew upon it or put on it, and we come up with thinking, sensitive, emotional, rational human being.
Scripture describes us in three essential forms. The scripture. The thinking being described in three essential forms. We are firstly thinking beings. If you're not a thinking being, you're not a human being. Understand that if you're not a thinking being, you're not a human being because that's the true description of a human being. A thinking being. First is the compulsive self, are the passionate itself, or the amorous self, and of that self G-d says in the Qur'an, "Surely that self comes by corruption." Listen. Comes by corruption. That self develops by corruption. When you study the history of man in his rise from savagery or ignorance to civilization, you see that it's his passionate form is what has thrown him into corruption.
His passionate form is the thing that threw him into corruption. It doesn't have to, because G-d hasn't given the passions of nature to be corrupt, but it's prone to, it's subject to be corrupt. Not that it's of a corrupt nature. No. G-d created it good. Everything G-d did is good, as the scripture says, but it's subject to be corrupt, so the passion itself, when a young... You want to see civilization? You want to see the trials, and tribulations, and victories for civilization? You don't have to go back and read all those books. Watch the development of any child. Any child from infancy to adulthood, and you will see the theater presentation of the history of civilization. And that's why the Qur'an goes back to, "Remember when you were a baby, when you were born, and had no sense of your own, you had no control of yourself, and then G-d blessed you to survive, and you reach old age, and you become weak, feeble again.? So, G-d has given us not only the history of man in a calendar kind of narration, but G-d also gives us the picture of the evolution of human life from infancy to adulthood. Puberty is supposed to be the worst years, the worst years puberty, those teenage years, the most trying years for the individual. If they can survive passions, sex drives, et cetera during those teenage years, most likely they'll be very successful for the rest of their lives, but most of us can't even survive those years without a lot of help from others.
We are destroyed by our own passions. So, you can see that the trying state for life is because of the intensification of passions. "Oh, I love that girl so much. I don't want to think straight". Yeah. Now, I'm putting it in a child's mouth. But there was a grownup who sung it, said, "If loving you is wrong, I don't want to be right." A grownup sang that. You see, in America. Yes, so we know these trying times, these trying states for man, the passions. The passions. So, G-d says of that passionate self, my passionate self, that it is subject to corruption. That it comes by corruption except for those on whom G-d has shown His Mercy. And what did he credit with his success, with him being protected? The Mercy of G-d? Because they asked him.
They said, "Is that also true for you?" He said, "Yes." That he too was saved only because of the Mercy of G-d, and G-d put it in the Qur'an. And Joseph, the impeccable soul, no defect, no corruption in Joseph. He had survived the house of his terrible brothers. None of their influences changed the good perfect state of his soul. Then he was put in slavery, put in the hole in the ground to be sold to the caravans and put in slavery, then put in prison, and through all that, he kept his good soul then freed and honored by the ladies of the house of Pharaoh, even by the big lady.
The big lady that mean like your first lady like Hillary Clinton. In those days, it might have been a little bigger than Hillary Clinton because I don't think the Democratic society we live in will permit the lady to be as big as they permitted the lady to be. We kind of keep her down to normal size. And they were so enamored, they were so fired in their passions by just the sight of Joseph, just the sight of Yusef, the Prophet, Upon him be Peace. And the big lady wanted him so bad to be her man. She accused him falsely of desiring her. But scripture reveals to us that he was never taken out of his true form by the ladies. And G-d says of his success in retaining his innocence, his purity, "Ila Man Rahim Allah". That it doesn't happen except G-d gives Mercy to that creature.
So, he's protected by G-d's mercy. To get our identity back, we have to be protected by G-d's mercy. We need G-d's mercy to come to us. Then we can have our identity back. Now, I imagine that different students of scripture, different scholars that is, would translate that differently. They might not translate it as I'm going to translate it to you right now, but I'm sure that I can find some who will come up with this translation, I hope. G-d is firstly to be known by us or by human beings who want to find G-d, as G-d the Creator. Listen G-d the Creator. That's the way we have to know G-d. If we know G-d in other names, we may not find G-d unless we are given a book of Revelation. Something from Prophets, some Messengers of G-d. We may not find G-d, but man without Revelation can find G-d if he tried to search creation with a innocent soul to find what did this?
What caused all of this? And that's how early Prophets or Messengers of G-d came to G-d, and that's when G-d responded to them in their search. When they started to search for G-d with that discipline. See, I know these things, these marvelous things that I'm watching and looking at, myself included, has an explanation. There's a cause. Something brought this about, and they start to ponder. They start to wrack their brains to strain that intelligent thoughts, imagination, to find what is behind all this. What is the cause that produced all of this effect? That's the meeting with the Creator. That's the road for the meeting with the Creator. Now, when you study scripture, I repeat whether it's Bible or Qur'an you'll find that the great grand major meeting of man with his Maker was the meeting of man with his Creator or his Maker.
That's what it is, so now we want to have our true self, true self, my true self. We have to find the true self in the same way that man found cause for the effect. We called it whole material creation of the universe. So, you study yourself that way, study yourself that way. I'm a creature able to think able to do things that other creatures can't do. Nothing in the inanimate or in the animate world has the freedom and the ability that I have, so I'm special. Don't be afraid to say that, that you are special. There's nothing in the animal kingdom that can do what you can do. Nothing in the animal kingdom with the freedom of movement that you have. Nothing in the animal kingdom or in the plant kingdom with the creative powers that you have. You are a creature with creative powers. They can only live with what exists. You can create upon what is created. You can create more things.
You can even create yourself a new form of existence. The roach can't do that. The ant can't do that. None of the animals can do that. Only you can do that. G-d has created you. Or if you don't believe in a G-d, something has created you with the power to create upon creation. You are able to take creation and then create upon creation, new creation, even a new creation for your own existence. If you want to be a songbird in a cage, you have the creative powers to do that. You can make yourself one big seven-room songbird house, and you can put yourself on a swinging swing and swing up there, and people come visit you. They say, "Hello." And if you can't drop egg, you'll swallow one and drop it. You have that ability. No other creature can do that.
You have been given the power of imagination and the power to create. No other creature is given that. So then study your own creation. This is what Allah invited us to do. The G-d that made us. He invites us in the Qur'an. He said, "Why don't you study your own creation? Study your own creation and see how you have come to be what you are." I've done it for many years. I'm still doing it. It's fascinating. I find it most rewarding. I haven't given it up, although I don't have an identity problem anymore, but I'm still engaged in the study of creation. We go to Africa and we find ourselves there black skinned people on that land. Now those black skinned people in their human identity that's original for them as mine is for me. They are no different than I am. You don't need to call them African and me American. We are not African and American. We're human.
I'm only American because I have put clothes on my original humanity that you identify with American life and history. And he's only African because he has done the same or we have done the world has done the same to him. But in our bare-naked reality as creatures created by G-d, we are not African and American. We're just human. Now, that's where you have to start to get your identity back. That's why when Prophet Muhammad received Revelation from G-d. G-d didn't tell him, "You an Arab. Learn all about your Arabism or learn all about your Arab identity." No. G-d brought to him the single identity for all people. "You are human and tell them you are human just like they are." Say to them, "I am a human just like you." "Bashirun Mithlakun". "I am a human mortal being just like you". That's the common meeting place for all the people of earth. We want to meet for unity? Let us meet in our original human identity first before the world made us American, and African, and Asian, and whatever.


