05/30/1999
IWDM Study Library 
CPC Harvey, IL

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
A convention is coming up in Philadelphia. Praise be to Allah. We thank Allah for our presence here today. As always, we ask Him for success that we look for or hope for all of our efforts. We thank Him for creating us Muslim. Allah says that He created the human being for His worship. Sometime we don't know what it is that's moving us. What it is that's driving us. All we know is that we have to do something. We have to make our life worthwhile. That spirit in us and urge in us is the will of G-d in us. That's the will of G-d working in us, to have us come to the life, to the life of establishment and excellence that He created us for. And if we obey always our better feelings, our better urges, our better motivations, our better spirit, we will have G-d with us and G-d's angels with us and we will be successful. We can have cancer in the family. We can have sudden death in the family. 
We can have the worst tragedy for our loved ones that you can imagine. And we'll be sad and miserable on the one hand, but still in paradise on the other. And that's the blessing that I wish all of us could have. Once Allah accepts you as His devoted servant and He's pleased with you in your intentions, pleased with you based upon your intentions, you have Him with you all the time and you have His angels with you all the time. And you'll have paradise whether you are on this earth or in the Hereafter. You'll have paradise. Now, this is the best that Allah has created His creatures for. 
This is the best what I'm giving you. But we can have a good life, a very good life, especially by this world standards, by simply just following the instructions in Islam. You don't have to have this spiritual burden in your nature, in your soul. You can just have an interest in being a part of a good community and following the instructions in your religion. And you can have very, very good life. But I want to give you the best life first. And now I give you the life that's open to everybody. Everybody can have that life. Only very few can have the life that just I described to you in the first instance. Only very few can have that life.
Because most of us are taken by the excitement in the world. I'm not speaking of sinning now. I'm just talking about excitement. Just excitement in the world. The excitement of this world's life occupies us totally and we just don't have any time to develop the everlasting life. But if you are just sincere in being a part of a good work for Allah, for G-d, I guarantee you have a good life. And from your children will come, Inshallah, some special person like I described in the first instance, a special person who will give his spirit for Allah, for G-d, and they're the ones that will secure our future for us under G-d. Yes. 
So, the best of the people on this earth are those like the Prophets. And the best of the followers who follow the Prophets and disciples of the Prophets, the followers of the Prophets, like Muhammad's followers who was his companions, who were at his side in his company for no other reason than just to support him, to give him whatever he needed, to be his assistants for the mission or for the message or propagation of Islam. For the propagation of Islam, the establishment of the Muslim community, the Ummah, the Muslim community.
We are here on this Memorial Day weekend holiday for the conference of our youth, the Muslim Youth Conference in this association of ours. And for the business conference, the private label exhibit product conference. A lot of language, but we want to be clear and exact. And last evening, yesterday we witnessed our youth and their devotion to Islam and in their devotion to the community, to serving the community for the better road, for the better condition and the road ahead of us. And we are very happy and proud and thankful to Allah, we proud of our youth, we thank Allah for them. And we do believe that they gave us something and we gave them something. Imam Yusef Saleem, he addressed the youth conference yesterday and I did, and others did. I felt very confident that our youth, their positioned correctly for the job, their hearts and minds are good and sincere and they're not lazy. And we are going to see more from them to convince us that we don't have to worry about our future. The leaders for tomorrow are already here. So, we thank Allah for that. 
Now there's a Prophet in the Qur'an, well more than one. I guess all the Prophets, all the great men fit this picture. There was a Prophet in the Qur'an. He was facing death in his old age and what he needed to comfort his soul was to know that his sons would carry on as they should in obedience to G-d. So, he called them to his bedside and asked them, "What will you worship after I'm gone?" And they all assured him that they would worship the One G-d who created the heavens and earth. And that gave great comfort to his soul. He was able to die in peace with his soul smiling. And I believe that's what all fathers and mothers want. They want know that when they're gone, their children will still be devoted to decency, lawful pursuits and living a life that will contribute to the popularity of the name, the family name in an honorable way that would make them proud. Well, we are children of our parents. And as Imam Plemon had said, and one of our speakers said too yesterday, I believe, and we are also children of the community.
We are children of our parents and we are also children of our community. So, our parents and the community wants to know what will you worship after we go? And what will satisfy our soul is to know that you are as your best of your leaders in faith. You would rather see yourself dead a thousand times by the most horrible and imaginable death than to be without Islam, without the spirit, to will obey your G-d who made you and everything. We have good news for you. Before giving the good news of our business contacts and business venture, I want to speak to you just for a little while on the condition for progress that man needs if he's going to progress, the condition in this world's life for progress. In this world life, to have the condition for life, for progress, you have to be a part of a work or an establishment that serves man, or people in community life. Neighborhoods, cities, town, state, whatever, the nation. For us, it's the Muslim society, the Ummah of the world, International Society of Muslims. For us, the Ummah, that's what it is, International Society of Muslims. And for us it's that. But for us as citizens of this nation, the United States of America, it is also the United States of America.
This is a context, the geographic context in which we live. And our success in the life depends upon the condition of the environment, the space we must occupy, the space we must share with our neighbors, with the citizens of our country or our land. Muslims are obligated by G-d to work for community life. G-d, through Muhammad the Prophet showed us the purpose for which we are created and put on this earth. The purpose is to grow into an excellent community model as witnesses of the G-d who created us. That we have followed His guidance, and that we have followed His Messenger, His Messenger, Muhammad the Prophet. And that what we have done with our hands and our mouth, our tongue, our speech or whatever was all done to have the finished work accepted in the light of what the Qur'an want us to have for community life and what Muhammad already has demonstrated to us. This is what it's all about. Too many Muslims here in the United States and throughout the world, too many Muslims take Islam to be a religion for them privately. You are entitled to your private life. You are even encouraged to strengthen, establish and strengthen the establishment of your private life.
But your private life and you must be seen in the bigger picture and must contribute positively, wholesomely, to the bigger picture, which is the Muslim society. Now how are we going to have that if we all be satisfied to live in non-Muslim neighborhoods on a non-Muslim block and depend on non-Muslim for everything except the little business of running the apartment or the home. In fact, we depend too heavily upon them to run the home. Many of us have to call them when we want to paint the interior, want the interior painted. We have to hire them when we want furniture put in there, new furniture for the house. So really they are inside the house too, not only outside. Now this doesn't mean that we don't like them. We love them and we want for them what we want for ourselves. Let me tell you. If I saw Christian communities, depending heavily, so heavily on Muslims for everything, G-d is my witness, it would bother my heart just like it bother my heart that Muslims are depending so heavily on Christians for everything. G-d is my witness. I would be among them, not among you. I'd be among them telling them G-d didn't intend for it to be this way.
You're Christians. Why you have no Christian establishments. This is your community. This is your block, this is your neighborhood. How come you don't have any Christian establishments? America is a very special place, very, very special place. There's not another nation on this earth like America, like the United States of America. Some nations will welcome you to come in and have your life. You are Chinese. You can come in and have your Chinese life, you're Japanese, have your life. But few nations will encourage you to have your life. In fact, I only know one. The United States of America. It was founded, it was conceived, founded for the purpose of accommodating people who couldn't have the life they wanted where they were living. So, America was conceived by the Founding Fathers. The United States of America was conceived by the Founding Fathers to answer those people's need to establish their life as they wanted their life to be established. Protestants who were persecuted in the old world after Martin Luther, they came here because it was so hard to survive persecution in Europe and in other places. So, they came here and here they were welcome. So, they have so many Protestants here. They were welcome to establish their Protestant life. Now we know the prejudice of the newcomers made trouble for each other.
But the call, the invitation was for all of them. So, some small groups that weren't popular, they were persecuted by stronger groups in the history of the migration to this country, from the old world like the Mormons and some others, Quakers others. But in time the promise became real for all of them. It took time for the law, for the intent and the law to come to the people's consciousness and force all of them to accept that America is a land of many people, many nations, a land conceived from many people and for many nations. From many different religions. Not just for Christianity. There's nothing in the introduction to the Constitution of the United States written by the Founding Fathers. There's nothing in that that says that we concede this beautiful society that we are conceiving and preaching to you or giving to you for you to carry it on and keep it for others generations, the generation to come. There's nothing in this that says a Muslim is not to be given the full right and membership here with the Christian. Nothing. There's nothing here that says this is for Christians, nothing. They were careful not to even use the name Christ. Because Christ's name is so popular and common for Christians. So, they were careful not to even use the name Christ because they knew that there would be other people following other religions and that Christ would kind of discriminate against them using Christ, by specifying that G-d is Christ. So, they didn't say that. They were Christians too, but they didn't say that. They were careful to keep this country a country open for not only Christians but Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, everybody. But look how much trouble the Jews got.
Not because of the Founding Fathers, not because of the language of the Founding Fathers. Well, because of the prejudices in the bigger groups that were here. My point is what we envision for our future, it is welcomed by the law of the land. Not only welcomed but encouraged by the law of the land. America is growing into its beauty. You know the song America the Beautiful. That's a hope until ethnic groups really find that place in this country that the law provides. Not their place without respect for the law, for what the law intends. Their place for what the law provides when they find their place in this country, then America will be America the beautiful. When they realize that the Catholic has no more right to establish his way of life here than the Protestant Christian or the popular Christians have no more right to establish their life here than the Mormons. And the Christians have no more right to establish their life here than the Jews. And the Jews have no more right to establish their life here than the Muslims. We all have equal invitation. The invitation is equal for all of us. The invitation is to come here and establish your life.
Is something asked of us? Do we have to do something, to give something, to give up something to have this? Yes, you have to give up your small mindedness. You have to give up your selfishness. You have to give up your unfounded hatred of hatred of another people. You have to come to the perception of man that is respected by intellectuals, by PhDs, by saints and by G-d Himself. G-d says He honors man when man is in that dignity that He created him for. Yes. When you cherish your excellence above all of your selfish aspirations or selfish appetites, you cherish your excellence. It's human to be weak. It's human to commit sin. It is human to do bad things, sometimes. 
Human even to be destructive, self-destructive, destroy others. That's a human weakness. It's human. All G-d want of you is that you don't like that in yourself. That's all G-d wants of you. That you don't like that in yourself. Just like when you look in a mirror and you look at your physical picture and you got slop on your mouth, your eyes are red from smoking reefers or doing something else that you shouldn't be doing, and you look at that picture and you don't like it, you don't like that picture, you don't stand in there and just look at it. Soon as you see it, you want to get away from the mirror. That's all G-d wants us to do with our souls. Take our souls to the mirror for the soul. And when you see sin on it, don't like it. When you see evil and bad and don't like it, get away from looking at it. Say, I'm going to wash up. 
I'm going to wash my soul up. I'm going to dress my soul up, clean my soul. That's all G-d wants. And He'll love you for that. And He'll never pull away from you. He won't abandon you no matter how, how much sin you have fallen down into, he won't abandon you as long as you got that disposition in your soul. As long as you don't like the wrong you're doing, G-d is with you. But when you start to not care, G-d pulls away from you. G-d pulls away. He pulls His supports away from you. That's what I mean when I say G-d pulls away from you. G-d pulls His supports away from you, His angels that are there to help you, there to protect you. He tells them I'm withdrawing. And the angels immediately withdraw.
They're not like G-d. They don't have as much mercy and compassion as G-d. In fact, they don't have mercy and compassion. They only have obedience. That's right. They don't have mercy and compassion. They have only obedience. So, when they see G-d pulling away from you, they immediately pull away from you. And there are other angels. They're assigned to punish those violators so that those violators will be made aware of the seriousness of their violations and come back to G-d. Repent for their behavior. So, when G-d pulls away from you, the angels pull away from you. And believe me, even the good help of your friends pull away from you, your helpful loving mother will pull away from you. Now, let me explain this. She may still be with you physically. She may still be crying and worried about you, but her help will not be helpful anymore. Her help will be contributing to you being deeper and deeper in hell, going deeper and deeper down into the hell. She might think she's helping you, but her help will be harmful. So, all good forces will leave you. But if you keep the intent, keep the good intent, want to be good and hate the bad in yourself, don't like it.
Don't like missing prayers, dislike missing prayers. Allah says pray five times a day through Muhammad. He didn't say it directly, but G-d ordered us to establish prayers and Muhammad showed us how to do it. Five daily prayers. Don't be content, not praying those prayers. You busy, G-d is Merciful. Don't punish yourself and make your life just so miserable that you want to die. But don't forget that there's an obligation on you to do those prayers. And then pray to G-d, say G-d, strengthen me. And if the circumstances in my life are making it very difficult for me to pray, G-d bless me to have better circumstances in the future that will favor me praying as I should pray. G-d loves you. 
You can miss all the five prayers the whole day for five days, for five months, for five years. And G-d won't pull away from you as long as you don't like the thing that you are doing that is not correct or not accepted. Praise be to Allah. We want to establish our life and community. G-d says you are the best community. And the word that is used for best is not a word. You have to be smart though. You have to be really perceptive. You have to be intelligent. You have to be a good reader of what is written in the Qur'an to understand it. It doesn't mean simply. It doesn't suggest at all that we should want to be better than somebody else. No, it does not suggest that at all. Allah don't want us trying to be better than each other. No Allah want us trying to be our best.
So that we will be able to help each other. That's what G-d wants. G-d wants us to excel or to advance. G-d is not going to help you according to His word. He's not with you for that. And He will deny you the paradise. Yes. And the Hereafter. He will deny you that. And usually those two are put together because it is usually the one who wants a dominance that also corrupts the land. That's why they are put together, I believe. He will not give it to anybody who wants a dominance or corruption. Kaira. That's what the idea is now that we are addressing. Kaira, which means good. G-d says, you are Kaira community. You are antum, you are the many of us, the Muslims. Antum means you, the Muslims, Antum. You are Kaira community- Brought out, evolved, raised up into the light. Lin nas- For the people, all of them. Oh lordy, G-d knows that my humanity has been seeking freedom since I was a little boy. And the freedom I wanted, I couldn't describe it to you when I was a little boy. All I knew is that I wanted to be with good people. I wanted to be in the company of good people. I wanted to be in the company of thinking people.
One of our great leaders said, WEB Dubois, the one who really is responsible for the founding of NAACP. WEB Dubois said, we will progress as a people in the measure that we are willing to teach our children to think. Well, I didn't just want to be in the company of good people. I wanted to be in the company of good people who exercise the power of thought, who loves to think about things. Your body can be lazy, but the worst condition a human being can have in their life is to have a lazy mind. So, I didn't like being in the company of idle minded people, lazy minded people, people happy just talking about four letter words, and they could spend the whole day and night just talking about four letter words. And that was enough. They were happy. Go to bed, smiling. No, I couldn't be happy with people like that. I could only be happy with people who showed me that they were committed to decency. And that they believed in G-d. And that they believed in being intelligent. That impressed me. That was my company. I could be among them like my little son Muhammad. 
I noticed him, made me jealous too. I noticed how he be with the brothers. He'd be with them. He just be as content, just as content with the brothers. I'd tell him, said I ought to tell that little sucker I'm his daddy. Actually he never forgot me. I had to really grow up. Yes I did. I had to grow up and understand that loving you all and wanting to be in your company took nothing from me. He knew I would be available to him when we go back home. So, forgive me, Muhammad, daddy didn't mean to be like that. And I'm happy with you being happy with the brothers. Yes. So, Kaira, this special word Kaira means goods. Goods in the economic sense, goods. You know in economics, you have a term called goods. G-O-O-D-S goods. And you know, no word can remain pure and true to its meaning If bad people start to use it. So, after a while they give a bad meaning to it. So, I'm not saying that goods and economics now means Kaira, I'm not saying that. But what I'm saying is that what we think of as goods, decent people think of as goods in economics is Kaira. Because what we think of as goods and economics as decent people is that is good for human life, that will not punish human life but will give support to human life. So that is good for us. So, goods, whether it is textile goods or any other kind of goods, if it does not punish or hurt human life, then it's Kaira. And G-d says Who, in our Holy Book, the Qur'an. G-d says, who has forbidden My devotees the goods of this world? Kairati- That's the Arabic term, the goods of this world. G-d says they are for them. G-d saying this. They are for them in this world and exclusively for them in the hereafter. Now think about that. They are for them in this worldly life.
So that means, oh, I would like to be a Muslim. But does having a Mercedes Benz, 1999 Mercedes Benz, corrupt, corrupt my soul? Will it corrupt my soul? Only if something is wrong with your soul. But for me, my soul is ready to take a whole fleet of Mercedes Benz.
This is the way we should look at it. And even as a young man, a minister for my father Elijah Muhammad, I was a thinker. He taught me to think. It was his teachings that taught me to think. He used to say when we met with him. Well actually I wasn't meeting with him, but I was fortunate to sit at the table when he was meeting with his staff, his leaders, his assistants. And he would say to them, brother and sister, "Think." And think. Don't just read what's on the surface but dig beneath the surface, beneath the surface. 
Well, on the surface there was a lot of things that I couldn't be comfortable with. And my father told me that don't be satisfied reading the surface. He told me to dig deep. And I did it. It's just like drilling deep down into the earth for something good. Sometimes you disturb the rock bed and maybe some lives are lost. There's a shaking of the foundation. Maybe the mountains bring something sliding down on you, but your intent was to get something precious that you were told that was down there and it was for you. So, I'm not saying that my digging wasn't without some accidents and some damage to others than me, but I'm here and no fingers lost, no toes broken. And I certainly feel that it was well worthwhile. I would go digging again to get back in the position that I'm in now. We thank Allah. Khiara, Khiara. The nation of Islam under the Honorable Elijah Muhammad conditioned us to turn our backs on that invitation to say that says the spiritual life is good, but this material life is all sin. The material life is what you should go after. But this material life corrupts the spirit.
So, stay away from it. Want your pie in the sky in the by and by. Yes, that's what we were taught and that's what the leaders of Nation of Islam would address and usually it was taken by the poor people. The people who were deprived the culture, deprived of and education, are put in circumstances where they can't get a good education and become culturally refined. They are the people who can't read that kind of language correctly. So, they're the ones who will take it just as it is given. And they'll be thinking that, yeah, I'm poor, but G-d has blessed me to be poor. He could have made me rich, but my G-d loves me. Because I know it's going to be hard, hard for the rich man to get in the heaven as it is for a camel to come through the eye of a needle. So, it's the uneducated people who become the victims of that kind of invitation and they become content to have nothing and end up having generations and generations of children who can't finance a decent situation for their life, who can't finance even a decent education. So, we remain inferior because of the disposition we took.
Taught the meaning of life and the world. So, thank Allah for the help we've gotten even in the days of darkness and confusion, for the help we have gotten to at least turn our backs on that kind of invitation and say, no, I'm entitled to these things as all of the men are entitled to them. And this is G-d's earth. The land was made by G-d. He's the first owner. Everybody else is just squatters or something. The least, the most they can be is trustees. Just having a permission to use these things for a time period. For a time period. No matter how much wealth we have when we die, none of us will have anything to say about what's going to happen to it. So, we make a will now, make a will now. We die, we don't even know for sure that the court is going to honor that will. We don't know it for sure. So, none of us can be certain what's going to happen to our possessions after we gone. We can own land, a whole island of land and we can own wealth in many countries and many banks. But when we die, there's no guarantee that it's going to be used as we intended for it to be used. No sure guarantee.
Maybee the one we trusted in the family will later change their mind, perceive us differently and scrap all of our will for that particular wealth and say, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to do this. And if the legal language didn't hold them to do that, they'll be able to change it. Usually when you give a will, the legal language is dependent upon the inheritor of the will unless you specifically spell it out, my children, my descendant, whoever, they're not to use this except for this purpose. But we still don't know what happened. Because we know what happened in many countries. The government changed, a new government come in and they recognize no contracts, no wills. So, we don't know. It's not guaranteed, not guaranteed. And you know when we die leaving our few thousand dollars, theres certainly no guarantee. It might be smoked up in reefers. In the next 10 years, it might be all smoked up. There ain't nothing we can do about it. And usually there's a pothead who leaves a pothead around. I don't know if this generation understand that language pot. They call it something else blow up, blew it, I don't know.
But anything make me look like Dracula bit my neck, I'd put it down immediately. I wouldn't have to wait on G-d to tell me it's wrong. I wouldnt have to go to church or Mosque or Synagogue to find out it wrong. I look in the mirror, I look like Dracula, I put that crap down. Goods. G-d want us to have purity first. Be pure in your intention. That's the number one requirement, that we be pure in our hearts or pure in our intention. Isn't that what Christianity asked too of its faithful followers? It asks that they be pure at heart. They want the Christians to be pure at heart. And Islam puts it in different language. It means exactly the same thing. Want your intentions to be pure because your mind may not always know how to follow the steps correctly or know how to make the proper judgments, or the proper decisions or the proper selections. So, you might in ignorance make a decision that is against your soul or might in ignorance make a selection that's not good for your spiritual future. But if your heart is pure, if your intentions are pure, G-d will save you from all troubles.
No matter what trouble you fall in, G-d will save you from it. G-d will make you know that this was the wrong decision. And you being that kind of person, you will put down that mode of behavior or that direction in your life and you'll take the one that you know your Lord is pleased with. Isn't this a simple easy life just being honest and straight with yourself?
So, we have a business effort and this business effort that we have has been brought into our minds because of our lack of funds. Financial weakness, financial deficiencies in this society of ours, in this group of ours, we are not financially strong enough to take care of our good Imams. We are not financially strong enough to have the good school teachers we want and to pay them fairly, nor justly. We are not able to do that. And the numbers are increasing, and the desire in us to have all this is increasing. So, it's putting burden on us who, especially us in the leadership position, it's putting a burden on us. So how can we solve this? I told you years ago that Halal meats, the requirement to have Halal meats, our halal food is a blessing for the African-American people who accept Islam. It's a great blessing. What we need more than anything else is economic life. Financial life to finance our needs ourselves. That's what we need more than anything else. The African American ain't never needed, we never needed an increase in spirituality.
We need an increase in economic sense. In business sense. That's what we need. Increase in business sense, increasing economic sense. Spirituality? We hungering for spirituality? If spirituality in you is like air in an automobile car I want to let some of the air out of you. And I wasn't putting air in. So, if we fulfill our obligation as Muslims to have halal meats, that means we have to go into the meat business. We have to go into the cattle raising businesses, into the poultry growing business. We have to go into these businesses, we have to go into the meat production business and supply markets, stores, meat markets, et cetera. If we just did that, we would soon have a strong financial base. Because we got hundreds of thousands of Muslims who are with this association. If we just thought about them and start working, had a plan to provide our community, our associates in this religion that we see daily and work with, have to go back home to, with halal meat, that would be the answer for our weak situation as citizens of this country. Yes it would.
But thank G-d we want more than just halal foods. So, I guess G-d didn't let me be successful with that appeal. I asked you a long time ago. We have a small effort, but no big effort. There are few brothers with halal meets in their stores. I know a young Muslim belong to our community. His business is just meats, halal meets. That's all they did. He's doing an excellent job. Young man, young man. I doubt he's over 32 years old. I saw him, very impressed with him. His products are very excellent, packaging and everything. Excellent. But who knows him? I just met him by accident. He's one man with a good business but not enough to serve the community or even to be felt by us without someone coming and telling us about him like I'm telling you about him now. So, it's not enough just to go after that. Allah want us to go after the whole community life, the whole community life.
And more important than just having Halal meats is being able to establish good schools and finance those schools. So, if the school will have a good environment and the teachers will be quality teachers and if they're not quality teachers, they won't be the teachers that we are depending upon. They'll be the teachers that we brought in just to help because we thought they had a good future in that profession. Yes. So, this will come InshaAllah, this will come because we have focused our attention on community life. Now, when we establish community life, will it be a soul town? Will it be soul city? No.
You know African-American Christians, they tried, they tried to get a whole city. They had a vision for establishing a whole city and they called it Soul City, I believe. Was it Soul City? Soul City. He probably watched Soul Train too much. Called it Soul City. And they were intelligent people. It was led by a very, very brilliant man. But for some reason it fizzled out just like my call for us to make halal the obligation, to have halal meats as an economic base for us to pull us out of our financial situation of weakness, financial weakness. It didn't work. So, the Soul City didn't work. And we have this vision of ours, community vision of ours. Would it be like the one they have in Texas near the border? I forget what they call that project. No, it won't be like that project. It's a project by non African-American Muslims to have land and an environment for schools and activities and Muslim activity.
But the mistake they have made is that they want to exclude themselves. They want to live separate from the rest of America or separate from the rest of the society. Even separate from the system. Separate from the system. They hope to one day have a system that will be independent of even the system. That doesn't work. So, our vision of a community life is not really for the sake of having all of us concentrated or being residents of a particular geography or a particular piece of land. No, that's not the purpose. We'll be happy with 30,000, 50,000 citizens. We'd be happy with 5,000 citizens as long as we have that model that serves as a witness to mankind what Allah, G-d, has ordered for us in terms of community life. That's all we want. We don't want it to stretch out and expand and occupy the town and Harvey and Harvey be no more Harvey, spread all into richest Chicago and start taking the borders away from Chicago and shrinking Chicago and it keep expanding. That's not what we want.
We just want a model. We can do it with about 30 acres of land. We could start and have a good model with just about 30 acres of land. We hope to have more and we will get more, Inshallah. G-d willing. And we want these models to not just be in the Harvey, in Chicago, Illinois, or Chicago area. We want them to be all over America. These models, all over America. Not big, but all over America. We want these models so that the Muslims in the area can live next door to each other if they want to. If they want to, not being compelled to. You living next door, Christian neighbor. And you all have to come very close. You move out of that area into a Muslim environment, Muslim neighborhood, maybe you'll die in two years. You'll be so lonesome for your Christian friend, you may just die.
We don't want that. You happy, stay there. But for every one of you, we got a hundred thousand of us that's miserable as hell next door to our Christian neighbor. We don't even have the inspiration to go to the neighbor and talk about the problem. So, we need the Islamic model to make us come to life, come to life so we be good to live by any people and enjoy the good company or the good closeness of our neighbor who is a good person, whether Christian or Muslim. Yes. So, these models are a must. These model communities, these models of the Islamic life as community, these models are a must, this vision is a must. We must go after it. We must have it. And I don't mean 10 or 20 years from now. I mean we must have it right away. I want it tomorrow. I wish I had it today. So that my daughter living in a neighborhood where she doesn't know whether her son is going to be shot and killed or forced to do something by gang bangers or dope pushers, worried about her children, worried about her property, got a terrible burden on her heart and on her nerves all the time. And I'm sure some of you have the same concerns, same children or relatives that need to get out of those terrible places. Get away from those terrible people. Get out of there. So, we have to have this. 
So, we'll have a haven for those who need get away from the bad conditions and the bad circumstances that they're in. And for those who want to be part, have a part in the building of an ideal community life. Now that's me. I believe I could live next door to Satan and he'd catch me coming out every day with a smile. Good morning, Satan. In fact, I think I had Satan in my room when I wake up. I didn't call him Satan. How are you today? As Salaam Alaikum. Thank you. On way out. Yes. Praise be to Allah. And I am telling you the truth. I can live anywhere. When my father rejected me and I'm not complaining, my father did what he had to. He set up his order. You violate that order. You have to accept the consequences. So, my father rejected me because I differed with the idea of G-d that they were preaching. So, he rejected me and I had no record, no job record. I couldn't go to a job. They said, well, where have you worked? Shabazz's Restaurant.
Where else did you work? Shabazz's grocery store. They looked at and said, we'll call you. I couldn't get a job. And plus just your name would make most people not want to hire you. I'm talking about 40 and 50 years ago, 40 and 50 years ago in the United States of America, in Chicago. Your name alone would prevent you from getting hired. You go there and say, so what's your name? Oh, my name is Wallace D Muhammad. And you can see the look change on the face. Right away, immediately. You know you're in trouble. Well fill out this application. Did you serve in the armed service Wallace D Muhammad? I'd say no. What are your hobbies? Drilling and the FOI. So, after I got through answering the question, the man didn't have say nothing to me. He wasting his time saying, we'll call you. He should have just kept quiet because my face should have told him that my application did not pass. So, when my father rejected me, I couldn't get a job. So, I had to work for myself. I had to do self-employment. So, I knew that we had some terrific examples in the forties and fifties among our senior members.
There was a brother called Sherman, Sherman Allah. That brother had plenty of money, dressed like a banker all the time, had plenty of money all the time, donated heavily to my father's works the community at that time. And he earned all his money doing domestic work in white people's homes. Yes, that's what he did. He worked long hours. He that's what he did. He did domestic work and he was able to make very good money. Sometimes the wealthy, if they see industry in you and they see decency and high moral standards, they'll give you things. They'll give you things. They might give you a $2,000 watch. Yeah, they will give you things. So, I don't know, they might've gave him extra bonuses and things, but he didn't work for just one boss. He worked for many bosses and he worked all day long. 16 hours I think he said he worked a day. So, he had money and he was not the only one. He did domestic work. I knew of another one who was a junk man. I don't know if you know the junk man. He picks up junk. He picks up newspaper, old newspaper.
He picked up old cardboard. Cardboard, rags, old rags. He pick up any metals that he can find lying around. Glass, even glass. And when I was a boy, he would pick up all this stuff and then he takes it to the junkyard and the junkyard gives him just penny, maybe penny for pound or a couple of pennies per pound. Scraps of metal, maybe about four or 5 cents a pound. Gives him a few pennies. But if he works hard in time, he can have more money than the factory worker at that time can have. The blue collar factory worker could not make the money during their 40 hours of work or whatever it was that the junk man could make. Working his 16 hours, sun up to sun down, looking for junk and finding it and piling it up somewhere to take it to the junkyard. There was other who did other things.
So, I had that kind of example before me. And I was never a lazy person. I enjoy work. Work is my happiness. Work gives me happiness. So, I said, I'll go out and ask people because I didn't have any money to buy anything. So, I said, I'll go and ask people, go to their home and ask them if they need their windows washed, if they need that carpet cleaned. I had seen it done. In fact, I had to clean the carpet myself. My father told us how to do it and left the job to us and we did it. So, I asked him and I took my bucket and my solution, took my scrub brush and went the circles like this, clean the whole carpet. When I got through, they were happy. They paid me the money. I kept doing that, washing windows and doing other things. After a while, I had enough money to buy me a carpet cleaning machine. At first I was renting it. Then I bought me one that could shampoo carpet and had attachments. I could also shampoo upholstery couches, your stuffed chairs, et cetera. So now I'm doing pretty good. Shirley is happy with me now.
I can go home and see the truth on her face. When I didn't have anything, I saw a lie on her face. Oh, you back Wallace? Yes. That was industry. That was industry in me. The first man, our father was a man of industry. G-d made him and created him with industry in him and told him that the world, all the world was made for him to utilize, to cultivate it, utilize, make good use of it as the servant of G-d. So, if we are all the descendants of that first man, then we are not lazy by original nature. We are lazy by adapting nature. Because that first man was not lazy. He was industrious. He loved work. It should make you feel good to know that somewhere buried deep in your soul is an appetite for work. Yes, Praise be to Allah. 
Now I want to bring this to a quick conclusion. So, I have to wrap it up and leave, go look at some of these things that I'm pursuing. We have been blessed by Allah to have support from good people in the Christian establishment of America. And now even more support than we have previously realized is waiting on us and ready to help us in the Muslim establishment of the Muslim world. Yes. So recently I made a religious visit to Mecca, to sacred Mecca. I did my Umrah there. I performed Umrah, which is a smaller visit or the smaller pilgrimage I did Umrah, had a wonderful Umrah by myself really except for a brother who was there and accompanied me. I was by myself and did many prayers while I was going around performing the ritual of going around the sacred house and also at the standing place of Abraham where he prayed. I did many dua's for us, for our families, for our loved ones.
Many of you, I could visualize your faces. Some of you, I couldn't even remember your names, but I visualized your bright faces. But I prayed for us there. And then I say, well, there are many that I know, I can't know. Say I don't know their faces. So, I prayed for all of us too. Those that I don't know, that we have strong family life and more decency in our life and in our family, that we love each other, that we come to good senses If we are not having good senses, that we don't be destructive to our own losses or to the loss of other people, but that we be builders upon what is good. That we look for things that are good and want to build or contribute some more to it, build upon it to contribute something to it and look for good situations. Look for situations to start a good work that decent people, whether they're Muslims or not, will see and appreciate that work being done or that work being the work of somebody in that town, of this town or wherever. That's what I prayed, that's my prayer. And I prayed that Allah help us to come in the fit condition that we should come into in order to be responsible for wealth, financial responsibility. I prayed for that. And I know we have such persons among us that we can trust with wealth. 
I got a couple of brothers work for me. I know they won't take a penny. And if that penny was multiplied by billion times, they wouldn't take $50 million or more. No. Any sum of money, they would not take a penny of it. They would not take it If they knew they had a chance to pick it up and go away and never be seen again, they would not do it. Because that's the kind of people they are. I prayed for us to have that kind of person with professional ability too, and the professional knowledge and skills to help us make this business plan a success. And soon. See the businessman he steals and he thinks he's just doing business. And these brothers know the difference between stealing and doing business. So, they don't take anything. We can trust them. They won't take anything. And also I had the great blessing, honor of meeting special, very special people, individuals, very special individuals. Again in Saudi Arabia and Jeddah.
Philanthropists, Muslim philanthropists. Now for some of you I know you don't know what philanthropist is. A philanthropist is a person who have more wealth than they want to keep or more wealth than they think they need for themselves. And they want to give it to good causes in the world. But they don't want credit for it. They don't want their name to be known. They don't want to be published for it. That's a philanthropist. So, a philanthropist will help you and you won't even know who helped you, help you financially. And you won't even know that that person helped you. That's a philanthropist. Now a philanthropist really just means a person who loves to help another to do good, to share with what he has with another. And it has to refer to someone. with great means, someone with wealth. I met them. And you know, everybody can't be a philanthropist. If you give of your wealth that you worked hard for, that you secure for yourself and by yourself or with your workers or whatever, you going to give that to somebody you don't know? That's not easy unless you want something in return.
You don't want anything in return either? You must be a special person. So, I found these people to be worshippers of Allah, worshippers of G-d, followers of the Prophet Muhammad, lovers of the Umma and concerned for the welfare of Muslims and other good people too. Mainly Muslim. I found them to be like that. I didn't see any big headedness. I didn't see any heads, big or anything. I saw nobody proud or intimidating me with their presence. No. If I didn't know those people and some would say, do you think that person was wealthy? I'd say. no, Uh uh. You think they were rich? No, I don't. 
Because rich people are not humble like that. Rich people are not relaxed like that with the African American who doesn't have a college degree. Rich people just not relaxed with people like that. They relaxed, just relaxed, and relaxed with each other the same way, just as relaxed as if they didn't have money, as if they were poor people. That's how they presented themselves. Just like they were ordinary people going to a job, punching the clock, coming back home and hoping to have some time to relax before getting ready to retire and start the day all over again. That's the kind of people they look like. No fancy suits, no fancy clothes, nothing.
Do you know the Prophet Muhammad had as much wealth as any man could dream, dream of having or could want in his lifetime or with his imagination if only he would accept it. His followers were willing to give him mountains of wealth. What he went about until he passed from this earth, not desiring no more than two changes of clothes. This is the history of our Prophet. They were nice clothes. They were beautiful clothes. He would wash one for the next day while he wore one today. That's how he lived. And never was seen wanting a lot of anything, living the simple life. Clean, dignified, good looking. The history tell us he was very good looking, very neat, very well dressed, clean, very dignified in everything. But having only two changes of clothes. One he washed, the other one he wore. That was our Prophet. And living on a simple floor house was very simple. He could have afforded thick mattresses. They could have ordered him carpet and cotton pants and everything. He could have slept on a bed as high as this ceiling or higher if he wanted to. But he chose to sleep up on a thin mat. Why? He said he wanted to remember that the majority of the people couldn't afford even that that he had, that thin mat. Was sleeping on the ground, on rugs, on thin rugs. Just the bare rug.
That's the superman. And we should thank G-d that we have people following his Sunna, following emulating his Uswah. If you understand these terms, his human composition, his human balance, in this world today. So, I met them and I thank Allah for them. They invited me to meet them. Said they wanted me to tell them our plan. I was introduced to them by a member of ISNA, the Islamic Society of North America. One of the officers of the Islamic Society of North America introduced me to these philanthropists, these great men. And they, after being introduced, after introducing me to them, they said we would like to see him and have him tell us of his vision. Tell us of the vision. What plan do they have? So we met them and they gave us very encouraging words. Say, well, did you come back with a billion dollars? No. I came back knowing that there are great, great people on this earth. And they're Muslims, and they're serving a lot of good causes, causes all over the earth. If I don't receive a penny from them, I'm happy. If I receive a half of a billion dollars from them, I'll be very, very happy.
But don't think I'm going to be sad if I don't receive a penny from them. I won't be sad. I'll be happy. I'll love them and admire them still. And I thank Allah for their presence on this earth. Now I knew I used to say, I told them, I shared this with them. I said, I'm going to have to tell you something. I said, it might not make you feel too good. I said, it might be against my interest here. I said, but I have to tell you, I have occasionally had an opportunity to speak of our needs and of the richness of the Muslim society of the world. And I have said that the Christians have philanthropists. I know of the Riverside Church, a big cathedral called the Riverside Church in New York. I said, I know of that Church and they invited me there for a program, dialogue. I said, I went there, I said, and the people saw that I had an interest in the building itself, a beautiful, strong construction. So, they told me, say we are going to let you talk to so and so and so who was the one responsible for the management of the property, keeping the property there. He spoke to me and he said, Mr. Muhammad, he said, do you know how we got this? I said, no. He said, Rockefeller.
If you don't know the Rockefellers, I understand. Ain't too many African Americans know about the Rockefellers. They know only about the rock the fella. Or the rocks on top of the fella. Or the rocks in the path of the fella. That's all poor people know about. Well, Rockefeller also became, it is a family, very powerfully rich family. And one of them became Governor of New York, Governor Rockefeller. And he gave, I think that was a Rockefeller, I'm not sure it was this Governor, but I know it was a Rockefeller, member of that family. Gave the Riverside Church an endowment. Enough money. They told me this without me asking. Enough money. They said, "Mr. Muhammad, do you know we never touched, we have never had to touch the principle since we've been here." You know what the principle is? The principle is the amount of money they were given. The amount of money that they were given was so huge that when they put it in the bank, the interest from that money has been enough for them to take care of that building and keep it up. All the other needs. Office, everything. Office workers, everything taken care of just from the interest.
So, I had to share that with those decent men. I thought they could take it and not be disturbed. And they did. They did. In fact, they showed no sign that they were irritated. So, I told them, I said, you know what I've been doing? I said, I've been telling audiences that we have no Muslim philanthropists. I said, I can't tell them that anymore. So, I want to acquaint you with the reality. We do have great philanthropists in the wealthy circles of Muslims. We have philanthropists. In a way, the government of Saudi Arabia, in its commitment to help causes in many parts of the world. It is a philanthropists, because they don't publish what they do. Saudi Arabia, they're not publishing what they do. They have sent much help to countries in Africa and Philippines, Muslims in different parts of the world. They send a lot of help. They send a lot of money, a lot of help. So, what are they giving you, Brother Imam? A lot of hell. Oh, I'm sorry. That's not true. A lot of help. I love them. You can tell the way I'm talking about them I love them. I do. They are people, when you get to know them, they're, they're homeland people. They just country, countryside people. They are. Really, they are. The Bedouins in the desert, that was the best time I had being the desert, with the Arab Bedouins.
I saw Uncle Johnny in his face when he was, it was all right. Yes. Well, I got to close this, conclude, get away, move out of here, move out so we could get something done. Get the rest of the program done. Let me conclude by saying the visit to the Holy land was beautiful and very much rewarding. My Umrah was so beautiful. It was the most beautiful Umrah I ever had. And I have had many, I made many Umrahs .And the meeting with the philanthropist was a successful meeting. A very good meeting. I can't tell you everything, but in time InshaAllah, I'll wait and see. And in time the cloud will rain on us for our good life and good future InshaAllah. Visit to Damascus was very successful. I never thought Damascus, Syria had all the factories, good factories, very good factories, manufacturing clothing, mostly clothing. Clothing items, but some other things too. I never thought they had it at such good prices. We have good friends in very special places and high places. See, this suit is a sports suit.
Now, I can't tell you how much we can get this suit for. I can only tell the distributors. Well, let me tell you. I think I can safely say to you that we getting ready to dress poor people up, they going to be so happy they going be dressed up like they want to be dressed up and ain't going to have to take the rent money. You're not going to have to take the rent money or money from the children's future to do it. You going spend less than you've been spending and we going to dress you up in style. We going to dress you up in the style that you like. You know what they were telling me. "But Brother Imam, what kind of prices you want? Tell us. Give us some idea of what we to look for you. I said, let me tell you something. I represent a poor community. I said, but poor people in America want to dress like rich people. They'll spend their money only on class, quality and class. You ain't going to sell cheap stuff to poor people in America, especially not poor African Americans. Maybe a poor Haitian, but not a poor African-American.
Not a poor Negro. That poor Negro or that poor black person. I don't know what. See, for those above 50, over 55 years old, you know what a negro is. You know who a negro is. But those that came just 20, 25, 30, they know a black man. You know what a black man is. Poor black man, Uh uh. He's not going to buy cheap stuff. If he buy it, he's punishing himself. He hates it. It hurts him. We can have this. We can have nice clothes. You can afford this. I wouldn't wear it if you couldn't. You can afford this. In fact, you're going to pay less than what you're paying now and you're going to have this. I am going to wear another one for you tomorrow. Now what does this mean? I want to see my wife and my children continue to dress well, but I'm greatly relieved because they can do it now. It'll be cheaper on my pocket than yours.
You give me money so I can survive, so I can live and not be worried about the rent and things like that. So, it is going to be cheaper on my pocket and yours now. We going have these nice things, the same nice things we've had before where we're going to have them at a much lower cost. A much lower cost. I can't tell you. All I can tell you is this. Who knows Baskin the store. No Baskins, KINS, Baskins Clothing Store. Who knows anything about Baskins Brothers. When you go to Baskins for a few suits, you have to take some money with you, right? You know, have to take some money. You have to have some money in your pocket or good a strong credit card, right? You know that don't you? Okay. I'm going to put you in a Baskins suit and you don't have to have that big wad of money. Thank Allah. Yes.



