06/26/1977
IWDM Study Library
Cleveland

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Imam WD Mohammed:
First read from the Qur'an. The Qur'an is the Muslim Holy Book, sacred book and in the Holy Qur'an, in the Qur'an, G-d says, Allah says that this book, Revelation, contains the books that was revealed before, and these books have been revealed in their original form as guidance for the people. These are books that have been revealed before and made right by the guidance of G-d. The Qur'an also contains further guidance that was given to Prophet Muhammad, may Peace and Blessings be upon him about 1400 years ago as guidance to complete, to complete the guidance that G-d had sent to His Prophets down through the ages. So the Qur'an is not a new book. The Qur'an, in the Qur'an G-d says, this is no newfangled message. This is no newly put together or written message. This is an old message, but it has been revealed in its pure form, and it has been completed for all humanity.
I would like to read now the first chapter of the Qur'an, which is a prayer. It says "With the name Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, the Guardian Evolver of all the Worlds. Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Master of the day of judegement. Thee do we worhsip, thine aid we seek. Show us the straight way. The way of those on whom thou bestowed thy grace. Those whose portion is not wrath nor those who go astray." I mean if one listens to this first chapter, opening chapter of the Qur'an, understanding it to be the formal prayer, I would say the prayer for all occasions of the Muslims. Being Christian, you cannot help but hear the ring of the Lord's prayer. In this prayer. The Christians were taught to pray, "Oh G-d, give us this day our daily bread."
And they were taught to pray. "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." There is nothing in the Lord's prayer and in the Al Fatiha, the opening of the Qur'an, that would make us feel that the one who's praying has any unclean or unacceptable motive. It is a beautiful prayer, both of them. The spirit. It's clean, clean spirit. The Muslims are not taught to pray that evil come upon those that they are competing with. We are not to pray for political dominance in the world or for material dominance in the world. We are to pray for goodness from G-d. We are to pray for righteousness from G-d. The Muslim wants righteousness on earth. The Muslim wants compassion in the hearts of people on this earth. The Muslim wants the light of righteousness to shine and the light of good sense, common sense, the light of intelligence to shine.
This is the light that the Muslim wants to shine and dominate the world. The Muslim is not trying to get himself in any political disposition of superiority over any people, not the true Muslim. And the Muslim is not trying to collect the wealth and separate himself from some other people in some kind of selfish or wicked competition. G-d says to the Muslim in the Qur'an, compete with each other. He says, go as though in a race. So certainly we compete, but look how G-d has set the spirit of our competition and given guidelines for this competition to protect us from falling into wickedness. Almighty G-d says race toward all that is good. And there are many things in this world that are not good. So the Muslim is not a competitor who's competing with the others to gain things that are not good in the eyes of Almighty G-d.
In the beginning, Almighty G-d classified that that is right and that that is wrong. That that is right is submissive to His will, obedience to His will. That that is wrong is that that resist the will of Almighty G-d. If people resist righteousness, if they hate righteousness, then they are put into a classification called the wicked. But if they love righteousness and don't resist righteousness, or even if they don't love righteousness, if they respect righteousness to the extent that they don't resist righteousness when they're confronted with it, then they are in the classification of the good people.
And it is only those people who are so wicked, who have invested so much in crime and lies that they feel they have a kingdom to protect. It is only those people who fall out of the classification of the G-d fearing. As long as we have respect for righteousness, though we be committing sin, we are not put in the classification of those people who are the enemies of Almighty G-d. Now, it was Almighty G-d who established these two classifications and He said that only one is a real classification. The other is false, artificial. Why? Because what they established themselves upon is unreal.
Unrighteousness is unreal. Lies are unreal. Anything that can't find its origin in truth and reality is a falsehood and an artificiality. It's not real. The lies we tell are made of bits of truth reformed to present a lie. We can't even lie unless we robbed from the truth. So if I have to rob from the truth to tell a lie, that should tell lying me that my lies have no base in reality. All the righteous people down through the ages, they longed for and prayed for the day when the world will be so filled with the manifestations of truth that there won't be any room for the devil, for the liars, for the wicked people to hide. This was the prayer of the people down through the ages that G-d will one day establish His truth, spread it so far and so wide and so thick that there just won't be any room, no cover for wicked people. Well, I firmly believe so much so that I step out of my door feaing nothing.
I firmly believe that this most troubled time that we live in is the most glorious time that this world has ever seen. What seems to us a world lost is actually a world reborn. You know, when you look at a sore and you see it all puffed up there and filled with pus. "Oh, look at that nasty sore in bad shape. Man's in bad shape." But those who know about that particular kind of sore, they say, "Oh man, it's going to be healed pretty soon." They realize that the sore has reached its terminal point. It can't go any further in that direction. The healing is at hand. Is that right? Well, that's what we have lived to see. We have lived to see the healing of the world. Clearly there's a big sore and there's pus filling that big sore, but don't let that depress you. All Praises due to Allah, victory is here for all of us.
The Holy Qur'an says that G-d, G-d speaks in the plural. He says We shall show them what it is that they have done. But of these things are shown to us, those that have no understanding of G-d's great plan may think that, "Oh, it's hopeless. Look all this filth out here, all of the crime out here." Don't look at the outer manifestations, look at the scheme, look at the history and look at the inner manifestation. Certainly I see people doing things that they never would do years ago. I see parents abandoning their duty to raise their children properly. I see children with no respect for father and mother.
I see people with no faith in leadership, and no faith in community life. And I see government leaders with no faith in the power to rule in their offices. But this doesn't sadden me. I'm happy as I can be. I thank Almighty G-d that I was born in this day and time, I don't believe there ever was a human being born at any other time, put in a more healthier situation than I'm in right now. Certainly it looks sick. It looks sick, but just like that old pus filled sore, man I'm telling you it's healthy. The fever is gone, pains gone. It ain't nothing but something that looks ugly. If we can read the message, we're going to see beauty, and when all the pain and fever gone, we should have a jubilation.
You know, inside our own community, my people confuse me. They say, "I wish I had the good old days. I can't understand what's going on." I said, what are they talking about, the good old days. I don't know of any days that can come near matching these good new days. I don't have to have a brute force and a police club to get people to come and listen to the word of G-d. They come walking willingly on their own to hear it. This is beautiful. I don't see people who are spending all that time talking about the devils, pork. "Don't eat that swine. You got to know the devil, the history of the devil."
You used to spend so much time on the history of the devil that we didn't have any time to learn about the history of the righteous. Put more importance on the eating of unclean flesh than on the eating of unclean spirit. Man condemning the unclean flesh, but inside was a piggish spirit. Get the pig out of you. And once you get that kind of strength, the pig won't be any problem. Everything was just a weight on us. The pig, the pig, the pig, the white man is ithe devil. Every one of them, old, grey, young, fresh born, all of them are devils.
That was beautiful it seemed, for a time. All of a sudden we looked in the community and we discovered the place was half filled with devils, and there weren't any white people in the place. Now what happened here? Say, good G-d almighty, we better open these doors to everybody. Now, I don't know, maybe you've been away from me and you don't know me anymore, but I haven't been away from you. I know all of you. I hear people whispering, Chief taking everything away from us that we used to have. Well, I see sisters in here. They have their hair covered, they have nice dresses on like they used to wear. They look like the same people to me. They just look like better people. They look like more natural people. The sisters now, they look natural. They look, I'm telling you, they look like they're sitting in the ranks of the righteous in the heaven, in the paradise.
He is taking our whole wheat bread from us. Well, I had whole wheat toast this morning and I didn't have to go to your place to get it. I had it at the airport. I ordered a whole wheat toast. Oh, you see there, he's eating three meals a day. He ate breakfast, eating three meals a day. I have never stopped eating one meal a day. I had toast this morning. I would like to have had something for noon too, just a little bit. I'm not a big, very big eater. I don't get rid of that much energy, not physical energy anyway. And I hope to have dinner this evening too. And before I go to bed, I might have a little scoop of ice cream or something. But Allah is my witness. I eat one meal a day.
My meal is righteousness and that's one meal. And I eat it from one G-d, not three, one. I eat one meal a day. Now I think it's a great blessing to us that we have come into the understanding of things that was given to us symbolically. The symbolism is not as strong as the real meaning. The symbolism is there to preserve the real meaning. That's all it's there for. Once you discover the real meaning, you don't need the symbolism anymore, you go right to the real meaning. A Muslim is one who does not go to the extreme, who does not give himself to those things that G-d has prohibited. He lives a righteous life. He avoid the extreme. He does things in moderation under the law of G-d. This is a Muslim, so I don't have to eat one meal a day. That's not moderation, that's extremism. If I eat one meal a day and all day I'm hungry, you come up to me and say, "Hey brother, what's happening brother?" "Oh man, don't bother me."
"Hey brother, explain this to me." You so hungry you so bothered by hunger pains that you want to tell the man to get the hell out of your face. We couldn't even be happy with each other eating one meal a day. It was good exercise, good exercise, because you had to force yourself to be right. It was a great burden trying to be right. Eat one meal a day. Most of you didn't do it. So you are carrying the guilt on you. I broke it. I'm going to get this yet. Sister walk in and catch you. "Uh huh. I knew you wasn't a good Muslim. It ain't time to eat." Okay. Don't want the good old days. Be thankful to Allah that we survived the good old days so we can come into the good new days. That's the great lesson. The good old days was just, what is this electric thing, the prodder that they use on the cattle, that make it go. A prodder. What do they call that thing? No, not the branding iron. The electric thing. When the cattle won't go, they give 'em a little touch. You don't have to fire the bullets, you just give 'em a little touch there. Something to shock you, something to give you a little prick, a little pinch. Well, the first teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, those teachings were pinches, like pinches.
Our sensitivity was all in the physical. So he pinched the skin, couldn't pinch the brain because they wasn't working right. So he pinched the skin, move cattle, move cattle, go in the corral, eat this hay, eat this grass. Pinch, pinch you know. Drink out of this straw. Alright. But now you don't have to have that kind of direction or that kind of stimulus. We have lived to see many things happen in this world that have made it possible for us to educate our people properly. We have lived to see Bilalian people of Africa and the world come into a new sense of dignity and get respect from nations around the world. We have lived to see Caucasian people in America not only respect the dignity of Bilalian people, but enforce the law so that the dignity of Bilalian people will not be taken away in America by other people. We've lived to see that. We've lived to see the President of United States, We've lived to see Governors and Mayors put themselves in position to be killed by narrow minded, crazy racists to protect the G-d-given rights and the American given rights of the Bilalian people. And all of this to serve, to make us confident, to encourage us and make us feel confident. And we don't have to hide on the symbolism. We don't have to escape this world to save ourselves. We can come out on Broad Street at noonday and discuss the problem and make some progress. We don't have to have booga men anymore.
We can deal with plain, simple language. When a people are deprived of the good uses of their senses, though they be in a highly advanced nation or civilization, they are primitive by description. And the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was wise enough to identify the primitive mentality of the so-called Negro. And he knew that you can't reach these people with straightforward common sense. You have to spook them up. You have to use boogeymen, witch doctor medicine, magic feather dusters and whatnot. I don't know what they call those things they shake, the which doctor he shake. And the proof that you were of that kind of mentality is still with us.
I put on a beard, a man that won't follow me around the corner, put on a beard. I put on a round collar shirt, man that haven't followed me halfway down the road, he'll put on a round collar shirt. If I put on earrings, big earrings in my ear, one in my nose, stick something through my lips, stick some needles through my hand, walk down the street barefooted. I guarantee you, you that's half following me will follow me all the way in that kind of symbolism. It is because you haven't yet realized that slavery is gone.
The Emancaption Proclamation has been read and enforced. You still think you a slave. "Oh, I don't have no right to act like other people. I can't identify with America. Americans dress up like this, eat like that, talk like that. I don't belong here." So you don't know any other language but English. So you invent yourself an artificial language that nobody can talk but you. And you feel good, you feel comfortable. I got my own language. You'll even dress yourself so you look different than anybody else. I got my own dress. Do you know It actually almost killed some of these people when I told them that the uniform doesn't make it. It's uniformity of mind and spirit that makes it. When I told these people that it almost killed some of 'em. Because they had withdrawn so far back up into their private holes that it was terrifying to think about coming out in the sun in the light of day. "I can't make it. I'll kill him before he take my headpiece off. Give me my FOI suit or I'll kill somebody." You can have the suit. I got the Fruit. And I'd like to see anybody challenge me and prove that the Fruit I have is not the Fruit of Islam.
You wore the dress that only said Fruit of Islam, but I got the Fruit man. He doesn't like black anymore. Open the doors. Tell the white people to come in. Don't even want to call us black. Call us Bilalians. Well, I still call you black too. But I see one that is black and I have a need to refer to his skin color. I call him black. That's what he is. You can call me black too if you want to, but I think you have to look very close on me to find black. You can find it, but you have to look close. I got some black on me. I guarantee you that. I saw it this morning when I took my shower.
When I look at many of you and I don't think you got as much black as I saw this morning when I took my shower. But you hurt because I don't call you black. Black divides the people that's not black, but a mixture of black, brown, yellow, red, and some of you even almost white. It divides you. You say you are black. I come up with more black than you, you should step behind me If black is supreme. Right. If black is superior and I come up with more black on my skin than yours, and if my is hair twisted a little more tighter than yours, I think you ought to get behind me. But that wasn't the case. That wasn't the situation in the World Community of Islam under the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Honorable Elijah Muhammad didn't give any special favors to anybody because they were black or because their hair was a little tighter than the other. He himself was brown and his hair was medium nap. And you never "Honorable Elijah Muhammad, if black is supreme, then how come Allah chose you and didn't choose me? I'm blacker and more original looking. You look more Caucasian." We didn't argue about those things then, we accepted.
But when he asked you to change, then you want to make everything literal. Nothing was symbolic. He meant everything he said. When he said white people are devils, he meant all white people are devils. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad told me, I don't know where you were. And a whole lot of people I know, I don't know where you were, that the wife, pardon me, the mother of Master Fard was a white woman. And if anybody in his presence called her a devil, they were in trouble. They were on the way out of the community, out of the Nation of Islam as it was called then. You see?
And you know, in the last years of his mission, he said Prophet Muhammad was a white man. Now, if you want to say that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was telling us don't follow Prophet Muhammad. He is the devil, G-d forbid. Let's use what he said about the mother of the man that some of you want to keep following. Master Father Muhammad. He said his mother was a Caucasian, a white woman. Was he telling us that the mother was the devil? No. Almighty G-d says in the words of the scripture, "I will publish My name Myself."
That has far reaching meaning. G-d means that you may take up the work, but I'll watch over my work. Marcus Garvey came. He tried calling the people to blackness, into religion. One G-d, One destiny, One color, One Africa. Is that right? Drew Ali, Noble Drew Ali, another Bilalian brother, he came up and he preached the glory of the Moors. And he taught American so-called Negroes, Bilalian people that we were all Asians. Asians. He said we were Asiatics. Master Fard came behind him and Marcus Garvey. And he taught blackness too, black supremacy. And he taught as Noble Drew Ali taught that we were Asiatics. How many were here from the old days? How many is here from the fifties and forties? Stand. I want to see those who were here in the fifties and forties. Alright, these people. Alright, you may be seated now. You see there's a number of people still here from the fifties and forties. These people know that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us that we were Asiatics Asiatics. So when the 1960 mentality came in wanting to identify with the Afro and everything, they met with criticism from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. He said, "You won't have any Afro in here." The Afro wasn't allowed.
Why, because he didn't like the Afro look or the African people? No, it was because he saw that his program, his plan for the future of his people was being threatened by a new kind of mentality. Marcus Garvey said, Back to Africa. Noble Drew Ali had said Asia. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was taught by Master Fard to say Asiatic because Africa was a problem. Africa had been established in our mind as a place that was savage, undeveloped, backwards. So if the Honorable Elijah Muhammad teach our people to be African, or Afro, African-American, he knows he is going to have a problem from a primitive mentality.
They're not going to start there and move up. They're going to grab the concrete things, the physical things, wear the Afro. Some will wear earrings, some will wear a bone, sandals. I don't know what they call that stuff. I know we used to get beans about a hundred pounds, thought they'd last longer, bad times. Bean sack robes. I don't know what they call that stuff. Sack robe, gunny sack robe. Do you know I saw it brother in Chicago in the dead winter. I think it was just about five above zero, with some desert robes on, sandals, open sandals, feet out in all that snow and cold ice. And he was just as happy as he could be. He said, when I met him, he said, "Asalaam Alaikum brother." I said "Wa Alaikum Salaam." He said, "Are you going with us on... What they call it? I forget what they call it. It wasn't a Hajj, but it was a trip that they make. I forget the name of it.
Millions from east and west. And many other places. And they are all paying tribute to us, congratulating us, paying tribute to us. And they're asking us to don't forget them. They like what they see among us and they feel that we are really a source of salvation for all of them in terms of our clean spirit and our strong faith and courage, if not in terms of our knowledge and understanding. And there are many in high places now who are recognizing the knowledge that has come to us. I was told just a week ago, say, Imam, how come you don't stand up? And this was by a foreign, what we call foreign Muslim, Muslim from the east. He says, Imam, how come you don't go and ascend the steps there and preach from the high place?
So I explained it to him, he didn't accept it. He came back later on and he said, you should stand there. He said, don't you know 90% of the Sheiks of Al Ahzar don't know what you know. I am not saying that to brag. I have nothing to brag about. As I told you in my little talk to you today, that I haven't discovered any new things. I've only discovered the old. So I'm not saying that to brag. What I want you to know is that you don't have to follow people because they got more beads than you have. The beads, the dhikr beads, the rosaries, the dhikr beads, or because they wear turbans or robes or because they can speak Arabic and you can't. Realize that a light has come up. And this light is a light that the whole world is admiring and thanking Allah for. You don't see it now, but you'll see it soon. So dear believers, be happy, be thankful. Be courageous in the position that I'm standing on. Take the position that I've taken. Walk the walk that I walk, preach the Al Islam that I preach. If you pick up anything else, you pick up something inferior. Perhaps you can speak more Arabic. But what is the Arabic without understanding?
So let's be happy and be thankful and don't go astray from the good things that you've been led to. You were taught to be clean in your mind and in your heart. You were taught to be decent and fair with yourself and others. You were taught not to take up unclean and filthy things. You were taught to dress modestly and to keep your self respect at home and abroad. Don't fall down now. We've been promised the glory. And now the glory is here. This is the wrong time to start falling backwards. Keep moving forward and don't grieve and long for bean soup. You can have all the bean soup you want. I have nothing against beans soup. Don't think I have to miss whole wheat bread. I like it too. Brown rice, I like it too.
I don't eat pork. Never did. Because thank Allah my parents taught me against those things. I don't gamble. I don't drink whiskey. I don't use narcotics. I don't smoke cigarettes. Thank Allah my parents guided me away from those things. And you have been guided away from those things. So don't fall backwards and claim that you are with something and I have deserted it. Go and ask my friends have they caught me drinking, have they caught me committing adultery, have they caught me committing acts that were condemned by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. And my friends and associates will tell you no.
So if G-d has blessed me to obey the best of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and to come into the new and get the respect that we are getting now from Muslims of Saudi Arabia, leaders of Saudi Arabia, leaders and Muslims of the Emirate, of Nigeria, of Sudan, of Pakistan, all over the world. Then what should you do but stand up and say thank G-d that I'm a part of this community. Thank G-d that our prayers have been answered. We didn't want to be inferior, but we didn't want any false sense of superiority. We wanted our strength to be real. Believe me, our strength is real. And if you think it ain't real, I defy anyone to challenge me. I don't fear anybody. I'm not beneath anybody. You have no reason to fear anybody or to think that you're beneath anybody. And Al Islam, the most superior is the closest to Allah in obedience.
The one who's closest to Allah in obedience, that is the superior one. Our religion Al Islam, it has destroyed racism, destroyed class discrimination, and all the other ugly things that have burdened us. So be thankful that we are the true Muslims. We have the right understanding and that we have the health in mind and spirit that is needed to unify our life and also to bring us in unity with the life that we must live as long as we are in America. And that is the American life. Don't want to go to Africa in America, The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, we don't have to go to Africa. We can live here. And I'm telling you the same thing. But you can't live here with your mind in Africa, and you can't live here with your mind in Arabia. Your mind as a Muslim should be on Al Islam, on the Qur'an, on the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad. And you should revere, you should respect, have a holy and sacred respect for the righteous monuments that are in Mecca and in Medina, but you should not walk in America as an Arab. You should walk in America as an American. You can't divide yourself, throw your body one place and your mind another place. You must live where you are. Allah bless you. Asalaam Alaikum.
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