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IWDM Study Library
Understanding Scripture Advances Human Life

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
This great coming together of people from different races, different nations, different cultures, different languages, tells us to what must be done for man to realize his greatest support, greatest aspiration of secure providing of faith and secure providing. A providing of justice and opportunity, respect for the individual. He must come together with other nations, with other races, with other languages, with other customs. "Oh, there's nothing but one custom, Islamic custom." Within Islamic custom you can have your own custom. Within Islamic culture, you can have your own culture. Doesn't Sudanese culture differ from the Saudi Arabia culture but it's all Islamic culture? Doesn't that custom differ from the custom of Saudi Arabia, or from the custom of the Pakistani, or from the custom of the Muslim in Philippines, in the Philippines or elsewhere? Don't they differ one from the other as you go about, but they're all Islamic culture, Islamic customs. G-d doesn't want us to obliterate, deface ourselves as people. No. He want us to compliment the soul with our own individual contribution to the total pattern, or to the total culture. Each of us reflecting the best of our Islam, but in our own individual dignity and individual identity.
The different people coming together from all over the world and they're willing to sacrifice whatever they must sacrifice of their nationalism, of their customs, of their culture to satisfy what Allah want for all of us. They put down their arrogance, they submit their pride and there they sit together as brothers, the Arab and the Africans, the Indians, the Russians, Chinese, Filipino, the Irish, the Mexicans, people all over the world coming together. Being the best that G-d say you can be, but sacrificing that G-d say you must sacrifice so that there will be unity and peace on earth and opportunity for man, for the individual. Isn't that a wonderful sign? Wonderful sign in the Hajj. And Allah tells us that. Dear beloved Muslims, we have the best. Ours is seen in the universal timely struggles hope of man. Ours can be identified in scripture as the age and the timeless hope of man as the greatest aspiration of man. Ours can be pointed out in history. Here is this. Here it is, here it is. Here is the fulfillment. Here is the fulfillment. Allah promise us that He would give us what we hope for and our religion is the sign, is a living sign and testimony that Allah has given humanity what it asked for. The righteous ask for a sign, the righteous ask for a sign and they ask for a model community. They ask for an exemplar community. The righteous ask for a community like that that is in heaven.
Where is that community like that that is in heaven? It is in Hajj. That's where it is. It is in Hajj. I come from my poor nation but I'm received on Mount Arafat with those that come from their rich nations and we all talk together. The scientists at Arafat, I will listen to what he has to say. They have to share their knowledge at Arafat. So I go back to my home country enriched, to my society that has been less fortunate. Academically speaking, I go back with great tools, with great resources that I got from the best of the world at Arafat. Yes. You see what the rich meaning it holds for us? And Muslims, educated Muslims that is, in the Hajj and the symbols of the Hajj. They know that Arafat is the most important occasion in the Hajj. Most important. Sacrifice is perhaps next to it. It's not so much the sacrifice. Look how the Jews have been able to contain their animal drive. The Jews have been able to contain their animal drive. They have been able to control their animal instinct and they have been charitable haven't they? They have been charitable with animal food. They've given animal food to the whole world. But the thing that they haven't been able to do is share the precious secrets of their knowledge with others so that the whole world will come up, will be an alerted world, will be a scientific world.
Oh yes, they preach in the synagogue in secret. They keep their knowledge in their circle. And they give the world what they can sacrifice, but the precious knowledge that keep them on top, they keep that for their own sons. Nobody else can get it. The greatest test for man is to be free with knowledge. Be free with knowledge. Don't hoard your knowledge. Don't keep something for yourself so you'll have a superiority over other people. Get rid of that desire for superiority over other people. Share the knowledge with all. Look, when you see the haram, the Masjid Al Haram at Mecca, you see a Mosque with an open top, a Mosque with an open top. That's a sign of the great aspirations of man in religion, that he wants an open religious society, not a secret religious society. The Mosque in Mecca has an open top and when the Imam is preaching there, everybody can hear it. It ain't locked up behind doors. He's preaching out in the open, under the sky. Great fulfillment of man's aspiration in religion, wishing that one day the best of the knowledge that G-d has revealed will be preached openly so everyone can hear low and high, rich and poor. Tell me you want another religion, you crazy.
Al Islam is that religion. It is the best of the Torah, the best of the Gospel. It's the best of all that has been revealed and it is the complete religion. Torah is not complete, Gospel is not complete, Al Islam is complete. Qur'an is complete. Allah says in this Qur'an, I have completed my favor upon you. No more to be done. It has been perfected and completed. One of the great hopes of man is security. Isn't it? Security. But can security come before there's openness? As long as there's deception, secrecy, how can there be security? You can't trust a secret order.
It has to be open. The same precious knowledge that I give to my son or to the President or his son must be given to everybody if they want it. That's a just and open society. It can't shut out or do favors to any nation, any race, any nationality, no. Must be equally available to all. That kind of justice will unify humanity. That kind of justice will bring people from all nationalities from all walks of life. It will bring them all. Scientists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, mathematicians, dancer, everybody can come to that because it's open and just, and it's for every human being equally. Yes, you want to unify the world. You want peace and security? Then exemplify in our life what is exemplified symbolically in the Hajj. That's what I told the Muslims at Hajj We need to take the Hajj here back home. How long are we going to keep coming to Hajj, going through rituals and not getting the great message that we should take back home? Hajj is a symbolic message. It's a message that's supposed to be lived in our personal lives and in our nations and our Governments and our leadership all over the world.
We go there and drink Zam Zam and don't bring no water home? Dear beloved brothers and sisters. Here is another great sign of the Hajj. The stoning of the heads of the devil. We don't stone his feet, we don't stone his chest. We hit him dead in his head. Another sign telling us that you can't have peace and security in the world for nations and humanity until you have the courage to fight the very head of wickedness in the world. You have to be willing to challenge the very head of wickedness in the world. Don't tap it on it's leg, throw a stone and hit it on the ankle. That's a coward, that's a chicken.
Hit him like you mean it. Hit him to kill him. Hit him in his head. That doesn't mean to physically go out there and start hitting people in their head, no. It means to attack the head of evil. The head of evil is in lies. That's where the head of evil is. The head of evil is not in flesh. The head of evil is in lies and the greatest lie ever told against man is the Sabbath. That Sabbath that keep everything for an exclusive people, for a race of people, for a special society and pass out charity at certain intervals to the rest of the world. Isn't that what Sabbath has meant for the Jews?
Six days to do what they want, one day to be nice. Then they have what they call a major Sabbath, a great Sabbath, great year of the Sabbath, a major jubilee. It comes at the end of 49 weeks I believe it is, or months. It goes into different time periods. Seven running itself out, you see. You go from one to seven, you get to seven, then you do seven again. Seven again, seven again until you go through seven times. Then the seven run out right, the seven run out. What are you going to do now when seven run out? When Sabbath has seen what is set out to see? What you going to do then? You should then establish what the object of that Sabbath was. What was the object of your Sabbath?
We know different people are different and they have different answers. The hypocritical Jew will say the object of his Sabbath is righteousness and bringing into the world charity and doing good and pleasing G-d and freeing the slave and helping. They believe in that too. Their Sabbath believe in that too. And on a major Jubilee, they have to be charitable. Give part of the field, part of the harvest to the poor, to the hungry and to give certain animals, be charitable, right? This is the Sabbath of their harvest. That great harvest, great Sabbath.
And to release the ox that they have been plowing, release the slaves, the ox and the slaves, they belong together. One is just a little bit more domesticated than the other one. They both belong together. So they believe in that, don't they? Now when you throwing the stones at Satan, how many stones you take? You don't take 7, you throw 'em seven at a time. How many you take altogether? 49. How long will Muslims take 49 stones and throw with no sense, throwing 49 stones with no sense? How come the Muslim leadership, the scholars of the Muslim world don't connect those things with the sense. Allah don't intend for us to go and throw seven stones and make us superstitious. They make us superstitious. It has a tendency to make you superstitious. You take 49 stones and you throw seven at a time.
Doing that without understanding make the society superstitious. It wasn't intended to make us superstitious. It was intended to bring understanding into that that was once superstition. WD Fard, with his experimental society. What did he tell us in his secret doctrine, secret language? Each Muslim is required to bring in four devils. And by bringing and presenting the four heads at one time, his reward is a trip to the Holy City of Mecca to see Brother Muhammad and also a button to wear on the lapel of his coat. You remember that lesson?
Each Muslim is required to bring in four devils. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad..... Sometimes the question was asked because sometime there's an individual who was innocent enough to just ask the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, should he go out and do that? And the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, "No, brother. It doesn't mean go out and kill this person the individual. Allah told me".... this is what he said now. Not me talking, this is my father talking. I wouldn't speak that kind of language. He said, "Allah told me that we can't kill the devil. If we tried to kill the devil, we'll be killing some of our own people."
That's what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said. So we are to interpret even what he said too aren't we? He said, take four devil heads and by bringing them to me at one time, your reward is a tip the Holy City of Mecca and a button to wear on the lapel of your coat. What is the meaning of that? This means this. You have to come into the universal struggle. You have to come into the universal struggle, the universal struggle against wickedness. Stop fighting your own little personal war, your own little national war. Come into the universal war. Let's kill evil North, South, East, and West. Don't be satisfied with it existing in any corner of the earth. Get that kind of desire in you that you want to kill evil that is on the world, East, West, North, and South.
Come into the universal struggle for righteousness and human dignity and justice. That's what it means. Take the four heads. We could go into that symbolic four and talk for the next four or five hours on it. Because man, society, society has moved mainly in four major directions. And right now if you study our society, it has four major branches, four major branches. We have the religion, your culture, whichever one we want to put there. Although culture doesn't belong to the religion. The religion is just a sham in this country. Religion or culture. I'd rather say culture because religion should encompass and incorporate everything that is good for man. This is Al Islam. You have culture, you have business, you have government or politics and you have education.
Everything else will come under there, right? Yes. Because the labor force is between those. You are either working under culture or you are working under government or you are working under education. Or you working under, what was the other one? Business. Business. One of those four is employing you. Business, Government Culture or Education is employing you. Those who work in art and what not, they're in culture. They're working in culture. So you have four, but there's always a hidden factor, a hidden factor. There's always a hidden one. But to change the world, you don't have to find the hidden one. Just correct the major influences that's dominating society.
Get the evil out of that. This concept too, in order to be fully understood, has to be studied in the context of scripture because that's where it originates. The Bible says, and four rivers went out from the garden and became heads. So to understand these concepts, we have to go back to places where these concepts originated. We have three little devils right together. They're either in you on a lesser, a minor scale or they in trinitarianism on a grander scale. Yes. And one major one controls them all. I shouldn't have to tell you who that one is.
The biggest of all devils or Satan. There's one devil you call him the big Satan. Big Satan. We stone him. He's the last one to stone. Yes, the big Satan. What is the big Satan in the world? The big Satan is the desire in the people for dominance in the earth. And the belief that they have a right to it. Conceited, arrogant, in the wicked leadership of the world that dominates the whole world and keep us in ignorance, keep us mentally enslaved, morally enslaved. Keep us in ignorance because they think they have a right to it. Don't you know there's a leadership in the world, and I'm not talking about in America, all over the world. There's a leadership in the world that thinks it has a right to keep the majority of the people ignorant and to manipulate their lives and their behavior and their aspirations without their knowledge, to rule over them like they're a dumb herd of animals. Don't you know hat's an attitude in religion and leadership allover the world.
And nothing has contributed to that attitude more than the Bible. Corrupt scripture, yes, corrupt scripture of the Bible has contributed to that attitude more than anything else in the world. If you knew what your mission was, brother, you would have more respect for yourself as a Muslim. Don't you know a Muslim is the most dignified fighter on earth. The Muslim is the man with the greatest cause of any people on this earth. Another, great highlight of the pilgrimage is the circling of the Kaa'ba. Seven times the circling of the Kaa'baa. Seven times. Seven represents completion, a completion. Meaning completion. Something come into it's fullness. And it refers more directly to the intellect, the awakening of the intellect.
How come the seven is used? Because it's in the context of scripture. And that's where we're to go for further studies to better understand the complete news in scripture. But let us take a look at this. We are circling the Kaa'ba. What is the Kaa'ba called? It's also called ba'it. What does ba'it mean? Bait literally means home. It represents the model or it holds the symbolic message that represents the ideal life that human being wants. It is home. Home for the human aspirations, for the spiritual aspirations, home for the social aspirations, home for the political aspirations, home for the total aspirations of man. So we circumambulate it, we go around it seven times because there's where we are to find fulfillment in that concept. In that concept, will man find fulfillment on earth. Yes.
Very important too, especially in the context of scripture, is the running between Sawfa and Mara, repeating and commemorating Hagar's desperation. And her new born baby was thirsting for water in the desert and she ran to and fro between Sawfa and Mara, two small hills while praying and begging, pleading with Allah for her son's life. And one version goes like this. Says, And a bird came down from the sky and pecked the ground where the baby was lying and water came up at the heel of Ishmael. And that is the beginning of Zam Zam, the well Zam Zam and Mecca, the well that we drink from when we make Hajj. To understand that, you must understand it in the context of scripture.
You know what represents that. That is of the very nature of the human being. Not a spirituality that's taken out from outside of him from the sky, but a spirituality that represents what is fundamental in his life. When is the beginning of man forming as a man? It begins when that little baby pries out his feet. Right? When that little baby begin to desire not to crawl anymore and tired of looking like an animal crawling around. And then want to copy the men folks and women folks. That little baby struggle up to his feet and that baby begin to walk on his feet. What that baby need to get up on his feet? It needs to have attention. It needs attention, it needs to walk.


