Reprinted from the Muslim Journal 5-3-02, 5-10-02, & 5-17-02

Imam W. Deen Mohammed's Address at "Savior Day" - Feb. 26, 2002, in Charleston, SC

Q: Imam Mohammed, is it Savior's or Saviors' Day? A: it's Neither, it's "Savior" Day; we need to save ourselves first."

Imam W. Deen Mohammed

G-d is Greater, as it is said in the language of Islam -"Allahu Akbar." We give praise to G-d. We witness that He is One Alone in the rule of the heavens and the earth, the Creator of everything. And He made man or humanity also to be creators. He says: "... And G-d is The Best of creators."

Breaking The Yokes of Oppression

And we witness that Muhammed, the last or Seal of the Prophets given in Qur'an, is one coming to break all the bonds of slavery, all forms of slavery, especially moral slavery and mental slavery, to the world of sin and wickedness. Also it is said of him, that he would take off the heavy yoke that yokes the people down.

This is speaking to the oppression of human beings by corruption and by the forces of Satan, or as we call him in Islam "Shaitan." Muhammed was born in the city of Mecca in the land of the Arabs, now called Saudi Arabia. Also of him, it says that he is a mercy to all of the worlds and a mercy to all people. He is not just a mercy to one people, but to all the people on earth and to all the worlds and nations.

Ideologies will differ from nation to nation, and certainly from the East to the West. But G-d is also the Lord of those worlds. People could not have their sciences or political ideas or anything, unless He created them with a human brain, with a free mind and free intellect to study His creation and then come up with those ideas by which to establish their institutions and societies and governments.

Without G-d, they could not have this - no way. Those who have not received this from G-d for the enlightenment of the soul and the mind, the intellect, they are still relatively primitive and backwards today. It is only those people who received those scriptures who are advanced today.

America is a Christian country. Europe is mostly Christian and has been that way. They did not have advancement before they had scripture. The Islamic world and Muslims did not have advancement before they received Qur'an or scripture. So this is a plain truth that is in the world, that most religious people are missing. I don't see how come religious people can't have more faith in their religions. All you have to do is see who is leading the world of human progress.

This is the 26 of February, called Savior Day. I know we have non-Muslims here too, for this is for everybody, although it is in our language of Muslims and of the followers of the Hon. Elijah Muhammad. I remember Savior's Day in Chicago, when the Hon. Elijah Muhammad and most of the men, the old and young, were in prison, because they refused to sign draft cards for World War II. We had mostly sisters and just a few brothers left.

Those brothers did not have to go to jail, because they were too old for the army. All they had to do is sign a draft card, and they would have been spared that three years, and some of them got five years. My father was too old for the army, but my brother was young enough to be drafted. They were drafting everybody in World War II. You had to be drafted, even if you didn't go to the army. So these men served long prison terms.

As a young boy of maybe 10 years old, I remember attending Savior's Day in a house that couldn't hold more than about 30 people. It was the house belonging to a believer, a Muslim sister. It was near the street now called Martin Luther King Drive and 32nd Street. At that time it was called South Park.

In this big wonderful city of Chicago, you would think that homes had electric lights for everybody, but no. The poor had coal oil lamps, and you could smell the fumes while you were in the house. It was poorly lighted and some areas were shadowy. The light thrown out was to brighten the whole upstairs where we were having Savior's Day. But we were happy.

Cherish The More Important

We were happier than we are now. Maybe now the excitement is worn off. I am still very happy. But most of us have been knocked down and all of the spirit has been knocked out of us. We didn't have anything, but we had what we cherished as being more important. We had a belief that G-d had loved us and that G-d had sent a help to us and that we were the Lost-Found Nation of Islam. We had what was more important to us than food or fancy, fine buildings.

There was a habit of giving out delicious apples, and February was a good month for that. We had these good, solid, nice apples that I remember biting into as a child and it was so nice! Everybody got a free delicious apple on Savior's Day. This was the Savior's Day celebration. What I want to do on this occasion is to talk about Savior's Day. We didn't expect anybody to talk to us about anything other than Savior's Day and what it meant to us.

Savior's Day is meant to be a day of remembrance and celebration. The Hon. Elijah Muhammad, on most Savior's Days, would begin by talking about his savior, Mr. W. F. Muhammad. He also was called W. D. Fard and by different names, but I am mentioning now W. F. Muhammad, because he said in his own words: "My name is W. F. Muhammad. I came to North America by myself...."

Although he more commonly used the name of W. D. Fard, he wrote on a post--
card to my mother and father and to my uncle who was the Supreme Captain in the 1930s, and they still have some of them, where he wrote the name "Wallace D. Fard." I was named after that man; he named me before I was born. And my mother and father told me that he took chalk and wrote my name on the back of the door - "Wallace D." And he told my mother and father: "When this child is born, promise me that you will name him after me." And he wrote the name on the back of the door for them to remember what to name me.

I don't think that "Wallace" was ever his name; it was his assumed name. I know that W. D. Fard and W. F. Muhammad were not his names either. We have evidence. But he used those names for us and in the language that he wanted us to read and study and to understand.

Mr. Fard and Mr. Frederick Douglass

He said that he came in the dress of the cave or the modem cave man. And who was he calling the modern cave man? It was the White man of America. At that time, they were in a state to be called cave men. You know and like Frederick Douglass. I have his picture up and right with Mr. Fard's picture - on the same
level, high on the mantle. He was a great man, but he was also a slave.

He had a kind slave master who helped him to learn how to read. He became an educated man, while yet a slave. He ran from the South to the North, arriving in Boston, Mass., as a free man and became a statesman in America. He worked with the other abolitionists who were White and had some Jews among them -fighting for our freedom from slavery and justice for his people. Frederick Douglas was a great man.

Mr. Fard said of himself, that 24 scientists met in Mecca concerning the Lost-Found Nation of Islam, stating that they must return to their own. And they sent a messenger to teach them their own. Here Mr. Fard was identified as a messenger sent by 24 scientists. We have him, too, identified as the "son of man" in the Lessons. He said: "There was no help coming to them (the African Americans), until the coming of the son of man."

He talked about the time when there were still two laws, one law for Blacks or African Americans and another law for Whites. All of that was changed in the late history of our people, in the 1960s. We have to understand the time we were in and how shameful this country was.

Again, going back to Frederick Douglass before Mr. Fard, Frederick Douglass said: "You claim the religion of Christ, to be Christ-like, and you claim to be the teachers of Democracy for the whole world, but your behavior is such that would shame a nation of savages."

Here is Frederick Douglas, before Mr. Fard, challenging America to see that it is not measuring up to what it claims. To be Christian means to be Christ-like, peace be upon Christ Jesus. To be leaders of Democracy, you are supposed to have free people, not slavery. Frederick Douglas was challenging them then. These things I'm saying to you must be recorded for the next generation. This is very, very important. This is your history. This is your story.

I also read of the story of a slave named Julia, in a book written by a German writer. The book was called: The People Who Walk In Darkness Have Seen A Great Light. It came from the language of the church or the Bible. He was writing about our plight, the African American people in a world of White Supremacy.

He quoted this slave, Julia, that she said to White people: "You look like G-d in the face..." Why would she say they looked like G-d in the face? It was because Jesus was the image that she had of the son of G-d and of G-d. That is what she was referring to when she said: "You look like G-d in the face."

She also could have been referring to the Bible language that man is made in the image of G-d. But I think she was referring more to the picture that she had of the White man. The most often seen picture of Jesus in papers and in idols or statues was as a blond-haired Jesus.

So Julia said: "You look like G-d in the face, but act like the devil in your hearts." She was being very polite, and said it in this tactful or delicate way, hoping that the wrath of the White folk wouldn't come down on her.

The Spirit of "Savior" Day

In the beginning, I said that Savior Day is a day for remembrance and also for celebration. We have the spirit of joy and it was not just a day to preach. It was a day for us to socialize with each other and to enjoy each other and to meet persons whom we had not seen in a year from towns that were distances away.

The Hon. Elijah Muhammad was a very smart man. Later he had a restaurant for us to meet there with each other and dine at the restaurant and to hear from each other. We can have that again. I don't see why we can't. We still have Savior Day to celebrate, and it is going to grow right here in Charleston. They have a beautiful place here in the city, and we have their kind hospitality. Insha Allah, next year there will be more and finally we'll be filled up with people standing around the wall.

The Hon. Elijah Muhammad said it was "a savior to save the Black man." It was a savior to save the innocent; I'm saying that and I think he meant that too. It was a savior to save the innocent from persecutors. What was the key against the persecutors? What was done to put an end to persecution of our people who were innocent?

We were born without any choice about our racial identity. No one can choose what race they are going to be born in; that is not our choice. That belongs to the G-d Who created us; He made us the way we are and are born according to His Plan for our creation in the human family on this earth. So we were born Black or as Africans or as African Americans. We used to be called Negroes.

The ruling order at the time of the coming of the Savior, W. F. Muhammad, ruled that our black skin was a crime. This was the White Supremacists. They were saying that you were born and your crime was that you were black, that you were an African or a descendent of Africans.

The explanation some of us might reason and come up with is that they are
guilty of mistreating us and we don't have to accept what they say, because they are looking for excuses to mistreat us and to work us for nothing. And this might be true. But we must understand that as Muslims, we can never accept that anybody is born inferior to another person who is born.

The One Soul Type

Allah created all races of people. It is at the end of the world that He will decide who is above others. Though they were born equal, crying in the same language. Do you think a Chinese baby cries in Chinese and laughs in Chinese? All of them were born to make the same sound and having the same sound, the same emotional natures -crying, laughing and smiling.

They had the same soul, and that is what it means. We have one soul type, though we come into a world where we become different nations and different races. But the G-d that made us made us one family, with one soul type. In the Qur'an, G-d says He is the One Who gave us laughter and tears. That nature in you was given to you by your Creator. When we are born, all of us have the same language. Then we learn different languages.

Our language at birth is the language of our soul. It says: "I hurt. I feel good. I'm scared, etc." We thought the White man couldn't be frightened. We though: he kept us in so much fear he couldn't be made afraid. Or we thought it was too dangerous to try to make him afraid. But all of that has changed now. Our people challenged him and saw that he could be made afraid. Frederick Douglass challenged him.

There is an explanation why they said that we were born with a curse on us. It comes from the church. Muslims don't accept it, because we read the Qur'an. But most churches don't accept it either. But a few did and there might be a few who still do accept the Bible idea that was against us.

We were taught of the three nafs in Islam, or the three persons or three souls. Most of the time in scripture, nafs means the soul of a certain type of people or a certain group with a certain nature characteristic in their behavior. Scripture gives these three, meaning that all people are characteristic of all of these three or of at least one of these three.

The Three "Nafs"

We were taught that these three souls or nafs were intrinsic to the life of all people. There were three sons in the story I have alluded to in the Bible. One of the sons was proud and thought of himself as the best and was highly critical, nafsin-lawwanah. Another of the sons was sentimental-like. In the Qur'an, this was nafsin-mutma'imah.

We do have a reference of showing where Jesus wept, and Muhammed wept. Too, over the condition of the people. Ibrahim also wept. This is the sentimental type or the one who is at peace with his soul and at peace with G-d. These arc the people who are touched by the suffering of the world, and they can cry.

Lastly, there is the type called nafsin-ammarah. I am making the connection with these types in Qur'an and Bible. I am speaking to Muslims now. This is the one who laughs. The story goes that Ham was the father of three sons. The Bible said that Ham was in Egypt and at that time Egypt was the leader of Africa for hundreds or thousands of years.

It was first Lower Egypt, where Sudan is or the land of the blacks. The Whites in the Mediterranean area came into North Africa but hardly ever went down into the interior of Africa. They would visit but hardly ever would move there. South Africa was the new place for Whites to go to.

The builders of Ancient Egypt were the blacks from Lower Egypt. This can be proven when you go to Egypt and take a tour there. I have gone there. But my teacher provided to us by my father, Dr. Jamil Diab, told us that the first builder of the pyramids was named Meenah. He was the father of the pyramid builders. This is a Palestinian telling us this.

My teacher provided to us by my father, named Dr. Jamil Diab, told us that the first builder of the pyramids was named Meenah. He was the father of the pyramid builders in Africa. This is a Palestinian telling us this; it is not one of us. Dr. Jamil said that later in the history of pyramid building, the North (Northern Africans) took it over and they became the pyramid builders.

There is a great science in the building of the pyramids. It has a message for life, how life is constituted by nature and how you are to preserve and build up that life. This is the mystical religion of ancient people who built the pyramids.

Bible Identifies Egypt as Noah's Son, Ham

The story in the Bible identifies Egypt as Ham, and Egypt in the Bible represents a highly civilized nation. So they took a nation that represented a great and ancient civilization and used it as a language - not to point us back to that nation, but to put in the mind a highly developed society in the sciences and in the spirit, etc. So Egypt represents the height of man's mind and intellect.

But Egypt, as it is written in the Bible, was in the days of its decline. They weren't building the great pyramids and weren't practicing these great sciences. So the ancient civilization of Egypt is personified, that is they used a person to represent a highly civilized nation. Here, they represent that great civilization with the person named Ham. And the people there are called the Hamitic race or people.

It is said that Noah got drunk and was lying in the bed with no clothes on. This doesn't mean that he actually got drunk with liquor, but it means his mind became befogged with amusement and things. His mind was not what it used to be; his mind was not sharp and insightful as it was when they were living as a great nation.

It means that Noah had lost his balance and his soberness that he used to have. Being naked means that his culture had come off, and he was bear. One of his three sons came to Noah and saw him in this state and laughed. And it is said that son was Ham, and we (the Africans) are Hamites. We are the children of Ham.

So the curse, according to the Bible, did not hit Noah directly for being in that condition. It hit his son, falling upon his son Ham, and that is us. The Bible says that G-d decreed that the sons of Ham be reduced to servants and be made the hewers of wood and toters of water for the other sons.

Do you see how the picture is coming to light now? Do you see how the wrong minded people could read that and say that black people are cursed and that G-d decreed that they become their servants, that they do these menial jobs, these unskilled and cheap jobs? That, "they are to tote water for us." I am talking about Savior Day and what we are being saved from.

Hewers of Wood, Toters of Water

Let me tell you what no one else is going to tell you. When they say, "tote water," they are not really talking about toting water. When they say, "cut wood," they are not really talking about cutting wood. Although that is what they are going to tell you is the physical meaning.

When they say cut wood, it means that you are going to be skilled in the work of spreading love - wood. Wood is what makes people warm; when they put up a house, this is how they warm themselves. So they think of wood as giving them warmth, and wood is what they have the fireplace lit with, and it warms the house.

Water means the spirit. You will carry the spirit. These were no fools who were assigning the jobs to the races of the earth. By my interpretation of what I've read, you can see that these people were no fools: that it takes great minds to come up with such ideas.

To identify a whole people who they are putting down, but before putting you down before their race and the White world, they are secretly recognizing your value. And secretly they are going to rob you like they robbed Christ, before they crucified him, according to The Gospel.

They are going to rob you of all your natural properties and all of your natural pearls and jewels. And they are going to use them for their world at your expense. You are going into slavery. You are going to hew wood and tote water, but they secretly have another role for you in order to open up the wilderness for them.

The Blackman and Christ, The Scapegoats

A great writer and a brilliant mind, James Baldwin - this is February, Black History Month, and we have a great contribution to make to it. James Baldwin. In one of his books that he wrote, said the White world of White Supremacy used us as a scapegoat.

What I alluded to when I mentioned Christ is about people being used as a scapegoat, to take the attention off the suffering of all other people. They will make our suffering so severe, that others will forget their suffering. This is the aim of the world government bosses - not necessarily political bosses.

My studies of this story in the Bible and what I have found in Qur'an that addresses the same story would have me believe that race relations in America suffer because of a misconstruing or misreading of the Holy Bible's story of Noah and his three sons.

It only says that Ham laughed. If Ham laughed and he was cursed, then his problem was that he laughed. And he laughed in a situation where he shouldn't have laughed. His father was tipsy or drunk and in the nude, so he laughed. The next son saw his father and it hurt him. It was so shameful that he turned his head away and refused to look on him.

The Highly Critical Nature VS The Tranquil Soul

That is the "nafsin-lawwamah." Nafsin-lawwamah will say, "Oh, this is despicable, this is shameful. I don't want to look at him." That kind of nature in us is highly critical, and that is why it is called nafsin-lawwamah.

We will see faults in people and don't look for reasons; we see defects in people and don't look for explanations. We just say, "Oh, that is shameful," and we become highly critical. These natures are in all people, these types or features of human nature.

The third son saw his father, and he went and got some cover and put it over
his father to cover his nakedness, so the Bible says. This is the "nafsin-mutma'inah." The one who is at peace with his own soul and is at peace with G-d. This is called the tranquil soul, not troubled by what happens in the world. He is beautiful and peaceful.

Abraham has such a soul. And how do we know? The Bible and Qur'an say that he was put into the furnace by his enemies. And whenever they would open the door to see how he was doing, they found him unchanged by the flames. Allah said: "Flames, be cool for Abraham." So he was not hurt by the flames.

This means that his soul was so much at peace with G-d and at peace with himself, that you couldn't take him out of his original nature. No matter how much suffering or pain you put on him, it would not change him a bit. The flames of corruption, the flames of hatred, the flames of anger, the flames of deceit, the flames of sin, the passions of sin - and I speak to you from scripture. I don't speak from my own mind.

People of Moses Argued

The people of Moses argued with him all the time; they would not let him have any peace. They were slaves in Egypt, second class citizens or worse in Egypt. And G-d blessed Moses to lead them out of Egypt towards a land that would be their own. But they were a people who questioned him and did not have faith in him and worried him and gave him all kinds of complaints all of the time.

So G-d cursed them, as the Bible says, with fiery, flaming tongues. So your speech can also be flames that bum like fire. So Abraham being put in the fire, we don't know how many of these different types of fires his enemies put on him when they confined him to the fires. But whatever they did, Allah makes us know in the Qur'an that the harm could not reach Abraham, because he was nafsin-mut-ma'inah - a tranquil soul at peace with himself and at peace with his Maker.

Our Humor Channeled Into Negro Church Spirituals

When they say that we are the sons of Ham, I know exactly what they are saying. They are saying that our humor is a birth defect in us: "These Blacks laugh too much; they are too full of fun." If our humor is a birth defect preventing us from developing into mature adults, that extreme condition was channeled into Negro Church Spirituals - especially since we have been on this continent.

If nothing else was done, the plantation life in America was enough to kill this tendency to laugh in us. That was no laughing matter, and it lasted for a few centuries. It made us take up the Church Gospels. And since this is Black History Month, you have to also remember that when we began as Christians in this part of the world, Whites segregated us even in the church. They wouldn't let us be in their section; we had to be in a section all by ourselves.

This was such an insult and pain for our people in the church, that one of the leading Christian thinkers left the Whites and formed the first Black church, the AME Church - the African Methodist Episcopalian. It was African to connect with our own people, Methodist to connect with that branch of Christianity, and Episcopalian to also connect with the Episcopalians.

All of these terms, however, are given in the Bible -Methodist and Episcopalian. So I don't believe that this new thinker, who was leading the Black people out of the White church, was really talking about the Methodist Church or the Episcopalian Church. I believe he went to the Bible for those terms and chose to develop for himself the African Methodist Episcopalian Church.

I know they were deep and curious thinkers in the Gospel, because I have met them myself, since I have become a well known person among religious leaders. And I find them still to be very intellectually curious and studiously studying The Gospel. That is their tradition.

They left the church of White leadership and formed their own church. We should note that in this month of Black History and also on this Savior Day. They were trying to save themselves from people who didn't really like them or respect them as equal human beings, in their creation or essence.

The Pleasure Principle

Taking up the religion of Christianity and becoming Christian in the church and giving ourselves to Gospels and to expressing our need for pleasure and joy through this medium or means - The Gospel in beautiful songs, that alone was enough to take our life up from being just silly or fickle in amusement to being a serious sober humor that helps us to mature into rational adults.

Our nature for humor or joy set us in a new behavior mold, if we weren't already in that mold. I think it set us in that mold, because the slaves didn't have anything to really shout about, nothing to really cheer them up. Slavery was too horrible on the plantation. There was nothing to cheer them up, expect their reflection on a Just G-d. A Creator who loved them. They didn't have much to make them feel good.

But when they began to learn The Gospel, The New Testament, and began to see the beauty there and to identify with Christ Jesus - the world had made him a scapegoat - it pulled them close to Jesus, because they were seeing themselves in Jesus. They were seeing what the world had done to themselves through what the world had done to Jesus, according to The Gospel of the Bible or The New Testament of the Bible.

This experience with the church and The Gospel and singing, it made it possible for them to have their need for a pleasure expression -in psychology they call it the need for the Pleasure Principle - to have expression for that was now given to them fully.

You can't take your body where you want it to go. You can't do with you body what you want it to do, because of discrimination, oppression and laws that were keeping you from doing with your body skills what others were doing. So here is a lot of energy that can't be expressed, and it finds expression in any outlet it has.

So all of the energy that G-d created for us to plow the earth and to have farms to support our life, to have agriculture, to have industry, all the energy that G-d gave us for that, that couldn't express itself in a world of White Supremacy was all bottled up and had to express itself in any outlet provided. So the outlet provided was the spiritual outlet, and the beautiful language of The Gospel gave us food for our Pleasure Principle or our inborn pleasure needs that G-d created us with.

The Making of a Powerful Spiritual Force

Look how powerful we became. But also look how powerful those psychologists were who designed this plan for us, that we be denied these things so that we would have to give all our energies, all of our capacity to express ourselves to the spirit. They were making us a powerful spiritual force in America to use us to solve their problem.

What was their problem? Their problem is our problem. With them. Do you think they loved each other? They wanted to build a great world and were headed for a great destiny. And they knew that they didn't even love each other and had been fighting each other in Ireland and Scotland and in different countries in Europe. They had been fighting each other in the Middle East. They had been fighting each other in Asia. They fought each other in Africa. They are fighting each other all the time.

They are working for a world of peace, but they are planning the creation of a scapegoat. I will hold my tongue here, because it will hurt some Christians because they won't understand it. But they made us a scapegoat; they planned the creation and then did it. They created their scapegoat.

Do you think Allah, Who revealed the Qur'an to Muhammed, didn't know this was going to happen? He says: "Let there be no altering on the fair nature made by G-d." G-d wouldn't say that, if it were not possible for man to alter our own nature. G-d knows that man has the intelligence, especially using the tools that G-d provides him with, to actually study our constitution as a spiritual being and rob that and exploit it and alter it to his own advantage.

And G-d says: "Make no alterations on the fair nature made by G-d." But they did it and they paid a price for it and are still paying a price for it. But G-d has a way of taking the victim with all of his scares and wounds and pain and turning it around and making it work for his favor and for his better future down the road.

Christ Jesus, according to The Gospel, also is to be identified as the "second Adam." The Gospel gives the genealogy of Jesus Christ and traces his existence backwards to G-d. It mentions his mother and Joseph (peace be upon them) and goes back through the lineage. Finally, it says, "... who is the son of Adam."

Jesus Christ is the second Adam, according to Christian theology, whose father was Adam. And it says that Adam was created by G-d. That is what the Bible says. This Adam, then, is a type that includes all of us. All of us are descendants of Adam.

According to the Bible and the Qur'an, Adam was tempted or deceived to come out of his dress that G-d had put him in. Qur'an says, speaking to us, "Don't let Shaitan deceive you to come out of your dress, as he did your father and your mother (his mate) in the Garden." That leaves us to wonder about that dress, and it says "the dress is the dress of righteousness."

Didn't the Hon. Elijah Muhammad say that his main job was to put us in a new dress? He said, "My job is to dress you up." The culture of a people is their dress.

The spirit and the intellect and the heart are all supposed to work together to develop a comfortable home for us on this earth. And we live more significantly in our cultures, than we do in our physical clothing or in the frame houses and brick houses that we live in.

Those things are important for us, but they don't change our lives if we get a different form for our housing or our clothing, unless we let it. As long as we stay rooted and grounded in our healthy culture, our culture protects and feeds our life. So in the Christian world, the culture should be influenced by the spirit of The Gospel. The culture should be influenced by the morals and ethics of The Gospel.

In a Muslim society, the culture of Muslims should be fed by the spirit of the Qur'an and Muhammed, the spirit of Islam. And it should be fed by the morals and ethics of the Qur'an and teachings of Muhammed and the life of Muhammed the Prophet. If we have that. Then we have salvation for our lives. If we don't have that, then all we can have is a struggle.

We have a great struggle out here to obey G-d and be the best human being we can be, because every time you open up your eyes and your ears, you are hearing that that hurts the spirit yon want inside. That is a painful way to live. And G-d doesn't want us living that way - to just have a spirit to obey Him and not the environment to protect and make comfortable that spirit.

So Adam is the type that G-d created and set him to the right goal, for him to
keep his life and make great progress and reach the Promised Land through his descendants. But the serpent, Shaitan, deceived him to come out of the dress that G-d had put him in.

Unlike Christianity or the Bible, in Qur'an we are told that Adam. Met a Word. He didn't stay in that bad shape. It says that Adam met a Word from His Lord and repented and His Lord accepted him. So he is not a sinner. It does not say that he sinned. It says, "Satan caused him to slip from the foundation he was on before."

An earthquake will hake the earth and cause the stones that hold the earth up to shift and a whole big stone will fall out of place, and whole cities are buried beneath the earth in some places where earthquakes took place a long time ago. So it has another reference there.

Elijah Muhammad said, "I am putting you into a new culture." An African student, who was a candidate for his Ph.D., back in the 1950s, wrote a book on Black Nationalism and the Nation of Islam. He says in his book: "The Nation of Islam is an attempt to give Blacks an identity in culture." He mentioned certain things.

He mentioned the changed dress styles for the followers of the Hon. Elijah Muham-mad, for the women's MGT and men's Fruit of Islam uniforms. We had new songs for the Nation of Islam made by us after we got help to make up those songs from Mr. W. F. Muhammad and the Hon. Elijah Muhammad.

We had marching songs and other songs. In fact, the meetings use to be opened up with songs on Sundays. Everybody in attendance would be singing that song and we would be happy. We were addressing things that were bad and hurtful in our lives from the White world.

Now the world has changed. The Hon. Elijah Muhammad said if the White man can change and respect you, then you change and respect him. That is what he said in one of his major addresses about two years before he died.

We also had changes in our foods. We had new and tasty foods. We had brown rice, where we would take white rice and parch it in a skillet with a little oil, until it was brown. We had bean soup; the bean soup in any restaurant would be different from ours. We had whole wheat bread. This was healthy for us.

But we also had 100 percent cheese pies that were not healthy, and those didn't last. Although they were delicious, you couldn't eat too much of it, because it was too heavy. We had bean pies, and our Christian brothers and sisters know about that bean pie. It was made very popular.

What was added to the meal to make it different was also the selection of spices. We didn't use the same spices. None of us were using tumeric before. But the Nation of Islam used tumeric and put it in the rice. We started using oriental spices. And we were having for the first time a menu that the world did not give to us.

Mr. Fard and the Hon. Elijah Muhammad and Sis. Clara Muhammad, his wife, gave it to us. She learned how to cook from Mr. Fard, himself. He came into her kitchen and showed her how to make those dishes that we are talking about. It all started right in the kitchen of Clara Muhammad. She gave it to other sisters and was happy to do that. I remember sisters coming to our house and working with my mother in the kitchen to get the recipes from her to learn how to make those dishes.

Savior Day is an unfinished business for us. It is not finished. I am not speaking about the world or all African American people. I am talking about us who followed the Hon. Elijah Muhammad. Savior Day is unfinished business. So we have an effort we call CPC or Collective Purchasing Conference. We have an effort to produce money and wealth or finance for us, so that we will be able to invest in material development of our membership. Our neighborhood businesses are included.

We are going back to Adam, the original man, and keeping the focus. When Mr. Fard said, "You are the original man," he was talking about the man that G-d made in the mold and in the nature that G-d put in him. He was not talking about what we thought he was saying. He asked. "Who is the original man?" And answered, "The Asiatic Black man."

You know you are not Asian; you're not Japanese or Chinese. He had already
established what Asiatic meant in his communication to us. He said, "The whole earth was once called Asia." This isn't anything new for a people who are trying to give a sense of a new beginning for a new history and a new life. Although this is myth, don't think the Romans had it any different.

All people get a sense of their beginning as a civilized community in myth. And when the myth is translated, it reveals great knowledge and great truths, and you can see that it matches with its reality. Therefore, it gives a higher knowledge and deeper insight into your life and where you should go with it. Don't under estimate the power of myth to project and motivate people to go forward with their intelligent life for community life on this earth.

So when you study Adam in the Bible. Adam was deceived out of his righteousness and out of his culture that G-d created him for, and culture is developed naturally upon the excellence of human nature. But Satan, the devil, creates a culture for us and devises a culture of death, a culture of love, etc., onto us that works against the excellence of the human nature and retards it.

Pretty soon, we have self-destructive boys and girls, like we have in our streets and in our homes, and crazy and irresponsible mothers and fathers like we have right now. So Adam, though he was deceived by the serpent - the Satan, the Shaitan, the devil - from his loins his descendants came and they weren't protected anymore but they had choices to make.

G-d made Adam free to make choices, and G-d made Adam's descendants free to make choices. So they didn't have to stay in a bad shape. They were able to make free choices and take the best thereof. This is Qur'an: Go after the best. If you aren't right in your heart and you go after wrong, Allah will blind you, and you will think you have something to help you and won't. That is the punishment of G-d on you for having bad intentions.

Guidance is only for those who respect and reverence G-d and follow the path that He has established.