1988-January-22.

Muslim Journal

"An Islamic Formula for a Successful Life" : Part 6
Los Angeles, California — November 15, 1987

Imam W. Deen Mohammed

There's another idea that we should come to, that will make us stronger and prepare our inner conditions for greater tasks out here in the world, and that is the idea that heaven itself was not perfect and not permanent.

It's very clear in both religions that heaven was created by Allah, but an adversary manifested itself in heaven, and caused the fall of heavenly beings. And we didn't even know that. We have these quick notions and quick ideas about things.
That isn't good enough. You have to listen to all that's being said of importance. Now, you want to go to heaven. I don't want to go to heaven if the adversary is there, because I know what we did to the elects, and I don't think I'm an elect yet. I hope to qualify one day to be one of the elects.

But I'm not an elect, and I don't want to go there if he's still there. But according to both religions, he's not there anymore. He was rejected and cast down. In our religion, God says, get down from here with that attitude, this is no place for you. I like that kind of religion. God is God in our religion.
We don't have any Satan, any adversary putting fear on the heavens. God says, "What kind of behavior are you doing? This is the wrong place. Get out of here."

Now that's God I love God. If I'm going to worship God, I have to appreciate God, I have to respect God, I have to feel that God doesn't have any competition. But when I look at the Western idea, and see how weird things have to be done by the righteous, in order to survive the schemes and plots of the devil, it makes me think that the devil is a god equal almost to the god of Christianity. And they do. They make the devil almost equal to the god of Christianity.

Now don't feel that Christianity is your property. You were property and they gave you their property, Christianity.
We must have the moral courage to speak plainly and honestly to our African-American brothers and sisters, and tell them that they will never be dignified in the eyes of the world until they stop identifying as a Christian following the white man's idea of Christianity.
You have to come up with your own insights into the Bible and into Christianity, and you have to save Christianity from white supremacy. Then you will be respected.

But until then, you will not be respected. And the best bet for you is to return to the religion that dignified Africa, and has survived over there to be the major religion, the most predominant religion on that land today. And it will survive and enlighten the intellect of the African as it did once.
It will survive until it does that again. In fact, there is already a reawakening of the Islamic African man. You hear about the great kingdoms of Mali, the great learning centers of Timbuktu, the greatness of Ghana in the days of Mansa Musa. That's Muslim greatness! That's no heathen greatness; that's no Black Hebrew greatness. And if it happens once, it can happen again.

Slave, separate from your yoke. Take off your shackles, please. It's only psychological. There is a framework for keeping you with that faulty psyche, and the framework is white Christianity. That's the main element for your blindness. "Aw, man Christianity ain't white."
By interpretation, maybe not. And I am not talking about white light,' I'm talking about real white. I'm talking about pignmentation-wise, skin color-wise, white. And not only is it white, it's racist. Not only is it racist, but it is a white supremist idea, that makes all the races closest to the white man (the white man in pigmentation) better than those distant from him in pigmentation, and the farther you get from his sons of whiteness (pigmentation), the more closer you get to the inferiority of man.

The man becomes more inferior as he goes out from him. This is the idea. And it didn't come from science first, although the early social sciences of America had that idea in it, that black people are inherently inferior. It's been documented and proven.
But it didn't come by that way first, it came by the way of first, misconstrued Scripture. They saw the sons of Noah, as types for the racists, and Ham had a son, Canan, and we descended from Ham, the line of Cananites, the black dogs. I'm not making any jokes, I'm very serious. Why am I very serious? Because this is the thing that has shackled your mind, this is the thing that has dried up your initiative to compete with the white man in the world of excellence.

This is the thing that hinders you more than any other thing. It's your world of reality, the context of reality that the white man has put you into, where you feel grateful to him, for opening up the church to you, or giving you his church.
You feel grateful to him for letting you meet and become acquainted with Jesus. And the Jesus that he gives you is the false Jesus. He is the temptation, the tempter, tempting you to come into the land of 'do-nothing'. 'Oh, it sounds so harsh.' It's the truth! And if the truth is harsh, it must be accepted no matter how harsh it is.

Yes, he is the tempter, tempting you into the land of 'do-nothing.' 'Put down your burdens, give up your worries, just have faith in Jesus. Don't pile your treasures up on earth. Put it in the offering, let it go up in the heavens. You pile it up here, the thieves may get it.' I'm telling you what they preached to us during slavery and after. 'Slave, obey your master don't steal his property.' Now, whose interest is that? That's the Southern slave master's interest written into the Scripture.

HAM AND THE BIBLE

The Bible doesn't say that Ham was black. It says that Ham was Egyptian, but it says he had a son, Canan, and he was cursed and it didn't say what color he was either. It said he was cursed to be a servant for his brothers; a hewer of wood, and a toter of water.
That's menial labor, right? That's cheap, unskilled, the lowest — any old son-of-a-gun can do that. Now according to their Bible, they say that a whole people were cursed and reduced to that level, to be servants of their brothers, to cut wood for their brothers, and to tote water for their brothers.

And then the Southern racist church comes up and says that that was us. That's in their religion. And the Mormons just forgave us a little while ago. A few years ago, the Mormons said the blacks have suffered enough, so we are going to let them into our church. This is reality!
But you can't break your allegiance. Well, suffer the consequences. Because time is running out. You cowards are going to face your days. Yes, soon. Shame on you black people. You know that the white man has captured your resources, has tied and enslaved your very potential, your spirit and your will are all captive in the white man's false idea of reality that he gives to you. That exalts him and puts you down.

You buy it and when somebody tries to break the grip of slavery on your mind, you resist it and try to set your mind and tune him out, and think of everything to justify you being loyal to that false reality the white man gave you to keep you a slave.
So you should suffer! The most despicable race on this planet Earth today is the black race. There are no people, not even the American Indians that look up to you. "Well, why don't you say 'us' — aren't you included?" Hell no, I'm not included! I'm a liberated man! I'm not included! Any American Indian who hears me speak will respect me, and I mean respect me highly.

I need respect but the lot of our people, they do not respect you. No people wants to take our place.
There's no people on this earth — not even the Pygmies of Africa — who would want to take your place. Why? Because you are an artifical creation of the white man. Created for work when he needs you, and limbo. "Well, we don't need him now." "Limbo."

You know what the limbo is — it's bending backwards, and going under a stick. And God created you to use the stick as a staff, and you go under the stick
—  backwards. Breech-birth; feet first, head comes out last.
I hope you've understood the philosophical value, if not the practical value of seeing your identity first, in the cosmic un-bounded reality.

Man, according to God's vision, of man, was cosmic man from the beginning. I heard a fellow once say at a university, addressing man's social concepts from a religious perspective, who said, you must understand that Adam was formed and made in heaven. On that note, let's see if we can conclude this talk on cosmic identity.
We mentioned that from the cosmic identity, or cosmic place of man, he gets the discipline for his life, for his survival. Those disciplines in his life that counts for his form, preservation of his form, and progress of his form, towards his purpose, are cosmic founded disciplines. Now let's see if we can make that a little more understandable. Man gets his sense of perfect order from his perception of the cosmic order.

There is no picture or perfect order stronger than the picture we get from the cosmic order. Allah speaks to that in the Holy Qur'an and in the Bible, when He says how these bodies have been created and they follow set courses. Their courses are set so wonderously that man can direct his ships at sea, by respecting the course of those things in the heavens.

So man has benefited from the perfect working and order and courses of the heavenly bodies; he has benefited in the field of navigation. And not only in sea, but on land; man without any map, without any postmark, if he can see on a clear night, the heavenly bodies he can get his direction. He finds north; he will find south; if he finds north and south, he can find east and west.

Because if you face south, then you know to your right is west, to your left is east. If you are facing north, you know to your left is west, and to your right is east, so if you find any one of those four directions, you can find the other three.

DIRECTION

And the heavens will give you one of those directions. And not only the North Star, but there are other signs in the heavens, to give you those directions. They told us the North Star. But there are other signs to give you directions.

Its presence felt on the heavens. And you know where the sun sets is in the west; not only that, there are northern lights that come up in the night. So on a clear night, if you can find a northern light in the heavens, they have a definite design, and you will know that's north. It's not only by the Northern Star, if there is a clear sky, there are many signs that can help us find directions, from the heavens.

But greater than that, the heavens are the most, I would say, impressive sign of the obedience that God wants from His creatures. The sun gets up in the morning, it sets at night. It does that day after day after day, and never complains. It has definite movement, it graces the east and it graces the west on the rising horizon, and also on the horizon of its setting, right? Over the year, it will make a bow to the north, and a bow to the south. So Allah says, 'and He is the Lord of the two easts and the two wests.' And the Christians say, and the sun crosses its own path. Over the year, it will go like that, and make a big "X" or cross in the heavens, in one year. And they say that the cross is their version of the Passover, right? You don't know that? Well, it's true, whether you know it or not.

It's Judaic Christianity. The Jews have the Passover; Christians have the crucifixion of Jesus on the cross. And by him crucified, you pass over, or by the cross, you pass over. And the Ku Klux Klan, they set the cross afire because they are angry with you, and they are letting you know that they are demonstrating that anger by setting the cross afire, to tell you 'nigger, you don't know the meaning of this cross.' 'It's a burning cross, it's fire, and we're the masters of it, and you are the blind sheep. 'Now we know how to strike terror in you. we're going to burn it.' 'And you know if they burn the cross, you know what they will do to us. They have no fear of God.' Yes, they have a fear of God, and they have knowledge of the cross, so they set it afire to terrorize you, but to speak a message of wisdom to each other.

When Jesus was lifted up, he was lifted up towards the sun. Now we know really, scientifically, as you go up the higher altitudes, the more that you're raised up into it, the colder it gets.
But that's not the picture the crucifixion of Jesus gives us, according to their reports. We know that this is a misinterpretation of Jesus' trials and tribulations, and Muslims don't buy it. The Qur'an condemns it. But I'm just giving you what they are giving because that is what has influenced your thinking and behavior.

In the Bible, it doesn't give us the picture that he was raised up to altitudes of coolness; it appears that he was very hot, it appears that raising him up made him hotter, for he thirsted, and some preachers say he wasn't even given a drop of water for his parched lips. So they have the idea that he was very hot up there, and we know the sign of the Passover was the cross of blood on the door of those that were to be saved. That's for the white man. That's for the man who seeks racial dominance. This is for the natural man; black or; white or any color; this Book is for the common man of all colors, that will raise him from commonness to excellence. This is the Book.

Getting back to the concept of cosmic man's identity, another great thing we see as Muslims is that Allah has definitely revealed religion for us, and presented religion for us, in a form that brings us into harmony with the cosmic reality. We find that the Islamic model of life resembles the cosmic order.