1980-October-10

Bilalian News

Liberation For All People

Imam Warith Deen Muhammad

With the Name Allah, the Gracious, the Compassionate.

(Editor's note: Following are excerpts from Imam Warith Deen Muhammad's address to the Midwest C.R.A.I.D. meeting at Chicago,
March 15, 1980 — Continued from the last two weeks.)

I could go on "to tell you more about Bilal. Bilal is a sign of the many good things of the human heart. Bilal is a sign of what “black" really meant originally in a cultural context.

Black never meant skin-black in religion. In the cultural context it always meant the begin­ning of civilization. The beginning of man, his spirit, his consciousness; His nature is first in the dark of his spirituality symbolized in the human heart. But he obeys right guidance even in the dark.

The beginning of his righteousness, the beginning of his intellect is in the darkness of his soul. But eventually that mind comes to light in knowledge. As the knowledge that he first saw in the dark unfolds, from the "black" man comes the "white" man! That's what it meant originally. But white supremacy came on the scene and misused it. They turned it around to make it apply to skin and divided man against man and created this evil thing that we must still fight.

Out of the oppressed, the world was generated. Out of the oppressed, the world is regenerated. Can't you see that we have a big mission? We have the greatest mission that time has given anybody — if you all understand it. The Jewish mission is not equal to ours. Their mis­sion was for Jewish nationalism and token charity to the world. This is not a blanket con­demnation of Jews; study it in the Bible.

Our mission is universal; our mission goes against all the evils of the world. It confronts the greatest evils: racism — racism in religion; that's where it starts. Nature didn't give that to us. Somebody lied in the name of God —that gave it to us! Nature doesn't make people racists.

Many of you don't know because you come along at a later time. Many churches used to openly preach that we are the cursed children of Ham — Canaanites, the Hamites, through the curse that fell on Cain and the Canaanites. Yes, that's what they would tell us — that your blackness is a curse on you.

This is another thing that you Imams are afraid to deal with. There are a lot of preachers who still have this burden on their mind. Don't be afraid to deal with it; deal with it! There are a lot of Bilalians right now who believe that we are the children of Ham. Actually we are no more the children of Ham than any other people.

Ham is no physical father — Ham represents desire. Ham — heat, desire, strong appetite, highly emotional people; that's what Hamite means. Pigs are greedy, quarrelsome, and sensuous—their solid meat is only ham. People like that are inclined to give themselves emo­tionally to things and become the victim of the things that they give themselves to. They can give themselves emotionally to race pride or emotionally to other things — and people can bring in racism. Oh yes — sneak it in on them, because they are so caught up in "ham." It is good to be desirous, but not blindly or foolishly so.

The Babylonian people were a great people. They were dark-skinned, but many of them were fair-skinned. Those people had a great leader you know called Hamurabi (love of my Lord). In fact, his laws of civilization were stolen. They claim them for Moses. When you read, interpret or translate the name "Hamurabi" — it means "my Raab is spirit," "my Lord is spirit." Or, "the love or spirit of my Lord."

Ham can have a good meaning and a bad meaning. Ham can be desire in a bad way, but the same desire in a bad way can be a desire given to God, and it becomes a saving source, a saving power for you. The same emotionalism that you give to other things, if you give that emotionalism to God — giving it to Him is spiritual obedience — then that becomes a spirit of praise for God.

We are (Hammi). We are filled with desire; we are an emotional people. We are a highly spirited people; but aren't many other people also like that? They don't have to be our color to be like that. I've passed by some Caucasian churches, and they were carrying on more spiritedly than we. You think we get emotional — some of them do too.

It has nothing to do with color. It has to do with experience. It has to do with the road you walk. If you walk a hard road, if you walk a hard path, it's going to give you the blues. When culturally oppressed, spirit may be the only outlet. It's going to make your soul cry out. So you become spirited or overly emo­tional. Praise be to Allah, our humanity has survived these fires of hell.

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