Reprinted from the Muslim Journal (10-15-04 to 12-3-04)

" Promoting Excellence In The Best Traditions of African American People…,Keeping The Promise"

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed

(The following address was given by Imam W. Deen Mohammed in New York City, at the First Corinthian Baptist Church, on Sept. 18, 2004.)

Praise be to Allah, Lord of all the Worlds. And we thank you for receiving us so warmly and for our presence here.

We worship Allah alone and associate no deities with Him. And we witness that Muhammed to whom the Qur'an was revealed is the Seal of the Prophets and G-d's Mercy to all the worlds, as G-d says in our Holy Book.

Imam Mohammed Idris introduced something very important for us as Muslims in America and living in a country where Christians are in the great majority. That is that it was Christians who first showed Muhammed and his followers kindness.

It was the Christian ruler of what is called Ethiopia now the land of the
Habishi, who accepted an envoy sent to Ethiopia by the Prophet, himself. He said there was a kind ruler there and that they should go there to seek an escape from the persecution in Mecca.

One of them, who was not expected to be the learned one among them, although he knew Islam, spoke. Others among them were thought to be well known for their knowledge of society and things expected of people who would speak to the ruler of the Habishi.

But this common man among them spoke to the ruler and recited to him passages from the Qur'an on Christ Jesus and his mother, Mary, peace be upon them.

When he recited to them the story in Qur'an on the Blessed Mary and her son, Christ Jesus, peace be on them, the ruler said, "What you have said is very similar to what we have."

And when the Meccans, who were very angered that Muhammed had some
followers who had escaped and gone to the land of the Habishi, of Ethiopia, right away went out to catch up with them.

They couldn't, so they finally arrived at the place of the ruler of the Habishi, himself. And they demanded, saying, "These are our citizens, hand them over to us." They charged them with teaching something different and disturbing the society of the Meccans, who were idol worshippers.

The ruler refused to return them to these Meccans and told them, "I find no fault with them." So we owe Christian society, the Christian world, at least thanks and appreciation for that. And we owe them, I think, our allegiance. We should be their allies in all good works. And I am an ally of all people doing good works.

That's the way Muslims are to be, and that is the way Christians are in their excellence. When you will find a Christian in his or her excellence, you forget that they are Christian, when you spend a little time with them. You forget you are talking with a Christian.

You just feel that you are with your own kind, that is if you are in your excellence. Now if you are out of your excellence, it will not be that way.

So we thank Allah for our presence here, and we pray that Allah guides us all the way in everything that we endeavor to do in His Name or in the religion of Islam. Whatever we do as Muslims and in G-d's Name, it reflects on our religion, and it reflects on us.

People will blame all of us for what some of us do. And people will think that some of us who misrepresent the religion are the image or right way to see all of us. The correct picture of all of us will be hurt. We have to be careful that even in ignorance not to do something that will spoil the image of Islam, of what is really the true Muslim picture, according to Qur'an and according to the life of Muhammed the Prophet.

People think that I speak at random or speak from what the Spirit says I should speak, and they are really complimenting me when they say that. They think I am some real special guy from heaven or somewhere.

There was a sister who heard me give a lecture on the Fig Tree and what it says of Jesus Christ in The Gospel, The New Testament. And at the next class, she brought me a bag of real nice figs, the best I had ever seen. I was so happy, and they were looking so good.

She handed them to me, as though she was handing me the Holy Qur'an or something. She is an educator, and she said, "I have observed you, and I think the way you speak is the Fig Tree."

I had preached on the graduation of the soul in the Qur'an, and it is the same in Christianity, I believe. I am a student of the Bible, and I think I am an excellent student of the Bible.

There is a graduation of the soul, and everything that we need in our life, G-d put it in the soul. The soul is like the seed of your whole life. And the soul is the first to register what you need. And then the soul communicates this to the other parts of the body, mainly the brain, the conscious.

So these graduations that the soul wants for us are given in the Qur'an as the Fig, the Olive and Mt. Sinai. I was speaking on this and describing how the fig fruit is so full of seeds, many, many seeds, while the olive only has one seed. That is the main difference between the two.

The fig comes before the olive in our development; the many brings us to recognize the one. This is really logic that you'll find in colleges and universities; you go from generalities to specifics. Even in logic, you go from generalities  the many things considered looking for the logic, and you come to the specifics one logic that ties all things together.

It sets the premise for guiding us into what we are looking for. It is the road of logic that takes us to what we are to perceive or arrive at. So I told her it's what is called spontaneity of thought, for the mind trying to perceive or straining to understand, to put things together in a logical fashion, to address what is puzzling you in a particular context.

Then all of a sudden, you get a burst of ideas and so many beautiful things come to your mind; this is the Blessings of G-d. You get all of these beautiful thoughts and you are so happy. You are thankful to Allah and say, "Thank You, Allah." The Light comes on and so many wonderful thoughts are coming together.

But you still have not found the one logic that ties everything together. That logic allows you to have rational logic. I explained to the class the first stage of the development described as "Fig." And I said we still have words in English that can explain to us what this is all about.

If you say or use the expression, "That is a figment of your imagination," that tells us that that idea is not lost from the English language. And I told them, "G-d taught our Father, Adam, the names of all the things." (Qur'an) And then He exposed them to the Angels, putting them where the Angels could observe them.

Then G-d told the Angels, "Tell me your names, if you know." The Angels could not even tell G-d their names. But the man was created to name all things;
that was Adam, our First Father, the developer.

Allah made him of the land and put him on the land, so he would product from the land and develop the land. That is the man that G-d says He taught all the names.

When the Mind is spiritually searching, you are motivated and moved by the soul and spirit to search. That is the Fig Tree.

"When you trust faith and trust truth and trust righteousness and believe that there is a G-d Who will reward you for trusting in that way, and you strain to understand, G-d will cause an ignition, something to ignite, to have a starburst, spontaneity, a burst of so many beautiful thoughts and ideas. And you know you have been blessed by G-d.

Muhammed says, "That is a step in the excellence of man's life as a rational being." He can't understand some things with his rational mind that are very complicated and too much for his rational mind. But if he strains and has good intentions or purity of intentions, G-d will eventually reward him.

I am not here to teach Christianity. But how can I ignore the Bible, when Allah, our G-d, tells us that this Prophet of ours Muhammed is mentioned in the Torah and in the Injil, that is in the , Old Testament and in the New Testament?

G-d goes on to give a description of this Prophet. He says, "He is one coming to take all the yokes of bondage off of the people and to purify them." G-d says our Prophet is in the Bible, so He has already directed me to go to the Bible, when He said that.

G-d didn't say, "He is in the Bible, but don't look in there." To tell me that Prophet Muhammed is in the Bible, G-d knows, it is telling me to go and see what He is talking about. And I did that and found the exact language in the Bible that is in the Qur'an on Muhammed the Prophet.

Then G-d says also speaking of the Qur'an, "In the Qur'an are the Books that were revealed before in their corrected form." So G-d is telling me that our Qur'an contains Books that were given to Jesus, Moses and Abraham.

So we are really misguided, maybe intentionally, by the Satan. Maybe it is Satan's intent to misguide us, in order to turn us against Christians and the Bible. Then it could be our ignorant leaders in our history who left the purity of Muhammed.

They are envious and afraid that the Christian world may convert some of us, so they don't have the faith that is strong like Muhammed's faith and the faith of his early followers. They don't have that strong faith. They wouldn't send you to Ethiopia.

The home of my soul is with you folk. I love you so much. And this is not something that happened over night. It happened over a long period of my life. And as an old man, I am getting to see it in full bloom. And it is wonderful.

There are those who fear that if we read the Bible, we will be converted to Christianity and leave Islam alone. There are many who fear that. But if you have something that can't stand the test, don't sell it to me. I don't want to buy it. If it can't stand the test, I don't want it.

I am afraid that if we don't get our hearts back to where they were when we were sincere and innocent following the best of our African American leaders, Frederick Douglass and others, and all of the good religious leaders, for back then we were sincere. We had good intentions and loved our leaders for their courage and their moral strength.

Those leaders had the courage to give us what was best for us. We didn't want leaders who would permit us to do just anything and everything. Or when we were wrong, they would look over our mistakes, just to keep us as friends and followers. We didn't want leaders like that.

We wanted leaders who were true leaders, who were true brothers and sisters and would tell us when something was wrong with us that would stand in the way of our good life and our progress in the world. That was the kind of leader we wanted, and we had them.

But something happened in the early 1960s. A new leadership came. They misunderstood the Hon. Elijah Muhammad and thought it was all about Black and Power, being superior as Blacks and having money and power. They went after the things of this world and lost their own souls, as the Scriptures say.

Now after that has happened, we find our people with leaders who are not really having the spirit and the moral strength that the old leaders had. They are great orators and great speakers, but they don't have "something" that those old leaders had.

So they are not reaching too many of us deep in us, who are hungry for help. That life for us didn't start with the Hon. Elijah Muhammad. That life for us didn't start with his teacher, Mr. Fard. They were great people, but that life didn't start with them.

That life started even before Frederick Douglass. That life started with the first slave who started asking questions and didn't get answers.

"Why am I, a human being like him, but he owns me? But he goes where he wants to, to see his relatives and to marry whom he wants to marry. But I'm not. I'm his property like his horse or like his cow or like his dog or like his mule or like his chicken. I am just his property.

"Why is this? I can't ask him, because he might whip me. There is a G-d somewhere. I see the master praying and talking about G-d. And if You are really G-d, answer me, please. Why have You assigned him to that life and me to this one? And we both seem, in my eyes, to be the same life?"

Questions like that, the slave would ask, just like Muhammed would, looking at the miserable way of his people in the time of ignorance. And he was carrying the burden of his people on his heart.

He would go away from his people and the traffic and their conversations and everyday routine life up into the Mountain of the Light. It is called that because he went up into that mountain and received The Light. It was not called that before the Prophet went up there.

Muhammed went up there with the burden of his people on his heart. He didn't know how to call on G-d. He wasn't a man of Scripture, but he knew or believed that the universe was an orderly universe with a definite scheme or design. That suggested to him, before he ever met G-d, that there was One Logic tying everything together.

So he went up in the mountain crying to the Higher Heavens for an understanding. And G-d responded and communicated to him with five short lines.

The Bible says if you knock long enough, there will be an answer. If you go to the door and knock, don't give up. Keep knocking. If you are knocking on the door that G-d has made to open to you, it will be opened sooner or later. Don't give up.

So those slaves were sincere and were not seeking a small freedom. I am talking about the real people, not the ones who were satisfied as an animal would be with what the master had ordered for him as a life.

I am talking about those whose inner core consciousness may have been out of touch with the mind, but nevertheless it is still a consciousness called soul. Those are the ones I am talking about.

Those ones did not want for us any small freedom, a freedom from the plow in the field that we plowed or freedom from the immediate space that the master kept us on, so we could go and travel outside of that area and see what was on the other side. Or the freedom to play when we wanted to play.

No, they were seeking a bigger freedom, a freedom to connect themselves with the world that G-d made, the whole heavens and earth, the skies and earth. They wanted the freedom to connect with that and know, "Where am I in this Great Plan? Where am I in this great world that You made, G-d? What should I be doing here?

"Should I be having this small life of a slave? I don't think so, because my soul is not satisfied with this small life! My soul knows better!" That was the kind of thinkers they were. And they are the ones who began to be dissatisfied with their circumstances and have the courage to change it.

Frederick Douglass, we know his story. He was under a slave master who was kind to him and who had a wife who saw great value in Frederick Douglass and wanted him to use his intelligent mind. So she would go and bring him books to read.

But then this good master was pressured financially and saw Frederick Douglass only by the money he would get if he sold him. He didn't want to sell him, he was pressured financially to sell him and sold him to a bad master.

The bad master did not treat Frederick like a human life and treated him like something bought. Soon Frederick Douglass got tired of this treatment and one day in the road, he dropped a sharp right on the jaw of his master, left him there sleeping. And Frederick went on to freedom. Now how come some of you all want to forget Frederick Douglass?

Here is a man who threw one punch and took our life out of slavery, at least in his body. If one succeeds, the whole succeeds, if you understand. G-d says in the Qur'an, "Your life and your death are like the death and life of one person." That was said in the old Scripture also, before the Qur'an.

It only takes one person to lead the whole people into darkness or into ignorance and finally into corruption. One person can lead you into moral and intellectual death. And also one person can save our life or can lead us into life.

That is what it means, that your life and your death is as one person. If one person gets the power and influence, that one person can take the whole people down. Look at what Hitler did to his people. He took the whole of Germany down.

And in Christianity, it is said that one person took us down  Adam. It is said Adam fell victim to the suggestions of the devil, Satan, and brought the whole humanity down. Everybody suffered from his fall; because Adam fell, we all fell. And it is true, if you understand it.

What Adam represents is in all of us. Since it fell in him, it means it fell in all of us. And the world came under and influence that killed it in all of us, not in just one physical man or mortal person. It represents one physical type that G-d wanted to be for all of us.

When the world of Satan brought that down, it was brought down in all of us. So all of us died the death of that fall. And one becoming alive in that is the resurrection of all of us.

Jesus Christ is the Second Adam, and in him all people can live. But for us Muslims, it is put a little differently, and we don't see that type  the first Adam and second Adam  as two different types. They are the same type.

Whereas people of the Bible see Adam as one type and Christ as another type, we Muslims see it as that life or human type in its original state that G-d put it in. That is Adam.

But it had not dawn into the conscious of man yet; he had not become educated as to what is this type, what is this life, what is its nature. He could not describe it; he was just living it naturally.

It was his protection, until Satan suggested something to him that was too big for his rational mind. His rational mind couldn't handle it, so he fell victim to the suggestion of Satan and he went astray from that original type.

Now Jesus comes and he is conscious of it. It is not just a nature saving his life. He has a nature, and he is conscious of that nature. He is knowledgeable of that nature. Christians call that the Second Adam.

We don't call it the Second Adam but the same Adam in progression. He is developing life. The type is developing. And the type goes up from Adam, according to the description that Muhammed the Prophet gave us in his ascension or his night visit or travel.

It went from Adam to John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. And it went to Yusuf or Joseph to Eziekiel or we call him Idris. It went up from that level; it was the human life developing, going up into its full picture and scheme and plan for its life that G-d created it for.

It goes up to Prophet Aaron and up to Moses and finally up to Prophet Abraham or Ibrahim. It was seven levels, and every one is a progression of Adam's life. That is why he is called "Father."

Every one of those came out of Adam's life; they were in his picture. And his picture released what had to be released to fulfill the picture that G-d wanted for man Adam and all people.

How do we know that? G-d said there are seven above you and seven within yourselves. It means that whatever was revealed to us or shown to us by Muhammed of what is the elevation are also in us by Muhammed of what is in the elevation are also in us.

Do you think Christians are missing this knowledge? If they were missing it, then why do they speak of a seventh son? And there are seven sons and the seventh son is the one who is blessed the most.

We are told that Abraham was in the highest heaven, the seventh heaven. But we are also told that all of those levels are excellent. And G-d said, "Do not discriminate against My servants; do not make distinctions that would discriminate against one of them."

Do not say that since Abraham is in the seventh heaven that he is better than Adam, no. You don't say that. Abraham is not better than Adam; he is just better situated than Adam. And G-d situated him, as He situated Adam. The credit goes to G-d.

For the end that G-d wants on this earth, Abraham is better situated. But don't say that any Prophet is better. No, they all were excellent and equal in their willingness or in their spirit to serve their G-d.

The Ascension or Night Travel of Prophet Muhammed (SAW) went from Adam to John the Baptist and Jesus Christ.

And it went to Yusuf or Joseph to Eziekiel; we call him Idris. It went up from that level; it was the human life developing, going up into its full picture and scheme and plan for its life that G-d created it for.

It goes up to Prophet Aaron and up to Moses and finally up to Prophet Abraham or Ibrahim. It was seven levels, and every one is a progression of Adam's life. That is why he is called "Father."

Every one of those came out of Adam's life; they were in his picture. And his picture released what had to be released to fulfill the picture that G-d wanted for man Adam and all people.

How do we know that? G-d said there are seven above you and seven within yourselves. It means that whatever was revealed to us or shown to us by Muhammed of what is in the elevation are also in us.

Do you think Christians are missing this knowledge? If they were missing it, then why do they speak of a seventh son? And there are seven sons and the seventh son is the one who is the most blessed.

We are told that Abraham was in the highest heaven, the seventh heaven. But also we are told that all of those levels are excellent. And G-d said, "Do not discriminate against My servants; do not make distinctions that would discriminate against one of them."

Do not say that since Abraham is in the seventh heaven that he is better than Adam, no. You don't say that. Abraham is not better than Adam; he is just better situated than Adam. And G-d situated him, as He situated Adam. The credit goes to G-d.

For the end that G-d wants on this earth, Abraham is better situated. But don't say that any Prophet is better. No, they all were excellent and equal in their willingness or in their spirit to serve their G-d.

We have to get away from this spirit in us to separate ourselves from our Christian brothers and sisters and even separate ourselves from our Black brothers and sisters or African American brothers and sisters, thinking that we are some kind of natural enemies, just fated to be in some kind of competition with them.

That we are not to mix with them or approve of them; that we are to work to overcome them. That we are to work to defeat them and become the leading people over our African American Christians and take the neighborhoods from them. That is not right, and that is not what Allah wants for us.

Our life as a people will punish us, if we go against our other African American brothers and sisters. Don't you know that no matter what you convert to, before you concerted to that you were belonging to the life of your people. And what makes our life real for us is our common experiences, our shared experiences, especially those experiences that were very, very strong in our lives — whether negative or positive, whether bad or good.

Slavery was a bad circumstance, and we shared that as a people. Slavery had its way of making impressions not only in our minds but also in our souls. Those impressions in our souls give pictures and design to our soul; they make our soul distinguishable or different from the soul of other people.

It is because in the genes that our fore parents gave to us or that we inherited from were the genes experiencing American fashion slavery — Southern man fashion, plantation land fashion. The Irish, Polish, Jews, Italians, none of these Americans experienced that. We experienced that, and it has put a print, a design on our very souls and we are different.

We are not like Africans. No, we are not. An African who comes over here and did not experience what we experienced for almost three centuries on the plantations in the South and in the North are not like us.

The President of these United States was not just the president of the northern states but for all of the United States. He and his government and the U.S. Congress were turning their heads and not looking at what was happening in the South. It took a rebellion on the part of good people — Whites and others — who knew it was wrong and that it should not be tolerated.

Among them were the Quakers, the Abolitionists, their efforts and the able spokesman they had in Frederick Douglass to bear so much pressure on the country, and the time came. G-d says, "Wait until I come with My Timepiece. You have your timepiece, and you are planning your world for something to happen at 5 o'clock your time. But I have something that I planned, too, and it is going to happen at 5 o'clock My Time."

Almighty G-d let us remain in that situation, until the time came for us to be freed from that, and He had able and sincere persons existing and in place to put pressure upon the heads of government. They did and the matter was resolved, and we were physically freed.

Now we experienced the life of slaves. From the life of slaves, we experienced the life of so-called free people, freed from physical bondage. But that life was still a life of torment. The Klan terrorized us and took all of the courage out of us, so as free people we couldn't dare show muscle to the White man. The Klan did that with their terrorist tactics.

That is exactly what they used — terrorist tactics to put fear in us, so that we would never rise up or try to show manhood or muscle in front of the White man.

But that failed, too. You can't kill the original man. You can't hold him down forever. He will rise again....