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(Reprinted from the Muslim Journal 10-27-06 to 12-22-06) Imam W. Deen Mohammed’s Public Address at the 2006 Annual Muslim Convention Imam W. Deen Mohammed
We witness that G-d is One, The Lord, Sustainer, Keeper of the Universe, Who cares about all of His Creation, and especially the models of human life for us -- the Prophets, upon them be peace. As it is our tradition, we witness that G-d is One and we witness that Muhammed is the Last Prophet, His Servant and His Messenger, upon him be the prayers and the peace and what follows of that traditional salute to the Last Prophet. I am very happy to be here again for this last day program and very happy and pleased with the success we are enjoying because of the hard work of our committees, the general committee and also the executive committee. Brother Rafah Muhammed has chaired that committee and has done a marvelous job. We appreciate all of you, thank you very much.
I have in my hand a letter to me from our guest speaker who also would have spoken at our beautiful banquet we had last night. It was a beautiful banquet with beautiful entertainment. When I was a teenager, the popular dance was bebop. The popular music was Jazz. Teenagers knew the Jazz artists. Jazz somehow helped us to keep our intelligence. This what they listen to now is against intelligence; it is not helping us at all - the popular music of this time, of today. The music has gotten worse and worse for the mind as time progressed. This letter that I received from our second invited guest speaker for the banquet, I want to share with you. It is from Dr. and Father Harding, the president of the Martin University in Indianapolis, IN., founded by him. This letter I'll read just as he wrote it: "In the Name of Allah." And if I were to write him, I would say, "In the Name of G-d." He writes, "In the Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful. My dear Imam, it is with sincere and deepest regrets that I will not be able to be with you on Sept. 2, 2006. For it is a great honor to have been asked to be a guest speaker at the Convention. "My work as president of Martin University and my stepping aside next year has been overwhelming. This has been a test in my life, but I am a spirit warrior. And I know that with the Grace of Allah, I will survive. "I am so honored to be your friend and to call myself a Christian Imam. I hope this is not presumptuous, but that is what I am. "I have very great reverence for my brothers and sisters of Islam, especially Imams Mikal Saahir, Muhammad Siddeeq and David Shaheed and their families. "I hope you will forgive my lack of presence with you on Sept. 2,2006, but I know I will be with you in spirit. In the Name of the Most Gracious and Beneficent One, I am your friend, Reverend Father Bonafice Harding." I wanted to share that with you.
I also received just a few days ago this letter from Muslim World League Secretary General Office, Mecca, Mukarrama - Honorable, Noble Holy City of Mecca, Department of Cultural Affairs. "Honorable Excellence Warith Deen Mohammed, member of World Supreme Council of Mosques U.S.A., Dear Brother in Islam, As-Salaam-Alaikum, wa rahmat-ullah - in the Mercy of G-d. "The
Secretary General of the Muslim World League based in Mecca Mukarrama It goes on to give the documents. "Final Communique for the First World Forum of Muslim Intellectuals; item 2 Islamic Covenant for Common Action; item 3 Final Communique of the General Coordination of the High Committee of the Organizations; and item 4 Final Communique of Media Meeting on Impact of Islamic Media in Achieving Muslim Unity. "We are enclosing herewith four copies of the said documents, hoping that you will make your level best to implement possible aspects of them with the concerned bodies. "We supplicate Almighty G-d to grant all to whatever serves Islam and Muslims." It is signed: "Secretary General of Muslim World League, Abdullah Abdul Muhsin ibn al-Turki." I think most of you know that I have been a member of the Supreme Council of Masajid/Mosques for a good number of years. Although I was unable to attend this meeting - I was invited as a scholar; I don't claim to be a scholar - but they invited me as a scholar to attend and I really wanted to be there. But G-d didn't open the way for me to be there. I wanted to be present, because they invited me to present a paper on Muslim Unity. That is my cup of tea, and it would have been very easy for me to present an excellent paper to them on Muslim unity, that I think would have benefited them a lot. But don't think that they don't get some of what I say in the United States on Muslim Unity. I don't send it to them, but they have their ways of getting it. They know me very well and keep up with me. We are struggling and working, and our spirit is getting stronger and stronger. And our results are getting more beautiful and bigger.
We have our friends who are members of the Focolare Movement here. And I want to tell you what I know. They pray for the success of our good works. And I know that their prayers have really helped. It is not just in a spiritual way. See this nice Italian suit made in Italian factories. It is a good price we are getting, and I know something happened in heaven because of your prayers. Thank you so much. We have a lot going for ourselves, too. We will never give up. We have a purpose, and we have a goal. We have a mighty cause and will never give up. I saw a word that caught my eye in our newspaper and the expression was "conventioneers." That is the first time I had heard that kind of language, and it was publishing this weekend's program. Conventioneers? When I was a boy, I loved the Three Musketeers. So who are these Conventioneers? So I have a little poem. "Yes Ma'am. Yes Sir. Press hard upon Sam. His spirit will surge. Conventioneers and Musketeers, putting our life on the line, for the poor robbed of their mind." When leaders lead in the Name of G-d, you have done something very, very serious. You are accountable to G-d. And if you are not sincere, you are going to pay a big price one day, for being a fake, a phony. And we have too many phonies among the religious leaders. Among Muslims, too; I don't know who you are thinking about. GUEST SPEAKER DR. OLIVER Our guest speaker at the Banquet last night was so good for everybody, Dr. Oliver. I know you want her to come back next year or at some time. I know you do. She is a wonderful, down to earth, very intelligent and wise woman, and a model Christian. I study the Bible, and I know what Christians should have as an Authority in their lives, and I know what should be influencing their lifestyles and their behavior at home and abroad. I read the Bible, too, and I am more aware of what's in the Bible than the majority of the Christians. The majority of the Christians, especially in the West, in the United States of America, are just like the majority of the Muslims. They say they are Muslim but they don't know their Qur'an; they don't know their Holy Book. It is the same for the Christians. They don't know their Bible, and that is why we see the bad behavior we see in the neighborhoods. That is the main reason for it. Life is developmental, and developmental means it progresses by stages. There is progress for the first stage and for the second stage. It progresses by stages, and that means when you have moral life, your moral Life should get better. Your moral senses should get stronger. Your intelligence should grow. That's progress. That is how G-d made us. He made all life developmental. So you should grow. The simplest Life you can think of grows by stages and becomes bigger and more complex as it Lives.
Our religions tell us that a parable of our own life is as a parable of plant life, that we can see. You plant a seed. The seed seems to be dead. It is a dead thing, not living. But if you plant it in the right circumstances or environment, it becomes a living thing and opens up and shows what was locked up in itself. Locked up in that small dead thing was a beautiful life. And it is freed from that prison cell. The dead seed is freed and comes up a beautiful life. Our food from grain, looking or appearing to be dead - corn, tomatoes, wheat, or whatever it is - and all the life that G-d has made serves a purpose. The grass we take for granted, but the grass does not only give us beautiful sight for the front and back yard, the golf course. The grass, if you let it grow, makes a cushion for the small living things that have to survive on the earth, like ants and other small creatures, crawling in and out of the soil. The grass gives a cushion, so when the cows step on it or when you step on it, those small creatures have a cushion to protect them from being squashed or killed. Wheat grass especially reveals its origin. Its origin is a small seed that appears to be dead. It grows up, and the last thing it gives you is the seed at the top. It shows you its beginning. And it holds its original beginning up high. The Prophets of the Scriptures are like this. They had this kind of thinking and they identified with developmental growth into better form and bigger form and more enriched form. Then they saw that G-d wanted them to give back, as these plants give back. And they give more than they originally had. They had one seed, and they give back many seeds. Some bear fruits so beautiful and flowers so beautiful. And others bear that that is food for us on our tables -Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and on until Sunday and over and over again, they give us food. So we all should be developmental in our life, and our progress should move from stage to stage. And we should not be so selfish that we don't share our life and give something of our life to those who are in our environment. Especially to the small and the weak, who will be crushed by the foot of the cow or man.
I have to speak also to our people here - African Americans, because that is what we are. We are black and from the Mother Continent of Africa. African Americans are growing away from a painful memory of slavery, segregation and KKK fashioned terrorism. However, without the moral courage to support justice, when justice is also against us, in African Americans the spirit is easily fueled by fire -a jinn spirit. If we don't have our minds right, we will be burned up in these fires, remembering the bad times. Scars not healed can flair up, when pressure is put on us a bit. Recently, our friend, Andrew Young, former representative to the United Nations and former Mayor of Atlanta, Ga., made the news. I'm sure he didn't want to make that news. Our typical religious leaders and popular politicians, too many among African Americans, do not support justice when justice is against us. Our friend, Andy, was coming from a painful memory. About 100 years in the past in Charleston, S.C., and in Chicago, 111., and in other parts of these United States had growing business life. About 50 years past, a tough luck remnant of diehard survivors were bulldozed and buried more than six feet under by a system of expressways. We had dry cleaners, drug stores, groceries, meat markets, barber shops, beauty salons, tailor shops, shoe repair shops, restaurants and auto mechanics, delivery cabs and jetnies - in Chicago going from 31st Street and what was called South Park - now it is King Drive - to 63rd Street, going through most of the densely populated section of Chicago for our people. We had our own cab service. We could go to South Park and take a cab and go to our own department stores that one of the members of our community, an African American Christian, bought from the Whites. He was Mr. Puller, who opened a department store. You African Americans here may remember what I am saying about Chicago. Mr. Fuller's department store was a great pride for us. It lifted our souls and our spirit, to get the cab on a street where only our men were driving cabs - nobody else. We could go from wherever you lived on the South Side and get into a jetnie or cab line operated and owned by African Americans. Then from South Park Street, you would catch a street car. Buses came later. And you could go east and west. But you went north and south using the African American jetnie cabs. These businesses, as Andy spoke - and he is my personal friend; I have spent time with him on more than one occasion - were mostly mom and pop stores, as we called them. Not these big massive giant super stores we have now, like WalMart and others, they were much smaller.
Koreans,
Asians and Arabs - old comers and newcomers -will look at the property
in the neighborhood that we ignore. They look at our dead business
streets and come in with their frugal ways and give life to dead
communities Thank of how much respect the quitters can expect. We are quitters. What are we blaming it on? When the newcomers come, that is what they see us as - quitters. How much respect do you think we are going to get from them, looking at us and knowing we are quitters? We have to change our spirit to have a change in our lives for the better. Our spirit now is not to accept criticism. If one of our own kind criticizes us to help us, to get us to wake up to see our own shortcomings, so we can help ourselves better, we immediately become enraged and treat him as though he is racist: "You are not a Black brother." We have to change that. This public address is intended to give us a clear picture of ourselves that we need to look at - our collective behavior and our inherent life that all of us have at birth, when we come from our mothers. We come with the same human essence, the same human worth that every other people come into this world with.
Most of the People of the Book - that is an expression from our Holy Book referring mainly to Christians and Jews - our Qur'an says have not knowledge. If you don't have knowledge, what can you expect from the people? The ignorant in the days before civilization or savages did not have the intelligence to better their condition, until G-d saved them from their condition. If you right now would be told of a savage area existing on this planet today and you are told, "Go there and help those people," you wouldn't be too quick to go there and help them. You would fear for your life. I want to tell you that the KKK members were savages. And if any are still living with that mind, they are savages. They call themselves Christians, but they do not have knowledge of their Book. If they did, it would change their way of thinking and behaving. They hold on to Scripture without knowledge; they have Scripture by faith only. The world's best known Sacred Scriptures are about human society beginnings, mystical beginnings and also about predictions of how life will end. Life here means community life; how community life begins from the natural life that the Creator gave us. It begins from that life and grows from that life and upon that life, as well as how it will be concluded. Conforming to man's G-d given life for community and the behavior that man should have, that is what keeps life for humanity, the human family.
Favoring lifestyles that rob the community of life and rob the community of vital character and brings about the death of our communities -moral death, spiritual death, cultural death, material death - is something that has taken us from progressing, from following developmental life, to regressing and losing our progress. The developmental life is what our great leaders, our heroes, wanted, even during the time of slavery and after -from Frederick Douglass and before him, Nat Turner and John Brown a White man. They thought John Brown was crazy, because he made the great sacrifice to tell the world, especially America, that slavery was wicked and it had to be stopped. He was killed. From Frederick Douglass to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we had wonderful leaders. The developmental life is what our great leaders, our heroes, wanted, even during the time of slavery and after - from Frederick Douglass and before him, Nat Turner and John Brown — a White man. They thought John Brown was crazy, because he made the great sacrifice to tell the world, especially America, that slavery was wicked and it had to be stopped. He was killed.
From Frederick Douglass to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we had wonderful leaders and all of them wanted us to be G-d fearing. All of them wanted us to be of good moral character. So losing your good moral life is a big crime, especially when you look at the price that was paid to keep moral life in us. It is a big crime. It
is a crime against the nature G-d created for you, but it's also
a crime Myths are in the way of progress. You don't know how much your life is governed by myths. Looking into myths and the nature of myths tell us a lot about the freedom that we have and the freedom that our great leaders hold precious. The freedom we enjoy in America - once you are given freedom to be responsible for it on your own, the freedom that manifest under your control may be poison, very detrimental to the freedom that was intended for you. The noble men, who formed the ideas for this democracy, didn't see freedom as the freedom to do anything you please, to even become nasty and indecent or to become criminal. That is not the freedom they worked for. That is not the freedom they left for us.
Freedom to them was the freedom of the free thinkers. And their interest was freedom of the mind, freedom for the intelligence, freedom for the best that was hi the soul of man. They wanted to be like the plant, to let come out of the dead body, the dead mind the most positive things deposited in there by G-d, The Creator. They wanted to see that freed. They didn't want the freedom that we have now. This freedom is destroying us, destroying our families and destroying our communities. A great Prophet was asked by the strong oppressor who was ruling the land that he was in, "If I banish you from the land, what would you have? How would you survive?" The Prophet answered him, saying, "The One Who created me will guide me." The great thinkers studied human creation and got great guidance and insight into human creation. They got great guidance from how human beings are constituted. They used that knowledge to improve upon the life, to advance the life, to progress the life, according to the Will of G-d or the Plan of G-d for human life. That's how people have come into great life, great comforts, great benefits. We have to return to Scripture and follow the best of our religious leaders. The best of our religious leaders! The politicians of Chicago say, "You reward your friends and punish your enemies." We should reward our good leaders and punish our bad leaders. You punish them by not serving them. You punish them by not following them.
It is believed that after man discovered language, he began to progress greatly. We shouldn't take language for granted. We shouldn't just speak any kind of way. You are created with a brain, the highest, richest, most resourceful brain in creation. No animal, no insect, no bird or whatever has been given a brain like yours. Of the brain, our Prophet said, the Prayers and Peace be on him, "G-d said He did not give creation anything more useful than the human brain." When you love ignorance, you work against your precious brain. When you think of yourself as uneducated, as poor, know that we all were born uneducated and poor. But our human tools and our original human spirit made us turn to the best that we could find outside of ourselves and inside of ourselves. And we worked ourselves out of ignorance, and we worked ourselves out of poverty. We don't believe in Darwin's Theory. He was a thief; he stole information or was given it by others, and he didn't give G-d Credit for it. Then he put it in his language that hides G-d, The Creator, so that we would worship him. We didn't evolve from apes. We evolved from original, precious human life. And we become apes, when we leave G-d.
We can't forget the freedom role of our pioneers. There are many of them, who paid a great price. The nature that G-d gave man won't accept abuse, mistreatment or injustice. We naturally rise up against such. Nat Turner knew he would die. John Brown knew he would die. Frederick Douglass had a better opportunity, for the abolitionists were working at the same time. These were Whites, who all along since then were joining us and supporting us and risking their lives, to help us get attention and justice in this country. Many of us don't know Elijah Lovejoy and David Walker, but we know Sojourner Truth and many others and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the last of our great freedom fighters. But do you know the Hon. Elijah Muhammad was also a freedom fighter? We have so many little problems that become very big problems. We called ourselves Colored people. It was hard to get us to change from calling ourselves Colored and to say we were Black. But the Hon. Elijah Muhammad kept driving the point home, and it caught on. And Christians and all of us started to call ourselves Black and proud that we were Black. James Brown, the most dynamic performer that I have ever seen, I was asked once did I want to meet him after a show. And I said yes. So they took me backstage to meet him to say, "Thank you, Mr. James Brown." I said to him, "We really appreciate you for making us proud to be Black." He had the song called "Black and Proud." He looked at me as if he were surprised to hear me speak that way. He said, "It was your father who inspired that in me, Elijah Muhammad."
Now you who have been in the name of Muslims and Islam for 40, 50 and 60 years, you also have to thank Allah, thank G-d for the teacher of my father, Mr. Fard. He gave us a strategy that would eventually make us give up the dead part of the life he gave us. When a seed is put in the ground, when life comes into it, the life come out of the inside and the dead part on the outside is left to go the way of death - eaten up by the earth. Some are lifted up, like wheat grass, but the dead parts fall down to the earth. I have many Scripture readers here, and I know you. If you read Scripture, you should also understand that it is prophesized that the Temple would not stand forever. The Temple was built to fall. But it was built to hold a message, the life, until the life could come up. Then the Temple, itself, as a material thing falls to the ground. It must fall. "Destroy this Temple, and I will build it up in three days." That is prophecy and Scripture. Don't you know Mr. Fard understood that? He understood that and built his Temple not to stand forever, but to be destroyed. They said, "Oh Wallace, that guy destroyed everything we had!" No, I did not. I destroyed only what Mr. Fard wanted to die in time. It was to serve you for a while, hold you for a while, inspire you for a while, feed your life until you see that a lot of dead stuff was in this and throw the dead stuff away. Praise be to Allah. I was watching ABC Channel 7 and came up on a Loyola University commercial, a Catholic school. They had the words, "... also treatment of the spirit." They have so many courses that you have to take, if you want to finish college. But they say they also offer courses for the treatment of the spirit.
They aren't big enough to take in all of these Negroes, these African Americans, these Niggers. "Oh, he used the wrong word!" What's wrong with Nigger? It means the same thing as Negro means. The dumb Southern White Supremacists learned that a lot of us who came from Africa, and a place that was rich and colorful one time in history, called Niger. But it is not pronounced n-i-g-g-e-r; it is n-i-g-e-r. So he started calling us incorrectly n-i-g-g-e-r. Actually nigger is a better word than negro. Negro is just a color and does not take you back to a place and a culture, but Niger does. We have to wake up and straighten out our minds. Now, we don't want to be called negro. I heard some Spanish people standing on the street say to each other, and I understood a little Spanish, "Los Negroes." They were saying, "Those Negroes." But actually what they were saying was "Those Blacks." Negro in Spanish means Black. I know the way you use a word gives it a meaning, also. So the way the dumb White Supremacists - and I keep calling him dumb, because that is the only way I can excuse him. He had to be dumb, uneducated. He had to be uncivilized. So being so dumb, he called you nigger. And the spirit he came from made you hate that word. So I understand how the word got the meaning that you hate.
But we need to rethink and research, because we are not doing much with our community life. I believe this ignorance has to be seen, firstly, for us to come into a new mind and take charge. We have to qualify for freedom. To qualify for freedom and economic empowerment, the faithful must defeat this spirit to be nasty that is in us at home and in the streets. If it were just in the streets, it would not be so bad. But that nasty spirit we have is in the home, too: Regressive minded, shameful lifestyle, show off spirit, silly monkey nature, spirit to just have simple foolish fun. We are being destroyed, people. We have been influenced into having tunnel vision, but we are not a community of Cyclopes. The Cyclopes have tunnel vision. The Cyclopes couldn't do much with their life. In myth, they have one eye in the center of the forehead - not two eyes, one eye. G-d revealed religion, so that we would take pride and cherish the human creation. In our Holy Book, it says, "See how He has given you two eyes, not one?" It is so you see inside and outside, to see and question; to see and examine what you see. To see and investigate what you see. To see and dig into what you see. That is how we become educated, and if we want to follow the professor or the teacher, we have to be guided into that understanding. That you cannot learn by just looking on first sight; you have to have a second sight. You have to "look into," not just "on."
Modern man's ignorance nukes his world. We still see the clothing - you are growing in dress. Clothing gets more popular; you get richer and more attractive. The buildings are getting more attractive and accommodating. The material is just growing and growing. But what is inside? Nothing. That is what the nuke bomb does. The nuke bomb takes away the life of the people but leaves the money standing, so the victor won't come to rubbish. The victor will get rid of you but take over your material establishment. Just like the nuke bomb will do that for towns, for houses and banks and big buildings, leaving them all standing unharmed, the breath you are breathing from the poisoned cultural air is nuking you. Your physical body is still there, but the person we know is dead, gone, vanished - disappeared.
I love these words of Maya Angelou. I saw them in the movie of Ma'Dear's Family Reunion. She says, "The sun has come. The myth has gone. We see in the distance our long way home." Beautiful, so rich when you connect , what she is saying with us, the African American community. She says "the sun has come"; G-d opened her mind and gave her knowledge and insight. "The myth has gone"; the false pictures that once were realities in our minds are gone. She got the life out of the dead, the myth. The
myth gives you something dead, but it holds life. She was blessed
to get into the myth and see the real truth, the real life, so that
myth as a dead thing disappeared. "The sun has come. The myth has gone. We see in the distance our long way home." It can be a long way, or it can be a short way, too, if we stop following the worst of our leaders and start following the best of our leaders - it could be a short distance.
We see all the great material achievement. But I was walking along the street and noticed that through the concrete sidewalk, through a very small crack, there was growing grass. And the grass that was strongest was the tough grass we don't want for the lawn; we call it crab grass. I thought about it: If grass tries to get out from under concrete or grows in concrete long enough, it is going to get tougher and tougher. Difficulty brings about ease; facing the difficult brings about ease. There was this little grass breaking through the concrete. Then I was taking my walk in the forest preserve, but it is also a park with a nice walkway of five miles or more. And I noticed the blacktop or asphalt. There was coming up little grass through the asphalt. You know they call us the "grassroots." Vines, if you let them, will grow all over a building, covering it up. They are little flimsy things that will grow up all over a building. I saw a movie about New York City that was a movie to try to get us to turn around from savagery. It showed how wild gangs had become popular in New York. Civilization and civil government had disappeared and New York was occupied by wild folks, wild motorcycle riders and others. Eventually, vines and growing plants made a jungle of New York, covering it all over. In time, knowledge and science tells us, if man neglects his world — in time — you won't even find a trace of it. In time, knowledge and science tell us, if man neglects his world, you won't even find a trace of it. Iron will rust and become dust; steel structures will all come down, not to mention the wood that will deteriorate much faster. All of those things will go.
Scripture says, "Search, travel and see what became of great nations before you." You don't find hardly any trace of them anymore; they have been buried under the ground. In time, wind will cover them with leaves and other things. Rain will help bring them down. The weather will wear them out. Trees will drop leaves that keep piling up. In a few thousand years, those leaves go back into the earth and become dirt, as do all organic things. The earth keeps rising up, and what you made keeps going down. Pretty soon, you can't find any trace of the material accomplishments of a great people. So what gives us a start will also bury us and put us out of sight. That is G-d's Creation. G-d says, "Think not, man, that you are bigger than the Creation." You are not bigger than the Creation. The Creation supported you coming here, and the Creation will take you away and erase your presence forever. We think ourselves too important; we think ourselves too wise; we think ourselves too mighty. Put the mightiest of you tough men in a small room with an ape, and we know what will happen. You can't have anything but your muscles, no pistol, no knife or anything else. We know what will happen; I can hear you now singing soprano. Trying to show your toughness to people makes you small.
Man is becoming sterile mentally. He cannot come up with a vision anymore to advance his world. We had great men and women of vision in our past, who helped advance the human life for American people. The intelligence of the people is becoming sterile. Our males on the street level and otherwise are becoming show offs, bullies, a little global species of little-daring big men. Aren't we, Mr. President Bush? Several years ago, I was a guest of Yasser Arafat in the Palestinian quarters, a camp rigged and designed obviously to me to contain Palestinians under extreme pressures to take away the human quality from their life and drive them out of their human form and existence. While there, I observed their distressful existence, and I also observed their unflinching moral and political determination and their human concern. That included their human concerns and feelings for Jews. I know Palestinians are a humane people. They are not what you see and hear about.
We have to qualify for freedom and economic empowerment. The African American people, coming from slavery and seeking opportunities in this world, had our attention, our interest, our focus on this world. Our politicians and all were focused on this world for coming in. Once you get in, you should stop putting so much attention on this world and put some attention on your past, on your human essence, to see if you can better your human essence, so you will be qualified to get more freedom and to have economic empowerment. Troubled lifestyles that we see in the street are blinding us. Rich cities of the ancient were walled in. They had special gates through which a tourist might enter. Cairo was one of those great ancient cities. It had civilization with scientific achievements over most of the world and at one time over all of the world. A story is told to introduce us to myth, in the Egyptian mythical religion. It goes like this: To enter that city, you have to solve the riddle. You come to the gate and there is an oracle above the gate, a mythical creature that could speak to you in your language. The oracle would ask: "What moves on four, then on two and then on three?" The answer that you give should be, "The man." Now if you can't answer the question, you cannot be the man. Religion is ordered to keep the need hi the human soul and its expression in community life upper most on man's agenda.
You can work for money, you can work for knowledge, you can work for popularity - you can do all of that forever. But if you don't have the essential life of the human creation on the agenda as something you are supposed to study, watch and keep, to know when something is influencing it out of its form, to know when something is working against it..., to see if the culture is hurting it. You have to have watchers. All of us can't be watchers. So you should choose those good leaders of yours, in the church, in the synagogue, and certainly in the mosque. Without leaders, you are doomed. Without leaders, you are dead. Without leaders, you are not going to have anything - eventually. Satan and his influence are going to take it all from you. I am not talking about a mystery. Satan is real. Hell-fire is real. You want me to show you Satan. Look in the mirror; you probably have become so corrupt, all you have to do is look in the mirror.
G-d says to us, "Oh you who believe, save your own souls and save your families from the wild fires of blind passions." That is the Qur'an, our Holy Book. For both community and secular society, family life is first. The whole world of achievements has to be seen as tracing back to family. Man is a family. The first unit of society is the community unit called family. It all originated from there. That is why G-d wants us to identify with the whole human family on the planet earth, so we can be prepared to survive and enjoy all the riches that G-d created for us - and not destroy each other. So G-d tells us that we all came from a pair, a male and a female. And they had children and family was established. And those families progressed and became tribes and nations.
G-d tells us how it all started and how we got to be where we are. He says that He did that, not that you should tower over each other with your egos, but that you should get to know one another, to become acquainted with each other. If you become acquainted with the people from a distant land, that you called strangers, in the mind of the savage he would want to conquer them and take over their land. But that is the ignorant man, not the divinely guided man. G-d says that He did not make you different for you to tower over each other and look down on each other, or despise one another. G-d says He made you different, so that you would be curious to get acquainted with these new people or other people. When you become acquainted with them, you will find that G-d gave them something that He didn't give to you. G-d gave them a land and an environment that you have no experience in. When Marco Polo went to China, he came back with a lot of help for his people. I am sure Marco Polo did not say, "Take an army into China." He was so happy to learn of the things that they had, that were not available to him and his people, he brought those things home and said, "Here is something we have never seen before." It was more than silks. It was also gunpowder that the Chinese were using for festivals, like we use on the 4th of July, with beautiful colors exploding. But that Ku Klux Klan type man, when Marco Polo brought it back and he saw it, he saw a way to kill people will it. We have to return to family values. As the Focolare people stress all of the time, "Be Family." Be family at home and be family with all people. That one thing can save our community life, if we would just accept it and act upon it. Be family at home and in the community, with all of your neighbors and all people. In the time of Muhammed the Prophet, they had no jails. They had no hospitals as such. They had no family services institutions as such. The obligation was on the people. The rich were to provide for the poor, the orphans who would have been left in the street to survive on their own. Prophet Muhammed PBUH) influenced he rich to share their wealth with the orphans and with people who needed it. They were to take those children and the widow mothers and save those mothers from prostituting themselves, so that their children would be fed and survive. They were to take that problem away from them by telling them, "Yes, I will take you and your children." They raised those orphans as their children. Prophet Muhammed told them, "Don't call them 'slave'; call them 'my child.' Treat them as your own child, your son or your daughter." It was connected with prophecy and Scripture. It was revealed that those who would accept the Word of Gr-d and live the Word of Gr-d, that He would inscribe the Word of G-d upon their hearts. They would have it in their hearts. We don't have to have all of these taxes spent on law enforcement, jails and penitentiaries. If we can bring human life back to the Plan of G-d, we would be much richer than we are now. Just shiploads and truckloads of money could be saved, if we would just have it in our hearts to be kind, to have mercy and forgiveness. If we would just live with those three — kindness, mercy and forgiveness — we could save our communities a lot of money. Who are we benefiting by following this way we have in the world of turning our backs on G-d? The Satan. Who are you benefiting, when you go take the earnings you got over two weeks and go buy all this stuff from the grocery store - you buy 10 pounds and through out five pounds? Who are you helping? Satan. Satan wants the money to come back into circulation, no matter how dirty it is. Drug business, that's what Satan wants. You are dying of drugs. The parents are hurt and the son is suffering, because the son has been turned into a drug addict. It pains the neighborhood. Everybody is suffering, when drugs take over the life of the family or the whole neighborhood. Other crimes take over the neighborhood. Somebody is paying for all of that. Dollars buy drugs. Dollars buy all of the sins that we are committing. The Satan wants the dollars to grow fast as they can and big, so the dollars can get back into circulation. Satan is the greediest of all the creatures in the community. He is the greediest of them all and wants that money to keep coming. And he doesn't care how it comes. His extreme greediness makes his brain work only for money, control and dominance. He has been doing this since man was put in The Garden. That is when he started, and he is way ahead of everybody else — when it comes to how to get money to move and grow. He is responsible for most of the growth of money in these United States. Satan! I am telling you to go back to your human self and see what happened to it, to cause you to lose your precious life. Observe man, the free thinker, the philosopher and the scientist, how they engaged in study of Mother Nature, the natural existence inside and outside, and how progress was realized for man in society or in community. And civilization grew, wealth grew, the comforts grew and the good life grew. Family is where socialization originates. It is not just socializing as we do at a party or at some happy occasion, but socialization is the knowledge that we get from each other when we engage each other. Your intelligence speaks to me; my intelligence speaks to you. Your concern is passed to me; my concern is passed to you. We see that we can fare better, if we cooperate or support each other in the common cause or the common good. That is how man progresses. Numbers increase in time for Mother Nature ruled society — it births societies and rules in societies. Then man gets all of this knowledge and he knows how to use Mother Nature and how to exploit Mother Nature. In time, he then becomes the enemy of Mother Nature. We have to return to the best of human existence. Our main motivation should be the motivation to preserve the best of human existence, human life. To preserve it, you have to be aware of its line of progress in history. We are not asking all of you to carry this burden. We are just trying to wake up the many, so the few good ones can take the lead and have more support from all of us — Insha Allah, G-d Willing, that is coming; that is happening. We look at the simple things, like food. We buy food outside of our community and bring it into our community. These necessities — like food, clothing, shelter, transportation — should be the responsibility of every individual sharing the life of neighborhoods or sharing the life of communities. We should have our strong leaders leading the way supporting this. Look at the money we could have in the poor African American communities, if we would be determined to have all of the grocery stores owned and operated by us. "How can you do that, Mister?" If you can see the great purpose and the great benefit coming to us from doing that, then you would have the energy, the courage, the patience to support a program that said: "Do not go outside of your neighborhood and buy your food. Wait until your brother who is qualified to build that store and operate that store gets it." Then work for it; promote it; run for it and go out and beat the drum for it. Let the whole neighborhood know, we are not going to accept going out of the neighborhood to buy our food. We came from farms in the South. We know how to grow food. Let's have the Black farmers become strong again. You can solve these problems! The story of the first man is to tell us that G-d made man powerful, resourceful, and he can manage for himself in a wilderness or environment that has not been developed. So you should ask yourself, without even looking at the Qur'an or Bible: How did the first people exist? How did they exist before there was industry? How did those exist before science, before doctors and lawyers, before carpenters and welders? They are the ones who started all of that for the industrialized nations. China was much like that 30 to 40 years ago. China did not have foundries. Mao Tse-Tung had his people making iron in their backyards. He told them, "We can do this and do it on our own property." Look now how China has become so big and competing with other nations for recognition, especially in economics. China has such a huge work force, they present strong competition to the industrialized nations. G-d knows, I have been willing. I told you back on Stony Island some 20 plus years ago. If it takes it to get us to grow our communities in business and support our own schools with our own money and support our own religious life with our own moneys and advance our communities with our own money, you should be willing to give up this money you are spending on cars and start riding bicycles. Do like the Chinese and make a rickshaw, a cab on a bicycle. Put a couple a big strong brothers who like to show off their muscles to run this and take the delicate ones and the ladies shopping or wherever they want to go. That is what the Chinese are doing, and I believe they are still doing it. It is comfortable in the rickshaw. It is nostalgic; something says to you, "This is mamma pushing me down the street in the buggy." There is something very pleasant about it. You can still go to downtown Chicago and get in a horse drawn buggy to take you around the city for sightseeing. It is nostalgic. We hear a lot of talk about heredity. Inheritance is in the language of the Founding Fathers. They say we have inherent rights, and we are losing our inheritance. We are losing our original heritage of human excellence and a spirit to grow better and do better and accomplish more. That is inherent. Inherent means that no one gave it to you; you had it by birth. So what we accomplish as a people trusting in G-d and working for a better life in the South, isn't that heritage? If a people forget and get separated from their heritage, they will be in bad condition. Life is developmental, continual progress after progress. So if you leave the history of your heritage, how are you going to continue that progress? So you are just starting out in the dark; the struggle was to put you in the Light. In Scripture, heritage is very important. And the most important inheritance is to come into the human creation that G-d made possible or that G-d gave you. That is the most important heritage. A few words on the political scene - the Democrats and Republicans. For me, we have been hurt by just following something because we think it is what we should do or we think we owe it something. I think that is why many of us follow the Democrats and vote Democratic - we vote Democratic religiously, as though Jesus Christ is the leading Democrat. That is no good. You follow something so long, and you find out it is not helping you, you should question it. I wish I could tell you much about the Carter Center founded and headed by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Roslynn. I am asking you to consider supporting the noble work of such persons as Jimmy Carter. He is a wonderful man, and I don't have enough time to tell you all that he is doing. He is helping suffering people all around the world - especially in Asia, Africa and in America. This is from the materials that he sent me, and in return I had my office to send $6,300 contribution to the Carter Center. I wish I had more money, for I would have given more. I was offered to join the Ambassadors Circle that provides critical funds for the Center's operation and programs. This permits the donor to join the ones who come to the Center and get executive briefings and allows that person to hear reports on the progress being made by the Center. I was
told, "Your generosity will help the Carter Center to have
resources to sustain our worldwide efforts to wage peace, fight
disease and build hope." He says, "... despite only recently having emerged from 14 years of bloody civil war, Liberia has emerged as a model nation seeking to represent peaceful elections. "In a historically significant election last October, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf became Africa's first elected woman president." How did that happen? The Carter Center workforce went there and stood by them and worked with them and gave them the faith, that the gangsters would not be able to overcome them. Isn't it a shame that African people have stopped being responsible for their own life and community and let gangsters take over. That is not just in Africa; that is here in America. Building on a reservoir of trust that began with mediation efforts started by the Carter Center in the early 1990s, they have made progress. And now it is a model of how a country can have a democratic process and enjoy voting and electing their officials. I also want to point out another Democrat to you all, one whom a lot of us put down - President William Jefferson Clinton. Bill Clinton also makes trips to Africa and other places. He put his office in Harlem; he could have put it somewhere else. He put it in Harlem, N.Y., right in our midst. This is a city where we achieved a lot for community life and business 60 or 70 years ago. We lost it all, because we gave up. Bill Clinton also goes to Africa and makes great contributions to that suffering continent. He opens up opportunities that will be to the betterment or give Africa a better future. I also want to include Senator Barak Obama. He is here in Chicago, and he recently made a trip back home to his family in Kenya and to other parts of Africa. Senator Obama is a quality human person. These are the people we should be looking at. These are the people we should be organizing to support. I want to mention someone else who is a Republican -Condoleezza Rice. The lady is educated, resourceful, brilliant and powerful. Now how am I going to choose between the Democrats and the Republicans? Believe me, if it weren't for my knowledge of the works of Jimmy Carter and the role that Bill Clinton is playing right now, and a few other Democrats that I know, I don't even see a Democratic Party. Where is the Democratic Party? It doesn't exist, except in a few noble Democrats who are serving humanity and not just politics. I know you heard the news that I am a Republican; I was honored by the National congressional committee to be selected as a First Republican from Illinois. Well, I have never said that I was a Republican. I never asked to be recorded as a Republican. And I regret that I ever went to vote and got recorded as a Democrat. I don't want to interfere in your political life and how you vote; that is not right. But I am letting you know that I am not committed to either party to vote for them, and I never will be. I am going to vote for the good guy. I am going to vote for the clean guy. I am going to vote for the true guy, I don't care if he is Democrat or Republican. I want to share a little poem with you, and it is a tribute to our hero in our moral life, Bill Cosby: Has
nasty cold water got us in hot water?
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