QUOTES by Imam W. Deen Mohammed

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Inherent Value of the Soul

10/02/2005 
Imam W. Deen Mohammed


Our Greeting is Peace be unto you, "As-Salaam-Alaikum." We always begin with G-d's Name, asking Him for His Blessings and hoping He will accept what we present. We say, "Bismillah, Ir-Rahman, Ir-Rahim"; With G-d's Name, The Merciful Benefactor, The Merciful Redeemer.


And we say, The Praise and the Thanks are for G-d, the Lord and Sustainer and Keeper of all the worlds. And the prayers and the peace be upon His noble and generous Messenger, and what follows of that traditional salutation.


We will begin by addressing our most important perception of ourselves as Believers. That is the collective life, the life we all share, the common life that we hope will take us always to the common good and not to the hell fires of our passions.


Highly Glorified is Allah, Who says in our Holy Book, the Qur'an, "Attention you people. Reverence your Lord, the One Who created you from a single soul and created from it its mate and caused it to spread forth from both of them males many and females.


"And reverence Allah, the One Whom you involve, asking one another to respond. And be regardful of female entrusted ties of relationships. Surely, at all times Allah is watching over you."


Allah is the Name of G-d for the people we call of the Abrahamic Faith or the People of Abraham. They also are called the Heavenly Religions by Christians, Jews and Muslims. Allah is not the name of any person, no human, no object created or existing in the material world. Allah is only the Name of G-d, the Creator.


We want to address also the soul's inherent value and our belief in Angels. From reading Sacred Scripture, we learn of a belief in Angels. In the Qur'an, we learn that at birth every newborn is assigned two Angels. Its one Angel is given to assist it in the victory in its jihad of moral combat. Its other Angel is assigned to record its deeds over the duration of the person's life.


This focus on Guardian Angels speaks to a necessity imposed by nature to bring souls to accept their own share in the responsibility for the shape and outcome of their own lives.


In the final analysis, not even pointing out Satan as the problem will excuse any from their inherent responsibility. That is to say, we are born with many rights. But we also are born with responsibility.


The government of the United States and the Constitution of this great land recognize this inherent nature or inborn gift from The Creator, G-d, as we call Him Allah in Al-Islam for Muslims.


The government document reads, "We hold these Truths to be self-evident." And it goes on to say that not government but "The Creator endowed or gave certain rights to human beings." They are called "inalienable rights"; they cannot be taken away.


The government took the position that not even the power of government can take away those rights. It goes on to name those rights: Life that means the permission to have your own life and not have it in the possession of somebody else is given by G-d.


A long time, as you know, this country tolerated slavery. And slavery took away our life, not only our rights but our life. We were not free to live our own lives. We had to live the life planned for us by plantation owners and slave masters.


The document goes on to read regarding these inalienable rights: "Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”


When I was taking a few courses in junior college, I remember reading in a text that one of the students had, that the pursuit of happiness is understood as the right to have property. Every citizen in these United States has the right to have property of their own.


We know what G-d says to us in our religions - I am a student of the Bible and the text of other religions, too. But I study mainly the Bible and our Holy Book, the Qur'an.


I remember reading in the Bible references to this same right or inborn nature and its wonderful properties and how these properties are to be protected by G-d, Scripture and the conscious righteous people, so that no person will be deprived of those rights.


And if they ever are deprived, it is the duty of the conscious righteous people to go to the aid of those persons or individuals, who have been robbed of their rights or denied their rights.


We come now to human life and its spiritual or psychological dynamics. We read in the dictionary the meaning of dynamics, and I want you to understand how I am using this word. So I am reading the entry that fits this language I am using here now. "Dynamics is pertaining to energy, motion in relation to force."


Envisioning the conclusion of this world, we find that the ancient people of religion and the words of the seers and the wise tell us how man's world will come to a conclusion. We see this as wisdom, and we see much of it as prophecy. I won't use any of that language referring to the end of time in an attempt to give that picture of the last days.


Most of us in church life or in mosque life or in whatever religion you have, I am sure that you are aware of the many pictures given to us of the last days.


Of natural causes, human life will be pressured into moving forward. Also by the extending or intensifying of pressure bringing to bear more pressure, pressure behind pressure on human life, it is forging a meeting before Him. I am giving you the language of Qur'an. Him means Allah.


The language of the Qur'an is "one pressure behind another, pressuring the hearts of the people." Sometimes, it will become so unbearable, people will wonder, "Is there a G-d." The pressure will have become so much on them.


In another focus on the dynamics of human survival and progress, it is revealed that this pressure and struggle in the soul will bring the human perception to be eye-to-eye with the Fires of Hell.


'You shall be brought closer and closer, and you shall see Hell with clear vision, with sure perception or correct perception." This is Qur'an. But reference to this is also in the Bible.


In fact, whatever came to us in the Qur'an, it came to us addressing what had come before to the people called Jews and Christians, both called by us as given to us in our Sacred Book, "The People of The Book," meaning the people of the Scriptures that were revealed to Abraham, Moses and Jesus Christ - peace be on them all - and the many others whom I didn't mention.


Though religion has been the world's biggest oppressor, the Qur'an says religions' merits are more than the demerits. The Qur'an's fresh air way of addressing prophetic "End of Time" is intended for the sharpening of human perception.


Perception in the intellect regarding the history of religion how, in one hand, religion has been offering charity and giving charity, and in the other, religion has been greedy for power even over nations.


Nevertheless, important it is that issue baggers serve themselves well by being conscious of the fact that some Scriptures clumsily fabricate a message bearing cloth as a strategy for survival and also as a strategy for war.


These strategic planners, in planning the death of brutal, savage governments also subtly plan a peace times and a time for discarding their cloth stained with bad blood.


Rising spiritual and social dynamics, rising public awareness and literacy in the public, rising respect in government for the value of the common citizen and their publics, honoring the equal rights of the common citizen in the life of the state, all of such makes understandable the prophetic Qur'anic expression: Day of Religion.


In the Qur'an, the expression Day of Judgment is the same as Day of Religion. Of Sacred Scripture, the Qur'an's Words read: "None can touch it." It means none can reach its insights but the purified ones. None can touch it but the purified ones.


Most of man's Holy Scriptures are arduous fitness exercises in moral leadership training. Engagers who remain constantly devoted will grow in moral firmness to qualify for a seat at the table of ethics and global rule or order.


So the Words of G-d in Scripture are intended to produce a special leadership for the world. But you have to go through arduous training. In world religions, the student will find the most disturbing reading, on first sight, when you start to read the Scriptures. If you are morally sensitive and curious, you are going to find the reading of Scripture very disturbing on first reading.


And on second sight, you are going to perceive the most intriguing and productive literary fabrication. You are going to be amazed and will say, "Oh, this is the most productive literary fabrication I have ever experienced or read!"


Hence, the Qur'an's first word in its revealing itself to our Prophet Mohammed, the prayers and the peace be on him, is "Read!" This word, "Read," is prophetic, having to do with old prophecies. Reading can be mentally, morally, intellectually and spiritually liberating. However, the benefits are expected to only be opened for the constantly devoted student.


Regarding using our five senses, they are necessary if we are to gain any knowledge or information. Knowledge and information must come through the five senses. I know perhaps you are thinking that knowledge is intuitive. That is true. But if you don't use your five senses and work those senses very diligently and constantly, there will be not true intuitive knowledge.


In fact, some authorities on the psychology of man say that really the sixth sense that we come to understand - intuition or inspiration - is all the senses in one. It is the power of the five senses producing one sense or one medium - intuition.


Muslims who are students of their religion do not believe that man have any power over intuition. It is the sacred property of G-d, and He does not allow us to have command over it.


So by using our five senses, we are brought into another dimension, a spiritual dimension that brings information to us without our personal control over it. For that reason, we believe in Angels.


There is a medium working in our life and in the world to bring us information. Or I should say "mediums." The one medium is the medium we call Angels, but they are themselves performing different roles - there are many.


The Prophet spoke of the five senses to protect us from the harm of Satan, the enemy of mankind, or called Shaitan in our religion. He spoke on the five senses, because Satan is the enemy of all human beings.


Why is he the enemy? It is because the human being, in their natural mind or nature, do not want to dominate anybody. They don't want power over people, but Satan does. Satan wants to rule everybody. And Satan wants power over everybody in every nation. That is Satan.


The average human being, we don't want that. Human beings in our true nature do not want that. So we want the sharing of power, the sharing of authority under One Authority that we all agree is over all of us. And that is G-d. That is what we want.


Satan being against that wants to trick us and deceive us and make us think that religion is something different from what G-d intended for us.


And Allah, G-d Most High, says, "Never did G-d prepare something for His Messenger or Prophet, that Satan did try to present the likeness of it."


So if that is true, if G-d produced a Bible, then Satan also wants to produce a Bible. If G-d produced a Qur'an, Satan also wants to produce a Qur'an.


And he wants to make it look so much like the one G-d gave you, that you can hardly tell the difference. Or the average person will not be able to tell the difference.


Regarding love for one another, we need to love one another. How are we going to survive these powerful schemes that are designed to reach the hearts and minds of all people and cause them to deviate from the Plan of G-d? How are we going to survive that, if we don't love one another?


We have to be strongly bonded together. And the strongest bond for humans is love. Thus G-d says, "You should love Mohammed the Prophet (saw), His Messenger. You should love him more than your own self and your own families."


Why? It is because he is the Life that is your salvation. Not only in him, but that same life is in all of you, in all of us. He is representative of the life that is our salvation. We should love him more than our own life, because most of us don't even perceive correctly that life in us that is our salvation.


It is called Christ nature. It is called Muslim nature. It can be called by other names. But most of us haven't achieved it, have not reached it and have not grown upon it. So we live a life that Satan planned for us, or we live a life of our own whims, imaginations and impulses or whatever spirits we come into.


Living these lives cheats us out of the precious life that G-d created us for. And we look at these lives that we are living and say, "I don't love this life I'm living as much as I love Mohammed the Prophet (SAW)."


He is your true life and sacred life; he is your best life and he works for your liberation, for your salvation. So he says regarding love and what we desire or wish for ourselves, "The Muslim is one who wants for his brother what he wants for himself." And he warned that we would not be blessed by G-d, until we want for our brother what we want for ourselves.


Praise be to Allah. What did he say about the five senses? Did he say the five senses are to believe in G-d or to witness G-d and to pray and to give in charity and fast the month of Ramadan and make the Pilgrimage to the House? That is what he said when he was asked "what is Al-Islam."


But addressing the five senses, he did not say that. He said, "If you don't use your five senses to take care of your affairs presently and for the future, you are going to lose the ability to use your five senses."


Why? It is because you are not alone; there is the enemy of the human being who has been around longer than you. He is older than you and wiser in the ways of the world than you.


The Bible calls him the most subtle of all the creatures on the earth. That means he is the one that you are most likely to overlook. His presence and his wisdom keeps him hid from human view. It is very hard to find him and to detect him.


And his ways of reaching you through your weaknesses are so subtle and so hidden and so intelligent, the average one cannot withstand him and cannot keep back his advances.


Hence, the Muslims, we seek refuge with G-d from the Rejected Satan.


The Prophet said, "If you don't use your five senses to take care of your affairs presently and for the future, you are going to lose the ability to use your five senses." Why?


It is because you are not alone; there is the enemy of the human being who has been around longer than you. He is older than you and wiser in the ways of the world than you.


Muhammed the Prophet is reported to have said also on the five senses to his learned disciples, followers and students, "If anyone would wash five times in a river, the person would be clean of all impurities." Now we know some of us can get so filthy, we could wash 50 times in the river and still be unclean.


He was not referring to a physical river. A river is a directed flow of water. What the Prophet is saying is that if you clean yourself with your five senses being put in a stream of spiritual obedience that pursues the same Object or keeps in the same Direction, never reversing, never going off its course -like a train on its tracks, if you keep to that, you will be purified, you will be cleansed.


We have many who have kept to their religious devotion and have their spirit for their Creator and have done that constantly over long periods of time and have realized that they are blessed to be protected from the suggestions of the Satan and protected from the temptations of the world and ungodly people.


Sometimes, the situations they are in are like virtual hell; every description they find in the Book of hell, they see it all around. And they feel the agony of the burning fire touching others, while they are spared. So we know the Power of G-d's Word, and we know He has created us to get that Power by our sincere and constant devotion, never giving up.


The five senses can take us up, that is advance our life, and the five senses can take us down. G-d says, "Whoever spends on his own soul -spends on the upkeep and advancement of his own soul in accord with what G-d wants of him - will certainly be successful. And the one who does not spend on the good condition and advancement of his own soul will certainly be a loser, losing everything."


When Muhammed the Prophet was addressing the five senses, he was addressing the things that operate in our human nature - in our body, in our mind, in our soul, in our spirit - operate there to assist us and bring us closer to the great life and great end that G-d wants for us.


Another reference to the five senses is in the Bible, in the New Testament. It says that Christ Jesus, peace be on him, was approaching and saw a woman washing at the well. He said to this woman: "You have had five husbands over you, and the one you have now is not yours."


Was he talking about the five senses of smell, sight, hearing, taste, feeling? No. He was alluding to those senses as key factors in the problem, but he was not addressing those five senses directly when he said, "You have had five husbands over you, and the one you have now is not yours.”


He meant, you have had five senses ruling in your life or in your nature. And you have had a life given to you that compliments your nature and preserves for you your five senses. But now you are following rituals and culture that G-d didn't give you. The world gave you that.


You are following a sixth principle that shouldn't be your husband and shouldn't be our mother. That is the wayward culture, the culture influenced by The Satan, himself.


Let us go back to the expression Day of Religion that is also to be read or translated as Day of Judgment. The word, Deen, has a connection with the word, Dan, which means Debt.


What is Allah saying when He uses the expression Day of Religion? It is the Day that you must answer for the Debt. The Day is coming when all of us must answer for the Debt.


We may be indebted to the Founding Fathers of the United States for this beautiful land that we live in. But before these United States, this whole earth was G-d's House of Worship. Before the United States and all the nations preceding the United States, this beautiful earth was indeed beautiful - before the nations put their pollutions and their hands on it and influences in it, it was most beautiful.


It was called by the Revelations "The Garden of Eden," a beautiful paradise. When we go to a virgin land, one that hasn't been spoiled by man's works and industry, that small peace of land is called paradise by those who discover it.


Allah, G-d, says in our Holy Book, "The Earth is My House of Worship. The Earth is My Masjid."


When we think about the many tribal people living in their traditional native life, again untouched by industrial nations, their concept of property is different from our concept of property.


They will say the land does not belong to any one of them. No member of the tribe can claim ownership of the land; the land belongs to all the people.


Of the river, they will say it is mutual property, because "we didn't make it." Even if there are fruit trees, no one native can claim possession of the fruit trees. They say that, because they didn't make it. The fruit trees were here all the time, and they never know when they began.


Do you think the Qur'an missed this great idea and great way of perceiving external objects and reality made by The Creator or formed before man? It does not.


When the Qur'an says, "The Earth is the House of Worship of G-d," it is addressing the idea that has been for generations and generations, in time forgotten, in what we call Native people.


It is the idea that what we didn't make, we cannot make claims on it, and we cannot use it selfishly and deny others the right to it. That is common property, and it is an idea a little stronger than the common good. Praise be to Allah.


We look at the saying of the "Day when we must answer the Debt, the Debt to G-d, The Creator of everything." That is the language in the Qur'an and Bible, but more specifically in the Qur'an, calling G-d by title, "The Creator of Everything."


We don't believe that there is more than One Creator. There is only One Creator. It says, "Look at the design in creation, in the matter and in everything you see or behold - in the sky, in the earth, everywhere - can't you see that One Artist did it, not two?


The Qur'an says that if there had been more than One, we would see conflict and discord. Because we know when any two minds of bosses from people do a thing, there is going to be a struggle for the upper hand in it and discord, unless they agree in one.


And how do they agree in one? They agree in One Authority over them both. Then they can show unity, consistency, harmony, etc. That is what we want for our life on this planet earth.


We don't want it to be tormented by adverse spirits and Big I's and Little U's bagging issues. There are a lot of issue baggers that have risen up here lately and are very popular. They have no real purpose of their own or no real plan of their own. They just want to stay popular and benefit from their popularity. I call them "Issue Baggers."


There is the day when we have to pay the Debt owed to our Creator. What are we going to pay Him for? You didn't make your life. You can go back to every human being ever thought of, and no human being formed their life. It was formed by a Superior.


No human being made the brain, the mind and nervous system to be as it is and to work as it does. No human being created or made such a powerful or wonderful productive computer we call the human life or human person. Nobody did that but G-d.


Whatever we have been able to achieve with ourselves, with our own lives, by studying our own lives and by studying the area out in our environment - the environmental life of both dead and living things - whatever we have been able to achieve is not owing to the computer, any more than the computer you are using deserves credit for what it does.


It does not deserve credit for what it does. The one who designed the computer and brought it into existence and the persons who worked to bring it into existence are the ones who deserve credit for what that computer does.


So you sing beautifully. The persons who sing beautifully and get people to rave and swoon by the thousands, most of them praise G-d. They recognize that their talent is from G-d. So it is for the artist, the painter, for the true scientist, all of them will not accept too much credit. They will mention G-d and acknowledge G-d in their achievements.


I want to conclude leaving this picture on your mind. This is The Day of Religion, the Day of Paying the Debt, making up for the Debt. What does G-d want from us? Nothing. He just wants you to acknowledge that He made all of this possible and not man. That is all He wants.


He wants you to be fair and honest and not proud and arrogant and boastful. He wants you to acknowledge that it is not you, but it is your Creator Who made all of this possible.


What else is this expression saying? It is a comment on the old use of the term "religion." It is telling you that what you have known as religion is charity and theft.


It has given you on one hand and robbed you on the other. The message of the Qur'an and the hidden message in the Bible is to expose that theft and to prepare us for the day we are living in.


It is the Day of Manifestation of all good and all bad. So we can make the proper choice, so we can succeed on the Path that G-d gives us.


Thank you. This concludes this Radio Address today. To all of you in our Radio Audience, peace and happiness, the happiness that only G-d can give, "As-Salaam-Alaikum" - The Peace be unto you.

Human Life - Grow and Produce

11/05/2006

If the child could not balance itself and walk like it should, its life would be very difficult. The world is made for people who stand up on two feet. If you crawl around, your life will be very difficult.  Like the plant has to fix itself firmly in the earth to be nourished and grow to its full size, its maturity, we have to fix our child, our sons and daughters, firmly in reality. We have to situate them firmly in reality, so they will be able to bear their weight that Allah has created them for.  G-d did not create them to stay small. G-d created them to grow, to increase in size, and they need to be given the care and understanding that they need to support their weight and not have to struggle so hard with supporting their weight.

GROWING IN A BALANCE

If he is not growing in a balance, it is going to be very difficult. Just think, the child is going to grow up pretty soon to be 170 to 180 pounds. Imagine if 100 of those pounds were on one side. Imagine how difficult it will be for that child to walk and balance that weight.

But if the weight is balanced correctly, the gait, the walk is so easy. So we have to teach our children balance in reality. Don't fail to teach them what they need to know to be successful in a real world.

A real world requires that they accept more and more responsibility as they grow year after year and grow bigger in size. They are going to have to accept more and more responsibility.

Our First Father, Adam, G-d said was a man made of the ground. People of the ground, made of the ground like Southern farmers, know to prepare their children to live in reality. They prepare their children to provide for themselves, one day, food, clothing and shelter.

They have to be ready to take on a wife for the males and be ready to accept the responsibility to provide living quarters for the female and the children that will be expected from her. The Southern people knew naturally to prepare their children for this reality.

In the modern city world that we live in now, we don't do that. We leave it to the police or to the gangs or to the criminals to teach our children how to live in this world. We've given up, it seems. It seems that we think we can't manage our responsibility as parents anymore.

We turn them over to the world, and we have to change that. I know that many of you are not guilty of that, but there are too many of us who are guilty of turning the child over to the streets.

IMPLANTED IDEAS

We are talking about a noun — this plant can be a thing, a living biological body called plant life, and it could be an establishment. It also can be an idea planted in the mind. It could be something "implanted" or put in the mind, hid away in the mind to produce its affect without the awareness of the person or the mind that was impregnated.

Mr. Fard, the teacher of my father Elijah Muhammad, created many things in the forms of ideas and thoughts and language, that he intended to go into the mind without your awareness, without you being aware of the purpose for which it was put in your mind.

He wanted to have it grow in your mind, in the dark, and affect your life to one day change your life. He was planting seeds in the human mind; that is another meaning of plant.

You plant something in the mind and it grows in the mind. And some of them will grow with your awareness of them growing, while others are slipped into the mind. They grow without your awareness.

If a good Shepard or gardener plants seeds in our mind, the results in the future will be good for us. And we may reap a harvest of wonderful and great things, wonderful and great ideas that we couldn't see or perceive with our own minds or eyes.

It had to manifest itself, produce itself, and show its growth in our life, for us to know, "yes, we are pregnant." Implanting is like impregnating. Implanting in the mind the ideas or seeds of thought is impregnating the mind. Ideas born in the mind are somebody's babies.

I once observed a person talking about the things that he had produced and he was showing them to observers. He said, "I am proud of these. These are my babies."

CREATIVE THOUGHT OUR BABIES

Animals have sex and produce children; they don't have to go to school for eight years and for four more years and four more after that or six more years. They don't have to have all of that education. It is natural for them, habit for them, to have children.

It is no big deal to have sex and to have babies. The big deal is to have creative thought. Then as a people, look at what you have done for the space that you live in. Look at what you have done for the space that was once vacant, barren, not productive.

In a few generations, you look back on that space and see it just blossoming with wonderful creations that came out of the minds of your people. You can look at it and say, 'These are our babies."

That is a human achievement; that's better than an animal. An animal cannot have much of that. Bees build honeycombs and birds build nests and sometimes stay in the trees long after the birds are gone, just like the squirrels.

But they don't leave skyscrapers. They don't leave factories. They don't leave plants that are producing many, many creations.

Plants! See what the industrialist called his factories? Plants! Adam is the first industrialist.

FROM DUST TO INDUSTRY

When I was a young Minister about 30 years ago, I said, "Man means mind." I also said, "We have to go from dust to industry."

The Scripture said that G-d made man from the dust of the earth. It was dry, for it hadn't rained. And He caused the rain to fall down and wet the earth, and He formed the man of the earth. That is just what is happening right now.

There is dust everywhere, and I am trying to bring a light rain down — a rain of your good feelings, a rain of your good concerns, a rain of your good sentiments, a rain of your affection for the right thing. I am trying to bring that water down and let it touch the dust, to give it something to let it hold together.

Praise be to G-d. We have to become producers. We share as a group a history. I am not just thinking of us as Muslims, for first we have to realize that we are descendants of parents who were brought to these shores, to the West, to America to be slaves, part of slave labor.

We share an experience, and it is an experience that has left strong imprints on our very souls. So in this soul life or spiritual life, we have strong ties to one another.

It is because we have experienced over the generations, over a long period of time, things that left hurt and things that left joy and pleasure.

That is what makes us kin-folk. That is what really makes us soul brothers and sisters. It is the experience that we shared that others did not share with us. So we don't have that spiritual bond with them, that depth of soul with them that we have with one another.

The Irish have their own history of suffering and joy, and they are bonded together by their history. Now, if we forget the history or change and don't care anymore about remembering it, we lose the strong ties, the strong bonding. We lose the strong spiritual bonding.

No matter how much we jump and shout, or dkihr ourselves out into space as religious people, soon as we get out of the hypnosis - or even under the hypnosis - we are not really loving one another.

We are just stroking ourselves. For we go right back to kicking each other in the face and killing each other and robbing each other and giving each other drugs. Why is that? It is because we have been separated from the history of our shared experiences that bonded us spiritually together and made us brothers and sisters. That made us hurt when one of us was hurting. It made us want to do something about bad conditions in our neighborhood.

We have to get that back. And we can get it back. We are getting it back right now, for there is a fine rain falling down. I feel it! It is a fine steady rain coming down on the dust. And the dust is holding together a little better now.

We have to make it all the way. We can't fail those who have paid the big price, so we would be free today. We can't fail the preachers who risked death, knowing the world didn't want them preaching what they preached: Manhood for the Black man.

The White Supremacists didn't call you a man; they called you a boy. Now here comes one who said: "I'm not your boy. I am a man, just like you."

Malcolm responded to one interviewer questioning him on television. The interviewer asked, "What do you all want?" It was a good question, since they were calling all White folks devils and saying they wanted to separate from them. And that their time had come to an end.

If I had been on the other side, the one who was on the side of the world that was going to end, I would be concerned, too. Maybe we could make a deal. So they asked Malcolm, "What do you want?" Malcolm said, "Ask yourself, what do you want?"

Malcolm was saying that he was not a boy anymore. That he was a man talking, and he wanted what a man wants.

"You are a man, and you should know what a man wants." First you want that your wife be "your wife" and not somebody else's wife. And our wife as our community was somebody else's wife!

They are plowing our community. They are implanting in our community. They are producing in our community. And the community is growing, but not by our thinking and not by our efforts and not by our SEEDS, SEEDS, SEEDS!

It has to change and it will. Actually, it is changing. Getting back to establishment. The Hon. Elijah Muhammad, before he passed, saw that we had a plant. He called it the Muhammad Speaks paper plant, and the paper grew to be the largest circulation of any Black or African American newspaper in America. No matter how we got it, we got it.

With that great increase in circulation, the Muhammad Speaks newspaper provided most of the cash flow, more than even the import and export business. It was the greatest producer of cash flow.

It enabled the Hon. Elijah Muhammad to continue to do big things, like buy thousands of acres of farmland in Alabama, Michigan and other places. There was big growth.

I don't know if the Hon. Elijah Muhammad understood the creation of our First Father from dust. I don't know if he understood the parable of the creation of human life as a parable with a plant.

I do know if he were here to hear his son right now, he would jump and shout. I do know that he loved Scripture, and he would be jumping and shouting and my mother would, too.

I doubt that he understood those things, because a person who understands Scripture and is speaking to a religious body, you can't help but to share that with your congregation. So I am sure he would have shared that with his congregation. But you know they say that G-d works in mysterious ways.

G-d can cause things to happen, and if you don't know what is going on, it can look spooky. It will have you saying, "What in the world is this?"

You'll shake your head to see if it will change or look the same afterwards. If it looks the same, then you have to try to grow to understand what is going on.
I look at my father's life, his preaching, his words, his actions, and I know G-d intervened. He could not do that by himself.

He could not have done that by himself, on his own limited education, thinking and mind. In fact, if he had been the most educated Black in America, he couldn't have done it, unless G-d assisted him and intervened in his life.  I know that for a fact, after looking at his words and his life and how it grew over the many years of his leadership and where he left off. He left off where all people should start.

For many years, he just taught us what we called The Lessons or Teachings of the Nation of Islam, Problem Books, First Student Enrollment, Lesson No. 1, Lesson No. 2, English Lesson No. 1, 14 Questions and Answers, 34 Problems. He had students.  Then he put out a book of his own, How To Eat To Live. And that was a good book, so good that one of the high priestess in the Black community in Herbal Foods and Health Foods had it, when I went to her place - Dr. Fultona of Chicago. Dick Gregory, the comedian and political activist, brought a lot of attention to her.