The Temples Of Islam

Excerpt - to purchase this lecture choose CD E98 and/or DVD F71

As-Salaam-Alaikum. To our Radio Listen Audience, we are very pleased that we are able to be present here today for this live broadcast. The theme or topic is the Meeting of Science and Religion is Occurring to Dispel Myths.  I remember my father being given a tape. I was put out of the Nation of Islam or put out of the Temple for questioning the idea of G-d that we all were identified with. I had been put out once already, and some of the believers in the Temple heard me on the radio being interviewed by an African American Christian sister.

She was asking me of what kind of concerns I had. And I said to her, "I am writing a book." She asked me what was it about? And I said, "It is on the burden of myth on the American people."  Believe me, that audience I am sure did not respond like my father responded, when they played that tape in his presence. He would not hear it until I was present.  I was present on a Sunday, as we normally would go from the Temple or wherever we were to the house of the Hon. Elijah Muhammad, along with staff people, to hear him comment to his staff and officials on matters he thought he should bring to our attention at the dinner table.  We had finished with the meal and coffee was being served and he said to me, "Son, we want to play that tape." I never got scared, because I never intentionally did any wrong. And if I have not intentionally done any wrong, what should I fear? Nothing.

The consequences good or bad will be good for me. If I have done good and I'm not guilty and I'm a good person, and G-d loves me and I love Him, I have nothing to fear.  If you throw me in the fire, the fire will be good for me -if that is what G-d wants. So my father said, "Play that tape."  So my nephew and the grandson of the Hon. Elijah Muhammad was a very faithful servant to my father in his older years and when he was sickly. He was the one my father told to get the tape and to play it.  The Supreme Captain was there and the Assistant Supreme Captain. The regular house and office staff was there, those secretaries who worked directly with the Hon. Elijah Muhammad. And my mother was there and normally always there sitting at the far end of the table.  They played the tape and my father heard me speak about myths being a burden on the people. It said "mythological gods" - those were my exact words.

I said, "Mythological gods is the burden on the American people." My father had been sickly and everyone was thinking we should go easy with him. He wasn't acting sick and looked strong, health wise. I think he was enjoying his better days at that particular time.  At one point, he stands up, and I mean better than I can stand up right now because of my little back problem. He stands up at the table and he said, "My son's got it!" Those were his exact words.  I am wondering what he is talking about and what impressed him so much for him to say, "I got it." It took me some time to understand what he was saying. I thought of it as conversation and knew it was conversation in deep water. It was not playful for children, to talk about mythological gods.

He looked at my mother while still standing and she was sitting, and he said, "Clara, isn't this what we wanted?" And she smiled and nodded her head.  So what I am coming to you today with is really a continuation of that interest that I had to inquire into the nature of our culture to see just where that came from and what it is made of and where the problem is.

We are hearing on the news and in educational publications and in regular magazines that come out like TIME and other magazines, we are hearing about the coming together of religion and science. Religion and science are being recognized now as not being against each other but belonging to each other.  With this occurrence, myths are being dispelled. That which we could not understand before in the culture as myth or tied directly to myth is now being uncovered and now being understood, gradually.  But most of us are not even familiar with what is going on, because we are not situated in society to be in touch with such occurrences or such happenings. These things pass by the great majority of the people, and even the great majority of the educated people.  That is exactly what is happening - the meeting of science and religion, where religion is beginning to express its scientific composition and scientific design. Certainly, it is spiritual, but the spiritual has to be established. And the spiritual cannot be established, unless it is through the material.  G-d made Adam, and he was existing according to Genesis already, so He made him for a second time. And when He made him for the second time, He gave him a female mate, so he would bear children on earth and have a future on earth. And he could not do that without utilizing the material reality.  G-d told him that He made all the things that had been formed or created by G-d to be of use and utility to Adam and the future human beings on this earth, the descendants of Adam.