THE REPRESENTATIVE OF IMAM W. DEEN MOHAMMED, IMAM EARL ABDULMALIK MOHAMMED SPEAKS ON CLIMATE CHANGE - PART 4 (FINAL)
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad produced a book entitled "How to Eat to Live." He promoted this book to his following and he intended it for the benefit of all black people in America. In the story of Joseph the ruler sees a vision of lean cows devouring fat cows. There are many important meanings here. The ruler also sees withering stalks of grain in his vision. In the context of this climate change discussion we are having, how does this apply? It applies in the reality that the chiefs of knowledge who the ruler depended on had no help for him. The ruler had to go outside of his ruling order to get an answer. Odd behavior in animals will tell us something about the environment. If we see animals doing things that we are not accustomed to seeing or we know that is strange, and we see those odd behaviors happening universally, then the common people and the scientists knows that something is not normal in the environment. The common people sense something is wrong too. They are alerted in their sensitivities. Ancient societies, they had not evolved in their technological sophistication, but they were alert to the environment. And they knew that changes in their environment would have some affect on them. The changes they witnessed affected their psyche. They would witness something different or unusual in their animals and they would be fearful. So, they are responding to changes in their physical environment by means of a psychological awareness which in turn affects their behavior.
Environmental scientists can speak to the health of an eco-system by the health of behaviors of certain species. They will warn the human population that they are seeing a decrease in honey bees or migrations of fish to warmer waters or strange flight patterns in birds, and they will interpret these events as signs of change in the natural world. This can affect the economies and politics of the world. We know that we are not speaking of the physical world in this discussion. We are speaking of the intellectual order that governs the political order. That is to say, the thinking in the elites and how their thinking influences the prevailing political discourse and language. The politicians aren't speaking from their own minds. They are speaking from the minds of an intellectual order that is regulating the social and political winds, the social and political climate, and they are taking their cues from the changes in the physical world.
How do we understand the lean cows devouring the fat cows in this time of social and political climate change. This is what we are talking about. And this is what they are talking about above our heads. The lean cows are those prevented from feasting on whatever the fat cows have been feasting on that made them fat. It is the change in the order. So the lean cows are now adopting the diet of the fat cows, and one of the effects on the society in this change is that it is causing the grains to wither. The life-force, the straw, the ears of corn, are dying because of the lean cows new behavior or change in behavior. The lean cows eating from the fat cows is the same thinking, just another group wanting the same as the dominant group. "They got theirs, we are going to get ours attitude," without any regard for what is incorrect, or immoral, or wrong with how "they got theirs." I heard one Imam say he was in the business of selling false hair because it was a popular item and a lot of profits could be made from it. Then, he ridiculed the statement of the Prophet against false hair. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad wanted us to be our best and truest self. What does wearing other people's hair say about our self-esteem? What does it say about our so-called leaders who market it to us? You are the lean cow devouring the fat cow, and you have no healthy interest in the feeding the people life-giving grain. The grain withers under your leadership.
Imam W. Deen Mohammed introduced Salaam Nutrition, following in the promise of his father to give the people a diet which would cause them to live. Are we speaking of physical food here? Yes, of course. But, more importantly we are speaking of a disposition of thinking. A way of thinking about your health and diet. Imam W. Deen Mohammed said that Salaam Nutrition was for "your health and wealth." It was the re-introduction, and the making good of a promise that his father had made. What am I saying here? That Imam W. Deen Mohammed was offering us a social and economic diet whereby we did not have to adopt the habits and behaviors and trends of the dog-eat-dog world, the lean cows eat fat cows world. Joseph's answer was to invest in the grain. He didn't even speak on the cows. He was saying we do not eat the way they do. We invest in the future of the grain. We plant the grain. We invest directly in the life of the common people. We observe the conduct of this political order as regulated by this intellectual order, and we turn from their habits and choices and we invest in a healthy crop of grain that will grow and feed us through all social and climate changes in this crazy, mixed-up, cow-eat-cow world.
The climate change is speaking of our concern for the physical earth, and the spiritual earth too. The physical earth goes around the sun. The spiritual earth is at the center of the moral universe, and human life goes around it. You cannot bring corruption, a corrupt political diet or national diet, into the Haram at Makkah. Only the purity is accepted there. We are born from this earth and we have to pay attention to its health. Our health is connected to its health. Its health affects our health. If the food we grow has poisons in it because the environment we grow it in has been poisoned, or the seeds are poisoned or have been altered in some way, then our human life will also be poisoned or altered. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad wanted us to eat to live. Do not eat foods that you cannot digest easily, that are harsh on your natural system of digestion. His son said "a nutrition that feeds you a peace (salaam) for your health and wealth." Do not eat from this corrupt world's thinking. Do not feed yourself its corrupt logic. Do not swallow its poisons. Eat to live for your peace in health and wealth! Praise be to Allah.
The new order is in the thinking and reasoning and emphasis. Joseph's advice to the ruler was for the "health and wealth" of the people. At the conclusion of the story the Qur'an says that the people had an abundance and they could get the most out of their labor. The output of their labor was the optimum. It means that the environment, the climate, the attitude of the social and ruling order was favoring and respecting the people. And the Qur'an says that Noah and those with him were saved by Allah. They were not destroyed by the mighty storm. They brought with them their healthy social environment, their healthy social and moral thinking that included all life forms, and they sailed safely in the time of trouble, without being hurt by the climate change.
I am inviting our people to look closely, study, do not be afraid to think and reason, and see that Imam W. Deen Mohammed's Representative succeeds him in pointing his people to the correct destiny with the correct language. He charged me with protecting the cleanliness of his shroud. He said that to me and there are witnesses when he said it. In my care, it is clean, and I will not permit it to be corrupted.