Alaykum to the Muslims. We greet you in the greeting words of peace. As-salamu alaykum. To the Christian community, in the words of Jesus, every time he met his disciples or left his disciples, he always greeted them, One love, one love. I, Mohammed, am very happy and thankful for his work and the work of Minister Abdul-Halim and the believers here in Toronto and the local organizing committee of the Million Man March under the leadership of our dear brother, our Attorney, to the great leadership of this city and the people who have backed and supported this effort, I am deeply grateful to all of you for your sincere work to make this night possible. And I would not want him to suffer any financial loss. So on behalf of Minister Donnie and all those who contributed, I want to thank you for whatever you have given.

And if at the end of the night you find that what you have received is so much more than Then perhaps on your way out there'll be a receptacle there that you may drop something in. None of this will go to Louis Farrakhan. All of this will go to defray the expense of this evening. Thank you very much. Thank you, Minister Dunn. I want to thank the press because I think if you had not built a controversy Over my coming to Toronto, everyone wouldn't have known that I was coming. I did not know that this was in fact the Jewish holiday, but I sincerely wish the members of the Jewish community a happy new year.

But I came to talk to you. Since the historic Million Man March, we have been on a world tour to bring to the people of the world the idea of atonement, reconciliation, and responsibility. The theme of atonement and the day of atonement is actually taken from Jewish history. As you know, when were in Egypt, and they came out of Egypt into the wilderness. Before they entered the Promised Land, it was revealed to Aaron that a day should be set aside for the members atone for any error or sin that they had made, that they would make an atonement to Almighty God, that he may continue to bless them in the new year as he had blessed them in the year going out. But Moses and Aaron were a sign of another time period that would come at the end of this world's time to rule.

The Bible and Holy Quran teach us that one would come like unto Moses. In fact, in the book of Deuteronomy it is written, And I will raise them up a prophet like unto thee, Moses, And I will put my words in his mouth, And he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. Well, there cannot be a man like Moses unless there's a people like the people of Moses, and a king like Pharaoh, and a government like the government of Egypt, and a people under oppression like the children of Israel. And so if we look into history, we don't find another people in history suffering cruel cruel bondage in a strange land among strange people other than those who were brought out of Africa into the Caribbean and then into North America, where our people have suffered for four hundred and forty-one years now.

So atonement that was given to the children of Israel as a specific day, a 24-hour period, starting from sundown the night before to sundown the day of, that was to be a sign not of a literal 24-hour day, but a period where the people would have a chance to atone and repent of the evils that they have done, so that they might reconcile themselves first to God before God wreaks his destruction on the current world and its system of things. So, in that spirit of atonement, which is not anymore a twenty-four hour period, but all of us now have to reconcile ourselves first to Almighty God. We have to understand that we have been made to deviate from His way, from His straight path, from the teachings of all of the prophets, so much so that it looks today like a prophet of God has never walked among the human family.

The human being who is the greatest of God's creation, no matter what color we may be, we are acting after the similitude of the beasts of the field and the creeping and crawling things of the earth. And so when we do that, we do not justify our existence on the earth. So now the forces of nature, directed by God, are moving human beings to the valley of decision. We're going to have to decide whether we're going to obey God or whether we're going to obey man. And in that decision that we make, there will be a separation between the weak and the tare, the sheep and the goat, the righteous and the wicked, whatever color they may be. So in this process of atonement, I recognize that there is difficulty for me, because I don't wish to offend any of the laws of Canada, and I don't intend to.

And I certainly am not here to try to pit one group against another, one religion against another, or blacks against whites, or whites against blacks, or blacks against Jews. That is not my purpose. That is not my purpose. I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed. But my aim is to speak truth out of the spirit of love, not to say that I might get in trouble for speaking the truth. It depends. I want you to hear me, because it's not right that anybody should promote hatred of another human being.

That is against the law of God as well as the law of man. Because, in fact, the way you all write about me and the way you talk about me, it is as though you want people to hate me, and you would hope that that hate would be so intense that some good person would take my life. And this seems to be a willful motive, but I don't see the law being applied for me to defend and protect me from slander and hatred. So my job is very difficult, and the reason my assignment is difficult, because in the process of atonement, the first thing that must be done is that truth has to be told in government, in people, in institutions. Not that we should hate government, hate institutions, hate the thing that is wrong, but truth is told so that one might correct oneself, government might correct herself, institutions might be corrected, that government, institutions, and people may come into the favor of God, because the way we are going now, God is angry with the nations and the people.

I want you to hear me. Though I can't tickle your ears and make you feel good, I have to please Almighty God. And if I please Him, if the world is displeased, it really doesn't matter to me. The fact that I am popular with you is because you know that Jesus said, You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free. So since I've never been to Canada to speak before, and this is my first time in this country to speak, then you would ask, why did all the people come out, thousands on the outside, angry, because they couldn't get in. And yet, if the politicians called a meeting, they couldn't get across. And many of the religious leaders could not get a crown.

Why is this? Why is this? Because you have compromised the principles of truth to seek the favor of those that you think are in power are there by the permission of God, and that may be temporary. So what you have to do is decide what side of this you're going to be on. If you're going to be on the side of truth, you will suffer a little while, because this world has always persecuted the bearers of truth. They have imprisoned the bearers of truth. Some of the bearers of truth have been killed. But none of us is greater than truth.

So to suffer, or to be imprisoned, or even to be killed for the sake of truth, we are We are no better than the prophets that went before us, who suffered and were persecuted for the sake of truth? So if that is my lot or your lot, so be it. So be it. But the prophets, the prophets, no matter how long they lived or how short they lived, their name is recorded in history, and every time their name is mentioned, the words flow from the lips of those who live after them, peace be unto them and peace be unto their families. So it doesn't matter how long you live, but what matters is the quality of life and the service that you render to God and to speak the truth without fear, not breaking your law, but using your law.

Because a righteous person respects those in authority, and a righteous person respects the law, as long as that law does not conflict with our religion. Right? Well, let's get down to business. and the Day of Atonement was called by us to answer a specific need in the black community in America, and we found that that need is worldwide. Black people today in America, here in Canada, in the isles of the Caribbean and in Africa, have been set at each other. Our differences are exploited, and we have become now the greatest enemies of self and our own advancement. wrong if we are 5% of the population in Toronto and nearly 50% of those confined for criminal action. Something is wrong. Something is wrong in the jails and federal penitentiaries of America.

America has the largest population of criminals anywhere to be found in the world. One point six million is the recorded number. There may be more. One point six million prisoners. So today the fastest growing industry in America is the prison industrial complex. The legislatures have fed three strikes, and you're in prison for life. A few years ago, the statistics were that one out of every four black people in the United States was either in prison or connected to the criminal justice system. Now it's one in three. So there's hardly any young black person that has not offended the law. So from teenagers, we may run into trouble with the law, and by the time we're twenty, we may have three offenses.

No matter what those offenses are, three offenses, and you're locked down for the rest of your natural life. it's a modern form of slavery using crime, using crime as the excuse to put black and brown people under penalty for the rest of their natural life, tying them to nearly free labor, with the industries now tied to prisons. So in America it is true that the newest buildings going up are stadiums for sport, and modern, ultra-modern prisons tied to industry. Then, of course, there is the drug business. Cocaine, in the powdered form, is something that poor folk just cannot afford. A little ganja here and there, that's the poor man's high. But now the wicked scientists have found a way to take cocaine, adding certain chemicals to it, making it even much more addictive than the powder, forming what is called crack cocaine, which is now the poor man's high, and you can have so many ounces in America, or grams, of powdered cocaine, and it gets you a small amount of time, or a fine.

But just a few grams of crack cocaine, and you're in prison for five years. Now that means that crack spreading in the black community is a means to put you in prison, trust perishing in the black community, is a means of putting us in prison for long term. Now, if you look on the scene in black America, and when I talk about black America, I want you to see Toronto. poor, the jobs are leaving America, going to cheap labor markets in Asia, leaving the central cities so the people don't have work. If the people don't have work, and it's a brand-new kind of service-oriented economy that demands a certain level of education, and most black men have dropped out of school, not because they're dropouts, but the school and its education is not attractive to young black minds.

I want you to hear me. If you don't mind, the person on the sound, could you turn it up a little, please? Just a little. Because I don't necessarily want to lose my voice tonight, but I do want the people to hear. I would appreciate it. Thank you very much. Now, as I was saying, the education is not attractive to the new young mind. There's a reason for that. If I took a picture of the front row of this audience and developed it instantly and gave it to you, who would you look for first?

Yourself. You want to see how you was looking. Well when you go to school, you have to connect to education, and education has to connect to you, otherwise education becomes a slave-making device. I really want you to hear me. Everything that God created is created to start and evolve toward perfection. And it is God who nurtures everything and makes it attain stage after stage until it reaches perfection. Anything that is standing still, whether it is education or religion or government, that is not evolving toward perfection, becomes a tool to enslave people. I want you people to listen carefully and analyze what I am saying.

If they have to study the teachings of the prophets with the mind of today and the problems of today, but you confine me to rituals that have lost their value, then religion becomes an enslaving thing. And this is why Karl Marx called religion the opiate of the poor. I want you to hear me. Now, I am not suggesting that religion is an opiate. But what I am suggesting is the stagnant religion and the stagnant scholarship that is always talking about yesterday but cannot relate yesterday to today so that the people may be prepared for the problems of this time period. If you cannot solve the problems of today with the Bible and the Koran, then you are missing the deepening understanding that you need. Listen to me.

And if you go to the mosque or the synagogue or the church to pray and partake of rituals, but you do not understand the depth and the meaning and the truth of Scripture, that the Word of God is not a stagnant thing. The Word of God is a living thing that will keep on revealing new and deeper truths to you the more you look and study the Word of God. Now, to my Muslim brothers and sisters, you know, this book, Qur'an, is supposed to last a human family up to the day of judgment. That means that the ever-deepening understanding of the Word of God contained in this book will give you the key to solve the problems of modern-day society. One of the names of this Qur'an is al-jizya, the healing. Well, all right, if society is sick, where is the medicine?

If there's a social sickness here, there's disease here, where is the medicine? If the people are seeking drugs rather than God, seeking cheap highs rather than understanding how to cope with the reality of life, where is the healing? There are mosques all over the world and churches all over the world and synagogues and temples all over the world, but human beings are degenerating. Where is the healing? Then somebody needs to look more deeply into the Word of God than what is presently here. And for you to think that your present understanding is capable of solving the problems when in your own mind, in your own church, in your own synagogue, you have the same sickness that is in the society, and you don't understand. If, if, brothers and sisters, religion is just performing rituals, rituals that are good, that contain the truth, but now we have to learn to extract the truth from the ritual has lost its meaning.

Let's agree now, and let's tell the truth. We go to church, we're happy, we sing songs, we clap our hands, we jump and shout, but we solve no problems. Now, now, now, now, now. I want to move away from religion for a moment and let's get to education, because many of you are educated. You know, the children of those from the Caribbean, our mothers and fathers made us go to school because they didn't have the education, and they said, listen, listen, I want you to remember this. I want you to get in that school and get a good education, you hear? And you have it on your wall.

You got a B.S. degree. I mean, bachelor of science. You have a master degree, and you have a Ph.D. degree. You're a doctor. You're a doctor in your discipline. And if you are truly a doctor in your discipline, then you have the power to heal whatever is wrong in your discipline. Well, if you're a doctor of psychology, why are so many people sick mentally and you can't help them, and some of you that are doctors of psychology are just as sick as the people that need help? If you have your doctorate in sociology, then you should be able to cure the social ills in America, in Canada, in the Caribbean, in Africa.

But you have a doctor of sociology, but all you can do is look at a problem that you know you don't have the wisdom to solve. You're a doctor of psychology, you've studied Jung and you've studied Freud, and your children are running you in the house and they're three years old. So look, if you're a doctor of sociology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, you're a doctor of psychology, So look, what are you saying, Farrakhan?

I'm saying what Jesus said. Except we become, as little children, we cannot enter the kingdom of God. You cannot become a child again no matter how old you are, but what it is referring to is the mentality that children have. They're humble, they're curious, and they're eager to learn. And the problem with most of us is we think we already know, we're not eager to learn, and we've lost the quality of humility. And after you lose the quality of humility, you are accompanied with arrogance. And when you're an arrogant person, you stumble over little things. As Jesus said, you strain at gnats and swallow camels because of arrogance. So the job, the mission that I have is difficult. And what makes it so difficult in this process of atonement? I gotta point out to the government her where she's wrong.

And I've got to point out the communities that helped to put black people in this condition, where they have erred from the path of God. Listen, to do that, naturally, when you're arrogant, you don't want anybody to tell you you're wrong, because everybody wants to look good in their own eyes, and that's why prophets have been killed. I'm not a prophet, I don't claim that, but I know what my assignment is. I've got to point out wrong, so that those who are wrong may acknowledge their wrong and confess, then repent. Then perhaps atonement can come, and then forgiveness. I remember when I was in Africa, the Pope of Rome had asked the people in Africa to forgive the Europeans for what they had done.

holiness was asking the right question, you all should forgive. But I said to His Holiness, Yeah, Your Holiness, but that is the fifth stage in the process. Your Holiness, would the Church be willing to admit its error in turning the other way when slavery and injustice was being done? Now, I don't want anybody to say I'm anti-Catholic. I don't want you to say that because that's not true. I am Catholic. What?

To be Catholic means to be universal. And that's exactly what divine truth is. It's Catholic, it's universal. So, I said, well, look, Fr. I thought you said you were Muslim. I'm a Muslim and I'm a Jew, too. And I'm a Christian, and I'm a Rasta. You say, wait a minute, man, wait a minute, man, how can you be on those things? You must be confused. No, I'm not confused.

I just am at the root, you know where all the branches go, and you know that all the branches come from the root. When you are one with God, you know all the branches that spring from God. I want you to hear me, and I want to break down all these artificial barriers that keep us arguing and fighting with each other when it's absolutely unnecessary. Hear me, I say I'm all of that, and then some. And I'm going to be very quick, because I want to get back to my main point. You're Catholic? Yes. You're Baptist?

Yes. You're Methodist? Yes. You Apostolic? Mm-hmm. You Jehovah's Witness? That's right. How could you be all them thing, man? If your mother taught you four and three is seven, and another one mother taught them seven and zero is seven. When we meet each other and start to talk, we might start arguing with each other. Well, look, don't tell me my mother told me four and three." So this is the way you are today. If you're Jewish, you talk about your prophet, my prophet said. If you're Christian, you say, my Jesus said. And if you're Muslim, you say, my Muhammad said. Well, all of them spoke the truth.

But when you understand—and that's why the book says, get knowledge, but with all thy getting, get understanding, because when you understand mathematics, you know that all of you are saying the same thing, but you don't understand what the root is. Now, when I say I'm Catholic, I mean that I accept universal truth. Because truth, if it is truth, is universally applicable to the whole human family. Listen, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Well if you know the method of the Master, then you can do what the Master did, because that power He gave to His disciples. Are you listening? I'm a Methodist.

Well, what about Baptist? A Baptist is one who has been baptized. Well, have you been baptized in the water, brother? Say, yes, I took a bath before I got here. John baptized Jesus in the water, but he said that one was coming after him that would baptize you with fire and the Holy Spirit. Is that right? Now, you've got to understand what baptism. Because to be baptized in water only means that as water is the source of all life. And when your body is tired and you immerse yourself in water, it renews you because you came from water.