1976-October-15

Bilalian News

A Message to Youth

Imam W. D. Muhammad

In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful, Peace and Blessings upon His Servant and His Messenger, Muhammad, forever. Amen.

There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.

As -Salaam –Alaikum

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Most of us think that knowledge just makes us smarter, but knowledge also makes us stronger. Knowledge is beautiful and it makes us happy. It makes us feel love in our hearts for things that we never would have felt love for if knowledge had not come into our minds. With knowledge, we find a much bigger world to live in, to feed on, to love, and we find many more things to enjoy. In the language that we use everyday, we have the words "work" and "fun." We think of school as work and we think of football, baseball, basketball, other games, and dancing as "fun."

I used to like arithmetic, mathematics, and general science better than any other courses. When I was working mathematics or listening to the teacher in the general science course, I never thought of it as "work." I thought of it as fun. It was a kind of work, but it was the kind of work that gave me more pleasure than playing football, baseball, or dancing. Though we call certain things "work" and other things "play" and "fun," most of the things that we call work are just as much play and fun as those things that the world calls play and fun. You can find more play, more fun, more happiness, and more enjoyment in pursuing knowledge than in pursuing foolishness called "fun."

It is fun when you are trying to work out a problem like the teacher taught you. You are "chasing" the answer, trying hard to catch up with it. Finally, after following the rules that the teacher gave you, you catch up with the answer. Then you feel a victory just like winning a baseball game with your team. It is even more rewarding and you feel like you have gotten more because you know that knowledge is going to make you more than just a player in the world. Knowledge is going to make you a chief in the world.

When I say "Chief," I mean "the one who is at the top." It so happens that the Nation of Islam has put me at the top, so I am the "Chief." All of us can be chiefs in some field or in some work. I am not talking against play; in fact, I love baseball and football. I never got big enough or tall enough to play football, but I used to get out there and struggle with the big boys. Wrestling and struggling with the bigger, older boys made me tough.

Parents are changing today from emphasizing discipline in the home, but children still need strong leadership. You need somebody to protect you who loves you enough to tell you when you are wrong and to stop you from doing wrong. You need somebody who cares enough about your future to whip you if it is necessary or to hurt you if it is necessary, if in hurting you they are trying to get you to see that you are hurting yourself. You may be creating a real problem for yourself that will make you miserable when you get older.

You have to learn how to behave while you are a child. As they say, "You cannot teach old dogs new tricks." That is a bad comparison, but you cannot teach old folks everything when they get old. Your young years are the years that you have to learn all you possibly can learn. None of you are going to be perfect and do everything right, but try to keep the love and respect in your hearts for Allah, for what is right, and for your parents. When you think about how much momma and daddy love you all year long, you forget about the few times that they might hurt your feelings. You should especially keep love in your heart for Allah, Who makes everything possible.

If you see something making people behave nicely, making people want to do things right, or making them want to be good to each other — that is Allah moving in them. You see Allah's creation when you look out and see the beautiful world; when yon smell clean, crisp air; when you feel the wind blowing on your face; and when you hear the sounds of the animals. When you wake up in the morning full of energy and you feel like you can play your best game today or that you can run your fastest race today or you can fight your best fight today, that is Allah moving in you.

Look at all of the goodness that Allah gives us. Look how He is present in all of the good that we see in the world. Allah is not present in the evil, He is only present in the good. When we start to become evil, Allah kind of separates Himself from us. Although He is still there He will not help us. But as long as we try to do a little good, Allah will help us. We do not have to try to do everything good, just say, "I love to do good." That is the good thing about Allah. He does not say that you have to do everything good, He says that you just have to want to be good. If you just want to be good, Allah will be with you even though you might make some mistakes and do some bad things.

No matter how good you are or no matter how good you want to be, there are always some tests for you. Something is going to test you to see if you are going to be good. When you are trying to be brave, that is a test; when you are trying to do something for yourself without thinking of others, that is also a test. Try to keep from committing sin and always try to be good. Tell Allah that you want to be as good as He wants you to be. If He wants you to be a little better, you should want to be a little better. Whatever Allah wants is what you should want. If you think and act like this, I assure you that Allah will protect you no matter what happens. Allah will give you the best in life. He will keep bad from you, He will keep evil out of your mind, and He will keep evil out of your heart. You will grow to be a person who is accepted by your mother, your father, your family and your friends in the neighborhood. You will even get a better job as a worker
when you get out of school. If you want a job, you have to be good and you have to make people trust you. The only way people will trust you is that you think good and want to be good. When you think good and want to be good, your face tells people that you are somebody they can trust.

You should begin to think more on the right and the wrong of things. Try to find the things that will make you feel confident and sure that they are right. When you do this kind of thinking, your mind will work better for you. Increase your thinking on good things and try to find the good and push away the bad. You should not always think of whether a thing is going to make you better or not, but ask yourself if it is good and right or not. If you begin to think like this, your intelligence will begin to grow. You
should train your mind to look for good things and for right things, but push away bad things and wrong things.

Stop being selfish and stop wanting to do things just to make you, self better. Say, "Even though it makes me stronger and smarter, if it is not right I am not going to do it." If you do that, I guarantee that your mind (your intelligence) will begin to grow more. In fact, I would like to offer a new theory to the educators of the world: if you train your mind morally, you will get a greater potential and a greater capacity for intelligence development.

Your brother,
W.D.Muhammad