06/27/2001
IWDM Study Library
Faith Based Communities Working Together Houston TX

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you praise people of G-d we thank you. Alhumdulillah. We say Alhamdulillah Rabbil alamin. The praise and thanks is for G-d the Lord sustainer of the worlds. He is One, He's G-d for all of us and He's the same for all of us. He cares about us all. We witness that He has sent messengers and prophets into the world to advance human society. The last of them being Muhammad the Prophet, peace be upon him and upon all the servants of G-d be peace, Ameen.
We are very happy here in Houston today. I'm just jumping inside my own body now. I'm doing the Holy Ghost Dance inside my own body. So, pleased to see you all respond to this great program headed up by our Imam of Houston, the city of Houston Imam Qasim Ahmed and his wonderful helpers here, we certainly want to congratulate you all in your hard work. We thank G-d for the success that we are looking at today. Al-Islam is religion of peace, the name itself is rooted in the word meaning peace, peace.
Salama means to give peace and Salaam means peace and As-Salaam is the greeting of Muslim of every Muslims whether he's from Asia, from Europe or America, the greetings of all Muslims on this earth is As-Salaam and it means the peace Alaikum it means on you. It's a greeting to extend you peace but if you listen closely to the expression in Arabic. You know how to speak Arabic its a greeting that says, all of us are obligated to work for peace As-salaam mu Alaikum, it didn't say on you singularly it's speaking to the collective body “kum” is for the collective body.
It says all of us are obligated to work for peace, to support peace and promote peace. Al-Islam is a religion of peace. Al-Islam means resign. May you have accepted, you have made up your mind for good to be peaceful yourself and to have a peaceful relationship with your maker, with your G-d and with your fellow man. That's what Al-Islam means. Resign to be at peace with your G-d and with your fellow man. Al-Islam is also from that particular interest there we go to the results. What is the results of us wanting to? What will we have, what will be the benefit if we want peace with our G-d, that is the G-d of all people and we want peace with our fellow men.
The result is that, we are going to have unity. Al-Islam is also the religion of unity. It's a religion of oneness. In our language, it's Tawhid from our holy book, from our teacher Muhammad the Prophet, prayers, and peace be on him. The language, the terminology is Tawhid, it comes from the word Wahid means one. Tawhid is the concept that oneness in Al-Islam. This concept of oneness began with the recognition that there's one G-d and we are all the children of Abraham. We all are all the children of Abraham, Christians, Muslims, and Jews. We are the children of Abraham and Abraham is the one in our religion who was searching for G-d.
He was not satisfied with the gods of his father. His father was also the ruler of the society that Abraham was a citizen of or in and his father had these gods. And one-time Abraham as a young lad, he saw these gods and no one was around. He was disturbed by them, he didn't like it that his people were worshiping these idols. So, he broke and destroyed one of them. When they discovered that the idol was destroyed, they've sought to find out who did this. They found out that it was Abraham. When they came to Abraham peace be on Abraham. His father said to Abraham, "Who did this?" He answered his father he said, "Ask the biggest one." 
His father rejected him, he put him out, put him out of the society. Abraham begun to wonder, travel. Abraham one day, according to Islamic story about Abraham. One day, Abraham set out in the lonely place away from all the city traffic and business. He set out in the open area where nothing would disturb him. He just began to observe creation itself. He was observing creation and he saw the sunrise. He set out all night long observing creation. He marveled over the stars and everything. But, when the sun began to rise at dawn, he said, "This must be G-d." It is the brightest and biggest and most splendid of all.
He stayed where he was sitting until the sun began to set. When the sun had set, he said. "Oh, no that cannot be my Lord. For my Lord is not one to set." Abraham concluded that the one who designed all this is my Lord. Not any of this that I'm looking at but the one who designed all this is my Lord. He came to conclusion that the G-d is not the material world that you look at and not to be found in any material thing that you're looking at, but is the G-d behind it. The cause behind it. The one who originated it and that all of this is perishable. Abraham discovered this for all of us, that all of this is perishable but G-d endures forever and never changes.
He's the one that we follow and he gave us that idea. This idea is the idea for us, that idea for the Christians, it's the same. That there's one G-d and G-d is not this world but the creator of this world and not anything in this world but the creator of this world. And we should worship Him in faith and in spirit. This is common religion for us. And our articles of faith are very much like your articles of faith. We say we believe in G-d, you do. That's where we begin, our articles of faith believe--began with, I believe in G-d. We believe in G-d, we believe in revelation that He reveals.
We believe in all the books, we don't reject any of them. We believe in all the books that He revealed and we believe in His messengers and prophets. We believe in all of them, we don't make a discrimination or make a difference between them in terms of their legitimacy. They're all legitimate messengers and servants of G-d. And we believe also in the Day of Judgment and we believe in the resurrection from the dead as you do. We believe in Qadir, the power of G-d. That regulates what will happen or that determines what will happen. If you do anything. If you do something, you'll get bad results or you'll get good results.
G-d created the world like that. It's His power and His balance or measurement. He measured everything so that it gives you so much of this and so much of that. If you approach it wrongly or incorrectly, not all of the time wrongly. Because wrongly, imply that you did some wrong. You approach it incorrectly, it gives you the bad results. If you approach it correctly, it gives you the good results. We also believe the same when it comes to G-d, how we perceived G-d. We say that G-d is good and G-d accepts nothing but good, G-d is a good G-d. Muhammad says, "G-d is good and G-d accepts nothing but good." G-d says, "Blame not G-d for your troubles but blame yourself." Now, that doesn't mean you won't have troubles but G-d didn't only create you a body, G-d created you a soul. The soul can get so close to G-d that it can't be troubled by anything. Abraham was put in the fire according to our religion, our teachings. When they went to open the door of the oven to see how was Abraham doing, whether he was burned up or whatever, they saw him in the flames unaffected by the flames.
So, some people cry out when they're hurting and they had pain because of the troubles in their lives but some go on with their troubles and never show that they're hurt or paining at all. This is what G-d can do for you if you just get closer and closer to Him. This is religion. This is the religion that we share in common. So, this that we see as bad and miserable, look how we read. I read a book about a man who had no hands but he had a brain, a mind, and he had a toe. He had lost most of the members of his body. The book was called My Big Toe. With his big toe, he could hold a pencil and he took that toe and he wrote the book, My Big Toe. He wrote the book. A big novel and it's sold. It was a nice book. I read it. I enjoyed it so much.
How much you will suffer depends on your attitude and disposition where you're stationed. If you're stationed in the right idea and in the right belief, your suffering will not be felt by you. And, I read the story of many, he's not the only one, the man who wrote the book about his big toe. I read the story of many, how they suffer. I was watching television once and this scientist couldn't speak. His body, his physical condition was so terrible. You hardly wanted to look at him. But, he was happy. He was happy because, he was placed somewhere above his body, and above the material reality and the material life. He was placed somewhere above that.
So, G-d's plan is for us to evolve as thinking creatures and as creatures with a soul, heart and mind. His plan is for us to evolve above the misery and the limitations of this physical world. So that we be isolated and protected from it but at the same time, we'll not be ignorant of it or oblivion. We will be conscious of it and we will be in a good situation to help others. And that's Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus. He was protected from the miseries of the world and He was himself unaffected by-- not even death. Not even death could change him and take him away, could kill him. He lived beyond death. He survived death and death did not sting him.
Not to mention pain or kill Him. No. He cried according to the teachings on the prophet. He cried out to G-d. But, He didn't say, "I'm hurting." He was, "Oh, G-d, this is painful. I'm hurting." He didn't say that. So, I say to you that religions are very similar because Prophet Muhammad taught us the same thing. Prophet Muhammad taught us to live so that this world does not affect us but we affect it. Muhammad said that in the end you will see Christ Jesus and myself together. And, the more I understand the teachings of our holy book and the life of our Prophet, the more I see Muhammad and Jesus close together.
But, the more I get acquainted with Christians who live their Christianity, I regret that most of the Christians that I got to know as a boy playing in my neighborhood and living next door around us, I don't think they knew what Christianity was about. But, after I got to meet real Christians that consciously practice their religion, I have come to really have high respect for them, not to mention my respect for the Bible and for the Christian religion, but for the Christian people themselves. I've come to have such high respect for them. So much respect for them, I can trust my children to Christians that I know.
If I die, I could leave my child with a Christian and I know that child would be taken care of. Yes. Don’t we want the world to become like that? Where we can trust each other with our babies. Whether we believe in the same religion or not, we believe in the same G-d and we believe in the same destiny for mankind. If we have the same dedication, the same devotion, so we can trust our babies to each other.
I interpret for myself, you know. I didn't have Imams when I started out. To search for truth, I didn't have an Imam. I had ministers of the Nation of Islam but I didn't have an Imam. So, I searched for the truth. I was reading the Bible once. I didn't go to Christians for interpretations, either. I didn't have any to go to. So, I interpreted the Bible. I read in the Bible where Jesus told his disciples to wash each other's feet. I said, oh, that's a wonderful message. Wonderful message. And you know, they represent-- they were 12 of them. Right? I think that mean the whole earth, all the world, 12, all the world. So, he was telling them as representatives of leadership for the world after him. Leadership for the world. He's telling them to wash each other's feet.
Sometimes, it's not a nice job. It's not a pleasant job washing feet man all the time, especially when they wear gym shoes, sneakers. It is not a pleasant job all the time. It is not a pleasant job washing-- cleaning up our public. Not a pleasant job cleaning up our public. But, it's a job for all of us and I don't think those men represented Christianity. Those men represented world leadership. That's what they represented, world leadership. And it so happened that they were following Christ, but their job was world leadership, wash each other's feet. So, through those men-- I interpreted that through those men the gospel is saying, "The communities of the world should take care of each other's publics.
So, if my Muslim public goes down and my public become ignorant and unconscious, you, Christians, should care about my public as you care about your own. You should help my public clean up and become respectful of human life again. That was the way I interpret that. Now, I can't say that's the interpretation because I'm not a Christian or a student of Christian teachings. Pardon me, an ordained or a licensed person to speak on what is Christianity and what is not. I have not been licensed. So, I'm saying to you what I see in that picture of 12 in Christ told to wash each other's feet.
The world must care about itself and we must care about each other. The world must have leadership that cares about everybody. Muslims should care about Christians who are suffering, Christians who are down, Christians who have lost their decency, and the Christians should care about us. I believe that our communities are really much closer together than most of us know I think, much closer together than most of us know I think. In our holy book, G-d says to us, "You'll find the nearest to you to be those who call themselves Nasara and Nasara is the Quranic term for Nazarene, the Nazarenes, people of Nazareth.
And that was the term back in those days in that particular area of the world, that was the term for the Christians. So, it simply means the Christians. That you will find that people closest to you to be those who call themselves Nazarenes but now we must say, the Christian people. Closest to us in what respect? We know in a sense when we give language, language doesn't always clearly show the identity. Some languages are mystified. Some language is mystified so much until all the people of that particular language or school of thought understand the language, outsiders may not even understand the language or not understand it clearly or completely. We find in terms of Language, the Jews to be closest to us in the concept of G-d how we conceive G-d, the concept of G-d.
The Jews insist that G-d is one and that you can't associate or worship anything with G-d, you can't conceive any picture or any person or anything with G-d. So, we'll find that the Jews is closest to us in language but in spirit, the Christians are closer to Muslims than Jews in spirit and if I understand religion, spirit is more important than anything else. More important than anything else, spirit. We are followers of G-d or we are children of G-d in our spiritual life and spiritual obedience to G-d. Not the flesh, not the body. The body can decisive us, the body walks into the Masjid and prays all the prayers and the body can be Shaitan himself, the body could be the house of Shaitaan himself.
We don't know because anybody can come here and go through those motions and say As-Salaamu Alaikum wa-ra?matull?h, As-Salaamu Alaikum wa-ra?matull?h and it might be Satan himself. But, Satan cannot take on the spirit of the faithful. It’s impossible for him. Satan cannot take on the spirit of the faithful. And we know each other. We feel each other by spirit. We feel the spirit not the body but the spirit. We know each other by spirit not by flesh. So, we are much closer together than we think. Not to say that I haven't been around some Jews that I felt an affinity, I felt a closeness, I felt very close to them, I felt faith, I felt spirit, I felt everything.
But, in a whole, the Jewish people are not as I would say as much in the spiritual life as Christians. Not near as much in the spiritual life as the Christians and I think if they will hear, they will say, "You are most correct." I had one tell me once, said “you are water man I'm a land man”. I said and I'm happy not be a land man. I didn't say, "Yes, I'm a water man." I said, "But, I'm happy not to be a land man." Because, the man couldn't even be created until it rained upon the land and then, according to their book G-d made the man. Yes, I think we have that in common too we believe in the whole life as G-d planed it for us.
We are people who have to see the world in unity as G-d intended for it to be. So, we want to reconcile the life so that the life is not separated from itself. We want an interest in the world but we want to remain free of the world but have an interest in the world. We want to see people to together despite their differences, their colors, their languages, cultures, their religions. We want to see them identify as G-d's people and we want to see them identify as the family of man that G-d created and accept that we are all descendants of one ancestor. That means that we are one family, no matter how distant we have become, we are still one family.
Even science tells us that we are Homo sapiens, Homo erectus, I've never heard of Homo-black, Homo-white, Homo-African, Homo-European. From science, I have only heard, Homo sapiens that we all share in common, Homo erectus we all share in common, et cetera. So, let us accept that G-d has directed us to be one family on this earth working together for the better life according to His plan not ours. Because, if we plan, we fail. If we don't plan with respect for what G-d has planned. Now, I will conclude this with a very few statements that I'm going to make. I'm going to bring to conclusion this talk.
Going back to what is said in beginning that Al-Islam is peace and Muhammad never wanted war, peace be upon the prophet. Our prophet Muhammad, he never wanted war. G-d had to tell him, "Now return the attack. Now, return the blow to them, they struck you, return it now," after he had taken many blows from them. He walked from one place where he went to visit them to invite the to invite them to worship one G-d, in his land it’s called Taif the place is called Taif. It’s a high area, elevated area and the people lived nicely and comfortable there because it's cooler and they could grow more things, so they were living nice there.
They rejected him, they didn't want to hear his message why? Because, like Jesus, his message meant you have to care about those who have nothing. You have, but you also have to care about those who have nothing. So, they didn't want to hear that man coming to disturb them in their life and in their riches, so they stoned him and the report says that they had cut his body so much with stones that they threw at him that those that was near him could hear the blood making the noise in his shoe sandals as he walked. You could hear the blood making slushy noise in his shoes as he walked away from that town.
So, this is the life of Muhammad the prophet not a war maker and if that is not enough for you to accept and know that he wanted peace like Jesus Christ wanted peace, listen to these words of his. He said “the ink of the scholar is more precious than the blood of the martyr”. Now, the blood of the martyr is not the martyr with us, may not be exactly as the same as martyr with Christians. In your language, martyr I think means a little different. Martyr in our religion means one who lives in obedience to G-d defending what G-d has established, his religion of what G-d has established with his life.
You can be martyr and not die, you can be a Shaheed and still be living. It means that you don't fear death when it comes to fear of G-d. You put the fear of G-d above the fear of your mortal life, or death. So, you are putting yourself in the way of death all the time if it's necessary for G-d's sake. So, you are a Shaheed, it means one who is witness. He is a strong witness, his witness is Shahada, his witness is so strong that he will give his life at any time to please his G-d. That's what a Shaheed is. So, persons like that, they are the first to go to battle front, they don't care to die, they don't care about dying, they will fight for what G-d wants.
So, they are first on the battle line, first on the battle front and they die, they give their life, they are ready to give their life, they die. They are happy giving their life because, they know it's to please their Lord. They are fighting to protect the light that G-d revealed for them. So, this is a martyr. G-d knows and Muhammad knew that in time, these men will become great warriors and after a while, the spirit of war becomes your spirit. It becomes your spirit to war, to fight for religion becomes your spirit. You may put more importance on that than advancing the religion by sharing knowledge with the people, and preserving their knowledge in books for the people. This is the way religion is to be protected and advanced. That's the more precious way of doing it. That's what G-d wants for us more than men to go out on the battlefield and fight a physical war. He wants those who will fight with the pen. Who will give the knowledge that G-d wants to give to the people, so they will be protected from war. And the people will be gradually conditioned to not go on war for the message of G-d will take that out of us and we won't want to be at war with each other. We will want to work for peace.
We will work for reconciliation more than we will work for defending and advancing our cause on the battlefield with our bodies. I think that's the message in what Muhammad said, "The ink of the scholar is more precious than the blood of the martyr." We have in common with you also our belief that in the beginning, nature was perfect. Even nature was perfect until the wrong spirit came in to the creation. Nature itself was perfect for G-d's world creation was a garden of paradise. He put man in the Eden in the garden of paradise. That's where He put him. Everything was all right. No sickness, no death.
Everything was okay until the Satan came and seduced the man and his wife, his mate. This is the story. Both of us believed that nature, as G-d intended for it to be, is also pure. It's pure. We want to get back to that purity. Natural purity. If we can get back to that natural purity, that natural purity is the firm, unbreakable foundation to support our growth and development as servants of G-d following his guidance. If we don't get back to the nature that G-d intended for us, all the scripture and everything is not going to really put us in heaven. You will not be put in heaven until your nature gets back to where G-d put it in the beginning. That's what we believe.
I think we share that belief with you Christians. Thank G-d. Hence, we want the best condition for human life. We want cleanliness, we want purity of the soul, purification of the soul, we want decency, we want love, we want respect for one another, we want respect for parents, number one. I once saw a girl. I'm going to tell you something about my age now. There were street cars, and we were waiting for the street car in Chicago. This girl, and I'm about maybe 13 years old, this girl was speaking to her mom. My mother would kill me if I could speak to her like that. I couldn't restrain myself.
I looked at the girl, I said, "If you say anything like that to your mother again, I'm going to knock you down." You know what the mother said? I was afraid of the mother when I said that. I was afraid of what would happen to me from the mother. Her mother looked at me and she said, "Thank you, son." She said, "Thank you, son." I think I was washing dirt from feet there well. That girl, I'm going to tell you a different look came on her face. Look like she said, "What in the world have I gotten myself into and who is this?" But, I admit it, I looked right in her eye, and I got some different eye.
Her to look at my eyes and not take me seriously? It's hard I'm telling you. My experience with people, I had to learn this for myself. I remember boys, tough boys, threatening me. I know they could beat me up, but something would come over me and I wasn't afraid of them, and I looked him right in the eye. When I get serious, I look you right in the eye. I look him right in the eye, and I could see them weakening. I could see them weakening. I got powerful eyes. I don't use them either. Not intentionally. Lastly, we believe in renewal. We believe that the G-d who created life can also renew that life.
This is not just something for Christians that you believe in renewal, rebirth and renewal. This is a belief of Muslims also. I think I've said enough to show you that we have a lot in common. The most important things in both of our faiths is our idea of G-d. That G-d is the creator of all, has power of all things, and has planned and willed where we should go. We have accepted His will. We have accepted to care about each other. To me, that's the whole of it. Peace be unto you. As-Salaamu Alaikum.


