03/15/1997
IWDM Study Library
Clara Muhammad School Banquet
Milwaukee

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
As Muslims greet, As-salaam Alaykum.
Congregation: Wa Alaykum as-salaam.
That is, peace be unto you or peace be upon you. We praise G-d, the one Creator of us all, who cares about, all of His human creation, and all of His creation. And we witness that Muhammad of the Quran, the Bible or the book of the Muslims is the last of the prophets, G-d's servant and His messenger. Upon him be peace and the prayers. Amen. It's an honor for us to be here to address you on this occasion. This is, I believe, the most impressive setting I assume since I've been attending the Muslim occasions here in the city of Milwaukee. I told the Imam, I said, "Looks like the community here is off to a new start," we congratulate you.
We are very much pleased to see the distinguished persons that you invited and have as your guests. On the head table here and those many distinguished persons from our community and from the Christian community in the lower level there with us. We're very much impressed. We hope to bring you a picture of Al-Islam that most of us don't see. We don't see that picture of Al-Islam because, like many other segments of the humanity are the people of this earth, this Muslim population of over one billion people, really. Occupying the continents of Europe, Asia, Americas, both South and North America, the islands of the Pacific, all over wherever you go, you find Muslims. Africa, 50% or more Muslims.
We have very big population but we are known for, I would say the things that only a very few, very, very few Muslims are about. And that is arm struggle, violence, and religious intolerance rather than tolerance et cetera. Muslims are really a community of peace-loving people who, first of all, have peace with G-d. Our peace is with G-d, we make our peace with G-d and then we are required by G-d to make peace with His creation, especially, his human creation. We're supposed to seek peace with G-d and peace with people, with the humanity, with the people of the earth.
The very name AL-Islam means peace and Muslim is from the same root word meaning peace. Our greetings which is 'Salaam,' As-salaam, means the peace, Alaykum, be on you, meaning that, on you, the many. This is our greeting and it means peace, it comes from the root word meaning peace. We wouldn't have a religion that is derived from the root-word meaning peace and the name Muslim that identify us, derived from the same root word meaning peace and the greeting derived from the same root word meaning peace. If G-d didn't intend for us to be peace-loving people, peacemaking people, peacebuilding people in the world.
That's what this Muslim community of the world is beginning to realize through its wide awake and human natured leaders of the world. In Saudi Arabia, we have the World Muslim League based there, and it's doing great work of charity throughout the world. And we have the Council of Imams there, the Supreme Council of the Imams is there, who are doing wonderful work to educate, inform the Muslim community of just what the Muslim life, and the Muslim position, and Muslim role should be in the world.
We have organizations like the Muslim World Congress, another world organization in Pakistan. It's headed by Inamullah Khan, wonderful man who works with Christians, and Muslims, and Jews, and Buddhists, and others. Such world organization is WCRP, the World Conference on Religion and Peace and other organizations like the World Peace Council now. That has as its head, Ibanez, Daniel Gomez Ibanez. All of these great organizations are working together to promote peace in the world and peacemaking, peacebuilding in the world. So, that we can have more peace on this earth for the human family of this earth.
We are also now working with government efforts to promote peacemaking and peacebuilding. And the resolving of conflict that is often caused by religious differences based upon religious ignorance and resulting from that is religious intolerance rather than religious tolerance. A desire to condemn each other rather than a desire to approve of each other. This condition is being changed in the world, I'm happy to say, because of the efforts of independent religious organizations working and representing religious communities and because of the government effort.
President Bill Clinton, he has recently, along with the State Department, asked for the forming of a commission, actually, it's a committee of about 20 persons. And I was really very much surprised when I learned that I had been invited to be on that committee representing the efforts of government and the State Department to see religion have a role in promoting peace, peacemaking, and peacebuilding in the world. And resolving conflicts that often stems from religious intolerance. I'm working with the subcommittee of that group to help resolve conflicts, mainly, to promote religious tolerance through understanding, through better knowledge and understanding of one another and peacemaking.
This is an important role for us and I think you will understand better why Al-Islam now is included in such an effort, such a global effort. As I begin to explain to you further just what Al-Islam is. Al-Islam is, firstly, a religion that brings the human person, the soul of the individual, to be at peace with G-d. To be at peace with G-d, we have to recognize G-d, be conscious of G-d as our number one benefactor. No one has benefited us more than G-d, we have a debt to G-d. This is the Muslim consciousness, that we have a debt, to G-d, the G-d that created us and made everything possible for us in the world.
We have a debt to that G-d, this is the beginning of Al-Islam, to have that connection with G-d. And then, G-d wants us, once we have that connection with Him, G-d wants us to then, serve humanity. We serve humanity by first beginning at home with that mission, serving our own families. Family is the number one priority in the book of G-d. G-d says, "Family rights have a priority in the book of G-d," this is the Quran. I'm quoting to you from our holy book. Our effort is to first begin right in the home. And a Muslim family has to be like the Prophet's family, Muhammad, who G-d gave the religion.
G-d gave the religion to Muhammad, and when He gave Muhammad, the revelation called the Quran, the holy book. And the Prophet, he had family and he lived with his family and his family life is a model for all Muslims. Prophet Muhammad was seen playing with his children, holding his children, and other people's children too. And he was seen caring for his children, helping his wife with the chores around the house. He was seen sweeping the floor for his wife, he was seen shopping in the market for his wife and his family, this was the prophet. Once a child got on the prophet's back while he was in prayer. The Muslim prays also with the hand, and nose, and forehead, and knees, and toes of the foot, the end of the feet touching the floor. Like kneeling down with your palms on the floor and the nose and the forehead touching the floor. He was in this position, this is the best position in our prayer. The Muslim believes that, in that position, he's submitting himself as completely as he possibly can to G-d.
At this position, the prophet was, and a child got on his back while he was praying. And he stayed in that position so long that the people who were observing this got worried, they thought something had happened to him. That he, perhaps, he had had a heart attack or something had happened to him, he was not responding. When they came to him, they looked at him, nothing was wrong with him. When, the child got off his back, the child was a toddler, a small toddler, a two-year-old toddler. He didn't want to raise up, he feared that if he raised up, the child might fall and hurt himself. That was the prophet.
A man who, when he talked to you, peace be upon our prophet, he kept a pleasant face all the time. And he would never stare you in your face, he will never stare anyone in the face. He would look at you with a calm face, with a very pleasant and calm face, very peaceful face, and he wouldn't stare you through the eye as though he was trying to penetrate your eyes to look into your brain or your soul like some of us do. He would look at you at a very relaxed way where you wouldn't be uncomfortable probably just looking at you.
This is our prophet and this man said, peace be upon the prophet. He said, "Muslim is to give charity, to be charitable." He said, "A pleasant face is charity, meeting someone with a pleasant face is charity." He said, "Giving a kind word to someone is charity." This is the man. He said, "Picking up an object in the road if you think someone might hit his ankle on it or hurt his ankle on it or trip on it, cause him to have some difficulty, taking it from the road so the next person won't have to encounter that problem, is an act of charity and goodness." This is the man, that is our prophet. The prophet of the Muslims. Peace and blessings be upon him. Just one moment.
Al-Islam has as its principal strategy for changing the world for the better, the instrument of education. The prophet said, peace and blessings be upon him, Muhammad the Prophet of the Quran, 14 centuries ago, fourteen hundred years ago. He said, "The ink of the scholar is more valuable, more precious, more valuable, than the sword of the martyr." The ink of the scholar is more valuable, more precious than the sword of the martyr. This is a very popular saying of the Prophet. You can find it in Bukhari, the great collections of Bukhari the Russian and Muslim. Russians joined Al-Islam many centuries ago, they're not newcomers to Al-Islam.
You will find that in their collections of sayings of our prophet, the words and sayings and doings of our prophet. The ink of the scholar is more valuable, more precious than the blood of the martyr. Who fights with the sword fights. He fights with a physical weapon, the martyr, he fights with a physical weapon. So, the prophet was saying that the more was important war or struggle is not struggle with a physical weapon but the struggle with proper education, to properly educate people.
Al-Islam, in the time of our prophet and since, have looked to proper education, quality education, true knowledge, imparting it to others who need it, have looked through that instrument. The instrument of education, for the liberation of the human mind and intellect. This is the greatest liberation; the liberation of the human mind and intellect is the greatest liberation. If a man's mind or a woman's mind, intellect can be liberated, then you have done the thing that breaks every other bond of enslavement. You cannot physically enslave a person successfully if their mind is freed and liberated by proper education.
You can't corrupt people whose minds have been liberated by proper education, you can't enslave them by corruption. You can't dominate them by brute force if their minds have been liberated and educated. This is what our leaders such as W. E. B. Du Bois wanted for the African-American people. Physical freedom was not enough You can be physically free, as we were by the emancipation proclamation, we were physically free but that's not enough. You can be physically free and yet be enslaved. You can go back in the same slavish state and accept the same slavish conditions that you were under because of someone imposing that upon you. You can do that on your own.
You can render yourself voluntarily to conditions of poverty, and ignorance, and corruption, and even enslavement. If you don't have the right condition of mind. Al-Islam looks to the tool of proper education for the liberation of the societies or the communities of the world. Education has always gone out ahead of all other efforts to promote and extend the civilization to conquer the wilds, to grant humanity to the savage, et cetera. Education has done that more so than anything else. We know that the great religion of Christianity, it used to be responsible for the education of the masses, the education of the public, the citizens of the country.
With recent history, modern history we're seeing the responsibility for education taken over by the state, by the government or by the state. This is recent, we're still obligated to promote education as a true liberator of the enslaved oppressed peoples of the world, and this is Al-Islam. Al-Islam is a religion, in my opinion, that is as modern as any other ideology that we can think of. And in my opinion, it is the most modern ideology existing, Al-Islam. Al-Islam wants for humanity, a belief in the oneness of humanity. Not only that, Al-Islam wants that male and female believe in their oneness.
G-d says to us in our religion that, “He created you from a single person.” But the single person is also, in Arabic, it's called nafs. The Quranic Arabic word is nafs. And nafs means 'not only in my person here but nafs means more correctly, more specifically, my nafs is my abstract self, my invisible self. That's my nafs. G-d created our invisible self, the spiritual self, the invisible self with the intellect, the emotional life, et cetera. The spiritual life, all of that, all of that is abstract, we can't see that with our physical eyes.
That is the person that G-d made. And G-d tells us in our Holy Book that, “when He made that person, He made that person one, both male and female.” Our abstract self, which is the truest self of us inside, the physical body, is the same for male as it is for female. Now, we know we'll express ourselves differently, there will be different expressions but we're essentially the same. The female and the male have the same intellect, the same intellectual abilities. The male and the female have the same emotional nature, the same emotional possibilities. Everything is the same for the abstract person. G-d made us from one single entity. It was the abstract human being.
Then, He calls us to have physiology, physical bodies, and physiology. That's where we became different, and He assigned different roles to us by virtue of His design on our creation. He assigned different roles to us, mother role for the woman in the house, father role for the father. Father has to go outside the home because the mother would be tied up for nine months or maybe two years with the baby. So, he has to go outside of the home. He's the human of the field, she is the human of the house. She's the social entity, he is the hunter, he is the industrial man. And that's the way it works. G-d says, “If you have a superiority over women, is because of your muscles.” And an ape has more than me. Lock both of us up in the case in the room together, he will come out and I won’t. The muscles are not too much for us to brag about, brothers, the ape got more of that. It says, “if you have a superior idea because of the wealth that you have been able to amass.” Because you were free to go out in the field and explore the field, to explore what is in the field, the broad field, the land and bring back the riches so you have more wealth than she. So, you dominate her because of your muscles and because of your wealth, this is what G-d said.
In other words, humanly, we are equal, we believe in the equality of male and female. This is a message that should reach the Muslim community of the world because too many of us have the wrong attitude. Not only that, Al-Islam is a religion that made it an issue, in the time of the Prophet in the farewell address. It became an issue that race should not be in the Muslim community, we should have no consciousness of race. There should be no racism or racial differences between Muslims, we don't accept racial differences.
If a Muslim is an African and I am a European, we don't accept those racial differences as any grounds or basis for us to have differences with each other or attitudes that trouble our relationship. This is Al-Islam. The prophet said, in his farewell address, and anything he would say in his farewell address must have been the most important issue for the future down the road to the end of time. He said, “There is no superiority of a white over a black and there's no superiority of a black over a white.”
The prophet even went a step further because nationalism too was a problem. And, perhaps, G-d had already revealed to him that nationalism would be a serious problem down the road. Where people take their nation too serious. And they want to raise their nation above another nation, they want to raise that nation above all nations. I recall as a young man in these United States hearing the words of our great leaders, our presidents and the others speaking on the radio during the time of World War II and I could hear the arrogance, and I was only a child.
I could hear the arrogance in their voices. I could hear them claiming too much for themselves. I could hear them speaking to the world communities and speaking down to them and raising up the image of America as though America should be the police of the world. I didn't like that as a child and it wasn't because I was told not to like white people that they were devils. I was told that but that wasn't why. Because something human in me said that, that's not right. The Prophet addressed that in us a long time ago, 1400 years ago, and he said, “There is no superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab and there is no superiority for a non-Arab over an Arab.”
There, he abolished racism and he abolished, also, fanatical nationalism. He abolished the two of them. These are the things that we have to address in the present day. It was W. E. B. Du Bois I believe, who said, “Race would be the issue of the 20th century.” Now, we’re about to get to the end of the 20th century, in a few years, we'll be beginning the 21st century. And I hope racism won't be haunting us still in the 21st century. There's no need for us to do it, racism is a dead dog as I see it, racism is a dead dog. All we have to do is treat it as a dead dog and it will go away, the stink will go out of the air.
Some people think that racism is still a big problem. No, we have been conditioned by racism and the conditioning on us or the conditioning in us is what makes for the problem. We’re still too sensitive racially, we’re still too sore with the problem from the past, blacks are carrying too many wounds from the past. Now, our preachers who can't seem to reason with us, who think that the only way for them to be popular in our eyes, that they have to play on our emotions and preach to us as demagogues. So, they exploit race relations, racial problems, race differences, they exploit it and they keep that stuff in our minds and in our heads.
They are the ones that are working to keep racism in the world and they are working desperately to do it because racism is a dead dog. It’s hard to resurrect something that's dead that’s why they have to work so hard at it. All we have to do is just start reasoning with each other, just be more rational now. Get away from all this emotional air, this high charged emotional air that we have. Get away from that and let's be more sober-minded and more rational and we can see the end of racism before this 20th century is out and we’ll go into the 21st century with G-d’s help, G-d willing with that problem off of our backs.
It certainly is off the back of government unless the citizens want to put it on the back of government. Law does not support racism. The laws of the United States, the laws of the South, no longer support racism. The only support for it is what’s coming from individuals, citizens, the so-called civil society is doing this. And we have to come to grips with the reality that we have, on this earth today and in the world today. And respect the plurality of people, the plurality of religions, the plurality of cultures and embrace each other by, first, getting a better acquainted with each other. G-d wants us to get better acquainted with each other.
G-d says, “I have not made you different for you to pride yourself and stand over each other, look down on each other. But I've done that so you will want to get acquainted with each other.” By getting acquainted with each other, we appreciate each other. Because you will have knowledge that I don't have that I can appreciate and benefit from.
The Chinese, when we study him and his differences, as Mark Apollo did. We bring back treasures to our people because we have learned about a new and a different people, as he did. He brought back dredges from the Chinese people. We can do the same if we will just want to know each other and learn more about each other.
I’ve studied the Irish people and I’ve come to really love the Irish people. Because I see a lot of suffering in their life that resembles the suffering that we have had since we have been brought to this part of the world from Africa. I see a lot of similarities in their suffering. So, I fell in love with the Irish people. And, since I've learned from G-d, what G-d wants for us as the human family on this earth, I fell in love with all people. I don't love you for what you are, necessarily. I will love you for what G-d has made you. G-d made you human, praise be to G-d.
In concluding this, I want to say, also, that G-d wants individuals and communities to know. That life is difficult, yes. It's difficult for good people for well-meaning people, very difficult. Sometimes, it’s very difficult even at home with your family just to be good. You find that it's easier for you to be a little bad with your own family than to be good. Be too good, it's like it's too hard to be good. G-d wants you to know that he doesn't want to burden yourself too much. G-d says, “He doesn't place any burden on any soul more than it can bear.” So, you put up with the bad relative, you show them love. But there comes a time when you have to let them know that, "You're not appreciating my love."
If you have to, you have to say "bye-bye" even to your daughter, your son, your father, your mother, your sister, your brother, don't torture yourself too much. Sometime, when you leave them, they'll start to wake up. When you are a distance away and you're not around for them to pick on or to put that burden on you. You're not around, they begin to think about you more serious. Or more rationally and they may appreciate you and they might send your letter saying, “Forgive me, please.” Don't tolerate any tormenting situation forever. There is point when G-d says, “your charity is no more charity, it's self-abuse” And that goes for communities and nations.
We should work to have friendly relations with each other, we should work to try to extend our good to others. But when they constantly always rejecting our good and just putting misery in the way and making our life more miserable. We reach a point where we have to say, “there's parting of us, we can't be together any longer. Let's part in peace if we can and let nature take its course.” That's what G-d wants for us. But G-d doesn’t want us to give up because we couldn't do any charity at home or because we couldn't do charity in this particular country. G-d says, “He had made this earth of His and He has made it spacious.”
It is important for us to realize the earth belongs to G-d. I don't care who says he was here first. The American and Indian say he was here in this part first, that doesn't matter, the earth belongs to G-d. Let us solve our problem based upon that reality, that is not my property originally and it's not your property originally. Now let's see who is qualified to be here more than the other based up G-d and justice. G-d and justice, and that's the way we should look at the whole world.
I respect the Jews, I respect the Zionists. I have a lot of respect for them and I want to see peace in the Middle East. I want to see Jews and Arabs be the brothers of each other and the sisters of each other that they have proven that they can be before Israel became a state in 1947. I believe, somewhere around there. I want to see them become brothers and sisters and love each other and share the land together. But I don't recognize any claim in the Bible or in any scripture that says G-d said, "This land is yours." And because G-d says this land is yours, you can leave it and come back when you want, and replace other people that come there. I don't like that, that's wrong.
I'm not saying that I don't respect Israel and recognize Israel's rights as a state, I do. It's a state, we have to accept that, that's a reality. We can't change that, it is a state, so we have to recognize that. But at the same time, I don't recognize the claim, I don't recognize the basis upon which they make their claim. That G-d said, "All this land belongs to Jews." No. Our holy book says the whole earth belongs to G-d. And G-d says if you will serve Him, He will give you the earth, and the sky, and all the space you can see and dream of, G-d will give it to you.
So, the ones who have entitle to anything is the one who best conducts themselves in the eyes of G-d or in the presence of G-d. And when you become a savage and you're not respecting G-d, and you're not respecting human life, then you're not entitled to whatever you have. And others can take it away from you because that is the way of G-d. Thank you very much. Peace, let us work for peace. And inclusion, respect for everybody. 


