09/02/2004
IWDM Study Library
Advice to Our Community

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
IWDM:
Allahu Akbar says G-d is greater. I greet you in peace. As-salamu alaykum. We thank G-d for our presence here. We worship him above all authority. We obey Him. And we obey his messenger, Muhammad, to whom the Qur'an was revealed. G-d says, "Obey G-d and obey his messengers." We follow the life patterns set for us by the life of Muhammad the prophet, just as the Christians follow the life pattern of Jesus Christ, peace be upon him. We follow the life patterns of Muhammad the prophet, peace be on him, who is the brother to Jesus in the line of prophets. As we all are sons of our ancestor Adam, according to the scripture and we are all one family of light.
IWDM:
One family of light, all people represent one family of light. We're living in the time, as I see it, and I'm sure many other spiritual leaders see it as I do, because I'm in touch with many of the their concerns that they are expressing in their publications. Also, some of them are important world figures. And then their concerns will reach us in way of television and printed media. And we all have seen these times as [inaudible 00:02:04].
IWDM:
But I don't like that term. I'm not so comfortable with that term because I don't think I know how it's used. But it's time to fulfill that prophecy. If you are in touch with scripture, and you are students of scripture, you should be able to see a picture form of man's life on earth today.
IWDM:
And that picture with all its troubles and with all of good things in it, that picture looks to us, those of us who have been studying the scripture properly, look to us to be the picture that is given in scripture, both Bible and Qur'an. And even some other scriptures, of the vision that man's life would take on this earth at the end of time.
IWDM:
We no longer plan our future separately without G-d, real respect for others who are planning their future. And that's really those of us of these United States. In these United States, we can't plan our life without consideration and the interest of other people.
IWDM:
We are a minority here amongst a great majority that is Christian. A majority that is Christian. And we have to plan our idea so that our life compliments the whole and does not disrupt or hurt the whole. We're living in the times that G-d gives us in our holy book. At the time when life of man's world, or life of man reaches its completion, its completion. G-d says, and I quote, you have been created like a plant, a plant is a living thing. And a plant has its future already preset.
IWDM:
The future of that is preset. It is a flower bearing plant, then it is set to continue to grow and develop until it produces a flower. If it's the fruit-bearing plant, until it produces a fruit. If it's a seed-bearing plant like wheatgrass, another grass and some other things, then its life is preset until it is growing until it produces seed. And on and on and on.
IWDM:
Man's life is preset until we come back to the nascent spirit that is originally in the human life created by G-d. And that nascent spirit is to accept all good and reject all bad. To accept all good and reject all bad. So, we accept all Jews and we don't condemn them and say that they are bad people. We say they're good people and we recognize the exception. There are some bad Jews, but we also recognize the exceptions for ourselves. There are some bad Muslims. There's some bad in every people, but we don't look at the people and say that the people are bad, because G-d has never made to be free so that more evil will be on earth.
IWDM:
He made people to be free so more good will be on earth. So, the good always predominates. Eventually, the good always shows itself bigger than the bad. And if you could have faith in that, you are already situated to have a good life on this earth.
IWDM:
People who are burdened by the ugly scene, and they are not free in those, from misery, and hurt, to look at the good scene, they are situated very poorly to make progress on this earth. And the more we [live] to see the conclusion of things, for man's growth as a growing organism, as a growing life, industrially, politically, socially, spiritually. And spiritually more importantly.
IWDM:
Scripture says the first shall be last and the last shall be first. Society off as a spiritual life, Yes, needing food like every animal, we are touched, so we need to be together. But the spiritual life, our life is determined by our spirituality. And then man shows that he was lead by spiritual leaders before he was lead by industrial leaders or political leaders. He's lead by spiritual leaders.
IWDM:
And again, I repeat, the scripture said, first will be last and the last will be first. That spiritual life is last now for most societies that are not having spiritual leaders over them. The spiritual life is last. We're going after the things that the body needs, especially food, clothing, shelter. [as a flesh body]. And we don't have to do a thing but look at entertainment world, look at the behavior of our youth. And we can see it is all about flesh.
IWDM:
But what we need is spirit. And what we need is spiritual life and spiritual guidance and spiritual establishment. We look at plant, we see the plant standing up because its fed by sunshine, and earth and water, and air. But what is really giving its body its firmness to hold itself. Water, the water go out, the plant becomes limp. The wood of a tree, stays firm, but its leaves will droop if water is not there. That part of it that we consider the living part will become droopy if water is not there.
IWDM:
And water is a symbolic of souls, of human souls. And water if left undisturbed, it rests, in peace. Unless something sometimes might agitate it. I like to refer to, this is in the Bible about Jesus, peace be upon him, when the water was raging, the boat is disturbed, Jesus said, "Don't blame the water, blame the wind."
IWDM:
Yes. So we have by nature, in our souls, created for peace. We want to rest like water wants to rest. But we also want to go to the world and produce, and feed production like the water goes into the land, it becomes harder than anything, and it gives firmness. But the water will take the discipline of the life form that it feeds.
IWDM:
If it's a grass, the water will take the discipline of a blade of grass. If it's diagram or a design inside, will be that of the blade of the grass. Like [inaudible 00:11:16] whatever, the water will take the discipline of the life form. The water should take the discipline of all life forms. Anybody could [conclud this, we are social creatures, we need industry, we need government, we have to have a complete life. And that's what religion is all about, especially the religions we call the heavenly religions of the sky, religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
IWDM:
These religions, these religions want for us a complete life that we want to establish ourselves [upon]. The descendants of Abraham, not just Adam, we're descendants of Abraham. We have the flesh form, the nature, the social nature of Adam, but we have the mental disposition of Abraham. And what was his disposition? He accepted the whole creation of G-d. And he found unity and wholeness, and he painted a conclusion that the designer, the artist for this great universe is one G-d, not two, but one G-d.
IWDM:
And also, he saw that creation was created to communicate the man's intellect, communicates to the intellect. Our father, Abraham, is seen as the figure for us that represents the direction to great production by way of education, universal education, universal education, higher education.
IWDM:
This is evident in the Muhammad the prophet, it is mentioned in the Quran and many times in connection to Abraham. And even his order that he leads, is that it is the order of Abraham, the one whose taqwa is his nation.
IWDM:
So, Muhammad the prophet began preaching religion, and soon had in a relatively very short period of time, there were great institutions in the charge of Arab people who had invited others, they had some Jews with them and some other people with them, but they were leading it. They were spearheading it. Great universities developed and began to spread all around the world. There were many intellectuals from many parts of the world began to travel to the Muslim universities, to the Muslim scholars to see what they were doing so they could come apart of it or at least be inspired by it and go back to their land and develop higher education in response to what they witnessed in the Muslim lands under the Muslims.
IWDM:
So, this is what we should be all about today. And lastly, African Americans we have to get back into history, because we became so separatist that we actually took ourselves out of history. We have to get back into history. We have to see our life in the whole scheme of things. The life of man on this earth, firstly. Secondly, we have to see our life in the light of these United States. We should normally be speaking of our history and not see our history in the context of the life and history of these United States.
IWDM:
We could speak Black English, but let us speak the same language that all other people are speaking. But that's how we want to develop and make progress. Thank you.
Speaker 2:
Questions?
Speaker 3:
[Person asks a question] Silence.
IWDM:
But we are not all having the same ability or the same resources. And they are always not all having the same contribution. We should, and saying this for years now, we should look around us and see if there are other people with the mind and spirit that we have. And if they have the interest that we have. G-d said Rabitu and we form alliances. Like minds should seek out each other and work together.
IWDM:
Sometimes their are only a few people that you could work with. Though, several they have same mind you have. So, once you find those who have same mind you have and the spirit and enthusiasm like yours. Get with them. If you are dead, don't get with the living. Stay with the dead. And if you are living, don't get with the dead. Stay with the living. Even though the dead might want what you want, but they're dead, you don't want to be with them.
IWDM:
So, find people with your enthusiasm and with your mind. That is with your interest in faith. For the betterment of yourself and community, Allah says in our holy book. And family has priority. Family has the priority with G-d. And there's a book of G-d. In the book of G-d. So, we have to stress two positions for the individual and the community.
IWDM:
One position is to position yourself so you better your family life. And please never think of yourself separately. Always think of your individual interests as also your family interest. And the other position is to position yourself for the bigger picture. And that is for the betterment of the whole. And we began ourselves as Muslims for the betterment of the Muslim families that we have association with in these United States. But we have to also have the interest in helping Muslims of these United States and even outside of these United States. Our interests does not stop pouring out until we have reached the last person on this earth. This is Islam. And this is Christianity. Christian love is like how our Zakaat is formed, for the member and the non-member. For the person we acquainted with and for the stranger. For the poor and for the rich, and for those who need help right now. Call the misqeen. Not just for poor people, but for the rich too. If they should lose their wealth and become miserable and become dependent, then we, are to have faith and make them our concern.
IWDM:
I hope that I answered your question to your satisfaction. And it's a big question. And again, it's a question that can be answered with one statement. This work can be charitable and never let the negative move us in [inaudible 00:21:14].
Speaker 2:
We'll take one other question from the media.
IWDM:
Yes. Well, then I'll tell you what I'm doing. I'm trying to stay in touch with John Kerry's campaign. And I studied what's available to us in the press. So far, many of this has been mostly because they've made available. I studied it and I'm looking at it. And I'm also aware of rather than Bush's leadership, and I'm aware of the two parties,, the democrats and the republicans. And the democrats offer us charity, and the republicans take away charity, but they didn't offer jobs to business minded people. Not to everybody, but to people that want to work. They want to see you with jobs. This is principle of the Republican party. They respect industry, they respect business industry, and they respect hard work. They respect workers.
IWDM:
So, everything is not in the republican party, but we don't have everything in the democratic party, so we have to look at both parties and look at these times and see which agenda serves us best in these times. And we shouldn't be thinking that the democrats or the democratic party is the party of Jesus Christ, so we have to go with the democrats. We should get out of that. And we shouldn't think that the republicans are all bad now because we don't like the way President Bush looks right now. So, look at the whole party. Look at the whole party, not just at President Bush, look at the whole party and don't look at just the candidate, look at the whole party. Because once those individuals are in office, they have to answer to more than just themselves. They can't do everything. Don't call the President of the United States, don't think it's still the President of the United States can do everything. No, he has to answer to the states, Congress, he has to answer to big business too. Thank you.



