02/27/1988
IWDM Study Library
Denver CO

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Speaker: Let peace be unto you. We give praise to the one Lord and creator, whose name in our holy book and in the Muslim world is Allah. We ask peace and blessings upon the last messenger of God, Muhammad The Prophet. Thank you. Brother Imam Rahman, [unintelligible 00:02:10]. It is indeed a great pleasure, and I'm humbled, to be in the presence of such people that are sitting here at the head table and the audience from the community of Denver and the area here. This occasion deserves our support, and I come really to support the occasion.
I will speak very briefly on education. I would pay regard to education that we have as Muslims and that we should have, all of us should have. For Muslims, knowledge is a sacred property. We believe that this universe is one, created by one Lord, and it bears the design of that one Lord and that there are authorities that we should first be aware of, and that is the authority of God, and then the authority of God's law operating in His creation, and the authority of man who has dedicated himself to serve that law, to respect that law and serve that law for the good of humanity.
With us, that Lord is Allah, and the second authority is the rule of nature created by God, and third authority I mentioned, is exemplified in Muhammad The Prophet that we hope to at least model ourselves after, at least our Muslim behavior after. For us in education, this is very important because it gives us a sense of purpose, a sense of place in the universe, and a sense of purpose. When man acknowledges the Lord creator, who's responsible for everything that we have in existence, as [unintelligible 00:04:35], creation does not exist by itself.
When we accept that kind of idea and have that kind of respect for Allah, for the Lord creator, and for the creation, it works in our favor and ease the way for our intellect to grasp and understand the simple and very complex and difficult knowledge that is needed for man in his life and in the life of society. I truly believe in my heart that the biggest problem we have in education-- I'm not trying to pass myself off tonight as the scholar or as an educator, my formal education just goes to high school. I have graduated from high school, and I have three-hours English credit, credit in English 101.
I don't want to pass myself off tonight as a scholar or as an educator, but I thank God that I've had the curiosity, and have taken the time to study many books, and I don't feel shy around many of you who consider yourselves to be educators and scholars.
[laughter]
[applause]
Speaker: Because there are some very simple fundamentals working in the universe, and when you understand those simple fundamentals, then you are really on the same basis with everybody else who has knowledge. I do believe that the trouble with the world of education, main trouble, is that we forget how knowledge began. We forget the focus for the progress and development of material sciences and the human sciences. It all began with men thinking, observing the workings in the universe and the world around them, and the society around them, and the things that operate in creation, and finding a unity, finding a purpose, believing that something is behind all of this.
That's where it all began, and respecting the design that is working within creation for the unity and function of the total universe, and also for the unity and correct function of man himself, as an individual, as a person and also as the society. When we lose that, we should teach that. Even if we are not religious, we should make sure that our schools and our children have some good knowledge of how knowledge itself came in the world, in man, advanced and progressed.
Today, when we think about knowledge, we think about it in fragments. Our religion, I think, the Christianity, and I know Islam, I'm sure-- I would I know Christianity too, I've studied the Bible. These religions, Christianity, Islam, Judaism and other great world religions, these religions preserve for man that respect for the beginning of knowledge, and the unity of knowledge, as the creation is one, knowledge is one. We should respect that and keep that in our thoughts, keep that in our focus, and make sure that the children in the school have respect for that.
Now, I want to change the focus here and come to our religion. For Muslims, as I said in the beginning of this brief address I'm making, the sciences, true knowledge, is sacred property. Our Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, he says that real knowledge, true knowledge, that is the sciences, is the lost property of the faithful in the religion, of the believers. The lost property of the faithful, the people in religion. That is to say that God who created this universe, though he is merciful and all of that, he will allow the bad people to enjoy the good things of his creation up to a limit, and he will allow them to come to have access to the great tools that man needs for himself and the society.
But he didn't intend it for the bad people. He intended those great blessings for the good people. He intended it for those people who love Him, who devote themselves to the worship of Him, who try to serve His will and His purpose. He intended those great tools of knowledge, science, et cetera, to be our possession. They are our inheritance, according to the teachings of the holy book and the Prophet. They are our inheritance. Again, it is important that we know that the Prophet also made it an obligation on Muslim community to respect knowledge, to work hard to advance knowledge, and to work hard to educate those without knowledge, that is the masses of people.
Long before Western Civilization recognized the right for all members of society, of all citizens, to education, our Prophet preached and demonstrated support for that right by making it an obligation on those who had knowledge to share that knowledge, to pass that knowledge on to the illiterate and ignorant people in the society. Prophet Muhammad himself was a Prophet and a teacher. He taught and educated people, and he preached the message. He did both and many other things. In fact, he was all-around man. He was the head of the state, he was the regulator of the economy of the state. In all the roles, he was a soldier on the battlefield, he was the general for the army. He was everything. He was all of these things, the complete man.
But that man, that precious man, took the time to teach an uneducated person to read a few letters, to read a line, and made an obligation on those who knew to teach others. The book that he brought, one of the names of the book is that which is to be read, and that's the name we identify the book by right now, Quran. From Qara'a which means "to read". Quran, that which should be read, or that which is to be read and recited.
Lastly, again, it was Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings beyond him, who brought the community of men to recognize the right of women to equal shared education. The Prophet gave an incentive to men when he said that if any father will spend on two daughters to see that they are educated, he will be given the paradise by God. God will admit him into the paradise. There is much to be said but the evening has been, I think, spent well. In the words of Ms. Wallace, so good and so satisfying to my heart. I right away just cancelled out about two thirds of what I was going to say. Thank you very much. Assalamu alaikum.
[00:13:16] [END OF AUDIO]

