05/23/1994
Our Youth, Future and Responsibility
IWDM in Houston TX

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
As-sal?mu ?alaykum.
Audience: Wa Alaykum as-salam.
That is peace be on you. We praise G-d, Al?amdulill?hir Rabbil Alameen, who is Lord, sustainer of all the world. We witness as Muslims that Muhammad to whom the Quran was revealed, a little better than 14 centuries ago is the last prophet. Upon him be the prayers and the peace and what follows of that traditional salute to our Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu alayha was salaam, again prayers and peace be upon him.
Imam Qasim Ahmad, we are very happy to be here and we have enjoyed our stay and benefited from our presence here. Last night at the banquet and since we've been here, the whole time we've been here we've been accommodated very nicely, we appreciate that very much. We enjoyed the speakers last night. They both were very excellent speakers. One was our youth speaker, speaker for our youth but he spoke for me too when he spoke. I'm not a young man like he is anymore, but he also spoke for me and I hope the youth were listening. He's the kind of person the youth need to look to and listen to, Imam Wazir. And Imam Shuaibe from Oakland California that I've known for some time. I met him, in fact, in California when I went to stay there for a few years and was so excited about the possibilities that I saw in him that I loved his company and I still do. Whenever he comes around, I just love his company. And appreciate the work he's doing in that area very much and we certainly benefited from the lecture that he gave us last night.
We appreciate all of our dignitaries that came to support the Muslim effort here, political figures that came out and we hope that they will continue to appreciate the work that you're doing here in the city of Houston. And we hope that they will have good working relationship with you that will improve on and on. And we hope one day that some of your members will also have seats next to them in the government, inshallah. I won't name any of them by name because they're several and they're too many for me to name. This morning I got up to watch television and I was disappointed, I couldn't get the program, Islam on I believe is channel 67.
I couldn't get channel 67 on the TV in the hotel room. I hope that one day I will be able to see that program, Islam on channel 67, that's UHF, I couldn't get it. I hope some of you all did. Let me before getting into really the focus for my talk today or my speech that I'm going to give here, let me say a few words about us, the Muslims. We're said to number about one billion on this earth today and all of us feel proud to say that. We say we're one billion Muslims on this earth today, one billion, a lot of people. And we're not limited to one race or another, we're like the rainbow. Were the colorful community of man, white, black, brown, yellow, red, all the colors of humanity. We're in Africa, we're in Asia, we're in Europe, we're in America, we're in the Pacific Isles, we're just everywhere. The Caribbean, everywhere Muslims.
I hope the day will come when the differences between us will be overcome too by that that moves us to say, we're one billion. We're proud of a number that includes many divisions of Muslims. So, let's pray to Allah, our Lord Creator, our G-d that one day he will move our hearts and our minds to rise above these differences that we have, these group differences, these schools of thoughts that divide us. These traditional cultural habits that divide us. Let's pray that one day we will not see any of that and it will be because of that need in us to identify as one ummah, as one people. One billion strong.
G- looks to our hearts and G-d will judge us by our intentions. We may differ in our opinion and in our perception of things but as long as we hold to l? il?ha ill? Allah, that G-d is one G-d. Muhammad Rasulilah, Muhammad is the messenger of G-d. And the Quran is the book of G-d. And the Qibla is our direction, our Qibla, the Kaaba is our Qibla. As long as we hold to that we will continue to say we're one billion, we won't leave out any of this division, isn't that wonderful? That is wonderful. I've never seen a Sunni try to count the Shias and take them out of that one billion and I've never the Shia try to count the Sunnis and take them out of that one billion.
Not mention the other smaller groups that we have that represent divisions among Muslims. Let us understand that Muslims are entitled to their own opinions as long as their opinions don't contradict, violate the guidance of G-d and the life and teachings of our Prophet. And we know that when it comes to the life and teachings of our Prophet, G-d didn't say to us that angels guard that and protect that, and it won't be changed. Allah only said highly glorified is He that the revelation, the book, angels protect that book and nothing can come into it, nothing can be taken from it.
It is protected by G-d. G-ds angels protect it, it remains today as it was when it was given to our Prophet Muhammad, prayers, and peace be on him. The text has not changed, it is still the same. No word, no meaning has been changed, still the same book in its complete text as it was revealed. But we know that there are different classifications for the reports on the life of our Prophet. Some are classified as strongly sound, convincingly correct and then we have the weak ones and then the still weaker ones, and then we have those that are false.
Many false reports on our Prophet's life, what he said, what he did, who was he, et cetera. So, I hope the time will come when we will see Al-Islam first of all, in the words of revelation and then in that that is reported of our prophet that does not bring about any conflict for the words of revelation. That that fits right in, very comfortably with the words of revelation and reject that that doesn't fit comfortably with the words of revelation, the Quran. I hope that day will come and if that day comes, a lot of these reports that some of us still have that we call the reports on our Prophet's life and work will be thrown away and forgotten.
Audience: Allahu Akbar.
Prophet Muhammad was no less attractive, no less perfect, no less wonderful, no less human than he is in the Quran. And anytime I read something that makes him less than what I find him to be in the Quran I reject it. To give divinity to a man makes him less valuable as a man. Did you hear what I said? Maybe Ill say it again. To give divinity to a man makes him less valuable as a man. The more the man grows into the potential that G-d created for him, that is human, the greater his value becomes. If he starts to veer off from that course and try to be divine, he devaluates his own life. 
Muslims, we have a belief that is easy for us, it is not hard. It is rational, that is, all of us have the intelligence to appreciate it and to live it. Al-Islam doesn't invite us to go up on the mountain and study the heavens, and the angels and write great books on theology. We are not to take up microscopes, telescopes, or powerful glasses to try to bring closer to us, our G-d. We are to be focused here on earth, upon our own life as mortals created by G-d, human beings. One of the greatest titles of our Prophet is Al-Bashar. Al-Bashar means the mortal, the human person. 
Al-Bashar, it's one of the greatest titles our prophet has, the human person. And that's why G-d sent him, gave him to us as a mercy.
That Mercy is that he completes. He is the completion of the human possibilities that G-d wants in the human being. He's the completion. He is the complete human person, the complete human person. That's why G-d says to Prophet Muhammad, "Say to them, I am a mortal person like you." Ana bashsharun mithlukum. "I am a moral person like you." Some of us we believe that, I'm not speaking of Muslims, Im talking about other religions, even some Muslims too. You will find some divisions among us, that will say, yes, he was a mortal but also divine.
The language comes very clearly, he is a mortal like you. Mithlukum, a mortal like you. Not a mortal foreign to your nature.
Not a mortal with something in his nature that is not your nature. We believe that there is only one divine that is G-d. Now, to use the expression divine loosely is acceptable. I would like to tell, I wish I had told, my wife on one occasion that she was divinely beautiful. But that's just a loose expression. She knows I'm not going to make any rakaah to her.
G-d says, had the earth been populated with angels, He would have set up an angel as a messenger. G-d is telling us also that we are not angels and Muhammad is not an angel. He's telling us both, we are not angels, and Muhammad is not an angel. But who would say Muhammad is not perfect? Nobody, especially no learned Muslim will say Muhammad was not perfect or is not perfect. Muhammad is perfect, but he's not an angel. And as a perfect human being, he has a greater work to do in the scheme of this creation designed by G-d, than angels.
Audience: Allahu Akbar.
For the angels bow to Adam, made sajdah to Adam, a man that G-d intended to be ruler, a Khalifa on this earth. And Muhammad is the completion of that creation. The creation of Adam is completed in Muhammad, prayers and the peace be on him, the complete human being. The complete human messenger for the Lord, Creator of the heavens and earth. We know we have been given a theme, Our youth and Our youth's future. There is much to be said on that. Our religion, if understood, and practiced in a very rational way as intended to be practiced, will eliminate all problems that we have. Not just the problem of our youth being wasted.
Our youth, like us, and like many generations before all the way back to our father Adam, our youth are the creation of G-d. Everything we see Allah created it. I know you understand that I'm talking about in the natural world, but I want you to know also that I include man's world also. Because man is nothing but a creation of G-d, his sensitivities, his faculties, his emotions, his whole life, his soul, his intellect, his hands, everything was created by G-d. He can do no more than G-d has designed him to do. G-d designed him. If you design a computer to do something, who gets the credit, you or the computer?
That's all we are. We are computers that Allah designed and we can do wonderful work, but the limit is placed upon us. We can do no more than what G-d has designed for us to do. And we give ourselves the credit if we are ignorant, but if we are not ignorant, we give Allah the credit. We say Alhamdulillah, for everything, for everything. Certainly, I am an achiever. I have achieved above my fellow man, above my associates, and I've produced those wonderful things, invented a wonderful thing. They are benefiting some, and they give me credit for it, but if I'm a Muslim, I know that Allah made that possible.
Allah gave me the materials, Allah gave me the intelligence, Allah opened the way, Allah even gives me inspiration. Do you know scientists get inspiration from G-d? Many of them had confessed that they didn't know how to arrive at the conclusion they were seeking, but suddenly, it came, it came in a very mysterious way. So, G-d helps us in many ways that we don't know. We can get nothing but what G-d has already willed, or design that we get, this is how we should look at things.
And in addressing our youth, I want our youth also to know, that a big problem is created because we become selfish and possessive, too selfish and possessive. And what they are suffering most now is the sin of our selfishness, and our possessiveness, we got to possess everything. Parents and friends, brothers and sisters, let us get away from the habit of saying, "This is mine. Get out of my refrigerator. Leave my glasses, no, don't use my good glasses. Get off my sofa." That's the beginning of influencing the members of your family to be very selfish and possessive. We don't know what we're doing. We should begin with this; everything belongs to Allah. There was nothing before Allah, there'll be nothing after Allah, Allah is eternal always but we are passing out all the time.
Audience: Allahu Akbar.
The youth are youthful now but if they don't prepare for old age, they may go to the crazy house before they go to the grave because vanity will send you to the nuthouse. When you look in the mirror and it's not attractive no more.
We know it doesn't fall on each of us with the same gravity, it spares some they look beautiful at 90. But a change is coming. That's guaranteed. Let us not be too possessive, being too possessive makes us very selfish. Let us acknowledge that everything belongs to Allah. Allah says the earth is His. Everything comes out of it, comes out of it because of Allah's will and His intention. Allah intended that. Everything that grows, the earth produce is provided by Allah. Your life and all that you can do, whatever you can do with your life is because of G-d.
Absolute ownership cannot be ours. We only have title for a short period of time. We have title to this possession, title to that possession, title to this responsibility or whatever that responsibility but it's only for a time. It can change all of a sudden. I remember when this country was very proud and arrogant, made some terrible boasts that I wouldnt like to repeat. As a child, I heard them on the radio and it hurt me to hear grownups in power talking the way they were talking, I heard it on the radio as a child. Not our radio either I was in the streets, I heard it on someone else's radio.
Believe it or not, we weren't allowed to have radios in our homes when I was a child. Very proud boasts as if they were G-d. That's what happens when we forget that we came here with no possessions, we couldn't even assume responsibility for ourselves when we came here. Some parent or some loving adult, a responsible person had to be there to take us as a newborn infant and care for us and help us along until we're able to do the normal things that a human being does on our own. Eat, feed ourselves, go to the washroom by ourselves, dress by ourselves et cetera.
Everything was here before we were here. That's the first thing we have to do, stop being so selfish and so possessive. This is mine, and the most corrupting thing on the soul is to think that your wisdom is yours, your knowledge is yours, that you should get the credit for what you know. The humble Muslim says, especially during the Hajj, "G-d knows, we know not." We acknowledge that we had no knowledge, that our heads were empty, we had nothing until G-d made possible the growth of our intellect. Praise be to Allah.
So, what I'm saying, in short, is that to solve the problems we have in our society, the problem of abnormality. We have an abnormal society, not a normal society. To bring it back to a normal society we have to become again normal human beings. And a normal human being, his life begins in obedience. Obedience not rebellion, not defiance, obedience. Can you imagine a child just coming out of the womb talking back to his mother? "Get your hands off of me. I don't want that milk. Leave me alone." No, obedience. A child's nature is just to obey and we all love it because it's in its nature that G-d intended for it. But as it starts to grow out of that nature that G-d intended for it, you don't necessarily love it.
A parent might throw it in the garbage can. Yes, I don't see it as a terrible outrage now like I used to. See, we used to live in different times when we had truer human sensitivities in our society. But now our sensitivities are so confused that it doesn't outrage me anymore to hear that a mother dropped her newborn baby in the garbage can. This world is so crazy and the future looks so bad for our youth I can understand a mother saying, "You'll be better off in this garbage can than to grow up to become a teenager or grown up in this world.
Somebody will find you and maybe they can help you, I'm through with it." Now, don't you go out and do that. No, because that is a great sin and you won't get this kind of conversation when you meet judgement.
Well, what I'm saying is that those persons are not behaving like that on their own. And this is another thing that Allah tells us; G-d tells us. Think not that your creation is a bigger creation than the heavens and the earth. And we say, Allahu akbar. That's our expression, Allahu Akbar. It means Allah is greater, Allah is the greatest, Allah is bigger, Allah is more important. That's what it means, it means all that. It means Allah is more important, Allah is the greatest, Allah is greater, Allah is bigger, it means all of that, Allahu Akbar. So, G-d says, think not that your creation is a bigger creation, a bigger matter than G-d, than the creation of the heavens and the earth.
That's to caution us that you have free will, you have a free mind, free intellect, free intelligence, you're subject to verge off on a tangent and never get back to your reality. You're subject to go out on your own thoughts and imagine yourself to be bigger than what you really are. I never did accept Atlas even when I was a child. I saw atlas once and I said, "Atlas is carrying the earth on his back." I said, "That's stupid." That's what I said as a child, "That's stupid."
A man holding the earth upon his back. But in our scripture, the last of the scriptures to the world, the Quran, G-d says, that the responsibility for the rule was offered to the angels, to the mountains and man rushed up and accepted it. Now here's man rushing up to accept responsibility for holding up the heaven and earth. He's going to hold the heavens and earth up by himself. What does G-d say of that tendency in man to think that he can be responsible for the order of earth and heavens? G-d says, that man has a tendency to be hasty and foolish.
Hasty and foolish. And that's what we are when we get big-headed and think that we can manage everything by ourselves. Brothers, you want to have better situations for your children to come up? Make your own life conform to what is truly human and natural at home. The natural way that you have been created to evolve as a male, a man, is the same that you see in the dignified, the more socially evolved life of animals. The more social evolved male in the animal kingdom, he respects the female, especially over the children. When you come in and tell your wife how to put the diaper on, something's wrong with your head or your wife needs to be taken to a mental hospital.
Every woman knows how to take care of babies, that's her nature. G-d has created her for that. She knows how to take care of a baby, that's her responsibility. Even if you know better, then be a wise superior. If you can't give it to her in a way that makes her happy, don't give it to her at all. Just suffer for her to do it the way she's doing it. In the long run, you might find that even your wisdom was incorrect. Yes. Don't tell your wife, "I want this room painted white and this room painted burgundy." The home is like a hens nest, my man. That's her home.
You let her tell you how she wants the house painted. Don't tell her, "I want wallpaper on these walls," unless she asks you. If she asked you then that's different. Don't come in and just take over everything, that's her kingdom. And be happy to have her prepare the meal. Some of you all cant cook and you take over?
See, your children wonder, "How come mom and dad ain't getting along?" So, you passing on that division, that tendency to divide and be selfish and independent and not become a social unit to your children. So, they become the same way you are, imposing their will. If we want to have good working social groups, whether it be the first family, the one mom and dad are responsible for in a home. Or whether it be the congregation, we call the Mosque group, the Jumua or whatever. If we want peace and goodness and progress for our social units, we have to not be too hasty, not to be selfish, not be too possessive.
We have to have the tendency to want to share and see everybody come up together, rather than some come up over others. This is what has to happen. And have the intelligence and the human decency to not just run your mouth all the time, not listen to somebody else. Even if you have to put a lock on your jaw or something man, do it. Just sit there with a lock on your jaw. Have the dentist make you a lock that locks your teeth. You lock it and just keep quiet. They have five minutes to talk. You just lock your mouth for five minutes and hear from somebody else.
A lot of times the problem in the home is just so we don't listen to each other. Give everybody a chance to talk, give the children a chance to talk. Parents used to listen to children.
I remember my mother, shell be working, shell be busy. It would look like it just dawns on her all of a sudden that she neglected us, that she'd been too busy to give us any attention. I'm not talking about attention like, "Here is $5 to go to the movie." That kind attention is what is making our children turn against us. Because it is saying to them, "This $5 you give me or this $20 you give me is supposed to be a substitute or a fair exchange for the relationship that I'm supposed to have with you."
They're supposed to have a relationship with you, and you've given them a relationship with money. So, what happens? The family is lost, the family gets lost. The members are all turn against each other. In the home, there is not a sense of unity for the family. Everybody's looked at individually. Mama, she's an individual, not part of a unit, not the whole, not the family. Father, he's an individual. Each member, each child, individual. They going their way; you going your way. Everybody is going their own way. You meet only because you have to, in your own house.
You're meeting only because you have to, not all of you but too many of you. You eat together only because you have to, and most of us don't even eat together anymore. And you know the people from the south they didn't do that. My parents were from the south, they didn't even need Al-Islam to tell them. Al-Islam says, "Our prophet, prayers, and peace be on him." He said the blessing is in the number that participates in the meal at the table. Just one eating alone that's zero. You get two, it increases. The more the number, the more G-d gives blessings on that table, the more sharing in the meal.
But we had that naturally from the south. My mother, she didn't know that hadith. I doubt if she knew it before she passed. But it was just something in her nature that wanted all her children at home when dinner time came, especially for that meal after work. Now, you're going to work that's different, going to school that's different, but that supper she wanted all of us to sit down together and eat, everybody. It would hurt her if some would show that they didn't want to eat, they wanted to go out and play or wanted to do something else.
They would hurt her heart. And sometimes she would threaten you and tell you, "Sit down and eat. You're not going anywhere until you sit down and eat with everybody else." Another thing I should say while I'm on this note, that the best Muslim is only the best human being. That's all it means to be the best Muslim; it means to be the best human being. So, whatever human excellence you had in the south that was progress for your Islamic responsibility. Don't forget it. Go back and pick it up. Get the best that you left behind you and bring those things to be a part of your life again, that we left behind, that we lost in this crazy, busy, commercial world that we're living in now.
Allah, Most High G-d says, that He created everything in pairs, but not just pairs, honorable pairs. Pairs deserving of respect and honor. Allah says, that He created all the sons of Adam with honor, with respect, we may say dignity. We have in the world or society, a belief in our inherent dignity. Inborn, created, inherent natural dignity. Allah, Most High G-d says, that He made every child of Adam, honorable. And G-d says, He had made everything in honorable pairs to be respected. That should be, we should have a sense of our worth as a human creation of Allah that makes us feel good about ourselves.
We should have a perception of our own personal or individual worth that makes us respect any person in our created form, no matter what color they are, what nation they belong to. They are in our created form, whether they are respecting themselves or not that doesn't matter. They can be disrespecting themselves, but still the knowledge is correct. What G-d has said is true. They're ignorant to their dignity. They're ignorant to their created dignity. They're ignorant to their created honor that G-d created them with and for, but that doesn't mean that we should be ignorant of it or that we should say, because they're behaving that way, we have no obligation to respect that person.
In Al-Islam, we are told by the prophet, that we are the mirror for our brother. The mirror for our brothers means that we should reflect the best of what he's supposed to be. When he looks at us, he should see the Muslim that he's supposed to be. And if he doesn't see in us the Muslim that he's supposed to be then we are not the mirror. Do you understand what Im saying? Yes, if he looks at us and he doesn't see the Muslim he's supposed to be then we are not being the mirror for our brother. We look in the mirror to see what's wrong. So, when we look at each other, we should see the true Muslim in his excellence. And every time a Muslim look at that Muslim, and he knows that he's out of his excellence, he's looking at the halal and he's carrying haram, then when he looked at halal and his brother, he sees that something is wrong in him.
He says, My brother has halal, I have haram. So, youre to make him conscious of the haram that he has in himself by presenting yourself without haram. For the benefit of the audience, that are none Muslims here. Halal means what Allah wants. Haram means what Allah forbids. Or in the Jewish language, kosher, one is kosher and one is not. But this kosher for us, it includes everything. It doesnt just cover foods. Everything. Our behavior is supposed to be halal. Our dress is supposed to be halal. Our speech should be halal. Our emotions should be halal.
Dont you know we can lose our emotional sense and make fools of ourselves and appear to be very, very stupid, ugly, vulgar and disgusting just because we give ourselves to certain emotions and get carried away? Yes. So, Muslims are to avoid tendencies, to take them out of the excellent form that Allah wants them in and to present themselves always in excellent form so that they will be mirrors for those out of form. Now getting back to my thoughts, we cannot just ignore people who are in misery, in ignorance and bad conditions and say, "They are, they are worthless people. They are no good. They are worthless people. I have no interest in them.
I have no obligation to those worthless people." We are not to be that way. We have to see them and be hurt in our hearts that they are cheating themselves out of the dignity that Allah created them for. Or they have been seduced, tricked, misguided and suffering the loss of that great honor that G-d created every one of us for. And it should make us want to do something, to reach them, something to help them, something to influence them to change. Change for the better. This is the way Muslims are supposed to be. Now, I'm saying this in connection with interest we have in our youth.
Whatever Allah has created in us, it's going to work for us or it's going to punish us. It's going to work for us or its going to punish us.
If our youth, our young men, they've been created for honor but here in the home they have no honor. The family has no honor. The parents have no honor. They're looking for honor. They have nothing to feel good about it, nothing to feel proud about, nothing to boast about, nothing to make them feel, we're up, we're up, we're doing something, we have made it. We're achieving something. They see nothing but negativity. Nothing but degrading things in the family, nothing to lift their spirit, nothing to make them feel proud to be a member of that family so they're going out try to find comfort somewhere else.
So, they find it in this world now that's designed by Satan. I don't mean everything in the world is designed by Satan but the traps in this world are designed by Satan. The attractions, the attracting things are designed by the Satan. So, they go out in this world and they find that comfort among their street friends, their peers in the street. In the streets, they will join a gang, or join a group that has a sense of group, a sense of social unit, social unity, social unit, social wholeness. They will find that comfort though it's not fulfilling but it's more than what they had at home. They find that camaraderie. They find that brotherhood, they find that family that they didn't have at home. And don't think that they are immoral.
Sometimes they organize to do wrong things, bad things, to rob, whatever. But they're not void of moral life. No. If one of them steal from the other theyll say, "Hey man, that was wrong." But now their morals are separated from the community morals and now they have a special community sense of their own for their own little small gang or group and their law is different. Their moral base is different in everything. Their morals work for them. The responsibility, first falls on the parent. First on the parents. Our society not providing enough employment opportunity for our children, that's a bad situation. Something should be done about it.
But that's no reason for our parents to give up and say, "Well, we can't do nothing. They can't get jobs so what can I do?" Many of us, we close our eyes and take the money that we know our son gets from selling drugs, so we fall down with the children. Morally, we fall down with the children but we are worse than them because they have been driven to what they're doing, they have been driven to identify in another social concept or another social unit. And their social unit to them make such things lawful or permissible.
Now I know it's a big thing for us to say we're not going to approve of bad behavior in our children, we're not going to support their bad behavior. Some of us are afraid now that they'll kill us. And some of them will, they're doing it. They're killing parents but that's no reason to give up. My mother, she had a couple of sons that were pretty tough. One in particular that I'm remembering right now, she insisted upon him obeying. He was a big old boy with muscles and mustache, he had a mustache on his lip. And he resisted her and she said, "I'll kill you or you'll kill me." So, we had mothers at one time that weren't afraid to even die for their principle.
And that's what we need now. We need parents that's willing to die if they have to rather than give in and go along with the abnormality, deformed kind of family life that we have. You should be willing to risk your own life if you have to. And if you stand up like that, you will shock an awakening in your youngsters, in your children. Thats what my mother did to my brother. She shocked his senses back to his brain, back in his head because he saw in her face the determination. My mother didn't play. He knew that he would certainly have to kill her as she was going to kill him. I'll tell you how convincing she was. One of my sisters and one of my brothers rushed to mama, "Mama don't kill him. Mama don't kill him." They believed it.
And I was young. I didn't have no thoughts. I was so shocked. I was just looking like this.
She had still every bone in my head. The burden is first on the parent. If the parents will stand up upon moral stand, stand up upon moral strength, stand up upon what you know is right and insist that your children behave in the way that respects what is right, what is true, what is honest, what is decent, what is correct, et cetera. Then the society will be compelled to make great sacrifices for those families. But if you become like your children, then those in power to make the changes, theyll say, from what? They are not worth it. Muslims, we're supposed to be a model community. A model community not just for ourselves a model community as an example to all people.
Allah says of us, "You are the best, khaira ummatan, the best community. Ukrijat, brought out or evolved, for what? For the people, all the people. Len nas, for the people. We can't even be selfish as Muslims when we turn towards the Kaba, the ancient house to make prayer. We know the prophet even allowed heathens to continue there for a while. He allowed heathens, idol worshippers to continue to go to that house for a while until they could be educated until understanding could be put out. When their understanding got strong enough, then he told them it is not fit for the unclean to be responsible for that house.
Then only the Muslims, only those that didn't have those things on them were permitted to be the custodians and to make the pilgrimage there at that house. But it was gradually done. Because 
G-d created them for the same humanity that He created everybody else for even though they were living in corruption and ignorance. He created them for the same dignity and the same human destiny that He created all of us for. And they were to be given a chance to gradually reform. Because that house belongs to them, not in that state, but it belongs to them as their inheritance, as their right. Because they were created human in the best mode and their deviations and ignorance took them out of that mode and disqualified them.
All they had to do is turn again to what Allah intended for them. They would qualify again and it's theirs. Isn't it wonderful if we think that way? We look at the house, G-d says of that house, He says, "Bunya len Nas. It was built for the humanity. All people. Didn't say for Arabs, didn't for whites, didn't say for blacks, didn't say for Muslims, for Christians. Bunya Len Nas. It could have said Bunya lem Muslim, couldnt? G-d could have said Bunya lem Muslim, for the Muslims but He didn't. G-d revealed it to Muhammad that it was built for the people, the house built by Abraham.
And G-d called Abraham a leader for the nations, a leader for not one nation, a leader for the nations, all nations, all people. He's called father Abraham by the three great faiths. So, there is an inherent honor, an inherent dignity, an inherent personal worth that we all have and it should be respected. And the social context is the place for all of us to grow, the social context. We couldn't grow if we didn't have mom and dad, or mom to have us in a home setting to raise us, be a part of a family. We couldn't develop as intellects; we'd be nothing but dumb brutes. Our children, our youth, they need to feel a part, a legitimate welcomed honorable part of social groups that welcome that dignity, that honor should be first in their own family.
And then we should provide it in the outer community so that they feel that way in outer community. We tell our youth there is no jobs and then we glamorize crime on television, we show the dope pushers with wealth, dressed in fine clothes, riding big cars, going to jail smiling waving at their friends. "Okay, Joe see you later, man. Ill be on the streets in a little while jack." And there is this little boy who got the same social pride in him that everybody else got but it's suppressed, it's crushed. And he sees this fellow there on TV, hes got all this attention, and everything, made the six o'clock news and he's a nobody. So, he joins the group like that so he at least has hope that maybe he will be somebody too one day. He cant go out and buy what he wants. No money, you said, no jobs. You give him a welfare stamp to go sale. So, here is somebody will give him a bag of drugs and pretty soon he has a nice car and wear some very nice clothes. We have urges in us. That's what I'm saying. We have urges in us for dignity, for honor, for esteem, for social respect in society. We have urges in us that will force us to do the wrong thing if we are not given opportunity to do the right thing. And the right thing is that our men should have work. G-d evolved man to go to work, to get up with the sun, and go out and find some food for his wife and for his children.
Get up with the sun and make sure that his family rests secure and with their stomachs fed tonight. That's a man's dignity. That's all of our dignity. My father, before he converted to a brand of Islam that he accepted thinking it was the real Islam. My mother said that he was refusing welfare, he was too proud. So, what he did was just hang out in the street and drink, just to get drunk. He and his buddy they get money enough to buy a bottle. They lived on the bottle. She said, "Son, once I told your father, why don't you go with me to the welfare, theyll put you on too." She said, he said, I don't want you on welfare.
I don't want my children or welfare." He said, "I hate to come in the house." He didn't want to come in the house. She would have to go look for him on the street and beg him to come home. That pride, he was too proud. That was during the depression, the depression years, around 1930 and '31. In '31, his life changed. He changed his religion, his life changed. I don't say he did the right thing. I wouldn't want to do what he did but I respect his pride. I respect the sense of pride, the sense of dignity, the sense of manhood that made him just waste his life out in the street rather than coming home and face his family, not able to provide, not able to accept his share responsibility for the house and for the family household.
So, we have a similar situation but the society now is not suffering material deprivation, like it was suffering during the great depression. So, there is material, there is money but not enough, not enough industry, not enough employment to employ the many youth that we have. But there is money around, a lot of us make plenty of money. So, there's money for crime. There are those that got some money. So, they let the drugs be sold to those that will buy the drugs and let those who don't have employment sell the drugs, that's their employment. There is plenty of goods around, some have too much. So, ignore the problem of theft, let some take from the others.
That's their employment, employed thieves, employed dope pushers, right? That's what it is. We have reached a time when the economy has been changed to allow an economy of crime, economically based crime that works as the dark side with the light side, the underground with the above the ground world, they all working together. Now thats bad. Who's being wasted? Mostly our children, we are being wasted. Why are so many of us being wasted in comparison to the others? It is because once we had a strong religious fabric for our life.
The '60s confused everything, the '70s took us off base. Took us off a spiritual base and put us on, a get the money base, just get the money, just have money. That means more to us than respect for sacred matters. It has become something that is morally accepted now, that you go out for money and make money your G-d, money your main devotion, mainly devoted to just getting the dollar. Anything that you make your main devotion becomes your idol that you worship. Whatever is the main devotion in your life is your idol that you worship. See G-d operating in our lives, operates to bring every tendency, every influence, every purpose, every aim in our life under G-d.
Now, if every tendency, every influence, every purpose,
everything in your life is ruled by your appetite or your desire to have more money, then that has replaced G-d in your life.
Audience: Allahu Akbar.
Allahu Akbar, and that's what this society encourages. For those who have no sense of direction from G-d. It encourages them to make money your G-d. Now, this is no new discovery. What we're talking about is revealed plainly in the scriptures of the great religions. This is no simple matter. and I know some things sometimes make me shaky to say to you and I know it makes some of you all shaky to hear. But some things have to be said. Satan is real. Hellfire is real and this is what Allah tells us in the Quran. There's are no myths. You hear about the devil in your religion, you hear about hellfire in your religion and you may think these things are myths. They're real. You who don't have any sense of direction and you who have given your life to the dollar, given your life to sin, you are in hell now.
Audience: That's right.
That's your hell. You're in hell now. For Muslims, hell begins in this life and also heaven begins in this life. What you have in this sin of misery and confusion, self-destruction etcetera is hell, that's hell. The wasting of our youth, that's hell. Satan has designed the traps, to cut us off from our future, to make us lose the sense of personal worth, personal human worth, personal human honor that G-d created us with. Satan has designed the traps to take us away from that. Satan is not white man, not brown man, not a black man, not a yellow man.
Satan is not to be identified like that. Satan can come in any form he wants to come in. But Satan operates in the world, in the real world. Satan, according to the teachings of Al-Islam, Satan was once one of the jinn and he was once serving in the role of leader for the angels. And in our religion, we're taught that the Jinn was made from a fire that gives up no smoke. It gives up no smoke. What is that saying in symbol? What is that saying in symbolic language? It is saying to us that Satan has passions that do not repent. He repents nothing. He sees no mistakes in him.
When we look at our world, we can see that science has been used to create things for us and to influence the order of our life in a way that has punished us very seriously. Science has done this. Where science has benefited us greatly in many ways, science has also punished us. The things we complain about now plastics, ozone, threatening the ozone stream in the skies and the plastic, the threat of plastics, that can't dissolve, go back into the earth. Where does these things came from? Science. And so many other things that we have, science. The behavior that you have, some scientists are suggesting that science has been used by man to take over human behavior, manipulate human behavior, control human behavior.
We've heard this kind of talk and we've heard the complaints coming from others who are saying, "This shouldn't be allowed. That would be tampering with human nature, etcetera. It may create something worse, something that will plague us worse. But there are men of science who would like to move on that. Now, I see them as the tools of Satan. And any time a society won't work to provide jobs for all the members of that society but rather influence the culture to occupy the idled members in self-destruction, I say that's Satan working in that society.
Whether the instruments of Satan are consciously aware that they're serving Satan or not. That's Satan operating in that society. So, don't think Satan is a myth, Satan is real and we have to follow the guidance of G-d and not be afraid of Satan. Because G-d says, "The schemes of Satan are weak." Weak for whom? Weak for the real believer in G-d. Weak for the strong adamant believer in G-d who's going to make His sole purpose obedience to his lord. For that person, the schemes of Satan are weak and even Christianity tells you all, "Resist Satan." Youre not to go along with him, resist Satan and he will flee from you. Thank you very much. As-Salaam Alaykum.


