08/31/2001
IWDM Study Library 
Islamic Convention Jumuah Chicago, IL

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Anouncement:
This is the national public broadcast of W. Deen Mohammed, Muslim American Society leader. The following khutbah or sermon was recorded Friday, August the 31st, the year 2001 at the Chicago Hilton Hotel in Chicago, Illinois. The lecturer is Imam W. Deen Mohammed.
IWDM:
Bismillah Ar Rahma Nir Raheem. As Salaamu Alaykum. Audience Response Wa Alaykum As Salaam. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. The Praise is for G-d, the Evolver, the Nourisher, the Keeper, the Lord of all the worlds, (Nastainahu) We seek Him for help and assistance. (Wanastafirahu). And we trust Him. We believe in Him. And we witness. We bear witness that there is no G-d, except the G-d. We call Him by His holy name in the Quran, Allah. Wa Ashadu Ana Muhammadin Rasulallah. And we bear witness that Muhammad, whose name is Muhammad, ibn Abdullah Muhammad, the servant of his father, whose name is Abdullah, born in Mecca, what is now called Saudi Arabia, the country, and had no previous knowledge of scripture.
He was unlettered and an orphan who lost his father before he got any chance to see him, to know him, and lost his mother while he was a small boy, very much loved by his tribesmen, and he was born of the most notable of the tribes in that time, the tribe called Quraysh. And he lived, as G-d says in the Quran, a lifetime among his people, which was 40 years. For many, that's a lifetime now. And he was called by his people before he was called by G-d to be a messenger to the mankind, to the world of human beings. He was given the title Al-Saadiq, the truthful, and Al-Amin, meaning the trustworthy. You could trust him.
The history is given of him before he was called to be G-d's messenger and servant, and messenger. This history has Muhammad being called upon by his fellow citizens of this town, Mecca, sacred, blessed Mecca to be a treasurer or a bank for them. They would bring their belongings when they were going to make a long trip and be away for a good while from their home. They would bring their precious belongings and ask Muhammad, "Muhammad, will you hold these until I return?"
He was trustworthy, so trustworthy they used them like we would use a bank, many of them. We witness that he is G-d's servant and messenger, and we witness as it is given in our Quran, the holy book, our book, that he is the one mentioned in both the gospel called Injeel in Islamic language and in the Torah, the Old Testament, as a liberator who will take from the backs of the suffering the heavy yokes that weigh them down, I'm using the very words of the Quran in English, and would free them or liberate them from every bond or bondage, from every bond or bondage so that they would be free to worship G-d.
We witness that that most noble of human creatures is the last of the Prophets and the seal of the Prophets, according to the Old Testament, New Testament, and the Quran. In our understanding as students and scholars in Islam, he was chosen because of his human excellence, that G-d saw him as being complete. There were others who were complete. We know that of Abraham, it is said in our holy book, that he completed his obligation to his Lord and he rendered himself honorable, peaceful, and at peace in his home with his G-d.
That's Abraham, Ibrahim as his name is pronounced in Islam, Ibrahim. There are others, too, that were born noble and honorable. There were no shortcomings as for their character, their human development. John and Jesus Christ are mentioned as being pure and honorable, no defect or flaws in their human makeup. May G-d's peace be on them, the servants of G-d. Adam, before he was deceived by the Satan or in Islamic language, the Shaitan, he too was honorable, noble, and having no flaws in his human makeup, Adam, the father of all people or the father of humanity, we should say.
We are all, according to scripture, the Jewish scripture, Christian scripture, and Muslim scripture, the Quran, we are all children of Adam, descendants of Adam, men and women. Peace be upon Adam. G-d made him honorable, and G-d says of the descendants of Adam, "We have certainly made honorable all the descendants of Adam. "Kad karama kuli bani Adam. "We have certainly made honorable all the sons of Adam."
What about the daughters? Well, if you look up man in the dictionary, it means male. But one entry will tell you it means males and females, all people, man. Adam is no different. In fact, that kind of language comes from scripture, comes from Adam, the collective soul, as well as the single soul. Adam is soul singularly and soul collectively. This can be proven, but I'm not here for that. It can be proven by scripture, what I'm saying to you.
So, we all are the descendants of Adam, and we all are Adam. We are the original man. Adam has not gone anywhere. His life germ is in us. We couldn't be here if his life germ was not in us. For all people, the best idea of their nobility and that value as creation is given in scripture. G-d said that He created the man and made of one soul its mate, male and female, and caused to be spread from those two, women and many men, women and many men, or men in great numbers, and men in great numbers. Al rijalan kathira. And men in great numbers.
In the Bible, I read many years ago when I was studying the Bible and I had to stop and reflect on what I read. It spoke of Adam in the singular up until a point. And then I read where it spoke of Adam in the plural, Adam as many, not one soul. It says, "And He named them Adam in the day that He made them." This is Bible, Genesis. We are not the only people that have had our G-d-given respect and honor taken away from us by bad people, by oppressors, by enslavers. We're not the only people.
I'm speaking of those that are the victims of others. And then there are many who are the victims of themselves. They victimize themselves, and they take away from themselves the great respect, the great honor that they own or possess by virtue of their creation as it was done by G-d. It is natural for the human being to be curious about its own life. We are free, the only free creatures, free to come out of the mold of our own first nature that we got from the Earth, like an apple tree got its life, like an oak tree got its life, like fish in the water got their life, like the animals roaming in the jungles or wherever they are got their life.
We got our life, and we got a very special life. We are the only ones that can observe our own selves and our own creation and observe the creation all around us and all about us in the universe. And if we want to, we can come up with an idea to create ourselves all over, and we can create ourselves out of the original mold that we got naturally, like the fish got their mold of life and others. This is a very special characteristic that is only the characteristic of man.
I'm including as one definition in the dictionary does. I'm including male and female. We're very special. Freedom is very special. Freedom, if our freedom distinguishes us from all of the living creatures that we know of, they haven't discovered any out there in the space yet. They think maybe they're out there, but we haven't seen them or heard from them yet. We are distinguished by our free mind, thought, intellect, spirit, et cetera, free.
If we have been distinguished by that property in us, then that property in us must be our most valued and precious property. Take that away from us and we're no more human. We are vegetable or like an animal or like a rock, a dead stone or something. We are no more human when you take that away from us. And we can become self-destructive, destructive of life, destructive of property. The spirit and the nature will be reversed if we come out of the mold that G-d created us in and for.
It will be reversed and instead of you growing better and becoming more of a contribution to yourself, your family, and society at large, mankind, you become more aggressive and more aggressive, more harmful to yourself, your family, and society. But this is our precious property, our freedom. We believe as Muslims that G-d created us for His service, for His service. It doesn't mean that all of us supposed to be preachers. In Islam, the whole life of man is intended to be a life of worship.
Allah says in our holy book, "He has created neither jinn nor men for any purpose, except to serve Him." He says He calls us, "Oh, my worshipers. Oh, my servants." Literally, it means, oh, my slaves. That's for powerful psychological effect. He says, "Oh, my servants." Imagine now, people using the English word, slave, S-L-A-V-E, slave. We are living in a time of the horrible plantation life for our folks, and they're using the term, slave.
They become a man, a person inspired by G-d, and he started calling out to all the people. He says, "In the name of G-d, oh, oh, my slaves, oh, my slaves." Now the only ones who will be knowing themselves by that name will be the ones on the plantations. But now He's speaking to the free people and He's calling them the same as He's calling the one that's on the plantation being enslaved and miserably reduced as creatures of value.
He's calling everybody slaves. Can't you see the powerful psychology? Well, that's exactly what happened in the time of the Prophet. G-d revealed to him that all people were slaves, not just Bilal who was enslaved and had a rock put on his chest because he wouldn't obey his master, a big rock in the hot sun to burn him and torture him to make him obey his master. (Radia Allah anhu) May G-d be pleased with him. Not just Bilal and others who were slaves in that time, there were many slaves in that time, and there were slaves after that time. But the religion came to break the hold of slave masters on G-d's servants.
So, G-d revealed that Muhammad should say all people are G-d's slaves. And G-d says, "Ya ebaadullah". Oh, Servants is the nicer word now since the word, slave, has been so abused. Oh, servants of G-d, but literally, oh, slaves of G-d in Arabic, originally. Oh, slaves of G-d. He didn't come up with a new word. The same word was used. So here was progress. In terms of value for that word, in the language of the Arabs before Islam, that Abd, it didn't have much value. It was a person not respected, a slave.
But when G-d used the same language and calls His servant, Muhammad, (Sa Ala Alahi Wa Salaam) prayers and peace be upon him. Called him, He said "Abdi, my servant, my slave"May G-d forgive him his shortcomings and his sins and give him paradise. Ameen. In the time of my father, we were told that we were the original man, and we were told that we were the cream of the crop. We were never told that Islam was peace. I never heard that. I was 20 years old or more before we started hearing of other understanding, outside understanding of Islam. I was told, along with you, that Islam is freedom. Islam is justice. Islam is equality.
That appealed to us because this world, America, and the white world had wrote us out of freedom, wrote us out of entitlement to justice and equality and had put in the Constitution of these United States that we were written out of it. So naturally, that complimentary language was welcomed by many of us, and we came from the way of life in Christianity, in the church, and we joined the Honorable Elijah Muhammad for a new life. Why am I saying this?
Am I saying this to put the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in a good light? No, although I'm pleased to do that. Any good son would want to put his father in a good light if he had a way to do it, but that's not my purpose. My purpose is to say that if you don't value your human worth and believe that your human worth is equal to the human worth of every other human being, your circumstances might have put you down, but if you get the same circumstances that they got, in time, you will be as much as they are. And this is Islam.
This is the Quran. "Qad karamna insaana fi ahsani taqweem." It didn't say white human being. It didn't say African human being. It didn't say Asian human being. "Kad karakna fi ahsani taqweem." Surely, G-d has created the human person in the most excellent of mold, every human person. That's why the language is given very plainly. "Qad karakna insannaan Adam" We have certainly made honorable, noble, dignified, every child or every son of Adam, peace be upon Adam.
So let us not change our beliefs and embrace the Quran and the traditional life of Muhammad the Prophet and leave out freedom, and leave out justice, and leave out equality and forget our nobility and forget our human honor. Forget our inherent dignity and self-respect that compel me not to imitate another race or another people, but be myself. We're starting to come alive again. We went to sleep, and we slept against our freedom, justice, and equality.
We slept against our inherent G-d-given nobility. We slept on it and slept against it. We just started to wake up again. My father never wanted you to go to sleep on that, and his son never wanted you to go to sleep on that. When I started out from the very first day before '75, I was preaching, and my focus was on G-d-given human value. You can go and listen to it, the First of my tapes, before I was called Imam, before I was called Chief Minister. Listen to the first of my tapes.
We can't stop now, if we on the right road. If we're on the wrong road, please stop. G-d's path is Siratal Mustaqeem. That's His path, Siratal Mustaqeem. What is Mustaqeem? Is it the path that goes that way, horizontally? No, it's a path that goes vertically. It goes vertically. It goes from down here up to G-d, like Muhammad did. G-d brought him up into the heavens, and G-d raised Jesus up to Himself and sent them back into the world to do their job.
Some of us may not ever get that high in the heavens. Muhammad went so high in the heavens, he greeted Abraham in the highest heavens, in the seventh heaven. He said, "Oh, my Father, Salaam." He said, "Salaam, my father, Abraham," according to the tradition of our Prophet, the hadith and tradition of our Prophet. We may never be lifted that high, but we all should be trying to rise up from dead matter, from dirt and dust and filth as high as we can go up to the purity, up to the light and purity to be blessed by G-d with a new life.
Siratal Mustaqeem is the path of the standing upright person. Muhammad used the same language, the Prophet, prayers and peace be on him, when he answered someone who wanted to have an answer. He said he wanted to have an answer that no one could give the person, but Muhammad the prophet. That's what he said. "Give me an answer that no one can give me, but you." What did he say? What was that answer that no one could give, but him? He said, "Qul" Say. Told that person to Say-Speak.
Qul-Say, I have believed, Amantu Say, I have believed from the same word, Mustaqeem from the same word we get Mustaqeem from. It means to stand up erect, to be erect, upright. He said, "Say you have faith. You believe. And thereafter, be upright. And thereafter, be upright." He said, trying to be upright. Isn't that what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said? Trying to be upright. He didn't say we all had got there already.
He said we were trying to be upright. Upright in what? In somebody else's mind? In somebody else's mindset? In somebody else's culture? No. Upright in the nature created for you by your G-d on the day that He created your first ancestor. Be upright in that creation and in that nature that was created to serve your G-d, created for you so that you would be the most excellent servants of G-d.
Islam came to liberate oppressed people and also oppressors. It liberates both the oppressed and the oppressor by inviting both the slave and the master to accept to be the slaves of G-d. Ya Ibadalah -Oh, servants or slaves of G-d. That's how G-d calls us. Honor, honor. When you respect the great value and honor that G-d deposited in human beings when He made them, when He created them, you're not going to misuse your life. You're not going to sell yourself cheap.
You are going to be among the most honorable and dignified people walking this planet. But if you just embrace an idea and don't know the most important thing is that G-d has charged you with great responsibility because He qualified your essence, your creation for great responsibility. How are we missing so much? Why are we missing so much in this world today? This world is too busy. It keeps us too busy just trying to survive.
We don't have time to reflect on the beautiful creation of G-d, the beautiful sky on a clear night out in the country and the big wide-open fields. You can see the big wide-open sky with beautiful stars, a ceiling high and wide, bedecked with beautiful lights. G-d created that to touch your insides and help your spirit and your soul and your heart rest at peace. If your life can rest at peace, your creative forces will start to work better and stronger for you.
Muhammad the Prophet, peace be upon him, he had to go into the cave away from the activities of the daily run and hustle and bustle of life up in the mountain Jabal Nur. And there, he stayed away from the world so he can have rest for his spirit, rest for his soul, rest for his mind. There, the creative juices, they start to become strong, so strong that they received words from G-d. A message came into him from G-d. And he came down and reported it.
From that day, he was a different man, not necessarily a better man because G-d approved of his human condition before he missioned him. Certainly, we have seen that he's on the mighty plane, mighty plane. We have seen that his Uswah, his human design and form and content are of the most excellent- Uswatan Hasanatin. And says, "And any who believes in G-d and being accountable to G-d or believes in judgment, they will certainly find in him a model, a human model for them."
In these terrible times that we are living in now, the government has joined the faith community, and the business community is joining the faith community and the government to provide these lost souls, especially our youth, with mentors, and the mentor that G-d gave us is Muhammad. The general on the battlefield can make his life better if he studies and let himself be influenced by the human model, Muhammad [Sa ala alahi wa salaam) Prayers and peace be upon him.
The scientist, the doctor, the medical doctor, the artist, the road builder, the skyscraper builder, the common laborer, the economist, G-d didn't leave out any. Any people who believe in G-d and believes in being accountable to G-d or believes in the judgment at the last day, you will certainly find in Muhammad the most excellent model. We need to return to our original nature. We need to turn to the original nature, return to the original nature that G-d created when He created our first parent.
And G-d has not stopped creating those. Every time you go to a nursery and you see the newborn baby, you see a human being that's not a criminal, have no desire to be a criminal, ready to obey and love Mama and Daddy, just waiting to be formed by good people. Good people can take any baby, Asian, African, European. It doesn't matter. Son of the gang leader here in Chicago, it doesn't matter. Take any baby. You can take that baby and that baby is like new clay in your hands.
You can shape it. It's not going to fight you. It's not going to say, "Hey, what you trying to do? I'm going to be Al Capone." No, it can't have any ideas like that. "I'm going to be a dope pusher, drug addict. Leave me alone." No, the baby just there in your hands for you to shape it and make it whatever you want to make it. So, G-d has not created any devils. G-d has not created any criminals.
Criminal law history in the United States tells us at one time they were believing, the establishment was believing in America, that some criminals were such hardcore criminals, that a way to save the society from them would be once you get them in jail, sterilize them so they couldn't have any more babies. That was the position. But they became better educated, and they changed that ruling. They came back to what G-d tells us, that G-d does not create criminals. Every child is born innocent with pure human nature.
We know a child will fret, get upset, and get angry. If you cause it, put it in a situation where it has to fret and be agitated all the time, you'll be putting it in a situation to make it bad. But put it where it could be cared for and free from aggravations and just meet a normal challenge from the world that G-d created and you are going to have good people. You have to believe in yourself, brother. You have to believe yourself is good. You have to believe yourself is productive.
Allah says He made Adam, made the man, made a Kalifah and said He gave him responsibility, trusted him with his life and his environment. Allah is telling us that He made man to be productive, to be productive. He promises us again an environment, a world where we can be productive even more than we were in the first world. He says it would be as a garden to be cultivated, the heavens, a garden. Christ Jesus, before the revelation came to Muhammad, He was crucified, they say.
It's not in our religion that He was crucified, but we know it's in theirs. And then they took Him from the cross and He rose from the dead. It is said in the Bible that His disciples saw Him and they saw Him as a gardener. He had been resurrected and in the new life, He was a gardener. A gardener is one that works the land so you can have produce so the family can eat. Not only that, things that grow out of the land also produce our clothing, so you can be clothed.
Not only that, things that grow out of the land produce our wood for structuring houses, making wood houses. In the same Earth is the iron ore for making steel. G-d says that He has given you what you need. He has made the Earth to give you your needs, to give you your needs. So, what needs you have? If you have a real need, let's get it. G-d says it's here in the Earth. Now, if you have an artificial need, an unreal need, that'll waste my time because G-d says that He made this Earth as a place to provide you with your needs.
In some beautiful verses, ayats, go on to show us how richly G-d has supplied man, so much so it says if you would try to count what He has given you, you can't count it, too much for you to count. So why are we suffering? Why are we going with our heads down or out to beat up somebody because we're so hostile, so frustrated, so filled up with bad spirits? We want to hurt somebody. Why are we like that?
It is because we haven't been told what I'm telling you now on this most precious day of the calendar, Jumu'ah day. You haven't been told these things. You need to be told these things. I was told these things. I was conditioned by loving parents and people who believed like they did. When I was with ... requirement of life, the coldest thing I know of will try to take care of the new baby. That's a snake, cold. But it'll try to take care of the new baby, love.
When it gets older, you can't see any sign of being loved in a snake. Only time you can see love is when they have new babies. And then it look like the baby is mostly on the back of nature. It ain't much the snake going to do for it. But it won't destroy it, and it'll let it travel with it till it's able to go on its own. Love, we have to have love, dear brothers. That's what we're missing now.
If we will let our hearts open up to love, firstly, to loving your G-d, to whom you are indebted for everything good, then loving your Prophet. Muhammad is our Prophet, loving your Prophet, who paid the price. Long before we knew anything about Islam, he paid the price. He was stoned by people of Ta'if. They were a better off community during his lifetime, and he thought that if he could invite them to Islam and they would embrace Islam, that it would be good help for the poor.
So, he went there to invite them to Islam. They laughed at him and their children and their foolish ones threw stones at him. The stones damaged him so much that it's reported that they could hear the sound of the liquid blood in his sandals as he was walking, squishing as he was walking away from that town. He was banished from his own native city. If he hadn't left, they had planned to kill him. But the good people of Medina invited him, so he had a haven. He had a rescue.
He left his own home, his native city, and he went to Medina and there began building after the ascension, the night visit, the ascension and traveled from the sacred precincts in Mecca to the distant mosque, Al-Aqsa, distant place in Jerusalem. After that, he went to Medina. He accepted their welcome. He went to Medina, and it wasn't long thereafter, he had established the first society, the first community, the first city of Islam, the Ummah. We call now the Ummah, the international community.
First, he put that model there in Medina, the international model of Islamic society, Islamic community life, and it spread from there in a marvelous way. In about 12 years or less, it was the most powerful and most productive society on Earth at that time. But his followers loved one another. They loved one another, and they were guided by G-d to love G-d and love His messenger and love one another. They were guided by Muhammad to practice love for one another, put it into practice, praise be to Allah.
G-d says, "And we revealed it upon his heart." It didn't come to his brain. In another place, G-d said, "If He had revealed it upon a mountain, the mountain would have crumbled into sand or dust." It would have been broken up into small particles, crumbled to become granular, stones and all, if it had been revealed upon a mountain. But He revealed it upon his heart because his heart was humane. His heart was obedient to G-d.
His heart was like the human heart, a muscle that's working 24 hours a day, never takes rest. Why is it working? To see that the blood life or the life of the body called the blood. Scripture says that. In the Bible it says, "And the blood is the life of the body." The blood of life is working to see that every member, all parts of the body receive life and get the chance to live.
Now, if we have a man like that heart devoted to the welfare and wellbeing of humanity at large, of all people, to see that they all get the food of life, get the chance to have life and live healthier, be healthy and strong, wouldn't that be a wonderful situation? Well, Christians believe they got that situation, and they believe the messenger, Prophet Jesus, is that heart. I want to tell you that we got that situation, Muhammad, Ibn Abdullah, G-d's servant and messenger, our prophet of the Quran, of Islam, he is that heart in the whole of humanity.
G-d says of him that he is Rahmatin Al Amin- He's a mercy for all the worlds. Rahmatin Al Amin, a mercy for all the worlds. In the conclusion of this first part of my khutbah, our khutbah, Imam W. Deen Mohammed's khutbah, my imam's khutbah, in this portion of the khutbah, I want to say to you that you are obligated when you say you are Muslim to be a follower of Muhammad because history doesn't have that language before Muhammad.
No matter what we say, history does not have that language before Muhammad the Prophet, peace be upon him. So, you are obligated when you say you are Muslim, you are obligated to be a follower of Muhammad the Prophet. He was the one that introduced to the world that name, Muslim. He was the one that introduced to the world, Islam, in spirit and in practice. If he is made by G-d to be a mercy to all people, a mercy to all the world, then we who call ourselves Muslims, we are obligated, too, to study the Quran, study the way Prophet Muhammad lived Islam, lived the Quran so that we also can be mercies to all the worlds.
Mercy came from the followers of Muhammad the prophet when they developed the sciences, revived the sciences, gave the world again mathematics, astronomy, business science, medicine, et cetera. When they did that, they gave the world what the world could take and relieve burden and misery on people, on societies, mercy to all the worlds. Wake up. Too late for you to be sleeping, man. It's terrible for you all to be acting crazy and dozing and nodding, and its noonday. And work is everywhere, and you're saying you have to sell drugs.
You need to come to Islam again. You stumbled and fell on your face and knocked yourself out on a stone. Wake up and come to Islam again. Allahu Akbar. In my conclusion, G-d says, and the Bible says it, too, that He shall make everything new, that He shall make a new heaven and a new Earth. Allah tells it in the Quran, "And the whole sky will be rolled back as if it was nothing but a scroll."
You're looking for paper up there? That ain't going to never happen. But the sky is being rolled back as if it's nothing but a scroll. I see a new heaven and a new Earth coming. I see the light flowing from the throne and running down into the low places and filling every nook and crevice with light. I see the whole Earth illuminating. Praise be to Allah. We ask Allah to guide us always. For if He had not guided us, we would never have found guidance.
We ask Allah to purify our intentions and to not let our hearts deviate, go wrong after He have guided us aright. Give us good in this world, our Lord, and in the next and save us from the punishment of the fires of sin. Ameen. (Audience-Allahu Akbar)
Bismillah ar Rahma nir Raheem. Praise be to G-d, in His name. We ask His assistance. We ask His forgiveness, and we ask His mercy. We witness that He alone is worthy of worship as our G-d. For it is Allah alone who created us and everything and made all the things we enjoy, even our own creativity, our own ability to think creatively and produce wonderful things that we enjoy, like the computer and whatever.
It is G-d that made all of that possible, designed us so it was His will that we should have the computer and all these other things that He has created us with intelligence and skills and the tools to produce. There is no G-d worthy of our worship, except that one, the Creator of everything, highly glorified is He, and we will not worship any but Him. We will not associate anymore in worship with Allah, the Creator anything, anything, no person, no object in creation.
Only Allah is our G-d, our Lord, our Creator, our Nourisher, our Protector, our Guide. Praise be to Allah. The wonderful Prophet in the Quran when he was replying to Pharaoh who wanted him to be Pharaoh's servant and give up this idea of obeying this G-d of yours, the prophet replied and said, "The one who created me will guide me." He refused to accept Pharaoh's advice for his life. He said, "The one who created me will also guide me. Kalaka Fasawwa-Qadara Fahada-He created, and then He gave symmetry and balance. And then He inspired it with creative powers, inspired the soul with creative powers. And then he gave the guidance to be followed. Wonderful, wonderful. Let us keep our focus. If we lose the awareness that G-d invites us to be believers, Muslims, so that we will have life in our own community, we'll lose everything. Allah most high, He says, Antum, "You," speaking to all of us, "You are the best of societies. Evolved for the good of all people." That's what Allah says.
He tells us, Stay away from the things that devaluate you." Stay away from the things that devaluate you, that take away from you, your value that G-d wants for you not only as individuals and families, but wants for you as a society. Stay away from those things that devaluate you and bear patiently what betides you. Don't lose patience with Allah, for Allah's promise is always coming. Allah says to Muhammad, he says, "If my servant asks of me, tell them I am near."
Surely, you are the granter. Surely, you are the granter. We ask you that you grant us good and excellence in this world and good and excellence in the next and save us from the hellfires, the fires of sin. Amen.
Announcement:
Be sure to join us next time for the national public broadcast of W. Deen Mohammed, Muslim American Society leader. For more on the Ministry of Imam Mohammed, call 1-708-798-6653, or write Post Office Box 1061, Calumet City, Illinois, 60409. For Muslim Journal, see your local distributor. And thanks for listening.



