2001-05-11 
Jumuah Ephram Baha Ctr - Chicago IL 

Speaker 1:
This is the National Public Broadcast of W. Deen Mohammed, Muslim American Society leader. The following khutbah, or sermon, was recorded Friday, May the 11th, the year of 2001, at the Ephraim Bajar Community Center in Chicago, Illinois. The katib, our teacher, is Imam W. Deen Mohammed.

W. Deen Mohammed:
[Arabic].

W. Deen Mohammed:
We praise Allah, we witness that he's One. And we witness that Muhammad, to whom the Quran was revealed more than 14 centuries ago, is his servant and his messenger. The prayers and the peace be upon him and what follows of that salutation. We ask Allah to forgive us our errors, our shortcomings, our sins. Have mercy on us and guide us.

W. Deen Mohammed:
It is written in the Quran that if G-d does not guide, you are not guided. Mankind cannot be guided except with the help of G-d. G-d has to guide the humanity. And for many, many generations, thousands of generations, mankind was in darkness. He didn't know his destiny, he didn't know that he was to be a civilized society, a human society distinguished from the animals, the apes, and wolves, dogs. He thought he was just another animal. That's what history tells us of primitive man, savage man.

W. Deen Mohammed:
And he lived like an animal, he copied the animals. He even worshiped animals, some animals were gods. And it took G-d to inspire him. And G-d told the angels, he say, "I'm creating a Khalifa in the earth." And the angels were not comfortable with that, they feared that there would be bloodshed if man would be given that kind of authority. That tells us that the situation was in the hands of the angels. G-d had left the situation in the hands of the angels to reward and punish, but now G-d is telling the angels that, "I'm going to make a creature that I can guide myself. I can guide, I will guide him, and he will have free will. He will be created in the way that would permit him to reject me or accept me." So the angels naturally were fearful of that. And G-d said, "Wait until I have given him of my spirit, then you make your submission to him."

W. Deen Mohammed:
And we know the complete story in the Quran of the creation of man. It's in the Quran for us to read, and I'm sure imams have made that clear to you, have given it to you from the Quran. My purpose in giving it to you, or in just slightly making some small references to it, is to say what I started out with, and that is, man cannot be guided except by G-d. If he is not guided by G-d, then he's going to disgrace himself. He'll disgrace the wonderful creature that G-d intended for him to be. He'll be a disgrace, he'll be shameful, yes.

W. Deen Mohammed:
And G-d says that he formed us in the bellies of our mothers, and we know we are formed in the womb of our mother, and we know that the stomach gets mighty big. G-d is speaking to us. Men see their wives growing. So G-d is saying to us... Well, we know that he forms us in the bellies of our mothers. And he says that he has put us in three covers of darkness. And he also says that he sent Muhammad the Prophet, a mercy to all the world, this is written, to take us out of the darkness into the light.

W. Deen Mohammed:
The Prophet Abraham, upon him be peace, he was searching, what am I to worship as a god? And the story goes that he was observing the outer world, the natural world, and he was attracted to the skies, those great objects up there moving in order and never seeming to change their disciplines. He was attracted to that, you see? And he watched and watched and watched, and he was disappointed with everything he saw, even the sun itself, which rose in the morning. He had set all night watching the skies, and it rose in its splendor and he had praised it, he glorified over it. But when it set, he said, "No, my G-d is not one to set," so he couldn't even accept the sun, the glorious sun. And he said, "The one behind all of this, the one who made all of this, that's the god."

W. Deen Mohammed:
And we are giving him, in the Quran and in Bible too, as the father, also, of all people. And the Quran has it, a leader, imam for all. And the Bible has it, father, father for all. Yes, and we know in Islam, he's also father, though he's called leader for all, because our prophet, peace be upon him, he addressed him, "Father, Father Ibrahim." So we know that he's a father also for us in Islam. He's our father, second father after our first natural father, Adam, peace be upon them.

W. Deen Mohammed:
So G-d is the one to guide. If we have no guidance from G-d, we have no guidance. And G-d also mentions in the Quran that he is the one who have given us not one path, but paths. It's in the plural, [Arabic], from [Arabic], one path. [Arabic], one path, the path of G-d. Then he gave us also [Arabic], that's paths, plural, paths.

W. Deen Mohammed:
Now, we can make many comments and many, I would say, guesses, what are the paths that he were referring to? Like when he said he made us in the bellies of our mothers, we have experience, we know what he's talking about. Well, if he say he has given us our paths, you should recognize your own path. Understand firstly, any path you take, you wouldn't have it, it wouldn't be possible for you if G-d hadn't made you the way you are and made the world the way it is.

W. Deen Mohammed:
Yes, but this is referring directly to us, specifically to the path of intelligence, the path of intelligent search. This is referring to the path of science, astronomy, chemistry. These are the paths that G-d have guided us to, and we wouldn't have these paths if it was not for G-d. How did we find them? We didn't find them in our dreams. No human being on this earth since it been in existence found mathematics in a dream. Or found chemistry in a dream, or found astronomy in a dream, or found economics in a dream. All of this is found by studying the environment that G-d made and using the tool of intelligence that he gave us when he created us. So now it's clear in my mind that what he means when he says he is the one who has guided all the prayer, for one says, We would not have guidance if you had not guided us." And again, you are the one who gave us our path.

W. Deen Mohammed:
But G-d wants us to appreciate all of these paths, but not make none of these paths the most important path. And understand that when G-d says he gave us these paths, G-d means these paths will lead to him. If you have the right heart and spirit and mind, a state of soul, mathematics will lead you to G-d, astronomy will lead you to the G-d, chemistry will lead you to G-d. Many scientists were not G-d-worshiping people, but science, their studies of science, their experiments as a scientist, brought them to be faithful to G-d. They understood that there's a G-d behind that.

W. Deen Mohammed:
This is wonderful. Yes, this is what Islam does for us that other religions that... As I know them, maybe there's a religion I don't know about or something in some of these religions I don't know. But to my knowledge, let me put it that way. To my knowledge, no other religion gives us this kind of clear understanding of our creation and our place in this creation, our job in this creation as human beings, what are to do, how are we to live, and who are we to give our worship to? None of these religions gives it as clear as the Quran, as Muhammad the Prophet teachings, and as our own intelligence, when we apply our intelligence to the study of the Quran and Muhammad.

W. Deen Mohammed:
We really don't need anything but that. We ourselves can begin as atheists, not believing in a G-d. We can begin as a communist, not believing in the G-d of Islam. And even as a Christian or a Jew or a Buddhist, if we're sincere, if we study the Quran with no prejudice, prejudgments, opinions that's keeping us from giving it a fair shake. If we do that, we are going come to the conclusion that G-d is the one that created everything, and our purpose on this earth is to serve that G-d above everything else.

W. Deen Mohammed:
And in the conclusion of this part of this khutbah, G-d says what we sacrifice to him does not reach him. Your money, your blood of animals, and stuff that you sacrifice, he says does not reach him. What reaches him, he says, is your obedience. Your obedience reaches him. So he created us to obey. And that's how we serve him, we obey him, not give him money; the money is for us.

W. Deen Mohammed:
Praise be to Allah. So I conclude by saying, I thank Allah for the strange way that I was brought to Islam. I thank Allah because it has made it possible for not only us, but for any people who want to come to Islam, in a very excellent way, to have that opportunity. If whites are converted by our dawa, they are fortunate. They could be converted by somebody else's dawa. Allahu akbar. [Arabic].

W. Deen Mohammed:
We praise G-d, Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alamin, the Lord sustainer of all the worlds. And we witness that Muhammad, to whom the Quran, it was revealed, is his last prophet, the seal of the prophet, his servant and his messenger, and a mercy to all mankind. We praise G-d, we associate none in worship with him. We put his word and his guidance over all guidance. We question all light by his light, under his light, and his light.

W. Deen Mohammed:
And we want to be the best community, we want nothing less than that. And Allah says that he has made us the best community. You are the best community evolved for mankind. Raised up, evolved, it means brought out. [Arabic] means brought out. And didn't Moses bring people out of the world of Egypt, the world of darkness? He brought them out. And our prophet is called, in the Quran, a man like Moses, sent to bring us out of the darkness into the light, but he cannot do that except that we accept to be purified. So let us love purification, let us love clean language, let us love intelligent speech.

W. Deen Mohammed:
Intelligence purifies the tongue. Yes, the savage tongue was very dirty, but with education, his tongue got cleaner and cleaner. So Islam is also the highest education and it will bring us to the highest form of civilization, and we should desire to be our best, not halfway. Don't want to be half your best, always want to be your best. It doesn't mean you're going to be your best, but you're going to be in a situation to do better with it if you want your best than you would be if you just want half of your best.

W. Deen Mohammed:
I see so many children doing their homework, going to school, and they're making half efforts. If those same children would shoot for the whole effort, they could bring their grades up. Islam does not invite us to be less than what Allah has created us to be. And Allah has created us to be the model human that Muhammad was. He is the model, he is the perfected man. He is the perfected man, the Arabs calls him, among their theologians or their learned people, the [Arabic]. And Imam, they call him, [Arabic], it means complete man. And Allah chose him because he was the complete man. Yes.

W. Deen Mohammed:
Now, I look at my past life and I see my brother here too. I look at our past life, we never went after less than our best. We were influenced to do that. We were taught by my father, by the nature of Islam, to do your best. Do your best, and that's what we did. And if we hadn't, we wouldn't be as successful as we are now. Yes, yes, so know that this is Islam too. We think just praying five times a day, that's Islam. That's sleep if you don't have the light.

W. Deen Mohammed:
Yes. What did Muhammad say to the man that they brought to him, special man? Peace and blessings be upon our prophet. They say, "This man, we want to present him to you. He prays and he fasts, he does all the things." Muhammad the Prophet said, "And who takes care of him?" They said, "We do." He said, "Then you are better than he." Now, I'm sure that came as a big surprise to some of them who were feeling bad because they didn't make all their prayers, feeling bad because they didn't fast every day in Ramadan, or every year. They were feeling bad, so they lifting this angel up, they lifted him up, and the Prophet says, "You are better than he is," because you're taking care of him.

W. Deen Mohammed:
Now let us pray, that's enough.

Speaker 1:



