MM/DD/YYYY
IWDM Study Library
Abraham and the Four Birds

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
We greet our Honorable radio audience today with the greetings of all the Prophets from Abraham to Muhammad, the greeting of Peace and the Qur'an in the Arabic language, Asalaam Alaikum.
And Allah says travel throughout the Earth and see what has become to be the end of those before you. See how He rotates the Earth. And He is the one who causes night and day. He makes them to pursue each other. The day pursues the night, and then He causes the night to pursue the day. He causes them to take over each other, the night takes over the day and the day takes over the night. He revolves the rule as He so wills. That's wonderful. How wonderful it is for those who understand. That's life and death. Death and life.
And again, Allah says "There's a sign that you take your rest, also by day. Dr. Charles Williams once told me, he said, "In our profession," he said, "We're supposed to take a midday rest." He said, "Actually, we should do this, and when we don't do it," he said, "We're actually not going along with our own profession. We're breaking the rule of our own profession." He said, "Because your performance weakens as the hours go along. You can perform so well for so long, and at a certain point, your performance begins to weaken. They advise that we take a midday rest to recuperate."
So Allah says "See there's a sign in the rest that you take in the midday. Yes, there's a sign. The sign is this: That we need to rest our minds sometimes. The rest you take in the night is not always restful. In fact, the night is not looked upon as a time to rest our mind, the night is looked at as a time to rest our bodies. But we also need a time to rest our minds.
And again, Allah gives us the beautiful statute or disposition of Abraham, the Prophet, May Peace and Blessing be on him, where he questions G-d, but he apologizes at the same time for questioning Him. He said, "G-d, tell me how the dead will be resurrected, not that I have any doubt in me, but for my heart's sake, will you tell me how the dead are resurrected?" G-d told him, He said, "Take four birds or take four portions of birds, and put a portion on each mountain, it can be one bird or it can be a portion of bird, and put a portion on each mountain, but first train them. When you call them, they will come to you." That was the reply that G-d gave Abraham to explain to him how the dead will be re-raised.
Can it be any clearer? Can it be any clearer? No. It can't be any clearer, because this is the revelation, the opening. Revelation means revealing something, not closing something off. What kind of revelation is that if it's closing? That's not revealing. Revealing is opening up, not closing. A seal is not a revelation. A seal is a secret. It's not a revelation, a revelation is opening up.
Prophet Muhammad, May Peace and the Blessings be upon him, is known more for his title of Messenger, than for his title of Prophet. He is a Messenger of G-d. When he wrote letters to rulers who headed the empires, the oppressive empires, telling them to let the people be free to worship G-d, and that if they did, they would have no worry from him. He wished them peace when they opened his letter "In the Name of G-d, The Gracious, The Merciful."
When he wrote the letter, he signed the letter, Muhammad, the Messenger of G-d. When we take our declaration of faith, we say, "La Ilaha Il Allah", the Lord is but one G-d, Allah. "Muhammadan Rasulullah" Muhammad is the Messenger of G-d." Why is this so important? G-d did not send only men to prophesize and tell the troubles that's coming or the good that is coming. G-d sent men as Messengers.
This world now claims to be giving us the freedom of religion. Where's his message? If it's giving us religion, what is the message? The Prophet didn't just come to Prophesize bad times and to Prophesize good times or to Prophesize punishment for sin or tell you G-d will punish you for sin. Prophets came with a message. The message is supposed to be guidance, instructions, direction for life on Earth, that will get us in heaven if we were dead. What have they done with the Messengers of G-d? They shed their blood from G-d's Messengers. They killed his Messengers without any right or justice. That's what Allah says in the Qur'an.
We know that in truth, they killed none of them, but they returned to Allah. And Allah continues the process. They do not hold up a thing. Everything happens according to the will of Allah. He says, "Speak not of my servants being dead, for they are alive, but you understand it not." And again, He says, "Neither did they crucify Jesus nor kill him. They didn't crucify him and they didn't kill him." Peace be upon Prophet Jesus. He said, "But it was made to appear as such to them, that they had crucified and had killed him. It was made to appear as such to them." It was made as a sign. Those who misinterpret, they came up with that answer, that he was crucified and actually crucified and actually killed. But Allah says, "No, rather he was raised up to Allah." Allah raised Jesus up to Him.
Then Allah says again to us in the Qur'an, He says, "A good word is like a good tree, it is raised up to G-d, it is lifted up to G-d, as a tree is raised toward the heavens." G-d raised him up in honor, G-d raised him up in honor. The world had cast him down in dishonor with its lies, and Allah raised him up in honor against their efforts and against their lies. Actually, the crucifixion and killing of him should not be seen in the crucifixion and killing of a mortal being, a mortal person, a flesh and blood person. It should be seen in the crucifixion and killing of his mission, his message, his word.
They did not achieve that, but G-d lifted him up to Himself, honored him and established him, and not only him, but his followers, over the others, over those who had persecuted him to the day of judgment. That's what Allan says in His Holy Book. Even now, with the religious people of the world being strong and having great influence, a small group of Jews even, have great power and influence, but we find that most of them are under that power of the Christian world. Europe and America. It seems that some of them get no power except that they come in under the influence or under the power of the Christian Western world.
Let us look at the symbol of birds. He says, "Put birds or portions of birds on four hills. Train them and put them on four hills." What are birds symbolic of? For those who study mythology, or study literature and its deep meaning, we understand a bird can mean the spirit. The spirit, but not just any spirit, it's a spirit that wants to go somewhere. It's desire to go in the spirit of man, that's the bird, it's desire to go in the spirit of man, desire to move and be free to move about, to go low or to go high, to go near or to go far. There is a desire in the soul and the spirit of man to move about. The bird does not like being confined to a small area or small places. Birds want a broad area. Even the simplest bird wants a lot of space.
He said, "Train." G-d told him to train birds. What is the great message, what is the great meaning for us there? Train people who want something. Train people who don't want to be confined. Train people who don't want to be limited in their aspirations, but want to be free to pursue the different horizons, that don't want to be pulled down, but want to get up and go, and don't want to be held up, but want to be able to light down when they want to. Find people who want to be free in their souls. Again, the liberator, the civilizer, the liberator.
Our trouble is that we are held up by people that don't want nothing. The aspiring soul of the African American man is held up by the great multitudes of his race that don't want to go anywhere. We have to stop talking to them and start looking very carefully and selecting those among us that have a longing in their heads that want to go somewhere and have a desire in their hearts to be more than just common trash or common seed people for abuses. We have to find those with aspirations to be something better than just the common run of the mill people or the everyday people that have no place to go but to their everyday same. No goal, no future target, no sense of direction for the whole, just a sense of direction for the self.
We need to get away from those people. We need to stop wasting our time with them and start selecting those people who have free souls and want to be free in their souls to go to the limits that G-d created them for. Now Abraham received great advice from G-d. No wonder our order is built after his. It makes all the sense in the world. He said, "Train them and put them on four hills." We've never seen an air mountain. An air mountain doesn't exist. A mountain is solid mass, a solid mass, rising up from a broad base to a narrow perspective, to an assigned point. Hmm? Yeah. To teach these people how to get up off the ground materially. The mountain done got up off the ground by material progression. To teach these people how to get up off the ground materially, don't change their nature, let them stay spiritual. Let them keep that desire to rise high spiritually, but teach them how to also amass wealth and structure material society, and get better vision on the whole plane of things. That makes a whole lot of sense.
He says, "Teach them, and when you call them, they'll come to you. They may die." He's telling him how to resurrect the dead. He said, "Train them and when you call them, they'll come," meaning that once you've given the person the natural basic understanding of life, and have established them in that light and that knowledge and have let their spirit be free, you didn't change their spirit, you didn't imprison their spirit, you left their spirit free. To leave my spirit free is to leave me with the authority to question you because my spirit will urge me to question my teacher.
So if you free the people's spirit and then teach them how to structure their life in a practical and rational way, they may die, they may die to ignorance one day, they may die to their wealth, they may die even to immorality, but if you train them that way, it's going to be in their nature, in their genes. If you ever call them back to the training you gave them, you will see a resurrection. Yes. Is there any proof of that? Yes. The Arabs had become enslaved by their concept of the world. Their concept, their perception of the external world had enslaved them. They thought that they were the masters of knowledge, and they were fools.
Abraham had once been in Arab land and had built a house that had stood in the desert of their own land, the Kabah. They had died. The proof that the things that G-d told Abraham would work is that Prophet Muhammad came back with the right kind of rational teaching and the right kind of spiritual teaching, and those dead of Abraham's descendants rose up and became the new leaders of the world. Now put that in a snuff pipe. Praise be to Allah.
I can't thank Allah enough. My soul is just so happy. Standing on the great wisdom, the specific and powerful wisdom that G-d has given us in this Qur'an through Muhammad the Prophet, may Peace be upon him. It's enough for us and for all generations to come for as long as the world survives. Our call is to the word of G-d and His Prophet.
G-d says, "As a sign of the resurrection, is a town neglected. The roofs of its buildings had started to cave in and fall in. There was a town. One comes to that town and restores that town and had brought resurrection to that town." There are many kinds of death and resurrection, many kinds of death and resurrection, and the most important death to the Muslim is that death to the appeal or call of the wicked world. That's the glorious death of the Muslim. Allah says, "Die that you may live." Hmm?
The worst possible death for us is a death in sin, to die under the weight and pressure and influences of sin. That's the worst death. But we know that in order to progress as a people on Earth against the strategy and the war and strategies of Satan, we must have mental with moral strength. That's why G-d says that He promised them, and He would give them a double portion of His Mercy. It is Merciful when G-d teaches us good morals. That's the Mercy on us. Some people pat themselves on the back for their own moral strength. Believers would never do that, no matter how virtuous I am, or how virtuous a believer is, the believer always thanks G-d because the believer knows that that strength is from G-d. Yes, the believer knows that and overcoming arrogance when his life is messy.
He's always humble in his life because he knows that his life is a strength of his virtues is because of his help from G-d. He has loved G-d. He has drawn near to G-d. He tells G-d that every time he covets. It is that kind of relationship that he has G-d that enables him to remain strong in his soul and in his spirit and in his morals. He knows that.
But G-d says that He will give him a double portion of His Mercy. What is the second portion of His mercy? Again, to give you more than just moral life, to give your community life. To me, people have moral life but they are miserable because the world's environment is so unrighteous, so wicked, so immoral, so insensitive, so cold. They have the righteousness but they're not happy because the world is oppressive. G-d says that He will give them a double portion of His Mercy.
Jesus came before Muhammad, just before Muhammad. Jesus came as a moral sign, more than anything else. He came as a moral sign, a sign of how the world is destroyed morally and how it is resurrected morally. That's his sign, that's his message more than anything else.
Prophet Muhammad came, not so much as a moral sign, there were moral issues there, the moral leaders there, but Prophet Muhammad came as a civilizer, as an educator, as a law giver.

