10/05/2007
IWDM Study Library
Jumuah Ramadan Session

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed

Muslim brothers and sisters, peace be unto to you, as salaamu alaikum! Ramadan Mubarak! (Arabic call to prayer)

(Arabic) We praise G-d and we salute the last prophet, our prophet, Muhammed, the peace and the prayers and the peace upon him and what follows of that traditional salute our salutation. We thank Allah for this day, the best day, according to the saying of our Prophet Muhammed, the best day in the year. Jumuah Day. And he said on this day, Adam was created and no one is resurrected except on the pattern of Adam or 60 arm spans referring to the social life of mankind. He created the female but he created the female after he created the male. He created Adam first from one self or from one soul, (Arabic), one self or one soul. And He created from it or made from it, its mate, his mate, Adam's mate the female, and spread from those two, all the men and women on earth. This is the saying of G-d in the Qur'an.

Now, when we gather on this day of Jumuah, it is translated in the Qur'an in English language by Yusuf Abdullah as the day of assembly, the day of assembly. So, the word comes from the verb (Arabic-jamma), which means to collect together, to come together or to assemble, come together or to assemble for a special purpose. In the case of the Jumuah, it's for a special purpose, it's to worship G-d. To worship Allah and obey, Allah and His messenger. It's for us to come together, not just to pray. Some of us put more importance on salat (prayer). We say let's go make the salatul Jumuah. You do more than make salatul Jumuah. You also hear a khutbah (Arabic meaning lecture). And if you don't hear a khutbah,, you didn't go to salatul Jumuah. You have to have the Jumuah khutbah, and then salat, Jumuah khutbah and then salat. And I've heard some of the learned ones, not in our community, but in the international community of Muslims say, I heard one say that, you know when you attend the Jumuah prayer you only say two raka's (sections)at the time of the noon day, at the time of (Arabic), instead of four, you're only obligated to say two.

And he said, this particular learned brother and pious brother, he said, and I was within the hearing of his voice, he said, that should tell us that the teaching is as important as at least half of the prayer for the midday, the noon day, the noon time, or right after noon.

The khutbah is very important and I'm saying that with the follow up. Our prophet, Muhammed, prayers and peace be on him, he is the model for mankind, the model person, the model leader, the model human being for mankind. And Allah says of him, reference to this particular statement I've made, Allah says of him that "You are an excellent model for any who believed in G-d", didn't say for Muslims, didn't say for Jews and Christians and Muslims. (He) said for any. That goes beyond Jews and Christians and Muslims too. He says, you are an excellent model for any who believe in G-d and the last day. Belief in G-d is not enough. Belief in G-d, and as the prophet said, (Arabic) "say, I have believed and thereafter be upright." (Arabic) So just to believe in G-d is not enough, but believe in G-d and be upright, have good deeds as the Bible says, or as the Christian say, believe and present good deeds.

Yet so it says believe and be upright. So, when Allah says any who believe in G-d and the Last Day, those who believe in the Last Day, they conduct themselves on this earth with respect for G-d's judgment. The Last Day means G-d's going to judge all of us. He's going to tell all the truth, going to bring justice to everything, all of us everywhere. That's G-d, highly praised is He. So, our model Muhammed the Prophet is our model. He's our prophet and our model, our prophet, you're supposed to say our prophet. You never should say our messenger. If you do, you're ignorant or you're making a big violation. He's not our messenger. He's G-d's messenger. We didn't send him, he's G-d's messenger, but he's our prophet. He's our prophet. What is that saying to us brothers? It is saying to us, Muhammed is the model for all human beings and he's the prophet of those who accept him as the messenger of G-d. For them he's their prophet, but he's also by reasoning, he is the prophet for all mankind. All mankind, they should one day, I don't know if that happen, I doubt it. For Allah said He made us different and He made us with the privilege to be different. So, we will differ and G-d says in His holy book, the Qur'an, that they will differ. They will differ. That's what G-d said. So, people are going to differ. And Muhammed the prophet, when he saw, G-d blessed him to see those in heaven, showed him the heavens, and he saw the followers of Moses and Jesus and his own followers in that picture that G-d showed him, upon him be peace and upon the prophets be peace. So that tells us that we should never expect that everybody on the earth is going to believe the same, but we should just work to extend goodness as much as we can do it. That is don't give up, promote goodness always and hope that people will conform but don't expect them all because G-d says if He had wanted them to be all the same, He would've made them. So, He gives them the freedom. G-d gives His human creation freedom. Would G-d create human being or a creature to think on his own and then not permit him to do that? Think about that.

I'm going read now from Surah 52 of the Qur'an, At-Tur. G-d says, "Now await in patience the command of your Lord for verily you are in our eyes." For verily you are in our eyes. This is directed to the prophet himself, but it includes all of us. G-d is aware of all of us and He sees all of us all the time. "And celebrate the praises of your Lord, the while you stand forth." I'm giving you the translation in English that is in the Qur'an, translated by Abdullah Yusuf. The one that we have, the one we recommend. Although you can read any one that you like, but that's the one we recommend.

Celebrate the praises of your Lord, the while you stand forth. Standing. That's what we want to put in our minds, focus our mind on right now. Standing Every prayer began with standing, with standing. And we are given the signal when to stand and the signal says, now for sure is the time to stand for prayer, (Arabic) means for sure right now, (Arabic) is the standing time to stand for prayer. As we stand for prayer, and in that position, we praise G-d. We say (Arabic) In that position, we praise G-d. That is the beginning of our utterance when we make the stand. (Arabic) In fact some you don't hear that many. In fact, the majority you don't hear them say this is they say (Arabic) in their heart. They began the recital with (Arabic) and in the sayings of the prophet, he says that expression holds up the sky, that expression holds up the sky, (Arabic).

It holds up the sky. And then when you're standing, your stature or your form is as high as it can be. We don't pray tippy toe, except for you stand on your tippy toes, you are standing as high as you can because you're supposed to stand erect in prayer. Erect, not bent over, not slouched, stand erect. That's the (Arabic) And we praise G-d and we praise G-d in that position. That's the highest position of man, the standing position. And when he's standing, he feels his power. When he's standing, he feels his power. And when he stands, he can feel his dignity. When he feels his dignity, he wants to stand like this. He stands erect, straight up.

So, this is the position that you take that can get you in trouble if you are not praising G-d. So, in that position, the first thing you say (Arabic), while you stand forth and the Judgment Day, will you sit for judgment or will you stand for judgment? We stand for judgment. The Judgment Day is called the day of standing. There's another name for it. The Day of Standing, the Judgment Day. I want you to recall again the English translation for this Jumuah prayer, salatul Jumuah Day is the day of assembly, the day of assembly. And that's what we do. We assemble and we call it the Jumuah prayer. It means the prayer done by the collective group, by the group, the members altogether.

Now I want to, before concluding the first part of this khutbah, I want to come to another focus. Let us now change the focus from man standing in his standing position to the prophet, Muhammed, (Arabic) still as our model, as a model for us. And this time we want to speak of our prophet in connection with what G-d says in the chapter of the Qur'an called the City, the City, Al Balad, and verse, two of that surah, of that chapter. And I want to read to you also from Yusuf Abdullah's note on that verse. The note number is 61 31.

But first the verse. (Arabic) Allah says of Muhammed the prophet, "And you are a free man of this city". And you are a free, F-R-E-E, man of this city. Let's see in the notes what Muhammed , pardon me, Abdullah Yusuf Ali says about this. He says, the word for free man is, (Arabic). But when you read it, you have to say (Arabic) the next pronunciation changes. It's the rule of Qur'anic reading, follow the Islamic reading rule, is (Arabic) says B, the letter B follows, you have to say with the M sound instead the N, (Arabic).You are a free man in this city, he translates it. Now, in these times that we are living in and especially as influenced by democracy in America, many of our Muslim scholars and teachers, they don't want us to say free man and they say it does not say free man. But Abdullah Yusuf Ali is no ignorant translator. He's well respected in Mecca and in Egypt, all the powerful Islamic centers of knowledge, he's well respected. So, if he says free man, let's see why he said free man.

He says it means that the prophet Muhammed is an inhabitant. G-d is saying that he's inhabitant of that town. He's an inhabitant, a man with lawful rights, a man free from such obligations as would attach to a stranger to the city. A free man, in a wider sense than the technical sense to which the word is restricted in modern usage. The prophet should have been honored in his native city. He was actually being persecuted. He should have been loved as a parent, loves a child. Actually, his life was being sought and those who believed in him were under a ban. That is, they were under restrictions. They couldn't have the privileges that the other free citizens had.

They called the boycott. Some of you are familiar with it. But time was to show that he was to come triumphant to his native city after having made Medina sacred by his life and work. Now a few comments on the commentary just given, the English commentary, just given the commentary of Abdullah Yusuf Ali. Few comments. We are free citizens in the United States. In what sense? Or by what reference are we free citizens of the United States? You have to go back to the legislature, you have to go back to the process of freedom in the United States, the growth and development of freedom for the people of the United States because when they first formed this language and Constitution for this nation, they said that we were free by virtue of the fact that all human beings are created the same or have the same common worth.

We all have our five senses, we all have our freedom to question things. We all have the same great brain that G-d gave only to humans, not to animals. And since we all have the same form, life form and the same brain, the founders or writers, or framers of the Constitution, the language for framing the Constitution, they established that all citizens are equal and are due the same rights accorded to anyone else. And those rights cannot be taken from us by political power or government. Those rights are inherent rights, meaning that they came with our form that G-d gave us. Is that clear?

I don't know. I hope it is. Yes. Just stay on the ground with me and stay rational like I am and everything will be all right. It'll be clear. Yes, yes. So, we are free citizens. That wasn't the freedom given to us in the wilds. That's freedom that they are talking about that is given to us and protected by the constitution of these United States and the good people. That freedom was not given to us in the wilds. It was given to us under a government body that was planning for our future generations to come. That's how it came to us. And it had been protected by the people through their legislature, through the legislature. It has been protected. So, when we say Muhammed the prophet, G-d said of him, he is a free man of this town.

We are saying it with respect for civilized order or civilized establishments, government. And the Meccans, though they were behaving not as civilized people, they had established laws long before the generation of Muhammed the prophet. Those laws had been established for the Arabs and they had social reform teachers before Muhammed the prophet, and they had gone far astray. I'm not talking about prophet Abraham, anybody, not prophets. They had social reform teachers who were not messengers or prophets of G-d, to help them come to some sense of social order, social order and government. And they were not behaving even with respect for their high leaders, those leaders, those guides, political guides that were before and social guides that were for them before or generations before the time of Muhammed the prophet. So, they had not only gone astray, they didn't know Abraham's way, that had been completely lost, but they had not only lost that, they had also lost the better teachings for social order and government that they had received in previous times, in previous times. So, this statement is not one that you can just hear and deal with nothing but words. In fact, I don't know any statement in the Qur'an that you can treat that way. You can't just read what is in the Qur'an and deal with it as though it's nothing but words. No, those words have a context, have a social context, a spiritual context, a social context, a political context. They have a context. They fit in a particular focus, a particular framework, and they also have a time context, a time framework and many and et cetera. That's not all to it. So don't think you can just read something in the Qur'an and now you're a PhD. And you want to question everybody based upon what you know. My Lord. You want to question based on what you know? You can't handle the Qur'an like that. Please, you can't. That's not the way to handle any respected book. If you give me a statement from any respected book, you have to respect the respect that that book requires of the reader. Same for the Qur'an. No different, even more so, because it's a sacred book, the words directly from G-d Himself.

The worst thing we can do is allow our prejudice as people who are not satisfied with Arabs, are not satisfied with American government. The worst thing we can do, and we have those two extremes. On the one extreme we have those who('ve) got prejudice against Arabs and you would like to do away with the tradition of Muhammed and make your own Islam. Then we have the other extreme where we have those who just hate to give credit to the United States of America, don't want to acknowledge the United States of America for the credit that it is due. We have that other extreme among us, African-Americans, and also outside. That extreme too, blinds your eye to the guidance of G-d in the Qur'an. You cannot expect to get the pure and clear message of G-d that is for us in the Qur'an, if you are going to have prejudices that are unjust. And with that, I conclude this first part of the khutbah, and may G-d forgive us our ignorance. Now you should have your hands up because you really need this du'a. May G-d forgive us our ignorance, and may He forgive us our suspicious minds and guide us to His mercy. Ameen. (Arabic) We praise G-d in His name always. We begin our endeavor and we praise Him and we salute Muhammed his servant and messenger, our prophet, the last of seal of the prophets. Upon him be the prayers and the peace and what follows in the traditional salute or of that traditional salute. In the concluding the khutbah for today, we started with the (Arabic), standing and now I will conclude it with (Arabic). We stand and after we, I would say, clear ourselves before our Lord, in that position, we bow down to (Arabic). (Arabic) is a position as you know, where we place our hands at our knees, at our knees, bowing in the bowing position and we say glory for my Lord, the Mightiest, three times.

And when we stand up again before we have to stand up again, before going down to (Arabic), to the floor. We say, (Arabic), G-d hears whoever praises him. It didn't say the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims. It says whoever praises Him, G-d hears whoever praises Him. And actually, it is saying G-d has heard, already heard whoever praised Him. If you did it half a second ago, He heard it. If you did it a million years ago, He heard it. Okay, (Arabic). And while in that position, bowing, we say (Arabic) glorify is for my Lord, the Mighty. When the man standing in this standing position, expressing his pride, his power or might or whatever, he has to repent that.

So, when you put your hand on your knees, what you use when you were a little baby before you became a toddler walking, you put your hands on the kneecap and you say, glorify is for my Lord, the Mightiest. I'm not mighty. I have achieved a great power and a great nation. I'm a leader or commander of the armed forces, the military of a great nation. But I have awakened and I repent my wrong and I confess that you brought me up from my knees. You are the Mighty, (Arabic). In concluding this second part of the khutbah on this best day of the year, Jumuah, salatul Jumuah. When we read the Qur'an and finish our reading, what do we say? (Arabic), again the mightiest. So, what does that indicate to us? What does that communicate to our senses, our intelligence, our brains, our mind, et cetera? What should it communicate to us as students, as learned men, as leaders? What should it communicate to us? That the Qur'an is all about breaking dictators and destroying the mighty who want to impose their will on mankind. And you should start with your little self, brother Imam, standing over the people. Repent and Allah will love you more and increase you in all that is valuable and beneficial for your life. Now and in the future, (Arabic). Ameen. (Arabic)



