02/06/1998
IWDM Study Library 
Salat-Al-Jumuah - Downtown Islamic Center - Chicago IL

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
The following Khutbah, or sermon in English, was recorded February 6th, 1998, at the downtown Islamic Center in Chicago, Illinois. The Khateeb, or teacher in English, is W. Deen Mohammed, Muslim American Spokesman.

La Ilaha Il Allah. Alhamduillah. Alhamduillahi Raabil Al Amin. Nastainahu Wa Nastafirahu Wa Mu'minun Bihi Az Wajal. Ashadu Ana Ilaha Il Allah. Wa Sharika Lahu. Ashadu Ana Muhammadan Rasul Allah.
Believers, we glorify G-d. We worship none but Him. We put our faith in Him, we trust Him. We do not separate from belief. And we witness that Muhammad is the Servant and Messenger of G-d, and the last of the Prophets, the Seal of the Prophets mentioned in the Qur'an, as the one also mentioned in the Torah and in the Gospel, the Injeel, as one who comes to purify the people and to relieve them of the yolks of slavery, the burdens that bend their backs down.
This Prophet Muhammad Sa Ala Alahi Wa Salaam, is given to us by G-d in the Qur'an as a Mercy to all the Worlds, a Mercy to all the Worlds. He is Rahmatan lil Alamin, a Mercy to all the Worlds. And he's also given to us by G-d in the Qur'an as the most excellent model for human beings to have. As a model of what the human being should be under G-d, or for his Creator. This Uswatan Hasnatan, most excellent model. Not just for Muslims, he's an excellent model for any who believe in G-d and believe in the last day. Who believe in G-d and believe in the Last day.
So, this Prophet is given to the whole world, not just to Muslims. We know everyone is created to be Muslim, but the conscious Muslims are only those who follow the guidance of G-d and the Qur'an. And as Muhammad the Prophet demonstrated, how the Qur'an should be followed. So, we follow the Qur'an, the word of G-d as Muhammad the Prophet, Sa alah Alahi Wa Salaam demonstrated that to us, then we are Muslims in the proper sense.
But this again, again I want to repeat that Muhammad is not only a model leader for those who know themselves to be Muslim. Muhammad is a model leader for any people who are sincere, believing in G-d and believing in judgment day, a day when they have to count before G-d for their life, how they lived their life in this world. So, Muhammad is a Mercy to all the Worlds. And the Qur'an itself is the Mercy. And Mohammed delivered to Qur'an to the World. And he and his model human constitution is a Mercy to all the Worlds. His Mercy is the message that he gives, and the life that he lived, the human life. The message and the human life is both a Mercy to us.
When I began to be seriously interested in the life of Muhammad the Prophet, I read books, but then I began to study him myself, on my own. I studied him in the Qur'an, what G-d says of him, I studied him in the context of Revelation, and in the history of Revelation how it unfolds. And I came to see that he is really the product, the finished product of the human being. G-d began making the human being with Adam. He made the natural man. And then Muhammad was presented to us as the finished product. Now here is the complete man. This is the complete man. And I believe in the Islamic studies, the learning people refer to him as that, the complete man. The perfect man and the complete man, he's both. The perfect man and the complete man.
And this Prophet is a teacher, he's an educator. And the miracle is that he himself was not educated. He was not educated. There were no schools in Saudi Arabia. It was an undeveloped place as far as enlightenment is concerned. And there were no colleges, no universities for him to attend. He's an uneducated man and he is selected by G-d because of his model excellence. He was having that model excellence before G-d made him a Messenger to the people, to the believers. He was already a model man. G-d says that he has already lived a lifetime among you. He's already lived a lifetime among you.
And the people who knew him, the pagans, the idolaters, and even the Hanafi people, those who did not worship idols, a few of them, companions of the Prophets and a few others. They all knew him before he received the message of G-d, called to be the Prophet, the Messenger. They knew him to be a man that was having Uswatan Hasana . Uswatin Hasana. So he had this Uswatin Hasnatin before even he was called to be Messenger. And to me, it's very logical that G-d would not call those who were leaning over to the left or the right or falling on their faces, but he would call the man that was levelheaded and upright to be his Messenger, his Mercy to all the world.
On this point, I would like to say that we should look to Muhammad the Prophet and to the leadership that he formed as the Messenger of G-d as a Mercy to all the worlds, to see how should we follow our leadership today. And we find that Muhammad the Prophet selected from different nationalities, and they were in his company, they were part of his... They were in his group, his special group of leaders to reach the others. So, we are living now in a country brothers, America. And this is a multinational country, multiethnic culture. This is a pluralistic country. And Muslims are here now from the different colors of man, and from the different nationalities and cultural backgrounds, etcetera.
I suggest for us, and I think this is your suggestion too, that no matter how small our leadership group is, for example, my ministry, I call it W. Deen Mohammed Ministry. And I did that because I wanted to be free from having any obligations to any other organization. So, I formed my own ministry. I didn't want to have people holding me back or interfering with the direction that I saw for Muslims. So rather than join people where I have to argue and have problems, I formed my own ministry. And yet work with other people. And yet work with other people and want to work with other people.
So, I formed my own ministry, and my ministry now does not have a white person in it, but Insha Allah, I'm looking for that European American, I'm looking for that white person. I want a white person in it. And Insha Allah, I will have an African and a white European, and I will have an Arab. I got an Arab already, he has agreed to join with me. I have an Arab and I have an Indian. I want it to be colorful. I want it to represent people, humanity.
And I think we should try to do this as much as possible. Even the business organizations that we have. If you're going to do big business, then have Muslims of different nationalities working with you. And this is not only the way for Islam to go, this is the way the world is going. The world is going like that. And it's time for Islam to step out ahead of the world, because Islam is the leader of the world, the world is not the leader of Islam.
Yes, our Prophet, if we study his way, we will see that today the world is shaping to receive Muhammad's way. The world is shaping itself to receive Muhammad's way. It's becoming a world that's thinking of itself as one community, world community, all people belonging to one community. The systems are beginning to respect the oneness of human family. And we are the people that should be in front of this. We are Muslims. We were told by G-d, Kana Nasa Ummatin Wahida, that the people are one people, mankind was created to be one community.
And we see now we are, the world is waking up, that mankind is one global community. And economics, politics and everything is being affected now by that reality. That mankind is intended to be one community. The Prophet in Medina, he was able to establish the community, the first community of Islam, the Ummah. He was able to establish that community. By the grace of G-d to him as the Mercy to all people, he was able to establish that community. And that community should be now our pattern model for our direction.
Muhammad the Prophet was the leader leading people in all healthy constructs of social, societal, community life. In all healthy constructs. Whatever is halal, we should embrace it. Whatever the community needs, the community of man needs, the Muslim leadership should be seeking ways to provide that, or to at least provide the guidance for that.
So, we can't be secular Muslims and we can't be spiritual Muslims without the whole life. We want to be Muslims whole. Whole Muslims, complete Muslims. To be complete Muslims, we have to look at community. That's where we are to go. G-d wants us to focus on community. G-d says of us, "Antum Khairu Ummatin, Ukrijal In Nas". If we are the best and most useful, it not only means the best in the moral sense, or the best in spiritual sense, it means the best in practical sense. We are the best also in the practical sense. G-d says, "And who have said to His servants, His devotees, that such and such of the goods that G-d provides is forbidden to them. Say no, these are for them and even more. In the Hereafter shall be exclusively for them". How wonderful G-d is, how glorious G-d is, how wonderful G-d is, and how wonderfully and miraculously He has guided the Ummah of Muhammad, the Ummah of the Muslim.
So let us be thoughtful of these things and all of us join our best leaders and focus on community. We no more should be just satisfied with building our own self up as pious people, pious people doing dhikrs and doing Salat, because if all we have to offer is dhikrs and Salat, G-d will say to us in the judgment what Muhammad said to those who only had that to offer. He said, "Is that all they do? Well, who take care of them, who provides their food, who provides their clothing, who provides shelter for them? Well, those people are better than they, better than those who just do dhikrs and Salat and fast and live a life of the pious people."
Piety is really doing your job in community life. And community begins with our families. Let us be men responsible for our households. And let us be men loving to do work that brings in lawful income. The Muslim, if he understands his religion, his religion makes him love work and love to perfect things, to make things excellent. Muhammad the Prophet says, Saala Alahi Wa Salaam, "The believer is the one who when he does the thing, he seeks to perfect it". He seeks to make it perfect. He wants to make it the best he possibly can. And this is the best spirit in the human being. We see our little children, some of them don't care about perfecting their work, but we'll notice one little child wants to do everything correct, not satisfied until it looks perfect and beautiful. That's the Islam. That's the spirit of Muslim that G-d put in him and is manifesting in him.
Dear brothers, we also should look at something else. Islam is for the generations to inherit. And this inheritance began with Muhammad's Ummah. So, aren't we the inheritors? If we are truly his followers of the ummah Muhammad? If we're inheritors of that, we don't want to see it put back just as it was then. We want to see it put back better than it was then. And this is something that we have to shake ourselves and wake up to. That we are not just to match what was done in the past, we are supposed to contribute to what was done in the past so that it is greater, bigger, greater, more beneficial, more useful. For all the good people. So don't look and say, "Oh, they had so many camels and they had so much wealth, and they did this with the wealth." Look at the world today and see how much we need to get to step out ahead of this world. We should be in front of this world. That's my spirit. And I love it.
We should devote ourselves to establishment. And we know that the Prophet's descendants, some want to purify. We are not going anywhere to be successful unless we accept to fight indecency in our lives, fight bad morals, fight ignorance, fight selfishness. We have to refine ourselves. We have to take charge of ourselves. The Muslim is one who's told that he should take responsibility for himself and then accept a share of the responsibility for the whole society. And unless we do this, we are not completing our job as Muslim. Accept responsibility for ourselves, our family, and then for the whole society, we have to accept the share and the responsibility for the good state and good future of the whole society.
And we know also that Muslims should be in the forefront of education. We shouldn't just be... I know we are behind. Colonial domination put us all behind. We are behind. But while we are trying to catch up, we should realize that our aim should not just be to catch up. Our aim should be to take the lead. And we have a few Muslims in the Islamic world who think this way. I know, I've met them. They think this way. And it's just a matter of time before the Muslim intellect and morality is going to be leading the whole world of civilized society. It's just a matter of time.
I call this the Day of Religion, not the Day of Judgment. I call this the day of religion. I know what's shaping up in the world because I'm busy mixing with the leaders. They call themselves the actors and the players. And I say to myself silently, "G-d says, We did not create this world for sport and play. You take this world for sport and play, but We were not playing when We created this world." So, when they call themselves actors and players, I recall what G-d says. That We were not playing when we created this great universe.
So let us be very serious brothers, and let us not be so stiff in our own opinions. And so stiff in our own form, cultural form, that we can't see the bigger picture. The bigger picture is not our opinions. The bigger picture is not how we are formed culturally. The bigger picture is the guidance of G-d for all of us. And Muhammad as the model leader for all people who believe in G-d and the last day. Alhamduilahi Raabil Al Amin.
We glorify G-d, we witness that He's one. We know that He created us for His service. G-d says that He didn't neither created men nor jinn except to be his servants. And I have talked with Christian preachers and ministers and the deacons in the churches, and I hear them speak with pride sometimes. They say they would rather be a servant at the door, a doorman in the kingdom of heaven, than to have the best job in the world. Now, I don't know if they practice that or not, but that's what they said to me.
I know that we, if we understand that Allah have made all of us, created all of us to be His servants, Muhammad is the Servant par excellence, but we are also servants of G-d. "Ya Ibada alah", that's how G-d refers to us. All people. "Ya Ibad", especially men. All servants of G-d, all workers for G-d. And G-d says, "And surely I'm a worker and I'm working in my place. You work also in your places.
So, this is not a call for people who want to be idle or want to be lazy or want to give up their responsibility. This is a call for those who want to accept their responsibility and want to make a contribution to the betterment of the whole human society. We pray to G-d and glorify Him. We ask Him to strengthen us in our faith. We ask Him to strengthen our faith and make us strong for Islam. Raabina Attina Fit Dunya Hasanatin. Wa Fil Ahkira Hasanatin Wa Kina Bal Hinar. Ameen
For more on the Ministry of W. Deen Mohammed, Muslim American Spokesman, call 1 708 798 6750, or write, Post Office Box 1061, Calumet City, Illinois, 60409.
For WDM publications, call 17088627733, or write, Post Office Box 1944, Calumet City, Illinois, 60409.
For Muslim Journal, see local distributor, and thanks for listening.


