01/00/1998
IWDM Study Library 
Goodness and Purity
Chicago, IL

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
The Lord Sustainer of the Worlds, Raabil Al Amin. the Lord Keeper, Cherisher Sustainer of all the worlds. We witness that He's one and one alone and has no partner, no assistant with Him and the rule of the heavens and the earth. And we witness that Muhammad to whom the Qur'an was revealed 1400 centuries and 18 years ago is the last of the Prophets, the seal of the Prophets mentioned in the Old Testament and in the new, in the Torah and in the Injeel as one coming to lift the bonds of slavery off the people, to take the bonds of slavery off the people and remove the heavy burdens that weighed down their backs, the yolks of slavery that weighed down their backs. This is what Allah says to us in the Qur'an of Muhammad, that he is the one given to them, to the people before who followed scripture in the Torah and in the gospel called the Injeel.
We witness that he is the Messenger of G-d and the model person for all persons who believe in G-d and the last day. Our G-d says of him in Qur'an, he is enough, sufficient for all people. He's sufficient as a model for all people, "Kaf al In Nas"-He's sufficient for all people. And G-d says of him that "Any who believes in G-d and the last day, they will find in him the most excellent model" "Uswah Hasana" for whoever "Aman Bilahi Ahkira" for any who believes in G-d and believes in the last day. Today, on this Jumu'ah the most blessed day in the year, more blessed than the Eid Al Adha and the Eid of Ramadan. According to the teachings of our Prophet, the Jumu'ah is the most blessed day in the year. It's more blessed than any Eid, any holiday.
On this blessed day, we want to talk about the need to have purity and goodness in order to receive G-d's blessings. G-d's blessings of Mercy and Mercy, the greatest Mercy that He gives us. And G-d promises us Mercy in two measures. And that's to fulfill prophecy too. Because in the Old Testament it is mentioned that He will give the people who will serve Him a double portion of His mercy. They will give mercy in two measures. And that is fulfilled only when the Qur'an came. It was not fulfilled before. It was fulfilled only when the Qur'an came that the people received the double portion of the mercy of G-d. And the whole world changed to be more humane, more accommodating for the human life that we want, that good human life that all of us want. The world was never as suitable for the human life as it was when Muhammad came with the Qur'an and brought about the change.
And the world has remained, has progressed ever since that to be more and more suitable for human life. Before it was up and down and mostly under tyrants, enslavers, those who enslaved humanity before the Qur'an. Qur'an came and it already has broken the bands of slavery and it has taken the heavy yolks off the people and they give other ideologies the credit. But those ideologies, only were established after the Qur'an came and the Qur'an was established first, then those ideologies were established following the light that Allah gave in the Qur'an, Allah's light that He gave for the world. And giving us the Qur'an, through Muhammad the Prophet prayers and the peace be upon him. Before going to the Qur'an, we want look at just the traditions of the people to see where the emphasis are. When we make our prayer, our ritual prayer, we have to make ablution first.
Cleanliness comes first. We have to clean ourselves first and make a wudhu. If we are not to in a state for wudhu to take care of the job by itself, we have to make ghusl. The bath, full bath, ghusl, the full bath and wudhu, to be clean. Then we pray to G-d, then we're in the state of cleanliness, we turn and we turn to G-d to give Him our complete life in devotion to him. That's what our prayer is, the rendering of our complete life in devotion to the G-d who created everything, who made everything in the sky and everything on earth, highly glorified is He. And there are some dua's that we say to remind us our need to be cleaned and clean. We say, "Oh Allah, separate me and all my shortcomings that you've separated the light from the darkness and clean me of all my defects as we wash white cloth clean with water and deliver me from all my sins as we rinse cloth clean and free of all stain with water."
So, this is evidence that in the rituals and traditions of the people, they are seeking cleanliness and purity. And all of it begins with purity in the mind. You first must be conscious and we call it a Niyyah. You must make your intentions for whatever you about to do. I'm about to make my ablution, so I make my intention. I say it, I have to be conscious of what I'm doing. I just can't go and do it as a habit. It's not habit, it's conscious habit. And that's the difference. Conscious habit remains good. Unconscious habit can go bad. So, we make our intentions for our wudhu. And when we are making the Salat, we make our intentions for that. We say, I'm going to make the Salat and we have to even state the one we are going to make. Make intentions for Salat the Fajr prayer two rakats sunnah, means following the way of Muhammad the Prophet. And then after that we do two rakats fard for the morning prayer, as obligated as we are obligated to do by G-d.
And if there's any other prayer like the noon, Zuhr prayer, the Asr prayer, we say the four, we continue, we say for, four rakats Zuhr, four rakats Asr, whatever it is. Three rakats at Mahgrib, at the sunset prayer, four rakats at Eshaa, the late, the night prayer. We have to make intention we say that. So, all of this is telling us that our religion has been ordered to bring us to the purest state, the cleanest and purest state of existence as a human being. It's designed to do that.
We say, "Oh G-d, make me of those who keep up prayers and bring for my offsprings one who will keep up prayers", you see? So, this is not, this is a habit life for us. This is a conscious life for us. And this is a life that takes care of the need now and in the future. We pray for our present generation and we pray for our offsprings, that our offspring remain, our children, our grandchildren and grandchildren that come from them. That they all remain in the path of G-d and that they follow the way of Al-Islam, that they keep up prayer. And if we keep up prayer, we have salvation. The prayer is our salvation. Yes, but if we leave off prayers, we lose everything and Allah says G-d almighty, highly glorified is He.
He said, "Never did people fall until they first forgot their prayers." They neglected their prayers. They broke that tradition. They went off from that way of following prayers, the way of prayer. You see? So, we know that. And G-d says that He does not want for us hardship, but He want that we be purified. He does not want for us hardship. Is that a loving G-d? He knows that to get up in the morning early and do this is hard on the body.
The human body can't think. A human body can only respond. It can't think. So, if it could think it'll get up with us so happy. We feel so good in the morning, but it can't think so we have to think for it. And it's going be said, "Hey, I don't want to get up." And G-d knows it's going to be hard on us. So, G-d says He does not want for us hardship, but He want that we be purified. When we meet the challenge, when we accept the hard thing that's in the way of the obligation, when we accept to do that hard thing, it makes us stronger to do the hard thing. So, G-d really is so wise that even the difficulty that He permits us to experience is also a training so that we will have better fitness for the whole life and the road ahead.
Yes. So actually, it's a fitness program, and what athlete dreads the fitness program? He goes into it with a good spirit. He loves it. It hurts and it pains but he loves it. I met a gentleman at one of the youth facilities. We were invited to go visit the youth facility to talk to the youth. It was a good experience. The brothers, African-American brothers doing a wonderful job. They're in charge of administration at the facility here in Chicago. And big facility too size of it made you feel real bad. Need a facility this big that mean a lot of our children are lost. Yeah. Lost.
Anyway, he was telling me how fit he was and he said feel, and I felt it felt just like I was feeling this mic or something iron, something steel, that's how it felt. He said feel it, just like iron. Not plastic, iron. Not wood, iron. That's just how it felt like it was iron up under his jacket, coat. And he said the first thing I say, I tell these youngsters when they look like they want threaten me or something. He said, I tell them that before you do this, I want to let you know there's a side of me that I hate to see myself.
And he went on to tell us how he was in professional football and everything and how he loves fitness. The man loves fitness, but it gives you pain. And that's how we should love to do what Allah wants us to do. No matter how hard it is or how much pain it gives us, we should love it as a fitness program. Because that's what it is. If you obey it it's a fitness program for you. And that brings up the month of Ramadan, which is coming very soon. In a few days. The month of Ramadan is a fitness program. It's a fitness program.
Every year, once a year we come into the month of Ramadan. And what is it for? To purify us. It is to aid the program of purification. It's one of the biggest elements in the program of purification for Muslims. And that month we abstain from food and drink or taking anything into our bodies or enjoying the biological life, the physical life or the biological life. Physiology. We don't indulge in sex during the day hours with our wives. We don't even get romantic or sexual with them during the daytime. It's a total discipline or discipline for the total person.
The Bible has hints of this too. The Bible says if you look at sin with your eyes, your eye have already committed the sin. So, any part of you that you give to sin makes that part guilty of sin. So, in Islam we have to give our whole life to the devotion so that the whole life gets the benefit. So, we are not to be thinking about sex. If you do that, you violated it. Well I didn't. No, I didn't have any sex. But I was thinking about it all day long. Well, you broke it all day long. All day long you would break it. So, you don't do that. You have to discipline. And that's what make you a superman. I say superman because the people under the world are weaklings. The people under G-d, they're strong.
And the measure between them and us that will give ourself in service to G-d is a difference between an ordinary person and a super person. Yes. It makes us Superman and Superwomen. Sister, you sisters do devote yourself to this religion as Allah has revealed that you become Superwomen. Oh, they don't have just super male heroes. They have super female heroes too. Super. Yeah. So, the religion is ordered to purify us and if we become purified, then we are fit to be servants of G-d. And G-d want all of us to be His servant, not just Prophets and Messengers. He says, "Ya Ibadulah", speaking to all human beings.
"Ya Ibadulah", speaking to all human beings, "Oh you servants of G-d. Praise be to Allah. He wants that we should be purified. And the one who's promised that we mentioned in the beginning of this kutbah. The one who's promised Muhammad, the seal of the Prophet, the last of Prophets. He is a liberator coming to liberate the people. But, to liberate them, he has to purify them. Yes. Say you are sent to purify them. And those terms that are used lets us know that it is both physical purification and a non-physical purification. It's purification of the physical person and also the non-physical person. You'll say spirit. All right, I'll say spirit. Purification of both the body and the spirit. The material life and the spiritual life. And if we understand this religion, we study it as scholars, we come to understand that every structure or pillar are essential serving as the basis of our religion is really a purification.
Shahada is a purification. To witness that G-d is one. Moralistic purity. It is a purification. Salat is a purification. Salat burns out all impurities. It's more powerful than any wudhu. Wudhu is first, but the salat is what burns out all impurities. It's that Fuller soap. And that fire that's promised, the fire that purifies that's promised in the gospel. Yeah, that's what it is. Yes. So, it burns out all impurities. And the zakaat is a purifier. It is a purifier. Says "Oh Messenger of G-d, take from them, for charity to purify them." To purify them. And then we know fasting is a purification. It is a purification. That's what it's for. It is to increase the purity of our spirit.
Of our spirit. Yes. Spirit is an unconscious force. It's an unconscious force. And nevertheless, it survived consciousness. If it will give itself to G-d, it survives consciousness to bring the mind back to G-d. Spiritual direction. If you keep the right spiritual direction, your mind will stray off the path of G-d, but if you keep the right spiritual direction, if your intention is to serve G-d with your whole life, that brings your spirit to G-d. Your spirit will eventually bring your mind right there. You'll begin to feel so bad. You'll say, I know what's wrong with me. I have neglected my prayers. I've forgotten the importance of prayer. So, you'll come back to your senses. Because of the spirit that's in you. The spirit to serve G-d. Praise be to Allah, so that they should be purified. And lastly, the Hajj.
The Hajj is very difficult. It's not easy. It's very difficult. And believe me, it's a purifier. It's a purifier to purify us. Our social conscience. To purify the social conscience. Take out all racism. Take out all gender-ism. Well, you think just because you're a male, you should have some power over women, some power to do your own thing with women. We don't do our own thing with anything because everything belongs to G-d. We ourselves included. Yes. We only trusted with this power we got. It's a trust given to us to see how we'll use it. How will we use it? Will we qualify for the great reward that G-d wants to give us for using it correctly? So, this is the life. And we've gone over many things here with this first part of the khutbah.
We've gone over many things. And the conclusion is that G-d wants us to be the best human being we can be. And that's the human being He created us to be. If we be that, we will be the human being He created us to be. Yes sir. So, we praise G-d always. We glorify Him above all that's in the skies and on earth. All that's in the heavens and on earth. And we associate none with Him in worship. We give Him praise and thanks for everything. And we give our lives and our children lives to our G-d. We direct them as we direct ourself. To believe in G-d. As the Prophet says, calling his sons to his bed, Jacob, "What will you worship after me other than G-d? They say, we will worship the G-d of you, you and your sons. The G-d of your forefathers. This is what they said to him. Yes. Thank you very much. And we praise G-d. Seek Him for mercy, for forgiveness and guidance always.
Takbir.
IWDM:
Allahu Akbar. We seek G-d for assistance. We turn to Him for forgiveness. We believe in Him and trust in Him and we do not separate from that faith of that obligation. And we witness that Muhammad is the last of the Prophets, his servant and his Messenger. The prayers and the peace be upon him. And what follows of that traditional recognition to Muhammad the Prophet.
Dear believers, G-d says to us in the Qur'an, "What you get as harm or evil, is from you and what you get of good is from G-d." How is that? Hollywood does its service in its own way. It thinks it's the Fuller soap. And TV soap operas, they think they're the Fuller soap, yeah. They bring out these movies and they make an actor, have an actor acting the devil, an actor acting G-d. And they give us some idea of G-d and give us some idea of the devil. A recent movie, The Devil's Advocate, has the devil trying to convince man that he should ignore G-d, and blaming G-d for the mess that the man is in.
But when the man saw the devil was getting him in a lot of problem and he wanted to charge the devil, then the devil said, "No, don't charge me. Charge yourself." That's what the devil, now you know where it comes from, from the Qur'an. But that's what the devil tells him in this movie. Said, "don't you remember, and I told you this and I told you that. Don't blame nobody but yourself for the trouble you in." But the devil was actually creating the trouble. But he did enough between the acts of evil, he did enough to clear himself. He says "Remember I told you, you should look after your wife, that you were neglecting your wife. That you should give her some attention? So, I told you. G-d is the author of righteousness and goodness.
He creates a world for human beings. That's another thing we have to understand. If you want to understand the whole scheme of life, if you want to understand this whole big creation, how it is affecting human beings, you have to understand that G-d created the whole thing for human beings. For the human being. Now, we know in theology, Islamic theology for want of a better term, the saints, they see Muhammad as that person that Allah created this whole universe for. Muhammad. But Muhammad there is just a type. He represents the highest level of human development possible for human beings. That's what he represents. So, in that respect, he represents the best of Wallace.
WD Mohammed at his best. He represents you. The brother here or any of you. That's right at your best. That's what he represents. That's why the set of Jesus Christ in New Testament, Jesus Christ said to him, said, "I in you and you and me." Jesus Christ was telling them, whatever I'm talking about, you have it too. And it came in the Qur'an in different words, to make it even more clear, said to them, yes, I am a human mortal just like you. I'm a human mortal, just like you. So, his human nature, our human creation is no different than yours. The only difference is that G-d blessed him with the perfect creation that labeled him to get the maximum innovation for his human life or for his humanity. His humanity was elevated to the maximum degree that's possible for any human being. So, no human being can go higher than Muhammad in human excellence.
You might say, well, if I was Muhammad, I wouldn't have had all those wives he had. Well, you couldn't prove yourself to be better than him then. Cause some of us, we have one wife and that's enough. That one wife takes us to hell. And I don't mean she was wrong. I don't mean she was wrong. One wife takes us to hell. Yeah. We indulged in her in the relationship and take us to go right to hell with one wife. Now if you say, oh, he had all those wives, I could be better than that. I could have one. No, you can't. And it ain't necessary. Once G-d has presented a man to us, like Muhammad, not necessary for another man to prove the same thing. So that's why the numbers are reduced to four. Don't compete. It's over. The competition is ending. G-d has established what He wanted to establish. That man can carry flesh and yet be obedient to his Lord. Yes, Praise be to Allah.
So, Allah says, "Whatever is good, you got a good, it's from G-d. And whatever you got of evil, our sin is from yourselves, it's from yourselves. And He has created us to resist sin. He has created us to resist corruption. Now, we don't use our power to do that to the maximum we ought to blame for falling victim to sin and corruption. See how clear that is? Yes. So, this is not an accomplishment that's just for saints, our spirits who go up in the sky and never come back home.
This is an accomplishment for any human being who will devote his whole life to G-d and live not for himself first, but for his G-d first. That's the answer. Live for your G-d first. Whatever you do should be a service to your G-d. If you kiss your wife, it should be a service to your G-d. The companions asked the Prophet after he had told them, you get a blessing, reward, a blessing for having sex, with your mate. That puzzled them. And he intentionally wanted to puzzle them. He wanted to puzzle them, to get them to think seriously about it.
They said, well, how is that we get a blessing for having sex with our wife? He said, well, if you had it outside of a marriage, wouldn't it be a sin? Wouldn't you get a punishment for it? So, if I kiss my wife with the human decency and don't get animal or insane animal, decent animal is not even crazy like we are, so, you have to make a distinction when you're talking about animal. And don't, don't become a rabid animal or an insane animal, then my decency was a service to G-d because G-d created me to be that way. And anytime I be the way G-d created me to be, I'm serving G-d.
If we relate with our children in a decent way, accepting responsibility as adults, and giving them the best guidance. We're serving Allah. The doctor, we've been told this by the learned in this religion, the doctors who administer medicine or cares for the sick. He's serving Allah. The businessman who presents a good product on the shelf and he took interest in the welfare, the welfare and the health and wellbeing of the people before he packaged that thing, he packaged it so he knows it's going to be good, not harmful. He's serving Allah. All goodness comes from Allah. Allah is the source of all purity and goodness. This is before and with the Qur'an. The message before Qur'an and the message with the Qur'an, that Allah, G-d is the source of all purity and goodness. That's right.
Allah says lastly in this khutbah. Muhammad says of Allah, pardon me. Muhammad says of Allah. He said, surely G-d is good and does not accept anything but good. And G-d says in the Qur'an, see, that's how you verify hadith. If you know. Now, many times we don't know where's the likeness of this hadith in the Qur'an. Where is this hadith the reflection of something in Qur'an. Where is the source of it? None of us can't refine the source for everything. But the source, many sources for this saying that G-d is good and except nothing but good. G-d says, "Do not mix into your charity that that you would be ashamed to acknowledge the source, where you got it from, if you were asked. Somebody said, "Hey,where that money come from? And you are ashamed to tell them where it came from. G-d says, "Do not mix it into charity. 'Cause charity is a purifier. And you put corruption there.? Don't put corruption into the purity. You see, G-d does not accept anything but good. "Indalaha Kayrun".
Surely G-d is good. All good. And does not accept G-d is good and does not accept anything but good. There are many people who are not bad and really, in their motivations, they're good. And they would do a bad thing and share it with G-d. "Oh, this will help the orphanage home. I'm going to give part of this money I got from drugs to this orphanage home." And you mean good, you mean well. So G-d has to purify even our reasoning. And that's why He has revealed that. To help purify our reasoning. So we earn more rewards. And the greatest rewards are yet to be seen. I thank Allah I'm living in this great day and time. We are living in a great day and time. Never has there been a day like this on earth since earth was created.
No. Not even a day of the greatest Prophets. No. Never have a day been like this. And all Prophets pointed to the future. All Prophets pointed to the future. Muhammad, he pointed to the future. He did. He told them, you look at this, you think you got great, a lot here? You think you know a lot? You wait. The future is coming. Because what G-d gave him was like a great seed in the Earth, and it's going to take root, and bear fruit, and it's going to spread, and fill the whole world with charity, and goodness, and opportunity to labor, and earn rewards. Wonderful. Thank you very much. So, let's prepare our spirits for Ramadan and give ourselves in devotion totally in devotion to Allah at all times. And I pray Allah give all of us a very rewarding Ramadan and a blessed Ramadan. Allahu Akbar



