09/24/1999
IWDM Study Library 
Khutbah at Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Bismillah Ar Rahma, Nir Raheem. La ilaha Il Allah Wa Sharika llahu-There is No G-d but G-d, there is no partner with Him in the rule of the Heavens and the Earth. Nothing comes to Him except as a servant. He is G-d alone and we worship Him and worship Him only and associate nothing with Him in worship as a G-d. We witness that Muhammad, to whom the Qur'an was revealed, is the Seal of the Prophets mentioned in the Qur'an as one coming to teach the religion, teach the Book the Qur'an, and One coming to break all bonds of servitude.
That we have no slaves to any, except to G-d. In the Qur'an we are told that he is the Prophet, the Messenger of G-d, the Prophet, the Seal of the Prophets, the last of the Prophets and the Messenger of G-d and that he is the One mentioned in the Torah and in the Injeel, meaning the Revelation that came to the People before we call Jews and the one mentioned in the Revelations that came to the People we call Christians. So, this message of Islam is no new message. It is a continuation, and a completion, and a perfection. It is not a new religion.
It corrects what had been made incorrect and left with the people in an incorrect form. And it continues that progression and is a completion and a perfection. We're told in the Qur'an that the Qur'an contains the Books in their corrected form. Books that have been made correct and perfect, elevated Books in their best form as G-d intended them to come to mankind. To believe in Islam is not to reject any of the previous servants of G-d. We believe in all of them. Allah says in Qur'an "Say" We believe in them, and we believe in all of them, and we do not make distinctions", saying one is legitimate and the other one is not legitimate.
But we accept all the Messengers of G-d, all the Prophets of G-d, Moses and Jesus and all of them. Peace be upon them. A Muslim is the best follower of Muhammad, and the best follower of Muhammad is the best follower also of the other Prophets. The best follower of Muhammad the Prophet is also the best follower of Moses, the best follower of Muhammad, the follower, the Prophet is also the best follower of Jesus Christ. Peace be upon them.
So, we shouldn't think of ourselves as being in some kind of enemy situation with the People of the Book. No. We should be the best follower of those Prophets claimed by the People of the Book. And knowing that we are a continuation and that we are supposed to be living the best life of the Believer in G-d with faith in all Prophets and in the Books that they brought, we should be thinking of them as people that we should want to embrace in their goodness, in their righteousness, in their desire to contribute to the good future of people or mankind.
We should be thinking of ourselves as people who want to embrace them. In all of their goodness. When I became the leader of this community long, very long ago, many years ago now, an Egyptian brother from the Ulema of Egypt came and he told me, "I just came to see for myself and to see you and to ask you questions" and he did. He said, "We are satisfied that the community, The Nation of Islam has good leadership and we pray for your protection and, for your future". And he said, Remember to me, he said, "Remember the good Muslim doesn't look for something to tear down, but he looks for something to build upon". That was my position. When he said those words to me, it just made me stronger in my position. That was my position, that we should look for something to build upon, not something to tear down. Not that we are not going to tear down something if it's in the way or worship of correct worship. If something is in the way of correct worship, we have to get it out of the way.
It has to be toppled, it has to be dismantled, it has to be gotten out of the way, by whatever method or whatever means that is necessary to do that. If it's in the way of correct worship, we have to get it out of the way. But that shouldn't be our spirit. Our spirit shouldn't be to look for something wrong, to look for something bad. Our spirit should be to look for something good.
The Prophet Muhammad, Saala Alahi Wa Salaam, the Prayers and Peace be upon him, he was a man always looking for something to approve, not to disapprove. He was a man always looking for something in an individual to approve, not to disapprove, always looking for something in the people in the society to approve, not to disapprove. But, if anything stood in the way of correct worship, he had to address that and make the situation as it should be. G-d is G-d and G-d is good. This is what Muhammad said. He said, "Surely G-d is good. And G-d does not accept what is not good." G-d is good and does not accept what is not good. G-d is good and does not accept, only accepts what is good. G-d is good and does not accept anything other than good.
We know that. But G-d is also Merciful and Forgiving, Merciful and Forgiving. So Merciful and Forgiving that He says His wrath extends out and comes upon whomsoever He will. But His Mercy extends further than His wrath. His Mercy exceeds His wrath. G-d is a good G-d. G-d is a loving G-d. G-d is a Merciful G-d. And G-d says to us in Suratul Baqarah, says "Surely G-d wants, does not want hardship for you. But some things require hardship, requires that we accept hardship. When we make the hajj. We have to be prepared to accept some hardship. When we fast Ramadan, we have to be prepared to accept some hardship.
When we try to establish a good Muslim life in a bad environment where there is plenty haram, liquors and drugs, killing, the loss of respect for human life. When we are in a situation like that and we are trying to establish our Islamic life as G-d wants it, if there is hardship, there's going to be plenty hardship. But G-d does not want the hardship for us. G-d wants ease for us. And G-d says, "Ina Al Masri Usra" "Surely by accepting the difficulty that you must accept to have the good life, will come the ease".
And we know how difficult it was for us to live this religion 50 years ago or to attempt to live this religion 50, 60 years ago. I know how difficult it was.
But look how better the situation has become because some were willing to endure and accept the hardship, accept the difficulties in their life, and stick with G-d and stick with the Qur'an, stick with Muhammad as our leader and as a result of us accepting the hardship for the sake of one day having the good, now look at us today. We have it relatively very easy in this country, living most as Muslims. It Is relatively easy for us when we consider how difficult it was for us to be even say we were Muslims in this country 50, 60 years ago.
My message to you today in this khutbah is take it easy. Don't kill yourselves and wear yourselves out for nothing. You don't have to do that anymore. Take it easy. Be kind to each other. Respect each other. Love each other. Be as Muhammad the Prophet taught us to be. Be as the Qur'an, as Allah instruct us in the Qur'an to be and consider that even your enemy sometimes can be won over by kindness. Don't think that every enemy has to be met with hatred or has to be met with violence or met with a plan to kill him or undo him or defeat him. Sometimes the situation require that you use intelligence, diplomacy and look for in your enemy to see if there's some good in your enemy, find some good even in your enemy and maybe you can build on that good. Maybe there you can embrace him in that good. Even your enemy. And what does G-d say? "Sometimes kindness can change an enemy, an avowed enemy into an awesome friend".
The trouble with the Civil Rights movement people, those who were radicals in that day, and they still are in spirit of the radical and the time has changed, the season has changed, the circumstances have changed. The problem with them is that they can't get out of that old mold.
They still have to think that the enemy is there, and the war is still on. And they miss all the good opportunities to better their life and prepare for the future of their children better. We don't want to be Muslims fixed in that old mold of the past when we looked at the world as enemy and everything as enemy and felt ourselves alone with no help except our belief. That's not the case anymore. You know that's not the case anymore. So let us recognize changed circumstances and let us thank Allah because it is the Mercy of Allah. It is Allah's reward to us that has given us this better situation for our life in America. Let us take advantage of it and advance ourselves. And remember that life for us is like life is for everything. Everywhere there is life, life is existing in some kind of environment that supports it.
The life of a Muslim is his faith, his taqwa, his goodness, his consciousness, his for G-d's sake, that's taqwqa, your consciousness for G-d's pleasure, for G-d's sake. That's your taqwa, and it's his faith, his Iman. His faith in G-d and faith in those things that G-d has established for us to have faith in. Including life after the death, resurrection more correctly, the resurrection after the death. All of these things, that's our faith. But we need support for that. That doesn't exist without support.
G-d didn't make a human being without a flesh body. G-d made a human being, he gave us a flesh body to receive the faith, to receive taqwa in this flesh body. And this flesh body is the means for us to communicate what G-d has given us what is more valuable as a life to us than this life of this flesh body. But nevertheless, this flesh body has been given us to us as a means for communicating what is more precious, what is more valuable to each other and to the world. How can we communicate our faith if we don't have this flesh body, this tongue to speak, this mouth to speak, this flesh body that G-d has made a servant of the higher cause, of the higher life. That's what Muhammad said, Sa Ala Alahi Wa Salaam. That this body is a willing servant. It's a Muslim. G-d has given us a body that's a Muslim by nature.
We may not accept to supervise it and it goes astray because of our own appetites going astray. But as long as we will accept to go right, the body is there to serve us, and the body will show that it dislikes us going wrong. You tell a lie, sometime the body will begin to sweat and it's cool in the room. So, the body is telling you, I don't like your lying. You're causing stress, you're making me stressful. Yes. So, we know Muhammad said the body is a natural Muslim and then you investigate it and think about it and study it, you find that it's true. There's evidence that the body likes to do right and not to do wrong. The body, the human body. Even when we eat too much and get fat like I, too heavy like I am, the body long ago told me that's enough, but no, my eyes said it's not enough.
I want more. And the body say, well you were my master. G-d didn't make me your master. G-d made you my master. Master eat some more, if that's what you have to do. Yes. So, the body is a Muslim and the body is our container and the body is means for us to express ourself, the higher life inside to confess that life and communicate that. Take that life outwardly so my mother can hear me speak from through my means, my body, my father, my children, my loved ones all can hear me speak. And if I am trying to preach Islam, I preach it with this instrument and this instrument makes it possible for me to convey the message of Islam to the audience or to the person.
So, respect the body and take good care of the body. The Muslim keeps his body clean every day, cleans his body, be prepared for five-day prayers with a clean body. We know this is Islam, this is the way of the Prophet. He taught us these things. Cleanliness is next to G-dliness the Christians say, and the Prophet has taught us that purity, purifying oneself is half of the faith, half of your faith.
Shakaru Iman- Purity, purifying himself. And we know also that Muslim, after the order of Abraham, also respects the rational life of the person. So, we want to be intelligent all the time. We want to behave intelligently, and we want to strengthen our rational life and our rational behavior with the logic that G-d gives us in the Qur'an and in Muhammad's life. We don't want to use this world's logic cause because this world's logic is subject to be exploited by wrongdoers. And you can rationalize anything completely off of its original basis. Yes, you can rationalize anything off of its original basis.
Didn't the Satan come with rationalization? He told the man, Adam, the man that G-d had made, the first man, our Father, he said, that "This is good for you and this will open your eyes. This will give you sight that you don't have. This will make you like angels and like gods if you eat of this fruit, of this tree. So, he said, no, you won't really die, but your eyes will come open".
So, this is rationalizing, right? So, this rationalizing the position and G-d's instruction, rationalizing it, took it off of its original basis and out of its original purity and permitted the man to do something, made him weak for it and he did it. He errored and did the wrong thing. So, we can take anything, and we rationalize it. We need community life. We are people of faith. We are people of taqwa. This is the more precious life. We are people living for G-d's pleasure and living for the future when all of this is concluded. That's the more valuable destiny. But we cannot have any of this if we don't take care of ourselves in the whole picture of self. You can't just take care of yourself in the spiritual picture. You have to take care of yourself also in the physical picture. You can't take care of your community in the spiritual picture.
You have to also take care of your community in the material picture. And when you accept to do this, you are living your religion completely. You are accepting the whole religion, Islam, when you do that. And you will gain respect from your family, from your parents, from your wife, from your husband, from your children. The children, if they accept this, they'll be loved and respected more by their parents. And your neighbor whose not Muslim will love and respect you more and the country will open up more opportunity to you when they see that you are caring for the whole life in the whole picture. That's why G-d says to us, "That you are community, and you are the best of communities brought up or evolved for the good of all people". So, we ask Allah to complete for us our faith, make our faith whole for us as He did for Abraham and Muhammad, the Prophet, the model man for all people, the Mercy to all the world. Ameen.
Bismilah Ar Rahma Nir Raheem. Ashadu An La Ilaha Ilalah Wa La Sharika Lahu. Wa Ashadu Ana Muhammadan Abduhu Rasulala Sa Ala Alahi Wa Salaam. Dear beloved Muslim believers. We ask Allah to keep us in the faith, to give us His protection, to guide us and keep safe for us the guidance. Don't let us lose the guidance. Don't let us error and lose the guidance. To keep our interest whole for the whole of the religion and not just part of it, a facet of it, but the whole gem with all of its beautiful packet. That He keep us receiving the whole of the religion and caring for the religion in its entirety and living it fully in society so that we will be what He ask us to be.
And that is a witness for all people, a witness for mankind. Our life in society should be such a beautiful model of how human beings are to live in society, how G-d wants human beings to live in society. That it be a testimony and a witness for all other societies. That they'll look at it, say that society is the best. We believe that society is what G-d wants for mankind. We should be a witness for all people in how we live life in society or as we live life in society, we should be a witness to all people saying to them, this is what G-d wants for humanity in society on this earth.
And we know we are told "And the Prophet is a witness for us". Muhammad, the Prophet, Prayers and Peace be upon him, is a witness for us. If we go astray from his Sunnah, if we stray from his Uswah, if we stray from his leadership, his Seerah, if we stray from his way, then he's a witness against us because he left a perfect record. And if we stray from G-d's invitation to establish a community of Muslims with Islamic life, then the Prophet is a witness against us. But if we establish it, we are witness for G-d to humanity that this is what G-d wants. Wanted for the Christians, for the Jews. This is what G-d wanted for the Christians. This is G-d's community on this Earth.
I'm determined to work for that until I die and I believe we are making progress. And Insha Allah will see it before we are dead and back to the earth. Insha Allah we will see it. And all of us should work for it wherever we are in this town, Tuskegee, Alabama, in Chicago where I am, the town that I live in near Chicago, Atlanta, Georgia, wherever we are, we should be working to not only have Islam in the abstract picture, we should also be working to have Islam in the concrete picture. And we ask G-d to not let our heart deviate after he guided us right.
This is a wonderful day. The best day for us after our fasting the month Ramadan. It is the day of victory. Victory for having completed our fast. It is a victory for even those who are sick and couldn't take the fast, who wanted to fast. It is a victory also for them. It is a victory for all the Muslims of the whole world who are with us in fasting Ramadan and are sharing this Eid all over the world and sharing this spirit. One Ummah. G-d says " Ummatul kun Ummatun Wahida Wa Arabicu Wahidun". This, your community is One United Community, and I am your Lord, So worship only me. And G-d says also of this wonderful community, G-d says, "You are the best of societies evolved or brought out of darkness. The darkness of sin, the darkness of ignorance, the darkness of corruption, the darkness of division, fighting each other as the Arabs were divided on tribal lines and on boundary lines and they were not united as a social unit. And it was Islam who united the Arab and made them a social community and went on to unite the whole world of Muslims.
Numbering now over one billion maybe and a half all over this world, unite all of us into one community. We should celebrate always this wonderful community that G-d has given us. G-d has not made us Muslims to live separate. G-d has not made us Muslims to think separately. G-d has not made us Muslims to feel separately. We should be together. We should think together. We should feel together to feel the sufferings of Muslims all over the world no matter where they are. In the Middle East, in Kashmir, in Chechnya, all over the world. Wherever they are, wherever we are, we should feel each other if we are one body. That's what Prophet Muhammad says, Sa ala Alahi Wa Salaam. He said, "We are like the body of the human being. If one part is affected the whole body is made miserable. And that's the way we should be.
If any single member of the Ummah is suffering, we all feel that suffering. And we should respond as though we are one body feeling misery in it. If it needs an aspirin, we should want an aspirin for whoever's having the problem. If it needs whatever it is.... If it needs a doctor, we should find a doctor for whoever's having a problem. If it needs us to just come there and say, I'm your brother. I love you. In your suffering. know that you have a brother. We should do that. So let us be One Ummah One beautiful Ummah. This Ummah wants from us what's excellent. Muhammed is the most excellent of human beings and he's a model for all of us and not only for Muslims. Muhammed, Sa Ala Alahi Wa Salaam is a model for anyone who believes in G-d and the last day.
That's what G-d said to us in the Qur'an. And Muhammed is an excellent model for anyone who believes in G-d in the last day, and in the last day. That means anyone believes in G-d and believes in being accountable to that G-d. That what they do, they have to answer for it. To the G-d. That could be a Christian, that could be a Jew. The People of the Book, Muhammad is an excellent model for them too. And believe me, when we study history, the history of Islam from the earliest days till now, we can see the great contribution that the message of the Qur'an and the Uswah of Muhammad have made to the civilizations of the world. These civilizations would not be as they are.
We would not have the excellence of morals and the excellence of intellect and respect for the human intellect and respect for the sciences, had not all of that been regenerated and inspired by the Qur'an and the great leadership of the greatest human being ever created, Muhammad, Sa Ala Alahi Wa Salaam, and his wonderful Companions who followed him in his way and brought us to where we are today.
There is a book out, I would like to mention it today to you, is by Professor Basu. And this book is, he says its title is about Umar and how to see opposition in Islam. But the book is really about the great Muhammad the Prophet in his Uswah, in his model, human form and nature for us. And it's about the great Companions of the Prophet who followed him in the excellence of Islam. That's what it's about. And it challenges us, says we modern Muslims, what are we doing, to stand up like those early followers did to the evils of the world, to challenge the world of evil, to help relieve suffering humanity.
They said, what are we doing? They had nothing. They fought with swords, with knives. They were not equipped as the great empires were equipped, but they were victorious, and they didn't fight selfishly, they fought for humanities' sake, as G-d dictated it, as G-d dictated it. G-d says, "And fight them until there's no more persecution". Some of us stop right there. We stop at fight them, fight them until there's no more persecution. And religion is free for G-d. And religion is free for G-d. That's why we fight. So, Muslims should be in the forefront of the fight for religious freedom, religious freedom, respect for other religions, The People of the Book. We should be in the forefront, and we should be in the forefront of the fight for humanity, human rights for all people on this earth. And I think we are coming there. We have great revivers, we have great Professors who are writing books, who are working hard.
And I think pretty soon, this is not only a millennium, a jubilee for the Christian world. We have a revival going on and it's been going on for 60 years or more with the great scholar of Pakistan, Maulana Maldudi, and many others in Egypt and all around everywhere we have had revivers. We are living in a time of revival for the Islamic Ummah, for the Muslim Ummah. So, we celebrate too a great jubilee. And who knows what this 2000 years is going to do? Who knows? I think you know what I feel in my heart, Insha Allah, Insha Allah, Insha Allah.
Dear beloved Believers, we pray to G-d that He keep us in the faith always, that He strengthen us with our brothers and sisters who are strong in the faith, and that we welcome the support of our brothers and sisters who are strong in the faith. Whether we are the Imam or the school teacher, the Professor or the King or the President, we hope that we will open our hearts and appreciate the support of our brothers and sisters of faith, because it is our brothers and sisters of faith who will keep us alive as Muslims. If we will hear them and respond to them and respect them. No matter how big we are in our positions, or no matter how big we are in wealth, let us listen to the heart and minds and souls of those people who are pure at heart and strong in the faith so we can keep this Ummah as it should be, the most excellent society created for the good of all people.
So, we ask Allah to forgive us our sins, our mistakes, our faults to reward us for our efforts to please Him. And He has certainly rewarded all of those who sincerely kept their fast or sincerely wanted to keep that fast. You have already gotten great rewards and those rewards will continue throughout the year. And we look forward always to the next day when the Muslims can come together in unity, loving each other as brothers and sisters, loving Muhammad, the model of human beings for us all, and loving the Qur'an above all Books, above all knowledge and keeping in mind that we are one Ummah.


