October 20th 1977
Dawa and Youth
Imam WD Mohammed:

Let's quickly write the things. The first thing that Muslims believe, let's quickly write them. The Muslims believe first in Allah. Okay, number two, Messengers or Prophets. So let's put Prophets. And we know that Prophets are Messengers. Prophets are Messengers of Allah. Okay? Allah, Prophets. And three? Angels. Okay, angels and what else? Four. Now they might not come in this order, but we are going to put 'em like this. It's okay. In fact, I think we have 'em in the order that they come. Yeah, this order is good. Leave it like that. B-O-O-K-S, books. And five, life after death. Can you spell life? L-I-F-E. Life. Life. Can you spell after? A-F-T-E-R. Can you spell death? D-E-A-T-H.
Alright, life after death. And there's one more.Reward and punishment. R-E-W-A-R-D. Reward. And how do I show that? A-N-D, right? P-U-N- I-S-H-M-E-N-T. Right? Reward and punishment. Okay, now these are the among the first six things that Muslims are to believe. we believe Allah. There is no elah except Allah. No elah means nothing to pray to, nothing to pray to, nothing to fear as the G-d except Allah. Okay. Elah means that that we pray to. Christians pray like this and they pray sometimes just like this with the eyes closed and Muslims pray like that too sometimes with the eyes closed just like that. Christians pray like this sometimes. Muslims pray like this, right? Christians pray like this, but Muslims don't pray like this, right?
Okay, alright. Muslims pray like this, right? What do we mean when we pray like this? Yes. Give me strength, give me knowledge. Give me guidance. Give me love in my heart for my brothers and sisters, for my mommy and my daddy and my sisters and my brothers. Give me money when I can't get it and have no way to get it and need it. So everything that we need, if we can't get it by our own self, if we in desperate need, we ask Allah to help us. And maybe Allah will help us by helping us through somebody else, somebody on the job. Mommy, daddy, a good friend, a brother or sister. So Allah helps us through our loved ones and through strangers sometimes. Is that right? Alright. So Allah is the one we pray to, the one we obey and worship above everything else. And Allah is the only one who has power over all things. Allah is the only one who has power over all things. We have power over some things. There are material things that have power over something, but there is nothing that has power over all things except the one who made or created all things. And that is who? Allah.
La Ilaha IL Allah. No one to pray to accept Allah. Alright? Allah says in the Qur'an that I am the one who created from the beginning who started creation. He says that I am the G-d of your very earliest forefather. I am the G-d of your very earliest forefather. So Allah didn't just become our Allah. He didn't just become our G-d. He has been our G-d ever since creation was made. There has never been any time that Allah wasn't G-d. So we say things can't exist forever, something has to make it. But can anything make Allah? No.
Allah makes everything else. And there's this expression that means that things cannot exist by themselves. They have to have something to cause them to come into existence. And we know that life, food, all these things are brought into existence by something. By the sun, by the air, by water, by the elements in the earth, et cetera. So we know everything has to be started by something, even the earth. Can it come into existence by itself? Can the sun come into existence by itself? Something has to start it. Everybody that's got wisdom know that something has to start it.
But we say there is something that nothing started. That's Allah. That's Allah. If something starts Allah, then that thing would be the starter. And then something would have to start it. So we keep going back and keep going back. We should finally come to something that will exist alone before anything was started. Does that make good sense? Finally, we have to come to something that was existing alone before anything was started. And that's Allah. So we believe in Allah, we believe in His Prophets. We believe in His angels. How come we believe in His angels? Because the Prophets say that Allah told them to do this.
We say Allah and they said, "Who are you talking about? You're not talking about John, you're not talking about Mary. You're not talking about the teacher. Then who are you talking about?" The Prophet said "I'm talking about the one that created us and the sun, the moon and the stars." And the people say how in the world can you get a message from something like that? Say, who gave it to you? He said, Allah gave it. They said, how? We know how we speak to you Mr. Prophet. But how did Allah? You say the one that made the sun and the moon and everything and He has no existence like this. Allah can exist without these things. We can't see him with our eyes. Well show me this Allah. And the Holy Qur'an says that the people said, Moses show us this Allah. Okay Moses, you keep telling us about this Allah. The Holy Qur'an said that people said, Okay Moses show us this Allah among us. We want to see him in the public. You've been seeing him in privacy. We want to see him in the public.
Moses said, okay, you'll see Him. Allah punished them terribly and they began to suffer very badly. They say, Moses, we don't want to see Allah. We don't like the way He looks. Tell Him togo back. Yes. Alright, so we believe in Allah and we believe in His angels because there are some things that we can't see with the physical eye. And those things bring messages to the mind, to the heart, to the spirit. And those things that bring messages from G-d, Allah to the spirit of the Prophet or to the heart of the Prophet as the Holy Qur'an says that Allah revealed the message to his heart. So those things that bring messages to the heart and to the mind of the holy people, especially the Prophets, they are called angels because we can't see them like we see chalk. We call things that we can't see spirit many times. Have you ever heard the expression, the spirit of alcohol?
On some bottles you'll see the word written spirit on alcohol bottles because there's some power in alcohol that makes you crazy. It make you feel good and it make you feel bad. It make you act crazy too, right? So that, you're right, it gets you drunk. That's what I mean. Get you high and it gets you drunk, right? Okay. So they called it spirit. The people that made, that worked with the alcohol and begin to drink it they called it spirit because they saw that there's something spooky about this alcohol, it can make people act crazy. So a spirit named something that you can't see, like you see chalk or something. An angel is called something like spirit. We can't see it with a physical eye, but angels exist and angels help us. And Allah says in the Holy Qur'an that I have assigned angels to you on your right and on your left. This means angels to help you in your strength, angels to help you in your weaknesses.
The right hand is stronger usually than the left. And the right leg is usually stronger than the left. Even the right side of the body they say is usually bigger than the left side. So Allah says He assigned angels to the right and to the left, meaning to help us in our strength and also to help us in our weakness. We have weaknesses. The angels will help us. Sometimes the angels will help us by making us suffer so we'll know that this is my weakness. I have to get away from it, you see. And Allah said He has assigned angels to go before us and behind us. That means He has given us certain things that help us to see and understand how to move forward. And what we can't see and don't know Allah has assigned certain things or made certain things in the make up and in the creation that help protect us against the things we don't see and don't know. This is the meaning of that. So these are forces, they're called angels, forces that serve Allah and they never disobey Allah. That's what we mean by angels. Forces that serve Allah and never disobey Allah. How come they never disobey Allah? They don't have free minds like we have. We have our own free minds. We can obey and we can disobey. The angels have no free minds. They cannot disobey. Do you think the angels marry each other? No, they do not marry. Does electricity and magnetism marry? No.
Well they associate with each other but we don't call it marriage, okay? So we have these fundamental first thing that we believe. Allah, his Prophets. How does Allah reach His Prophets? Through his forces that obey him, His angels. And we have the books, how do we get the books? The Prophet, if he can write, or the righteous people write down what the Prophet told them from G-d. And that's how we get the books. And then we have what? Life after death. Life after death. So Muslims believe in that and we have what's next? Reward and punishment.
Reward and punishment works in everything. In everything. It's the law, the power of reward and punishment. It works in everything. Allah doesn't do this. Say this kid act bad. Allah doesn't come. Allah doesn't operate like that. And in a way He does, but we can't explain it like that. It leaves a lot of interpretation. Actually I didn't hit, actually Wallace himself didn't beat you. What is that you felt? From what? From Wallace's hand you see? So actually Allah works the same we work and that's why He's designed us like this so we can understand and speak His truth, you see. Actually inside me, I said this boy he's acting up and I go and I hit him, but I don't hit him with what made the decision. I hit him with the thing that serves what made the decision. And that's exactly how Allah works. But Allah, He has everything. He can hit me with my hand. He can hit me with your hand. He can hit me with the heat, with the air. He can hit me with a lot of things. He can hit me with starvation. He can hit me with hatred. Hatred from you. Hatred from myself. He can hit me with fear. Fear in myself. Fear from you. For Allah has everything that He has created to hit me with. Right? And that's what he does. He doesn't hit us directly from Himself, but He caused a thing that we have misused to punish us. Whatever we have misused, Allah caused that thing to hit us. If you misuse your heart, He will cause your heart to suffer one day. If you misuse your eyes, He will cause your eyes to cause you to be the way, the means for punishing you. If you misuse your intelligence, your smartness, Allah will one day cause your smartness, your sense, your intelligence to punish you.
And isn't that justice? Justice is the thing you misused should punish you for misusing it. So the Holy Qur'an says, pardon me, Prophet Muhammad in his Hadith says, and the Holy Qur'an backs it up, says that there will come a time when Allah, not while we live physically, while we live physically this will happen in part. Holy Qur'an says Allah reward us while we live physically. That means that physical body and He punish us while we live as a physical body. That mean while we on the earth like this. But even after the body dies and goes to the grave, the Holy Qur'an says Allah will make the conscience open up and become aware of everything it has been doing in its whole life. Says at that time the conscious will see that it had been responsible for everything that its members in it's control did. Says that the hand will come to the conscience and the person will say, oh hand, why did let you be demeaned to punish my conscious like this? Oh eyes, why did I let you be the means for punishing me like this?
All the wrongs that we have done will come back to our conscience and we won't be able to escape it. We won't have the body and the means to come back into this world and play with John or play with Mary or go to the ballgame or do something else to get our mind on something else. The conscience will be separated from this world and you won't be able to put nothing on your conscience but what Allah will be putting on your conscience by separating you from the world that you once grounded yourself in to drown your conscience.
So this will come and Allah will make us see all the wrongs we have done. He will also make us see all the right we've done. If my right is much greater than my wrong won't that be peaceful time for me? It'll be a good time for me. It won't hurt me. I'll see all the good and say, oh I did so much good, so much more good than I did bad. So I say Allah, thank you for making me, helping me to be good so that I can have a peaceful conscience and a peaceful rest while seeing all my bad and all of my good. There are some people who are very smart. They know how to buy insurance for that time while they live. So they're constantly watching and remembering how much good, how much bad they did. And when they say, oh, my record is getting bad, I have to strive and do better.
I don't like what I did yesterday. Yesterday I told a lie. I didn't have to tell that lie today. I'm going to watch that. I don't like what I did last week. Last week I tricked a brother out of something. I don't like that. This week I'm going to keep away from that. So those people who work, who look at what they're doing and work to make what they're doing better and more pleasing to Allah and themselves, they're the ones who are paying insurance so they'll know that they won't have to suffer when that time comes.Now don't think Allah is a G-d to have to wait for you to die physically to get you.
It gets you every day, every night. You are never away from Allah. Nothing can escape Allah. Allah is closer to you than anything else. Your own life is not as close to you as Allah is. Allah is inside your body right now. Allah is in your head right now, in your heart, right now in your whole body right now and everywhere else. Allah is existing right now. How else could He protect and watch over everything except that He's present there. Can we see things that we are not around? Can we know things that are separated from us? Nothing is separated from our Allah. Allah is in touch with everything. Now, so we have these things here that we believe. The reward, the power, the judgment of Allah. The power, the rule, the power, the rule that works in everything that Allah has created to reward if you use it right, to reward you with good, with good, if you use it right and to punish you with pain or with suffering or losses, if you use it wrong. We should be most careful, especially about how we use ourselves. Understand that. The first thing to be careful of how you use it is yourself. If you use yourself properly, you don't have to worry too much about other things. If I see that my hands do the right thing, my feet do the right thing, my hands and my feet are pleased with what Allah want. My mouth, my tongue, my speech, my eyes are pleased with what Allah want. My ears are pleased what what Allah want. My ears are open. They never close by themselves. Is that right? My mouth can close by itself, my eyes can close by themselves, but there is something that will never close by itself and that's my ears.
You see how wise Allah is? You see how great Allah is? Allah gave us something where you can even close your mouth and stop talking. But you can't close your ears and stop hearing. But Allah gave us a finger that fits very well, right? Okay. Well there's a time when I have to tell my ears stop hearing that. If I can't shut it out with my concentration, I can put my mind on something else so strong until even though you shout and scream, I won't understand. I won't be paying attention. I won't hear it that well. It'll just be noise. Okay. So if we can't do that, if we can't muster up or get that kind of control over our concentration, we have these fingers, put 'em in the ear. Don't listen to things that go into your mind and hurt you. Don't listen to things that go into your mind and make you other than what Allah want for you. If you can't shut it out of your mind, you can't walk away from it, put your hand here. They say, "Why are you putting your hand here?" I don't want to hear your no good language. I don't want to hear your no good mouth. So I'm putting my fingers in my ears. I want to please Allah. Allah gave me these ears to use for the right purpose, not to use to listen to your nasty talk or to your hatred. I don't want to hear it. Right. Okay.
So you hear someone say, you sissy. Don't pay any attention. Never reply back. Never say you a sissy too. Or I'm not a sissy. Don't be bothered with the fools. You don't care what they say or what they believe. But if mama say you was a sissy, say "Mama, what? Why in the world you calling me a sissy mama? Mama, explain that please." But they ain't your mama. You don't have to live with them. You don't have to ask them for carfare. Tell 'em to go to hell. Tell them Chief said it's okay. Okay. So we have to make everything in ourselves first, please Allah. Once we make the things that are within ourselves, like hands and these eyes and ears, please Allah, we don't have to worry about the other things. Alright? Okay. So let us now go to the board and we are not going to put the five pillars up here.
We just going to say them, recite them by heart. We are going go to the board and we are going to write the whole Al Fatiha and then close out. Okay. So we remove this now. While we removing this, we want to recite the first things of conduct or practice. First is to say or to bear witness and what the bear witness mean? To say so that others hear us. That's what the bear witness means, right? To say that there is nothing to pray to, or worship but Allah and I bear witness that Muhammad is a Messenger of Allah. Why do we say, I bear witness that Muhammad is a Messenger of Allah? We say it to let people know that Muhammad is not Allah, not G-d. We love Prophet Muhammad. But Muhammad, Prophet Muhammad is not G-d. He's not Allah. He did not create this world. He does not control this world.
He had to pray to Allah and he came much later, but on time as a Prophet. Okay? Now we have as number two, the things that we practice in our conduct as first thing. Number two is salat. What you did, salat. You made salat, right? Allahu Akbar, you made salat. We have number three, zakat. What is zakat? Giving. Giving. Doing good. Giving money to help good causes, to help propagation of Al Islam. To help keep the things we need for our Muslim life. And also doing good. Helping each other be better. Giving knowledge to people who need knowledge. All of that is zakat. Cleaning yourself and making your own body nice and clean. Resting yourself properly, brushing your teeth on time every day when you should. Keeping your hair and your body clean and nice, that's the zakat. Doing that for somebody else is a better zakat. After you've done it for yourself, it starts at home and it spreads broad. Okay? Alright, so we have five, don't we? Five fundamental things that we practice of our conduct. One is the bear witness that there is no Ila, nothing to pray to but Allah, nothing. Nothing to pray to but Allah, that's number one. Nothing to pray to but Allah. That's number one.
And number two, prayer. Prayer. See, once we know what to pray to we can pray can't we? If we don't know this, we might start praying the wrong way or say the wrong thing.
Speaker 2:

Speaker 3:
Zakat, charity. And what does charity mean? Giving yourself, even yourself. I was in prison for not going to the war. And you know what a Jew told me? In prison, I was raised to always think of others. My mother told me, never to want too much for myself. If I have enough, don't just keep giving myself, that other people need too. So in prison, I still had this habit of not giving myself. So the man said, Hey Wallace. He said said man, don't you have enough to go to commissary and get something? I said, yeah. He said, well why you just get a few cookies? He said, you in jail, you owe yourself more than that. He said, why don't you treat yourself sometimes? I've heard the expression people treating other people, but this Jew for the first time made me aware that sometimes you should treat yourself. He said, why don't you treat yourself sometimes? He said, why don't we get you a pint of ice cream? Don't you know they got ice cream in here?
Why don't get a pint of ice cream next time you go to the commssary. Next day I got me a pint of ice cream to go with my cookies. Now let's go back on here. Charity means giving D-I-V-I-N-G, right? Giving what W-H-A-T pleases. P-L-E-A-S-E-S, what pleases Allah. We won't give liquor. Not even to ourselves. We won't give reefers, no upper pills and down pills and crossway pills unless the doctor say you need that. Right? Okay. And give it to you with a prescription. And mommy and daddy knows about it. Okay, one, two, prayer. Three, giving what pleases Allah, that's charity. And four. Ah yeah, that's good. Very good. I'm proud of you all. Fasting. Let's see. It doesn't start a P. What it starts with? F. That's right. Fast. Sound like it got it got an S in it somewhere. F-A-S-T. Fast. Got a T in it, I think. And that end is always ing. I know every time I hear ing, I know ing. Okay, fasting. And there's one more, right? Hajj. Hajj. And what is that?
Hajj is going, going or trip, traveling or going to where? Mecca. Mecca. Mecca. That's the city. But we don't want Mecca. We want something else. No, we want Ka'aba. The Ka'aba is in that city Mecca. We don't just want the city. We want something that's more important to us than the city, we want to see and to pray where Abraham prayed. We want to see the first house, the first building that was built for people to pray to Allah in. And we want to pray where Abraham prayed at, Millati Ibraheem. Okay, so we have to go to the Ka'aba to do that. K-A-A-B-A, like that. Ka'aba, Okay, we have it now. Okay, let's go over the five things. First things for Muslims to do or to practice or have in their conduct. Number one, to pray, nothing to pray to but Allah. Number one. Number two, prayer. Pray, prayer. How many times a day? Five. Five. Five prayers a day. Okay, and how do we say five in Arabic? Hamsak. Very good. Excellent. Okay, now I'm passing. And you have the last one going to the Ka'aba. And the Ka'aba is what? First house. First house.
Imam WD Mohammed:
Yeah. First house of worship. Okay, don't forget that. Ka'aba is the oldest house, the oldest first house of worship, built by the man by the Prophet that Christians love, by the Prophet that Jews love, and by the Prophet that Muslims love, Ibraheem. Abraham. Abraham. So don't forget that, that Muslims, Christians and Jews believe that Abraham was the leader who started our religion for us. G-d gave it to him, He directed him and he is the first. Abraham was the first to start our religion. Now others had faith in Allah and they prayed to Allah, but they didn't organize the religion and preach it as Abraham started doing it, he led the mission. Okay, let's end it with that and have Al Fatiha. This time we'd like to have a sister. Sister. So we'd like to have sister. Can a sister say the Al Fatiha? Yes, the sister with the pretty red shirt. A pink shirt, with the nice collar and cuffs there. What is her name? What? What's her name? It's in this area here, there's a boy in this area that has a sweet spot in his heart for Marinda. That's her name. What's your name?
Spell it. Okay. Alright, so I don't blame you somewhere in there. I would like her too if I was your size. Okay Diranda, let's say Al Fatiah, the opening prayer and everybody else complete silence because we have to respect the one who is talking to Allah for all of us. Complete silence. Very good. Next time, just share it a little louder so I won't have to strain these 42 year old ears. You did? Good, good. That's real good. Do it. Do in the way that pleases Allah. That means don't hurt nobody unless they deserve it.


