01/19/1986
IWDM Study Library
IWDM in Oakland CA

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Dear Muslims, friends, peace be unto you. As-salamu alaykum. Praise be to Allah. Alhamdu lillahi rabbil ?alameen. Praise be to Allah that is G-d, Lord of all the worlds. We praise Him and we pray the blessings on His generous and noble messenger Muhammad, Sallallahu alaihi wasallam. Peace and the blessing be upon him. And on his family, his descendants and his companions, the righteous, all. Before beginning my address today, let me acknowledge that I really, really enjoyed being with you last evening for the fourth annual evening of elegance.
I enjoyed every moment of it and really felt like I was getting by with something. I say, now I haven't paid for the meal, I haven't paid for any of this fine entertainment. I just felt like I was getting by with something. It was very, very, very, enjoyable and valuable, the experience that we shared last night. And we look forward every year to having it again together. Praise be to Allah.
I'm telling your Imam all the time and I know he doesn't like praise and flattery just as I don't because it is a danger. And once you start to like it, then it becomes a problem. But I'm constantly telling him that we really appreciate him and his leadership in this area.
We can have a lot of good things going for ourselves but if we don't have an understanding person in the position of leadership, those things can never be realized. So, we thank Allah that we have an Imam here in Oakland and in this area who's not narrow minded, his vision is big, and his interest is not small. His interest is big, and he likes to work with people and that makes it real good. He has a lot of good people here to work with and that's a great blessing. I'm trying to find. Yes, here. Just give me a couple of minutes here. In addressing today, a model community, the need for a model community, our desire to establish a model community.
Not only a model community but model communities throughout the United States. I must first address the condition of the human person and the individual in this society. In terms of the circumstances that we find ourselves in in this society as Muslims, the condition is bad. I don't care if we live in Chicago or New York City, Los Angeles. It can be any place; the condition is bad. The bigger the city, the bigger the burdens of that city and consequently, the bigger the problem for the Muslim life.
We could escape much of our problems and headaches by looking for smaller communities, going and centering our population in smaller communities where people still have a sense of respect for life, for families, for the future of man. But that's not the answer for us because we know we are also preachers of the Da’wah. And we don't want to leave the problem; we want to address the problem.
So, that's not a solution but when we look at the whole problem for ourselves, we sometimes think that maybe we are spending too much and sacrificing too much that is and losing too much by concentrating all of our efforts on these big cities and the big problems. That we could perhaps accomplish more by concentrating part of our effort on the big cities and securing our life in smaller areas where there are less problems. Build the life, secure the life and also work in the jungle. Huh? To try to civilize the jungle, bring the savage out of the jungle.
That's a way of looking at it that I think is getting more and more support in our community. I sense that as I go around the country and meet with you, I sense that more of you now are desiring to pull away from the big city problems and to go and establish your life in a more favorable environment and attack the big city problem from a healthy situation. I favor that myself and I'm looking all the time for a situation for myself and my family that will be better than Chicago. Because sometimes I can forget Chicago, but I go overseas and they make me remember Chicago. They say, "Where are you from?" I say, "I'm from the United States." I say, "I reside in Chicago," they say, "Oh, shoot them up. Bang, bang."

See, you can't get rid of the old history. The old history and the old image of Chicago and I think a lot of people come there because they're thinking that they can get by with a lot of that uncivilized behavior there in Chicago, you see. It's not a wild town. We have law and order there. Dellinger in that day is gone I believe. Organized crime hasn't gone but you don't have to worry about nobody bang, bang, shooting you up every time you walk down the street that there's going to be a shootout or something. That's not Chicago. Chicago is pretty peaceful now.
In fact, with our new Mayor and new Chief of Police, Superintendent Rice, who happens to be one of us, an African American that is. Chicago is looking much better. But the big city problems are there and they're not going away soon. The trend for the future I believe is to dissipate the forces of these big cities and bring about a new trend, the growth of small communities. And really, I think that's the new life for America, the growth of small communities.
This week I saw a discussion on television and they're bringing out and pointing to some of the problems that sometimes these movements are done in haste. And the people are following the businesspeople and they move these centers, these shopping areas or near the shopping areas. And there's not enough planning for the human life, so eventually they have a problem because it's done in haste, but that doesn't mean it's wrong, it's good, it's the right trend I believe. It's the right trend for the good future of the people of America that they concentrate on smaller communities and get away from the big cities, the big city is too much. It invites too much problem and quick death. I was looking at some of the symbolism and I recalled in the ancient Egyptian myth, Seth. Seth, he was the figure of darkness, the great force of darkness. Seth. And I say to myself, "These cities must be under Seth." They're call cities. Sit-Cities and their destiny is to sit down, not to keep moving. They move in haste, but they're headed for a long sit. The small community that is manageable is better. As I said, we want to look at the condition for the person, the individual. Look at his nature to understand his situation. Our religion points first to the nature of the person, an individual.
And actually, those great idealists, men of philosophy and deep insight who worked to form the Constitution of the United States. That's how they first view the human person. They view him in his nature. It says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal." Where's it coming from? A perception of nature. Created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights, the rights that you can't deny him and they can't be taken away from him. Maybe you do it but it's not right by their creator. Here were men who perceived the human being in his nature that G-d gave him, that in is nature, he has rights.
Those rights are to him, a gift from his creator who created him and made those rights possible for him, you see. We must begin too, in fact, the message to our Prophet Peace and blessings be upon him and the revelation of Quran is much older than the Constitution of these United States. That language that we have just referred to. We are to review the human being too in his nature. And it is natural for a human being, the nature of a human being to seek a condition that is livable. The human being wants a condition that is livable, he wants to be able to live with the condition.
We know that tolerating conditions that are against the good nature, that is against the aim of the human nature will in time if we don't turn around impose upon us a nature that is not ours. We will take on a nature that is not ours and sometimes we go to such extreme in that deterioration that we begin to resemble in the eyes of human beings, a healthy persons who have not undergone the extent of deterioration, wild animals senseless beast, vulgar creatures that deserve no respect at all. As G-d says in the holy book, that He has made the human being to aspire to the highest heights.
However, because of his own bad behavior, he may fall to the lowest of the low. So, as Muslims, we should understand that we have to be watchers, defenders of the nature intended by our creator for us. In Luke Junior College, I took a course in the humanities. And the professor, I think it was my first day in class, he was talking about the natural urge or desire in man. He said, the aim or the goal of human life is happiness, just like it is for all of the creatures, the animals and everything is seeking a situation that is pleasant for themselves. Happiness, to seek happiness.
I had some problem with that at that time because, my definition of happiness was what I was seeing in the behavior of the society at that time. And what they were going after as happiness, in my opinion, was sadness. So, I had some difficulty with him, and he tried to convince me, he picked on me because I was there. I was a new student and I'm sure he knew who I was. He picked on me and he asked me for a comment. I gave my comment and it didn't satisfy him and he went on to tell me that he didn't let the class know who I was but he said, even in religion, he said, "Even in Islam," said, "The aim, the goal of life is happiness."
So, I thought about it and I didn't say anything more to him. But I thought about it for a long time. And I came to realize, upon reading the Quran and studying the Quran, that actually, yes, our holy book our scripture recognizes that that is the destiny of man, to be at ease, to be happy, to be in a situation that is good and pleasant and perfect for him. For that reason, we have the concept of heaven. The blissful state at nature is asking to be put into, yes. But then I said to myself, I can't excuse that Professor because there is a danger in just telling people to go after happiness without any intelligent guidance.
G-d doesn't invite us to just pursue happiness. G-d doesn't point to us as creatures that are created just to pursue happiness. G-d first point to us as creatures that by nature are seeking their role and their responsibility. Their role in life and their responsibility, that we are creatures of responsibility. So, we don't forget the happiness as many of our good American social teachers telling us, we don't get happiness by going after happiness, though happiness is the state that our nature is asking for. We don't get that happiness by going directly after it.
We get that happiness by doing first things first. So, happiness is a reward. What have you done? What have you done? So, happiness is a reward but what have we done? And the first thing to do is to realize our obligation to our creator. That should be the natural urge in the human being, to feel accountable to something. “I owe somebody something”. For after all, from the first moment that we realize ourselves existing in this world, we've already received some benefits. Yes, we have a well-formed body. We're breathing. There's a sense of pleasure and a sense of pain.
And rewards of pleasure are greater than the rewards of pain because if they weren't, we'd keep crying all the time. So, we owe somebody something from the very start. And it is natural for the creature then to feel indebted and to try to find a way to pay his debt. Most of us think, "I come in this world and I didn't owe anybody anything when I came into this world." Yes, you did. You didn't pay for anything you brought in. It was already paid before you came. Yes. Everything was a gift. Your body and everything you possess was a gift. That's why I guess they call it the gift of life. The gift of life.
Yes, we do come here owing. We come here owing. We come here in debt and the child is looking from the very moment he become conscious or she becomes conscious, she's looking for a way to pay her debt. She's looking to see, to whom I'm I indebted? Right away, the little baby, the infant is looking around. Nobody has to teach the baby to look around. If the baby is born and open their eyes and they're not looking for anything, we wonder, "Hey, what happened? Something's going wrong. Doctor, look at my baby." But that little baby coming and open his eyes and looking around.
The sense of smell is stronger than the sense of sight. They smell mommy and say, "Yes, I'm all right." Get a smell of mummy there, "I’m all right, everything's all right." It grows with a sense of indebtedness to mama. Yes. G-d brings a child in the world with a sense of indebtedness to mama, and he's looking at mama and sees, mama is pleased with me. Mama look pleased, child rest very nicely. He knows that he has to keep on being nice to mama because he knows he needs mama. He is going to need mama for a long time. You have no problem with an infant. 
Now, if we look at our environment, the physical environment, not human life but just the plant life. And you see the plant life, the grass, the trees and the flowers or the farm, the farmers harvest or whatever it is or his crop that he sowed. You look at all that and you see life growing. That life couldn't grow without an environment suitable. There has to be a suitable environment. And G-d has pointed us to the many things that grow. In fact, He says, “He has created us as a plant to grow. He has created us as a plant to grow. Well, there must be an environment, there must be a suitable environment for this plant.
The plant just can't grow under any condition. There must be the favorable conditions for that plant to grow. Now, the wisdom of the learned people in religion, Imams and the preachers. First of all, the prophets that have been passed on to us has taught us that as the plants, the garden needs the suitable environment and suitable attention, care, so does the human life. And some of us, we live in conditions or circumstances in these modern times and in these big cities that make it impossible almost for us to think. Most of us understand it but there might be some in the audience that doesn't understand it.
When you want the attention of somebody in your house or in your apartment or in your room and you can't get it, then remember what I said. Sometimes you can get it because they're singing to themselves, sometimes you can't get it because they're talking to themselves. Sometimes you can't get it because they are silent and you can't get it. Look like they should be able to hear everything. Ain't no noise in the house. You say, "Joe?" And Joe didn't act like he heard. He's not deaf, his ears are very good job. "Joe?" Nothing happened. And something happened in the environment without making a noise.
Without even making a noise. Maybe the light is turned off and Joe say, "Hey, who turned that light off?" He's not dead. He's alive but he's only alive to certain things. Yes. Don't think what we're saying here is farfetched. We are speaking right at home, everything we are talking about is right at home in these big cities and in our lives. So, first thing we have to have in order to make some approach or approach our needs and our problem, the first thing we have to have is an interest. Joe didn't have no interest in that person that was calling him.
If Joe had an interest in that person that was calling him, he'd have heard him, they wouldn't have to holla. They could just say, "Joe?" And if it barely reached Joe's ears, Joe would say, "Yes," because Joe’s interest was in that person. So, when your interest die, your senses die. Now how are you going to come to a town where people's interest has been turned off to human excellence and address human excellence and get their attention? No, you won't their attention in addressing human excellence because their interest has been turned off to human excellence.
Maybe the best thing for you to do is get them to come out at the evening of elegance and from there maybe we can walk them to the second step, to the second location.
So, it all began with interest. That little baby born just this moment. You can look in that little baby's eyes and see interest. Yes, little infant got interest in the eyes. He's trying to see, he bug-eyed. You see the little infant little bug-eyed. “Hey, what's this?” There is interest. No interest, that's death. No interest, you're dead. You sisters know. Brother, you couldn't help it. You know it ain't your fault. It’s something, he works too hard or something, comes at home and all his energy is gone, so his interest is gone. And he can't get no interest up because all his energy is out.
And you want to tell him and say, "Nigga you are dead." But you wait on him, you're patient. You say, “hey maybe next week he won't be like this”. So, our first step is to try to create a condition in the environment where people will have the proper interest. And the best way to get it is given to us in the revelation. G-d first points to us and He chose us our nature. To get rid of those misconceptions because man becomes a victim of his own misconceptions and in time, he's carrying an unnecessary burden. Men and women walking around feeling that they are born sinful, they are carrying an unnecessary burden because it's false. That's a misconception.
G-d has not created anybody in sin. Allah says in the holy book, "He has created us in the best of molds." Yes, "And no one bears the burden of another." That's what Allah says in our holy book, “that no bearer of burden is made to bear a burden of another”. What is that addressing? The idea that somebody can sin before me and I bear their burden. No, my father can sin before me, but I'm born innocent. After all of these centuries now of enlightenment, scientific enlightenment or at least great philosophical enlightenment and a couple of centuries or a good century of scientific enlightenment.
Finally, we're finding some cities, some towns, some states are coming around to recognize that the child cannot be punished for the parents' problem. In our state, they had to recognize. They've passed the law and now they recognize all babies as legit. There's no such thing as an illegitimate child. If you have a child in our state, you got to accept responsibility. Yes, that’s in Illinois, every child is born with rights and not treated as illegitimate. They have rights of inheritance and everything else. That's the way it's going to be eventually all over the United States and all over the world.
G-d will force man to come into this excellence that He has prescribed for him. Yes, He will force man to come into it. Not by Himself imposing anything on us, but no, our disobedience will impose something on us. Our disobedience will bring conditions in our life that will make us suffer and make us wonder how come we are suffering so greatly and make us begin to think and reflect and find out that we have contributed to this problem and correct our thinking. So, we find that man is correcting his thinking and things are not so bad. Don't ever think that.
I've preached a lot of gloom and a lot of-- I would say burden myself, I have a let out of my own mouth. But no matter how desperate I seem to have been and no matter how negative or how pessimistic my talks might have seemed to you, at no time was I looking in the darkness. I was looking at the light ahead of me in the road. I've never been a pessimist. No, I've never been a pessimist. I've never given up. I've never thought to give up. I've always been an optimist and I don't care how dark the road looked right here, maybe I can't see a thing through the thickness of darkness.
I know for sure there's light down the road. Yes, and that's what keeps me going. That's what keeps me going because I know there's light down the road. G-d didn't create me to be condemned to darkness, to ignorance with no answers and no solutions. No, G-d created me to make progress, to go forward, to be an achiever and I don't care what's in my way, it won't dent my spirit. No indeed. I know the only thing I need to do is keep my faith and make an effort and be persistent and be as they say, to strive and strive unceasingly, never let up.
Allah tells the prophet, as soon as you're finished with one task, immediately get into another. That's happiness. That's what brings happiness. When you are constantly working at something useful for yourself and for others. That's what makes life happy. It makes a good life and a sense of indebtedness to our Lord is the greatest guarantee because that happiness will be taken away in time. An old man from Saudi Arabia, I met him, in fact, I had just come out of prison from serving the time for a selective service violation. This old man, he was a sheikh or imam and a sheikh from Saudi Arabia.
He's native African, but he had spent most of his years there in Saudi Arabia preaching after he did his studies there and he couldn't hardly speak any English at all. I could speak a little Arabic, so we could have some conversation. And he told me, he said, "Wallace," I was known as Wallace then. He said, "Brother Wallace," He say, "We say, for everything you may lose, there is a compensation. There is something to make up for it." He said, "But Wallace, if we lose Allah, there is no compensation."
I'm tired of being a loser, not tired of being a loser in my personal life, but I live with a sense of our collective life. And I'm tired of being a loser in that collective life. So, let us as Muslims find where our interest is. Where our interest is, it's easy to understand where our interest is. Our G-d has not left us without all the help we need. When we begin, when we wake up in the morning, when you wake up in the morning, you should start with your interest, right? For G-d said, He made the night for rest and the day for activity. So, when you wake up in the day, that's when our activity begins.
Now, some of us have shifted around in the West, you may have to get up when the sun goes down and start your activity or it might be midnight you have to start your activity, getting out there to try to get some money and work on that job or whatever it is so you can survive. Well, don’t pay any attention to that, that's man's regulation, the nature is still the same. Yes. So, when we wake up in the morning, what is the Muslim to first recall? Is he to recall that he's lying in the bed with his wife? No. It could have said, "O, man when you wake up, look at your bed to see who you are with”. I think I could get by, by writing that as a philosophy, direction for man and get by with it. I think it'll sell a lot. 
But what is best for us? I know some time I wake up and first thing I do is look at the bed but that's not the best for us. I'm working at not looking at the bed, I'm working at responding to what G-d has advised for me. When we wake up in the morning, we are to recall G-d. You are to recall 
G-d. And many Muslim, they say upon awakening in the morning, "Alhamdulillah Lathi, ahyana ba’ada ma amatana, wa elayhin nushur. Praise be to G-d who wakes us up after we have been dead and to Him is the goal we are gathered. La ilaha illallahu wahdahu la sharikalahu, there is one 
G-d alone.
There is nothing like unto him. Yuhyi wa yumeet He gives life and He give death. Lahul Mulk wa lahul Humd, for Him is the kingdom, for Him is the praise." We get up with that on our tongues. We recall that upon awakening. So, upon awaking we recall that I couldn't awake without G-d creating me to awake, without G-d creating me and giving me life, I could not awake, so we recognize Him first. Now, if we can't understand the tradition of the Muslims as a reasonable foundation, or basis for what I have said, look, every Muslim is still waking, make his prayer.
Now, is the first thing we do wudu? The first thing is adhan, the first thing is adhan, he wakes up and he hears adhan, someone is calling adhan. Now, if someone doesn't wake him up with athan and he himself has to wake up and remind himself of this prayer, he wakes up with his prayer on his mind. He wakes up with his prayer on his mind, "I have to make a prayer," and he's worried. "Did I sleep too late? Did I get up on time?" So, he wakes up with his prayer on mind. Now, not with his wudu on his mind. With his prayer in his mind and then he'll say, "In order to make myself presentable to G-d in my prayer, let me go make my wudu, let me clean myself."
Yes. Okay and then he turns, turns and he face the simple structure called the ancient house in the Holy precincts of Mecca and after he's made himself presentable for his prayer and he begins his prayer with what utterance? G-d is greater. Yes. Allahu Akbar, then he starts his prayer. He says, "Allahu Akbar," then he starts his prayer. So, what is the most important interest in our life that we must keep? Taqwa, a sense, or a recognition that we are accountable to our maker and that He is more important than everything else. When we say, "Allahu Akbar," we mean, G-d is more important.
Now you know we have the same language in our English. Say, "Hey, how much money that dude got there, man?" Say, "That dude, he's wealthy man. That dude got about three or four million dollars." And somebody would say, who recognize a bigger dude, they'd said "But that nigga over there is bigger than he is man." They say bigger. They mean bigger in value, bigger in importance. Right? When we say, "Allahu Akbar," many of us don't understand that we are saying more than Allah is greatest. Yes. We're saying more than Allah is bigger, although that way of saying it is the most effective way of saying it. It's a profound way. It's a way that awaken our senses in the best way.
He's getting all of that in his prayer. So actually, our prayer keeps us in touch with universal education. Are you aware of that? We should be. Our prayer keeps us in touch with universal education. Education in the best form, in the purest form, revelation directly from G-d. Praise be to Allah. It is the first food for the Muslim, and in getting that food, he gets the energy to do the other things. To branch out into the other branches of knowledge and contribute to them and to use them for the betterment of himself and his society.
What has been said of the institution of prayer? It says, "Never did a nation fall or collapse until it had first abandoned its prayers." So, if we abandoned prayer in our private life, we should expect the private kingdom to fall. Believe it or not, if you go in most of these homes wherein there's no prayer to G-d, you'll find the private kingdom has fallen.
The interest must be there. The greatest interest for us is the interest in obeying G-d. G-d tells us that He has created us as creatures of responsibility. He has created us for service, and the first service, the most important service is service to G-d. Now, don't you know that dignifies me, there's nothing that can dignify me more than that?
There are people who will seek important bosses to work for so they'll have a greater sense of dignity in their work. Now, if I'm born with a knowledge or raised up in the knowledge of a Muslim in education, Muslim teaching, that I am created to be a worker for G-d, then no matter what position I have in the world I have no reason to be downhearted, no reason to be thinking our self of no importance. I can still walk with a sense of great value, though I'm emptying your garbage, I'm also working for the biggest boss, Allah.

See how powerful the religion is in the life of the person, for his good life on earth and for his better future in the hereafter. Some of us don't see that, we fail to see that. We think religion is just paying a debt. It's more than paying a debt, it's being rewarded. And G-d says, "Count not religion as something you're doing for G-d, it is a favor to you." The religion is a favor to us. Whereas the religion imposes certain responsibility, and hardship too because G-d didn't say prayer is easy.
I used to be so excited and so ambitious in the spirit and I was carrying a hell of a burden, so I would punish myself for thinking that prayer was a burden. I would get up and say, "Hey, Wallace you ain't supposed to think that prayer is hard, prayer is easy. Allah says you should do it, then it's easy, get up and make your prayer."
And it took me a little time to digest the words of G-d in the holy book where He says, "And it is a hard thing. It is difficult, except for those who have that excellent development." Those who are excellence in their spirit, in their spiritual makeup. You have to have great spiritual strength, great spiritual development. When you reach that high spiritual development and excellence, then the prayer becomes easy, but by that time you've done it so much until it's just like walking. Walking is easy too when you don't have a bad back. 
Anyway, I came to realize that prayers are not given to us as something that just can be done so easily. G-d reminds us that it's very difficult except for those who have the right attitude. The right sense and the right attitude. If you don't, it's difficult. If you just think that, "Here is something for me to do," no, you have to understand that you're not doing this for G-d, though you owe it to 
G-d to obey Him, this is a benefit to you.
And it is better to get up knowing that prayer is not only an obligation under G-d but prayer supports my body, it supports my spirit, it supports my mind, it supports my morality, my morals, everything, it cleanses me, it is a medicine, it is a protection against ignorance and against sin. If you understand the great benefits, then it's easier to get up. You don't have to make a person get up to do something that they know is really good for them.
It's only when they are not around that is really good for them that is difficult to get them to get up and do it. The more we realize the value of prayer in our lives, the easier it'll be for us to get up in the morning, get up at the proper times, cut off the interest here of business or whatever it is and respond to G-d and turn to Him at the proper time. It becomes easier when we have realized how beneficial it is in our lives.
Interest, that's what we're dwelling on now. Interest, the interest must be there. Why should I be interested in G-d now? The atheist, he can ask these questions, right? Why should I be interested in G-d? What do I owe G-d? Well, let's not go back there with the argument of creation and all that. Because the atheist may hold to his belief that, “no G-d created this, it is self-evolved”, right? So, he may hold to that.
Let us start with the world of man, man's language. Now, I read what the philosophers have had to say about my inherent worth, but I haven't heard anything that inspires me and make me feel that I have value and importance and significance to the extent that what G-d has said, no. Why? They say wonderful things about man, that man is a dynamic creature, man is this, man can manage his circumstances, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But look at what G-d has said about man, G-d says that He created not one man but every man to be khalifa. He created you ?hulaf?, the plural of khalifa. He created you ?hulaf? on this earth. So, G-d is first saying to man that I have created you to be a ruler.
The average philosophers or idealists who conceive these great pictures or great images of man in creation, they don't tell man he's created to be a ruler because they want to rule man. G-d says, He created you to be a ruler. And the prophet says, “that everyone has been made an authority. An authority, “rye’ee”. It means G-d has given all of us the intelligence to be responsible for authority.
So, here is my religion telling me, in the words of G-d, that I am created for the office of rulership, and also that I have been given authority. Authority that is qualified by my possession of human intelligence. Now, according to the language of this religion, if I don't exercise human intelligence, I have no right to authority. Isn't that justice? Yes. After all, my authority is related to my nature and my capacity. So, if I come out of my nature, I lose my capacity. There's no authority for a dog in a human world. If I want to be a dog, there's no authority for a dog in a human society. He has to get a license and a master, a human master. 
So, we have to understand this thing. Yes, G-d has created us for rulership and for authority. In the Muslim society, the democratic society, we have over us the word of G-d, the prophet and his sunnah. We have also the consensus of the learned people in our religion, but we have also over us the consensus of the conscious Muslim public. Because everyone in the conscious Muslim public is a rye’ee. He is an authority, she is an authority given the same human intelligence that the imam is given, even the prophet is given. Though this has been perfected in the prophet, we all have the same. Praise be to Allah.
So, the interest must be there. This is what make the interest great. You say, “Oh, how can we motivate a negligent people to accept responsibility for their faith, their future, et cetera? How can we motivate them? How can we motivate the children in the ghetto or children in this poor neighborhood? How can we motivate the children of the culturally deprived?
How can we motivate them to have an interest in education, to achieve? How can we motivate them?” Gives them the concept of themselves that G-d has revealed, and that will motivate them? I have never been needing any motivation. I've always felt that G-d created me for great things, and I don't need nobody to motivate me.
Praise be to Allah. The interest must be there, but how can there be interest where there's darkness, ignorance, misconceptions? Let's clear the picture. Let's bring the truth back, and the first truth you bring back is the truth of the value of that person. Say, "Hey, you have this creative excellence and you are excellent creation." Don't be afraid to tell your children those things. Muslims, you should be telling your children, "Son, you created an excellent being and you're created for great excellence. G-d has made you an officer in His charge, an officer of His own office. No matter what position you have in this world, you are also a worker for G-d. Son, walk with a sense of pride, a sense of dignity, healthy pride, a sense of dignity, a sense of worth, walk with that sense."

And let no man or no force intimidates you, rob you of your courage, make you weak and lazy and inactive. No, break through the wall of steel, stone, whatever it is, breakthrough because G-d didn't intend for you to be molded into imprisonment. No, G-d didn't intend to imprison you. No indeed, He gave you this great concept of yourself, this great idea of yourself, because G-d know that that's the motivation that will send you breaking through the prison walls, knocking down the barriers and going into the greatest field of freedom possible for the human being. Don't stop”.
Yes, now you know G-d must've intended for us to explore and to go out and just gather much into our possession. Yes. Because no matter how poor I'm born, I may don't have a dollar to go across town on the city transit, but G-d has given me a mind that can take wings and it can walk. When you get tired of walking, you want to get there in a hurry, you can take wings and start flying. Given me a mind that can just jump right up out of Chicago and travel to other cities. Jump up off of earth and go up in the heavens.
It was that thinker, that free thinker that thought our way into Chicago. If it weren't for the free thinker we wouldn't have never come to the new world, that was a free thinker who had the courage to think outside of his narrow boundary and think himself into distant lands. What did one of our great educators say? Happened to be a Christian, but in his nature he was Muslim too, Dubois said, "The measure in which we will progress as black people in the future depends upon the measure in which we will go to teach our children to think."
Yes, and many of us in these circumstances we find ourselves in the day we are afraid to think. We have to get the right idea, the right picture of our self. You are a valuable vessel. You are a treasure, a great treasure. You have great potential. You’re equipped with great tools. You are a dynamic being. You have a world within your own self. You can make a world.
Yes, that's what G-d says about us in His holy book, that He has made this man a responsible creature and has given to him the utility of whatever's in the sky, whatever is in the earth. Here I am crying the blues because the utility company is making me pay too much for my income. Well look, use your imagination. Think yourself out of that situation. They got the utility, they got the electricity, they got the gas and G-d say, "Look up there, all up there, I made that utility for you, and all down here in the earth, I made a utility for you." Keep that kind of mind in yourself, pass it on to your children, and pretty soon we will be head of the utility company.
See, our religion says very much, many of the great things that are said in other religions, especially Christianity, "As a man thinketh so is he." You think small, you stay small. The interest has to be there, and the best way to get interest in the people is to tell them the wonderful things that G-d has said about them and their personal worth. Give the people a knowledge of what G-d has revealed concerning them and their personal work, and they will be motivated, they will have an interest.
Behind an interest there should come health. We begin by talking about the environment. Now, you look at the plants that grow and you take a dead seed and you put it in the earth, but if you put moisture there, which is the life that is absent from the seed. When it was in its fruit or in its living body, it had moisture. But in time it lost its moisture and dried out, became dead. You put it back into the earth, the womb that is intended for it and make sure the environment is suitable for it, a healthy mother, and bring back the life that is missing, the water. And when everything is there again, that was needed for its life before, it becomes alive again. It becomes alive again.
Having the right environment makes possible the interest. Now, I'm speaking philosophically, the dead stone gets an interest, say, "Hell, I got everything I had before. Hey, this is wonderful," and it just opens up. It just opens up to what's around it and it embraces the moisture, "Hey, come on in. Come on in, baby. I've been missing you for a long time." It begins to swell, and after a while its showing life and movement, say, "Hey, that's an interesting garden there."
Well, you go to one of the neighborhoods and you don't see no stores operating, no homes looking like they're cared for, neglect in the streets and neglect in the home, "Hey, ain't no interest here." When you come and see things happening in a pattern. Many times, there's a lot happening in our life, but it's not happening in any pattern. We be bouncing up and down and, "Hey, oh baby," and carrying on.
But when we look at you the next time and you sleep, and you don't have no particular time to go to sleep, you sleep any time. You don't have any particular time to say, "Hey baby," you do it in the midday, nighttime, anytime. You'd get up, "Oh, baby." Can’t tell, nothing is regulated. You don't have anything regulated. You may go get a hot dog at three o'clock at night. Yes, ain't nothing regulated. You turn the TV on when all the TV's supposed to be off. Nothing regulated. You'd go look for a girl when you supposed to be looking for a job. Ain't nothing regulated.
A lot is happening but no pattern. That's destruction. When things are happening, a lot is happening in your life but no pattern, that's destruction. That's the activity of destruction in your life. There is something else required after the interest. After the interest there must be health. Health. If we don't keep the environment healthy, the diseases and the poisons may kill the thing that's trying to come to its fruition. But if we can provide a healthy environment then it's safe.
Now, most of us think we're taking health first as disease. Healthy. They don't have a cold, don't have AIDS, don't have syphilis so I'm healthy. But when we talk about healthy, we're using it very generally. We are using it in a very broad sense. If your brain has been made to think function. By that I mean, what is my function in this circumstance? How should I behave? By function I mean proper behavior. Proper behavior. Directed behavior.
Okay, so if you are not thinking in terms of function, if you are not thinking in terms of directed behavior, then you are thinking in a diseased way. Your thinking is unhealthy for you. And so many of us we are just tricked into thinking outside of our function. Many of us may come to the masjid. The masjid, we call it mosque function, masjid function.
But many of us who are coming to masjid, we're coming here like zombies. Like wind-up toys. And we walk in the door, we just walk in mechanically and sit down like a zombie and everything happened. The great wisdom of Quran was given. Great light the sunshine bright on the audience, but we walk out a dead mushroom. That's because we are unaware that this is a system.
And this system is offering me knowledge. To make me aware that my life must function upon a system. That there's a system for it. There's direction for it. There's proper and improper behavior. We sit there and we look at each other not aware that we are being improper in our own emotions. Have a bad emotion in a mosque while the wisdom, the knowledge of G-d is being imparted.
We sit there and look at a brother and sister and let personal jealousy come up. Personal envy come up. Let criticism come up and take your mind off of the khutbah and start dwelling on at that person looking for negative in that person. "She doesn't look right." "He doesn't look right." So, you walk out, and you miss the function. So, your part there, your activity was disease instead of health.
We have to have a sense of proper behavior, a sense of right function and create in our own environment those things that support that and fight those things that tear down that. Move out the things that interfere with intelligence thought, and add to your environment those things that support intelligent thought. Don't encourage even pleasure to the extreme because pleasure to the extreme will make you foolish.
The very thing that is given to us for our possible future, the possible destiny of man, his id, right? The psychology of this world they look at the id and they say, "Yes. Well, that's the first responsibility for him and all of it must develop everything, but the id becomes idiot. As long as he gives himself to extreme that burnout his senses.
So, we can't get around it. We have to have interest and have to have a sense of proper life, proper behavior, and that's healthy. But without a sense of purpose, we'll be cut off from our great destiny. A sense of purpose. And G-d has said He has created us for excellence, created us to be rulers. But He also said He created us to be a community. You are the best community raised up for the good of all people. And the Prophet has said, "Peace and the blessings be upon him. The most useful of you is the most useful to the society." Thank you very much. As-sal?mu ?alaykum.


