1976-November-26

Bilalian News

The Power of Truth

Imam W. D. Muhammad

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8. A grace and favour 
From God; and God 
Is full of Knowledge 
And Wisdom.

9. If two parties among 
The Believers fall into 
A quarrel, make ye peace 
Between them: but if 
One of them transgresses 
Beyond bounds against the other, 
Then fight ye (all) against 
The one that transgresses 
Until It complies with 
The command of God ; 
But if it complies, then 
Make peace between them 
With justice, and be fair: 
For God loves those 
Who are fair (and just).

10. The Believers are but 
A single Brotherhood: 
So make peace and 
Reconciliation between your 
Two (contending) brothers; 
And fear God, that ye 
May receive Mercy.

11. O ye who believe! 
Let not some men 
Among you laugh at others. 
It may be that 
The (latter) art better 
Than the (former): 
Nor let some women 
Laugh at others.

Holy Quran Translation by Yusuf Ali; Sura XLIX: Verses 8 -12
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In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful; Peace and Blessings upon His Servant and His Messenger, Muhammad, forever. Amen.

There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.
As –Salaam –Alaikum

My Dear Brothers and Sisters:
With its superior language, the Holy Quran lets us know that we should fight that soul, not flesh, that has turned and given itself to misguidance, wickedness and rebellion. A most effective way to fight the soul of such a person is given to us in the Bible and the Holy Quran. The scriptures tell us that we should repel evil with something that is equally strong (goodness). The Holy Quran says that many times you will find that the avowed enemy will become an intimate friend by the power of goodness. The Book is telling us not to abruptly decide that the flesh is evil, and it is teaching us against abusing or killing the flesh. The human being should keep evil under control by going through the avenues of the mind, or the sentiments of the heart. Traveling this route is quicker and better to bring the evil person into agreement with the good nature of the society than attempting to do so by attacking the flesh.

The Holy Quran further teaches that the believers are a single brotherhood and that a man should make peace, not war, between his two contending brothers. Most of the people that have been under the influence of the old, grafted world mentality, which seeks to aggravate, agitate and stimulate things to the point of exploding, are really the devil. The ancient wise people had some wonderful pictures (descriptions) of the evils in life. We used to hear that the devil is one who keeps a furnace fired up and that when it is time to send a wicked soul in, he blazes and fires up the furnace until it is very hot, and then he takes the pitch fork and throws that soul into the fire. This is a very good description of the evil nature of this diabolic world because their way is to excite the forces of destruction, to feed them, and to build them up.


Muslims Fear Displeasing Allah

We should strive to keep a conscious and a constant awareness of what God wants for us. The Creator wants us to have an obedient, humble and loving disposition. Certainly, the person with this disposition has fears, but he is not trembling with the fear of being whipped or killed because he is humble in the fear of displeasing his God. The Book says that we should not be ashamed of what others will say of us but that we should fear the shaming of ourselves before the community of God –fearing people.

Hardly ever does the Holy Quran use fear in the sense of fear of a physical death, or fear of a cruel, powerful force. When some of us read of fear in the Book, we think that the scripture is telling us to fear God because He is powerful and He can squash us at this very moment. Certainly, Allah can do that but He does not want people to be led by that kind of fear. Allah wants the people to have a pious (humble) fear, love and devotion to Him. He wants them to fear to do what is wrong because they do not want to displease their Creator, or to shame themselves before Him. The Holy Quran is constantly reminding us that the human being should have these kinds of fear. We know that Allah can snap us out of this world in the blinking of the eye, or quicker, but Muslims hardly ever are conscious of that kind of fear.

Islam is a beautiful religion, and while it tells us repeatedly to fear God, Allah tells us in the Holy Quran that for the true believer there is no fear. This means that Muslims will not be conscious of the kind of fear that people have who are wondering whether they will have bread, or the love of a certain man or woman the following day. The true believer never entertains this kind of fear because he knows that he loves his God, that his love is accepted by Him and that Allah is his beloved. In this kind of close love relationship, there just is no room for any savage fear.


Return The Wishes Of Good Will

The Holy Quran tells us that men and women should not defame, laugh at, or be
sarcastic to each other, or call each other by offensive names. Brothers and Sisters, Bilalians have been trained to be the most defaming people in the world. Every time we hear of one among us getting a little fame, right away a hundred of us come at him to take that fame away. We start spreading seeds of doubt and suspicion about each other, using our words to hurt rather than to soothe or console our Brothers and Sisters. If we are a community of human beings, we should want to give comfort and to lighten each other’s burden by using words that enlighten, soothe and strengthen.

Islam teaches us that we should be people who are promoting the exchange of goodness, courtesies and compliments among human beings. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said that if a person greets you with a beautiful greeting, you should return a greeting to him that is as complimentary, or even more complimentary, than the one that was extended. This is the Muslim way, and if we do not conduct ourselves in this manner, people may concede that we are Muslims but they will say that we have a long way to go. So if a Brother says, “ As –Salaam –Alaikum (peace be unto you), you should tell him “Wa-Alaikum-Salaam (peace be unto you also). If you do not give the Brother that return, you are making a savage (an uncivilized person) and a fool out of yourself. Keep up your image and keep up your dignity by returning the wishes of good will to your Brother or your Sister. Although this is going to hurt some of you, it is going to make you a more effective person in whatever you are doing.


Unprovoked Suspicion Is A Sin

Brothers and Sisters, the Holy Quran teaches us that we should avoid suspicion as much as possible because when we are suspicious without provocation, we are moving under the influences of wickedness and sin. If a person has not done anything to make you suspect him of wrong, but you are searching and watching his character, looking for something upon which you can build a case, your suspicion of the individual is a sin. Our minds should never be searching each other for this reason, but if the devil shows his head, we have to recognize and accept what we see.

When a person is not around, we should not be just speaking ill of him. If you cannot speak well of a person, do not speak at all about that individual unless you are ready to bring him before the court, before the persons involved, or in the case of a family problem, before the household. If you make a charge against a person concerning a Mosque problem, you should be ready to bring that person before the Mosque leadership. If you are not ready to do this, do not spend your time going around speaking ill of the person, which means that you should hold your tongue. If the problem is serious enough for you to spread gossip or ugly news, it is serious enough for you to bring it before the whole community openly to get rid of it, or to settle the problem once and for all.


Dead Flesh Eaters: Vultures

The Holy Quran paints a picture of a person who is spending his time speaking ill of other people as being worse than a cannibal when the Book asks, “Would any of you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother?” This means that the person is not present to defend himself, so it is like a vulture preying on an animal that has lost his life. The dead animal cannot say, “Do not maim my body like this. I want to be buried whole.” When one is absent from among us and we are tapping and tearing down his reputation in the society, we are like vultures, hyenas or grave robbers who come when the dead things cannot respond or defend themselves. We come in when the person is absent distort his form and eat and tear up his flesh.

Remember that God says that one who puts himself in that position is like a vulture or a hyena pecking away the flesh of his dead brother and everyone will hate such a person. Some of us are so diseased with hatred, jealousy and envy that we cannot be satisfied with a person loving somebody else. We have to tear that individual down, deform and ruin his image in order that everybody that looks at him will hate him. We have gotten our victory and we are very happy when we have achieved these evil goals because we have made everybody hate someone who was receiving some love.

Brothers and Sisters, Allah wants to save all of us. He wants to save the vulture and He wants to save the victim of the vulture. The Holy Quran is telling us that a person who is trying to destroy his Brother or his Sister is taking on the image and the nature of a vulture.

Look among the animals that peck away at the flesh of dead things and try to find a beautiful one, and look at the sign that Allah has given us in the appearance of the buzzard and the fly. Observe how Allah has marked the buzzard’s sound for its ugly nature. It is not that God cursed the buzzard; the buzzard is happy in his buzzard life, and buzzards look beautiful to each other. No peacock on earth looks as pretty to a buzzard as another buzzard looks to him, but God in speaking through the buzzard, the fly and the crow in the creation to the man (mind) that He wants to be the custodian in the whole earth. Yet, God has not affected the life of these things because they are satisfied with their life. But He wants to make a higher life and a better life (the human being) that will be able to serve all things under it, so Allah has reached us through these pictures.


Nations And Tribes : A Test For Human Development
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13. O mankind ! We created 
You from a single (pair) 
Of a male and a female, 
And made you into
Nations and tribes, that 
Ye may know each other 
(Not that ye may despise 
(Each other). Verily 
The most honoured of you 
In the sight of God 
Is (he who is) the most 
Righteous of you. 
And God has full knowledge 
And is well acquainted 
(With all things).

Holy Quran Translation by Yusuf Ali; Sura XLIX: Verses 13
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Brothers and Sisters, the Holy Quran teaches that Allah made the human being (the inner person) from one soul, and that He made the physical body from both male and female. The scripture says that Allah made tribes and nations for human beings, not to despise (hate) each other, but to get to know each other. A family that can live peacefully with itself may not be able to live with other families without causing conflict. While living only with itself, the weaknesses of the family might not show up, but if we bring that family under the roof with people that are not blood relatives, the family members are going to be tested.

The human being has the potential to move up above flesh associations and flesh relationships and relate to other people on a higher level than a flesh and blood plane. The test that is necessary for the development of this growth potential in the human being possibly might never present itself, if Allah did not create families other than his own, and force him to have some kind of interactions or relationships with those families.

When you have to come out of your house and greet the neighbor, and when your children have to play with the neighbor's children, we will see just how good and what kind of person you really are. Some of us are always crying and asking somebody to see the hurt that is coming to our children, but we do not cry or fuss so much when the neighbor's children are hurt by our children. We see just how much (how little) such people have grown along the dimension that represents the extent for human growth (the space for human development).

Likewise, a people, a race or a tribe that only lives with itself may not reach the limits of its development, or its ability to grow along human lines of growth. These people might never reach their growth potential if we do not bring another people, another race or another tribe into their environment, with whom they have to deal and interact. God separates us and then forces the world to become so small that all of these divisions that He has made have to come back together under one roof. Allah does this to force out the human goodness, the intelligence and the great, deep reservoir or resources that are in us, and He does it in His own masterful way.


Keep Your Duty To Allah

Brothers and Sisters, Allah wants us to know that the greatest person in our eyes should be the individual who is the most righteous, not the one who is the most intelligent, not the one who is the mightiest physically, and not the one who was born of the king, of the messenger or of the minister. The greatest person among us is the human being who is constantly reminding himself that Allah wants something of him and that when he is pleasing God, he is in turn, pleasing himself. This person is the one who is most conscious of his duty to his God and most devoted to carrying out those duties. This wonderful teaching of the Holy Quran will kill class distinction and all of the evil things that hold the masses down. The narrow-minded tyrannical leaders need racism, color consciousness (black/white concepts), and sex division, because all of these divide the people and serve tyrannical, dictatorial rule. But those people who are struggling against that kind of leadership, do not need any of these things.

Brothers and Sisters, there are many people who have been wondering how the Chief Minister has been able to turn people who have been tremendously color conscious completely around, and all of a sudden have those people talking like they have been sitting with Jesus and Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon them). The world wants to know what miracle, or what trick, the Chief Minister has used to rid the people of these destructive ideas and concepts. Brothers and Sisters, you should tell the world that
the Chief Minister has come to you with truth and openness — that he has brought and given you truth in the open. The Holy Quran says that truth hits falsehood in the head and knocks out its brains. God has full knowledge and He is acquainted with all things; and with the Holy Quran Allah has surely spoken the truth.

Thank you for honoring us with your time to read these few words.

Your brother, W.D. Muhammad
