03/23/1990
IWDM Study Library
Dallas, TX Pt 1

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Imam WD Mohammed:
Praise be to Allah. That is to G-d, the Creator Lord of the world. We seek Him for assistance and we turn to Him asking forgiveness for our sins, for our faults, for our mistakes, Ameen. And we believe in Him and put our trust, our complete trust in Him. He's mighty and sublime. That we do not worship any other than G-d the Creator, being true and sincere in religion though the haters of religion, the rejectors of religion hate that. The prayers and the peace be upon Muhammad, who's a human mortal just like us. Our Prophet, he's the last and the seal of the Prophets. He is the uneducated unlettered Messenger who's predicted, given in both the Injil, the Torah and Injil or the Torah and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Peace be upon him and the Prophets.
He is more loved by us, the true believers than we love our own selves. The most high G-d, highly glorified is He has said of Muhammad, We have not sent you except to be a mercy to all the worlds. We give praise to Him and make the prayers on Muhammad, for Muhammad, the Messenger, the noble and generous Messenger of G-d. And what follows in the most excellent salute to Muhammad the last Prophet, the Prayers and the Peace be upon him. Father through behind who at the island the most high said G-d Almighty says in our Holy book the Qur'an, I did not create the humans and the Jinns for any purpose except My worship, to serve Me. Those who will be strongest and struggle, that is jihad, those who will be strongest and struggle are strongest in faith. We Muslims believe that if the faith is sound and right then everything else will be good for us. But if the faith is not sound and right, then we can expect other things to give us problems.
Allah Most High says in the Qur'an, the Holy book, universal book, the same book for all Muslims whether we in America or in Asia or the Middle East, Africa, no matter where we are on this earth, we all have the same book. There are no two Qur'ans, there's only one Qur'an. There are many translations of the Qur'an into different languages and many people give explanations or comments on the Qur'an, but there is only one Qur'an. There's no two Qur'ans, only one Qur'an or Koran, as some of you perhaps know the name as Koran. Qur'an is the Arabic pronunciation.
G-d says in this book to us, "And strive in Allah's path with your wealth and with your souls." Strive in Allah's path with your wealth and with your souls or with your own person as it's translated sometimes. jihad in the path of Allah refers to, and I'm quoting now a publication by Dr. Tabibi who resides in Geneva ,Switzerland. He was actually a refugee from Afghanistan when trouble was there and his life was set there. He took refuge and has been since supported there and also supported by the Islamic Call Society of Lybia and by many other good people who sympathized with him in his situation that he was in. Dr. Tabibi has written several publications. He's the editor, the publisher and editor also of a magazine that we receive even in the United States. It's called The Firmest Bond.
The Firmest Bond. I'm quoting Dr. Tabibi now and his publication, his publication, not the Firmest Bond but Dawah. He also has a publication called Dawah, which means propagation, what Imam Yahya is so excellent at and all of his brothers and who work with him here in Dallas and Brother Mounzuk and the committee that you are so excellent at. He writes the book and he calls it Dawah. And strive in Allah's path with your wealth and with your soul. That's the Qur'an. Now, Dr. Tabibi says of jihad and I quote: jihad in the path of Allah refers to all around struggle. The Holy Qur'an has clearly pointed out that jihad denotes two kinds of striving. Striving with the help of G-d, striving with your G-d-given faculties, both mental and physical, And striving with the help of other resources which man has at his command.
This is jihad. The most popular idea, meaning of jihad, especially in the West where they only hear of one kind of real struggle by Muslims and that is conflict, violent conflict, war and violent conflict. So the meaning of jihad in most Western minds and the mind of most Western people is war. War. However, we must understand that jihad simply means, literally means struggle, hard effort, exerting yourself, exerting yourself, making hard effort that involves sacrifice and hardship. Here in this country we know struggle, some of us. We call ourselves the decent poor. The decent poor in this country we know struggle, we know hard struggle and we have gotten where we are today because of our hard struggle. And that is a jihad. If you are Muslim, and I'm sure many of you have continued to struggle hard like that after becoming Muslim, then that is a form of jihad. We know the greatest price to pay as in jihad or in struggle. The greatest price to pay is to put your own life on the line, to fight an enemy physically, to meet him and face death. And those who sincerely fight such war or such battle as Muslims being sincere to what Allah has commanded or ordered them, we believe that if they're killed in such battles, they go straight to paradise, straight to paradise, directly to paradise. This is our belief and I believe that.
Dawah and jihad is the name of that publication where this quote comes from. And the author is Dr. Abdul Hakim, H-A-K-I-M, Tabibi, T-A-B-I- B-I. In explaining jihad as all around struggle, Dr Tabibi also touched upon the idea of our religion as a comprehensive religion. Our religion Islam as it's commonly called Al Islam in Qur'an. Al Islam is a comprehensive religion. What is meant by comprehensive is that it addresses the whole life of the individual and the society. It requires the individual to practice his religion in every aspect of life.
That is, we are to practice our religion at home with our families, with our neighbors, in the Mosque, in our schools, in our businesses, in all of our fields of activity and endeavor. We are to practice our religion. Our religion is always instructing us how to live and how to get the reward, the good rewards from G-d Almighty, from Allah, whether we be in business or in what we call spiritual matter, our religion, I repeat, at all times offers us and gives us instructions, how we are to live, how we are to behave, how we are to receive the blessings of G-d, the blessings of Allah. To do that, our religion has not given us chapters in Qur'an or passages in Qur'an for establishing business or for negotiating trades with different countries or matters like that. No. But it establishes the principles. It establishes the principles, the principles that determine the limits on what we can do. It establishes also certain commands from G-d addressing wrong in life, justice and injustice, good behavior and bad behavior, good intention and bad intention, good attitude and bad attitude, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It addresses all these matters in connection with the whole of life, with every aspect of life leading out nothing. Politics, business, education, whatever. One of our learned professors and well actually he's a doctor in the field and still and also one of the leaders in serving the cause of Al Islam as educator, teacher and educator. He asked the question. I quote him, he said, "Why don't we adopt economics as a means of dawah?" Why would he ask this question, "Why don't we adopt economics as a means of dawah?" Simply because he knows that if we carry out business, trade commence, whatever, in a way that pleases Allah, we get rewards for that from Allah. A Muslim believes, and this is very important for us to understand what we're saying. A Muslim believes that when he prays he gets rewarded from Allah.
Allah ask us to pray. So when he carries out that command from Allah to pray, he gets rewarded from Allah. If he fast the month of Ramadan, which is coming now in one or two days most likely. If we fast having good intentions, not being selfish that is, Allah is going to reward us greatly. We believe that. If we make the Hajj, pilgrimage to the Holy House as Allah has ordered once in our lifetime if we can afford it and as often as we possibly can if we can afford it. We believe that Allah rewards us for that. He Rewards us big for that.
Anything that we do. When we give in charity and our charity is not selfish charity. We have to spend first on our family needs. We're to care of our closest responsibility first. That is the family. And if you don't know I'm talking about jihad, you'll really know before I'm through, I'm talking about us in America and now the situation is about the same for us all over the world except the few countries like the one we just came from, the country that focuses on pilgrims, because the Holy house is there in Mecca in Saudi Arabia. And Prophet Muhammad who lived there and preach there. Also, his home is there, his Mosque is there where he preached, and actually we can say the first government structure, the first government is to be seen there in Medina.
So because Saudi Arabia kind of gives the border, sets the border wherein all these wonderful things are for all Muslims, all Muslims are directed toward there and all Muslims have to go there yearly and all year round. You're going there for religious devotion, devotional needs in religion. Because of that, Saudi Arabia now is not one of those countries that require a jihad on the part of its citizens in order to carry out the everyday commands of G-d in our life. But for most of the world we have to wage a jihad. We have to carry out a jihad just to carry out the everyday commands of Allah, G-d almighty in our life. So don't think I'm leaving my topic. I know the topic with some concerns and the concept of jihad.
Yes, so he says, "Why don't we adopt economics as a means of dawah?" I think we are beginning to do that. We have done away with that centralized control of everything and ownership of everything so to speak. I remember times when a Muslim was afraid to open a restaurant because he was supposed to support the Nation's restaurant. So it all was centralized. Now that we've got away from that and Islamized that idea, the idea of business, we have many Muslims and business all over this country and doing business outside of this country. We have Muslims doing exports and imports. We have Muslims in business all over this country and I'm sure that they understand. Many of our business men and business women, our women are in business too. Many of you perhaps know that our Prophet Muhammad, Prayers and Peace be upon him, he, before he was Prophet, worked for a businesswoman.
Um Khadija, may G-d be pleased with her. He worked for her and impressed her so much as a good business negotiator that she put him over her business and when you read through Qur'an, when you read certain passages addressing the conduct of business, the conduct of a business transaction or the conduct of business where our religion rewards us for all that we do if we do it in a accordance with what Allah has asked of us. If we do good business, we believe that Allah is going to reward that business. Isn't it wonderful to open up a business and say, G-d loves this and G-d's going to reward this business. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't it wonderful to go into politics and say, if I behave as G-d want me to G-d is going to reward my efforts in politics? The whole life is blessed by G-d, every effort.
In fact, I must touch on something now that's a little sensitive for some of you, but I've read that in some religions and I won't name any of these. The article also gave the name of certain religion, I won't name them. But certain religions, the way they treat sex, they have created many serious psychological problems in the adherents or the followers of those religions when it comes to sex. You know what the Prophet said about sex? The Prophet said, "If you have sex with your wife, Allah will give you reward for that." And his companions said, "How is that that we get rewards for having sexual relations with our wives? How is that?" The Prophet said, "If you didn't have it legally wouldn't Allah give you a punishment for that?" They said yes. That's just a little something to show you the idea here. And believe me, it's jihad just to keep your sexual life straight in America.
We appreciate this religion because it's so comprehensive, because it gives us G-d's support in everything that we do. And we shouldn't do anything that He disallows. The most populous Muslim country on this earth, I believe it still is Indonesia. And that so happened to be the country that became Muslim because of contact with business men from other Muslim areas. First of all, a person who's strong in the faith and devoted strongly to his religion does not necessarily have to be found in the clergy profession. In fact, we have no clergy in that sense. We have no clergy. In this religion, anybody can be our Imam. His qualification is that he studies this book and learns it that he measures up in terms of virtues, virtues and decency and that he knows the life of our Prophet. He understands this book, the Qur'an, our Holy Book, and he understands the Sunnah of the life of our Prophet and he's a decent person. Anyone can lead us. He has not to go to any seminary, no special school or anything. So we have no clergy in that sense and certainly no priesthood. In fact, a Muslim might be called a disbeliever if he's found going to someone asking for forgiveness of sins and asking him to send a message to Allah because Allah says, "I'm as close to you as your jugular vein." He says, "Call on Me and I'll answer you. I'll respond."
And He also says, "Nothing is between me and the person who's in misery." Not even a little veil, not even a little partition like a curtain. So says the Prophet Peace and Blessings be on him. So we appreciate business so much. The great country, the big country, populous country, most populous country in terms of the number of Muslims in one nation, one country, Indonesia became Muslim because of its contact with good business people from Muslim communities, from Muslim society or surrounding. For business people you have a jihad, and your jihad is because you in America. You in America where business is not a good word all the time. In fact, most people expect a businessman to have double standards, double standards. He has a law for business and a law for his family in the house with his family. He's decent in the house with his family, but when he goes to business, it's something different.
Right now, ethics is becoming a real, real sensitive concern in America. Because we've seen so much, so much corruption here in the last 10 years or more. We've seen so much corruption. The corruption of even the religious life of the people. We've seen the corruption of the family. We've seen the corruption of government or at least of elements in the government. I won't say government, but elements in the government. We have seen the corruption in government and also in education. Our school grounds, campuses and school grounds have become places where crimes are committed and our children are not safe. So the whole country has come under so much trouble that now the concern for ethics is rising again. And we have to understand that we need a strong movement for ethical practices in the whole life of America. And I'd take my hat off if I had one on and I salute the great American people who won't let their good aspirations and their good values and their good virtues die, they'll rise up again and fight and struggle until the society is human again.
I admire the American people for that. I'm American myself and I think that's why I like to say I'm an American. Some of the Muslims, when I first began, they misunderstood me. I picked up the American flag and I said, you don't want to hold up this flag. I'll hold up this flag. So I lifted up the American flag right in the face of hundreds of Elijah Muhammad's followers. Now, really, I didn't know whether I would get shot, killed. I didn't. Allah is my witness. I didn't know whether somebody run up there and break my neck with a karate blow, I didn't know what was going to happen. But I was moved to do it and I just didn't care about what happened. I raised it. I said, if you won't hold it up, I'd hold it up and I lift the American flag up. It was up there because the law required it, it had to be there and our flag on the other side.
So that's how I got it. I didn't bring it there for that demonstration. And I think at that time they thought I was trying to tell them we have to belong to the government of patriotic citizens or something like that. Well, I did have that in mind, all right, but that's not what motivated me. What motivated me was my knowledge. I'm a self-taught man for most of my education. I've come by self-study. I've read books, many books on America, the American history of people, and I've almost shed tears reading about the sacrifice of Christian saints and Christian leaders who sacrificed their lives to bring decent treatment in their society for human beings.
Martin Luther King, Martin Luther pardone me, and before him, before Martin Luther's time, before the Renaissance and the Protestant movement, many were sacrificing their lives to make that happen. And that touched me. Also what I know of American history, how Christians have struggled and fought here. Good Christians have struggled so hard and fought here and lost lives, many lives just to keep human decency in the society in America, to support and promote the best ideas for this society we call America. I can go on and on and on and talk about that, but those people I had to recognize because my heart I believe is human. And because of that I'm touched by those people and I admire them and I see a compatibility, a strong compatibility, or strong likeness where we can come together and be at unity supporting the common values and making sacrifices.
We all got at jihad, and that's my message to you today. That though they don't call it jihad, we have decent Americans who also in jihad, and they have always been in jihad and they'll always be in jihad because of the nature of America. America gives freedom and freedom in America, America's life means several things. It doesn't only mean freedom to live out the potential that G-d wants to establish for you. No, it means to live out whatever your potential is. If you want to be a potential Al Capone, America gives you the freedom to realize your potential, to be a potential Al Capone. If you want to be a potential Marquis De Sade, the man who enjoyed inflicting pain on his women that he went with, if you want to be him, you can live out that potential. America gives you the freedom to do that. The freedom until opposition becomes stronger than your force. The American people are free too to work against that. See, all of us are free. Now if the decent people don't want to work against the savage and the perverts, then the savages and the perverts may overtake all of us one day. So that put us all, if we love decency and love the high values that G-d want us to have, that put all of us who are decent and love those values and virtues in the same situations. And that's why we acknowledge jihad of good Christians and good Americas, right along with our jihad.
Some of us think America, I'm speaking to African-American people now and I want you to know when I give address in any city, I try to respect the concerns of that city and what the interest in that city are for Muslims. But at all times, I'm trying to do my best to address Muslims in the United States, in the whole of the United States. Some of us think that this is an American country and a Christian country and Muslims are just not going to be able to be very much here. Some of us still think that. Well, I'm going to tell you I don't have to talk for hours anymore. Just look at Imam Yahya Abdullah and look at the people working with him in Dallas. Look at the Muslims in Dallas, and I think your mind will be changed.
Not that that good situation exists in other cities because I was in Chicago for many, many years and I don't think I hardly went three paces. In fact, I know I didn't. I didn't make three steps. Made about one and a half, maybe two. That's a hard city. And it's not only windy, it's cold. But still, when I go back there on the plane and look at the shore line from the airplane and everything and all that pretty oattern. It's got the most, the prettiest pattern from the sky at night that you'll see anywhere. Fly over New York, anywhere. You are not going to see a prettier pattern. I wonder how they got so out of line.
Well maybe it is Al Capone and all that. We got a history there. If what we call an immigrant or a nationalized person from overseas, Muslim, can come to America and rise up while letting everybody know, not hiding his identity, he's Muslim. If he can rise up as this person that I'm getting ready to bring to your attention now has risen in America, then that should tell us that if we conduct ourselves in the excellent way of a Muslim, we have a good future in America now and I believe for always, that good future will be ours. But we have to conduct ourselves in the best way.
This brother's name is Sala Askari, A-S-K-A-R-I. He's a medical doctor. He's professor of urology at New York University and he's also director of urology at Bellevue Hospital Center. And he was invited recently to speak to the whole, whole institution on behalf of the institution. He's Muslim, so don't tell me what can happen. We know what can happen and that's just one example. Yahya and his team here, another example. And we have other examples. In fact, Imam Plemon and his team, his associates in Atlanta, another example. The Muslim presence is so obvious there you can't hardly go and shop at stores without running into a Muslim, Muslim run store in Atlanta.
Do you think I ought to go back to the centralized business control? Oh, okay. I didn't think you would. Didn't I tell you it would work? I told you over 12 years ago, I told you it would work and that in time you're going to realize more business growth than we ever did under a centralized operation called the Nation of Islam business. That has happened. I met a brother who was a Lieutenant recently. He became first officer in the FOI called the Fruit of Islam, the men, the Militant Men Unit under the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. I met him in Miami about, it's been about three weeks or so ago. It was about a week before we went to Saudi Arabia as the guest of the kingdom there.
And I was surprised. He's just a man of ordinary education. I don't think he finished high school. If he finished high school, I know that's that's the most he has. And I doubt if he finished high school. He was always aggressive. He was aggressive, disciplined and aggressive person. I won't tell you how much he's making. But that man is one of the most successful businessmen in Miami, minority businessmen in Miami. Now he has his business at the choicest spot in Miami, choicest spot. He's making products for the biggest brand name people. It's so good because he knew I wanted a piece of it. I didn't say anything, but you know when you hungry your face will tell it all.
So he said, Brother Imam, he said, I can set you up in business. It won't take long. Said if you want to set one up in your town I can do it. So we are working on that. He has set sisters up. Some sisters, three sisters operate in one of those businesses. They're very successful too because his product, his way of, he gives them instructions and everything, how to conduct the business, how to operate the business, and what to look out for. So they're successful too. The three sisters are very successful. They have one of his businesses too. They have a business using his product. He has his own businesses, but he also will give his products to others and they can establish their own business. He just wants to give them the operation plan for the business. It works very well. His name is Ahmed.
What's his name? Full name Khalid Ahmed. Now I bet he going to get a lot of letters. Some of you know him. I'm sure some of you know him. Let me continue now and change the subject a litle bit. Getting away from business to what Allah instructs us to do in Qur'an. Allah says practice, goodness, do goodness, do goodness. Allah says, do works of decency, righteousness, sincerity, and decency. See some of these Arabic terms they can't be translated just in one word, one word can't carry the full meaning. Allah says do goodness in the spirit of goodness and just for the sake of goodness, be excellent, be excellent in doing goodness. Allah says keep away from those things that are objectionable things, hateful things, low things, indecent things, things that will corrupt you and things that will empty out your senses.
See, this word is too big just to pass over quickly. Means things that will corrupt you and empty out your senses. You won't become fit anymore mentally and morally to even do what is right and avoid what is wrong. So Allah says, stay away from those things and looking at the physical meaning, for the physical things that this word address, Munkar. Stealing lying, deceiving, abusing life, abusing people, depriving people of their life, being evil, drinking whiskey, using narcotics. All these are Munkar, all of those are Munkar. Committing adultery, using women for your pleasure and not being sincere with them. Don't you know that's fornication and adultery. If it's your wife and you're having sex with her, but you don't really care for her, you don't respect her, you not sincere to her. That's wasting valuable property. Munkar, not appreciating the things that are entrusted to you, abusing the car, Munkar. Abusing the house, the property, Munkar. Letting the roaches and the rats take over your area where you live. Munkar. And we can go on and on and on and talk about Munkar. Isn't, this jihad? You're living around a bunch of people that don't care whether they do anything. They don't have no sense of what's right and what's wrong. No sense of what's expected of them or not expected of them in any way. That's Munkar. When you live around people that just pile filth up on themselves and smile as they're doing it and you trying to be decent and you living in the same house with them?
That's jihad, that's jihad. Everything is pulling on your children, pulling your children away from the religion, pulling your children away from good parent advice, everything. TV, records, games that they play, the streets, everything just pulling them away. And you trying to pull them against all that strong pulling, all that strong influence. That's jihad. So don't tell me we don't have a jihad. We have jihad America. And Allah will reward our jihad more than he would those who live in countries where they don't have to struggle that hard to keep up their Muslim life. The Prophet, the Peace and the Blessings be upon him, said "Whoever sees or witness Munkar being done, then he should change it." Change it means prevent it, but prevent may bring the message of that we have to go and just rush into something and just take by force, take over.
No, you don't have to use force. In many cases you can use kindness. You can use intelligence. So many things you can use other than force to correct behavior or to correct wrongdoing. And we are only to use force when it's necessary, where other things have failed. So the word is change it. Change it with your hand. Change it with your hand sometimes is just walking up real nicely to the child or the brother or the old person, whoever it is, and they have something, some wine in their hands and they're getting ready to put it to their mouth. And you just walk up and you take the glass. You say, may I have this brother? I know you don't want to do this. You're not ready to bring the wrath of Allah on you like this. Hand me this. Take it and throw it out.
And many times the person will become aware that G-d loves them. See, we can never be more loving than G-d. We can never be more merciful than G-d. We can never be kinder than G-d. He is the source of what little we have of all that. So if we practice that and go to them, G-d loves us. G-d shines His favor on that person, and you have so much working for you to bring the person from bad conduct. As the Prophet said, but if you cannot find a way to correct it with your hand. Because many times if I go up there and ask for that glass of wine, that brother's a karate man and he has little respect for kindness, I might be risking my life. So in that case, then I have to do something else. Says with your tongue, you have to talk to him.
Don't put your hand out there, talk to him. Sometimes he's so dangerous you can't even talk to him. Then the Prophet said, then with your heart. So then you can't take it. You can't take it from him. You can't talk him out of it. So you just feel in your heart, pity for him. You feel bad for him, and you let him see that I feel bad for you. He see you looking so sad while he's drinking. Now, if he tell you, get out of my face looking sad, don't risk your life. Just say Bismillah and walk away.
But there are some things that we have to risk our life for, and I thank Allah that we're in a situation in America right now where we don't have to worry about risking our life. We don't have to worry about risking our life. There's no intent on the part of the government of the United States to persecute Muslims because of their religion. If you are receiving hard times in America, it's because certain elements are carrying out their will against you, or you are inviting problems. Now, if certain elements are doing that, then let us get together and bring those elements to court. Bring them to justice. Bring them to the attenion of the law department. Maybe sometime all we have to do is bring them to attention of the police. Sometimes in certain situations, we have to bring them to intentions of the FBI, but let us not sit around and just take abuse because we are as free in this country to practice our religion as anybody else in this country. That includes everybody. This country was not established to be a Christian country. This country was established to be a fair country, a decent country, a country protecting the religious rights of all people.
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