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IWDM Study Library
The Will of G-D

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Not a single one could hold them up the sky and the Earth or sustain them if was not for Allah. We understand and by that, that Allah is the creator of everything and has power over everything. He has created everything and everything depends on Him for its continuous existence, if it is to be sustained as He created it, it must have that aid from Allah. The skies are created by Allah, the earth and everything therein was created by Allah. We ourselves are the creation of Allah and our well-being depends upon the blessing of Allah. If Allah does not guide us, if He does not sustain us, then we will not be healthy, we will not have our well-being, we will lose our well-being.
Dear beloved Muslims again, we have to understand that we believe in the Will of Allah, that His Will overrides everything. Even the oneness of Allah. There is only one Allah, not two, not three. Only one Allah. Qul hu Allahu Ahad. Say, He, Allah, the one and only. So, we believe in the one Allah, there is nothing like unto Him. And He is the same one who created everything, as Allah says in the Quran. Allah says in the Quran that He is the one who created you and the earliest generation. His Will is one. He is not divided in His Will. His Will is one. He is one and His Will is one. We know that the Prophet, the peace and blessings be upon them. They came to serve the Will of Allah. They were sent or missioned to serve the Will of Allah.
And Allah says of us, of the prophets, of all His servants and of us, all of our creatures on this earth, the common creatures that we cannot Will, except as He Wills, The Lord and sustainer of all the worlds. Then we shouldn't expect to have any power of our own. To execute judgment and to carry out our will unless it is the will of Almighty G-d. His will is one. There's a unity of His Will and unless we abide by His judgment and seek to be Him or seek to concur what He wants in His will, then we will perish. There's no salvation for us. The life of a believer is not an easy one. The life of a believer is a difficult life. Allah has not invited us to a rose bed of ease.
Allah has given us the challenge, a challenge to live a righteous life while facing all kinds of temptations that are designed to disconcert you, to break your will to divert, to spin-off in separate direction your desire, so that your desire is broken up into the desires for the things of this world. But if you keep your desire uniform, a desire for what Allah wants then there is salvation in itself. Dear beloved people, we are asked to live this religion, for Allah's sake. That’s the key, to do it for the sake of G-d. If you do it for your own sake, then pretty soon you will fail yourself. We are not a bigger motivation for ourselves. The individual will fail himself as a motivation, sooner or later.
If we do it for the family's sake, sooner or later the family will fail because the family is not big enough motivation in our life to keep us going. If we do it for our friends' sake for our associate's sake, pretty soon that will also fail us because that’s not a bigger motivation in our life. There is a motivation, however, that is so big that it cannot fail us. And that is the pleasure of G-d. If you do something to please Allah, that's a big enough motivation to keep you going forever. That will never fail you. So, we should live this religion, not for my sake, not for your sake, not for the loved one's sake, or for the sake of society that we live in, we should live this Religion for the sake of Allah, for His pleasure.
Who will be in paradise? It will be the soul that pleases G-d and in pleasing G-d, it receives its pleasures. That's what Allah tells us in the Qur’an. I believe that the whole trouble of this world can be summed up in this one aspect of our troubles that I'm speaking right now. We are looking for happiness but we are trying to find it from things that doesn’t have the power to give us happiness. We're looking for happiness from the created things, instead of looking for happiness from the Creator. For the happiness they seek must come from the Creator. Because if it does not come from the Creator, then we are going against the will of G-d, we are going against the will of G-d.
If I seek to please myself without respecting what is G-d's pleasure, I am going to go against the will of G-d. But if I seek to fulfill my life in the life of what G-d has ordained me and I strive hard to live a good life as a believer, then I'm going to get enjoyment out of this life. And I going to be happy while other people are miserable. Simply because I am living rightly in terms of my attitude toward life, and others are living wrongly who are living like that in terms of their attitude toward life. After all, faith is based on attitude. No one can have true faith without proper attitude.
If we're motivated by something or we are aspiring for something that is selfish, or have some selfish end, we will soon fail ourselves, we will not find happiness. We find that even without the pure concept of G-d if we give or serve unselfishly, we get a more happiness out of life. This is true for the Muslim, Jew, the Christian, even the atheist. People who will give of themselves unselfishly, they find more reward in life. But those who give selfishly, who give thinking, "What am I going to get out of it?" They are constantly thinking about themselves and wanting to know how are they faring in this particular situation. “What is it doing for me?”
This attitude deprives the individual of happiness, they can never find happiness with that attitude. But if you live to give, the human being that has a charitable heart and a heart supposed to give. The human being and Jinn are both called in the Qur’an by Allah, the servants of G-d. We have been created to serve Him. He says He has not created neither men nor Jinn, except for His service, except to worship Him. That tells us that the express purpose of our creation then is to be a creature of devotion, to render service.
If that attitude dominates us, then we will live a better life. If we see ourselves as a creature that had been put on this earth to render service, to render devotion, to be of service, to give. The emphasis is on giving more than on receiving. Well you're going to receive. Receiving doesn't mean you're going to be happy. Yes, look at the fat fellow who receives all the food but is still miserable. Look at the one with all the money is still miserable. The one at the top of the heap, he's in the seat of power but is still miserable. So, receiving doesn't mean you're going to be happy. See, it’s a matter of attitude brothers and sisters. And the attitude of a believer is one of submission to G-d.
We live in a spirit of peace and humbleness, submission to almighty G-d. We see ourselves as creatures that have been favored by G-d, with free will, with limited free will to do what? To try us, to test us. Allah says that He has created us and put us in the earth to what? To see how we will behave, giving us free will, intellect. Free will and has trusted us with the bounties, the many things that He has created with power to see how we will behave.
And He says that if we fail, He revolves the gift so that it comes to others who didn't have it and you will be without it and someone else will have it to see how they will behave. And so, He rotates the kingdom to see how men will behave. This life is a test dear brothers and sisters. The small duty that we have in our life, the duty of prayer. In the Quran, Allah says of this small duty, Almighty G-d says, "Surely prayer is a hardship, except on those who anticipate in meeting, coming meeting with their Lord and who expect to return to him." 
“And that they will return to him.” What does this tell us about the content of the right faith? What can constitute the right faith? It tells us that if we don't have a fear in us of displeasing Allah, our faith is not constituted as it should be. It tells us that if we don't expect that we answer for our deeds one day before Allah then our faith is not correctly constituted. If we don't expect to return to Him one day, our faith is not correctly constituted. Some of us think we can live as G-d. There is but one Allah, you can't live as G-d, you're no G-d, you'll kill yourself and others maybe.
You can't live as a G-d, you're no G-d, you're a creature made to save Allah. Your title is slave, “Abd”. That's what Allah says, you are the “ebaadulla”. Ebaad is the plural form of the word abd. Abd is one slave, ebaad are many slaves. Allah says of all of His creatures, Prophet Muhammad included, the highest human being is included that we all are the Ebaad of G-d, the slaves of G-d. What is your title, G-d? You just heard it, slave. Your title is slave not G-d. So, we have to have the right attitude, know what constitutes real faith, then we have to accept what Allah has ordered. And Allah has ordered wisdom, justice, fair dealing, truth.
He has ordered the Quran as a light for all times, as a judgement against those who claim this faith. For after all, Allah says in the Quran, what do the people have to stand on except that that was revealed to them? He revealed the Torah to the Jew, the Jew has nothing to stand on but what was revealed to them. And the Injeel or the Gospel that is called to the Christian, they have nothing to stand on but what was revealed to them. And to the Muslim, the Quran and we have nothing to stand on but what was revealed to us. And that book asks of us to do what? To say Allah is one, no partners, no associates, no one sharing His power or the kingdom with Him.
Never was born, never will die, never eats, never was fed, never slumbered, never sleeps, is nothing like any of His creation. Praise be to Him the Most-High. Then if we are Muslims, we have to accept that, we don't argue with that. And then Allah says, "See how He has created you and given you intelligent speech, that you may converse, that you may be able to express yourself between each other." Then what is this telling us? That Allah has obligated us to live an intelligent life. I can't run away with my superstition, that I can't communicate to intelligent people and claim that I'm a Muslim and that I have the right religion but what I have, I can't communicate it intelligently to people.
I can't give an intelligent conversation or make it understandable. Then I have something that's a burden on me and that Allah has in order for the society. We should come in with the language of the Quran, we should accept G-d as He is in the Quran. We accept the angels as they are presented in the Quran. Allah says of the angel, that they come with wings two, three and four. Do I have the right to question that? No, I know Allah said it, it's true, the angels come with wings two, three and four. If Allah blesses with a better understanding then I'm thankful for that. But the first understanding is to believe what Allah has said and not to doubt it.
That's the first understanding. The act of prayer and going through our daily prayers is said to be surely a hard thing, a big thing, a difficult thing, a heavy burden except on those who have in them fear of displeasing G-d. The word “khaashi’een” it means to feel embarrassed, to feel embarrassment for a wrong that you have done. You know how we don't like to see our parents, or wife, or husband, or children, witness an ugly act on our part, vulgar or inferior conduct on our part, it brings us a sense of embarrassment and shame.
The believer feels that before Allah, when he has done something that he knows is against what Allah wants. He feels that embarrassment, he feels a change in him, and it is the fear. I've done wrong. I stand blameworthy. You see, this is the kind of fear that the believer should have in them. The more the fear, the fear of losing one's physical life or the fear of suffering pain, physical pain or some other pain that we can find. That's another kind of fear, we should also have that kind of fear. But the better fear is the fear to displease our G-d, that's the better fear. It is nature of every creature to fear a threat to the life of that creature.
So, that animal fear is not the highest fear for man, the highest fear of man should be a fear that originates from a sense of worth, a sense of dignity, a sense of excellence, and I have failed my excellence before my Lord. I am embarrassed. So, it’s a higher sense of fear, and this is a fear that is given to us in this book, “except those who have that fear”. They do their prayer because it is their excellence. If they miss their prayer, they feel that they're falling short. They are falling down on the excellence that's required in them. If they don't make zakat, if they don’t give in charity, if they don’t give to help others, they feel that somewhere in a very important area, they have fallen, they're falling, they're not living up to the measure of excellence that the Allah put in them and expect of them.
And we can go on to name the basic duty, the many duties, things that are asked of us and required of us and it will apply just as true that we, if we truly believe, we feel ashamed, we feel imbalanced, we feel we're letting down the excellence that Allah expects of us when we are not fulfilling the basic need of Al-Islam. But remember it is our clam, what will make it easy? Turning to Allah sincerely given your complete devotion to Allah that will make it easy. Saying "No, I'm not going put this above Allah. I'm not going put this above Allah. I'm going to put it in its proper place." Everything has a place doesn’t it? I'm going to put in its proper place. I'm going to give Allah the respect that He is justly due.
That means I cannot bargain off things with Allah, I can't make excuses. I can't say, "Well, I have to do this because I have to live," no you don't have to live you can die. And the Muslim is one who will die before we live a life of disgrace before G-d. I hear many will say I'm talking your language you know I'm just talking to you. I hear many you say, “I have to live brother, a man has to live”. No, a man doesn't have to live, a man can die, he has a choice. He can live or die and a real man he reaches a point where he says, no, I don't want to die, but if this is what it takes, I will die. We should make that decision for Allah's sake and Allah's sake only, not for the country's sake, not for the presidency's sake, not for the revolution's sake, it'd be only for Allah's sake only that we have to die, that's right.
Allah didn't give me my life to die for a revolution, He gave me my life for His sake not to die for wife or for you, to die for His sake. Yes, so we give our lives for Allah's sake. And if this world tells us to live a life that makes us fall into disfavor with G-d, make Him disgusted with us then we should say if this is the only choice then, I prefer death. Now, you know that's not the case. We live in a very good country comparatively speaking because I know a lot of countries much worse. We live in a very good country and the society out there is much opportunity, plenty of opportunities out there for growth, for progress, for humanness, for expression of the heart, the human life. 
Plenty of room out there for that and many people out there is just waiting for you to express your humaneness because they love it, they want somebody who cares to do it, because they want to join somebody that has courage to do that. They're waiting on you to give them a little encouragement. So, this is not such a terrible world. We don't have to make a life or death decision. We only have to be strong enough to say I'm a Muslim as the Qur’an says it. Not as Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, not as Fard Muhammad said, not as Noble Drew Ali said, not as Gulam Ahmed said, not as anybody else said but Allah said. That's all we need, it's just the courage to accept that I am a Muslim in the context of that book. Not in some other book written after it written as a commentary on it or as a dilution. Diluted content, we don't want that. We want this, the Quran. Let me see.
I am a Muslim, where? Let me find myself, find a Muslim in the Quran. When I read about Muslim in that book, that's me. That's talking about me. I'm a believer. I claim to be a believer, a Mu’min. I shouldn't go elsewhere. I should go here. Let me read there and see what this book says about a believer, a mu’min. I want to fit that description there because that's the only legitimate description. Isn't that the answer to our religion? Certainly. If this is the Qur’an it's the Holy book, it says clearly what this religion is and what the Lord is. So, whenever I'm confused, I'm to go to that book and it will clear it up. Surely, it's a hard thing except for those who have fear of G-d in them. Fear of displeasing their Lord. Dear beloved Muslims let us now look at one other quality that is needed in our life if we are to be successful.
And that is the quality of patience, Sabr.


