04/28/2001
IWDM Study Library 
Putting Neighbor Back in the Hood - Houston TX

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
This is the National Public Broadcast of WD Mohammed, Muslim American Society Leader. The following lecture, titled, "Christ Jesus Teaching and Al- Islam" was recorded Sunday, April the 28th, the year of 2001 at the Houston Islamic Center in Houston, Texas. The lecturer is Imam WD Mohammed.
Alhamdulillah, we say Alhamdulillah Rabbil Alameen. The Praise and Thanks is for G-d, the Lord, Sustainer of the Worlds. He is One and He's G-d for all of us, and He's the same for all of us. He cares about us all and we witness that He has sent Messengers and Prophets into the world to advance human society. And the last of them being Muhammad, the Prophet. Peace be upon him and upon all the servants of G-d be peace, Ameen.
We are very happy here in Houston today. I'm just jumping inside my own body now. I'm doing the holy ghost dance inside my own body. So pleased to see you all respond to this great program, headed up by our Imam of Houston and Houston the city of Houston, Imam Qasim Ahmed and his wonderful helpers here.
We certainly want to congratulate you all on your hard work and we thank G-d for the success that we are looking at today. Islam is a religion of peace. The name itself is rooted in the word meaning peace, peace. Salaama means, to greet, to give peace and salaam means peace. And As-Salaam is the greeting of Muslims, of every Muslim. Whether he's from, Asia, from Europe or America, the greetings of all Muslims on this earth is As-Salaam, and it means the peace. Alaikum, it means on you. And it's a greeting to extend you peace. But, if you listen closely to the expression in Arabic, you know how to speak Arabic, it's a greeting that says, all of us are obligated to work for peace.
As-Salaamu Alaikum, it didn't say on you singularly, it's speaking to the collective body, "kum" it's for the collective body. So, it says all of us are obligated to work for peace, to support peace and promote peace. Islam is a religion peace. Al-Islam, Islam means resign, means you have accepted. You have made up your mind for good. To be peaceful yourself, and to have a peaceful relationship with your maker, with your G-d and with your fellow man. That's what Al-Islam means. Resign to be at peace with your G-d and with your fellow man.
Islam is...it's also from, that particular interest there, we go to the results. What are the results of us wanting to, what will we have? What will be the benefit if we want peace with our G-d? That is the G-d of all people and we want peace with our fellow man? We...that the result is that we are going to have unity.
Islam is also the religion of unity. It's the religion of Oneness. And our language is tawheed from our Holy Book and from our teacher Muhammad, the Prophet, prayers and peace be on him. The language, the terminology is tawheed, it comes from the word waheed, means one. And tawheed is the concept of Oneness in Islam. And this concept of Oneness began with the recognition that there is one G-d and we are all the children of Abraham. We all are children of Abraham. Christians, and Muslims and Jews, we are the children of Abraham.
And Abraham is the one in our religion who was searching for G-d. He was not satisfied with the gods of his father. His father was also the ruler of the society that Abraham was a citizen of or in, and his father had these gods and one time Abraham as a young lad, he saw these gods and no one was around, and he was disturbed by them. He didn't like it that his people were worshiping these idols, so he broke, destroyed one of them. And when they discovered that the idol was destroyed, they sought to find out who did this. So, they found out that it was Abraham. And when they came to Abraham peace be on Abraham, his father said, "Abraham, who did this?" He answered his father, he said, "Ask the biggest one (laughing)."
And his father rejected him, he put him out, put him out of the society. And Abraham began to wonder, travel. And Abraham one day, according to Islamic story of it about Abraham, of Abraham, one day Abraham set out in a lonely place, away from all this city traffic and business. He set out from and in the open area where nothing would disturb him, and he just began to observe creation itself. So, he was observing creation and he saw the sunrise. He sat out all night long and observing creation. And he marveled over the stars and everything. But when the sun be to rise at dawn, he said, "This must be G-d."
It is the brightest and biggest and most splendid of all. And he sat until the sun began to set. He stayed where he was sitting, until the sun began to set. And when the sun had set, he said, "Oh, no. That cannot be my Lord. For my Lord is not one to set."
And Abraham concluded that, "The One who designed all this, is my Lord." Not any of this that I'm looking at, but the One who design all this is my Lord". So, he came to conclusion that the G-d is not the material world that you look at, and not to be found in any material thing that you are looking at, but is the G-d behind it, the cause behind it. And the One who originated it, and that all of this is perishable. Abraham discovered this for all of us, that all of this is perishable, but G-d endures forever and never changes. So, he's the one that we follow and he gave us that idea.
And this idea is the idea for us and idea for the Christians. It's the same. That there is One G-d, and G-d is not this world, but the Creator of this world and not anything in this world, but the Creator of this world. And we should worship Him in faith and in spirit. This is common religion for us. And our articles of faith are very much like your articles of faith. We say we believe in G-d; you do. That's where we begin. Our articles of faith, believe began, with a belief in G-d.
We believe in G-d. We believe in revelation that He reveals. And we believe in all the Books, we don't reject any of them. We believe in all the Books that He revealed and we believe in His messengers and prophets. We believe in all of them. We don't make discrimination or make a difference between them in terms of their legitimacy.
They're all legitimate messengers and servants of G-d. And we believe also in the Day of Judgment, and we believe in the resurrection from the dead, as you do. And, we believe in Qadr, the Power of G-d let regulates what will happen or that determines what will happen. If you do anything, if you do something, you'll get bad results or you'll get good results. G-d created the world like that. It's His power and His balance of measurements. He measured everything so that it gives you so much of this and so much of that. And if you approach it wrongly or incorrectly, not all the time wrongly, because wrongly implied that you did something wrong. You approach it incorrectly; it gives you the bad results. If you approach it correctly, it gives you the good results.
And we also believe the same when it comes to G-d, how we perceive G-d. We say that G-d is good and G-d accepts nothing but good. G-d is a good G-d. Muhammad says, "G-d is good and G-d accepts nothing but good." And G-d says, "Blame not G-d for your troubles but blame yourself." Now that doesn't mean you won't have troubles, but G-d didn't only create you a body, G-d created you a soul. And the soul can get so close to G-d, that it can't be troubled by anything.
Abraham was put in the fire, according to our...our religion, our teachings. And when they went to open the door of the oven, to see how was Abraham doing, whether he burnt up or whatever, they saw him in the flames, unaffected by the flames. So, some people cry out when they're hurting and they're in pain because of the troubles in their lives. But some go on with the with the troubles and never show that they're hurt or paining at all. This is what G-d can do for you, if you will just get closer and closer to Him, this is religion. This is the religion that we share in common.
So, this that we see as bad and miserable, look how we read. I read a book about a man who had no hands, but he had a brain, a mind. And he had a toe, he had lost most of the members of his body, but the book was called "My Big Toe." With his big toe, he could hold a pencil and he took that toe and he wrote the book, "My Big Toe", he wrote the book. A big novel. And it sold. It was a nice book. I read it, I enjoyed it so much.
So, how much you will suffer, depends on your attitude and disposition, where you’re stationed. If you're stationed in the right idea and in the right belief, your suffering will not be felt by you and I read the story of many. He's not the only one, the man who wrote the book about his big toe. I read the story of many, how they suffer. I was watching television once and, um, this scientist couldn't speak. His body, his physical condition was so terrible, you hardly wanted to look at him. But he was happy.
He was happy because he was placed somewhere above his body and above the material reality, and the material life. He was placed somewhere above that. So, G-d's plan is for us to evolve as thinking creatures and as creatures with a soul, heart, and mind, His plan is for us to evolve above the misery and the limitations of this physical world. So that we isolate it and protected from it, but at the same time, will not be ignorant of it or oblivious. We will be conscious of it, and we will be in a good situation to help others. And that's Christ Jesus.
He was protected from the miseries of the world and he was himself, unaffected by everything, not even death, not even death could change him or take him away, you know, could kill him. He lived beyond death. He survived death and death did not sting him. Not to mention pain or kill him. No, he cried, according to the teachings, on the cross, he cried out to G-d, but he didn't say "I'm hurting." He wasn't, "Oh G-d, this is painful. I'm hurting." He didn't say that (laughing).
So, I say to you the religions are very similar because Prophet Muhammad taught us the same thing. Prophet Muhammad taught us to live so that this world does not affect us, but we affect it. And Muhammad said that in the end, you'll see Christ Jesus and myself together. And the more I understand the teachings of our Holy Book, and the life of our Prophet, the more I see Muhammad and Jesus close together. And the more I get acquainted with Christians who live their Christianity, I regret that most of the Christians that I got to know as a boy playing in my neighborhood and, uh, and living next door around us, I don't think they knew what Christianity was about.
But after I got to meet real Christians that consciously practiced their religion, I have come to really have high respect for them, not to mention my respect for the Bible and for the Christian religion. But for the Christian people themselves. I've come to have such high respect for them. So much respect for them, I can trust my children to Christians that I know. If I died, I could leave my child with a Christian and I know that child will be taken care of.
Yes. Now know we want the world to become like that? Where we can trust each other with our babies? Whether we believe in the same religion or not, we believe in the same G-d. And we believe in the same destiny for mankind. And we have the same dedication and same devotion, so we can trust our babies to each other.
And, I interpret for myself, you know. I didn't have the Imams when I started out to search for truth. I didn't have an Imam. I had ministers of the Nation of Islam. I didn't have an Imam. So, I searched for the truth and I was reading the Bible once, I didn't go to Christians for interpretations either. I didn't have any to go to. So, I interpreted Bible. I read in the Bible where Jesus told his disciples to watch each other's feet. I said, "Oh, that's a wonderful message, beautiful message." And you know, they represent all twelve of them, right? So, they told me what...I think that means the whole earth, all the world, twelve all the world. So, he was telling them as representatives of leadership for the world, after him. Leadership for the world. he's telling them to wash each other's feet (Allahu Akbar).
Sometimes it's not a nice job, it's not a pleasant job washing feet, man all the time. Especially when they wear gym shoes, sneakers. It's not a pleasant job all the time. And it's not a pleasant job washing, cleaning up our public. It's not a pleasant job, cleaning up our public. But it's a job for all of us. And I don't think those men represented Christianity, those men represented world leadership. That's what they represented, world leadership. And it so happened that they were following Christ, but their job was world leadership. Wash each other's feet.
So, through those men, I interpreted, that through those men, the gospel is saying, the communities of the world should take care of each other's publics.
So, if my Muslim public goes down, ignorant and unconscious, you Christians should care about my public, as you care about your own and you should help my public clean up and become respectful of human life again, that was the way I interpret that. Now, I can't say that's the interpretation, because I'm not a Christian, or a student of Christian teachings. Pardon me, an ordained or a licensed person to speak on what is Christianity and what is not. I have not been licensed. So, I'm saying to you what I see in that picture of twelve in Christ told to wash each other's feet.
The world must care about itself and we must care about each other. The world must have leadership that cares about everybody and Muslims should care about Christians who are suffering, Christians who are down, Christians who have lost their decency, and the Christians should care about us.
So, I believe that our communities are really much closer together than most of us know or think. Much closer together than most of us know or think. In our Holy Book, G-d says to us, "You'll find the nearest to you to be those who call themselves Nasara." And Nasara is a Qur'anic term for Nazarenes, the Nazarenes, or the Nazarene, people of Nazareth. And that was the term back in those days. In that particular area of the world, that was a term for the Christians. So, it simply means the Christians. That you'll find that people closest to you to be those who call themselves Nazarenes, but now we must say the Christian people, the Christian people.
Closest to us in what respect? We know in a sense, when we give language, you know language doesn't always clearly show the identity. Because some languages are mystified. Some language is mystified so much, until only the people of that particular language or school of thought understand the language. Outsiders may not even understand the language or not understand it clearly or completely.
We find in terms of language, the Jews to be closest to us. In the concept of G-d, how we conceive G-d, the concept of G-d. The Jews insists that G-d is One and you can't associate or worship anything with G-d. You can't conceive any picture or any person or anything with G-d. So, we find that the Jews is closest to us in language, in language. But in spirit, the Christians are closer to Muslim than Jews, in spirit. And if I understand religion, spirit is more important than anything else. More important than anything else. Spirit.
We are followers of G-d. Or we're children of G-d in our spiritual life and spiritual obedience to G-d. Not the flesh, not the body because the body can deceive us. The body walks into the Masjid and prays all the prayers, and the body can be shaytan himself. The body could be the house of shaytan himself. We don't know. So, anybody and come in and go through those motions and say, " Salaamu Alaikum rahmatullah, As Salaamu Alaikum rahmatullah" and it might be the satan himself.
But satan cannot take on the spirit of the faithful (laughing). It's impossible for him, satan cannot take on the spirit of the faithful (laughing). And we know each other. We feel each other by spirit. We feel the spirit, not the body, but the spirit. We know each other by spirit, not by flesh.
So, we are much closer together than we think. Now, not to say that I haven't been around some Jews that I felt an affinity, I've felt a closeness. I've felt very close to them. I felt faith. I felt spirit. I felt everything. But on the whole, the Jewish people are not as I would say, as much in the spiritual life as Christians. Not near as much in the spiritual life as the Christians. And, I think if they were here, they would say you are most correct. I had one tell me once, say "You are water, man, I'm a land man." I said, "And I'm happy not to be a land man." I didn't say yes, I'm a water man. I said, "but I'm happy not to be a land man" (laughing).
Yes, because the man couldn't even be created until it rained upon the land. And then according to their Book, G-d made the man, huh? Yes. Well, eh, I think we have that in common too. We believe in the whole life as G-d planned it for us. We are people who want to see the world in unity as G-d intended for it to be. So, we want to reconcile the life, so that the life is not separated from itself. We want an interest in the world, but we want to remain free of the world, but have an interest in the world. And we want to see people together, despite their differences, their colors, their languages, cultures, their religions. We want to see them identify as G-d's people and we want them to see them identify as the family of man that G-d created. And accept that we are all descendants of one ancestor.
Descenders of one ancestor, that means that we are one family. No matter how distant we have become, we are still one family. And even science tells us that we are homosapien, homoerectus, I've never heard of homoblack, homowhite, homoafrican, homoeuropean. From science, I've only heard homosapien, that we all share in common. Homoerectus, we all share in common, etc. So, let us accept that G-d has directed us to be one family on this earth, working together for the better life according to His plan, not ours. Because if we plan, we fail. If we don't plan with respect, for what G-d has planned.
Now I would conclude this is the very few...eh, statements that I'm going to make, I'm going to bring to conclusion this talk. Going back to what I said in beginning, that Islam is peace, and Muhammad never wanted war. Peace be upon the Prophet. Our Prophet Muhammad, he never wanted war. G-d had to tell him, "Now return the attack, return the blow to them. They blow, they struck you, return it now." After he had taken many blows from them, many blows from them.
And he walked from one place where he went to visit them, to invite them to worship One G-d in his land, it's called Ta'if, the place is called Ta'if. It's a high area, elevated area and the people lived nice and comfortable there, because it's cooler and they could grow more things so, they were living nice there. And they rejected him, they didn't want to hear his message. Why? Because like Jesus, his message mean...meant you have to care about those who have nothing. You have, but you have to also care about those who have nothing. So, they didn't want to hear that, to have that man come and disturb them in their...in their life and in their riches, so they stoned him.
And the report says that they had cut his body so much with stones, that they threw at him, that those that were near him could hear the blood making the noise in his shoes, sandals when he walked, could hear the blood, making slushy noise, sound in his shoes, as he walked away from that town. So, this is the life of Muhammad the Prophet, not a war maker. And if that is not enough for you to except to know that he wanted peace like Jesus Christ wanted peace, listen to these words of his. He said "The ink of the scholar is more precious than the blood of the martyr." Now the blood of the martyr with us may not be exactly the same as martyr with Christians. In new language, martyr I think, means a little different.
Martyr in our religion means one who lives in obedience to G-d, defending what G-d has established His religion, what G-d has established with his life. You can be a martyr and not die. You can be a shaheed and still be living. It means that you don't fear death when it comes to fear of G-d. You put the fear of G-d above the fear of your life, above the mortal life or death. So, you are putting yourself in the way of death all the time, all the time, if it's necessary for G-d's sake. So, you are a shaheed. It means one who's witnessed, he's a strong witness. He was witnessed with shahadah, his witness is so strong that he will give his life at any time to please his G-d. That's what a shaheed is.
So, those persons like that, they're the first to go to the battlefront. They don't care about dying. They will fight for what G-d wants. So, they're the first on the battle line. They're first on the battlefront and they die. They give their life, they're willing to give their life. They die. And they're happy giving their life because they know it's to please their Lord. They're fighting to protect the life that G-d revealed for them.
So, this is a martyr. Now, the martyr, G-d knows and Muhammad knew that in time, these men will become great warriors and after a while, the spirit of war becomes your spirit. It becomes the spirit to war to fight for religion, becomes your spirit. And you may put more importance on that, more importance on that than advancing the religion by sharing knowledge with the people and preserving the knowledge in books for the people. This is the way religion is to be protected and advanced.
That's the more precious way of doing it. That's what G-d wants for us more than men to go out on the battle, and fight a physical war. He wants those who will fight with the pen. Who will give the laws that G-d wants to give to the people so they'll be protected from war, and the people will be gradually conditioned to not to want war?
For the message of G-d will take that out of us and we won't, don't want to, we won't want to be at war with each other. We will want to work for peace. We'll work for reconciliation more than we will work for defending and advancing our cause in the battlefield with our bodies, with our bodies. And I think that's the message in what Muhammad said, "The ink of the scholar is more precious than the blood of the martyr" (Allahu Akbar). We have in common with you also, our belief.
In the beginning nature was perfect, even nature was perfect, until the wrong spirit came into the Creation. Nature itself was perfect. For G-d's world, Creation was about the Paradise. He put man in the Eden, in the Garden of Paradise. That's where he put him and everything was all right, no sickness, no death. Everything was okay until the satan came and seduced the man and his wife, his mate. This is the story.
Okay. So, both of us believe that nature as G-d intended for it to be, is also pure, pure it's pure. And we want get back to that purity, natural purity. And we can get back to that natural purity, that natural purity is the...is the firm unbreakable foundation to support our growth and development as servants and of G-d, following His guidance. But if we don't get back to the nature that G-d intended for us, all the scripture and everything is not going to really put us in Heaven. You will not be put in Heaven until your nature gets back to where G-d put it in the beginning. That's what we believe. And I think we share that belief with you, Christians. Thank G-d. (Allahu Akbar).
Hence, we want the best condition for human life. We want cleanliness, we want purity of the soul, purification of the soul. We want decency, we want love, we want respect for one another. We want respect for our parents, number one. I once saw a girl, she was standing, I'm going to tell you something about my age now. There were street cars, and we were waiting for the street car in Chicago. And, eh, this girl, I'm about maybe 13 years old. And this girl was speaking to her mother, I've never heard, my mother would kill me if I could ever speak to her like that. And I couldn't restrain myself. So, I looked at the girl, I said, "If you say anything like that to your mother again", I say, "I'm going to knock you down." And you what her mother said? I was afraid of the mother when I said that, I was afraid of what would happen to me from the mother. The mother looked at me and she said, "Thank you son." (Allahu Akbar).
That's what she said. She said, "Thank you, son." And I think, I was washing dirt from feet there, wasn't I? And that girl, I'm going to tell you a different look came on her face. Look like she said, "What in the world have I gotten myself into?" and, "Who was this?" Because I admit it, I looked right in the eyes. And I got some different eyes, hard to look in my eyes and not take me seriously. It's hard. I'm telling you. My experience with people, I had to learn this for myself.
I remember boys, punk boys threatening me and I know they could beat me up, but something would come over me and I wasn't afraid of them and I look them right in the eye. You know when I get serious, I look you right in the eye. I look right in the eye and I could see them weakening. Yeah, I could see them weakening. Yeah. I got powerful eyes. I don't use them either, not intentionally. Yeah. 
Yes. And lastly, we believe in renewal. We believe in renewal. We believe that the G-d who created life can also renew that life. So, this is not just something for Christians that you believe in renewal, rebirth and renewal, this is the belief of Muslims also. So, I think I said enough to show you that we have a lot in common and the most important things in both of our faiths, is our idea of G-d. That G-d is the Creator of all, has power over all things, and has planned and willed, where we should go. And we have accepted His will and we have accepted to care about each other. To me, that's the whole of it. Peace be unto you As Salaamu Alaikum. 
Be sure to join us next time for the National Public Broadcast of W. D. Mohammed, Muslim American Society Leader. For more on the Ministry of Imam W. D. Mohammed call (1708)-798-6653.
Or write Post office box 121, Hazel Crest, Illinois, 60429. For WDM publications called (1708)-862-7733.
Or write Post office box 1944, Calumet City, Illinois, 60409. For Muslim Journals, see local distributor.
And, thanks for listening.



