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IWDM Study Library
Accepting Maximum Responsibility
for Self-Development

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
00:00 Imam Warith Deen Mohammed: Alaikum. Dear beloved Muslims we put our complete trust in Allah, the one and only Lord. We ask His forgiveness for our mistakes for our sins, I worship Him alone there is nothing like unto Him. I bear witness that there is no G-d except Allah and Muhammad is His servant and His messenger. We pray that peace and the blessings be upon Muhammad, the messenger of G-d, upon his descendants, his companions, the righteous all and upon be peace Amin. Allah the most high says in the Quran.
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01:45 IWDM: By the sun and His glorious splendor, by the moon as it follows it, by the day as it shows up the sun's glory, by the night as it conceals it, by the firmament, and it's wonderful structure, by the earth and it's wide expanse, by the soul and the proportion and order given to it, and it's enlightenment as to its wrong and right. Truly He succeeds, that purifies it and He fails, that corrupts it. Dear beloved Muslims, these verses are the great beauty and wisdom revelations can be commented on by men more learned than I am to make volume on just these few versus. We wanna concern ourself today, which just the responsibility, the personal responsibility that we have to ourselves. G-d says that He has ordained that the soul should have it's enlightenment, and it's Taqwaha and it's conscience. Conscience.
03:54 IWDM: Not just of mind but conscience. Many of us have forgotten what conscience is. We are required to have more than just a mind but have a conscience. Be concerned about what you are doing, what you're giving yourself to. Your behavior, be concerned for your behavior and the first obligation is to Allah, who created you and made possible everything for you. The first obligation is to Him. However that obligation is also to yourself. We sometimes are treated too easy in the world. Too many people are taking care of us, bearing our burden, we have to bear our own burden, as much as we are able to. That's a sacred responsibility too. Not first, as respect for G-d, but it is a sacred responsibility to do as much as you can to care about yourself, to care about doing as much as you can to take care of yourself rather than pass it on off to other people. We must accept the burden for education.
05:45 IWDM: Every individual should be concerned for his own education and should accept some responsibility. G-d has intended that we be enlightened, Fujuraha, it's enlightenment. Enlightenment means education, you cannot become enlightened without education. G-d educated the prophet, taught him himself. We are not prophets, we have to get it by way of study, by way of study, devotion to the sciences that have already been established, we have to devote ourselves to learning, accept the responsibility to gain knowledge that we may become an enlightened people and an enlightened society and an enlightened member in society. What Taqwaha and it's conscience, this is more than conscience, this government excuses persons who because of conscience do not participate or do not accept to participate in war. They give a status for them, they call it conscientious objector. I know because I got that status myself, I registered and the judges gave me that status, conscientious objector. Conscientious objector. So here is the court of the land who will respect the conscience of a person if they determine upon examination, because they examined me, they had to, I had to write something and they had to talk to me.
07:34 IWDM: Upon examination if they find that you're truly moved by conscience to do what you are doing, they will respect that, but not just notion, not to just be moved by notion, to be moved by feeling. No, it's more than that, it's deeper than that. Conscience is deeper than emotion and motion and notion and feeling. Conscience, real conscience, true conscience is deeper than that. It's a love commitment to something because you feel that your soul is indebted and that if you don't go through it, you stand the risk of losing your own soul. That's the deep consciousness that we see in the word taqwa. When we fear G-d like that, that's taqwa. When we love, fear and respect Allah like that, that's taqwa, that we are afraid to behave in a way that would take us out of his favor, that's taqwa. When we have that kind of sacred respect for what Allah has required of us, if Allah has required of us that we behave properly, that we seek knowledge, that we had live a virtuous life and seek knowledge, if G-d has required that of us, then we have a sacred respect for it.
09:03 IWDM: We have a sacred respect for it and we should bear that responsibility. Work hard to improve yourself. Say he who corrupts it, fails. G-d has said this, oh, what will definitely cause you to be a failure in life? If you allow your soul to give in to corruption, if you leave your soul to corruption. G-d says that's a sure failure, definite failure, guaranteed failure. You know what corruption is. Vulgar taste, that's corruption, disrespect for morals, disregard for moral values, that's corruption, giving yourself tho the common sins of the world is corruption and G-d says, whoever gives himself to corruption, it will certainly fail, that's guaranteed that you will fail if you give your soul to corruption. The word means debase it, if you will give your soul to low things, if you give your soul to low motives, low desires, inferior situations, if you lend your soul to those inferior kinds of things, vulgar taste, vulgar appetite, disregard for high standards, if you lend your soul to those things that debase you, that drop you down, that make you low, then G-d says that's a sure failure for you.
10:46 IWDM: Allah says in our Quran, that is a sure failure for you. And what is the mood in the culture of the popular society? Get down, get down, get down. Let go, right? It encourages you to become vulgar, low, to disrespect moral standards. So G-d says, if you give yourself into that, you will become a sure failure, then those records, those songs, that are encouraging you in that direction, they are trying to make you a sure failure. Their purpose is to guarantee your failure, that you will not succeed in life. And look how G-d has paired the two or puts the two right next side-by-side.
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11:56 IWDM: Enlightenment and taqwa. In the very beginning of the Quran.
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12:08 IWDM: This is guidance for the muttaqin, those who cherish taqwa. Those who cherish taqwa, that devotion of conscience to G-d, that carries us to death before we give up the respect for the G-d.
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12:42 IWDM: This translation, this word zakah, this translates who purifies it and another translation gives it as who spends on it, who spends on it. Charity is an exercise that brings about the process of purification, charity, whoever gives charity with a pure heart increase in purity. That person increases in purity. Charity itself has a way of promoting the purity of the individual, the purity of the soul. In fact, all the essentials of this religion, the five that are given to us, if we practice them, they all promote the purification of the soul, which prevents it from being debased. Devotion to la illaha illallah muhammadur rasulullah, salat, prayer, zakat, charity, soam or sawm, fasting and hajj, devotion to these all work for the purification of the soul and prevent us from falling down and becoming low and vulgar base people these people and enable us to have an opportunity for the advancement of our intellect and our heart or our sentiments.
14:13 IWDM: He who will spend on it or he who purifies it will certainly succeed and he who debase it, lends it to vulgar life, is certain to failure, certain to be a failure. So let us pray G-d that we keep taqwa, the right respect for Allah, respect for our duty, our obligation to him, to whom we owe everything and that we carry out the responsibilities assigned to us in this religion for the good of our own souls, for G-d says, "And he wrongs not of people, but they wrong themselves. And the prophet Abraham, when he recognized the difference between the false gods and the true gods, what did he say?
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15:34 IWDM: I have wronged my own soul under falsehood and he asked forgiveness and pardon, he prayed to G-d for forgiveness and pardon, and all of us should take that same attitude. In the light of truth, we should accept what is true and right and admit our short comings, our defects, confess our thoughts to G-d and ask him for forgiveness and trust that that position will put you in the good situation to grow in purity and in excellence.
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16:35 IWDM: Dear beloved Muslims, prophet Muhammad, the peace and the blessings be upon him, he has as the word of G-d, he has also promoted interest in education and interest in dignity, not a proud, the pride and ugly pride, but a noble respect for yourself, for yourself and others that will make you work to improve upon yourself, so that your self-measure up in your own eyes or in your own estimation. But if you don't keep this noble image of yourself before you, then you will lose respect for yourself, become to disregard yourself, to place little value on yourself, and in doing that, then you will be subject to follow the ways of destruction. If as people who care nothing about themselves, then are open for the ways of destruction, but if you care about yourself, if you have some value on yourself, place a value upon yourself, Allah has.
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17:46 IWDM: G-d says, he has certainly made respectable all the children of Adam. Now, if he has said that he has said that he has created you with a nobility, with a respect, but you have to give it a chance to flower, to blossom, to live, you have to give it a chance and if you don't respect what G-d has said and then turn with respect for yourself based upon what he has said about your excellence, then you're lost, you're lost and you're hopeless, you're just subject to be abused and misused and led into the ways of destruction, you're a failure if you don't accept to respect the noble idea or the noble concept of the man that G-d has established in this religion and that includes all of us, this is not for one race, it's for all of us, you must understand that. The prophet has obligated us to love and respect each other. You are not a Muslim unless you love for your fellow man what you love for yourself. That's what the prophet has taught us.
18:54 IWDM: And whoever will act in the interests of G-d's preacher, the Prophet says G-d will act on His behalf in the judgement. So these are teachings of the Prophet, we shouldn't take them lightly. And the Prophet has said to the man, to the parent, "If you will educate two daughters, the paradise will be yours." Look at the importance that's put upon the responsibility to educate. And we're looking for the government to pay for education. We're looking for us to establish in this little poor community that's supported by nothing but people in your same situation or worse, we're looking for us to establish a department of Zakaat to take care of your tuitions. But you can take care of your FUN. You can take care of your FUN. You can pay for FUN. And you don't look like the people of Ethiopia. You're fat. You're feeding yourself. Do you care about your children's education? That's a Muslim obligation to care about your children's education.
20:03 IWDM: G-d has obligated us with the Quran. The Prophet has obligated us with the Sunnah. Now, there's a role for government, there's a role for the community to play certainly. If there's money within our reach, we have to respect the needs of the community. If the school has needs, we have to give. And right now we're giving a great percent, an enormous percentage of the charities just to this one school. Is that fair? One school in the United States? We're not the only Muslim school. There are many Muslim schools in the United States. Why should we take that great percentage of the charity for Chicago? No, you should pay your tuitions. So let us accept our responsibility to ourselves. That's what it is, responsibility to ourselves.
21:00 IWDM: What G-d need? Nothing from us, because he has no need from anything in the creation. So what is all this revelation and what is all this religion for? For your need, for my need, to help us, that's what it is for. And that's love. If parents could exercise that kind of love in their household toward the members of their household where they're not doing things for their own self, for themselves that they may look better, or that they may be loved, but they are doing it purely for the sake of those that need it. Wouldn't it be a beautiful family? But many of us fool ourselves. And we love another person just so we would be loved. We love selfishly. We give selfishly. All of it is for personal promotion. It's no good, that's sin. But many of us have slipped into that. We are not really sinful people, we've just followed the society. But understand our religion and let's be good people and appreciate Allah first. And then look at Revelation, at your religion, your Quran, and at teachings of the Prophet and learn what is your...

