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IWDM Study Library
Moral, Decent, Upright People 
Maintain the Masjid

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
00:00 Speaker 1: Quran and Arabic language. As-salamu alaykum. Allah, Most High, there's only one Lord and this was taught by the prophets: Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad. Peace be upon Them. They all taught that G-d is one G-d, and Allah, Most High, revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, the last of the prophets, the universal prophet, the prophet to all of the world that is. In the Quran, that the mosques are for the worship of Allah, one G-d alone, and Allah says in the Quran:
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01:20 IWDM: Surely, the masjid are for Allah, therefore do not call any name other than Allah in the masjid. You are not permitted to say in the name of G-d, this and G-d that. There's only one G-d. You are not permitted to call in our du'as or anyone except Allah. You can't say, "Oh, Saint John. So help me," or "Oh, Holy Mother, help me," or "Lord, Jesus Christ, help me." We can't do that. We have to obey the command to worship only one G-d and call on Him. And this is the same Lord who has created everything. He is the Rabb of all the world. He is not only the Lord of Israel, he is the Lord of all the world.
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02:44 IWDM: Allah, Most High, says to the Muslims to call on your Lord, your Lord. And then the prophet was asked by the disbeliever, "Who is this Lord?" He said, "My Lord and your Lord, the one who created everything, only one Lord. The Lord of all the world."
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03:35 IWDM: Say, "I call on my Lord, Rabb, my Lord, and I do not associate any with Him." This is the first principle in Al-Islam.
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03:58 IWDM: "There is nothing to be worshipped except Allah who exists alone and nothing is to be associated with Him. And nothing is to be associated with Him." He has no partner. There is not a company, duo, is what you call it? Duo, yes. A duo involvement or Trinitarian involvement or any other number. There is none but one and He never consulted the angels or created things except to tell them His commands. He never asked them to help Him, that He needs help. No, that's not Allah. That's us. We need help. Allah never asked any angels or anyone else to come with Him to do something. "I have a plan, now come join me for this, I need your help." No, Allah never did that.
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05:30 IWDM: He does not give birth to children and He was not born to anyone.
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05:42 IWDM: And nothing, no single thing you can imagine is enough to describe Him. Nothing is like Him. This is Allah. This is the Allah of the Prophet, that the prophets taught about. And this is the Allah of the Quran, of the Quran.
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06:08 IWDM: The one who created every single thing. The one who did not tire and never tires, neither slumber nor sleep influence him or affects him. We have to sleep. We get tired. There are scriptures that say G-d became tired, wearied. That's tired. That G-d became wearied and then began to regret His own work. You know the scripture that says that. This is not Islamic, it's un-Islamic, ideas are un-Islamic, yes. So, Allah gives the answer to Prophet Muhammed, Sallallahu Hu Alaihi Wasallam. He say, no. Tiredness does not exist for Him. That idea doesn't exist for Allah that he becomes tired or weary. No, that's not Him. That's not in His make-up. No, not in His being, if we can use these human terms.
[chuckle]
07:33 IWDM: No, that's not in His make up and time affects Him not. So, the belief in a G-d that time affects is belief in a nature G-d, that has to go through the processes of nature, and nature can only go so far, then nature has to be reborn. That idea is not the idea of G-d, that's the idea of His creation and they have made it the idea of G-d.
08:09 IWDM: Our religion, Al-Islam, the message of Prophet Muhammed, it was preached for this purpose, mainly for this purpose. The main purpose of Al-Islam was to do away with this idea of partnership with G-d, and G-d as created thing, or as nature... Or as power of nature. You know, we used to be taught, we were taught by the Honorable Elijah Mohammed, "So what is G-d?" Says, "G-d is only power and force." And we know power and force is only a property of matter so we were saying that G-d belongs to matter. That's what we were saying, that there's no G-d except power and force. And if we say that, then we are saying, "G-d belongs to matter, because power and force is nothing but properties of matter." Is that not a fact?
09:00 S?: Yes.
09:00 S?: Yes, sir.
[chuckle]
09:02 IWDM: Poor people... Yet, the poor people are those... The poor people are not those who believe these things; the poor people are those who stubbornly hold on to these things, that are wrong. See, anybody can be deceived if you are in a position, if you are in a mental condition or situation you can be deceived. Yes, anybody. And Satan is the greatest deceiver. Satan... Do you know Satan even tests the Prophet? That's a fact. Satan even test the Prophet. Prophet is not free from Satan.
09:50 IWDM: How do we know that? Allah says, "And Satan caused this... " And never did Allah give a Prophet an instruction that Satan didn't come in and influence it. Yes, this is in the Quran. And Allah says whatever Satan put in over you because you can't stop it. Whatever Satan puts in, Allah will remove it. That's to tell us that human being is not immune, not safe, from Satan; not even the Prophet. But Satan couldn't corrupt him, but Satan could deceive him. Satan could influence him and cause him to say things that Allah wasn't satisfied with. Allah says in the Quran, whatever Satan has put in, talking about the Quran is Prophet Muhammed. Whatever Satan has put in, Allah take it out. Yes.
[chuckle]
11:01 IWDM: Yes, certainly. Quran, as we have it, is pure. But when it was coming to the Prophet Muhammed, before the revelation came to him, Satan was putting things in. In between the periods, when the revelations were coming, Satan was making suggestions. And sometimes the Prophet would say things and it wouldn't be quite right. And the people would get the wrong understanding, it would cause a problem. Then Allah comes and He gives better, he gives the way. He clears the matter up, you see? Not that the... It wasn't a major thing, these are minor things, minor problems. Prophet Muhammed never suffered any major problem like that, where he did something that was a big major wrong, or something like that. But to influence the Prophet to be in a certain way, or do something in a certain way, or to conform to a situation, and then Allah later says, "You were wrong to do that." Right? "You were wrong to do that. You were yielding to this or you were yielding to that," and Allah understands your heart, you mean well... Yeah.
12:34 IWDM: So, Allah straightens the matter out later. And according to the word in the Quran, Satan himself had caused Prophet Muhammed, the Prophet, to have ideas about what G-d was revealing that wasn't right at times. And Allah cleared that up, so that wouldn't come in the form of the religion to us. We wouldn't suffer that. He cleared it up, stopped Satan, before it could come to the people. Now, the masjid are only for the worship of Allah. And another protection for the masjid is this: That the masjid is not to be maintained by those who are unclean. No one who lives a life that is not upright, clean, decent upright life is supposed to be working in the masjid, you're not supposed to have any job in the masjid if you are a vulgar person or if you are a person who breaks these... Laws of decency, you're not living a decent life. It's only for decent, morally clean, decent upright people to maintain the keys to masjid.
14:00 IWDM: And especially not disbelievers. I remember a time we let disbelievers have the keys. Disbelievers led nothing at our own place. It's not for disbelievers, no disbeliever should maintain masjid or have any authority in the masjid. Praise be to Allah, Most High. Now Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, again it is said of the prophet, this prophet we are talking about right now in 6:64 that, "He would not say anything of himself, that he would only speak what was revealed to him." Right?
14:56 IWDM: This is scripture, that what he says will not be of himself, he will only speak what is revealed to him. Therefore, we accept the Quran as being the answer to that. For Allah says, "It is guarded, and no impurity anywhere, no impurity anywhere." It is guarded by G-d, Allah protects it. Even from the messenger, he was protected by G-d as we mentioned just a minute ago. He was protected by G-d so that satan couldn't sneak something in the Quran. It is reported in the Hadith, 9th volume of Bukhari, that Ibn Methhud, he said that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, would never give his opinion on a matter. He wouldn't speak from opinion, conjecture, and he wouldn't use what we call, a substitute, he himself a substitute for making judgement.
16:39 IWDM: It is reported that whenever he was asked something, he would wait, He would either say, "No" and wouldn't answer, or he would remain silent. He said nothing, just nothing didn't say, "Yes", "No", he just remained silent until revelation came to him. Then he said what revelation said. This is to further show that Prophet Muhammad is that prophet, that didn't speak of himself. And you will come through the bad experience of misconceptions in this religion, this is mainly for you so that you will understand that Quran is not the word of Prophet Muhammad. The Quran is the word of Allah.
17:33 IWDM: The Quran was revealed to Prophet Muhammad, but he had no command over these words, the selection of the words. He had no knowledge himself, had no ability to give such a great message to the world. It is divine, it is from Allah. He was chosen because he was a pure medium, pure vessel... Pure vessel, innocent, sincere, clean, upright, truthful. He has many, many attributes, Prophet Muhammad. Because he was so fitting, Allah revealed it to him. But he was only a medium, he wasn't the origin of those words. This is what the devil wants you to believe, so you'll be atheists, so you won't believe in G-d. The devil wants you to believe that, "No. Didn't no G-d do this, no divine did this." They say "Muhammad, that's Muhammad speaking" No! This is Allah, His revelation. Praise be to Allah.
18:51 IWDM: He did not make an opinion or give his own judgement in a matter unless Quran had already come before and established it. If no revelation had come to him before establishing that, giving him a direction for it, he didn't answer. He said either "No, I don't do it", "I don't answer" or "I reject that" or he waited until revelation came. Then after revelation came, then he would give the judgement or give the opinion based on what Allah had revealed. This is Prophet Muhammad. Peace and the blessings be upon Him.
19:35 IWDM: However, this prophet reported having dreams and listened to dreams that others had. According to Hadith, Prophet Muhammad even encouraged people to speak, tell their dreams, and describe dreams as being "blessings from Allah or the words from Satan." And according to Hadith el-Bukhari, he even told the believers how to fight off the influences of Satan in their dreams. He said, "Spit out what Satan suggests, like a bad taste in your mouth. Spit three times on the left." Isn't that something the Communist world are called leftists?
[laughter]
21:00 IWDM: Praise be to Allah!
21:04 S?: Praise be to Him.
21:06 IWDM: Now it's wonderful that Prophet Muhammad, what ever period in his life, that Prophet Muhammad was a light in this world. In fact, he is the light in this world, if you understand him. Yeah, we speak of him as being passed because he has passed physically from this world or he has passed as a mortal being out of this world. But he, has his mission, he has his work and his mission lives and that's what we follow. That's our leader, not... We don't follow the bodies of the Kings and go the way of the matter of the earth. We follow the man who taught and explained things and led us through this way with the guidance of...
00:00 Imam Warith Deen Mohammed: As-salamu alaykum.
00:04 IWDM: Even his dream, a life guidance for us. The prophet reported that he had a dream and in this dream he came upon many different situations of people in bad ways, people in bad situations and there were two companions leading him in the dream. It's also Volume 9 Bukhari. People were leading him, two people were leading him in the dream and one situation was that there was an oven. And the reporter said he believed the prophet said that there was noise, screaming coming from the oven. There's a huge clay oven and the report goes on to say that the prophet said that in that oven were naked men and women. And he goes on to tell different situations. And in the conclusion of the report the prophet explains to them the meaning of the dream. So the prophet didn't only tell dreams, the prophet gave the explanation. That don't mean you should go to these spiritualist people who interpret dreams. No, you would be violating your religion. In fact, you wouldn't be a Muslim, if you did that, if you went to any of these people, "Hey, interpret my dream for me." No if the Muslim doesn't get the right understanding of his own dream, or someone, or G-d doesn't bless someone a Muslim to give you some understanding of your dream that satisfy you and you know when something satisfy you, then you should forget about it.
02:25 IWDM: Being myself a student of the sciences, I understand what the prophet was saying. Prophet was saying that everything is based upon nature. In fact the book this book we're talking about now is called book of the interpretation of dreams. I believe it's called book of interpretation of dreams. This book that we're talking about in the Bukhari selection, it begins by talking about Abraham himself. The people of Abraham says and he saw a tall man and children about him. And the interpretations came at the end and he said the tall man was Abraham peace and blessings be upon him. This is how it's given in the Hadith, the tall man was Abraham and the children about him were children who died upon Fitrah. They died upon Fitrah and what is Fitrah? The nature Allah created, they were children who died upon Fitrah, I mean they died in the nature, when they died they were conforming to the nature that G-d created. This is wonderful and because they died that way they are called the children of Abraham. And one person asked, "So, but what if it was an idolater?" The prophet said and also the idolater that dies on Fitrah would be in the children of Abraham.
04:21 IWDM: Now, what does that mean? What does that mean? It means this the children of Abraham, the children of Abraham these were children will then children of Abraham. The children of Abraham, didn't say they were grown ups of Abraham. They're the children of Abraham. Okay the children Abraham, so it means that if anybody respects the decent nature, decent human nature and does not conform to the things in society that warp this thought, the form, that nature and they died while yet living while yet conforming to the good nature. They are called children of Abraham, why? Because he was the one Hanifa. He was the one excellent, upright, he was the one who conform to the best of the nature, to the best urges in his nature, Prophet Abraham. So if anybody copies that same behavior, they're called the children of Abraham. Now this explains why the Bible says that he's called father of the many and Christians call him Abraham their father, Jews call Abraham their father, right? Yeah, not just Muslims, but many people call Abraham their father. So this Hadith that explains that. In that sense, they are the children of Abraham. I know you all are people that like to question and argue over everything, yeah.
06:00 IWDM: Prophet Muhammad said that the people vex him more than they vexed Moses, more than the followers, you know how they were following Moses everything he did they had to question it. He couldn't even proceed for them just aggravating him with unnecessary superstition and questions, and the prophet, Prophet Muhammad, he was bothered with the same thing and I see why I can understand, I can sympathize with him. Yeah. Now, we are an Ummah, a community after the order of Abraham, the upright one. But didn't say we are children of Abraham, did it? No, we are not the children of Abraham, except in our nature. Except in our nature. He is father Abraham, he's called. Except in our obedience to the excellent nature, we are children of Abraham. But we are more than that. We are the followers of Prophet Mohammed, and the members of the Ummah of Al Islam. Yes. That gives us a higher distinction than those people that just conform to the excellence of their nature. They don't have the guidance. They don't have the last guidance. They don't have the wisdom, the complete knowledge. They don't have it. They don't have the fulfillment of that excellent nature. The fulfillment of that excellent nature is to have a society that accommodates it. That's what that make you want, that's the promised land. To have a society that accommodates this excellent nature that I'm living.
07:52 IWDM: A society that life is long and just as life is good. That's not the society to accommodate that nature. The society that let all kind of vices and corruption be established all around your house and all in your town. That's not the society that accommodates that nature. The society that accommodates that nature is a society that's given in the concept of Ummat-ul-Islamiya. The Muslim community. You can't have liquor sold there. You can't have gambling there. You can't have adulterers, prostitution and all these evils going on there. You can't have double dealings going on there. You can't have oppression there. You can't have anything wrong there in the Islamic community. If you do, it's not an Islamic community. That's why scholars and Imams and leaders in this religion, they say where is the Islamic nation? So we talking about Islamic. Where is it? It only exists where the believers are that are practising that. It doesn't exist in any political context or any political idea, no. It doesn't exist in Egypt, it doesn't exist in Iran, it doesn't exist in Pakistan, it doesn't exist in Saudi Arabia, it doesn't exist anywhere except where believers are conforming to that idea and that's a fact.
09:32 IWDM: Some of them are trying their best I believe. There are countries now, they're trying hard to get back to the purity of the religion and Inshallah they gonna be successful. We are trying. Oh yes, returning to the dream. The prophet said he saw in the dream two companions were killing him in a dream. These things, all of these things that he has mentioned in the dream. He saw there a man on his back and there was a person having a stone and dropping it into the face of this person and destroying the form of the face. But every time the person would go back to pick up the rock again, by the time he got back, the form had reappeared. And they were constantly being destroyed, having the form of their face destroyed by this rock. And in the end, all these things are explained in the end. So in the end, he explains this one. Said these are the people that wasted their time, were not busy doing Islamic things, the things required of a muslim. And when prayer time came around, they would neglect the prayer.
11:18 IWDM: Faith is symbolic. Faith is symbolic of what? Your make-up. Your personality. The way you are inside. Your faith is supposed to reflect you, the person inside. So the faith being deformed, destroyed like that shattered by the rock, mean your person is shattered, that's a fact. We have a good image in ourselves. A good image will form. A good personality will form, and then when we get under a little pressure to conform to the regular duties of the muslim community, we start to put up excuses. And we become totally hardened in our idea. I don't have to do this. This is more than tiring. This is America. Prophet all of that back then, that was 1400 years ago. Different now. That's that stone coming in your face shattering the image, make you a ugly person. But after a little period of time, when he's not under that pressure, he's a beautiful muslim again, right? He's a beautiful muslim again, until that weight get heavy on him. Well, then make your prayers. But he wants to sleep. He feels lazy inside. He wants to sleep. He picks up that stone and drops it in his face. Yeah. Shatter his image again. Destroy his beautiful Muslim personality again.
13:19 IWDM: He goes on to tell us that the companions, two companions, that led him to the site where there was the person with a hook, and he pushed this hook into the face of this victim. And pulled the hook, and whenever they pulled the hook they pulled it back toward the back. It would pull the whole side of the face back and destroyed a whole side of the face. Nose, eyes, everything would just destroyed and pulled back and torn away on that side. And he said, that such people were those who give themselves partly to good and partly to bad. And there are those among us, they don't believe in conforming to what is right. Yeah, I'll do right in part, but I have some wrong. I like wrong, too. [chuckle] So you see what happens to their make-up. And then another group that really touched me, that really caught my attention, so there's a group he said that there's a thing, pardon me, a description of this group of friends, a description of this victim here, says that they appeared on one side of their body very handsome and on the other side extremely ugly. Extremely ugly. And the interpretation that comes at the end of the narration from the prophet, interpretation too is from the Prophet. The prophet who gives the dream and he also gives the answer, as the answer that was given to him in the dream. So this is like, this is like an inspired dream, right?
15:44 IWDM: The dream that he was seeing was not like ordinary dreams. And he says that the answer to this was that these were people who mixed up, who did good, but later they mixed up bad with the good. They mixed up bad with the good. And, the translation said, that G-d pardoned them. But, how could he pardon them and leave them in that shape? They were left in that shape. How could he pardon them? G-d pardoned them, then how come they fall in that shape? [chuckle] With one side beautiful and one side very ugly, you see? He did not pardon them, they translated it wrong. He mocked them just as their intent was divided, just as their life was divided. He manifested that division in the way they appeared to the people. He split them like you, like what is that, a nut, the zawj, zawj is walnut. A walnut is easy to split. It splits and you get two perfect halves. It is called zawj, and zawj, you know, your mate, zawja. My mate is my zawja. I think I saw her back there a few minutes ago, my zawja.
17:55 IWDM: So here the word that's used for what G-d did is that he caused this split, that one side is excellent, the other side is very ugly. Now, weren't we given this religion, from somebody who came behind the beautiful religion? And then they adopted Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde concept of the religion. One side very beautiful, other side very ugly, and now when we recall him we can't look at him and be pleased with him. We see him, that one side of him was beautiful. That is the side that says, "I love the black people, I came here to help the black people. The black people should be free. The black man should have freedom, justice and equality." That's the beautiful, handsome side, right? "Clean up yourself, eat decent, dress decent, go decent, don't be lazy, work." All this is the beautiful side of him. But we can't miss that other side, it's there too. And he's marked now forever because he came behind a beautiful, pure religion and mixed it up with bad things. Elijah, he doesn't have no followers over here. No sir. We see him for what he was, for what he is, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
19:44 IWDM: Praise be to Allah. So these teachings are eye opening teachings. They show us what we could never find by ourselves, never. The only thing is that he came to something, but he don't know how to relate it even. He says he is a Muslim, he says he has taught the Quran. If we don't know the Quran and don't know the real life of a Muslim then we don't even know how to judge him by the thing that he says he has taught. And then we don't... We don't have enough knowledge. He came among ignorant people, he came among uneducated people. He was careful not to go for the 10 percenters, he condemned the 10 percenters, he called them blood suckers, always making other poor, and couldn't see his own thing. That's what a self-righteous attitude will do to us, it blinds you to your own sin. Don't ever try to do a good while you're responding to an enemy, that's the wrong time. You gonna be... You gonna be something just like the person you're condemning. Don't do something as a protest unless it's a moral protest. Unless it's a moral protest, see.
21:23 IWDM: There are people who protest who start something, they start a protest movement, but it's a cause of materially strain, materially... And material difficulty. On the cause that they don't like the one who's ruling at the present time. Their party can't get the same equal recognition or something, so they start out wrong. Now, how do you expect... How can you expect the beautiful, clean, concept from a person who's battling, really, from a selfish motive, that's a selfish motive. See, Allah doesn't say in the Quran that I'm gonna offer you this religion because the devil has mistreated you. No, this religion is offered to the pure at heart. You will say, "Hey, I came with Islam, because the empire, the tyrant will let you have a break." No, if that's your reason you're gonna be influenced by the tyrant. And most likely as soon as you get the power, you're gonna be a tyrant. Yes, we need to see these things. Praise be to Allah.
22:54 IWDM: The motive must be clean, the motive must be pure, meaning that it's not selfishly moved, it's not coming because of a selfish need, of a cause of an isolated situation, some particular thing you're dealing with. I remember when I was put out of the temple of Islam and some people who were in my situation, they weren't being treated right either, and some of them had walked away on their own, they weren't put out, they told me and said, "Let's... Let's grow up our... " What do you call it? The reform, idea of the ideology, ideology, "Let's grow up by our ideology." Okay, now, you want to grow up an ideology? What's gonna... What's gonna motivate you? Movement. Our people need this, our people need that. That's a...

