03/28/1998
IWDM Study Library
25th Anniversary Clara Mohammed Schools Of Milwaukee

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Speaker 1:
The following lecture was recorded on Saturday, March 28, 1998. on the campus of the University of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at the 25th anniversary of the Sister Clara Muhammad School of Milwaukee. The lecturer is Imam W. Deen Mohammed, a Muslim American spokesman. And now Imam Mohammed.
Speaker 2:
G-ds' peace be upon you. Our greeting is As-Salaam Alaikum. We praise G-d. We witness that He's the Lord sustainer of the world. He cherishes the universe. He cares for all of His creation and especially His human creation. And we witness that Muhammad, peace be upon him, received the Qur'an. Muhammad Ibn Abdullah is his name. Muhammad, the son of Abdullah, received the Qur'an from G-d, the Holy Book, sacred book of the Muslims, that he is the messenger prophet to whom the Qur'an was revealed. And G-d says of him that he is the one mentioned in the Torah and in the Injil, known today, in these times, as the Old Testament and the Gospel or the New Testament. And that he is the one who lifts the heavy yokes off the backs of the people, and frees them from the bands of slavery.
And we understand that to mean we who study the religion Qur'an, to know exactly what G-d is saying in reference to the prophet, peace be upon him. And we understand that to mean that Muhammad, peace be upon him, is the one who was promised to the people of faith, the religious community on this earth of faithful people called Jews. Christians. He was promised as a liberator, a liberator, and the liberation will come from the application, the knowledge, and the application of the revealed book, the word of G-d. And history tells us that the Qur'an was given to scribes, given into the ears of the followers of Muhammad, peace be upon him, and given to scribes. And they wrote it down to preserve it on paper, or in print slates, and whatever stone or paper.
And the people were told to memorize it. They memorized it. Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, is reported to have recited it in one standing, the whole Qur'an during one of the nights in Ramadan, the month of fasting, the ninth month of the Islamic Calendar. They were told to write it down. And we understand that in the history of this preaching of Islam, there was an effort to bring up the level of literacy because that was during a time called the ignorant age. We say dark ages, and it is called the ignorant age in Islam. It's the time before the coming of Muhammad, the prophet, and the Qur'an, the book from G-d. It's called the Ignorant Age. And the people began to love reading and writing. And the message of the Qur'an appealed to the rational mind, to the intellect of the human being, and to our power to think and reason.
And the result was that in a short period of time, Muslims were changing the Dark Ages from the Dark Ages into the Age of Enlightenment. Very great institutions of learning soon popped up in Damascus, Syria, Baghdad, Iraq, and other places like Fez, Morocco, one of the old centers of Islamic studies and education, also in Cairo, Egypt. Timbuktu used to be a center of learning in Africa. Timbuktu in Africa was a center of learning that attracted scholars from around the world, both students and scholars. Also, learning centers were developed in Cordova, Spain, and many other places. In Cordova, Spain, the government invited and welcomed Christians and Jews to feel comfortable. Many Jews and their learned people worked with the learned people of the Muslims, and Spain realized a great civilization and a great culture that ended the Dark Ages for them.
And as a result of their devotion to education, academic devotion, enlightenment appeared all over the world. Eventually, students of that history recognized that it was the effort of the prophet and his followers in education that eventually sensitized the world again to highly value the human intellect and to promote excellence in education. This is history. So we have here a school, it's a Muslim school, and our resources are small. Financial resources are very small. We are poor, very poor. Many with our resources would never think of trying to have a school, not even a tutorial school at home.
But we have this great interest and education, as we believe education should be, because we are Muslims and because we want to follow in the excellence of those who followed our prophet and brought a respect for learning to a land that was called the land of ignorance. Jahiliya, it was called, and is still called Jahiliya; the pre-Islamic time is still called that. And Arabia was in what they call the Jahiliya period. The ignorant age, the ignorant period. So this is a sacred call for us to join you here tonight. It's a very sacred call to support your fundraiser for the Clara Muhammad School here in Milwaukee.
And I want to thank myself as your representative, as your spokesman in this country. I want to thank all of those who are giving their support to the Clara Muhammad School here in Milwaukee. The Muslims and the friends of the Muslims are those who believe in what we are doing. That is, going to help us and help our children to appreciate education and become better educated, so we can become, as Muhammad said, more useful to the people that we live with and the people in this world. I have to say thank you myself, as your leader, to those who have given a grant to the Clara Muhammad School here in Milwaukee.
I think Mr. Fleckenstein, and I hope I'm pronouncing the name correctly, is sitting there. Your support of the Clara Muhammad School here in Milwaukee excites us. It excites us and makes us want to do more. I want to do more now for the school in Milwaukee because of the help we're getting from our dear supporter, Mr. Fleckenstein. Yes. So G-d willing, we are going to work harder, and you're going to see some help coming from us here in Milwaukee. I'll have to share with you a few sayings of Muhammad, the Prophet, our prophet, about knowledge and education.
But first, I would like to say, to give you something that is from the Quran, from the Holy Book, because everything the Prophet gave us is in the Holy Book. The prophet did a commentary on the holy scripture. The prophet was the recipient of revelation. He's the prophet, the messenger of G-d. And he was also the teacher who taught us the revelation. He taught it to us, taught us the book. An answer in the book itself, referring to him, says he will purify them with G-d's agents, purifying agents. He will purify the people. That's his responsibility. That's all part of liberating them. We can't be liberated intellectually without being liberated first morally.
So he was sent to purify us and to teach us the book, meaning the revelation, the Qur'an, and the logic. They translate it as the wisdom, but it means the rules of logic; to teach us the word means the rules of logic; to teach us the book and the rules of logic. And G-d says of the book that the book is basic and allegorical, basic and allegorical. The allegorical needs interpretation. And no one has the interpretation, but G-d. This is the book. We are taught this in the book. And no one has the interpretation but G-d. This means that if anyone gets the interpretation, they get the interpretation from G-d. G-d inspires them to see into it, and they get the interpretation.
And the very word that is used for 'basic' means that the rules of logic support it. The meaning of the word 'basic' is supported by the rules of logic that a human intellect was created to understand. Our intellect was created by G-d to understand this universe, the nature of this created world, this material world, which we are also in and of. We are of this material world, our flesh, our life, our biological life, et cetera. And G-d has created the human brain, this intellect to digest that, to perceive, to perceive it in its nature, in its laws; in its nature, and in its service to mankind because of science. This is science, science. So man's brain is created for science to have science and to benefit from science. And Muhammad, peace be upon him, said of the brain, and this is for the school, in the interest of the school, I'm saying these things. Muhammad, the prophet, peace be upon him, said of the brain that G-d never created anything more useful, through which we get more benefit from, in our world than the human brain.
And you can be all so innocent, but if your brain is not alive and fed and used, you'll remain innocent without automobiles, without the conveniences that we have in this modern industrial world, without advanced medicine, et cetera. We would be without mathematics, arithmetic, not to speak of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and all the other stuff. They have analogs, other algorithms, and all that, not to mention the high technology. We can't have that; nobody can have that except when we use the brain. So when we look at all the conveniences and the creation that we have, G-d gave us that through the usefulness of the brain. Through the service of the brain, we got it.
So I understand what the prophet said, and I certainly appreciate that saying that G-d never created anything of more use to man in the society than the human brain, than the human brain. Now we know, as I said, if we are not morally strong, we can't expect the brain to serve us. The brain will then hurt us. People with great brains and bad morals will only hurt us, enslave us, mistreat us, corrupt us, take advantage of us, et cetera. So we know they work together. The moral condition is a condition for the progress of all the great utility that G-d put in the human being when He created us; for all the great expressions and benefits that come from us using our talents that G-d gave us. Muhammad, the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, whoever goes out to seek knowledge to benefit others can enter, or has entered, or has come upon the path that leads to G-d. So in our religion, we are seeking to educate ourselves so that we can become of better service to humanity. We are in humanity ourselves, our families, our neighbors, our country, and the world. Anyone who seeks knowledge, wanting to give it to others, to see this world become a better world with better conditions for human beings, has entered or come upon a path that leads to G-d; a path that takes us to G-d.
That's what our prophet said. And Allah says of knowledge, of higher knowledge in the Qur'an, that it is translated as science, not just higher knowledge, but science too. And through that science, G-d has made this world so that it is all connected; all connected and supported by knowledge. Or we can say science and Rahmah, mercy, compassion. That's to keep our progress in knowledge or in the sciences, respecting human beings, their life, and the conditions they need. So sometimes the knowledge will tell us to pursue this course, and you'll become powerful materially. Pursue this course, and you'll become rich, very wealthy, and you'll dominate the world. But if we keep the Rahmah, the compassion, the concern for the life that G-d created for human beings, then we will say no to this advancement that we know is going to hurt humanity in the long run or soon.
And we will discipline ourselves in our search for knowledge and getting the use or benefit of the sciences from the knowledge. We will discipline ourselves and sacrifice, maybe even let another society or another system get stronger than us in warfare or in something else. We make this sacrifice and discipline ourselves because pursuing that course to wealth, power, and dominance, because we know that this course would be against the interests of human beings. G-d wants us to have and to consider what is in the best interest, what is in the best service of human beings. So the devotion to sciences, to education and sciences must be with care for humanity, care for the conditions that humanity needs in order to have comfort and health and progress for their human life, their human form, their human nature, their human interests, their human concerns. So this is a great value that education has with us, with us as Muslims. Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said, the most useful of you, the best of you, pardon me, the best of you, is the one who is most useful to people. the most useful to society, the human society, to all in the society. And Nas means a whole human family on this earth.
And he also said of education that it is our property. It is our property, our natural property. Education, of science, and higher knowledge, is our natural property. And he didn't say it was the property of any human being. He said it was the property of the believer. The believer. How do we get this right now to say that the sciences belong to us as human property? How can we explain that? We can explain it with the prophet's guidance, by understanding the prophet's guidance to us. Education is the property of a human being who believes in G-d, the Creator of it. If you don't believe in the creator of it, consider that G-d is the creator of the material world, the laws of matter, and the sciences that we can acquire from the study of that matter. G-d is the creator of all of that. So if we believe in that G-d and we believe in being faithful to that G-d, devoted to that G-d, and worship with our services, our life and our service to humanity, then we are the lawful heirs, and the lawful beneficiaries of this great universe and all the sciences that we can derive from the study of it; the knowledge we arrive at from the study of it.
So this is the way to understand that. So every human being, according to our religion, who respects the G-d that created this, wants to serve that G-d, and wants to obey that G-d, is the owner of sciences. What does G-d need with the sciences? The sciences are for us. G-d doesn't need the sciences. He created this world for us. He doesn't need the world. He created it for us, for the human beings that will serve Him.
I wish I had a thousand lives I could live because I know just one devotion would require maybe 500 years. And that's travel. I love to travel, to travel and learn all. I love to learn about the people, different people on the face of this earth, their histories, their excellence, et cetera, in all the fields of human interest. Oh, it would take me many, many lifetimes, many, many centuries to do that. So you youngsters, you have years ahead of you. You have a long time to study. And you should study and work hard to acquire all the useful knowledge you can. And mind you, the prophet also says that it is a loss. It's sinful, and it is a loss to pursue knowledge with no intent to benefit humanity, with no intent to have humanity benefit by it or from it. You see, to seek knowledge for knowledge's sake is sinful in Islam.
Just seeking knowledge for knowledge's sake is considered sinful. In Islam, we seek knowledge so that human beings will have what is necessary to give them a better existence. That's the right way. And when you do that, you're doing a religious act in Islam. It is a religious act deserving of great rewards from G-d. This is knowledge. Some of you youngsters may be doctors one day, medical doctors or surgeons, whatever. In Islam, we believe, and now I'm speaking the words of scholars, not just my words. The scholars in Islam see and respect the service of a doctor who cares about human life and respects the creation of G-d and the purpose that G-d created for human beings and things in the world that G-d made. If a doctor tries to obey G-d with his service as a doctor, his service as a doctor is respected or viewed as devotions that we see in salat prayer.
Think about the one who is praying to G-d, and the one who is preaching, preaching the message of the Qur'an, a message of religion, or the message that G-d gave us. One doing these things is no more worshiping G-d than the medical doctor who wants to obey G-d with his service. The medical doctor who gives his service for health, and that makes people healthy, to cure them, to remove danger from their lives, misery, or disease, et cetera from their lives, he is doing worship. He's worshiping Allah, G-d the Almighty, the one G-d. He's worshiping G-d with his medical knowledge, using his hand and his skills as a surgeon or whatever. He's worshiping G-d.
And there is no better service to G-d than to seek knowledge, education, so that human beings will benefit from it, and conditions will be better for the human life that G-d created us to have. There is no better service. Muhammad, the prophet, said that such people in the hereafter will be in stations in the heavens. They will be in stations next to the prophets themselves. So no one earns more respect than those people, other than the prophets themselves, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, and Abraham, known as Ibrahim, peace be upon them. Only they will be in ranks above those who will use knowledge to benefit human beings and make a better condition on this earth for human beings. We know that if knowledge hadn't been allowed to progress, if education hadn't advanced, we wouldn't have science and technology and all the benefits that we have. Civilization would not have been what it is. Only knowledge. The progress of knowledge shows us the advancement, the true advancement, the true progress, the true advancement of civilization. Some of us may think of civilization only in terms of conquest and material benefits, but we know the educated never think of civilization in such terms only. We only think of civilization in terms of how much progress has been made for the moral nature and the rational life of man. Thank you. Peace. As Salaam Alaikum.
Speaker 3:
For more on the ministry of Imam W Deen Mohammed, Muslim American spokesman, call 1 7 0 8 8 6 2 5 2 2 8. Send mail to Post Office Box 1061, Calumet City, Illinois, 6 0 4 0 9. For WDM publications. Call 1 7 0 8 8 6 2 7 7 3 3, Post Office Box 1944, Calumet City, Illinois, 6 0 4 0 9. For Muslim Journals. See the local distributor, and thanks for listening.
Enter Here

37


