FASTING IN RAMADAN: Part 1

Imam Warith Deen Muhammad


Dear beloved Muslims, brothers and sisters, friends, As-Salaam-Alaikum.  All praise is due to Allah, Guardian-Evolver, Cherisher and Sustainer of all the Worlds,  Peace and Blessings be upon Muhammad, to whom the Quran was revealed, upon his descendants, his companions, the righteous, all of them, and upon us here in America and throughout the world.  Amin.

Dear beloved Muslims, I thought I would ask Imam Matthew Hamidullah to address you for about thirty minutes today and before I could ask him, he asked me, so yes.  I didnft know, perhaps he had something  planned you know.  When someone has something planned and it works out well  then we shouldn't upset things and change things.  But if he on his own did it, then that's okay.

First let me say a word on the Fast Month.  We've been fasting now almost for the thirty days of this fast month and I heard that the attendance on the 27th of this month, the night of power, was very good.  1 am very happy to hear that.  I observed  myself, at home.  I didn't feel I should come out because of ignorant reports of people who just like to carry on foolishness, you know.  And I didn't want to come here and have somebody carry on some foolishness because I was here.  So I thought it best for me to stay at home, but my desire was to be here.

This month is the month of self-restraint.  A month wherein we restrain our normal appetites for the things of life fur Allah's sake alone.  In Quran Allah, the Most High says "that fasting is for Me".  So we have to restrain our appetites.  Even those appetites that are lawful.  We have to restrain them for Allah's pleasure.  Because even the permissible things can get us in trouble sometimes.  In fact they will get us in trouble if we don't recognize that everything is by the grace of God.  And Allah has made it possible for us and we should always live a life of conscious obedience to Allah.  He has given us the physical body and everything, all our mental faculties and everything.  He has given us the love we feel in our hearts for our loved ones.  He has given us the heart, the nature to have that love.  He has given us the desire for progress and growth in our life and all of this that we understand it as Muslims was not possible except that we have the grace of God. Except that Allah has bestowed those upon us, granted that to us.  So we should discipline the entire life for Allah's pleasure.

The month comes in the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and that month is called Ramadan.  That's the month that we are fasting in now.  Ramadan, and it is the hottest month by name.  The name suggests that it is the hottest month.  But we know that the Islamic months rotate through the seasons.  Months are calculated by the moon. And because they are calculated by the moon and not by the sun or by the season these months rotate through all the seasons.  So we will have Ramadan in hot, extreme hot heat of summer and we will have it in the extreme cold of winter one day.  It's going to rotate.  In fact I believe some of us have had the fast in cooler months.  And finally it brought us into the hot months and we will be in the hot months for a while and it will go back to the cool months. But the month itself, the name suggests "hot, heat", Ramadan. 

Some persons have also summarized, i.e., guessed that Ramadan may have another hint, the plant called "Ramad, Ramad", fruit This plant is red as you know.  It's the pomegranate. We used to call them Indian apples as kids.  That fruit is red with little seeds, and filled with red juice. It has been associated in myth, poetry, symbolic language with passions of man.  With the human passions.  If you noticed in the seeds of that fruit there's a little white spot.  So it is red without and it is red within, but in the core, in the seed is a little white spot.  Now if we look at that kind of symbolism then we understand from that that man is full of passion, but he is also a. creature of moral conscience, a creature of moral conscience.  He has that seed of moral fear or moral consciousness in him.  

If we look at it now in the terms for this month Ramadan, the Islamic terms for the month Ramadan, it has been said by  those who have studied the meaning of this Arabic word Ramadan, that it does not only refer to heat so much, the extreme heat, but to the protection against the heat.  It says that the people in that part of the world, the Middle East, they wrapped the feet of the animals sometimes when they were going across the hot sands.  The wrapping of the feet of the animals to protect the animal's feet from the heat of the burning sands is Ramadan.  It is also called Ramadan.  So we *re not sine whether the word Ramadan means the protection against the heat or whether it means the heat itself because there are different discussions and different conclusions have been drawn.  But we do know that the fast is a test for our restraint.  

It tests our ability to restrain ourselves, to restrain ourselves under temptation.  There's a natural temptation to drink cool water when we are thirsty.  The natural temptation to eat the food when we are hungry. And there's a natural temptation to respond to our wives when that appetite is present.  But in the daylight hours we restrain from responding to our wives and they restrain from responding to us and we restrain from food and drink. And we also restrain from the wildness of our temper.  We don't let our temper take us topsy turvy.  We control our temper all for the sake of Allah.  In fact it is a total discipline of the whole person for the pleasure of Allah. We know that the passion have often been associated with heat; heat, passion with heat.  Desire with heat -you've heard the common expression 'burning desire'.  So we know that passion and desire have been associated with heat. We also know that the 'hell is a heat.  But in our religion hell is not only heat, hell is extremities. Hell is the terrible extremes, extremities. Because in Quran Allah says there will be extreme heat and extreme cold. Extreme heat and extreme cold, so it is a protection from God against the extremes.

So we may say that the Muslim is to also watch his spiritual passions.  The spiritual passions, if we can call them passions and I believe we can, are not called heat, desires of heat.  Spiritual passions are the motivations in us to temper the social passions, to temper the human, the social passions.  On one side we have the spiritual desires and on the other side we have the social desires. We have the desires of the flesh as the Christians would say.  On one side the desires of the flesh on the other side the desires of the spirit.  In our religion we don't go along with that kind of terminology because spirit is both of flesh and of soul or mind. 

There's a spirit of flesh and there's a spirit of your soul.  They both have spirit and the soul's spirit can be given to fleshly things and the flesh spirit can be given to spiritual things.  The flesh spirit often is reformed.  It comes into obedience and the flesh spirit, the same spirit that was once given to fleshly appetites is now obedient and is following the guidance of God.  So if we really look at this nature in man it is one nature and the spirit may come in a different dress, or different garbs, but it is all of one nature and one spirit.  So we don't like for our life to be given to any extreme. We don't like for the spirit of our life to be given to any extreme.  This month trains us to accept a healthy, balanced life.  A life that is not given to extreme.

In practicing the fast we know it awakes us to the need of others. It makes us more aware of the little things in our life.  It makes us more aware of those things that we pass by when we are not fasting. We just don't pay any attention to them when we are not fasting. In the month of fast we appreciate little things that we didn't appreciate before and we appreciate things in other people that we didn't appreciate before.  We tend to be more sympathetic, more rational than we were before.  This month is indeed a month like the pomegranate. It is filled with the passions, but it has a cooling affect.  It cools us down.

Fasting in this month as it was done by Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, has ten days, the last ten days of night observance where we are spending the night hours in prayer, devotion, strict devotion to Allah for His Guidance.  Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, he would go and be alone to himself in a special place prepared for him that he had prepared at his home. During the night hours he would stand with the Muslims and they would pray until the dawn and the verse comes in the Quran relieving the Muslims because they were so much in love with Prophet Muhammad, with Allah first of all, with Prophet Muhammad and their religion that they had come into, that they had almost lost all sense of any need for the worldly things.  

They didn't desire for anything but just to worship Allah, to give Him praise and spend those nights in prayer  with Prophet Muhammad or with their Imam.  The believers are told through Prophet Muhammad and the verse comes that God had observed them, their devotion, their grave devotion. How they spend the night, the whole night, all the night in prayer and God showed great mercy to them bringing them to see that there are daily activities and night activities.  The same persons who engaged in prayer all night will also be busy in the day, many of them.  And that they had obligations to their families as well and that it was not God's desire to put hardships on human beings. He wants ease for human beings.  He wants ease for human beings.

So you see even in this spiritual devotion there's a need to guard against extremes. But that's a good thing in the human being, that he wants to give the whole self to God. That's a good thing in the human being, but even Allah has to caution us against becoming overly involved in spiritual devotion or in devotion because the daily activities are wanted too.  Allah wants what we do in the day too. You know.  Allah wants us to build a good society to live a good life and make a good society. He wants us to progress in every way that is lawful for us.  But if we spend all the night in the prayers and the day comes what are we going to do? Aren't we human? We have to go to work.  You aren't going to get any sleep. You have to get sleep.  In this part of the world we have to be very careful to not adapt the habits of people that don't live in this country. Why? Because their life is not planned like our lives.  

Many of the people in the old country have hours to rest in the day, but you who are working on your jobs, you don't have hours to rest.  If you rest you will be fired.  So you have to work, you see.  If Allah has made certain allowances for us why don't we love Allah for making these allowances? He says that He does not desire the "Usra"  for us He desires "Yusra" for us.  Now we are not to take it upon ourselves to decide what is "Yusra"  for us? what is easy for us. We have to take guidance from the guidance of God.  He has told us what is "Yusra" for us.  But if He had given us something in the Quran as a basis and if it can be applied to our situation, then we should apply it. Now let me give you something else because I know the sincerity of a believer in his life and we don't want people to misunderstand us. 

When the Muslim is sick, is he obligated to fast?  If he is traveling, is he obligated to fast? All right, why is he not obligated to fast when he is traveling or when he is sick?  Isn't it because he is not as strong and healthy for that?  And when he is traveling isn't It because he is under hardship?  Isn't it because he's under hardship that he's exempt from tasting while he is traveling?  If we understand traveling in those days of Prophet Muhammad Salla-llahu Alaihe Wa-Sallara, traveling was very odious, very difficult and especially traveling in the Middle East where you don't know when the next oasis will come, where will be the next water hole, you see. And you are traveling upon an animal that was very uncomfortable wasn't it, some long miles.  

Can you image going to New York upon a donkey or even upon a horse, or a camel, can you image how many of us would go to Hajj from here the way they went to Hajj.  Take the horse, or a donkey, or the camel, or by foot to the ocean and get the boat and get off and go across the land on foot, or horse, or donkey, or camel, that way is very difficult, you see. So for one experiencing great difficulty, allowances have to be made for him.  So he is exempt from the fast.  He's to make that fast up in the next month,    the equal days, the equal number of days in the next month or he is to feed the poor hungry   people.  Right! So there is a way for him to compensate, to make up.  Now listen, Allah says "but fasting is best for you if you only knew ",  So we can make up by feeding the poor, but He says fasting is best for you if you only knew, you see.  By feeding the poor I'm not going to get the benefits of that discipline for Allah's sake.  I'll get some benefit certainly, my charity is going to bring me benefit from Allah but it won't be the sane as that that will come from restraining myself, fasting for Allah's pleasure.

We know that fasting has several meanings.  Fasting has meaning in the sense of a need for self-discipline.  It has social meaning. It has significance for the suffering society.  If it also has meaning in the scriptural context, scriptural context. By that I mean God has said something before Prophet Muhammad concerning fasting and the people were following certain traditions, certain fasting rituals, or formalities.  We know that Ramadan fast also has a bearing on what is said in scripture before."Kuteba Ah-laeku mus Seyamu Kama Kuteba Ahla latheena men Qablekum la Ahl-lakum Tat-Ta-Qoon." "God has prescribed for you the fasting as He prescribed it for other people before you".  Right.  So we know that the fasting is to be discussed in different contexts. We have been discussing it in one or two contexts.   I already see somebody sitting out here with no knowledge at all that would like to question what I am saying. If you are argumentative you will never get understanding, be intelligent, be rational, be logical, but don't be inclined to attack everything somebody says.  Because you don't know everything. None of us knows everything. And you may Ťay, oh he's wrong. Wrong in what context? And maybe not wrong at all. Where did you get your information from? So we have to be very careful of how we judge people. 

Fasting like everything else in this religion is a universal idea. In our religion there is no room for anything that's not universal. Fasting, charity, everything in our religion is a universal idea. That's the meaning of Prophet Muhammad, "Universal Messenger". He's a Universal Messenger. So we can't limit the knowledge in this religion, it's so broad it will feed us forever. It will feed us forever and we never know it all.  But we can know enough for our little lives to satisfy our needs. We can know enough to excel other communities because Allah has revealed the Quran for believers so that the believers may excel other communities.  He has not revealed something to us that will not give us an opportunity to compete with other societies.  Compete with them in every way, morally, spiritually, politically, economically, in every way He has given us knowledge that enables us to compete with the world society and excel.  

How can we be so narrow minded to lock ourselves up in some narrow thought, one book.  If that one book is not the Quran you are lost.  From the Quran comes volumes and volumes, oceans of books just from Quran.  If all the trees were made into pens and the seven seas made into ink and then doubled by seven more.  All the trees will be exhausted and the seven seas doubled by another seven will be exhausted before you write the wisdom of this book.  We get one little light book in our pocket.  They get a pocket book written by a blind man.  A good man but a blind man. A pocket book written by a good blind man and we know everything now, Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave.  Seek knowledge though it be in the far country China.  

This is the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him.  We are always students. Have a thirst for understanding and be a student.  A student is one who is willing to be taught.  That's what a student means.  Student means the intellect that submits to be taught.  No one can be taught while they think they are above what they are being taught.  You can't teach arrogant people anything.  The proud minded, they can't be taught anything.  They might sit in the class with the other students but they're not being taught.  They miss the lesson.  If they were given a test they couldn't pass it because they are going put the information out of the proper order.  They are going to put the information in the order to satisfy their arrogance.  Croat, mind, genius - he gets a "F" and he could have gotten an "A"(laugh) He could have excelled.  He could have gotten the top mark but he gets the failing mark. Why? Because he was arrogant. He couldn't be told anything.  He thought he knew more than anybody else.  So the wisdom comes he says "yeah, I got it - put it here, put it here. That belongs there." He's not following any discipline other than himself, his own pride and arrogance.

I thank Allah that I was raised to respect everybody and to respect ray seniors.  We are living in a time now when the youngsters don't have any respect for their seniors.  Very seldom can you find a youngster now days with respect for their senior and the grownups don't have respect for the officers of authority. Don't even respect the Office of President of the United States.  Every office is brought down to our level no matter how low our level is. You know.  So Muslims have to be aware of this cultural season that we are living in and not be a part of the ignorance of this society. We should respect that that deserves respect and above all respect the guidance of Allah. Respect the Quran, this is the guidance of Allah.  

This book contains the pure guidance of Allah.  It came to a human being like us.  Not to an angel, to a human being like us. But to a human being that was obedient, who had the most excellent morals, who had no desire in him for any weak thing or any wrong thing.  He didn't desire any wrong. He didn't desire evil, wickedness, or to injure anybody. Don't you know this is the quality of the human being that saves him. That's his salvation.  How many of us can truthfully say we desire no wrong?  Now I'm not talking about doing wrong, I'm saying how many of us can truthfully say we desire no wrong. Allah asks us to desire no wrong.  If we can come to that station of moral excellence of Prophet Muhammad where we desire no wrong, we have no motivations, spiritually or otherwise that are unjust, then we will have come into a state of a true believer. 

The "Mu-min" the true believer who desires no wrong.  Every Muslim should be like that.  I know that there are many of us who don't desire wrong with a will to desire wrong, but we still have the trouble of the jinn in us don't we?  Sometimes we find ourselves desiring a wrong that we dislike and it comes to our conscience and we say I shouldn't be desiring this.  Or just think, Prophet Muhammad, it is said of him that he conquered his jinn. He didn't have any problems with his jinn suggesting bad things to him.  Jinn means the spirit for the worldly things.  Spirit that goes after self-satisfaction.  The spirit that goes on ignoring what God wants.  It's not responding to what God wants.  It's responding to what it wants.  That's the jinn.  

So this nature in us causes us sometimes to desire things that are wrong.  In our relationship with each other we might find ourselves asking for an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and sometimes we ask two eyes for one eye. Yes.  Two teeth for one tooth.  Finally something happens and we remember that this is not Muslim life and the true believer will say "oh Allah please forgive me.  Forgive me for that.  I'm wrong." So we confess our faults to Allah and we ask for His forgiveness and His protection against that.  But this is in us. We are not perfect creatures, we are human beings.  We are not angels, we are human beings.  But there is a potential in the human being that makes him a degree above the angels.   That potential in him is this, that he can desire perfection. He can desire perfection.  

The angel he obeys because that is his nature.  The angel can not disobey, you see.  The angel does not have free will.  The human being, being a creature of free will, be Inn to choose wrong or right, if he loves Allah and strives to please his God, and comes to that point of moral excellence where he does not even desire any more    wrong; any disobedience; any bad things; any harm to anybody else; any wrong at all, he has done this with a knowledge that he could choose either.  Than isn't he above the angels? Yes!  He's above the angels.  Prophet Muhammad is above the angels.  Prophet Muhammad desired no wrong.  It is said in the Quran of Prophet Muhammad, these words are said by God of Prophet Muhammad, "I have not withheld anything with an intent to withhold". Many of us perhaps have read that, but never has it registered on our minds. I have not withheld anything with an intent to withhold.

I didn't give you a subject I'm talking on virtues.  That's my theme for these    minutes, "virtues".  I didn't withhold anything with an intent to withhold. You notice in the Quran there are degrees of moral injuries to the society and the worst one is the one that marks the "Kafir" who cheats society out of that that God has given for society. This cheating is called "Al Bafil" . The worst sin of those people who are entrusted with God's words, with revelation, with the guidance is this, that they withheld the truth that God revealed from the society that it was intended for. Did God intend the truth of revelation to come to Abraham and not to people? To come to Moses and not to people? To come to Jesus and not to people? No!  He intended it to come to the people.  They were representative of the whole people that they were to lead and coming to them was exactly the same as coming to the whole people. He's only the medium for giving that message to the rest of the people.

He's not the terminal point of that message.  The society that he was missioned to administer the truth to, they are the point or arrival or destination of that word.  If it comes to him and does not go on to the people then he has withheld from the people that that God gave the people, or for the people.  Is that right? Yes.  Quran charges the people before the Jews.- mainly the Jews. Charge them with withholding that, that God revealed for man.  That, that God revealed to benefit man, they were withholding it from man. They were cheating man out of that that God had revealed for man. Yes.

Now dear beloved Muslims we cannot  be I'm sure, guilty on that scale. But aren't we too guilty of being selfish with that that God has given to benefit all people?  Don't we cheat people? If they ask us a question many of us especially the so called intellectual.  I say so called because most of us that are like this are not intellectuals at all.  But we've just been turned on to knowledge and we think we are intellectuals.  Our friend,  or our brother, or someone, a member of the Masjid asks us a question and instead of giving him the answer we cheat him and give him just a little bit or we give an answer that will take him off course. This is the same evil in the "Kafir, Iblis," the devils, the Kafir.  This is the same evil in them.  They want to have an exclusive superiority. This weakness is common to people.  It's not just for Satan, or for the Jews who betrayed the mission of the Prophet, no.  This is something that is common to all of us.  It's such a trouble.  It's such an evil among us that I think it now out weighs all the other sins of the society.  

I don't think that there is any other sin on society, I mean America, Middle East, everywhere, especially in so-called learned society.  The worst sin on society is this cheating our fellow man.  Cheating our fellow man, wanting to have some exclusive superiority over the other person.  Fearing that if we give him the answer as we know it it will bring him up to our level or give him an advantage over us. Say, oh, .I'm not going to help him be equal to me.  This is the attitude and this is the worst attitude that we can have. Well I'm not going to help him be equal to me.  So we are the cheaters. We are hoarding the knowledge and cheating our fellow man out of the knowledge. Afraid  to share with others the knowledge.  The punishment is that your knowledge gives you nothing but hell. The same knowledge that would give ease in life to the right person will give you miseries.  Because you have used it wrongly. You used it selfishly. You denied your brother and sister the knowledge.

Prophet Muhammad is the complete human being.  Complete in
terms of what Allah wants the human being to be.  It is said of him that he has not withheld anything with an intent to withhold.  He was a human being.  That could have been something that slipped his mind and he didn't say that or didn't tell that, but it was not intentionally.  Before he passed he had told it all.  Perhaps at that moment at that time there were things that he had not yet told, but he had not withheld those things with an intent to withhold. He was perfectly innocent. We know the famous speech, the farewell speech of Prophet Muhammad, where he gave the principles of virtue and the principles of social justice to the people.

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"FASTING IN RAMADAN" PART II


And he asked them, "Have  I not revealed the message. Have I not declared, proclaimed the message".  And they responded, the great mass of multitudes of people, they responded "yes, oh Messenger of God you have delivered it. You have discharged your duty." And the verses came saying "this day I have completed my favor on you".  Is that right? Oh yes  I have perfected for you your religion.  Perfected for you your religion and have chosen for you Al Islam "Deenan".   Al Islam as religion.  "Deenan". This word too has  been discussed by some of the scholars of Al Islam at length.  Deen suggests or implies obligation and that's the difference between religion with us and religion with many other people.  Religion for many other people is not so much an awareness of obligation, but it is an awareness of Grace of God. They are aware of the Grace of God, but they are not aware of the obligation that receiving that Grace involves or entails.  If you have received the Grace of God then you are obligated, you're obligated, you see.  So this is the meaning of religion with us.

Deenan,the meaning of religion is that we are obligated. Allah says "Count not your religion as a favor to Me, it is a favor to you". Oh the Grace of God, the Grace of God, it is a favor to you and that favor obligates you.  It obligates you.  In other words don't say "oh I'm being good for God's sake".  Say "thank you God for showing me how to be good for my sake".  You see that's the attitude it is questioning, the attitude of religious people.  Especially the self-righteous people, they feel that they are being good for God's sake.  Oh I'm doing this for God.  Oh yeah, I'm a good Christian, I obey God.  In their prayers they will bargain with God.  Now God, you know I don't do this and I don't do that, I'm a pretty good soul and 1 don't see why you treat me like this, since I know this John across the street, he's not as good as I am and he's not suffering like this.  So it's easy to get into that attitude where you will In- bargaining with God because you think you have paid Him up, you've paid the bill up.  Or you've paid Him more than anybody else has paid Him.  Says not to count your religion as a favor to Me, it is a favor to you.  So don't have that attitude that you are doing something for God.  Have the attitude that God has shown you a way to live a better life, to live a good life and to earn his pleasure, yes.

So He says He has given you this religion, perfected it for you, completed His favor on you, chosen for you Al Islam Deena. Al Islam as religion.  We may say Ai Islam as your obligation, your debt, your responsibility.  In fact the root word of this word is submission and debt.  Submission and debt.  Accepting authority over you and paying your bills.  That's Deen, that's the religion for us.  Isn't that a beautiful religion.  How clear it is, it's so clear.  We could talk on this for hours because there's great science, great significance in this that philosophers would appreciate, not you.  But we won't talk about it for hours, hut we could talk about it for hours.  There could be volumes just on this.  On the word 'Deen', we could write volumes and not waste a page.  The philosopher would appreciate every word, yes.

Obligation, obligation and submission to authority. It is our nature to submit to higher authority.  This is the nature that Allah has put into us. To submit to higher authority.  To submit to truth. To submit to justice.  To be a virtuous person, to be grateful, to appreciate blessings in our lives.  Is there anything coming to those who are not grateful?  No.  The devil, he's a devil because of two strong attributes in him:  ingratitude and pride, arrogance, ingratitude and arrogance.  He's not appreciative; he's not conscious that he has been helped; that he has been given great things by God; that he's obligated then to show respect and obedience, gratefulness for that.  Then he takes the attitude that he's better because he excels in knowledge or in power, that everything else is to be dismissed.  So he's blind to his own moral failures while claiming a superiority.  Yes!  So Iblis,  he couldn't accept to bow to the mortal human being, the Prophet.  

He couldn't accept to submit to the leadership of the Prophet who was a mortal, flesh and blood human being, missioned by God because of his moral excellence.  He couldn't accept that.  He thought himself better.  I've been around here longer.  Isn't that what Iblis  said?  I've been around here longer than he has, why should he get this.  He didn't say it in those very words, but the wisdom comes, Allah reveals the Quran so that we will understand.  He said, "and the jinn He made before".  He didn't make the human being first, the jinn was first then the human being.  Some translations say "and the jinn race had been made before", yes.  And then he made the human beings, the human man. But He made the jinn also to obey, didn't he? Yes.  Allah says " I have not created men nor jinn except for my worship".  

The jinn was made for the worship of Allah and the man is made, the mortal is made for the worship of Allah.  The jinn was made before, but for the worship of Allah.  But it was the jinn who rebelled and became arrogant, wasn't it.  It came time for the mortal to be raised, "will I submit to that, I don't like its past. His past is not like mine, I have a glorious past. My past is glorious.  Well I have been leading the angels around here and I'm made of fire.  His past, he came from mud.  Should I submit to this that's made from dirty mud?  This is the test for us.  Sometimes the person that we were yesterday despising becomes our leader today and many of us cannot  accept that, that was despicable in our eyes should be our leader.  Ah, him! No, no, you obey him if you want to.  Because he was despicable in our eyes, you see. He was a low thing, beneath us, wasn't as dignified, wasn't as honorable, wasn't as high as we were.  Me submit to that!  And even do it against God's instructions.  

So let's not look up in the sky somewhere in a region zeons, zillions of planets and solar systems away from us for where this happened.  Let's look at ourselves today for where this happened.  Yes!  It is happening in us right now.  Many of us, we will not accept a leader unless he is from our school.  Ah, he's not from my school.  He's not an intellectual, he's not from my class, why should I submit to him? Does God argue with Iblis ?  He said "when I have breathed into him of My Spirit, then fall you down in submission".  He didn't say then I'm going to discuss it  again with you.  The next time around it's just either or nothing, this or nothing.  Says when I have breathed into him of My Spirit then fall ye down in submission.  Yes. 

So we know this speaks specifically of Prophet Muhammad, generally to all Prophets, but specifically of Prophet Muhammad. That he came from an ignorant people, culturally an ignorant people, Jahilliyah    Arabs and those people were seen as dirt, stinky dirt, stinky dirt   in  the noses of the intellectual Rabbis, Monks and Priests of the Religion.  They wore looked down upon, you know.  But the very people that they had turned their nose up to, were the people they had to lay their respect.  From among, them was raised up the Prophet Muhammad.  And what made him excel? What made him do obedience?  It was his gift of Divine Revelation. God inspired him, gave him revelation. That's what I have breathed into him of My Spirit.  That's what it means. When I have given the ignorant, low class people a message from Me and they have conformed to My Spirit, they have conformed to what I require of them, to carry this message,    then you submit to them.  Not just to Prophet Muhammad, but to his successors.  

All of those who will carry the message, the revelation given by God, if they carry this revelation whether they be from the most ignorant people -yesterday they might have been from the most ignorant classes.  No matter what continent they come from, Europe, Asia, Africa wherever  they come from, whatever their racial features and whatever their background, once they embrace the message of God and their spirit conforms to the message of God as Prophet Muhammad said , "none of you will be truly believers until your inclination follows what I have brought".  You see.  But once they conform in their spirit, that's what we mean by spirit, the inclination, once they conform in their spirit to what Prophet Muhammad has brought to this Quran.  It has entered their hearts and God has given them a superiority over the others in the sense of living, understanding, living and preaching this revelation.  

Then they should accept the authority whether it be from their intellectual class, from their wealthy class or not. Though it be from the people they turn their nose up to yesterday, they should respect it.  So isn't Prophet Muhammad a sign of the test.  The test for the intellectuals; the test for the rich and the mighty in knowledge.  He's a test.  He's a sign of the test for those people.  Aren't we today in America a sign of a test? Believe me, I met with so many Muslims who look like saints until they meet me.  Ah, they look like I ought to wash my hands.  I ought to take an ablution.  I ought to go and take a full bath and put on clothes that have never been worn before, just to meet them.  They look so holy, so pure.  But after meeting them, communicating with them I see that they are the cheaters.  

They want to cheat people out of what Allah has revealed to keep a position of superiority and dominance over other people. And there is an arrogance in them that makes it almost impossible for them to pay any respect at all to someone that they turned their nose up to yesterday.  Yes.  This is a problem.  T admire, I feel that I should congratulate immigrant Muslims when I see them sitting among us. Because the majority of your brothers are so arrogant, so high headed and so selfish that they won't meet us on any terms unless it's - I'm down here at his feet and he's up in the sky.  Now they don't say that because they know it is un-Islamic to manifest anything like that.  

They try to hide it, but their treatment of us tells us where they arc.  Yes.  Oh, we shouldn't talk about other Muslims.  Is this another Muslim?  I thought this was the devil I was talking about.  I didn't know this was a Muslim I'm talking about.  Yes, I know what they say , you know.  Every time I speak I hear it.  Later on I hear it.  The Imam, you know he always comes out reviling somebody, criticizing, talking about other Muslims, that's not the spirit of a Muslim.  Muslims are not suppose to be like that.  They are not suppose to talk about Muslims. You have to be aware of what we are talking about. We are not talking about Muslims, we are talking about a devil. We are talking about the Satan.  The Satan wants to cheat us and the Satan is too arrogant to accept us.

This month should awaken the moral conscious even more.  This month should give more strength to us for obedience to Allah.  It should make us forget self, relatives, friends, forget everybody to do justice. When it comes to doing justice we have to put aside daddy, mama, baby, wife, husband, friend, everybody has to be put aside.  Say "no, I can't let you into this I'm trying to find the justice. And after I find the justice, then I will listen to what you have to say".  Yes.  Because if you let your heart be taken to those people that you love, those dear persons, you will never find the justice, you see.  So   we are going to have our hands tied. "Oh, don't say anything about a Muslim".  Then the hands of justice are tied, if I can't say anything about a Muslim.  

The hands of justice are tied.  I'm suppose to be free to say something about my mama, my father, my baby, my wife, anybody if they are wrong. That's justice.  And that's the justice Allah asks because that's what deprives the society of justice - somebody got somebody that's dearer to them then justice.  Nobody is dearer to us than justice.  Nobody should be dearer to justice than justice.  Yes. If that was the case in society there would be equal justice in this society, particularly from this society because this society goes along with those who exert the greater pressure on them.  If by my riches I exert pressure on the court, then the court sometimes will excuse me.  

Or if by ray association, my friendship with the judge or with the mayor, I could just call and say "you know the mayor". The judge says "yes" I say, "He's a close friend of mine, you had better call him before you handle this case". We know that this happens.  "Oh, your honor, the mayor, is this true, he's a very close friend of yours? Oh, yes one of the best friends I have." It's not known, you know, what he does, it's quietly, very quietly. ''He's one of the best friends 1 have.  We need him, we really need him." And if he is a weak judge, if he follows the influences rather than the justice, then he excuses this guilty person, he never serves a day in jail, he's not fined one dollar.  Right!

We can understand this when we are looking at the high up. When we are looking at those outside of us.  Oh we can understand that.  None of you had any problem with that when I said the court, but if I say you, you have problems.

How are we going to ever be fit to be called an example community for other people?  Don't you know Muslims are to be example communities for other people.  How are we ever going to be fit for that if we can't shoulder the responsibility of justice, I mean in our own circle. You first have to prove in your own circles that you can shoulder that burden, that weight of justice. Can you give justice at home?  If your son comes in the house crying, another boy has knocked his tooth out.  Can you go out there and find the truth of the matter before you attack or jump on the other boy or his father, or curse out his people?  Can you restrain yourself and say I have to find the truth of this? The average one of us, if we do that, the rest of the relatives say "you see him, that's our brother; that's his own son; that's his own wife and he's talking about he wants to know how it happened".  

But as Muslims we want to know how did it happened because we have to stand upon justice.  Son come in, daughter come in, wife come in, bleeding. We don't know maybe they left somebody bleeding more or maybe they did something to desire that bleeding.  If we haven't seen we know none of the facts.  We don't know anything.  We're not to rush out there and just start killing up people. We are to investigate and see what is the case. What is actually the case. How did this happen: Who is at fault here; And in finding the facts, if the facts go against your closest relative the Quran says "you must stand on justice and against even your closest relative". Yes. 

This is what this religion asks of us and believe me I don't know another people in the United States that stand to benefit more from this teaching of justice than the Bilalian people in America. So-called black people in America. We stand to benefit the most because we have been raised or conditioned to just respond emotionally even to the government, even in political matters. We don't try to search out the justice we just respond with our feelings.  "Ah hell no, that ain't right.  I ain't going for that. I don't like to suffer.  Just don't sound right to me." We've been suffering like this all this time.-no- more money, more money. Yes.  I'm not saying that all the time we don't have a case, in fact, most of the time we do have a case, but sometimes we are used. Our emotions are fired up, we're excited to feel just our own hurt to the point that we are blind to what is right and best for everybody. Yes.  So we have to be aware of that.


This is a month for purging the life, refining the gold, you know.  You put the metal in the fire and it refines the silver and the gold, right.  So this is a month for refining, for purging, refining the morals and the intellect.

What better talk can I give you today than a talk on Islamic virtues.  Yes.  So let us remember that.  And that Prophet Muhammad is example of purity, of human nature, human conscience.  Human conscience, that's what we live by, we live by conscience.  We don't live by the principle that is simply love Jesus Christ because he died for my sins.  We don't live by that.  That's an emotional  principle, isn't it.  It's not a principle of logic. It's an emotional principle. We don't live by an emotional principle. We live by what is right and just.  We must have conscious purity as well as sentimental purity.  And there is no sentimental purity really without conscious purity.  

The sentiments will be blind and we'll think we have the purity, but we won't.  That that is moving in our heart and in our nature saying be right, be just, be truthful, it must come plain as day, like the noon day sun, in the conscience so that we follow that principle in all of our dealings. Not just when it's good for me or when it's good for my friends, but in all of our dealings.  So it has to become a principle of logic.  True justice is a principle of logic, isn't it.  Yes.  It can't be just a giving to the sentiments.  Although the sentiments are the nature to support it. But if it doesn't come out in the light of day then it's a liar. Yes, it's a liar.  Many of us can be good if you put us in a corner, but if you tell us to come out here in front of everybody and be good, oh it changes.  Everything changes.  

Start getting together our little racist groups - the black over there - the white over there - the rich over there and the educated there and the dumb there, and the poor there. We just start breaking up in different groups. We are challenged, and this Quran gives us the guidance to meet the challenge.  Get this double standard out of your life. Get that double rule of justice out of your life.  Don't carry two books for the courts.  As soon as your relatives come in, you put down one and you pull out the other one.  I'm not talking about the court downtown now, I'm talking about your court at home and right here in this Masjid. Don't carry your two books of justice and as soon as your buddy is up you put down the book that is for everybody and you pull out the other book.  Okay Bro. Imam go on.  What did you say?  That ain't right in my book.

We have to turn to God with our complete self, with our whole heart.  If we turn with our whole heart it means with the whole conscience.  When you give the heart for the family all the attention and you don't give the heart for society, and justice, then have you turned with your whole heart? No!  That's why you hear  the expression 'heart of hearts'.  And that expression doesn't mean you have more than one heart. Allah says He hasn't given any mortals  but  one heart, that's the Quran.  They have not given any human being except one heart. It doesn't mean you have more than one heart, but it only means this, that you can darken certain areas of your conscience. You see. You can darken certain areas of your conscience and just focus on one area or one aspect of justice or your conscience, and begin to execute judgment as though the whole truth is there.  So that's coming with part of your heart or forming a heart in the heart.  

You have hearts of many hearts.  Is that right? For the Christians, the Bible says "when the being becomes one. single in your being, then you are truly whole*.  Your eyes are open.  You can see.  But when the beings are many you can't see.  But if the being becomes one being then you can see.  Is that right? Yes.  So that's the same thing I'm telling you in the language of the religion.  That our vision of what is right and wrong can be isolated.  Can be excluded from the total reality, from the total justice. And we will think we are right.  "Oh yes I know I'm right."  But if someone will come with the vision that is just the Quran and give you the word, you can't argue with it if you are a Muslim.  

No Muslim can argue with the Quran.  They give it to you as plain as day. In your mind you know it's right, but something starts retreating in you, that desire to protect your own self; little narrow interest, it begins to run back.  It runs  backwards from the light.  It runs as fast as Jessie Owens back away from the facts, but something is still staying with the facts.  Something of your mind is still staying with the facts, but you can't stay, you sit and you listen.  You know that while you are listening you are not going to execute the orders of the demands of justice. You know that, but you will listen and you'll say "yeah that's right.  Yeah brother, all praises due to Allah." Yes.  And you go back home and you'll do the same old thing you did yesterday against the law, against justice.  Right? That's because you didn't allow your desire, your inclination to follow what Prophet Muhammad came with. 

Your logic, your reasoning was going along with it, but your desire, your inclination had ran away from the scene. "Hell, I'm leaving.  I can't get no satisfaction here.  I'm leaving." And take off with Jessie Owens's speed into darkness.

The light is very clear brothers and sisters in this religion. We have to come with a whole mind and soul, not part of it.  We can't give any opportunity for injustice even though it involves the closest loved ones. We have to be right.  You know in this religion family members are given a very special place.  It's not like the Bible saying that's really, I think, out of place where it says you first have to hate your parents, hate your relatives, reject your near relatives, your daughter, your mama, isn't that right, to follow Jesus. You know.  This is not a religion like that.  It doesn't put the family people in a bad image or bad light or make human beings feel that their family relationships are not that important.  The family relationships are very important, very important.  

The same that is emphasized in Al Islam you can find it in the Christian religion, but there's a conflict all the time in the Christian religion.  The Bible says "Charity starts at home and spreads abroad".  Right.  So that tells you that in the context of the gospel the family members are very precious, very dear.  Charity begins at home and spreads abroad. We know the Old Testament teachings, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, I believe, I'm not sure, on respect for father and mother and all, you know. We know that the Bible has put emphasis  on this, but that message of the gospel, that unless you can do away with mama, do away daddy, daughter and follow me you won't be able - it makes a mistake, but look how the correction is made, and where it is so plain -'unless your inclination follows what I have come with and that's the Quran and his example, the life he lived.

Many of us don't understand that.  Prophet Muhammad is the light in more than one sense.  He's the light in the sense of the word that was revealed to him, but he's also a light in his own character.  In his own character he is a light, you see.  So unless our inclinations follow what Prophet Muhammad has come to us with.  His own character is a revelation or a mercy, a gift to the world, a light to the world, you see, and they both come together. God rewarded him with this Quran, the message, the Last Revelation, on his what: "Ahla-Sadre"   "on his heart". Heart being symbolic of his human conscience,  morally upright, morally sound, desiring no wrong, desiring not to cheat, you see. 

So dear beloved people our inclination must be trained. Our inclination must be educated.  I don't think all of us go in the wrong direction because we have a nature to, in-fact, the original nature is the nature to obey God. So, it is not because we have a nature to, it is because of what we have been given the nature to. That's blindness, that's ignorance when you have followed a certain pattern for so long that it becomes your orientation,  it becomes your natural inclination.  Then what do you have to do? 

You have to follow the guidance of God and break those habits. If you break those habits over a long enough period of time, then the spell is broken, the grip of wrong doing, the spirit to do wrong is broken.  Right.  Like a piece of steel that you make a magnet.  You make it magnetic by rubbing.  Some of you may have had that experience.  In school we had it as an experiment.  You take the magnet that is magnet, you take the metal that is not magnet and you rub one over the other in uniformed strokes, directions, never breaking it, always going the same.  Over a period of time, a certain number of passes, a new spirit comes into that metal.  Is that right? Yes.  Now if you take a hammer and beat it the same metal that got that spirit, just beat it over a number of strokes for a number of periods of time, that metal loses that spirit.  Now that's metal, but it's an example of what happens to us as human beings given to follow certain influences in our life. So if I beat the metal and change it, now the metal is not magnetic any more.  So he changed the nature. Did I change the nature? Now it's magnetized, that's the nature. 

No, the nature is obedience. It's not magnetic and it's not non-magnetic the nature is obedience.  So Allah has made all of us of an obedient nature and we have to guard ourselves against influences that will make us other than righteous.  All we need to save our life, is to return to the nature in which we are made. This is Quran. Return to the nature in which we are made and that nature is obedience to Allah.  Return to your  own nature. Be obedient to Allah and then you can follow His guidance. And whatever has been clocked into you as influences that seem to be your nature oh  it's just my nature to lie.  No, it's not your nature to lie, that's a possibility for you. Just like magnetism is a possibility for the iron. And death too is a possibility for the iron.  When there is no magnetism in it we say it is dead. 

Magnetically it is a dead piece of iron.  Right? Yes.  No that's not you, that's a possibility for you.  Sin is a possibility for you. But righteousness is in accord with your nature, the nature of obedience to Allah.  If you obey and follow the guidance of the Quran, not with you lips, follow  the guidance of the Quran with your hearts, with your whole hearts, you will find your life changing. We don't want to just change our life in the sense: "oh, my life has changed.  I pray now, I make salah.  My life has changed, I go out to the masjid once a week.  My life has changed, I don't eat pork. My life has changed, I only go with one sister, I have one wife.  My life has changed, I'm not committing adultery or fornication.  My life has changed." Has your mind changed?! May Allah bless us with guidance. As-Salaam-Alaikum.
