12/18/1994
IWDM Study Library 
How Islam Contributes to All People
Mobile, Alabama

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
As Salaam Alaikum. That is peace be on you. That's the greetings of Muslims throughout the world. Its peace be on you. First, let us thank our Lord Creator, G-d for blessing us to be here today and we pray to Him for guidance for Mercy and we pray to Him that He protects us and make productive our work, our efforts. We salute the last Prophet Muhammad, the last of the Prophets as Muslims with the traditional salute, praying the Prayers and the Peace be upon him and what follows of that salute to the last Prophet.
We are very happy to be here in Mobile, Alabama with the host people here with your Imam, Imam Ron Ali and all of those who have joined from the Muslim community and the Christian community to support this occasion, which began last evening or last night with a very beautiful dinner and entertainment and a keynote speaker from the Christian community and honorees that were honored last night from both the Muslim community and the Christian community. It was a wonderful and pleasant and uplifting evening. We are very thankful to Allah for that, that is to G-d for that evening and also for this day. We are happy also to see so many of you Muslims come to Mobile from around the area. Some of you coming from distant places, distant places to be here and with your Imams who are here in great numbers, as there is a very big number of our leaders, our Imams here attending last night and also attending today here. And we also appreciate you for the opportunity to address the WLVV AM station audience live.
We are coming live or we are coming alive on this radio station presently. So, we greet you all with peace and pray that G-d forgive us all our errors, our mistakes, our sins grant us mercy and guidance always, Ameen. We say Ameen. It's the same as amen, I guess. For the Christians, amen. We say, Ameen. We are addressing the topic-How Islam helps or serves all people, whether they are Muslims or not. Now I could go to the benefits, the Islamic life and the benefits of Islamic works, how those benefits have reached non Islamic people and they are benefiting from those Islamic works and from the Islamic life. I could go to that, but that's not my approach today. We are not talking about how Islamic sciences, the Islamic scholars and scientists and Islamic science or Islamic effort to develop the sciences preceded the Renaissance or the Renaissance of Europe and contributed to that revival of the sciences or that revival of, I should say, of interest in the development of the sciences and point out this particular area of knowledge in that particular area of knowledge to identify those as contributions from Muslims or as contributions because of the presence of Islam.
That's not the way I'm going to approach this topic today.
I would like to show, in the time that I'll be speaking to you, that we have common interests with the civilized people of the world, not just Christians. Real strong interests with the Christian people of the world, but we have strong interests with all the civilized people of the world. Islam first of all is a process or a work that aims at establishing the best model of civilized society, the best model of civilized society. And we share with each other or we share together a belief in the sacredness of the human life. That human life is sacred. The Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, full name Muhammad Ibn Abdullah, Muhammad son of his father whose name was Abdullah, how Muhammad the Prophet prayers and peace be upon him on the day of the pilgrimage, one of the days of the pilgrimage during his farewell address there at the pilgrimage in Mecca, the holy sights there, reminded the Muslims, reminded his followers that certain things are sacred and he said, your life is sacred.
Its life blood is sacred and his property is sacred. His lifeblood and his property is sacred, sacred as he said, as this sacred precinct, as this sacred ground that we are standing on now. Sacred in the same way. So, we can understand from the words of the Prophet that the symbols, and that's what they're called, the symbols of the Hajj, the symbols of the pilgrimage, Hajj, we say Hajj, we call it Hajj. That the symbols of the pilgrimage really are symbols that should refer, that we should relate to our own vital life, our own vital life. And that really just as G-d has ordered that precinct be sacred, haram be sacred and inviolable, we can't violate it. Then Prophet wanted us to know that likewise is your blood and likewise this is your life and likewise is your property, your property. Now we know that we have very strong similarities for our vital interests and the vital interests of the Christian world. But we have some differences too in the way that we perceive and in the way that we communicate this interest.
Beginning with Adam, we hope to arrive at a point of clarity, especially for us Muslims with the last Prophet Muhammad. Muhammad, the last Prophet. And we are mainly concerned with four points of interest. First point of interest is a need to have or feel that you're safe and secure like we feel when we are in the sacred precincts there in Mecca. At one point we sleep, spend the night on the ground, not in a enclosure like the homes that we live in, but like I imagine the first man had to sleep and the first woman had to sleep on the ground. We spend the night sleeping on the ground, can't even sleep under the tent and we can't take our blanket or our cloth and cover our whole body up. We have to leave the feet exposed, we have to leave the head exposed and we know scorpions in the desert, but we have to take that risk too.
We have to take that risk that something may crawl up while we are sleeping and bite us. We live and sleep there and rest there with a sense of safety and security provided by G-d. If we are hurt or if something comes to us, we accept it as the will of G-d and we are still pleased. But most of us, we don't have any injury. We have no problem at all. I spent the night there without any fear at all. I didn't worry about and believe me, I don't know what it is, it might be Chicago's cold winters that made me cover up even in the summer. I don't care how hot it is, I want something over my feet. I keep my head out, but I want something over my feet. But I did it and I was very comfortable. I slept very well and relaxed. Got up the next morning, fresh, ready to go. So, this is the first point of interest, the need to feel a sense of security, that we are safe, that we're not threatened, that our life is not threatened, that our properties won't be taken from us. No one will steal or hurt us or harm us, and steal what we have. That's number one. And then the second point of interest is that we have the right, the right and the freedom to establish ourselves.
Whatever we have the ability for in terms of achieving an honorable life, a life of respect which necessitates us having the opportunity to work and realize the reward of our work, to have faith for our work and to be able to invest from our work so that we'll have establishment and honor in society with other people. Our home, a business and growth. And a third point of interest is that we feel that our contribution, work and contribution in society is accepted and appreciated and that if we progress, our progress won't be seen as a threat to other people and they will then organize against us to deny us progress. Then after reaching that point of interest, then there is still another. And that is the one that we started out with because we know that when you try to establish yourself, you have others who may be competing with you who may not follow the same truth or the same principles that you follow. So, the peace may be broken, the security may be lost, sense of security may be lost. And especially for those who want to progress, some people just can't stand for you to excel, them.
They will resent that and they will make trouble for you. So lastly, we have to have the one we started out with security, but we call it at this point, peace. Peace. We have to have peace. And peace is what Islam comes to promote, what Islam comes to work for. Peace. Work for a time and a condition in the world where all of us can live together, enjoying peace, live together, feeling that we are safe from any harm coming from ourselves or from others. And feeling that the society is living for and working for the preservation of peace.
Islam properly called in Arabic or the Qur'anic Arabic and our Holy Book Qur'an with holy book Qur'anic Arabic l Islam, which means the act of surrendering, or giving in with no resistance peacefully to the will of G-d or to G-d's purpose for us on this earth and hereafter, that's what Al Islam means. That Islam means some translate, surrender, peaceful surrender to G-d. It means yielding, giving up what we want personally sometimes that may stand in the way of us living the life Allah wants us to live, G-d wants us to live, we give up that that is personal for us, that we see as dear and good for us. We give it up if we have to so that we will be in the condition that Allah, our Creator, wants us in. In the condition that He wants us in internally and also externally in terms of how we are living in the world. So, this is Islam, that's the meaning of Islam. And Muslim, Muslim means the person who has done that, he's called the Muslim, the person who makes Islam, who makes this surrender to G-d in Islam, he is called Muslim, a Muslim or she's called a Muslima, the feminine pronunciation of Muslim.
And also look how peace just dominates, just names us in every turn at every place and turn peace is naming us. When we give greetings, our greetings is peace. We say As Salaam Alaikum. A lot of them don't put the As there, they say Salaam Alaikum. But we know that to write it completely, it's As Salaam Alaikum, the peace be on you. And one old man who was a Muslim, he was also what we call a Sheikh. That means an honorable teacher in Islam. He brought to our attention, and he wasn't speaking, we all were just casually moving about with each other. He brought to our attention that really our greeting is the name of G-d. As Salaam is one of the names of Allah in the Qur'an, He is As Salaam. And we use His name to greet each other. We say As Salaam Alaikum. It means the peace be on you, but the peace is also a name of G-d in Islam, in the Qur'an. In Islam. He is As Salaam. G-d is As Salaam. But we say As Salaam Alaikum, the peace be on you, you see. And we also say, G-d be with you. Allah be with you, but we say the peace be on you. This means that the peace obligates you. That's what on you mean. It means that the peace obligates you to uphold the peace. If you say you are Muslim, you are obligated to abide peace, abide the peace, to uphold the peace. And we say this to everybody, man, woman, child, we say it to all of them. That means everybody in a Muslim community, even the little children are obligated to support the peace, support the peaceful order of the society.
Now I want to begin with Adam. I said Adam. There is a belief, a kind of a myth in Islam or with Muslims, I should say, that Adam's footprint is at the Hajj site too. Adam's footprint is at the hajj site. And some even say that before Abraham, Ibrahim in Islam, the name is Ibrahim Abraham, the Prophet peace be on him. Before Abraham, Adam also was told to make the center there at that place. So, they have a myth that his footprint is there, that Adam's footprint is there. Now I don't know if any of that is true or not, but I do know that what that symbol suggest to us is that it is a symbol for the original human creation and that in the original state that G-d created us in and for we are secure. And when we get out of that state, we are not secure. And that original state was first in the world under the name Adam. Adam. Now I want to mention another Prophet for another purpose. This Prophet is the Prophet Joseph. Joseph, but in the Qur'an or with Muslims, his name is Yusef, almost like Joseph. Yusef. Now, why am I mentioning Yusef now in this address?
Because I hope to say with Adam and with Yusef and Muhammad the same thing. One thing. I could pick others out from among the Prophets and use them also to say what I'm going to say. But I chose today to pick these three. Adam in Islamic knowledge is not the father of sin.
He is one among the family of human beings or of the generation of man, but he's not the father of sin. And Christian ministers, if I understand the gospel, this is true also for the gospel, the man of sin in the gospel, in the Bible, in the gospel as I understand it is Satan. Satan, the devil, not Adam. "I behold your father far from heaven like lightning." that's talking about the man of sin. "The truth does not abide in him. He speaks the lie and the lie is his own. He's the creator of his own lie, his own lies, his own falsehood." That's the man of sin. That's not Adam as I understand it. So, I understand us believing the same here too, but the Muslim still goes farther. Not all Muslims believe this now. We don't believe that sin is in the flesh, the flesh embodies sin. Or sin is in the flesh. We don't believe that. Nothing in our Holy Book says that. But our Holy Book says that everything that G-d created, it has a potential for good and for harm, for good and for harm. It doesn't mean that these things are bad in their nature. They're good in their nature, they're good in their purpose or in their purposes they're good.
But because of our ignorance, we may use this thing in the wrong way and get the harm of it instead of the good of it that G-d intended. Now, Christian authorities will have to tell me when our two beliefs are going separate and apart from each other. So far, I don't see any departure. I see us both agreeing. I see us all agreeing. Now we also believe that man is not angel, never was angel can't be angel. We believe that man is not G-d. Never was G-d cannot be G-d. We believe that G-d, when He creates a thing, He gives that thing its nature, its identity and its behavior and its destiny. All is given when He creates a thing. So, G-d created us human and human is a degree in his creation above angel. Angel is not above human, not in the human excellence that G-d created for us. In the excellence that G-d created for us. We believe that the human is a degree above angel and this still is in agreement with what Christian's believe. We haven't yet separated from Christian belief. Yet the only thing is how you interpret these concepts. Some will interpret them in different ways. They interpret them to get something out of it.
Get out of it or that we are not conditioned to even want to get out of it. You see? So, I don't think Christians are the only ones that believe something different from Muslims. You find a lot of Muslims; they believe something so different from Muslims that they have Christian ministers calling them Brother Baptist ministers. "My good brother Baptist minister", and he carries a Muslim name. Yes. Now we also believe that to be human as the philosopher said, Western philosopher said, to be human is also to make a mistake. You're not going to be perfect, you're not G-d.
You're not angel, you're human. So, to be human means you are going to make a mistake sometimes. And G-d says that He created us for His mercy. If G-d created for us for His mercy, that means we need and have to have mercy. G-d could have made all of us angels. The angels never need G-d's mercy. They have no ability to get out of the law of G-d. They stay in the law of G-d always. They can't get out of the law of G-d. But we are human beings with free mind, free will, free mind, free intellect, free mind so we can get out of the will of G-d. We can get out of the will of G-d. And G-d says He created us for His mercy.
Adam got out of the grace of G-d. We believe that too. But we don't believe it was because he was created weak, or he was created sinful or created wrong. No, he was created right. It was because he was human. And when he met the challenge from the Satan, the Satan appealed to his weaker side and used tricky language to seduce him. So, we'd say Adam was tricked or seduced out of his obedience. He had no will in his original nature to disobey his G-d. And we are told by G-d in our Holy Book that he came upon in time, he came upon a word from Allah, a word from his Lord, and he repented his ways. He turned from his bad ways and G-d accepted his repentance. This is Adam. So, Adam did not commit sin and was fated to sin and was killed by sin and that was the end of Adam or the end of his existence. No, we believe this way that Adam, because of him being human, he was seduced by Satan who deceived him out of his obedience to G-d and he met a word from G-d in time and the word caused him to feel repentant. Repentant. And he repented and G-d accepted his repentance. So, Adam's conclusion for us is a repented being whose repentance was accepted by his G-d.
I won't even mention his wife in this. That's too much for this task we have. We want to say a lot today and that'll be too much. I won't even mention his wife. She doesn't have to be mentioned in this connection. She's very important, but not for this topic. Now that is, I won't mention her directly or by name. Now we come to Joseph, Yusef, come back to Yusef. Let's see what an incident in Yusef's life has to say about this same belief. Joseph or Yusef for Muslims his name is Yusef. Peace be upon the Prophets. He was sold into captivity by his brothers. And we are not interested in the whole story of this, just one part, just one incident in the Qur'an are we interested. He was sold in to captivity. He finally ended up in prison and he got a reputation in prison for interpreting dreams. And the ruler desired that he be taken out of prison and brought to him. The ruler takes him out of prison, brings him to his palace, and Joseph later becomes a servant, an assistant of the ruler in the ruler's palace. And Joseph was so attractive to the women that the women just couldn't resist him. So, the big lady, the ruler's lady, she wanted to seduce Joseph to have romance with her. Joseph's nature wouldn't allow him to do it. He resisted. Also, her servant ladies, little ladies under the big ladies. They had less control, less dignity than she had and they were just outrageous in their going to seduce Joseph, they just couldn't control themselves. They just wanted to get to Joseph. So, Joseph finally had to escape the situation.
So, when the charge was brought against Joseph that he had involved himself with the ladies, they were told, look, his shirt is not torn from the front. His shirt is torn from behind. So that should be evidence that he was trying to leave and they were trying to hold him back. Now this same Joseph, when he was sold into captivity and his brothers had to go back to their father and explain the absence of Joseph, how come Joseph, your younger brother, where is your younger brother? How come he's not with you? They said some animals got him and devoured him. And they brought his shirt, his clothes back, shirt with blood, with blood, animal blood on it.
But the old man, he was old in his age, the father of Joseph, Peace be upon the Prophets. His eyes had began to pale, but I guess this scent, his smells was still working, his nose was still working. So, he took the cloth and he put it close to his face like this. And when he took it away, he said, no, this is not my son. My son has not been devoured by any animals. So, he didn't accept that story. He wouldn't accept that evidence. What is this saying? This is saying Joseph here is a type of the original moral excellence that G-d created us in, all of us. He's a type of that. And if the animal blood is on him, on his clothes means that he has been overcome by the animal, the animal life took him over. So, the good morals are gone. Animal life took him over or consumed him.
No, it didn't happen. And if his shirt is torn from behind, then he was not engaging these ladies or indulging these ladies. He was trying to get away from them. You see, this is all signs that the nature of G-d created is always is the same in every human being. It is perfect and it is good. It is good and it is perfect. It is not that nature that goes wrong. It is our thinking that goes wrong, not the nature but our thinking. Now we know you can take on nature's behind nature. We are not saying that man doesn't have bad nature. Yes, he takes on nature in the world and he becomes of bad nature. But the nature G-d created him with in heaven and put him on earth with is always the same. It is always good and it is never destroyed. It is never changed, never destroyed and never changed. Now do we have any evidence of this in our world, in our secular world? Yes we do. They still give you the lie test, don't they? Well, do you think the criminal system would believe in a test that will discover whether you are lying or not if there wasn't something in you that didn't lie?
So, with that, yes, with their own practice, they are saying that we believe that there's something in every person, even the worst criminal, there's something in the human being that doesn't lie. Praise be to G-d. Now we come to Muhammad the Prophet to that Prophet. Not only is this moral excellence of this human being that G-d created him with preserved in humanity, but also the intelligence. The intelligence that G-d created man with is preserved in humanity. Some believe that we are born with the Id and become idiots. We don't believe that. We believe that we are born with intelligence and we become ignorant because men deceive and misused the intelligence.
Or the Satan. The first deceiver deceived us and seduces us to deceive and manipulate and misuse the human intelligence. But the human intelligence is always preserved as G-d created it and the man uneducated in our world, he can rise to the top of our world and become the leader for the rejuvenation of intellect and civilization and everything. That's exactly what happened in the time of our Prophet Muhammad. Prayers and peace on him. He was born from among what they call the Ummiyeen people. He was one of them. He is the Ummiyee Prophet, meaning the uneducated Prophet.
He was an uneducated person born from among an uneducated heathen idol, worshiping mostly savage society at the time of his birth. He never was taught by Priests of any religion. He never was taught any scripture before. He had no knowledge of scripture at all. But he was a man of excellent character who had lived for 40 years and his original nature hadn't been tainted, hadn't been marred, hadn't been deformed. Everyone who knew him in that time of ignorance pointed to him as a model of excellence, a model of human excellence. They called him themselves. It was not the name given to him by his parents, was the name given to him by the society of his time. They called him Al Amin, the trustworthy one. That's what they called him. And he was also a very skilled man when it came to how to handle different tasks or how to handle different situations. He wanted to tell his people after he got a communication with G-d, got the communication from G-d, he got the communication from G-d while he was seeking solitude, seeking to be away from the confusion of his society.
He went up in the mountain called now the mountain of the light named for him because the light came to the Prophet from G-d on that mountain. So, it's called Jabil Nur, Mountain of the Light. He went up there carrying the burden of his society on his heart. And he just didn't know whose G-d, how to call on G-d or anything. But he then meditated and pleaded for help. If there is any help, please help me let the help come to me. And G-d eventually came to him, responded to him. And G-d says that it was revealed upon his heart, his heart. It was revealed in Arabic or in Qur'anic language. It was revealed upon his heart.
We may even say revealed to his heart. But the word Ala means on. It means that G-d entrusted the revelation to Muhammad because of the soundness and purity of his heart and that it was his heart that moved him to leave the misery of his people and go into solitude or into seclusion to try to find some answers. So, G-d revealed it upon his heart. But also, it is a reference to his intellect that Prophet Muhammad had, not the intellect, he had not the educated, trained intellect to receive communication from G-d. He had only a heart and G-d revealed it to his heart and he had to go and seek educated people so he could understand what was happening to him until G-d gradually educated him with revelation, behind revelation and taught him how to read Revelation. G-d says that He did not only reveal to Muhammad, but He taught Muhammad and He made it easy for Muhammad to understand by giving it to him in small portions at a time. So much for that. So here we are looking at two symbols in the life of man, the two most vital ones, his heart and his mind. His heart and his intellect.
And here is a Prophet now that comes with the heart of Adam. When Adam was created perfect by G-d, perfect by G-d, he comes with the heart of Adam in the time of Muhammad, it is the original heart. The heart undeceived, not deceived by the Satan, the heart that G-d gave the man when He created him. Muhammad comes with his heart at the age of 40, turns to G-d and G-d responds to Muhammad's heart, responds to Muhammad's heart and eventually educates his mind, raises up his intellect. But G-d said He also expanded for him his chest, expanded for him his chest. Because his heart had to grow even more. G-d was going to grow his heart even more. He had a big heart at Forty, but G-d was going to grow his heart even more so He said He expanded for him his chest so his chest would have more room.
Cavity would be big enough for that heart that G-d was going to expand in him, was going to feed in him that was going to grow bigger, need more cavity, more room in that cavity for that big heart that he was going to eventually have because he went up there with the misery of his people on his heart and he eventually addressed the misery of all people, the misery of all people, the misery of the world and became a leader to lift off the world, the misery of the world. Allah says of him that he is a mercy to all people. Rahmatan lin Nas. He is a mercy to all people. So now for the Muslim first. If Allah, our G-d, G-d of all people, same G-d the Christians have, they call Him by different names and they understand Him in different ways. But the same G-d. If G-d, Allah we say says to us Muslims, that our Prophet is a mercy to all people, doesn't that obligate every Muslim who follows the Prophet to be a mercy to all people? So how can you not be a mercy to a certain people? You got to be a mercy to all people. You got to be a mercy to white people, brown, yellow, red, black. You have to be a mercy to Christians, to Jews, to Buddhists, to Hindus. You have to be a mercy to all people. We ought to be motivated by the finest human qualities.
And if we come from any other disposition, it is because justice demands that we do that. We can never go against the people until after they have gone against us in all steps to bring about peace has failed and there's no other way. Then we permitted to fight. We are not the sons of Mars. We're the sons of Earth. We are not the followers of Thor. We are the followers of Muhammad Prophet. We are not men of war. We are men of peace. We are Muslims and we only go to war in defense of peace. So even our war is for peace. We are still in the dress, in the uniform of peace while we we're fighting the cause. And the way with the civilized world now they don't like to go to war unless it is in defense of peace. They can't get the support of all these good American citizens if it is just for war or peace is not really the interest. I believe that peace is the real interest, and we have to believe that the cause is one that is acceptable in decent society or human society.
The end of the journey of the journey is a journey to something. The journey for us is peace. It is the path of G-d that leads us to the home of peace. Dar Al Salaam, the home of peace is called the home of peace. So how can Muslims with all of this peace in their life, Muslims peace, loving. Islam surrender to peace. The peace that G-d wants. Yes, the greeting is peace. As Salaam. The destiny we want to go, hope to be accepted in is the home of peace. Darul Salaam. Our behavior in the world should speak for our belief in peace, the life of peace, the work for peace. The hope for peace. That's what our work in the world should reflect, that our behavior in the world should reflect that. And let me tell you something bad people. I like to talk to the bad people sometimes. If there's somebody you ought to be afraid of, it's a man that believe the way I'm expressing belief right here. Look here. That's the most fearless man you'll ever meet on any battlefield. I think the soldiers of Afghanistan taught the Soviet Union that just before they fell. Just before they dissolved. Yeah, I think the Afghanistan soldiers, those Muslim soldiers called Afghanistan fighters, freedom fighters, I think they taught the Soviet Union that the most fearless man you can meet on a battlefield is the one that believes in all that peace. The one that calls himself after peace and his greeting is peace and his religion is peace and his destiny is peace. Don't disturb his peace. Praise be to Allah. That is Praise be to G-d. So, we share with Christians the belief in the sacredness of human life. And I hope I have explained what we believe is the sacredness of human life. That sacredness is only for us in the original excellence that G-d created. We believe that every human being, no matter how far we drift or depart from that original excellence, we believe that it still in us. So therefore the criminal that we execute, we execute him, but we respect his body.
If Muslims kills a person and then mutilate or try to tear up the body, that's the rage of the savage in the Muslim. He's not following his Muslim, he's not following his Islam. We are not to be mutilators. No matter what kind of crime a person commits, we are to kill him in a civilized manner for his crime If we have to. Yes, we believe in capital punishment. We don't call it capital punishment. We've called it the law of mercy. We believe in the law of mercy. Once we kill him, then respect should be shown for the body. Muhammad the Prophet stood up for a body. He didn't care what body it was. He was not a man to stand up for a living person like a lot of us do to impress each other. It's almost natural and automatic for us. The big shot come in, we stand up, come near us, stand up and greet the big shot.
The Prophet didn't do that and he didn't accept that anyone else do that for him. He didn't accept others to do it for him either. But once he was seen standing up when their dead body was brought past and he was sitting down. So, when the dead body was carried past him, when it got near him, he stood up. So, his followers were a little bit perplexed by that. They wanted some understanding. So, they said to him, "Why do you stand up for a dead body? You don't stand up for living. He said, because that body has not departed from Muslim, Islam, that body has been obedient to its master. That body has been obedient to its master. So, Allah created this flesh body of ours to obey the person that's in it. And if you want to do wrong, the body is not with you and the body is going to try to make you feel very uncomfortable. But if you keep resisting the body's warnings, the body will go along with you and feel very slightly uncomfortable, very slight discomfort. So isn't this wonderful that G-d will not punish the body with you for your wrongs. The body will suffer for a while, but G-d if you have vent upon doing this wrong, continuing this life of bad behavior, Allah removes the heavy pain or burden from the body. And the body just experiences a very light burden from your heavy sins.
Yes, it's just like the conscience. The first time you did the wrong thing that got you on the path of criminal life, you got a strong warning. But as you repeat it, the same thing, you got a weaker and weaker warning. After a while you thought you were getting no warning at all. You thought you were free on your own to do the sin, to do the wrong thing. But it's not so. The body never gives up its objection to your wrong. Our Prophet has taught us that in the Judgment, the feet that you use to walk you into a sin will complain before G-d. Say, Lord, he used me to do this sin. And the hand that you use to steal or to do something you are not supposed to do with it. That hand is going to say in the judgment, Lord, he used me to do this sin. The eye, every member of your body that you use to do wrong with is going to complain before G-d against you in the judgment. That tells us that these members never agreed with you. The flesh, the body is never wrong. It's the thinking in the body that's wrong.
And let me tell you something, and here I'm not coming from scripture or anything, although I'm influenced by scripture, it's hard for me to say I'm not coming from scripture. I'm influenced so much by scripture, it's almost impossible for me not to come becoming somewhat from scripture. But I don't want to place this on anybody. I take it or take the burden on myself If someone will disagree with me in the high plains of Islamic sky of scholars. If you give yourself to unconscious behavior, going against the refined manner that G-d has created for you to behave with or in, it will affect you physically in time. Sin is reflected on the face. Hurt is reflected on the face. A lot of things are reflected on the face. I'm talking about a little bit further than that. From your flesh will be born deformed flesh because you allow your mind to be deformed and didn't care about it. Do anything about it. So, from your flesh will in time be born deformed flesh to tell you as a sign that this thing that appears to be perfect is not, is imperfect, not the flesh. You inside the body you are imperfect. So, you produce an imperfect body, an imperfect body, a deformed body. Now does that make that body a sinful body? No. Let me tell you something else a lot of people don't think about. Even insanity does not necessarily have to mean bad morals. A person can be insane and still have good morals. So, immorality is not inherited, criminality is not inherited. And the second one, the latter one is the position of the criminal institution of the United States and the West is that criminality is not inherited, can't be inherited. But I also say that immorality or bad morals, a tendency to be morally bad is not inherited.
So, a deformed person is not necessarily a less prepared person for life in the world than the person that appears to be perfectly perfect in physical form. People come here deformed physically, but they're able to excel side by side with another person who seems to be perfect physically but doesn't have going for them what that deformed person physically has gone for them. I saw two children in the same amusement park. One complaining young child complained that he'd been walking too long and wanted his parent to carry it. Same size of another child that was crippled, badly crippled in his leg. And the child at the time when this child was making another plea to be picked up, this crippled child went by swiftly hopping along with one leg almost. So, I looked at the crippled child and I looked at our, that was our child. Was our child, I hope he forgot this. If he ever reads this, hears about my talk here, hope he forgot it. It was our child. And I looked at him and I told him, I said, look, he's a boy your size. And look at him going on crippled running, happy to be out here happy that his parents gave him a chance to come out here and spend their money.
I think it helped him a little bit. The home of peace. How will we have this peace? We believe as Muslims, just as Christians believe that the G-d that created us and the external world is the G-d of peace.
And that He intend that man evolve humanly in himself and in his society to one day accept the rule of peace, the rule of peace, the government of peace. That's what hope that G-d has treated us with. G-d has treated us with that hope. We believe that if the heart can be encouraged to remain good, if we take good care of the social life, beginning in the home, work for the protection of the social life, in the home, for its respect, for its honor, for its G-d-given authority. G-d has created man and woman with authority. Man and woman are to have authority over their home life. They're to have authority over their children if they can't manage it well, it is the duty of society. The enlightened rightly informed members of the society to see that these families in ignorance get the right understanding. Get the right understanding doesn't mean that they learn how to read the book or learn how to work arithmetic or mathematics.
It means that they get the knowledge of their precious creation, that G-d has made them a precious creation, a dynamic creation, A creation that if they respect it and serve the good life of that creation, that human creation, that they have no limit in how far they can go in this society, in this world. That they all have equal ability given to them by their Lord, G-d Creator, and that they have been made, not men and women of sin, but they have been made men and women of great honor. G-d says that He made noble every child of Adam. Noble. That you have been born like the nobles of the Kings, the Queens of England. You have been born like them, not with a nobility that's given to you by the constitution or by the law, a nobility given to you by your G-d who said that He is your Maker. He knows you best. And He said that He made every one of you with nobility, made every one of you noble. This is the kind of teaching they should be given to people in the homes who have drifted away from their humanity drifted away from respect from their human life and have lost respect for their family life. They should be giving them the truth about their creation. They appreciate each other with no appreciation, pardon me. They have no appreciation for each other because they don't know the value of themselves.
And they're constantly showing, being shown a picture of themselves that doesn't inspire any kind of excellence and doesn't inspire any kind of respect in them for human life. When they're constantly seeing pictures in the news and pictures in the movies, pictures on the television of themselves as human beings in a most shameful form or most disgraceful form, shaming and disgracing the human life. So, they'll take a picture of themselves, their life, they see human. This is what it is to be human. Human being means laughing and going up on top of the roof and jumping off on your head. You fall on your head and die. But only the movies Hollywood show you getting back up. You jump from the tenth story, hit your head, you fall and hit your head on the ground. You get back up and you keep running. You run on down the street.
Yeah, having a good time is shooting each other. Get up and shoot each other. Only thing in Hollywood, they run the picture again and you see a new picture, the one that died is in another picture. So, they have eternal life in Hollywood. They have eternal life, they just have life after life. Just keep dying, living it out. So, for these ignorant people that watch that stuff, they unconsciously are conditioned to believe that they have more lives to come. So, they get out there and they holler at each other. "Well, sucker I don't have to take this from you." Boom, boom, boom, shoot him down dead, He's going to get back up. He'll be in another movie. He'd be out in another movie next week, next year. Of course that's the way it is on Hollywood. That's the way it is on the screen, on the TV you see. And they're shocked when they see themselves with handcuffs on going away. They wonder what happened, what went wrong?
Yes, the home of peace. We have to finally realize that this universal creation of material or material system, that it is a system established for peace, for peace and justice. G-d says that He has not created this world that we see outside of ourselves for any purpose except justice. For just conclusions. For just conclusions. That's what He says. Meaning that there may be incidents that you may see that may not communicate justice to you, but be like Abraham, don't come to a conclusion right away. Study things till their conclusion. Study them, follow them, search them out until the conclusion of the matter. And if you search anything out in G-d's creation and reach the conclusion of it, you find that one of its purposes or main purpose is justice. Justice, justice and peace. G-d has created the world for justice and peace and He has created us for His mercy because the creation is too big and too complex for us as well as our own human life.
G-d created it. It is too much for us to shoulder by ourselves. So, G-d has to give us His mercy and His first mercy is this human body that we are conscious in. That we have as our first home, the human body. The first home for the fetus in the body of the mother and the womb of the mother is her body. And then he is put out into the world and his first home is his body and his body and himself in his body has to find a place or accommodation in this external world, in the world. And G-d wants us to know that in order to have peace, we have to be informed of the systems, the systems, systems of knowledge, systems of things and systems of knowledge. G-d want us to be informed of the system. Then if we are informed of the systems that G-d intended the systems to be, we will then accept that we should design our system after the system of G-d. And if we design our system after the system of G-d, then the primary end, the primary purpose and also the end purpose for us is peace. Peace and justice. Man is born into this world in a society that is private for him. This privacy for us is sacred as it is for the Christians. The private life of man and woman and children. This is sacred for us. Our privacy is sacred. We have a right to that privacy, and no one is to spy on that privacy.
Muslims cannot have a police state that will pry on our privacy. Spy, pardon me, on our privacy. We can't have people spying on us coming in and investigate with how we are living in our home, seeing what we are doing in our home. We have to be trusted with the life of our homes. Now if the life of our home become threatening, it's going to come outside the home. No one has to spy on the home. It's going to manifest. That home is too small for you to have too many karate bouts in and nobody knows outside. It's just too small. So eventually we going to know about it and only when it comes out of the house and spills over outside in somebody else's yard or in somebody else's life, do we have the right to come into your house and say, "Hey, what are you doing inside here?" So, if somebody peeks from the other window up above and they look at your 16-millimeter film and come to the court, first thing the court should do is punish them for looking through your window. Not to say that your behavior is right even, but you are entitled to that privacy.
Now, I don't think I'm compromising with wrong. I don't compromise. I intend good and take away from the bad. That's my intention. And I believe I do that. I've been working at it so long, I should be able to say I do it now. Been working at it a long time now. So, we have this sacredness, this privacy. Our privacy is sacred. And also, we are entitled to work. We are entitled to work. Muslims can never accept a society that says welfare is a necessity. No, we believe that welfare, welfare is a condition that we tolerate, but it is not a necessity that we advocate. We don't want to advocate welfare. We want to advocate industry, industry, respectful work, respectable work where people have honor working,
Not Socialists, not Communists, but we insist that the society work for the maximum opportunity for people to work. And that we encourage all people to respect the G-d-given dignity of work. Work is a created dignity. It dignified men, it dignified women, it dignifies family, it dignified society. Work, honorable work. So, work for us is very important. The right to work is also a sacred right. And what is the end of work. What is the object of work? Why do we work? We work to have things to improve the comfort of life, don't we? To improve the good situation and the comfort of life. And those things are seen in our possessions that the Prophet said of our property. And your property is sacred, but don't become so selfish with your property. When we become too selfish with our property, then we destroy the sacred life. We are not aware how much we are hurting the good order of families, the peace of family life when we are being so selfish, selfish and possessive. "Get out of my refrigerator. Did I tell you, you could use my glasses? Get off my couch with those dirty pants. Don't come here on my rug with those shoes."
"What are you doing at my stove? Did I tell you, you can cook? Get out of my kitchen." Pretty soon the child will say, "Well, what the hell is mine? Excuse me, I didn't want to use that. So, everything hers. What is mine? What is ours. It's usually a woman talking like that. It's the commercial world that taught you like that. Well, they're getting ready to do you in now, sister. They got that child believing that everything is his. After a while, the children going to be telling you, get off my couch, turn my TV off. So let us correct this kind of language, this kind of attitude. We should say, get out of the refrigerator, the refrigerator. It ain't my refrigerator, it's the refrigerator. Get off the couch with those dirty pants. Don't come in here on our rug. If you want to be a little more successful, use this psychology. "Son, don't walk on your rug with those dirty shoes, son. Don't sit on your couch with those dirty pants, son. Don't go in your refrigerator before washing your hands and getting mama's permission." Yeah, talk like that. That would be some powerful psychology for correcting things at home.
Now I got to prepare you for what I ran into. You're going to have to tell that child at one time or another. You gonna have to tell him. "No, this is not your cake I'm eating. This is my cake I'm eating." You have to establish that he has his and you have yours. That all of you have rights in that family, in that house, at that house. There's a lot to be said here. It'll take too much time. Believe me, there's a lot to be said because the whole way that Muslims relate to children should be taught to Muslims first of all. And I think we should share it also with our neighbors who are the majority in this country, the Christians. And at this point I'm going to say to you what I start to say in the very beginning of my talk, and that is that don't think that Christians don't have a right to know what Muslims believe in and what you hold to be vital and sacred. They have a right to know. If you have secret knowledge in this Christian society, you are in trouble. You shouldn't have any secret knowledge in another society. You shouldn't. Muslims don't have secret knowledge. All our knowledge is for everybody.
Secret knowledge is the greatest threat to peace. The greatest threat to world peace is secret knowledge.
And those who protect the secrecy of their knowledge, they're the worst threats to world peace. G-d said to Muhammad, We have not revealed it to you that you should keep it, but that you should broadcast it, that you should publish it and not publish it in a way that people have to be intrigued and can't figure it out. Say that you should publish it plainly, clearly, clear. Make it clear to them. Make it clear. So, we are not allowed to have a knowledge that we keep to ourselves, to advance ourselves and keep it from the other people to have something over their heads all the time. G-d says to us in our Holy Book that private meetings are forbidden. Secret meetings are forbidden, disallowed unless there for or conducted to promote sincerity between people. Goodness and sincerity between people. They have to be for the purpose of promoting sincerity and goodness between people.
This word means honesty, sincere decency and goodness. So, if we meet in secrecy for the purpose of having more openness and more honesty and more decency between the members of society and that more good come to them, that's okay. But it can't just be to have more good come to them, but in the meantime, they're going to be the victims of dishonesty, deceit, and treachery and all kinds of other things. This is what secret orders do. They are very treacherous in the world at times, and they cause the world to suffer a lot. But they say that what they do is justified because their end is the betterment of man on earth to contribute to the betterment of man on earth. Allah says, do not mix corruption in with that, that you spend for the good of society and that corruption means lies. Corrupt, immoral things is corrupt. Pornography is corrupt, but also a lie is corrupt. Yes. So, we can't lie to the people in the name of G-d. We can't trick them into paradise. That's the way of the Satan. I don't know if I should have said all this on the radio. I forgot I was on the radio. Well, it was the spirit. Don't blame it on me. It was the spirit.
And I guess this Mobile, this good town brings out that spirit. So, we have to work to increase our knowledge of our own precious life, our knowledge of the social nature and the social destiny for man. And that social destiny ends for us when we accept that mankind at large is only one family. G-d says that He created you from one and from that one He made two male and female and spread from those two, all the men and women on earth. That's what G-d tells us. And G-d tells us that the first house that we turn to in prayer, Kaa'ba, it’s called the first house. It's called the most ancient house, the Ancient House. And it's called the First House built for all people.
Bunee al In Nas. The first house built for all people. It is a sign there that we want to live on this earth, regard this earth as the home of all people. And that we want to protect the vital life, want to be in that group of soldiers, protecting the vital life that G-d created. And we want to show by our religious rituals that the message of our unity is against racism, against the dominance of one race over another. And that this message is a message that says, we all have equal rights to what G-d created. We are on this earth created by G-d and we all have equal rights to it. This is the home of man all men, all races, all nations. And we accept it. And that we see it really as an extended home of that first home that was nothing but a little small box. Man originally lived in little small boxes, a little small tent, little small thing. He lived there. In fact, men would live in a place small like the Kaa'ba. I've been inside the Kaa'ba. The government officials permitted us to go inside the Kaa'ba. I've been inside with some other guests. So, I've been inside there and men, and most early times before civilization, their home would be just like that. Small, just that small.
But look who comes to pay their respects at that house.
Multitudes. Million and a quarter, a million and a half people at one time, sometimes there during the Hajj season, the pilgrimage season. And their colors are all colors. Their cultures are all cultures. We go there in our Western suit like this beside us, maybe there's another man with Chinese clothes, another one, another kind of clothes. Sometimes you don't even know them. You had to go get one of these good magazines. Which one is that? The National, National Geographic. You might have to get a magazine like that to look up some of your issues and maybe you'll find that man there somewhere. Very strange. You see some very strange dressed people coming from very strange, very, very, I would say unpopular cultures. You'll find them there looking very strange and odd. But then at one point, during the Hajj rituals, you are all dressed the same.
You're dressed in your Ihram, just a white piece of cloth up here. White piece of cloth down the bottom. But the women, they stay in there's, right? The women, they stay in their natural dress. They don't have to wear a special dress. That should tell you something. Brothers, how come the sister wears her same dress? She doesn't have to distinguish, pardon me, lose her cultural distinction. I told you I wasn't going to speak to Eve directly. Right. I said I wouldn't speak directly on Eve. I wouldn't speak to Eve by her name. By name. So, you see the, they come there from Africa, Nigeria. They in the Nigerian dress, they make the rituals that we make. We in the Ihram. Because the man is responsible for the dress the woman is wearing. She doesn't have to repent her dress. He has to repent his dress.
Yes, but we can come into the home of peace. We can have this home of peace if we use the knowledge G-d revealed. He created this system, this system of systems. We call the material universe with us in it. He created it. He knows the laws and nature of it. He revealed to us to reveal knowledge, to show us, to give us insight into the workings of His creation and to show us the language connection for man's life with the material world. There's a language connection. So, He shows us that and educates us into the knowledge of our own human system and into the knowledge of the material system to teach us how to design a system of peace for ourselves. A system that will accommodate all people equally. A system that will cherish the young, respect the old, protect the weak, and have charity for those in need, but will promote human dignity for all. And human dignity for all means that we should never be satisfied with any citizen in their weak state, being nonproductive or being crippled. We should always work to bring the maximum number of citizens into dignity where they feel proud because of their labor, because of their work, because of their contributions to themselves, to their families, to their neighborhoods, to the society at large. This is what we should work for, to maximize dignity and minimize helplessness. Thank you very much. Peace be on you. As Salaam Alaikum.



