03/14/1997
IWDM Study Library
Jumu'ah Prayer-Harvey IL

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Al-?amdu li-ll?hi rabbil aa’lameen. We give praise and thanks to Allah, the Lord, sustainer of the world. We believe in Him, we turn to Him, asking for assistance and we turn to Him for forgiveness. And we witness that none is to worshiped except Him, that He is G-d alone, with no other gods with him. We witness that Muhammad whom the Quran was revealed is His servant and His messenger. We salute Muhammad with the traditional salute, sala lahu alaihi wa salam wa ba’id. The prayers and the peace be upon him.
Dear believers, this religion Al-Islam is a religion of consciousness, mindfulness, remembrance. It is a religion of remembrance. The G-d who created us, created us to seek Him. To seek Him for obedience. To seek Him for guidance and to seek Him for His mercy. And to turn to Him when we forget and do wrong, to turn to Him for forgiveness. Oh, believers or oh who believe, remember G-d with much remembrance. Remembering Him over and over again, constantly as we live.
Again, Allah says most high in the Quran Oh, mankind or oh, people, remember G-d. Again, oh, people, remember G-d's favor on you. The remembrance is also the remembrance of G-d for His favors on us, for His goodness to us, for His gifts to us, for His blessings on us. And again, Allah most high says, “Oh, you who, believe or oh, believers, eat only of the good things that G-d has provided for you and give thanks to G-d. And give thanks to G-d.
Again, Allah most high says in his book, “And if you will remember me, G-d says, I will remember you and give things to me and do not make others G-d with Me.” Again, Allah most high and glorified is He above all He says in His book the Quran. “Those who do good in this world's life, in this world the reward for them is good. They will get good in this life. And G-d's earth, this earth that we live on is called G-d's earth. This is G-d's earth, he made it, not us, and G-d's earth is spacious and G-d's earth is spacious.
A farmer who farms his land, if he finds that that land is too poor to produce what he needs to sustain himself or take care of himself and his family or his business needs. And he finds that he cannot do anything with that land, that it can't be improved enough to support him, his family or his business needs or whatever. His personal needs might be, he will move on. He will go to find other lands. He will move on to find better land. Land that can take care of his needs. So, it is with life. If we're living in a situation and that situation is not giving us the good life that we want. Allah wants us to know, G-d, that is, wants us to know that He made the whole earth. He made the whole earth for His worshipers or His servants, His worshipers, His slaves.
The literal term in the days of the Prophet, but now the term is softened to mean His servants. He wants His servants to know that He has made the whole earth for us and we are to seek better situations for ourselves. Not to live in the same old situation, suffering, not progressing, not being able to realize good return from your effort. And you continue to put up with that day in and day out, week in and week out, month end and year and year out and you're getting older and older. Your children are getting older and older. Don't put up with situations like that.
If you can't get the good life that you want, you can't get the good results for your efforts then think about other places to go. Think about other towns to live in, other regions to be in. And go because Allah's earth is spacious, He says. The whole earth belongs to Allah and you belong to Allah. So, we should go seek better situations for ourselves, as the farmer will do. He will move from a land that won't produce for him and he will go to a land that will produce for him. 
Again, sometimes we're oppressed, we're burdened, our spirit is strained. Our spirit is burdened and we don't know all the time just what the real cause is. There are many things happening in our life and we can't put the finger on any one thing. The spirit is burdened and we know it and we are distressed or we are under pressure all the time, and not realizing the good feeling inside of our souls that we want for ourselves. 
Sometimes it is that we are not strong enough personally, spiritually, personally to make proper decisions. We don't want to hurt this person, we don't want to hurt that person. We're trying to please this person. We're trying to please that person. We don't want to give up this possession, it's so dear to us. Some people will keep a worthless piece of object in a house or call it a car or in the garage forever. It's taking up space and everything, but they have some kind of attachment to it. Some people get attached to junk and they can't give up junk. It has no value and they're not going to get anything for it, but they're attached to that junk and he'll keep that junk in the way.
They'll be depressed, their spirit will be down and they won't know what's making it like that. Because you can't get in the closet, you can't walk through the bedroom, you can't use the trunk of the car for the groceries. You got too much junk around, that you can't give up. Sometimes, the people that you love are just like that junk. Don't burden yourself too much, unnecessarily. Because G-d can't help you unless you help yourself. Do the things that G-d has given you the strength and the sense and the intelligence and the power to take care of. So, take care of those things that you can take care of and then G-d will show you His mercy.
G-d says, “Then whoever will repent, after wronging themselves”. You wrong yourself sometimes. “Whoever will repent after wronging themselves or his self or herself and not only repent. Now, G-d ask something else of us. Waslaha mean, after you've done that wrong, then make it your business to do good thereafter. You've got to make a decision after you resolved, "I have been wrong," then make a decision, say, "I don't want to be like that anymore. I'm going to be decent. I'm going to be righteous. I'm going to be upright. I'm going to be conscious, for G-d's sake."
Surely, G-d will accept the repentance of such person. For surely, G-d is ever ready to forgive and show mercy. G-d is not like us. We get hurt and we're hurting and we have to force ourselves almost to forgive the person and be nice to the person that have hurt us or done us wrong. Believe me, any wrong to yourself is a wrong against G-d because G-d made you and G-d gave you a life and a nature to be right. Anytime you don't be as G-d wished for you, willed for you to be and intended for you to be, it's a wrong not only against yourself, it's a wrong also against your G-d, that made you like that.
If you made something in your house to be a certain way and I come in your house and change that and mess it up, didn't I wrong you?
Audience: Yes.
Okay. If you give me a gift for myself and you gave me that gift, wanting me to enjoy it. Then you learned that I took that gift and messed it up. I didn't only hurt myself, tied myself to the gift, but I wronged you too, didn't I?
Audience: Right.
Well, your life is a gift from Allah to you. When you don't treat it right, you're also wronging Allah. For surely G-d is ever ready to accept the repentance of any person. And surely G-d is ready at all times, to forgive and show mercy. He's not like us, holding back till we are convinced that you've suffered enough. G-d is always leaning forward to you like this, just wanting you to do one more thing, so He can go and help you. Praise be to Allah. This is our Lord, our G-d. A G-d of mercy, a G-d of forgiveness, a G-d of kindness, a G-d of great love, eternal love, endless love. And all His attributes are perfect and absolute and eternal and unending, never-ending.
He says, “His wrath falls upon whomsoever He wills it to fall upon, but His mercy extends beyond His wrath.” This is our G-d. Most merciful G-d. We pray to Allah to guide us always, to forgive when we err and show us mercy. 

Praise be to Allah. We worship Him and Him alone and we witnessed that Mohammed is His servant and His messenger. The prayers and the peace be upon him and what follows of that salutation. We pray to G-d to give us in this life, good and in the next, good. Our Lord, give us in this life, good and give us in the next, good and save us from the fires of sin. This is one of the many prayers found in the Quran, that we are to say.
Now, we said at the beginning of this khutbah. In the first section of this khutbah, this is a lecture or khutbah that G-d wants remembrance in us. G-d wants us to remember, wants us to be mindful, wants us to be thoughtful. No other interest in Al-Islam is higher than that interest. That is for us to remember G-d, be mindful, be thoughtful. And to remember G-d, for His blessings on us. And to want only the good things for ourselves and our loved ones, our people at large. And G-d wants us to be thankful. This is part of remembrance, to be thankful, to appreciate G-d's blessings on us.
To appreciate G-d for His goodness and all the wonderful things that we enjoy in His creation. Which is His gift to us, for our understanding, for our study, for our contemplation, our study, and benefits. So, we are to remember G-d and be thankful to Him for those things. We are to turn to G-d when we do wrong and ask G-d for forgiveness. And we should make a decision after seeing that we're wrong, to not be that way again, to try hard to keep right conduct, good conduct. And G-d says, "If you remember me, I will remember you." That's all it takes. Just remember Allah, Allah remembers you.
These words in Arabic, they are not like English words, remember. For want of better words, we just have to use these words, remember. But G-d means, if you have G-d on your mind, G-d will have you in His interest. That's what it means. If you will have G-d on your mind, G-d will have you in His interest. You will be in His interest. Praise be to Allah. And G-d wants us to know that He did not make all situations the same. He did not make all situations as fortunate for you as other situations. He made some situations more fortunate for you than other situations.
Don't live in misery, day after day and all the time, but turn to G-d and say, "G-d, I think I'll do a little traveling." And go in the name of G-d to a better situation. We also I hope, we've said, that along with remembering G-d, is also a requirement on us to be thankful. To be thankful to G-d for all of His good works and all of His good things that He has created for you and yourself included, for your own enjoyment and benefit. People should remember that when you can't enjoy anybody else, you can enjoy yourself.
Sometimes you have more enjoyment just sitting with yourself than you do sitting in the company of people that annoy you. Remember that. The saying is, “it's better to sit alone than in the company of wrongdoers.” But G-d wants us to be with each other. G-d loves to see us together socializing and being with each other. But when that situation can't be found, we have to part with the people who make our life an aggravation. We have to be alone until we can do better.
This is not a Marquis de Sade religion. We don't believe in punishing ourselves, and suffering. We don't like pain on ourselves you see, so remember that. Al-Islam also wants us to know that once we do wrong and we repent for it, then we should work to establish for ourselves a good reputation, a good reputation. Establish for yourself a good name. G-d loves the person who turn from his sin, no matter how much your sin has been. He loves any sinner who will turn from his sin. Any sinner who will turn from sin, G-d loves that person. Then G-d wants you to establish for yourself thereafter a reputation for doing good. That's all. Build yourself a new life. Build yourself a new name. Get a new reputation.
Let that reputation be a reputation for doing good. Remember corruption is a slave master. Indecency, vulgarity, corruption is a slave master. Righteousness, decency is a liberator. It gives us freedom and it brings us to a state where we can have liberation. Thank you very much. Let us pray to G-d that G-d gives us the benefits of this religion through His gift of His word, the Quran. And through the gifts of His servant, Muhammad the prophet, prayers and peace be upon him. Amin.


