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IWDM Study Library
Education for Civilizing the Family

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
From the Surah of the chapter of Qur'an titled The Family of Imran, or Ali Imran. G-d Most High says With the Name of G-d, the Merciful Benefactor, the Merciful Redeemer. "Those who if they do a wrong." We should have backed up a little bit to read further explanation for this. "Those who, if they do an unseemly thing or a disgraceful thing or if they wrong their souls themselves, they recall to mind Allah, G-d and they seek His forgiveness and they seek forgiveness for their wrongs, for their sins. And who can forgive sins other than G-d. And they do not persist in doing wrong." That is they did not insist upon following the wrong way if they know, while they have knowledge. That means if they know better, while they're knowing that they're doing wrong, they will not persist in that. Then comes "These are the ones who receive as reward, Mercy and forgiveness from their Lord and a paradise, a garden beneath which rivers flow abiding therein forever." Blessed, or highly blessed, highly blessed, greatly blessed, full of blessings we may say. Full of blessing is the reward of the doers, the doers. Amalen means the doers. It may be translated also the workers, some translate it workers. "And there has certainly passed before you the traditions, ways, of many, many people. So travel and seek throughout the earth and see how the liars, the falsehood bearers came to their end."
"This is clear sign or evidence for all people and guidance and a warning for the G-d-fearing. Therefore, do not despair, do not grieve. For you are to be the uppermost if you are truly believers." So G-d promised that those who are sincere, believing people, sincere in their faith, they're truly believers, that if they remain true to the form that they believe in, inevitably they will rise above those who reject G-d and are not faithful to Him. And G-d revealed the truth, spoke the truth. Now the Qur'an, our Holy book the Qur'an, it is called in the Arabic language of Qur'an, a Shifa. This means a healing, a cure for whatever's in the hearts of people. It is a healing and a cure for whatever is bothering the hearts of the people.
So when we turn to the Qur'an, to the Holy Book, we should understand that if we have problems in the heart, problems in our soul, burden of sin on our hearts or the burden of sin on our souls, whatever it is the Qur'an, if you read it with an open mind and a sincere heart, it will be a healing for you. It solves problems and it takes away defects, sin and germ. It's a cleanser, a healing. Also the prayer that we say five times daily, the salat, it is also called that that will take away indecency and wrong, tendency to do wrong. The prayer, the five daily prayers. However, we know that this discipline in the Muslim life, this spiritual discipline in the Muslim life we call prayer, salat, it is difficult for people whose national life does not accommodate the opportunity to make those five daily prayers. In a Muslim nation, the opportunity is accommodated.
Even in the worst nation I've been to, the worst Muslim nation. You can make your prayers. No one will prevent you from making your prayer. Although in many of the Muslim nations, they don't encourage you to make your prayers. There's no encouragement. But I haven't been in any that would prevent you from making your prayer. So to get up in the morning before the sunrise, fajr time, which now is what about 5:20 or 5:30 or so, to get up and make the fajr prayer before daylight is seen and just the white horizontal line is across the sky or right thereafter, immediately thereafter. It's very difficult for many people. They want to sleep during that time. And some have to work during those hours. They have odd shifts and they have to work during that hour. And then to make the prayer at noon time, which today was about 12:20 I believe, to make the prayer at noon time, sometimes there's things interfering with it like the Bears game, you see. So it's very difficult sometimes. And so it is for the other prayers, they're all at stated times. See, G-d won't adjust His prayer plan for man, to your whims and to your notions and to your daily routines and excitement, whatever. He's not going to adjust His plan. If it's truly G-d's plan, then we should adjust ours to His. So right now, there are some of us, we want to be at the television watching the game, right? That's the Bears, their leading what, about seven to nothing I think if the score didn't change. See I watch it too.
So sure many of them are at the television right now and many would like to hurry and get back there before the game is over. Young fellow in my house, he used to be sports minded, in fact he still is. He loves sports, he loves football, he's very good. He plays football very well. That's our son Sadi. But he recently has taken on a new thing and he's preoccupied with electronic music mixing, mixing music and making tapes. And without any training or lessons at all, he has a keyboard and he's doing pretty well with it. He's all excited over that now. And I told him, I said, it's time to go to Taaleem. Theres supposed to be a Taaleem. And the Bears game is on too. And I noticed that he wasn't paying any attention to the Bears game. He was just working on his music.
The Bears playing, major game here, playoffs and Sadis not watching. I said, this tells me something. Normally, I'm sure Sadi would've been watching the Bears game, but since he's come into this new thing now he's preoccupied with mixing, the music thing. So the Bears game has to wait. His friend came over there and he's crazy in the mixing too. He pretended like, I guess he didn't even know the Bears game was on. He went right to the electronic equipment. Didn't even know the Bears game was on. But there are some who are not preoccupied with something or anything like that. So they at the Bears game, right? They're there at the television or out there at the field or rushing trying to get out there.
Now, that's wrong for us to put anything that Allah has asked of us behind something of the world. It's natural to desire those things. It's natural to want to do that. I wanted to stay home and watch the game. I'm not going to lie. I didn't want to come out here. I wanted to stay home and watch the game. But taking on my duty to Allah and people, this is what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to come out here. The people expecting me, we have to have to make prayer, we have to have Taaleem. So they expecting me. Then thinking on that made my heart and spirit go with that.
But to tell you that I woke up thinking about Taaleem, no. I woke up thinking about the Bears. I haven't reached that state where these things don't bother me at all. They do bother me. And I hope I never reach a state where nothing of the world bothers me unless I'm out of the world. G-d doesn't say prayer is easy for us. It's easy on certain people. It's easy on those who are constantly devoted to G-d, constantly devoted in obedience to Him. It's easy for them because that's what they're constantly into. They're not getting out into these things we into. They're constantly devoted to that. So if we would spend out 24 hours, how many hours we have, eight or 16 hours. If we would spend all those hours trying to figure out how to promote G-d's way and His plan. If we would do that, then these things wouldn't even reach us. It wouldn't. We would be so preoccupied with that, that these things wouldn't bother us. Whatever you preoccupied with really just shuts out everything else, right?
There are Muslims who they go on like 40 days and sometimes even longer. They go on I guess retreats for want of a better word, but it's not exactly a retreat. It's not a retreat because they're going out in the world. Dawah or something like that we can call it maybe. And they just leave everything, family, business, everything and take that much time out of their life to devote themselves constantly and totally to the dawah, to the propagation, to the religion. I think we should just put first things first and we don't have to pull ourselves out of the world, but just put first things first. Because Allah says at the call of prayer for Jumu'ah on Friday, He says, when you hear the call to prayer, Jumu'ah respond, leave off business and traffic, business traffic, et cetera. However G-d says, "And when the Jumu'ah is concluded, return to your ways of business, return to your ways of business."
So in our religion, G-d doesn't want to hold us to just the spiritual devotions or these kinds of commitments. He want us also to do the things that are necessary to uphold and advance the worldly life or the world, the life that we have in the world called in the Qur'an Al Ula, and also called the Dunya. G-d says, "Seek with the means that He has availed you your share of the world." See that with the means that G-d has availed you, the hereafter, the hereafter, the great reward in the end. Because it is the better, huh? It's the better of the two. So G-d says, "Seek that." However G-d says. "However, do not forget your or neglect your share in the world." So this is the equation that we like to have in our life, the balance that we like to have in our life.
And what has the Prophet said, Sa Ala Alahi Wa Salaam. The Prophet has said, Peace and the blessings be on him that is, "Marriage is half of your faith, half of the religion, marriage is half of the religion." Now I thought about that, marriage is half of the religion. So what is the Prophet saying here, Marriage is half the religion. I thought for a long time that it was just an encouragement. It certainly is an encouragement for the men, the single man to get married. That in order to live a full life on Muslim, they have to get married. That is the obvious message. However, there is still another message too, which says this- What we do in marriage is really for my own personal pleasure, right? My wife, she for my pleasure, I'm for her pleasure. My children even they're for the pleasure of the family in the house, right? For the parents in the house, they're our pleasure.
And the things we buy in that house and the type of house we will decide to live in, all of that is for our enjoyment, for our enjoyment. The man fulfills his social life in marriage, and it makes possible the continuation of his species by marriage. So this is for us. This is for us. But G-d says that's half your religion according to the teachings of the Prophet. If the Prophet has said it, then G-d says, whatever he has approved, take it. That's the same as G-d approving it. Okay. So he has said that marriage is half our religion. So if he has said that, then I am to understand that apart from these needs that are my social needs, my human needs is half my religion. I said if that's half my religion, what's the other half?
Well, some people will say, and I'm sure some leaders, some Imams, some scholars will say the other half is the spiritual side. I don't believe that. I believe the other half is doing in the world what pleases G-d, but not for myself, for society at large. Half of it is working for your private interests. The other half is working for the total interest for the collective good. Yes, because we married a wife, don't we supposed to pray with the wife at home? You don't divorce, you don't separate prayer and these spiritual things from home, from home life. We supposed to do it in the home as well as do it out here in the Mosque.
So G-d says "Surely it is difficult. It is hard. It's a big thing. But here in this context, it means it's a big responsibility making your prayers five times daily at the stated time. Many of us we make them, but we don't make them at the stated time. In fact, most of us can't make 'em hardly at the stated time unless we have some kind of special arrangement with our employer. We can't make the prayer at the stated time. But however they're supposed to be made at the stated time as according the teaching of the Qur'an. Allah Most High says in the Qur'an that prayer has been made, prescribed not only in this time but also before, not only for Muslims but before, for specific times, for specific times. And we believe that certain Prophets, they prayed at different times and the whole institution of prayer that we have, it reflects different times that certain Prophets came establishing prayer. We believe that David established morning prayer, morning prayer.
When we understand how G-d treats these responsibilities, we can do better. We can live with them better and also do better. See, I've seen people and I used to be inclined to do the same thing, they say anything G-d say do is supposed to be easy for me. If G-d say for me to do something it's supposed to be easy for me. No. Most the things G-d say for us to do, it's hard for us. He wouldn't have to say it if it wasn't hard. If they were easy, G-d wouldn't have to tell us to do it. But they're difficult. That's why G-d has to say do that. It's difficult. You creatures, you like easy life and you tend to walk away from these disciplines that are needed to hold up the good life that G-d wants in us. So G-d has to remind us to do this, do this.
So He come with laws or come with prescriptions, says, do this, do this. And the believer, the innocent, naive believer like myself, like I was, still am to a certain extent. Say Oh, whatever G-d has said is easy. Whatever I got to do is easy. But when I saw the wisdom of G-d in His own words, I said no. It's not easy, it's hard. Then I became a better person to get along with in my own house. I'm saying it's easy. Tell my wife, it's easy. How come it's easy? Little Warith got his mind out there in the streets and it's 85 degrees and the sun's going down and he wants to go out there and have fun. How come you don't do it? It's easy. But now I don't talk like that. I say, I know it's difficult, but let us work at it. It's difficult, but let us work at it. G-d says so we have to do it. Let us never excuse ourselves. Let's always try to do a little better.
Speaking of marriage again. Marriage as an institution served in the day of the Prophet and even now if we still have similar kind of conditions of slavery of people. It served to help the eliminate or do away with the ugly way or institution of slavery, which was very popular in the days of Prophet Muhammad, Peace and Blessings be on him. It contributed toward the elimination of slavery by requiring the owner or the master of a slave to do little things for the benefit of the slave toward working out the freedom, eventual freedom for a slave.
One of these things concerns marriage. If I wanted to marry a slave girl. Not marry, have a slave girl, have sexual affections or affections for a slave girl and I come up with a child from the slave girl. According to the law of the Qur'an, immediately the slave girl is free. Once it's known that she has my child, she's free. Her child is born free, also she's free. The mother and the child becomes free at the time it is known that this child is the child of the slave master. That child would be entitled and the woman would be entitled to all the rights of free people. All the rights of free people. And at that time, she would no longer be his, what you call the person in this charge. He is the ward or the protector for that person. She would no longer be a ward in his charge for want of a better word. She would no longer be a ward in his charge. She comes immediately to the status of wife, immediately to the status of wife. And her child has to be given all the rights that he would afford his children born to his wives that were free or never slaves.
So we find that the social life is the life where we experience all the troubles. But it's the same life that will bring us the best life on this earth. The best life for us on this earth can only be had through social progress, through social progress. It starts right with our own self at home, with the family. We should make our family an ideal social environment, but as a proper relationship and proper respect for those relationships. Proper authority in the parents, in the father and the mother. Proper respect for each other, proper respect for the children, proper respect from the children to the parents.
It should start right there. And then we should have a future. We should have a future in mind. We shouldn't live day to day. No matter how good the job is, maybe the boss told us this job is solid. This will go forever or this business will last forever and you'll always have a job. So you don't have to worry about your job. You'll always have a job. But that's still a dead life. That's a dead life. That's a slave life if you punch a clock and live for nothing but money to pay bills. That's a dead life. That's a slave life. No matter how great you are, how small or insignificant you are, how ignorant you are, how deprived you are, how poor you are. No matter what your situation is, if you are truly a Muslim and understand your religion, you should have your eyes on things for tomorrow. Never be satisfied with where you are today. Keep your eyes looking toward a bigger thing, a bigger responsibility and bigger rewards in your life down the road.
Work for bigger goals in your life,. Bigger goals, bigger horizons for your mind. And bigger possessions for the good of yourself and your wife and your family. Bigger possessions. Muslims should never be satisfied with just work day to day, the same old thing. No, look for room to progress, to improve upon your situation, to enjoy more, to gain more and to enjoy more. But do it as a Muslim, do it as a believer in G-d. Do it with a heart for all. Prophet Muhammad says, Peace and the blessing be upon him. "He's not really a believer whoever can go to sleep and rest the night with his stomach full knowing that his neighbor's hungry."
That's what Prophet Muhammad taught. So we know there's an obligation on us to work for our needs, but also to be considerate of other people and to be charitable. To be charitable, to let that whatever you have gained, acquired, to let it be shared by others. Don't be so selfish. Some of us are so selfish in our lives nowadays. So selfish at home with each other. Don't even want to see each other enjoy the food. We were coming up like that times was too hard for us to get that way. Times was so hard we needed friends. So my brother was also my friend, my sister was my friend too because we were suffering man. We needed some company. But now things are so plentiful. Wife is so careless and undisciplined. Everybody going in his own way.
You could eat anytime you want to. They tell me a lot of people starving, but I don't know why. Or they can come to some of you all's house and get enough out of your garbage can to survive. You throw away a half a chicken, you buy two, you throw away a half of one. It shouldn't be hungering, but they say there are. But in those times when I was a young boy, things were hard. Theres a brother right here. He knew me when I was a boy. Times were hard for him too. And he used to look at us and sometime he'd share his little bit with us. Brother Muhammad. That's the Imam. Stand up there. See, he been knowing me since I was a little fella.
He was a school teacher and he was a field minister. He would drive all over and walk all over preaching the word. He still doing the same. He hasn't stopped for all of those years. Praise be to Allah. He's a blessing to us. Yes. So I noticed that they're so selfish. Don't want to see nobody enjoying something. They see you look like you enjoying it they'll start coughing or act like they got to spit up or start belching around you. That's really sick, isn't it? And some of 'em, they don't want you to eat after them. They eat, then they finished. "You still eating?" They going to punish you because you're still eating. We don't eat the same speed. Can I just take my time and eat my dinner? Now don't bother me. You going about your business. You're through. Go about your business then if I'm bothering you eating. Bad times for many people. Also, we should understand that the law of marriage for Muslims is not the same as the law of marriage for other people.
It's important that we know these things, that the newly converted people to this religion in America, in a Christian environment or in American Western environment where the knowledge of our religion is not available. It's not common knowledge. See, in a real Muslim society, the things that I'm telling you now are common knowledge. So I heard one girl, she said, I don't see how they can marry their own cousins. I could never marry my cousin. But in our religion, we permitted to marry our cousin. Now, if a Muslim doesn't accept that he's a ignorant Muslim, he's an ignorant Muslim. "Boy, I could never marry my own cousin."
Why not ? Really I believe we'd have better families if more of us married our cousin. Yes. See, because your cousin, usually your family know, they know each other better. They know each other better. And a cousin, you know the cousin, you're friendly, you get along well together. You already know each other and you get along well together. You perhaps are raised similarly, most likely make perfect match. Jews marry their cousin. Muslims marry cousins. Christians don't marry cousins. Well, that's right. Christians don't marry cousins. Not to my knowledge. I don't think they allowed to marry cousins.
Now that's an allowance or something permitted to us that we won't find popular in the world. Right? Not popular in this society. You have to understand also because some of us will make a mistake and do it. Your father, whoever the woman your father has gone with and have had children by her or had her sexual relations with her, she's forbidden to you. I don't care if she's not your mother, she's forbidden to you. Some men will marry her over here. Father will have a wife, he marries her. We can't do that. Also, your brother. Over here it happens in the West. It happens maybe in some other societies too. Your brother has a wife, they divorced or something happened wrong. You take her right? You can't do that as a Muslim. No, you're not to go with your brother's wife, not to have your brother's wife.
Another thing you should know, sometime we marry a woman and she has children by previous marriage or from previous marriage. Some of us will go with her child. "Ain't my child." Huh? A Muslim can't do that. It's forbidden. It's forbidden to go with the child of your wife. And that goes for sister too. She can't go with the son of her husband. She might get fed up with the husband and say, "Oh, I like the son. He's not my boy. He is a fine boy. I like the son." She put the husband out. Take this boy. Take his son. Huh? Like you do. You put the woman out and take her daughter.
You can't do that if you're Muslim. See, this is the kind of education we have to have as Muslims. Because we don't want to just pray, come here and pray and let that be it. That's like one drop in the ocean of your religion. You just come here and pray. Prophet Muhammad counted it almost as nothing when he was told that a certain man was staying all the time in the Mosque and praying and fasting, Prophet Muhammad said, "Well, who's taking care of him?" And they said, "We take care of him." Prophet Muhammad said, "Then you are better than he is." So he condemned that. He put pressure on that person that's just praying and doing those things and neglecting their life. So you have to live a full life. And if you're going to live a full Muslim life, you have to know it. How are you going to live it if you don't know it?
Oh, but we are in this country now and they have laws. Certainly we know that. We know they have laws, but there are a lot of things that you don't know about law. And when it comes to law, civilized law has respect for legitimate civilized religious commitment. So Jews marry their cousins over here in the United States. Nobody bother them. Nobody pick on them. Nobody look down upon them. Arabs are doing the same thing and many others. So you should reconsider your thinking. And if you've got nice children, sometimes cousins take to each other naturally. They just like each other. I knew a boy, boy and a girl. They were cousins and they loved each other and they let it be known. They didn't hide it, but they fought it because it wasn't supposed to be acceptable. Far as I know, they never got together, but they acknowledged that they were in love with each other.
So if this is our religion, then we should look at it. Our homes need a lot of help. See, the parents have to play a role. Don't let your children just live without you having a role in their life. So in an intelligent way, find an intelligent way to reach them and help steer their life in a better course or in a better way. Help them find better mates. I know an old man, he's an Indian. Finally got all his children married off, been knowing the man for about 30 years. That man, he's such a wonderful person when it comes to looking out after the private needs of his family members and his friends. He knew of my need. He came away from San Francisco. He's not rich, he's poor. Came way from San Francisco to see about me. Yes. I saw him once and he says, "Well, I'm looking for a mate." I said, for who? I said, I thought all your children were married. He said, yeah. He said, but I met a hippie. He's looking for a mate. Said I'm looking for a mate. He said, I'm going to marry them. He also married people. So he was looking for a mate for his hippie. And I don't know whether he found 'em or not. I never found out whether he found a mate for him, but I know he did marry hippies too. He married hippies. During that time years ago they had a lot of 'em in California.
So we have to be like that old man. He would go and search. If he couldn't find the proper mate in his town, in the location where he was, where he lived. He would go outside. He traveled outside to other areas, to friends and associates looking for a mate for his daughters and for his son. Eventually all of 'em got married. He found mates for all of 'em. He didn't do too bad either. He didn't do too bad. He didn't bring the family down. Most of 'em on the same level. Some of 'em above his, the people he brought into his family above in social status, above his own children. They had acquired more. They achieved more in the world, more education, more money.
So if you want your family to be good and strong, you have to look out for it. Don't just let things happen. When we live like that, we are not as socialized as some animals. Some animals, they protect their families better than we do. That's no good. They live closer together than some of us do. It's not our fault. This is not a black man's fault. It's not a white man's fault. This is the fault of America's culture. America's culture doesn't provide for this kind of protection. You have to get it from your religion. Or from your private ideas, belief, worldview and belief.
So let us understand this religion and try to live it more. The more we live it, the more successful we are going to be. No way to be successful as a Muslim and you live it as something else. To be successful as a Muslim, I have to live as a Muslim, then I'll be successful as a Muslim. So no marrying a stepdaughter, all that kind of stuff. They had to cut that out. I heard that one brother, he married a sister to get the daughter. Not going to give any names, anything. But the evidence is strong against him that he did that. Because once he was married to her, he immediately started treating her different and he was getting closer and closer to the daughter all the time. So it looked like he really married her to get her daughter.
Anyone does that and I hear about it in this community here, I'm going to put the police on you. I'm talking about a police with a badge that I'll give him right here. I give him one out of my pocket, put a badge on him. We are not going to get anywhere until we civilize our own social life, civilize the family life, the social life. Then we can get somewhere. So I hope that these few words on the religion, on the family, will suffice for today. And I don't know what you're going to do, but I'm going to see what the Bears are doing.
It'll do a lot for Chicago if they win. We need a big win here in Chicago. And I don't mean the kind we get all the time. To bring the people together and give us a better spirit in this town. So we thank Allah for blessing us with health and life and strength to carry the burden and fulfill our commitments to the religion. And we hope to see you again next Sunday for the Noon Prayer and taleem at one o'clock. And also those who can join us for Jum'uah Friday, we look forward to seeing you. Thank you very much. Asalaam Alaikum.


