03/26/1994
IWDM Study Library
Education Main Influence for Human Salvation
Newark NJ

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
As-salaam-Alaikum.
Audience: Wa-Alaikum-as-Salaam.
Peace be on you. We witness that there is only one G-d, one divine who Allah, He’s G-d alone. We witness that Muhammad is the last prophet, the Seal of the Prophets, and Allah's servant and Allah's messenger, G-d's servants, and G-d's Messenger. That is our testimony as Muslims, La ilaha illallah, Muhammadar Rasulullah. There is but one G-d and Muhammad is the messenger of G-d.
With that, I want to say it is indeed a pleasure again for me to be here in Newark to address you on this occasion. I'm always excited about coming here because I know the sacrifices, the hard work and good intent of the Muslims here in this city. We are looking always for more and more progress for our religion and especially for our community because to have religion and no life or progress for your community is no proof that we value and respect our religion. So, we are very happy to see the business community here still very much alive and ambitious, having desires and plans for more growth and we are very happy to see you working hard still to maintain the Clara Muhammad School and to see the improvements that you have planned for the Clara Muhammad School in Newark. We are behind you.
When, I say we, I'm speaking for our community. I’m in association with a number of very excellent leaders of this community; Imams and also directors of our schools and with business people, and also with some smooth politicians. I'm very happy to say to you today that I think the situation is very good for us, for us Muslims; African American Muslims in this association is very good. I like what I see developing and growing in all areas, not just in the spiritual area, in all areas. I like what I see developing and growing.
We had a very successful event last night, very much impressed to see so much of the city and the state represented there and especially our heart was touched by contributions coming from the mayor to the school and from others who are not Muslims to our school. The topic by the way, that we have selected for the day to give you today is “Education as the Main Influence Behind Progress”. I hope I do justice to this topic.
I want to begin, I'm a Muslim and a follower of Muhammad, the last prophet, prayers and peace be on him. And a student of the revelation that came to him, that is the Quran. And a student of his life; his Sunna, his life habits, his ways, his sayings or his teachings, his character, his Uswa. His balanced nature and character and also of his Sira his history. I’m a student of the Quran and our Prophet, prayers and peace be upon him. And I’m a Muslim. So, it’s impossible for me to speak from any other authority greater than the Islamic authority in my life. Because many times I speak and I'm criticized by priestly Imams for not sounding as Islamic as they sound, but I think they're not as open-minded as I am. I could hear Al-Islam in English tunes.
Praise be to Allah. I will first try to explain the topic and then I will begin with education, focus for education in Al-Islam. When we look at the accomplishments that we are enjoying and appreciating, not one of those accomplishments but all of those accomplishments, the main force or influence that accounts for those things being accomplished is education. We know we can't have any growth or any achievement without G-d having already created the possibilities for it. I'm not talking about the possibilities for education. I'm talking about the orientation in man's mind and in the woman's mind for growth in education. That process is responsible for everything we have.
This suit is the creation of the mental activity in the mind of human beings. It took knowledge, study, knowledge, and it took the ordering of that knowledge to make it possible for us to have these clothing. And this knowledge is not rested, this knowledge is an active knowledge. They are constantly making improvements on these clothing. And if I want to myself become a tailor, I have to go to school. It's education, it's knowledge, useful knowledge as our prophet stressed to us, prayers and peace be on him. Useful knowledge, that's what's responsible for all the progress we have in this world.
We look at the environment here in this hall, we see the construction here, we see the design here. All of this is because of men and women having minds, devoted to knowledge, study, learning, and applying it, and making benefits, creating benefits from that knowledge so that we can have these things that we enjoy.
We ride in our car, and we think of the manufacturers, but the men who devoted their mind to the idea of making that car and making improvements on those cars, they are the ones behind the automobile itself. The one who learns, who goes to school, and learn how to fabricate the car, put it together, he's not the first one, he didn't initiate it. The concept came from the one who devoted his mind to the idea and developed that idea until it was ready to be materialized. Then the material people come in, and they have their part, their places in the manufacturing of a car, but it all begins with someone having a mind, a studious mind, devoting the mind to that concept, that invention and making it possible for others to read and perceive correctly what he imagined and produced in his mind and put on paper. And then going and get the materials to actually make that a reality.
I have experience as a welder, maintenance welder and I know my place in my business, in that business, but I am just a distant servant in that field. The home base is the one who conceived the idea, put it together, put it on paper, and then introduced it to the world, so we can have it. Never underestimate the process of education, knowledge, useful knowledge, the process of education. We wouldn't have civilization without the process of education. Education is the hurl of civilization. Not, brute men, physical men, war-makers. No, they accomplished much materially sometimes, but it takes the teacher, the educator to civilize them and make their contributions acceptable in a human environment or in a human society.
Life itself then must be understood as something that's made possible. We're talking about human life. The life that we want as human beings. That life is something that's made possible because of the process of learning. We find the savage or the primitive man for want of better terms, who has not come into the process of learning, education, enlightenment, that he doesn't have really his human identity. He has not even come into this human identity.
So, there is a man because of not being turned on to the knowledge process, he's not even in his human form. He looks physically like a human being, but when he talks or when we try to talk to him or try to live with him, we find that it is maybe it is as difficult to talk to him and live with him as it is to talk to our dog, our cat and live with our dog and our cat. It's simply because knowledge is life. The lifeline of knowledge in us is our life. And when we stop being rational and stop being interested in that lifeline, we lose our life form. We look at the streets and we see behavior out there that we can't identify with humanly. I know I can't. I look at him and I say, well, he really looks like a human being, but I can't identify with him. And sometimes I'm at a loss to find what creature G-d made that can identify with him.
Whether it's the inventions we see or enjoy as transportation, automobiles, airplanes and whatever, or the city design with the streets, building structures, et cetera, the home environment with its kitchen, washroom, living room, bedrooms. No matter what we're talking about in our environment as achievements for man and society, we are talking about something that's aided most by the process of education. Learning, making good use of knowledge.
Now it's to me, beautiful, divine, and human at the same time. To me, the greatest compliment paid to human beings in our religion is a compliment that's paid to us in the Quran when G-d regards the human person as an intelligence, as a mind that comes to life and arrives where it is to go by the process of learning or education. To me, that's the greatest compliment to us.
No abuser of our life can gain authority in our life or over our life until we first neglect our intelligence. Anyone who wants to abuse us would have to first confuse our intelligence or make us so fearful that we can't use our intelligence. We fear to use our intelligence. Intelligence and learning, is the way to freedom, the way to real freedom. That's why men in the prophetic line, the line of the prophets like Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, peace be upon the prophets, they are seen as liberators. I'm sure most of us who are acquainted with Moses the Prophet we know him as a liberator sent to free his people from bondage to a Pharaoh of Egypt. A cruel, or oppressive Pharaoh of Egypt. An oppressive Egypt. The society itself was oppressive, very oppressive.
I would like to mention some developments because I think in order to appreciate what I'm trying to explain or bring out here today we have to see life in its major steps or stages of development. Life for the mind, life for the intellect. My understanding of the materials, the study materials in Al-Islam tells me this, G-d created everything to house or be a home for the mind or the intellect, and that the mind and intellect is to feed upon, digest, grow upon everything in existence, including ourselves. We are part of this existence. And that because of man's complex nature, very complex nature. What makes this so complex is that he is a free thinker.
He can think outside of the created mold for him and behave outside of the created mold for him. An animal can't do that. I know of no other creature that can do that without us helping it but us. We can train animals to do things that they were not created to do. They don't do those things without us influencing them and training them to behave outside of their mold. The human being was created to think on his own, to have a big margin of independence, freedom of mind and independence, to think outside of his mold and behave outside of his mold, to have appetites that are not even his own, to identify in a creature of his own imagination and become a creature of his own imagination. Then begin to have appetites that are not his or her own. We have that freedom.
We have the freedom to become anything we see or imagine. Some of us behave as though we're nothing but a hammer for somebody to pick up and nail something in to use like a tool. Some of us, because of the way we have allowed ourselves to think and develop, we're not to be identified in the animate world at all. We're to be identified in the inanimate world. A screwdriver or a hammer, a fire torch, whatever. I don't know what we are. We can become anything because we are given this great margin of freedom, independence of mind and the ability, the freedom also to bring out behavior to conform to whatever we imagine.
It is my belief that man, because of this complex nature, this problem for him, because it is a problem for him, our freedom is a big burden on us. Our freedom is a big challenge to us. Once we can manage that freedom, then we can manage our lives and we can serve society very well. If we can only manage that freedom. When we look at the history of man's development for his intelligence, for his mind, we see that his mind is misdirected because of his emotional makeup and his freedom. He's misdirected.
Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, he's described in the Quran in many ways but he's also described as a person who was carrying a great burden. G-d says that He found him grouping, grouping being strained under great weight, strained, and He gave him relief from that. G-d says that Prophet Muhammad was seen looking to the skies. G-d says, "Now direct your attention to a direction that will please you." But he was looking to the skies. You see?
Man because of his emotional makeup, emotional sensitivities, that's the beginning of life, the intellect comes like a seed. It needs the right circumstances, the right environment, the right circumstance or the right situation for its birth, growth into its life form, the seed. The same for as man's mind. Our mind needs the right situation for it to have the womb of life, a nourishing womb of life, so that mind can grow and develop and become the full life that G-d intended for it to be.
But since we are first in our emotions, we are constituted upon our emotions as a child. When we look at the child it is evident that the child is more given to emotions than to rational thinking or logic. But the emotions of a child are innocent, so the emotions of a child most of the time are intelligent emotions, not the case with some of us 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 years old now. Situation changes a bit. But for that child though he's constituted in his emotional nature, his emotions are intelligent because G-d created him to be intelligent. And the natural orientation for the whole life of the human being is an orientation that respects what is intelligent.
But as we grow older, we're still tending to be influenced mostly by emotions. Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be on him, he went to the mountain of the light, Jabal al Noor, that's what it's called now because he received enlightenment there, the first revelation. He went there under emotional strain. His backward society was a burden on his conscience. His heart was very heavy, so he went away from the busy activities of his town and sought seclusion in the mount up there in the cave opening in the top of the mount called Jabal al Noor, the mountain of the light.
And there he received communication from G-d. And G-d says, “and we have revealed it upon your heart.” The heart is a symbol of our emotions, our passions, our emotions, our devotional life. So, G-d says, “He revealed it upon his heart”, but the first words of communication weren’t just for spiritual response or for an emotional response. The first words of communication were for a rational response. The word was read. G-d said to him, "Read in the name of your Lord who created, read in the name of your Lord who created." It's the first line of Revelation that came to Prophet Muhammad, prayers and peace be on him.
And G-d also says in the book revealed to Muhammad the Prophet, the Quran, "Is it not for Him both the creation and the authority over it?" If we acknowledge that there was one creator that did everything, us and everything else, then the logic that we should arrive to is this, that the authority for taking, assuming responsibility for our own life or anything else belongs to G-d. Now that's too much for most of us to accept. So, most of us will never find real peace. I'm going to repeat that. If we accept and believe that there's one Creator that did our life and everything, then logic should establish for us that authority only belongs to G-d.
And if we execute authority, we execute authority as servants of G-d. When I manage my own personal life, I should manage my personal life as the service of G-d. That’s why Allah calls all of us in the Quran, the servants of G-d. Muhammad, is called the servant of G-d but all of us are called the servants of G-d. “Ya ebaadullah”. That's how G-d addresses us, “O, servants of G-d”.
These are key points in our perception of what this life is and what it should be and our responsibility. These are key points I'm giving that I've been bringing out. Is for G-d both the creation and the authority? Amr is an Arabic term. Amr means authority, it means command, and Amir means one who is authorized to carry out orders, authority, Amir. And G-d says to us in our religion, the prophet has taught us this that, “He has put authority over everything, nothing is without an authority”. And the Prophet says that if we are going to do anything, no matter how small, if it involved more than one person, we should authorize one of them. One has to be authorized. You don't want confusion, disorder. When we leave here, we say we going to get the trash of this floor. If we're going to do it, then let somebody be responsible.
If we don’t, we might find somebody with the dustpan and the broom, and the other two, or three, or how many, they'd be looking for something to work with.
So, really, Muslims are supposed to have an Amir for all of the task or every task or whatever assignment that we're going to do, someone has to be authorized so that we have order and get the best result. For G-d is the creation and for G-d is the authority. If we have authority, we have Authority only as servants of G-d. If we don't, then we're going to abuse Authority. If we don't have authority as servants of G-d, we're going to abuse Authority.
Now, we don't have to actually be conscious of G-d to be servants of G-d. The Sun, Moon, and stars are all servants of G-d. The trees and everything growing, servants of G-d. The rivers, the oceans, the lakes, all are servants of G-d. The wind and the elements all are servants of G-d. But we don't think of them as conscious servants of G-d. Well, a lot of us are servants of G-d too before we are even aware of G-d.
The best way to serve G-d is the best way to live, and that's consciously. And that's the purpose of Revelation, is to give us guidance for our minds, and our hearts, and our spirit, and our community life so that we serve G-d in the best way possible for us as human beings. This can't happen without us having appreciation for the creation of G-d. That's why G-d said to Muhammad, "Read in the name of your Lord who created." That's to tell Muhammad, "Now direct your attention to the creation of G-d." The creation bears the will of G-d, the design of G-d, G-d's intention.
If we want to know the mind of the manufacturer of an automobile or whatever, study his product and you'll learn something of his mind. Now, a man only produces a very few products. The products that he produces is nowhere a reflection of all the products he had in his mind. But Allah produces multitudes of products. And if we look at these products altogether, we will see the self of G-d. "Oh, what is he talking about?" Stay with me, don't lose me. I said if you want to see something of Ford's mind, look at Ford's automobile. I'm not dropping anything heavy on you, you just have to slow down.

The first thinkers, the first prophets, the first philosophers, how did they come to the idea that there's a G-d? By observing the creation. That's how they came to that idea. The sign in the creation told them, "There is a designer behind this, there's a purpose for all of this, there is a plan for man in all of this." They arrived at those conclusions. And Allah tells us so wonderfully in the Quran that everything we see in the skies, and in the earth, and even in ourselves are ayahs. The term in Arabic is ayah. It means translated signs.
When I read the Quran, I read the ayahs of the Quran. They're called signs, but they have information for me. They have knowledge for me. Well, then if G-d has given the same language to the design in the creation itself, then G-d is telling us that just as we read the Quran and get enlightenment, we can read the creation and get enlightenment. And that's what the great educators have done. They have read creation and enlightened the world. Praise be to Allah.
Now, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could come up with a statement of philosophy for the Clara Muhammad school system that will carry that beauty, the appreciation for the handy works of 
G-d, a great respect and love for the handiwork of G-d? That statement of philosophy, it will situate the minds of the persons responsible for those institutions, and also help them to situate the minds of the students to be productive in an amazing way. Yes, we could be much more productive.
The answer for man was to stop moving on the vehicles of his spirit and emotions and come back to the home base of his real nature and context for his life. Man is primarily, and essentially, and destined to be a social creature. He has to come back to a community idea. The idea of himself in community with other human beings. The family is the focus for Muslims. We focus on family as the first unit of society. And we want that family to be as G-d created it to be. We believe that 
G-d created the first family, and we all multiplied from that first family, and we all belong to that first family. No matter where we are located on this earth, what our nationality is, or what our color is we believe that we all belong to that family.
And G-d has said in our holy book of the members of that family, we have certainly honored every child of Adam. G-d is saying that. We want our neighbor to honor us. Some of us want the principal of school to honor us, the boss where we work to honor us, or the establishment to honor us. Well, look, I'm going to tell you that I don't need any of that. G-d my Creator told me that He honored me and made me honorable. Praise be to Allah. So, we find in the great religions, whether it be far Eastern religion, or Middle Eastern religion, or here in America, the original natives of this country, the American Indians, we find that the strong spiritual orientation is there in the beginning. And we trip out, it causes us to trip out. G-d had to tell man that, "This ain't a place for you here. You're way up here off base." He said, "Now that your brains have started to work, I can tell you where you're supposed to be." He said, "Get down from here into the earth. That's the place where you'll be brought up into life, that's the place where you will reach all the aims or goals that you have in your nature to reach, that's where you'll be gathered, that's where you'll find your destiny, in the earth."
Now, that's why prophet Muhammad was told by G-d, "Now I direct you to a direction, a Qiblah that will please you." The social community life of man can't live up in the sky. When I was a youngster, I don't like to criticize any religion because mine didn't treat me much better in those early days, it took me to other extremes. But I used to listen to the church on the radio sometimes, not my radio, I heard other people's radios, because I wasn't allowed to listen to it.
Or I'd be walking, passing through a neighborhood, a lot of storefront churches, and I would hear how they be having service. And as a child, it hurt me, it really hurt me. Too emotional, random responses. What do they call it? Spontaneity, or what we were saying a few years ago, "Let it all hang out."
Get loose, let it all hang out. Just giving freedoms to blind emotions to just take us anywhere. That's where we end up if we don't come to the guidance that G-d intends for us. So, man begins by trying to find answers for his life on earth with other people by going away from that life and seeking the unknown. He seeks himself even in the unknown. He's not satisfied with the knowable. The knowable is too much of a burden on him, too painful for him. So, he ventures out even in search of himself in an identity that is not knowable. And he comes to the conclusion that in his origin, he is divine. A big mistake.
For Muslims, it's a big mistake. Allah makes it clear to us and our prophet has taught us well that we are human, never been anything but human, never will be anything but human.
If we want to know ourselves, we have no other origin. We were not angels before, we were not gods before, we were dust, and stone, and clay, and water, and the elements before. That's all we were until G-d brought all that into form and then inspired it with human life, breathe into it human life and we became human beings, not angels, not gods. That's why G-d tells us over and over in the Quran, we have to return.
We find ourselves on this earth without understanding of how to establish our life here and be at peace, and we venture out into the unknown, but we have to return. We've become a spiritual community without any social orientation much, that can be appreciated by other communities, so we have to return. We venture away from material life and material enjoyment thinking that that's a temptation to draw our spirit away from its destiny, we end up having to return. We have to return to the basis of life, emotionality. But emotionality can't exist without a context for it. I can't say, "There he goes, brother Joe," and ain't nothing there.
There he goes in my mind. But when I located him, I find a composite creature made up of many things. And the case that encases him, it's material. So, G-d says to us, "Think not that your own creation”, and your creation is spiritual. “Think not that your own creation is a bigger matter than the creation of this material scheme." He formed us off this material scheme, and He says that here in this material scheme is the place for us to be born out of the earth and the place for us to realize our aspirations on this earth. “Oh, I sure want to see my Lord.” If you’re a Muslim see him first on earth. See him first in this life on this earth. "Oh, I sure would like to see my relatives that used to be on continent of Africa."
Well, that's easier. Just go over there soon as you can, save up for money. They still over there, they look the same as they did when you left. I'm sorry.
It ain't quite that bad. Believe me, still over there, they look just like they did when you came over here in your ancestors. So, G-d wants us to have a sensible situation for our life and our possibilities on earth. A sensible situation, intelligent situation. And the only way to have that intelligent situation is to respect this material universe and see it as the handy works of Almighty G-d the Creator. And to see it as the utility for you. G-d says that He made all this utility for us to bring into service for ourselves, our fellow man, for society. All of this. What we see in the sky, what we see on earth, and what we learn of in our own makeup. G-d says He made all of this, sakkara. Meaning that He made it to yield its usefulness, to yield utility to us for the benefit of ourselves and our society on earth. Isn’t wonderful?
Congregation: Yes.
Don't think that this is not said in other religions. When the Bible says that He put the man in the garden and then authorized the man to be the caretaker, G-d is saying the same thing that I just told you from Quran. Same thing. The garden there is the whole world, it's not what you imagine, a little spot on earth. The garden that He put the man in was the whole cosmic order, and He made him caretaker.
So, when we let NASA use our tax dollars to go out there, let's remind them that they're supposed to be G-d's caretaker. They're supposed to be concerned to make a good life, put him in a garden. Now, not that it was a garden then, but it meant that G-d wants us to be in a garden, a garden of purity, and peace, and happiness, and to utilize everything in this created world for that purpose. That He has made it to yield its power, to yield its usefulness to us, to make possible that peaceful and beautiful complete life in this great world that G-d has made.
So, we can't see the material creation as something that we have to negate, something that's harmful to us. We have to see it as utility and we have to see the context for our precious human life, spiritual life as material. The intellect does not start to grow and progress until we devote our intellect to a study of this material world.
Thank you very much. May G-d guide us and give us a great appreciation for education as His servants. Accepting no authority for ourselves unless it’s qualified as authority given to us by 
G-d. Peace be on you. As-salamu alaykum.


