


Khalifah: The Role of Moral Life Pt.2
By

 Imam W. Deen Mohammed

Location: Video Lecture — Pg. 1




00:00 Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Because he repented his wrongdoing. G-d renamed him and called him Israel. He was first called Jacob, and then G-d gave him a new name, Israel, because he left his old tricks.

[chuckle]

[background conversation]

00:17 IWDM: Yeah. Ah, now that was only Jacob, that wasn't everybody.

[laughter]

00:23 IWDM: Those who was in the business, they stayed in the business, they didn't follow Jacob out of that business. And Satan is their leader... Ah, yes? ... So the first man... Did he reach the destiny? Did he reach the goal that G-d wants for us as human beings, developing our human life, upon his excellence? No, he did not. He did not reach the goal. He was deceived by the Satan. And his generations were attracted to the earth, to material things, interest in material things, and his generation, according to the Bible and according to our understanding of his life in the Qur'an too, Adam, his generation, became devoted to material things and they developed agriculture, they developed iron making, metal works, they developed music, playing on instruments, and they built great buildings, in time, his descendants from him built great buildings. So we owe to them that in... That first stage or that first phase in the growth of man's life to where G-d wants us to go, we owe Adam, in his form, after he was deceived. We owe him, even though he had gone astray from that line, from the progressive line for his moral life, he had gone astray, we still owe that nature that G-d gave man, that we see in the Adam, the type, that person we call Adam; we owe him for the life of industry.

02:15 IWDM: Now, if you can accept this, his generation, the life, the role of Adam from dust to industry---and there's no accident that the scripture says he made the first man from dust---and man has now become associated with, and given credit for great industry, great industry on this earth. Periods brought industry in, and civilizations fell down, they were destroyed, they lost, they deteriorated, some of them just deteriorated humanly, morally, etcetera, like we are deteriorating right now in our public life. They deteriorated and the whole society fell down and lost interest in creativity, in production, etcetera, and industry and they lost. The excavators, they dig in the earth, and they find signs, "Oh, these people once existed, and they had great buildings, and they had streets, and they had homes", they find that buried under the earth. This is mentioned in the Qur'an too, that some the earth covered, and you can't find a trace of them any more, this is in scripture. Anyway, we owe that disposition in human spirit, mind, body, we owe that disposition that was in Adam to be curious, he just wanted to know that---that's how the G-d---rather that's how the Devil, the Satan, got into him, because he was just so curious he wanted to know things.

04:00 IWDM: So, through that hunger the Satan seduced him and got his attention, and got him off path, got him off the track, got him off the moral path that G-d put him on. Alright? Now, if we are to come back to that moral life, that G-d intended for us from the very beginning when He made the first man, we are to come back into that life upon the help that we get from our physical life that G-d gave us. Nothing spooky about the physical life that G-d gave us, this body, this flesh and blood body, it is obedient to the laws of nature, that serve its excellence. When you're hungry, your body lets you know you're hungry, the body wants you to stay here. When you're about to put something in your mouth, that will make you sick, the body warns you, makes you remember. Your memory comes from the body. Memory comes from your flesh-body. It's in your flesh body. You forget something, it ain't going nowhere, it's in your flesh body. So your flesh body will let the memory come, bring that thing, let that thing come back to your mind to warn you that, "No, you don't want to put that in your mouth, you don't want to eat that, that'll hurt you". If you're about to commit a big crime, that's going to mess up your life forever, you feel fear. They call it mortal fear. That warning is coming again, from your flesh body. That warning is from your flesh body. Okay.

05:56 IWDM: So, don't underestimate the role of your flesh, the role of your flesh body in determining what you do and how far you will go with your life. Don't underestimate the role. Mohammad the Prophet had so much respect for the flesh body that he never stood for big shots or anything like that. He wanted to discourage that kind of behavior in society, so he wouldn't stand for big shots. Big shots come in, he wouldn't get up out of his seat and stand for the big shot. We do it out of respect, whatever, we're innocent most of the time when we do that. Some of the time we're not innocent, we're looking for a favor from the big shot. Anyway, he didn't do that, so I guess this was the first time his followers, his disciples, or his followers had seen him witness a procession, a funeral procession, a burial procession.

06:55 IWDM: They were coming with a dead body, they were carrying it on their shoulders taking it to a place where they were going to enter it into the ground, bury it, and when it got near Mohammad the Prophet, peace be on him, he stood up and waited until the body, they had passed with the body, then he sat back down. And his companions they said, "Why do you stand for a dead body?" He said, "It did nothing but obey its master." What was he saying? What we started with in the beginning of this talk on original sin; he was saying that the body was not guilty of any sin, only the person that was in that body was guilty of any wrong if that person did wrong it was not the body's fault, it was that person's fault. So he stood recognizing the great works of G-d, the creation of a human form in flesh that obeys G-d to the very end and we as its master, G-d put us inside that flesh to be its master.

08:09 IWDM: It's to serve us. So if we are really bent on or really strongly decided upon doing a wrong, the body will warn us if it's the real world danger to us, the body will warn us. Sometimes it warns us with such force that you will actually sweat or you'll start trembling. The body will make you tremble before that thing that you were getting ready to do. It tries to warn you but the more you do it the less patience the body has with you. You keep on doing it... I used to say this when I was a young man preaching on 5335 Greenwood--- Oh, no---also on Stony Island, on 72nd Stony Island---I used to say this that the body it comes to you when you're about to do something real terrible and it speaks real loud. I'll exaggerate it to you, I'll demonstrate it like I said, "Don't do that!" And you'll do it again. Next day you do it again. The body say, "Don't do that!" The next day you do it again. The body say, "Don't do that."

[laughter]

09:26 IWDM: The next day, you do it again. The body say, "Don't do that." The fifth day you don't hear anything.

[laughter]

09:35 IWDM: The fifth day, nothing, you can't hear it at all, so you're on your own doing you wrong thing, ain't nothing to tell you to stop or come back. Moral life is depending on our flesh, so the society can convert our mind to sin and wrong. Even our great leaders, that we respect, they can guide us wrongly, but the nature to obey the right thing never leaves the flesh, never leaves the flesh and anytime your spirit changes and you don't like what you see and you decide that you're going to question these bad things that you don't want this kind of life that's imposed upon you by the majority of the people, or the public, or the society, soon as you have the faintest interest in rebelling against the wrong doers or against their way, the body starts feeding your mind help. The body starts feeding your mind help. It brings to your mind themes that will support your way of thinking and helps your thinking until you become strong enough to articulate, to speak intelligently to your society and call your society back from wrong and they'll call you a prophet or a messenger or an inspired person, or a Dr. King, or something. Huh? 

[chorus] Yes, sir.

11:10 IWDM: Yes. So this is the way it happens, so this story of G-d making a Khalifah is to tell us, "Don't worry about losing moral life to the extent that you want to kill yourself or want to check out of this world or get off" as that guy said in that movie, "Let me off. I can't take it any more. I want to get off. I can't take it any more." No, you never have to come to that desperate position where you're ready to kill yourself or you're just giving up now. Some of us kill ourselves by falling into the slop, into the filth that we rejected, saying, "Oh you can't fight it, join it. You can't beat it, join it"

12:01 IWDM: So we don't always kill ourselves physically but we kill ourselves by, giving ourselves to moral corruption or to the bad things of the world or of this society, that's killing yourself too. Now, at this point I'd like to say to you that when we're talking about life and death, people dying or being killed, in scripture don't think of physical flesh, that the person was killed physically, not all the time. In fact, that's not the big subject of life and death in scripture. The big subject of life and death in scripture is the life and death in moral life. Moral life, moral death. And for the Christian audience, the Bible says "Sin is death", sin is death. And I guess that's why [chuckle] the Bible says that Adam, he accepted the suggestions of the Satan but it never say that he died instantly, did it? 

13:16 IWDM: No, because it doesn't want to give you the idea that he died as a mortal. He continued to live as a mortal, as flesh, he continued to live. But yes, he died. The moment he accepted Satan's suggestion he died in his moral life. Moral life died. The moral life died and that's the worst death. That's the death that G-d wants us to be watchful of and to keep away from and never wants us to die morally. So Allah says of Christ Jesus, say, "No, he didn't die on the cross". Said, "They neither crucified him nor did they kill him". But it appeared like that to them, to those who were reading or those who were looking at his life, it appeared like that to them. But instead of him being killed or crucified he was lifted up to G-d, his moral life had never been spoiled. He was still perfect and excellent in his moral life and G-d lifted him up to heaven to himself. This is Islam, this is the teaching of Islam in the Qur'an.

14:34 IWDM: Now... So if holding onto your moral life will save your life after the mortal flesh is gone and will merit you being brought up to heaven to G-d, then it is not only Jesus Christ that receives that but any man or woman or child that holds on to their moral life and don't let it die and don't give it up, when the physical body is gone G-d will lift them up to him in heaven. This is what we have to believe because it's in our book, in our Holy Book. And it's in the Bible in different words, in a different way. So have faith, never give up. Don't fear, have faith, and never give up. Doesn't mean that we're not going to be afraid. When we say don't fear we mean don't let fear or being afraid dictate how you are going to think and live. But remember G-d when you fear and G-d will strengthen you in your faith, and your fear will be light, not heavy, and temporary, it'll go away. G-d says, "For those who keep the faith there is no fear for them nor shall they grieve. Fear won't take them down and worry or grief will not take them down. Because the moment they remember their Lord, their burden will become light.

16:21 IWDM: Look... We come now to Jesus Christ as the second Adam. He was perfect and excellent in his moral body, in his moral life. Perfect and excellent in his moral life. And G-d rewarded him for having that excellence. G-d won't put clean, holy substances in a rotten container. So the moral life of Jesus Christ was kept intact as the scripture say, without spot or blemish. "A lamb without spot or blemish". Lamb means peaceful, loving person, not a vicious person, not a person ruled by anger but a person peaceful like a lamb. Hmm-hmm, yes. So G-d rewarded him with guidance, G-d taught him. He educated Jesus Christ from a child. And our Holy Book says that he spoke while he was yet in the cradle. We speak of the cradle of civilization, don't we? So a cradle also means beginning but it doesn't mean he was in some little thing we made or his parents made, a little box or something they made, with baby diapers on, crying and wetting on himself. 
No, he was in the cradle of his human development.

18:02 IWDM: That was the cradle, he was in the first stage of his human development, in the cradle of his human development. And even in that first stage, on that first level, where he could not rationally pick out things and debate things, he was not able to do that yet. He had not been educated to that extent. But he felt with his heart and his soul, he felt what was right and what was wrong, and he spoke as a baby in the cradle. And he would say. "G-d does not like that. G-d would rather have us go this way." So he was a leader even in the
cradle, he spoke and he was a leader, even in the cradle.

18:52 IWDM: The first level in the flesh connects us with the material world and our own material life. It drives us to want to take care of our hunger for food, water, for a beautiful place, a surrounding to live in. To have our wives taken care of, so they don't worry about how the baby's going to eat. That's the first level, and eventually doing that, the man produces so much, that he got more than enough for his family and he joins hands with another man and another man and another man and pretty soon, they build a city in time. They build a city, and they have industry. All of that came from Adam in his flesh nature, in the nature of his mortal life. All of that came from him. But they were not able to get true sciences. They were able to have science because by experiment, watching what G-d did.

20:00 IWDM: One story is like this, it is said man observed lightening striking a forest and setting the forest on fire. When the fire subsided, there was no more fire, it all had gone out, the same people went back in to where the woods were--now they're gone---they burned off; and they discover metals. With the forest fire so hot it melted metals, it melted minerals pardon me, and other things, and formed like a metal. Formed like a---I work for US steel, Bethlehem steel, US steel---I worked for those refineries as a welder and first they had me pulling molds, as well as a welder, that was a hot job I had...
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	Khalifah: The Role of Moral Life Pt.2	

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