12/23/2001
IWDM Study Library 
Youth Conference Charlotte, NC 

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
So, we live in a time when we shouldn't look out into our audience and talk down to them. We have to understand that our audience may be more intelligent than we are. May be on a higher level than we are. Don't talk down to this modern-day audience at all. Don't be afraid to tell them things that a man and a woman should hear. Don't even be afraid to tell these children things that a man and a woman should hear. Be afraid to tell them things that will corrupt their behavior, but don't be afraid to tell them things that a man and a woman should hear. Respect the high level of intelligence that we have in this modern-day audience. Okay. Yeah.
So, I'm respecting you, because I always have. I've been tuned like this ever since I was a boy. I'm respecting you, and I want you to respect yourself. I want you to know that you are no kindergarten person. No. G-d created you for the universe, for the universe, which was the first University for man. And it still is the university for man, the universe that G-d makes. Yes. All right. So, we have still Adam present. Adam is present. And G-d tends to give Adam what he promised him. Responsibility for his life, for his own life, responsibility for his environment. We have reached a time in the progress of scientific, modern, scientific, enlightened society. We have reached the time in this society, in the progress of human society, that we should now be preparing the maximum number of citizens, people, to be responsible for themselves.
Let us not follow the wave of those who see the masses as a burden. Let us follow the way of those that should be responsible for their brothers and sisters, those who should love and care about their brothers and sisters. Cain when he killed Abel and was questioned according to the Bible, he said, "Am I my brother's keeper?" That's the attitude of many with wealth right now in this world today. That's their attitude. Just like Cain spoke, they still speaking. Cain hasn't gone anywhere either. Didn't he have some children? They're here. Okay.
So now, so we have the saying today, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Now you can ask me to do this, but I don't have any right. You don't have any rights to insist or to make me take care of this lost, dead self-destructive person. That's what they're saying. That's his position. Now you may say, "But Abel wasn't lost." And then Abel, yeah, Abel was not quite where he should have been. That's how come his brother was able to do to him what he did. Okay? So, they said, "Am I responsible? Should I be responsible for him?" No, I shouldn't be responsible for him.
I don't want to talk too much about in that area, in that vein, but I'll just close it out by saying to you they have some support for that position. They have some support for that position, but they do not represent the best of the people. The best of the people would not take that support that they're taking. The best of the people will say, "We are obligated to treat human miseries, human ills, social problems, and to make the society the best we can make it." Those are the best of the people. Then there are others who say, "G-d does not obligate me to carry this person on my back. G-d gave that person feet. They supposed to go on their own, stand up on their own feet." And they have some justification for it. All right.
But G-d is Mercy. G-d is only not just justice, G-d is also Mercy. And He says that He created human being for HIs Mercy. That's why He created us, for His Mercy. Not for His justice. He said if He gave all of us His justice, there would not be any of us left on this earth, not even Jesus Christ and his mother. Isn't that something? That's something to think about. Because justice is too much for us. We need Mercy. Justice, justice, if G-d gave us justice, that mean He would leave all of us on our own, right? If He gave us justice, all of us would be left one our own, right? If He gave us justice, for every wrong you're punished, every sin is death, right? The Bible says sin is death. So, every person that sins, kill him? But you're not given death for sin, you're given time to repent. Mercy. A time to repent your wrong.
Yes. The way of Allah. That's what we're talking about, the way of Allah. The way of Allah Is the way of your destination. That's what it's saying when it says Deen Al Fitrah-The religion of the original purity and goodness in the human being that G-d created us with. Deen Al-Fitrah. So, it is saying that Islam, the way to G-d is really the way to your best self. G-d's role is not for Him, what He need a role for? G-d's role is only to take us to our best self, so we can be in our best condition and enjoy the best possible life for human beings. That's what it is. That's G-d's role. That's G-d's role.
The road is to His will. He willed that for you. The path is to His will. You're going to His will, to answer His will for us. And it's the road to our best self. Do we have it in the Qur'an? Yes. "Hay Ya Al Mu’ma-innah". Oh, self, soul, pleased with yourself. Enter you among my workers. Enter you my paradise oh so pleasing. Pleased and pleasing. "Raadiya al Maradia". Oh, so pleased and pleasing. Please means I'm happy. I feel good. Pleasing means, my G-d is pleased with me. I'm pleasing to my G-d. Pleased and pleasing. Pleased with yourself, and pleasing before your G-d. Pleasing your G-d. Enter you, My paradise.
Now, look at the word my paradise. Jennati. Jennati. That says G-d is speaking, right? But when you speak, you say Jennati, it can also be you saying this is my paradise, right? And that's exactly what G-d wants us to know. That the paradise He has for you is the paradise of your own nature, the paradise of your own soul. It's what your own nature and soul wants. And He will grow you and help you get there, where you will be pleased with yourself, and know that your G-d is pleased with you. And the old timer that is not even educated, they'll say, "I know my G-d is pleased with me," because they strive so hard. They've sacrificed and suffered so much and have survived it and kept their goodness intact. So, if they remain faithful and good before G-d, so they tell us, "I know my G-d is pleased with me."
Well, in my opinion, they've already reached that day in their own life that they saw themselves pleased inside and pleasing with themselves and pleasing their G-d. There's much to say on this, too. We don't have the time. The term used for G-d is picturing G-d as the one that took his creation and worked with it to get it to grow into more and more of its excellence, to increase his life and worth and value and excellence and resources, et cetera. That's the name that's given to G-d, showing that that soul that has reached that had a G-d that cared about its own possibilities for the future, and worked with it and helped it with his intelligence, with his best nature. Helped it to develop itself to the point where the soul, that person, was pleased with their own life. Pleased with their own life, and pleasing before their G-d.
So, I repeat, the road to G-d then is the road of my own growth in excellence and goodness that G-d had made possible for me. G-d had made possible for me a development, a growth, an increase in goodness and excellence and value. And if I pursue that by spending on my own soul, cultivating my own life, G-d will finally have me before Him. Before Him doesn't mean like you before me. You're before G-d all the time. He's where you are all the time. Muhammed the Prophet says that if there's two of us, G-d is the third. And any number above that, G-d is the next. So, if there's 5 billion and so people on this earth, G-d is with us, He's the next. Then add one more, because there's G-d. With us. So, G-d is out there and G-d is right here, G-d is with us, always has been. So, meeting G-d doesn't mean that you going to go somewhere, you going to go to Mecca to the Kaaba and meet G-d, He lives there, that's His residence. Let's get away from this childish kindergarten way of seeing things.
Yeah, we are more advanced than that as a population here on this earth today, much more advanced than that. Get away from these old childish ideas and kindergarten way of trying to see things through pictures and through imagination and fantasy, et cetera. There's no superstition. My physics teacher, our physics teacher, I was a teenager, he had a powerful outlook on this subject. "Islam is no imagination and no superstition. Islam is reality." Boy, I loved that physics teacher. I did. I loved, I wish I could hug him and kiss him right now. Yeah, he was a wonderful man. He wasn't a minister. That wasn't what turned him on. What turned him on was science, and he loved the way my father dealt with him because my father respected science. And he told us Islam is no vain imagination or superstition, Islam is reality. That its Deen Al Haqq, that's what we know it is. That's what Allah says, this is reality. Yes. And he says the Haqq, and the hellfire, that's reality. Isn't that something? And I said, "Hellfire is reality." No superstition, no myths, no metaphysics. Just reality. Hellfire. And we've been talking about some of that hellfire, too, already today.
Yes. The way to G-d is also the way of truth. Now understand that Islam is a religion that revived interest in the sciences, the exact sciences, and also the other sciences. Psychology, all things, Islam awakened that interest in that and made it possible for the world to come out of darkness and grow to where it has grown today to be a scientific, a world appreciating the sciences, science and technology, et cetera. That wouldn't have been possible had it not been for the Quran and Muhammad coming to bring the spiritual communities back to their calling. Their first calling is a calling that G-d gave Adam, and his calling was to be responsible for his own life and for the world about him, the world around him. Yes.
So, our way on the road to our own best life is our way to our G-d. And also, our way is the way of community life. Because Allah does not want us going separately without interest in community. When Allah made Adam to be responsible for himself and also for utilizing the things in the external world to make improvements for the family of man and community life, that obligation is still ours. It hasn't changed. Now, when you look at the religious communities, the Christians and Jews and Muslims, you see that. That's what you see. You see mankind accepting responsibility for human life and also for improving the environment which must accommodate human life. It's the home for us, the physical home for us. You see them progressing with that. So, that tells us what Allah gave Adam is what the religious world has accepted as their challenge and their responsibility.
This modern society we enjoy here, is it the gift of Asia? Is it the gift of Communists? No, it's the gift of a Christian nation. And before them, it was a gift of Islamic, Muslim nation, the interest in science, et cetera. Before them, it was a gift of the Muslim nation. Before the Muslim, it was a gift of people we think of as just thinkers, the thinkers. Call them the thinkers, like the great Greek philosophers, et cetera. It was the gift of the thinkers. But doesn't Islam recognize them? Doesn't Islam recognize that trend in their intellect? Certainly does. It says, "Al dhakara al untha. The thinker is not like the one who forgets, and retranslated, the thinker is not like the female. It means a thinker, the thinker.
And then I heard it recited in the Quran, that the brother yesterday said reciting the beautiful verses about the believing men and the believing women. And it says, "And the men who think, and the women who think, to let us know that this property is not a property just of the male, it's a property of both the male and female." And in this modern world, we see the women excelling now because they have the freedom to develop their minds, to get the highest education they can get, et cetera. So, we see that really, we don't have any advantage of them in that respect. We're both made to be thinkers, to be thinkers. And the Quran recognizes that because thinking brings you to G-d. Al thikr Allahu Akbar. And reflecting and thinking on G-d is the greatest power. Akbar, the greatest power. It tells us that G-d revealed to women, the mother of Moses, the mother of Jesus, and others, in the scripture that there were women also that G-d even revealed to, gave guidance by way of revelation to. So, we should understand that.
And when Islam puts the most importance on the human brain, Muhammad said, "G-d has not created any more resourceful or productive thing than the human brain." When he said that, he's pointing us back to Adam. When G-d says He created the first man, the parent over us, what did G-d say? He created human intelligence. That's what G-d is saying. Because He didn't say to the angels when they said, "G-d, what is this you're doing?" I know they didn't say it that way, but He didn't say to His angels, "Oh, my man is worthy. Let me show you how he can sing. Let me show you how he can dance and play an instrument. Let me show you how holy he is." G-d, didn't say that. G-d said, "Let me show you, his brain." He said, "Angels, tell me your names." They said, "G-d, we don't have any knowledge except what you gave us." He said, "Adam, tell them their names."
So, the creation of the first human being is the creation of a creature with superior intelligence. Not only superior to all other animals, but superior also to even the angels in intelligence. The human being, yes. The angels are superior to human beings in their obedience to G-d. We are superior to them in our possibilities for our minds, our intellect, our free intellect. So, that's our most precious gift from G-d, our free intellect. Most of us make the mistake, I'm soon going to be complete with this. Most of us make the mistake of thinking that good morals are the best to have. Good morals run out. It's been tested by the world. Good morals cannot pass the test of the world without the help of the brain. It takes good brains to show us stronger morals. It takes good brains to lead us on a higher frame of moral excellence. That's why you have morality and ethics. Morality is one level, ethics is a higher and an educated morality, right? And that's what Allah created Adam for. That's what He created us for. And we are to have it for our community, an ethical community.
So, don't underestimate the value of the human brain. When you die physically, any common person can say he's dead if you're cold and can't get no pulse or heartbeat. But sometimes you got a pulse, you got a heartbeat and everything, and the doctor says, "Sorry, we lost him. No hope." Why? The brain ain't working anymore. The brain is not working anymore. So, even the scientific world knows the life of the human being is the life of their brain. You ain't got no brain, what are you? Are you a human if you don't have any brain? You can't think intelligently, you can't reason at all, we don't call you human even if you have a human body. That person is a virtual vegetable or animal, right? Just like a dog or a rabbit or something. May be nice, too. May be still nice behavior, but you just like a rabbit. "We can't communicate, I lost him." If that's my child, I say I lost him. Mind doesn't work anymore, I lost him. Say, "Well, he's there, but really my child's gone." Yeah, you know that's the truth. Why don't you be your intelligence? Be your intelligence, and they'll stop. They won't be able to reach you with that remote control.
So, we must realize this as brothers and sisters, as a family, because Allah made Adam to be a family, a family of people. We must realize this as a family, we must work for the end result and include all people in it. Allah speaks of the house that is serving time for us, the Kaaba, just the most ancient house, the first of the houses built for all people. Built for all people. "Bunee Al An Nas". Built for all people. So, even our Kaaba, it's the home not just for Black people or for Muslims. G-d says it was built for all people. Now we know it's the house for Muslims, because this is our language. This is our religion and this is our language. But if a Christian would actually press me, especially a learned Christian, if a learned Christian would press me and say, "Is that house, the Kaaba, is that for Christians, too?" I would have to say yes. I would have to say yes.
But they chose their Qibla, we choose our Qibla. But if they choose our Qibla, that's for them, too. But can they go there and yes, if they follow the same disciplines for us there, they can come there as Christians and do that. Nobody going ask them, "What is your religion?" If they go there and do the same ritual we do, nobody's going to suspect them. And believe me, some of them are spiritually more fit to do that than we are, than some of us are. Yeah, we pollute the environment and the sacred precincts more than they do, some of us. Some of us are not fit at all to go to Mecca. Oh, I'm sorry. We fit to go to Mecca and take over the Kaaba. No, I'm sorry. Erase that. Erase that. What did I say? I forgot it.
The best people should be there. The best of the Muslims should be there. Maybe they are. Maybe the Saudis, the Custodians of the two sacred places, maybe they are the best. I don't know. And all I know is we want much better. So, when Allah says be a people, Ayu Kairu ujuri al In Nas, He says, "You are, or you were, and you are the best community evolved or brought out of darkness and ignorance and corruption for the benefit of all people." That's what Allah says, community. The Muslim ummah, the community. But Allah also says, "Standing for the best standards, ruling by the best standards, by the best-known standards, and avoiding or resisting the telling all that takes from that, all that robs us of that." I could say standing for what is known to account for progress for human life, and avoiding or repelling me against all that causes that life to regress. The word Munkar means regressing. The first word, Maruf, means progressing. Munkar means regressing.
So, standing for that, that accounts for progress for the human life, the good, well known human life, excellent life that human beings want, and resisting and going against that, that causes that life to degenerate, become regressive. Regressive rather than progressive. Regressive rather than progressive. Isn't this appealing to any intelligent person? Doesn't that appeal to any educated, sensible person? That you should work for and give support to that, that accounts for the progress of your life, progress in your life, for excellence and beauty in every respect, for better morals, for everything that is good for your life. You should work for that. And you should be on guard against everything that robs you of that. The Munkar that empties that out, that cause it to retrogress, go backwards. Bring about degrading, depreciating, appreciation and the other one the backwards, going backwards, not appreciating, but depreciating. Yes. Appreciating and depreciating. Yes.
So, this is the common language, this common, simple, easy language to understand. And if you understand it, then if you have no problem with this, it's not spooky. It's real. Allah only wants you to do your best you can using the tools he created you with. And when something happens to your life where you don't know those tools anymore, you don't even know you have those tools, then it's G-d's responsibility. G-d says he obligates Himself. So, it's G-d's responsibility then to come to a people like that and work with that people. He worked with the best of our leaders during slavery time, He worked with the best of our leaders after slavery days, slave days. And he worked with the best of our leaders during the Civil Rights days, Nation of Islam days, of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X era, and He's working with the best of our people now. He's still working with the best of our people.
Allah never leaves us. G-d never leaves us. Allah is always with us. Muhammad said, "If there's two of you, He's the third." And he was in the cave fleeing the persecution of the Meccans who wanted to kill him, they came to the bed of his cousin Ali to kill him, but Ali was in the bed to trick them, to fool them, make them think that Muhammad was still there. When they saw that he wasn't there, they quickly got on their rides, their animals, and they rode to pursue him, came to the cave where he was, but the spider had weaved their web over the mouth of the cave. They thought that he was... we see a spider web, right away you think that's old. So, they thought nobody had been there, passed by the cave. They came right to the cave, right to the mouth of the cave where he was. But the spider web threw them off.
And what did Muhammad say to his companion Abu Bakr in the cave? He said, Abu Bakr said "There's only two of us." Meaning their numbers are too many for us to deal with. Muhammad told him, said, "Allah is the third." Allahu Ma'il. And Allah is the third with us. Not just two of us. He said, "Allahu Ma'il. G-d is with us, and G-d was the third in the cave with them, and G-d caused the spider to make a web and deceive the pursuers who were pursuing them to kill them.
Now, in my conclusion, Allah want us to build community life. That's our inheritance. The right and freedom to build community life that will be pleasing to our G-d and pleasing to us, community life. We can't do that just with rituals and spiritual interests. We have to have leaders in our community who take up all the vital concerns of the Ummah or Islamic community life. We have to have leaders to take over that responsibility and have efforts headed up by them, and people working with them, to see that we are making progress on the road toward the excellent model of Islamic life on earth. Therefore, we have to have people who are interested in government and politics, interested in social sciences and the betterment of our life as a social group or as families, and families grouping together in neighborhoods, et cetera. And we have to have those in material interests and business minds, like our brother Wahid, who spoke so wonderfully last night to us and assured us that our future is in good hands.
We have to have those who have various interests. And concluding again, I say to you, know how Allah speaks to us in the Quran when He said in regard to our unity. He says, "To each of you is the goal to which G-d is turning you. So, turn all of you, your faces to this house, the Kaaba, the Masjid Al Haram, the sacred Masjid. And wherever you are, I will bring you together." You'll be brought together. So, how is our unity then protected? And that's a big problem, big problem for the Islamic world. No unity. Islamic nations are not having unity with each other, the different religious efforts by the Muslims on the planet earth not having any unity. We in America not having any unity. And the prescription's already given by G-d. And that's the prescription I use. And we are going to win out.
Says, "To each of you is a goal towards which G-d is turning here." Okay, you have an interest in politics, I have an interest in medicine. Or you have an interest in art, I have an interest in industry. Et cetera. We have all these different interests. You want to be a performer on stage, you want to be this, you want to be that, you want to be a carpenter, all these different interests. You want to be different. All these different interests. G-d has showed us that we have to respect the individual aspirations of people. That's what G-d is telling us. This is to the leadership, this ain't to the average person. When G-d tells us these things, He's talking to the leadership to help the average person. He tells us that you have to respect the aspirations of the individual first. Do not cut them off from realizing their personal dreams and aspirations. Said, "If you'll do that, and have all of them united in the common human essence, in the fitrah I made for them, don't worry about them being disunited. They will all be brought together."
And I know that. I know that. That's as plain as day for me. I know if my son whose with me, my other son Muhammad he tends to stray from me sometime, he's pulling at me and rebelling That's good. He wants to be free. I don't blame him. That's my first love, freedom.
Oh, anyway. Now I know as long as I stay the human person I am, in the fitrah, in that human excellence G-d made Adam and all of us for, and I give him his rights to pursue anything halal that he wants to pursue, I don't enforce my will on him, tell him, "Well, I want you to be an Imam." No, he might want to be a dentist. Might want to be a mathematician, he might want to teach math in college if he can qualify for that. Or he might want to sing and entertain people. How to work, I'm not going to stop him. I wouldn't let him sing, but why not? This song may reach more people than I can reach with my preaching, and the song may have the potency to awaken them to G-d and respect for themselves. We don't know. Thank you. As Salaam Alaikum.


