May 19th 1978 Jumah

THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER
Imam Warith Deen Muhammad


Dear beloved Muslims,   I would like to begin the Khutbah today with a reading from the Quran on Prayer.     Muslims are Believers in God who keep up  their prayers.    Muslims pray regularly and we are suppose  to be constant  in observance of our prayers.     The Muslims are those who guard their prayers. "Hafee-thoon"' they guard their prayers", Allah,   the Most High says in the Quran:   "And there are those that are constant in keeping their prayers.  "Ah-laa Salatehem Da aa-ehmoon." "They are those that are comfortable observing their prayers.     If any human being  is  to be successful  in life,  he has  to establish regularity and constancy in his life.    What Allah asks us to do  is for our  salvation. If we save our souls, we save our lives. If we lose our souls we lose everything.  Chapter Twentieth of Quran verse 14!  "Verily, I am Allah:  There is no god but I:  So serve you Me (Only), And establish regular prayer For celebrating My praise." These words the Most High spoke to Moses.  

The Muslim is not one who just prays, but prayer to the Muslim is an institution. It's like going to school or like going to our jobs daily.  Reading now from Chapter 29 of the Quran, verse 45:  "Recite what is sent of the Book by inspiration to you, and establish regular prayer: for prayer restrains one from shameful and unjust deeds;  And the remembrance of Allah Is the greatest (thing in life) without doubt. "Dhiker Allu-u-Akbar".  The Remembrance of God is the greatest power that any human being can possibly have.  That power connects you directly with God, the All Powerful One, who has power over ail things.  And it connects you also with an inspirational source that can aspire you to greater excellence than any other thing possibly could do.  No thing in creation can inspire the human being to excellence like the remembrance of God.  

The Muslim prays so he will clean his mind up, clean his heart up, clean his whole life up.  Some people have too little concern with their own dignity to improve upon their character, their moral and physical appearance, but when going to visit someone of great statue, those people who care little about themselves will make a desperate effort to put themselves in some presentable guise.  Well, they will go, maybe and borrow a decent suit to put on.  They make an effort to clean themselves up, to make themselves look presentable, because they are going to visit someone that they have respect for.

The Muslim should live his whole life with awareness that he is in the presence of God all the time.  If we do that, we will keep ourselves presentable all the time.  We will keep ourselves in top shape all the time.  The remembrance of God is the greatest power in human life. Nothing is more possible or greater for the human being to have in his life as a saving power than the power of remembering, the acceptance of Almighty God. Say, I remove sinful and evil deeds". Sinful and hateful, unjust deeds.  Prophet Muhammad said, Saila-llahu Alaihe Wa-Sallam, Peace and Blessings be upon him, can anyone wash themselves in the river or water five times daily and yet be with filth? And the reply from his followers was "no".

The Muslim is supposed to pray five times daily.   If we pray five times daily, if those prayers were respected as they should be respected, we made ablution for each prayer.  That is if that ablution had been broken.  If we were still in a state of cleanliness, then
we didn't have to make ablution again for our prayer.  So the Muslim is one who prays five times daily and he is clean and presentable five times daily. We heard the old Western saying (Christian saying) "cleanliness is next to Godliness". We know by the teachings that Allah gave to His Prophets especially to His Last Prophet, Prophet Muhammad, we know that the human being is a creature formed by an interaction in this physical world. We come into a physical world and our minds feed upon a physical world.  Our nature, emotional nature, our sentimental nature, all feed upon a physical world.  We come into this life and we are influenced by the physical things that happen around us and within us, if you train yourself physically to do or become a certain thing then you'll become that thing internally.  

If you train yourself to become a  dutiful and regular worker, you do it physically. You just report physically at a certain time every day for work, for physical work.  And you give your physical energy to make sure that you're not falling short of your responsibilities. If you do that everyday you become internally a person who is disciplined, a person who is dutiful, a person who is regular.  If something should happen and take that physical job away from you, you would suffer internally until you get some other physical job to perform.  If one washes himself daily for prayer soon he will form the habit of keeping himself clean. With the habit will also come the desire to stay clean. Yes!  If he should for some reason be unable to find water or materials for cleaning himself, he will become uncomfortable and even maybe miserable,  because he can't perform the act of cleaning. He can't perform his Wudu.

So you see Allah made the physical world first, but He made the physical world to influence the human development and if we don't take control of the physical world's influences then the influences of the physical world can destroy our good human development.  Allah is the Best Knower and He has created us physically and He has also created us internally.

A Muslim adores Allah, his Creator.  He loves his God.  He fears his God.  He hurts when he comes up short of what his God asks of him. He feels shame when he is praying and he has come up short. He feels shame when he's meeting other Muslims and he has come up short. Why? because he lives his whole life for Almighty God, Allah. Allah is the supreme object of his worship, the supreme object of his affections, the supreme object of his desires.  So Allah dominates his life and he becomes the slave of Allah. In becoming the slave of Allah, he is freed from all other servitudes.  No one can make him a slave, not even his female lover.  Not even his mother.  Not even his father. Not the King, not the President, no one can take him away from his supreme love, that is his love for Allah. This is salvation. Without that you don't have salvation.  The human being either exists in a situation or a relationship. Is that right? A human being should exist in some relationships.  

The life that human beings live, the social order is an order of human relationships. These relationships hold for us a serious danger, we can fall in love with our self and become a slave to a selfish relationship or we can fall in love with our car, or our wife, or our friend, or someone else and become a slave to a relationship.  Is that right? Or we can fall in love with our occupation or our career, etc. and become a slave to those things.  Is that right?  Some men become slaves to knowledge, some to vanity, some to lust.  There are many things just waiting to capture us and make us their slaves. God wants for us healthy relationships.  Is that right? Yes!  God has ordered us to keep a healthy relationship, to keep a beautiful relationship, even to reverence the family ties.  Is that right? Yes.  But those relationships, in order to remain good, sound and healthy for us, those relationships must not become attachments. But there's one relationship that we can allow it to become an attachment and that's our relationship with our Lord, Almighty God, the Supreme. We can worship Him; we can give our hearts fully to Him; we can give our minds fully to Him; we can give our total being fully to Him at times of the day and night for the whole life*If we lived a thousand lives we could continue it and would never grow into a bad relationship.  It would never grow into a bad relationship, why? Because Allah can't be influenced by our worship.  Allah can't be influenced by our praise.  The relationship remains good because Allah can not be affected by us.

So you see how Allah has saved us.  There is a certain hero of ours, that is, the Bilalian people, his name is Fredrick Douglas. May he rest in peace.  He said, "find out just what is in people that they will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong that they will allow people to impose upon them".  Isn't that a fact? We are not harmed any more than we allow ourselves to be harmed.  We are not mistreated any more than we allow ourselves to be mistreated.  We don't suffer injustice any more than we invite.  This great hero of ours, he said this recently. Allah, the Most High God about 1400 years ago what did say to us "La yu-ghe yeru Allah ma beqawmeen Hal-ta yu ghae yeru ma be-anfusehem". Allah does not remove what is troubling a people until they remove what is burdening their conscience".  That's the answer, that's the answer.  Remove first what is burdening your conscience and those who don't have a conscience they are not fit.  So there is no need to even mention them.  They have become devils (laugh), so there's no need to mention them, but those with a conscience, let them first remove the burden on their conscience so Allah can remove the burden on their society. Yes.

How do we overcome the powerful influences that threaten our well being?  It is very simple.  You don't have to go get a psychiatrist and pay him fifty dollars an hour or pay her fifty dollars an hour for endless sessions.  He never says when you will be healed, you know. You don't have to go to these fads, spiritual fads, health fads, nature fads, spiritual discipline fads.  We don't have to go through ail these fads to get our lives together, certainly the society is confused.  The life of the human being has become so intermixed and so filled with such a great variety of things to deal with daily that it is a great burden.  The life is crowded, overcrowded, you bombarded by all kinds of strange things. We can't live, anymore, a quiet and peaceful life.  

You can't live a private life.  Everything has backed up into the life of the individual like flood water that has grown too high for their boundaries and poured over into the society.  You see.  Then life is a problem, but we have simple solutions from Almighty God.  What did Prophet Muhammad say, Salla-llahu Alaihe Wa-Sallam,  Prophet Muhammad said, Peace and Blessings be upon him, "no one of you will become a believer until your desires follow what I have come to with".  It is as simple as that.  That's the answer. Don't go look for your peace in a massage parlor, or in a Yoga exercise, or in Mr. Omar's Column on the stars.  Don't join a health freak club or a nature freak club.  Don't do that. Yes, séance, trying to reconnect yourself with ancient spooks. All this just invites more misery, more unanswered questions.  It is a temporary narcotic that leaves you with a heroin after ache. You know that ache that the heroin leaves you with after it has made you feel so good, but you just can't afford the regular doses.

The Quran from Sura Al Fatihah to Sura Al Naas, from the first chapter to the last chapter is what Prophet Muhammad came to us with. So read that book and see if your desires go towards that, but if that book is a burden on you then something else Is pulling you, then you need to pray.  Make ablution, often, pray often until you clean yourself internally and externally enough so that you will be able to see where your salvation lies.  If your vision is confused by that type of things that Satan lays in our path, then how are you going to be able to appreciate the Quran? You have been taken away from the path of God by the alluring things that Satan, as Allah says, put in the path. Allah, He shows us a path and Satan shows us a path. Allah says that Satan decorates his path with the glittering things of this life. Alligator shoes,  diamond rings, diamond stick pins, chinchilla coats, long collar silk shirts with ruffles down the front and on the sleeves, plenty acid rock or super fly music, and velvety women that you never seem to be able to catch, they're like glass figures in the air. When you think you got it its gone.  So Allah has alerted us and has  told us all of these things.  We don't have to fall victim to these traps.   Why  step in the pit with your eyes open? 'Walk around the pit.

How do we rise socially, morally and financially?  Very simple, worship Allah.  Saturate your character with His Divine Attributes. He is the Merciful, the Compassionate, the Generous, the Just, the Firm, the Patient, the Wise, the Supreme, the All-Knowing, the Forgiving, the Oft-Forgiving, the Gentle - all we have to do is remember God with due respect.  Remember that the Muslim is not one who just worships God.  Worship in Al Islam necessitates respect, the respect that is due that which we worship. We can't just worship God.  There are many people that worship God and in their worship they shame themselves and disgrace the very worship that they are trying to establish.  But the Muslim, he is one who respects Allah, and this brings the best out of the human being.  

It inspires the best, in us. And where does it all begin -in the cradle - the parent, the mother - she has to raise her child properly.  She has to influence the best behavior and the best mind in her child.  She has to contain herself when she is a pot of boiling water, for fear that she may spoil her baby.  She has to have tremendous self-control because if she swears, curses, uses vulgar language in the presence of her children, if she does indecent things in the presence of her child, she is giving this to her child and her child has little intelligence to deal with it.  The child has been made by Allah to accept guidance and leadership from its parents.  So the child is looking for guidance, looking for leadership from the parent. 

We have to first build character. A human being without character to build strong character that reflects human excellence.  There is character that reflects human weaknesses. Allah guides us to the right path and has told us that this religion of ours is the religion of Al Fitr.  It is the religion after the pattern we find in the whole creation.  And Allah says the pattern on which He has made the human being.  So the pattern on which we have been made is a universal pattern.  It is a pattern that stands up east, west, north, south.  Any field of knowledge can test it. It will pass any sound field of knowledge.  The test of any scientist because it is universal and it is natural.  You see.  Allah is not asking us to divorce ourselves from our human substance, He's asking us to recognize and respect the great substance that He has put in the human nature.  Surely He has created us of the best stature. 

He has made the human being of the most excellent stature. And He has made everyone of us dignified, or worthy of respect or dignity. This is Allah's word  in the Quran.  Where is that worth? Where is that dignity?  It is in your human excellence.  It is in your love for truth, righteousness and justice.  It is in your appreciation for high refined things over low vulgar things.  It's in your appreciation for clean environment over musty, untouched, neglected environment.  It is in your desire to allow your mind to increase your knowledge.  It is in your desire to raise your moral sense higher and higher.  That's where your human excellence is.  And Allah has said "build your character with the building blocks given to you by God, with His Divine character". "With that character that He has established". How many of us have the strength to do that? It takes daily work.  Daily work, you have to work at it daily.  Don't you know many people miss getting their assignment. Miss getting the opening that was there.  Not because they didn't have the knowledge or they didn't have the training or they didn't have the skills, they didn't have the character.  So you think that Allah is inviting you to a religion that doesn't pay off in your daily life. Allah is inviting you to a religion that pays off on your job, that pays off in your home, that pays off when no one is with you, when you are alone by yourself.  He invites us to fulfill our life.  And what live person in his mind and in his heart doesn't want to live a full life?

How do we rise above inferiority complexes? How do we rise above conditions of inferiority? Very simple. Allah has answered our problems. Allah has shown us the way.  Allah has beat the philosopher. Don't go to them, go to the Quran.  There were philosophers when this Quran was recited from the physical lips of Prophet Muhammad and Allah inspired him, He said, "say, if you can produce a verse like this. Do it!  Conspire you all together men and jinn." They were challenged to produce one verse like the Quran. Did they reply?  Fourteen hundred years and they haven't replied yet.  Because those that are able to hear the challenge know it can't be done. And the fools, they can't even hear the challenge.  They try to come up with a rod.  They produce two cents to challenge the wealth of the world, (laugh)

Allah has said in His Quran that He has made us all of one creation, of one mould. We all belong to this universal creation in our physical makeup.  We all belong to one parentage in our human makeup.

We are told by Allah that Adam is our father.  Is that right? That Adam is the father of all of you.  So we are one family, but we are also told that he has made us races and tribes. Not that we should despise each other or become filled with ugly prejudices thinking that we are better than each other. We should know each other, that we should each know
other and not despise each other"!  Is that right?

A beautiful message is given in the Quran showing us unity and showing us diversity in that unity.  That Allah has created the human beings, the world and the human beings, and He is the one that gives the colors. And our attention is called to look at the mountain top and see the sharp contrast of the colors in the mountain top.  The white, the intense white and the intense red.  The black, the intense black, all running together in the mountain top but not destroying the identity of the other.  The white does not wipe out the red or the black.  Neither does the black wipe out the white or the red.  Is that right? The red doesn't wipe out the white or the black.  They all exist together keeping their own identity.  Not losing a bit of it while staying in the mountain top.  

Allah again says if He had not set mountains, established mountains on the earth this earth would have shaken with us and would have been in disorder.  Is that right? Yes! So what is the mountain symbolic of? What does the mountain mean?  It means government, leadership, authority.  So with the beautiful, allegorical, symbolic message Allah is telling us through His Prophet Muhammad what He wants the human being to accept in his top leadership. He didn't say on the side of the mountain, He said you will find these colors on the top of the mountain.  To accept in our top leadership the different, the various colors. And don't ask that one color submit to us, lose its identity. No let every color keep its identity and give it recognition, give it a place in the leadership. This is justice. Yes.

Allah says that you will find these colors the same in the plant.  On the earth you will find the many colors.  They are all existing together.  Here our mind is called to observe the diversity in nature and creation and to observe that nature has not discriminated against color.   It is the human being with his small pea brain and his big ego problem that discriminates against the color.  This is not a problem of Al Fitr.  This is a problem of man gone astray, (laugh) Yes. Look at the beauty in the variation of the colors on the earth, the flowers and the plants.  Isn't it beautiful.  And look at how grand and how imposing the mountain is, especially when it is high.  This doesn't put into our minds, beauty, as much as it put into our minds, power.  It fills us sometimes with an "ahh","ooh!"

Allah is saying to you your colors are beautiful and your color has not burdened you with inferiority. Who are you going to believe the inventors of the monkey classes or Allah? Darwin and his followers invented the monkey classes.  And made us believe that men were created on different levels of human worth. Who do you want to follow them or Allah?  Follow Allah.

Again, Allah is telling us that in this oneness there is individuality.  No human being is the exact copy of the other. You will find people who look so much alike that you will say, boy, I can't tell them apart.  But those who have lived closely with them can tell them apart. They may look like each other outwardly, but internally they can be distinguished one from another.  He has not made two souls alike and he's not made two bodies alike, because they don't have a set of rules for twin's fingerprints.  The twin will be caught just like every body else, his fingerprint is different.  Allah has called our attention to these signs so that we will able to follow, peacefully, the road to salvation.  People that know nothing, they ask questions at every turn and people that think they know when they don't know make unnecessary trouble at every turn.  Like the people that Moses led, who at every turn they had to question his decision with their ignorance.

Lastly Allah has said that He has made our form and has made them most beautiful.  Now who are you going to believe Allah or the racist that told you flat noses were ugly, thick lips are ugly, nappy hair is ugly, black skin is not as fair as white skin? What does fair mean?  If it means not as white then that's the truth.  But if it means not as beautiful you didn't have to have James Brown to tell you black is beautiful, Allah said it fourteen hundred years ago. And a long time before that, Allah said it to Prophet Muhammad that He has made your form, not just your form "He's made your picture.  Produce a picture of yourself  that's what it means. Whatever you picture in your mind that yourself looks like ,Allah made that, And He says He has made them beautiful.  Allah-u-Akbar!

Al hamdulillahi rabbii aalameen.  All praise is due to Allah alone, the Guardian-Evolver, Cherisher, Sustainer of all the Worlds. We thank Him, we praise Him for completing His favour on us and giving us this universal book, the Quran.We have a human being who earned the blessing of being called the 'chosen one', Mustafaa.  By living a life before the revelation came of, excellence, the life of human excellence.  By establishing a life among the people who are uncultured, proud and arrogant and oft times shameful people.  He established a life among them of being clean, just, upright, honest, sincere, devoted to his relatives, to his love ones, to the needy.  And because IK.- 1 I veil .1 life forty years on a high level, in fact, Allah says, Subhanahu Wa Ta Aala ,  Highly praised and first is He above all things, the Supreme. He says in the Quran that we have certainly seen that he is established on the most excellent plane of human character.

He wasn't a spooky man, he was a human being.  We can identify with him.  He was a father to his children, a husband to his wife, a leader for his people, a courageous, brave hero that didn't sit in the Church praying while the soldiers go out and fight the on rushing army.  He went out and led the army.  He met the foe, he met the enemy on the battlefield and he knew he wasn't an angel.  He knew he could be killed.  He knew he wasn't a spook. He knew the arrow could kill him or the sword could kill him.  Isn't that the greatness of the man?  That a man fight with his people, live with his people, love his people, marry his people, have children by his people and from his people.  But calls out to all people and opens up his arms to all people and bring in Bilal and everybody into his company, into his private life.  Invites them to rest under his private  tent, to join him in his private prayers.  Take the slave and say, "lead the army".  They say, oh, this is not our tradition - the tradition is broken, lead the army slave! Do we want God to make our choices for us or do we think that we have the power and the brain and the sense to make the choices over God? No, Allah has made the choices and I find paradise in living with those choices.

And you can have that same paradise if you'll just accept God's choices.  Follow the Quran, accept Prophet Muhammad as the exemplary, the human exemplary, the model leader for all people and all times. He is our Messenger, our Prophet.  He is our Caliph.  He is our Imam and we can have those dignified offices if we just accept and follow the guidance of God and accept His Prophet and His Messenger as the model, the exemplary model for all human beings. Yes.  Isn't that wonderful? Let us pray for Prophet Muhammad, pray that Allah fulfill his promise to him In us.  

That this American group of people that we call Bilalian, that we become the people that Allah asks for in His Quran. He says "let there rise up from among you a company of people, a band of people calling to all that is lawful and good, all that is right and resisting, pushing back all that is forbidden, evil and wrong. Says they will be the ones to achieve the success." So let us uphold this religion with the courage, with the humanism, with the rational sense and with the spiritual fire that was seen in the life of Prophet Muhammad's companions. And the fire of truth will rise so high that you will hear the sleeping Imam, who fell to sleep, he dropped off the members.   In his sleep you will hear him jump up and say "Yes, Allah-u-Akbar"!
