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IWDM Study Library
Muhammad-A Mercy for All

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
In our holy book, the Qur'an it's called Koran by most westerns, they pronounce it K-O-R-A-N, pronounced correctly by Muslims Qur'an. In our book, the Qur'an, the Most-High, Lord says of Prophet Muhammad that, "you are a messenger to all people. "Rasullahi An-Nas Qullum. The messenger of G-d to the people, all of them." Now how are we to understand that? Allah also says in the Qur'an of Prophet Muhammad, "Rahmatan Lin Nas, that you are a mercy for all the people."
If we are to understand our religion we have to understand it as it is in The Book. And this is no easy job for us. But I find that not just Muslims, in fact, not just Americans but people throughout the world. I've been blessed because of being your leader here, to travel many places in the world. And I found that most of the people, they don't have a knowledge of their religion as their religion exists in the book that scripture. Their knowledge of religion is from hearing sermons. They have a knowledge of religion from hearing sermons. And most of the sermons are made to just address the emotional side of life.
So, because of that, most people don't even know the great meaning in their religion. Now, I believe for all religions, this is not something that people want. Those enlightened people in religion I'm sure wherever they are, and whenever they get an opportunity, they're building on the wisdom of their faith. And in our religion, we don't have classification like intellectual and the masses or leaders and the masses, that kind of terminology is not accepted in our religion.
Prophet Muhammad himself was by description a man from among the masses. He was not from among an elite class of people. He was not an educated man, he attended no formal studies. He was a man of mother wit, but had a searching heart, searching intellect and G-d blessed him with revelation. So, the leader, the founder, if we can say founder we don't like to say founder, but the leader of our religion, the universal man he himself was from among the masses. Now, how can you take a leader that was from the masses and then change that and turn over his order to an elite group of intellectuals? You can't do it, you're betraying that man. If you do that you're betraying that man because he was from among the common people and his message was a message of liberation to the common people.
So, if you take him away from the common people and then lock his message up in the circle of the intellectuals or the scholars, then you have crucified him in a sense. So, we can't accept that. We have to represent this religion as it was revealed to Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be on him. And to do that we have to study the religion as it exists in the context of the Qur'an, that's the first source. From there we get direction to talk in other areas.
See, if we want to talk in the academia, okay but where is your base? It must be Qur'an. If you want to talk in the Masjid, give a sermon, the preacher must go to the Qur'an. Now you know, we deliver what we call Khutbah, what we're doing now we call it Khutbah. On Friday is the main Khutbah, K-sound Khutbah but different pronunciation foreign to English pronunciation, Khutbah. They give that talk on Friday. And whenever we are lecturing, it is people commonly refer to the speech of the Imam or the Muslim to Muslim, I mean to people on religion as a Khutbah. And the one who delivers this talk, he's called a Khaatib. The Khutbah is delivered by the Khaatib. Now a preacher, he is wa'ith, it's different, a different word.
A preacher, the name for him is Wa'ith, it's not Khaatib, it's a different word. What do we mean when we say preacher in the language of Qur'an? Preacher in the language of Qur'an means one who admonishes you, one who warns you, one who admonishes you. So, he's like a parent trying to save the children from disobedience. Right? That's the preacher. And the typical talk that's given by preachers is that, right? That's their talk. They're trying to keep you right, be right and warn you of bad habits that will get you in trouble. And try to keep you with respect for G-d and proper authority, so your life won't go too far away from its base, away from its nature, so that's good. A Muslim who delivers Khutbah, he's Khaatib, that Muslim he must also be at times Wa'ith. He's a preacher too. But the Khaatib is bigger than the Wa'ith.
He has to be able to do more than just caution people concerning their bad behavior and remind them that they're supposed to be good and G-d-fearing people. He has to be able to do more than that. He has to be able to deal with the matter of the faith in a scholarly way. So, you may say well, your religion is different, your religion is not for the masses. No, our religion demands of the masses that they become educated. In fact, our religion says that the purpose with G-d is to raise up the intellect of the ignorant people. That's the purpose with G-d, that is His purpose to come and lift up the intellect of the ignorant people. And if you notice in scripture, the history of prophets and you see that some of them and some of their messages and some points in their work, they sound like the typical preacher.
But even when he sounds like the typical preacher, he's making a charge against the world. Most of the prophets, I hardly know one that didn't do it. Most of the prophets charged the world with short changing the people, not giving the people their due share. Whether it was respect, knowledge, freedom, conveniences that people enjoy in the world, whatever it was. For political independence, the prophets were men speaking to the world to get the world to see that there is with G-d, no second class human beings. That with G-d all human beings are first class.
And for one to oppress the other angers G-d. This is the spirit of prophets, isn't it? All right. Now we have to understand that in the religion, especially for Muslims in the Muslim religion, but you have to understand that not only for Muslims, the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament if you understand it. And most religions that deserve to be respected as a religion. These religions point to the intellect of the human being, the brain, points to the intellect of the human being as being the most precious tool for progress, the most precious tools for the progress of the people. And when the intellect is blocked, then that's the worst form of oppression.
When the intellect is held down, that's the worst form of slavery. And many of us, we read in the scripture about slavery. And we know slavery as a physical condition. We think of slavery as a physical condition. So when we're reading about the slaves in scripture, we are thinking of their physical condition. But if you read with a little more care, a little more insight, you will see that the real form of slavery that scripture condemned is the enslavement of the intellect. And the main forces in the intellect are not just the force to know practical or practically. Or the force to know rationally or the force to know what is the logic in this situation. But the main two forces in the intellect, is the forces to know what is right with respect to what human beings need.
And the other is the force to see into the material workings of nature, to understand the logical order and working of the universe. So, there are two great forces and if we concentrate too much on one and neglect the other, we defeat the purpose because it can't be worked like that. There's no way to free the human being intellectually and leave him morally a slave, there's no way. You may have a PhD, but you won't get the benefit of that PhD if you are morally enslaved. We know for a fact that many men with PHDs, they get in the soup line with the bums. How come that man with a PhD is in the soup line with the bum?
Now, he got a PhD, that's proof by itself that he has logic, that he was able to logically handle a situation. If he weren't able to logically handle situations in the school, he would never have gotten that PhD. But when it came to handling human situations, when it came to dealing with moral situations, he must've been a failure because he has mistreated himself, right? See many of us don't understand. You don't have to abuse another person to be morally defective, to be morally deficient. We can look at you and see the way you treat yourself and that will tell us whether you are morally fit or not.
So, here's a man with a PhD but he's in the soup line too, with the bum, with the wine head. Say, "What you're doing here, man?" "Well, one of those things". Say, "It's a shame, man you ought to be ashamed of yourself". Sometimes he's not in the soup line, he's out there sticking somebody up with a PhD. Yes, so we have to understand this. And this is the precious, precious, precious gift of G-d to the human being, to teach him how to balance his life. The human being's life is like a scale. And we walk on two feet, you walk on two legs and they like a scale. And I thought about the human being walking I said, "When a human being walks normally his feet are going up and down. His legs are doing this. But his balance is hardly broken at all". His legs are going up and down, but his balance is not hardly broken at all. His shoulders seem be going without any evidence, without any sign that the bottom part is going up and down.
So, the shoulders seem to be a balance, right? Shoulders represents a balance, you see? And the feet are going up and down but the shoulder is not affected by the feet. Making the feet carry it, carry the whole body. But the shoulder says, "You go up and down, I'm going to hold the balance ". Yes, now you think about that. If you can see the fundamental operation of the mind, the intellect, see what is crucial, what is basic, what is fundamental for the intellect, what is fundamental for the intellect? To watch both sides of life. To keep a watch on both sides of life. On the material needs and on the spiritual needs. And we move in that fashion. But we have to also understand that the adjustments that are being made to keep spirituality not from falling too far behind sense. And to keep intelligence from not falling too far behind moral sensitivity. That these motions that are going on keeping the adjustment, their purpose is what? Their purpose is a balanced life. So, the shoulder shouldn't be doing this like we used to do, "Hey, baby where you going". That indicates to the wise that you don't have a balanced life.
That your life is subject to the ups and downs of world. When they go up spiritually there you go, haa. They go down spiritually and up intellectually there you go, You just going to town. So, we want to change all that. And the way we change it is by learning our religion. In other words, this religion does not tolerate the masses of people being ignorant. That's against our religion. They say, "Oh, leave the people alone, leave the masses alone, let people have their choices, let the exceptional child come forward, you're stupid to worry about the many. But that's not our religion. We have to worry about the many because we believe that all of them are exceptional and they have been gifted each separately, but all have been gifted. And if you will give all of them a chance, you'll see them rise according to their talent.
And that's what Allah wants, so that's what we have to do. Going back to what I said about Prophet Muhammad from the Qur'an. It says that, "He is the messenger of Allah, the messenger of G-d, to the people all of them. That's what it says in the Qur'an. If we followed the Qur'an the word An-Nas, it means 'The people'. Now in the Qur'an, the creatures of G-d who have rational minds. G-d has many creatures. He has the angels, and they carry out His order without thinking. They follow His orders with blind or with robot obedience. The Qur'an says, "And when Allah commands them, when the command comes, they go and with no thought in them, no manifestation in them of any desire except the purpose of G-d, that's the angels, right? Angel just goes. He isn't aware of nothing. If G-d says this town is going to be destroyed, the angels don't hear a baby crying or nothing, the town is just destroyed.
Okay. But this is the Angel and so there are different categories. And then they're the human beings and they're the Jinn. Now it doesn't say that he's the messenger to the Jinn. He's not the messenger to the angels, he's not the messages to the Jinn, he's a messenger to An-Nas, the people. So, let us first understand this word, 'The people'. Because when we say people and people in English may mean nothing but the public, right? The public that's all, the people. But in our language here in the Qur'an, the Muslim Qur'anic language and it is Arabic also. It means something distinctive; it speaks to something very distinctive. It's explicitly talking about the people who have an inclination to fear G-d. They have an inclination to fear G-d. Maybe they go away from that but there is in them an inclination, they tend to respect G-d or to fear G-d, that's An-Nas.
Another thing about the people, An-Nas. An-Nas means people who are driven by concern, a concern for life, a concern with human problems, this is An-Nas. So, An-Nas also refers to a spirit moving in the people that make them always want to go a bit further. Spirit of progress maybe we could say. They live to grow, they live to get better, they live to see better, they live to think better and when they're not doing that, that becomes a burden on them and they begin to worry. They begin to feel downhearted, begin to feel kind of depressed. "Hey, we're not growing. We're not solving our problems. We're not doing better, we're doing worse." Okay, so we just talked about this in general. So, this gives you an idea of what An-Nas is. Now, there's the other group that are mentioned in the Qur'an and they're called the Jinn. The Jinn don't have that kind of makeup. The Jinn makeup is like fire.
And what is the nature of fire? Why G-d told us that the Jinn's were made of fire, fire is symbolic of their makeup. What did He told us what was the makeup of the An-Nas, what are they made from? He said that He made them from clay, right? And another place said, "He made him from mud." So, mud is something that needs to be fashioned. And if you want to grow something there, it needs some of the water taken out. It needs to be worked on, doctored on, right? Too much water. So, we know that these symbols hold some meaning for us. Okay, and He said, "And He made the Jinn from the fire of a scorching wind. So, here we have fire, flame and we have hot wind, that burns, the air is hot, very hot. So, it tells us something about the makeup of the Jinn. The Jinn, he is one then like flames and flames once it starts the burning, it only knows to burn just up.
Right? And when we think about something on fire we say, "that burned up, man. The flame just goes up, right? But the clay it sets down. The mud sets down. And the flame burns up. Yeah. Burns up. All right, so one is typical of the spirit, the spirit to want to be at peace. And the other one is typical of the spirit to want to go up and spread out. Right? The fire goes up and spreads, just spread out.
Goes up and spreads. So, wouldn't you say that this is a spirit for conquering? A spirit for a dominance? Yeah. Sometimes it's in the intellect. Sometimes it's in the passion. The intellectual, arrogant person who is intellectually arrogant. He's looking for dominance. He's looking to get on top. He wants to be the top dog. And he wants to take in everything. He wants everything under him. Right? Yeah.
And if it's not in the intellectual passion in him, that's burning up like that, it may be, what we call a vulgar passion. Vulgar passion. Carnal passion. And the carnal passion makes him want to bring everybody down. He's going to be on top. But he knows to get people under him, he got to make them guilty of moral sin.
So he's constantly corrupting. His fire is to corrupt. Right? His passions are to corrupt everybody. He want to corrupt the high in morals and bring them down. He's burning up too. Then you got another one, his is a material flame. He just wants material greed with dominance. Right? And everybody that's got a buck, he's looking at them, see if they're any competition, any threat to him. And if they are, then he plans to undermine their financial strength.
And he keep on. You heard about how these early rich, materialistic people in the history of America? How they would use their money power to break other people. They just break them. They just buy them out or they buy out the resources and make them completely dependent upon them. And then in this process they soon gained dominance. They gain material dominance. And everybody under them. Yeah.
So, you have this. You have this desire to dominate. Like the flame, it wants to rise up. And it's an intellectual pride more than it is anything else. But the lessor devils you'll find them on carnal levels and other levels. But the biggest devil is the intellect. The intellect that wants to go up and be G-d. Yeah. And want to shine for the world. And consume the world. Yes. And consume the world in its flame. So G-d tells us of the Jinn, that when G-d presented His plans for man. To make man, to make one of the Nas, not one of the Jinn. His plan was to make one of the Nas the ruler on earth.
And one of the Jinn got angry. And what happened? It says, he was puffed up with pride. He became self-important. He became puffed up with pride. And he said, "I am better than he." But the word that he used mean, "I am bigger than he. I'm greater. Bigger." In other words, the language that they use today. "I'm superior." That's what he said. That's what he said. He said, "I'm superior. Do you think I'm going to bow down to a human being? G-d, I'm superior. You made me from fire." Means, "you made me to dominate. To rise. To dominate. To consume."
Because we think of a flame on the earth. But if you think about just the flame on the earth. You ain't never seen a flame accept to stay down. That ain't the way it burns. It burns up. Yeah. But if you think about it, what are the highest objects in the universe? Objects that appear to be light. Is that not right? At night, you can see them. And in the day, the highest one is what? The sun. And what is it? A ball of fire. It's a ball of fire.
So, when it's talking about the Jinn, it's talking about this desire to be at the top. To be over everybody. And the Jinn was up there, wasn't he? According to the teachings in the Quran. It says the Jinn was up there. And when he manifests this kind of rebellion, this kind of arrogance before G-d, then G-d said, "Be cast down to the earth." But he was up there. According to the Scriptures, you see? And G-d said, "Be cast down to the earth, for your arrogance."
It said, "This is no place for you to behave that way. That's what G-d told him. Right? Why? Because the heavenly order up there, was not only order of the Jinn. But it was also a order of the Angels. The Angels were up there too. And it was mainly an order of the Angels. And one of the Jinn had become their leader. And it was that one who refused to accept G-d's plan. So we have An-Nas and Al-Jinn, you see. They're different. This is An-Nas. Now, Prophet Muhammad, he's sent to the Nas. Not to the Jinn. Some of you all you say, "The Imam, he just talking. Where is he going?"
If you would just listen, you'll understand. Now, in the Quran, In the chapter called He Frowned, Abasa. Prophet Muhammad was going to a leader in the society. Because he felt that if he could impress the leaders of the Arabian society people, that they would automatically bring the others. That the key was to get the top dogs. And they finally gave him an audience but there was no proof that they were going to treat him nice or become Muslim. Only that he would get an audience.
And on the way to the meeting with these top people, there was a poor man. And he said, "I've heard about you Muhammad and your religion. Would you tell me something about your religion?" And prophet Muhammad was so anxious to get there to impress those people because he felt this was the key to open up the whole place. The whole country to the religion. That he just got disgusted. The man aggravated and irritated him. And he turned and frowned and kept on.
He didn't even explain to the man. He just frowned and kept going. And in his own heart I'm sure he was saying, "Oh, you don't know what an opportunity I've got today. I'm going to see the top people. And you will be all right later." But Allah, He corrected the Prophet. And He says, "And you frowned and turned away when the blind man came to you." Is that right? "And of those that you were going to see, did you have any assurance that they were going to be inclined towards faith? No, you did not." So, G-d corrected him. And through correcting the prophet, the prophet is a sign for us. In the prophet, Allah shows us what we should be. You see.
So he's telling us, "Don't worry about the top dog. Don't be trying to go to the mayor's office. And go to the governor's office, and go see President Reagan or go see the bishop." Yeah. So no, don't do that. The people you need to talk to are these that need it. Those people know better. They already know better. And they know what you're doing, Muhammad. They know you're here. They know what you're doing. If they were ready to respect my will, G-d's will, they would've already talked to you. They are not dumb. They know the value of what you have. So, go to the people that don't know. Because the people that don't know are the foundation. And if you get the foundation, the rest of it is yours.
And that's what the prophet did. Allah guided him and he got the masses. And Arabia became Allah's Arabia under the prophet Muhammad. Peace be upon you. Is that not true? Oh, you might say, "Can that happen again?" It's happening right now. It's happening right now. You who are gathered here today and you've been gathering here for many years. Right? I see faces I've been looking at for many years.
You haven't gone nowhere. You're still with it. And if I go to different cities in this country, I find the same thing. Now, if we step up our program, what do you think is going to happen? I'll tell you what's going to happen. Our work will become too big for the sinners to stop. That's right. Your work become too big for the sinners to stop. In fact, it's too big now for them to stop. But it's going to get much bigger. Much, much bigger.
We want to see the beauty of our religion. We want the diamond. We want the gold. Do we want to take the inferior things and let the world take the better things?
No. We want diamonds and gold. Yeah. And insha'Allah, we're going to get it.
All right. So, it says, "He is the messenger of G-d to the Nas, An-Nas. All of them. You know, he could've just left it like that, An-Nas. Because that suggest that it means all the People. But the word is used in the Quran with that. All of them. So, what that tells you?
That tells you that if people have human sensitivity if people have human concern. If people have the spirit of human progress in them, they are meant for Muhammad the Prophet. That's what it's telling you. Now, we know everybody that calls themselves Christians don't have this nature of Al-Nas. Some of them have the nature of angels. Some of them have the nature of Jinn. Is that not true? So, it is for the Jews. Although, the Jew is easier to identify. You just say dollar and you almost got all of them identified.
But even among the Jews, there are differences. Some of them are An-Nas. Some of them are Jinn. Some of them may be angels. Right? "How in the world can a human being be an angel?" Well, I don't know. You think about it. It's good to think about some things. All right. Okay. So, it says, "He is the messenger of G-d to all of the An-Nas, to all of the people. And what does Allah say in the Quran? "Call the people to the path of your Lord." This is a command of G-d.
And what else does Allah say in the Quran? "You", speaking to the Muslims, "You are the best of community. raised up for all people." Look here, it's no question. No question. So, what are we here for? Are we here to be preachers? Or are we here to call all people to the dignity of man? That's our purpose. Our purpose is to call all people. All people to have this human sensitivity. That still have a show of a sign or show some sign in the way that they behave. Or the way that they act, that they are concerned. That they want to progress as human beings.
We ain't to waste our time with someone that shows by his behavior he don't want to do nothing but raise hell.
That he don't want nothing but bad morals. We're not to waste our time on him. He's a devil. And that's what we can't understand. "Oh no, G-d loves everybody." Yes, everybody. The devil ain't nobody. Praise be to Allah. You see what's been holding us up? See how come we ain't been able to make progress? We've been wasting too much time on devils. You don't waste your time on devils. Allah didn't send Prophet Muhammad to devils. He sent him to human beings.
Oh. I wish I could stay with y'all a long, long time. But we can't do that. We'll do our best when we get a chance. He is a messenger of G-d to us. And it says, "He is a Rahmatan len Nas". Now, let's get the Quran. Can you help me out? And if you turn to, I believe it's the seventh chapter of Quran. Now, let me read this to you. And as we read this, let's remember. I like to have a helper here, it saves time. Yeah, he can do it, Imam Qasim.
If we keep in mind what Scripture said before on this same subject. See, what are we going to read now tells us of conditions that come up on people and how G-d prepares someone. Promises someone and prepares someone to handle the condition. To come to the rescue of the people. Now, the book, such Isaiah of the Bible and some other books of the Bible, they talk about one coming. Isaiah. Especially Isaiah, it talks about one coming. To do what? To champion the cause of the underdog. The cause of the oppressed. Now, many of you have read that in the Bible and as we read these verses here, you can see the connection. You can see they're the same. The same message of G-d.
And I'm going to go back earlier in here. In fact, I'm going to start with this section. This section is section 19 of the seventh chapter of the Quran. And I'm going to read in English to save time with the Arabic. Because most of us can't understand Arabic. But if I had time, believe me, I would prefer to read Arabic and English. Because it gets our ear more used to hearing Arabic. It helps us to grow in the Arabic language.
Let's see, now. It begins here. In fact, the verse before. I'm going just before, the verse that introduces section 19. And that's verse 151. Moses prayed, "Oh my Lord, forgive me and my brother." That's Aaron. "Admit us to thy mercy, for thou art the most merciful of those to show mercy. Those who took the calf for worship will indeed be overwhelmed with the wrath from their Lord. And with shame in this life, thus do we recompense". It means pay. "Those who invent falsehood. But those who do wrong and repent thereafter and truly believe, verily thy the Lord thereafter is oft forgiving, quick to forgive, most merciful."
"When the anger of Moses was appeased." That means when his anger was rested. "He took up the tablet." The Law was written on the tablet. Right? The commandments. "And the writing there on was guidance and mercy for such as fear their Lord. And Moses chose 70 of his people for Our place of meeting when they were seized with violent quaking." Like earthquake. He prayed, "Oh my Lord, if it had been thy will, thou could have destroyed long before, both them and me. Would thou destroy us for the deeds of the foolish ones among us? This is no more than thy trial. By it, thou causes whom thy will to stray. And thou leadeth whom thy will into the right path. Thou art our protector, so forgive us. And give us thy mercy. For thou art the best of those to forgive."
"And ordain", here is Moses praying. And why is he praying? He's praying because he's burdened. He's burdened with a people that are so hung up in their own narrow petty, petty thing. Their own greed and narrowness, that they can't see the bigger gift that G-d holds out to them. You see? And that’s burdening that man because that man he's one of those people. All of them are the same people. And his own people are now missing the bigger prize because of their ignorance, selfishness, greediness.
And he goes on praying. He says, "And ordain for us that which is good in this life and in the hereafter, for we have turned onto thee." He said. G-d, that is, said ... Answering Moses. "With my punishments, I visit whom I will. But my mercy extendeth to all things." Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that wonderful? Now, we want to stop here. Because I think maybe we might miss a little bit. Here is a prophet. He's disturbed because of the attitude of his people, in the face of the great blessings of G-d. G-d is calling them to greater dignity. To greater future. And they are acting stupid and silly and being selfish and that's hurting him.
Now, he got angry. The verse before said, "Moses was angered." The verse before I began the reading. Yes. So, he was angry, you see. And G-d is correcting Moses. Say, "Ah, you've let these people get to you Moses." Excuse me. I'm going to take a little time to elaborate on this. Say now, "Moses, you've let your people get to you." He said, "You don't have to tell me they're ignorant. I know they're ignorant. You don't have to tell me about their bad ways, I know that. That's how come I raised you up. Now, you done let them get to you. Now you want me to punish them. I punish whom I please. But my mercy goes out to all. Even those that you think may need a punishment right now."
Isn't that wonderful. All right. This is the book. "But my mercy extendeth to all things. That mercy I shall ordain for those who do right and practice regular charity. And those who believe in our signs."

