05/22/1994
IWDM Study Library 
Astrodome Houston, TX

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
As Salaam Alaikum. That is Peace be on you. We praise G-d, Alhamdulillahi Rabbil al Amin, our Lord Sustainer Of all the Worlds. We witness as Muslims that Muhammad, to whom the Qur'an was revealed a little better than 14 centuries ago is the last Prophet. Upon him be Prayers and the Peace of what follows of that traditional salute to our Prophet Muhammad Sa Ala Alahi Wa Salaam. Again, the Prayers and Peace be upon him. Imam Qasim Ahmed, we are very happy to be here, and we have enjoyed our stay and benefited from our presence here last night at the banquet. And since we've been here the whole time we've been here, we've been accommodated very nicely. We appreciate that very much. We enjoyed the speakers last night. They both were very excellent speakers. One was our youth speaker, speaker for our youth, but he spoke for me too when he spoke. I'm not a young man like he is anymore, but he also spoke for me, and I hope the youth were listening and he's the kind of person that the youth need to look to and listen to. Brother Wazir, Imam Wazir was here and Imam Shuaibe from Oakland, California, I've known for some time. I met him in fact in California when I went to stay there for a few years, and I was so excited about the possibilities that I saw in him that I loved his company and I still do whatever he comes around. I just love his company and appreciate the work he's doing in that area very much. And we certainly benefited from the lecture that he gave us last night.
We appreciate all of our dignitaries came to support the Muslim effort here, political figures that came out and we hope that they will continue to appreciate the work that we are doing here in the city of Houston and hope that they will have good working relationship with you that will improve on and on. And we hope one day that some of your members will also have seats next to them in building InshaAllah. I won't name any of them by name because there are several and there too many for me to name. This morning I got up to watch television and I was disappointed I couldn't get the program Islam on the, I believe it's channel 67, but I couldn't get channel 67 on the TV in the hotel there, but I hope that one day I'll be able to see that program. Is Islam on channel 67? That's UHF. I couldn't get it. I hope some of you all did. Excuse me. Let me before getting into really the focus of my talk today, my speech that I'm going give here. Let me say a few words about us. That is Muslims.
We accept the number of about 1 billion on this earth today and all of us feel proud to say this. We say we are 1 billion Muslims on this earth today. 1 billion. That's a lot of people and we are not limited to one race or another. We are like the rainbow. We are the colorful community of man, white, black, brown, yellow, red, all the colors of humanity. We are in Africa, we are in Asia, we are in Europe, we are in America. We are in the Pacific Islands, we are just everywhere, Caribbean, everywhere. Muslims, I hope the day will come when the differences between us will be overcome too. By that, that moves us to say we are 1 billion. We are proud of the number that includes many divisions of Muslims. So, let's pray to Allah, our Lord Creator, our G-d that one day He will move our hearts and our minds to rise above these differences that we have. These group differences, these Schools of Thought that divide us. These traditional cultural habits that divide us. Let's pray that one day we will not see any of that and it will be because of that need in us to identify as one Ummah, as one people 1 billion strong.
G-d looks to our hearts and G-d will judge us for our intention. We may differ in our opinions and our perception of things, but as long as we hold to La Ilaha Il Allah, G-d is one G-d. Muhammad Rasuulallah, is the Messenger of G-d and the Qur'an is the Book of G-d and the Qibla is our direction. The Ka'abah, our Qibla is our direction. As long as we hold for that, we will continue to say we are 1 billion. We won't be bothered by any of these divisions. Isn't that wonderful? That is wonderful. I've never seen a Sunni trying to count the Shi'ites and take them out of that 1 billion. I've never seen a Shi'ite. count the Sunnis to take them out of that 1 billion. Not to mention the other smaller groups that we have that represents division among Muslims. Let us understand that Muslims are entitled to their own opinions as long as their opinions don't contradict, violate the guidance of G-d and the life and teachings of our Prophet. And we know that when it comes to the life and teachings of our Prophet, G-d didn't say to us that angels guard that and protect that and it won't be changed. Allah only said, highly glorified is He, that the Revelation, the Revelation, the book angels protect that book, and nothing can come into it, nothing can be taken from it.
It's protected by G-d. G-d's angels protect and it remains today as it was when it was given to our Prophet Muhammad, Prayers and Peace be Upon him. The text has not changed. It is still the same. No word, no meaning has been changed. It is still the same book in its complete text as it was revealed. But we know that there are different classifications for the reports on the life of our Prophet. Some classified as strong, strongly sound, convincingly correct and then we have the weak ones and then still weaker ones and then we have those that are false. Many false reports on our Prophet's life. What he said, what he did, who was he, et cetera. I hope the time will come when we will see Islam first of all in the words of revelation and then that is reported of our Prophet that does not bring about any conflict from the words of revelation, that fits right in very comfortably with the words of revelation and reject what doesn't fit comfortably in with the words of revelation. I hope that day will come. And when that day comes, a lot of these reports that some of us still have that we call the reports on our Prophet's life works will be thrown away and forgotten.
Prophet Muhammad was no less attractive, no less perfect, no less wonderful, no less human than he is in the Qur'an. Anytime I read something that makes him less than what I find him to be in the Qur'an I reject it. And to give divinity to a man makes him less valuable as a man. Did you hear what I said? To give divinity to a man makes him less valuable as a man. The more the man grows into the potential that G-d created for him, that is human, the greatest value comes. If he starts to veer off from that course and try to be divine, he devaluates his own life. Muslims we have a belief that is easy for us. It's not hard, it is rational. That is all of us have the intelligence to appreciate it and live it. Islam doesn't invite us to go up on the mountain and study the heavens, the angels and write great books on theology. We are not to take up microscopes, telescopes, the powerful glasses to try to bring closer to us our G-d. We ought to be focused here on earth upon our own life as mortals created by G-d, human beings.
One of the greatest titles of our Prophet is Al Bashar, meaning the mortal, the human person. The human being. It's one of the greatest titles our Prophet has, the human person. And that's why G-d sent him, gave him to us as a mercy. That mercy is that he completes. He is the completion of the human possibilities that G-d wants in human beings. He's a completion. He's a complete human person, A complete human person. That's why G-d says to Prophet Muhammad "Say to them, I am a mortal person like you"-Anna Bashirun Mithlukum. I'm a mortal person like you. Some of us we believe that, I'm not speaking of Muslims, I'm talking other religions. Even some Muslims too, you'll find some divisions among us that will say "Yes, he was a mortal but also divine. A mortal but also divine. The language comes very clearly. He is a mortal like you. Mithlukum, a mortal like you, Not a mortal foreign to your nature, not a mortal with something in his nature that is not your nature. We believe that there's only one divine and that is G-d. Now to use the expression divine loosely is acceptable.
I would like to tell, I wish I had told my wife on one occasion that she was divinely beautiful, but that's just a loose expression. She knows I'm not going to make any rakats to her. G-d says, had the earth been populated angels, He would've sent us an angel as a Messenger. G-d is telling us also that we are not angels and Muhammad is not an angel. He's telling us both, we are not angels and Muhammad is not an angel. But who would say Muhammad is not perfect? Nobody. Especially no learned Muslim would say Muhammad was not perfect or is not perfect. Muhammad is perfect but he's not an angel. And as a perfect human being, he has a greater world, a greater work to do in the scheme of this creation designed by G-d then angels. For the angels bowed to Adam. Made sadjah to Adam, a man that G-d intended to be ruler or Khalifah on this earth and Muhammad is the completion of that creation. The creation of Adam is completed in Muhammad, Prayers and the Peace be on him, the complete human being, the complete human Messenger for the Creator of the heavens and the earth. We know we have been given a theme. Our youth, our youth's future. There much to be said on that.
Our religion if understood and practiced in a very rational way it is intended to be practiced, will eliminate all problems that we have, not just the problems of our youth being wasted. Our youth like us and like many generations before all the way back to our father Adam, our youth are the creation of G-d. Everything you see Allah created.
I know you understand what I am talking about in the natural world, but I want you to know also that I include man's world also because man is nothing but a creation of G-d. His sensitivities, his faculties, his emotions, his whole life, his soul, his intellect, his hands, everything was created by G-d. He can do no more than G-d has designed him to do. G-d designed him. If you design a computer to do something, who gets to credit you or your computer? That's all we are. We are computers that Allah designed and we can do wonderful work. With the limits placed upon us, we can do no more than what G-d has designed for us to do.
And if we give ourselves the credit, we are ignorant. But if we are not ignorant, we give Allah the credit. We say Allhamdulilah for everything, for everything. Certainly, I'm an achiever. I've achieved above my associates. I've produced a wonderful thing, invented a wonderful thing. They have benefited from it. They've given me credit for it. But if I'm a Muslim, I know that Allah made that possible. Allah gave me the materials. Allah gave me the intelligence. Allah opened the way. Allah even gives me inspiration. Do you know scientists get inspiration from G-d? Many of them have confessed that they didn't know how to arrive at a conclusion they were seeking but suddenly it came in a very mysterious way. Though G-d helped us in many ways that we don't know we can get nothing but what G-d has already willed or desire that we get. This is how we should look at things. And in addressing our youth, I want our youth also to know that a big problem is created because we have become selfish and possessive. Too selfish and possessive and what they are suffering most now is the sin of our selfishness and our possessiveness. We got to possess everything.
Parents, friends, brothers and sisters, let us get away from the habit of saying, this is mine. "Get out of my refrigerator, leave my glasses alone. Don't use my good glasses. Get off my sofa." That's the beginning of influencing the members of your family to be very selfish and possessive. We don't know what we're doing. We should begin with this. Everything belongs to Allah. There was nothing before Allah. There'll be nothing after Allah. Allah is Eternal always, but we are passing out all the time. The youth are youthful now, but if they don't prepare for old age, they may go to the crazy house before they go to the grave. Because vanity will send you to the nut house when you look in the mirror and it ain't happening no more. We know it doesn't fall on each of us with the same gravity. Some people will tell others, "You look beautiful at ninety." But a change is coming, that's guaranteed. Let us not be too possessive. Being too possessive makes us very selfish. Let us acknowledge that everything belongs to Allah. Allah says that earth is His, everything comes out of it comes out of it because of Allah's will and His intention. Allah intended that. Everything that grows the earth produced, provided by Allah.
Your life and all that you can do, whatever you can do with your life is because of G-d. Absolute ownership cannot not be ours. We only have title for a short period of time. We have title for this possession, title to that possession title to this responsibility of whatever, an active responsibility, but it's only for a time. It can change all of a sudden. I remember when this country was very proud and arrogant, made some terrible boasts that I wouldn't like to repeat. As a child I heard on the radio and it hurt me to hear grownups in power talking the way they were talking. I heard it on radio as a child. I heard in the streets I heard on someone else's radio. Believe it or not we were not allowed to have radio in our house when I was a child. Very proud boasts as if they were G-d. That's what happens when we forget that we came here with no possessions.
We couldn't even assume responsibility for ourself when we came here. Some parent or some loving adult, responsible person had to be there to take us as a newborn infant, care for us, help us along to make sure you were able to do the very normal things that human being does on our own. Feed ourselves, go to the hospital by ourselves, get dressed by ourselves, et cetera. Everything was here before we were here. That's the first thing we have to do. Stop being so selfish and so possessive. "This is mine." And the most corrupting thing on the soul is to think that your wisdom is yours. Your knowledge is yours, that you can get the credit for what you know. The humble Muslim says, especially during the Hajj. "G-d knows we know not." We acknowledge that we had no knowledge, that our heads were empty, we had nothing until G-d made possible the growth of our intellect. Praise be to Allah. So, what I'm saying in short is that to solve the problems we have in our society, the problem of abnormality, we have an abnormal society, not a normal society. To bring it back to a normal society, we have to become again a normal human being.
And a normal human being, his life begins in obedience. Obedience, not rebellion. Obedience. Can you imagine a child just coming out of the womb talking back to his mother?
Get your hands off of me. I don't want that milk. Leave me alone. No obedience. Child's nature is just to obey. And we all love him.
Because it's in his nature that G-d intended for him. But as he starts to grow out of that nature that G-d intended for him, you don't necessarily love it. Parents may throw it in the garbage can. Yes, I don't see it as a terrible outrage like I used to. See, we used to live in different times when we had truer human sensitivities in our society, but now our sensitivities are so confused that doesn't outrage me anymore to hear the mother threw one baby in the garbage can. This world is so crazy and the future looks so bad. I can understand a mother says you'd be better off in this garbage can rather than grow up as a teenager in this world. I'm not doing it. Boom. Now don't you go out and do that. This is not the kind of conversation you are going to get when you meet judgment. But what I'm saying is that those persons are not behaving like that on their own. And here's another thing that Allah tells us. G-d tells us. Think not that your creation is a bigger creation than the heavens and the earth. And we say Allahu Akbar. That's our expression. It means Allah is greater. Allah is the greatest. Allah is bigger. Allah is more important. That's what it means. It means all that. It means Allah is more important. Allah is the greatest. Allah is greater. Allah is bigger. It means all of that. Allahu Akbar.
G-d says think not that your creation is a bigger creation, a bigger matter of G-d than the creation of the heavens and earth. That's to caution us that you have free will. You have a free mind, free intellect, free intelligence. You are subject to go off on a tangent and never get back to your reality. You're subject to go out on your own thoughts and imagine yourself to be bigger than was you really are. I never did accept Atlas even when I was a child. I saw Atlas once. Atlas, carrying the earth on his back. I said, that's stupid. That's what I said as a child, that's stupid. A man holding the whole earth on his back. But in our scripture, the last of the scriptures to the world, the Qur'an, G-d says that the responsibility for the rule was offered to the mountains, to the angels, to the mountains and man rushed up to accept responsibility for holding up the heaven and earth. He's going to hold the heaven and the earth up by himself. What does G-d say of that tendency in man to think that he can be responsible for the order of earth and the heavens? G-d says that man has a tendency to be hasty and foolish.
Hasty and foolish. And that's where we are when get bigheaded we think that we can manage everything by ourselves. Brothers, you want to have a better situation for the children to come up, make your own life conform to what is truly human and natural at home. The natural way that you have been created to evolve as a male, a man is the same that you see in the dignified, the more evolve socially evolved life of animals. The most socially evolved male in the animal kingdom, he respects the female especially over the children. When you come in and tell your wife how to put the diaper on, something is wrong with your head, or your wife needs to be taken to a mental hospital. Every woman knows how to take care of babies. That's her nature. G-d has created her for that. She knows how to take care of that baby. That's her responsibility. Even if you know better, then be a wise superior. If you can't give it to her in a way that makes her happy, don't give it to her at all. Just suffer for her to do it the way she's doing it. In the long run, you may find that even your wisdom was incorrect.
Yes, don't come, don't tell your wife I want this painted, this room painted white, and this room painted burgundy. The home is like a hen’s nest, my man. That's her home. You let her tell you how she wants the house painted. Don't tell her our wall need wallpaper unless she asks you. If she asks you, then that's different. Don't come in and just take over everything. That's her thing. And be happy to have her prepare the meal. Some of you all can't cook and you take over. See the children wondering how come mom and dad don't get along. So, you pass it on, that division, that tendency to divide and be selfish, dependent, not social. Become a social unit to the children so they become the same way you are. They're imposing their will. If we want to have good working social groups, whether it be the first family, the one mom and dad are responsible, our home or whether it be the congregation we call the Mosque, the Mosque group, the Jumu'ah. If we want peace and goodness and progress for our social units, we have to not be too hasty, not be too selfish, not be too possessive. We have to have the tendency to want to share and see everybody come up together rather than some come over each other, over us. This has to happen.
And have the intelligence and the human decency to not just run your mouth all the time and not listen to somebody else. Even if you have to put a lock on your jaw or something, just do it. Sit there with a lock on your mouth, make you a lock. Lock your teeth, you lock it. Just "grrr, grrr."
Say may have five minutes to talk. So, you just lock your mouth for five minutes to hear from somebody else. A lot of times the problem is just that you don't listen to each other. Give everybody a chance to talk. Give the children a chance to talk. Parents used to listen to children. I remember my mother, she'd be working, be busy and it would look like all of a sudden that it dawned on her she was neglecting us and she'd been too busy to give us any attention. Now I'm not talking about attention like here's $5 to go to the movies. That kind attention is what's making our children turn against us. Because it's saying to them, this $5 you give me or this $20 you give me supposed to be a substitute or a a fair exchange for the relationship that I'm supposed to have with you. It is supposed to have a relationship with you and you are giving them a relationship with money. But what happens? The family is lost, the family gets lost. The members all turn against each other in the home. There is not a sense of unity for the family. Everybody's looked at individually. Mama, she's an individual, not a part of the unit, not the whole, not family. Father's an individual. Each child, individual.
You go in your room, you go in your room, everybody going their own way. You meet only because you have to. Not all of you but too many of you. You eat together because you have to. And most of them don't eat together anymore. And you know people in the south, they didn't do that. My parents come the south, they didn't even need Islam to tell them what Islam says. Our Prophet, Prayers and Peace be Upon him, he said the blessing is in the number that participated in the meal, in the meal at the table. So, if there's one eating alone, that's zero. Get two it increases. The more the number, the more the blessing. G-d gives blessings on that table. The more that shares in the meal, the more blessings in the meal. But we have that naturally from the south. My mother she didn't know that hadith. I doubt she knew it before she passed. But it was just something in her nature that wanted all her children at home when dinner time came, especially for that meal after work. Go to work that's different. Going to school that's different. But that supper, she wanted all of them to sit down together and eat. Everybody. And it would hurt her if some would show that they didn't want to eat, they'd wanted to go out and play or want to do something else.
That would hurt her heart. Then sometimes she would tell you, sit down and eat. You're not going anywhere. Sit down. Another thing I should say on this note is that the best Muslim is only the best human being. That's all it means. To be the best Muslim means to be the best human being. So whatever human excellence you had in the south, that was progress for your Islamic responsibility. Don't forget it. Go back and pick it up. Get the best that you left. Work to bring those things to be a part of your life again, that we left behind, that we lost in this crazy busy commercial world that we are living in now. Allah most High, G-d says that He created everything in pairs, pairs. But not just pairs. Honorable pairs, pairs deserving of respect. Honor.
Says that He created all the sons of Adam with honor, with respect. We can say dignity. And we have a belief in our inherent dignity. Inborn created inherent natural dignity. Allah, G-d Most High said that He made every child of Adam, honorable. Honorable. And G-d says He has made everything in honorable pairs, honorable pairs. To be respected. So that means we should have a sense of our worth as a creation of Allah, as a human creation of Allah that makes us feel good about ourselves. We should have a perception of our own personal or individual worth that makes us respect any person in our form, created form, no matter what color they are, what nation they belong to, in our created form. Whether they are respecting themselves or not, that doesn't matter. They can be disrespecting themselves but still the knowledge is correct. What G-d is saying is true. They're ignorant to their dignity. They're ignorant to their created dignity. They're ignorant to their created honor that G-d created them with and for. But that doesn't mean that we should be ignorant of or that we should say because they behave that way, we have no obligation to respect that person. And in Islam we are told by the Prophet that we are the mirror of our brother.
And the mirror of our brother means that we should reflect the best of what he's supposed to be. When he looks at us, he should see the Muslim that he's supposed to be. And if he doesn't see in us the Muslim that he's supposed to be, then we are not the mirror. You understand what I'm saying? Yes. If he looks at us and he doesn't see the Muslim he's supposed to be, then we are not being the mirror for our brother. We look at the mirror to see what's wrong. So, when we look at each other, we should see the true Muslim in his excellence. And every time Muslims look at that Muslim and he knows that he's out of his excellence, he's looking at halal and he's carrying haram. And when he looks at halal and his brother, he sees that something is wrong in him. He says my brother has halal, I have my haram. So, you have to make him conscious of the haram that he has in himself by presenting yourself without haram. Now I look in the audience and realize that their are Non-Muslims here. Halal means what Allah wants. haram means what Allah forbids. In Jewish language, one Kosher, one not.
But this Kosher for us, It includes everything. Doesn't just cover foods, everything. Our behavior is supposed to be halal. Our dress is supposed to be halal. Our speech should be halal. Our emotions should be halal. Don't you know we can lose our sense, the emotional sense and make fools of ourselves and appear to be very, very stupid and ugly and vulgar and disgusting. Just because we give ourselves to certain emotions and get carried away, get carried away. So, Muslims are to avoid tendencies to take them out of the excellent form that Allah wants them in and to present themselves always in excellent form so that they will be mirrors for those who are out of form. Now getting back to my thought, we cannot just ignore people who are in misery and ignorance and bad condition and say, "Oh they are worthless people. They're no good. They're worthless people. I have no interest in them I have no obligation to those worthless people." We are not to be that way. We see them and it hurts our heart that they're cheating themselves out of their dignity that Allah created them for. Or they have been seduced or tricked or misguided and suffering the loss of that great honor that G-d created every one of us for. And it should make us want to do something to reach them, something to help them, something influence them to change for the better. This is the way Muslims are supposed to be.
Now I'm saying this in connection with the interest we have and our youth. Whatever Allah has created in us, it is going to work for us or it's going to punish us. It's going to work for us or it's going to for us. So, if I want youth, our young men, they've been created for honor, but here in the home they have no honor. The family has no honor. The parents have no honor. They're looking for honor. They have nothing to feel good about, nothing to feel proud about. Nothing to boast about, nothing to make them feel good about. Yes, we are up, we are up. We have been doing something. We have made it, achieving something. They see nothing but negativity, nothing but degrading things in the family. Nothing to lift that spirit, nothing to make them feel proud to be a member of that family. So, they going out trying to find that comfort somewhere else. So, they find it in this world now that's designed by Satan. I don't mean to hold everything in the world as designed by Satan, but the traps in this world are designed by Satan. The attractions, the attracting things are designed by the Satan. So, they go out in this world and they find that comfort among their street friends, their peers in the streets.
In the streets, they'll join a gang or join a group that has a sense of group, a sense of social unit, social unity, social unit, social wholeness. They will find that comfort, though it's not fulfilling but it is more than what they had at home. They find that camaraderie, they find that brotherhood, they find that family that they didn't have at home. And don't think that they are immoral. Sometimes you organize to do wrong things, bad things, whatever. But they're not born of immoral life. No. If one of them steal from the other they say, hey man, I was wrong. But now their morals are separated from their community morals and now they have a special community sense of their own for their own small gang, a group. And their law is different. Their moral base is different in everything. Their morals work for them. The responsibility first falls on the parent. First on the parent. Our society not providing employment opportunity for our children. That's a bad situation. Something should be done about it. But that's no reason for our parents to give up and say, well I can't, we can't do nothing.
They can't get jobs. So, what can I do? Many of us, we close our eyes and take the money that we know our son gets from selling drugs. So, we fall down with the children morally, we fall down with the children, but we are worse than them because they have been driven to what they're doing. They have been driven to identify in another social concept or another social unit. And that social unit to them makes such things lawful or permitted. But you supposed to belong to a different thinking, different social construction and you feeding on theirs, which makes you worse than them. Now I know it is a big thing for us to say we are not going to approve of bad behavior in our children. We're not going to support that bad behavior. Some of us afraid now they'll kill us. And some of them will. They're doing it, they're killing the parents. But that's no reason to give up. My mother, she had a couple of sons that were pretty tough. And one in particular that I'm remembering right now, she insisted upon him obeying. He was a big old joker with muscles and a moustache on his lip.
And he resisted her and she said, I'll kill you or you'll kill me. So, we had mothers at one time that weren't even afraid to die for their principle. And that's what we need now. We need parents that's willing to die if they have to rather than give in and go along with the abnormality, deformed kind of family life that we have.
You should be willing to risk your own life if you have to. And if you stand up like that, you will shock an awakening in your youngsters and your children. As my mother did to my brother. She shocked his senses back to his brain, back in his head because he saw on her face determination. My mother didn't play. He knew that he would certainly have to kill her, or she was going to kill him. And I'll tell you how convincing she was. My sister, one of my sisters and one of my brothers rushed to mama. "Mama don't kill him. Mama don't kill him." They believed. When I was young, I didn't have no thoughts. I was so shocked I was just looking like this. She had stilled every thought in my head. The burden is first on the parent. If the parents will stand up upon moral strength, stand up upon moral strength, stand up upon what you know is right and insist that your children behave in the way that respect what is right, what is true, what is honest, what is decent, what is correct, et cetera. Then the society will be compelled to make great sacrifices for those families. But if you become like your children, they those in power to make changes they say for what, they're not right.
Muslims, we are supposed to be a model community, a model community. Not just for ourselves, a model community as an example to all people. Allah says of us, "You are the best community brought out, evolved for the people, all the people." Lin nas, for the people. We can't even be selfish as Muslims when we turn toward the Ka'ba, the ancient house to make prayer. We know the Prophet even allowed heathens to continue there for a while. He allowed heathens. Idol worshippers. To continue to go to that house for a while, until they could be educated, until understanding to be put out. And when understanding got strong enough, then he told them it is not fit for the unclean to be responsible for that house. And then only the Muslim that didn't practice filth, idol worship. Only those that didn't have those things on, they were permitted to be the custodians and to make their pilgrimage there at that house. But it was gradually done because G-d created them for the same humanity that He created everybody else for. Even though they were living in corruption, He created them for the same dignity and the same human destiny that He created all of us for. And they would be given a chance to gradually reform before they died because the house belonged to them, just not in their state.
But it belonged to them as their inheritance, as their right because they were created human in the best mode. And their deviations and ignorance took them out of that mode and disqualified them.
All they had to do is turn again to what Allah intended for them. They were qualified again. Isn't it wonderful if we could think that way when we look at the house? G-d says of that house He says Buni Al Lin Nas, it was built for the humanity. All people. Didn't say Arabs, didn't say for whites, didn't say for blacks, didn't say for Muslims, didn't say for Christians. He said Buni Al Lin Nas. Could have said Buni Al Lin Muslim, Muslim, couldn't He? G-d could have said for the Muslim, but He didn't. Because that was built for the people, this house built by Abraham and G-d called Abraham, a leader for the nations, a leader for not one nation, a leader for the nations, all nations, all people. He's called Father Abraham by the three great faiths. So, there is an inherent honor, an inherent dignity, an inherent personal worth that we all have and should be respected. And the social context is the place for all of us to grow. The social context. We couldn't grow if we didn't have mom and dad or a mom to have us in the home setting to raise us, be a part of a family. We couldn't develop these intellects.
We'd be nothing but dumb brutes. Our children, our youth, they need to feel a part, a legitimate welcome, honorable part of social groups. That welcome and dignity should be first in their own family. And then we should provide it in the outer community so that they feel that way. In the outer community, we tell our youth there's no jobs and then we glamorize crime on television. We show the dope pushers with wealth, dressed in the fine clothes, riding big cars, going to jail, smiling, waving at their friends. "Okay Joe, see you later, man. I be on the streets in a little while Jack." And there, this boy got the same social pride in him that everybody else got, but it's suppressed, it's crushed. And he sees this fellow there on TV, got all this attention and everything, made the six o'clock news. And he's a nobody. So, he joins the group like that. So, he at least have hope that maybe he would be somebody too one day. He can't go out and buy what he wants, no money. He said no job. "No jobs." You give him a welfare stamp to go sell.
But here somebody gonna give him a bag of drugs and pretty soon he going to be driving a nice car and wearing nice clothes. So, we have urges in us. That's what I'm saying. We have urges in us for dignity, for honor, for esteem, for social respect in society. We have urges in us that will force us to do the wrong thing if we are not given an opportunity to do the right thing. And the right thing is that our men should have work, G-d evolved man to go to work. To get up with the sun and go out and find some food for his wife, for his children. To get up with the sun and make sure that his family rest secure and with their stomach fed tonight. That's a man's dignity. That's all our dignity. My father, before he converted to the brand Islam that he accepted thinking it was the real Islam, my mother said that he was refusing welfare. He was too proud. So, what he did, he just hung out in the street and drink just to get drunk. Anybody get money, they would put their money together to get a bottle.
She said, son, once I told your father, why don't you go with me to the welfare, they'll put you on too. She said, he said, I don't want you on welfare. I don't want my children on welfare. Said I hate to come in the house. He didn't even want come in the house. She had go look for him on the street, beg to come home. That pride, too proud. That was during the depression. The depression years around 1930, 1930, 31. In 31, his life changed. He changed his religion. His life changed. I don't say he did the right thing. I wouldn't want to do what he did. But I respect his pride. I respect his sense of pride, his sense of dignity, his sense of manhood that made him just waste his life out in the street rather than coming home to face his family, not able to provide, not able to accept his share of responsibility for the household and for the family. So, we have a similar situation, but the society now is not suffering material privation like it was suffering during the Great depression. So, there is material, there is money, but not enough. Not enough industry, not enough employment to employ the many youth that we have.
But there's money for crime, there's money for crime. There are those that got some money. So, we let the drugs be sold to those that buy drugs and that those that don't have employment, sell the drugs. That's their employment. There's plenty goods around. Some have too much. So, you ignore the problem and let some take from others. That's their employment. Important. Employed thieves. Employed dope pushers. Right? That's what it is. But you have reached the time, time when the economy has been changed to allow an economy of crime. Economically based crime. That work says that downside with the upside, the underground with the above the ground work. They all working together. Now that's bad. Who's being wasted? Mostly our children, we are being wasted. Why are so many of us being wasted in comparison to the others? It is because once we had a strong religious fabric for our life. The sixties confused everything. The seventies took us off base, took us off a spiritual base and put us on a get the money base. Just get the money just to have money. That means more to us than respect for sacred matters. It has become something that's morally accepted now.
That you go out for money and make money your G-d. Money your main devotion. Mainly devoted to just getting a dollar. Anything that you make your main devotion becomes your idol that you worship. Whatever is the main devotion in your life is your idol that you worship. See G-d operating in our lives operates to bring every tendency, every influence, every purpose, every aim in our life under G-d. Now if every tendency, every influence, every purpose, every aim in your life is ruled by your appetite or your desire to have more money, then that has replaced G-d in your life. And that's what this society encourages for those who have no sense of direction from G-d. It encourages them to make money your G-d.
And this is no new discovery, but what we are talking about is revealed plainly in the scriptures of the great religions. So, this is no simple matter. And I know some things sometimes make me shaky to say to you. And I know it make some of you all shaky to hear it. But some things have to be said. Satan is real. Hell fire is real. This is what Allah tells us in the Qur'an. That's no myth.
You hear about the devil in your religion. You hear about hellfire in religion, and you may think these things myths. They're real. You who don't have any sense of direction. You who have given your life to the dark, given your life to sin. You are in hell now. That's your hell. You're in hell now. For Muslims, hell begins in this life and also heaven begins in this life. So, what you have in this scene of misery and confusion, self-destruction, et cetera is hell. That's hell. The waste of our youth. That's hell. Satan has designed the traps to cut us off from our future, to make us lose the sense of personal worth, personal human worth, personal human honor that G-d created us with. Satan designed the traps to take us away from that. Satan is not a white man, not a brown man, not a black man, not a yellow man. Satan is not be identified like that. He can come in any form he wants to come in. Satan operates in the world, in the real world, Satan, according to the teachings of Islam, Satan was once one of the jinn and he was once serving in the role of leader for the angels.
And in our religion we are taught that the jinn was made from a fire that gives up no smoke, gives up no smoke. What is that saying in symbol? What is that saying in symbolic language? It is saying to us that Satan has passions that do not repent. He repents nothing. He sees no mistakes in him.
When we look at our world, we can see that science has been used to create things for us and to influence the order of our life in a way that has punished us very, very seriously. Science has done this. Where science has benefited us really in many ways, science has also punished us. The things we complain about now, plastics, ozone layer, affecting the ozone screen in the heaven, in the skies. And the plastic, the threat of plastics that can't go back, dissolve, go back into the earth. Where did these things come from? Science. And so many other things that we have. Science. The behavior that you have. Some scientists are suggesting that man's science be used by man to take over human behavior, manipulate human behavior, control human behavior. We've heard this kind of talk and we've heard the complaints coming from others who say this shouldn't be allowed, that would be tampering with human nature, et cetera. May create something worse, something that will make us worse.
But there are men of science who would like to move on that. Now I see them as the tools of Satan, the tools of Satan. And anytime a society won't work to provide jobs for all the members of that society but rather influence the culture to occupy the idle members in self-destruction. I say that's Satan working in that society. Whether the instruments of Satan are consciously aware that they're serving Satan or not, that's Satan operating in that society. So don't think Satan is a myth. Satan is real. And we have to follow the guidance of G-d and not be afraid of Satan because G-d says the schemes of Satan are weak, weak. Weak for whom? Weak for the real believer in G-d, weak for the strong adamant believer in G-d who's going to make his sole purpose obedience to his Lord. So, for that person, the schemes of Satan are weak and even Christianity tell you all- Resist Satan. You're not to go along with him. Resist Satan and he will flee from you. Thank you very much. As Salaam Alaikum.



