"The Guidance Of Allah": Part 1

Imam Warith Deen Muhammad


Dear  beloved  Muslims  I  would  like   to  begin  the  Khutbah  today with a  saying  of  Prophet Muhammad,   Peace  and   Blessings  be  upon  him (Salla-llahu  Alaihe Wa-Sallam).     I  have  here a  collection  of  Hadith translated  by Dr.   Ezzeddin  Ibrahim,   a  brother who has great  honor and  high place  in Muslim countries especially  in  the  Emirates. The brother visited us and was   a   friend   of   the   community   before   I came   into  office.     He  has  been a  friend  of   the  community's  for   some years.  I believe for five (5) years or more.  Dr. Ezzeddin has translated 40 most popular Hadith.  Hadith means "sayings".  Sayings of Prophet Muhammad, hadith.  These hadiths show us or tell us how Prophet Muhammad lived our Religion Al Islam.  I'm reading now from Hadith, I believe the 25th of these Hadith.  We have these, if we don't have them we can get more.  All of you should have these.  They help you get a clear and easy understanding of the life of Prophet Muhammad and the spirit of our Religion.

"They said:  0 Messenger of Allah, when one of us fulfils his sexual desire will he have some reward for that?" He, the Prophet said: 'Do you (not) think that if you were to act upon it unlawfully that you would be sinning?  Likewise, if you have acted upon it lawfully you will have a reward."  This is a saying of Prophet Muhammad, (PBUH).

I took this saying as the theme of my Khutbah today because in this society people go to all kinds of extremes to avoid sin, but this society is the society most steep in sin.  It is because we haven't been given clear guidance of Almighty God.  We don't follow truth in a sensible way or in a rational way.  We follow it with our emotional sentiments.  Sex is not something to be-treated as dirty. Sex is a blessing of Almighty God.  If it was not for sex we couldn't remain on this planet.  God, in creating this function in us, has united us male and female together as husband and wife and has made possible the other relationships of parents and children, brothers and sisters in a home environment.  So Almighty God in giving us the function of sex has made possible for us to have a beautiful world of closeness, of intimacy, of warmth, of feelings for each other, of love for each other, of concern.  This brothers and sisters is the very pillar of society.  Society can not exist without the family ties, the family unit and those beautiful sentiments that evolve or go out of that unit.

Almighty Allah gave us sex as a great blessing as He gave us all of His Graces as great blessings.  It is only harmful to us when we abuse, misuse the blessings of Almighty God.  Prophet Muhammad was guided to lead us into the light and understanding of the problems that the world had in the day of Prophet Muhammad and before. He has dealt with this problem of sex with a few words; with a very few words by merely telling us that in sex is a reward for us, not just a pleasure.  He could have said there is pleasure in it.  He did not.  He said there is a reward in it.  Meaning that God rewards us for having lawful sex.  The rationale is this:  That if God punishes us for having sex out of wedlock or unlawful sex then shouldn't it be the rational conclusion that He will reward us for having sex within the lawful boundaries or within wedlock.

What are these blessings?  They are many.  When a man and woman enjoy each other lawfully, having a valid license-, an open marriage, not hiding anything of their relationship from their family members or from their friends or from the society.  Then they have a closeness, a privacy that they enjoy and it's a lawful   privacy.  It's a legitimate, respectable privacy.' And they have done something to please God and they have done something to protect the welfare of the society.  They have done something to protect their offspring.  For if their offspring come up without lawfully, and open, acknowledged marriage then their offspring will be subject to abuses.  The society will abuse them. Their rights are subject to be taken from them.  The rights of inheritance are subject to be taken from them.  Whereas with  a lawful  marriage that is known, these rights are most likely protected.

This is a blessing but also a reward and  reward is even stronger than blessing, isn't it.  But we are blessed, but when God rewards us we are blessed indeed.

When one enjoys a relationship with his wife and none other except his lawful wife he gets a reward from, God.  The more they love each other and remain loyal to each other the more God will bless each one of them with a blessing that the two of them recognize and can share.  Yes!  Almighty God, if their love is weak, God will strengthen their love.  If their love has grown, you know what I mean when I say weak, flat tasting, not exciting anymore, God will reward them and make their love have flavor again.  Yes!  If they have lost the tender concern for each other, if they remain faithful to each other for the love of Allah, that is obeying Him, then God will bring back that tenderness in their relationship.  No matter what is wrong with our relationship, maybe there are lustful tendencies on the part of one of the other mates and the marriage is threatened because someone wants to go out and set fires outside of the house.  

God will even bless them to overcome that.  Take that problem out of their life as though it never existed.  If they remain faithful, obedient to God's law.  So Allah has asked us to be loyal, to be faithful to one another. To be trustworthy, not to betray the contracts we make and what contract is more important then the contract that binds a man with a woman for the generation of a new family.  Yes!  What contract could be more important than that? You have each other and you have offspring, most likely, that will come from that relationship.  And even if you don't have your own offspring maybe you adopt an offspring. But if you don t have the proper relationship between each other, you will be just as a destructive as influence in the life of that adopted child as you would be in your own.  It makes no difference.

So it takes the right kind of relationship the right kind of union, and to have that it takes respect for  Almighty God.  No human being is big enough to maintain his affairs, to keep his life in order without the help of Almighty Allah.  Only Allah can guarantee us a successful life, successful relationship.  We can work for them, but we can't guarantee anything.  Today we might be ideally suited for handling our affairs,  but some tragedy can come into our life and take away our qualifications just like that.   Yesterday we were fair.  We could deal justly with our wife or with our husband or the members of the household, but some traumatic thing occurs in our lives and throw us off balance and we can't deal justly with each other anymore.  All kinds of tests down the road for us. " Allah says in the Quran that He tests us with affluence, with, abundance of the goods and the things that we like and He tests us also with scarcity.  Some of us can't manage when the time of scarcity comes around.  We go to pieces because things are scarce.  They are not plentiful like they use to be.

All these tests are out here waiting to test the true believer and waiting to separate those who truly believe from those who are pretenders.  So we have to be aware of that and know that Allah is our only salvation.  Nothing can save us except Allah.  Nothing guarantees success except Allah, but Allah Himself .  And Allah says in the Quran
"And God warns you Himself."  The faithful believers, they know that because often we find ourselves saying, "thank you, Allah for saving me that time".

Allah-U-Akbar.  Dear .beloved Muslims again Prophet Muhammad said "None of you will become a believer or believe until first his desires follow what I have come to you with".  These are very short sayings. They are not wordy, very short.  But they go right home to the trouble. They strike right at the trouble and what does it amount to?   It amounts to this: the individual is not going to be helped by God until that individual first wants to be like God wants him to be.  As long as you don't want to be like Allah wants you to be then you are not going to get much help from Allah.  But as your desire increases to be like Allah wants you to be the help is going to increase.  Yes!

Lastly, Allah says in the Quran that never will Allah change what is burdening a people until they 1st change what is burdening their hearts or their conscience.  There are some people who feel no burden on the conscience.  They can go on committing crime after crime. Increasing the crime, getting involved in more serious and serious trouble and their conscience is hardly ever bothered.  Don't worry about them.  They have gone so far they are not even our species anymore.  They are not human.  They don't belong to our class, the human class.  Don't bother about them.  Your only concern for those people should be to stay away from them and to guard yourself against their influences because they are the devil.  They are the devils.  The devils are those who have no conscience, who have no feeling at all. No after thoughts that worry them when they have committed an evil or an unjust act against the people.  

They can do wrong and suffer no mental agony.  Not even a knock on the door of their conscience.-. Those people are devils.  We are not here to beg devils to come to the straight way.  We're here to call believers to the way.  We're here to call Muslims to the way,  or people of faith or people seeking guidance.  The devils don't seek guidance.  They come to guidance to seek a way to supplant or to sabotage the works,  feeding the weakness of the people, setting up something to drive them away or pull them away from the path of Allah.  They come among us to whisper lies.  And often they take on the dress of a very serious, righteous minded advocate.  They will be the first ones to tell you how you are suppose to pray.  Or how you are suppose to address Allah, or bow you are suppose to respect Chief Imam.  They will tell you I don't think you know him yet.  

Suggesting that he's superhuman. In hopes that you will buy it and become a member of the shirk's class. The class that establishes idols, associates, false gods with Allah. Yes!  So this is no easy road.  The path of Al Islam is not the path of the " jahilliyah".  The path of the jahilliyah is the path of the ignorant people.  Can't no ignorant people follow the path of Al Islam. Al Islam makes you wise and  it only takes one dose.  Yes!  The first dose of Al Islam you get you become wise, yes.  You haven't learned: everything in the book, but your eyes have been opened to see wisely. Yes, and God guides us and God protects us.  Though we have to be aware of the company  of the devil.  The company of the devil are on earth walking about in human form.  They've not been making trouble for us in any other form.  Whenever they make trouble for you, they are in human form.

That is serious trouble.  We sometimes wakes up out of a nightmare, but that nightmare, it passes on and leaves us alone.  Very seldom does the same nightmare keep coming.  But these human devils,, they keep coming.  They're a constantly recurring nightmare.  That's right, yes! So when you open your eyes and go out in the public places you put on your defense.  And the best defense is Allah.

We say "Bismillah".  It means with Allah's help or with His power, because of Him not because of me.  "Bismillah", He'll open the way. And we say "Ah-Lae-He Tawar-Kal-na", "And on Allah we put our trust". When you go out of your homes ask Allah to keep your house safe.  Ask Allah to give you protection in your traveling about.  You don't know who you're going to run into or what you're going to run into.  Yes! A believer who doesn't commit big sin may find himself falling into big trouble because he doesn't realize that forgetting God is the biggest of all sin.  Yes!

So remember to say "Bismillah".  Remember to put your trust in Allah and to put your children in the hands of Almighty God. It's a blessing of Allah.  And only Allah can bless us like that.  Nothing else can help us like that.  Yes!

So many things happen in our lives daily that we overlook.  We don't give enough importance to them.  In fact I recognized that in my own life and I just made a point.  I said no matter how big or how small a thing is from now on, the moment I become aware that a good thing is happening in my life I'm going to say "thank you Allah".  I just made it a habit, no matter how small it is I try to remember to say "Al Haradulilah, Al Haradulilah", All praises due to Allah, thanks to Allah".  Yes!  That is a great blessing to be aware of those things.

Dear beloved Muslims Allah is bigger than anything that you could possibly image.  Allah is more significant, more important.  That's what we mean when we say "Allah-U-Akbar".  So don't ever think that something in your life is a problem too big.  Nothing is too big, Allah is much bigger.  Don't let anything stand in your way of giving your full devotion to Almighty Allah.  Because nothing is going to reward you anymore than Allah will reward you.  Yes.

We seek security. We seek pleasure.  We seek enjoyment in individuals, and in business and in our adventures, etc.  But believe me, the best pleasure, the best reward, the best fulfillment comes from pleasing Almighty God.  Yes.  In fact there is a scientist who said that almost in the very same words, the scientist Einstein, Albert Einstein.  He said that the experience one has with the mysterious, meaning God, Faith, is the greatest of all experiences.  There's nothing, no experience. He was a scientist and not a petty scientist.  You know Albert Einstein, they're still following his discoveries.  In other words he is still teaching many.  He's dead and gone but he's still teaching many.  Yes! He knew that his physical endeavor was nothing compared to the guidance of God and the life that only God can give us.  In fact the physical Einstein said, the physical experience leads to a metaphysical experience. The physical leads us to seek a higher understanding of the physical things that we arc dealing with.  Yes.  If It doesn't do that then it's really closing up its benefit before we get them.  And for some the benefits are closed.  That's because we are so small minded.  

So tight hearted, so small minded, we can't expand our hearts to receive all the goodness that is out here for us.  We can't expand our minds to give justice to other people and other ideas other than our own, you know.  And because of that we remain just dried up like a piece of fruit separated from its life source.  It just dries up and dries up and dries up, gets so tight and small, pretty soon it's fit for nothing but to be recycled.  Can't be used anymore unless it's recycled.  Has to be grafted all over again.  Yes.  This is the way life is, you know. Many of us, we find ourselves going back through the death-life processes. Not as souls or personalities of individual beings, but what I mean by that, you'll just become something on a record and your body go back into the earth and fertilize trees and feed worms and other things and you become just a record.  Whereas if you had lived the right way you could have come into a beautiful life.  And you could have passed away a beautiful thing.  That's right!.  We don't pass away dumb, empty and ugly.  We can go out as beautiful, in fact, much more beautiful than when we came in, yes.  And it's fact that every little baby comes in beautiful. I've never seen a baby come into this world ugly.  That's right.  The most commonly looking features are often accompanied by the most bright and beautiful life or personality.

Allah-U-Akbar!


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"The Guidance Of Allah": Part 2

Imam Warith Deen Muhammad


Al Hamdulillahi Rabbil Aalameen.  All praises due to Allah, the Guardian-Evolver, Keeper, Cherisher, the Sustainer of all the Worlds. Peace and Blessings be upon Prophet Muhammad, the Universal Messenger, Prophet, the Last of the Prophets, the Seal of the Prophets, the fulfillment of Prophecy, the Messenger to all of us, the guide for all of us, the Imam for all of us.  Because of him we have had great Imams.  We've had great Teachers, great Scholars.  We've had great, reformers because Prophet Muhammad established the Religion with the help of Cod and the guidance of God and left a great example.  An example so great that it's called "the mighty example".  Left a mighty example for us.

Dear beloved Muslims let us prove to the world that we are not a petty people.  That we are not crabs in a barrel.  That we are not people who can't stand to see someone other than our self get credit, receive honors^ or be lifted above us.   Let us prove that in this day and time that there are people who will except that one be lifted up so all can be drawn up behind him.  Let us keep Prophet Muhammad before us as our first Imam.  And let us respect good leadership when we find good leadership.  Let us not be influenced by any un-Islamic thing in our lives.  Don't allow the outside agitators, the outside sabotagers of   good works, don't allow them to influence you with racism, to turn you away from Prophet Muhammad.  Because if you do, you'll be setting your own doom.  Allah has raised us with His clear truth above racism, above a physical mindedness, to think as sound minded, sober minded human beings. 

To live with our hearts and our intelligence in one form.  Allah has made that possible for us. , To fight out ugly prejudices, jealousies that corrode the human goodness , the human excellence, like rust eating away an iron bar.  The iron is very hard, but corrosion sets in and pretty soon the slightest wind can blow that iron bar   about like dust.  In fact it becomes dust and the slightest little wind blows it about.  What will protect us?  Obedience to Allah.  Love for Allah, but if we don't love Allah how can we obey Allah?  The fear of Allah, a grown-up fear.  Knowing the consequences, fearing to displease Allah, not that He's going to be upset by our sins, but we know His Will and we want to be in accord with His Will.  And we know that He doesn't have Mesh and blood heart and sentiments Like we have, but we know that He must have a supreme love.  A .supreme love because all of this goodness we discover in obeying Him can not help but come from a source that is all love. 

Allah must be love.  He must be care.  He must be tenderness.  All of these attributes, when they are seen as divine attributes in the total concepts of Almighty God,  don't show us a weak, fragile human being, but shows us the source of the human strength.  We are tender and merciful in hearts, we are compassionate, we have love for each other, but we know that there must be a being that has given us these things and that being must have the very source of this goodness that we only get as a reflection or as a sign, of the much greater thing in Almighty God.  Yes!

Dear beloved Believers, while we are worshipping Almighty God Allah as a being that is not creation, but Creator, don't forget that God is able to communicate with us on levels benefit him, while we are not able to communicate on levels above ourselves.  So don't think that God is not capable of hearing your pitiful conversation.  Go on and make the pitiful conversation, God, He's able to relate to us on all levels.  He understands His creation.  He knows the inferiorities, infirmities of His creation.  He knows the steps that you have come.  And He knows the depths that you can fall down into.  So don't be afraid to speak to Allah just as you would speak to yourself of someone else.  That's why the Muslim is given the standard prayers and we pray to Allah a standard way, but also we are given "Dua".  We call on God.  "Dua" means calling on God.  We call on God.  We make dua like this.  And the Muslim is allowed in his standard prayer to speak his heart or his mind while he is in prostration with his head on the floor.  He is allowed to pour out his heart to God.  It is recorded that Prophet Muhammad remained with head upon the floor, the ground, in prayer for so long they though he had passed away.   
 
They thought he had passed away, but no he was pouring out his heart to his Creator, to Allah, the Supreme. Yes.  And look at the tenderness, the beauty in this man, that same man who would spend hours on the floor speaking to God.  Also respected tenderness of a child.    Once  a little child got on his back while he was in prostration and he refused to get up until the baby left him alone.  He wasn't like some of us, self-righteous robots,  who would get up and dump the baby from his back.  Just get right up.  The baby falls from his back.  He wouldn't even turn around to see if the baby was hurt.  Nothing can disturb his prayer. 

So Allah has given us an example, mighty example in Prophet Muhammad.  Knowing that we would go to the extreme, he told us how to place matters in their proper order of importance, of urgency.  For God would charge him for hurting that child.  He was praying to God, but why add sin while you are communicating with Almighty God?  If he had gotten up and dumped the baby on the floor he would have had to make another prayer. He being a good man, he would pray to God to forgive him for dumping this
baby off his back, you see.

Muslims when they are praying and the baby is screaming we don't continue praying.  If there are women, we trust our women to take care of the babies.  But say if a brother knows that the baby is with him and there's no one else to take care of that baby and while he's praying the baby screams out, should he keep praying or go to see what's wrong with the baby? He should close his prayer "As-Salaam- Alaikum wa Rahmatu llah, As-Salaam-Alaikum wa Rahmatu Hah" He should close his prayer and go right away and see what is wrong with the baby.

Prophet Muhammad has demonstrated to us how to live our Religion as Allah wants us to live it, to be faithful,  obedient but also to be intelligent.

Dear Muslims I hope that we all can follow the guidance of God as it should be followed.  And respect Allah as the Holy Quran says^ Allah the Most High says with the respect that is due Him.  Don't give Him less than is due,  and you will be successful.  Let us do all that we can to keep this Religion spreading in our personal lives, the life of our love ones, and through out the world.  In our going about let us carry the light of our faith so that other people will be attracted to this great Religion and be helped by it .  Let us remember always that every Muslim is a preacher of the Religion.  In Al Islam every Muslim is obligated to teach his religion.  There are many quotes I could give you establishing this but I'll give you one.  Says that the Muslim is obligated to learn the Quran and also teach it.  You are not just obligated to learn it for yourself, you are also obligated to teach it, to give what you learn to others.     

In the days of Prophet Muhammad (Salla-llnhu Alaihe Wa-Salaam), Prophet Muhammad was not giving the people Qurans our like this, books, written books.  The Scripture was fulfilled in Prophet Muhammad.  The message went out on the tablets of their hearts. Yes!  It went out on the tablets of the hearts of those firm believers. They memorized whole chapters, memorized whole books.  Prophet Muhammad never cared about notes he preached right directly from his heart and from his mind.  God had revealed it as Allah says in the Quran "on his heart and he called the Believers to it and it was engraved in their hearts".  When the book was put together and made a paper book, where did they get the writing from?  They got it from the engravement on the hearts of the believers.  They called those in who had the engravement in the hearts and they asked them "will you verify that this is the word of God".  And many of them agreed "yes, that is it exactly, not a word is missing".  

Not a sound not a syllable is out of place.  They didn't even write it on paper until the great many agreed that not a syllable, not a sign, if it was "Kasara, Kasaree" and wasn't "Kasara" they had to put "Kasaree".If it was "Thahaba", they had to put "Ihahaba", it couldn't be "Thahabu". One word, but you change it, it makes a difference, you see.  Yes!  So everything had to be  exact.  If it was put on paper it couldn't have been protected.   Why?  Because will come up and change the paper, but if it's engraved from the hearts of the Faithful then it's protected because Allah has put the faith into the hearts of the Faithful.  As long as they remain faithful to Allah, He protects it and that's what He told Prophet Muhammad.  He told Prophet Muhammad that we shall make it easy for you to recite or to remember.  Say we shall teach you with easy verses to remember.  The Quran was revealed in  smooth eloquent language that has a kind of musical rhyming about it.  The ideas are so intertwined or connected that if you take something out of place it can be discovered.  Yes!  The wonderful Quran!

Dear beloved Muslims let us not think of ourselves,  I wonder why he talks on like this?  Because it is not easy just to say a thing and get the results.  Let us not think of ourselves as being so far from Christians.  We are the fulfillment, the Christians are the sign.  They are the sign of what will come and we are that.  Yes!  They were told that God will write it on their hearts.  They were told that Jesus said the first shall be the last and the last shall be the first.  Is that right?  Oh yes!  Didn't he teach them to wash their feet and wasn't that the last part of his instructions to them?  Yes.  The last thing he demonstrated was the washing of the feet.  Yes.  Isn't that the last thing with us, the washing of the feet.  But also with them that's the only thing they did.  They washed their feet.  I never heard of washing anything else not in the New Testament.   

They washed their feet, you see..  So he gave them one washing, it was the first and the last thing he gave them about washing, right.  In our Wudu it is the last.  The first is the last and the last  is the first.  Yes.  In our Wudu, yes, you know it's last.  The washing of the feet is the last thing we do.  But with Jesus it was the first and the last thing.  Now his first thing has become our last.  So then the washing of the feet was really was a sign wasn't it?  Because the intelligence tells a man you just can't be clean just washing your feet.  What about your mouth? Sometimes I rather smell a person's feet than to smell their breathe. So you see, it was a sign and it has been fulfilled in Prophet Muhammad. Everything that they were given was a sign of what would be fulfilled in the last message,  the spirit of truth.  Says when the spirit of truth comes, it shall lead you into all truth.  Shall lead you into all truth. You know truth disciplines us doesn't it? You see.  The heart leads us, but sometimes it fells to discipline us.   

The heart may be inclined more to one thing than it. is to the subject matter or the essence of the matter.  So the heart flies away from the essence of the matter and leaves the whole thing to fall down sometimes, right.  So the heart is just like wings.  It takes wings, it flies about.  But truth disciplines you.  It forces us to follow straight.  You know you can't deviate from the path of truth.  The slightest deviation is a lie!  Yes!  The last thing the Prophet Christ Jesus promised his people was the blessing of the comforter.  That God would send them another comforter and he referred to It also as the spirit of truth.  The spirit of truth.  He told him people that they would receive another guide after him.  He also told his people that they would be disciplined after him because truth disciplines us.  But in his day and time he put no emphasis on a discipline.  

He put emphasis on following  the good nature.  Follow your good nature.  Obey God, give yourself to God, trust your good nature that God will guide you through your good nature.  That wasn't good enough, that wasn't to last always because he said the spirit of truth when it comes it will lead you into all truth.  We know that truth disciplines us.  Truth is bigger than us.  The human being when he has no truth to follow; he has to trust his God-given nature.  He has to trust his love for God, his love for righteousness, his love for truth. He has to trust just the love for these things, but when the truth comes itself his love is going to be tested. Yes, his love is going to be tested.  Because the truth may say you are not as righteous as you were called yesterday.  Yesterday you were seen as being a righteous person, most excellent among the righteous, but truth comes and says no you're a little bit short, you're not six feet tall, you're three feet  tall.  

So truth tests us and truth makes us follow the way straight, can't deviate.  That's the Quran.  The book is called "Al Haqq".   "The Truth".  Or "Allahu Akbaru Kabeera", "Allah is Greater than all of the greatness, bigger than all the bigness", "Allaku Akbaru Kabeera, Wal Hamdu LLilane Kathir-ra:." And praise to Him, much praise is due to Him".     "Sadaqa Abdah". "He established His Servant Prophet Muhammad".  He gave him truth and established him.  "Wa Ahzajunda".    "And He made the Armies of the righteous victorious".  Is that right?     " Wa Ahzajunda " "He empowered them", "Ak-ahzda".  "Give them glory and victory, power". "Wa Hazamal - Ah - thal - ba wah-da".  "He defeated the enemy's army by Himself".  "La illaha Illallahu - Wah - dahu". "There's no God, nothing to worship, nothing  to pray to except Allah Alone". No holy ghost, son, and nothing else sharing the kingdom with Him.  This is Allah and if you live that way they haven't created anything material, physical or invisible that can destroy you.  

Allah-U-Akbar!


