(Reprinted from the Muslim Journal 03/30/2001)

THE LIFE OF THE HUMAN FAMILY PART: 5

Imam W. Deen Mohammed

When the Arabs of the time of Jahiliyyah saw the life that G-d created all people for and saw Muhammed as a living proof of that life, they fell in love with that leader. Then they left their chiefs and made Muhammed the One Chief of all Arabia. He united all the tribes into one human family.

That spread from the peninsula of Arabia into North Africa, West Africa and went over into Persia and all the way over into Europe and finally into Asia, and now in America and all over the world. From that one man, from that one effort assisted by G-d, he put light on the life that G-d chose for all people.

YOU ARE KHALIFAHS
It was to tell you that you are "Khalifahs." G-d said to the Angels: I am making in the earth a Khalifah." This is a term that is Qur'anic. The Arabs, themselves, had to be taught the meaning of Khalifah by Muhammed the Prophet, because their language did not have Khalifah it until the Qur'an came.

If you read the Qur'an, it will tell you, but you have to study the term itself, and you have to be assisted by G-to come into the full life of just what this is. According to the teachings of the Qur'an in plain language, Khalifah is a human being who G-d Himself made. He designed him and He ordered his life. He gave him this special design that makes him this special human being. That is the Khalifah.

This Khalifah has in his spirit and in his nature a desire to stay with that design that G-d gave him. He as a desire not to lose that and to keep that design that G-d gave to him for his human life. If something takes him out of that, he is uncomfortable. If something tempts him to come out of that or influences him to move from that a little bit, he uncomfortable and wants get back with that.

That is his nature, his natural desire – to get back with that. So G-d said to His Angels: "I am making such a person in the earth." And they were disturbed by that, because they knew the human beings – some of them would stay with it and some them would not.

G-D MADE HUMAN BEING FREE
G-d was also making the human being free – G-d never made the human being without also making the human being free; it is the world that takes away our freedoms. G-d created every human being free.

G-d was making not only a Khalifah, but He was making this particular person to be free. To be free to think on his own and to have his own opinions, to have his own choices, to choose some other life if he wants and come out of the life that G-d put him in — if he wants.

In the Genesis of the Bible, the serpent deceives him, offers him another choice and makes it look so nice and so easy and so right, that the man is deceived by this serpent and he eats of the fruit of the forbidden tree and loses that life that G-d created him for.

In the Qur'an, it is very similar. It says that Satan made a suggestion to him and he followed the suggestion of the Satan — he and his wife, both — and they both fell from the high place that G-d created them for in life. They were expelled from the Garden of Paradise. It is the same story that we find in Genesis.

CREATED TO BE HONEST, KIND, TRUSTFUL
All of us are also created to be honest. I don't care how dishonest we have become. We are all created by G-d to be honest. We were all created by G-d to appreciate kindness. That is why all babies cling to their mothers, because they learn from the experience of being helpless —they can't feed themselves and can't take care of themselves — they learn that this one takes care of "me."

"She feeds me when I am hungry and cleans me when I am filthy and makes the bed comfortable for me, when it is not comfortable. She makes my diaper dry and comfortable. This is the one who cares for me."

That human being in the form of an infant naturally attaches itself to that mother or person; sometimes the mother is dead and another woman is doing that. It attaches itself to that person and feels indebted to that person and grows up and As Allah says in the Qur'an: "Why doesn't man think back on his own life and recall how he came into existence and how he has come to be what he is now? Why doesn't he rehearse his own history?" From his own individual beginning from a mother to where he is now; from the womb of a woman to where he is now.

We know that we were not born to be unkind to the one who is kind to us. We were not born to be distrustful of a person who had proven that we could trust them. All of us have in our own human nature the capacity, the ability to be trustful and to be a person of faith — a believer.

THE WORLD WANTS TO TAKE AWAY FAITH
The world wants to take that away from us. What world is that that wants to take faith away from us? It is the world of the devils. The same one who deceived our first father is still around to deceive us. The world of the devils wants to take away from us an appreciation or a spirit or a tendency in us or the inclination to trust those

It is because if we keep that in us, we will begin to become stronger and stronger as followers of G-d and His Prophets. Because there is nothing in creation or beyond that is more deserving of me trusting it, than the One Who gave me existence when I had no existence. I had no existence and The Creator gave me existence. I know I can trust Him.

Not only did He give me existence, He also assisted me with human sensitivities and human perception and human intelligence and human freedoms. He assisted me so that I can grow and improve upon my own life and get more and more out of life and out of the world of things in the environment. He created me like this.

I know I can trust The One Who trusted me. He trusted me with my existence and then trusted me with the tools of intelligence that raise me above the possibilities and capacity for animals. Then He gave me freedom, so that I can do anything I want with my powers. Now if I can't trust one like that, then what can we trust?

How many bosses do we have who will trust us like that? How many governments on earth are there that trust human beings like that?

Only The Creator Who created us will trust us like that. So when you come to really know the logic of believing in The Creator, G-d, then you also come to know that G-d is The One Who has the greatest faith in you.

I love Dr. Robert Schuller, a Christian Evangelist, for many reasons. He has a big, impressive television ministry. And he says, when he is speaking to his great worldwide audience, "I believe in you, and G-d believes in you." He, G-d, would never trust us with this freedom that we have that stones don't have, trees don't have, animals don't have – only human beings have this great margin, this great dimension of freedom that we have and should be enjoying.

G-d created the roach, and I have studied the roach's history. The roach has always been around and you cannot keep them out of high places. The roaches in Egypt were in the house of Pharoah. The rulers of Egypt durint the time of the ancient pharaohs were so tired of trying to keep them out, that they made a roach a god. A roach is one of the gods of ancient Egypt.

One thing about that roach – he walks today the same way he walked when he was crawling the walls and floors and tables of the ancient pharaohs. And he does the same dance that he did then, and he sings the same way and flirts with his wife the same way and his shoes are the same. He has changed nothing.

But man is free to expand his imagination and to see new pictures for himself and says, "I'm going to get this kind of shoe and this kind of suit." He just decorates himself. He says, "I would like to fly like an eagle." He couldn't do it right then, but pretty soon he is in a 747 flying like an eagle and looking down on the eagle that can't fly that high.

PERSON WHO KNOWS SELF KNOWS G-D
Muhammed the Prophet, prayers and peace be on him, said the person who knows himself has known his Lord. When you really come to know yourself, of how special you are and this great freedom you have, then you know – you don't guess, you know there is a Living G-d who loves you and has taken care of humanity from the beginning to today. He has assisted human beings to come back into the high life that He created them for, so that those of the future will have a chance to keep moving forward in the road to human excellence. It is so they can have that great life on earth that G-d created them for.

When you come to know that, you yourself as a creator with all this special freedom and with all these special talents raised above all the other creatures; you know you could not do that for yourself. So the logic is that someone or something did this for me. So you find your G-d after you find yourself.

The logic is to see self and when you see self in the true self-form, then you know that G-d did this. I didn’t do it and animals didn’t do it, because I am over them. Mother Nature didn’t do it, because this has put me above Mother Nature. How are you above Mother Nature in this human type? G-d says: "Everything of the earth and the sky will yield its treasures to you, if you obey Me in this form I created for you.”