1976-October-1

Bilalian News

The Proper Balance

Imam W. D. Muhammad

In the name of God, Most Gracious,
Most Merciful

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1. Seest thou one
Who denies the judgment
(To come)?

2.  Then such is the (man)
Who repulses the orphan
(With harshness).

3. And encourages not
The feeding of the indigent.

4. So woe to the worshippers

5. Who are neglectful
Of their Prayers

6. Those who (want but)
To be seen (of men)

7. But refuse (to supply)
(even) neighbourly needs.

Holy Quran Translation Yusuf Ali: Sura 107; Verses 1 -7
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In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful; Peace and Blessings upon His Servant and His Messenger, Muhammad, forever. Amen.

There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters:
The Holy Quran tells us that there is heaven in this life and there is also heaven in the next life. A believer can come into a state of heaven while he is physically alive on this earth. For the believer who gives himself fully and completely to Almighty Allah, there is no fear for him nor shall he be grieved. If you can exist on this earth as a physical being and yet have no worry, no grief, and no fear, are you not in heaven? The Holy Quran not only promises heaven to the believer in his spirit form, it also promises that there shall be no fear or grief for the human being in his physical form. The first followers of Prophet Muhammad (may Allah be pleased with him) had fear of nothing but Allah. They did not grieve because they had truth and they had given themselves wholly to that truth. Likewise for us today. If we will wholly accept the truth and give ourselves to the truth, there will be no fear and no grief for us.

A Place With God

The believer in Islam should not fear or grieve. The man who has his whole heart in physical wealth fears and grieves because things might come upon his physical wealth that will take it from him. Conditions are not going to remain the same for any physical treasures. It is the same for the man who has his whole heart and mind in a physical woman, in physical children, or in his physical mother and father. The man who is safe is the man who has his heart and his mind on Almighty Allah and who gives himself fully to God's truth, the mission of truth in Islam. There is no change that is going to come upon God and His truth, so we should seek to insure a place for ourselves with God. The Holy Quran says that man should seek the home in the Hereafter with everything that God has put into his hands (power) to use, but it also cautions us not to neglect our share in the physical world. This is balance teaching.

See Reality

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29. Seest thou not that
God merges Night into Day
And He merges Day into Night.
That He has subjected the sun
And the moon (to His Laws),
Each running its course
For a term appointed, and
That God is well acquainted  
With all that ye do?

30. That is because God is
The (only) Reality, and because
Whatever else they invoke
Besides Him is Falsehood;
And because God,  -  He is
The Most High, Most Great.

Holy Quran Translation by Yusuf Ali: Sura 31: Verses 29 -30
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The material world is not sinful in itself. The danger that exists is in seeing things as they do not exist in reality. If you think that the physical form is everything in life, you will suffer human death and spiritual death because your sight is diseased — not because the world is evil. This kind of person suffers a disease in his heart and a hard covering comes over his eyes (the disease of glaucoma). Instead of the colorful design that God has put in the human eye, glaucoma causes the colors of the eye to deteriorate into one color. The eye no longer shows the orderly design that God gave to it. If we keep the proper balance by following God's guidance, however, we will be safe. We can use all of the good that God has put in creation and we can benefit from it whether it is physical, moral or spiritual. We can use it to raise ourselves up from lower planes of existence to higher planes of existence. But if we get the wrong outlook on life, we will not reach the goal that God intends for us. We must not fail to look through the scope that God has given us through His prophets from the very beginning until the days of the universal prophet Muhammad (may Allah be pleased with him): that is, the Holy Quran. If we see reality as it is pointed out to us in the Holy Quran, reality will serve us instead of deceiving us.

Live For Today And Forever

Prophet Muhammad (may Allah be pleased with him) said that we should live as though we are going to live forever and we should also live as though we are going to die tomorrow. This great teaching echoes the teachings of the Holy Quran. We should seek by whatever means God has made available to us the promised home (the spiritual kingdom after the physical world has passed away), but we must not forget to attend to our share in this physical world. If you live as though you are going to live forever, there is room for you to manifest all of your potential. There is an invitation given to you to put into operation all of your human energy and talents. The believer does not plan for just this week, this month, or this year — he plans forever. We must even plan for the judgment day, because it is surely coming. But again, live as though you have only one day left in your life. Do not think that you have a lot of time left to put your thoughts and desires into action, because death may come to you at this moment.

“Rush” To Worship

Brothers and Sisters, build up your world, give of your wealth, give of your mind, give of your muscles, give of all the energies that you have that can help the society. Every morning the Muslim calls himself to "rush" to prayer (worship). When we greet the world each morning at sunrise, we do not see a job that we can look at lightly and take for granted — we see a wide field for cultivation. Brothers and Sisters, get up out of your beds when the sun is rising and when the birds begin to chirp. You are supposed to be the caliph (ruler) of God's creation, so you should be ashamed to let the birds start chirping before you get out of the bed. The Muslim prayers take us through physical exercise and through spiritual discipline that is designed to prepare us to do our job.

The Power Of Prayer

We rush to prayer so that we can build up our moral muscles. Prayer has been designed for us by Allah and established for us as an institution by His Prophet, Muhammad (may Allah be pleased with him). Allah is saying that we should get ready to rush out in the morning and meet the world. We do it by keeping the physical body in tune as we go through the physical rakats of our prayers. At the same time, we recite God's rich message in the Quranic verses that is powerful tc awake the moral life in us. The strengthened moral life is going to affect our mental muscles. The rich verses of God touch us in our spiritual being and make us "know" (not "guess") that the physical world is not all of life. We know that when the physical earth is gone away, Almighty God has the power to make us out of nothing into something again.

Your Very Fingertips

We want to keep the proper balance in the physical life, the moral life, and the spiritual life. When all of us are tested on judgment day, some of us will go up as three columns of dark smoke. Your physical body will be nothing but gross material, your moral body will be nothing but gross material, and your spiritual body will be nothing but gross material. When the final test comes, nothing will come out of this kind of person but smoke. The smoke will have to stay with that form from which it came. The gross smoke will return to the physical form. The Holy Quran says that those who are dead in this life will also be dead in the Hereafter. Some of you remain dead in this life, even though you are under the light of truth. You cannot come into life under the truth of Allah that is given to us in the Holy Quran.

You are like the unbelievers in the Holy Quran who questioned Prophet Muhammad (may Allah be pleased with him) if Allah could bring their bones back to life after the meat had decayed from them. Even if you are bones or something harder to resurrect than bones, God can bring you back to life. The physical creation itself will pass away one day and God will bring back a new creation. Whenever He chooses, He will manifest life again. Can God produce us over again as we are now? The Holy Quran says that not only can He raise you to life again, but He can reproduce your very fingertips. These great words were spoken over 1400 years ago when the world did not know that the fingertip was the most subtle sign of individual human identity. All praise is due to Allah.

Your Brother, W.D. Muhammad