1988-February-5

Muslim Journal

'Human Being Has Sacred Properties'

Imam W. Deen Mohammed

Editor's note: This is an excerpt from Imam W. Deen Muhammad's most recent address in Oakland, California.

Praise be to Allah, thank you. As-Salaam-Alaikum, that is peace be unto you. We give all praise to the One Lord and Creator of the heavens and the earth, whose proper Name to the Muslims, is Allah, the same God for all the God-fearing people on this earth. In fact, the same God for people anywhere if they are existing in some other body; other than this earth. The same God, the Lord of all creation. We give all praise to Him and we thank Him for the blessing of religion, the blessing of faith, that came to us by way of the blessing to all people, to all nations, the mercy to all nations, the one we call Muhammad, the Prophet. We pray the peace and blessings of God be upon him, and that we always be guided as Muslims, into the excellence that he demonstrated and exemplified.

Last evening, we had a wonderful time and enjoyed another very successful fundraiser and evening of excellence for Sister Clara Muhammad School in Oakland, California, and you remember that I said, well, be prepared to come tomorrow and we are going to talk all day. Well, I hope I won't do that. I'm going to try not to do that.

We have been addressing some concerns and I hope I continue in that same vein or in that same line of progression. We focused on the human being as a creature with sacred properties, and we came from that focus, that is, the human being as a creature with potential for the management of the environment. Whether that environment be small or the total environment that we live in, that is, the natural environment that we live in — the earth, all of its elements, wind, water, fire, the sun, the moon and even the stars above; all of these things according to revelation from God, were created to be utilities for man, that is, utilities for human society, to be of use in human service.

The term in the Holy book is 'sakh-kara' which means that something has been made available by another principle or authority for human benefits, and Allah says that He made the sun and even the moon, to be of benefit to human beings. These things are not to be worshipped by us, that's the point, these things are to render services for us. They are services for us, and we should not become bigheaded and think that now we are God or something, because you know in the history of man's search for truth, he began as a baby and entered kindergarten and elementary school and high school, and finally college and a university, and as we retrace his movement, from that search the weak and feeble state of his, we see a progression. He worshipped the things he feared most first, then he began to worship the things he admired most, and lastly, he worshipped the things that most satisfied his intellectual curiosity.

That road of experience brought some men to stop right at themselves and go no further. And for that reason, even in these most modern times, in the sense of the advance of science, etcetera, there are civilized nations still worshipping man as God.

Let it be understood right here in the beginning of this address, that Muslims worship nothing of creation. We don't worship the sun, the moon, the man, nothing of creation. We worship only Allah, Who created everything, and according to our Holy Book, was existing before anything was created and is unlike anything He created, and has no need of the creation for anything in Himself. He does not eat, He does not drink, He does not slumber, He does not sleep; years and time have no effect on Him. These are the words of the Qur'an; these are not my words. These are the words of our Scripture. Years and time have no effect on Him.

He cannot be affected by any-thing. Nothing can even approach him to affect Him. That's the Qur'an, and I'm giving you the Qur'an. Most of you don't speak Arabic, so it's no need in my giving you the Arabic from the Qur'an, and it takes too much time to teach each chapter and verse. The worse preachers give you chapter and verse for everything they say.

So this is the idea of God or the concept of God for Muslims. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean that...well, what is He then? He is beyond the grasp of our human perception, and that is God man should worship. If I can perceive Him fully and completely, with my tools, then He is no bigger than me. Anything I can perceive completely with my tools, I'm its equal. Whatever man has been completely able to perceive and understand with his mind and his intellect, he has been able to equal it and master it. So the foolish notion of desiring and wanting to see God as you see your friend; look, you don't even see your friend in total.

In fact, we know very little in total. So we can get a lot of knowledge. But going back to what I was saying, it doesn't mean now, that God is non-existing. I can't perceive him in total, but He is existing. It doesn't mean that He's not real; He is real. He's more real than the things we acknowledge as being real. Like for instance this mike, that is real.

But Allah is more real, in our religion, by our understanding in our religion. He is more real. In fact, He is the real and everything else is just a reflection of some part of His reality. So this is God, and really I hate to use the English word, because it carries the message that some people have in their religion, that God is no more than the dynamics of the universe that goes up and down. They say man can descend down to the dogs and up to God. Therefore. we have G-o-d; he can descend down to the dogs, and up to God. What a nice saying, but it's dangerous. Because man is a creature of hate, man is a creature of daringness, he is ready to do what he thinks can't be done. In fact, that's the challenge he wants, the challenge that says no, you can't do it. And the biggest one is 'be God.' So he's ready for that one too.

(To be continued)