1982-March-12

World Muslim News

Muhammad Speaks

Imam W. Deen Muhammad

WMN: I read your newspaper quite frequently and I have one question: Out of all the wise men in the world, why is the world not at peace? — Washington. D.C.

IMAM: If peace could be settled just by wisdom, 1 think we would have had peace when Adam was created. Peace would have been established forever, because Adam was created and given great wisdom.

The reason is that wisdom can't establish peace for us. The only thing that can establish peace for us is our own choice, our own desire. If we desire peace then we will work for peace, we will live for peace. But it our desire is for something else then maybe we will never have peace.

First, man must be morally directed. It is more important to be morally directed. Once he has accepted moral life and is morally directed, wisdom will benefit him.

People lose sight of correct morals because they give themselves to narrow objectives — objectives that have the power or influence to take them off a human course.

We need business, that's an obligation for Muslims to engage in business and develop business.

But if we give ourselves blindly to wealth or to material profit. we can lose our humanity and confuse our moral vision. It would be dull or impaired and the consequence of that would be unnecessary abuses of each other. That's what causes the loss of peace.

First there are morals. We have to make sure that the moral life is nurtured and then we precede to get more and more wisdom. If a lot of wisdom is given to immoral vision, the wisdom will be used wrongly.