1979-March-13

Bilalian News

Prophet Muhammad: The Best Example

Imam W. Deen Muhammad

 
(Editor's note: Following are excerpts of Imam Wallace Deen Muhammad's Khutbah delivered at Masjid Elijah Muhammad in Chicago on March 9, 1979.)

With the Name Allah (In the Name of God), the gracious, the Compassionate As-Salaam-Alaikum
All praise is due to Almighty God, the guardian evolver and sustainer of all the worlds. The blessings and peace be upon Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah to us all.

O Allah, guide us, forgive us our faults, and grant us the blessings of faith. I bear witness there is no deity except Allah and I bear witness Muhammad is His Servant and His Messenger. Peace be upon him, his descendants, his companions, the righteous servants, all of them, and upon us in America and throughout the world:

Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was promised in the Torah of the Jews, and in the Gospel of the Christians. Allah tells us in the Quran that he is the Prophet mentioned in the Torah and in the Gospel. God has given us Prophet Muhammad as a liberator for all the oppressed people. Prophet Muhammad leads us out of slavery. He leads us to social justice — he is a liberator.

If any of us will stand up and become followers of Prophet Muhammad and take on the responsibility to advance what he has established here on Earth, the religion of Al-Islam, and work in its movement to uplift and dignity the human being, we all can be liberators. If you will accept the Quran and practice the social justice found there, you will become a better liberator than Abraham Lincoln.

Prophet Muhammad is not one who came to misuse us: he is not liberating us to put us in a different bondage. God chose him for his high morals, for his high standards as a human being, for his moral nature, for standing out as a man who was called by God to be a Prophet — a pure, sincere, good man, a man who had no deceit in him. He was a man who gave his life for God and shared his life for the sake of bringing men closer to God.

He worked for the improvement upon the lives of men. He forbids us what is unlawful.
This is a Prophet! Can you believe in Allah and not believe in Prophet Muhammad? That's impossible!
Can any of us produce this book? (the Quran) No! God produced this Quran for Prophet Muhammad, so we have to believe in Prophet Muhammad. Believe in him and help him. It didn't say help him in his lifetime. It says help him! That means all the time, so we have to help Prophet Muhammad now!

I have to believe in Prophet Muhammad, now! I have to help Prophet Muhammad now! How can I help now? By fulfilling your duties to Allah, to Prophet Muhammad, to the religion. By fulfilling the obligations placed upon you as a member of his religion. That's how you help Prophet Muhammad.

Do we help him by treating his prophethood lightly? Do we help him by hiding the great things he has done? By hiding the great works that he did among people — the great service he gave to his wife, to his family, to his society. to the whole world society? Do we help Prophet Muhammad by keeping our lips tight and not telling the people that he was a man of high stature — the most honored man in our history, the man that did the greatest service for all people, the man in whom we find the greatest example of the human being as a father, as a husband, a political leader, a general of an army?

We find in this man a greater example, a man that was never influenced by the rich of the world, a man that was never influenced by associations. He never took his friends into his confidence simply because it was his friend, no! When it came to justice he did what Allah said.

In fact, Allah tells us he is the one who follows what God has revealed to him. He didn't give us a religion he wouldn't follow, Prophet Muhammad was the best follower of what was revealed. He tells us we are not to give ourselves to luxuries, wasting money, running after the devil. We will find in him the best example, because he never accepted luxury. All his life he went as a poor man. And look at his prayer, in his last sermon.

"Oh God raise me up among the poor people." He didn't even want to be resurrected with the rich. He prayed to God to resurrect him among the poor people. This is the Hadith of Prophet Muhammad, his prayer. If you really love Prophet Muhammad, you will go out and tell people that he prayed for God to raise him up among the poor people. Some of you want to make others into heroes of the poor. You want to deny Prophet Muhammad the great life he lived. You are a devil and servants of the devil!

If you are that kind of people, let me tell you something: you have a losing battle. Allah is going to give you a humiliating defeat. You are going to be defeated in a way that is so bad you will wish you had never been born on this Earth.

I work for Allah and Prophet Muhammad. Look how I'm dignified. I'm standing here talking to you — about 500 people — and maybe I'll talk to you for hours, giving you my time when I could have thousands to speak to. Why? Because I serve Allah and I serve Prophet Muhammad. I'm his follower. I don't hide what Prophet Muhammad has done. I tell you Prophet Muhammad has done a great service for all people — that he is an example for every walk of life, that he is the one who has shown us the great example of charity. If you want to know how to give charity, look at Prophet Muhammad. He was the most honest. He was the one who was kindest to the workers.

It was Prophet Muhammad who said that God wants you to be industrial as well as spiritual. He's the one who taught us balance between the two — don't pray all your time and do no work. You must pray and work also. He told us that a share in this world belongs to us; a share of this Earth belongs to every human being. He is the one who told us to pray to God to give us not only spiritual life but also to give us of this material world.

Look at the wonderful economic justice the Quran has to teach.
Allah is the perfect being. Allah is all righteous, truthful — no imperfections in Allah. Allah is Supreme and Perfect without any imperfections.

0 Allah. Make us of those who purity themselves and of those who repent, and guide us in your path. Amen.

Peace be to you Your brother in service to Allah,
Wallace Deen Muhammad