1977-March-18

Bilalian News

Stand Up for Truth

Imam W. D. Muhammad

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42. And cover not Truth
With falsehood, nor conceal
The Troth when ye know
(what it is).

43. And be steadfast in prayer;         
Practice regular charity;
And bow down your heads
With those who bow down
(in worship).

44. Do you enjoin right conduct
On the people, and forget
(To practice it) yourselves.
And yet ye study the Scripture ?
Will ye not understand?

45. Nay seek (God's) help
With patient perseverance
And prayer :
It is indeed hard, except
To those who bring a lowly
spirit –

46. Who bear in mind the certainty
That they are to meet their Lord
and that they are to return to Him

Holy Quran translation by Yusuf Ali: Sura II: Verses 42 – 46
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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.

As - Salaam – Alaikum

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I pray that Allah will give Muslims the victory that He has promised the faithful and establish the World Community of Islam in the West as a strong, decent, honest, upright, kind, merciful, tenderhearted, firm, determined, and strong body of people in the West. We want to be strong witness bearers who will stand up for truth and not be selfish. We will declare to the world that the truth we have is a universal truth that is from the Creator, the Lord of all the worlds. The World Community of Islam is not a separate body from other Muslims all over the world. We are one body and our mission is the mission of all God -fearing people. Our mission is to bring human life to people who know no life but a life that is worse than animal life. If it be the Will of Allah, we will accomplish our mission without becoming selfish or proud, thinking that we are now the light of the world.

Give Credit

Allah and His truth are the light of the world. The best we can do is be humble and submissive servants, serving the advancement of human life and always giving credit where credit is due. We give credit to the work of Prophet Muhammad (may the peace and blessings of Allah forever be upon him) for righteousness, for decency, for honesty. He was given the name "El-Amin" (the trustworthy one) before Allah missioned him. We should never forget the contributions that Prophet Muhammad made during his whole lifetime, from the time he was a boy until the time he passed away as a man over sixty years old. We should never forget that our message of Islam, the Holy Quran, was a message that his heart earned, not ours. So if it was the heart of Prophet Muhammad (may the peace and blessings of Allah forever be upon him) that earned this precious message, let us always mean what we are saying when we say, "I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah." He is the one to whom the Holy Quran was revealed 1400 years ago although he is not here with us physically today. Even so, we still bear witness that he is existing now as the Messenger of Allah. It is because of the strength of his righteous life that we are established today, and we should be proud to say it.

A Boast Of Strength

If you want to boast of some strength, boast of your strength to admit these facts. It takes a person with a clean heart and a clean mind who can get his hands on wealth, knowledge or power and tell people that it did not come from his hands. That is the strength that you should be proud of. In the World Community of Islam in the West we know that we have also inherited a wealth of strength, a wealth of spirit, and a wealth of courage from the leadership of Master Fard Muhammad and Master Elijah Muhammad (may Allah be pleased with him). We should also remember to give them the credit that they are due. When we speak from their strength and from their truth, we do not speak as though we invented it today. We let the world know that Master Fard Muhammad and Master Elijah Muhammad encouraged us to come together, to have pride in ourselves, and to do things together to build up the Bilalian communities. They put us on the road towards physical development and towards mental development, so let us give credit where credit is due.

Brothers and Sisters, each and everyone of us should keep the Muslim spirit and be conscious of ourselves as a family, as a community, and as a nation. We should strive and pray that Allah develop a concern in us for our Brothers and Sisters so that we can move and grow as one body. Let us pray that Allah bless all of the Muslims everywhere with a renewed spirit that we have in the World Community of Islam in the West for the propagation of Islam. That renewed spirit is now being felt in the East and in the West. We pray that Muslims stand up strong for the truth, for the message of the Holy Quran, for Allah, and for the last prophet, Muhammad. We are not ashamed to tell the world where we stand.

Let us pray that Allah comes into the hearts of all God - fearing people and make their hearts right. We pray that He take out the selfishness and the ugly prejudices from their hearts so that they will stop seeing each other as Jews, Muslims, or Christians, and start seeing each other as people who are striving to please God. The God - fearing people should compliment each other and walk together.

Labels Or Contents?

From the very beginning the world has been divided into two classes of people: the selfish, materialistic, cruel class; and the human class that tries to please God. These two kinds of people are like light and darkness, wrong and right. When we look at people we should forget about "labels" and put more attention on the contents. If there are Christians, Jews, Buddhists, or others with the contents of truth and righteousness, we should identify with those contents that are the same as our contents. Though the label is supposed to identify that which is in the body, we should identify with those bodies because their contents speak the same thing as our contents. This is how the world must overcome the forces of the devil, the forces of evil, the forces of corruption and inhuman treatment. These evil forces are going to be overcome by the forces of humanity (the forces of the God - fearing) coming together and realizing that they are not enemies of each other, but that they are all working in the same field.

The Common Enemy

Although we hold on to our truth and we do not allow a Judaic interpretation of that truth or a Christian interpretation of that truth to influence us or to distract us in any way, we have to recognize that we are all people in one group. All people who believe in Almighty God and in His revelation are brothers. It is the people who hate the idea of God and who hate the idea that people are going to turn towards God to give themselves to Him that are the enemies of all of us. They do not want God in the common people because they know that once God comes into the common people they can only misuse them so much. We must realize that it is these people who are the enemies of all God - fearing people.

Muslims in many parts of the world are now encouraging inter - faith meetings between Muslims, Christians, and Jews because we recognize today that we are all in one boat together. We have only one enemy. That enemy is not the free world, the Communist world, Jews, or Christians — that enemy is ignorance, arrogance, greed, and moral corruption. These are the enemies of all of us, so we all have to band together to overcome the common enemy.

Actions Manifest Beliefs

We pray to Allah that His blessings come to the World Community of Islam in the West so that the promise that was made to Muslims in the revelation to Prophet Muhammad come true. Allah promised that He would establish Islam as the dominant way in the world. When you look at the missionary strength of religion other than Islam today, Allah has already made Islam the dominant religion in the world. When you look at the respect and the attention that the Holy Quran receives compared to the respect and attention that the Bible and other revealed scriptures receive, we can say that Allah has already made Islam the dominant religion in the world.

We want to make this blessing manifest by bringing about agreement in our actions. Many of our hearts have already taken the position that is closer to Islam than to anything else, but now we have to get our bodies. We have to get our actions to manifest our beliefs so that the world will see that Allah's truth is correct, but here it has been established, is the light of the world and the salvation of all the people.

People Who Invite And Warn

We ask Allah to strengthen and to guide the World Community of Islam in the West. We ask Him to bless us with more light and understanding, and to unify us as a strong group of people that will answer the call in the Holy Quran. The Holy Quran says let there rise from among you a group of people inviting to all that is good and warning against all that is bad, evil, and corruptible. These people must be a people who are firm against the evil attacks of the enemy yet tender (soft) with believers. They must be a people who know how to recognize, to witness, and to respond accordingly to goodness, but they must also be a people who know how to recognize wickedness and the evil plan of the enemy. They must have the strength to stand up firmly against the enemy and his evil plans. They must have the human decency and the moral and spiritual strength to invite people to all that is good, yet they must have the same strength to warn people against all that is not good. This is the test of the group of people in the world to whom Almighty God will give support.

The Goal Of Perfection

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19. And those who believe
In God and His apostles —
They are the Sincere
(Lovers of Truth), and

The Witnesses (who testify),
In the eyes of their Lord:
They shall have their Reward
And their Light
But those who reject God
And deny Our Signs,—
They are the Companions
Of Hell-Fire

Holy Quran translation by Yusuf Ali: Sura LVII Verse 19
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How many of us are strong enough to be witnesses who will openly confess good and truth wherever it is? How many of us are strong enough to openly and boldly stand up against wrong, evil, filth, and indecency wherever it is? Although most of us think no one can have that strength but an angel, Allah has asked men and women (human beings) to show that strength because human beings are more capable of doing it than angels. This is a matter that relates to human life, not to angel life. Allah has asked us to do it and we can do it.

You do not have to have your own being perfect to take a stand for perfection or to advocate perfection. You do not have to have every disease out of your body in order to take the stand on the side of doctors, health, and medicine. As human beings, we are not perfect but we are striving to grow. We cannot be perfect, but if we have anything as our goal short of perfection we will never be as great as we can be. Knowing this, God in His great wisdom gives us perfection as a goal to aim for because only perfection can make our hearts right, our minds right, and our lives whole.

It Is Time

The World Community of Islam in the West is going to do it because we want to do it, because we love it, because we have been wanting it for so long, because it is what we have been starving for, and because it is what we have to have in our lives. We are going to do it because it is right, because it is just, because it is plain and simple and easy for everybody to live and to understand. We are going to do it for the many people who cannot reach it, but who want it just like we want it. We are going to do it because it is time to do it!

We ask Allah to bless the Muslim community, the society of Prophet Muhammad to grow and to prosper. We ask Him to strengthen those who contribute to this cause and who give of themselves for this cause. We know that Allah will defeat the efforts of those who work against us and render their works to be of no effect. He will give us the victory that He promised his slave servant and messenger, Muhammad. (May the peace and blessings of Allah forever be upon him).

Oh, Allah, give us the strength to always recognize your presence among us and your ever-flowing graces into our lives. Give us the strength to acknowledge truth wherever it is manifested before us. Give us the strength to pursue truth and righteousness and never to turn back in ou r ignorance and weakness to that dark, filthy, confused and troubled life that you have blessed us to come out of. Oh, Allah, our Saviour and Sustainer Who keeps us, give us excellence in this world's life and excellence in the next. Save us from the punishment of the fires of sin. Amen.

Thank you for honoring us with your time to read these few words.

Your brother,
W.D. Muhammad