April 9, 1999

Muslim Journal

Jumuah Khutbah,
February 26, 1999, at the Muslim Community
Center (MCC) of Chicago, Ill.

Imam W. Deen Mohammed

Oh believers, brothers, we praise G-d, we worship no one with Him. We give our life totally in submission to Allah, to His Will, to His Plan, following His Guidance, The Word of G-d: The Qur'an revealed to the last of the prophets, the seal of the prophets, who is mentioned, as Allah says in His Book, The Qur'an, in the Torah and in the Ingeel as one coming to take the yolks of slavery from the backs of humanity. The one coming to break all bonds of bondage or slavery to anyone accept G-d, The Lord, One and Only Who created the world above and the world below and human beings, all of us, and made us to worship Him for His Worship.

Allah (SWT) says that He has not made the human beings or the jinns except for His Worship. The purpose of life, then, for all human beings is to worship G-d. One African American who has gone away - who was struggling to help his people who were slaves in this country -said he has observed that the happiest of people are those who give most in service, unselfishly.

This is Islam. The life of a Muslim is to give in service, unselfishly. The object of our service is to please G-d as His worshippers, as His slaves, as His servants, as His abaad. G-d says: "On us is our own selves..." We are responsible for our own selves. And G-d says: "Save your own selves and your families from the Hell Fire."

And G-d says to us: "O believers! Be a people established for justice." If we could just accept a very few commandments of G-d addressing our responsibility to ourselves and our responsibility to others, to humanity, we could be in the lead, rather than suffering all the divisions and problems we are suffering, all of the oppression that we are suffering in the world. We could be united and we could be free of all the slaving influences, if we would just listen and obey just a few commandments of G-d to us in the Qur'an.

G-d says of as: "You are the best community..." And G-d has addressed us also as a people. He says: "Be a people established for justice." He is addressing us as a people, a people united, a people sharing the same life, and a people sharing the same community, a people sharing the same responsibility, a people motivated by the same motivation to worship G-d, to follow Muhammed the Prophet (PBUH), to follow his way.

And G-d addresses us as an ummah, a community. "You are the best community raised up (brought out) for the benefit of all humanity," for the benefit of all people. We are behind in so many ways.

At the same time, some small numbers of us are very much ahead. They know this religion. I have some friends here who I used to sit with. They used to share their thoughts with me and comfort me when I was rejected by my father and his organization. And they helped me have good strong spirit and to have faith in the future of all Muslims. They helped me and they know the religion and they are struggling with the right message.

But we need more than that. We need leaders to come together from all of the big communities. We need the leaders of nations to come together. Not like they come together for politics and for protection of wealth, etc. They should come together to find how we are missing the Path of G-d, and what we should be doing to be on that Path to G-d.

We should have that same effort here in the United States. We should come together as leaders. Never will all the people come together. That's not the natural way.

The natural way is for the people to have leaders representing them and the leaders come together and sit down to discuss the problems that we all are facing and look for the solutions together. And to recognize that we are living in one United States, and that we have to establish our life here.

Our life as Muslims is just like the life of the best of the Christians. It is better than the life of the American people, generally speaking. Our life is more precious than the life of the American people, generally speaking. The best life and the life that will live when the nations are gone is the life of obedience to Allah, the life of the Muslims. That is the real life.

So, we as citizens of this country, new and old citizens of this country, should have our leaders come together and study the situation for Muslims in this country. The difficulties that we are having should be addressed together and also come up with the right solutions from the Qur'an and from the sun-nah of the Prophet (PBUB).

And G-d said: "Obey G-d, and obey His Messenger, and believe in G-d and believe in His Messenger." And G-d knows what is best for us: His Word, His Guidance, The Qur'an and the perfect model for all people who believe in G-d and fear the Last Day, Muhammed the Prophet (PBUH).

So we ask G-d to forgive us our errors, forgive us our sins, guide us always with His Guidance. And only His guidance is guidance, ameen.

Praise be to G-d. We worship Him alone, and we give our worship purely to Him and religion is for G-d. G-d says: "Is not the One Who created everything the One Who should be obeyed, worshipped?" For Him is obedience, worship, the One Who created us. And we know that as Muslims, we have one leader and that is Muhammed the Prophet (PBUH), and we have one Imam, the same Imam, Muhammed the Prophet (PBUH). He is all of our Imam. He is the one who taught us how to pray.

Some of my friends sitting here told me that, when I was lonesome and wanting to know better this religion. Yes, it was Muhammed, the Prophet (PBUH), who taught us how to follow Qur'an, The Word of G-d. He taught us how to pray. He taught us how to observe the five pillars of Al-Islam, to fast Ramadan and everything. He taught us all of these things.

Prophet Muhammed led the believers in prayer, and sometimes he'd pray all night during the month of Ramadan, all night standing in prayer. So he is the Imam of Muslims; of all the believing Muslims on this earth, he is the Imam.

We are united under One G-d. We are united under one leader, one Imam (PBUH).