May 29, 1992

Muslim Journal

Protecting the Future Through Sound Economics Assisted by "Regardfulness": Part 3

Imam W. Deen Mohammed

(Imam W. Deen Mohammed made this public address in Birmingham, Alabama on February 23, 1992. He has now prepared from it this article for Muslim Journal's readers.)

"Hayya a'lal falah." Come to success. In the morning before the sun is up someone in the Muslim family or in the Muslim community is supposed to ring out so the neighborhood hears or so the household hears "come to success." Now if you are told that five times a day and it is ringing out all in the neighborhood, "come to success", you are supposed to be successful.

Now how come the "third world" Islamic societies are not successful? They are hearing "come to success." I can explain it to you very easily. You were told "come to the Qur'an," and you weren't coming to it. I was back there as a young boy in the thirties and growing up to be a bigger boy in the forties and a young man in the fifties and I was a man with a family in the early sixties.

For all those years I heard the call that the Qur'an was our Book. That is what I heard, but we had not come to it. If anybody can understand you should be able to understand, how those people can hear "come to success," and they are getting up from their beds but they are not coming to success. That is not all of the Muslim world, but that is the great majority. They do not measure up to what they say they believe. There is a reason for that.

The intent has to be right. The perception has to be right. You can be given a wrong idea and it will blind you so that your perception will never be right, until something changes within you to make you displeased with the way you are perceiving things. Then you will start to perceive correctly.

"Believe in God." Do you know what Prophet Muhammed advised when one person came to him? This person came like one who goes to the person for the lucky number. This was a person coming to Prophet Muhammed, the prayers and the peace be on the Prophet, for that lucky number. He knew that if anybody could give it to him, it would be the Prophet. He said, "Tell me something that nobody can tell me other than you." The Prophet said to the young man, "Say, I believe and thereafter be straight," or be straight up as the youngsters out there today will say.

Now if I had walked up to one of these African American scholars in the religion and said, "Look here brother, tell me something in Islam that nobody else can tell me." Man, I would have been there listening to him until I had to order a box of Excedrine Plus. But the Prophet answered so quickly and so simply.

Why did the Prophet say, "Say, I believe....'? It was so that it will be conscious and will be written indelibly on the mind. To say something, you have to concentrate a little bit. It is not the same as hearing somebody else.

When you become a Muslim you have to say the testimony. I can't say it for you. You have to say "I witness One God and Muhammed the Prophet."

"Anybody could have told him that." No! Nobody else but the Prophet could have told him that, and I am going to explain it. This man asked for something the average person would have thought was a big deal. Only the Prophet could answer him in such plain and simple language and giving such easy advice. And only the Prophet could speak in the context of revelation from the beginning to the end. When he (A.S.) answered that person he was speaking in that context from Adam to the last Prophet.

There are those in religion who say, "Say, I believe, and you shall be saved," and, "Believe in him, and you shall be saved." Prophet Muhammed in the context of scripture knew where the problem was.

I want to further explain the call to success. The call to success has "come" given as the translation in English for the word "hayya." It means come, but "hayya" comes from a word that means life.

Coming to prayer is the same as coming to success. I don't say I believe it, I know it. I am not perfect in my obedience to my prayers, but I have a desire to be perfect in my obedience to my prayers. And God has made me successful. I am not a failure, I'm a success. And I do not claim the credit without acknowledging there were many helping me. God has blessed me with success on this level because I want to obey perfectly everything that He orders. I don't measure up to it, but that is my desire.

That is a believer. I doesn't mean that we are angels or that we are perfect. We are not. But we should desire to do everything that Allah asks of us and do it exactly as He asks, not the way we interpret it or twist it to excuse ourselves. We admit it when we are wrong, and that is what makes for a powerful human being. "Lord, I was wrong. Forgive me." That is a great human being.

The one who never has any sins to admit, he is not a human being. He might be a devil, but he sure is not a human being.

"Come to prayer, Come to success." Allah wants us to be successful, and He wants us to be successful as living human beings - not as dead people. This is not a religion that just calls us to be successful after death or after the grave. He wants us to be successful while we exist in this mortal form, this body, this flesh. He assures us that we will be successful if we obey the disciplines. The most important one is prayer. Obey that one and you will be successful. There is no way to obey that one alone and not obey the others. That one is going to condition you to have the fullest amount of involvement in the religion.

Prayer will make you want to do everything. It will make you want to help in the field of education, to help the Clara Muhammad Schools. It will make you want to be materially successful and successful as a parent. It will make you want to have social status, social esteem, social respect. It makes you all around a person desiring success, an all around achiever.

When we go down to our knees, we are thanking Allah. We are doing justice by submission. We thank Allah for bringing us up on our feet. Now isn't that a wonderful prayer. And there is a lot more to be said. I hope to meet you in the "camp" one day, and we are going to talk some more.

To be continued...