1976-June-25

Bilalian News

The Fire of The Green Tree

W.D. Muhammad

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:

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77. Doth not man see
That it is We Who
Created him from sperm ?
Yet behold ! he (stands forth)
As an open adversary !

78.  And he makes comparisons
For Us, and forgets his own
(Origin and) Creation:
He says, " Who can give
Life to (dry) bones
And decomposed ones (at that) ?

79. Say, "He will give them
Life Who created them
For the first time !
For He is well-versed
In every kind of creation !

80. " The same Who produces
For you fire out of
The green tree, when behold!
Ye kindle therewith
(Your own fires)!

81. " Is not He Who created
The heavens and the earth
Able to create the like
Thereof ? "—Yea, indeed !
For he is the Creator Supreme,
Of skill and knowledge (infinite)!

82.  Verily, when He intends
A thing, His Command is,
" Be ", and it is !

S3. So glory to Him
In Whose hands is
The dominion of all things :
And to Him will ye
Be all brought back.

Holy Quran translation by Yusuf Ali: Sura 36: Verses 77 -83
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We know that all trees are green in color when they first spring up out of the earth. As they begin to get bigger and older, the skin (bark) begins to harden and to turn brown. The Holy Quran says that Almighty God has the power to bring fire out of the green tree. Green trees serve animals more than they serve man, but old, strong trees serve many uses for us. We do not use green trees. We cut down trees that have grown strong and brown with bark so that we can dry them out. Before we use them, we have to make sure that the first thing that feeds the life of the tree (water) is all taken out. We can put a dry, "dead" seed into the ground, but when it receives some water to nourish it, it begins to swell up and burst into life. As it begins to grow and as it begins feeding on sunlight and earth, it grows up to be a strong life.

The "green tree" in the above scripture is symbolic of human beings in the, physical world or in the physical body. We are like a green tree in our physical body until fire comes into the body. Before the fire (the divine truth of Almighty God) comes into the body, the "tree" is young and green in knowledge. In its green state it cannot make any fire. After it gets seasoned, however, we can take a couple of pieces of the tree and make fire burst out from them.

The Holy Quran refers to the disbelievers who do not believe that God is more than something physical as "green trees." Those people who do not believe that they themselves are more than something physical can be heard asking the question, "What is going to happen to us when we are dead and when we become nothing but dry bones in the ground?'' This kind of people rejected the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) that man can be resurrected to a life after physical death. Prophet Muhammad was giving the revelation that out of a green tree comes the fire that the old trees cannot produce. Although trees should be dry and seasoned to serve the society as "firewood," some old trees that do not want to become firewood insist upon dying green. The Holy Quran is saying that God is going to put this kind of tree in the fire. If green trees sizzle in the fire long enough, all the moisture will be burned out of them. After all the moisture of this world's life sizzles out of them, the green trees will catch afire.

The Holy Quran is also telling us in this scripture that some people take green trees without drying them out and put them in their own fire. The green trees sizzle in the fire for a while and then they burst into flames. This allegory refers to the "green tree" (pagan people) that Prophet Mohammad was sent to teach.

This weak, undeveloped society of pagans was being told that, even though they were a green tree, God had created a strong fire in Prophet Muhammad. The Arabs were told that if they would bring the green trees to the fire of Prophet Muhammad, he would burn out the moisture of this world's life from them and he would cause the "green" bodies to burst into flames (the divine light).

The same promise exists today for the Bilalian society in the Western Hemisphere. We are a green tree (a baby people) in the world that is not old and seasoned like the big, strong oak trees and cedar trees of the world. We have not grown old and wise and seasoned in the ways of government. If we would but bring our young, tender, green trees into the new fire of Islam that has ignited here in the West, we are guaranteed that fire will burst forth from within the green trees.

The Holy Quran teaches us that we do not have to die to go to heaven - heaven can come to us in this life. We can burst into spiritual truth (divine awareness) in this physical life just like a green tree can burst into flames while it is yet alive. While we are still physically alive, we can burst into flames of divine light (divine truth), we can see heavenly light, and we can live in the heavenly land.

Do not think that because a life is in one form now that it cannot be a new life later. The Holy Quran says that Almighty God makes things for the first time and He can reproduce them anytime He gets ready. Certainly there is the divine life, the life of God and the life of heaven in this world's life — there is heaven right here on earth. When the earth has turned to dust, when the sun is no more in the heavens,- and when all the physical creation has become nothing but dust — Almighty God by His own words (by His own will) can bring the dust to life again.

He can form a creation higher than the one He formed this time. Though your essence be dust or though it be something less than bones or though it be something less than anything you can imagine, if it is alive anywhere in the universe, God can raise you up to life again.

Brothers and Sisters, do not let anyone kill your faith. After your physical body is gone down to less than dust, in time God will cause this creation to give birth to life again. You cannot escape creation in death, your essence can only break down to its primary form. God has the power to restore you again to life as He created you the first time.

He made the first creation without the male and the female, but He established in that creation the power for recreation. God has forced us to come together as male and female in our natural makeup. If we come together there are already the elements that are required to recreate life, both male and female. This is also true in the divine sense. Allah manifested His truth for the first time and then He made a womb to receive that truth for the first time. After that all He had to do was let the process continue naturally, but the world became unnatural and men forgot where to go to have "godly babies." They started mating with "animals," so God had to begin His creation all over again. He does this by revealing to man the method that He used and the tools that He left.

We can destroy knowledge but we cannot destroy tools of knowledge. When God reveals to us where the tools are and how to use them, we can again call the womb into shape, place the germ of the man into the womb, form the man, and create life all over again. The knowledge of how to do things as they are naturally suppose to be done was taken away from the world by the enemy to God and to man. Almighty God has to open up a mind that it is able to call together the scattered pieces of the womb that this world has blown everywhere so that a new womb can be formed. That mind has to bring back to the people the truth that has been hidden from the world "six thousand years" (six periods or six steps of development). Then it will put God's truth into the womb naturally as it is suppose to be put into the womb to create a mind (mind) that is godly. This is a great blessing with which Almighty God has blessed us with in the Lost-Found Nation of Islam.

Your Brother,
W.D. Muhammad