1992-July-17

Muslim Journal

Excerpts from Al-Islam: Unity and Leadership

Imam W. Deen Mohammed

Great Human Potential is by Design

Whenever we see society falling off the great pedestal of human excellence, we should be troubled and alarmed to the extent that we become organized. And if we cannot make an appeal safely to get the respect of that society doing that evil, then we will have to meet even in secret and plan and work together. For what purposed Allah says that most of their secret meetings are for no good. The secret meetings are only good if they are made for promoting righteousness, decency, fair dealings, and respect among people. So someone has been oft the job.

We have to understand that just looking the part is far from being enough. That is what this world approves today: You don't have to be anything, just look the part. Muslims, we cannot accept that. The hollow vessel with nothing in it is good for nothing but the fire. That is our opinion. You must have the established substance that Allah wants and not just a picture of it.

Let us look at the automobile as a picture with a message for us. You will look at a car and say, "Oh that beautiful car!" It may look like it just came from the showroom, and you will admire how nice it is. Now if you go to start it up and nothing happens, if you grab the steering wheel and it is loose and is not connected to anything, if you hit the brakes and they are loose too and are not connected to anything, if you push the button to roll the windows up and get absolutely nothing, look how the worth of that car has fallen. It is the same way for a human being that looks like what Allah wants in picture, but when you try to communicate, you find nothing functioning under the covers.

Allah says that He will give us a good life. Allah promises us that. A good life is the promised destiny that we are talking about for the human person. That is the good life that we want. We are naturally going towards it, if we will just listen to our better motivations in our souls. We are naturally growing into it, but we need the help of Allah. We cannot realize it to our satisfaction without the help of Allah. And we will loose what we gain, if we don't at some point turn honestly seeking the help of Allah. This is not any imaginary God; Allah is the Real God

In order to have a functioning person, we have to have that which Allah intended for that person - the human properties and human nature have to be operating and working for him. A functional being has to be in this picture. Now if society will affect my behavior in such a way that my mind and human sentiments are no longer suiting this identity or are no longer agreeing with this identity, then what have we here? We will have a foreign life created. No matter what we have, if we do not have the "human type" the human being for all intensive purposes is dead. He is not there and is just like that car. It is a beautiful picture, but it is a dead car. And no one wants a dead car.

By design we are human beings. What we mean when we say we are human beings is that we are creatures of intelligence or creatures with great potential for intelligent behavior, intelligent life, and intelligent aspirations. Al-Islam values the human person essentially or basically for that excellence or superiority in him over other creatures. He is valued for his intelligence. Read the Qur'an over and over and see what is the language there. The language is questioning men's disrespect for the value of the human intellect or intelligence in human beings.

Whether we have ninety per cent in this audience or ninety per cent in our association who love stupidity and care nothing about education, that does not hurt or change at all our determination to bring to them and to their conscious thoughts the great value of intellect that Allah created in them. So our duty is to go to people who are behaving as though crazy, behaving like animals that have gone insane. Our duty is to go to people who disrespect things that should be respected and are abusing and destroying themselves, ignoring their obligations to their families and communities and neighborhoods. We are to go to those people and invite them to come back to human conscious behavior and see the human being in his true worth. We are to invite them to realize that everyone has that great possession; every child is born in the world with that great possession.