1977-August-5

Bilalian News

The Reality Of Al-Islam: Part 1

Emam Wallace D. Muhammad

The following article is from excerpts of a Jumah Prayer lecture that was delivered by Emam Wallace d. Muhammad on June 3, 1977.

With the Name Allah (In the Name of God), The Gracious, The Compassionate.
As-Salaam-Alaikum

Dear Readers,
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, the Guardian-Evolver, of all the worlds. I give open testimony that there is nothing worthy of worship except Allah alone. There is nothing like unto Him. I give open testimony that Muhammad is His slave-servant and His messenger. We ask Allah’s peace and blessings upon Prophet Muhammad, the last of the prophets, the universal messenger, upon his descendants, his companions, upon the righteous servants, all of them, and upon us, oh Muslims.

The Best Design

In Al-Islam, we are given the right outlook on life. We are presented reality and we are told that our religion is the religion of “Fitrah” which means the religion established on that design on which Allah has structured the heavens and the earth or the creation itself. The same design, the same pattern, that upholds the heavens and the earth Allah has given to us as the basis of our religion. That which upholds the earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars can certainly uphold me and you.

Allah has said in His Quran that He has made us in the best form. But He has also said, so we won’t become big-headed, that surely the creation of the earth and the skies is a bigger creation that your creation. So don’t think that because He has given you this special place in His creation that you are some super-natural creation that is greater than the skies and the earth. Out of the skies and the earth you come physically and develop – internally. It is only because Allah made you with human sentiments and gave you spiritual guidance that you come into a strength (discipline) that enables you to rise above the physical laws of nature or above the physical life. You could not rise above the physical laws of nature or above the physical life if Allah did not bless you with guidance from Himself. So we are not to get big-headed: “Oh, Allah has made me to be the inheritor; He has made me to be the guardian, the custodian; He has made me to be the khailifah. He has crowned this creation with me. Ho, I am so great! My beginning must be back there with God. I must be His associate” No, you are not His associate. You are a little thing that He brought up out of His earth. But because of His charity to you, you have grown to be big and He has blessed you to sit on top of the world.

The Throne Of God

Now God says in the Quran that His throne, His seat was upon the water. What is a seat? A king sits on his seat, on his throne. What is this throne symbolic of? It is symbolic of his kingdom. If he sits on it, what supports him? Now we know God doesn’t need a chair to sit on. So in what way are we talking about support? What kind of knowledge do we base the existence of God on? God sits upon His seat, His throne, the symbol of His authority. Where is it established? It was established on the water. What is the water symbolic of? It is symbolic of the moral nature, the sentimental makeup of the human being.

When God gives birth to human life, that life comes from its mother submissive, obedient, agreeable, loving. Because of the nature in that child, the mother is able to reach it with moral guidance and with moral discipline. We know that when the baby comes from the womb the water breaks and water comes forth. Water is symbolic of the beginning of human life and the beginning of human life is like water. Water is not rebellious. Water is agreeable. If you want to pour it, it will pour. If you want to dip it, it will dip. If you leave it alone, it will just stay there. It won’t do anything on its own. It is obedient. If something draws it up, it will come up. If the sun heats it, it will rise. If the cold hits it, it will condense. It is agreeable. So God has made the human life agreeable.

How is His judgment or His rule established? It is first established on that. Can any of us deny that we don’t need a great philosopher or a great scientist to look into the nature of human beings and examine the history of civilization to see how man came into existence. Every time a baby is born, we see how he comes into existence. We come into existence like water – submissive and agreeable. So God did not make up to do evil. He made human life to be obedient to moral discipline, to right guidance.

Flesh Is Not Sinful

There are people who would like to prove that our origin is in sin. So here Allah has revealed the most marvelous language, the truth that tells us that our origin is not in sin. Your origin is a good one. Your beginning is a good one. God first established His rule, His way in the beginning, that primal nature, of the human being, the nature of obedience, the nature of peace. Even today we still associate water with the word peace: “by the quiet waters, by the still water, by peaceful waters.” People say, “I am going out to the lake and look at the lake so I can feel peaceful, so I can quiet myself.” Water is symbolic of the submissive nature in us – the Muslim nature, agreeable, submissive to moral discipline. This is the peace in the mature of the human being.

God’s throne was established on that nature until a liar came in and said, “Man begins in sin.” We don’t begin in sin. The flesh is not sinful. The flesh begins in Muslim nature. It begins in peace and in obedience – agreeable and susceptible to the good advices of its parents. This is what Allah is telling us. When we begin as human beings or as life, we are dominated by sentiments, feelings, emotions. In this birthed, formed a moral conscience. Before we learned so-called rules of logic and before we learned to argue and debate, God has given us a moral nature. It comes to us naturally and gives us a moral conscience.

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

You brother in service to Allah
Wallace D. Muhammad