1981-September-18

Bilalian News

Submission To Allah's Will: Part 3

Imam W. Deen Muhammad

(Editor's note: Following are excerpts from a Khutbah delivered by Imam Warith Deen Muhammad at Masjid Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Friday. June 19. 1981.)

So dear beloved people, let us keep God before us. Know that Allah (God) is One. He's in charge of everything. He created everything. He is aware of everything, no matter how small. This Allah says in the Quran, that He is the same Allah that has seen forever and will be forever. He never came into existence: He brought everything else into existence; He has been watching over His creation since He created it. You can't tell Him anything. He knows everything.

I can imagine myself having a different God, and I ask Him a big question. You know the .more you take on, the more complicated your life gets and the bigger your problems ^et. Some of my problems have been very big lately. 1 can imagine myself in one of these bad trouble situations going to a God who hasn't been around for all times.

I'll start thinking: "Wait a minute now, you don't know anything about this.  You can't handle this one." So I would feel bad putting my prayer on Him. It would be a little bit too " heavy for Him.

But we can relax. Allah knows all about us. all about everything that has happened in times immemorial.

May Allah always save us from our human errors, restore our faith and bless us with the rational faith: guide our feet always in His straight path, and help us to live a life that complements, that pays respect to that great community of Muslims led by our Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. Amen.

Allah says in the Quran that he caused the treasures of the Earth to pass from one people to another. He also caused the Book, to pass from one people to another. What is the qualification for receiving the Book? The printer got it in his hand and he made other copies. I'm talking about receiving the knowledge of that Book. What is the qualification? "Those who have fear, pious devotion in their hearts for Allah. Those who are pious in the true sense; who live a life of strict discipline for His pleasure: who look for an opportunity to see what Allah wants. Allah says that He gives the Book as an inheritance. He gave the Book as an inheritance to the Jews, the Nazarenes. Allah says that some who received the Book from their Prophets believed, some take a middle course, and some go forward as though in a race toward all that is good accepting only what Allah has allowed.

Definitions of what is "good" are not left to individual judgment. Maybe I think this particular venture is good, but how does it look in the light of what is revealed in the Quran? Maybe it's not good.

Those who will be foremost in the world according to this Quran are those who go in a competitive spirit. We are supposed to be enthusiastic people. We are supposed to be people in the world meeting a challenge, moving forward. We are supposed to be the foremost in the world, not the one who's lagging behind.

Allah has said that those who go forward will get the reward. And in addition, other rewards that their hearts hope for. The reward of paradise, the reward of having pleased their Lord, the fullness of their desires.

Let us understand this: the West hasn't advanced because they are super-beings or because they are white folks; they have advanced because they value so dearly the competitive spirit. They believe in competition and free enterprise as a means to greater productivity. They promote the idea. They encourage their business people, they encourage their students. Even the little students have spelling bees.

The whole democracy as we understand it is geared by that principle — the promotion of competition under the free enterprise system. The spirit to excel; the spirit to go ahead; the spirit to outdo. To outdo my own record: to press myself for more productivity and skill.

If this Book is not the best Book, if it is not the last Book, then how come this Book has also established that as being the foremost principle for the believer? We must move in a spirit to excel, to beat the mark I made yesterday; to compete with you and you with me in a healthy competition: to achieve whatever goals to excellence Allah has accepted.

So dear beloved Muslims, don't sleep. Don't let opportunity pass you by. Don't let the world run ahead of you. But know that Allah has revealed the best. They have copied and made extractions from God's Book. They saw wisdom so they valued it and invested in it.

It is a shame on the Muslim world that the Western world — that is non-Muslim — has invested great wealth on the strength of knowledge to make a great industrial world for themselves and their friends.

Now "we have to realize that the West was sleeping, and it was Prophet Muhammad and his companions who shook them and stimulated their appetites again for scientific research, scientific investigation. As a consequence, they became the greatest industrial power known in history.

I challenge anybody to show me in what Plato left, in what the Greeks, left, in what any of those old civilizations left, where America got her precious tools for ideological and social progress? You will see when it is put into plain language it came from the Quran. It did not come from those old books of the old civilizations. It came from the Quran. Shouldn't it work well for the Muslims?

Let us be foremost. Let us remember that this life is an opportunity for greater and better things. We should face difficulties of life in this spirit, meet them and overcome them, trusting in Allah, putting Him first always: following the example of Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be on him. the most excellent example. A human example, a human Prophet. Allah says. "Say to them, O Prophet, I am a human being like you." Allah blessed him with revelation. He was a member in common humanity, but one like the faithful people we find among the masses.

(To be continued)