1985-July

Progressions

A Prophet’s Dream

Imam W. Deen Muhammad

It has been reported of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) that he visualized two different scenes in a dream where people were in a bad situation. In one situation there was an oven in which noise and screaming could be heard, and in that oven were naked men and women. And in the conclusion of the report, the Prophet explained the meaning of the dream. Therefore, we can understand from the report that not only did Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) tell dreams, he also gave the interpretations. Now this is not to suggest that Muslims go to these so-called spiritualist people to have their dreams interpreted. Those who do that are violating their religion. If a Muslim does not get the right understanding of his own dream, or if God does not bless another Muslim to give him some satisfactory understanding of the dream, then he should forget about it.

In  this  report  in  which  Prophet Muhammad is explaining and interpreting the dream, he talks about Abraham and the people of Abraham. The report says the Prophet saw a tall man with children about him. The tall man was Abraham, and the children were those who died upon fitra. Fitra is an Arabic word that means the nature in which God created them; they were children who died conforming to that nature. And because they died upon fitra, they are called the children of Abraham.

Abraham's Children

After Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) gave the explanation, a person asked, "What if it was an idolater?" And the Prophet replied, "And also the idolater that dies on fitra would be among the children of Abraham." Now it doesn't say that they were grownups of Abraham. What this means is that if anybody, even an idolater who respects the decent human nature, and does not conform to the things in society that warp, distort, and deform that nature, and they die while yet conforming to the good nature, they are called, "Children of Abraham." And this is because Prophet Abraham was the excellent upright one who conformed to the best urges in his nature. Anyone who copies that same behavior is called the children of Abraham. This explains why the Bible calls Abraham the father of many. Muslims, Christians and Jews call Abraham their father. So this report explains in what sense they are all the children of Abraham.

As a Muslim community, we are not the children of Abraham in anyway except in our obedience to the excellent nature in which we were created. But the Muslim community is more than just the children of Abraham. We are followers of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), and members of the community of Al-Islam. That gives us a higher distinction than those people who just conform to the excellence of their nature. They don't have the last guidance, the wisdom, the complete knowledge, the fulfillment of that excellent nature.

The fulfillment of that excellent nature is to live in a society that accommodates it. That is what that nature wants. That is the "Promise Land." On the other hand, a society that licenses wrong as much as it licenses good is not a society to accommodate that nature. A society that accommodates both good and bad will let all kinds of vices and corruption become established within.

The society that accommodates that excellent nature is given in the concept of the Muslim community where you won't find liquor being sold, where you won't find gambling, adultery, prostitution and the many other evils you find in a corrupt society. You cannot have double dealing, oppression or anything wrong in the Islamic community. If you do, it is not an Islamic community. An Islamic nation exist only where the believers are practicing that excellent nature. It does not exist in any political context or in any political idea. It only exists where there are believers conforming to that idea, and that is a fact.

The Shattered Image

In reference to the dream, the Prophet said he saw in the dream a man on his back, and there was another person holding a big stone and dropping it into his face and destroying the form of his face. But, each time the person would go back to pick up the stone, the facial form had reappeared. Thus the man on his back was constantly having the form of his face destroyed. In explaining this part of the dream, the Prophet (pbuh) said, "These are the people that wasted their time." They were not busy doing Islamic things that are required of a Muslim. They were persons who would neglect their prayers when the time for prayers became due.

The face is symbolic of a person's makeup, a person's personality. The face is supposed to reflect the person inside. The face being deformed, destroyed and shattered by the stone means that the person is shattered. We may have a good image in ourselves, and a good personality will form, but then when we get under a little pressure to conform to the regular duties of what is required of a Muslim, we begin to make excuses, become stony and hardened in our thinking. Such a person may say, "I don't have to do this. This is modern times. This is America. Prophet Muhammad ordered that back there 1400 years ago. It is different now."

Now that is the stone coming into that person's face, shattering the image, making him an ugly person. After a short period of time when that person is no longer under pressure, he is a beautiful Muslim until that weight on him becomes heavy again. When it becomes time once again to make his prayers, he wants an excuse. He feels lazy and tired. He picks up that stone and drops it in his face, shattering his image and destroying his beautiful personality again.

In the same report, the Prophet (pbuh) goes on to tell of a person with a hook, and he would hook it into the face of a victim and pull. And whenever he pulled the hook toward the back of the victim, it would pull the whole side of the face back, destroying everything of the face. The Prophet said this represent such people who give themselves partly to good and partly to evil. The English translation says that God pardoned them, but that is incorrect. How could they have been pardoned and then be left in that condition with one side beautiful and the other side very ugly? God did not pardon them. He marked them just as their intent was divided, as their life was divided. God manifested that division in the way they appeared to the people.

There are such people in our community today who don't believe in conforming completely to what is right. They appear on one side of their body very handsome, and on the other side, extremely ugly. An example of the above dream as interpreted by the Prophet is in the manner in which Al-Islam was introduced to the African-Americans who followed the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in what was then known as the Nation of Islam, of which I and many members of the Muslim community here in America once belonged.

We were given this religion from somebody who came behind the beautiful principles of the religion, and gave us a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde concept of it. One side was very beautiful, and the other side very ugly. And now when we think of him, W. D. Fard, we can't be pleased at what we see. We see that one side of him was beautiful. That is the side that said, "I love the black people. I came here to help the black people. The black people should be free. The black man should have freedom, justice and equality." He told us to clean ourselves up, to eat and dress and act decently. He told us we should not be lazy, but to go to work. Now that was the beautiful side of him. But we can't miss the other side. It is there too, and now he is marked forever because he came behind a beautiful pure religion and mixed it up with evil things. Today he doesn't have followers in the American Muslim community anymore. We see him for what he was, and for what he is, a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The religion of Al-Islam as taught in the Qur'an and as taught and practiced by Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) contains eye-opening teachings. They show us what we could never have found by ourselves. The only thing we know is that we came through something, but we did not know how to relate to it. W. D. Fard said that he was a Muslim, and that he taught the Qur'an. But because at that time we did not know the Qur'an or the real life of a Muslim, we didn't know how to judge him by the thing that he represented. He came among poor ignorant and uneducated people whom he could mislead by mixing the good with the bad.

Allah says in the Qur'an that this religion is offered to the pure in heart. This religion must be accepted with a clean and pure motive, meaning that it is not being accepted because of a selfish need, but because you want to do what is right in pleasing God by living in that excellent nature in which He created all human beings.