"As
Americans and also as Muslims we have to carry the burden of the crisis
in the Middle East. Don't think that we can escape this and be healthy
in our souls. We are not going to be pleased in our souls no matter how
much we fool our hearts with our rationalizing and fabricating and
pretending that behavior is right.
The Palestinian situation is a burden and a pain on us. And we cannot
accept it and never will. If we can find any way to make a contribution
to their relief, we should want to do it. We have to support our
Palestinian Muslim brothers. If they were not Muslims, we would be
obligated.
We belong to the same religion. What happens to the Palestinians
must affect us sooner or later, one way or the other. We are together in
this, and that is what we have to understand. Allah says,
If
we have brothers or nations that are not obeying Allah, let us deal
with that problem separately! Don't wait until the brother gets in
trouble and simply dismiss our obligation by saying to him. "You are not
obeying Allah.': You knew he wasn't obeying Allah before the trouble,
so how come you did not go and help him gain obedience to Allah? Now
that he is in trouble, go and help your brother. After you have helped
him, then talk to him about his shortcomings in the religion.
Prophet Muhammed said to "help him by pulling him back from the wrong."
We are not to wait until his oppressor stops killing him. It is too
late to help him when he is dead. We are to help him get the oppressor
off of him. If the Muslim brother is the one at fault, then we are to
condemn our Muslim brother.
We also are to be in sympathy with
the developing world, for I hate to use the term "third world." We have
to have sympathy with the developing world people. How can we be Muslims
upholding the justice of the Qur'an and the life of the Prophet (the
prayer and the peace be on him) and not be sympathetic with oppressed
and mistreated people in what we call the poor and developing nations?
Some will say, "Oh, that is getting political."
This
religion is a comprehensive religion. It requires of us that we answer
every legitimate human and society concern. We can't stop and say, "Oh,
this is economics." Allah wants us involved in economics and in
politics. It does not mean that we must stand by any particular nations
just because we sympathize with them in their suffering. We may not like
their behavior either.
Most of the "third world" or
what we call the developing nations are not like they used to be during
the colonial days and immediately after.

LET
US look at reality, not only here but all over this country. Any time
you come together to do some good, you're going to have problems.
Especially if you're going to make your good spread. If it's just going
to be your private good, maybe you'll last for a while, maybe you'll
last until you die. But if you are doing good and you're committed and
you're going to pass that good on to others so it will grow in numbers,
you're in trouble.
If you want to get together and do some wrong,
you're in the best situation even the good people won't bother you. But
if you want to do good, you're in trouble.
We have to understand
that, and that's the price that the righteous must pay in the world. We
must pay that price. Accept to pay it!
I KNEW people wouldn't like me when I made a stand and when they knew
what I stood for. I knew they wouldn't like me. I knew I was going to
have a whole lot of enemies. The more people knew what I represented, I
knew the more enemies I was going to get. But that's the price I
accepted to pay. That's the price all of us who want to do good have to
accept to pay.
People aren't going to like you. People are going
to make trouble for you. People are going to try to undermine your work.
They are going to try to make you lose faith in each other. They try to
break your trust. They do anything to defeat your effort. We have to
accept that.
WE DON'T HAVE to have the CIA, the FBI or the
intelligence office of your local police department, you don't even need
that. There are people out there in the society who will give you
enough hell without those agents.
On top of that you have bad
elements in the government — some Catholics are so prejudiced against
the religion that they will sacrifice their time and even their life to
see this religion stopped in America -and Protestants who will do the
same. Then you have some other Islamic groups that will do the same
because they don't want to see me grow either.
I'm not going to
name any, but there are some narrow-minded Islamic groups that will work
to defeat you too because they don't want to see you prosper either.
We have to understand that we have enemies coming at us from all directions, who will do their best to undermine us.
A
LOT OF MUSLIMS are not satisfied with my leadership --I'm talking about
Muslims of the world — but the majority are. I do believe the great
majority of Muslims on this planet love my leadership, they thank Allah
for my leadership, but we have enough who are hateful and jealous and
dislike us enough to make trouble.
Some of them are here in America, and some overseas too. We have to understand these things. We have to accept reality.
Don't
think that everybody who comes to you in this name or in these clothes
is your friend. It may not be the case. Your friend is the one who is
truthful, who is open. Anybody who has to work with you behind closed
doors, anybody who has to tell you something secretly in your ear, you
shouldn't trust them.
The person who comes out boldly before the
community and lets them know I'm your friend, I'm a friend of this
community, those are the people we should be inclined to trust. But
those persons who stand behind, in the back but never want to be seen up
front, who claim to be with us, but are whispering things in our ears —
don't trust those people!
I don't care who they are. I don't care what kind of clothes they come in. You can't trust people like that, you see!
WE
HAVE MANY masajid all around the country, and all of our masajid are
going to be visited, our enemies are already there. Every masjid is
infiltrated. Believe me.
RIGHT NOW, I'm talking to people who are
not here to help us, they are here to hurt us. They are here to see
that we don't progress. That's their purpose, that's why they're here.
They are working for somebody or some agent or some agency or they are
just part of the group of prejudiced people who are against Muslims —
they're here just to see that you don't prosper.
EVERY MASJID has
them. Don't think your masjid is going to be any different. We're
talking to some of them right now, here. They're here in case there's an
opportunity where they will be able to take that advantage to set us
back. That's their only purpose in coming.
We have to accept
that, but we don't want to become paranoid, alarmed to the extent that
we're going to say, "I'm going to find him." No, don't try to find him,
forget about him; just know that he's here, but don't worry about him.
Hope he keeps coming, maybe he'll hear a khutbah that will change his
heart one day.
Accept that he is here and he is a troublemaker,
here to see if he can upset you or take you back or throw a monkey
wrench in your operation.
SOMETIMES THEY just ask a question
behind a good talk. They don't like to see the good spirit remain. We
had a good talk, the spirit is high, good -- everybody's going home in a
good spirit. "May I ask a question, Brother Imam? What about so and so
and so...?" just to throw a damper on the good spirit.
If you
read the history of the people who worked against Prophet Muhammed, the
kinds of things they did, they were able to come in and pretend to be
Muslims.
The Holy Qur'an says they would come in and pretend to
be the best of the Muslims, they would establish that they are the most
enthusiastic Muslims. They would say, "Let us go in among them and
establish ourselves as the most enthusiastic Muslims — and then at a
certain time, let us just quietly withdraw — and then that will make
everybody wonder and will break the community of Muslims."
The
Qur'an tells us of this scheme they use and there are many, many other
schemes and tricks they use to hurt a community, make you doubt, make
you not trust the community.
BE AWARE of the many schemes they
work. Read the Qur'an more. You have it in English -- Abdullah Yusuf Ali
a good translation, Pickthal, another good translation.
Read it in English. Don't wait until you learn Arabic. Some of you will never learn Arabic. You'll die trying to learn Arabic.
So
keep trying, but in the meantime, read the good English translation.
Read it daily! Don't wait until Ramadan. Read it daily, become more
acquainted with your Holy Book so you will know the tricks that the
world pulls to set back the good work of the righteous.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Language-Commentaries-of-WDeenMohammed/message/885
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