Month: May 2023

Friday Sermon by: Rashad Khalifa, Imam of Masjid Tucson

Summary:

In this Friday sermon, Rashad Khalifa explains why those who worship God alone are extremely fortunate: God knows who deserves guidance and grants it to them, as He did with Abraham and Joseph, so we should thank Him rather than credit ourselves.

Video Transcript:

Alhamdulillah, we praise God and we bear witness that there is no God except the one God, the creator of the heavens and the earth. As you know by now and from Sura 38, verse 69, a few billion years ago we committed a horrendous crime by not upholding God’s absolute authority and the creatures who without hesitation upheld God’s absolute authority the angels they became angels suggested that all those creatures who do not uphold God’s absolute authority should go to hell. But God Almighty, the Most Merciful, told them, “I know what you don’t know.” God decided to give us another chance. He could have very easily put us in hell. That’s the only it’s the only just thing to do actually but not as far as God was concerned. The idea was that there was God and his kingdom and God simply said those among you who do not uphold my absolute authority go find yourself some other kingdom. And we did not uphold God’s absolute authority when Satan started that idea. However, this Quranic information tells us or explains to us why people are so bad. In Sura 12 verse 103, God says most people no matter what you do will not believe. So now we know why because basically we are the bad creatures who did not uphold God’s absolute authority. And then two verses later in 106 God says that of those who believe which is the minority now the majority will idolize something besides God. So therefore a precious minority of a minority will be redeemed. And this is why this whole universe a billion trillion stars and all these designs the butterflies and the cattle and the dogs and the horses and the computers and the cars and the jobs. All these things were made just for these precious few to be redeemed. People are bad. Repeatedly throughout the Quran, God says only a few of the human beings are appreciative. You go and you tell them worship God alone, God alone. And they’re so averse, there’s so much resistance to it. They’re so bad. They are holding God is giving them a chance to redeem themselves and they refuse it. So we decided here to worship God alone and we decided to denounce our crime and not to set up anything besides God. No prophets, no imams, no saints, just God alone. This is how we get redeemed. And we are convinced. We know that God alone possesses all power. We know that God alone can help us or or wills that we we get into adversity. God alone. We know that the prophets, the messengers, the imams, the saints are all dead. And even if they were alive, they are powerless. They can do nothing. We know that. We are convinced. We denounced our crime. And we are very few in the world. So why are we so fortunate? I mean fortunate is does not describe God’s blessings on us. This is like winning a lottery where we had a fellow here, one of the brothers who had a a lottery. He didn’t know the lottery was haram. And he was showing me how four of the six winning numbers were matching. And you can imagine when the numbers were coming out on the TV and he’s holding this lottery ticket in his hand and the number the first number matches. Good sign. Then the second number matches. All right. Then the third number matches and he gets excited and the fourth number matches. I’m going to be a millionaire. Okay. And this is four out of six matching numbers is getting excited. Now when you decide when you denounce our ancient crime and decide to worship God alone, you’ve won a lottery with a million numbers. It’s exactly like that. if if even even even more than a million but let’s say take a million numbers and you’re sitting imagine sitting watching the TV and you’re holding a lottery ticket with a million numbers and the first number matches these are random numbers the first number is 17 the next one is 732 the third number is 816 the third number is 19 and the next next one is six and so on and the first number matches the second number matches the third number matches and you have 1 million matching numbers. So this will give you an idea since the word fortunate will not describe how fortunate we are.

What I’m what I’m trying to share with you in this by now is why are we so fortunate? There is a reason and hopefully as we share this together you will understand why you were born at this time in that house at that place and what brought you here. What are the seemingly weird circumstances that that put you in this place? Why are you here? You’re going to understand all this in Sura 21:51. Well, let me go back. Let me back up to that incident, that feud when when we fell into that crime and we decided not to uphold God’s absolute authority. Did God, this is a rhetorical question. Did God know which ones are really bad and deserve to go to hell? And which ones are really were swept in the crowd and they deserve to go to the high heaven and which ones are so so and they deserve to go to the lower heaven. Did God know that? Of course, he knew that. So and then the test came after all the agreements and all the things that most of you know babies are being born in this world and being assigned persons from that pool of creatures assigned to the babies. As they are assigned God knows if this person is going to the high heaven or the lower heaven or hell. So in essence, you can imagine an invisible stamp on each one of us that says high heaven, low heaven or hell already stamped. And here is the proof. In Sura 21:51, God says, “We granted Abraham his intelligence or his guidance for we were aware of him.” Okay, in Arabic maybe you can grasp a few words. We have given Ibrahim his guidance before that and because we knew we knew what we knew that he’s one of the people who deserved the high heaven and this is why God gave him the understanding, the intelligence, the guidance. So Abraham looked at the star and the moon and the sun and decided to worship God alone. But it’s already he didn’t he didn’t do anything on his own. It’s kind of difficult to explain. God gave him the guidance because God knew that he deserved that. So we’re not here because we’re intelligent or because we’re smarter than anyone out there in the street. We are here because we’re really fortunate because obviously we were swept in the crowd when those billions of creatures deviated and God knows that and this why you were born at this time in that house in that place and this why all those weird circumstances that led you here and made you sitting here in this mosque now because God wanted you wanted God wanted to give you your intelligence and your guidance. In Sura 12, you know this verse very well. Yusuf, Joseph, God says, I’m quoting the Quran, he almost fell for her and she almost fell for him. If it were not that he saw his signs, his Lord’s proof; he saw something from God that made him stop. So was it Joseph that was so good that he resisted the seduction, the temptation of the governor’s wife or is it in fact the next verses says we thus diverted from him sin. We protected him. So, does Joseph get the credit for not falling for the governor’s wife, for abstaining from sin? Obviously not. God is telling us, “I diverted him from sin.” Why? Because Joseph had a stamp there saying, “High heaven.” Cuz God knows that he deserves that he was one of the fortunate ones. more profound is in Sura 28, verses 68 and 69. I’m going to read this in Arabic and translate it. It said your Lord creates whatever he wills and he chooses. Nobody has a choice in this respect. We we make the decision. It’s this is very difficult to explain. I don’t know how to explain it to you except just read it. God creates and he chooses. With this introduction that that I presented to you, you understand now that God knows already who are the people coming into this world who deserve to go to the high heaven, who deserve to be given the guidance and given the understanding. Says nobody, nobody does the choosing. God is the one who does the choosing. This why you read in the Quran, you cannot guide the ones you love. The stamp is already there. What can you do? Doesn’t matter. This is why God says if you cause this Quran to move Mount Lemmon from the east to the west, they will still not believe. You know, you go like this, you know, Quran, I’m going to move Mount Lemmon for you folks and you move Mount Lemmon like that to the other side of the city. They will they’ll say magic. You say you go join Copperfield’s union. They will not believe. It doesn’t matter what you do. They are already stamped. The next verse that after God says God creates whatever he wills, this means that he assigns whatever babies in whatever places. You know, Katherine’s grandson, Michael, little Michael, cute, quiet, real Muslim inshallah. He was assigned to that body in that place at that time and his grandmother undoubtedly will sneak in a few pieces of information because God knows that he deserves he deserves to receive some understanding and certain guidance. God knows exactly who is to be assigned where. This is what this verse mean 28:68. You can look at it later. And in 69, it clarifies the whole thing. Says, “And your Lord knows what their hearts hide and what they declare.” And on that basis, God grants the guidance and the understanding. So hopefully with this half of the I hope you understand. If you just quickly go through your life and see why you are here, you’ll understand why these strange things happened and brought you here. So let’s turn to God and not only repent but also thank Him for giving us this chance.

Alhamdulillah. Praise God. We bear witness that there’s no God except the one God. Only a few years ago, of course, all our life is just a few years anyway, but a few years ago, we’re praying wrong. We’re doing everything wrong. We were continuing to commit the same crime. Putting names next to God in opposition to this book where every page tells you God alone, God alone, God alone. When you pray the name of God alone, the masjid belongs to God. Worship God alone. Keep saying this. But we were doing everything wrong. And God granted us the understanding and the guidance as he did with Abraham. We read throughout the Quran people you know all those Muslims who are not really Muslims and all those Christians who are not really Christians and all those people who say they believe in God. They’re described in the Quran. You ask them who created the heavens and the earth. They say God, they really believe in God, but they don’t know God. And the Quran continues saying they’re going to hell. And you’re going to read in my translation, even the old one, that the majority of believers in God are going to hell. This is what the Quran says in several places. You told them who is the Lord of the heavens and the earth and the Lord of the great authority, the great dominion. They say God. that they’re going to hell. It’s because they don’t know God and they don’t understand this granting of the guidance and they don’t understand that God is doing everything that that an important part of this universe is exposing Satan as an incompetent god with a small G an incompetent, temporary god. So these constituents of Satan had to be there in order to prove his incompetence. So you present all this evidence to a lot of people that God is doing everything. God is in full control and the person in front of you is not a believer. They are stamped “hell” and you’re presenting all this evidence and what what would they say? You show them verse 17 of Sura 8 8:17 that says God is doing everything. You know what they say? The Quran got their number. They say they blame God for their idolatry and for prohibiting things. Twice in the Quran God says the idol worshippers will say if God will then we will not be idol worshiping and we will not prohibit things that he did not prohibit. And by the way, this shows you how important it is not to prohibit things that God did not prohibit. They prohibit the meat in the market. They prohibit hush puppies and hair brushes that are made of of pig hair, you know, I recommend that they don’t eat the brush, you know, after. But even then, God prohibited only the meat. But twice in the Quran, God says the idol worshippers say if God wills, we will not do this. So they blame it on God. I didn’t get up for the morning prayer because God if God wanted me to get up I would have gotten up. God is doing everything. So it’s a cop out and God got your number.

I pray to God that he gives us the understanding and the guidance and to and continues to lead us out of darkness into the light all the way to the high heaven.

Friday Sermon by: Rashad Khalifa, Imam of Masjid Tucson

Summary:

In this Friday sermon, Rashad Khalifa compares what people do for the body, which lasts about 100 years, with what they do for the soul, the real person, which lives forever. He urges believers to put their priorities in perspective by worshiping God alone, observing the Contact Prayers and the Friday prayer, and remembering God throughout the day, and he explains why not a single letter of the prayers, such as Al-Fatiha, may be added or removed.

Video Transcript:

Praise God. We bear witness that there is no god except the one God. There are no other gods or idols besides Him.

In the last khutba we reached the conclusion that you do not really believe in God unless you know that He is doing everything. You make the initial decision. This is our role. We make a decision, a decision to be with God or not. And “not” means you are with Satan, because there’s no other choice. You’re either with God or with Satan. And this is the decision where we have absolute freedom of choice. After that, you’re either guided by God or messed up by Satan. But the ultimate doer of everything is God, and everything is happening in accordance with God’s will.

Today I want to compare our priorities. I want to use the board here to illustrate something about priorities.

Most people do not know who they are. We recognize now the human being as consisting of two entities. Just to make it very simple: the body and the soul. The body goes on for, let’s be optimistic, about 100 years, and then it dies and becomes nothing. The soul is the real person, the real you. This is the real person right here, and it goes on for eternity.

The body has requirements and the soul has requirements. What I want to compare here is what we do for this entity and what we do for this entity.

For the body, people start with the infant. The infant is given milk and nourished, given shots, painful shots, and growing pains and teething. And then the body goes to school. You have to go to school, right? There’s a commercial on the radio and TV now with that comic cat, Garfield. He says if you want to be a fat cat, go to school, go to college. So you go to school and you take tests and go through the homework and the absence reports and the chastising from the parents and the teachers, and working very hard studying. You know, school is not popular with most kids. You go through grade school, junior high school, then you go to high school, with all the hard work involved in it, and you’re so glad to graduate, only to go into college. Then you’re a freshman, and you study very hard and work, and you’re very busy, devoting a lot of effort and time and money to school. Why? Because of this body. You want to dress nicely, have good clothes, and you want to buy a house, preferably in the foothills, with so many rooms and luxuries and carpets and drapes. This body wants that, and you work hard for that.

You graduate from college and you apply for jobs. You go to the placement office and you stand in line for the people who interview you, and you are very polite. You want to be bright, or pretend to be bright, and you put on your best appearance, some sense of humor, intelligence, abilities. You pretend to be perfect for the interview, and you get the job. And then you do a lousy job and you’re fired. Then you’re applying for other jobs and you’re miserable. All this is for the body, because the body wants clothes, housing, food, and we do all this work for the body.

Now, what does the average person do for the soul? This is the real person. After all this, the body dies, goes to dust, becomes nothing.

There was a person this body belonged to called Rock Hudson. Do you remember that name? He died recently; this is why you still remember him. Rock Hudson was a very successful person: lots of money, fame, front covers of magazines, TV, movies, wealth, a Beverly Hills mansion. His body had a lot of fun, and he also broke God’s law, as we know, and he died in humiliation. Now, the real person, Rock Hudson, does exist. What did he do for this body, and what did he do for this? What did the fame and money bring him? What is the value of the fame and the money that he accumulated?

Remember Liberace, the glitter, the suits that he was wearing, and the showmanship, and the people clapping for him, the performances he gave and how many millions of dollars he made? But how much does he, the real person, have? At the end, the mortician was afraid to touch him because of the AIDS virus. Or Rockefeller, or any of them. People work very hard for this entity here, the body. What do they do for the soul? This is the question. What I’m trying to bring out is rearranging our priorities, putting our priorities in perspective.

What are we doing for the soul? What does the soul need? The soul needs worshiping God alone. This is the first step, because the soul is part of God, any way you want to look at it, because God said, “I blew into Adam from My spirit.” So the soul needs to worship God alone, and then it needs food, nutrition. The five daily meals, the five prayers, are needed. You need fasting.

People like Rock Hudson, for example, put themselves in the service of this body. He was serving this body. Whatever the body wanted, he gave it. But he neglected himself. If the soul was this size when he started, it is still this size now. It didn’t grow. He didn’t feed his soul. His priorities were mixed up. I’m using a real person as an example because here’s a person who attained fame and fortune.

The conclusion from this is that anything we do that is not developing our soul is a waste of time. If you do anything that has nothing to do with God, it is a waste of time. So from when you wake up in the morning until the end of the day, you ask yourself: am I doing this for God, which is, in other words, for feeding my soul? Because anything you do for God causes your soul to grow and develop. It is actually for yourself, for the real entity. So we have to rearrange our priorities, put them in perspective. How much of the day are you doing for the body, and how much are you doing for you? You went to school and suffered through examinations to have a good job. What did you do for you?

By the way, 100 years compared to infinity is zero. So this is the proportion of what you should do for yourself and for your body. You should do zero for your body, and you should do 100% for you. It is not intelligent otherwise, because this is zero. It’s going to be nothing. So you have to put the body in the service of you, and not the other way around. Almost everybody out there has the priorities reversed. They put themselves in the service of a vanishing garment.

Alhamdulillah.

From this diagram, I want to move on to comparing the believer, a Muslim, one who has submitted to God, and a regular person.

I was looking out the window the other day. I had prayed my morning prayer, and about an hour later I saw one of my neighbors coming out, and he was obviously very sleepy. His hair was all messed up. You can imagine, he just got up, he’s walking like this, he can hardly walk. He’s young; he’s not old. His clothes are a mess, and he was out to get the newspaper.

Now, a Muslim wakes up in the morning. Remember, we pledged this; I hope you didn’t forget. We do forget once in a while. But the first thing you say when you get up in the morning is “In the name of God,” because this is what you will say when you get up on the Day of Resurrection: whatever you say every morning. And I have to repeat what most people say when they get up in the morning, look at the clock, and see the time. This is exactly what they will say on the Day of Judgment: “Oh, sh—!” Because usually they turn the alarm off and go back to sleep, and when they get up the next time, it’s too late, and they utter the four-letter words.

So the Muslim gets up in the morning saying “In the name of God.” If this is a habit here, it’s going to be a habit also on the Day of Judgment. God will see to it. God will help you. And when you get up on the Day of Resurrection saying there is only one God, there’s no place to go but heaven. So this is what the Muslim does. Now, what did my neighbor do when he got up in the morning looking for the paper? God is not on his mind, just like the average person. I hope God was on his mind, but it didn’t look like it.

And then the Muslim goes to do his or her ablution. You do ablution in the morning and you pray the morning prayer. This is the first thing you do. And this act of ablution and the morning prayer is very refreshing. You’re alert. You look nice. You wash your face. You comb your hair. You will not look like this guy. He really looked terrible. You only see that in the movies, somebody who just got out of bed.

The Muslim commemorates God at every chance he or she gets. The Muslim sees the sunrise and says, “Subhan Allah.” All these are nutrition for the soul, for you, the real person, and your soul grows. You say, “Subhan Allah, glory be to God,” as you see the sun rising, because you’re always conscious of God. The sun is rising exactly at the precise second and from the same spot that it is supposed to, without delay. And God committed that sun to your service, and you say, “Subhan Allah.” You look at a flower and you do the same thing.

Then you make a telephone call to one of your friends or associates, and you say, “Tomorrow I’m going to do this and that, inshallah, God willing.” There’s a certain behavior of the person who has submitted to God, because you know that God is doing everything, and you know that you will do this and that tomorrow only because God wills it. And the Quran gives you this very clear commandment. And then your kids get up, and you admire them and you say, “Mashallah.” This is God’s gift to you. This is God’s will that you have these children, and you thank God.

Now, the non-Muslim is unaware. God is not in his or her mind at all, and they are neglecting the real person, neglecting themselves. They’ll be very careful to have breakfast, but they will not give breakfast to their soul.

So you are living 24 hours a day commemorating your Creator. And your Creator doesn’t need that. God doesn’t need any of our praise or our worship. We do. You are being prepared for the eternal life which is coming. You don’t see anybody around who’s 200 years old, do you? You haven’t heard of anyone. It’s coming, the Day of Resurrection. And then you’ll be assigned that eternal rank depending on where you qualify, how much growth you did.

So far I have talked about rearranging the priorities, or putting the priorities in perspective: how much time you devote to your soul, the real person, and how much time you give to your job and your boss and your family and so on. Strictly, you can give time to your family in the cause of God. Our priorities must be in perspective.

This is why you are here for the Friday prayer. You dropped all business and you are here for the Friday prayer. This is the correct priority. Any time you are not here on Friday, you’re out of God’s grace. It’s a commandment for every Friday: you drop all business and you go to the Friday prayer. And God associates this with business and profit. God says it is better for you to drop business, because God runs the world. God is doing everything. And when you drop your business and go to the Friday prayer as God commands you to, God will see to it that you make more money, more profit. You don’t care, but it will come.

I’m going to read a couple of verses from the Quran that deal with this subject of priorities, in Sura 18, starting at verse 45. I seek refuge in God from Satan. In the name of God. It says, “Cite for them the example of this world: like sending water from the sky that causes plants to grow on the earth, and then it turns into hay, blown away by the wind.” This is the example of this world, in verse 45 of Sura 18.

The plant grows. It is strong. You see all those flowers out there? They’re very nice. Watch them. They’re going to turn into something dry like hay, and they blow away. In fact, the time will come and you will say, “I want to remove this stuff from here.” It’s going to be dry and shriveled, and this is how this world is.

The next verse says that money and children are the beauty of this life, the adornments of this life. These are the good things of this life: money and children. And I’ve heard many people say, “God says that money and children are the adornments of this life. I have lots of children. Where is the money?” But generally, money and children are the beauties, the adornment, of this life.

And then the rest of the verse says, “However, the eternal righteous works,” the righteous works that last forever, and we’re talking about the real person here, “are far better.” So money and children and properties in this world are the good things in this life, and God tells us what is better than that. Like I mentioned in the last khutba, worshiping God alone and nourishing your real person, the Quran says, is much better than owning everything on this earth and twice as much. All the real estate in Vancouver and New York, all the real estate in the whole world, all the oil, the gold, the diamonds: believing in God alone and nourishing your real person, when you have the right perspective, is much better than owning everything on earth and twice as much.

So verse 46 of Sura 18 says money and children are the beauties, the good things of this world, but the righteous works that last forever are far better, and the end of the verse says they provide better hope. There is better hope in them. There is no hope in the properties. Rock Hudson was very famous and very rich. You can still go as a tourist and look at Liberace’s mansion, but he’s not there. Because there’s something better that he could have acquired: righteous works, and developing his soul in order to withstand life next to God in the Hereafter. If he didn’t develop his soul, he will not stand being close to God.

And verse 47 says that the day will come when We remove the mountains and you see the earth barren. Everything will go. And then We will gather every single one. The Arabic says We will not leave a single person. God says We’re going to gather everybody for this reckoning. How much did you do for this vanishing garment? How much did you do for yourself? The reckoning is going to be automatic, but every single one will come to account.

The next verses go on and describe why the righteous works and feeding your soul are the number one priority, and when you do anything else, it’s a waste of time. Anything that does not develop your soul is a waste of time. And missing a Friday prayer, missing this, because you’re all here: when you miss a Friday prayer for any reason, it’s a terrible, terrible loss. Once a week there’s a congregational prayer where you meet your brothers and sisters, and it’s a commandment from God to do this. When you miss it, you miss a lot. I cannot put it in billions of dollars. We always have to remember the right perspective, and the advice in the Quran is to commemorate God 24 hours a day. Every chance you get, you can turn your work into worship.

It’s 1:00, so I’m going to read some material, as a kind of quiz. I want you to think about where it is from.

[He reads a passage stating that adding or omitting even a single word or letter from the sacred text of the prayers destroys their religious meaning and is a grave sin.]

Remember, there are certain statements in the Quran that say, “Woe to those who are doing their prayer.” These are people who are doing their prayer, but they end up in the negative because they are heedless of their prayers, or for other reasons. So you must make sure that your prayer is perfect, your Salat, your Contact Prayer. I’m not talking about supplications; I’m talking about your Contact Prayers.

Barry is visiting us for the first time, and he will wonder why we do the prayer in Arabic, and why this particular prayer, for example. All of us ask this question; in fact, it’s going to come up. We in this mosque fully appreciate the mathematical composition of everything that’s connected with our worship: the Quran, and even the bones in our body, and everything else. So we should appreciate what is written here.

Al-Fatiha is the sacred text that God gave us, the first sura of the Quran. We cannot add anything to it. As you know, Satan succeeded everywhere in the Muslim world: they add the word “Amin.” Our people in Washington, DC have a radio program, and I have one of the tapes here talking about this “Amin.” They got it from a recognized dictionary, and they read what “Amin” is. It turned out to be an old Hebrew or Greek word that has nothing to do with Arabic. It is not in the Quran. This is how Satan tricked the people into adding it. So here’s a person doing the prayer, committing a grave sin.

[He reads further passages describing a medieval mystical teaching that the words, letters, order and numbers of the prayers reflect a sacred, divine harmony, so that no change can be tolerated, even one that seems to improve the meaning.]

We are not saying the Contact Prayer for its literal meaning. “Guide us in the right path” is wonderful, but there is much more to it. Every letter that God composed in the first sura of the Quran, Al-Fatiha, is numerically controlled. The sounds when you say “Alhamdu lillah” are composed by God for a specific reason, a combination that causes your contact with your Creator. You may think of composing a Shakespearean, excellent literary marvel that praises God. It doesn’t mean a thing. Forget it. It is not the meaning we’re after. It’s the numerical composition and the sounds.

[The quiz is revealed: the passages come from a book about Rabbi Judah, who fiercely criticized changes made to the prayers, fearing they would be regarded as purely human and lose their mystical connection between man and God.]

A lot of people accuse me of being harsh with some people who are making changes in the prayers, or in the Quran, or in the practices of religion. But there is a precedent. It is fear for these people, and it is concern for them. It’s not just the words; there’s a numerical composition in it. The Contact Prayer, Salat, is a connection between us and God. And we direct our prayers to God alone.

Alhamdulillah.

Friday Sermon by: Rashad Khalifa, Imam of Masjid Tucson

Summary:

In this Friday sermon, Rashad Khalifa explains that, according to the Quran, merely believing in God is not enough; true belief means recognizing that God is running everything. He recommends the constant remembrance (zikr) “God is running everything” as a way to stop complaining, objecting and losing one’s temper, and to attain the happiness of total submission to God.

Video Transcript:

Alhamdulillah.

This, inshallah, will be the most important khutba I’ve ever delivered so far. So please pay attention, special attention this time. I will try to repeat the important points, and I want you to bear in mind that I’m talking to you. You don’t say he’s talking to somebody else.

Recently I have come to a very important conclusion about believing in God, and this started in the Muslim Perspective issue of February 1987 with the title “Satan Believes in God.” It dawned on me that throughout the Quran we are taught that the majority of believers in God are going to hell.

In Sura 12, verse 103, it says most people, no matter what you do, will not believe. And then in 106 we’re told that the majority of those who believe will go to hell. This is Sura 12, verse 106.

And then we read in Sura number 23, verses 84 through 90. I’m going to quote, starting at 84: “Say, to whom belongs the earth and everyone in it, if you know? They will say, ‘To God.’ Say, would you then take heed? Say, who is the Lord of the heavens, the seven universes, the Lord with the great dominion? They will say, ‘God.’ Say, how come you do not observe righteousness? Say, in whose hand is the kingship over everything, the one that can come to your help and does not need any help, if you know? They will say, ‘God.’ Say, how come you have been bewitched, have gone astray?”

And in Sura 29:61 it says, if you ask them who created the heavens and the earth and committed the sun and the moon, they will say God. And then the verse ends by asking how come they deviated. In Sura 29:63 it says, if you ask them who sends water from the sky to revive dead land, they will say God. Say praise be to God. How come most of them do not understand?

So all these verses and many more throughout the Quran tell us that people believe in God. Satan believes in God, but they are still going to hell. Now why? And the very important conclusion is: you do not believe in God unless you know God as He really is, with all His qualities, namely, especially, that God runs everything, that God is doing everything. And this will shed a new light on our submission to God, our acceptance of whatever is happening to you personally, or in the world, to anybody, to anything, to any country.

We do not believe in God unless we believe that God is running everything.

And at this point, I would like to suggest a zikr for you, something for you to do every day, wherever you go, when you’re driving or sitting, or when you have nothing to do, or even if you have something to do. I want this to dominate your life. Even mentally, even when you’re doing something, I want you to repeat always: God is running everything. God is running everything. This is your new zikr, our new zikr, because the whole world will look different to you. When anything is happening that may turn you into an objector, not a submitter, this will remind you that God is doing everything and that you are objecting.

As a believer, you have no business losing your temper. For example, you’re not a believer if you lose your temper. And as I said at the beginning, I’m talking to you. Don’t say he’s talking to somebody else. I’m talking to you, yes you, Abdullah, Mutasim, Ahmed, the other Ahmed, Frank, and so on. I am talking to you, every one of you. You have no business losing your temper, because this indicates you’re objecting to something God is doing. We must know that God is doing everything.

Even the things that Satan is doing, they are following God’s law. A good example in the Quran is before the creation of Adam, God is telling the angels, “I am placing on earth a representative,” which in a nutshell says that God of course knew that Adam was going to be duped by Satan and would go down to earth. Because after Satan tricked Adam, God said, “Go down to earth, all of you.” But before the creation of Adam, God is telling the angels, “I am going to place on the planet earth a representative,” the human being. So even though Satan tempted Adam and Eve, God is doing everything, because everything is going in accordance with God’s will.

This is our new zikr. When you’re driving, when you’re sitting, when you’re doing anything. Eventually it’s going to happen mentally. Every cell in your body is going to say: God is running everything. And this is the true believer. This is the believer in God who will not go to hell. The majority of believers in God are going to hell because they do not believe that God is running everything.

In Sura 8:17, a classic example: “It is not you who killed them.” That was after one of the battles in early Islam. “It is not you who killed them; it is God who killed them. It is not you who threw when you threw” the arrow or whatever. “It was God who threw.”

This is a very important conclusion, and this is why I think this is the most important khutba I’ve ever given to you.

I made a trip recently to Egypt, and everything that happened in that trip told me that we don’t do anything. We do not do anything. God is doing everything. The timing of my arrival, the timing of my leaving. I get on the telephone and say, “TWA, I’m changing my reservation from Tuesday to Thursday.” I decided to change? I didn’t decide anything. I didn’t change anything. Believe me, God is doing it. God is doing everything.

In Sura number 12 again, the brothers of Joseph decided not to kill him, right? They think they decided not to kill him. They decided to throw him in the well. But way before this, years before they make this so-called decision of theirs, Joseph sees the dream: the sun, the moon, and eleven stars bowing before him; his father, his mother and his eleven brothers bowing before him. Something that was to happen after he is practically ruling Egypt as a man. So when the brothers met to kill him, the decision was already made. They could not decide to kill him. It was impossible. But here they are meeting and taking votes: shall we kill him? What shall we do with him? And then they decided, they think, not to kill him. God is running everything.

And this is our new zikr. Just keep telling yourself, God is running everything, especially when you are at the brink of objecting to something or losing your temper. When you lose your temper, you must separate yourself from you. As of now, when you lose your temper against a friend or a spouse or a brother or a sister or anybody in the street, you tell yourself, you’re not a Muslim. You’re objecting, because God is running everything. Believe me, when your friend or your wife or your husband behaves in a certain way that gets on your nerves, God is doing it, and it’s because you deserve it. So you have to get on yourself and correct yourself, and catch yourself objecting, not submitting to God. God runs everything.

I want to give you an example so you understand how God is running everything and how we have the freedom of choice. Suppose I had a temporary ability of traveling in the future, let’s say for one week. I travel in the future and I see what happened to you, what decision you made. So I traveled all the way to next Friday and I saw exactly where you went, what kind of decision you made. Now back to this Friday. I’m giving you a choice to go to either New York or California. You’re going to freely choose California or New York for your trip. But I already know, because I traveled in time this one week, and I know that you decided to go to California. So even though I am giving you the freedom of choice, I know exactly what you’re going to do and where you’re going. But it is much more than this. I don’t think we can really understand it.

God runs everything, and this is the condition. This is a quality of God, and if you don’t know this quality, you don’t know God and you don’t believe in God. And this is what the Quran means by all these verses.

When Satan inflicts disasters, diseases, cancer on people, Satan is doing this in accordance with God’s law. And we see this in the Quran. I remind you, for example, of the disciples of Jesus when they demanded a feast from the sky, and God said, “Okay, I’m going to send it down, but if any of you disbelieves, I will punish him more severely than anybody I ever punished.” Now, you know that the punisher will really be Satan. But this is God’s law. When they disbelieve, they step out of God’s kingdom. Then Satan will inflict the damage. But God is doing everything. So even the actions of Satan are under God’s control. God is running everything. God would not be God if He wasn’t running everything.

So this is a quality of God that we must recognize, and we’re going to commemorate it in our own language, in English. You drive your car and you say, God is running everything. You look at everything and you say, God is running everything. Because this is the condition of belief in God.

The Quran says very clearly, when something good happens to you, it is from God. When something bad happens to you, it is from you. But God is running everything. God created the fire. You can use it to cook a steak, from a raw steak to a delicious cooked steak, unless you like it raw. But you can also put your finger in that fire and burn your finger. So God created the fire to be in your service. But if you choose to put your finger in it and suffer, then this is from you, not from God. But it is God’s law that made the fire burning. If you put your finger in it, it burns. It’s God’s law. It’s one of the physical laws.

There are many invisible laws. Like if you disobey God, if you go drink, for example, it’s exactly like putting your finger in the fire, but the punishment is not as visible. You can be sure you’ll pay. It’s just like the fire and putting your finger in it. Alcohol and drinking it. Drugs and taking them. Adultery and committing it. All these things are governed by God’s laws. The punishment for the sins is exactly the same as the physical fire and putting your finger in it. But they’re not as visible. They’re just as painful, if not worse. And this explains all the problems we see in the world: people breaking God’s law and paying the price, just like putting their finger in the fire.

What is our role? What do we do? God is doing everything. We do only one thing, one decision: to be with God or not. After that, God takes over. But we are absolutely free in that decision. To submit is already done, and our choice is to willingly submit or unwillingly submit. Those people out there who don’t believe in God, they are submitting to God, except unwillingly. They can’t control the number of beats of their heart, for example. This is one of the visible things, but God runs everything.

When Reagan decides to agree with the Russians on limiting nuclear weapons, he’s not deciding anything. He’s just like Joseph’s brothers. He thinks he’s deciding to meet with the Russians, or vice versa. But God runs everything.

We know also that the angels are as free as we are, from the incident where Satan refused to obey God and bow down before Adam. God wants His creatures to be free as far as that decision is concerned, until the Day of Judgment. On the Day of Judgment, there’s no more. We’ll see everything and we’ll submit. Everybody will submit, including the dwellers of hell.

It turns out that if we believe that anybody is doing anything, this is shirk. This is idol worship. You’re putting somebody who is doing something next to God. It negates the idea that God runs everything. So if you think anybody is doing anything, this by definition is idolatry.

This is why we’re going to remind ourselves against Satan’s ideas. We’re going to always say, God runs everything. You’re going to do it for a while and then you’ll forget, like I forget. So I’m going to keep after me and after you, and I’m going to repeat it. I’m going to remind you and you remind me, continuously, until every cell in our body is declaring God is running everything. Because, like I said, this sheds a whole new light on the idea of submission.

And this sign out there on the wall, “Happiness Is Submission to God,” is a profound sign. There’s a lot more to it than meets the eye. You’re going to be perfectly happy. And this zikr, “God runs everything,” is going to help you into total submission, because any time you start to complain or object, you’re going to remind yourself: God runs everything; I’m complaining against God. God is doing this, so I’m complaining, I don’t like it.

Sometimes we turn into complainers, and we have to catch ourselves. Complainers will complain when things are good. They complain when things are bad. They get into a rut and they’ll complain continuously. That’s objection. That’s the opposite of submission.

There’s a good example of decisions with the main issue of the Muslim Perspective. We decided to print a certain number, and we said, “Okay, these Muslim organizations don’t deserve the Muslim Perspective anyway, so we’re going to skip one, do one and skip one. So we’ll send the Muslim Perspective to only half of them.” Okay, we made a decision, right? We make decisions, but God makes the decision, and God’s decision prevails. So the next day the press called me and said, “Guess what, we made a mistake.” They printed one page on the wrong side, so they had to do it over for nothing. So we ended up with a large number of Muslim Perspectives anyway, and we had to send the Perspective to everybody. This is an example of deciding, right? We decided to eliminate these names, but God decided, “No, you’re going to send it to every single one of them.” God runs everything.

Alhamdulillah.

I believe this zikr is very important, very significant, and I believe it’s going to help all of us. So I’m going to repeat again and impress on you: whenever you have a chance, continuously, God is running everything, God is running everything, God is running everything, silently and loudly, every chance you get. And eventually, like I said, every cell in your body will be pronouncing this important declaration. This is the requirement to make it to heaven.

I want to talk again about being upset and fighting with anybody. Being upset, complaining, fighting: for your own good, you shouldn’t do that. We should not do that for our own good, because it backfires manyfold when you say a hurting word or give a hurting look.

The Quran goes all the way to suspicion inside of your head. If you’re suspicious of someone, say you look at me and I have a stomach ache or something and I’m making a face, and you say, “This guy is not friendly to me,” you’ve committed a sin, and it’s going to backfire on you. You’re the one who’s going to suffer. You must seek excuses for the people. If I pass by you and I’m making a face, it is not because I hate you. Probably I do, maybe I do. But what you are supposed to do is say, “Oh, he must have a headache or a stomach ache or something is bothering him,” and you love me instead of hate me, for your own good. But if I’m passing by you and making a face, and you assume that I do it because I don’t like you, and it is true, even that little suspicion in your head will hurt you, will backfire on you. So let alone being loud, calling names. This backfires on you. For your own protection, for your own peace of mind and happiness, don’t do it.

And the reason, the mechanism of it, is that it is an objection. It is complaining against what God is doing. God is running everything. And if your husband or wife or friend is behaving in a certain way, it’s because of something you have done. You have to join your wife or your husband or friend in calling you names, or whatever the other person is doing. You ally yourself with your enemy against yourself, because it’s something you have done. Say, God is punishing me for something I have done. I have stepped out of God’s laws. And always remind yourself, God is running everything.

And don’t say I’m talking to somebody else. I’m talking to you, every one of you, and me. I have to remind myself.

I think I’m the oldest person in this place. Anybody older than me? Gosh. So, as your elder, I’ll give myself the privilege of advising you from experience: it backfires on you when you lose your temper. Happiness is submission to God.

You have to make a decision right now that you will never be upset. You will never complain. Let other people complain. Let them be upset. Let them call you names. You take the defeated side, for your own good, because believe me, you’re a lot happier this way, and you end up victorious. There is nothing in this world that is worth being upset about.

Believing that God runs everything, as you read in the Quran, is better than owning everything in this world and twice as much. If you own Manhattan and all the real estate on Manhattan, they consider you rich. I’m not talking about Manhattan. I’m talking about all of the United States, all of Japan. If you own Hong Kong, with all the real estate over there, you’ll be rich. But believing in God the proper way is better than owning everything in the whole world and twice as much. Does this make you happy? It should.

The simplest thing you do as a believer, which is praying five times a day, if you put it in the right perspective of a person who believes, is the greatest thing that can happen to anybody. I want you to put yourself in this situation. You receive a telephone call from the White House: “Frank Jurgen, you’re invited to have lunch with the President next Wednesday.” I’m going to use Frank as an example. Frank immediately will call his work: “I’m not coming to work on Wednesday.” And he’ll call his friends: “Guess what? I’m invited to lunch at the White House.” And he’ll find the best clothes to put on for that important meeting.

Well, five times a day you have an appointment with the King of Kings. If you believe that God runs everything, that God is the President of the whole world, that Reagan is a dinky servant, an insignificant creature of God, if you really know that, is this what you will do for every prayer? You have an appointment with God five times a day. You’re going to call work and say, “I’m not coming to work, because I have an appointment with the President of the whole universe.” So this puts things in perspective. Yet we seek excuses not to go: “I have a headache, Mr. President.” Most people will go to the White House even though they have the worst headache, a migraine, and everything. They’ll still go.

Okay, I finished the main topic, and there are two points that I would like to mention before I close. One of them is something that I started to do; I should have done it a long time ago. There’s a statement in the Quran that says eat and drink, but in moderation, not too much. I started doing this after Ramadan, and it feels great not to fill your stomach too much. Look at the wisdom of the Quran: eat and drink, but in moderation, not too much. It’s a great thing. If I had continued the same, I wouldn’t be able to wear this suit. I’m beginning to put on some of my clothes that I had discarded.

The other point is about what God created in the universe. This will help us appreciate God and how He is running everything, and will induce us to make this zikr continuously. In the last issue of Parade magazine, Carl Sagan wrote an article about “billions and billions.” God created a billion trillion stars. Now, forget the planets that go with these stars, and forget the fact that the sun is one of the dim stars. A bright star is defined as a star that is at least a million times as bright as our sun. So God created a billion trillion stars, 21 zeros, which makes it a septillion. And here there’s a table from Parade that says how long it would take to count to such numbers. They went as far as a quintillion, 18 zeros, not 21. Let’s just go to the smaller number.

How long will it take you to count to a quintillion, from zero, one count per second, night and day? Let’s forget the other stars, and let’s forget the planets and the heavenly bodies and all this. Listen to this. You’re going to say one, two, three, four, just counting, not creating, counting. It’s going to take you 32 billion years, which is more than the age of the universe. If you just look at the stars and count them one by one, it’s going to take you 32 billion years. This is mathematics, because you divide the quintillion by the seconds and the minutes and the days and so on. It will take you 32 billion years just to count them. And God created them. So you can appreciate the greatness of God.

Alhamdulillah.

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God.

If a thief steals a thousand dollars from you, and they put him in prison, what do you get? If the thief has a wife and children, what is their crime? Why should they be deprived of their father?

The Quran solves this problem, as well as the problems associated with the criminal justice systems prevalent in today’s world.

Equivalence is the Law [2:178-179]

According to the Quranic criminal justice, the thief who is convicted of stealing a thousand dollars from you must work for you until you are fully paid for the thousand dollars you lost, plus any other damage and inconvenience the theft may have caused you. At the same time, the thief’s innocent wife and children are not deprived of their man, and the expensive prison system is eliminated. Imprisonment is a cruel and inhumane punishment that has proven useless to all concerned.

Contrary to common belief, the thief’s hand shall not be cut off. Thank God for His mercy and His mathematical miracle in the Quran, we know now that the thief’s hand today is to be marked. Marking the hand of the thief is stated in 5:38. The sura and verse numbers add up to 5 + 38 = 43. The other place in the Quran where “the hand is cut” is found in 12:31. This is where we see the women who admired Joseph so much, they “cut” their hands. Obviously, they did not sever their hands; no one can do that. The sura and verse numbers add up to 12 + 31 = 43, the same total as in 5:38. This gives mathematical confirmation that the Quranic law calls for marking the hand of the thief, not severing it. Additional mathematical confirmation is provided: 19 verses after 12:31, we see the “cutting of the hand” again. Punishment in Islam (Submission) is based on equivalence and social pressure (2:178, 5:38, 24:2).

The blasphemy called “Hadith & Sunna” has instituted stoning to death as the punishment for married adulterers. This is not God’s law. As stated in 24:2, the punishment for adultery is whipping in public; a hundred symbolic lashes. As pointed out above, the basic punishment is social pressure and scandalizing the criminal. Whipping in public achieves this goal.

In dealing with murder, the Quran definitely discourages capital punishment (2:179). “The free for the free, the slave for the slave, and the female for the female” (2:178). Due to human meanness and injustice, many people cannot even imagine what this Quranic law says. They refuse to accept the clear injunctions that strict equivalence must be observed—if a woman kills a man, or a man kills a woman, or a slave kills a free person, or a free person kills a slave, capital punishment cannot be applied. The Quran prefers that the murderer compensate the victim’s family. Killing the murderer does not bring the victim back, nor does the family of the victim benefit from executing the murderer. The compensation, however, must be sufficient to be a deterrent for others. In Islam (Submission), the victim and/or the victim’s family are the judges for all crimes; they decide what the punishment shall be under the supervision of a person who knows the Quran.

Friday Sermon based on Appendix 37 of Authorized English Translation of the Quran by Rashad Khalifa (1989)

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God.

Verses 5:65 and 5:66 say, “If the people of the scripture (Jews, Christians, and Muslims) believe and maintain a righteous life, we will remit their sins and admit them into the blissful Heaven. Had they observed the Torah, the Gospel, and what is revealed herein from their Lord, they would have enjoyed provisions from above them, and from beneath their feet. Some of them are righteous, but most of them are evil doers.”

Then verse 7:96 says, “If only the people of the various communities believed and maintained a righteous life, we would have showered them with blessings from the heaven and the earth.”

God is the One who controls your happiness, or misery. …. God is the One who makes you rich or poor. [53:43, 48]

A nation that upholds God’s laws is guaranteed prominence among the nations of the world, victory, prosperity, and happiness (10:62-64, 16:97, 24:55, 41:30-31). On the other hand, a nation that violates God’s laws incurs a miserable life (20:124). A nation that upholds God’s laws is guaranteed to be a great nation. This is not a mere idealistic dream; since God is in full control (10:61), His guarantees and promises are done. A nation that upholds God’s laws is characterized by:

1. Maximum freedom for the people—freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom to travel, and freedom of economy (2:256, 10:99, 88:21-22).
2. Guaranteed human rights for all the people, regardless of their race, color, creed, social status, financial situation, or political affiliation (5:8, 49:13).
3. Prosperity for all the people. God’s economic system is based on constant circulation of wealth, no usury, and productive investment. Non-productive economy such as gambling, lottery, and high interest loans are not permitted (2:275-7, 59:7).
4. Social justice for all. Because of the obligatory charity (Zakat), no one will go hungry or un-sheltered (2:215, 70:24-25, 107:1-7).
5. A political system that is based on unanimous consensus. Through mutual consultation and freedom of expression, one side of any given issue convinces all participants in the discussion. The end result is a unanimous agreement, not the opinion of a 51% majority rammed down the throat of the 49% minority (42:38).
6. A society that upholds and maintains the highest standards of moral behavior. There will be a strong family, no alcoholism, no illicit drugs, no illegitimate pregnancies, no abortions, and practically no divorce.
7. Maximum regard for people’s lives and properties. Therefore, there will be no crime against the people’s lives or properties.
8. Prevalence of love, courtesy, peace, and mutual respect among the people, and between this nation and other world communities (3:110, 60:8-9).
9. Environmental protection is guaranteed through conservation and prohibition of wasteful practices (30:41).

Friday Sermon based on Appendix 36 of Authorized English Translation of the Quran by Rashad Khalifa (1989)

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God.

There is not a compromise whatsoever regarding illicit drugs and alcoholic beverages; they are called “abominations and the work of Satan” (5:90). In verses 2:219 and 5:90, we see that “intoxicants, gambling, the idols’ altars, and games of chance” are strictly prohibited. The word used for intoxicants is “Khamr” from the root word “Khamara” which means “to cover.” Thus, anything that covers or hinders the mind is prohibited. This includes anything that alters the mind, such as marijuana, heroin, cocaine, alcohol, hashish, and anything else that affects the mind.

Friday Sermon based on Appendix 35 of Authorized English Translation of the Quran by Rashad Khalifa (1989)

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God.

Sons and daughters of the true believers must be taught that their happiness throughout their lives depends on following God’s law and preserving their chastity. This means that they must keep themselves for their spouses only, and never allow anyone else to touch them in a sexual manner (23:5-6, 24:30, 33:35, 70:29-30).

Today’s society is replete with powerful temptations. Even parents have started to talk about boyfriends for their daughters and girlfriends for their sons. When they reach their teens, many parents even supply birth control means to their children. An alarming percentage of teenagers are sexually active, even though they are not physiologically mature, and without any moral limitations. Millions of illicit pregnancies and the tragedies associated with them, plus millions of tragic abortions, happen every month in the USA, for example.

Among the results of this moral breakdown: unwanted and unsupported   children, delinquent and irresponsible fathers, criminals who have no regard for people’s lives or properties, millions of social misfits, incurable genital herpes, incurable genital warts, devastating syphilis and gonorrhea, depressions, the killer AIDS, and new diseases never known before.

What most people do not know is that this moral breakdown costs them   dearly throughout their lives. For the only law that rules the world is God’s law, and these flagrant violations of God’s law cost them a lot of misery and problems (20:124).

The true believers who care about their children will advise them and remind    them repeatedly and persistently (20:132) to keep their chastity. This means staying a virgin until their wedding night, then staying loyal to one’s spouse—never committing adultery—for their own happiness. God’s advice to keep our chastity, before and after marriage, is for our own good. God is the one who controls our health, wealth, and happiness or misery (53:43, 48).

Friday Sermon based on Appendix 34 of Authorized English Translation of the Quran by Rashad Khalifa (1989)

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. As predicted in verse 3:81 of the Quran, God has sent a messenger to consolidate the messages delivered by all the prophets, purify them, and unify them into one religion: Submission. The timing was certainly ripe for fulfillment of this important prophecy, for the following reasons:

1. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have been corrupted beyond recognition.
2. All God’s messages have been delivered; the Quran is the Final Testament.
3. The majority of the humans destined to ever exist are not born yet in this world.

Judaism

The best illustration of today’s corrupted Judaism can be found in the books   of a famous Rabbi; Harold S. Kushner. In his best seller WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE, Avon Books, 1981, Rabbi Kushner states:

Christianity

If Jesus came back to life today, the Christians would crucify him. Outstanding Christian scholars have reached solid conclusions that today’s Christianity has nothing to do with Jesus, and that its doctrine was mortally distorted at the infamous Nicene Conferences (325 A.D.). See THE MYTH OF GOD INCARNATE, Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1977.

Islam

If Muhammad came back to this world, the “Muslims” would stone him to death. The religion they follow today has nothing to do with the Islam (Submission) preached by Abraham and Muhammad. Even their basics are distorted. Their First Pillar (Shahaadah) is distorted. According to the Quran, in verse 3:18, the Shahaadah is “La Elahe Ila Allah”, while according to them the “Shahaadah” is “La Elaha ila Allah, Muhammad Resululllah”, which you can not find in the Quran as a Shahaadah. They also have distorted their call to prayer, and the Salat by commemorating Muhammad instead of devoting them only to God, as the Quran tells us to do. The Quran describes in detail the four steps of ablution (Wudu), but they do 9 or more steps which are not found in the Quran. The Quran tells us to go to Hajj in Mecca. Almost all of them in practice consider Medina as part of their Hajj. Even if they don’t admit it, the fact that they can’t go to Mecca without going to Medina proves what they really believe. There is a perfectly good airport in Mecca (the Jeddah airport), but most of them choose to fly in Medina or from Medina, because that’s how they envision Hajj, outside of what the Quran tells them Hajj is.

“A Religion Never Authorized by God” (42:21)

The extent to which Islam (Submission) has been corrupted is illustrated in the following table:

This is only a minute sample of the violations committed by the “Muslims” on a daily basis. This is why God sent His Messenger of the Covenant for our times.

Friday Sermon based on Appendix 33 of Authorized English Translation of the Quran by Rashad Khalifa (1989)

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. What is the age of responsibility? If a child dies at the age of 12, without even hearing about God, does this child go to Heaven or Hell? What if the child is 15 years old, or 21, or 25? At what age will the human being be held responsible for his or her beliefs? This question has puzzled researchers of all religions for a long time.

The Quran sets the age of responsibility at 40; anyone who dies before this age goes to Heaven (46:15). If the person believed in God and benefitted from belief by nourishing and developing the soul, he or she goes to the High Heaven. Otherwise, the person goes to the Lower Heaven.

Your first reaction to this piece of information is objection: “What if the person was really bad, evil, and an atheist, will he go to Heaven if he died before the age of 40?” This is because you are mean, while God is the Most Merciful. Our tendency is to “put them all in Hell.”

People who object strongly to this Divine mercy cannot come up with a cut- off age of responsibility. They ask questions like, “What if the person was really wicked?” The answer is, “Does God know that this person was wicked?” “Yes.” “Does God know that this person does not deserve to go to Heaven?” “Yes.” “Therefore, this person will not die before the age of 40.” As simple as that. God is the only one who terminates our lives on this earth. He knows exactly who deserves to go Heaven and who deserves to go to Hell.

Early in 1989 a man by the name of Theodore Robert Bundy was executed for killing a number of women. The whole nation agreed that he was one of the most vicious criminals in history. So much so that his execution was one of the rare occasions where the opponents of capital punishment did not protest. On the contrary, many people actually celebrated his execution. Numerous journalists, editorials, and politicians lamented the fact that justice took eleven years to execute Ted Bundy. They stated that Bundy should have been executed within a maximum of six years after his conviction. According to the Quran, this would have been the greatest favor anyone could have done to Bundy. He was 42 years old when executed. Had he been executed five years earlier, at the age of 37, he would have gone straight to Heaven, and he did not deserve that.

As it turns out, Bundy was one of the signs God has given us to confirm that anyone who dies before 40 goes to Heaven. Bundy’s name, Theodore Robert Bundy, consists of 19 letters, and he confessed to killing 19 women just one day before his execution. There were many other signs from God.

Delivering this important piece of information was one of the responsibilities given to God’s Messenger of the Covenant.

It is noteworthy that both Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were assassinated just a couple of months before their 40th birthdays.

Friday Sermon based on Appendix 32 of Authorized English Translation of the Quran by Rashad Khalifa (1989)

We learn from the Quran that evolution is a divinely designed fact:

Evolution is possible only within a given species. For example, the navel orange evolved from seeded oranges, not from apples. The laws of probability preclude the possibility of haphazard evolution between species. A fish cannot evolve into a bird; a monkey can never evolve into a human.

Probability Laws Preclude Darwin’s Evolution

In this computer age, we have mathematical laws that tell us whether a certain event is probable or not. If we throw five numbered cubes up in the air and let them fall into a guided straight line, the probability laws tell us the number of possible combinations we can get: 1x2x3x4x5 = 120 combinations. Thus, the probability of obtaining any combination is 1 in 120, or 1/120, or 0.0086. This probability diminishes fast when we increase the number of cubes. If we increase them by one, the number of combinations becomes 1x2x3x4x5x6 = 720, and the probability of getting any combination diminishes to 1/720, 0.0014. Mathematicians, who are very exacting scientists, have agreed that the probability diminishes to “Zero” when we increase the number of cubes to 84. If we work with 84 cubes, the probability diminishes to 209xl0^-50, or 0.000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000209.

Darwin’s famous statement that “life began as a ‘simple’ cell” is laughable. As recently as 50 years ago, Wells, Huxley, and Wells wrote in their classic textbook that “nothing can be seen inside the nucleus but clear fluid.” We know now that the cell, is an extremely complex unit, with billions of nucleotides in the gene material inside the nucleus, and millions of biochemical reactions. The probability laws tell us that the probability of the haphazard creation of the exacting sequences of nucleotides into DNA is Zero, many times over. We are not talking about 84 nucleotides; we are talking about billions of nucleotides that must be arranged in a specific sequence.

Some evolutionists have stated that the human gene and the monkey’s gene  are 90% similar. However, even if the similarity was 99%, we are still talking about 300,000,000 nucleotides that must be haphazardly re-arranged to change the monkey into a human. The probability laws preclude this as an utter impossibility. The human gene contains 30,000,000,000 nucleotides; 1% of that is 300,000,000.

A fitting quote here is that of Professor Edwin Conklin; he stated:

“The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the Unabridged Dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing factory.”

Friday Sermon based on Appendix 31 of Authorized English Translation of the Quran by Rashad Khalifa (1989)