Friday Sermon by: Rashad Khalifa, Imam of Masjid Tucson

Summary:

In this Friday sermon, Rashad Khalifa explains his announcement that he is a messenger of God, which he had known since 1980: why a messenger is no better than others, why the Quran allows messengers after Muhammad, the mathematical signs connected with his name, how he was tested before making the announcement, and the corrections to the Salat, Zakat, fasting and Hajj that restore Islam to its original purity.

Video Transcript:

We praise God, and we bear witness that there is no god except the one God, and we declare that all devotion and all worship are directed to God alone, as Sura 39 says: religion belongs to God alone.

Some of you probably saw this bombshell, the announcement that I have been commissioned as a messenger of God. This is probably the most difficult announcement that I have ever made, but it is something that I have known since 1980, and you can see that I was a coward. I was afraid to come out with it. I dreaded the time when I might have to announce it, because there’s a general tendency to resent anybody saying, and I’m going to use a wrong statement now, but this is what the resentment is about, people generally resent somebody saying, or appearing to say, “I’m better than you.” Even the Quran condemns such a statement. In Sura 4, God condemns those who exalt themselves; God is the one who exalts whomever He wills, without the least injustice.

The resentment in this case results from two things: ignorance and idol worship. Ignorance, because the Quran teaches us that a messenger of God is not necessarily better than anyone else in the congregation. In Sura 18, from verse 60 to verse 82, we see that God picked out one of the biggest messengers, Moses, one about whom God said, “I made you for Myself,” and in another place God said, “I had you made before My eyes.” And we see in those verses that God sent Moses to one of His servants, whom He had blessed with mercy and knowledge, and Moses proved to be a lousy student. So this teaches us that a messenger of God is not necessarily better than anyone else in the congregation. I can think of quite a few of you whom I consider better than me. When I was the age that some of you are now, I was an idol worshiper, yet here you are, a lot younger, with a 20-year head start compared to me. So this is the first thing: ignorance causes this resentment.

And idol worship, because people idolize the messenger of God. They have made him equal to God, a god besides God, so when you mention the words “messenger of God,” they are in awe. But the truth is, a messenger of God, as the Quran repeats, is a human being like you, or, in colloquial terms, a slob like the rest of us, whom we can kid around with and who can be silly. What is more, the Quran teaches that if a person is picked out as a commissioned messenger of God, it does not even guarantee Heaven. We see this in Sura 39:65, where it says, “It has been revealed to you, and to those before you, that if you ever fall into idol worship, all your work will be nullified, and you will be with the losers.” So being a messenger of God does not even guarantee Heaven, and this is why we see in Sura 21, verse 28, that the messengers are worried about their own necks.

We are all familiar with these verses, but people who have ignorance or idolatry in them resent an announcement like this. If a person is picked as a messenger of God, it is a difficult job, a very difficult job. There is nothing material to be gained from it. I certainly will not allow a single penny to enter my personal pocket because of this, or for religious reasons. I am not a professional religionist, and I will not allow a penny to enter my pocket from religious activity, because then the motive changes, and the Quran repeats: follow those who do not ask you for wages. The Quran gives, in Sura 49, the criterion of who is better than whom. It says in Arabic that the best among you is the most righteous. It didn’t say the best among you is the messenger of God, or the richest, or the tallest, or the most knowledgeable. The best among you is the most righteous. All these things teach us that being a messenger of God is no big deal. It is just a vehicle that God uses to communicate with us, a center of information. And it is a difficult job, a very difficult job: the abuse, the slandering, the threats.

In Sura 42:51, God says that no human being can communicate with God except in three ways: through inspiration, or from behind a barrier, or through a messenger, through whom God spreads certain information, so that people know that it is reliable information, that it is from God. We are people who follow the Quran, the whole Quran, and nothing but the Quran. Therefore anybody, and this means anybody, who brings any information must conform to the Quran, the whole Quran, and nothing but the Quran. And if anyone, and we underline anyone, comes up with any information that is not confirmed by the Quran, we tell him, “Forget it. We don’t accept it.” So the criterion is preaching that confirms the existing scripture, the Quran, and nothing else. No innovations.

Now we come to the question: is it possible that we receive a messenger from God? If you ask an average Muhammadan, he will tell you that Muhammad was the last messenger, but they have no basis for saying this, and the Quran gives us a precedent. When the prophet Joseph died, the Quran teaches us, the people said, “Okay, that was the last messenger. We’ll never see another messenger after him.” So this is a human tendency, and the Muhammadans claim that Muhammad was the last messenger. He is not. In Sura 33:40, God says, “Muhammad was not the father of any man among you. He was a messenger of God and the final prophet.” So here we see a distinction between a prophet and a messenger. A prophet is one who delivers a scripture, like Jesus, Moses and Muhammad. They are prophets, and we see this clearly in Sura 3, verse 81, where God says that He made a covenant with the prophets that He would give them the scripture and wisdom. So here we have the definition of a prophet.

Then God made a covenant with us, with you and me, with every human being. He said: when a messenger comes to you confirming the existing scripture, and there is the definition of a messenger, “when a messenger comes to you confirming the existing scripture, you shall believe in him and support him.” God said, “Do you make this pledge with Me?” And we all said, “Yes, we do.” And God said, “You have thus borne witness, and I bear witness along with you.” Therefore it is possible that there will be messengers after Muhammad. Sura 7:35 says, “O children of Adam, when messengers come to you, from among you, reciting My revelations to you, those who believe and lead a righteous life” are the successful ones. This is Sura 7, verse 35. Obviously it is for people after the Quran. As a matter of fact, the verse begins by saying “O children of Adam,” so as long as there are children of Adam on this earth, this verse is valid.

If messengers are coming after Muhammad, what do they look like? What would a messenger after Muhammad look like? Do you think he’d be walking on water, or walking in the air, or coming with three antennas on each side, or something? Maybe just one of us, just a human being.

I want to answer the question: why does God send a messenger? Why not just carry on the way people have been going, reading the Quran and following the Quran? Well, one important element is the test, because of this covenant that we made with God. What are we going to do if a messenger of God comes and says, “Worship God alone, and forget about the human beings, Muhammad, Jesus, Moses or anybody; you must devote yourself totally to God alone,” one who preaches the Quran, God’s proven scripture? What are we going to do? Are we going to scoff at him? Are we going to help him? Are we going to rally around him? What are we going to do? It’s a test.

Another test is the test of ego. As the Quran repeats, they said, “Oh, he just wants to be better than we are. He wants to be a leader.” This is emphasized throughout the Quran. You’ll find verses here and there. Sura 17, verse 94, says that what prevented many people from believing was that they said, “You mean God sent a human being to be a messenger?” And Sura 64, verses 5 and 6; I’m going to read them for you: did you not receive the news of those who disbelieved in the past? They suffered the consequences of their decision and deserved painful retribution. This is because their messengers went to them with clear revelations, but they said, “Shall human beings guide us?” Thus they disbelieved and turned away. God does not need them. So it’s a tremendous test to accept somebody who says he’s a messenger of God. There’s an ego here, and we are required to kill the ego, and this applies to all of us. The egotistic person would resent anything like this and would be deprived. God says in the Quran, “I will divert from My revelations those who are arrogant.” God will actively send them away. So this is something we have to do: kill the ego.

Many people came and said they were messengers of God. One in Pakistan said he was a messenger of God, and Joseph Smith, the Mormon leader, said he was a messenger of God. But God made it mandatory that the messenger comes with proof, certain signs. Moses brought all kinds of proofs; Saleh brought proof; Jesus came with signs that he was authorized and sent by God. And about that difficult day a few days ago, I’m going to give you all the details. I’m not going to be mysterious and say, “I was told this and that,” and leave it hanging. I’m going to give you everything; it’s going to be wide open in front of you, and I will tell you exactly what happened, in time, if the time doesn’t run out on us now.

This reminds me of the fellow, I told some of you this before, who was the most curious person in town. He was always asking questions. One time he was sitting in the bar, or the pub, or whatever the place was, and in comes a man with one leg and sits next to him. And this very curious person, of course, is curious: how did you lose your leg? He wants to know. The man with one leg knows that he is the most curious person in town, and that he’ll just die to know how this fellow lost his leg. So the man with one leg told the curious fellow, “I will tell you on one condition.” He said, “Anything, anything. Just tell me what to do, and I will do it.” He said, “You ask only one question, and you don’t ask any questions after that.” He said, “Okay, okay, I will. Just tell me how you lost your leg.” He said, “It was bitten off.” I’m sure that curious guy died on the spot, because he couldn’t ask any more questions. So I’m not going to be mysterious with you. I’m going to tell you everything, gradually.

On that difficult day, when I realized that I must make the announcement, having chickened out for eight years, I needed some signs. I had some signs, but I was shown a couple of additional signs on that day. Now I will share with you some of the signs that will assure all of us.

The first sign, of course, is the mathematical miracle of the Quran, which is very simple, and people should have seen it in the last 1,400 years. Literally thousands of scholars looked into the Quran and counted all its words, its letters, its vowels, its little signs. They counted everything in the Quran, but they never came up with the mathematical composition of the Quran: the Basmalah, 19 letters; the number of suras, 19 times 6; the first revelation, 19 words; the last revelation, 19 words. All these are simple things that they should have discovered, but God reserved this for a person called Rashad. As we see in the index of the Quran, which was printed one year before I was born, a comprehensive index, on page 320 you’ll see that the root word “rashada” is mentioned 19 times. This is something that came to us from Turkey. I didn’t discover it; it was discovered and sent to us, as most of you know.

Now I want to give you a new piece of information that shows you the awesome miracle of the Quran that was reserved until this time. The word God, Allah, is mentioned in the Quran 2,698 times. When you take every verse in the Quran where you see the word Allah, starting with verse 1 of Sura 1, and add up the numbers of those verses, the total is 118,123. These are the numbers of the verses wherever you see the word God. It’s awesome, because not a single verse was transplanted from its place, not a single verse was changed, and not a single word Allah was dropped from or added to the Quran. So this is an awesome miracle that was reserved; God knew in advance who would be fortunate enough, or blessed, to release this information.

Now, if you add up all the suras and verses of the 19 occurrences of “rashada,” and the last name is also involved, this is very embarrassing to me, but I have to tell you and share it with you, “Khalifa” is mentioned in the Quran twice, then when you add all the suras and verses, the total is 1,463, which is 19 times 77. You add all the suras and verses where “rashada” and “Khalifa” are mentioned. Well, I was not content with that, and sure enough, if you look up “Rashad,” the way my name is written, it is mentioned in the Quran twice, in Sura 40, verses 29 and 38. And “Khalifa” is mentioned twice in the Quran; one of them is a bad one and the other is a good one. The bad khalifa is Satan, which is in Sura 2, and the human khalifa is specifically mentioned in the Quran in reference to David, the prophet, one of our favorite prophets, of the Psalms, and this khalifa is mentioned in Sura 38, verse 26. So if you add the suras and verses connected with “Rashad” and the human “Khalifa,” the total is 171, 19 times 9. In other words, you look at it from every angle, and you can see that the signs are connected with the mathematical code.

I will explain this to you in detail at another time, when we have time, but this is the religion of Abraham, as we see in the last verse of Sura 22: this is the religion of your father Abraham. He is the one who named you Muslims, before Muhammad brought the Quran, and yours truly was blessed with bringing the proof. I was blessed with the proof of the Quran and the secrets of the Quran. When you add the gematrical values of the three names, Ibrahim, Muhammad and Rashad, and this is all detailed here, the total is 855, which is 19 times 45, and 45 happens to be my age in 1980, when I was told for the first time. Again, I promise you, I’ll explain to you how. 45, my age in 1980, which is also 1400, exactly 14 centuries after Muhammad, who was told in the Quran that he would have seven pairs: 14 centuries, among the other meanings of the seven pairs. So it is very tight evidence, and it suits the computer age.

Now, the secrets of the Quran. I mention this because it explains the revolutionary ideas that I used to come up with once in a while, or the crazy ideas, if you want to call them that, like the end of the world. It is very clear in the Quran, but it was not shown before. It’s a secret in the Quran. God knew when the end of the world would be, and He put it in His final message, and we are the generation that was destined to get the secret out of the Quran. And like the idea that drove a lot of people crazy, that anybody who dies before the age of 40 goes to Heaven. How can they go to Heaven when they’re 35 and they’re awfully bad? Put them in Hell! We human beings are mean. There was so much opposition to that idea, it’s not even funny. And it is not coincidental that one of the sisters gave me this button here today, five minutes before the khutba. The button says, “Everything up to the age of 40 is just a rehearsal.” I thought she made the button, but she didn’t; she got it in a shop. So it’s not a coincidence. God spreads His information in many different ways and means.

Other secrets of the Quran that we’ve been enjoying in the last 10 years: oh, there’s Zakat. This is new, and I’m going to tell you about it now, and you will have to do it as of now, immediately. The Zakat is being done wrong all over the Muslim world. Here is the true Zakat from the Quran, in Sura 6, verse 141. You can remember this verse because it says, “When you harvest the crop, give the Zakat on the day of harvest.” Remember that: on the day of harvest. Okay, we are not farmers; we don’t harvest wheat or barley or anything, but we harvest paychecks every two weeks or so. That’s our harvest. On the day you receive your harvest, the day you receive your paycheck, you take out two and a half percent and you give it to people you know who are in need. It makes so much sense; how come I didn’t think of this before? It makes so much sense, it is from the Quran, and it corrects the method of Zakat that is dominant in the Muslim world, because the people we know who need help need it now. They are hungry now. They can’t wait a year, as they told us in the past.

If you get ten dollars, you take out 25 cents, two and a half percent. If it is impractical to give 25 cents to somebody, you can keep it and accumulate it for a couple of weeks, or a month, until it is a reasonable amount, and then give it. Don’t go beyond a month. You give it to somebody you know personally, according to the system of the Quran: your parents first, your relatives next, then the orphans and the people who need it, in that order. From any money, any net income that you get, you take out two and a half percent, because chances are this two and a half percent of your check is illegitimate, illicit. Get rid of it. It is called purifying your money. You spend some of your time sleeping on the job or something, yet you get the check. So God says this is the way you purify your income: you take it out immediately. Besides, who’s going to keep track for a whole year? So God has His ways. This is one of the secrets of the Quran, and we’re going to reap the benefits.

Among the secrets of the Quran that we’ve enjoyed in the last 10 years is the correct method of the Salat, the prayer, devoted to God alone, and our devotion to God alone, with no human beings. Okay, we’re running out of time. There’s a sura in the Quran that says, “When God’s victory and support come, and you see the people entering God’s religion,” God’s true religion, “in throngs.” This is what is happening now. This sura consists of 19 words, and its first verse has 19 letters. This is our sura. So far, the reaction to this bombshell has been positive. People have been calling me from everywhere in the world, saying, “I believe.”

When that difficult day came, I was a coward. I was saying, “This thing may cause my own children to disown me. They may say, ‘You’re a crazy man; get out of here.'” And, as I will tell you in detail, I was fired. I was fired, and I cried, I fell prostrate, and I begged. And when, in my heart, I became solid, and I said, “I will do it at any cost, even if I lose my own children, my own friends, I will do it,” then I was restored. I will give you the details. But the reason I’m mentioning this sura, the Victory, is that there has been a unanimous positive reaction to the announcement from everybody who has read it. I was very careful when I talked to my wife, Beth. It was three o’clock in the morning, and I told her, “Guess what, I have to tell you this and this,” and I was very careful and diplomatic, and then she, casually drinking her tea, says, “I knew that all along.”

That night in April, I opened the Quran as usual, at the place where I usually leave it, at the top right, and it said, basically, “You’re going to Hell.” So I closed it again and said, “This is Satan trying to fight me, giving me a bad time.” So I said, “I seek refuge in God from Satan the rejected; please, God, protect me from Satan; I seek refuge in You,” and I said it in many different ways. Then I opened it again, at random, as usual, and it said, “You’re fired. You will not do the job. You’re a chicken. You’re not suitable, and you’re going to Hell.” So I sought refuge in God from Satan, from the devil, again, in stronger terms and for a longer time. Then I opened the Quran again at random, and it said, “You’re fired. You’re going to meet your doom. You’re not going to do it. I’ll find somebody else to do the job.” So I closed it again. It was now defying statistics, or coincidence.

So I turned to God very hard, and I said, “Please, God, let me know whether this is coincidence, or why I am getting these bad ideas.” And I kept doing it, and repeatedly, every time I opened it, it said, “You’re fired. You’re going to Hell. You’re doomed,” and it got worse, until I reached the conviction, a real conviction in my heart, that I was doomed, that I was going to Hell. Then I started to cry and repent, and I opened it, and it was as if the Quran had nothing in it except, “You’re fired. You’re going to Hell. You’re not going to do the work. I will substitute somebody in your place.”

I said, “This Quran is worn; maybe it’s because I’m using it a lot.” So I got one that was brand new, and I opened it, and it said, “You’re fired. You’re going to Hell. You cannot do the job. You’re a chicken. I’ll substitute somebody in your place.” I closed it again and opened another place, and the Quran had nothing in it except that. I opened it at unusual spots, and it said, “You’re fired; you don’t do this; you’re going to Hell.” So it was no longer a coincidence. I got the big book, this big one here, and I opened it this way. I did all kinds of crazy things to let the Quran open at random. Then I opened it and looked in it, and it just said, “You’re going to Hell. You’re doomed. You cannot do the job. You’re fired.” I got a letter opener and stacked the Qurans like this, and I closed my eyes and pointed with the letter opener at the pages, and it told me the same thing. There was nothing in the Quran that morning except, “You’re fired. You cannot do the job. Get out of here. You’re doomed. I don’t need you anymore. I’ll substitute somebody else in your place.”

So I cried, and I repented, and I sought refuge from Satan, and it kept giving me the same message. So I became convinced that God was speaking to me through the Quran, and I became convinced that I was no good, that I was fired, that I was going to Hell, and I cried harder than I ever had in my life. I really became convinced that I was finished, that I was doomed, and that there was no salvation. My prostrations became longer and my crying became harder. There was nobody in the mosque. And then, one time, I opened the Quran and it said, “We forgive you,” when I had reached the conviction, with all this crying, that the message was very clear: I had not come out with an announcement that I am God’s messenger. I had known it since 1980, and I had ignored the messages that said, “Say, ‘O people, I am God’s messenger to all of you.'” I ignored those. They were very loud and very clear, and I ignored them. Obviously the timing was not right then. Now, in retrospect, I was supposed to have ignored those messages. They got louder and were repeated, louder and clearer, and I kept ignoring them until this happened. So there is something that led to this. I opened the Quran and it said, “Say, ‘O people, I am God’s messenger to all of you,'” and I became convinced that I could no longer ignore it.

Then, with these repetitions, I reached the decision in my repentance. I said, “Please, God, accept my repentance. Take me back. Even if I lose my own children, my friends, if I lose everybody, I will do anything. I will go out and make the announcement.” And I really had that conviction, because I said that chances are my children will tell me, “Get out of here, crazy man. What are you talking about?” So it became my neck, and the verse in the Quran about the person who disowns his own parents and his own children, and the children who disown their parents, became a reality for me. Here I was, doomed, going to Hell, and the whole thing was hinging on courage. God doesn’t want a coward to work for Him. It became very obvious. So when I really reached that conviction, that I would do it at any expense, I got this message that said, “We forgive you; we accept your repentance,” and my crying of sadness became crying of joy. I still didn’t believe it; maybe it was a fluke. So I did the same thing, and there was nothing in the Quran except, “We accept your repentance. We forgive you. Go now and do it. God is Forgiving, Merciful.” And it was in the same way. This defies all statistics and coincidence.

That is the background to this. People around me know that I’m not making any bones about it. I’m not being humble about it, and I cannot take any chances. I believe that if it happens again, it will be really final, and there’ll be no help. That’s why I have been bold, and it really has nothing to do with humbleness or modesty, if we understand a few basic things in the Quran. One thing is that a messenger is no big deal. It is a big deal only if we idolize the messengers and build up the picture in our minds. And this is the typical response of all the believers. The people who were averse from the beginning just continue to be averse, or maybe a little worse, except that the harsh attacks now have a little reverence in the background, as if, “What if he is?” I get telephone calls on the machine. In the past they used to call me bad names and all that, but now they quote the Quran and read the verses that say “Fear God,” and then they add, “Come back to Islam,” that kind of thing. But you can sense a kind of respect and reverence in the back of their minds. This is the difference in the opponents, and it’s because of their reverence for “Rasulullah,” the word “messenger of God.” They made it so big and put it next to God, and that’s why it’s a big deal for them.

But if we understand the Quran, we will find out that it is not a big deal, because the Quran teaches us that a messenger is not necessarily better than anyone in the world, or anyone around him. We have this lesson in Sura 18, where Moses, one of the big messengers of God, met someone described as one of God’s servants, “one of Our servants,” God says, and this servant of God began teaching Moses a few lessons, and Moses turned out to be a lousy student. So this teaches us that the messengers, even the biggest ones, are not necessarily better than the people around them. The Quran teaches, “Say, ‘I am a human being like you,'” and this is taught to the prophet Muhammad, for example. The Quran teaches that the criterion for closeness to God is righteousness, not being a messenger, or the most knowledgeable, or the richest, or the tallest, or anything else. It is righteousness, nothing else, and anyone can be more righteous than the messenger, or anybody else. There is also the verse in Sura 39 that says that being a messenger of God does not even guarantee Heaven. It says, I’m quoting the Quran now, “It has been revealed to you, and to those before you, that if you ever fall into idol worship, all your work will be nullified, and you will be with the losers.” So if people understand this, they won’t make a big deal about being a messenger of God.

I called a friend and told him about this, and he logically started to discuss the wisdom of making an announcement like this, and why it is necessary, and I found myself talking with him as if I had sat down and decided to make the announcement. Then it dawned on me: it’s not really my decision. It was not my decision at all. Obviously God wants this announcement to be made, for reasons that only God knows, and we can only speculate. The first verse in Sura 67 says that God created death and life to test us. Before the human race came here, there was no death; that’s why God said He created death before life. The whole purpose is a test. And it turns out, as we know now, that the road to God is full of traps on the side for people to fall into. They drop out, and when they hear somebody say “messenger of God,” some people drop out, and it’s part of the sifting process. There are so many traps along the road, and the matter is really decided from the very beginning. A person who has doubts, who is not a sincere believer, will fall into one of these traps along the road. The true believer will keep going, no matter what happens, because what we’re saying is: worship God alone.

We also destroy all idols, and we are fanatically against building idols. The Muhammadans insist on putting Muhammad’s name next to God’s, even though the Quran says, in 3:18, that God bears witness that there is no god except He, and so do the angels and those who possess knowledge. That is the Shahada. So it’s very clear in the Quran, but because of idolatry they insist on adding Muhammad’s name, which violates a good number of commandments in the Quran. When you put Muhammad’s name next to God’s in the so-called Shahada, they are violating a good number of commandments. Now they have built up so much opposition to me that I am under a death sentence in a good number of countries; Iran is one of them. We are saying God alone. We are very strongly, staunchly, against building any idols, and I don’t know how to convince them that I don’t want any glory, or money, or fame. For eight years I was a coward. What does this announcement bring me, except trouble? Actually, the reaction has been positive so far. But personally, I would rather go and worship God alone, by myself, somewhere very quietly, and just eke out a living in this world and go on to the eternal life. That’s what I wanted to do for eight years, and this is why I was fired that night.

I’m sorry, I forgot quite a few points that I wanted to tell you about the background. The background of this is that I have known since 1980 that I am God’s messenger, not in the general sense, but in the sense that Abraham was the original messenger of Islam, who brought all the practices, the prayers, the fasting, the Zakat charity, the pilgrimage, and of course the first commandment; Muhammad brought the Quran; and I am the third of a triangle, who brought the proof of the religion.

We just found out yesterday that the first time the miracle of the Quran was published was in January 1973, when I was 38 years old. I didn’t know anything then, except that I had found this mathematical miracle in the Quran. The January 1973 publication, in the most popular magazine in the Middle East and Africa, had to do with the proportions of the initials. For example, chapter 50, initialed with Q, had the highest proportion of the letter Q; Sura Saad had the highest proportion of the letter S; Sura Noon had the highest proportion of N; and so on. Every sura had the highest proportion of its initials, except Sura Ya Seen, which had the least, the exact opposite. That was the whole article, and they had the computer printout of the Quran, which I had put into the computer. Then, in November 1973, exactly on my 38th birthday, came the first report on the number 19. That was back in 1973, but I didn’t know that I am God’s messenger in that sense until 1980.

1980 corresponded to the Islamic year 1400, and it seems that a new era began at that time. Look at Sura 47, verse 38. 38 was very prominent. In fact, we became curious and were looking at the magazine yesterday. In Sura 47, the last verse, which is 38, I wrote in bold letters that if you turn away, God will substitute other people in your place, and they will not be like you. This is one of the verses, by the way, about substituting somebody in your place. I wrote this in big, bold letters, and I put a footnote saying that Islam is being re-established in the English-speaking world, after being restored to its pristine purity. So I wrote, back in 1980, the year 1400, that God had forsaken the Arabs, meaning the people of a certain geographical area. Now it’s been eight years, and of the hundred million Arabs in the world, we don’t have a single one who could see and appreciate the miracle of the Quran, even though it’s very clear. Sometimes they call me and say, “You’re an Arab,” and I say, “No, thank God, I’m Egyptian.” It’s quite a phenomenon that we don’t have a single Arab. Last Friday we had about 60 people in the mosque, and not a single Arab. We had the conference in San Francisco, a couple of hundred people, and not a single Arab.

So something happened in 1980, after seven pairs of centuries. In Sura 15, verse 87, God tells Muhammad, “We have given you the seven pairs.” Among the other meanings, I’m convinced that it means seven pairs of centuries, because of what I’ve seen, and the fact that this verse is connected with Muhammad. So the background is that I have known since 1980, and I had been evading the responsibility. I said, “Let’s just go along, worship God, and spread the message.” And God has been gracious to us, showing us what the correct Islam is.

The Muhammadans throughout the world are doing the Salat wrong. The Quran that came out of Muhammad’s mouth says that you should never mention any name other than the name of God during the Salat; the Salat must be devoted to God alone and no one else. So they did the Salat wrong, they did the Zakat wrong, they are doing it wrong, and now we have it corrected. If you look at Sura 6, verse 141, it tells you, when you harvest the fruits of the crops, to give the Zakat charity on that crop on the day of harvest. The Zakat as practiced now in the Muhammadan world is once a year, on your savings above a certain amount, but the Quran says to give the Zakat on the day of harvest. Since we are not farmers, and we do not harvest fruits or crops or anything like that, we harvest paychecks. So when we get the paycheck, we are supposed to take out what came to us from Abraham in very clear words: a quarter of a tenth. One quarter of one tenth comes to two and a half percent. So you take two and a half percent of your net income when you get it, the day you get it. I would say it makes sense to wait a month or so, since monthly income is very common; at the end of the month, you figure out how much your net income was, take two and a half percent, and give it to people you personally know are in need. You know them personally, and you know that they need the assistance.

We are given a specific order in the Quran as to whom we give the money. You give it first to your parents, if they need it; then to relatives, cousins, uncles, aunts and so on, people you know personally who are related to you and need the money or the help. After that, the orphans: you find children who lost one or both parents for some reason, divorce, abandonment or death, and you give them this money. The fourth category is any poor person, and the last category is the traveling aliens, people who sneak into this country from Mexico, who have no jobs and are hungry, so you help them. We have a specific order in the Quran. This is the correct Zakat.

So what we did was clean out the Salat. We returned it to its pristine purity. We corrected the Zakat. We corrected the fasting; even the fasting was wrong. What was wrong with it? They sleep all day and stay up all night, and they use fasting as an excuse to be nasty, calling people names and saying, “I’m fasting, so excuse me.” And their timing of the moon is always wrong. I think they’re still fasting today in Egypt, even though tonight you can see the moon. The computer tells you what time the moon is born, what time it rises and what time it sets, whether there are clouds or not, whether you’re sighted or blind; you can know exactly what the moon is doing. But they follow the Hadith that says you fast when you see it and you break your fast when you see it, and if you cannot see it, you complete the month of Ramadan as 30 days. We fasted 29 days this month. Is it 29 all the time? No, sometimes it’s 29 and sometimes 30. The Hajj was wrong too, and we have already written in the Muslim Perspective to correct it. It turns out that, as it is now done, going to Medina is the most important part of the Hajj, even though it is not part of the Hajj at all in the Quran, and going to Medina is flagrant idol worship. They go to the prophet’s room, or to Fatima’s tomb, and they pray and implore nothing, as the Quran says: on the Day of Judgment they will say they were worshiping nothing.

So that’s what I’ve been doing, and I was happy that way, just spreading the message. It has literally gone all over the world: this translation, and the small brown book, “Quran, Hadith and Islam,” and the message of returning Islam to its pristine purity as far as all the practices are concerned. It has reached places I had never heard of: little islands in the Indian Ocean, like Réunion Island, which is French, and Mauritius, another country I had never heard of. We have people there and everywhere. And I was happy that way. The message was being spread all over the world, exactly as it needed to be.

So why the announcement? That was my justification, and each one of you may ask me, “Why the announcement? Why is it necessary?” My opinion was the same as yours. But for me, I think it is necessary, because all the people who have known that we have been worshiping God alone now hear, “Oh, now he’s a messenger.” And I say, “Do you have anything against his message? What do you have against the message?” Obviously, God has a reason. The Quran says that God is not to be asked about anything He does, but we are to be asked about everything we do. So obviously God has a purpose, and very good reasons.

Now, the Quran says that Muhammad is not the last messenger, and this could be one of the very important reasons. Consider the statement in the Quran in 33:40: “Muhammad was not the father of any man among you; he was a messenger of God and the final prophet.” That is a perfect sentence, and of course every letter in the Quran is deliberate, as we now know very well. It says “the final prophet.” And verse 35 of Sura 7 says, “O children of Adam, when messengers come to you, from among you, reciting My revelations to you, those who believe and lead a righteous life” are the successful ones. Obviously this is a verse for people after Muhammad, because it is in the Quran, and, as Dr. Mansour said, for as long as there are children of Adam on earth, this verse is valid, because it says “O children of Adam.” Whom is this verse directed to? Not the people before Muhammad, because they never saw the Quran. It’s for the people who read the Quran.

The Quran also gives us another example of the human tendency, the aversion, to the idea of having a messenger. It seems to be a test of ego: “This guy is going to sit here and say he’s a messenger of God, so he’s going to steal the show and get all the attention.” It may be one of the tests for dropping out. I don’t want to contribute to that, but it’s not up to me. The Quran stresses this through Joseph. I believe it’s verse 34 of Sura 40: you doubted his message, then, when he died, you said he was the last messenger. Now look whom God picked out after Joseph: all the big ones, David, Solomon, Jesus, Moses, Muhammad. All of them came after Joseph, even though the people said he was the last messenger, that nobody else would come after him. And they have been saying the same thing about Muhammad, that Muhammad is the last messenger. The world’s population today is a thousand times what it was at the time of Muhammad, and you’ve seen how much the human being has advanced. This is an enlightened generation of humans. We are very advanced: computers, science, technology, videotapes. It just makes sense that God wants to send a messenger to this world. And I can’t make any bones about it. Now I’m on the other side: at first I was afraid to make the announcement; now I’m too much of a chicken to hold back, because I’m afraid that if I’m fired again, there will be no restoration.

So this verse about Joseph tells us that this is a human tendency. Now, to turn the tables around, the question is: why are they averse to this idea? If Muhammad is not the last messenger, and somebody is going to come after him, what would he look like? What would his qualifications be? What would he say? If someone comes along and says, “Worship God alone, uphold the word of God alone, not the words of men, clean out all the practices of worship, destroy all idols, remove all the innovations,” what is wrong with that? It makes sense that God’s messenger would do that and say that. Why would anyone oppose or object to someone who says that? It’s really the same message, from Adam until now, one and the same message. So I, along with you, would ask that question, and I think they should tell us: why shouldn’t I be a messenger of God? I’ve given them enough proof. There is a lot of evidence here, and it is mathematical, physical and tangible. So I want them to come up with evidence opposing it.