Seeing Allah Correctly

By Imam Raouf Abdullah

Suitland, Maryland

Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheemi ASA,

Dear Friends: We pray Allah’s blessings on Prophet Mohammed, on his family and on the righteous. Life, as addressed in the Holy Bible and in the Holy Qur’an, is community life. When the individual has a good life but he/she is not motivated to contribute to sharing this goodness with the outer community, that person has died in the religious sense. Our individual achievements are threatened when we do not work to enrich the community to gain the potential to realise the same goodness. We are not required to give away our wealth; rather, we are required to share our insight on how wealth/goodness can be realised by our brother and our sister.

America is a competitive society. Our spirit to compete causes us to seek to out do the Jones. While we seek to have the greener grass and the bigger house, we lose when we have the only house with green grass. A neighborhood is judged by the least house in it. Thus, we win when the Jones win. Our spirit to compete in the race for goodness must not be overshadowed by our spirit to share.

The more we share the more we gain. This Ramadan lets come together to share. Lets rededicate ourselves to making the Ali Khan Islamic Center a beacon of social redemption. Our failure and our progress is tied to our ability to awaken the community life force. There is a G-d and there is a judgment.