America's Beauty

9/06/1992 - America is not a place that promises to give you religion or to give you culture. No. You are supposed to have cultural influences of your religion or from your past traditions. You are supposed to have your own taste for food, your own taste for clothing, your own taste for entertainment, your own taste for your intellect. You are supposed to make your own life in this land of opportunity and freedom. If you don't do it, then Satan and his hosts have everything ready and prepared for you. They will dress you, will give you entertainment, will give you taste, smell, hearing, and vision.  So let us not exaggerate that melting pot thing. America is a melting pot only for those who leave the responsibility for self to the world. But if you take up responsibility into your own hands for your own life, America is no melting pot. The beauty and precious thing for American society is its pluralistic life we call plurality. That is America's beauty. The melting pot is not its beauty. Have you ever seen a painter pour all of the paint into one bucket? That is the ugliest stuff you ever wanted to look at especially once he integrates it all thoroughly.

Our beauty is in uniting upon what is inherent in our life and nature, while keeping our distinctions that have evolved upon what is inherent. We are to keep the distinctions. Excellence and progress for Muslims is what we want for our religious life in America. We want progress in the world. Allah invites us to attend to the needs for progress in the world. We know the Destiny is bigger and more important than the world, but Allah tells us to also progress ourselves in the world.  We are to have income from legal sources, halal sources. We are to have Islamicly approved work and investment and opportunity. We are to invest our income for financial growth and economic growth. We are to be competitive in all that G'd has approved. If G'd has approved for us to establish ourselves in the world, that is what we should do. There is a prayer of the Prophet (the prayers and the peace be on him) where he prays to G'd for worldly progress. He prays for it in connection with the prayer for the Hereafter. He does not separate the two. He made one prayer but prayed for the Hereafter and for worldly progress.

Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) described his life as being a religious life and also being a worldly life. This is the balance in Islam that most religions ignore. Don't think that you have a right in Islam to progress in the world; no, you have an obligation. It is not only a right; it is an obligation. We are obligated to follow the sunnah of the Prophet. We are obligated to obey the Qur'an; to follow its dictates and also the influence and advice of Qur'an. Some things are law and some things are advice. You are obligated to follow the sunnah of the Prophet and his advice and Qur'an, the Sunnah of G'd and His advice.