Dear Youth 05

Dear Youth...

We begin in the name of Allah, we praise Allah and we ask Allah to raise the rank of Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.

We hope that you filled your summer with doing good deeds and avoiding the sinful things which we see all around us nowadays. We ask Allah to make our hearts detracted from those sinful things, remembering that there is a Hellfire and we definitely do not want to enter it even if most people nowadays seem to be rushing towards it.

Remember that surely you were created for a purpose, to worship God and obey Him. How do we know how to obey God? We know from what Prophet Muhammad taught for truly he spoke the Revelation from God. When we say he spoke the Revelation, we mean that Prophet Muhammad did not sit and figure out rules, but that God revealed the rules to him and then he told the people. So, for example, the way in which we perform the five daily prayers was not an idea that Prophet Muhammad made up, instead God revealed to Prophet Muhammad how the prayers are to be done.

People other than prophets do not receive this Revelation, so those people nowadays who claim that God spoke to them and told them to do this and that are truly mistaken. They may have heard something, but it was not God's Revelation, because only Prophets receive Revelation, and Prophet Muhammad was the last Prophet and Messenger whom God sent to earth. If those people really love God, then they would become Muslim and obey God by learning and following the teachings of Prophet Muhammad.

In continuing to warn you about some of the lies said about God, I can relate a conversation which I heard two people having on TV recently. Both men were not Muslim, yet both had different false beliefs. The first man was complaining that the second man felt that everyone should follow his belief. The first man pointed out that many people of his belief do very immoral things. The second man agreed that many of his belief do immoral things and then he said that God must be very embarrassed by the doings of his people. The second man laughed and said "Do you really think that God gets embarrassed?!"

Although the second man was not a Muslim, you can see that his mind was not ready to accept the blasphemy from the first man. Know without a doubt that God is not a man. Getting embarrassed is something that a man does, not God! God is not hurt by our sins. Also, God does not need our good deeds. God is not in need of any of His creation. God is the Owner and Sustainer of all the creation. How could one think of God as some weak creature who gets embarrassed?

Don't feel shy to correct people who say wrong things about God. If all the people who know about God correctly stay silent, will this stop the others from expressing their wrong beliefs about God? On the contrary! We should talk often about God, as Prophet Muhammad spoke about Him, and as well we should correct people who talk incorrectly about God. This is good for us, and maybe others will become Muslim as well.

Praise be to God Who gives us all the abilities. We ask Allah to guide us to do only good deeds.

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Prophet Idris

In continuing to tell you about the great Prophets and Messengers of God who lived throughout the ages, we would now like to tell you about the noble Messenger Idris, peace be upon him. Prophet Idris was the messenger after Prophet Shith, whom we learned about in "Dear Youth" number 4. Prophet Idris was not the son of Shith, but he was one of his descendants. If you remember we said during the time of Prophet Shith all the people of the earth were Muslim. After Prophet Shith died, all the people continued to be Muslim, and they all were Muslim during the time of Prophet Idris as well. Again, just think that there was a time when everyone was Muslim on the earth! What a difference from the way the earth is now!

Prophet Idris is one of the Prophets who was mentioned in the Qur'an by name, so we have no doubt about his prophethood. Although Prophet Idris lived so long ago we know interesting details about him from what God revealed to Prophet Muhammad. Prophet Idris was born in Babylon, which is the old name for a city in Iraq. Before Idris became a prophet, he was (of course) a Muslim following the rules revealed to Prophet Shith. Then at one point of time in his honorable life he began to receive Revelation from God and then he knew that he was a Prophet.

In the case of Prophet Idris, God revealed new rules which canceled some of the rules of Prophet Shith. So we know that Prophet Idris was a Messenger as well as a Prophet. When Prophet Idris told the people that a rule had changed, then the people had to stop following the rule taught by Prophet Shith and start following the new rule that God revealed to Prophet Idris.

When we speak about rules being changed, remember, we do not mean that

a new Messenger taught a new belief. This is a very important point to bear in mind. All the Prophets and Messengers were Muslim from birth to death. They all carried the correct belief about Allah and His Messenger. The first Prophet, Prophet Adam, taught his people the correct belief about Allah, the Prophets and Messengers, angels, the Day of Judgment, what happens to people after they die, and that there would be a last Prophet and Messenger, Prophet Muhammad, whom they should follow if they lived to his time. After Prophet Adam died, Prophet Shith taught the same things about Allah, the Prophets and Messengers, and about the other matters of life and death. The belief of all the Prophets and Messengers is the same, and their belief is the belief of all the Muslims who are not Prophets and Messengers.

I would like to use an example hoping that the subject of correct belief would be more clear. Who among you has heard of angels? I expect that anyone reading this would say that he has heard of angels. Now if two people both believe that angels exist, but person number one believes that angels are pretty women with wings, and person number two believes that angels are honorable beings who are not male or female, then obviously, although these two people both believe that angels exist, at least one of them is wrong. In this case person number one is wrong and person number two is right. We know that person number two is correct because this is what God revealed to the Prophets and Messengers. God did not reveal to one prophet that angels are female and to another prophet that angels are neither male nor female! The truth is the truth! So the belief of all the Prophets and Messengers is the same, and their belief is the truth which we all should believe.

God created all the creation. Surely the One Who created everything knows the truth about all He created. All that God revealed to the Prophets and Messengers concerning unseen things is the indisputable truth about these things, including the information that God revealed about Himself. So whom should we believe, Prophets and Messengers who received Revelation from God, lived impeccable lives and performed miracles, or people who get drunk, cheat, lie, and commit adultery? Of course the thoughtful, wise person would believe the Prophets and Messengers in an issue where the two types believe differently.

Where else are you hearing this kind of talk except from the true Muslims? I say true Muslims because sadly some people nowadays who claim to be Muslim are not teaching what Prophet Muhammad taught. They were not careful to learn from a teacher who goes back, in a continuous chain of teaching, to Prophet Muhammad. Perhaps they read a book written by one who was astray. Consequently, they themselves went astray. So, when they talk about Islam incorrectly they lead others astray. We, who have learned about Islam as Prophet Muhammad truly taught it, must keep saying the truth openly, without shyness; how else will people know the truth about Islam?

Praise be to God Who enables us to do anything which we do. Truly we cannot do anything unless He enables us to do it.

In "Dear Youth" number 6 we plan to continue telling you about Prophet Idris.