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The Ideal Society
Making the 21st Century a Century of Serving God
An
Address By
Dr. Yahia bdul-Rahman
President: Lariba Bank, Director of Islamic
Shura Council of Southern California
Before the Interfaith Service Bureau
Sacramento, California
September 30, 1999
The
Honorable and Distinguished Guests, My Fellow Members of the
Interfaith Family, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Thank you very much for giving me the honor to stand before
you trying to articulate the hopes and dreams of the American
Muslim Community as a member of the larger Interfaith American
Family of Faiths.
First allow me to call you My Brothers and Sisters. I truly
look at you as my brothers and sisters in the Love of God, the
Service of God and the upholding of the most basic values of
decency, justice, love, equality and liberty for all. The magnanimous
presence of God is so overwhelming that many of us express their
belief in God in many different but complimentary ways. He is
the Creator in Buddhism, the Present and the Originator in Sikh
religion, the Savior in Christianity, the Source of the ten
commandment in Judaism, the Force in Hollywood's Star Wars and
the Compassionate, the Wise, the Merciful and all the above
and more in Islam. No one can deny, even those who claim the
non-existence of God, that there is a supreme force that is
the source of everything. God is the source of the winds, the
rain, the waves, and, most precious of all, the source of life.
We believers call that source God and we have made it our choice
to be His servants.
I look at you as the most important asset for the process of
bringing the masses back on the righteous path. The path of
freedom in order to defeat the slavery of the body, the slavery
of the thought, the slavery of the imagination and the slavery
of the mind.
I believe that our great country, AMERICA, works because we
Americans have a will not just to succeed but to lead, to forge
new trails, to ponder new technologies and services, to fly
higher, go farther and set new standards. It is our duty as
the American servants of God to continue to bring these American
values to the field of serving God through serving people.
Here
is a broad-brush painting of what we need to remember:
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We
are all servants of God by our choice and by our acceptance
of God's presence. In doing so, we have accepted the most
difficult and responsible job in the world. It is not a
job we do from 9:00 to 5:00 but it is a responsibility of
the soul, the body and the mind in every minute of our lives.
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In
our efforts to serve God we do not expect financial rewards,
fame, gratification or popularity. We all aspire for one
thing and that is the acceptance by God of our efforts,
actions and deeds, and ending up in heaven in the closeness
of God in the hereafter. So, money, centers of power, political
influence and personal gain are not our goals and aims.
The rewards of this business, the business of serving God,
are not measured in dollars and cents. They are measured
in the number of households and lives that we serve, and
that we touch by making a difference in the way they live.
Our real reward is the pleasure of God.
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We,
the servants of God and our faith and belief in God, are
not for sale for the highest bidder of money, political
influence and/or affluence.
-
The
real battle is not between religions and religious people.
The real battle is not between the servants of God. The
real challenge is between those who serve God and those
who do not want God in their and our lives. That is why
it is imperative and necessary that the servants of God
never waste their most valuable resource, time, in trying
to undermine and discredit each other. We need to save our
energies, time and resources to stand strong against those
who make violence look attractive, abuse of power and greed
cool, sex and drugs the new fashion and killing a justified
way of getting even. We must work with each other as members
of the interfaith family. The challenge is huge. It can
only be met by working with people one person at a time.
That takes time and effort. That is where we should invest
our time.
-
We
need to bring back respect and glory to the most important
institution recognized by all faiths, the institution of
marriage and family. That is a huge challenge.
-
We
need to make full utilization of the many houses of God
that we build. It is extremely wasteful to build a huge
sanctuary that is used for a few hours one day a week and
is left empty the rest of the week. We need to bring life
to our places of worship. It is true that our political
system is built on a deep-seated belief in the separation
of church and state. But, it is our responsibility and our
duty to send to the state those believers and servants of
God who are qualified to lead, those who are fair in their
judgment because they love God and those who do not discriminate
because they know that we all have been created equal. This
can be done by making the houses of God the places for families
to get together, to socialize, and to enjoy the meaning
of having a family and of getting married. These houses
of God should be used as centers to network, to discuss
the problems in the neighborhoods, to question the political
representatives, to debate a TV program or a movie and to
discuss educational programs with the school district and/or
the school principal and staff. The houses of God should
be used to utilize the tremendous energy that our youths
have.
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We
need to cooperate to bring back the real meaning of providing
credit to a family or to a business, that needs it. We need
to work hard to establish and promote an important human
right. I believe that Financial Credit should become a human
right. Every citizen should be able to get credit regardless
how small that credit is. We need to bring to America the
images painted by James Stewart and Frank Capra in the movie
"It's a Wonderful life."
-
We
need to actively participate in an overall renovation of
the American school system. Schooling is not only a matter
of teaching sciences and literary arts but it is the place
to acquire moral, ethical and civic values and responsibility.
We should actively promote the involvement of the family
in the schooling of our children, our future.
-
We
need to get together to provide the community with a solution
to what I consider the most dangerous problem to America's
future. That is Single Parent Children. Statistics prove
beyond doubt that the majority of gang members and violent
crime perpetrators come from single parent families. This
is our duty. We cannot continue to be silent or lax about
it. We need to find ways and means to get the unmarried
men and women, single fathers and single mothers to get
married as soon as possible. If America can make it to Mars,
then we should make this happen.
We
need to present our true character and our own well-defined
ways and means when we invite people to the way of serving God.
We need to address people's minds. The change of mind and heart
are more permanent than an emotional high on the pulpit or on
a TV screen.
In conclusion, we need to strive and work together to accentuate
what is common, not what is different. We need to put our hands
together in order that we make a difference in this world. We
need to remember that the world is wide open and that we should
not be fixated to compete. We need to create new possibilities
for a better life for all, especially the oppressed and destitute.
We
need to join hands and combine our energies in order to build
in America what I like to call the Ideal Society:
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A
society that is built on intellectual and mental persuasion
in which the mind, the most valuable gift from God, is the
key to knowing and loving God. 2.
A society that looks down at and bans the use of drugs,
alcohol and superstition.
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A
society that does not condone gambling, speculation and
greed.
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A
society that believes in the purity of the soul and body
and of respecting promises.
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A society that believes in marriage as the institution of
building a family.
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A
society that believes in volunteering oneself and resources
to serve God and the community. Professor Stephen Carter
at Yale in his book, Civility, defines Civility as the total
sum of sacrifices and voluntary actions made by individuals
for the benefit of others to live together in peace and
harmony.
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A
society that believes in respecting people's properties,
self-dignity, and the right to live honorably.
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A
society that never hoards and never uses usury and loan
sharking and abuse the services of credit cards in its financial
dealings. By the way, a large portion of the profits made
by many financial institutions today come from credit cards
interest charged at 18% or more.
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A
society that never allows the individual to overburden himself/herself
with liabilities, debts and promises that cannot be met.
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A
society that believes that all the above and more can be
done not through socialism, or any other "-ism"
but through the love, the decency, and the civility of serving
God.
Please join me in praying that we all shall be up to the challenge
of working together to glorify God and the causes of Justice
and peace as revealed and taught by God since the dawn of humanity.
Please join me in praying that God will support our goal of
making the 21st century the century of serving God and God's
most valuable gift; that is man - male and female.
God Bless You, God Bless America
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