JABRIL.MUHAMMAD
“…those who repent and believe and do good–such will enter the Garden, and they will not be wronged in aught: Gardens of perpetuity which the Beneficent has promised to His servants in the Unseen. Surely His promise ever comes to pass. They will hear therein no vain discourse, but only, Peace! … This is the Garden which We cause those of Our servants to inherit who keep their duty. –Holy Qur’an 19:60-63
This continues the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s insightful and empowering explanation of the Muslim’s greeting words of: As-Salaam-Alaikum.
“I can’t make peace with you until I make peace with my Creator. If I have not made peace with Allah then the peace that I offer you is a very weak peace. It doesn’t mean much.
›“When the greeting words are offered in hypocrisy: ‘As-Salaam Alaikum’ or ‘walaikum As-Salaam’–no matter how nice you say it, with a little roll on the words, if the heart is not in accord and you have not made peace with God, then the peace that we offer one another is considered hypocrisy.
“So the Holy Qur’an says, ‘O people keep your duty to your Lord who created you from a single essence and created its mate of the same kind. Keep your duty to your Lord by whom you demand of one another your rights,’ but your duty is first to Allah. Who is the best among you … is it the one with the money? Is it the one with the big business? Is it the one with the big car? Is it the one with the big mouth? Who is the best?
“The best is the one most careful of his or her duty to Allah.
“But I don’t know who that is. But Allah knows who that is. So you got to be careful how you handle everybody because you may be handling the most dutiful servant, and if you mistreat the most dutiful one to Allah, then Allah says in the Holy Qur’an, He will chastise or punish you just for annoying a Believing person.
“If Allah was not merciful, many of us, particularly those in positions of responsibility, would be in hell fire, because we should be the foremost in offering peace. We should be the foremost in keeping our duty to Allah who are in leadership. … We in leadership should be foremost in duty to Allah.
“Well, I’m not there when you’re praying. I don’t know whether you pray or not. I don’t know how often those in leadership remember Allah. I don’t know what you give or fail to give in charity. I don’t know how kind you are, you in leadership, to your mothers; to your wives; to the widow; to the orphan; to the young; to the old. I don’t know how well you study the word of God that you may feed His people–not your word–but the word that they came to hear and to feed on.
“Peace be unto you. God’s peace makes us secure even in poverty.
“I may not have the fine pair of shoes. I may not ride in the best car. I may not live in the better part of the city. But wherever I live and whatever I have, if Allah is pleased with me, and gives me His peace, then I am secure though I am poor. I am rich from the soul because I know that my condition is not permanent.
“I remember when my dear wife, Khadijah, and I were so, so, so poor that we would pick up food in the street, in the market place in Boston on Saturday nights, where at the end of a selling day we would get the residue of the produce that they didn’t sell in the streets. I only thought my wife and I went down with shopping bags and picked up the best of what was left in the streets. But my oldest daughter, she went with us one Saturday night. And she said it disturbed her to see her mother and father bending down looking at produce, putting it in a shopping bag, go home and eat and feed our family for the next week.
“Then Sister Clara Muhammad, the late wife of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, came to Boston. She visited our little apartment. She cried because she had never seen such poverty in this modern time. She had come 30 years up from that, you see; at least 20 something years up from that. But she didn’t let us see her cry. But later she told us that we were so poor, she cried.
“I was so poor but I didn’t know. I did not know it. Our little apartment was clean. We didn’t have the finest furniture. That, we can afford to buy today, thanks to Allah, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and you. I had no car. I had holes in my shoes. I had to walk nearly three to five miles to get to the mosque to perform my duties.
“At one point, I was minister, captain and secretary. I had to open the mosque; go in and search the mosque. Then, a lieutenant would search me and I would search him. Then, I would put him on post. Then, I would go in the secretarial office and sit down and take the charity. Then, at 8:30, I would go on up and preach.
“I was poor. I didn’t know it. I was so rich in the spirit till people who could [spiritually] see, could see a halo around my head. There was gleam bursting from my forehead. I would say I was secure. I was at peace with my God.
“When God gives you His peace, you are the richest person in the world. … The Bible says of the wicked at this time, ‘They will seek peace but they will not find it.’ They will say peace, peace, but there will be no peace. There shall be no peace for the wicked. No peace.
“Now who are you? Who are you? You are the righteous. … In God’s offer to us of His peace is the greatest salvation that any people could have. He came Himself. He didn’t send anybody to bring us peace. He brought it in His person. He looked around for someone to uphold him and there was no one. So His own right arm, the scriptures says, ‘It upheld him.’
“He came. They called Him Shiloh. He came, to bring you peace and to put you in a state where every disease could be cured from the power of the peace that only God can give by our duty and our submission to His will and by our doing of good.
“The Holy Qur’an teaches: ‘Those who believe and are the doers of good to others there is no fear for them, nor shall they grieve.’
“Grief comes when you’re a loser. When you lose something, you grieve over it; you’re filled with anxiety and woe and distress. Your mind is plagued because you’re not at peace because you’re not really a Believer and a doer of good to others.”
More next issue, Allah willing.
›