A spiritual ‘turning point’ in a profound and continuing journey

JABRIL.MUHAMMAD

The last two articles bore witness of the experience of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s very profound spiritual experience that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is very much ALIVE. I was in the process of indicating something of Minister Farrakhan’s towering spirituality, in my last few articles.

One day, right here in Phoenix, Arizona, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad told me that he knew the year when he will have ten million followers! He told me that in the sixties. He put Minister Farrakhan in the position to do this, even though we did not see this at that time. But by Allah’s will and power he put Minister Farrakhan in this position to do it.

In November 1977, Minister Farrakhan proclaimed, in a humble but strong manner, by the help of Allah, he was going to restore the work (and all that implies) of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

This made a significant ‘turning point’ in the history of the Nation of Islam. This goes much deeper. But that is for another article.

According to The Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of “turning point” that applies here is, “a point at which a decisive change of any kind takes place; a critical point, crisis.”

Then after much work, with some helpers, the Nation of Islam went up.

Then during the fall of 1980, by the power of Allah, he came to see that his teacher was ALIVE. He announced this on February 22, 1981.

Ninety-six months after Minister Farrakhan determined that he would, by Allah’s help, lift the name and rebuild the work of his teacher. Fifty-five months after he announced that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was physically alive, he had a very unusual experience. In a little mountain village, in the country of Mexico, during the night of September 17, 1985 he had an experience, when he told it to me, he referred to it as a vision. But I’ve called it, that was to me, far more than a vision. He didn’t realize that he had this experience until two days later when an earthquake took place.

His more than a vision- like experience, took place between two significant speaking engagements. The first was in Los Angeles, California, where he spoke to about 19,000 people, on September 13, 1985. Up to that time, it was the largest live gathering ever to hear the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, in the history of the Nation of Islam, west of the Mississippi River.

Minister Farrakhan left Los Angeles and went to Mexico, where he experienced his, what I still call his “more than a vision” experience.

The next event was to take place in New York City, October 7, 1985, where he would speak to an audience approaching 50,000 people inside two of the buildings of Madison Square Garden and on the outside.

Minister Farrakhan used Phoenix for most of the time he spent in preparation for his speech in Los Angeles. He now returned to Phoenix to prepare for his next speech, which was to come in New York City.

Now, Mother Tynnetta Muhammad and I were with Minister Farrakhan, on the first day of his preparation for his New York speech. We worked at a lake called Lake Pleasant, in Phoenix. After some hours, when as we were gathering our books and papers to return to Scottsdale (a city adjoining Phoenix) Minister Farrakhan informed me of his “more than a vision” like experience.

I stared at him. I was at the same time both immensely gratified and profoundly moved by it and struck by what seemed to me to be the casual manner in which he told me what he did. I regarded what he told me as momentous, wondrous or spectacular, or even more than that. He did not seem to realize the weight and significance of what he was telling me.

I’m thinking of that experience, as I’m preparing this article, today the 18th of August 2009. I’m thinking of my use of the word “gratified,” in the previous paragraph. I originally wrote those words and in this context, for an article that appeared in The Final Call, a little over twenty years ago. But the moment when he told me of his powerful spiritual experience, I was immediately overcome with gratification.

Much, much later, I looked up the word “gratify.” In my electronic dictionary. The word, “gratify” means: “to make somebody feel pleased or satisfied.”

I worked hard to help my Brother, when I first saw what I saw of him and his relation to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and his work. Now, he had reached the stage, where he reached, by the power of Allah. I was filled with gratification.

Mother Tynnetta Muhammad, Minister Farrakhan and I left for the hotel, where Mother Farrakhan was. We first stopped to get some groceries. I wanted to be by myself, for a few moments. I wanted a moment to get myself together. His experience overwhelmed me.

I asked them what they wanted from the store. A few moments went by and they decided to get a few more items. I saw them and I am still not sure to this day if they saw me as I was trying to wipe the tears from my eyes.

It was a few days later, while he and I were on a jet, on our way to a route that would take us to New York City, that I asked him to please go over his vision-like experience again with me.

I wanted him to put his experience on tape because I wanted his every word of his experience carefully preserved. To me what he experienced was something that would powerfully reverberate around the earth. It has and is still happening now!

As he spoke into the tape recorder he began to break down. He said he was realizing that something very unusual had happened to him, which he could not explain. Tears began to roll down his cheeks as he spoke to me. It was evident to me that he was experiencing, more fully, the reality of his “vision like experience,” even as he spoke. He said he felt as if he had been inoculated with something and now he was feeling the effects.

To me, his reaction accounted for the way he seemed to me when he first told me of his “experience” a few days ago. When he first told me of his experience, he did not seem to recognize the enormity of what he was telling me, which he had experienced.

I was to later learn that this was also the view of Mother Tynnetta Muhammad. She told me of her impression of him when he first told her of his vision in her home in Mexico.

Now, on the jet, he was going through a stage in which the fuller dimensions of his astounding experience were dawning upon his mind.

After we finally arrived in the hotel, in New York City, we received some very fascinating information from some of his family members, including his wife, Mother Khadijah.

During that same night as we were flying from Phoenix to the East Coast, which is a north-east direction, we learned that sixty “baby” planes were seen moving above the city of Tucson, Arizona. They were seen traveling on the same northeast course we had traveled.

More next issue, Allah willing.